Marge Ponders

Raising Kids is Not Combat: Military Wisdom for Summer

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:02:00 +0000

Do you ever find notes you jotted on bits of paper that make you question your sanity? No? In our house, they hide in neglected bill piles that jolt you awake at 5:23 a.m., dripping in late fee sweat.

There I was, on a caffeine fueled quest for order, unaware of a small, folded scrap of paper covered with pencil scribblings. It sat quietly a few layers down, under a coveted Webkinz log-on code (save that), the dreaded orthodontist’s card (call them) and the, ugh, school medical forms (fill out).

It didn’t stop me at first. Trash or file? On one side, it listed my daughter’s height, weight, BMI and related percentiles. Geez, she’s a skinny wonder. On the other, what did I write here?

“Reg prac of stillness. Relax thru muscle rlxtn. Stress – What r your choices? Stay calm? Lets get help without being critical. Ok to disagree. How to solve + have time. Mnge emotions. Awareness abt others feeling. Leadership: Case study. Raising Kids is Not Combat. But we can learn from the military.”

Lordy, where did I get this gibberish from? I don’t remember going to a seminar on Zen Wisdom for Wacked Parents. I don’t do motivational boot camp exercise classes, either.

Finding this on Day 2 of summer vacation was kismet, it turns out. Day 1 of summer at home with our kids and their friends left me so exhausted that I passed out in my unfolded laundry of pile after dinner.

Did I just write “laundry of pile”? See. I am losing it. On Day 2. And I love having our kids home for summer. I just need a plan of attack. Plan of attack? Wait! That paper said:

“Raising Kids is Not Combat. But we can learn from the military.”

That’s where I’ll find our summer mojo – from the military! Great! We’ll start each day with calisthenics. The children will push toys up the stairs, do 25 jumping jacks and survival roll down the stairs with dirty dish bombs. Then we’ll form platoons and attack the laundry of pile in waves.

What else does the military do? Having exhausted my Quaker supply of pacifist military knowledge from childhood, I turned to the mother of all military information sources, the Internet.

“There is no problem that cannot be solved by the use of high explosives.”

That’s how we’ll handle the toy room! And their bedrooms! And the kitchen! And….boredom, the real summer enemy! The boy platoon will love this.

Military wisdom does help! It even has pointers on sibling rivalry:

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. “

Thanks, Winston Churchill. He must have been thinking about moms when he said that.

Here’s another goodie: “I have not yet begun to fight.” John Paul Jones was a middle child, I just know it.

What do we do in the aftermath of battle, though? Let’s check with the ancient Chinese guru of military strategy, Sun Tzu, for guidance:

“Do not interfere with an army that is returning home. “

I didn’t know that Sun Tzu's wife drove an eight seater chariot with automatic sliding doors home from the pool. Wow. Maybe I can use tranquilizer darts to quell an uprising. Ice cream melts too quickly.

Last thoughts? Here’s one from that brilliant, military satirist, Oscar Wilde:

“Always forgive your enemies--nothing annoys them so much.”

That’s a perfect moral lesson for lunchtime banter. Surely, this will lead to the “reg prac of stillness” and help me “mnge emotions."

"What r your choices?”

Marge Ponders

© 2010

Photo Credit:

Rather Fly with Icarus?

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Sat, 22 May 2010 19:11:00 +0000

Have you flown lately? We did. They had us do everything ourselves except sprout wings.

Let's face it, flying is confusing when it isn’t terrifying or uncomfortable. Airlines now offer more choices than Billy Bob's Buffalo Buffet. Talk about six sigma-ing your business model to optimize strategic product modalities.

It starts with ticket buying. Tickets cost one price, unless you want a seat that fits or to take off and land one time each way. Try to stay Saturday, don’t fly Friday and, above all, don’t talk to a human ticket agent -- airfares double.

Prices also soar if you fly “legs” to and from different airports. Ick. Listen up, airline people: we who fly don’t want to think about body parts unless we are trying to fit our legs under a seat. Then, we want to hear about empty exit rows.

Fat chance. Airlines won’t “release” exit row seats until flight time when someone tall, large or ahead of you in line shows up.

News flash, flight folk: we non-troll sized people don’t fit in the cattle car seats either. I know that first hand after being startled by a brown thing squished in the side of my seat. It was my leg. In brown pants. It didn’t seem that fat when I boarded. In that sausage maker seat, it looked detached. People who fly don’t want to think about detached things, folks.

Which brings me to the First-Class-Business-Human seats we herd past when boarding. Who are those guys reading too intently? Oh. They’re working guys. They fly so many “legs” that they get seats that fit. Of course. If Firsters drop dead from deep vein thrombosis, airline profits will plummet. Firster seats cost four to six times more than our girdle specials.

You don’t just pack and go to the airport anymore. You check in on-line, print boarding passes at home and leave them on the counter when you rush out. Don’t worry! The automated airport kiosk will spit out new ones if you survive Russian parking roulette.

Do you park in Timbuktu or “on site” nearer the far away departure gate? It doesn’t matter. Your car will hide from you as soon as you leave. By the way, Level 2 does not have 243 spaces open. Thanks to resurfacing on Level 3, Level 2 has none.

Congratulations, you’re in the terminal! Please pay $25 to check your suitcase. Oh. It is a carry-on when you sit on it and hold the sides. That purse and lap top are two carry-ons, though. No? Your purse sure is an, ugh, grunt, lap top case.

Onto security -- no problem unless you wear clothes and shoes. Next time, try beach attire. Pull the towel off, toss your flip flops in the bucket and run through singing Beach Boys tunes! We’d like some sand for our bare feet, though. A little volley ball would pass the waiting time, too.

To the gate! Walk/run, ride the sidewalk or roller blade both miles there – just hurry! Ok. Sit down long enough to panic about not eating for four airborne hours. Grab something soggy from a real cafeteria and run back, they’re boarding!

Boarding should go smoothly after everyone shoves their fat carry-on bags in the overhead. Sit, buckle up and…pay $6 to watch a movie and $5 to drink your way through turbulence. No cash? Visit the ATM machine in the rear. It’s next to the tuna fish sandwich vending machine which does not dispense martinis.

No martinis? That’s it. Get the wax and feathers. We're flying with Icarus.

Marge Ponders

Photo credit: sfPhotocraft

Wake Up! The Dog Just Bit You!

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:25:00 +0000

Ok, who invented modern alarm clocks? Please stand up. I am talking to you. You are going into time out. Right now.

Thanks to you, I’m exhausted. Our horrid alarm clock woke me up 147 times in the past twelve days. Why? Because my husband is travelling and the clock knows it.

In our house, the alarm clock works for my husband. It won a work to rule order against me after I yanked it out of the wall plug last year.

I had my reasons. First, this clock is dumber than an anaerobic one-celled amoeba. It doesn’t tick or tock. It whirs. It doesn’t know “off” from “on” from “go to h-e-double toothpicks.” All of its buttons are pictures and the pictures make no sense.

One picture button is a circle with half a line sticking out of the top. When I’m awake, it resembles a caramel apple. But I usually look at it when I’m horizontal, blind and frantic to stop a pulsating buzzer sound. Upside down and blurry, that button looks like a plumber’s crack, something I don’t want to see in the morning and smack with my hand.

There’s also a bar with a line through it and buttons with “1” and “2” in circles on them. I don’t know what they do. I think you hit the bar if your heart flat lines in response to sudden machine gun speed beep sounds. If it’s my husband flat lining, the clock calls 911. For me, well…

Every house has its wake up mojo. In ours, we need an anticipatory alarm at sunrise and a “real” alarm hours later. The anticipatory alarm wakes us up so we can prepare to really wake up later by falling back to sleep. The real alarm wakes us up next. If both fail, we rely on the old-reliable shrill wife yelling alarm. That always works.

I guess other people like self-inflicted audio torture which is why all clocks have broken sleep buttons. On ours, I think it’s the (1) or (2). It isn’t the plumber’s crack. That one turns on AM radio fuzz sometimes. Ew.

These picture symbols are on every gizmo nowadays. What happened to words?

The International Electrotechnical Commission didn’t like them. Ohhh. That omnipotent group of geeks convinced gizmo makers to use the “binary system” for labeling “toggle switches.” Evidently, pictures made from ones and zeros are a universal language that everyone, even primitive tribes that speak in tongue clicks, can understand.

That’s it. If the geeks can take over, so can the sleep deprived.

I’m starting a new movement: “Take Back the Clocks.” I want naming rights on my buttons. We demand clocks that come with make-your-own button stickers! Mine will say: “OMG” and “PUHleeze!” and “Don’t You Dare.” How about yours?

While we’re at it, we want clocks that don’t just wait all night to jolt us out of REM sleep. Make a clock that shoots out sharp, electronic zaps every time the person next to it snores. Now that is a useful invention!

Maybe the next generation of inventors will devise better ways to awaken humans. My swim team carpool kids already have ideas. They would train the dog to bite us awake, dump a cold bucket of ice water on our heads or squirt toothpaste up the nose of anyone who sleeps through the first alarm.

Now, those inventors won’t end up in time out. Just don’t let them wake me up.

Marge Ponders

© 2010
Photo Credit: Experimetal

Yes, Where the Heck IS Waldo?

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:27:00 +0000

The school year is starting to end which means one thing:

Where the heck is Waldo?

You know Waldo -- that little cartoon guy who hides inside spectacularly cluttered scenes drawn by someone who clearly used my kids’ rooms for inspiration. Children love to find him in a book cleverly titled Where's Waldo? That book has hidden itself in my house more effectively than Waldo himself. The school library wants Waldo back because he has to get lost in someone else’s house next year.

We also filed a missing persons report for Peter Pan. Maybe he flew to Never Land with the pirate that my children trained by reading How to Train a Pirate. We think they went to practice plank walking and took the book along.

Don’t even start me on Sam I Am. Sam I Am isn’t here or there. Sam I Am isn’t anywhere. We couldn’t find him in the house. We couldn’t find him with a mouse. Not in the car, not on a train. Finding you, Sam I Am, is a great big pain!

Hey, this is kind of fun. What else is missing?

The T.V. remote, of course. We lost the hamster too, but we’re not talking about that.

Why is it that stuff enters the average American household and gets lost immediately, unless it is a bill or poisonous bug spray? Someone should research this problem. I bet they did. Let me check.

They didn’t. Evidently, NIH isn’t funding studies that preserve the sanity of frazzled people who can't remember why they are standing in the pantry. They are studying Brain Activation in Response to Motivational and Affective Stimuli, however. That’s close, I guess. They can scan my brain after I search for Waldo in response to book replacement charge stimuli of $47.53.

By the way, did you know that some books are "library bound"? These are not recovered lost books headed for the library. Library bound books are sealed with nuclear holocaust resistant material that survives assault by jam-sticky kid fingers. It's not cheap, I guess, otherwise I'd get some for the kitchen cabinets.

So much for getting help from government funded double blind research.

But, look! Plenty of Internet self-talkers like me have advice on how to avoid losing stuff. Listen to this. We won’t lose stuff if we:

- are systematic,

- don’t hide stuff from ourselves,

- are intuitively aware of the presence or absence of stuff, and

- don’t buy or wear trousers with no pockets, multiple jackets or purses with differing internal compositions.

