Got buttons?

You know those extra buttons that clothing manufacturers so thoughtfully include with the garments they sell? Does anyone ever use those buttons? I have faithfully saved every button that came with every shirt, skirt, dress, or pair of pants I've ever bought, and I have never, ever used any of them. I have buttons dating from clothes I wore when I used my babysitting money to buy them, clothes that long ago went into the donation bag. I feel guilty for having given away clothes without also including the extra buttons. Like giving your sandwich to someone who is hungry but keeping the cookies for yourself.

Every time I've moved, I have studied my burgeoning button collection, wondering if it is worth taking along some 300-odd buttons that I have never used. But I dare not get rid of them, for then I'd be sure to lose 6 buttons off a shirt in one day. Keeping a button collection is like keeping an umbrella in your car: As long as it is there, it will never rain while you are out driving, but if you once forget and leave it in the house, it will rain like Noah ain't never seen.

The ironic thing is that if I ever did need an extra button, the one I needed would be sure to come up missing. I would pour out the whole collection on my kitchen table, or the bed, and frantically comb through it for, say, a largish black button with four holes. And what I would find would be 17 silver buttons with fancy little edges, or one bright red square button, or 5 lion's-head buttons, but no largish black button with four holes. And then what would I do?

I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd ask my mom if I could look through her button collection. With over 7 decades' worth of buttons, she would be bound to have what I need.

Toys, good and otherwise

My sister came to visit this weekend, as she often does when there are no better offers. We had a lot of things on our to-do list, like hanging pictures, painting the bathroom, and cleaning out the basement. It was a very ambitious list and the two of us, together, could accomplish a lot on it. So, naturally, we went shopping instead.

At one store I happened upon the PERFECT Christmas gift for the great-nieces and nephews on my side of the family. As you are no doubt aware, the only thing better than finding the perfect Christmas gift for someone is finding it in October. This never happens to me, perhaps because I do not generally start my shopping until after Christmas. But because I was not looking for gifts, of course I found them.

It was such a great find that I immediately rushed to show my sister. "Nyah, nyah," I sang when I found her. "I'm gonna be the favorite aunt-ie!"

Her face went pale, even though she knows there is no way in the world she can be toppled from her status of Favorite Aunt (of the Whole World, Not Just Family). She did, however, agree that with this toy, I could considerably raise my own status, which is currently Who Are You, Again?

In case any of the children's parents are reading this, this toy is a chicken that does the chicken dance, complete with off-key singing. But the BEST part is that when the chicken crosses the line (or the road) (sorry) from amusing to annoying, instead of simply shutting it off, your sweet, innocent children can put their chubby little hands around the chicken's neck and squeeze for all they're worth. This immediately induces the chicken to start fighting for its life, thrashing around, making pathetic squawking noises, flapping it wings violently, etc. Isn't that great?! This toy could change your child's whole career outlook, inspiring him or her to become a butcher!

Of course I am just kidding. I would never get such a mind-sucking, violence-inducing toy for a child. Or for my husband, for that matter. There's no telling what he would do with it.

Once, for instance, Joe and I were in a mall (Yes, I got him into a shopping mall. But just once) and walked past this display where a kid about 16 years old (who turned out to be the salesman) was maneuvering some sort of flying contraption. It narrowly missed the heads of several shoppers, including ours. I guess that was how he tried to get people's attention.

It got Joe's attention, all right. Before my eyes, he turned from a 30-something-old guy on the brink of marriage to a 10-year-old struck with infatuation over a toy helicopter. It could hover, fly straight up and down, and do other sorts of fascinating things (if you are a guy). It was without a doubt the coolest toy he'd seen since parting ways with his GI Joe action figures some decades earlier. The kid, seeing Joe's obvious interest (drool puddling on his shirt, etc.), offered him the controls. I glared at the kid and tugged on Joe, which is the universal command for "Let's get out of here!" This had about as much effect as asking a two-year-old if he wants to stop playing with his favorite trains to go potty.

I could see this toy ending up on our wedding registry, amidst the Addison dinner plates and Monet wine goblets. Absolutely useless flying thing, 1. Please ship directly to groom's residence, immediately.

In the end, it was Joe's reluctance to spend money on the thing that got us out of there without the toy. But all the way through the mall -- and for some time afterward -- it was all he talked about. The beautiful Christmas decorations impressed him not a bit. Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Great Pumpkin could have all walked right past him together and he would not have noticed. He was too busy planning how, IF he were to get this toy, he could mount it on some sort of track around the ceiling and actually make it useful by making it into a conveyor and having it fetch things for us. I thought that's what HE was for, but obviously I didn't know much of anything at that point.

So, yes, parents of children we buy gifts for, I realize the importance of choosing wisely when it comes to toys. That's why, this Christmas, everyone will be getting the Librarian Action Figure, with AMAZING Shushing Action! At least it might bring a little quiet to your home.

Tell us what toy from your childhood -- or belonging to your child -- stands out in your mind, fun or otherwise! What toy do you wish you or your child had never laid eyes on? Where can I get it for your child for Christmas?? (Just kidding on that last one.)

The electrician who didn't want to work

Some time ago I called an electrician to restore the lights in our bedroom and stairway to working order. It took him five minutes to determine that he was going to need to climb up into the attic and work from there. It took him two hours to try to figure out a way to avoid doing this.

I didn't blame him. Our attic opening is roughly the size of a keyhole. Things have been collecting up there -- debris, insulation, dead animals -- for 167 years. No, I did not blame him for wanting to find some other way to fix the problem. But I wasn't paying him by the hour to avoid working.

After I followed him around for two hours, pointedly looking at my watch every few seconds, he finally resigned himself to his fate. When you determine that you must do something you don't want to do, the best thing is to rope someone else into doing it with you. So he looked at me and said solemnly , "I'm going to need your help."

"Like...handing you tools and stuff?" I said hopefully. I wasn't getting paid to go into the attic, and I fervently prayed that I would not have to.

"No, it's a bit more complicated than that," he said. He went into the bathroom, took off the cover plate from the outlet, and motioned vaguely to the wires living behind it. "I'll be fishing wire down from the attic, and I need you to pull it for me."

