Sassy is in third grade this year.  Apparently this is the year they start learning cursive. I guess that’s when I learned it to, but really, all I remember about third grade and Mrs. McNally was spending a lot of time in the corner for talking and winning a school wide story competition.

I had read in several national news magazines that students weren’t being taught cursive or even penmanship anymore since everyone types or texts everything these days. I personally thought that was a bad idea primarily because I had to learn it, and it sucked but no more than learning fractions, and if they stop making kids learn fractions I’m totally going to have a fit.

So in homework this week, she needs to write the upper and lower case “B” in cursive. She asked me if I would write out all the letters, upper and lower case, so she would have something to work from.

“Sure,” I said taking the pen and paper.

A was no problem. Neither was B, C, or D. E caused me some difficulties. I had no idea how to make an uppercase F. G was much more difficult that I remembered. H and I were simple. J – what does an upper case J look like? I’m sure what I ended up with for the K was wrong. L, M, N, and O were easy. The P seemed too easy so I’m sure it was incorrect. Q? Is it supposed to look like a #2 or is that just for calligraphy? I erased the R three times. My S kept ending up looking like a treble clef. T, U, V, and W mostly looked all right. X, Y and Z – honestly, I have no idea.

When is the last time you tried to write the cursive letters exactly like you were taught in school? My handwriting, while perfectly legible, is an amalgamation of my own creating combining print and cursive and Sanskrit.  

Yeah, they better make them learn fractions. It’s only fair.

I am the worst Sister in history. I can’t help it. The whole situation is absolutely dreadful and so God damned funny, I can hardly breathe.

Poor Ava had to go to Albuquerque for a meeting tomorrow. The whole trip was absolutely insane – a round trip flight, hotel, two days of food, and a car rental all for a two hour meeting. She didn’t want to go – for a whole lot of reasons, but most especially because she’d be bored and alone and I wouldn’t be there to take care of her and drive her around.  Also, because how stupid is this whole thing for a two hour meeting?

Regardless, she packed her little bag and she went to the airport.

She told me she decided not to check her bag because it was so small. I had a few questions about that, but I got sidetracked and I forgot to ask them. When she got to the security checkpoint she expected to breeze through. After all, she had hardly anything with her. Do you see what’s coming? You would if you knew our dear Ava better. She was toting in her overnight bag huge cans of hair spray, shampoo and lotion – none of which were in the nice three ounce sizes as prescribed by the Transportation Security Administration. Ava described her predicament as something that “excited the security people.” She also said, “they were quite nice after quickly arriving at the fairly obvious fact that I am retarded.”

Three of the “quite nice” security guards escorted her to the check in desk and watched her check her bag. Unfortunately, the whole thing made her flustered and she checked her sweater and her book inside. The TSA people then took her picture and let her go. I’m sure they’re posting her likeness in the break room as a warning. I blame myself for this portion of Ava’s troubles. That thing I wanted to talk to her about earlier – I just new she hadn’t considered the liquids in her bag. I just knew it.

The next exciting development was that they cancelled her 12:00pm flight to Phoenix because of mechanical difficulties. They next flight out was at 5 pm so Ava got to cool her heel in our exceedingly modern and well appointed airport. HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA. Boy, do I crack myself up.  Our airport might as well be a shoe box for as large as it is. There isn’t even a Starbucks. She made the best of her time while she was there though. She ate chocolate for lunch and bought a new book. Apparently a man noticed she was cold without her sweater and offered her his socks. I also understand she made some new friends by insulting a crying Australian woman and told a man reading Who Moved My Cheese that it was written by a communist and he’d do just as well to read nothing at all and sit and meditate.  I’m sure that, secretly, those people were thankful for her unsolicited council.

Finally, she gets on the plane to Phoenix. I received a text at 4:38 that she was boarding the plane. At 4:52 I received a computerized call from the airline informing me that her flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque was cancelled. OH HOLY CRAP! I called right away but her phone was off. I immediately called Ed, her husband, and our reaction was very similar. This was not going to be good.

I got on the internet to see if there were any flights coming back home tonight only I accidently put the Tucson airport code as TUC instead of TUS and found her a lovely flight that left Phoenix to arrive in Mexico City, taking off for Panama City the next morning to Buenos Aires and ultimately landing in Tucuman, Argentina two days later. After I picked myself up off the floor and wiped the hysterical tears from my eyes, I checked for the correct flights.

So we all waited and waited and waited for Ava to get off the plane so we could let her know the horrible news. I’m totally going to hell for it, but I couldn’t stop laughing.  Ava was going to be furious. F. U. R. I. O. U. S.  Ed and I debated driving up to fetch her. We even considered getting on the road already so by the time she landed one of us would already be half way there. We pondered if she’d take the last flight to Albuquerque landing at midnight or just say the hell with it and get on the first flight home. If she took the one home, she wouldn’t have her luggage with her and Ed thought that would be very uncharacteristic of his wife. I thought she wouldn’t even care anymore.

