The Truth about Parenting

We've all rushed out and bought the "What to Expect" books and all of the latest parenting books on the market. And while most of them are quite comprehensive, often they overlook important subjects and some of them outright lie to you.

I'm here to debunk and/or alert you to some of these oversights/lies.

"You'll get to sleep after the first year" Ha! My kids are 12 and 8 and I have yet to get a good night's sleep! Either they're sick, had a bad dream, or just moving around enough to wake you. Or things are so blissfully quiet, you just know something is wrong and you have to go check on them. I don't see any relief in sight either. Soon they will be going out with their friends or dating.

"You should stay home when they're little" I've been a working mother since the moment I squatted in the supply closet to give birth then went right back out to my computer.
And when your kids are little, you can come home at the end of the day and devote all of your time to them. So, when they're little, the quality of time outweights the quantity. However, once they begin to attend school and start bringing home backpacks bulging with assignments and they sign up for sports, you now are suffering from a lack of quantity. Between getting homework done, attending practices and games and getting them ready for the following day, I have no time to get anything else done. More than ever, I wish I could afford to be a stay-at-home because there simply isn't enough time in the day.

"Make time for your marriage with a date night each week" Great! One more thing to put on my to-do list! And that's what it feels like when you've got kids and it's worse when you work outside of the home. Your husband/sex life is just one more chore to complete. To quote the comedy duo, The Mommy's, "at the end of the day, the only thing I want that is long and hard, is sleep." Yes, it is important to maintain your relationship with your spouse. But cut yourself some slack. You are not superwoman. And believe me, if your husband doesn't get sex at least once a week, he won't die. Really. He may believe he will, but he won't. Now, there are times when you can have sex and you really don't want to, but it shouldn't be all the time. The important thing is that you take time to talk to each other about what's going on in your lives and with your kids. And it's more important that you take time to rejuvenate yourself because...

No matter what the books tell you or how much your husband participates, you still do the majority of the parenting. Men will deny this. And in all fairness, my husband does do a lot. He works second shift so he can participate at school. He packs lunches. He does housework. But in the end, I bear the brunt of the parenting. I know when they're due for doctor's visits, what's happening in school, where we have to be for sporting events, what sizes they wear and when they need new clothes, shoes or supplies. And actually, I also take care of a lot of these things for my husband too. My mother always said every marriage should consist of a captain and a first mate. Two captains clash and two first mates never accomplish anything. Being captain isn't all it's cracked up to be. There's always a mutiny waiting over the next bounty.

Your plans will never go off without a hitch, ever again. It never ceases to amaze me how many people think they can maintain the same pre-child orderly world they lived in. You will never again be on time. You will be forced to change plans you made months ago at the very last minute. Basically, your life is no longer your own. Everything you do is now predicated on your child. Romantic dinner plans for the anniversary? Oops, sorry! Barfing baby! The trick is to learn to go with the flow. Make your plans but plan to have them disrupted. And you may be surprised to discover that some of your best times will come from those revised plans.

You will never ever go to the bathroom alone again. I swear there is a motion sensor that flashes light throughout the house whenever my butt touches the toilet seat or I set foot in the shower. They could ignore me the entire day, but the minute I enter the bathroom, they need me NOW... and it's not just the kids. My husband does the same thing. Which leads me to my final point...

Take the number of children you have and increase it by one. Again, he may help out and be supportive, but in the end, he's just one of them. As Peg Bundy said, "Men... God Bless them, they're children with paychecks"

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

Parenting is the hardest job you'll ever have, but the paycheck is priceless.

25th High School Reunion

This year is my 25th high school reunion. Will I go? At first I said, "No way!" I went to my tenth, fresh off a divorce, with blonde hair and a hot body. Did I impress anyone with my new look? Uh, no. I ended up sitting at a table with the same five people with whom I shared a cafeteria table for four years. And the people I couldn't stand in high school? Still couldn't stand them. But then I got the call for "Jeopardy" and said, "Hell, yes, I'm going!" Win or lose, it was a nerd-makes-good story. Yet as of today, I'm still on the fence about the whole thing.

