WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME... EXCEPT ONE

We had, for the most part, a truly lovely Thanksgiving yesterday.

We went to our friends Greg and Kathy's, whom we regularly celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve with. The food was outstanding, with everyone bringing their strongest suit to the table -- Greg's amazing smoked turkey, Kathy's artery-cloggingly-wonderful potatoes, a broccoli-cheese casserole to die for, my own stuffing (cornbread, sausage, figs, apples, cranberries and more), and a grand total of 9 desserts for 18 people, everyone of them homemade from scratch, including my own Sabrina's astonishing New York cheesecake.

The company was outstanding, with families from our church, and some folks we enjoy seeing at Greg and Kathy's (just as people have for years made friends with people they don't know at our Christmas parties, and come back year after year hoping to see them again). Our own kids (the oldest of the bunch) were very well-behaved, and all the kids in general played together well -- Barbies, Wii Sports and the like.

We also brought my mom over for Thanksgiving dinner. She's come many times before, and always had a lovely time. But this time was different. It should have been much easier, since we moved her a few months ago into a residential care facility only a few miles away from Thanksgiving dinner. But it was harder. Much harder.

Because a couple of weeks ago, my mom had a small stroke.

The damage didn't seem too bad at first. She's having a harder time hearing and processing what people say to her. She's walking a bit slower, and is afraid of falling. But clearly the damage goes deeper.

When we were about to sit down and eat, I raced over to pick up Grandma. Parked in the driveway so she didn't have far to walk, then helped her into the house and to the table. I fixed her a plate of yummies. She seemed to do okay. She wasn't participating in the conversation, but it was really going too fast for her. I guess I should have realized there was a problem when she tried to eat the napkin ring (though she is blind, and couldn't really tell what it was).

It was on the way back to her place that the depth of the problems surfaced. "Did you have a nice Thanksgiving dinner, Mom?" I asked. "Was that Thanksgiving dinner?" Uh-oh.

Then she asked "How do you know Lee?" Um... he's my husband? That was an odd question. On we drove.

When we got to her place, the caregiver came out to help her out of the car. Grandma was confused. "Have I ever been here before?" she asked. Okay, she's only been there a couple of months. And she's never been out at night from that location, and yes, she's blind. So we'll give her that.

But when we got her inside, the caregiver told her to say goodbye to Jan (i.e., me) so she could get ready for bed. And my mom said, "Jan's not here." The caregiver laughed, said of course I was here. And my mom looked straight at me and said, "You're not Jan."

I had to persuade her that yes, I was. She was very confused. She seemed to believe me. I said good night.

And back I went to Thanksgiving dinner, spent another three hours chatting and laughing and sipping. Really, a lovely evening. One of the best Thanksgivings I can remember.

Except for one little memory lapse.

Sigh.....

HAPPY THANKS GIVING

Yes, I know we're still a day or so out. But my kids are both off from school for the loooong weekend, and I've bought my figs and my cranberries and my sausage to start cooking stuffing... and that makes it Thanksgiving.


If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I stop at this time of the year not to randomly give thanks, but to go back over my "thanksgiving" list that I list out at the beginning of every month. Each month I sit down and write down 50 things I'm thankful for from that month. Sometimes it's easy and joyful. Sometimes it's really, really hard. Either way, it's a great discipline.

And now it's time for me to go through the whole year's lists and pull out 50 things, starting with this month (November) and going backwards to... well, it should be December. But I'm afraid I wasn't very thankful in December and January. So this only goes back to February. (But I'm really thankful now!!)

May you also find many things to be thankful for this year! And in 2008, for these things I have been thankful:

