Crisis Safari

Energy Crisis

I was inputting some of my receipts into my worksheet that I use to keep track of my potential tax write-offs today (which is a joke, because I have done hardly any paid freelance/consulting work this year), and I discovered that I'm averaging about $95/month in GAS. And I don't even work! I drive a few miles a day, mainly to and from Viva's school and the supermarket or wherever the hell. I shudder to think what some of my commuting friends are paying.

I don't know if you've heard about this yet, but gas prices have gone up astronomically this year. I don't know if you noticed. I'm just pointing it out.

Identity Crisis

I can't paraphrase here, so I'm just passing along a note from Viva's school:

We'll celebrate Thanksgiving and International Day on Friday, November 18th. Children may wear costumes of their own culture on this day.

First, and most obvious: I am really baffled as to what costume I should send Viva in. Her own culture is American. She is of African, Creole, Anglo, and Native American descent, but her people have been in this country for hundreds of years. If I had thought about it more, perhaps I could have made a melting pot or mosaic costume. But, of course, I didn't. I have a feeling she will go to school in a Gap T-shirt and Old Navy jeans, and really, what could be more American than that?

Second, the school is celebrating this day by holding a potluck tomorrow. As regular readers know, the last potluck didn't work out very well for me, what with the fruit kebabs sliding off the sticks and whatnot. This time around, I figured I would make things easy and sign up to bring a main dish, intending to bring sliced turkey. Not processed turkey, but like real turkey breast. You know, to go with the Thanksgiving theme? Maybe I was unclear on what this was all about. I had forgotten about the international theme.

When I got to the sign-up sheet, I noticed two parents had already filled in names under the "main dish" section. Neither one is doing anything remotely Thanksgivingy. The first one, who is Latino, is bringing spaghetti, a traditional Italian dish. God save me from these people! Not from Latinos, but from people who insist on feeding my kid spaghetti at school. Could you possibly come up with something messier?

The second mom, who is Japanese, is bringing fried chicken. I am really, really confused. I wasn't aware that fried chicken was so big in Japan. I've never seen one of those Harajuku girls eating fried chicken. I thought fried chicken was the specialty of my people. Who knew?

Since dessert was already taken as well, I have decided to scrap my main dish plans and make a big dish of seasoned potatoes. In essence, I will be bringing steak fries, with seasonings, to school. What the hell, they're two years old, right?

Easy Listening Crisis

Sometimes, of an evening, we like to listen to music all together as a family as we hang out and bond and whatnot. The problem with this is twofold: (a) we are pretty sick of all our CDs; and (b) some of our CDs are not all that child-friendly. So we have taken to listening to jazz (not "smooth jazz," ecch), and sometimes classical music. And now that we have the satellite dish, we get satellite radio through our TV, so sometimes we listen to that, just for kicks.

Satellite radio! It is completely nuts, like cable for radio, and you have more options than you could ever want, and (much like cable), a lot of the time you still can't find something you like despite the huge selection.

That is, unless you like Hawaiian music, which apparently, the Blah Blah family does. Sweet William gets all blissed out by it, Viva loves to dance to it, and I love to amuse myself by trying to sing along with it. I love the sound of the Hawaiian language. Who cares that I don't know what they're saying? So I will try and sing along with it with made-up Hawaiian words and here and there I will throw in "ukelele" or "spam" and keep singing with the few Hawaiian words I know*. Does this make me racist? I am quite sure it doesn't. It may make me a bit of an ass, but you all knew that already.

I'm keepin' it real, people.

* I know very few Hawaiian words, aside from "aloha," "mahalo," "kona" (like the coffee), and "kahuna" (as in "The Big--"). Except for those words that Jambi used to say in Pee-Wee's Playhouse: "Meka Leka Hi-Meka Hiney Ho." They sounded Hawaiian. Were they real? Do they mean anything? Does anyone know? Seriously. I'm at a loss.

All right, I gotta skedaddle. (I'm pretty sure that's not Hawaiian.) Drink your milk, brush your teeth, and go to bed.