And of course there's an article on the weather

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/131198/snowfall-continues-as-new-yorkers-prepare-for-messy-commute

Probably several articles, but this one is good for two reasons:

1. Apparently the city is hosting park events tomorrow. Free cocoa and wintry activities at 5 parks throughout the city! Be there!

2. With that in mind, let's look at the following quote:

"It is expensive, but when a snow storm is in New York City, we can't look at the expense. We have to go out and get the roadways cleared," said Doherty. "New York is a city that doesn't sleep. It's a very busy city, Monday morning people will be looking to get about, but thank goodness there's no school tomorrow, so that cuts down on some of it."

I'm sorry, did anybody suggest that snow removal in the city was too expensive? Sure, it costs "millions", but equally surely we've budgeted for that, right? I mean, we live in a city where it snows. It would be certain to cost more if we didn't clean up after storms, wouldn't it? If this is a problem, I'd be happy to relocate the entire city to a warmer climate, but until that's a cheaper option than just paying to shovel and plow, I'm not really sure why this is even coming up.

But if we really lack the funds for this sort of thing, why not take it out of the hot cocoa budget for the parks?

So this is how I rang in the new year

I put the nieces to bed by 8:30 - Jenn and 'dul are out partying.

At 11:00 they came downstairs saying they couldn't sleep. I spent 20 minutes putting them back to sleep before thinking the following:

1. This is ridiculous
2. It's almost midnight
3. I can not beLIEve how hard it is to make them sleep!
4. You know, their parents will want to sleep late tomorrow
5. Might as well let them stay up another half hour to see the ball drop

So I dragged them downstairs to my grandmother's TV, and we watched Word World until 11:57, when we watched the ball drop. I dragged them out to the porch to bang pots and pans half-heartedly (might as well do this right, right?) and then brought them back to bed.

And spent the next hour and ten minutes of my life trying to make them sleep. D'oh! I guess you could say that I really dropped the ball when it came to bedtime! (Yes, yes, I have been trying to make that joke several times all day.)

It was fun watching them be excited about the new year. Me, I found it much more interesting back when I didn't routinely stay up past midnight.... Of course, that's always the way, isn't it? When you're a child, you promise yourself that when you're a grown up you'll stay up late just because you want to and you'll buy those temporary tattoos and tubs of "slime" and choking-sized jawbreakers at the supermarket every day or even more often with your own money, and you'll eat cake whenever you please.

And then you grow up, and you can do all these things, and - cruel trick of time! - you find out that you just don't care anymore and you were a fool as a child to spurn naps in favor of being "grown up". Oh, it's disheartening to be a grown-up sometimes.

The other day, Jenn took a class. On SuperGlue.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what she'd use SuperGlue for, except for the obvious. Clearly, my mind isn't kinky enough.

So help me out here - what, on earth, did she learn there? (If you're serious and not just joking, please be clear.)