Mamarati

Are the Republicans trying to ride on the wave of pride leftover from the Olympics or something? Do they know they aren’t campaigning in China? It’s really weird to me to see all that chanting start up. Ummm, we’re all Americans here. I think no matter what side of the issues you are on, most of us just want what’s best for the country.

I don’t know, I think there are enough things that we disagree on that we don’t need to add a fake thing. It’s strangely alienating.

Now, I said I was going to talk more about politics, because it’s a pretty big part of life in this household. But… this is a conversation so large and complex, I just don’t think I can even begin.

I will try, though. I always think it must be nice for those people who are absolutely 100 percent sure of how they feel or believe about anything. I’m not that way. There are very few issues that are black and white for me. And there is no platform that I am 100 percent behind. I lean lately more toward the Democratic party not so much because of what they are but what they aren’t. And because of who I am right now. And because it’s one of the few two choices out there.

I think it’s really unfair that a candidate has to line up with a party so completely. There are very few say, Republicans that are pro-choice. Or Democrats that are against choice. A few. But it’s like so much hinges on that issue, for example. And if you believe the opposite way of how you’re “supposed” to for your party, it’s like you’re some kind of traitor instead of some kind of person who has come to a different conclusion about a thing. It’s like you’re forced into believing (or at least saying you believe) a certain way.

And I think that’s terrible. And it’s so terribly dishonest. And it makes the media coverage of things like elections or crises a big lie. You see these spokespersons and pundits up there one minute talking about how much they love McCain and think he made a great choice about picking Palin, and they’re all smiles and joy and bubbling with support. Then you go off camera and, Oops, open mic, and the story is completely different. They’re saying the exact opposite and slamming his choice.

And then there’s all this fakery about how we shouldn’t talk about Palin because she’s a woman, we shouldn’t talk about her being a mom. We shouldn’t talk about her kids. We shouldn’t talk about her pregnant teen. We shouldn’t question whether she can do both things. That’s anti-woman. Look how hard we’ve fought for blah blah blah blah.

No. Anyone who says we shouldn’t be discussing these things can just go on and stop talking about them. But for me, I will continue to talk about these things. Because some of these things are things we haven’t been talking about and quite frankly they are just the conversations we need to have. Can we, as women, as mothers, balance it all? Can we do it all? Are we superwomen?

I mean, you can continue to be a martyr if you want and you can say bring on the challenges. Bring on the adversity. Make it hard, as hard as you can. Don’t give me any slack just because I’m a woman or a mother. To that, I say NO. We do need to be protected on the job against discrimination. WHY? Because discrimination against moms happens. We do need privacy and more breaks for pumping milk. WHY? Because not everyone wants to feed their kid formula and because that’s how breastfeeding works. Supply and demand. We do need flexible work hours. It’s not a 9-to-5 world any more and why should it be anyway? It would help more than just moms, it would ease traffic burdens and energy costs, too. We do need flexibility about where to work. Because not every job requires my butt to be sitting in a seat in an office somewhere when I could be doing it (and probably even more efficiently) at home, thus reducing child care costs, etc.

So, with this Palin stuff, I am afraid that some people are going to get this idea that, WOW, here’s this powerful woman and she’s doing it all. How amazing. If she can do it, anyone can do it. She went back to work just days after having a baby. So you can back to work just days after having a baby. She got on the plane when her water had broken, so you can, too. She has five kids and is going to try and be the Vice President, so what’s your problem that you can’t work a few hours or 20 of overtime?

Know what I mean? And I’m sorry, she may have that small-town background, but make no mistake that what she’s doing now and what she’s been doing for the past few years is not at all middle class. I don’t know too many poor folks or even middle class folks that can afford a nanny and a housekeeper. I also know that most families don’t have kids spread out that far apart where the teens can take care of the babies and younger kids. Most of us do not have child care that is so flexible we could leave the house at a moment’s notice without completely disrupting our kids every time. Most of us do not have husbands that stay home with our kids.

Of all the women that I know with kids who also work, very few of them have husbands that do a significant portion of things like taking care of the kids or taking care of stuff around the house like cooking or cleaning. Certainly nothing like half of it even though they may be working as many or more hours than their husbands. There are exceptions to this, of course, but not an overwhelming amount. Not many of their husbands woke up in the night with their babies or do laundry regularly or sweep, mop, dust… and very few cook regularly, plan the meals or shop for the food. If the kids are sick and someone needs to stay home with the kids, most of the time it’s mom. If the kids need to go to the doctor, it’s probably mom that takes them. And this goes beyond just the people I know, too. I mean, my kid has tons of health issues, and when we’re sitting at the allergy shot clinic, it’s 98 percent moms with the kids. Ditto all the other doctor’s appointments. This is how it works in my neighborhood.

So, the expectation that moms are just so wonderful and they can do anything and they can balance and juggle it all… that’s all sweet and quaint. But it’s not true. There’s a lot of sacrifice in there and a lot of suffering and resentfulness and guilt and we need to keep talking about it so it can get better. Of course motherhood without having an outside job is full of times of sacrifice and suffering and whatnot, I’m just saying that we don’t all have to put on this stoicism and run around like a bunch of friggin’ martyrs when we can talk about it, hash it all out and figure out what can make it better for women and for their kids and families overall. For society overall. I know many of us would like a little more joy and a little less hardship and I think we can get that if we keep this conversation going and not act like it’s taboo or it’s going to collapse everything that women have worked so hard for. Give me a break. We’re still working hard. Palin is not evidence that we’ve arrived, by far. Hillary isn’t either.

So, in short, regarding the working mom thing, I don’t think that anyone should confuse what Palin is doing with what working moms are doing. Palin is making sacrifices that are above and beyond what should be EXPECTED of a working mother. I’m sure she’s doing it because she feels she has a calling that goes beyond what she feels called to do directly for her family. Don’t kid yourself, no matter what you hear in the media… She knows that she’s not giving her family 100 percent. The only way you’d be so clueless is if you were in complete denial. BUT, that’s not to say that she doesn’t feel that what she’s doing is going to provide an even better life for them, for their kids, for their kids and generations on… there’s something to be said about making sacrifices now for huge change for the future.

