Niagara Falls

Well, that was our last night in and around Toronto. There was one last stop to make before heading home, however.

We packed up and checked out of the hotel, and then drew up our plans to head out to Niagara Falls.

It wasn't very far away...about an hour and 20 minute drive. It was pleasant enough...the only thing we didn't have time to do was visit the wineries and see if we could find something we like.

Our map only took us so far, since was a pretty wide-view map, so we had to rely on signage for the rest of the way in. (Oh, come on. There's GOTTA be a lot of signs for Niagara Falls!)

We did pretty well...they lead you into town and as you come down the main street there's a gorgeous view of The Falls from the car. You can see the mist rising up from the area well before you see The Falls themselves. Even though this was the end of September, the place was still packed. We looked for parking, but had a terrible time finding any. Finally we found some sponsored by the Parks Department, but it was so very far away from The Falls that we had to take a shuttle back to the main attraction. The parking was also half the price of everything else that we'd found.

David was less than thrilled...for the last couple of weeks we've had him pretty hyped up to see Niagara Falls. (His talking globe helped on that point.) Then he started to think of how big it really is and how he'd really be going and now he felt scared of it and didn't want to go. Umm....too bad! Mom and Dad really want to see it, so....I think you're stuck, kiddo.

We got off the bus and walked to The Falls area...they have it pretty well sanitized, meaning that there are carefully paved paths with fairly high railings surrounding them, a good and safe distance from The Falls, and some well-groomed parks lining the other side. Niagara Falls wasn't as loud as I thought it would be...for a waterfall that dumps more than 1 million bathtubs full of water over the edge each minute, it sounded strangely quiet, looking at it from the top. (The path is probably 30-40 feet away from the falls, and six feet above.)

We do, of course, have pictures. (Scroll past the castle photos) It's a very pretty place...I also have a short movie of the Falls on the Movies page.

We'd looked at the website and found out that the Maid of the Mist tours were actually very reasonable...for about the price of one ticket to the top of the CN Tower, all four of us could taket he boat down to the foot of The Falls. Um....deal!

David REALLY didn't like this idea, but again, since we both wanted to do it, he was stuck. Lauren was totally ready for it. In fact, when I told her that some people had gone over the falls in a barrel, her eyes opened wide and she said, "COOL!" (Uh-oh.)

We had about a 15 minute walk to take, so we tried to pick our way through the crowds, and find empty pieces of fence here and there to see The Falls and take a picture. We finally made it to the boat area, got our tickets, and stood in a huge line. Still, it moved pretty quickly, and we were ushered into an elevator which went down to the level of the base pool, and we headed over to the dock area. On the way out the door of the "terminal" and towards the dock there was a girl standing there, passing out blue rain ponchos. Lauren got her own tiny poncho, whereas David was tall enough to wear an adult one. There were some huge tracks in the grass leading to the water and David said, "Why are there railroad tracks going into the water?"
"That's a ramp for the boats to be launched into the water at the beginning of the season, and taken out again when winter comes."
"Oh."
We watched a boat come in (one of "The Maids," as they call them) and soon it was our turn to board. Some of these boats can take 300 people at a time, so there was a quite a mass of people, and a bit of a mad rush to get the "good" places on the boat. There are no chairs....you simply stand along the edges (if you're lucky) for a view. We headed to the top of the boat and couldn't find a single open space, so we went back downstairs again. I spotted an elevated pipe near the side, and lifted Lauren up onto the pipe (standing) so she could actually see something, and stood behind her with both my arms around her. Doug found a spot next to me, and David stood and sulked.

The boat ride was about 30 minutes. It headed out into the water and they started telling stories about The Falls. The first person to go over the Falls was recorded to be a 43 year old schoolteacher named Annie Taylor , but who was really 63 years old. She expected to make big bucks touring and lecturing after the stunt, but her fame and fortune never materialized. There was also a 7 year-old boy named Roger who accidentally went over the falls in a bathing suit and a life jacket in the 1960s and was virtually unhurt...it was one of the Maids of the Mist who found him and took him on board. They were calling it the "Miracle at Niagara."

We saw some other people going on a tour BEHIND The Falls on the American side...a lot of the rocks at the base of the Falls was from some rock slides in the 30s and 50s.

Lots of seagulls were bobbing around in the water, and we saw one heron out there as well.

The Falls are 180 feet high, but the water underneath is even deeper. As we got closer to the Falls on the boat, the mist got heavier and heavier...my glasses were coated with water droplets and I had to look over the tops of them in order to see anything at all. Lauren turned her head and looked at me in surprise and then smiled. The announcer on the boat gave a few more narrations about the Falls and then, when it got loud enough that you would start having trouble hearing him, he says, "Ladies and Gentlemen....THIS....is Niagara Falls!" and they swing the boat around so that it's headed straight into the horseshoe, so all the passengers are facing the Falls. We were all getting completely soaked by the spray, and you could see a rainbow from end to end, and the sound of the water filled your ears whil the droplets fell off every surface of the boat and dripped into your eyes from your hair. I gripped Lauren's slippy poncho and leaned over close to her ear. "So when you hear Niagara Falls, think of this."

David didn't care much for it, but the rest of us had a great time! Someone on the boat asked Lauren how old she was and she said, "Three and three-quarters!" The woman blinked and said, "Well, I've never heard THAT answer!"

It was starting to get late by the time we got back...my feet were hurting quite a bit since I'd worn sandals. (It's not as stupid as you might think. I wore them because I figured I'd get wet. I didn't want my tennis shoes to get wet because it would be days before they dried out again and I wanted them for later, so I thought sandals were the best route. It was still a mistake.)

We needed to make it back to the shuttle bus by 6 p.m., or we'd end up walking back. What with having the kids in tow, I didn't think we'd make it. "Tell you what," said Doug. "You guys browse the gift shop, do whatever, and I'll go back and catch the shuttle myself. I'll be much quicker on my own, and then I'll pull the van up to where the bus parked and pick you guys up." That sounded like one of the best ideas I'd heard in a long time, so Doug stuffed the last remaining Canadian dollars into my hand and zipped away.

We did look around the gift shop, but nothing particularly stuck me. We headed back to meet dad, took a few photos and videos along the way, and ended up getting soaked by the mist again. I had to dry off my glasses before I could spot Doug.

We all piled into the van and then drove BACK to the parking area because it was in the middle of a park. It was dinnertime, so we broke out the cooler and made sandwiches. We ate dinner at a picnic table, and the kids were thrilled when more seagulls showed up. Naturally, they just HAD to feed the seagulls. (Video)

Eventually it DID get dark and it was time to go. They were doing some construction and the traffic was horrendous. They cut off all kinds of exits and there didn't seem to be any signage, and we ended up driving all the way to Toronto (!) before we could get to the highway combination we were after.

Another 14 hours in the car put us back in town...Doug was feeling very, very late, so he drove directly to work and I took the kids home from there. Of course it meant that I had to come and get him later that evening, but hey.

It was too late for me to get to class, so I ended up skipping it. (They automatically fail you after three absences, but as I pointed out to the prof, he's not going to get rid of me that easily, and besides...it's not like I'm there for the grade.

I got the car completely unpacked (this is a major feat, I get 1,000 bonus points, IMO) and filled up two boxes of stuff for the kids to put away, and then went back to pick up Doug.

I had just enough time to get him home and then had to head off for my LLL meeting, which I wasn't going to have anyway, but I got a call from a rather desperate mom whom I agreed to meet, and another one showed up anyway.

Unfortunately, we were locked out of the office we were supposed to meet at, and all of us ended up sitting on the sidewalk instead. (I offered to move it wherever they liked, but there were no suggestions. I'm not exactly mad at the office, but I AM determined to move the meeting now. I need more control than this.)

Castles in Canada

OK, I admit it, we slept in pretty hard.

I was the one reluctant to get out of bed this time (yawn!), so we got a very late start on things. Because of the late start, I didn't get to the grocery store...which means we ended up at the Golden Griddle (oooh, great name, eh?) for breakfast. Apparently the kids are going through a growth spurt, because they ate every last thing and then asked for more, which is quite unusual.

After breakfast/lunch we headed to Casa Loma, which is a castle in Toronto which was built early in the 1900s by Henry Pellatt.

