Dear Kid,

Today is going to be an amazing day. Except for the Getting Up at 5:45am on the First Day of a Long Weekend Part.

Other than that, it’s going to be awesome.

Except for the driving. The early wakeup and the driving, not so great. The rest of the day, fantabulous.

Can you tell that I’m excited?

Partly because we get to see you (yay!) and feed you (whoops! Hungry college kid alert! There goes the tuition money!).

And partly because Dad and I get to spend some time together which it turns out we actually enjoy doing. Who knew?

And partly because we’re going to the Ohio University football game. Which we’ve never done before.

We’re excited to see the team play, we’re excited to see you on the sidelines, and we’re definitely excited to see the Marching 110 (about whom we have heard so much).

I looked up the Marching 110 (I think I’m required to write it in italics). I have it on great authority (and by “great authority” I mean the Marching 110’s website) that they are the Most Exciting Band in the Land! Emphasis on “exciting.” Which surprised me because I expected the emphasis on MOST. That may explain why the band has never called me for advice.

The Marching 110 currently has 245 members. The “110” refers to the original number of band members. And to the amount of effort (110%) band members are expected to put in.

The Marching 110 consists of the following instrumentation:  Clarinets, Alto Saxophones, Tenor Saxophones, Mellophones, Trumpets, Trombones, Baritones, Sousaphones, and Percussion.

No kazoos.

Wait. Mellophones? What the heck is a mellophone?

I immediately turned to My Friend the Internet.

Do you know what a mellophone is?

1. A brass instrument that says, “dude” a lot
2. The thing you toast and then put on s’mores
3. A silent cell phone
4. A brass instrument similar to the orchestral French horn, played mainly in military and concert bands
5. No, I don’t know what a mellophone is.

It is not at all obvious to me that I will know a mellophone from any other horn, but I plan to enjoy them (probably in an un-mellow way).

Today is going to be a great day.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Most of the time, job eliminations are bad news. But I just read a prediction about completely eliminating an entire job category that makes me very happy.

Turns out that researchers are finding new ways to reverse blindness (eliminating the need for as many guide dogs).

Some of us with less than perfect eyesight simply rely on contacts or glasses to bring clarity (get it?). Some of us went a step further and had surgery to deal with cataracts or just to make it possible to get up in the morning and see the world in focus. Other people have vision challenges that can’t be cured as easily if at all.

Now researchers have decided to tackle some of the harder vision challenges like macular degeneration and glaucoma.

According to the article (you can read it here), some animals (like zebrafish) can actually regrow damaged parts of their eyes. Like a newt re-growing a tail, except (presumably) harder.

Researchers have decided that they are going to teach people-eye-cells to regrow. Sounds a bit fishy, right? I joke.

I have no idea how you teach neurons and other teeny tiny eye parts to grow themselves healthy, but it sounds good to me.

So while I love guide dogs and love that they do important work (yay for the guide dogs and the all-important puppy raisers), I’m even more delighted with the idea they might have fewer people to guide.

I vote yes; the “ayes” have it.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

The planets are still in the sky where they belong.

I know this because last night Dad and I went to the Cincinnati Observatory to see Venus and Jupiter converge.

“Converge” means come together. In this case, “convergence” means be less far apart than usual because planets are inherently far apart. Far. You just can’t really plan a weekend visit.

So we went to the Observatory (after a short “discussion” about where the Observatory is actually located). There were telescopes set up outside the lawn outside the Observatory building and the buildings themselves were open for visitors.

The first thing we did was nothing because it wasn’t time to see anything. So Dad went into the main building to ogle the big, big telescope and I went outside to wander around, look at the deer that were helping themselves to dinner on the far side of the lawn, and admire the humidity.

Then we went together into the little building to see the original telescope and learn a little about it. The observatory people were very excited for it to get a little later because they were hoping to use the scope to see Saturn.

