my gripe with homework. and I do have one.

Kids have homework. I get that. It's good for them to practice what they've learned in school so the learning sets in.

What I don't get is homework that takes both parents, four college degrees between us, to figure it out and then teach it to our kid. That when we ask how the teacher explained it we are told the teacher never mentioned this type of problem before. This is new. The first time she's heard of it.

Okay, so maybe she wasn't paying attention. Maybe it was taught and she missed it altogether.

That's where my second gripe comes into play. The evenings when she understands the larger, underlying concept but the homework is presented in a quirky, confusing, hard-to-solve way. Which again, requires one or both parents trying to figure out what the heck the question is even asking, let alone how to derive at the correct answer.

It's those evenings I want to sit down with the writers of the workbook and ask, What were you thinking? Were you at the last fade of your morning caffeine buzz, that point where your head starts to nod and your legs get restless and your mind starts to wonder if what's left on the bagel cart?

Or were you just smoking too much crack?

But let's leave the amphetamine-addicted, hallucinogenic-dropping, educational book developers alone for the time being.

Let's talk about my main issue.

It's the fact that my daughter is lucky enough to have two educated, willing, at-home, sober parents spending concentrated time helping her figure it out.

It's the fact that I'm well aware that too many kids don't have this advantage. This help at home. This step up.

And don't get me started on the projects. The projects where I can tell that the parent and child spent one day together buying twenty dollars worth of nifty, crafty materials at Michaels and then the next day assembling. Or was that Mom assembling for five hours and child losing interest after the second hour? Because that neatly-painted, sequin-studded, velvet-striped catepillar was not a first grader's doing.

My favorite science projects have always been the ones hand-written in #2 pencil standing bravely next to the Photo-Shopped, Excel-Charted, Word-Doc Wonders.

So my question is one that I know concerns a lot of caring parents, educators and therapists:

What about the kids who come from a chaotic, abusive ... nobody's home ... home? How fair is it to these kids that homework can't be completed without help? And they've got nobody at home to help them?

Or maybe they come home to a mom in a drunken rage or a dad hitting a mom in a drunken rage or a grandmother who can't pull herself away from her soaps or an uncle who can't stay out of the kid's bedroom at night.

Yes, my kids get good grades. I'm proud of them and their effort and abilities. I'm proud of myself being an involved parent, especially on those nights when I'd rather be at Antone's jamming to some blues.

But I'm not proud of an educational system that rewards parents who do the teaching. Or workbooks with assignments that require adult-hands-on-deck to decipher.

A too hard assignment leaves out too many kids. Too many kids whose grades reflect not what they can do but what they can't have: a nurturing home life. For that, they've already paid a heavy price. I don't want them paying twice, in the form of substandard grades.

six word saturday

When will weekends last forever? Retirement?

Can you sum it up in six words?

what if we had named you ______ ?

One of Magpie's Musings about naming children made me think about one of the favorite recurring dinner table discussions around my house.

What if we had named you _____?

Throughout most of my first pregancy, my son was going to be Nicholas. Wouldn't be called Nick. Would most definately not be called Nicky. Nicholas.

But then family members got wind and we started hearing about "little Nick" and "how's baby Nicky doing?" Face to face with the potential inevitability (oxymoronic, just a little?) of losing control over the child's name.

So we dropped Nicholas.

In favor of a name with low risk nickname potential.

Although it does have a nickname and I call him the nickname even though he doesn't like it now that he's a teen and has asked me not to call him that anymore. I try. Really I do. But it keeps slipping out. Moms are allowed to use pet names in the privacy of her own home, aren't they? I mean, aren't there some privileges earned for all those months of pregnancy? All those late night feedings? Diaper changes?

When my son learned of his almost-name, he made the ugliest face. Which, of course, leads to the suggestion, "If your name WAS Nicholas, you would have turned your nose at your current name." To which he defiantly says, "No I wouldn't. I'd wish you had called me that instead."

One for Dickens, I suppose. Ghost of Names Past.

Each of our kids, while not named directly after anyone, has a name that has some family significance.

