Dream Police

A Halloween koan:
If my kids are the only ones trick or treating on our street, do I still have to fill a bowl with candy?

song: Dream Police • artist: Cheap Trick

Sooner or Later

Because it's not bad enough that the World Series gets played at the end of October - they have to air commercials about Christmas between pitches.

song: Sooner or Later • artist: The Grass Roots

She's (Shoe's) Come Undone

Low Expectations:
Me: "Your shoe is untied, didn't we double knot it this morning?"
Him: "School's six hours! Knots can't last that long."

song: She's Come Undone • artist: The Guess Who

New World in the Morning

For this weekend's read aloud I thought I'd choose something appropriate to the holiday and so I went with Jean Fritz's "Where Do You Think You're Going Christopher Columbus?" which I read to S & N over the course of two nights.
Having finished it I have to wonder why we continue to celebrate this holiday at all. I mean I guess I always knew that he didn't exactly discover the "new world" since there's that little problem of all the people who already lived there. And I knew he was looking for a trade route to the Indies and that in fact the "new world" was just a little something that got in the way. But I didn't realize what a jerk he was, how bullheaded he was, and basically how deluded he was. Even the book, which is a children's book, couldn't come up with much to say about him that was nice.
In the end one of the twins asked me, "was Christopher Columbus a good guy or a bad guy?" To which I answered, "well, he was certainly ambitious." Which led to the question I knew it would lead to: "what's ambitious?" But at least it got us off the subject of Christopher Columbus.
A quick internet search reveals how other communities have dealt with this most grayish of holidays. In Berkeley California they celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. In South Dakota it's Native American Day. Hawaii has Discover Day. 
Rather than rid ourselves of a long weekend in October, and to avoid me ever again having to explain who Christopher Columbus was to my kids, I propose we rename it as well.
Here in New England we could call it "Apple Picking Weekend," "Leaf Peeping Day" or "Time to Bring the Houseplants Plants Inside Weekend." 
At our house it was "Last Swim of the Season Weekend."

song: New World in the Morning • artist: Roger Whittaker

Dawned on Me

Looks like I inadvertently left some treats in with the Halloween decorations when I stored them in the attic last year. In case you were wondering - yes - mice eat chocolate.
Also, I've given up on trying to decorate separately for Halloween and Thanksgiving. Even with Thanksgiving coming way at the end of November this year, these holidays are too close together.  Just throw all those decorations up at once and get it over with is what I say.

song: Dawned on Me • artist: Wilco

Parenting Is...

thinking that bumper stickers declaring the driver's children have been chosen as "student of the week" are dumb, but secretly wishing that my kids' schools handed them out.

Leave It

If you're ready to leave the hotel 15 minutes before it's actually check out time, it feels like you're not getting your money's worth.

song: Leave It • artist: Yes

You're Not The Boss Of Me

The people who are ranting and raving about not wanting the government to tell them what to do when it comes to healthcare sound like stubborn nine year olds who don't want to wear their winter coats to the bus stop in January. "You can't tell me what to do!" they'll tell their moms all the while shivering in defiance. But actually, I'm guessing the ranters really do have healthcare. Is there anyone out there who's refusing employee-offered health care just to prove a point?

In that case, they are more like suborn nine year olds shouting about how they're not going to wear their coats and nobody can make them - except that they are, in fact, already wearing their coats.

song: You're Not the Boss of Me • artist: Bill Harley

Guess Things Happen That Way

When you're over 40 the card game Concentration could pretty much be renamed Just Guessing.

song: Guess Things Happen That Way • artist: Johnny Cash

You Ain't Going Nowhere

So we can hike in the White Mountains tomorrow because they haven't been shut down (yet), but if we get into trouble on the mountain there won't be any park rangers to bail us out.
Luckily we'll have the Affordable Care Act to take care of our injuries, provided we're able to hobble out of the woods by ourselves.

song: You Ain't Going Nowhere • artist: Bob Dylan

Parenting is ...

learning how to make bracelets out of tiny rubber bands and having a Pete the Cat song stuck in my head.

Time (Clock of the Heart)

 

Check out the never-been-opened, circa 1970 alarm clock I just got at the thrift shop for two dollars! Made in the USA! I looked all summer for an alarm clock that wasn't made in China and didn't suck like the last two I bought at LLBean (sorry LLBean and thanks for the refund). 