1. The possibility of buying [a house we ended up not getting]
2. Being able to watch the election returns (instead of going to class)
3. [A good friend] applying to the screenwriting program at USC
4. Sabrina winning the "most creative" Halloween costume award for her team costume "Reduce," "Reuse," and "Recycle."
5. The kids working hard on their school application essays
6. Sabrina getting awesome grades in geography
7. Getting good notes on our script from our writers' group
8. Lunch with a mom from school
9. Going food-shopping with Sabrina
10. Air conditioning
11. My department chair at USC assuming I know I'm doing
12. Getting perfect evaluations from one of my classes last spring
13. Cory and his friend Max's performance of their parody rendition of "Born to Run" at Family Camp
14. Being able to get the kids new uniforms for school
15. The awesome pillows at our hotel in Newport Beach
16. Cory putting on a great performance at rock star camp
17. Going to the wedding reception for some friends at church who got married in Hawaii
18. Going to the wedding of a friend from Premise
19. Sabrina hanging out with really nice girls at Family Camp
20. Our friends Nancy and Bob taking our kids overnight so we could go on a research trip
21. Starting to read Lord of the Rings to the kids
22. Lee cracking story problems on our script
23. Seeing A Chorus Line at the Music Center
24. Enough money to buy gas
25. Dinner with some new(er) friends from church
26. The Alliance of Women Directors board retreat in Oxnard
27. Cory switching his focus from drumming to being a lead singer
28. New shoes
29. Lee working hard on our new script
30. How cool (and hot!) Cory looks in his new hats
31. Planning the Alliance of Women Directors board retreat
32. The end of the school year
33. The spec script market heating up
34. Iron Man
35. Having lunch with Wendi, one of my best friends from junior high/high school
36. Friends praying for us
37. The Bel Air Pres comedy concert
38. Sleep
39. My computer
40. Being invited to an Easter brunch at the Hollywood Bowl
41. Lee helping me with a project I just couldn't get right
42. Our friend Rene letting Cory P.A. on his short film
43. Feeling peaceful even in straitened circumstances
44. The possibility of VA benefits for my mom
45. Finishing our last ever Girl Scout cookie sale
46. My students bring in birthday cupcakes for my birthday
47. Behind-the-scenes strike news on deadlinehollywooddaily.com
48. Being asked to join the Writers Guild Spiritual Outreach Committee
49. Cory's fine performance in The Government Inspector at school
50. Watching American Idol with the whole family.


Okay, lots of little things in there, a few big ones... But all of them, I am very grateful for (and 450 more for the year as well!)

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

BADD VIDEOS

I was thrilled recently to realize that Bel Air Presbyterian's Drama Department's videos are being posted on YouTube. We are continually amazed at how good (and how funny) they are.

I had wanted to post a link to this last Sunday's -- a "negative campaign ad" for Joshua, which had us howling. But it's not up yet. So here's one of our golden oldies. (My antique computer -- about to be replaced -- isn't so hot at embedding videos.)

And if you click over to YouTube and type in "belairdrama," you'll find a whole selection. Every one worth clicking on!

Enjoy!

LESSONS FROM THE AMAZING RACE

You know, we could just have a standing "Lesson from The Amazing Race" this season, and it would be: "Read the frigging instructions!"

Once again, we have clue-reading problems. With our teams now in Kazakhstan, Ken and Tina follow the detour clue to a point. They have to dress in a cow costume, make their way through the streets to a milk stand and drink a glass of milk. (This made for fun TV, especially when mother-and-son team Toni and Dallas congaed their way through the streets -- but is it really indicative of the culture of Kazakhstan? Really?)

Ken and Tina make it to the milk stand, drink the milk... and leave, not realizing their next clue was on the bottom of the milk glass. They manage to figure out their mistake and go back for their clue... but they then decide they really should return to where they started to return their cow costume. This they do, even though the clue says nothing of the sort. And even though Toni and Dallas point out to them that they'll need their cow head later in the game. Oy.


More bad clue reading from the Frat Boys, who are shedding on all fraternities an aura of stupidity. They (stupidly) leave their shoes behind at the cow costume stop (the costume comes with boots), assuming they'll be able to go back for them later. They manage to drink the milk and read the clue -- and are so excited that they're heading for the Pit Stop (i.e., the stopping point for that leg of the race), that they bail on their shoes and grab a taxi. Oops. The clue says, as so many of the Race clues do: "Make your way on foot..." So when they reach the Pit Stop, back they have to go to do the whole thing over... on foot. Darn. Too bad they don't have with them, oh I don't know, some shoes!

Either of these could be our lessons for the episode. But let's take "Read the instructions" as a meta-lesson for the whole show and focus instead on this week's loser team: Terence and Sarah.

Terence and Sarah decide to go for the Fast Forward -- a twice-only in the course of the show clue that allows them to jump to the head of the pack. However, the Fast Forward warns that they're going to be eating Kazahki delicacies. Presumably the contestants have all watched the show before, and know that this is usually an invitation to throw up. The food in question is likely to be obnoxious (to western appetites) -- for instance, the time contestants had to eat still-living-and-wriggling octopi in Japan. Or it's likely to be massive in amount -- as witness the time contestants had to eat a pound of caviar in Russia, or five pounds of meat in Argentina.

