Hot, hot, hot

It is unbearably freaking hot in Southern California today.  Yorba Linda got to 105.  And it's not just hot, it's also humid, which is very freakish for here.  I was just absolutely SWEATY all day.  I mean armpit ring, beads of sweat on my upper lip, shiny forehead sweaty.  It was gross.  I was gross.  Being so sweaty made me feel queasy and weak and tired.  

It needs to be fall.  Soon.

Aren't they cute?

This is one of my groups from last year.  That age group is even bigger this year.  My challenge is to find a way for you to hear them sing!

Here's how bad my day sucks:

I both unloaded the dishwasher AND cleaned the toilets today.

Hey, Emma!

Hallie is visiting your state this week!  Her magazine is photographing boats all week.  I can't remember where--but I know it's a lake!  ;)

What's your least favorite household job?

Mine's unloading the dishwasher.  I hate it so much that I sometimes let piles of rinsed and ready to load dishes sit in the sink because the dishwasher is full of clean dishes and I don't want to take them out.   I hate the silverware basket the most.

I guess cleaning the toilet is grosser.  But I still hate unloading the dishwasher more.

obit

On this Lunch Monday, we found ourselves running so far ahead of schedule that we ended up spending the last fifteen minutes of Hallie's lunch hour sitting in the parking lot eating McD's soft serve cones and reading the newspaper.  I happened to have my section open to the page with the obits when suddenly, Hallie piped up with, "Mom, I've been working on an obit for you."

My curiosity was piqued, but I was suspicious.  "Oh yeah?  What?"

"Well, so far, I only have one line:  'Her death was made even more tragic by the fact that she was only four Babies short of completing her life's work--collecting every Beanie Baby ever made.'"

For what it's worth, by the way, I don't collect Beanie Babies (or anything else.)

9/11

On the one-year anniversary of 9/11, Yorba Linda had a community-wide ceremony.  It was put together by our inter-faith council and a lot of churches plus a Muslim group and our local synagogue participated.  It was a walk down the length of Yorba Linda Blvd., beginning at the Catholic Church at one end and ending at the Baptist Church at the other.  People walked, sang, and carried candles, and there was prayer at each stop along the road.  Hundreds, maybe thousands of people went.  It was very moving.

But that was seven years ago.  In the intervening years, some bad stuff has happened in peaceful little old Yorba Linda.  Some white junior high kids ganged up and beat a Middle Eastern kid senseless at the skateboard park one night.  Elsewhere in Orange County, some Muslim organizations' buildings have been defaced.  Anti-Muslim propaganda circulates regularly on the Internet.  Perfectly sensible, otherwise intelligent people are thoroughly convinced that Barack Obama is some kind of secret Muslim terrorist.  Many otherwise intelligent people believe that ALL Muslims are terrorists.  People who would never dream of unleashing hateful rants about, say, Catholics or Jews feel absolutely entitled to spew violent anti-Muslim vitriol. It's starting to frighten me.  It needs to stop.

It's time to leave 9/11 in our past.  Our world is too small and too crowded to keep crowing over tragedies that are in the past, things that cause hostility and hatred against innocent people who are living in the now.  It's time for us to prayerfully and quietly remember the lost and to work diligently toward creating a future without racial and religious hatred, a world in which another 9/11 won't happen.

Summer's Gone

And I'm glad.  I'm ready for it to be fall!  I took the floral wreath off my front door and put a fall leaves and berries one up.  That's about as far as I can go for now--in SoCal, September is usually hotter than August.  Sweaters and the fireplace and hearty pots of soup and such are going to have to wait.

In 59 minutes, I have to go to the dentist.  But, ya know, who's counting?  

I am, obviously.  I have the worst case of dentist-phobia of anyone I've ever encountered.  It all started in 6th grade.  I was being fitted for a retainer, the object of which was to close the slight gap between my two front teeth.  As the family sadist, er dentist, was perusing my most recent x-rays, he came to realize that my right eye tooth was still a baby tooth.  Looking more closely, he saw that, waiting to come in above the baby tooth were two full-sized permanent teeth AND a stunted little miniature tooth.  All retainer plans were put on hold and the experts were called.

The plan that ensued involved me having the baby tooth pulled and waiting for something to happen.  Nothing did.  There was just too much up there for anything to have room to come down into the space.  Next, I visited an oral surgeon, which ultimately resulted in my having a huge hole carved out of my palate, from which were extracted the mini-tooth and the extra permanent tooth.  The gaping hole that was left was filled with a plastic packing material until the exposed nerves were once again covered with tissue, and then the packing was removed--leaving me with, as you might guess, a gaping hole in my palate.  But no, the fun did NOT stop there.

Next, the permanent tooth grew down into the now-healing gaping hole, whereupon the "difficult cases" orthodontic specialist my parents had engaged put a band around it (and all the rest of my poor miserable teeth) and over a period of three long, unpleasant (in my view) years, pulled that tooth from the center of the roof of my mouth up to the space it was meant to go in.

Needless to say, word quickly got out in junior high that there was this weird girl with a tooth in the middle of her palate, and I was frequently called upon to display my claim to fame, to the amusement of everyone except, of course, myself.

I'd like to say that this made me the most popular girl in seventh grade, but that would be a lie.

Is it any wonder I hate the dentist?

(P.S.  They did close up that gap, though.  I have the straightest teeth in town.)

holiday weekend

Ours was relaxing and fairly uneventful.  Saturday, Dave and I went to the NASCAR races in Fontana.  A young man who posts on the sports message board I bought last year works for one of the big drivers and got us pit/garage passes, which Dave got a big kick out of.  It was gawdawfully hot and humid that day, and the pit has a dress code--long pants, no open shoes, no tank shirts, etc., which made it even hotter.  I declined to visit the pit and remained in the (mercifully shaded) grandstand seats while Dave went down there.  I enjoyed watching the race more than I thought I would.  It's a lot more interesting in person than it is on TV.  (But what ISN'T more interesting than televised car races?  Golf, maybe...)

We also happened to have tickets for A Chorus Line at the OC Performing Arts Center, so Hallie used those.

Sunday, Hallie and I sang a very pretty duet arrangement of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" at both services at church (last week of summer fill-in music--next week it'll be back to full choir). Later that day, she had a pool party for a pretty big crowd of friends.  Dave was the designated pomegranate margarita maker and I did the food--taco bar, chile con queso, guacamole, plus chocolate torte a la mode for dessert.  They stayed up late.  We didn't.

Yesterday, we saw the most absurd movie ever--Hamlet 2.  I was wildly amused and laughed nonstop all the way through.  Some people in the theater were sort of stunned into silence, apparently, but I found Steve Coogan to be almost painfully hilarious as the most affected, ridiculous high school drama teacher ever to write the most hideous play ever performed by high school drama nerds (Hamlet and Jesus Christ, who sports a hot swimmer's bod, travel in a time machine and arrive just in time to save Ophelia and the entire cast from tragic death.)  If you like odd movies, and I do, go see it.

We finished up the day with yet another Mexican feast at Cafe El Cholo, a venerable LA institution, which incidentally claims to have invented nachos.  So maybe we're a little fatter than we started, but we're happy.