Ok, this is where I switch to insightful and inspiring religious blog writer.

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Did you go to church this past Sunday and hear the reading about the adulteress who got hauled in to the Pharisees et al in order to be stoned? And how Jesus, dissuading the crowd from this course, bent down and wrote something in the dirt until the stoners (heh, heh) went away?

When the reading was over, I leaned right and asked Sonny what he thought Jesus was writing on the ground. His response?  Smiley faces.  Or maybe emoji’s.

Hmmm, could be. Afterall Jesus is God and God invented emoji’s long before he released the knowledge to the rest of the world last year.

Then I leaned left and asked Sissy the same question. Because she’s amazing in every way, she had her answer thoroughly prepared and vetted by the Vatican prior to her arrival at church: Jesus was writing THEIR sins (the sins of the Pharisees and other would-be-stoners) in the dirt.

Wow. I’ve heard this reading my whole life and never got that interpretation.  Sounds like a really great answer to me, though.

Whereupon Sissy asked what Sonny’s answer was and I said, “Emojis.” At which point she looked across me to him and rolled her eyes and gave *the* look of annoyance and disgust like only a thirteen year old girl can do.

Sonny didn’t dig that, so they got into a face-making, arm-poking situation across my back which I then had to separate. That went as well as can be expected.

And that? That right there?!  Is why my family STILL sits in the cry room.  I cry waaaay too much because of the kids to be out in the church proper with all the regular, non-weeping folks.

And if you ever see me in the cry room bending down to write something on the ground, you can almost be sure I’m writing one of two things: dots and dashes that form the international signal for “send help soonest” or……a frowny face.

Sissy’s team won the Academic Decathlon.  And now they go to Nationals in California. But first?  They were allowed to wear their medals – each kid on the team earned at least three during the competition – to school the Monday after the big win.

As I say: If you got ’em, wear ’em!  (I actually say: If you got ‘em, drink ‘em.  But not everyone was in the military and would understand the reference.  Also, a comment like that is highly inappropriate for this blog, so you can keep that to yourself.)  As I also say: If you EARNED ’em, wear ’em.  And these kids earned them, diligently preparing for six months straight with study sessions four mornings a week before school, on Sunday nights and even during school breaks!  God bless these kids.  Wear those medals loud and proud, you deserve it!  And I’m not even joking when I say loud.  Because when Sissy went off to school on Medal Monday, she sounded like she was wearing a suit of armor.  Clunk, clankclank.  Clunkety clankclunk.

What did Sissy think about the whole thing? She said she finally understood how the dog felt.  All the medals on her neck reminded her of the tags on the dog’s collar that jingle and jangle at every step.

Speaking of dogs…and tags…

One time when it was our first dog and we had no kids, I came home from work and couldn’t find the dog anywhere.  Usually the dog would spend all day napping in the front hall, but when I looked for him there, all I found was an empty front hall and a gaping hole in the floor where the air conditioning vent grate belonged. Hmmm, weird.

After calling and calling the dog’s name, he finally appeared at the top of the stairs with his tail tucked and the vent grate hanging from his collar. Wha’up, wha’up Thuggy D?! Gangsta in da house!!

Apparently, the dog had been sleeping on the nice cool air coming out of the vent. But when he got up from his nap, the rabies tags on his collar lodged in the grate and it got pulled up too.  I can’t even imagine what crazy squirreling around must have ensued as he tried to ditch his new three pound Def Jam Playaz Circle necklace before he finally called it quits and hid upstairs from the madness, with Mr. T. still going on around his neck.

Yep, I can still picture the dog standing at the top of the stairs with the vent grate hanging from his neck. And if I squint hard enough with my mind’s eye, you know what it looks like?  It looks almost like an Academic Decathlon medal.  Or three.

Congrats, Sissy and Team. California here you come!!

It’s Sonny’s birthday today and we got him a remote controlled helicopter thingie with a built-in camera*.  (Yes, it’s a “helicopter thingie” because if we called it a drone, we’d have to register it with the FDA…or is it the NRA?!)

Anyway, what’s a freshly minted twelve-year-old boy gonna do with something like that?! Lots of things, for sure, but his initial thought was, “Wow!  I can use this to spy on all the girls!!”

Yes, Sweetie, that’s exactly why we got it for you. Girls do a lot of stuff that requires spying on, and we’re putting you in charge of that.

He promptly took the helicopter thingie outside, flew it for 3 seconds and got it stuck in the tree.  My response?  “How do the girls look from up there!?!  They doin’ anything we should know about??”

Apart from the early morning birthday hi-jinks, I wanted to share with you this poem Sonny wrote about Happiness.

Happiness

Happiness looks like a rainbow floating on clouds.

It sounds like an ice cream truck

and tastes like fairy cupcakes with sprinkles and whipped cream.

Happiness smells like freshly baked bread.

It looks like a birthday party with a piñata.

Happiness makes me feel like I have no homework.

It’s a little heavy on the food analogies, but you get the gist.

And speaking of happiness, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank my son for bringing so much happiness into our lives.  Since the day you were born, Darling Boy, I’ve felt like I had no homework.  I’ve been a little hungrier than usual for some reason…but back to that no homework feeling.  Thank you for all that you are.  And we hope that you get the helicopter out of the tree soon.  We gotta know what’s going on with all the girls.

*I am the eye in the sky, looking at you, I can read your mind.  I am the maker of rules, dealing with fools, I can cheat you blind.  And yes, those are the lyrics to the 1982 song “Eye in the Sky” by the Alan Parsons Project.  But if you think I’m going to turn my son’s helicopter thingie with a built in camera birthday present into a winning entry in the “An 80’s song for every moment in life” game we play, then you’re right.  I just did.  Boom, drop the mike!  And Happy Birthday, Sonny!  Mommy loves you.  And Mommy’s a WINNER!

Tyler Tater Tot Casserole Recipe. No, not a dinner side dish.  Instead, the name my son insisted on being called when he and Sissy were little and playing “house.” And for the record, no, I never made a tater tot casserole so I have noooo idea where the name came from. But you had to say the name out like that, no nicknames: Tyler Tater Tot Casserole Recipe.  A bit of a mouthful, yes?! Guck, guck, guck.

Also during these “house” sessions, Tyler Tater Tot Casserole Recipe would star as the zero-baby. What’s a “zero-baby” you ask? Well, as the name clearly implies, a “zero-baby” is a baby not yet a year old.  Duh.  As such, zero-baby can barely sit up on his own, definitely can’t walk, and therefore must always be dragged (drugged?!) across the hardwood floors while sitting precariously perched on a blanket.  If you pull too quickly on the blanket?  Yep.  Drugged melon head goes over.  Always.  Every time. 

And what happens if Tyler Tater Tot Casserole Recipe finds himself on carpet? He needs to be pushed around in a plastic laundry basket.  Until that one time…when Sissy, starring as the mini-mother of Tyler Tater Tot Casserole Recipe, came up with the brilliant idea to send her darling zero-baby sledding.  In the plastic laundry basket.  Down the carpeted stairs.  To keep him company on his long trip, she also placed a hard-shelled, primary-colored, smiley-caterpillar-that-sang-the-alphabet in the basket then warned them both sternly to stay seated.

All precautions handled, can you imagine l’il mom’s surprise when the whole shebang quickly went to hell in a laundry basket?! Imagine.  Murphy’s Law — activate! — and after the initial “push” down the “hill,” Tyler Tater Tot Casserole Recipe slammed into the balusters.  The edge of the laundry basket caught, skewed him sideways and sent him ricocheting between wall and stair railing down to about Step 8 when the big ol’ melon went wonky and it was arse over teakettle the rest of the way down.  At some point smiley caterpillar entered the mix and slammed into Tyler Tater Tot Casserole Recipe’s mouth leaving him swollen-lipped and bleeding by the time the sleigh ride was over.

For the record, it was 6:30 on a Sunday MORNING…and I was in BED…SLEEPING, and only caught the open mouthed wailing that happened on the tail end.  Prior to that, I vaguely recall hearing Sissy shout, “hang on!” and a lot of thumping and bumping noises.  

Anyway, where I’m going with all of this is that Sonny just recently announced the name he has chosen for his second son: Cornelius. Don’t know why, don’t know how, but I’m hoping his wife will step in at some point and sort things out.

He’s been considering the name of the second son since he came up with the name of his first son a few years ago: Hot Daniel. Nope, yep, nope. I’ve got no idea.  Ditto don’t know why/how/wife comment above.   

And the names of his daughters? Sheila and Turtle.

Hmmm. Just about what you’d expect from a boy called Tyler Tater Tot Casserole Recipe.

