Nobody NEEDS to see the space shuttle!

I just finished sorting out a few bills tonight, writing some checks for things that I can't pay online and/or with credit card. You know, the "old fashioned" way ;-)

Amongst my checks was a donation to Todd's preschool. They recently merged with another church in the community, putting pressure on the space and resources they have to accommodate everyone for their activities-- the preschool, the after-school youth groups, the church itself, etc... and so, the fundraising begins.

I am reminded that in a very short time Todd will be in elementary school and coming home with boxes of chocolate he's supposed to sell. It will be easy in our household-- we'll just fork out some dough for donations, rather than force Todd to go door-to-door, pestering the neighbors. And of course, there is the question of WHAT exactly the donation is for, which plays a big role in just how enthusiastically we'll contribute :-P

Have you ever seen the George Lopez show? If not, it's an American sitcom featuring comedian George Lopez as the head of his typical Mexican-American middle class household. One episode dealt with his young son selling yet another batch of candy bars to raise money for some such deal deemed important by the school. Or maybe it was just the PTA. At any rate, when George discovered that the money was going towards a trip to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to watch the space shuttle launch, he put his foot down. As he put it, he has no problem donating money to things kids actually need for a proper education. Books, computers, etc... all fall within that realm. But a fancy field trip? When kids could learn just as much about space through books and videos? Hardly a basic necessity, and enough is enough! Worse yet, the parents that couldn't (or wouldn't) contribute were looked down upon, either as being poor or being unsupportive. The highlight of the show was George's argument with the head of the PTA, trying to convince her that while seeing it up close is neat, "nobody (actually) NEEDS to see a space shuttle launch!"

So far Todd's school needs have been pretty basic and we feel the money's going to good causes. But I still wonder what lies ahead, and what sorts of programs we'll be duped into supporting at his future schools. I am most certainly not looking forward to weeding it all out. I'm with George Lopez-- I have no problem shelling out cash or other resources to ensure Todd and the kids get a good education, but I'm a little more reserved about paying for the frills and fringe benefits that nobody really NEEDS.

Whoever thought childhood education could turn into such a political machine? I wonder how many other such "PTA heads" I'll run into myself!

Any advice or horror stories from battle-weary parents who've been there and done that?

Adam's Accountat @ Home

This blog post is dedicated to Kendra :-) You'll see why in a sec.

Anyone ever read the comic strip "Adam @ Home" by Brian Basset? It used to be called just plain "Adam" until he revamped it with a focus on Adam working from home. For those of you out of the loop: as the title suggests, Adam, father of 3, works from home, enabling him to look after the kids while his wife works at a conventional office. Naturally this gives him a totally different perspective from the rest of us, on "the workplace". Observe:

A couple weeks before income tax filings were due in the U.S., here were the strips that were featured on Adam @ Home:













Now, why does this remind me of Kendra? Because she, like Adam, works from home and because she, like the other guy in the pink slippers, works in the accounting field!

So... Kenzie, does that mean you find yourself sitting on both sides of that table, when it comes time to doing your taxes? ;-)

(originally posted at:  http://www.myspace.com/hellykwee/blog/387050214)

Boys Will Be Boys

I'm sure most of my readers can relate. Even if you don't have a little boy yourself, you probably know somebody who does. Or else you've dealt with men closely in your life, and, well, what can I say? Men = boys, just physically bigger.

Here's what I want to know. Do ALL boys come with this innate affinity for guns and shooting and the like?

See, we've never exposed Todd to that sort of thing. He doesn't even watch cartoons like that. When this first surfaced, he never even *played* with other kids who loved to play shoot-em-up. Heck, he didn't play with other kids, period! And the grownups sure didn't play cops and robbers. So-- what's the deal? As soon as he sets foot in the toy section of a store, he makes a beeline for the guns.

At home, he makes makeshift weapons. The cardboard tube from a paper towel roll. A vacuum extension. His toy golf clubs. His own hands! Really stretches the creative imagination. And as much as we discourage him from "shooting", he enjoys it the way most kids enjoy a bowl of ice cream.

