black friday is here

whatever that means.

we have a fridge full of leftovers, all the stuff that the 16 people here yesterday could not eat or shove in a bag. i love this. no cooking.

my kids typed up a "list for today," that looks nothing like their mother and father's list for today. here is their's:

7-9 a.m. free time
9-9:30 breakfast
9:30-12 free time
12-1:00 lunch
2-7:30 free time
7:30-8 dinner
8:30 sleep

wow. here is david's list, so far as i know:

10-1:00 make turkey soup w/ the carcass and remains
1-10:00 (yes, that is 9 hours) get giganormous christmas tree down, wrap every single branch w/ lights
10:00 quit for the day

and here is mine, which needs no time blocks: protest our taxes, make copies of mountainous pile of receipts of work we've had done here, mail it; explain to youngest child that if he indeed has a blowout birthday party of laser tag, he will not necessarily also be receiving the 10+ gifts he has requested; drop-off what i cleaned out of our closets at goodwill; put all the pumpkins up; buy poinsettias at sam's; get one of my christmas presents early so david can install it now (you will see once i get it); christmas shop online; debate all day if it's worth it to go to target today.

so you can see, the mommy and daddy list is sorely missing the key element of the children's list: free time. but we have been known to take frequent breaks, that can last anywhere from five minutes to three hours.

and we did take the kids to play putt-putt the other day. only this time, we just watched. because here is what we learned last time -- once they sink the ball, they are no longer very interested in waiting for us to have our turn. they have moved on to the next hole and are checking out the par and the bogey. and it's not that fun to play if no one is watching and laughing at you.

and the youngest, he has taught himself to ride a bike. no training wheels. a year ago, that would be TWELVE MONTHS AGO, he almost had it. then he got mad, threw down his bike, and has reminded us often how he hates bikes without training wheels. they're stupid, he would say. and he has ignored his little bike, except for perhaps to kick it, ever since.

and then do you know what happened? he saw corie, his friend, ride by on her bike with training wheels. and he dropped the basketball, ran to get his dusty bike, and said he was ready. we were shocked, of course, but there was no time to waste. david immediately started running alongside of him. because the most important thing, see, was that corie see him with no training wheels. this was unspoken but very, very clear.

of course, there have been crashes. and crying. and the throwing down of the helmet. but then, at long last, there has been success. and now, less than a week later, he is setting up orange cones in our driveway to "practice his turns." there has been the discovery of skid marks. (there has also been corie taking her training wheels off.)

so it's been an eventful week. even for the poor dog, who just wants to sleep. there will be none of that with kids out of school for thanksgiving break. no rest for the weary. she goes upstairs to nap in the warm gameroom, on the sofa in the sun, and this is what happens to her:



they build a pillow house on top of her. and still, she continues to try for rest, hoping they will soon go away. sorry, little dog. they're here for three more days.

you call this a vacation?

for a thanksgiving vacation, i sure am exhausted. when everyone is home, i'm suddenly in charge of three meals per day per person. and for someone who does not, ahem, excel in or enjoy the kitchen, that does NOT equate to relaxing. and if everyone snacks and munches, then everyone's schedule is off. some people are hungry for dinner at 5; others at 8:30.

i have people asking me, have we eaten dinner today? what was for lunch? did we have lunch, mom? i am about to turn these little people loose with some fry pans and spatulas and see what they come up with. well, not really. but the oldest can do great pancakes, and soup out the wazoo. and the hamburger helper that used to fill us all up? well, these "little people" are getting bigger, and harder to fill up.

i give up.

but i can't. this is that job that you can't quit. and there is no "off" time. i understand now, very well, why women hide in the bathroom. the door has a lock, for one thing. it's your best bet for having a phone conversation, uninterrupted. though i have been known, when my kids were little, to go into the garage, and into the car, in the dark, just to have a quiet conversation with someone. but at this point, that jig is up.

and today, there was the problem of the steak. you see, there was some leftover steak, which is a prized possession in this house. and there was only really enough for one person, see, and that one person was going to be me. but how to do it? you have to be very crafty. you can't just go in there at lunchtime and heat it up -- that will draw the masses in droves. you will have to beat them off with a stick. no first, you have to fill THEM up. do you see how much trouble it is for a mom to have a meal in peace? it is so much easier when they are at school. i don't have to hide. i can eat in peace. i am "off duty," except for all the laundry and dishes and bills and errands. and multiple side projects and volunteer jobs that are growing like plants in this house.

we have a huge 20-pound bird defrosting in our fridge. the cooking of casseroles will commence tomorrow. and i must get to the grocery tonight to fight for the last boxes of stuffing. thanksgiving is at our house this year, and while our numbers might be down a bit, we are still expecting between 15-20 people.

and friday . . . i must get rested up for friday. that is when the christmas tree(s) come down, decorations come out, and the house will look like a red-and-gold santa bomb has exploded for a few days.

