Amy's Space: It's Like Therapy Without the Hefty Price Tag

The Happiest &^$*ing Place on Earth

2011-02-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

We just returned from a four-day Disneyland extravaganza. I know, that sounds like a good thing, but in reality, we managed to traumatize two of our children within the first twenty minutes of being in the park, and they didn't recover until the very last day of our trip.

For those of you who have never experienced the kind of lapse in judgment that allows you to justify spending loads of money for the purposes of hopefully seeing a giant mouse in person, let me tell you a little about Disneyland. Disneyland is a wonderful place, full of happiness, and fairies, and fun themed rides which seem like a really good idea when you are waiting in the giant rat mazes for your turn, but which actually contain all of the elements needed to cause your small children to need therapy for the rest of their lives. For example, Matt and I entered the Happiest Place on Earth with our three children in tow, and headed straight for Space Mountain. We spent the next fifteen minutes talking up the kids about how much fun they were going to have, and that it would be just like riding a rocket into space.

I'm surprised Child Protective Services weren't waiting at the ride exit so they could remove our two weeping children directly from our evil clutches and place them with more appropriate parents, such as Charles Manson or Britney Spears. Of course, Maggie loved it, because she's adventurous and not afraid of space monsters or the dark. Luke and Ella, on the other hand, had experienced every phobia-inducing thing possible in the space of two minutes. Finally, after three days of trying to talk them down off a ledge every time we tried to take them on a ride, they gave in and went with us on Pirates of the Caribbean, which they both loved, and the Haunted Mansion which Ella loved but during which Luke never once opened his eyes.

So, as the seasoned Disney traveller that I am, I offer up my top tips for travelling to the Happiest Place on Earth and returning with as much money and as many of your children as possible.

Tip #1: Start Small.

If you have small children, it's best to ease them into the whole Disney Experience. Sure, on the outside it's all colorful and happy and whimsical, but lurking behind that polished exterior is a seedy underworld of terror-inducing items such as Yetis and bats and giant snakes and falling rocks and annoying singing dolls who bear a striking resemblance to Chucky. Instead of heading straight for the Space Mountain of Fear, you may instead want to opt for something more calming, like unanesthetized fingernail removal or It's A Small World. After you have gone on several of the inane rides in Fantasyland such as Pinocchio's Journey, Snow White's Journey, Peter Pan's Journey, and That Caterpillar from Some Movie I Forget Right Now's Journey, you can amp it up a little bit and head for the really fun stuff that will cause you to wonder why you ever thought strapping yourself to a roller coaster car operated by a guy in leiderhosen was a good idea.

Tip #2: Bring Lots of Money.

Lets face it, folks...all of that Officially Licensed Happiness (TM) isn't free. In fact, Disneyland is like the grocery checkout aisle on steroids: every ride you go on ends with a fun-filled walk through a themed gift shop that contains the one perfect thing that your child has to have or they will spend the rest of their existence in a grief-induced state of catatonia. In what I thought was a flash of brilliance not seen since Einstein wrote his Theory of Relativity, I informed the children immediately upon landing in California that they would not be allowed to purchase any souvenirs until we were ready to leave Disneyland on the last day. That way, I argued, they could peruse all that the marketing geniuses had to offer and they wouldn't find something else to purchase five seconds after they bought, wore and destroyed whatever souvenir they felt they couldn't live without. This had the effect of limiting the instances of pleading for items to the minimum allowed by Disney Law, which is 15 per child, per day, not including pleading for cotton candy or churros.

Food is also expensive. My husband made a good observation, for which I will give him credit to get him off my back about me always having to be right. When you are in, near, or within 50 miles of Disneyland, it is impossible to feed a family of 5 for less than $50. Impossible. Pizza in Downtown Disney? $75.00. McDonalds "Extra Value Meals?" $50.00. Mouse-shaped ice cream bars and frozen bananas on sticks? AT LEAST $50.00. Sure, we had all of these plans to save money...we agreed to never eat in the park because eating in the park is for dummies and we are seasoned non-dummy travelers who would never succumb to paying $10 for an officially licensed corn dog just to get the kids to shut up. But no matter where we ate, it was at least $50, especially if I needed a glass of wine for medicinal purposes, which of course I did. Which brings me to my next tip.

Tip #3: Millie's Restaurant Sucks Hairy Man Parts.

For those of you who have never had the extreme intestinal discomfort-inducing misfortune of dining at Millie's, let me give you an overview. Millie's is a "classic American restaurant" conveniently located about a block from the main gate of Disneyland. It's cute from the outside, and looks as if you could at least enjoy a comfortably mediocre meal for $50, which is what I promise you would spend even if you were eating a meal composed mainly of the sauce packets at Taco Bell.

Looks are deceiving. In fact, Millie's is like the angler fish of restaurants: they lure you in with the homey decor, and proceed to feed you food of such epic badness that it defies all culinary rules and the laws of physics. For example, my breakfast was simultaneously burned to a crisp and cold, and portions of it still appeared to be raw. Matt's breakfast was the consistency of wallpaper paste but not nearly as appealing. Luke declared it to be the worst food he's ever had, and this is coming from a boy who routinely dines on candy he finds on the floor and Pillsbury Toaster Scrambles for breakfast and says they are the BEST things he's ever eaten. I actually began to feel the moral obligation to stand outside of Millie's Kitchen of Hell and warn prospective patrons that they would be better off eating selections from the dumpster behind McDonald's.

But, we restrained ourselves so we could return to the Happiest Place on Earth to procure several thousand dollars worth of souvenirs that the children will forget about when we return home. Matt declared that Millie's was the best $50 he ever spent. I'm pretty sure he was kidding.

Tip #4: Avoid Disney Hotels.

I'm not saying this because they are horribly over-priced and not worth it...I'm saying this because if you go into one, you will immediately experience extreme room-envy and the perfectly fine hotel room you rented for quite a bit less money will now begin to seem like the honeymoon suite at a roach motel where they rent you sheets by the hour. My brother-in-law secured a suite at the Grand Californian, which is the mother of all Disney hotels, and the children got to spend the night with him. I'm surprised they came back to stay with us at all, especially after the Space Mountain Incident. The Grand Californian is beautiful and stunning and full of Disney themed whimsy and I got the distinct impression that they had secret wallet-scanning devices implanted in the decorative plants to determine whether you could, in fact, afford to be in the lobby.

But really, we enjoyed our off-site hotel, especially since it allowed us to save several hundred dollars that we could use to buy food, which turns out to be the most expensive thing you will purchase at Disneyland, except possibly for those pictures they take of you when you are concluding your ride experiences and where the G-forces cause your face look as if you are being actively launched into space. In fact, my children were so enthralled by the pirate-themed spray park at our hotel that they kept asking to go swimming instead of going to Disneyland. Perhaps next time we'll just go stay near Disneyland and swim and watch the fireworks over the giant wall o' Happiness thus saving the $1000 in park-hopper passes so we can afford to eat dinner.

Tip #5: Go in the Winter.

If you're like me, you have a reaction to being in large crowds that causes you to want to punch people you don't even know, especially if they walk on the wrong side of the street and bump into you a lot. Unfortunately, this behavior is not looked upon with favor at most of your major attractions, so you have to either learn to control yourself or go to those attractions during times when your typical Disneyland patron is doing more important things, like working or attending school. So, you should really aim for heading to Disneyland during the hours of 9 a.m to 3 p.m. on a Tuesday in the middle of January, as long as there's a full moon and it's raining. Really, that's about the only time you'll be able to go to Disneyland and not have half of Southern California standing in line in front of you, waiting for the opportunity to terrorize their children on Space Mountain. I also heard that Superbowl Sunday is a good time to go, since most of the nation will be at home watching Superbowl commercials and enjoying the game in the form of drinking beer and eating vile chili-cheese dip made with Velveeta.

If you attend Disney's California Adventure during one of the other, less desirable times, you can make your experience better by sending your kids in by themselves to wait in line while you excuse yourself to another sector of the park where you can drink $11.50 Disney themed cocktails in peace like civilized people. Then, when the time is right, push your way through the thousands of people who have since lined up behind your children so that you can join them on the ride. At least, that's what I saw a lot of parents doing while I was standing in line with my children like a good parent.

So, there you have it. My top five tips for travelling to Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth, a place where, if you wish upon an official Disney-licensed Star (Patent Pending) your dreams really do come true.

Put the pedal to the metal

2010-03-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

I have several friends who are embarking on an entirely new phase of their lives; one fraught with emotion, terror and even peril. Almost everyone I know, save a few, have had to reconsider their lives, make significant changes, and bite the bullet even though they are scared to death.

No, I'm not talking about getting divorced. I'm talking about their kids getting drivers' licenses.

Most of these friends have made sure that when their child turns 16, there is a car available for them to drive to school, drive to the store, and drive them home when they have too much to drink at my house. Unfortunately, several of these cars have since been wrecked. I, on the other hand, didn't have my own car until I was 23, and that was a present from my parents after my college graduation. When I turned 16, my parents gave me a sewing machine, presumably on the theory that it had a pedal just like a car, but cost less to insure. This was just one of the many reasons I was vastly unpopular in high school.

