A 14 year old boy asked, on Retrojunk.com, what our opinion was , of our own aging. He was actually grieving his early childhood already.
Anyway this was my reply.
"I'm 41. One of the things I've really come to appreciate about aging, and this should probably go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, is that my age-mates and I are all aging TOGETHER! Yeah, I'm 41. But I call my old high school class mates or college mates (including the one I married) and so are they. And when our old favorite singers come on tv for one of those "where are they now" segments...they all have a few grey hairs & they're a little fatter, too! I'm enjoying it like it's one big running joke that just keeps getting funnier and more absurd! I'm really loyal to my generation though, early 80's teen agers, born in the mid 1960's. When we were all 16 in 1981 I thought the world should revolve around us and cater to our needs, and now that we're all in our early 40's and it's 2006 I still think the same thing!"




I posted this one in their "memory lane" section.
"When I was a kid, on long car trips over the Cascade mountain range, to visit my grand parents, my dad used to tell us this. On one side of Interstate 5 there was cliff-face, but the other side was forest. He wanted to keep us quiet, and I guess the back of his hand would start hurting him too much to keep hitting us over the back of his seat, the way he often did. Then he used to tell us that in those woods was a NUDIST COLONY! Yeah, people were walking around naked in those woods. And if children in cars driving by were quiet enough, the nudists might not notice how close to the highway they were walking, on their hikes, and then we might see some. But if children in cars driving by were making a lot of noise, then the nudists would hear them, and go back to camp. We'd all quiet down and start staring at the forsest, and start shushing each other if someone started talking. He told us this one, on countless trips. I continued to believe him for years! Even as a teen ager I remember one of my teenage friends with a car, driving me to Seattle to visit her brother, and I told her, "Yeah, there's a nudist colony in there, it's supposed to be pretty close to the highway."
I think I had kids of my own to keep quiet until I realized what a fairy tale that was. I wish highway 29 between Minneapolis and Green Bay had a forest. My kids would fall for that one if I could get away with it!"

My husband's job is still going great. Last week , they held a department dinner at a restaurant in St. Louis Park. We both went and enjoyed a great dinner, and a trivia contest. I liked seeing that all his new co workers are really nice, and that they really appreciate him. They also enjoyed learning how my husband is phobic about seeing anyone's feet, and enjoyed wearing sandals to the office the following days, just to torment him!

I have a company laptop, he has a company laptop , we're becoming one of those families where the parents have their laptops out at any time. And I got all excited because I noticed that mine can detect wireless, and when we got broadband a few months ago, it came with wireless. But I don't remember our password, and haven't bothered to figure it out, because we live near a cafe with wireless and I'm on theirs right now! Dumb, I know. But I'm not shopping, and I'm not accessing our clients' patients' medical information, so I don't think I'm risking much.

We're grateful for my husband's new job...but we'll be catching up with old bills from his laid-off months for the next several months.

Last week, my 12 year old daughter brought home an almost straight-A mid-term report card! And she loves going to fencing lessons! But although she' s supposed to attend 2 a week for best progress, that place is just so far from home, that she prefers to go to the Saturday morning session, and not go to any week night sessions. It just wears her out too much, right now.

I was all happy that my 7 year old son had earned two "good behavior" certificates in school, so far...untl last week he brought home a note saying he had "chased and pushed" two girls on the playground. He says it was a game that went to far. I'm too bad a parent to call the school. They sent me a form to sign and return that didn't say much more than that, and they never called me or asked to see me.

Yesterday I was driving my son and daughter to my daughter's pre-orthodontia oral therap appointment. They teach you swollowing techniques now, instead of installing spikes behind your teeth like they did when I was a teen ager. Anyway the car actually over heated in traffic on our way from the north suburbs where we live, and the south suburbs (Bloomington) where this week's therapy visit had to be. It acutally stopped in traffic right on crowded highway 35W and I was releived that it started back up again those times. But the battery light came on, we could smell burnt rubber, and the engine made a squealing noise. I felt lucky we made it there in time. We pulled in to the parking lot, parked the car, and steam started billowing out of the hood! My daughter kept her appointment. But I had to borrow the theraptist's phone to call triple- A to get my car towed, and call a cab to get the 3 of us home again. I'm so lucky that we just joined triple-A this month, through an offer through my husband's excellent new job. But I was unlucky that I had sent our mutual cell phone with my husband, as he was helping a friend move, and I don't know our cell phone number and didn't have it written down, so I could't call him to ask for help. I was grateful to just get home. Lucky I had my corporate credit card with me to charge the towing. AAA only pays for the first 5 miles, and I needed to be towed closer to home.