I have felt like a hamster on a wheel lately and now I know more about furnaces that I care to since we had to have two new ones installed.  Our old ones were put in when the Bears won the Superbowl, which was a very very long time ago.  Nothing says Merry Christmas like a Trane furnace to keep you warm and toasty.  Hopefully the warm fuzzy feeling will last cause I think that’s all Santa will be bringing to Chez H.  I just wish we could put a red bow around it.

We took in our share of soccer games over the weekend.  I have never witnessed such poor sportsmanship and nasty behavior.  But the most shocking thing was that it wasn’t the players getting down and dirty, but their parents!  My son’s team was losing when a parent from the opposing team shouted out to, “kick ‘em where it counts!”  That got our coach going who told the woman that she was really displaying her class.  Then the woman’s husband jumped in and got in the coach’s face.  To quote one of Ham’s Fancy Nancy books, “mad is way too plain for how I feel.”  I jumped up and told the man to , “zip it!”  So in the end I’m just as bad as they are.  And, we’re teaching our kids that this whole soccer thing is supposed to be fun, right?

Since last week’s big vp debate was on at 8pm in the central time zone, my third grader was still awake and eating a dish of icecream in the kitchen while I cleaned up.  Of course the tv was on so I decided to give him a little quiz.  They have talked about the election at school and he knows who is running for President but I wasn’t sure if he knew the running mates.  When the camera cut to Biden, he came up empty.  Then there was a close-up of Palin and I said she was McCain’s running mate and she would be the first woman VP should McCain win.  He sort of nodded like he had heard of her so I pressed on.  “You’ve probably heard her name a lot on TV or read it in the paper on your way to the sports page.  Her fist name is Sarah..(I was sure he was gonna pull it out)”  I could see it was on the tip of his tongue until he blurted out “Sarah…Borealis!” 

Maybe the school is not covering this “historic” election as much as I thought they were.  Now I know we have some work to do so some day he doesn’t end up on a segment like Jay Leno’s “Jay walking.”

The other night I came in the kitchen and found Bubbles, my son’s goldfish floating in the bowl.  This was the replacement goldfish for the one that died the day after he won it at the icecream social.

Is there any better way for our kids to learn about life and death than through a pet goldfish?  We had three of them die rapid fire.  First there was Bubbles followed by Peanut, followed by Raspberry.  Considering that my kids lost both of their grandfathers in the space of two years,  no one was more surprised than me at their despair.  But I guess that big or little, a loss is a loss.

  So Bubbles was placed in a box to be buried outside.  Somehow my son thought it better to hide him on a shelf in our library.  After about a week I noted a strong odor and thought perhaps it was time to have the sewer rodded.  Then I remembered the fish and when my son got home from school asked him where he buried it.  Aha!  So now we just have Princess Pea, Ham’s fish, and I fear she too is on her last leg..or fin.