St. Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle......


Just the start of my favorite homeschooling week. So many saints that the curriculum plans itself. And we tie them into just about every subject. (OK, ixnay on the home ec today. That little fridge business makes baking an angel food cake just too complicated)

And hey, remember not to eat the blackberries.......

Hmmmm. Does this explain why people start to look like their dogs?

New exercises in detachment....
That refrigerator....
There is detachment from affections, things - small, goofy things; small expensive things.
Today let’s try something big and blocking the microwave and clean dishes.

Pope John Paul II Names 30 New Cardinals
Idiot TV reporter implies that blackout in Italy is somehow linked to divine displeasure at the Pope “stacking the deck” for potential successor. Why not stretch a bit more and tie it in with the the Cubs Win! and the Bears returning to Soldier Field?

Ellyn’s Pity Party

Featuring one tired mother, her exasperated husband, her peripatetic sister, three dogs, six not particularly helpful children, one leaking refrigerator, a decomposing plywood floor and one bottle of Miller Lite beer. With music supplied by Big Al Carson of the Funky Pirate on Bourbon Street NO, LA. Dessert delights by Krispy Kreme.

Embot is home for the week-end. Nothing big planned - just hanging out. When I returned from work today she reported that there was a big wet spot around the refrigerator. Bridget reported that something was leaking into her basement bedroom. Rick chalked it all up someone being careless while carrying icecube trays. Sure. While clearing the dinner dishes, I tripped on the bubble in the linoleum.

My sister called from New Orleans to give me a vivid description of her dinner. Yum. It’s not her fault she has to be there for a symposium that starts on Monday and the State of Wisconsin booked her on a flight that left at 7:00 am today.

All the whiny females - dogs excluded - convince pater that there is something unnatural going on with the refrigerator. It took a lot of talking, since he countered all of our arguments with the statement that there was no place from which water could flow. Except that the disconnected water supply to the non-working icecube maker had somehow been turned ON - and was leaking water into the walls of the fridge and out any which way possible.

The fridge is now in the middle of the kitchen. With a little encouragement, Rick decided to cut up the linoleum. A good thing. The plywood is soaked and delaminating. Delaminating is a new word I just learned this evening. Now the fridge is in the middle of the kitchen so it doesn’t fall through the floor into Bridget’s bedroom. (Let’s play “The Glad Game”.I may get new, non-textured flooring sooner than I had hoped. Of course, I may also have a refrigerator in the middle of the kitchen for the next 6 months.)

Oh.....Embot just came in with some Krispy Kremes. This may ameliorate the trauma caused by the beer bottle that fell on Rick’s head as he was working with the fridge. (And where did it come from? We haven’t had a drink since New Year’s. Or maybe the Fourth of July.) Now it’s not just water. It’s water, beer and broken glass. And Fran’s brilliant comment, “The refrigerator moved. Why is it there?”

My sister called me from the Funky Pirate. Just to tell me that she had a drink with Big Al Carson. Then she put her cell phone on the table so I could hear the beginning of the band’s next set. And she wished I was there. So do I , Sister. So do I.

Roll ‘em, Lester

Stream of consciousness computer play while waiting for Embot to drive home from Champaign....
I started thinking about our schedule for the week-end. Then I remembered the Chatty Cathies at church. Thinking of Chatty Cathy made me think of a TV character from my childhood, Lippy Lucy. I can remember very little about Lippy Lucy except the catch phrase, “I’m Lippy Lucy and I love to talk and talk and talk.”

A Google search for Lippy Lucy sent me to the Toon Tracker site: In Search of Lost Toons. Little info about Lucy, except to mention that her show was a replacement for Pops’ Theater, a staple of my childhood TV viewing. I thought it was the greatest......my mother begged to differ. Especially when the Stooges were on.

..... an old theater usher named "Pops", who worked at the fictional Bee-Jou (Bijou) Theater. With a studio audience full of cub scouts and brownies, Pops told tasteless jokes, talked about his wife Effie, and introduced the showing of old Three Stooges shorts by shouting "Roll 'Em, Lester" as the movie was about to begin.

