Hum. When did that happen?

Elizabeth has been sick for the last several days. This meant that we got to spend a lot more time together. It was kinda nice... except for the fact she felt miserable.

So we were talking about some of the girls in her class. She was telling me the strong points and weaknesses of each girl Then she got to Ghada (no, not our cat - a pseudonym.) Elizabeth tells me that Ghada is always pretending she's sick. And she always pretends it a big scary sickness - like a heart attack. Elizabeth goes on to say that she feels bad for Ghada. Ghada wants to be very popular, so Elizabeth thinks the little girl is faking these sicknesses so others will pay attention to her. Elizabeth couldn't decide if she should feel sorry for her and be angry at her for not telling the truth.

Now, I was pretty darned impressed that she figured out the girl needed attention and was using her fact sicknesses to get it. But THEN we had the following exchange:

M: Well, you shouldn't be too upset with Ghada. We all have fantasies that we accidentally let become too real sometimes. I know you've told a couple of good fantasies.
L: (laughing) Yeah, I guess I have.
M: Besides, she seems lonely. And we all want to be popular.
L: Oh no! Not me. I don't want to be popular.
M: (Shocked that my own daughter was disparaging my life-long dream to be the popular girl.) Why?
L: Well, when you're popular all the kids want to be with you even if they don't like you. And you have to spend a lot of time with all of those kids. Then you can't spend enough time with your real friends. I just want to have real friends.

Um. Gee. I'm wondering if she still needs me or what. When did my little baby grow up to be a wise, insightful, and darned cool person! I wish I had a friend like her when I was growing up.

Let's Get Naked.... not really

There's a new show on Nick. I was prepared to really hate it... But I was truly shocked by The Naked Brothers Band. There were some Hard Day's Night influences, but it was basically Spinal Tap for kids... really smart kids! And with guest stars like Uma Thurman, Tony Shalhoub, Julianne Moore, Arsenio Hall, Cyndi Lauper, Ann Curry, Ricky Lake, Timothy Busfield, Mel Harris, Peter Horton, Melanie Mayron, Ken Olin, Patricia Wettig, Nancy Wilson, and Cindy Blackman... really well connected kids. But I guess that's what happens when your mom is Polly Draper and decides to produce an independent movie for you. But I'm not that bitter - they say the nine-year-old wrote all the songs. Now that's darned impressive. So... even if you don't have kids, let's get naked!

Oh Sweet Satisfaction!

I've been having car trouble. I've been having the worst kind of car trouble. Intermittent, random, unreproducible car trouble.

I've been having trouble with my breaks and with my curse control. The breaks randomly don't work and the curse control randomly turns itself on and accelerates the car. Luckily the two events have never occurred together, but once when I was inching along in 5 MPH traffic, bumper to bumper with every other commuter in northern Virgina, my car tried to accelerate into the bumper of the car in front of me.

So every time I have one of these events I take my car to the dealership, get my trusty rent-a-smoky-piece-of-crap and sputter around town for a couple of days. Then the dealer calls me, tells me they rebooted the on-board computer system, and that the problem will never happen again. (Was that evil maniacal laughing I heard in the background?)

In fact, the last time I took it in they had me talk to the mechanic for almost hour so he could assure me and reassure me that the problems were all in my head. Really, the breaks don't give out. And how could the curse control turn it's self on? Really, let's be serious. Ha! We all know how this ends... a couple of days later I'm picking up another rent-a-smoky-piece-of-crap.

And in fact, this week I've been driving around in my little tin can and wondering when my dealer was going to call to tell me they rebooted the on-board computer system. (By the way, as an IT QA person and former software developer; I know that rebooting the system doesn't really fix anything. It just cleans up any memory leaks and resets all the varibles and wipes out any other little sins until they can creep back in as the system is being used.) Today my phone rings and low and behold it's my handy-dandy service manager.

"Um, well, ah, I'm just calling to let you know we haven't forgotten about you."
"Really."
"Yeah, well, we've been driving your car around and, you know, we just couldn't make the problem happen."
"Really?" I could tell by the tone of his voice something was up.
"Well, see, last night the mechanic took your car home so he could drive it around some more."
"He did? Really?"
"Um, yeah, and well, this morning he almost didn't make it into work."
"Oh, what happened?"
"Well, there were no breaks. It wouldn't stop."

HA! There are very few moments in life when someone can feel the deep sense of satisfaction to which I was treated today. (Now if they could just fix the darned thing!)