Sir Henry was a business visionary. In the same year that Thomas Edison developed steam-generated electricity, Sir Henry realized that supplying electricity could be extremely profitable. He founded the Toronto Electric Light Company in 1883. By the time he was thirty, the Toronto Electric Light Company enjoyed a monopoly on the supply of street lighting to the city.

In 1892 his father retired, enabling Sir Henry to invest with more risk. Despite vigorous discouragement from his friends he purchased stock in the Canadian Pacific Railroad and in the North West Land Company. As with steam-generated electricity, his intuition was right on target. A liberal immigration policy led to opening of the Canadian west which led to healthy profits from his investments in both the Canadian Pacific Railroad and in the North West Land Company.

By 1901, Sir Henry was chairman of 21 companies with interests in mining, insurance, land and electricity. In 1902, he and his partners won the rights to build the first Canadian hydro-generating plant at Niagara Falls. He was knighted in 1905 for his military service with the Queen's Own Rifles.

Pellatt's Midas touch continued through most of his business life. In 1911, armed with a fortune of $17 million, Pellatt drew up plans to build his dream castle with Canadian architect E. J. Lennox. The land on which he planned to build had been given a name by its previous owner: "house on the hill" or Casa Loma.

Casa Loma took three years and $3.5 million to build. Sir Henry filled Casa Loma with artwork from Canada and around the world. Casa Loma stood as a monument to its creator - it surpassed any other private home in North America. With its soaring battlements and secret passageways, it paid homage to the castles and knights of days gone by.

Sir Henry's numerous business and military connections demanded entertaining on a large scale. Casa Loma's romantic borrowing from the past, tempered by necessary modern day conveniences, provided the perfect setting. In the height of their years at the Castle, the planning of such a busy social calendar consumed much of Lady Pellatt's time.

Unfortunately, Sir Henry's fortunes could not sustain the magic that was Casa Loma. To finance expansion, Pellatt and Pellatt went further and further into debt. The one sure source of income from the monopoly of electrical power vanished when political decisions allowed for public ownership of electricity. In a futile attempt to restore his wealth, Sir Henry turned to land speculation. He was convinced that well-to-do Torontonians would rush to build homes around his castle.

However, in this case his entrepreneurial sense did not take into account the effects of World War I; during the war Canadians put their money into war bonds, not homes. After the war the economy slumped, tilting Pellatt and Pellatt into bankruptcy. The company owed the Home Bank of Canada $1.7 million - or in today's terms $20 million. With his stock worthless and his business debts out of control, Sir Henry was faced with a heartbreaking decision - a decision which he would always claim was made for him by the City's immovable tax assessors. Faced with an extraordinary tax bill, Sir Henry had no choice but to auction off his prized possessions for a fraction of their worth and to abandon his dream of a noble castle.

The Pellatts moved to their farm in King township in 1924. Lady Pellatt, weakened by the strain of the move and the financial difficulties, passed away later that year at the age of sixty-seven.

We toured most of the castle, including climbing the spiral staircase in the highest turret. (Pant, pant, pant) We also went out to the gardens to see what they had there. (See our picture here.)

We had to get Doug back in time to change into his suit and for me to drive him to the wedding, so we left Casa Loma and headed back. After I got him dropped off, I decided to fill up the car. It's amazing how much we rely on the familiar...I didn't even know which names to look for on the highway in order to find a gas station. The only obvious one I'd seen is PetrolCanada, but I didn't see any of those so far. They also don't have little signs on the highway that tell you what services are available at the at exit, so I played it somewhat safe by sticking close to the hotel area. Eventually I ended up at Esso. Their petrol was priced at 95 cents per litre ?!?!? Oh, hell. How many litres in a gallon? Around four? I decided to give them about $50 and call it good, however that ended up buying would be it. That turned out to be about 3/4 of a tank. Seems like everything out here is 25-30% more expensive. I dont' know if that's because it's in Canada, or because it's a major metropolitan area. (California costs a great deal more than suburban Missouri, too.)

I took the kids back to the hotel and we went swimming...they had a heated, indoor pool. I'd brought their lifesaver-type rings and at first we had the pool entirely to ourselves, which was quite nice. We had a good time paddling around for about an hour, and then a mom with two other little kids came in. This prompts my two to want to shed their floating gear and start to show off. That makes David get in water too deep for him almost immediately, and he freaks and tries to drown himself. Somehow I won't let him do that. After only a few minutes more, a herd of about 10-15 teenaged girls comes busting through the door, running, yelling, screaming, and they leap into the pool and splash all the little kids. Without so much as a glance around, they all starting hauling themselves out of the pool and doing cannonballs back in. Lauren is extremely upset because I had them follow the posted rules and take a shower before they got into the pool. She knows perfectly well that these others weren't following the rules and she's mad about it. "But Mom, they didn't even take a SHOWER!" she shouts indignantly as she's getting splashed and David covers his ears. An older woman meanders into the pool area and sits down, looking serenely and with great tenderness at the pack of airheads invading the pool. She's obviously supposed to be the chaperone, which in her book means following about 20 steps behind and simply keeping a nose count, not order.

Since they can really no longer swim, I ask the kids if they want to try the hot swimming pool. They say sure. Lauren hates it (way too hot) and David takes a few seconds to get used to it and then loves the hot water. Lauren is still greatly discontented, however, and decides to go swimming without me. She tosses her floating ring into the deep end of the pool and decides the best thing to do is jump into the pool and try to hit the ring like a target. Strangely, I'm not hip on this idea, so I come rocketing over to snatch her up before she makes her daredevil jump. While I'm trying to negotiate her out of the idea ("But Mom!"), about half of The Swarm swirls up out of the big pool and clamors into the hot tub, and bursts into song at the top of their lungs, "...And they will know we are Christians by our love, BY OUR LOVE!"

Ah. I might have known.

A Youth Group.

I have never known a church Youth Group which was not loud and overtly obnoxious. I knew a few members of such things which I was in Jr. High school, and they didn't impress me as particularly pious or even nice people. In fact, one of the nicest girls I knew was younger than I, deeply Christian (carried around a Bible), and she never screamed and hollered to pronounce her faith. She simply exemplified what most Christians are taught...she was modest and always on the lookout to be kind and/or lend a hand. The Youth Group folks, on the other hand, were prone to standing on the bus seats and screaming at each other down the aisle, and apparently (from their public banter, at least), many of them had used their Youth Group outings (camping especially) to procure their first sexual experiences. This didn't sound like a church-sanctioned activity to me, but it seemed pretty common.

It seemed pretty much time to go (and I noticed the Chaperone had left), so I lured David out of the hot tub with the promise of dinner, and took both kids into the bathroom to get dried and dressed. We listened to The Swarm continue their "song..." always the same exact 13 words, always shouted as loudly as possible in the reverberating pool area, always followed by self-congratulatory giggles.

While we were getting dressed, they all came dashing into the dressing room (what? are you freaking following me?!?) seeking the sauna. The found it, cranked the dial, and disappeared inside. Well, at least they were quieter in there, despite the fact that they were still shouting their idiotic hymn. Along comes the chaperone. She discovers the Swarm. She leaves. She comes back with a camera.
"Do you all want to be in the picture?"
"YES! YES!"
"Ok, scoot close together....say 'cheese'!"
"Cheeeese!"
"PENIS!!"

I momentarily close my eyes and then open them and continue to brush my hair. Well, it's not a foreign word, anyway. Not like I have to explain what it means. Hell, they've gotten the Birds and Bees talk.
(Parents of little kids: try the book It's Not The Stork. It's written by a couple of doctors and family therapists and covers everything from "Boys and Girls are Different" to sex and pregnancy, through what constitutes a family (and the diversity thereof) up through appropriate/inappropriate touching and even aging. Speaking of inappropriate touching, some of those "stranger danger" topics are covered nicely by the video Stranger Safety by The Safe Side. That one is produced by Julie Clark (Baby Einstein) and John Walsh (America's Most Wanted host, whose six-year-old son disappeared from a mall and whose head was discovered days later in a ditch somewhere). So while it talks about kidnapping and such, it does so in a way that's not very scary, and that gives the kids some actions to take to AVOID the situation, and how to get out of it if they find themselves actually IN it. We checked it out from the library and my two wanted to watch it over and over again.)

