Dear Kid,

Enough already.

Although perhaps I should say ‘nuf—that might be more ‘propriate.

I’ve decided (I really don’t know why more people don’t consult me about these things) that there ought to be a standard college graduation test.

You heard me. In order to get The Degree, I think people should have to take a short, but important test.

I envision about 50 questions (some will require written answers; some will require demos). Here’s a sample.

1. Explain the difference between the words “then” and “than.”
2. Describe why the words “its” and “it’s” are different.
3. Is this sentence correct, “Me and Jane talked about it and we’re going to the mall.”?
4. If not, fix it. [If you fix it by writing “Me and Jane talked about it and we’re going to the movies.” you will fail immediately.]
5. What about this one: “Make sure to do you laundry before dinner.”
6. Explain the difference between “itch” and “scratch.” Use each in a sentence.
7. Demonstrate that you can sew a button.
8. Demonstrate that you can prepare at least one reasonable meal from scratch.
9. Swear that you will never describe a point as “mute” unless you cut out its tongue. And possibly your own.

You get the point (moot or otherwise). There ought to be a reasonable level of education required before people are allowed out in the world.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Something about being in a hotel room (especially the first night) often leads to a night of not great sleep.

My first night in Orlando, I slept great. Right up to 4am when I completely ceased sleeping altogether.

Getting up that early was annoying, but it completely eliminated the question of whether or not I would attend a breakfast presentation about pet grooming. I was up, I was going.

The email we got had instructed us to be waiting for the bus by 6:20am. Since the first hotel pickup was at 6:15am and we were neither the first nor second nor third (rinse and repeat) hotel, that seemed a bit early. But, I was up, so I went downstairs.

Bonus points: I met Cynthia, a groomer from California, so I have a new friend.

By 6:30, the bus had not arrived. Several other people had joined us, one of whom had the phone number for the Dude in Charge. She called. We were told to wait. We’d been doing a good job of waiting, so we continued.

The thing about a breakfast presentation is that it starts early in the morning (in this case it was called for 7am). If one is up and about at that hour, one wants to be there for breakfast, the presentation, and most importantly The Coffee. It was 6:40 and I was not yet caffeinated. Neither was anyone else which didn’t exactly improve things.

We waited. No bus.

More phone calls.

A fair amount of joking around.

Still no coffee.

More waiting.

Approximately 6:59am the bus arrived. Very few groups of humans have ever been so delighted to see a vehicle pull up.

Turned out that the person who designed the pickup route eschewed the traditional idea of starting at one end of the route and methodically working stop by stop to the other end. No, no. The person who planned the route preferred the type of creativity employed by the cubist painters. Or possibly spaghetti cooks. Or knot makers.

After a few more loops, twists, and coils, we arrived at our destination. There were hoots and hollers of joy that the unofficially named Sunrise Tour had finally ended.

The thing about a breakfast presentation is that you expect breakfast. The good news was there was breakfast. The bad news was that it had been sitting out for an hour or so before we arrived.

There is nothing good about scrambled eggs that have been sitting out for an hour or so.

Unless you’re on a diet and need a reason to eat something other than scrambled eggs.

Fortunately, the content of the presentation was excellent. As was the coffee. And the muffin that I shared with my new friend Cynthia.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Airports are weird. (I am now an expert, having been through more than one airport in the last few weeks.)

Pretty much everything about airports are weird. Standing in lines, buying things, it’s all the opposite of normal.

For example, in the Las Vegas airport (Gamble from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave! Smoke everywhere!) a banana costs more than a donut. I did not make this up. I was buying a banana (for 17 times the price of a banana in the grocery store) and another lady was buying a donut. She paid for hers with change. I had to sign paperwork and undergo a background check.

Then there’s the whole privilege of boarding early. People shove and maneuver and stand in line for the opportunity to have extra time in the tin tube of a plane. It’s not like it’s a ride at the amusement park. Nor you get to your destination more quickly if you board first.

In fact, the sooner you get on the plane, the sooner you are squished into a small space with the opportunity for massive numbers of people to climb over you to their seat or to bonk you with their luggage. And without access to electricity to charge the phone/Kindle/laptop/Fitbit.

And don’t even get me started on the quality of the air in the jetway.

I sort of get it on open seating flights (Southwest and some shuttles), where boarding early means you might avoid the middle seat in the steerage section. And I sort of understand it if you have carry-on luggage that needs to go in the overhead compartment and you don’t wish to be separated from your suitcase or (heaven forfend!) gate check your bag.

