Bus Stop Underwear

Today I just had to write about how much I don't know.  

Why is it, that when I'm freezing my butt off with the heat cranked up in my house, my thirteen-year-old tries to go out with just a thin sweatshirt?  We live in Connecticut, for heaven's sake--it's a million below out there!  

This year, I even relented and bought her a way-overpriced coat from the way-overpriced-shoddy-quality mall store that she loves.  And does she wear it?  It looks really nice on the floor of her bedroom and it matches quite nicely with the arm of our living room couch.  

My friend, Monique has figured it out, though.  She has four kids and she's got it down pat.  Her husband will rush out to the bus stop in his boxers, yelling, "you forgot your coat!!!"  I'm pretty sure their kids wear their coats to bed now. 

I need to go do a load of laundry.  I have to make sure my husband's underwear doesn't have any holes in it.

First Grade Advice for President Obama

Today has been full of hope, excitement, advice and anticipation.  So many offered their predictions for our future.  But no one amidst any of the television or radio coverage of the inauguration offered the solid, practical advice of my first graders.  

 I picked them up early from lunch so they could see the history unfold before their 6-year-old eyes.  President Obama had their complete attention.

"Where is he now?"  someone asked.  

They all leaned forward in their desks, trying to spot him doing something presidential.

One boy said, "I think he's taking a tour.  He has to start work tomorrow so he has to find the front of the building and his office."  

Someone else nodded.  "He's probably finding the lunch room--and the bathroom."

"Yeah, the bathroom."

"Then he's going to that thing like Cinderella's ball."

One of the boys stared really hard at the president and said, "If I was him, I'd go eat in my office."  (Duh!)  Snacks are a big part of a six-year-old's day.  Someone else added, "I'd eat a hot dog and do my job."

Truly, nobody filters out the excess garbage and sums things up like a first grader.  One girl said, "I'd change the rules, eat cake and help the country."  

How old am I, anyway?

When did Molly Ringwald become a TV mom?  It's absolutely impossible.  My daughter was watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager and I saw a very familiar-looking woman playing the mom of one of the main characters.  Her voice was a little lower than I remembered it (more mom-like, I guess).  

I had a brain scramble going on, because Molly needed to be the one playing the main character! (How old was I, anyway??)  Molly is the perpetual angst-ridden, but cute and quirky high school student.  Everyone knows that!  Someone get Andrew McCarthy off of Lipstick Jungle so he can star in the show with her.  

And why is it that so many of the TV moms look like they are my age?  Do I have to stop wearing my Converse hightops?

Maybe I should just get out my old Tiger Beats.  (And yes, Penny, I still have them!)  They arrived in a cardboard box when my dad and stepmother sold our old house.  I'll feel better if I go back in time.  By the way, Tim...I know you have my old Partridge Family albums (along with my Boston.)  Because who else would dare to take them? (and play them...)

  

Killer Playdough

"Playdough can kill you."  She said it calmly, but with a definite air of authority.  "I learned it on the Internet."  That back-up sentence definitely sealed the deal, because the other five-year-olds around her immediately stopped their squashing and shaping.  One boy, in particular, was very alarmed by this new piece of information, because he stopped his little wooden rolling pin mid-roll and moved over to the action figure mat. 

 

I have never understood the gullibility of some people.  Maybe that's why lawyers are rarely out of a job.  My sister-in-law, Terri, says if you say anything with authority, people will automatically believe you.  I hate to get all political, but case-in-point:  the G.W. administration...

When I was a kid, we had a neighbor who got all her news and current event information from a couple of tabloid "newspapers".  She believed these "facts" because they were in print and readily available to the public.  But really, when you think about it, who doesn't want to believe that an 83-year-old man just had triplets or that a cat in a far-away unnamed country can speak fluent French?

Truth is stranger than fiction, right?  (I saw that written somewhere, so it must be true.)  Maybe that's another reason that I write fiction.  I guess I just prefer the mundane...