As I send my kids off for the first day of school tomorrow, I've been reflecting on my educational years. My youngest son is required to bring a stapler to school for the third grade. I felt it my parental duty to relate my third grade stapling story to him. A girl named Sharon Barnes decided she wanted to know what it felt like to staple her finger. Not the brightest crayon in the box. So she did it and to no one's surprise it hurt like hell. Lesson learned? Never staple your own flesh. Duh.

A shout out to some of my favorite teachers:

- Miss Benson, 6th grade. You made learning an enjoyable challenge.

- Mrs. Youel, 9th grade English. You told us, "there are no stupid books, only stupid people."
I still have to disagree with you there. But, you also taught us the basic structure of writing an
essay and that form has served me very well over the past 25 years.

- Mr. Youel, 10th grade history. Every kid needs a teacher like Mr. Youel. Fun, understanding
and he really knew his stuff.

- Miss Bonnie Brown, 12th grade English. You took the time with an Honors English class to
give us a remedial course in grammar. I still freak out if I use "this" without a corresponding
noun. Thank you.

And the letter I've been waiting to write for 25 years:

Dear Berea Board of Education,

In the tenth grade, I wanted to drop Geometry. I didn't need the math credit and even at 16, I knew that math at this level was not going to pertain to what I wanted to do with my life. But you wouldn't let me drop it.

So, I just wanted to let you know that in the past 25 years I have earned a Bachelor's Degree, had many part- and full-time jobs, been married twice, given birth to two children, buried a parent, and was a Jeopardy contestant. And in all of that time, never once was I required to figure out the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle.

What I really needed to learn from math was how to balance my checkbook or to understand the ramifications of credit card interest. If these are not skills you are teaching your students today, then you should.

p.s. Thank you very much for the comprehensive sexual education class. Contrary to current belief, the knowledge of birth control did not turn me into a nymphomaniac immediately but did come in handy when my moral compass went askew in college.

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

Education is a life-long process. Even after you've finished school, read - explore - discuss. Not only does learning open whole new worlds, continually challenging and enriching your brain can help stave off Alzheimer's.

LA and being thin

At work today, I was telling my BFF and officemate, Camisha, that when I was in LA to film Jeopardy, I didn't worry about my weight at all. Normally, I'm always glancing in windowfronts as I walk by or double-checking myself in the mirror 18 times so whatever I'm wearing doesn't make me look too fat. But out there, even when I was dressed and doing the show (I did cheat with a panty girdle because while I don't mind looking thick, I do mind having tummy rolls), I never even gave it a second thought. Which is very strange because since I was 12, I have always worried about my weight and how it made me look.

Except when I was pregnant. I used to swim laps when I was pregnant with my oldest and friends would say, "Aren't you embarrassed to be seen in a bathing suit?" Hell, no! It was the first time I could wear one without having to worry about sucking in my tummy. I loved being pregnant and surprisingly, I never went overboard with the weight gain, staying withing the 35 pound limit. However, I did pack on the weight while breastfeeding and 12 years later, have yet to unpack it.

But I digress. Camisha thought I would have been more weight conscious in LA because of all the atrociously thin people out there. And let me tell you, if I ever get back to Rodeo Drive, I'm filling my purse with Oreo's to hand out to all those skeletal women out there shopping. Geez, how could they think they look good? My friend Valerie and I only went into one shop on that street and the woman who greeted us only offered to show us the purses that were 50% off (wow, half off $200... what a bargain for me!) but never mentioned the bikinis that were 75% off. It never occurred to me until I got home that she offered the purses because in once glance she determined we wouldn't fit into anything else in the store.

Maybe it was just the excitement of having one of your dreams come true or just the thrill of visiting someplace so far away and new. Or maybe I was just thankful I survived my first flight.
And what's even stranger? Other than trying to eat healthy and exercise daily for my health, I'm not really thinking about how much I weigh or how my clothes look since I got back home.
It's just plain weird, that's all.

And speaking of weird, I'm reading Living My Life, Emma Goldman's autobiography. If you don't know who she is, she was an anarchist who was deported to Russia during WWI and was a lot of other fascinating things, including a voracious reader like me. I always take a book with me if I think that I will have to wait for any period of time. So, I'm reading her recollection of being arrested while making a speech in Providence:

"It was the first time since 1893 that I had been arrested, but, constantly expecting to fall into the clutches of the law, I had made it a practice to carry a book with me when going to meetings"

That is so cool!