Poor Ava got back home sometime around nine-ish so that means she traveled for eleven hours and got exactly zero miles from home. Poor, poor Ava.

I found this cartoon on my desk today. I’d clipped it out and put it there and then it got lost under the flotsam and jetsam on my desk. There five or six hair clips, a half-full water bottle, a thousand sticky notes, scads of magazines with pages turned over for me to read or blog about, a pair of purple, fuzzy handcuffs (more about that another time, I promise), burned incense, and bookmarks.

I love this Speedbump cartoon by Dave Coverly.

We had some technical dificulties so I can’t make it any clearer, so click on the cartoon and the jump will take you to the Cartoonist Group for a full size verson.

If it was only so easy as using some forceps to get it out.

So My Honey had another show this weekend.  I attended the show with Ava’s husband, Ed. Thanks for the loan, Ava.

Ed thinks I’m crazy because I’m constantly looking things up on Google at the slightest provocation. In my opinion, that is the only good thing about my smart phone. Mostly I hate my phone with the passion of a thousand suns, but the Google and Wikipedia aps are a Godsend to my curious mind.

While we were at the bar I Googled who was playing at a rival bar (no one

Gibbet or crow's cage

 interesting), whether or not any of the Beastie Boys are dead (no, but Adam Yauch had throat cancer in 2009), what is the name of those cages you always see pirate skeletons rotting in in movies (gibbet or “crow’s cage”), and the name of all the motorcycle gangs in my town that start with the letter “S” (none that we could find so, disappointingly, that question was never answered.

What a random grouping, huh? Conversations with me can really lead anywhere. I am the queen of the tangent.

Tonight, Sassy and I Googled how many bones in a dog (average 319-321), cat (230ish), and a rabbit (that answer seems elusive and unreliable. I lost interest before a serious search could be made). I have no idea why a dog has so many more than a cat or a human (206).

Honest to God, I have no idea what I did before Google. That’s not true. I actually had the phone number for the public library Information Desk in my rolodex. I called them all the time. I always thought that would be an awesome job.

Anyway, with the exception of the animal skeleton episode, Sassy has informed me, “Mom, most of the time I’m not even interested in all your nonsense.”

Yeah. That’s what she says now about my trivia, but just wait until she needs to “phone a friend”. Then we’ll see who she calls.

Well it wasn’t easy to keep ourselves from slitting our wrists this week. It was a tough one, but we managed to come up with 5 wonderful, glorious things that left us amused or, at least two of us, turned on.  Buckle your seltbelt and jump on our crazy train.

Shane Doan - Coyote's captain

1. Hockey training camp begins. One Sister is rolling her eyes and shaking her head right now. Whatever. Eventually she’ll be turned to the dark side. Even if she never comes to appreciate the beauty and skill of the game, she’ll eventually learn to appreciate the players – all six feet and two hundred pounds of sweaty gloriousness.

2. Harvey Spector. While one Sister is busy on NHL.com, another one

Harvey Spector

is busy pining over the lawyer character as played by Gabriel Macht in the USA Network show, Suits. He’s handsome.  He’s smart. He’s smarmy. We realize that “smarmy” doesn’t really seem like a great recommendation, but Harvey can work smarm like nobody’s business.

3. Gladiator gangs. When we read this story, we couldn’t supress the cackles. So here’s the scoop: there are roving gangs of Gladiator and Centurion impersonators that mill around the Collosseum, Forum, and Vatican in Rome who get money for posing for photographs with tourists. The problem is the gangs have staked out their areas and, consequently, there have been turf wars. The Roman police dressed as gladiators and infiltrated the gangs. When the police infringed on another gang’s turf there was an altercation which then caused the rest of the undercover police dressed as tourists and garbage men (!!)  to join the fray. If you happened to be a real tourist milling about the Piazza Venezia can you imagine this scene? Tourists and garbagemen “assaulting” gladiators in an all out fracas at the Colosseum? Best. Vacation. Ever.

4. Vacationing penguin. This Emperor penguin has been on the news a lot lately, but we love his story.  So the dude heads off on vacation – maybe to Rome for a quick Gladiator intervention – and gets totally lost. We hate to use cliche’s but we suspect he refused to ask for directions. So he ends up in New Zealand. A lovely place for sure, but not very penguin friendly – too many Hobbits, we suspect. Now he’s all confused and alone and maybe he decides to end it all by gulping down sand and sticks. Fortunately, those wonderful Kiwi’s scoop him up and put him up in a vacation villa at the zoo, rehab him from his sand binge, and fill him up with fish milkshakes.  Then the best part – he’s taking a cruise ship home. Who wants to bet five Emperor penguins show up in Aukland next summer squaking for anchovy slurpees and massages?