My son's given name is a derivative of Ira. My husband's grandfather was Ira. A horse trader, Ira. When we saw that reference, we knew the name had to be.

Ira was the stuff of myth making. The man who lived the simple life. Cooked on a wood stove. Ate eggs fried in lard everyday but kept a rock hard belly. Sat on his front porch, his gallery in the hill country, and shot deer for his dinner as he rocked in his rocking chair. Ira who did time in the penitentiary for making moonshine during the depression. Story goes he didn't drink it himself. Sold it to feed his ten kids. When Ira was in prison, the moonshine customers came by the homestead with parcels of food for the abandoned family.

My son's middle name is one of the surames on my mother's family tree. I don't know anyone in my family with that name but I like to think he's named after warm, loving ancestors rather than someone reviled. The risk of choosing a name, any name, off the family tree.

I like the tradition of giving the mother's maiden name as a middle name. We played around with giving almost-Nicholas my maiden name (my kept name, as I didn't change my name when I married) as a middle name. But then decided not to blow the whole wad with the first child. First born children come into this world with so much gravitas. Let's save a bit for the second born. This was the plan for three years.

But then we found out we were having twins. What to do? One of them carries the Mom's surname and not the other? Distinct potential of coming back to haunt me in the favoritism accusations.

Both get the same middle name? A little over-the-top, if not George Foreman-esque.

So here's what we did. BabyA's middle name is a derivative of my last name (think John instead of Johnson). BabyB has my middle name.

It seemed like a fair divide. But in the end, nobody has my maiden name. Ah well. There's always hope for a grandchild? (Are you reading this, sweet children?)

As for given names, BabyA's name is a feminized version of her grandfather's nickname. And also a wild woman of west Texas.

BabyB is named after the county where Ira the horsetrader lived. Sam came up with that one. He first heard the name from the niece of a friend. Liked it. And it happened to be the name of the county where Sam has such fond memories of his growing up years.

So then it was settled. All the kids first names came from Dad. All the kids middle names came from Mom. We didn't set out to achieve this end. But there you have it.

And back to the dinner table discussions. My kids love to ask, "what were some other names you came up with?"

There was Audra, Maggie, Molly, Holly, Hunter, Richard. None are family names. Just names one of us liked. These almost-names are always met with some combination of fascination and repugnance.

All in all, I'm glad we stuck with the names we've got. And so are they.

How about you, reader? How did you come up with your kids names? What are your "we-almost-named-you" stories? Do you ever look back and wish you had kept a discarded name? Wonder if this child's life would have been different?

Update: My son read this post and later asked me, Mom! Why didn't you name me Ira?!

green stamp sex lamp

A few days weeks months ago, Mary M. posted on the Women's Colony about her boyfriend's heirloom table lamp. She feared that when he moved in, "that hideous lamp is probably going to be the first thing he carries through the doorway." If her boyfriend is anything like my husband, Sam, he will be carrying his ugly-ass lamp straight to his urn.

On his bedside table, Sam has what he likes to call the sex lamp. It looks like this:

Yes, that's right. You saw correctly. The sex lamp looks like this:

Now, I ask you, is there anything even remotely sexy about this lamp? Of course not. But then, that's not why he calls it the sex lamp.

I laid eyes on this luminary gem soon after meeting Sam. I found it endearing, assuming as I did at the time that it represented his post-divorce poverty. But it remains on his side of the bed to this day, after many years of post-nuptial combined income bliss.

And you only thought you had bedroom decor issues.

Design challenges aside, this lamp has a strong fluorescent bulb. So bright it could light up Yankee Stadium.

Now, if there's one thing everyone in the porn industry can agree on, it's that fluorescent lighting is sexy. Says this highly sensitive person who cringes under the charged mercury vapors.

Be that as it may, I agreed to allow the sex lamp in our shared bedroom when he held it aloft and shouted "from my cold dead hands!" said he planned on keeping it. I agreed in a pleasing manner that succeeded in appearing sincere, even. I agreed because the lamp holds sentimental value for him. He acquired the lamp as a mere lad in grade school. Traded green stamps for it, even. I agreed because my feminist values dictate that home decor is not the sole dominion of women. And I agreed because, as I figured it, old lamps burn out.

