Who's in charge here?

CAST OF CHARACTERS:

FeeFiFoto: takes full responsibility for all this bedlam.  Yessirree -- the buck stops here, and if I can just clear off my desk I'm sure I'll find that darn buck somewhere**

Robespierre: an eighth grade, blue eyed black belt in Tae Kwon Doe, who thinks math is really really fun and would rather live on a lake in Minnesota than at home.  Even in the winter.  When there's nobody at the lake in Minnesota.

Cupcake: a fifth grade girl who makes up puns and read the entire Harry Potter series in five weeks at age 7; also goes by the names "Cleopatra-Queen-of-the-Nile" and "Cleo" and maintains her own blog: The Cupcake Bakery

Miss Puppy, otherwise know as Voldemort, The Dog Lord, and She Who Must Not Be Tamed: a four-year-old Tibetan Terrierist -- er -- Terror -- er -- Terrier who digs gardening, moles and new shoes

Curley: My sister

Click: Curley's husband, who will take pictures of ANYTHING (street signs, anyone? How about manhole covers?  An abandoned shoe on the sidewalk?  Got it!)

Artypants: Curley's oldest, a completely esoteric art student

Sweet-Talker: Curley's youngest, a ninth grade boy who will probably end up running a country

Stretch: Curley's middle child, a charming twelfth grader who is now old enough to drive his cousins (yay!)

Schpilkes (Yiddish for "ants in the pants"): My and Curley's mother, who lives by the motto: "anything for a grandchild"

The Man From D.A.D.: Our father, who coped with three children and his first three grandchildren before finally finding one who liked to play chess

What?  You Say You Want To Know More?

I'm a recovering attorney with two kids, one dog, a gift site called FeeFiFoto (duh), and very little free time on my hands.

1. I'm really good at parallel parking.  Someone gave me a lesson when I got my first car and I've never forgotten how.  I give lessons.  I could park a school bus if I had to.  As long as the bus had an automatic transmission.
2. I did fail parallel parking on the driver's test, however.  Both times.  But I can do it now, I swear.  I even give lessons.
3. I do know how to drive a standard transmission, just not one on a bus.
4. Do they even make school buses with standard transmissions any more?  It's been a very long time since I've ridden a school bus.  Since I get motion sickness even at the mention of a bus, I don't think I'm going to be finding out about the transmissions on school buses any time soon.
5. I can balance a spoon on my nose.  My mother complains that this seems to be the only thing I got out of four years of college and three years of law school.  Not so -- I also gained a frightening pollen allergy.  So there.
6. I've taught my children, Robespierre and Cupcake, how to balance spoons on their noses, mainly because I enjoy seeing my mother's 's reaction.
7. I've always wanted to witness a hurricane, from a safe place.  And before Katrina victims start flooding my mailbox, it's not something I'd really do -- I just think it sounds cool.
8. I can complete the New York Times crossword puzzle, in ink, any day of the week.
9. I'm a Beatlemaniac.
10. I'm a serious chocoholic.  Ask about the chocolate stories sometime.
11. I'm quite good at wheel-throwing pottery.  Many of my pieces are on permanent display in tmy father's office, even though I frequently try to sneak off with some of them and replace them with something less hideous newer and better designed.
12. I enjoy being Jewish, regarding it as a lifestyle and a community as well as a religion.  I love knowing that I have something in common with every other Jewish person in the world.
13. I've never smoked a cigarette or taken drugs.  If you need someone who can honestly say that to your kids, call me.
14. I'm  definitely a Disney and not a Warner Brothers.
15. I'm a single mother by choice, to two kids who have the same anonymous donor.  Yes, they are mine and no, I don't find being a single parent immeasurably harder than it would be if I had a spouse, and no, I don't believe there's anything brave in what I've done, although everyone else seems to think so.  The best thing about being a single parent is that I get more kisses and hugs; the worst part is that I have to be the Queen of NO.
16. I hated practicing law.  I spent most of my employment slinking around the office clinging to a wall,  wearing beige in an attempt to blend in with the decor, staring at my feet in the hope of never making eye contact with anyone, especially my manic-depressive high energy secretary, who might yell at me or force me to do my job, for which I clearly was not qualified.
17. I have math phobia, although unleash me in a roomful of typos and grammatical errors and I'm happy as a hog in a mud puddle.  I might even correct the typos in your comments if you're really nice.  I can't wait until my kids are old enough to handle the family's finances.
18. I hate exercise.  It's against my religion.  I do it only under great duress.  I do not, however, mind walking Miss Puppy from school to Starbucks and back, as long as I have a radio tuned to NPR and a newspaper to read once I get there.
19. I gave up on contact lenses and went back to full-time glasses.  My dog ate them.
20. I'm a product of dueling genetics.  Half of my gene pool is Felix Ungar; the other is Oscar Madison.  As  a consequence, I'm a slob who hates being slobby.
21. I have beautiful blue eyes that turn greenish when I wear green, purplish when I wear purple, and turquoiseish when I wear turquoise.
22. I've  attended two Super Bowls, back in the relatively early days.  I went to college in New Orleans and my friend's father got me tickets in 1978 and 1981.  The Super Bowl was nowhere near as big a production as it is now; the halftime show one year was the finals of the Punt, Pass and Kick competition, and the other year was the finals of the Canine Frisbee Championship.  No Paul McCartney, no Michael Jackson, no U2, no wardrobe malfunctions.
23. I've  been within spitting distance of the following celebrities; although I'm too polite to have spit at any of them there are some at whom I might have liked to spit:  Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Eva Gabor*, Larry Hagman, Prince Philip, Shirley Jones*, Nelson Mandela, Neil Diamond, Oprah Winfrey, Joe Namath, Hugh Grant, Teri Garr, Joan Rivers, Lou Brock*, August Busch II*, Itzhak Perlman*  (key: "*" indicates handshake or conversation).
24. My house is a shrine to my children.  In addition to piles of portraits and photos, I have quilts made from their baby clothes, framed artworks from every school year, and their first Halloween pumpkins, which I freeze dried.
25. I can see Russia from my house.

**In 2006 I bought a personalized photo gift site called PhotoGiftPlace.com, which I've spent a lot of time renovating.  I changed the name to FeeFiFoto, and since then I've put hours and hours into adding new products, changing the look, and marketing products.  The site started out making personalized photo calendars and branched out into personalized photo ornaments, mugs, dishes, apparel, watches, jewelry and lots more.