Now a days, it seems like everyone in high school over the age of 16 has a car. I suppose this is why I think kids today are too soft. Whatever happened to riding the bus? I grew up having to wait at the end of Eastwood Court, braving the sub-zero temperatures with my legs encased in hideous acid-wash jeans, my bubble-gum pink lips freezing to my braces, trying desperately to avoid any moose-related encounters. You can imagine that I was pretty keen on learning to drive. I begged my parents to teach me to drive. My dad successfully avoided teaching me for several months, based on the lame excuse that the roads were covered in ice and snow and it was going to be at least four months until break-up, which was the Alaskan word for springtime. I eventually pointed out in June that all of the ice was off the roads, and had been for a couple of months. I also mentioned that, despite his concerns, a freak summer snow storm hadn't happened in recorded history in Anchorage. So, my dad gathered all his available courage and took me out in his brown Chevy sedan.

Learning to drive the Chevy was a very difficult task, mainly due to a surprise mystery feature of being required to turn the steering wheel at least five full rotations before the steering column would engage. It was like a scene out of one of those terrible police-oriented TV shows where the driver moves the steering wheel back and forth like a maniac but the car doesn't actually swerve. You just never knew when the car would suddenly catch up with the steering wheel, which caused me some concern.

When my father and I would go out for a leisurely driving lesson, he calmly reminded me of various driving hazards while gripping the door handle with such ferocity that he left permanent hand prints in the pleather. I was a timid driver, and my ultimate driving challenge was making a left turn across two lanes of traffic so that I could go to the local mall to purchase more hideous acid-wash jeans and watch movies featuring Tom Cruise in his cool phase before he went Scientologist and started jumping on couches. I would wait in the middle lane, patiently looking for my opportunity to turn, namely, that moment when there was no visible traffic approaching me within four miles, and which rarely happens during the daylight hours. While I was waiting for my chance, other less cautious drivers would begin to accumulate behind me, and my father, in an effort to be helpful, would gently encourage me to apply my foot to the gas in the form of yelling "GO GO GO GO" at the top of his lungs. Of course I immediately closed my eyes and obliged, blindly spinning the steering wheel and accelerating from 0 to 60 in 1.3 seconds, which was unwise inasmuch as the parking lot had a speed limit of 15 miles per hour.

My mother, God love her, was not any better of a teacher. She spent the entire time I was driving pointing out the window and saying "Curb. Curb. Stop sign. Curb. Pedestrian. Moose," in a calm voice. Also, she was a speed Nazi. If I went half a mile an hour over the speed limit, she'd yell at me. This is somewhat ironic since my father has had to activate the speed alarm on moms BMW in order to prevent her from getting so many speeding tickets that they'll stop fining her and send her straight to the electric chair. But back then, she was a real stickler for the speed limit, and to this day whenever I drive anywhere with her I watch my speed, lest she take away my driving privileges for good.

Finally, I was initiated into the mysterious world of parallel parking. In order to pass my driving test, I had three chances to parallel park the car. So, my dad went out and put a couple of obstacles in the road a car length apart and tried to show me how to wedge the car between them, in an apparent violation of the laws of physics. I carefully pulled up along side the first obstacle, which I think was a trash can, put on my blinker to alert traffic that I was parking, and then began turning the wheel frantically, hoping the car would turn eventually. I then carefully applied my foot to the accelerator, and proceeded to slowly drive over the top of and crush the rear trash can while taking out the front trash can with the bumper of the car.

After approximately 426,330 repeated attempts, I finally managed to park the car without further damaging my fathers trash cans. I was ready. Once my parents decided that I had all the training I was going to get, they took me down to the DMV and I took my road test. I had been preparing for this one moment for the past three years of my life, and I passed with flying colors. It only took me two tries to parallel park, and I didn't injure any pedestrians.

Unfortunately, my excitement was short lived, since I didn't have a car and couldn't very well drive my sewing machine to school. I bargained with my parents to let me drive to school on the occasional Friday, as long as there was not a full moon and the Friday occurred in a month that didn't end in an R. Even after we moved to Oregon, which didn't involve driving in ice and snow, I still didn't have a car. I upgraded my sewing machine to a bike, and rode to my college classes daily through wind, sleet and rain. Only when my brother joined me at Oregon State did I finally have access to a car, which my brother and I fought over incessantly and which I still think proves that he is mom and dad's favorite.

So, once again, my children are probably doomed to not have a car of their own, simply because I didn't have one, dammit. I'm really starting to sound like my father, who used to tell us the age-old story about having to walk to school uphill both ways, barefoot, in the snow, with only his three-ring binder to fight off the pack of wolves which trailed him. But, I suppose sounding like my parents isn't all bad. And, it will save me a lot on insurance.

Road Trip

2009-10-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

I've been travelling to Portland a lot recently. The trip from Coquille to Portland takes approximately four and a half hours, unless you follow the speed limit exactly, which I do as far as everyone reading this is concerned. There's nothing like travelling in a car for extended periods of time with your children to really make you think about why you have children. In addition, we live in an age where children seem to need continuous electronic stimulation, which would be fine if said stimulation could include shock collars, which, according to my lawyer, it can not. Instead, children need continuous electronic video stimulation, in the form of handheld video games, DVD movies and episodes of inane cartoons that are not nearly as good as the cartoons we used to watch. Kids, of course, supplement the electronics with various irritation-stimulating activities, such as staring at each other for the express purpose of annoyance, attempting to NOT touch each other (as in, "MOM! SHE'S NOT TOUCHING MEEEEE!" while the offending child is, in fact, so close that scientific instruments would be necessary to measure the distance between finger and face) and playing the ever-popular "copy your sister" game.

During my last car trip, which was the second consecutive trip I had to take WITHOUT my husband, who was off in places like Rhode Island and Portland "working," and for which I will forgive him eventually, I started thinking about how we used to travel when I was a child. We did a lot of car travelling when I was a kid. You see, I grew up in Alaska. Alaska is a large state where places of interest are often separated by vast sectors of tundra, which is an extremely boring form of scenery, and your typical car trip to go camping could take upwards of 6 hours if the car didn't break down or you weren't slowed by a herd of moose obstructing the highway.

For example, my family, in an attempt to experience the miracle of nature, would routinely travel to a location called the Tangle Lakes. According to the modern miracle that is MapQuest, this trip should take about five and a half hours. In practice, however, it takes much, MUCH longer. First of all, we were travelling in an International Scout with a travel trailer attached to it which weighed significantly more than your modern travel trailer, which meant that we weren't exactly speeding down the highway. Also, our progress was impeded by potholes the size of water buffaloes. Finally, my mother would helpfully read the Milepost guide, which is a travel guide which only true Alaskans know how to read because it is written in code presumably so that non-Alaskans can't stumble upon oil fields or something. She would tell my father where various points of interest were along the way ("Look honey! A tundra museum at milepost 265!"). This would prompt my brother and I to whine about stopping at these points of interest because we needed to stretch our legs, go to the bathroom, eat and explore opportunities to irritate each other outside of the car, so that what should have taken five and a half hours ended up taking about nine hours.

Granted, we were measuring our trip in Kid Time, which is an extremely boring form of time. Back in the late 70's and early 80's, we didn't have portable dvd players, hand held video games and iPods. Most of our electronic devices weighed almost as much as Orson Welles and were not at all portable. The only portable device we had was a transistor radio, which was unhelpful inasmuch as it only had one earphone and it stopped receiving signals just outside of Anchorage. Therefore, my brother and I were forced to look out the windows, read books and listen to extremely non-cool music such as Anne Murray and Helen Reddy which my father taped from his extensive collection of sleep-inducing albums which we were never allowed to touch, presumably because he knew we would scratch them on purpose if given the opportunity.

After approximately 10 minutes of actual time (equalling seven and a half hours of Kid Time) we grew tired of reading and looking out windows, and instead resorted to pestering each other for the remaining trip, pausing only to pester our parents for food and water, which they were probably withholding in an attempt to weaken us in the hopes that we would become unable to move or speak.

It's good to know that almost nothing has changed in the last 30 years. Now, instead of being forced to look out the windows, read books and listen to Anne Murray, I force my children to look out the windows, read books and listen to 80's music. The view from our van windows on I-5 is no more exciting than the view I had in the International Scout; it's just less moose-intensive. And while I do allow the younger kids to play educational games on their Leapsters and Maggie to play extraordinarily non-educational games on her Nintendo DS, I've stopped bringing the DVD players because the bulk of our four hour drive to Portland would be spent arguing about who got to pick the movie. Also, I grew alarmed when my kids started measuring time in the number of SpongeBobs it took to get to where we were going:

Kids: MOM! Are we there yet?
Me: We're on the freeway. We're surrounded by fields. Does it look like we're there?
Kids: How many more SpongeBobs til' we're there?
Me: 15.
Kids: (after one SpongeBob) MOM! Are we there now?

So now, rather than allowing my children to watch videos, I instead spend the entire trip ranting about how I used to have to spend all my available vacation time listening to worse music than I am forcing on them and that they are lucky that they can play video games because all I ever got to do was look out the window and if they don't stop not touching each other I might have to pull the car over and give their video games away to the first person I see on the street. When my husband is in the car, I have backup; backup capable of launching himself from the front seat of the van all the way to the back seat in two seconds flat without touching the middle seat at all, and inserting himself between Luke and Maggie who at this point are too stunned to continue whining or almost not touching each other. When I'm on my own, however, all I can do is issue empty threats from afar. I realize that I'm making this much harder on myself than I need to, but I'm going to fall back on the time-honored tradition of forcing my children to be miserable because it builds character.

