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 |  Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? |
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Fair Warning: I've upped the rating on this blog. It is now set at GC. |
| My daughter's school has adopted a "standardized dress policy," which is a pain-in-the-ass fusion of school uniform and scavenger hunt. At least if they had a uniform, there would be one place to go to order the damn thing. Instead, I went to 5 of the 6 local retailers (I skipped Wal Mart *shudder*) that were advertised as having an inventory of "dress code compliant" clothing, and all I found was a single pair of pants! gjgjgfjFJPg[FfjpJFR[wpgfpWJF[JW  *Kay bangs head on keyboard*I gave up on the stores and figured I would just place an order online. You'd think that would be easy, but you would be wrong. Even on-line I could not find the district approved colors in the proper sizes!!! No, that's not true, I did find all the pants on one site, but I really didn't want to pay $30 in shipping!  I'll try to order from the store to see if I can avoid the shipping charges that way, but this new policy is really pissing me off. I'm glad I only have to deal with it for the girl-child this year. The district adopted the policy for grades 5-12, so that gives my son one more year. |
| "So what do you think about these two . . . dating?" Dating? Shit! Is that what they are doing? I mean I knew they consider themselves girlfriend and boyfriend, but dating? They've only gone to the movies alone one or two times. She's only 13! He's only 13! Okay, Max will be 14 in another couple months, but even so . . . dating? I thought I was doing pretty well with this whole first boyfriend thing, but now I'm forced to realize that I hadn't even begun to grasp the subtext of the situation. "Well," I said to the Max's mother, "We are just trying to be very low key about it. No point in making it into a bigger deal than what it is." "Oh I agree," Max's mom said, but the fact that I'd been on the phone with her for 15 minutes made we wonder if she really did. Last time I checked, this was my daughter's relationship, and while I'm all in favor of being an "involved parent," this seemed a little intense just to set up an evening out." "You know where we'll be, right?" she asked. I knew that Katie had asked permission to go with Max to a family picnic at his uncle's house, but the specific gps coordinates hadn't been discussed. And really, I was okay with that. "She said it was going to be a picnic." "A pig roast really. The family has a big get together every summer. Out by the river . . ." she went on in great detail to explain exactly where they would be. "Is there anything I need to know about Katie? Does she have any allergies? Take any medications?" "Uh, No. She's kind of a picky eater, but there isn't anything she can't eat. She's pretty low maintenance." "Oh good. Can I get your cell phone number just in case we need to call you?" "Sure." "Okay, I'll give you mine too, and Max's just in case Katie's phone dies or something and you can't reach her." "Okay." "What time does she need to be home by?" This one stumped me. They were taking her to a family picnic, and I didn't want to cut their time short by setting a curfew. "Oh I don't know. How late do you think you'll be staying?" "Probably only 3 or 4 hours. Well, maybe longer. There will be a lot of people we haven't seen in awhile, and they are some big PARTIERS." Silence. Max's mom stammered self consciously. "We're not! So you know . . . we aren't big partiers ourselves. They are, but not us." LOL! This woman covered every emergency preparedness possibility and I was starting to feel like a truly unfit parent for not having any questions prepared to grill her with. Then she hits me with, "And so you know, Max is getting his hair cut next week. He isn't happy about it, and we let it go over the summer, but we won't let him go back to school with long hair." Insecure much? I'm not really the sort to judge her because her son likes to have long hair. Besides, it kind of goes with the beard, and yeah, he's a guitarist in a rock band, so the long hair is kind of to be expected. Really. I'm so totally okay with this.  |
