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March 27, 2004

Today I let Jack pick out treats at the grocery store and in return learned his new strategy for making sure he gets his fair share. Frankly, he's tired of choosing his favorite chips, cookies etc. and then having a roving band of teenagers (brother Charlie and friends) devour them as quickly as you can say "Bob's yer uncle."  (I never did understand why anyone would say "Bob's yer uncle", but that's a blog entry for another time.) 

Jack, being a clever boy, devised a system requiring only that I purchase double treats. One bag of Matt's Chocolate Chip Cookies goes on the shelf in the cabinet as always. Jack calls this one the "decoy" bag. The second, and far more important bag, is cleverly hidden where no teenagers ever go, ensuring future cookie availability. So far his system works perfectly. In the interest of fairness I've vowed to keep his strategy a secret. And I have. Except for putting this up on the Internet, I haven't breathed a word.

March 22, 2004

Recently my husband spotted  what he thought was a scattering of flour on the floor of our pantry closet. Ever since the big moth infestation of 2002, we're diligent about containing loose food stuffs in said closet, so Greg set out to determine the source of the mystery substance. Maria fessed up immediately. "I accidentally knocked a can over," she said. 

Greg and I exchanged puzzled looks. "What can?" I asked.

"The one with the shiny outside and the chick on it," she said. It was a lot of information considering it didn't clarify anything.

"Show me," I said, and she did, going into the closet and producing a canister of Bon Ami. 

I was utterly amazed. How was it possible that a child of mine reached age 12 without knowing what cleanser is? Apparently I've fallen down in my parental duties.

It's not as if my daughter's unaware of things in the world. Unlike Paris Hilton, she knows Wal-Mart sells more than wallpaper. She's also more in the know than Jessica Simpson  who thought canned tuna was chicken, because the label said "chicken of the sea." And Maria's smart and funny and kind and sings beautifully. So I guess I'll forgive her this one lapse. And maybe show her how to scrub out a tub now and then.

March 19, 2004

I just read an Vanity Fair article about three boys from Mississippi who spent seven years filming a scene by scene remake of Steven Spielberg's movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. When they began the project they were ages 10 and 11; it took seven years to complete. 

They enlisted friends, siblings and pets, and shot the film during the summer holidays using a VHS camcorder. The end result is impressive, especially given what they had to work with--cave scenes filmed in a basement, a homemade giant boulder, and friends dressed up as Nazis.

Spielberg gave it his stamp of approval and Paramount  bought the rights to produce the story of the three friends filming what they call  "Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation." If you're interested you can read more about it here and here. Or you can pick up the March issue of Vanity Fair.

March 17, 2004

Happy St. Patrick's Day! In honor of the day I announced I'm making corned beef for dinner, which prompted this conversation between my husband and myself.

Greg: You know what would be good with that? Brussels sprouts!

ME: Brussels sprouts? But you hate brussels sprouts!

Greg (puzzled): No I don't.

ME: Yes you do. Remember how you used to say eating them was like having little squishy turds in your mouth?

Greg: No...

ME (Suddenly realizing): Wait a minute. I'm the one who doesn't like brussels sprouts.

Greg (sounding afraid for me): Okay then, make whatever you want.

So it's official--after you've been married 20 years everything starts to blend.

March 13, 2004

Today my older son and I stopped at an estate sale in our neighborhood. A man of about fifty years of age had died unexpectedly; his widow was selling most of his possessions including clothes, a baseball cap collection, furniture, and tools. 

Charlie found the whole thing unsettling. "Didn't it seem disrespectful to be going through his things?" he asked. "All those people who didn't even know him were rifling through his stuff."

Meanwhile all I could think of was that it was amazing how much crap a person could accumulate in a lifetime, myself included. So much of it is unnecessary. Why do we feel compelled to keep acquiring? We're like squirrels hoarding for just in case. It doesn't keep death at bay, that's for sure. It made me want to go home and go through every drawer and closet, paring down to just what I really need or cherish. 

March 11, 2004

As it turns out, I can no longer post stories about my children on this blog. Or at least not any about nine-year-old Jack, who has eagle eyes and too much time on his hands. Odd that he likes the "Captain Underpants" books, (even to the point of following me around the house reading sections aloud when I'm clearly not interested), but won't allow a cute anecdote about sleep attire. I made a good case for letting the story stay, throwing around phrases like "interfering with artistic vision" and "violating my Constitutional rights." I even pointed out that very few people read this thing, none of whom go to his school, but he wasn't buying it. 

Some people are so sensitive. All I can say is, Thank God my mother doesn't have a Web site.

March 8, 2004

* Embarrassing story removed at Jack's request.

March 2, 2004

In a last-ditch effort to save my sanity, my husband has kindly offered to take over my most difficult daily chore--waking up our sixteen-year-old son and getting him out the door in time to catch the bus at 6:55. A challenge even under the best circumstances.

This change in my schedule leaves me with plenty of free time to work on my latest invention. I call it: The Catapult Bed. I'm going to market it to parents of high school kids; I expect to make millions.

February 27, 2004

I was running a little late meeting a friend for lunch at Panera's and making a slight detour to an ATM drive-up for cash, when it happened. 

