Hold Please...

 Today, we learned, we're not alone.  Oh, we know that Covid keeps all of us six feet apart, but there is one universal thing that knits all hearts together, a thing universally loathed...telemarketers.  They've managed to evade the do not call lists, such that the home phone rings almost exclusively with apologies from a non existent electric company, notifications about our car warranty and notes from Linda that there is nothing wrong with our credit card...however...  

As such, my children view such disruptions to the normal chaos and peace of the home crimes worthy of all the creativty they can muster.  One answers in German.  Not to be outdone, another says, "Dominos Pizza? I'd like to order a pepperoni and a large with extra cheese. Hold please."   The third is more wiley.  She hands the phone to Paul, who not knowing who it is, proceeds to talk and walk about the house, happy to share his thougths with the robot on the other side of the line. No unusual credit offers or certificates for extended warranty of our automobiles have shown up yet, so we deem it a fair use of the phone.  The practical child just hangs up. She doesn't want to be bothered with such things.  

However, there is one...one who truly excells at using these opportunities to practice wit.   Answering the person selling solar panels, "I don't want to exploit the sun..." or "I don't believe in that great white hot orb in the sky." she leaves them stunned into silence. It's brilliant and burning and devastating to behold.  The phone rang...and perhaps the karma for however many spambots and call centers burned over the years needed to happen, because the person on the other side of the receive paused too long for anyone to think it was a human being.  

"If you're selling, I'm going to come out swinging..." the tiger prepared to pounce...
The person on the phone stammered out their name and asked for me.   The recognition, this was an actual person dawned on everyone.   Scratching a note...if that's work, I'm really sorry, but if it's just a friend...the mom on the line was cracking up, telling me her daughter uses pots and pans as  drumset when the telemarkers call.   "I thought it was just me."  

No. It's not you. It's not me either, it's all of us, united against them.   We laughed and wondered how many are out there with silent running gags they use to get these pests off the phones we don't want to answer...the phone rang.  It was about a hotel trip somewhere..."Hola?" She began, and proceeded to say the lyrics to "Despesito" as if having a conversation.  

The momentary shock of encountering an actual person we know in real life obviously had worn off...

My Poor Dusty Blog

 I have about fifteen drafts from this week, because this week, like the many weeks before it, despite the absence of outside errands, has been packed.   I figure, it's only fair to give an update.   

1) What am I writing?  Well, I'm writing poems, I'm editing my book. I've thrashed at words but they're repetitive or just don't get where they need to go or they sound too stressed and I don't want to worry my mom.    

2) What am I reading?  Well I'm glad you asked, though you didn't.  We're reading Harry Potter's Order of the Phoenix with my youngest, The Book of Three with Paul --he's into it, and others keep hovering around not really listening you understand, but nearby.  I'm trying to get my next two to listen to A Horse and His Boy.  I'm going to keep trying.  I've also started Our Mutual Friend with my son John...and I'm hoping that one catches more of them too.   

3) Are you Exercising...three times this week I did...then it rained...and I've discovered an inverse theorem...if I dress to exercise, I don't.    

4) Are you praying?   Every day I drop off for school, I drop by the outside adoration chapel near my home for at least five minutes.  So yes.   

5) What else are you doing?  Teaching.  Managing the house...everyone's home now.   I'm also helping to organize a conference for January for writers ---so that counts.   

6) I haven't seen any links lately ...why is that?  Sometimes, you get dry spells.   This is one of them. I'm submitting, sometimes three pieces in a week...but they're getting what I'd call dead cat bounces.  Not to worry, I have a lot more to throw at them.   Visualizing me throwing cats at the editors...it's helpful.  

7) Will you ever be funny again...as a blog?   ---wait, I wasn't?   

If 2020 were

 My latest attempt to laugh at the year that keeps giving, is to use Jeff Foxworthy's means of writing about things...I rather think of 2020 as the standard deviation that one throws out when examining data.  It's the 70's plaid bell bottom pants that somehow, people believed other people would want to wear or the crochet shorts.  It's the coffee left in the workplace microwave, with powdered creamer after the last co-worker nuked some fish for lunch.

If 2020 were a food, it would be haggis. --no one even wants to boast of having tried it. 

If 2020 were a drink, it would be warm caffiene free diet coke. --doesn't wake you up, give you energy or taste better than tap.   

If 2020 were a movie, it would be Istar II or Avatar --a block buster that no one really wants to remember, not even a little.  

