All too easily I am able to sink myself into the murky depths of the “if only…” thought process. It’s probably why I was so obsessed with Romeo and Juliet as a kid. Rewinding and replaying a series of events – pin pointing what I did wrong, and agonizing over how one simple action on my part could have changed everything and made things better. I’m not talking about just major mistakes that led to life-changing repercussions, though I have had my share of those (of which thoughts I keep locked up in a box and buried under the bed in the deepest darkest closet of my mind). For me it’s even the little things I do that lead to something going wrong that tie my stomach up in knots for days and take over my ability to concentrate on anything else except, “You idiot! Why did (or didn’t) you do/say that?!?” I know I am butchering this quote terribly, I’m not even sure if it’s the right play…but one of Shakespeare’s characters (I think in Julius Caesar) has a comment on how “What’s past hope should be past care.” And really, I wish it was that easy. I get it – I do – I know that when something is done, it’s done, and fretting over it and wishing I could change it does no good and will get me no where. Yet I can’t seem to help it! All I can say is that I am thankful that overall, the things I have to regret are relatively minor in the scheme of things (most of them) and that what I wish above all; not only for myself but for my children, is that we can live out our days with, if not without any, than at least with very few moments of serious regret.
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Seeking to Silence the Stress
We all know stress is bad for us, and I am really trying hard to not let all the little things bother me. The other day I was feeling Mr. Stress creep up and threaten to drown me, when I realized here I was on a GORGEOUS day, walking with my even more gorgeous daughters to the park with a blue blue sky and the wind blowing through the trees with the taste of fall in the air. So, I let it all go…all the little things eating me – I just told them all to go away. I walked on, listening to the happy chatter of my 5 year old, and the wind in the trees.
Ever since I was very little I have loved that sound. On fall nights I would lie down on an old picnic table we had in our backyard and look up at the stars, just listening to the wind in the trees. If ever I found a moment of true peace, of a “quietness” in my soul, it was listening to the wind blowing through the trees. Other sounds have brought me similar moments of comfort, joy, and/or peace – and the simple act of listing them on my Top 10 page has made me remember how nice it is to sit and just listen.
Why I love Broccoli
Not the veggie my lil sis used to call “trees.” Though I do love me some broccoli, freshly steamed with a little garlic, or stir-fried, or stuffed on top of a baked potato and smothered in cheese, oh yum.
No the broccoli I am loving is the egotistical blowhard who has an I.Q. of 10, “10 Damn It!” Broccoli is the smartest vegetable, you know, and the rest of you are all FFFFFFFFFoooooools.
Back in the day when the hubby and I were just dating teens sitting around watching t.v. after our shift at the mall, we would eat Dairy Queen and watch Liquid Television on Mtv…and that is where I met and fell in love with the trash talking terror, Mr. Broccoli. If you have never had the ultimate delight of seeing this veggie in action, please enjoy now.
And if you don’t like it, you’re wrong. Wrong. You’re wrong.
This Birthday Brought to You By Nintendo
So, it’s more than 3 months since hubby celebrated the passing of another year and I’ve been meaning to mention the awesomeness of my mad gift giving skillz (in the midst of having our second child and recovering, mind you). But, sheesh, I’ve been a wee bit busy with the wee one.
Last year, Mario in all his deliciousness was the b-day cake, this year, Zelda (well, Link, to be exact) graced the icing in a macho way…
Both made by a friend who dabbles in cake decorating as a side business (see Link to ShortCakes if you’re jealous and want one for yourself).
So, the cake alone was a great gift, but I also bought the man a Wii (which I had purchased months in advance and hid under the bed, in case I went into labor and didn’t have a chance to find one later).
His Mom got him a DS, so the boy was just a happy camper all around.
Since he has now added a special section to his website showcasing the cakes, I gotta think about what to do next year!
