iBeth

Dead Turtle Tragedy At Church

As we left church, Emma cried delightedly, "Look!  There's a turtle!"  Just as we turned to gaze at the cute little 6" turtle, the golf cart that ferries elderly parishioners to their cars zoomed past.  SPLAT, right before our eyes.  The turtle did not survive.  A less agnostic, faster thinking mom might have said a prayer, but I just tried to redirect the childrens' attention and (with the help of Grandma), hustled them to the car.  "The turtle has a hard shell, so it is probably ok, right mom?" Emma asked me.  "Maybe," I replied, but that turtle was clearly not ok.  Poor turtle.  The golf cart driver couldn't have seen it camouflaged against the grass . . . but the golf cart would have driven along the path if we hadn't been in the way. 

I hope the turtle carcass is gone by next Sunday.

Flight of the Conchords--So good I might faint

Last night, in a dramatic break from our usual habits, my husband and I went to a Flight of the Conchords concert. 

"What if the show is so good that you faint?" 6yo Amelia asked me, as I was getting ready.
"I wouldn't like that because I'd miss part of the show," I told her.
"Well," she asked, "what if it's so good that you faint at the end of the show? Right at the end, so you don't miss anything?"
"Then Daddy would have a very hard time getting me to the car," I said.

Amelia seemed a bit disappointed that I didn't faint.  But I did find the show to be Very Good.  You can read  reviews here and here, so I'll just say that it was so good, I spent a fair amount of time tonight downloading all the Flight of the Conchords music that I didn't already own.

9yo Emma was delighted to hear that Jemaine performed a trick she has been longing to perform herself: He put his head in a box that had a hole cut on one side for his face (part of their Robots costume, though they wore it for "Too Many Dicks").  Then, he began to turn the box and his head to one side.  As he continued to turn the face-hole towards his back, he really quick turned his head to the other side (while it was hidden in the box).  Then, his face reappeared in face-hole as the box continued turning, so that it look like he'd turned his head a full 360 degrees!  You can see the trick in the last 10 seconds of this video.  Emma thought of this trick several days ago, but she doesn't yet have a good box to do it with.

Kristin Schaal (who plays FOTC fan Mel on the tv show) gave us a very funny warm-up act.  My favorite line: "Were we lesbians?  We were more than that--we were BESTbians!"  That, and her jokes about Florida.  "Even if you had the worst day possible and got hit by a car when you were riding your bike, at least while you were waiting for an ambulance, you could lie under this beautiful palm tree!"

I was pleased that FOTC performed "If You're Into It." Bret was at the keyboard, ready to do a different song (Sellotape of Love)--but came back to his guitar to play "If You're Into It" after the audience kept clamoring for it, then returned to the keyboard for "Sellotape," the song they ended with.  So it seemed that "If You're Into It" was a bonus, just for us.

If you aren't familiar with FOTC, this video of Business Time will give you a good idea of what you've been missing.  (After you see that video, you will wonder, as I do, WHY oh WHY does FOTC not sell t-shirts that say "Team Building Exercise 99"?)  Their "What the Folk!" homepage is also worth a look. And you can legally download a free copy of "Hurt Feelings" (another of my favorite songs) here.

Restaurant Betrayal

I've been holding a sobbing Emma in my arms, comforting her as she cried bitter tears over a betrayal.  Crispers changed its menu and no longer offers her favorite turkey sandwich. 

"Sweet Tomatoes is now my favorite restaurant!" she declared through her tears.  And she will never be hungry again.

That's Exactly Why I Hate Grownups!

Amelia lost the coin toss, so she will take the first shower every night this week.  Thirty-five minutes ago, we reminded her that she needed to take a shower.  She stripped naked.  She goofed off.  Thirty minutes ago, we reminded her about her shower.  She goofed off.  Twenty-five minutes ago, we reminded her.  Twenty minutes ago, she disappeared into the bathroom.  Five minutes ago, she resurfaced to request some strawberries leftover from dinner.  She was bone dry, as in, she had not even started her shower. 

"Amelia!" I exclaimed, exasperated.  "Why haven't you taken your shower yet?  Get into that shower NOW."

"But I just wanted the strawberries first," she said.

"NO STRAWBERRIES.  TAKE YOUR SHOWER."

She crossed her arms and stomped her feet.  "That's EXACTLY why I hate grownups!" she announced and vanished into the bathroom.

Birthday Gift Ideas

People are asking me for gift ideas, now that we're headed into birthday season.