So, in about two weeks I will once again be making a trip to Portland, and once again my husband will be "working," this time in San Diego, for which I plan to forgive him eventually. I'm starting to think he's planning these trips on purpose. And my children, despite my many attempts to explain how good they have it, will begin asking if we are there yet 30 seconds after getting in the car.

I can't wait.

This won't hurt a bit

2009-06-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

If the U.S. Government is looking for new methods of extracting information from terrorists now that Nancy Pelosi has expressed her concerns over waterboarding, they should consider threatening the suspects with being sent to their class reunions.

I'm fairly certain we could obtain all sorts of valuable intelligence, based on my reaction to the thought of my own class reunion. Let me first say that I am voluntarily subjecting myself to this event, and I would be happy to gather data for the government in exchange for being allowed to deduct all trip-related expenses from my tax return this year. I will be sure to collect all necessary receipts and submit them along with whatever form the IRS requires in such a situation. I should probably call Tim Geithner for some guidance on the subject.

I remember high school as being the most traumatic experience of my life. I did not enjoy high school, which makes me wonder why I want to go to my reunion at all. Why am I willing to fork over large amounts of money for a trip which instills fears in my gut so disabling that I haven't even been able to pack because I am afraid that all of my nice clothes will magically transform themselves into horrible 80's fashion and when I get to the reunion all I'll have to wear is a pair of high-waisted acid wash jeans and a "Frankie Say Relax" t-shirt? Or, worse yet, parachute pants?

I think we all have fears about seeing people we have not seen in 20 years. What will they think of me? Will they even remember me? I'm glad that I may not be recognizable, since my hair is no longer permed and large to the point where my coiff took up enough space to be subjected to property taxes. I'm also not sporting five pounds of aluminum on my teeth. But there is a significant part of my brain devoted specifically to convincing myself that I am the same gangly, awkward teenager who never really seemed to fit in. Try as I might, I cannot convince myself that I am a woman who has successfully completed college, law school and a bar exam, that I have a wonderful husband and three beautiful children, and a brown belt in tae kwon do, which has alleviated most of those pesky coordination problems.

Oh, I tried to fit in. I remember going out for cheerleading once. Somehow I had convinced myself that, despite all evidence to the contrary, I was coordinated enough to perform choreographed dance moves and yell at the same time. I was clearly misinformed. My parents, when I was younger, enrolled me in dance classes in the hopes that I would learn to walk without tripping on curbs, sidewalks, lint, etc. They were told by my instructor, in no uncertain terms, that their money would be better spent elsewhere. So, I went to the tryouts, lurched around the gym floor and tried my best to look like a person who was not suffering from some sort of nerve disorder. As you may have guessed, I was not invited to be a part of the team. After the cheerleading tryout debacle, I avoided sports altogether. After I regained some semblance of self esteem, I settled on choir, which was better suited for me inasmuch as I was never required to move and sing at the same time. It had the added benefit of occupying at least two class periods a day, sometimes three, so that I could limit my exposure to other more dangerous activities, such as walking in the hallways.

In order to calm my nerves prior to the reunion, I am trying to reassure myself that no one will remember me anyway. I certainly don't remember many people. What was the name of that guy I had a huge crush on, to the point where I thought I could not go on living if he didn't smile at me in the hallway? I have no clue. I'm fairly certain it started with a P, but beyond that, I'm drawing a blank. What was the name of the girl I was good friends with for two years, and then suddenly was in a note-conducted war with for some reason which I cannot exactly remember, but which consumed me for the better part of the last two years of high school? No clue. The amazing thing is that these long-forgotten people took up vast sectors of my available brain matter at the time, to the point of excluding important information such as how to do algebra. Now I have an easier time remembering the lyrics to an obscure Duran Duran song I haven't heard in 20 years.

I am fortunate that I DO remember a certain group of girls from high school, girls who I did spend lots of time with and I am very excited to see. It's been a long time, and I know that we will have lots to catch up on. That is what I'm looking forward to. Those girls were the ones who made coming to school bearable, even on those days that I didn't think I could put on my electric blue mascara and drag myself to school. Those were the friends who shared the same likes and dislikes as I did, who loved to get together once a month and have a movie night at each other's houses, and who sat together at prom. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have made it through.

I'm sure I'm stressing out over nothing. I'm very sure I'm going to come home after my reunion and will nothing but wonderful memories to share with my friends. Now if I could just convince my brain of that fact, I'll be golden. And, I had better get packing.

Ol' McMuenchrath Has a Cow...

2009-05-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

I don't think I'm cut out for this.

When my husband and I got married, we discussed everything a responsible couple should discuss about the future. We talked about our careers, we talked about whether we wanted a family and how big a family it would be, and we talked about where we wanted to live eventually. One subject that never came up, however, was livestock. We never had any sort of discussion about whether we would or would not own cows, chickens or goats. I realize now that every couple should have this discussion, unless they live in a high rise apartment in a large city, where owning livestock would be logistically impossible, not to mention highly stinky. Women and men should be required to sign some sort of livestock release form prior to getting their wedding license, or else they could find themselves in the situation I find myself in now, which is owning several animals I am woefully unequipped to take care of.

You see, I grew up in a family which was rather anti-pet. I petitioned unsuccessfully for years for a dog or a cat. Eventually, after much sniveling and whining, I was granted permission to get a gerbil, I presume to shut me up. I named my gerbil Sammy, and Sammy lived a happy but uneventful life scampering playfully around his cage, running on his little wheel and periodically escaping and causing my mother to leap to high places and shriek when he would unexpectedly scamper playfully through the family room.

My pet experience ended rather abruptly when I took his cage out to the garage to clean it, became distracted by something shiny (as most 10-year-olds do) and accidentally left it in the unheated garage overnight. In Alaska. Needless to say, Sammy made his way to the giant rodent-wheel in the sky, and when the ground thawed later that spring, I held a memorial service in the backyard.

Once I escaped from under the anti-pet thumb of my parents, I adopted a dog in college. I loved that dog. Rosie was my girl. We did everything together. I was so upset when I found out that my apartment in law school wouldn't allow pets, and I didn't know what to do, other than beg my parents to take my dog. It was a long shot, I knew. But, in a decision that still stuns me to this day, my parents decided to adopt Rosie. They then proceeded to turn into the most deranged people I have ever met. These people, the people who told my brother and I that they didn't want pets, that they HATED even the idea of having pets, began treating this dog like a spoiled grandchild. If they were going to get a hamburger, the dog needed a hamburger too. If they went to get ice cream, they had to get an ice cream cone for the dog too. I knew they had really gone off the deep end when they would make special trips out for hamburgers and ice cream for the dog and THEY DIDN'T GET ANYTHING FOR THEMSELVES.

So, my animal ownership experiences are limited at best, which is why it is extremely stunning that I now find myself in an ownership position of a menagerie of animals, and a backyard that looks like the Clampett's house before they struck oil and moved to Beverly Hills. At my husband's behest, we began collecting various livestock and chickens when we moved to the country. He never has any idea how to take care of the animals when we get them. We are always woefully unprepared to take care of them. He simply acquires first and asks questions later. This is why we wound up with two cows but no barn, water supply or any way to transport food to them. Standard operating procedure in our house, after getting a batch of animals, is for my husband to run around in a panic trying to come up with housing, food and a containment system for them. He then gleefully hops on a plane and leaves for a couple of weeks, thereby leaving me in charge of our ever-growing brood. It's quite the system.

This is how I wound up in charge of two cows that have demonstrated an amazing ability to pass, ghost-like, through fencing and disappear for a week and a half. They wandered all around our neighborhood, committing minor acts of bovine vandalism. I actually found myself having to call the sheriff's office and report a "Cow at Large." That was a phone call I never, in my wildest dreams, ever thought I would make.

I grew up in the city. I do not "wrangle" animals. Therefore, I was shocked to find myself and two of my very good and very, very forgiving friends roaming in a pasture, mooing and shaking a can of grain in a vain attempt to lure my escapee cows into a trailer. The cows, being much smarter than I give them credit for, realized that I was offering them grain under false pretenses and refused to cooperate. They just stood there, chewing their cud and silently mocking us.

All of this happened while my husband was in Hawaii. He had been gone no more than 24 hours. I'm adding this information to the file I'm keeping for when I have to enter therapy. Granted, he had a legitimate reason for being in Hawaii, and it was non-surfing related. That didn't make me feel any better, however.

The happy ending to this story is that I did indeed get my cows back, and after establishing how they got out (apparently cows can actually go UNDER fences, especially if the fence builder didn't actually attach the fencing to anything in his rush to hop a plane to tropical locales) I was able to mend the fence, re-contain the cows and restrain myself from filling my freezer with assorted steaks and 300 pounds of hamburger. My husband is now back on cow patrol, at least until he decides to fly off to Aruba or somewhere else where he doesn't have to worry about cow retrieval.

And I'm currently looking for a nice house in the city, where cow ownership is frowned upon.

On Death and Taxes

2009-04-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

It's good to hear that the President has a plan to reduce the deficit. Since he has almost single-handedly tripled it in a matter of three months, I'm glad to know that he has a secret plan to reduce it by half sometime in the next century or so. It'll still be larger than when he got his hands on it, but anyone who points that out will soon be getting mysterious calls featuring menacing heavy breathing courtesy of Barney Frank.

I, for one, would like to propose my own solution to the deficit problem. I'm at least as qualified as any current member of the government, based on the fact that I once forgot to declare $150 in babysitting income on my federal tax return when I was 14. Let me take this opportunity to sincerely apologize, and point out that I'm only human, by which I mean I'm just like anyone else who would like to be able to cheat on my taxes and get away with it in the form of being nominated for a cabinet position. Plus, I have demonstrated my superiority in that I have never been involved in an ethics scandal. (The United States Senate: Scandal Free since 5:38 am today!)