If 2020 were a candy, it would be a bit-o-honey. They taste horrible, we have no gage of how long they exist, and no one...ever...would want another.  

If 2020 were a book, it would be written by Job.  

Feel free to add your own ideas in the combox.  

    

The Next Four Months Through the Palantir.

Laughing at the universe when the universe seems dedicated to sucking all the joy out of life is a form of defiance, necessary if we want to do more than survive. I submit that the months of 2020 have engaged in a year long experiement of "Hold my Corona."

The following are by no means guaranteed outcomes of the coming four months, but these are our best guesses as to what is yet to come:

10) Technology allows dogs to talk to us, and we discover they're not quite as impressed with us as we thought.

9) The internet produces a strange merger of Baby Shark, Friday and the Nyah Nyah Pop tart cat that is both catchy and unstoppable, trending to the point of melting everyone's brains.

8) Fashion declares kulottes and puffy sleeves are in again. Everyone looks like balloon animals that lost some of their air.

7) Chocolate in all its forms is found to be unhealthy and banned. Likewise for beer, wine and bacon. Riots ensue.

6) The only music allowed by the algorhythms that dominate I Heart Radio are Rick Ashley and Bonnie Tyler, and so we're in a total ecplise of the heart which we are never gonna give up.

5) Netflix runs out of shows. So does every other streaming and cable network.

4) When Disney goes bankrupt and the House that Mickey Built turns out the lights, the films go into the vault and we never get to binge watch the 22 films of the Marvel Universe again...we're just stuck with the stupid Fox X-men series.

3) Food Network, in a desperate attempt to remain relevant when all restaurants are floundering, is 24-7 Restaurant Impossible, and hires Tom Cruise as a secondary co-host. People don't mind it, but the food, like Cruise's body of work, is so forgetable, people don't remember what they ate 24 hours later.

2) Facebook, Twitter and all social media, in an attempt to curb misinformation block everybody. It doesn't help.

1) The 24-7 Christmas radio program that normally starts in mid November, starts September 5th, if only because we can't be sure we'll make it to December. Finally, cats also respond to the technology and they think about us just what we always thought.

Sunday Start

Returning to blogging is harder than I thought.  I used to pull threads together from the week and make something fun. I admit, I'm out of practice.   It's like exercise or reading or any other good habit, I have to discipline myself to start. 

So...let's get this party started. 

Ten reasons why I've not blogged with any consistency for the past year...

10) Too busy exercising. (This is a humor blog).
9) Testing out the possibility of this thing called sleep.
8) learning how to play the drums quietly.  Learning precussion is akin to learning the violin. No one wants to hear anything but the finished product, and no matter where or when you practice...someone wishes you weren't. 
7)  It's Monday when this is posting. I'll add Time Managment to the list.
6) Haven't watched anything trending on Netflix or a grown up movie really in years, tried and coudn't focus...realized my tastes have been stunted and blunted by 26 years of parenting, and are the intellectual equivalent of a happy meal. 
5) Marie Kondo paralyzed me when she suggested throwing out books.
4) With ten kids home and 8 needing to do Zooms, on line learning and in some cases, homework,  my computer is practicing self imposed social distancing.
3) Fell into the lucky habit of not needing to write for the blog, because I wrote for other places...but it made me lazy and now, there are all these intellectual dust bunnies to sweep away and I think they've evolved such that I may need to enter into negotiations for them to leave.
2) insert feeble excuse here.
1) Because I used to be a mommy blogger, it's harder to tell stories. My children aren't toddlers anymore, so the antics are theirs, not mine to tell. The medium age in the home is 23.3 and as such, there aren't the same kind of little moments that lend themselves to humor writing, and satire in 2020 is, let's face it, a tad difficult. 

Walking Towards What We Miss

Today, my youngest son completed his Zoom meeting and everyone left. He tried to restart the Zoom on his computer. He texted on his machine, all his teachers and classmates names and home car Mom go. Explaining that he'd see them tomorrow, I went about the business of cleaning up from breakfast.

We heard the door shut and realized, Paul left the house. He'd packed a bag with his pull ups, a change of clothes, an apple and his stuffed monkeys. He sat at the tree where we always wait for his school bus, and all I could see on his face was the howl of a heart so lonely, it no longer could stay still.

I can say "You'll see them tomorrow," but I can't say when they'll be back together. It's his last year at the school. I can't even say when he'll enter a school building again.

