July 2010 – Wrekehavoc.com

Month: July 2010

betty lou’s gettin’ out tonight

Posted on July 28, 2010 by wrekehavoc

SQUEE!

i envy those people who have family nearby… the kind of family who will take your kids for a few hours so you can actually save your marriage and sanity… visit a restaurant that doesn’t feature kiddie menus… watch movies where the characters say fuck and other assorted potty words. what a life you people must lead! unfortunately, our family lives 200 miles away, so this sort of thing won’t work for us. so of course you say, get a sitter. sounds easy, right? but when you live in a place where you don’t actually know anyone of the appropriate sitter age or disposition, it gets a bit dicey. i once posted a sign at our neighborhood pool looking for a sitter; not much panned out. i also made a cute little flyer once and brought it to the university down the street; sadly, that one sitter only lasted for a time or two before her social life became overwhelming. anyway, as we live in the DC Metro, i was always a bit leery of anyone i might meet with no connection who would actually want to sit with my kids. without fingerprints and a background check, i would probably pass.

and i mostly did. FOR YEARS.

although i would point out the time when one of our kids’ preschool teachers came to sit for us. her 20-something daughter joined her mom at my house while the mom was babysitting one evening. not a big deal, of course. but then, the girl decided to wash her hair and managed to actually clog our drain. somehow, while the idea of visiting my friends who were babysitting occurred to me in my younger years, deciding to take a shower in a stranger’s bathroom…that’s even a little too quirky for me, and i put the irk in quirky.

but i digress. per usual.

anyway, BS and i have hardly gone out for years. (forget about the fact that we have actually been on a single overnight exactly once in our short but eventful careers as parents.) so when one of jools’ classmates’ moms mentioned her sitter, who i knew to be a daughter of a friend of mine, i gasped: could this finally be the time BS and i could go out and actually feel good about our babysitting choice? the young lady agreed to come over, so i bought tickets to see crowded house at wolf trap. i couldn’t believe my good fortune.

then came the phone call.

the young lady actually had a schedule conflict. of course! i knew the gods must be crazy to let BS and i go out for an evening. and now, i had tickets, expensive tickets, tickets to a show i reallyreallyREALLY wanted to see. (to be fair, i saw a grown-up concert last year when i took BC to her first real concert (i do not count the cheetah girls as a real concert), bruce springsteen. then again, i nearly murdered her when she had to go to the bathroom during rosalita. clearly, i love the girl.) but then, the save: the sitter had a friend who was very responsible, and she was available to sit that night. would that be ok?

i give that girl a ton of props.

the substitute sitter was the older sister of a boy in BC’s class, one of the boys she didn’t actually find repugnant. i took that as a good sign and called her up. and you know when you talk to someone on the phone and you just know in your gut that she’s a good person? i totally got that vibe. so i had a little faith, and i went forward with the new plans.

and you know what?

i had a little dinner with my husband. i had a conversation with him that didn’t revolve completely around one child or another. and we went to beautiful wolf trap in the summer evening and had a glass of wine (well, he had a beer) and giggled. and then, we sat up in a balcony and watched a great show.

and we came home, and the kids were asleep, and the sitter was studying — STUDYING IN THE SUMMER — for her SATs. later, the kids told me how they went and played around the cul-de-sac, painted their toenails (hellboy, too), made snow cones, played Life, and then listened to a book on tape before going to sleep. and oh, how nice the sitter is! can she come back?

i love the times when i can say yes to my kids and know that by saying yes, the result makes me just as happy as it makes them.

maybe moreso.

guilty pleasure monday: three little birds (bob marley and the wailers)

Posted on July 19, 2010July 19, 2010 by wrekehavoc

when the going gets tough in this house, the tough get bob marley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIjkW6iyXNo&feature=related

my go-to guy when i start to get a little loco en la cabeza is none other than rastaman himself, bob marley. his music has always hit me in a place that nearly always soothes me into nirvana (or a reasonable facsimile thereof.) and three little birds to me is just like my own personal prayer to the universe. yes, i was delusional enough to believe that i didn’t need meds when i was going into labor with BC; all i needed was my boombox loaded with legend and i was all set. (and yes; i really did try that. got special permission from the hospital to bring in a boombox and everything. only too bad for me, it turned out that i really, really, r e a l l y needed those meds. trust me, even bob himself showing up from the dead in my delivery room with a giant spliff in his hand would not have done anything except give me another man to yell at.) still, my kids are aware (or at least, BC is aware) that when i’m really stressed, i often turn this song on. it’s like a simple mantra on a never-ending loop. and for me, labor notwithstanding, it works.

i’ve been humming the damn song in my head for the past two weeks straight.

the week prior, BC took the train with her uncle middlebro to visit my parents. she wanted some time without me and without jools. sadly, not only was their train car without air conditioning on the 103F day (hey, thanks a lot, AMTRAK!), but my parents’ AC also died once she got there. long story short, i ended up driving with The Boy up to grandma’s house, where we proceeded to live like nomads for three days until PSE&G could come and fix their air. we had fun staying at uncle middlebro’s house and at hotels; but to put it very kindly, it was not the visit anyone had expected.

