Here are the three most remarkable people I have ever -- and probably will ever -- meet. No offense to all the rest of you remarkable people, of course. It's just that you can't wear plaid this well. And you know it.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Tough Times
These are tough times. Tough times with tough choices.
In the past few days things seem to have gotten a bit tougher, in many ways.
The first way is the one that we all know about -- the money way. Brian came home from work a bit stoned from it all; the company's not doing well. At all. And while he still has his job, he's not sure how much longer there will be a company to go to. It wouldn't be a laid off thing -- it would be a "whole shebang goes down" thing. So while we're thankful to have what we've got -- a job -- it's not a particularly stable one at the moment. And in just a matter of weeks they will finish paying his tuition, which they promised to pay almost two years ago. We're just praying that those few weeks go by without comment, that the payment is made, and that we're not responsible for the remaining *gulp* ten grand.
But all of this anxiety over the job future sparked a different sort of anxiety in our house, when Brian broached the topic of moving. Leaving our fair city. Well, let me back up a bit. I like where we live rather well, although if I had my druthers I'd be somewhere a bit bigger, with a Trader Joe's, and with slightly less dramatic winters. **Where** is global warming when I need it?????????? On the bright side, though, we have a house, church, and friends that we love, I have a little teaching job lined up, and we have great schools. Our family, filled with all sorts of ailing people, are close enough to get to in an afternoon but not so close for unexpected drop ins. Our children love and are close to their grandparents -- a real plus. And generally speaking, we're happy here.
But this job fixation caused Brian to do that often unhelpful thing: looking at how green the other guy's grass is. And this sparked an awareness of how much more he might make elsewhere, how much more interesting the opportunities might be. And I cried.
I cried because while I'm not sure I want to be here forever, I certainly know that I don't have it in me to move now. Because there's so much labor that he doesn't do in a move that ends up being mine, and mine alone: looking for schools, for churches, for friends, for doctors, for dentists, for.............. Indeed, the story of the last eight or nine years of our life has been moving somewhere, Brian traveling with work or being so tied up in work that I barely see him, and I tend to the details -- for years, it seems. And sometimes that is truly how long those details take.
I cried for the kids' lovely little preschool, for the ice cream shop within walking distance of our house, for our church filled with lovely, caring, insightful, and interesting people, for the guys at the hardware store down the street who've worked there for 30 years and who know the answer to everything, for the three huge, huge, huge oak trees in our front yard, for the hundreds of plants I've planted to make our own little Eden. And for telling our kids that they can't see their grandparents much anymore. And for approximately 10,000 people here.
While that conversation is somewhat resolved, and while neither of us now anticipates a move in our near future, it did make me wonder what a good criteria for moving on -- in anything -- really is. Brian pointed out that fear is not a good reason to stay anywhere, and with this I must agree. But I'm also struck by the fact that having all of the good things here that we love and appreciate and are thankful for in some way each day is so much more than many people have, that it's almost something of a snub to turn your back on that. In fact, I have reminded myself many times when I get cabin fever that the "California Leslie" -- the one living in a small condo with a child, no backyard, no room, and a public sidewalk so close that we sometimes had to turn up the TV in our own living room to hear over the sounds outside -- that person would be beating down my door now to trade places. And it was to get all of the things that I now have.
So here I am. We are. And where we will be for awhile, I bet. I hope. I think. Frankly, I'd be more certain if we could get that Trader Joe's situation resolved.....
In other traumatic and thought-inducing news, our dog Jake has taken a turn for the worse. Jake is a 12 year old dalmatian whose sibling/wife, Elle, died almost exactly one year ago. Jake hasn't been the same since. He constantly whines or barks, sleeps all the time, won't let me out of his sight, and has growled a few times at the kids. As you might imagine, this just about sends me over the edge. But it's not as easy as just separating them, for Jake wants to be with us -- just not all of us. And when Jake is inconvenienced in any way now, he barks. Incessantly. Through and despite a bark collar.
And did I mention that he's both bowel and bladder incontinent -- usually I'm cleaning up dog pee or poo once a day -- and that he appears to be senile, too? And that he's got a back condition that causes him some moderate (although not severe) discomfort and that occasionally causes him to fall?
And that despite this he appears to spring back to his old self about every third day and chase squirrels in the yard?
Sigh. Tough times. Made even tougher by stepping in dog poo in your own house.
In the past few days things seem to have gotten a bit tougher, in many ways.
The first way is the one that we all know about -- the money way. Brian came home from work a bit stoned from it all; the company's not doing well. At all. And while he still has his job, he's not sure how much longer there will be a company to go to. It wouldn't be a laid off thing -- it would be a "whole shebang goes down" thing. So while we're thankful to have what we've got -- a job -- it's not a particularly stable one at the moment. And in just a matter of weeks they will finish paying his tuition, which they promised to pay almost two years ago. We're just praying that those few weeks go by without comment, that the payment is made, and that we're not responsible for the remaining *gulp* ten grand.
