you can call me al

what's wrong with the world is, people call people "al" before they're invited to. (never end a sentence with a preposition.)


my uncle's name is allan and everyone calls him allan. because that's his name. rocket science.

no one calls him al. or, more correctly, no one should call him al. unless he says it's ok.

but good manners and respect and consideration for the other person are in short supply these days. that's why you see people starting to eat before the people with them get their food. that's rude. whether your name is al or joe or billy bob thornton, that's rude.

(by the way......i love the affection which the people from appalachia have for using two first names - like billy bob. or jimmy earl. i wonder if anybody has the name joey al. i bet somebody does. and i bet the somebody who does doesn't want folks calling him "al.")



but, back to what i was saying........

 

it's not ok to chop off a person's name - regardless of how friendly or good your intention may be - unless the person gives you the green light. i had a good friend who violated that once.

my friend, who was a teenager, upon meeting my uncle allan for the very first time said, "pleased to meet you, al." my uncle allan was very gracious about it and let it go. i was ticked about it but i also let it go because to make a scene about somebody chopping off somebody else's name is worse than chopping it off. but i was ticked that my friend thought he could be so familiar, so soon.


a few weeks ago, rudy talked to my parents, for the very first time, on the phone - briefly and unexpectedly. i was on my cell with them and on impulse (me? on impulse? please.).........and me, on impulse, threw the phone to rudy and said, here, say hi to my parents. (my parents, on their end, were likewise abruptly shoved into a conversation with a complete stranger whom they had never met. albeit a complete stranger whom they had never met whom their daughter was quite fond of. never end a sentence with a prepostion.)

so, i throw the phone to rudy and rudy (who happened to be driving at the time so yeah......balancing act)......rudy, who is almost 60-years old, said, "hello, mr. and mrs. rankin......"


i loved rudy for that. it was classy. it was respectful. and when i spoke to my parents about it later, they said the same thing - "we had a very good impression of him, nancy - just in the few quick minutes we spoke with him. he seemed so nice. and so polite."


so, yeah, rudy.


you can call 'em al.

what i did on my summer vacation

yesterday: 

i went to the store, with a hand-written note that said, "i left this here on purpose. you are the lucky one to find it. now, it's your turn to do something nice."  i wrapped the note around a 5 dollar bill and tucked it in the hot dog case.

i went to a community independence day barbecue with my parents and 4 of their roughly-the-same-age friends. my parents are 87. i listened to conversations that started, then stopped (because the person telling it couldn't remember it), and then started again. only this time, we were on to another topic altogether.

i listened to the same remarks over and over and over:

• "isn't this barbecued chicken good? this barbecued chicken is good."
• "isn't this weather wonderful? this weather is just wonderful."
• "we must be doing something right to get weather like this on the fourth of july!"
• "that's right, don! we must be doing something right!"
• "what was the weather like last fourth of july?"
• "i don't remember."
• "i don't remember, either."
• "remember what?"
• "what the weather was like last year at this time."
• "oh."
• "do you know?"
• "me? no! heavens no! don't look at me! i can't remember what i had for breakfast!"
• isn't this barbecued chicken good? this barbecued chicken is good." 

i came home and gave my dog an extra treat.

i walked around my neighborhood and forgave every single one of 'em for not having an american flag flying. 

i read through my facebook news feed and didn't get angry at anybody's crazy opinions.



i looked back over my day and shamefully realized that i had spent it being more proud of myself than of my country.



today's a new day.

happy father's day to mom

women can't have it both ways. they can't go decades telling men that they are about as necessary to a woman as a bicycle is to a fish  and then be outraged when men bail on fatherhood.


in my practice, i hardly ever see a child with a dad. but i routinely see moms who are mad as hell about it. maybe these women should have given a little thought to "raise up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" and paraphrased those words a bit.

today, most of the moms that i see in my job will be saying - or at least thinking - all manner of horrible things about their kids' dad. not that these dads are heroes. hardly. 