| Being that it’s Monday, the boss is on vacation this week, and I’m dragging through a bout of insomnia, it was no surprise that I was late for work this morning. The surprise came after I logged on to my computer. Right after I logged on I got an IM from my friend Bonnie. Bonnie: You guys mock me but I'm always right....he gave me a present. In my defense . . . a.) I mock everyone. b.) she’s not always right, and c.) Damn! She was right. Backing up to last week, Bonnie sent me an IM to tell me that she thought Mark was trying to hide something from her and she couldn’t wait to go home and snoop. She was pretty sure it was a present for her, but since she’d just had her Birthday she couldn’t figure out why he’d be hiding a present. I had a guess as to why, and so I tried to diffuse her curiosity, downplaying all the bits of evidence she had gathered, and reminding her of previous snooping fiascoes. Whatever, she went home and snooped anyway, but apparently Mark had time to find a better hiding space by then. She didn’t find anything, and decided that maybe she really was paranoid. Kay: What was it? Bonnie: a ring Kay: A ring or a RING? Bonnie: a RING Kay: A RING, RING? Bonnie: yes. a RING, RING! Kay: LOL! So does this ring come with a date? Bonnie: No. but there is a funny story with the ring . . . . . . except the story wasn’t really that funny. Like I said, she’s not always right. So Bonnie is going to get married. The two of them are going on vacation next week, and from the sound of it, they might get married while they are at the beach. I guess it is a good thing I didn’t spring for the “Free Milk” doormat. Anyway, I'm so damn happy for her, and the best part is that her married name will be Bonnie Beaver.  PS- If you aren't familiar with the fairytale relationship that is Bonnie and Mark, go back and read "Invalid Entry"  to fully appreciate what a freakin' miracle this is. |
| or to put more concisely . . . Redheads! The theme music for todays entry is Red Headed Woman by Bruce Springsteen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bfPZQBWa5k  "Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead." ~Lucille Ball ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Yep, that's me and Lucy hanging out at Madame Tussauds in Manhattan. In case you didn't know already, I am a redhead. When I was young, I had very blue eyes, but they've since faded into a sort of pale gray that swings to either blue or green. My husband swears my eye color swings with my mood, but I think he has an overactive imagination. Anyway, I am blogging on the subject of redheadedness as a response to Z.˚rz  's entry "Invalid Entry" . How did he put it? Oh yes, he called us freaks (I've taken the liberty to omit his expletive) and thus forced me to <gasp> do research on the subject of redheads for this entry in order to set the record straight.First of all, we are NOT freaks. We are MUTANTS! Get it straight. "Professor Jonathan Rees conducted a study of redheads at Edinburgh University.He identified the"gene for red hair" the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R), found on the 16th chromosome. He found that this single gene was responsible for red hair. Red hair is a genetic mutation." Another common misconception is that because I am a redhead I must be Irish. I'm not. My red hair comes from a Scottish Grandmother on my mother's side and an Redheaded English Grandfather on my father's side. "The highest percentage of natural redheads in the world is in Scotland (13%), followed closely by Ireland with 10%. In the US, about 2% of the population are natural redheads. One estimated data shows that in factuality there's only 1% Redheads in the world." When I was a child my father was stationed in Japan. People there were fascinated by my red hair. One of my brothers was very blond, and the oldest brother had brown hair. The Japanese would stop my mother on the trains and ask to have their pictures taken with us. "Genetically Red hair is a recessive trait. Which means it can hide in genes and pop up several generations later. Two Redheads would most likely have a Red haired child(RR). To have a Redheaded child both parents must carry the red hair gene. The Red hair pigment is called pheomelanin." My parents are not redheads. Among my aunts, uncles, and cousins, there aren't any redheads, and neither of my children have red hair. It did cause a bit of a scandal when I was born with red hair because about 10 months prior to my arrival there was a new redheaded mail carrier in the neighborhood. I'd heard the jokes, but didn't understand, and when people would ask where I got my red hair, I'd happily reply "the mailman!" "Adam's first wife Lilith, always depicted as a redhead, is known to have refused to lie beneath Adam during sexual intercourse, and stated 'why should I lie beneath you when I am your equal since both of us were created from dust” –Patai " Other weird redhead stuff I found:  "A 2002 study found that redhead are harder to sedate than any other people requiring twenty percent more anesthesia. Inadequate doses cause people to wake up during surgery." "In the late 16th century, the fat of a redheaded man was an essential ingredient for poison." "An Irish judge in 2001 fined a man for disorderly conduct stating “I am a firm believer that hair coloring has an effect on temper and your coloring suggests you have a temper.” "Redheads don't turn gray. Red hair turns sandy, then white." "Redheads have always been thought untrustworthy. Judas is most always depicted as a redhead displaying the prejudice against red hair." "Bees are thought to sting redheads more than others." I absolutely believe this! The bees will literally dive-bomb me. "In Corsica, if you pass a redhead in the street you are to spit and turn around." Although this will greatly diminish you're chances of finding out if she is REALLY a redhead."  "There is a belief that redheads are prone to industrial deafness. This actually could be true as the melanocytes are found in the middle ear." "Redheads tend to bleed more, due to slightly different clotting factors, which again is a genetic factor." My mother worked as an OB nurse, and agrees with this one. She said they always watched redheads especially close for any signs of hemorrhaging. "Blondes may have more fun but redheads have more sex, according to new research in Germany. The study by Hamburg Sex Researcher Professor Dr. Werner Habermehl looked at the sex lives of hundreds of German women and compared them with their hair color. He said: "The sex lives of women with red hair were clearly more active than those with other hair color, with more partners and having sex more often than the average. The research shows that the fiery redhead certainly lives up to her reputation." What he said! "In Poland, if you pass three red-heads you'll win the state lottery."That last one brings us to the concept of the Redhead Cluster Phenomenon. http://fawny.org/rhcp/ The idea is that redheads represent a small percentage of the population, but tend to occur in clusters. Hmmmm . . . As a kid, I grew up on a cul-de-sac with 7 houses. There were an average of 4 people in each house for a total of 28 neighbors. The man who lived next door was a redhead and had two redheaded daughters. So, including myself, 4 out of the 28 neighbors or 14% of the neighbors had red hair. Clearly, that is much higher than the 2% frequency to be expected in the general US population Even more impressive, when I was in college, I had a redheaded roommate, so 100% of the residents in that dorm room were redheads. I also had a job working student security in the commons area. Three of us worked on Thursday nights, and guess what! We were all three redheads. That was pretty fun because we worked from midnight to 7 AM, and people would come by just to see the redheads. We were a regular tourist attraction. In any case . . . History and public opinion have not always been kind to redheads, and the early days of Christianity certainly didn't do us any favors! In medieval times there was a strong belief that outward appearance was a manifestation of the inner spirit, and the color red was associated with wickedness and lust. Redheads have long been regarded as devils, witches and whores. I don't mind too much though. At least it gives me something to aspire too.  "While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats." ~Mark Twain  He was a redhead too. |
| Okay, we have a new trend at work that is both odd and disturbing. As if hugely oversized purses and the wheeled backpacks they are marketing now for kids 1 weren't bad enough, this nonsense has begun to infect my workplace. The caseworkers, apparently frustrated by not having the paperwork they need while out in the field, have begun pulling around those rolly little carry-on suitcases filled with files and blank forms. They look like a bunch of flight attendants! 2 Back in the day when I was a caseworker, we used this thing called “planning” 3to ensure we had everything we needed and not a bunch of extraneous crap. 4 I can only imagine how the clients feel when their caseworker wheels a piece of luggage up to their front door! 5 And when they need to go to a meeting? The client has gotta be wondering, “Should I pack a bag too. I mean, what the hell is gonna happen at this meeting. I probably ought to take my passport and a change of underwear just in case.” 6 Footnotes |
| It's Saturday night and I'm a . . . well. . . I'm lit, drunk, pissed, take your pick because that's me. I am. Tonight was my friend Bonnie's 40th birthday party. Except that I'm an idiot and I didn't know it was her 40th birthday party and after many, many beers it seemed like it was okay that I didn't bring a gift because I could call her every five minutes and make her phone vibrate. I think she liked that just fine, but she was drunhk too and in the morning she'll be thinking "what's with all the voice mails?" sO iT was a good time. I drank too much, danced with the lesbians and lost my voice. I don't know why I lose my voice and my throat gets all tight when I drink, but it does. Anyway, I'll tell you this much for certain. If you drink enough to need a designated driver, you probably need a designated dog walker too. At least when you're driving you have headlights to show you when you're about to run into something. No head lights = collision. Just trust me on that one. Oh yeah, and you its a bad idea to go to the party with the lesbians and the beer without eating dinner. I'm not sure how that happened, but not eating probably was a factor in the drunkenness. So there you go. I wanted to stop by and say hi! Because I've been noveling instead of blogging, but the noveling is going very well. I hope to have chapter one fleshed out by the end of the weekend and I'll post it when I do. So here is to beer and friends and Happy 40th birthdays with no presents except the short lived thrill of a vibrating phone! I |
