A most unfortunate experience

Today #1son and I had an outing. There was a Lemony Snicket event put on by our local indepent bookstore. It was fabulous and funny. I actually enjoy reading this series of children's books. The first thing on the agenda was supposed to be a concert by Lemony Snicket and the Gothic Archies. Unfortunately, Lemony Snicket was unable to attend the event (not surprising though, as I don't think he has ever been seen).

There were two things that were not unfortunate. We had tickets number 120 and 122, which meant that we were out of there fairly early. The other item was that we were just down the street from a wonderful Irish Pub. #1son loves hamburgers, so I asked if he wanted to go there for lunch.

And, fortunately, it was a LOVELY day for a Guinness.

[of course, my theory is that every day is a lovely day for a Guinness].

What's your excuse?

In the good old US of A, Nov. 7 is an election day. Since this is not a presidential election year, voter turnout is expected to be down. Of course, with the decline in voter turnout over the last 40 years, even during an election year there are not many people at the polling places.

What's your excuse?

You don't know enough about the candidates or the issues. Well, you have Internet access and you can read so go do a google search for your local election information, do a search for the candidates campaign pages, and read what they have to say.

You don't like any of the candidates. Guess what - sometimes there are great politicians out there that stir our souls. But most often, it's the lesser of the two evils. If you can't decide, go to each candidates home page, and vote for the one that tosses FEWER insults at the opponent.

You are too busy. Well of course you are. This is 2006 and everyone is "too busy." In some countries, people have to wait in line for hours to vote. At least at my polling place, I usually only have to wait a few minutes. Of course, that's because nobody else is there.

As a woman, when think about not voting, I think Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others, and all the time and effort they put into the Suffrage movement. What a slap in the face to these women for us to say we are "too busy." Heck, they didn't even have electric washing machines and microwaves.

My kid does me proud

Every now and then, you have one of your kids do you proud. Last night I started a new class with one of my kids. He did what he was supposed to do, followed my instructions (mostly) to the letter, and was a great example to the class when the instructor pulled him aside for a demonstration.

Too bad I can't get the same level of cooperation from my *HUMAN* kids.

Actually, he wasn't perfect, none of the dogs were. But as my dear spouse pointed out "if they were, they wouldn't need to be there." And, at least he didn't pee on the floor and make me need to clean it up.

15 hours a week

A friend of mine mentioned this suggestion from a marriage encounter weekend. In order to have a healthy marriage, you should spend 15 hours a week of alone time with your spouse.

Sounds like a brilliant idea to me. I love my husband, I want to make my marriage a priority, let's just figure how that will work.

Let's see, 15 hours -- should be easy to come by, after all there are 168 hours a week, so that's less than 10 percent. Let's say miracles happen and we get the kids to bed at a decent hour every night -- and still have energy after that. Well, let's say at a stretch we could get in one hour each weeknight. (Of course, that's assuming nobody has to work on a night or we don't have any meetings or classes). That leaves only 10 hours for the weekend. That would be 5 hours each weekend day. Shouldn't be a problem at all.

Of course, that means that we probably won't be able to do any of that extra nonsensical stuff around the house, like dishes or laundry or dusting. But who really needs to do that anyway. Oh and the dog doesn't really need to be walked now, does he? And of course, we really don't need to do anything with the kids like spend time with them.

Oh yeah -- but there is the matter of the children -- they are only 10 and 5 so we really can't leave them alone while we go off .... hmmmm well we'll just hire a sitter. Let's see at say $7 an hour times 10 hours a weekend that's only $70 per week times 4 weeks a month. Maybe that's a stretch on the budget. OH yeah - there's always Grandma -- but depending on the situation some grandparents aren't healthy enough to keep up with kids for too long. My folks are both deceased so they're not really all that great in the babysitting department. Now my husband's folks are around and mostly healthy. Just because they've already raised a couple of kids that's no reason to avoid dropping off the grandkids every weekend I mean do they really need a social life.

Okay - I can see the grandparent thing isn't going to work at 10 hours a weekend. Hmmm maybe we'll find another couple that needs to have their own alone time. So we can watch their kids 10 hours every weekend, and they can watch our kids 10 hours every weekend.

It sort of reminds me of all the political campaign ads. "GREAT IDEA!!! Now tell me how you plan to make it work on THIS planet"

nablopomo

I've been meaning to write more in my blog. This will give me incentive for a month and then we'll see what happens.

http://www.fussy.org/nablopomo.html

Wish me luck.