But all of this anxiety over the job future sparked a different sort of anxiety in our house, when Brian broached the topic of moving. Leaving our fair city. Well, let me back up a bit. I like where we live rather well, although if I had my druthers I'd be somewhere a bit bigger, with a Trader Joe's, and with slightly less dramatic winters. **Where** is global warming when I need it?????????? On the bright side, though, we have a house, church, and friends that we love, I have a little teaching job lined up, and we have great schools. Our family, filled with all sorts of ailing people, are close enough to get to in an afternoon but not so close for unexpected drop ins. Our children love and are close to their grandparents -- a real plus. And generally speaking, we're happy here.
But this job fixation caused Brian to do that often unhelpful thing: looking at how green the other guy's grass is. And this sparked an awareness of how much more he might make elsewhere, how much more interesting the opportunities might be. And I cried.
I cried because while I'm not sure I want to be here forever, I certainly know that I don't have it in me to move now. Because there's so much labor that he doesn't do in a move that ends up being mine, and mine alone: looking for schools, for churches, for friends, for doctors, for dentists, for.............. Indeed, the story of the last eight or nine years of our life has been moving somewhere, Brian traveling with work or being so tied up in work that I barely see him, and I tend to the details -- for years, it seems. And sometimes that is truly how long those details take.
I cried for the kids' lovely little preschool, for the ice cream shop within walking distance of our house, for our church filled with lovely, caring, insightful, and interesting people, for the guys at the hardware store down the street who've worked there for 30 years and who know the answer to everything, for the three huge, huge, huge oak trees in our front yard, for the hundreds of plants I've planted to make our own little Eden. And for telling our kids that they can't see their grandparents much anymore. And for approximately 10,000 people here.
While that conversation is somewhat resolved, and while neither of us now anticipates a move in our near future, it did make me wonder what a good criteria for moving on -- in anything -- really is. Brian pointed out that fear is not a good reason to stay anywhere, and with this I must agree. But I'm also struck by the fact that having all of the good things here that we love and appreciate and are thankful for in some way each day is so much more than many people have, that it's almost something of a snub to turn your back on that. In fact, I have reminded myself many times when I get cabin fever that the "California Leslie" -- the one living in a small condo with a child, no backyard, no room, and a public sidewalk so close that we sometimes had to turn up the TV in our own living room to hear over the sounds outside -- that person would be beating down my door now to trade places. And it was to get all of the things that I now have.
So here I am. We are. And where we will be for awhile, I bet. I hope. I think. Frankly, I'd be more certain if we could get that Trader Joe's situation resolved.....
In other traumatic and thought-inducing news, our dog Jake has taken a turn for the worse. Jake is a 12 year old dalmatian whose sibling/wife, Elle, died almost exactly one year ago. Jake hasn't been the same since. He constantly whines or barks, sleeps all the time, won't let me out of his sight, and has growled a few times at the kids. As you might imagine, this just about sends me over the edge. But it's not as easy as just separating them, for Jake wants to be with us -- just not all of us. And when Jake is inconvenienced in any way now, he barks. Incessantly. Through and despite a bark collar.
And did I mention that he's both bowel and bladder incontinent -- usually I'm cleaning up dog pee or poo once a day -- and that he appears to be senile, too? And that he's got a back condition that causes him some moderate (although not severe) discomfort and that occasionally causes him to fall?
And that despite this he appears to spring back to his old self about every third day and chase squirrels in the yard?
Sigh. Tough times. Made even tougher by stepping in dog poo in your own house.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Three Posts, One Day
I'm very cool and appear productive. I completed three posts in one day. See below, pretty please. And if you're reading this, let's count this as the fourth post. :)
Paradox
I spend considerable time thinking about how hard it is to be a mother.
I imagine that part of this fixation is centered on the fact that, before I became pregnant, I never really saw myself as anyone's mother. And frankly, I'm not all that hot on kids. I ADORE my own, of course, and I am amply amused and loving towards other kids now. But in the recent past I was one of those people who saw kids as irritating future adults. Or in the case of some of them, future irritating adults.
Perhaps this disconnect is also rooted in the fact that my pregnancies with Annemarie and Cole weren't exactly planned. With Cole it wasn't all that big of a deal -- after all, we had already received our "parent" badges in the mail and had our child-regulating software installed on the computer. But with Annemarie I faced a world of fear. In fact, every time I have been pregnant I have had this nagging little voice pop up that wonders whether I will like this one. Of course, I always like them. Adore them. The sun rises and sets by them. I would throw my body in front of bullets, cars, projectiles, and anything else flying towards them without any thought at all. And this is something of the miracle of parenthood. That I could become that mother.
But this is also where there's trouble. Parenting is the job that has no down time, no hours off. NO vacation. It overtakes everything. And it is incredibly monotonous at times, always demanding, very often mundane. It leaves you on your hands and knees very often -- picking up playdough, cleaning up milk, puke, spaghetti, dirt. It is very often thankless. And repetitive. OH THE REPETITION! And the self-defeat! Do you know how many times a day I pick up this family room just to have it look just as earthquake-like by dinner time? Yes, I know you probably know.
So I completely understand those who argue that parenting is difficult precisely because of the hard, thankless work it involves, work that often yields few immediatley visible results. And I used to think that is why it's hard, too. But I've changed my mind about that lately, mainly because the more I think about it, most jobs worth doing involve repetition and thanklessness, and all of the things that I've just discussed.