I have a three-pronged proposal. Prong one is based on reducing federal spending. I realize this is a drastic move, one which should not be tried unless we can't think of any other way to reduce the amount of money we owe to China. For example, instead of increasing spending on programs such as the Commission to Name "National" things such as the National Insect, National Root Vegetable, and National Embarrassment (Joe Biden) by 50% over last year's bare-bones spending on such activities, they should only raise it by 25%. Actually, none of us should stand around idly while the government slashes spending in this way! We should demand they slash it more! They should slash it down to a mere 10% increase! Of course that would mean we would only have enough funding to complete the naming of our National Embarrassment, but if that's the price we have to pay to get our deficit under control, then it's "time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."

Now I know that many non-patriotic namby-pamby members of Congress would argue that cutting spending is too drastic in times such as these, when the only thing currently keeping our economy afloat is lunch meeting expenditures made by government employees at Hooters. Come to think of it, it's probably racist, too, but it will take time and a special Blue Ribbon Commission to determine whether cutting spending is racist, or at least instigated by Rush Limbaugh, which is just as bad.

Which leads me to prong two of my plan to reduce the deficit: Selling government owned SUVs.

You see, while we normal Americans are increasingly encouraged to give up our gas-guzzling modes of transport in favor of cramming a family of five into a SMART car , I see many government SUVs cruising around our freeways (Note: I know SMART Cars only have two seats. In times like these we are all forced to make sacrifices. You can purchase a SMART car modification pack from the US Department of Transportation containing all the parts you need to successfully strap your spare children to the roof).

Most of the time, these government SUVs are being used to move one person around from useless meeting to useless meeting. Valet charges alone eat up almost half our national expense account funds. We all know that nothing good comes from these meetings, especially when you consider that any gathering of government officials usually results in increased regulations, higher taxes, and proposals to name sewage treatment plants after sitting US Presidents. The US government should take its cue from successful businesses (wait...I'm sure one will come to me eventually) and use one of those online meeting services like Tom Cruise did in that movie Tropic Thunder.

Therefore, I propose we sell all government SUVs to the Chinese, since they are currently the only nation on earth purchasing cars at the moment (except perhaps India). Unfortunately this would also give the United States government a sudden influx of cash, which we should immediately impound until they can prove they won't spend it immediately on non-deficit reducing items like a professional make-up artist for the first lady and a new neck-mounted teleprompter for the President for those tough situations where he needs to walk and speak extemporaneously at the same time. I realize that this will also mean the President may have to modify his motorcade somewhat, but being that his administration is looking more and more like a circus every day, it won't seem too strange to see the President and his cabinet officials emerging, clown-car like, from a fleet of 1992 Geo Metros.

We also need to take away Nancy Pelosi's ability to travel via airplane. That really won't have an effect on the deficit, but it would certainly make me feel better.

Prong three of my plan involves exporting Al Gore to someplace like Siberia, where he can sit in his warm, dung-heated hut and weave sustainable clothing from sedge grass while writing his manifesto. By doing this, we will reduce the yearly energy usage of the city of Nashville, TN (mainly the sector occupied by Al Gore's compound) by 99%. Energy costs all over the nation will drop, due to the unexpected fall in demand. The benefits of lower energy costs will "trickle down", allowing more people to be able to afford to do things like open businesses, manufacture products and employ people. With steady increases in our gross domestic product, and the resulting boost in our economy, we may be able to pay down the deficit even more!

On second thought, maybe I only need a one-prong approach.

I have to go now. My phone is ringing. I think it's Barney Frank.

Merry January!

2009-01-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it. I'm a slacker. Ms. Manners would be mortified.

I haven't sent out Christmas cards in about 10 years.

The last time I sent out Christmas cards roughly coincides with the birth of my first child. I sent them out that year, complete with lovely personal hand-written notes to all of our friends and relatives. Then, Wham-O...Maggie was born. Every Christmas since she arrived, I have dutifully gone out and purchased Christmas cards, special stamps and various labels, printed paper, rubber stamps and other accouterments designed to send holiday greetings which would make Martha Stewart weep into her organic cranberry martini due to feelings of inadequacy. Unfortunately, I have never actually produced any Christmas cards.

Well, I did get some made about four years ago, but due to the birth of my third child, I forgot to send them, and when I realized that I had missed Christmas by several days, I was too mortified to send them out for fear of being outed as the shameless procrastinator I am.

This year, I decided to send out Christmas greetings, deadlines be damned. I laughed recklessly as I tucked my cards and other items aside and waited for the day when all of the holiday hullabaloo was over. And, about five days after 2009 blew in, I sat down and wrote

a letter to everyone who kept sending cards to us, even though we clearly didn't deserve them.

Then, one evening about seven days after 2009 arrived, I sat down at my computer and began addressing envelopes, folding letters and writing on the cards. My husband looked at me as if I had sprouted another head. "Christmas cards?" he questioned. "It's January!"

Me: "What's your point?"

Matt: "Well, shouldn't you have sent them out in December?"

Me: "Hey, according to my Catholic Life calendar, Christmas doesn't officially end until January 10th. I'm golden."

So, I sent them out. I haven't received any mocking emails or other scathing replies, so I figure everyone enjoyed getting their holiday greetings after the holidays. After all, they certainly stand out from the rest of the crowd.

I think next year I'll send my cards out in February. Groundhogs day is completely overlooked, greeting card-wise. I'd better get started on my letter, or I'll never get it done on time.

VOTE OR DIE! (well, not really)

2008-10-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

I just finished voting.

Here in Oregon, we vote by mail rather than going out in the rain to the polls. Personally, I would prefer going out in the rain to the polling place, so that I could be sure that Mickey Mouse, the Dallas Cowboys and the entire cast of Rent aren't voting here in sleepy little Coquille. I was dismayed when I read the Oregon voters guide. Oregon has some of the strictest ID requirements when it comes to registering to vote illegally. For instance, if you don't have valid government photo id, you can provide a Social Security number. If you don't have either a SSN or government photo ID, you can provide any one of the following documents, none of which could EVER be forged or plucked out of the neighbors trash can:

* valid photo identification (While I would hope a "license to party" or a StarTrek fan club membership card doesn't qualify, I have to wonder...)
* a paycheck stub (because EVERYONE who gets paid must be a citizen, right?)
* a utility bill
* a bank statement
* a government document (I'll bet even Mickey Mouse has one of these)

Of course, you won't be able to vote in national elections unless you have the actual government ID or SSN. You'll just be able to vote in state elections for people who can mess up your lives on a daily basis, rather than on a more sporadic national level.

I'm very ready for this election to be over, namely because I'm tired of receiving 543,887 pieces of "mail" each day aimed at swaying my vote. I'm sorry, but I am not one of those people who is going to pick up a glossy political mailer and say, "Well, I guess my vote's going to have to change now, based on the allegation that Senator Smith has never openly denied ever having exceeded the speed limit while drinking coffee!" I could build a shelter for the poor using only the political mail I've received in the last few months.

The thing is, I've pretty much resigned myself to the idea that the person I never wanted as my nominee is going to lose the election to the other person I never wanted as a nominee. I don't think this election is going to affect me the way they have in the past. I've experienced political depression before. After Bob Dole lost the election to Bill "Check out my Cigar" Clinton, I was depressed for at least ten minutes. Then, I got myself together, realized that each and every one of us was still going to get up each day, go to work, earn a living and keep the country running while everyone in elected government did their level best to screw it all up.

I think that's going to be my only qualification for elected office from now on. If you want my vote, you have to promise me that you won't screw things up as much as the other person. Because, in my opinion, absolutely nothing happens in Washington which doesn't make things worse than they already are. I love it when we get government deadlocks and such. That just means that government is having trouble messing things up as much as they would like to. The fewer bills proposed and passed, the better. Look at the tax code, for goodness sake! The thing weighs in at over 55,000 pages, and you need several post-graduate degrees just to file a 1040 EZ.

(Friendly note to the IRS: please don't misunderstand. I'm not blaming you. I'm sure you're very nice and not at all trying to ruin peoples' lives or give them audit-related heart attacks. I'm blaming the jerks who decided it was a good idea to add 15 pages to the tax code to explain tax credits for cheese-makers who manufacture certain types of gouda.)

If I sound angry, then I guess I am. But, I have hope.

I hope that on November 5th, I wake up to find that Mickey Mouse has been elected as President and the entire congress has been replaced by Looney Toons. That way, when they decide to try and mess things up via legislation, we can just find a giant anvil and drop it on their heads.

He Blinded me with Science

2008-08-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

It's almost time for my kids to start school again, and I am suddenly spending a lot of time reminiscing about my formative years. Unfortunately, since I have spent most of my life trying to block the tragic fashion choices and other major humiliations of my childhood from my memory, I am forced to repeatedly reminisce about the two-day period between September 15 and 16, 1984, which is the only time I can safely reminisce about without being reduced to a quivering, sobbing heap on the floor.

Ah, 1984. I was in the 7th grade. I had completed the unfortunate "I want to grow my bangs out" phase, but hadn't yet been subjected to major orthodonture. Acid wash jeans were a thing of the distant future. Boys were still mostly covered in cooties and the humiliating ritual of the school dance was still months away.

