Blog

The Naughty Space Bar

Homeschooling, UncategorizedWrite a comment

No, no, this is not some review of a bizarre new strip club where the girls wear space suits and the poles look like rockets…so if that’s what you’re looking for please go away and never come here again.

Or better yet you can go to this website, which is a link a fellow homeschool mom sent out this morning to our group.

I clicked, looked,  and said “Well then.” Wondering if it was a mistake, or if maybe she had decided let us in on a much more personal side of her life.

One that involved shoe fetishes and dominatrix dates.

How did this happen, you wonder?

Easy. Blame it on that naughty space bar.

Just one stray tap of that space bar and you go from this: http://www.chicagohomeschoolexpo.com/

to this: http://www.chicagoh omeschoolexpo. com/

ETA: Since posting this, the “mistake” link no longer takes you anywhere…so if you were hoping for a dose of porn…you’ll have to get it elsewhere my friend.

I know, it’s so hard to find porn on the internets.

I see what they mean by “the good old days”

Kids, Life, Products, Uncategorized, WorkWrite a comment

Often, you (and by you, I guess I mean me) hear people complain about the way technology is destroying mankind. Not robots harvesting humans for… (what would robots harvest humans for anyway?)type stuff; just the simple fact that the more ways we have to communicate, the less we seem to connect.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah-blah-blah. I’m sure the same complaints were made when the telephone first became popular. (Imagine the following in cranky old person voice) “What! You can’t even come over for a visit anymore! No time to see me face to face, gotta send your voice over a wire and, huh? I’m holding it wrong? What do you mean the receiver is upside down? See! We wouldn’t have this problem if you’d just get on your horse and drop by for a chat dagnabbit.”

Now, I’m not about to trade in my e-mail for a stationary set, or stop texting quick notes to hubby and friends…but I have decided there is a line in the technology sand I’m not ready to cross: the dvd player in the car line.

Once a week I teach a class that’s almost an hour away (sometimes worse on the way home if the traffic is bad…which it always is).  My daughter comes with since she takes a class at the same time, and two one hour car rides, especially when you’re tired and hungry and crawling along in stop and go rush hour traffic (why do they call it “rush” hour anyway? You may be in a hurry, but you sure aren’t going anywhere fast!) So when I got a portable dvd player for my birthday (to stick in the workout room so I can gaze upon Tom Welling and catch up on Smallville episodes while logging some time on the treadmill), I decided to try taking it along in the car for Miss A for the long car ride.

Even before I set it up for her I made ground rules: the dvd player will be for very long car rides only, and it doesn’t stay in the car permanently. We used it for the first time last week, and I’m very glad I put those rules in place…if I had not before, I would have after.

It wasn’t that the system was hard to set up, or difficult to operate – and it did in fact, offer me a peaceful (well as peacfeul as you can get while dodging potholes going 60 mph) drive to work…but it was just weird to have Miss A be so, well,  quiet!

If you have read any of my posts, you know that many of my more interesting conversations with my daughter occur in the car. Her brain wanders and lights upon all sorts of unique, bizarre, and clever observations.

It was nice to have a bit of a peace on a long drive, especially since most of her conversation during such drives is restricted to whining about how long it is taking or how hungry/thirsty/tired/bored she is, and if that isn’t enough she goes into this mode where she drums up old grudges…past moments of insult/injury that she decides to get angry about all over again; such as the time I promised her a playdate with a friend and had to back out – or something similar. With the dvd player on she settled back in her car seat (Princess, of course) and all I heard was the occasional giggle. In fact, since the movie wasn’t finished when we pulled up in the driveway she was sad the drive was over!

So I do plan to bring it along for those long drives…but  there is no way it will be a daily thing – I can’t even imagine all the awesome, interesting hilarious and sometimes awkward conversations I would miss out on with my daughter; wait, I can imagine it…and that’s why I would never do it.

When I eventually decide to buy a new car, there are some features I am definitely considering: remote starter, gps system…hey, maybe even seat warmers…but a dvd player? No.

No thank you.

Lazy People Litter and UPOG

I hate people who..., UncategorizedWrite a comment

Looking at the title of this post, I realize “litter” could be read as a noun or a verb…I guess I could mean both. Y’know, like the word “cook” is a noun or a verb.

In the case of it being a noun, “lazy people” would modify the word – telling us just what type of litter it is; as in: “Look at all the lazy people litter out here, sheesh people, is it that hard to walk your garbage ten feet to a trash can?  Obviously it must be, since they can’t walk ten feet to put their shopping cart away either.  Sometimes you get the double whammy: a really lazy person who not only couldn’t take the time to throw out their nasty tissue/big gulp cup/UPOG (unidentified piece of garbage) but rather just tossed into their cart, then left said cart sitting in the parking lot before hopping into their trash filled minivan. Oh wait, their car won’t be filled with trash because they routinely toss it out the window while driving…or – one of my favorites (that’s sarcasm here, by favorite, I mean most likely to really irritate me. Really.) – pull into a parking spot, open their car door, and drop a pile of trash on the ground (it’s under my car! nobody will know!) before heading into a store which probably contains a plethora of places to properly dispose of that pile.

