Ritual

When I was a child, every change of season brought with it the family ritual of changing over our clothes. One Saturday, the date of which I can only imagine was determined by some sort of complex mathematical formula, we would head into the attic and haul down the bins and bags of clothes.

Each of us had to go through our dressers and closets and bag up anything that was worn out or just unwearable. Then, last year's clothes came out. Anything questionable had to be tried on. Anything outgrown got passed down the line.

I was the youngest, and therefore the end of the line. Anything I outgrew went to Goodwill. But there was always something slightly out of date to be passed down to me.

It was always kind of fun to rediscover clothes you had forgotten. And sometimes the hand-me-downs were something you actually wanted. But the real winner was always my oldest sister. Her clothes always got to be new. She always got to pick them herself. They always fit.

I hated her at those times.

All summer in a day

One of my favorite Ray Bradbury stories is about a class of children who live on Mars (I think it was Mars, it's usually Mars) and on Mars the sun only comes out for two hours once every seven years. The rest of the time it is gray and rainy.

These children are young and so they have never seen the sun. They've lived their entire lives indoors with sun lamps. All of them except for one little girl. She moved there from Earth when she was older and so she remembered what warm sunny days were like. The children were getting ready for their first day of sun and this little girl was telling the rest of them what the sun was like.

The other children got angry that she had seen the sun already and so, to get even, they locked her in a supply closet just before the sun came out and she missed the whole thing.

This is what the past week has felt like.

I've got all my sisters with me

I guess I never realized growing up that I had a pretty good family. From my cynical, too intense for my own good adolescent vantage point we were all wrong. My parents argued occasionally. My middle sister and I argued constantly. My oldest sister wanted nothing to do with the rest of us.

College, though, gave me an opportunity to see into other people's lives in a way that day to day life at home hadn't. My sisters and I spoke on the phone at least once a week. I looked forward to seeing my parents. Meanwhile, I made friends who didn't have it so good.

The friend who hardly spoke to her older sister and was never even quite certain where she was living. The boy downstairs whose father had nothing to do with him until he was a teenager. The classmate whose parents barely tolerated each other and would have been much happier if they never had to see each other again. Suddenly I felt lucky.

As I was preparing for my Ph.D thesis defense, Colleen commented that she was looking forward to the opportunity to meet my family. I asked why and she replied that it always sounded like we were five very different people but we all seemed to get along so well.

I think that's a pretty good description. But it all works really well.

I love Muppets!

AnthemSled directed me to the Muppet Personality Test.

It is frighteningly accurate.

You Are Dr. Bunsen Honeydew

You take the title "mad scientist" to the extreme -with very scary things coming out of your lab.And you've invented some pretty cool things, from a banana sharpener to a robot politician.But while you're busy turning gold into cottage cheese, you need to watch out for poor little Beaker!"Oh, that's very naughty, Beaker! Now you eat these paper clips this minute."

The Muppet Personality Test

Why Children and Puppies are So Cute

This past Saturday, my sister came over with almost-three-year-old Jack to go swimming. In the solitary 15 second interval when no one was in the room with him, Jack managed to find a Sharpie marker and scribble on my only recently paid off sofa.

We had the foresight to pay extra for the stain guarding, so the marker came out immediately. My sister suffers from some distorted yuppie notion that she need not discipline her son, so all he really got was a stern talking to. I also let him know that he was lucky it had come out because if he hadn't he would have been banned from my house until he was 18.

Then, he got he sweetest look on his face, apologized and hugged me. As a proper indulgent aunt, I immediately melted. At this rate, Jack just may live to see four.

Un-real

I've been bothered by something for a long time now. I despise reality TV. But that isn't what bothers me, per se. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to watch people shoved into a contrived reality, like being locked in a house with someone that they don't know is actually their half brother.

What bothers me is that long ago I used to love watching the original reality show, the early seasons of MTV's The Real World. And I love watching Ace of Cakes. And I once lost an entire weekend to Showbiz Moms and Dads.

I should say more that this used to bother me. It doesn't bother me now that I've figured it out. I don't mind watching reality shows that actually just film reality and edit it together in a dramatic fashion.

It's the Survivor-BigBrother-Apprentice style shows that bug me. Let's put people in totally contrived situations and make them compete so that we can all watch the absolute worst in humanity come crawling out.

Ick.