Today's Special

For most of elementary and middle school, I attended a Catholic school which served hot lunch only once a week. The high school I attended provided a mere 25 minutes for lunch. In order to spend more time yakking with my friends and touching up my 80s hairstyle and less time on line, I never once purchased a hot lunch in those four years. Rather, I bought from the a la carte menu (one turkey or roast beef sandwich, one can Diet Pepsi, one bag Dipsy Doodle chips and either a Reeses peanut butter cup or package of mini powdered donuts if I had an athletic practice that day). As a teacher, I always brown bagged it. Therefore, I've had minimal contact with lunch ladies in my life. For all I knew, the hairnetted stereotypes and Chris Farley SNL skit could be spot-on accurate.

That is until I sent my oldest son to first grade. Every once in awhile, I would send him to school with money for the oh so exciting purpose of buying lunch. Apparently he impressed the lunch ladies with his eagerness and manners. Right before his birthday that year, I received a phone call at home from one of the lunch ladies who said something along the lines of, "Hi, I'm Mrs. So and So, I'm a cafeteria worker at your son's school. I hope you don't think this is strange and I wanted to clear it with you. Can I give your son a birthday present? I love talking with him and I found a gift I think he'll love." That's how we ended up with a Sea Monkey tank on our kitchen windowsill for two years.

That same son of mine has moved on to fifth grade. At his current school, there are days when he is the only customer for soup. I send him in with a bagged lunch most days and a dollar for soup. He comes home raving about the Italian Wedding Soup, the minestrone, the navy bean, and so on. Sure, lots of kids purchase chicken noodle and tomato, but on other days, he's the only soup eater. The lunch ladies see him in the hallways and tell him what the soup of the day will be. They have also hand delivered cups of soup to his lunch table and given him free refills. He loves those ladies. So of course I'm going to have to get him Jarrett Kroscoczka's new graphic novel Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute. It's the first in a planned series aimed at seven to ten year olds. I don't know much more about it yet, but it certainly looks fun!

Home Smelly Home

The Book Benchers are home from a relaxing week in Maine. It was the kind of vacation you imagine all year (unless you are an extreme sport, go-getter, action type of vacationer). Everything was perfect except for the mountain of disgusting and malodorous clothing and linens we brought home and dumped in a laundry room containing a gerbil cage and fish tank badly in need of cleaning. Ah well, it's a small price to pay. I hope you'll indulge me by viewing a few vacation pics.

Here is my ten year old and a snapping turtle he caught. He spent several mornings in a kayak stalking turtle sunning themselves on rocks. Every time he got too close, they slipped quickly into the water. Finally this guy was a bit too slow. My husband showed us all how a snapping turtle reflexively? instinctively? snaps by placing a stick near its mouth. He immediately clamped down on it. We all yelled "Do it again!" He did. We yelled "Do it again!" This went on for an embarrassingly long while. We have no television at the house in Maine, and we're a bit simple, I guess.

Here we are at the Portland Head Light. It's a very predictable family photo op, but I don't care, because it's a nice one. Speaking of predictable, my youngest son is not looking at the camera even though we were all admonishing him to do so from the sides of our smiling mouths. Of interest to me is that this lighthouse is pictured on the cover of the American literature textbook I will be using to teach this fall.

This shot is of two of the kids eating lunch en route from New Jersey to Maine. Before you alert the authorities, the truck was parked in a lot. While the truck was moving, everyone was buckled into their seats and bickering about elbow room. I just include this photo to show how Beverly Hillbillies we roll. And to give you a glimpse of the beautiful sailboat my husband built.

Finally, speaking of boat, after twelve months of schlepping my kids around to school and sports, play dates and activities, it was nice to be in the passenger seat and let my six year old son do the driving.

As far as books go, I finished To Kill a Mockingbird and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while sitting by the water. On the car trip to and from, we listened to Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl. We all enjoyed it, even my husband who is usually more of a nonfiction guy.What more could a vacationer ask for?

