Not Just Playing Possum

Update on Saturday, May 31, 2008 at 05:44PM by Jennifer

Nope, y'all, he's really dead.

Andrew found this poor fellow lying peacefully (well, except for the ants and flies that wouldn't leave his carcass alone) in our front yard on Friday.

He (Andrew, that is) ran inside to find me just like he used to do when he was a little boy.  At first I thought he was trying to put something over on me but he assured me there was really "a great big old dead possum layin' up right in the middle of our yard."

It looked as though he had simply chosen that particular spot -- on our lawn! -- to lay down and die of whatever ailed him.

For verification that it would not be a complete waste of energy, not to mention precious brain cells (of which I have none to spare) to follow Andrew outside, I looked to Erica, who had trotted in on her brother's heels.  Eyes wide, she nodded lugubriously in tacit endorsement of his claim, and I believed.

Of course I grabbed my camera!  The tiniest burst of excitement occurring in or around my humble bailiwick must be faithfully captured because you never know who might need a good face-cracking yawn.

A perfunctory look-see from the considerable height of our front porch confirmed that while there was indeed a motionless gray animal with a pointy snout, prehensile claws (visible even from where I stood) and a long ropy tail situated on the grass, Andrew had partially exaggerated (NO!  Andrew?  It can't be ...).  The possum wasn't all that big but he certainly was good and dead.  He wasn't technically in the middle of the yard, either ... he was sort of up under the crape myrtle tree that adorns an area near the steps. 

His body showed no signs of trauma as from being hit by a car or attacked by another animal.  It looked as though he had simply chosen that particular spot -- on our lawn! -- to lay down and die of whatever ailed him.

I guess we'll never know what motivated the possum to choose our yard as his ersatz deathbed, or the factor(s) that contributed to his unfortunate and apparently untimely demise.  We can only speculate. 

Maybe he was simply tired of living. 

It happens, y'all.

At any rate his (or her ... no, I did not get gender-curious) remains have been carted off to the garbage dump ... no proper burial coming when you walk on four legs and die on our property unless we have previously named you, I'm afraid.  Also no possumtail stew is on the menu as we do not consume possum in any form in our family.  We're what you might call picky eaters.

Only four pictures (click on his wee head to see the other three) remain to memorialize the possum's passing.  Be forewarned that one is a closeup of his toenails.

Later when I showed TG the pics (on my small camera screen) because he hadn't been home at the time we made the discovery and held the impromptu postmortem photo shoot, he asked: "He wasn't just playing possum, was he?" 

Big grin.

Nope.  I'm afraid this here possum is history.

And that's a wrap.

How Do You Spell Subway? Q-U-I-Z-N-O-S

All evidence to the contrary, I'm Having A Thought Here is not intended to be a rant blog, a humor blog, a religious blog, a critter blog,  a literary blog, a pirate blog, a foodie blog, a fangirl blog, a political blog, a mommy blog, or an ecumenical, spiritual, or grammatical blog. 

It's just me blog! 

Decidedly eclectic, I think you will agree.  Perhaps that is because I refuse to limit my horizons to the interior of any sort of little bitty neatly-labeled box!  The vistas available from such a vantage point appeal to me about as much as the prospect of milking a rattlesnake.

However.

At certain times various and sundry strong beliefs espoused by me (who else?) will ooze from my brain, travel through my fingers, and leak into the posts found here. 

If the result of said mental osmotic activity at any juncture begins to distress you, one click will take you away.  Bye now!  No hard feelings!  Please come again soon when what we are serving up may be more to your liking.  Or not.  Your choice.

I am not the hoagie type. I am the prime rib and crème brûlée by candlelight type.

One final caveat ... and I fully realize this could be the proverbial deal-breaker: here we do not strive to be particularly politically correct.

"What in the sam hill has her so riled?"  You quite possibly are asking yourself.

In a word ... Subway.

Not as in a form of mass urban commuter transit, but as in a place to buy sandwiches.  To be more specific, as in a place where I will never again buy a sandwich (which will actually save me $0.00 annually), and where I will do my best to see that the thirty-four people on the face of the earth over which I have the remotest scintilla of influence will likewise never again purchase so much as a crumb.

I think I know what you are thinking!  "Why is she worked up about Subway, of all places?  She doesn't even seem like the hoagie type!"

I am so glad you brought that up!  Your observations today are one hundred percent on point.  I've always liked that about you!  And no ... I am not the hoagie type.  I am the prime rib and crème brûlée by candlelight type.

But I digress.  Apologies.