Random Musings – aka – stuff that floats through my brain while I’m in the shower
I’m sure there are activities you do that leave your mind free to roam about, pausing on one inane thing or another before flitting off to something else. For me, these moments of mental window shopping usually occur when I’m in the shower, going for a jog (though it’s only walks I’ve been doing lately), or driving. Usually one random thought shows up, and then it leads to some other random idea, and another, and another, my train of thought jumping tracks until finally arriving at a single place to ponder on some equally inane topic as the one I started with. For example, while I was washing my hair the other day I happened to recall a conversation from the most recent book club meeting when one of the girls mentioned how her mother first met her step-father through an on-line dating service. Her mother had to move to England where her step-father, Hugh, lives. This thought got me thinking about how Hugh is considered a very English (as in Brit) name, though I think of it as more French…but most Hugh’s you come across (not that there are many, though I am married to one) are of the UK variety. This made me think of Hugh Grant, and how he always plays the charming bumbler – a character I don’t much care for except in the case of another actor named Grant, Cary – in “Bringing Up Baby.” This made me try and draw a comparison between Hugh and Cary Grant, but I gave that line of thinking up quickly, because really, there’s no comparison. Which led me to think about how many of the actors of the 30’s and 40’s I like so much better than those of today…Cary Grant isn’t really one of my favorites, but I LOVE Errol Flynn, and Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, and enjoy Richard Peck, Rex Harrison, and Burt Lancaster (though I guess he comes a little later). From here I began compiling a mental list of my top ten favorite “Classic Movies,” though by now I was rinsing the conditioner out of my hair and just about to step out of my shower. But that list stuck around in my mind, and if you’re curious, check it out – for I’ll add it to my 10 page now.
Oh, and if there’s a movie on this list you have not seen, rent it today!
It was kind of fun to retrace my mental steps and try to play connect the dots with my thought pattern, like following the conversation of my 5 year old.
What LG and the IRS have in common
They both irritate the hell out of me. A year or two ago we were faced with a frustrating and expensive experience with the IRS due to incompetence and general asshattery on the part of someone(S) shabby work. An experience which led me to play the acronym game, as seen here.
As I mentioned recently, many items have been contributing to my stress level lately, among them my barely 3 month old dryer which quit working almost a full month ago. An LG product, and still under warranty, the company sent someone from a local repair shop to deal with the problem…the repair shop they use is operated by baboons. Wait, no, that’s an insult to baboons. 3 visits and nearly 4 weeks later, I’m still waiting for a working dryer. I’ve resorted to drying clothes on a line outside, hanging out at friends and relatives homes to use their appliances, and seriously considering the next dreaded step: going to a laundromat. Yes I know plenty of people don’t have the luxury of a washer and dryer at home and use laundromats on a regular basis – but I spent good money to not have to do that. Despite numerous calls and e-mails to LG complaining of the slow and pathetic customer service we have been receiving, we are getting no where. “This is highly unusual!” They say. “We’re so sorry!” they murmur – but do we have a working dyer? NO. Look, if our situation was in the realm of normal, we wouldn’t be complaining!!! It’s not – and you should be doing something about it! AS of yet, they haven’t – and to vent some frustration, I shall play the acronym game now…
LG =
Loves Garbage
Lacks Genius
Laughable Goods
Lackluster Goods
I’m gonna quit now, my blood pressure is rising, and I’m getting a headache. Supposedly my dryer will be fixed on Tuesday, if it’s not…bad things may happen.
A laugh just when I needed it
After going to bed in a pretty crabby mood and getting up much the same or worse (I won’t say waking up – since I didn’t really do much sleeping…the little one wanted a midnight snack, and was hungry again at 3am, still hungry at 4, and just not happy at 5) anyway, crazy half-sleep dreams aside, not much sleep leaves me feeling much like a trash can inhabitant named Oscar. With the eating machine snoozing in her chair, I zipped through my usual favorite sites and saw someone had posted THIS. Ah, it wasn’t HILARIOUS, but definitely a good laugh that I sorely needed this morning.
