(parenthetical)

test

2011-12-09T10:30:00.002-05:00

I'm not here, I'm there

2011-01-01T20:39:00.000-05:00

I'm blogging here now. See you there!

Humble Pie: Seldom Served a la Mode

2010-10-12T20:55:00.000-04:00

Thank God for the internet. Because if it weren't for online flash presentations, I'd never have remembered how to do long division.

PS--were we doing long division in fourth grade in the 70s? I don't think we were.

Sartor Resartus

2010-10-04T21:27:00.000-04:00

Should you have any interest in what transpired in my house this morning between 7:30 and 8:00 or so, then just read this post, published two years ago. With slight modifications (sadly, he no longer uses the word "stonkhead", and he introduced the classic "ALL MY FRIENDS WILL BE WEARING SHORT PANTS" argument while presenting his case), our morning was nearly identical to the one documented in the 2008 post.

It's time to send 6yo and his brother to bed. Not necessary, of course, since THEY ARE TOTALLY NOT TIRED.

Were you looking for a sharp-dressed man?

2010-09-30T22:13:00.001-04:00

This one will be six years old tomorrow.

This place is a mess

2010-09-25T00:06:00.000-04:00

I just did some housekeeping here in my actual house, and it looks like I need to clean this place up, too. There are blogs on my blog list whose titles I don't even recognize, and I haven't seen updates from many of them in months. The blog list vs. "follow" feature is another thing I need to clean up...I follow some blogs that don't appear on my blog list, and vice versa.

If you don't follow any blogs (back when I was hanging around here more regularly, there seemed to be an anti-follow backlash; I'm not sure if this feature is still controversial), then you might not know that the feature works something like a reader. You get a feed of your followed blogs, automatically updated in your dashboard. It's rather useful. But when I starte following, there didn't seem to be any way to link your blog roll to your follow list, so you'd have to add new blogs separately to each. That's too much work. So when I start the clean-up operation, I'll see if I can synchronize these two features (I'm sure that it's really embarrassingly obviously easy to do this).

Since I haven't updated Twitter in months, the Twitter feed might have to go, too. I might change the layout and colors again. And maybe a new profile picture is in order...the Necco wafers were meant to be temporary, part of an old blog joke. Let me know if there are any new blogs that I shouldn't miss. I'll invite you all over when the renovations are finished.

The Bilge is Back

2010-09-21T22:46:00.000-04:00

No promises here, because I am nothing if not inconsistent, but I might be back. As usual, I have nothing and everything to say and not much time in which to say it, but as usual, this won't stop me.

When I last posted to this blog, I had an 8yo and a 5yo. I now have a 9yo and an almost 6yo, who are in 4th grade and kindergarten, respectively (5yo just missed the cutoff last year and hadn't turned 5 in time to start kindergarten). This summer, 5yo went from extremely reluctant swimmer to full-fledged member of the team, swimming in every B meet and two A meets (as a last-minute substitute for sick teammates). 9yo has developed a wide-ranging interest in history, and is now particularly fascinated with Pearl Harbor and Area 51. He's going to start playing the clarinet next month, with his school's instrumental music program.

I am taking a break from classes this fall. I wasn't sure if I could manage my own schoolwork and the boys', so I took a semester off. So that creates a blogging catch-22...I might have some extra time to blog, but without school to complain about, then what do I write about? I expect to figure that out straightaway, so stay tuned.

I don't hold with no book learnin' (Part One Million)

2010-08-04T22:51:00.001-04:00

I'm going to start blogging again soon, as soon as I'm finished with this class. Alert the media, and save me a seat, OK?

This blog is not abandoned; it's on hiatus

2010-06-14T20:34:00.000-04:00

Something has to give, and unfortunately, this blog is that thing. I'll be back soon!

Why I'm no more likely to become a literary critic than I am to become professional hockey player

2010-06-02T09:29:00.000-04:00

Once again, I'm thoroughly enjoying the reading for my class (Mark Twain, what is not to like?); and once again, I find myself with very little to say about it. Sadly, elaborations on the theme of "it's awesome, you should totally read it!" will not be suitable essay material. This is my life as a reluctant scholar.

I have few problems that summer can't solve

2010-05-29T23:00:00.001-04:00

Chinese spam would improve this blog

2010-05-21T21:25:00.002-04:00

Hi!

My visits here have become ever more sporadic and brief, but here I am! I'm just about at the end of a brief between-classes break. I still don't have a grade for my last class (and that, my friends, is a whole 'nother story, one which I will tell you at ridiculous length when I have a bit more time).

Tomorrow, I'm going to Philadelphia (yay!) because Caitlin.Maia is graduating. From college! My sister is graduating! See, this is a big deal because she's my sister, and also because these days, it seems rather miraculous to me that people actually graduate at the expected and traditional time. She's 22, and that's what 22-year-olds do, they graduate from college. It's not what I did, of course, but the upside is that it's entirely likely that I'd never have started this blog had I finished school when I was supposed to, and just think of the void that this would have left.

I know, it's too much to contemplate.

So I'm going to have a fun weekend, then I'm going to enjoy the remaining few days of my semester break. Starting on June 1, I'll be spending far more time with Mark Twain and Stephen Crane than I'd really planned. Lisa, I might need an Editor of Dead Authors. Do you work on a freelance basis? Call me!

Visual Acuity

2010-05-07T23:03:00.003-04:00

You might remember that I wear contact lenses (and I didn't change this font. What just happened?)

Anyway.

I went today for my somewhat less than annual eye exam. I needed new contact lenses, and apparently, you have to have a current prescription. Sigh. I hate having an eye exam like I hate traffic court and finals (tomorrow, BTW, and look how hard I'm studying), but I'm down to one pair of lenses. And I can't see so good even when I'm wearing them, so maybe it was time to see a doctor.

When I go to the eye doctor, I always warn the technician that she's going to have a hard time blowing the little puff of air in my eye for the glaucoma test. "Little puff of air". It's like someone trained a firehose right into my eyesocket. I flinch every time, multiple times. I can always see them losing patience at about puff three or so, and then they do what they should do from the very beginning: do not warn me that it's coming, just blow.

Now that my eyes were properly aerated, the doctor took over.

Do you lie to your doctors? I do, all the time. Why I do this, I really don't know, since I have practically no bad health habits except for the sweet tooth to which I freely admit. But every time a doctor asks me if I'm doing or not doing whatever, I feel compelled to lie. And I don't lie about anything else. At the doctor's, though, I want to both bask in medical professional approval AND avoid lectures. So I just tell them what they want to hear. I'm not doing myself any good, and really, I'm pretty sure that the doctors both A. know that I'm lying, and B. don't care. That said, it's very likely that I will continue to lie to the medical profession.

"Are you rubbing your lenses every night when you clean them?", the doctor asked. "I know that they sell this 'no-rub' solution, but there's no such thing...you should be cleaning the lenses manually every night."

"Oh yes, definitely", I said. Fat lie.  Most nights, it's all I can do to get the silly things out of my eyes in one piece.  Shiatsu massage for contact lenses is and will remain at the very bottom of my to-do list.

"Good", she said. "Do you ever sleep in your lenses?"

"No, not intentionally...very rarely, I take a nap with them in, but I never actually wear them to bed." This is actually 100% true, on both counts: I hardly ever nap, and I never wear my contact lenses to bed.

"Very good", she beamed approvingly. "How often do you change your lenses?"

"Every two weeks; three at most", I said, with a straight face. This is a seriously overweight lie. I can make a 2-week pair of soft lenses last for two months.  If I ever do get around to administering the recommended daily contact lens spa treatment, I bet I can wear the same pair of lenses for an entire Congressional election cycle.

"Excellent", she said. I was her best patient today, probably all week. I fully expected to be invited to appear as a guest lecturer on the subject of contact lens hygiene, and I would have happily accepted. "Do as I say and not as I do" has worked very well as a child-rearing philosophy, and I see no reason why this approach shouldn't be an equally effective way of educating contact lens wearers who aren't as conscientious as I am (in my mind).

As I suspected, I needed a new prescription, and I'll have to go back on Tuesday to try them, since she didn't have the new prescription in stock. Meanwhile, filed under the heading of "I was this close to getting out of here" was her final review of my chart. She looked up at me.

"When is the last time you had your eyes dilated? I noticed you didn't do that the last few times you were here, and you seem to have told the technician that you didn't want to do it today either."

"Oh gosh", I said. "I don't remember".

It's really impossible to overstate the grotesque obesity of this particular lie, since I remembered perfectly well when I had last had my eyes dilated. It was never. I'd never had my eyes dilated, not even one time, and if it weren't for officious chart-snooping optometrists and rat-fink sell-a-person-down-the-river technicians, I'd have maintained that perfect record today.

But noooooooo.

The kindly beam of approval disappeared. The steely clinical gaze appeared in its place. "It's very important to have a retinal exam every year. It's really the only way we can detect all kinds of bad shit that happens to people's eyes".  I tried to look earnest and concerned, but I was busily working up my next lie, the one that was going to get me out of the office with my pupils beady and constricted. That's how I like them.

"OK, how about if I have it done when I come back to get my contact lenses?"

"Why not now?"

"Well, I have to drive."

"How far?"

"Well, just to pick my kids up from school". Dumbass. It was 11:30 in the morning, and as it turned out, she too had children in Montgomery County Public Schools, so she knew that I had at least three hours. "Perfect!", she said. "You have plenty of time!"

So ended the struggle. And except for the slight stinging (hurt like bloody hell on fire), minor delay (sucked up half of my day), and temporarily blurred vision (blind), it was not that bad.

(Lie).

I don't hold with no book learnin'

2010-04-28T20:39:00.000-04:00

What's the oldest joke on this blog?
I'm writing a paper right now. No, I'm not! I'm avoiding writing a paper!

I know that I ALWAYS say that whatever assignment I'm working on is the most beastly assignment ever foisted upon a hapless undergraduate, but this one really is. And I know that I ALWAYS say that whatever I've written is utter bilge, but the current draft of this paper really is utter bilge. Finally, I know that I always tell 8yo that it's better to just sit down and do your work, rather than indulging in 45 minutes of woe-is-me drama and stallling tactics, but you can file that right under the heading of do as I say and not as I do. The spirit is unwilling, and the flesh isn't all that cooperative either.

It ain't right

2010-04-19T23:13:00.000-04:00

I don't think that I should have to submit a paper when the last paper that I wrote has still not been graded. And that is all I have to say about that.

A Marked Lowering of Standards

2010-04-15T20:28:00.000-04:00

5yo: (pointing to local news weatherman) Hey! That guy is a President!

8yo: (scoffing) That's not a President!

5yo: Course he is! Just look at the tie on him!

Nice neckwear, buddy. That and 270 electoral votes will get you the White House.

Blogging about not blogging: is that anti-meta-discourse? My head hurts.

2010-04-07T22:10:00.000-04:00

You've probably guessed, due to my absence (assuming that you've noticed my absence. You have noticed, right?), that I'm once again temporarily all wrote out. I'm taking a particularly hideous class this semester. Do you know the difference between telic and atelic meaning, or between epiphora and epanaphora? I didn't until yesterday, and I didn't suffer as a result of my ignorance (nor do I feel particularly that my understanding of the English language has been enhanced as a result of my newfound and almost certainly fleeting knowledge). Because this is an advanced grammar and rhetoric class, it's writing-intensive, and so pretty much everything I have to say in writing is being said in this class. I might have more later.

Word Verification: That Shit Doesn't Work

2010-03-29T09:46:00.000-04:00

My last one-sentence post received 179 comments, a record for this blog, and very few of them were in English. Apparently, word verification is a far less than foolproof method of spam prevention. Accordingly, I am disabling it for now. 使自己在家裡，垃圾郵件發送者。

Word to the apparently unwise

2010-03-22T19:27:00.000-04:00

If your cover letter tells me that you have "earned a reputation for the inept performance of (your) duties", then I'm going to take you at your word.

Advice from the Trenches

2010-03-11T20:34:00.001-05:00

Did you know that I am a recruiter? Not the agency headhunter kind. I'm an in-house recruiter. My job is to recruit and hire people, and I like it very much.

I have a professional certification in Human Resources, but recruiting is the only thing I really like to do. Right now, I work for an architectural and engineering services company.

Architecture is a field that's been particularly hard-hit by the recession, and for every job opening, I get hundreds of applicants. We're in Maryland, but at least 20 percent of my applicants are in Michigan, and another 20 percent or so are in Florida. I also get far more frequent phone calls than was once common.

You might have heard that recruiters don't like phone calls, but I actually don't mind phone calls at all. I will always take a call from an applicant. If I'm busy and I'm letting calls go to voice mail, I will always call back.   So if you're job-hunting, and you've submitted an application somewhere, and you're not sure if you should call or not, here are some reasons why you should call (exception: if the posting says "no phone calls please", then you'll probably be automatically disqualified if you call. I don't do "no phone calls" postings, but some companies do):

1. To make sure that they actually have your resume. I use an online applicant tracking system, and applicants apply and upload their resumes through our Careers page. It usually works pretty well, but it's not foolproof. So if you haven't received any kind of auto-response, then just call to make sure they have your resume.
2. To make sure that someone has actually read your resume. I actually read every single resume that comes in, but sometimes it takes me a few days to get to all of them. If you call, I'll read your resume while you're on the phone with me, and I'll tell you what I think right away.

If I tell you that you don't meet the minimum qualifications for the position, it's definitely OK to say something like "well, I know I don't have the 5 years of project management experience, but I've researched your company's projects, and I did exactly the same kind of work for some of your clients, so I'm very familiar with your projects and your client base". Maybe I didn't read your resume carefully enough the first time, and your pointing this out will make me realize that we definitely should consider you.   You can also ask me to pass your resume along to the hiring manager anyway, just in case something suitable for you opens. I will always say yes when someone asks me to do this, and I will always actually do it.

What you don't want to do is argue about the validity of our requirements. My firm works exclusively for federal government clients, and for most (not all) positions, we're looking for applicants with experience in the federal sector. If you don't have that experience, you probably won't be considered for most positions. If you tell me that "there's no difference whatsoever between federal and commercial work, and if anyone tells you that there is, then they're crazy or lying" (near-verbatim quote from a recent caller), then I promise you that you absolutely won't be considered for any position.

Read the job description very carefully. If you can, revise your resume to highlight the experience you have that's directly relevant. If you don't quite meet the minimum qualifications? Go ahead and apply anyway. If the posting says you need five years of experience, and you only have three, two things might happen:
1. I'll have a ton of applicants who meet the minimum qualifications, so I won't consider you, but I won't think badly of you for trying, OR
2. I won't have nearly enough applicants who meet the minimum qualifications, which means I'll revise those qualifications and reconsider the resumes that I've marked not qualified. Then, I'll have your resume and you'll have a chance at the job.

While I recommend trying for the position that's a level or two above your qualifications, I don't recommend applying for a position that has nothing to do with your background. In particular, I really recommend that you carefully read the job description for any job containing the words "Project Manager" or "Program Manager" in its title. If you are an IT Project Manager, and you submit your resume, along with a cover letter declaring that you are ideally suited for the position, to a posting for an Architect Project Manager, or a Site Planning Project Manager, you will not only not be considered, you'll be immediately labeled an idiot by the recruiter who has 200 resumes to read.   For those who will point out that "Architect" can mean "systems architect" or "software engineer" and that there are "planners" in lots of disciplines, I will say again: Read The Job Description. The title doesn't always say it all.

What was that? You want more advice? Of course you do! Here's more:

If you're applying for a position in a distant location, and it's a position for which relocation assistance is not typically offered (staff-level architect or planner or engineer, for example), you should state in your cover letter that you're either interested in moving to that particular area, or that you're searching nationwide, and that you're open to moving without assistance. It's also helpful to tell me how long it would take you to move. Here's why you should do this: I receive a ton of resumes, and I read all of them. For most positions, I have enough local applicants. This means that if you're applying from Michigan, and I have 200 applicants, and at least 30 qualified applicants right in town, then I will not contact you to ask you about your relocation plans. I just don't have time. I might contact you if I don't have enough local applicants, but that's a rare occurrence. If, however, you are qualified for the job, and you tell me right up front in your cover letter "Hey! I want to move to Washington D.C. to be with family. I don't need relocation assistance and I can be available within two weeks of receiving an offer!", then I will consider you right along with the local applicants.

Most companies use automated applicant tracking systems, and applicants are asked to submit their resumes online. I have seen and heard harebrained advice suggesting that jobseekers ignore these instructions, and submit their resumes through the "Contact Us" link, or via fax or mail, because then they'll stand out! Yes, they will stand out as resumes of people who don't read instructions. In some companies, applicants have to apply as instructed, or they're disqualified. I will not disqualify applicants who send their resumes outside the system, but you still shouldn't do it. What happens is that resumes submitted via the "Contact Us" link are delivered to a general email box monitored by a marketing assistant. She gets 150 or more emails a day, so it will take her several days to get to your resume and forward it to me. When I get it, it goes into a "candidates" folder in my inbox, and I only get to those resumes when I have enough downtime to read them and upload them into the system. It might take a week and it might take a month. I will read your resume, because again, I read every resume, but by the time I get to it, we might have filled the position.   Why risk missing your chance at the job?

