Let Me Introduce You to My Electronic Sanity

 Anyone else all about that screenshot life? I swear, I don’t even know how I used to function without this handy little trick. It was like living in the dark ages and then a light shone down on the little square device in my hand. A voice gently whispered, “Take a screen shot dumbass, you know you’re going to forget otherwise.”

                The thing is, that little voice is right. I AM going to forget it. Give me four and a half seconds and I’m liable to forget my name, staring at the phone in my hand like a caveman that just discovered fire. “Ooh, pretty colors.” I used to think it was age that was starting to creep up on me and then I realized that it’s just storage issues. No one is clearing the cookies from my brain browser to free up space. No one is doing a disk defrag (wow, dating myself a little there, huh?) on my brain’s hard drive. Without antivirus software, I don’t even know if there’s some malware floating around up there. (It would explain why I have a BTS song stuck on repeat in my head when I don’t even listen to pop music.) So, a screenshot reminds me of that weird article I saw online that I wanted to tell my husband about. Or the online shopping that I was doing while laying in bed, sans checkbook. (It would be a little creepy to sleep with a pencil and my checkbook under my pillow, right? Right right, I knew that. I was just checking if YOU knew that. Good job!) It’ll even help me remember that song that I liked when I have time to have a coherent thought. Basically, my phone is my brain's portable hard drive.

                Even though I’ve always been into new tech, especially fun gadgets, I can see that I rely on my phone a lot more than I used to. Maybe if they didn’t make it so conveniently contain my email, calendar, camera, music, banking, alarm clock, exercise tracker, and shopping all in one place, I might be able to resist that temptation. But smartphones have become the shopping malls of technology. Why use multiple gizmos when you can do one stop shopping with your smartphone? I have lists of books that I want to read, Christmas gift ideas for the family, a to-do list, and even ideas for the blog. Sadly, a lot of these don't make the transition to the phone because they are lost as “driving thoughts”. What are those you ask? Driving thoughts are what you think of while driving yet manage to automatically forget as soon as you step out of the car. Some of my best ideas were probably driving thoughts but now they are lost to the great void. It’s like the car sucks all the thoughts back up, not allowing them to escape their sacred space. I need a Knight Rider car (For you youngsters, think Lightning McQueen) that I could talk to and have them take dictation. “Kit, write this down: A desk chair with one of those old school desk type trays that you can fold over to write on attached on it, like a rolling school desk. Also, please check if that already exists.”

                I joke about that, but I don’t think that we are that far off from our own real-life version of Knight Rider cars. I saw that they now have some cars with Alexa in them. I don’t know quite how those work, but I do know that if I ever get my hands on one of those cars, I’d be tickled pink. That would be the cat’s pajamas. The bee’s knees even. Well, gee, that would be super swell. But seriously, do you even know how much easier THAT would make my life? Especially if I could get car Alexa to speak to house Alexa AND somehow get all of them to be bff’s with Siri. It would be like living my best tech life. The next time that I would have one of those fantastic driving ideas I could tell Alexa to do…uh, well, something techy and awesome that would remind me to follow through with said life changing idea that I came up with. (I wonder if Alexa actually drives the car too….hmmm.)

                If life was REALLY awesome, I’d get a droid Alexa who would talk to car Alexa, house Alexa, AND they would all be besties with Siri. Then I would really be in control of my life. Well, they would. I’d live my own life vicariously through me....through them through me? Wait, this is getting a little confusing. Well, I guess until Alexa comes in a Jetson’s (OMG, ANOTHER reference that shows how ancient I am?) sized robot maid that will clean, cook, and keep my hectic schedule in line for me, I guess I’ll just have to do it myself. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to get fired though. I haven’t had great  attention to detail and I’m pretty sure that I’ve been caught playing games on my phone.

 

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Let’s Ignore How Pigmentally Challenged I Am

 

I was just fortunate to have a week off from work where I did nothing more strenuous than deciding where we wanted to order dinner from while I lazed idly in the pool. While in theory that sounds great, I’m a special sort of Caucasian known as “pasty”, so any time spent in the sun is really noticeable. And believe me, people always notice.

“Someone got some sun this weekend.” Yes Sharon, occasionally I DO interact with the outdoors. I mean, it offends my introvert sensibilities, but somehow, I manage.

“Oh, you got some color!” This always seems to be said with some sort of praising voice, like when you ask your dog, “Who’s a good boy?” As if exposing yourself to harmful ultraviolet rays is some sort of accomplishment. I mean, I get it, I’m WHITE. I couldn’t even be the poster child for my race because my skin is too pale. And sure, once the weather turns cold and we stop spending so much time outdoors, my skin color will return to its natural state of being one shade shy of translucent. But why do people always tell me that I need some color? Did I miss something somewhere? Was I absent for the assembly on “How to Get Skin Cancer Like a Pro”? They literally can’t make an SPF strong enough for this transparent skin tone I’m sporting, but I’m supposed to purposefully fry myself in the name of getting some color? What am I missing here?

