Every morning I take Sassy and The Bandit to school. That means that every day I have to negotiate my car through a thousand other cars in a tight, cramped parking lot with a lot of other parents who are also running late for work and a bunch of stay-at-home mommies who like to loiter and chat with each other. This is absolutely nothing different from every other parent who doesn’t home school their kids.

Mostly I’m fine with all the jockeying for parking spaces and such that the process requires, but there is one little thing that is driving me absolutely crazy.

The kids’ new school has a crossing guard Nazi. Even though I am their mother and I successfully (barely) grew them in my womb and managed to raise them to the rip old ages of six and eight, and even though I hold their hands in the parking lot, apparently my forty-two years of street crossing experience doesn’t qualify me to escort the fruits of my loins across the pavement by myself.

I was yelled at by the crossing guard. Yelled at. Loudly.

In my defense, we’re not talking about a traditional crosswalk situation here. It’s not across a street but just the parking lot. Like at the grocery store. Or Target. Or McDonalds. All of which I manage to maneuver through – all by myself – any number of times in a given week.

I totally get why I should use the crosswalk and why I should teach my children the correct safety procedures. But I don’t need to be yelled at by an overzealous, power hungry woman in an orange vest carrying a red octagon on a stick. As I recall, all the kids in the safety patrol at my elementary school were a little over the top, too.

The Brights finally made it to see The Green Lantern. It’s no secret here at the Quill Sisters that I love superhero movies. Ever since Christopher Reeve as Superman in 1978 I’ve been a fan. I was a ripe old age of nine years old and already I loved the genre.

Now Christopher Reeve was cute and all but that’s not where my heart lay. No, my heart was lost to Danny Zuko as played by John Travolta. I had many years of bad boys to get out of my system after that. Let’s face it, the bad boys have always been more interesting.

Now don’t go thinking, like My Honey does, that I only love superhero movies just for the super hero.  Just like hockey, there is much to be admired about the superhero genre besides the hunky lead and his form fitting suit. Not that there’s ever been anything wrong with his suit, mind you. There is a lot to be said for the archetype as well as the good truimphing over evil story arc.  Also, as a former film major, the production values are absolutely stunning.  I can’t get over how utterly fantastic the special effects have become. I am mesmerized every single time, through every single film. Secretly, I’ll admit, I’m also a fan of the sarcastic, biting, egotistical humor that fills these scripts. I love a good one liner.

And who doesn't love a big Scandinavian?

I can’t tell you how excitedI am at the prospect of the Avengers. With Thor, Iron Man, Captain American and Haweye how can it possibly fail? Oh,  Black Widow is in it, too. I certainly don’t wish to seem sexist in my praise of the

A bad boy and a super hero - oh dear

superhero. I can’t wait to see Ann Hathaway as Catwoman in the next Batman (although technically, of course, she’s a bad guy) and sooner or later, someone will make a Wonder Woman movie worthy to stand with the rest. Did you know they’re redoing Superman again, too. Oh, I’m all a twitter.

So I say all this, and spend all these words trying to convince you how much there is to love about the genre, that I must then tell you about the conversation in the car after The Green Lantern today. It’s only fair.

“Which one was better do you think? Captain American or The Green Lantern?” the Bandit asked.

“I don’t know,” My Honey answered. “The were both good.”

“But very different,” I point out.  Sassy doesn’t contribute much to the conversation. She’s still eating popcorn and, frankly, she couldn’t care less. If there isn’t a cute animal in the movie or a princess then, really, she’s not interested. She just came along today for the snacks.

Was I wrong? No, I don't think so

The Bandit and My Honey went on to debate the qualities of both movies while I did my own contemplating. “Well, I will say one thing,” I piped up, “The Green Lantern had a better tookus.”

“What?” The Bandit asked.

“Mom says the Green Lantern had a better butt,” his father helpfully translated.

The look the boy gave me from the back seat was equal parts disgust and derision.

Whatever – I do love me a good superhero movie.

The office that Ava and I work in sees customers by appointment only. This is a very simple concept and not one I’d consider revolutionary. The procedure is thus: customer calls for appointment, we set one up, we call them a day ahead to remind them, the customer shows up at the appointed time. This must happen a million times over the course of a person’s life with everything from a dentist appointment to a parent/teacher conference.

I simply can’t understand what is so hard to understand about this idea.

