Author: Maria Johnson

Archimedes makes it a clean sweep

The senior awards at the annual Magnet Banquet featured the coveted mathematics bust. Jonathan has managed to get it every year, and this year the competition was tighter than ever. He didn’t know right up until he heard his name. We were pleased, first for his achievement (we are proud of you, Boy!) but also because it has turned into such a fun way to torment Christine, and abuse the bust. Each previous bust wears a special hat. There’s a Harry Potter Wizard’s pointy cap, a Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat cap, and the new round of caps, Santa, Varsity, and a Giraffe hat.

And now, we have Archimedes, who transitions from the mathematician, to bishop, to Yellow Jacket. It looks like he picks up a medal or two as well.

I just drank poison

It’s called Cherry Coke Zero.

Look, I used to smoke cigarettes and drink Tab; it’s not like I have an aversion to chemicals. But, really. This is the sickest thing I’ve had in a while. Grosser, even, than Vanilla Coke, and that tasted like sucking on a vanilla candle.

Why can’t Coca-Cola leave well-enough alone? And why does the high school think it’s a good move to remove all the high-calorie Coke products because of health reasons, but leave the foul and poisonous cancer-causing saccharine products?

Riddle me this Batman: What’s in a sexy little bottle disguised with the Coke logo and a silly cartoon cherry? Cherry Dimetapp.

Who thought medicine was a good taste for a soft drink?

Not me.

Coke, you have disappointed me for the last time. I’m drinking water from now on. From the water fountain.

quick, grab a pencil!

There’s so much going on right now that I have taken to writing a growing list of things that need to be done and checked off the list. Baaah. Spring makes me crazy. Spring plus graduation makes me crazier! And yes, Jonathan graduates this year. Unbelievable. Where did all that time go? Where is my pudgy little boy content to crawl into my lap for cosquillitas?

Um, he’s a big pudgy boy trying to maneuver his way into my lap for cosquillitas. Well, he won’t actually attempt to sit in my lap, but I might be watching tv or sitting in the back seat of the truck and he will plop one of his gigantic-sized limbs into my lap. So fresh.

Anyway, lots and lots and lots of other things happening over the next several months, too. One of them is the Catholic New Media Celebration in Boston, August 6-7. In fact, that’s going to be a biggie. One of the speakers, the delightful and talented Sarah Reinhard of Another Day of Catholic Pondering  and the “voice” of Mary Moments at CatholicMom.com is one of the presenters on blogging! Imagine that. She blogs. She’s Catholic. She’s funny. She’s real.

And she has lost her mind and turned over her precious blog to a guest post from little ole me.

You should go over there and read it and comment on it so she invites me again. Oh, and read her stuff, too. It’s charming. And much more interesting than the phone book.

first lightning bug of the season!

I am soooo excited!

I saw the first lightning bug of the season. At first I thought I was imagining things, so of course I practically went blind from the strain of looking. But sure enough, he gave me another little flash and then he was gone.

I love them. It’s not like those little bugs are charming, or soft and cuddly. I mean, they’re bugs after all. Still, there’s something about them, along with honeysuckles, that makes me think of my childhood and the carefree days of summer vacations and community pools and yes, chasing bugs, barefoot, and capturing them in jars with holes poked in the lid.

If the smell of my childhood summers can be wrapped up in the scent of honeysuckles, then surely it would be illuminated by the lightning bugs — ethereal — mysterious –within reach, and yet…not.

my to-do list

1. make good coffee

2. do laundry

3. clean the bathroom

4. get gas

5. grade papers

6. sing a song (mortifying to me)

7. do more laundry

8. grade more papers

9. write a book (that’s a challenge)

10. hunt for a boa constrictor

some yang for the yin

Things I don’t like:

1. allergies

2. mean girls who grow up to be mean women

3. bifocals

4. slow internet

5. selfish ingrates

6. laundry

7. fakes

8. traffic

9. detective stories

10. creamed spinach