The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth

Sebastian lost his 6th tooth on Friday.  He still hadn't left the 5th one he lost months ago for the tooth fairy yet, deciding instead to keep one for himself.  Now he had 2 teeth in two of the little tooth necklaces that come from school when your mouth starts falling apart there.

And for the first time, he questioned the magic.  "Maybe the tooth fairy doesn't really exist." When pressed, he wasn't sure where the money might come from or where the teeth might go.  Santa Claus made more sense than tooth fairies and Easter bunnies, he decided.  (Even though he claimed to have caught a glimpse of said bunny last Sunday.)  So I told him about what happened when I was his age and thought the same thing.

I decided to wait up for the fairy.  My tooth was in a film canister under my pillow, under my head, and there was no way she (or whoever was masquerading as the tooth fairy) was going to get past me.  I struggled to stay vigilant, and in the dark I checked to be sure I could hear the rattle of my little tooth in the plastic.  But it was full of coins!  And so I was convinced, for a little while longer anyway.  Sebastian pointed out that I may have dozed off briefly, but seemed to reconsider.

He didn't want to (or forgot) to leave his teeth for the fairy on Friday night, but remembered to do it last night.  After discovering the dollar he received last time still folded neatly inside his tooth pouch, he took his little calcified treasures upstairs to rest on the pillow next to his head.

Cue anxious whispering by his parents:  

"Do you have $2?"

"No!  Do you?"

"I think I have $1 in my wallet.  What should we do?"

"We'll just have to 'borrow' some from their wallets, I guess."

But then we went back to playing Mario and totally forgot.

This morning, more anxious whispering by me at 7:45am to my sleeping husband:

"Did you remember to be the tooth fairy?!"

Shit.  Now what?  The kids are up.  Sebastian has by now discovered that the tooth fairy has neglected to visit.  All wallets are downstairs with the children.  Panic! Panic!

Piggy banks!  Those are upstairs.  Who says the tooth fairy only brings bills?  She certainly didn't when I was a kid.  

Whose stupid idea was it anyway to have the kids take their change to the CoinStar machine?!  (Mine.)  The total from the 2 banks was a whopping $1.76.  There was another 15 cents on our dresser.  Jeremy told me to check his underwear drawer, but that only yielded his neckties, an "I heart Styx" button and some marbles.  (It's better not to ask.)

Now I had to sneak downstairs to get his wallet with the lonely bill, quietly put the excess change back in the banks, exchange the money for teeth and somehow not get caught.  Success!

Being the impatient person I am, when I returned downstairs some 45 minutes later I asked if the tooth fairy had come.  "She didn't," Sebastian sadly replied.  "She forgot."  

"That's not possible.  I have heard of her having trouble in bad weather, but not forgetting entirely.  Are you sure she didn't come?"

"Yes.  I checked when I woke up and my teeth were still there and there was no money."

"Hmm.  That's odd.  I wonder if she came and saw there were 2 teeth and had to go back for more money.  She probably was only expecting one tooth.  I'm sure she'll come."

"That's a good idea, Mom.  I did hold onto that other tooth for a long time."

Lo and behold, when he checked a few minutes later, the money was there... but short one dime.  Argh!  Will this nightmare never end?  I told him to check his bed and retrace his steps from his room to where the tooth pouch was now on the dining table, scrambled into the kitchen to get a dime from my wallet to throw on the floor next to the table and vowed not to worry about it when Jeremy wondered how I would explain it when Sebastian finds the original dime later.

My 'do is a don't

I just had to cut my hair because I was putting plastic over the window in the kitchen.

How on earth does that make sense? you may ask.

Well, let's just say that when I leaned forward to inspect the plastic to determine whether or not there was a hole in a crease (there was), my hair got sucked into the motor of the hair dryer I was using to shrink the plastic. I turned the dryer off, but not fast enough, and then had to cut my hair or spend my life with a hair dryer hanging off the side of my head.

