Big Guy's Snores. The noisemaker returns from Argentina tomorrow. Thank goodness, he is cute even in the dark.
The Visit With My Nephew Footloose. I thought the college student might live knee-deep in beer cans and unwashed laundry. That's what I remember from college. But no. Footloose and his housemates keep such a tidy dwelling. They even clean the kitchen together, at 10 pm. And there's no beer cans. The beer comes in recycled gallon jugs. Sweet.
Baby Names And Who Pays For Them. As I bagged my groceries, I noticed two young moms admiring each other's babies and discussing which government programs were paying for each kid. They had four children between them. Mom #1 has "J" names for her babies. Mom #2 is dabbling in "D" names. With another one on the way, she is trying to figure what will go with Dillon and Destiny. Cute.
Free Amish Heaters. Check the full-page ad in USA Today, then call the 800 number. The Amish will give you a free heater, if you pay $400 for an attractive wooden frame. The fun you will have toying with the eager telemarketer almost makes the deal worthwhile.
Charlie Sheen. Earth to Mother Ship: Come get him.
Chocolate Ice Cream Donuts. They exist; they're in the freezer.
Personalized License Plates. CAT NIP, CAT NAP, TKT 2RD Would any of them make driving a minivan more cool?
Fish Cars. I keep watching to see if drivers who sport The Fish ever behave badly. They have given me nothing to write. Does that mean The Fish works?
Lots of stuff gets better in college, including field trips. Daisy and the rest of the University Singers climbed on a bus this morning in Columbia bound for Chicago. They are to attend a national music conference. I should know more about it, but I no longer sign permission slips. I remember bits and pieces of my childhood field trips. I sampled poi on a field trip. That's no typo. I meant "poi" as the field trip was in Hawaii. Also in Hawaii, the bus enjoyed endless rounds of "100 Bottles of Coke on the Wall." G.I.s drove the buses; many teachers had husbands in Viet Nam to worry about. We were nine-year-olds. Our voices were undoubtably sweeter than Vietnamese gunfire and more distracting than the worry over unwanted knocks at the door. That was before I knew the song was intended to be "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" and before coke meant more than Coke. North Carolina teachers believed in field trips, maybe they wanted out of class, too, as about 40 children were packed into each classroom. The field trip to hear a symphony perform "Peter and the Wolf" was almost as boring as sitting in class. I liked the symphony hall's velvet seats, but not as much as I enjoyed the thrill of standing at the gallows on another trip. On my favorite field trip, we watched thousands of cigarettes roll off an assembly line. North Carolina is The Tobacco State; it was the early 1970s; and the surgeon general shouldn't scare decent folks trying to enjoy their inherited gift from the "Indians." As school children, we didn't know Indians were Native Americans; we didn't know people from India were Indians. We thought they were "people from India." But I digress. I chaperoned a few of Daisy and Birdie's elementary school field trips. The No. 1 rule: No singing on the bus. Children's untamed voices must be more grating now without the Vietnamese bullet worry factor. I hope the "no singing" rule is relaxed on Daisy's bus. The University Singers can sing much better songs than beer/Coke ballads. 