I looked at the network of wires in the wall. It looked like those kids' puzzles where you have to figure out which balloon the clown is holding by following the string, which is hopelessly entangled with about 159 other strings.

"Will this be painful?" I asked.

"Nah," he said. "Only if you touch the wrong wires."

Thus reassured, I was immediately inducted as an Electrician's Apprentice. I felt a great sympathy for those young men of yore who were apprenticed to, say, a master joiner and had absolutely no idea what a joiner joined, or why, and who really wanted to just watch the clouds float by.

First, I was told, the electrician was going to have to drill. I expected him to drill into wood somewhere, so you can imagine my surprise when the drill started coming through the ceiling.

I protested this as strongly as I could, given that he was up in the attic and I was down a floor. He either did not hear me or chose not to.

Sighing, I readied myself for my responsibility of watching the little network of wires and, when I saw a new wire coming down, pulling on it. Our "creative communication" went something like this:

Electrician: Do you see it?
Me, hearing only what sounded like a cat crying from afar: What?
Electrician: I SAID, DO YOU SEE THE WIRE?
Me: Oh. Yes. I see it.
Electrician: WHAT?
Me: I SAID, I SEE IT!
Electrician: Mffmd mmfdem.
Me: WHAT?
Electrician: I SAID, PULL THE WIRE!

And so it went. Interestingly, I could hear perfectly fine when something went wrong up in the attic and the electrician used a few words that I'm sure are not in the Manual of Fixing Electrical Things.

Now, lest you think this apprentice thing was a cush job, let me say that the wire was not all that easy to pull. In fact, I had to tug so hard on it that I kept expecting, at any moment, to see the electrician himself pop right through the opening. Fortunately this did not happen.

After I had pulled enough wire to completely surround the bathroom, he came down from the attic. I was disappointed when I did not receive some sort of badge for my courage and heroism, or at least a diploma for successful completion of the Electrician Apprenticeship.

He wrote up his invoice and gave it to me. I looked it over. "I don't see anything on here about the hole in the bathroom ceiling," I said. "Don't I get a credit for that? Or how about the cupboard shelf that broke when you used it to walk across the beams in the attic? Or..."

But he was already out the door, on to his next Apprentice, who I'm sure he hoped would not have an attic.

Raisins

There seems to be an undue amount of attention given to raisins in the comments about the hypothetical casserole I wrote about the other day. I would just like to make assurances that there were NO raisins, real or hypothetical, or anything remotely resembling a raisin, in my hypothetical casserole.

I prefer to eat my raisins plain, out of the box, so there is NO chance of confusing them with something that might move, if you know what I mean.

Audiobooks, revisited

I know I have spoken harshly in the past about audiobooks that attempt to teach you something, as opposed to books that aim to wipe away every last vestige of brain matter you may possess. I much prefer the latter. But lately I've come close to reconsidering my position on this. Nonfiction audiobooks can actually offer several benefits.

First, they give you something to talk about with your spouse at dinner. It is well known that the number one cause of lack of communication among spouses is not listening to "intelligent" audiobooks. If the most exciting dinner conversation you have is whether to put more salt on the vegetables, imagine how that conversation can be transformed when you have spent your commute listening to a riveting account of how mold grows!

When I was listening to The Mayflower -- a book I highly recommend whenever you have approximately 3500 hours of listening time available -- the story was often the centerpiece of our dinner conversations. We would barely sit down before I'd blurt out, "Guess what? Squanto died!"

And this would unleash a flurry of discussion over whether Squanto, held up to generations of schoolchildren as the "friend of the Pilgrims," died of natural causes -- as is generally assumed by the non-audiobook-listening public -- or whether things were a little more sinister than that, as maintained by the conspiracy groupees, who are never happy when someone dies of natural causes.

The people in this story became like part of the family during the time I was listening to it. It was the first thing Joe would ask about when he came home from work. "Hi, honey, how's William Bradford doing? He sure got a wallop on the head from Mrs. B's second-best iron skillet!" Of course, watching a lame TV show like Lost will accomplish the same thing. During past seasons of this show I have felt like the characters were living with us. Only when they died, it was never from natural causes.

The second benefit of audiobooks is that they give you something to talk about at the hair salon, in the post office line, at the dentist's office -- basically, wherever you have to wait and want to help speed things up a bit. After five minutes of spouting Mayflower trivia, I guarantee that you will be ushered to the front of the line so people can be rid of you.

Third, it makes you feel pretty good to know something about the world, even if it's something that happened 300 years ago. Plus, when someone asks "Are you smarter than a fifth-grader?" you can answer "yes" and back it up with proof: "Does a fifth-grader know that the Pilgrims were actually trying to find Manhattan and accidentally landed at Plymouth instead? Of course not! They don't have audiobooks in schools! If they did, those kids might learn something worth knowing!"

So I heartily recommend "intelligent" audiobooks. Someday, I may even listen to another one.

Your name is served

Neighborhood cookouts serve a lot of functions, not the least of which is to remind you, once a year, of all your neighbors' names, which you will promptly forget until next year's cookout. This year Joe and I were determined that our ignorance would not be so apparent.

"Now, let's go over everyone's names and what we know about them," said Joe, before we left with our contribution of brownies. "Hopefully we can fill in the blanks tonight."

And so we began at one end of the block, naming residents, making up names when we had no idea, and offering little interesting tidbits about them that we might be able to work into a conversation to appear knowledgeable.

"And then there's JB, the dog," Joe was saying.

"Wait a minute," I said. "I thought JB was Amanda's husband."

"No, no, that's CJ. JB is their next door neighbor's dog...can't think of their names, though."

"Well, what is Amanda and CJ's dog's name? I thought the dog was CJ."

He shrugged. (We found out later that it is Levi, shortened to Lee because the cat -- whose name we never did catch -- also has a name with two syllables, and this greatly confuses Levi. Lee.)