No, I think the reason why parenting is so hard is because of extraordinarily difficult work of living with such a mental paradox. How unthinkable it is to **plead** with the clock for 8:30 to roll around every night just to get a break, just to find that by the next morning a part of me has missed them for 10 straight hours. How I can be so tempted -- and often give in -- to yelling at them to stop any number of behaviors when I want nothing more than for them to live free of yelling (uh, mostly :)). How often part of me wants to physically WRING THEIR NECKS one minute, but to be confronted, even floored, by how I love them so much that it hurts, how I would give anything to protect them from pain, wrong, and unhappiness.
It is the paradox that's hard. I can think of no other job that entails such a schizophrenia.
I imagine that part of this fixation is centered on the fact that, before I became pregnant, I never really saw myself as anyone's mother. And frankly, I'm not all that hot on kids. I ADORE my own, of course, and I am amply amused and loving towards other kids now. But in the recent past I was one of those people who saw kids as irritating future adults. Or in the case of some of them, future irritating adults.
Perhaps this disconnect is also rooted in the fact that my pregnancies with Annemarie and Cole weren't exactly planned. With Cole it wasn't all that big of a deal -- after all, we had already received our "parent" badges in the mail and had our child-regulating software installed on the computer. But with Annemarie I faced a world of fear. In fact, every time I have been pregnant I have had this nagging little voice pop up that wonders whether I will like this one. Of course, I always like them. Adore them. The sun rises and sets by them. I would throw my body in front of bullets, cars, projectiles, and anything else flying towards them without any thought at all. And this is something of the miracle of parenthood. That I could become that mother.
But this is also where there's trouble. Parenting is the job that has no down time, no hours off. NO vacation. It overtakes everything. And it is incredibly monotonous at times, always demanding, very often mundane. It leaves you on your hands and knees very often -- picking up playdough, cleaning up milk, puke, spaghetti, dirt. It is very often thankless. And repetitive. OH THE REPETITION! And the self-defeat! Do you know how many times a day I pick up this family room just to have it look just as earthquake-like by dinner time? Yes, I know you probably know.
So I completely understand those who argue that parenting is difficult precisely because of the hard, thankless work it involves, work that often yields few immediatley visible results. And I used to think that is why it's hard, too. But I've changed my mind about that lately, mainly because the more I think about it, most jobs worth doing involve repetition and thanklessness, and all of the things that I've just discussed.
No, I think the reason why parenting is so hard is because of extraordinarily difficult work of living with such a mental paradox. How unthinkable it is to **plead** with the clock for 8:30 to roll around every night just to get a break, just to find that by the next morning a part of me has missed them for 10 straight hours. How I can be so tempted -- and often give in -- to yelling at them to stop any number of behaviors when I want nothing more than for them to live free of yelling (uh, mostly :)). How often part of me wants to physically WRING THEIR NECKS one minute, but to be confronted, even floored, by how I love them so much that it hurts, how I would give anything to protect them from pain, wrong, and unhappiness.
It is the paradox that's hard. I can think of no other job that entails such a schizophrenia.
Nativity
We have a nativity set that I really like. It's a beautiful hand-painted thing that has tidbits of scripture from Jesus' multiple birth narratives inscribed on the various characters. And it's also been the source of a secret family dispute.
You know I'm a bit anal, right? A bit on the control freak side? Well, every Christmas time when I pull this sucker out, I like to arrange the characters just so (*pleased smirk*). This activity is also accompanied by a protracted lecture about how this is not a nativity set to touch, and if someone else's hands want to touch a nativity set, they can go play with their Fisher Price version. The set where, in its original state, the Fisher Price people forgot to include Jesus.
Stupid Fisher Price.
But anyway, after arranging the characters just so, I noticed Annemarie fiddling around with it one day. I was amused by her behavior. She is, uh, like me in that she's a bit on the perfectionistic side. Actually, all of the verbal children are like this -- it's Cole, after all, who cries when his banana breaks, and who gets wound up when the orange is not properly peeled. (Note to self: save for adult children's therapy). Anyway, Annemarie had arranged all of the characters, who are in prostrate or other sorts of adoring positions, in perfect lines around the Baby Jesus. I put them back in the way I arranged them to see if she'd notice. By that evening, they were back in their parallel lines. This went on for several days, with us secretly stealing away to rearrange the nativity set. It had turned funny -- really funny; one of the things that I love about her present age is how she's really understanding humor, and that even the most serious things can have a genuinely amusing side to them.
So it was in this spirit that I got tickled today when, upon entering the dining room (the natural place for a holy family's resin replica to be stationed, of course) I noticed that the nativity characters are all huddled together. They look like a holy football team, with Jesus as their coach in the center. But then I pictured Jesus being like any other football coach, screaming at the team -- Baby Jesus sweating, ripping off his headgear, and spitting in the faces of those shepherds who wouldn't drop their friggin staffs to catch the ball.
Ok, now I'm thinking holy thoughts.
You know I'm a bit anal, right? A bit on the control freak side? Well, every Christmas time when I pull this sucker out, I like to arrange the characters just so (*pleased smirk*). This activity is also accompanied by a protracted lecture about how this is not a nativity set to touch, and if someone else's hands want to touch a nativity set, they can go play with their Fisher Price version. The set where, in its original state, the Fisher Price people forgot to include Jesus.
Stupid Fisher Price.