but if we believe that we have a collective impact on one another - (and if you don't believe that, you're nuts) - then we can't ignore the truth. and if you tell someone long enough that he's not important - or worse - well......what exactly did you think was gonna happen?

as much as i wish a happy father's day to all the good dads out there, i wish a happy one to all the lousy ones more. they need our prayers more than the good dads who already get it and are already doing it.

and more than wishing the lousy fathers a happy father's day, i need to wish the angry moms one, too.



now. go get your bikes out of the trash.

what church does santa claus go to?

abby was talking to the kids yesterday about st. nicholas vs. santa claus and apparently charlie's little brain made the connection between st. nicholas and st. mary (my church) because he asked abby if santa claus goes to my church.

and after i stopped laughing, i thought about it for a minute. and i realized that, just as little virginia was told by the new york sun that yes, there is a santa claus, so, too, does santa attend my church.

what is santa claus, really, except for the embodiment of everything that a good church teaches.......love. i personally have never liked those nativity scenes which show santa claus kneeling at the crib of the baby Jesus. but, on one hand........it does make some sense. in a way, santa is Jesus. other than over-indulge in food, what does santa do that Christ wouldn't want him to do?

santa spends the whole year focused on somebody else. well, and not just somebody else......everybody else! and then, on Christmas eve, when the rest of us are sipping hot cocoa by the fire and sharing the love, what's he doing???? he's flyin' around like a crazy man in the cold and the dark (and the heat and the jungle and the mountains and the valleys and the tiniest places that none of us - except he - except He - has ever heard of).......just so everyone will be happy.

just so everyone will be happy.


so yes, virginia, there is a santa claus.


and yes, charlie, he does go to my church.


and to your church, too.

:)

my boyfriend

charlie and olivia take turns spending the night with me on a friday night. i pick him/her up after work on friday, we do something(s) fun together that evening and we do something(s) fun together the next morning. then lunch, and then back home. it's a nice, quiet time for just the two of us - to bond, to get to know each other better, and just to hang and have fun. i have come to relish these times together - and i plan to extend it to each of the triplets, too.........as soon as i get the energy.   :)

this past friday was charlie's turn and we went to the pumpkin patch. there's a pumpkin patch about 10 miles from their house which is THEE best pumpkin patch in the whole u.s. of a. if we hadn't been so busy having fun, i would have taken pictures. sorry. use your imagination. (imagination? what's that? is that anything like playing outside till it gets dark? i've heard of such things.......)

after the pumpkin patch, we got dinner. or, what passes for dinner if you're 4-years old........"cheesy roll-ups" from taco bell. (they really aren't half-bad. well, yeah they are.)  :)

then bath, then t.v., then candy, then candy, then popcorn, then candy.

then bed. with the new halloween night light he got at the pumpkin patch.


the next day, we had pancakes on a stick (true story), dunked in syrup (really true story). then target for a treat or two, then the library, then mcdonald's, then home. happy, satisfied, and a little fatter.


and a lot more in love.

bill. i mean......my dad. i mean.....bill. i mean, sigh.

i attended a professional continuing education seminar in dayton, ohio yesterday and among the attendees was an 87-year old adorable man. 87!

as luck would have it, i ended up sitting next to him at lunch. it was all i could do not to hug him to pieces. he was a.dor.a.ble. if it wouldn't have been impossibly freudian, i would've asked him out!

he explained to those of us at the table that he was at the seminar for the same reason all the rest of us were at the seminar -  to keep his license current. he said, "you never know when i might have to go back to work for some reason - maybe my wife might die -  and i might need my psychology license to fall back on."

i love this man.

he raised his hand probably 6 times during the seminar. he asked the kind of questions that andy and barney might have asked - basic, non-fancy schmancy, regular old questions. all of the 30-somethings in the room asked questions with multi-syllabic words from here to eternity.

i love this man.


at one point during the afternoon, i looked over at him - at his profile - and was startled to realize that he looks just. like. my. dad. just like him. identical. i. den. ti. cal.


it may be freudian.......


but i love him.


