Dear Kid,

This is the World’s Worst Poem about the ‘Quils (both Night and Day). If you squint, it mostly rhymes. There is pretty much nothing you can do to make it scan except pretend it’s free verse. Even then it’s pretty bad. I’m blaming my cold.

Ode to the ‘Quils

by Mom

I lie awake, my nose all stuffed
The tissue box has since been Puff’d
The garbage pail ain’t big enough(d)
Because I have A Cold.

The only thing to help me sleep
Throughout the night I’m in a heap
My snores like brontosauri creep
Being sick is getting old.

Then through the day, to stay awake
I prop my eyelids with a stake
And at my desk, the work I fake
Because having a cold is really no fun at all.

The chicken soup is mighty fine
And that is just how I will dine
It’s nice and hot and so sublime
At least I think it is because I can’t taste anything.

But chicken soup alone won’t do
And so I have to drink the goo
I’ll down it in a gulp or two
Because it tastes really bad with chicken soup.

Nothing in this goop tastes real
But who cares if it helps me heal
And “icky” matches how I feel
And I’d really rather be healthy at this point.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

You know what’s worse than your kid having a cold and not being around to bring the child chicken soup and Nyquil?

Being the child with a cold and no one bringing you chicken soup and Nyquil.

At the moment, I am that child.

To be fair, Dad bought the Nyquil. But I had to cook a chicken and then make my own soup.

While I am getting better, I still have a $#&$%!!!! cold.

Who would think one little nose could hold so much stuff?

Do you know what food tastes like with a cold? Neither do I. Because you pretty much can’t taste anything with a cold.

I am one whiney mamma.

What’s worse, I have no creativity. It’s gone. Used up. Probably all that creative energy is going toward new ways of being pathetic.

Fortunately, my cold is coming to an end.

I know this because grandma says that if a you get over a cold quickly it will take a week and half, but if it takes a long time it will last about 10 days. And I’m somewhere around Day 8.

Have you ever noticed that it’s really hard to count the number of days you’ve had a cold? You start out figuring that you’re just fighting a cold, then you lose the fight but you’re not sure if you should count the “fighting” days or not.

I’m going to take a nap.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Do you know what was happening 5 years ago today? DearKidLoveMom was being launched.

That’s not entirely accurate. I’d written a couple of posts earlier in April, but the 16^th was the first day of continuous posting.

Some of the letters have been fun to write; some have been painful (most of those never got published). Some were super easy to write; others refused to take shape no matter how much I stared at a blank screen. Some were really good; others got less stellar reviews.

Now, approximately 1,733 letters later, you are approaching graduation and I am approaching a crossroads (more of a starfish-roads): Has DKLM reached its natural end? Do I keep writing? Do we move in a somewhat different direction? Or schedule? And what about Naomi? (You’re probably not old enough to get that obscure reference. The Electric Company was a show that was sort of the graduate level of Sesame Street. There was a segment on Electric Company that was a play on a soap opera which always ended with the question [that was in no way related to anything] “And what about Naomi?”])

So what do you think? Opinions, thoughts, comments, brilliant insights, and weird puns welcome.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I’m back in an airport. This time Newark, NJ. I tell you this not because I think you will be jealous (although you are, right?) but because you should know I’m now engaged.

I got to the airport really early as I’d been warned about the horrors of waiting in liiiiiiiiiiine for Newark airport security. Also because I couldn’t sleep so it was a choice between hanging around the room watching homes I’ll never buy in Hawaii (HGTV really dangles some amazing things) or going to the airport and sitting in the world’s most uncomfortable seat.

It was a toss up.

Since I got to the airport 14 hours and 32 minutes before they were scheduled to board our plane, I breezed through security even though I didn’t have the handy dandy TSA precheck designation.

To clarify, I breezed through the part where they check ID. Despite my undercaffeinated state. I considered this an excellent omen.

Getting through the xray-security part was a little slower, but still NBD. I had to take off my shoes, but I’d cleverly worn boots that came off easily. No sweat. The TSA agent and I exchanged hair compliments as I waited for my stuff to go through the conveyor belt machine.

“Step right here, ma’am. Put your glasses on. On. Put your glasses on please.” Apparently, residing on top of my head is not “on.” I think I can be forgiven my confusion. “Put your hands over your head. Thank you.”

Machine noises.

“Please stand right there ma’am.” He pointed to a mat with two yellow footprints a few steps away from the machine.

Now, on the flight here, I set the scanner off and an agent felt up my left bicep before sending me on my way, so I didn’t worry.

This time was different.

The agent showed me the image. Basically everything except my eyelashes set off the machine. The image was a mass of yellow blocks. The agent explained she’d have to pat me down. Ok. She asked if I wanted a private room. (That should have been a clue about the up close and personal nature of what was about to happen.) Afterward, instead of offering me a cigarette, she swabbed her gloves and my hands to check for nasty residue. There wasn’t any.

