I have not been a good blogger in the last few months. I have gotten fairly overwhelmed with things in analog life and, unfortunately, have let my digital life slide to the wayside. I have two blogs that have just been languishing in the dark. Poor things. I really need to make a more concentrated effort on blogging. Maybe I will take this new time I have set aside in my schedule to do that.
The midwifery education trudges on. I won’t bore you with details here, but if you want to, you can keep track of that portion of my life over at Birthing Journey.
I generally hate personal rants and diatribes on blogs. I tend to gloss over. And if you want to gloss over this one, you are totally allowed to, of course. But I gotta put it out into the world cause it is driving me absolutely batty as of late.
See, the thing is… Parenting is really hard. And I get that. I really do. I’ve been doing it for nigh on 13 years myself. I get it. It’s the hardest job we will ever, ever be given.
That doesn’t however excuse you from being a responsible member of society and, more importantly, teaching your children how to be responsible members of their society!
Case in point– We’ve been planning on The Boy taking a school trip to Mexico for about six months now. Within the last month, there has been torrential rain and mudslides in the area that they would have been spending the majority of their time. The village has been evacuated and when the residents begin to return, they will be filling the majority of the accommodations available because their homes have been destroyed. This left us with the option of sending the kids to Mexico, but having them remain in Mexico City with no definite itinerary or plan, or canceling the trip all together and receive airline vouchers for the kids’ tickets. To me, this was an incredibly logical choice. These are 11, 12, and 13 year old children, ten of them to be exact, with three parent chaperons and one teacher. In one of the largest cities in the world. With one of the highest crime rates (one police officer was killed and one was injured PER WEEK in 1997!) With one of the worst cases of pollution in the world. Not exactly a place I want my 12 year old spending 6 days without a very definite plan.
Their teacher made the very fair decision to allow the parents to decide what we would do. She created a group email asking for opinions, ideas, etc. Most of us remained fairly civil. There was some disagreement, but the overall decision was whatever was best for everyone involved. Except for one mother. She absolutely refused to actually read any of the emails that were being sent to her. Every single response sent from her end was typed in bold capital letters. If she wasn’t given an answer within 20 minutes, she would send another ranty email to the group bitching about the teacher’s irresponsibility in the middle of the school day. You know, when the teacher was busy educating our children! To topo it all off, she suggested that the teacher should be required to sell her airfare voucher and divide the money among the parents. As some form of punishment! *exasperated sigh* And she made sure to tell us every step of the way, that she was consulting her daughter for opinions with each step in the process. Her 11 year old daughter. Let me make that clear:
She was relying on a child to make a very adult decision (COME ON! If I asked The Boy what he wanted, he would gladly go to Mexico City by himself! Who cares about safety, logistics, planning…)
In a very heated ADULT conversation, she was keeping her kid updated on what other parents and teachers were saying, including her own ranting which was not in anyway forgiving of the teacher or the school for that matter. There were a number of bold and direct insults about the school and the individual teacher in all of her emails.
In my eyes, she has basically been showing her child the entire time, that if things don’t go exactly the way she plans and wants, she can throw whatever kind of fit she wants. Screaming and stomping your feet are not only allowed but encouraged. Insults, rudeness, and inappropriate anger are expected.
This is not the only example of this type of behavior that I have seen during The Boy’s educational years, just the most recent and fresh in my mind. And it makes me so very sad and disheartened. Here I am working so hard to raise not only a healthy and happy individual, but a healthy and happy individual who takes pride in being a valued part of his communities (both macro and micro).
What happened to teaching our children good communication skills? Compromise? Humility and humbleness? How about common decency and manners?
I’m watching the final episode of ER. I know I’m a night late, but I hadn’t had a chance to watch last weeks episode first and it was just sitting on the Tivo starring at me, promising that there would be something in the episode that would make the final episode make no sense at all if I didn’t watch it first. So, I waited until W went to bed tonight and started my three hour ER marathon. I’m not goign to make any personal reviews of the show or the finale, other than to say that Ernest Bornine story was absolutely beautiful and it is a shame that the media industry doesn’t realize what an amazing group of actors they are overlooking when they don’t find more work for actors of his age. My life will not be the same. And not in a spiritual or fancy pants way. Just in a real life, this is what I do kind of way. I watch ER. I always have. For fifteen years now, that has been my Thursday nights. So this is definitely going to be a change for me. I’m now three minutes in and I’m already finding myself tearing up a bit.
This weekend we take care of our spring cleaning. The apartment is in dire need of a good deep cleaning now that we have really settled in. I didn’t do much cleaning during the move, since I knew that this would happen now. So I want to clean windows and sills, get the baseboards really cleaned up… The porch deseparately needs to be cleaned out. I think we’re finally going to have to run this last load of empty cardboard moving boxes to the recylcing facility, since it seems like no one really wants them. But oh yes! Spring cleaning *will* happen!
