I was making an appointment for my next haircut at my last appointment (my hair dresser is that popular and busy!) and it happened that it fell on March 15th, the Ides of March. We both commented on it and she said, “I wonder what that means, though?”
I promptly forgot about the discussion – until I read The Memoirs of Cleopatra and the conversation came back to me. Besides the fact that March 15th is the date Caesar was assassinated, did that date have any special meaning?
Nope, apparently not. According to Infoplease, in the Roman calendar the Ides was just a way of marking the middle of the month. In fact, only three days had names – Kalends, the first day; Nones, the 7th or the 5th depending on the month; and Ides, the 15th or the 13th also depending on the month. All the other days were specified by counting forward or backward from one of those days. (Probably a good thing they weren’t quite as time-bound as we are today because could you imagine trying to set a meeting based on a calendar like that??) The rest of the spooky connotation was gifted to us by Shakespeare in the play Julius Caesar and the now famous soothsayer’s warning to Caesar. Funny how that sort of thing sticks around, isn’t it? (Any author’s dream!)
In short, nothing to see here folks, just another day. Unless you happen to be in Rome where the Hash House Harriers do an annual toga run past the spot where Caesar was killed. Think Caesar would be honored, amused, horrified, or just puzzled?
Tennis was canceled all weekend because after the rain we had on Thursday afternoon / evening the courts were flooded. So were many of the streets – and my living room. My pretty floor to ceiling windows are apparently very badly sealed. I didn’t have any sandbags handy so I used beach towels to mop up the large puddles (this during my first party in my new place!). Makes me very happy that our new building has a laundry room with large washers and dryers in the basement – because what a wet mess!
I’m happy to say that the get-together with my friends went well in spite of the weather and the mess. But I do have to start all over again with my windows and floors now!
The “brilliant” post idea came back to me, and as I suspected it wasn’t that great anyway. My thought was: when you have a monstrously huge zit blemish and you are sure you can see the person you are talking to looking at it so you make an apologetic comment / joke about it and the person you are talking to totally denies noticing anything, are they lying just to be nice or have you just drawn their attention to the one thing that you didn’t want them to notice anyway?
(It might amuse you to know that this idea came back to me last night as I was washing my face. I don’t care what dermatologists say – enough chocolate and I get zits. End of story.)
I like to look at my blog stats, not only to see how many visits I get on a given day but also to see what searches have led people to my blog. One of the most consistently popular searches is for people wanting to convert their digital books from one format to another. That one I can understand. The next most popular lately is for people searching on “birthday ear pulling” which is funny enough but “birthday ear pulling with cake” really amuses me. I had a post of birthday traditions from around the world on one of my own birthdays, but I am happy to say that no one actually pulled my ear. I wouldn’t have permitted that even if they had offered me cake!
It does make me remember that when I was a child, the other children always took the opportunity to give you a “birthday spanking”, the number of smacks corresponding to the number of years. I suppose that’s a tradition that has totally died out. Try that these days and you’ll end up in the headlines for assault.
This adorable creature (chick? duck?) is the product of an after school art club my son attended this term. If you don’t let yourself get distracted by all the bling you can see where he started his stitching, so neatly and carefully, and then became bored and just wanted to finish. The fact that he stitched the whole thing at all is impressive to me – he’s a seven year old boy after all!
I had this great idea for a blog post the other night as I was on my way to bed and then the next morning…POOF! Gone. Only the lingering feeling of what a great idea it was remained. If it was such a great idea, it will probably come back to me, however I have the feeling it was probably one of those night thoughts that seems so good at that moment but pales by the light of day.
I’ve been really making progress getting our new house to feel like home. I’m still finding things in odd places – like the corncob fork I found in my tea canister this morning (that could almost be construed as a boobytrap as sharp as they are!) I’m having some friends over on Thursday night so of course I want everything to look as nice as possible (and if I skip my bedroom on the tour, they ought to be impressed!) Yesterday I got out the really tall community ladder and washed the windows in my living room (that was just for me because they wouldn’t be able to see the dirt and smears at night) and I even made a start on hanging a few pictures. I worked so hard all morning that I could have used a nap by afternoon!
Why was I in such a frenzy? Because I hadn’t realized it until yesterday, but my children have a two day holiday this week so will be underfoot until Sunday. They are old enough to entertain themselves, but not when mom is up a tall ladder! Today I’ll have to confine myself to surfaces lower to the ground. I also have a few errands to run, including buying more nails and looking for some lamps.
