Obituaries

                                                     Fluffy Beatrice Jones


     Fluffy Beatrice Jones passed away suddenly in the middle of White Mills Road on Monday, April 30, 2012.  Fluffy was the biological kitten of Ralphie and Cow Cat.  She was born in Savanna, Troy, and Phoenix's closet and was chosen by Clara to be a member of the Jones family.  As a pet she was generally unspectacular, keeping late hours, clawing the leather sofa, leaving dead chipmunks in the flowerbeds, and ignoring the children.  She was, however,  the occasional playmate of Clara.  She is survived by her husband, Big Gray Kitten.  Viewing hours are from now until Ariel gets home from  work and cleans her up off the side of the road.  In lieu of flowers please educate your fellow man on proper "I just ran over your cat" etiquette.  It is never a good idea to ask a mother and her four children, "Do you have a calico kitty?" and when they reply in the positive to announce, "Well ya' don't now".  

Sweet Sunday Morning or Aston Still Hates Baseball

     8:00 am to 9:10 am Sunday morning.  I imagine people sitting side by side with their neighbors listening to words of peace and love.  I imagine people wrapped up in fuzzy robes sitting in a sunkissed kitchen drinking warm cups of coffee reading the paper.  I imagine children enjoying smiley face breakfasts made out of fried eggs, bacon, and orange wedges.  I imagine these things are happening in my neighborhood but not in my house.  No, in my house from 8:00 am to 9:10 am on Sunday morning we watched the red, tear stained face of Aston and listened to him wail, "I want MY hat back!!! I HATE baseball and that stupid guy who taked my hat from me."


     "Well, Aston, they gave you a new hat", I explained.  Ariel shot me a confused look so I filled him in on what the matter was while Aston continued his freak out beside me.  The day T shirts and hats were handed out Aston's coach grabbed a hat and shirt out of a black garbage bag and gave it to Aston.  Before we went to the game yesterday we wrote Aston's name on the hat just in case he misplaced it.  As Aston was walking on to the field a different coach took Aston's hat off of his head and replaced it with a different one.  This coach then questioned me on where I had got the hat Aston showed up in.  I explained that the other coach gave it to us. I was feeling very much like I was on some sort of Little League criminal trial.  It turns out that this hat was a special coach's hat (which explains why it was so big) and Aston clearly is not a coach so they swapped it for a team hat.


     When I was done filling Ariel in Aston was still at it.  He wanted to get in the car Right NOW and go to the baseball field to rescue his hat.  He wanted nothing to do with the new hat. Every time I put it on his head he threw it violently to the ground.  He only stopped going on about hating coaches and hating coach hats once to add that he also hated red guys because they were getting in the way of his running place.  He did a little charades skit where he was running very fast then appeared to pick up the offending "red guy" over his head and throw him to the ground so he could keep running super fast to his "running place".  I assume this is a base.


At 9:09 am the clouds parted and Aston said he was pretty sure he could calm down if Clara would build a blanket fort with him.  At 9:10 am the house was quiet.  At 9:11 am I felt a strong urge to have a stiff drink. 

Little League

     It is spring time.  Spring means little children everywhere are putting down their Wii remotes and picking up their baseball bats while heading to the Little League field and our children are no exception.

     Enzo's fourth opening day went just smashingly.  He hit a few, caught a few, and, most importantly, remembered that a baseball player remains in an upright, standing position for the entire game.  In previous years, from the right angle, he appeared to be an independent arm capped with a baseball mitt extending from the earth in the outfield.

     Now Aston, for Aston opening day of his first T-ball season was the grand finale of an action packed week.  It began last Saturday when he met his T-ball team and collected his official cap and T shirt (which he wore every day this week).  

     Midweek he attended a kindergarten screening that he was so taken with he begged me to just leave him at the elementary school. 

     The next day he was still wanting kindergarten so I dragged him to Family Resources, a playgroup for toddlers and preschoolers in our town.  Aston's words on the subject of playgroup were, "I loved it but I hated it there because of the boy who hated me and hit me and threw balls at me".  I explained to Aston that the boy didn't hate him, he was just really excited.  Aston immediately edited his words to, "I loved it but I hated it there because of the boy who loved me and hit me and threw balls at me". O.K. Whatever.

     Then came grocery shopping day, Aston's favorite.  He managed to get the entire check out area cracking up when during a twenty minute stream of constant, breathless chatter, he absolutely screamed out, "Hey Mom. Mom.  Mom there is a black guy on the floor and he is moving but it is o.k. Mom 'cause he is uhspossed to be moving".  The "black guy" in question was an ant.

     Every day this week Aston told me he was going to be a baseball player when he grows up.  So when opening day arrived I wasn't surprised when he was just shaking with excitement.  After years of watching his brother play and a week of wearing the same T shirt day in and day out it was finally time for Aston Jones to take his place on the ball field.  He skipped merrily on to the bright grassy field and stood opposite a coach who tossed him the ball.  The ball rolled past Aston and he proceeded to throw back his head, bawl uncontrollably, storm off the field, and inform me, in between sobs, that he HATES baseball.  I managed to get him back on the field but that was probably a mistake on my part because he missed every ball that came his way and  threw his hat and glove at whichever  poor kid managed to catch the stupid thing.  He finally just refused to go back on the field and could only be cheered up with a pack of Big League Chew. 

                       And that brings us  to the best and probably most important part of today:

                                      Enzo and Clara learned how to blow bubblegum bubbles!

Shall we begin?

I was twenty years old when I gleefully bounded down the aisle to assume my new identity, Mrs. Jones.  My head was swimming with dreams of white picket fences and chubby cheeked cherubs that resembled Winnie the Pooh's Christopher Robin and Raggedy Ann's Marcella.  In this castle on a cloud everyone was cheerfully munching on organic homemade muffins in a white glove test home.  Mrs. Jones, of course, held all of this together in a glistening apron tied around her 24" waist, whistling while she worked in a pair of sensible high heels.
Happily Ever After turned out a wee bit different than I imagined.  My children DO remind me of fictional characters, it is just they are more Wendsday and Pugsley Addams than Christopher and Marcella.  The family home has actually been three houses, none of which would you even be able to find a white glove in to do the stupid test (and you can just forget about a matching pair).  There is such a vast quantity of frozen pizza consumed under our roof we almost qualify as a pizzeria and my husband repeatedly asks me why I'm dressed like I'm homeless.

So join these Joneses, Lora (me), Ariel (Daddy), Enzo (Pugsley), Clara (Wednesday), Aston (think male Junie B. Jones, I guess), and Baby Dorothy as we stumble though the American Dream.  I promise we are the easiest Joneses on Earth to keep up with.  You won't even break a sweat.