But anyway, after arranging the characters just so, I noticed Annemarie fiddling around with it one day. I was amused by her behavior. She is, uh, like me in that she's a bit on the perfectionistic side. Actually, all of the verbal children are like this -- it's Cole, after all, who cries when his banana breaks, and who gets wound up when the orange is not properly peeled. (Note to self: save for adult children's therapy). Anyway, Annemarie had arranged all of the characters, who are in prostrate or other sorts of adoring positions, in perfect lines around the Baby Jesus. I put them back in the way I arranged them to see if she'd notice. By that evening, they were back in their parallel lines. This went on for several days, with us secretly stealing away to rearrange the nativity set. It had turned funny -- really funny; one of the things that I love about her present age is how she's really understanding humor, and that even the most serious things can have a genuinely amusing side to them.
So it was in this spirit that I got tickled today when, upon entering the dining room (the natural place for a holy family's resin replica to be stationed, of course) I noticed that the nativity characters are all huddled together. They look like a holy football team, with Jesus as their coach in the center. But then I pictured Jesus being like any other football coach, screaming at the team -- Baby Jesus sweating, ripping off his headgear, and spitting in the faces of those shepherds who wouldn't drop their friggin staffs to catch the ball.
Ok, now I'm thinking holy thoughts.
Bag O' Wrinkles
Anyone need four free tubes of Maybelline Great Lash Mascara?
Last week, and the week before that, Brian made the trek down to Little Rock, Arkansas for a business trip. While I think even the good people of LR would admit that while the place is nice, it is no booming cultural metropolis, yet in the business world is it known for being the home of none other than Maybelline, drug store cosmetic giant extraordinaire. And it just so happens that Brian's company has some relationship with Maybelline.
So one night last week Brian found himself at dinner with a bunch of Maybelline executives and their wives (my first question was about how much makeup they wore -- B said plenty....). After the dinner he was presented with a pink and black tote bag full of Maybelline products to bring home to the little woman.
Now obviously I say that with some dripping sarcasm, being a person credentialed to teach college students in Women's Studies classes everywhere about the chains that are cosmetics. But I will be the first to admit that I have a love/hate relationship with makeup. After all, I grew up in a place where being female meant that you wore makeup. I also have a mother who takes a solid hour to get ready in the morning, who still owns various sizes of curling iron, and who puts cuticle oil on every night. So I *know* what to do with the makeup if it reaches my little, cuticle-raggedy hands.
Having said that, however, I am a person of minimal makeup married to another person who doesn't like makeup and who finds it fakey and inessential. I admire this about Brian -- and also the fact that he taught me how to blow my nose while hiking by simply turning the head, pressing the other nostril in, and blowing as hard as you can.....
But lest I digress, the essence of my problem with makeup is that I don't mind looking like me -- after all, that's who I am -- but I do mind looking tired. And gray haired. And like children have beaten the life out of me. All of which are somewhat true. And I sense that makeup can help me out of that conundrum. For instance, I was somewhat bothered the other day when, having risen early enough to actually shower before dropping the kids off at preschool, Annemarie's teacher remarked that I looked pretty that day. The only difference was that I was actually wearing makeup.
I took my dissonance to the car with me. Annemarie adores makeup -- she'd put it on all day long if you'd let her, and I try to figure out how to strike a middle ground on that; I don't want to squash her style (meant in the most generic sense, of course), but at the same time, I certainly don't want her overly concerned with her looks or with the sense that she is inadequate. Enough people comment on how pretty she is now that we have a hard time redirecting her thinking back to how being kind, loving, smart, and helpful are really much more admirable traits. And so I told myself that, all while checking out whether the lines around my eyes, and THOSE DARK CIRCLES were as bad as I thought they were.
This IS the "natural look", I told myself. Even as a child I remember reading ads in the newspaper for makeup that talked about getting the "natural look", and I wondered why you had to manufacture something natural. And of course, the entire problem is that women have been told that their "natural" state is something not even naturally theirs. For all of the Women's Studies talk about the cultural constraints that women have faced being depicted as "nature" against the male "culture", here we have an example of women being even insufficiently natural.
Remind me to write on this someday, willya?
But back to the pink and black tote bag. It returned home from the Little Rock trek with contents unharmed. I dumped them out on the bed to find literally hundreds of dollars of skin care products before me -- the bag was not filled with makeup, but with lotions, wrinkle creams, eye creams (OH, THE EYE CREAMS!). Oh yeah, and several tubes of mascara. But mostly the face-erasing lotions.
As I sorted through the stuff, a certain irony struck me. Here Brian had gone to dinner with people he didn't know, who in an act of cultural gift-giving -- meant as ultimately polite -- he had been given a rather expensive assortment of cosmetics, a gift that only had meaning in as much as my face is inadequate as it is. And this is my current 33 year old face, which is certainly not that old and really isn't all that wrinkly, either. So really, it was like these guys were saying, "Brian, here's a big honking pink tote bag. Inside is the stuff to fix your wife's face. Because we all know that she doesn't look right."
Now those of you outside of the Women's Studies world are likely groaning and slapping your heads right now, telling me to get off my high horse.
I CERTAINLY WILL NOT! My super wrinkle-serumed, eye-creamed self WILL NOT!
