Waxing Rhapsodic September 2, 2009

I have that feeling again.  That fragile, scrubbed clean, wistful feeling you get when you reach the end of another life, the conclusion, or is it just the beginning? of another story.  I’m restless and tired and the edges of my vision seem to have shifted slightly as if the color has suddenly taken on another texture, the air a slightly different and unfamiliar shape.

I get this every time I finish reading another book but at some times it’s more pronounced than others.  Mostly the spectrum is controlled by the depth of the book, the deeper the book the deeper the shift in my reality.  Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos has produced a slight ache somewhere in the vicinity of my creativity.  I long to write.  To write something, anything but preferably something beautiful and moving and pregnant with meaning and possibility where a pause in conversation or the shifting of one’s weight, the most innocuous movement that in real life, at least in my life, would go completely unnoticed is heavy with import and opens vistas of insight.

I wonder when I read books like this if people really see the world this way?  Are there people who really read the body language of the people around them this closely? Never mind baking a chicken “filling (the)… house with it’s gold tinged aroma”?  Am I somehow the only one who doesn’t see these things?

But I do when I read books like this and maybe with practice I can, at least occasionally, when I’m looking at my life rather than at a book.   I really need to work on that.

Morality and the Butter Substitute July 30, 2009

We’re Land O’ Lakes people around here.  We enjoy the spread with sweet creme, it comes spreadable out of the fridge (which would be a real advantage if it ever got put back in the fridge) and it has a relatively pleasant light flavor.  Unfortunately our local grocery store doesn’t carry it anymore.  Or maybe it does carry it, but in the wrong size, or it may be that the price went up significantly (I can’t remember, although I was told, but I don’t know because the purchase of our butter substitutes is Sean’s responsibility (as is the purchase of ice creme, carbonated beverages, hot dogs and a few other sundries.  I still do the bulk of the grocery shopping its just that.. you know, it’s just not worth explaining.)  so I don’t pay too much attention.)   Regardless of the reason, the last time Sean bought some form of vegetable spread he went with another brand. (I won’t go into details about the brand here because I’m not in the business of product reviews or product bashing (as the case may be) other than to say that saying that it’s any kind of substitute for butter is a crock.)

The new stuff was not good.

So now we have a three pound tub of a vegetable spread/butter substitute that even the kids won’t eat.  So it sat in the fridge for two weeks.

Finally I asked Sean if there was any chance he was going to eat it or if we should just throw it away.   He said neither, he said that he was going to take it back.

And I just don’t approve.

I know that just about everything you buy these days comes with a money back guarantee.  I’ve worked in costumer service, and I know that you can take back whatever you want for whatever reason you want and with very few exceptions the store will give you your money back.  I’ve even heard a story or two from my little sister who used to work at Nordstrom (which despite being a “department store” only sells clothes, has only ever sold clothes) about ladies bringing their blenders “back” because they don’t work (possibly because they’re obviously twenty years old and you just can’t expect a blender to live forever) and despite having the fact that Nordstrom has never sold a blender in all its however many years of operation these women insist that they purchased the blender at Nordstrom and now it doesn’t work and they want their money back even if they don’t have a receipt blah blah blah and eventually the poor clerk at Nordstrom takes the blender and issues a “refund” (which is to say that Nordstom purchases a twenty-year-old non-operative blender from some old bat for $30) because you know, the customer is always right.

But that’s an extreme example, what I’m really talking about here is returning things that can’t be resold just because you want to.  I’m all for returning the pants that you got home, tried on again (or for the first time if you shop like I do) and decided that they made you look like a MAC truck from behind and just really weren’t going to work for you, as long as you didn’t remove the tags I say return away.  I am against, however, buying a pair of pants, wearing them and then returning them.  NOT ok.

Back to the point.

I’ve read financial advisers who say that if anything you purchase is not to your liking you ought to get your money back, there are several people of my acquaintance who hold the same opinion.  I just can’t get behind that.  We got this spread, and it was crap but other than just not tasting good there was nothing wrong with it.  It wasn’t rancid, there was no mold and while it did taste bad, it wasn’t a “this has gone bad” kind of bad taste it was just a “this product isn’t any good” kind of bad.  It was bad, but that was how it was supposed to taste.  We could take it back but the fact is that that crock of spread cost money to make and to store and to ship and to sell, and as far as I know it was made and stored and shipped and sold correctly.  The problem is me.  (Ok in all reality I think the problem was the product but I believe in a free country, even one in which companies can make and sell products of poor quality.)  I don’t like the product.  That’s my “failing” so why should the company that produced it and/or the store that sold it bear the financial responsibility for my tastes?  and ultimately who really bears that financial responsibility?  The company sees their profit margin shrinking so they increase the prices of their products and inevitably I end up paying for the nasty stuff anyway.