Finally, you should know that most recruiters are pretty good at remembering names and personal details. I seldom know where my phone is at any given moment, but if you called me six months ago, I can almost guarantee that I will remember you when you call again. I'll be very happy to hear from you, and I'll also be very happy to hear about any new experience you've gained in those months that makes you suited for a job with us. The whole process of applying for jobs in an electronic environment can feel very remote and dehumanized, but there's a person on the other end of that internet connection, and she is reading your resume and wishing you well, even when she can't hire you.

Chinese Spam: That Shit Doesn't Work Anymore

2010-03-10T20:16:00.000-05:00

I've had to temporarily enable comment moderation, due to my blog's suddenly stratospheric popularity among Chinese spammers. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll have a real post soon.

That Stuff Doesn't Work (cleaned-up third grade edition)

2010-03-03T17:54:00.000-05:00

Dear 8yo,

I know that you want to play a video game. But if, in your haste to get to said video game, you rush through your homework, making a poor and sloppy job of it, I will only make you erase it and start over. From the beginning. Do it neatly and well the first time, and you'll have plenty of time to play. Additional advice: The eye-rolling, sighing, this-is-so-not-fair drama is entirely wasted on me.

Love,
Mom

New Feature: TSDW

2010-02-27T16:14:00.000-05:00

That Shit Doesn't Work, Volume 1, No. 1
The "microwave method" of softening concrete-hard brown sugar, as recommended by the manufacturer? That Shit Doesn't Work. There is also a suggested overnight method, but chances are, you need the brown sugar now, not tomorrow, so That Shit Doesn't Work either (in the interest of full disclosure, however, I must state that I have tested only the former method, not the latter). If you've begun a baking endeavor for which brown sugar is required and you are past the point of no return, just borrow some brown sugar from a neighbor. This method is 100% effective.

Meanwhile, That Shit Doesn't Work is a new, occasional feature. That Shit Doesn't Work might apply to political philosophies, fashion trends, helpful household hints, or harebrained schemes of the Koreans Tying Strings to Shit variety. Suggestions are welcome.

So that potholder? You hold a pot with it, right?

2010-02-21T20:14:00.003-05:00

Dear CDP,

We're potstickers. We stick to pots, that's what we do. You give us a pot, and we'll stick to it with a tenacity that would put a bulldog with a bone to shame. None of us even got through elementary school, let alone more than halfway through the pursuit of a university degree in the English language, but we're smart enough to know what something called a "POT-STICKER" plans to do.

Here's the thing, CDP. We didn't deceive you. We didn't try to hide what we are. By our name, we made our intentions quite clear. So when you cook a bunch of us for potsticker soup, and you leave us in a big bowl while you chop vegetables, it seems rather foolish (one might even say "asinine" or "idiotic" or perhaps "a display of abysmal chumpitude of the highest order") that you would then react with shocked and chagrined outrage when you find that we have, in fact, stuck to the pot. The name is not symbolic in any way; nor is it an ironic, postmodern challenge to would-be deconstructionists. Honestly, we are just not that sophisticated. The name "potsticker" was meant to be interpreted in the most literal sense. "Potsticker" = "That which sticks to the pot".
We do apologize for any misunderstanding. In the future, we'll ask that you remember that when confronted with a pot, any pot, we will stick to it with single-minded determination. Barnacles will be scraped off the hull of a shipwreck more easily than we will be separated from the pot to which we stick. It's called a raison d'etre. Look it up, scholar.

Yours sincerely,
The Potstickers
(we stick to pots)

Ignorance is bliss, in more ways than one

2010-02-20T21:36:00.001-05:00

My children, at 8 and 5, are too young to understand what happens if a woman who has skipped lunch during a particular time of the month enters a grocery store. They think that it was simply a blessed miracle from heaven that caused their mother to bring home chips AND ice cream in one shopping trip. In other news, the Snickers bar with almonds is the greatest contribution to human civilization since movable type.

Translation

2010-02-12T12:54:00.000-05:00

"Spa Cuisine" = "You will be scrounging for snacks no more than 45 minutes after you finish eating this".

The Last Word

2010-02-06T17:31:00.002-05:00

I like snow as well as the next person, which is to say not much at all. This is entirely too much snow.

My husband loves me, and I love him. This doesn't stop us from engaging in frequent marital chop-busting.   See here. And here. More here. And some more here.

There are variations. Sometimes, it's event-specific , like after I received my fifth speeding ticket in 2009; or like when security man, who never stops nagging me about locking my car, went out and left the front door WIDE OPEN (an event which he still denies, two years after it most assuredly took place). At other times, the busting of chops is focused on particular quirks. I never answer my phone, and he'll interrupt anything to answer his. I misplace things all the time, while he can engage in a lengthy conversation with me and then just a few hours later, forget that the entire conversation took place. Today, we went a few rounds of what I call situational chop-busting. This is distinguished from event-specific chop busting in that it occurs during a recurring situation, such as putting up Christmas lights, or negotiating over music selection for a road trip. Or shoveling snow.

My normal snow-shoveling method consists of watching from the kitchen window. That's why I got married, I'll think to myself as I watch my husband shovel. Today, however, there's really just too much snow for one person to handle. So I put on my boots and jacket, picked up a shovel, and started to move snow with it. How long do you suppose it took for him to begin offering helpful critiques of my shoveling technique? If you guessed longer than "10 seconds", you're wrong.

"Hey hon?" he said.

Holy Mother of God, I thought. Already? He has a helpful shoveling hint ALREADY?

"What?" I said, in what I hoped was a "don't start with me" voice. By the way, I'm not sure why I even bother with the "don't start with me" voice, because it has no effect whatsoever on him.

"Try to move the snow to your right, not to your left. See, that just adds more snow in back of your car, and I'm eventually going to have to shovel that out, too."

"Fine", I said, with what I felt was a very clear "shut the hell up" tone. The "shut the hell up" tone is also lost on him.

Since we were trying to shovel out his truck, because that's the only thing we'll be able to drive in an emergency, I thought it would be wise to clean the truck off first, so that I could then shovel up the snow already on the ground along with the snow I clean off the truck. That's good thinking, right? I thought so too.

"Hon?"

Jesus Christ on the Cross, I thought.

"WHAT?"  My tone here was meant to say "one more word and I'll insert this shovel into a place that was never designed to accomodate it". Once again, completely wasted on him.

"You should use the broom on my car. Good idea to clean the truck off first, but you should use the broom."

"There's two fucking feet of snow on this truck", I said. "Nothing but a shovel is going to make the slightest dent in this snow. I'm not going to hurt your car, but I can't promise that I won't assault you with this shovel."

Ha! I win! I thought, as he continued to shovel without further comment. How long do you think that his diplomatic silence lasted? If you guessed any length of time longer than thirty seconds, you are wrong again.

"Hon?"

"WHAAAAAT????" A blind and deaf person would have clearly discerned the "God help you if you say one more word" tone, but he missed it entirely.

"Don't you see where you're shoveling? That's the grass, there. You don't need to shovel the snow off the grass. Just concentrate on making a path down to the street for the truck."

"NO, I can't see where I'm shoveling because AGAIN, there's TWO FEET OF SNOW OUT HERE. How am I supposed to distinguish grass from pavement when they're both under two feet of snow?"

"Yeah, but the truck is parked on the bump-out, and the grass is right behind the bump-out. Even you should know where the driveway ends and the grass begins".

"Oh REALLY? Well you know what else? EVEN I know that you're wearing a woman's hat!"

"What are you talking about? My mom made this hat."

"I know. She made it for me. It's a lavendar and teal crocheted cap with a tassel on top. What about this hat says menswear to you?"

"The fact that it's keeping my head warm. I don't care what the hat looks like, my head feels just fine."

"And it looks downright pretty. I have a scarf to match, I can get it for you."

"No, don't bother. Just keep shoveling out the lawn in case someone needs play badminton. When you're finished, you can climb up and shake the snow off the tree branches...you never know if a hibernating squirrel's going to need an ambulance up there."

I crack up at things that are far less funny than that, so the back-and-forth ceased for a few minutes. I'm nothing if not gracious in defeat. This was a good-natured argument to begin with, but even if it wasn't, I'd have laughed at the tree suggestion.

We continued to shovel for a bit, talking about this and that. Did I see how the mailboxes were just barely poking out of the snow? Yes, I did. Did he know that the Postal Service had announced that there would be no mail delivery today? No, really? Yes, and they'll probably close school on Monday, too.

I was finally tired, so I decided to take a break. "Go ahead", he said indulgently. "I'm going to keep going for a while...it's good that you cleared off some of that grass, in case anyone needs to practice putting."

I put my shovel down. "That's still a woman's hat", I said.

This Just In

2010-02-02T12:33:00.002-05:00

In other news, winter would have continued for another six weeks anyway.

And the Genie Goes to...

2010-01-31T20:32:00.001-05:00

5yo and 8yo have spoken!

Aindrea, also known as Fashionista du Jour, is the lucky winner of this beautiful Wendy Brandes Teeny Genie! Aindrea, email your postal address to me at cdaltonpak@yahoo.com, and I'll ship your necklace right out! Thanks to everyone who participated, and for all of the good wishes and prayers for Janet.

Teeny Genie Drawing TOMORROW

2010-01-30T18:13:00.000-05:00

You still have almost 24 hours to win a Wendy Brandes Teeny Genie. So go! Clickity-click, right here!

The Reluctant Pursuit of Knowledge

2010-01-27T20:37:00.002-05:00

I was halfway listening to the local news as I helped 8yo search for his goggles for swim practice, and I heard a minute of a story about a 101-year old woman who has finally earned her bachelor's degree. Isn't that sweet, I thought. Because at my current pace, I shouldn't be a day over 80 when I finally graduate.

I'm registering now for mid-winter session; or rather, I'm fixing to get ready to register. I have to figure out what I'm going to take, and how I'm going to summom the motivation to study and write papers again when I can barely throw together my usual half-baked more or less weekly bilge for this blog.

If you've been reading my blog since I started it in 2007, you know that I started blogging when I decided to go back to school after a 20 year absence. That's as good a topic for a blog as any, right? And life as an adult student has yielded some excellent material. I'm just tired of school, and after a semester's absence, I'm the least motivated and the most discouraged I've been since I started this.

No, I'm not going to quit (either blogging or school, though both cross my mind every so often). I'm making progress, it's just very slow progress. I started with 71 credits, 59 of which transferred, so I needed 61 more. 61 credits at 3 credits per class comes out to 20 classes (I'm not rounding; I took a 1-credit required research course right at the beginning which left me with the easily-divisible-by-3 60). Right at the beginning, I tried taking multiple classes at once, and found that working full-time, raising two children, and maintaining a house and a social life allows for no more than one at a time.

I was an indifferent student during my first attempt at college. Now, I'm an excellent student. As much as I complain about school (and the blog complaining is only a small part of my complaining efforts. Among my friends and family, I can really extend myself on the subject of the misery of life as an adult student. This is why I'm so popular), I am very good at it. I've never received less than an A on any assignment and I generally receive lavish praise from my instructors for my papers and essays. Two of my professors have told me that I can count on them for recommendations when I apply for graduate school. But as flattering as this is, and as much as I like and respect these two professors, I must say that I'll see them in Hell before I'll enter graduate school. My academic career will end when I receive my B.A.

Counting the CLEP credit from last semester, I've earned 25 credits, so I have 36 to go. 36 credits sounds not bad at all, but 12 classes seems like a very large number of classes. If I continue to take three per year, I'll finish at the end of 2013. And you know what? I won't be anywhere NEAR 80 years old in 2013. Onward.

PS: If you'd like to win my FIRST-EVER giveaway, you have a few days left! Leave a comment here. All comments received by 6 PM US Eastern Time on Sunday, January 31 will be entered into the drawing for Wendy's adorable Teeny Genie necklace.

Win a Teeny Genie--Six Days Left!

2010-01-25T19:12:00.000-05:00

I just received the Teeny Genie, and the picture (right down there) doesn't do it justice! Enter here if you'd like to win it. All comments posted by 6 PM (U.S. Eastern Daylight Time) on January 31 will be entered in the drawing!

First EVER Giveaway!

2010-01-22T20:50:00.001-05:00

You might be watching the Hope for Haiti telethon right now, and perhaps you've already donated generously to help the Haitian people. If you have just a bit extra, though, and you want to help a blogger in need, please consider donating to Wendy Brandes' fund to assist blogger Janet, aka iheartfashion of je ne sais quoi. Janet and her family have suffered a devastating loss, and they need some help now. Wendy has made an incredibly generous offer. If you purchase one of her adorable Teeny Genie silver necklaces (Look! It's up there! It's so cute!) for $50 plus tax and shipping, Wendy will donate $30 from from each sale to the fund for Janet's family.

I just bought a Teeny Genie, but you know what? I have enough silver necklaces, including two of Wendy's: the silver lotus (with a pink tourmaline) that I got for Christmas last year, and the silver squirrel that I won in enc's giveaway in December 2008. So I am going to give this Genie to one of you! If you can't make a donation, that's OK...I will ask only that you send prayers or positive vibes, in accordance with your own beliefs, to Janet and her family. If you can donate, that's even better--just visit WendyB and click on the PayPal logo.

If you'd like to win, leave me a comment. On January 31, I'll draw a name from among all of the commenters. As long as the winner is willing to email me an address, I'll ship the Genie right out to him or her. Wendy is very busy taking and filling orders, so I'll let you know if I haven't received the Genie by the 31st. I'll still do the drawing on the 31st, and will send out your Genie the moment I have it. So help a blogger in need, with positive energy, love, prayers, cash or all of the preceding as you're able, and get something lovely for yourself, too!

Slapping myself upside the head

2010-01-15T12:52:00.000-05:00

Me (to myself): Oh my God, if I have to eat one more container of leftovers or microwaved Lean Cuisine for lunch...

Me: (back to myself): Dumbass. There are 2 million people on the streets of Port-au-Prince who would be pretty damn happy with a frozen microwave pizza, a Diet Coke and a bag of grapes. Why don't you also complain about how your house is too warm and dry and how your bed is too soft?

I'm praying for the people of Haiti.

The Third Wire

2010-01-08T20:58:00.002-05:00

I had to look these birds up; I think they were grackles. (Funny name, I cackle at grackle). I was sitting at a light on New Hampshire Avenue, watching them congregate on three electrical wires. They blew in in waves, approaching the wire in seemingly random fashion until they flew quickly into formation just before landing. The first wave that joined the already-sitting birds had maybe 15 birds, then another 15 or 20, then another 10 or 15.

Just a few grackles sat on the uppermost of the three wires. Perhaps they were the crazy members of the family, relegated to the attic. A few more occupied the middle wire, while the lowest of the three wires was by far the most popular roost. Watching the formations approach was a bit like watching a silly person drive around and around a mall parking lot, looking for just one space closer. As the bottom wire filled, a few desparate grackles hesitated mid-flight before reluctantly taking a spot on the middle wire. They're in Brooklyn now, but just wait until that place in Manhattan opens up...

Birds on a wire always look smug to me. Their body language radiates self-satisfaction. "Yes", they say, "we know that this is an impossibly narrow perch, even for bodies as small as ours. But we're quite all right, thank you. We can balance very easily, and if we fall? Yeah, we can fly."

Ignorance is bliss. Those wires are live, so wipe those smirks off your beaks.

(The cartoon is by me, drawn as a solution to the problem of not being able to find a non-copyrighted photograph of birds on a wire. Click to enlarge.)

It was nice while it lasted

2010-01-06T20:19:00.000-05:00

It is unnaturally quiet in my house right now. 5yo is doing some drawings, and 8yo is at swimming practice. My husband works alternating weeks of days and evenings, and this week he's working evenings. The house is clean and the laundry is folded.

Since I'm wallowing in relative leisure, however temporary, I thought I'd look at my drafts folder and see if I could put something in decent enough shape to post. My drafts folder is a bigger mess than my car, and there are a few things in there that are downright cryptic. A few weeks ago, for example, I wrote the single line "Poor is a relative concept, isn't it?" I guess I had some lofty idea about comparing my relative wealth to the abject poverty suffered by over half of the world. Or maybe it was going to be some topical Great Recession essay. I really have no idea, because I have no memory of having started that post, nor of what random observation prompted it. See all the pithy and incisive wisdom you might be missing just because I can't keep a thought in my head for five minutes?

I'm going to clean up that drafts folder. Maybe I'll even clean my car. Meanwhile, 5yo just came to tell me that he's rilly rilly rilly thirsty and he NEEDS a juice, and then can he go to Lego.com? Leisure is a relative concept, isn't it?

Minnesota called, and...

2010-01-03T17:57:00.001-05:00

I'm glad that football season ends today. I can see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, since the playoffs only last for 14 weeks or so. I figure that by Easter, the Super Bowl will be over and we'll have about a week before training camp starts.

No, I'm not a fan. I don't really hate football, either, I'm just indifferent. But by week 17, the indifference is definitely tinged with just a touch of hatred mingled with profound tiredness. Plus, I'm married to a Redskins fan. I can only stand so much spluttering outrage at a time.

