Category: parenting

When they let me rule the world

You know, I’m sure those people in power are doin’ the best they can, but I think…there could be improvements.

My “to do” list when they hand me the scepter and carte blanche to run the universe.

  1. Butter, heavy cream, sugar, simple carbs of all stripe and marbled red meat will become health foods. Vegetables, fruits, and fiber will be “forbidden” and will make you pale, wan, and cranky.

    On this plan, I will be supermodel skinny.

  2. Supermodels will be made illegal.
  3. Legal disputes will be handled using parenting styles from the 1950’s. “Shame on you for punching your brother and shame on YOU for telling.” Both parties get a swat on the ‘tocks and are sentenced to digging postholes (or digging trench, judge’s discretion).
  4. Teachers will make the salaries that current professional athletes make. Professional athletes will make the salaries that current teachers make.
  5. Joe Buck will get a sense of humor. Also Joe Buck and Tim McCarver don’t get to call any more games. Ever. Any game. Regardless of sport or level. Ever. And I get to be the one to fire them. On the air. In the most humiliating fashion possible. And then they both have to go dig postholes and string a mile of barbwire fence.
  6. The knobsack at work who uses the Sharpies in the supply room, thus dulling the tip, then slips them back into the stack with the new pens will be *severely* chastised, up to and including termination. This is unacceptable behavior.
  7. The media will be held responsible for what they report. Fear mongering, blowing things out of proportion, and more than one mention of Brangelina (or similar) in a single day will result in severe disciplinary action.
  8. Work weeks will be two days long and weekends will be five days long. And we all get all the holidays off work. Cinco de Mayo? Yup. Yom Kippur? Indeed. Secretary’s Day. Of course.
  9. If people need to take a sick day, they can take a sick day. No harm no foul, only support and backup. People are expected to take the time to take care of themselves.
  10. Wars and world disputes will be fought and decided by lining up plastic green army men behind dirt and sand “bunkers” on a playground located in neutral territory. Battle will continue until 1) all army men are lost in the sand, 2) the players are tired and hungry, after which a designated “mom” will make spaghetti for everyone and there will be a sleepover, and/or 3) both sides erupt in giggles and decide instead to play flag football.
  11. “I agree to respect your beliefs if you agree to respect my beliefs” will be the world religion. This will be mandatory.
  12. Anyone who is hungry will be able to eat. Anyone who is broke will be able to find a job. Anyone who is a knobsack will be ostracized until they can figure out how to treat people with respect.
  13. Cancer will be cured. HIV won’t exist. Parkinson’s will be dunzo. MS, over! Lou Gehrig’s gone. COPD and Pulmonary Fibrosis, fughtettaboutit. And all other debilitating, unfair and unkind illnesses will be at thing of the past.
  14. Everyone gets a slice of cake, every day. With real buttercream frosting. And anyone who wants a corner piece can have it.
  15. This list will be subject to revision and change, by me, at any time, with no prior notice by the party of the first part, this agreement supercedes all previous agreements, Force Majeure is in effect, caveat emptor, ad hominem, e pluribus unum, carpe diem, and let’s all have some fun, ai’ight?

Overheard on the elevator

Two women talking, one noticeably pregnant.

First woman: “I’m telling you, get the massage oil, have your husband rub it on your belly. It’s very relaxing and helps with stretch marks. Plus, you know, it’s very bonding.”

Pregnant woman: : cynical laugh : “Oh trust me, we’re not bonding.”

Yikes!

Saving the best one for last

Why do we do this? Why do *I* do this?

A Singapore counterpart from work gave me a set of reeeeally nice hand lotions on her last visit to the US. I went through and sniffed them all, picked my favorites, then put them in order, thus allowing myself to use the least faves *first* before using the ones I like.

Why? Why would I do that? Why not use the ones I like best first? Life is short!

Today, my admin was kind enough to bring me a sample plate of desserts from a conference room downstairs. I ate the yucky ones first and the nicest one last. Why didn’t I just eat the good ones and leave the yucky ones? Nope. Ate ’em all.

I’m not proud of it, either.

Suppose this is a hazard of being born to Depression Era parents? The propensity to “save” things for later was strong with them both.

Or is it a hazard of my severe obsessive, overly anal personality?

Or could it be just a facet of human nature? Especially as a woman. “Oh no,” : hand to head : “I’ll take the burned toast….”

Whatever.

I just pulled out the jar of *good* lotion and slathered it on. I smell pretty!

Life is too short to dance with short men. Life is too short to drink cheap beer wine. Life is too important to be taken seriously. And life is too dull to not use the “good soap” in the guest bath.

Keep it to yourself, sister

The weather outside yesterday was what they call “low cloud cover”. Low ceiling, gray clouds, occasional sprinkling rain.

