Thursday, October 30, 2008

Come Aboard...We're Expecting You!

My in-laws left today for a cruise. For most of the morning, I tortured them with the theme from "The Love Boat", the swell show that ran from 1977-1986. Love, exciting and new....Come aboard we're expecting you! Love, life's sweetest reward, let it flow, it flows back to you!

Now I can't get that damned song out of my head! I've been hearing it all day. I'm belting it out in the car...Set a course for adventure your mind on a new romance. Chip and Lulu have been giving me weird looks. Love won't hurt anymore... Surfer Guy came home from work to the love boat soon will be making another run... And now he's singing it in the other room. We did a duet in the kitchen for the kids just before dinner. This song is stuck. And I don't even like it much. I was being annoying to my in-laws on purpose and this is what happened. It's karma.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Get Your Flu Shot!

During the flu epidemic of 1918 (by the way, a flu epidemic that swept the world and killed an estimated 50 million people), my grandfather was so sick, the priest came to give him last rites. Clearly, he survived or I wouldn't be here to write my swell blog. But hearing that story gave me a strong understanding for how deadly the flu can be. In fact, scientists say that if THAT particular strain ever comes back, it would be just as deadly.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the California Women's Conference as a guest of CVS/Pharmacy . I was really excited to attend the conference as I had heard lots about it and it sold out within 3 hours of tickets going on sale! CVS had a booth set up and were giving 1000 free flu shots to the first 1,000 attendees to stop by. When I visited the booth in the early afternoon, they had actually already given out 1,000 but were going to keep going as long as people wanted vaccines. The booth was humming along and there was a steady stream of visitors. I have a special bond with CVS as I worked there way back when I was in high school in Massachusetts and it is my favorite drugstore. Now that they are nationwide, I'm so psyched that I can go out here in LA. I actually did not take them up on their kind offer of a free flu shot as I had already gotten one two weeks ago at Chip and Lulu's pediatrician (that I paid for, drag!)

I had fun strolling around the exhibit floor with Lulu strapped into her Ergo baby carrier. There were lots of informative booths and lots of freebies, which I always love, of course. They had fabulous speakers in the convention hall. I had the chance to hear Maria Shriver and Condoleeza Rice among others. Some of my comrades at The Los Angeles Moms Blog blogged live all day at the event and have some great posts up on the site. So check them out. You can even see a video of one of our moms getting a flu shot at the CVS booth.

I'm very grateful to CVS/Pharmacy for getting me into this awesome event! You can stop into any CVS/Pharmacy yourself and get a flu shot, at low cost. I recommend you do it, the flu is a serious illness....Ask my grandfather.

Monday, October 20, 2008

First Homework

My father used to complain that he was "still in school" because he had to help me with my homework. Well, I think I was hitting him up for help with CALCULUS and CHEMISTRY. Plus, I was in honors and AP classes, so there.....

Chip is two years old and I had to do his first homework assignment. Dear lord, is this the start of 16 more years of this?

Last week Chip came running out the door of his class room waving a paper lunch bag. Stapled to the bag was a cute little note with colored leaves as clip art, it read: Please collect as many leaves as you can in this bag and return it to school. Obviously there was some autumnal project on the horizon. Now, as you recall, I am from New England, the epicenter of Fall Foliage. Leaf peepers come from all over the world to see our leaves turn each October. I now live in Los Angeles and as far as I am concerned, we have no foliage season. I look into our backyard with new eyes. But, just as I had thought, the palms, lemon tree and avocado tree weren't exactly dropping leaves. Let me rephrase: There were no leaves anywhere in the yard. Perplexed, I asked Surfer Guy. He responded that he thought there were some oak trees in the park and we might find leaves there.

So I started to stress. Mind you, Chip has no idea. He can't read and when I mentioned the leaf assignment to him, he pretty much seemed to have no clue. Ha! The teachers know it's the parents doing this and they know there are NO leaves in LA. So we went to the park today. I found some decent leaves I guess. Not really much for color and pretty dried out. But passable I guess. I ran around like a fool stuffing the leaves into the bag. I asked Chip to help but he just laughed, pointed at me and ran to play on the slide. On the way out of the park I noticed some nice red leaves on the ground so I stuffed some of those in the bag. Now, I'm wondering how many kids (read: parents) actually are going to complete this assignment. I hope the teacher gives me extra credit.