Huh? Either these people don’t have children or should have to give theirs back. I mean, really, “be systematic?” Thanks. I’ll do that after I chant my standard “This [Book/Car Key/Bathing Suit] Won’t Get Lost” incantation over an incoming household item. That tactic has worked so well over the years.

Another self-talker encourages us to unleash our inner zen when encountering a lost item panic situation. I love this person. Here’s their advice:

- Don’t panic,

- Ground yourself like an electric plug,

- Hope for a reality shift,

- Meditate, and

- Feel your love for what is lost.

Ok, let’s say that a kid, we’ll call him my son, is missing one shoe 10 minutes before school starts, again. Yah, man, time to release my inner jnana, align my ying with my yang, sip a nice cup of chi before I feng my last shui and yell at the top of my lungs:

“I AM GOING TO GLUE THESE SHOES ONTO THE BOTTOM OF YOUR FEET ONCE I FIND THEM!”

Then, I will join a double-blind study on the care and feeding of library books. But first, I have to find that what's-it in the pantry.

Marge Ponders

© 2010
Photo Credit: Candid

Fabulous Flab and the Cool Parents

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:55:00 +0000

No, this is not the name of a new, middle aged rock band. It’s the dawn of a new era!

Flab is healthy and parents are cool! My newspapers said so. I love my newspapers, note the use of the plural. Yes, I read more than one paper, delivered to my driveway and carried in by me wearing a flab concealing bathrobe. Reading newspapers can start your day with such a happy spark.

Some brilliant scientists have concluded that flab is fab, according to yesterday's paper. Medical people call it “subcutaneous surface fat.” Turns out, it’s fine in the gluteous region, near the innominate bone or stacked on your pleuron. If you have corpulescent viscera in the abdominal section, however, that’s not so good.

Isn’t that happy news? What? You don’t get it?

Let me translate: The safety padding we keep on our rumps in case we fall out of the minivan door when rolling through pick-up is a-ok. No problem with hip and thigh ballast either. It keeps us upright during gale force shopping sprees. Upper arm flab is fine too, unless it creates excessive wind resistance in tennis.

Belly fat is still a no-no, sorry. Liposuction works I’m told, but this medical talk is making me queasy. Back to the news.

Flab makes you younger too! Well, it won't actually make you younger (unlike chuckling at my blog), but flab makes you look younger which, let’s face it, is all we care about. A little flab poofs out wrinkles. That sure beats collagen injections.

Now we can carb up guilt free! Those diets were unbearable. How much lettuce wrapped air can a person eat? I was turning into a yogurt covered alfalfa sprout while not getting skinny last month. What? Yogurt has carbs in it? So that’s why I couldn't shed my subcutaneous gluteal layer. I’m so informed now.

This isn’t the only great news in my paper newspaper. Check this out: Teenagers think parents are cool! Yes, 75% of 12 to 17 year olds like their parents. This astonished even the reporter, who seemed to be thinking about his teen when he wrote the following headline: “TV Finds Teens Actually Like Parents.”

Evidently, teens who act on TV act like they like their fake TV parents. Real parents with real teens really watch these shows which, according to scientists, means parents and teens like each other too.

This is revolutionary!

I’m sure the scientists excluded any bias that might come from things like unfettered access to parental credit cards or car keys. Newspapers don’t report biased studies. Let’s see.

Oh, maybe not. Kids like us because we parents “cherish the child” while dropping gifts on them from our helicopters. There is some technical language too: we are “Yes Parents” raising “millennials” by avoiding any “exertion of parental control” due to a “societal realignment” less conducive to rebellion than prior generational shifts.

I don’t think that’s a compliment. Let's not translate it.

The good news is the core of this newspaper article, anyway. Real kids like real parents, even teens. As a parent of future teens, I’m going travel through today with a happy skip in my step.

Except that my flab may flutter. Ugh, queasy again.

Well, I am going to return to over-eating and under-exercising, at least, because flab’s fab and my paper newspaper said so right here. Wait. Oh dear. It says that I have to keep exercising an hour a day. And eat healthy too.

What happened to cutting the bottom of an article off for lack of space? Paper newspapers are supposed to be shrinking, even though my mid-driff isn’t. They could have cut off the downer conclusion at least in homage to loyal bathrobe readers like me.

That’s it. I’m making my own news. I’m starting a middle aged rock band. We'll be the The Flab Fabs and Their Fat Flat Screens. You can find us in the Entertainment section.

Marge Ponders

P.S. Great news! Chocolate is a vegetable! See page B9.

They Lived in Social Media Harmony Ever After

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:58:00 +0000

Social media rocks. It is the trendy, edgy techno rage of our time. This can’t miss phenomenon has transformed marketing, fueled tectonic change, toppled empires and turned the word “viral” into something good.

Not that I noticed. Until last weekend, I thought social media was a pseudonym for gossip columnists. As in, she’s in social media and I’m a domestic engineer.

This shouldn't surprise me. I’m still trying to figure out what happened to bell bottom jeans. My purple bell bottoms and red knit hat were the cutting edge, bees-knees look for at least a decade. Yes, I used to be trendy.

The reality of how non-trendy I am socked me in the solar plexus at the Erma Bombeck humor writer’s conference last weekend. I went hoping to learn secret joke theory and survive my first stand-up comedy performance.

I did learn things like pain through laughter is…plaughter. Ba-dump bump. The letter K is funny. K K K K. Seventeen is funnier than 20. Forty is not funny at all, but I knew that.

The conference was great, even if I smacked into a paradigm shifting web revolution. No one minded that I was a techno loser Brady Bunch throwback. Sure, I have my blog in a box, but, puh, that’s like riding a tricycle on the social media playground.

Turns out, my platform is invisible. My brand is not congruent. My content is listless and I attract fewer page views than stares generated by my red knit hat in the olden days.

Social media will change this!

I rushed home and signed up to tweet like a bird, link like a caboose and friend more desperately than a seventies geek in purple jeans.

Now, I can not talk to so many more people. I’ll be packing my voice in the box with my bell bottoms later today.

I am a little nostalgic about talking, though. Speaking was fun and it led to so many great movies. Remember The Little Mermaid? Disney will have to rewrite that cartoon classic if it wants to capture today’s generation of non-voice communicators.

Hey! I can help them! I went to a writer’s conference and groove on social media now! Here goes:

The story begins with our beauteous young mermaid, Ariel, swimming under the sea with her lobster guardian, Sebastian. “I want more,” she sings with a bell-like voice, combing her hair with a fork. Suddenly, dashingly human prince Eric plunges into the ocean in a viscious storm. Ariel rescues Eric, falling instantly in love.

She texts her BFF: “Hottie on shore. Need legs. Asking Ursula. WML. ” [Wish me luck]

BFF texts back: “DGTG.” [Don’t go there girlfriend.]

Gravelly voiced Ursula the Sea Witch pines for the golden days of movie musicals like Singing in the Rain, but can’t break out of evil roles in cartoon features. If only she had a younger voice, maybe she could be in Glee or High School Musical 17.

Ariel swims to Ursula’s lair and texts Sebastian: “FYSBGTBABN” [Fasten your seat belts it’s going to be a bumpy night.]

Trembling fearfully, Ariel asks Ursula for legs then cowers behind Sebastian. Ursula cackles: “It won’t cost much, just your voice. If you don’t get Eric to fall in love with you by tomorrow night, your voice is MINE! MINE! MINE! MWA-HA-HA-HA!!”

Ariel gives Ursula her voice. Ursula swims off in depraved glory among smirking electric eels. Ariel sprouts legs and struggles to surface with Sebastian’s help. Despondent, Sebastian deposits Ariel semi-conscious at the foot of Eric’s beach-side castle.

Ariel recovers sputtering, wiggles her new toes and reaches for her cell phone . She texts: “RUT? ILU. WBS. XOXO. Ariel.” [Are you there? I love u. Write back soon.]

Eric texts back: “BRT. TTK?” [Be Right There. Tie the knot?].

Ariel: “SLAP.” [Sounds like a plan].

Eric, who won princehood by founding a social media empire, tweets the kingdom: “Wedding tonight. Main square. Ariel, the Mermaid. TTFN.” [Ta ta for now]

Ursula misses the wedding. She is performing stand-up live at a writer’s conference.

Eric and Ariel lived happily ever after in social media harmony twittering, texting, linking and blogging...with trendy me. J

Marge Ponders

Photo Credit Matt Hamm

iPad? iPlod!

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:55:00 +0000

The iPad came out last week! iAm so excited! iCan’t wait to try the swish and tap page turning and the iNcredible apps! Thousands of apps will iMprove my quality of life. iWill do everything faster! iWant one!

i’M lying!

iJust added the iPad to the list of 10,000 gadgets that iAm afraid of. They stop working the moment iTouch them. (iTouch! Hey, that’s another iCan't operate!)

iDon’t know when this iNcredible age of gizmos started, but iT’s safer for me to trek through WalMart without my defensive shopping cart than to operate an iThing.

Yes, iAm gadet iMpaired. iJust got a Blackberry recently, because it has buttons, then learned that no one emails anymore! Turns out that people Facebook, Tweet, twitch or splat each other willy-nilly without regard to my fragile nervous system.

iWas splatted the other night by a long lost friend who re-friended me. Evidently, iT’s not enough to face the shock of our aging at reunions every five years.

iWas enjoying the calm, sweetness of a quiet night with my Paleolithic desk-top computer when, suddently, a box popped up on my screen.

“Hi Marge!” it said.

“Aaaaahhh!” iYelled, causing my husband to come running with a baseball bat. iThrew my body over the computer and hollered, “Stop! It’s ok! It’s a refriend who splatted me!”

“What?” my husband replied, looking over my shoulder. “It’s called chatting, Marge. Someone wants to chat with you. Just type back to…Pete. Who’s Pete?”

“Gosh, you speak gizmo fluently,” iSaid, deploying my charm deflection skills.

“Mmmph,” he replied and walked back to his chair.

“See?” I said, watching him pick up his paperback book.

That’s iT, I thought! My husband needs an iPad! He has a nasty zero birthday coming. The iPad is cheaper and safer than a mid-life sports car or flying lessons.

iCan buy one of these. iBought an iPod after sending my child on a disastrous field trip armed with a book and a brand new highlighter pen. i’M hip.

i’M going to the Apple store right now. iT’s next to a shoe store so this could be a two-fer. See you later…

i’M back and let me just say, holy Gizmo Batman!

iWalked into the store and there sat eight demo iPads purring like turbo-charged Porshes. Each was about the size of a People magazine double-issue, but with a mini-white screen cover that can show infinite Justin Bieber photos. Not bad.

i’M cool, iThought, taking a spot between a teenage girl and 30-something guy. I smirk-smiled at my iPad, picked it up confidently and…

…the main screen picture with all of its iCons flipped upside down iMmediately.

“iBroke iT!” iThought. iTilted it left, right, up, down and looked underneath for a button. Nothing iShook it hoping that iNstructions, or at least my fortune (You are gizmo iMpaired), would float up like that magic eight ball game. Nada.

An Apple genius dude saw me blanch. “Just press the home button,” he said and swooped in with his highly trained pointer finger. WHOOSH! The picture magically flipped back.