But for your average working mom, that’s not what’s happening. And the support network that Palin has in place does not one iota resemble what that everyday working mom has to contend with. And the EXPECTATION should not be the same. It doesn’t even compare. And of course I realize that you can work and still be a good mom. But I also know that you can work and be a mom who is doing her best but is still leaving a lot to be desired in the parenting arena, whether you realize it or not. And I realize, too, that sometimes, these are the sacrifices that have to be made because food has to be on the table and a roof has to be over your heads. But I’m also saying that not talking about it and pretending that everything is perfect and fine — that’s not going to bring about any changes.

We have come a long way, but we need to keep going. When I was growing up, for example, and I lived with my dad and step-mom… there were a variety of tough things going on. I had lots of emotional problems, my mom was an alcoholic and I couldn’t live with her any more after the divorce, we had a big family (13 kids) that was just full of drama all the time… I could go on and on. My dad would leave the house before I ever woke up. He would get home many times after I’d gone to bed. My step-mom worked a split shift as a waitress and would be in bed or getting ready for work when I got up to go to school and would sometimes work till late in the evenings and I wouldn’t see her either. They were so tired when I did see them that they hardly had the energy to deal with me. I was the baby of the family so I’m not sure they had the energy left to deal with me anyway. On the weekends, she would still work or they would do housework, yard work or do their own thing. My dad was obsessed with our ginormous yard. It looked like a friggin’ golf course. His battle with moles is the stuff of legend. When I came home from school and let myself in the door (from about 2nd grade on) I was responsible for myself. I could wake up in the morning and roll off the side of my bed between it and the wall and my parents would think I’d gone to school. I could then go play in the woods all day long. Maybe that’s typical for a teen to do once in a while. No, I was doing this from 4th grade on. In 5th grade, I was in the office almost every day getting swats and I never did my homework. I was so clueless in math, so behind in it that when I looked at my assignments it was like trying to read a foreign language.

OK… my parents didn’t even know 99 percent of this stuff. And half the calls they got from the school they just ignored. Were my parents neglectful? Absolutely. But then how much choice did they have then when they had to stay afloat and my dad was an criminal defense attorney and could not cancel people’s court dates and he always had to be somewhere meeting with a client… and my stepmom would lose her job if she took time off to deal with me. This was the reality. Were they good parents? Actually, no. They weren’t. That is also reality. There was no one for me to talk to about my problems. No one told me about my period. No one explained the world to me. No one cared for me. No one noticed if I didn’t take a bath for a month. No one helped me recover from failing grades. No one noticed I had asthma or allergies. No one was happy to see me in the morning or at the end of the day. Hell, half the time I didn’t even see anyone so wouldn’t know if they were happy to see me or not.

I try to be forgiving and understanding when I look back at that time, but it’s not easy, really. I look at the sacrifices and I’m not sure what they were all for. They weren’t for me. I didn’t need that big house or those 8 acres of land. I didn’t need fancy lighting fixtures or a giant pond or a new Ford Mustang or plastic surgery or 50 trees to line the driveway. I needed an inhaler, an antihistamine and some help with my homework. I needed someone’s time.

I realize that my upbringing may not have been the most typical, but I know I’m not alone. And the more Burby parents can argue that they do get to spend time with their kids and that they do meet all their needs. Awesome. And other parents will argue that they may not meet all their needs but that they try their best. WooHoo. And there are other parents who are trapped in an existence that is so bleak, working two or more jobs or working and going to school and barely making ends meet and I don’t know what they will say… And I don’t know what to say to them. But I do know that what I won’t say is, “Hey, shut up. We don’t talk about this issue. You suck it up and deal with it because you’re a woman and this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

There are so many different levels here and to deny the level another person is on is just nuts. I realize I’m rambling at this point, but hey, like I said… it’s complex. And there is no black and white. And your life is not someone else’s life so you should reserve your meanness and harsh judgment… but you should never stop talking about it or scrutinizing it or rolling it over and over in your mind to try to figure out what it all means. Because there is no one truth to this all. And it’s certainly not anything at all like what you see on either end of the political spectrum. Take down your defenses and look deep down inside and think about what you really want for your life and what you really want for your kids, for your sons and daughters… for their friends and their friend’s mothers. And don’t ever stop talking about it.

Jacob made this video Sunday during the birthing.

Description:

Well, we suspected that the stray orange thing we’ve been feeding might be pregnant for a while now. She is just so small, though and I don’t think that we got a good enough look at her while she was still skinny (we started taking care of her in earnest probably right as she went into heat if all the noise outside and strange cats hanging around was any indication).

At any rate, she came inside the other night (Thursday) after I put food on the porch and was acting crazy. Would not leave my side and was my new best friend. She came and laid on the couch between me and my boyfriend (odd!) and we had all the lights out watching LOST. I looked down because she was licking so much and there was a dead little kitten. If she hadn’t been licking like that I would never have known!

For the next three days, she was glued to my side, didn’t eat, didn’t want to go outside, meowing at me a lot… and then Sunday, she had two more. These two were bigger than the first one (which was so small, probably didn’t weigh an ounce) but one was smaller than the other. It’s the one in this movie (she hadn’t birthed the third one yet) and it died last night after much effort to get him warmed up enough to eat. The third one is much stronger and eating well now so maybe he’ll make it. I guess both cats are going to be ours now.

I wish I had taken her to the SPCA, but there are so many cats around here and I never know who belongs where. Nobody tags their cats in my neighborhood. Plus, I have taken a few cats there and they always give me the guilt trip and make me feel like crap that I can’t take care of the 8 bajillion cats around here in my 900 square foot house.

Our “real” cat, of course, never goes outside and is fixed… but in this neighborhood I think that people look at that as weird and unnatural for cats. It aggravates me because this particular cat, not fixed, not flea treated, worms all over her leg fur, showed up at our house and was sleeping on the railing of our chain link fence to get away from the fleas and she had hardly any hair — she was pulling it all out and had scabs all over every inch of her. We went and got some flea stuff but didn’t want to get too involved because we weren’t sure where she belonged.