Why do boys seem to be born with this? Why do they all gravitate to it even if they've never seen a gun before?

Moreover, what did children a few centuries ago use? Did they use sticks and play swordfight? What about kids of the prehistoric era, when swords or knives hadn't even been invented yet? Did they chuck pine cones at each other, pretending they were rocks?

Sigh... boys!!

(originally posted at: http://www.myspace.com/hellykwee/blog/385011057)

Photo Fun

I love having a camera phone. It comes in so handy when I want to snap photos of things that just happen to tickle my fancy wherever I am. It's not practically to always tote around my camera, but my phone? That's something that is always with me. Granted, it's a simple VGA camera, one in which even Lucia's 2MP phone cam could put it to shame. But it provides surprisingly good-quality pictures, especially close up. And so I am able to share a few random shots I've felt compelled to capture this past few weeks.

First up: I found Treasure Island! This was on a door that presumably led to a conference room in our old office building:



I had no idea Treasure Island was so close by and that we needn't fly off to faraway fairy tale lands to find it! I especially liked the Hollywood-esque star at the bottom of the sign.

Now, the local Rite-Aid is shutting down, and so has been having closeout sales for sometime. The other day, we sauntered in, seeing if we could find any good deals. Though we didn't end up buying anything, I was richly rewarded with a good giggle when I spied this little rack sign/item mismatch:



I've always thought Slim Jims and beef jerky were bad for your teeth, but man! Wait till you try gnawing on a plastic toothbrush! And those bristles? Impossible to chew, I tell ya!

Finally, a non-funny. This was my breakfast yesterday. Our company provides us with free fruit in the kitchen. Every Monday a bountiful harvest is stocked: grapes, strawberries, bananas, oranges, and apples. Yesterday I took the time to wash and cut up some fruit and made a nice plateful. It looked so rich and healthful and colorful that I couldn't resist taking a pic of my plate of strawberries, apple slices and grapes. With orange juice and a cup of hot steaming green tea on the side:



Mmmm.... breakfast of champions! :-D

(originally posted: http://www.myspace.com/hellykwee/blog/384280522)

Brief Update, and the Friday Five!

Brief updates on what's going on:
Last weekend we went to my sister-in-law's house to celebrate her 40th birthday. It was a record-breakingly hot day, temps hovering in the 90s, and we brought a change of clothes for Todd so he could enjoy playing with the squirt guns. After his aunt taught him the art of taking potshots at Daddy, he especially enjoyed it! :-) Unfortunately, not long after we arrived, I came down with a fever and chills and had to retire to the guest room for most of the celebration. When you're huddled under a fleece blanket inside a room with no air conditioning while it's 90+ degrees out, and you're STILL shivering, you know it's bad. Fortunately, I was pretty much recovered come Monday, so no lost time at work.

Allan finished another milestone in his degree progress, inching his way closer to finishing being a student, finally! It's been a busy, hectic couple of weeks. Allan's had to stay late at the office often to finish stuff up for school (in addition to work), so I've pretty much been playing the role of "single mom" for a little while. It's HARD. I don't know how single moms do it, especially with more than one kid. My hat's off to them!

We had another parent-teacher conference at Todd's school, he's doing well, aside from his exceptional shyness. He's so timid that it's often hard to gauge how he's actually doing, what he's thinking, or if he's even picking up on what he's being taught. But we know he picks it up, he just doesn't regurgitate. Ah well, Mommy wasn't so different as a little girl (or even now, for that matter!) so what can you expect?

And now... the Friday Five. I picked some relatively easy ones this week, enjoy!

Name five (or more, or less-- I know how hard it can be to come up with exact numbers of things)...

1. ... things you can't live without.

a. Chapstick! My lips get very dry
b. Water (I'm not being cheeky, I like having something to drink near me at all times)
c. My computer
d. My warm comfy bed with my warm blanket and soft pillow :-D

2. ... of the best moments in your life.

