The Simpsons and the Boston Bombings

Oliver cobbled together all of his giftcards and money received for his birthday and bought himself the new Simpsons' Kwik-E-Mart Lego set. He put the whole dang thing together yesterday and this morning, and I have to say it's enchanting. I'm not a Simpsons' watcher, have never really gotten into it, but that's mainly because I've never gotten into cartoons, even as a kid. I do appreciate the humor that I see every now and then, and I still remember the episode when Marge and Homer go to marriage camp and the counselor declares that "it's all his fault" when Homer fails to show up at a therapy session. The other episode I remember is when Homer finds himself on death row and then realizes that he's actually part of a reality show. When I looked it up this morning on Wikipedia, I saw that the title of that episode was The Frying Game, and shortly afterward, I saw on the news that the Russian guy who bombed the Boston Marathon got the death sentence for his crimes. While Oliver screwed together a few more tzotchkes on his set, I told him this news, and his response was Awesome! My stomach curdled, to tell you the truth, even as I continued to read about the verdict, including the words of Sister Helen Prejean who evidently spoke in Tsarnaev's defense. Here's the thing: the institutionalized killing of another human being is nothing but revenge. Let's call it like it is. Strapping a human being to a bed and then injecting him with poison in the dead of night while people watch is more vile than a pathetic excuse of a young man packing a backpack full of nails and dropping it at the finish line of a marathon, blowing off the limbs of innocent people and killing three people. It's more vile because it's a collective effort by an institution and carried out under the guise of justice. It makes me sick, and it's not a reality show.

Happy

I took the boys and my niece to Universal Studios today. We went on the late side and stayed until closing. I had to pay about a million dollars for three six-month passes for the boys and me, and that cost less than a one-day ticket for my niece. And another million dollars for some really gross food. And about half a million dollars for three waters and a blue Powerade. And about fifty dollars for one churro.

Despite this hemorrhaging I actually had FUN!!!

And my favorite ride was The Simpsons. Really. It was exhilarating. And I laughed like an idiot. Like I had no cares in the world.


I even spent a couple of thousand dollars to document my giddiness after the ride (you should know this about me: I HATE amusement parks. Honestly, I'd generally rather stick needles in my eyeballs than go. I hate the people, the lines, the crap, the sensory overload). Here's the evidence, though of happiness:


That's me in the back row, next to the boys, and I'm cracking up. They snap the picture right at the end of the ride, so everyone is completely gasping or shocked or laughing, like me.

On the way out, the boys were incredulous when I bought them bags of candy. Swedish fish, gummy coke bottles, licorice.

It was the greatest day ever, they said.