What button? iSearched futilely.

iAm not picking that up again. Let’s try an application. I lowered a shaky pointer finger to my iPad and SHAZAM! NFL Football by Madden launched with the Beastie Boys in full scream. (You gotta hear this, go to: http://www.ea.com/music/the-official-madden-nfl-10-soundtrack#)

Aaaaahhh! How do iStop this cacophony?? Swoop! Swish! Tap! Nothing! Where is the “x”? Maaaw. iSplayed all five of my fingers out on the touch screen.

“Just pinch,” the genius said, reappearing to magically stop the noise. SHLOOP! “Pinch two fingers in to close. Pinch out, open.”

“That’s great,” I laughed. “Can iDo that with my kids?” He gave me the “huh?” face and handed the iPad back.

Swoosh, zing, flip! Dave Madden was standing on his head again. Stuck again, iMoped like a kid in a dud bumper car.
Just observe, iThought, turning my attention to the adjacent teen. She hit mega-super-jackpot on some cartoon game. “What are you playing?” iAsked admiringly.

“I don’t know,” she said, swishing deftly to another app.

iLooked around, sheepishly.

Two 70-somethings were tilting their iPads happily while speaking fluent computerese. Words like gigs, bytes and Gs bounced between them like tennis balls. Sheesh.

A wife physically dragged her husband out of the store. Ahhh, something familiar.

Happier, iSmiled at the thirty-something guy next door who was drawing Scooby Doo on his iPad. I leaned in to see. His iPad blurted: “Have you ever been so frustrated that you wanted to kick someone’s a--, like this girl?”

I looked around. Who me? “Aaaahhh!” iYelled, causing the genius-dude to come running.

“Oh. Sorry. My husband will love this, but he better try iT himself, ” iBlathered.

i’M such an iPlod.

Marge Ponders

© 2010
Photo credit: Maeve

Association of Open Nut Jars and The Rubber Shoe Follies

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:17:00 +0000

Are you having a rubber shoe week too? You know them. You wake up on Monday full of vim and vigor, then can’t find your shoes anywhere. Next thing you know, bam! You’re stomping through Friday, breathless, having worn rubber fishing shoes all week long.

Yesterday, I took harried adult behavior to new heights. After returning home in a whoosh, I sprinkled snack food across the counter, got the children eating and then hollered, “Nobody relax!”

I don’t know how some weeks get like this. I do know that my travel patterns would earn me membership in the Flight Path of the Hungry Fruit Fly Association.

A typical day goes something like this: Wake up with a jolt. Rouse the kids. Rush them off to school. Shut the door, grab coffee and run! Where?

I don’t know! Oh yes, to the morning dance performance. They need costumes! Run back! Where is the Mexican hat dance shirt? Got it! Good. Curly wig? Yes! Go!

Stop. Watch the dance. Smile. Tear up. Change a child into clothes and…bedroom slippers. She put the wrong shoes in the bag! What’s in the minivan? Run! Oh, good, rubber shoes! Love Crocs. Run back! Put these on. Love you! Gotta go!

Where next? No idea. Sit in the car, breathe out and sag. Ok. I have two hours before we celebrate writing. I need to blog for sanity, then scramble for dance class, homework, soccer coaching and dinner. Oh, don’t forget the job search. Where did I put my professional identity?

Must caffeinate! Sit up! Go!

Stop. That was nice. I ran into fellow parents and we formed a spontaneous grief support group to discuss our tragic inability to multiply mixed fractions. We’re the Not Smarter than a 5th Grader Association. You just need friends. Look at the time! Must blog! Go!

I’m home. Oh, no. We’re down to seven eggs and a jar of horseradish pickles. Stale cereal with juice on top didn’t go over well this morning. The kids are going to form the Association of Juvenile Artery Cloggers if I keep feeding them from snack food machines. To the grocery store! Go!

Wait. I can’t go to the grocery store. Our plastic cups and plates emit phthalalalalates or brussel sprout juice when they touch food, I’m not sure which, but it’s toxic. I read about it late last night. Trace remnants may lead to bad things, like ear lobe twitch. Man, I was tired when I read that. Still, I must get ceramic containers which means Big Box shopping! I can’t do that in rubber boots. Where are my roller skates? Go!

Stop. What was that noise? Oh no. Six of our seven eggs smashed onto the floor when my husband flung the refrigerator door open in a ravenous frenzy. Then the mealy moths swarmed. Great. I got this, darlin'. I’m wearing rubber shoes. Yes, it is safer at your office, but the kids like you at their functions.

No. I have no idea where the mealy moth swarm came from.

The cabinet? Oh. Oops. Yes, I know there is an open nut jar in there. It’s my talisman, my little sanity joke. I may as well be an open nut jar, the way I run around. It makes me chuckle for reasons that probably are disturbing. It does sound goofy now. See what happens when you leave me in this house all day? No, there were no mealy moths there yesterday. Ok. You can throw it out.

Yes, I am recycling all of the plastic containers. Why? Because the Association of Everything’s Poison said they aren’t good for kids.

I’ll miss that nut jar. It worked so well during my rubber boot weeks. Hey! I’ll start the Association of Open Nut Jars! We’ll get fake open nut jar trophies with the motto “Nobody Relax!” made and put them in our collective cabinets, desks, glove compartments, etc. When the day goes haywire, we can peek, chuckle and be glad that at least the mealy moths are not swarming.

There is an association for everything, after all. There’s a Soap and Detergent Association currently worrying about anti-bacterial goo. The Scrabble Association can’t stand proper nouns. Our Association can oppose relaxation.

We can have meetings with other associations! Let’s call them the Rubber Shoe Follies. Who should we invite? Oh, look! There’s the Albury Wadonga Fight the Fruit Fly Association. I kid you not. Maybe they’ll have some tips for us.

Want to join? Sure! Everyoone needs friends. Just grab your rubber shoes and let’s GO!

Marge Ponders

© 2010

Blog Temporarily Unavailable Due to TAXES

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:53:00 +0000

We’re Sorry.

This blog is temporarily unavailable while Marge frantically completes her tax returns.

Hello? Hello readers?

It’s me, Marge. Get me out of here! I’m stuck inside my self-help tax software program. It has taken control of my computer. Every time I hit YES or NO, another screen pops up asking me YES or NO. It never ends! Watch:

Do you have income?

YES.

What kind?

Money.

NO! What kind of money?

YES.

We at TaxEarlyandOften are here to help you. Would you like to speak with a self-help person live via remote typing? NO.

Thank you. How much income?

I can answer this! Let me find that W-2 form. Would you look at that. My husband earned Wages, tips, other comp., and Social security wages and Medicare wages and tips. Hey! He worked three jobs last year. What a great guy. I can’t wait to see what this adds up to. I’ll just type those numbers into this super-smart software so it can spit them out and…it’s not triple. Why not?

Click on Help Center. No answer. I’ll try the IRS website. Oh good, there’s a 496 page Student Training Guide that volunteers with degrees in thermodynamic nuclear physics use to explain taxes to ordinary Americans. It says that there are wages subject to federal taxation, wages subject to Social Security taxation and wages subject to Medicare taxation.

So, it’s wages, wages, wages that are taxed, taxed, taxed. Sounds like a rap song.

Wait! We did have two incomes! I worked as a substitute teacher last year. Let’s see, I earned $7.63 after tax, tax, tax for 592 hours of work, work, work. Is this correct? YES. Not funny, computer.

Did you earn this income as an inmate in a penal institution? YES. I mean, duh, don’t we all? Besides, this at-home mom may as well be under house arrest with all the time I serve in the laundry room.

Other income categories: Income from Stocks, Bonds and Investments. Gee, a bit of levity. Those IRS guys are such jokers. Where were they last year? Ha ha. We’re not laughing. YES, I’m done with income.

This would be fun if the tax software ran like the Jeopardy T.V. game show, though. You know, the one where the host reads the answer and the contestant asks the question. I’ll take Personal Exemptions for $20. Host: “The answer is: You are.” Contestant: “What is: What am I?”

Ooh, an existential angle, that’s cool. Does anyone really know what they are? I mean, I’m a mom, a professional in limbo and a (gasp) middle aged housewife with no current purpose other than to keep my children alive and join every school committee except Decorations. But I’m a person, darn it! A directionless wanna-be, has-been stuck in mid-life crisis maybe, but a person! And I have feelings! I might be just a social security number to you, but I’m a…Personal Exemption?

YES.

Wow! I’m a Personal Exemption! Finally, a title I can tell people when they ask me what do I do! I’ll say, “I’m a Personal Exemption. It’s IRS tax stuff.” Then I’ll shake my head don’t-ask and make the finger down the throat puking gesture. That is how I'll feel, after all. See, tax software can be fun!

Next category: Dependents for $1,423,692. The answer is: Unaffordable. Oh gosh, What is: College tuition? We don't have enough income for college tuition! I better go earn some wages, wages, wages. What am I doing tapping on this computer? Enough of this tom-fribbery.

NO. I don’t want to calculate my taxes due. NO. NO.

This blasted software won't let me out!

Didn’t we all pay enough taxes last year? They should last two years on what we sent in. Besides, I can’t generate income if I spend all my time calculating outgo to the government.

I’m just going to send it all in, everything we earned. The government can trim off the portion they need and return the rest. They won’t take too much, I’m sure. I'll also send in the shrubbery. They can trim those too while I’m out in big world land earning. I’ll be (boom-boom-chuff-ba-boom-boom-chuff):

Earning wages, wages, wages at a job, job, job where I sit all day like a blob, blob, blob, ‘til my boss, boss, boss, gives me the axe, axe, axe, axe, after which, which, which, I’ll owe no tax, tax, tax. Sing it!

Hey, maybe I can earn income as a tax game show host who writes rap lyrics while doing laundry in my penal institution. That can be What I Am. Sound good?

YES-YES- NO, Y’-YES-YES-NO.

Marge Ponders

Photo credit: Trinaaj

Bury My Minivan (Health Care Reform) and Move to a Yurt

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 05:28:00 +0000

Aren’t you (exhausted) inspired? After watching our politicians (flail) leave their marks on the new health care reform law (yes, law), I must (move to a yurt) do something for the future too!

I can’t do anything that (controversial) big, but I can leave my (taxes) legacy for generations to come.

I’m going to bury my (copy of the law) minivan in the backyard.

It’s time to dedicate this beast to (history) science. I certainly am not going to (repeal) clean it. Besides, I can’t find my hazardous waste suit that (Congressmen wear to work) I use for bathrooms.

Anthropologists will unearth this treasure trove of American (programs) folklore someday. Every (entitlement) dent tells a story and my (Congress) minivan is full of stories. Here’s a favorite: Once upon a time, a teenage (Republican legislator) babysitter scratched (all pretenses of cooperation) the entire side of our new minivan after a weird scraping sound started when (Nancy Pelosi put on brass knuckles) she turned into our garage. The end.

The divots in the (media) rear bumper tell the same (nonsense) story over and over. The story goes like this: One day, a (Democrat) minivan mom was backing up while looking forward. Suddenly, something large, tall and solid (Sen. Scott Brown) shot up out of nowhere. “BAM!” the car said. “Oops,” the lady said, and finished putting on her (armor) lipstick. The next day, it happened again. WHAM! (Sen. No Way McConnell). The end. WHAM! (Rep. Death Panels Boehner). Oh. The end. WHAM! Ok, never mind.