I also don’t understand when people tell me that I need some color because I’m “too white”. Is that an insult? I’m not sure. Do I say thank you for complimenting this beautiful Caspar coat I am wearing? Or walk away outraged at your uncouth behavior? I just need to know how I’m supposed to react to this information. Am I surprised by my pigment challenged skin suit? What’s my motivation here? I need to understand the character before I can fully become her.

Too white? I don’t get it. Do people tell African American people they are “too black”? “Girl, you need some whiteness, you’re too black.”

Do people tell Latinos that their mocha color needs some cream? (Why do I want coffee now?)

Should I tell my Indian friends that they’re just “too brown”.  “Pavani, your coloring is way too autumnal. You need to balance yourself with winter colors to brighten up that dull skin.”

Not to mention that every time I turn around, I hear the term “white privilege”. How am I supposed to be privileged if I’m a candy cane instead of my natural wintery hue? Because let’s face it, I’m probably going to be red more often than tan. This bleached bone tone that I’m rocking can go from zero to lobster in 12.5 minutes of direct UV exposure. I can double that time if I use copious amounts of sunscreen, reapplying every 97 seconds.

The sad part is these people are still telling me that I need color. And this is tan me! I have to take my watch off to show them the pale strip of normal whiteness against the rest of arm that has been kissed by that big yellow ball in the sky. Yeah, who feels foolish now Janet? I’m SUPER tan, right? (Well, tan adjacent maybe.)

Lest you think I am jumping on the “I need something to be outraged about all the time or I am not happy” bandwagon, I’m not. It doesn’t make me mad. It’s just baffling to me. I am just trying to understand when getting melanoma became our life’s goal. Why can’t I just rock my white self and be good with that? I mean, sure, my veins POP against my super ashen skin, bringing that “old lady je ne sais quoi” look to the table, but wait, where was I going with this?

So the next time you see my marshmallow self walking by you, please hold your applause. I’ll have you know that I had nothing to do with this bleached flour hue. It’s all my genetics fault.

 

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We Need an Updated Guide to Anniversary Gift Giving

             A few weeks ago, I was pondering what to get my husband for our upcoming wedding anniversary. Technically our gift to each other was two blissful days away without our angsty, whiny fruit of our loins. That in itself was a gift more priceless than gold, yet not really “wrappable”. Besides, this one was kind of a “milestone” at fifteen years. So I looked up the traditional gift guide for suggestions.

                For any of you who may have been born in the last 30 years or so and have no idea what I am talking about, the traditional gift guide was a list of suggested gifts by anniversary order. It’s annual until the 15^th year and then it skips to every 5 years, probably because they know there comes a point when you’ve just been married “a long time”. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it really helpful with things such as paper, cotton, leather, fruit and flowers, wood, iron, wool/ copper, bronze, pottery, tin/aluminum, steel, silk, lace, ivory, crystal, and china comprising the first 20 years on the list.

                What the actual hell?

                Who made up this list? I feel like it could have been a woman, except that I have yet to ever met a female who thinks, “Yes, I do believe that wool items are what I desire for my gift. Bring them henceforth.” On the other hand, it couldn’t have been compiled by a man either because every year would be the same gift. And they would insist that it be unwrapped. Wink, wink.

Not to mention, how do you decide what to buy for some of these things?

Paper: “Sweetie, I got you a case of toilet paper. Yeah, 3 ply. Next time you have tacos from that food truck you’ll be wiping like a king. Only the best for my guy!”

Tin/aluminum: “Hey babe, I got you this aluminum foil. Yeah,  I got the 200 square feet. Who’s your Daddy?”

China: “Darling, here is some china that I picked out without any of your input so that I could surprise you with dishes that will only be used at Christmas until they’re so old that you worry about it breaking and it forever collects dust in the china cabinet.”

Lace: “Babe, I got this teeny tiny lace nightgown for you…No, you’re right, this is a gift for me. (But you’ll still wear it right?”)

                Lest you become discouraged though, I DID find a “modern” version of the list with such fabulous suggestions as clocks, electrical appliances, pen and pencil sets, furs, furniture, and musical instruments.

Again, I ask, who oversaw this list? I have never, not once, thought to myself, “Self, do you know what we are missing in our life? A musical instrument. It’s too bad that it’s not my 24^th wedding anniversary so that I can get myself a sweet didgeridoo from the love of my life!” I have never wondered, “Why don’t I ever get gifted with a clock? It would really help to know what time it is to have a clock every 2 feet in my house. Yeah, I actually do own a watch, what are you getting at?”

I think that if I was in charge of this list, I would put fun or useful items on it. If you’re celebrating your wedding anniversary, do you want to do that with pottery? Or do you want a spa day? Do you want crystal or do you want to be able to eat a personal size chocolate cake without sharing? They don’t even need to be purchased items. If your marriage has children, maybe give Mom an entire 15 minutes to eat a hot meal and use the bathroom without sticky fingers reaching under the door. Give Dad an hour to poop while reading the newspaper without nagging. Allow your fashion tragic spouse an outing (to the backyard) in an outfit of their choosing, with no input from you. Tape their ideal weight onto the scale and encourage them to check their weight multiple times over the course of the day. See, sometimes it’s the small things in life that make us happy.

