songbird's crazy world

Jen attends college in Rhode Island. She's not in Rhode Island right now, she's "stranded" at home. she came home for spring break March 19. she should have gone back on the 28th, but decided to stay until today so that she could celebrate Passover with the family. then came the deluge. yesterday she got an email from the shcool that classes were cancelled and all nonessential employees were being sent home. portions of I-95 were flodded, and a bridge near the campus had been totally washed out. no classes today either, and no idea when the bridge might reopen. the entire state is a federal disaster area. fortunately the worst of it is in towns that aren't near the campus. I am not sure when she will be able to drive back to school. hopefuly it will be better tomorrow.

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) I have to admit, I've never heard the term...until last week. Jen sent me a text telling me "Joe and I are going into the city for his poetry slam." I consider mysefl a sophisticated New Yorker and a patron of the arts, not to mention that I majored in English back in the day, but I had to google "poetry slam". (OMG, the 21st century is creeping into my vocabulary. I didn't look it up, I "googled" it.) Anyhow, it seems that a poetry slam is a contest, where poets are given a set amount of time to recite their works and judges are randomly selected from the audience. I suppose it's somewhat avant garde ... Until recently I wouldn't have imagined that this type of entertainment would appeal to Jen. Or that the boy she's going with (a young man she's known since middle school) would turn out to be one of the poets. Or, for that matter, that Jen would choose "English" a...

I seem to have lost my focus, I need to find it. Missed the first half of the show, apparently they went home for a week? Tuned in just in time for the last chance workout and the weigh in. Blue team is up first. They have bene beating the black team up until now, will they have a good weigh in after being home? All is going well....though Daris didn't pull a large number. black team needs to have lost more than 26 pounds to beat the blue team. Tha's about 7 pounds a piece. We start with Andrea. Six pounds. Not bad. Stephanie is next. She's had small losses 2 weeks in a row. this week she lost 9 pounds! And now she's under 300 and feels good. Ashley is up next. 10 pounds! so that's 25 pounds...2 pounds away from a win? It's Sam's turn. He needs more than one pound... Commercial. And then...14 pounds!!!!! Black team wins the weigh in. blue team goes to the elimination room. Sunshine has immunity. And Daris is in tears as ...

Last year we had our own Passover "miracle"; we did an entire seder without any family drama. I am hoping for the same kind of miracle this year, but somehow I doubt it. It's going to be weird this year, with my aunt in the hospital instead of at our table. Tensions will be high... Pray for peace at my family table, and have a happy Passover!

this morning, as I was walking on my driveway, I almost lost an earring.somehow the "back" came off, and the earring just popped off. I didn't feel anything, and would not have known if I hadn't seen it fall onto the asphalt. if it happened anywhere except my own driveway, the earring would be gone, I'm sure.

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) Last week Ora wrote about her son's summer job .  I do hope everything works out for him.     I steal from the best.  It's time for me to talk about my daughters' summer plans.   My rule is that my kids must do something constructive during the summer.  I don't care if it's employment, study or volunteer work, so long as it fills a significant amount of time, is useful and requires active participation.  The rule came into existence after that disastrous summer -- the summer between Jen's sophomore and junior years in high school -- when Jen sat home all summer and did absolutely nothing.  I thought I was going to kill her, or myself, by the end of that summer. (That was a double occasion -- the first and the last time. the following summer she got a job at a day camp, the same camp where she and Becca had been campers.)   This year, Jen's summer is already planned.  She will be ho...

first me -- weight's up a bit, I vow to get back into the groove on program. the show -- missed it again, read the recap. you have to feel for the black team -- even with a 5 pound advantage they can't win for losing. though I am glad to see some of the challenges were designed to show something other than physical strength, that levels the playing field a bit.