:)

we. are. fam. i. ly.

my brother and sister-in-law and i do not see eye-to-eye on politics and religion. not only not eye-to-eye, about eye-to-toe. 

but that's ok.


one of the nicest parts of my life is that my sister-in-law (i think it's my sister-in-law.......it could be my brother, but i think it's my s-i-l) frequently checks this blog to see if i have posted something new. i know that because i have this "feedjit" thing (see below right) that supposedly tracks all the visitors to my blog. it doesn't track all of them, though. it misses about half of them - for whatever the confounded technological reason - but it doesn't miss "st. augustine." st. augustine (florida) is where my brother and sister-in-law live. feedjit must either be a catholic or love hot weather. maybe both.

anyway.........my s-i-l (or maybe my brother, but i think my s-i-l) checks my blog rather regularly, despite the fact that she/he knows that she/he is gonna disagree - probably vehemently - with whatever it is that i have to say.

i like that.

i like that i can rant and rave against all things liberal and still, somebody liberal in st. augustine comes back for more. and comes back. and comes back.

whether it's my sister-in-law or my brother doesn't really matter. what matters is, whoever (whomever? i never know) apparently either likes me enough or likes my writing enough to come back and read more.

or maybe my s-i-l or my brother only comes back because she/he likes to blow a gasket. i mean, that does happen, you know.......it's kind of like rubbing your tongue over that sore in your mouth......it hurts, but it's fun.

so, maybe my s-i-l or my brother (maybe both?) visits my blog because they love to hate me. even so........i'll take that. there's a fine line, you know, between love and hate.   :)


anyway.........thank you, amy. or steve. or both. i appreciate it. very much.


(i think it's amy.)


:)

what my dad used to call me

when my dad came home from work he'd call me

a new

nickname.

i never knew what it would be.

it was like waiting for Christmas morning when

you hadn't even made your list

yet.


one time it was niknar which was

my last name spelled sdrawkcab and it took me till i was 

eleven

to figure that out.


one time it was winkin, blinkin, and nod which

was the story he read with one hand on the book and

one hand on my cheek.


i remember when it was eebeezer and i asked him what

that meant and he took my hands in his and said,

nancy,

there are a thousand ways to say

i love you. don't you ever

forget 

that.

not the boston tea party and not THAT tea party. THIS tea party.

charlie and olivia made a tea party for abby and me yesterday. it was, well........unique.

for starters, we had a lot of food. just a little tea, but a lot of food. we had plastic turkey and plastic bananas and plastic ice cream cones and plastic corn-on-the-cob and plastic pork cutlets (or whatever they were), and plastic pumpkins.

except that we didn't.

we didn't because.......charlie wouldn't let us eat. every time we went to take a "bite," charlie whisked it away and returned to the "kitchen" with it. the food was always too something or not enough something to suit his standards and charlie,  being the perfectionist (not to mention the control freak),  wouldn't allow anyone to eat just any food. it had to be just right. even if it was plastic.

the other odd thing about this tea party was the amount of silverware provided. or, more accurately, the amount of silverware that was provided to me. charlie gave me about 14 forks, 10 spoons, and 8 knives. what he lacked in generosity where the eating of food was concerned, he more than made up for in cutlery.

olivia came dressed to the tea party in a fancy blue dress with a purple tutu. and charlie came dressed as spiderman. over which olivia wanted him to put on a fancy purple dress - and he intended to. (like i said.....odd.)  he just never got around to putting it on, being too busy with trips back and forth to the kitchen. 

as olivia, abby, and i sat there, watching charlie dash back and forth between the table and the kitchen and hoping that pretty soon he'd let us eat, olivia remarked that she was the boss of this tea party. "really," i said. "looks like charlie is the boss to me."

