I can never get across to to my dad how the problems with traveling can negatively affect the US economy.

Saturday I lost my phone, agonized over it and found it in my car. This has worried me slightly because I never lose my phone. It’s my security blanket with me 24/7. The last time I started losing stuff I completely lost my memory (found out later it was due to a prescription) and life went to hell (it was going there anyway).

Today, I got a haircut (ridiculously happy about losing 1½”, but it’s short and cute again!). I took out my earrings and put them in my pocket, then promptly forgot about them. Went on some other errands afterwards. Did something screwy to the door on my gas tank. My poor car would last forever if it had a better owner. Got home and was putting stuff away when I found an earring in my pocket.

Yes, I used the singular. Hot and sweaty and not happy, I got back in the car and went to look for where the other might have fallen out. Luckily it was still on the floor the first place I looked, where I paid for dinner.

So now I’m telling myself that I’m not losing my mind again.

Due to parental guidance toward more structured activities, kids are getting less free play time than they used to, which may make them less creative, less socially adept, inflexible, and less intelligent.

The child initiates and creates free play. It might involve fantasies — such as pretending to be doctors or princesses or playing house — or it might include mock fighting, as when kids (primarily boys) wrestle and tumble with one another for fun, switching roles periodically so that neither of them always wins. And free play is most similar to play seen in the animal kingdom, suggesting that it has important evolutionary roots. Gordon M. Burghardt, author of The Genesis of Animal Play, spent 18 years observing animals to learn how to define play: it must be repetitive — an animal that nudges a new object just once is not playing with it — and it must be voluntary and initiated in a relaxed setting. Animals and children do not play when they are undernourished or in stressful situations. Most essential, the activity should not have an obvious function in the context in which it is observed — meaning that it has, essentially, no clear goal.

Rich sez, “This is not for the faint of heart, but a friend and I recently wrote a 120 page murder mystery game for 8 daring role-players. It’s called ‘The Little Engine That Could Kill.’ The game consists of 8 short stories, each of which details the perspective of a character who may have been involved in a somewhat gory murder that has occurred on a transcontinental train in 1932. Everybody reads a story and then plays their character as they wish, using what they know to try to figure out who did it. The true murderer, of course, must lie to avoid being caught. The characters are over-the-top and super-suspicious, and, the plot is ridiculously complicated – nobody we’ve seen has been able to figure out the whole thing so far. We’ve posted it free on Scribd under a CC license. Hope you enjoy!”

I really want to try this.

I got this in black for my birthday. I’m thinking about getting the ’30s bob to go with it.

One day last week my phone rings:

“Dawnn, Dawnn, I just read in the paper that most women over 80 who break a hip die in less than a year.”

“Momma, it’s been two years since you broke your hip.”

Moment of silence on the line ….

“Well. That’s ok, then. What are you fixing for dinner?”

Congressman Dennis Kucinich is on the floor of the House of Representatives right now introducing 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush.

On the other hand, it looks like the electric lock system in my car is going out.

She had a routine dr visit scheduled last Thursday morning – about 6:20am she called me to come help her up as she’d fallen down and couldn’t wake Dad. (She’s O.K.!) Anyway, I went over and got her up, and checked her out before getting her to bed – she had a red spot on one cheek where she’d hit something on the way down, and I commented that I thought she’d probably have a bruise. A few hours later we’re sitting in the doctor’s waiting room – under the flourescents, I could see that a blue patch was starting to form on her cheek – I looked closely at it and told her, “Yeah, you’re gonna have a big bruise there.” She replies, not in an overly loud voice but plenty loud enough for the receptionist and all the folks sitting nearby to hear: “At least when your Father hits me, he hits me where the bruises won’t show.”

I keep telling her that making jokes like that in a doctors office is like making bomb jokes in an airport.

Oh, well.

Between my dad’s family and my mom, I never stood a chance.