Another glamorous day...

It's official!

I literally have yarn coming out of my ears. I was cleaning my ears after a shower and a scrap of sock yarn was embedded in my earwax.

Awesome.

I'm terrible with secrets

It is extremely difficult right now to do this blog since most of my life is spent doing things I can't show you or tell you about or I would risk ruining a surprise or 10. So I'll tell you a little All School Sing story instead.

This morning, we were singing the ridiculous song "Down by the Bay" which always makes me think of Raffi (not good) and this picture (terrible). If you don't know the song, there is a verse that always ends with a silly rhyming question like, "Did you ever see a moose kissing a goose... down by the bay?"

So the music teacher is roving the crowd where children had prepared silly questions for the song. We would sing the chorus and then he'd hand a kid the mic to say "Did you ever see a star driving a car?" etc. The last child he comes to is sitting on her mother's lap and halfway through her question, she clams up and covers her face. The teacher says "Take 2!" and indicates that we should sing the chorus again.

"Relax," he says. "You just have to say, 'Did you ever see a teacher kissing a creature?' Here we go."

"Did you ever see a preacher kissing a teacher?"

Perhaps a little more risque than he was going for.

Boo to that!

Friday night, I was almost finished with my sweater. I was so close I could taste it. Then I noticed a mistake and I ripped back 10 rows. I redid the ten rows and then I did 8 more, but something was nagging at me. The yarn, which is somewhat variegated, was doing a sort of stripe thing. But I thought it might not be that bad, which is why I knit 68 of the 92 rows.

And then I looked at it in the cold light of day and it was striped alright. No doubt about it. The only problem being that none of the rest of the sweater is striped. And I didn't set out to have a sweater with one striped sleeve. No, sir. And thus it was frogged. (When you rip it! rip it!) Almost 3 hours of knitting undone in about 30 seconds.

Lucky for me I had another skein and it seems to be working out much better. Maybe I'll even get to wear it tomorrow...

But I'm thinking I maybe need some more stripes in my life and I might need to make one of these, just in a different colorway. You know, because I didn't get enough yarn the other day. It's a miracle I make it out of that yarn store empty handed most weeks.

Roller coaster day

Today started with my being very ashamed of myself and feeling like a giant ass and is ending with my being very proud and having kind of a big head. So where are these extreme body parts coming from?

Well, yesterday I found out that one of the girls at Dorian's school has a sibling who was diagnosed with (gasp!) swine flu. So, this morning I was leaving the school after dropping Dorian off and on my way out the door, I ran into the mother of this little girl who has decided that since the little girl is not exhibiting any symptoms that she is going to bring her to school. Because I'm an insensitive moron, I greeted her with a lighthearted "Hey, plague-bringer!" Big surprise, this was not received well and she glared at me and said, "That was NOT okay for you to say!" Of course I apologized immediately and profusely, but she was not having any of it. It was a joke. A bad joke to be sure, but a joke nonetheless. I was not trying to be mean or judgmental. That's apparently how I sounded though, and I felt like shit all day.* I wrote her a very nice apology which she will not receive now until next Tuesday when the kids are back in school, but I have done my best to make amends.

Then, this afternoon I decided to stop by the yarn store to drop off the bowl I made but kept forgetting to bring in for a display. When I got there I asked if the owner had had a chance to review the pattern that I wrote for my striped arm warmers. She asked me to write one up using a new yarn we are carrying, so I finished one arm warmer on Sunday at work and typed up the pattern. And, she told me it was exactly what she wanted, and-- get this!-- someone already bought the yarn and got the pattern. My pattern! Someone is knitting my design.

See-- I'm not all bad.

*I felt like shit until I found out that not only did she bring the kid to school (which is questionable enough under the circumstances) but she also brought a snack that she cooked (pasta) and not something like crackers in a sealed package.

