Amazing Allison

I have changed my schedule a bit a work to accommodate a new train that they added to the "Sounder Commuter Train". I love the Sounder.

The 15 miles from my home to work can take 45 minutes in the morning and an hour or more in the evening if driving by car. On the train it takes 20 minutes. 20 MINUTES! Not only that, but my (MY!) house is a 10 minute brisk walk from the station.

Usually, due to the limited train schedule, I would be off work at 4 pm and would need to wait until 4:45 pm to catch the first train home. This would get me home around 5:20.

Not. Any. More.

Without having to change my schedule my more than 15 minutes in the morning, I can now catch this new run at 4:00 PM. Yesterday was the first day.....I jumped in the work vanpool, zoomed to the station, boarded the train, arrived in my hometown 20 minutes later, walked home, and arrived at 4:30. FOUR. THIRTY.

THIRTY MINUTES AFTER FOUR.

This is over an hour earlier! Does anyone understand?

Oh, I am sooooo happy.

Anyway, this post is actually not about the train (kind of hard to tell at this point, isn't it?). It is really about the time and what I can do with it. I was very excited about this extra hour because, especially on piano lesson Mondays, I really need this time to prepare dinner, help with homework, take then neighbor's dog for a walk, etc. I was actually so enamoured of my extra dinner-fixing time that I kind of forgot to make dinner before piano lessons last night.

Oops.

It actually worked out fine. We got home after lessons and I whipped up dinner and the girls and I sat around the table talking about boys and uteruses (uteri?) and if human twins can have two separate fathers.

I said no. I let the girls know that I wasn't so sure - that if the twins were two separate eggs that I might be wrong. But having sex with two different people within the ovulation time was more than likely a really bad idea anyway.

I love our talks. Have I mentioned that we are very open about these things?

This, as it always does, opened to the dinner table conversation up to sex and boys. They myth that I had sex with their father only twice was finally debunked. They laughed. Sophie showed us her best "make out with yourself by crossing your arms over your own shoulders while your back is turned to the audience" move. It was good.

Then she sat down and said, "Do you know what?". (Sophie starts almost all of her sentences this way.) "Maddie says that Jackson (7-year-old twins that live down the street) sometimes kisses and humps her Amazing Allison doll." Insert relatively lengthy silence here. "I don't play with Amazing Allison anymore when I'm over there."

Inappropriate touching was the next subject of conversation.

Without that extra hour, would I have ever learned of Amazing Allison and her fall from grace?

I think not.