The Evil Eye Cafe

Padiddle

2012-01-18T11:05:00.001-05:00

There was a little story on NPR that the average age of a car that needs tow truck assistance is up to nine years old. I didn't catch what the previous average age of cars, but it's up. People are holding on to their cars longer. (Here's the story for real...)

It's not exactly Earth-shattering news, but you can see evidence of this out on the roads. When I was a kid the roads were just one massive rust bucket after another. Of course cars were made of mostly steel then, not plastic, so there was much more car to rust, but those cars were old. My dad drove around a flesh colored Datsun when I was a kid. It was more rust than car by a long shot. There were holes in the floorboard. We would listen to golf balls rolling around in the back of the car and then you just wouldn't hear them anymore. They had fallen through the floor.

He drove children around in that car.

Look around at cars on the road right now and there's rust. More than you would expect. And there's minor fender benders that you can tell the owners would rather live with than fix. I've seen more than one car that's made use of red duct tape to fix a broken taillight cover or a bungee cord holding up a bumper. There's also cars out sporting major damage, like garbage bags covering missing windows and whole passenger sides being crushed in. The cars out there are in pretty shabby shape.

But more telling then the bent antennas or the fourth tire being a donut, you can really tell that times are tough by the most glaring evidence of all...

The Padiddles.

(Do not argue with the spelling. I Googled it.)

As a kid seeing a Padiddle was a truly exciting thing. I honestly don't remember what rules we played by except that it involved yelling "Padiddle" when you spotted a car with one working headlight and either punching someone or getting punched.

The Girl is now the referee of the game. By her rules, when you see the car, you have to yell Padiddle and touch the ceiling of the car. The last person in the car to do that gets punched. It's usually me because I'm driving. (No, the driver in our car is not exempt from being punched. You would think getting everyone from Point A to Point B in a safe and legal manner would protect you. Sadly, no.)

I bring all of this up because Padiddle is a non-stop game lately. It probably helps that this time of year we are mostly driving in the dark. But even so, Padiddles are everywhere. We probably see a dozen everyday. I swear I didn't see one for decades. Now they are coming at us from every direction.

If you are the driver of a Padiddle, do you notice carloads of passing kids punching each other everywhere you go? I wonder.

A little of this equals a little of that

2011-12-28T19:50:00.000-05:00

What is that in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen?

Why it's chin up bar!

The unexpected hit of Christmas, the chin up bar, has already changed the behavior of the Andersons. It's prominent installation right in the middle of the house has spawned all kinds of rules:

Whenever you are standing around in the kitchen, do a chin-up.
Whenever you grab a cookie, do a chin-up.
Whenever you are going in the kitchen for anything after dinner, do a chin-up.
Whenever you are just walking through the house, do a chin-up.

Its only been a few day now, but so far the chin-up bar has gotten quite a bit of action. Last night we were all sitting around on the watching TV when The Boy got up to get a cookie. He dutifully did his chin-up for it. I tried and tried to get him to bring me one too, but I was turned down. My choices were to get off the couch and do a chin-up for it or not have a cookie.

So I didn't have a cookie.

It's important to have something like the chin-up bar around when in the kitchen there's a ridiculous machine like this...

which makes ridiculously delicious things like these...

You see, it's a delicate matter of balance between aching arms and glazed mini donuts. Aching arms are winning.

In other news, Jack disapproves of the Christmas day mess.

History of Santa

2011-12-21T10:23:00.001-05:00

I really wanted to embed this, but the interweb is being grumpy. So just hit the link and enjoy.

Short History of Santa

2011-10-27T17:37:00.000-04:00

The following interview never happened. The events described did.

J: Are you comfortable? Need anything?

Man: No, no. I'm fine. (sounds of shuffling and scraping)

J: Something wrong with your chair?

Man: It's just... (scraping, banging)... stuck here on this rug edge. (Violent noise) Ah, there. Okay. What did you want to know?

J: I haven't asked you anything yet.

Man: So what are we doing then now?

J: It's an interview. I want to know about the accident.

Man: Accident is a bit of an exaggeration. More like an incident. A big incident, yeah, but not an accident.

J: Okay, then let's get started. About how long have you known that the tires on your truck needed replacing?

Man: Oh, you want to start there? Well... I guess about a year now. Yeah, a good year.

J: That's a long time.

Man: Yeah, well that's how it goes. I just didn't get around to it.

J: So tell me what happened on October 22nd.

Man: Umm.... well I was on my way to band practice...

J: Your band The Black Valentines has a gig this Saturday right?

Man: Yep. A Halloween party. Thanks for the plug.

J: No problem.

Man: So anyway, I was going down 480 just getting into North Olmsted when the back tire exploded.

J: You just used the word exploded. Did you hear it?

Man: Oh yeah.

J: And you obviously felt it?

Man: Of course. Have you ever been in a car when a tire blows out?

J: No.

Man: Believe me. You know when it happens.

J: So what did you do then?

Man: I got to the side of the road and stopped. I checked out the tire. I was completely destroyed.

J: I think we have a picture...

Man: Yeah, as you can see, it's completely blown out.

J: I see. Intense images. So then you attempted to get the spare.

Man: The spare on my truck is locked into the frame. You need a special key to get it out. At first I couldn't find the key. It was buried in the glove box. It's a stupid system. Who would want to steal your donut?

J: I think we have a picture of your spare...

Man: It's a looker, isn't it?

J: So you successfully got the spare on the truck. And then I guess you started back out for band practice?

Man: The gig was in a week. Can't miss practice with the gig so close.

J: But this story has a happy ending, right?

Man: The truck has four brand new tires now. I guess that's a happy ending. Better than having another blow out anyway.

J: Thank you for sharing your story today.

Man: What's for dinner?

Homecoming Dance 2011

2011-10-20T16:14:00.001-04:00

Working backward through time, I'll try to update some pictures here. A few weekends ago it was homecoming. This year the dance was held in the new cafeteria since the gym still isn't ready. A dance in the cafeteria isn't so bad for them though because the room is quite pretty. And so are these kids!

The Girl looking ever so lovely.

The Girl and her #1 running buddy just as cute as can be.

This is my favorite. I said, "Okay, stand right there so I can get a picture."

And this is what they looked like after all the primping .

When your Boy is in Art...

2011-10-19T15:41:00.000-04:00

...he comes home with adorable things like this!

How about a little battery powered candle to brighten it up?

Even cuter.

We haven't gotten around to getting the Halloween decorations out yet, so this sweet pumpkin is the whole holiday show right now.

Tonight we are off to Fat Fish Blue for dinner.

And then the circus. Which will be good too.

But I'm more excited about dinner!

Back on Foot

2011-08-11T12:41:00.000-04:00

My last report put Giant Shirtless Man on a bike hauling ass (and green grocery bag) out of here. Since that day, he's return to being a pedestrian exclusively. I will not rescind that I think it was a stolen bike. There was something fishy about the whole thing.

Since the bicycle day, GSM has walked only on the opposite side of the road, still with the bag. There is no garbage can over there. Shuffling Old Guy still comes by the can to check things over. Still no luck. The woman with the puppy has stopped showing up at all.

Today GSM made the surprising move of having a red shirt slung over one shoulder. Perhaps he senses a change in the weather? How cold will it have to get before Giant Shirtless Man becomes Giant Red Shirt Man?

Only time will tell!

Giant Shirtless Man

2011-08-04T11:55:00.000-04:00

He just rode by on what I assume is a stolen bike.

No shirt.

Green grocery bag.

He didn't make his stop by the can this morning. My guess is that he has thrown us over for a better, less observed can.

Mores the pity.

Out of My Window

2011-08-03T12:59:00.000-04:00

We are moving everything around at work in the office. Desks are being switched up. Decisions on what to keep and what to throw away are being made. It's all pretty chaotic right now, but it will be much better once everything is settled.

One of results of all this shuffling will be that I won't be front and center for the show that happens out our front window daily. Here's a recap of some of my favorite moments...

Across the river they are constructing some huge building. It's still just a steel skeleton but I've seen the big crane swing around I-beams and watched the building go from one wall to a 3D structure. Today I notice it has a roof.
Early one morning there was a deer just tiptoeing down the street. She headed over the police station where I lost sight of her.
Out on the sidewalk, right outside of my window, is one of the city's decorative trash cans. This can is the destination for all kinds of people during the day. Like Giant Shirtless Man. He shows up most every morning with a green garbage bag in tow. He unloads this bag by the handfuls into the can and then keeps heading on his merry shirtless way. See you tomorrow!
About an hour later, Shuffling Old Guy in the Shades will stop by the can to root through everything. So far, he hasn't found anything worth taking. Better luck another day!
Police cruisers are often stopped beside this popular can while the officer inside does a spring cleaning job on the car. It's mostly water bottles and McDonald's bags. Good to see our boys in blue keeping it tidy.
I could write about the trash can all day but let's move on---
Once I watched a passenger-less skateboard go right down the center line heading for downtown.
A few moments later, it's owner took up chase. I hope they were reunited.
How could I not mention the wedding that took place in the parking lot across the street? The bride wore pajama pants and an over-sized shirt. The barefoot groom wore a dirty wife-beater. The ceremony was attended by a preteen girl who took pictures with a phone. The marriage was performed by a grumpy officiant who asked to use our bathroom while he was waiting around for everyone to show up. The groom cried as he said his vows. Almost touching. When the ceremony was over, five minutes later, the bride and the girl got in one car and the groom took off in a opposite direction in the biggest rust bucket truck you've ever seen. I didn't note what happened to the officiant.
No matter the weather, scorching heat, freezing cold, driving rain, someone will be heading off to the riverside to fish. Sometimes they just have a rod. Sometimes that have enough gear to bring in a whale. I've yet to see anyone come back with a fish.
A woman with her new puppy walks by my window every hour on the hour. This week marks the third in a row of this devotion to housebreaking.

I'll miss my daily sideshow once I move to my new desk. But I'll probably get more work done.

Recycler for the World

2011-07-07T11:38:00.000-04:00

That's what The Man called me yesterday. Recycler for the World. It's a bit of a grandiose title. I would rephrase it as Recycler for My Little Part of the World- which includes my home, any Girl Scout event and my workplace.

Not as catchy perhaps. Tough to get on coffee mug. But it's accurate. Here's the proof:

We went on a big multi-troop camp out and I brought the big blue bags. They were overflowing by the end of the weekend. Luckily they had recycling bins out at the property so I didn't have to bring it all home.

Day camp was last week. We filled many, many bags with plastic, cans and tons of cardboard. I brought of that home to go in our recycling can.

I was less than a week at my current job when I brought in the blue bags and designated a place for flattened out cardboard boxes. The guys fell right in line.

But it's E-Cycling and Hazardous Waste Collection that really gets me excited. (Now isn't that a strange sentence to type!) We are so lucky to have a facility right here in town that accepts so many items. They moved into the building that I will forever only think of as Clarkins. You just drive in one door, they unload everything and you drive out another door. So easy!

We are rearranging the entire office layout at work and that is bringing quite a few dead electronics to the surface. They all go in my van.

My troop had a garage sale last week. While we're boxing up the unsold items for donation, I loaded all of the electronic devices into my van.

We have a table in our basement where the dead electronics go. They all got loaded into the van.

This is what we took to E-Cycle yesterday...

The Man said it looked like a Russian Space Station.

I said it was one calculator short of become a sentient life form.

The moral of the story, especially if you live in this county, is to please be aware of what you are sending to the dump. The chance it could be recycled in some way is extremely high.

Okay, I'm done being preachy.

Let's end with a picture of Meg and The Girl holding hands.

Because they are adorable.

Another Moment of Grace

2011-07-07T10:50:00.000-04:00

I blame the cat.

It's not her fault.

I blame her still.

Bad cat.

She lost her collar. When I found it the clasp was broken. That's why she lost it.

I bought her a new one. Red again. She happened through the room just as a pulled it out of the bag. So I wanted to put it on her right away.

It was packaged on a card held tight with little plastic rings.

I got the top one off with no problem.

The used-for-everything kitchen scissors slipped trying to get off the bottom one.

So I got my thumb instead. Note the cuts on both sides of my thumb. That takes talent my friends.

An emergency room trip resulted in medical grade super glue instead of stitches. The future is here!

I also earned a tetanus shot. They gave me the shot in the right arm and as you can see I mutilated my left thumb. Every little move hurts to some degree.

Bad cat.

Singing a New Song

2011-06-02T12:17:00.001-04:00

Let's just get something straight right off the bat, I do not like the choir director at the high school. When he talks between songs I just want to start screaming "Shut up, SHUT up, SHUT UP!" His choices in music are usually just crap. There are barely any challenges in the songs he has the kids perform. I believe that is because he lacks the ability to teach anything with any kind of complexity. And FYI, you are unlucky enough to be an atheist but still want to sing in choir, make sure you open enroll in some other school. Every other song is about the glory of Jesus. I kid you not.

All of that said, I am pleased that The Girl is in choir and enjoys singing. The choir system at the high school multi-leveled. You are either in Freshman Choir, Concert Choir (all boys), Chorale (all girls) or A Capella Choir, which is the big time.

Here's The Girl in her Chorale dress on Tuesday night for the very last time. She was in this choir all year and this is the only time I thought to take a picture of her in the dress.

Cute on her. A bit rough on some of the other girls.

The Chorale Choir performing their last concert of the year. The Girl is in the back in the middle.

Then last night, she was inducted into A Capella. They still call it the Robing Concert even though those awesome robes are a thing of the past.

I'm not joking about those robes, I loved mine! You could wear any crappy thing under them you wanted as long as you had dress shoes on. They were heavy and warm so I was usually in shorts under my robe. I loved having all of our contest medals hanging on the front and how soft the satin cowl felt.

The robing ceremony was a very special thing back then. You were called up and a graduating senior took off their robe (they were dressed up under it) and put it on you. Then you took their place on the risers while they went down into the audience and took your seat. It was a tear-jerker to be sure.

In August the girl will get her new black dress which is just slightly different from the one she just had to hand in. While A Capella guys look sharp in their tuxes, the girls all look like they're just back from a funeral. Instead of getting a robe, the new members got a red carnation as they came up on stage. Not exactly the same kind of punch.

But I am very proud of The Girl for making it into A Capella. I hope she enjoys it as much as I did.

Detroit!

2011-06-02T11:23:00.000-04:00

Thursday afternoon, The Sister left work early, we pulled the kids out of school and hit the road for Detroit to see the Artic Monkeys!

We got to town with time to spare for dinner so we went to The Detroit Brewhouse where we got a nice meal, lax service and one of their specialy beers that tasted just like Budweiser. Pretty disappointing.

The show was at The Fillmore Theater which had that wonderful old classic theater look. So beautiful!

Stock photo. I didn't actually get to stand on the stage.

The doors opened at 6:30. We got in line right after 6 PM. This wouldn't have been such a big deal if we were having a normal spring, but it was mighty cold and windy standing on that sidewalk waiting to get into the show. Only The Sister and The Man were close to being dressed appropriately for standing in freezing wind. The rest of us were just out of luck and cold.