Putting the "mal" in malabrigo

Well, just as I was about to get to the part where I put the sleeve stitches on holders, I discovered that I had screwed up yet again and was going to have to start my sweater over from scratch for a fourth time. And therefore, this skein of yarn is cursed.

I will be starting with a new ball. And I will be understanding the directions a little better. And I will not be giving up. But it is pretty disheartening after two perfect sweaters for the boys for which I didn't even use a pattern to not even be able to follow one properly, or to follow it only to have it be wrong.

The first pattern I used was a formula that you plug your gauge into and it spits out a pattern supposedly tailor-made to your knitting. Well, after two goes at that pattern where it became obvious that nothing but a newborn's head would ever fit through the neck hole, I found a different pattern.

The second pattern is already at my gauge and had many glowing reviews on Ravelry. And it was free. But it is also very confusingly written and involves doing one thing while also doing two other things AT THE SAME TIME. Somehow I misunderstood one of the AT THE SAME TIMEs and didn't do it which left me with perfect sleeves but a chest measurement of about half what it was supposed to be. I am not that flat that I can wear a top that measures 17 inches around.

So, I'll be casting back on later with a new ball of yarn. But maybe I should just focus on clue #2 for the mystery socks.

I need a little more practice with this whole no kids thing

The boys started school today in pants that are too long and with backpacks that are too big. But they were happy and excited. And so was I. Four whole hours to myself on a weekday?! Turns out I don't really know what to do with myself in such a situation.

Allegra and I drove downtown together to meet Amanda, and that's when we found out that the cafe was closed for renovations. So we went to a different cafe and I called Christine and Rosemary who didn't get the message in time, so we never hooked up with them. Long story short: we quickly ran out of things to do. I did find some jeans at the consignment store, but mostly Allegra and I would poke around and then look at each other pathetically and wonder what to do next.

But that's okay. It was our first time and we have a whole year to figure this out. Besides, I don't think I'd have the same problem at home with my endless to-do list. I just obviously cannot be out in the real world alone for that long.

Another school year begins...

And it is abundantly clear that I learned absolutely nothing last year. In the space of a half hour "Meet and Greet" I have embroiled myself in doing the healthy snack again and upping my puppet show quotient from 4 to 8. That is on top of the treasurer duties which keep piling up and doesn't include whatever chore I will be assigned by Dorian's cooperative preschool. And I decided to take a job in addition to this?!

I never should have disappointed Cortney in this way

She said she'd never have a friend who belonged to the PTA, and even though she promised me we'd still be friends even though I allowed myself to become treasurer of the organization, I know a little part of her love for me died that day. As well it should have, since I was clearly demonstrating that I was a person with no sense, totally blind to reason.

The two hour meeting the other night actually lasted 2 and a half hours and would have gone longer had I not announced that it must have been after 9 at that point and discussions were devolving into committee level detail. A vodka cranberry later, I was on the verge of quitting. However, I did make a commitment and I don't like to be a quitter, so the only solution that I could see was to air my grievances to the rest of the board.

This resulted in a shit storm of approximately 10 million emails back and forth-- some defensive, some productive, all tiresome (including mine). And now we get to have another meeting immediately before the meeting that we are scheduled, according to the bylaws, to have a meeting immediately after.

All of this just makes me realize that I should just be doing what I enjoy and actually impacts the students, like puppet shows about snowflakes, and not what makes me frustrated, like sitting through seemingly endless meetings about fundraising which was the part I thought we should be spending less time on, not more.

Why didn't I focus more on clinging to a friend 3000 miles away instead of my misguided do-goodery? Because I am a fool.

It's finally summer...

It is hot. So hot that even though I am feeling excessively lazy and a smidgen burnt out on sand these days, I got everything together to take the kids to the lake. Well, everything except Dorian's sandwich which I managed to leave on the counter instead of bringing for his lunch. You can imagine how disappointed he was that I was forced to buy him a hot dog.