Last week, and the week before that, Brian made the trek down to Little Rock, Arkansas for a business trip. While I think even the good people of LR would admit that while the place is nice, it is no booming cultural metropolis, yet in the business world is it known for being the home of none other than Maybelline, drug store cosmetic giant extraordinaire. And it just so happens that Brian's company has some relationship with Maybelline.
So one night last week Brian found himself at dinner with a bunch of Maybelline executives and their wives (my first question was about how much makeup they wore -- B said plenty....). After the dinner he was presented with a pink and black tote bag full of Maybelline products to bring home to the little woman.
Now obviously I say that with some dripping sarcasm, being a person credentialed to teach college students in Women's Studies classes everywhere about the chains that are cosmetics. But I will be the first to admit that I have a love/hate relationship with makeup. After all, I grew up in a place where being female meant that you wore makeup. I also have a mother who takes a solid hour to get ready in the morning, who still owns various sizes of curling iron, and who puts cuticle oil on every night. So I *know* what to do with the makeup if it reaches my little, cuticle-raggedy hands.
Having said that, however, I am a person of minimal makeup married to another person who doesn't like makeup and who finds it fakey and inessential. I admire this about Brian -- and also the fact that he taught me how to blow my nose while hiking by simply turning the head, pressing the other nostril in, and blowing as hard as you can.....
But lest I digress, the essence of my problem with makeup is that I don't mind looking like me -- after all, that's who I am -- but I do mind looking tired. And gray haired. And like children have beaten the life out of me. All of which are somewhat true. And I sense that makeup can help me out of that conundrum. For instance, I was somewhat bothered the other day when, having risen early enough to actually shower before dropping the kids off at preschool, Annemarie's teacher remarked that I looked pretty that day. The only difference was that I was actually wearing makeup.
I took my dissonance to the car with me. Annemarie adores makeup -- she'd put it on all day long if you'd let her, and I try to figure out how to strike a middle ground on that; I don't want to squash her style (meant in the most generic sense, of course), but at the same time, I certainly don't want her overly concerned with her looks or with the sense that she is inadequate. Enough people comment on how pretty she is now that we have a hard time redirecting her thinking back to how being kind, loving, smart, and helpful are really much more admirable traits. And so I told myself that, all while checking out whether the lines around my eyes, and THOSE DARK CIRCLES were as bad as I thought they were.
This IS the "natural look", I told myself. Even as a child I remember reading ads in the newspaper for makeup that talked about getting the "natural look", and I wondered why you had to manufacture something natural. And of course, the entire problem is that women have been told that their "natural" state is something not even naturally theirs. For all of the Women's Studies talk about the cultural constraints that women have faced being depicted as "nature" against the male "culture", here we have an example of women being even insufficiently natural.
Remind me to write on this someday, willya?
But back to the pink and black tote bag. It returned home from the Little Rock trek with contents unharmed. I dumped them out on the bed to find literally hundreds of dollars of skin care products before me -- the bag was not filled with makeup, but with lotions, wrinkle creams, eye creams (OH, THE EYE CREAMS!). Oh yeah, and several tubes of mascara. But mostly the face-erasing lotions.
As I sorted through the stuff, a certain irony struck me. Here Brian had gone to dinner with people he didn't know, who in an act of cultural gift-giving -- meant as ultimately polite -- he had been given a rather expensive assortment of cosmetics, a gift that only had meaning in as much as my face is inadequate as it is. And this is my current 33 year old face, which is certainly not that old and really isn't all that wrinkly, either. So really, it was like these guys were saying, "Brian, here's a big honking pink tote bag. Inside is the stuff to fix your wife's face. Because we all know that she doesn't look right."
Now those of you outside of the Women's Studies world are likely groaning and slapping your heads right now, telling me to get off my high horse.
I CERTAINLY WILL NOT! My super wrinkle-serumed, eye-creamed self WILL NOT!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Hobby Hell
I am attempting self control right now. We'll see how long it lasts. What I really must do today -- and what I told myself I would do last night -- is finish up the introduction to my dissertation, move on to the next partially completed chapter (they're all partially completed -- and therein lies the problem), and pronounce myself amazingly productive. STUPENDOUSLY PRODUCTIVE!
I think I'd take any sort of productive, even without the adjectives.
What I was compelled to do last night instead of work on my dissertation (which I told myself I would do last night since I didn't do it yesterday during the day......) was knit up a cute little scarf with some cheap cotton yarn that I procured from the hobby and craft hellhole, Hobby Lobby.
Let me tell you again how I feel about the place. Hobby Lobby = Hell.
I feel the liberty to equate the two because Hobby Lobby, while very attractive on the outside, sucks you into its irrationality; overrun by shopping carts driven by half-crazed soccer moms with fake nails, filled with fake metallic poinsettia stems (the shopping carts, not the soccer moms' nails), the place seethes holiday excess. I mean, it SEETHES. And it makes you think, just for a moment, that maybe everyone else is onto something -- that you really do need 48 metallic red poinsettia stems. That is the logic of this place.
