Squirrel Chronicles Continued

Squirrels are not just rabidly weird in Minnesota.  The kiddos fed squirrels by hand in California.  Imagine if my husband had brought his gun!  Yet another reason it is hard to be an uprooted coastal gal in the Midwest.  I have developed strange hybrid values.  I don't want to kill the poor things, neither do I want to give them a velvet pillow and carry them around in a purse like some new breed of Chihuahua.

Cougar hat

Yesterday, while looking for a ladies' baseball hat to wear this summer, I saw a pink hat with the word "Cougar" boldly announced on the front.  I looked at it carefully; it was an attractive hat.  I imagined the looks I would get if I wore that around town this season, and it made me wonder what kind of woman would wear such a hat?  She'd have to be over a "certain age," and she would have to look hot. I couldn't imagine wearing such a hat in your fat pants.  I envisioned a subtly highlighted ponytail coming out of the back.  But wait, such a woman might have too much taste to buy that head gear.  She would have to be a woman with a good sense of humor, and she would have to be single-- or would some husband buy it as a gag gift?  Oh, no, I am going down the entirely wrong alleyway here-- she would have to be a woman who thought she was hot.  Yes, that makes sense-- and that is an interesting image.

So I didn't buy the Cougar hat, but I did think about what animal labeled hat my friends and I might buy that would more accurately describe the average woman.  The leaf-cutter ant, perhaps?  Intent on being busy and productive?  The Bluejay?  Always yelling at someone to put their shoes on and constantly feeding a chirping young one?  The orangutan for sure.  A child always crawling all over a patient and quiet momma.  Some of my more elegant friends could easily be gazelles-- graceful and sleek, and my artistic friends could have spider written on their caps.  The nomenclature I would most like is the one that fits my youngest daughter: house cat.  She loves to stretch out and lounge in the sun, and when you pet her, she purrs!

My son asked me, "Mom, why do you read so many books, and you never read the directions on the medicine?"  I think he pegged me pretty well.  I don't think I am alone-- here's to being distracted!

Confessions of an Absent Minded Mother

My husband keeps asking me if we could have another baby.  Finally, I just turned to him and said, “Look, we have three of them, and I haven’t lost one of them yet.  Why would you want to push our luck?”

Seriously, I forget my keys, my wallet, my purse.  I head to the store to get chickpeas for  chickpea salad and come out with all the ingredients except the chickpeas. I forget to pick up my children from school, and I forget to turn in permission slips.  I might get the date of the party correct, but forget the location or the time.  One well-meaning mother pulled me aside and said, “You can sync all of those dates on a calendar if you just get a smart phone.  I have all of my boys schedules color coded.  I never miss a thing.”  I didn’t want to tell her that I have a smart phone-- it just isn’t smart enough. You have to look at it, you have to want to know the details.  My husband says I am not ADD, but there has to be some explanation for my complete inability to go a whole week without some absent-minded disaster.  The alzheimer’s home is not going to be very different for me. “Oh, you lost your way in the supermarket, and you don’t know the name of your cat, Mabel?  I haven’t known I even had a cat for years.  Just embrace it-- forgetfulness makes life so much more exciting!”