Inconvenient truths
A few of you have asked whatever happened in the Xtina saga, and the inconvenient truth is that there just isn’t much to tell. I’d love to tell you that she and Chickadee have become the best of friends or that my daughter is somehow helping her out and making her life easier, but the reality is that Chickadee is pretty much avoiding her and Xtina continues to get into trouble on a regular basis. None of the kids like her very much, from what I hear, and although I do remind Chickie that I expect her to be kind (or at the very least, not mean), the avoidance routine is working out pretty well. Her teacher counsels her to steer clear, even, so what else can we do? As much as I’d love it for my daughter to be the one to make this little girl’s life better, my first priority is MY kid. That’s the sad and selfish truth.
It would make a better story some other way, but what I’m learning is that when it comes to my children, excessive storytelling is starting to get on my last nerve. read more…
Can’t talk, licking my iPod
Dude, yesterday was like Christmas. New computer! New iPod! New scanner/printer/copier thing that may or may not also julienne vegetables!
My wee little mind, it is blown.
Anyway, I have to remain Very! Excited! about all of this, to help lessen the reaction I will have when the bill arrives. I mean, yes, business deductions and all of that (the printer and iPod were free, even), but you know, it PAINS ME to spend money. Especially since it’s not as though I can recoup the money from my other stupid computers. Otto did suggest that we get a boat… seeing as how we’d be all set for anchors…. (Ba dum DUM!)
I got a three-year warranty, so there will be no more flagrant spending of technology funds for at least that long. And I will continue to ignore Otto’s excited babbling about the drop in price on the iPhone because I CANNOT HEAR HIM LALALALALALALA! read more…
Corn, computers, and polite conversation
Wow, you people have a lot to say about corn. And eggs! Yes, I agree that my eggs didn’t peel well because they were too fresh. I actually KNOW that you’re supposed to let them rest in the fridge for a week or so before you boil them (and I love that, because what’s the alternative? You put them to work scrubbing the inside of the fridge? You throw a wild egg party where they overexert themselves?), but that would require knowing an entire week in advance that I want to make deviled eggs. I cannot commit to that sort of advance planning.
Thanks for all the corn recipes, though. I have determined that I shall use corn in tonight’s dinner. Somehow. But that’s as far as I got. I’ll figure it out later. Maybe. If I remember. What were we talking about, again? Also, has anyone seen my watch today? read more…
Random acts of cholesterol
With yesterday being a holiday, and all, Otto and I decided that it might be nice to have a few folks over for a barbecue. I’m still not feeling quite top-notch, so in our early discussions of this idea I clearly remember saying, “I don’t know that I’m up for an actual PARTY. Let’s just have a FEW people over, okay?” Otto agreed. We talked about who to invite and figured we’d have about 8 guests or so, if everyone came (and surely some people would already have plans, right?).
Very good. We issued our invitations. Everyone accepted. Excellent!
And then… well, it was bound to happen. “Oh, we should invite the so-and-sos, too, don’t you think?” “Yeah, we probably should.” “Oh, what about the neighbors? They’re going to see all the cars…” “Yep, better invite them too.” “What about the neighbors on the other side?” “Good idea.”
I woke up yesterday morning with the undeniable realization that we were about to have a party. read more…
Taking root
I guess I considered myself an involved parent when it came to our old school. I volunteered at school; I belonged to the PTA; I brought stuff in when the teachers needed things. Whatever. None of it required all that much effort on my part, is my point.
And I am nothing if not lazy by nature.
It’s become apparently very quickly that the new school—having less money, fewer resources, and plenty of parents who don’t help out in any way—needs a lot more in the way of parental participation. I am trying to do my part even though, honestly, sometimes it feels like Just One More Thing piled on top of an already overfull schedule. read more…
Little girl lost
The children are BOTH having friends over after school today, and this is VERY! EXCITING! and despite my grumpiness in the wee hours I’ll confess that waking up Monkey and having him spring upright and declare “Today’s the day!” and then going into Chickadee’s room and watching her yawn, stretch, and then pop up and exclaim “Today’s the day!” as well (she hadn’t heard her brother) was pretty funny.
As for me, I am pleased that my babies have friends. Moreover, Monkey was kind enough to become infatuated with a boy whose mom I really like, so he may have done me a big favor, there. I knew I liked her when Monkey went over to their house and when I came to pick up she asked me if I wanted to hang out for a bit; and when I said sure, asked me if I wanted a glass of wine. (I declined, for various reasons, but I like her style.) read more…
Finding faith
The piles on my desk threaten to topple over, I’m behind on several things, there’s laundry to be done, I apparently volunteered to provide a “treat” (“Oh, you can just bake something, Mama”) for Chickadee’s class tomorrow, I still cannot find my sewing kit, and I’m too sleepy to make the coffee properly.
Of course, none of this matters. Not since the mail came yesterday. Not since I was touched by His noodly appendage.
The forgetting gene
I used to think of myself as clumsy and disorganized, but I have since decided that I simply lack an enzyme or something required for proper remembering. I think it’s genetic. And I’m pretty sure I’ve passed this along to my children. Poor things.
Some of their antics I just can’t understand, no matter how hard they try to convince me that they “just forgot” to put this or that away. I mean, Chickadee’s Tae Kwon Do bag holds all of her sparring gear as well as her uniforms and perhaps a small farm animal or two (based on both the smell and the size of it); my point is, it is a VERY LARGE BAG, and yet, she can “forget” to put it away even if it’s in the middle of a room, blocking pretty much everything.
Come to think of it, that may be blindness rather than forgetting; but that’s genetic, too. read more…
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Oh. Um, hi. How are you? I’m, uh, perfectly fine and ready to point to the nearest shiny object to distract you from yesterday’s post. Yes. (Not that I didn’t appreciate both the space to get that out and the really kind emails I received, but now I’d like to go back to to sublimating my “issues”—please use heavy air quotes when reading that—and doing really meaningful things like pondering whether I really need avocados when they cost $1.50 each.)
During a conversation with a friend yesterday I mentioned falling asleep at the kitchen table one night and she interrupted me to ask if PERHAPS I was a bit exhausted? (She didn’t even call me a dumbass, which I thought was sweet.) And yes, I think some of my recent difficulty can be attributed to the fact that school starts promptly at the buttcrack of dawn. I am not unwell! I am just SLEEPY!
And oh, look, I just saw something shiny over there, and it is my daughter’s brain. read more…
The things I can talk about
Despite a small segment of my readers’ seeming beliefs to the contrary, I don’t actually write about EVERYTHING. I write about LOTS of things, and I write about some stuff that I’m sure some people wish I wouldn’t, but this is but a small, self-selected slice of my life, and there are a million and one reasons to be selective about what I put out here.
Figuring prominently in that laundry list of constraints are my readers who are known to me, such as my family and friends, and my desire not to vex them any more than is strictly necessary. Also on that list is the fact that my ex is reading here regularly despite assertions that he most certainly is not. And then of course we have the workings of my brain (such as it is) that insist that sharing things that make me look stupid are fine, whereas sharing things that make me look vulnerable are not. Stupid is funny. Weak is just pitiful. read more…