As yet unpublished

I'm ready for school to start!

So, I think a day long summer vacation is fine.  I really do understand the value of downtime ... just not sure that parents and teens need to be side-by-side to take it because the teens get downtime and the parents get hair-standing-on-end time.

Nothing really wrong with the day.  Started work early and left as my 12-year old was proclaiming, as he awoke at 7:30 am from a dead sleep, that he was going to save his money to buy an oxygen machine.  Huh?  7:30 am is too early to start wondering what your 12-year old wants with an oxygen machine.  So, I gave him a bowl of cereal and went to work.

I used the cellphone leash with Nick today and he was there almost every time I called -- Johnny on the spot with location and communication.  Maybe there's something to moving upwards and onwards after all.  Thomas didn't even get up until 11:30 when I woke him up to go to the gym and we didn't even get there until 2 pm.  Still, it's nice to work out with your kid, if a little intimidating (they can just chuck those weights around while I have to really try hard to lift them).

I was doing fine until the freezer at work decided to defrost and the people working tonight decided they couldn't and they moved graduation to tonight so that noone was around ... and kids came to my house and goofed off and gave me a frustrationg boost and then bought pizza and soda and ... IT WAS ALMOST DINNERTIME.

Tally of the day:

*Had to knock some 15-year old brains around a little bit and restate the summer rules of the road
*Was thrilled that Nick figured out how to use his cell phone for both incoming and outgoing calls
*No dinner guests or sleepovers came to fruition
*Nick continuing reaction to the tetanus but seeming to soldier through it except for the fever he's running and the puking that he did
*I got to do some work at home and it's not melty hot so I didn't feel like I was working in hades

Harlan Coben

As I was leaving work yesterday I saw the corner of the new Harlan Coben galley and my first thought was "DAMN!  I want to read that but I need to send it to Brad" so I grabbed it thinking that for some reason I should read it first ... now I don't quite understand all of my logic but I did want to send Brad The Futurist and hate wasting a package for one book when you know it could be two. 

Now, life has been interesting this week because for the first time in many years my husband has a job that isn't in the house or up the street.  He works in an office now and not only did he get a job but he thought it would be a grand idea to work out in the morning before going to work ... which is a grand idea, I agree.  So, now he gets up at 5am and goes to the gym and goes to work and comes home at like 6 and then he goes back out again for a meeting and ... you get the idea.  The two businesses, two boys, three dogs (one is temporary) and the parrot can overwhelm.

So, there I was working on the very late newsletter (it's maybe 2 months late) and I finished at 11:30 and by all rights should have turned off the light and gone to bed but something stopped me and that flippin' book called out to me and there I was on page 200 or so at 1:20 AM forcing myself to shut the light and go to bed.  I hate taking more than one sitting to read a mystery so I got up, made "thing one" (that's T3 the 15 year old) breakfast and got back into bed to finish that sucker because "thing two" has been going into school late because he's having issues with school and needing to re-acclimate his psyche to attending full time.

Now I'm really tired and can't think but let me tell you there's a package on the way to Mr. Bradley Feld with the next Harlan Coben in it.

Survivor

Okay, so I just told my 15-year old that I could have stayed away with them for another week ...

What's a week away with the kids like?  I had to come home and go off on my own for the night because I couldn't answer another question -- can you believe that a 15-year old can ask you every hour for about 24 hours what time the plane will depart and what will the weather be like? -- or listen to the non-stop thoughts of my 12-year old.  So, I had to come home and decompress even though I was pretty sufficiently decompressed.  My husband seemed to have enjoyed his time off.  The dogs definitely were happy to see the family return.

We've been on cruises with the kids before.  Each time it's a totally different experience.  It's kind of funny because cruises -- the ones we go on -- are definitely mass-market and Greenwich (where we live) is definitely not mass-market.  So, suffice it to say, it wasn't a Greenwich crowd.  Which has it's advantages because I felt like I was a normal size for a change since the Greenwich size teeters on the too-small, too-lycra, too-bought side.  The Jewel of the Sea is the newest of the fleet so it was clean (phewf) and not so big as others (only holds 3,000 ...) and it was not a family cruise ship.  Still, I managed to run into Bruce Klein and family (used to work with Bruce ...) on day two and that was a little weird.  I've never run into anyone I know on a cruise.

