Doldrums

I absolutely hate it when bloggers (or journalers, whatever I'm called) don't add entries for day upon day.  The main reason I haven't posted is that most people aren't particularly interested in my forays to Staples to buy school supplies, or taking kids to get haircuts, or to the uniform shop.  Blah blah blah.  But that pretty much sums up the past week or so.  Oh, okay, Quentin did get his braces off yesterday, and got his mop-top ... er, hair cut yesterday, and he looks like a completely different person.  Talk about extreme makeover.  I love his haircut, but it's still a little long, I'm hoping that the school (which is very ticky about hair length) will accept it, cause I don't want to take him for another cut and listen to him gripe about it.  That's what you get when you go to a private school.  I keep telling him he can go to Colin's school (public .. free) and he can grow his hair down to his waist if he so chooses.  But no, he's very happy at Southlake, and will probably be there for the duration (unless David decides he's had it with corporate life and quits his job to live on a commune and grow tomatoes.  Which is probably as likely as monkeys flying out of the proverbial ... well, you know ... this is a family blog after all!)

It's going to be ugly next week.  Southlake starts back on Wednesday.  The days of sleeping until noon (or later, in Quentin's case) are soon to be over, and it won't be pretty re-setting their body clocks.  Quentin still has to read and write about a C.S. Lewis book, and write about "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok.  (I love saying his name out loud!)  Christian has to finish "The Trumpet of the Swan" ... so we've been lying on my big bed reading together.  I've been reading "Flags of Our Fathers" by James Bradley.  I couldn't put the darn book down ... it's about the battle of Iwo Jima, the famous "photograph" of the flag raising, and the post-war lives of the men who were in the photo.  (Soon to be a major motion picture with Ryan Philippe ... coming October 20 and supposedly better than Saving Private Ryan!)  I know, I'm a geek.  I don't like fiction at all, and for some reason I'm fascinated with WWII (how many girls do you know are interested in THAT?)  I also read "Flyboys" by the same author.  George Bush the First was there, and narrowly escaped becoming a Japanese POW (which pretty much meant death ... the death rate of US soldiers in Japanese camps was 37% whereas in Europe it was more like 1%).  Didn't know that.  Then I picked up "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw, but sorry, I don't like the way Tom writes.  He should stick to broadcasting. 

Having lived in the Philippines, of course, I was interested in reading about the battles there.  Corregidor, Bataan ... places that I lived very near to (or is it "near to which I once lived" ... never end a sentence with a preposition, right mom?)  For some reason my mom and dad never took me around to these places while we were there ... probably because my dad was away on business, and my mom was so miserable being in Manila (she HATED it) that she didn't care to take me on field trips.  Manila was her least favorite overseas post ... unlike Tokyo and Brussels, I think she just doesn't like being hot.  Ironic, since I loved Manila ... as it was the prime of my life (high school) up to that point and it was enchanting to live there.  Dad did have something to do with building a refinery on the Bataan peninsula, but that's as close as I got to an actual battlefield in the Philippines.  Okay, there was the American cemetery at Fort Bonifacio (is that right?  Twenty some-odd years of time and cobwebs may have messed up my memory), with the acres and acres of white crosses.  Our house wasn't far from there, and we drove through it from time to time.  But I don't think we ever got out to look closely at the names on the tombstones.

So I didn't think I had anything to write about.