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

Children are great but they can suck the life right out of you.

Sex Education in the real world

Two years ago, I went up against Operation Keepsake in our local school district because they wanted to teach our kids sex education with an abstinence only/pro-life agenda. Sure, abstinence is the only fool proof method of birth control. And it's worked... um... in the past 15 centuries, like NEVER! Teenage pregnancy is as story as old as the Pyramids. And the only reason it's such a big problem now is because the population a lot bigger than it was 100 years or so ago and girls don't get married anymore at 13 or 14.

And teaching abstinence only is dangerous. It's like teaching your kids how to drive but not showing them where the brake is, just because they've promised to drive responsibly. And it's not like back when we were teenagers and you mainly worried about pregnancy. You thought about disease, but back then, if it looked icky, you didn't touch it. But now the diseases can kill you. And you don't necessarily get them from just intercourse. There are junior high kids indulging in oral sex (boy recipients only... don't get me started on how that reflects on the current state of female self-esteem in the next generation) and don't seem to get that they can die from that, too. And what smells the most like the Republicans about the whole thing? The No Child Left Behind act requires teaching sex education this way in order for schools to receive their funding.

When I would spout off about this subject to other parents, they would just nod indulgently. But now, there is a high school in Canton that is veering away from the abstinence only program because 14 percent of their female population ended up pregnant due to sheer ignorance. Funniest thing? A reverend is spearheading the movement because his 15 year old parishioner came to him when she got pregnant and told him that her boyfriend had told her she wouldn 't get pregnant the first time and when she did, he accused her of sleeping around and dumped her.

The people from groups like Operation Keepsake believe that if you put birth control into the hands of young people, they will begin having sexual intercourse willy-nilly. Now, I had a comprehensive sex education when I was in ninth grade. I did not run out and have sex with the first boy I could find. I stayed pure until I was nearly 19. The fact that no boy in high school actually wanted to sleep with me may have had something to do with my chastity, but nevertheless, I refrained until I was older and then because I had been educated, I was able to make decisions that kept me safe from pregnancy and disease.

The other thing I object to in regards to the program, is they are pushing a pro-life agenda. In the fifth grade when they explained a baby's life in the womb, they told them that life begins at the moment of conception. Regardless of your personal beliefs, school is a place where children go to receive an unbiased education. Neither a pro-life or pro-choice agenda belong in public schools. And I don't even want to get into how much this program violates the whole separation of church and state doctrine.

If you have a child in middle school or higher, don't hesitate to talk to the school board about how sex education is taught in the schools. I know you can tell them about the birds and the bees at home, but let's face it... how many teenagers listen to their parents? So they need a reliable outside source, like school, to give them the straight (or gay, because there's nothing wrong with that) facts.

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

You know what they call people who don't discuss sex and it's consequences honestly with their kids? Grandparents.

Things I like about being over forty

Okay. So I said I didn't mind getting older then I bitched about it. And actually there are things I like about getting older such as:

- I really don't care what other people think of me. I don't mean in an evil way like being cruel or not bathing regularly. I mean that if I want to act goofy or dorky, I'll do it regardless of my audience. I'll wear what is comfortable, not what's in style. I'll state my opinions without caring how others perceive me... which me reminds me of one of Coach John Wooden's rules to live by
"be more interested in your character, which is what you really are, than in your reputation, which is what others perceive you to be." Good advice.

- And speaking of my opinions, I am also ready to do something about them. I went to Kent State where there was always someone was always protesting something. And I was too interested in partying to care. But now that I'm older, I feel confident and knowledgable enough to fight for the things I believe in, rather than just grouse about them over a few beers.

- I'm old enough to be thought of as a peer by my relatives, like aunts and uncles. And I'm finally old enough to get a seat at the grown-up table during the holidays. The only downside to being treated as an equal with older relatives is that occasionally they feel free to discuss their past sexual escapades, which even at 43, still carries a huge "eewwww!" factor.

MOVIE REVIEWS

This weekend, I watched:

"King Kong" When your kids start complaining about a scene going on too long and it contains cool special effects like huge flesh-eating dinosaurs, you know it's not good. Even some of the effects (when they're rowing to Skull Island) were "Land of the Lost" bad. It was way too long and the polar bear Coke commercial-like interlude with Kong and the chick seemed out of place. But the acting was okay, Kyle Chandler is still a hottie and your heart really goes out to the big old misunderstood monkey. Just glad I didn't pay a rental fee for it.

