BC (beloved child the elder) – Page 4

Category: BC (beloved child the elder)

homeless

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bHeD73YYyQ

every day, i drive through an area called seven corners. it’s a crazy confluence of roads, each sort of crashing wildly into the next. i have tried to count how many corners are actually there; but it takes too much concentration to simultaneously count and navigate through the area, so i’ve never actually figured out just how many corners there truly are in that intersection from hell.

this summer, there are two homeless men who work the streets here. an african-american man has the strip beside eastbound route 7; a caucasian man walks the strip on an access road that feeds into both 7 and ultimately route 50. both have signs that state that they are homeless vets. they have replaced the lady who walked this street last summer; i remember her vividly because not only did we give her money for her family, but BC insisted that we find help for this lady. (i called both social services and the nearest homeless shelter; of course neither could help her. indeed, despite the fact that she was on that narrow strip of land day in and day out, they said that they could not locate the woman if they wanted to. it was a difficult lesson for BC; that agencies are not prepared to go looking for specific people, like lost pets, to bring in from the heat.)

i only drive on the access road the one man has claimed as his turf. this morning, i dug into my purse and gave the man some change; as i held it out, his rough hand gently scooped it out of mine. he blessed me; and i wished i knew more about how he ended up on this narrow plot of land in the early morning heat.

i often wonder about the stories behind each homeless person i encounter. there was a man i befriended 20 years ago who was on my walk from union station to my office. he had a teenager and was not happy about living on the streets and what that did to his relationship with his son. i would often give him some of my lunch, as i didn’t have much money to spare back then. as the months wore on, my friend started showing up with flour all over his pants and shirt. a local group was teaching him to work in a kitchen, and he was very excited about his baking classes. i cheered him on each day until one day, he was not in his usual spot. i never saw him again; and i always hope that somehow, he was able to take the skills he was learning and get back on a solid path to a life of comfort and stability.

i fear this is not usually the case, though, with the people i see on the streets.

i have seen homeless people bathing in the fountain below the Capitol building, where only hours later, throngs of tourists will stick their hands and legs to cool off in the Washington heat. i was once chased, along with a friend of mine, by a homeless man who snapped and went from friendly to threatening; he chased us all the way into the ladies room at union station until somehow, he was mercifully diverted. i often remind myself that homeless people are people like any others; most people are okay, but there will always be the liars, cheats, and people with serious problems in the world. these folks just have the added problem of no safety net to catch them and no place of their own in which to lay their heads at day’s end.

but i still wonder. i don’t know what i would do if i were in that situation. and as the economy fails, i suspect increasing numbers of people find themselves in this position. friends who have come to visit DC often ask me whether there will be any of those people near their accommodations; they want to shield their kids, or they don’t want to be bothered by panhandling, which i certainly understand. but with the economy tanking, i wonder how many of those people will be coming to towns and villages which were formerly considered havens away from our big city distresses?

because in the end, couldn’t we all be those people?

float on

Posted on August 3, 2010May 29, 2014 by wrekehavoc

rest in peace, psychofish.

this past weekend, jools’ pet beta, psychofish, went to the great big fishbowl in the sky. truth be told, he went into a deep hole in our backyard, in accordance with jools’ wishes. i gave the boy the choice, of course: a burial at sea [read: flushed down the toilet], where psycho would ultimately rejoin his fellow fish in the chesapeake bay; or a hole in our backyard. BC protested about the latter; she didn’t want psycho dug up and eaten by some cat. but it was jools’ fish and jools’ decision, so he asked BS to go out back and dig a deep, deep hole with him.

i never wanted a fish. we don’t have dogs or cats because of our allergies. and we never thought to have a fish, either, until jools’ preschool graduation a few years back. along with a diploma, the teachers thought it would be incredibly cute to give each child a beta fish. they neglected to consult with any parents as to whether this would be a good present for the kids.

i could hardly contain my joy.

suddenly, we were in the position to have to run out to a pet store and find a more suitable home for the fish (assuming the sandwich bag would hold for that long) as well as food. oh, and how about some cute little plastic foliage for the fish to enjoy while we’re at it? and considering that the recipient has an older sister? make that two of each plus another fish to go, please.

talk about the gift that kept on giving.

