Happy New Year

This is officially the longest break from real life I've taken in the last 3 years and it is a little weird.

It reminds me of the one summer growing up that my sister and I weren't enrolled in a million sports and science summer camps. We were both too young to get jobs, but both felt we were too old to go to the myriad of art/soccer/science summer classes that had previously filled our youthful summers. That summer I started every day at 10 am with a rousing game of the Price is Right. Bob Barker was my best friend that summer. Between my shouting "Bet a Dollar" and my spoonfuls of Trix I would think of ways to best ignore my little sister that day.

Following Price is Right there were old reruns of Golden Girls and Murder She Wrote on TNT. Ahhh, the good old days of quality programming. I learned many lessons from both Bea Arthur and Angela Landsbury that summer. After those two shows TV degenerated until it sunk below even my low standards (this was my pre-MTV phase).

After my day of TV I would eventually get showered and put some clothes on just in time to make myself a hot pot of Kraft Mac 'N Cheese. Oh how deliciously those orange bent tubes of joy slid down my accepting and grateful gullet. I still remember the day I decided to replace the 1/4 cup of milk with just more butter and created the most tasty blue box concoction. That day will remain in my memory as one of those shining days of youthful bliss.

Anyway, the afternoon was usually filled by some scheme to get my little sister in trouble while I got to do something I'd always wanted to. It usually went something like this:

Older sister sitting lazily on the couch, younger sister walking around doing who knows what.

With the careless air of only the most scheming of evil geniuses, the older sister pipes up, "Maggie, wouldn't it be cool if we could slide across our hardwood floor like a slip 'n slide?"

Turning on her heal, the younger sister is immediately entranced by the idea and said, "yeah, that would be fun."

With feigned submission the older sister would retort, "yeah it would, but too bad the floor isn't slippery enough."

Like she had be dealt a killer blow, the younger sister would visibly deflated and reply, "yeah, it isn't slippery."

If it had been left at that, nothing else would have ensued. Just as the younger sister was about to walk away and start doing whatever it was that she was doing before, the older sister piped up, "if we could only think of something that would make the floor more slippery. Maggie, can you think of anything that we use on wood to make it more shiny. Anything at all that is in the house and we use sometimes to clean the wood china hutch. If you could I would "PLEDGE" to you that I'd help you use it to make the floor more slick."

For a moment the younger sister racked her brain and then, after a minute of further prodding she guessed, "Maybe...well...the pledge?"

Quickly the older sister reinforced the idea, "yeah, good idea Maggie, we'll pledge the floor and then slide around on it in our socks. Here's the can and some rags and our slipperyist socks."

Two hours later the mom returned to a greased spot on her hardwood floor and two very guilty children.

Today I'm at home, with my sister, while my parents are both at work. After having watched The Ellen show, I don't really know what to do with my day, but something tells me that Maggie's husband won't let me talk her into pledging the floor to make a slip 'n slide. And I can't very well do it myself. I wouldn't want to get in trouble.