Summa Cum Laude

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”  ~Henry Ford

Me and Rosie the Tarantula...making nice

Ever since I hit 40, I’ve been on a quest to try new things. I originally attributed this quest to a desire to do as much as I can with my life while I still can do it. Midlife scares the bejeezus out of me daily because I know that from here it’s merely a blink of an eye to the day when I’m 70, assuming of course that I’m graced with that many years. The more I’ve reflected on the more open attitude I’ve taken about life since turning 40, the more I consider how many new things I’ve tried than I would have even considered 10 years ago, the clearer it has become that my desire to do these new things is not rooted in a thirst for adventure but rather in a pilgrimage for knowledge.

Ever since I was young, learning has been important to me. I knew in grade school that I wanted to get an advanced degree after four years of college. I’ve never considered any class a waste of time. I enjoy studying new a wide variety of things. At CU, I studied astronomy, Latin, Chicana studies, and the history of the English language. I’ve seriously considered pursuing a law degree for the sake of learning and not for the sake of practicing it. Outside college, I’ve taken cooking classes, burlesque classes, wine classes, and rock climbing classes. I’ve tried my hand at cake decorating, snowboarding, swing dancing, and ropes courses.

Even outside of classes, things I’ve done have been an education. Last year when I let Rosie (the tarantula) walk on my hand at the Butterfly Pavilion, for example, I learned that maybe I’m not as afraid of spiders as I thought I was. Rosie was actually quite nice in that she tickled me as she walked across my hand and she didn’t bite me. She didn’t even visit me in my dreams, nice spider she is. I learn something new every single time I step onto my yoga mat, which is probably why after two years I still look forward to practicing. A little over a year ago when I did the Polar Plunge in Boulder, I learned that two minutes of discomfort can yield days of euphoria. And, when my boys have a question, I’m quick to the jump on the internet or go to the library and find us all an answer. It’s a little known fact that there’s a reason why my sisters joke that I’m their Cliff Clavin.

I’ve been thinking as I approach 44 that the only way a person can remain young as their body ages is by trying new things and remaining open to novel experiences. I get depressed if I’m not regularly discovering and then reveling in something new about life, my friends and family, myself, or the world. This morning Joe told me that hammerhead sharks swim in schools during the day. Good to know, I thought. Knowledge can sometimes come from unlikely sources, so it’s best to pay attention. The happiest people I know are the ones who are insatiably curious and open to life. When I leave this world, at whatever age I depart, my plan is to graduate from my class summa cum laude.

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Edelweiss

The whole family in Alaska

Hubby and I agree on most things. What we don’t agree on is how to spend our disposable income. Hubby likes to buy gear and gadgets. I prefer to save money and then spend it on travel. It’s a source of friction. When hubby wants to buy a gadget, I bristle. When I want to book costly travel, he hems and haws.

We are an Apple household. We own: an iMac with a 27″ screen, a MacBook Pro, four iPhones (two iPhone 3s and the 2 iPhone 4s, which subsequently replaced them), two iPads, two Apple TV units, a Nano, an iPod, and a Shuffle. We had an iTouch, which I made hubby sell when he wanted the first iPad. I’m not telling you this to brag because honestly (although I enjoy my technology) I’m a little embarrassed. I am sure we’re helping to put several Apple employees’ children through Stanford. When I think about the places we could have gone or the things we could have seen using the money we spent on electronics, I cringe.

We have done some traveling, but most of the traveling we’ve done has been on trips booked and paid for by my in-laws. Every five years they celebrate their wedding anniversary by taking the entire family somewhere. Because of these trips, I have been to England, Alaska, and Norway. My in-laws have saved my marriage by taking me to the places my hubby refuses to pay to go. I’ve been saving quarters for two years now in an effort to shore up some cash to take the boys to Hawaii. I haven’t decided whether I’ll bring Steve with me on that trip.

Yesterday we had a long discussion about snowshoes, new showshoes which Steve thinks he “needs” because he’s not happy with the ones he has now. I have a hard time wanting to approve a couple hundred dollar purchase of something he already owns. So, we were going round and round about it. His current snowshoes are already better quality than the ones I own. He offered to give me his current shoes when he buys his new ones. As if that was supposed to encourage me to endorse the purchase. We finally agreed that he would wait until the end of this snow season to see if he could find a deal for next year’s snowshoes.

