One last post before bed

I'm tired. I'm drained from worrying about my friends and from anticipating the repercussions that may come from getting dragged into the middle of the drama. I took a very long time getting milk at the grocery store tonight and then came home and plopped myself in front of the computer.

My brain feels a little fried. But at the moment I'm happy. Because I perused some old favorites. Blogs that are written by people who have a gift for words. Who see the best in hard situations. People who count their blessings, and laugh uproariously at their mistakes. People who make me smile and remember that life and even people are wonderful. There are fantastic things all around us.

Things like Pride and Prejudice! I'm so going to watch that movie tomorrow. I might invite Gem and Diablo to watch it with me, though it may be over the little one's head a bit. Because tonight I can't imagine anything more fun than watching my favorite love story with my girlies and gooing over Mr. Darcy.

Life is good. I'm done with drama for tonight. And maybe even for tomorrow.

Oh, the Jr. High school drama!

I haven't posted to this blog for a while. I have been busy. That is so cliche! But it's true.

I know no one has missed me because no one reads this. Why? Cuz I haven't told ANYONE about it. This is my spot for anonymity and where I can lay it all on the line without fear of retribution. It is the actual definition of a journal. Private. Mine.

A couple of my friends are involved in high drama right now and I'm caught in the middle. Feelings have been hurt, conclusions jumped to, mountains made of mole hills and all because one of them took her feelings public on her blog. The matter could have been dealt with between the parties involved but now the families and friends of both are sounding out, some are being very unkind, and a friendship that has spanned several years hangs in the balance. It makes me crazy!

We are all older, better and wiser than this! It's junior high drama at it's worst!

I don't want to be involved in this kind of drama. I'm refraining from passing judgement and trying to stay out of it as much as I can while being a good friend to both of these women who I truly care for and admire. I isn't easy. It's like juggling 6 balls in the air while walking a tight rope and whistling dixie. This friendship stuff is not for the faint of heart. Not for sissies.

Hubb just rolled his eyes when I told him of the problem. I think he's finally getting what I've been telling him for so long. Girls are all about drama. Even the grown-up variety.

What's the point? Well, now you know why I don't have an identity here. Nobody I know or care about will read this and think less of me and if I don't know you I don't care whether you think less of me. That's the hard truth, dear reader. So when I come back and bare my soul, I'll feel safe. I hope my blogger friend will find a safer way to bear her soul because everything we do has consequences. You can scream and shout all you want about how things should be but you can't always change how they ARE. If your opinion is "It's my blog and I'll say what I want" then you had better buck up and take the abuse that people give you when they disagree with what you wrote because nothing gets people fired up faster or hotter than a situation that is absolutely none of their business!

Deep breath. Back to the mele.

Miss Manners on acid

As I grow older I recoginze that my parents were right. SHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Don't tell them I said that. Sadly, they were right about most things and one of the things that they were right about is that kids have no respect these days. If it was true then, it's even more true now. Everywhere go I'm surrounded by kids and teenagers who are just rude and inconsiderate. It's an epidemic. But that's not really what this post is about. This post is about taking manners so far that it borders on absurd.

I called someone tonight. Her daughter answered the phone and at first I was very impressed by her phone manners.

Child: "Hello, you've reached the _____ residence." (Nice, huh? Perhaps a little stuffy but very polite.)

Me: "Hello, is ________ there?" (Maybe not the best question to ask but I find it usually gets the job done.)

Child: "Yes she is. Would you like to speak with her?"

Me: ...Pause... "Yes, please."

And all the while I'm waiting for her to come to the phone, I'm thinking... "Would I like to speak with her? No. I just called to check that she was there. (Said in my best sarcastic voice.) "Of course I want to talk to her! That's why I called!"

I'm all for phone manners but to me, it was just all too much. I have no doubt that the little darling was poised with a pen and message pad in hand before she picked up. I can't decide whether she would make a better secretary or answering machine. Yup, that's good manners gone a little to far, if you ask me.

I know. You didn't ask.

I've been neglecting my alter ego.

I've been neglecting my alter ego. I don't even remember the last time I posted to this blog. I could go back and check but that would be a bigger waste of time than posting to this blog. I've been neglecting The Rant Suit because there really hasn't been that much to rant about lately.

*Anybody who knows me knows that is a total LIE. I always have something to rant about. It's an ugly personality flaw. *

Let's just say that I've been trying to be a little more positive lately. I'm trying to see the good in things and concentrate on that instead of the things that annoy me. There are so many. It's harder to find the good things. At least for me. I recently caught up with an old friend and read her blog. Her gift amazed me. She was able to take the most mundane, ordinary, annoying things and turn them into learning and growing experiences, happy thoughts and inspiration.

I wish that were me.

But we celebrate the little milestones anyway. Today I read my relation's blog and chose not to put a comment on it. That may seem small but she put up a glowing movie review on a movie that I thought was boring with a capital B. She's not the kind of person you can disagree with so I chose to not injure her sensibilities or damage our relationship, which is tentative at best, and I didn't comment. It about killed me.

I'm not all the way there yet though. Another relation just had a baby and chose a simply ridiculous name for the child. I told her that she was going to spend a lot of time trying to comfort her child after he was beat up at school.