I even got in the water pretty much first thing instead of postponing because (not enough sun/too windy/needed a Dr. Pepper first/too lazy). But after each child had his respective breakdown (lost plastic man/slipped underwater), it was clearly time to return home.

Now I just get to stew until it's time to go to a fucking midsummer PTA meeting from 7-9pm. Why, oh why, did I get myself into this?

A little perspective

You know how the farther away something is, the smaller it looks? Well, today I learned that goes for distances as well as objects. That raft I wanted to swim to, it sure didn't look like it was too far past the last set of ropes that cordon off the swimming area.

And then I decided to swim out there today. And it was totally one of those scenarios where you start to believe that the thing you are trying to reach is actually moving farther away even though it hasn't moved an inch. Couple that with my narrow escape from a panic attack and I was quite out of breath when I finally pulled myself up the ladder and flopped onto the raft.

You see, my water terror all started about 10 years ago. My brother's girlfriend at the time was working at a small aquarium on Chincoteague island (home of the wild ponies). Now, the Atlantic Ocean is pretty murky in those parts, but having swum there my whole life, it never occurred to me to be concerned. Not until I went into that aquarium which was stocked entirely with animals caught close to shore. Animals like seahorses (not scary) and rays (creepy) and sharks (small ones but scary anyway) among other things. I started that trip with the visit to the aquarium and ended it without going into the ocean past my waist for fear of being eaten alive or paralyzed or whisked off to some slimy, oxygen-free lair.

And then a couple of years later, Jeremy and I moved to Vermont, just down the road from a popular swimming hole at a disused quarry. Swimming there did not bother me, even though the water was pitch black and, as far as I knew, bottomless. It didn't bother me until the day that Jeremy and I began joking about releasing a fresh water giant squid* into the quarry. And despite the fact that this was a completely stupid idea that was a joke, when I got in and was pretty much smack dab in the middle of the water, I completely panicked and might have died. I couldn't touch anywhere (bottomless pit) and swam for the wrong side which was a slimy rock wall, impossible to climb without suction cup feet. I kept trying to tell myself that there was no squid, but became tortured by a story my brother told me about the northern pike, a fish he claimed to have seen swallow a duck whole. That story is probably a lie, but if it were true, a pike could certainly make short work of one of my feet, and that possibility was absolutely horrifying. Obviously, I lived to tell the tale and still have both of my feet, but things were pretty dicey there for a while.

I just can't swim where the bottom is black or murky or I lose my mind. Also, I am totally out of shape, which becomes quite worrisome when I am entirely out of my depth and the nearest lifeguard is a football field away and probably not paying any attention to me, which only leads to more panic when I realize that if my crazy squid theories are true, I would never be able to out-swim one. But, as we all know, the only thing I need saving from is myself.

*I don't think these exist, and if they do, please don't tell me about it.

Gimme a break

Give me a break and you know what I'll do with it? Waste it.

This morning Dorian went off to camp and Sebastian went to a friend's house for the morning which left me with 2 and a half solid hours of alone time. Time when I should have been giving myself a pedicure while watching crappy TV. Or reading a mystery novel and eating chocolates. Or just enjoying the silence.

Except that is not at all what happened. I said goodbye to the boys, and I vacuumed. Then I balanced the checkbook and paid some bills and filled out some forms. Then I realized what I was doing and squeezed in 20 minutes of stupid TV and 4 rows of the sweater. Then I realized I would not be able to go straight to the lake after picking up the boys if I didn't hurry up and make lunch and pack the suits and towels. So I started dinner (you know I always need to add at least one unnecessary task to the load), got the lunch and stuff together and had a quick conversation with our house painter and hit the road.

Chore time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Me time: 20 minutes

I'm a fool.

Smells like my birthday (one day early)

I was already psyched for today because Dustin and Rob are coming over for pizza and cake and RockBand. (I am, of course, disappointed that Cortney and Quinnie can't be here, but I'm not going to let it interfere with the rawk.)