Ah, the memories.
I must at some point reveal that WGN Channel 9’s meteorologist Tom Skilling used to work with a puppet (Albert the Alley Cat) back in his early days in Milwaukee. Funny, he doesn’t mention the puppet much....

So why should the kids have all the fun?

No Comment Zone

Picture day at school.
Children in Burberry.
(One child in Burberry is unique. Multiple children is a disturbing... trend.

Running late again....
and the dogs weren’t even so frisky this morning. I’m feeling oddly drained, rather than energized. Martha returned from school in a foul mood last night. Precipitated, I think, by the fact that her father picked her up in the big blue van with squeaky brakes. Having an ugly car is one thing, but an ugly car that calls attention to itself is too much. Shades of Uncle Buck. Fran tried to cheer Martha up. She explained about all the vacuous, richy-bitchy types that she went to school with at Lake Forest and how their lives (so far...like 4 years later) haven’t been all that great and that mild adversity and living in a large wacky family has helped to make her the hard working young woman she is today. Thank you, Fran. I don’t know if Martha appreciated it, but it cheered me immensely.

“Do you know how awful it is to be broke all the time and get picked up in a peeling, squeaking van when other kids get into Hummers and Jaguars?” was not the kind of thanks I was looking for, at the end of a rough day, for the 20+ years of doing without ‘stuff’ to be a stay at home mom.

Even Rick was in a bit of a snit. He and the boys had spent the afternoon at another (much less well off Catholic school) working on their service project of upgrading the schools computers. (Keeping the Mac in Immaculate Conception is Chuck’s slogan)
As they were getting settled in the van to come home, RIck was sure he saw a woman in the parking lot taking down his license number - you know, because the car looks so darned disreputable.

Sorry, Franny....
I know you really, really disliked being an altar girl. (Remember the morning you snuck into my room and tried to reset my clock so we’d oversleep?) This is too late to help you.

Who let the dogs out?
I did.
No blogging this morning.

Pay No Attention....
to the woman on the lawn - in her nightgown - in the dark.

Now our family is complete. We have a dog with ADD. Bessie was waiting for me at the front door when I came downstairs at 5:45. I thought this was real puppy training progress....(since I can’t train the family to keep her in her kennel at night.) We slipped out the front door. And then we checked out some hosta leaves, found a green crabapple to bite and bat about. Totally forgetting why we were outside in the dark so early in the morning. Hence the woman carrying a puppy out on to the grass with the exhortations to, “Let’s speed this up......you’re cutting into my blogging time.”

Doh!
I slept through most of the Emmies. The Emmy awards have become much like the Oscars - my opportunity to get a glimpse of that which I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. There is the matter of time constraints coupled with not wanting to spend one penny more on cable. Yeah, we’re so cheap and regressive we don’t even have digital!

Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho...
off to work I go. Sunday morning is not my usual time in the rectory. But the Sunday girl needed to switch and I needed the hours, so there you go. This may be a blessing in disguise. I'll be missing Mass with Rick and the kids. But at the 7:30am Mass it is highly unlikely that I'll run into the Chatty Kathy sisters who talk, and talk, and talk... Maybe it's for the best. This week I think I could be moved to sit down next to them and tell them in my most charitable tones that they are rude and disrespectful. Or I could employ the pidgin sign language that we use in the lunchroom at school - an assortment of mouth covering and lip zipping to convey silence when yelling "BE QUIET" is not be feasible.

Oh, Goody....

You are Malifacent from Sleeping Beauty. The
ultimate goth and party crasher.