| I have super-powers. Well really, it's more like a super-power More about that in a moment, but first - as is required of all superhero/villain tales - we're going to need the back story. When Kay was a young girl, she started to realize that she was different from her classmates - a hateful, backstabbing bunch. Oh sure, Kay could be hateful and backstabbing too, but no one ever seemed to notice or take offense to it. Kay couldn't figure it out. They were unfazed by the zings and Kay was baffled.7 Although being liked is an admirable goal, Kay - in her quiet way - was discontent. More and more, her classmates were starting to refer to her as "just Kay." "Who's that?" "Oh that's justKay." justKay was not pleased. She needed more drama. She needed to MATTER! What would it take to offend these people? justKay set off on a journey to find the answers. Along the way she made a friend. This friend was also different, but in a . . . different way, for she was known to her classmates as "The Flaming Bitch from Hell" or just Bitch for short. Bitch seemed to be all the things that justKay was not. She was direct, outspoken and incited people to levels of verbal abuse that justKay had only dreamed of. Bitch took justKay under her flaming wing, but while justKay went about stirring pots and throwing shit at fans, no one seemed to mind much because she was, after all, justKay. High School ended, and justKay and Bitch went off to separate universities to study and prepare for future world domination. Bitch, who was working her way through college as a bad ass waitress, shrugged off her adolescent Bitchiness and donned the mantle of "Angry Woman."8 Anytime Angry Woman expressed a matter of opinion the masses would quake with terror and mutter among themselves "Dude, that is one seriously Angry Woman." It did not matter if she was commenting that she thought kitties were cuter than puppies, the response was always the same. "Dude, that is one seriously Angry Woman." Change was something far too radical to ever touch justKay, and so she kept being justKay. Angry Woman laughed privately at the irony, but she was the first to recognize that justKay had a super-power. In this case, it was a super-powerful Aura of Irrelevance. If justKay thought kitties were cuter than puppies, no one gave a shit. If justKay thought the kitties would be even cuter if they were stapled to the puppies9, no one was bothered much by that either. They'd just hide their kitties, laugh nervously and say "Oh, that's justKay for ya." Thus, the legend was born. I have since learned to harness my powers for good10. I use it with discretion and always take responsibility for my inoffensive actions. Now, I know you're all thinking "WTF?" 11 Unfortunately, I do not have time to offer any more enlightenment this evening. My novel is crying out to me, and I must get on with rewriting the pile of crap into a tighter, more highly polished pile of crap. So I'll leave you to ponder this question. What is your super-power? Footnotes |
| The opportunities to learn new things are always there, but some days the material presented seems a bit weirder than usual. Today was one of those days. Here is what I learned today. My husband, to the best of my knowledge, never bought an avocado until a month ago. In the last month there has been a steady stream of avocados passing through our fridge. Curiosity finally got the better of me. "Babe?" I asked "What's with all the avocados?" "I read that they're good for my man parts." yes, that is a direct quote. This made me giggle uncontrollably. Okay really, this was two lessons. Lesson #1 Tony is eating avocados to protect the health and vitality of his "man parts." Lesson #2 Tony does not appreciate when I laugh uncontrollably about his "man parts." Okay it was three lessons because he really didn't appreciate it when I said to him, "I've heard the same thing about watermelon, but at least you can cut a decent hole in one of those." |
