Who Wants Coffee, Who Wants Tea?

Celebrity Death Match

135 pound St. Bernard, recently gone blind vs. 2 1/2 year old, hopped up on marshmallows and pushing an umbrella stroller like she's driving Talladega.

And the St. Bernard wins. Zoe sustains road rash from the cement driveway over her left eyebrow.

He was not given a good night hug.

Babes in Toyland

What law is it that the minute Morgan has a friend over to play, she is consumed by an all-powerful force that demands her to drag them to the basement to rummage through garbage bags of toys not played with for a year, instead of up to her room with all of the most recent items she's suckered people into buying for her?

The Lost Art of Dining

During my massive cleaning spree, I came across “the tray” and cursed it for the millionth time.

It is a tray I bought for Morgan a few years ago and I don’t remember if it was originally intended so she could eat in front of the TV (that would be bad, right?) but that’s its soul purpose for Zoe.

The problem with this tray is that it has this little trough around the edge that crumbs and juice splatters end up in, and is a pain in the ass to clean. Plus Morgan put stickers all over it, so even when I wipe it clean it still looks dirty.

So I thought…I should buy a couple new trays that don’t have those annoying features.

It got me thinking about the good ol’ days of TV trays. I suppose they fell out of favor when people started putting televisions in their kitchens. But I remember when everyone had them. In our house, the TV tray was used for two main purposes.

The first was a place for my mom to put her supplies while making clothespin doll ornaments around Christmas time, so she could sew while watching Scarecrow and Mrs. King or MacGuyver.

The second was when we stayed home sick from school and got to rest on the couch while Family Feud, Password, and $100,000 Pyramid were on. The TV tray was provided to eat our soup and drink our ginger ale from the comfort of the green tweed davenport, without causing too much distress on our weakened bodies.

In my maternal grandparents’ house - which was actually a double-wide trailer - there wasn’t room for a big dining room table, so family gathering necessitated their use for birthday dinners.

If I recall, Aunt Charlie had metal ones and Aunt Cheryl had wooden ones, but maybe I have that backward.

I did a quick poll of my co-workers to find out when these went on the endangered species listing and even the twenty-somethings remembered them, so it must be fairly recent, which makes me feel a little better.

They usually look at me like I have one foot in the grave I’m so old.

And that's all the clean cups for the day.