This one reminds me of the clock that was in the guest room at my grandmother's house when I was a kid. Words in a blog cannot possibly express how excited I am about this clock. It will make having to wake up at 7AM totally worthwhile.

song: Time (Clock of the Heart) • artist: Culture Club

Don't Fence Me In

Varmints ate my second crops of beets.
When will I learn?
Next year I am going to cover them in fencing. Double fencing.
Eat my chicken wire you rabbits you.

song: Don't Fence Me In • artist: Cole Porter

Be a Dentist

Today we went to the dentist. Not just any dentist though - a pediatric dentist. 
Because H had a cavity, our usual dentist recommended this switch as the environment at the pediatric dentist "might be more relaxing."
How oh how have I survived these eleven years of parenting without experiencing the bliss that is a visit to the pediatric dentist?
The office was like Disney Land with a dental chair in the middle. There were movies playing. And not only were there movies in the waiting room and being screened on the ceiling above the dental chairs, when you're the kid getting the filling, you get to pick the movie (which seems to me like it might lead to kids getting cavities on purpose just to be in control of cinematic selections but I'm sure the dentist knows what he's doing). 
The array of toothpaste flavors was dizzying, bubblegum, strawberry, grape, you name it. Even the laughing gas masks came in a variety of smells. The dentist himself was super animated. If he ever gives up his practice I'm sure they'd be an opening for him on Broadway. He also had the largest smile I'd ever seen. I suspect he was showing off his own teeth and who could blame him - they were dazzling. 
The part I liked best, other than the dentist going over my son's x-rays with me with more clarification than my ob/gyn used to explain my ultrasounds, was that the kids were all handed their prize bags on the way out the door. This eliminated the task of the child having to choose their own prize out of a big basket of assorted prized, which, as any parent will tell you, is an agonizing decision and one that takes roughly twice as long as the visit itself. 
At home H carried the prize bag in from the car himself, without reminder, which sounds mundane but again parents will confirm that it's a near miracle. Despite the fact that settling on a prize at the dentist or doctor's office takes longer than choosing which college to attend, by the time you arrive home, said prizes are usually forgotten about and subsequently left in the back of the car. As a parent I usually hope that my child chose the foam dinosaur over the rubber pop ups because the pop ups are ever so much more likely to clog the vacuum cleaner three months from now during my car's routine cleaning.

song: Be a Dentist • musical: Little Shop of Horrors

Part of Me

It has recently come to my attention that Jaws, the movie that scared the bejeebers out of landlocked and coastal dwellers alike in the summer of 1975, is rated PG.
PG.
That's the same rating as Happy Feet.
Now I know from experience that PG movies in the 1980s and PG movies in 2013 are two different things because I've rented the Goonies and Back to the Future for my kids and heard them say (gleefully) more than once, "hey Mom! Did he just say Xyz?"
But Jaws? I mean wasn't there swearing, and nudity, and body parts? I'm pretty sure I remember swearing, and nudity, and body parts. I know a lot of the scariness in Jaws was implied scariness, which is what made the movie so great; that and a really good soundtrack, but there was some actual scariness too. 
What'd it take to get an R rating back in the 70s? I suppose Apocalypse Now and Taxi Driver were also rated PG?

song: Part of Me • artist: Tedeschi Trucks Band

Just One Look

We went to a cookout last weekend with not one, but two, bouncy houses. One hell of a kids party right? You bet. The only problem was that my kids kept taking off their shoes in order to bounce only to be unable to find them when they were finished bouncing. 
Ken and I spent half the night helping H search for his sneakers (he finally found them) and the other half looking for one of N's brown slip ons (we had to stop back the next morning and find it in the daylight).
It was just like that line from My Fair Lady when Professor Higgins laments spending the evening with a date: "you go to see a play or ballet, and spend it searching for her glove."

song: Just One Look • artist: The Hollies

Still the Same

Separated at birth: Les Nessman, radio newsman known for award-winning farm reports, and Dwight Schrute: beet farmer.

song: Still the Same • artist:

Out of Touch

Sorry, but if Hall and Oates are playing at the Life is Good Festival - that's not going to be good.

song: Out of Touch • artist: Hall and Oates

Loving Cup

So the cup C needed for baseball led to the cracking of a number of jokes and comments on the package's advertising.  I explained what it was to H, but to N and S I just said that it was part of their brother's uniform.
C's team lost the first game of the season 9 to 1. I don't know who got that one run but I know it wasn't C.
"Did you get any hits?"
"Nope."
"Make any plays in the outfield?"
"Nope."
"Make contact with the ball in any way?"
"Nope."
"Guess you didn't really need that cup, huh?"
"Mom. I didn't really need my glove."

song: Loving Cup • artist: Rolling Stones

While You Were Sleeping

Research concludes that lack of sleep accelerates the aging process.
Conversely more sleep can slow down the aging process.
I guess that means that we can live longer if we sleep more; but the downside is that we'll spend those bonus years snoozing.
This research, I suspect, was used by Disney when they came up with the plots for both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

song: While You Were Sleeping • artist: Elvis Perkins