The Rumors Are True.

Yes, future children, I'm sorry to say that the murmurings you've heard on the street are not unfounded. Your father and I recently succumbed to the pressure of our contemporaries and brought (gasp) a television into our home.


However, we feel we maintained a modicum of dignity in the affair: we got this TV for free, from a friend who had plans to discard it (even though it's still got plenty of life in it, let me tell you!). This, of course, means we did NOT contribute to capitalism or corporations in any way. Except when we had to buy an antenna and digital converter box so that we could actually watch it. And there weren't any locally owned boutiquey stores selling hemp-based antennae and converter boxes, so we had to order those from Amazon. (Shudder.)

Oh, and we only get CBS and ABC. And three channels about Jesus, one of which is in Spanish*.


*I must say, this last channel really gives us trouble, because we of course don't approve of religious programming on principle, but we do approve of programming that promotes multiculturalism, so we're absolutely torn apart trying to decide whether or not to detest it. And that, my children, is how TV ruins people's lives.

A Cautionary Tale.

Sometimes, in the middle of winter, the only thing that keeps a person sane is to crank up the Simon & Garfunkel and dance around the kitchen while dinner's cooking.















But sometimes when that person dances too hard (and particularly if that person favors a very arm-swingy type of dancing), there will be an accident of sorts.














Oops.

Surely, there's no environmental factor that might have directly led to this entirely preventable accident...right?














WAIT A MINUTE!

Who Wore It Best?

In the vast majority of cases, your father and I are physically incapable of sharing clothing. This is because, as you know, your father is unreasonably tall and I am slightly below average height. But every now and then there lives (?) a garment so versatile, so truly democratic, that both of us can wear it. I refer, of course, to the Snuggie.


So. Who do you think wore it best? Loser does the winner's chores for a MONTH!

What Your Mom Does for a Living (Hopefully).

Well, children, it's finally happened. Just this week, I received in the mail my official Poet card, meaning that I am, officially, a card-carrying poet.

I hope that by the time you exist and can read this, the title of this post is true. Which I guess means that I hope the future world has an insatiable hunger for poetry. And let's face it, if there is no such hunger in the future world, WHO WOULD WANT TO LIVE THERE?!?!

Things That Matter, Things That Don't.

In the hustle and bustle of your future world (which I assume is hustlier and bustlier than our current world, unless it's one of those post-apocalyptic worlds you read about in Cormac McCarthy novels, in which case it's a very bleak world indeed and this message, along with the rest of the Internet, is forever lost to history), you probably sometimes find it hard to sift what's really important from what's just some capitalist's way of making you feel bad about yourself.

So here's a quick primer, from your loving parents.

1. Dental hygiene matters. No matter how hard you try, dear children, you will not be able to grow new teeth (unless you're reading this before you've grown your adult teeth, in which case you may disregard that last statement, but I would appreciate it if you would come back and re-regard it after those adult teeth come in). So take care of the ones you have. As you can see, I really have been flossing my teeth since before you were alive, as I so often boast.


2. Keeping your sweaters nicely folded does not*. Especially if your closet is in an out-of-the-way place in the house.
3. Putting on the winter sheets matters. You'll be astonished by how much warmer they'll keep you at night! (Your dad and I can help with this if you're still too small to make your own bed.)
4. Having a beautiful hat-lamp-and-scarf sculpture does not matter. Yes, it may be the piece-de-la-resistance of your living room, but at the end of the day, it's just a remarkably tasteful work of art that wins you friends and strikes awe into the hearts of your opponents.


I hope that helped clear things up!

* Caveat: if one of you is a total neat-freak and another one of you has to share a room with that first one, I suggest you work out some mutually acceptable arrangement, in which keeping sweaters neat may or may not matter. You decide.

Beer Bottles Get Cold, Too.

Most parents would sound the horn of complaint when it comes to the mismatched socks all dryers seem to leave behind. Not us, though. Why? Because we've figured out a way to put those socks to use AND make everyone's life better (and no, I'm not talking about sock puppets, though I can see why you assumed that).


See? One easy maneuver and Mom's hands stay warm while she drinks AND the surface of the dryer gets that much less cluttered. I don't like to throw the word "genius" around, mostly because this was your dad's invention.


But I guess that just means I married a genius.

In This Household, Not Liking Pancakes Is Considered a Hate Crime...Against Pancakes.

While I feel as if the title of this post more or less sums up your father's and my views on this matter, I don't think it can hurt to illustrate my point. With images from our everyday lives. This is what it looks like when two normal, rational American people enjoy pancakes together.



This is what those pancakes look like.


What's not to like? It's refined grains, sugar, a little fat and salt when you add the butter (or peanut butter, which is fine, because it's still pancakes, and it doesn't matter how you like them, as long as you like them because that's what normal people do, that's why).

So what happens if you don't like pancakes? On the record, I can't say anything. But here's the last guy who had that problem:


So. Eat them or don't eat them. Your decision.

Exotic Carbondale Wildlife

Well, it's been a while since we posted anything for you, dear children, but we had good reasons. One of those reasons is that we discovered an unusual tiny ecosystem in our very own kitchen! So fascinated were we by this unexplained phenomenon, so immersed in observing the "everyday lifer" of these creatures, that we completely forgot about you (since you don't exist yet) and our notes to you.

But look -- aren't they dear? They're very graceful and noble-looking creatures.













Notice how long their noses are; your father and I conjectured that they must be very fond of fibbing--how else would such a feature develop?!?















And finally, an example of how cunning they are. This one had hidden in our parsley vase for days before we saw him.















At first, finding the animals in our living space worried us, but then we reasoned that coexisting with a tiny herd of elephants was much preferable to coexisting with roaches or spiders -- right?