Oh, and notice something else that tends to pop up in the eating challenges: Meat, of one kind or another. Sure enough, when they arrive at the Fast Forward, what do they have to eat but fat from a sheep's butt. Yum. (Nick and Starr, also there to vie for the Fast Forward, wisely avoid asking or reading what it is they're actually eating.)

A tough enough task for a carnivore. But, as it turns out, Terence is a vegetarian. Did it never occur to him that an eating challenge would probably be a bad idea for someone who isn't an omnivore? Is his world so small that he assumes all cultures make a space for vegetarians?

I don't know if it's too his credit or not that he actually tries to complete the challenge. I sort of think he should have stuck with his principles and refused to eat the meat. (I remember the time the nice young couple hit a Fast Forward that involved having your head shaved -- and the guy refused to let his girlfriend shave her hair -- they were both models, I believe.)

Terence, however, tosses his 18-year moral stance to the winds and tries to gobble the sheep's butt. He can't do it. Gagging ensues, and he and Sarah have to leave the Fast Forward and try to catch up with the rest of the contestants.

They're too far behind, of course. Even with the stupidity of the Frat Boys and all the instruction-reading-failures mentioned above... Terence and Sarah are the last team to arrive and are out of the Race.

Thus leading us to this week's lesson: Know Your Limitations.

MOVIE THOUGHTS: HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR

HSM3 is a movie you're supposed to hate, right?

I mean, there's the whole Disney-corporate-merchandising angle: It's not a movie, it's a chance to sell stuff. Or there's the relevance angle: High school kids' lives are about angst and drugs and sex and pregnancy and peer pressure, not about singing and dancing and where to go to college and chaste teen romance. Or there just the "I'm too self-consciously hip for the room" angle: In an ironic age, how can anyone actually like something so unabashedly eager to please? Or the didactic angle: A movie like this should have a message!

I don't really care. Because I loved High School Musical 3.

If you've seen the first two on TV, you pretty much know where this is going. Troy and Gabriela, devoted to each other and to minimal amounts of closed-mouth kissing, will have pressure on their relationship (this time caused by the fact that she's gotten into Stanford -- oh the hardship! -- and will be a thousand miles away). Sharpay will try to undermine Troy and Gabriela, will try to get Ryan to help her, and will fail. Troy will be torn between basketball and singing-and-dancing. And there will be a musical.

(And if you haven't seen the first two -- we took a friend who hadn't, and she had no problem figuring it out.)


Craft remains very high, with great work from Kenny Ortega (choreographing and directing), as well as the myriad of songwriters putting together the near-continuous musical numbers. Zac Efron does a fine job as Troy -- but he almost doesn't have to, he's so gorgeous to look at. (Screams from the audience on the opening shot -- a huge close-up of Troy -- and I have to say, well-deserved screams.) I've never been a Vanessa Hudgens fan, but she annoyed me less than in the first two movies. I would have liked to have seen more of the supporting characters -- Sharpay and Ryan in particular -- but this is Troy and Gabriela's movie.

I thought the story hung together better in HSM2, actually, where all the action was focused on the big show, and where the time frame was condensed into summer vacation. But the big numbers, full of exuberance and charm and sincerity and not a whit of winking at the audience, all work like gangbusters here. The opening basketball number is terrific, the Troy-and Gabriela- waltz number was just lovely, and the "Boys Are Back" number, with Zac Efron and Corbin Bleu dancing their way through a junkyard, is a show-stopper.

Maybe the time is just right for a movie like this. America made it through the Depression with the help of Busby Berkeley and the like, and a peppy, well-done, uplifting musical feels very timely indeed right now.

Here's the bottom line: I was in a grumpy, anxious mood when I walked into the movie. I started smiling two minutes in. I smiled continuously throughout the movie, laughed, even leaked a tear or two. And I was laughing and smiling when I came out. Not many movies you can say that about.

A couple of days later, when we had our weekly family meeting and talked about our "highs" and "lows" for the week, every single one of us picked HSM3 as our "high." And Cory even posted a thread on his Facebook page that said something like "I saw HSM3 and I'm not ashamed to admit I liked it."

Maybe that's the message of the movie: It's okay to openly like something that makes you smile this much.

High School Musical 3-- an antidote to the evening news. Go see it and smile!

