Straighten Up & Fly Right

My sister has often used this phrase to her kids, and I think my mom used to use it on us... and I've been known to use it occasionally myself. (Along with another of my sister's more creative instructions, "behave or I'll rip off your head and shit in your neck.") Anyway, I just today learned that this is from a 1943 Nat King Cole song. Cool!

Homesickness, aka Quietude Preferred

I'm in Huntington Beach, California, on a short trip to attend a user conference. My husband and son came with me, and since they are at Disneyland today and the conference ended early, here I am alone in the hotel room looking out at the Pacific Ocean and I kinda sorta remembered... didn't I start a blog or what.

Obviously, there are a LOT of people that find this part of the world to be an ideal place to live. I have very little, if not nothing, in common with these people. Though the ocean view is beautiful, the traffic and the dense population and the resulting noise is bit by bit driving me wacky. I'm uptight and can't wait to get home.

And I'm looking out at that beautiful beach feeling like I really should go take a walk on it or something, but a) it really smells bad down there, and b) there's a shitload of people down there, and c) I have to cross PCH to get there. Well, really c) ain't no big thing, but it just feels better to have 3 reasons to remain in my (lovely) room and play on the computer, taking advantage of the hotel amenity of high speed Internet access.

Also, our daughter opted to stay home (so as not to miss basketball practice and the first game of the season), and I'm missing her dreadfully.

Also, I'm getting my husband's cold and I feel like crap. And in my book, crap = nap. Which I think is next on my California agenda.

How to Determine Shoe Size

Today I asked my daughter her boyfriend's shoe size, and she said, "9, because 8 1/2 are too small, and 9 1/2 are too big." Whew! So glad to get that cleared up!

Note to Self: Teenage daughter may occasionally resent, to an inordinate degree, laughter at her expense.

Ellipses

I... just... love... ellipses...

You Scratch My Back, I'll Scratch Yours

When I was a kid, I had to share a room with one of my sisters. Mostly we both thought it was awful. Especially when we were in our early teens. But when we were little, lots of times, after settling in, one of us would say, "If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." Those were the best times about sharing a room with my sister. (To this day, I absolutely love to have my back scratched. And I truly don't understand anyone who doesn't like it, though I've met a few - granted they're a rare breed - who profess to not like it. Yeah, right.) Anyway, we would scratch away each others itchy backs... and yes, sometimes try to skimp out the other one on time. And sometimes argue. But mostly it was wonderful. I loved being the second one, and falling off, or almost off, to sleep with a lovely, lovely back-scratching.

That Pivotal Family Moment

Everyone pretty much knows family life can be defined by a particular moment or event. That certain thing that happens that henceforth marks time in your family. From then on, everything is "before the-certain-thing-happened" or "after the-certain-thing-happened"... For us, there have been a lot of those things. The usual marriage, and then children. Even major vacation trips mark time for us. Car accidents. Good things and bad things. The most recent has been my husband's acquisition of a new, bright orange tractor. We don't have a farm, mostly woods. And a big pond (that somehow requires much tractor work). Life for us is described by pre-Kubota or post-Kubota terms. Now, I mostly just hear him driving around the ol' homestead. At first, it kind of bothered me - the constant sound of the tractor. Now, I hardly notice it. Right now, tractoring is a passion for him. My mom calls the Kubota his new mistress. (Which rather implies he has an old mistress. Huh.) So anyway, we'll wait a while and let him go and do his thing without whining about it. He's having so much fun.