Then I call Jeremy and he asks if I can bring the kids by to visit today. Why? I wondered. Well, his coworkers found out it was my birthday tomorrow, so they got me cake. Awesome, right? Two cakes in one day = sugared up Hott Mama. So, I put Dorian in the car and we headed over. (I did not want to wait for Sebastian to get off the bus. He doesn't even like cake anyway.)

After Dorian starts devouring my cake, they asked me how old I would be this year. I tell them 33, to which they reply that they would have guessed 25. (Clearly, my Delia's top was distracting from the gray hair that has recently been flourishing on my head.) And here's where instead of cake, I decided to put my foot in my mouth. "If I were 25, that would have made me a 19 year old mom... [realize 2 of the women I'm talking to were teen mothers] and I don't think I could have handled that." Um, whoops! So I tried to cover it up with, "but if only I'd started then, the kids would be out of the house when I was 40." Go ahead, girl, keep diggin' that hole...

At that point, I thanked them again for the cake and stuffed my face with it to prevent any further embarrassment to myself or others.

A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again... at least until next year

The Flapdoodlers had their annual "Running of the Bulls" party in honor of their 2 Tauruses, Flapman and Little Miss Flap. This party involves drinking the strongest margaritas ever and then running up their dead end street into the woods and back for a total of a half mile.

Myopic bookworm that I am, I am not made for running. Hell, I'm no good at track and field video games. It is not my sport.

It should be no surprise that I came in last. And I mean dead last. As in "I almost died" last.

I could blame the margarita, or the maker of the margarita, but the full responsibility lies with the drinker of the margarita who had the awesome foresight to wear her low rise pants which are perpetually falling down and a pair of Chucks. I was somehow completely unprepared for the fact that the other people were going to be wearing running shorts and running shoes and, you know, run for fun and stuff.

Well, there's always next year (when I will be sitting on the sidelines with my margarita cheering everyone else on).

Just in case you're wondering...

...why I talked about doing fun stuff with my brother, but then the only picture on the boys' blog was of hanging out on the couch and the only picture on my blog was of me and a daiquiri, then you should go look over here at the pictures he took.

...how our fence looks, check it out:

(Yes, it is going straight through the quince bush.) (And yes, the kids like to climb on it as much as you imagine.)

...who did most of the interior decorating in this house, I have a new theory. Ed Gein. I noticed the affinity for peachy beige some time ago, but the dining room takes the cake. We started stripping the wallpaper, because there is no better time to use a wallpaper steamer than during a heat wave, and under the sallow plaid upper layer were several other layers in varying flesh tones. Your average drugstore make-up department has less skin colors than this place. Witness:

...what is more disgusting than the crusty scab covering Sebastian's nostrils after his week of noseblowing, you'll love this one. I went down cellar to turn on the outside water so the kids could run in the sprinkler, and I made a gruesome discovery. There was approximately 2 inches of water on the floor and it didn't smell good. So I asked Jeremy to flush the toilet so I could see what happened. I almost wish I hadn't. The waste water from the house is draining right into the basement. At least it should be covered by our home warranty.

Where should I start?

Should I start with the other day when I had this conversation?

Dorian: "Oshimashion" is a word.

Me: No, but "oscillation" is.

D: "Cock" is a word.

Or perhaps with the good one about the computer that was so infected that while I was running the anti-virus software, the list of infected files was scrolling past and featured the anti-virus software as having a virus.

Or maybe you'd like to hear about how on Monday, I was driving home from the car dealership where I had the car serviced (thankfully, the warranty covered it), and as I approached our house I saw a man asleep on the lawn. Before I could even think that perhaps a fence might have prevented this, I realized there were three men asleep on my lawn. But then, I realized that my fence was halfway up, and the men were my fence men, and they were spending their lunch break basking in the glory of a sunny spring day. And I have my fence! And it is twice as awesome as I hoped.

