I Always Dance When the Movie is Over

It seems like not so long ago that our house was often filled on the weekends with children, and we still have many of the toys and craft supplies to prove it. We got a chance to pull all those fun things out of the attic today, when we did a little babysitting as a favor to our friend Susan.

Ellie, 6, and Abby, 3 spent the afternoon while their parents and Aunt Susu went to a play and early supper to celebrate their mom's birthday. The girls know us slightly, mostly as Isabel's people, but they settled in easily and quickly to what promised to be a fun few hours.

Following that teacher maxim that it's better to plan too much than too little, we had a lot of options for them when they arrived. Frog and butterfly cookies were baked and ready to decorate, the playground up the hill was a must-do destination, there were also DVDs, shrinky dinks, and bracelet kits, but it was the Play Skool barn and plastic tea set, that got the first squeals of approval.

And the fun rolled on from there. The cookies were elaborately sprinkled, and we used the tea set to enjoy them with ice water and strawberries. The playground was next, mostly to burn off some of that sugar, and those girls did not disappoint-- they ran the track, drove the fire truck, and flew the space ship for nearly an hour and a half. Back at home, they chose the movie The Lorax to relax with, and at the end, Abby sprang up and invited us all to dance with the end credits, which we did, gladly.

"Noooooooooo," they cried when their parents came to the door. "We don't want to go home! We want to stay here forever!"

We rolled our eyes and laughed, and helped pack them up to go, but man! I totally knew what they meant.

A Little Chicken

I couldn't just buy a rotisserie chicken. No. I bought a chicken and planned to cook it myself, which I've done hundreds of times. But there was the rotisserie element. I had it in my head to serve and eat a chicken golden brown all around, crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside. I have a rack I bought a few years ago that lets one cook a chicken standing up. I've used it outdoors, but 34 degrees was just a little chilly to fire up the charcoal, and so I removed a couple of racks and punched in 400 convection roast. As the oven preheated, I slathered my organic chicken with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and the popped that bird in. "Should there be smoke pouring out of the oven?" Heidi called up the stairs a little while later.

Doors open and fans venting full blast did not prevent the smoke alarm from going off. Smoke has been detected in the hallway. Evacuate the building, it warned in between the harsh repetition of its clarion horn. I dashed for the step ladder; the cat passed me three times looking frantically for an escape, each time her fur and tail were bigger. At last, I removed the batteries I had placed in there not long ago, so sure they would only keep us safe in an emergency.

An hour later, quiet prevails, the chicken is finishing in the oven, but we have yet to see the cat again.

Fried Peppers

Oh dear! My little pepper sprouts missed another spritzin, and things are not looking good for a good third of the crop. I know that's why we over plant, and if they all thrive we'll be swimming in peppers come August. But survival of the fittest seems so harsh, especially to one who spends her days nurturing young learners with the expectation that none will be left behind. Oh, I gave my peppers a little extra boost to perk them back up, and I have high hopes they will be reaching for the lights come morning, after all, they don't call it Miracle Gro for nothing. Do they?

Like a Lamb

Oh, how I will regret saying farewell to the month of March when we turn the page on the calendar next week!

Sure, April with its longer days and mild weather takes a giant step toward summer vacation, but come fool's day, the daily reflections from my slice of life friends and students will fall like cherry blossoms in the warm spring breeze: there will be no more regular meditations on snow days, swim meets, bowling, laundry, road trips, murderous hawks, and heros until the lion roars in 2016.

I'll miss them!

Sharp as a Claw

We were a little concerned when the cat didn't eat her dinner last night. We don't run an "all-you-care-to eat" joint for our pets; they are fed a measured amount twice a day, so in general, they eat quite enthusiastically at meal times.

Since our cat is getting on a bit– she was around two when we rescued her 11 years ago– such an incident is a wee bit worrisome. Or it was, until we went upstairs and found that she had heaved open a 15 pound dresser drawer in order to retrieve and tear open a bag of treats.

She was just too full to enjoy her dinner.

I guess she's not declining that much at all.

Free and Appropriate

When I was in college I took a variety of six-week courses to fulfill my PE requirement. Weight training, racquetball, golf, and bowling were all on my schedule at one time or another. Despite the requirement part, I enjoyed all of those classes considerably, and it wasn't until after I graduated that I realized people paid good money to access such recreation. I suppose that's what you get when you go to a school that also has its own ski hill, but I still kind of think that exercise, especially fun exercise, should be very affordable, if not free.

Fortunately, bowling fits into that category, or at least it does if you're a group of a hundred sixth graders, and today we took advantage of that opportunity with a field trip to the bowling center located on the army post not far from our school. The kids had a blast, but it seemed as if many enjoyed the snack bar even more than the actual bowling. In fact several kids were looking a little green as we gathered our group to go back to school.

It was nothing that a little fresh air and even more exercise couldn't cure, because even if bowling isn't free? Walking is–

and today we logged ourselves three miles,

round trip.

What Senior Moments?

I forgot to write avocado on the grocery list this evening, and when I remembered I forgot, it reminded me that I had also forgotten to water the pepper seedlings currently residing in our powder room and check their grow light. As I spritzed the sprouts, I considered what else may have slipped my mind. I'm pretty confident there's nothing else pending at the moment.

It's a system.

It works.