The claw-footed scrapes on the (young Democrat) driver-side door represent (battle scars) danger and survival. A rabid pack of (Republicans) wild beasts roaming on a farm attacked when (Democrats voted to keep their perks) I pulled in with my children and our bite-sized doggies to pet horsies. The lady who keeps those nasty dogs (Nancy Pelosi) lived happily ever after, alone (they wish). The end.

The windshield dings don’t have a story, really (really). These are standard issue Texas (orneriness) highway bullet holes. Every car gets them in this Land of (Secessionist Agitation) Concealed Weaponry. We drive around shooting at each other instead of (voting) honking.

Ok, I’m lying. The only weapon I conceal is (my voting record) smelly socks in the way-back. Those will be fun to dig up someday (like, never).

That’s it for the exterior, except for the (earmarks) plastic trim hanging off the back hatch. This may inspire (waste) innovation . Someone might invent a telepathic insta-door-shut brain implant for (embattled politicians) the hatch. The number of times (Congress) I closed the garage door on (new ideas) the minivan hatch could land me a role in the next (major social policy fight) comedy blockbuster. It has made (President Obama) me an agile leaper, however. Push (reluctant Democrat) garage door button, hear (Nancy Pelosi) hatch screetch, leap to shut the hatch!

I won’t malign leaping or (our President) the hatch, though. Both came in handy when (Congressional Republicans) my daughter sprung a gusher bloody nose while (voting) sitting in the third row. I (Obama) leapt out of the (White House) door, swung the hatch open and (held a summit) jumped in almost fast enough to (agree on nothing) keep blood off the rug.

Speaking of the rugs, future scientists should look for new (government programs) diseases in mine. Yes, we have (more coverage) rubber floor mats. Yes, the mats catch (the working poor) Goldfish crackers and raisins. Other stuff still slips past: lollipop stems, (Nebraska) fast-food freebies and (Dick Cheney) Mr. Slushy spills.

Imagine the archaeological dig after they (read the law) get inside the van. They’ll spend ages extracting the (savings) DVD from the player, and then have to figure out why (Sarah Palin) Barney became extinct.

Delving through layers of sedimentary (Republicans) cereal might be fun, especially trying to distinguish a (Glen Beck) Froot Loop from a (Rush Limbaugh) Grape Nut. I better toss in a broken melamine dish so they can have (an executive order) “shards” to glue together for display.

The most fascinating find will be the (preexisting condition coverage) rear storage compartments. These avoid unfettered (illness) mold growth and help (all of us) small children save treasures. I haven’t had the courage to (change jobs) open those since (the dark ages) I lost my toxic waste cover-all.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, I’m never (reading Marge again) driving with Marge. That’s fine (What??!!). You don’t like (health care reform) messy cars? Join me in (moving forward) leaving a legacy anyway! Grab your (battered ego) worst junk drawer and start digging!

Posterity (the yurt) awaits. It’s for (America) America, folks.

The end (please).

Marge Ponders

© 2010

Photo Credit Jeremy Snell

Ice Cream on Dirt for Spring Break Breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:39:00 +0000

Ahhh, Spring Break! That soul swelling season when trees bud, flowers bloom and adults with school age children panic.

Can you blame them? This is their one week shot at being Great Parents. Great Parents must fill nine consecutive days with enough bone-tickling fun and jaw-dropping memories to survive the dreaded “What I Did for Spring Break” essay. You know the Essay. It’s written the moment backpacks are put away and might be read aloud putting your child at risk of death by lethal embarrassment again.

Great Parents have many strategies for Spring Break. Some try the “stay-cation” and bill it as the Big Slow Down. The kids don’t have to run around town! Of course, they have to run from you when you chase them away from electronics. This can dim the fun. In fact, a clever radio station could dominate the Spring Break airwaves with the following ad:

“We interrupt this program for a public service announcement from your mother: TURN OFF THAT ELECTRONIC GIZMO RIGHT THIS MINUTE OR THERE WILL BE NO MORE ICE CREAM FOR BREAKFAST! She means it.”

This is why many Great Parents take their kids on trips. On trips, you want your children using electronic devices. So does everyone else on your airplane.

It’s a tough choice: (a) stay home, chase and gorge, or (b) swarm with thousands of parents and their bozillion offspring to the unique vacation site you found hiding on the Internet.

How to pick? It’s not easy. A young college anthropologist could earn tenure by studying this Parents’ Dilemma. Thesis topic: Why do parents with children flock to the same three locales during Spring Break? It may be a primal migratory pattern linked to procreation, like birds. Hey! Professor Yettospawn could coin phrases like “Procreative Urge Shut Down” by studying marital behavior before and after Spring Break. She could get famous and publish a book!

Her study must begin in January of the parental lunar school year. Spring Break anxiety surfaces then -- winter holiday over, trash out, sat down, exhaled and WHERE ARE WE GOING FOR SPRING BREAK? Children blurt “Everyone is going somewhere” regularly, sometimes in infomercial style, sometimes in full whine. This is like listening to the mating cry of the howler monkey at dawn. Parents will do anything to stop the noise.

Professor Yettospawn would observe neurotic parental Spring Break behavior peaking in February. Reservation systems jam. Marriage counselors book up. At some point (around $300 a ticket), resignation kicks in and Great Parent-wannabes who missed the booking scramble, give up and throw themselves to the stay-cation dogs.

How do I know? Well…um…well, we had to stay home for Spring Break! Our kids are Irish dancers! They had to jig on St. Patrick’s Day which, fortunately, fell smack in the middle of our Spring Break.

Yes, I know that got us only through Wednesday. No, it doesn’t give much fodder for the Essay. Which is why, as of Monday, we have a plan! Great Parents always have a plan!

We are going to sleep on dirt.

We reserved a dirt spot in a State Park with some other families who thought that sleeping on dirt sounds good for the Essay too. There will be Nature! Nature is fun!

So is packing! We are packing everything we need to sleep on dirt without electricity, walls and a roof while attempting to eat. (Well, my husband is packing, I am writing this urgent blog message to you: HELLLP!!)

Turns out we need a lot of stuff, like a new, expensive tent. And a charcoal holder-upper thing that lets you roast hot dogs on a new spear shaped metal rod that will poke another child and draw blood. So we have a first aid kit. And alcohol. We moms insisted on bringing lots of alcohol. There is no better anesthetic, I mean, antiseptic than alcohol.

Packing the clothing is the most fun. Spring signals the change of weather from winter to summer. But sometimes it signals the change of weather from summer to winter. This means that it can be warm, cold, hot, stuffy, rainy, buggy, Sleepy, Sneezy or Dopey, you never know. We packed for this, but not for tornados. Tornadoes are excessive Nature and my Daniel Boone husband is on notice that for tornadoes, we leave.

The really Great Parents can stay.

If I can just figure out how to keep ice cream frozen on dirt until breakfast. Now, that would make a tenure worthy third grade Essay.

Marge Ponders

P.S. Does anyone know where I put my inflatable hotel room?

© 2010

For the Love of Light Bulbs

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:34:00 +0000

Q: “How many husbands does it take to change a light bulb?”
A: “Aaaaaaahhhhhh!!! Sell the house!!”

Have you replaced a light bulb while being married lately? No, this isn’t an “I’d-like-to-kill-my-husband-but-can’t-stand-another-mess” column. Forget being married.

Do you own a light bulb and the wall socket it goes into? If so, start de-cluttering now. Selling your house is much easier than replacing the light bulbs, with or without a hapless helper, trust me.

My husband isn’t hapless, actually. In fact, he's genetically predisposed to replace light bulbs. By this, I mean he is very tall. In our first house, he reached up, twisted and replaced ceiling bulbs moments after hearing the pop.

Then tall ceilings and global warming changed everything.

We bought a house with “desirable high ceilings” that contains about 8,000 recessed lights. Now my husband needs a ladder to change a bulb, unless it’s the front hall in which case he needs mountaineering equipment.

We didn’t realize this until the rolling black out started. Bulbs in the kitchen, hallway, family room and bathroom vanity blew out. Whatever. I like dimly lit mirrors.

The kids using flashlights to find their bedrooms at night wreaked havoc on bedtimes, however. I submitted my request to the Great Light Bulb Changer and ran smack into the global warming unit at school.

Global warming is caused by light bulbs, we learned, mostly ours. We need eco-help-the-earth light bulbs, the kids cried! We agreed. We didn’t want Canada’s snowmageddon to bypass the mid-Atlantic next year and hit Texas.

So, my husband set off on a hunt for eco-friendly light bulbs. He returned hours later empty-handed, disheveled and muttering something about a “PhD in Lightbulbology.” Whatever, I thought.

Another light bulb hunt ran a few weeks later. Success! My husband bagged several light bulbs and displayed them proudly in the dining room. Can I schedule a time to discuss these?

What?

Before the time arrived, the light bulbs inexplicably returned to the store pending further Internet research. Puhleeez, I thought, which fortunately came out as “You're right honey” thanks to National You're Right Honey Day.

And so it continued for week after dimly lit week while the children played Marco Polo to find each other upstairs.

New light bulbs did appear eventually, even though I didn't appreciate the complexity of this major family financial and ecological decision. Fine. Next time, I’ll hire someone, I thought smugly.

Until yesterday when it took me 17 minutes to reach the end of the light bulb aisle at the hardware store. There is a multilevel shelf the length of several football fields filled with light bulbs in there! Sure, I found carpets, but not before taking a three hour husband kinship detour down light bulb parkway.

The array of choices would knock a polar bear off his tragically melting ice berg. There were infinite types: halogen, indoor spot, flood, bug, energy smart, energy star, reveal, Edison flood halogen, performance LED, Lampe Opale, halogène and on and on.

There were shapes galore. Light bulbs come in pig tail twist, lemon stuffed marshmallow, tuning fork, old-fashioned pear, golf ball, pickle and, thankfully, candle flame design.

The eco-options stopped me dead in my tracks, though. I had no idea that we can save beluga whales, polar bears or cure breast cancer by purchasing the correct light bulb. Either the bulb or an endangered species can live for 1, 1½ 2, 4 or 6 years, I'm not sure. This is good since one bulb can cost $28.98. (How many did we replace?)

The eco-effects also may depend on picking saver, super-saver, micro-mini-super-saver, instant-on, standard three-way, utility or rough service. It seemed like a cable company married an airline and gave birth to light bulbs.

“Is this a joke?” I muttered to a lady who innocently accompanied her husband to light bulb lane.

She laughed nervously. Her husband glared at me. They haven’t had the Marriage is No Light Bulb counseling I thought as he asked her, “What kind of lighting do you want?”

“Kitchen,” she replied. Good-o, sister.

“No, I mean soft, soft white, bright, bright white, or neon?” he snapped.

“60 watts?” she replied timidly.

“Wattage doesn’t matter. Wattage is voltage which is electricity, not ambient light. Ambient light sets the mood. Are you Libra, Pisces or Acquarius?” he said.

What the--, I thought while wishing for soft-seating in the light bulb aisle.

