Who Got the Pillowcases?

Facebook brings about all sorts of degrees of friendship. There is the extension and deepening of current active friendships. There is the way to keep in touch with those who would still be fast friends if they hadn't moved away and the renewing of such friendships. There is the last attempt to get to know your 60 cousins whom you never knew because you grew up 500 miles way from them friends. There are the too familiar friends that are your siblings and other close relatives. There are the friendships that satisfy the gossip you have heard: "Did she really have quintuplets", " "Is She really now a He", and the ever popular "She is living with the He that was a She!" (Answers: quads, not quints, yes and YES!" There are the keeping up with your social network, the business friends and the friends from High School. There are friends that you met via other friends on Facebook. there are the ex-boyfriends that you want to check up on to make sure that they are happy but not as happy as they would have been if they hadn't dumped you and the people you just want to spy on. Then there are the friends that you have to ask another friend who the heck this person is before you remember that you once sat next to them in Earth Science. And there are the people that you finally friended because they requested you repeatedly for 2 years!

Some of these relationships are as you expected them, sometimes you find your arch nemesis of 13 years ago is still your nemesis. Sometimes the one guy you have little in common with is just as chatty as you are and you find that there is a lot to say. Sometimes you find that your friends are divorced which is disturbing because the last time you saw them they were very happy.

Just such an event happened to me lately. Two friends married each other long ago and now I find that one party is married to someone else. Either the other party died or they are divorced (or there is some secret bigamy scheme) and I can't stop wondering who got to keep to the hand embroidered pillowcases I made for them?


(P.S. the pillowcases pictured above are not the cases in question. The recipients of these pillowcases are still happily married as far as I know.)

Scary Fairy Tales

My kids seem to enjoy Hansel and Gretel. It is a great tale about sibling love, and why not to eat houses made of candy, a cautionary tale about the wisdom of using bread crumbs as trail markers. My children seem concerned about how long it takes the witch to arrive in the story. The names Hansel and Gretel are adorable. But this story really disturbs me, I think it is the scariest fairy tale of the lot.
In many fairy tales the children are parent-less - father and or mother are dead and the person left in charge of them isn't really related them and then leaves them unprotected in some manner. But not in Hansel and Gretel. They have two parents. (In some versions it is a step-mother but honestly I think those revisionists feel the same way about this story and want to soften the blow a little bit.)
So here is the scary part:
The MOTHER tells the FATHER that the children are dragging them down and they will all starve and convinces the FATHER to ABANDON them in the woods TWICE.
How does this not give every child a complex to think that parents will abandon them in the woods to likely be eaten by beasts, die from exposure or starvation if the going gets tough?
What kind of mother would let her children die to save herself?
What kind of father allows himself to be persuaded to abandon his children to certain death?

Scary stuff, scary stuff.

Apologies

I apologize for the silence, I really do. I have many timely things to talk about but I just feel so blue. Some day I will write them. I will write about trying to decide who is the best Star Fleet captain, 10 things I love about Trader Joe's, what I would like in a president, the injustices of footwear, why I hate shopping with my husband, and an open letter to the makers of DVD's.

Tacky

A few weeks ago we travelled to a resort and spent the day in the warm springs pool. We do this annually and always have a good time and bring home sunburns.

This trip we also had a visual treat in the locker room. I took a picture because I didn't think anyone would believe it.
Yes. Those are the sanitary liners that they put in swim suits to protect them from germs. The resort used them for tape. Gross. Where did they find them and why didn't they use tape or clean band aids or gum? Anything would have been less disgusting.

"You like me! You Really Like me!"

I added one of those following gadgets on my blog. If you like to read my blog click on the "Follow this Blog." It is on the right underneath the label "People who like to spy on Samurai Mom." It is easy and if you really are spying on me blogger allows you to follow anonymously so I won't know who you are. I suspect you may be Russian because Russians are the bad guys (ergo spies) again. I am sad because I like Russia and would like to visit someday, but on the bright side James Bond and cold war movies are applicable again. For a while there the only bad guys were Arab Terrorists and that felt uncomfortable because it was pretty racist. But with Russians you know that you aren't being racist just anti-communist (I know, I know Russia is a technically democracy now but work with me people, Think of the MOVIES!) I would love to have German bad guys again, but that seems unlikely unless it is a movie about homeschooling or ideological freedoms.
Currently the only follower of my blog is my mom. I adore my mom and I am thrilled that she is following my blog but seriously imagine how it feels that the only person that admits to reading your blog is your mom. She has to like my blog, she's my mom. I sit there looking at my one follower (my mom) and feel like a total social misfit. So please let me feel like the sunburned Sally Field and let me say "You like me! You really like me!"

Random kauai

Some Random Thoughts from Kauai
-I noticed that even in paradise there is always a line for the ladies' room. When will builders learn? I did not appreciate spending my precious Hawaii time waiting to use the facilities.
-Moose picked flowers for me, it was so romantic and probably not lawful.
-Geckos are cool.
-The restaurants on Kauai were always empty. We could not figure out were everyone was, the food was good. It remains a mystery
-At the Luau we sat next to a nice couple from Chicago. Then we saw them the next day coming off of Captain Andy's boat as we were boarding. Then the next day they were kayaking down the Wialua River as we were kayaking up it. It started to feel a bit creepy.
-Apparently Mark Twain visited Hawaii and had a great deal to say about it. I am afraid I had no appetite for "The Innocents Abroad" once I knew that I COULD have been reading Twain's reflections on Hawaii.
-There is this run down wreck of a hotel on the main road in Kauai called The Coco Palms. You can tell it was quite a place in the 50's, apparently Huricaine Iniki really did a number on it and it didn't bounce back.. We kept saying we should buy that place and fix it up.
When we got home we learned that The Coco Palms was THE place on Kauai, it is quite famous and we are not the only people who want to fix it - we are the only people who don't have the millions upon millions it would cost to buy and restore it. The last 20 minutes of Elvis' film Blue Hawaii is filmed there. Check it out.