We have a lot of no-show appointments, which bugs me but not to a great extent. The hole in the schedule allows you to get more work done or write a blog post – whatever. We also have a lot of people who arrive late. As much as thirty minutes on occasion. That is really irritating, especially around the lunch hour when you’re trying to schedule your life.

What really sets me off is when the customers arrive early. Really early. Like an hour. What is wrong with people? This happens way more often than you’d think. Then they get frustrated with you when they have to sit in the lobby for fifty minutes or more and all we can do is smile and remind them what time they were scheduled for.

Among the many list of things I plan to do when I win the lottery (buy Italy since Greece is now off the table, hire a full time masseuse, quit my God forsaken job from the airport’s international terminal, travel, travel, travel) is buy every single man, woman and child in this town a freakin’ watch.

You know how some parents are always saying, “I just don’t know where Jr learned that kind of language”? Well, when it comes to my kids, I totally know where it’s coming from. I really don’t have an internal edit. Milliseconds after the words leave my mouth, my head goes, “ooooh.” 

Too little, too late.

So this weekend when I heard The Bandit very clearly scream the words, “Sassy, you’re a jackass!” I knew exactly where he’d learned it. I’m certain that’s not the worst of it either but, to the boy’s credit, he still thinks the “f” word is absolutely the worst possible word to utter and he’s not said it yet. At least that I know of. He and his sister still refer to that word in the hushed, irreverent tones of the truly faithful.  As an adult, I know there are much worse sentiments than the “f” word, but I never use those words so they won’t have learned them from me. I draw the invisible curse word line at the f-bomb, although I will admit I use it liberally and very creatively. Honestly though, the most creative cursing I’ve ever heard comes straight from the mouth of my Sister, Kelli. Wow! She’s like The Dude, the Great White Wizard of Swearing.

Upon being called a jackass, Sassy immediately ran to me to tattle.

“You know the policy. If you’re going to tattle you have to give me a dollar,” I reminded her. This little tidbit of child rearing advice I got from Ava. You may not agree with it, but I save a lot of money on allowance this way.

“I’m not tattling,” she told me in highly put out tone. “I’m just telling you what he did wrong so he’ll get in trouble.”

Uh-huh. Now it’s going to cost two dollars.

So The Bandit told me that his eyes were foggy. I didn’t know what that meant, but he told me the same thing for about two weeks so I scheduled an eye doctor appointment. He’d had a basic one during his physical before kindergarten, but we couldn’t tell if he did so poorly because he was a squirrely little five year old who didn’t really know his letters very well OR because he couldn’t see a damn thing.

Well, we learned the answer at the opthamologist. I have no idea how that boy hasn’t bumped into everything in his path. The doctor said that little kids compensate. “OK,” I said with raised eyebrows.

It sure explains his difficulty with kindergarten and his attention span of a gnat.

The other Elvis

So I let the boy loose on the wall of frames. My hope was he would embrace the idea of glasses instead of pissing and moaning and whining about it.  He embraced with gusto. He tried on every single frame. Every single one.  I was really pushing for the ones that made him look like Elvis Costello but My Honey put his foot down.

Jeez, you try to give the kid a little character…

See! Everyone wants to look like Elvis.

Out of the 7,500 frames he put on and took off and put on and took off over the course of an hour, he decided on some Spongebob Squarepants ones.

It took the doctor’s office nine days to make them and every single day he asked when they were coming. After about day five, he was certain I already had them and was keeping them from him on purpose. He also has a very wiggly front tooth and quickly the wait for the glasses became a race to see if he’d lose his tooth first or get his glasses first.

Glasses first. He’s cute, eh? I tried to get a picture of him with a “normal” face but apparently that is physically impossible when you’re six.  He really does have eyebrows – when he’s normal, which is, admittedly, rare.

Who wants to start the poll on how long they’ll last?

So the headline read, “Prince Harry due for copter training at site in Arizona”. Of course, this peaked our interest, so we read further. We learned that, “the prince, a captain, is training to pilot the Boeing Apache attack helicopter with the British Army Air Corps.”

“I think we should go have our picture taken with him,” Ava said. I agreed. “How fitting would that be? We write historical British novels….he’s British…It’s perfect.”  Again, I agreed.

I read further and discovered he is coming to Arizona sometime this fall.  When is “fall” exactly? It’s hard to tell here where there are no leaves to signal the change and school now starts in August. School used to start in the “fall” but, when it’s 109 degrees while you’re at school, I don’t think that can be considered fall.