The bank hosting the ATM is one I'm very familiar with; it shares a frontage road with the McDonald's my family occasionally frequents (whenever we decide the blood in our arteries is flowing way too freely). 

I was listening to a CD I like quite a bit and thinking how $20 should cover lunch and then some, when the car inexplicably took a wrong turn and pulled into the McDonald's drive thru lane.

I caught the error almost immediately--I think my exact thought was: this is NOT the bank. Even though I was by myself, I felt a little sheepish, but hey, no harm done, right? After all, my car had reverse capability. But the problem was that another car had pulled up behind me in the meantime, essentially leaving me trapped. It occurred to me to walk back and ask if they could back up, but before I could do that, another car joined the line. And then another.

So there I sat, cursing the fact that I was listening to music when I should have been concentrating. And what's with me driving a mini-van? How pathetically suburban and non-environmental friendly was that? A smaller car might have been able to maneuver its way out, but this boat was going nowhere. 

I had a lot of time to think because the car in front of me had the longest order I've ever witnessed at a drive thru. I watched the woman lean out of the car window and heard her voice, but had trouble making out the words. It sounded like she was reciting the Gettysburg Address. Without onions. No lettuce. Extra ketchup packets.

Three songs later, I was able to move forward. When I yelled into the speaker, "I'm not ordering. I changed my mind," the woman on the other end said, "Alrighty then," sounding downright cheerful. 

The good news is that even though I was late for lunch, my friend was even later. When she apologized for keeping me waiting, I told her not to worry about it. I didn't mind at all.

February 25, 2004

Okay, here's a joke that supposedly only geeks will get:

There are ten kinds of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Nope, I can't tell you what it means. My computer engineer husband, however, understood it immediately. Hmm, I wonder if this means we're not compatible?

February 20, 2004

Shocking news. Turns out, there's porn on the Internet. I know because earlier this week it snuck onto our computer.

I wasn't there at the moment it happened, but this is the story I was told:  My older son, Charlie, was at the computer checking out a site with downloadable ring tones for cell phones, when he stopped to answer the phone next to him. The next part is in dispute--Charlie says he was on the phone less than thirty seconds, his sister says it was way longer than that--maybe two minutes even, but what is known for sure is that while Charlie was discussing what I'm certain was homework, a question popped up on the screen necessitating a yes or no answer. Twelve-year-old, Maria, standing nearby, reached over and clicked yes, opening the gates to the porn site from hell. 

Suddenly, I was told, porn filled the screen and no matter what was clicked it just came back.

At this point I was called in. Charlie wanted it known he wasn't taking the rap. "Great, now because of Maria we've got a virus." And then, "What kind of idiot clicks yes without even knowing what it is?" he asked. 

Meanwhile Maria was crying and saying over and over, "I didn't know. It was an accident."

I told the kids not to worry, their Dad would fix it when he got home. I thought my words would be reassuring, but Maria looked worried. "What time is Dad coming home?" she asked. She said it like she hoped the answer would be "never."

But when Greg arrived he was calm and able to get rid of the offensive intruder without too much trouble. I knew he would, since that's what he does for a living (takes care of computer systems, not eradicates porn). He explained to Maria that sometimes virus's will try to get in by asking seemingly innocent questions. He told her never to agree to anything she wasn't sure of. 

Wise words to live by.

February 19, 2004

My brother-in-law (the husband of my much younger, in-the-know sister) has informed me that hit counters on web sites are "wack."  The word, as I understand it, has nothing to do with hitting someone with a stick, and everything to do with it being uncool.  Visitor counters, he said, scream "amateur." (I actually did hear some screaming when I was installing it, but I thought it was the kids.) So I really should remove it, I guess. The problem is, I like my little visitor counter. I get a kick out of seeing how many people have logged on, conveniently forgetting, of course, that most of the hits have been me checking to see how many people have logged on. Sigh. I'll have to think about this.

February 11, 2004

Why is it when you go to one-hour service places they act like they're doing you a favor doing it in one hour? Case in point--the last time I dropped off a roll of film, the teenage girl behind the counter asked when I wanted to pick it up. When I said, "In one hour,"  she drew in a sharp breath, made a disapproving noise, then turned around and yelled to the guy in back, "Brad, she wants it in an hour."

There was a really long pause while Brad weighed the situation. He was sitting behind a machine so I couldn't see him, but I imagined him, chin on his fist, like Rodin's statue "The Thinker."  Finally (when the suspense was just about killing me), he yelled back, "Okay, we can do it."

Now I've had this happen more than once and at different places too--the dry cleaners, the pharmacy etc. So, here's my question: why do they even bother putting the words "one-hour" in the name of the business if they don't mean it? I mean, wouldn't "One-hour-if-Brad-says-it's-okay-photo-finishing" be more accurate?

Jeez.

February 10, 2004

Aha--I finally figured out how to make Web pages using the software my husband, Greg got for me!  Turns out you have to read the directions and follow them. I could have saved myself a lot of time if someone had clued me in ahead of time. We'll see if it actually works when it's time to put it on the Internet....