BlazingEwe and I took our children out to lunch at favored spot yesterday.  The fare is grilled hamburgers, fabulous fries, blistering buffalo wings and old-fashioned milkshakes.  During the warmish months there is outdoor seating.  The LightChildren and the FlamingLambs had their own table next to ours where we could keep our eye on them but have our own conversation.  Sometimes tho, we like to listen in on theirs because it’s hilariously funny.

We’ve discovered that our children have a fascination with appetites.  Theirs.  And that of adults.  They love to observe how much everyone else eats and compare it with how much they can eat.  This is not a judgemental thing.  They do not do this and then think things such as, “Well … of course they’re so FAT look how much they eat.”  They just sit in awe of how much food someone else can consume because in their minds it is a mark of greater adultness.  Or something.  It means more greater to them.  They remark constantly on the ability of FlamingLamb1 to eat an ADULT burger AND fries AND shake from the above establishment.  They tell this story to their friends with big eyes and nodding heads and the eyes of friends grow big and heads nod in return.  FlamingLamb1 must indeed be a heroine of great distinction.

So yesterday, when I heard the following story from LightBoy I had to bite my tongue and and cheeks to keep from laughing out loud.  iPete became legend to these 5 children round about the lunch table as they sat in the sun.  Here’s how it happened.  They had just finished going around discussing what they had ordered and how much each of them could eat of their lunch and gotten back to LightBoy.  He stopped the conversation with, “NO!  Wait.  You don’t understand.  Mr. Pete came here once.  He ordered the ADULT hotdog AND the ADULT hamburger and he ate them BOTH plus ALL the fries AND both drinks.”  With that he sat back and basked in the glory of having the best story of the day.  And three pairs of eyes the size of dinner plates stared back at him.  The fourth pair (his sister’s) just nodded in agreement.  For she too had born witness to this feat of glory.

This afternoon I discovered that I am a lousy Christian. I’ve always sort of known this. But today I found just how deep this vein runs. Here’s the scenario.

I needed to get gas for the LightMobile and I was running on the knife edge of being late for an appointment. I stopped at a gas station. For some reason, best known only to the prince of the powers of the air, the pumps were flashing a sign that said, “Pay cashier before pumping gas.” So I did. I pumped my gas. Just as I finished and climbed into my seat to pull away, a guy in a shiny, expensive Acura backed into the pump in front of me. There was a truck pulled in, waiting, behind me. I had to wait. The guy in the Acura was about 50 and far too proud of his muscles and his wraparound RayBans. He had the gall to wave and nod at me. I did not wave back. I did not think kind and gracious thoughts about him. Then I was late for my appointment. But it had nothing to do with Mr. Musclehead.

Life gets busy around the LightHouse sometimes. We don’t always get to have dinner together. Tonight was one of those nights. LightHusband was late getting home from a meeting and had just enough time to change from his suit to casual clothes and run out the door with LightGirl to her hockey practice. This left LightBoy and I with the opportunity to go out to dinner together. He picked IHOP. Yum. He had a Belgian Waffle with blueberry compote on top and bacon. I had Harvest Grain ‘Nuts pancakes, eggs and sausage.

There were several loud conversations going on around us. Not loud, as in tense. Just loud. As in the people who were having them had big voices and one was sort of forced to listen to them.

One was an early teenager whining and being disrespectful to her mother and generally mean to her younger brother. She was sullen and I was finding it very difficult to have gracious loving thoughts about her. In fact, I was finding it impossible.

