FizzyLizzy

The Monarchs ended their regular season with a 3-3 record. Katherine's assessment of last night's game (a 6-23 loss): we didn't play our best game. I think she's probably right. Coming off the heels of two consecutive losses, I felt like their confidence might have been bruised. The Monarchs played well, but couldn't stop a spectacular scorer on the other team. I think the greatest asset that the Monarchs have though is their positive spirit and enthusiasm. I wish I'd gotten a photo of this moment: With one minute left to play, one of the Monarchs fell and stung her knee. As she was coming off the court, the three girls on the bench shot their hands up in the air and were shouting "Me! Me! Me!" to the coach. Despite the insurmountable lead of their opponents, they all wanted to get back in and play.

The playoffs start Friday. Because the playoff brackets only took into consideration their record through the first four games, they were placed in the next higher level tournament.

for the Monarchs. They suffered their worst loss yet (9-18) to the Ladybugs. The Ladybugs' best player is also Katherine's friend from Sunday School. Ouch. One more game left, then it's a tournament next weekend. I'm not sure I completely understand the tournament system. Our coach gave us the tournament bracket today and we have never played any of the teams on it. I guess there's a lot I don't know.

My dad retired today. While it's a much bigger life change for him, it makes me feel a little older. I usually have the Today show providing a little background noise in the mornings and I've noticed that my ear perks up when life-relevant stories are on. I tune out pregnancy and babies and tune into "tweens." I had the realization this week that sooner rather than later the segments on "your aging parents" are going to become relevant. Like this tease for the NBC Nightly News: "How to recognize the signs that it may be time to have that talk with an aging parent." What signs? Like giggling when they're around members of the opposite sex? Personally, I thought they already knew about all that stuff. Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone and do Katherine and them together.

This note came home today:

Dear Parent/Guardian: Your child has been chosen to participate in the 2007 Rope Power Team. The team is made up of fourth grade students who have, during the Rope Power unit, shown themselves to be top jumpers.

Katherine kept telling me over the past few weeks about how she really wanted to be in "rope power." And I--the awesome mom that I am--was like, "Whatever." I feel bad now for kind of dismissing her. I just thought it was something in gym. Apparently Minneapolis public school students who have passed a certain level of jump rope skills in phys ed are invited to be part of their school's Rope Power Team. The team learns a routine set to music and will perform it at the All City Rope Power Night in March. I never knew.

According to William, the shot he took for his second basket ever was called a “layout.” Our little kindergarten basketball star…still working on his skills. At his game last week the opposing coach was telling his players who they were guarding: “You’ve got number 12. You’ve got number 7. And you’ve got the boy with his arms in his shirt.” Guess who that was. I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but Katherine’s Monarchs suffered their first loss last Saturday: 12-16. Going into last weekend they were first in their league, now I believe there are three teams tied for first place with a 3-1 record. Her final two games are Saturday and Monday. I’ll keep you posted.

I didn't. Kinda feel like blowing off Lent this year. In past years I have given up my sweet elixir of sugar and caffeine: regular Coke. But I've stopped buying it for the most part, so giving up something I have maybe once a week doesn't feel very meaningful.

Really liked this passage read at the service this morning from Psalms 51:

Behold thou desirest truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

and National Pancake Day!

Is it a coincidence or not that tonight was also the annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper at church? Let me tell you, those Methodists sure know how to celebrate Mardi Gras. Actually it's kind of cute--the families with kids and the older folks, gathering in the church basement, eating pancakes and bacon. Of course there's whipped cream and chocolate sauce--I mean you wouldn't really be living it up if it was just the imitation maple syrup. Since our Lenten theme is "the stones cry out," the theme for the pancake supper was "rock," both the mineral kind and the musical kind. There was a band and some people dressed up as rock stars (not me). The decor was a mixture of geologic and rock and roll items. Alas, my words just don't do it justice.

Evidence that I am starting to lose my mind: One of the activities tonight was making rock puppets (don't ask). Someone at our table asked if there was a stapler and I know I had seen one so I started looking for it. I had not seen a stapler on the table. I had seen a stapler on our stairs (don't ask) earlier in the day and was having a little mental moment.

What are the odds?

That Mrs. Bickerson and I would be wearing the same outfit tonight?
That the SNL Short we watched on their laptop tonight would be rebroadcast 2 hours later?

Thanks for having us over Mr. & Mrs. B!!

By the way, Katherine loved the cupcakes--Could I have your "recipe"?

We all had dinner at the local tavern.