"A History of Violence" I was really hyped up to see this one, but it kind of let me down. A small town family man efficiently and coolly kills two men trying to rob his diner. He becomes a hero, his face all over TV and newspaper. Then another bunch of bad guys come to town. Bad guys who seem to know him by another name. A great premise, but I didn't feel like they gave it enough time to develop itself. When the movie ended, I was kind of surprised it was over so soon. Ed Harris is fabulous is the ugly bad guy and William Hurt is a hoot as the heartless other bad guy. But like a bag of plain rice cakes, it just left me feeling hungry for more.

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

Drink deeply of good books (stole that from Coach Wooden, too)

Being Smart

All of my life, I've known I was smart. I could read before I went to kindergarten. In high school and college, I knew I was above average smart because I was in the honors programs. Then when I got a job, I thought I was smarter than everyone else because I was well-read and college educated. And that's when I learned how dumb I truly was.

People can be all kinds of smart. Street, common sense, mechanically, creatively, technologically and many many many other smarts. For example, I cannot balance my checkbook without the help of my computer and I've never been able to figure how much to tip. And there are people who can do that all in their heads, but have never read anything by Shakespeare. I also learned that the difference between someone who is truly smart and someone who thinks they're smart is this: the person who thinks they're smart claim to know everything even when they don't while the truly smart person will always say "I don't know."

And when I was on Jeopardy (we will eventually finish that story, I promise) I met several people who were freakishly smart in a way that I am only above average smart. These are the ones you see on the show who run the physics category, but can't answer any of the pop culture questions. On a show last year, the following question came up: "His guitar solo in 'Stairway to Heaven' was legendary" and NO ONE KNEW THE ANSWER! I was appalled. And the honors people I knew in college were so freakishly smart they could barely function outside of the classroom.

I was thinking about being smart today at work because during the course of the long, long day I realized that while there are many, many, many ways to be smart, there is only one way to be stupid. And to quote my friend Forrest, Forrest Gump, "that's all I'm gonna say about that."

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

I'm so t-a-r-d tired I could f-a-r-t faint. I don't know what it means, it's something my dad always used to say. But that's the way I'm feeling right now.

Things I don't like about being over forty

In general, my age has never bothered me. I was too busy being pregnant for the first time when I turned thirty and too busy wondering why in the hell I'd bought a house before I'd sold the one I had when I turned forty. And I hate people who say, "I'm not having any more birthdays!". Because you know what they call people who stop having birthdays? Dead.

However, just because I'm comfortable about my age, doesn't mean I have to like the way my body is aging. For example:

- Why does the hair on my head get lighter and the hair on my upper lip get darker? It is so unfair!

- When I was twenty, I had to adjust my bra straps so my boobs looked even. Now I have to check in the mirror every morning to make sure my nipples are both pointing in the same direction.

- My skin flaps in the wind. I had my arm propped up in the window while I was driving and I caught something fluttering out of the corner of my eye. It was the skin on my forearm. I was so horrified I almost wrecked the car.

- When I walk into a room to get something, I can't remember what I came in for. Well, that may not be just old age. It could have something to do with being a mom, too. That's why I pursued the Jeopardy opportunity now. I wanted to be on the show before my podium screen was blank because I couldn't remember my name.

But it's not just my body that I find disturbing. It's the rest of the world, too:

- If they hire a cute new guy at work, chances are, I'm old enough to be his mother.

- They've now created a new condition called "peri-menopause" that begins at 35, just because as women, we just don't suffer enough.

- My kids refer to my childhood as "back in the olden days".

- My mother refuses to acknowledge my age because it makes her feel old.

- Mammograms. I know they're necessary, but there has got to be a better way. I can't help but feel it's part of a vast male conspiracy and I won't change my mind about that until they begin testing for testicular cancer in the same way.

And if that's not bad enough, now when people just blindly assume that I'm pregnant (I have a wide middle and skinny appendages), I'm flattered that they think I'm youthful enough to be bearing offspring. Sad. Very sad.

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

Some people get old and wise. Some people just get old.