But twenty years later? That butt ugly lamp is still burning.

I am finding, much to my emotional detriment, that there is truth in the old maxim: They sure don't make 'em like they used.

So why does he call it the sex lamp, you are wondering? Well, here it is. The bright spot in all of this lamp lunacy. When the sex lamp is turned on? So are my husband's good intentions. And so am I. He likes to see what he's doing when he's working his magic. And work it he does.

Which leads me to my own personal maxim: An agreement made is an agreement kept.

In short, I'm stuck with the lamp.

Until the bulb burns out. Because in this case, I don't believe in fixin' that which is broke.

And now, good reader, PLEASE please leave a comment with your sure-fire, covert means of hastening the demise of an ancient, obnoxious flourescent light bulb.

And if you haven't already, stop by The Women's Colony where this, and other real women sexplorations appear.

leaps better

Leap

by Richard Cardona

Philadelphia, PA

Thanks for all of the well wishes, bloggy friends. I'm not sure if this cold was a mild one, but it was certainly short lived. Maybe it was because I took my own advice, for once, and drank gallons of water. Or maybe all of those zinc lozenges I was sucking on day and night actually worked. Or maybe I was just exaggerating my symptoms all along because of all the peace and quiet perks.

But, the why-come isn't so important. It's the feeling leaps better that is. And relieved this cold did not turn into three weeks worth of annoying hacking cough, like they usually do.

One funny thing that happened during my woe-is-me convalescence. I switched from my usual habit of drinking decaff-mocha-coffee to green tea.

For the past few years, at least, a cup of green tea held about as much appeal for me as a jump into an ice cold lake. But I started drinking it because it was lighter than my coffee-candy concoction, and, bonus points, healthier.

Now that I'm pretty close to back to normal, I've started adding vanilla flavored soy milk to my green tea, something that sounded horrible to me three weeks ago but now tastes reallllly good.

Weird. Tastes come and go for me. I'm used to that. But this is a big switch. Right now it's all I think about. Heating up water for my daily two three four cups of green tea.

How about you, reader? Any radical shifts in food or drink obsessions preferences lately?

cold sung blues

I'm down with a cold. Or at least I'm pretty sure it's a cold, as opposed to an acute case of allergies.

Did I catch it from my husband, who had laryngitis two weeks ago, followed by persistent stuffy nose and cough?

Did I catch it from my neighbor, who had an upper respiratory infection, coughing next to me in my car, reassuring me she was no longer infectious?

Did I catch it from my client, who, just last week, wondered aloud if her symptoms were due to allergies or a cold?

No matter, right? It's got me, whatever it is. Whomever it's from.

I opted to cancel several appointments. Today was a long, full day of too many clients back-to-back. I kept three appointments in the middle of the day. And then, as luck would have it, one of the three kept appointments called to cancel, leaving a voice message, "I've got a cold." Of course, it had to be the middle appointment.

So I ended up seeing two patients. One who was kind enough to come in early. I headed to the office with relief. Two appointments sounded entirely doable. Or so I thought.

Everyone knows my job involves listening. But it also involves talking, in between listening. It was in the middle of one of these, my-turn-to-talk turns, that I found out that my cold is much easier to abide when I keep my mouth shut.

Talking brought on fierce bouts of coughing, sputtering, eye-watering and nose running. Where the intake of breath between coughs brought on even more severe fits of coughing. Undignified and unprofessional slobberring attacks.

Do you know the kind of hacking, tickling, choking cough I mean? The only thing that prevents these cough attacks is to (1) drink one cup of hot tea after another, or (2) continously suck on Moutain Herb Reeeeee-Co-Laaaas.

Fortunately, the cough attacks occurred during my second appointment. Meaning, soon after, I was able to pack up and head home. Very relieved that I hadn't pressed my luck.