                In the end I just got him smart technology which probably didn’t exist when either the traditional or modern lists were produced. I don’t know what category that would fit under, but it wasn’t crystal or watches. Or a crystal watch. Or a watch crystal. Or watching Crystal get a crystal watch. But it was at least 100 times better than a sharp stick in the eye.

 

 

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What I’ll Miss About the Pandemic

 

              Now that the vaccine for ‘Rona is rolling out, we are moving towards some semblance of normalcy. Don’t get me wrong, this is technically amazing progress. I admit, however, that there are things that I’ll miss having lived through my first (and hopefully last!) pandemic.

             The first thing that I will miss are the masks. I KNOW! I was totally surprised myself. At the beginning, it was so strange and abnormal to wear a face covering. It was hot and itchy and wrong. Until we went 18 months in my house without a single creeping cruddy, drippy nosed, hacking, sneezy child. Eighteen. Months. This is the healthiest my family has ever been in fact. I’m fairly certain that we may be bionic by now. I mean, that’s some sort of miracle right there. I have NEVER had an 18 month stretch of non-illness in my house since the first progeny was popped out. I AM sad for the cough drop industry though. I think that we may have been single handedly keeping them afloat for the last two decades.

 In addition to the health benefits, masks also hid my face. Pre-pandemic I had gotten fabulously awesome at learning not to say what I was thinking. My face, however, had a learning curve and wasn’t quite there yet. The masks covered (pun intended) that issue beautifully. Now I’m not sure I can go back to full time masklessness, vaccine or not. I am going to have to re-train my face to hopefully not show downright incredulity at people’s stupidity. My only saving grace is that I know, from the number of videos I’ve seen recently, that I am not alone in this. The “can’t control what my face does when you speak” group is a large one. We are many. We are fierce. But we are also damn expressive unfortunately.

Also, it’s extremely obvious when you whisper, “What the actual f*ck?” without a mask on. Whereas whispering that with a mask on is only problematic if someone is super close to you. (Which, hello?!? Pandemic! Please maintain six feet social distance at all times. Even once the pandemic is 1,000% over.)

Well, I guess it might also be problematic if you’re only able to do a loud stage whisper.

But I digress.

The second thing that I am going to miss about the pandemic is the built-in excuse to be antisocial. All of us introverts just had an eighteen-month vacation from social obligations. And it was wonderful…. I mean, it was terrible. Yes, sadly, we were forced to stay in and decompress. Become one with the sofa. Binge books, Netflix, and bread baking. Learn a new hobby. Snuggle with our kids. Have family game nights. Enjoy our homes. Yes, it was a frightfully horrid ordeal that we would never want to repeat…. more than once a month. Ok, ok, twice a month. But I draw a hard line there! Yes, that line stops at three times a month for sure.

Pre-pandemic I had socialized enough that I was (mostly) not awkward anymore. Notice I said mostly. I am too clunky to ever be 100% graceful, though I do occasionally manage an entire function without one single uncomfortable moment. Well, make that past tense. Apparently, the year and a half hibernation has reset my social skills to their default setting. Which is only weird if you’re one of the unlucky ones who invited me to your post pandemic event. (By the way, sorry sis. I’ll probably be better by the Christmas party.) If you did/do, you will be the lucky winner of one inelegant, dorky, book loving, antisocial mom who hasn’t gotten enough sleep in 23 years. I hold my humor as my shield AND my sword, but my dark and twisty sense of humor sometimes offends the normal people who don’t have coffee for blood and song lyrics on a non-stop loop in their brains. My sarcasm is a warm blanket that I wrap around me and I often have inappropriate words fall out of my mouth.

But once you get past all that, I’m quite a delight!

So if you manage to see me out in public with a naked face, and it has one of its usual “OH MY GOD, I CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP” looks, it’s not you. Unless there is literally no one else around. Then it probably IS you. And in that case, I’m sorry for what my face is saying.

 

 

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I've Got No Good Vibes From 2021

     Remember at the height of the pandemic when we all wanted to fast forward through to the end when things were getting better and we could breathe a sigh of relief for seeing the light at the end of the tunnel? I think someone forgot to slow back down to real time. Either that or we all failed to recall how busy actual life could be after being on pause for a year.

    To be honest, so far I’m not that impressed with 2021. It’s as if we were all in slow motion and when we snapped back to normal time, the ricochet made everything speed up. It’s the only explanation that I have for why the first day of June is tomorrow when I’m pretty sure we just celebrated New Year’s Eve. The only other possibility is that I am some mega-human about to discover her super powers for the first time and the last six months are just the boring back story until my life gets super interesting and strange as I test out these new abilities. (Which ok, wouldn’t suck. Unless it was some lame superpower, like the ability to stay awake during foreign subtitled films.)