I know this shut down has made me wary of everywhere. Getting gasoline for the first time in a month felt risky, even wearing gloves and a mask. The pump's controls were broken and I had to go inside, where there were at least five people working to upgrade the store, but there were five people moving around, within six feet of me, all of whom I did not know and thus I felt fearful of being exposed. I didn't want to catch Corona or bring it to my family for what amounted to twenty-five dollars and a tank of gasoline.

Back in the car, I sat there thinking, how much seven weeks of quarantine changed my sensibilities, and how much more might they change as this extends. I do not want the country to open up prematurely, and at the same time, we weren't made for living in isolation, even when we're with most of the people we love.

Walking with my oldest son that evening, we prayed the rosary and joked about how this pandemic is making everyone a little British. We're drinking tea in the afternoon, because it is different and warming, and communal. We go for walks. We're noticing all the different birds and talking about it. We feel robbed when the fluffy grey cat isn't sitting at the front door of the yellow house staring out at the world and judging us.

Equally dismaying is the absence of the black angora sewer stray that used to hiss as we'd walk by. Guess we're no longer invaders but shrug your shoulders kind of neighbors to it. We eagerly await the mail for some contact from somewhere.

"My God, we're becoming a Jane Austen novel with none of the money or romance." I said. "Still have the humor though." my son said. "If we switch from tea to alcohol, we could be Irish." "I am Irish." "Yeah, but it's diluted by all the other genetic stock. We don't fight nearly enough. To really commit, we'd need to be composing poetry." "Too late. Did already yesterday." My son laughed. "I'm on the next step of Anglophile assimilation. I ate a digestive and yesterday, I asked if the post arrived!" "That's nothing. I just stopped myself from enrolling in an online course to learn caligraphy."

My son spoke the rest of the walk in a faux English accent. "Day fourty-seven. We spotted two hawks and several brilliant cardinals. We've taken our state authorized constitutional and mum seems in better spirits. We're on our way home from our expected journey, and plan to cook some boiled meat and potatoes with turnips and wilted greens for dinner because, we're the country that scoured the world for spices and use none of them."

Somehow, the stupidness of it all made the ache a little less, and we ordered pizza for dinner. 

Refer to the Refs

Why does the sports industry do this to us?  After February 3rd and the Superbowl, we will enter what is known in our home as the Sports Void. There is no Splenda alternative, no understudy competition capable of covering the time span from February 4th to March Madness.  It's not that I'm a sports junkie, it's that I love the strategies and banter of my family as we debate calls, plays and coaching decisions.  It gives all my kids a way to use their desire to micro-manage someone other than themselves in an appropriate manner.   Absent sporting events, they turn to the easiest source of arm-chair quarterbacking in any household, their siblings, which leaves me in the unfortunate role of game official.

In the interest of helping to maintain a spirit of sportsmanship throughout the off season, I'm listing here the predesignated consequences for any and all infractions.

7) Off Sides:  the space within the car is limited. Failure to respect the personal space of each individual passenger shall be punishable by allowing the affected individual unrestricted access the music and atmospheric controls for the duration of the errand. 

6) Offsetting penalties:  In the event there are multiple flags, all entertainment shall be cancelled, all personal errands rescheduled, and offending members given the additional community service of folding fifteen pairs of socks each. 

5) Unintentional grounding:  I've learned, people don't get that they're not in charge even when I say, "You're not in charge."  Ergo, if someone declares themselves to be in charge, I'm handing over all the dishes for the evening, and I'm going to use extra pots and pans.

4) Holding: Everyone knows when someone extends their hand above their head clutching an item, it isn't because they're doing it to preserve peace.  They're proving they have the power to keep someone else from getting said item.   I'm of two minds on this issue.  If instant replay indicates the item was in fact involved in creating a problem for others, I will take the item. I will also put those helpful hands to use, thinking that person must volunteering for something.  Since I've already delegated laundry and dishes, I'm going to make this one an outside task, landscaping 101. 
They'll get to trim all the branches overhead.

3) False Start:  Every parent knows this tactic.  The younger kid baits the older one into attacking, the older one gets called for bad behavior, and the younger one enjoys schadenfreude.  This works until you learn the younger kid tell.   The best consequence for such behavior is servitude.  Making the younger kid bring ice cream to the older at the dinner table, acting as a waiter is oddly satisfying for all involved. (Particularly if you afterwards have everyone share the ice cream). 

