Coming To America

Dave, Alice and I just got back from Dumpster Diving at Dean college in scenic downtown Franklin. Dean College has a large population of foreign students, mostly Asian. These students travel from across the world to come to our bland white bread town. We are thrilled to have them during the school year our downtown is a multicultural melting pot. I take comfort in the fact that my kids get to see people of all different shapes and colors. I do however wonder about the student's themselves. Why did they choose to come to Franklin and do they regret their choice?

Let's start with choosing a college. There are thousands of colleges in the United States. Perhaps they picked New England because we have the top College's and Universities. Then within New England they chose Massachusetts because our state has Harvard University, MIT, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Tufts, Boston College, Boston University, Bently, Babson , Emerson and other colleges that rejected me. In fact there are 117 colleges in Massachusetts to be rejected from. I can hear their college recruiter now.

"Boston is one of the most culturally rich and exciting cities for college students in all of America!" Then they whisper "Oh and Franklin is only about 30 miles outside of the City." Let's say that the student lives in Tokyo. Tokyo is about 6722 miles away from Boston, 21 hours by plane, making 30 miles seems like a Sunday stroll. Right? Wrong! If Boston is a decadent 4 tier wedding cake then Franklin is a dry vanilla cupcake with out frosting.

The poor students step off of the plane and see the sights and sounds of Boston. They get all excited when they get into the taxi cab. Then they realize that the cab is not stopping. They see the beautiful brick buildings and magnolia tree lined streets through the cab's back window and the view gets smaller and smaller. Then they see fields, grass, horses, white men and pick up trucks. These were not in the brochures! They get dropped of in our little town at the dorm that abuts the grave yard. They look out over the graves and mourn their American hopes and dreams. Don't worry they'll be fine inside the dorm are a whole bunch of suckers who just went through the same ordeal.

Can you imagine the call home?

"Yeah America is boring as hell there is nothing to do, no night clubs, good restaurants, movies theaters, or even cool shopping! Worst of all is the people! They are fat mother's who wear sweat pants all day and ugly colored plastic shoes! I should have gone to England."

The students live out their school year adding flavor and flair to our town. They might have one class trip to Boston just to rub in their faces their horrible mistake. Then at the end of the year they fly home and throw all of the items that they have accumulated through out the year that they can not take home on the plane. This morning Dave and I went dumpster diving behind their dorms. We got few things. The dumpsters were filled with lamps, hot pots, furniture, and other debris from their failed American adventure. We would have done more extensive diving but they were out in the open and Dave was embarrassed. I was too sad. Poor kids, they should have gone to England.

My Little Monster

My 3-year-old daughter Alice, the apple of my and her father's eye, has turned into a little monster. Our little girl has turned into that kid. That screeching hysterical kid that makes bystanders gawk. This kid makes childless adults confirm their decisions not to reproduce. I know this because they tell me all of the time. Last week in the drug store I was picking up my happy pills and Alice was laying on the ground in front of the pharmacy kicking up a horrible fuss. I was about to ask the pharmacist if the pills came in toddler doses when a 40-something construction worker looked over at us and said. "I'm glad I don't gat no kids."

How am I supposed to respond to that comment? "Yeah I hate my child too. Luck you." Am I supposed to take comfort in the fact that my child is reassuring people's anti-child life choices. However she has me second guessing my own life choices. Perhaps I am not fully qualified for this mother vocation after all. Or perhaps I just need a stronger pills?

Tuesday at Market Basket my little monster was throwing a tantrum because she got the wrong color gumball out of the gumball machine. I could not calm her down. I tried every tool in my mommy tool box. People were giving my those sour pickle faces and some were even covering their ears. I would have too, but I had to steer the grocery cart. After 15 minutes I had to abandon the half full cart and take her home.

Yesterday at the library the little monster returned wanting to check out a Disney Princess game. This game was for a Nintendo DS system. I have no idea what that even means. The only thing I know for sure about video gaming systems is that we don't have one. We left the game on the shelf and the child's reaction would have you think that we left her severed bloody hand on the shelf instead. I carried her to the car her body flopping like a fish out of water. Once I got her into her seat she started fighting me. I couldn't get her safety belt buckled. She was raising her bottom off of the car seat and grabbing the belt from my hand. Finally I restrained her enough to clasp the belt. She unbuckled the belt and we started again and again. I was panicked I had to go pick up Dylan from school and I couldn't get her buckled in to her car seat.

I finally had no more time and uckled her and started out of the parking lot. She unbuckled her seat whike I was driving and stormed the cockpit hitting me in the face and pulling my hair. I somehow drove to Dylan's school and quickly parked the car and evacuated. I called Dave and he agreed to come pick her up. I had to have a time out before I squeezed this kid into a glass of crazy juice. When did my daughter become a monster? She is a scary monster and I am afraid of her! I am afraid of the visions in my head of the nasty things I want to do to her. Can you put a child on FreeCycle?