What Disney Villain are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
She is my favorite DIsney villain. Sleeping Beauty is my favorite DIsney movie....thanks to a lavish picture book, I knew the movie forwards and backwards by the time I saw it. Sometime around age 28. My mother wouldn’t let me see it as a child. She had a bad experience with taking her two young nieces to see Snow White back in the 40’s(?) The were absolutely terriffied. And she wasn’t about to make that mistake again. So the first Disney movie I saw was Peter Pan.... I may start skimming a little off of the grocery money to buy the deluxe DVD version of Sleeping Beauty when it comes out later this month. Oh, Martha wants it, too. So it wouldn’t be just for me.....
Link via Michelle.

The TV reporters blowing around in the high winds of Isabel have become a bit tedious. It is more assinine exhibitionism than true news reportage. But I do admire these guys:“Once you become a badgeholder, it’s like you’ll do whatever you have to do to guard the unknowns,” Lanier said. “For one, it’s my job. And for two, that’s just how much respect I myself have for the unknowns. That’s just something we cherish.”

“What I'm doing may be immoral, but it's not illegal."
A terminally ill member of a euthanasia society, whose identity and condition have not been revealed, intends to raise awareness for the cause of dying with dignity by committing suicide during the concert, according to the band's singer, Billy Tourtelot.
Hell on Earth?
No comment.

How Does She Do It?
For those who may be wondering how I can afford a genuine simulated human brain....I forgot to gloat about how much money I saved at the Friends of the Library used book sale last week-end.

I found books I really needed. Like d'Aulaire's Greek Myths for $2.50 (suggested retail $19.95) Another book - the exact title escapes me - that Greenleaf Press suggests for Ancient Greece for just $1 (suggested retail $16.95) Some English texts that I can resell. Plus some cool Christmas gifts for people. And some fun stuff just for me. (Like we need another Norton Anthology of English Literature....)

Mrs. von Huben, your brain is ready....
My recent order from the Delta Math and Science catalog arrived yesterday afternoon. Along with some things we needed, I had this little impulse purchase. I thought it would be fun.....and educational. A life size model of the human brain. (Don’t bother asking, “Is it a working model?” That was the first thing my husband said when he saw it. Then he asked, “Why?”) It is more detailed and the various parts of the brain are much more identifiable than with the tiny brain that pops out of our 18” anatomy model.

I may have to keep it in protective custody. I see potential for abuse/pranks/etc. in the coming weeks....culminating with Halloween.

When our homeschooling days are over, I may put it on a shelf - somewhere between the gator head and the mock-Fowler phrenology head.

Time Will Pass.....Will You?
Fascinating commentary at Fructus Ventris on clocks and crosses.

Thanks to my orthodontist, I’m shy!
Crouched in the fetal position is the most popular sleep pattern and favored by 51 percent of women, according to the results of the study he conducted for a large hotel group.

Fetal sleepers tend to be shy and sensitive while people who assume the soldier position, flat on their back with arms at their sides, are quiet and reserved.

The freefall, flat on the tummy with the hands at the sides of the head, is the most unusual position. Only 6.5 percent of people prefer it and they are usually brash and gregarious.

I was a freefall person. Until 6th grade. The wearing of one of those orthodontic head thingamajigs broke me of that habit. Now I’m pure fetal position. If I go back to sleeping flat on my stomach, will I become brash and gregarious? Or will I just leave the house each morning with strange patterns pressed into my face?

Oh, well, I'll quit the kvetching. At least my teeth are straight. And I only had to wear that device at bedtime. Some people wore theirs 24/7.

The Whole World is Watching!
And the reporter on TV said brother-in-laws. Eek.

Fun!
via Gospel Minefield

so I am.....
The Crossroads
This is the inviting and welcoming personality type that is most well known for recreational activities and general partying. Always happy in a crowd, the Crossroads love to converse, to relate, and above all to have fun.
This personality tends to think in a more holistic approach than many of the other personality types, covering ground piece by piece in a hodgepodge fashion rather than following a single line of logic from beginning to end. Like a crow they are attracted to shiny objects, new ideas, playful exciting colors and the thrill of a new personal relationship.

General partying? Alas, no more. But I still love a new box of 64 crayons.