P.S.  I forgot to mention that if there’s a THIRD son, he’ll either be named Derrick, John or…Juggernaut.

Did you ever have to read Waiting for Godot in its original French?!  It’s a play in two acts written by Samuel Beckett who is a defining playwright of the movement known as Theatre of the Absurd.

The entire play takes place beside a tree and it’s about two guys who are waiting for a third guy named Godot.  The first scene ends when a boy shows up and tells the other two that Godot isn’t coming today, maybe tomorrow.  The second scene progresses exactly the same way, with Godot being a no-show yet again.

Yep, that makes *no* sense. Totally absurd.  An entire play of it.  So much so that I now understand why the French invented wine.  So that they could drink it instead of having to read this play.

And you know what might be slightly worse than having to READ an absurdist play? Having to SEE an absurdist play. Eugène Ionesco is another defining playwright of the absurdist movement, and his La Cantatrice Chauve (the Bald Soprano) is why the French subsequently invented drinking wine…on the sidewalk…before going into the Theatre of the Absurd.

I speak from experience when I say that you can drink wine right there on the sidewalk before you go into Théatre de la Huchette in Paris where The Bald Soprano continues its amazing run. You can have two, even three glasses of wine if you want, at your café table on the sidewalk right before you go in to see the play.  It helps.  A little bit.  But not that much.  Because the whole play is still absurd, and no hairless singer ever shows up.

But you know what must be the worst thing of all?!? STARRING in your own absurdist play.  Which my dog does every single day of his life.

Look at the picture below. This is EXACTLY the setting for Waiting for Godot.  Except the dog’s play is entitled Waiting for Squirrels.  The whole day goes by and the squirrels never come.  Eventually a boy comes by to tell the dog the squirrels aren’t coming today, but maybe tomorrow.

The next day? Theatre of the Absurd, Dog Version, starts all over again.  No wonder why I find a ton of empty wine bottles every time I’m in the back yard.

I just had Lasik surgery on the balls of my eyes recently – well, really just the one ball – and I gotta say, I’m not the biggest fan.

You see, guck, guck, SEE?! something happens to your eyes when you’re hrmm, hrmm over forty: eventually you’ll have to wear glasses – either to see your crochet projects…or to see the individual leaves on trees.  Therefore, the eyeball doc recommends that if you’re hrmm, hrmm over forty and going to correct your vision with Lasik, you should get only the dominant eye lasered-up, and then you won’t have to wear glasses for up close OR far away.

When they do Lasik to only one eye, this results in something called monovision, which means you have to wear a monocle, adopt an English accent and say things like, “What, what! Jolly good, old man.”  You also have to hang out with the tall hatted peanut who shows up way overdressed for parties.  It becomes a drag after a while, especially if your kids are allergic to peanuts.  It also makes you very, very tired.  But I may have that confused with mononucleosis.

So luckily, the having-to-wear-a-monocle part of the recovery is only at night and only for two weeks (or until you run out of the surgical tape they gave you to keep the monocle securely in place so as to protect your eye from all the elbows that come flying at it while you’re sleeping). And because I may have led you to believe the monocle was a circular, black rimmed device with a string hanging from it Cheerio I say, I say (otherwise why else would the peanut hang out with me?  Twins!) I wanted to let you know it’s actually more of a clear shelled, pirate-patch shaped thing.  Cute, right?  So cute, all taped to your face at night Aaargh me hearties.

Eventually your dominatrix eye heals and your vision becomes something akin to looking through a telescope AND a microscope simultaneously. I think we can agree it’s well worth the mucho dinaro to be able to see Alpha Centauri and amoebas at the same time.

But here’s where I bust this thing wide open. Bust it!  Exposé!!  Gritty underbelly of Lasik exposed!!

The ONE thing no one talks about – which I feel needs talking about – is the smell. The smell.  It smells like hell.  The smell during Lasik is the worst, most gag-inducing thing in the world.  This explains the pre-surgery valium, which is to prevent you from flipping out once you begin to smell your own eyeballs being lasered.  Because you know what that smells like?  BURNING HAIR!!  Burning eyeballs smell like BURNING HAIR!!!  Gaaack!  GAAAAAACCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!

NOPE!  Nopey nopers.  Not Lasik’s biggest fan.

The party’s over.  The parade is done. So this will have to be THE final word on Super Bowl 50 then we’ve all gotta get back to our real lives.

