Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

I am blessed to have an amazing childcare provider with wonderful kids.  Her son and daughter come to do evening sitting for us once in awhile.

Recently I was talking to Wit-wee (as Caden calls her).  I was wishing her a good vacation and telling her how much we would miss her.  I know Caden will.  I know I will.

Surprisingly, I said this.  "If I had a daughter this is what I would tell her on the way to a vacation without Mom and Dad.  Don't fall in love.  Come home and make sure to laugh a 100 times a day." 

At first I felt like the idiot I sounded like.  Then a little ache spread in my heart.  "If I had a daughter...."

I distinctly remember the ultrasound when I discovered that Caden was indeed a boy.  I had a little ache in my heart then too.  I kind of wanted to have a boy and a girl.  It would have mirrored my brother and I. 

If I had a daughter...how would things be different?  I wouldn't know how to play air hockey as good.  I also wouldn't know the best way to wrestle someone to the ground.  I would have missed the mythology of the X-men and the male angst so thoroughly portrayed in Spiderman. 

Sugar and spice and everything would be kinda nice.  But I'll take my two little fellas any day.

Business in the Front/Party in the Back

(Thank you to those who patiently keep checking back for my blog.  It's been a busy couple weeks.  I spent time settling my mother's estate and hanging out with my awesome brother.  I'm back!)

I live in a small, post-industrial town in western PA.  We have now lived here full time for nearly two (!) years.  Here's a couple things I have come to learn and love about our little neck of the Laurel Highlands.

Mullets
Business in the front and party in the back.  It means the front and sides of the hair are cut short, very short.  The back is long, stringy and hanging listlessly.  I LOOOOOVE a good mullet.  It's not just the societal dichotomy (business vs. party).  It's the absolute hilarity of trying to take someone seriously whilst staring them in the mullet.  My absolute fave?  A WOMAN with a mullet.  Anywhere else in the country wo-mullets (women with mullets) have girlfriends, not here.  Where I live, a woman with a mullet often has as an accessory a power tool and/or skinny, downtrodden husband.

Obsession with Pork Based Products
Originating with those ever so thrifty Amish, there is a pork based product which defies explanation-scrapple.  It's a block of grey mush fried and served with maple syrup.  It is as the name implies-the
scraps of pork left after sausage, bacon or other pork related goodness is created.  The scraps are ground together and made into blocks.  Dad ordered it with his bacon and egg breakfast the other day.  I swear it jiggled on the plate.

The following sign was posted at a fancy casino restaurant.  Note the last item.

The side of beef, surely the serving size of the prime rib, isn't enough.  The Father's day brunch isn't complete without pork kielbasa off the grill! 

Pantyhose in All It's Glory

Pantyhose is good, sorta.  I prefer tights, black and only in the winter.  However, in my beloved western PA pantyhose are the universal symbol of being 'dressed up'. 

During a recent trip to the casino in Pittsburgh (where my father wanted to spend his special day), he warned me what happens after 5 o'clock.  Apparently, right at the stroke of 5 men in crisp suits (obviously not worn during the day) show up to sit at the slots.  Behind them stand dolled up dames (invariably younger) looking bored at best and bitter at worst. 

I witnessed it first hand.  However, with one of the dames was her equally unhappy mother.  She impressed me with her black pantyhose in the middle of a sweltering June evening.  What did Mommie Boredest pair it with?  White flip flops, naturally!

I have to close now.  It's time to go to Giant Eagle to pick up some kielbasa for a picnic this weekend.  I'll be wearing my flip flops, sans pantyhose.