I started another post last night, when we got home from Philadelphia, but that's not going so well. It's just one of those times again. I want to write something, and my usual method of combatting writer's block, wherein I sit in front of the computer until something occurs to me, is also not yielding results. So that's why you get to read mild complaining about football and weather. Did I not mention my hatred of this vile weather? Consider that whine served, chilled.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T22:23:00.000-05:00

I just put out a plate of cookies for the Man with the Hair on his Jaws, and I'm waiting around for my children, who were put in bed an hour ago, to be REALLY asleep. There's no good way to wrap a ping-pong table, so we'll just set it up and have it waiting for them in the morning, along with 5yo's longed-for compass, 8yo's recorder, and a few big surprises.

George Bailey is about to get a sock in the jaw in answer to a prayer. And I'm about to have another cookie, because if I'm not sick on chocolate by December 26, then I feel that I have not adequately celebrated the birth of the Savior. For now, I will leave you with 5yo's wish that you have a "Fizz Bah-dee-dah" (Feliz Navidad). He has been paying tribute to Sr. Feliciano with frequent outbursts of yuletide song.

Merry Christmas!

College level

2009-12-18T21:10:00.000-05:00

I took my exam last night. I passed, and that's the best I can say about it. Well, I do feel that I have a femur-sized bone to pick with the College Board. I bought their recommended study guide and scored very well on the practice test, and I felt that it was reasonable to assume that the actual test would be of a similar degree of difficulty. It was actually substantially more difficult. So I passed, but did not distinguish myself. In fact, I think I'll end up with a C for the course I was testing out of. Still, I don't mourn the passing of my 4.0 as much as I rejoice in having completed a course for $100 and one evening.

The testing site was in South Campus Dining Hall on the University of Maryland campus. Having once taken a final on the basketball court at Cole Field House, I didn't question the location. I just had to find it. The main campus at UMD is large and confusing, and I'd never been on this end of it. I drove there from work and I even used my GPS, which deposited me at a parking lot near the business school. Something you might already know about me is that I have absolutely no sense of direction, and I very easily lose my bearings unless I very carefully record landmarks and turns as I walk or drive. Dropped in the middle of the wilderness, my chances of survival would be nearly nil. Still, I question the judgement of the GPS. Nothing in my history has ever indicated that I am more capable of navigation than even a single-celled organism, let alone a sophisticated satellite navigation system, but I persist. "Left?" I think to myself, "it can't possibly be left". And I go right, which nearly invariably turns out to be wrong.

Still, I was happy to find outdoor, free parking*. I hate parking garages, even free ones; paying for parking in a garage is insult added to injury. I made careful note of the parking lot location, and started walking toward what looked like it might possibly be SC Dining Hall. Even I am smart enough to know that most buildings offer visual clues to their purpose, and so I easily avoided the surrounding residence halls. But the first building that looked like a dining hall was not a dining hall, so I kept walking, thinking "right at the business school", past another non-dining hall building. Walk walk walk, building building building. While I'm picking femur-sized bones, here's one for the University of Maryland: a damn sign here and there would be helpful. Anyway, I knew not to walk too far from the parking lot, since that's where the GPS had directed me, so I kept following a winding path, which led uphill with each turn. The dining hall is at the top of the hill; the visual clue which led me to it was take-out containers, not architecture.

My test was scheduled for 7 PM. It was just after 6, and I was hungry, so I decided to eat at the dining hall. I got a hamburger. My husband, who loves me, will often tell me that men are looking at me. "Look", he'll say, "that guy is totally checking you out". My scoffing at these suggestions is not false modesty, it's just simple recognition that no, that guy is totally not looking at me. But you know what? When the man at the grill hands you your hamburger and winks as he says "there you go miss, that was cooked with love", it's probably not immodest to think that he's succumbed to your charms.

Leaving the usual trail of broken hearts in my wake, I ate my hamburger, and headed upstairs. I had to surrender my bag, coat, phone, scarf (in case I had embroidered the Bill of Rights or the Federalist Papers onto it, I guess) and driver's license before I could enter the testing room. And that's where I passed with strolling colors.

I'd had a little mild anxiety about finding the parking lot where I'd left my car. I had taken careful note of what I had passed on my way to the building, but I wasn't sure I wouldn't get disoriented on the way out. But when I came out of the dining hall, the little hill offered a panoramic view. There was the parking lot, and there was my car, and as it turned out, I had taken the long way up--there were two long flights of stairs down the hill, which led right to the parking lot.

So what, right? But I haven't been myself for a few months, and the part of me that's always writing something, the part that is always entertained by a running narrative about the ephemera and minutiae that make up my life, has been gone for a while. It came back a little bit last night. I was writing this (figuratively, of course) in the car on my way home. It was nice to be back.

*Totally not free parking. Reserved for faculty and staff. A "friendly ticket", so named because the University gives you a warning for the first offense, was waiting on my windshield when I got to my car. Again, a sign here and there would be helpful.

Oh, and could I get some invasive dental work, too?

2009-12-11T21:23:00.000-05:00

I'm registered for a CLEP exam, on December 17, because I'm not happy if I'm not hyperventilating over an exam in December, and I thought "hey! Just because I'm not taking a class doesn't mean I shouldn't be miserable in the middle of December!" So next week, I'll be sitting at a computer at the University of Maryland demonstrating my undergraduate-level competence in the field of American Government and Politics. I know that "bicameral" does not mean "fortunate enough to own two cameras" and I know that Alexander Haig wasn't REALLY in charge on March 30, 1981. I'll wing the rest.

To go

2009-12-06T20:49:00.001-05:00

I remember being a child, but in a vague and nonspecific way. I only remember particular details occasionally.

When I was growing up, soda was a rare treat, and a fountain soda from a restaurant was my favorite of all rare treats. We had an ice cream stand in our neighborhood (I ended up working there when I was in high school) and when we went for ice cream in the summer, I would often order a soda instead of ice cream. "Really?" my mother would say. "That's all you want?" Yes, it was, and I could make it last for an hour, chewing all of the ice cubes once the drink was gone. I never chew ice now; in fact, I shudder at the thought of chewing ice.

8yo also loves soda, and he also hardly ever gets any (unless I'm not home, when apparently, it becomes like a damn free-for-all around here. I digress.) We had lunch today at our beloved Tastee Diner, and 8yo, for once not finishing his Sprite within moments of receiving it, had the cup with him in the backseat of the car. After the third noisy end of the cup slurp, I issued a cease and desist order. A few minutes later, I heard the unmistakable muffled wet crunch of an eight year old eating ice cubes. He asked my husband to change the radio station, from sports news to music. I remembered how nice it was to be eight years old, munching on ice cubes in the back seat of the car, hoping that my favorite song would come on the radio.

Don't ask me about my business

2009-11-28T16:54:00.001-05:00

There are people who, having read a book or seen a movie, will never again read that book or watch that movie. I am not one of those people. There are books that I've read over a dozen times, and sooner or later, I will read them again. And I'll watch certain movies any time I happen across them. "Rushmore", "Miss Congeniality", "Little Miss Sunshine", any Godfather movies, including Godfather 3, "Rocky" and "Rocky Balboa" (no other Rocky), "Office Space", "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" and maybe 20 other movies all reside on the list of movies that I'll watch with varying levels of attention but full enjoyment every time they happen to be on TV.

My husband laughs at me. "This again?" he'll say. "Haven't you seen this movie like a hundred times?" A hundred times. Hmpf. Ridiculous exaggeration, of course; I've seen most of these movies no more than twenty-five times. Thirty at MOST. He, however, watches football nearly every Sunday, and for a good part of Thanksgiving weekend every year. If anyone wishes to explain to me how every single football telecast is not EXACTLY like every other football telecast, I'll listen with polite interest. Only after you're no longer in the room will I roll my eyes and say "whatever" as I reach for the remote. Because there's a "Godfather" marathon this weekend.

Occupied

2009-11-23T18:44:00.002-05:00

5yo (lying on the floor outside the locked bathroom door): Hey! What are you doing in there?
8yo: I'm going to the bathroom!
5yo: Oh. Which one?
8yo: None of your business!

5yo: Are you reading a magazine in there?
8yo: NO!
5yo: Are you sure?
8yo: Yes!

5yo: Well, but I can hear the pages turning...

5yo: Hey! My hand can fit under the door! See?
8yo: Go away!
5yo: You're not s'posed to say 'go away' to me.
8yo: And YOU'RE not s'posed to bother people in the bathroom!
5yo: I'm not bothering you! I'm just letting you see my hand under the door! I'm moving my fingers, can you see them? See, they're wiggling! I'm waving at you! Are you waving back?

Sometimes, a boy just wants a moment of peace and quiet. Sometimes, a boy gets a five-year-old brother instead.

Apparently, it's a game of strategy

2009-11-20T20:14:00.000-05:00

5yo--Hey Mommy, we played a game at school today. It was "Mr. Wolf"

Me--Oh yeah? How do you play?

5yo--OK,yousay"Mr.Wolfwhattimeisit?"andyousaywhattimeitisandifMr.WolfcatchesyouheeatsyoufordinnersoyourunawayandifMr.WolfcatchesyouyouhaftabeMr.Wolfandthekidssay"Mr.Wolfwhattimeisit?"andthentheyrunandyoucatchthemandwhoevergetscatchedhastabeMr.Wolf.

Got it?

Town Hall

2009-11-19T21:26:00.000-05:00

Two hours in a damp school auditorium on a hard metal folding chair listening to my elderly neighbors debate whether or not 40-year-old covenants should be enforced was one hour and fifty minutes too long.

And that is all I have to say about that.

Technical Difficulty, External and Internal

2009-11-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

Just five minutes ago, my newly-restored Twitter feed disappeared for no apparent reason. Now, equally mysteriously, it has returned. Strange computer behavior has plagued me recently, as you might have guessed if you read my infrequent tweets.

Here's another mystery. I'm well known for my excellent spelling, but in the last few weeks, I've misspelled a few words. Fortunately, I've caught most of my mistakes before they've been unleashed on the world, but the day will come when I inadvertently publish a post or send an email with a misspelled word. Maybe more than one. I'll be exercising ceaseless vigilance to prevent such an occurrence (and "occurrence" is a bold choice of word for a woman who is not 100% confident in her spelling).

Mirror Mirror

2009-11-17T20:59:00.001-05:00

It's 8:30, and I'm still in my work clothes, though I've been home for several hours. I'm wearing tan pants and a black cashmere sweater with a cream t-shirt underneath it. I have chunky-heeled Mary Janes* on, and a few pieces of jewelry. My hair is shoulder-length; it's sort of fuzzy and it defies most attempts at styling. I know I had some makeup on at some point; whatever might be left is no longer where I put it.

I'm 44 now, and I think more often now about what's reasonable and right in terms of how much work I put into my appearance. I make an effort but there's only so much a person can do given genetics and and life's other responsibilities. I like to look nice as much as the next person does, but I'm sad at how much of what women my age are supposed to do is motivated not by love of beauty but by fear.

Have you seen that horrid commercial for Juvederm? Juvederm is apparently a "filler" that one allows a doctor to inject directly into the lines on one's face. The horridness of the commercial is rooted in more than my gut-level revulsion at the idea of gel injected into my face (ick! ick! ick!). What's far worse is the part at the end where the smooth-faced 40 something lady walks across the screen, twirling and holding her arms high in the air. She's dressed all in form-fitting white, and the twirl and the smile seem to say "See? I'm fit to be seen in public! Every flaw has been filled, injected or sucked away!" Implicit in this twirl, of course, is the way less than subtle suggestion that you'd better examine every inch of yourself and fill, inject or vacuum up anything that's not firm or smooth enough. Implicit in the twirl is fear.

This isn't fun, or playful, or indulgent, or stylish, or any of the other delightful things that fashion and beauty can be. It's supposed to be fun. Putting on makeup, wearing jewelry, fixing your hair, putting on a pretty dress; all of that should be fun. Juvederm and Botox aren't fun because they're about nothing but fear. I don't want to be afraid of getting older. That's not to say that I'm NOT afraid sometimes, but I don't want to be and I don't want to give in to the idea that a grown woman should try to violently erase every sign of age on her face or body. Hey, Twirly Lady? I have your parentheses, right here.

Here she goes again

2009-11-16T20:02:00.000-05:00

I have a folder full of draft posts, and no time to finish them, and I really can't bear to edit any of them into posting shape. I think I'll try posting daily again, just to see if I can get inspired to write again. Right now, I'm at the kitchen table with 5yo, who is practicing his letters. He loves to write letters, and now he's moved on to writing words. "How do you know how to spell 'airplane'?" he'll ask, and then he'll bend over the paper, with his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, earnestly transcribing.

That's what I'm doing now. This is earnest transcription, not so much of the writing. Later on, I might have something worth reading.

its a hrd knk life

2009-11-07T17:45:00.002-05:00

I was testing my new phone on Twitter the other night, and joked that I was going to write an entire blog post about the phone and how I came to have it. Then, I realized that there actually might be something worth posting about in the story of the new phone. Just as quickly, though, I was momentarily distracted and forgot my idea, leaving me with nothing more than "Hey! I have a new phone, and I just updated my contacts, and sent a bunch of test text messages! The end!"

I've built lengthy and pointless blog posts on far less than this, of course, but I really did have a point other than the new phone. Most of you know that back in January, I lost a job I'd held for a long time, due to the acquisition and shutdown of the company I worked for. I received a generous severance package, and I used it to replace the windows on my house and to spend a few months hanging around with my kids. Everything was fine, we were paying the bills and the wolf was nowhere near the door. He wasn't even in the neighborhood. Still, as I spent the severance money, and my bank balance steadily shrank, unreplenished by new income, I became anxious about money. Expenditures about which I would not have wasted the proverbial second thought became sources of additional anxiety. I knew I was going to go back to work but I really felt no confidence that I'd be able to find a job when I wanted one.

It wasn't all anxious pessimism. My new caution about money became kind of a game, too. I clipped coupons. I bought store brands. I gave up my book-buying habit and rediscovered the library. I looked for ways to avoid spending money, and was positively gleeful when I found them. Now, I'm back at work, but I'm still hanging on to my new frugal habits. I haven't bought any new clothes this fall, and I pack my lunch everyday. I'm actually downright cheap.

Right after the layoff, flush with the severance money, I decided to upgrade my phone, to this one. I text more than I talk, and texting on a 10-key phone is no fun. It takes entirely too long, and I don't like not being able to punctuate and capitalize properly either. For example, my cousin and I exchanged frequent texts during the World Series; we were dismayed, to say the least, about Joe Buck's oh-so-obvious pro-Yankee bias. So with a 10-key phone "Asshole. (Joe Buck, not you)." would have read "asshole joe buck not you". Unacceptable. Also, I use actual words in text messages; IDK what most of the abbreviations mean, and OMG I so do not want to know (although I think I might have invented OMG. More on that later.) English has worked well for me for many years, and I'm going to stick with it.

It's already far too late to make this long story short, but to condense a bit, I had one problem after another with this phone. Not long after I had to replace it for the third time, I lost it. Not misplaced, but lost; I looked everywhere and retraced every step, and the phone had vanished. My plan didn't allow for a free replacement or upgrade, since I'd already had one, and I could not bring myself to pay for a new phone. Here was the perfect example of the expenditure about which I wouldn't have thought twice two years ago. Verizon offered me a very nice messaging phone for $49.99. It's not that I have ever been a person who would just casually throw away $50, but two years ago, I'd have thought "unfortunate but necessary expense. Sold". Now, "necessary" has taken on an entirely new definition. My husband has two phones; his personal phone and his business phone, and he'd wanted to get rid of one anyway, so he just reprogrammed it with my number, and I was all set. It wasn't a QWERTY phone, but it didn't cost any money either, and this was its most compelling feature.

I was all full of virtuous modern Depression frugality; but this, predictably, got old. I missed being able to text properly. My resolve started to weaken, and I started pricing phones again. Then, my husband got an email from Verizon...he was eligible for an upgrade! Two of the phones that were offered were free, and one was a messaging phone. Because he's a good husband, and because his text messaging is limited to "10-4", "whats yr 20" and "on my way", he offered the phone to me. Email me your cell phone number, and I'll send you a properly spelled and punctuated text message. Brother, can you spare a phone?

Easily Amused, Part 250

2009-10-29T21:35:00.002-04:00

This is a busy busy week. I won't bore you with details. Anyway, I needed to pick up groceries last night, and I also needed the usual household stuff that I always run out of at the same time. There's a Target on the way home from my new job; it's one of those behemoth supercenters where you can buy shampoo and sweatpants and fresh produce all under one roof. I hate those damn places. But I thought "just this one time", because I'm so busy busy busy and look! They have everything and I won't have to make two trips because I don't have time to make two trips because I'm so busy!

I needed bananas, because I always need bananas. They didn't have any bananas. There was the shelf, marked bananas, completely empty. "Oh", I thought, "that is fucked up. That is focked up!" The "focked up" was in a (silent) high-pitched sing-song.

I really never use the expression "fucked up". And I never sing-song. The high-pitched, sing-song "focked up" just popped into my head, just like that. And it was funnn-eeeee. Oh, how I laughed at my funny funny self, right there in the produce aisle at the supercenter.