and then, glory be, 30-something cases of wreaths will be arriving at our house. that's cases, not boxes. because don't forget, i am the landing point for the scout fundraiser. i think i am tired just from anticipation.

but my christmas shopping is almost done. or at least it was, until i saw that walmart had way lower prices on all the stuff i just bought at toys 'r us. so i'll need to put on my "queen of returns" crown while i make sure to get the best possible price on everything i already bought. neither rain nor sleet nor snow shall keep me from the best price.

and my nephew, who is young enough not to have a clear view perhaps of what some things might cost, has requested gift cards to best buy so that he can buy a new computer. when my sister-in-law (his other aunt) told me this, she said to him, well i don't know how much you think i'm going to give you, but you might get enough for a new mouse pad.

yes, and i'll throw in the mouse. (the other hundreds of dollars, you'll have to get from your mom.)

okay, well i've had my break now. got to get ready for the dinner rush. we are having crunchy tacos, which is on a small revolving menu of things that everyone will eat, so no alternate meals are necessary. only we have no onion. and the cheese is low. so first, i must go grocery. is nothing ever easy? didn't these people just eat yesterday? i see now why old people don't eat much. they're tired of cooking! they are exhausted of cleaning up! it's the never-ending fable of pushing the big ball up the hill, only to have it roll all the way down again. it is groundhog day. over and over and over again.

i hated that movie.

but i do love these people. i just wish they didn't require so much food.

the strange thing about being in a hurry

i am usually in a hurry. i walk fast, i favor brief conversations, i can get totally ready to go to school OR the white house, should that possibility ever come up, within 30 minutes or less.

which is why this particular line from a book i am reading with ben struck me as so funny: "while he was never anxious to be where he was going, he liked to get there as quickly as possible."

and while i am usually telling one child, who constantly interrupts, to HUSH, i am similarly telling his brother, who cannot tie his shoes and talk at the same time, to HURRY. and i love my son -- dearly -- but it is becoming quite clear to me that perhaps he was put in my life to show me how to slow down. (but not in the mornings. we are always cutting it too close.)

if we are walking, he will almost come to a complete stop while telling me a story. it takes him a while, sometimes, to organize his thoughts. i must wait. and the hair . . . we've already covered the hair (for which an organizational time-chart is now being created). and no matter if we woke up at 5 a.m. as opposed to 7 a.m. to get ready for school, it would still come down to those last. five. minutes. the ones where my head feels like it is going to explode.

but, the counterpart to getting stuff done fast, is the passing of time. this is something i think about all the time. i do not want time to pass fast. not now that i am a mother.

when i was young, i couldn't wait to be 16 and get my driver's license. i couldn't wait to move out of my parent's house and go to college with my friends. at college, i couldn't wait to graduate so i would never have to have homework and final exams ever again. at work i couldn't wait for it to be 5:00. i couldn't wait to get married. then i couldn't wait to buy a house. then i couldn't wait to have kids. and bam, bam, bam, the years passed and all of that happened. just like in my dreams. and now what am i waiting for?

nothing. absolutely nothing.

in the grand scheme, i am in no hurry.

and somewhere along the way, everything kind of reversed. i used to long to be back in college, carefree with my friends. or miss having my own apartment, where things were always as i left them. or renting, when a landlord would fix anything that broke. i sometimes miss having my own paycheck, or the camaraderie that comes with working in an office. i miss my dad, and wish that he could have met my husband, and his grandchildren.

but i never think on those things for long. i see the days tick by, the years pass, i can remember the mild hysteria when the calendar turned to y2k. it passes so fast. too fast. my oldest is 9. he is halfway to college. i am in no hurry for him to leave.

i want to live slowly. i want to live each minute, not wonder where it went.

many moons ago, i moved to boston. by myself, not knowing a single soul there. it was a great, adventurous time in my young life. i saw many cool places -- d.c., new york, canada, nantucket -- but my favorite was always a little town called concord. it was so very pretty and quaint, and looked exactly like a small town in new england should look. so many great writers lived there, and their houses still stand. but the most special to me was thoreau, who lived in a tiny cabin on walden pond. he went there to figure out what was truly important in life, and he says it better than i ever could . . .

i went into the woods because i wanted to live deliberately. i wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life . . . to put to rest all that was not life; and not, when i came to die, discover that i had not lived.

and i don't think he was in a hurry.

i could not make this stuff up

the first graders just finished learning about pilgrims and thanksgiving, then made turkeys on the computer and wrote what they were most thankful for.

the best, in my opinion:

i am thankful for my good life.

i am thankful the pilgrims found america.

i am thankful i am not in kindergarten again this year.

i am thankful no one has thrown up in our classroom.

the hearts killed it

this is the note that came home in the first grader's backpack. and he was all smiley and pleased when he saw it . . . smiling . . . reading . . . smiling . . . reading . . . and then, an alarmed look. a frown.



