<p>Oh dear god. Laugh until I snort. Dogs must be actually demigods put on this earth to show us our true selves.</p>
<p>LOL! :D Oh, man. BAD 15K DOGGIE! Ah well, who needs floorboards when you can have a gimpy, 130-lb. slobber dog, instead? The thing is, once you put that much money into a dog, it's like a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card for the pooch. He could have eaten the office and chewed your dad's arm off, and somehow, it would have been okay. </p>
<p>And, vets always do such a nice job of shaving the animal and putting the stitches in so that the dog looks like a real-life version of Frankenweenie. They could, at least, pick the hair up off the floor and glue it back on with a little Super Glue.</p>
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Dogs must be actually demigods put on this earth to show us our true selves.
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<p>My father, despite his 5 decades as a high-powered, Brooks Brothers-clad corporate attorney, is obviously revealed to be-- Shemp!</p>
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The thing is, once you put that much money into a dog, it's like a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card for the pooch. He could have eaten the office and chewed your dad's arm off, and somehow, it would have been okay.
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<p>SOOOOOO true!!!</p>
<p>Frankenweenie reference made me nostalgic. My HS senior D was terrified of that movie. Oh the days when children were scared crapless: such good times...</p>
<p>I have officially entered the ichy stage waiting to hear from D's remaining schools and results of D's art portfolio competitions. Not anticipating the boatloads of cash that were possible if she followed the traditional academic track.</p>
<p>Got mail from one school yesterday saying they did not recieve transcripts or SAT scores. This is the same school that insisited that we did send the application fee until is showed the the credit card statement. They could at least get good support staff, systems and processes with all that money from app fees.</p>
<p>I can feel it, to quote a sitcom: "I'm becoming ANGRY George!" </p>
<p>Where is Cur with the high class hooch (not pooch, especially a drugged up bionic six million dollar dog with splinters in his gums!)?</p>
<p>LOL on the "scared crapless" M&S!</p>
<p>Things I heard people say while I was home visiting last week:</p>
<p>*"We want to be CENTRAL in Southern Nevada!"<a href="a%20local%20TV%20ad">/i</a>
This is just way too complicated for 99 percent of the population to grasp at 10 in the morning. </p>
<p>"The weather is going to be WEIRD, folks!" (first day)
"WEIRD weather is on the way, folks!" (second day)
"We're gonna have some WEIRD weather!" (third day)
"Get ready for WEIRD weather!" (fourth day)
"We're expecting some WEIRD weather this week!" (fifth day)</p>
<p>What did they mean by this? "Weird" as in, a dormant volcano is about to blow any minute? "Weird" as in, a biblical plague of frogs, lice, and crickets is heading down from Utah? A giant cloud of ash from the casinos will plunge us into 40 years of darkness? Every teenager in the state will sprout a new forehead zit at once? What?!! I dunno...I think they were talking about rain. :)</p>
<p>Frankenweenie, another testament to my glory years as a parent! :D (Along with Shipwrecked, The Fool and the Flying Ship, and all of those goofy Pippi videos starring Inger Nilsson). We had fun. ;)</p>
<p>This is a great thread!</p>
<p>As I read back through 119 pages of this thread ( and I should be working for a living), I have noticed something...how the thread has evolved...we went from talking nostalgia..the good ole days....to justifying why our fun-loving eight year old upon making a humorous introduction about some "special" people shouldn't have been have been reprimanded by his school principal....but isn' t that how we were ALL brought up????? We were reprimanded by the building principal...we were afraid of authority...are we now rebelling against a time that offered us some comfort in knowing that we were accountable for our errors in judgment? I think we need to be very careful that we give the correct messages to our posterity. Will the pendelum swing back to the good ole'days or are we destined to a life where there are no rules in society...where everyone is out for themselves...where we have no allegiance or owe no allegiance to anybody....The times they are achangin'</p>
<p>Sluggbugg--welcome back. Glad you were able to get outta there before things got "REALLY weird". . .</p>
<p>sgiovinc1, has anybody bought you a drink yet?</p>
<p>Welcome!</p>
<p>m&sdad, your reference to "angry George" made me realize that we never really see "angrydad" as a screen name on CC... :D I don't think I've ever seen it. Probably won't see "psychomom" either. </p>
<p>Thanks, mstee. Looks like I brought some of that weirdness with me. We've got hail in the dreaded burbs. ::::brrrrrrr:::: ;)</p>
<p>I just fell off my barstool. SluggJr got into a UC (Merced)!! Quick, somebody run over here and duct-tape my mouth shut! If he hears us say that we want him to go to a UC, he'll never, EVER go. ::::Shhhhhhh::: ;)</p>
<p>Sluggbugg - Congratulations! And thank you thank you for knowing how to spell duct tape correctly! Although, we can duck tape you too if you want....</p>
<p>Actually, give us SluggS's info and we will all email him to tell him DO NOT GO TO MERCED! Which, BTW, looks like a really interesting opportunity given that they are creating something from the ground up.</p>
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Actually, give us SluggS's info and we will all email him to tell him DO NOT GO TO MERCED!