"no," she said, indignantly, "i'm the boss. charlie just thinks he's the boss."


smart girl, liv. smart girl.  :)

got moves?

olivia likes to say, "watch my moves, gram," (and i always do). olivia has had "moves" since she was about 18 months old. and they're getting better all the time.

olivia's "moves" started out as disorganized and frantic. just jumpin' around fast, really. but now, they've got groove. they've got meaning.

she has moves on the dance floor, in her car seat, in the house, outside the house, in and outside of your house, and, most recently, on the gymnastics floor.

abby and eli enrolled her this fall in gymnastics. for a three-year old who taught herself to do a perfect cartwheel, it seemed like the logical thing to do.

and it was. is.

"floor ex" (as we call it in the business) is probably gonna be her forte, but she's already doing forward rolls on the balance beam. the balance beam, which is about 4" wide.......just about one inch for each year of how old she is. that's not shabby.

oh, parents and grandparents always think their kid is special. their kid is the one who's gonna go places, do things. win oscars. win emmys.

win medals.


i wonder where the olympics will be held in 2024.

.

the honey in honey boo boo

the new TLC show, "here comes honey boo boo" has taken a lot of knocks by a lot of people and hey, i'm hardly here to defend it as erudite t.v. but i am here to point out a few things about this show that i think some of the rest of you have missed -  a few very wonderful things.

first of all, here's a man - mike - who wants to marry (and not just live with) his girlfriend of 8 years - june. june doesn't want to get married, but mike keeps trying. where's the support for him for that? hollywood might be home to some of the most beautiful people who don't offend your sense of taste and class, but really? you put them on a higher level than mike? good ol' tobacco-spittin' mike who is at least staying at home and trying to raise his kids? and isn't getting divorced after 72 hours of marriage? face it - the kardashians and all the rest of 'em out there, while maybe not farting in public, have a whole lot less real class than honey boo boo and her family. they might have a whole lot more fake class - if that's what floats your boat.

this family, despite not being a married one, stays together. not that i am saying that staying together for 8 years is any kind of reason to pop the champagne cork - i mean, chug the moonshine - but still. in this do-whatever-the-hell-you-want world we live in? 8 years is about as old as the universe. and it's not just the number of years - it's the family. everything they do is together. they're not out running up the corporate ladder and letting everybody who gets home first fend for themselves. they're not eating hamburgers out of a greasy bag and calling it "dinner." they're frying up chicken - together - in the kitchen and.......don't faint now......they're sitting down - together - and eating it. i know - right?

june is often quoted as saying things like this: "we're family. you might not like us, but we're family. we enjoy each other. we have fun. everywhere (ok, so she says, "everwhere") we go, we're together." and they are. they do. you won't catch one of them staying away from the rest of 'em for 3 months while they're in paris filming their most recent movie. i mean......look at 'em......where are they? in front of a camera, maybe, but every last one of 'em is right. there. - to.geth.er.

yeah - that's pretty classless.

mike bought june a stupid lookin' sculpture of a deer for their 8-year anniversary. he meant well. she didn't like it. when they got home from their anniversary dinner out on the town (a cafeteria in the local strip mall), the kids were eagerly awaiting them - they wanted to hear all about their parents' first real "date" in 8 years. mike told them about the deer. and how their mama didn't like it. and those girls gave their mama grief. they told her to stop being unappreciative. to stop being ungrateful. to go in there and apologize right now to daddy and put that deer on the mantle.

june did. she put the deer on the mantle, apologized to mike, and said, "i was wrong."

yeah. classless.

these people have wicked good senses of humor. if you can sit through one of their shows without laughing - not at their farting and not at their frequent references to their bathroom habits - but at their incredibly dry, frank, whatchu- gonna-do-about-it style, then there's something wrong with you. 

and the high horse you rode in on.

"never end a sentence with a preposition," june told honey boo boo one day. 

"why not?" said honey boo boo.

