I Went, I Saw, I Didn't Overeat!

Hooray for me I survived the Bar Mitzvah diet intact. I stuck to veggies and only ate things on my diet. (OK, I ate a little too much bread shoot me) But for the most part it was a good day. DD got on fine with the other kids one of whom was daughter of the mayor of the town where this took place. To DH's sorrow she could not fix the ticket we got for illegal parking nearby the Synagogue. :) But it wasn't a bad time despite the fact I hardly knew a soul there. They had a magician walking around who did some really good card tricks for us, upstairs there was food for the kids, in the kitchen cold food and outside fish, pasta dishes (stayed far away from those) and really good bread (Hey they had rolls made out of the same stuff as jumbo salt pretzels I had two instead of one couldn't resist. Like I said shoot me) We didn't stay for the full blown desert but took advantage of the excellent fruit platters they brought out with the coffee.

DS was asked after by one of our cousins and it really warmed my heart to have him remembered and thought of. Spoke to him tonight, he has a bad cold. It was so hard to hear him be sick and not be able to help. I know they will take care of him at school, but I'm a Mom and it's not easy being away from a sick child. He sounded so miserable. We both (DH and I that is) told him to be sure to go to the nurse and ask for something to make him feel better. I hope he does. A good night's sleep will do him a world of good.

DD is planning on coming with me tomorrow when I go to my weekly Sangha meeting. Each Sunday my Buddhist group meets to sit in meditation together, chant some Buddhist scripture, and generally be together. DD has come with me once before. She can't sit for very long but no one minds if she gets up and goes to sit outside the zendo to draw and read while we meditate. She's been encouraged to come back. It can't hurt her and might do her good and DH has no problem with it. (we are basically Jewish but Buddhism has no God concept in it and has no conflicts with Judaism in it's beliefs so the two go together fine.) We'll see if she can get up early on a Sunday morning.

I've been making political comments on this blog, which is something I never intended to do originally. But things got to me and I just felt moved to do it. It's occurred to me that so far, in my case to show that the middle is the majority I've only spoken against perceived conservative positions. I assure you I don't think of myself as a liberal. So in the interest of fairness here's a comment on a "liberal issue" vouchers.

What is wrong with the idea of school vouchers? We went through a hellish, more than year long struggle, to get DS the kind of school he needed, and all that could have been avoided if we had simply had access to a voucher. As it was we had to show he had failed at numerous placements first before we could have him placed at a special needs boarding school. Friends of ours had to go to a hearing with lawyers costing the school district thousands of dollars to get their son what he needed, would have been simple with a voucher. As to the argument that it might be used to pay for religious schools and that violates church and state, well figure out what part of the tuition covers the religion class and make the parents pay for that separately. Vouchers allow you to vote with your feet when a school is failing your child as our district did years ago with our son. Had we had access to vouchers I feel that we could have had him in a better situation year ago and avoided the downward slide that ended in him going away to boarding school. As to the argument that it would take needed tax dollars away from public schools, I say GOOD! If they are failing to do the job then let them see that they are failing by the funds leaving. That will wake them up and force them to change.

So now the liberal activists can feel free to attack me along with the conservative ones.