This. That. The Other.

We've had two weekends in a row of school extravaganzas...the school year must be (at long last) coming to an end!

First, Cheverly Weekday Nursery's Truck Touch, in which the children touch the trucks and honk the horns and eat the hot dogs and hamburgers and cookies and...and...and... Liz and I whrrled the event, which was pretty cool. You can follow the story here.

This past Saturday, Paul's school hosted its Annual Fun Day, which was -- for many a dad -- more fun than usual, due to the presence of the Redskins cheerleaders (Redskinettes? I dunno.) They were giving mini cheerleading camps, and Maggie was right in the mix. There were a lot of very attentive dads once they figured out what was going on...and some of them didn't even have kids doing the mini camp.

Paul was at both of these events, but he, in what seems to be 2nd grader mode (judging by his friends) was extraordinarily free range, visiting us only for infusions of tickets. He came home with a lot of crap from both events. Have you ever noticed that attending school fairs is much like taking a day trip to NYC? You come with money, but 30 minutes later it's all gone and you have no recollection of where it went. Maybe I need to get to New York more often and school fairs less often...

I think Paul has taken stories of hell to heart during religious studies at school. He really gets the detail. Not sure what this has to do with anything, but there it is.

And so ends Spring Break...

We had a fantastic end to Spring Break -- three days at Bethany Beach with our (very kind, patient) friends, Erik & Kelly. We rented a little house about a block from the beach and spent a lot of time in the sand. Friday was unseasonably warm, so Paul spent most of the day in the water (yes, in his jeans and sweatshirt...it wasn't that warm). And, inspired by Kelly, I actually got some knitting done. You know it's a good beach trip when you hit pizza twice and chinese food once within three days. We also got to meet Kelly's 97-year old grandfather -- that was great. The only sad thing was driving out through Ocean Beach yesterday and seeing huge wafts of smoke coming from the boardwalk...

And so reality comes back with a roar -- my annual trip to Redskins stadium (FedEx Field, whatever) to throw money at Dan Snyder. I hate Dan Snyder. Year after year I visit the stadium to pay the bill for **someone's** season tickets. Year after year I vow that this will be the last year. Year after year, Dan Snyder's evil trolls walk away with our money. I feel violated -- they don't even give you a cup of coffee...or a "Thank you." One funny thing -- there are big video monitors in the lobby with a loop of past Redskins vicotries. Someone in line joked, "When was the last time we saw something like that?" Another person responded," Long time ago. And we won't be seein' anything like that this year either." And we all sighed. Dan Snyder doesn't care if the team does well -- he already has your cash. Mine, too.