I am fond of saying “don’t cut toward yourself” and then telling the story of saying that exact thing to my father as I walked through the garage while he was sectioning out his dahlias with a scalpel.  Less than 5 minutes later, dad walked into the kitchen with the scalpel embedded between the two large tendons on the inside of his left wrist.  And lo, the irony of  that has never ceased  amusing me*; the man was a pathologist, spent years of his life wielding a scalpel, and let me know I shouldn’t cut toward myself every single time I even thought about picking up a knife as a child.

The other day I found myself saying to myself  “probably shouldn’t be doing this” as I was using a newly sharpened pair of kitchen shears to pry off the metal clasp on a bag of ice.  Of course, the shears slipped and ended firmly lodged into the knuckle of my thumb.  I am fully aware that a pair of pliers really would have been better suited for the job, I was simply too lazy to take the 20 steps to the garage to retrieve them.

And so, I offer this advice:  take the time to get the proper tool for the job, and please, don’t cut toward yourself.

*Note*:  Please note that I am not amused by his actual injury, but the irony of it. 

My kids will be better adults because of their dad.  For that I am grateful.

Happy Father’s Day to all you dad out there.

I remember being a teenager and eating A LOT of food.  For a few years I was swimming both before and after school, and that can make a girl a bit peckish.  Like walking in the door from practice and eating an entire meal’s worth of leftovers while waiting for dinner to be ready, and knowing, just knowing that I would indeed perish from hunger before dinner was done sort of peckish.  My mother yelled at me to close the refrigerator door.  Often.

We’ve reached the tip of this teenaged eating iceberg here at Chez Star.  Every time I see Mason, the kid is surfing the kitchen or pantry for something to eat.  And it doesn’t really seem to matter if he’s just eaten, he’s still hungry. 

Last weekend we made the mistake of taking the kid to run some errands, right after lunch, without packing snacks.  The trip suddenly became like dragging around a cranky, hungry 2 year old.  Only worse, because his verbal and reading skills are better than most 2 year olds.

So, as we drove around town, we got a running commentary about every restaurant, fast food drive thru and grocery store. A constant moaning about how hungry he was (close to death in his estimation) and how awesome and delicious each and every business would have been.

The best moment came when we passed the new Subway.  “Subway!  Are we stopping at Subway?  Aw, man.  I love Subway.  I could eat a Subway right now.  You know what would be awesome?  If mom owned a Subway.  That way, I’d get to eat free Subway all the time.  That’d be awesome!  Free Subway…….”  We were then treated to a few minutes of silence while Mason fantasized about free sandwiches.

There is some bird that hangs out behind my house in the morning, and it sings a lot.  This wouldn’t really register, except for the fact that this one bird sounds exactly like my phone.  At least twice every morning I get half way to the phone before I realize it’s that bird, singing happily in the wetlands.

I know I live in the desert, but I can’t help wanting this:  a marsh mallow plant.  I have a globe mallow, but I’m willing to overwater and keeps something sopping wet just so I can say I have a marsh mallow plant.  It makes me want to giggle.

I think I have a fairly well read 12 year old.  In the arenas where he won’t go wide, he goes fairly deep.   He loves to read, and reads a lot.  In fact, since school got out last week he’s had exactly one social interaction and spent the rest of his free time reading.

One of the things he loves to read is magazines.  Every month he reads National Geographic, Discover for Kids, Popular Mechanics, Cooks Illustrated, and Scientific American.  He also reads every single copy of the Solutions catalogue that comes to the house; he lights up like a light bulb when that one arrives.

The subscriptions to Popular Mechanics and Scientific American were Christmas gifts.  These are great presents because 1)you get something in the mail every month, which is cool when you’re 12 and 2)they get passed around the whole family and are educational for everyone, including the adults.  But, I have to say, I’m drawing the line.

I have put my foot down.

This happened yesterday when Mason, who is 12 years old, received an offer for The Economist.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  The Economist is a great magazine.  However, I am skeptical about sending a pre-teen an offer for a magazine that cost $174 for a year’s subscription.

I’m all about education, but he’ll have to go to the library for that one.

A family of six generates a shitload of paper.  Almost an entire paper grocery sack full every week.  And that doesn’t count all the junk mail I try to recycle at the post office.  Surely there is a better way.

Since it’s the last week of school, the amount of paper coming home has spiraled out of control.  Again, there has to be a better way.  Does everything they do in elementary school require a corresponding photocopied worksheet.  Couldn’t the 5th graders actually make up and write out sentences with the spelling words in them instead of filling in the blanks on a 6 page worksheet?

One good thing has come out of this landslide of end-of-year papers.  The kids are bringing home anything and everything with their name on it, and there are some real gems in there.

I found a story Bowman wrote on the computer as part of his typing tutor, entitled “Jimmy Bob, The Boy Who Loved The Dump”.  The story is as full of awesome as the title would lead you to believe.  Isabelle brought home a journal full of weekend recaps.  My favorite was from a few weeks ago and included this line, “I roasted a marshmellow and I put it on some choclate and a graham cracker and a smores was born.  It was most delishish!”