The bright-ish folks at Subway, instead of sticking to cold cuts, have made it their business to categorically and remorselessly discriminate against an entire segment of American schoolchildren: the home schooled.  This they did while devising the rules and regs for their no doubt somewhat popular "Every Sandwich Tells A Story" contest.  Don't take my word for it!  Read it for yourself here, y'all.  Notice at the bottom of the entry fields as well as in the page footer, the tersely exclusionary "No home schools will be accepted."**

In case you were wondering, I did not home school a single one of our four children.  All four were privately educated from K-4 through 12 (two salutatorians in there, by the way) as well as college ... three tassels turned, one to go.

I am nevertheless personally acquainted with a number of exceptional home-schooled children ... among them my older sister's brood of seven.  Now, you'd have to know my sister, Kay ... she's a cross between Albert Einstein and George Patton, with a great big nurturing heart at the center of all that intelligence and grit.  She is also a lady of tremendous gravitas, spirituality, and practical wisdom.

**tips hat Kay-ward, blows kiss** 

So while those seven kids of hers were born with more than their fair share of grey matter, as it happens their mother worked them into a veritable lather of excellence in the academic milieu and continues to do so with her one remaining school-age child.  Character-wise they're pretty sharp too.

I realize that my sister's diligence and success on the home schooling front may not be the norm across the board, but I think the academic bar is hoisted at least as high in most home schools as it is in most public schools.  Although I am not in possession of any empirical data per se, I'm fairly sure the test scores would bear out the above assertion in just about any contest between children schooled in traditional classrooms versus those educated at home.  While we're at it let's blindfold a random selection of the home-schooled children and tie half their brains behind their backs just to make it fair.

If you clicked on the link to the home page for Subway's "Every Sandwich Has A Story" contest, you didn't see this next thing I'm going to tell you about because it has been corrected.  (As you might imagine there was quite the hue and cry from certain conservative camps in the face of Subway's blatant banning of home-schooled children from their writing contest ... and rightly so.  I myself sent Fred DeLuca a straightforward kind of email.) 

The promotional copy originally misspelled the words "united" (referring to our country as the Untied States) and "basket" (one of the prizes was apparently a Scholastic Gift bastket). 

Hmmmm ... ya'll might want to utilize the handy Windows spellcheck feature for those online writing contest entry pages.  At least it would have caught bastket.  Or employ home-schooled people to do your writing for you.  Just a helpful suggestion!

And if the Subwonks weren't comfortable giving the $5,000 worth of athletic equipment to a single home schooling family, they could have given it to a local gym or park or fitness center in that family's name.  Let's get creative, people.  Put your brain on.

Happily (sort of), in addition to rectifying the spelling errors that were pointed out to them, Subway has attempted to backpedal and deflect the flak they have justifiably received by publishing an "apology" which states in part: Our intention was never to make independent schooled children feel discriminated against or excluded from this specific promotion.  Oh really?  Could have fooled me!  Let's read it again, shall we: "No home schools will be accepted."**  Is that statement designed to make the independent schooled children feel included in this specific promotion?

My advice to Subway: keep churning out sandwiches and leave the mind games to those who know how to play them.

The rule has not been changed, by the way; the contest is in progress through June 30, 2008, and home schoolers are still not allowed to participate.

And now for what I like to think of as the coup de grâce ...

Does the name Evan O'Dorney mean anything to you?  He's the eighth grader from Danville, California (a state in which, incidentally, lawmakers seem intent on criminalizing home schoolers), who won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2007.  The winning word in a fierce and über-dramatic three-round spelling showdown between Evan and his closest competitor, Canadian Nate Gartke, was serrefine.  I couldn't have spelled or defined that word ten minutes ago even if you'd told me that spelling and defining it would get me a candlelight dinner with Johnny Depp.  But Evan could spell it and ... oh, hey, guess what?  He's home schooled!  His mother, Jennifer, is his teacher and his father is ... wait for it ... a San Francisco subway train operator.

That's what you call ironic.

See you at Quiznos!  I hear they serve up a mean prime rib sub.

Update on Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 07:44PM by Jennifer

HA HA!

**Since I posted this article with the embedded link to the promotional contest entry page, Subway has seen fit to change the language excluding participation of home schoolers from "No home schools will be accepted" to "Home schools not eligible."

I guess they think that wording will somehow make the home schoolers feel less discriminated against.

Or maybe they just wanted to prove they could correctly spell a big word like eligible.

