I don’t like to do the stupid notifying and I guarantee the school district doesn’t like to have to read and respond to all of the notifications. It takes time and money and I’m strapped for time and money and I know the poor saps at the office of Pupil Outreach or whatever are strapped for time and money, too. I know they are because it’s on the news all the time. Lame.

We’re supposed notify within 2 weeks of the start of the school year and I have forgotten about it until late August every single year until this year. Well, technically, I haven’t even notified yet, but the assessments are done. They’ve been done since May. I’ve just been procrastinating on the bit about writing the how-I-plan-to-teach-5th-and-1st-grade stuff. I don’t like to do that. I suddenly get very Ron Paul and I’m all “They’s my babies and I’ll do what I wants with ‘em!” Which, of course, is the stereotype that they’re trying to combat by making us do this kind of junk. This year, I just want to write, “I’m fixin’ ta let the young ‘uns lookit the internit and I’ll haul ‘em to the liberry every once in a while, too, iff’n they finish they chores on time,” and see what happens.

The thing is, we can say we’re going to do anything. ANYTHING. And then we don’t have to prove that we did any of it. See why it’s a silly system? I think the kids might have learned more in Michigan when I wasn’t bitter and didn’t have an unnatural urge to not do what I said I was going to do on the notification. So there, Laws! I think I get this attitude from Maya. My children have all taught me wonderful, precious things like how to love and be loved and how to annoy and be annoyed and whatnot. Maya (and maybe South Park) has taught me all about disdain for authority. Last night, she asked me to read the “How to Go Green-and make every day Earth Day!” tips out of the back of one of her lib’ral learnin’ books. After I rattled off the list of 7 tips she said, “Well, they’re not the boss of us.” And I said, “You’re right, honey, nobody’s the boss of us. Let’s go light some garbage on fire!” She wrapped her little arms around my neck and said, “I love you, Mommy.” Truly a precious moment.

(Cue mature motherly voice) I will notify today (or maybe by the end of the month, we’ll see), but the notification will be incomplete because true learning True Learning happens in those moments like I had with Maya last night. We can’t possibly plan those organic “teachable moments” which will stay with a child throughout her lifetime. So suck it, Ohio, because you’re not the boss of me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4fAdizqP0w

P.S. Sacha Baron Cohen breakdanced (brokedanced?) at his bar mitzvah. You want your kids to be like him, don’t you?

Speaking of the gays, here’s a video Dawn sent to me. She knows what I like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw

The maths are wrong, baby, cuz your hotness is rockin’!

Easter was lovely, except it needs to last much longer so my family can stay much longer and we can have, like, an 8-day feast instead of a weekend binge where we drink and eat too much and hurt ourselves. If we knew it would last longer, we could pace ourselves. I promise we would pace ourselves. My sister and I discovered that it doesn’t really matter what kind of wine a person drinks. If that person drinks too much of it, that person’s belly gets mad at them and punishes them. In other words, it’s not the quality, it’s the quantity. My sister-in-law is wise and she knew that already. She and my brother and brother-in-law, along with Bryan, were able to go to the Ohio Deli (as seen on Man vs Food!) and eat and eat on Saturday, while my sister and my mom and I stayed with the kids. Well, my mom stayed with the kids. Tracey and I just laid around and said, “Shhhh!” But now we know. Damn.

My Columbus friends were able to meet my family and that was lovely. I felt like I should be more nervous about it for some reason, but I wasn’t because Kristen, Dawn and Lynne are just Ohio versions of me, my sister and my sister-in-law. I don’t branch out much in my friendships. And the husbands? All of the husbands are beaten down by perfect matches for their loud and lovely wives, so we love all of them, too. Even my brother. I never found the bellybutton lint he hid here, but I have a feeling he hid it on my pillow. Just thinking about it gives me chills. Or, maybe he unscrewed the screen on the showerhead and put it in there so I shower in lint leavings every morning. Ew!

With that, I’ll leave you with another disturbing image. Everybody knows that My L1ttle Ponies love Easter. I just didn’t know how much they love it until I walked in the bathroom and found this little filly enjoying Maya’s Easter basket. In front of the mirror. Seriously, H@sbro, who designs your baskets*?

*I didn’t buy this basket. My mother-in-law bought it for Maya 2 or 3 years ago. I didn’t even notice what the little pony was doing until I saw her watching herself in the mirror with that look in her eye.

P.S. Don’t ask me what Maya’s basket was doing in the bathroom. Nobody wants to know.