2) Throwing the ball away: The opposite of baiting, is the death before dishonor tactic of destroying an item or a good to prevent another child from sharing or acquiring the good.  Replacement and remorse are the only acceptable consequences.  The nice reality is, you usually only have to enforce this penalty once. 

1) 12 Men on the field: My son sits in a chair. His older brother wants the chair as well.  A third sibling walks by and thinks, you know what this seat war needs? More people.  There are two couches and three other chairs.  This is the only one that matters.   Everyone is benched, I get the chair. 

If you're curious, when we get to March Madness, the kids resort to winner-take-all mentalities when it comes to turf battles.  Baseball season is much easier...it's a fight when I say it's a fight. 

From the Net...

Because I said I'd write humor again, I thought I'd start myself back into it easy, so here's a challenge I found from the net, which I think is a perfect vehicle for a smile.  

So here's ten unlikely versions of what would cause armageddon based on radio songs...hopefully you get the reference. The goal is to give earworms after each...

10) left the cake out.
9) let the dogs out.
8) didn't like pina coladas.
7) he started the fire.
6) uptown funked him up.
5) someone stopped believing.
4) didn't dance by himself.
3) We didn't rock them.
2) wouldn't walk 1,000 miles.
1) Lenny Bruce was afraid.

Over at the Register today...

This was a nice surprise.  Think I'm averaging about 50-50 at the moment.   Parenting is Not About Winning, but Winning them over.

Culinary Free Radical

If consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, my brain is officially gremlin free. At least, it is with respect to all things in the kitchen when Thanksgiving rolls around. 

Sometime back in my formative years, it got stuck in my psyche that making a dish the same way twice was some sort of cheat on the cooking experience, both for the eater and the chef. Like tracing a picture or violating copyright laws, repeating a meal was a less worthy, less creative endeavor than inventing a new one. I’d make a cake from scratch. People would say, “Hey, that’s delicious.” And I’d never make it again. Even if someone requested a specific recipe, I’d have to add a little something, so it would never be exactly the same. For example, after the first time of making pumpkin pie and getting rave reviews, the next time I added a touch of apple slices, just to make it different. That didn’t work very well. 

Thus, as an adult, it has been a source of vexation to have to serve the same meal day in and day out to meet the demands of multiple palates with a minimum of refusal. My children would be happy with bagels with butter for breakfast, peanut butter for lunch, and pasta and carrot sticks for dinner six days out of seven. So when the fall High Eating Holiday season begins, (Thanksgiving to January 1st), I set my cooking muse free. She starts with the basics: turkey, cranberries, potatoes, green beans. Then, the tweaking gets serious. Unfortunately, with only two months to express herself, my inner artistic chef does not handle her newfound freedom responsibly. 

First, the stuffing needed mushrooms, sautéed in butter and maybe a touch of wine. She added all the other ingredients, onions, peppers, celery and thought, you know, we could chop a bit of other vegetables and emptied my veggie drawer in the process. What about a little garlic or ooh, chicken broth in those potatoes? Yeah! Now we’re talking. You know, we could boil those green beans but what about braising them with a touch of balsamic vinegar? Then they’d be special! No dish can go untouched and multiple trips to the gourmet grocery store ensue. 

The problem with trying to out Martha Stewart the Food Network is two-fold. 1) No one can afford my foodie cooking habit, and 2) No one eats it. One time, I found a cranberry dish I thought was cool and made it, but everyone looked at it and an emergency run was made to the grocery store for those round shivery red discs instead. Over the years, I’ve submitted cooked pumpkin slices with onions, cornbread stuffing and all manner of pie to make each Thanksgiving “just a little different.” I even flirted with ordering a fried turkey. 

Each year, the response has been about the same, the kids take their slices of turkey plain, their boiled potatoes mashed, their green beans with a dash of butter, pop-n-fresh rolls and disc of cranberry Jell-O. I’ve pointed out we could get the exact same meal at the local hospital. I saw hopeful eyes glancing towards the car. 

To cope with my need to experiment, each of the children plus my husband have taken ownership of a different dish at Thanksgiving to ensure that nothing remotely resembling the caramelized carrots with parboiled brussel sprouts in a reduced vinaigrette ever makes its way to the table ever again. They’ve put me in charge of dessert, where I’m allowed to make one outlandish item provided real pumpkin and real apple (not merged) pie remains on the menu. 

This arrangement worked last year. 

“This pumpkin chocolate chip bread is awesome Mom.” 
They love it. There’s not a crumb left. 
“Wow!” 

