What is That?

This film was sent by a friend of my brother's who teaches theology at a high school in Houston. I found it very moving. I hope you will enjoy it too.

Played

Every day before I pull out of the parking lot at school, I ask everyone if they have everything they need and if they need anything we don’t have at home that I must get from the store.

Today, my kids got in, started chattering away and I asked the questions. Half way home, one of my children remembered that he forgot a paper that is due the next day. I dutifully turned the car around. We got to school. The classroom was locked. I spotted the teacher in the hallway and flagged her down. My son then added that he needed to ask the teacher a question about the assignment, that the page she had prescribed didn’t exist in the workbook when he checked. This is a kid that sometimes does his work in the car and as such, I didn’t question his concern. He's meticulous about his work.

We returned to the classroom and the teacher asked about the incorrect page. The little imp grinned. “April Fools.”

It took a lot of convincing to make me stop at the CVS on the way home for some markers.

Wasabi Awards of 2008

There perhaps is no greater minefield in the world than the relationship between a woman and a mother’s son. Mother-in-laws get a bad rap in television, in movies and in story books. The Evil step-mother, the Wicked Queen, it doesn’t matter where you turn, if there is a mother and a son and a third person enters the picture—a female, there is friction.

Nominees for the Wasabi-in-law of 2008 are as follows. For those who don't venture into the world of Sushi, it is a horseradish based garnish that has a sharp acrid taste and I presume is used to avoid tasting the rawness of the fish.



The following are snippets from various friends over the years who have given actual MIL stories that in many cases, were more intense than I describe. Living life that sharp seems neither real nor possible. In all cases, names have been changed to protect if not the innocent, the related.

Sue of Carol County, MD, MIL cut her picture out of a family shot of her and the kids in a photo album. “Where is my head?” Sue asked. MIL: “Well, it wasn’t a good shot of you…your eyes were red and you looked really tired.” Sue had been recovering from recent surgery. Finding the cut head in the wastebasket, they glue-sticked it back into place. No word on how the subsequent Easter Dinner went has been available.

Lisa of Oneida, New York, MIL sat down at the table at dinner. Food had been placed in a buffet style on the island. When Lisa brought her own plate to the table filled with food, MIL took the plate from her and proceeded to eat. When Lisa started to protest, MIL explained, “You were up.”

Kathy of Santa Clara, CA, MIL gave her a vacuum for Christmas. She also keeps a picture of her son’s ex on the mantle at her home and once sent a beautiful silver framed picture of her son and his former wife as a birthday present to her son. When asked about it, she said, “It’s a good picture of him. He looks so happy.”


There is still time to put in your nominee for the Wasabi Award for MIL. They’ll be collected and submitted to the Wordtree press to see if we can create a Your Chicken Soup isn’t as Good as Mom’s type book for the Soul.

I will conceed that one day, God willing, people will want to marry my offspring. I fully expect to be a nominee in at least three if not five of the subsequent award years following nuptials. If not, clearly I am falling down on the job.

*Author’s Disclaimer: My mother-in-law is wonderful. She adores our children, she’s nice to me and in no way inspired any of this post. My husband says my Mom rocks too!

New at Subway, Eat Fresh...

It always happens this way.

I was going to drive to Austin for a graduate class. My husband shut the door, handed me a diet coke through the open window and said, “Drive safely, don’t speed. I love you.”

I got busted going 87 miles on 290 North, Bonnie Raitt blasting on my CD player, half way there.

After spending a week dieting and exercising, and discussing healthy eating habits with my children, my oldest caught me making my super fabulous extra bad for you fudge sauce for ice cream sundaes…and of course alerted the others, such that I had to share and suffer lectures from my children about being healthy.

This latest come-uppance comes courtesy of my son.

Friday was the beginning of his spring break. He came home. He promptly unplugged completely. The backpack sat at the front door, unopened, unmoved, unloved for four days. My husband asked him at a band meeting after the band leader made reference to report cards…”Where’s yours, son?” “Oh. It’s in my backpack.” He replied indifferently, and rattled off his grades.

Four days…four days and it never occurred to him to mention his report card. I was off.

Pointing out that if he couldn’t get out of being lost in space long enough to remember a report card, maybe he shouldn’t be sent on a band trip for five days to Florida, I started listing the other examples of him forgetting things earlier in the year. His gym shoes, his wallet and his lunch bag all had been casualties of carelessness.

I was working up a full head of steam and hitting my stride, talking about being responsible, about paying attention to your surroundings and to detail, how adulthood required this on a daily and systemic basis…and…the phone rang.

That afternoon, I had picked up sandwiches for dinner. I had left my cell phone at Subway.

So, I’m ordering a toasted Crow with provolone and some humble pie dressing to go.
for more tasty helpings of humilty and hilarity, try http://www.humor-blogs.com/! It's so much easier when someone else gets taught a lesson.