Now, you can make the argument that they should bear some responsibility for producing an inferior product.  But well, I think they have that right.  (They may bear some culpability  for advertising it as a butter substitute and certainly for printing”now more buttery flavor” on the packaging but, I’m going to let that go.)  Regardless, I threw the tub away and as far as their “punishment” goes that will come in a complete lack of sales to myself or anyone in my home for the rest of time.  I think that should do it.

The upshot of the whole thing is that we’re been eating butter, real butter (I always keep some around for baking) and wowie, zowie, it’s good.  So good that I think from now on we’ll skip the substitute and go for the butter.

The Company I Keep July 15, 2009

I’m currently the only person in my home.   It’s heavenly.  I’m sitting here, at the computer with pandora playing a fantastic mix of music (country, punk, big band, rock, whiny chick music…) and checking my facebook.  I’d be happy enough to go see what’s on TV, even to call a friend (except for that whole dialing allergy that I have).  What I don’t really likie, what I’m not good at, is being alone.

Saturday night, while we were camping, we did our usual nightly rituals in the tent.  We read scriptures, we sang songs, we prayed.  That’s all there is to do for the three oldest kids.  The baby, when we don’t have a playpen (Yes, he sleeps in a play pen.  Go ahead call DCFS, I dare you.) to put him in and room to shut him into, needs someone to lie with him until he falls asleep.  Sean was doing that.  So I was sitting all alone by the fire.  It wasn’t that great.

While we camp I really try to eschew most modern technology.  We don’t drive for hours (or in our case tens of minutes) to nature so that we can do the same things that we do when we’re home.  But as I sat there watching the fire my Ipod was really calling to me.  And I realized that I’m just not really very comfortable with only my own company.  I’m fine if I’ve got distractions, if I’ve got the Friends gang cracking jokes in syndication, but all alone I’ve got nothing to do and I’m bored.  Really bored.

And I was thinking that that wasn’t a good thing.

But then another thought struck me.  I think we as a society have a tendency to romanticize the past.  We figure that those who came before us had it all figured out (whatever “it” is) and we’re somehow missing the boat.  We assume that if books and walks were enough entertainment for Jane Austen then they should be for us too. It’s this thinking that automatically makes books superior to television, it makes staged plays better than movies, it makes board games better than video games.

I have a brother-in-law who rejects this idea.  And I think he’s got a point.  Sure books are great, I love books, I’m a writer for goodness sake, but there’s a lot of written crap out there.  I don’t see how you can even make the argument that some bodice-ripping harlequin novel is “better” than Firefly.  Sure, there’s a richness in books that you don’t get out of TV or movies no matter how well done, but there’s a whole spectrum in books and in TV and in movies and in plays and in art, in everything.  Some of all of it is great and good and uplifting, some of it is just fun and some of it is quite frankly crap.  The fact that it’s written crap doesn’t elevate its quality.

I think that quiet is something that comes in pretty short supply to most of us these days and I think that’s too bad, I do wish that I was more comfortable just sitting in silence, that it wasn’t something that made me edgy and nervous (and frustrated).  But I also doubt that many of the women 200 years ago were very good at keeping track of 4 people’s schedules, keeping them clean, working out how to pay the power bill without bouncing the mortgage payment and figuring out what your son means when he asks you what humping is, all while making dinner.  And that’s something I have to do.  Sure, I think women have always been good multi-taskers but these days we really do take it to a whole new level and I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with that.

Does this mean that next weekend, when we go camping again, I’m going to make sure that my Ipod’s fully charged so that I can spend the weekend with it crooning in my ear?  Nope.  But when I’m sitting at the fireside trying to be more comfortable with the silence and the lack of entertainment, I’m going to give myself a break.  Or maybe I’ll bring along a pack of cards, even Jane Austen played cards.

