Yesterday I got to visit my little one and her kindergarten class for her birthday.  First I read them all a book called, “There Was a Coyote Who Swallowed a Flea” which elicited lots of giggles.  Then I sat down to eat lunch with my daughter and her friends.  Our round table was filled with little girls and I reflected upon how calming it was to be listening to relaxing music while watching autumnal nature screens flicker across the high-tech whiteboard.  Outside there was an expansive view of the playground and everywhere I looked it was cheery.  I was asked to tie shoes and open wrappers and it filled my heart with joy.  Afterward we got to go outside and enjoy popsicles in the afternoon sun.  Oh, to be so carefree again, where your most pressing dilemma of the day is which flavored popsicle to choose — cherry, tangerine, or grape.  I sat in the shade as I watched them play and I found myself grateful once again for the extraordinary opportunity my little one has being in this school.  My mind wandered to other countries where educating girls is not even allowed and I counted our blessings twice.  At this age kids still want to hug and I gladly accepted any that came my way.  I think they were all from my little one’s girlfriends.  There is something incomparable about the small arms of a child wrapped around you.  Things are so different then when I was in kindergarten, and I am glad.  Kindness toward all is emphasized as importantly as any other subject.  I have always loved to learn, and still do.  The American comedienne Carol Burnett said, “We don’t stop going to school when we graduate.”  I realized that now I get the chance to sort of relive a happier version of my academic days through my child by going back to school.

We were at Walgreen’s the other day when we discovered Fred here.  As I took his picture I remarked the Skinny Popcorn must be working.  At first my little one was afraid of him until I named him and had him shake hands with her.  Nervously, she giggled and by the time we got home she wanted to help untangle Fred from the passenger’s seat.  I like spooky Halloween stuff but not demonic looking things or gore.  Fred here is just about my speed.  I want my little one to be “good scared” versus scared out of her mind.  This was also the first year I involved her with putting up the decorations.  I think it helped her realize they were just inanimate things and hopefully it allayed her fears somewhat.  She said she had the best time decorating and I was so glad I just didn’t do it all myself.  This morning on the way to school she said, “Good-bye Fred” and absently patted him on the head as she went to the car.  I can also now joke that without digging I have a real skeleton in my closet.  I love what the Irish critic George Bernard Shaw once said:  “If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”  He may be X-ray thin, but I’ll bet Fred can move his old dry bones to the Silly Symphony of “The Skeleton Dance” and boogie on down.

Coming from the ’70’s, I always thought to carpool meant to ride-share.  These days I think it just means a great pool of suburbans idling in line to pick up their kids from school.  I don’t mind waiting, as the campus is located on a creek and I enjoy seeing the serenity of the crosses, Japanese maples, and the flowers you see here.  Generally there are bees buzzing around them, butterflies pausing prettily to land, or dragonflies zooming about.  It is a rare few minutes out of my day to savor the quiet without the distraction of a cell phone.  I still get tickled thinking about the scene in the movie Mr. Mom where the dad goes the wrong way to enter taking his kids to school.  He’d never done it but his wife was now the one “working.”  It IS true, you can always tell the dads because invariably they go the wrong way, garnering glares from the moms who are desperately trying to get their kids to school on time.  The “other parents” are essentially attempting to cut a very long, winding line.  At our school there is a police officer who directs traffic.  Last week no mom would let the Wrong-Way-Dad in so the cop had to pull out his whistle to halt the bumper to bumper turning cars; essentially forcing them to stop and let him in.  At first I was afraid of the carpool line but it really is no big deal.  I have attempted several times to explain it to my husband, on ride alongs, who still cannot seem to grasp it.  *SIGH*  The American businesswoman and transportation entrepreneur Robin Chase said:

”Transportation is the center of the world!  It is the glue of our daily lives.  When it goes well, we don’t see it.  When it goes wrong, it negatively colors our day, makes us feel angry and impotent, curtails our possibilities.”

I believe that to be true.  Get to where you’re going on time and your day goes smoothly.  Run late and you’re behind all day.  I can tell you one thing, I strive to always be on time for the carpool.