See. I'm not as good as I should be.

I haven't posted in a while. I wish I needed to make an apology to all of my dedicated reader but that would only be me. I'll get over it.

So here's the thought of the day. I'm completely unmotivated. I should be doing something really important right now. Or maybe even something just necessary, like cleaning the bathrooms. I'm not. I spend too much time on the computer lately and I'm starting to feel guilty about it. So I'm taking a little while off from my alter ego blog. My regular one will continue to be updated once in a while but for now I'm getting started on a project. A big project. It's Hubb's Christmas present. I hope he likes it and I hope I can get it done in a mere 11 days. I'd better get to work.

I love Christmas. I hope when it is all over that I'll get my motivation for the mundane things I should be doing back. I'm not holding my breath.

Not a big tipper

I went to get a pedicure with my sister today. Again. It is something she has talked me into recently although I'm really not that into my feet. I mostly only do this with her. It's a good excuse for some child-free time and it feels pretty good.

So we go into the pedicure place today and get our feet soaking and Pedicure Lady immediately gets to work on my sister's feet. Manicure Man was working on someone else and so I sat for about 8 minutes soaking my feet in the hot water and letting the massager go up-and-down on my back until he was done and came over to fondle my feet. It was nice, I'm not going to complain about that. What I am going to complain about is this. Pedicure Lady and Manicure Man finished up with our feet at almost exactly the same time which means that I got a pedicure that was 8 minutes shorter than my sisters but was charged exactly the same amount. I didn't leave much of a tip. Frankly he's lucky I left a tip at all because as he was painting my toenails I commented that the shade of pink was a little lighter than I thought it would be and he didn't even offer to let me get a different one. I have renamed him Sucky Manicure Man.

Oh, yeah, after we sat under the lights for a few minutes Pedicure Lady came over and removed the little foam thingies from between my sister's toes, helped her on with her sandals (which of course she knew to bring, being a regular, so her toenails wouldn't get messed up) and then walked over to the register and rang her up. I continued with my toes under the lights until she pointed at me (Sucky Manicure Man was nowhere to be seen) and said "You're done" as she stood by the register as I removed the foam thingies from between my own toes and grabbed my boots because that's all I had with me. I didn't put them on. I just wore the funky foam flip flops out to the car. I figured it was the least they could do after such obviously biased service.

In contrast, Darling Manicure Girl, who was working on someone's fingers but had been the one to do my sister's pedicure last time we were there (months ago) said to me, "You've been here before, right? Long time ago. Didn't you have new baby last time? You skinnier now."

I should have given her the tip.

Mama said there'll be days like this.

It's been sortof a crappy day. I won't go into all the reasons. Here are a few of the highlight moments that made me shake my head.

I went to Walmart. (No wonder it was a crappy day, I detest Walmart.) While trying to park someone tried to steal my parking space as I was pulling into it. I honked and got irritated at which point they stopped moving until I parked and then drove past me in a huff. I spent 3 extra minutes in my car thinking about how dumb that was because I was parked so close to the door and they would probably key my car on their way in and out. They didn't, but they probably thought about it.

When I came out of Walmart to the above mentioned car I loaded my stuff in and when I took Pudge out of the cart it started to roll and hit my bumper. It didn't do any damage and a guy who was standing nearby grabbed it for me and put it away. That may sound like a good thing but then he proceeded to stand a mere 6 feet from my car and have a cigarette while I finished buckling my kids in and tried not to breathe. I detest smokers. They are the rudest people on the planet.

On my way home it was one jerk after another pulling out in front of my car or cutting me off. I kept getting trapped behind slow vehicles. At one stop light, I was the last in a big long line of cars waiting to make a left turn and I didn't make it through. As I sat through the second cycle of lights I noticed one of the reds was sortof flickering. I think it was laughing at me.

I'm going to bed early tonight. Mama also always said that things look better in the morning. I hope she's right.

Happy to be Nappy?

I was looking through a magazine this morning and came across an idea for a book bin. It was essentially this. You make color copies of the front of some of your favorite picture books and slap them all over the outside of a big bin. Then you put books in it so the kiddos don't "have to pull the books off of the shelf". I won't even go into how stupid I think it is that we must spare our children the effort of pulling a book off of a shelf. But that is not what this post is about.

The title on one of the books was "Happy to be Nappy" and featured a little dark-skinned girl with . . . you guessed it . . . nappy ponytails. Now, I'm guessing that the author is a person of the dark-skinned variety. I'd stake money on it. Because if a person of the fair-skinned variety were to write a book with the word nappy in the title they'd be immediately accused of KKK and Arian Nation membership, they'd immediately be tarred and feathered, and they'd likely never work in this town again. That is assuming the book ever made it to publication in the first place, which is unlikely.

This BOTHERS me. The idea that it is somehow okay for one group of people to use derrogatory terms in reference to themselves but if anyone else uses the same terms they are racists. If t.v. and movies are any indication the "N" word (which is just horrible) is still alive and well, it's just that the only people who can say it anymore are . . . ? WHAT?