(these are pretty generic and refer to overall events rather than specific ones, but those are the ones I tend to remember better!)
a. Whenever Todd does/learns something new, it's wonderful to see his little brain light up as he absorbs and applies a new concept
b. The next day after recovering from a bout with illness. I feel recharged, like a brand-new woman, not taking good health for granted! This has become especially apparent this past few months, when I seem to be getting sick every couple weeks, which is about the frequency with which Todd comes down with some new bug he's picked up at school. Sigh. I hate putting him in full-time day care :-(

3. ... celebrities you can't stand.

a. Sean Astin. He was the guest of honor at one of our Military Balls, and let's just say-- he was as arrogant and full of himself as you'd expect.
Hmmm... can't really think of anyone else. Sure, Paris Hilton and her ilk annoy me, but not to the point that I can't stand them. Maybe because I've never actually met them in person, unlike Sean Astin.

4. ... books you enjoy(ed) reading.

a. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
b. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
c. Fried Green Tomatoes by Fannie Flagg
d. Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck
e. The "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder

5. ... items in your purse/backpack/on your desk.

a. Chapstick (surprised?)
b. Lotion
c. Wallet
d. Gum
e. Toothpicks
f. Tissue
g. Comb

(as you can tell, I like to be prepared! My purse is a veritable personal hygiene bag-- all I need is a toothbrush!)

(originally posted at: http://www.myspace.com/hellykwee/blog/381357404)

Friday Five-- a nice little collection

I abandoned the weekly "Friday Five" on my Grab blog a long time ago-- I think it's been about a year. Back then, they were pretty simple questions to answer, most took only a sentence or two. And the fun part was when friends commented, for each answered the five questions in the comments section. Hilarity often ensued, especially with the more risque questions ;-) But interest waned as one by one, people abandoned the site, and so I gave up trying to keep the "weekly tradition" up.

The Friday Five community, however, is still alive and well out there and I decided to finally take a peek and answer one of the sets of questions I found interesting and a little more thought-provoking than "What's your favorite color?"

And so, here it is-- a mini-survey of sorts, ringing in Friday with... the Friday Five!

1. What song would you sing to your newborn child? (OR if you already had a child, which song did you sing to him/her?)

The usual classic lullabies. But I always hated the original "Rock-a-bye Baby"-- I mean come on, who puts cradles in trees, and why the hell would you want to sing about the poor kid falling from it!? So, I made up my own verse:

Rock-a-bye baby in Mommy's arms
While Mommy's singing, baby nods off
When Mommy's finished, baby's asleep
Good night, my darling, and pleasant dreams

There... isn't that a much nicer visual than a plummeting cradle with baby in it?

2. How do you think animals think? (i.e. in animal language, human language, etc.)

I am convinced they think we humans are crazy, for one. I'm sure they wonder why we make such a big fuss over all kinds of things in our lives. It's really pretty simple: eat, sleep, play, stay warm, stay safe. As far as languages go-- each has their own (haven't we all listened to dolphins squeaking at each other underwater?), but since we can train animals to respond to commands, they have some ability to pick up bits of a "foreign" language ;-)

3. As a child, did you have a dream to make a difference in the world? Can you describe your dream?

Not really. Quite honestly, I think "making a difference in the world" is far too lofty for most kids to even be able to think about. There ARE some young, precocious children who are aware of that concept, but most likely it's because they learned it from their parents. I dreamed of what kids usually dream about: being rich and famous, or working with animals, or having a little family and playing house, etc...

4. Do you believe in God/a Higher Being?

Absolutely. There are far too many marvels in the world, and its existence alone is too precise for it to all have come out of nothing or random chance. One thing I never understood is the conflict between science and faith. To me, they aren't contradictory, they are complementary-- science is just a way to study and understand God's creations-- within the limits of our own human minds, of course.

Have you ever seen the Simpsons episode where Lisa creates a tiny world in a petri dish? Its inhabitants regard her as their "God". Everything they know of their world is contained in that petri dish, and they hail Lisa as the creator of everything in that world. Silly cartoon? Maybe. But I find it a pretty good analogy to our own world-- there's a vast amount of stuff we don't understand/aren't aware of. Our own perspective of the world around us is pretty limited, and though we may never arrive at all the answers, they ARE out there-- and science is one means of figuring things out.

