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March 30 Surfing with a seatbelt*Check out other spaces participating in Computer Surrounding Day via the list of links on the left. When my son was suspended last week, I turned into the mother from hell. He might say the transformation wasn't instantaneous, that I'm always mean, but it's been a while since he's actually felt my wrath. Anything with a plug or batteries was hauled to my friend's house for safe-keeping: his walkman, X-box, stereo, TV, phone and my desktop computer he uses to chat with all his little internet pals.
Oh, right, that's the computer that's hooked up to the cable internet and wireless router, so basically I had to punish myself in order to make him suffer. Super. (That was not in the pamphlet or job description).
Alas, I found one kind and generous (and oblivious) neighbor to share his wireless signal, which I can pick up with my laptop from my car. I can go from 0 to 20 Spaces in one minute.
March 29 Yes, I AM the girl of 100 Lists2nd Annual Computer Surroundings Day: March 30
We, the nosy folk, want to see where you do your best work. Take some photos, put 'em on your space for a few days, and let your computer revel in the limelight. Leave your name, link, tasty treats here for me, and I'll add your name to a list of participants.
Hopefully, GaKatSoup will post her winning photo from last year (her son reads her blog now, so I'm thinking not, but let's just say laptop...bed...and a word that rhymes with bibrator).
One of my claustrophobia-inducing photos from 2005:
March 28 When the little hand is on the seven and the big hand is on the twelveCalvin: You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
My time has been limited lately, with a department SOP (Standard Operating Procedures, a step-by-step guide to everything I do and how I do it..at work, because, really, that would be scary to have a personal SOP) that I've had three months to work on, which is due tomorrow. Tomorrow! Procrastination's great, but it does mean a more restless night's sleep with all this extra work I'm not doing on my mind.
My friend/co-worker and I decided to start carpooling together, since she bought a house a few miles from me and it wouldn't be the least bit inconvenient. Tuesday morning, 7:00 a.m. sharp, was our scheduled rendezvous in my driveway.
I woke up without an alarm clock, like I always do, fed the cats, took a shower and waited for her arrival. And waited. Then waited a little more. Why is everyone so irresponsible, I wondered as I finally decided to call her. Jeez. "Hello" she said, her voice groggy and three octaves lower from sleep. "Uh, yah, did you forget about me? Are you even awake yet? You're not here yet and it's...6:20," I said, as I glanced at the digital clock above the microwave. "Moron," she said, "it's not even seven o'clock yet." "Oh, right. Well, this is your complimentary wake up call. Don't be late." March 26 Honey, we're homeTall (5'9"), lanky, and naturally thin, my mother eats more than any other woman I've ever known (my dad is the same way, but did they pass those stellar metabolisms down to moi?? Of course not. BAH!). She had a baby a year after I did, when she was forty-two and her energy level makes me wonder if she found the secret fountain of youth (if that's the case, I plan on aging badly, thankyouverymuch). My mother is a goddess and today is her birthday.
Although she's extremely intelligent, kicks ass at all things mathematical, has memorized bridge hands for the past 20 years, and has flawless grammar skills, she is still able to embrace her inner fruitloop. When I was an angst-ridden teen, these idiosyncrasies would annoy me because I always wanted her to be serious. And Martha Stewart, dammit. Years later, however, these are traits I find most endearing:
One year, I saved my allowance for several weeks to buy her a "hot to trot" keychain because I thought it meant she was beautiful...Happy Birthday, mom, and I still think you're beautiful!
March 25 You take him...no, YOU take him... Oh, sure, he’s somewhat loud, obnoxious, sloppy, pig-headed, lazy, disrespectful, spoiled, irritable in the morning (especially when I’m trying to wake him up with Madonna remixes, sheesh) and gets in trouble at school. On a good day. At least he's nice to cats.
AND...he's spending the next five days of Spring Break with his dad in Savannah. Halle-fuckin-lu-jah! I've also decided, for the upcoming summer, to divide his time amongst everyone who left a comment in my last entry. We'll figure out the itinerary soon - thank you, all!
