Variety Day

Things are moving too fast today. My Crackberry has been ringing all day. By the time I got back to the office after circulating for 2 biopsies, I ended up making/receiving back to back calls for 2 hours.

It was like CHAIN SMOKING!!!

In the midst of it all my 17-year-old-soon-to-graduate daughter (who has waited until the last nanosecond to finish her college application that has to be IN THEIR HANDS by Friday at midnight) calls me to tell me her drama teacher is going to write her a recommendation for the application.

Total, complete, unadulterated knee jerk reaction by her mother: "WHAT? WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU PICK YOUR DRAMA TEACHER?!?!?!?! WHAT HAPPENED TO CHOOSING YOUR ENGLISH TEACHER?!?!?!?!?!? THE BAND DIRECTOR HAS KNOWN YOU FOR 4 YEARS!!!!! WHY NOT HIM?!?!?!?!"

At this point a co-worker stuck her head in the door and signaled that I could be heard out in the hallway.

SO WHAT!!!!!! She has had 6 months notice - - - 6 months to fill in the blanks and to ask teachers to fill in the blanks and TODAY IS OCTOBER 28TH!!!

ommmmmmmmmmmm

breathe

concentrate

I retracted my reaction, apologized to my daughter, and told her to call her father and rely on his recommendations. He doesn't have knee jerk reactions.

My mother would react that way.... and then she would absolve herself of the situation and defer to my father.... "Just wait until your Father gets home!" I believe that this strategy can be used when she doesn't see my logic as opposed to punishment.

Besides, we're divorced and it is my responsibility to make sure he is involved with important events such as college application procrastination. I'll go with whatever - I am not thinking clearly enough to understand her reasoning. After yoga class tonight I'll sit down with her when I'm less like to PINCH HER LITTLE HEAD OFF!

On the positive side, she unexpectedly had her top braces removed yesterday. Completely worth the quarter million dollars that the orthodontist has squeezed from my bank account. Her teeth are spectacular.

Then there is the down side: she doesn't look like a 17 year old with braces anymore. Her appearance is substantially less adolescent. This means that no longer will waiters assume she is in high school. She will smile at an unsuspecting college student who will become completely smitten with her. Her teeth glint in the sunlight to signal every testosterone laden youth within a 20 mile radius. It is now time to anticipate another thread of the apron strings being severed.

This on the heels of ordering senior portraits late last week. The school photographer - - I repeat, the school photographer took the portraits. Good old reliable Prestige/Lifetouch photographers who have been handing out little black combs to students everywhere for 60 years took the photos. And how much did we pay in the past for 47,000 photos every school year???? 30, maybe 35 bucks?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh but this year was different. Over 12 years they lulled me into a trance and I gleefully anticipated a similar, possibly slightly greater fee this year.

MUUUUAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! They got me good.

For one 8x10, eight 5x7's, eight 4x5's and 24 wallets: cha CHING! $382.03

Its a plot. Gas prices plunge, I bank the bucks and Prestige rakes in the dough!!! I had no idea that a local yokel school photography studio had OPEC ties!!!

Time for yoga. I need oxygen and some really gooooooooooood sweaty pretzel positions to straighten me out.