Wordjanitor Strikes Again

One of my newest monikers is "the mom of the kid with the tie." Because I am indeed, the mom of the kid with the tie. Friday was free dress for @'s school. Although it's a public school, they have a uniform of navy pants and white, blue, or green polo shirts. Whereas most of the other kids took the opportunity to dress down in jeans or sweats and t-shirts, @ dressed up in a button-down shirt and clip-on tie. (A little girl in his class also opted to buck the trend and wore a nice dress. Perhaps they're soulmates...) After school it was time to head over the hill and off to the woods for a mother-son camp adventure at the YMCA's Camp Campbell.

Once upon a time in history, I went to my first black-tie fund-raising dinner. The food was great. But I was more amazed at the dresses the women were wearing. It wasn't only the money that went into the dresses, it was the "enhancements" (so to speak) that also went into those expensive dresses. At the time, X and I made light of things with new tag lines like "Better Fund-Raising through Cleavage" and "Boobs for Babies." Apparently the black-tie dinner demographic is shapely.

It was getting close to Christmas. All of the houses in the neighborhood had bright colorful lights along the rooflines and pretty decorated trees in the front windows. @ and his friends decided it would be really neat to go visit the North Pole. They made sure they had their warmest jackets, gloves, boots, and hats and they all went to the train station. When they got there, they found their friend Engineer Doggie, who told them he knew the secret to finding Santa. Then the boarded the train. Once they were on the train, Engineer Doggie told them all to get in a circle and hold hands. Some of them giggled about holding hands, but Engineer Doggie told them it was an important part of the secret. Engineer Doggie told them to close their eyes and dream of their own special snowman.

It's October. Don't ask me how that happened. I've decked the halls of my porch with spiderwebbing and orange squash things. @ was so excited to decorate the porch. Gotta love the dollar store for decorations -- he got to go hog wild and buy all sorts of nutty stuff for under ten bucks. At least I don't go broke

I have a picture of tornadoes on my refrigerator. Each is a different color and hovers precariously close to the ground, about to touch down. In the midst of all the swirling is a little stick figure with a small umbrella saying "Hey tornadoes, one at a time. Get in line!" Sure, I can yell at a tornado and it will listen! Hmmm... Last week was less than fun. Lots of different dramas emerged from various quadrants of my existence. I had some health stuff to handle;

I have a titanium screw in my toe. There, I've said it. It's out in the world. Judge me for it if you must. This toe is primary digit of my left foot. Not the film My Left Foot. Mine. My actual left foot. I seem to have picked up a habit of damaging said recalcitrant foot every now and then since the first "incident" almost exactly 11 years ago in August 1999. What happens when you damage your foot?

Avoiding danger in the long run is no safer than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. - Helen Keller I recently decided to do something for myself. Pedicures and massages are great and all that. I guess shopping does it for some girls. OK, lots of them. Maybe even legions of them, given stacks of evidence ranging from

I got a boo-boo on my knee. A good friend invited me to go hiking yesterday. Yes, absolutely, ok, let's go. I didn't bother asking where, how far, and all of those details. It didn't really concern me. And who am I to turn down an excuse to be outside with trees and dirt and stuff? So off we went to Sunol Regional Wilderness and hopped on the trail along Alameda Creek to Little Yosemite. It looked to be a pretty mellow ambling walk along a well-maintained

Somehow or other, I've been back at work for nearly a month. Time flies when you're trying to catch your breath and remember how to tie your shoes . Within a quick blink, it was as if I'd never been gone. Except now I have this weird eating schedule and people keep asking me if I'm better now. Well, yes, better than I was before. Cured, no. But that's just how it is. In the scheme of things, I don't consider the health thing