Love and Marriage

What do you see to the right there? Do you see a toothpaste tube with every last bit of toothpaste squeezed mercilessly from its insides? Or do you wonder why anyone would even dream of throwing out what is obviously a tube of toothpaste with some life left in it?

My friends, on a good day, the lifeless piece of refuse pictured to the right can make me ponder lovingly the endearing foibles of the man I've hitched my life to for eternity. It can remind me of the admirable male strength my husband must possess to be able (for almost 20 years now) to squeeze just a little bit more from a seemingly empty tube of toothpaste.

But on a bad week? That picture is Exhibit A of why half of all marriages end in divorce. I swear, without me around to holler "Nuff" and walk all the way to the linen closet to get a spankin' brand new Colgate, Larry would still be using the tube he started in 1991. What's up with that?

Housewifely Matters

I've spent the better part of my week sewing patches, insignia, etc., on Boy Scout uniforms, a Brownie vest, and Civil Air Patrol BDU's. I'm thinking that I made a mistake not raising my kids to be anarchists.

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You know, sometimes just a little bit of change makes a big difference. Here in our household we are all excited about my new cleaning tool purchase: It's a vacuum! It's a Swiffer! It's both! It's 2 cleaning tools in one!

The kids actually fight over who gets to use it next. My floors have never been so clean. Those are Susie's legs there in the picture - see? So easy, a 4-year-old can do it!

And, yes, it is a little worrisome that I can be so enthused over a household appliance without even being paid to endorse it. Without a doubt, I need to get out more.

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And now, a conundrum that needs solving, folks. The laundry detergent I currently use (the cheapest High Efficiency perfume-free stuff I could find) has a bottle with a maddening design. You know how you pick up the detergent bottle and unscrew the lid so that the spout will be pointing away from the hand holding the bottle?

No? Well, it's true. Go ahead, try it. I'll wait....

See? Well, this particular bottle is driving me crazy, because I cannot tell (when the lid is on) which way the spout will be facing. What's more, every single time I open the bottle, I get it wrong.

Now, how can this be? Every single time? The Law of Averages dictates that I would get it right approximately 50 percent of the time. Every day - 3 times a day - I pick up the bottle, waste time trying to divine where the spout is hidden under that lid.....and I still end up having to turn the darn thing around.

Here - you try. Tell me which side the spout is on. And figure out a good way for me to get it right....

A Toast!

For a long time, we had no toast. That's right - no toaster oven, no pop-up toaster. I guess at first it was a matter of money or an I-don't-have-time-to-clean-one-more-appliance issue; but gradually our toastlessness morphed into a lifestyle - we were toast refuseniks. Oh, there were the times we threw caution to the wind and toasted several pieces of bread at once under the broiler...but days like those were few and far between. My children accepted that their lives included no regular toast.

Then, about 5 years ago, I found a stainless steel 2-slice toaster at the thrift store for 3 dollars. Deciding it was time to rethink my ban on toast and liven up our menu a bit, I took the creature home and stored it in a cabinet, whence we would take it occasionally in an attempt to toast our sandwich bread. This was always a challenging proposition, as our new acquisition was something of an overachiever with apparently only 2 settings - burned and incinerated. What could I expect for 3 bucks, anyway?

Inexplicably, the children loved that toaster. They would frequently beg to use it, but most times I refused - I wouldn't feel up to the whole drama of watching for flames, baking soda at the ready in case the bread didn't pop up in time. The days I gave in to their pleas were almost holiday-like in feel, the children merrily popping slice after slice in the toaster, chopsticks in hand for retrieving the inevitable charred pieces that would remain stuck in the depths of our stainless steel monster.

So earlier this year, having seen one too many blackened slices of bread emerge from the maw of our thrift-store purchase, I took the kids to Kohl's to purchase a real toaster. A Black and Decker 4-slice toaster, my friends, with a special setting for bagels and another special setting for frozen waffles. This baby sports numbered knobs which assign to each pair of toast its own particular level of doneness. And there are 2 removable crumb trays for ease of cleaning. It is a toaster to be proud of; a toaster, in fact, that demands to reside in full view on the kitchen counter.

