Friday is my long day—kids are at school until 3:30. My day to run errands, to do the silly stuff I don’t want to do during the week, when my time to myself is more precious.

The day to write thank you notes, for instance.

Only the piece of paper with the names written down and what gifts they gave Sophia is nowhere to be found. And the trash went out this morning.

If you saw my house, you’d say, “You have 80 millions pieces of paper floating around this house, and you think that one just happened to get thrown out? And by the way, can you organize these other papers already?” And I’d agree with you: these should be organized. And the single one I’m looking for is nowhere to be found.

I feel sick.

The prospect of writing 16 or so thank you notes—relying on Sophia’s memory of who was actually at the damn party, with a generic “Thank you for your gift” message is really causing me anxiety. Neat.

I’m going to give it another day before I start composing “The world’s most meaningless thank you.” Of course, the school is on hiatus next week, and I really wanted to get the thank you notes in there by today…

Yes, I know that that phrase gets quoted all the time with the wrong interpretation (hint: Frost didn’t think fences actually increased neighborliness). But it’s a great quote.

Okay: the fence between my neighbor and me is leaning over. Way over. Into our driveway. As in, I can’t park next to it, because if I do then I can’t get out of the car. It clearly needs to be fixed, and it isn’t a particularly easy job: this is a big assed fence, with heavy planks of wood.

Anybody know what the rules are in regard to paying for the repair of said fence? Do my neighbor and I split it evenly? Am I supposed to pay, since I’m the one being inconvenienced? Or, since rules may differ from town to town, who do I go to talk to? City Hall?

Man, this “being a grownup” stuff stinks. All the stuff you’re just supposed to know…

I knew when Sophia told me she wanted to invite her whole class to her party that it would be tough. I mean, that’s a lot of prep. That’s a lot of goodie bags (when did that little custom start, anyhow?). That’s a lot of presents.

A lot of presents.

And kids’ presents! It’s ridiculous how much packaging they have! Sophia had what, 16 people at her party, about 16 presents? We filled two dark green garbage bags with the packaging.

Another little custom I didn’t now about: drop-offs. As in, the parents drop their kids off…and then leave. Wish I’d known about that before ordering enough pizza for the kids and the adults (oops), plus enough cake for the kids and adults (double, triple oops). And we have little teeny refrigerator with tons of pizza in it. Pizza for days! Whoo hoo! It’s like off-campus living!

Anyhow: we are wiped. Darin and Simon didn’t even come to Sophia’s party: he took Simon to another birthday party.

I think this is why you’re supposed to have kids as a fresh-faced 20-year-old: you have the energy for this stuff. Fifteen years on you don’t have quite the same energy for it.