Here And There And All Around The Blogosphere

What a fun day! I watched the kids while my husband worked on the kitchen floor. Nothing like getting a break over the weekend so that I can start fresh on Monday (that's, um, sarcasm, folks, in case you couldn't tell). The children and I played refugee again, eating out and wandering around town in order to stay out of Larry's way. My kids are getting spoiled - "Fries again?" they whine - and I'm gaining (more) weight as a result of our substandard diet. But I refuse to even pretend to start a diet until January - I'm nothing if not realistic. Do you hear me, Sue?

Meanwhile, over at Because I Said So, Dawn is being bombarded with comments to the effect that if you break the rules of the Car Seat Gods by buckling your child into his car seat while he is wearing his coat, you are risking severe injury or even death. Give me a break, people. The kid may move an extra half inch due to the puffiness of the coat, but, compared to how we all were secured in the car in our youth (which is, not at all), I don't think we have a lot to worry about here. Sheesh. Talk about zero tolerance for risk. Next everyone will be saying that we shouldn't let them ride bikes without full body padding. What? No one rides bikes anymore? Oh. How about roller skates? Oh. Those are gone too, huh? Well, what do kids do these days? Video games? Okay, how about carpal tunnel? Is anyone addressing the fact that today's youth is risking a massive epidemic of carpal tunnel? I bet not - everyone's too busy obsessing over what the poor kids are wearing in the car. Ignore them, Dawn - just ignore them.

I know, I know - you all want to hear about Anna. There seem to be a bunch of Anna fans out there, who are reliving their own adolescent angst by reading my posts about my daughter's severe case of teenager-itis. Well, I have cemented my position as meanest mother in the entire world because I refused to run out at 8 PM yesterday evening to find a black shirt for her to wear to a flute choir concert this morning.

I'd like to say in my defense that, when I took her shopping last weekend, I bought her a beautiful teal-colored blouse for this same concert, because everyone was supposed to wear a colorful shirt (colorful, as in "not black"). But the sartorial requirements changed at the last minute; and all the other mothers jumped into the breach, as it were, and went out at the last minute and bought the requisite black bodice. So now Anna can always remember when I said to her, "I'm sure some of the other girls won't have black blouses either, honey." And beat me over the head with it mercilessly.

I'll just take the money I saved on the shirt and put it into her therapy fund.

Anna was also surprised today to hear me say that it is her laundry day. Even though Saturday has been her laundry day for the past 3 years. You would think she'd detect a pattern by now.

Enough! I have other children who still love me. Well, maybe not Theo. He opted to go on a backpacking trip with the Boy Scouts this weekend, even though the weather makes for some fairly cold camping. Apparently he'd rather freeze his a** off than stick around here. I think he's been googling "Foreign Legion," also.

Larry gave up on trying to light the fireplace. We are going to call the people who installed it and pay 80 bucks for them to come here and show us how to do it. And yes, as a matter of fact we do feel stupid. How did you guess?

See all those hyperlinks in this post? Those are for Diesel. I like to make the meaning of my posts accessible to everyone, not just to those loyal readers who check in every day. And Diesel would check in every day, but he's been too busy photoshopping himself into pictures with Nicholas Cage. Check it out.