Eerily Accurate

On Thursday night, Doug was out of town for a client meeting and after I had spent the entire day trying not to put more than 4,782 miles on my car, the thought of making dinner, or even picking dinner up and taking it home, seemed like more work than I wanted. I was also facing the reality that if we went to a restaurant with a bar, it was very likely that I would have a beer, or four, and end up not being able to drive my kids home. And seeing a five-year-old standing on a chair playing endless rounds of Big Buck Hunter while her mom sits at the bar and self-medicates is, well, actually, now that I am envisioning it, it seems pretty kick ass. But since Zach had just finished a tennis match and Charlie had just finished a lesson, and they were still wearing tennis clothes and smelled like they had just been playing tennis, we ended up stopping at a Chinese restaurant that also smelled and had a small buffet. And just to be on the safe side, no beer.

After I watched my boys eat multiple egg rolls and piles of lo mein, and Zoe ate a chicken wing and four grains of rice, we all cracked open the fortune cookies. Normally the fortunes are completely lame and seem more like lecture cookies with lottery numbers, but the fortunes from these cookies seemed frighteningly accurate.

Charlie: You are considerate of others. On Wednesday, his sixth grade teacher was gone so they had a substitute. Charlie came home and said that no one really likes this particular sub, and then proceeded to tell me about all the shit that these kids did in an attempt to distract, and quietly torment, this poor woman. After listening to him, I resisted the temptation to send this lady a blank check and said "I would never, ever want to be a substitute assigned to your class. And you know that I would have to inflict some serious pain if I found out you were horrible to your sub, right? Please tell me that you were not part of the moron convention." He assured me that he sat at his desk and didn't participate in the mayhem, and actually felt kind of bad for the sub. It turns out that the following day, half of the class got busted for being little shits and after admitting their guilt, had to stay in for recess. Was Charlie part of this group? No, he wasn't, because even though he has listening issues and often loses coats and sweatshirts, he is considerate of others.

Zach: Others appreciate you more than you think. Lately, it seems like Zach and I can't get through a day without one of us taking something the other one said completely wrong, and it sucks. But even though he and I get pissed at each other, I know that Zoe appreciates him because he'll listen to her jokes and play with her. Charlie appreciates the fact that, if he needs it, he's always willing to help him with his homework. Doug appreciates the fact that he has a great sense of humor and loves sports. And I appreciate him because even though he can be a smart ass and his vocabulary seems to be limited to "Whatever, yeah, got it, GOT IT, uh huh" and "that's NOT what I said," he's a great kid.

Zoe: You will make a change for the better. Well, she did just get four inches of hair cut off, which means that maybe now I won't have to torture the poor girl when there is dried sucker goo stuck in her hair. And she's trying really hard to be more patient and a little less bossy. Like yesterday, instead of saying "Give me a napkin!" and "STOP LAUGHING AT ME!" she said "I need a napkin. Now. Please." and "Oh yeah, ha ha. Now stop laughing at me. Please." In fact, I think I had a tear in my eye.

Me: You have an excellent capacity for making people feel at home. I guess this is sort of true, as long as they take their shoes off.

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Except for the occasional re-posting, I realize that I have written/ranted/bitched about something everyday since mid-October. Since I: a) don't want the blog to become boring or monotonous; b) have an insanely busy May; and c) tend to live outside during the summer, this will be my last weekend blog post and from now on I am only going to be posting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I may occasionally write something on a weekend (if it rains and someone happens to really piss me off), but for the majority of the summer I'm going to stick to three days a week. Sorry!