Not exactly the Queen's English

I was in the kitchen with Hannah making Rice Krispie treats, and she did something marginally inconvenient, from which I redirected her.

Hannah: Oh, sorry, my fault.
Me: Excuse me?
Hannah: I said 'my fault.'
Me: I know it's your fault, that's why I asked you not to do it.
Hannah: *blank look*
Me: Do me a favor and don't say that any more.  Don't ever say 'My fault,' or 'My bad.'
Hannah: Why? What does 'My bad' mean?
Me: It means 'I'm a dope, and I don't know how to say I'm sorry.'  It just doesn't sound very intelligent.

I know there's no way to keep slang out of her vocabulary permanently.  I use slang.  I call her Dude all the time.  Sometimes I end sentences with 'yo,' albeit mostly when talking to my sister.  I'm not all that bothered by her frequent use of the word 'totally.'  But street slang is just gross coming out of my sweet little popkin in her polka-dotted skirt.

Bless me, Blogspot, for I am a jerk...

Time for my blog-confessional again.  This time, my social sin is willful non-recycling.  That's right: I make my own marshmallows and soup stock so I don't have to eat weird chemicals, but I don't recycle.  Unless there is a designated "Recycle Here" trash can right in front of me, I chuck everything in the regular garbage. In that past, that was my own private sin, but now I'm an elementary-school pariah.

It started last year, when all the children in Kindergarten were sent home with a "Recycling Pledge" form, which parents were supposed to help them fill out and return, stating that they would responsibly separate out the recyclables from the regular trash, and dispose of them in a friendly, green manner. Only by signing this pledge could my five-year-old prove to the elementary-school population that she isn't a river-polluting, baby-seal-clubbing monster.  And I refused.  Because I try not to lie, and I try to teach my child the same.  I'm just not doing it.

I personally think that the benefits of recycling are eaten up by the resources used to complete the process.  In my county there are dozens of recycling drop-off sites; they're all over the place.  But my city also has a designated recycling collection crew, with it's own sort-it-as-you-go truck.  At least one truck, but I assume more.  So we've built extra vehicles, to burn extra gas, while we pay extra guys (which, incidentally, is the only benefit I see) to do what ORDINARY WASTE MANAGEMENT DOES ANYWAY.  That's right.  A lot of the trash collected at your curb gets recycled in the regular waste management plant. Glass is shaken out and sold to glass buyers.  Plastic is picked out for different buyers to be recycled.  Paper and cardboard are bundled and sold to paper mills.  Metal is sucked up on big magnets and, you guessed it, sold to companies that will recycle it.  The biodegradable stuff gets mulched up for compost.  What's left is pretty much disposable diapers and old Star Wars action figures.

So I avoid looking the kid wearing the silly foam Recycling Can costume in the eye when I drop my daughter off at school.  I find something very interesting in my pocket that must be examined right now when we pass the aluminum can drop-box at the entrance to the school property.  I deftly change the subject when my daughter mentions some recycling campaign being promoted this month.  And I dread April 22.

Look.  I do my best to avoid genetically modified foods, although sometimes I just don't know.  I (sometimes) buy responsibly raised meat and dairy.  Only sometimes, because, having actually done side-by-side comparisons, I fail to appreciate the difference in taste. And that stuff is expensive, yo.  But I'm not making a second job of throwing away the milk bottles and the tomato cans.  Because someone else already has a first job of that.  I'm not even sorry.

Nominated for Best Dad Ever is...

We were sitting at dinner this evening when Hannah raised a concern:

Hannah: Remember when we were at that play in Chicago, and I asked a question?
Me: Baby, there's no way I could remember one question you asked me.  You ask questions all the time.
(completely true statement)
Hannah: No, not to you, after the play.
(the company hosted a children's question-and-answer time after the show was over, and Hannah wanted to ask a question.  She's small and cute and was wearing a frilly dress, so, of course, she was selected.)
Me: Oh, yes. I remember.
Hannah: And do you remember that people laughed?  I want to know why they laughed.
Me: (Inwardly cringing) Well, maybe they were wondering the same thing.  Sometimes when you say something that someone else was thinking, they think it's funny.
Hannah: (looking down at her hands) Or maybe they just thought it was dumb.

My heart breaks for a second, and then, BAM, Dave to the rescue!

Dave: Wait. Who was laughing?  Grown ups or kids?
Hannah: Grown ups.
Dave: Well, that explains it.  Grown ups will laugh at anything. There's no explanation for it.
Me: (speechless)
Dave: Especially if you said something smart.  Grown ups always think it's funny when a kid says something smart. They're not expecting it.

This fits nicely into a previous discussion we've had about how things are funny when they're unexpected, so Hannah just accepts this explanation as perfectly rational.  The truth is, it is perfectly rational.  And simply stated.  And completely beyond my capacity for parsimony.

Man, I love that guy.

In which I discover, again, that I don't know everything.