Update on Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 08:14PM by Jennifer

We'll Never Forget Today

Update on Monday, May 26, 2008 at 08:44PM by Jennifer

What a special family celebration we had today!  Like most families, we make every effort to assemble en masse on Memorial Day to eat like there's no tomorrow and kick off the summer season.  Sometimes it's not possible for everyone to be in attendance, but happily, today it was.  Also among our number was Charlene, a beloved friend of the family.  She's a sweetheart and we were glad she was free to join us.

About one o'clock we chowed down on pulled pork barbecue sandwiches, calico beans served over jasmine rice, fruit salad of fresh pineapple, strawberries and blueberries, deviled eggs, two kinds of potato chips, and assorted soft drinks.  For dessert there were two cakes (more on that below) and fresh coffee with Coffeemate (liquid, the original ... no funny flavors).

In addition to remembering the countless American heroes who have served and fought and died for our freedoms, we were marking two more important dates. 

On June 4, 1983, my mother, who had been single for many years, was married to Henry.  To recognize and celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, the girls and I put together a silver gift basket (actually a bucket) and filled it to overflowing with silver gifts and gifts wrapped in silver.  We topped it off with two silver balloons (one of them heart-shaped) and made a beautiful white cake decorated with cherries and silver flowers.  We love you, Mom and Henry!

Erica will be 22 years old later this week so we really tied one on and had a second cake (made by Grandma) and more gifts for her.  Happy Birthday, Little Boo!

Of course there was much snorgling and cuddling and kissing and hugging and squeezing of our precious granddaughters, three-year-old Melanie and six-week-old Allissa.

Click on the picture of Stephanie and Melanie, above, to view the entire album.

Hope you all had a blessed Memorial Day!

BUT I Missed You So Much ...

Today the girls and I set out for an afternoon of shopping.  It was such a beautiful day ... sunny but breezy and fairly cool, with low humidity.  I wish our trip been the fun, relaxed shopping kind, but alas it was more the task-oriented, stressful errand-running kind ... although happily it did involve stopping at Barnes & Noble to take advantage of their Buy-Two-Get-One-Free classical CD sale.  I swung into a parking space not too far from the door and we piled out and started walking in.  We didn't get far -- specifically, we were behind an SUV occupying the parking space right next to us -- when a horn began sounding urgently from said vehicle.  Not an alarm, but a car horn.

Before we could figure out why the SUV's horn was sounding (everything was happening so fast), a lady charged up to the driver's side door and impatiently yanked it open.  I apologize in advance for the crude anatomical term I am about to use. 

"Get your butt off the horn!" 

Those were her exact words and she uttered them brusquely to whomever was inside the SUV, loud enough for all of us to hear.  Not turning my head to get a gander at the car's occupant but under the distinct impression that the woman was addressing a child, I had time to think, "Wow ... she certainly nipped that behavior in the bud, and none too kindly."

Audrey and Erica looked over and convulsed in laughter.

Turns out the creative horn-blower was the lady's large dog.

If she were my owner I'm not sure I'd have been so glad to see her ... but that's a dog for you.

Audrey's Chicago Pix ... Such As They Are

Update on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 07:44PM by Jennifer

Audrey was in Chicago last week for several days, sent there by her employer, Whirlpool Corporation.  She worked hard and only had time to take a few pictures with a camera borrowed from me, but they're passably interesting so I thought I'd share ... like mother like daughter, Audrey has a penchant for big cities, good food, cushy hotels, nice shopping venues ... oh, and self-portraiture.  Click on the picture of Audrey to see the other photos in the album "My Kind Of Town" ... enjoy!

"588-2300, Empiiiiiire."

Oh, by the way ... if you do look at the rest of the pictures it might be perfectly natural for you to wonder why my daughter took a picture of the TV screen in her hotel room during a commercial for a carpet company.  That's because Audrey was born in Northwest Indiana, 30 miles from Chicago, and she has vivid memories of times we spent in and around the city.  TG is a die-hard fan of all Chicago teams but particularly the Cubs, the Bulls, and the Bears.  Consequently, Audrey has early and persistent recollections of our television often being tuned to WGN ... where the games were aired  and where TG also liked to watch the news.

If you've spent much time watching WGN while in the greater Chicagoland area, or if you've listened to WGN radio, you're familiar with the jingle: "588-2300, Empiiiiiire," which has been sung exactly the same for as long as I can remember.  It never leaves your brain once you've learned it, which is all but unavoidable because the little melody is so catchy. 

So I can just see Audrey running for the camera when she was in her room and the Empire carpet commercial came on.  It reminded her of when she was a little kid.  You know how that is!  I get similarly verklempt when I'm watching TVLand and hear old commercials like, for example, Brylcreem (a little dab'll do ya) or see Santa Claus slaloming down a mountain on a riding Norelco shaver!