Bfth's Boring Blog

I'm relatively intelligent, or so I'd like to think.  I also know that I can be, perhaps am, extremely naive.  So I'm asking anyone/everyone to explain rioting to me because I quite clearly do not get it. I get community anger.  I'm not part of the community that was part of the riot, but I understand the anger.  I don't understand racism.  I understand what it is and what it means, but I don't "get it."  It was my scientific understanding that while we may all look and act different; we're basically made up of the same stuff.   I'm not getting technical here because while I may be smart, I'm not THAT smart.  But my nutshell view is I'm human; you're human and that's that. Again, I get the anger.  Things are happening in our country that shouldn't be.  I AM naive.  I thought for the most part we'd gotten over all of this.  That we acknowledged that while we may look and act different, we are ALL human beings and

For the first time since last September (which is way too long), I had a chance to visit "my island." (AKA:  the section of the NJ shore where my parents reside.) With my father's health issues and all the cold and ice we had this winter, I hadn't had an opportunity to go "down to the shore." It will be three years this October since Sandy.  If anyone tells you the Shore is Restored, I'm going to flat out tell you they are lying.  The shore is NOT restored.  That's not to say progress hasn't been made since the super storm devastated the area, but things are still a LONG way from "normal" or restored. Driving down Route 35 is still a sad experience.  While heading south you can't help but notice the "gaps" in the landscape.  Where homes once were there are no more.  Certainly there are homes that have been repaired, but it seems that there are at least half that are "missing" or in disrepair. The roa

I write a lot about my son.  He's the love of my life and like most parents I'm proud of him.  I brag.  I show off.  He's a good kid and I want to tell the world. But as a parent, I know that there is a flip side to the coin.  It's a side we don't want to brag about.  It's a side we don't want to see or admit to.  I'd like to think I am a good parent and as such, I need to own up to my mistakes and errors.  My son needs to do the same. First some backstory...In the fall of 2013 we decided, as a family, that my son was mature enough to walk to and from school on his own.  When I was a kid I did it at a much younger age, but those were different times.  We did a gradual transition; walked him half way, and then quarter way and even "spied" a couple of times once we let him do it on his own.  He became a trendsetter and soon his best friend wanted to walk home with him without adult supervision.  It took him a bit out of the way, but ever

I'm just going to come out and say it:  I have an average kid.  In my eyes he is extraordinary with loads of talent and personality, but in the grand scheme of things, my kid is pretty average.  And I am okay with that. Report cards came out yesterday.  As he's still in elementary school, they don't get traditional letter grades, but numbers (which confused the heck out of me; especially after they changed the way grading was done this year).  So if you're kid is going above and beyond (I believe the term is "exceeding grade level expectations") he'll get a 4 and if he's in trouble and needs help he'll get a 1.  (Does anyone get a 1?)  In my perverse mind, 4 = A, 3 = B, 2 = C and...You get the idea.  In the beginning of the year in all subjects, my son came home with mostly 3s and some 2s.  It was what I expected.  Yesterday he came home with all 3s with the exception of spelling where he got a 2 (The kid is a LOUSY speller.  It's not that

Officially today (April 14th) I've been blogging for two years.  In some ways I'm amazed that I am still doing this and in others I can't imagine not doing so. I've been writing for a long time.  Somewhere, buried deep in the bowels of my damp basement is a storage container full of notebooks.  I started keeping a notebook sometime after third grade when Mrs. Williams (one of the best teachers I ever had) read "The Long Secret" by Louise Fitzhugh to the class.  ("The Long Secret" was a sequel of sorts of her earlier book, "Harriet The Spy."  I read that one later.  Mrs. Williams and the books she read aloud to us some afternoons made such an impression on me that nearly 40 years later I can still recall most of them:  "Flight of the Doves," "Don't Take Teddy," "The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe," "The Prince And The Pauper.").  These notebooks started out as pseudo-diaries.  Then they evol

Kids are much smarter than we give them credit for.  I learn so much each day from my son, who will be turning 10 this summer.  The words of wit and wisdom that fly from his mouth some days are truly amazing. Although he is an incredibly picky eater, in many ways he is much wiser than I am when it comes to eating and nutrition.  Of course with that said, let me point out that rarely does a vegetable pass through his lips.  And I am a smart enough parent to make sure that he gets his vitamins on a daily basis.  But he is a much smarter eater than I am, most likely because he listens to his body.  Unlike me, he eats when he is hungry.  And that's pretty much the only time he DOES eat.  I have fallen into the trap/habit of unconscious eating.  I'm bored:  I eat.  I'm anxious:  I eat.  I'm happy:  I eat.  You get the idea.  He eats when he is hungry. Most days he eats 3 meals and 2 snacks.  For breakfast, most days (school days) he has oatmeal.  He favors straw

Last Friday, I donned a bunny suit and spent an hour hopping around my yard entertaining (or maybe scaring) the kids in my neighborhood.  Ok, in all honesty, I really didn't hop all that much.  For the most part I groped around.  Those costumes say one size fits most and the costume did fit, but I'm shorter than most and moving around wasn't easy especially with a "head" that didn't fit all that well leaving me very little room to see.   This is the 2nd time I've put on the costume.  The first was back in 2012 when I "volunteered" when the head of the division of the company I worked for at the time had the wonderful idea to have a department wide egg dying contest.  We arranged for a conference room to be available for all of the morning and most of the afternoon.  Eggs and decorations were provided; imaginations were encouraged.  It was a blast.  The two winners were presented with their prizes by the Easter Bunny (me) and then the bunny m

There's a new series on TV Land called Younger that I decided to watch because it stars Sutton Foster (who is think is incredibly talented, especially after seeing her yodel in "Young Frankenstein.") and because it sounded really interesting.  A woman in her 40s (Sutton Foster is in her 40s???  No Way! Ok, so she JUST turned 40 last month.  How can that be?  Do I need to say that I am OLDER than Sutton Foster??), unable to get a job upon returning to the workforce after being a stay at home mom (sound familiar to anyone out there?) is mistaken for a woman in her 20s,  (Only Sutton Foster and her flawless skin could get away with this).  She reinvents herself as a recent college grad (erasing all vestiges of her life on the internet -- can you really do that???) and manages to land a job as an assistant at a publishing firm.  She's put down by her "older" (40-something) female boss and befriended by a co-worker (who is 20-something).  I only saw the first tw