The kids were 98% great and 2% not great but for the most part, this was a dream vacation for all.  The kids got bored (in case people weren't aware, kids need to get bored and noone seems to let them anymore) and relaxed and snorkled and browsed the crap shops and hung out with boring adults at dinner and had as many virgin cocktails that they could handle.

What were the highlights?

I read 7 books -- I'll make it 8 by the end of the night.  This was a great because I had not been reading more than a book or two a week and needed to get back to form. 

I overcame my total dislike of those jet ski things and took the boys out for a ride ... still not my idea of fun

My kids think Cuban cigars are cool ... that's werid.  And one of them likes to smoke them.  I guess a cigar is better than anything else they could smoke.

Nick will do anything for a daquiri -- will keep THAT in mind for a few years from now

My kids get along and do stuff together when faced with no other options.

You can go a whole week without renting a movie ...

I still don't know how to make towel animals.

Sea water pools suck.

Cozumel was wiped out by hurricane Wilma.  And is desperate for money.

Grand Cayman can handle an influx of 15,000 people with the blink of an eye.

Kids don't grow out of bathroom humor.

Jewel of the Sea

Hope that this cruise ship is named the Jewel of the Sea for a reason ... because after 7 days and 6 nights with two teenagers and me on the ship, I'm going to need some sort of jewel.

Wish me luck.  I'm bringing 20 books.  I hope that's not too ambitious.

Google-ee fun

I just spent a bunch of time typing all sorts of stuff and then what do you know ... I flip to google and forget to do so in a new tab and BANG away goes all that good stuff.

Which is kind of ironic because I was blogging about all the things that go on in my head and lead my so far astray when I am trying to complete a less-than-engaging task like updating the Arcadia Coffee and Just Books websites.  It's less-than-engaging because it's all movable type, each entry is the equivalent of a blog entry and I have to use *gasp* a fair amount of html and ... you get the idea.  So, what goes on in my head while I do these things?  I have a deadline -- I have to take the kids on a cruise to the Caribbean tomorrow and have the Knock Out Kings and The Catalyst rocking Arcadia tonight so ... I have to get this done.

In the meantime, my brain is meandering onto several subjects:

What's up with Sharon?  We know a lot about the quail hunt and the bruised old man and our clumsy VP and WHO CARES?  But what's up with Sharon?  A handy google search shows that ... the first hit on Sharon was about a car accident in Sharon and the first mention of the actual guy I was looking for is the tenth hit.  OUCH!  Now, a google on Cheney has every hit about the quail-and-buckshot-bullshit.  Go figure.

What's on my kid's myspace?  And what are his friends up to?  This can take you down a very deep rabbit hole ... In order to protect his privacy and that of his friends and to make sure that myspace is being used in the way that the kids naively think it works (a private little chat room for their invited circle of friends ... hah!) I won't actually share his url.  Suffice it to say, it took me down a hole for about 45 minutes ... and then almost sucked me back in. 

What is up with the other bookstores around?  One recently closed and part of the reason why I'm updating calendar entries is because I took on additional events from the store that closed and hey, what do you know, you can't get to that website anymore and why the heck not?  where is it?  Lots of good poking around here to see who is doing what ...

Does Nick have any homework?  Luckily his school posts his homework on-line and one can find out at the click-of-a-mouse what your kid was supposed to be doing last night.  Nick hasn't been in school for three weeks ... so I'm pretty up-to-date on this subject and thought the better of going down that rabbit hole.

What's the principal of the high school have to say about putting armed po-lice into the school?  Nothing on the web so I think I'll craft a letter to all the superiors in-town and let them know what I think about guns in school ... any guns in school ... the concept of not being able to shoot someone UNLESS there is a gun in school and why do we need to have poplice in school with guns to mitigate?  Having satisfied that need, sit back and wait for letters from First Selectman and the Board of Education.  Still waiting for the Principal, Superintendent, Chief of Police ... compare length of replies to others and contemplate further interaction and decide would only lead to further high blood pressure and decline.