You know what’s more fun than flying into Denver on Christmas Eve 1992?! Flying into Denver on Superbowl 50 Sunday with the Denver Broncos gunnin’ for the win!

Christmas Eve 1992, there were free movies on every screen, free champagne flowing like a river, hot meals being glad-handed left and right (have two if you want!), right before landing, little boxes of chocolate distributed to one and all. We had fresh blankets!  And pillows!  An entire row all to ourselves!!  Why couldn’t that flight go on and on!?  It was The.  Best.  Flight.  Ever.

Then there was my flight last Sunday – when I had the privilege of flying Frontier Airlines. Into Denver.  While the Broncos were playing in Super Bowl 50.  Come ON!  What could be more fun than that?!  And by “more fun” I mean I’m totally lying; it was awful.

Because now that we’re from the future, Frontier has yanked out every creature comfort from their planes, including all the t.v.’s. So we had to rely on the pilot to give us the score from the cockpit as it was unfolding.  Apparently the cockpit is where the only t.v. on the plane now lives.  Which seems a little weird, if you ask me.  Afterall, you wouldn’t want to distract a pilot with a lot of t.v. watching because he’s…uh…BUSY FLYING A PLANE!!!

But Captain flies his plane in a democracy, so pre-flight he asked for a show of hands: who didn’t want scores from the magic box in his office announced mid-flight. Two people raised their hands so Cappy, wanting ALL his passengers satisfied, declined to read out the scores.  Flippin’ hilarious, Cappy. Love the stand-up routine.

At which point we took the hand-raisers out back, did that thing we learned in prison with the sweatsock and soap, then asked for a re-count, and surprise! All the passengers were then satisfied and demanding score updates.

Which Cappy proceeded to provide in some weird rendition of open mic night. But one of those bad, bad open mic nights, definitely not those good ones.  He would hum the duh, nuh, nuh, duhnuhnuh theme song and then come on with his sleepy voice all, “Hidey Ho, Folks.  It’s the bottom of the first quarter and the score is now 10 to nuthin’.  Who do you think is in the lead?!”

Ok, are there beers being served where he is? He has the t.v. AND the beers??  Everyone knows that there’s a direct correlation between the Superbowl, t.v. and beers (Budweiser* to be exact).  Clearly Cappy’s got it goin’ ON in the cockpit based on what I can hear from open mic night.  Totally unfair because there’s no beer back here – none even being OFFERED for PURCHASE.  Only hot-tea-made-with-nonpotable-water-from-the-bathroom-faucet-I’m-not-even-kidding-I-saw-it for $1.99.  And a salami-and-cracker combo that saves you fifty cents, FIFTY CENTS, but costs you TWELVE DOLLARS if you buy it in the combo.  How much for just the salami by itself?  Or maybe the crackers??  Betcha Cappy’s got steak up there, num, num, num. 

“Duh, nuh, nuh, duhnuhnuh. Hidey Ho, Folks.  I have steak up here, howz about you?  Oh, and it’s the top of the second quarter and the score is now 13 to 7.  Broncos.”

*I’ve heard Manning’s Budweiser plug ended up being worth almost $14 MILLION dollars. So I’m hoping mine will net me $139.  Just plain dollars would be fine.  That will be enough to cover the one-way cost Frontier charged me to carry on my luggage, plus the fee I had to pay at check-in for my seat (even though I already paid for my seat back when I first bought it and it was called a ticket).  And while I didn’t buy any food or drinks, what with the way things are going and all here in the future of air travel, I’ll probably OWE Frontier for mentioning them in my blog.  Budweiser, please send my check soonest.

Remember how I told you goofy stuff happens to me all the time?  I think I may have infected…er…passed this fun trait on to my daughter.

How so? Glad you asked.  Let me tell ya about the latest…

We visited a different church for mass this past week. This visit was the result of going to another part of town for a basketball tournament.  [For those who don’t know what a basketball tournament is, it’s a fun time in a parent’s life when they get to see a variety of parochial schools while traveling far and wide in order to watch your fill of nailbiter, edge-of-yer-seat, gradeschool basketball games.  Traveling hither and yon and sitting on the visitors’ side of the gym is what you do with your morning, noon and night come basketball tournament time.]

By the time the last basketball tournament game of the day concluded, it was just about Saturday night church-going time, so we walked over to the church affiliated with the parochial school whose gym we had been using.