Another stock photo. The Artic Monkeys are not actually our close friends.

The show was amazing. It rocked. I'm not sure if any other words would do it justice, so I'll leave it at that.

The next morning after breakfast we hit the Detroit Institute of Art. Such a wonderful museum with all kinds of little things to keep you actively involved with the art and not turn into a room to room wandering zombie.

Diego Rivera. So incredibly cool.

The DIA is extremely patron friendly...unless they catch you chewing gum. Then you are presented with this from a security guard.

Obviously, I didn't use the paper. Museum Rebels Unite!

Act Your Part Well

2011-05-25T10:05:00.000-04:00

My kiddos are now Thespians.

Just like mom. I am so proud!

The induction ceremony was last night and it was a completely lovely event. The new officers took over, there were silly superlatives, achievement awards and a retrospective video constructed to tug at your heart.

In the superlatives, The Girl won Best Hair and Best Eyes. The Boy also won Best Hair. It must be good genes, all thanks to The Man.

Congratulations to The Girl, The Boy, The Girl Who Thinks She Lives Here and all of the other amazing kids in EHS Thespian Troop 948.

Awards and Fundraising

2011-05-24T09:43:00.000-04:00

Our tiny troop of six girls doesn't do much now. Not from lack of trying. We schedule stuff all of the time. But trying to wrangle six extremely active teenage girls into something simple like a meeting can be daunting. A camp out? Almost impossible.

We only have ourselves to blame. Did we not raise them to be joiners, to be part of a team, to be leaders? Yes we did. And now they are out there being strong amazing young women.

Despite all of that, we do occasionally get them together and get things done. Last week we had our bi-yearly awards ceremony. Some leaders throw the badges, pins and patches at their girls the moment that activity is done. We make them wait and make a big deal out of it. Besides, it's more fun to get a pile of awards all at once.

This awards ceremony was extra special because it was showcasing our most active little Sweetie-Pie who just finished her Silver Award. The Silver is the second highest award in Girl Scouting. The amount of stuff you have to do to earn your Silver is just about equivalent with a Boy Scout Eagle Award. (I feel very qualified to make this observation, so stick it in your ear if you disagree!)

So it goes without saying that Sweetie-Pie worked her behind off getting her project done and deserves mighty props for it.

Still only had four our of six for the ceremony. These girls are hard to catch!

************

Yesterday the dance team threw a big fundraising event at Wolfey's Bistro to raise money to go to dance camp in July. This was my kind of fundraiser: An all-you-can -eat appetizer buffet plus all the soft drinks and draft beer you could guzzle in three hours. Who wouldn't want to come to something like that?

We went through many highs and lows in pulling this event off. The pre-sale tickets didn't go as well as we hoped. But the door sales were swift. Then Wolfey's charged us not only sales tax but tacked on a fairly fat gratuity. It looked like we had thrown a big eating festival for next to nothing.

A count up of the profits revealed a different story. It seemed that quite a few people who bought those pre-sale tickets didn't end up coming to the event. In end, instead of bringing a few hundred, we pocketed a cool grand.

Awesome sauce.

Go Go Go

2011-05-19T10:43:00.000-04:00

The end of the school year means lots of events to attend. Banquets, ceremonies, extra recital practices, fundraisers, holidays, and parties. Plus we have a trip to Detroit thrown in the mix. The calendar is rocking!

I'm not making any promises, but I will try to post the majority comings and goings in the days ahead.

In the meantime, this video is like four minutes long, but it's worth every second. You'll laugh. You'll gasp. You'll swear to never ride a snowmobile up a mountain.

Epic Snowmobile Fail

Brand New Scouts

2011-05-13T18:36:00.001-04:00

Our Boy Scout troop has had a membership problem for the last couple of years. This past year we were down to eight registered boys, only six of who ever came to things and two of those were graduating soon.

Things were looking grim.

But then, through a series of visits to Cub Scout pack meeting, even more phone calls and quite a bit of pleading, we got a brand new bunch of fifth graders to join the troop. This week we had our first Court of Awards ceremony where they all received their first Scout rank.

Now look close. Can you tell the new guys from the old guys?

It might be tough to sort them out, but here's a hint: There's four new guys, four old guys and two leaders in this shot.

Here, I'll point out The Boy for you among this crew...

There he is!

Not long ago The Boy was the new guy in the troop. The troop in those days was also suffering from a membership problem because a bunch of the guys were ready to graduate. Can you find The Boy in this picture?

No need for a big giant arrow to point him out here!

Leader Dinner

2011-05-10T11:01:00.003-04:00

Last night was the Girl Scout Leader Dinner. As the Service Unit Director I have had to organize five of these dinners in the past. Some were successes. Some were admittedly lame. But the main purpose was always just to gather together as leaders, enjoy a meal and give out much deserved awards. This was the first one in a long time I no part at all in organizing. None. Zero. Zilch. I didn't even know what was on the menu when I showed up. I'm lucky I went to the right place on the right day at the right time.

I am humbled to say today that last night's leader dinner was the bomb. The location was beautiful. The food was outstanding. The ceremonies were brief but touching. The awards were presented in a classy manner. There was a table laden with door prizes and I won a nice big candle in a scent that I didn't hate. (That's actually a bit of a challenge for me.)

And there was wine. Bottles and bottles and bottles of wine.

Alcohol and Girl Scouting are two things that I have never, ever, ever seen before in combination. At least not at this kind of event. Sure, it's wine that makes the day camp planning meetings chug right along, but that's just us and we are at someones house.

Luckily I was standing with my day camp director when we discovered that beside the carafes of iced tea and water there were uncorked bottles of every type of wine you could want to sample. Without much discussion, we each had a glass of Riesling. Within a few minute I just went back and brought the bottle to live at our table. Save on steps that way.

It's good to hand over the responsibility to the new, upcoming guard. One shouldn't be stuck in the same position forever. And if this is how the newbies are going to throw dinners, then I am all for it.

Flash Forward

2011-04-11T20:36:00.001-04:00

Here's a quick recap of everything I probably would have wrote about if I wasn't asleep at the wheel.

Dance Team season ended. It was a long, long season.

(No pictures.)

The Girl got her class ring.

(No picture.)

We got a new TV. It's the most awesome thing ever.

(I do have pictures. I'll post them soon.)

We went to Pittsburgh to be tourists and see Daniel Tosh in concert as a surprise to the kiddos. They were super surprised!

(The pictures I took all involve us standing in the rain in various Pittsburgian locations. Pretty skipable.)

The Boy joined the tennis team. He had no tennis background before he joined. After two weeks of practice, they started having games with other teams. He loves it.

(Some pictures, all action shots.)

We had our yearly pierogie making party. The new dough recipe worked fabulous and we all ate and ate and ate until it would have caused a medical emergency to eat anymore.

(No pictures. They wouldn't be pretty anyway.)

The kids went to Thespian Conference for a weekend. The Man and I lost our Childless Adult minds and ran around like mad.

(Seriously, no pictures!)

Marco hurt the same paw in two very different ways in ten days time. I never imagined I would have to say, "Where's all this blood coming from this time?" But I did. The trip to the vet was emotionally damaging to both of us. But his paw is all better now.

(The one picture I took is too pitiful to behold.)

Dance Team started up again. We had five weeks off. It actually makes me a bit woozy to think about.

(If there was a picture, it would be of me with my head in my hands.)

The kids turned 16 and threw themselves a huge party. There were 25 teenagers here at the house. I got an amazing deal on pizza, they put lights in the trees and had a fire out back.

(I think I saw some cameras out. Not mine though.)

One the pieces that The Man made in art class won an award in the student art show. The piece that won is quite amazing.
(I would take a picture of it, but it's still at school.)

The Girl got her braces off. She looks beautiful.

(Okay, I did take some pictures. I'll post them later.)

Today is Marco's birthday. He's seven.

(I've posted plenty pictures of him before. He looks the same.)

I'm home alone tonight. The kids are at rehearsal for the musical this weekend. The Man is bowling. I played Plants Vs. Zombies for an hour while I though about writing all of this.

No, I'm not proud of myself at all.

But I did write this. Perhaps I'm back.

Anyway, I promised you some pictures. I won't make you wait too long.

Sweet Surprises

2011-02-14T18:36:00.000-05:00

The Girl Who Thinks She Lives Here just turned sweet 16. To celebrate, her mom and my girl planned a surprise party.

My part in the plan was to come up with a reason to keep the birthday girl at my house for about an hour so the guests could arrive at her house and decorate. I came up with a semi-lame story about a Valentine's event that I needed to bake cookies for. Would it be possible for the birthday girl to come over to help bake and decorate cookies?

The Girl as Photo-Bomber

Being the sweetie that she is, she agreed.

Many cookies were baked and decorated. Then it was time for the birthday girl to go home. My girl walked her home, just to be nice of course.

And she was very, very surprised.

Air Hockey Madness

2011-01-31T19:14:00.000-05:00

Not long ago, our-across-the-street neighbor came knocking on our door. Now this was one of those lazy, nobody got dressed days. A knock on the door sends everyone scrambling for cover so they are not spotted in their jammies at five in the afternoon on days like that. But when I saw who it was, I didn't mind. She's caught me in jammies taking out the trash before.

She's all smiles as I open the door, fighting Marco the whole time not to topple her over.

"Would you like an air hockey table?"

The across-the-street neighbor's boys are all grown up now. A few years back, their youngest son built a small bike ramp in the driveway and then he was out there all day, everyday, all summer going over it and over it and over it. The thump thump of the ramp was the soundtrack of that summer.

One Christmas, long ago, Santa brought those neighbor boys an air hockey table. Santa did good that year. It was a big hit and saw many, many years of fierce play. But since the boys have moved out, its just become a storage table.

"We were trying to think about who we could give it to and then we remembered you. You always have a house full of kids over here."

True.

"It's still works great. It's a full sized table. It's really heavy though."

Full sized?

"You could put it right there!"

Right there was the big open spot in my living room. When the Christmas tree comes home, the Playstation situation goes to The Boy's room. When the tree left, the Playstation didn't come back down this year. Thus, we have a great big open space in the living room. Strangely enough, air hockey table sized.

"So what do you think?"

There was a tiny cough behind me. The door to the steps opened a crack. "Say yesssss!", a voice hissed.

So I said yes.

It was pretty grimy, but Magic Eraser got it looking bright and shiny again.

And it's been non-stop air hockey ever since.

My elbow hurts.

Dawn Breaks

2011-01-14T09:57:00.000-05:00

The best way I've found to get my sleepy girl out of bed in the morning is to get in bed with her. I wiggle around, steal the blankets and talk to her until she finally gets moving. After she heads off to the bathroom, I usually steal a few extra minutes of sleep in her bed until she comes back.

This morning she trudged down the hall, flipped on the light and screamed. I shot straight up. She was already in the door.

"Something happened with the lights in the bathroom!" She was wide awake now. I peeked around her and could see the glow from the lights spilling into the hall.

"What happened? They're on, right?"

"The middle light bulb just EXPLODED!"

"So there's glass everywhere in there?"

I was asking too many questions obviously. She was getting disgusted. "Of course not! It just got super bright and then went out."

I already knew what happened. When I was cleaning out the towel cupboard a while back, I found a package of old incandescent light bulbs. The middle socket had been empty for some time so I just threw one of those in there.

It hasn't been that long since we switched over all the light bulbs from incandescent to high efficiency CFLs. But I guess it's been long enough the she's forgotten what it looks like when a light bulb burns out.

Christmas Leaves Slowly

2011-01-07T09:21:00.000-05:00

I cannot stand to see Christmas trees laying empty and dead on the curb. It bums me out. Lots of people put out their trees right after the big day or right after New Year. How can they just put it out there like that? It was covered in lights and sparkly things for a month and now it's just a fire hazard in the snow and mud. That's why we hang on to ours until the night before the garbage day that first week of January. That was last night.

The kiddos came home with big plans for playing Xbox yesterday afternoon. But our window of time with everybody home, was slim so they had to put that off while we took the tree down.

I'll confess that none of our Christmas traditions are a piece of cake. We have devised all kinds of ways over the years to complicate the entire process. For example, we don't just take the ornaments down. No sir. After the hooks are removed they all get individually wrapped in paper and then placed in a storage can. If they are considered extra special, then they go in the can marked "First". The super duper extra special ones go right on top of the "First" can so they go on tree first. All of this has been refined over the years so we don't even think about how ridiculous it probably all is.

When we took down my mom's tree on New Year's Day, we got the whole thing done in five commercial breaks during The Twilight Zone marathon. That included bringing down the boxes from the attic, filling them with everything (including the tree) and returning the boxes. The sixth break had us rearranging the furniture back. Then it was time for dessert.

Only the tree is down at this point. Everything else is tucked hither and tither about the house. It's going to take a week to herd it all in. Then the boxes will sit in the upstairs hallway for an overly long period before they finally get hauled up to the attic.

Then it will be time for Easter.

Christmas This Year

2010-12-27T19:48:00.000-05:00

The three days of Christmas went off well this year. I could bore you with pictures, but they look just like every other year's pictures.

You know, pictures like people calling BINGO...

Or people winning butter dishes...

Or my son being posed with empty liquor bottles...

Or my children lacking Christmas spirit...

Nah. That's all pretty dull stuff.

How about a dense descriptive paragraph?

Christmas Eve the little smokies messed up my oven. I drank a whole bottle of wine myself at the party. I won a little box at bingo that The Man broke. We stayed out until midnight. Christmas Day the turkey was too big for the crock pot. It cooked just fine anyway. My table that sits eight had to fit eleven and it was amazing! The puzzle I bought was way too hard and it made everybody miserable. We got the kids a Flip Video and they followed everyone around recording them. The day after Christmas we all slept until eleven when we had to be to Grandma's at noon. Opps! That night we worked a soup kitchen at the Salvation Army and then took ourselves to Pizza Hut. My house is a disaster.

Ugh. That doesn't work either.

How about this picture of my dining room table.

I love how this looks. Just my beautiful Christmas tablecloth on the table before it gets anything slopped on it. Before it gets cluttered up with dishes and then positively overloaded with food. It's just lovely. Putting it on the table just makes me smile.

And that was Christmas.

Consider this...

2010-12-20T20:39:00.002-05:00

...your Christmas card. If I don't have them out by the solstice, then it's just not going to happen. I should be like Grandma and have all of my cards made out and ready to go before Thanksgiving. Maybe next year.

Merry Christmas!

Saturday in the City

2010-12-19T20:30:00.005-05:00

It was bright, clear and sunny on Saturday so we headed into Cleveland to take in the sights from the observation deck of the Terminal Tower.

Here's looking into Progressive Field where they are having Snow Days. Tubing, ice skating, bonfires and all kinds of wintry fun inside the stadium. Hopefully they put this on next year and we'll get a chance to go.
The lighthouse, which if I could have zoomed in on it, who would see is completely covered in ice.

An obstructed view of Browns Stadium is the only view of it you'll get from the Terminal Tower.
The Great Lakes Science Museum and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame looking...unimpressive.

