<p>When a bachelor friend of mine finally married at 40 he asked all his closest friends to a luncheon and then requested their advice on a happy marriage. We were sitting in a circle and I was the last one to go. Of course by the time they got to me all the classics had been said-- never let the sun go down on your anger, don’t sweat the small stuff, etc. So I had to INNOVATE. I thought a while. My comment was: “Pretend to care.” I stand by this as GREAT advice for men everywhere.</p>
<p>Cheers: My H used to let me sleep in every morning when our babies were still nursing at night. In the am he’d bring me coffee and the newspapers in bed. (Nice guy!)</p>
<p>One morning as he brought me the coffee he told me: today’s gonna be a great day for you. I said, Why? he said, check out the LA Times, below the fold. It was an article on the secret of happy marriages. And it was basically that in happy marriages the women run everything.</p>
<p>great advice…in marriage or relationships in general. My brother and sister in law have been married forever, and he says something similar to what Denzel Washington says (she’s in charge!), as their secret. And I especially like the ones about having a good memory (and a general sense of optimism), and the one about not too much communication.</p>
<p>I like the “pretend to care” statement. H makes coffee every morning before he leaves for work. Everytime I have to make it, I need refresher training.</p>
<p>CFFH: College Freshman From Hell arrived home this weekend and announced that he is shopping for a new college. ::::sigh:::: Of course, my first thought was, Damnit, now we can’t relax and drink wine at night! which is our own fault because we NEVER drank around the kids when they were living at home. He’ll finish out this quarter and move back --I can barely say it— home Spring Quarter. Well, we were getting him back this summer, anyway. I heard the words, “job” and “get your own place,” leave my lips to which he responded, “Oh, yeah, of course.” </p>
<p>Now, he gets it. He knows that he prefers an urban setting. He’s made some bovine friends at Davis, but overall, it’s not the right place for him. He’s a musician, a garage band musician who continues to evolve his music and his abilities. He’s got a much clearer picture of himself than he had a year ago, and that does include a college education. Being the kind and benevolent ruler that I am, I left the college question open when I asked if he wanted to continue his education. Not only does he want a degree, he understands that he’ll need a college education to be able to do what he wants which is to work in the music business. </p>
<p>He is in the mindset that we wanted him to be in when he was a senior in high school. We did everything we could to encourage him to be interested in college, to send for brochures, to talk to his friends about colleges, and to make college trips. So, he’s a year behind on that, but oh well – the college years are all about change and growth, and I’ll be behind the bar guzzling the bottle of anti-freeze that SBmom and Springfield mom are working on. I like purple drinks. ;)</p>
<p>It’s all good. Now, he really is interested in finding the right college for himself. He’s not on drugs, he’s healthy, and he’s got plans for his future, which does not involve living at home. Did I say that already? :)</p>
<p>hey, what happened to the feather duster and the frilly apron??!! and the frolicking part? I saw that!!!</p>
<p>you are taking this so well…what is in that purple drink you are guzzling?</p>
<p>sounds exactly what I have been trying to do for the past year…get d to actually research colleges a bit on her own! she applied to > 15 colleges (well that isn’t a true number as 7 were UC’s) partly because of the wide net we needed for scholarships/finaid, but also because she couldn’t really decide. It scares me because she still says to me “there aren’t any colleges that I really love”…I think the subtext is that she really thought she wanted a Stanford or a Brown, but those weren’t realistic for her…
but sounds like its a small bump in the road for your s, and rather than being a year behind, he may be a few years ahead, if this actually spurs him to think through, research and pursue what he really wants…</p>
<p>AUGH! I promise I haven’t had my wine yet today. What I was trying to say is that I have been lurking – make that eavesdropping – for a long time. I have spent an embarassing amount of time over the past few weeks scanning the entire history of posts from this joint. If there’s one thing that’s become clear to me – besides that I need to get a life – it’s that sluggmom has kept a lot of people going through this process from going completely insane. The Slugg Attitude is so spot on that it’s an inspiration to us first-timers. But with that flattery taken care of, I’m going to be brazenly honest and suggest that slugg needs a reality check. What is this about not drinking wine in front of the children!!! Yes, the nonvirtual kind. If I’m a bad mom, so be it, but I think if I hadn’t been able to look forward to that nightly glass of wine, I would have caused bodily harm to my children far in excess of the psychological harm I’ve already inflicted. You are a brave, bold slugg to be sure, but it’s time to lighten up on yourself! End of lecture.</p>