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<p>I think it only works coming from the parents ;)</p>
<p>Congrats Slugg!</p>
<p>Slugg--congrats! UCMerced sounds great. Don't worry, I won't say a word. . .</p>
<p>Boy, we've been having some WEIRD weather around here. There was HAIL during the 16 year old's swim practice last week. She said they could feel it falling on their backs as they swam. And it SNOWED a few blocks from our house on Fri night. I totally missed it, though, as I was attending Nemo on Ice with the seven year old. Darn.</p>
<p>Raising a glass to you, my girl Slugg We all join you on our quest to get these kids out of our house :D</p>
<p>one day, one day</p>
<p>Slugg -- congratulations !!!!!! From everything I can see, I think Merced is the best kept secret of the UC system -- small enough now that kids will get lots of personal attention & get to know faculty well, but with growth plans that mean that every year will just get better & better, and down the line a degree from Merced is going to be considered on par with any other campus. I tried like heck to try to get my son to apply as a transfer -- he's frozen out of the UC system now because the kids from the community colleges have priority for all transfer spots -- but I figured that Merced would be the one place that wouldn't be full up for transfers and might give him some leeway. But he's now a coastal tree hugger -- will only consider colleges in spitting distance from the ocean. </p>
<p>On the other hand, my son has just been accepted to Humboldt (meets the redwoods+ ocean test ) and my eyes just about fell out of my head when I saw what the fees are there - somehow I had assumed that the CSU's were more on a par with the UC's.... but it's still around $1590 a semester. Oh yes, and they have a mandatory orientation session that you can do over the summer and stay in their dorms a couple of days, and that requires a huge outlay of... $50. I'm starting to wonder how we missed noticing this bargain the first time around. </p>
<p>Anyway, I do think that Merced is one cool school, and I hope your son realizes how lucky it is that California's newest UC campus is just a tad shy of being well known enough to have a heavily competitive admission process. I have a feeling that by the time he graduates it will be a very different story.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody, the drinks are on me, tonight! </p>
<p>Calmom, big sluggy congrats to Calson on his acceptances to Humboldt State and Evergreen. I've heard good things about both schools. Evergreen was on D's original list of colleges. She was also a "trees + ocean" applicant. The Cal State colleges really are a great bargain, and they deliver on two important fronts, career prep and grad school admissions. I know this from parents whose kids have graduated from Humboldt, Chico, and SFSU and gone into Education, Nursing, and Business. It's what we like to see from the dear derlings when they graduate! </p>
<p>Sluggdad said that getting this morning's admission news reminded him of the time we were sitting at our computers on a relaxed summer morning drinking coffee and checking our emails when Sluggdad discovered that our 16-year old had left his summer school campus and driven across two states lines with a 21-year old perennial student from his dorm who wanted to go visit his 18-year old girlfriend in TACOMA. This is when SluggJr was officially inducted into the TJFH club. ;)</p>
<p>Again, we were sitting in our comfy frontroom this morning happily tapping away on our laptops, and Sluggdad made a sound like he had just swallowed his tongue, sort of like, "GLERRRK!" Being the patient and thoughtful wife that I am, I unhinged my lips from my coffee cup and asked, "What the He-- is wrong with you?" :D </p>
<p>He looked stunned and handed me his laptop...I had to read it twice before I understood the message. The first time through, I scanned the rest of the page for the part that said something about qualifying for a credit card or receiving a 10 percent discount on Prom outfits. </p>
<p>Congratulations, you are admitted!</p>
<p>He can still have it rescinded for getting a D+ first semester in Calc AB, but he'll have to report it and take his chances. Wave at us when we fly by in the roller coaster with the other parents of seniors. We'll be drunk, but we'll wave back! Wednesday is March 15th, the Ides of March, when UCSC and Davis start to send out their notifications. I already need a drink. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>slugg!!! One of my best friends has a son in the first freshman class at Merced. He adores it. They have hired incredible faculty-- recruited many winners from other UCs. So Skol!! :D </p>
<p>mstee, it hailed here too, in so calif-- verrrrry rare. My little son went to a bday party yesterday, and one of the kids brought the birthday boy a box full of snow!</p>