But basically, nope, don’t get it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, they just called my Zone and I have to race to get to my seat.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

And how things can change in a day.

Turns out that the east coast of These Here United States is going to get about a Vortex-full of snow and my trip to New Jersey has been rescheduled. To April. When presumably it will not be polar bear season in Newark.

The airline is rejoicing. Oh, no problem! We’ll happily exchange your $357 ticket for a $250 ticket (do not pass go, do not collect a refund). And thank you so much for staying out of our hair during what we are sure will be a rather nasty few days.

Dear Burglars,

I told you not to get your hopes up.

In other news, today is National Cereal Day. (Yesterday was National Oreo Day—how did I miss celebrating that one?!)

Factoid: CheeriOats was the original name for Cheerios

National Cereal Day is ridiculously easy to celebrate. Just pour a bowl of cereal and enjoy.

Factoid: The cereal industry uses over 800 million pounds of sugar a year (so it is closer to National Oreo Day than I thought…)

It’s not clear if National Cereal Day refers only to cold cereal. But since we’re about to be gripped in Vortex of Polar Proportions, I say go for it and eat oatmeal if you want.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

The airlines are learning.

Well, not so much learning as panicking.

According to the meteorologists, Weather is coming. According to the meteorologists who watch Game of Thrones, that Weather is Winter. And it’s coming.

According to the people I work for, several of us will be traveling from Cincinnati to Newark this week. During the aforementioned Weather.

Dear Burglars,

Don’t bother. The Rabid Puppy and the Angry Husband* are staying home to protect the Puppy’s toys.

*Doesn’t that sound like the name of a computer game?

The airlines are so convinced that there will be weather problems that they have already sent out waivers, basically saying “You know that part where we said you couldn’t change your ticket? Just kidding. Go ahead and change it. Please change it! Please, please change it because we’re already planning a snow day and don’t want to deal with unhappy humans.”

I have not (as of this writing) changed my travel plans.

I have however mentally repacked what I’m taking to include mittens, boots, and a scarf.

And a huge helping of patience.

I’m pretty sure I’ll need all the extra patience I can get.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

On our honeymoon, Dad and I saw wild capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica. On our recent trip we encountered semi-wild capuchin monkeys in Roatan, an island right off the coast of Honduras.

We were at the Lomalinda Natural Reserve, where first we saw a Great Kapok Tree (no joke).

Then we moved on to several kinds of iguanas (wild, but highly content to live off regular feedings by the professionals of the Reserve), macaws (somewhat less than wild and highly content to earn their living as professional models), and capuchin monkeys.

There are several other types of monkeys in the preserve, but the capuchins are territorial and generally run off the other primates from “Monkey Land” where they have the caretakers well trained to give them sunflowers for behaving nicely among the visitors. Important Note: One crosses La-La Bridge to get to Monkey Land. How could this not be a wonderful place?

The word “capuchin” was given to the monkeys in the 15^th century (that’s before you were born) by explorers who saw the little black tops of the monkeys’ heads and were reminded of the “cappuccino”, the small hat the friars of the Franciscan monks wore. The monkeys didn’t object, but they didn’t start wearing friars’ robes either.

The length of a capuchin monkey’s body is equal to the length of its tail. This is so that the monkey can balance as he or she swings through trees and leaps across branches. More importantly it’s so that the monkey can wrap its tail around my neck as he or she sits adorably on my shoulder.

I cannot begin to describe how soft these babies are.

Capuchin monkeys are diurnal which means that they spend their days looking for food (with a brief siesta after lunch—I am not making that up) and sleep at night. Mostly because there are no visitors play with after dark.

They are omnivores who mainly eat the sunflower seeds the handlers give them but are quite content to hunt for fruit, berries, leaves, flowers, insects, spiders (yay for the spider hunting monkeys!), birds, small mammals (wait, what?), and eggs. All of which is to say they aren’t that picky as long as they’re fed, but they draw the line at McDonalds. And kale. They’re much too smart to eat kale, imo.

And they are very smart. After all, they’ve trained the caretakers to feed them regularly. They also use tools like sticks, stones, and large chain saws to open nuts and hard seeds.

Natural predators include boa constrictors, jaguars, cougars, coyotes, birds of prey, and people of prey. (Which one of these doesn’t belong? Hunt with cameras people!)

After our time with the macaws, iguanas, and monkeys, Dad and I took a long walk on the beach before heading back to the ship.

Day, perfect.

Love, Mom