I wondered how the chaperone was going to handle the fact that her precious brood had just shouted "penis" in the presence of my six year old and three year old. She turned to David and said, "Those girls are crazy, aren't they?" He nodded, and then the chaperone looked at me and said, "They don't get out much," and left.

Oh sigh.

We went back upstairs and hung up our suits, and then went out to dinner. I also found an ice cream shop to help make up for the fact that we had to leave the pool early, and hit the grocery store that was right next door. Oddly enough, there was very little variety at the store...it also seemed kind of warehouse-ish, on the dirty side, and not particularly the best area of town. I was also lucky to have brought along a backpack...there wasn't a plastic or paper bag to be had in the whole place. Whether this was a function of resource conservation or a means of keeping costs down, I have no idea.

We got back fairly late and I put the kids to bed and started working on the computer for awhile. Doug called around 1 a.m. needing a ride back to the hotel from the wedding...so I was pretty angst-ridden at leaving the kids by themselves. But they were pretty soundly asleep, so after thinking a bit, I wrote a note and left it for the kids. The front told them that if Mom and Dad are gone, to take the note to the front desk. The back was for the front desk, noting that neither parent had returned and asking them to notify authorities and contact the listed guardian ASAP.

I rather enjoyed tearing the note up when we got back.

Touring Toronto

Morning came far too early....7:30 is when I set the alarm (Doug insisted on a early start, which is laugh), and I got up and took a shower. The showerhead is weird, and seems to only point towards the wall. ?!?!

I asked Doug if he wanted me to start looking up websites for the various attractions in downtown Toronto, and he insisted that it would easier to just go downstairs and ask the hotel staff for information. Ok, fine. I flipped through a couple of magazines (hello? I thought we were getting an early start?), and finally turned on the television. There are at least two stations which are broadcast entirely in French. It's disconcerting to be looking at a T.V. and not have the slightest clue what anyone is saying.

One of those stations was running kids' shows. I left that on and waited. Lauren was the first one to respond to the T.V. being on. She blinked at the screen for a bit and laughed at a couple of things. While she was doing that, I ran a warm bath for her, so after the show I tossed her into the tub and scrubbed Lake Huron off of her.

David took forever to wake up, and wasn't keen on the whole idea of getting a bath, either. I scrubbed HIM down and washed his hair and by that time Doug was getting up. (I'm starting to see what "early start" means. It means MOM gets an "early start.") I had him get the kids out of the bath while I put on shoes, and then I dried everyone's hair. (What fun!) The bathroom was now officially a disaster. No WONDER my house looks so awful, I have three people who don't do a THING to pick up after themselves. Ick! You could also now barely walk through the room, so I set out the kids' clothes for them to get dressed and I started unpacking my stuff into drawers, and putting lots of stuff into the closet. That helped a great deal. I noticed that Doug was looking up the various downtown attractions via the laptop. We were all ready to go by this point, but he wasn't. We waited and waited. Finally I snapped something about waiting around while he was getting a map and he says, "Look, I can't do this all myself, you know. I need help." My first instinct was to throttle him, but instead I asked through gritted teeth, "OK, fine. What kind of help do you want?"
"Well," he says, "I need to get all that stuff out of the cooler in the car, for one."
"Good! Great! Go! Get out! Do it NOW!" (I'd been hearing about this grand adventure since the night before, but I notice he never actually stepped forward and DID it.) I packed a backpack with last-minute items (maps, an area magazine, a camera, our documentation) and by the time Doug got back with the ever-loving cooler, we were ready to go.

He had pretty good directions to the CN Tower, but we still ended up slightly lost. We mapped out a new route, and while trying to figure out exactly how fast 100 km/hr is (the posted speed limit) and where the exit for Queen's Quay might be, I said, "I need to tell you, I'm really mad at you."
"Why?"
"Because. This morning you told me NOT to look up info on the attractions online, you simply forbade me to do it, because it'd be easier to go downstairs and ask. And here you sit, not more than two hours later, doing what? Looking up the information on the area attractions online--"
Doug starts to laugh.
"--and then you WON'T go downstairs and ask, and you have the audacity to turn to me and say, 'I can't do this all myself, you know. I need help.' So...what? You think I'm too incompetent to look up the information myself and you have to do it instead? Is it one of your passive-aggressive things? What is your deal?!?"
"Ok, ok," he says. "Mea culpa. I can see that. And no, it's not passive-agressive. I'm NOT passive-aggressive. I'm NEVER trying to be passive-aggressive."
"You have passive-aggressive down to such an art form that you revert to it even without thinking about it," I said. "And I did NOT appreciate whatever that was. Don't do it again."
He, of course, thought it was all rather amusing. Grrr.

We ate lunch at Pier 4 down on the harborfront. We ran into (shock) some seagulls, who weren't at all shy. The kids thought they were wonderful birds, particularly since they were NOT shy and let them walk right up close before freaking out. At one point both kids got down on hands and knees in order to look into the lake (Doug and I weren't keen on the idea that they could fall off the boardwalk and into the water, however), and after a bit, one of the seagulls came very close to David. After we pointed the bird out, David grabbed a leaf and held it between his thumb and forefinger. The seagull was ecstatic...BIRD TREATS! He was CONVINCED that he was going to get a nummy. He got right up close to David and eventually took the leaf out of David's hand, ran off, clamped on the leaf a couple of times, spat it out, and looked at David rather reproachfully over one shoulder. (Do seagulls have shoulders?) We ordered our food and waited. Lauren got bored quickly, and said, "If you don't mind, I'm going to go look at the seagulls." She stepped down and walked over to the boardwalk (I followed, obviously), where she shaded her eyes with her hand. The wind had started to pick up, blowing her hair into her eyes. She brushed it back out of her face, and gazed admiringly at the seagulls, and walked back and forth along the boardwalk with a big grin, flapping her arms like wings.

We got lunch and sat out on the patio, which overlooked Lake Ontario. The two people sitting next to us were speaking French. "But dat's not interesting," says David. "I don't know what they're saying!" We were eating along happily when there came a screeching noise from nearby. We looked over to see the seagull standing on the patio, looking at us rather expectantly.
You owe me, dammit. Fork it over.
David looked overjoyed at the idea, but I said, "Don't! It'll encourage them to come onto the patio, and other people may not like it. The restaurant might come and yell at us. We'll feed him later, don't worry."
The seagull hung around, occasionally making loud, squawking demands. He was joined by another seagull (who was often chased off in little fits of jealous rage by the first one) and a pigeon, who was so used to people that he ran all around the patio and under the table. Doug cleared his throat and said, "Ok, the pigeon just ran over my foot." The kids laughed so hard they nearly spit out their food.

Finally were were done and we had lots of French Fries leftover. I tore up some of the leftover hamburger bun and we split the leftovers between the two fry containers. We went a little way down the boardwalk closer to the harbor. The seagull did NOT follow us.
"That's ok," I said. "Doug, see if you can get him over here." (I don't have a lot of seagull experience, can you tell?)
Doug took a piece of fry and tossed it in the general direction of the seagull, who screeched, dived for it, and was immediately joined by three more gulls. And five more. And they came sailing off the rooftops and in from nowhere, and the air was filled with flapping and hovering and screeching.
"Holy sh*t, it's like Hitchcock!" I said.
We were now arse-deep in eager seagulls.
At least thirty pairs of beady, black bird eyes bobbed at us.
The kids giggled. I tossed a piece of French Fry to the right.
An explosion of flapping gulls erupted around the landing site.
The kids giggled again. They tossed a couple of pieces, with the same result. Lauren dropped a piece less than six inches from her own feet, and shrieked and stumbled backwards as the gulls pounced. Dad immediately halted the whole process and went over the rules about keeping the Seagull Goodies far away from oneself.
The gulls were joined by a couple of brave pigeons, and two little finches. I tested a theory of mine about Seagull Greed by tossing a french fry down off the boardwalk and into the harbor, which brought a duck swimming as fast as a bullet. (And yes, I'm right, Seagulls will do just about anything in order to eat just about anything.)
When all the fries were gone, everyone was quite sad. I took a photo of the gulls and suddenly they all took off at once, landing about forty feel away. Someone down there was tossing out bird goodies, too. We had to laugh.