And the all important Ladies Room at the top of the Terminal Tower. Fancy!
Tower City was the same old crowded mess as always but they had a terrific Gingerbread contest display. This was my favorite. A whole little village of tiny gingerbread man having a jolly time.
Including these guys in the hot tub. These are my kind of gingerbread men!
All of the sightseeing made us hungry so it was off to Fat Fish Blue. Look out Heather and Jim. We've got two new fans of this place on our hands now!

Finally, what's not to love about this shot? It sums both of them up perfectly.

Christmas is looking up

2010-12-15T16:28:00.006-05:00

Christmas Tree Day this year landed on a Sunday. The kiddos felt justifiably ripped off by this since they were going to miss out on getting out of school for half a day. But between The Man's schedule and The Girl's, Sunday was the only day it was going to happen anyway. As it was, the day was extra busy. It was the weekend of the play. Neither of the kiddos were in the play, but The Girl got herself recruited to make-up crew. She had to be at the school to do the make-up by 11:30. We picked her up at 12:30 and headed right out to the woods.
The snow wasn't knee deep this year out there, but it was really cold.That kind of cold that cuts right through you. We had to make this decision fast.

We had our choices down to three different trees that we named Double Trunk, Twelve Foot and Tubby. Double Trunk got kicked out of the running because... it had a double trunk and we worried about balance and toppling trees. Tubby also got the boot because we decided it was too short. (Looking back, it probably was fine but you lose all your perspective out there in the trees.)

That left Twelve Foot. As you can probably guess, it was a really tall tree. It was an odd tree too. The branches didn't go out sideways from the trunk as much as they went straight up. How was a tree like this going to work? In the end it was our best choice besides getting in the car and going to another tree farm. My toes were frozen and The Boy's shoes were soaked, so Twelve Foot was the winner.

The Man trimmed off the bottom branches...

and cut it down.It's not Christmas Tree day until we get this pose.

It was a monster of a tree. The biggest one ever we would soon discover.

Once we were home, we realized that Twelve Foot was probably more like Fifteen Foot. Even with the amount of trunk we left behind, we still have to cut about two more feet off to make it fit in the house. Once it was up we had to rush the kids back to the school for set strike. While they were gone, The Man strung the tree with lights and lights and lights.

And that's how it stood for the next five days, just lights draped on branches reaching for the ceiling.

Finally we had a day when we were all home and able to decorate.
It came out lovely, but it's not easy to hang ornaments on a tree whose branches reach up and not out.
Our hope was that the heavier ornaments would help pull the branches down making the tree look fuller.
It sort of worked.
And sort of didn't either. It's all good though.

Happy Christmas Tree...week.

First Game

2010-12-07T22:18:00.004-05:00

Grueling try outs, an exhausting week of dance camp and month of practice all boiled down to tonight's perfect performance.

One of these girls is my girl. Really.

They did two numbers and they both were amazing! They are the cutest dance team ever!

And the basketball team won in the end, even though they put an amazing amount of effort in trying to lose in the fourth quarter.

Next game on Friday! Go Pioneers!

What do you do with new cans?

2010-12-03T09:31:00.003-05:00

Our city is starting a new trash program soon. Everybody is getting two new cans, one for trash and one for recycling. Our new cans were delivered yesterday.

And what do the kiddos do as soon as they see these brand new giant cans?

What do you think? This year's Christmas card?

And then things got really silly!

End of Cross Country

2010-11-19T09:51:00.003-05:00

Any sport season is a long affair. Conditioning and practice before the season starts and then the weeks and weeks of the sport itself. Cross Country ended about a month ago and last night was the awards ceremony marking the end of the end.

(The program called it an Awards Banquet, but being that it was only desserts brought by the families, "banquet" is a bit of a misnomer. I'm just saying.)

Here's The Girl getting her second year varsity award and her scholar athlete award. She had a rough season with her knee, but she ran every race all the way through.
The Boy getting his first year varsity letter and his scholar athlete award. He says that his favorite part of season was the bus rides home from the meets.

One of the things that I love about cross country is how close these kids are to each other. You can tell they really enjoy each others company.
Most of the boy's left before I could get a group picture, but here's some of the lovely ladies with their amazing coach.
I've said before that I wouldn't run even if I were chased. You can't help but admire kids who run as much as these kids have and can still smile about it.

New Lunch Bag

2010-11-17T15:04:00.003-05:00

A duct tape lunch bag only lasts about a quarter before it starts looking really sad.

Here's The Girl's new bag that I made yesterday for her.

Now her lunches can go to school in style.

Marco loves leaves

2010-11-15T19:20:00.005-05:00

It's not easy to photograph a leaf crazy dog.

Especially one who just discovered how much he loves leaves.

And who has a ball to throw around.
And occasionally lose said ball in the leaves and have to dive in after it.
And searches and searches...

And finds it again!

Trick or Treat with Mystery Inc.

2010-11-01T10:37:00.005-04:00

On the radio they were having a debate on when you were too old to go trick or treating. Some communities are actually cracking down this horrible crime. My opinion has always been, "Geez! It's just candy. If you're cool with begging for it, then I am cool with giving it to you!" I would like to see a costume. I would like to hear Trick or Treat followed by a Thank You, but that's not a deal breaker around here. Last night we had one group of six foot tall costume-less boys show up. Much less than we usually get. I'm not ever going to kick up a fuss about that. (Now the mommies collecting for the invisible kids who are "in the car"...That I have a problem with.)

The teenagers in my life went out on Trick or Treat night but they were collecting canned food for Trick or Treat So Kids Can Eat again.
As you can see they were the Scooby Doo gang:Shaggy, Daphne, Velma and Fred(rica). They couldn't find one kid to agree to be Scooby. Bummer.

They collected a ton of food, coming back to the house to unload the Mystery Machine when it got to heavy to pull before they headed out again.

Again this year we gave out glow stick bracelets. It's a huge hit and it's come to the point that some neighbor kids are expecting it. Can't let the kiddos down now!

Kids are thrilled to get a glow stick. But this was the first year I had not one, but many kids instantly put it in their mouth. What is up with that? It's glowing! What makes you think you can eat it?

We got more glow ball connectors with our order this year and made a couple of pumpkins to hang in the trees.
They looked so awesome that we are going to have to buy even more glow sticks next year to make even more pumpkins. I wonder if I can buy just orange? (Note: Tiny investigation yields the answer is Yes!)

Finally the jack-o-lantern part of Halloween.

The Girl's...

A bit gruesome...or romantic. Hard to tell.

The Boy's...
Just plain scary.

And my pumpkin snowman all lit up with his own glow bracelets.

Insanely cute, if I do say so myself. Trick or Treaters were going nuts for him. Kids posed with him and got their pictures taken. That was a surprise. My favorite part was when then tiniest kids would walk up to him and they were the same height. That killed me everytime.

Now it's time to go score clearance stuff and store it for next year!

Halloween Greetings

2010-10-31T14:09:00.002-04:00

Happy Halloween
from our pumpkins to yours!

Road Woes

2010-10-19T15:58:00.005-04:00

The entire area where we live is experiencing improvement. So to speak.

Our street was ground down to the bricks and then resurfaced. It looks wonderful and is a joy to drive on.

The main drag to get to our street was completely destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again for unknown reasons and then rebuilt.

Almost all of the side streets around us are undergoing grinding, repaving as well as getting new curbs. The little road that I think of as my fast escape route out of our neighborhood looks like a missile testing site right now. It's getting new water lines. (I really felt for the family who had to put up with a port-a-potty on their tree lawn over there. Today I noticed it was moved across the street to the cemetary's tree lawn. I'm sure the dead are handling this much better than the living.)

We are into week six of this project. Throughout all of this, I've tried to keep a sunny disposition. It will all be worth it when the roads and curbs are shiny and new. Property values will soar. Crime levels will fall. Peace on Earth will be achieved.

Okay. So maybe that's asking a lot of blacktop and concrete.

But today I have cracked. Today I'm really ready for these guys to be gone. Today I've had enough of being detoured around and the whole world smelling like pitch. This simple resurfacing job should just be a bad memory by now. But today, it all started all over again! Look at this map. This is what it looks like out there right now!
They are jackhammering huge holes in the roads around all of the manholes. They are digging up even more curbs. They are putting down another coat of blacktop on roads that we thought were done. They are everywhere at once surrounding us and pinning us in.

We are prisoners on our own street. And if we can get away, dodging huge filth-spewing trucks and grumpy workers in day-glo vests brandishing stop signs, then we can't get back to our own driveways when we return. I've had to park around the corner and walk home more than once.

I've tried to be understanding. I've tried to be grateful for the much needed roadwork. But enough is enough. It's time to show them where to put their orange barrels.

Corn Maze of Insanity

2010-10-11T20:11:00.004-04:00

I'm usually pretty great with writing dates down on a calendar then actually showing up at places when I'm supposed to. I know this shouldn't be a trait to brag about, but I know lots of people who cannot handle the responsibility of showing up to scheduled events. But this weekend was a failure in my record. There was a training out at Timberlane that I agreed to help facilitate. I wrote it down on my calendar for Sunday and looked forward to helping out.

The Sister came along with me. She hadn't been out to the property in more than a decade and wanted to see all of the improvements. It was a beautiful warm afternoon. A day exactly like we needed last weekend but didn't get. The Sister and I wandered around, peeking into building and hiking trails. She oohed and ahhhed at all of the lovely new buildings and facilities. The weird thing was that no one else was out at camp. I mean no one. We had the entire property to ourselves.

Around the time the whole training was supposed to occur, I came to the realization that I had made a big scheduling goof. Wrong weekend or wrong day. Something like that. It didn't bug me too much though. That's the beauty of volunteerism.

But now The Sister and I had a whole sunny afternoon with nothing to do. Should we just go back home and call it a day? Nah. That's for losers. In a series of escalating dares* we ended up at Hillcrest Orchards and decided to brave the corn maze.

*Name that show!

Hillcrest does a fairly intense corn maze every year. There's all these little stations you have to find and pages of puzzles you have to solve. If you find everything and solve the one big puzzle you win... a candy bar. (Believe me, you want that damn candy bar by the end. It become a point of honor.)

The theme of the maze was Knights and Dragons. There were all these obscure facts at the stations about medieval times. We learned the definition of a gauntlet. (An armored glove. That's an interesting fact.) We also learned that why June is thought of as a wedding month. (The once a year bath comes in May and since you are still fairly clean, people would get married in June. That's a suspiciously dumb fact.)

Mostly what we learned is that corn mazes, especially when it's eighty degrees out and crazy sunny, suck. People start to lose their minds in there. Someone was screaming HELP while we were in there. Kids were running in rabid packs. And "No running in the maze" is rule #1!

The Sister and I kept at it in the blazing sun. Make rights and lefts. Ending up in the same place over and over. Considering cheating. Finally cheating. We protected a woolly bear. I left a piece of gum on a cob of corn. When we crossed for the third time into the area which we had dubbed "Loserville", we both decided to throw in the towel. No candy bar for us.

Our biggest regret was not having a camera while we went on this failed adventure. The pictures would have been amazing. Especially of the one row we called The Row of Insanity. It looked like more than one person had had an violent emotional breakdown in that row and the corn and ribbons had paid the price.

So since we have no pictures, here's an article about some really cool corn mazes. Love you sis!

Mystery Camp Out

2010-10-06T13:59:00.003-04:00

Months of planning, dozens of phone calls, hundreds of emails, two trips to camp to deliver food and craft supplies and 120 Girl Scouts all collided at Timberlane this past weekend for our big once-a-year camp out. This is an event I organize for all the troops in the our city to attend. This year I had nine troops come out claiming every available bed and almost taking the dining hall to capacity. A huge leap in attendance over last year.

And I did it all myself!

Okay, no I didn't.

This year I had a quite a crew behind me that took over almost every detail leaving me in the end with the registrations, assigning cabins, providing training and programing for all our teenage Scouts (There were 42 of them this year!), coming up with the schedule for the weekend, hiring the cook and shopping for one meal.

That might sound like a lot, but in the grand scheme of the weekend, it's a drop in the bucket. I had one leader plan all of the program stations (27 of them!) and shop for all of the supplies. Another leader planned our one "nice" craft and hand made all of the insanely cute name tags. One leader and her troop made dinner for everyone Friday night. Another leader and her troop made a huge brunch for everyone Saturday morning. Co-Leader Supreme personally found the program we ran, picked out the fun patch, ran archery, opened the observatory, set up a killer clever trail with her younger troop and tried to keep me in line all weekend. (No easy task there.)

The weather tried to ruin it all. It was cold and it never, ever stopped drizzling. Just this steady, light, freezing drizzle the entire time we were there. We had to cancel boating. Nobody wanted to go to archery. We had our campfire inside the dining hall. It sucked the energy out of everybody ending the day around 9 PM instead of 11.

But everyone says that they had a wonderful time and that their girls had a super-fun-amazing experience. That makes it a success.

And I forgot to take my camera, obviously.

I Scream, You Scream, We all Sceam for I...pods

2010-09-17T11:36:00.004-04:00

Not my best title. Granted.

The Boy has an Ipod Touch which he bought with his own money and is rightfully proud of. He's not super-possessive of it either. We all get time to mess around with the apps, run down the battery, and not charge it up again. He's cool with it.

He has it with him most of the time unless one of us has wandered away with it. Last year he would take it to school with him and listen to his tunes during art class (not to worry, though; that kind of deviant behavior has been cracked down on hard by the school this year!).

About a month ago, it stopped doing the number one thing it should do. It's an Ipod Touch and the touch part of it stopped working. It would come on, tell the correct time and that's about it. The touch screen was non-responsive.
Being the good mommy that I am, I diligently went through the "Troubleshooting Tips" on the Apple site and FIXED IT! That's right, me. I fixed it! I rock! Rename me Hero!

Last week though, it happened again. Same exact thing. Frozen screen. Nothing doing. This time the Tips failed. I went through them four stinking times and gave myself a splitting headache but the little gadget just wouldn't respond.

We picked up a warranty for the Ipod at the POS store when he bought it. What did our money get us? "Sucks to be you. Not our problem." Charming. Lesson learned.

Apple themselves wanted $30 to talk to them on the phone about it. Umm, no.

Or we could put it in the mail and wait and see. Again, no. Not liking the sound of that.

Or we could cruise to our nearest Apple store and talk to a real live human. That sounded good. The closest store was actually surprisingly close. It's in the hoity-toity shopping neighborhood only a short drive away. We made an appointment for 9 AM the next morning.

I can report it's very, very quiet and empty that early in the morning in Hoity-Toityville. Nothing is open. Nothing is moving except the street cleaner. The Man was predicting that we had made a 9 AM appointment in a store that wouldn't open until 10 AM. I had to agree. But as we came up on the door, it was unlocked, the lights were on and it had people in it. Quite a few people. I wouldn't call it bustling, but it certainly wasn't empty.

We were greeted at the door by people expecting us and directed to Lee the Genius, who would be taking care of us. It was like walking into heaven (that might be exaggerating just a bit, but it was extremely nice).

