New Favorite Product

You can get it at Publix--the best three bucks you'll ever spend.

Snippets of Sunday

Regarding the new moratorium on snacks and junk food for Lola:

Biggy: Where's Lo?

TR: Why do you want to know?

Biggy: Because there's an ice cream truck coming down the street and I don't want her to see it.

TR: She's downstairs eating ice cream.


********

JackMan: (Pointing to one of Lo's big watercolors on fridge) Can we take this down? It keeps falling.

TR: Sure. I'll just put it in her art box.

Jack: Do I have an art box?

TR: Um...no...

Jack: That's what I thought.

TR: If it were up to me, Lola wouldn't have a box either. We'd just have the memories. I did keep your two favorite stuffed animals, though.

Jack: The kitten and the bunny?

TR: Yeah.

Jack: But you threw away Red. (Jack won Clifford the Big Red Dog at the fair one year. It took up half his bedroom.)

TR: Oh my god, Jack. After a few years, it smelled like B.O. and sour milk.

Jack: It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

TR: Is there ANYTHING I can do to make amends so that in fifteen years you don't bring this up at Thanksgiving dinner?

Jack: Oh, I'm bringing it up.


********

While watching a TV show on Amazon River dolphins, or botos, we learn that the male dolphins pick up big rocks in their mouths and thrash around with them to impress the females.

TR: Gad, is the male of every species stupid?

Jack: Did you miss the part where the females are actually impressed by this?


*******

As we're finishing up dinner:

Biggy: Where's your algebra book, Jack? Let's get started.

Jack: Are you REALLY gonna try to walk me through Logorhythms and e function?

Biggy: I really am.

Jack: Mom, will you video this?

Juggernaut

Sadie came for a visit and brought her new man with her. Alas, Charlie stole his heart.

Rainy Day Saturdogs

The Stories We Tell

This evening, Biggy and Lo went to a Hawk's game and Jack had Judo, so I was in no big rush to get home after work to unload the dishwasher or see what the dogs dragged out of the trash. I stopped off at Marshall's, hoping they had some twelve-dollar dresses. They didn't, so I drifted back to the lingerie department, searching for two-dollar underpants. As I browsed through the racks, I saw a woman on the other side, making her way through the clearance negligees. I could have told her she'd find nothing but Hello Kitty flannel pajamas and XXL red teddies left over from Valentine's Day, because I'd checked it out before my trip, but anyway her phone rang and I heard her say, "I'm at the grocery store."

My Commercial for Puerto Rico

Big props to Biggy, who planned the entire beautiful adventure. It was a wonderful birthday weekend.
And, of course, thanks to Mamoo for taking care of Lo and Charlie; to Georgia for taking care of Jack; and to Jack for taking care of all the four-legged and winged creatures.

Because Mamoo Always Comes Through...

I now own the bracelet that goes perfectly with an evening gown or a Chihuahua.

I am a spoiled, spoiled child.

Biggy and T in Puerto Rico

Landed late yesterday afternoon and got in some beach time. I noticed most of the local men get their brows waxed. I mean fancy-waxed, too.



Today we hiked about six miles through the rain forest--up a mountain. Sadly, no monkeys here. But we saw some lizards.

Tenacious Chi

Song for the Day

Mamoo Brings Honey for a Visit

Heart-to-Heart With Jack

TR: My therapists says that if you really plan to live with us until you're 30 or 40, I should have you doing more chores.

Jack: Your therapist is wrong.

TR: She's a professional.

Jack: You're being ripped off.

Friday Nostalgia

Back when Bruce had hair.

Hope Springs

In my yard this morning.

Charlie's Identity Crisis

Children Playing

Biggy says, "I'm gonna ride my skateboard down the street and see what Lola's doing." A little while later, I get in my car to run up to Publix and discover my husband engaged in a serious game of war with his daughter and her friend A. Notice the short children have the hi-tech weaponry while the tall one is relegated to two sticks and a mini-frisbee:

Can't Keep a Good Man Down

Lest anyone else is wondering how Charlie is doing post-surgery:

MY INTERNET AT HOME IS DOWN!!!

I'm stranded with telephone and TV news. In serious DT's. Just came up to Border's to email students comments on their final papers.

Any man worth his salt should be able to pack a trunk, kill a bug, and fix the DSL.

OK, that's just the addiction talking.

I need an iPhone.

In Honor of Charlie

who is having his "operation" today:

Poem On My Father's Birthday

Fishing

for my father

Bored only child
and no one watching;
ill-bred, sun-burnt
truant, hooking
half-dead night crawlers,
tossing them into muddy water,
I doze on the bank,
dreaming--a lake clear
to the bottom, a mirror
of trees with roots cool
as celery, with roots so old
and long they hug
the earth’s warm heart--
until the urgent tugging,
a taut line, signals
another catch
I won’t throw back,
though it’s small
and mean. Somehow,
it reminds me of you,
the way it sheens
phosphorescent, bleeds
neatly, smells
like the beginning of the world.

Aid for Eavesdroppers

Biggy and I were watching Sopranos reruns this morning and saw this commercial. Once you get past the old people stuff, it gets really good: