Channeling Aretha

Today Aretha Franklin is in my head. She even slipped out of my mouth at one point. One of the subjects that Aretha is most famous for is respect. when you mention her name, it's the song most of us think of immediately.

So why am I thinking about respect?  Well, I did capture the picture you're looking at on my new camera. I love my pooches, and Gizmo has more forebearance than is reasonable to expect.

Curfews are a sore subject at our house right now. With an 18-year-old high school senior in the house, any kind of rules tend to chafe. He missed his curfew on New Year's Eve (1 a.m, by the way) by four minutes. According to him, he was "hitting all the red lights."  Plausible, and even likely. However, instead of calling me on the phone we have given him, he just showed up late. And because the number of minutes was so small, he didn't think that it should be counted as being late. At 1:05 a.m. I declined to discuss it further. But today when he asked to have his regular curfew extended, I told him no. Not a popular decision, I have to tell you. And I told him it was because he didn't respect me.

Now he is the baby of the family, and I'm sure that I've treated him as such on more than one occasion. But I hope before he leaves the house in May to make the foray into the college world, he understands that respecting someone means that even in the small things, your actions take the other person into account. Our goal has been to raise our chilren to be self-sufficient, and that they are. But life doesn't happen in isolation, either. At some point they have to learn to put other's needs in the same neighborhood as their own.

And don't worry. Gizmo had to endure the headband only about as long as it took to take the picutre. Thank you, Giz.