This story is already too long, so I'll wrap it up by saying that 10 minutes later we were leaving the store with a brand new shiny Ipod. The Boy's was really broken in a way that was nobody's fault and would be sent back to Apple for parts. It only cost us a car ride and a signature.

And since it was only 9:15, we went out to breakfast. Yay for stories with happy endings!

First Day as Sophomores

2010-09-14T16:34:00.003-04:00

Okay, the first day was last week. But I took this picture on the first day, so at least I was on the ball for that.

Wonder Twin Sophomore Powers... ACTIVATE!

Lantern Awards

2010-09-12T13:43:00.010-04:00

The Lantern Awards presented by The Lit were last night. It was a fairly fancy pants event at the Palace. Check out how cute I looked!

This is like the best picture taken of me in years!

Anyway, there were ten different categories, each with three nominees. The Man was up for "Poetry, Single Poem". It was cool to be nominated, but neither of us thought about it much in regards to winning or losing. It was an event to go to with free tickets that involved appetizers.

When we sat down in our seat, the awards themselves were sitting on the stage.
Each one was different and they had a flickering candle glow inside. That's when I wanted The Man to win because I wanted one of those lanterns!

Being a nominee for this award has kept The Man busy over the last month. He had to go to a photo shoot for the picture in the program.

He also had to go get videotaped talking and reading for the show they put up on the big screen.

Not a great picture, but that's really him talking away. The little lights underneath are the lanterns flickering.

He was really dreading the video parts, but he looked good and sounded smart.

And then he won his category. It was really cool when his name was announced. Since he wasn't planning on winning he had no idea what to say, but his acceptance speech was perfect.
Later on he had to accept the Lifetime Achievement award for Shelia Schwartz and that speech was even better. He had that one worked out a little bit in advance.
Dan Chaon won the award for Best Novel, but he couldn't be there and asked The Man to pick it up for him if he did win. So we ended up bringing three of the lovely little lanterns home.

Here's The Man's...

Here's Dan's...
Here's Shelia's...

Those are pages from her books wrapped around. Very cool.

Here's all three showing the side with their name and which award they won...
And all three lit up.I love that these awards are locally made pieces of art instead of something like a slab of polished wood with a brass plate or a block of etched glass. These little lanterns are just beautiful.

There's a nice write up of the event in today's Plain Dealer. It says that The Man is 43, which cracks me up, but he's not finding much humor in.

At the after party, he carried around the same plate of food all night but never ate because he kept talking to people. Not to worry, I put away enough appetizers for both of us.

No Love for Clean Streets

2010-09-09T13:49:00.003-04:00

I've written in the past about how much I love the leaf sucker trucks. I love that they suck up and take away the mountains of leaves. I don't know where the leaves end up, but I do know that they don't have to be put in plastic bags and sit in a landfill for all eternity. What could be better than that?

(Well, what's better than that for me is the sound those trucks make. Knocks me right out. But that that is just a byproduct of a bigger thing. A happy bonus one could say.)

Here's my least favorite truck that the city sends around.

The street sweeper truck.

Is there a bigger waste of money and resources than this? For the most part, the street looks exactly the same before and after it does its thing. It's just wet afterward.Usually these guys run in pairs, one right behind the other. Times must be tough if we are down to just one truck spraying water and spinning dirt in a circle.

The guy running this truck didn't even notice I was taking pictures because he was too busying yakking away on his phone. That's the job I need. No, wait a minute. I didn't mean it!

Here's the News

2010-09-08T15:23:00.003-04:00

Some of you already know this but I'm not going back to zombie sitting. It's my choice and I choose to treat myself better than that. It's time to try something new. What is the new thing? Not sure yet, but it's got to be better than the zombies.

How does it feel during this first week that school is open to not be going back? It feels like this...

Goodbye Summer!

2010-09-07T19:04:00.009-04:00

We finished off summer the right way around here.

We took one more sunset trip to the beach.
We went to Taste of Cleveland and made pigs of ourselves.

We saw Weird Al rock the house.

That was the real end of summer because the next morning was cold and rainy, which can only mean that it was a Cross Country meet morning.

The Girl ran...and then The Boy.
They both ran amazing times despite staying up too late and eating a bunch of junk the night before.

Today we are having quite a wind storm out there. Dust clouds are being kicked up in the streets, doors are slamming and trees are being shook so they drop all that they have.

Like these.

I went outside to take some pictures of my poor sunflowers that have been knocked to the ground.

Isn't that just sad.

While I was out there the wind kept blowing and blowing and then the chestnuts started falling. I saw all of these guys hit the ground. That's as fresh as they get.
They are pretty when they first fall, cold and shiny, but they get ugly fast. They'll keep falling now for about a month. They'll disturb your sleep when they hit the roof, dent your car if you park in the wrong place and trip you up wherever you try to walk. If you are coming to visit, consider yourself warned.

Tomorrow the kiddos go back to school in their brand new building. If you have to go back, that's a cool way to go.

Sunflower Time

2010-08-24T15:12:00.006-04:00

They took their time growing. They took their time blooming. It was worth the wait.
Ahoy there! There be other giants about as well, me hardees!
Shiver me timbers!

Primitive Camping

2010-08-20T20:32:00.004-04:00

I don't mind camping. I can say that I actually like it. But what The Boy is doing this weekend is beyond my comfort level.

They are primitive camping which means they are taking everything with them that they'll need, hiking to an open spot in the woods and making camp. No running water. No electricity. Not even a port-a-potty. Horrible by any standards.

Here's The Boy with all of his gear. It weighs right around thirty pounds. Fun!
And here's the crew that's going.
All bright and happy now. We'll see how they look and feel on Sunday!

Beep Beep Beep and Beep

2010-08-20T20:26:00.007-04:00

You remember Meg.

Motionless Meg steadfastly watching...

My new birds!

Four little zebra finches happily beeping away in their giant cage. There are two boys and two girls. And no, I'm not breeding them. Never again with that craziness.

It's been many bird-less months around here. I didn't know how much I missed having them around until they were back.We are back to very noisy mornings, having the TV drowned out and occasionally pulling Meg off the top of the cage.

In other words, back to normal.

Two Cats Turn Four

2010-08-19T20:06:00.005-04:00

This day is almost over, but I couldn't let it close without some pictures of Jack and Meg today on their fourth birthday.

This has been the look on Meg's face for the past day. Tomorrow I'll post why.
She really hasn't moved much.
These are the best pictures I've ever been able to take of her. She's usually a non-stop kind of cat.

Jack on the other hand tends to take it easy.

Really easy.

Really, really easy.
Until he wants something...Then he wakes up and turns on the charm.

Happy Birthday Kittens!

Magazine Time Coming

2010-08-13T14:37:00.003-04:00

If you have a subscription to a magazine, you know that you also have a steady stream of renewal offers from the magazine itself saying "Last Chance" and "Makes a Great Gift". Please, do me a favor and never ever order from the publisher, no matter how fantastic their deal is that week. Put that "Buy One, Get One" envelope offer right in paper recycling unopened.

There will always be kids selling magazines. Always. Buy from a kid. It's the very best of fundraisers because you are getting something you already want (unlike kitchen do-dads or candles) and the parents don't have to schlep a product to your door and hound you for cash (there is a certain kind of cookie that comes to mind).

The Girl will very soon be selling magazines for Girl Scouting. All the munchkins from all of the schools will be doing the same thing. Get a new subscription or renew what you've got with a kid. (My kid preferably!)

Oh, and by the way, magazines make great gifts!

Charity Poker

2010-08-11T11:12:00.003-04:00

I mentioned before that The Girl made Dance Team. She and The Boy are also running Cross Country. And when you kids are in athletics, it doesn't take long before the parent booster club comes knocking at your door. Our booster group is The Elyria High Pioneer Club. Yours truly is the new parent representative for Dance Team, the newest recognized sport at Elyria High. I'm not the parent representative for Cross Country, but I'm sure that's just a matter of time.

Being in Pioneer Club means that you have to help out with the massive fundraisers they have. The one this past weekend was running a charity poker event at Nautica. I will admit I came into this blind. I had no idea what this would be like. I knew there was "Dealer Training" that you could go to, but you didn't have to so I didn't go. They said there were plenty of other jobs to do at the event. I just couldn't get a clear answer on what.

We four were at camp Saturday night when we started packing. On Sunday morning we were up extremely early, took down the tents, threw everything in the van and on the road by 9 AM. An hour and half later we were home to unload, shower, pick up the dog, start laundry and give the kids money to order in a pizza. The Man and I were back in the van and headed to Cleveland by 1:30.

After some crazy detouring caused by constantly closed bridges, we arrived at site. The poker room was, way back in the day, a very cool arcade in the Powerhouse. I still have some tokens from there, but that's not the currency they use in that room anymore.

The place was filling up and we were thrown immediately into dealer training. The one thing I didn't want to do. (The Man on the other hand was thrilled. It was exactly what he wanted to do.) I must have passed training because before long I was sitting at a table dealing to 12 poker players. They were friendly. They were forgiving of my mistakes. They helped out as much as they could. But I spent the whole time a tense ball of nerves. When I was finally relived, I practically ran out of the room.

The Man was dealing at the same time. He loved it. Thought it was big fun.

A little while later, I was put back at the same table where I was a little more comfortable and made fewer mistakes. That table broke up before my shift was over so I got a reprieve.

This went on all night. You stand around with nothing to do until the guy running the show pulls up to you and says, "Hey, head over to table 18, okay?" The other jobs? There was getting chips for players. That really only took one or two people. The other 58 of us were there to deal. And deal and deal and deal. The amount of money that flowed through that place was blowing my mind.

They let us go at 11:30.

After spending three nights sleeping in a tent followed by nine hours of working a poker event, I slept like the dead once we got home.

And that was our weekend.

Jet Skis and Good Eats

2010-08-10T19:11:00.006-04:00

This is the post that involves zero pictures because I didn't have the camera with me for either of these days. (On a side note, the camera that fell in the creek has made a full recovery.)

Maumee Bay boasts two beaches. One is on Lake Erie and the other, across the parking lot, is a man-made lake with ringed by a huge beach. The Lake Erie beach is for boating and water sports not involving swimming. The man-made lake is for swimming. Were there people swimming in Lake Erie? Yup. Were there people boating in the little lake? Nope.

Friday we went as a group to the Erie beach.

And rented jet skies.

And rode jet skies.

Super fast.

Now you're bummed there's no pictures aren't you?

The Girl and I went out on the jet ski and were literally scared to death. You get barely any training besides, "Stay away from everything else," and "If you find yourself on a collision course with something, bear to the right." Then they put you on it and say, "Squeeze this to go. Let go to stop. Steer." That's it.

It was a lot of fun, in its own terrifying way. Bouncing over the waves. Gunning the motor all the way open. It is unbelievably fast when you are actually on one. (Remember now that we are a couple of girls who just recently flew a plane. You would think that a jet ski would be a piece of cake. We both agreed we felt safer on the plane.)

We took turns on the jet ski. The boys went twice and we went once. Once was enough for us.

The next day we went to the man-made beach. Not as an exciting day because we four were already miserably sunburned from the day before. The Man and I sat in the scrubby shade of a lone tree for the afternoon. Behind us were some jabbering foreigners who's tabletop grill got knocked over and they lost all of their yummy smelling food. Bummer.

Speaking of food, I have never eaten so well on a camping trip. Each family was in charge of two meals and one snack for everybody. Being the newbies on this trip, we were assigned lunch both days and instructed to just bring stuff for cold cut sandwiches. Our snack was pie iron pizzas. Couldn't be easier.

The other families seemed to be in a competition with each other. Every meal was better than the next. It was outrageous. Barbecue chicken, steak kabobs, waffles, omelettes. We ate better at camp than we do at home! And every meal worked. There was nothing burned or undercooked or just completely flubbed as camp food tends to go. I've got to step up my game if we go camping with them again in a big way.

One last story. This is not about camp but what happened directly after camp and involves at dimly lit room and lots of cards. Stay tuned.

Family Camping

2010-08-09T09:46:00.009-04:00

It's been weeks of camping around in here some form or another. Day Camp, Boy Scout Camp, Student Council Camp, Aviation Camp and Dance Camp. We are just home from our last camp of the summer: Family Camp. We headed off to Maumee Bay State Park with nineteen friends for three nights of tent camping.
The weather was a bit too warm and sunny during the day, but the nights were cool enough for sweatshirts and blankets. Our last camping trip with this group of friends ended with everyone going home a day early because of non-stop rain. This year it was clear the whole time.

Our campsite was just a bit too far away from the shower house so we rented bikes including this tandem.The Man and I rode it all over the place with this. I always helped pedal but sometimes I would just close my eyes and cruise along. I also mastered texting while riding this. The kids were impressed.
There was a boardwalk hike through the site. It was one of those things that sounds like a good idea at the onset, but about halfway through you realized you made a big mistake and now it's too late. You're trapped on this walk and might as well see it through to the end.

I'm including this pictures, not to prove what a good daddy The Man is making sure his girl has on bug spray (though he is!), but more to point out the trees. The number of dead trees in the campground and the surrounding area is so depressing. The boardwalk hike went through whole sections of nothing but dead trees. It's all because of the Emerald Ash Borer which is spreading through Ohio and surrounding states. Our own county is infected but hopefully the quarantines put in place will prevent our area from taking a big hit.

This is what they do to trees. Not pretty. Back at the campsite there was football, hanging out (Note the lack of shade!)
and s'mores.

Ugh. I'm actually too tired to keep going. I've got unpacking to do and a crippling amount of laundry. Stay tuned for our adventures at the beach, the best camp food ever and how I know for certain that being a Texas Hold 'Em Dealer is not the career choice for me.

Aviation Camp

2010-07-22T13:43:00.009-04:00

I told The Girl on our way out to Kent State that going to Aviation Camp would probably be one the of the strangest things we ever did together. Now that it's over, I pretty certain of that fact.

We stayed in the honors dorms at Kent. These are some seriously fancy-pants rooms. Especially when we got to tour the rest of campus and saw how everyone else lived.

Look how high these ceilings are!We had our own bathroom, refrigerator and microwave in our extremely roomy room.
We were introduced to almost all career possibilities in aviation. Piloting, engineering, mechanical, military aviation, commercial aviation, air traffic control, working for the airlines, private ownership, and federal aviation. It was a total immersion in the topic.

We got a behind-the-scenes tour of Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Here we are meeting the director of the airport.
We got to go through doors and into elevators that were restricted.
We toured the Operations Room where they keep an eye on everything happening in the airport.
We also got to go up into the tower, but you are not allowed to take pictures up there.

After the airport we went over to Parker-Hannifin's hangar. Besides serving us a lovely lunch we got to mess around in these fourteen million dollar planes.Including getting to sit in the cockpit.Back at Kent, our lessons continued. In my opinion we got just a bit too much information about Air Traffic Control but three of our four student guides were in the ATC program so that's what they liked to talk about most. Kent State has a very cool Air Traffic Control simulation training room that we got to play in. At one point they separated us into different rooms. I was the pilot and The Girl was the Air Traffic Controller in the other room telling me what to do over the headset.
It was interesting but sitting in the dark all day looking at a blips on a screen is not my cup of tea.