Thank you note to my friend who had me over last night to meet her very nice friends and watch her very charming husband host Dancing with the Stars. 

Must be time for the three dogs to go outside ... inside ... outside ... inside ...

Kids need food ... first Nick and friend, then Thomas ...

My blog!  Have not blogged in a few days ... that's got to be good for some time.  First checking the depressing stats ... not checking feecburner because we all know that noone is subscribed ... and then what the heck ... adding an entry.

I've got to go.  It's nearly 3pm, in 3 hours I have to go clear out the floor at Arcadia and I'm pretty sure I have just about 2 hours of work to do ... on top of needing to find all the stuff to take on the cruise and pack it into a small bag and ...

Birthday parties

My kids are 12 and soon to be 15.  You'd think that we were done with birthday parties.  The same as you'd think that we have been lifted from the shackles of kid-dom and with two intelligent, independent minded and relatively sensible young boys you could now leave the boys at home and go out every now and again.  But, as is with most of parenting ... wrong again.

This weekend, Nick had a birthday party for 10 of his friends.  Sounds okay, right?  They came over at 6pm on Saturday and ate pizza, ate chips, drank soda, ate ice cream, ate anything we had ... and played video games and watched PG-13 movies and generally kept the house at a dull roar (complete with a full hour of banging on the drums) until about 2am.  Somehow, they all popped their little heads out of sleeping bags at around 7:30am and the same dull roar was in full blaze by 8am.  I made bacon, eggs and pancakes for an army ... twice.  And shuffled them all into their clothes and into some level of clean up mode and then ... I took them all paintballing.

Paintball.  What an interesting concept.  Sport?  Many call it a sport ... much the same way that playing golf and shooting ducks and little clay things in the air seem to qualify as a sport.  I guess that pretending like you are killing your friends for a few hours in the morning is now a sport.  If you do it on the streets, though, it's a crime.  But never you mind that ... there I was with 10 kids at a paintball warehouse at 10am on a Sunday morning. 

On the way over to the venue, the kids were all talking about strategies.  And teams. And who was going to be the best and who was going to be the worst and how many times they were going to shoot whatever.  And the strategies were astounding enough to hope that none of them ever consider a career in the military.  I suppose those games they all play may not be as real as we all think ...

We get every kid gunned up, aired up, loaded up and goggled up and they proceed to shoot the shit out of whatever for the next two hours.  They'd swagger in, all high-fiving and full of bravado, recount the last skirmish and challenge the birthday party next door to yet another shunned invitation to skirmish.  And they'd come in with this pale blue oily stuff all over them that looked like they'd been attacked by a very flatulent group of seagulls. 

There were two other moms in the room.  There were probably about 50 other boys and men in the room.  This is clearly a male dominated sport; it felt a little bit like I'd entered a hunting lodge by accident.  Somehow, I'd made the mistake of being the parent-in-charge because I'm pretty sure that just one or two women throw off the full testosterone effect.

The kids had fun.  They were tired tired tired.  And they were full of great stories loudly recounted to each other on the way home.  And in the end, I survived.  Nick turned 12 and the rest of my day could be alotted to ... the antics of my 15 year old.

Don't let anyone fool you into the thinking that once they get older ... you can take a breather, take a break, not worry any more about child-proofing the house.  Because, while you no longer have to worry about the kids literally sticking their fingers into an electrical outlet, now you have to worry about them sticking their fingers into the figurative light-socket of life. 

Sharon?

Last I checked, Ariel Sharon was gravely ill -- although, who knows?  There has been no real coverage of this news for ... days.  Days!  Every day I wake up and wonder how the man is?  There's a lot of power in that part of the world -- and he is a pivotal power player.  How's it going?  Is he alive?  Recovering?  In a coma or not? 

There's some nice negative reporting on who should or should not be allowed to vote in Palestine and what the rest of the world may do if the vote doesn't have the desired outcome ... but no news about a key power player in this political hot pot of a world.

If Bush were in a coma ... we'd get not just a daily but an up-to-the-second report.  Heck, we heard more about Terry Shiavo than we are about Ariel. 

If we were talking about ... China we'd be screaming that there was suppression of news and a right to free speech and a propoganda machine at work.