If you’ve ever tried to pull into a parking spot, only to discover a shopping cart taking up half the space…or while walking through a parking lot had to zig-zag to avoid a soiled diaper just sitting on the asphalt…or went to grab a cart only to find a wad of upog that you really wished you had a pair of tongs to remove…then you understand my pain.

The verb form is obvious: lazy people litter all the time, as my daughter often observes. I fear my disgust for the lazy people of the world (shared by my husband) has clearly had an effect on her. Though I’d prefer it if she didn’t publicly chastise perpetrators, I’m glad she has learned the simple grace of being respectful of the world we live in and others in it. Because really in a lot of ways, littering is a simple matter of disrespect. When you litter, you mar the beauty of your surroundings, and you make more work for somebody else  – whether it be the next person to park where you did (who isn’t also a lazy person that would not only leave the cart right where you left it, but add a few upog to your pile as well), or the cart dude who has to round up all those carts (“But that’s his job! a lazy person will whine…no your job is to put the cart in the corral – his job is to collect them from the corral and bring them back in to the store).

Miss A was reflecting on “lazy people litter” in the car the other day. Thinking of all the things one may toss from the window, she told me, “They better watch out if they litter with  something like a receipt from the library check out. Because then the police have your name and will know where you live.”

Ah, if only it were quite so simple.

But beware you lazy litterers of the world, A.J. is watching you.

And if I were you, I’d throw those library check out receipts in a trash can.

And while we’re on the subject of Rice Krispies…

Cool Stuff, Products, UncategorizedWrite a comment

I just really found this fascinating, odd…but fascinating.

Keep in mind I’ve had two glasses of wine tonight.

Did you kow that “Snap-Crackle-Pop” is not universal? Nope (at least that’s what Wiki tells me) The following has been cut and pasted from a wikipedia article:

The onomatopoeic noises differ by language:

Oh, and in Australia they call them “Rice Bubbles.”

Hm.

Learn something new everyday!

I really just need to make my own…

UncategorizedWrite a comment

Holiday radio station. First let me say that  I love Christmas music: it helps put me in the holiday mood, it lifts my spirit and is part of the whole package of decorating, baking, shopping, wrapping and anticipating. All fun things to do….yet do them too much or for too long at one time and what was fun becomes a tedious chore. Same issue with the holiday music. One local radio station goes all holiday all the time from mid-November til the big day. Which is a great idea – I like the fact that anytime I need a boost I can flip to that station and get some holiday tunes. The problem is that it seems to always be the same 4 or 5 tunes. And that, well, it become rather tedious…like waiting in line after line after line. Or having to do those last few batches of cookies after making a dozen dozen. Especially since they seem to have some of my least favorite songs on permanent hourly repeat.

So I have resorted to gathering my favorite holiday music and loading up the trusty ipod. Viola! My own holiday radio station. Maybe I’ll get A.J. to record some intros to various songs. She loves to play talk radio. Check out my Top 10 page to see what the main songs in my rotation would be…and the 10 holiday songs you would NEVER hear on Radio Johnson.

Tri-Dogs and Nocturnal Ears – The 5 year old Linguist

Kids, UncategorizedWrite a comment

I had meant to post about this over a week ago, but as usual things get busy and blogging falls pretty low on the delegation of time for – well, anything, list. So, in view of recent events, the following “tri” conversation I had with my daughter is bittersweet.

The other day Aishtyn (in the car of course, where all her greatest mental work seems to flourish) asked me if “tri” meant three, since a triceratops has three horns. “Yep,” I said, “And a triathlon is a race that has 3 events, and a tricorne hat has 3 corners, and a trident has 3 prongs, and a tripod balances on 3 legs…” As I paused to consider what other examples I could come up with, she piped up with one of her own, “And your Mom has tri-dogs!!!” Laughing, I agreed. My mom has three dogs, she lives in a tri-dog home…or did until a few days after that conversation. Sigh.

My daughter has developed the habit my grandmother excelled at: selective hearing. On one such occasion (again in the car) she had asked my husband to repeat himself several times, when finally he grumbles out a frustrated “Wake up your ears!” To which Aishtyn immediately responds, “My ears sleep in the morning and afternoon and are awake at night. My ears are ‘OCKturnal’ (nocturnal for those of you who can’t translate 5-yr-old-ese). ” As it was still only mid-morning, I figured we were in for a loooong afternoon of, “What did you say?”