    The real pisser is that our parents all told us how fast time went and not to wish our lives away and we all did it anyway. Now here we are, adults, going through the same warp speed living, and being annoyed that our parents were right. The only positive in this is that we now get to annoy our own children with the same admonishments. These will fall on the same deaf ears. And they will have the same “Aw, crap!” moment many years from now. Like Sir Elton John once crooned, “It’s the circle of life.”

    What is ironic is that I never seem to learn that Mother Nature and Fate have weekly get togethers and figure out ways to make me lose my mind. Because if it’s not the super speed life that makes six months go by in a blink, it’s the thwarting of plans that we try to make. After a weird weather winter where we weren’t sure if she was going to let us escape her cold, dead grip, we had five minutes of spring and skipped straight to unseasonably warm temperatures. Lest you think that you’ll accomplish anything however, we will make sure that the only nice weather weekends are when you are busy. Any other times where you have delusions of accomplishment, it will rain and/or be much colder than the season should be.

    It’s like that saying, “Life is what happens when you make plans.” I’m convinced that this was 100% said by a frustrated parent trying to fit everything into their schedule and failing miserably. This was totally someone like me who was pissed off by the 3 day weekend that was supposed to result in all the gardening, planting and mulching to be done. Until it rained the entire time and had temperatures in the 40’s. (There was a freaking frost advisory for cripe’s sake! At the end of May!) Oooh, wait, today will make it all the way up into the 50’s! Break out the swimsuits people, it’s a heat wave!

    It’s almost June and Mother Nature is drunk again. Proving that we cannot, in fact, have nice things. Or that someone has to put a stop to the girls gone wild weekends she’s been participating in that’s making her unpredictable.

    It’s not just this sole occurrence that’s got me as frustrated as a toddler trying to put their left shoe on their right foot. I’m behind on my spring cleaning (it’s probably going to be fall cleaning at this rate) and I don't think that I've ever seen the end of my to-do list. On top of that, I keep forgetting to buy a lottery ticket, making my dream of leaving this 9-5 drudgery behind me a futile pipe dream. (Not to mention those un-manifested super powers that I mentioned before. I’m waiting….)

    So, no, 2021 isn’t giving me any warm, fuzzy feelings. We won’t be singing songs around the campfire and making s’mores anytime soon, I can tell you that. Most likely I’m going to block 2021 in my contacts list and drown my sorrows in rocky road while lamenting my complete averageness. Unless OCD is my superpower. Then I’m totally rocking this.

 

 

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My Life as an Aggressively Clumsy Person: A Sad Sack Story

Sometimes, when I’m being fanciful and imaginative, I like to pretend that I was once graceful and classy. Sadly, the reverse is more likely to be true. I was, wait…let me rephrase that, I AM, currently and almost always, awkward and klutzy as hell. It’s pretty much been perfected into a talent at this point.

Yes, the coordination gene skipped my generation, leaving me with the special ability to trip over lint and flat floors. I kid you not. FLAT. FLOORS. I can walk across a floor whose only problem is that my two left feet have trod upon it. That is the only offense that I have committed. Walking. On a level surface. With the amount of times that I have tripped, fallen, almost tripped, or almost fallen, there is a great possibility that I may have 4 left feet. There’s no way just the two of them are causing that much havoc. I mean, what the heck is going on down there? Can’t you just get your act together? I have to channel my inner drill sergeant and call cadence just to get those knuckleheads at the end of my legs into formation!

If I’m not tripping over imaginary cracks in the ground, then there’s also the possibility that I may be stepping wrong or walking out of my shoe. Because why not liven things up with stepping out of your show and falling straight into the sharpest corner of furniture nearest you? Yeah, that’s going to leave a mark. And a honking bruise. It’s easier to hide the evidence of your total lack of grace in the winter. Layers hide those mystery bruises (because half the time I don’t even know what piece of furniture I ran into this time) and scrapes that only a supreme klutz manages to accumulate. Lucky me that shorts season is right around the corner.

I think I need to invent a glue stick type of product that you rub on to remove skin contusions. I’ll call it “Bruise-B-Gone” and make a fortune and finally hire someone to take over the tedious task of cooking dinner every damn night. And when I’m filthy rich from my miraculous “Bruise-B-Gone” geniusery (Brillianceness? Cleverance?) I’ll buy some tropical island and sip mai tais on the beach every day while thinking up new sparks of geniusery.

But that’s beside the point. Focus! Now where was I? Oh right.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, my own body fluids have taken to attacking me. Sure, saliva SEEMS innocent and normal. Until you’re choking on it because you can’t even manage to swallow your own spit without breathing at the same time. Basically, I’m aspirating my own saliva. My own body can’t separate swallowing and breathing because the awkward gene is so strong that it trumps basic biologic functions. That gawky gene is so strong that it blocks out years of inherit evolutionary operations. That’s a special kind of stupid right there.

