The email said that parents ought to send their kids to school with Valentines. Twenty valentines, to be exact, so no one’s heart is broken. At least that’s what Mummy told me the email said. I never saw the email, ok maybe I saw it and didn’t read it, or maybe there was something about Valentines, I can’t remember, busy day. Which prompts Mummy to turn to Daddy and say YOU NEVER PAY ATTENTION TO ANYTHING.
You want to be the parent who sends your kid to school with Valentines and at the same time you are thinking Oh Lord here’s another frigging thing. It is late in the week and we have exactly one more night to fulfill our Valentine’s obligation, and Mummy says OK here’s what we’ll do. Goldfish crackers.
Goldfish crackers on Valentine’s Day? I said.
Goldfish crackers. We’ll put them in little bags with a heart on it with Dubsie’s name.
So fine. Like I have a better idea. This morning I wake up at 5:45 a.m. to make a digital document of 20 little heart shapes with “From Dubsie” in the middle. No time for decorating; that we outsource to Dubsie and her nanny. But we’re still don’t have twist ties to close the bags, or the goldfish.
Near the end of the workday and I am still empty-handed. Where to find goldfish and twist ties in my neighborhood is not exactly straightforward. Does Office Depot carry twist ties? No. But it turns out the Cash & Carry (a restaurant supply store across the street) does. One down.
The only viable outlet for goldfish crackers is Trader Joe’s, which is chock full of reasonably priced and delightful foodstuffs but might or might not have the exact thing you’re looking for. And they don’t have goldfish crackers. They have a wide assortment of candies, but the email (which I hadn’t read) apparently said that you can’t bring those. They have crackers in the shape of rockets. That’s sort of like a goldfish cracker, in that it is orange and bland and has nothing whatsoever to do with Valentine’s Day. But they also don’t look very much like rockets. So I take tour through the flavored popcorn, like cheddar and cracker jacks, but the labels says This Product Was Made in a Factory Where a Lineworker Once Thought About A Nut.
We had learned the hard way about nuts in school when we sent an entire Kringle (a Swedish pastry that resembles a Danish but is the size of a dinner plate) to school for the children to enjoy and maybe learn about Sweden. But because it was garnished with some sliced almonds, and because one kid had a nut allergy, they couldn’t feed it to anybody. We heard it wound up in the teacher’s lounge.
So finally I buy a bag of cheese puffs, because who doesn’t like cheese puffs, and assume that everything is cool until Mummy gets home and surveys my purchases and informs me that YOU NEVER PAY ATTENTION TO ANYTHING. What, one bag of fake Cheetos? To feed twenty children?
It’s a snack, I argue. A notion. A gesture of fondness for a gaggle of children whose names Dubsie can’t recall no many how times we ask her. So we are short on Cheetos but more than make up for it in twist ties, because when you buy twist ties from a restaurant supply store you get a lot of them. We drop perhaps nine Cheetos into every bag and then tie the bag with one of our roughly six thousand twist ties.
Which holds some important lesson about love and life. Because Cheetos are fleeting (especially when you only have nine of them), and love may be fleeting, but these damn twist ties, we’ll never get rid of them.
Lol. Sounds like the opening scene of “I Don’t Know How She Does It”. I think you should’ve packaged up the twist ties and pushed them as a Valentine craft for each kid. 😉
(I used to dread V-Day when both kids were in elementary school and I had to “help” make 48 Valentines. Now I’m kind of nostalgic for the whole process. :))
Just read this to the kids. The nut comment made them laugh.
They checked out the photo and gave you a A for effort.
Thanks for the comment, Viv. I have to remember that the annoying aspects of parenthood will be things I look back on later with nostalgia.
An ‘A’ from the next generation. I could ask for no higher compliment.
Hi to the Ferris Family,
Fantastic to hear from you. It’s been so long. I think it was when I came down to see you all at your parents house!! I love your stories of Dubsie. She sounds like a normal kid, with unusual parents! Ha! Where are you living now? Washington State!
Your list of Important people you have lost this year was quite sad and touching. I knew Jay from our outdoor fitness class. I’m certainly feeling my mortality, but still ride my Mtn bike, hike, snowshoe and ski, but less often! I’m still living in and loving my little town of Salida, Colorado. So much going on here for a small town. Spend time with Family and new friends. Give love to Anjullie (spelling), and Dubsie.
I’m going back to Marin next week for 2+ Weeks, to help my best friend after getting bi-lateral knee replacements. Wish us good luck!☘.
With love,
Dixie
Thanks, Dixie! Great to hear from you and to know that you’re still getting out there. It makes me happy to know you’re in Salida, among real mountains instead of the hills we had in Marin.