So now I'm home, alone in my room, comfortably blogging and blowing my nose and puffing,

gleefully allowing the husband to deal with dinner prep and the kids: their homework, after school pick-ups, their squabbles.

All was well and good until Sam was off playing Taxi-Cab Dad. When I heard this urgent shout,

"Mo-Ommmmmmmmmmm!"

I jumped up, heart racing, laptop-sy-turvy,

"What is it?!" I yelled back.

"Oh, nothing. I just wondered where you were."

Argh.

But other than the one panic inducing interruption? I have to say?

I rather like my quiet exile.

Cold or no.

"Leave Mom alone," I hear Sam telling one of the kids.

(Who among us doesn't liken these words to the sound of heavenly choirs of angels singing?)

"Leave Mom alone. She's not feeling good."

Ahhhhhhhh.

Little do they know my well-kept secret.

That right now?

I'm feeling damned good.

the meaning of the bird

About talking to your kids early and often? A big thank you, halleluliah and Yes Ma'am! to Juggling Jenn who posted a book review on straight talk about sex. I second everything she said. (And want to read the book).

I would like to add that a big piece of keeping the communication open with our kids is to listen without criticizing. If you hear your child repeat a bad word? Or ask one of those questions you didn't think you would hear until they were old enough to vote?

First. Check your feelings at the door.

Second. Keep your expression neutral, open and accepting.

Third. Listen. Quietly. As in, wait. Wait a little longer. Until they finish saying what they need to say. You will be amazed at how much more you hear this way. How much more your kids have heard, seen, or wondered about, when you give them free and neutral space to share.

Fourth. Ask what they think about it.

Refer back to first, second, and third.

Fifth, clear up the errors and uncertainty with as open minded a discussion as you can muster.

Because nothing shuts kids down more than a screechy "OMG! Where did you hear that? I don't ever want to hear you say that again! Is that clear, missy?"

Or a disgusted look. Or feinting. Or throwing yourself to the ground crying. Or throwing a Bible at them.

Like Jenn, whose parenting opinions I admire, we've also had a blow job conversation at the dinner table. And an anal sex conversation. And why kids use so many curse words on the school bus.

And a frank discussion of what it means to flip the bird (give the middle finger, in case you live under a rock).

Because seriously, have you ever tried to explain this doozie of a gesture before to three under-age faces filling their milk-rimmed mouths with ravioli?

On the fly?

As in you've never really thought about what it really means before?

When you're pretty sure they've seen you use this very gesture in the car?

It's not easy. And I'm not sure my husband and I did such a great job. But more important than my kids seeing their parents squirm understanding what this crude expression conveys and why their parents people unleash the bird with such frequency, we have taught them that they can get accurate information from us, delivered in a calm and sincere manner, designed to teach rather than preach.

Because this is nothing new. People have been cursing at each other and threatening each other and shocking each other with the many ways the human body can be used to dazzle and delight since the dawn of the bear skin thong.

And I hope my way of listening without reacting means I am increasing my influence rather than rendering myself the free speech censor, the disapproving prude, the wash-your-mouth-out-with-soap dispenser. Because if they get a horrified look followed by a punishing message? They're not going to talk to you about anything else they think might horrify you. Or disappoint you.

Respected experts in the field of adolescent development claim that one of the biggest reasons cited by teens for not telling their parents they are thinking about having sex, or have already had sex, is the fear they will disappoint their parents. And second is the fear that parents will punish. That they will wield their almighty social ax. As in, You won't be seeing HIM anymore! Or, Don't ask to go to her party!

So my strategy is to put on my PPF. My parental poker face: I'm not disappointed. I'm not surprised. I'm not shocked. I'm not disgusted. I'm not scared out of my ever-loving-wits.

No. It's perfectly natural for my 10 year old daughter to ask what it means when people say, F*ck you! Or why the boys on the bus shout, Suck my d*ck! Or the girls retort, Eat this!

So with my PPF in place, here is what it means. Here is why they might be saying it. Here is why they think it makes them sound like a grown up. Here is how it hides their insecurity about what it all means because they probably don't have anyone at home who explains this stuff to them in a calm and cool manner.