anyway, BC and jools both named their respective fishes with normal, friendly names. however, as the lady who fed them and talked to them each day, i gave them different names, names that stuck. BC’s beta, who is terrified of his own shadow, was re-named scaredyfish. and jools’ fish? the fish that acted like a dog and actually sat on his tail and begged for food? the fish that came to the edge of the bowl and would look to me for conversation? what a mondo bizarro little dude. i dubbed him psychofish. and i’ll be damned if i didn’t get attached to the little guy. he even seemed to like it when i played the police really, really loud.

when he started to fall ill about three months ago, i started to fret. he began hanging out in his pink palm tree more than usual. (fish in a tree? how can that be?) after awhile, he just plunked down on the rocks on the bottom of his bowl and remained listless. i came to realize that something was keeping him from swimming, like a disease of some sort that affected his fin or fins. we tried cleaning his bowl a bit. i ran out to petsmart and found some fishy tetracycline. we tried this other stuff that was supposed to kill all the nasties in his water.

but nothing worked.

when i found him at the bottom, bloated and not moving, i cried. i knew i had to get it out mostly before the kids saw me or else they, too, would completely lose it. and when the kids came home from their swim, i said to BS: la poisson est morte. (we always speak french, albeit grammatically incorrect french, when we don’t want the kids to understand us. this plan will officially backfire next year, when BC has announced her plans to take the language in middle school.) he looked at me sympathetically; i then announced a family meeting where burial plans were decided and men were sent out to dig.

after covering ourselves in plenty of bug spray, we ventured out into the deepest, darkest corner of our yard, thick with vegetation (that probably is where jimmy hoffa currently resides.) there, BS, with jools’ help, had dug a final resting place for psychofish. BS had wrapped psychofish in the garment of ages, a paper lunch sack, and placed him gingerly in the hole. as BS started to shovel the dirt over our fishy friend, we all said a few words about the beta. then, as three of us are red sea pedestrians, BC and i said mourner’s kaddish, leading me to wonder whether G-d would strike me down for saying kaddish for a fish. (then again, that moment also made me smile because BC has been paying attention in services enough to know exactly when to say certain critical parts of the prayer.)

and then, jools started asking for a bigger fish.

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: summer mixtape

Posted on June 28, 2010December 2, 2016 by wrekehavoc

stolen shamelessly…

last week, my blogging buddy foolery (who is one of the funniest chicks around and who i hope to actually meet in real life one day before i die) shared her summer mix. this, of course, started me down my own personal memory lane of music that instantly sends me back to summer. summers for me when i was small meant camp. and summers when i got older meant work. but they also meant music, for better or for worse. anyway, doesn’t mean i particularly lurve these songs, of course. but these songs are some of the ones, for better or for worse, that instantly transport me into a summer mood.

george harrison: give me love (give me peace on earth)

sitting in the camp van on the way through herbertsville to millward farms day camp, where i went for a year or two for reasons i will never know. this song was huge one of those summers… summers when suzanne, the lady who drove my brothers and me, plus my best friend amy, her sister beth, and peter mullen (who kicked out my front tooth in that van)… ah, the van. radio blaring. i remember when suzanne discovered that the van continued to run even when she removed the key from the ignition. good times.

magic: pilot

suddenly, i’m a tween at leonard m. baer day camp, trying to get the wings in my hair to not flop down into my eyes. oh, i hate this song.

billy joel: it’s still rock and roll to me

ahh, the summer of JAP camp with all the girls from lawnGUYland. i wrote about that episode already, featuring another song from joel’s glass houses album. that album saved my ass, and i’ll be eternally grateful for it. at the time, this was my favorite cut. not so much anymore, though it’s still… well, you know the rest.

david bowie: let’s dance

and now, i’m a counselor at leonard m. baer day camp, trying to consume a massive big gulp of coffee with my friend jill in the hopes that i will make it through a day without the little boy campers chasing me down and untying my bikini top. which they tried. a l0t. (see, when our group split, i always ended up with the boys. i liked to play soccer and other sports. lucky me. in my next life, i want to be craftier.)