And you can’t cough or choke in a pandemic without being branded with a giant scarlet C on your chest. Hastily trying to stop choking on your own bodily fluids long enough to stammer out an apology and explain that you just swallowed wrong. Evil eyes trained on you like you’re Typhoid Mary. It’s embarrassing! Between that and my allergies, I’m pretty much a pariah to the hyper-hygienic community. Come to think of it, it’s pretty crappy that my sinuses are also ganging up on me. Like being an uber klutz wasn’t bad enough, now I’m a runny nosed-itchy eyed-histamine carrying-snotty mess on top of it? I’d roll my eyes at that but I can’t because they’re so allergy stricken that the mere action will make me want to itch them until they fall out. Since I need them for a pesky thing called sight, I can’t rub them into a giant pile of eyeball ash. So I guess I’ll verbally roll my eyes and heave a virtual sigh at the unfairness of being betrayed by the body that I’ve made my home in for the last 41….I mean 29….years.

If that’s not enough proof of the awkwardness that I have in spades let me also tell you that I can trip UP stairs and trip DOWN stairs. It has nothing to do with the direction I am travelling and everything to do with foot placement. (Maybe cadence would come in handy here too.) I can walk by a wall, misjudge my proximity to said wall, and crash into it as I walk by. (My house has a lot of these fast moving walls that jump out in front of me.) My shins can unerringly find the sharpest corner of the stand or coffee table. My pinky toe threatened to leave a few years ago if I didn’t stop stubbing it. (Only the right one though. I guess the left toe has every smidge of what little bit of poise and dexterity I was bestowed with at birth.) I can hit my head on cabinet doors that I opened. Not like I walked into a cabinet door that someone else left open. Nope. I do it to myself. Like I don’t even know how accident prone I am or something. I burn my mouth on liquid that I KNOW is hot but convince myself that 3 quick breaths cooled it down enough not to scorch a path down my esophagus. I break fingernails opening a package. I have poked myself in the eye, stabbed my nostril with a fingernail trying to itch middle part there (The nose island?) and whacked my elbow on more things than I can count. (It’s NEVER funny either.) It’s like my body is trying to kill me in small, teensy degrees. Either that or it’s the worst hitman ever.

If anyone read this post and felt immediate kinship with your clumsy cousin, please come to our monthly meetings. They are held in the basement of a bubble wrap factory. We serve tepid tea and fig newtons. (We found those to be the least harmful refreshments.) We can’t fix you, but we can at least laugh at you and give you something to laugh at in return. And if your kids are like mine and following in your tripping footsteps, you might want to start investing in some bubble wrap of your own. Or at the very least, a cool looking helmet.

 

 

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What’s For Dinner? Answering Life’s Toughest Questions.

If someone had told me that adulting meant being in charge of deciding what we eat every single night forever and ever until I die, I might not have signed up for this gig. (Let’s face it, that’s just one of the many reasons that growing up was overrated, am I right?) As it is, I can’t figure out what I was in such a hurry for in the first place. Sure, you get to eat cake for dinner if you want, but if you’re a parent, you’re either going to have to share or hide in a closet like the cake hoarding refugee that you are. (I’m not sure that takes the sting out of getting up and going to work every day though.) Disclaimer: If you’re single, live alone, and are eating cake in a closet, there might be some deeper issues that need addressing.

Dinner has been a point of contention in my house for quite some time. Mostly because my husband likes to ask what we are having for dinner. Every day. At nine in the morning. Basically, I’m still finishing the magic juice that gives me life (A.K.A. Bean juice A.K.A. nectar of the coffee bean A.K.A. ambrosia of the Gods) and he’s asking what we are having for dinner. I’m not sure if it’s because my strangle-o-meter is not quite at zero yet (since I haven’t finished my daily dose of java) or if it’s because men are from Mars and women are from Jupiter (Venus? Alaska? You’d think I’d know this one, right?), but there’s nothing like having to answer what you’re having for dinner when you’ve barely eaten breakfast. To say the least, it irked me. And because the human race needs to create likenesses in their own images, little “mini-me’s” if you will, the middle schooler started picking up this habit of dinner questioning.

Oh for the love of all that’s holy! Are you kidding me right now?

So I, in my infinite wisdom, decide that I am going to create a monthly calendar that has ALL the dinners on it. (Actually, the blank calendar that I printed out actually has FIVE weeks, so it’s like a bonus month instead of a regular month.) Surely THIS will stop the myriad of questions, right? It did. I’m sure it didn’t have anything to do with me telling him to check the calendar any time I was on the receiving end of the grievous dinner query. Or stating that the calendar now preempts all endeavors to even make an inquiry as to dinner plans. That’s right, I went through ALL OF THIS NONSENSE just to stop being annoyed by a single, frustrating question. Hey, you can’t say that I’m not motivated or creative.

As a side benefit of the calendar, I don’t have to put a lot of thought into the grocery lists anymore either. I check the dinner schedule to see what I need and voila! Instant grocery list! Okay, well, it’s not magic. I still have to write it. But now there’s less agonizing at least.