Then the light bulb in my brain went off! The man was a Lightbulbologist! She hired him to replace her blown light bulbs!

Wow! My husband would be free to forage for higher life forms like college scholarships, I thought, turning to ask Dr. Lightbulb for his card.

Wait. He’s scrawny and short. He’ll never scale our front hall wall and repel down with a dead light bulb in his sack safely.

Time to start de-cluttering.

Marge Ponders
© 2010

Health Care Reformitis Got You Tongue Tied?

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:34:00 +0000

Looks like Congress is suffering from another attack of health care reformitis. That 2700 page condition spreads tongue tied confusion faster than swine flu panic.

If the condition gets acute, we’ll all need treatment and things might get dicey. Not for Congress, mind you. Their medical insurance pays to have their tongues untied since it's an on-the-job hazard. If you’re insured, you're ok too unless your plan has the tongue-too-close-to-teeth exclusion that kicks you over to dental. (Good luck with dental). Uninsured? Let's see, you can pay the usual and customary 300% more than insurance companies or choose…uh…bankruptcy or…uh…ahem…death?

Gosh, health care is complicated.

Is that why reformitis is making so many people sick? But, our unbiased media says that most Americans like their health insurance. Ok, so most Americans haven’t gotten sick enough to exhaust their medical benefits and file for bankruptcy. But they don’t intend to! Why change?

Maybe they’re right. Maybe we don’t need reform. Hey! My friend, Ima American, is using our incomparable medical system now. Let’s tune in and see what makes her so happy:

Ima American: “Hello? My ear hurts. Can I see the doctor?”

Recorded Voice: “Hello. Doctors, press 1 for Coffee. Press 2 for a Nurse who is overburdened. If your bill is unpaid, press 3 for Dungeon. Appointments, press…thhrr-uh-four. If you will faint in the waiting room, call 9-1-1. Otherwise, please hold…[pause]...Did it beep? I get so tongue tied recording this message. Sally? BEEEP!”

IA: [Presses 2, 3, #, 4] “Gahhh! I pressed three!”

[Muzak plays] “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree. Then wait three long years un-til you see me. If I don’t see a…”

Perky Voice: “Can I help you?”

IA: “Hello?? Hi!! This is Ima American. I have an ear ache. Can I see the…”

PV: Please hold.

[Muzak again] “You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out, you put your left foot in and you pull your back right out. You do the hokey pokey and the injuries abound. That’s what we’re all about! You put your right hand i…”

PV: Thank you for waiting! May I help you?

IA: Hello! My ear hurts! Can I…

PV: What’s your insurance?

IA: I’m sorry, I can’t hear well right now.

PV: WHAT IS YOUR INSURANCE PLEASE?

IA: I have Happily Insured Insurance. Do you accept it?

PV: Yes. For HII, we accept PPO, HMO, PPO Plus, PPO Minus, PrimaryCare, CareFirst, CareSecond, CareAlot and Care Sometimes But Not Often (High Deductible).

IA: Oh. Uh…

PV: I need your policy number, group number, identification number, the insured’s name, your date of birth, insured’s date of birth, provider’s claim rejection phone number, your social security number, insured’s social security number, insured’s employer and insured’s employment history including his past five annual reviews. Do you have a preexisting condition?

IA: Wow, that’s a lot.

PV: You can go online to www.luckyinsuredpeople@haha.ha and input this directly, instead.

IA: Geez. Actually, I might not have insurance right now because my husband, who really is a good man despite what my mother says, got laid off.

PV: [Sigh]. Do you have COBRA? If so, you can use your HII plan. If you’re uninsured, go to www.bankruptcyordeath@goaway.now to see your three options. Generally, you can pay triple, get a second job or move to Massachusetts.

IA: I can move where? I live in Texas! Is this Sally? You know me, Sally. Our kids went to preschool together!

PV: I know, Ima, hi. Listen, we are telling all of our uninsured patients, bless their genetically defective bodies, to move to Massachusetts. That cute new Senator will pay your medical bills. You can lay on the sofa and sponge off those taxpayers.

IA: But, I’ve been seeing Dr. SqueezedByInsurance for 10 years! It’s just an ear ache.

PV: I’m sorry, Ima. Dr. SqueezedBy left the practice. Don’t tell anyone, but he couldn’t afford his own medical and malpractice insurance. He’s an exterminator now. He’s really good. Do you have bugs?

IA: No! I have an ear ache!

PV: Ok. Dr. Drowninginmedschoolbills will see you. He just joined us. Please hold.

[Musak] Stand by your plan! They're your two arms it covers…

IA: Is that Tammy Wynette?

PV: Thank you for holding. Ima, it seems that you can hear me.

IA: Yes, I can thanks, Sal. It’s just a little ache.

PV: So you can hear. Hearing is a preexisting condition. HII doesn’t cover preexisting conditions. Move to Massachusetts, Ima, the kids will forgive you someday.

[Click.]

Gosh. Well, now. Who would want to change that system? I'd say more, but I'm starting to feel a little tongue tied. I'd better go check my plan.

Marge Ponders
© 2010
Image credit: Adeinstein

National Tell Your Boss Off Day! National Moustache Day?

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:23:00 +0000

Did you miss National Pancake Day? We almost did.

Thank goodness for our telepathic Special Day kid radar alarm. It goes off on any special day when a packed-up child walks out of the house in time for school. BLAAAAAAHHHHH! “It’s National [fill in the blank] Day!!” the child cries, injecting panic into our calm yet frantic school morning routine.

Our kids came with these alarms built-in. They seem to go off every three days.

The National Pancake Day alarm sent my husband and me running to get real cash money. “We have to be Buyers! ” the kids shouted in unison. No one in the whole wide world brings lunch on National Pancake Day. Thanks to our recycled college beer pitcher petty cash jar, our kids avoided death by lethal embarrassment. We, on the other hand, were almost beheaded by reject lunch boxes flying out of backpacks.

Modern childhood is filled with Special Days. They are so much fun. This week started with National Wear Sneakers and Jump Rope Day. We also had National Monthly Half Day Off of School Day. Last week was National Don’t Go to School on Monday Day.

At least National Pancake Day required an at home response only. Thank heavens that that beer money was in the petty cash pitcher after all these years.

Special days that require shopping are brutal. For instance, we dread the alarm blast on National Bring a Flower to Your Teacher Day. This one triggers a dangerous high speed race to beat the other minivans to the grocery store floral department.

Hey, why can’t grown-ups have fun National Days too? Why do our special days always involve last minute card purchasing, gift wrapping and apologizing? Let’s start some of our own, like:

National Nervous Break Down Day: This has to be on Tuesday. Monday is too busy. On this day, we grown-ups can rant and rave with impunity about anything, skip coffee and go straight to cocktails at 9:30am. I’ll bring the pitcher.

National Tell Your Boss to Shove It Day: This one will be a scream. Be careful though. You must first utter the following incantation to give your boss temporary amnesia. You must say:

I like this job.
Because of you.
Now let me tell you why!

Upon uttering “why,” your boss will fall into a catatonic state that is demonstrably different from normal. For the next five minutes, you can let rip. Watch out for minute six.

National You’re Right Honey Day: This one is for you husbands. No matter what you think, "You're right, honey" pops out of your mouth. Boyfriends, mothers, mothers-in-law, girlfriends or any annoying relative equivalent may participate in this day. Wives too, but only if you get their prior written consent on a papyrus scroll that bears the wax seal of the Dalai Lama first.

National Magic Wand and Tiara Day: Put your tiara on in the morning and wave your wand all day long. Nothing will happen but, trust me ladies, you will feel great.

National Monopoly Is Real Life Day: After a lifetime of playing, you get to own Boardwalk, put up a plastic hotel, get out of Jail Free and win Free Parking for real! No underwater mortgages, galling repairs or lawn fungus. You might want to buy that amazing new gizmo from the Apple store, the iWe’lltakeitwhateverItIs. Or shoes. You can buy shoes. Tough call.

National Dishwasher Loads Itself Day: Need I say more?

National Moustache Day: You read right. I asked my husband what special day he might want to have, in case I missed the guy’s angle on this. I didn't. He asked for “National Moustache Day.” I kid you not.

Boy did he miss that soft ball pitch. He should have gone for something useful like National Sit On Your Rump Day. At least that would give him a nag free weekend day once in a while.

Let’s stop there for now. Those will fill a week. Unless you have one you want to suggest. I love ideas.

BLAAAAHHHHH!

What’s that?

Oh drat. It’s National You Volunteered and Are Late Day. Again? That was yesterday. Oh, gosh, tomorrow too.

To the minivan…!!!

Marge Ponders
© 2010

Olympic Couch Potato Gold: I Never Met a Cheese Ball I Couldn’t Eat

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 06:34:00 +0000

“And she’s going for it! Triple roll. Splat. Crawl, crawl, plop. Aaannnd type! The crowd roars!

YEEEESSSS!!!! She made it!! YES!!

Marge Ponders got off the sofa and crawled to the computer in just two late days flat! That’s what it takes, America! That’s what it takes to be an Olympic Couch Potato champion!

Cue the cow bells!”

Thanks, Scott Hamilton, for the intro. I’m back, folks. It’s Marge. Sorry I didn’t write on Thursday. Let me just say that I have never, I repeat never, been more stoked to sit on a sofa for two solid weeks of nightly television watching.

Only once every four-but-really-two-years do we vie for Olympic Couch Potato Gold. Yes, America, it’s time to watch preternaturally fit young people perform stunning athletic feats on T.V. while we snack.

The Two Week Olympic Couch-Potato event isn’t something we do casually in our household. We take this very seriously which, I believe, is what got Scott Hamilton's notice.

No, I don’t mind sharing a few of our secrets with you.

I attribute our success to hard training and a Never Met a Cheese Ball We Couldn’t Eat attitude.

Before the Olympics start, we practice the approach, the aim, the pre-plop turn and the landing. We use a stop watch to time bathroom breaks and drink refills. We practice yelling in victory and agony and defeat.

This is technical stuff and it takes a well-oiled machine to medal. In our house, each Watcher (me) is supported by a Popcorn Getter (my husband), Channel Changer (my husband, of course, eye roll), Hydrator (nearest child) and Get Off My Blanket Official (me). Oh, don’t let me forget the Spatula Scraper (our kindergartener). If a Watcher dozes off and splats onto the floor, the Spatula Scraper fwaps her (me) awake and flips her (me) back onto the sofa. That’s fun.

Hazards lurk everywhere. One errant Nerf gun shot at a sibling and you’re off the sofa sending Olympic Couch Potato Gold chances up in time out flames.

Plus it takes a big heart to win--and a big you know what. (Hint: It rhymes with “glut”). I’ve got them both. I’m middle aged.

You too? I hope you’re competing.

America, this is our event. We invented the Olympic Couch Potato competition. No other country can plop on its collective national sofa, stare at a television and yell senselessly at someone else’s amazing grown-up kid like we can. We practice at the Super Bowl, for heaven’s sake.

Are you intimidated? Don’t be. Here are a few hints from a pro: What separates the wheat from the true starch products is how fast you yell at the television when a competitor blows a triple lutz flutz flambé half pipe double. The judges award extra points if, during that yell, you also procure your own lutz flutz flambé cake from the kitchen before your sofa seat divot re-fluffs.