Future Politicians in the Family

My daughter doesn’t accept correction easily. She’s five and a quick study of her two older sisters. As such, she is quite convinced that she has everything figured out. For example, the other day I came upon her as her drink spilled all over the table, chair, her outfit and the floor. Grabbing paper towels to clean it up, I said the obvious. “You should be more careful. You dropped your cup.”

She folded her arms and gave me a cold corrective stare.
“I did Not.” She pouted at me.

“Yes. You did.” I couldn’t believe she would argue the point.
“I saw it.”

“NO I DIDN’T.” She shouted back.

Irritated, I stopped cleaning the mess. “Alright then, what happened?”

“I didn’t drop the cup. It fell.”

I suddenly understood that in her world, nothing she did was actually wrong as long as she could omit herself from the picture.

The technique remains the same even as children age. When my oldest was preparing for a special evening out at the local high school, he came down the stairs in jeans and a t-shirt. I explained that this tour of the school was about first impressions both ways and that he needed to dress up a bit. He went back upstairs.

My mom was visiting. She saw him come down, button down shirt and a tie and sensed he still needed a bit of sprucing.

“Did you brush your teeth?” she asked.
“Yes.” He said without looking or smiling.

“I don’t mean during your lifetime.”
He looked down.

“Did you brush your teeth today?”
“Yes.”

He still wasn’t making direct eye contact.

Mom is a veteran of these things.
“This afternoon?”

“Oh.”
Up the stairs he went.

Perhaps it is a consequence of living so close to the beltway where language only holds as much meaning as the speaker and the listener invests. Having such skilled negotiators for children requires that the parents be thinking two or three steps ahead with each and every utterance.

“Did you hit your sister?”

“No.” My son responds.

The sister is screaming, howling, proclaiming to all the world of her outrage at his having injured her and then denied it.

“Why is she crying?”

Rather than directly lie, a severely punishable offense, he shrugs his shoulders.

Knowing I can guess the actual series of events, I chose my next words carefully.

“Did you in any way, inadvertently or intentionally, touch your sister in some fashion that might have caused her to be unhappy with you?”

“What does inadvertently mean?”
“By accident.”

“What was the question?”
“Did you hurt your sister whether or not you meant to?”

He looks down at his feet, buying time to figure a way out of Mom’s verbal trap.
Resorting to a time tested trick of politicians, he tries blaming the accuser,
“She started it.”

Mental yoga aside, they’ll be ready for a career in Washington by the time they leave home.

for more non partisan fun, try http://www.humor-blogs.com/!

20 days until Erma Bobmeck Conference...guess I better start working on being funny.

Mental Dim Sum and Sons

No unifying theme today, just some odds and ends I found amusing and in some cases, profound.
If you've never eaten Dim Sum, think of having a dinner entirely of appetizers. Heart's Delight or Jewels that tug on the heart is the concept to consider here --Tapas, or French courses, the idea is little snatches of yumminess that satisfy.

First: Happy birthday to my four year old. He's potty trained, so I can officially celebrate the anniversary of his birth. He told me, I'm allowed.

Second: We went out to dinner last night and the waiter showed up with a sunday and Sombrero for my birthday boy. When they put on the hat, he stuck his lower lip out and shrunk down to the size of a ball, he looked like a Mexican mushoom with that big hat on his head, but when the ice cream showed up...suddenly that hat was his very favor thing.

Third: And now a word from our sponsor. I don't get many comments. I don't get huge amounts of traffic. Aproximately 20 or so people visit this blog a day. The high water mark was 106 and that was with a serious plug from the Ironic Catholic, a brilliant blog I admire greatly.

The other day, I knew I had arrived on the blogosphere. I got my first Spam comment. I have printed it here minus their plugs to give due homage to the people who indicated I had entered the big leagues...it was in response to the Sous Chef piece.

"3/10/08
A critical underpinning of a healthy diet is unque... A critical underpinning of a healthy diet is unquestionably the consumption of fresh vegetables and fruits. Unfortunately, many adults do not like these fine foods - so kids are the concern. Anyone interested in getting kids to develop a friendly attitude towards fruits and vegetables should take a look at a new book called “Insert title here.” Great for kids of all ages – children even learn their alphabet through produce poems and then go on to more mature activities. Out only six months it is already being used in educational programs. It is coauthored by best-selling food writer Sir SPAM A Lot and Other Notable Quotable writer SPAM Jr. You can learn more at SPAM SPAM SPAM AND MORE SPAM.com
Publish Reject "

I'm sure it's a splendiferous book, postively "unque" and I'd have even given it a looksee if I thought a human had read my post.

And lasty,
Why I should really be both terribly pleased and worried:

Found my middle son's artwork.
He had drawn a rosary.

He made a list entitled "Pray For Every Night"
Here is the list, punctuation included.

1. boy twins.
2. Mom and Dad.
3. poor people.
4. My brother.
5. Everyone!!

I am in big big big trouble.

Don't forget, you can find more laughs at http://www.humor-blogs.com/! They're funny even when I'm not.