Random Thoughts

I really like the 9th Street Deli.  I especially like the Thanksgiving sandwich with turkey, sweet potato, stuffing and cranberry sauce.  Oh, and the brownies.  Maybe it was that much better tonight because I got to eat it in the company of my good friend Kate, whom I love.  She is my friend slash sister.  Lucky me.

It makes having a traveling husband bearable, when you can spend the night chatting away with your fun friend while the kids play downstairs.

On a side note: I hate AT&T.  They are the worst.  I don't care how cool my stinking IPhone is if I can't make a fetchin' phone call in my house, or in my car, or in Moab, or in eastern Arizona, or at my Shopko, or at the kid's school.  The second that my contract is over with AT&T I am suh-wi-tching to Verizon.  Oh, the joy of being able to talk on the phone in my own house- that will be heaven.

Michael Shermer was interesting on the Colbert Report tonight.  I want to read The Believing Brain.

I am about a third of the way through Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma.  Who knew that we were all corn chips on legs?  Not me.  I knew that feedlot cattle were not ideal.  I had read Fast Food Nation, and had pretty much sworn off ground beef, except when I forgot, which did happen when there were really good burgers to be eaten.  But this is a whole other kind of eye opening.  This isn't about there being poop in the meat.  It's more that the meat is more like corn masquerading as meat.  And who knew that fertilizer and pesticides were invented as a way to use up chemicals left over from World War II?  I think that this book should be mandatory reading for every high schooler.

What else?  Summer camps have been good so far this summer.  I think that I have found the perfect balance.  It's the half day camps.  It makes me feel good that the kids are getting some fun, structured, diverse activities for part of the day, while allowing them to spend the second half of the day goofing around and just playing.   Thus far we've done a week at Bad Dog Art camp where the kids loved learning about and creating art that had to do with endangered animals.  At the end of the week they had an art show that was quite impressive.  Dalton had an eleven year old girl who told him that he'd better email her or "he was dead".  Yeah, over my dead body chica.

Before that it was Tracey Aviary Bird Camp for Shelby where she got to feed hawks, hold parrots, go on falcon type prey hunts, dissect owl pellets, and care for pelicans and swans.  Dalton that week got to go  to Video Game Programing Camp up at the U's Engineering Department, where he and his friends created alien battle video games.  They took the software home so that they could continue after the camp was over.  They showed off their work at the end of the week, and I got to battle Dalton on the game that he'd created- cool!

The first week of summer Shelby spent a week at Red Butte, doing their nature camp.  She had fun learning about insects in the garden, planting tomato plants, and exploring the habitats.  Dalton had tennis that week.

This week is Hoogle Zoo camp for Shelby.  She has learned about how the different animals communicate.  Yesterday they focused on primates.  Today it was snakes and wolves.  Dalton has had Sports Camp at Stieners with his buddies.  We've had a trip to Moab and Arizona in there too.  So far it's been a great summer.

Garrett keeps threatening to give up diapers.  I think "no thank you very much sir".  You can wear those diapers till you're 33.  Ugh.  When do I have a week to devote to pee and poop and laundry up the wazoo and never leaving my house for fear of being away from a toilet?  I remember when Dalton was potty training, even though we lived across the street from the park, I would bring his little plastic potty to the park.  I'm not up for it this time around.

I donated to Stephen Colbert's super PAC.  Can't wait to see what he does.  Take out tomorrow?  David Gray in concert and Aristo's beforehand with girlfriends this Thursday...that sounds good.