<p>Lafalum84, no she did not. She wanted to, but the demands of 4-6 hours of daily practice to maintain her chops, the rigors of balancing high school curriculum and her travel/performance schedule, and another 5-7 hours of advanced mushing technique training daily for 9 months of the year made it completely unrealistic.</p>
<p>She wanted to. Typical spoiled child… whined, moaned, begged, pleaded, pouted, threatened me with vile spells and incantations. As a parent I just had to put me foot down. </p>
<p>Enough is enough.</p>
<p>She bought top quality purebreds with her own performance earnings, and has paid the full time kennel staff of three and all vet bills out of her own pocket.</p>
<p>Sometimes you need to exercise your authority as a parent. It made her the better person.</p>
<p>On second thought, there may have been a bit of unintentional crossbreeding. Seems an unplanned litter appeared, fault of the kennel staff. I wanted heads to roll, but d hid the knives.</p>
<p>Half husky/half basenji??? Whoa. Basenjis, being from Africa and short haired, will freeze on the iditarod. But since they don’t bark, I guess they won’t complain…</p>
<p>I could use some advice, although I plan to ignore it, and likely will post the same question over and over again, regardless of your answers. Can you help? I’m earnestly interested in your opinions.</p>
<p>Of course I can give you advice. But I don’t understand how you can need advice. Aren’t you already on the correct pathway? If not, it’s too late. But I’ll be happy to share an irrelevant story that re-directs the discussion toward me and away from your question.</p>
<p>Harriet, I’d be a bit wary of advice presented by Lafalum. Often it has been outside common practice, and on occassion stretches the envelope of the norms of both ethics and morality. Take it with a pound of salt.</p>
<p>You know, garland, I think you’ve zeroed in on what I needed advice about. (I mean, for my friend.) </p>
<p>Lately I sense that the right pathway is becoming . . . crowded. Insufficiently elite. How much prestige can there be, if everyone’s walking it? </p>
<p>How can my, I mean, my friend’s, children prove their innate superiority?</p>
<p>Pound for pound, that produced on the shores of the Dead Sea. It is a well known fact that seafood from this body of water is so salty it dies upon birth from immediate heart failure. It’s salty enough in its natural state to keep indefinately for a millenium without refrigeration. But you can’t eat it, without risking your own immediate demise. Nothing else comes close in terms of salinity.</p>
<p>Pssst…don’t tell anyone, but I have a cousin who was employed by the NSA. On his deathbed, he broke his oath of secrecy and admitted that the melting of the Greenland icecap is caused by the inadvertent crash of a top secret flight which carried a minute sample (think fast food sized salt package tube).</p>
<p>Oh! Is that why it’s called the Dead Sea? Why isn’t it called the Killer Sea? And is that why people float so easily in it - are they actually supported by myriad corpses of perished infantine sea beings?</p>
<p>Harriet, those are questions beyond my scope of knowledge. I could make up a fairly intelligent but false reply, but why waste the time, since you will ignore it anyway. </p>
<p>I’d suggest contacting mythmom. She might entice Posiedon to reveal the truth (or as much truth as mere mortals can comprehend).</p>
<p>Far from me to put words in the mouths of the gods.</p>
<p>Any advice for ensuring that we follow the right pathway thru the holiday season? </p>
<p>We have hung our eco-friendly recycled-material ornaments on our live tree with a root ball so that we can plant it after the holidays. Our solar-powered lights are literally enlightening our neighbors. I had thought of spelling out DS’s college’s name in the lights, but technical difficulties prevented that. So I just put up his GPA instead. 3.9 is a little embarrassing, but it reminds the unwashed masses that we are not THAT far above them after all. </p>
<p>Violadad, is there a way to purchase your DD’s surely spectacular digideroo Christmas album? That would provide the perfect ambiance as we wait by the fireplace for Santa to bring my younger child’s many acceptance letters and merit scholarships that are sure to begin arriving soon.</p>
<p>Is there anything else I should be doing during the holidays?</p>
<p>Lafalum, I’m impressed. Shamed, even. I had not yet begun to address this issue. </p>
<p>I, too, would like to purchase violadaughter’s holiday cd. What did she call it - On Dasher, on Dingo? Taz What Christmas Means to Me? I Wonder Uluru’s Kissing Her Now? (Okay, maybe not.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, after I model our holiday light display on yours, Lafalum (although I’m not certain S1’s average will sparkle quite as much, but I’ll see what I can do), I’m going to get down to the holiday cards problem. Dressing all three kids in Perfect School sweatshirts for the photo: Too much?</p>
<p>I am trying to get H to do a yard display with the respective mascots of D’s grad school and WildChild’s college. This is especially enticing since D’s mascot was high on the list of most scary/bizarre mascots (the in-person one). I thought maybe we could have both the Commodore and the Quaker mooning the neighbors from our front lawn! A nativity scene with the shepherds and angels wearing Vanderbilt and Penn basketball jerseys would complete the display. H is arguing that his alma mater is having such a good football year that it should be included, but I advised him that Texas Tech is so low on the prestige scale that the Red Raider can’t possibly be included. Besides, then I would want my Indiana Hoosier out there, too, but since no one actually knows what a Hoosier is, I don’t know how to pull it off.</p>