REM: pretty persuasion

the summer of 1985, i played this on my mixtape in my car constantly. i had a friend whose confusion about life confused the hell out of me; and while i didn’t realize it at the time, i think my subconscious was working overtime.

smithereens: blood and roses

i’m working at the rutgers stupid center with my new friend bluestone. music is piped in to our office. i read that you can win the soundtrack to the film dangerously close from the targum if you answer some questions. bored, i do and i win it. blood and roses is the crowning achievement of the soundtrack; i am instantly a smithereens fan from that moment on.

toad the wet sprocket: all i want

and this would be the song from the summer i was out in california, making a fool of myself during the taping of jeopardy! this song gives me shpilkes. nuff said.

the presidents of the united states of america: peaches

before we had kids, BS and i would just get in the car and end up places. one weekend, we ended up tubing in harper’s ferry. afterwards, we were hungry; of course, there were millions of peaches. not for free, though.

beach boys: little deuce coupe

yeah, yeah; sure, sure. can’t have a summer mix without the beach boys, right? well, i don’t have them for the reason you might think. when i was pregnant with BC, she didn’t move a ton. summer came, and i was resting one hot day, watching behind the music: the beach boys. suddenly, girlfriend started to kick the crap out of my innards whenever a beach boys song came on. BS thought this hilarious, so much so that he bought a best of CD to play to see whether his baby girl would continue her little smackdown inside my belly. she did. yay!

girlfriend still loves the beach boys and still retains a nickname from the time she was small: little doot doot.

you don’t know what i got.

buffalo springfield: sit down, i think i love you

it’s summer, and i’m driving little baby jools to daycare; afterwards, i’ll drive BC to day camp. and the song comes on, and my babies smile sweetly and sing along: sit down, i think i love you. anyway, i’d like to try. and jools plays the fuzzy electric guitar solo air guitar, followed by the BC on the sweeter, meandering solo. it leaves me with a giant smile every time i think of it.

lenny kravitz: fly away

…and then, our hero climbed, barefoot, into her red subaru forester in the outer banks. she was only going to the supermarket, but the kids were with the husband, and she felt a sort of freedom she hadn’t felt in years.

so there’s a few. what’s on your summer mixtape? lord knows mine could use some reprogramming…

mystery dance

Posted on June 22, 2010June 21, 2010 by wrekehavoc

uh oh. it’s time again for Family Life Ed…

BC was extremely vexed, announcing that Family Life Ed was about to be foisted on her class. yes, it’s that time of year again — the last week of school, the week when our elementary school does it’s unit on birds, bees, tampons, and other exciting topics of dinner conversation. i tried to explain to BC that this is timed this way probably because the teachers hate teaching Family Life Ed just as much as the kids hate sitting through it. and this way, they don’t have to see your faces for a whole summer, giving you both time enough to forget that it all happened.

anyway, explanations or none, BC hates Family Life Ed: mooooooom, she whined, i already know all of this stuff. i know more than the kids in my class do. you talked about this stuff with me. why do i have to sit through this? it’s so embarrrrrrrrrrrrasssing!

i don’t blame the kid. i still remember a girl in my family life course in 9th grade who labeled the women’s nekkid picture with the names of male body parts. (i still marvel that this girl actually looked at a picture that was relatively just like her own body and labeled part of it a penis. i should look her up on facebook and see whether this was an early clue to her gender reassignment.) yep, family life stuff tends to stick with you.

i still remember 5th grade: they herded us into the auditorium, let us watch this 1960s movie about becoming a woman (ooooooooooohhhhh), with it’s frightfully deep overtones. and next thing you know it, you were carted out just as quickly, with this useless kit of sanitary napkins and — back then — a sanitary napkin BELT. yes, virginia, i am so old that it was around the time that i hit womanly status that they finally invented self-sticking pads.

and thousands cheered as they waddled down hallways, weighed down by a giant wad of dogknowswhat stuck onto your undies.

but i digress.

anyway, girlfriend and i do talk a lot about these sorts of things; we’ve done so from a very early age. my parents didn’t talk a ton with me about this sort of thing, so i always took it upon myself as some sort of parental ironman challenge to tackle these topics. it isn’t easy, and it took me awhile to stop calling body parts naughty bits. and while i’m not an expert, there are certain things i know for sure.

i think what kicked me into high gear on sharing my thoughts on this topic with the girl was hearing another mother talk of her daughter, a year older than BC. this child was in 5th grade at the time, and the mom still had not discussed menstruation with her daughter. visions of carrie entered my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSlffFbJ-Rs

nope. i’d rather struggle with finding the right words on touchy topics than have BC hit them head-on with no prior knowledge.