I went there originally because I needed to get a cheap, small Christmas tree for Cole's room, one that he could decorate in any way he wanted. Annemarie has had this for several years, and not suprisingly, he wanted one as well. They love to go to sleep by the tree's light, and I love to watch their faces as they decorate it. Justification had. I also needed some cheap-ish picture frames in which to place a most lovely xmas gift to myself and Brian (which I shall tell you more about later, since the grandparents are getting the same thing, and you never know where in the virtual world these grandparents might be lurking. Pesky grandparents.). And finally, I had heard mixed reviews about a certain cotton yarn that Hobby Lobby exclusively sells, and I thought I'd pick up a skein to see how it knit up. For 2.99, it was worth a shot. The yardage isn't bad, either.
A list of most noble pursuits, no doubt.
Perhaps it was that I was there with all three kids in a place filled with breakables, perhaps it was just this friggin holiday season, or maybe it was the realization that Brian was leaving the next day for an out of town trip, and that any sort of chaos that I experienced (or, rightfully, initiated) by my presence there might be what I could anticipate experiencing for the duration of his trip; WHATEVER IT WAS, by the time we left I was frazzled, Cole had my fingerprints permanently embossed on his wrist, and Annemarie was fretting, which she does when things get tense. The long lines, the Christmas tree that was in stock, not in stock, get out of the line for it, get back in another one to buy it.
Not cool. By the time we were done with our torture, I felt like I'd sold my soul. Now how to get the soul back....I hear it's hard to knit without a soul. We'll see how the cotton holds up.
Ah, but back to my dissertation. That's what I'm supposed to be doing now. And, uh, not blogging......
I think I'd take any sort of productive, even without the adjectives.
What I was compelled to do last night instead of work on my dissertation (which I told myself I would do last night since I didn't do it yesterday during the day......) was knit up a cute little scarf with some cheap cotton yarn that I procured from the hobby and craft hellhole, Hobby Lobby.
Let me tell you again how I feel about the place. Hobby Lobby = Hell.
I feel the liberty to equate the two because Hobby Lobby, while very attractive on the outside, sucks you into its irrationality; overrun by shopping carts driven by half-crazed soccer moms with fake nails, filled with fake metallic poinsettia stems (the shopping carts, not the soccer moms' nails), the place seethes holiday excess. I mean, it SEETHES. And it makes you think, just for a moment, that maybe everyone else is onto something -- that you really do need 48 metallic red poinsettia stems. That is the logic of this place.
I went there originally because I needed to get a cheap, small Christmas tree for Cole's room, one that he could decorate in any way he wanted. Annemarie has had this for several years, and not suprisingly, he wanted one as well. They love to go to sleep by the tree's light, and I love to watch their faces as they decorate it. Justification had. I also needed some cheap-ish picture frames in which to place a most lovely xmas gift to myself and Brian (which I shall tell you more about later, since the grandparents are getting the same thing, and you never know where in the virtual world these grandparents might be lurking. Pesky grandparents.). And finally, I had heard mixed reviews about a certain cotton yarn that Hobby Lobby exclusively sells, and I thought I'd pick up a skein to see how it knit up. For 2.99, it was worth a shot. The yardage isn't bad, either.
A list of most noble pursuits, no doubt.
Perhaps it was that I was there with all three kids in a place filled with breakables, perhaps it was just this friggin holiday season, or maybe it was the realization that Brian was leaving the next day for an out of town trip, and that any sort of chaos that I experienced (or, rightfully, initiated) by my presence there might be what I could anticipate experiencing for the duration of his trip; WHATEVER IT WAS, by the time we left I was frazzled, Cole had my fingerprints permanently embossed on his wrist, and Annemarie was fretting, which she does when things get tense. The long lines, the Christmas tree that was in stock, not in stock, get out of the line for it, get back in another one to buy it.
Not cool. By the time we were done with our torture, I felt like I'd sold my soul. Now how to get the soul back....I hear it's hard to knit without a soul. We'll see how the cotton holds up.
Ah, but back to my dissertation. That's what I'm supposed to be doing now. And, uh, not blogging......
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Boundaries
It was an interesting Thanksgiving.
Just a couple of months ago Brian's grandfather died, having fought that terrible disease, Alzheimer's. Brian's grandmother is in bad physical shape herself, and the couple hadn't lived in their home in several months. Ella, B's grandma, is in a full time care facility now, and will never return to her home. She can't go to the bathroom unassisted, and is clearly confused at times. She can't walk. There's just no other way around it.
For several months the somewhat painful conversations about who would get what have transpired. This was not new territory -- Ella is one of those elderly people who has been announcing her impending death for YEARS, and who has tried to die on us several times now. Perhaps this explains why I've heard her parceling out their stuff on more than one occasion over the past decade, long before she and Rathel (gpa) grew so ill. She has a knack for fatalism.
But it was new territory this past weekend in the sense that stuff was actually leaving their house; her words were coming true. Brian and I were long ago told that we could have a deep freeze, which is a great gift for our very hungry family that likes frozen stuff from Costco. It also made us look like the Beverly Hilbillies as we took it home, driving three hours with a trailer and a big upright fridge strapped to the back of our Suburban. To top off the image, we also had a healthy stack of firewood on board, and our suitcases, so if we'd just had the rocking chair and a corn cob pipe we could have headed straight for Hollywood.