mom, he said, without meeting my eye.

yes?

why are there hearts? he asked.

oh, i said, thinking fast, girls are just like that, they like to put hearts on everything. knowing full well that if he thinks corie LIKES him, that will surely be the death of their friendship. i hope i spoke in time. the card has been tucked away (except for eternity here on my blog).

he quietly leaves the room.

girlfriend, the hearts killed it.

why i love "the view"

or, i could have called this, "if they didn't talk about it on 'the view,' it didn't happen."

i get all my news from 'the view.' they skim the hottest topics, and i get the argument from all sides, and then i can decide for myself what i think. all in 20 minutes or less. much like coach bags, i loved this show way before it was cool. i loved it back in the ho-hum days of meredith vieira and star jones. (but not as far back as lisa ling or debbie matenopolous.) (please. i'm not THAT old.)

the other night i was watching my dvr'ed episode and my husband sat down with me. he sighed audibly when it cued up, when he saw what we would be watching. he tried to sit with me for a few minutes, up until all the ladies were yelling at each other so loudly you could not understand a word of it. (it was pre-election outcome.)

he looked at me. you really like this show?

me: yes. i love it.

he: but you can't understand what anyone is saying.

me: they'll calm down in a minute. it'll be ok.

after i watch it, i always feel like i've had a great conversation with my friends. only, i don't know them and i'm not on the program. but that's not the point. it's a great mix of women. and if i miss something big that has happened in the world, which i normally do, they'll talk about it and fill me in. so starting at the head of the table, we'll go around and i'll tell you what i like/dislike about each woman. because i know you are just dying to know. (wait. don't leave. come back...)

whoopi. she has very slowly grown on me. because at first i didn't think she was opinionated enough, but now she's cracking whips. i think she's kind and open-minded and very humble, to have her level of fame. but i don't get when she goes into alter-ego accents -- i think that freaks barbara walters out. it's a little too street. too urban. but, she doesn't have a cell phone or an answering machine. you have got to love that.

joy. oh my, i have a real love/hate relationship with her. if i agree with her, i love her, because she is a major ball-buster for what she believes in. she is hilarious. she is borderline vulgar with a wicked sense of humor, and she can break a rough moment with a laugh. but she gets almost hysterical when she is arguing, usually with elisabeth. she is the only original panel member, so you gotta give her props for staying power.

sherri. like coach bags and the view itself, i have loved sherri shepherd since she was on 'everybody loves raymond.' and ellen loved her so much she kept giving her silly assignments just to have her around. sherry was way out of her league when they gave her this job; she couldn't back up her arguments and statements as fast as the other women. but she's real and she's fresh and, god bless her, she is trying.

elisabeth. i was standing in line once to meet star jones, who was autographing her book, and listening to two women talk about elisabeth. ugh, elisabeth....they were saying. like, the girl doesn't have a clue. well, i personally think the girl does have a clue, and she's very opinionated about it! she has a lot of guts to go against the group the majority of the time, and she can back all her opinions up. i sure wouldn't want to argue with her! but yes, half the time i'm 90% sure she is bat-sh** crazy.

barbara. the queen bee to end all queen bees. this show has melted her icy demeanor somewhat, though she still comes off like she's above us mere mortals. i love it that she had this idea to not just have women discuss the news, but put in their two cents and argue their side of it. where else can you get that? and really, once they all get going, she has a hard time putting a lid on them. but in the end, they still bow to her royal feet. she can still deliver "the look" that says, just you remember who gave you this job. and they read her, loud and clear.

furniture for a shoebox house

so my fourth grader comes home yesterday and informs me that we - i repeat WE - need to make tiny furniture for his shoebox house, that is to be wired with electricity for his science project. creating electricity? no problem. making crafts? uh, you're gonna have to wait for your dad to come home. because if dear ole mom makes it, it is going to be an embarrassment for all of us.

so, again, dad saves the day. here is the bed made with popsicle sticks, a felt pillow, and an origami quilt. and if these pictures are blurry, please understand that i was hurriedly taking pictures of it all early this morning, and sometimes it is just hard to focus before 8 a.m.



this sofa is so well built i think a hamster could safely sit on it. and how cute would that be? but no-we-are-not-getting-a-hamster.



the desk. i know it's blurry, and i see that the tape had come undone. but come on . . . how cute would a small animal look sitting at, or chewing on, this desk?



and, of course, life would not be complete without spongebob on the panasonic flatscreen.



and here is the lucky boy who got to take all the cool furniture to school, and get all the kudos and credit for it, that his father stayed up late printing out on the computer. and is it any wonder that he had three kids arguing over who got to be his partner?

how do you shop for christmas online?

i read and hear about these people who do all their shopping without getting out of their pajamas. in the comfort of their own home, with nothing but a credit card and a computer. well, i am not one of these people. and i am jealous.