Don’t ever expect to see it on my table again. Maybe if we add cranberries, chopped dates, toasted pecans…then it would be special.

At the Register Today

Hello everyone. I have a piece over at the Register on Relics, on what we leave behind, and how sarcasm is hereditary.

Siblings

So, this week I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for my sophomore in college.  It became a family project. 

 I'd packed them in a tin and my twelve year old wrote her a note. 

Dear Marta,

Hope you like these muffins we made. There are twelve.

Love Rita.

Her brother came by and decided to make his own note. 

I ate one. --Peter
Her father wrote a note.  "I didn't.  True love. --Dad"

Her sister Faith came by and added an additional note.  "I counted.  There are still eleven.  Love you, Faith." 

and before I could pack them off, one last brother gave his two cents.

"Faith counted wrong. There are ten." --Love Will.  

I counted before  I shipped them off. There were eleven.  When did I become the straight man in my family?

Call Me Maybe?

The other day, my daughter texted me while I had four of my kiddos at a special event.   MOM!  All caps made me concerned.   "MOM!"  Why wouldn't she explain why she did that?  Why did she feel the need to spell it twice?  "What's going on?" I typed.   The response came after a few minutes.

"My stomach hurts."

I typed back..."Have some ginger ale.  Put on comfortable clothes. Rest."

She sent back, "Please get ginger ale."
I didn't answer.
"MOM!"
"MOM!"
"Yes?"
"Are you going to get ginger ale?"

"Yes. Go lie down."  I brought home ginger ale.  She'd fallen asleep and felt fine when I got home.

On following day, a different child chose to use the wonders of modern technology to let me know of all the wrong doing she felt another child had done which had gone unreported, complete with emojii's about a circumstance which took place a week prior.

I wrote back, there's a sell by date for tattling, and for all of the reported offenses, that date expired.  I don't think she appreciated my Solomonistic ruling.

Techology designed to make life easier has made it easier for my kids to let me know, "How may I serve."  However, the connection is a little too good. I may want a less effective network for peace o f mind or peace from mine.  I may need to switch from my carrier to a carrier pidgeon.

My older son mastered the art of texting a grocery list to me in little bits, while I'm at the store.
"Are you at the store?"
"Yes."

"Good.  Can you get...
Eggs?
Milk?
Beets?
Protein shakes?
Apples...
Kale...

Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it.  No.
"Why not?"
"It's yucky."
"It's healthy."
"This is not a wish list of what you want to eat for the next week."

Chocolate milk?
No.
"Why not?  It's yummy.  Or I'll take kale."

I typed back, this is a five items or less request line.  I thought myself clever until the others gamed the system..

So I got a new text message from a different child.

Salt and Vinegar chips?
Salami?
French bread?
Cookies and Cream Ice Cream?
Cinnamon Toast Crunch...she stopped at five.

They handed the phone to the youngest.

"Raisins?
clementines?
Apple juice?
Please?"

They're working the room, she used please in a text.

From a third party in the car, who just remembered what she needs in terms of school supplies...
Three types of high lighters, graph paper, a pocket folder and don't forget to get bottled water.

I get a message from  home from the oldest who heard I'm at the store and did a quick survey to see what we might need.

"Dear Mom,

Don't forget, we need Pull ups and napkins.
We're out of cascade and down to our last roll.
of paper towels.  And what's for dinner? If you get ground beef, I'll grill burgers."

At this point, I'm reduced to text messaging, and send back "K" without even giving a period.

He types back, "It's wierd when you don't use a full sentence."

I'd gone to the store for bananas, diet coke and foil.  The text messages distract me into remembering, we should get butter too.  But my grocery list which was a mere 3-4, is now clocking out at twenty-seven.

Standing in line to check out, I get a text from a child unaware of all the prior messages.  "How much longer until you come home? I'm hungry."

Big Push App, Wish It Were Downloadable

Some kids are born repsonsible.  They get up on time, they go to bed on time.  They brush their teeth on a daily basis. Some of them even floss.  Yes, I know from my time on the internet reading Mommy blogs that most parents' children do their homework with little fuss, their clothes are organized by drawer and color, and they willingly consume raw beets and edemae as mid day snack.  Some of them tie their shoes at the tender age of four months and say their ABC's in utero.