But humor aside, and back to Rathel and Ella's house, we were told to take a peek to see if there was anything that we wanted from the house. I was very pleased to recieve the stuff that I did -- some crocheting supplies, lots of kitchen implements that I didn't have. But there was something kind of creepy about it all, like a boundary transgressed, that we were taking stuff from a home whose inhabitant was not gone -- just displaced. For a moment it felt like theft.
In her more rational days Ella would certainly have *wanted* her family to take and use her things-- she was a child of the depression in the most literal sense, and I imagine that it would have driven her nuts to think of good things going unused. But I understood what Brian's parents later said almost implicitly-- that we shouldn't mention to her that we've taken stuff from the house when we visited her at the nursing home -- because I had had something of that same sense myself.
In fact, I felt like I had pushed the limits of the boundary earlier at her home, when my cat-like curiosity brought me to look in their bedroom, where I found in a dresser drawer a really cool, *hilarious* handkerchief that listed pictures and calorie content of many common foods. Clearly never having been used, it was a crisp little square stuffed under some jewelry boxes. It looked as if it had never seen daylight. But when I rounded the corner and arrived at their closet, something sort of, well, spooky, came over me. Perhaps it was that the closet light didn't work. But I think it was more that clothes, garments, *bedrooms*, are so personal. Shoes lay in the floor where their wearer had last kicked them off. The garments hung sadly on hangers, looking not unlike how they do now on elderly frames. It would not be too dramatic to say that I felt like I was violating something. Had everything been neat and tidy, perhaps I wouldn't have been so bothered. But the house was lived in; it was inhabited by real people. And this was their stuff.
So I am the new owner today of a hefty set of kitchen items, which is great. And did I mention how great the deep freeze is? Freezalicious! But I also have a handkerchief that I was told to take, which apparently everyone thinks has no sentimental value to anyone. Strangely, though, it doesn't seem as funny as it did before.
Just a couple of months ago Brian's grandfather died, having fought that terrible disease, Alzheimer's. Brian's grandmother is in bad physical shape herself, and the couple hadn't lived in their home in several months. Ella, B's grandma, is in a full time care facility now, and will never return to her home. She can't go to the bathroom unassisted, and is clearly confused at times. She can't walk. There's just no other way around it.
For several months the somewhat painful conversations about who would get what have transpired. This was not new territory -- Ella is one of those elderly people who has been announcing her impending death for YEARS, and who has tried to die on us several times now. Perhaps this explains why I've heard her parceling out their stuff on more than one occasion over the past decade, long before she and Rathel (gpa) grew so ill. She has a knack for fatalism.
But it was new territory this past weekend in the sense that stuff was actually leaving their house; her words were coming true. Brian and I were long ago told that we could have a deep freeze, which is a great gift for our very hungry family that likes frozen stuff from Costco. It also made us look like the Beverly Hilbillies as we took it home, driving three hours with a trailer and a big upright fridge strapped to the back of our Suburban. To top off the image, we also had a healthy stack of firewood on board, and our suitcases, so if we'd just had the rocking chair and a corn cob pipe we could have headed straight for Hollywood.
But humor aside, and back to Rathel and Ella's house, we were told to take a peek to see if there was anything that we wanted from the house. I was very pleased to recieve the stuff that I did -- some crocheting supplies, lots of kitchen implements that I didn't have. But there was something kind of creepy about it all, like a boundary transgressed, that we were taking stuff from a home whose inhabitant was not gone -- just displaced. For a moment it felt like theft.
In her more rational days Ella would certainly have *wanted* her family to take and use her things-- she was a child of the depression in the most literal sense, and I imagine that it would have driven her nuts to think of good things going unused. But I understood what Brian's parents later said almost implicitly-- that we shouldn't mention to her that we've taken stuff from the house when we visited her at the nursing home -- because I had had something of that same sense myself.
In fact, I felt like I had pushed the limits of the boundary earlier at her home, when my cat-like curiosity brought me to look in their bedroom, where I found in a dresser drawer a really cool, *hilarious* handkerchief that listed pictures and calorie content of many common foods. Clearly never having been used, it was a crisp little square stuffed under some jewelry boxes. It looked as if it had never seen daylight. But when I rounded the corner and arrived at their closet, something sort of, well, spooky, came over me. Perhaps it was that the closet light didn't work. But I think it was more that clothes, garments, *bedrooms*, are so personal. Shoes lay in the floor where their wearer had last kicked them off. The garments hung sadly on hangers, looking not unlike how they do now on elderly frames. It would not be too dramatic to say that I felt like I was violating something. Had everything been neat and tidy, perhaps I wouldn't have been so bothered. But the house was lived in; it was inhabited by real people. And this was their stuff.
So I am the new owner today of a hefty set of kitchen items, which is great. And did I mention how great the deep freeze is? Freezalicious! But I also have a handkerchief that I was told to take, which apparently everyone thinks has no sentimental value to anyone. Strangely, though, it doesn't seem as funny as it did before.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
REVIVED!
I'm back! After a short run-in with insanity, which had as its centerpiece a trip to our hometown for a Thanksgiving feast with the family, we have returned, mostly safe and sound. In fairness, the insanity part was not caused by the family, but was a pre-existing condition exacerbated by the unpacking of five people upon our return. Now *that* is insanity.