We walked back down the boardwalk and saw a lot of Coast Guard types...several search and rescue boats and lots of uniformed folks milling around. They seemed to be having some kind of search and rescue demo using rafts and dummies over in the other harbor. At that point we decided to take a boat tour of Toronto Islands. We still had about 25 minutes before the boat left, so we dragged the kids off to find a bathroom before embarking. On the way back, one of the Coast Guard uniformed folks stopped us and said "hi" to the kids, and asked if they wanted to speak with Bobbie, the Coast Guard Auxiliary search and rescue boat. A little, red, plastic boat, about three and half feet tall and complete with two Canadian flags flying from the back, wheeled around, rolled forward, and looked at them. With eyes.
"Hi there!" he said. "I'm Bobbie, the Coast Guard Auxiliary search and rescue boat! What are your names?" (See a photo of a Bobbie boat here. And a closeup of him here.)
The kids didn't quite know what to make of this, but they quietly answered. The uniformed officer repeated their names more loudly to the boat.
"David and Lauren," he said. "It's good to meet you. I really like your green shirt," the boat said to Lauren. "What's that on the front of it?"
"Um...a rabbit holding flowers," she said.
"It looks like flowers," said Bobbie. "It's very pretty."
"Thanks!"
"Now let me ask you something....when you guys go swimming, do you always go swimming with Mom or Dad?"
They were bewildered. David shook his head.
"You should never go swimming alone," said Bobbie. "You should ALWAYS have Mom or Dad or another adult with you."
This sounded like sage advice to them, so they nodded.
"Would you like to see what I can do?" Bobbie asked.
They nodded enthusiastically.
"I can move my eyes from side to side, like this," he said. "And I can wink, too. Like this. Can you wink?"
They dutifully winked back.
"Very good!" said Bobbie. "I have lights, too. See, I can light them up. I have my green light (flash), my yellow light (flash), and my white light (flash). And when I'm out on a search and rescue mission and I need to see in the dark, I have my big spotlight that I can use." Bobbie turned on the spotlight, which shone on David's shirt. You could see his brain cranking away at all this. "And I have my blue light. When I'm on a mission and I need to get somewhere, I can turn this on." The blue light turned on and started rotating like a police light. David moved his head in circles, following the movement of the light. "And I have a horn. Do you want to hear it? You better cover your ears, it's pretty loud." They covered their ears and Bobbie honked at them. Pleasantly, it wasn't too loud. "That tells other ships to get out of the way fast, because I need to help someone!"
"Oh!" said David.
"Do you know what else I like?" Bobbie asked them. "Hugs. Can you give me a hug?"
Lauren smiled and stepped up, putting her arms around Bobbie.
David shook his head emphatically.
Bobbie them offered coloring books, which his "helper" passed out, and he repeated who he was and told both kids to have a good time.

We made it back to the tour boat with just a couple of minutes to spare.

We got on board and went up to the top deck. David turns to Doug and says, "Dad, was Bobbie really real, or a robot?"
"Kind of like a robot," said Doug. "But a real person was making him do stuff. He was kind of cool, wasn't he?"
"Yeah!" interrupted Lauren. "And I gave him a hug! I want a ride on Bobbie."
"Oh, honey, Bobbie's too small. He can't give rides, only the big boats can do that," I said. Then I looked at Doug. "Did you see the guy with the remote and the headset?"
"No, I didn't," he said.
"He was back a ways. I started looking for him when he started in on the color of clothes the kids were wearing. I thought it was a tape recorder kind of thing before that. I liked Bobbie, he's quite a deal."
David was looking out over the water.
"Hey, David," I said. "So what does it mean when a Coast Guard boat has a flashing blue light on?"
He screwed up his face and thought deeply. "Um...for ships to get out of the way?"
"True. Why do you suppose they need to get out of the way?"
"Because he's in a hurry?"
"He is. And why is he in a hurry?"
Ponder. "Because...he...rescues?"
"Right! He's going to help someone in the water, to rescue them. It's like a police boat."

We had to wait for a few minutes to leave the dock because the wind had picked up, and made the lake really rough. We left soon enough and got a 45-minute tour of the Toronto Islands, which was pretty interesting. I got several good photos, but noticed the battery was going dead. Sigh.

After the tour we got back off the boat and the kids spotted Bobbie again. Lauren went racing up to him and announced she wanted a ride, which of course she couldn't have. Bobbie's "helpers" were very nice to her, and explained that he was too little and that he was "sleeping." I assume his battery had gotten low or something.

We headed over to the CN Tower, which was a bit of a walk from there. The kids got all distracted by some event tents setup, and despite the fact that the tents were empty, the lure of huge piles of small, yellow leaves proved to be too much...both David and Lauren insisted on gathering double handfuls of leaves and throwing them up into the air. To our dismay, we discovered that tickets to the thing were going to run about $100 for all of us to go. Now it was OUR turn to be bewildered. Instead we got some ice cream and watched the birds and squirrels in the garden, and then went over to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Museum. We had hoped to see a TV or radio show being produced, but none were running at the time we got there. Instead we talked to a heck of a front desk person, who told us about the parts of the museum and what was where. She asked the kids if they watched a lot of the CBC.
"Well, they watched some of it this morning," I said. "We're actually from St. Louis, Missouri, so it's kind of hard for them to see much of the CBC!"
"Oh!" she said. "So you're more likely to watch PBS. I have some stickers here...I bet you guys know who this is!"
"CURIOUS GEORGE!" they shouted in unison.
She told us that both the Canadian "Mr. Dressup" and our "Mr. Rogers" came over from England together, were quite good friends, and they produced very similar kinds of shows, one in the U.S. and one in Canada. We also saw a display for "Sesame Park," which is of course a Sesame Street kind of thing, but without the educational facet of it. It was only produced from 1995 to 2000 and was apparently meant only as entertainment for younger kids. ?!?!? You can tell it's the same puppets as Sesame Street...and must not have had a very good following if it was only produced for five years. I wonder why they didn't put the educational part in?

There was also a kid's story about a young pioneer girl who planted lots of "Maple keys" (seeds) and was sort of like a Johnny Appleseed, but for maple trees. I stood there for a bit and then elbowed Doug. "Look," I said. "Notice her clothes? The story calls her a 'young pioneer girl,' but look how closely her clothes resemble the Pilgrims."
Doug simply looked at it and nodded.
"You're forgetting. This is Canada. They don't have any such thing as Pilgrims over here. So what's with the clothes? Is that just the fashion of the day, or something from a particular part of Europe, or France, or....what?"
No idea.

After that it was pretty much time to head back. We got caught in a small bit of rain, and we ducked into the Raddison to avoid it. It was extremely short-lived, and we drove back to the hotel. We ate at Montanna's...a themed and overpriced restaurant. I'm going to take the van and find a grocery store (g-d bless the "find nearby" function of Google Maps!) and we'll start getting a bit more self-sufficient here.

Doug went to meet some of his World of Warcraft guys...he's been playing online games (Shadowdale MUDD, EQ, WoW) with some of these people for the last 15 years. We're actually HERE because one of them is getting married; tonight he went out to get a drink with some of them.

And, of course, the website has Toronto pictures here. I'm also adding movies to the site...sort of a test run...

Boy Scouts and Lake Huron

David's first experience with Boy Scouts wasn't exactly all he had hoped...in fact, it wasn't at all what he wanted.

We got the kids packed early and ate dinner at a reasonable time. This gave us time to get to the Pack Meeting with lots of time to spare, so that David could sit for a bit and observe before joining in. He sat and observed, alright, but wouldn't join in with any of the other boys who were running around. He patiently sat through an awards ceremony, and then they tried to play an ice-breaker game with the 30-40 boys who were there. The idea was to break everyone into two teams and have them all take off their shoes, and run a relay race retrieving their shoes from a big pile and tagging the next person. Well, this upset David anyway, since the boys weren't exactly listening and following directions, and then when they told him to take off his shoes, he turned and looked at Dad, crumpled, and burst into tears and wailed, "I hate Boy Scouts!"