The other loudmouth was part of a group. There looked to be a couple with two very young children and then the parents of one of the couple. The loudmouth was the husband/father of the young children. He was dominating the conversation. In the way that no one else seemed to be talking. He seemed to be speaking to the older lady and he spoke in such a way that it looked as though he was talking down to her. I thought that was sort of demeaning, especially since he wasn’t so smart himself. It became clear that he was talking about the current state of affairs between Japan and North Korea and the fact that North Korea had just completed nuclear arms testing. He began holding forth a somewhat simplistic and limited vision of mutually assured destruction. It included this moment of brilliance, “Well, we dropped one, no, two of ’em on Japan and it worked out okay.” I thought to myself, “I wonder what all the Japanese who used to work and live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki might say to that?” I wonder about all the cancer victims and orphans. But I guess it’s all okay because no Americans died and we intimidated the Soviets. I had a bloody tongue by this time. But he continued, completely oblivious to my distress. “Well the Russians knew to leave us alone. The Chinese … they know to leave us alone. We know to leave them alone. It all works out. But these other radicals. There’s no keeping them in one place. They just do what they want. [by this time he was waving his fat arms around … and I was sitting on my hands]” Somehow he had jumped from mutually assured destruction to the war on terror (which is complete fiction) and nuclear war and dealing with terrorists in one large illogical step. I had to leave.

On the other hand, our server was the kindest, most gracious lady I’ve met under those circumstances. She was brilliant. Even with whiny, sullen teenager, she sparkled and shone. It was miraculous. I’m not sure how she did it.

By the way, for every member of the Democratic National Committee who reads this blog: running Hillary Rodham Clinton for president in 2008 will be the biggest mistake in the history of the Democratic Party … bar none. You heard it here first, there is literally not one other person in the party who is so guaranteed to draw out the vote against a Democrat as she is. If you want to guarantee a HUGE Republican turnout in 2008, then run HRC, she’ll be your best bet to get the Republicans out in droves or should I say Roves.

What’s up (or down) with gas prices? Curiouser and curiouser that the laws of supply and demand are working in conjunction with an American midterm election and an American vacation season (up in summer 2006) and an American disaster (up in response to Hurricane Rita). I’m just saying ….

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said this: “Liberal – noun – someone who’s mind is so open their brains have fallen out.” I thought it was funny that this was on the back of a Subaru Outback which is a car that I associate with more liberal thinking folks for some reason. But then I thought that I’d like to get a bumper sticker that says, “Conservative – noun – someone who’s mind is so closed their brains have begun to rot for lack of sunlight.” I know that sounds sort of juvenile and unkind. Perhaps it is. But I want to do it because I want to bring to light just how juvenile and lacking in grace the political discourse in our country has become. It needs to be pointed out that it is not disgraceful to be a liberal. In point of fact, we need equal amounts of conservatives and liberals to run this country in a manner which is beneficial to everyone. But I have never one time, not once in my whole 40+ years of existence heard a liberal put down a conservative for their conservativeness. Liberals may challenge conservative ideas, but they do not make fun of conservatives for their very existence. On the other hand, when lacking substance, conservatives see no problem with attacking liberals for who they are and putting them down just for being. If we are indeed a democracy, that’s a huge problem.

I saw another bumper sticker several days ago that said something to the effect of: “4,000 babies a day are sacrificed to the god of convenience.” Well, then, that’s the other problem with our general discourse now. Everyone has the answer to questions that aren’t being asked. I thought it awfully kind of this person to let us know who the gods of this age are. I was equally glad that this person is so sure that s/he knows who is worshipping there and how. I wondered if this person had ever been in the position of having to choose. Whether s/he (and for some reason I think this person who is so sure must be a “he”) could ever understand that for most mothers who have been in that position, convenience is the very last thing they are thinking about. They are wondering how both they and their baby will eat. Live. Sleep in dry, clean beds. Some of them are worrying about whether or not the mother or the baby will be subjected to terrifying abuse. But I guess that all of those questions do properly fall under the heading of convenience. I wonder what falls under the heading of necessity?

This morning was unnerving. LightHusband had to awaken extremely early to get an early morning meeting at his office on the other side of the world. He had to leave the house by 6 a.m. I felt badly for him. Having asked my blessing last night, he came in to say good-bye and wake me up before he left. I promptly fell back to sleep.

I dreamt that I was awake, tho and making the coffee. My dream was so real that what woke me up was my realization that I was in bed and would not be able to hear the timer telling me that the coffee was ready. Of course, when I woke up for real, I realized that being in bed and making coffee simultaneously were not possible. It was a disappointing start to the day to say the least.