If I’m really efficient, I’ll even get to wash and iron some of the fabric I’m planning to use for the commission quilt. As much as I dislike ironing, it would be more fun than cleaning the disaster zone that is my bedroom!*
*I only wish I could blame the move for the fact that my bedroom is a disaster zone. The truth is that it was pretty bad when we moved and the movers simply transferred it as is. I’ve compounded things by moving all the things I don’t want to see anywhere else there, including my husband’s mountain bike, an item I defy any decorator to work around…
I used to set my alarm for 6:30am, but that didn’t really leave me enough time to get up, make school lunches, and herd the children through their morning routine without an awful lot of hurry up, hurry up, hurry up! So now I set my alarm for 6am – which would work wonderfully well if only I would actually get up at 6am. Instead I tend to hit the snooze button three times and get up closer to 6:20am. Getting up even twenty minutes late still leaves me just enough time to get everything done with a minimum of nagging most mornings.
I had planned to make French toast over the weekend, but since I was actually the last one up both mornings (lucky me!) it didn’t happen. Instead I decided that I’d make it for breakfast today. When I told my husband my plan last night, he scoffed. He gets up at 5:30am and says he always knows what time it is when he hears my alarm going off over and over again.
I took it as a personal challenge to get up on time this morning.
I admit I still hit snooze 2x, but even getting up 5 minutes earlier than usual left me time to make four pieces of French toast for the children this morning. Just imagine what I could get done in a day if I got up the first time the alarm went off? If I got up when my husband does, I could practically take over the world!
It’s finished. The movers came on Tuesday and spent all day packing, then came back on Wednesday to move the boxes and furniture and unpack – and by unpack I mean empty the contents of all of the boxes. Every item we own is strewn all over our new home. Guess what I’ll be doing for the next week or so? I worked steadily all of yesterday morning and sort of got the kitchen sorted out.
More reflections on moving next week…
In the meantime, I hope everyone enjoys the weekend, and if you observe the holiday coming up on Sunday I hope you enjoy it. The florists in Cairo seem to be gearing up for a big day:
(click image to enlarge)
If the sight of hundreds of executed hanged teddy bears doesn’t get you in a romantic mood, nothing will.
My seven year old son hates to do his homework. None of his assignments are difficult and most could be finished in under fifteen minutes if only he would settle down and just do it. Instead he complains, procrastinates, and has tantrums all of which make it a much more painful drawn out process than it has to be.
I’ve tried various ways to encourage him to get the work done and out of the way – most of which includes LOUD voices and threats. Today I decided to switch tactics: bribery. Do your homework and you can have a lollipop. I’ll let you know how it works out.
But as I was thinking of how to best motivate him to do his homework, this Chris Farley skit from Saturday Night Live popped into my brain. It still makes me laugh after all these years:
I’ve mentioned before that the children’s tennis coach likes to motivate and reward the children he teaches with prizes from time to time. The rewards vary widely (remember the leopard slippers?) Sometimes he might give them a few pieces of candy and other times he might come up with something high end, like a tennis bag.
Last week my son won all the matches in his group and he got what looked like a stuffed monkey as a prize. Little did I know it wasn’t just any stuffed monkey. He dances too.
I love this monkey so much I got out my tripod and figured out how to take videos with my new camera – I even registered at YouTube to share this with you. It’s amusing and absurd at the same time – I only regret that Queen isn’t being paid royalties every time I press the button on his arm. But really – overalls? Given the song lyrics, shouldn’t the monkey really be wearing a leather jacket at the very least?
The children’s tennis coach is a funny guy. One of his main objectives with younger children is to make them “love tennis” and to achieve this, he rewards them with various things. Once in a while he comes up with something practical like a tennis bag or wrist bands but most of the time he gives them candy and inexpensive stuffed animals that make LOUD animal noises and have creepy flashing eyes.
This week, the coach had an impromptu mini-tournament in my son’s group. Since my son won 4 of his 4 games, he was #1 in the tournament and won the grand prize, to be given to his mother.
(click image to enlarge – if necessary!)
As you can see, he stuck to the animal theme! They are at least a size too big for me and the sole is pretty insubstantial and squashy so my foot is always slipping off to one side – not to mention that the bottom is sort of sticky and loud when I walk.
I have a couple of nice pairs of slippers from L.L. Bean and Cabelas, but the little man is so proud I just have to wear these for a while, even if they make my feet sweat.
I suppose it could be worse – at least I can make an argument for not wearing them in public!
I write books for fun so why is it so hard to write my own bio? I am an American currently living in Cairo, Egypt. Aside from writing, I'm a married mom of two under ten, a decent (if reluctant) cook, an encyclopedia of random scientific / medical facts, a wine lover (but not a snob!), and a Capricorn. I love to travel, spend time with good friends, and laugh at life's surprises. View of life - definitely half full.