LESSONS FROM THE AMAZING RACE

I haven't been consistent about posting on this season's Amazing Race, because I've watched so many on Tivo, getting caught up, etc. But this week's was a doozy. (As well, the episode confirmed for me that I really do not want to visit India. Sorry, Jean!!)

Snarky, even bitchy, divorcees Kelly and Christy will probably not ever want to watch this episode, in which they're front and center. Rarely has anyone been so clueless, so blatantly dumb in pursuing the Race.

They were in good position when they hit the Roadblock. The task? One of them had to dash through a sort of plaza where Indian locals were throwing paint (for fun? a holy day? I don't remember). They had to climb a ladder to what looked like one of those old-fashioned revolving clotheslines, on which were pinned dozens of envelopes. Most of the envelopes said "Try again," but a few said "The Amazing Race" and contained the next clue. All the envelopes were printed in big bold letters.

Kelly (I think -- they're sort of clones of each other) races out to get the clue. She's pelted with paint. She runs up the ladder. Doesn't bother to read those big, bold letters. Just pulls an envelope at random and runs back. It's empty.


You'd think that at this point, she'd figure out, gee, maybe I should look at the envelopes before I pull one off. But no. Back she goes. More paint. She's quite multi-colored by now. She pulls another envelope at random. And again, it's empty.

By now, other contestants are here. Perhaps she'll look and see what they're doing, why it's so easy for them. But no. Even though right in front of her other contestants are thumbing through the clearly-marked envelopes, Kelly runs out yet again (more paint), and yanks off another randon envelope. Surprise, surprise: It's empty. And for good measure, she falls in a puddle of paint. It'd be easier to feel sorry for her if she weren't so stupid.

She finally gets the idea of the task, but only after being passed by several other teams. Uh-oh.

On we go until we get to the Detour. Kelly and Christy at least choose the easier one -- "Bleary-Eyed," in which they have to follow a trail of tiny numbers hanging from power wires hanging over the street, then hand the list of numbers to a guy waiting at the end. But maybe it's just the easier choice for those contestants who actually read the directions. While other teams race through the task, Kelly and Christy start writing down random numbers off random signs all over the busy street. Of course they're wrong.

Back they go to the beginning. They do the same thing. And now they're joined by Ken and Tina, last week's "last couple to arrive." Kelly and Christy go out of their way to refuse to work with Ken and Tina, even to hide their list of numbers to keep Tina from copying. But this list is, of course, wrong, too.

Ken and Tina understand the task, complete it smoothly, and head for the pit stop -- having moved from last (6th) place up to 4th, thanks to the stupidity of other teams. Good job keeping those wrong answers secret, Kelly and Christy!

Eventually they figure out what numbers to look for -- and even then they have to have help from the Frat Boys (the last people one would ask for help in this particular incarnation of the Race). Oy.

So we were glad to see the Divorcees go. And the lesson learned from this episode:

The race may not always be to the swift, but it is never to the stupid.

TIME CHANGES

It usually takes about a week for me to adjust to the biannual time changes, and of course the change to Standard Time ("fall back" is always easier because we get that extra hour. Yesterday I woke up on my own before the alarm, glanced at the level of light coming in the window, and thought, "Oh, it's 6:00." And sure enough, it was 5 after 6. I had made the adjustment.

I remember changing the clocks when I was a kid. It was a huge deal at our house for some reason. I would call the "time lady" on the phone (853-1212) and yell out the time to my dad as he rushed around the house resetting every clock... and it seemed as if we had dozens of clocks. Quite the ceremony... (Now, of course, it's easier. The Tivo resets itself. The computers, the phones all reset themselves. Just the microwave and the alarm clocks to deal with.)


...Some people make lists of things they want to do before they die. There's almost a sub-genre of books and movies to that effect now ("The Bucket List," etc.). As list-driven as I am, I've never felt the need to make such a list. I do have three things I've wanted to do since childhood: (1) Experience the eye of a hurricane; (2) Fly faster than the speed of sound; (3) Experience weightlessness/zero gravity. But three items, for some as list-driven as me, does not a list make. And those are all so unlikely that I really think it would be foolish to pursue them.

No, instead I'm starting a list of things I don't want to do before I die. Eat a bug, for instance. Or change a flat tire. Or visit India... Think I could get a book deal off a list like that?