When we were finished, we realized we knew more about the dogs who live on the block than their owners. We did know that there was one couple with a baby, a professional bike rider (who turned out to be the dad of the baby, not a separate person), two new couples we knew absolutely nothing about, and two Steves and a Steven. Happily, there are two empty homes, which cut down on the number of names we had to come up with. We gave up entirely on who might have cats.

Feeling confident, we betook ourselves down the street to the cookout. We listened carefully to everyone's conversation, filing away information, and didn't speak much on the grounds that then we couldn't embarrass ourselves. Unfortunately, the one time we did say something, we messed up by calling Chris "Dan" (now we know there are two Chrises, although there could be more). But we were feeling pretty good about appearing to know everyone and what was going on in the neighborhood. Then someone casually mentioned that Steve had moved out.

"Which Steve?" I asked.

"The one next to you," someone else said.

"On which side?" I persisted.

"Phil's roommate."

I was dumbfounded. How had I missed that bright-red car for a week and not realized what had happened?

"And Casey, too," someone said.

I looked blank.

"The dog," they reminded me.

"Oh, right," I said. "Of course, if Steve moved out, Casey would have to go, too," I said, attempting to cover up my forgetfulness of the dog who, for reasons known only to herself, frequently visited our porch.

We found out that Jeff and Kristen plan to move sometime, and also the couple with baby. "Oh, no," I moaned later to Joe. "If they move, and the two unoccupied houses get sold or rented, that means next year we'll have four new households to learn!"

"We can just call them all Steve," Joe suggested. "We're bound to be right some of the time."

Going buggy

WARNING: Today's topic deals with bugs. Specifically, bugs in food. If this topic makes your stomach turn, please go do something that is easier to, ahem, digest -- like read the morning paper or listen to the news.

Now, the situation I am going to describe is one that you may never encounter. But if you do, it is good to be prepared. Therefore I am going to talk about what to do when a creature lands in the casserole you are making.

Understand that this is strictly a hypothetical situation. I would never allow creatures in my house, let alone in my kitchen or my casserole. Uh uh. No way.

Now that we understand that this never really, actually happened last night, we can proceed with what to do if it were to happen. Strictly hypothetically, of course. Food-invading bugs invariably choose the moment you have finished mixing up whatever it is you are making -- in this hypothetical case, a casserole -- to land in it. They do not jump or fly in after just one or two ingredients are in the bowl, which might allow you to dump everything and start over. They're not stupid. They want all the good stuff, too!

This presents a problem. It has taken you a long time to put this dish together; you've probably been working on it since breakfast. You are minutes away from putting it into the oven. Do you really want to throw the whole thing out, although utterly disgusted by this unwanted ingredient, and risk a mutiny from your hungry husband and perhaps children and dog? If you do, what will you serve instead? Do you have a backup meal at your fingertips? If so, why did you bother making the casserole in the first place?

But back to our hypothetical dilemma. Let's imagine that in this case there is no backup plan, other than to run to KFC or serve Froot Loops. Your other choice is to -- here comes the squeamish part; it's not too late to go read that newspaper -- scoop out a section of the casserole with the bug in it and cook the rest. Fortunately the bug has not run all over your casserole, in which case it would be impossible to save, but imagine that this dish has enough mayonnaise in it to effectively render the bug unable to move. For those of you who are extra-sensitive to the well-being of bugs, we will be kind and assume that in this hypothetical case, the creature died instantly.

So you scoop out a portion of the casserole that has been invaded and dispose of it, preferably using toxic waste removal methods. To be on the safe side, you should probably remove about nine-tenths of the food, which means you might have to break out those Froot Loops after all. BUT, at least all is not lost.

The next step, as you put the much smaller casserole into the oven -- and this is very important -- is to remember which side of the dish the bug was on. This is the side you will serve to the other members of your family. You, of course, will take the unadulterated side. Hey, you've been through a lot of grief with this process; this is only fair.

It is well known that any contaminated parts that might remain before baking -- although if you have followed my directions, you shouldn't have to worry about that -- will, from the heat of the oven, be turned into cheese. Just make sure you leave the dish in long enough for this process to occur, which should be about two weeks or so.

NOW, the final step in dealing with this most unpleasant hypothetical situation is to decide whether to tell anyone else. In my opinion, this can serve no purpose whatsoever. Just tell them you put extra cheese in.

Although, on second thought, if you did tell them what happened, you would probably not have to cook anymore. Hypothetically.

Shopping cart chats

I am the sort of person people like to talk to in the grocery store. By people I mean strangers. They ask me which apples are good for baking. They ask me where to find yams. They ask me what yams are. They tell me about growing up on a farm, chasing chickens around the yard with a hatchet.

Yes. Just last week, a man cornered me in the meat section and joked about how he was glad the chicken was marked "no steroids," because otherwise, how would we know they weren't fed steroids? With all the drug scandals in sports these days, he was glad to know that our American chickens are not artificially pumped up. This led to an extremely long and graphic story about watching his father chase chickens around their yard when he was young. The man thought this was extremely funny. By the time he was finally finished with his story, I was no longer able to look at the meat. I took desperate aim for the cereal aisle, which contained no products for which animals were chased mercilessly around a yard. I'm sure if I stopped to think about these things long enough, I would be a vegetarian. That is why I try very hard NOT to think about these things.

Also recently, a woman came toward me in the cleaning supplies aisle and wanted to know, one woman to another, if it ever got easier to have your in-laws visit. "They're coming this weekend for the first time, and I'm a nervous wreck! My house will never be clean enough! And on top of it, we have workmen who are making a huge mess! And on top of that, I'm obsessive-compulsive!"

I tried to console her by saying she could always blame any lingering mess on the workmen, but she turned on me. "Oh, no! My mother-in-law will just blame me, say I'm not good enough for her son!" She went on to say that her husband had assured her the house looked fine, but if it would make her feel better, she could go out and buy all new cleaning products. Judging from her cart, she had taken him at his word.

She left as abruptly as she'd come, and I was thankful I didn't have her mother-in-law. If I'd told her how nice my mother-in-law is, it probably would have upset her enough to buy another mop.