And finally it was the day to go flying. They started us out by making us train with the simulator.
We crashed and burned horribly.

But we still got to go up in the real thing. Here's our plane.

And here's The Girl flying it!

We got to fly over Kent State. The dorm we stayed in us the light gray "L" right smack in the middle.
This whole experience didn't cost us a penny. We submitted an application to attend the camp on a fluke and were accepted. They only took seven mother/daughter sets this year. The eighth girl in this picture was a girl who attended last year and returned as an aide.
So is The Girl all psyched up now to pursue a career in aviation? Umm...no. Actually she learned it's not for her. But that's okay. At least now we know!

Off We Go!

2010-07-17T12:58:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow The Girl and I leave for Aviation Camp.

There shouldn't be too many opportunities for me to drop a camera into a body of water. But you never know.

Lots of pictures and stories when we get back!

Birthday and a Crash

2010-07-14T16:39:00.005-04:00

Here is what I bought myself for my birthday.A cast iron dutch oven!Isn't it a beauty?
Of course it had to have legs to get charcoal underneath and a concave lid to put the charcoal on top. I can't wait to take this thing camping.

I baked my birthday cake in it. Devil's Food Cake with raspberry. Yum! Warm cake right out of the dutch oven with cold ice cream was bliss.

From the kids I received a new super soaker to replace Pixie's Gun which finally bit the dust. Here's the boy with Pixie's Gun back in 2006. Pixie's Gun was a gift from my secret pal at camp back in 1991. I'm pretty sure Flame gave it to me. I spent many a summer day terrorizing little girls with that super soaker.

My new gun is a bit of an upgrade.

When both tanks are full it weighs over eight pounds. It has a strap attached to help you carry it. It has three settings: Light, Medium and Soak. It's an intimidating thing indeed.

A nice dinner out, family on my patio and a new watering can rounded out my birthday into a lovely day.

Then I gave myself one final gift.
In a moment of sheer grace I fell off the back porch and proceeded to get the worst scrape I've ever had. It hurts like a mother.

Pleasant Valley Splash

2010-07-09T15:17:00.008-04:00

So I didn't Facebook post even one time at camp. There is no reception out there at all. The campground in literally in the middle of nowhere so it shouldn't be a big shock but all the same I was irritated.

It's probably a good thing that I could post because real time camping would have looked like this:

WTF? You can't drink the water here? Thanks for advance notice GS!
Deer flies! They're everywhere! They seriously give me the creeps!
This cabin is not GS clean. Leaving this place better than we found it will not be hard at all!
Running to Tiffin to get water. What is with all of this traffic?
Another train? I'm never getting back to camp!
It's never too hot out for campfire s'mores.

And on and on from there. It was hot, steamy hot the whole time even when it was raining. The cabin had mice which makes you distrust any surface unless you personally just wiped it off. And there was something making loud sporadic buzzing noise just enough to jar you awake over and over again.

With all of whining said and done I can honestly say we had a really good time.

Duct tape is a great thing to play with when it's too hot to do anything else. Look at the lovely water bottle make-over.The Girl attempted to create a duct tape bikini. Here's the front and back of the bottoms. She ran out of yellow tape to put it together. Will she ever finish this? We'll see.
I mentioned the mice. Here's what we found our first morning out there. Check out the tiny tooth marks. I imagine some little mouse had a tummy ache after this feast.Our second day, we decided to beat the heat by wading in the creek that runs through the property.
Co-Leader Supreme found a deep spot much to her dismay, I mean delight.It was not so buggy down at the creek and the water was ice-cold.Look at the size of this crayfish! None of us are the type to pick them up. Lucky crayfish!
This shot was supposed to be another crayfish but it ended up being just shine on water.
I included that last shot because right after I took that one I found a deep spot in the creek. Plunk I went right into the drink. The camera was in my pocket. Obviously the memory card is fine because I have these pictures. So far though the camera itself is acting wonky.

I've got high hopes that the camera will pull through this. During day camp two weeks ago I dropped my cell phone in a bucket of water and it came back to life two days later. Three days after that The Girl had a water bottle self-destruct in her purse and soak her phone completely. It took about two weeks but now her phone is fully-functional again.

It's good to be home now. Tomorrow The Boy will be home from his camp and we'll all be together again, for exactly one whole day.

Happy Happy to The Sister

2010-07-07T12:22:00.003-04:00

Today is my beautiful and brilliant sister's birthday.
I'm sure she won't mind if I say here that she is 33 today which is the age, if she were a hobbit, that she would be considered an adult.
But of course she's not a hobbit, but it's an interesting fact all the same.

Happy Birthday darling! I hope you find being an adult hobbit enjoyable!

As for us, in just a few, The Girl and I are headed out to camp. We are going to Pleasant Valley which is a Girl Scout property out in Tiffin. I hope it's just a bit cooler out there. I'll be posting every now and then on my Facebook, so check in there if you're dying to find out what we are doing. I'll post pictures when we get home.

The Fourth

2010-07-05T20:40:00.003-04:00

The poor Boy hasn't spent the Fourth of July home in five years. That's the week his troop picks to go to camp because it is the least crowded week of the summer. Go figure.

Here's the crew of them just before the took off. It's going to be hot and dry this week which is a big change from their usual camping weather which can be described as monsoon-like.

Coolest dudes ever!

So without the boy, but with the parents and the brother we spent our Fourth at the Lake Erie Crushers game. The Crushers spent the whole game behind but then really turned on the stink in the ninth inning. They lost 12 to 4. It was brutal to watch. But everyone stayed to the bitter end because of this:

Whoo-hoo to the "fireworks" setting on the camera!

Quite good fireworks too. We took The Boy to see fireworks on the third in neighboring town. (Our town can't shell out for the show anymore. Boo!) The fireworks at the ballgame were just a smidgen better than those. But after two night of being stuck in post-firework traffic, this little patriotic girl has had her fill of fun.

Yeah, I'm one of them.

2010-07-02T11:07:00.006-04:00

The Girl and The-Girl-Who-Thinks-She-Lives-Here convinced me to take them to the midnight showing of Eclipse on Tuesday.
Okay, it didn't take much convincing. It was more like, "You want to go to the midnight show?" and I broke out in a little happy dance.

Yes, it's true. I am very much one of those girls. A girl who loves the Twilight series and the movies. Judge me if you must, but a fact is a fact. Oh, yes, I can hear you already....

Stephanie Myers is just a fair to middling writer.
I completely agree. Hearts are broken and things are hot as hell as Stephanie belts us with cliche after cliche. It's frustrating but certainly not unreadable.

Bella is a flat, boring character who has the inability to just speak.
Again, true. She can mumble, murmur, scream, whisper, moan, whine and cry. Find a sentence that ends with 'Bella said." and you've got gold. But come on! So Stephanie owns a thesaurus. Who doesn't?

Who does Stephanie Myer's think she is rewriting vampire myths?
Oh, shut up. Really.

These stories are not meant to be great literature passed through the ages. They are what they are-- fun, fast reads populated with beautiful men. There isn't a thing wrong with that. The bookstores are full of this kind of writing. Stephanie just hit the right chord at the right moment.

So we went to the midnight show. I wasn't expecting the crowd. I should have expected it. It was huge. Cars and people (mostly girls) everywhere. The line was reaching around the theater. We already had tickets and heard a rumor passed through the crowd that they were seating our screen. So we jumped out of line, weasled our way to the front and slipped in the theater. That moved scored us completely decent seats. Not cool of us, but boldness was demanded in the situation. No way I was going to sit way up in front staring straight up a the screen.

The audience was in agreement that everyone needed to shut up and watch the movie. There were a few moments of catcalls and some whoo-ing, but for the most part everyone was extremely well behaved. That was a relief. When we went to see New Moon the audience was almost riot stage the entire time. The girl next to me was there strictly to see pretty boys it seems. Anytime Bella would talk she would mutter under her breath, "Shut up. Shut the hell up. Get off the screen. You are so stupid." Poor thing. But you can't have pretty boys fighting over a girl without the girl. Some things must just be tolerated.

We'll be going to see Eclipse again before long. The Man wants to see it and so does The Boy I suspect. But just for the action scenes, of course. Not for the pretty girls.

Good Fences Make Good Jerkheads

2010-05-23T18:25:00.007-04:00

Today is the last day for a long while that our family will be held hostage by "The Girl has homework". We have spent days on end this school year frozen in time waiting for her to get done with her homework.

If she has homework to do none of us can:

Watch anything on TV (or she'll get distracted making the work last longer).
Go anywhere (or she'll get upset making her work slower).
Do anything amusing (or she gets jealous and then upset and then see above).

We have been held captive by her non-stop homework status every school night and most weekends for the entire school year. But that stops today. She's been doing homework since noon today and she's almost done. Tomorrow is her last two finals. And then we will all be free!

To keep ourselves from going stir crazy today, The Boy and I worked outside. Look what he did for me. He took this boring side of the shed...

And turned it into this!
All I did was put chalk marks on the side showing where I wanted them and he did the rest. Measured, leveled, drilled and installed!

These three pots used to hang on our fence but...
our fence is gone.

Our new neighbors behind us (we refer to them as the Jerkheads), are in the process of barricading themselves into their yard. Our old fence only went halfway across the back, which might sound strange but when we put it up we just needed the dogs in the diagonal yard to stop barking and jumping insanely at their fence corner whenever we walked out out backdoor. The short fence kept us off their radar. The rest of the yard was left open combining four yards into one large play space for all of the kids. No fences, just bush rows and lots of wide open grass space.

But the new neighbors with their Baby-So-Precious don't see it that way. They feel the need to spend this incredible amount of money to "Keep her safe". This giant cage should do that just fine. Or as my other neighbor suggested you could just watch your kid!

Anyway, it is seriously bumming all of out that our view and our main route of movement is going to be obstructed by this nonsense.
Did I say nonsense? Let me give you a taste of the Jerkhead mentality.

I mentioned our old fence, forty feet of dog blinder back behind our tiny grove of trees. When Mr. Jerkface first came around to tell us about the fence, we left the conversation believing that he was just going to tie his new fence into our fence. Not the case come to find out.

Last week the fence guys were out back putting in all of the fence posts. I noticed them moving around quite bit behind our fence but I didn't think much about it. After they left, I went to take a look at the situation and couldn't believe my eyes. The line of posts continued in a straight as an arrow line around the property and kept going right on behind our fence with only THREE INCHES between the two!

I wish I had taken some pictures with our fence still standing but here's how close it was.
The next day the fence guys were back. A nice enough guy, he also thought it was weird that the Jerkheads choose to buy an extra forty feet of fence when they didn't need to. "But I'm not going to argue with people who want to spend!", the fence guy cackled.

Yeah, good point.

We told the fence guy that we would take ours down and he appreciated that. "It wasn't easy to get these posts in with your fence right there, you know. I didn't know how we were going to get the rest of the fence up!"

Well when he comes back tomorrow, he can slap that fence up without a hitch. Then the Jerkheads will be all caved up and Baby-So-Precious will be safe.

Enough of all of this though. It's almost time to watch Lost!

Big Dog No More

2010-05-11T11:25:00.002-04:00

First, this isn't a post about Marco. Stop panicking.

Last night at the Leader Appreciation Dinner, I made the statement that Girl Scouting will take as much of your life as you are willing to give them. And it's true. I was encouraging the leaders to find some way to promote and support Girl Scouting outside of the circle of their own troop but not to burn themselves out. This was at the event where I was handing over the keys of being the Big Dog.

The Big Dog? That's what my kids call the job I had. My title was actually Service Unit Director. I've been the SUD for five out of the last six years. I took one year off in the middle, but I knew it would just be a hiatus.

The SUD helps coordinate all of the leaders in the city. Cookie sales, the nut sale, camping events, trainings, service project and community events. I ran a monthly meeting and sent out about a million emails.

The first year I did it, my kids were in the fourth grade. The first meeting I had to run I was frantically rushing around the house making sure I wasn't forgetting anything. The Boy asked what kind of meeting I was leaving for.

Me: It's a meeting of just leaders. No girls. It helps leaders be better leaders.

Boy: And you're the president?

Me: I guess sort of. I'm called the Director.

Boy: So you're the Big Dog.

Me: Sure.

But that's the name that stuck with my kids. As I would be packing up the car, they would ask, "You've got a Big Dog meeting tonight?"

Last night was it for me as Big Dog. And no hiatus this time. I've handed the whole thing over to a new batch of leaders. Did I stop before getting burned out? Just barely. It was getting a little uncomfortably warm this past year. I am very grateful to the leader who is taking my place and I know she will do an amazing job.

As for me, I've got a few more years of being a leader and I am happily going to sink into the circle of my own troop.

Gripes about Groups

2010-05-05T18:37:00.006-04:00

As the first year of high school comes to a close around here, I'm feeling a need to vent about one particular part of school that didn't go so hot, Student Council.

The Girl tried, really tried, to be involved with Student Council this year but she was literally a day late and a dollar short for most everything. She was constantly missing events and meetings simply because she never knew when things were happening. Communication for this group is right at the level of sending smoke signals. Mostly news is just passed on by word of mouth (or texting) and just like that classic game of Telephone, along the way the messages would get garbled and lost.

Now you are saying, I'm sure that if she put forth a little more effort, she would have been able to participate more. People, I'm telling you she tried! She would ask her friends, text officers, check her Facebook and walk by the Student Council bulletin board all the time and she still had no idea what was going on...for an entire school year!

Right now she's at the Student Council banquet. We found out about it yesterday. She was told to bring a dessert and it started at 6:30. At 6:15 she started getting texts from people asking where she was because it started at 6:00. That's been Student Council in a nutshell. (And, no. I didn't send a dessert.)

I don't know if it's the officers in charge right now or the overly-taxed, mostly absent advisor or what, but I am completely done with Student Council.

I wish she were. But, alas, no.

I thought that Cross Country was unorganized, but at least there was a written schedule and a phone number of somebody who actually knew something you could call. The problems with Cross Country came mostly with being told things like, "It's just like we did last year". When I would point out that we weren't around last year, there would be an honest moment of surprise and then apology. Unfortunately, this scenario happened over and over and over during the season, but at least we did eventually get answers. I take solace in that THIS year, we'll be in the know.

The Girl has now left the Student Council banquet to go to Dance Team try-outs. I'm not down with this. Not at all. But I'm putting on a brave face and letting her make her own decision. The parent letter she brought home after the first try-out read like a nightmare; required uniforms, year long fundraisers, dance camp, hours of practice for 2 minutes of performance one a week. Ugh. I am filled with dread. Please, please, please just let it be organized at least!

Update: She made the team!

Easter Bunny Foiled!

2010-05-03T18:04:00.004-04:00

You may not be aware of this but we have a special arrangement with the Easter Bunny. He brings candy. He brings baskets. He finds the colored hard-boiled eggs we leave in the refrigerator and hides them around the house. But where he differs is what he hides in the plastic eggs. Our Easter Bunny hides puzzle pieces. Once all of the eggs are found, the puzzle pieces are all dumped together and we spend the next week or so putting together the puzzle. It becomes a nice time filler for a long spring break.