but i will tell you this: i do shop fast. and organized. i have a very detailed list for the kids' christmas, with ideas and prices and columns and all. and there is no *big* item this year, like the wii and its accompanying $50 games, to make christmas look like it got shrunk way down for an elf family. last year, we probably spent more money than ever at christmas, but everything was really tiny.

ipods are tiny. cellphones are tiny. games and wii's and nintendo's are tiny. giftcards are tiny. but that is the only thing tiny about them.

this year i am buying big. and i am using the oldest mom trick in the book to make it look like christmas has somewhat exploded. i am buying stuff they need or would get anyway, and i'm wrapping it up. a bulletin board? check - both big and needed. goggles? not big, but needed since my son threw his into the ocean last summer and we never saw them again. spongebob lego's? double score - big and requested. a soccer ball? done, AND less in cost than my monthly cell phone bill.

which brings us to -- cell phones. my nine-year-old begs me daily for one. DAILY. but who would you call? i ask. and why do you need one? he is always either with me, or with a friend whose mother has her own cell phone. and yes, half his friends have them but that is only because their parents have run out of other stuff to buy them. i have not. i am not the most indulgent mother for two reasons: i'm frugal, and they don't need it.

so i have my list and i'm ready to shop. i can be in and out of target in less than 30 minutes, with most of my whole list complete. slow is not in my genetic makeup. i have two speeds: fast and faster. i am the whirling dervish that will leave you in the dust with my cart. my husband likes to tell this story of when we were buying our house. he was speaking on the phone with the contractor, who was waiting at the new house for me.

contractor to my husband: i think she's here. is she blond?

husband: yes.

contractor: is she wearing a red shirt?

husband: could be.

contractor: tall?

husband: uh, yeah.

contractor: does she walk with a purpose?

husband: yes. that is most definitely her.

i have to be fast because i have a lot to do. unlike others in my life who seem to have two speeds: slow and asleep. and i am fast because i have to look at every single thing in a store while christmas shopping to make sure that i have picked out the absolute best items of what is available. how do you do that online? that would take days. days. and there are endless sites to choose from. it is, as my youngest would say, infinity. and infinity is overwhelming.

and i want to be done before all the other hoo-ha's hit the mall after thanksgiving. i do not like crowds. i do not like to wait in line. that is not a good use of my time.

my girlfriend tells me that she is working on coping skills with her 9-year-old son. i tell her that i am working on time management with mine. and without revealing anything that might embarrass him, let's just say i could get ready five times in the same amount of time it takes him to dress and do his hair. and his hair is less than 1 inch long. i worry about this.

but then i remember road trips with my cousin sue . . . very similar to mornings with my nine-year-old son. i would be ready and waiting. and waiting. and waiting. and again, it was the hair. first she would blowdry it; then she would curl it, because it had to have some smooth curl for her to next straight-iron it. and she would go back and forth among all these tools and come out looking virtually the same as when she first set the blow-dryer down. but, you know, i had more patience then. (and for the record, her hair now is very short. and she's much faster. i like to think that my constant sighing had something to do with all this.)

so it all comes down to time. and the illusion that it is running out. which, hello people, it's november 16, what are you waiting for?

you are not alone. you are not alone.

right now, i have a mountain-ful of email. the fullest my email box has probably ever been, because i am somewhat anal about keeping it cleaned out - much like i am with my house. but i wrote an email. one person wrote one email. and a village was born.

we have neighbors that are going through a hard time. a very hard time. we lived across the street from them for many years, waving, talking in the street, getting their mail when they were out of town. they moved in childless. and through the years they have grown to be a family of four - not in the old-fashioned way, that wasn't in the plan for them. they adopted first a 3-year-old boy through foster care. he had been neglected. he came with issues. but they have loved him through it and now he is thriving. a baby girl came next - also through foster care. and at a moment's notice. they got a call that a baby had been beaten and taken to the hospital - could they take her? and a couple of hours later, they unexpectedly became a family of four.

how lucky these children were, to be welcomed into this loving home where they were wanted and cared for. empty rooms were decorated for them, toys appeared, carseats and blankets and tricyles purchased for these children who came with nothing at all. not even a teddy bear.

and then the mother got sick. and she is hanging in, by god she is hanging tough. she told us one day tearily that she did not fight so hard to get these children that she would leave them motherless. i won't go into all the medical detail, that's not what this is about. but she is awaiting a kidney transplant, and now recovering from a heart attack. she is on bedrest. and her husband, he cut his work hours in half. he takes care of everyone. he cooks, he cleans, he works, he cares for his wife and his children. it is a lot for one man. it would be a lot - too much, even - for any of us. people have walked out or given up for a lot less burden than this.

