Life On The Planet

Thanksgiving Week: The Highlight Show

It's not much of a show, actually. I just liked the title. However, I can give you the highlights.

Last weekend: Boy Scout / Webelos joint camp-out. It got done to 23 degrees. Tiger got his polar bear patch. Woo-Hoo. Sal's troop held a flag retirement ceremony / campfire. They invited a troop from inner city Memphis to join them. It was fabulous. Freezing, but fabulous.

Monday: School work. "AAAHHGGG!" screamed the children as they ran in horror from the house. It had been a while since they had had to endure been treated to a full school day. (She chortles evilly as she types.) Sal came back from Scouts with a rough-housing induced black eye. Scratch Take-Christmas-Photos from week's to-do list. Boys.

Tuesday: More school work. Trying to get caught up in Greek. Will we ever get caught up in Greek?!? Speak to me, Oh Great and Omnipotent Mystical Eight Ball.

Wednesday: Whoever said peace on earth was a possibility obviously never shopped at my neighborhood Wal-Mart the night before Thanksgiving.

Peace. Ha! My Wal-Mart scoffs at your peace.

Thursday: Thanksgiving dinner with Aussie Kim, et al. Eat food. Drink tea. Swing on hammock. Eat food. Drink tea. Play board games. Eat food. Drink tea. Create massive bonfire in order to roast marshmallows. Eat marshmallows. Drink tea. Waddle home.

Friday: Shop. What else?

I hope your week has been as delightful as mine.

Tomorrow we put up the tree. And so it begins.

Books-A-Million Too Many

My friend Hayley gave me a Books-A-Million gift card for my birthday. Really? For me? A gift card? Just for me? Sigh. I love Hayley.

So, anyway, not being able to wait for a moment alone (who knows when that will happen!), I piled the kiddos into mini-van and zoomed to B-A-M. Oh, Heavens to Betsy, the books! I looked at the new Home Schooling book by the Millmans. ("I will not buy a homeschooling book with my gift card," I chant, as I walk away.)

Something on travel, maybe? I looked at the Castles in Scotland and Temples in Tibet. Nah. It's a little to close to a resource book. This one is for me, me, me!

I scurried off to the fiction aisles. How about a romance novel? Historical fiction? A mystery? A thriller? The titles started to whirl. "I know," I thought! "A book on photography! That's the ticket." I headed to the back of the store.

En route I encountered the games. Pictionary. Monopoly. Apples to Apples, Jr.! No, no, no! This card was not for a game. I wanted a book, and (dag nab-bit) I was aiming to get one. Photography...a book on photography.

There were eight hundred and fifty-two books on photography. How was I supposed to choose? And should I get a book on my camera, a book about technique or just a book of great photos? The photography section was next to the rest rooms, and goodness knows we can visit a public place without examining the commode, so forty-five (slight exaggerations are allowed) minutes later the search resumed.

I had it. I knew just the book I wanted. A book on flowers. I absolutely do not know the names of flowers. This is because my mother knows the names of every flower. I never had to learn. I just asked her. I hustled over to the "Nature" aisle.

Well, rats. They had a book on Mississippi flowers that was just beautiful. However, the book on Louisiana flowers was really nice, too. Did I want to learn about Mississippi flowers or Louisiana flowers? Argh!

Abandoning hope, and hoping to avoid a migraine, I let the kids pick out a book each (they don't dither), bought them each a Vanilla Creme Latte' and left, despondent.

I think I'll shop on line. They only show eight items per page.

Poetry on the Planet

Rocks In My Dryer is having a poetry contest. Here is my entry...

Do you really believe I can think
with dishes piled high in the sink?
Write a poem I am told,
but there's laundry to fold
and white clothes to turn into pinks.

Tomorrow I'll have time to write,
but the contest is ending tonight!
If I don't clean the house
I'll feel like a louse.
(But winning would be a delight!)

I s'pose I could write just one
silly poem full of giggles and fun.
But now I don't know
what to write, and so
I'll go get the house work done.

Go and enter!

Hannah Montana, Board Games & Cheatin' Australians

After long hours of consideration, and because I don't know how to use the stinking record button on my computer, I have decided to spare you my renditions of every Hannah Montana song I was forced to sing Karaoke style last Friday night by those sadistic girls in my scout troop. (Be grateful. Be Very, Very Grateful.)

While the scouts where pretending to sleep the adults played board games. The first game is one I was not familiar with. You need to get it. I mean, you need to get it if you don't already have it. I doubt you need two. How silly! The game is called Transamerica.

There is also Trans Europa. Trans America was a lot of fun and very easy to play. Basically, you build track (railroad) across the U.S. to connect your cities. You get to lay two tracks every turn, unless you're Aussie Kim, and then you put down three... or four... or however many you think you can get away with. (Cheating on games has a new name in these parts. It's called "pulling a Kim.") Not that Aussie Kim would ever intentionally put down an extra piece of track. No, I'm certain it was an accident.

Speaking of Kim and the games she plays, how's this for home field advantage. Kim, my co-leader, Shelley, and I had finished a game of Trans America and she pulls out a card game. It's a trivia game about AUSTRALIA.

I wonder who won that one?

Next on the agenda, study Australian Geography and the migrational patterns of Australian water birds. She's going down.