This year, as we were putting together the puzzle 100 Cats and a Fish, I noticed something funny right away. There were only three corners to our rectangular puzzle. Hmmm....

As the days went on, key pieces that should have been very easy to spot were just not there. My suspicions grew.

When the puzzle was "complete" there were 29 missing pieces. 29. That's a whole lot more than could be lost in the chairs, eaten by the dog or stolen by a cat. The only conclusion was that not all of the eggs had been found.

We looked everywhere but it was just too well hidden.

Then, 27 days later, while I was looking for the spider Charlie Brown, I found the egg hidden behind the mirror in the bathroom.
And inside were 29 puzzle pieces, including a corner.
We took the puzzle down weeks ago and we are not putting it back together again for a long, long time. But at least I know that all of the pieces are back in one spot.

Charlie Brown, on the other hand, has not come back. I think a cat ate him.

Gifts of Spring

2010-05-01T09:28:00.004-04:00

Spring brings...

Door to door salesmen and solicitors. Yard guys look at our grass-less, violet filled yard and start to drool. Window guys look at our original windows and start to have convulsions. Siding guys get a glazed-over look when they try to pass me brochures. Then there's the guys who want to discuss the issues and the guys who want to run the world and the ladies who want to save our souls. People walking the beat bloom in the spring-like weeds.

Two quick door to door guy stories. Earlier in the week a window guy showed up. His "estimate" was somewhere between $300 and $1000 a window. That's an estimate? Isn't honing in on a more exact price his job? He might as well said somewhere between $10 and $1,000,000. We shooed him away right quick.

Yesterday I was in the Kingdom of Laundry. As I got to the top of the steps I heard a hearty knock on the front screen. I don't know what that guy was selling or promoting because I pressed myself against the wall and slunk out the backdoor. I hung out with Marco until he went away. Yeah. I'm a people person.

Spring brings...

Spiders. Oodles and oodles of spiders. This house has acquired the weirdest, creepiest spiders this spring. And I haven't seen the same type twice. There was the overly large black one descending right in the middle of the living room yesterday. The Girl, very nonchalant, said, "Hey, there's a spider in the living room." When I went to check it out the spider was just hanging there like a tiny pinata that wiggled on its own. Without realizing it I started chanting, No! No! No! No! No! Luckily, The Man was already on the case, capturing said pinata and throwing him outside.

That's right. We capture spiders and put them outside. Except those yellow ones that bite. They get to meet their maker.

There's another spider in the downstairs bathroom right now that The Man is keeping as a pet because he's "cool." I call him Charlie Brown. He's hiding right now, but the next time he's out I'll take his picture so you can see how why he's named that.
(Ugh. I just spent 7 seconds looking at spider site to see if I could identify what kind of spider Charlie actually is. Never again. That was terrible.)

Spring brings...

Bats. Not in the house yet, but they were out last night when The Boy and I were out back by the fire. Give it a few more days and one of the little darlings will be banging off the walls and hanging from my curtains. Good times. It's not spring until we spend a good chunk of an evening chasing a bat out of the house.

West Side Story

2010-04-26T12:13:00.006-04:00

I've got to say that the music to West Side Story is hard to shake once it's in your head. Especially when you see the show twice in one weekend. I've been humming tunes pretty much non-stop.

The Girl was in the show this past weekend. (One of only two Freshman in the cast, thank you very much!) Here she is hanging in the middle of the scaffolding.
The scaffolding was the set for the most part. They'd roll it over here for one scene. Spin it around and roll it over there for another scene. Climb on it, hang from it, stand, sing from it and dance on it. Very dynamic but time consuming to change from scene to scene.

West Side Story is, of course, the struggles of the Jets and the Sharks as they vie for turf. The Girl was a Jet because if there is one look she could not possibly ever pull off it would be Puerto Rican. Here's a bunch of Jet girls. You would think gang girls would look tougher and meaner. This group looks like a bunch of princesses.
Now this is better, Shark guys! Watch out, they may be smiling but they are all carrying switchblades!
How about some Jet guys? They're tough too. They bring chains to the rumble.
Shark girls are another bunch of princesses. But none of these girls are afraid to deal out a slap if you get a touch mouthy with them.

We went opening night and the show was still rough around the edges. There were major technical problems with the sound. The kids seemed lost when it came time to move set pieces. The live band had only practiced with the kids singing twice before opening night and the timing was all off. The kids just looked plain confused most of the time.

Sunday's afternoon's performance was an entirely different story. Most everything went off without a problem. The sound issues were cured and you could actually hear the actor's lines. The band sounded amazing and the kids are figured out how to sing with them. The whole show rolled along smoothly.

The auditorium is coming down in just a few weeks now. When I see the new building going up, it's hard for me to get sad about the old one coming down. The only part that gets to me is that my little piece of green room graffiti will be buried.

Double Down Trouble

2010-04-22T12:21:00.003-04:00

I am pretty darned disturbed by this new sandwich that KFC has devised in its laboratories of death. What is going on with this Double Down Chicken Sandwich? Is this not the most disgusting thing you have ever heard of of? Two chicken filets used to sandwich a slice of Monterey Jack and a slice of pepper jack cheese, some kind of secret sauce and two slices of bacon. The nutritional facts on this sandwich are horrifying, especially the sodium. You can check out the stats proudly displayed on its official page.

And what's with that name? Double Down is a blackjack term where you get to split a pair and bet on both hands individually. Usually doubling down ends up pretty well for you. But still to give a sandwich a name that invokes the idea of chance and gambling? It's almost implying that you are gambling with your life if you eat this sandwich.

The first time I saw an ad for this sandwich was on Saturday Night Live. The commercial plugged the food and then ended with that if you paid a little extra, the clerk would just stab you in the heart. We all had a big grand laugh at what we thought was just a skit on the show. The next day we found out the sandwich was very real, only the offer of quick death was fake.

Finally, you can't look at this sandwich and not think of this:
(Sorry about the absolute lousy quality!)

Kalahari Lock-In

2010-04-18T19:46:00.002-04:00

The Girl and I are in a bit of a fog today. Last night (and this morning) we were at Kalahari Waterpark for a Girl Scout lock-in. 11 PM - 5 AM. By the time all of the girls were dressed and had gathered everything together, we finally got out of there around 5:30, which put us back in town at 6:30. Right to bed we went and got up around 1 PM today.

The Lock-In was an adventure but for all the wrong reasons. In the first half-hour we came across a little girl who had slipped down some steps leading up to one of the slides. Her friends weren't sure what happened. Some of them said she fainted, others said she tripped and hit her head. Her friends were guiding her down the steps when she got to myself and some other leaders. She was clinging to the rail taking the tiniest of steps and shaking all over. Her eyes were rolling in her head. And she was green. Literally green. I've never seen anything like it. She was a yellowish-green from head to toe. The other leader I was with grabbed the girl up and I started hollering down the stairs for everyone to move. Another leader shot off head to find a lifeguard. At the bottom of the stairs were two EMTs waiting to take the girl. We went to peek in on her a while later. They had her on oxygen, in neck brace, strapped to backboard and an ambulance was on the way.

A few hours later, I was in hanging around in the Girl Scout cabana when a little girl came over asking if this was first aid. Her big toe was bleeding under the nail. I offered to walk her to the first aid office and the whole way there her toe was oozing blood. We hobbled across the park and the lifeguards fixed her up. Then they gave her the news: She was going to lose the toe nail. The one guard showed the girl her own big toe with the nail only half grown back. The same ride had ripped her nail off a month earlier. That particular ride had a tendency to do that to people.

When I got back to the cabana I was told I missed all of the excitement. One of the leaders wiped up on the wet concrete and broke her ankle or maybe her leg.

Wow. It seems like a lot of disasters but there were 1,600 Girl Scouts there. I think I was just unlucky and kept coming across the bad moments.

Nevertheless, I had an amazing amount of fun and so did the girls in my troop. We all kept our toenails, kept our bones unbroken and stayed one color. I could write a whole post about what happened to myself and three other leaders on the one ride that looks like a giant toilet bowl, but I'm not quite ready to tell that story yet. It's a doozy!

Marco's Birthday

2010-04-11T13:13:00.007-04:00

In the week leading up to today I would occasionally mention one of the other people around the house that it was the dog's birthday on Sunday. The conversation usually went like this...

Me: Yo, it's Marco's birthday Sunday.

Other Human: Oh yeah? How old is he going to be?
At which point I would mumble something about finding out. No one had a clue how old the dog was but we had several spirited debates about it...

Me: He's going to be seven.

Other Human: No six.

Me: I think it's seven.

Other Human: Weren't you going to look it up?
I just looked it up and in fact today he is six. Eventually someone will mention that he is forty-two in dog years. Not to worry old boy, you're still just a big dumb puppy to me!

Happy Birthday Marco!

Birthday Party Escapades

2010-04-03T12:59:00.006-04:00

This post is two days late. I wish to thank the three of you for not calling me out on that.

The party was a huge success! At it's height we had 23 kids at the house, so it wasn't that bad. The best gift that the kids received by far was the weather. The thermometer in the kitchen read eighty-two when the party started. It hovered right in the mid-seventies after sundown making the candle-lit patio a nice hangout alternative to the stuffy house. There were kids running in and out of the house all night long. Thank goodness I had the forethought to send Marco away. It would have been an impossible situation with him in the mix.

The boys were bound and determined to just play Xbox the entire time. One of The Boy's friends brought his Xbox over to talk to our Xbox. It was all just too cool.But the girls had other plans that first involved attacking the boys with balloons.

Defeated temporarily the girls headed outside to plan their next wave of attack.
And to build a human pyramid.

In the end the girls forced the boys to go on a scavenger hunt and play hide and seek or maybe it was sardines. The evening ended with all of them outside on the patio. The Man and I sat in the kitchen and listened to their very grown-up sounding laughter.

We ended up with WAY too much food and drink. Like embarrassingly too much. We'll be eating pizza around here for a long time.

One more Happy Birthday to the Girl and Boy! What a fantastic way to celebrate it!

Twas the night before birthday...

2010-03-31T19:31:00.004-04:00

Spring break started for me today but not for The Girl or Boy. Tomorrow is their first day and it is coincidentally their birthday. So we all agreed this would be a great year for a big blow-out party. They each got to invite 15 friends, which I'm trying not to freak out about. The possibility of 32 teenagers in my house tomorrow night is freak out worthy I realize, but I'm banking on that not all of them will be able to attend. (I know. I'm delusional.)

Today I got to sleep in which was heavenly. It's amazing what three extra hours of sleep can do for your state of mind. I shopped and shopped and shopped for birthday party things and then I met The Man for lunch.

Tomorrow we will super clean the place and since it will be warm and sunny, the yard will get a once over as well.

The party starts at 6 PM. I'll try to post a few pictures as it goes along.

PS: I got invited to try out new templates for Blogger Beta. I think it's lovely!

Detective I Am Not

2010-03-25T19:20:00.010-04:00

The names in the following story have been changed to protect the confused. This is a true tale. There's no way I could make this up.

Me: Biff, I need to talk to you. Yesterday after you left, (He had fallen into the only puddle of water on the whole playground soaking himself completely.) Igor was waving around a $20 bill telling everyone you gave it to him.

Biff: I didn't give him anything.

Me: Really? Because he said you did. Hey Igor! Come here! Where did you get that $20 yesterday?

Igor: He gave it to me. (He points at Biff who starts to shake his head wildly.)

Me: Okay Igor, thanks. Go back to recess.

Biff: I didn't give him any money.

Me: I'm talking about this money right here. (I open my desk drawer and take out a battered $20 bill. Biff looks totally alarmed.)

Biff: You see what happened is that I didn't have any pockets so I dropped it at lunch and Igor picked it up.

Me: Did you know Igor had your money?

Biff: Yeah.

Me: Did you ask for it back?

Biff: No. He can keep it. (Biff is shuffling around now, staring at the floor.)

Me: No, I don't think so. $20 is a lot of money. Where did you get it?

Biff: Acme gave it to me.

Me: Acme? Acme who?

Biff: (exasperated) Acme Bullwinkle!

Me: And whose class is he in?

Biff: I don't know.

Me: What grade is he in?

Biff: I don't know.

Me: Is he older than you or younger than you?

Biff: We're the same age!

Me: Okay good, so he's in the second grade!

Biff: No, he goes to a different school.

Me: Do you know what school?

Biff: Northwood.

Me: Then Acme is older than you. Big kids go to Northwood.

Biff: I said he was 12!

Me: No, you said you were the same age. Are you 12?

Biff: No, I'm 8!

(A long pause while I try to digest all of this.)

Me: When did Acme give you this money?

Biff: Yesterday morning so I could go buy stuff.

Me: Where did you see him?

Biff: On the street.

Me: Were you waiting for the bus?

Biff: He doesn't ride my bus.

Me: But you were waiting for your bus?

Biff: I don't know.

Me: Is Acme usually outside when you are waiting for the bus.

Biff: Sometimes.

Me: So he's your neighbor?

Biff: (clearly fed up with my questions) No!

(I have a take a deep breath here.)

Me: He's your friend, right?

Biff: I guess.

Me: Did you tell him you lost the money?

Biff: Yeah.

Me: Was he mad?

Biff: No, he doesn't care.

Me: No?

Biff: No!

Me: Okay. What were you supposed to buy with the money?

Biff: Chips and pop and stuff.

Me: What store were you going to buy it from?

Biff: I don't know. I'm not allowed to go to the store.

(Right around this time a found myself blinking uncontrollably. What does that mean?)

Me: Biff, I've got to tell you that this story isn't making any sense at all. I mean none of it. Not a word. I'm getting the feeling that you're not telling something.

Biff: I didn't give Igor $20!

Me: Yeah, I got that. I think I'm going to have to give mom a call on this one. Okay?

Biff: She doesn't know anything either.

Me: I have no doubt on that one.

Supply and Demand

2010-03-20T21:08:00.005-04:00

I've survived the first week with my second grade zombies. I'm think I'm all done making changes to their room set-up, procedures and set-up. (That is unless I find a carpet or rug to put in their room. They have to sit on the floor itself for story time. It's barbaric!)

One of the last changes I did was to institute a ticket giving reward. I keep a pocket-full of tickets and give them out when the mood strikes me. Mostly at times when I announce to everyone to get out a some book or another and only a handful of zombies do it. They get a ticket and everyone else starts to scramble like mad to figure out why. They write their names on the back of the ticket and on Fridays I do a drawing. The winners get to pick from the treasure box. It was a giant hit as you can imagine. These zombies will do just about anything to get a ticket.

But it wasn't all roses this week. I had one of my boys shove around a first grader in the bathroom and make him cry. I had a couple of girls get into a little food fight at lunch. Then I had a completely different girl get accused of screaming, "Everyone get the eff out of here!" in the restroom. (I'm sorry to report she didn't say "eff", but the real word instead.) I told the kids that our goal for next week is to not beat anyone up, throw food or swear in school. We'll see how it goes.