and so i wondered what i, one person, could do. it is an overwhelming situation to be in, or even to observe. what could i possibly do? well, i can write a halfway decent letter so i did that, and i sent it to our cub scout pack. and i sent it to the pto board at school. and i waited, but i did not wait long. within minutes, help came. hope showed up. within minutes, i had $150 to give them. a total stranger has organized not one, but two fundraisers at her law firm, asking each person to donate $5.

another woman, she doesn't know them, she is paying for the boy to do baseball. but not just baseball, she has organized her office to buy him cleats and shoes and a baseball bat.

people want to know how old are the children? what size do they wear? someone has offered to decorate their christmas tree for them. another woman, a grandmother, is offering to clean their house and watch their kids on the weekend. the pto president has suggested that our next fundraiser, which was to raise needed funds for our school, instead be donated to this family. free tuition for after-school childcare has been offered. organizations who offer help with bills and groceries have come to our attention.

and more than money, or knowing that christmas will be taken care of for these children, what this man and his wife needed more than anything was a bit of hope. some human kindness. the message: you are not alone in this. you are not alone.

his voice is weary when i talk to him. he gets quiet when i tell him, over the phone, that no he is not a burden, or a charity case, people really do want to help. and any of us, in this situation, could and should take whatever help comes our way. isn't this what we are supposed to do? doesn't this tend to bring the greatness out in people? and it's a temporary help, we know that, but it's like a giant hug and kiss from humankind. we do care. we can look after each other. there is and always will be hope. we will not give up.

you are not alone.

flutter by butterfly: yet another photo essay

so today was our first field trip of the year. when i arrived, matthew whispered, mom! i'm in the chinese group! yes, this was very good news since his two best friends are chinese. and no small accident since mommy works a lot for the school. these are the perks, people. these are the perks.

we went to a butterfly sanctuary, since they just finished studying their life cycle. i have been there many times before and i can tell you that if you walk in with straight hair, you will walk out with an afro straight from the '60s. which is what i look like now. which is why there are no pictures of me. it is very humid because evidently that is what butterflies like.

so we start inside where there are such exhibits as enormous, live cockroaches and poison dart frogs. and let me tell you, if you look really close at a butterfly you will see it's not gonna be winning any beauty contests either.

i could not get my brainy little group away from this 'bug brain busters' game show. and meanwhile, everywhere i turn is something grosser looking than the last.



this is the butterfly nursery. i wish i knew enough to tell you what all that other stuff is hanging. chrysalis, cocoons, stuff like that. yeah.



and this is the sanctuary where they come out of their cocoons and fly free. and where your hair goes wild. it's very pretty, very rainforesty.



there were dozens upon dozens of butterflies fluttering all about, lighting on plants, flowers, nectar cups. some kids were being very still hoping to have one land on them. others were scared. oh, to be scared of a butterfly. just wait til you go camping, or have rodents living in your attic . . . but wait, i've already blogged about all that.



pretty, and so delicate.



there's a ton of butterflies in the picture below.



i like this one:



my favorite kind of insect: the plastic fake kind.



i had only three boys in my group. that is good news. one woman had five kids, which in quick translation means they're all good, will stay together. one dad had only two boys, and he knew what this meant: not good, heavy maintenance. he was about to pull his hair out by the time we got off the bus. and truly, by then, most of us had a raging headache. if it's not the incessant kicking of the seats, banging on the windows, singing at the top of their lungs, then it is surely the repetitive nature of a 6-year-old. i know you are but what am i. i know you are but what am i. i know you are but what am i.

but i will forget all of this. my selective memory is what will enable me to keep signing up for field trips. that and the fact that i must keep taking yearbook pictures out the wazoo. and oh yeah, the fact that my first grader wanted me to go. and that is a date i will never say no to.

the mickey mouse house

this post is really apropos of nothing. it has no relevance to anything we've done recently, and i run these pictures from our trip to disneyworld last thanksgiving at the risk of david declaring that we need to go back to disneyworld again, and soon. so what i'm really trying to say is, i have nothing interesting to say today, so i will just share with you one of my favorite parts of the magic kingdom.

a couple days ago, i was talking with someone about all the rides at disney, and realizing slowly and sadly that almost every single ride made me either completely nauseous or dizzy. i used to love roller coasters....now, not so much. but i do love the mickey mouse house. it is adorable, and i was completely mesmerized by it. it was like walking into a cartoon. so, come with me.

we went in november so everything was decorated for christmas. this is mouse house exterior:



this is mickey's bedroom. see his slippers next to his bed? see all his bowties? how cute is this? please, it is beyond cute. it is killing me with cute.



look, please, at the drawer full of shoes. SO CUTE.



his living room. look at all the detail. i had to keep looking down to make sure that i, myself, was real. i could seriously live in this house. if i had to.



mickey's garden. everything is bigger and brighter in this world. and you know i didn't think i'd like disneyworld - too overrated, i presumed, but i quite liked it. it's very clean and pretty and at christmastime, so magical.