My kids...well as of this point, I know one is wearing a Pikachu costume because it is warm.  It's August.   Another claims playing Civilization VI will help with AP history.  A third explained he's very good at creating art in Minecraft.  I'm not sure what skills that might translate to in the non pixelated world, but his siblings are impressed.  Ninety percent of parenting is playing the game, "What's my motivation?" so I've compiled some analogies from popular culture to help motivate all my kids to get ready for school again, using cool geeky references like all the kids do these day.  Failing that, I will speak in text, and that should do it.  

You should get your summer work done because....why?...well consider the alternative.

The Star Wars Imperative: 

Fill out the common ap now, or join us and live here forever.  It is your destiny.  Choose. It helped that I have loud breathing as a matter of course in my speech.  The sound track in the background was my husband's idea.  I love him.

The Pokemon Quest, Will You Please Go Now? 

Son. You want to be the very best, like no one every was.  On some campus somewhere, are Pokemon for you to catch with your phone.  Stay here, and your dad and I will cite Team Rocket's motto to you night and day.  Here's the link for the common ap.  Surrender now...

Fortunately, the photos of me as Jesse of Team Rocket from Halloween 2000 were destroyed in a freak accident when the disposable camera met its end, having been accidentally left on top of the mini-van.  I, and the internet, are forever grateful.  

Lego my Ego

This is 100% true.  All of it.  You are the special. You can do amazing things.  I want you to do amazing things. So....finish your work without me having to hover or I'll "kraggle" you to the chair to get it done.   Love, Mom.

Now I could push this, show montages of characters from Spiderman to Officer Judy Hops to Remy from Ratatoulie to illustate that anything we want which is important, anything that matters, demands more than we think it will, and pushes us beyond what we thought we could do.  But I think kiddos, you get the point.  You have to do this, and I don't mind if you reward yourself with mindcraft or civ or magic or whathave you, but you do have to do something beyond what is easy, or your life once you leave home, will be harder than it has to be.  

So...to put another way, reaching into your own family lore:  "Now is the time to start the big push."

Love, Mom. 

P.S.  I promised I'd do it.  git 2 wrk

FYI

In case you were wondering, when the bee stings, thinking of your favorite things doesn't really help. The bee sting got me thinking about the movie, "The Sound of Music." Something bothered me.

In Favorite things, they mention Schnitzel with noodles, meaning this:  

Now I like pasta and sausage and vegetables as much as anyone, but they live in Austria.  They live where people who know, make the good stuff, like this:  

So how does chocolate not make the list?  

I'm guessing since the song "Favorite Things," is pre-restoration of Captain Von Trapp's love of life, they'd not been exposed to such frivolities and tastiness, not even in the pursuit of tradition. However, in the musical, Lisle is old enough to remember her father singing and her mother, Chocolate probably was in the house before Liesl turned eleven, (when Captain Von Trapp's wife, their mother died).   

In writing this piece, I discovered an article, Movie vs. Reality.  They loved music before Maria showed up.  The Captain doted on his children from the get go.  They also had three more children who are all still living.  So now I know the truth...and while it did distract, it didn't help my bee sting either.  

Ice, benadryl and distraction, they helped.  I suspect if there'd been Austrian chocolate in the house, it would have helped too.  Much better than just thinking about it. I can't imagine how unpleasant it would be if I'd been bit by a dog.  So I'm stocking up on good stuff that isn't Schnitzel, just in case.

Mom Myth Buster

"You have a lot of kids so the older ones must help out a lot right?"  I get this bit of folk lore from well meaning people and I know other moms of more than two do as well, particularly if there's any sort of gap.  It's not that the older kids don't help out.  It isn't that they can't help.  It's that the presumption when people say such things, is that once children hit twelve, they become something other than teenagers, they become reliable staff.

I can only presume the people or person who created this bit of commonly held wisdom never knew a single twelve to twenty-one year old, and never experienced being anywhere close to that age themselves.  They just skipped all of adolescence and immerged on the scene at twenty-five with a full Wikipedia approved understanding of how to raise multiple children which they generously impart to anyone who has them but doesn't seem to grasp how to do it properly. (Meaning me).

Here are just a few samples of where I've been told, the older ones should pitch in, and where I've found, for various reasons, it's not happening.

Homework:  "The older ones help the younger ones." No. This does not happen.  Not because they can't. Not because they won't.  It's that they have homework too.  Besides, I don't blame them.  I wouldn't want to do one of my younger sibling's homework either.  None of us liked it the first time around and it hasn't become any more beloved a task as part of somebody else's responsibility. Also, the older kids had to put up with my inept support in math, I suspect they've banded together to 1) ensure I maybe one day master 5th grade fractions and 2) no one younger gets out of having to figure it out for themselves after being told the next day by the teacher, they did it wrong.

