54% of you have been stood up by a repair person once or twice and 36% say more times than you deem to be proper. I’m sorry, but that is WAY too many. Only a blessed 9% minority have never had it happen.

Today I’m all about Thanksgiving.

Good grief, it’s been a bit, hasn’t it?  Last week was fairly hectic, not to mention the Munchkinette having an illness that resulted in lots of bodily fluids coming out of her that, ah, weren’t really supposed to.  Poor baby.

Anyhoo, 52% of you rarely write checks anymore, 16% do it quite often, 28% occasionally, and 4% of you never have to write checks at all.  I wonder how much longer banks will be keeping checks around.  I imagine it is much cheaper to do it all electronically. 

As for today, the Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the largest in the county, recently voted to stop serving chocolate milk in schools.  This includes students who qualify for subsidized or free meals.  Ostensibly, it is to combat childhood obesity, but I wonder if this is just a proverbial drop in the milk bucket, so to speak.

Oooh! Last week’s poll about watching movies at the theater wound up with a tie!  I don’t ever remember that happening. People, you know my life is in need of a change when I get excited over a tie.

 27% of you enjoy seeing movies at a theater, and another 27% would enjoy it more often if it didn’t cost quite so much money.  Seriously, I think ticket prices, at least in my neck of the woods, are a little out of hand.  20% only like to shell out the dough to see certain types of movies, and 17% would rather wait on it to watch at home.  And that leaves 6% of you who don’t really like watching movies that much at all.

Today I’ve got an admittedly odd question, but I wanted to get a larger sample size than just my friends.  You see, I recently went out to dinner, and we planned on seeing a movie afterwards.  I had enough of my meal left over to take home, but I waffled because I don’t like to eat food that has been sitting unrefrigerated for more than a couple of hours.  One of my fellow diners thought this was ridiculous and offered to take my leftovers for themselves.  And they did.  And they claimed to have no ill aftereffects.  Allegedly.

Do polls fill you with inexplicable joy? I’ve got another one at Manolo Beauty!

Dear Fellow Patrons of the Fabulous Little Cuban Restaurant,

I know.

On Saturday night, through no real fault of my own, I became one of THOSE parents.  I’ve never been one of THOSE parents before, and I assure you it was as traumatizing to me as it was to you.

You see, we purposely chose this restaurant because not only does it have fantastic food, but also an open-air dining patio.  This patio enables us to make a quick break for it in case our 18 month old gets squirmy.  We are well aware that the mood swings of a toddler are, shall we say, unpredictable.

Anyhoo, the lovely people at the table next to us, you were being very sweet to her. Especially when she unleashed her version of “hello” on you, which is to basically scream at you until you are forced to acknowledge her.  It’s cute the first time she does it, but gets reeaallly old by the third time.  I’m well aware of this.  You were even playing peek-a-boo with her, which is really above and beyond the call of duty.

And that is why I felt especially bad when, in a fit of pique and knowing that her Dad was distracted, my daughter managed to grab our bread basket and hurl it at you and your table.  She wasn’t trying to be mean, she is merely extremely interested in the laws of physics.

But, I guess I didn’t take into account that even though the open-air thing is good for getaways, it also means the tables are sort of scrunched in closer together than they would be at a normal type of restaurant.

You truly did not deserve to have pieces of French bread all over your table, and I was mortified.

We apologized to you profusely, and you were extremely gracious about it, which sort of made me feel worse.

All I can say is, she doesn’t get it from my side of the family.

Thanks again,

Glinda

The Munchkin recently went out to dinner with his grandparents (my parents) and when they came back, it was remarked upon by my mother than my son resembled a hungry wolf while eating his spaghetti and meatballs.

And here I thought it was a problem confined just to our house. 

Er, at least I guess I was hoping that like many other fairly undesirable behaviors, when out with other people, kids tend to put on their best behavior.

So either my son’s table manners are horrendous, or I am immersed in some very deep waters of denial.

You see, it is true that for some reason, my son will lower his head down to his plate and not so much lift his fork to his mouth, but rather shovel in whatever food he has on there.  He is also a very sloppy eater, leaving a ring of detritus around his plate. He is also not what you would describe as a delicate chewer.

It isn’t very pleasant, really.

I have no idea where he gets this from.

Goodness knows I have called him out on his eating habits many a time.  I tell him to slow down, to lift his fork all the way up to his face, and to be careful with his food.

Glinda, meet brick wall. I have no doubt my admonishments sound exactly like the teacher’s voice in the Peanuts,  “Muwaaaah, wuaaaaah, wuaaaha, wua, muwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”

Is this a typical 8 year old boy thing?  Or will my son be shunned from dining with people other than his family?  Have people secretly been pointing and laughing at him every time we go out to eat?

In his defense, though, there is NO graceful way to eat spaghetti.

Well, 45% of you think that we shouldn’t be putting three year olds in academic settings in the first place, never mind potty-training rules.  Another 32% believes that schools should be a little more understanding of children and their varying rates of physical development, which are totally out of their control.  15% think that the schools should not have to deal with untrained children, and 7% think that if a school is willing to accept someone’s money, then they should be able to deal.

Today during the Super Bowl I ate many more calories than was seemly, and I blame the spinach dip.  Although I have only myself to blame, as I am the one who made it and brought it.

58% of you told Tom Ford to shove his fake controversy in his inappropriate Native American headdress. 25% thought heavily made-up six year olds were a tad wrong, but 12% saw nothing wrong with it.  Sigh.  The things they do to sell magazines these days.

Today I want to know what you think about a particular chain restaurant.  A chain restaurant that is known more for the waitresses in tight shirts and short shorts than for the actual food.

The bulk of you (and ha, that is absolutely NO reference to all that Halloween candy you so considerately swiped screened from your child’s bag) went trick-or-treating on Halloween at 40%, with the next largest contingent being those who handed out candy with 37%.  A suprisingly large amount of you, 22%, did nothing, and to be honest, I can’t say as I blame you. 

Now that we’ve got candy on the brain, and with even more holiday goodies approaching, what is your favorite type of candy?