Not surprisingly, prices at the supercenter were higher than they are at my normal grocery store. I was shocked at the price of 8yo's beloved Life cereal. "It's how much? That is focked up!" I trilled to myself.

(Now is as good a time as any to confess that I can barely type for laughing. I'm wiping actual tears off my face.)

(Seriously, it's fucked up.)

Barely stifling my glee, I rolled my cart into the juice aisle. Both kids have class parties tomorrow, and for both parties, I'm supposed to send juice and cups. I wanted to get two jugs each of apple and grape, but they had only apple and cranberry and cranberry-godforsaken-whodrinksthisshit-pomegranate. I didn't think the kids would drink the cranberry, and I knew they wouldn't drink the antioxidant bilgewater. "Cranberry pomegranate?", I thought. "Who is buying that shit? That is FOCKED UP!"

Now I'm just openly disgracing myself. No longer able to restrain the giddy hilarity, I was laughing out loud, blithely ignoring the mild what-the-hell looks on the faces of my fellow shoppers as they wondered what exactly was so funny. Having searched in vain for bananas, frozen edamame, and spinach, I realized that I'd have to go to the grocery store after all. And that? FOCKED OPP!

I wish I could give in to simpleminded chuckleheadedness far more often. Under normal circumstances, being forced to endure Target and the grocery store in one trip would make me rather cranky. Did I mention that it was raining, hard, when I came out of Target? "This weather is focked up!" I sang, cracking myself up all the way to my car.

It got better. The rain kept steadily on as I loaded groceries into my car. It was dark now, pouring, and traffic was horrid. These are not generally conditions that inspire even mild amusement for me. The joke was not getting old, though. When I reached the very busy intersection of Randolph Road and New Hampshire Avenue and found that the traffic lights were out (awesome) I just laughed and laughed at another round of "focked up!", chorus and verse. Sing it.

Open House

2009-10-24T19:34:00.002-04:00

In a recent post, The Lady Who Doesn't Lunch, one of my favorite bloggers, mentioned having visited seven Presidential homes. Those of you who have read this blog for any length of time will know that among my many quirks is a marked tendency toward Presidential history geekdom. "Seven?" I thought enviously. I had only been to five, and although that's a very small percentage of existing Presidential homes, it was a record among my friends and acquaintances. I resolved to correct this inequity immediately.

I comment on blogs all the time, but I don't often get a chance to check back to see responses to my comments. I commented on Lady's post last week, and didn't think about it again until a few days later, when I decided to see if she'd responded. As it turns out, she responded to my comment with a slightly revised number of Presidential home visits: having realized that Mr. Lincoln never lived in Mary Todd Lincoln's house in Lexington, KY, she removed it from her list, leaving her with six. I responded with my list:

1. JFK's birthplace in Brookline, MA.
2. Richard Nixon's childhood home, on the grounds of the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, CA (and how is it possible that I did not know that the Nixon Library has a second location in College Park, MD? This is an oversight I'll be correcting as soon as possible).
3. Harry Truman's Little White House in Key West, Florida, a tour which I cannot recommend highly enough.
4. Dwight Eisenhower's retirement home in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Also excellent.
5. Woodrow Wilson's post-White House home in Dupont Circle, Washington, DC. Wilson was the only President to retire in Washington; the second Mrs. Wilson was a DC native.

(Apropos of nothing: 5yo, fresh from his bath, just ran through the house in his underpants, brandishing a Nerf gun, screaming "ENEMY UNDERWEAR"! He's done this several times in the last week or so. Apparently, the underwear is a patient and deadly foe, and there is no rest for 5yo. La guerre, c'est l'enfer.)

As I was leaving my comment for Lady, I thought to myself "I won't count the Kennedy house on N Street, because I've only walked by it, I've never been inside". (Well, I also thought a little bit about why I was leaving a 300-word comment on a week-old blog post, and why I'm throwing down the Presidential house tour gauntlet to a woman whom I've never actually met, but these are existential questions to be considered at a later time). I also don't count the Kennedy Library in Boston, since it's not a Presidential house. I could, however, count George Washington's HQ at Valley Forge, a place I visited many times as a child, since Washington did live there. So that made us even, at six each.

Even, that is, until I remembered just one more. I've taken the White House tour THREE TIMES. This means that I have visited at least one residence of 43 Presidents (I'm counting Washington's HQ, not the White House, for George Washington, since he never lived in the White House. I'm counting Grover Cleveland as one President, although he served two non-consecutive terms). 43, my friend, 43. I'm the winner of a truly ridiculous contest, against an opponent who didn't know she was competing. Small victories.

Thank you...

2009-10-19T21:17:00.000-04:00

...to my 12-year-old nephew and his friends, for teaching my five year old to say "Good afternoon. How are your buttocks?" The English accent was a nice touch, and he's perfected it in the 300 times that he's said "Good ah-fternoon. How ah your but-tocks?" since last night.

CDP: Today's WORST BLOGGER IN THE WORLD! (Part Deux)

2009-10-14T21:12:00.001-04:00

I've been busy for the past week and a half. I think I've finally adjusted to working every day, since it's not quite a full day. But my sister-in-law got married on Saturday, so the week leading up to the wedding was filled with errands, and retrieving Koreans from various and sundry airports, and socializing with said Koreans, and attending the rehearsal dinner and the ceremony. Add to this children's swim practices, homework (8yo's, not mine. More on this later. Later in this post, actually. Meanwhile, 8yo's vocabulary list includes the word "genre", a rather strange word choice for a third-grader), normal routine household responsibilities and a visit to the dentist and the Social Security Administration and it was a busy busy busy week.

Notice something missing from the "I'm-busier-than-you" list? This, right here. I actually had several ideas for posts (and in an emotional moment following one of my periodic clashes with my mother-in-law, I wrote and discarded a seething screed in which I cursed her and all her works and pomps. We're OK now.), but I've had no time to sit and write. Some of the ideas I've forgotten, and some, like the preceding example, have been determined to be of the "seemed like a good idea at the time" variety. So that leaves me right here, writing about my sorry excuses for lack of blogging production. Maybe I'll try the every day method again. Or maybe I won't.

Without school, I'm temporarily lacking a blogging focus, and I'm thinking of starting a new blog, with a theme and everything (maybe more on that later. This time, "later" means in another post). I didn't graduate, and I'm not quitting, but I did have to take this semester off. I wasn't sure if I'd find a job, so I didn't want to spend $900 on tuition. More importantly, I didn't really know if I could manage a class and a job again. Long-time readers might remember that at my last job, due to a planned closure which took 18 months, I had long stretches of time during which I had nothing to do. I did schoolwork with the full knowledge of management. I suspect that this would be frowned on in my new job. I'll be back in school next semester, hopefully to regale you with outrage over conflicting citation style requirements, disdain for poetry, and criticism of criticism. Don't say I never give you anything to look forward to.

Crime story

2009-10-04T16:45:00.000-04:00

If you've ever worked in an office with a shared refrigerator, then you know that few offenses inspire the level of outrage provoked by a stolen lunch. Everywhere I've ever worked, at least one lunch has been taken from the refrigerator and the victim of the lunch theft is only slightly less upset than he would have been had his car been wrecked and his house burned down.

The thing about office lunch thefts, though, is that while the hungry victim is always furious, reactions from coworkers will range from mild amusement tinged with sympathy to kneeslapping hilarity. I've never had my lunch stolen, but I've been present during the aftermath of many lunch thefts, and I always find it ridiculously funny. Who steals a lunch? Then, someone always gives the thief the benefit of the doubt: "maybe he didn't know it was your lunch", which always prompts (correctly) the same response: "yeah, but he knew it wasn't HIS lunch". And of course, anger out of proportion to the severity of the offense is ALWAYS funny, as long as you're an onlooker and not the person slighted.

So, on the second day at my new job, I was once again witness to the aftermath of a lunch theft. I bring my lunch to work almost everyday. (No, my lunch wasn't the one stolen. Because I'd have been SO MAD.) I ate my sandwich, went outside to walk for a few minutes, and returned to my desk. A young intern sits in the cubicle next to mine; she asked me if I'd gone out for lunch. "No", I said. "I ate my lunch and then went outside for a few minutes."

"You didn't eat a ham sandwich, did you?" she said with a stifled laugh.

"No", I said, a bit puzzled. "I had tuna salad on pita bread".

Noticing my blank lack of comprehension at what was obviously a joke, she said "I guess you haven't seen the email".

"No", I said. "I thought you were joking about the sandwich, but I didn't get it."

"Read your email", she said. So I did.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

tee hee hee.

The email, addressed to the entire office, was titled "WHO ATE MY LUNCH?"

In badly punctuated all caps, the lunch theft victim plaintively demanded to know who had taken his lunch from the refrigerator. He preemptively addressed the "maybe he didn't know it was your lunch" defense by suggesting that just possibly, it might occur that a person's lunch was packed by someone else, in which case that person might not know what was in his own lunch and might thus inadvertently eat the wrong lunch. He, the victim, was willing to give the benefit of the doubt and to concede that this lunch theft might have been unintentional. It was ridiculously funny. Not, however, as funny as the next paragraph, in which he identified his lunch, hoping that the thief would come forward and confess. His lunch was:

"A big ham and cheese and lettuce and tomato sandwich on flatbread with a side of Triscuits"

"Big" sandwich just about killed me. And not only because in his all-caps fury, the victim had misspelled "sandwich" as "SNADWICH". But "a SIDE of Triscuits"? Might have been the funniest thing I've ever seen in writing.

The intern was watching my reaction. "Is that not the most awesome email you've ever seen?" she asked.

"Outstanding", I said. "I feel bad that he didn't get to eat his lunch, but that made my entire day."

It got better. At about 2:30 or so, a program manager who'd been in a meeting came walking toward my area of the office. As it turns out, the owner of the lunch sits just a few cubicles away from me (and he probably heard me laughing at his email). The program manager yelled "Hey! How long was that ham in your refrigerator? Because that was the WORST sandwich I ever ate! And TRISCUITS? Are you an elderly woman?" The program manager did, in fact, bring a lunch that had been packed by his wife, and he didn't know what she had packed. Until he read the email, he'd made a mental note to complain to her about the rotten lunch she'd packed him. So not only was he completely unrepentant, he also mocked the lunch that had been so beloved that its rightful owner had sent out an Amber Alert. Becoming serious and conciliatory for a moment, the thief asked the victim if he'd eaten. Assured that he had, the snadwich thief said "Good. So now I can eat my lunch. Because yours was terrible". Hilarious.

Still, I'll definitely write my name on my lunch from now on.

and I can find my way home all by myself...

2009-09-30T23:06:00.001-04:00

I'm back among my nerds.

Kathy Griffin always calls gay people "my gays". I think of scientists and engineers as "my nerds". I'm not working for a biotech company anymore, and I can't really specifically discuss the company or the industry where I'm now employed. But I decided today to see if I could remember where the supply room was (I found it. Yay me!) and overheard a conversation among a group of engineers that involved Star Wars and Ray Bradbury and time travel, and open source code, and I knew that I was back among my nerds.

As for the rest of the job, it's OK so far. Not great, because I really hate not knowing what I'm doing. My manager and coworker, who are both very nice, don't really have time to train me, so I'm just left to figure things out, asking whatever questions occur to me whenever someone has a moment. Soon enough, I'll be able to work independently and actually feel like I've contributed something, but that might take a few more days. Meanwhile, I'm close to being able to find my way there and back without the aid of printed directions or GPS.

4yo is due for a promotion. Tomorrow, he attains the rank of 5yo. He's very eager to turn 5, as he is the last 4-year-old among his friends. In fact, he's just popped out of bed for the fifth or so time since 9:30 (this time, to ask me if he can have "a healthy snack"). I hope that he'll go to sleep soon, since I need to wrap his presents, so that I can go to sleep. This working thing? Exhausting.

Working 10 to 4. Give or Take.

2009-09-27T19:00:00.000-04:00

So, about the job. If you read this post, you know that I had two possibilities, neither of which had actually been offered to me. I heard back from the nonprofit: we love you, you're great, you're fabulous, but we hired someone else. I wasn't terribly disappointed, actually. I liked the people who interviewed me there, but the work wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. And while it was closer to home, it was also pretty much a full-time job. Who wants that, right?

Later that day, I heard back from the hiring manager for the other job. He was planning to make a decision by the end of the week, and wanted me to know that I was at the top of his list. On Thursday, he called to offer me the job, and I accepted on the spot. I'll be doing the same thing I did before, which is technical recruiting (I'm not actually sure I've ever mentioned that here). I'm an in-house recruiting person, not a headhunter. So don't worry, I'm not after your head. Being an in-house recruiting person basically means that I work in HR, and I do all the hiring. In my last job, I was a full-time employee. Now, I'm going to be an hourly-paid contractor, working about 30 or so hours a week give or take. It's actually exactly the sort of thing I'd hoped to get, so I'm happy about it.

This job offers no benefits at all. I don't need medical benefits, but it would be nice to have paid vacation and retirement. Still, I'm gaining flexibility, which is more important to me right now than money is. Do you see how I just made that about me, thus avoiding the need to discuss the healthcare debate? I still have nothing to say about current events. But now I have an excuse. I'm working here! I'm too busy to think about stuff and then like write about it or whatever!

I start work on Tuesday. I'm taking the kids on a picnic with our neighbors (no school tomorrow) and then tomorrow night, I'll prepare to join the workforce again. I'll get the coffeemaker loaded, do my nails and figure out what to wear. Maybe soon, I'll figure out what to say, too, but right now, this is enough.

Welcome to the working week

2009-09-24T20:28:00.000-04:00

I got a job! Details to follow!

Yes, it IS that big a deal

2009-09-23T21:33:00.000-04:00

One of my children just put his dish and spoon in the dishwasher, without first having been asked to do so!

Now Listen, You People

2009-09-19T21:36:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to decide between two possible jobs. One is at a nonprofit, very close to home, and my responsibilities would be broader and more general than I'm accustomed to. While the idea of working for a nonprofit appeals to me, I think I might prefer to remain in my specific area of expertise. And while the interview went very well, I left feeling only fairly sure that the people liked me, as opposed to the people at the earlier interview--I'm SURE that they liked me. That job is very similar to the work I used to do. The commute is not great, although the hours are flexible.

But wait just a minute. Let me turn around and toss the horse a few carrots; I'm riding in the cart right in front of him. I haven't actually been offered either of these jobs. I'm optimistic, but I'm not counting chickens just yet.

Whence the barnyard metaphors? Am I Ross Perot all of a sudden?

That was a transition, of sorts. I'm having trouble writing so I'm not going to worry about how badly this post is going to be written. You've been warned. I have all sorts of ideas but no clear focus. Although I have plenty of thoughts and observations, I seem to default to turning inward when it's actually time to write something. The problem with that is that I just don't think I'm fearless enough to really write honestly about myself. So I might have to start thinking about things. Distilling, clarifying, finding a point, and sticking to it. Just today, I was thinking about what I could POSSIBLY add to the discussion about the current political climate. This is somewhat loosely related to my periodic bouts of 90s nostalgia (I'm watching "The First Wives Club" right now), which is still more loosely connected to my ongoing internal dialogue about beauty and appearance and aging. And Stalin, and Putin, and gulags, oh my.

So that is the inside of my brain, right now, 9:33 pm EDT Saturday, September 18, 2009. It's a nice place to visit, but you don't want to live here.

Recommendation

2009-09-17T13:02:00.000-04:00

This game is an excellent birthday gift for a child whose parents you dislike.

Apprenticeship

2009-09-13T22:03:00.000-04:00

I used to feel a certain condescending contemptuous disdain for women who manipulate their way into getting what they want. Now, I sometimes wish I could take their correspondence course.

Of course, I'd need to really improve my Korean first.

Street legal

2009-09-09T14:41:00.000-04:00

Today is my birthday! I'm in possession of one additional year of age and a new driver's license. Birthday expiration is the state of Maryland's way of saying "happy frickin' birthday", and I planned my MVA trip very carefully, dropping the boys off at school and arriving at 8:50 on Friday morning, to be first in line (or so I thought). Unbeknownst to me, the state budget crisis had led to a decision to close MVA on Friday. My last day to renew was yesterday, since I didn't want to visit MVA on my birthday, and I had a dentist appointment in the morning, which I could not reschedule because my dentist's office is closed on Fridays (all Fridays, not just this one). Since I couldn't arrive right at opening, I decided that I'd go there right after my appointment, and if it was terribly crowded, I'd come back on my birthday anyway, because I could at least arrive right at opening.

When I arrived, the line of people streteched out the door. On the other hand, my hair looked good. What were the chances of duplicating that on a second consecutive day? I sat down, opened up my library book, and two and a half hours later, my good hair day was photographed for a license that I don't have to renew for five more years. By then, I'll be close enough to fifty that I won't necessarily be announcing my birthday on the Internet. Now? I'll just tell you that I'm quite old enough, thank you.

Not to belabor

2009-09-07T12:32:00.000-04:00

Here's one of those posts that is the result of me staring, foggy-headed and bug-eyed, at a blank blog entry page, thinking what? What do I have to write about today? It's Labor Day and I'm resigned to the fact of summer's end. I have a couple of job possibilities in the works, and another piece of writing waiting for an acceptance or rejection. "Sitting around waiting" would be the accurate response were anyone to ask me "what are you up to?" Because that is what I'm up to.