Sigh.

The noise and the pandemonium were overwhelming for him anyway, but the shoe thing got him pretty badly. He also cries when the airport asks him to take off his shoes.

So that didn't go well. They then started to play Simon Says, which is OK; the guy leading the thing told the boys that they had to be completely silent in order to play, so that they wouldn't miss anything that was said. David perked up a bit...while he still felt the need to sit on Dad's lap, he started to pay more attention and lean forward. After a couple of minutes, he looked at his Dad with some confusion, and said, "Dey not being silent, Dad." Well...uh...no. Do you want to play? Oh, no. Not a chance.

Double sigh.

Once the Pack Meeting broke up and he could play with his sister, he was off and running with her again. Doug and I were so irritated with him...we're thinking what he mostly needs is the smaller Den meetings where he'll only have 5-10 other boys to deal with, where he can get to know them and make some friends. He's generally not this bad about joining in...he does fine with roller skating lessons, I've seen him joining in with other kids when he takes his classes at the Science Center, he joins in doing group projects with the GRC classes. He admittedly had trouble with karate class...I don't know. This, of course, makes Doug wonder if the kid is socially stunted. While I have the same thoughts, I have to ask if expecting and accepting complete chaos is a requirement as a little kid. I was telling this story to a friend and she said, "Oh, not like he's introverted and doesn't like chaos to begin with!" Very true. Hmmm. OK, there's a pattern there...he does very well with small groups of kids. Both the pack meeting and karate class had 30+ kids in them. Science Center classes usually have only 10 to 15 kids in them, and they break that into smaller groups. GRC is the same thing, extremely small classes. Roller skating, too. I'm SURE that Lauren won't have any issues with big groups of kids, but David sure seems to.

On the upside, there are some camp-outs coming up that should put him in a better mood about the scouts. I would think that the idea of lots of order, procedural steps, and a focus on good citizenship would appeal to his little engineering-type brain. I think this just happened to be a bad introduction. Too bad, though.

After the meeting we went back home, packed up the rest of the stuff, and then headed for Canada. (This sounds much easier than it actually was.)

We passed through Indianapolis at around 2:30 a.m., but thought even our good friends there wouldn't appreciate a drop-in visit at that hour. (Well, OK, maybe if it was just the two of us, but adding two sleepy, cranky kids wouldn't be a thrill.) We made excellent time, and we were in Ann Arbor by about 8:30 a.m. We stopped at another friends' home, and they were nice enough to make us breakfast and let the kids run around and play with THEIR kids for a couple of hours. It was right about then that we tumbled to the fact that we'd had the kids get into pajamas before taking off...and therefore they had left their shoes back at home. They had none with them now. And David hadn't packed a belt. (Mr. Tall And Lean has to either run around wearing a belt all the time or wear pants that are WAY short on him.)

So...it looked like we'd need to buy two pairs of shoes and a belt. Our friends' kids had a shoe size that fit Lauren, so they let us borrow them (besides, they're Hello Kitty shoes!), and then we went to Target to get shoes and a belt for David.

We crossed over into Canada at Port Huron a few hours after that. Customs was amazingly simple...we just provided birth certificates for everyone and some drivers licenses for us, answered a few questions, and we were on our way.
"Aside from your clothing, what else are you bringing with you?" the customs agent asked.
Doug thought. "Uh...laptops," he said.
"For Mom and Dad?" she asked.
"Yup."
"Ok. What do you for a living?"
"I'm a Systems Analyst. She's a homemaker."
"She works harder than you do."
"YAY!" I said, applauding. "THANK YOU!!"

We stopped in at an Italian restaurant where we had spaghetti and a type of ravioli with spinach and ricotta cheese, made with a creamy tomato sauce. We had hoped to find a place to eat basically on the water, but there didn't seem to be any. We did stumble onto a nice park area which had access to the beach to Lake Huron. It also had squirrels...little BLACK squirrels, which I've never seen before. They're so CUTE! We scoped it out and then took the kids there after lunch. We intended for them to play a little, and perhaps take off their shoes and socks and go wading. Lauren made this into an art form by falling into the lake and soaking herself. (See Lake Huron pictures here) Of course after that, she hauls herself onto shore and is caked with sand. By the end of it, we had to strip off both kids and put them back into the car naked.

We drove to the suburbs of Toronto like this, finally arriving at the hotel around 9 p.m. or so. We wrapped the kids in their blankies and took them inside to the room, then went back and unloaded the car. Doug parked and we got the kids re-dressed, hung up their wet clothes, and walked to the A&W, which SO wasn't regional or interesting, but...we we hungry and exhausted by this point. (36 hours in the car with a couple of hours of dozing only will do that to you!) When Doug got his change back, it was (duh) in Canadian dollars, so he came back to the table, tossed the change onto the tabletop, looked and me and jerked his head towards David, and walked away again.

I had been pretty big on this...I wanted David to understand country borders, flags and currency, especially since these are some of the things that we had covered in History last year.

David looked at the coins (for some reason ignoring the dollars) and picked up a Canadian $2 coin. "Look!" he said. "It's a new quarter! Can I keep it?"
"That's not a new quarter," I said. "Look at the pennies."
He dutifully picked up one of the pennies. He furrowed his brow.
"It's...it's...new." he said.
"Sort of..." I waited.
"Oh!" he said finally. "I get it! It's...um...um...from Canada!"
"Yup! It's Canadian money," I said. "Look at the five dollar bill."
He LOVED the strip of laser-paper along the edge.

We ate our burgers and such, and then headed back to the hotel. We all pretty much fell into bed at that point. There were two beds, and the kids got tucked into one, we took the other. I, for one, deeply appreciated the down comforters. Zzzzz! (emphatic Zzzzz.)

Delicious Monster

OK, I just have to rave about this.

In all fairness, it wasn't me who found it. My graphic design prof at SCCC is the one who turned me on to this, and it looked good on paper and is even better in person.

Delicious Library is a software program for Mac which allows you to catalog your media: books, music and movies. Which sounds like a sort of, "Um, ok, that's nice," idea, until you realize that I have to deal with libraries. A lot of 'em.

First of all, I have the book lending library through LLL. I have to keep track of which people borrow which books, and when they're due. That's not all that easy for me, really...sometimes those people don't put down all their information, sometimes I lose the cards, and even more often, I fail to look up who owes what in anything close to a timely manner.

I bought a CueCat (declawed) off eBay a year or so ago. CueCats are barcode scanners that were once given out for free by the millions...part of some marketing campaign where the idea was that you'd see an ad or article in print, and use the barcode scanner (which looks like an elongated cat, with the lasers at the mouth) to scan the code on the ad or article that you found interesting, and it would launch your web browser to an assigned website. All well and good, but those who preferred print...well, preferred print, and those who were techie enough to want web pages looked at them with suspicion...and with good reason, it turns out. Those CueCats were hard-wired to connect anything you scanned with your personal information. Once the geeks of the world realized this, they started picking up handfuls of the CueCats and cracking them open, testing, soldering, and posting their results on geeky usenet groups. This led to more geeks cracking and soldering, so prolifically that the term "declaw your CueCat" came into being, and the company that made the scanners started throwing lawyers around. The lawyers charged that people didn't really OWN the CueCats, and therefore couldn't mess with them, and the company made the fatal mistake of making enemies of the very audience they needed to open the product up to the general users of the world.

The company went out of business, and the world was flooded with CueCats (actually, technically, they were :CueCats) which were now free to be hacked and modified at will. So...long story short, I found 'em cheap ($7) on eBay, and got one for me and one for my prof. (Yes, he paid me back for the full $7, in front of the rest of the class, in fact, so as to circumvent any appearances of bribery, favoritism, or other unseemly acts.)

I JUST got Monster Library last night. I downloaded and installed it in about 3 minutes, went through the easiest registration process I've ever seen in about 10 seconds, and then ran into trouble with the CueCat. Not in the mood to fight with it, I went to bed. Tonight I fired up the software again and the CueCat magically decided to work, and I've been a happy camper ever since.