But what you really want to read about is probably my trip to the river yesterday with my boys and 8 year old Flapdoodle, Jr. I had planned on some rock-throwing and some bug-catching, but Junior had other plans. He proudly announced that he had jumped off the big rock into the swimming hole many times last summer, and then he decided he would like to do it again yesterday. It was sunny and about 60 degrees, which outside of VT is not exactly swimmin' weather. I informed Junior that the water was wicked cold and that it was not really a good idea to swim in. He dips a finger in to test it, remaining firm in his conviction. He needed to jump in that river. I know why he did. That water was so clear and so green, it was begging to be swum in.

I told him that if he really wanted to do it, he would have to take his clothes off, because I did not have dry clothing for him to change into. He spent a moment deliberating whether it was worth risking the embarrassment of being naked in front of his friends and their mom, told Dorian to look away, and started undressing. And then, he plunged in.

His mother had recently told me he would be joining the swim team this summer, and he was proud of his experience jumping off this rock last year. It quickly became apparent, though, that jumping into all that fresh snow melt was a bit too much for him. He surfaced, spluttering and clawing at the water. I leaned over the edge of the rock, grabbed his wrists, and pulled him out, giving him a nice scrape souvenir. After depositing his shivering body on the warmest rock I could find, I ran across the rocky beach to get him a towel. He quickly recovered, dressing again while my children disrobed and getting back to the business of exploring. But every few minutes I would hear "Allison, do you remember when I jumped in and it was so cold?" or "Allison, it was so cold, I think my organs could have shut down." Thank goodness they didn't. Especially since Flapdoodle, who only cares about disco and worrying, shrieked something about how "he doesn't know how to swim!" and something else about him being too chicken to jump off that rock last year.

Yesterday afternoon

Sebastian: I'd really like to go for a bike ride this afternoon.

Me: [totally psyched that this is now even an option, (Spring!) but thinking about the pizza dough rising in the kitchen] Umm... let me think. I'm making pizza... let me see what time it is...

S: Ooo! I have an idea! Oh, no... I guess that wouldn't work.

M: Tell me what it is and then we can see what would work about it. That's how we can compromise.

S: No. I just think it wouldn't work.

M: Just tell me!

S: Well, I was thinking that you could just go ahead and make dinner and I could go for a ride by myself.

We do not even let him walk home from the bus stop alone, and he wants to ride his bike alone. In the street. The same bike that he has to be constantly reminded to ride on the side and not in the middle of the road.

M: You're right. That will not be happening. But I just remembered that Daddy will be a little late, so if I go punch down the dough now, we have time for a ride.

S: Yay!

M: This will give you another chance to practice the rules of riding your bike, so one day you can ride alone.

I punch down the dough, haul out the bike and helmet and Dorian's trike, and off we go. Multiple reminders to move over and we have made it around the neighborhood with 2 blocks left until we are home. Dorian and I are lagging behind. Sebastian approaches the "busy" cross street, looks both ways, and crosses without waiting for us.

Yeah, he will not be riding alone any time soon. At least he got the "look both ways" part right.

Mind blown twice, VT woman struggles to recover

So, you know we are now the proud owners of RockBand2 and as such spend a lot of time playing the same songs over and over. Awesome songs they are and most of them fun to sing.

Having the lyrics written out has been an enlightening experience. I have learned that:

• "Come out and play (Keep 'em separated)" is about gang warfare.
• "Pretend that we're dead" is about not letting capitalist pigs walk all over you (or something).
• some songs are just gibberish.
• "Aqualung" is about a dirty old man.
• there is a reason why those old Time/Life commercials only played certain, brief portions of the songs in their collections. (See: Aqualung which only had the line "Sitting on a park bench")

But none of those things blew my mind. No, it was my husband disabusing me of the notion that 2 of the songs were sung by women. First, it was "Lazy Eye" by the Silversun Pickups. "That is not a man!" I said repeatedly. I absolutely flat out refused to believe him, mystical turtle that he is and possessor of far more music knowledge than I will ever have. "Look them up," he says. So, I did an image search and pronounced indignantly, "See! There's a girl! She must sing this. She must." Well, not quite:

So, I clearly lost on that one, although when I watch him sing, it still seems wrong with a capital R.