Tomorrow, I have to get my driver's license renewed. I tried to do it Friday, but MVA was closed for an extra day, due to Maryland's budget crisis. MVA visits are almost always a source of material, so I hope to have something more entertaining to write about tomorrow. Happy Labor Day!

Of course, I always buy my coffeemakers at Kmart

2009-09-01T21:11:00.004-04:00

My coffeemaker broke this morning. It was devastating. I got up, as usual, pushed the start button (I'd loaded the coffeemaker the previous night), took a shower, and came out to a cold, dry coffeemaker. Devastating. I had to drink fancy coffee from the Keurig.

My husband bought one of those one-cup-at-a-time Keurig machines a few months ago. He loves it, and I don't object to it, as it's one of the very few purchases he's made for himself. But I don't like fancy Keurig coffee. I like grocery store coffee in a can (Chock Full 'o Nuts is my favorite, and not just because of the name) prepared in a Mr. Coffee. As far as I'm concerned, the 90s/Seattle/Starbucks/fair trade coffee revolution never took place. In my coffee mug, it's 1979. Still, the Keurig is useful for when we have guests. I know that practically no one shares my taste in coffee, so it's nice to be able to offer "real" (bah) coffee when company comes. I, however, will happily remain in my coffee time warp.

Unwilling to endure for another day without my Mr. Coffee, I made a rare visit to our local Kmart. I normally do not like Kmart, my local Kmart in particular. It is disorganized, badly lit, filled with surly and unhelpful employees and just plain ugly. My other alternatives were Macy's (no) or Target. I do like Target, but it's not close to me, and for some reason, I have never had a Target run take less than three hours. I just couldn't stand the idea of a three-hour shopping expedition when all I wanted was a coffeemaker, so I went to Kmart, just a mile away and sure to at least have a Mr. Coffee. And they did. You didn't see that coming, did you?

Not only did they have the Mr. Coffee, but it was on sale. I'd been feeling pretty miserable, and that cheered me up a bit, because I'm just that easy. The lack of coffee was not the cause of the misery, although it didn't help matters any. No, I was missing the boys. 8yo started third grade yesterday, and 4yo went back to school today. He missed the kindergarten age cut-off, so he'll be back at preschool for three days a week. Yesterday wasn't so bad, since I still had one with me (and he's the more talkative of the two) but the house felt terribly empty and lonesome after I dropped them both off this morning. The only cure was to get back out of the house for a bit, even if only to buy a coffeemaker at Kmart.

I took my coffeemaker to the register, and the cashier SMILED and said how are you? I asked her if she had ice packs for lunch boxes, as I'd forgotten to look for them, and she said "sporting goods". When I said "a-ha!", she smiled again, and said "you wouldn't have looked there, would you?" "No, I wouldn't", I said, "but it makes perfect sense." There they were, just where she said they'd be. For some reason, this little conversation turned my entire mood around. Temporarily, of course, but still. When you're expecting surliness at best and outright hostility at worst, simple friendly kindness makes all the difference. I went home and had some coffee.

The Means, as Justified by The End

2009-08-30T11:51:00.000-04:00

I have draft posts saved from Friday and Saturday, and I'm not sure that this one will see the light of day either. But I'll try again. It's not that I'm writing about anything difficult; I'm just temporarily uninspired and was so uninterested in what I was writing that I could not bear to inflict it on others. I'm the worst blogger ever right now, but I'm considerate. Well, I usually am.

Yesterday, I lent my house for a bridal shower for my sister-in-law, who is getting married on October 10. Her two close friends wanted to host the shower, but they both live over two hours away (in opposite directions) so they wanted to hold the party here to make it easier for everyone to attend. I was happy to help, but I'm happier still that it's over.

I think I've mentioned before that I was not a typical bride. I didn't care about the details of my wedding. I don't like to be the center of attention, so a pageant of flowers and tulle and taffeta with me as the centerpiece is my very last idea of a good time. I like being married, and I love going to weddings, but I don't want to have any involvement in the wedding process unless I absolutely have to. Still, we all have to do things that we don't want to do, and I'll do anything my sister-in-law asks for her wedding or for the wedding of any other bride whom I care about. You want me to wear something, do something, be somewhere? Say the word and you have my full cooperation.

But really.

My SIL's BF is a lovely girl, and her mother (with whom SIL is also close, as the girls have been friends for over 20 years) is a very lovely woman. She is charming, pleasant, positive and apparently also very generous (she cared for foster babies for years). She also NEVER STOPS TALKING. The two of them arrived at my house at 10 am so we could prepare food and put up decorations. The shower was to begin at 1, but BF let us know a bit earlier than that that two of the guests would be "a bit late" and that we wouldn't start the games (of which there were many) until everyone was assembled. Had I known at that moment that "a bit late" meant TWO AND A HALF HOURS, meaning that the games wouldn't start til after 3:30, I think I'd have objected right then and there. But I didn't; I said "oh sure, let's wait for everyone".

By 4:30, I was ready for the party, which had started 3.5 hours earlier, to end. By 5 pm, I was desperate. At 6 pm, I'd completely lost my patience. The very talkative BF and mother had been close by my side for 8 hours at that point. I was tired and hot, first from having manned the grill to cook the vegetable kabobs and then from being coerced to wear multiple leis (luau theme) which were part of an ongoing game which I'd describe to you, but I won't. Even as I was aware that it was rather rude for me to begin quietly cleaning up, I knew that it was far better than the only other alternative, to which I was dangerously close, which would have been to scream "Get out! All of you, for God's sake, SHUT UP, STOP GIGGLING, and get OUT of my HOUSE NOW!" Thank God that they all took the hint, and the party finally began to break up by 6:30. By 7:15, my house was nearly clean and empty of all but its resident occupants.

Perhaps I could have been a little more gracious and patient, but it's entirely possible that the party would still be going on right now if I hadn't taken action. I can think of no reason why any bridal shower should ever last for more than 2-3 hours at the absolute maximum. This one had exceeded that absolute maximum by a full two hours and someone had to put a stop to it. One other attendee, who'd been there since just before one, had also begun to get slightly restless; the relief and gratitude on her face as I began to clean up was quite apparent. The others might think badly of me this morning, but not as much as they would had Plan B become necessary.

Film Blanc

2009-08-26T22:04:00.000-04:00

The unnamed company mentioned in this post caved to my demands, so the threatened blog campaign will not be necessary. Just as well, as I'm not sure I have the energy to fight yet another proverbial City Hall.

My children start school on Monday, so summer is all but officially over. I've resumed the job search, in earnest this time. I'm ready to work again, even if only part-time. Having spent the summer with the boys around every day, I'm just not sure what I'll do with myself when they're in school. And since my severance money is going to run out soon, I feel panicked at the idea of total dependence on my husband. It's not him, of course. He won't try to control me or question every penny I spend; it's just that I have never been without my own income and I don't think I can give it up. I can make less money than I did; that won't bother me at all. Earning no money at all, however, will bother me tremendously. So, I'm going to rejoin the workforce, just as soon as the workforce will have me.

I brought a book of Jeeves and Wooster stories with me to the beach last week. It had been years since I'd read P.G. Wodehouse, and after weeks of wallowing in Stalin and Putin, it seemed just the thing. I've been blogging for just over two years now, and those of you who have been reading this blog since then might remember that it was once titled "Aunt Dahlia". Aunt Dahlia is my favorite Wodehouse character, and among my favorite characters in all of literature. She is loud and blustery, drinks to excess, is prone to “the argot of the hunting field” (she swears like a sailor) and she never misses an opportunity to verbally abuse her nephew Bertie Wooster (“abysmal chump” is one of her, and my, favorite pet names for him) and to embroil him in insane situations. Bertie, young, idle, and wealthy, is always at Aunt Dahlia’s mercy because he knows that if he refuses to do her bidding, he’ll be denied the output of her “supreme French chef”, Anatole. I wanted to name the blog as a tribute to her, but too many people assumed that my name is Dahlia (it’s Claire) and that I was writing in the capacity of someone’s aunt. So after much consideration, I changed it. I thought of renaming it “The White Dahlia”; as a way to retain the tribute to Aunt Dahlia and as a play on “The Black Dahlia”, although I was afraid that this would be interpreted strictly on a racial level. I’m white, but the idea is not that I’M the White Dahlia, but that my life is rather the opposite of film noir. I decided to avoid this conundrum altogether by just naming it (parenthetical).

What was the point of that massive digression? Well, I'm thinking of changing the name of my blog again, but not anytime soon. More importantly, I'm also trying to stop overthinking to the point of paralysis. I've only been home for 8 months or so, but I feel like I've fallen far out of the habit of thinking on my feet and making a decision. The pace out there might be a little too fast for someone who thinks too hard and too long about which household chores to do today vs. tomorrow and which class to take next semester (and "none" is looking like the answer to that question--more on this later). I've loved being at home this summer, but I've had too much time to spend in my own head. I need to get out more.

Housekeeping

2009-08-24T15:41:00.000-04:00

Please come in, and do make yourselves at home. I apologize for the mess. As you see, I've been trying to make some changes, and I wonder now if it isn't easier to just throw the whole thing away and start over. I have a strange white space, and while I've managed to restore my sidebar, I can't seem to move any of my page elements into it. I'll keep working on it, although I can't really see what good this will do. If my car broke down, I could work on it, too, but the only result would be that my disposition would be shot all to hell for the day, and my car would still be broken down. In other words, the spirit is willing but the skills are weak.

I'm trying to resolve an issue right now, with a for-now unnamed company. I have dealt with this company in a dignified and forthright manner, and in good faith, and my efforts thus far have been futile. My next step might be to launch a blog campaign against them. I hate to do this, but I have been pushed to the wall and might have to push back. If the issue is not resolved to my satisfaction by the end of this week, I'll be sticking it to the man in HTML or whatever it is you kids are calling it. A hollow threat, perhaps, from someone who apparently can't even drop and drag, but unless I can get my Nana to write a letter, I see no other alternative. And now, good day to you, sirs and madams.

When I get back, you'll know

2009-08-18T21:36:00.003-04:00

I've never blogged on an Apple computer before. Before now, that is. Right now, I'm on a ridiculously comfortable chair and a half in the living room of our beach rental in Avalon, NJ. The Macbook belongs to one of my sisters. We are in Avalon, rather than Sea Isle City, because my other sister felt that she needed a "change of scenery" for vacation. I was thus highly amused when she called me half an hour after that conversation to tell me that she'd found a place in Avalon, which is approximately one mile away from Sea Isle. It's as if I'd turned to my husband in our kitchen in Silver Spring and said "I need a change of scenery. I'm going to Rockville!"

Another first: I'd never done karaoke before last night. We had dinner at a restaurant/bar, and Karaoke Night was about to begin as we were finishing dinner. We stayed because my 12-year-old nephew wanted to sing, and before I really thought it through, I'd agreed to sing Amy Winehouse's "Rehab". I was wearing a pink summer top, green capri pants and sandals, a ponytail, and pearls, and I looked like I'd never had a drink harder than a white wine spritzer. Yes, I've been black, but these people didn't know. My 8 year old back up singer in his "Swimmer of the Week" tshirt inflicted even more damage on my already deeply compromised street cred. I saw the words "four bar intro" on the monitor, then I saw a sea of "she can't pull this off" faces, and then I just sang. It wasn't too bad. I realized, when it was too late to turn back, that I really don't know that song very well at all. Should I ever agree to do karaoke again, I'll be sure to choose a song that I really know. Still, it could have been worse.

My sister's computer is on very limited battery life, so this is all for now. We'll be here until Saturday, but I don't expect that I'll be appearing live on stage again this week.

Oh, and underwear! And socks! And pajamas!

2009-08-14T23:29:00.004-04:00

I just put away my textbook, since I won't need it ever ever again. Summer session 2009 is officially over. Aside from a brief panic followed by 15 or so minutes of retracing my steps to find the car keys that I left hanging inside a ladies' room stall (why didn't I just put them IN MY BAG which was ALSO HANGING ON THE SAME HOOK? Because I wouldn't be me if I didn't find ever more ridiculous ways to lose my keys. This isn't even the first time I've blogged about losing keys), I left feeling pretty good; more so about the fact that it's over than about the test itself.

We're going on vacation tomorrow, and I'm overpacking. I always overpack for the beach. You just never know, do you? We never go anywhere dressy, for example, but you also never know when you might feel like dressing up, so I bring a dress. It's often chilly at night there, even in August, so you need jeans and long-sleeved shirts. You need sandals and flip-flops and shoes. You need shorts and tshirts and bathing suits, and jeans and pants and tops. And I need to go to sleep, since I seem to have forgotten exactly where I was going with this, not that the laundry list wasn't engrossing all on its own. I might not post next week; if I do, it won't be every day.

Study hall

2009-08-13T20:42:00.003-04:00

I'm trying to study for tomorrow's final. (No, I'm not, right? I'm blogging.) I cannot make myself re-read this material. I'm going to have to make do with the most cursory review of my notes, and the hope that my instructor will be generous in grading. This is all I have today. As soon as I finish my studying, such as it is, I'm going to find out if Sheree is really going to tear off Kim's wig.

The Departed

2009-08-12T20:11:00.006-04:00

I took the boys to the Dulles Air and Space Museum today. It's one of their favorite places. Did you know that the real, live Enola Gay is housed there? I've seen it at least half a dozen times, and I'm still a little shocked and awed every time I look at it. It's suspended from the ceiling and you can look right inside the cockpit from the elevated walkway. I stare at it, wondering what Col. Tibbets was thinking right before he dropped the payload that would kill 70,000 people.

Sometimes, I have these days when I feel like my life is far too commonplace, and that I'm creating a commonplace life for my sons. Swim team, trips to the library and the museum, Legos, movie nights...we don't really do anything extraordinary most days.

I'm preoccupied with violent political upheaval, in a general, nonspecific sense, because I'm also preoccupied with the nature of ordinary, everyday life, and the former destroys the latter. I know that no two people have ever been alike, in the entire history of humanity; every single one of the seventy thousand people who perished when the Little Boy fell down on Hiroshima was unique. Every single one of the twenty million who disappeared into Kolyma, or Lefortovo, or Sukhanovka had a priceless and irreplaceable life. All of the people who were consumed and destroyed by every single Auschwitz, or Darfur, or fill in the blank manmade hell on earth of a killing field: what wouldn't they have given for one more day of blessed, ordinary life? God help me for ever being so ungrateful.

Meet the new boss

2009-08-11T20:23:00.002-04:00

I just realized that I haven't posted anything today, and now I'm questioning the necessity, or even the wisdom, of sticking with the once-a-day mandate, but stick with it I shall. I just returned from a "meet and greet" with 8yo's new principal, who is gorgeous, and at least 6 feet tall in stocking feet. She appears to be about 20 years old. She was very lovely and energetic, but I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking her how Tyra's doing and if she keeps up with any of the other America's Next Top Model contestants.

OK, that's not strictly true. I didn't think of the Tyra joke at the time; I just came up with it now.

Doubt

2009-08-10T21:47:00.003-04:00

Did anyone see "Doubt"? I watched it last night. I'm terrible at reviewing movies, so I won't do that here. I read movie reviews, and I think "how did they notice that?" My eye for visual detail is not very good, and I have very little technical understanding of lighting, cinematography, sound quality, and editing. I just know what I like.

I liked "Doubt" very much. I attended an urban parish school very much like the one depicted in "Doubt" and they got it right in just about every detail. I will say that I never once heard a priest give a "sermon" at Mass; rather, it's a "homily". Still, in other details, from the stark quality of the wrought-iron and stone parish architecture to the students well-trained to jump to their feet when the principal or the pastor walk into a classroom, it's completely accurate. Our school even had a caretaker's shed similar to the one seen in the movie, and the brief conversation between Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) and the caretaker was absolutely true in every detail. I remember seeing our principal (Sister Marita Rose--it was her misfortune to be appointed principal during the height of "Welcome Back Kotter's" popularity. Her reputation as a strict disciplinarian preceded her, and it took approximately thirty seconds for the boys in my fifth-grade class to coin the phrase "up your nose with Marita Rose" as a taunt for anyone "sent down" to her office) having a similar conversation with our caretaker, Mr. Leahy. They addressed one another as "Sister" and "Mr. Leahy" and I remember the same careful formality depicted in the movie between them and among all of our sisters and lay staff.