which brings us back to the girl and the class. mom, she continued, you know some kids are allowed to opt out of the class if their moms write a note to the school, right?

right, i replied. and you won’t be one of them, i added, smiling a little too cruelly. rite of passage, baby.

rite. of. passage.

guilty pleasure monday: ruby (kaiser chiefs)

Posted on June 14, 2010September 9, 2014 by wrekehavoc

…and you thought i was completely stuck in the last century.

despite the fact that the DC metro has no discernible music radio stations of interest (unless you consider classic rock seasoned with a generous helping of hair band selections fascinating), i do try to listen to the stuff those crazy youngsters like. sure, i have to comb teh interwebs and read rolling stone to hear about new artists; and i’m quite sure that what is really happening in music is not necessarily something i will know about from more corporate sources (it never was when i was young), so i will always be a few years behind (though yes, virginia, i have heard of the silversun pickups and cage the elephant, thankyouverymuch.)

yes, while i will always bemoan the fact that one of my dream jobs would be to be the female version of cameron crowe, i know that i’m probably past the age where i could start getting sent to venues to review music. (people might think i’m someone’s mom, or a narc. or maybe both. who knows?) so for now, i content myself sharing earworms as i find them…

besides, at the moment, i am fighting the battle known as mmmmmmmmmmy ggggggggeneration. what this means, essentially, is that BC — raised on rock, punk, and other musical classics — is getting swayed by her peers. she is singing along with lady gaga. she can’t stop youtubing ke$sha, or kasha (varnishkes), or whatever that delightfully classy specimen of the female variety is called.

and while it was ok for ME to be singing along with some rather risque numbers when i was her age (i didn’t know what rocks off was about, anyway), i am a little tweaked about girlfriend singing along with these freaky-deaky ladies who are shameless in their sexuality and, in kooshie’s case, alcoholic entertainment. yes, BC and i have spoken about the songs, and i am not one to ban music around here. but i do want her to think about what these people are portraying in their songs. i also want her to think about the quality of these songs versus, say, stuff that has withstood the test of time. (does anyone think these songs sound a lot, musically, like dance music from the 80s and early 90s? in a word, zzzzzzzz…)

but i also know that my guilty pleasures from the 1970s and 80s (as well as the songs i loathed from the 70s and 80s) were just that — music from my generation. and while i’m sure people decades older than i were vomiting listening to, say, supertramp, i hear them and am suddenly 13 years old and smiling. so i know i need to just hold my tongue at times, and see where the girl’s ears lead her. and, if i can help in the modern rock end of things, i certainly will load my mp3 player up with stuff to steer her to all sorts of other music from her generation.

which leads me to the kaiser chiefs. i loaded ruby onto my mp3 player, where it randomly hits airplay now and again. the hook is undeniable; and my kids adore this song. in fact, BC adores it so much that when she was challenged to take a prayer in hebrew school (adon olam, for you red sea pedestrians out there) and sing it to any song she wanted, girlfriend chose this one. (of course, it ended up rather challenging for her, so she switched… to another classic.)

yes, i love music. i love a lot of types of music. and underlying it all, of course, is the fact that i want my children to love music, too. for me, there’s something expressed with or without words that simply helps me be. and sure, i’m not thrilled that The Girl is grooving to certain songs that make me cringe for so many reasons. but i’ll simply let her have her music while showing her that there is other music out there that is worthy of her ears. she can choose what she likes, in the end.

i can’t wait to see what ends up on her personal mixtape one day.

guilty pleasure monday: steal my sunshine (len)

Posted on June 7, 2010June 6, 2010 by wrekehavoc

i know it’s up for me if you steal my sunshine…

sure, this song steals it’s sunshiney groove from andrea true connection’s disco classic more, more, more — it’s impossible to miss that beat (at about 2:25 in the more more more video.) and it’s not the most substantial song going. but 1999’s steal my sunshine by one-hit-wonder len is a little guilty pleasure for me. i appreciate perfect pop in all it’s forms — and this confection is light, airy, and earworm material.

i remember hearing this song constantly the first time we went on vacation with our little baby BC. because we live far away from family, the stress of two careers, a baby, a leaking roof, and maintaining life as we knew it was definitely beginning to take its toll. we found a club med in florida that had a baby club, complete with (at the time) a dedicated baby chef and absolute family friendliness. we decided to go there, and we figured we’d see whether we could steal an hour or two here and there just to vegetate while BC hopefully played happily with other little babies.