6 months, people - that's all it took for my formerly unspoiled, grateful-for-burned-bread-once-in-a-blue-moon children to become the pickiest toast eaters of all time. Susie demands toast set no higher than 3. David (conditioned, no doubt, by all those years of overdoneness) needs his set on 6. Brian and Rachel opt for a middling 4. And none of them - none - will tolerate a sandwich served on plain old bread. You know, the soft kind that hasn't been heated, the kind that doesn't crunch?

The last time I tried to skip toasting the bread, they cried.

Why am I telling you this? I don't know. Maybe so that when my children are older, their spouses will understand how important their toasting rituals are to them. Perhaps it will give any unfortunate people who marry into our family a little perspective on how my grown children's toast history may have shaped their warped attitudes toward sandwiches and english muffins. Maybe, just maybe, they will understand how having a cheap (and lazy) mother can turn normal children into toast-deprived maniacs.

Because, really? What we are dealing with here is so not normal...

Happiness

Happiness is setting aside 2 hours to go through our mess of a filing system...thereby serendipitously stumbling upon 120 dollars worth of IKEA refund cards.

Best of all, Larry doesn't know I found them. Mine! All mine!

Also? Having come to the realization that I will not have a working dishwasher anytime soon, I purchased a Michael Graves dish drying rack from Target today. Form and function combined, folks! It is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

7 Quick Takes (Why 7? I Don't Know)

1. Bruce Springsteen turned 60 yesterday. I remember thinking that he was ancient when he turned 35. Let's see...that was back in 1984...I was all of 21 then. We can conclude from this that 21-year-olds are stupid. Or else, it's just me...
   
2. One stinkbug I can handle...but to look at my den wall and discover at least 20 of these lovelies crawling around (with more pouring in the window) is a bit more than I can stand. So I escaped to Starbucks Wednesday night and left Larry home to deal with the invaders. One of the creatures hitchhiked along on my dark-brown sweatshirt and wasn't discovered (by me) until I was inside the store. [insert silent scream here] Apparently, there is no escape.
   
3. Enjoy the picture - misery loves company.
4. My skin is crawling from all that buggy Internet research I just did.
5. Uncle Matt was planning to visit this weekend; that is, until he heard about the headcold we're passing around the house here. Coward.
6. Or maybe he just doesn't like stinkbugs?
7. Thank you to all the commenters who left funny links the other day. I particularly enjoyed the video of the baby tearing paper and laughing. Not least because the dad filming it was exhibiting the distinctively dad behavior of letting the kid bonk his little head on a hard piece of furniture without then relocating the poor child a safe distance away from it. Unlike a mom, say, who would have stopped the camera for a minute and moved the kid to a safer spot. Instead, we're treated to "Ha, ha, ha, BONK!" twice in this short clip. Maybe that's the answer to "What's the sound of a cute little baby laughing his head off?"

Head on over to Conversion Diary for more 7 Quick Takes.  Her #7 today kills me.

A Note From Canada (Plus A Bit of Soapbox)

This comment was left at Margaret and Helen's blog, a blog by 2 old ladies who have been lifelong friends.  The blog itself is...well...indescribable.  Helen, who lives in Texas, is usually the one mouthing off.  If you take offense when people make fun of Rush Limbaugh or the rest of the far right wing of the Republican party (and really, people, where are all the moderate Republicans these days?  Why aren't they telling these death-panel people to sit down and shut up while the rest of us use the brains God gave us to figure out health care?), don't bother visiting.  But really, it's a hoot.

