Tonight, pizza and wine with a dear friend.  Feel ever so grateful to have these people in my life.  She's reading "Little House on the Prairie" to her girls and I'm envious because I don't think my Sadie is old enough to really, really love it.  I want her to really, really love it.  I think about when I first read these books.  I was nine.  It seems that many of my strongest memories rooted deeply in my ninth year.  I read "Little Women."  And figured out that my Dad was mortal.  I got my ears pierced.  A friend died.  Big things.  But I remember little things, too.  Like singing Christmas carols with my brother in the backseat of my mom's old, yellow Volvo.  I remember my winter jacket.  Bright blue with yellow elastic at the wrists.  I hated that jacket.  

My kids have memories now.  They have memories with more staying power than the soap bubbly remembrances of their youth.  This makes me self conscious.  What will they take with them into their forties and beyond?  Though I want them to take the same things I did, I know that everyone has their own packing system.  When I travel, I always pick a color scheme before I pack my suitcase.  My husband just takes whatever is clean.   It's just what we do.

I just finished making a bundt cake for my son's elementary school fundraiser.  It will be delicious.  I know this because I licked the batter from the spoon when I had finished filling the pan.  I'm a batter eater.  I love batter.  And cookie dough, too.  Bring me your raw, your uncooked, your bowls teeming with salmonella.  

Years and years ago, way back when I was in elementary school, I remember an afternoon spent baking cookies at a friend's house.  I remember the horrified look that crossed over the face of my friend's mom when I popped a big wad of dough into my mouth.  

"Spit it out," she demanded.  And, because she was very tall and also the gym teacher at my school and I was used to obeying her barked commands, I did.

"It's not ready," she said.  "It's filled with bacteria.  You could get very, very sick."

I opened my eyes wide and tried not to cry.  As a child, (and truthfully as an adult) I hate to disappoint.  

Later when I returned home with a little baggy of crunchy cookies, I asked my own mom about the dough.  We always sampled.  We never talked about bacteria.  Were we going to die?

"Some people worry about that stuff," she said.  

I thought about Mom this morning when I dropped my daughter at pre-school and a fellow parent confided that he had a stash of Tamiflu.  He'd picked it up for the Avian flu, but it's still good and it'll work for Swine Flu, too.  

"Wow," I said.  "You're prepared."  I was impressed.  I'm impressed because I haven't thought about the Swine Flu too much.  This is the same Dad who thinks nothing of lighting up a smoke in the parking lot of our school.  For him, the distant threat of Swine Flu weighs heavier than cancer.  

Some people worry about that stuff.

Let's be clear.  I do worry.  The list of things that keep me awake at night is long and varied.  Of course I worry about things that may never happen.  But I try to remember that while sometimes a noise in the dark is a serial killer, more often it's just a noise in the dark.