Now onto other things. I have about a million things floating through my head, but I shall start with first things first: I have been tagged for a meme by my dear friend B. And in honor of her most glorious blog (www.noodleroux.blogspot.com), I shall also list seven random things about myself. Yes, you note, I did this just a few blog entries ago, having previously been tagged. However, since I have precisely fourteen interesting and random characteristics that describe me, this exercise shall be neither boring nor in vain:
1) Did you know that I was homecoming queen? Like, really. And what is even more miraculous/interesting is that I was hard core on the debate squad when this event transpired, having *given*up* the ever-popular drill team two years earlier for the rhetorical gifts. So despite my sacrifice, the dream was still alive.
2) I am 33 years old and I require no visual assistance to get around, ie, no glasses or contacts. However, at my eye appointment today, when I told the optometrist that I've been having some problems with light sensitivity, she recommended some weak reading glasses with tinted lenses. What does this mean? I've gone from nothing to grandma in a mere 3 hours.
3) Brian and I have been married for 12 years, together for 15, and the anniversary of our first date just happens to fall on our first child's birthday -- she was born exactly 10 years to the day, and almost the minute, if you don't factor in the time zone issue. Needless to say, our dating anniversary gets much less attention these days than one big girl's birthday, but at least I've recorded it here for posterity.
4) Dont' kill me when you read this -- but after every baby I have, I seem to get smaller, to weigh less -- to shrink, in essence. If I stick to the childbearing plan of that woman in Arkansas, who is expecting her 18th child (SERIOUSLY!? How does *one* uterus do that?), I will soon be microscopic. But seriously, it's the breastfeeding.......oh yeah, and the running after the other children I already have while I'm breastfeeding. It's the combination of the two that's just *****MAGIC******
5) I cut and color my own hair, and have done so for the past 10 or so years. Why? I wonder myself, sometimes......
6) I consider myself a foodie, and really not picky, but there are some foods that I absolutely cannot palate, foods that almost everyone else seems to like. These include watermelon, cucumbers, mayo, and pumpkin pie. Yes, you read that right -- I don't like pumpkin pie. And generally speaking, I am not a fan of fruit pies. I only recently started eating raw tomatoes. Strangely, I will eat almost any vegetable in at least some form, but I can't say the same about fruits. Hmmmm.
7) My knitting and crochet obsession has blossomed, and I now find myself going to bed at night dreaming up new designs that, unfortunately, I do not know how to execute. I can just see sweaters -- that's all. I am proud to announce, however, that like the rest of the knitting world, I officially have a STASH(!) of yarn. I was able to hold out and show some restraint in the yarn hoarding dept. until dear Jovi sent me the link for a rather good yarn sale...and....sigh.......
Now onto other things. I have about a million things floating through my head, but I shall start with first things first: I have been tagged for a meme by my dear friend B. And in honor of her most glorious blog (www.noodleroux.blogspot.com), I shall also list seven random things about myself. Yes, you note, I did this just a few blog entries ago, having previously been tagged. However, since I have precisely fourteen interesting and random characteristics that describe me, this exercise shall be neither boring nor in vain:
1) Did you know that I was homecoming queen? Like, really. And what is even more miraculous/interesting is that I was hard core on the debate squad when this event transpired, having *given*up* the ever-popular drill team two years earlier for the rhetorical gifts. So despite my sacrifice, the dream was still alive.
2) I am 33 years old and I require no visual assistance to get around, ie, no glasses or contacts. However, at my eye appointment today, when I told the optometrist that I've been having some problems with light sensitivity, she recommended some weak reading glasses with tinted lenses. What does this mean? I've gone from nothing to grandma in a mere 3 hours.
3) Brian and I have been married for 12 years, together for 15, and the anniversary of our first date just happens to fall on our first child's birthday -- she was born exactly 10 years to the day, and almost the minute, if you don't factor in the time zone issue. Needless to say, our dating anniversary gets much less attention these days than one big girl's birthday, but at least I've recorded it here for posterity.
4) Dont' kill me when you read this -- but after every baby I have, I seem to get smaller, to weigh less -- to shrink, in essence. If I stick to the childbearing plan of that woman in Arkansas, who is expecting her 18th child (SERIOUSLY!? How does *one* uterus do that?), I will soon be microscopic. But seriously, it's the breastfeeding.......oh yeah, and the running after the other children I already have while I'm breastfeeding. It's the combination of the two that's just *****MAGIC******
5) I cut and color my own hair, and have done so for the past 10 or so years. Why? I wonder myself, sometimes......
6) I consider myself a foodie, and really not picky, but there are some foods that I absolutely cannot palate, foods that almost everyone else seems to like. These include watermelon, cucumbers, mayo, and pumpkin pie. Yes, you read that right -- I don't like pumpkin pie. And generally speaking, I am not a fan of fruit pies. I only recently started eating raw tomatoes. Strangely, I will eat almost any vegetable in at least some form, but I can't say the same about fruits. Hmmmm.
7) My knitting and crochet obsession has blossomed, and I now find myself going to bed at night dreaming up new designs that, unfortunately, I do not know how to execute. I can just see sweaters -- that's all. I am proud to announce, however, that like the rest of the knitting world, I officially have a STASH(!) of yarn. I was able to hold out and show some restraint in the yarn hoarding dept. until dear Jovi sent me the link for a rather good yarn sale...and....sigh.......
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