The problem with this is if I HATE planning singular meals every day, how much worse is it to come up with 35 at once? Yeah, it’s not that great. On the bright side though, I can usually repeat a meal here and there as long as there’s at least 3 weeks in between.

This, however, leads to another problem: putting meals on there that everyone likes. Why is that a problem you ask? Because those meals are all DIFFERENT. Yes, sprinkling those meals throughout the month means that everyone is miserable about what they’re eating on different days. Do you know what dinner that makes everyone happy? Every other Friday’s “eat out” night. Yes, the one where I don’t have to cook and the meal most likely with the least nutritional content is the one that saves the day. Hey, even chefs need days off, right? Creating culinary masterpieces like Kraft a La Mac and Cheese and Petite Frozen Fish Filets is an exhausting business, alright?)

So now that I have come up with a fix to that dilemma, how about tackling that dinner rut? Anyone else out there in a stuck in a grotesque groove of the same old, same old? Yeah, picky eater, time constraints, and lack of F’s to give pretty much mean that we are rotating the same seasonal appropriate meals in an endless, exhausting dinner cycle. To remedy that, I have taken to occasionally scouring the internet for family-friendly-picky-eater-approved-doesn’t-take-all-night-to-cook meals to throw in the mix. (What this means is that the picky eater now gets 3 more meals to be miserable over. Though he did like the crescent roll pizza, so maybe progress after all?)

So for all those exhausted parents out there who are living the dinner struggle right now, I see you. Not that that really helps you much unless you were just looking for some validation. I will leave you with this tip: Grilled cheese sandwiches (and tomato soup in cold weather) make an excellent go-to menu filler. I know, amazing right? If I keep this up, I’m going to be the next star on the Food Network. You’re welcome.

 

 

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When Leaving the Nest Doesn't Stick

 

When your kid gets old enough to leave the house, it’s a bittersweet moment. On one hand, the child that you’ve raised and housed and fed for all of their entire life is leaving. On the other hand, you get to have that craft/exercise/ceramic llama collectible room that you’ve always wanted. So you wish them well, lose sleep over their learning curve of how to adult, and eventually settle into your new normal. And that new normal becomes nice, in a different sort of way.

Except sometimes…sometimes they come back.

When your fledgling bird returns to the nest, (and you now have to find room to store 276 llama figurines) know that this is also not easy on them. Not only have they been able to live away from the eagle eyes of mom and pop, but they have had the luxury of not having to make their bed, pick up their socks, or live anything remotely close to anything that resembles a human. (Though this may possibly only be the male of the species. Or perhaps just specific to this one male child. Or specific to this one, slobby, male, grown-ish child.) They have been able to become their own person, which is great, except they’ve brought that person with them and that person has forgotten how to live in civilized-governed-by-parents society.

As their parent, you’ve told them their whole lives that you were their safe harbor, so it’s not like you can recant now. You can’t take back 23 years of love and security. Well, you could, but then you’d just have sleepless nights imagining what might be happening. (Mom-magination is basically just moms thinking of every worst case scenario that could happen and doing their best to prevent it. We can’t help it. It’s like hardwired into the nurturing gene. Or maybe it’s the over protective gene. I forget which. It’s why we have such a hard time trying to parent adult children who are capable of making their own decisions and mistakes, knowing that we can’t Mom swoop and fix everything like we could back when they were 5.)

So back to the mom-magination. You’re lying there. The brain is working overtime. If you don’t let them come back and get themselves together again they might end up couch surfing. Or worse, homeless. And what if they’re homeless, minding their own business sleeping under a park bench, when they’re violently abducted and stolen for organ harvesting? They wake up in some seedy motel bathtub filled with ice and a very important organ has vanished, to be sold on some secret black market. (Though that’s not politically correct anymore so maybe it’s the absence of all light market now?) 

Or worse, maybe they took ALL the organs and you’re left with basically a pod person. Just an empty skin shell that resembles the son that you used to know. and it’s not like you can just make another one of those lickety split. For one, that baby making factory is CLOSED FOR BUSINESS. It’s been foreclosed on. The weeds have overtaken the place and it’s a ramshackle, run down old factory that’s rumored to be haunted. And even if it wasn’t closed, and I even knew where to find a brand spanking new baby on the absence of all light market, do you know how long I had to work on that one to train him on the art of being a human being? Granted, seeing how he lives these last 2 weeks, I apparently didn’t do as well as I thought, but still, there is A LOT of time invested in that kid. Plus, he was the FIRST one. The one where I was too young and too stupid but I had a lot of good intentions and energy so it made up for it. Now I don’t even have any good intentions.  And forget about the energy because that ship has sailed baby. This is why the last kid is the way they are, parents are just phoning it in because they are exhausted and need a nap 24/7. Or in the very lease a Zoloft because parenting doesn’t stop when they leave the house, as I have been so eloquently explaining in this last paragraph.