Completely unrelated, Country music legend George Jones will be moving to my small Alabama town...your heart turned left, and I was on the right. March 22 The sighs of MarchMy son was born on the last day of March in 1990 and every year we celebrate my pain and sixty pound weight gain, not with a card or flowers, but with phone calls from school principals. It’s always a different school, with different specifics, but it’s still the same: your son is disruptive and disrespectful and something needs to be done. I agree, apologize to the administrators, then try yelling, threatening and reasoning with the child who doesn’t seem to care that he’s making his life, and mine, miserable.
He’s had a good life with two parents who love him, never been hungry, and only been dropped on his head once. He’s seen counselors since he was young, taken anger management programs in multiple schools, yet still has such pent up frustration and rage, especially towards authority figures. And absolutely zero respect for the person who loves him the most: me.
Last year in March, when his dad was in Iraq, I drove him to a new school rather than send him to the alternate school for druggies, thieves and common criminals. He’s intelligent, getting A’s and B’s…didn’t he deserve another chance?
Now, with seven unexcused absences since January, he’s an inch away from getting no credit for the entire semester. Again! The principal suspended him for a day, for his constant disruptive behavior, and I’m at my wit’s end. Is it time to let him pay the consequences, even if it means dropping out of school in 10th grade, like his dad believes? What do I do when he pushes the snooze button for every single wake up call?
It makes me wonder...if there had been a mandatory exam before motherhood, would I have passed with a high enough score to have a child? Or would the hypothetical school for parents told me to stick with kittens? March 20 Rocky, you met your matchNow somewhere in the black mountain hills of dakota, there lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon...
Alabama, home to wild turkeys, giant cockroaches and possum (oh, how I'd love to casually toss a man-bashing comment in here, but I gave that up for lent. I am, however, thinking of one). This morning at work, I saw my first raccooon since moving here. A cute little adolescent, he was scared, cowering behind empty cola cans in this dumpster in front of our building. I was a tad more scared, until I realized what the hell was in there.*
*I might have a guilty conscience from all the jokes I make about hiding bodies in 55-gallon drums. Imagine how many co-workers I could hide in a whole dumpster... I'm guessing his midnight all-you-can-eat buffet turned to panic once he realized he was trapped in the giant metal cage. I pulled cat food out of the trunk of my car to appease him while we came up with a plan, then lowered this old wooden door so he could climb out. You can't hear her, but my friend is in the background, screeching, "Don't get too close! You'll get rabies!"
Here he is, patiently posing, while I fiddled with the controls, trying to remember which one was the zoom.
March 19 Mad about caulkSunday's To Do list:
1. finish painting the bathroom cabinet before it rains
2. go to Lowe's and find the youngest, greenest, most innocent-looking male employee and say, loudly, "I need some caulk in my shower. Can you help me?"
Sometimes it's just the little things. March 17 Erin go braugh(less)"St. Patrick's Day is for amateurs."
- grandma Hope
Remember that name.
My aunt Erin, the eleventh of twelve kids born to my extremely poor farming/drinking prolific grandparents, recently finished writing her first book. Not all of her siblings were completely supportive, especially regarding the chapters revolving around my grandmother's sanity hearing, but her childhood voice had something to say. The chapter I read had all the right ingredients: a driving lesson, a bottle of whiskey, and a hit and run at the police station. She decided to publish the book (herself), and give copies to all of us. What an amazing legacy to leave behind (I suppose I'll leave my son this blog, ha!).
Turns out her memoirs were so great that when a publishing company saw the manuscript, they told her it was a bestseller, and offered to pay HER to sell the book, scheduled to hit the bookshelves in February 2007. I am so. damn. proud.
I'll be selling autographed copies, for a slight fee, of course.
 Sign up early. March 15 Watching the world pass by (Yes, my window sills are only a few inches off the floor - perfect height for quickly-growing-but-still-short-legged pets). March 13 How does one go about getting banned from Lowe's??Hypothesis: the smaller the project, the more furniture I'll have in my driveway waiting to be crackled.
Some mildew on the bathroom wall. Relatively small and easy to fix, I assume, as I head off to Lowe's to pick up some mildew remover. Unfortunately, their ingenious floor plan means it's not possible to leave the store without passing through paint and plants.
Mildew cleaner (focus, focus...).
