Dad Might be the Road Warrior....

But the Kids Bear the Scars.

It's all over the news. Dad travels, bad things happen. Take Jon and Kate Plus Ei8ht and all their convoluted New Math...Jon goes to Utah with his 23-year-old NotBabyMama and Kate has to file for divorce and get a manicure and have the Hedgehog Hair trimmed in the same day. And that governor goes to the Appalachian Trail, no wait, maybe it was Buenos Aires for Father's Day weekend with his NotBabyMama and his four kids are left with glittery handmade cards and no one to bestow them upon.

Tragedies, for sure.

I speak from experience. My own personal father was often on the road. Consequently,

my mother served beets.



Tuna salad, which is a lovely Daddy-is-Away Dinner; and canned beets. Beets were never on the menu when Daddy was home.

Fifty years later, I feel compelled to speak out. Perhaps because my precious, precious granddaughter is sampling vegetables.

Beets are pretty, don't get me wrong. Such a lovely color. But they taste like dirt. Not that I've ever tasted dirt. They taste like pavement smells when a rain storm sets in. That's fine for the Great Outdoors, but a little weird for dinner. They are too big to swallow with milk (believe me, I've tried, even though I HATE milk...) You can sneak them to the dog, because frankly, what's a little dirt to someone who chews on sticks; but there will be purple stains on the carpet before she finishes them.

There is a really good book, entitled, "The Beet Queen", by Louise Erdrich. Enjoy the read. But please, don't foist that dirty dish on your children. They could be scarred for life.

Stranger Than Fiction

I never cared for math, so a TV show called "Jon and Kate Plus Ei8ht" with its embedded numeral (obviously a trick question) held no appeal for me. Wouldn't "Ten" have been so much simpler? And more user-friendly for the equation-phobic, as well?

Also, my idea of a great night of television is watching severe weather on the Weather Channel radar; and occasionally looking out the front door for tornadoes.

Now, it turns out, as I suspected, "Ten" isn't the right answer, after all. I think it has something to do with that embedded numeral. (Haha, embedded. I crack myself up.)

And money. Lots and lots of money.

I have seen snippets of the show. It seems to involve a lot of screaming. And the kids scream a lot, too. The amazing thing is that the kids always have BOTH SHOES on their feet when they are outside. And NO SHOES on their feet indoors. Even with only two children I only managed that scenario occasionally. For each of mine, we dedicated approximately 3 of their Formative Years to seeking lost shoes, and another 3 to scraping dog poop off the ones that were not lost.

So I had a feeling all along that this show was bogus.

Plus. They had one actress play the mother in the first show, and now there is the one with the Hedgehog Hair. And we are supposed to look the other way, and go along with that? We're not stupid.

But, what's really weird to me is that - unlike stories about that Spears chick going commando and the lady with the big lips who has 14 kids and Madonna and Jesus (is THAT a coincidence or what?) and Paula Abdul swearing on Taylor Hicks' new crossover country album that she never took a single pain pill through 21 back surgeries - I READ the stories about Prickly Mrs. Hedgehog. What's up with that?

I'm beginning to think it's the Sudoku. My Number Tolerance is improving. In fact, since the weather isn't at all interesting, I think I'll rent "With Six You Get Eggroll" tonight. And tomorrow, I'll break open the "Complete 'Eight is Enough' Gift Set."

And, perhaps, as I feel numerically stronger and stronger, I can watch a few J&K+8 reruns over the holiday weekend...and by the time the new season starts next week I'll be all caught up. I wonder how I'd look with Hedgehog Hair?