<p>Mootie,</p>
<p>Ya know that ever since Crash ran off with that pool boy in '05 (gosh we’ve been around here a long time) that a pool boy won’t come with in 100 feet of this place.</p>
<p>Last year, I advised a close friend to allow her son to attend college in a different city–if he wanted to try residential college life. He arrived on campus and promptly fell ill with pneumonia which went undiagnosed by two clinics before he was admitted to hosptial in a near death state. That was her experience for the second week of separation–sitting next to her son in hosptial while he recovered from a nasty pneumonia. Girls, ask your marmots to keep him well, will ya? <em>still another instance where cheers regrets giving advice</em></p>
<p>About all that silk…thing is, jymmie jr is not living with 50 year old women (or thereabouts) who hanker after Lawrence of Arabia film sets. He’s living with 19 year old American boys who like war movies. I see a catapault in his near future…</p>
<p>As for pool boys…is that what we want? There’s been some discussion of Italian soccer players but really–don’t they mostly look like they’d be a heap of trouble? All that whinging and throwing themselves on the floor when they don’t get their way?</p>
<p>Yeah, but then you get to punish them.</p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>oooooooh. You are naughty SBMom.</p>
<p>I would like to discuss the ideal boy–but I’ve got a house full of stunning 18 year old boys and I can’t let my mind go there. Motherhood. What a downer, eh?</p>
<p>ROFLMAO.</p>
<p>Marmots. Think marmots…</p>
<p>Little bitty bitey teeth. Little bitty clattering claws. Anytime you have naughty thoughts, think MEAN marmots:).</p>
<p>Not that we will send any to jymmie. Only nice loving marmots, docile and easy to rein in can carry him around. And we will have to warn them that the boys are apt to mistake them for balls or projectiles or weapons so they have to prepare to go hurtling through the air at any moment.</p>
<p>Projectile marmots. Pool boys peeling grapes.Marmot-carrying jitneys. Thanks for the distracting images, everyone (including thehouse full of 18 yr olds. They are always better visuals when they are someone elses) Right now we are battling with the airlines to get some flights changed. Anyone got any pull at Delta?</p>
<p>Bump from Page 2. Nothing to say but it’s a beautiful day here in the Bay Area. All doors are open…</p>
<p>All the doors are open here too but…do you have screens in the Bay? We don’t have screens here and thus we must put up with blow flies in the kitchen. Can’t quite figure out the cultural resistance to screens but there it is.</p>
<p>jymmie, see if your husband can do the sweet talkin’. My husband has a much better rate of sweet gettin’ than I do. My sons get bumped up to business class while I never get the upgrade…Feelin’ your pain though…</p>
<p>jym–My DH is a bazillion-miler on Delta, which means he usually gets to talk to a real person on the phone. Does it mean they’ll bend the rules for him? Don’t bet on it.</p>
<p>Sometimes when he’s on hold with the airline I’d like to tell him don’t worry, we’ll send marmots, but he would think I was crazy…!</p>
<p>Yes. We have screens. But few bugs. Flies. Mosquitoes for about 1.5 hours at twilight, butterflies. But our lack of humidity, at least I think that’s it, means we don’t got many big scary bugs that come into our houses.</p>
<p>Now, in the hills of course, by the creeks, we have banana slugs. As per our famous SluggBugg. And Jersusalem crickets, ick. But Texas and Florida and the tropics have us beat.</p>
<p>But cheers - it’s dry where you are right? So I have been going on and going apropos of a bollocksy theory. Oh well, not the first time not the last. Give me another glass of chardonnay. It’s still warm outside. Ah.</p>
<p>No mossies here–only if you sit in the garden at dusk.</p>
<p>Blow flies in the kitchen but no screens.</p>
<p>You’d recognize the brown hills and the wide affection for Chard and Sav.</p>
<p>Delta gave him a whopping $70 credit towards his new ticket next week. Big whoop. And THAT took several supervisors and very long waits on the phone. Sigh…</p>
<p>Isn’t “on the phone with an airline” the fourth circle of hell?</p>
<p>some of the others:</p>
<p>“building a Mission” (all mothers of Ca. public school kids know what I mean)
“buying a prom dress”
“supervising college application process”</p>
<p>I’m forgetting a few… </p>
<p>Help?</p>
<p>“on the phone with an insurance company” is up there.</p>
<p>And if they play the Muzak from Hell while you’re waiting…</p>
<p>Hey, watch it…I’m one of those you talk to on the other end! I also hate the Muzak.</p>
<p>Actually, at my Co. they decided nobody likes to be on hold, so if we can’t get to you within 3 (I think) minutes, you’re automatically transferred to voice mail. Most of the younger folks (by that, I mean 50 and younger) love it, because they can leave a detailed message, and somebody calls back within 24 hours with an answer for them. Saves a lot of waiting time for them.</p>
<p>However, most of the older folks, used to a “live” person at the other end, hate it. We’ve had nasty messages left, some even with threats of violence and cursing; these by and large from older people. Unfortunately for them, even if they don’t leave their name, we have caller ID so we know who they are.</p>
<p>I’m chuckling over “buying a prom dress” as I’m just back from the hateful mall with my senior daughter. Last year I took a stand on principle – saying how ridiculous all this prom activity was – and set strict financial limits on dress, shoes, etc. Today? I just forked over the card. So much for consistency in parenting. Part of it is exhaustion, but part of it is the astonishingly hideous nature of the prom dress (IMO). She actually found a nice dress – who knew such a thing could exist?</p>
<p>SBMom- I think the indian report beats out the Mission building. I don’t know who to thank but at some point the elementary school change the Mission building to a day at the beach building your Mission in the sand.</p>
<p>SBmom-
somehow I wouldn’t mind going back to the mission days…we had options besides building a mission, so one kid made a video of an interview with Father Serra (played by her dad- hilarious!) and the other made a photo album/story of our visits to local missions, incorporating mission vocab words (I think I did most of that one!)</p>
<p>near the top of the circle of hell for me? we both didn’t know that we weren’t actually “done” once the college apps were done…then we got to start scholarship apps and finaid paperwork…</p>
<p>I vote for the Italian soccer players over the pool boys
my d and i actually met one in a bar in Berkeley (watching the World Cup) and he was hitting on BOTH of us! ya gotta love that, somehow</p>
<p>I knew there were other Mission moms in the Alley.</p>
<p>Mom60, I’d guess the mystery regime change person was whomever had a kid who was about to hit 4th grade… just a wild guess!</p>