5. Golden Eagle diamond. The Sisters love themselves some jewelry, and never once has any of us refused a diamond. But here’s the thing, this enormous yellow diamond may be flawless and it may be 43.5 carats, but it’s…..yellow. As far as the Sisters are concerned, we’re just really happy no one is going to buy it for us because the acting job that it would take to act surprised and grateful – well, honestly we’re not that good.

A couple of random things today

Today is National Cupcake Day.  Did you hear that? NATIONAL CUPCAKE DAY, people. That is a high holy day for the Sisters.  We went to church and prayed at the altar. We irritated the barista. All in all, it was a fairly typical day for the sisters.

The Altar

***

Glorious rain! We had a really serious monsoon  storm that hit around 4:30 this afternoon. There were swift water rescue reports on the radio and lost power all over town. We closed the office a little early because it was so hellacious outside. At 5:30 when I attempted to leave the rain was so heavy I could barely see the car across the parking lot. Do you think I waited at the office for the storm to clear up? Don’t be ridiculous. I got the hell out of there the minute the big hand hit the 6. I’ll tell you what though, half way through the parking lot, when the water was half way up my shin, I would have taken a ride from a strange man in a white panel van if he’d have offered to drive me to the car.

Every time I bitch and complain at the gas pump about the cost of filling up my big SUV, I’m also very happy to have my big four wheel drive when every street is running with rain and every “street river” is door-high to all the cars.

***

My Honey was helping The Bandit with his homework when he found a tattered piece of notebook paper in his backpack. It was numbered one through ten, but only lines one and two were completed with the following: I will keep my hands to myself. When asked about it, The Bandit said, “It’s nothing. I just felt like writing that.” Riiiiiiight. We never got a clear story about what happened but apparently The Bandit was being persecuted for something he didn’t do. When pressed we learned his first grade teacher is unfair. Hard to believe isn’t it?

Another Bandit-ism. Daddy came into the living room and found the boy with a grubby face. “What have you been eating?” he asked Bandit.

Ever the lawyer, my son countered with, “What do you think I’ve been eating?”

As I’m sure you can imagine, his father and I spend a great deal of time choking back giggles and trying to act stern.

“I. Don’t. Know.” His voice was very stern.

“Why are you mad at me?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. I was being annoying and I knew it.

“I need a blog topic for tonight,” I had told My Honey just minutes before. He’d offered up several ideas though absolutely none of them inspired me. I couldn’t muster up a good rant over reality TV, dead wrestlers, my son’s persistant nudity or any of his other varied suggestions.

We were watching the finale of Masterchef and debating the merits of each final contestant. We were in disagreement over who would ultimately win (I’ll have it noted I picked the winner).

He gestured to the television. “There you go. There’s you’re blog post.”

I curled my lip and made a derisive noise.

“Fine!” He waved his hand at me in a crudely dismissive gesture. “I’m done making suggestions.”

That’s when I realized that, of course,was my blog post. Other bloggers will surely acknowledge that sometimes finding something to write any number of words about, that will in some small manner form together an essay, that will amuse their intended audience is often times very elusive. Other times, I will have several prewritten blogs stacked up for the days I have writer’s block. Sometimes as many as three fully complete posts are just laying around in wait for the days my children aren’t funny.

I even keep a running list in my phone notebook of ideas as they occur to me, but sometimes even those suggestions, while funny at the time, can’t be massaged into an entire essay. For example, these are the sentences in there right now:

• Bandit: the worst morning person EVER
• Ferris wheels that terrify me even though I’m brave enough to go bunjee jumping
• It sounded like the Viet Cong at our house over Easter
• The publishing industry as the Sisters see it
• Sassy: the social butterfly blossoms at 8 years old
• Dad vs Dinner – it doesn’t look like a donkey.

All interesting ideas at the time, and some of them may see the light of day yet, just not today.

Sigh.

Oddly, somehow this post has made me think of a texting conversation I had with my friend Kurt the other day.

Kurt: Ever see “Scott Pilgrim vs The World”?

Me: I did not. Was it good?

Kurt: Hilarious! The main female character in not a world for world quote, “Throughout my past, I’ve dabbled in being a bitch.”

Me: Me too!

Kurt: …never made that connection till now.

Me: That’s why I love you. You always think the best of me.

Kurt: I believe we both have the unique ability to see and appreciate the gifts we have and offer to the world that others don’t necessarily find all that positive.

Me: I don’t know what you’re talking about. The world needs more derisive glares and potty humor.

So there you have it.  Not a genius post. I can’t always mine diamonds out of crap.

I heard back from my AGENT today.  She enjoyed Miss Goldsleigh’s Secret.  She does have a few notes and some requested tweaks. She says it’s “things that could be modestly tweaked.”

Thank Zeus. I’ve been sitting over here having an insecure nervous breakdown waiting for her to tell me what she thought.

But “I just finished MISS GOLDSLEIGH’S SECRET and really loved it!”

Yea for me!