Next came that old classic "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac. This song was made for me in this game.* Guaranteed 100% every time. Or at least 99%. Either way, I was sure it must be Stevie Nicks singing. Wrong-o:

Obviously, Lindsay Buckingham singing about Stevie Nicks. Whoops. What do I know? Only that I sing like a man, I guess. A very effeminate man.

* "My Own Worst Enemy" and "Eye of the Tiger" are also tailored to my abilities. Some of the others, not so much.

Winter Carnage-ival

Today we headed over to the park for our town's Winter Carnival. It would be our first time having Sugar on Snow, a Vt tradition I have wanted to try for some time, but have missed out on due to intense dislike of crowds. I forgot my camera, so imagine this:

A big bowl full of snow, snow which I had to try to forget is made of space dust*, a Styrofoam cup full of hot maple syrup, a plain doughnut, and a dill pickle spear. Stick with me. It will make sense in a minute. You bring your pile of seemingly random foodstuffs to a table, ignore the fact that your toes are freezing and that holding a plastic fork while wearing insulated gloves is almost impossible, and get set up. The plan is to pour some of your syrup on the snow. This syrup has been boiling or a while, so when it hits the snow, most of it turns into a taffy-like goo. This you scoop up with your fork and eat while trying not to let the wind whip your hair into your mouth. (I failed at this and have the sticky hair to prove it.) You alternate bites of maple-y snow with bites of doughnut and pickle. The pickle part seems totally ridiculous until you try it. Trust me, it makes both the syrup and the pickle taste even better than normal.

So that was an exciting sugar rush, after which we did a little sledding while waiting for the candy chase and the sky divers. What else would you top off a bowl of sugar coated snow with but candy? My brother-in-law can attest to the sheer insanity of a bunch of bundled up children chasing after candy that is practically frozen into the snow. He was lucky enough to attend the Easter version of this 2 years ago. On the word "go" the kids tore off after bags of Tootsie Rolls, one girl even leaving a boot behind in the mad rush.

Then came the big excitement. A large red "X" was laid out in the outfield of the softball diamond while the snow blind multitudes scanned the sky for the plane bearing 2 skydivers. Jeremy decides to wonder aloud about how terrible it would be if one of their parachutes didn't open. I said, "That's why they always have a backup." He presses on about what would happen if they both failed. The plane drops the warning flag, which sails slowly toward the highway, well off course from the softball field. It's a windy day, they obviously need to test where to jump, much murmuring in the crowd.

The plane makes a second pass and the first guy jumps out somewhere over the pool where he should be blown back to the field. Shortly thereafter, the second guy jumps. Oohs and aahs. Suddenly, everyone realizes that the first jumper is heading toward the road very fast. He pulls a cord and the parachute dips quickly, and he is caught in a tree. A collective gasp. Sebastian starts running across the field with many of the onlookers. I have to chase him down. The second guy lands to minimal fanfare exactly on the X.

A full 45 minutes later, with 3 police cars, an ambulance, 2 ladder trucks from the fire department and a cherry picker, and they still didn't have the guy down yet. When we left, he was standing on a transformer on a telephone pole.

Christine and I both blamed Jeremy for thinking about there being a tragedy, but he refuses to take responsibility.

* It's true. When I did my snowflake nature program for the kids, I learned that every snowflake starts with a piece of dust, whether it's dirt or volcanic ash or dust from outer space. Also, the largest snowflake ever recorded was 15 inches across! You'd only need a couple of those for sugar on snow.