Playing the role of Captain Obvious…

Time Wasters, UncategorizedWrite a comment

…is People magazine, who recently ran the big story that Clay, he’s gay.

Shocking, I know.

About as shocking as the moment we all found out THIS GUY (insert euphemism for homosexuality here). Is Gay?!?!?

No, there’s no possible way that THIS GUY could be gay!

Really, I can’t believe HE is gay!

In case you’re confused, I’m referring to George Michael. The other dude (Anthony something…I think? You can wikipedia it if you really need to know) is NOT gay…and that, perhaps, may be the more surprising piece of info.

(And yes, it so looks like Georgie’s hand is on the dude’s ass, not his own leg)

Of all the emotions humans experience, regret is the worst.

Life Sucks, UncategorizedWrite a comment

All too easily I am able to sink myself into the murky depths of the “if only…” thought process. It’s probably why I was so obsessed with Romeo and Juliet as a kid. Rewinding and replaying a series of events – pin pointing what I did wrong, and agonizing over how one simple action on my part could have changed everything and made things better. I’m not talking about just major mistakes that led to life-changing repercussions, though I have had my share of those (of which thoughts I keep locked up in a box and buried under the bed in the deepest darkest closet of my mind). For me it’s even the little things I do that lead to something going wrong that tie my stomach up in knots for days and take over my ability to concentrate on anything else except, “You idiot! Why did (or didn’t) you do/say that?!?” I know I am butchering this quote terribly, I’m not even sure if it’s the right play…but one of Shakespeare’s characters (I think in Julius Caesar) has a comment on how “What’s past hope should be past care.” And really, I wish it was that easy. I get it – I do – I know that when something is done, it’s done, and fretting over it and wishing I could change it does no good and will get me no where. Yet I can’t seem to help it! All I can say is that I am thankful that overall, the things I have to regret are relatively minor in the scheme of things (most of them) and that what I wish above all; not only for myself but for my children, is that we can live out our days with, if not without any, than at least with very few moments of serious regret.

Seeking to Silence the Stress

UncategorizedWrite a comment

We all know stress is bad for us, and I am really trying hard to not let all the little things bother me. The other day I was feeling Mr. Stress creep up and threaten to drown me, when I realized here I was on a GORGEOUS day, walking with my even more gorgeous daughters to the park with a blue blue sky and the wind blowing through the trees with the taste of fall in the air. So, I let it all go…all the little things eating me – I just told them all to go away. I walked on, listening to the happy chatter of my 5 year old, and the wind in the trees.

Ever since I was very little I have loved that sound. On fall nights I would lie down on an old picnic table we had in our backyard and look up at the stars, just listening to the wind in the trees. If ever I found a moment of true peace, of a “quietness” in my soul, it was listening to the wind blowing through the trees. Other sounds have brought me similar moments of comfort, joy, and/or peace – and the simple act of listing them on my Top 10 page has made me remember how nice it is to sit and just listen.

Random Musings – aka – stuff that floats through my brain while I’m in the shower

UncategorizedWrite a comment

I’m sure there are activities you do that leave your mind free to roam about, pausing on one inane thing or another before flitting off to something else. For me, these moments of mental window shopping usually occur when I’m in the shower, going for a jog (though it’s only walks I’ve been doing lately), or driving. Usually one random thought shows up, and then it leads to some other random idea, and another, and another, my train of thought jumping tracks until finally arriving at a single place to ponder on some equally inane topic as the one I started with. For example, while I was washing my hair the other day I happened to recall a conversation from the most recent book club meeting when one of the girls mentioned how her mother first met her step-father through an on-line dating service. Her mother had to move to England where her step-father, Hugh, lives. This thought got me thinking about how Hugh is considered a very English (as in Brit) name, though I think of it as more French…but most Hugh’s you come across (not that there are many, though I am married to one) are of the UK variety. This made me think of Hugh Grant, and how he always plays the charming bumbler – a character I don’t much care for except in the case of another actor named Grant, Cary – in “Bringing Up Baby.” This made me try and draw a comparison between Hugh and Cary Grant, but I gave that line of thinking up quickly, because really, there’s no comparison. Which led me to think about how many of the actors of the 30’s and 40’s I like so much better than those of today…Cary Grant isn’t really one of my favorites, but I LOVE Errol Flynn, and Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, and enjoy Richard Peck, Rex Harrison, and Burt Lancaster (though I guess he comes a little later). From here I began compiling a mental list of my top ten favorite “Classic Movies,” though by now I was rinsing the conditioner out of my hair and just about to step out of my shower. But that list stuck around in my mind, and if you’re curious, check it out – for I’ll add it to my 10 page now.

Oh, and if there’s a movie on this list you have not seen, rent it today!

It was kind of fun to retrace my mental steps and try to play connect the dots with my thought pattern, like following the conversation of my 5 year old.