What you yell matters. My favorite is: “Don’t drop her!”

I can’t stand those ice-skating twirl her on one arm above your head moves.

Gutteral noises work too. Go for the combo like, “Aaaggghhhh! Face plant!! Poor honey!” That earns extra points if you’re talking about t.v. competitors and not your kids.

Ok, so even when competing for Olympic Couch Potato Gold, I am the Omni-Mom. I hate to see them hurt. After all, those kids, and I do mean, kids, who try to win without ingesting any detectable performance enhancing substances, have parents.

Parents with battered check books, like mine. Parents who drove their kid starting at age two to every conceivable class, workshop, camp and athletic equipment store in their tri-state area.

We can at least eat cheese swirl and yell at their kids in solidarity.

Which leads to an important question: What kind of parent starts with a drooling baby and produces an Olympic athlete? How do they find their tot’s Olympic talent in the tsunami of after-school activities?

There are more after-school classes than there are digits in Pi. Here, the classics include ballet, gymnastics, basketball, soccer, karate, tennis and my cutie pie all time favorite, T-Ball. If there were Olympic T-Ball, by the way, our boy would win on dimple power alone. Then there are song and dance classes to tempt your kid with post-collegiate penury.

Hey! None of these are winter Olympic sports. Ice won’t stay frozen in southern Texas. What are we supposed to do?

Olympic parents never give up on vicarious Olympic glory though. Let me check the events list on the website…

Hey, what’s curling? That could work! I have two girls with hair! We can get triple glory. I can curl their hair from the sofa during my Couch Potato competition. Do they need to curl it themselves? Of course they do. Curling must be a pairs event, not a mother-daughter dinner. This is perfect!

I need to get off this sofa and find them a curling class.

Triple roll! Splat! The crowd roars!

Cue the cow bells.

Marge Ponders

P.S. Why doesn't Bob Costas age?

© 2010
Photo Credit: Prix Dekanun

A Caffeinated Bra Fixes Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:34:00 +0000

**WARNING to Loyal Male Readers: Today’s blog is indefensibly female. Read on only if you still need a Valentine’s gift.**

This morning gave me such a scare. I was doing my routine weary goat herder trudge to the laundry to shift wet clothes to the dryer. “Time to switch the laun-dry,” I intoned like that doughnut maker, climbing blearily over the dirty pile to open the washing machine.

ACK! Clothes were floating in gray water like detritus in a petrochemical plant run-off bog.

“It's broken!” I gasped, covering my mouth with my flowered mumu. Our most important appliance besides the coffee pot broke down at some tragic juncture between dirty and clean!

This was nothing like the time I found a dead rat inside the dryer. That jolt I could handle. One scream, one call to the exterminator, one mambo splash of bleach later and the clothes--and I--tumbled along again by afternoon.

Exterminators respond to hysterical women calling. Washing machine repair men--not so much. It takes two weeks to get an appointment and four to six weeks for the part to ship from China or Japan.

We’ll be buried alive in dirty clothing by then. My eyes bulged in horror as the dirty pile seemed to grow spontaneously.

"I gotta do something!" I thought. Being female, I looked to the power outlet. It must be unplugged! Anything that doesn’t work must be unplugged! It wasn't unplugged!

"Ok. Ok. Think!” I said eying the dirty clothes. “Those magazines say, at times like these, stay calm, and use suburban mom technical fixer skills." I learn so much from magazines.

I opened and closed the lid. Nothing. I punched random buttons randomly–cold, warm, cold-warm-stir, prewash-presoak-soak, polyester-cotton-spin, heat-stain-re/dis/unstainify. This washer has more rides than a carnival. Nothing.

Fighting panic, I glanced at the dryer to see if it knew what happened. That rust scratched heap threw me an “I dunno” blank look worthy of a teenager driving a newly dented car home.

The dial! I didn't try the dial! I pushed the dial in, pulled the dial out. Diddlysquat. This was dire. Tomorrow is school and bathing suits are not underwear I learned last time I got behind.

“Think more,” I thought. Broken part...shipping from Japan…hmm. Hey! Maybe I can take the washer to a Toyota dealership, pretend it’s an early model Prius and get it fixed! They can install one of those dud parts that won’t let things stop! This could be a business! I could make money again!

"Lordy, I'm losing it. I need caffeine," I muttered, finally thinking clearly. I headed to the coffee pot. It was plugged in.

Mug in hand, I marched back to the washer. I pushed the dial in, sipped coffee, turned the dial around, sipped coffee, and pulled the dial out. SPLOOOSSHHH! Old lady laundry rumbled back to life!

“Thank you, caffeine!” I cried. The dirty clothes stopped their anthropomorphic attack.

That was close. There are so many crucial appliances that can break at any time. Can’t NASA or our military industrial complex invent something useful?

Never mind, I thought, settling with my coffee to learn more from an Unattainable Perfect Health Self-Help magazine. I can have flawless skin and fabulous abs if I live on lettuce wisps and wear a coffee-filled brassiere.

What?!

Glory be, ladies! A caffeinated bra! Now that's useful! Magazines know that we don't need geopositioning satellite systems to steer our minivans to the grocery store. We need caffeinated bras! That IV drip is not practical!

I kid you not. You can buy brassieres filled with coffee grinds if there are any left after I finish ordering. The grinds wick away sweat, the ad says.

That’s irrelevant! It can wick away George Clooney for all I care. Ok, well, not George Clooney, but Jim Carrey -- wick him away. Just keep me awake.
It’s exactly what droopy, bedraggled moms need. Support and caffeine!

Just think, if I had donned my caffeinated brassiere this morning, I would have pushed, turned and pulled the dial first. First, that is, after making crepes Suzette for breakfast, repainting the living room, planting a tree, making mini-Beef Wellington lunches and driving the kids to school in 10.6 seconds.

Think of what I might have done next! I might have vacuumed! I might have exercised even, giving my caffeinated undergarment a chance to wick or whatever.

Ladies, take it from me. Don't let your appliances scare you half to death. Buy a caffeinated bra! It’s a matter of life and coffee!

Marge Ponders
© 2010

P.S. Every fact in this blog is true, including the one where our washing machine bogged down again requiring my husband to fix it with a screwdriver, whatever that is.

HAP-py BIRTH-day TOOOO...Outta Time, Gotta Go

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:09:00 +0000

It’s that time of year again when I am rudely ambushed by another birthday: mine. Unlike last February when my blog prattled on about the mathematical charm of my age, this year the number isn’t enchanting. It’s two digits and they’re consecutive. No time to say more.

Except this: “time flies” whether I’m having fun or not.

Yes, I am at the point where cheesy clichés about “time” pop out of my mouth willy-nilly. I hear myself say things like: “Goodness, time slips through your fingers” and “Heavens, where’d the time go?” Ok, so I curse like a sailor before unleashing the cliché, but if you knew my two consecutive digits you would too.

Hold on, I’m not that old. “At my age” (gak), there are pluses. I am in command of my universe! I have unfettered access to my washing machine! I can make the beds or leave them rumpled! I can freeze my eyebrows with Botox!

I won’t let “time slip by” (ugh) anymore! I am going to go out and find time! Then, I am going to put it in a lunch bag and send it to school with my children. Wait. No. This is about me. I am going to find time for me. "It's about time" (oof).

How hard can it be? I run every other errand on the earth. If I can find magnetic sticky ballet slippers that fit on a cardboard turkey cut out, I can find time.

Where do I start?

Well, if this was one of those fairy tales that I read daily, I'd ask Father Time first. You know him. Father Time is that sage, wizened fellow who nods omnisciently at frazzled, panting women like me looking for time. Why? Because he is married and he has watched his wife run like a lunatic for years.

Forget him. He won’t help.

Hey, why can’t I ask Mother Time? There has to be one. Why don't we ever hear about her?

Because she’s out. She has to drop off, pick up, go there, come here, do that, get this, cook that, kiss this, deliver that, finish this, collapse there. She has no time to talk to me about finding time.

Ok. If I can’t find time, I’m going to make some. I’ll get my blender out, search my house for time suckers and stuff them in. Laundry will go in first. Press chop. Next, I’ll shove in old mail, especially the bills. Press shred. Then, in go the dirty dishes, cleaning supplies and errands. Press blend, liquefy and pulverize. Pour into a nice wine glass. That should make time.

What if it doesn’t? What will I do? I have no idea! I have no more time to find time or make time. I'm "outta time" (uck)! I have to get back to wake up, get up, perk up, clean up, drop off, take out, put away, call up, check up, pick up, cook up, serve up, go up, tuck in, go down, sit down, pass out and start over.

Oh, geez. Do you have the time? Gotta go…“time is running out” (ick).

Marge Ponders
© 2010

Gross, Disgusting, Awkward and...Nancy Pelosi?

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:24:00 +0000

Nothing interesting will ever happen again. The second revolution in Massachusetts is over and the only football teams that my relatives care about lost their Super Bowl bids. Now, it’s just dull, dull, dull, revive my career, dull, dull dull.

At least, that’s what I thought until mud and sludge season tramped in on the bottom of the kids’ sneakers. Mud and sludge are gross. So is broccoli when it touches the mashed potatoes.

Everything is gross if you have three small children.

That’s good news. Gross stuff is interesting, it turns out. I figured this out when my children, sans shoes, were riveted to a t.v. show that follows a middle-aged man doing gross jobs like cleaning donkey poop off of lawns.

No, they weren’t filming my husband. Although why it is interesting to watch another woman’s husband have a mid-life crisis is a mystery to me, but I digress.

Gross stuff is even more interesting if it is disgusting. Disgusting is grosser than gross. Look out if it’s awkward, though. If something – or worse, someone – is awkward, then back away slowly, raise one eyebrow and make a sucked-a-lemon smirky smile frown. You know the look. It’s the face that Nancy Pelosi made so many times when George Bush gave the State of the Union address.

In honor of my flailing career revival efforts, I launched an unscientific search for gross jobs. I thought this might make things interesting until Obama’s State of the Union address tonight brings in more mud and sludge.

Here’s one: Hotel bed warmer. There is a hotel - in England, of course - where a person will warm your bed for you. I can see it now:

“Good evening, madam. Welcome back. Shall I warm your bed now?” the bell hop asks before he jumps in the bed clothed. Gross.

Another: Training Nancy Pelosi to compete on Dancing with the Stars. Why must former politicians compete on Dancing with the Stars? It’s disgusting. What? She’s not competing yet? Oh. She’s still in office after letting health care reform slam into the Massashootsus debacle. Awkward, Nancy.

Last one: Searching for the 1982 photo of a triumphant Senatorial underdog posing without his, ahem, law school briefs on. Uh, like, gross, disgusting, and awkward. As they say in Texas, the poor slob who gets that job “might could” find it on the Internet if you, say, search for the term “Scott Brown Cosmo.”

It’s nice to know that some jobs I can’t get are so gross that I don’t want them. Hey, working on my sputtering career revival for the rest of the day isn’t so dull after all.

This will get me through until tonight's speech. Then, just watching Nancy make a new face will be interesting.

Marge Ponders
© 2010

Alien Massachusetts Potato Chip Hoarders

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:34:00 +0000

So a Republican won Senator Ted Democrat-of-the-Century Kennedy’s seat.