Anyway, the comment was by a Canadian; I thought it was worth sharing.  Sometimes it helps to get an outside perspective on our particular brand of crazy.  Purely anecdotal, of course:

We Canadians aren’t quite sure what to make of the hoopla over healthcare in the US. (Most Americans I meet are boggled that we know so much about American politics, but really, when you share a border with a country that has more Bombs than anyone else on the planet, you tend to pay attention to what they’re doing and what wingnut they’re electing next…. That and we get a lot of American TV.)

The healthcare debate to the south of us is sort of the horrifying hilarity of two minicars full of clowns crashing at high speed. Terrible, but come on, they’re clowns. For us, Universal healthcare is a no-brainer. And it costs us next to nothing in our taxes. I read a study last week that surprised me. I honestly and truly believed that we paid more of our income in taxes than Americans. Turns out we pay approximately 2% more. A lousy two percent more of my income goes to taxes and I never have to worry about losing my house to pay for cancer treatments or heart surgery.

It’s true that the Canadian system is not perfect. I had to wait 11 hours in the emergency room to get my finger fixed after I tripped over a snowbank and dislocated it. That, admittedly, was a bit of a pain (pun intended). But I didn’t have to sell my car to pay for the splint or the 8 weeks of physio therapy required to get it working again. I’m currently 5 months pregnant. I will pay exactly ZERO dollars for my prenatal care from my family doctor (I am lucky enough to have one), my OB-GYN, all the tests and ultrasounds, the actual delivery and my postnatal hospital stay (though my supplemental insurance from work will get me a private room instead of having to hang out on the ward). I will also get a full 12 months guaranteed maternity leave, though I will likely not take all of it myself as my hubbie wants to take some of that leave time. (I get 12 weeks actual maternity leave and the other 9 months is technically parental leave that can be taken by either parent at half-salary — which is again paid for by my measly extra 2% in taxes).

And the thing about death panels is laughable. My 90-year-old granny spent a week in the hospital not long ago with an issue with her gall bladder. Nobody executed her or denied her care to save money. Trust me, Granny Alma is still kickin’ and offering up her opinion about how my sister got married in the church while I got married in the showy splendor of Nature.

Our system is definitely not perfect, far from it, but I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful it is to not have to worry that you or someone you love will die or go bankrupt because of a lack of access to reliable healthcare.

[I'm back.] The Canadian healthcare system is not the only universal healthcare system available in the world.  Neither is the British one.  As T.R.Reid points out in his book The Healing of America, there are many ways in which to reach the goal of affordable healthcare for everyone in our country.  Our job now is to figure out which way to go.  The question is not whether reform is needed; it is how to best accomplish this reform. 

So anyone who wants to say reform is not possible, or that it leads to fascism, or that it would cost too much?  Please educate yourself.  Health care reform is possible.  Japan does it.  France does it.  Germany does it.  Almost every industrialized democracy has it.  We can do it, too.  As far as its costing too much?  It already costs too much.  Many of these costs are hidden in depressed wages, etc.  But that's why we need reform.  All these countries spend less than we do and cover more people.  We look like fools.

I personally don't like career-counseling my teens and telling them, "Make sure you get a job with insurance" rather than "Work hard, follow your dreams, be all you can be."  It seems to me that a free market economy cannot function at its most efficient when talent and skills cannot move to where they need to be because of the fear of losing health insurance.  My neighbor isn't happy that her son and his long-time girlfriend can't get married because the son (who is pursuing a Masters) would lose the health coverage he gets through his mother's job.  Another acquaintance of mine has a 62-year-old brother who needs back surgery.  The longer he waits, the more damage he does to his back.  But if he gets the surgery, he'll miss so much work he'll be laid off.  And then - you guessed it - he'll lose his health insurance.  He's going to turn 65 and go on Medicare a lot sicker than he should be, which of course will cost all of us more money in the long run than if he had gotten proper care when he needed it.

Our system is horribly broken.  It needs fixed.  The solution won't be perfect; nothing in this world is.  But it will be, hopefully, several steps in the right direction.  Remember - you don't really know whether you have adequate medical coverage until you actually need it.  Each one of us is just one step from medical catastrophe.  The house that health care reform saves? It may very well be your own. 