and, of course, he lives right next door to his girlfriend minnie. the boys were rolling their eyes and moaning when i insisted on touring her house, too. very slowly. but hey, it made me neither nauseous or dizzy. and do you know what that is? priceless.

why did the chicken cross the road?

sarah palin: before it got to the other side, i shot the chicken, cleaned and dressed it, and had chicken burgers for lunch.

barack obama: the chicken crossed the road because it was time for a change! the chicken wanted change!

john mccain: my friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

hillary clinton: when i was first lady, i personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. but then, this really isn't about me.

bill clinton: i did not cross the road with that chicken. what is your definition of chicken?

al gore: I invented the chicken.

al sharpton: why are all the chickens white? we need some black chickens.

dr. phil: the problem we have here is that this chicken doesn't realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. what we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his current problems before adding new problems.

oprah: well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. so i'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road.

anderson cooper, cnn: we have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed access to the other side of the road.

nancy grace: that chicken crossed the road because he's guilty! you can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

dr seuss: did the chicken cross the road? did he cross it with a toad? yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed i've not been told.

ernest hemingway: to die in the rain, alone.

grandpa: in my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

john lennon: imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

bill gates: i have just released echicken 2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

albert einstein: did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

george w. bush: we don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. we just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. the chicken is either against us, or for us.

dick cheney: where's my gun?

the best part of today

camping at its best:



it started like this. eating fritos and looking at the lake. a rustling in the trees, and this little creature comes out...



this, to me, is a beautiful face. as beautiful to me as angelina jolie, or my own children. so gentle, so trusting, so delicate.



and rough little boys suddenly become very still, and excited. they, too, are young and trusting. look at how small their little hands are.



oh, well, oops. we are nothing if not outlaws.



there were other good parts. watching my youngest get into the back of a pickup truck with his fishing pole, without mom or dad, but with some new friends to go fishing.

my oldest, cooking dinner with his friends, and proudly serving all the adults and scout pack, asking each one: chili or cheese on your hotdog?

both boys, generally shy, standing in front of a large group to perform their skits - rehearsed just five minutes before showtime.

and culminating in this: darkness, a campfire, a lake, moon and stars galore. surrounded in the darkness by deer. a scout dad playing a guitar and singing songs only the adults would know. my son asking me if i like these songs; yes, i do; then maybe you should write them down. yes, don't forget this night. this moment. these stars. this love.

perfection.

another weekend, another camping trip

nothing like an easy getaway for a weekend in the woods. if this is what you call easy:



yes, there is so much stuff this time that even the ROOF of the car is being utilized. the boys can not even SEE each other in the backseat, it is so packed with duffel bags, pillows, blankets. and my seat, the shotgun - take a look, and please excuse the psychedelic effects:



yes, there is not even room for me. so the girls (myself and the dog) are staying home. because here is the deal. mommy does not really like to camp so much anymore ever since mommy was going on a hike last time, with a ranger-led group no less, and we had to stop and let him pick up a COPPERHEAD in the road. and in my six previous camping trips with the scouts, let it be known that i did not complain (much) during many encounters with undesirable creatures big and small, including one night when i was surrounded by raccoons by the fire. dozens of small beady eyes looking at me, looking at the food. so i am not a total chicken.

but one of my favorite moments camping was this: we were getting ready to pack up and leave one time and i took a walk by myself down the country road. two fawns (baby deer) ran out right in front of me and stopped. we looked at each other and it was so, so quiet you could have heard a leaf fall. it was one of those amazing moments.

however, there are just so many other not-so-amazing moments. i was not thrilled to hear that when my friend sharon went camping last summer in big bend, she was woken up by a SKUNK IN HER TENT. and that, my friends, is why you never should leave the tent zippers at the bottom. zip them up to the top. that way only a gorilla can get in. and if you want to know the rest of the story, she very calmly woke up her snoring husband and 11-year-old son, motioning them to be very calm and quiet while they gently prodded the skunk OUT so that their future lives (and the lives of those who had to smell them) were not ruined.

and lest you think that i am homefree on the camping thing, take a look at what DIDN'T fit in the car:



yeah, dinner for 150 tomorrow night. and guess how this food is gonna get there? oh, that would be me. but i am dragging my girliest friend (and her son) with me. and lori, she is infamous for saying things like, i don't do campy and i don't do sporty. or buggy. and she will probably be wearing some darling camping outfit from juicy couture or something, driving her immaculate car and texting to see where the nearest "real food" can be found. because i am pretty sure she also doesn't do chili dogs. which is fine with me. i don't either.

wish me luck.

why school lunch can make you sick

the lunch itself looked fine when they sat down with it. but towards the end, when we brave lunch-duty moms were dismissing tables, i saw that my son and his friend had created a volcano out of their lunch. here are the ingredients:

mashed potatoes are the base.

top with the remains of your upside-down ice cream cone.

now squirt ketchup on top to look like fire.

add peaches for molten lava.