"it's bad manners," said june.


i rest my case.

abby's sabby. (i mean, abby's Sabbath. i mean, the bowmans' Sabbath.)

do i tell you what i am about to tell you because i think it's better than how most people spend their sunday? yes. i tell you what i am about to tell you because i think it's better. waaaaaay better. (including waaaaaay better than how i spend mine.)

abby and eli, like most mormons, do not spend money on sunday. nor do they go to places where they themselves wouldn't necessarily have to spend money but other people choose to. like a festival,for example. 

this leaves out just about everywhere.

they don't go to the movies on sunday. not to the grocery store. not out to eat. not to a fair and not, as i said, to a festival........they. don't. go. any.where. (well, except to church.)

they discourage others from buying them things on a sunday. they prefer that others do their Christmas shopping for them on any day other than a sunday. but. they are not rude. they do not allow their sunday practices to trump gratitude. if you buy them something on sunday, they will not refuse it. they will say thank you. they will be grateful to you for it. and they will wait till monday to use it.


but, "avoiding the marketplace," for them, goes far beyond simply shunning the transfer of money from one hand to the other on the Sabbath. not spending money is just a part of it. if all they did was not go to pizza hut, where would the big deal be in that? not going to the mall, without replacing that activity with a holier one, would pretty much be "big hat/no cattle." and they know that. so, they don't just stay away from the fair.

they concentrate even harder on their obligations as wife,husband, mom, and dad. they read more Scripture. they pray more. they center their entire day on their family. as opposed to centered on the mall - with their family tagging along.

i have not adopted their sunday practice, but i admire it. the reason i admire it is - there's no good reason not to. and, there's no good reason not to do it.

there are plenty of "that's really not necessary" reasons not to do it and plenty of "why is enjoying your family over a nice meal at a nice restaurant so bad" reasons not to do it.

but there are no good reasons not to do it.

chim chim chiminea

abby and eli have - well, had - a chiminea. you know what a chiminea is, right? one of those fireplace/kiln sort of things that you can use in your backyard. or your front yard, if you prefer. or even your side yard. hell, the point of this story is not which part of the yard you use your chiminea in! sheesh!

anyway, so abby and eli have - well, had - a chiminea. it was there one minute and gone the next. well, broken the next.

before i tell you how it got broken (which isn't an exciting story, so don't hold your breath), let me tell you that it had a lot of sentimental value to abby. it was her dad's -  before he passed. if you need a concrete symbol of love (which she didn't), a toasty chiminea around which you can gather with your family and friends and remember the wonderful bond you had with your father is probably about as close as you're gonna get. and so, for abby, this wasn't just a chiminea......this was love.

but what's also love is how it got broken. well, not how it got broken but who broke it - charlie. 

charlie is the only child of abby's 5 children who is a total photocopy of her dad. when you look at charlie, it's hard not to say, "hey, david." that's how much they look alike. and so, it is only fitting that charlie is the one who broke his grandpa's chiminea.

he didn't mean to do it, of course. it was an accident. he was driving his little cozy coupe car out on the patio and the chiminea was in his way. being the independent guy that he is - and not knowing how much chimineas weigh - he "parked" the cozy coupe, hopped out, and proceeded to clear the roadway of the interfering chiminea.

oops.

and so, last night, we gathered up the remains of the chiminea and laid it to its final rest. not unlike what we had done with abby's dad almost 4 years ago now.


abby's sad about it, but i don't think too sad. after all, the  chiminea may be gone and her dad may be gone,


but, 


charlie's still here.


