Pre-Superbowl DOs and DON'Ts

Today I found myself alone in the house for several hours.  Just in case you, Dear Reader, ever find yourself in a similar situation on the day before the Superbowl, here are a few helpful DOs and DON’Ts.

DON’T go to the grocery store on the Saturday before the Superbowl and the day before a snowstorm is predicted to hit the area. You are likely to lose your favorite glove in the melee.  There will be no reduced-fat Cheez-its left, even though your Younger Daughter specifically asked for Cheez-its.  The store will be so crowded with ornery people that you will not be able to make it over to the toilet paper aisle and you yourself will become ornery.

DO leave the store and shed your orneriness by helping the guy with 20 helium balloons get the balloons into his car.

DON’T forget to get flour, if you are planning to bake something for the church bake sale.  DO say “Damn” or something stronger when you realize you forgot.

DO pay your aunt’s bill before it is overdue.

DON’T try to calculate how long your aunt’s money will last.  You will spend an hour down that rabbit hole and end up with an inaccurate number anyway, because you don’t know the secret number you need to calculate how much she must withdraw from her IRA, and you have no idea what her expenses really will be.  Any answer you get will be depressing.

DO eat an apple for virtue points, and then DO open the small bag of Chex Mix that you have been saving, and DO watch an episode of Doctor Who. 

DON’T make a new recipe for the church bake sale.  DON’T make the recipe for Pumpkin Snickerdoodles that you got off the internet from some random person.  Remember that you don’t have enough flour to make more than one kind of cookie.

DON’T spend 30 minutes looking for the salt.  DON’T begin to think that your brain has a big hole in it, because why would you have not put the salt in at least one of its usual six places?

DO text your husband with this message:  “I am losing my mind.  I can’t find the SALT.  Trying to make cookies for the $&@& church bake sale.”  He will soon text back with this:  “It’s upstairs on my bureau.”  Why, yes it is!  Because that's where everyone likes to keep the salt.

DO taste the new cookies.  You will discover that they are disappointingly like cardboard, and you will decide not to take them to the church bake sale, even though this means you have to show up empty handed.

DO wish that you had made the cookies that your daughter asked you to make – chocolate chip cookies.

DO be thankful that you are not hosting a Superbowl party, and DO be thankful that you don’t give a hoot about America’s National Holiday tomorrow.

Y'all have a great time!  I'm going to play the piano.

Concert or Football Game?

We interrupt our fun and frazzled end-of-the-school-year feelings for this important post.  The school music concert season is upon us again. The Common Household Mom has noticed that people at music concerts mistakenly behave as if they are at a football game. Here are the Common Household Helpful Hints on...

How to tell the difference between a school football game and a school music concert

Don't make noise here:

Make noise here:

Football game:  talking is allowed during the performance.

Music concert:  no talking.  It even explained this in the program, but I guess nobody in the Neanderthal crowd knows how to read, much less obey concert behavior guidelines.

This means you, teachers.  You are getting paid to be there. I appreciate your effort to set a good example by not getting caught talking:  you talk only during the music selections and are sure to be quiet during the applause portion.  Congratulations – you thoroughly marred my only chance this year to hear the 6^th grade band. 

This means you, parents.  Even if you are keen to discuss your brilliant idea for bringing about peace in the Middle East, don’t do it now.  Wait until after the concert when the President calls you.  In case you hadn’t noticed, (and you hadn’t noticed, because you were talking) our high school orchestra is a lot better than the chance for peace in the Middle East.

This means you, students sitting in the back waiting for your turn to play.  Just shut it.  The students on stage now are working just as hard as you will be when it is your turn, and you owe them your respect and attention. 

Football game: moving about is encouraged.  Jump, pump your fist in the air, rock back and forth singing, “Heeeeey, hey Baby,  Oooh!   Aaaah! I wanna kno-o-o-o-w if you’ll be my girl.”

Music concert:  if you have to move about, please do it in between songs.  If you must leave the auditorium, leave through the back so you can avoid making noise opening the side doors.

To the little girl who had to leave during the music:  I forgive you.  You are young and didn’t know any better and probably needed to get to the bathroom right away.  I am grateful that at least you weren’t talking, although your parents probably were. And I appreciate that you waited to clang the door shut until right after my daughter’s viola solo.

Football game: takes place outside.  The sound of your voice at the football game carries no further than the bleacher which is 6 inches in front of your knees.  Go ahead, shout!  I can’t hear you anyway.

Music concert: takes place inside.  The sound of your whispering carries all the way across the auditorium, straight to my ears.  Go ahead, shut your mouth.

It may surprise all of you, but I did not come just to be seen by my child, but also to hear the music.  The elementary and middle school musicians are not quite on a par with, say, Itzhak Perlman, but they improve each time, and I love to notice the advancements they have made.  For instance, the 6^th grade band is 127% better than the 5^th grade band was. The high school musicians are just about on a par with Itzhak Perlman, and you should be listening closely and taking note of the names in the program.  Some of them will be famous someday.  Make sure when that moment comes, you can say, “I heard her perform,” and not “I was disrespectfully running my mouth when she performed.”

These concerts are the product of many class hours.  When you are invited to a concert, it is as if you are invited to attend your child's final exam.  You wouldn't talk during your kid's final exam in math, would you?

End of rant.  We now resume our regularly scheduled season of fun and frazzlement.

Lions and Tigers and Bands

We went to the football game last night, the first of the season. Tigers vs Lions. My son was playing in the marching band, Oldest Daughter took her date, Common Household Husband was working the concession stand, and Youngest Daughter didn’t want to go.

She thought the only thing to watch would be the football game. She was delighted to discover that a football game is more like a three-ring circus. First and foremost, there is the concession stand. Pizza! Soda! Candy! Then there are the cheerleaders, who spend a lot of time demonstrating their superior spelling skills: “L – E – T – S – G - O Let’s go, Tigers!” The cheerleaders did some impressive acrobatic stuff, like lifting each other high up in the air. There’s the marching band, 250 members strong, in full uniform, complete with poufy plume on the hats. They put on a good show, but it was impossible to tell which one was my flesh and blood. And, somewhere in there, there is a football game going on.

At half-time, the band played three songs while marching around. As a music listening experience, it left a lot to be desired. I was there to hear the band, but nobody else was, so the folks in the stands talked and milled around right through it. During the game there were times when our band played at the same time as the other band played at the same time as the cheerleaders cheered at the same time as the football players moved the ball. Good for the multi-tasking generation, but this Common Household Mom couldn’t tell where she should be looking.

The whole place was teeming with students dressed and painted in our school colors. I estimate that 75 percent of the teenagers were not watching the game, as other non-football dramas played out on the stadium grounds.

But the weather was pleasant, the moon was full, and our team won. Youngest daughter is now hooked, and will go back to another game with little complaining, if only to get a slice of pizza.

Football

Big field
Big flags
Big noise
Big players
Big stadium
Big advertisements
Big marching band
Big percussion section
Big tower of cheerleaders
Big concession stand prices
Big calories for a small amount of food
Big East vs Big Ten college football game


Our team won, but just by 1 point (not big).

This weekend we attended not one but two football games. If I have ever been to a football game, it was so long ago I don’t remember it. Both these games (one high school, one college) were quite the Roman coliseum show, although no Christians were thrown to lions. The game was interesting, but to me the pageantry and the crowd were much more interesting, and very American, in their BIGness.