What? You can’t hear me over my caterwauling Republican neighbors? Another “Yeehaw” and I’m going to spread donkey poop on their lawns. I’ll speak louder:

WHAT IN THE SAM HILL HAPPENED?

Even I’m shocked by this one. I mean, I’m not especially political. I listen to my tea-throwing conservative relatives all the time and I don’t kill them. But all three eyeballs on an alien just landed from Mars would pop out on this one.

Massachusetts is the defining liberal Democratic state of all time and forever. We sensible Americans rely on Massachusetts to produce liberal zealots who advocate health care coverage for all life forms found by NASA on this planet and any others. That way radical ideas like giving uninsured Americans health care options other than “bankruptcy or death” sound mainstream.

Hey, maybe aliens did land in Massachusetts on election day. Regular Massachusetts people wouldn't sabotage health care reform with Teddy barely in his grave.

If the media is right, that’s what Massachusetts voters or their alien body snatchers did. Massachusetts-ians (whatever) wanted to protect Americans from health care reform taxation without representation.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

First, the slogan is a little trite. Second, was this really a “referendum” on health care reform, oh excitable media people?

Maybe the half-numb Massachusetts electorate just got confused by voting in January. It was cold and snowing that day. People do dumb things in the cold. I know. I’ve been numb for weeks and keep forgetting to cut the crusts off of sandwiches.

What did Massachusetts peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches look like on voting day? Reporters should check that story rather than stomping gleefully on health care reform like grapes in a vat.

I bet the ballot made no sense. Massachusetts voters haven’t seen a Senate ballot without Ted Kennedy on it for 150 years. Did anyone know the candidates’ names going in?

A relative, who better lay low, had to stop whooping to tell me that a guy named Scott Brown won. I read that name that morning. It didn’t stick. Scott Brown sounds like a pleasant crayon color, not a menacing Trojan horse.

Did the lady candidate have a name? Maybe that was her problem. This sounds like the start of a bad joke. A white guy driving a pick-up truck and a white lady with no name go into an election. A really important guy just died...

I am sure the voters got confused. No one in Massachusetts knew why they needed to vote in January when they already have universal health care and high taxes.

Two weeks before the Super Bowl is time to hoard potato chips, not vote. When someone said go to the polls, I bet the guy voters thought they better vote for a man in a wacko January election for fear that a woman Senator might censor Super Bowl Sunday beer and tata commercials.

That’s it. Massachusetts people didn’t think they were changing political parties. They thought they were changing Super Bowl host parties since poor Ted Kennedy died. These are tough times and Republicans always serve better cocktails.

Either way, the aliens are in and they are insured. I’m calling NASA.

Marge Ponders
©2010

Dead Palm Tree Surprise

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:11:00 +0000

I have a dead palm tree out back and a hole in the wall from a burst pipe.

Evidently, it was a mistake to blog about, guffaw, balmy sweatshirt winters in Texas. Within days, the dagnab weather turned colder than canned beer in the back of a pick-up truck. Surprise!

It has been freezing. Below zero. We are wearing coats that some of us didn’t own weeks ago. One child, let’s call her Mine, got her new coat delivered at school lunch. Recess in a sweatshirt isn’t funny anymore.

Yes, thanks to my penultimate blog, this is the coldest Texas winter in decades. That’s not a surprise just for boneheaded blogging me. The guy who built our house didn’t expect cold winters either. He left the outside pipes insulation-free. Inside, the chill has pen ink flowing slowly.

Why would he underinsulate the home of hapless Eastcoasters leaving them to shiver and repair holes during the centennial Lone Star cold snap?

That “Don’t Mess with Texas” bumper sticker isn’t a joke, ma’am. What? Surprise!

I hope a beer can explodes in the back of his truck.

I’m not the only one getting unpleasant surprises lately. How about our crack intelligence-transportation-homeland-security agencies? The Christmas day bomber surprised the heck out of them.

Why would a young man with terrorist training, reported as “radicalized” by his dad, pay cash for a one-way ticket, stuff explosives in his undies and fly without luggage to the United States? It’s not like Mr. Gottabombainmypajama wore a t-shirt saying “Pat My Tush" or “I’m Gonna Blow.” Surprise!

Besides, explosives belong in shoes and suitcases where security can find them. Gourmet food like sausage and fancy cheese go in the boxer shorts of airline passengers. I kid you not. Ask the Wall Street Journal.

Chefs and purveyors of fine foods are heartsick. No more smuggling delicacies in their unmentionables. So much for imported stinky cheese. Ew. Surprise!

Speaking of jarring surprises of late, did you see that network news staffing announcement? Sarah Palin will be another objective commentator for the Fox News channel.

I am eager to hear her homey take on stuff like foreign people from somewhere else shoving illegal crud in Granny’s bloomers before travelling somewhere else-else during a winter that might be cold but not as cold as Alaska where they know cold because colds goes there first, folks.

I won’t blog about that though. No doubt I would say something foolish like, “It’ll be a cold day in Texas before Sarah Palin replaces the nightly news anchors and teaches us how to dress a moose.”

I don’t need a frozen moose sitting in my kitchen. I’m having enough trouble keeping the dogs thawed out.

Send beer.

Marge Ponders
© 2010

The Clothing Conspiracy

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:16:00 +0000

The Clothing Conspiracy

It ‘s the No Longer Searingly Hot season in Texas. They call it winter, but not us. We’re from the northeast and we call this breathable season “Reprieve” in our home. “Look, it’s Reprieve out today,” we say on those sunny, temperate mornings. “Thank goodness.”

Reprieve brings balmy days that trigger odd bursts of flower planting in November. On Reprieve mornings, I dance a Shakespearean meadow twirl down the driveway to get the newspapers. “Ahhhh….it was good to move to Texas,” I think as I swirl inside, smirking at the frigidity back East reported in the weather section.

Alas, not every Reprieve day starts with a lilting gossamer homage to spring weather. Some Reprieve days begin cold before swinging 25 degrees warmer in two short hours. We can have dawn in the 50s, and lunch in the swim-worthy 70s.

Don’t ask me where this whiplash weather comes from. I think Mr. Heat Miser and Mr. Snow Miser fight over the thermostat behind the one cloud floating across that clear Texas blue sky.

I’m not complaining about Reprieve, mind you. Reprieve whiplash days are welcome and enjoyed. In fact, we have a special get-ready-for-school ritual for those cold to hot Reprieve days. It’s called, “Where Is Your Sweatshirt and Hurry.”

This three part ritual is worthy of anthropological study. I’ll spare you the research.

In part one, we decide whether it is too cold for just a short sleeve shirt at school. This occurs during breakfast. The children hop on and off the breakfast table faster than corn kernels in hot oil. All, part, some, or none of their bodies poke outside at peak stress moments during the simultaneous eat-so-you-can-think phase of the morning.

The family reaches consensus on whether it is a sweatshirt day during part two. This phase starts with cries of “Hey,” “Sit down”, “Where is everyone?” and “Yes, coffee, please.” The hopping and popping continues until consensus emerges from a cry of “Get your sweatshirt or else.” I rarely add “because I said so,” although this remains an option.

The arduous final phase begins now. Each child scatters to do something other than find a sweatshirt. The daily shoe hunt kicks off with a parallel search for three school-worthy sweatshirts. This phase requires stamina, hawk-like vision, psychic powers and a big voice. I volunteer, every time. I must locate the sweatshirts and put them on moving children while they dress, brush teeth, gather snacks, lunches, homework, books, socks and shoes and hustle into the car. One mistake and it’s tardy slip humiliation.

What makes this phase exciting is that the sweatshirts are never where we left them. Why? Because we didn’t leave them there or anywhere else we can remember. Sweatshirts might be in the house, the car, outside, in the garage or, heaven forbid, at a friend’s house. They will not, under any circumstances, be in the closet where they belong.

I know some of you are thinking, why don’t you put them out the night before?

Please stop talking to my mother.

Besides, I tried that, smarty pants. Our sweatshirts move. They get up and walk under beds or into closets. Some have strong homing instincts and run back to our child’s chair at school. How do I know? Because our sweatshirts are in cahoots with our socks, you see. Socks definitely have a conspiracy going. How else could there be no single matching pair after buying 10,000 identical ones? Don’t even start me on the shoes and where those two get off to when unsupervised.

Further proof of the conspiracy? Sweatshirts and socks hide until a day and time when they are completely unneeded. Look around on a hot summer day in the 90s and, boom, the sweatshirts are sitting on the sofa having a nice conversation with a well-matched sock couple. That is not coincidence.

This year brought a new wrinkle to our traditional Reprieve sweatshirt hunts. Our zero-teen must have a sweatshirt with the right look. Add the school’s dress code and it is nearly impossible to send our oldest out well clothed for a cool Reprieve morning. Ok, her standards aren’t very high. The sweatshirt can’t be too small, or have fur or a broken zipper. Still, why she can’t put the Barney decal on the inside and wear the thing from the car to the building and all recess is a mystery to me.

After a few Reprieves and sweatshirt rituals, I have learned that each household has unique laws of physics that govern the actions of inanimate objects found therein. Not only do our sweatshirst hide, but our laundry won’t leave the dryer before completing all six anti-wrinkle buzz cycles and resting for two or three days. Then there’s my husband sitting in his chair after his long commute. Scientists should study how to get that inanimate object to move.

A clever person would find an easy way to restore Reprieve mornings to their blissful, languid state. Let me know when you do. Until then, here’s my plan. I am going to make disposable sweatshirts out of cereal boxes, plastic bags and duct tape on cold Reprieve mornings. I can always find those items, although leaves will work in a pinch. After the consensus sweatshirt edict emerges, I’ll wrap the children in (not to) their chairs.

I’ll let them get up in time to swirl and twirl to the car for a ride to school. After all, it’s Reprieve and it couldn’t be a nicer day to go outside. With a sweatshirt.

Marge Ponders

P.S. My son wore one sweatshirt to school today, and returned with three in his backpack. I think the sweatshirts are holding a convention here. I’m watching the socks.

Copyright 2009

I’m Stickin’ With It

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:55:00 +0000

I went to see a famous author speak the other day. He was smart, funny and completely normal. There I was at yet another event watching someone do something I am sure I can do myself but haven’t. This wasn’t sword swallowing. He wrote a book. About a dog. And his wife. And himself. I mean, really.

I sat there thinking, “I can do that.” I can substitute my husband for his wife and write about our aggravating dog, Spots the Spazz. That’s a catchy book title. Spots the Spazz doesn’t chew walls, but he squeaks like a rusty hinge, jumps like a kangaroo and pees on carpet I can’t clean unless he throws up instead.

It’s the same feeling with modern art. I can draw like Picasso, for heaven’s sake. So can you. Picasso even said that he spent his adult life learning to draw like a child. I never stopped drawing like a child. If Picasso is a stretch, then certainly I can splatter paint like Jackson Pollock.

Only I haven’t. The second guy to do original creative stuff gets a smile and a pat on the head. “That is just like [insert name of the yop who beat you to it],” goes the refrain.

Still, I aspire to great feats of originality. Hey, I have a blog. People say I write funny stuff. So, when I told that now famous yop about my unrequited author dream, he said, “Keep stickin’ with it”. Then, he signed the four books that made him famous.

