all weird things today

The other day Hanneke over at Northwoods Adventures asked if we'd seen anything unusual. This morning I saw a Buick LeSabre with mud flaps. That's right. Mud flaps. I noticed them first because one was falling off. And no one except truck drivers use mud flaps, so it was just plain weird. Upon closer examination, this car had a Ron Jon Surf Shop decal in the back window... and Minnesota plates. A poser? Former surfer forced to move? Wishful thinking?

I've been proud of the fact that my sons voluntarily share a room. We have 3 rooms upstairs, but they've chosen to sleep together, lined up like the Five Little Peppers (only there's 3 of them, not 5) in the largest room. Every now and then someone will want to bail out and head to the room we use as a guest bedroom, but it never lasts longer than a week. The third room is a playroom, overrun by battle castles, train tracks, blocks and action heroes.

The Trifecta of Beds

Last week they declared their intentions to split up. Oh! The! Drama! All the toys are going into Mr. G's room, the original bedroom, the biggest of the 3 rooms. But Mr. G doesn't want to be alone in a room and his older brothers are using that room as a Dumping Ground for crap they don't want in their Fancy New Digs, but also don't want to part with permanently. Mr. G's feeling crowded and lonely. Mr. B is happy in the former guest bedroom. He gained the Most Desirable Closet Space and The Room Closest to the Bathroom. Mr. T is on the cusp of Preteenhood. The idea of privacy appeals to him, he doesn't want any babyish toys cluttering the former toy room, and he'd like to keep the futon in there, thankyouverymuch.

This rearrangement has forced my hand in pulling Crap I've Been Storing in the upstairs closets. I either have to find new spots for things or get rid of them. But tomorrow afternoon I'm forcing their hands to get Their Crap out of Mr. G's room. Solidarity, people.

Speaking of solidarity, I ran the first Happyland Elementary PTA meeting of the school year this week. Instead of the usual introductions, I filled a bucket with questions ala Mrs. G over at Derfwad Manor. Now, instead of knowing that Mrs. Smith has 2 children, a daughter in Mr. Jones' first grade class and a son in Mrs. Taylor's fourth grade class, I know that Mrs. Smith prefers her eggs over hard. Or that Nancy Drew was her favorite childhood character in a book. The random questions went over really, really well. The introductions were faster and more interesting. I figure if we're all in this PTA business together, we might as well have more fun with it, right?

Which brings me to a final random fun fact: I used to be a breakfast waitress. The number of abbreviations I had to know for that job was insane. Eggs could be SU, OE, OH, SCR, OM, P, HB. Toast could be DRY, WWT, RT or T. Ordering an omelet was akin to ordering pizza. In pizzas you order SMOG (sausage, mushroom, onion, green peppers). In omelets you can order CHOG (cheese, ham, onion, green peppers). In all the waitressing gigs I had, I enjoyed breakfasts the most. No salad bar to mess around with, no cocktails to mix, no appetizers or desserts to remember. You walk by once to drop off drinks and get their order, you stroll through in turns with your fellow waitstaff to "coffee" all the customers in the restaurant, you walk by again to drop off the food, you swing by a third time to check on everyone and leave the bill. Breakfast people were generally sleepy and easy to please, unlike dinner patrons who tend to be grumpy and uptight. The only exception to the breakfast shift are buffets, which are a horror story best left unremembered.

Spill it, reader. What unusual, random thing do you know?

Posted in: decaf is for the weak, i also found a giant dustbunny in that closet, Team Testosterone