"The Thems"

I went for a grocery run this morning, but since it was a smaller amount of groceries this time, there were no unusual comments to report. It was a rather boring trip, really. Sometimes boring is nice!

When I got home, the kids were watching our latest Netflix DVD -- we're always on the cutting edge of academics on our homeschool day -- Fiddler on the Roof. We can file this time in our school work under: music (of course), Russian history, Jewish tradition, and psychology. What a fun movie. I hadn't seen it since college. So, after putting groceries away, I plopped myself on the couch to watch and cried through quite a few scenes, perhaps because these days I can really identify with the poor parents! And also now the kids know why I sometimes go around singing, "If I were a rich man . . . "

So when we went to the library, I was on the hunt for more musicals. It was The Music Man last week, you might remember, and today I got The Pirates of Penzance. That made me think about my Dad and how when I was in high school we went to go see Pirates of Penzance on stage. Tuesday was my Dad's birthday, so memories of him this week are especially dear. It's hard to believe that it's been six years since he died. I have interminably long lists of silly sayings I say because of him:

"Good, gooder, goodest -- Never let it rest -- until the gooder is better and the goodest is best!"
"Shake and shake the ketchup bottle, first will come and then a lot'll." (or something like that!)
"You wear your food nicely!"

The Star Spangled Banner starts: "Jose can you see . . ."

"Here's your hat, what's your hurry."

"You know the cemetery? They're just dying to get in there."

And the kids will thank my Dad forever for creating "The Thems". These are the people that purposely make us wait in traffic. People who have to make a left turn in the only lane available while you're trying to go straight. People who need to go by while you're trying to merge into traffic. People who trip the signal lights going the opposite way, making the stop at the red light just about forever. All these people are "The Thems." My kids know them well. "The Thems" have followed us all the way from California. They're loyal that way. There aren't as many of them here as there were before because it was a long way to go, but they are here in Georgia none the less.

May holds some other important birthdays as well. My sister Connie's birthday was on Monday! Congratulations, Connie! Woo-hoo! Then, my brother-in-law, Ken, also had a birthday yesterday. He's REALLY old now. : ) I'm the oldest in my family, but Keith is a "woe-is-me" middle child. One of the perks of being a middle child is that you will always have a sibling that is older than you. So I just had to throw in how REALLY OLD Kenny is! Of course, that means that I'm downright ancient in Connie's eyes! Eek! Just thinking about life in my 20s -- O so long ago! -- and how old people were who were in their 40s. It's true!