Last week, however, I thought of yet another list: Things I will never get to do before I die. Because when I was a kid, yelling out times as my dad set the clocks, I always wondered what happened to the "time lady" if you called just as the time was resetting at 2:00 a.m. Did you hear "At the tone, the time will be 1:59 and 50 seconds -- beep!... At the tone, the time will be 1:00 exactly -- beep!"? I really wanted to know. I thought about how, when I was grown up, someday I'd sit up till 2:00 a.m. and listen. But I never did.

And now the time lady's gone. You can't call for the time anymore. And I'll never get to find out.... It's also extraordinarily unlikely that I'll ever fly faster than the speed of sound, either, given the death of the Concorde.

It makes me wonder... What other things will I never get to do?

THE BOOKS OF THE THIRD QUARTER

Yes, I know we're waaay past the third quarter. But I've been writing more than reading, and just haven't gotten to this post. I did get a few things read, about half on my Madeleine L'Engle list, about half on my massive-and-ever-growing "to read" list.

Here we go! In alpha order (is there any other) by author, and with my faves linked to their amazon pages.

Most Likely to Succeed at Work: How to Get Ahead at Work Using Everything You Learned in High School by Wilma Davidson and Jack Dougherty.
When I was in 9th grade, I had to make a "sociogram" of my school for my Anthropology class. Basically, we had to determine all the social groups of the school (the jocks, the geeks, etc.) and how they were related. I teamed up with my friends Diane and Kathy. Our sociogram was unique in that we were the only ones in the class to point out the Jewish kids of the school as a unique group (one that almost completely overlapped the student government group). People would have been offended, except that it was so clear we'd noticed something very accurate... Anyway, that's probably why I was attracted to this book. It's basically a sociogram overlaying high school categories onto the workplace. A cute idea. But not much more than that.

French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure by Mirielle Guilano.
A somewhat fun read, though it took a lot of padding to get this idea up to book-length. The bottom line: Use fresh, good ingredients, don't eat crap (processed food, fast food, etc.), walk a lot, treasure your moments with chocolate, and drink wine every day.

Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson.
I already blogged about how much I enjoyed this book here. I stand by my opinion.

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs.
As soon as I started to read this book, which is about a journalist's self-imposed task of reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica in a year, I got jealous. "I could have done that," I told Lee. "But you didn't have the idea," he replied. "But I could have," I said. "But you didn't," he said. Well, yeah. And besides, if I had set out on a quest to read the entire EB, I would have just blogged about it and then had lots of people saying, "Gee, too bad you wasted this on a blog when you could have had a book deal." And they would have been right. Sigh.... Be that as it may, I loved this book. Well-written, fun to read (perfect bathroom reading, though that's not how I used it), and full of fascinating if not always useful facts. What's not to love about a book that essentially consists of a giant list in alphabetical order. (I can't tell you how much I love alpha order... When I'm in a city where the streets are in alpha order, I just have to smile. Okay, TMI.) A very, very fun book. Highly recommended.

A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle.
This is one of L'Engle's earliest personal/devotional/non-fiction books, and I have to say it's not one of her strongest. She's a little too wrapped up in herself and her own emotions and reactions to things, and her theology is still, to be kind, in its formative stages. I'd skip it.

The Irrational Season by Madeleine L'Engle.
I came very close to linking this book, but didn't feel quite strongly enough about it in the end to do so. L'Engle walks us through the church calendar, from Advent around the months and back to Advent again. Some of the chapters are lovely and inspiring and provocative, others less so. She includes lots of personal anecdotes, but somehow they don't seem so self-centered as in "A Circle of Quiet," and her theology is finally on track. Some very lovely poetry as well, which was a delightful treat. I'd recommend getting this book and reading it over the course of a year, holiday/feast by holiday/feast.

The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L'Engle.
This was an oddly apt book for me to read, as my mother is weakening fast (she is currently in the hospital for tests after what appears to my untrained eye to have been a mini-stroke of some kind, and is spending her days yelling at people because she doesn't realize where she is, and pulling out all her IVs and her heart monitor). L'Engle's book, which is half about how she took care of her mother during her last summer alive, really hit home in so many ways... at least in that half. The other half was about L'Engle's childhood, which, frankly, I skimmed.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.
Yes, pursuant to many of your suggestions, I read it. And I do not recommend it. Not for pre-pubescent girls, and really not for anyone. Not because of the vampires -- I have no problems with the vampire side of the story at all, and actually think Meyer's done some interesting things there. But because it's the story of a teenage girl who falls in love with a man (not a boy), and who chooses to give up everything in her life that matters for that man. Not the role model I want for my daughter, or really for any girl. The writing is sappy to the extreme and, though everyone remains chaste (sexually and vampirely), it's quite hyper-sexualized in the writing. Pass. (Now I just have to figure out how to deal with Sabrina's desire to see the movie...)

