Friday’s Santa Claus parade in Chatham was a pretty darned good one. But did the Cookie Monster trump Santa?
I think folks are still talking about that huge Cookie Monster float.
We caught the parade for the most part from inside The Montreal House. Chicken wings and a parade. Pretty good combination in my books. And quite warm.
Then again, I was outside taking photos and it didn’t seem too cold. No wind, so the evening chill was quite tolerable.
The kids lining the street where I took the photos looked to be having a blast. To me, that was the sign the parade was a success.
Winter has arrived way too early
While young kids across the municipality are happy this week as we received an early dose of the white stuff, I’m betting most adults aren’t.
Come on, Mother Nature, it’s way too early for snow and lingering cold weather. I looked at my barbecue Monday morning and nearly cried. It was under more than an inch of snow.
Not that such a thing will prevent me from enjoying my Big Green Egg, but waking to snow of such quantity in mid-November, with more in the forecast all this week, is disheartening.
I have no doubt I will barbecue throughout the winter, and even when it’s snowing out. The ceramic egg will do a great job keeping the heat in. But sitting outside and relaxing while the meat’s grilling isn’t the same in crappy weather. And I’m talking wind and rain or wind and snow. I imagine as long as I dress properly, it will be pretty awesome on clear, calm evening sitting out there as the smoke and steam from the barbecue drifts skyward into the cold night air. The only noise will be the sizzling from the meat.
That I can handle. Just keep the snow at bay for a while, please.
Then again, making a snowman with our daughter while cooking dinner could be pretty cool too. Hmm. I’m now thinking I’ll have to roll with the snowy punches Mother Nature delivers. Whining won’t solve anything, right?
Father-daughter time
Most kids hate cleaning their rooms, and their parents generally despise having to do it for them.
On Saturday, our daughter and I bucked that trend. She started the mega cleaning while I went out do so some yard work. But the lingering snow on the ground made it not feasible to use the lawn vacuum much. I gave up after two and a half bags of leaves and returned indoors.
Saturday afternoon turned into daddy-daughter time in Brenna’s room. We went through everything, from clothes to books to craft materials, you name it.
A trip to Goodwill resulted, as well as a half-full garbage can outside.
And we did it with some music. It began with her AC/DC CD and morphed into a Detroit dance music station. You can guess which option I liked better.
Couch and Kleenex
Well, it appears the flu has landed in our home, sneaking in the side door with our daughter. She got smacked with a fever of 100.8 F Sunday afternoon.
At age 12, she is now in the in-between stage for medicine. She’s past the 2-11 children’s fever med level and is headed towards adult pills.
One problem: She hasn’t been able to swallow pills so far. That means we have to snag the kids’ medicine in chewable tablet or liquid form and usually guesstimate how much to give her.
Thankfully Sunday, a pharmacist figured out her dosage based on her weight.
But what I want to do is get her into swallowing pills. Do any parents out there have any advice? Drop me an e-mail at bruce@chathamvoice.com
I’m thinking maybe of cutting jelly beans in half and seeing if she’ll swallow those.
Are you kidding me?
Talk about bad timing. Five minutes before kickoff Sunday, our downstairs TV decided to quit.
I was watching the pre-game show and heard a pop. It went dark.
NOOOOO!
The darned lamp on the DLP went.
Fortunately, the Mary was in nap mode and Brenna was doing some schoolwork on the computer, so I slipped upstairs and caught the games. Whew.