we then returned to our home, already a work in progress. we are in the last week or two of the renovation process. except for the day when i returned home to find a giant hole drilled through my concrete basement floor (and props to my good friend richard, who came over that day to borrow our laundry machines only to discover — at the same time i did — that people were busy unearthing jimmy hoffa all around the washer and dryer. to his credit, richard didn’t even murder me and still speaks to me, both plusses.), the process has gone relatively smoothly. sure, there are moments when i would have liked a little more lead time to purchase paints and other items, but it has worked out pretty well.

that being said, living in a few prescribed rooms is beginning to get old. the kids are hating camping out in the family room, BC on the couch, jools in a sleeping bag beside her on the floor. (well, in truth, BC and her back are hating it; i suspect jools loves the company every night.) BS is audibly mumbling about moving his office out of our bedroom and back into the tiny room where it belongs and where it has more sustained cable internet access. and me? because the kids are sleeping in the family room, home of the HDTV, i have stuff from netflix that i’ve been waiting to watch for going on four months now.

but we’re working it. BS and jools were to be off to cub scout CubWorld (6 and 7 year old boys running amuck! camping! BB Guns! clearly BS’s idea of paradise) on friday, leaving BC and me free reign in the house until sunday night. SQUEE! you would think, right? only we were left in a house that reeked horribly of floor refinishing fumes, leaving me to turn off the AC and open windows so that people could breathe. and oh, thursday night, there was this little matter of a gas smell in the basement, resulting in a call to washington gas to come and check things out. (glad it wasn’t a real urgent emergency; it took them about two hours to get here, by which time we could have been blown to kingdom come and come again.) the wash gas person kindly dealt with the little leak and explained that some of the smell were those lovely toxic floor fumes hitting the furnace and burning up.

yay?

so it was going to take some time for the gas smell to dissipate. (no way in hell i was turning on the stove this weekend.) meanwhile, i had then closed up the windows and turned on the air. sadly, the thermostat is currently in the basement, as it has been moved during the renovation. because i’m a little thick on such things, i now know that one must turn it down really low so that the rest of the house has a fighting chance to actually cool down. oops. i didn’t know that; so when BC and her pal were going to have a slumber party friday night, the house was pushing 80F and certifiably tropical. they ended up sleeping at her friend’s house (bless her mom!)

this left me alone FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN MY ENTIRE LIFE AS A MOM. (that’s nearly 12 years for those of you counting.) did i dance drunk and naked around the house? of course i didn’t. i was still worried about being blown the fuck-all out of here by the remaining gas in the basement. the house was hotter than a witch’s fart. oh, and the fumes were making me nauseous and giving me a stupendous headache. so what did i do? i painted a few colors on the walls with my home depot paint tester cans — because what’s a few more fumes, right? — then settled in to watch a 20-20 show about a murder that made me want to go to bed with a baseball bat beside me. and then, the lightning storm started, reminding me that i had moved everyone’s bike and scooter onto the lawn, getting them wet and making them sitting duck lightning rods. i ran outside in the pouring rain after midnight, took one look at the thundering light, and thought, crap, i’m not bringing that stuff in or else i will end up deep-fried.. move along, lightning, move along…

i laid there in bed for literally hours, unsure as to whether i was going to meet my Maker via heat stroke, asphyxiation, electrocution, murder, or simply explosion.

after four solid hours of sleep, i was annoyed to be awakened by the sounds of hammers on my neighbor’s renovation project. they weren’t in the wrong, of course, though i was surprised that they were doing that sort of work before 7 on a saturday morning. but wasn’t their fault i was up all night. but then again, i was also delighted to still be walking amongst the living, so i found my silver lining.

so, the weekend continued, a sleepy flurry of home depot visits, a walk in the mall with BC (who, along with me, got busted at Claires for trying to take a picture of each other wearing obnoxious sunglasses — apparently, it is verboten to do so), and moving things out of the way of the painters… i was completely strung out and overtired and overstressed. bob marley played feverishly through my brain: my own personal serenity now prayer. and then, as i dropped BC off at her buddy E’s house saturday evening for her second sleepover for the weekend, E’s mom, one of my dear friends, invited me to join them for dinner. her dad put a glass of wine in my hand. i helped my friend bake some chocolate chip cookies for church the next day. in short, i had a lovely evening with her family; it was absolutely what i needed.

in short, i am convinced that bob marley does answer all prayers.

Celling Your Kids

Posted on July 9, 2010August 5, 2010 by wrekehavoc

My daughter recently received a cell phone in honor of her elementary school graduation. It’s not fancy, but it does permit her to make calls (something tweens apparently never do) and to text (which she does with wild abandon.)

Girlfriend has been instructed as to when and where she may use the phone. At the dinner table? No way. In the car while someone else is driving? No problem. Will she take the phone to middle school in the fall? Probably not. The child realizes that the phone has to stay in her locker all day anyway, so why bother? And if she needs to call home, they have actual phones in the front office.

