Waltz or Fox Trot or Mambo or...

Last night I did a few Cryptoquotes from Newsday as I was lying in bed trying to make myself sleepy enough to drift off. I grab the puzzle page from newspapers whenever I'm tying them up for recycling every couple of weeks, since I normally don't get to read them in a timely fashion. Apparently I also don't whip through puzzles in an even close to timely fashion. This one was dated February 22, 2010!

Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor. -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Sounds like an invitation to get out and get moving!

Vancouver Wow

This week I got to go to Vancouver for a few days for an industry conference. How I wish the States had some of the things that Canadians accept as the comforts of home. Almost no litter on the city streets, and in the parks. People, for the most part, respect the NO SMOKING signs in public parks and beaches. Parks have two wide lanes for pedestrian travel and bike/roller blade travel. Park benches are mostly sponsored by people in memory of loved ones, so they are not desecrated or destroyed. I only saw one instance of graffiti when walking a 9 km path along the sea wall of the gorgeous Stanley Park. Hope I get to come back here someday when there is more time for sightseeing but I think I made the best of my two evenings here. Tired feet, but worth it!

Flip That Bathroom

When we first bought the house 11 years ago, we only had two kids. The extra room over the garage, plus its attached half bath, were hubby's office and private latrine. The previous occupants, with their three cats and three kids, had left the bathroom in pretty gross condition, but hubby didn't care about that at all...and I had other priorities at the time. When we decided to make Baby #3, the office was moved to the basement. Five year old Son #1 got to move upstairs when his baby brother's arrival was impending. The bathroom was cleaned up so it was sanitary, but no amount of washing could get rid of the rust on the radiator cover or the dingy faded white paint or the gouges in the walls.

Hubby started saying that he would turn the bathroom into a closet -- the room didn't have one -- which elicited horror from the rest of us, and all other homeowners we knew. "You NEVER want to get rid of a bathroom! Everyone is always looking to ADD bathrooms! They increase the value of your home!" Son #1 loves having a private latrine so has resisted.

Anyway, given hubby's laxity with taking on -- and finishing -- home improvement projects, after 11 years in the house we still have a bathroom upstairs. One is being built in the basement too -- a real one with a shower -- but all we have is the frame and the plumbing. Now that Son is working and needs collared shirts and slacks, he and I went to IKEA and got him a free standing wardrobe two weekends ago. I started thinking that I should just redo the gross bathroom already. Then Son #2 said something that made a lot of sense. "Closet or bathroom, you have to paint it."

I started with the spackling during the week, and then the sanding. Sanding rust off the radiator covers was a weird experience but it needed to be done. Bright and early Saturday I began painting walls, blue to match the bedroom. By Sunday morning I was ready to do trims. Sunday afternoon I primed the radiator cover with Rust-Oleum, and last night I gave it one coat of Rust-Oleum flat enamel. Tonight or tomorrow morning I hope to give it the second coat.

Yesterday afternoon we went back to IKEA, and Son chose some lovely artwork and some nice dark blue rugs and towels to finish it off. I found myself thinking that it was really a couple of hundred dollars and some of my time. It looks completely transformed. If there had been anything truly horrifying or disgusting, or if we were homeowners trying to sell the place and conceal something, it would have been a good coverup. How many unscrupulous people do that sort of thing? Oh well, can't stay up at night worrying. I think I'll just be proud of myself.

And I'm definitely Son's favorite person...this week at least...hubby is at most neutral about this whole thing. He doesn't necessarily like that I have the power to proceed with a few home improvement efforts without him...tough darts on this one. Tee hee.

Passability

Recent events make me think of this old joke:

Q: What do you call the guy who graduated dead last in his medical school class?

A: Doctor.

Funny, of course, and sad at the same time. When you interview a physician (if you even do interview a prospective new physician) you probably don't ask him his rank in his medical school graduating class. He's got the certificates of higher learning right there on his wall. You assume the possession of those credentials automatically raises him over a certain bar of excellence. Right?

Maybe.

What about extrapolating downward to lower levels of education? My son passed 7th grade English, with a 66. He is now qualified to go on to the 8th grade English curriculum, and he's happy with that because he got over the bar or under the limbo pole or however he looks at it. And he's plenty smart, but completely unmotivated with these unexciting kinds of challenges. In contrast, my older son, the classic overachiever, wouldn't have been happy with anything under a 95, and wouldn't have settled for the standard curriculum -- he needed to challenge himself in the honors class. Both passed English. Both achieved at least a certain level of competency. Right? But which would you rather see help a struggling ESL pupil? No contest.

Now I must say, in all fairness, that my soon to be 8th grader has creative talents up the ying yang: art, out-of-the-box thinking, uncanny ability to relate to small children, and more. But if he wishes to become an art student, elementary school teacher, Phys Ed instructor, marketing consultant, etc. he will need to attain some level of education beyond high school. And it sure would be nice for him to have his choice of institutions, rather than accept the one semi-awful offer extended to him if he does get the high school diploma but continues to squeak by in his core subjects. (You're right if you were thinking that the grades in math, science, and social studies weren't much better.)

Am I being unnecessarily dramatic? I hope I am. But the first 13 years of the young man's life have gone by at what seems like lightning speed, and the next five: I have no reason to suspect that it won't be more of the same. When I was growing up as a young adult in the early eighties, jobs were plentiful and one could earn a great living if willing to work hard. Not so today. People with great work ethics and multiple college degrees are sweating over who'll be chosen for the opening at the local CVS because they can't pay the mortgage. Why should we think it won't be tougher five years from now?

Little light bulb, shine. Please. Pretty please. We're talking about my kid.

Heavy Metal

Over the next couple of weeks the whole household is having dental checkups. Last night I took Son #3 for the two of ours. The doc said it's time to go and have a consultation with the orthodontist. Even though he's still got two baby teeth, the twelve year molars are on their way in, and it's pretty clear he'll need braces. He has me to thank for his small lower jaw, as does Son #1 who's had his braces for 14 months now.

When we went for the braces for our first born, we went to an orthodontist whose office is down the hall from our dentist -- who's a high school friend of mine -- and he agreed to give us a 10% discount on the part that was not covered by insurance. $6K to begin. Insurance paid a whopping $1K. $500 off for professional association. One grand down payment, and $175 a month for 20 months. Think we can get the ortho to wait another six months before our little darling begins this cycle? Does Murphy's Law of Medical Emergencies have a corollary called Murphy's Law of Medical Expenses? Watch this space for updates.

Murphy's Law of Medical Emergencies

Last night's bowling endeavor was great. I inched slightly over my established average, one of the guys bowled 150 pins over his average for the night, the teammate who pre-bowled went about 75 over average for the night...and we took 11 of 11 points, almost doubling our season total to date. Because we had only three bowlers on each team, we got out of there about 10:45...good...but I didn't get to sleep until around midnight, just because.

It's a bit rude to wake up at 0530 with no interruptions, but I was awakened at 0345 to the sound of hubby thrashing around in the throes of an insulin surplus. Tried to get him to open his mouth for the Snickers bites, but nope he was too far along by then. Fire Dept. ambulance EMT knew the score. Unfortunately the two police officers they sent, though they tried their best to be helpful, weren't that experienced, but at least one of them learned something. By 0430 they were finished, and I put up the load of white laundry that I'd planned to do at 0530. Don't worry; I didn't stay up to put it in the dryer...did that at 0530 when the alarm rang.

Figures that this sort of thing didn't happen on a night when I'd crawled into bed at 9pm. BTW, hubby did get up for work this morning, not sure how he managed it, but I knew better than to try to establish conversation. I think we'll both crash early tonight...