Happy Father's Day

First of all, thank you to Hot Guy for being such a devoted father. There is nothing better than watching you play with our kids. You are wonderfully playful and affectionate and you still change diapers faster than I do. You are amazing.

Secondly, thank you to my dad for being such a good dad and an even better grandfather. I am grateful for all you've done for me and for us. Also, thank you for taking me to my first concert (Bruce Springsteen-Born in the USA, how cool is THAT?) and to the first one I've been to in years (tomorrow's True Colors with Cyndi Lauper, The Dresden Dolls and Margaret Cho).

Third of all, thank you to my father-in-law, for being such a good dad, welcoming in-law and wonderful grandfather. We miss you every day and can't wait to see you in August.

Finally, my pet peeve. I can't be all sweetness and light, people. On Father's Day, I think it's only right to point out the difference between plurals and possessives. Plurals are when you add "s" to show more than one. Example: On Mondays I do laundry. Possessives are when you add
" 's " to show possession. Example: Monday's epidsode of Studio 60 was lame.

That's all you really need to know. My first graders (most of whom came from socially and economically challenged backgrounds) were able to grasp the concept. But I see signs everywhere with apostrophes plopped in the middle of plurals (Hamburger's Half Off, for example) and it drives me insane. If my first graders could get it, then really anyone should be able to do it.

Look at our holiday: Father's Day. It is the day of honoring the father - his day. He owns it. Hence the apostrophe. See how easy that is? I know that my own grammar is not perfect - I scatter commas like grass seed and I don't really get colons and semi-colons (not to mention my run - on sentences) - but I can correctly do anything my former students can do, at least. Shouldn't everyone be able to meet that standard?