Laundry:  Despite having a machine which does the washing and another which does the drying, this task remains a labor of either the desperate or me.  No one likes their clothing co-mingling unless they're the squatter adding in, in which case they can't see what the problem might be.

One caveat:  Everyone will very helpfully point out, so and so needs to do laundry, or so and so needs to put away their laundry.  They are also quite willing to serve as nag-o-ramas whether asked or not, to the child who needs to catch up on their wash.

Dishes: I've been told by helpful strangers, to assign each task to two children.  Like all things proposed, it works in theory.  Whenever I try to do pairings to have an older kids work with younger ones, either the older one masters the art of exploitation, the younger one becomes a ninja, incapable of being discovered, or both collude to find something so mommy-tear-jerkingly-beautiful to do I won't insist on the original task.  This third ploy, though seldom used, always works.  I've caught them playing cards, reading stories and practicing music together.  They've made castles, puzzles and colored together.  The result (I'm a sap) is I see this precious moments facade, fall for it every time, and wind up finishing the task for them.  

So yes, the older ones do help the younger ones...to master the art of the dodge.  But what will the younger ones do when they mature and there are no younger ones to use as  human shields to avoid work?  Probably collude writing "How to Parent Properly Such that Your Kids Do Chores Books" and offer to sign one for me provided I pay an additional fee.

Wednesday On Strike!

Breaking News:

Sources here at Chocolate For Your Brain learned today in an annonymous Tweet, that Wednesday, formerly Wodan's Day or Odin's Day, has taken the next week off.   When asked why, she admitted it's been building for a while, but between Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Fat Tuesday and Holy Thursday, and the weekends themselves, Wednesday is feeling discouraged.  "Hump day?  Seriously?   That's the best we can do?"

Pointing out Ash Wednesday didn't brighten her spirits.

"I want a holiday, one with I don't know, fancy drinks, an earworm song, maybe a traditional activity like making chili or running a 5K, flash mob dancing the moves to Thriller and releasing paper lanterns into the sky."

When pressed as to why, she explained, "There's nothing that sets me apart from the rest of the week.  Even Monday has all those Garfield cartoons,  and those songs by Foriegner, the Bangles and the Mommas and the Pappas,  Saturday has Elton John and the Bay City Rollers, plus no one ever gets sad it's the weekend.   Friday has a chain of restaurants and a tone of movies with his name in the title, not to mention a book where he's the secondary lead."

"You forgot Dragnet."
"Exactly! ....wait, whose side are you on?"
"No one's. Just remembering other associations for other days.  Thursday doesn't seem to have too many references out there."

"He's got a whole comic book character named after him who's an Avenger. Even two solo movies for Thor.  He's also still coasting from the years when he dominated TV, with Cheers, and now an early jump on weekend Football."  

"Tuesday doesn't..."

"She has a restaurant, a holiday and a Beatles song.   Don't get me started on her.  She sends me a Halloween card every year. Do you know what it is?"

"No."
"I have her most recent one....here."

Happy Halloween Wednesday,  Too bad it fell on a Monday this time.  But in two years, it will be your turn.   Love, T.

"How did you know it was Tuesday?  It says "Love, T."
"Thurs always signs "The TH!"  I think he thinks it's cool."

"What will you do with your day off?"
"Are you trying to be funny?"
"No!  You're taking your day out of the week, what are going to do with it?"

"Well, I did discover when I opted out, it became very hard to book an appointment, since no one knew when the appointments would actually happen so I plan on going to my favorite spa as a walk in, and maybe hitting the book store, followed by lunch at a local restaurant, maybe a glass of wine with dinner and a movie."

"Got a date with anyone special?"
"As a matter of fact yes, I have a date with February 29th.  He was very cute about it when I asked if he'd join me for sushi.  He said he'd have to check his calendar."  





 

A New Charity is Born*

There are all sorts of philanthropic entities in the world, all designed to allow every one of us feel good as we part with our own resources for the betterment of other people. There are charities for kids, adults, whales, elephants, tigers and polar bears, plants, land preservation, oceans, to name the stars and rehabilitate guinea pigs. There are even charities for politicians which may not qualify as any of the above, though the rehabilitation program sounds promising.