I spent three days last week in a room full of lawyers at my Alma Mater.  I know, I know.  I thought I'd hate it, too.  But it turns out that what I hate are criminal defense attorneys, not just attorneys in general.  My only real exposure to attorneys so far has been just that.  And I've had dealings with some really slimy ones with regard to drug and alcohol related criminal offenders.  As usual, my sample set is decidedly skewed.

In the spirit of full disclosure (what'd I tell you; 24 hours with attorneys-- I feel a little dirty) the room was only half-full of attorneys; the other half was full of mental health professionals.  We were in a training for Parenting Coordination.  I'll spare you the gory details.  Mostly because I didn't  understand a lot of it.  I have to go to work today and read about 200 pages of Florida statutes and Administrative Rules to try to make sense of it all.

The whole training was exhausting, and mind boggling. I was so drained, that by 5:00 on Saturday, when we were dismissed, I got into the elevator and stood there for about 2 minutes, wondering why it was so slow. Then I noticed I hadn't pushed a button for a floor selection.  To make me even cooler, I was singing the Wonder Pets theme song while I waited for something to happen.  I can only hope the university students in the lounge area outside the elevator could hear me declare that I would Save the Goldfish!

Getting dressed probably shouldn't be this amusing.

So I'm all dressed for work yesterday, except for shoes.  I put on something sensible in which to walk to school with my daughter, but planned on wearing my wedge-heeled boots to work.  I don't get that many chances to wear boots without looking like a geek in Florida.  When I'm finally ready to go to work, mostly because I've finished all the coffee, and it seems silly to make another pot, when I can just go to work and use the Keurig, I go to my room for socks and boots.

I love wearing boots, because when I wear something pretty conservative I secretly have on pink knee-socks with purple and gray polka-dots.  I think it's funny all day, and no one knows what I'm giggling about.  Alright. Maybe what it is is slightly crazy.  But whatevs.

This time, I get the aforementioned pink polka-dot socks on, add the boots and go to brush my teeth.  Walking out of the bathroom, I notice something jiggling around in my shoe.  Pull off boot, shake upside down: nothing.  Pull off sock, turn inside out: Quarter.

How did a quarter get in my sock?  How did I not notice it when I put it on?  And is this some assurance of good luck?  I can only hope this is some portent of good fortune for my week.

not exactly The Longest Winter.

The temperature stayed in the 50s last night.  As we were getting ready for bed, my husband says to me:
       I hope spring is on the way now.  I can't take much more winter.
me: You mean you can't take more than last week?
Dave: Yeah. It was brutal.

It was 80 degrees on Christmas, and then we had about three nights last week where the temperature got down into the 30s.  Granted, our poor little heat pump is not really equipped for battling those numbers, and we've been running space heaters in the bedrooms for the past two weeks.  But part of that decision is our extreme cheapness: Why heat the whole house to 75 degrees for the eight hours when we don't leave our bedrooms?

Dave can't stand the cold.  Which is always amusing to me, since he grew up in Dearborn, Michigan.  For anyone unfamiliar with that area, Dearborn is like Detroit's little brother, who's embarrassed because Detroit keeps getting arrested and borrowing money from his friends, so he pretends they're not related.  It's kinda tough to convince his friends, though, since Detroit is still living in their parents' basement.

I don't really know where I'm going with this analogy.

But, since I lost my favorite hat on the Northwest line while we were in Chicago last month, I'm also in favor of no more freezing-type temperatures.  Incidentally, if anyone sees a purple felt cloche hat with felt rosettes while you're on the Metra train, give me a call, will ya?  That thing fit my little pin-head perfectly, so normal people probably couldn't get it on, anyway.

Project Acquisition-Neutral Status: So far, so-- Oh, man.

Today is my day off.  On Wednesdays I do my grocery shopping and clean my house while there's no one underfoot to bug me and get stuff out again for a couple hours.  Today I had a couple extra things I needed: a new shower curtain and a new date book.  Both are replacement items, so I felt good about the outing.

For the shower curtain I went to K-Mart. I don't really like that store, so there's no desire to browse around for stuff I don't need.  Easy in and out there.  Shower curtain liner, 8-pack of hangers (we broke about 4 last month, so it's a semi-legit purchase) and I'm out of there.

My next stop, however, was the office supply store for the date book. We had a gift card from several months back, so it was a seemingly logical choice.  Except for the fact that I love office supplies.  I like the little stacking trays and sorting bins.  I love stationery and post-it notes and self-stick tabs that you use for marking your notes in books you borrow.  But what I really love is pens.  My dream pen is a retractable, super-fine point, gel-ink, rollerball pen.  That's right. I have a dream pen, what of it?  It's like I go into a trance when I walk into that place.  I like to leisurely stroll around and try as many of them as I can without actually tearing open any bubble-packs. By the time I realized what I was doing this morning, I was holding not only my required item, but several pens of various colors in both ball-point and porous-tip styles.  I did manage to put most of them down, but ultimately walked out with a four-pack of porous point black pens, using the justification that the only pens we have at work are the crappy give-aways that my boss gets for free when he orders our business cards. Weak, I know, but it's all I've got.

Better luck next Wednesday.