“I think we should find him,” Ava continues. I nod. That seems like as much fun to plan as the kidnapping of the lion cubs from the zoo. That’s still totally on, by the way.  Keep an eye on the news – I’m certain you’ll see us. “We can be stealthy,” she suggests.

I raise my eyebrows at her with a great deal of skepticism.

“No?” Ava asks, “You don’t think we can be stealthy?”

“Yeah. Stealth isn’t really one of our strong points.” I tell her. Ava nods sagely. “Don’t get me wrong. I still think we should do it.”

“Right. Then we can ask him what the odds are of getting his sister-in-law to come out and visit.”

“Wouldn’t that be great?” I’m really getting into the idea now. “Or maybe just Pippa. I’d take a picture with Pippa. She seems quite nice.”

Ava’s enthusiasm is really pumping now. “Yeah, cause we’re not snobby.”

Wasn't she adorable?

We are most definitely not snobby – snarky, bitchy, and rude but never snobby. So “yes” to Harry, Wills, Kate and Pippa. Even a “meh” to Elizabeth, although frankly, we’d rather have met the Queen Mum. You know who’s out of the question? Camilla. She can stay in England. We still haven’t gotten over that whole Diana business.

It’s been another week. Exceptionally slow for some of us and rocketing past at lightening speed for others.  We stopped and smelled a few roses over the last seven days and these are a few of things that made us giggle or gasp longingly. Enjoy.

click to enlarge. Really. Look at it big - totally amazing.

1. Peacock bracelet. Oh. My. Word. Isn’t this one of the most stunning pieces of jewelry you’ve ever seen? We can just imagine the tail of this gorgeous peacock winding up our arms, the lacework tickling our skin oh so seductively. There are 7,500 stones: .05mm Paraiba tourmalines, tsavorites garnets, diamonds, sapphires and emeralds. Ava swore if Ed bought it she’d wear the bracelet and nothing else. Of course, that makes the 11 year old girl make choking noises. Ignore the child. Bask in the gloriousness that is the work of art. Now, if any of you run out and buy it, we’re going to be very perturbed. Although, I can’t tell you the price as it’s listed as “pricing upon request” so that means we’re all out of the running.

2. Opportunities. Kelli called Amylynn this week and told her they would have to beg off some plans the Sister’s had for the coming weekend. It seems she has the “opportunity to go camping.” Ava and Amylynn are not completely sure Kelli has a firm grasp of the meaning of the word “opportunity.” Merriam-Webster defines it as “a favorable juncture of circumstances” and as far was Ava and Amylynn are concerned there is nothing favorable about camping. We could be bribed into if the peacock bracelet was a reward at the end, but there would still be considerable whining.

3. Donut Thugs. The headline read, “Greek police smash violent doughnut ring.” Apparently two Bulgarian men and a former Greek wrestling chamion were attacking other doughnut venders in an effort to corner the market. Again the

Loukoumades doughnuts

 police went undercover to “blow a hole in the ring of alleged crooks”.  There are a lot of things to comment on here: What are Bulgarians going in Greece? What kind of wrestler – Grecco Roman or professional mask-wearing wrestler? Apparently the Mediterranean is the place to be a cop. You get to dress up as donut venders, gladiators, garbage men and tourists. But we’re sure you’ll all agree that before we pass judgment, we need to hop on a jet and taste those donuts.

4. Umbrella lady. We’ve always referred to her as the “Parasol lady” because she always has a pretty one with her when you see her walking down the street, but apparently she is offically known as the Umbrella Lady. She is one of the charming characters of our town that everyone seems to have a story about.  She wears outlandish dresses of the prom variety with lots of petticoats and lace and must own a gazillion parasols. She walks everywhere – even in the summer. She’s fascinating as all great characters are. We think she might be good luck but we decided it’s probably not polite to hop out of the car and rub her.

5. Prosciutto. Oh you scrumptious dry-cured Italian delicacy. We tried writing a haiku to it but we got distracted by it’s salty goodness. Ava’s husband is leaving this weekend for a three day prosciutto fiesta. He and a friend will spend the weekend learning how to make it. We already have plenty of experience in eating it. The Sisters are considering waiting for him at the airport with a ripe cantelope and a bottle of ice cold gewurztraminer.