Anyway, this has been another sad chapter in cat history on our street. Not so sad for my son, however, since he’s been wanting to call Orange Thing ours for a while now and of course he’s wanted a kitten since the dawn of time. I was just hoping we would get to rescue a kitten from Petsmart some Caturday down the road instead of it happening like this. At any rate… cats. They teach you about life, love, death, good times and bad times, don’t they?

I have a lot of reading this semester. I’m only going to be able to see about an inch in front of my face when this is all over. I have to remember to look away. Focus. All those eye exercises you’re supposed to do when you’re on the computer and read too much.

I don’t have much time to make a long post, but let me get some random thoughts out of my head…

There’s been a flu outbreak over at J’s Dad’s house. This is on top of the MRSA that his dad has. I’m not kidding. MRSA.

So, J has been over here hopefully waiting it out. He was sick last week, but it was mainly just sniffles and snot and a headache. He’s about 99 percent better now, so I’m hoping that he will avoid this flu. We’ve had enough illness. Of course, as soon as it’s done over there, J will pick it up at school and then it will go around here. That would be about the Murphy’s Law way, no?

I’m still cold. We figured out the science behind relative humidity and the fact that there is no humidity in this house, relative or otherwise. Now we just have to settle on a humidifier, which we haven’t done. I almost burned up a pot boiling water and of course that’s a huge electricity waster. But that was experimental anyway. We just wanted to see if it would actually make me feel any warmer without changing the thermostat and it did. Bonus: No nosebleeds in a week and my eyeballs don’t feel like crunchy little cheese puff balls. Bad news: Until we purchase a humidifier, I continue to feel frozen and miserable.

I think the stray orange cat that has been hanging around is pregnant. She seemed to be entertaining some noisy suitors in the last couple of weeks and now she’s puking every day and is in love mode 24 / 7. I wish I’d taken her to the SPCA or something, but I kept holding out hope that the neighbors who may or may not be her owners would step up to the plate. I don’t know why I thought this, though, because they don’t even have electricity or running water half the time. Why do I think they can take care of a cat? I just really try to have faith in people when given the chance.

Plus, around here, it’s like cat central. And I never know who owns any cat. Except Hopper because he actually wears his tags and I’ve met his people. But the other cats in the neighborhood roam free and tagless and I never see them emerging from any home or hanging out at any particular place regularly. Truth be told, they all hang out here. So, it’s hard to just say, OK, you’re going to the SPCA so you can go to a good home instead of roaming around here catch as catch can. But like, the grey guy that was hanging around all last year… I thought he was a stray maybe and there were several times I thought about taking him in. Come to find out, he belongs like 10 houses down and around a corner along with 2 other grey cats just like him. I’m glad I didn’t take him.

I have taken a few though, and they’ve all originated from that one cursed house. Just like I believe this orange one did.

More later, I need to go get the boy and mail some of my Amazon stuff off.

Mental note to self, talk about Jacob taking the personality test. Nuts. Completely nuts.

Sometimes I look at my blog drafts and I just laugh my ass off.

I have no idea what I am thinking some days when a topic catches my eye.

Anyway… did I mention that I’m feeling more normal these days? I mean, with my arm and whatnot. I guess I’m going to be all right. I say this and yet I’m not sure I fully believe it. I still recoil at the slightest touch to my arm and am as protective of it as ever. I do realize that it could blow out at some point, but I guess I’m feeling more and more like nothing I do is going to make that happen. I know what it is capable of now. I’m aware of its limits. I think I’m still afraid what someone else might accidentally do to it, however.

The scar is fading a bit, which is nice, I guess. I don’t really care, I suppose. Once in a while I get a reaction out of someone who sees it, not expecting it.

You look at giant scars quite differently after you get one of your own.

I’m busy as ever with school about to start, parenting, work, etc. I started another blog (food related) because I need that like I need another whole in my head. In some way, though, it’s what is consuming my life right now. Food. So I figured I better harness that energy and maybe use it to propel me back into the habit of doing a better job on my other blogs. I fell out of the habit of daily blogging here and at work after the fall and now that I’m feeling better I haven’t had the discipline to get the habit established again. I know part of that has to do with Jacob and everything that’s been going on with him in the last year… but now that he’s starting to see some relief from the surgeries and the allergy shots and the diet… I feel like I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. Plus it’s made such a difference in his behavior and his ability to focus at school (meaning no more hours and hours of prodding him to do his homework every single night) so I am finding I have more time to work on “me” things.

It feels kind of awesome, really… if I could just get a groove going again.

–

In other news, I think the orange stray that comes around our house is in heat. She’s running around making all this racket and it has the grey stray (which by the way, I found out isn’t a stray, he actually has a home) and other cats hanging around the house and fighting. Last night at about 2am they started up in the driveway next door and that woke SO up. He was yelling out the window and threw a pitcher of water their way but they still went on and on. We ended up moving Jacob’s air purifier in here so the noise would drown them out.

They were at it again this morning.

I’ve got to catch her and get her to the SPCA.

They probably think I’m nuts, bringing them cats all the time. It makes me feel so bad, but at least they’re going to homes where they will get taken care of instead of depending on the random kindness of the neighborhood. That may or may not be there depending on the day… I told SO that this time he’s going to have to handle it.

I have no idea where my cord is. Damnation. My camera cord, that is. I took some pictures recently and I know there was one that I wanted to get on here.

I will worry about it later.

I am going to have to get up and get my little blog-about cheat sheet…. but the cat is so cozy right next to me and I am all wrapped up burrito style in my fish blanket…

Maybe I can get the boyfriend to go in there and get it for me. He’s up doing laundry anyway.

That or in 11 minutes when my battery is out and I have to get the power cord, I will get it.

I heard a cute exchange between two kids about 5 and 6 today at Lowe’s. The boy says, “Aren’t these things supposed to be in the jungle?”

The girl: “What are you talking about?”

The boy: “These chimpanzees.”

The girl, rolling her eyes in the most exasperated girly way: “They’re called pansies not chimpanzees!”

I just thought that was too cute.