Here’s a mellow sample. He does less mellow, too.  And his own stuff. It’s all good. That reminds me, I saw a comedian once say, “I think it’s unfair that Neil Young can sing, play guitar, and play harmonica all at the same time and everybody loves it and he’s a serious artist and everything, but if he were to add a pair of cymbals to his knees, then he’d just be a moron.” Here’s my brother, sans cymbals:

It was hard to feel anything but cold about Columbus today, but then my friend AmazonMidwife emailed me about the inauguration thing at Studio 35 and my heart leapt. And then I clicked over to Studio 35′s website and saw the Dude-A-Thon and then I squealed (I don’t actually squeal with my voice, but in my heart I am a squealer). The Big Lebowski is my favorite. Now I don’t care about the weather; it will be in the 30s again soon and all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well, in the name of Jesus. Again, not that Jesus, this Jesus.

Back to life in Columbus. Bryan and I think it’s unfair that we had to wake up to an alarm clock today and eat fibrous cereals instead of sleeping in until 9:00 and waking up to doughnuts. So many doughnuts! Do you know the thing about doughnuts? If they’re there, we’ll eat them. They taste good with coffee. And they taste good with ham.

I’ve written about my love of ring-shaped pastry before, but I’ve never actually succumbed to the seduction of Buckeye Donuts’ evil delivery system. In Chesaning, though, there are doughnuts to be had without even ordering them because my inlaws are extremely generous people and if they see you eat one doughnut, they will lovingly provide piles of them for you on a daily basis. And they won’t believe you when you say, “No, really, you don’t have to buy any more doughnuts.” Come to think of it, maybe they just couldn’t understand what we were saying with our mouth full of doughnuts. It’s hard to talk that way. Seriously, though, my body doesn’t know what to do with granola anymore. Here’s a hint, body: digest the shit out of it. Literally. Please.

Last night, we checked out the new Sprout Soup mother, baby, and child store. It gave me baby lust. Well, baby product lust, anyway. The slings, the diapers, the baby leg warmers. *sigh* It all makes me want to start over with a brand-new, fresh, un-ruined baby. Especially the baby leg warmers. If you are having a baby and I am obligated to buy you a gift, it will be baby leg warmers. And don’t tell Maya, but I’ve got my eye on the Wooden Spinny Speller for a stocking stuffer for her. Actually, I think she might outgrow 3-letter words by Christmas. Maybe I’ll go get it today. I don’t want the last baby to outgrow Sprout Soup before I have a chance to buy up the joint. They also have some cool stuff from Baying Hound, another local entrepreneur. Local! And for those of you who aren’t local, don’t buy local! That’s silly. You’re not helping anybody when you buy local. You could just buy from the sites that are local to me.

2. Dawn. She works my blogs and she invites me to free spaghetti dinners. And she makes me laugh.

3. Kristen. She makes her husband deliver coffee to me and she sets up free coffee for her neighbors because she has a generator. And she makes me laugh.

4. My other friends here and in Chesaning, and my extended family. They invite me to do laundry at their house and they invite me to stay with them and use up their electricity in order to get me to shut up with the whining. They remind me that I’m very lucky to have several places to which I could flee if I really needed to. And they make me laugh.

5. My husband and children. They’re just awesome. Bryan’s awesome because he puts up with me for-evah! And he’s cute. And the kids are awesome because, well, they’re 50% me. I’m kidding! They’re their own little bundles of funny electricity-addicted awesomeness. And they make me laugh.

6. Margaret Cho. Thanks to Dawny for this link because I couldn’t have said it better myself. And it makes me laugh: I’m Christian You Fuckers

Ok, here are my thoughts on the campaign: I get the joke, and I liked it a lot at first, but now I just think there isn’t enough pointing to what Columbus has to offer. Look at the sidebar ad here. I like that because it makes you wonder where the hell the ad is going and then it pays off with a lot of pretty pictures of some fun things you can do here. The print ads are good, too. The videos? I’m not a fan. I like the premise and I get the joke, but there needs to be more indication of what we can do here. We like flashy, pretty pictures of stuff. Without flashy, pretty pictures of stuff, we find ourselves wondering, “Hm. Where do you suppose that cheese rolling festival is? Is it far from here?” Everybody at the shindig pretty much said all that, but I doubt the ads will change at all. But, we all got free t-shirts and ice cream and brownies (oops, I don’t know where the brownies came from) and mouse pads, so whatevs. And I really love Columbus, even if their youtube channel is kind of lame.