Sixteen Going on Seventeen

I think that the two guys who audibly (and rudely) groaned with C and his friend sat down next to them in the theater tonight owe the boys an apology.
Not only did they sit quietly throughout the three-hour performance, they did not like their row mates, drink bottled water during the show. Behavior I'm sure would have been frowned upon by management.
And holy cow, what a  lot of stalls the new woman's bathroom at Highfield Theater has!

song: Sixteen Going on Seventeen • artist: The Sound of Music

Mr. Spaceman

They scrubbed the space shuttle launch with only T minus three-and-a-half hours to go today. I have to admit to being a little disappointed, the astronauts were already on their way to the launch pad.
Think how disappointed they must have felt.
It must take forever to get into those space suits.

song: Mr. Spaceman • artist: The Byrds

Run Around Sue

Oh, I see how it is, you've got to name names if you want any recognition around here. Okay. Fine. I can do that. I'll bet Sue's still on a sports high. Sue, Sue, Sue, Sue, Sue, Sue, Sue.
And Esther - don't say I didn't warn her about the meat pies. Esther, Esther, Esther, Esther.

song: Run Around Sue • artist: Dion

Living On A Prayer

Every time I looked for Ken to help out at the lodge on Thursday with chores such as stacking firewood and bringing in water he was sleeping on the couch. It was as if he was playing Peter to my Jesus in an impromptu and well-timed staging of the Maundy Thursday garden of Gethsemane scene where Jesus basically calls Peter a lazy arse for not being able to stay awake for an hour.
And in related religious news I give you:

The Jelly Bean Prayer
Red is for the blood he gave.
Green is for the grass he made.
Yellow is for the sun so bright.
Orange is for the edge of night.
Black is for the sins we made.
White is for the grace he gave.
Purple is for his hour of sorrow.
Pink is for our new tomorrow.
A bag full of jelly beans colorful and sweet
Is a prayer, is a promise, is a special treat.

I've heard the one about the origins of the candy cane, and the passion flower, the significance of the poinsettia, and how pretzels are arms folded in prayer; but jelly beans? Hows about a prayer for the avoidance of tooth decay? A prayer for the parents of children revved up on a sugar high? A prayer for the soulful conversion of Devil Dogs?

song: Living on a Prayer • artist: Bon Jovi

Hey Mickey

First N was choosey about his pajamas.
Then N was choosey about his pants and shirts.
Now N is choosey about his diapers.
Mickey Mouse: good, Sesame Street: bad.

song: Hey Mickey • artist: Toni Basil

I Will Wait

Hootennanny: a gathering at which folksingers entertain often with the audience joining in.
We're planning a trip to the AMC Lodge in Western Mass tomorrow and I was on the lodge's website checking it out and obsessing over how many flashlights to bring when I saw they had a link for places to eat. I opened it, because we're only pseudo campers you know, and up came a listing for the Dream Away Lodge in Becket. Along with great food, the Dream Away is famous (at least according to the Appalachian Mountain Club) for its Wednesday night hootenannies.
Hootenanny. What a hilarious word. It might newly rank with Schenectady and Gnip Ganop in terms of my favorite words.
Today I'm working on the calendar of events for the paper's In Season supplement and see this under the listings for Highfield Hall: Hootenanny on the Hill, July 17, 2 to 6 PM.
I am so going.
And yes, there are songs with the word hootenanny in the title (lots of 'em), but I wasn't familiar with any and therefore didn't feel right about using them.

song: I Will Wait • artist: Hootie and the Blowfish

Small Town

Why is there nothing to make one feel more like a townie than taking one's children to the bowling alley?
It was supposed to rain yesterday but didn't until we got home. It wasn't sunny though. If it had been sunny I'd have felt guilty about being inside.
Bowling is one of those sports that most people just do. No one thinks about signing up for a bowling lesson. Who needs a lesson? We all watched bowling on Saturday mornings when we were kids and it came on after the cartoons were over. I watched until I was able to pull myself out of my sugary-cereal-induced coma long enough to get off the shag carpet and turn off the television. Probably because it was a nice day out and watching bowling on a nice day is even more guilt inducing that playing it.
All I can say about playing yesterday is a) thank goodness they put up the gutter bumpers for H 'cause we all benefited from that, b) check out the fancy new computer screens that keep score for you! and c) I think I pulled a groin muscle.

