Chubby pencils, freshmen parents and going to kindergarten

I don’t know what was worse this week … the threat of a category 3 hurricane remodeling the house … or my daughter going off to kindergarten. Which is exactly what she’s doing this week. Just like all the other little ones across the county. Done with pre-school, and now graduated into the big leagues. Elementary school. ELEMENTARY school. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!!!

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Believing in Grandmom Evie

“Believe in her, dad. Believe in Grandma Evie.” My daughter — just 5 years old — was pleading with me. Sounded like a line from a bad baseball movie. It was 86+ degrees in my mother’s house. After a rainstorm. A temperature she would dispute using complex physics and something about the silver in the China cabinet causing things to heat up by the thermostat. “That thing isn’t right,” she said. I had been complaining about how hot it was inside. Had walked over to the digital thermostat to read it. To prove that it was hot. Which would explain the sweat on my kid’s brow and why she was fanning herself. My mother doesn’t use her air conditioning. Thinks it’s a scourge. Calls once a quarter to tell me that I need to get used to life without it myself. Because the economy is crap, the energy is in crisis and soon we’ll all be AC-less. Her words not mine. She’s been saying it my whole life.

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Gnarly credit card strips and no more swiping

I love a news headline that will brighten a day. That will put a spring in my step. That will make me leap with joy for the little things — the teensy, weensy things. The ones that make life worth living, as ridiculous or silly as they might seem. Like when I read that magnetic strips on credit cards are going away. JOYYYYY! To be replaced with embedded microchips. Visa is moving in that direction. The reason? Security, of course. But I could give a rotted melon about that. Nor the time saved or the convenience. For me, the reason to switch — the ONLY reason — is quite simply this: no more embarrassment.

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Dreaming of summer camp … for adults

I am thrilled the debt ceiling fight is finally over. Now the country can move on to bigger issues. Like summer camp for all adults. Congress, you want to get behind something every American can support? Then make it a requirement — shoot, maybe even a law! — that all of us big kids get to go to summer camp again. Talk about non-partisan. Something that will bring the country together.

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