Quick Hits from the Picket Fence Post Family

Mangling the Bike Tire

Scene: Backing out of garage to drive The Girl to soccer practice. A loud crunch followed.

Action: I got out to discover that I’d run over the front tire of a kid’s bike. A boy visiting the house had parked his bike behind my car. He said he’d leaned it up against the bush, next to the garage door. Whether he did or whether he didn't (or whether it fell over), is irrelevenat. The bike tire wound up being crunched nonetheless.

Conclusion: We’ve offered to pay for a replacement. No word from the kid’s parents on a pricetag though.

Fun with Tornado Warnings

The Picket Fence Post family spent some quality time in The Spouse’s basement home office last week after the weather forecasters were predicting – erroneously it turned out – that a powerful storm cell was headed in our direction, a cell that had already spawned deadly and destructive tornadic activity in western Massachusetts.

I set The Girl and The Youngest Boy up with snacks, a laptop computer, headphones and Malcolm in the Middle DVDs while I watched the TV news with The Eldest Boy and I Tweeted up a storm (no pun intended). I freaked out a bit when we received a warning call on our home phone from authorities suggesting that we “seek shelter” but tried (probably unsuccessfully) to keep it all cool on the outside as I kept in touch with my folks who live in the Springfield area which was hit with tornados. (They were fine).

The following day, The Eldest Boy came home from school and told me “no one” he knew had gone to the basement during the storm (a fact that other parents with whom I later spoke refuted). But then again, The Eldest Boy likes to paint me as an overcautious helicopter parent, and is fond of making sport of his old mom.

Permit Me This One Tangent . . .

When you’re a parent on the sidelines of a youth sporting event and you see that a kid on your kid’s team has been struggling, it’s not helpful to start smack-talking about how much he's stinking up the joint. Seriously. Plus, you never know if that kid’s parents are sitting nearby. Consider this a public service announcement.

Bruins Mania

I’m feeling a tad guilty at the moment. When the Boston Red Sox were in the World Series in 2004 and 2007, I, ever the enthusiastic fan, made signs which said, “Go Sox” and put them in our front windows.

However when the Celtics were in the NBA Finals, I didn’t put signs in the windows. It’s not that I didn’t care if they won or lost. We in the Picket Fence Post family watched the Finals and rooted for the C’s, but I wouldn’t say that any of us are totally nuts for the team like The Spouse and I are for the Sox.

But when the Bruins made it to the Stanley Cup finals, The Youngest Boy, our resident hockey player, was so jazzed about it that he asked me if we could put signs in the windows like we did in 2007. I said that we would because it’s only fair.

The sad part is, like the Bruins (last night’s game notwithstanding), we’ve kind of gotten off to a slow start what with youth soccer and baseball games, school projects and the like haven’t gotten around to making those signs yet. But now that the Bruins have kick-started their finals play with last night’s shellacking of Vancouver, I’m hoping that’ll kick-start our sign making.