Sick Leave

Ironic, isn't it? A day after reading all those health articles (so you don't have to!), I've come down with something. I wish it had a fancy name (or, wait - maybe I don't); but it's just your garden-variety, lie-around-on-the-couch-and-blow-your-nose type of virus. With a touch of feel-like-crap-and-wonder-if-life-is-worth-living bacteria thrown in for good measure....

Why am I telling you this? Well, if I complain here, Larry doesn't have to hear it. He gets tired of my whining. After 20 years (almost!), I can't say I blame him. Myself, I get tired of how he ruins jokes by explaining them. Ah, marriage - she is beautiful, no?

There's no funny here tonight. And I can't find any funny anywhere else, either. What's up with that? Is there some sort of global humor malaise happening? WHERE ARE ALL THE JOKES, PEOPLE?

I need something to laugh at. Suggestions?

Health News You Shouldn't Read

I don't know how I managed to nurture my hypochondriacal neuroses before the Internet came along. I mean, what's an occasional article in the Readers Digest compared to the plethora of health information now at my fingertips?


First up, this article which mentions a link between depression and Alzheimer's disease. It says, "[P]eople who showed signs of depression before the age of 60 were four times more likely to develop Alzheimer's." In other words, if you are under 60 and depressed? It looks like you actually have something to get depressed about.

Fellow hypochondriacs, it's time to raise our disease alert to orange. Take a gander at this article, will ya? Plague? Did they say "plague"? Is it really a good idea to be messing around with the bubonic plague in laboratories? I mean, scientists are just as up for a good practical joke as the next person, you know.

Oh, and heart patients? Try not to get stressed about this, okay? Just think, if you come down with the flu, not only will you feel like death warmed over, but you'll also be able to lie there wondering if a heart attack is imminent. Are your lungs hurting from coughing or is that pain from an incipient myocardial infarction? You just don't know!

I research these things so you don't have to. And yes, I totally want to get that book pictured up there. I can even get it delivered by Wednesday if I'm in a hurry. Where's my credit card, anyway? Did Larry hide it again?

Knitting! Humor! Parenting! (Three Posts In One!)

Try the Figure 8 cast-on, my knitting friends said. It's easy! Anyone can do it! Knitting naif that I am, I trusted them.

See that eensy-teensy bit of knitting up there? That's 2 hours of my time. And a lot of tears. And a few curse words thrown in for good measure. But I conquered. And now I know that next time I experiment with a new knitting technique, I'll try it on something larger than size 0 needles. Because my eyes, they are permanently crossed.

I also cleaned the bathroom. A banner day, I tell you...

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I just spent 20 minutes writing what I thought was an amusing riff on this article here. I had penned a few jocular paragraphs along the lines of how my hypochondriacal self has yet another thing to worry about, etc, when Larry took it upon himself to inform me that the subject of surgical patients catching fire? It is not humor material.

So, forget it. I'm obviously a sick, sick person to have thought there was a joke in there somewhere.

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I'm generally a live-and-let-live sort of person, the type that believes that how you raise your kids is your business, so long as it works for you and your family. But, folks? Bringing your 5-year-old kids to Starbucks at 9:30 at night? That's dumb. And annoying. Even if you aren't reading them Berenstain Bears books....

7 Quick Takes

1. You know, every single week I'm pleased with myself for getting that logo up there.
   
2. Lord help me, Susie is begging for help with her Hello, Kitty jigsaw puzzle. Where is that federally-funded preschool when I need it?
   
3. David is making apple dumplings in the kitchen. I love David.
   
4. A friend of mine who is a dean at a large university posted on Facebook,
   

   Either there is a hooker convention going on around here or I am behind the times with the fashion.

