Scene: In the car on the way home from our annual pilgrimage to another suburb for the Memorial Day parade and a barbecue at harriet�s mother-in-law�s

AJ: (chomping on one of the nine hundred and seventy three lollipops garnered from the candy-tossing extravaganza passing as a parade). Mommy, what�s that thing you stick in your mouth and smoke comes out of it?

Harriet: Smoke comes out of it? That doesn�t sound like a good idea.

AJ: You know, like� Pearl�s dad. (Pearl is a pig in a poke bonnet and the principal character in a William Steig story, The Amazing Bone).

Harriet: Oh! It�s a pipe. Pearl�s father smokes a pipe.

AJ: I�m going to pretend my lollipop is a smoking pipe.

Harriet: Uh, okay.

AJ: Okay, I�m done pretending my lollipop is a smoking pipe.

Harriet: Uh, okay.

AJ: I don�t want to get smoker�s lung.

*****

Yesterday�s trip to the Memorial Day parade was full of lollipops (but no actual pipes, smoking or otherwise). And also Starburst, patriotically wrapped mints, leftover Easter candy, Twizzlers, chocolate kisses, bubble gum and God knows what else. Apparently Memorial Day is the new Halloween. We came home from the parade with at least three pounds of candy. I spent the afternoon scanning student papers and visiting with relatives. Despite the forecast for chilliness and thunderstorms, it was a picture-perfect day and we spent as much of it as possible out of doors.

Today AJ and I had our weekly pilgrimage to the library where, after running into a friend of his from preschool, we checked out 23 books and joined his friend at a nearby playground where they discovered the water fountain and soaked each other and giggled and ran around admiring the footprints their wet shoes left on the sidewalk. I made two versions of the final and recorded my examples for the aural portion, lost my grade sheets, dumped out two file cabinets, my briefcase and a bag full of AJ�s crap and found them sitting right on top of my desk, where�d they�d been the entire time. Go me.

And now, I must grade. And read about Deep Throat. And grade. And check the White Sox score. And grade. And curse the four students who still haven�t turned in their papers. And grade.

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