K-I-S-S-I-N-G

A bunch of unconnected ramblings today. First up this morning, great news. Yesterday President Bush signed into law the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act which calls for $150 million over five years for such initiatives as expanded pediatric-cancer research and a national childhood-cancer database. Let's thank all those parents for their tireless work to get this accomplished!

Second, on my way to work this morning I passed some construction. I use this word lightly because it was actually just a guy shoveling on the side of the road. ONE guy. With a shovel. And a truck. He wasn't even blocking traffic in either direction and yet the State of Massachusetts found fit to have not one but two cops there to direct traffic. One was standing on the side of the road talking to the shoveler and the other was sitting in the squad car with the lights on. Phew, good thing they were there or I might have taken that guy and his shovel right out. I might have missed his bright red truck and his bright orange reflective gear. Only in MA!

And I have to share a funny story from the park. We were there with a friend of mine and her 3 kids, and we were the only ones there except for 3 teenagers hanging out on the swings. Two girls and a guy. They were harmless looking enough and probably not even old enough to drive which is why they were hanging out at the park and not somewhere cool, or at a job. While me & the little girls were looking at the butterflies sitting on the flowers (yes, it's AWESOME that girls really do want to do this!) I heard the sound of "ewwwww" coming from the boys behind us. Next I heard this "they're kissing, kissing!!!! Yuck" and Jack told me, well yelled to me actually across half the park "Mommy, they were kissing right out in public like they are in the wild or something." Yes, apparently my son thinks kissing only goes on "in the wild" of the jungle or some other appropriate place like that. At this point the teenagers were laughing uncontrollably and snickering to each other. After feeling a little pang of sympathy for the 3rd wheel girl who has to hang around all summer watching her 2 friends make out (who hasn't been in those shoes at least a few times?), the next part of the conversation went like this:

Me: "well, it's OK, Daddy & I kiss sometimes" (I guess we must sometimes)

Jack: "Not in the park"

Me: "Well, maybe if Daddy came to the park with us sometimes I would kiss him!"

Hmmm, at this point the teenagers got the hell out of there and I don't blame them. I wanted to yell after them,

"Yup, they're not so cute are they, so make sure you keep it at just kissing!"