I've had two classroom supply problems with my room as well. First the room doesn't have a Smartboard, but that's not the problem. I'm totally cool with a chalkboard and an overhead projector. But if you have an overhead you need transparencies to show on it. Well, you don't have to, but it sure makes things a hell of a lot easier. On the shelf of the projector cart was five boxes of transparencies, brand new. But I can't use any of them because the jam up the copier; they're the wrong kind. The principal gave me the news the right kind are way too expensive and that the school doesn't have any and they aren't getting any ever.

Fine. Cool. I'll deal with it. (A little more snooping around and I found a half a box of the RIGHT kind the next day in the copy room. Whoo-hoo!)

The other problem I have is that the kids don't have Quick Word books in their desks or in the room or anywhere.
This book is my go to answer when I teach second and third graders. Every second and third grader, in every classroom, in every building in the city has this little book in their desk. Except this one.

It is the best thing for kids who are expected to write but can't spell. That's like all of them. It's just commonly used words in alphabetical order. So when a zombie asks, "How do you spell building?" my answer was always, "Check your Quick Words!". Much, much easier than dragging through a whole dictionary, they find what they are looking for and get on with writing.

I ran to Zombie Teacher #1.

Me: The kids in my room don't have Quick Words!

ZT1: No? That's weird.

Me: Where can I get a bunch of them?

ZT1: You can't. We order them at the beginning of the year. She must not do that.

I fly to Zombie Teacher #2.

Me: There's no Quick Words in the kid's desks!

ZT2: Whoa.

Me: Do you have any extras?

ZT2: I'll look around, but I don't think so. You could ask Zombie Teacher 3.

I ended up talking to Zombie Teachers one through seven by the end of the week. Dead ends all of them. So now my go to answer for "How do you spell vacation?" is "Sound it out and do the best you can."

The best they can is not that great.

How to Make Happiness

2010-03-15T20:30:00.004-04:00

Today was my first day with my long term zombies. I had two ways I could go with them: I could do every little thing their teacher did in just the same way and keep the status quo or I could announce my presence with authority by shaking the place up with all new procedures and a room layout.

I went with the second option.

I rearranged their desks, moved the teacher's desk, completely removed an unstable easel, took away the pencil sharpener option, got rid of raising hands to answer questions, used the unused in-room microphone system (I found in in the storage closet), increased the number of room jobs from four to fourteen, made an official place to put finished work and instituted a mid-morning snack.

They took it all really, really well. I might even go so far to say that they loved the changes. Wait until they see what I have in store for them tomorrow!

But this post is actually about my own children. This week they don't have to be to school until 10:15 instead of the usual 8 AM. (This is because of graduation testing and freshman don't have to be there for that.) When I left for work they were both still in bed. Also today, for a first time all year, The Girl has no homework at all. The Boy had some but not the crippling amount like usual.

And what does extra sleep and no homework get you?

Happiness. Lots and lots of happiness. Right now I'm listening to my kids laughing away in the basement while they change loads of laundry. They've been silly like this all afternoon. They watched an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 just because they could. And when they are in a good mood, I'm in a great mood. I even made brownies tonight to celebrate all this happiness.

Yes, Brewer. Cookies mean no more frequent posts. Obviously.

2010-03-11T16:21:00.003-05:00

I guess having the cookies show up shook up my world to the point where I stopped writing. I didn't feel that diverted but the evidence is right here.

It has been a little crazy with the cookies. We've had one cookie booth so far which was a flop. Luckily we have girls selling at an outrageous clip all on their own. My inbox is filled with daily requests for more cookies. We had to go to the warehouse to restock and on Saturday we are restocking again. We have two more booth sales this weekend and two next weekend. Then it is over. Will the troop be stuck with cases and cases of unsold cookies like last year? It's hard to gauge when the mania for cookies has passed and folks are suddenly sick of them.

In bigger news, Monday starts a long term zombie gig for me. It's going to be five weeks of teaching in a second grade class at Walking Distance School. I pretty darn happy about the whole thing. I shadowed the teacher today and she frantically tried to cover everything I could possibly want to know while trying to teach today's lessons at the same time. Finally I asked, "What do I absolutely NEED to get done before you get back?". She jotted it down on a post-it. I'm going to be just fine in this assignment.

You'll be hearing a whole bunch about this little group of zombies since I'm stuck with them for so long. Let's hope they provide good story material...but in a good way. Not a nightmare way.

It's Time

2010-03-01T14:00:00.002-05:00

You knew it when you woke up this morning. Today was an important day. Something big was going to happen. You couldn't quite put your finger on it. What could it be?

Why it's cookie day of course!

Marco stares in disbelief. Where oh where will he sit now?

Five Day School Weeks are for Suckers

2010-02-26T14:26:00.002-05:00

It's another snow day today!

Between holidays, inservice days, the President coming to town, waterline breaks, bomb threats and all of this miserable weather there just hasn't been that much educating done since we came back from Winter Break. C'est la guerre!

What I saw today

2010-02-24T19:12:00.004-05:00

How about just some interesting pictures today?

The Boy spotted this tree in my tea this morning. It looked a bit more tree-like before I tried to take the spoon out.
The zombie room I'm in this week has this bucket of pointers.
Another teacher came in the room while I was standing on a chair getting this shot. Here they are from the side.

And that's all you get today. I've got Olympics to watch.

No Sleep for the Addicted

2010-02-23T19:59:00.004-05:00

I love to watch the Olympics. While that is not a unique statement, especially right now, I'm very secure in my Olympic love even during non-Olympic times. We got cable because of the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games. Before that we had an antenna line that we strung around the living room and occasionally out the front door to get reception. We got second television in 1996 because of the Atlanta Summer Games. Cable showed up for the second set for the Nagano Winter Games in 1998.

If it wasn't for the Olympics, we would still have that antenna hanging out the door. I truly believe this.

But these Olympics are killing me. They are so exciting and interesting... and late. They are running really late into the night and it's messing me up. I have got to get up to watch zombies in the morning and every night I'm keeping my eyes pried open so I can watch bobsledding, ice dancing and ski cross. My sleep schedule is a wreck. I came home from zombie duty today and instantly fell asleep sitting straight up in a chair!

So tonight, no Olympics for me. I don't know what events are happening and I don't want to know. (Okay, that's a lie. It's women's short program skating. But I'm resisting!) It's Lost tonight and then right to bed. The Olympics will have to do without me for one night.
(This is actually an Vancouver anarchist movement poster. Seems not everyone is happy in the Great White North. I just like the art and that it says "Resist" at the top.)

Never Too Late for a Gift

2010-02-22T21:10:00.004-05:00

This past Saturday was not only The Man's birthday dinner out, but that same morning it was World Friendship Day for Girl Scouting. This year our theme was Cities of the World. Our troop is involved in a couple of other projects and used World Friendship Day to multi-purpose them all together by creating a Cleveland booth.

But this isn't about our booth, it's about our craft.

For the fourth year in a row, we've done Shrinky Dinks as our WFD craft. We create designs based on our booth, have the girls color them at the table and shrink them down to key chains right in front of their very eyes. It's always a wild time at our booth and we are crushed the entire time we're open. (Four years ago we bought a bulk package of 100 sheets of Shrinky Dink paper. It's almost gone now.)

To shrink the dinks, you need a toaster oven. The problem was that Co-Leader Supreme also needed a toaster oven for her younger troop. They were making tiny pizzas on crackers for New York City. "We could share the oven," she suggested. The more I thought about it the more I knew it wouldn't work. First of all, Shrinky Dinks don't smell that great while they are baking. No one would want to eat a Shrinky Dink flavored pizza. I also had a fear of things getting really crazy and someone eating a key chain or wearing a pizza. Nightmare! Finally, when we do this craft we are just slammed with customers. There would be too much of a traffic jam at the oven if both things were being made at once.

I was going through people who I though might want to loan us their oven when it occurred to me that I have a toaster oven of my own! (Stay with me here. I'll explain.)

My pots and pans cupboard is oddly shaped and too deep. It invites chaos and gets it. I take everything out and re-stack it up beautifully about once a month. Within a week it is completely wrecked again. And it's all me. The other three in this house don't dare even try to do anything with that cupboard.

To fight the chaos a bit, I keep a large box in the back of it, just to keep things from getting pushed WAY back. It's been there since we bought the house, that big place holder of a box.

And what is that box?

What do you know? A brand new toaster oven! My last unopened wedding gift!

Here it is all sealed up and...dusty.

It's been waiting for seventeen years to be wanted and needed. Now is its time!

Ooooooh, shiny.

This lucky little machine made its debut at World Friendship Day on Saturday and shrunk about 120 key chains to delight and amazement of little Girl Scouts.
I don't remember who gave us the toaster oven but I'd like to say thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved the day.

The oven is sealed up in the box again and in the awful cupboard doing the important job of holding back the tide. See you next year little guy!

Winter Formal

2010-02-21T17:26:00.004-05:00

Winter Formal was last night and both of the kids attended. What is Winter Formal? It's the dance smack between Homecoming and Prom. A completely fabricated dance with no real purpose. It's like the Sweetest Day of high school dances.

Be that as it may the kids went and had a great time. Here they there are looking sharp.

She kicked her foot out just as I snapped that picture, so here's a close up of her killer heels.

It's not a launch off to a big event if you don't get all of the neighborhood kids together and take their picture dozens of times. This is one of the few that caught The Boy with a smile.

Birthday Night Out

2010-02-19T22:32:00.006-05:00

No one around here has just one day of birthday. Oh no. We keep it rolling as long as we can stand it. Tonight was the dinner out with the literary type friends.

Literary type friends and their adorable rug rats!

Of course we went to Luchitas because we are all about supporting local small business and we are in LOVE with the food. It also helps that we have an in with the owner. He was so happy we were there that he bought our birthday boy a second margarita. (He's sleeping it off right now.)

And a dessert with a lit candle on top!

I knew that it would be a long haul of a visit and that there would be munchkins so I threw our bag of Nak Naks in my purse just for something to play with at the table. The Girl played with them most of all building some terrific towers.

Thanks to Jason, Wendy, Erin, Brad, Stacey, Mike, Kai and Cooper for hanging out with us tonight!

My job description

2010-02-18T21:44:00.004-05:00

I've had a miserably long day but I have to share this little story with the three of you.

After an uncomfortably loud recess, I finally got the class of zombies to sit down and get quiet. The weirdest zombie in the pile raised his hand.

What's up?

Thank you for taking us to lunch.

What?

Thank you for taking us to lunch.

That's what I thought you said. I have to take you. It's my job.

Oh, that's right. I forgot. Isn't your job to keep everyone happy?

No, that's not my job. Not at all.

No?

No. My job is to make sure all of you get out of here with both your eyes and no broken bones.

What?

You heard me.

PS: Two hours later, this weird zombie was holding his chair over his head and about to launch it at a classmate who was teasing him. I stopped him just in time. He almost made me fail at my job for the day.

Happy Birthday to the ground...I mean The Man

2010-02-17T16:27:00.004-05:00

Today is The Man's birthday. To celebrate the high school had a bomb threat which put all of the kids outside for about fifteen minutes. A little while later they canceled school altogether because of a water line break. The kids were home at 12:45 so we went out to lunch together.

Is this well-armed little guy not the cutest? Funny enough, he still carries a tomahawk everywhere he goes but leaves the sword home most days. It makes people nervous.

One of his Facebook friends sent him an adorable song for his birthday. I can't be outdone by that, so here is a selection of my own for him. Happy Birthday Sweetie!

I Heart George Washington

2010-02-15T16:31:00.006-05:00

Most years President's Day goes by with just a furniture sale mention and me standing by the door wondering where in the hell is the mailman. But this year I've been chased around by George Washington and its been lovely.

It started last Friday. I was with a pile of zombies and we read this book.
You can read a review of this book right here. (The author himself drops a comment on the review.) I read the book over before the zombies showed up and was completely charmed by it. What a neat little window into the personality of our first president.

When I told The Man the story about Washington and General Howe's dog, we both started wondering about the names of George's other dogs besides Sweet Lips. Here's two sites that have partial lists of George Washington's dogs' names. On the whole, he had a flair for giving dogs insanely cute names.

This morning on the History channel they had a show about Washington and how, when he wasn't busy running the country, he personally surveyed the new federal city and made architectural changes to the blueprints for the new presidential mansion. The show said that he, "...micromanaged the construction of the city from Mount Vernon...". Now that's a guy who didn't have time management problems.

The Man's Page-a-Day Art calendar today is of Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze.

I mentioned to The Man that the Delaware River does not get big blocks of ice on it like that and that some point to this painting as evidence of global warming.

Man: That doesn't sound right. You're making that up.

Me: No I'm not. How could I make that up?

Man: Sounds like something you would make up.

Me: I think it sounds like something that I heard and completely plausible.

Man: Prove it.

Okay, so I can't. I have searched the web and I can't find anything that even remotely says anything like that. The closest I found were some yahoos that try to re-enact the crossing every year for kicks. But I swear I didn't make it up. I did hear it somewhere at sometime from someone. I will be vindicated on this.

Happy President's Day to everyone!

The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood

2010-02-11T18:36:00.005-05:00

EHS Drama Department presents

The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood

February 12 and 13 at 7:30 PM
February 14 at 2:00 PM

The Boy has a bit part as a guard. The Girl has a even bittier part as a towns person. Yesterday was a snow day which meant that they lost two nights of rehearsal the week of the show. To fix this, they are having double rehearsal today AND they are getting pulled out of class for part of the day tomorrow to have another rehearsal. I haven't seen them since 7:15 this morning and they won't be home until 11 PM tonight. While I appreciate the gravity of the situation, I'm missing my kiddos here!

All reports are that the show is very funny. Of course I'm only getting reports from people who are in the show. They might be a bit biased. But even so, if you are not doing anything this weekend come on down and enjoy one of the last shows in the auditorium before it meets its maker.

Alone in a Crowd

2010-01-28T11:36:00.006-05:00

The writer finds a cat sitting on the keyboard.

Mi mi mi!

Hey Meg! How about you find someplace else to sit? Since I'm home alone today I'm going to try to write about that. Being alone.

Mioooow! Miow! Miow-miow-miow-miow!

You've got a whole house to sit around in. Now move it.

Me ma mi me ma!

No that's my tea. Here, you have fun in the paper recycling box.

Mi!

Okay, leave then.

The writer realizes that if she doesn't get some laundry started, her family will be drying themselves with washcloths after their showers, again.

Hey Jack Jack! How's it going?

(Jack jumps up on the food table and knocks a dish to the floor.)

No, it's not time to eat.

(Jack jumps over to a litter box, stares at it then pointedly, then stares at the writer. This repeats several times.)

Yeah, those boxes do need done, but it's not my day. You're just going to have to suck it up.

(Jack runs over to the pile of dirty laundry and starts to paw around in it.)

No, I don't need you help with this. No, Jack. Let go. Let go! I said Let Go!

(Jack returns to the food table and knocks another dish to the floor.)

With both machines now industriously whooshing away, the writer becomes aware of incessant barking and baying happening out in the yard.

Marco!

