Domestic life continues to present its own special challenges.

Anticipating my parents' visit this weekend, I finally made it out to Sears to buy the correct size vacuum-cleaner bags. I filled them with lavender potpourri, as suggested by Real Simple magazine or similar. For a moment, I felt terribly Martha Stewart. That was quite a moment.

And yet I dreaded vacuuming, because I get no suction through the regular vacuum, but instead have to use the hose. It takes a long time to vacuum one room using just a hose, and I was sure two rooms would be twice as bad! Especially since I hadn't vacuumed in weeks. (Before Tim's visit, having bought the wrong kind of bags and in desperation, I ended up sweeping my carpet with a broom. That worked about as well as you'd expect.)

But when I went into the garage, I found that some kind person had put my vacuum together for me. Meaning, they had plugged the end of the hose into the bottom of the vacuum. Meaning, my vacuum hadn't been broken at all, ever. I just had never figured out how to put it together. Not for the past two years.

See what I mean by "special"?

Vacuuming with the hose actually plugged in properly was delightful. And the lavender-in-the-bag trick worked great; rather than smelling of dust when I was done, there was a faint hint of lavender in the air. At least I learned something from all of this.

Another thing I bought was a shredder. I've been wanting one for a long time, and I finally bit the bullet and got a very nice cross-cut shredder that was on sale for $40. It has a silver mesh basket attached and a special slot for shredding credit cards. Oooh.

In a fit of industry, I hauled out a box of paperwork and started going through it. Most of this stuff has been accumulating since I moved here. That's four years of old bank statements, blank checks from the credit card companies, credit card offer letters, expired cards of all types, etc. Not to mention boxes of blank checks from my now-defunct checking account. I spent an hour shredding and shredding. When I was done, I was left with a small pile of documents I need to file, and an entire garbage bag full of shredded paper.

Shredders are fun.

I have more boxes of stuff to shred. I can clear out my filing cabinet, finally! I have no idea why I waited so long to get a shredder. I'm glad I sprung for a good one.

I had a surprisingly good time with my parents during the short time they were here. We went out to a "nice restaurant," TGIFriday's. They complained a lot. My mother said "this reminds me of Holland" about everything. She also reminisced about her time in "Amityville" (which turned out to be Emeryville). We caught up on family news, such as what's happening with my grandmother's ashes, our cat's medical improvement, and the fact that my uncle is working on the Firefly movie, which clearly calls for a road trip to "lick Adam Baldwin" as Jenfu said.

We went to a free symphony concert in Stern Grove, and brought a big picnic and games. Yen Wade, Yenfu, and Ian were there. (That's how my father pronounces his J's, like Y's. He also answers the phone "Yello!" It is all very endearing.) Yen Wade said that his English was better than she expected, based on his e-mails. That makes perfect sense. My father has been here for 40 years and speaks pretty good English, albeit with a heavy accent. It's just that he doesn't understand e-mail very well. Remember, he's the guy who asked me if he would have to change his e-mail address when he moved.

We played Cranium, and my parents and Ian totally kicked our asses. (This was before Yen Wade arrived. I think we needed her.) Here is the victorious team, gloating:

And here is the sad, depressed, "I can't believe MY PARENTS KICKED OUR ASSES" team:

The music was great. I know that the stuff they played was "popular" but I really enjoyed it, especially Stravinsky's Firebird and A Night on Bald Mountain (of Fantasia fame). And getting there early (we got there at 10:00 for a 2:00 concert) was no problem since we had plenty of wine, food, games, etc. Afterwards, my parents took us out for ice cream. Yay, parents!

I think it was on Saturday night that I came home to find the house dark and the birdcage open. When I turned on the light, there was only one bird in the cage: Buttercup. Uh-oh.

When I turned the light on in the living room, I saw this:

Yes, that's Phoebe sitting on a shelf, amongst the potted plants.

My birds are opposites. When Buttercup ends up going astray, if I put my hand out, she'll hop on, confident that I am taking her back to the cage. But if I try and touch her inside the cage, forget it. Phoebe isn't afraid of me inside the cage, but she won't have anything to do with me outside of it. Instead she and Buttercup tweeted at each other from different rooms, with Phoebe apparently not understanding that she would have to fly through the door to get back to her cage.

Eventually, I caught her and put her back in her cage. I'm proud of her for venturing forth into the next room, but I'm not so sure they should be encouraged to roam into the living room if they can't figure out how to get back again.

Finally, I took a couple of pictures of my crazy room! (Which is not so crazy after all.) Note the round elements and the color scheme of blue and orange. Also in case you're wondering what's on my shelf, that's my Firefly cast photo and photo of Joss Whedon, plants from my parents, and also the "art" that I made out of a $2 wine rack from IKEA. I am fancy.

And I totally saved the best for last. My mom gave me a picture of her Easter bonnet square dance! There is one big group picture of like twenty women, where nineteen of them are wearing Easter bonnets, and one of them is wearing a tea cozy on her head. That one, of course, is my mother.

Note the tea-bag earrings!