Fortunately, I have gained enough wisdom and experience to deal with this situation gracefully, or at least with minimal screaming and hair pulling. (Yours AND theirs.) So you make adjustments to feed another mouth, which as it turns out is fairly easy since you can’t seem to cook small meals anyway, find places to store another person’s belongings, and shuffle furniture to squeeze them in. This usually is accompanied by nagging them because that also seems to be a predominant mom gene that I’ve been honing with his siblings.

Muah ha ha ha ha, my mom arsenal is complete!

For now I’ll try to enjoy this “bonus time” with a kid who will be gone again in a few short weeks because yeah, he’s a pain in the ass. But he’s my pain in the ass and I’m keeping him. Unless he becomes a Cowboys fan. Then I’m putting him up for adoption.

 

 

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Goodbye 2020, and Good Riddance!

 

Well people, we did it. We made it to the last day of 2020. Tomorrow will dawn on the first day of 2021, and while Coronavirus won’t magically have disappeared, we have one thing that was sadly lacking in 2020: HOPE. That’s right, the Corona virus vaccine fosters hope for a better year. One that may even include a vacation. Do you remember vacations? I don’t mean sitting at home for a week just to use up time that you have to use before the end of the year, I mean actual vacations. Like getting to go somewhere other than your backyard. Sigh….I’ve really missed vacations.

Unfortunately, they are saying that it may take years before we see any results because of the number of people who are reticent about getting the vaccine. Because of course. This is why America can’t have nice things. All of the people who act like spoiled toddlers throwing Mom’s knick knacks and smashing them on the floor. Here are some of the arguments that I have heard are being used against getting the vaccine:

                “If they haven’t found a cure for cancer in all these years, I certainly can’t trust that they have found an effective vaccine for Corona virus in just a year.” Really dude? It’s called THE ENTIRE PHARMACEUTICAL COMMUNITY WAS WORKING ON THE SAME PROBLEM AT THE SAME TIME. Also, gobs of money were being thrown into funding the vaccine for this ONE VIRUS. There was no split concentration. No focusing on multiple projects at once. The entire world stopped and threw their weight behind finding a covid vaccine. This just shows you how much we, as a nation, could actually accomplish if we weren’t always divided on everything all the time. Or even a world as a whole. Teamwork makes the dream work baby and this just goes to show you that it actually works. Now if we could just get on the same page about global warming. 

    And do we really think that the people who are using this excuse would actually take a cancer vaccine if it was available tomorrow? No, they’d probably say something like, “Well, it took so many years to come up with it that I can’t trust that it works. I mean, if it were that simple, wouldn’t they have found it years ago?” These are probably the people that are never happy unless they have something to complain about.

“I don’t want the government tracking me.” Oh good Lord. This is what happens when people only skim articles or eavesdrop on half of a conversation. We’ve been over this people, it’s tracking the distribution of the vaccine, not putting a tracking chip in your arm. For frick’s sake, it took an entire population looking for an answer to this problem, do you really think they are organized enough to track billions of people? Just the sheer manpower required to log this data would be a decades long project. It took six months to decide to give Americans $600. (Oh wait, that’s not even a sure thing yet so probably even longer.) I’m pretty sure we’re safe from being tracked by THE MAN. Though, these are probably the same people who search for Area 51, wear tinfoil hats to prevent being beamed up to the mothership, and think that the static from radio waves is an alien race trying to communicate with us, so I’m not sure we can put much stock in their opinions.

“They came up with the virus so fast that they cut corners. It’s not safe.” See above reference to combined brain power and funding. Just because they came up with it quickly, it doesn’t mean that the government would allow the cutting of any corners. Guidelines still had to be adhered to and trials still needed 2 months of data before they could even think about asking for permission to manufacture the vaccine. Read that part again. They needed TWO MONTHS OF DATA before they would be GRANTED PERMISSION to manufacture the vaccine. Mom wouldn’t let them go outside to play until their room was cleaned AND inspected by her. So it’s not a matter of being unsafe, it’s a matter of having the most brilliant minds in their field working towards a common goal. Of course, these people also probably complain about having to wear a mask because it’s repressing their civil liberties, yet pooh pooh a solution that is working towards being able to get rid of said masks.

“I’ll get Corona virus from the vaccine.” This would be true if any of the vaccines contained the live virus. Since it doesn’t, it’s not a factor. These are probably the anti-vaxxers who still believe that vaccines cause autism, even though that was soundly disproven.

“I don’t put unknown chemicals into my body.” These crunchy granola types are only believable if you tell me they don’t eat processed food, tried pop rocks as a kid, drink soda, take a prescription medication for any reason, or partied in the woods as teenagers. If you’ve done, or still do, any of these things, then I believe the word that you are looking for is “hypocrite”. These people probably advocate herd immunity by having large gatherings and letting “nature take its course”.