5. He obviously never reads my blog.
6. I had to split #4 into #4 and #5 because I can't figure out how to hit the return/enter key without making a new number. I am in over my head with this automatic Blogger list thingamabob.
7. I cut my thumb slicing onions (or, I sliced my thumb cutting onions - take your pick) yesterday, rendering myself unable to do dishes until the wound heals. Larry gets to do them instead. I predict a working dishwasher in my very near future...

Go to Conversion Diary for others' 7 Quick Takes...they'll hopefully be more enlightening than mine ever are. Also, you can leave a comment and tell Jen how you feel about Trucknutz!

Feeling Flush

I hate to do this, but...

Columbus, Ohio?

And Clemson, SC?

You should out yourselves, okay? I know some people don't like to comment, and I understand that (well, not really, but I accept that).

But if you're going to read, repeatedly, 20 or more pages at a time, a simple "Hi, I'm not a plagiarist" would be reassuring. Because if anyone is going to be interviewed on The Daily Show about kids, and vomit, and mice? It had better be me.

Just a little fantasy of mine...

Anyway, I've already hit the big time, as evidenced by my first check from Blogher. Are you ready?

39 dollars, people.

No! Make that 39 dollars and 18 cents. For two months.

Yes, I've whored my blog out for 20 bucks a month. I have no pride. Because Jon Stewart never calls, darn him....

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That's it for today - I need to go yarn-shopping with my newly-acquired funds before Larry makes me use the moolah on something sensible like an IRA. What use is retirement if I have not first amassed an adequate yarn stash to see me through my golden years?

[ Granny picture lifted from auto-blog. The accompanying story (titled "Tire-slashing Granny Ordered To Knit...") is a must-read for any of you who may be contemplating illegal acts of vengeance.]

Whine Night

One hundred and seventy-five people read yesterday's post, and not one of you could bother to tell me there was a typo in the first line? What's up with that?

The cicadas here are so deafening, I can't even think. I lost at Bunko tonight. I have to get up at o'dark thirty tomorrow to take a child to a doctor's appointment. I've gained weight from all the dairy we're eating since Theo left home. I collapsed in bed at 1:30 this morning, only to be woken up half an hour later by Rachel (she had a headache). Anna has a Facebook friend I don't like the looks of. My house is a mess. Susie peed on the floor twice today. Young moms in their 20's and 30's look at me as though I'm a sour old hag. Maybe I am a sour old hag. I have to file self-employment taxes by tomorrow. My dishwasher's still broken.

The weather's been pretty nice, though.

[Feel free to add your whine in the comments. Misery loves company.]

Box Lunches

Today I present to you a NY Times article about Bento lunchboxes that raises the bar on mothering. Check it out:

With cookie cutters Ms. Chen makes her daughter star-shaped vegetables; and with decorative skewers, a plastic top hat and pieces of nori (dried seaweed), cherry tomatoes become smiley faced, mustachioed creatures.

What I resent about this article (aside from its making me look like a complete slacker, lunch-wise) is the implication that a meal needs to be cute in order to be palatable to our precious offspring. Listen:

“I have to make her food look like something she recognizes,” said Ms. Chen, 42, a stay-at-home mother in San Leandro, Calif. “If her boiled egg is shaped like a bunny and it is holding a baby carrot, she’ll eat it.”

I don't know about you, but trying to even imagine a "boiled egg...shaped like a bunny" makes my brain feel weird. Explain this to me, will ya? Her child recognizes a bunny, but not an egg? Could that be, perhaps, because her mother keeps dressing the egg up as something else? And why will this kid not eat an egg but happily consume a poor, defenseless bunny? Does anyone understand the above statement? Because I am getting confused.

Some bits of advice, then, born of my many years experience in the feeding of offspring (sometimes successfully, sometimes not):

If your child doesn't eat her lunch, that means she isn't hungry.

Believe me, hungry children do not need bunny-shaped comestibles; personally, I would just take the egg and douse it in ketchup . Also,

Spoiling your son with elaborately constructed meals to appeal to his fussy palate will earn you no points with your future daughter-in-law.

