"No Pope, No Pope"

So, my folks took my entire family to Buca de Beppo for dinner to celebrate my birthday which God also celebrated by sending 15.5 inches of rain to Atlanta in 24 hours. On our way to the restaurant, in addition to discussing which of us knew how big a cubit was should we need to start building, we also wondered aloud if there would be a lot of other waterlogged diners in the restaurant and, if so, how long would the wait be given the birthday Queen, otherwise known as the stellar mother of two outstanding children, is not know to be a terribly patient person when hungry. Or fully fed, take your pick. But, in fact, due to the rain gods, there were no other diners. Nada, Nessun, Keine. Now, I must assume that this was the result of most road transportation that day being via barge and not due to any advance warnings being posted that our party, to include the son and daughter,would not only be in the area but also in the building. However, I did not personally observe the traffic management signs on the freeway that day so who knows. Word could have gotten out.

So, we had the entire wait, cook, bar and valet staff at our disposal. And, we got a great table with great food. But one of us refused to cooperate as it is against some personal policy of hers to actually sit in a chair and/or booth to eat. Ever. Apparently, she subscribes to the belief that one must actually jump up to get food to go down versus just swallowing it. So, she was enthusiastically launching herself in the air repeatedly and rebounding off the booth while working on a spaghetti noodle. Despite my whispered threats of the dreaded "time out" she carried on. And on, and on and on. So, with my normal copious limit of patience worn out, I made the executive decision that it was time for time-out and since it was my birthday, and I still had food to eat, it wasn't appropriate for me to just disappear and take my time-out with a good book. Nope, had to take the human spring with me and in good parental fashion put her in a chair, explain the situation and what she needed to correct and so on. Yep, time out by the book. And that is what I started to do when opportunity presented itself and when opportunity knocks, by gosh, I answer.

Like a miracle, the Pope intervened. We had walked into his special room at Buca where they keep the Pope's head and torso in a box on a lazy Susan at a table designed to sit King Arthur's court. Have to love it. Now, my understanding is that it isn't the actual head and torso of the last great Pope as the chain obviously had a bit of drama with Rome trying to get the real one and went the easier route with a fake but it is a reasonably good facsimile in dim lighting, after drinking or if you are almost three and you haven't seen the real deal.

So, I pointed him out to Mia and told him that he was God's right hand man. And, if one had some behavioral issues, he could and would smite them if they didn't settle down. Now, I know this might not be theologically correct and I might have some explaining to do to the big guy upstairs but, what the heck, it is still quite effective, especially if one shakes the table back and forth to get the Pope to move a bit. Yep, looks pretty good. So, I explained to the daughter that she might want to apologize to the guy for jumping in his house and promise not to do it again given his smiting powers and all. But, the daughter isn't actually open to suggestions for improvement during those hours she is fully awake and/or half awake and continued to let me know how she disagreed with my proposition.

And then the miracle occurred. I could hear the harps and bells as the daughter stopped objecting and began looking at the Pope with what was clearly a sign of reverence. She gazed at the Pope with a look that I could best describe as awe tinged with slight wariness. I was congratulating myself on a job well done and a game well played when it happened and, no doubt about it, it was a sight to behold. The daughter slowly leaned down, lifted the tablecloth and looked under the table. Twice. Slowly. As she lifted her little face up to me for an explanation, I explained his legs were apparently in the next room but since he was Pope, he didn't really need them anyway given his ownership of the only Popemobile in the world. But, as she is only familiar with Barbiemobiles, she apparently didn't quite get the Popemobile reference. The disciplinary miracle continued as she quickly demonstrated to me that she no longer felt the need to jump and, in fact, wanted to return to the party with all due haste and did not, under any circumstances, want to invite the Pope along.

We returned from wence we came and continued our celebration. And, it was clearly a lesson learned as was demonstrated when I gave her a quizzical look when she was considering jumping to celebrate cake eating. She looked right back at me and then was quite clear and unambiguous in her declaration, "No Pope, no Pope, no Pope."

And, this good parenting lesson stuck. The next day, she told Cody, the mentally challenged cat, that he would "go to Pope, go to Pope" if he didn't get off the counter. He didn't. However, from what I can tell, he isn't Catholic and just didn't care.

The Cliff Notes of Our First Camping Trip Now That I'm Recovered from PTSD

All righty, I don’t have a Sunday bulletin yet because I was earning purgatory points last night boy scout camping without blankets in a flooded tent which was laid on top of a tree root. A big gnarly one. At the bottom of a hill. And this was selected with the typhoon forecast already known. Not by me, I must add.

For the record, I also did not do the calculating and/or packing of the sleeping bags or flashlights. Neither did my kids or cats. I'm just saying, you know.

