PEACE, HARMONY, AND COLEMAN

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Next weekend, Don is taking the girls camping with a YMCA dads and daughters group. So we had to go buy camping supplies.

THIS MEANS THAT I AM GOING TO BE ALONE FOR A WHOLE DAY ALL BY MYSELF! If anyone has any great ideas of what I should do, let me know. I am at a loss. At any rate, this post is not about that.

I have to confess, the closest I have come to buying camping supplies was buying a mess kit for Sarah to take on a Girl Scout cookout. And it was hard, I had no idea where to go. Luckily Don knew what he was doing from having gone on the Wild Animal Park overnight last year.

We bought a tent and Don put it up in the back yard just for practice. The kids have been out there all day. If we had known that a simple pile of tarp would have caused PEACE for a day, we would have bought one long ago.

The only glitches have been Becca getting naked a couple times (because she is pretending to be a bear and everyone knows that bears do not wear clothing)....

TURNING 43

Friday, September 28, 2007

OK in the couple weeks I have been 43:

• I have bought an anti-aging face cream and wondered if I can apply it to other parts of my body.
• I have discovered that I have grown a 2nd ass. My swimsuit doesn't know what to do with it. When we go to Hawaii in a month, the natives will very likely bring it a burnt offering, assuming it's the spontaneous appearance of a new volcano.
• I have made myself an appointment for an eye exam. I can't see shit.
• I have short term memory loss. For example, I have already forgotten why I thought this post was going to be good.

INTERPRETATIONS WELCOME

Thursday, September 27, 2007

So here is a damned bizarre dream I had some time ago that I am not quite able to shake. Perhaps I live in fear of my own brain so much that it's obvious what it means and I'm just not wanting to think about it.... you tell me.

The scene is my present office, in San Diego. I have worked too late. I have to go home. My husband has already called to yell at me twice for being so late.

So I go home. I decide to jog home. (At this point, I should have been somehow tipped off that this was a dream, but as happens in dreams, it seemed logical at the time.) As I am doing my jog, the scenery is more like St. Louis - for those of you who grew up there too, it's Ladue Road, all windy and hilly and green as spring.

I decide to cut through some residential neighborhoods to get home faster. Only, many of my present-day San Diego friends are outside in their St. Louis/San Diego yards with their kids or grilling or something. As I pass through they call out to me... Michelle! Shelley! How are you doing... and soon I am stopping here and there having chats with all these people. In the back of my mind, I realize that I am soooo terribly late getting home and that Don and my kids are just going to be madder and madder at me... still all these people are appearing and chatting.

Finally I get home. It's my parents' home, the home I grew up in. Only all MY things are in it and my now-family evidently live there. And none of this seems strange - we are living in my childhood home but it's in the present day in San Diego.

I catch the inevitable hell for being late, and then I start to relate my conversations with friends, as I know everyone will be interested in the details. Reesie is there, using the kitchen phone that had the very long cord. Reesie was my mom's maid from when I was a little kid. She used to watch the soaps while vacuuming.


Only in the dream, Reesie is like 6 feet tall and looks like an African American Jolly Green Giant in a maid's uniform. Oh shudder the thought but it all seemed so logical at the time...

Anyway, we start talking about needing someone to house-sit while we are on vacation and not being able to find anyone (which is happening in the real world). Reesie overhears us and quickly volunteers to do it! Because she and 50 of her friends need a place to stay, anyway, when the Gospel Festival they are performing in comes to town.

(Note: Ida Mae, my mom's OTHER housekeeper growing up sang in traveling gospel choirs, not Reesie.)

Don and I look at each other uncomfortably. 'Cause do we really want Reesie and 50 of her closest singing buddies in our house? We try and find a polite way to backpedal.

And that's when I wake up?!

OK geniuses... what is THAT?

ENJOY... THIS IS TOTALLY FUNNY

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Thanks Allison!

HOLY SHIT!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Last year, my friend Beth and I started a program at our Temple to adopt some U.S. Soldiers. We requested troops who were in the worst possible conditions and started sending CARE packages to some kids stationed in such a remote outpost of Iraq that they live in a pop-up box with almost nothing. They are so grateful for everything we send - and last year the program turned up over 70 volunteers and we shipped over 400 boxes of stuff.

Tonight I found out that this program is THE national social action program for all the Reform Temples in the U.S.! So if you're a Reform Jew, chances are next year you'll be reading our literature/startup kit and doing the same thing.

Isn't that cool?!?!