Another time, a young man approached and asked, in somewhat broken English, where he could find "yam." I asked whether he wanted fresh or canned. He hesitated, then stated that he wanted fresh. I explained that they were in the produce aisle, but I got a blank look. "By the potatoes," I said, gesturing toward that end of the store.

He thanked me profusely and started off in that direction. Then he stopped and came back a few steps. "How about I want canned?" he said.

I directed him to where I thought the canned yams might reside. Whoever sent you to the store is probably going to regret it, I thought.

I fantasize sometimes about bringing all these people together, say in the produce aisle, and see who out-talks or out-questions the others. I'd bet the yams would start flying.

Please beat your head against a wall

We apologize for today's late, short entry. The Princess is wiped out by a day of visits to the doctor and the grocery store, the latter of which may have been the most traumatic. The incident in the meat section, in fact, just may induce her to vegetarianism. But more on that another day.

I don't even remember what Web site I was trying to get to, but instead of what I was looking for, I got this message:

There was a server error.
Okay. That happens.

If you reload this page, it will most likely go away.
Is that a promise?

So please refresh this page now by clicking the reload button on your Web browser.
Didn't you just say that would make the page go away?

If you get this page a second time, please try reloading the page again.
Huh?

If you keep getting this page, please wait an hour and try again.
And ask yourself why you are doing the same stupid thing over and over again.

If it comes back then, please e-mail ____________________.
Why? Isn't that supposed to be the result I WANT?

Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Arrrgggggggghhhhhh!

What's taking so long?

A friend recently asked what had been the hardest adjustment for me when I got married. I had to really think, and it made me wonder what Joe thought his hardest adjustment was. So I did a dumb thing. I asked him.

See, this is one of those myriad differences between men and women. Men don't think of these issues, let alone ask their wives about them. But we women just have to know everything. We think, mistakenly, that it will make us happier, more connected to our spouses, if we know what they are really thinking deep down inside. Most of the time, we find out that they are thinking, "How can I get out of this conversation?"

But he surprised me by answering my query without hesitation. "I could do things a lot faster before we were married."

"What?" I said. Of course, I'd been hoping that he would say there hadn't been any adjustments.

"Like going to bed!" he said. "When I'm tired, I just go to bed. But you have, like, 40 million things you have to do first, and it takes you two hours." He faked snoring to emphasize how this process affected him.

"Oh, please," I said. "It doesn't take me that long."

"Or like, whenever I would go somewhere, before, I could just go. But now we have to load up the cooler with water and snacks, you have to change what you're wearing, empty your purse and fill it back up again, take something out of the dryer, close all the curtains...it takes forever!"

"But that gives you time to practice your guitar!" I said brightly, trying to shift the spotlight off myself.

"And I can't just eat dinner over the sink and pray standing up. I have to sit down to pray and eat, and have long conversations! Dinner takes like, what, three hours?"

The list went on, but I could think of only one thing: How do I get out of this conversation?

Swapping house parts

There are some things you just take for granted. For instance, when I open our front door, I always assume that our steps will be there, as they have been for 167 years, granting passage in and out of the house to the street.

But one day I opened the door to check the temperature and noticed that our steps are starting to separate from the house. Oh, they're still there, but it can't be long before they decide to venture out on their own. "Enough's enough!" I imagine them saying. "These people can jolly well use a ladder, or jump, or never come out of the house at all for all we care. We're tired of being attached to one place for all this time!" And slowly, our steps will make their way to independence.

Where will they go? I wonder. One day, maybe somewhere in New York, someone will open their window and discover that they can now descend directly from the window to the sidewalk, via our steps. And once the other parts of our house see that the steps have struck out on their own, what will be next to separate itself? The back porch? the roof? Soon our house will come apart like a child's play kit house, and houses all over the neighborhood will be swapping parts. We might end up with little gable windows. Another house might gain a white picket fence or decorative Victorian touches. The large, modern homes might suddenly find their spacious deck gone, replaced by a modest, painted wooden porch. Cute little cottages will be overwhelmed with large bay windows.

It's a good thing we live in the middle of a row of houses. If our house were freestanding, there's no telling what the house itself might decide to do.

Now showing

I am not a good companion on trips to places like the aquarium. We have one near us, and I took my out-of-state friend there last month when she came to visit. My attention tends to be drawn to things that aren't meant to be main attractions -- in some cases, not attractions at all -- and I've noticed that other people don't really appreciate having these things pointed out to them.

For instance, at any given display you might hear this:

Other visitors: Oooo! Look at the blue poison dart frog! And there's a rainbow lorikeet! Cool!
Me: Ewww, crickets!

And everyone stares at me as if I've just ruined everything for them.

With all the living things in the exhibits, I am most fascinated by the single dead thing on display, a whale carcass that hangs for several stories. It is without a doubt the largest thing in the aquarium, so maybe that accounts for my fascination with it. Or maybe I just feel safer knowing that, it being dead for at least a century, there is no possible way for it to attack me. Whereas with the other things on display, even though they're in tanks or whatever, you just never know. There could be an earthquake or something that would burst the piranha tank, and boy would the people standing right there wish they had gone to see the dead whale instead.

My friend and I went to see a dolphin show (with live dolphins), which was really the whole reason she had wanted to come to the aquarium. She was feeling nostalgic about the old days at Sea World with Shamu and hoping she could feel some of that excitement again. And she wasn't disappointed.

"Wasn't that a great show??" she said afterward. I shrugged. Most of the show I'd been distracted by how dirty the tanks were, and how many different ways the child in front of me could get his mother to tell him to be quiet and watch.

In the Australia exhibit, there was pretty scenery, some interesting birds and fish, and even a waterfall. I saw a little log, though, that looked out of place, maybe because it had a glass window in it. While everyone around me moved on to more exciting things, I checked this log out. For my curiosity I was rewarded with a closer view of a tarantula than I've ever had in my life, certainly closer than I've ever wanted. I knew I couldn't keep this to myself. I called my friend over.

"Look," I said and pointed, "there's something in there." I conveniently left out what it was.

She screamed so loud even the tarantula was startled.

My friend was too polite to say so, but I know by this time she was wishing I would go away. I know this because she went away, joining herself unobtrusively to some other party who were exclaiming over all the right things.