Several of my parent friends called me a traitor; somehow, the beloved spouse and I have completely sold our souls to Verizon and should be shipped out to a penal colony. Maybe there are no penal colonies available at present for bad parents like us (and if they don’t serve mojitos there, I’m not going anyway), but we thought long and hard before handing over a phone to the girl. After all, every day I see kids oblivious to the world, texting or chatting while crossing streets or in other dangerous situations. In fact, it isn’t just kids who act this way; I’m annoyed by all people not participating in life around them because they’re attached to a cellular teat. Did I want that for my daughter?

In the end, we considered the girl herself.

Firstly, the girl has her head on pretty darn straight. Sure, she’s addicted to TV programs where someone inevitably ends up in the emergency room with a misplaced axe in his head. But ask her to turn off the TV and tune into her life — and she does. She doesn’t have to be nagged to do her homework (mostly); she’s helpful; and frankly, she’s trustworthy.

I knew she’d follow cell phone rules pretty well.

Next, all these years of being the person who answered all her… ehhem… interesting questions emboldened me to converse with her about sexting. While she is still at an age where she believes most boys are repulsive (and I can’t say I mostly blame her), I wanted her to know about people sending improper materials to each other. I clarified TheWashington Post Rule: if you share an email or photo with someone else, it’d better be something that wouldn’t make you cringe if it ended up on the front page of our venerable daily paper.

I explained that sometimes, people assume that a photo they send — or an email or text — will be kept between the sender and the original recipient. This will bite her on the butt if she is the sender, whether she’s gossiping about some mean girl or receiving a nasty photo. And, if she is the recipient of something not-so-nice, she knows to tell me so that we can figure out the best way to handle things.

Together.

I’m feeling pretty good about our decision to let the girl have a cell phone. Sure, she texted her grandmother at Ungodly A.M. And maybe kids at this age don’t really need a cell phone; but I considered the particular child before making my decision.

Recently, girlfriend told me of her two slightly older friends, who walk around our cul-de-sac together but text other people. Why don’t they just talk to each other since they’re actually standing next to each other? she asked. Cells are great, but when I’m with somebody, I want to actually talk to them!

That pretty much cemented my decision.

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(first published on smartly.com)

guilty pleasure monday: this land is your land (woody guthrie)

Posted on July 5, 2010July 3, 2010 by wrekehavoc

oh, the subversive little song they taught us at school!

apparently, i am not the only one in the world who can only take so much of kate smith warbling G-d Bless America. legendary man of the people woody guthrie was absolutely annoyed by the never-ending airplay of this (admittedly classic) song and took matters in his own hands, writing this land is your land in 1940. most grade school kids can recite the first verse in their sleep; i remember we had to learn a verse or two more in my day. there are, of course, two verses often omitted, thanks to some sort of printing mistake in 1945 (so THAT’S what they called it back then… i smell conspiracy!)

the first:

As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”

But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,

That side was made for you and me.

you stick it to the private property man, woody! that stanza has a grandchild:

and then, there’s this:

Nobody living can ever stop me,

As I go walking that freedom highway;

Nobody living can ever make me turn back

This land was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I’d seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

wow. they never taught us those ones in school.

those latter lyrics about hungry people give me pause. so many people today have lost their homes, their jobs, their standard of living. many more are in danger of doing so. i’d say that most americans historically looked at it as a sort of us or them situation; being poor was something other people did, and they did so because they were lazy. i’ve never felt that way, of course; but now, i think plenty of other people who are in that boat are realizing that it often has little to do with your motivation and a lot to do with economic realities.

for starters, you shouldn’t buy a home if you can’t afford to do so. programs that let unqualified home buyers go out and buy homes anyway were a gamble that eventually made everyone in this country a loser. do i think these unqualified home buyers ought to be homeless? of course not. but i’m sure more unscrupulous people made some of the iffy-er economic entanglements too good to resist. i remember when BS and i were looking to purchase our home. we had saved and tried to live within our means for a long time; and when some real estate agents dangled some absurdly dazzling numbers in front of our eyes regarding how much home we could afford, we dug in our heels and said no. we had done our own calculations, and we had a number with which we were comfortable. we knew we couldn’t go higher.

clearly, not everyone was able to do that.

and wall street clearly needs some better rules and even better enforcement of them. completely stealing from the other 98%:

Consumer Protection: Create an independent agency to protect consumers, not bankers. A strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency must be independent of Wall Street and other federal agencies, such as the Federal Reserve.

Rational Risks: Stop banks from taking excessive risks with your money.

National Economic Security: End “Too Big Too Fail” by setting limits on how big a bank can be, which will end our current system where the five largest banks control more than half of the nation’s deposits. You can help by supporting small, community banks at home

Disarm Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction: Stop Wall Street from taking advantage of families with defective products like subprime mortgages.

Market Transparency: Make banks disclose what they are betting our money on by making exchanges open and fully transparent, and by forcing big banks and credit card companies to offer clear terms consumers.

Accountability: End taxpayer bailouts and force banks to clean up their own mess.

i couldn’t have said it better myself. thanks, guys.

but it still gives me pause. where did our common sense go? if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is; so why did so many americans fall for so much of this smoke and mirrors game?

i wish woody guthrie were here to walk across this land today. i wonder what he’d think?