I was inspired. Success is about stickin’ with it.

I can do that. I’ll write every day, like he did. Well, not from 5-7 am because who can function at those hours unless a child is puking, but I can write after the kids leave for school and my husband goes to work. That’s a good use of time that this former professional should otherwise spend trying to get a job. Yes, that job with just under school hours, kid sick days off, summers off, and pays enough for a launderer and cook. Being famous could do that though. Another plus.

I awoke today determined to launch my big idea. The kids are off to school. The breakfast mess can wait. So can the laundry. My husband is storming about packing for a business trip, always a diversionary panic risk, but I need that. Future famous people overcome distractions and adversity all the time. That’s how they get the back story for their Oprah debut.

Ok, self. Let’s get creative. I am at my computer ready for that big idea to come. I have a blank electronic page in front of me and….uh oh, email ding dong sound. Better check that. It could be an urgent teacher communication about a forgotten toilet roll project.

I’m back. It was those kids’ theatre tickets for tonight. Everything these days is e-delivery except speeding tickets. Don’t start me on that diversionary back story for Oprah.

I had to print the theatre tickets and put them somewhere memorable, like on top of the decorative laundry pile adorning the sofa. I start folding because it’s a half-day and a bunch of kids are coming over. Not that I care if kids see laundry piles, but would you look at that kitchen table mess? Those kids will say “eeew gross!” if they see the egg schmutz from breakfast. That’s lethal in kid land.

Wiping the table means grabbing a dishcloth from the sink. Lordy, look at all those dirty dishes. Our favorite spousal joke about leaving the dishes overnight to show the kids how penicillin is made won’t be funny when their moms get here. Moms will pull their kids faster than you can say hand sanitizer these days. Then my child will cry. I’d better clean the sink.

Oh, nuts, the dishwasher is full of clean dishes! Arrgh. Another delay. Ok, I can stay on task. I launch my thrice daily attempt to unload the dishwasher faster than an Olympic luge racer. Maybe I can become a famous Olympic dishwasher emptier. Yesterday, I shaved 2 seconds off my best time with a simultaneous plastic utensil toss, Tupperware fling, cabinet door foot slam hat trick.

Maybe if I stack the plastic cups together, trap the sharp knives under my chin and loop the coffee cups on my free fingers, I can sashay to the drawer and….drop most of it on the floor. Stop squeaking, Spots, you spazz.

So much for improving my dishwasher unloading time. Wait, I’m still holding those coffee cups! I can’t let the dregs in the coffee pot go cold. I’ll sit down with a hot coffee and write something spectacularly clever now. Then I’ll clean up. That was my plan and I’m stickin’ with it.

Ok, I’m ready. Hands on the keyboard…

Wham! The packing husband tornado hits! Do I know where a ripped piece of paper with an address on it is? You left it on my desk? Have you learned nothing from 11 years of marriage? To me? It might be in this trash can or, hang on, I’ll check the recycling bin. What address is it? If it doesn’t matter, then why are we looking? You’re going to miss the plane. What? Oh, it’s in your shirt pocket. Ok. How many days are you gone for?

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Hot coffee and magnificent, creative explosion waiting for me. I am seated again, fingers poised to type. I reach for an inspirational sip of coffee and…uck. It’s cold. Oh no. That means reentering the kitchen, that diversionary minefield. Remember, the target is the microwave and the microwave only. I’m going in.

Open door, coffee in, slam microwave door shut and would you look at the time? I don’t have frozen pizza or juice boxes and there are 7 children coming for lunch!

My brilliant, creative burst that will lead to fame, fortune and relief from decorating with laundry will have to wait. Pepperoni pizza shortage trumps all.

I’ll keep stickin’ with it. Tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Marge Ponders
copyright 2009

Thanks, Blackberry, for My Nobel Putz Prize

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:36:00 +0000

Someone just asked me, "How can you stay silent when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize? Surely, you have something to say now.”

I have lots to say. I just can’t get it down lately. See, I got a Blackberry and I'm all thumbs.

A Blackberry is so much more efficient, just like the sales guy said. It's amazing how fast I can type with two thumbs at a stop light - sure beats 10 fingers at a desk top computer (yes, I said desk top - so retro). For one thing, as my boy would say, I'm in daylight. That increases my chances of seeing the microscopic keys. For another, I'm awake. That increases the chances that I'll see the green light and hit send before hitting the gas. Top it off, I've learned the value of answers like: oh yeah, uh, uh huh, huh, and hmmm. It's amazing how far you can get with rescheduling the piano teacher on those responses.

Punctuation, I regret to say, is out. And I miss it. Pardon me a moment, while I digress. ,,;?...!!..,,!:? Ahhh. That's better.

So, with ten fingers working at this now rare seating at my desk top, I break the silence. What were we discussing? Oh, yes, the Nobel Peace Prize.

Why did Obama get it? What'd he do? Will someone find Norway, thaw it out and ask?

I have no answers. But, conspiracy theorists, let's give the mere mortal a break. Pity the sweaty palmed staffer who woke the President with that news. “I got the what? George, your brain must be frozen. Have you been in Norway? You’re fired.” Obama clearly campaigned for this almost as hard as he did for the Chicago Olympics.

Our president was nominated two weeks after he was inaugurated, according to a friend who is more detail (read, fact) oriented than me. Hmmm....I wonder why they nominated him? What really big thing did Obama accomplish just by being inaugurated? Hmmm. Huh? Ohhhhh...yeah.

You are thinking that Nobel Committee of Nordish people from Norway was having a brain freeze, right? I happen to know firsthand that the Nobel Committee just wants to inspire us at times like these by making their illustrious honors more attainable. How do I know?

Well, on the same vainglorious day that our (yes, I did say "our" meaning your and my) esteemed President took his seat next to Zeus in the halls of mythology, I won the Nobel Putz Prize for Advancing the Use of Thumbs in Communication!

The Nobel Committee, bless their hearts, saw the potential that I might use it for gainful employment purposes and not just for keeping track of which field soccer practice is on. Plus, I was the 1 millionth mom to get a Blackberry for at home usage! Verizon did some kind of cool co-branding deal with the Nordish Nobel Committee whose investment returns, it seems, took a hit in the gut during the financial crisis. But, who cares? I won! Uh huh! Oh yeah! Go ladies...

I almost deserved it too.

Having just spent two days on the East Coast establishing that my chances of gainful employment using prior skills are nil (with or without my Blackberry), I plan to use the prize money to convert my Blackberry into a musical instrument. I will create beautiful compositions using vowels and consonants and play them in my minivan and on You Tube.

David Letterman will have me on his show any day now. Who knows where getting close to that guy will take me, right? Huh? Oh yeah. Uh oh.

I thanked the Committee of Nordish people on behalf of formerly employed at home moms everywhere whom this award is intended to inspire.

If you are out there, ladies, thumbs up to us all. Let's get out there and live up to our potential.

!!???,,::;;;!!,.!?

Marge

Copyright 2009

Happy Division Day

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:15:00 +0000

I have gotten to the point where my age sounds better expressed as a mathematical function. Tomorrow, I will be divisible by eleven.

Hey, that makes me sound fascinating! Maybe the rest of my life will become fascinating if expressed in math! Here goes!

I serve breakfast x 4 after awakening 1 hour < the time that everyone has to leave. I make sandwiches cubed. I pack lunches x 3 minus dessert for my husband who = 120% greater than the norm. I find 6x footwear where x = sneakers, so as to increase the odds that 2 shoes spontaneously form a matched set when placed inside a venn diagram.

I count down the minutes to departure from T-5 in hopes of launching an on time arrival. I get 2x the number of newspapers the average American reads in hopes of propping up a treasured relic of pre-electronic everything. I await the awakening of child #3 while sipping coffee #2.

Depending on whether child #3 has school, I either perform the breakfast/sandwich equations squared or I run errands that seem to take longer than pi. From there, the day proceeds on a regressionary basis as the statistical chance of my cleaning breakfast in time to make lunch, then clean lunch in time to make dinner approaches 0.

My life is arithmatically compelling. Who knew? I just need to keep my calculator handy.

Marge

Copyright 2009

Bored Today? Bored Tomorrow!

noreply@blogger.com (Marge Ponders) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:52:00 +0000

Wake up. Another boring day of housewifery in the suburbs. Our five year old asks daddy to turn his head because his breath stinks. Hey, how'd you get in here anyway, Mr. Bossy?

Whizzzzz! Bing! Bang! Girls got to school somehow with, praise wheat, both of their lunches and their snacks. Husband has his lunch. Hurrrah! Victoire! I am June Cleaver! I sit down in my bunny slippers for coffee cup #2 to read comforting news of ongoing global economic collapse.

What am I educating these kids for - to be unemployed in this godforskaken going to h--- in a hand-baske.......Rrrriiinnnng! Husband got to work without his computer and essential to stay employed papers! Did an hour go by with one phone call from the home insurance company about higher deductibles? Zzzzzinggggg! Yoooooppp! Blaammmmmm!

Alas! Alack! I must anon and driveth an hour to Houston for forsooth my husband is employed and we musn't daren't shan't fribble with that!
Stay in your chair and look busy, oh employed husband! Holdeth the phone to your ear and nod! Frown! Say NO loudly!!

Yippppp! Zoooooommmm! Screeeeech! I arriveth an hour later with the papers flying around the car. Checkethd a dozen times to be sure I hadn't forgotten the computer or five year old son in my haste to anon.

Husband has conference call at 11:00 am and must return to desk to speaketh to people actually on the other end of phone! Harrah! Zounds! He is important and necessary! Ah, wait, oh. He can joineth us for coffee and lunch at the local Whole Foods. Heh? Yerrrrp? Essential conference call is delayed due to arrival of much more distracting and fun 5 year old son.

Oh no - eth. My husband heedeth not the maw of nervous-osity plaguing our great nation. I dispatcheth my husband back to his leather wheeled throne to look important and, after lunch, rippeth away yon entertaining elf.

Vroooommm! Fffftttttttt! Droooop! I sluggeth back toward our castle fatigued by the ebb of adrenaine and non-flow of caffeine. We drive straight to the mall to complete urgent photo ordering errand and have playtime in the Children's Museum. Next, we're go to routine check up that is one month too early according to the doctor I waited 45 minutes to see. Exit unchecked since insurance gods deign me not worthy of an annual check up on month 11. Spplllllttttt!

Zowieee! I have other children! I collect them from their parent enforced extra math and reading class that will prepare them for counting and correctly labeling hamburgers in the new economy. They love me for that. Bahhhhh!

Sloooop! Splusshh! I lunk into our driveway to begin the do your homework practice your piano or lose your privileges eat your dinner sit down get up stop whining take your bath read you a story go to bed-a thon.

Pfumpf! I plop into my own wheeled throne to reply to 717 emails accumulated from prior two days. Bring toilet rolls! Wear green! Library books due since paleolithic era! Send stones for soup! And a carrot! No lemons! Jump rope for heart attacks! Oh noooooooo! Vaaaaalentine’s daaaaaayyyy!

Splootz! Froooop! How boring today was. Fear not. Tomorrow cometh.

Zzzzzzzz.....