Eventually, time decided to move on and we went over to the outside scopes to peer at the planets. Sad face—clouds were in the way. Nothing to see. Wait, wait, happy face! Clouds moved and if you look right here you can see Jupiter and Venus. We looked. Yep. Two round spots in the sky. Fuzzy round spots, if truth be told. Very cool, fuzzy round spots, but round spots nonetheless.

We went back to the little building to see if anyone had found Saturn. Yep, it was right where it was supposed to be (gotta love when planets are cooperative) and the clouds weren’t a problem.

We climbed up the little ladder thing to look out into the universe. And there, right where we were looking, was the most fake-looking planet I’ve ever seen.

You know what Saturn is supposed to look like? That’s EXACTLY what it does look like, rings and all. Crystal clear, plain as day, choose your cliché, there it was and there was nothing that looked real about it.

Except that it was verifiably 100% real.

Which is completely bewildering and completely cool.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as a martini. This made all the olives very sad.

So the olives unionized and invented cocktail hour and James Bond.

A traditional martini is made with gin and a splash of dry vermouth, and is garnished with the aforementioned olive or a lemon twist.

According to My Friend the Internet, the martini was invented during the 1870s by a bartender named Jerry Thomas (not related to the English Muffins). Except the drink wasn’t anything like today’s martini and it was named Martinez, so in my book it’s a bit questionable. And it included two dashes of maraschino, so ick and highly questionable.

Fast forward to before WWI and an Italian immigrant bartender named Martini di Arma di Taggia at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City who invented a drink that is pretty much the modern martini but in different proportions. Or maybe it was named after Martini & Rossi vermouth. Either way, over the years, the drink morphed and voila! we have the modern martini.

A dry martini contains even less vermouth. A “dirty” martini is a martini that’s been slightly diluted with olive juice. If you switch out the olive for a cocktail onion, it’s called a Gibson. And when you make the drink with vodka you can call it a kangaroo (or a vodka martini, but that seems boring).

Do not keep vermouth more than a month after it’s been open. Unlike your parents, it won’t age well.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, August 25^th wasn’t a very interesting day. So after taking an online test, August 25^th decided to get involved with a new hobby in order to be more interesting. It studies real estate, and practically overnight became a Known Entity.

On 1718, the French founded New Orleans and named it after the Duke of Orleans (who had often flooded).

In 1825, the Day gave Uruguay a little poke and it declared its independence from Brazil (thereby missing out on the Olympics and Zika).

In 1916, the 25^th helped the Department of the Interior created the National Park Service so that Smokey the Bear would have a career and the White House would have a caretaker. Which worked fine until the White House was blown up in Olympus Has Fallen (which I watched this weekend for the first time).

In 1944, the French liberated Paris and August 25^th did a happy dance.

Hopefully, today will be a good enough day for August 25^th to do another jig.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

You know those pesky little expiration dates on food?

Not all food has an expiration date of course. Some food (bananas) don’t have an expiration date because they have a built in notification system. Some food (Twinkies) shouldn’t need an expiration date because no one has lived long enough to see a Twinkie actually go bad.

And some foods (according to a recent article in the Huffington-less Huffington Post) don’t have expiration dates because they never, ever (emphasis on ever) go bad.

According to the article (read it here) the magic 11 are:

1. Honey
2. Rice
3. White Vinegar
4. Real Vanilla Extract
5. Salt
6. Corn Starch
7. Sugar
8. Hard Liquor
9. Dried Beans
10. Instant Coffee
11. Maple Syrup

Of course, what this wonderful list of foods mostly leaves out is, um, food. Granted rice and beans is a Most Excellent source of nutrition, but it’s pretty much the only one.

Rice and sugar may not “go bad,” but you can get bugs. Put a bay leaf in each container to keep the bugs away (seriously).

More importantly, why would you stock up on some of these things? I guess it’s good to know that you won’t have to throw this stuff out, but hopefully you don’t have too much to begin with. I mean, how much hard liquor do you need? (Don’t answer that.)

Love, Mom