Be Prepared

We are all packed and ready to go on vacation. We've purchased enough sunscreen to send a family of five to Mercury for a week. We've stocked up on magazines, ice pops, pretzels, and beer. My six year old son found this bag in the attic and insisted on packing his clothes in it:


Farewell, Thomas the Tank Engine suitcase. My boy is shipping out without you. He did, however, pack a few of his men to keep him company:
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My daughter learned her lesson last summer when she ran out of books and had to visit the local library. Although, it was kind of fun to visit a library on vacation. She's got an entire bag filled with fat books. We need to decide if we are going to listen to Artemis Fowl or Tuck Everlasting on CD for the seven hour drive and then we're set to go. Well, we have to cram all of our stuff in the car and forget a few things first as is our routine, and then we're off. I hope to see you back here in a week. In the meantime, what are you reading this summer?

Once again, luck has saved the day here at the Book Bench. I was at the public library with all three of my kids yesterday. They were laughing with friends, pulling favorites (books and DVDs) from the shelves, and begging for time on the computer. We were in a bit of a hurry, and I had to keep telling them to "wrap it up." Each kid checked out a few books to bring on our upcoming vacation, then we ran out of there to quickly eat a hastily thrown together dinner before racing off to a swim meet. Once we arrived at the meet, it soon became apparent that goggles and a swim cap had been left on our kitchen table. I left the kids with another mom to warm up with their team and drove like the devil to retrieve the cap and goggles. On my drive home, I couldn't help but think of something I'd read at the library earlier. While the books were being checked out, I managed to flip through the August issue of Parents magazine and read that "Kids who grow up in an organized and calm home are more likely to have good early reading skills at ages five and six" according to a study done by Ohio State University and Teachers College of Columbia University. Having set mealtimes and bedtimes, using a family calendar and turning off the TV during dinner are all key to developing these early reading skills. We don't have a television anywhere near our kitchen or dining room, but those other three challenge me. In light of this study, it is surprising that my youngest son can read at all, given that he has spent the first six years of his life in a state of unrelenting disorganization and hurry. His kindergarten teacher obviously deserves a big thank you, but I also think somebody needs to study the effects of eating a salami and cheese sandwich and banana for dinner in a moving minivan while your older sister reads to you and your mom drives everyone to a soccer game on reading skills. Luckily, that method seems to have worked for us because I know the calm organized home won't appear anytime soon.

Foodie Friday Arrives Early This Week

I love a gyro. Love as in I'd like to marry one. Back in college, my friends and I were convinced that a gyro consumed from a grease truck (aka roach coach) at 2 am, walking home from a bar would stave off a hangover in the morning. In reality, it didn't work, but it was delicious trying. Here's another story about me and this bit of meat, vegetable and yogurt heaven wrapped in flat bread: seven years ago, my husband and I went to a diner for dinner. I ordered a gyro and moaned and licked my fingers all the way through it. I woke up the next morning knowing I had to have another. I stopped off at the mall, bought one at the food court, and consumed it standing up. On day three, I insisted we go back to the diner for another gyro dinner. I wanted one again the next day, but decided I might not be setting the best example for my two young children. Several days later, I found out, much to my surprise, that I was seven weeks pregnant. Let's just say, if you are what you eat, my third child is extremely lucky he didn't emerge from my body looking like a Greek diner specialty.

Today's NYTimes has a great piece entitled "The Gyro's History Unfolds." It is really well written and full of fascinating gyro facts and history. It attempts to answer "who is the Henry Ford of the gyro?" and suggests that in an economic downturn, the gyro business is a good one to be in. Plus, it has a video. "The Making of a Gyro Cone." I have to admit, I never knew such a thing as this big BandAid colored round of mass produced gyro meat existed, but I never thought deeply about it. I just craved them.

Subject:British Chick Lit Penned by a Dude

I finished Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham about a week ago. Don't be fooled by the cover. It is really Holly's Inbox and Sent Mail and it was written by a guy. It is a fat book, over 600 pages, but can be read in about a day as each page contains a handful of emails and a whole lot of white space. This fast paced story, told completely in emails, chronicles Holly's time working as a receptionist at a busy corporate bank in England. I love a good British chick lit offering as much as the next gal, but this one didn't do it for me. I have the feeling the author studied the Bridget Jones and Shopaholic books and tried to deliver up more of the same for women readers. It contains zany, sharp-tongued friends, romance, mishaps, weight worries, and a dysfunctional family who mean well, but it falls short of the mark.

While I'm Not Reading Important Literature

That's right. While I am not reading the literary classics that I should reading to prepare for my soon to commence paid employment, my nine year old daughter is polishing off about a book a day this summer, including H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man That girl needs more household chores! And she needs to stop putting her mother to shame by making her so proud!