So, anyone know the status of Mr. Sharon?

For geeks only

Okay, I'm not a Star Wars fan.  I'm not event that much of a geek -- I'm reformed.  I do gentler things like ... read and drink cappuccinos now. True, I'm working on new websites that are Movable Type based and true I'm in the midst of bringing wireless to the Coffee Shop and ... anyway, I'm not a true geek.

But this is way too good to keep to myself ... telnet://towel.blinkenlights.nl

Don't give up right away ... give yourself a good 8 minutes to really soak it in ... and, may the force be with you (someone used up all of their force on this exercise)

I hate midterms ...

I hate midterms.  This is new.  Because, before this year, I didn't have to deal with midterms.

I don't remember having a week of midterms in high school.  Our high school seems to have a big midterm schedule -- a whole week of them.  And each day, you get to take one ... maybe two ... tests.  And then -- voila, you have the rest of the day free.  The bus comes at 11:40 and the town is overrun with teens lunching and hanging and most certainly not making use of that time to *gasp* study.

So, it's been a real struggle to work on the concept of studying for exams.  For one, there is waaaay too much time given to this exercise.  I don't recall having this much time to study for finals in college.  For two, the midterms don't count for a large part of the grade so ... one could beg the question.  And, for three, it's really nice out on the days that the trees aren't blowing over so who wouldn't rather walk around town, eat lunch with your friends and generally act like a teen?

Now, my son wants to go to school for his two midterms tomorrow (I actually doubt he wants to do this ... but he has to so that's what he plans on doing in the morning) and then go to lunch with a friend, come home for a few minutes, go to crew, come home for a shower, go to the Avenue and I assume eat dinner, hang out and watch a movie and then he wants to get up the next day and go to New York City come home for an hour and go to the Teen Center for a concert and ... study on Sunday?

Yikes.  I try not to interfere.  I just try to suggest maybe an hour ... 90 minutes? ... a day may be better than waiting until Sunday because getting up on Sunday means something like noon or 1pm not 10am or some morning time that leaves you more than a few hours in the day to do something.

I may prefer midterms, though, to the essay that compares and contrasts the book of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry to the movie ...

Tom DeLay Denies All Charges (As Told by Dr. Suess)

From "The WitList" at http://witlist.blogspot.com

That Abramoff!
That Abramoff!
I do not like that Abramoff!

"Would you like to play some golf?"

I do not want to play some golf.
I do not want to, Abramoff.

"We could fly you there for free.
Off to Scotland, by the sea."

I do not want to fly for free.
I don't like Scotland by the sea.
I do not want to play some golf.
I do not want to, Abramoff.

"Would you, could you, take this bribe?
Could you, would you, for the tribe?"

I would not, could not, take this bribe.
I could not, would not, for the tribe.

"If we strong armed corporations
Into giving you donations?
They'd be funnelled to your PAC.
Would you then cut us some slack?"

I would not, could not, cut you slack.
I do not care about my PAC.
I do not want to play some golf.
I do not want to, Abramoff.

"A plane! A plane! A plane! A plane!
Would you, could you, for a plane?"

I could not, would not, for a plane.
Not for a bribe, not for the tribe.
Not for donations from corporations.
Not for my PAC, not for some slack.
Not from any schmoe named Jack.

"Would you help us buy some ships
Perfect for quick gambling trips?
Talk to people in the know
For a little quid pro quo?
Oh come now, don't be a snob.
Let us give your wife a job."

I will not help you buy some ships.
I do not wish for gambling trips.
My wife does not need a job
Even if she is a snob.
We do not like bribes, can't you see?
Why won't you just let me be?

"You do not like bribes, so you say.
Try them, try them, and you may.
Try them and you may, I say."

Jack. If you will let me be
I will try them, then you'll see.

Say.... I do like playing golf!
I like it, I do, Abramoff!
I do like Scotland by the sea.
It's such a thrilling place to be!
And I will take this bribe.
And I will help the tribe.
And I will take donations
From big corporations.
And I will help you buy some ships.
And I will take quick gambling trips.
Say, I'll give anyone the shaft
As long as it involves some graft!

I do so like playing golf!
Thank you! Thank you,
Abramoff!