:)

a "fold" button on your clothes dryer

something's circulating on facebook about how there oughta be a "fold" button on clothes dryers. so we wouldn't have to do it ourselves. 

i disagree.

i wash and dry - and fold - abby's and eli's and the twins' and the triplets' laundry every day. the washing and drying part requires practically zero effort on my part. basically, i dump it in, pull it back out, dump it back in, and pull it back out. that's what amounts to "the chore of laundry" in 2012.

the only part that requires any effort at all (and "effort" is an extreme over-statement) is the folding. if they invent a button for that (and they will), i will be able to look God in the eye and say, "yesSir. i did help my fellow man. i pushed i-don't-know-how-many-buttons in my lifetime. all on somebody else's behalf. now, let me into heaven."

laundry is love, people. buttons aren't. (unless you're sewing them on.) laundry is love and cooking is love (the kroger deli is impressive, but it isn't love), and cleaning dirty baby bottoms is love. (although, i must admit, i would no doubt gladly push a button for that!)

there isn't enough love in the world anymore. if, in fact, there ever was. (actually, there was. i think it's called "before they eat that fruit.")

i remember my grandmother spending an entire day doing laundry. for a family of 4 - not that many people. in between doing laundry all day, she cooked all day - using the stuff from her garden that she grew all day. when it was all over and she could finally collapse in her chair at night, she would always sigh (happily) and say the exact same thing:

"work is love, nancy. and love is work. don't you ever forget it."


"besides", she would say, with a soft light in her eyes, "the privilege of burying my nose in freshly laundered grandchildren's laundry is a whole lotta "work," too."

:)

you do the 4th your way, i'll do it mine.

last night was "red, white, and boom," arguably one of the country's best fireworks display, here in columbus. it was red, white, and boom's 30th. it was olivia's first.

as dazzling as the display was, olivia thought she could do a better job. "watch my moves!" she kept saying- to anyone who could hear her over the din. she twirled and break danced and cartwheeled herself into fourth of july oblivion. (which is pretty much what she does every day of the year.)

she was impressed by the pink stars that exploded over our heads, though. "gammy! they're pink!  i love pink!"

"i know you love pink, olivia, i....."

watch my moves, gam!

the unbearable sweetness of 3-year olds

the twins are at a wonderful age. 3-and-a-half sure beats 16-and-a-half any day.

they truly are almost unbearably adorable. everything they think, everything they say, and even most of everything they do is worth cataloging.

i am told on almost a non-stop basis that i am loved, and they don't always use their eyes when they say it. sometimes - a lot of times - they use their words.

speaking of words (that's funny - speaking of words), these are the two that i hear the most from olivia: "watch me!" 

"watch me!" is almost always followed by some sort of acrobatic or dance gyration that almost always includes me seeing her underwear. 


charlie's two favorite words when i'm around are, "hey, gam....." and he says it kinda like how beaver cleaver used to say it to wally......."hey, waaaaally......"


charlie's a boy and olivia's a girl. no, i mean, seriously. you don't have to pull down their pants to know. charlie is all zoom, zoom, zoom and olivia is all, well, olivia is all "watch me!" as she twirls and spins in ballerina dresses and everything pink.


but charlie's a little bit girl, too. like when he puts his arms around my neck and nuzzles me. if he's just eaten peanut butter, it's even better.


and olivia? well, i guess she's a little bit boy. last night she told me that when she and charlie grow up and charlie's a farmer (his newest craze) that she's gonna be a tractor. so there ya go.

but don't go too fast. don't let it zoom, zoom, zoom past me in a blue-pink blur.


well, too late. it already is.

dinner for 12 in a space that can barely accomodate it

extremely fun times last night, but wow......do we ever create a commotion wherever we go. and by we, i mean abby, eli, charlie, olivia, jack, luke, wendy, mom, dad, my niece, lauren, her boyrfriend, jason, and me. and the triple stroller. and the diaper bag.

lauren and jason were in town from chicago, visiting my parents, and the whole motley crew of us got together last night for dinner at a restaurant about a half-block from my place. because there was no room at my place for a mob like that. nor, really, was there room at the restaurant for a mob like that. 