Now, although my writing is generally based upon my application of some awesome parenting technique I have applied, based upon my most recent experience, I would be remiss if I didn't at least make a few helpful suggestions on camping. So, should you ever go camping, I would recommend at least one sleeping bag per person and no less than one flashlight per two people. Of course, that is pushing it should you flood or not want to be hooked to your camping partner like two convicts in chains at night who are trying to follow one little dot of bouncing light held by a 6 year old who is a little closer to the ground than you might be. Oh yeah, I’d also recommend pillows and an air mattress, some kind of pad or a huge amount of beer which can be either drunk or slept upon as beer bottles would most probably be more comfortable than my gnarly tree root.

Also, since I’m on the topic, I’d also like to formally thank the good cubs in den 5 and 13 who retrieved me from the woods and helped me back to the lightening shelter during my fine camping experience after I made the executive decision to go to the potty without three others in attendance.

So, if you do the math, you will see that we had one flashlight, four people, and one typhoon and, as the awesome mother I am, I sacrifically gave up the light. Or didn't want the screams of the daughter to disrupt the den meeting any further. Take your pick.

Can't wait to go again.

And it has come to talking to the cat..

So, you're just going on about your life which includes quite a bit of business travel when you realize it has come to this - you call home to talk to the two little people you are missing and end up having a one way conversation with Cody, the mentally challenged cat. And, you are tired enough that this seems like an okay and perfectly sane thing to you. Yep, sort of goes like, "So, Cody, how was your day? Did you do any fun cat things? Happen to kill any bugs today to earn your keep? How's the catnip hangover going?" And so forth and so on. Cody, most probably on some cat principle I haven't been made party to, refuses to speak. But that doesn't deter my excited questioning. I have his self esteem to worry about after all.

Of course, the slide down the slippery slope to cat talk always begins by getting the son on the phone first. As he is now used to me being out of town, he has found a way to get out of answering questions, which, he tells me are quite repetitive and which he clearly answered yesterday. Inquiries like, "How was your day?" "What did you talk about in school today?" etc. Yep, repetitive questions that apparently only need to be answered once in his world. So, upon answering the phone and saying hello, he first asks if he can give the phone to his sister and then reports she doesn't want to talk to me which isn't really much of a surprise given she doesn't really talk much yet, especially to Mommy trapped in a little box. He then asks if he can give his Daddy the phone. Yes, I say, after I talk to you. Nope, he says, have stuff to do but Cody the cat wants to speak to me, puts me on speaker and from what I can tell, walks away.

Yep, that is what it has come to. A one way conversation with a cat who tries to help out around the house by killing plastic bags. On a good day. If he isn't too stoned on his catnip which, from what I can tell, isn't often. Yep, the exotic world of business travel really is something.

Nope, not my DVD

So, I got this Microsoft benefit because I was working on a slide show for my brother’s wedding. At a hotel. In Alabama. Cute slides of him as a kid and then cuter slides of his wife as a kid and so on. Had driven close to 350 miles to work that day and was a bit tired. Slap-happy as we would say in Ohio. Or just stupid tired as they call it in Alabama.

Had checked in to a nice hotel for the evening and worked a bit on the slide production. Wanted to make sure it could play on another computer properly and show up in the right format at the wedding without incident so I burned it to my very own DVD. And then the fun began.

Given it was darn near 11 p.m., I was rightfully attired in pajama pants and a Holy Cross T-shirt given to me by my little brother. As I was rightfully and tastefully attired for the hour of the day, I saw no reason to locate and put on my shoes to venture out of the hotel room as that would have required more effort than I could muster or frankly cared to expend.

So, off I went to the business center with a huge Holy Cross emblazoned on my T-shirt and little doggies or cherries or who knows what on my jammies, clutching my DVD. Got into the business center and was greeted by a guy working on a computer. Fortunately, they had another one available right next to this guy who looked like a upstanding business man. I put my DVD in the machine and then went to launch it.

That’s when I was confounded by Vista, Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system. The one that I don’t use, haven’t used and apparently, couldn’t use although I apparently saw that as no impediment to my actually doing so. I clicked around for the programs and commands I usually see and didn’t quite find what I was looking for. But, I do know how to “search” and search I did. For media files as that is what I had. And found some in media player as they should have been. I launched the files and sat back to enjoy my show. Sat back to just relax next to this unknown, upstanding guy in the business center who, I was sure, would love my slide show as well.

Then, I see a butt. Now, since this was a slide show about my little brother, I wasn’t immediately clued in to the fact that it wasn’t a visual of him. You know how those youngest children can be and it was getting on to midnight. He did like to show his birthmark off when he was younger. Not that I thought I had photos of that, but who knew so I figured that I had just inserted one of those pictures by mistake. After all, the parents had given me a very emphatic and strict prohibition on using any embarrassing photos without being specific. But nope, it wasn’t that as was revealed to me when said butt and other anatomical parts began moving.