What with all the options out there, you would think every possible need a human, or for that matter, any living or non living thing could require is somehow addressed by the generosity of others via a non profit. Not so. We need a new organization to meet a heretofore desperately unmet human desire which helps all of society. It promotes proper mental, physical, social and emotional health to its beneficiaries.  It removes gridlock, prevents fraud, waste, abuse and neglect on a social, political, emotional, economic, corporate, global and personal level. No one in the history of life on this planet does not have this desire rooted in their core.

What is this need?  To have a world of not actual beavers, but people who act as beavers to their community.  So I'm launching Operation Give a Damn. Dedicated to righting the wrongs of the world brought on by sloth, ignorance, arrogance, apathy and burn out, Operation Give a Damn would train volunteers to act as surrogates for those in society who through their actions and words reveal themselves to not give a fig about the pain, sufferings, stresses or actual needs of others.

Naturally, this sort of entity would need at least one person per five on the planet to address the wrongs everyone suffers on any given day. So as to fund this properly, I'm guessing we'll need 1.5 million people to each donate ten dollars to start, and then we can get to the serious business of training the 2 billion people designated "The Damned" to deal with cable companies, bill collectors and cumbersome government regulations. They will also act as surrogate holders for phone service from large faceless corporations and stand in during serious traffic jams.

Operation Give a Damn needs you. The world is filled with individuals, governments, organizations and businesses who don't have damn givers.  We need damn givers!  We need people to give to Operation Give a Damn.  You can help save the world from being damned by damning up the stresses and strifes of life.   Never has there been a greater need for people to give a damn.  I'm not saying the world is damned if you don't, but imagine what the world would be like, if you do.   

*Apparently there are actually charities that have something close to the name, I wasn't stumping for any of them, and this is pure fiction, pure imagination mixed with a bit of everything's been so busy lately, I thought a tad of absurdity would do me good.   

Got to Catch Them All

A sign outside the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Augustine.

I love this sign.  Why?  Because Catholicism is about proposing a greater relationship with God, and offering the fastest surest way to grow in intimacy with the mystery which is the infinite loving God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and yet one God.  

Inviting people in with humor and history at the first parish of our nation?  To come in and sit, to come in and pray?  To invite people in this day and age to come in and be contemplative?  Awesome work! 

Wit Bit...Day 2

I broke down and bought a fit bit which tracks my every move or lack thereof. As technology goes, it is the equivalent of volunteering to have a nag strapped to my wrist. It vibrates when I've not moved enough in the past hour. It gives me progress reports that are the equivalent of "Sherry daydreams in class and isn't serious about this pursuit."

Honestly, if the makers really wanted to help me lose weight, they'd have the thing give me an electric shock when I reached for the refrigerator or put chocolate in my mouth. However, given my will to eat, I might endure the pain for the gain.

The forbearance of this machine is remarkable. I know, if I had to be my fitness coach, I'd have lost patience long ago and have sent out a message on twitter, linkedin, Instagram, Facebook, snapchat and my blog, "This woman is a human marshmallow. She is hopeless."

I prefer to subscribe to the belief, having my seat in a seat proves I'm at the computer working. Pulling down an article a day whether it gets published or not, the goal remains to consistently write one thousand words a day. Instead of charting 10,000 steps which aren't to actually go anywhere, my priorities rest squarely with the chocolate bar, diet coke and the keyboard, trying to write a book and articles along the way.

In an effort to make something positive out of the situation, I propose a new technological gadget for the writing world.

The Writ Bit.

Here me out.

The Writ Bit would track your word count per day. It would give you helpful stickers, "Congratulations, Let's try for a higher word count, maybe spend less time hanging out on Facebook and more time typing shall we?" or "Wow! You earned the Ink Stained Wretch award." or the..."Put your rump on the stump and start writing or I'll give you a friendly taser zap."

There would be bonus levels for strenuous writing as versus ordinary, based on grammar, word choice and limited use of adverbs.

It would scrutinize your output for cliches and poor structure. It would also have an editor function to nag you about theme, authenticity, and the demand the words somehow open a vein.

My only issue would be for those moments when I'm distracted by the demands of my fitbit, since it would be at odds with the Witbit...and whether getting in some BIC time or logging my 20 minutes of cardio, I'd be getting a shock to the system from the dueling wrist bands.

Maybe I'll abandon both pieces of technology in favor of the chocolate bar...because whatever else it does to my body, it doesn't nag me whether or not I eat it, and it never tases me bro.