A Pile of Phonebooks…My Stress Shelf
Today, as I was driving down the road with a screaming 6 week old in the backseat, the variety of “issues” I am dealing with of late suddenly materialized in a vision of phonebooks…and I began to see all the things causing me stress as big, heavy, useless phonebooks. And if you think about it, it makes sense. In today’s world a phonebook is a big waste of space: the info they contain is more easily accessed via the web, they usually arrive on the rainiest day of the month so you are left with a sodden heap, and as you get another one each year, they just seem to pile up – like stress – a big pile of useless rain warped newsprint.
As I mentally scrolled through each problem, I pictured one of those giant phonebooks getting dropped onto a rickety old shelf – you know, like the ones you buy from K-mart made of particle board that just don’t seem to appreciate being asked to perform as God intended them to – ie – to hold items with any degree of competence? But I digress.
So there I was, fingers gripping the steering wheel, tightening just a bit more when a particularly high-pitched scream pierced the humid air of the car; uppermost in my mind was the fact that I just failed my vehicle emissions test…with a car that has barely 40,000 miles on it. The “obd” indicated a problem, but after running a diagnostic check – no actual problem could be found – which means a trip to the car dealer for me…THUNK (that’s the sound of a fat old phonebook landing on the shelf). Next is the frustration of yet another installment of Appliance Hell. My fancy, EXPENSIVE, less than 3 month old dryer has decided to flake out – and, like the K-Mart shelf, doesn’t seem to want to perform the task God (or some dude in Korea, it’s an LG) intended it for – so after a brief visit with a serviceman on Tuesday, I’m waiting for a part to come in, then another visit to be scheduled, which will then hopefully result in my having a working dryer again. The good news is it’s still under warranty and none of this will come out of my pocket – the bad news is it flipped out last Friday and with a newborn in the house – I FREAKIN NEED TO DRY MY CLOTHES!!! I am doing some loads pioneer style and hang drying them, but just refuse to do towels or baby clothes that way, I might as well use tree bark to dry off with when I get out of the tub and dress my baby in sandpaper. So, the highlight of my day will be when I get a call saying the part has come in…knowing my luck, the repair guy will plan to arrive at the same time I have scheduled to go get my car looked at. THUNK. The fact that this machine could malfunction with no warning and after I so recently purchased it freaked me out enough to send me running back to Home Depot to buy their extended warranty package. Something I am slowly coming to learn as a consumer – I will never buy an extended warranty for a car again (those car guys will weasel out of any and everything), but for certain appliances, where just having a dude come out and say, “Yep, it’s broke.” and charge you $80 minimum…well, $100 for a 4year extended warranty doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. Again, I digress – back to the growing pile of phonebooks. As the bundle of ear-splitting sound in the seat behind me reminds me, I just gave birth to a baby barely six weeks ago – as more than evident when I look over my body. My feet have finally shrunk down to close to normal size, so I am able to wear most of my shoes again – but my fingers are still not my own. I can slide my wedding ring on, but it is so tight I risk losing that appendage if I leave the ring on for more than 10 seconds. Having experienced carpal tunnel syndrome with this pregnancy, I fear my joints may have swollen permanently, and in order to show the world I did not bear my children out of wedlock, I’ll probably need to get my ring resized. THUNK Speaking of size, my weight, an issue never far from my mind, is, forgive the pun, weighing me down. I have lost about 27 pounds since delivering the baby (granted, 8 of that was baby) but I still have a long way to go before I am back to where I was before I initially began my journey into motherhood with my first daughter 5 years ago. Sometimes I forget how much bigger I am now, then I see a picture someone has taken of me, or catch an unguarded glance in the mirror (ah! stretch marks! ah! a belly that still seems 5 months pregnant!) and the reality is all too unpleasant. I know what I have to do, and am doing it, but the results are slow in coming and the here and now of what I am just makes me very unhappy. THUNK. Moving from the list of repairs I need to make to my body, is the even longer list of things that need to get fixed around the house. The leaky faucet in the downstairs bathroom. THUNK. The very leaky faucet in the upstairs bathroom. THUNK. The side garage door that has a gaping hole from an old dog door, pathetically covered over with duct tape. THUNK. The sinking concrete patio that causes torrents of water to flood towards the house. THUNK. The broken piece of trim in the kitchen. THUNK. The fact that we still need to have the gutters and fireplace professionally cleaned. THUNK. And this list doesn’t even touch on the various more cosmetic wish-listy items I have in mind for the house – such as new carpet, updated kitchen counter tops, a brick patio/enclosed gazebo for the backyard. Ka-Thunk (that’s a little phone book hitting the shelf – I have no time to stress too much over the luxuries right now). All these repairs cost money, and that is another phonebook all its own…my career situation; which has been steady in the 5 years since I embraced semi-stay at home motherhood, is most likely about to change, and the contribution I make to the household income, will change with it. THUNK.