Oprah?
Through some strange turn of events, I was awake at 11:00pm last night. So I turned on the daily rerun of Oprah to see what was happening. Yech. Now Oprah is shilling for Madonna.......or is it The Gap. Or Madonna and The Gap. Oprah made her entrance to the music from the Madonna/Missy Elliot Gap ad surrounded by the very same dancers! from said ad campaign. What a coinkidinks. At this point I grabbed the remote and terminated the whole ordeal. I didn’t want to wait for Madonna to come out and shill for her children’s book. I really need more sleep....not a Oprah/Gap/Madonna circle.......well, endless circle of mutual admiration.

The Fat Letter is in the Mail....
The concept of mailing out body-mass index scores just doesn’t sound good. It reminds me of weigh and measure day back in grade school. That was as close as I ever got to feeling that I was in line at a guillotine. No, I think I would have preferred the guillotine. Better to have your head quickly detached than to have the school nurse weigh and measure you and then SHOUT OUT THE RESULTS TO A VOLUNTEER IN CHARGE OF RECORDING THE STATS. Do I sound bitter? Do I sound like the girl who was not just the heaviest but also the tallest in the class? Do I sound like someone who couldn’t shave inches off her height but managed to work herself into anorexia by end of high school? How about the amphetamines I convinced the doc to prescribe in college? ‘Nuff said.

The hope is that getting body-mass index scores will nudge some parents out of denial and encourage them to make simple changes such as buying Diet Coke instead of Coke, said Dr. Joe Thompson, a pediatrician and one of the architects of the state's program. Parents also will be advised to seek medical attention for their children, if warranted.

Diet Coke? How about water? Eau de la tap? Or bottled water if the tap water tastes funky. (I myself am now addicted to La Croix sparkling water with lemon. It tastes a lot better than Lake Michigan with chlorine.)

If the Apple in Eden were a Macintosh....
The Curt Jester reaches new heights of historical humor.

Ushers?
Our conversation on the way home from Mass yesterday should have been about the great homily we had heard. But I digressed by posing the question, “Is there some sort of neurological problem that makes it physically impossible for some people to shut up?”

There are two women who come to the noon Mass, sit together and yack, giggle and (gag me) drink bottled water. They are old enough to know better (late 20’s/early 30’s) and young enough not to be suffering from some sort of dementia that would cause them to act inappropriately. We managed to avoid sitting near them for a few weeks. But yesterday they were two pews behind us. They reached their vulgar peak during Communion making it impossible for me to pray when I had returned to my place. I can usually close my eyes and ignore the normal distractions that go on. This was too, too much. And the irritation of the other people in the area was palpable. So I turned around - no easy thing to do while trying to stay on the kneeler - and fixed them with the sternest look possible. I made eye contact with one of the gals. Still it continued. So I turned again. This time it was a the meanest dirty look I could muster.
No effect. If we were at Showplace 8 watching a movie, I would have made the most succinct and scathing comment possible. (I have done this. In the absence of movie theater ushers, I will turn around and tell trouble makers to knock it off)

This was Church, not a show house. So I didn’t not think saying something to people two rows behind us would have been: a)helpful b)reverent c) efficacious d)all of the above.

The question I pose.....where were the ushers? We were very close to the back of the church. Shouldn’t they have noticed the scene that was playing out? Are there times that ushers should be shushers? If I hadn’t been trapped mid-pew, should I have slipped out and gone to beg the ushers help? Or in the absence of a DOTS box to toss at them, should I have folded a bulletin into an efficient airplane and airmailed my complaints to the offenders?

DOH!
I promise to learn how to spell hurricane.
I promise to learn how to spell hurricane.
I promise to learn how to spell hurricane.
I promise to learn how to spell hurricane.
I promise to learn how to spell hurricane.
I promise to learn how to spell hurricane.
I promise to learn how to spell.......

I think it's been about a year that I copped the plea that I was under the influence of the dental office (i.e. Hurricaine = fasting acting topical anesthetic.) It's hurricane season again. And dental season, too.

I'll try harder.....