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.
I did something I rarely do, given the huge "to-read" list I already have. I picked this up at a bookstore because I liked the cover. It's a kids' book about four kids who team up to defeat a criminal mastermind's schemes to take over the world. While intensely clever, I found the book a little cold, and never really believed the world it was set in. But Sabrina loved it and immediately checked out the sequel. So what do I know?

...So that's all I managed to read this quarter (ahem... quarter and a third). I do find it hard to read much when I'm heavily writing, so hopefully I'll get more reading done before the end of the year (almost guaranteed, because we have Christmas books and Christmas vacation coming... where I firmly expect to find "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" under the tree -- that's not a hint, it's a prediction).

Let me know if you've read any of these!

VOTE AND LET'S GET IT OVER WITH

Are you as sick of this election as I am?

And we've had it easy in California, where we really don't get the big onslaught of attack ads (though our neverending propositions make up for it).

It is astonishing to me how, despite the fact that we have two decent and honorable men running for President, the level of nastiness has gotten so high. And, to my mind, so shameful.

You could see the progression of the nastiness and polarization by a couple of comments our senior pastor, Mark Brewer, made. Many months ago, around the time the nominations were sewn up (June or so), he said from the pulpit that people had been pressuring him to make a political statement. His statement? He said he thought either McCain or Obama would be a good President. The response? People seemed to shrug and say, yeah, okay. And we moved on.

Mark made the same comment again a week ago, again due to pressure from people demanding he make a political statement. But this time he framed it by saying "You know how to stop a dinner party dead in its tracks? Just tell 'em you think either guy would be a fine President." And this time he got a huge reaction -- lots of murmuring from people who did not agree, and everyone seeming to agree that, yes, this would certainly stop any conversation dead in its tracks.

How did we get so very polarized so fast, in the short time between his two repetitions of the same comment? And why? What good does it do the country to draw these battle lines?

Because I have a foot in so very many worlds, I get emails from moderates and extremists on both sides. And I'm pretty sick of them (with some folks, I see their name on the email and just hit delete because I know how nasty it's going to be). I'm sick of the preposterous conspiracy-theory rumor-slinging garbage coming from both sides. (Sarah Palin's baby really isn't hers, it was her daughter Bristol's first baby and Sarah just pretended to be pregnant! William Ayers really wrote Obama's autobiographies and is writing speeches for him today!) It's all trash. Aren't we supposed to be better that this?

The election will be over tonight. And all I really hope for from the next President is that he do everything possible to get rid of the nastiness and polarization, that he do what he can to marginalize the people within his own party who stake out the battle lines with such vehemence. In many ways, I think the polarization is by far the greatest internal threat to the U.S...

Because "A house divided against itself cannot stand." It was true when Lincoln said it. It was true when Jesus said it. And if we don't listen, if we allow ourselves to be divided red vs. blue (or whatever), then we know the consequences.

So go vote today. Be happy or disappointed. And then let's all get over it. Or we, as a country, will not stand.

A HAPPY HALLOWEEN AFTER ALL

Just a quick postscript to my Halloween post to say....

Sabrina-and-friends' costume ("Reduce, Reuse, Recycle") won their school's big costume award ("Most Creative")! (Sorry I can't post a picture -- the cable linking my camera to my computer seems to be broken.)

From the beginning of Kindergarten, this is the award that counts. Who cares about winning the year's Science Medal (which Sabrina has won), or the Elizabeth Van Somebody-or-Other Courtesy Award (which we are never going to be in the running for)? Every kid in school only cares about winning a costume award at Halloween. But with 280+ kids and only about 10 awards per year, the odds are long.

The stakes grew higher for Sabrina a couple of years ago when Cory won for his "Partly-cloudy-chance-of-rain" costume (cotton balls stuck on a blue shirt, and a liberally-used squirt bottle full of water). Not that she's competitive or anything.

But now she has won as well (although Cory keeps trying to make a case that because she was 1 of 3 in a group costume, she only won 1/3 of the award). Forget about the rest of the school year. We can graduate happy now.

And I can heave a sigh of relief knowing that all the Halloween pressure now begins to dissipate as we move upward to middle school and high school.

It's all downhill from here!