My LLL library has about 30 or so books in it. So the process for putting them into the software goes like this:
1. Pick book up.
2. Turn book over and look for barcode.
3. Scan.
4. Watch computer think for 5 seconds or so.
5. Book cover either automatically pops up on screen, OR
5a. Pick book cover from automatically-generated list, OR
5b. Rarely, type in book title, hit enter, and drag appropriate result to window.
6. Bask in the light of the book appearing to sit on a library shelf in front of you.

That's pretty much it. The program grabs the ISBN number, and then zips out to Amazon.com and sucks down all the information and puts it in your local library. So you can see the title, the author, the ISBN, the cover, the synopsis and the price. You can also select a book and hit the "Similar" button, and it will make another 10 suggestions on other books you might like. You can look at Amazon.com ratings on the book(s), you can put your own ratings into the program...

...and most wonderfully, it automatically imports your address list into the program. So when Jane Doe asks to borrow the LLL copy of "Parenting Through Crisis," I click and drag the book cover over to Jane Doe's name and let go of the mouse button. The book cover now appears under her name, her name is flagged with the number of books she has borrowed, there's a calendar on the right to tell you when she should return the book, a place for notes, and when you look at your whole library, those books which have been borrowed have a little yellow "OUT" banner on the corners. Those which are overdue have a little red "LATE" banner on the corner.

You don't know how freaking wonderful this is.

I scanned 90 books tonight, at a rate of about 1 per minute. They're divided between LLL, David's books, and Lauren's books. I can even export the book lists into a .pdf format that lists the books in author order, alpha by title, by ratings...you name it.

I already love this thing!

When I told Doug about it in broad terms, he listened politely until I said something about putting it on the laptop. Then he said, "Oh, is this a Mac thing?"
"Yeah."
"Oh! Hell, do whatever you want. You're not installing crap on my machine, so I don't care." and he went back to his WOW.

Tonight he came in as I was scanning barcodes on books. "What's THAT?"
"I told you. Delicious Library."
"Oh, did you get it?"
"Yeah, look." And I turned the laptop around and showed him the screen. I set it down and he looked it over while I got kid drinks for bed.
"OK," he says upon my return, "That's hot."

You know, he said the same thing about the laptop after I first got it, too. He wasn't at all sure about it, but then he sits down and messes with the thing and walks away all impressed.

After 10 years of marriage, you'd think he'd have this figured out, wouldn't you?

Ottertoberfest at the Zoo

Doug's company picnic will be at the Zoo this year, so I went to the website to see what's happening. Turns out that for the next couple of weekends it's Ottertoberfest at the Saint Louis Zoo.

You get a traditional German biergarten with all your standards, plus "kids can join the parade through the Zoo and attend the Root Beer Keg-tapping Ceremony at the end." They're supposed to have tracking games, puppet-making, coloring...it sounds like a kick. Great timing!!!

On the side of BAD timing, we missed the Cub Scout intro-thingy that we've been planning on attending for WEEKS. ARRRRRGH! I'm SO mad about that, you have NO idea. For some reason I've had it in my head that the meeting was on Monday, so sure enough, we ended up missing it. As as soon as we realized it we went tearing up there, only to find that they'd packed up and gone already. There were some Girl Scouts there, and one of the women helping to run that meeting was able to give us some information. I wrote an email to the head of the thing as soon as we hit the door and it turns out that we missed getting the application and some paperwork. I pulled the application off the net, filled it in and had to wait for Doug to sign it, and we ended up driving to the guy's house and dropping it off.

*blush*

They have a slightly older son, "Joe," who has the same name as a slightly older boy who attended Kindermusik with David when he was a tiny toddler. David soon learned that it would be wise to buddy up to "Joe," because the older boy knew how to open doors. 'Bye, Mom. I'm following Joe, we're outta here.

I also learned today that K-Mart, Wal-Mart and Target do NOT sell Cub Scout uniforms. Nor does Sears. eBay has a few items, but they tend to be overpriced, and Craigslist not only didn't list any, but two people were already REQUESTING uniforms on the list. And Once Upon A Child accepts uniforms, but they're (A) tucked in with all the other clothes and (B) not likely to be there, since we were JUST AT O.U.A.C. So I officially gave up and went to ScoutStuff.org. Yes, expensive, but...what are you gonna do, you know?

OTOH, by missing the Scout meeting I wasn't able to volunteer myself for yet another position. My neighbor down the street has signed up to be a Den Leader for her son's Cub Scout meetings. I thought with horror about the possibility, and firmly told myself I wasn't allowed to do such a thing. I already have all that LLL stuff I'm volunteered for, PLUS I homeschool, PLUS I try to run the business, PLUS I'm taking classes right now...you know, there really ARE just so many hours in a day. As a funny aside, my neighbor (unbeknownst to me) attempted to get David into her son's Scout Pack. Apparently the woman running it freaked out and said there was no way she could allow us in because we're homeschooling. Hmmm. Funny, I emailed the head of the BSA Area Council out here and those folks didn't have any problems with it, and in fact I can say that they have been MORE than welcoming. (Of course, I got most of my info from another homeschooler whose son made Eagle Scout a year ago or so, so I KNOW it isn't impossible. The other woman is simply insane.) I love the idea of Scouts...always have...but I simply have too much on my plate right this second.

I had to be up somewhat early today as it was the big trade-off at the park for toddler activity kits. There are several moms on an email list that I'm a member of who have toddlers. And toddlers require such a huge investment of time, most of us are wondering WHAT we can do with them. Some moms need the toddler occupied while they go over stuff with the older siblings...I thought about my LLL moms and the fact that many of them need the toddler entertained while they take care of the new baby. So we all sort of hooked up together at the suggestion of someone else and each of us got assigned a particular craft or activity. We had 18 people sign up for the project, so each of us had to put together 18 Ziploc freezer bags of whatever activity we were assigned. I got "Can You Remember?" which meant making an activity of an 18-page booklet and 10 separate cards. The kid tries to duplicate the pattern of things he sees on the booklet page with his cards...and of course, I needed to make 18 of those sets. I was up at midnight using zip-ties to bind the pages together and sticking labels on the bags. However, we all met at the park today and someone brought 18 paper grocery bags...so we went around the table and put one of our Ziplocs into each paper bag, and everyone walked away again with a paper bag full of 18 different, brand-new toddler activities to take home. I don't know what all is in there...matching games, and stacks of foam letters, plastic grids with shoelaces (sewing?), plastic spoons with upper and lowercase letters written on them...we just have to find out how Lauren feels about all of it now! The idea came from the Toddler Activity Bags book.

We're MOSTLY set up for our trip to Canada...we got a hotel booked, anyway, and I'm loaded down with maps from AAA. We'll also be close to Niagara Falls. We informed David of this fact and he paused for a moment and then burst out, "NIAGARA FALLS?!? Dat...Dat...Niagara Falls is ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FEET TALL!" Er....yes, it is. Well, 170 feet, according to their website. That boy latches onto the weirdest stuff. Anyway, we told him we'd go see Niagara Falls and he totally freaked with joy. They also apparently have some kind of castle that I thought might be cool to visit, and I don't know what all. We're looking over our options at the moment, including some kind of tour bus that doubles as a boat. Doug rolled his eyes and said, "Oh, Lord. David would just bluck himself."

In fact, he probably would.

Website update

...with photos! (Mostly kid photos, of course, but hey.)

See it.

Bees, viruses and numbers

I got called a "cool mom" today by a tattooed gentleman at Hardee's. Hmmmmm.

I brought David's math work with us (unfortunately the TV was a HUGE distraction to him, and I couldn't find my tv-b-gone), and we went through an exercise on tables (columns and rows), measuring perimeter, and really, really abstract subtraction. I'll remind everyone that this is Kindergarten math.