Just to save myself some time I'm going to henceforth refer to persons of the dark-skinned variety as black. It is not meant to be derogatorry, it just takes less time to type. I'm sorry, but I refuse to call them African Americans. No one has ever referred to me as an English American though some where in the past my ancestors were from England. It seems stupid as I have never been anywhere near England. Actually, I think I have some Indian ancestry as well so you can call me, what . . . an English Native American American? No thanks, I'm just an American. Most black people in the U.S. are just Americans. The term "black", while not really adequately describing their skin color, is simply a statement of differentiation the same as the term "white" applies to me but doesn't adequately describe my skin color. I'd call it more of a pasty, freckly peachish-pink.

I was in the car with my kids the other day and my daughter started to talk about one of her classmates, a black girl who has been her friend for several years. They've been in the same class together more than once, she's been to our house to play, and Gem has been invited to hers. She is definitely a minority where we live though we have a fair amount of diversity here. My children notice a difference in their skin color but we have always acted as if it were no big deal, so it isn't. In referring to her friend, Gem stumbled over what to call her. She started with "black" and then sortof stammered to "brown skinned" and ended with a feeble "whatever". It startled me. She is only nine years old and she already doesn't know what to say for fear of causing offense. She doesn't know why but she knows there are some terms that aren't politically correct so she's worried about hurting feelings. This isn't entirely a bad thing. I'm glad she's learning to choose her words carefully and desires not to cause hurt. What bothers me is that we have taken so many steps in our society so as to avoid offense that we are afraid to use descriptions. Well the truth is: Gem's friends looks different from us. She does. We look different from her.

If you ask me, the best way to stop giving offense is to stop taking it. The black community at large is doing better than it has ever done. There are true injustices that have been dealt in the past but those are largely gone now. Yes, predjudice is alive and well in some places but in most places it is disappearing. Black people have more opportunities than ever before and if we are honest with ourselves they have more opportunites than white people. White people cannot have their own colleges now. But black people can. Scholarships cannot be restricted to whites only but they can be restricted to blacks only. Don't even get me started on the NAACP, Black History Month and Affirimative Action.

Hubb and I sometimes joke that the best way to make it into professional schooling in this country is not to have good scores but to be a retarded black woman. No, it's not politically correct. I am usually not when I am trying to get a laugh. You'd have to know the whole history of our educational journey to get the joke probably. Sorry.

So despite the fact that I believe in equality I also believe in individuality. I believe in diversity and I believe in honesty. I don't believe that anyone is better or worse than anyone else. Sometimes I just want to scream from the rooftops "GET OVER IT!" Then maybe we can all just get along. I'll laugh with you at myself. You laugh with me at yourself. We'll all laugh at each other and appreciate our differences without getting stuck in the quagmire of appropriate terms and hurt feelings.

A Happy Childhood Day

Today I had grand plans. I was going to clean my blinds since Hubb lovingly asked my last night if we should hire someone to come in and clean them. I was going to sweep and mop. I was going to dust. I was going to wash towels. I was going to make a nice dinner.

Instead I held Pudge a lot. He likes to be held to go to sleep. It drives me crazy sometimes since it makes it really difficult to get things done. Today, I tried not to be annoyed by it but just to enjoy his incredibly yummy babyness. When Diablo got home from her playgroup (this was when I was going to dust but held Pudge instead) She wanted to play in the rain. Pudge sat in the stroller in the garage while she played and I worked on my photography skills. Then Diablo asked for a bath so we did baths in the middle of the day. That's when I should have been sweeping and mopping. When Gem and Teaser got home from school they wanted hot chocolate and marshmallows. That's when I should have been making dinner. Instead I started the towels and we had leftovers. After homework and piano practicing we watched a movie and I made a batch of cookies. I let them stay up late to finish the movie and I edited my photos to make up for my lack of photography skills. I didn't even consider cleaning the blinds. Maybe I'll take Hubb up on the offer and hire someone to do it.

I hope when they grow up and they are asked to speak in church on Mother's Day they won't tell everyone how dirty the house was. I hope they'll talk about the hot chocolate and cookies and playing in the rain. Today I just tried to make it a happy childhood day. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some of that housework done. Maybe I'll call just Merry Maids. You never know.

Some babies are not pretty

I'm sorry to be the one to say it. Some babies (and when I say babies I mean kids, too) are not pretty.

Not mine, of course. Moms are biased. We know we are.

Not yours, of course. (See comment about bias, above.)

I blog surf sometimes. Just clicking on links on the sidebar of whatever blog I happen to be on because I like to see where it takes me. I especially like to look at photography blogs. I'm noticing that there are lots and lots of people out there who fancy themselves to be photographers. Some of them are. Some of them are not.

But one thing even a great photographer cannot hide is an ugly kid. They can usually make them look better but it's never quite enough. And I wonder. Do you think the parents know? Does anyone really acknowledge that their child looks a little like Quasimodo with a skin rash? Do the photographers think to themselves, "No way I can make this kid appealing." Do they make the backgrounds more lavish to detract attention from the kid?

Please don't think me mean. I know full well that true beauty lies on the inside. Babies are great, and snuggly and sweet. Some of them just aren't very pretty.