So, it’s been longer than I expected. My break just kept extending itself, mostly because I just couldn’t think of anything of value to write about here. A lot of things have happened and life has been outrageously busy!
I’m taking a sock knitting class. It’s turning out to be much harder than I expected and I’m not even to the difficult parts! I’m finding knitting on such fine needles with such thin yarn to be far more challenging. I go back to class tonight and we’re actually going to get started on the next portion and learn to turn the heal. So *that* should be interesting.
The Boy has gone to Space Camp and returned without disappearing up into orbit. He had so much fun and I’m looking into a scholarship for next year. They’ve already handed out all of the scholarships for this summer, so he’ll just have to wait.
He also finished his Science Fair competitions for the year. He attended the Twin Cities Regional Science Fair and was awarded a Red Ribbon, which is a second level ribbon. It was MUCH better than we anticipated and better than all the other sixth grade kids from his school. Considering he was being judged against seventh grade students because he is in accelerated science classes, he did wonderfully.
This week is Spring Break and he’s staying with his dad during the days, so I’m not getting my afternoon fix of him every day. He’ll be here as of Wednesday afternoon for my half of the week. I’m about ready to burst with missing him. (Give me until Friday morning around 10 and I’ll be over that! Eleven is HARD!)
I’ve started participating in a fantastic project that Darling Best Friend is running. It’s a one year photo project with 35 women. We all take one photo daily and write up a brief description. It’s really beautiful. Women from all around the world with different lives and lifestyles. If you get a chance, check it out.
W and I were up and to the polling place shortly after they opened the doors at 7:00 this morning. We’re lucky to live less than a block from the community center where we vote.
Full of anxiety about the results of the election, to be completely honest. I have not been very politically active in the last few years, at least not in comparisson to the level that I was in 2004. I think I really just kind of….well I felt so utterly defeated that my heart was a bit broken. And watching the complete downslide of the country in the last decade has broke my heart even further.
I am certainly not a democrat. I don’t align with any particular political party. I suppose if I were forced to choose I would join the Socialists. I do not see Obama as the savior of our country or think that he’s going to be able to fix everything. But I do believe he is capable of great change and that this country truly needs great change. I’m a realist and I have come to realize that I need to work within the system instead of against it. Because that’s the only way to help create the country that I can be proud of and be proud to raise my son and future children in.
So, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed and coloring in my own personal electoral map as the poll results come in. I’ll also be drinking some beer and trying to be hopeful for change and hopeful that someone will actually listen to the voice of the people.
There will be multiple posts today. Just a warning in advance. There are a bunch of things that I want to write about, but none of them are truly related and I hate writing incredibly disjointed posts.
So here goes….Post one.
Look at this site. Please. It is important and valid and incredibly informative if you dig around for awhile.
We’ve had two very quiet weekends in a row. I *love* quiet weekends, but I’m starting to feel a little bit stir crazy. My cabin fever tends to kick in much more in the autumn than it does in the spring. I want to get out and play and run.
Friday was The Boy™’s school field trip to see the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. We realized the night before that he had no dress clothes here, as all of them are at the Absent Minded Professor’s house. In 45 minutes, we managed to hit Steve & Barry’s, Old Navy, and Kohl’s, only to find that they all totally suck when it comes to boy clothes. We found a presentable outfit for under $30 at Target, of all places. On Friday morning before his dad picked him up, The Boy™ starting channeling America’s Next Top Model and gave us a “Little Boy Fashion Show”.
Saturday, The Absent Minded Professor picked him up for the weekend early so that they could spend the day working on science fair experiements. That left W and I with a full day of nothing to do. We decided to take the dogs to Minnehaha Off Leash Recreation Area. It is by and far the most beautiful dog park in the city. It’s about a half mile walk down into a deeply wooded area that runs along the Mississippi river. The dogs love jumping in the river, and it’s a gorgeous walk for us.
Pretty sure this will be the last time this year that I will get to walk on a beach in flip-flops, let alone wade into the river with the dogs. Winter is well on it’s way. Yesterday it was *beautiful* in the morning, nearly 71 degrees, but by evening the temperature had dropped nearly 30 degrees. Our sweaters have come out for the year. I’ve been making extra trips to the thrift store to find cardigans and warm pajama pants. Plans have been made to go visit W’s cousin PoppyMom for Thanksgiving. Yep. Summer is over.
I am still decompressing from the weekend, so I am absolutely certain that this post will drift all over the place. Just consider it a little glimpse into my brain when I haven’t had a set schedule for a few days.
Friday, I spent most of the day preparing and packing the truck for our camping trip. I felt like I had done a fantastic job. I was wrong. About two hours after arriving at the park, W discovered that I had forgotten to put her clothing bag into the car. I felt horrible. I felt completely worthless. Of all the things that I could forget, it had to be her clothing. So, while she drove back to the city to get it, I sat and watched the fire and tried to not beat myself up completely for an honest mistake.
