okay, so it’s been a while since I posted — in case you haven’t been updated since, rest assured all is well!? My daughter is back in good health, and questionable taste in music.? In fact, she is preparing for her first formal dance tonight with The Boy.? The Boy, as in the one who is also My Student.? The one to whom, during the course of a phone conversation, she felt compelled to tell My Age.? As if she didn’t know this was breaking All Rules of Etiquette Whatsoever.? As if having my students believe I am 27 is a bad thing.? Even if it means the smart ones do the math and wonder for a split second if I really had her when I was 12.? Geeeeezzz.

But I digress.

Today was the day of The Dance.? Despite the fact that the dance is at night, preparations fully begin hours in advance.? Now I’m not saying she was nervous.? I’m also not saying she put her stockings on in the car, managed to ruin them in record time by puncturing her thumb right through while pulling them up, or that we had to make an emergency run to the nearest Rite Aid so she didn’t have a panic attack.? And I’m not mentioning that she blurted out? “DEODORANT!!!” at the top of her lungs as we were going 60 on the freeway as she remembered the other thing she forgot.

So while I didn’t say this, I did what all good moms do — found the one thing that would put her at ease: the Simon & Garfunkel CD.? We drove the rest of the way belting out “Ceeellllia… I’m down on my kneeees… I’m begging you pleeaase to come home…” with quirky smiles on our faces.

She got to The Boy’s house in good spirits, with only a quick flash of terror as the yippie dogs jumped on her 15 minute-old stockings.? She even took the obligatory “date pictures” semi-willingly.? And The Boy even bought her a lovely corsage.? Still, the “mom math” question remained: if the dance starts at 8pm, and dinner is at 6pm at Panera, where does the other hour and a half go?? (Let’s face it, even a teen can’t stretch a turkey sandwich out to more than half an hour.)

Turns out, The Boy decided to earn his cahones back.? After being beaten soundly at air hockey, (my daughter has an unbroken record,) he did what any good man would do — challenge her to a video game she has never heard of on his turf.? So she spent her “pre-dance” date time playing Call of Duty wearing an evening gown and no deodorant.

Which, I suspect, was exactly the way she would have wanted it.

(Inspired by dd’s homework: “Mom, you can relate to this math problem…”)

My answer — you wanna math problem I can relate to??

If there are 12 dishes in the sink, and it’s my night to wash, how many extra pieces did everyone suddenly “discover” around the house if it now takes me 25 minutes to finish my chore?

Unfortunately the answer to this problem is unpredictably infinite, so there is no real number except to say that when the cupboard is completely bare you know you have reached the limit as n->infinity.

(her actual problem related to matting a 5×7 picture where the mat was twice as wide at the top & bottom than it is on the sides.? My answer: nobody mats a picture that way because it looks stupid.? Not even math book writers.? What are they teaching kids these days, anyway?!?)

If your daughter’s marching band is playing for the Big Football Game, and the game is an hour and a half long, and she practiced for roughly 56 hours this week (but who’s counting), and the weather is rain-mixed-with-hail-with-a-90% chance-of-crappy, how long will her “Thriller/Eye of the Tiger/Rock & Roll Part 2″ medley be?

a) 8 minutes

b) 8 minutes, but feels like 30 if the temperature of the bleachers is -20 degrees (Einstein’s “Band Medley” Theory of Relativity)

c) what medley?? I stayed home and took a bubble bath : P *

* lest you think I am a horrible mom, the game was called due to crappy weather (did I call it or what?)? The kids decided to stay and play in the mud anyway; the parents went home and had a glass of wine/ bubble bath/ movie and waited for their young to fully wear themselves out.? By the next day, after everyone had showered and slept in, all was right with the world.

yeah… I kinda don’t even know where to begin with this one.? House painting is a brand new adventure for me.? So I’ll start with just the facts, ma’am.? And since I’ve recently been trying to convince my daughter that geometry is significant, let me tell this little tale in the form of a Geometric Proof:

1. My house needs to be painted.? (Given)
2. The current “color scheme” is gray-blue with tomato trim.? (“color scheme” is still a theory.? Colors: Given.)
3. I hate the current color scheme.? (um, given.)
4. So, I went up to Home Depot to choose new colors.?? (When you live .4 miles from The Big HD.? Given.? I think they have an isle named after me : P)
5. I choose medium blue with navy trim.? (if you’ve ever seen my wardrobe, Given.)
6. Well, technically I chose “Ocean View”, “Seven Seas”, and “Planetarium”.? (Inverse Color Naming Postulate)
7. Did you know house paint is available in 4 oz. sample jars??? (Homeowner’s Are Suckers Theorem; Inverse Wallet Theorem.)
8. I figured I’d test out the colors first, so I bought the samples.? (Damn good thing I did, too.)
9. They look nothing like the little card.? (Inverse Swatch Card Postulate)

Testing Paint Colors -- you decide!

sooo……. left side? right side? neither?? Luckily I have had a good relationship with my neighbors thus far.? But clearly, there are no guarantees.? Other than that blue is BLUE, even when it’s called “Planetarium”.