I love emerging writers. And that's not as in reading the latest hot novel. This is William's Valentine to Mr. FL and me:

siz
utoHaGsaDcis
I LovE

That would be: I love you too hugs and kisses.

This was William's Super Bowl menu:

hodog (hot dogs a.k.a. cocktail weiners)
sprt (Sprite)
iscrem (bet you can figure that one out)
fpoceflo (froggy floats--something they had at camp)
rber (root beer--float implied)
frerfi (French fries)

And last but not least, Katherine's Valentine message to William from 2004:

ross or reb vilts or blu shgr is sweet and so or you, your friend xoxoxo...
You or sweet I bet you no som times you smell but I love you eneway like thes monig

Every four to six months, William has what we call an I.V.I. or isolated vomiting incident. The latest one occurred at 2:30 a.m. today. Given the time of year I thought we were in for a full blown case of Norwalk. But that was it. No fever. Normal bathroom breaks. I think he did it just so he could stay home and watch TV all day. Fortunately he won't miss the Valentine's Day party tomorrow.

I volunteered to work at the school's Barnes and Noble bookfair for two hours on Friday, so I let Katherine and William bring their Nintendos.




















This was taken during the band/orchestra recital that occurred after my shift was over. William's the dude in the blue sweatshirt. Shocking that the little siblings didn't care to watch their older siblings perform.

Great to have you around last weekend TK. Good thing you didn't go through O'Hare today--three hour delays.

The Monarchs remain undefeated in the regular season.

This is what he brought home from the library today.




















To be fair, he said it was because he couldn't find any Star Wars books. But Chemistry?

Memory Palace...whatever you want to call it--it's genetic. I've got two of them living here. I want to know how many kindergarteners out there, having left the house to catch the bus, remember that Mom forgot to put their library book in their backpack and return to get it. He's freakishly keen, I tell you.

Speaking of the library, William's favorite section is "nonfiction." Over the last couple of months he's been alternating between checking out Volcanoes! and Volcanoes and Earthquakes.

And while I'm on a tangent...If you were six and went on a special trip to the bookstore with your uncle what book would you pick out? Would you pick out this book?
























You would if you were William. "Grandpa Paul was in World War II."

The company Mr. FizzyLizzy works for officially dissolves at the end of this month and becomes part of the Oracle monster. So they've started giving away some of the "gifts" (or whatever they're called--I'm not in marketing) with the old company's logo on them. That is at least if you're friends with the person who runs the "store." Mr. FL brought home a couple of fleece jackets, a wind shirt, a ballcap, four pens, a letter opener that looks like a dagger, and a pocket watch/compass/key chain thing with a dead battery that there's no way to replace. Good thing it went to a disgruntled employee instead of a customer.

Several years prior to my departure, my office laid off a couple dozen people. Equipment started disappearing and was termed "severance sweepstakes."

I don't think I'd mind being cold if I could wear this beautiful coat.

And by the way, UGG boots are a miracle shoe. The FizzyLizzy-mobile has a frozen fuel line so I had to walk up to school to pick up the kids. Barefoot toasty toes inside the UGGs the whole way.

I'm procrastinating doing the laundry in our 56º unheated basement. So I'm spending my time wondering about Katherine's friend's parents. One of her school friends called this morning to see if she could come over and play. They've never gotten together outside of school and uptight me thought it was a little presumptuous for her to invite herself over, but such are sometimes the manners of fourth-graders. However, when her parent(s)? dropped her off no one came to the door with her. There was no specified pick up time so four hours later we had her call her parents. Once again, the car pulls up outside and just waits for her out there. For some reason the fact that this girl's parents seem to have no interest in meeting the people who are looking after the well-being of their daughter concerns me.

O.K. so, yeah. It's 5:40, I'm slicing mushrooms for braised sirloin tips, and the phone rings. Lauren's feeling a little sick; do you think you could bring Blake to basketball? What!? What!? Basketball? Yes, basketball's at 6:00. Twenty minutes, one microwave personal pizza, and one wrinkled uniform later we are at basketball.

I thought my schedule was settling down after finishing up the art program at school yesterday. I guess not as much as I thought.

While I love the art program, we had way too few volunteers this year. I ended up doing 20 classroom presentations to a total of about 350 students. The end result is that many of them remember me and I just have a vague recollection that I have seen them before. In the hallways of the school, at the grocery store, at the skating rink little kids smile and vigorously wave at me. And of course I smile and vigorously wave back.

By the way, last Saturday: Monarchs 24 - Stars 4

This guy just doesn't have the legs to pull this look off.