I really should pick up some paint for the bathroom, to freshen it up a bit, since I'm here. First I'll have to patch a few small holes in the wall, then the ceiling, where a piece of the popcorn ceiling fell off (it's also moist, not a good sign as far as the roof goes, but I'll have someone come look at that later). Oh, yeah, and the hole in the living room from where the carpet installer had taken a gash out of the wall? I should fix that, too, since I'll have the joint compound and trowel tools. My dark wood bathroom cabinet, which I never did care for, is going to look out of place now, but I can't afford a new one, so I'll just take off the doors and paint it...it'll need new hardware.
I find what I need, plus some Tuscan accents paint for my living room (to cover the new patch) and a trailing ivy. I return home, move the bookshelves out of the way, and decide to try cackling them since they're already emptied out. The primer is on the bedroom walls, there's a thick layer of dust in the bathroom from sanding the patches and I'm about to start painting the living room.
Now what did I do with that mildew cleaner...? March 10 Ruby red slippersAveraging more than one move per year of my life (46 times), I am a self-proclaimed expert (or not). At the risk of being redundant, I was usually in a new state, or country, without friends or a job, craving home, where livin' was easy. As soon as my then-husband would leave for Korea or Bosnia, etc., I would pack/leave the crap and move back to Michigan. Well, until he started buying me nice houses in an effort to curb my homeward bound navigation system.
My father emailed tonight, writing "the point is to move on, and collect the past. A Death does that automatically." He suggested I rent out my house, move back to northern Michigan and go to Pharmacy school - we could work out the specifics later. As tempting as that sounds, "home" is not the oasis I once thought and packing up a U-Haul to transplant roots just means I'll be lonely someplace else.
Perhaps this little girl has finally grown up: home is where the cats are. March 08 It was only once...and it didn't mean anything...and I'm sure I won't do it again.I should have known better, but I strayed to MySpace, home of the sexual deviants and superficial teenage bloggers, because my sister and friend from work were there. Well, not so much "there", since all you do is put up photos of yourself and people flock to be your "friend", but they had profiles (the scam is that you can't even leave comments unless you sign up for your own). No one writes much of anything...I guess the point is to have the coolest background or song playing. And the next time I want to be ignored, remind me to go to my family group space.
I did, however, snag a great survey before I set the curtains on fire and slammed the door:
March 07 Livin' la vida aguaMy son started doing his own laundry a few years ago because I wasn't doing it correctly. Clothes inside out, low heat on the dryer, specific hangers and special detergents so his darks wouldn't fade (this was during his black t-shirt phase). FINE! Do it your-damn-self!
Waiting for Mr. Joan Crawford to finish his laundry was annoying the crap out of me last weekend, so I used my impatient mother voice and asked what was taking so long. "Mom," he said, looking at me like I was an absolute moron. "The labels say 'wash separately'."
Sure enough, nine brightly-colored, individually-washed polo shirts were hanging on my kitchen curtain rods, air-drying. I think the local water company should, at the very least, name a department after me.
March 05 Irish MafiaGenetics 101. I've had the class, loved it and understood the concepts. Two parents, two sets of chromosomes, two distinct heritages (unless you live in southern Alabama, of course). Much to my mother's chagrin, I have only ever thought of myself as part of my dad's large Irish family. I felt accepted, that I belonged to something larger than myself. Always.
My grandma Hope had twelve kids, saying they'd all be souls in shoeboxes if it wasn't for her. They had tough lives, shared adversity, came together and proudly wore our last name as a badge of honor. The pride has overflowed to the 2nd and 3rd generations as well, as we grew up within this extended family structure. We have our own Yahoo group, and I will always consider myself "cousin #7" from our birth ranking.
My ex- used to tell me that part of getting married and starting a new life involved leaving one family behind...starting and accepting a fresh identity with a new family unit. I was never able to take that step, instead clinging to family and my maiden name as part and parcel of who I am.
I've lost an aunt and a cousin over the span of fourteen months (between alcohol and heart defects, life expectancy seems to be rather low in this clan) and two uncles, who were Marines in Vietnam, were diagnosed with cancer. One thing I've learned is that I need to connect with and embrace my living loved ones now, while I have the opportunity (also that condolences is spelled with an 'e' and that my co-workers are officially the least sympathetic/empathetic people I've ever known).
Thank you all for the support and kind words. |
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