End of tennis season

Grendel's tennis team had an end-of-season party yesterday at one of the team's house. Hubby and I are usually not very social, plus we kind of got into a tiff right before we were supposed to leave for the party. However, the other parents were a lot of fun. We were having such a good time that most of the parents (including us) ended up staying for over seven hours. The parents sat around the dining room eating and chatting, while the guys (mostly) played video games in the basement.

Grendel ended up slashing his hand open during one of their brief forays into the great outdoors. I was a bad mom. I let one of the other exuberant moms clean the wound while he whined like a big baby (we ALL were laughing at his whining - which made him ham it up all the more, I think). I did go out to the car for some supplies from our first aid kit, since we had butterfly bandages and our hosts did not.

The guys had a lot of fun together this season, even if they had a VERY disappointing record this year. Grendel is ever social, so of course he has a bevy of new friends. Here is a picture of Grendel and his two doppelgangers. The three of them together are the top players on the team. But, considering their losing record for the season, the three of them joke that being the best players on the team is kind of like being "the tallest midget".

Whenever I try to take a picture of Grendel, he usually shies away or makes a very goofy face. Apparently, he hammed it up for the camera for other parents at the matches on a regular basis.

And finally, our intrepid team:

I actually agree with Bush?

The SPR was created in the 1970's as a direct result of the 1973 energy crisis. The SPR's role is to keep short term interruptions of oil imports from crippling our economy. The idea being, should OPEC decide to stop shipping oil to us, or to drastically curtail oil shipments to us, we would have some oil stockpiled while we tried to come to terms with our foreign oil suppliers.

The Senate passed a bill this week halting shipments of oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to ease record oil and gas prices. President Bush argued that halting shipments to the SPR is a threat to our national security and would have little effect on cutting oil prices. The Energy Information Administration estimates the fill rate adds about $2 to each barrel of oil and 4 cents to 5 cents per gallon to the price of gasoline.

Sadly, since the vote was virtually veto-proof, Bush will probably sign the bill, even though he opposes it.

I support the stock piling of oil as a hedge against political threats and natural disasters. Has Congress already forgotten that we needed to tap into the SPR after the hurricanes of 2005, due to an interruption in the flow of oil? I realize that 1973 was a very long time ago for most people, but the Middle East is still a volatile region and we are even more dependent on foreign imports than we were then.

Morons! So, for a measly 5 cents a gallon at the pump, they are willing to take a huge risk. Let's just hope that no major hurricanes or other disasters take out any of the major oil importing facilities between now and election day folks. Or, let's hope that OPEC doesn't decide to cut us off or severely cut what they send us because they're getting tired of our occupation of Iraq (and Afghanistan, or again want to chide us for our support of Israel).

Cross your fingers you short-sighted boneheads.

It's not a sin to believe in aliens

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.

Vatican says it's ok to believe in aliens

Good to know.

Then again, if I believed in most of the things that the Vatican says I should believe in, are aliens really that big of a stretch?

Unexpected stimulation

No, this is not an adult posting.

When the Feds announced the 'economic stimulus' package I was appalled. Here we are, BILLIONS of dollars in debt with a devalued dollar and an economy in the hospice. So, what could the government do to turn things around? Tax oil companies that are making record profits? Raise cigarette taxes? ... um, start bringing troops home from the Middle East?

No, no, no. Let's think like the typical American consumer; lets call her Georgina. Georgina has an expensive hobby. She doesn't treat it like a hobby, though. See Georgina has OCD, so she thinks her hobby is more important than feeding her kids and paying the light bill. However, Georgina isn't making a lot of money right now. She's just an lowly employee at a financial institution (UTU - nited Treason Unlimited, Knoxville, Kansas).

Georgina is addicted to a virtual reality game called "Let's Spread Democracy". She somehow managed to spend more than she made last year on her hobby, mostly by maxing out her credit cards and convincing her relatives that, once she wins the game, she'll get a slew of Frequent Gaming Points which can be exchanged for discounted gasoline and a Nobel Peace Prize.

Georgina's children are complaining that their allowances just aren't going as far as they used to. Since Georgina has maxed our her credit cards, she decides to use her position at UTU to get herself a platinum card. She then takes a cash advance on the new platinum card to give all her children a special bonus allowance. Unfortunately, now Georgina has even more debt, and no one (and I mean NO ONE) will lend Georgina a plug nickel.

OK. I realize that it may be a hokey analogy. However, I do not think that the best way to 'stimulate' our economy is to allow our government to go deeper in debt so that some people will buy more useless crap that they don't really need. The rest of us will either pay down some of our own obnoxious credit card debt, or will sock the money away for a rainy day.

As for the 'unexpected' aspect of this post's title: We just got our letter in the mail telling us that we were getting a four digit check back. By my calculations, we made too much last year to qualify. However, I'm not fool. I will not be sending it back. With gas prices rising the way that they are, I plan on ignoring that electronic deposit for now. (Though we may buy some small bit of useless crap that we really don't need ... all in the spirit of economic stimulus ... using no more than 25% of this ill-gotten windfall.)

Mothers Day

One would think that Mothers Day would be the day for children to show their appreciation for their mothers. I really don't think it works out that way for most of the lives of the children. When children are little, fathers are the ones who make the effort on their behalf. When children are teens, fathers again pick up the slack, since teenagers aren't sure what to appreciate, how to show it, or where to come up with the resources to execute an appreciative plan (should one actually occur to them).

There may be a spell when children are in their early twenties when they might actually consider showing their mothers that they appreciate them. This phase continues until said children procreate and have children of their own. Then, appreciating their mothers becomes kind of an after thought. In the meanwhile, fathers try to make mothers feel appreciated.

So, let's not delude ourselves here ladies. Mothers Day is the day that our mates shows us that someone in our lives appreciates what we do for those children we raised.

(Can't you just tell that I'm have another one of those days where I'm sorely reminded that I'm the parent of a teenager?)