It’s a comment FREE for all.

I’m getting weary of reading blogs where someone says “Blat” and gets, like, a thousand comments. I’d turned on all the extry-features to prevent blog stalkers but now I’m all, hey, let’s hear from YOU. So they’re OFF. Comment away.

Now, will I sink into depression when I still get zero comments?

If I do, you can only blame yourself.

If I said I was too busy to blog, that would be a lie, because here I am.

Truly, though, when you start looking forward to the weekend on Tuesday, that’s a sign.

There’s much to share:

• The visit from the boy’s 17-year-old friend who’s a girl but not a girlfriend (wink) from Missouri has come and gone
• We “did D.C.” for the 4th and lived to tell
• The boy has now been driving for a full two weeks incident-free

We’re low on funds due to a week of feeding and entertaining two teens and one additional kid who doesn’t eat much but still likes to get stuff. I’m forbidding myself to buy; the boy took his change to the coinstar machine ($40) and the girl is waxing commercial:

“You know, there aren’t many options for kids to make money beyond the old cliché lemonade stand.”

Ah, my heart swells when my nine year old uses cliché correctly in a sentence. She even did finger quotes. Buy that girl some ice cream!

So far . . .
The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides
Forever (not the Judy Blume version) by Pete Hamill (thanks to Laura)
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood (also thanks to Laura, who said she loves Atwood so I’m beginning with her first work)
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (a loan from the girl; a fave of tweens)

Currently . . .
Blindness by Jose Saragamo (thanks to Jason)

In the wings . . .
The Best American Short Stories 1992
Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper (recommended by Mom)
Fortune’s Rocks by Anita Shreve (thanks to Amanda)
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

The Charlottesville Wal-Mart provides the absolute best case for self-checkout I have seen in my retail evaluating experience.

There is not a day, nor time of day that it is not crowded and that lines are not long. It is also the crappiest Wal-Mart there ever was. Take note, Wal-Mart executives; this is a high-growth, mobilized area that will return to the mom and pop shops if encouraged ever so slightly.

Yes, yes . . . I shop at Wal-Mart. It’s where the hoosgeoisie goes to shop. It reminds me of home. Actually, given the horrible conditions at this particular Wal-Mart, I’ve gone there only for the cheapest prescriptions in town and other things like dishwasher detergent and contact lens solution.

Recently, I stood for ten minutes in the express line. The woman in front of me turned around and asked if I knew the location of the restrooms. I didn’t, so I stopped a red-vested management-type and inquired. Once located, the woman hesitated. She didn’t want to relinquish her spot in line. Who knew when we would suddenly surge forward? We laughed about how fabulous the Wal-Mart restroom would be, given the state of the rest of the store. No doubt there is an attendant, cologne and cloth hand towels. Certainly there are marble floors, gilded mirrors and a persistent clean scent. Surely, I said, you had to go before you left home and thought, no, I’ll wait until I get to Wal-Mart because the restroom is so nice. We stood in line so long I felt like I had a new friend before I left the store. Would I give that up for the efficiency of self-checkout? You bet your Sam’s Club membership I would.

I hope I never have to find out what the Wal-Mart restroom is truly like.

We’ve all had moments when we suddenly realize that the vacation is over; we really live here in Charlottesville. The boy had his the other day. I mispronounced Rio as we crossed that street, heading south on 29. I said it Rio, like the Duran Duran song, just to be ornery. The boy replied, “I had forgotten, until this very moment that is how we used to say that word.”

In Charlottesville, the name of the street called Rio is pronounced r-eye-oh.

The local legend is the road used to be Route 10. R10. Any truth to this rumor? It’s pretty funny, even if it’s not true.

In one weekend, the boy obtained his drivers’ license and the girl requested lessons on how to shave her legs.

I’ve aged approximately ten years since last week.

The boy has enjoyed his new freedom. Saturday morning he drove to the store to get doughnuts and milk. Sunday he drove to a friend’s house, drove them both to the movies, drove her back to our house for dinner, took her out for ice cream afterwards and then drove her home; all without incident. We think we may never see him again.

We talked about how important that first solo trip is; how everyone remembers their first drive alone and how it should be something kind of memorable. He wanted to go get breakfast for the family. I remember my first trip: I went to the store to get something for dinner and ended up behind the only Rolls Royce in town, terrified I’d rear-end the guy. Do you remember your first trip alone in a car?

The girl decided suddenly that she was truly old enough to start shaving her legs. I thought about it and since I couldn’t really remember how old I was when hair removal became part of my life, I agreed that it was probably OK for her to try. Furnished with a lecture, a lesson, a good razor and some pink girly shave gel, she became all smooth and lovely (despite the inevitable first-timers nick which bled profusely). Later, at the swimming pool, I overheard her asking her friends if they noticed anything different about her and then providing them with a condensed version of my how-to-shave-your-legs lecture.

I don’t remember anyone teaching me about leg shaving — I have older sisters and since their razors were usually lying around, I think one day I just decided to give it a whirl.

I had the strangest experience. I was sitting in the waiting room of the allergist’s office while the boy was getting his allergy shot. We had twenty minutes to kill so I picked up a copy of National Geographic. I read this article; the excerpt below caught my attention:

“The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it. Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn’t—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.”

THEN, I glanced at the cover only to realize that I was reading the OCTOBER, 2004 issue!