Grandpedant

So, Nini was over yesterday and while we were making Outrageous Oatmeal Cookies from Starbucks (cut the salt and cinnamon by half, okay?), we somehow got into a conversation about: economics. And I mean a serious conversation about goods and services and pricing and value and why monopolies are bad. We must have talked about this for fifteen minutes, waiting for the cookies to bake. And if I used lollipops and Littlest Pet Shops instead of guns and butter- she's eight.

In the last year or two, I've noticed in myself a tendency to teach almost all the time I spend with the babies, especiall with Ni, since she's older. Oh, it's not that we don't have fun, and giggle and act silly and tease each other- but I sneak ethics lessons into the doll house and onto the farm and include some sort of life-lesson- gardening, cooking, sewing, cleaning, handcrafting- into our time together. I know to stop when she gets bored- but it's there.

Now, it's not that Sis and Jas don't do this as well- they are excellent parents with good values. But I know I paid more attention to certain things my grandparents taught me, than my mom and dad. And we have the extra time to back them up, that they don't, trying to make a living and bring up three kids.
I think I look back at when our own kids were young, and think of all the things I wish I had known to emphasize, but just didn't, and want to fill in the gaps with the g-kids.

But most of all, I think my motivation comes from the urgency of these scary times- and the conviction that they will have to be so much stronger than I thought my own children would ever have to be to have a life of Truth, Beauty and Goodness.

What Not to Wear

About a decade ago, I had a CTJ "Oh, no!- is that my butt?" moment involving a photo from

the Orchestra Trip to Corpus Christi of myself frolicking on the beach in mom jeans. This caused me to make the switch to skirts and dresses most of the time. A denim jumper and a T-shirt is my versions of "jeans and a top".

However.

When the Yarbs take the kids to Dallas Heritage Village on Saturday and Morgan Jane keeps calling all the frontier ladies "Mimi's", including this:

scary-ass horror film denizen of a scarecrow, it might be time to re-think the wardrobe.

Of course, she is only nineteen months old. So maybe not.

Ah, Youth! or "Alright, hard head."

Well- I got my eyes LASIK'ed back in late January, so my computer time has been limited. For those of you who haven't had the procedure, they put you in a room the temp of a restaurant refrigerator and immobilize your head so that you're looking up into the maw of the Mother Ship, with its psychedelic lightshow. Then the lasers go brzzzzt, brzzzt and you go home to put various drops and gels in your eyes for weeks.
Close-up vision is great, distance vision is taking a while to clear, as my correction for that was hewge. I'm getting re-acquainted with the face I haven't seen clearly from a distance in twenty years.
A glasses-less Mimi disturbed the babies for a while, but not long.

So...I volunteered at the Boy Scout Food Drive and took charge of the glass table. We pack all that separately, due to breakage. Now, one of the things most often packed in glass is condiments and condiments sometimes live in the depths of the pantry for years. And years. Until the B.S.A. drive comes along and they get sent to us.

In addition to the Scouts, we had a church youth group doing their Saturday shift, so they came along to help as well. Two of them were assigned to me and did a great job- until their curiosity got the better of them.

A scout brought three small dusty jars of something dark brown solidified into a gelatinous mass in some oily dark brown liquid to our table.

"What's that?" my helpers (let's call them A and B) asked, fascinated by their horribleness.

"I have no idea."

"Ooooh, let's open one!" said A.

"Yeah!" said B.

"Is the label in English?" I asked. It wasn't. In fact, there weren't any labels, only some writing around the rim of the lids.

"Can you even read the alphabet That's written in?" No.

"Look, I've been working here a long time and if the jar is obviously ancient and everything on it is in an unknown alphabet, DON"T OPEN IT."

(Yes, that sounds xenophobic. But if you can read on the faded cutesy-country label that it's a jar of Aunt Sue-Ellen's Chow-Chow, you have at least some idea of what you're dealing with. Otherwise, you don't.)

"Oh, please let us open it! Please!"

"Okay, but take it into the restroom."

They return a few minutes later, pale and abashed.

"Well?"

"OMG- it was horrible! We both nearly barfed!" said A.

"It was so gross- I've never seen anything like it." said B.

"Can we throw it away now?"

"YES! YES!"

Well, alright, hard heads.