Welcome Home

I find that when the kids go away for an extended period of time, like to camp, it's always nice to make them feel special upon their return.  We cook a meal we know the kids love or spend time together playing a board game or go to a movie.  It's important that they know they were missed and that their father and I are happy to have them home again.

This year, I think we've really gone overboard, and I'd like to go on record as saying it was my husband's idea.  At any rate, there is something waiting for them in the garage when they get home.  It's all shiny and new.  And it truly says we missed them in a way that no other gift can.  When they swing back those garage doors on August 1st, they will know just how much we love them and need them around here.

Most assuredly, it will leave them speechless.  The down side is that, on their very first day home, they will probably get in a big argument about who will use it first. 

What do you think:

The Experiment

Last week's newspaper is on the grass in our front yard. As you face the house, it's resting on the lawn on the left between the driveway and the front walk, near the struggling dogwood tree. It has been there since last Thursday, when it was delivered. This week's paper has now joined it.

It's still there because I'm running an experiment to see how long it takes before someone other than me picks it up and brings it inside. So far, everyone is waiting on me to do it. I know the mailman is probably running his own experiment, since he walks by it everyday and hasn't yet placed it on our front porch. I guess he figures he's already feeding our dog (a treat a day), why should he get the paper, too?

Our neighbors, though they are unaware, are in on the experiment, as well. I'm trying to find out how long it will take for one of them to come walking over and kick it onto the front porch or say something to me about it or stand in her front yard and stare menacingly in the direction of our house.

I'm wondering how much longer I can go on with this little project, as the sight of that newspaper is starting to eat at me every time I pull in and out of the driveway. I try not to look in its direction, but the contrast of the bleached white pages against the deep green grass makes me look every time. Some days, I believe I'm spiraling into a mini-psychotic state, deluded by the idea that the newspaper is itself conspiring against me.

This is driving me mad, mad I tell you. If someone doesn't pick up that newspaper soon, I'm going to bonk. My family doesn't like it when I bonk. Why is the mailman doing this to us? Why doesn't he just pick it up and put it on the porch? I think he's mumbling about me under his breath every day that he brings the mail and that glaring indication of my loss of control is still there.

Do I have to do everything around here?

I can see this isn't going well; not how I planned. Experiment aborted. I'm going out to bring in the old news.

Signs of Summer

The King and I

6 a.m. The clock radio comes to life and the morning newscaster sends his message through the static. "The king will be back tomorrow night," he says.

In my reluctant-to-face-the-world state I immediately jump to the conclusion that all the rumors about Elvis were true all along. He's not dead and tomorrow night he'll be on stage singing, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog cryin' all the time." Behind my closed eyelids, he's wearing a white, bedazzled jumpsuit with his hair slicked back and he's doing that pelvic thrust move that nearly brought the country down. I try to calculate how old he would be now, but the math proves too difficult at 6 a.m.

Then in that hazy midland between wake and dreaming, I decide God must have sent out a press release over the AP wire. Jesus will arrive for the 2nd time tomorrow night. I conduct a brief inspection of my soul and inventory my transgressions and determine that this may not be the best time in my life for the Rapture. Readjusting my pillow to block out the annoying static from the radio, I send up a prayer asking for mercy and forgiveness.

But wait! My groggy brain returns to the Bi-Lo check-out lane where I vaguely remember reading the cover of a tabloid announcing the disappearance of Michael Jackson's body. Dr. Frankenstein, from somewhere in the deep recesses of my convoluted neural pathways, shouts, "It's alive!"

6:01 a.m. The morning newscaster's voice undulates with the static, as if he knows I'm still in bed and it is his sole objective to force me from between the sheets. He says, "Lebron James will blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Lebron James? Who died and made him king? I exasperatedly think.

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms - Happy July 4th

It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
~ John Adams, July 3, 17776, in a letter to Abigail Adams

When Adams wrote this letter to his dear wife, regarding how Americans should remember and celebrate their Independence from the mother country, he obviously had no idea how the government he was forming would get in our way. What began as a simple assertion of a people's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, has become a bureaucratic conflagration.

Verily, one might argue that Adams's memo of proclamation, calling upon citizens to light bonfires, bear arms, illuminate the skies, and participate in sports & games, serves as the justification for our modern ATF. July 4th, if commemorated properly, is prime time for alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. For who among us has not witnessed a man igniting an explosive, meant to light up the continent, with a cigarette in one hand and a PBR in the other?

Ponder that over your game of horseshoes today. It's not only your right, but your obligation as an American citizen.

Happy 4th of July! Celebrate it according to tradition.