Weekend Round Up

It was a banner weekend for Skittles.

First, Lili the Babysitter Extraordinaire came on Friday night. Both the girls adore her. But I am especially fond of her because not only does she get my kids to bathe, but she can get them to clean their room, too. Apparently, all she says is, "Let's have a look at your room" or "My, it's worse than ever, isn't it?" and they scurry about and BINGO! It's tidy.

On Saturday was the kermesse or school fun fair day. The sort of thing you LOVE as a kid but LOATHE as a parent. We were strongly encouraged to bring treats to share and to volunteer to man a booth/game/activity. I immediately volunteered to bring a cake, but this was my downfall. "Can we count on you to help with an activity for an hour or two?" came the reply. So you feel like a real shit if you say no. I warned them I needed something not terribly language intense as I can't produce French For Children very well. So I scored two hours on a bean bag toss-type activity.

Outside.

In the rain.

It was bad enough slogging through the rainy Moscow streets dragging the cake plate while balancing my umbrella. Cramps in my hands make me cranky.

But the umbrella turned out useful for standing IN THE RAIN at the freaking bean bag toss. The other poor mom assigned along with me was incredulous. "There's NO ONE out here!" she said after we had dutifully stood out there for about an hour. A bunch of kids had come along (they get a card listing all the activities, and they have to get a check mark for having completed each one to qualify for a prize). But eventually there was no one. Just the two of us. Not even any other parents at any of the other outdoor activities.

The girls scored badminton sets, as did everyone else, for their completed cards. Just the thing for an apartment culture, right? (Turns out they make great tools for vexing cats.)

Then Skittles went to sleep over at her friend's house. And the next day (Sunday) they both went to a birthday party for a classmate.

The Spouse went to the restaurant where the party was being held to collect Skittles. He sent me the following SMS: "Party nowhere near done. Offensive pirate opens and critiques all gifts. Requires parents to add cash if he deems gift to be deficient."

WTF?

Thankfully, Skittles' tribute merited little more than a "Heh" from the pirate. I was ready to tell The Spouse to open up a can of whoop-ass on him as Skittles had put a lot of time and consideration into selecting what she felt would be THE perfect gift for her friend.

But all was well.

So, to sum up: Lili, kermesse, sleep over, birthday party. That's about as good as it gets when you are 8 going on 9.

As for me, I get excited about things like this:


CAXAP is "sugar." How cool is that? Resealable/Pourable sugar. Maybe they have this where you come from, but this is the first time I have ever seen it, and it is such a good idea.

This is not such a good idea:


We have made some sort of switch at the grocery store where now we have to pay for grocery bags. I suppose this is to encourage recycling, which I am all for. But I am also all for a clean litter box. And those grocery bags are a great place to put what I have scooped out of said litter box.

Only, when they made the switch for Bags-For-Fee, they switched to larger grocery bags. Perhaps to assuage their guilt.

I liked the smaller ones better.

But now they sometimes give me these bags. "Oh, let me give you a pretty bag," they tell me.


There is no charge for these green bags (I suspect they were given to the grocery chain by the Sprite people). And they are very nice bags. Sturdy handles. Thick plastic.

They're just not very good as a receptacle for a couple of scooped cat turds.

There's just no pleasing some people, is there.