Things every new school mom should know

We interrupt our coverage of the Jeopardy contestant quest for this public service announcement:

It's back-to-school time again! And if you're a new school parent, here are a few tips from a seasoned veteran:

1) When purchasing the items on your child's supply list, purchase two or more of everything. With pencils, paper, crayons and the other things that get used on a daily basis, if you find a good sale, buy in bulk. Believe me, you're not going to get a box of crayons in December at the same price you paid in August. And if they don't use them all, you'll have some stashed away for next year. For special items (binders, folders, rulers, lunchboxes) buy one or two extra for emergencies. I keep a "supply" box filled with the surplus. But keep it hidden from the kids. They'll used it all up when you're not looking and not bother to tell you certain items need replenishing. Extra tip: For a paint smock, grab on older child's old shirt or pick up one for a buck at the Salvation Army.

2) Unless your kids are ready to move up a size, don't buy a whole new wardrobe for back-to-school. When my oldest son was in the early grades of elementary school, I would buy his entire fall wardrobe before school started. And then one year, he took a growth spurt between September and October and I was left a lot of brand-new clothes that didn't fit him. Most schools allow summer attire for the first few weeks of school, so pick up a few things off the clearance rack to freshen up their closets. And at the end of the previous school year, pick up some warmer clothes that are a little bigger off the clearance rack to get you through early fall. Then when they shoot up suddenly, or around Christmas (when there are some awesome sales), you'll have some extra cash on hand to replace everything they've outgrown. The same rule applies to shoes. Unless they're nasty or worn, don't buy new until they go up a size.

3) Don't let your kids clothes get them in trouble. T-shirts with sassy sayings are very in. So is a showing a lot of skin for girls. Don't think that just because it's elementary school, your child can get away with a negative message on a shirt or Daisy Duke shorts. And what you may think is cute or ok, may not be kosher with the school. So before you shop, call the school or the school board to check on the dress code.

4) You can drop off the tissues and baby wipes at open house. It's your child's first day of school and he's loaded down like a pack mule on a wagon train. Pack up the stuff that won't fit in his bookbag (tissues, baby wipes, gym shoes, art smock, etc.) and take it with you to the open house. Your child will already have a locker and desk assigned, so his things will have a place to go. Just remember to put a name on everything.

5) How to put a name on everything. No, you do not have to label every pencil. And not everything is easy to label. Like scissors. I use a small strip of white first aid tape on the outer blade. Or you can loop it around the handle and make a little flag. You can also use the first aid tape to label anything too dark to write on. IMPORTANT RULE: Never, ever, put your child's name on the outside of his backpack or lunch box, or anything like that. Do not buy personalized bags either. It's easy for predators to lure a child away if they know his or her name. And check your class roster before you label. In pre-school, there were three Sam's in my youngest son's class and until he was five, he thought his first name was spelled "Sam K dot". My point? If there is more than one child in the class with your child's name, you will have to include the last initial in your labeling. Or when they get a little older, just use the last name.

6) If your child has a medical condition or any special needs, remember to address them with the front office and the teacher BEFORE school starts. Up until a few years ago, children with asthma were not allowed to carry their inhalers to class, they had to be kept in the office. I had to scramble to get an exception to this rule when my son attended kindergarten because the distance from his classroom to the office could have been the difference between life and death. School staff and teachers are usually in the building two weeks before school starts, so call and let them be prepared to help your child when he arrives on his first day. And don't think you only have to do this in kindergarten. Even in a small school, you have to go over special instructions (and the subsequent paperwork) every year.

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

A mother's work is never done.

Destiny calls!

Our heroine anxiously awaits the phone call.....

About two weeks later, I get the call! I'm going to be on Jeopardy! Wahoo!!!!

But wait... it's in LA and I've never flown before. I will have to be heavily medicated to get on a plane, especially in a post 9/11 America. So, I suggested to my husband that we begin driving the Saturday before the taping and then we can leave that Wednesday evening and we'll all make it back in time for work. He informed me that he would have to be heavily medicated to drive cross-country with me and the children.

So, I put on my big girl panties and booked the non-stop flight. Then my mother, her best friend and my two sisters invited themselves along. And I invited my son's second grade teacher, who was also a friend and unbeknownst to me, a huge Jeopardy fan. I went to the doctor and got Xanax. I prayed to God a lot.