This morning, Steve was looking at a National Geographic magazine on his iPad. He was browsing through photos from around the globe. First he was showing me photos of Sami reindeer herders in Norway. Then he moved on to photos of Europe.

“I want to go to Vienna,” he stated.

“That’s not on the top of my list,” I countered, “but it would be cool to go there. We could hit Prague then too.”

“I think we’d love it. I think we should go.”

“Well, you can’t get to Vienna on snowshoes, babe,” I quipped.

“I decided I’m not getting the snowshoes,” he replied.

Victory! Who knows? We maybe I’ll be singing Edelweiss sooner than I thought.

 

 

 

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Casting Shadows

A girl and her dog on a winter's afternoon walk.

 

We went out for a short snowshoe hike today in pristine snow left by the early February snowpocalypse. Not many people had ventured out onto the open space yet, so the unsullied snow begged for attention. Ruby ran ahead, bounding through drifts that sometimes left nothing but her head and shoulders exposed. Her palpable joy told me that this is what her heaven will look like. The sun was beginning to sink behind the foothills as we headed back to the house, so our shadows stretched out before us. I captured this self portrait, a girl and her dog.

I find peace in my shadow. It can raise me in stature or knock me down to size, but it consistently offers a stripped-down representation of my most basic form. In my shadow there is no room for vanity or insecurity about my appearance. It’s so simple, quiet, and soft, so unwilling to accept self-criticism or condemnation. My shadow doesn’t care how old I am. It doesn’t record my wrinkles or count my grey hairs. It doesn’t care if my clothes don’t match or my mascara is smeary. A shadow simply represents my true self, the evanescent spirit that resides within this physical house. It tells me that who I truly am has nothing to do with the way I appear. I am boundless and free. My shadow knows that I’m so much bigger than my body gives me credit for, and that’s why in the late afternoon it gives me room to be eight feet tall.**

 

(**Apologies to John Mayer for stealing his line.)

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Nothing Nice To Say

Dark cloud looming ominously over our otherwise idyllic suburban neighborhood

The lovely suburban neighborhood we live in has its own Facebook page. It’s a good place to get an update about a missing dog or a school fundraiser. Neighbors share business information for reliable painting companies and helpful handymen. Folks will report the occasional rattlesnake bite or caution others about a bear sighting. In addition to all the useful updates I receive through following this group on Facebook, however, I am also privy to neighbor’s tirades about the HOA, the management company they hired, our waste disposal service, and the City of Littleton. Many days there is more drama on our neighborhood Facebook group than there is on any daytime soap opera on television. It can be like watching a train wreck with slightly less blood and gore.

I’m perpetually amazed, although mostly disappointed, by the vitriolic diatribes people will post on the Internet in a forum like our neighborhood one where they essentially then out themselves to their neighbors as hot-headed grumps with a poor grammatical skills. I know. I know. By posting my own harangue here about these people I’m essentially the pot calling the kettle out for its blackness. I prefer to imagine, however, that my verbal rants are at least a smidgen more coherent and a truckload less bitter.

What fascinates me is the way the Internet has opened up an entirely new avenue for people to share the worst of themselves with the world. Once there was a time when we might complain to a neighbor about something that annoyed us. Now we can instantly complain to an entire neighborhood. What people learn about us is no longer simply gossip. We can incriminate ourselves with lightning speed. We throw things up onto the Internet like we hurtle snowballs at a barn wall, expecting that our words like the snowballs will melt and disappear over time, but they don’t. The Internet isn’t ethereal. If you don’t believe me, just Google yourself and see what comes up. You might be surprised with how much a person can find out about you just by searching a few simple details on the Internet. What’s worse is that there is no context for the information that’s out there, so how people come to know us without actually knowing us is quite subjective.

Now, maybe some people don’t understand how they come across with instant media like a comment on a Facebook page. I’ll tell you this, though, from our little, innocent, neighborhood Facebook group, I’ve already formed a judgment about some neighbors without ever having met them. Their names and their nasty comments are etched into my brain. Is it right for me to form a judgement about someone before I know them? Of course not. But, it’s how things are now. I put my thoughts out there on the Web and people can believe they know me without truly knowing me at all. So, before you go off on some nasty tangent on Facebook (or any other trackable Internet site), you might take a second to contemplate whether what you’re saying is an adequate representation of who you truly are. You know, what my mother told me repeatedly as I was growing up holds especially true with the Internet. Maybe if you don’t have anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all?