| my daughter was sitting on her butt, while her brother made lunch. She was giving him some verbal direction, but her assistance was very hands off. At first I was annoyed because I'm paying the girl-child to babysit her brother and getting off her rear to help him make lunch was well within the scope of our employment agreement. My annoyance quickly faded though. She was making him read the directions, helping him to figure out the cooking time. She was fostering his independence. I realized - with a bit of guilt - that I don't do that enough. Maybe it's because he is Autistic. Maybe it is because he is the baby. Whatever the reason, I tend to do too much for Zack. He's nine years old. It is time he learned to microwave chicken nuggets for himself. While he's at it, he can learn to put his laundry away and open his own Diet Coke. Do I really want him growing up to be the only kid at the tailgate who hasn't mastered a pop top? Hell no! I want him to be able to crack open his own beer. I should probably give my daughter a raise. |
| to yesterday's addition of two truths and a lie was #2. Granted, I missed a lot of school my senior year. It was a combination of a bad attitude over having to move to a new school, and an academic apathy that came with being accepted into the school of my choice during early admissions. Still, I didn't miss enough days to risk not graduating. Congratulations janieruthryals and Startiara !Oh yeah, and even though I've never been pulled over, I did once receive a traffic citation. Here's a tip, if you are the only car involved in an accident, do not call the police and report it! I'd always had it hammered into my wee brain that you had to call and get a police report for the insurance company. Not so. Sometimes it can only hurt. I was cited for . . . of all things . . . failure to avoid speed to avoid a collision. I guess the skid marks leading up to the concrete barrier were a dead giveaway. Now, for the point of this exercise. Confirmation classes. First, I'm not Lutheran. If anything I'm Catholic, but that's a hard claim to make. I was never confirmed myself, so I seemed an unlikely choice to teach a confirmation class. I had a couple things going in my favor though. I was hard up for cash. I was young enough to be deemed relate-able to a group of 13-14 year olds, and my mother knew the minister. So the minister called, and I immediately knew it was all wrong for me. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd been inside a church! (yes I could, it was my wedding day.) But, it was January. I was only 22. I was preggers. I'd been laid-off since November, and I was due in May. Oh, and it was deemed a "high risk pregnancy." I figured that a little time spent inside the house of God could only help. It all goes to state of mind. I didn't want to get a real job because I was still hoping that I'd get called back to my old job. I tried working at Macy's over the Christmas holiday, but they put me in bridge jewelry, and I felt intensely claustrophobic being literally locked up behind those cases. Ah, and the standing was a bitch. So I had quit Macy's, and when the confirmation gig came along, it looked to be a good stop gap until I got my old job back (like that would ever happen), and I was pretty sure I'd be allowed to sit. I was given a book on friendship and relationships as source material, and that was that. It contained a smattering of scripture, but not so much as to freak me out. I'd like to say I rose to the occasion, but I didn't. I did my best to make it fun, interactive, and interesting, but my best wasn't all that great. Still, the experience made an impression on me. One of the things I remember about the material was the chapter on forgiveness. There was this lovely metaphor about a bell in a tower. As long as we keep pulling on the rope the bell will keep ringing. If you let go of the rope, the bell keeps ringing, but more and more softly until it stops altogether. That, it said, is what forgiveness is about. The resentment doesn't disappear just because you stop pulling the rope, but as soon as you let go, it starts to diminish. Is that how it works? This was revolutionary to me at 22. I can honestly say that I tried to learn how to let go of the rope. Unfortunately, there is another side to forgiveness. Repentance. Forgiving someone who remains unrepentant or unaccountable can be every bit as corrosive to the spirit as harboring resentment. I've been thinking about this because I came across an article the other day on gender and forgiveness. Not surprisingly, women tend to be more forgiving than men. Women are also more empathic than men. Here's the interesting part though, when confronted with a situation that mirrors there own past behavior, men are shown to be more empathic and forgiving than women. So, if a man is reminded of his own marital infidelities, he will be more understanding and forgiving of someone who cheats on his spouse. Not so women. So, why do you think men are more forgiving of other people who pull the same crap they do? Is it because they wouldn't have any friends otherwise? Or are women just hypocrites? |
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