I also saw a cute exchange between a girl and her grandma in the bathroom… it was like a freezer in there and the girl was telling her grandma to stand under the vent to feel how cold it was and she was so enthusiastic about it (the grandma) and hooping and hollaring standing under it. Then the little girl was using the hand dryer and making her hair do crazy things and the grandma was just laughing at her, like serious belly laughing. And then they trotted off together arm in arm to find grandpa and look at cabinets.

It was really sweet.

I miss that I didn’t have ties like this to family ever. A little with my grandma when I was very young… she would take me to garage sales and I had a lot of fun at her house, but then…

nothing. Nothing really after about the age of 7 or 8.

OK, had to get up to get my cord, so got my cheat sheet…

Not in any specific order…

We got a TV. I would link to it, but I really don’t know the specifics of it like say… the boyfriend might. He’s been researching this TV forever. It was like 3 grand or something the first time I think he showed it to me and he’s been threatening to buy it for a while. If it ever got below a thousand dollars, he said he’d buy it.

So we’re sitting here on a Saturday morning and he’s going through the sales flyers and low and behold, he announces that we have to go to Fry’s because the TV is $999. (Well that is below a thousand, right?)

I am beside myself with anguish. Oh what horror. Fry’s. I hate going there, please don’t subject me to that trauma, I say.

No, that is not at all what I say. I say something more like, let me just call David and get some clothes on and I’ll meet you at the car.

I love Fry’s. They have much fun geek stuff there and it is like a very special field trip. We’ve been going to a fancy one lately that has coffee, so that’s even more of a bonus.

So, then we discover that it’s cheaper at Best Buy, so we decide to go there. We go to one near our house, but they only have the display model, so we have them look at another one and they find one that is reported to have two in stock so we head there. The two they have in stock are also floor models, so we head to yet another, after confirming that they have one in the damn box.

We waste some time sitting in massage chairs, first, though.

Then we get to the third one and low and behold, it is there, in a box, fresh and shiny and new and waiting for us.

We have it hauled out to the car and find that it won’t fit in the back of the Outback. They cut the top of the box off and it goes in. Boyfriend drives and David rides in the front and I have to ride smooshed up against the back window. I felt like a kid again. You know, back when it was not against the law to throw your kids in the back of a station wagon…

We decide we need a cord of some sort to ensure proper installation of the TV, so we go to Fry’s anyway. I don’t care if we really need the cord or not, I’m just happy that we will be going to Fry’s after all.

We pick up the cord for way less than seems possible and I pick up Kirby Canvas Curse for the DS (which is completely awesome) and David picks up a game as well (I can’t remember what game it was that day… there are so many game buying days, aren’t there? We’re really pretty bad about that.)

We go outside and…

The car won’t start.

For real. The car that holds the 190 pound TV is sitting in the Fry’s parking lot and won’t start. And it’s hot and steamy in the car. And I’m pissed.

Here is the deal with my car. Someone who owned the car before me installed an anti-theft system. And it’s like a little code.

To start the car you have to first pull on the brights, push in the clutch and then turn the key. The brights have to be pulled the whole time this is going on. Sometimes, it trips if you don’t do it just so. It’s very finicky. Once it’s tripped, you have to reset it and try again. Resetting it is a mystery. It involves…

I’m not really sure. Sometimes you can mess with the door locks and the ignition. Sometimes you can roll the windows up and down. Sometimes you can mess with the hatch. Sometimes you can disconnect the battery. Sometimes you can say a special prayer and light a candle. Hell, I don’t really know. I mean, at one time or other, all of those things have either worked or not.

It’s like my car runs on Windows.

It’s just that evil.

So we go back into Fry’s and leave the battery disconnected (this after my boyfriend had to go back in to buy a set of sockets to even disconnect the thing in the first place) and I drink the rest of my coffee and we mess around with the massage chairs. (The massage chairs at Best Buy were way better, fyi.)

We go back out and it doesn’t start after hooking the battery back up, but then my boyfriend starts bouncing up and down on the hood and I turn the key and it starts. Yay.

I get back in my smoosh position in the wayback and off we go.

We get home and carry in the thing, which takes all three of us and my boyfriend has a good time hooking up all the wires, because that’s what he lives to do… drive fast and hook shit up…

And since then, I have had some of the best video game playing moments of my life.

And we got to watch Lost in HD this week, which would have been good, except it went so fast that I hardly had time to notice all the little things like how you can really see Kate’s freckles.

So there’s the TV story. It’s so monstrous in our little living room, but holy cow it’s a beautiful thing. I’m watching way too much TV these days.

And we’re getting a DVR because I’m all addicted to Grey’s Anatomy and Lost, of course, and now, thanks to David and a marathon where I stayed up till 5:30 in the morning watching on DVD two entire seasons that I missed: The Office.

I have even sunk so low as to buy the episodes I’ve missed this season on iTunes. I even watched all the episodes with commentary. I love this show.

It’s scary, the Dwight character… OMG, he is so my brother. My brother is just a freak who is totally not in touch with reality. I see Dwight doing stuff and I am like almost sick to my stomach with how much he is like my brother. It’s nuts. Especially since my sister and I were just going on and on about how he’s so unlike any person we’ve ever known in our lives, and how we were glad, though, because it means there aren’t other people like him out there… because that would just be truly scary.

And now, I realize, there has to be someone out there that is just like him because they’ve modeled an entire TV character after him.

I don’t want to know who that is, but I feel for all the people who are forced to interact with him.

I wish I could “expose” myself here and point you to my brother’s blog. He doesn’t know I know where it is… but you would just double over at the asinine stuff he writes in there. And he works in customer service for a computer store (not Fry’s, btw, thankfully or I would have to stop going there knowing they hired jackasses like him) and he writes about his customers in his blog like they are the lowest form of life ever.

Now, I totally get those tech support blogs that talk about the insane phone calls they get from people… but this is different. Different because he thinks he actually knows something… it’s like the highest form of hipocrisy I’ve ever seen.

Bleh. I don’t even want to get started on that. I could go on for days.

Other news… [protect]

Jacob… he’s done some funny stuff lately.

First, there was the lunch issue. He’s been on Adderall for a couple of years. There is a long entry to come about that whole issue, but I am not ready for it yet… suffice to say it will come.

