Bringing a Bad Attitude to Every Table

We must travel to Portland every year in the summer, and every year for either Christmas or Thanksgiving. It's written in our marriage contract and the economy will fail and the country will lose the war in Iraq if we don't. (Hey, wait a second - those things are already happening......)

We always drive in the summer, because it's cheaper, and we always fly in the winter, because G. is afraid of driving and getting stuck on the snowy mountain pass and having to eat our children.

Except this year - this year it would cost some stupidly astronomical amount for the four of us to fly. So we're taking the train.

That's right - 18 HOURS on an Amtrak train. And that's if it's running on time. No sleeping car - sleeping cars are almost as much as flying. G. says it will be fun.

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You remember the Halloween historical parade that sucks all the fun out of Halloween at A.'s school? A few nights ago he declared that he wanted to be Martin Luther King Jr.

That's right. The ONE white kid at the school (and a red-head, no less) wants to be MLK Jr.

"OK," I said gamely, "we can figure that out."

But now, after attending Kid's Night at church last night, he wants to be someone out of the Bible. Not Jesus, no, that's too obvious.

"How about Mary, Jesus' mother?" he asked.

"Sure. We could do that," I thought. That would make an awesome blog post, I thought, which is how I evaluate all my decisions. Also, it's an easy costume.

"Nah. She's a girl. How about Isaac?" he suggested.

Losing the train of thought, I asked, "Isaac? You mean Isaac Newton?"

"No, you know. Abraham's son," he answered. Oooh, there are some possibilities for another awesome blog post. Strap a table to his back, decorate it like a sacrificial altar and stick a big knife next to him.......

"Oookay. I don't think the school library has a biography of him, though. We'll have to do our own research," I told him.

He still wasn't sure. He picked up the kid's bible, turned to a random page and found King Josiah, the 8-year-old king of Judah.

BINGO! Toga, crown, and we're there. All the kid's bible says about him is that he was eight when he ascended the throne and that once he was king, he fixed some of the temples. There's a drawing of a kid with a crown pointing to some cracks in a pillar. Perfect - we'll just add a putty knife to the toga and crown. Wikipedia has a slightly different take on Josiah, but let's just pretend we didn't see that, OK?

So, for today anyway, that's what he's going to be. Unless some other kid has already taken it.