The very best thing, however, was a total accident.  Mason handed it over unintentionally when I made him empty his backpack, which hadn’t been done since Christmas vacation.  It was a list of meticulously kept grievances perpetrated by Bowman some night while Davie-O and I were gone, entitled “The Horrible Things Bowman Did While U Were Gone….”

I hope you enjoy this list as much as I did. I will copy it exactly and in it’s entirety.

• Put spit on his lips
• Argued with every word spoken
• Disobeyed
• Threatened to vandalism
• Called people names
• Gets mad and yells “I’m going to call Mom”
• So I put the phones in the grown up cabinet
• Refuses 2 get ready for bed
• Makes noise
• Jumps on bed
• Won’t go to sleep
• Sings
• Whistles
• Talks to me

I’m keeping this one!  Hopefully, one day when those two like each other more, it will be even funnier than it is now.

Cutter had a little 5th grade buddy spend the night a few weeks ago.  It was the  first time this kid had spent more than two hours at our house.  While we were eating dessert and playing Blokus, he says matter of factly, “your family is really, really nerdy”.

About three weeks ago Butters ate Mason’s third Rubik’s Cube.  He wasn’t sure that he wanted to spend yet another $10 on a replacement; he’s been all out  of sorts because he doesn’t have something to obsess about.  Until last weekend, that is,  when Davie-O introduced him to the game Magic.

The boy types here at Chez Star are sort of nerdy.  They attend Pokémon tournaments at the game shop, have birthday parties that include epic games of Battlelore and Risk, and often invite their friends to spend the night so they can play D&D without interruption.  Mason’s new love and obsession for Magic really came as no surprise.

What did surprise me, however, was that he called the game shop to see if they held Magic tournaments.  By himself, when I wasn’t home, he called the game shop.  This may no seem weird to you people, as he is 12 years old, but this is a kid who won’t even call his friends and usually refuses to talk to his grandparents on the phone.  Calling the game shop was a big deal.

So, on Wednesday night I took him down to the game shop for his first real Magic game.  He was clearly nervous, and asked me to walk in with him.  Luckily, the woman running the game knew him from D&D, and kindly got him a partner and watched over him.  I was told to return two hours later.

When I showed up at 9:00, I knew better than to go inside.  How uncool would that be?  Being the youngest person at the game and having your mom wander in?  So I parked the car where he could see it from the shop, and I waited.  About five minutes later, Mason ran out to the car and the following conversation took place.

Mason:  Would it be OK if I finished up my game?

Mom:  Sure.

Mason:  Would you mind waiting for a few more minutes?

Mom:  No, that’d be fine.

Mason:  Hey, Mommy?

Mom:  Yes?

Mason:  Would you mind waiting in the car?

Yesterday I was standing next to my 12 year old.  I was not wearing shoes and he was.  I’m 5’10”, and we were eye to eye.  I’m hoping it gets easier when the rest of my babies pass me up….

After a year of bitching, moaning, and dragging our feet, we finally cowboyed up and purchased a new mattress.  Mattress shopping sucks big Twinkies.  You can only do so much research on line, and then are required to spend (read: waste) at least a day schlepping around trying out the product.  Ugh.

We ended up with the space age NASA foamy stuff.

After DAYS of deliberation.

Dave needed some help moving stuff around to accommodate said new mattress; he walked through the kitchen, stating that all Star children needed to report to the garage.  Soon, only Mason was left standing in front of the open fridge.

Mom:  Why aren’t you out in the garage helping dad?

Mason:  He asked that all Star children report to the garage.

Mom:  Yep, I heard.  So why are you still standing in front of the open fridge, waiting for something delicious to magically appear?

Mason:  Well, he said children.  And technically, at least at the movie theater, I’m an adult.

I’ve had a few live music escapades in the past few weeks.  But first…..

Get thee to some live music.  It doesn’t matter what kind, any kind will do, but do your soul a favor and attend something live.  It’s amazing how good live music can make you feel.  Go.  Plan it.  Don’t delay.

So, a few weeks ago I went to The Knitting Factory to see the Swedish death metal band "Opeth".  Yeah, I know.  I wasn’t aware that the Swedes were so instrumental in the death metal scene either, but apparently they are.  I would recommend checking this band out on Pandora, but I’m going to guess that the majority of my readers just really aren’t that into any sort of death metal, let alone the Swedish stuff.

Nor am I into it, for that matter.  In fact, I can’t name one single death metal band.  Not a one.  However, there’s no reason to let a little thing like having no effing clue stop you. 

Here’s what I find fascinating about the whole thing:  people think I’m crazy for going to this show.  I  was talking about how much fun I had and how great the crowd watching was, and all my friends could say was “do  you really like death metal?”.

People!  You don’t have to like it, or even know it for that matter, to try it out!  Go, get outside your box and have some fun!