as a mother, prepare to barf. i look at my friend aimee, who looks like she is about to hurl, and she says she is no longer hungry and does not know if she will ever be hungry again. hey, lunch duty is not for the weak.



and even with a broken wrist, that he broke playing football, he still plays football. gotta give him props for getting back in the saddle.



and he throws...



and it begins to rain. he immediately looks at me, who has his camera because i was asked to take some pictures for the yearbook, and you can make damn sure that every picture i take will include at least one of my two sons, and he yells: PUT THE CAMERA UP! COVER IT! MOM, RUN!



and i do as i am told. you don't have to tell me twice to run for cover when it starts to rain. so our next duty was to keep over 100 kids quiet in the hallway while we waited for the cafeteria to clear. do you think that is easy? um, just imagine trying to keep your own child/chidren quiet, and multiply it times 100. and that will give you some idea of our success rate.

why i suddenly hate all nerf products

yes, nerf guns are all fun and games until you start finding those blasted orange suction bullets all over your house. and the last gun, it was an automatic. it could hold like 20 bullets in one round. so you can only imagine how my house is now sprinkled with bits of orange in places i'd rather not see it. oh, and let's not forget badminton birdies, such as this:



which is all well and good until you realize that that little birdie is THIS high up:



the only way i was able to get those items on that ledge (above) in the first place was to borrow the painter's ladder before we ever moved in and have david climb it (what, you thought i was gonna go up there?) and place those objects very carefully into place. it involved much patience on his part and much direction on mine.

ok, this is a beaut. the picture below is a genuine i-spy of bullets, for there are also some in the hanging light. which is impossible to access. and of course, a bullet in the high window above the door.



so nerf people, i will NOT be buying your products for christmas. unless it is for some child whose mother needs a little agitation. i mean, why not just take a handful of legos and throw them all over the room? and i saw a most absurd product when i was shopping yesterday: a marshmallow shooter. it looks like great fun for kids, but can you even imagine finding soft, sticky marshmallows all over your house for days on end? what kind of hell is that? not even the dog would eat marshmallows. sure, they'd lick them and then spit them out. who is inventing these things?

i vote to put moms in charge of all future product development. we buy it, we clean it up, so let's just get busy designing some quiet, no-mess toys that are reasonably priced. and let's load up the nerf guns and marshmallow shooters and take them to the next bonfire. because kids need something more than sticks to throw into the fire, right?

CHANGE IS HERE

AND BARACK OBAMA WAS JUST ELECTED PRESIDENT.

and i speak out, from deep in the heart of bush country, and mccain country, and in my own small community where most every one of my friends was voting for mccain, and i could not be more happy right now. i even voted early, so desperate was i for my vote to count.

and i have my own, very personal reasons why i came to support and root for obama to win, which are perhaps superficial on many levels, but they are my reasons and i feel strongly.

i am so relieved that change is here. and i do not harbor any fantasies that government will be perfect now, that things will happen speedily, or everything promised will come to pass.

he won by a landslide, which leads me to believe that there are many closet supporters, and that the vast majority of us want drastic change.

chris rock said something that has stuck in my head: vote for the man with one house.

bring our troops home.

restore our name and image to the rest of the world.

however you may feel about him, he will soon be our new president. he overcame so many obstacles that i can't even begin to imagine. i think a new page has been turned in our history, and i'm so glad for my children to see this, and remember this moment in time.

a photo essay: our trip to the farm

last weekend we decided on the spur of a moment to get out of dodge. to go where we could count dozens of stars. so we went to a nearby farm. and when i say nearby, i mean the kids got a nice nap on the way out there.

the big draw was their corn maze. of course, the only corn maze i ever saw was in "the shining" so i definitely did not want to do this after dark, or if jack nicholson was there, or anyone halfway crazy-looking wielding a knife. these were the rules:



as far as i know, we broke all the rules save for one. this is us before we got lost:



we are on a road to nowhere. and it is fun. i have never seen corn growing up close so it was very educational.



having been raised a city girl, i have to admit that when i first saw this pumpkin patch i assumed they had thrown or rolled all these pumpkins out here for people to buy. turns out they grow this way. who knew.



this is a human hamster wheel, and definitely one of the highlights of the trip. of course they got to rolling way faster than they could walk, and tumbled through a lot of it.



a pipe slide does not go easy on the rear end, just so you know. once was enough for me. twenty times was enough for them:



ok, these cannons were hilarious. you could either shoot a corn cob or a mini-pumpkin out of it, and aim at the targets. matthew found it much more entertaining to aim at the sky, and fell into hysterics every time his corncob flew up out of sight:



my guys. living in a frat house with these dudes is not so bad after all.



dirt bikes, before matthew almost got ran over by a herd of tweens.