Arrroooo! Woof Woof Woof Woof Woof Woof!

MARCO!

WOOF! Woof Woof Woof Woof Woof!

Marco! It's just a squirrel. Come here! Marco come! MARCO!

ARRROOOOO!

Marco you stupid... Yes! Good boy. Good boy! Come here. Good... OH! Why do you always have to step on my foot?

Pant pant pant pant pant

No, you're not getting a cookie. Too much barking.

Arumph!

And you made me yell out of the door like a crazy person. No cookie.

Mmm-mmm-mmmm...

You think being pathetic is going make me change my mind?

The sound of the mailman on the porch distracts the writer from further berating her dog. Marco grabs the cookies from her fingers and runs away to play with it.

Meu.

Hey Mama. Do you want to sit with me and go through the mail?

Meu.

Don't chew on that.

Meu.

I can't see with you in my face like this.

Meu.

I AM paying attention to you. You're all over me!

Meu.

No, it's not time for bed.

Meu.

No, I don't want you to fix me right now. No. Oww! Okay that's enough. I've got stuff I wanted to get done today.

Meu.

The writer heads back to the computer. After depositing ninety percent of the mail in paper recycling box, the writer finds a cat sitting on the keyboard.

Miow-meow-mi-ma-me-mo-miiiii!

Hey Meg.

Mu-mi-me-mu-mi-me-mi-me!

You know Meg, I'm just lacking inspiration right now. I think I'll go clean the fish tank.

How the President's Visit Impacted the Andersons

2010-01-22T10:51:00.004-05:00

We are all home today because President Obama is coming to town. They closed the college because that's where he's speaking so The Man is home. They closed all of the other schools because an unknown number of roads would be closed for unknown lengths of time. Last night when I was running kids hither and back, I saw piles of barricades and road closed signs on curbs. At first I couldn't understand why they would be driving the president through the center of the city, but the newspaper this morning says that one of his stops will be Riddel where they make football helmets. Who's idea was that?

They can close all of the school under the umbrella title of a calamity day. One of my Facebook friends called it a Sn'Obama Day, which is just clever enough to make me really jealous.

Last night the kids went on an exhausting toboggan field trip with Student Council. I was leery of this trip being on a school night knowing that the next day they would be wiped out from dragging that sled up all of those stairs over and over again. (They went down nine times.) So my still sleeping children say thank you to the president for letting them sleep off all of the fun instead of nodding off in class today.

So what shall we do with a unexpected day off. I'm thinking clean the basement. They are probably thinking Xbox. Maybe a compromise can be reached. Isn't that the essence of Democracy?

No such thing as a free lunch? How about a really cheap dinner?

2010-01-16T20:19:00.002-05:00

My apologies first to Weaver since Pizza Hut was once a place of employment and she might not want to read about it here. Sorry babe.

When the kids were little I knew every restaurant in town that had a "Kids Eat Free" night. I could map them all out for you. Red Robin on Tuesdays. Bennigan's on Wednesdays. Friendly's on Fridays. Bellacino's on Sunday. Then four times a year we got loads of free meals in the report card envelopes. Eat' n Park. Ponderosa. Applebee's. Friday's. We were set.

But once your kids stop looking like they are under 10 (no matter how you dress them or coach them to act) all those free meals stop coming. Once your kids are out of elementary school, getting coupons for good grades comes to an end. My kids were seeing the inside of restaurants less and less.

Then comes the very bad day when the hostess eyes your kids and asks, "Kids menus?" and they both say no. Now you are taking four adults out to eat and that equals an uncomfortably big bill. Eating out for them is pretty much over.

All this sets the stage for our trips to Pizza Hut. Every now and then on a Friday, especially if I've worked a lot during the week, we like to go to Pizza Hut. I'll come right out and say that I like Pizza Hut pizza, but it is not pizza. It looks like pizza, it smells like pizza and it has all the ingredients of a pizza, but it's something different. There's no other way to describe it except that The Man agrees with me and that's why I love him so much.

We go on Fridays because there is a waitress working there named Kat. Kat is our secret weapon to affordable eating out with the kids. The first time we met her we all ordered Pepsi and she suggested a 2 liter bottle for the table. That might not seem like much but that little move saved us $8.

When we go to Pizza Hut and are unlucky enough not to get Kat, the server will tell us that they are not allowed to give out 2 liters to tables or that they are out of 2 liters at the moment. Blah, blah, blah we say to them.

Right now Pizza Hut has a $10 any size, any topping special going on. Combine that with our secret drink special and the whole visit was only $13.12. Woo-hoo!

Postscript: I'm going to give out a shout out here to Jessica at Friendly's as well. For years our bill said that we ordered four waters (free) instead of the drinks she actually served us. Making friends with waitresses is well worth the effort.

2010-01-11T21:19:00.001-05:00

So it looks like for now I will only be able to post text on this blog. But give me a few days and I'll figure out pictures too.

Lego Toy Workshop

2010-01-06T14:12:00.007-05:00

One of my favorite gifts this year was this fantastic Lego Christmas toy shop.

Here's the front. You can see the toys in the front windows.
Inside you can see the toy maker at his work bench upstairs. Downstairs is the shop with a fireplace.

The toy shop came with plenty of people like these skiers, this big mouth kid and a faceless snowman. I'm not exactly sure what that kid is planning on doing with the carrot.

It also came with this giant tree being lit by a girl on a ladder.

No Christmas tree is complete without toys.

The last part is this tiny park scene with carolers. I love their little books!

Remember the toys you could see in the shop window. One was a train and the other was this tiny robot. It is so simple and yet so adorable. I'm crazy for this guy. I want to make a whole army of them.

Hmmm.... I wonder how many I could make....

Holiday Bags a la Duct Tape

2010-01-04T15:11:00.007-05:00

To make up for my utter lack of imagination in gift giving (gift cards to everyone), the kids and I created small duct tape bags to put the gift cards in.

Working with duct tape can be a real hassle at times. Working on a tiny scale doesn't make it any easier, but the end result was mighty adorable.

This is a full sized bag. It's a wine tote I made for sweet Mindi. I wanted to play with texture in this bag. I went though almost a whole roll of chrome tape to make all of the braids. The effect wasn't exactly what I imagined. The Man called this the heavy metal bag. I was hoping for something more like bling. Maybe if I hadn't based it in black...

But the last bag we made was the best. This full sized tote made for The Sister took all three of us a good long time to negotiate. It ended up having no visible seam which I particularly proud of.
Here's the other side. I think it came out so neat.
There were a few colors that we didn't use on this bag because they were too distracting from the whole. It's amazing but true.

"Post more blogs" was not one of my New Year's resolutions, but I will try to get in more than two a month. Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve at Grandma's

2009-12-25T08:17:00.007-05:00

Every year, for decades, my grandmother has thrown a Christmas Eve party in her basement bar. The basement is decorated for Christmas 365 days a year just for the party because why take it down if you're just going to put it back it up? Here's a few of last night's highlights.

Here's mom looking healthy and happy! What a beautiful sight that is!
And my dad surveying the bartenders and making sure they are doing an adequate job.
The bartenders are usually The Man and The Brother-In-Law, but pretty much anyone who wanders back there can have the job.

Like this favorite fellow of mine. We have way too many pictures like this I'm afraid. They will come back to haunt us. I have no doubt.
The sister won the first game of Left Right Center and was fairly pleased with herself about it. The Brother appears to be trying to bit off a finger.
The Girl won the second game with a come out of nowhere last minute move.
And my godfather solved both of these bar puzzle games one right after the other. He actually got five of them before the evening was over but other people had to mess with them before I could get photographic proof.

But the best part of the party is seeing the family I only get to see on Christmas Eve. It ends up being a mini family reunion with lots of kisses and long hugs.

Merry Christmas to all three of you! I hope your Christmas season is full of beautiful moments!

Following the paper trail

2009-12-22T15:29:00.009-05:00

We recycle quite a bit around here. Curbside recycling takes away the plastic, glass, aluminum and steel. We set out one big blue bag every other week with all of that.

We save all of the cardboard boxes that we acquire in a spot in the basement until the mountain reaches a critical mass. Then they get flattened and take a ride to the cardboard recycling bin a few blocks away. You might remember an earlier post about me finally giving up saving cardboard. It's still a difficult thing for me to do.

We have a bag under the kitchen sink where we collect all of our dead batteries from various gizmos. When that bag gets full enough (or breaks open and spills batteries everywhere) we take it up to the library where they have a collection bucket for them.

Old clothes go to Goodwill. Household knick-knacks go there as well if they don't sell on Ebay first. The Man and The Boy have a big pile of found metal in the backyard that they haul up to the salvage place for cash.

But this post today is about paper. The thing that we are most successful at recycling is paper. No one is more devoted to recycling paper than we. Every sheet, scrap, envelope, ad and magazine goes into our paper recycling bin.

Our recycling bin is a good sized box. I'm not exactly sure how long it takes us to fill it but it's not very long. Then it gets to the point where it's overfilled and someone says, "We really need to get to paper recycling." And then some more time passes and the paper has started an annex in a bag beside the bin and someone else might say, "We HAVE GOT to get to paper recycling."

This time around was the absolute worst. We have never been so lax in taking the paper away. It's been weeks of us saying that it had to go but not being taken. Finally today it looked like this:

It's the overfilled bin and FIVE extra bags!

The Man and I finally packed it all into the van and drove it one block to the paper recycling bin.

The schools in the city have a yearly contest on paper collecting. The school with the most tonnage by the end of the year wins cash from the recycling people. Our favorite school wins every year. I like to think that the paper we collect at home is the the factor that pushes the total over the top.
After we did this little chore, we went to vote. Our mayor is facing a recall and the special election is today. The wording on the ballot said, "Shall he be allowed to remain as mayor?" Pretty grim way to say it. By this time tomorrow we will know if he shall or not.

Sketchy Santas

2009-12-21T13:40:00.003-05:00

Enjoy this little montage I found. The song is a perfect fit with the pictures. The baby who turns and looks around 0:59 is The Girl's favorite. The Santas wearing masks are way too creepy for me.

Christmas Cards

2009-12-18T10:41:00.004-05:00

Have you ever see a person at the post office who appears to be doing all their paperwork for the whole year right there in the lobby? They got piles of stuff spread from one end to the other? They are shuffling though things and mumbling to themselves? That was me getting my Christmas cards ready. I had them almost good to go except for adding the picture. But instead of picking up my pictures andthen doing it all at home, I consolidated my trips and put everything together on that long blue counter at the post office. I even took the one chair they provide. I couldn't have the entire counter though because there was someone else doing the same thing only they were adding stamps. Luckily, my envelopes were self-seal. I would have really put on a show if I have to lick them all closed.

I had to go to another holiday program at a different school yesterday. That's four shows in one December which ties a previous record. This show did not have the band and orchestra unfortunately. This was only kindergartners and first graders. It involved lots of props and interpretative dance and was winter themed instead of Christmas. Mostly the show focused on the music teacher trying to explain the pieces intermixed with her trying to hush the crowd. Strange show all the way around.

Yesterday was my last work day of the year. The phone rang this morning and I just let it go. The zombies are getting just to squirrelly to deal with. Besides that The Girl and Boy are on some funky midterm schedule that involves them coming home halfway through the day. I'd rather be home with them.

Too long and rambling to name

2009-12-12T10:11:00.005-05:00

When I woke up this morning the house was so quiet. The kids were catatonic. The Man was out teaching thirteenth graders. A perfect time to sit and blog. It occurred to me that I've been blogging less since I started on Facebook. I could probably graph it out and see an immediate and obvious correlation. Maybe later. And just for me. I won't make you suffer through that.

After I pondered over where the graph paper might be and some colored pencils, it then occurred to me that my blog readers and my FB friends don't overlap. You are one or the other. I might have a few FB friends who occasionally stop by here if they have absolutely nothing else in the entire scope of their life to do, but not many. And the three of you are not on Facebook. So there it is.

(But just so you don't feel bad, my devoted blogosphere-ites, I don't update my status on FB that often either. Twice a week max. I'm in short supply all over.)

*********

If you'll remember last year, I gave myself permission to blow off Christmas cards. Seems they were just that one straw too many. Now I'm not sure what my problem was. I whipped out those cards in one night thanks to the magic of pre-printed labels. But they haven't gone out yet because my choice of the Christmas picture got nixed by the girl. Nixed big time. Her idea of the picture would be a one where she and The Boy would be doing something bad and we would caption it with something along the lines of they chose to be naughty this year. My suggestion was trying to break into a car. There suggestion was breaking into a safe.

Awhile back I wrote about finding my little safe and the miraculous way I remembered my combination. Their idea was to dress up in black, get flashlights and get a picture of them being caught trying to crack it.

This type of picture is exactly as complicated to take as you can imagine. Here's some of our attempts, mostly at trying to get the lighting right.

There are literally dozens of pictures like these and none of them are even close to what they want to achieve. I'm giving them this weekend to either come up with a better plan or perfect this one. If not on Monday I'm sending out the picture I originally planned on.

*******

Marco has been sick. He got sick the day after I spent the day shampooing the living room carpet. He got very, very sick in both possible ways all over my clean carpet. I'll admit I cried.

But he didn't seem sick. He was acting exactly like himself. Obnoxious, loud and annoying. He was eating and drinking and had a cold nose. We figured it must have just been something he ate and it was over.

The next morning, the same present waited for me by the Christmas tree. And the same dog was not acting as sick at all. The mystery grew.

Morning three Marco left us no late night gifts. It was over?

Morning four, no, not over. Worse than ever. Time to call the vet.

The diagnosis? Roundworms! Isn't that charming! Medicine and a shot for Marco and drops for the cats, just to be safe. (The cat medicine was banana flavored. On purpose. Why would they do that?) Since the late night decorating has stopped, I guess he is cured.

The vet went through all the ways that Marco could have caught roundworms but they all involved being around other dogs, which he hasn't. We have no idea why this has happened. Is it possible to catch roundworms from raccoons or squirrels? We've got plenty of those. Anyway, I'm going out to re-rent the carpet shampoo machine.

*******

I've had to sit through three Christmas programs in the past week as part of my zombie duty. Three programs in three different schools. You could say I was just unlucky, but this happens every year. Teachers ditch on program day.

Winter programs always involve trotting out the band and orchestra. At the first school (we'll call it Tolerable School), both the band and the orchestra were just terrible. It was painful and the only solace was that it was a very short program. The instructors made excuses that they had only been playing for seven weeks and this was as far as they got. Understandable, but still torturous. Two days later I had to sit through another program at a different school. Let's call it Miserable School. This time different instructors started out by explaining that their groups had also only been meeting for seven weeks. I braced myself.

In the end, both the band and orchestra at Miserable considerably outplayed the ones at Tolerable. They played the exact same tiny songs but Miserable had better control and sound. They also seemed happier at Miserable than at Tolerable. I'm handing this one to the instructors. The ones at Miserable really seemed into their zombies and were very excited to be there. The ones at Tolerable were phoning it in. Yay for good teachers!

********

The Man is home and the kids are up. What? Hungry? No clean clothes? The cat did what?