Later we overheard a young boy, who was peering into a small tank in an effort to find anything living, saying in a rather grown-up tone, "How am I supposed to find something when I don't know what it looks like?" I could have told him a few things to look for, but his mom probably wouldn't have liked them.

Will fall ever come?

A lot of people look forward to the fall season. The air grows crisp, the leaves change to glorious colors, there is hot apple cider to drink, the kids go back to school, you don't have to water your flowers anymore...

Yes, I like fall because I don't have to tend my garden anymore. I can let things die without feeling guilty.

But of course that is not what is happening. My flowers, which stubbornly refused to show much color all summer, are now brighter than ever, happily cohabitating with the falling leaves. I bought a couple of pumpkins and pointedly put them near the garden, hoping the flowers would get the point that it's their time to exit the stage now. But still they bloom.

On one of my daily neighboring strolls I sideswiped a butterfly bush. It was hard to avoid, as it was growing over the sidewalk and into the parking area. In the deepening darkness I walked smack into a butterfly perched on the edge of a white flower.

"Aaagh!" I yelled, startled.

"Aaagh!" the butterfly yelled back.

We stared at each other.

"Sorry," I stammered. "I didn't see you."

It fluttered its wings. "This is a butterfly bush," it said somewhat contemptuously. "I'm a butterfly. You might have expected I would be here."

"Well, aren't you supposed to be somewhere else this time of year, like Mexico or something? Shouldn't you be packing, leaving a forwarding address, that sort of thing? Why are you still here?"

"There's still plenty of things for me to feast on here," it said. "I'm not leaving til the buffet closes for the season."

I sighed. "I suppose I have you partly to thank that my flowers are still blooming," I said, gesturing to our yard a few houses away.

"Ah, yes, those straw flowers and gerberas make for a lovely afternoon treat," it said contentedly. "You're quite welcome for my help."

"I was being sarcastic," I said. "I am not thankful that my plants are still blooming. Things are supposed to be dying now. Could you tell the rest of your cronies that? And the bees, while you're at it? Just let things take their natural course. Like you should be doing, to Panama or wherever you go."

"Please," it said, slowly opening and closing its wings. "Panama is so crowded these days. The commoners have completely overrun it. I'm heading to Bermuda."

"Well, good luck with that," I said. "And please tell your offspring to get an early start next year. I don't want to wait til fall to get some color in my yard."

She says, he says

As girls grow up, their moms pass along a lot of advice on being a good wife someday. Too bad they don't check with their daughters' future husbands on this advice.

"Spend 8 hours making a wonderful meal," we daughters are told. "Your husband will worship you."

My husband wants to know why there are so many dishes and pots and pans for him to clean up after a meal. "I just spent 8 hours cooking this for you," I explain.

"I do appreciate it," he says earnestly. "But could you do it with a few less pans?"

Moms say, "Always make sure your house is picked up. Your husband will appreciate a clean house."

But husbands complain that they can't find anything after you pick up. "I left that hammer right here, in the middle of the bathroom floor. Why do you always have to put everything away?"

We daughters learn how to make a tight corner with the bedsheet, only to be faced with husbands who wonder why the sheets are so tight at the bottom. "I feel like I'm being strangled," they complain.

Moms teach us how to make the perfect pie crust. "And keep the cookie jar full! After all, the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

But my husband once asked me, respectfully, if I could please not make so much dessert, as he was having a hard time resisting it and didn't want it to go to his waist.

We daughters take care to set a nice, inviting table, arranging the food into lovely serving dishes, because that's what our moms told us to do.

Husbands grab a plate and head to the stove to dish their dinner out of the pan. Or just eat out of the pan.

I think mothers and future sons-in-law need some sort of focus group where they could all get together on the same page about these things. Or, better yet, these situations could be avoided if, instead of mothers advising their daughters on the finer points of being a wife, mothers-in-law did the advising. Since boys basically don't change much after about age 4, their mothers could just take their behaviors when they're young and pretty much predict what they'll be like as husbands. This would allow them to advise potential future daughters-in-law more accurately.

For instance, the mother of a young son could advise a potential daughter-in-law, "His sheets and blankets always end up on the other side of the room during the night, so don't bother making the bed. In fact, he won't even need a bed. Just make a little pallet on the floor for him and he'll be perfectly happy."

Or, "He never sits down to eat, so don't bother setting the table. Just put a spoon by the sink and he'll stand up and eat over it."

This would save both husbands and wives a lot of trouble. Wives would be spared time doing things they don't want to do anyway, and also spared guilt over not doing them. Husbands could happily follow their primal instincts.

At least until their wives step on the hammer in the middle of the bathroom floor.

Nature hath no shame

Is there anything worse than, while in the act of getting into your car, suddenly noticing, just inches from your head, a praying mantis the size of a giant sequoia?

There is, in fact. It is finding, inches from your head, TWO praying mantises the size of a giant sequoia, sharing an intimate moment.

This happened to me recently. I wanted to yell, "No, no! This is a family neighborhood! There might be any number of impressionable little praying mantises out there watching this! Do you want to mess them up for life??"

Instead, I encouraged the amorous insects, by the use of a large stick, to get a room somewhere else, preferably one that grew leaves that could shelter them from prying eyes.

This is just further proof that our society has no shame. I realize that millions of acts like this must be occurring every day, in our parks and forests and other green spaces, judging from the sheer amount of new insects I find invading our home. But I certainly don't want to know about it. And now it has moved out into the open. If this can happen in broad daylight, right on my '98 Honda CRV (which, by the way, is a pretty innocent car; the closest it's come to an amorous adventure is bumping up against a shopping cart), is there any hope for our society? What will we see next? Praying mantis centerfolds? Crickets getting cozy right on the patio furniture?

I know one thing. The next car I get is not going to be any color remotely resembling a tree. I'm gonna get something bright and hideous, like fuchsia. Let 'em try to have their intimate moments on that.

Rx for disaster

I had a talk with my physician's assistant the other day about caffeine. Specifically, his belief that I was having too much of it.

"You should talk to my husband," I said.