5. Do you believe in aliens?

This kind of relates to the previous question. As vast as this universe is, it stands to reason that we aren't the only forms of life around. After all, Lisa Simpson could easily create another petri dish flourishing with life, right? ;-) So... yes... I don't think we are alone in this universe.

... and btw, my favorite color is orange. Followed closely by purple.

(originally posted at: http://www.myspace.com/hellykwee/blog/376997266)

Dressing can be hazardous to your health

Owie... have you ever wrenched your shoulder by the mere act of pulling on a shirt over your head? I have. Not once. Not twice. A few times. And every time, it’s been inside a dressing room of a store.

I don’t know what it is-- maybe it’s because my movement is restricted due to the small size of the stalls, making me perform contortions. Or maybe it’s because the whole point of dressing rooms is to TRY on clothes, and I’m unwittingly putting on something ill-fitting.

No matter the reason-- it hurts like a bitch! I invariably end up straining the top of my shoulder, the back of it, and all along the front to my breastbone. And it usually remains sore for at least a few days afterward.

Has anything like this ever happened to you?

On another note, I enjoyed a dinner with my group at work last night. There’s a lot of us-- around 60 total, and we enjoyed Mexican food, margaritas and beer at a huge restaurant overlooking the ocean in downtown Santa Barbara. The food was good, but so was the company. Add yet another reason why I’m enjoying working here so much more than my old company. Over there, I always had trouble finding people to hang out with. Sure, there was a huge group of college hires, but not only were they widely dispersed throughout the company (meaning little contact with them outside of college-hire-related activities), but most of them were fresh out of college and in their early 20s. On the flip side, most of my colleagues had families of their own and high-school-aged kids. It was basically two opposite ends of the spectrum: the young, yuppie-yet-partying crowd on one end, and the old, family-oriented folks on the other end. There was hardly anyone in my age group, and in the middle of that spectrum. Here, the majority of my colleagues are closer to my age, and probably have more in common. So it’s kind of nice. I had a good time last night and look forward to more social activities with my colleagues :-)

And now that lunch has arrived, I shall pick it up and eat :-9

(originally posted at: http://www.myspace.com/hellykwee/blog/376101857)

Fortune Cookie

I’m struggling to keep my eyes focused as I type this. Just when I thought my days of staying up late catching up on schoolwork were over... I get to proofread part of Allan’s thesis. Now, you’d figure that since I’m only checking for grammatical correctness, it shouldn’t take that long, since I don’t need to study it or understand the content, right? Just make sure a sentence parses correctly. Weeellll... you’d be right, except when it comes to this die-hard grammar police, I ended up picking through it with a fine-tooth comb, bleeding red ink all over the place, and staying up past 1am finishing it.

Consequently, I came in this morning feeling a bit under the weather, so I headed straight to the kitchen, hoping to grab an apple to munch .. all, they are supposed to do a better job at waking you up than coffee. Alas, no apples, and it was too early in the morning for the facilities folks to restock them. So, a cup of coffee (loaded with milk and sugar) it is. And you know me-- I don’t normally drink coffee. Especially after my awful coffee mishaps! On the rare occasion that I do-- you know it’s gotta be pretty bad. Like being rousted at 4am for an alert (practice deployment drill) during my Army days.

In any event, here I sit, slowly waking up, eating strawberries and grapes, sipping sugar water tinged with coffee, and pondering a tiny slip of paper in front of me-- something I picked out of a fortune cookie during lunch last week. It reads:

The riches of others makes you more valuable.

And I know it’s not just my addled brain this morning, for it didn’t resonate with me back when I opened it, and it still doesn’t make much sense now. So, I leave it to you, dear readers-- what on earth do you think that little piece of "wisdom" means??

p.s. Do you use Gmail? Have you seen the newest Gmail feature? Check it out: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

:-D

(originally posted at: http://www.myspace.com/hellykwee/blog/372942506)