You have three dimes and one penny to spend. You buy a flower for 12 cents. How much do you have left? So you have to know the item price (12 cents), know how to pay for that with the amount you've been given at the outset (two dimes), how much change you should get back (8 cents), which you then have to add to the remainder of your money (8+11), for a final answer of not only 19 cents, but broken down into one dime and nine pennies. Sheesh! Took us three tries at the assignment, and poor David got rather discouraged. I saw him starting to flag (oh, I SO remember feeling like that!) and I covered up the worksheet with both hands and said, "I gotta tell ya, David, it's a rotten trick, and almost everyone hates it." He perked a bit and looked at me. "It's true!" I pressed on. "These silly things are called "story problems," and what they've done is this: They've taken all your rock-solid, friendly numbers, and they've hidden them in this...this mess! But really, this is just math...your friendly numbers are still in there, you just have to go in and rescue them."
He raised his eyebrows. "Numbers are friendly?" he asked in surprise.
"Well, sure," I said. "You're pretty good at math. Numbers are pretty friendly and nice to you, aren't they? All those dependable, reliable, unchanging numbers that you work so well with...they're still in there." He flashed a tiny grin at me. "But they're hidden. Watch this...what they're REALLY asking...is..."
(*scribbing on a napkin*)
"What is 31 minus 12? Now THAT'S a real math problem, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, but they go and ask it like THIS. So let's try this...let's use a different sheet of paper and work out whatever we need to over here, and then put our answer down when we're all done? We can do it in fourteen different ways over here, however we want and however it makes sense, and then give 'em what they want over there."
He thought this was just a brilliant idea (not to mention that he thought it just might be cheating if he did that), and we practiced reading the words, extracting the numbers, and transferring those numbers onto the page, and then using real dimes and pennies to go through the steps.

In the midst of all of this, I noticed some movement. Bumping up against the window behind us was a bee. A honeybee.

On the inside.

I pointed the bee out, and Lauren took one look at it and exclaimed, "Pollen!" She was right, the bee's legs were loaded down with pollen. Worker bee. "Can we tell the people there's a bee?" asked David.
"No," I said. "They're likely to get a fly swatter and kill it."
David was stricken. (We found a dead cricket in the garage and had to have a long discussion about how long crickets live and whether or not we smashed it and caused its death. We hadn't.)

I went up to the salsa bar and got a tiny plastic souffle cup. I gently trapped the bee underneath and slid a card over the top to keep it inside, and then quickly put the lid on top and snapped it in place. The kids wanted to see, obviously, so I set the cup down and they took turns watching the bee. The bee didn't look very healthy...it was a little woozy, it seemed. I don't know what was wrong with it, but keeping the bee locked up in a Hardee's wasn't going to fix it.

We packed up and started to leave, and we paused to let the aforementioned tattooed gentleman and his teenage son go out the door first. David was peering into the cup and I said, "Do you want to find a flower to put the bee on?" The tattooed man got interested. "You have a bee?" he asked, turning around and looking at David. "Yeah!" says David, lifting the cup up. "He was on the inside, Mommy caught him!" The man was quasi-concerned. "Now you be careful how you let him loose," he says, "You don't want him to fly back atch'a." Seems to me the bee isn't in any shape to fly at anyone, but that's neither here nor there. David promises to be careful and as we're headed over to the flowering bushes, I overhear the man mutter something to his son. I don't hear most of it, but I do hear the words "cool mom."

I unsnapped the lid from the container and tilted it sideways and slowly pushed one of the flowers inside, and the bee, with scrabbling black legs, seemed more than happy to abandon the plastic in favor of the flower. I backed the cup away and we headed for the car. I thought I saw the bee fly over to a different bush. I hope it gets better. (They're saying now, BTW, that it's a virus that's killing off the honeybees.)

Today was gorgeous weather...which was nice, since I had a bunch to catch up on. I think I'm finally getting over my cold, which also combined with an older furnace filter in order to give me a bronchitis-like attack for a few days. I switched out the filter and the hacking calmed down. And the new discovery of Aleve Cold and Sinus makes sleeping possible. Hurray!

So I ended up cleaning out the litterboxes (ooh, the joy!) and cleaning the foyer floor, sweeping off the porch and cleaning the patio furniture. The lawn needs attention again, and of course there's the inside of the house, which we probably shouldn't discuss. Ever.

David decided he was "too cold" to be outside, which was ridiculous. I popped him into a turtleneck and a pair of jeans and we went out onto the deck and played a game of "hockey" with a Swiffer, and old golf club and a can of cat food. Short game, though, as I'm still easily winded. Drat.

Oh, and the kids are outgrowing their clothes again, which means it's time for the bi-annual kid-clothes shopping trip. That means hitting the stores this weekend, mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, and getting to AAA. Did we mention we're heading to Canada soon? :-)

Oral Burger Sex & Teacher Porn

OK....have y'all seen the new Hardee's commercial? If you thought the Paris Hilton internet-only commercial was sleazy...wait until you see the Porn For Teacher ad that's running on regular commercial TV. I'm sure that's not what they title the ad, but...wow, they're really pushing the envelope on that one. We have a teacher climbing up on a desk and gyrating around while the "students" (all male, naturally) rap about how much they like her "flat buns." No kidding. She also lays back on the desk, pushing her butt up in the air. Here's the link:

Hardee's Obscene Ads

Apparently the Tennessee Teacher's association is going nuts over it. The association has the contact information on Hardee's posted on their website, with the hopes of getting as many complaints as possible. Turns out the Hardee's corporate HQ is right here in St. Louis. (!) They also have a different commerical, which is still patently offensive...I mean, the woman is rolling around on the floor ostensibly eating a burger, though it looks far more plausible that she's having oral sex with it. Somehow I find that less offensive than the teacher commercial. No rational justification there.

Sick!

OK, it's official. David gave me his cold!

I felt it coming on this morning, with a sore throat, and by 2 p.m. I had fever/chills, the whole deal. I fell onto the couch and wove in and out of sleep for awhile...it sounded like there was good news on the radio about a court ruling and the Patriot Act...and Pavarotti died, which is quite sad. :-( So I know there was a lot of opera kept fading in and out.

I eventually got up and slugged down some cold meds, along with some Benadryl. I got bitten by bugs when we went out of ice cream...I have over 20 bites
on both my legs, from mid-shin down, and they itch like crazy. So instead of keeping them soaked in Cortisol all the time, I'm going to a systemic suppression. Did I ever mention how much I hate mosquitoes? Now let's add the fact that I'm allergic to them, so the bites are as big as quarters, all swollen up, and they'll be there for about two weeks. Urgh!

Met Jen again for breakfast this morning (before I thought I was going to die), and we hung out for a few hours. I introduced her to Word Girl and The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd, neither of which she'd known about before. And quite serendipitously, Word Girl was even featured on Talk of the Nation, though I was too zonked to really hear it.

Word Girl is one of PBS' attempts to raise vocabulary...and it's really quite cute. We have 5th grader Becky, who is really Word Girl from Planet Lexicon. She fights evil-doers like The Butcher, a crook who "butchers" the English language. (He mangles words or makes them up altogether.) Or Chuck the Evil Sandwich Making Guy. (See, he sometimes has a hard time coming up with the right word for the occasion, hence the name.)

David asked me awhile ago, "Mom, do you like Word Girl?"
"Honey," I said, "Your mom IS Word Girl!"

Our boat trip today was canceled, due to rain.

More recalls from China

It's like Groundhog Day, you just get to live it over and over again...

This time it's our GeoTrax set that may or may not be affected. I'll have to look at serial numbers. My favorite quote from an article about the recall is this little gem:

"The country's (China's) health minister accused the west of scaremongering and described the safety fears over Chinese products as a sickness in itself. "I must remind some friends that we are certainly extremely sensitive towards this problem, but over-sensitivity caused by only seeing part of the picture, in medical terms, is called an allergy," said Chen Zhu, who is a Paris-trained scientist. "I want to tell everyone that they can have confidence in the quality of Chinese products and food safety. I also want to explicitly say that we support media supervision over health work."

Wait, wait. Um...so what's the first part, that they care, but that "over-sensitivity caused by seeing only one part of the picture" is "an allergy." Hmmm. Only part of the picture. Let's do a quick layman's translation, shall we? "Shut up, stupid Americans. If you want to sell your cheap crap to the coveted CHINESE MARKET, you will take our lead-coating offerings with grace and humility, and not embarrass us." And Part II about "supporting media supervision over health work" is just amazing! "Quit testing our stuff and muzzle your media!" Gosh, at the risk of sounding negative, NO.
a
Made David clean up the floor, square by square, with the cleaning spray and a roll of paper towels. He didn't mind it too uch...his big fear was that I would "tell Daddy" what he'd done. I told him if he was so awfully worried about it, he could just tell Daddy that he's helping Mommy out. This worked for him quite well, and he ended up rather proud of the job he did at cleaning up.