This information from Christmas is still accurate, but I'm buying bigger sizes now:

• Emma = size 9, size 8 in pants, children's shoe size 12.5 or 1
• Amelia = size 7, children's shoe

Emma loves Club Penguin.  Amelia loves Club Penguin and tigers.  Check the right margin for a link to their Amazon wishlist.   Thanks for thinking of them.

Tutu Fun

The girls were thrilled to wear new dresses to a "Tea for Tutu" benefit for the Surfscape Dance Company.  The party featured yummy finger foods (scones, muffins, chocolate chip cookies, and colorful fresh fruit, in addition to the traditional crustless sandwiches), delicious drinks (Emma drank hot tea with not enough sugar, while Amelia sipped pink lemonade from a real glass), and real live dancers!  A friend kindly snapped this pic of my beautiful girls (note the gloves, and the matching necklaces from grammy. 
Later, they danced with the dancers and socialized with friends.  Amelia was too busy dancing to pose for the later pictures.  That's my mother-in-law in the photos with me.
  

Amelia Draws Pinocchio

Daddy showed the girls a newly restored Pinocchio, and they are fans. Amelia was inspired to create her own drawings: Gimeny Cricet, Monstero, and "turning into a donkey."
 

Kids Love EPCOT

At least, my kids do.  Right now, we have passes that let us enter EPCOT after 4:00 p.m.  One day, the weather was beautiful, the crowd calendar predicted light traffic, and we were even able to get a dinner reservation at the Biergarten (the girls had never before eaten at any of the parks' table service restaurants), so we hopped in the car and headed down to WDW.

We had a terrific time!  The girls loved the pretzel rolls and Amelia ate her first piece of cheesecake.  We enjoyed the dinner show, in which the musicians played instruments ranging from the accordian to alp horns to cowbells to a xylophone. 

Afterwards, we rode on Test Track, another first for all of us except Daddy.  Although it was sad to walk through the GM showroom afterwards, knowing that many of the cars will likely no longer exist soon (Saturn, Humvee, Saab), the ride itself was fantastic.  I hope both GM and the ride manage to survive this economy.

We also took a spin through Spaceship Earth and were delighted to discover that upgrades had been made to the ride since we were on it last.  We particularly loved seeing our own faces in the animation at the end.

But the best part of the trip was playing the Kim Possible adventure!  Emma finished secret missions in the U.K. (where she flooded a window) and in Mexico (where she made a rocket launch from a volcano).  Alas, we brought no camera with us, but you can see another family's pictures of the game here. 

As we solved the puzzles, we enjoyed the reactions from other guests. One elderly woman was peering at an audioanimatronic parrot when Emma prompted it to begin chattering about rocket launch codes and evil scientists, to the woman's obvious confusion.  At another location, a young boy exclaimed excitedly, "Dad!  Dad!  That skeleton was talking, Dad!  Did you see that, Dad!"  Emma was proud to have impressed another kid.

As we left the park, Emma said, "The other kids in school think EPCOT is boring.  They think only the Magic Kingdom is fun.  I keep telling them that EPCOT is not boring!  Now just wait until they hear about how I saved the world!" 

Note to Imagineers: well done.

Amelia Needs No Beauty Shop Guy

Amelia is tired of bangs close to her eyes, she has been telling me.  So last Saturday, while no one was paying much attention, she took matters into her own hands. 

I think she did a better job than Junie B.

But I hope she doesn't do it again.

Fun with Raisin

"Mama, can I have a raisin?  Just one.  I want to do something fun," Amelia said.

Of course, Sweetheart.

A few moments she returned with the raisin plastered over her newest incoming tooth.  "Look!  My tooth is black!"

I feigned appropriate shock and horror while she giggled.  Then, she ate the raisin. 

Mutated virus in our house

Poor Emma has the flu.  And it's flu A, the strain that this year's vaccine protects against.  I feel very sorry for her, but I'm telling her that she would probably feel even worse if she hadn't had the shot.  "Feeling worse" may mean little when she woke up with a 105.5 degree feever and when the doctor just shoved up a long swab up her nose for the test . . . but now that she has started taking Relenza, we're hoping that "feeling better" will be right around the corner.   And we're hoping that no one else succumbs.  We all get flu shots every year, but with a mutated virus living right in our house, that fact doesn't reassure me as much as it used to.

Love with an extra "V"

I didn't examine the dollar-bin bracelets too carefully when I bought the Valentine gifts at Target.  Guess I should have.

But I like looking at pictures of your kids

From the most recent Time magazine: Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies. 

7. We have children. There is very little that old people enjoy more than forcing others to pay attention to pictures of their children. Facebook is the most efficient engine ever devised for this.