Although I was never much of a student, I loved science class. At the beginning of 7th grade I was enrolled in Introduction to Life Sciences, which never made much sense to me because everything we studied was dead. Not only was everything dead, but each creature was also specifically selected by teachers to induce high-pitched squealing in girls and create in the boys the uncontrollable desire to hurl it at females.

In my opinion, the only thing worse than a dead bug is a live version of the same bug, and I could glean no significant academic information by poking around in the guts of a dead earthworm, mainly because I kept my eyes closed all the time so as not to actually see the guts of the dead earthworm. In addition, none of the animals we were using to study the Miracle of Life actually had any discernible organs left. They were all a formaldehyde-preserved glop of brown goo on the inside.

Based on my experience as a mother, I would say that there are few things in life scarier than giving a bunch of 13-year-old kids sharp cutting implements. Add to that the fact that all of the girls used the scalpel with their eyes closed, not only to dissect but to fend off stealth worm attacks by the boys in the class, and you had a situation ripe for disaster. No wonder so many teachers develop drinking problems.

First, our teacher would distribute the creature of the week. We started small. Our first victim was a cricket. We then moved on to the earthworm, and finally, to the Holy Grail of junior high life sciences class; the shark. The theory was students could learn about life by prodding the various bits of goo inside the selected creature, and then draw a diagram in a little spiral notebook showing the different organs and label the function of each organ. Our teacher posted large color diagrams on the bulletin board of whatever animal we were supposed to be dissecting. The animal diagrams on the bulletin board were colorful, sharply defined and easily identifiable. Their hearts were red, their livers green, their lungs blue, etc. The problem was, after we put down the scalpel and opened our eyes to peer inside, the interior of the animal looked nothing like the color diagram. It looked like a wad of brown mucus. We'd all poke around for a while, and proclaim, "Look! I found the heart" in an excited voice in an attempt to fool our teacher into thinking we actually found something other than brown goo. We all figured if we couldn't find the heart we'd fail the class, which would result in us having to repeat Worm Dissection an infinite number of times, which would prevent us from going to college and getting a job, which would ruin our lives and make us completely unattractive to cootie-less members of the opposite sex.

After the dissection, we would spend 40 minutes attempting to create an artistic depiction of our animal in our notebooks, painstakingly trying to differentiate each bit of brown glop by using the various shades of brown colored pencils in our pencil kit. After a while, we all finally gave up and hastily copied the color diagrams directly from the bulletin board, which clearly were of an entirely different species of animal than the one we were dissecting. I don't think the teacher ever looked inside a worm, or any of the other animals we poked at. If she had, she would have realized we weren't learning anything in life science class except how to draw, which we were supposed to be doing in art class.

My most vivid memory, however, was the dissecting of the shark. Due to the inexplicably high cost of poorly preserved large aquatic creatures, we had to team up for this one. Unfortunately, I was teamed up with the one boy who no longer had cooties, as far as I was concerned. I, being a usually quiet person anyway, was reduced to utter silence around this junior high Adonis, who wore his blond hair swept over his forehead to cover his acne and who dressed in button front shirts with little polo horses on them. My other teammates were a girlfriend of mine (I'll call her Jennifer, since most girls in my generation are named Jennifer), and another boy named William who most definitely still had cooties and who, it would not surprise me at all to hear, has probably spent a fair amount of his adult life in prison.

We were given our shark, and set about dividing up the tasks we needed to perform. Jennifer, being the artistic one, was given the task of copying the color diagram into each of our notebooks. I don't think she came within 20 feet of the actual shark. Mr. Adonis was given the task (not by me, since I was struck incapable of verbalization) of dissecting the body of the shark with me. Finally, William, in what turned out to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life, was given the job of dissecting the head of the shark.

The body dissection went surprisingly well, given my inability to speak to my lab partner, and we were even able to identify three of the organs among the rest of the glop. In addition, our hands touched. I considered this a roaring success. I'm sure I smiled and made approving hand gestures, but I don't remember clearly because I almost fainted.

And then came William. In preparation for his future career, William approached the head with the scalpel, and with a slightly intimidating look in his eyes, began cutting. Unfortunately, poorly preserved shark head is very difficult to cut through, and William then resorted to stabbing at the head, which resulted in a shower of shark bits which fell on the only girl in the class who didn't think William had cooties. The poor girl ran from the room, crying and shaking her hair, which was very curly and therefore resulted in shark bits becoming even further entangled in her locks. She smelled like fish and formaldehyde for a week after the incident. In a strange twist of fate, she and William dated in high school.

Amazingly, we all finished the shark dissection, and the remainder of Introduction to Life Sciences, with all of our appendages. We never found the brain of the shark (It was purple, according to the diagram), but we did learn something important.

Shark is extremely difficult to remove from hair.

The Great Outdoors

2008-08-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

I grew up in Alaska. We lived there for 14 years, and I have a lot of fond memories of my childhood there among the beautiful scenery, exciting outdoor activities, and various wildlife. Actually, the wildlife could be a little scary, especially the unexpected moose encounters in our backyard.

I also had my hair permed a lot. Which leads me to the subject of camping trips.

You see, back when it wasn't considered abuse to subject your child to unfortunate hair styles, my mother took me in every few months for a chemical-intensive torture session designed to punish me for all my misdeeds of the previous three months. And, because I was not supposed to wash my hair for two days after the perm (apparently washing it too early would have made it look even worse than it did with the perm alone), my mother and father always planned a camping trip right after my appointment. This created the added benefit of not having to pack any insect repellent, since the aura of stench emanating from my hair kept insects at bay for about a 50 foot radius around my cranium.

I spent a lot of my childhood on camping trips. We'd hitch up the trailer to our International Scout, pack up our clothes, food and all available camping equipment in the State of Alaska and hit the road. Sometimes we'd hit the road for upwards of 9 hours. Although, to be fair, driving only accounted for about 90 minutes of our travel time. The remaining seven and a half hours were occupied by bathroom stops, carsickness stops, my brother complaining about my stinky hair, turning around and finding trailer parts we forgot to latch down, and so forth.

Once we finally got to the campsite, we spent the next several hours trying to back in and level out the trailer. This was accomplished via the foolproof method of my mother standing directly behind the trailer, becoming completely invisible to my father who was desperately trying to look for hand signals or some other form of communication that would indicate whether he was actually in the right spot or dangerously close to backing himself over a ravine. My parents performed this act so many times, they actually developed a devoted fan base. Friends, relatives and sometimes even perfect strangers would each pull up a lawn chair, crack open a cold beer and watch as my parents argued about appropriate hand signals and as my mother directed my father and the trailer directly into a tree stump. It's really a wonder they're still married.

After the parking ritual came the building of the campfire and something my parents called "Cocktail Minute." Back then, you could buy these little Mr. and Mrs. T's pre-made drinks in cans. After several hours of performing the parking show for our friends, everyone would gather around and have several rounds of Cocktail Minute while the men started our campfire. Because I wasn't allowed near the fire due to the cloud of highly flammable fumes radiating from my increasingly stinky hair, I will be basing this portion of my story on several eyewitness accounts.

These campfires were truly a sight to behold. My father and his friend would gather up all available flammable materials within 10 miles of our campsite, stack them carefully in a pyramid shape, and then proceed to use 5,365,219 matches in an attempt to light the fire. After uttering several choice phrases that I won't write here because my children might read this someday, they would then douse the pile with something they referred to as "Blazo." It turns out "Blazo" was actually gasoline. Either my father or his friend would then light a match as far away as humanly possible, and attempt to hurl it in the direction of the gas-soaked wood, which would then burst into flames in what resembled a small missile explosion.

These fires became so hot they could burn aluminum chairs, sear off eyebrows from 20 feet, and turn Jack Daniels bottles into puddles of molten glass. My brother and I learned from a young age that fire was nothing to be played with. It was to be treated with respect, at least until you have participated in several Cocktail Minutes and decide to get into a whiskey-spitting competition with your best friend. My mother spent most of her camping trips with a look of extreme concern on her face.

I remember one time we arrived a little late to our chosen campsite and our friends were already there. They were well into the campfire and cocktails portion of the trip, having bypassed the "back in and level" portion by wisely purchasing a motor home and seeking out a pull through site. We could see the smoke from the campfire several miles away, but were not in the least bit concerned, because we knew that we were not looking at a wildfire. "There they are!" we yelled. Well, at least I was yelling, because my head was sticking out of the window in a vain attempt to air out my hair. We followed the smoke signal to our campsite and then began our ritual all over again.

Despite all of this, I have decided that it's time to take my children camping. I want them to share in the joys of being outdoors, lighting things on fire, and getting dirty. I want them to have the opportunity to be traumatized by mommy and daddy trying to set up tents (I don't know if our marriage could withstand parking a trailer) and start a campfire without the benefit of matches of any sort because we forgot them at home.

I guess it's time to make an appointment for Maggie to get her hair permed.

And, I just know my husband will forget the Blazo.

Loosen up!

2008-07-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

My husband and I recently spent a Friday at the Oregon Country Fair. For those of you who are fortunate enough to have never experienced this event, I'll describe it for you.

The Country Fair is a huge "alternative" fair where people in costumes, people in regular clothes, and people who walk around in nothing more than body paint and a thong all intermix while listening to music, learning about alternative energy and recycling, and angrily rejecting capitalism in the form of spending millions of dollars on arts, crafts and food. This is a place where people can embrace their inner freak and show it to the rest of the world.