I didn’t get a ring, but I’m pretty sure we’re engaged after that intimate an encounter.

Speculation from the agents standing around dropping ones onto the floor was that the sparkly threads in my sweater set off the alarms.

Good to know.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Speaking of Newfoundland (you do remember that’s what we’re talking about, right?),St. John’s is the capital of the province and the oldest city in North America. John Cabot landed there 1497 and by the early 1500 it was a thriving metropolis (and by “thriving metropolis” I mean established outpost).

As we learned yesterday, the Vikings arrived first (even before C. Columbus) but apparently didn’t care for the neighborhood (because they didn’t stay to greet John Cabot and Company).

All kinds of interesting things happened in St. John’s. For example, the first non-stop, trans-Atlantic flight took off from St. John’s (it landed in Ireland, but that’s not what we’re talking about today).

Mr. Guglielmo Marconi (yes, that Marconi) received the first transatlantic wireless message on Signal Hill in St John on December 12, 1901. (The test signal was sent from Poldhu, Cornwall, 3,200 kilometers away but that’s not what we’re talking about.)

It’s cold in St. John (so take a coat). The lowest temp ever recorded there was-18.1 C (-1 F) on March 9, 1997. The place still hasn’t thawed out.

Do you know what the oldest continuous sporting event in N America is? No, it is not Black Friday shopping. It is the St. John’s regatta which is held on the 1st Wednesday of August (appropriate apparel includes parkas, mittens, and Uggs.

The airport in St. John’s is a BFD. At one time (right around the time of the dinosaurs or possibly the 1940s and 1950s), it was the busiest airport in the world. Turns out that most planes couldn’t make the transatlantic flight from NYC to London without refueling. Since there aren’t any gas stations mid-Atlantic, planes would stop at Gander International Airport (airport code YQX—go figure) to refuel.

Gander played an important role on the World Stage in 2001 when 39 aircraft were diverted to there on 9/11. Over 6,000 people were “adopted” by the citizens of St. John, proving once again that Canadians are much nicer than most humans. (The travelers remained there for three days until airspace reopened.)

So, just in case you’re traveling northward, have a wonderful and safe trip.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

If you’re a well-traveled person, having visited all 50 of These Here United States, you might look around and think “what next?” And you might be bold enough to answer yourself, “How about all the provinces in Canada?”

You might then contemplate your past travel and realize that while you’ve been to many of the provinces, you’ve never been to Newfoundland. And then you might book tickets pronto.

In case any of that happened to you (or to anyone you might happen to know), you might want to learn a bit about Newfoundland before you go. If you’re not the one going, you might wish to learn about Newfoundland anyway.

Fortunately, I am here to help (you are so lucky to have me!).

Newfoundland (please pronounce the end as “land” not “lund”) is officially Newfoundland and Labrador (yes, the dogs were named for them). 94% of the population lives on Newfoundland–Labrador is bigger, but not so populated. Newfoundland was its own country until 1949 when it joined the Maple Leaf.

Fabulous Bizarre Fact #1: Saint Pierre and Miquelon is physically within the province of N&L but is officially part of France. Two countries for the price of one!

Fabulous Bizarre Fact #2: N&L is so cool it has its own time zone–and it’s one of the super cool time zones that is 30 minutes different than its neighbors.

Newfoundland is an island (a big one, but still an island). It also has a weird sense of humor when it comes to naming cities: Conception Bay, Heart’s Desire, Heart’s Content, Dildo (you get the idea).

Newfoundland and Labrador has its own dictionary because the language and dialect are so diverse (I am not making that part up). Maybe those city names mean something different in their dictionary.

Fabulous Bizarre Fact #3: Christopher Columbus was not the first European Dude to discover North America. Turns out the Vikings wandered into L’ase aux Meadows at the very northern tip of the island waaaay before C’bus ever thought about getting his passport stamped.

Speaking of things that aren’t right in the history books, it turns out the Germans landed in North America during WWII. In Newfoundland and Labrador. On October 22, 1943, a German sub landed on Marin Bay and set up a remote weather station. Did you ever learn about that in school? Neither did I.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

My pillow and I must have had Some Kind of argument during the night because I woke up looking like Medusa–on steroids–this morning.

What is it about nocturnal hair-dos that guarantees the look of Hot Mess? Hair-dos that overnight become hair-don’ts.

Normally my hair and I get along overnight. I sleep fairly calmly, my hair does whatever hair does during the night, and a few brushstrokes later all is well with the world. Or at least my hair is somewhat presentable.

Not last night. I don’t have a clue what happened, but it wasn’t pretty. Certainly the after effects weren’t pretty. And it took about 700 hours to work out the snarls (none of which existed prior to bedtime).

I did not enjoy the undoing of the hair disaster.

So I’m going to try to sleep more sedately tonight.

Love, Mom