Listen, don’t think that I am saying that you have to get the vaccine or you’re wrong. If you don’t want to get it, that’s your prerogative. I’m just saying that you can’t use some asinine BS theory to fuel your decision. Do some actual homework man. Find some research that supports your hypothesis. Research that is based in science and facts. Don’t listen to FOX news and hear half an opinion from some rando politician and form a half-baked theory that you then spread to more gullible saps who don’t know how to work the internet (or the card catalog, if you’re old school). As for me, I will probably opt to get the vaccine. Once the 4.2 billion people in line ahead of me get theirs that is. Until then, I guess I’ll just wear the mask and pray to the vacation Gods.

 

 

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Our Children: The Great Time Magicians

     Everyone thinks that their child is special. Maybe because they’re a math genius or because they didn’t lick any other kids at the playground that day but they are, in fact, special for another reason altogether:

Children are Magicians of Time.

Ok, I know you’re thinking that I’ve finally gone ‘round the bend now. Well, yes, I have. I thought that we had established that these past few years that we’ve spent time together. Anyway, if you take a moment and really think about it, you will see the evidence that’s been staring you in the face.

The ability to manipulate time comes at birth. Since it takes time to hone this skill, it’s a little wonky in that first few months. That’s the reason why all of a sudden you realize that it’s been a week since they were born (and your last shower) and how every sleepless night in those first months feel weeks long. You’ve got to cut them a little slack people. They’re brand new to this planet. There’s a learning curve. The good thing about this is that you’re too sleep deprived and catatonic to even notice that time has gone all wibbly wobbly. The early days you count yourself lucky if you get at least one hot meal AND a shower in 12 consecutive hours.

They practice their craft until they are master time manipulators and they are damn good at it too. Consider how often time slows down:

·      When they’re sick and all you want is for them to hurry up and be well again

·       Sitting through countless hours of tee ball games where they pick daisies for 2 hours

·        The teenage years

·        Any grade school band concert under the age of 10

·        Listening to them tell you the story of how Tommy threw up at recess, a 12 part saga with meandering mini stories intertwined in the 22 minute tale

In every instance, you’re probably watching the clock avidly, waiting for the hands to tick away the time until normalcy resumes. (The teenage years are a LONG wait for this.) For me, I used to loathe tee ball with the passion of 1,000 fiery suns. I know parents who would look at me in shock like I should be doing cartwheels sitting there while Johnny on the blue team tries 43 times to hit the ball off the tee and Susie on the orange team is laying down in the outfield making grass angels. I know that they need to start somewhere to learn these skills, but I was always thrilled when they moved up to little league. You know, REAL baseball. I’m sure that it didn’t help that baseball season seemed to only have two temperatures: frostbite and sun stroke. Give me a squeaky instrumented fourth grade band concert, I can take it. But whatever you do, please don’t make me sit through tee ball again. (Side note: If the pandemic has given me any gift, it’s that my youngest will be too old for tee ball when sports resume. Halleluiah!)

You’d think that they would be happy to slow time down and be done with it, wouldn’t you? But nooooo, they also speed time up. Think about their first birthday. You sat there for an entire day wondering how the hell a year went by so fast, didn’t you? The same thing happened when they went to kindergarten the first time and you stoically sent them on that bright yellow bus, holding back those tears until they were far enough away that you wouldn’t emotionally scar them (more than normal anyway). How did he get to be 5? When did she grow up to be a school aged kid? How could have 1,825 days have gone by so fast. (I am going to pretend that I pulled that number out of my stellar mental math skills and not the calculator on my smart phone.)

Their favorite time to fast forward, of course, is the holidays. This is why you blink on October 31 and then it’s all of a sudden 3 weeks until Christmas. You can’t really blame them though. Who doesn’t look forward to presents? (Other than a present hating weirdo I mean.) If you’re smart, you’ll get Halloween costumes and stocking stuffers at the same time and save yourself some stress at the time glitch you don’t remember happening. Don’t worry, after a kid or two, you don’t even notice it anymore. You’re too busy baking cookies, wrapping presents, planning parties, cooking food, keeping schedules straight, going to work, cleaning, climbing Mt. Laundry, and possibly even managing some sleep in there too. Just tape your eyes open because if you blink one too many times, it’s February break.

These kids get so good at making time go by fast that sometimes they make it disappear completely. It’s true! Tomorrow is December 1. I’m pretty sure that yesterday was June. So where did the 5 months in between go huh? They literally disappeared into thin air. POOF. This is where the magicians show off their true skills. The earlier stuff was just warming up for the main event. Once they’ve mastered making literal hours and days disappear, they start going bigger. Weeks, months, years…..before you know it they’re off to college and you’re scratching your head at an eight year old is able to even go to college. At least, that’s the last clear memory you have. Their 8^th birthday party that you spent hours on Pinterest finding ideas how to do an under the sea themed party and all the time that you cut out construction paper fish and made fishing poles out of sticks and strings.

So the next time that you’re wondering where the time went, remember the little Time Wizard that resides with you. That Marvelous Minute Magician. Admire their skill. Appreciate their craft. Most importantly, hug them before it’s Tuesday the 21^st of three years later.

 

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