I will freely admit that my inner freak and I are not normally on speaking terms, unless a fair amount of wine is involved.

So, I was apprehensive at best when my husband, who is apparently repressing his inner hippie, decided that we should all go to the Country Fair. My concerns were twofold. First, I am NOT a hippie. I'm a registered Republican. I don't smoke "herbs," I don't believe we're causing global warming, and I don't like Barak Obama. I figured I'd stick out like a sore thumb.

Second, the Boy is at that stage where the sight of mere underpants is enough to send him into gales of giddiness. I could only imagine what half naked women and men in skirts would do to him. I predicted he'd begin speaking like Beavis and Butthead cartoons, pointing and saying "boobies" over and over and laughing his little head off while I attempted to silence him by offering to bribe him with some frozen soy non-dairy ice cream substitute.

Needless to say, I decided to loosen up a bit by drinking the better part of a six pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade in the fair parking lot. I got a styrofoam cup, ice and a straw from the place we had breakfast, and got busy. By the time we walked up to the fairgrounds entrance my inner freak and I were close to a breakthrough. Hell, my husband had to spend 15 minutes convincing me that covertly drinking in the front seat of the parked car in the parking lot was not actually a capital crime, and my life would not be ruined if I were caught, and the likelihood I would be caught was slim since all the available police in the area were probably already at the fairgrounds trying scare the fairgoers into waiting to light their joints and pipes until they were safely inside the venue. A 30-something woman with three kids and a styrofoam cup full of alco-pop were low on their list. So much for my life of crime.

I did get some really mean looks when I was spotted taking a giant styrofoam cup into the fair, but by that time, I didn't really care.

Anyway, once inside, we wandered around for several hours with the kids. They immediately began to voice the opinion that we had committed major false advertising, since there were no rides at this particular fair. They put themselves into Whine Mode, asking, "Where are the rides?" and, "How come there aren't any animals?" or, "What's that funny smell we keep smelling?" We had to appease and distract them by pointing out a woman in a very interesting and creative bee costume, and a dude who was wearing what appeared to be a ballerina tutu and superhero mask. When they realized that the woman wearing a butterfly costume, (body paint, bikini bottoms and some wings) was about as close to an animal as they were going to get, they ramped it up into Intense Whine Mode, which most human ears cannot withstand without medical intervention. In IWM, children can actually continue to whine after all air has left their lungs. And, in what should be a public service announcement for population control, all three children were able to whine in sequence, so there were no breaks between complaints. You almost couldn't hear the three-day drum circle drums over the noise they were making. I'm thinking of contacting the Pentagon and giving them audiotapes of IWM to be used in terrorist interrogations.

I began looking for more liquid fortification, but they don't sell alcohol at the Country Fair.

And that funny smell?

I didn't inhale.

It really was all Greek to me.

2008-06-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

Thank God I was in a sorority.

I never thought that joining the Greek system would eventually save my marriage, but it did. My sorority saved my marriage because they forced me to learn the Greek alphabet. In what turned out to be one of the most useful 10 minute periods of my existence, I had to learn to sing a bunch of inane songs while bouncing around, acting cheerful and generally pretending that joining a sorority was almost as good as winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

SORORITY SISTERS: Hey! We're Greek! Greek is cool!!! Join our club! Please join our club or we'll never get to stop singing! HELP US!

You may be wondering how singing songs that were supposed to attract potential "sisters" saved my marriage. It's a long story. One of the songs that we learned was a musical version of the Greek alphabet. I'm not really sure when I learned it. It may have been implanted in my mind through advanced sorority brainwashing techniques. At any rate, after several hours of learning peppy songs, I had the Greek alphabet memorized. This information has rarely come in handy, but I have managed to maintain this knowledge in some forgotten corner of my brain. I can't remember where my keys are, or the name of the 9th supreme court justice, but I know the Greek alphabet, by God! Not once had I ever needed this information, and yet, it remained.

But then, last month my husband and I found ourselves in Crete. And, being egocentric Americans who receive more education in sports than in languages, we figured that there would be street signs in ENGLISH. Or, at least in a Latin alphabet. Instead, the street signs looked like this:

Given enough time, I was eventually able to sound out the signs, cross-reference them with our guidebooks and then determine that, without any doubt at all, we were lost.

The sign to the left, for instance says "Slow - Goat Crossing" in English in Greek letters. I would have written it in Greek words, but I'm an egocentric American who doesn't know any foreign languages whatsoever, especially foreign languages which deal with livestock.

So, my husband and I came up with an infallible system, where he drove around at top speeds in the city, asking me every five seconds where we were, and I would look hopelessly around for a street sign, and begin to decode it, only to find that we were still driving, and thus on another street, so my original efforts at decoding were all for naught. This continued until we hit a wall. Well, we didn't really hit the wall, but we did encounter a wall which surrounded the old city of Heraklion. Matt began immediately asking me for our whereabouts, to which I replied, "I don't know."

Matt: Well, look at the map!

Me: I am looking at the map!

Matt: Where are we then?

Me: I think we're at a wall.

Matt: Which wall?

Me: THE WALL. THE GIANT WALL SURROUNDING THE CITY.

Matt: Are you sure?

Me: It looks LIKE A WALL TO ME. If you stop near a street sign, I might be able to find out exactly where on the wall we are.

Matt: I can't stop.

Me: Then I can't tell you where we are, because as soon as I figure out where we are, we're not there anymore!

As each sign passed me in a blur, I began to chant my Greek alphabet song, in a vain attempt to meditate my way to some clue as to where we were. We stopped talking to each other. We kept driving past the one landmark that I knew, and each time would arrive at that landmark from a different direction. By some miracle that I cannot explain, Matt finally stopped the car and went to the nearest hotel he could find to ask for directions. I used these moments of stillness to find out where we were. It was easy, once I could see the signs. And, with the directions that I am still amazed my husband went and asked for, and my ever-expanding knowledge of the Greek Alphabet, I was able to navigate us to our hotel, which we had apparently driven past about 20 times. When we started speaking to each other again, we had a lovely time.

So, without my vast knowledge of Greek, given to me by 60 overly peppy girls wearing bad late-80's fashion and large hair, Matt and I would probably be divorced right now. We'd also still be in Crete, since we wouldn't be able to find the airport.

How to learn Greek in five minutes or less...Guaranteed!

2008-04-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

I just found out about a week ago that my husband and I are going to Crete in two weeks. Now I'm stressed.

I have never been good at learning languages. I took two years of French in high school, and the only thing I remember is "Merci Beaucoup," which I think means "Thank you." It's either that, or "I surrender."

I'm sure my inability to learn French was due mainly to the extreme dislike I had for my French teacher. She'd sit in front of the class, eating bonbons and commenting derisively at our pronounciation. Of course, our pronounciation wasn't helped by the fact that this was 1986, and we were all in full valley-girl mode, adding the word "like" six times into every sentence and generally sounding like imbiciles. I knew that if I ever did find myself in France, I would be the hapless tourist who inadvertently starts an international incident because instead of saying "Pardon me, where could I find a public restroom which I don't have to pay to use," I would have accidentally threatened to assasinate the Prime Minister. Or President. Just what is the guy who surrenders called in France, anyway?

So, I gave up on languages. Well, I gave up until I went to Italy and found myself actually needing to speak the language. I gained newfound confidence. I was rather good at it. I started interpreting for my husband. And, I didn't start any international incidents while trying to order a cappuccino, which is my benchmark for learning languages.

So, this time I would actually like to try and learn a little Greek before I get on the plane. I could try to learn it on the plane, using one of those language programs that I can load on my iPod. However, I'm a little afraid of being subjected to a body cavity search by airport security because someone turned me in due to the fact that I was muttering to myself for 25 hours. No, I think I'd like to learn Greek in the privacy of my home, or possibly my car. People already think I'm crazy because I sing at the top of my lungs while driving, or yell at the radio when I hear something on talk radio that really makes me mad. Muttering Greek to myself while driving wouldn't be a big stretch.

My main problem is that my kids are in the car with me, and they are not exactly helpful when it comes to maintaining peace and relative quiet so I can devote my mind to learning. If I try to learn Greek while in the car, the only phrases I'll be able to retain will be "don't make me pull this car over," (unhelpful, since I don't plan on driving in Crete) "stop looking at your sister," (again, unhelpful) and, "I'll give you something to cry about," (guaranteed to result in arrest).

So, I plan on listening to my Greek language lessons at night, while trying to go to sleep. That will ensure two things. First, I will have at least five minutes of uninterrupted study time before my children start asking for water or a de-monstering of their rooms, and second, that every time I try to say "Hello" in Greek, I'll become inexplicably drowsy. I won't even be able to order food without passing out cold on the table at the taverna.

Maybe I should just forget the Greek and speak really loudly in English instead. That usually works.

Earth Girls are Easy

2008-03-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I have what it takes to raise a son.

I have three kids. Two girls, and "The Boy." My girls are easy. We understand each other. When my 9 year old falls in a hormone-induced inconsolable heap because her pants "make her look funny," I can sympathize with her and help her get through it. When my 3 year old decides to wear 7 pieces of clothing all in varying shades of pink and doesn't want my help choosing them anymore, I can step back and let her express herself through her appearance. (Of course, I live in mortal embarrassment and fear that government workers will come take her away because I clearly can't take care of children if they're dressed like that.)

But The Boy, now, he's another thing altogether.

