Dear Kid,

What a difference a year makes.

Last year (as you may recall) I went to Las Vegas for a conference and got stuck due to charmingly lovely weather. Read about it here and here and here and here if you’ve forgotten all the hysterical details.

This year I went to the same conference (version 2016) in Orlando and travel was uneventful. Which (imho) is exactly how it should be. Thank you Mickey for the excellent weather across the nation.

The flowers that bloom in the spring Tra La!

Meanwhile, crazy weather here in southwest Ohio. One minute it’s warmish, the next minute it’s coldish. One minute people are singing “the cold never bothered me anyway,” and the next they’re searching for shorts and a T-shirt. One minute the frozen vortex of winter is freezing peoples’ vocal chords (causing weird versions of “Let It Go” to leak out of scarf-wrapped heads), and the next minute tulips are waking up.

The hotel we stayed in in Florida was very nice except for their soft drink policy. It is a Pepsi hotel.

You know I believe that Diet Coke is one of the most important food groups on the planet (right up there with the Chocolate food group and the Coffee food group). This hotel had not gotten the memo. They served diet Pepsi. (Fortunately, the bartender was kind enough to squeeze about a hundred limes into mine so I could drink it.) They were savvy enough to offer coffee and Diet Dr. Pepper so the world did not have to come to a crashing halt.

On the other hand, if this is the worst challenge I face this month, I’ve got a pretty good life.

Stay warm. Or cool. Or whatever the weather by you dictates I should be saying at this exact moment.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

There are many things I’m good at. There are even more things I’m not terrible at.

Opening bottles of sparkling water doesn’t fall into either of those categories.

I take incompetence to an entirely new level when it comes to opening soda water. (Not Diet Coke. For some reason I am an exceptionally gifted Diet Coke opener.) My inability to politely open a bottle of soda water is so thorough I may have to consider it one of my Super Powers.

Here’s how it goes.

Find bottle of flavored fizzy water. Place on counter for a long time. Gently turn cap. Watch in horror as it explodes all over the kitchen/workplace/breakroom. Fetch towels. Lots and lots of towels.

Other people seem to have figured out the secret code. It involves (I believe) simultaneously twisting the top in multiple directions, probably through multiple universes. It is possible that it involves secret pacts with the bottlers, being really tall, and a super-secret handshake with aliens although I haven’t been able to verify this.

After thorough analysis, I have determined there are three ways to handle this problem. One is to learn the super-secret handshake and get good at opening the bottles. The second is relying on friends to open the dang things for me. The third is to invest in a paper towel factory.

Guess which one I’m going with?

Love, Mom

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