THIS BUS HAS BEEN CHECKED FOR SLEEPING CHILDREN
I saw this sign in the back of a schoolbus. Though it must have been posted for our reassurance, I was disturbed.

There has been more than one case of little ones found asleep in the back of a schoolbus just in the short time since school started. Thursday night’s news had the unsettling incident of a pre-schooler who spent a whole day in some sort sort of limbo in which she was in a bus while parent/school/bus company all thought she had been accounted for. (Don’t even get me started on whether 4 year olds should go to school all day or ride a big school bus in a very urban suburb of Chicago.)

So, my question is...why the sign? Children should be accounted for. The bus should be checked at the end of a run, if only for perishable litter and lost-and-found items. Are we to assume that a new sign is posted after every check? Should we be unsettled by a sign stating the obvious? How about DRIVER IS NOT DRUNK? THIS BUS HAS WORKING BRAKES? Where would it end?

Friday Five
1. Is the name you have now the same name that's on your birth certificate? If not, what's changed? Marriage has added the noble von Huben.

2. If you could change your name (first, middle and/or last), what would it be? I might take back the Smith as a surname. No offense to the noble von Hubens.......but Smith is a heck of a lot easier for pizza delivery ordering etc.

3. Why were you named what you were? (Is there a story behind it? Who specifically was responsible for naming you?) My parents. I wasn’t consulted. (I believe I had a great-grandmother named Ellen. ) My parents couldn’t agree on Ellen or Lynn. But my mother had a good friend with a daughter named Ellyn and ripped my name off....

4. Are there any names you really hate or love? What are they and why? I love my children’s names. Larry is a name that makes me cringe... bad childhood experiences with nasty boys named Larry. People would sometimes call my father, Loren, Larry. I wanted to punch them in the nose. (You can’t blame people for misunderstanding a quickly uttered Lorensmith for Lawrence Smith. Or whatever.)

I have wacky moments when I wish I had named the girls Flora, Fauna, Merriweather and Briar Rose. (What does that leave for me? Maleficent?) Perhaps it is best that I didn’t know that I would have 4 girls in a row.

5. Is the analysis of your name at kabalarians.com / triggur.org / astroexpert accurate? How or how isn’t it?

Kabalarians was great. Just like the horoscope in Vanity Fair...
The name Ellyn gives you a strongly independent and highly creative nature, with drive and ambition to have experiences and accomplish things out of the ordinary.....Although you have a clever, quick, capable mind, your progress in life is restricted by instability in your affairs and misunderstandings with people. Your impulsive nature can lead to actions which you later regret taking, or to accidents. Relaxation is elusive, and depletion due to nervous tension can develop to the point where you become subject to moods of depression and morbid thoughts. Yeah, right.

Triggur.org was funny. Vulgar but at least funny.

The Vedic projections from astroexpert were confusing. And about as much fun as a small appliance wiring schematic.

Hey, My Mom's a Hurricaine
A really heavy duty hurricaine. And she never thought Isabel was a name that packed a lot of punch. Wish she were here to enjoy the adulation.

Random Thoughts...at the end of a hectic week
- The online Trib and New York Times have been a blessing in reducing mess and unnecessary paper around the house. They are, unfortunately, absolutely useless when you are housebreaking a puppy.

- We are now up to three dogs. The legal limit. I know it’s my limit. The new little gal is Bessie, a six week old beagle/keeshond mix. Yeah, her ‘soulful’ eyes melt my heart....but I never wanted to live in my own Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.

- I am proud of Fran’s kind heart and desire to make a home for every person and little animal. There are times I wish she worked at Deerfield’s Bakery and would drag home reject wedding cakes and petit fours.

- Kids (most kids, not just my own) will probe suspect vegetables in their soup at lunch. And then have little fear of touching a dead bird or mouse on the playground. After just three weeks of school, I am probably known as “Mrs. Don’t Touch It!”

