Ginger Unplugged

"You work on being a magician," Crash told his friend. "I'll work on floating."  Crash is doing a magic trick tonight for his Boy Scout Pack. His friend's mother tried to back out yesterday because the trick "didn't look very good," so I told her that I didn't care if it looked professional or not, so long as the boys had fun.  It's really hard for me to teach my kids that unfortunately many things in life are ALL ABOUT THE PRESENTATION--probably because I don't really think things should be all about the presentation. But with all our faults, if my kids wants to do a levitation trick (or make a catapult, or create a better gum ball machine) they are confident that they can pull it off. Sure it might be held together with duct tape and some cat hair will be poking out here and there--but it works and they did it. That's what's important to them and to me. There's plenty of time to learn presentation, right?  But if th...

Princess would like the world to know she does NOT approve of the nickname Sleestack. Why? Because it sounds like a stack of sleaze.

I am not a Christmas person. I know, it's sad--I have friends who've mourned the fact for years. "Just watch It's a Wonderful Life this one last time," they say. But I always pass out from dizziness halfway through from rolling my eyes so much. Maybe it would work better if we started the show in the middle? As for the day itself, I think my expectations are too high . My perfect holiday involves this vision of children quietly playing with new toys in a sparkling clean house having eaten some wonderful breakfast that a catering company dropped off invisibly and unpaid for while I gaze out the window at gently falling snow sipping hot chocolate. I look forward to sledding in the afternoon. My husband puts an arm around me; someone starts singing "The First Noel" in the background and then (just like It's a Wonderful Life ) I have to change the channel or something due to over-cheesiness. That is so not like Christmas. In the real world, we force...

Me: You will be a fantastic test pilot. Just remember: There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. Crash: What's that supposed to be mean? Don't get old? Long pause. Crash: Oooh, I get it. I think all I can do at this point is change his nickname and hope for the best.

I have this marvelous plan to take my children one by one to visit their grandparents each month. One kid per month. Simple, right? But I wanted to ride the train to make it even simpler, and a little more exciting for the kids than driving. It's not working out so well. This is why one of my children (Butterfly) may never join me again:  Teaching her "street smarts" while walking through the railroad/homeless shelter area of Salt Lake City where the train lets off. Probably not smart to be there in the first place. "Don't worry kid. I have my finger on the pepper spray trigger." She didn't look comforted. My sweet grandma talking about what she feels is her imminent death for the bulk of our visit.  Our train hitting a deer going 80 mph on the way home. There are graphic details I will spare you. Butterfly, however, was not spared. Don't worry. The train didn't even wobble on impact. The man sitting across from us on the train explainin...

This is something I posted on Facebook years ago, so it's sort of a flashback of a flashback. 25 things you may not know about me... 1. I have done yoga for 14 years. 2. I have been on top of an elevator (inside the shaft) when it started going up. 3. I cured myself of the worst of my OCD when I was 12. 4. I never even attempted to write fiction until I had 3 kids. I tripped walking around castle walls like these in Poland. Oops. 5. I have delivered all 5 of my children without a single painkiller. Yeesh. 6. I have had a deep and meaningful conversation with George Lucas. And a couple of goofy and embarrassing ones. 7. My dad the cop escorted one of my ex-boyfriends in his prison uniform to court. 8. I have no full brothers or sisters, seven half brothers and sisters (so far as I know) including two I've never met. 9. I can pick locks with a credit card really well. The last time I did it, I was getting out of an ancient church courtyard I got locked into in ...

The power went out over here the other night. Big deal, right? But I swear Husband woke up the second it happened, like at 1:00 in the morning. Most people wake up to loud noises. How do you wake up from a power outage, I ask you. Anyway, we looked up the street and there wasn't any power anywhere. Now a normal person would just roll over in bed and enjoy the silence. I am, well, not normal and especially not when I've been woken up at 1:00 am. After ordering my husband to do things I can barely remember ("Do we have to unplug the refrigerator?", "Should we gather in one room to conserve body heat?") I laid in bed obsessing over the fact that we had no heat source. It was 1 degree outside, after all. Could we light a bunch of candles and gather around them? Why did we never get that fireplace put in? The power came on a couple of hours later. I was relieved that my fears of mass destruction due to alien invasion were most likely untrue. Or at least the...