As you imagine, my shelf is on the verge of crumbling into a pathetic mess of particle board chunks, but it – like me, will hold out – because, what else can you do? I pull into the garage, calm the lungs with legs down and try to remember all the good things I have – all the good things in my world that I should be so thankful for. And then I see my blessings as structural reinforcements to that shelf – and they are so plentiful I know that it will support all the phonebooks I can find to dump on it.
Proof That Commercials Are Effective, Even if They Don’t Live Up to Their Promises
On several occasions recently, my 5 year old has fallen prey to advertisements; leading me (and my wallet) to purchase various items that, while she enjoys very much, have caused her to make the shocking realization we all must face one day: what they say on t.v. isn’t always true.
Take for example the line of VIP Littlest Pet Shop toys. One day Aishtyn is perusing one of those little brochures, a mini-toy catalog if you will, that companies so thoughtfully include in the packaging of all their products. Bringing it over to me, she points and says, “Can I have one of these? I can go on-line with it!!!” I’m sitting there thinking, “how the heck does she even know what ‘go on-line’ means???” Yet before I know it, we (or, I should say she) owns 3 of the cute little critters (1 as a present for being the big sister, 1 for taking a week’s worth of eye medicine without fighting, and 1…I don’t remember what the other 1 was for). So, yes, she goes on-line with them, apparently there is an entire virtual world set up for the VIP’s and Aishtyn has a grand old time buying them clothes, choosing condos, and sending her animals to work in an ice cream shop. She really loves them, but has one terrible disappointment; in the ads, it is noted that you can “bring your VIP alive!” when you get them on-line. My sweet girl, bless her heart, sat her little stuffed monkey next to her at the computer, got logged in, and then waited….and waited. When my husband asked her what the problem was, she replied with a question of her own, “When is my monkey going to come alive?” Leading to a discussion of how alive in a virtual internet kind of way differs from alive in a breathing, jumping, swinging from the ceiling fan kind of way.
My daughter is on a steady diet of chicken nuggets, cheese quesadillas, crackers, and pasta (and that only in wheel or shell shape). Beverages consist of water, mass quantities of chocolate milk, and sweet tea. Trying to get her to eat a vegetable is laughable and fruit, not much easier – so when she came to me saying she wanted me to buy her some Juicy Juice, I was more than happy to oblige. What marketing scheme was it that so successfully appealed to this 5 year old’s cerebral center of consumerism? It wasn’t a popular cartoon character or special toy…it was a basic appeal to her ego. Apparently, as seen here in their commercial, “Juicy Juice is the very best juice for the very best kids.” Aishtyn, of course has no problem acknowledging the fact that she is among the very best of kids, so clearly she deserves the very best of juices! Upon arriving home with a jug of the bestest juice, Aishtyn takes a big swig, swishes like an elite wine tester then remarks, “It just tastes like juice!” Thankfully, she still deemed it worthy of her superior self and drained the glass.
While I am sure these are not the last of the disillusionments my daughter must face, they are endearing as some of her first.