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Big Fat Butt

Me and my sisters

I am the oldest of three sisters. I am nearly two years older than Kathy and nearly 5 years older than Julie. Growing up, we were very close because we had no choice. We shared one bathroom with an unlocking door. We each had our own bedroom, but they were within 8 feet of each other. I like to think we were fairly typical sisters. We shared reluctantly, played together often, fought occasionally.

It seems as if Julie and Kathy were always the closest pair of the three of us. When I turned 13, I distinctly remember finding them in Kathy’s room playing Barbies. I asked if I could join them. They told me I was a teenager now and therefore too old to play Barbies. And, that’s when things changed. I moved out at 18, our parents divorced, my sisters grew closer still. I got married at 27 while my sisters stayed single and hung out together. They’ve had more mutual experiences and spent much more time together. They simply have more in common. Even though I’m not on the inside of their bond, I like to think that we’re all close. Despite occasional hiccups and disagreements, we’ve remained good friends.

Currently, due to some extenuating circumstances, Julie is living with Kathy in her townhouse. Tonight Kathy called to talk to the boys. When she was done talking to them, I got on the phone with her. For a while she put me on speakerphone so I could talk to the both of them. Then, she took me off speakerphone and let me talk to Julie. I talked to Julie for a while and then realized slowly that I was talking to Kathy again. I thought it was a bit odd, but at the same time I know that through our lives we’ve often passed the phone back and forth and shared conversations when one of us has needed to take another call or let the dog out or whatever. Kathy and I talked a bit more and I realized now I was talking to Julie again. I paused. I heard some giggles. It sunk in. Oh holy hell.

“Seriously? Are you kidding me?” I was annoyed.

They were cracking up on the other end of the line. So pleased to have pulled one over on their older sister. Nothing funnier than an inside joke.

“Are you 12?” I sputtered in my frustration.

They continued laughing.

“I knew you two living together would cause me trouble somehow. I’m hanging up on you now.” And I did.

Funny how even 30 years later I am still on the outside of their game. I’d like to be angry about it or hurt, but I’m not. Truth is that I did (deep down) think it was a little funny. And, I’m clever enough to know that their little inside joke would be nothing if I wasn’t the big fat butt of it. It’s nice to be included.

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One of Those Days

Three of the myriad good things in my life

Today was One of Those days. And, I flipping hate Those days. It began the minute I accidentally wiped mascara on this darling pair of cream-colored, boot-cut corduroy pants I threw on to wear to Muffins with Mom at my boys’ school. It normally takes me forever to pick out something I feel confident in, and yet here was this outfit I really liked and subsequently ruined in seconds. Ugh. Found a substitute pair of slacks, grabbed a jacket, and headed downstairs.

Upon arriving downstairs I see the boys pointing at something in the family room. Now what? Sure enough. There on the new rug was a large pile dog puke. Of course. Why not? It was going to be One of Those days. The deal was sealed. I struggled my way through clean up and got us out of the house quickly for fear that I might accidentally set the house on fire.

The rest of the day continued in classic Those days style. Once we got to school, I realized I’d forgotten something I was supposed to bring and would now get to run home and bring back. I spent thirty minutes selecting and checking out library books for the boys’ next book reports only to find out when they got home that their teachers had already picked books for them. My cold got worse by the hour. I found out some work I had spent a fair amount of time on yesterday didn’t actually need to be completed at all. There was some crying and a small tantrum on my part. I wallowed in self-imposed misery for a bit. But all those moments are in the past now.

What saved my attitude today was a yoga class, my one respite in an otherwise dismal day. Our instructor, Carol, talked about how often we focus on the negative rather than the positive. She mentioned how easy it is to be feeling confident and successful in class and then accidentally fall out of a posture and let that one misstep sully the entire class. I am so guilty of that kind of thinking. It’s easy to have ten things, nine of them amazing and one of them bad, and only to focus our attention on what’s wrong rather than on the abundance of what’s right.

