troofuses

• I deal very poorly with rejection, and things I perceive to be rejection.
• I have to give credit to the Chicago police for handling NATO really, really well. They made some mistakes, but so did the protestors, and in no case did I get the sense that the cops started the trouble when trouble did arise. And it arose infrequently.
• Metra, however, gets a big, fat F. No backpacks on commuter trains? No coffee? If you’re following TSA’s security model, you’re doing it wrong. And, further, if a guy can take over a speeding train with nothing more than a venti with an extra shot, I say he deserves to.
• The media gets an F, too, for panic mongering and emphasizing the negative. Shocking, I know, but they made my city look bad, and I deal poorly with that, too.
• We went way over the top for Danny’s Harry Potter birthday party, and I am sure all the other parents hate us for it, since we live in the kind of place where people compete over ridiculous things. Ha!
• Speaking of the party: I set up a light bulb with a footswitch. The kids had to cast a lumos spell at the bulb to see which wand was right for them. The 8-year-old boys figured it right out, but they played along in the spirit of it. But apparently after the party, Leah (5) was still trying to cast spells on the bulb. She really believed it was magic.