"Why? Is he having racing pulse and chest pains, too?" he asked.

"No," I said. "But he has far more caffeine than I do." I was like a sibling who didn't want to get in trouble alone.

"Well, it affects everyone differently," he said. "If your husband isn't having any adverse effects, he's probably okay."

I sighed. Obviously he wasn't on my side here.

"How do you know my symptoms aren't from broccoli or something like that? Housework? Maybe I'm overworking my body doing too much laundry," I said hopefully.

He ignored that and asked if I eat chocolate.

"Oh, every now and then," I said vaguely.

But medical people, like mothers, can tell when you're not being absolutely truthful. A little warning bell goes off in their head, reminding them of something they learned in med school. In this case, the warning was "If a female patient does not admit to drowning herself in vats of chocolate several times a day, and more when she is stressed, she is lying."

" 'Every now and then,' " the PA repeated. When he said it, it sounded like a downright lie.

I nodded innocently. I wanted to bring up the fact that chocolate is now considered good for you. He would know that if he read the papers. And that caffeine, in moderation, is not so bad either. But of course the "good" kind of chocolate is so bitter a starving monkey wouldn't touch it, so I kept quiet.

"Well, stay away from soda and caffeine pills," he said. "And I'd cut back on that chocolate 'every now and then,' " he added dryly.

With all the paperwork they make you sign at the doctor's, it's a good thing you don't have to sign their treatment recommendations.

77 more days until Christmas!

I know it's 90 degrees out, but that's gonna change soon, and then it will be too late to get a good parking spot at the mall to start your Christmas shopping. So I suggest you start now. I'll send you my list.

It is also that time of year when we here at slightlyhumorous start planning for a new installment of the famous Christmas newsletter. This year, due to the fact that all of the interesting information that normally would go into the newsletter has already reached the public through this blog, we have decided to import all our news for the newsletter. This will, of course, necessitate exciting trips abroad, say to Durkee, Idaho, and a complete moratorium on any new blog items for the remainder of the year. They do this with certain comics, as I'm sure you've noticed. The comic strip artist will decide to take a sabbatical, or in cases of extreme stress will actually die, and in his or her absence the newspapers will run "old favorites." So from now until January 1, we will run "old favorites" of this blog.

Ha ha! As if our readers would let us get away with that.

But speaking of Christmas newsletters, people often have questions about them. Specifically, how to stop them from appearing in their mailbox. The Christmas newsletter is one of those time-honored traditions that, like returning unwanted ties and sweaters, has a unique ability to turn otherwise law-abiding, friendly people into maniacal monsters.

My only answer to those people who don't like getting newsletters is: You can't stop a bird from flying over your head, but you can stop it from making a nest in your hair. If the application to unwanted newsletters is not obvious, don't ask me what it is.

Here are some other questions commonly asked about Christmas newsletters:

Q: I don't want to use up all my printer ink and stamps to send a bunch of newsletters that no one's going to read anyway. Can't I just send people a Christmas e-mail?

A: Yes, if your name is Scrooge, you are lazy, and you do not care a whit about leaving out Aunt Tillie and Grandma Marian, who do not have a computer. You might just find them returning the favor by leaving you out -- of their will.

Q: What should I write in my newsletter?

A: Exciting things you did this year, like take a romantic cruise on the Mediterranean, or replace all your windows with energy-efficient ones, or physically remove, by yourself, mashed zucchini and carrots from your toddler's nose.

Q: What if I didn't do any of those things this year?

A: You are a pathetic loser. Get out there and do something exciting! If that doesn't work, copy interesting items from someone else's newsletter, being sure to change all the names and places. For instance, "Maggie starred in her school play this year" could become "Dad starred in a restaurant brawl this year." If that still doesn't work, make something up.

Q: Do you make things up?

A: Never.

Q: Why do people hate getting Christmas newsletters?

A: They don't fit on their refrigerator.

Q: Why do people insist on writing them, then?

A: Please see previous question.

Q: You mean they do it to deliberately bug people?

A: Isn't it obvious?

Q: I asked the question.

A: Go do your Christmas shopping. And while you're at it, please pick me up some ink and stamps.

Trip wrap-up

I know what you are thinking after reading my glowing reports about our trip to Boston. You are thinking, "I never want to visit that place!" Well, after today's installment -- our last in this series -- you will be thinking something quite different. You will be thinking, "I never EVER want to visit that place!" But if you're one of those tourists who is always looking for something a little off-beat, something most people don't get to experience, boy do we have the place for you.

We had been perplexed by the presence of enormous trash bins called "Big Belly" in parks all over the city. The Big Belly is a totally enclosed trash bin that must be opened, somewhat like a mailbox, before trash can be deposited in it. I'd seen similar apparatuses in nature areas, where they are an attempt to dissuade bears from getting a free meal. But as far as I knew, no bears roamed Boston Common or the park along the river, and even if they did they would ignore the Big Belly and just go straight to the ubiquitous Dunkin' Donuts and help themselves to fresh donuts. I complained bitterly to Joe about having to touch the handle of the Big Belly to throw my trash away. It seemed far more sanitary to have a good old-fashioned open trash can than to have to touch one with your bare hands.

One night we finally discovered what the Big Belly is for. Without meaning to, we took a self-guided tour of Rat Hill, which is not on any official tour of Boston and which is assiduously avoided by native Bostonians after dark. For that is when the fun truly begins.

We headed down a hill on Boston Common, so named because people commonly get mugged there (just kidding!) (I think!). Ahead of us were two young women. In the dark I was admiring the movement of squirrels across the pathway. No doubt they were foraging for nuts to get them through the winter, when there aren't enough tourists to feed them donuts. I suddenly noticed that the "squirrels" were somewhat smaller than normal and didn't move like squirrels. And there were a lot of them. They were crawling up the trash can (NOT a Big Belly trash can), darting across the path, and disappearing into a tree.