We got one of our first quizzes back in class. Since I'd missed so much of the first one, I only got a 60% or so. The sort of thing I got wrong were questions like, "What is (the professor's) office phone number?" and "What are (the professor's) office hours?" My responses, since I had NO IDEA, were things like, "I don't know, this is what applications like iCal and Address Book are for," or, "No idea, that's why I have a smart phone, to remember stuff like this so I don't have to. Seriously, do you crud your brain up with this stuff? I have enough trouble keeping track of my car keys on a daily basis!" I got my paper back with the comment, "You're back! Love the Wagnertude."

Bite me.

Jen came over yesterday, bearing gifts (Superman comics and toys, and talking mirrors and unicorns) for the kids. She plunked right down on the floor and started playing, to David's absolute stunned delight. She had Darth Vader riding dinosaurs and stealing stuff, and heaven knows what else. The kids think she's a goddess. We went to the Art Foundry (note to self: See wire trees again. WAY cool.) and after that went through some of the areas of historic St. Charles which are supposedly haunted. Gotta tell ya, if those places are haunted, it's certainly not in the unfriendly, scary aspect. South Main Street is quite cozy and happy. We stopped in at an old-fashioned sweets shop...the kind with giant pans of fudge, hand-dipped strawberries, etc. and got ice cream cones. Lauren stopped in front of an elderly couple in front of the shop and announced in excited tones that she wanted to sit on a bench and eat ice cream, too! They smiled broadly at her, and when she came back out with her chocolate ice cream, they admired it with her.

Tomorrow we're supposed to go ride the paddleboats at Forest Park, and do SOMETHING with "Aunt Jen." We have no idea what yet. Guess we'll find out!

The Sneak

So l put both kids to bed last night. Lauren is down, and then I go to David's room to put him to bed, and there's no one there. I try the living room "David?"
"Yeah, Mom, I'm ready!" he says, running out of the kitchen and down the hall.

I put him to bed, go back and sit with Lauren for awhile, then go out to the kitchen and decide that I need to make the place inhabitable. But as I walk into the main part of the kitchen, I can't help but notice...

my feet stick to the floor.

Quite badly.

The floor looks slight weird. There's obviously been a spill.

I had left the juice pitcher, with about one inch on the bottom, on the counter to remind myself to fill it up after I got done with the kids. David discovered it, and it seems fairly obvious to me that he decided to chug the rest of the juice straight, and ended up pouring it all over the floor. Then he decided to sneak away and think I wouldn't notice what happened.

I was NOT happy. The sticky floor was pretty massive, and really, you couldn't walk through the kitchen without having to cross through it.

After a bit of thought, I decided to leave the juice on the floor, and to leave the entire kitchen the disaster that it was. Since David was the one who made the choice to try and steal the juice, he could make up for that in the morning by not only cleaning up his own disasterous mess, but by helping me with the rest of the kitchen-centered chores that I needed to get done.

I got out the large Magna-Doodle and wrote, "David: See Mom. The floor is sticky. Did you spill?" and I set it in the doorway of his room for him to find when he got up in the morning.

Sure enough, this morning he got up and came out with the thing, claiming he couldn't read it. We went though it letter by letter, and I made him decipher it anyway. "Oh," he says. "Oh yeah, I...I...I...well, I tried to drink some of my tippy and a little bit of it spilled." You tried to drink what? My tippy.
OK, that's one lie. Would you like to try again?
Blink. "I don't remember."
"Oh. Alright, why don't you go over and look at the kitchen counter? Maybe that will help you remember. Why don't you take off your socks and walk through the kitchen and look around, and then come back and tell me what happened?"
"O.K." He pads off and comes back after a bit.
"Oh....well...Mom, I drank the juice, and it spilled, but I cleaned it up with a washcloth and dried it with a towel!"

Sigh.

So at the moment we're at skating lessons, and we'll go back home and start the evil cleanup duties. In fact, everyone gets to help, not just David. I came out this morning and had to move Doug's shirt and Lauren's stuffed animals off the couch before I could even sit down. Grrrrrr.

We also need to attack the lawn again. And I noticed yesterday that our Franken-tree looks pretty darned dead. It had leaves all summer, but now every single one has dried to a brown crisp and while they're still attached to the tree, the whole thing has an air of doom about it. I'm still waiting to see what will happen to the oak tree, too. Almost all of its branches froze this spring and it only managed to produce leaves all up and down the trunk. It's trying to push out a few new branches, but I have no idea if it will make it or not. And the lawn is absolutely horrendous...nothing but weeds, really.

Class is going OK so far. It took me a wonderful 25 minutes to find the actual classroom, because they have a whole new building which I've never even seen, let alone been in. I hadn't officially enrolled in the class, either, but I knew I'd have to have a special signature from the professor in order to enroll. These are upper-level courses, and I don't have the prerequisites on my transcript, so I knew the people at the registration desk would just freak if I didn't show up with a signed form. So deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I decided to attend the first class, get a form signed, and THEN go register and pay my money.

This means I'm trying to find a course in a building that I don't know. I have no schedule, I have no map. I have nothing. So I figure my best bet is to go to the building where the Mac lab USED to be and ask those folks where it moved. They have to had answered this question 1,000 times, surely? So I go to the Fine Arts building and there's no one there. At all. I finally spot some sort of aid in an office and she says, "I don't know. I think it's over there (points) in the Humanities Building."
Buzz. Click.
"Well," I said, trying to be polite and friendly. "I know they moved into a newly-constructed building on campus--"
"I think it's over there in the Humanities Building," she says again, and walks off.

OK, fine. You obviously don't care to speak with me.

So I head towards the Humanities Building and have the good luck to catch an adult coming out.

"Excuse me, do you happen to know where the Mac Lab moved to? The folks is Fine Arts are trying to tell me it's in the Humanities Building, but I'm sure they moved into some of the new construction on campus."

No, she's sure it isn't in her building. She points me towards the new Social Science building. I'm sure that isn't right, but it's new construction, so maybe it's closer. I ask a couple of students who temporarily look terrified at the prospect of answering me. I catch another professor, who is singularly unhelpful. "I didn't even know we HAD a Mac lab on campus," he says in a tone that seemed to add, "Why the hell would anyone want one?" He asks whose class I'm trying to take, shrugs, and announces that HE'S going into THIS building and walks off. I'm now in the lobby of a new building. There are architectural sketches of the building on the wall. Surely a large computer lab would show up on this? Indeed, there's a large, open area labeled "Computer Lab." Ok, I'll try it.

I went up two floors and found the lab...it was a regular computer lab tucked into what could have been the library. The rude professor who had essentially tried to ignore me was at a table at the library, leisurely reading a newspaper.

And then I spotted the receptionist. Receptionists know everything, and they rule the world. SHE had a directory, SHE made a phone call, and contacted another receptionist, and within two minutes I had perfect directions and a blank form waiting for me at the correct building.

Turns out that the building is situated right next to a lake, and there were lots of swallows ducking down to the water and snapping up bugs.

I went in, got my form, got directions, and finally showed up. I didn't catch much hell for it (especially after my long, sad tale). I got my form signed and then went to the bookstore to look at the books I would need. Each one was about $60 or $75. I wrote down the ISBN numbers and took photos of the covers with my cell phone, and then left, leaving the long line of students behind.

I took my form to the registration office. They checked with the computer and then informed me that I couldn't take the class. Um...? Well, I'd need the instructor's permission. I have that, see the signature? But you're enrolling after the class has already started, and you only have a signature to waive the prerequisites, but not to enroll after the classes have already started. See, you missed one class already. No, I didn't, I went to the class AND got the signature at the same time. I was THERE. Yes, but weren't enrolled when you attended. You're enrolling after the start date. You need a signature.

This is why there are school shootings, I'm sure.

The registrar eventually decides it isn't worth it, she'll just call the professor. And then I tried to pay for the class.

I have no cards of any kind.

See, David wants to check for the new state quarters every now and then, and he takes my wallet to go through the change purse. He just never replaced the wallet afterwards.