Of course, my reaction was as one would expect from someone stupid tired or anyone who is me. I did the obvious which was to just sit there and wonder how the heck this got on my DVD and then about how glad I was that I had tested the DVD before the wedding as the showing of the same would probably get me disowned or without any cake, to say the least. Then, I had to ponder how the heck it got on my computer for me to put on the DVD as I sure as heck hadn’t put it there. So,how did it get there? And, then I had to consider the fact that I had seen the husband checking the so called “soccer news” lately on my computer and that he would be a dead man when I repatriated to Georgia.

Yep, just sat there in my Catholic T-shirt pondering these unanswerable questions for who knows how long. Then, the brain light came on and I realized that I wasn’t, in fact, watching my own DVD and that, perhaps, just perhaps, I should turn it off and close out of that window with all due haste and take my DVD upstairs to my room and check it’s contents so I ejected it and off I went.

So, for the upstanding guy in the room who I never acknowledged or spoke to while removing said DVD from the computer and taking my leave - yes – I know it looked like I go padding around hotels watching porn in my jammies in public places right ext to strangers for kicks and, yes, I know I probably should have made it somewhat obvious that wasn’t the case by saying something like “what the hell, that isn’t my DVD” and then turned it off before pondering the mystery of it all. But, I was tired and that would have required both effort and thought and I was out of both.

I think it was just the idea of how the viewing had to look from the outside that made me chuckle. Lady comes in, puts in porn, watches some, takes out porn, goes upstairs. And, does so in a Catholic t-shirt. Yep, for those who went to Holy Cross, I represented you well.

Best Compliment of the Day

Still haven't gotten any sleep. In fact, it appears that my two children are working in concert to thwart any reasonable attempts to get them to stay in their beds and/or bedrooms when I tell them to go. Having exhausted the usual threats, rewards, and a large supply of duct tape (okay, just wishful thinking on that one, at least so far) I've decided to add the "thin blue line" tommorrow as I've got some blue painter's tape that just needs using up. Should be visible to the both of them and if I tell them it is electrified, that may just work. It's a thought that Mia may be testing this evening if the verbal call outs don't stop soon. Can't lock the door after all - she pulled the damn strike plate off the wall.

But, just got the very best compliment from the son which makes it all worth it, calms the nerves and soothes the soul. He lovingly looked at me, hit me in the head without prior warning and stated "Mom, you have a big, strong head. That's a good thing. See, when I knock on it, (ouch again) it sounds just like a watermelon. A good watermelon. Not a bad one. Not everyone gets a big strong watermelon head. See, isn't this cool? (vigorous knocking).

Yeah, I guess it is.

Planet Krypton

I have determined that at least one and probably both of Mia's birth parents were from the planet Krypton. This knowledge is based upon Mia's successful alteration of a door lock by pulling the strike plate out of it's molding just by brute force while she maintained a rebel yell.

More on the new bedtime routine after I get some sleep.

Little Blue Bunnies

So, I’ve clearly explained to the kids that permanent tattoos of any kind anywhere on their bodies will lead to ruin and until they are ready, willing and able to support themselves in an environment that is accepting of body art, permanent tattoos are off limits.

I’ve also explained that if they choose to go the tattoo route , and they chose to ink on a very visible body part, they will have to work at Starbucks and accordingly will have to live off one free pound of coffee per week and an occasional piece of stale lemon pound cake that the manager will give them after closing as he takes pity on them. Of course, I made it through college on the same diet plan and did quite well, but at present, they haven’t figured out the magical allure of caffeine and sugar. Always make sure my threats are age appropriate as any good parent would do.

Now, the son hates coffee so he has been compliant so far. The daughter, not so much. In fact, she made the unilateral decision to get a sleeve of blue bunnies on her arm with permanent Sharpie ink. And, apparently, the son decided to remain a silent accomplice as he thought the tats would be a good experimental test on how far Mom’s blood pressure could go. He also relished the diversion of attention so he could launch his nefarious plans of staying up a whole hour late and not fully brushing his teeth before bed which he implemented successfully. Fortunately, he lost his first tooth several days later so I could point out to him the clear and obvious connection between not fully brushing one's teeth and them falling out. I did have to pay a little extra tooth fairy penalty for that one and did clarify a little bit later that I meant his permanent teeth, but I just could not initally let the opportunity pass. If life hands me a correlation on a platter, who am I to pass on the chance to use it for my own amusement?

So, the evening of the tats, Mia did not appear to be terribly thrilled about her choice after we again explained our position and the fact that we happen to like Starbuckis coffee and will try to mooch 1/2 a pound of it from her a week, leaving her with a 1/2 pound she will need to water down. And, apparently, she hates lemon flavored cake and wasn’t planning on it becoming her diet staple.

Oddly, she has been wearing her long sleeved princess dresses lately.