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Sunday, November 26, 2006

5 golden toques...

Do other parents have problems like this, or is it just us?

We're spending the dinner hour drilling the 4-year-old on the proper lyrics to the 12 days of Christmas, so he doesn't go to preschool singing the Bob & Doug McKenzie version. I don't want to have to explain to Miss Becca why he's singing "...and a beer in a tree." Reigning in the 10-year-old is a crucial part of the process, as she keeps chiming in with the alternate version.

(The Bob & Doug McKenzie 12 days is a family tradition chez nous. To the extent that when I was in, like 9th grade, my mom got me a 6 pack of Tuborg as a joke. Don't call DSS. It's too late for me.)

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Drop of a hat, night on the town...

Last night we found ourselves last-minute recipients of two tickets to the RPO performance at the Eastman theater. We literally were out the door about 45 minutes after my bro and SIL called to offer us both the tickets and babysitting for the night.

I had worked Saturday morning, saw 12 patients in 4 hours, hit the gym on the way home, and hadn't managed to get cleaned up yet -- had to sprint through the shower and try to figure out what to wear... resolved that I'm going to have to go shopping for an emergency last minute night out outfit & keep it under glass with a hammer at the ready to smash the case if this ever happens again.

I've wanted to go to the Eastman ever since we moved here, but we'd never gotten around to it. Managed to navigate the quickest route there, and we sat down just as the lights went down (after sprinting 4 flights to the upper balcony). Parking was free, tickets were free, babysitting was free. Unexpected blessings, all.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

In the dark...

Had a power outage last night that lasted from after dinner until after midnight. Our lights went out, then 1/2 hour later they went out in the building across the way. A neighbor coming home reported the lights were out in the center of town, too.

So we had to miss Heroes, and I wound up with a library fine because I couldn't renew a couple of DVDs on line before the library closed. On the plus side, I got to put off balancing the checkbook and paying bills for one more day (I had just gone on line to check recent activity...)

Instead, we lit all the candles and tried to keep S from blowing them out, we tracked down a battery for the book-light, so C could read, J destroyed our fondue pot making cocoa (with some non-regulation canned heat that was a little too hot), and everyone went to bed by candlelight too.

It was kinda cool, but it left me troubled anyway, because lately it seems that things stop working all around me...