And finally? Thank them. Thank your kids for having the courage to ask. For being smart enough to get the truth from an adult source. For trusting you enough to talk straight to them.

Okay. Now use your napkin. Because you've got ravioli sauce on your chin.

vent-a-thong

Aaryn Belfer can rant like no other. And today's post was no exception with her 12 things she's really friggin sick and tired of. To include liars (yeah you, Rudy and Dana) and overly vain, surgically addicted fame-seekers (Heidi).

Me? I'd like to add my humble #13. Or make that #12, as I don't have a grudge against those cute, cuddly Pandas.

So here we go. Here's what I'm really friggin sick and tired of: so-called independent and swing voters who decide elections.

Because I have to ask: Who are you people, really?

That one year you can vote for the Bushie gang and the next election year Obama and now this year Scott "I posed naked for Cosmo" Brown?

I mean really, Massachusetts? You lose The Lion and you replace him with Beefcake Boy because he drives a fancy four door GMC Canyon pick up truck? I know this kind of down-home-boy fakery works in Texas elections, but you too?

And why is it that posing nude tends to work against women running for Miss America but works for men running for the U.S. Senate? WTF is that about?

I really do believe wonder if some people register as Independent so they can be the darling of the politico media. As in, I don't get enough attention in my real life so I'll call myself an Independent so exit pollsters will put a microphone and camera in front of my face so I can toyingly make them guess who I voted for.

This is not a game, people.

Did you not see what 8 years of Republicanisms did to America? To the stock market? To the banking industry? To people's homes? Jobs? Lives?

I guess you Massachusians are about as hard headed as your state is hard to spell.

You say you want to send a message to Democrats that you don't like how they're running things. Really?

Lesson 1. Brown's seat certainly means more Congressional stagnation, not less.

Lesson 2. Years of Republican regulation-ease led to financial near-collapse. Or have you forgotten already? I haven't. My husband lost a great deal of income. Our finances still have not recovered. And I am working longer hours to keep us afloat. I am not able to be the available mom that I was before Bush-face and Dick Vader took my country hostage.

Lesson 3. Recent economic indicators, thanks to Dem-lead initiatives, suggest we just might be out of the most troubled waters. I'd say the Dems are doing a pretty damned good job.

Lesson 4. A good thirty years we've endured a steady stream of steep health insurance premium increases and other assaults on our health care. Experts predict more of the same if we don't do something drastically different. But Republican leadership can only come up with tax-cuts and more tax-cuts and filibusters and no-votes and tort reform as supposed solutions.

Lesson 5. I got news for you tort-touters. I live in a state that passed tort-reform. My premiums have not come down at all. They continue to rise several hundred dollars every year. Some years, like this one, more than $1000. You can read more about how tort-reform "did not translate into lower health insurance premiums for consumers" here.

I can only hope Scott Brown makes good on his campaign promises cough! choke! snort! That he votes in the U.S. Senate like he voted in the Mass. State Senate. A moderate who worked with the Dems.

But it's hard to imagine the current Republican party letting Brown get away with anything short of the right wing red meat spewed out by the likes of Limpballs and Annthrax Coulter.

So we shall see, Mass-a-chew-on-this. We shall see.

attemption sleezy, foreign spammers!

Note to your sleezy, foreign, scamming, spamming self: If you're going to send out mass emails to recipients without benefit of a a formal introduction, let alone a shared language, you might want to study the vocabulary of your recipients a little more carefully, i.e., don't rely so heavily on Google Translator.*

Case in point. This was waiting for me in my personal, private (use only for communicating with friends, family, and teachers so how the hell did you find me?) email box this morning:

Second Attemption: Your Credit Card PreApproval inside

Your Prepaid Credit Card will be shipped soon!

Prepaid Credit Card Approval Enclosed

Poor credit? Instant Approval for Credit Cards!

We have a Credit Card card invitation for you

Enclosed: Cards for people with Bad Credit...

