Dear Kid,

Tomorrow is a big day. It’s Clean Your Refrigerator Day and America Recycles Day.

One would hope there’s not too much recycling of the things you manage to clean out of your refrigerator.

I don’t know if we’ll get around to celebrating Clean Your Refrigerator Day. The frig needs it, that’s for sure. It’s been sending out mysterious sticky spots as invitations, but so far nothing seems to have developed limbs, so I’m guessing we can put it off a week or two if we have to. On the other hand, given everything we went through to get the darn thing, you’d think we might clean it up occasionally.

As far as recycling goes, I can’t decide if I think having a Day dedicated is good or not. On the one hand anything that promotes recycling is Good. On the other hand, needing a Day for something we should be doing all the time is frustrating.

I don’t think we have a Day dedicated to garbage; as a society, we’re pretty good at throwing things away, so we don’t need a capital “D” Day to remember to do it.

Not so much with recycling.

Which is too bad.

So tell everyone to take their cans and paper and cardboard and other recyclables and keep them out of a landfill.

At least for one day.

Who knows? It might start a habit.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

It’s that time of year again.

The time of year when you go to work when it’s dark and come home when it’s dark. The time of year when bears and people would really rather think about hibernation.

The time of year when people worry about whether coffee tastes good out of red cups rather than worrying about the important things like war, famine, and whether it’s legal to play fantasy football.

It’s a list-making time of year. (OK, for me, it is always a list-making time of year, but right now it seems everyone is making lists. Some are even checking them twice.)

We’re making lists about who will do what chore when they come home from college. We’re making lists about menus and ingredients and who will eat what and do not get Aunt Martha started about her cataracts.

We’re making lists about emails to send and cards to write and decorations to purchase. We’re making lists about what we need to take when we travel and what time we absolutely, positively MUST leave the house in order to avoid traffic and make our connection. We’re making lists about getting the cleaning done and the baking done and do not talk about politics with Aunt Martha no matter what.

We’re making lists of what to be thankful for and what chapters to study and what homework is due. We’re making lists of what can be accomplished before the end of the year and what will have to wait until 2016. We’re making lists of home repairs and hoping the weather will read the list and not make things difficult.

We’re making lists of what’s on sale when and whether we can live without a muffin pan that lets you bake 48 mini muffins at once. We’re making lists of which doctor appointments have been scheduled and whether we can still get in for a teeth cleaning during winter break.

We make our lists, knowing that some of the things will get done and some will almost get done and some will not get done despite our best efforts. But we do what we can and decide to celebrate being with the people we love rather than fretting about whether we have enough decorations. (We still hope no one brings up the presidential debates with Aunt Martha.)

And for the record, coffee tastes the same no matter what color cup you drink from. Ditto for the design on the cup. To all those who are fretting about it, get over yourselves.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Happy November!

I hope you remembered to reset your clock—that is if you have to be somewhere. I prefer to save my hour until later in the day. I generally use my extra hour in the afternoon. I love having that surprise extra time to use exactly as I please. Perhaps a nap. Perhaps a trip to the gym. Perhaps a nap at the gym. Whatever; it’s my extra hour.

November is full of crazy holidays. I envy the person who got to invent these. It seems like a job almost as good as the job inventing colors of nail polish.

November holidays include National Model Railroad Month, National Peanut Butter Lovers Month, and International Drum Month.

Seriously, who thinks of these?

Tomorrow (November 2) is a perfect example of the craziness. It’s Deviled Egg Day, Look for Circles Day, and Plan Your Epitaph Day.

I don’t plan to celebrate any of them.

Well, maybe Look for Circles Day. I think that might be fun.

If nothing else, it might be a good excuse to wander outside for a few minutes.

On the other hand, I think National Peanut Butter Lovers Month seems like a worthwhile celebration. Although it might re-spark the Chunky versus Smooth Controversy.

Where do you stand on the Great Peanut Butter Debate?

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Boo!