BC played very happily with the people who ran the baby club — so much so that she didn’t want to leave. so an hour or two stretched into a morning… and some days, a morning stretched into an afternoon. for the first time in months, BS and i had time to…gasp…read books! and over the PA system, i heard steal my sunshine seemingly on constant rotation. and all was good.

definitely a time that was the calm before the storm.

so whenever i hear this song, i immediately imagine i have a cold, fruity drink in my hand, a good book in front of me, and a lot of crazy europeans jumping in swimming pools all around me, some of whom probably ought to rethink their bathing attire.

well, two out of three ain’t bad.

guilty pleasure monday: misty mountain hop (led zeppelin)

Posted on May 24, 2010June 19, 2014 by wrekehavoc

Why don’t you take a good look at yourself and describe what you see
And baby, baby, baby, do you like it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHselocZja8

today’s guilty pleasure monday brought to you by the letter C for camping.

those of you who know me in real life know i love nature. oh yes, i really, truly do… love to hike in it, love to play in it, love to search in it. and then, at the end of the day, i like returning back to my home or a lodge or a resort of some sort, nicely appointed with electricity, bathrooms within the building, and nature coexisting outside the confines of my indoor world. i like indoor plumbing, i like restaurants, and i loveloveLOVE showers. (i’m high maintenance like that.)

so it came as a huge surprise to everyone when i agreed to join our girl scout troop as we embarked on a cabin camping trip to misty mount in the beautiful catoctins. after all, the one and only stipulation i had made when i agreed to help my dear friend M as she led our troop was no camping. i’ll do lots of things with the troop if asked; i’m generally not a shrinking violet. but please dear Dog, no overnights in the great outdoors. at least, not for me.

in short, i am not a happy camper.

i know this, not from experience but from knowing what camping entails. if i don’t like when ants come into my home, i know i won’t enjoy whatever more interesting wildlife decides to say howdy-do while i’m trying to get some shuteye. i like climate control. i like having a bathroom nearby, one i don’t need to put clothes on in order to pee in the middle of the night, should, ehhem, nature call me. yet somehow, i threw the whole to thine own self be true biz to the wind. and i brought jools and BS up into it for good measure because why shouldn’t we all have fun together! after all, it’s not roughing it. it’s cabin camping! (which my more experienced friends said is a cakewalk in comparison to tent camping.) there’s a building with bathroooms and showers, just a short walk from our cabin. and one my friends graciously organized the whole she-bang, and lots of other families were bringing food and knew what to do.

so thanks to target, we had sleeping bags, we had mess kits, and we had liftoff.

BS was being a super-good sport when he went along with us; i offered to leave him home, but i think the idea of me being lost up in the maryland mountains with the kids probably compelled him to refuse my offer. he, like queen victoria, was not amused, but he came along anyway, bless his pointed little head. we arrived in the sunshine, somewhere before 1pm. the folks who had slept over friday night left us a note; they were hiking, but lunch foodstuffs were available and we should help ourselves. very very kind of them! another mom, her daughter, and another scout were there, so the mom took the kids, including BC and jools, on a mini hike while i waited for BS to walk back from the parking lot, where he had to leave our car. when he returned, he and i decided to hike a little hike ourselves.

now the thing about hiking here is that there actually are no paths. you really are walking through woods, over streams, and into mushy things that may end up on your pants when you sink in them (not that i would know about that personally, though my jeans are currently swirling in round two of my mini-wash-a-thon at the moment in the hopes that nature will leave my levis alone.) and when you’re a person who has fractured, then sprained one of her ankles, you tend to remember that perhaps unsure ground is not the place you ought to be walking until after you’ve had the surgery to fix said ankle and then have had a few months of physical therapy. but of course, this all had been realized as BS and i were deep in the woods.

gee, i hope we can actually find our way back, i mused aloud, fiddling in my pockets in search of crumbs i could start throwing onto the ground. just in case.

fortunately, we soon heard the happy chatter of our kids with the other girls and mom, and we knew we were on the right track. and if i only walked ever so carefully, i would make it back up the hill to our campsite without requiring a med-evac transport. which i did. yay me! well, yay, BS, who held his hand out, gentlemanly, at certain pivotal moments. (like the one, for instance, where i didn’t want to jump down this one giant rock onto the lower rocks at the stream. but i digress.) how cool is this camping business, i thought. it’s sunny, it’s fun, and food is involved!