There Just Really Is No Substitute July 2, 2009

You know, it’s amazing the things that modern medicine can do. Lungs don’t work?  We can put you on ECMO. Can’t eat? Can’t digest?  We’ll just administer TPN right into the blood stream, you know, cut out the middleman.  Pancreas doesn’t work? how ’bout some insulin shots? Kidney’s don’t work?  No problem, we have dialysis.  Liver doesn’t work? We can… actually I don’t know what we do for people in liver failure but I’m sure there are treatments, and when those don’t work anymore we’ll just get you a new one.  Same goes for kidneys, heart, lungs, pancreas, corneas, and more. And that’s just the beginning.  Have a headache? Take some Tylenol.  That doesn’t do it? Try some Advil.  Maybe some Excedrin.

It’s truly astounding.

BUT (There just had to be a but didn’t there?) none of it really works quite as well as a body that just works.  ECMO is very temporary and occasionally results in insufficient blood supply to the brain as well as kidney failure.  TPN is hard on your liver and it doesn’t take too long until the problems outweigh the benefits.  Insulin?  Again I’m not that up on diabetes but the mere fact that you have to give yourself a shot every day, sometimes multiple times a day, sounds like enough of a drawback to me.  Dialysis is amazing but it’s time consuming taking sometimes several hours three times a week. And then for those who go the transplant route there’s always the chance that they won’t get an organ or that they’ll reject despite the anti-rejection meds that they have to take for years on end and the risk of infection and… Even Tylenol and Advil take their toll (on the liver and kidneys respectively).

So what it all comes down to is that our bodies are amazing, they can do amazing things, and they’re unbelievably complex. And I’m dang glad mine works as well as it does.

Making God Laugh June 25, 2009

There I go again.

In the last six months or so I’ve made a lot of plans.  I decided to go back to school, I decided to sell my house,  I decided not to go back to school (yet) and now I think I’ve decided not to sell my house.  BUT I may have decided to go back to school after all.

For those interested here’s the progression.  I have all these little boys whom I ‘m going to have to feed as teenagers so I decided to go back to school so I could afford to do that but when I actually looked at the scheduling it became clear that there was no time that I could actually attend class (something that’s encouraged in those going to school) until the irish twins were both in preschool at least. Then we had an incident with some of the neighbor kids so we thought that we should try to get out of the hood, maybe stop exposing our kids to some of the influences that are part and parcel of where we live (it occurs to me now that I promised you more “the things that happen in my neighborhood” stories, maybe later).  So this week I’ve been talking to a Realtor and it turns out that the chances of selling our house without taking a loss are bad, really bad, and, honestly, I’ve just gotten our finances to a place that doesn’t give me ulcers. We can’t afford to take a loss.  So moving’s out.  The new plan there is to continue with the FHE and the scriptures and prayers (something that we’re actually really  really good about solely because it’s the only real protection from the neighborhood and the world that I can give them) and maybe step it up a little.  I’d also like to get them interested in something.  Some kind of sport, dance, gymnastics, horseback riding, something.  Something that will give them something to do aside from hanging out with the neighbor kids.

Also, lately I’ve applied for a different job.  Actually, it’s kind of the same job but the hours would be really different, freeing up most of my days, so maybe the school thing could work out after all.  I don’t know about the job, my boss was maybe going to decide today so I may know soon.  (Not that not knowing is going to stop my making plans, I’m still me.)

Overall, I’m actually pretty happy with the way things have worked out so far, I don’t love my neighborhood but I do love my house.  I love my new kitchen, and I think the rest of the house has so dang much potential that I was really sad at the thought of leaving and now I don’t have to think about it.  I would love some ideas from you all about how to make our living here a positive thing for my kids, seriously, how do I keep them away from the things that they will inevitably be introduced to living here (yes, I know that kids can find that stuff anywhere, but we’ve already had to put certain houses in the neighborhood off limits because the “adults” in the house were smoking pot in the house with their kids, and my kids there).  Maybe this is my chance to be a good influence to the neighborhood.  But how?

As to the going back to school, Im not going to put my eggs in that basket until I hear about the job and then we’ll see from there, if I don’t do school maybe I’ll start writing again.  Who knows, anything could happen, and no doubt, lots of things will.  And lots of plans will be made, and most, if not all, will be discarded.  But what the heck, if I can’t be good at least I can be entertaining!

Incidentally Mormon May 22, 2009

I just finished reading a book called Zippedby Laura and Tom McNeal, it was pretty good, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for fairly lightweight teen fiction, but that’s not the point.  (If that were all it was, I wouldn’t bother mentioning it.)  The reason that I bring it up is that there’s a Mormon character in the book.  It’s not LDS fiction, it’s set in New England somewhere (I imagine that it said specifically but it wasn’t crucial enough for me to retain) not Utah, and it’s just this one girl and her mother that are Mormon. 