At any rate, I’ve been worried about his weight for a while because it decreases his appetite and he’s such a small guy anyway. Now, I’ve taken him off the meds and wow, is he a different child. Miracle of all miracles and I’m so glad. Like I said, more about that later…

So, now he is eating like a haus and he’s tired of all the bagged lunches and loves the school food. I’m not extremely picky about what he eats, either, since he weighs like 5 pounds and you can see every rib he’s got. So if he wants to eat the school food and he will eat it (key word being WILL) then I’m all for it. So I tell him that I will put money in his account and he can eat school lunch every day. He’s excited about this.

So, there’s this system online where you can pay and it will email you when the balance reaches whatever you set. I set it at like 8 and 4 bucks. I get an email that it’s at 8 bucks… but I’m confused, because I just put 35 bucks in the account like a week ago. Then, the next day I get an email that it’s at 4 bucks.

I’m like, what the ?

So I go online to see what the deal is and I see where you can be all Big Brother like and check what your kid is eating. I look, and every day he’s got his lunch on there which is like 2 bucks and then he has alacarte [sic] which is $1.

?

What is he buying every day in addition to his lunch that is $1? It doesn’t specifically say…

So I ask him what he had for lunch that day and he’s like, pizza or burritos or chicken nuggets or whatever it was that day… and I’m like, is that it? And he’s like yeah.

So I ask him again when we get home and he confesses that it’s cookies.

But not just any cookies… these are the best cookies ever. They are crispy around the edge and soft in the middle and they’re “even better than yours” he tells me.

Nice. That’s going to win my heart and mind. That’s going to make me want to let you spend an extra dollar every day.

So I go to lunch with him that week to see about these cookies and I don’t know if you’ve ever had my cookies, but let me tell you — they are delicious. And these are not my cookies at all.

He tells me that I just came on a bad day.

Mmmhmmm. I tell him to stop buying so many damn cookies. One pack is 50 cents, and that’s as far as I’m willing to go.

So that’s settled, right?

Until he comes to me the other day with $3 of his own money and gives it to me and I’m like, what is that for? And he tells me that it’s for cookies. Because he “may have” gotten more than he was supposed to on a couple of days.

Funny.

I don’t care about the actual cookie consumption, I mean, I know he eats the rest of his food, too… it was the budgetary thing I was concerned about… so I thought it was cute that he knew to bring me some of his own money and take responsibility for that act.

Now, the online system has changed and is actually showing what they buy… I guess I wasn’t the only parent who was curious about how the funds ran out so quickly… so here’s the rundown:

09/07/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

09/08/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    CHIPS/CRACKERS - $0.50  

09/11/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/12/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    BAKED CAKE - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/13/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/14/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/15/2006         Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/18/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

09/19/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/20/2006         

    Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

09/25/2006      Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50  

09/27/2006        Lunch - $1.75  

09/28/2006        Lunch - $1.75  

    ICE CREAM - ALL TYPES - $0.50  

09/29/2006      Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

10/02/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)  

10/03/2006          Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50  

10/04/2006        Lunch - $1.75  

    2 - 1oz cookies - $0.50 (x 2)

I hope the pre tag works… I have no idea if that is still compliant these days…

Ok, so then last week, he comes out of school and he’s been crying… he’s so upset and I ask him what’s wrong and he says that he has detention.

I say why, and he says that he got his name taken twice and he said something he wasn’t supposed to.

JUST GREAT, I think.

Yes, I cuss like a sailor, (I’m working on it!!!!) so, of course I’m wondering what it could have been that he said… did he say clusterfuck? bullshit? bitchass? hot diggety damn? jackass? I mean, there are so many options here… my mind is just racing.

So I say, well, let’s go talk to the teacher about this so I know just what it is that I should be concerned about…

She says that he said buttload. Buttload.

Phew. My mind is at ease. I can handle buttload.

He also constructed one of those paper popper things (learn how to make your own here: http://nerds.unl.edu/pages/sciencedemos/paper%20popper/pics.htm)

And he was popping it after the teacher had told him to stop. That peeves me way more than buttload, I have to say. Not the popper part, because those are cool and paper manipulation helps him express his creativity and further hone his fine motor skill. No, it’s the doing something after someone told you to STOP IT that I am concerned about. This is a problem we have been working on since like, the dawn of time.

I noticed that while I was talking to the teacher, she seemed to be smirking a little at telling me he said buttload. I note this and promise self to get full story from Jacob when we get in the car.

So here is how it went down…

They were taking these benchmarking tests (in math) for the oh-so-lovely TAKS and the teacher asked him how he thought he did and he said “I think I probably missed a buttload of questions.” The teacher told him that wasn’t appropriate. No big deal.

But then, later in the day, in English class, the teacher asks the kids if anyone can name a compound word. So Jacob volunteers and she calls on him and he says, of course, “buttload.” And the class busts out in riotous laughter… and she takes Jacob’s name.

I resist the urge to wet myself laughing in the car and tell him that if a teacher tells him it’s not appropriate to say, then he shouldn’t say it, blah blah blah on and on. He says he didn’t mean to say it again, but he always likes to get his hand up in the air first and then when she called on him he was on the spot and it was the only word he could think of.

He continues to cry and freak out thinking that his Dad is going to like, kill him over this, but even though his Dad can be a bit uptight sometimes, I know that he will find this very humorous.

And he does. He was cracking up. Thankfully, because Jacob was really torn up about it.

So I grounded him from his video games for 3 days and he served his detention and there you go.

Of course, it doesn’t help that he overheard all four of his teachers laughing about it in the hall because even they thought it was funny… but whatever.

Fast forward, or slow forward really, to the very next damn day… and he has detention again. (sigh)

But whatever, I mean, this is a kid who got kicked out of kindergarten three times and had detention almost every day of second grade… right? I’m trying to be optimistic…

So he doesn’t really know what it’s for, the detention… so I say, well, let’s go find out. He knew that one time his name got taken was for turning around in his desk when he wasn’t supposed to and he’d been told to face the front… so we just had to find out what the other offense was from the librarian.

So, we get to the library, and she’s all… well, ummm… you see… I really hated to do it, because I don’t generally like to give detention to kids for… umm… READING… but he was reading… and umm… he was supposed to be watching the movie.