song: Small Town • artist: John Mellencamp

Trouble Me

You want your son to learn to throw trash away by himself instead of handing it to you so you take his hand and lead him to the trash can where he notices, in with the other refuse, an empty granola bar wrapper.
"I want Daddy snack," he says while depositing the wrapper of the band aid he doesn't need, for the boo boo he doesn't have, into the trash.
"I want Daddy snack," he says again, louder, and you ignore him because you're thinking about "If You Give a Pig a Pancake."
If you give a preschooler a band aid, you mutter under your breath, he'll probably want a granola bar.
Then the band aid gets stuck to itself and he cries that he wants another one and you think that maybe it won't be that much trouble to just throw trash away for him, and his twin brother, for the next 16 years.

song: Trouble Me • artist: 10,000 Maniacs

Walk the Line

There is a fine line between people who are boring because they talk only about their children and people who are boring because they talk only about themselves.
Let's all strive to walk it.

song: Walk the Line • artist: Johnny Cash

No Sunlight

Whenever the radio announcer says that there's a gale watch in effect I always think he's saying that there's a whale watch in effect and I wonder who's out looking for whales in weather like this.

song: No Sunlight • artist: Death Cab for Cutie

Crocodile Rock

C threw up at school yesterday and had to miss camp read a lot which very well may have been the greatest disappointment of his life thus far. Even H, who was also sick, was nice to him as he wallowed in the misery of life's unfairness for the rest of the afternoon. Or maybe they were both just too sick to fight.
S accidentally flushed a sock down the toilet. He was pretty upset about it actually.
"Where my sock go?" he fretted.
I was initially horrified that it would instantly clog up our pipes but then remembered how, if urban legend is to be believed, city folks flush alligators down their toilets on a regular basis. Surely a baby alligator is bigger than a single orange-striped Baby Gap sock - ages 24 to 36 months.

song: Crocodile Rock • artist: Elton John

I Alone

How come my kids won't go upstairs alone in their own house with the rest of their family downstairs, but they'll argue to stay behind in the car in a parking lot rather than come into the supermarket with me?

song: I Alone • artist: Live

Downtown

Pickles, cereal, pineapple, a granola bar, and olives - that's what he gets in his lunchbox when his mom has three glasses of wine before packing it.

song: Downtown • artist: Ghandi's Lunchbox

Easy Bake Ovens

The Meringue Debacle (A Tragedy in Two Acts)

Act I: (The Dining Room, St. Patrick's Day) We invited some of Ken's running friends over for dinner. One of the guys, a kid really, 24-year-old Evan, came bearing cloud cookies. The kids devoured them.
"They're so easy to make," he said.

Act II: (The Kitchen, several days later) The twins are engrossed in their favorite mid-morning activity, playing in the bathroom sink and I, looking to distract them, say, "you guys wanna bake some cookies?"
I print out the first meringue cookie that Google provides, and we're off. Ingredients added, I snigger over instructions to whip the batter into "stiff peaks" because that's the kind of immature 43-year-old mother of four that I am, get out the electric mixer, and get to it. Twenty minute later and my peaks are nowhere near stiff, barely aroused is more like it; in fact I ask them what their problem is and first they pretended to be asleep, they they roll over and tell me they are too tired - and - they have a headache.
Disillusioned I consult Google again. This time I find all manner of meringue caveats. Don't make meringue on rainy days (it was raining). Use room temperature eggs (ours were straight out of the fridge). Don't dump all the sugar in at once (I dumped). Make sure no yoke gets mixed in with the egg whites (I let the twins help separate the eggs). Don't let the batter sit for more than five minutes before putting it in the oven (OMG! I've been reading these online instructions for like 15!)
Know how you go to explain something simple to someone and when you're finished you throw in a conciliatory "it ain't rocket science?" It turns out that making meringue IS rocket science and my bachelor's degree is in graphic design.
Lacking an emergency stash of culinary Viagra, and feeling my parenting skills being usurped by a 24-year old bachelor, (good mothers can makes cookies right? especially ones that are mostly air) the question now was whether or not to push on through or to throw the whole thing out and pretend like it never happened.
I put them in the oven, figuring that bad cookies were better than no cookies. They came out flat; as flat as the course of the Nantucket Marathon; as flat as the shoreline at low tide; as flat as my profile in my prom dress.
My kids condescended to eat them anyway but I can tell that they wish Evan was their mother.

song: Easy Bake Ovens • artist: Girlyman

What Kind of Fool (II)

Ken and C put jello in my tea pot!
They are so going to get it.

song: What Kind of Fool • artist: Barbra Striesand