And as soon it was mentioned that she was Mormon I was on alert.

Was this going to be anti?  Was she going to leave the church and realize that she had been brainwashed? (I have other objections to the whole “brainwashed” designation but that’s something for another post.)  Was she going to be some sort of wooden characeture rather than a fleshed out person?  Or some kind of holier than thou, miss priss?

And she was none of those things.  She was a real girl who liked and apparently believed in her religion.  She was slightly conflicted but she was a teenaged girl, as teenagers weren’t we all at least slightly conflicted?(Aren’t we still?)  She had a crush on a missionary, he had a crush on her, they chatted, even acknowledged the crush, she made him a plate of cookies, they even were as daring as to hug once.  It’s not the kind of behavior that is recommended in the mission handbook but it’s not going to get anyone ex-communicated either.  They wouldn’t even send him home for that.  (Transferred sure, but not sent home.)  And they didn’t.

The girl wasn’t the main character of the book, she was the girl that the main character liked.  So even the thing with the missionary was really just to add a little conflict.  End of story.  She didn’t leave the church, she didn’t even have a big crisis of faith.  She was just a girl.

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve run into that in fiction, and the more I think about that the weirder it is.  I mean, there’s a lot of us, we’re all over the place.  You expect that in Utah of course.  I can’t imagine that anyone would write a book set in Utah in which there were not Mormon characters (but then I’ ve never read a book set in Utah that wasn’t Mormon fiction) but it’s not like there are only Mormons in Utah.  I grew up in Virginia.  I was one of maybe 20 Mormons in my high school, not an overwhelming majority by any stretch but I think it’s safe to say that everyone in the school knew a Mormon.  Probably most of the kids in the school would have counted at least one of us Mormons as a friend.  We were characters in their lives who just happened to be Mormon, not necessarily good, not necessarily bad.  We may have been having big religious crises but for the most part probably not, we were just going about our lives.

I don’t see that in the books that I read.

It turns out that at least one of the authors is probably Mormon.  She graduated from BYU anyway, I haven’t looked up her church records or anything so I’m just extrapolating here but it seems a reasonable assumption.  It’s harder to tell but my gut feeling is that her husband, the other author, is not.  (The girl’s father is not Mormon, and … I don’t know something about it just makes me think that that part is somewhat autobiographical.) But I digress.

The point is that it’s a little sad to me that as soon as I run across a character who is Mormon, I’m immediately afraid that somehow the book is going to say something negative about the church.  I was surprised and, I have to say, delighted, to read a book with a character who was just incidentally Mormon.

Impossibly High Standards -or- Why I don’t Let My Kids Watch Caillou April 15, 2009

I’m generally a fan of children’s programing.  I think most of it is pretty good and let me tell you it’s saved my sanity and the lives of my children on more than one occasion.  But I hate Caillou.

For those who have had the misfortune to watch this particular show, you know that the kid’s annoying and whiny.  But that’s not even (all of) why I hate the show.

I had a vague dislike of Caillou for a long time, mostly due to the aforementioned whininess, but I didn’t really hate the show until I realized that the people who write, direct and produce this show don’t have children.  They don’t have nieces or nephews.  These people have never even met children.

Let me tell you about the episode that really did it for me.

