Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Farewell, Facebook, you insipid bit of super fun

I'm twisted in my feelings toward Facebook... it's entertaining, but I'm prone to wasting too much time on it so I've cut the cord and deactivated my account. Okay, it's only been ten minutes so let's not have a circle jerk yet. We'll schedule that for when I've resisted its siren's song for a season or two.

Studies say that when young adults are taken away from their social media, they react similarly to someone experiencing crack withdrawal. I haven't done a lot of crack so it's hard to accurately assess the situation. However, I am a little shaky and I haven't stopped talking to people in my head yet. That, perhaps, is the most irritating thing about FB to me. I spend hours talking to people in my head that I will likely never see in person again or old coworkers whose last names I didn't even know until I friended them on FB.

Now that I've finally done the GREAT DEACTIVATION, I think I should set some new goals for my FB free life:
hmmm, well I couldn't come up with any so could you all please pray for the recently sprouted tomatoes and their still gestating cousins that are in my kitchen. Although I do dig a little Jesus, I'm going to hit up Demeter for this one. Dear Demeter, Please let my tomatoes grow into plants that will successfully move to the outdoors in a few weeks, and then, please make their yield abundant enough so that I can make a years supply of tomato sauce, salsa etc.. Thank you for your concern.

We got a giant trampoline today so I am going to empty out every last drop of urine from my faulty bladder and see if I can jump on it without pissing myself. (I guess that's a goal... it's good to have goals.)

Sunday, March 27, 2011

I love this Town!!!!!

I love, love, love, love, love this town!

I just dropped son 1 off at geek club (Pokemon league in the back room at a comic book store). We traveled there via bicycle. I rode my super cool mom-mobile, clunky beach cruiser with a toddler seat on the back, and he rode his mountain bike.

It is about three miles, and we can get there entirely on bike paths. We only had to cross one road, and the path which runs alongside a creek travels through two natural areas and and two parks. On the path we saw other bicyclists, gray haired lovers strolling hand in hand, skateboarders, sweaty college boys jogging, and a team of ubiquitous but oh so sexy magic underpants missionaries. Incidentally, these people never try to save me. Is there a giant "sinner" tattoo on my head? One even stopped by our house, asked for the previous tenant, and left. Thanks for not even trying to save me, asshole. Anyway, alongside the path we saw geese, ducks, little urban farms, Frisbee golfers, a kite flying, grazing horses, and a little league game. The town is absolutely bursting at the seams with life... and it's not even that nice outside (it's about 50 and cloudy).

Could this town be any greater? No, it couldn't. I absolutely love it!!

Everybody sing along:
Chicks, and ducks, and geese better scurry when I take you out on my bicycle with the fringe on top!!! (wasn't that fun!!)

Friday, March 25, 2011

I really needed a Day like Today

I was wondering if we really were a bunch of angry lunatics, and by we, I really mean me because I'm not going to sully anyone else's good name. Here's a run down of our day in case anyone wants to know what I consider a good day:

We woke up. Toby and Holden peed in the trough (aka the bathtub) while I used the toilet. Then we sauntered out to the living room where we found a nude Max basking in sunbeam. For Max that is always an indicator that the day will be a good one. Then, I donned my puffy skirt, put a bow in my hair, and flipped fresh pancakes off the griddle and onto the kids' plates (all of that is true but the costume).

I cleaned up the kitchen and delivered a cup of coffee to the man. Because we hadn't gotten up til 10:20, it was now 10:45. Max retired to a bedroom to listen to Harry Potter 7 on CD; he's still nude at this point. The man and I enjoyed a few cups of coffee while the younger two looked at a book. I walked by a mirror and noticed that I looked thinner than usual. Then, we said goodbye to the man. The children got dressed, and we mounted our bicycles to gaily ride through the town. It was much gayer than yesterday. We rode about a mile to get some cash and make a deposit and then rode to the ink store to refill our ink cartridge. We ate lunch (philly cheese steak for me, pb n honey or grilled cheese for them).

We spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get the printer to print the soccer club applications (more on soccer and my many opinions later). Holden had a thought that must have gone like this: "In the next five minutes, I am going to pee on the patio door, rub peanut butter in my hair and run outside naked." If he weren't three, thoughts like that would make him a lunatic. I learned that urine shines a window nicely so that's positive, and his hair looked totally adorable with the post peanut butter spikiness.