On the lighter side, my friend Camisha and I went clothes shopping, just like we had done before my trip to Chicago so I would be hippest chick on the show. Of course, each trip included food, so I was destined to also be the chunkiest chick on the show. And I studied as much as I could.

The two categories that scared me the most were geography and science. I read an atlas front two back about three times. The science part, well, I was never going to comprehend anything above basic biology, so I didn't even bother. Then I skimmed some opera and art history stuff.
All of this on top of being a full-time working mother and baseball coach. After I'd given the babysitter an unsigned check, I decided to quit studying before my head exploded.

Either I knew it or I didn't. It was in Alex's hands now.

Stay tuned for more....

Movie Review

Since I was talking about Harper Lee, I had to mention Truman Capote and now I have to recommend the film "Capote". This film is not a biography. It is the story of how Capote came
to write In Cold Blood. I'd read the book years ago and it's a well-written, yet disturbing story about a two killers who murder an entire famly in Kansas. If you can, read it before you watch the film. Phillip Seymour Hoffman does an incredible job in the title role. And the Harper Lee connection? She helped him research the book. Most of us remember Truman Capote as a smarmy little lisping gay man from the Studio 54 days, but "Capote" captures him in the prime of his career.

My favorite news story of the day

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0608150238aug15,0,791953.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed

They want to kick Pluto out of the planetary line-up! Recently, scientists have decided that they need to come up a universal definition of a planet and Pluto will probably not measure up. There are conceivably 20 or more recently discovered objects that could be called planets.
Don't our kids have enough pressure on them all ready? Now they would have to memorize 30 or more planets? And there goes that cute little song from Blue's Clues too. Damn.

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

If you think it would be confusing to keep track of 30 or more planets, imagine how students must have felt when they revised that whole "everything revolves around the earth" thing.

Return of the Nerdi

When we last met our heroine, she was traveling to Chicago to audtion for Jeopardy....

After long debates over "to fly or not to fly", my husband, children and I hopped into the car and headed to Chicago on a beautiful day in early June. After spending many exciting hours on the Indiana Turnpike, which included a lovely interlude with a state highway patrolman who was trying to catch us "riding dirty", we arrived in the Windy City. At rush hour. Yippee.

The Jeopardy audition was the following day at Navy Pier. My family went off on a boat tour of the river and lake, while I went hurtling toward my destiny in a cab. My destiny slowed down to a walk as I followed the sporadic signs for the audition. I swear the quest for the Holy Grail went faster than this trek. But at last, I arrived.

First, we filled out forms. Then the Jeopardy people came (exceptionally nice people, I might add) and took roll call. They photographed each of us. They gave a brief overview of the show and how to play. We took another 50 question test. And played a mock game.

It totally rocked! How cool to use the little buzzers and request the categories. If they never, ever called me, it would be all right. It was that much fun and now I knew I had the right stuff. In my mind, I was already a Jeopardy champion.

Stay tuned for more...

MOVIE REVIEW!!!!

This weekend, I watched "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" with Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. To gauge how much I LOVED this movie, you have to first understand how much I despise Val Kilmer. I don't know why. He's never done anything to me. But I can't stand him.

"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is very film noir, very funny and very smart. Downey is an actor who needs to be trained as a detective for a film role. Kilmer is hired to do the job. I can't tell you anymore or it will spoil the movie. But if you liked "LA Confidential" or "Pulp Fiction", you'll love this movie.

BOOK REVIEW

Believe it or not, I got to be 43 years old without ever reading To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. And I only saw the movie about a year ago. But I picked it up at a garage sale last year and just got around to reading it. I know, I know. I'm trying out for Jeopardy, so I only read the "classics". Totally untrue. I just read them some of them time. And like everyone else I have to force myself to finish most of them. Not so with Mockingbird. Lyrically written in the way only Southern writers have, this book is simply a good read. No need to search for symbolism or profound messages. Everything you need to know about the story is right there in front of you. And now, I've just started Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. So much of her novel (her ONLY novel) is taken from her own life. And the little boy who is her best friend in the book in based on none other than Truman Capote, her best friend in real life. And that would lead me to another movie review which will have to wait until tomorrow.

THE SUPREME WISDOM OF THE QUEENOSHEBA

The more room you have, the more stuff you accumulate.