Sissy’s been fighting a bad cold and while we were sitting in the church, she blew through ha, ha, get it?  BLEW??! the entire supply of tissues in my purse.  When she ok, we couldn’t take the sniffing any more, she decided to venture forth to find the church bathroom for a good ol’, git ‘er done nose blow.

Now the fun part about visiting a new church in a different part of town is that you have NO idea where anything is. You know all the words and hand motions, but every trip out of the pew is an adventure.  So Sissy leaves to find the bathroom to blow her nose and not three minutes later we see her walking past us to the front of the church with a bunch of Knights of Columbus guys, each (including Sissy) holding their own long-handled collection basket.

She then proceeds to work one entire side of the church, floating the collection basket down one pew after another, turning left and right to get everyone on either side of her area.

What the WHAT?!?!!

When she finally returned from her Knight stint, girl-version, she explained that she never did find the bathroom. Instead, she had arrived in the back of the church just at the exact time all the Knights were gathering in an alcove and handing out collection baskets to each other.  Sissy approached with the intention of asking directions to the bathroom.  But the Knights, clearly thinking that the young girl with the inquisitive smile and impeccable timing was there to help, handed her a collection basket of her own and sent her off.

Well.  That was fun.  See?  Just like I said: an adventure every time you leave the pew.  And ESPECIALLY if you’re my daughter.

Thank you, Sweetie, and you’re welcome.

Every day, when the kids and I are almost home from school, we pass a pond that sits just off the road, mostly hidden by cattails.

And during the winter, this little nuthin’ of a pond is frozen. (Let it go! Let it GO!  Can’t hold it back anymore!!!  Golly gee, I sure hope I didn’t get that song stuck in your head simply by mentioning the word FROZEN!  Hey, speaking of FROZEN: Let it go! Let it GO!  Turn away and slam the door!!!)

This barely glimpsed wintered-over pond calls to some young adventurer that still lives inside of me. So much so that from time to time I find myself wondering aloud to my kids (who are their own young adventurers) about why they haven’t ever gone to the frozen pond to skate or at least slide around on it in their winter boots.

We’ve even taken this conversation to the point where we’ve discussed how they could stay safe if they ever did take up this particular adventure challenge. The Stay Safe idea may have had something to do with a rope and ‘stationary observer/rope holder’ role and a ‘pond trekker’ role.

Anyway, the last time we drove past, I did my ‘wonder aloud’ shtick, which prompted Sissy to chime in with, “Hey Sonny, do you know how Mom wants us to stay safe on the frozen pond? She wants us to tie ourselves together with a rope.  So that if one of us breaks through the ice and goes in, we’ll pull the other one in after us because we’ll be tied together with a ROPE!  And then, if we’re both in the pond and all waterlogged and one of us tries to pull ourselves OUT, we won’t be able to because we’ll be tied together with a ROPE!”

Hmmm. I hadn’t quite pictured the rope being used that way.  But based on the anticipated results, that seems like a bad way to use the rope…

To which Sonny (who is horrified by any and all waterborne illnesses and situations, yet gets them confused which eachother) replied, “That’s awful! That’s a totally bad plan, Chuggington! Because if we did that in the water with the rope, we’d get MALARIA!”

Huh. Yeah, that rope idea is not great.  Not playing out AT ALL the way I intended, what with everyone now getting malaria…

Which caused Sissy to reply, “It’s not malaria we’d get in the winter, it’s hypothermia.”

And now hypothermia…

Anyway. It’s time to sing!

And here I stand, and here I’ll stay.  Let it go!  Let it go!  The cold never bothered me anyway.

We recently received a thank you note from my 1^st grade nephew asking if we had a god time during our holidayz; If we had god holidayz.

Why yes. Yes, we did have a god time!  How did you know?!

Because really, isn’t that the best time of all? The holidayz??  Especially, and oddly enough, the holidayz of the god variety.

So anyway, somewhere during our god time, the New Year began. And I was away for a while.  And while I was away, I missed you…and you missed me too, didn’t you?  It’s just us; You can fess up.

But now I’m baaaaaack! And better than ever.  And looking forward to reconnecting with you during my next scintillating post (spoiler alert: it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with malaria).  Until then, I’m wishing you all the best of 2016.  Hope your New Year is off to a great start and that your holidayz were god.