We took a trip to the sporting goods store to buy soccer shoes. That passed without incident.
Home again. The crazy one twitched and screamed for a while on the floor about the absurdity of wearing shin guards and knee highs. I cooked spag bol while they watched a little program. Another short bike ride. We ate dinner. They put their soccer shoes and shin guards on and off about a hundred times.

The little one went to bed. The other two ran around and cast spells at each other.
The fat one made himself bacon and ketchup for a bedtime snack. The older two jumped on the bed, and one of them got a bloody nose (It would be a rare day that didn't involve a bloody nose or blood in general).

We cuddled up and listened to Harry Potter. The five year old fell asleep while rubbing my back, and the seven year old started to doze while stroking my hand.

All and all 10:20 am to 10:57 pm was an excellent time.
Thank god, I really needed it to go well today.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Why am I here?

Why am I here at eleven at night playing with these weirdos?

Boy one is dressed like the aerobics instructor on a gay naturalist cruise, and boy two has taken twenty minutes to come up with his costume which consists of too tight Levi's, a gardening glove and a knight helmet. He's dressed as a baseball catcher, presumably.

My job is to toss the hacky sack at them, and then they bat it with their lollipop drum and run to the bases made of throw pillows. To be honest, I'm really not in the mood for this, and in another minute or two, I may just lose my lingering sanity and yell, "Do you think my parents ever threw a hacky sack at me while I ran around naked with a lollipop drum? No, of course, they didn't because I grew up in the eighties when times were tough and parents said no. a lot."

In spite of my inner objections, I persevere because they've just finished watching The Sandlot, and that movie turns me into an emotional mess. I was tearing up during the credits and sobbing before they had even introduced the main characters. So I guess I feel guilty that they won't wake up in the morning and round up a few buddies to head down to the sand lot. My guilt engenders throwing a hacky sak at them, apparently.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

My little rant--Being better than Africans is not Good Enough

It's great that we don't live in Libya or Sudan, but being better than third world countries is really not good enough. We need to beat Europe and Australian, and we certainly are not beating them now.

When a father of four has to drag his ass to the factory through his bout with gout because without the $10/hour, his family would starve, when a 25 year old is saddled with 75K in medical bills because an uninsured driver hit his wife who went into premature labor, and when black babies are twice as likely to die as white babies, it means that too many people, arguably as much as 80% of the country, are living in a state of severe economic oppression.

It is a state of oppression that is not mirrored by the other first world countries because they have labor laws and health care laws that prevent those things from happening. The first two stories are from people that I know, and I could come up with a million more. Fortunately, I do not know any dead black babies, but considering that our infant mortality rate is already 30th in the world, I can't imagine how low the rank would be if we were to isolate black babies and consider them as their own country. It's nothing short of tragic.

When the bottom 80% of the population shares 7% of the wealth, it is a travesty, and when the top 1% has 43%, it is an injustice. I will never believe that they do 43% of the work or even 21% of it. Rather, they make the money, in a large part, by giving their employees low wages. Then, their employees are subsidized by the government which actually means that we are, once again, lining the pockets of the richest few citizens. Of course, this idea is not true in every case. Bill Gates, for example, pays his employees well, and I understand they have great benefits. The family that owns Walmart, on the other hand, pays their employees horribly and allows them to be insured out of state coffers. That issue aside, bank CEO's make more than the average American family in an hour or two. That should cause rioting in the street, but it won't until the TV's stop working and no one has gas to get to church. Because Jesus and reality TV are subduing the poor (for now).

It's time to reclaim this money, and although I don't think it's time to don guns and rob banks, it's certainly time to turn to collective action. Maybe I'm naive, but I still believe that our one source for acting collectively is through the government. Anyone who works in the government but runs for office while constantly decrying their efficacy is a fool. If they find it that useless, they should attempt to effect change through another venue.

Until we have labor rights and health care, we suck. I tell my kids all the time, "stop whining at least you're not in a war zone, sucking on dirt just to get a little moisture in your mouth." That works well as a response to stop their whining, but when traded as a reason to halt any ruminations about the need for serious change in this country, it falls short of the mark. Because, after I yell at my kids, they invariably go outside and trade fun stories with the other working class neighborhood kids about which side of their mouths they have to chew on because their parents can't afford to fix their teeth. Sorry, but that is freedom that I really don't need, and I don't need to live in a country that allows its citizens to be treated that way. But what do I know. Let's just cut education, become even more insular, and keep throwing money up to the top.