Off the table, Mabel

Or: celebrating your inner ho.

Last night The Youngest Teen and I went to PTA meetings. She generally got good reviews (taking her was an insidious plot: teachers don't usually talk trash about a girl to her face). What did suprise me was how little emphasis was placed on academics. With only one exception (The Middle Teen's math teacher) all the teachers gushed about how personable my girls are, how involved they are in class activities, and how many friends they have. Um, excuse me--isn't the main classroom activity supposed to be learning? So please, a word or two about their grades? No--they give you a run-down of test scores nearly printed out to take home and warn you that this is in no way indicative of the report card marks, since classroom participation is at least 50% of the grade. Very nice--so would you flippin' tell me what's going on with my kid academically, including how well she participates in class? No, but I'll tell you about the great banner she made for the upcoming Development Town Seminar...

Grr.

Throughout the evening I had to talk The Youngest Teen out of sitting on the table, and I kept using the phrase my mother used on me. "Get off the table, Mabel, the two bucks are for the beer." Her best friend, whose parents are also Anglod, came up to us and said that her mother, born in Israel and raised in Atlanta, tells her the same thing. And I thought that we must both be terrible mothers, given what we're comparing our girls to.

But. It's time to embrace my inner ho. My inner Noro ho, that is.

When we were in Boston, The Spouse and I got together with JanJan and her Spouse for dinner. We took the T from Copley Square (I love public transportation. New Yorkers, I feel your pain.) We were coming from muchcloser in than they were, so we walked around, got a cup of coffee, passed the JFK birthplace and had a political discussion, visited a large indie bookseller, and then met up with them at Ta'am China on Harvard St. (The Spouse and I had eaten there the night before with other vendors from the convention, and were very happy to be going back.)

We talked politics and religion, fiber and food. And The Spouse and JanJan discovered that they grew up in the same neighborhood on Long Island. In the Jewish world, you always, but always, have some connection to the person you're speaking to. If the Spouse remembers to scan his kindergarten class picture and JanJan really is in it, well, I'll be the first knitblog with blackmail potential. ;-)

So where's the ho in all of this? JanJan wanted to bring me a gift, and after reading how I gushed when my SP sent me some Noro, look what she brought me!

Now I have to find the perfect use. I'm thinking, since my office is one of the unheated rooms in the house, that I should make myself some cold weather gear--a Panta, some fingerless gloves, a cowl for my neck. Then again, the lure of a felted bag...

Someone help me turn my inner Noro ho into a productive girl! I've got 2 skeins of one color way, and three of another--ideas, anyone?

And even better yet, look what JanJan made for me!

Aren't they just beautiful? Go on over to her blog and compliment her on them, I'll wait. They're too pretty not to be seen on a regular basis, so next time I'm in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem I'm getting some silver ear wires to slip the blues onto, and a nice catch and chin for the green. Because I deserve to be clothed in only the finest, right? Someone? Bueller? Anyone? Right?