Dave arrived and took Alice by force into his car and drove her home and put her in her room. Where she has been spending an increasing amount of time. I miss my Sweet little girl. This has to be a phase right? Is my little girl coming back? I hope that she comes back soon. If not what about putting her on Ebay?

Red's Final Goodbye

I have horrible news. Red our fateful friend the navigator extraordinaire is gone. Red our GPS was kidnapped from our car late Friday night. Her captors lifted her out of my unlocked car in our driveway. The brazen kidnappers came with in feet of my house to steal her away. The good news is that the nasty jerks who took her at least had the forethought to steal her power cord. At least we can take some comfort in knowing that Red will not suffer a slow painful power outage and eventually die.

All we can hope and pray is that Red has gone to a better car. Perhpas she will be sold on Ebay to another kind family who will recognize her unique gifts and accept her as one of the family. Eventhough we will miss her terribly all we can do is hope that she is not being mistreated. Our worst fear is that she may find herself being sold for ten bucks on the street. The thought of my sweet Red being passed from man to man with little regard for her wellness or safety just breaks my heart.

Needless to say that we are lost without her.She was a big part of our family car trips and her presence as well as her cool Enlish accent are sincerly missed. Let us all take a moment of silence to remember Red you are gone but you are not forgotten.

Happy Cinco De Mayo

Respect The Tick

You know me I am city girl at heart. Don’t get me wrong I do love enjoying nature I just prefer to view the scenery from the safety of a screened in porch or better yet an air-conditioned sunroom. I have nothing against the green leafy stuff I just hate bugs. I can not stand bugs. I have nightmares about bugs especially bugs who burrow their little sharp teeth into me and my loved ones to suck our blood. Yes I am talking about the diseased, the disgusting, the tick.

Surprisingly I’m not hearing a lot about ticks theses days. The darn Swine Flu is stealing their thunder. Early spring is usually the ticks most successful season. The ticks look forward to the tick-hysteria fueled by the medical community and the news media. Ticks are featured on radio, TV, print media, heck even Oprah is talking about ticks. Did you know that blood sucking parasites thrive on attention? Bad publicity is still publicity. Well this year the poor little pinchers have no publicity. The tick community feeling neglected and forgotten is not taking this snub lightly grass roots organizations are popping up all over gardens everywhere.

We have one in our garden. You should see these ticks they are training and running drills preparing for battle. We have even had tick spies trying to brake into the house to gather intelligence. We have been discovering these spies and flushing them down the toilet. We have discovered tick spies hiding in our house for two solid weeks. We have found ticks on our legs, necks, ears, the dog's nose, and even one in the corner of my three year old daughter’s eye. Big fat scary ticks! We have to stop them before they take over the world or even get someone sick.

I bought my dog the top line tick collar. The salesmen told me that the collar is strong enough to repel hundreds of ticks but won’t hurt the dog. Seriously I love me dog, but if the toxins in her collar shorten her life span she’s going to just have to just buck up and take one for the team. I hate ticks so much I have been looking online all week for tick collars for humans. My plan is to paint my collar pink bedazzle a few rhinestones around it and I am good to go. I already bought 5 boxes of professional strength tick and flea bubble bath. One more little blood sucker tries to bite me I am giving myself a full doggy flea and tick dip. I might even buy a bottle of that tick repellent doggy lotion stuff and use it to wash my hair. Or perhaps I should just shave my head?

I am not kidding the thought of disease infested biting insects crawling on my bare skin. Yuck! I have even found them in my bed. My bed. Where I sleep! I'd rather find a 400 pound mud covered drooling sick hog in my bed. At least the pig would be easy to find. Ticks have their little sharp pinchers and the thought of waking up to find them attached to my skin under my night gown makes my want to hurl. Drinking blood is bad enough, but these little psychos have the potential of infecting us with Lymes Disease a seriously sometimes deadly affliction. Didn't your mother warn us to be careful who we let in our bed! We need to always be protected when sharing our bed with strangers. Take my advice forget the Swine Flu I am begging you to start becoming hysterical about ticks and always wear your flea and tick collars to bed!

Circus Week

My mom took the kids and I to the Big Apple Circus today. So much fun! No scary clowns just wonderful acts and two of the hottest jugglers in the world. The LaSalle twins are my new pretend boyfriends. They are gorgeous, the juggle and do acrobatics and they both graduated from Columbia in '07. Go see the show they are in town until May 10th. Fun for the whole family especially mom!