This makes most people think, “brr, cold” and toss on all matter of arctic gear.

This is not true for me. Low cloud cover means the heat is held in and the drizzly rain means humidity.

See, I was brought up in New Mexico and my body has been attuned to be a convection cooled device. Or, more accurately, an evaporative cooled device. I sweat. The dry desert air slurps that up, thus cooling my rig and allowing me to continue on.

I’m attuned to this and it suits me just fine.

When it’s warmish and humid, I cannot effectively evaporative cool my hard working human mo-chine.

You can ask anyone who knows me, my internal temp tends to run a little hot anyway. The frosty pawed feline doesn’t favor me as a sleeping device because she thinks I’m nice, ok?

So what all this means is, even on a cloudy drizzly day like today, I don’t want anything to do with a jacket.

This tends to make the biddies and would-be work moms crazy.

“Aren’t you cold!?!” they shriek.

“Where is your jacket?!?!” they demand in harpy voices.

Look, I have a mother. She’s a fine, upstanding lady. She taught me to be self-sufficient. If you are cold, put on a jacket. If you aren’t cold, don’t. If you are cold and don’t put on a jacket, it’s your own damn fault.

Mom and I have been in agreement on this for years.

Yesterday, I was wearing a sweater dress with a long sleeved sweater over, tights and knee-high black boots. That is practically Nanook of the North for me, and yet, one of my menopausal coworkers eyed me up and down and screeched “Aren’t you cold!?!” because I was sans jacket.

It was close to sixty frapping degrees outside, but it was drizzly, so that must mean everyone should wear an overcoat.

An overcoat? Hell. No. I was hot in what I was wearing!

But if I had said to her, “Hey, you look a little hot, why don’t you take some clothes off” I would have been reported to HR.

It’s a bizarre up world out there, and I’m but a passenger on this carnival ride.

Image via FreeFoto.com

Tangents

Been thinking a lot about a discussion going on in the comments of another blog I read regularly.

One very astute reader there made a comment that a choice I had made was “…so very different than the common priority system a couple of generations ago it boggles my mind.”

That comment has stuck with me for a variety of reasons.

Been thinking a lot lately about my parents and their values versus my own values as their youngest child.

Both of my parents were alive during the Depression and remember it well. Especially my dad. A lot of how he faced his life, his finances and ultimately, his demise a few years ago, was shaped by those memories.

My mom had me at age thirty-five, which by today’s standards is normal, but by the standards in the sixties, was positively ancient. She was advised by doctors I would come out all wrong, touched in the head, or worse.

Ultimately I came out all right, mostly, and grew up with parents SO much older than the parents of my friends. My different (yes, old fashioned) way of thinking made me a bit of an odd ball among these kids with hip young moms divorced from their cool as heck dads.

My stodgy parents were employed at Sandia Labs, married for 46 years and devoted to working hard and raising their kids.

This has come to me in bias relief lately because The Good Man is one year and one month younger than me. His folks met and married VERY young, and are a generation apart from my own parents. My mom has more in common with The Good Man’s grandparents, for heaven’s sakes!

I am what is commonly referred to as an “oops” baby. My brother is seven years older than me. My sister is four years older. My folks thought they were done, but I was a force not to be stopped by aging ovaries and good intentions.

To say that my father was a staunch Republican is to say that Cher is just a tad flamboyant.

He leaned to far to the right it’s a wonder he didn’t flop over when he walked. He advocated clean cars, walls painted white in any home, and one must always save for one’s retirement.

It’s hard to grow up in that atmosphere and not reflect some of the constant theme. From the time I could vote, I was too scared to vote anything other than Republican, fearing my dad would find out.

The first time I *did* vote for a Democrat, it felt like mutiny. Like I was being deliciously deceitful. I grinned when I pulled the lever.

Then came a major act of mutiny. I moved away from New Mexico. I did it, mostly, because I wanted to know what my life could be like if I got to create my own way. I’d followed in the footsteps of my parents, both knowingly and sometimes without intending to.

Moving to California was, for me, such a break out act of defiance that I almost thought my folks would disown me. They certainly didn’t understand it. But ultimately, they accepted it.

And much like growing up in a Republican home, it was hard to live in this atmosphere and not begin to reflect the prevailing attitudes around me.

I think age, living on the coast and the evolution of American politics has made me rather liberal on some issues. I remain quite conservative on others.

California gets a rap for being hola-granola and long-haired liberals. You’d be surprised at how conservative it actually can be.

I guess this is a long way around the barn to say that I know that in commenting to me my values are so diverse from a couple generations ago wasn’t necessarily meant as a compliment…but for me and my personal experience…I’ll take it as such.

I’ve worked hard to have differing priorities. To greater and lesser success.

So anyhow, thanks.