So while I have your rapturous attemption, Sir Spams Alot, I have a few questions:

A. Is this an offer for credit or a last-chance opportunity to save my soul? Because, while in the lives of some the end result may feel similar, for most people money and soul suffer from irreconcilable differences.

B. Prepaid credit? Let me see if I understand. I send a thousand dollars to some unknown destination on the other side of the continent so you can issue me a credit card in the amount of a thousand dollars minus your most generous fee offer?

C. And why would I want to take that risk when I can go to my local grocery store, spin the metal kiosk and prepay in person? Am I not comprensating something here?

*Please don't take this personally, Google. You most definitely rank right up there at the very top of my list of favorite internets friends tools. But for language translation? Needs a little work.

Here's what I mean: I once used you to compose a note for my, then, non-English speaking house cleaner. I wanted her to change the sheets on my son's spare bed. I came home to find her looking at me very strangely. At the end of a confusing exchange, I deciphered her question: Should she cover his bed in notebook, printer, or wrapping paper?

avoiding bed

Because when I wake up? I'll be a half-century old.

Next stop, Old City.

So, yeah. These are my last few minutes of 40-something.

I remember that I liked saying I was 30-something.

It was a cool, hip television show.

I took pride in 40-something.

Visions of a woman in her sexual peak.

But 50-something. Where is the comfort in that?

So tomorrow? I will gladly accept gratuitous gifts of

TLC.

deceived no more

I'm onto you, my little golden bar of soap. You can't fool me: Your sleek size. Your shrinking weight. Your newly slenderized waistline.

Your same price.

You used to be 4.5 oz. You are now 4 oz. And I am not the only one who has noticed.

At the end of each of our relationships, I used to cherish your remains. Take your soap slivers and lovingly place them flat along the inside of the rounded contour of your replacement bar. In the soap divot, if you will. A sliver pit for soap shavings. A token remembrance of all those showers we used to share.

In fact, your carved out cavity seems designed for the express purpose of holding my leftover slivers, doesn't it? Aiding we spurned lovers in our quest to slide you close along our nekkid bodies ever longer, until the inevitable end.

But in doing so, I see that I am covering your logo. Your crafty product designers wouldn't let that happen, would they? And break their cardinal rule of marketing? Thou shalt not cover thy product's trademark?

So no. I will not suffer fools gladly. Your cored out concavity isn't there for my convenience. It isn't there so I can scrimp and save and get an extra two showers out of your incredibly shrinking bar-hood.

It isn't there for my ease or protection either, so that the soap fits more precisely in my hand, preventing those potentially embarrassing and increasingly dangerous drop-soap-reach maneuvers.

Come back, Heath-soap, come back!

It isn't about me at all, is it?

No, the concave hollow is merely a way for your makers, the manufacturers, to fool me, the loyal customer, into thinking the price remains the same. So that they can continue selling more, but smaller, bars of soap. So that they can keep their jobs. So that their stockholders, your pimps, can continue to maintain their lavish lifestyles.

Make me the cuckhold, will you?

Think a-gain.

So, dear soap, no more recycling for me. No more lingering last moments of lucious lathering. No indeed.

I've hatched a plan. I'm saving your golden slivers in a plastic pouch, otherwise known as a baggie. I'm also saving my empty breath mint dispensers. Because it's only a matter of time before your personal size bar of soap will shrink to the size of a Tic Tac. When that day comes, I shall be ready.

So look for me in the back alley ways. I'll be the woman with the wig and the fake moustache, with the look of spurned longing on her face, frantically waving to get your attention, standing behind her car with the trunk open to reveal thousands of candy sized slivers of soap, encased in plastic dispensers, disguised as orange breath mints.

And on that day? Fear not. I shall no longer be your fool. Your cuckhold. Your spurned latherer.

I shall be free.

But the soap won't be.

$1.09 plus tax, please.

once in a very belewe moon

Folklore tells us that people of long ago named each moon, depending on the time of year it shown. The harvest moon, say, and the summer moon.

A moon which appeared too early, an extra moon in the seasonal cycle, was called a blue moon.