the others returned, and we proceeded to have a fun afternoon. kids played, grownups ate and chatted, and other than BC getting stung twice by a wasp or yellowjacket on her knuckle (her pal H was stung just before she was) and having her middle finger look like it was blown up and ready to fly in the macy’s thanksgiving day parade, it was a lovely time. i brought benadryl, and since the girl had never been stung by anything in her life besides a mosquito and some sharp criticism, i gave some to her, hoping she wouldn’t have a reaction. and hooray hooray, other than a big old blownup finger, she seemed to keep breathing.

then, the deluge.

grownups made some awesome food in spite of the buckets of rain that came down. i am so very, very thankful to the others who brought so much delicious food and who knew how to prepare it out in a camp situation. (i saw my first camp stove, and in short, i was awestruck.) i had amazing veggie chili made fresh, i made a smore for the first time in a campfire (yes, i make them in my microwave, don’t judge), and the yummy spinach artichoke dip that my pal and co-leader M brought from whole paycheck foods was absolutely delicious! knowing that jools was not a veggie chili eater, BS cleverly brought along a pack or two of hotdogs, which he and the boy roasted beside some baking dump cake (which i totally have to try at home!) the park rangers do, in fact, check on you to make sure you haven’t brought any grownup beverages (which is truly unfortunate.) while it rained, the boy continued to poke at the fire, which probably ensured that it didn’t go out. in fact, i think some of the boy’s and BS’s happiest moments involved poking at fire. which, in hindsight, should probably frighten me a little, though i prefer to think that perhaps they are both frustrated firemen.

yes. that must be it.

anyway, the light rain became heavy rain. we three retired to our cabin; BC slept in a bigger lodgey-cabin with my friend, the organizer, her family, and several other girls. (bless you, my friend.) the minute i sat on my bed, it sagged 3/4 of the way to the floor. a great sign in sleepland, to be sure. i crawled into my new sleeping bag. have sleeping bags gotten smaller, or have i gotten bigger? i remember fitting myself and a friend once in a bag, and now, i barely fit myself comfortably. i tried to stay on my side in an effort to preserve my back. and i tried desperately not to move. every move made a noise, and every noise, i feared, would wake up BS. the light shone in through my window, and i watched it blurry and hazy-eyed (my glasses were resting on a makeshift table of board games we had brought up.) jools, on the other hand, slept like a rock; his sleeping bag was practically off him, and he was just the best. sleeper. ever. would that i had been him.

when i saw BS stir, i knew the morning must have come. i didn’t have a watch (and couldn’t have read it even had i wanted to without my glasses on), but he did. when i don’t sleep, i just get boohooey. but when BS doesn’t sleep? well, let’s just say he’s not his usually, happy-go-lucky self. and waking up meant having to put clothes on to get to the bathroom (which, i will say, was very nice to have, as opposed to say a latrine. but still not psyched to have to put on clothes to get there.) i let him hike to his bathroom in the rain first, and i somehow ended up waking up the boy. it was 6:00somethingish in the morning. after he returned and i trudged to the ladies room, we did what any normal family would do: we broke open our two packs of donuts and started to inhale them. powdered donuts! jools exclaimed, mouth stuffed to the brim. mpfmpfmpfmpfmppfffffhhhhhh! yep. they’re definitely an important part of his training table. then, as others were still asleep, we played a game of yahtzee. the boy actually rolled a yahtzee and beat us both. badly. badly enough as in he wants to actually save the score sheet badly.

i’m sure my grandchildren will one day hear the tale of just how bad grandma is at yahtzee.

we finished, and people were beginning to stir. but watching hellboy struggle putting on his raincoat and whining because the sleeves were saturated was the straw that broke the camping camel’s back.

we’re done, BS simply said.

i am so grateful to all the families who did all the work while i did precious little, and i do mean precious little. they organized things, they fed us, they were so amazingly wonderful and generous to us. and i’m hoping they know that our experience is not any reflection on all that they did at misty mount. if my house wasn’t a shambles, i would totally want to invite them all over for a thank you festivity.

so, in their honor, some zeppelin. cos nothing says thank you like robert plant.