My thoughts? Well, it is a library. And well, how about you don’t let them check out books that they are all excited about and then make them hold them on their laps while they are supposed to be watching a movie. How about check the books out after the movie? But whatever. He should have some self-control, right? So I say thanks and look at Jacob all stern like I mean it and we leave.

So I say, what was the movie about? And he’s all… it’s about the Dewey Decimal System. And I already know all that stuff and I was bored and I had a WWII book and…

Yes, nuff said. I mean, this child is no stranger to the library, right? And when I homeschooled him last year we went all over the Dewey Decimal System and he knows all the numbers and where to find everything and… so I can see his point.

But still, he should have listened to the librarian. She has a master’s degree, you know? Haha.

(I don’t have this on my list, but I need to talk about that, too… school. my school, I mean.)

So he did his detention and continued his groundenation and there was that.

I just thought it was so rich that he got a detention for reading in the library. Who does that happen to?

This is turning out to be the longest entry ever, eh?

So, one more thing about Jacob… this really pissed me off. I would have given him detention for this… Brandon comes over and he’s my Big Brother (the TV show) buddy. But he hasn’t watched the season finale yet. So we’re sitting here and Jacob is sitting with us and I’m like, OK, so you don’t want me to tell you what happens? And he’s like, NO, I don’t want to know who won because I haven’t seen it yet.

And Jacob blurts out, “Well, Mike won it.”

Just like that.

I thought I was going to smack him down. OMG. So I sent him to his room and was apologizing profusely to Brandon… ugh. I hate that. And we’ve talked about this since the dawn of time as well… about not ruining a movie or TV show for someone when you’ve already seen it. He’s turning out to be one of those talkers, and I can’t have that! You know, those people who talk all through a show or movie, who are all, where’s he going? what did she say? or when they’ve already seen it, they’re like… oh watch this it’s so funny, he says blah blah blah and then the place blows up. Or like, he’ll describe an entire movie or book by its ending. Oh, the book where the man flies off to the moon in the end and leaves the whole world behind? Is that the book you haven’t read?

I’ve got to break him of this habit or he’s gonna be “that guy.”

No one likes “that guy.”

On another note, I’m really sad that James didn’t win Big Brother. I liked him a lot. I liked his game. He was funny.

—-

I see on my notes I need to talk about Christina’s computer. She has Windows and she has also lived with a few guys throughout the life of this computer. These guys like to look at porn, and so of course, as a result, her computer is just littered with spyware and all manner of maliciousness. She brought it over for the boyfriend to fix and we’re going through and getting rid of all the crap she doesn’t need… and we find a folder on there that belongs to her ex-boyfriend… this guy lived with us when we were roomies and when my boyfriend was staying (not ever going back to his apartment) and it was like… a hell, all of us in that apartment, because he’s one of those loud, know-it-all fratdaddy types… and also because no one knew how to clean up after themselves or load a dishwasher correctly… but whatever. I digress… It really wasn’t that bad, but it was just like — not much square footage and lots of people and animals and everyone with a different schedule, etc.

So, like, I know this guy, is what I’m saying.

Or I think I do… My boyfriend opens up one of the movies just for shits and grins and it’s a dog and a woman… OMG, I about flipped out. You hear about these things, and it’s shocking enough to hear about them and know that this goes on in the world, but this was the first real, moving picture moment that I ever had of some barnyard porn and it freaked me out. I wanted to go scrub my eyeballs. It was horrifying.

And then it took a minute for it to sink in that this guy used to live in my apartment. Ick. Eww.

And the titles of all the movies were out there and there had to be over a hundred of the things.

And I’m not one to like… rag on someone else’s taste in porn, because everyone who looks at it has their own special flavor or whatever, no? But animals? Come on.

It was kinda funny though.

—–

Two more neighbor child stories… that I forgot to mention in my other neighbor child entry.

First, there was the English thing… I think I mentioned that I don’t really want Jacob to play with them too much and so every day after school he just says he has homework. Which is generally true, so that’s OK. He’s not lying.

One day, he was inside doing his homework and the kids were out in the front and he’d already told him he had it, and so the child with the grill was asking me when he would be done and I said I didn’t know. Then he asks me what it is that he’s doing.

Me: Math, Language, etc.

Grill: Language? What language?

Me: English.

Grill: English? Like they say over there? (And he’s pointing across the street from me, which is where my Hispanic neighbors live.)

Me: Huh?

Grill: Don’t they speak English?

Me: Ummmm, well, actually they speak Spanish.

Grill: Then who speaks English?

Me: Ummm…. you?

Grill: Oh, I don’t know.

Yeah, me either, sometimes. (sigh)

—

The other thing is this… the 3 year old… something has to be done about this and I don’t know quite what to do. He tends to not be supervised so much. Like, he’s always out in the yard by himself and he goes out in the street. And he crosses the street to the other house that they own that is mostly empty. (That’s another long story…) and he goes back and forth. Back and forth.

So, if this were any normal neighborhood, I would just go next door…

No, if this were any normal neighborhood, there wouldn’t be 3-year-old children running free in the streets with no parental supervision.

So, like, I can’t go and just say to the mother or grandmother to watch the kid. Because that would be an assault on their person. That would get my house burned down or my car keyed or, I don’t even know…

And if I call CPS, then they will for sure know it was me because I am… I just look like one of those judgmental mothers that would call CPS on someone, you know?

And if I do nothing, this kid is going to get run over and that will be so wrong and I would never live that Karma off, you know?

The other day, he ran out in the street and a big honkin’ SUV had to slam on the brakes not to hit him.

It has been better lately since I let them in the house, though. He’s been going over across the street a lot less and has been just going back and forth between their yard and my front door. Constantly. So maybe that’s a good thing. Although it is really getting annoying since he wakes me up at the asscrack of dawn banging on the door to come inside or ask me why the cat water has bugs in it or why there are so many spiders on the door or how come there is a bottle of motor oil on the porch.

I don’t know the answers to all of these things little boy. Please go back to your home. And let me sleep.