All four of us -- Joe and I and the two women ahead of us -- realized at the same time that these were rats. And we all did what people normally do on seeing a rat: we commenced screaming and jumping up and down. All except for Joe, possibly. He said: "Hey, it's just like in Baltimore!" Now he has never actually seen a rat in Baltimore, but he's heard enough stories to believe that they are taking over the city; in fact, even now they may be infiltrating City Hall. Joe would be a terrible tour guide for the city of Baltimore ("You should see the size of our rats! New York has nothing on these guys!" he would say enthusiastically, as women would fall into a dead faint).

We were faced with a dilemma. These rats were running right across our path. At times like these, you realize that the advice Dad always doled out -- "You shouldn't be scared, you're bigger than they are" -- really has no value whatsoever in rescuing you from the situation. The rats clearly were not impressed with our large stature. They kept right on running from garbage can to tree, oblivious to our menacing screams.

We agreed with the women that we should stick together. Their idea of sticking together was that Joe and I should go first. But during a lull in the March of the Rats, we all grabbed hands and, in the manner of those marching to their doom, charged through. I kept wishing we had an appropriate song to sing, such as "Lord, Get Me Safely to the Other Side" or "What a Journey It's Been," but nothing came to mind. Once safely through, we cheered for ourselves and ran like crazy to the subway, which as everyone knows never has rats.

As you might imagine, this was one of those life-changing experiences for me. I have reversed my position on the Big Belly and now totally support filling them up with rats and shipping them out of the city. And while they're at it, maybe they could take Baltimore's, too.

A Boston education

Across the river from Boston is Cambridge. Cambridge is home to two famous colleges, Harvard and MIT, which of course stands for Made in Taiwan. We never did find MIT, but then we didn't try all that hard. We were more intent on locating and visiting every establishment that might possibly sell books. We had made a deal on our trip, Joe and I, that he would let me read every single plaque and sign at the historic sights we visited if I would let him examine every single math book in every single bookstore we encountered. Fortunately for me, many of these fine establishments had very comfy chairs in which to snooze.

We did manage to find the Harvard campus, and we entered those hallowed grounds with an appropriate sense of awe, which quickly turned to disappointment. Far from looking like they were part of a paragon of education, every student looked exactly like every other student on every other campus in America, which is to say they wore baggy, ratty jeans and dirty sneakers. The one difference between them and, say, elementary and high school students -- besides being a little taller -- was that their backpacks fit on their backs. As we all know, Congress has passed a law that younger students must transport their homework by suitcase. If it fits in an overhead compartment or under their schooldesk, teachers are not assigning enough homework! But be of good cheer, young students: Once you get to Harvard, you won't have nearly as much homework.

I admit I was expecting a few more nerdy-looking individuals on that famous campus. The only people fitting that description were Joe and I, and a couple of dogs wearing truly ugly handknit sweaters (although I suspect they did not have a choice in the matter).

Lunchtime posed a bit of a dilemma for us. Not where to eat, as our usual tactic is to wait until we are so faint from hunger that we just fall into the closest restaurant and beg them to bring us the quickest thing on the menu. No, our dilemma was what to do with the food I didn't eat. I have always vigorously resisted the idea of eating everything on my plate (preferring to leave some room "just in case" we should happen to find an ice cream place later), and usually about 17% of my meal ends up being uneaten. This inevitably causes some dissension among us, as Joe is firmly in the Ye Must Clean Your Plate camp. We hit upon a brilliant idea. We would have my leftovers wrapped up and scour Cambridge for someone who might need a meal.

And so we set out on our errand of mercy, and also to hit more bookstores. We came upon a gentleman asking for change. He looked kind of like the students at Harvard, only older and better dressed. Here was our chance, our great chance to do our part to solve world hunger.

"We have a sandwich," Joe said cheerfully, pointing to the bag I held.

The man quickly shook his head. "Nah, I'm good, man," he said.

So much for solving world hunger. Maybe he was looking for milk money.

Must-sees in Boston

You are probably wondering what there is to see and do in Boston besides riding defunct trolleys and staying at bilingual lodging facilities. Frankly, not much. Just kidding! Of course there are many wonderful things to do there. Here is a suggested itinerary, suggested by Paul Revere, one of Boston's most famous residents, who went out one evening to warn the colonists of the British approach but ended up missing all the action because he stopped at Dunkin' Donuts.

First, there is a Freedom Trail that winds through the city and passes by many of the historic sights, such as Paul Revere's house and his favorite donut stop. The trolleys roughly follow the path of this Freedom Trail, but to get the full effect you really should walk it. There is something about following a little brick trail in the sidewalk for approximately the length of the Rio Grande that makes you appreciate all the sacrifices that were made on your behalf so you could tramp around the city seeing famous places. You can always tell when tourists are following this trail. They are bent over, their noses to the ground, hot on that brick trail lest they lose it and end up in, say, England.

The Freedom Trail also goes over a rather long bridge (particularly when you are walking it, in which case it magically extends itself to about double its actual length) and leads to the U.S.S. Constitution. This is a very famous ship that, during the War of 1812, smuggled donuts into the city, which were prohibited by the British because they were jealous of all our Dunkin' Donuts. The Constitution has many cannons on board (which are called "guns" in military language -- our guide did not explain what actual guns are called, but I would guess "cannons"), presumably to protect and defend our right to Bavarian Creme Donuts and Jelly-Filled Munchkins.

If you take a guided tour of the ship, you will learn all sorts of fascinating information, such as that if you bring your own flag the navy people will hoist it up on their flag pulley and give you a signed document stating this fact ("Let it be herein acknowledged that Ruby Brown's 17 x 34 flag was hereby hoisted up this here starboard mainshaft at approximately 15:04 on Tuesday, the 25th of September 2007, and it did thereby cause consternation when lowered on account of it wrapped itself around two midshipmen and refused to unhand them. Signed, officially, Major Sergeant Lieutenant Corporal Cook Bottlewasher X. Confucius").

The tour guide will also tell you that "Old Ironsides," as the ship is nicknamed, is not actually made of iron. It is made of jelly donuts. No, really, its sides have three layers of extremely dense wood. You may remember this nickname from your school days, though I doubt you were told the ship wasn't really iron. I sure wasn't. This is yet another example of how troubled our school systems really are. You have to watch out for those teachers, especially when they've just had their seventh Jelly-Filled Munchkin.

