Slavery

Matthew is at the age where I can leave him to do things without having to worry that he'll do something stupid like ... lick the wall socket, plug a fork into an outlet or even burn the house down. Not that he's ever tried to do any of the above, but it's nice to know he's at the age where common sense rules and he won't even try to pull stupid stunts like that since he knows how bad the consequences would be. Those who know me have a pretty good idea what that would be. He's pretty self sufficient and can even prepare little meals for himself. If I can only get him to do his own laundry and iron his own clothes. Then again, it shows that he still needs me.


We have been home for the Thanksgiving holiday and got into the spirit of decorating the house for the upcoming Christmas season. We went down to get the tree and all the decorations. Tony assembled the tree and we let Matthew take over. It was quite nice to be able to sit back and watch Matthew decorate the whole entire tree with the ornaments that we've managed to collect over the years. When you put a 12 year old in charge, the tree will be pretty skewed as to what his favorite ornaments are. The tree is completely covered with Star Wars, Star Trek, Spiderman, Ironman, Batman and lots of Toy Story ornaments. You will find the occasional family ornament up there but for the most part, its a tree that any 12 year old boy would take pride in. What ever happened to the conventional Christmas balls and tinsel?

So, there is something to be said about having children. If I had known the benefits would be this great, I'd have about two more to even out the work load in the house. Tony and I can sit back and start delegating.

Organs for sale

About two months ago, an invitation arrived in the mail from the People to People Ambassador Program. The letter was formal, bore the presidential seal on it and was addressed to Matthew. As the parent, I opened the letter and read through it. My first thought, it was a scam. Hey, I'm from New York. I suspect everything is a scam until I am able to verify the information. Armed with the letter, I logged into the website, read the information. I did further due diligence (did I not tell you that I am in the legal field as well?), called the number furnished in the letter and peppered the representative on the phone with a ton of questions.

I made some other phone calls, found out that the organization is in fact, legit and has been around for about 50 years. It was started by President Dwight D. Eisenhower for children to learn about different cultures. It was his effort to promote world peace if children can learn to understand and appreciate different cultures. Each year, children are nominated by teachers or other means and go through a rigorous process. We received the invitation to go to the open house and meet some of the kids who have participated in the program. I took Tony and Matthew with me and to my surprise, Matthew was very excited about being invited and really wanted to participate.

Wait. Not so fast. There was a whole process that needed to be completed before you even find out if you have been selected to be one of the 40 delegates from the Connecticut area.

I reached out to Mr. Monteith, Matthew's favorite teacher from Shanghai, reached out to a teacher at his current school and roped an adult (who shall remain nameless - and no, it wasn't Tony or me) into writing letters of recommendations for Matthew. Matthew had to write an essay about his favorite activities and then had to appear before the review board for his interview.

We found out that he has been formally accepted into the program. Thus is why my organs are now up for sale. This will be a 20 day journey through Europe for Matthew and 39 other delegates. He will have the chance to visit France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. That is 20 days without my child in the house. Tony and I will be experiencing the empty nest syndrome early. The cost of this nomination, quite costly. I'm trying to figure out how to squeeze the budget in order to make this trip a reality for my child. As a parent, you will do anything for your child. I mean anything. So if you know anyone who is in need for very healthy organs, give me a call. The next sale will be my vast collection of designer shoes and bags. Look for the signs leading up to my house for the yard sale.

Food Coma

I have worked with Terry at Duracell for seven years. In these years, we have become friends and our families have occasionally, gone out to eat together. The strange thing is Terry and Tanya have never been physically inside my house. Terry has made it to the door a couple of times, but has never physically entered my house, not even to use the rest room. So yesterday, we decided to finally invite him and his wife Tanya over for dinner. Of course, dinner alone would not suffice. Anyone who knows us, knows that it's usually a food orgy that leads to a coma by the end of the evening. We started in the morning by going to a restaurant in White Plains, New York where you can get traditional Hong Kong style dim sum. Terry and Tanya love good dim sum as much as Susan and I do so that was a no - brainer. After a quick stop at the Chinese and Japanese market to pick up the necessities, we then headed back to my house for drinks, cheese and hors d'oeuvres followed by dinner. We decided to make it a full blown party, so invited Al and Dawn as well. Well, as you can imagine, it was a non-stop food fest that started in the morning and ended late in the evening. I really enjoy having good friends over to eat drink and of course, be merry.

Changing

I came across this picture the other day of me and father in Rome in 1982. I was 20 years old. What struck me about this picture was how much I've physically changed over the years. You could almost say this picture is a "before and after" shot of my body. My father was about my age when this picture was taken. I now look more like him on the left and less like me on the right. Boy, life is cruel! I am not saying that I don't want to look my father...... well, okay that's what I'm saying, hey who doesn't want to be bald and fat? . I know I've changed over the years but because it happened so gradual, I didn't realize how much of a change it was until I saw this picture. Okay, so now I've depressed myself but hopefully it will push me into improving my look. Only time will tell.