friday minutae

It's Friday, and if you're anything like me you are just plain worn out from the busy week of work keeping up with blogging and facebook and twitter (oh my!). This presents the perfect opportunity to clear both my head and my notebook of all the little bitty baby notions that will never grow up to be blog posts.

1. Rock Stars

On Tuesday, I received a text from my friend Desiree asking if we wanted to go out for beers that night. I responded that although I had packed my gym bag, I could totally be talked out of using it. We made a plan. That night, after switching to plan B because the mental cases at the first bar had closed for their annual employee camping trip -on St. Patrick's Day- we settled in and enjoyed lovely drinks and food together. At one point, Des asked me exactly when I had received her text, because I had taken longer than usual to respond. I told her I saw it that morning, but I was busy at work so I couldn't respond for about an hour. She cracked up, admitting that she had sent the text inviting us out for beers.. on SUNDAY! Isn't she a rock star for getting my random text and just going with it? With two kids, one baby, and one husband on board. Love those peeps.

2. Sick Days

I find it really hard to determine whether or not my kids are sick enough to miss school. It's unfair, because I am a believer in the notion of the mental health day. And kids work way harder at school than most of us do during our work day. Their day is totally regimented, they are told when to take a break, when to eat, when to be quiet, when to talk, and when to work. They are expected to recite their thought processes on demand. And they have to math without excel formulas, write without spellcheck, and learn crazy shit like US History and the periodic table. Then when they get home at the end of a long day, they change into yoga pants and crack a beer have to do homework.

Who wouldn't need a break from this rigor?

Kids can't ask for a vacation day, and they can't call in sick. However, despite all evidence and opinions to the contrary, I have a very hard time allowing my kids to take a day off. Perhaps this stems from my upbringing, in which rigor mortis held questionable merit as cause for an excused absence. When my kids need a day off, they have to resort to the age old art of faking it. I am always suspicious of my boy.

My girl would no sooner fake her way out of school than she would kiss a tarantula. Or a boy. She would drag her rigor mortised self into school and lean stiffly against her desk to soak up more information for processing into her uniquely awesome theories about how it all works. Just yesterday, after discussing the fact that trees give us oxygen, she had an 'aha' moment and hypothesized: "So THAT'S why there's no oxygen in the desert!" Stay in school, girlfriend.

3. Being Jacquie

Speaking of my girl, she recently closed herself up in my room for a while, then came out looking like this and demanding that we all call her Jacquie



4. Class Photo

And finally, I leave you with this image, in which I was recently tagged on facebook. Dear Lord, the fashion of the 70s. The hairdos! The vests! Can you spot me?

(click to enlarge)



Have a great weekend, rock stars!