Sundry

Lord.

That I survived this weekend makes me titanium woman. I'll try not to bore you with minute details, but I will dutifully cite the following: PTA carnival (encompassing an all day set-up, including hanging paper-cut snowflakes from yarn and safety pins from the ceiling...many, many, MANY snowflakes...and the ladder was tall and resulted in sore thighs and bruises that have lasted for days due to panicked leg-gripping of said ladder) , a 3-day Model UN conference and all the hither and yon transport of multiple middle school boys which that entails, Girl Scout Thinking Day with hundreds and HUNDREDS of girl scouts, lots and lots of wine, a few sleepovers and a playdate thrown in here and there with required transport duties, and regularly-scheduled mommy duty such as laundry and shopping. How pathetic is it to want to go to work in order to relax a bit?

This is what it's about though. Life. The only real change I'd ask for is more rainy days. And winning the lottery would be nice. Don't know that I'd quit working, but I'd definitely decide when to work and not to work (tomorrow, for instance, would be a "lay on the couch" day. But alas, I have not won the lottery).

Speaking of life, there's so much good out there. Why is it so easy to cover the good with Jerry-Springer negativity? Examples of good from this weekend:

My son...he is painfully shy. He is so shy that he would prefer not to order in restaurants because it means he must speak to a stranger. His Model UN sponsor (who is his Visions teacher too (G&T program)) told me that he came out of his committee meeting on Friday night in a daze. He came up to her and told her "Mrs. D!!!! For the *first* time in my life, I stood up in front of a bunch of people I didn't know and I made my point and I didn't stutter and it made sense!!!!" Mrs. D told me that she was missing her own daughter's swimming competition at U. Va. this weekend in order to take the kids to Model UN and that Q's telling her that and the look on his face made it WAY more than worth it to her. I managed not to dissolve into a puddle of jello when she told me the story. I am thrilled beyond belief that Q is growing, and very bittersweet that I am totally irrelevant to it. I had nothing to do with it. This was all him and Mrs. D (not to mention their dinner together with all the Model UN kids at the university Deli in which he confided some stuff to her that he's not even told ME!!!). And that's a good thing. *I* still get to weep with joy and I still get the hugs and kisses goodnight. (Plus, I get the comfort of having Mrs. D. at the school to look out for my boy. I could write pages on this but won't right now. PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS ROCK!!!!!! They sure can. And do. I hugged her multiple times.)

Our PTA carnival went very well, and we made more money on our first ever silent auction than we'd hoped and while I had very little to do with actually pulling it off, I helped encourage the people who wanted to do all this to pull it off. So good on me for believing in them but mostly good on them for doing it. It's really fun to manage when the people you're managing are competent and amazing. In those cases, being president rocks.

My daughter asked me to go with her to Thinking Day because she wanted me to be there. I'm hanging on to that while I can.

Barack Obama rocks. He does. I've said this for four years. Nastiness is flying around out there now, but he seems to be staying honest, what with "silly season" comments and all. BTW, Ralph Nader does NOT rock, which is a shame because I love his ideas. But I blame him and my blindly idealistic friends who voted for him rather than Kerry (or Gore) in the last few elections for the MESS we are in today. Ralph Nader, I used to respect you. I don't any more. I think you are selfish and arrogant. It's Barack Obama who rocks. Because sometimes you have to consider the good of the group before the good of yourself and your golden-gilded ideas. Reality is reality. Live in *that*. Because like it or not, we all have to put up with reality.