So, tonight before I fall asleep I am making it my personal goal to erase the image that today was One of Those days. Today was what it was. No less, no more. I don’t have to feel sad about it or carry it with me into tomorrow. I can be at peace with it and let it go. I can focus on right here, right now. And, right here, right now I’m happily tucked into bed next to the best person I have ever known. My sweet and funny boys are resting peacefully down the hall. I live in a cozy house with a view that I cherish. I have incredible friends who make me laugh and bolster me when my day sucks by telling me at 3 p.m. that Wine O’Clock is always available. I have good health, a body that can do amazing things, and a brain that appreciates and rises to challenges. I’m fortunate in a million and a half ways. Today was just not one of them.

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The Evil Gull Has Landed

The family at a stop on the fjord cruise

In the summer of 2009, my in-laws took the entire family on an amazing week-long trek to Norway. It was the boys’ first time abroad. They were then just six and eight. They were treated to business class seats on the flight from Newark to Oslo. We spent a couple days in Oslo at the Holmenkollen Park Hotel, our headquarters for exploring the city, viewing viking ships, and visiting the Vigeland Sculpture Park. We left Oslo and traveled via rail to Bergen where we spent two days enjoying the city, Bryggen, and the aquarium. We left Bergen on a fjord cruise. One of our stops on the cruise was Finnbotn farm where we were able to drink from a glacier-fed waterfall, eat traditional Norwegian food, and enjoy the odd sight of their pet parrot flying around the fjord. We later took a ride on the Flam railway, saw Kjosfosson Falls, and finally returned back to Oslo to enjoy the view from the roof of the opera house, which rises from a fjord. My point is that the entire trip was memorable. Each day was a grand adventure filled with incredible sights. For my boys, though, the highlight of the trip, the thing that still sticks with them, was a seagull.

On our first night in Bergen, as we were getting ready to put the boys to bed (a feat that is not easy when it’s 10:30 p.m. and still light outside), we heard a noise on our third-story window ledge. We went to the window and there, just inches away from us through an open window, was a large seagull that seemed not the least bit alarmed to find us staring at him. I told the kids to ignore him and get ready for bed, and we closed the window. Next thing we knew, the dang bird was pecking at the window. Seriously? Like it’s not difficult enough to get the kids to sleep? Now they know there is a large bird trying to peck his way into our room? Come on. Work with me, Norway.

The kids were by then completely riled up. They kept going to the window, trying to scare the seagull. It seemed, however, that the more they pestered him, the longer he felt compelled to stay. To get the kids away from the window, I decided it was time for a scare tactic. (I’m not proud of it, but sometimes they work when nothing else does.) I told them that the seagull, enraged by their taunting, was trying to get into our room so he could peck out their eyeballs. Okay. Okay. Not technically true, but effective nonetheless. They snuggled up to each other in their shared full-size bed and stayed well away from the window for the rest of the night.

The evil seagull hell bent on revenge

However, for the rest of the trip, they were convinced that every seagull we saw (and you can imagine how many frigging seagulls are in Norway) was the one from that window ledge. I have to admit that I might have encouraged the story a bit by pointing them out and telling them he was tracking them. When I did my 50-mile MS Walk in San Diego later that same year, I sent them this iPhone photo of a gull and told them he had found me so it was just a matter of time until he found them. I’m going to hell.

Well, today we were on our way home after school and Joe noticed a seagull in the park in our neighborhood. Of course, Joe not being one to let things go, the entire conversation began again. While Joe pondered their safety, Luke tried to persuade him that perhaps that gull he saw was just one of the original seagull’s henchmen (or is it henchbirds?) and that the true gull had not yet drawn a bead on their actual whereabouts or their eyeballs.

I have to admit that the entire legend completely cracks me up. How my kids, who started reasoning away the logical existence of Santa Claus at age six, can honestly believe one lone seagull is tracking them around the world is beyond me. Still, at the very least this tells me that a) they do actually listen to me and b) seagulls are a lot scarier than I thought. 😉

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Trust Falls

Looking for the silver lining in my cloud

On January 1st, in the spirit of everything zen, I made myself a list of mantras to repeat this year. They are meant to guide me toward achieving greater personal peace in 2012. I printed the list out and stuck it on my closet door as a daily reminder. My seven mantras are:

1) Soften

2) Be Grateful

3) Adventure

4) Trust

5) Be Still

6) Practice Acceptance

7) Listen Beyond the Words

I plan to blog about each of these seven mantras at some point during the year. Today I am struggling mightily with the idea of trust, so it gets to be my first victim.