(there is no restaurant on the face of the earth for a mob like that.)


but the "columbus brewing company" was especially tricky. not that i didn't know it - i mean, come on, the restaurant is a half-block from my house. i've been there a million times. but never with a motley crew.


first of all, CBC, as it is more commonly known, has zero waiting room. zero.  zee-roe. so, picture that.


second, CBC is a small restaurant. not tiny, but small.


third, the tables at CBC are pretty smushed together. maybe someone ought to call the fire marshall.


fourth.......well........isn't three enough?


so, there we were, on top of everyone's laps, breathing down everyone's entrees, and schlepping ourselves to the back of the restaurant (and then, at the end, back up to the front) and several remarkable things happened. actually, one remarkable thing happened:


no one complained.


the other patrons were, if not doting (and many of them were), at least cordial. and accomodating. i have never seen so much scooting of chairs in my life.


abby and eli were their usual "ha ha, this is how we roll, ain't it fun" selves.


lauren and jason, who live independent, childless, upwardly mobile lives in chicago, jumped into the fray like it was their job. which, actually, it was.....we pawned the kids off on them so the rest of us could eat.  :)


mom and dad were their usual "do we have the best daughter and grand kids and son-in-law and granddaughter's boyfriend and great-grandchildren in the whole wide world or what" selves.


and i sorta looked around and thought.....


yes, mom and dad. yes.


we do.

the mother of mothers

abby amazes me. 

if you were the mother of 3-year old twins and 7-month old triplets, would you spend their blessed nap times going through all of their outgrown clothing, toys, equipment, etc., organize it all into separate bins, label each item for sale, haul the whole shebang downtown to vets memorial for the annual "mother of twins club" sale, schlep it all from the van into the building, set it all up, go home and feed your kids, come back to the sale a few hours later, with your husband in tow, whose job it is to work the sale while you now shop it - without benefit of shopping cart or anything else (how you carry all of this stuff is your problem) - then go home late at night and collapse - and then come back the next day and tear it all down? and haul back home whatever didn't sell?  

and then say, "that was pretty easy."


neither would i.

Leave it to Better

abby and eli have old "leave it to beaver" episodes (season 1!) on their netflix and last night, i watched some of the episodes. and no, leaving it to beaver was not better. but leaving it to june and ward (and miss canfield and mrs. rayburn and gus at the fire station and all of the neighbors up and down the street who gave a damn) certainly was.

beaver - and to a lesser extent, wally - got into all sorts of mischief that wouldn't come close to making it on the radar screen today. the "mischief" that they got into is laughable now. and, i guess, it must have been laughable then, too. or else it wouldn't have been a hit t.v. show.

but despite the benign nature of their problems, the village that it took to raise them handled the mischief as if the boys' moral compasses, whole futures, and eternal souls depended on it.

because it did.

these days, parents don't give a rip about anything. 

how kids dress or how kids talk, especially to their elders (kids don't even know what an "elder" is anymore) or how they comport themselves (comport?) at school and elsewhere in public is laughed at. it is laughed at. and that's on a good day -  when how kids do these things even registers.

whereas, back in beaver's day, these behaviors not only made for a wildly popular half-hour show, they could get a kid grounded. for what felt like life. because it was good for him.

and for the rest of society.


if you think things are better today.......then i don't want to leave anything to you. 
 

babysittin' fee's goin' up

last night, olivia says, "gammy?" and i say, "yes?" and she says, "you look kinda old."

on top of that.........abby and eli's t.v.?? GGGGGGRRRRRR!!!!!!!! 

once upon a time, what you did with a t.v. was, you turned it on and then you turned it off. in between times, you turned it up.

also once upon a time, what you did with a t.v. was, you went into the kitchen and made jiffy pop.

but those days are over. now you gotta stand on your head and clap three times if you wanna turn on your t.v. provided, of course, the UB port and the IBS port are compatible with the little thingie on the remote that looks like two blue "Vs" trying to fly.


and then, if you think you hear one of the babies crying and you try to turn down the t.v. so you can be sure, you're out of luck. 


so, yeah. my babysitting fee is going up.


and then you tiptoe into the babies' room to check for yourself if one of the babies is crying and you see that none of them are but wendy's clutching her little bear in her little fist and her little butt's in the air.


so, yeah. my babysitting fee is going down.