I want to put a Head Start flyer on their door. He’s old enough to go… and then he would be in a safe learning environment for at least part of the day.

—

I love Sharpies. I love the way they smell and the way they write. Especially when they are new. MMMMMmmmmmmm. Sharpies.

(that was seriously on my list, btw. Sad.)

—–

Since getting the HDTV we have signed up for Netflix again. I like movies. I like them even better on this TV.

Although now that we’ve decided to get the HD box and DVR, I’m kind of wondering if I can justify the cost of Netflix.

I don’t know.

My boyfriend says… well, we don’t get any movies on the HD box, though… we don’t have HBO or anything.

I guess that means he wants to keep Netflix and I will not worry about it any more.

—-

I am so excited about the Wii coming out. OMG I could wet my pants at the thought of downloading all those old games and all the new stuff that is going to come out.

Although, I am a bit disappointed at the Paper Mario thing. It is not going to be an RPG like the old versions of Paper Mario… it’s going to be more like the walk-through version of Super Mario Brothers.

Now, this is not to say that I will not buy the game. I will. You can be certain of this, but I will be pissed off the entire time I am playing it that it is not like my old Paper Mario… and I pray in my heart of hearts that they will come up with an RPG version…

I don’t remember if I ever told the story of Jacob erasing all the memory files on the GameCube. My mom got him this honkin’ card that holds like, more files than my hard drive, I swear… and so we have a lot of games and we’d played those lot of games a lot. LOT. Lot. And then like the dumb, easy button-loving person that I am, I let him get the Action Replay. You know, it loads cheats. Invincibility. All Shine Sprites found. Invisible carts. 999,999 bells. So on. So forth.

And then one day he’s messing with it and he erases all data on the memory card.

Everything.

Including the Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door file that I’d spent like a bajillion hours (with no cheats and no guide) working on. I was up to the final boss and hadn’t beaten her yet… I’d even cleared the Pit of 100 Trials.

It was a sad sad day in our house.

Because of this, I kind of had a sour taste in my mouth about starting a new Paper Mario file. Why, I don’t know, because it didn’t take me but like five seconds after the disaster to start winning back courses, characters and cars on Mario Kart, right? In fact, I think David and I sat down and did the whole thing in like a day…

But still, I was bitter about that single file.

Until we got the big TV. And then I’m all gung ho about playing and I stayed up several nights going through everything and it was the most fun I’d had playing a video game in a very long time…

So that’s kind of why I’m a little bitter about the Wii version not being an RPG. I want that badly.

In other video game news, I really need to play Katamari on the big TV more. I bet it will breathe new life into that one, too. All I have left on that one is a million roses. Psh. Like that’s going to happen.

—-

I have quite a collection of DS games starting…

Kirby Canvas Curse

Mario Kart

Big Brain Academy

Brain Age

Mario and Luigi Partners in Time

Animal Crossing

and Jacob has:

Starfox

Mario 64

Mario Kart

Nintendogs

Brain Age

Top Gun

So those are fun…

And he got Lego Star Wars, now that the new one has come out and it knocked the old one down to below $20. Yay. And we have been playing the crap out of that together. It is a hoot. So cute all the little Lego pieces… and if you hit your partner a few times then he can play with his head knocked off and that’s just funny.

—–

OK, so my school… the other night, my boyfriend and I were talking about what we’re going to do with the rest of our lives. It didn’t come up quite like that, all serious, but it ended up being that way.

And I have to admit, I haven’t really thought about it too much. That’s a lie. I’ve thought about it, but every time I do I start to panic and then I go into a shame spiral and have to eat a lot of chocolate and take a long bath to recover. I’m such a baby like that.

It’s school.

I have this huge chip on my shoulder about school.

I don’t even know if I’m ready to relive this whole conversation/nervous breakdown again…

It’s making me tense just thinking about it even though everything resolved quite nicely.

So..

I am so hot.

I will go cool down and then I will return to write about this. It’s the last thing on my list and it might just be deserving of an entire entry.

I remember this. I remember how writing about things is therapeutic for me because I can relive it inside my head and then I’m over it. This is what’s good for me about writing. I have to remember this every time I think I am too tired or whatever to write. That it is good for me. That it helps me move past stupid crap that is getting on my nerves way more than just talking about it or thinking about it.

It’s like once it’s written down it’s out. And then if I need to to back to it I can, because it’s there. Somewhere. Away from me and my mind. It gets it out of the rotation of thoughts that I can land on at any given time. And that’s nice. Nine times out of ten, I don’t have to go back to it. Or I may go back to it at the same time the next year or something and then it’s nice to look at it and have some different perspective. Some time, distance between me and the situation as it happened.

Remember Sammy Jenkis.

You know? I need to tattoo “write” on my body somewhere.

[/protect]

So I’ve started making myself a list of things I need to blog about, like the nerd that I am… maybe it will help. I am so scatterbrained lately.

And by lately I mean… the last few years.

First I should say I’m sitting here eating cheese turds. I fear I am going to finish them off even though we just got them yesterday after my boyfriend made a trip to Central Market, which is where the cheese turds live.

I call them this because they are really cheese curds, but the first time we got them I told Jacob he had to try these things… and he did and then he said, what are those? And I said — cheese curds. And he acted like he was going to spit out what was in his mouth… and he was all… CHEESE TURDS????

It was funny.

And it’s also evidence that my child talks with his mouth full, eh?

I know. You’re jealous that your kid couldn’t also be raised in a barn and/or by wolves…

[protect]

Speaking of children raised in barns… I may have talked before about the children next door… They are the grandchildren of my next door neighbor. They live in Alabama but sometimes come to visit at Christmas or during the summer.

This year, they showed up a couple of weeks after school started.

(Aside: It’s official — the cheese turds are gone! What can you even make with cheese turds besides poutine? I will have to research this further…)

So, yes, they showed up a few weeks after school started and I asked them what they were doing here. Seems like they would be back home. In school. But, having dabbled in homeschooling myself, I thought maybe they were getting some sort of alternative education.

No. They’re here until the first of December and are attending the neighborhood school.

Odd. Why come when school has already started and then leave right before a semester is about to end?

I leave this conversation for another day.

