When you gotta go

Dropped off the eldest at a camp-out/sleep-over tonite, and while I was talking to the parents, one of them notices a quick flash of red t-shirt dart behind the hollyberry tree in the front yard. "Look," she says, "it's almost like he's hiding something back there, or sneaking something." I walk over to find my child au-naturale from the waist down, relieving himself. "WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING?!?!?" I yell, but of course, I can't stop the kid--he had to GO NOW. Once he was finished (by the way, he politely had peed into an emergency coffee can we keep in the van for these "emergencies"), he then kicked the can over to empty it--in the yard. The other thing is, he neglected to notice that while he thought he was discreet behind the tree, he was actually in a neighbor's side yard, just outside the bedroom window, facing the street.

Time Warp

I can't believe I just noticed two of my clocks have stopped running. No wonder we missed the bus yesterday.

I can't wait

While discussing what to do with a few spare vacation days, my 6-year old offers an idea:

"I say we go camping and burn marshmallows."

Here's the picture

This is the site of the new development in my beloved green space. Here are some pictures to show you what it looks like, now, so people will remember. It also borders the namesake of this blog. I remember this area well, as it was on my way to piano lessons and my friend's houses. And, I'm really sad that it's going to go. My only hope is that people will rise up and say "middle income doesn't mean we can afford any of this," and the developer will shut down. Of course, then it leaves it open for someone else to develop, but I have to say, "What is wrong with a few trees and a few acres of green?"

Mr Egg Salad

"I call him 'Mr' because he's wearing a beard."

That's probably a good sign you need to clean out the fridge.

Dream a little dream

Most of my friends know about my crazy dreams. Last night's dream was that I was at a convent, where there was a mass going on literally around every corner. One mass was a Christmas mass, one was a charismatic hand-clapping event, one was a Latin mass. I had an empty pack of cigarettes in my hand (I don't smoke, by the way), beer cans, and other trash. I kept looking for a trash can, but kept running into a mass going on. I found my friend (a Catholic nun in reality) and she took me back to a kitchenette in the convent. I opened the fridge and there was nothing but Pepsi in there, and they had been using different kinds of contact paper to wallpaper the kitchenette. Over in one corner my friend, V., was making a dress of contact paper. It looked like calico, but was actually made of contact paper.

"Found money must be spent"

Or at least that's what my mom would have said. I made a little money today, by taking a survey, and it was burning a hole in my wallet. Well, I could get a new pair of tennis shoes, which I needed, a nice bottle of wine, which I wanted, or I could get my son some shorts and pants that he really needed, and some hot wheels for all of them, and pay the "party money fee" the school is asking for us to send. On what did I spend my found money? The shorts, the hot wheels.

It's all in the name

Life in around here can be pretty mundane, but it's never boring. It is generally predictable, yet there is flexibility built in to the schedule. You never know when you'll have a tire blow-out while driving kids home from a birthday party, yet still manage to get home to get the lasagne in the oven for dinner on time. You mop the floor, and someone manages to spill a cup of apple juice on it. So when I toyed around with writing a blog, I obsessed on the title of the blog. The one above is sweet and simple, sort of "Little House on the Prairie-like," but my other idea for a title does have a bit more snap and silliness to it, that lends itself to a blog beatifully. I'm not convinced they couldn't both work, but you see, I am just playing around with this idea. My other working title is "The Concord Village Idiot." I need your help here. Vote for your favorite, or I will be resigned to keeping both, which I'll probably do anyway.