UNFAIR

Sunday, September 23, 2007

I really don't like when YK falls on a weekend. Because then you spend like 40 more hours with the Little People and before you know it, you are taking the name of the Lord in vain, coveting your neighbor's scotch, and they are dishonoring you all over the place. That's like 30% commandment breakage immediately post-atonement.

Bah.

DISH

Saturday, September 22, 2007

OK it's Yom Kippur. In a few hours I will need to go and atone for all my shit. So I'm going to squeeze this post in to the previous year's apologies before I run out of time.

I'm not sure that's kosher but whatever.

I have been spending some time on the kids' grade school campus over the past few weeks. I take them to school most every day - which is really fabulous, they are so sweet and cute in the morning and I get to see all their little friends and their parents. And then a little volunteering here and there, and open houses, meeting the teachers, learning how to use the kiln (oh no don't ask)... and it's a big dose of the little people.

And their MOMs.

If you want to see the entire fall line of LL Bean and Talbot's on a runway... come to our grade school at around 8:05.Further, despite the fact that statistically, the US is becoming more ethnically diverse and might I say, chunky... here is the body type of pretty much every mom I encounter. To the point where I have a difficult time keeping them straight.

She can eat cake off my head/she is like 5'11". She has her act way more together than I do. She has rolled out of bed looking perky and eats egg whites. She greets other moms by saying "Hey gorgeous!" She's 37. She has Had Work.

Here is the most common work:


Is it really necessary to have lips as big as your ears? And they are starting to look more like ears. When a big breeze comes, do they flap? Do you say more "b's" because they are just unwieldy... maybe there is speech therapy to learn how to speak with the new lips?

There are also a lot of Boobs That Aren't Hers walking around. Your boobs should not enter a room before you. They should not stick straight forward like cannons. They should definitely not be bigger than your butt.

Also and maybe this is just me. But you should not be able (or desire) to wear your daughter's clothing. There is an alarming mother/daughter Amanda Bynes thing going on.

I'm excited to say I'm different. I have roots. I'm only a little taller than their 6th graders (who are well on their way to 5'11"). I have all my original parts. They may not be so exciting, but they are mine. OK I could use her workout tips and her personal chef. And some of the perkiness to rub off on me. Maybe this will be good for me?

ATTACK OF THE ARTS

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Today I worked in Becca's kindergarten classroom helping out with an art project. They call the program Arts Attack. Very clever. The kids do art, the parents have an attack.

First of all, should you give a kindergartner a Sharpie? Ever? How about 26 kindergartners? Including Becca?

While one mom with the patience of Jobe (or, better drugs than I have, maybe) explained how to draw a caterpillar and what patterns are for 3 minutes, the following things occurred:

• 2 kids hopped to the potty
• 1 kid complained that someone else was sitting in his seat
• 1 girl turned her shirt around backwards by pulling her arms in and twisting the shirt backward
• 2 kids lay down

Then we put them in their seats. Here were some of the questions they had:

• Can my caterpillar be pooping?
• Can I make a dinosaur caterpillar that eats everyone else's caterpillar?
• Can I start over? (547 of those)

After awhile, my answer to everyone was... Yes! Of course!

Sharpie does not come off of desks without a fight.

After 45 minutes, I went back to work. Where I sat in a heap in a meeting and recovered.

Apparently that was the easy lesson. The lessons with paint are real trippy. Oh good.

I'M OLDER

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

It's my birthday. Worked extra late and came home to Sarah studying for a history test. It's a typical Wednesday... except, I'm older.

IT'S WIEN-TASTIC!

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Yesterday we attended the San Diego Wiener Nationals - yes, dachshund racing! Ours only race from the stairs to the food bowl, so we just cheered on others of the species. It was a spectacle.

Music: Dueling Banjos by Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman

LEARNING BOUNCEBACK

Friday, September 07, 2007

Sarah played in another recital tonight. Most of the kids didn't do so well this time... it's hard to hit a recital right after summertime! I'm proud of Sarah... she didn't play her piece as well as usual, but she didn't let it upset her. She's so great.

FROM THE NEWSDESK

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Music: Run-Around by Blues Traveler

GOOD OLD FASHIONED BEACH DAY

Monday, September 03, 2007

Yesterday in the record San Diego heat (high 80s...), we hit Leucadia Beach with the kids and my friend Laura and her kids... with some great waves, the kids worked up an appetite boogie boarding and digging holes most of the afternoon. Becca found she could practically sail across the whole beach!

Music: "Maelstrom" by the TomorrowMen