The American journalist Frank Reynolds once said, “Let’s nail it down, let’s get it right.”  My Daddy was just about the best at everything … but he was a horrible grocery shopper.  If Mama asked him for bread, he’d come home with milk.  God bless him, he just almost never got it right.  My husband, on the other hand, is an excellent grocery shopper.  He is incredibly specific and will call if he cannot find exactly what I have asked for.  However, on this fateful occasion, I asked him to please pick up some nails when he went to the store.  “Sure thing,” he said as he made his way to his favorite destination (the grocery) to eat unchecked.  He knows if I go I police the amount of sweets he consumes before he even checks out.  I cannot tell you how many times I have seen him hand over crumpled up wrappers for the cashiers to scan.  He gets home and says, “Your nails are on the bar.”  “Where?” I ask.  “On the kitchen bar” he replies.  All I can see is a box of French tip press ons and I yelled back upstairs, “The nails aren’t here!”  A few minutes later he comes trudging down the stairs.  Handing me the box of fake fingernails he says, as if I am simple, “Here you go.”  I felt my eyes widen in disbelief.  “I ASKED YOU TO GET NAILS SO I CAN HANG SOME PICTURES ON THE WALL!” I found myself shrieking as I shook my late father’s hammer at him.  “Oh,” he relied.  “And when have you ever known me to use press on nails?!” I exclaimed as he stood there looking genuinely perplexed.  I do in fact get a French manicure so I guess he must have paid attention to SOMEthing.  We both stood there looking at this box of nails and then started laughing.  This time Burk didn’t quite get it nailed down.

Our little one started kindergarten this year and it was our first carnival at her new school.  This year’s theme was traveling the world.  They had a giant globe, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, and a red phone booth from London all greeting us upon our arrival.  Before I got married I had never been to any of those places.  I silently marveled that now I had been fortunate enough to make all three.  Our daughter got her first passport when she was around one year old.  I got my first passport at 35.  The school spirit shirts were cleverly designed, with the Eiffel Tower worked into the “w,” Sydney’s Opera House was inside the “o,” the “r” contained the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the “l” was fashioned from London’s Big Ben, and the Taj Mahal formed the inner part of the “d.”  At the first booth you could have a color picture printed and pasted in your own passport complete with a colored lanyard.  Then as you went around to each of the other booths you got to have a stamp in your passport.  It was brilliant.  Our little one’s favorite was the animal hospital where they picked a small stuffed animal, named them, and then bandaged them up.  Ours chose a tiger whom she named Tigress and the poor thing had a lot of maladies.  The first was bound with pink, of course.  Fortunately Tigress must have recovered because by the end they had all fallen off.  It was fun running into classmates and getting to know their parents a bit more.  There were bounce houses and the playground took on a festive feel with a DJ blaring all the current hits, which the hubs remarked all sounded the same.  I tuned them out until Justin Beiber’s “Despacito” came on.  My daughter and I LOVE that song!  It was fun to see priests and teachers all out and having a good time.  They had food, snow cones for the littles, and margaritas for the grown-ups.  As our girl sucked down her mixed snow cone, I thought to myself a frozen margarita is sort of like an adult mixed snow cone, and I savored it appreciatively in the heat.  No one can control the weather, but I would say the temperature resembled a trip to Cairo.  We were all thankful for bottles of ice cold water.  Having my little girl really has brought my childhood back, and I found myself making sand art for the first time.  I let my mind go and was reminded of watching the Navajo and Tibetan monks making incredibly detailed sand art; suddenly gaining a small understanding of the calmness and meditative aspect of it.  The great South African anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”  I am so proud and so grateful my only child gets to experience a great education from the very beginning.  A world of adventure awaits.

As a professional petsitter, there are some things which I simply dread.  What you see pictured here is probably the worst — yes, even over poop.  An accident I can clean, but I cannot reconstruct tattered mail, mangled books, scratched furniture, broken lamps, or whatever else it is the critters under my care may have destroyed.  Fortunately, it does not happen often.  Thankfully, their owners have never failed to be understanding.  I don’t believe the animals mean to be bad and I feel the responsibility falls greatly upon me.  During the time I visit I try to exercise them, snuggle with them, stimulate them, and provide them with stability and dependability in their parents’ absence.  OK, and I subject them to multiple kisses.  I love my job.  It is immensely fulfilling and brings me great happiness.  Most gratifying is when I am able to hear from owners how thankfull they are because they KNOW their fur babies were loved in their absence.  You cannot fake love and one cannot take time or attention for granted — especially with animals.  Their unconditional love is so humbling.  The American author Alfred Montapert said:

”Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal.  Difficult standards for people to live up to.”

A saying comes to mind that goes something like I hope to be as good as my dog thinks I am.  It is indeed a worthy pursuit.  In the meantime, I shall endeavor to keep the critters from getting trashed.