When it came before the Lent Moon, preachers dubbed it the belewe moon, or, the betrayer moon.

Mary at Beauty Amongst the Weeds and Kathleen at Hill Country Mysteries both blogged about our New Year's Eve moon. A cold and blustery night here in Texas, Sam and I, along with a group of friends, toasted the New Year beside an outdoor fire pit. We looked up to the sky, champagne in hand. After the sparkles of the roman candles dissipated, the clouds moved away to reveal the big blue moon directly over our heads.

What does it mean when a blue moon shines on the very last night of the year? Is it an omen that foreshadows an ill wind? Or an auspicious promise of a better turn of events?

I took an interest in blue moons after hearing a native Texan, Nanci Griffith, sing this version of "Once in a Very Blue Moon." I was in Texas only a year or two when I first saw her performing it on video. I believe it was on MTV. This was back when MTV was a prized commodity, when party locations were determined based solely on who subscribed to it because it was that new and that cool.

You could call it a driveway moment in my living room. Mezmerized, I bought nearly all of her albums, went to see her live, became a lifelong fan. With this one song, I ventured away from pop and rock music and toward the more soulful folk.

A grammy award winner, Nanci mentions Austin's Congress Avenue in her love song, So Long Ago. A native Texan, she was schooled in Austin at the University of Texas. She taught kindergarten and first grade here in the 1970's. Those lucky little students. I wonder, did she bring her guitar to class and sing? Where are they now? And do they realize their good fortune?

Nanci does a haunting rendition of Bob Dylan's Boots of Spanish Leather, if you like what you've heard so far. Her duet with John Prine, Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, is another one that stops me in my tracks every time I hear it.

In 1986, Nanci put together The Blue Moon Orchestra. They've been recording and performing with her ever since.

So for me? There's no question. A new year welcomed by a blue moon is all good.

it's hard work

First an airplane terrorist couldn't manage to set off a bomb in his shoe. He was dubbed The Shoe Bomber. Now we've got a terrorist who could barely manage to set fire to his crotch. He was dubbed The Undie Bomber. Or, if you're a faithful Deb on the Rocks reader, he's now Captain Underpants.

But seriously. What's next ? The Earlobe Lobber? The Nostril Nabber? The Bra-Cupped Crusader? The Vaginal Villain?

In response to this most recent on-board bombing bungle, airports in Amsterdam and Nigeria have announced that, in future, they will use full body scans to peep on screen passengers. Security workers will be able to play peek-a-boo, I see you ... ALL of you.

In effect, they will be provided the airport perk of porn-on-demand.

While the screenee, one presumes, will feel embarrassed and violated, the professional peeping toms screening techs will feel titillated and transfixed.

And the passengers in the long waiting lines? Impatience will be replaced with a mix of anxiety and

If these full body scans make it to American airports? It will be a whole new world for the employees of the Transportation Security Administration. Absenteeism rates will plummet. Boredom complaints will vanish.

These workers, may, in fact, be demanding longer shifts, shorter breaks, and fewer vacation hours.

This news of heightened erotica potential for airport security workers may be the perfect answer to the ongoing debate about the unionizing of the TSA.

Future arbitration meetings might sound something like this:

You drop the union bid and we give you unlimited, in-person, pre-flight porn. Deal?

We'll consider it. But first, we will need between-scan conjugal visits. Because, in the words of our former president,

plowed under

Not with the cold, white stuff, unfortunately. Wouldn't mind trading in for some of that. No, I'm plowed under with the post-holiday residue.

You know, the ...

crumpled wrapping paper, didn't quite make it into black garbage bag

empty shirt boxes

pile of truffle wrappers, embarrassingly large

dried orange peelings

sweater-too-small-no-receipt-don't-know-what-to-do-with-it

pine needles

fireplace ash

crocheted afghan crumpled on floor, displaced by new, plush snuggle throw

digital watch instructions, printed so small, impossible to read

lost gift card, lost gift receipt, lost mind

It didn't always look like this.

Promise.

Happy Holidays-Almost-Over, bloggy friends!