I am a trusting person. I want to believe the best about people. Most times I’m not disappointed. Sometimes, though, I get kicked around for trusting some who should not have been supplied the benefit of the doubt. To combat my very trusting nature, the universe provided me with a defense mechanism, the ability to not care what most others think of me. When most people break my trust, it doesn’t bother me. In my life, there are a mere handful who are capable of hurting me by pointing out or taking advantage of my weaknesses. Unfortunately, some of the handful have pushed me to a point where I doubt them.

And, this is why trust is on my mantra list. Sometimes I feel like Charlie Brown with that stupid football. He knows in his heart that Lucy will pull that football away each time. He tries to be strong, to deny her the opportunity. He knows he will end up feeling like a fool. He knows she thinks he’s an idiot for falling for it repeatedly. But, Charlie Brown is ultimately a kind soul with a trusting heart. He gives in to his optimism, and let’s Lucy hold the ball for him. Of course, she does pull it away at the last second and laughs as he lands on his back with a resounding thud. With the people I love, I am Charlie Brown. I want so badly to trust them that I give second and third and fourth chances. It’s careless. Sometimes I get hurt and wind up cursing myself for not trusting my instincts and protecting myself against what I was absolutely certain would happen. But, I’m Charlie Brown, so I give in to the idea that people can change and that what has happened before may not necessarily happen again.

What I am pondering today, though, is this: am I optimistic for giving second and third chances to people who’ve repeatedly proven me wrong or am I insane for putting myself time and time again into the same situation and expecting different results? I suppose there are plenty of people in my life who would opt for the insanity defense in my case. But, I can’t help but think that what keeps me giving people the benefit of the doubt is that I deeply want them to rise to the occasion and not kick the crap out of me again even though they know they can. I’m still waiting for that moment of triumph when I know that my risk in trusting was worth it.

I guess I am too much like Charlie Brown, doomed to endure those ridiculous, epic-fail place kicks at the hands of that conniving Lucy. Even though I get hurt, I’m simply not ready to close myself off and give up on the people I love. It might be a trifle hippie, love-child, Woodstock-ish, but I’m just going to sit around singing Kumbaya and participating in trust falls until the day I don’t fall flat.

 

 

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She’s Alive

Hubby in the midst of fixing our Sirena Espresso Machine

I went to early yoga this morning. At 8 a.m. I was on my mat, ready to face my day, lighten my heart, loosen up my hamstrings, and stretch the sleep out of my body. The boys had woken me up particularly early and rather than be grumpy about it, I decided to embrace the day. When I saw my favorite yoga instructor was subbing at an 8 a.m. class, I thought it might be the universe speaking to me. It was. The message that Venus (how’s that for a perfect yoga instructor name?) shared with us this morning was exactly what I needed to hear. The whole hour flew by, and I left the studio with an open mind, feeling ready for whatever the universe might have for me.

Good thing too because when I got home hubby had our Sirena espresso machine on the counter. I immediately cringed. There is a long story about this machine. It was a replacement hubby talked me into that ended up breaking a few months after we got it, forcing us to buy a replacement machine for our replacement machine. This broken machine sat in Steve’s office for nearly two years. Every time I walked by it, it taunted me. Steve could not find a place that could repair it.

This past week Steve was having a conversation with his boss about espresso machines, and the Sirena came up. Steve told Sonny that he hadn’t been able to find a way to get it serviced. Sonny, logical guy he is, asked Steve why he didn’t just fix it himself. Apparently, this thought had not yet occurred to Steve. So this morning while I was being enlightened at yoga, Steve was preparing for battle with this machine, this little burr that had been slowly digging its way under his flesh for over 70o days.

I tried not to be negative when Steve removed the lid of the beast with a screwdriver. I tried not to think that he might be putting the final nail in the Sirena’s coffin as he tinkered around with it. I chose to stand back and see how things developed. Steve, while quite smart and capable, is not your typical Mr. Fix It. The way I had it figured, though, the machine was already broken and apparently no one else was interested in fixing it, so what did I have to lose?

On and off in between other things, Steve spent the entire day with that troublesome espresso maker. He reviewed online manuals. He watched videos about it. He stared intently into its inner workings as if the answer would magically appear. He found a pin that he come loose from somewhere inside the machine. We knew that must be the key to the problem. I’d leave for a while, come back, and find him standing over that machine waiting for the solution to come to him. He fixed a couple other minor issues within the black beast while he waited for the universe to reveal the answer to him. Finally late this afternoon we discovered where that stupid pin belonged and put it back in place. Steve reassembled it. And tonight, two years after her breakdown, we each enjoyed a decaf latte in celebration of Steve’s grand accomplishment and Sirena’s resuscitation.