A Work So Lacking in Genius it’s Heartbreaking
From reading his memoir, I get the very distinct impression that author David Eggers is the kind of guy I try to avoid at parties. The blustery, “you must listen to me and my ideas because they are just so awesome” kind of guy I never have the patience to humor. So you can imagine that listening to him (well, to his voice in my head as I read his words on the page) for the length of an entire novel was…staggering in its monumental boredom.
He started out well enough, with a unique random musing sort of free flow preface that was entertaining at first, but got old pretty quickly. And that is overall, the central problem with this book. Any well-phrased thought or insightful moment the author has is ruined by his inability to let it stand alone; clean and whole and…simple. Instead, he has to unpack the moment/thought/whatever. Unpack it and examine it and complain about it and ridicule it (or brag about it outrageously, depending on the situation) until you are just sick of hearing about it and any pleasure initially derived is lost in a wasteland of, “Dude – will you just shut the hell up!?!?”
That’s another problem with the story – you want to feel sorry for this guy, really, you do. I mean, both his parents die of cancer within weeks of each other (I’m not giving anything away here, Eggers reveals this himself on the dust jacket). But he feels so sorry for himself, that you just want to shake him and/or slap him and point out the fact that there are millions of people out there who have dealt with tragedies much worse…he was in his twenties when his parents die for one thing – sure beats losing them when he’s a kid. And yes, his little brother is still a kid and Eggers has somehow been shouldered with the task of raising him but he has two older siblings to help him out and relative financial stability. Many families are thrown into tremendous debt in the wake of a family member’s illness, but his parents had good health and life insurance; and enough assets that their children could: pack up, move to California, and bascially take the summer off from the realities of life. Not a bad way to deal with a horrible situation, all things considered. So, yes – it’s sad what happened to his family, and while tragedy will often allow for a certain degree of…allowance for otherwise asinine behavior, let’s say…Eggers blows his allowance in the first chapter or so.
Aside from the pages upon pages of musing that basically say the same thing, another irritating aspect of this novel involves the way Eggers deals with his parents’ deaths. Like the speech he gives at his mother’s funeral; rather than focus on the parents he has lost – the memoir is all about how the loss impacts HIS LIFE, how HE has to manage, cope, struggle, deal – and well, it’d be nice if he could do a better job acknowledging the lives that have been lost. His attitude reminds me of a memorial I recently attended for a much beloved professor and mentor at the university I graduated from. Near the end of the ceremony, past students were given a chance to stand up and share a memory of the man who had meant so much to all of us gathered there. A few stories were wonderful; snapshots of his life and personality that had us all laughing and crying. Many though, were about the speaker himself, and about what a great person he turned out to be (I guess the point was supposed to be that this greatness was in part owed to the dearly departed teacher, but the speaker rarely made it around to that point, too busy expounding on their own wondrousness). It all kind of made me sick, and angry, and left me biting my lip in a tremendous struggle to resist the need to jump up and shout, “Sit down! Nobody wants to hear about your life, we are here to remember Jack!” I resented the way these people seemed to steal the beauty of the moment for themselves – and that is very much how I feel about Egger’s work. He is so that guy who would be at a funeral and feel the need to turn the crowd’s attention to his pain, his accomplishments – simply, him.
Needless to say it was a struggle to finish the book, a struggle I clearly shared with fellow bookclub members, seeing as how many chose not to attend the discussion group, not having finished it – including the group’s head organizer, who has never missed a meeting yet. Unable to leave a book unfinished, I pushed through, but found it no great loss to miss the meeting. It was less than a week after I had delivered my baby, afterall, and this novel certainly was not worth the effort of getting out so soon after major surgery.
A statement that leads me to wonder what novels I would deem worth making an extra effort for…hmmm….I have to think about that. Diana Gababldon’s books, perhaps – though I doubt I will ever suggest them to my book club; their length is, ahem, rather intimidating. At least with Gabaldon, every page is interesting…and with the number of pages in her books, that is really saying something.
Melonie Johnson 
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