When the movie was released, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Viola Davis, and Philip Seymour Hoffman were interviewed on the "Today" show. When the question of Father Flynn's guilt or innocence was discussed, Hoffman said that he'd decided when he created the role whether or not Father Flynn was guilty, but that he wouldn't say what he thought. I'm among the people who think that Father Flynn was guilty, and I didn't waver in that opinion even at the end. That's not to say that his performance isn't good, because it is. Amy Adams is also spectacular; I know this, because I had young, sweet, idealistic nuns just like her character as teachers. Meryl Streep and Viola Davis, though, are absolutely astonishingly good in this movie. The promotions for the movie depict Sister Aloysius as rigid, dogmatic, intolerant, humorless. She's certainly rigid and dogmatic but her intolerance is not directed at all human frailty; only at those whose behavior is intolerable. As for humor, no character without a sense of humor would tell a young nun that it doesn't matter which Pope is depicted in the framed portrait to be hung in the classroom, as it's only there so that the reflective glass can serve as a mirror to allow the nun to see what's going on behind her as she writes on the board. Nor would she confiscate a transistor radio from a student, then listen to it herself in her office. Nor would she tell a student sent to her for talking in class to "go back, then, and shut up". Finally, a humorless character would not respond to the plea "where's your compassion?" with the brilliant retort "nowhere you can get at it". All of this is to say that I liked Sister Aloysius, and found her more complex and human than any other character in the movie with the sole exception of Mrs. Miller, played by Viola Davis. In one short scene, she left me both shocked and heartbroken, all while speaking softly and barely moving the umbrella and Jackie Kennedy handbag she carries througout the scene.

I won't tell you what happens. I will tell you that very few movies can leave you believing, finally, that you know what happened, and then in the last 15 seconds, leave you gaping with "oh holy shit!" shock. "Doubt" did that for me, and remember, I didn't change my mind about Father Flynn's behavior. You'll just have to watch the movie if you want to know what I mean.

2009-08-09T18:09:00.002-04:00

In this post, I wrote something blithely stupid like "all I have to do is write the closing paragraph!" for the paper that was due today. Yeah, that's "all" I had to do. Anyway, it's done now. I'm going swimming.

Mobile blogging for the stone age.

2009-08-08T23:20:00.000-04:00

The technology, she is amazing, no? I’m driving home from Philadelphia now (correction: I am being driven home from Philadelphia), and while I do not have access to a wireless network, I do have access to Microsoft Word. My paper is nearly finished now. I just did some rewriting and editing, and now all I need to do is write a decent closing paragraph, make sure my citations are all in order, then proofread and submit the thing. We’re in my husband’s car, which has a much smoother ride than mine. I couldn’t possibly read or write in the passenger’s seat of my car without developing a nasty case of motion sickness, but in this car, this does not seem to be a problem. So I’m taking a break from the paper (after what, thirty minutes? I may possibly have discovered exactly why it takes me so damn long to write these things: breaks every thirty minutes do not enhance productivity) to write my post for the day.

And there it is, my post for today. We should be home in less than an hour. One child is asleep already and likely to remain so until tomorrow morning. The other one is fading fast. If I maintain my energy level, it might be possible for me to finish this thing tonight. If not, at least I have tomorrow.

Update; we had to abandon 95 South a bit north of Baltimore due to an accident. “Less than an hour” turned out to be a laughably optimistic estimate of our arrival time. But arrive we eventually did.

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

2009-08-07T19:07:00.006-04:00

The paper I've been writing since the dawn of time is about privacy and free expression on the Internet. Having read an article regarding privacy issues with Facebook, I decided to sign up so I'd understand the terminology. "The wall" was particularly mysterious to me. So you could say that I joined Facebook for research purposes.

Is it mere coincidence that every single ad I've seen since yesterday has been for a product that I have purchased, or that is similar to something I've purchased, or that has something to do with something I've written about online? Before yesterday, I had never been on Facebook, not even one time. So how did the Internet fairies figure out that I am the person to whom one should try to sell skincare products, and books, and swim goggles? I'm more than a little freaked out. Further research led me to this article, which led me to this list. I have some updating to do.

*****

It's a few hours later now. I'm quite sure that s'mores are not a suitably antioxidant-rich, low-calorie, whole-grain bedtime snack for a woman in her forties, but that's what I'm eating right now. They're good for the soul. We just returned from a neighbor's backyard showing of a movie, the title of which you can guess by reading the title of this post. Try to guess without Googling, and leave your guess in the comments. Note to Matty Boy and Beckeye: No comments from you! I know that you know.

I am woman. Hear me go "blah blah blah".

2009-08-06T11:51:00.006-04:00

It's raining today, and I find that I don't mind it too much. I'm sitting at the kitchen table and the boys are involved in a Lego-building project that's reached a daunting level of complexity. I should be writing my paper (shouldn't my blog just be titled "I should be writing my paper?" Damn, I should have thought of that two years ago), but I can't seem to stop procrastinating. I had hoped to finish it early so as to avoid thinking about it during the weekend, but I'm afraid that I'll be writing right up to the 6 pm Sunday deadline. There are worse things.

My morning routine has shifted a bit in the two weeks since swim practice has ended. So when the phone rang at 9:45, I was still in my pajamas. I had just taken a shower, and I don't like to wear a bathrobe, so I just return to my pajamas after I shower. Anyway, the caller was a friend and fellow team parent who was going to pick up a box of team paraphernalia at my house.

"Hi", she said. "It's me. I'm in your driveway, but I didn't want to just ring the bell."

Well, I wasn't going to send her away, so I told her to just come on in. It's not that I'm such a princess that I don't allow myself to be seen by my people until I'm fully dressed and adorned, it's just that the ingrained ethic of the full-time working mother made me embarrassed to be still in my pajamas at almost 10 in the morning. My visitor is a very successful real estate agent, who is always busy, always working, always attached to the Blackberry. I'm pretty sure that she was running from one important appointment to another, and that she'd already accomplished more this morning than I might expect to accomplish all day.

I've really loved being home this summer. I love sitting on the deck watching swim team practice; I love taking the boys to the library and the post office and the grocery store; I love letting them invite their friends over for lunch and then carting a gang of boys to the pool for the afternoon. I even like forcing an unwilling 8 year old to work on his summer reading and math. I'm really going to miss this. I also miss working, though. You know, Bravo runs reruns of The West Wing in the mornings, and I like to watch them sometimes when I'm cleaning up breakfast, and drinking coffee and getting dressed. Now I'm having an existential crisis and I blame it on CJ Cregg. I've been pretty happy hanging around at home, but I'd also like to be running purposefully around an office, busy busy busy, putting out fires, telling pesky reporters where they get off, maintaining a coolly polite and professional facade and then indulging in a stream of colorful invective once I slam my office door behind me. (Being six feet tall and still wearing heels with my suits is an unrelated but important part of this fantasy). I also like to make my own money.

I have a lot to do. I've been contemplating a career change for a long time, but I won't be able to really pursue what I want to do (assuming I figure out definitively what that is) until I finish school, so I think that I'll be underemployed by choice for some time. I'd like to figure out a way to be part of both worlds. I'd like to fix my hair and wear work clothes and think hard and think on my feet, and I'd like to enjoy the camaraderie of hanging around with the neighborhood mothers. I'd like to earn a regular paycheck (it's OK if it's a small one) and I'd like to overhear my son's conversations about a Lego minifigure's work day (even they have jobs, apparently). It's a lot to ask for, I think. And I still have a paper to write

Among other Constitutional rights which don't apply in my house

2009-08-05T11:20:00.005-04:00

4yo to 8yo (regarding a Lego piece, I'm pretty sure, since this is the only thing they ever fight about): Hey! I had that first!

8yo to 4yo (blithely unaware that I was within earshot): Life isn't fair!

Me to 8yo: Life in general isn't fair. Want to know something specific about life that isn't fair? I'm allowed to say that, and you're not.

*****

Getting ready to get ready

2009-08-04T10:14:00.002-04:00

I'm fixing to commence preparing to get ready to work on my paper right now. How often do I say things like that? Fairly often, I'm quite sure. I have my day planned. I work on the paper til 12 or so, then I take my children to the credit union, where I need to attend to some business and where 8yo needs to deposit $10 that his grandmother gave him. 8yo received $85 for his birthday in June, and he wanted to open a bank account. We opened the account and deposited the money, and then he spent the next week having an anxiety attack. "What are they going to do with my money?" he'd ask.

"They'll keep it safe for you, and it will earn interest", I'd say.

"What's interest?" He pursed his lips and looked doubtful as I explained it, and then he asked "What if I want my money and they lost it? What if they take it?" I did my best to reassure him, but what can you say on this topic after September 2008? He spent another week or so fretting, and I'm sure that he bitterly regretted not investing his $85 in Legos, but then the arrival of his personalized deposit slips, bound and enclosed in a checkbook cover, restored his enthusiasm for the banking system. His grandmother was so impressed that he'd opened a savings account that she gave him $10 to deposit. I have a bank account, too, and no one throws ten dollar bills at me, but that's just one of the many injustices that I endure. Anyway, I need to purchase a savings bond (assuming these even exist anymore) and help 8yo make his deposit, so we'll actually be visiting a bank in person, something I do perhaps twice a year. Then, we'll have pizza for lunch at my favorite pizza place (one of two in the entire DC metro area that serves pizza worthy of the name, and this could be the topic of an entire post. An entire BLOG, in fact. I digress) which has a $3.95 two slices and a drink lunch special. Then I'll do a bunch of other stuff too dull to blog about. Yes, it is possible that my day will get even less interesting than what I have already described. Don't hate me because I'm awesome.

Bring the noise, yo.

2009-08-03T10:54:00.004-04:00

4yo spent the last 20 minutes stomping around and sulking, refusing to answer when I asked him what was wrong. "What's the trouble, bubble?" usually gets at least a half-hearted smile, but 4yo was determined to cling to his dudgeon. As it turns out, 8yo, who was working on his summer math book (under duress, naturally) had told 4yo to "go away", and 4yo rightly took umbrage. We're all happy again now. High-level diplomacy is just one of my many skills.

Right now, the boys are impatiently waiting for the arrival of two friends who are coming for lunch. We set up a tent in the backyard for Saturday's party and they want to have lunch and play in it because they know it's coming down soon. It's just occurred to me that I need to figure out what to feed these children. I intend to work on the paper that's due on Sunday while the boys play. You'd think that inviting two boys to play, thus doubling the number of small boys in the house, would be a mistake, but you'd be wrong. I find that every time I invite the boys' friends over, I make substantial progress on whatever God-forsaken school assignment I'm working on. While the noise level increases dramatically when other children are here, the requests for my attention decrease proportionally. End result is a messy house and/or yard, but at least 500 words toward the completion of the paper.

*****

It's now about 45 minutes later, and the boys are here. When I made my plan to write my paper, I didn't consider the possibility that the conversation among a 4 year old boys, two 8 year old boys and a 9 year old boy would be so entertaining that I'd end up preferring to eavesdrop on them than to work on my paper. Of course, I'd prefer almost anything to writing my paper. I'll have to try to focus as the shouts of "dude!" and "no way!" fill the house and yard.

Clean-up

2009-08-02T00:28:00.002-04:00

A new post barely 6 hours after the last post! Our party just ended, and pursuant to the policy set forth here, wherein we clean up immediately, I have some work to do. Right now, though, I'm going to eat some potato chips, finish a beer, and write Sunday's post. We had a fine time, as we always do. This party was a potluck, so everyone was asked to bring a dish and we had a surfeit of food. Desserts were especially plentiful, which was both delightful and disappointing, since I bought s'mores ingredients just in case desserts were in short supply. We'll have s'mores another day.

Our neighbor and friend just carried our sleeping 4yo home from his house, where his daughter had been babysitting for our two boys. Placed in his bed, 4yo woke up immediately and was momentarily startled, then reassured by the familiar face of Mr. R. Still, he wasn't going back to sleep until he saw me, so I just put him into his pajamas and put him into our bed for the time being. 4yo loves nothing more than to sleep in our bed. We'll move him into his own bed when we're finished cleaning up, but in the meantime, 4yo has a king bed and a pile of pillows all to his tiny self. 8yo is enjoying himself, too. Cheerful and wide awake, he's delighted that we're allowing him to stay up and snack on potato chips and ginger ale while we clean up party debris. And now I have to sign off, as my husband is making sotto voce comments about how some people are working and others are doing whatever they do online. I'd hoped he wouldn't notice. Good night.

And by "daily", you mean "once each day", right?

2009-08-01T18:22:00.003-04:00

When I made my rash and ill-considered promise to blog daily, I neglected to give myself Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays off, so here I am. This will be a short post, as I'm expecting company in an hour, and I'm not dressed yet. It's my turn to host the annual swim team parents' party. I like hosting parties, and this is really my favorite time in the party hosting continuum. The house and yard are clean and pretty, I've just taken a shower and need to decide between two possible outfits, and other than this blog post, I have nothing to do other than wait for my guests. Parties are good, and so is blogging.

Time to feed my children, who will be spending the evening at a teenage teammate's house, and to wake my husband. Hasta manana.

Quotidian

2009-07-31T15:45:00.003-04:00

I am shocked by the drop-off in my blogging production lately. I've posted only five times this month, and that figure includes this post. I have been lacking for inspiration lately, and I think that's because I haven't been around to receive it when it does appear. I think I need to write everyday, whether or not I have anything to say. So here's my new project: I'm going to post everyday. I don't expect much to come of this; I think that I just need discipline.

It occurred to me a few days ago that I posted about having had an exchange of emails with an editor at a well-known publication, and I never posted about what eventually happened. She was considering an essay I'd written and when I last posted, I had just sent her a revision which encompassed some suggestions she'd made. Ultimately, she decided that the essay wasn't right for the magazine. You know, I didn't even feel bad about it. I don't think she got what I was trying to do, and I'm pretty sure that I didn't get what she's trying to do, either. If you read The Washington Post, you might know that the Sunday Post Magazine has a column called "The XX Files". It's a page devoted to essays and personal stories written by women. I submitted several things. One of them was "The Mermaids", which appeared about a year ago, here. This one was rejected immediately, because "XX Files" is not meant to be "about children". I think this is why I decided not to care if she liked my writing or not. Not because I think that this post was so wonderful, but because first of all, how silly to create a feature focused on personal writing by women and then to exclude any piece "about children" and because secondly, this post was really not "about children" at all. Rather, it was about the reaction of an adult watching children.. These are two different things.

Right now, for example, I'm reacting to two little boys who are practicing "burp talking". "Hear this, Mom", they say, and then launch into a burped commentary. I'm pretty sure that I won't write an essay about this; nor will I do anything else that might encourage them to continue. Who knows, though? If I'm really going to post everyday, I might be reduced to writing about all sorts of things that no one wants to read about. I'll trust you to let me know if I need to resume a more sporadic blogging schedule. Meanwhile, tune in tomorrow.

Eyes on the prize

2009-07-22T22:15:00.003-04:00

As some of you know, my children swim with a summer swim team. My now 8yo joined the team in 2007, just before he turned six. His younger brother, who was 2 ½ at the time, fell deeply in love with the swim team. He was a devoted fan and tagger-along. From practices to Saturday meets to Friday night pasta parties, there was nothing about swim team that didn’t enchant my little one. He wore a team t-shirt whenever he could, and insisted on wearing goggles whenever he was anywhere near the pool. He lived for the day when he too would be a “swim team boy”. His devotion to swim team intensified last summer, as his brother entered his second year with the team. “Next summer” we told him over and over again. Children can join the developmental team at age 4, and he wasn’t quite four last summer.

This was his year. As Memorial Day approached, 4yo grew more and more excited. Next week, I’m on the swim team! Tomorrow, I’m on the swim team! FINALLY, the first day of practice arrived. 8yo, now a seasoned veteran, ran to join his teammates in the 8 and under practice, while 4yo joined the beginners on the developmental team.

The developmental team is for the four, five and six year old swimmers who aren’t quite ready for the big leagues. It was the job of the two 17-year-old assistant coaches (who also swim on the team) to get this little band of sweet-faced, round-bellied preschoolers to swim across the pool, eventually to compete in a meet.

In our league, all of the swimmers earn participation trophies. Any child who practices every day and swims in at least one meet earns their trophy. 8yo has two now, and will receive his third next week. 4yo covets these trophies, and “covet” should be read as “yearns with singular and undying passion” His mission, once Memorial Day arrived, was to swim across the pool and get that trophy. “It will have my name on it”, he’d say. “I’ll put it on the shelf in our room”.

The first day of practice was two days after Memorial Day. It was chilly, and the water was flat out cold. After the coaches led the kids in a “getting to know you” exercise (favorite colors were very important), it was time to swim. Each child had to jump into the chilly water into the arms of the coaches, who’d lead them across the pool.

4yo jumped in without hesitation. It was cold, but he’s a swim team boy. For the first week or so, every day was the same. Tiny aspiring swimmers waited on the deck for their turn to be pulled across the pool. Then, it was time to let go. One by one, the kids gathered their courage and swam by themselves from one coach to the waiting arms of the other. Each day, the distance between the two coaches grew a bit, until the kids were swimming all the way across the pool. All but one, that is. 4yo was willing to jump in the water, to submerge his face and blow bubbles, and practice his kicks on the kickboard, but he would not try to swim by himself, even for a few feet.

It was puzzling. He’s not usually afraid to try new things, and he loves the water. During his winter swim lessons, he’d reached the point where he could swim for a few strokes, as long as he had someone next to him. Nothing I said, or that his coaches said, though, could convince him that he wasn’t going to sink. “That lane is rilly big”, he’d say. “I do NOT fit in that water. I rilly rilly rilly don’t fit in that water”.

4yo began to get anxious about practice, and I told him that he didn’t have to do it anymore if he didn’t want to. I don’t encourage my children to quit, but he’s only four. I told him that he could keep going to practices and meets like last year and we could try the team again next year. 4yo wanted to keep trying, so he went to practice every morning and every afternoon, each time jumping willingly into the water, then refusing to swim.