Picture it - 20 years from now, some sweet girl who was raised in a semi-normal fashion will place a plate with a sandwich and some potato chips in front of her husband (your son) and hear: "That's not how Mom used to do it." I mean, you do want to see your grandchildren, don't you? Finally,

The more you slice it, or present it, or cook it, the less your child will appreciate it.

I have cooked an uncountable number of meals for my children, pouring my heart and soul into the preparation of the food that will go to nourish their bodies. Their favorite meal, however? IKEA's frozen meatballs (heated up, of course) on a heaping bed of boiled spaghetti, covered with canned tomato sauce (but I bet ketchup would do in a pinch). That, my friends, will be what they fondly remember as Mom's "cooking."

I beg you, do not fall prey to this Bento fad. Myself, I'm too busy yelling at my children in public restrooms and photographing the contents of my refrigerator to have time to indulge in this particular culinary hobby. So you know you can count on me to resist the peer pressure to cute-sify my children's meals. But can the under-achieving mothers of America count on you? Will you help us keep the world safe for boring lunches?

Remember, if you Bento - the luncheonistas (and their adorable rice pandas) win.

[photo lifted from farm3.static.flickr.com]

9/11

One woman's memories of 9/11/2001




[Flight 93 Memorial photo: The Age.com]

Lowering The Bar

You know, I always wondered at my friends who complained about their kids' needing to poop in public restrooms (particularly restaurants - blecch). Imagine - I had made it through 17 and a half years of motherhood and not once had one of my children demanded to do #2 while we were out.

But my lucky streak ended last month. No fewer than 3 times in August, my Rachel insisted I escort her to a restaurant bathroom for serious business. Let me tell you, something about that experience does a number on one's appetite. The third time this happened, I was completely undone. All the way to the restroom and into the stall, I berated the poor child: "What's wrong with you? Why would you want to do this here? Can't you wait 'til we get home? No one else did this..." and on and on and on.

Look - I'm just reporting the facts. I'm not proud of my behavior, all right? And the person in the next stall looked singularly unimpressed with my parenting style when she emerged to find me hissing through Rachel's closed stall door, "Hurry up! This is making me sick!"

Just lowering the bar for the rest of you parents out there...and for you non-parents who stumbled on this post, I'm sorry. Consider it a cautionary tale.

Picture Imperfect

To the person who got to my blog by Googling, "houseguest had head lice"? I am so, so sorry. I would advise a flamethrower in the guest room. But I'm neurotic like that.

Yesterday Larry and I decided to invite some friends over to celebrate Labor Day - you know, just a last-minute, throw a few extra hotdogs and burgers on the grill kind of thing...

When will we ever learn? After blithely issuing the invitation, we realized that we had to clean up this dump we call home if we were going to allow people (with a crawling baby) inside it. I'm exhausted. And I can't help but wonder why we had been living with various colored buttons strewn all over the dining room floor. I mean, it's not as if I were actually sewing them onto the Baby Surprise Jacket I finished last month. That would make too much sense.

The upside, though (and there always is one, isn't there?), is that this morning I was surprised to find an (almost) clutter-free living area awaiting me. I'm not used to that. And - even better - Larry and I have gotten one step closer to hanging pictures of our precious offspring on the walls of our home.

You see, many moons ago I bought 3 frames at Michael's - and each one holds 3 5x7 photos. Normal people would have put some photos in them and then hung them up.

We are so not normal.

What with selecting the right photos from the 17 trillion I have online at KodakGallery, and ordering them, and figuring out how to put them in the frames so they're not crooked, this particular project has stretched out to well over a year. In between each of these steps I would lose the frames and forget about the project entirely.

I told you - not normal....

So it came to pass that during our cleaning frenzy yesterday, I found the frames - complete with pictures - on top of our dining room hutch. Oh, it was a joyous reunion, I tell you! I begged Larry to hang the pictures up, quickly, before they disappeared again.

