If I Blogged Daily

Some people (and you know who you are) have suggested that I need to blog more often. So, here is a sample of what my entries would look like if I did it daily.

Ate toast for breakfast
Yelled at the children
Wore my new socks with the puppies on them
Colin ate 12 bowls of cereal
Colin pee'd in his pants
Children watched obscene amounts of tv
Children played obscene amounts of video games
Did token amount of housework just before Mark arrived home so that he would think I do something all day

Goal for tomorrow: cut and paste this entry for tomorrow's blog. ;)

Wanderlust

Mom sent me this link to a great article about books that have inspired other writers to travel. So here is my own list of 5 books that make me yearn to travel (in no particular order).

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy -- the ultimate travel adventure, hitchhiking through outer space, taking with you only a towel. Would I have been as brave as Trillian, seizing the chance to see the universe, given only a split second to make up my mind? Unfortunately, no. Oddly, the travel destination this book makes me yearn for is Alaska. A character in the book lovingly describes the award-winning fjords he designed when the supercomputer known as Planet Earth was constructed. I can't see the universe, but the fjords are within my reach.

Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad -- another travel classic. Among the many adventures Twain experiences as part of the first organized American tour of Europe and the middle East, my favorite takes place in Greece. Due to a quarantine, their ship was denied harbor, ruining their chances to see Athens. Undeterred, Twain leads a small expedition under cover of night to shore, stumbling across the countryside in search of the Parthenon. They make it and even manage to bribe a guard into letting them inside. Best of all is their return to the ship, darting through vineyards and stuffing their mouths with grapes as they go.

A Room With A View -- On her first trip to Venice, our young heroine is disappointed to find that she has been assigned a room with no view. Fortunately, a more experienced traveler trades rooms with her, in agreement that a Room With A View is essential to the Venice experience. What sticks in my mind is her red Baedeker clutched in her hands at all times. This I can identify with -- I always keep my travel guide handy to avoid missing something important, and the book left me with a particular fondness for Baedeker guidebooks.

The Vampire Lestat -- Or maybe it was Queen of the Damned. I can't remember. The Vampire Gabrielle wanders through the forests of the Amazon, finding ruins that haven't been seen by human eyes in centuries. If I couldn't be hurt, if I didn't feel pain, there is so much I would do. I'd travel the rainforests. I'd ski extreme mountains. I'd hike to the top of Mt. Everest. I'd travel the world, unafraid of kidnappers and war zones. But it's hard to be brave when you're a Very Small Animal.

The Hobbit – “There and Back Again, A Hobbit’s Holiday” is the title of Bilbo’s memoir. The places may be fictional, but again I envy the bravery that I myself have never had. J.R.R. Tolkien creates a fantasy in which I can believe that, like Bilbo, I could overcome my fears and need for creature comforts to experience an adventure of a lifetime.

But then again, who needs to travel when there are so many adventures waiting to be read?

Reader's Cramp

A nice case of Writer's Cramp is something to be proud of. It indicates a certain amount of hard work being performed by your hands and, possibly, your brain.

Reader's Cramp, however, is pretty much an affliction of the idle. Since I am naturally slothful, this is a condition I have experienced many times.

Including today, since I spent the better part of yesterday evening reading the latest Jasper Fford novel. The pain starts right below my ear, travels down my neck and settles in the spot where the neck and shoulder meet. Here it is the worst, but unlike me, this pain is not indolent and has traveled adventurously down my arm, all the way to my wrist. It has also wormed it's way into my shoulder blade and is doing a fair job of working itself into a tension headache as well.

This condition, of course, results from laying on a bed reading, with one arm propping me up. I will be taking an Advil, however, it will only be a stopgap as I fully intend to continue the harmful activity tonight. However, in the interest of my health I will take precautions... I will prop myself up using the other arm.

Nights of the Round Table

The music teacher had the children lined up to play a game.

"We're going to the castle," she said, "and you girls are princesses. Colin, you can be a knight."

"No," said Colin. "I'm a Day Prince."

A Limerick

There once was a boy who was keen
To maintain his bedtime routine.
He'd pluck hair from Mom's head
While they lay there in bed
Until Mommy was ready to scream.

A Useful Education

The topic was kisses.

"I want to give Colin a kiss," said Caroline.
"That's nice," I said. "Go kiss him."
"Well, he doesn't want to be kissed. Whenever I try, he pushes me away," she replied.
"Well, you shouldn't kiss him if he doesn't want to be kissed," I answered. After some thought, I added truthfully -- "of course, my strategy is just to grab him, hold him down, and kiss him anyway."
"Usually," shared Caroline, "I can fool him. I can say 'hey look! There's a flying donkey.' He turns to look and then I kiss him. He's such a sap."

I let that sink in for a second.

"Did you say 'sap'?" I asked.
"Uh-huh. It means someone who is easily fooled," says the walking dictionary.
"That's true," I said, "but how do you know that?"
"Geez, Mom! That's like the most common word in The Word Game."

The Word Game is a game played at school, where the students are given certain letters and asked to make as many words out of those letters as they can.

Sap. It's good to know they are learning something useful in school. As an oldest child, I know that there is nothing more important in life than being able to effectively and creatively insult your younger brother.

Caroline's Song

Caroline composed the following song yesterday:

My watch doesn't say a time.
My watch doesn't say a time.
Not 3:00
Not 6:30
Not 12:15
or 5:09
My watch doesn't say a time.
'Cause I'm an alien, that's why.

My clock doesn't say a time.
My clock
Not 6:00
Not 5:09
Not 1:30
or 12:15
My clock doesn't say a time.
'Cause I'm an alien, that's why
And it's the end of time.

My sundial doesn't say a time.
My sundial doesn't say a time.
Not 1:00
Or 12:15
Not 2:30
or 5:09
My sundial doesn't say a time.
'Cause I'm an alien, that's why.
Yeah!

Kitty Luau

It is a tradition in Hawaii to celebrate a child's first birthday with a luau. Each of our children had a First Birthday Luau in their honor. So our children thought that it only made sense to have another one in honor of... our cat's first birthday.

Tiger Lily turns one year old on May 5th. Happy Cinco de Mayo, Tiger Lily.

We invited friends to come celebrate with us. There was coconut shrimp and chicken teriyaki. There were Tiki Torches lighting up the back yard. There were leis for everyone. There were presents for Tiger Lily, and two cakes -- one for the humans and one made of cat food.

And the guest of honor spent the entire party crouched nervously under the bed.