By the second week of July, it was apparent that 4yo still loved everything about swim team, except the actual swimming. His teammates had moved on, learning lateral breathing, breaststroke (“scoop up the ice cream, eat it, then go get some more”) and even backstroke. I arranged for some private lessons with the head coach, and he started to make a little progress, swimming three or four strokes from her arms to the ladder. Finally, one day, 4yo told his coaches that he wanted to try to swim backstroke. He hadn’t swum more than a stroke or two of freestyle, but if he wanted to try backstroke, the coaches were willing. After a few panicky clutches at the girls’ necks when they tried to remove their hands from under his back, 4yo was floating. The coaches taught him the “tickle, T, touch” stroke, which resembles a bird flying on its back, and 4yo was swimming! Practice was over for the day, but he could officially swim.

The next day’s practice was even more successful. Swimming on his back, 4yo swam the full length of the pool by himself. A coach treaded water alongside him, but he was floating and moving independently. “That’s it!” called the head coach. “He’s in for backstroke on Wednesday night. If that’s what he can do, then that’s what we’ll have him do!”

“Wednesday night” referred to the following week’s “B” meet. B meets don’t count in the standings. They’re practice meets, swum against nearby teams who might or might not be in our division or even in our league. One important thing, though, is that B meets DO count toward the participation trophy. It looked like 4yo had just made it. It was Friday, July 10. The B meet on Wednesday July 15 was the last B meet of the season, and it was 4yo’s last and possibly only chance for a trophy. It was too late to enter him in the next day’s A meet, and if he didn’t swim in the B meet, he certainly wouldn’t be entered in the following week’s A meet, the last regular-season meet of the year.

For the next three days, we gently psyched 4yo up for the meet. His brother practiced starts with him; 4yo would hang on the kitchen counter like it was the wall of the pool, with the most earnest and determined look. Anticipation got the better of him, though. By Monday, he changed the subject any time the meet came up. On Tuesday, he told me that he was NOT going to swim in the big lane. I acted nonchalant.
“Oh sure you will. It will be just like practice yesterday and this morning. You’ll just swim across the pool like you did today.“ He shook his head and walked away.

On Wednesday morning, his first words to me were “I rilly rilly rilly do not want to swim in the B meet today”.
“Why?” I asked.
“I’m rilly scared”, he said.

Lest anyone get the idea that I’m some sort of sports stage mother, banish the idea from your mind. I want my children to do their best and be happy, and that’s all. After all, he’s only four. He’s the youngest and the tiniest member of the team, and maybe he just wasn’t ready. But he’s also a four year old who’s longed for a swim team trophy for two years. This was his year, and unless he made it across the pool in at least a B meet, he wasn’t going to get it. He’d either have to miss the awards dinner (outdoors at the pool pavilion and one of the most fun nights of the summer) or he’d have to watch as every single one of his friends proudly claimed a trophy. He’d be so sad, and I couldn’t stand the thought of it. But I couldn’t force him into the pool when he was terrified, either. He grew more anxious throughout the day, and I told him that he didn’t have to do it, but that I knew he could and that I hoped he’d change his mind. “I’m NOT gonna change my mind” he said grimly.

It was time to get ready to go. The meet was at 6, and we needed to get there by 5:30 for warm-ups. I handed the kids their suits. “I don’t need my suit” said 4yo. “I’m not gonna swim”. “I’m not going to make you swim”, I said. “But if you DO change your mind, you’ll need your suit”. He put it on without a word. “Are you gonna change your mind?” asked 8yo excitedly. 4yo didn’t answer.

As soon as we arrived at the pool, the two young coaches ran to 4yo. They are lovely girls, and they really like my son. I like anyone who likes my children. Each of them asked him if he was ready, and to each of them, he said “NO”, firmly shaking his head. His team buddy, a 12 year old boy whom he adores, asked him if he was ready. “NO” he said, with a firm headshake. Several parents and friends of 8yo stopped to ask if he was ready. Firm shake of the head to each of them.

When he'd put his suit on without protest, and hadn't said NO to 8yo before we left the house, I thought that perhaps he’d begun to reconsider. But his firm anti-swimming resolve had returned. Meanwhile, the meet started. In our league, the meets begin with butterfly, followed by freestyle, breaststroke, and backstroke. There was plenty of time. A few more people stopped to ask 4yo if he was ready, and a few more people received a grim shake of the head.

When the Clerk of Course started to call the first group of backstroke swimmers, the head coach asked one of the assistants to get my son. His age group wasn’t up yet, but she wanted some time alone with him. Our head coach has been teaching and coaching swimming for her entire adult life. She doesn’t have much day to day interaction with the developmental swimmers, but she knows them all and knows what they can do. One of the girls told her that 4yo was digging in his heels, and she came over. I gave her a quick recap of the day’s events, and she asked if she could have a few private minutes with him. I walked away and watched from a distance.

She knelt down, put her hands on his tiny shoulders, and spoke gently to him. He whispered something in her ear, and she answered. He whispered again, and she answered. She patted his cheek and said something; he nodded earnestly, and walked over to me. The coach gave me a thumbs-up gesture. Two minutes, and she’d gotten him to agree to swim. The Clerk of Course called his age group, and 8yo led him by the hand to the table. It’s impossible to convey how tiny he looked to me just then.

While the boys signed in, the coach explained what she had told him. This particular pool has a full wall the length of the lap section (our pool is T-shaped, with shallow ends on either side of the lap lanes, so the wall ends midway through). She told him that he could swim in the lane against the wall, and that he could grab the wall if he needed. More importantly, as a coach, she was allowed to walk the length of the course as he swam it. She had promised him that every time he looked over, she’d be there, and that she’d get him if he started to sink. “Won’t he be disqualified?” I asked. “Oh sure”, she said, “but it doesn’t matter, as long as he gets across the pool. He can flip over and swim freestyle, he can grab the rope or the wall…as long as I don’t actually have to pull him out, his race counts for the participation trophy”.

My heart started to pound when the announcer called the six and under backstroke (in A meets, there’s no such thing as six and under, but in B meets, the 7 and 8 year olds sometimes swim separately from the six and unders, to give the little ones a chance to win a race once in a while). 4yo came marching over to the pool, hand-in-hand with the head coach. She helped him with his goggles, whispered in his ear, and helped him into the pool when “take your mark” was called. He clung to the wall, and as the buzzer sounded, he was off.

By now, everyone at the meet knew what was going on, and a crowd had gathered. As 4yo swam, the applause grew. He flipped over every few feet to see how far he’d gone. True to her word, the coach walked along, and she crouched and shouted encouragement every time he looked at her. He kept going. He turned over at least five times, and at 20 meters or so, he grabbed the wall and rested for a moment. The timers and coaches from both teams screamed “you’re almost there! Keep going! Just a few more strokes! Just one more! Touch the wall! YOU DID IT!”

Three minutes and seven seconds after the buzzer sounded and at least a minute and a half after the next to last swimmer finished, 4yo touched the wall and at least a hundred parents, swimmers, and coaches erupted in a cheer. 4yo climbed out of the pool, ran to me and burst into tears, overwhelmed.

I almost started to cry myself. What had I done to this poor little boy? He wasn’t ready, and I had allowed him to be forced to swim when he wasn’t ready. Yes, he’d get his trophy, but was it worth it?

We walked to a picnic table together. People who hadn’t seen him start to cry started to approach us to congratulate him, and they walked away when they saw him sobbing. We sat for a few minutes, and 4yo’s sobs gradually subsided as I held him and patted his back. He was quiet for a minute. Then, “Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“The boys said that they were gonna buy me Airheads at the snack bar if I swimmed in the meet.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! Can you help me find them?”

Yes, I could. “The boys” were 4yo’s 12 year old buddy and two of his friends, all of whom had promised to buy 4yo one of his beloved Airheads after his first meet. It was time to collect. As we walked across the lawn, 4yo spotted one of the boys first and ran toward him, shouting “I touched the wall! I swimmed backstroke across the pool and I touched the wall! I’m gonna get a trophy with my name on it!”

He got high fives from the kids who gathered around as they saw him run back to the team area. Hand in hand with two preteen boys, he headed for the snack bar. That snack bar was full of Airheads, and one of them had 4yo’s name on it.

Thunderous Applause, Movie Reviews, and Academic Excellence; It's ALL IN HERE

2009-07-18T20:53:00.004-04:00

It's Saturday night, so I'm sitting on my couch considering getting ready to prepare to begin finishing the paper I have due tomorrow. I don't really have anything to blog about but I feel that I need to post something occasionally. Since any writing I may be capable of right now should be dedicated solely to 4.0 maintenance, I'll do a bullet point post, and will consider elaborating on the bullets in later posts.

At dinner tonight, my 4 year old held up a slightly burnt piece of pepper. "WHAT is THIS?" he demanded, horrified. "It's a little burnt piece", I said. "Just put it on the side of your plate". "A BIRD PIECE?!?!?!?!?!" shrieked both of my children in unison. "No", I said. "A BURNED piece". "OH!" they both sighed, relieved. Note that the peppers were part of a stir fry which also included chicken. Eventually, it will occur to them....
4 yo swam for the first time in the next-to-last meet of the season. He swam 25 meters, backstroke, in three minutes and seven seconds, popping up to turn around and see how far he had to go at least five times. He touched the wall to thunderous applause. There's much more to it, and I'll tell you all about it in an upcoming post.
We're about to watch "The Lookout". (Perhaps I should either write papers or watch movies, but not both, at least simultaneously. But the paper's nearly done). I watched "Rachel Getting Married" last week. What to say about that movie? Anne Hathaway? Very good, I can watch her in anything. But the wedding preparation scenes made me yearn with all my heart for a David's Bridal outfitted-wedding, with a choice of chicken or prime rib at a catering hall decorated with crepe-paper bells and a DJ playing "The Cupid Shuffle" and "The Electric Slide". Waaaaay too much quirky picturesque bohemian hipness; it wore me right the hell out. "The Lookout" appears promising; I'll write a similarly-brief review, but this will require that I stop blogging and watch the movie.

Until later...

An unrequited meme

2009-07-10T14:00:00.001-04:00

I've been awarded and tagged by the fabulous Lady Who Doesn't Lunch. The award is the herein pictured One Lovely Blog Award, which is accompanied by the following meme:

5 Obsessions

1. Stalinist Russia. Cheerful, right? I just finished reading Martin Amis' Koba the Dread: Laughter and the 20 Million. I think often about his point that the reaction to the misery suffered by Stalin's victims is frequently laughter, and that jokes about the gulag (such as those that I make all the time) are acceptable, while the same joke made about Treblinka or Dachau would brand the joker as a monster. Anyway, Amis calls the conditions in Russia under Stalin "negative perfection". For so many people, every moment and every day and every aspect of life were filled with unrelieved, hopeless misery. I can't fully imagine what this is like, and I'm profoundly grateful for that.

2. Swimming laps. I love to swim outside, and I'm always determined to swim laps outdoors as often as possible before the summer ends.
3. Ridiculously overpriced skincare products. Obsessions come and go, but this one is a perennial for me.
4. Freeze pops; the kind that come in the little plastic bag. I hadn't had one for years, and then I decided to have one with my sons one day, and it was a revelation. They're SO GOOD, and they're about 25 calories each! Which is meaningless when you eat ten in a single day, but still!
5. What to do? My "summer off" is going to end eventually, and I really haven't decided what to do next.

5 Dislikes

1. The fact that I dislike far more than five things.
2. People who knock on my door at 6:30 pm, tell me "don't worry, I'm not here to sell you anything" and who then proceed to try to sell me something. I like them even less when I tell them (truthfully in this case) that I can't talk because I'm just getting dinner on the table, and they say "I just need a minute". I do not have a minute for such people.
3. Putting gas in my car. Did you know that there's no such thing as a self-serve gas station in New Jersey? I might move there.
4. Writing checks. I pay most bills online, and when I run across the rare bill for which I can't just send an electronic payment, I'm so grateful for online banking and shudder to recall the days of a stack of paper bills which required checks.

5. Flavored potato chips.

I hereby award the "One Lovely Blog" award to all of my blogroll and followed blogs, and I hereby tag no one. But do leave a comment if you decide to do an obsessions and dislikes list. I love reading lists.

Not a long post

2009-07-03T22:00:00.001-04:00

Remember that long post that I promised here? It's not ready yet. That's because I haven't written a single word since the last time I posted. It's meant to be a discussion of beauty and aging in 2009, as seen through impressions I formed while witnessing a conversation between two women at my dentist's office. It might turn out to be one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" posts. Maybe I'll finish it eventually, and maybe it will be consigned to draft folder oblivion, like a post I started about how much I enjoy hearing non-native speakers trying to curse in English. That one actually cracked me up, but it fell flat at the end. One of these days, I'll pull it out of my draft folder and the perfect conclusion will just step up and write itself for me. Because that happens all the time.

Meanwhile (how often do I use that word? I'm going to do a search; I'm afraid that the answer to that question is "excessively often"), a return to what appears to be this blog's new theme: how can a person who hasn't had a job for six months be so busy all the time? Swim season is fully underway, and I've been named secretary of the team association, so in addition to my usual bake sale asssisting and stopwatch wielding, I'm also writing the weekly newsletter. See, I'm writing something. I'm an attention whore in print. In person, I'm quite happy to blend into any available background, but I do love when people tell me that my writing makes them laugh. The real reason for the busyness, though, is that my husband is deeply enamored of the idea of himself as the husband of a stay-at-home mother. I bet he calls me a "housewife". Not within earshot of me, of course, but I bet he at least thinks it. Words aside, (too late, right?), he now delegates every single aspect of life to me. Every time I speak to him, he has a to-do list item for me. His list combined with my list is a lot of damn list. I won't complain, however, (once again, too late), because my current reading, about Russia under Stalin, has given me new perspective on life's discomforts and inconveniences. Any day spent anywhere other than Kolyma or Lefortovo is a pretty good one. And it would be a pretty good one anyway.

So, once again, my undisciplined rambling must come to an end. We have an early swim meet (on the 4th of July! Outrage! But wait, at least I'm not on a cattle train bound for the gulag, right?) and I'm either going to go to bed now, or I'm going to finish my open-book take-home midterm (100 insanely arcane questions, nearly none of which I can answer without aid of the index. I did the reading, too! Being an adult student sucks. Not as much as Lubyanka, though!)
Eventually, I'll finish the long post of legend and song. In the meantime (neatly bypassing the use of the word "meanwhile"), speaking of gulags, I'll soon update you on the increasingly harsh conditions under which my son lives. A preview: He was given a summer reading list, and I am actually insisting that he read some of the suggested books! He received birthday presents, and I am forcing him to write thank-you notes! Take that, Beria.

Work in progress

2009-06-27T11:25:00.002-04:00

I'm cooking up a long post, but it will be a few days before it's ready. Meanwhile, we are having a belated birthday party for 8yo today, at the pool, immediately following the swim meet that is in progress now. Busy busy. More later!

Do Tell, Ms. Lonelyhearts

2009-06-22T18:00:00.000-04:00

Two bits of advice, the second of which may or may not be based upon actual events:

Summer Advice

The phenomenon known popularly as "brain freeze" is completely avoidable, as I have explained multiple times to my children, who ignore their mother's counsel and suffer as a result. Here is what you do: Take a bite of your ice cream, or your Slurpee, or your water ice, and hold it in your mouth for a few moments before you swallow it. Your frozen treat is then slightly warmed, so that when you swallow it, your brain remains fully thawed.

Relationship Advice

If your wife or significant other is explaining a series of events, you should avoid instructing her to "stick to the facts and don't give me editorial comments". Because I promise you that she will respond to this instruction with a far more lengthy and opinionated editorial comment than you would have received had you just allowed her to tell the story her way, thankyouverymuch.

Additional unsolicited advice will be offered occasionally, on an "as-it-occurs-to-me" basis. Meanwhile, feel free to submit your pressing questions in the comments, and I will do my best to provide personalized advice.

Happy Birthday...

2009-06-18T15:23:00.002-04:00

To the boy who will now be referred to as 8yo!

It's crunchy and salty, but it does leave a lot of crumbs behind.

2009-06-15T21:03:00.003-04:00

Oh, I hate when this happens. I thought I'd sit down to write a blog post, and...nothing. I don't have a single thing that I want to write about. I'm temporarily disenchanted with the entire Internet, so perhaps that's spilling over and affecting my ability to write anything. I still love blogging, and reading all of your wonderful blogs, but I have to say that I am Twittered right the hell out. It might be premature to say so, but it's possible that I've Tweeted my last Tweet. I'm tired of email, tired of Facebook (and I STILL don't even have a Facebook page), and I feel like I just don't have anything left to add to the conversation, so I think I'll stay out of it for a bit.

I was writing for Examiner for a while, but I've decided to stop that too. Finding stories and people to write about was a lot of fun, but it's very time consuming and is paying virtually nothing. Now that my almost 8 year old is finished school and swim team launches into maximum overdrive, I just don't have time.