I originally noticed this when the first thing he ever did was pee on me. That pretty much established our relationship. The girls never peed on me. I never had to wear protective rain gear to change their diapers. Of course, in keeping with all that male bonding stuff I've read about, his father was pleased as punch. "Way to go, Boy!" he said.

I've lived through obsessions with dinosaurs, superheros, dinosaurs and Legos. And dinosaurs. The Boy is like a dinosaur encyclopedia. He can rattle off dinosaur names like "pachycephalosaurus" without blinking an unfairly long eyelash. He cannot, however, tie his own shoes. Nor does he show any signs of wanting to learn how. I'm trying to convince him that chicks like a guy who can tie his own shoes, but he's not biting.

He also has a listening problem. I know it's not a hearing problem because my friend and I conducted an experiment one day after I talked with her about how I can literally stand in the same room with him and shout his name and he doesn't hear me. I was really starting to think I needed to get his hearing tested. Instead, we tried saying words he was interested in. It went like this:

Me: Luke, what did you learn in school today?
Luke: (chirping crickets)

Me: Look Luke, a DINOSAUR!
Luke: Huh?

Me: Luke, do you want milk or water?
Luke: (wind whistling through the trees)

Me: SPIDERMAN!
Luke: Could I have some water?

If only I could figure out how to apply this valuable knowledge to my husband, who clearly suffers from the same listening problem as The Boy, only he's more selective. He, for instance, only doesn't hear me when I ask him to take out the trash, or do the dishes.

Finally, The Boy is becoming a real challenge as far as telling the truth. He has a very active imagination. Apparently, this has allowed him to live in his own world. A world in which, when I ask him "what did you learn in school today," an acceptable answer can actually contain the words "dinosaurs", "crocodiles" or "Legos". He spins elaborate yarns about how his teacher hatched a real dinosaur egg, or how she wrestled a crocodile, or that they finished all their books and his teacher told him he didn't have to do any reading tonight or go back to school. Ever.
The Boy is also convinced that he will soon go live with his Uncle John on the USS Starship Enterprise where Uncle John will be the Captain, but he, The Boy, will get to push all the buttons. There will also be a fair amount of shooting aliens involved, and they will eat pizza all the time.

I suppose it should make me feel better when my husband's parents often laugh at us when we tell them stories about The Boy. Yes, they laugh AT us. It's as if they're telling us that they remember my husband doing the exact same thing, and that it serves us right. My problem with this is that my husband is clearly the intended target of this reproductive Karma and I don't know what I did to deserve the fallout.

After all, I was just sugar and spice and everything nice. Just like all girls. Right?

Time Warp

2008-01-07T13:03:00.000-08:00

I have defined myself with a lot of things over the course of my life. Singer, college student, law student, wife, mother, artist, traveller, chef wannabe. But I think the thing that I have always fallen back on is music. I love music. I listen to music all the time, and I delight in finding something new that I love, even if others don't love it as much as I do. Music is the background upon which all the other ways I describe my life have unfolded.

My husband got me a new iPod for Christmas to hold my burgeoning music collection. And, I have several playlists that I probably won't share with other people, mainly because they expose my utter geekdom. (No, really, that's not Air Supply. I promise)

I read about a playlist life quiz, and decided to try to find it. It sounded like fun. And, thanks to the miracle of Google, I found it in about 10 seconds. So, I took the quiz using my brand spankin' new iPod. I put my iPod on random and wrote down the name of the song that came up for each question, in order:

Life Playlist Survey

When I'm drunk I say: Something the Boy Said - Sting
How will you die? Honey Honey - Feist
At my wedding they'll play: Rest Stop – Matchbox Twenty
What makes me happy is: Faithfully - Journey
My theme song: Just a Girl – No Doubt
My ultimate song for dancing is: Black Velveteen - Lenny Kravitz
My family is described by the song: American Pie – Don McLean
If I reached the top of Mount Everest, what I would scream: Knock me Down - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Behind my back, my friends think I'm: Devil with a Blue Dress on – Mitch Ryder
The story of my life is: Always on Your Side - Sheryl Crow
My make-out song is: Hey Jealousy – Gin Blossoms
My innermost desire is: Don’t Stop – Fleetwood Mac
My alter-ego is: Memphis Time - Gin Blossoms
This song will be playing when I meet the love of my life: Peace of Me – Natasha Bedingfield
My favorite thing to do is: Bottles and Flowers - Juliana Hatfield
Happiness is: Be Good to Yourself - Journey
Will I ever have kids: Watch’a Wanna Do – The Jungle Book Soundtrack
When I'm in the shower, I sing: I’ve been Everywhere – Johnny Cash
My best friend is like: If it Makes you Happy – Sheryl Crow
At my funeral they'll play: Landslide – Fleetwood Mac
If I got lost on a desert island, I would yell: I Alone - Live
My message to the world has always been: Under Pressure - Queen/David Bowie
My day will be like: Rush - Big Audio Dynamite
What I did did last night was: Found Out about You – Gin Blossoms
My birth was like: Every little Thing she does is Magic – the Police
The best thing about me is: Keep it to Myself - Crash Vegas
My deepest secret is: Perfect Kiss – New Order

I'm really not sure what this says about me. I guess it just confirms what I always thought: that music is a large part of my life, and really tells a lot about me. I think it shows that I'm stuck in the 90's for some reason, for example. Or, that I have a strange love for the Gin Blossoms. Or, that I have kids (otherwise, why would I have the Jungle Book soundtrack on there?)

There are many voids that my playlists fill. I haven't had (or made, I guess) time to sing in a group or a show. I miss that. But, singing showtunes along with my iPod while I'm folding the laundry gets me through. I want to take piano lessons, but I can't seem to find the time to do it without letting something else go. So, I listen to piano music and dream about the day I can learn to play like that. I don't get to go out dancing very often (if at all) so I dance in my living room with my kids and they laugh at me because I sing along at the top of my lungs and act silly and embarass them immensely. I can take the soundtrack of my life along with me wherever I go.

And without my iPod, it would be a very quiet life, indeed.

Temporary Insanity

2007-10-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

I love holidays. There's nothing like a holiday to bring out the crazy in a person.

Take Halloween for instance. You either love it or you hate it. There's really no in-between. I love to wear costumes, I love to see the kids in their costumes, and I love to carve pumpkins, decorate my house, and watch "The Great Pumpkin" re-runs on TV while eating caramel apples. Holidays allow us to act like kids again, if only for one night.

So, this year for Halloween I'm dressing up as a prom queen. I'm wearing my own Senior Prom dress from 1989. Again, I have to ask myself what it is about Halloween that would prompt me to dress up in a ridiculous outfit that I have spent the last almost 20 years of my life trying to block from my memory. It's that holiday-induced madness that I succumb to every year. I was practically giddy as I spent an hour looking for blue mascara, blue eyeshadow and bubblegum pink lipstick. I bought a wig since I have non-80's hair that just won't work with the costume. I even made a sash for myself with "Prom Queen 1989" on it in large letters. I am beside myself with excitement.

Halloween can be taken a bit too far, though. Decorations, for example. I recently went out and spent perfectly good money on fake cobwebs with little spiders attached. My kids and I happily roamed around the house, putting up cobwebs and spiders. I spread mine out to look like actual cobwebs. Luke, my five year old son, stuck his up in large clumps, as if his spiders were only able to produce cotton balls rather than webs. Maggie eyed everything critically and told me that her cobweb placement was far superior to her brother's. Ella thought the cobwebs were actually cotton candy and tried to eat them.

I suddenly realized that I currently have actual cobwebs in my house that are far better looking than the fake ones I purchased. Every few days I look at these real cobwebs derisively, and mutter under my breath about getting out the vacuum to take care of them. It never happens. I'm afraid of them, mainly because we have actual spiders, too. Not little spiders that scurry under the furniture when you approach; we have large spiders whose apparent goal is to snag one of the cats in the massive web that they have constructed just inside our mudroom door. I'm sure the real spiders would escape the pull of my vacuum and gather to plot some sort of revenge against me involving lurking in my shoes.

I have also purchased those pumpkin carving kits. You know, the ones with the special saws and patterns and such. What ever happened to hacking into the pumpkin with a large knife like I did when I was a kid? Granted, these days I'd have my children taken from me if I snapped a picture of Luke wielding a 12 inch chef's knife in his hand. Yet, there are pictures of me doing that very thing when I was a kid.

My pumpkin design was always dictated by the size of the knife blade, which was the main reason that my jack-o-lantern faces mainly consisted of triangles and zigzag mouths. That was the only way I could get the knife to work. Now, each year my children pick out some elaborate paper pattern of a witch on a broom and begin hacking into their pumpkins with their little saws, before giving up and making a jack-o-lantern with triangle eyes and zigzag mouth. I guess all those extra holes in the pumpkin can be used for ventilation.

Anyway, the holiday madness will only increase the closer we get to Christmas. I am a true Christmas junkie. I love to decorate. I always decorate the day after Thanksgiving. I get out the Christmas music, make myself an eggnog (heavy on the nog) and get to work. I drag out box after box of decorations, and reminisce about where I got them and how long I've had them. I sing along with the Christmas carols. I drink more eggnog. I deck the halls and trim the tree and generally adorn everything that doesn't move with some sort of bow or something. I draw the line at my pets, though. I haven't gotten far enough along in my insanity to put antlers on my dogs.

Are we there yet?

2007-08-26T21:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, we can learn a lot from children.