Near the Constitution is a museum called, you guessed it, the U.S.S Constitution Museum. It has many thousands of little plaques and signs that you must read, if you are me, and for those spouses (like mine) who are not inclined to read every single sign there are ample hammocks provided for a little rest and relaxation. Really. On the top floor of the museum is a display showing what life was like on the ship, and there are several hammocks suspended in a row in which the sailors slept (hopefully not these actual ones). If you read the little sign that invites you to get in one of these things, you can lie down and no on will disturb you for quite some time. If you come upon a figure sleeping in one of these hammocks, it is probably my spouse. Please send him home.

Tomorrow: More exciting things to do!

Joggin' donuts

You might be interested in knowing a little about the state that Boston resides in. (If not, please go do something you find more engaging, such as harvesting zucchini.) Boston is of course in Massachusetts, whose name means "You are never more than 50 feet from a Dunkin' Donuts." There is a Dunkin' Donuts on every corner and often in between the corners. I remember seeing a large concentration of these fine establishments in Vermont on a previous visit to that state. In fact, Vermont's chief industry is donuts. They have passed a law mandating approximately 2.3 Dunkin' Donuts stores for every resident of Vermont, plus a few extra for visitors, who descend upon the state in large droves every fall and winter to partake of these fine treats.

But back to Massachusetts and Boston. As a direct result, I personally think, of the abundance of Dunkin' Donuts, everyone in Boston -- and I mean everyone, including fox terriers and ducks -- jogs. Boston must be The Most Fit City (as opposed to where I live, which was voted Most Unfit City a few years back, and we don't have nearly the amount of donut establishments). And of course there is the Boston Marathon, which is a famous annual race between joggers and tourist trolleys. The trolleys have yet to win, because they are always being disqualified for making unscheduled stops. Meanwhile, the joggers yell jeering things at the trolleys as they whiz past, such as "My Munchkin can run faster than you!" Due to the dismal operation of trolleys in the city, the tourist office is thinking of hiring joggers to take visitors around.

When you visit Boston, you will also notice that there are no crime-ridden areas, unless you count the office where we bought our trolley tickets. Since it is inconceivable that no such places exist, I think the city moves them around, at night, so they are always in a different spot and tourists never see them.

So now you know a little about Massachusetts and Boston, probably less than you wanted to know, certainly less than the average preschooler learns in school. Tomorrow we'll take a look at some of the very interesting things to do in Boston. Besides going to Dunkin' Donuts.

The inn

Some concern has been expressed that these travel blogs are getting a little long, and that perhaps some readers may lose interest. So, under advisement, I have shortened today's entry, which describes the inn where we stayed:

Our inn was OK.

(We hope you enjoyed this "virtually useless tour" of our inn! If not, you may continue reading the rest of my description, which is entirely optional. Remember, you can stop reading here.)

The T deposited us and our considerable luggage in a lovely neighborhood of "brownstones" (a New England term meaning "uppity rowhouses that all look alike"). We had no idea which one housed our inn (another New England term for "fancy bed and breakfast, but with fewer letters"), and we stood like orphans abandoned on the side of the stagecoach stop in the old West, looking for the family who supposedly wanted to adopt us. We began our very methodical search by choosing a side of the street completely at random. Of course it was the wrong side, as a helpful passerby explained to us when we told her what number we were looking for. House numbers, as far as we could tell, are a closely guarded secret that is not shared with outsiders. You have to look very closely to see them, as some are on the roof, some are hidden in the grass, and no doubt others are inside the house.

Phone numbers, too, apparently are not meant to be useful in Boston. When we called what should have been a helpful person at the front desk for directions, we got only a recording, reassuring us that someone would be available at 8:30 Monday morning. It was 6:30 Sunday evening.

You might guess that I was not kindly disposed toward this inn, even before we had located it. Assuming we did locate it.

But we did, and the first thing I noticed was that we had been given a room on the third floor, and of course there was no elevator. "Well," I said cheerfully to Joe, "you're always complaining that you have no time to work out. Here's your chance."

But our room offered the usual charming features of an old inn -- it was hard to tell whether its name, The Inn at 1750, referred to the address or to the date it was built -- including original wood floors; a charming fireplace in the lobby; faded, peeling wallpaper; a lumpy bed, etc. Upon entering the room, I did what any traveler does: I looked for the evaluation card. Not surprisingly, I did not find one. Only establishments that are either smugly secure in their service or that are bent on being told everything they're doing wrong put out evaluation cards.

The pillowcases and sheets looked very tired, as if they had been pressed into service in 1750 and not been given a break since. But we slept soundly enough, and in the morning we went downstairs to experience the second part of our stay: breakfast.

If any other guests had been dining -- and I use that word loosely -- at the same time as us, they would have had to sit on our laps. There was no seating in the lobby, which was where the breakfast was located, and both the quaint table on the porch and the one in the front yard had only one chair. Either there was a desperate shortage of lawn chairs in this neighborhood, or we were unknowingly staying at a B&B for singles.

Breakfast itself, in the grand tradition of bed & breakfast establishments, seemed to originate at the 7-Eleven store down the street. There were bagels and peanut butter and an enormous cooler of water to wash these down with. There was also something that looked like coffee, but since we didn't try it we couldn't be sure.

Buoyed by this hearty breakfast, we set off for a day of exploration, returning quite late and falling into our lumpy bed, which was just as tired as we were. The next morning we were awakened, at a very early hour, by the sound of voices conversing excitedly, and loudly, in Spanish. I strained to catch some words I might recognize, but the voices did not seem to be discussing either the numbers 1-10 or the command to "sit down," which represent my sole knowledge of Spanish. I remembered that some work was being done in some of the other rooms and concluded that they were getting an early start. For a terrifying instant, I wondered whether they were coming to work on our room, and would cheerfully tell us in Spanish that we did not need to move on their account, we could just "sit down."

I will say that the inn graciously allowed us to keep our luggage there after we had checked out, as our plane did not leave until later in the evening. And at no extra charge, either. Of course, we have not checked our Discover bill yet.