What else? School, there's something to write about. In a development that will shock no one, I have found to my dismay that the class I chose for its lack of rigor seems to possess plenty of rigor, thankyouverymuch. This could be another reason why I'm not feeling like writing: Because I'm writing ALL THE DAMN TIME, about a subject which interests me not at all. But I'm already 1/3 of the way through this class, so I'll just focus on the next few weeks, which will get me to the 2/3 mark. Then all I'll have to do is churn out another paper and take another final, and I'll be that much closer to finishing this degree. I have serious thoughts of quitting at least once a month, but I just slap those feelings down and keep going. I have to do this, I tell myself; I don't have to like it, but I have to do it.

Now I'm just going to ramble, in accordance with my "just sit down and write" method for combatting writers' block. It is usually quite effective. I just finished reading Curtis Sittenfeld's "American Wife". I read "Prep" two years ago or so, and thought it was very good, and that Ms. Sittenfeld is a very good writer. I still think so, actually. You have probably heard of "American Wife". It was rather controversial in that it is a novel based on the life of Laura Bush. The book is broken into four sections. The first covers Alice Lindgren Blackwell's early life, up to age 17 when she causes a classmate's death in a tragic accident. The second section begins when Alice is 29, single and a school librarian in Madison, Wisconsin, where she meets and falls in love with charming, irresponsible Charlie Blackwell, son of a former governor and GOP presidential candidate. The third section covers her mostly-quiet life as the wife of the restless and alcoholic Charlie, who eventually buys the Milwaukee Brewers. After Alice leaves him briefly, Charlie embraces evangelical Christianity, gives up drinking, and wins the governorship of Wisconsin. Section 4, titled "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" covers Alice's years as First Lady.

For the most part, I liked the book very much. "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" is where it fell apart a bit for me, and not because of my dislike of the Bush Administration. The problem is that while the events of the first three sections closely parallel what we know about the life of Laura Bush, there's just enough that's different that I still feel like I'm reading a novel. The supporting characters, including Alice's parents and grandmother, her childhood best friend, and her spoiled and shallow but kindhearted sister in law, are all very well drawn, and Alice is a very complex and introspective character. "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue", though, reads like a story about the Bush White House in which nearly nothing but the names have changed. While in the previous three sections, Alice's interior life is nuanced and detailed and interesting enough that we'd want to read about her even if she remained a school librarian, the last section reads like a recollection of events and not much more. Maybe that was intentional...maybe it was the author's way of demonstrating how an ordinary person becomes one of the most famous people in the world and thus loses the right to have a private life, even inside her own head. Reading it, though, it feels like at that point, Ms. Sittenfeld just wanted to finish the book. Still, it's a very good summer novel, and I'd recommend it.

This concludes one of the most meandering and pointless posts I've written yet. I started on Internet Fatigue Syndrome (did I make that up? I'm going to Google it and see where this post comes up in the search results), briefly covered children and swim team, found my way to complaints about life as an adult student, and then a brief book review.

I love Chex Mix, especially the Cheddar flavor, but I hate the little triangular cheese crackers, so I pick them out. Maybe you like the cheese crackers, but you don't like the little pretzels. Think of this post as Chex Mix. There might be something worthwhile in there somewhere; just throw out all the rest.

Who are you, and what have you done with my mother?

2009-06-08T20:55:00.003-04:00

I just finished an ice cream. I'll wait, while someone alerts the media.

This was a vanilla soft-serve ice cream, with sprinkles. If I were among my people, I'd just call it "custard", and the topping would be called "jimmies" because Philadelphians call soft-serve ice cream "custard" and we call sprinkles "jimmies". But I suspect there's be a lot of what-the-hell looks out there if I wrote that I just ate custard in a cone with jimmies, so I'll bow to the common usage, just for the sake of clarity.

Where was I?

Right, the ice cream. It's not like I don't eat ice cream, it's just that I don't usually say "sure, let's go" when a kid asks for ice cream at 8:30 on a school night when I haven't finished cleaning up the kitchen, and then there are showers to take and stories to read. But that's what I did. It's this whole "lighten the hell up" initiative that I've put in place for this summer. The fact that I refer to it as an "initiative" and that I feel the need to document every ice cream run and pool visit would suggest that I have quite a ways to go before I can consider myself fully lightened up, but it's a step. It's incremental progress.

In other news, I might or might not have an essay published soon in a real live well-known publication. I have to make some edits, and if the editor likes the second draft, then it might appear in actual print, followed by a check payable to me. That's all I'll say for now. Send me prayers or positive thoughts, according to your beliefs.

It's better than digging a ditch

2009-06-03T20:52:00.004-04:00

My 7yo is one of the world’s workers. He is the always-helpful child, never complaining when he’s asked to carry in groceries, or to put away his clean laundry. He offers to set the table for me. He’s happy to run and get anything his father asks for. He likes to work. His little brother, on the other hand, is the lily of the field. He toils not, and neither does he spin. The 4yo is the child who becomes very tired when it’s time to pick up the toys. Threatened with a nap (“if you’re too tired to pick up toys, you must need to go to sleep…”), he’ll reluctantly carry one Lego piece at a time, sighing as he drops each tiny piece into its plastic bin. In the time it takes 7yo and me to clean up the entire family room, 4yo will exhaust himself into utter prostration with the effort of picking up and carrying 6 Legos.

Recently, our swim team held its annual fundraising carwash. While a few of the teenagers had to be coerced into actually washing some cars, my industrious older child was right on the front line, wielding a sponge and clamoring for a chance to man the hose. He scrubbed, he sudsed, he rinsed, and he dried, with the studied nonchalance of a boy determined to let spectators know that this, right here, is just routine. Another day, another dollar. Yawn.

One of the older boys told him to wave the next car through. This he did, without the slightest trace of a smile. He was clearly enjoying this important job tremendously, but was determined not to reveal that to anyone. He adjusted his features into a look of settled workday boredom. This was a face that said “hey, this is no big deal, OK? Maybe other kids would get all excited about hanging with the big kids and doing totally important stuff like waving the cars through. Because they can’t have just anybody wave the cars through, see? You have to know how to do it. And I do. Because this is my job. I’m not playing here, OK? I’m working at the carwash. So stop smiling at me like that. I’m trying to work here.” Cars were waved through, washed, and dried with efficient dispatch, thanks to 7yo’s industry and skill.

Do you know what’s funny about this? I’m exactly like him. When I had a job, I was always the person with the answer, and I loved being the person with the answer. I never made a big deal of it, though. Anyone would have thought that I didn’t care one way or another if you asked for my help, or if you asked the person next to me. But I cared, oh yes I did. I was busy and important and I wanted to keep being busy and important. Adjusting to the relative lack of busyness and importance has been the predominant concern of the last six months for me. Of course, I’m still busy. I’m taking a class, the kids just started swim team, I’m writing and doing part-time work from home, and of course, my house isn’t going to compulsively clean itself. It’s not the same, though, as putting on work clothes, and sitting at your desk, so busy that you’re responding to the emails which arrive almost every minute while you talk on the phone that’s wedged between your head and your shoulder.

Now that summer’s here, though, I’m starting to embrace the enforced leisure. After swim practice last night, I sat in the pool pavilion chatting with neighbors and friends, while the kids played. When we got home, it was 7 o’clock…7yo had homework to do and I hadn’t even thought of what to make for dinner.

Last summer, I’d have had those kids dry, dressed, and into the car within five minutes of the conclusion of practice. We’d have been in full homework and dinner preparation mode by 5:30. So really, this is quite a change for me. I realize that hanging at the pool until *gasp* 7 on a school night doesn’t exactly qualify as debauched languor, but it’s a shift nonetheless. Maybe just for this summer, I’ll be a little less of the person with the answer, and a little more of the lily of the field.

This is not a prospectus.

2009-06-01T20:02:00.004-04:00

First things first. Everyone should go right away and read my adorable sister's cryptically-titled blog, here. Her name really is Caitlin, and she's MUCH younger than I am. Go ahead, click away. I'll wait.

Welcome back. We're just back from an overnight stay at my older sister's* house. She had a First Communion party for her son, which is why Caitlin spent Saturday neck deep in cupcake batter. It was time well spent. The party was fun, and Saturday's wedding was not bad, either. (7yo on the wedding: "Wedding? Aren't you guys already married?" Assured that we are married, he asked "So what...you just go and watch people get married?") I just finished unpacking.

I read once that before you get married, you should know how your intended would handle a traffic jam, or tangled Christmas lights, or a similarly infuriating situation, before you proceed with the marriage. To that very good advice, I'd add that you should also make sure that your betrothed shares your philosophy on unpacking after a trip, and cleaning up after a party. Ideally, you should both be either "Hey. Let's just go to bed and get all of this cleaned up in the morning" people OR (and preferably) you should both be "Hey. Let's just clean this all up now so it's not waiting for us in the morning" people. One of each of those types of people in a marriage, and conflict will be the inevitable result. My husband and I are both the latter type.

Right now, my sister-in-law is sitting in the kitchen with her brand-new computer. Which she brought to me, so that I could help her configure it and set up her wireless access. Thus, the tradition of the blind being led by the blind continues in our family. After this, I guess I'll be asked to tune up someone's car, or to provide investment advice. I will always suggest that you buy low, and sell high.

*I'm actually 16 months older than my "older sister", but I call her my older sister to distinguish her from Caitlin, my much-younger sister. Also, it pisses her off. Since she wouldn't read my blog to save her soul from Hell, though, she won't know the difference.

Ever a dull moment

2009-05-30T15:29:00.000-04:00

It's been an interesting week. I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning at my mother-in-law's house, helping her straighten out some medical billing issues. The medical insurance cartel has created a bureaucracy that would have been the envy of government clerks all over East Germany. The word "Byzantine" comes to mind, although that scarcely does it justice. Since every single person I spoke to gave me different and usually conflicting information, it's a good thing that I took notes. What I should have done is to inform the representatives that their calls would be recorded for quality control. Anyway, I straightened out three of six bills and had three others resubmitted and will wait for the results.

My mother-in-law and I usually communicate pretty well, as long as we're face to face. We've both learned that phone conversations between us are hopeless. When she calls, I say hello and I hand the phone over to my husband. When we're together, the combination of her limited English, my even more limited Korean, and gestures and facial expressions allow us to understand each other, except in the case of technical or administrative matters. For example, I cannot say "coordination of benefits" or "80% of usual, customary and reasonable" in Korean, and she can't say "but wait, they told me I already fulfilled my deductible for the year!" in English. Fortunately, she trusts me. I had to complete some Social Security and Medicare paperwork for her, and she signed everything without so much as a quizzical look.

We're going to a wedding this afternoon. I'm hoping that it's one of those "I dreaded this but I had so much fun!" events. "Dread" is probably too strong a word, actually. It's just that I have never met either the bride or the groom. My husband knows the groom, but doesn't think he'll really know many, if any, of the other guests. Parties where I know not one person are not high on my fun things to do list, so I'm really low on enthusiasm. On the upside, it's a nice day, and I like the dress I'm wearing.

This was a really boring post, but it's all I have today. The class I'm taking is turning out to be as easy as I'd hoped, so I can't even complain about school. I must go and get dressed now. More (and I hope, more interesting) later.

It puts the lotion on its skin

2009-05-26T21:35:00.003-04:00

It was summer there for a few days, but that's come to an abrupt, screeching halt. Our pool opened on Saturday, and we fell into a summer routine in no time. By yesterday, I couldn't imagine how 7yo and I would readjust to school, which will continue for three more weeks. Today, I'm dressed like I'm leading a K2 attempt. I might need to turn the heat on. Just when I think I'm out, it pulls me back in. Sigh.

So remember all the complaining about the houseguests? It was all for naught. They didn't come. And I was disappointed! This isn't like me, as I'm not normally one of those only happy when they're unhappy people. This is not to say that I don't do my share of whining and complaining, because I do, but my whining and complaining is generally good-faith whining and complaining about things that I'm actually unhappy about, or things that I actually do not want to happen. So when something I dreaded doesn't happen, I'm usually relieved. But I was disappointed about the houseguests. I shopped, I cleaned, I regrouted the shower (read that last part as "I delegated the task of regrouting the shower to the member of the household best suited for the task"), and it looked pretty nice here. And for all my kvetching, I also actually wanted to meet these people. There's no pleasing me, is there? Bah ha ha.

Time for bed now, friends. Shall I tell you what I was doing while I was writing this post? I was watching "The Real Housewives of New Jersey". I know, I know, but I absolutely love that show. I love the New York ladies, too, but New Jersey is even better, because where else other than South Philadelphia can you hear the word "skeeve" used correctly? "Skeeve" is most properly used as a verb, as the RHONJs know. To say that you skeeve a person or thing is to say that you find that person or thing disgusting. And while I know that I should probably skeeve this show, I just adore it. The drama! The Botox! The bitchslapping oh no she di'in' catfights! I never miss it. Maybe I'll live blog it next week. Or maybe I'll just skin it and wear it like last year's Versace (possibly the best reality show line ever). Good night!

Fish and Visitors

2009-05-22T17:19:00.001-04:00

“Good to have you back, Squidward.”

“Well, it’s good to be back, sir.”

Hello! Appearances to the contrary (meaning I’m still unemployed, so how is it that I’m so pressed for time?), it’s been a busy two weeks or so. Memorial Day weekend has arrived by complete stealth, as it always does, and our swim team season starts tonight with the annual parents’ meeting. After which, I’ll return home to entertain my houseguests…the houseguests whom I have never met, did not invite, and whose existence and plans to spend the weekend chez CDP I learned of last night. I don’t know when these people are coming; maybe this afternoon, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. Mi casa es their casa, apparently. I also don’t really know how many people I expect. My husband’s mother says that she “thinks” that the couple has one child. Her track record re knowing the story is not a good one, though, so I could be hosting a Korean Cheaper by the Dozen by tomorrow morning for all I know. Stay tuned. I expect a full frontal assault on my nerves, but this always makes excellent material. There is always a silver lining, isn’t there?

What else is new? If you follow me on Twitter, you know that we visited the “liberry” yesterday, as 4yo wanted a “lava book on volcanoes”. The children’s section was well supplied with volcano books; we chose one from about 10 that were available. It’s good reading. Right now, we’re in the backyard. 4yo climbs up the ladder on the swing set, and says “Hey Mommy…say ‘why don’t you go jump off a building?’” I do as instructed, and he jumps. Repeat as necessary. Other than liberry expeditions and watching my son base jump, I’m preparing for another class, starting Tuesday. I’m finessing my second Information Technology requirement by taking something called Ethics in the Information Age. I feel a little guilty about it, as there are far more challenging classes that I could take. But it’s summer, and my instinct right now is avoid challenge and to embrace lassitude. I was torn between this and another “IT lite” class, but when I saw that the assignments for this class include only reading and four short papers involving NO RESEARCH WHATSOEVER, I registered without delay. Meanwhile, I await the final grade from my last class. My paper on “Master Harold…and the boys” got the highest grade I’ve ever received on an assignment, despite my fear that it was the worst paper I’d ever written. There is no accounting for taste. For example, one or two of you might still be reading this utter bilge (I should do a search to see how often I use that phrase. It’s one of my favorites). If so, I hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend, and I will be back very soon with more half-baked silliness.

Finals

2009-05-11T10:46:00.003-04:00

Much to my relief, I'm finished with English 303, Critical Approaches to Literature. I turned in my final paper on Friday, then took the final, which was held, interestingly, on the basketball court at the University of Maryland's former Cole Field House, now the Cole Student Activities Center. My first thought, when I received the email confirmation of my final exam date was "Cole? Where, on the effing basketball court?" Then I thought "Silly. Cole has offices and conference rooms and stuff, so the finals are probably being held there." But there they were, tables and chairs for about 400 people, right there on the temporarily carpeted basketball court. My hand still hurts a little; three hours of writing by hand when I don't usually write anything longer than a check by hand will take a toll.

Just answered the door. It was two Korean Jehovah's Witnesses, and my visible lack of Koreanness threw them a bit. They actually looked at one another with a mild "what the hell?" look, and told me that they were looking for a Korean family. I, of course, pretended that I had no idea where any Koreans might be. This has happened twice before, both times with different JWs. Someone has obviously told them that there is one Korean and two half-Koreans in this house, but as long as I'm the only one home, I can maintain plausible deniability regarding the presence of Koreans. And PS--If you don't want people to know immediately that you are, in fact, Jehovah's Witnesses, then put away The Watchtower. The Hangul edition looks just like the English edition.

This is going to be my last post for a while, so sorry it's not so good. Everything's OK, I just have a lot of work to do right now, and I need to take a break. I'll still be reading your blogs, but I might not be commenting. It might be a couple of weeks, or maybe a couple of months, but I'll be back. This isn't a final. Maybe just a midterm.

I've been waiting YEARS to say this:

2009-05-07T17:22:00.001-04:00

7yo: When is Mother's Day?

Me: It's Sunday.

7yo: OK. When is Kids' Day?

Me: Everyday is Kids' Day!

Bah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Price comparisons ARE research.

2009-05-05T19:16:00.003-04:00

My books and papers are spread before me, and the computer, having been tested by several Twitter and email checks, seems to be in fine working order. Nothing is stopping me from working on the paper that's due on Friday. I'm going to get RIGHT ON IT.

I wonder if there are any good online sales on sandals.