Actually, one of the reasons I "friend" people is to see pictures of their kids.  But overall, Time's reasons are right on--and very funny. 

How do you get crayon wax out of cupcake tins?

Family Fun magazine had a Valentine idea that was so cute--we couldn't resist trying it out.  Except that we couldn't find an affordable mini-heart mold.  So we just melted crayon stubs (mostly saved from restaurant meals) in regular cupcake tins and stuck the new crayons onto heart-shaped paper.  The girls loved this project. 

A few discoveries:

• The hardest step of this project is peeling the paper off the crayons. 
• The bottoms of the melted crayons are prettier than the tops. 
• The crayons don't stick well to the tape, so finished Valentines should be handled with care.
• Even when you use paper liners, the wax melts through to the cupcake tin itself.

Does anyone have a good suggestion for getting crayon wax out of the tins?  I'm hoping to rescue the tins without extreme manual labor.

Tallahassee--The Anti-Stimulus

Not only did Florida cut essential services to save money, but because we cut those services, we don't qualify for stimulus money in areas of critical need:

[T]he bill provides $87 billion nationally for Medicaid, the federal-state program that pays for medical care for the sick, elderly and poor. Medicaid enrollment in Florida is up by more than 10 percent.

But to qualify for the money, states are required to maintain the same level of Medicaid coverage that they provided in July.

Florida has taken several steps to cut its $16 billion in Medicaid costs by reducing coverage. And lawmakers had hoped to save nearly $500 million by sharply restricting the "medically needy" program -- which now covers thousands of adults who don't meet Medicaid income requirements but are seriously ill -- to 1,500 women and children as of July 1.

It's the same for education money:

Overall, Florida could expect about $2.4 billion. But there's a catch: To qualify, the state must spend at least as much on education as it did in the 2005-06 school year -- and Florida has cut its schools budget by $600 million since then.

At the urging of Florida's two senators, lawmakers inserted a provision into the final bill that would allow the Education Secretary Arne Duncan to waive this rule.

But there's no guarantee he would do that. And it appears there's no language requiring Duncan to rule quickly on the waiver -- meaning lawmakers might have to draft a budget without knowing whether the federal money will be available.

The Orlando Sentinel carries the full story.

So not only did our Tallahassee politicians make cheap cigarettes the priority for our state, but also they have cost us the stimulus benefit that is paid by our federal tax dollars.  Nice going.  The same stupid action leads to TWICE the harm!

I can think of two things we have going for us: 1. Florida voted for Obama and 2. Crist has pushed for the stimulus bill.  Let's hope those things are enough to get Arne Duncan to rescue us from our own incompetent state government.

Gay marriage at the dinner table

"Daddy," Amelia said, "Did you know that sometimes men marry men and women marry women?"

"As a matter of fact, I did know that," he replied.

"You did not.  You did not know that before I told you," she said.  Then, turning to me, she added, "Mommy, I wish you would marry a woman."

Of course she does.  Girls rule.

This story explains a lot

"2009 Facebook Demographics and Statistics Report: 276% Growth in 35-54 Year Old Users."  Now I see why so many of my middle-aged friends are already facebooking.  Wonder how long before we drive the young ones away?  I guess that depends upon how many of us insist on trying to "friend" our 17-34 year-old relatives.

[In other news, when the heck is typepad going to fix that category bug?]

Not Ready to Explain Why the Caged Bird Sings

Emma's Black History Month project is to research a contribution made by an African American and create a monument to honor that inspirational individual.  The individual assigned to her was Maya Angelou. 

"Everyone else wanted to do a sports person," Emma reported. "I think sports are boring.  So Ms. Von Trapp gave me Maya Angelou."  Naturally, this former English major approved of the choice.

But then daddy checked out Angelou's life story.  As wikipedia explains:

Angelou's first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, recounts the first 16 years of her life. . . . At age eight, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, Mr. Freeman. She confessed it to her brother, who told the rest of their family. Freeman was jailed for one day but was found kicked to death four days after his release. Angelou became mute, believing, as she has stated, "I thought, my voice killed him; I killed that man, because I told his name. And then I thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone..." She remained nearly mute for five years. 

Don't Mess with the Penguin

You know you've really crossed the line when your 8yo writes notes telling you off in Club Penguin code.  Daddy was the recipient of these babies:

   Fortunately for him, he was able to redeem himself.   

Urgent Hope

Not much in the mail today, but the Feminist Majority Foundation has clearly been thinking about me.  They sent me two envelopes: an "Urgent Response Needed," and a "Special Message of Hope."  Yes, both were donation appeals.  No, I am not familiar with this organization.