Wrap your head with this material...

 We went to St. Louis. While in St. Louis, we stayed at a variety of family and friends' houses but set up our primary base at Rob's parents' house. One night when we were going to stay at our friend's house, I told the kids to pack overnight bags.  Upon arrival one kid goes, "Did you grab my bag?"  And I was like, what the hell? No. Why didn't you get your bag? Why would you think I should grab your bag? You are plenty old enough to both pack and carry a plastic bag of clothes?  And then the other kid goes, "Oh, I didn't pack a bag." WHAT?! "I didn't have any clean clothes so I just didn't pack one." "But...toothbrush and also YOUR CLEAN CLOTHES THAT I TOLD YOU ABOUT WERE IN A LAUNDRY BASKET FOLDED AT YOUR STUPIDLY PRIVILEGED FEET!"  Okay, that's not exactly what I said. But I thought something like it.  One of the idiot-genius offspring of mine in the previous story also once arrived to the hot springs weari...

Do you sometimes forget to kick ass? Like it's supposed to be riding a bike and you're supposed to just get on there and ride around like it's nothing but you--unlike everyone else in the adage, who say it's-like-riding-a-bike--have somehow forgotten how the bike works and are scared now? Ahem, me neither. We moved and I hadn't done that in a lot, a lot of years. The last time I did it, I made friends instantly and am still friends with a fair number of those people. It was also before I got married and before I had kids. Bizarrely, I still feel like fundamentally the same person. I still light up about snow and just about die of excitement about a powder day. I jam out to music and dance too vigorously at red lights. I haven't stopped playing board games and liking puzzles. An aside: the Spanish word for puzzles, "rumpecabezas," means broken head. Like, the idea was hard and my head broke. Spanish is so awesome. For comparison, the German concept peo...