- The baby mouse died while I was at the rectory last night. I brought this mouse home from school on Wednesday. The kids found his dead mother on the playground and then noticed the tiny, hairless, writhing orphan nearby. To calm their distress I promised to take care of it. It was still alive when it was time for me to go home, so I scooped it up in a Dixie cup. Remembering just enough from my La Leche League days to know that skim milk wouldn’t be the best thing I ran to Dominick’s for some half-and-half and a syringe. I tried to figure what would be best for a mouse based on the idea that bovine milk is high protein for rapid muscular development and human milk is high in sugar for rapid brain development. So what for a mouse?

We moved him to Rick’s office, which is not air conditioned, and put it under a desk lamp. I had to run out to our monthly Holy Hour and then our Respect Life committee meeting. Rick didn’t mind feeding the mouse in my absence. I think...

- Today I must tell the kids that the mouse didn’t make it. I told them Wednesday that its chances of surviving without its mother were not good and that I was taking it home to spare it a lonely death under the hot playground sun. Yesterday morning I was encouraged because it appeared to have a strong rooting reflex and ate eagerly.
Oh, well. He was buried quickly while I was still at work.

- I am looking forward to a shopping spree this afternoon at the Friends of the Lake Forest Library used book sale. Who knows what treasures will be found? Last year I found some much sought after homeschooling materials that I was able to resell at a modest profit. This should be a good chance to start my Christmas shopping, too. For a used book sale, some of the books have hardly been opened, let alone used or read.

In the midst of my enthusiasm I keep thinking of a quote mentioned by Warren Zevon (he thought it was Schopenhauer, but I’m not sure) that we buy books because we really think we are buying the time to read them. This reminds me of the days after my father’s death when my sister called me to complain that he was still receiving book club shipments. She wondered if he thought the angel of death would stay away if he knew you were expecting something from UPS.

- Yesterday, a very close friend became a grandmother for the first time. I am happy for her, her daughter and her 10lb. 4oz. grandson. But, she’s two years younger than I am and I find this all somewhat unsettling....I am a 20 year old trapped in a 48 year old body.

Heroic Moments.
Bill White’s wife now has her own blog!

Flos Carmeli has moved.
With a cool new look.

Thy birth, O Virgin Mother of God, heralded joy to all the world.
For from thou hast risen the Sun of justice, Christ our God.

Law and Order: SUV
This article caused me to tsk-tsk over breakfast this morning...
The SUVs at a Land Rover dealership were painted with words like "Avarice" and "Gluttony" Thursday night or early Friday morning, Santa Fe police said. The initials "ELF" where among the messages, a likely reference to the radical Earth Liberation Front, city police said.

By 9:00 am I was ready to join the ELFs myself. First there was the Range Rover that cut me off in the high school drop-off queue.

Then I went to church, where I have enough time for some prayer and can make it to my morning job if I tip-toe out of the 8:00am Mass right after the homily. It’s not unusual for us to find ourselves ‘parked in’ on a Sunday morning. But today was the first time it happened to me on a week-day. A nice big Lexus SUV. By the time I let myself into the rectory to call the primary school and report my tardiness, I was too irritable to return to church. So I helped myself to a banana, read yesterday’s Sun-TImes and then returned to my vehicle in time to be perched in the driver’s seat, ready to roll as soon as the big obstruction moved. Then I was almost run down in the primary school parking lot - by another luxury SUV. (This is when I get really scared. If the little ladies piloting these mega-rigs come close to picking off a large target such as myself there’s a lot of peril out there for little old ladies and wandering little children.)

Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies
Circle I Limbo

PETA Members
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

People who phone at 1:00 am to say "Whassup?"
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Bill Gates
Circle IV Rolling Weights

fashionistas
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

2/3 of the local drivers
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

The inventor of textured linoleum
Circle VII Burning Sands

Osama bin Laden
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

NAMBLA Members
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

Link via Kat Lively.

