Scarlet Letters

I'm waiting on a prescription for a non-prescription medication. Does that make any sense to you? Because it boggles me. Last year my doctor recommended an over-the-counter medication for acid stomach. It's not outlandishly expensive, but at $22 for a six-week supply, I planned ahead. I included my budget for this medication in my flexible spending account enrollment. Lo and behold, after enrollment for insurance programs ended at my employer and it was too late to change my elections, the government ruled that FSAs could no longer be used to buy this particular medication. Thanks, guys. That extra $190 a year really must help you out. I discovered this when I tried to buy the medication and was told my FSA card could not be used. I was flummoxed, and contacted my FSA administrator. They confirmed what the pharmacy had told me, but said there was a regulation that would allow me to buy the medication with my FSA money if my doctor wrote a prescription for it. "Bu...

PHONE: *ring* J: Hello? ME: You might be the most frustrating man I've ever known, and that's saying something. J: What'd I do?? ME: Remember last week when a giant pile of laundry went through the wash and it got stuffed into baskets instead of being hung up so all the shirts and pants have to be re-dried? J: That was the kid. ME: And then we re-dried all the shirts and pants. So imagine my joy to venture into the basement and find all the laundry stuffed back into baskets. J: That darn kid! ME: THE KID IS IN MEMPHIS. J: ... oh. ME: There are these newfangled devices called hangers, and they magically lift your clothes off the floor into closets and then your clothes aren't wrinkled anymore and I don't have to dry a shirt three times to wear it. Is there something about having a penis that makes you and the spawn oblivious to wrinkled clothes? J: I wouldn't say that , exactly... ME: Hangers! J: I love you. He did do the dishes, though. Ain't...

Today marks the first full day of the delinquent's summer. To my utter shock, he did not qualify for the school district's summer school - I can only assume because of budget cuts, not because of his brilliant schoolwork. Therefore, I have designed Mom's Summer School. First comes the workbook: I found Summer Bridge to be the most useful and least onerous. That didn't save me from the theatrical eyerolls - nobody else's mom makes them do schoolwork in the summer, yanno. Too bad, so sad. The workbook is excellent; three or four lessons a day, including math, reading, English, science, etc. Each day he does a few lessons. Fortunately for me there is an answer key, since I had no way of knowing if his answers were correct. I could never homeschool; my math SUCKS. Then comes the other stuff. A daily journal entry. Book reports due each week, alternating with essays - he can write an essay about any subject that interests him, as long as it's a full page. We will...

My folks are heading out of town for their anniversary. Me: So what's so exciting about Indiana? Dad: French Lick. Me: ... See how I'm not saying anything? Dad: I know, it's the perfect straight line. Me: Saying nothing at all, just sitting here. Stepmom: *mumbles in background* Me: What did she say? Dad: She said French Lick for our romantic anniversary getaway. Stepmom: *evil giggles* Me: Great, I need therapy now. Tell her I'm sending her the bill. Dad: *laughs*

The woods have fallen silent with the death of Jean Craighead George. George wrote more than 100 books, but the one that comes to my mind is My Side of the Mountain. It tells the story of a boy who runs away from "a life of quiet desperation," as the linked obituary calls it, and lives on the land. He hollows out a tree for his home, trains a falcon to help him hunt, and seeks to live as Thoreau did. George excelled at this kind of character, one that has a deep respect and affinity with nature. Sometime in elementary school, I won an essay contest with a short treatise about conservation. I cannot for the life of me remember what I wrote, but I know I won a beautiful sketchbook that they called a coloring book, and a copy of My Side of the Mountain.  It was an important book for me. I read it several times. It planted the seeds for my fondness for backpacking. There is a certain self-sufficiency and freedom that comes with walking into the woods with everything you ne...