Caillou, a “four year old” (you know I’d be doing air-quotes here if I could) wakes up in the morning and goes down stairs to find his mother and his father making breakfast in the kitchen. Because adults don’t have to work, no, we just get to hang out with our kids and cook for them all day. His father is cooking because we’re nothing if not politically correct on the pre-school programing he’s made pancakes.  But Caillou doesn’t want pancakes, he wants cereal.  And that’s fine because what parent minds wasting the breakfast he’s already made so his kid can eat pre-packaged crap? And because he’s having cereal his little sister wants cereal ok, so apparently one of these writers has been in the same room with a kid before and mom and dad are fine with that.  Caillou, being the “big boy” that he is, wants to pour the milk for his little sister’s cereal.    She doesn’t scream and throw a fit when he tries to do so insisting that mom do it so they’ve been in the room with a child, but not for very long.  Of course, because Caillou’s only four he spills the milk my four -year-olds have been getting themselves their own breakfasts for two years, they have pouring milk down cold again, the sister doesn’t cry.  But she does still want cereal.  And now they’re out of milk.  “No problem” mom says smiling, we’ll just go to the store and get some more” because well, we’ve already established that adults don’t have to work so they have all day to go to the store to get milk even when there are still perfectly good pancakes sitting on the kitchen table!! But little sister’s still hungry.  Don’t worry, dad can hold her off with a banana.  She really wants cereal but she’ll be fine with that. Seriously?! So mom and Caillou walk to the store who doesn’t like a little morning stroll?  And who doesn’t have a store close enough to walk to?  Probably it’s a little mom and pop market with organic produce and other all natural local products. And on the way home from the store Caillou gets distracted by the crack in the sidewalk, and the little bird and the who knows what all and the mother who’s carrying the milk just keeps smiling and encouraging his inquisitiveness and isn’t life lovely, there’s no “hey sweetie hurry up,” there’s no “hey kid this milk is getting heavy”, there’s no “dude hurry up, at this rate it’s going to be lunch time before we get home and your dad needs to get to work sometime TODAY SO GET A FREAKING MOVE ON ALREADY!!!!!”

How am I supposed to compete with that?

I can’t.

So my children are never allowed to see it.

Deal Breakers Revisited March 26, 2009

For those of you just joining us, I posted earlier this week about deal breakers, things that would cause you to end your marriage.  I got some interesting comments and not a lot of disagreement. Not that I expected much, I feel like a know most of my readers (or at least my commenters) pretty well, and they’re (you’re) a bunch who take their (your) marriages pretty seriously.  There’s not a whole lot more to say but I did promise to weigh in and  I had at least one reader who mentioned that she wanted to hear what I had to say.  So here goes.

As far as abuse: sexual is an automatic later gator; physical is almost impossible to say because that’s so not Shaun, but I agree that those who are physically abusive were almost always raised that way and have serious, self control, anger management issues, and basically, they never just do it once so I’d probably have to go.  Mental abuse is a lot harder to pin down.  As a teenager I dated a guy who was somewhat mentally abusive, so I do actually know something about this and it’s really hard to say, of course I’d love to say that I’d leave but the reality of it is that it starts so slowly and gets into your head so insidiously that I probably wouldn’t, even though I should.

Infidelity (and I include porn as well as all forms of sexual, as well as emotional infidelity in this) is not an automatic deal breaker for me.  Nor is it for most of you which I was delighted to see.  That being said, I can also see that an extreme case maybe wouldn’t be something that I could get over.  (I think I could work through some kissing, I could probably even work through some sex but a prolonged affair, or a severe porn addiction, would a whole other matter.) So it could very well end up breaking me after all.  And of course it all depends on the attitude and commitment level of both parties.

I wouldn’t leave over Sean’s leaving the church, nor joining another one. (In fact, I think I’d prefer him an active member of some religion or other to the alternative.)  That being said I wouldn’t allow his actions in that area to dictate mine.  I know a woman who left the church shortly after her husband did “for family unity” and I think that’s crazy.  Attend church with him if you feel like you must, but to turn your back on promises and covenants that you’ve made simply because your husband wants to drink and you don’t want to make him feel bad (because that’s all that really is) that’s just silly.

Due to a past that’s really none of your business (because it’s not my story to tell) I couldn’t and wouldn’t allow any kind of drinking.  It’s just too close to a very dangerous and very steep slope for me, so I would actually leave over a second drink (I think I would a allow a little leeway after the first, but one more and I’m gone daddy, gone.) but that’s just with Shaun.  If I were married to say, your husband, I’d probably allow it.  And I want to say here that I wouldn’t allow it in my home, but if it came right down to let him have a beer in my living room or divorce him, I’d probably put up with some Budweiser in the fridge.  (I know that this all sounds needlessly strict and probably a little crazy to the few of my readers who aren’t LDS but what can I say?  We’re a crazy bunch.)

There’s not a lot that would make me leave and at the same time, there is.  Really what it all boils down to  (as multiple people mentioned) is a desire and a commitment, on the part of both members of the couple, to make it work.   So while at the outset I’d love to say that I wouldn’t leave over something like, his being unwilling to help around the house, eventually, after we had talked about it enough times and he was really patently unwilling to do anything but go to work and then sit on the couch and play Gears of War, I’d probably leave.