This morning’s epiphanic yoga class was about expectation and how we need to let go of it. I am especially guilty of putting expectations on things, things which the universe is under no obligation to provide for me. I spent the class thinking about how often I set my expectations too high and am disappointed. The whole Sirena incident, however, reminded me that sometimes expectations work against us in another way; sometimes, we set our expectations too low and keep ourselves from achieving things we could if we simply tried.

 

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Can I Get an H, Pat?

All consonants are important, even if they're voiceless.

Joe is in the 4th grade and has graduated from those cheesy book reports that are mostly art projects designed to drive parents insane (you know…dioramas, mobiles, puppets….seriously, teachers?) to true, written reports this year. Joe is a solid C student in language arts. He reads quite well, but his writing and spelling are, well…let’s go with interesting. Still, he’s been doggedly determined to learn to write on his own so we’ve set him loose to see what he can come up with for his book reports. For the most part, we’ve been pleasantly surprised with his reading comprehension and his ability to retell the story for his reports.

Today I got quite a shock, however, when I proofread his written report for his latest book, Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl. We’ve been on a Dahl kick at our house. Joe’s read James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The BFG. So far he has refused to read Matilda because (and I quote) “It’s about a girl.” At any rate, as I was reading the text of Joe’s report this time, I became a bit concerned.

“Joe….what do you mean by ‘He ran away to poach peasants’?”

“He went off into the woods and poached peasants,” he responded, as if I was crazy for not understanding.

“What do you mean by poach?”

“He gets peasants and eats them.”

“He eats peasants?”

“Yeah. He eats them.”

“Peasants?”

“Yes. Peasants.”

“Like he cooks them up and eats them?”

“Yes,” Joe replied, obviously becoming exasperated with my idiocy.

Was my son honestly telling me that this library book that I had selected for him was a book about people ingesting other people? I know Dahl’s stories are highly imaginative. In James and The Giant Peach, James’s parents are trampled to death by rhinoceroses in pastoral England. Then, James takes a trip from England to New York in a giant peach filled with a cast of bug characters who are all the size of an adult human. Dahl’s stories make me wish I had known the right drugs to do while I was in college. But, I still could not imagine a children’s novel in which Dahl creates cannibals who hunt and eat peasants. That seemed like a bit much, even for him. Joe and I went round and round until I finally grabbed the library book and began scanning it for evidence of cannibalism. Then, I found the word that might clarify the entire book report.

“Joe…were Danny and his dad poaching and eating birds?”

“Yes. Peasants are birds.”

“No, Joe. Pheasants are birds. Peasants are people”

“I know that,” Joe replied. “I knew they were eating birds. There were pictures of the birds. I just forgot that there was a difference between peasants and pheasants.”

“Big difference, Joe. At least your report makes more sense now. I was a bit uneasy picturing Danny and his dad feeding peasants sleeping pills stuffed in raisins and then watching them falling out of the trees.”

Joe had a good laugh about my mental image of poor, country folk dropping from the sky only to be then being picked up and subsequently cooked by gypsies. But this little miscommunication proves how delicate and complicated the English language is. One missing “h” and suddenly a simple hunting expedition takes a sinister turn. It’s miraculous that any of us learn to understand and communicate with the English language. There are myriad rules and then just as many exceptions to those rules. Take the suffix “ed,” for example, which can sound like “ed” (tainted), “d” (cleaned), or “t” (walked). For a native speaker, these distinctions are somewhat natural because we’ve heard them repeatedly. But, to a non-native speaker learning English, there is nothing but obfuscation. And, don’t even get me started on our punctuation rules, which can turn “Let’s eat, Grandpa” from a nice invitation for your grandfather to join you for dinner into “Let’s eat Grandpa” and somehow we’re back to cannibalism.

At the very least, today’s book report exercise reminded me to cut my kids some slack as they muddle their way through phonics and language arts in grade school. I have a master’s degree in writing and I still regularly have to research correct language and usage rules. I tell you, though, I am going to start being a bit more careful around Joe. If he could mistake pheasants for peasants, who knows what kind of breakfast he might cook up for me on Mother’s Day?

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