Alas! It was not to be...as of this writing, there is one frame propped on the fireplace mantel in our den; and the other two are nowhere to be seen. It's almost uncanny.

Is there a religion where one is not allowed to hang up pictures of people in the home? I'm thinking we need to convert.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Another news article about brothers and sisters, but this one seems to tell the truth:

Sibling quarrels are a fact of family life. On average, young siblings argue or fight 3.5 times an hour, which adds up to ten minutes of every hour.

So, Siblings Without Rivalry? Dream on! Don't waste your money on books telling you how to fix an unfixable problem - spend it on earplugs instead.

7 Quick Takes

1. Every week, I mean to jot down bits and pieces of the ideas that go through my head and then just slap them on here for 7 Quick Takes Friday. And every week I forget.
2. Last night I dreamed that 12-year-old David was determined to donate a kidney to his biology teacher. Larry and I were unanimous in telling him that he couldn't do so, but we worried that David would sneak out and donate the kidney anyway. David was irate. He said that health care reform would ration kidneys and his teacher wouldn't get one. I explained to him that kidneys are already rationed. Then I woke up. Do you think perhaps I'm following the health care debate a bit too closely?
3. David doesn't even have a biology teacher. He's homeschooled.
4. I also dreamed that some friends of ours were living in our basement and they insisted on putting some of their furniture in our living room. Their furniture was ugly, and I couldn't figure out how to tell them that I didn't want it there. With all these problems that crop up in my dream world, it's no wonder I never feel rested in the morning.
   
5. I'm trying to decide whether Anna would look better in a Coast Guard uniform or a Marine Corps one. I think the military recruiting websites should have virtual models. For the girls, it's all about fashion.
   
6. We had to sign some ROTC paperwork for Theo yesterday, as he is not yet 18. So we actually got to see him (oh, happy day!), and he looks the same - no tattoos, no body piercings - just...the same. I don't know, I thought something would be different. I mean, he's lived on his own 2 whole weeks.
7. Oh, but he did get a great (military-style) haircut - Go, Army!
8. I don't know where the "8" came from, but I can't get rid of it.
   

Nothing...I've Got Nothing...

An elderly neighbor commented to me that, 50 years ago, if she had asked someone when an African-American could become president of the USA, he would have answered, "When pigs fly." So she thought it was interesting that President Obama was inaugurated this past January, and a month later.....

SWINE FLU!

Or had you heard that one already? I always seem to be the last to hear a joke.

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There seems to be a bit of a dust-up in yesterday's comments over whether applesauce can truly be considered a condiment. Heather T argues that, if a food can be eaten alone, it doesn't qualify. I maintain that, if a food can be used as a condiment (my kids put it on pancakes), then it is a condiment. Like a word can be both a noun and a verb....

There also seems to be a fifty-fifty split on the topic of yellow mustard. One of my Catholic friends tried to disprove my Gentile yellow mustard theory by claiming that, while she prefers brown, her Jewish husband only likes the yellow stuff. Tell me - is it my fault he's an apostate and she's confused? No!

She agrees with me, however, that applesauce is a condiment; so I'll forgive her trying to upend my hypothesis. Besides, she's the one who inspired the fridge posts in the first place; so I think we all owe her a debt of gratitude.

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So! Is it too obvious that I have nothing to write about tonight? It's just that I have no choice but to sit here and blog while I wait for David to finish up at his Civil Air Patrol meeting. It's a rough life, I know - the sacrifices we make for our children!

You see, David loves Civil Air Patrol. It's filled with kids just like him - obsessed with airplanes and aeronautics, titillated by every bit of news from or about the International Space Station, up-to-date on the smallest details of what NASA is doing lately. They are his people.

Wait - was I supposed to say "They are his peeps?" But "peeps" doesn't seem to describe straight-laced future aerospace engineers, does it? Could someone help me out here? Up until last week, I thought "peeps" referred to yellow and pink marshmallow chicks.

But, hey - at least I know a condiment when I see one...