That error made it really difficult for either of us to get into vacation mode until sometime around noon on Saturday. But once we did, we both had an excellent weekend of relaxation, hiking, drinking beer, and eating amazing food over the campfire. Other than pancakes on Saturday morning, neither of us ate anything that hadn’t been cooked directly over the fire.
Interstate Park is absolutely beautiful and the hiking trails were great and varied enough that we’ve been talking about taking The Boy™ on a day trip there.
I started receving texts on Friday night about the chaos that was taking place here in the city. The RNC has created a police state in certain parts of this city. I’m a bit flustered and shocked about how things have gone down. I have grown and matured in my opinions on protesting and activsm to understand that getting yoru message heard needs to involve respect and presentability, but there is still a part of me that wants to sit down and join arms with fellow pacifists and stand together to fight this, and not just keep letting things happen to us. So, I watch the videos and listen to the live feeds and read the blogs, and my heart is kind of torn in two directions. One that is angry and sad at the government for how they are responding to the protests and another is angry and sad with the way the protests are happening and that the protestors don’t seem to get that no one is going to hear their message in a positive light with the way they are going about it.
I really did intend on being a good NaBloPoMo participant. I planned on writing insiteful, interesting, entertaining posts every day for the entire month of August. And here I am on day ten, having already missed a day. I had full intentions on writing one of those fantastic posts yesterday, but a couple of things got in the way.
We didn’t get rolled out of bed until fairly late yesterday morning. Atleast, late for me, what with the whole 7 a.m. thing. We headed over toward Saint Paul in the mid-afternoon. W got her hairs cut and we hit up a thrift store for a bit. Completely scored the most fantastic vintage bread box and a few new sweaters. OH! And red shoes! I got fabulous red shoes! I’ll post a photo of them when I have the energy to upload them off the camera.
We spent the evening at the Irish Fair of Minnesota. It is always one of my favorite days of the year, and I got to see one of my top four favorite bands of all time, FLOGGING MOLLY! They put on a fantastic show and I could not keep myself out of the pit. I planned on standing near W all evening and just watching from afar, but the music kind of sucked me in just around when they played Devil’s Dancefloor and I had to get near the front to dance. There’s just something about a good fiddle and tin whistle that makes me need to jump up and down with a bunch of drunk and rowdy bhoys! (The fifth of vodka I sipped throughout the night in my orange juice probably didn’t hurt much either. I’m a light weight anyway, so that was a bit of liquor for me).
Today we haven’t done much of anything. I didn’t even change out of my pajamas until almost 2:00. And the only reason I took them off at all was to leave the house for an hour and see Tipping The Bucket at the Minnesota Fringe Festival. It was a great show, don’t get me wrong, but I have a feeling if W hadn’t already paid for the tickets online, we probably would have just stayed on the couch in our jammas. The show was entertaining and I’m glad we saw it, but we were *that* lazy today.
Now I’m getting ready to go to bed at 10 o’clock because I go into the school tomorrow for paperwork and fingerprinting and what not and some time this week I should get my classroom assignment! Horray! And I think I am just going to pretend I didn’t forget to blog yesterday and continue on with the challenge.
I love my trips to Detroit. Every time I go out there I find something more to love about the city. I find delicious places to eat, interesting places to visit, great things to see…. It really is a forgotten city and it’s kind of sad.
And once again, I have found a fantastic place that I want to visit…
There is some fabulous work there, and I definitely want to visit the next time I head out that way. Though honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to wait and I might be placing an order with them before that. They have a great selection of animation art, and I’m always keeping an eye on that stuff as gifts for my mom for the holidays. She loves the old Disney animation and there are a number of stills that I’m sure she would really love to add to her collection.
I am a generally very even tempered person. So much so that it drives people close to me crazy. I may be experiencing incredibly intense emotions, but you would never know it by looking at me.
The entire article has had moments of joy and smiles, but mostly horrific, painful sobs.
I think the worst of it is this….
“Danielle’s birth mother did not want to give her up even though she had been charged with child abuse and faced 20 years in prison. So prosecutors offered a deal: If she waived her parental rights, they wouldn’t send her to jail. She took the plea. She was given two years of house arrest, plus probation. And 100 hours of community service.”
TWO YEARS OF HOUSE ARREST AND 100 HOURS OF COMMUNITY SERVICE?!?!?! Are you fucking kidding me?
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from completelyinappropriate. Make your own badge here.
This Woman
32 year old wanna-be everything who hasn’t a clue about what she wants to “BE” when she grows up, lesbian, collector of quotes and lyrics, mom, baby luster, survivor of sexual assault, militant defender and outspoken advocate for mental illness
Current Projects
Twitterin' and Whatnot
Pt 2: Beyonce in my drawers gives me awkward sores! 1 week ago
Song courtesy of @twodolla & The Boy: Beyonce in my pants makes me do a dance... 1 week ago
