I pondered today what the most common birth date is. I did some online searching tonight and discovered that in the U.S. it's October 5 (do the math and you'll figure out why). The least common birth date in the U.S. is May 22. Completely useless trivia I realize.
- posted by Christine @ 10:43 PM

 
I really like going to the ocean. My friends and I went so often in late high school years and beyond that there's even one trip they've reminded me about that I have absolutely no memory of. Sometimes at night I try to drag up that memory from somewhere but it's just gone. It was at Dawn's parent's cabin, they say. You drove so-and-so home afterwards. Remember, we all dyed our hair while we were there?

Why can't I remember any of this?

Anyway, I do remember my friends climbing up huge sand walls on visits to the beach while I yelled, "It's going to cave in--be careful!" Or they'd go out in the water only to hear me say, "I think the tide is going out--be careful!" My friends enjoyed finding dead things along the surf. I even have a picture of this huge dead crustacean-thing in my hair that they wouldn't let me look at, they just said "Let us put this in your hair and we'll take a picture." I never knew what it was until the picture was developed.

One time my friend and I decided we were going to go "car camping" at the beach, but every beach we found at Ocean Shores said "No overnight parking." The perpetual pessimest, I would say, "We can't stay--we'll get in trouble" so we'd move on to another beach and find the same sign. We ended up sleeping about 20 miles from the beach in his car at a truck stop. We listened to huge trucks pull in all night and freeze in his old broken car with a huge hole in the floor boards.

Some trips were more pleasant than others.

I have video tapes of us fighting on the beach.

Well now I have another opportunity to go the ocean but with my children this time. Now my concerns are keeping them away from the dangerous waters and not picking up dead stuff.

Hey, this sounds familiar.
- posted by Christine @ 12:37 PM

 
This week I've had two completely different social issues to try to explain to the kids.

First social issue: Homelessness.

My 6-year-old daughter sees an older woman in a wheelchair with a sign at a highway entrance that says, "Hungry. Disabled. No house. Had cancer." I was hoping she didn't see it, as this isn't the first time she has, and it leads to so many questions that I wasn't in a mood to answer. Not that I want to squash out her curiosity, it's just a hard thing to explain. The hardest part is explaining why we aren't helping this person; why so many people drive by and don't help.

"Where does she get her clothes?"

"Does she have kids?"

"Do you have money we can give her, mom?"

Second social issue: Public urination.

I'm sitting in a kid-sized chair at a preschool board meeting the other day with a bunch of other moms. The kids are all playing outside on the playground. I stand up and peer out the window to make sure my little guy isn't pouring sand over someone's head. He's not with the kids...where is he....oh yes, the child off to the side peeing in the yard, that's mine. I hoped none of the other mothers would stand up to see how their child was doing.

He never did this until his cousin showed him how it's done. It's a habit that he just doesn't want to shake. I tried to tell him after the meeting that he isn't suppose to pee out there, and I remind him to tell me if he has to go, but I know in his little mind he just had to go and didn't want to take the time to find the bathroom. And besides, cousin does it.

Sigh.
- posted by Christine @ 6:46 PM

 
Of all the college classes I've had to enroll in, why didn't I ever take something that would actually teach me something I need to know, like Fruit Storage 101.

For years my summers have been spent with a huge hunk of runny watermelon balancing on a fridge shelf, a piece of flimsy foil falling off each time I reached for something near it. A pineapple on a nearby shelf, long pointy stalks digging into a cube of butter.

I never even thought to ask if there was a better way.

Well now I've realized I don't have to live this way, fruit hogging up valuable fridge space. Someone suggested to me that once you buy a watermelon (a fruit I usually crave throughout the summer), you should cut up the whole thing at once, putting all the pieces into a big container with a lid. What??

And the pineapple itself told me it's secret on a plastic tab connected to it...twist off that spiky part. It comes right off. I tried it last night. Too good to be true.

Now look how old I had to get to figure these things out.
- posted by Christine @ 5:02 PM

 
Last night, I sat blurry-eyed watching the news until I heard a story about flash mobs and perked up. Sounds like my kind of strange disruption. Apparently groups of people connect via email and meet up at a pre-planned time doing a pre-planned activing for a few minutes before quickly dispersing. People sitting around wonder what happened, and the crowd has an interesting story to tell the grandchildren. Of course, at some point this sort of havoc will be rendered illegal and there will be people sitting in jail cells for "flash mobbing."

I want to be in a flash mob someday. I wonder if anyone will ever have one in Port Orchard....I don't think so either.
- posted by Christine @ 10:21 PM

 
Well a few weeks ago I decided there were just too many chickens in my handy dandy chicken tractor, so I set my sights on building a standing coop somewhere on the property. My husband and I spent about two hours cutting out weeds and nailing a few dinky boards to a few trees. We argued. We cussed. We didn't get it built. I decided that evening we would just give a few extra chickens away.

So I made a little sign for the local feed store "Chickens-- $10 a piece." My dad and brother kindly explained to me why no one was calling. No one was going to pay $10 for my beautiful birds, despite the hand-fed daily greens and love.

So this week I had tried a new sign, "Free chickens."

Of course I wanted to write "Free to Good Home" or "Chickens looking for new place to Roost" but I had a hard time thinking of wording that had the hidden meaning of "only to homes that don't plan to eat them." I couldn't be too picky apparently, so I just left "free chickens" as is.

I got a couple of calls, but thankfully the first call was from a nice woman who was interested in my chickens because she had some the same age and they would "get along." Thank goodness, a kindered chicken spirit.

Today she came to pick up three hens and take them on to greener pastures. She arrived with a two cat carriers and a tolerant husband. She was pretty much on her own as I wasn't about to reach in there and try to catch one, and her husband looked about excited about it as I was. But after discovering they were terrified of the back of a mop handle, three were captured safely. Once caught in the lady's arms, the chickens would immediately calm down and the kids could pet them.

My son cried and said, "but I love all the chickens." We talked about it, and now, about five hours later, he's only concerned about pushing a little straw cart filled with canned food around the rec room.

So this leaves me with one rooster I still need to find a home for. I currently have two roosters, which is one too many. Apparently no one wants roosters. Whenever I suggest someone taking a rooster, they make reference to the taste of chicken.

It may be a big, ugly bird, but it still has a heart.
- posted by Christine @ 9:53 PM