It is the wonderful time of year when ghosts can be friendly, princesses roam the streets, and candy has no calories.

Unless you’re in college in which case ghosts are ghosts, princesses roam the streets, and beer has no calories.

Meanwhile, you’ve probably been wondering about jack-o’-lanterns. Fear not, kiddo, I am here to provide answers.

Once upon a time, there was a man named Stingy Jack. Jack was a big drinker (did I mention this is an Irish folk tale?), and one day S.J. was out drinking with the Devil. Being a bit devilish himself, Stingy Jack convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin to pay for the drinks. Once the Devil was money, S.J. put the coin into his pocket with a silver cross (to prevent the Devil from un-coining himself).

Fast forward to the negotiation part of the story and Jack promised to free the Devil if he (the Devil) wouldn’t bother him (Jack) for a year and if he (the Devil) agreed that if Jack died he (the Devil) could never clam his (Jack’s) soul.

Deal. (The Devil was not big on being a coin.)

In this story, the Devil wasn’t particular smart and allowed himself to be tricked again by Stingy Jack but that part isn’t very interesting so we’re skipping it.

Eventually, Stingy Jack died. S.J. wasn’t on the guest list for heaven, but the Devil had promised not to take him to hell. Dilemma. Jack was sent to wander around on earth with only a burning coal for light. He (Stingy Jack) put the coal into a turnip as a lantern, which in one fell swoop saved his hands from burning and turned Stingy Jack into Jack of the Lantern or Jack o’ Lantern.

Hence and therefore, the Irish carved scary faced into turnips, beets, potatoes, and the occasional rutabaga to scare off Stingy Jack (or other wandering spirits).

One wonders at the logic of this since it’s not entirely obvious that a person who drank with and outwitted the Devil twice would be the least intimidated by a carved vegetable.

Happy Halloween!

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

It’s that time of year.

The time of year when—if you don’t like scary movies—you have to be very careful about randomly searching for something to watch on TV.

It’s the Halloween-y time of year when the people in charge of deciding what to put on the airwaves cablewaves love their jobs because it’s easy. Late October? Roll out the Halloween movies! Let there be scary!

Zombies? Bring ‘em on. Crazy people killing crazy people? Add them to the schedule. Ability to market “shock and terrify”? Bring on the advertising!

And those of us who are not fans of terror? Beware the ads, beware the commercials, beware the sneak previews, and mostly beware of channel surfing.

On the other hand, if you love scary movies, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding something to watch.

I was going to make you a list of the best scary movies, but then I saw some of the titles and the movie posters and I decided if I ever want to sleep again maybe making a scary movie list wasn’t such a good idea.

I’ll stick with happy little ghosts and cheerful pumpkins and candy.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Today is Name Your Car Day.

I don’t know why. I don’t know why there needs to be a specific day for car naming, and I don’t know why October 2^nd should be that day in particular. But it is so here we are.

Name Your Car Day.

Whatev.

It’s also Get Organized Week.

There are about a zillion things wrong with the concept of the first week in October being Get Organized Week. The first and most obvious is that it will take far longer than a week to get organized. In the space of a week, I can probably manage to get the silverware drawer organized. I might be able to add in organizing my thoughts (but probably not). Beyond that, call in the professionals and allocate a whole lot more than 7 days.

It’s also not obvious to me why one (in this case “one” means someone else) would choose the first week in October as Get Organized Week. It’s not the natural start of anything (the new year, the school year, the summer solstice), it’s not the week or so before the natural start of anything, and who the heck tries to get organized right before Halloween (which is sort of the anti-organized holiday).

You may have guessed that I will not be celebrating Get Organized Week by attempting to organize my life.

On the flip side, October is Sarcastic Month. Don’t know who invented that one or why, but I love them. And I will be celebrating to the fullest extent possible. (And I will probably be using the sarcasm font. A lot.)

Enjoy naming your car. (Happy Sarcastic Month.)

Love, Mom

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