Is anyone else unimpressed with Dick Gephardt?
Calling the President a miserable failure? How unstatesmanlike. Even if I agreed with him, I doubt if I could give him my vote. Shouldn’t the President of the United States have better verbal abilities? Shouldn’t he be able to convey the concept of ‘miserable failure’ in words that are precise yet not insulting. Mr. Gephardt sounds like a playground bully. What’s next? Something like. “G.W. - you suck?”

Friday Five

1. What housekeeping chore(s) do you hate doing the most? Washing floors. I haven’t been able to find a time of day when they won’t be walked upon.

2. Are there any that you like or don't mind doing? Dusting. It gives me a chance to play with the tchotchkes and rearrange them. (Just watch that gator head....the teeth are sharp!)


3. Do you have a routine throughout the week or just clean as it's needed?I was once quite disciplined, with the whole color coordinated card file of tasks. Now I just do what I can, when I can.


4. Do you have any odd cleaning/housekeeping quirks or rules? “The Blanche DuBois Rule.” Dim bulbs keep everything from looking so harsh. That is the only way I can tolerate the kitchen floor.


5. What was the last thing you cleaned? My gums and teeth. First things first.

Jim Doyle is the governor of Wisconsin.
Not that guy from Charlie’s Angels. I hope my sister will excuse for sounding confused when she said that she spent Wednesday morning with Jim Doyle. After the confusion passed, all I could say was that I thought he had passed away some years ago.

At a ceremonial bill signing in Hudson, Governor Jim Doyle signed legislation that returns first-time possession or attempted possession of methamphetamine to a felony offense. He gave my sister a ceremonial pen. A pen for which she thanked him while making a wry comment about how every pen is appreciated in an office that is so strapped for supplies. I wish I had that kind of charm.

As for me, I spent Wednesday morning sorting papers, supervising lunch hours and helping little guys avoid bees on the playground. And my big thrill for the day was the arrival of a bunch of our books for our homeschool. (We need an extra civics lesson for the week: “Who is the governor of our neighbor to the north? Anyone? Anyone?)

That was one short long week-end
Didn’t accomplish all that I thought was possible. And now it’s back on the figurative treadmill. (The real treadmill had to be moved to the garage to make room for the guinea pig.)

I’m wondering if I should have scheduled a last minute field trip to Milwaukee for the big Harley event. Guess the boys will have to go with their kids for the 150th birthday festivities....
Bridget and her friends drove up everyday. They had a good time, though by Sunday morning she had the grim look of a commuter on her way to an obligatory job. I ran into her in the middle of the night Sunday (bathroom trip - she was on her way out - I was on my way in) She was semi-hypered up by the special guest at the end of Sunday night’s celebration. Elton John! I was impressed. She was semi-impressed. I guess the rumor was that the Rolling Stones would show up at the last minute, so Sir Elton was a bit of a disappointment. What did she want? Altamont all over again? Oh, well. Some of my sister’s friends were going to be there, so when we get together in Chicago in November for our bachelorette week-end, I hope to debrief them for the adult perspective.

Karen chided me for not wanting Martha to go along to Milwaukee with her big sister. She forgets that I was a big sister once. (Did she forget that I was able to hook her up with ID to go bar-hopping during a visit to my college at the age of 15? ) Fortunately, Martha had a doctor’s appointment Saturday morning. That persistent sore throat is probably a virus. Not a bad virus at all if it spared us a scene over why she shouldn’t be hanging out in Milwaukee with her sister and half a million bikers. (And it’s not the bikers’ influence I worry about....)

Here's a quick way to tick off your parents and school: Wear a T-shirt emblazoned with the abbreviation FCUK.

Parents who would help underwrite these fashions should receive a complimentary T-shirt that says MROON.

I’m not shocked that retailers and advertisers would stoop to this. (Fran cut the article out to take in to her business class)

I’m not shocked that young people would flock to buy the latest edgy thing.

I’m not shocked - but tremendously saddened - by the parent quoted in the article who had laissexz-fairewhatchagonnado?it’snobigdeal attitude.

I’m waiting for the release of the French Connection United Kingdom University shirt....