Well, maybe not about things like physics, whether the stock market will continue it's amusement park-like ride, or how to find a good mechanic. If you want to know how to irritate your sister without actually touching her, or even being close enough to touch her, but still causing the sister to yell, "MOM! HE'S ALMOST TOUCHING ME," they can teach you a thing or two.

One of the things that kids are really good at is asking questions. A lot of questions. Generally, the same question over and over again. As we were driving to town this morning (actually, we were still on our driveway) my son asked, "are we there yet?" Granted, we have a long driveway. But really, it is evident from the extremely wildlife-intensive surroundings that we are nowhere near town, nor are we going to be in the near future. "NO," I said.

And, I got to thinking. After visiting a dear friend of mine in "the big city" this weekend, I had been pondering whether I really am "there" yet. Am I where I thought I would be? Ten years after graduating from law school, had I even begun to achieve what I thought I would? I suppose the answer is no. If you asked me ten years ago if I would be living in a small town with three kids, two dogs, two cats, a mortgage, minivan and various poultry (don't ask), I would have taken the first tentative steps toward a full-fledged drinking problem.

Oh, pardon me. I was drinking my wine.

So, ARE we there yet? I always knew I wanted kids. I love my kids. They make me smile and have the ability to irritate me at the same time. I understand my mother more now. I have developed a very similar strained smile that tells the world I love my children, even though one of them is distracting me while the other two are currently committing minor acts of vandalism and theft in the checkout line at the Wal-Mart Super Center.

Oh, dear God.

I am living a very good life. I have a wonderful husband whom I love and am very proud of. I have three beautiful children who I would give up my life for. I have a big, new house and lots of land and I have pets. I could give up the pets, really. But, on the whole, my life is very good. It's just not the life I imagined.

I thought I would be a prosecutor for a large county. I figured I would run for judge someday, or at least District Attorney. I thought I would have a nice suburban lawn for my kids to frolic in, a street outside they could ride their bikes on, and neighborhood barbeques. I was supposed to have a nice car with fewer crumbs permanently attached to the upholstery, and a house with toys neatly organized in bins and a guest bedroom with 400 thread-count sheets just waiting for someone to come and watch me be fabulous.

I have some of those sheets somewhere. I believe they are being used to make a fort.

But, you know, I think about all those things, and when I look at my life now, I realize that even though it is different than the one I thought I would have, I still love it. I love (well, not really, but it's a small point) my minivan, and I love my husband, and my house, and my job (usually)and all the other things that surround me every day. I don't love the poultry. If that damn rooster crows one more time in the middle of the night I'm going to take the final steps toward becoming a real-life frontier woman. I have a hatchet and a great recipe for fried chicken.

I think my biggest challenge is to actually take the time to enjoy all of the things I have.

Am I where I thought I'd be? No.

But I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Nothin' But a Good Time...

2007-08-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

We just wanted to re-live our youth.

That's why seven women (and one male "superfan") loaded into a red mini-van and a Ford Focus and drove for an hour to see POISON in concert at the Douglas County Fair. If a van full of thirty-something women with kids and pets and mortgages are not what Brett Michaels and his band were expecting when they decided to form a rock band 20 some years ago, then they should have given it a little more thought.

I drove the "party van." I won't elaborate much, except to say there were some mildly illegal activities going on in the back seat, and despite all knowledge and experience to the contrary, people actually took pictures of themselves engaging in said activities. I mean, come on. Don't you people watch the evening news????

So, we got to the concert, and I was struck immediately by the fact that each and every one of us had to run to the bathroom. This was no coincidence. I remember when I was young, and had the bladder elasticity of a 16 year old. Not anymore. We all made a beeline for the restrooms, and continued to do so for the rest of the night. I don't remember one time when we were all together unless it was in the bathroom line.

And then, the band came out. And we were all transported back to a time when big hair, makeup and skin-tight clothes were not just worn by the female fans of the band, but by the band members as well. Brett Michaels still knows how to shake it. The band can still crank out the party songs like it was yesterday. But I did have that feeling that they probably headed back to the tour bus to pop some Tylenol PM and get Ben-Gay rubdowns by the Rock of Love girls.

I made one purchase that night. The t-shirts were too expensive, and I don't wear t-shirts anyway. So, I went for the POISON g-string. At $20, it was the most expensive piece of elastic I have ever purchased.

Thanks for the memories, POISON. I'll be a fan forever. Not just because of the way your music makes me feel like a teenager again, but because it also got 7 thirty-something women (and one "superfan") with kids and mortgages and bladder control issues to get in a van, and pretend they were kids again, for one night at least.

Seoul Survivor

2007-07-31T18:43:00.001-07:00

I just returned from a wonderful trip to Seoul, Korea. This was the first time I had ever really travelled on my own. My husband and I had to take separate flights, he was working the whole time, and I ventured out of my comfort zone in a major way. I had a great time.

Living in a small town as I do, it's easy to get overwhelmed when you suddenly find yourself in a city of over 13 million people. It's huge, hot, crowded and definitely a culture shock. This is only the second foreign country I have ever been to, unless you count Baja, Mexico, which I suppose I would, if I could remember any of it. My friends tell me I had a GREAT time. Oh, and Canada. I've been to Canada. I don't remember much of that either, but for entirely different reasons.

At any rate, I found myself on the streets of Seoul, wandering through huge shopping districts, finding deals on clothes and bags and all sorts of things. I was in shopping heaven. Everything but shoes, that is, since my size 10s were not well represented in the stores. I wandered into a shoe store, and this little woman took one look at my feet and said, "you go back of store...BACK OF STORE," while she waved me through. The largest shoes they had were still at least a size too small.

I also was intrigued by Korean cuisine. I am a very adventurous eater. I have no problem trying anything once, as long as it isn't illegal or won't kill you. After this experience, I was rather unimpressed. I never had anything to eat that I immediately wanted to find the recipe for. Koreans eat kimchi with every meal, and kimchi is rather...pungent. It is cabbage mixed with lots of chilis and spices and is then fermented for a while. Need I say more? Most of downtown Seoul smelled like kimchi. Well, that, and other things that weren't nearly so appealing. I also verified my belief that many Korean foods were actually started as bar dares after drinking too much Jinro. LIVE BABY OCTOPUS????? I mean, really.

The Korean people in general were very nice. I am fairly certain they spent a lot of time talking about me behind my back, however. I was alone, which seemed unusual, and I am very tall, so I had no chance of blending. Every time I would leave a store, the chattering would increase to breakneck speeds as the owners leaned out of their doors to watch me and my big feet leave.

I went to the DMZ for a sobering experience. And the tour I took of two palaces was truly breathtaking.

Did I mention the shopping?

I had a great time, and I was really proud of myself for branching out and not being too nervous to leave the hotel room.

And did I mention the shopping?

TGIS (Thank God it's SUMMER)

2007-06-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

Summer is officially here tomorrow, and I can't say how glad I am. My kids are out of school, thus reducing the insane number of car trips I have to make every day. Now my kids can annoy each in the house, rather than in the car.

Summer is my favorite time of year. I look forward to the relaxing evenings when the sun is up a little longer than normal, enjoying a glass of wine on our deck, using our grill, and watching the kids play outside. Unfortunately, I don't seem to make as much time for these things as I used to. I am, instead, inside doing laundry, cleaning the house, or just being annoyed by the sheer amount of housework I have after the end of a day of work and taking care of the kids. It's overwhelming sometimes.

So, I am making a summer resolution. I never make new year's resolutions, so I don't really know why I am doing this at all, except that I am tired of feeling like I am not making the time to do the things with my family that are important. My summer resolution: spend each evening (that it's not pouring rain, anyway) outside with the kids and my husband. I want to be outside to hear my little Ella say for the 500th time, "watch me!" as she attempts some daredevil move involving her little tikes slide. I want to divorce the kids from the TV. I'd like to play catch with my kids in the yard.

So, that's what I'll do. Make time for the things that are really important.

I'm really looking forward to this summer. Now, all I have to do is go finish that laundry.

2007-05-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

Ah, the challenges of being a mom. I realize now that my entire life I've been preparing for this. All of my education, life experience and the advice given to me by my parents have gone into this one moment: the moment where I walk into my son's room at 9:30 in the evening and find a pair of scissors, open packages of food, toys with cut strings and clothing with new and exciting holes where there were no holes before, and I am met with the following explanation: "I didn't do it."

This is when I start wondering if I am somehow failing as a parent. Either my son is walking around with wax earplugs in his ears or he just doesn't care to listen to me. Either way, I constantly feel like I'm talking to myself. Did he get this stubbornness from me? From my husband? From the aliens that clearly must have abducted my sweet boy and returned this pod person to me?

Now, I know I wasn't always the best child. I was stubborn and once locked my brother in a toy box. Somehow, this knowledge doesn't make me feel any better right now. My husband wasn't always the best child either (this, too, is no surprise). What I really need is to figure out how to deal with a child who blames the cat for the artwork on the wall, or his sleeping younger sister for the five half-eaten apples tossed under his bed.

This weekend, we are going to be travelling so that all three of the kids can be in a wedding. Luke will be the ring-bearer, Maggie and Ella will be the flower girls. This is really starting to stress me out! What if Ella decides to throw her dress over her head, or run off with the basket? Will Luke decide to show off and be goofy? I hope that I have taught them well enough to behave at such a special occasion. Of course, I see the way they act in church, and the incident where Luke said the word "WEINER" at the top of his lungs does not bode well.

I just hope he takes out the earplugs long enough to listen to me say, "I love you."