One thing I did think was interesting in the comments was people saying that they would leave but not divorce (I remember that particularly in merrychris’s comment) and I disagree with that.  If I’m gone I’m all the way gone.  That’s not to say that if upon my leaving Sean were to be stunned and shaken enough to see the error of his ways and really truly resolve to improve I wouldn’t even consider coming back, I absolutely would.  But I agree with Annette, leaving is not something that should be undertaken until you’re willing to follow through and stay gone.

But I don’t believe that we were meant to be alone.  There are times when it’s inescapable and someone has to be alone, even has to raise kids alone, but I believe that that is just not the way it’s supposed to be.  So if things had gone bad enough that I had to leave I wouldn’t be keeping one foot in that door, I’m gone and I’m divorcing so that maybe, just maybe, I can find someone else and try it all over again.

All of the preceding being said, I love and whole-heartedly agree with what a bunch of you said about how you don’t really know what you can tolerate and what you can’t until you’re there.  But I do think most of us at least have a starting off point and this is mine.

______

This has ended up being a lot longer of a post than I anticipated.  And unfortunately, it’s kind of a downer.  Sorry about that.  I do want to make it clear that I’m not bringing it up for any reason in particular.  Sean and I have been together for a blissful (*snort*) ok, well a pretty darn good 11 years now, and I’m being completely honest when I say that I’m still loving it.  In fact, I disagree with that line that I remember getting roughtly 800 times just before I got married, you know the one about how marriage is hard.

Honestly, I don’t think it is.

But that, my friends, is a post for another day.

Not to Change the Subject or Anything Butt March 24, 2009

I’m loving the deal breakers discussion and at some point I’ll probably even get around to sharing my thoughts but first I have an entirely different question for you.

My baby sister, who has a baby of her own recently bought a highchair off Craig’s list and after she got it she had to spend the morning cleaning someone else’s gunk off of it and I just had to think that if I had been the person selling it I would have cleaned it before I sold it.  Is that just me?  Could you sell something like that to someone without cleaning it first?

Also, how do you shower when alone in the house with a 2-year-old (with a predilection for auto theft) and a 1-year-old?

Word Nerds, Start Your Engines January 7, 2009

I’m not trying to steal anyone’s thunder here, Word Nerd Wednesday is not going to become a regular thing (like it is over at Annette’s) In fact, I was going to post this on Monday but I got distracted by all the praise I was getting over at my brother’s blog and so I felt the need to direct your attention to the most important stuff.

But now I need your help.  (In point of fact I don’t need the help of the word nerds but more specifically, that of the linguists, but “Linguists Start Your Engines” didn’t sound as good.)  I got the Infantile Delinquent a Leapfrog Word Whammer for Christmas.  It’s a pretty cool (and only somewhat annoying) toy and it’s already got him singing the alphabet which I think is great.  But I noticed something the other day and I just know that one of you can tell me what the story is.

The Word Whammer comes with magnets of all 26 letters and each letter is one of four different colors.  But I can’t figure out what the reasoning is behind which letters are which colors.  (There’s a reason this is categorized under Feeding My OCD.)  As you can see from the picture it’s not a straight red, then blue, then yellow, then green pattern.  And I did catch that all of the vowels, and only the vowels, are red but I can’t help but wonder if there’s a rhyme or reason to the other colors.  I’m thinking some kind of lingual v. glottal pronunciation thing.  Voiced v. non-voiced?  There has to be something, there just has to.

Why am I so sure?  You ask.

Because this is not the only Leapfrog product that we own.  About five years ago we bought the Princess a Leapfrog Desktop thingy (I believe that was the official name of the toy) and it also has magnetic letters.  In the intervening years we’ve lost some of the letters but we still have some of them.  Here’s a picture. Notice anything?  Like the fact that the letters that are there are the same colors as the letters on my fridge.

So if nothing else the coloration is standard throughout Leapfrog products but WHY?

Help me out here, this is driving me crazy.

Also, why did they chose to go with the font with the little upwards thingy on the L?  And why don’t the ends of the C turn inward like they should?

_____________________________

PS.  I wanted to throw in a disclaimer about how I only noticed the coloration because at one point the Word Whammer told my son to find the M and that the M was green and that got me thinking, but I’ve got to be honest with you, I noticed the lack of pattern in the coloration five years ago when we got the Desktop it was just that at the time I told myself that it was a fluke thing and all the letters were all different colors.

PPS Yes, I’m aware that I need to get out more.