<p>So now that I’ve actually crawled out from under the booth – doesn’t anybody ever sweep in here? – I’m buying the next round for everyone – something much stronger than wine, please.</p>
<p>ivoryk–agreed on the wine point. At our house, wine is generally something special & rather pricey we have with nice meals. It’s not the sweet stuff (some) kids associate with getting drunk. So it’s an “adult” thing, and we have sometimes given the college-age teens a taste with the warning that they probably won’t like it much. But we do want them to learn to appreciate it.</p>
<p>So it’s never been something to “hide” from the kids. Unless, slugg, how “relaxed” did you say you got in the evenings? Do you mean you can’t have a wild time on the kitchen table as you always were planning to when the kids left home? :D</p>
<p>lol. We find we now have the opportunity but not the motive anymore. Youth IS wasted on the young.</p>
<p>May I jump on the ivoryk bandwagon? And second the emotion that it is not too late for sluggparents to revise their Ethical Code. To include, yes <em>include</em>, a libation en frente de los hijos. Go ahead, slugg and sluggH. Just do it!</p>
<p><em>is there any kind of punishment for contributing to the delinquency of majors?</em></p>
<p>okay, crossposted with mommusic… change that to “thirding” the emotion.</p>
<p>Slugg - btw, PM me your PO Box number. I’ve got a ***tload of lightly used Transfer Application files I can send you. Maybe we can just cross out jmson’s name and pencil in sluggjr’s. Save him lots of time, which he can spend gainfully employed somewhere in sluggneighborhood bringing in the $$$.</p>
<p>Is he gonna leave sunny CA. for that urban college music scene? jmson may even have applied to the right places in that case.</p>
<p>These boys just keep right on coming don’t they? </p>
<p>You know, I never drink wine in front of my kids either… I go straight for the hard stuff. I have one of the rare 4th graders who knows top shelf from well. </p>
<p>I would also like to point out that sexual contact between Mom & Dad is actually one of the BEST ways of getting your teenagers to flee the house. If you make a habit of it, they may never come home. </p>
<p>Anyhow we’ve got the hot tub cranked up magenta-skin-high and there is a large purple IV waiting for you.</p>
<p>Did you see that Las Vegas was named one of the 10 least healthy cities the other day?</p>
<p>Another snow day here in the Midwest. Snow, ice, “wintry mix.” DH left for the airport last night instead of this a.m. to beat the weather out of town, leaving ME to do the shoveling. At least we don’t live in upstate NY! :eek:</p>
<p>Is the alley open for breakfast? I’ll have a double hot chocolate. :)</p>
<p>Knock, knock…sluggson are you in there? Won’t a Spring drop-out make you a LESS desirable transfer candidate? I hope you have a B average hon 'cause that’s what you need to get into great urban schools.</p>
<p>I hardly drink a half glass of anything but I gave my kids a glass of champagne at Christmas. I know, I know. Some CC’s Ds would have nothing to do with them. Too wanton.</p>
<p>Hahahahaha! :::::slapps self in the forehead:::: Let me clarify on drinking in front of the kids. What I meant to say was that we never got Ripped Van Winkle in front of the kids, which says a little more about what we do now than I had originally intended. It’s dumb fun when we kick back at night on the denim couch on our front porch and polish off a bottle of Lolonis Pinot Noir while a self-rising pizza revolves on the Presto Pizzazz pizza cooker. </p>
<p>We bake while the pizza bakes, and our conversation undulates from metapolitics to the logistics of moving our two kids out of their college quarters. We’re pleasantly elevated by the time the Presto cooker <em>dings,</em> and we glide into the kitchen to throw a handful of Spring greens and some grape tomatoes onto our plates. Just in time for…American Idol. :)</p>
<p>As for the frilly apron and the feather duster, Wecandothis…what I meant to say was that I would have to curtail my frolicking around the house naked in my frilly apron with my feather duster once sluggjr moves back home. As soon as I posted, though, I realized I had misplaced a pronoun somewhere along the way and implicated sluggjr as the frilly apron-wearing nudie. Let me make it perfectly clear that I am the frilly apron-wearing nudie with the feather duster. He wouldn’t be caught dead cleaning house. :D</p>
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