ben took one of ole mom and dad:



high on a hill was a lonely goat, yodelady yodelady yodelay he hoo... this contraption was full of ladders and rickety bridges for goats to climb. you could buy food for 25 cents and crank it up a pulley to the ones on top. i had no idea that goats could climb, until i remembered that 'sound of music' song. and my mother told me that their goats used to climb up on top of cars. well, i just never knew. look close and you'll see a goat way up there:



my guys picked these wildflowers for me at the farm.



for dinner down on this farm, ben had a chicken leg and matthew had a hotdog. the hotdog was precooked, they just slapped it into a bun. however, throughout our dinner (at one of those super-long cafeteria style tables in open air) they swore this was the best food they had ever tasted. EVER, they stressed. they wondered if we could please come back here to eat (yes, as it's only about 12 tiny country roads to get there, sure thing). i began to wonder if these people had sprinkled some kind of fairy dust on their food.

the bathrooms were labeled "cows" and "bulls." i don't know about you but speaking for myself i do not really appreciate having to walk into a restroom that says "cow" after i have just eaten a large burger.

we also saw some bees there making honey, which they sell in the gift store. it's kind of like the circle of life.

the sun sets on the farm. reminding us why it's nice to get out of town once in a while.

a phone conversation of the younger set

so we get home the other night and had a message on the machine from corie, our little friend down the street. matthew is excited to call her back, in hopes that he has been invited to play at her house. i coach him on good phone manners, and the following conversation ensues:

matthew: hi corie, did you call to invite me over? (um, no, what i said was tell her that you are returning her phone call.)

long pause where she is presumably talking. then this:

well, i don't have anything else to say to you. goodbye.

and sadly, this is someone he likes. and he is not mad, he is just blatantly honest. i start to fantasize about how awesome it would be if i could be that honest in my phone conversations...

your story has grown tiresome.

i want to hang up now.

you already told me that. four times.

i don't really care about what they said next. or any other part of this story.

or, just cut to the chase, as he did: i have nothing more to say. goodbye.

i mean sure, feelings would be hurt but look how much time would be saved.

there is a person in my life, who calls with real frequency, and each call will most definitely suck up an hour of my life that i will never get back. and sometimes i do not answer the phone. othertimes, i have an exit strategy before i ever pick up. and sometimes, i just admit to myself that that is part of being and having friends, listening to things you already know or don't care about - because then you get to have that same benefit.

and the older i get, the more i value my women friends because sometimes i have a lot to say and sometimes i just need someone to listen. and nod in sympathy. even if they are not entirely interested or if i keep repeating the same thing. so this civility thing, in the end i think it's worth it. especially when it's my turn.

so anyway, i have nothing more to say to you right now.

goodbye.

found, but never lost

last week while my kids were playing basketball in the driveway, our fat dog started barking ferociously at something so i peeked outside to see what was up. a dog the size of a handbag had wandered up. the kids were thrilled; both dogs, less so.

after much tugging and cajoling, i got our girl inside and we took a look at the little lost guy. he had a tag with a phone number. we called it and got a message. both boys had stars in their eyes like we had just won a prize. i reminded them, someone had lost "ziggy" and was probably looking for him, very worried. we decided to keep him in the backyard, which further infuriated our rosie who was looking on from inside. my youngest looked up at me and said, mom, i think i already love him.

well, love him quick because he will be leaving.

so daddy comes home and he's tired and just wants to eat in peace. but both dogs are barking at each other through glass, homework is all over the table, and we are trying to eat pizza off paper plates with compartments - you know, for vegetables and what-not. both boys are telling him simultaneously about how they found and saved this dog that was surely doomed to die, and the phone is ringing off the hook. it is another day in paradise.

i am already thinking about where we're going to put this dog tonight. because i do not plan to be kept awake with whimpering and barking. i am already planning to call animal control tomorrow. but my husband - he is many steps ahead of me. he's on the internet typing in the woman's name and her phone number. we've got to find her, he says. the dog has got to go.

i quickly tell the boys, from now on let's not save any more dogs. let's just wish them well and say a prayer and send them on their way. because once you let the dog in, it is your problem. you can't then just shove it out the door, or the gate. kind of like people you don't like. once they come in, you're stuck.

so while the kids are talking about where the dog can sleep once it's, you know, living with us, the two adults in the house are becoming more determined to get it gone. and then matthew remembers something. hey, doesn't corie have a dog named ziggy? corie is a friend who lives down the street. we grab the school directory and get the number. the mother's name matches the name that we called, but nothing else is the same.

couldn't hurt to try, right? so i call and ask if they have a dog named ziggy. yes, they do. is he, uh, missing? they go to look. they are gone awhile. and yes, he is missing. they did not even know their dog was missing. but hey, it is their dog.

cue in music: hallelujah! hallelujah!

they come, the dog leaves, it's a happy ending for all. but wow, they did not know he was gone. my husband said, geez, if rosie was gone i'd get to eat a meal in peace. yes, but then it wouldn't be paradise now, would it?