Some background… the mom’s special. I’ve talked to her a couple of times and she’s a real odd one. She’s like that character on SNL who is a one-upper. If you say “My son is 10″ she’ll say “My son is 11″ even though her son is probably only 7 or something. It’s the oddest thing I’ve ever seen.

The youngest boy is 3. (I’ll call him Baby.) The other two boys are in first and third grades. The first grader (I will call him Grill) used to have a grill of all silver teeth and I think his speech must have been affected by this, because you can’t understand a word he says unless you get used to talking to him. It’s like how mothers of toddlers can understand their own kids, but no one else knows what they are saying…

Anyway, now most of the silver teeth have fallen out (they were baby teeth, thank goodness) and now just two silver fangs are left.

The third grader is one of the most persistent children I have ever met in my life. (I will call him Persistent.) They always want to play with Jacob, but every time I let them in the house it’s total chaos. They’re not very well-behaved at all… And they are pushy and know little about gratitude… they want to eat me out of house and home and they touch and pick up every single thing that isn’t glued down. “What’s this?” over and over and over and over…

So, I don’t particularly want Jacob to play with them too much, and he doesn’t like to anyway. He gets really frustrated with how they handle his toys and games. So usually, when we get home after school he just says he’s got homework.

Because we do this, they haven’t actually come over since last year when they were in town. Last year, something was wrong with the sewage next door and so they kept coming over and then promptly going and pooping in my bathroom. Every time they came over, it was a poofest.

Friday, however, I thought I might see if things have changed. Plus, they don’t have a single toy over there. NOT ONE. Not a ball, not a car, nothing. They just play in the dirt all afternoon, no shirts or shoes. Except for the little one. He will have a shirt on, but no pants.

Good times.

So I’m going through all of Jacob’s old toys and thought I would give them a few. I had them out in the living room and when they come in the door, they start looking at them and I go into the kitchen to make some tea, knowing caffeine is going to be needed if I’m going to make it through this afternoon.

All of a sudden, Jacob is all… “WHAT IS THAT SMELL????”

So Persistent says, “It’s Baby’s pants. He’s poopy.”

Me — what???

Persistent — Yeah, he pooped his pants. He goes to the potty but only when he wants to and so if he poops my mom won’t change him if she don’t feel like it.

(BTW, before I let them in the house I told them to go back home and wash their hands and faces and get some shoes on… they were absolutely filthy… food and dirt and grunge all over… even so, when Baby came in the door I sent him back to wash his hands and face again, but he still came back dirty so I washed them for him…)

Me to Baby — are you poopy?

Baby — Noooooooooo.

Me — are you sure?

Baby — I not poopy.

Me — come here!

So he comes over, I lift his shirt and sure enough, his tighty whities are packed with a huge load.

Me — You go next door and have your mom change your pants and you can come back when you’re all clean.

Persistent — She ain’t gonna do it.

Lovely…

So he eventually returned and was cleaned up.

Chaos ensued with much touching and handling of things… yelling at the tops of voices, whatnot. They are hungry, so I start making some food. I ask what they had for lunch, because the little one is just chanting over and over “I’m hungry, I’m hungry.” Turns out they had cake, chips and Little Debbies.

The whole time all this is going on, the cat was hiding in the most remote part of our bedroom with her crazy cat eyes on…

About two hours later, I see the mom in the front yard looking around and hollaring for the boys.

I open the door… she sees me and asks if I’ve seen the boys.

WHAT????

They’ve been at my house for two hours, woman! Please tell me you haven’t been worried about the whereabouts of your children for two hours… including that of your youngest, a 3-year-old!

So, I send them back home. And I breathe a sigh of relief. And I think… I am not going to be so hard on Jacob in the future about his behavior, and I’m not going to worry that he’s too far outside the norm, after observing these other kids in action.

In another incident with these kids, I pulled up in the driveway and Grill was there and he said that he missed his dad…

Me — where is your dad?

Grill — He’s in prison. I miss him. He is fun and can make cool stuff.

Me — Why is he in prison?

Grill — I can’t tell you, it’s dirty.

Me — Just tell me.

Grill — no, it’s nasty.

Me — OK, nevermind, I don’t want to know.

Grill — he stuck his pee wee in somebody’s butt.

Me — Oh.

And I’m thinking, Dear… Usually people don’t go to prison for that unless it’s rape or child molestation, right? I mean, I know there are laws on the books about even having anal sex with your spouse, but if they prosecuted for just that, prisons would be overflowing and orphanages would be full of kids with no parents at home.

So I’m all… Was it somebody big like me or somebody little like you?

Grill — It was somebody big.

Me — So do you get to see him?

Grill — No, but I can write him letters or make him a poster. I can’t make a poster though because I don’t have any markers.

Me — You can come use our markers some time if you want to make a poster for him.

Sad. I don’t know what to think about all that. Especially since the Dad was with them last year when they came to visit. I mean, is this guy a rapist then?

More in a minute… I need to load the dishwasher.

[/protect]

My next door neighbors are having a garage sale.

These are the same neighbors that I suspect have a meth lab going in their back shed.

They are… how you say? ah yes… kinda trashy.

And my neighborhood is like a garage sale mecca.

So, it’s Thursday, and they’ve been hauling stuff out of the many many many sheds and other nooks and crannies on the property for days… and now it’s garage sale time. I have never seen so many cars lining my street, preventing me from entering or exiting my driveway.

And the conversation is so rich. It’s all about the haggling. You have to imagine the most southern accents you can… it’s all… “She wanted to give me eight dollars for that there mirror and I said no ma’am you can give me ten dollars. And then she said she’d give me eight fifty and…”

You can fill in the rest, all the way up to the 10 dollars.

Every conversation pouring over the fence has been exactly this conversation except with different items and different prices.

Very exciting stuff.

And the whole time they were preparing they were blasting country music.

I just have to know how much they get for the 6 foot by 4 foot velvet technicolor Jesus painting. That’s the only conversation that I want to hear.

—

In other news, my boyfriend played hooky from work… since he has like 3 months of sick time and never takes any of it.
[protect]
And it was the best lovin’ EVAR!
[/protect]
Loverly day. Just loverly.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password: