Warning: big rant ahead.
I taught tonight. I had gotten on the Mr.'s case about not getting nighttime routines going or finished on the nights that I teach, so tonight and last night he stepped up and got the kids going. The Young Prince did NOT, tonight, want his father brushing his teeth. Absolutely not. However, as I had just finished teaching and had proceeded to work on cleaning the kitchen, I decided not to intervene and undermine any authority on his part and just let the screaming continue. La princesita came up to me several times to tell me what was happening, obviously disturbed that her brother could be so adamantly against his father's brushing.
(insert note: Their father has an incredibly rough touch. Perhaps this is one reason I have never, ever, ever felt any pleasure from his touch in the history of when we actually touched in our marriage. I have told him that he brushes the teeth too hard; when the kids cry because it hurts, it is too hard. The kids have complained to me that they prefer me to brush because he does it too hard. I have told him that their mouths are more sensitive, they're children, maybe he should ease up a bit. He maintains that you have to brush hard to get stuff off your teeth. However, even dentists maintain that is absolutely untrue and that, if one brushes too hard one could contribute to gum recession. His father is the dentist; he *should* know that.)
Okay. So the screaming behind the closed door of the bathroom continued, I had finished washing the dishes and closed the kitchen for the night. La princesita came up to me and reported that "Daddy just put The Young Prince in the shower."
"Why?"
"Because he wouldn't rinse and spit."
What?!
So I get myself down there as quickly as possible, knock on the door and open it, and there they are, he had thrown The Young Prince (not 4 years old) into the shower with all of his jammies on and soaked him, since that is what he had threatened him with if he did not rinse and spit his toothpaste.
What?!
So I tell him to get my son out of the shower at this minute, what in the hell do you think you are doing? You give him a time-out, you don't throw him in the shower. That is not an appropriate consequence to his dissent. That makes no sense.
Yes, it does. He doesn't think he has done anything wrong. Then continues to ask if he should yell and scream and hit the children like I do.
WHAT?!
I countered that I have spanked The Young Prince once and only once in his entire life. Once. And that was, what, a year and a half ago? And I am categorized now for life as a "hitter" of my children??? And I have already written about the raising of the voice issue not long ago.
I calmly said that I don't know what has happened, that we used to be on the same page about disciplining our children, and we had agreed on time-outs. Not throwing him in the shower. And he said, "But he didn't rinse out his mouth."
"Well," I said, "if it is that important, put him in his room for time-out and he'll either swallow it or he, being the kind of kid he is, will still end up running to the bathroom and taking care of it himself...he IS capable of doing it himself...since he doesn't like the feel nor the taste for long."
"What, and go back on my word? Should I have yelled and screamed and hit like you do? You know, they get older and they won't respond to yelling anymore. They'll just yell back."
What is this counselor of his feeding him? And what kind of a picture of me has he fed her?
"I don't yell. You come home after I have been Ms. Nice Guy all day. I give them a warning: Third time I don't ask so nicely. You aren't around to see the first nice times. If the classroom is not cleaned up by 6:55 and I have asked them since 3:00 to clean up the classroom, I am going to raise my voice. But I get results. I don't have to do that as much anymore, but you are never around enough to see that." I wanted to tell him: You need to stop making judgments about what used to be and see how far things come. You need to start living in the world the rest of us live in. But I didn't. But I did say, "Your word was wrong. That was an inappropriate consequence for the crime committed."
No, it wasn't. Not in his eyes. All of a sudden I thought I was at a military boot-camp. You don't throw a fully-clothed three-year old in the shower because he's throwing a tantrum because he doesn't want you to brush his teeth. You just don't. But he somehow turned it all around to make me the bad guy because I actually get my children to follow my orders and fall into line and continue with routine. I wanted to say that, perhaps I am gentler and not rougher as you purport. Perhaps they know that I will always follow through. You just started to follow through on discipline, so the Young Prince has somehow learned that, if he throws enough of a tantrum he can get out of things he does not want with you. You can't start off easy and get stricter. Those are Basics 101 of classroom management. He doesn't take you seriously.
But that doesn't merit a fully-clothed dunk in the shower.
I asked him if his father did that to them when he used his belt on them. He glared at me.
This "arrangement" is just not working, it is turning into a power struggle and he doesn't like that I have the power. Yet he won't step up when he has a chance to start to get to know his children. He could spend time on the weekend with them but instead chooses to work on his computer. I almost don't want to separate homes because I fear the children will just be stuck in front of the television when he has custody so that he can continue on in his little world...or that things like what happened tonight will occur when I am not around and there will be no mediating force to calm him.
I had to force a separation between father and son tonight. What is going to happen in 10 years? And how dare he say that I am going to be the cause of teenage strife, when I am the one my children come to when they need to talk or feel listened to, or to be comforted? He deserves to be more a part of their lives, but he needs to take some responsibility, grow up, and put himself there because, if he sits around waiting for them to come around to him, baby, it ain't going to be happening.
jueves, 29 de mayo de 2008
martes, 27 de mayo de 2008
Ecuador de mi corazón
I have had Ecuador on my mind today.
This is perhaps due, in part, to the fact that I awoke to the news of a mild earthquake (a 5.-something) in the Guayaquil area. I was able to Google-map in on the epicenter and it was just a few miles from the neighborhood in which I lived; I think that, just because of the catastrophes of the past week I am a bit 'natural-disaster sensitive' at the moment.
I lived in Guayaquil for half a year in 1992. I lived with a beautiful family who adopted me as one of their own for the time I was there, I studied at the University at night and taught in a primary school in the slum of Mapasingue during the day. Fifth grade. One of my girls was kicked out when she got pregnant. Another younger student in the school died while we were there of leukemia.
Mapasingue, view from my 5th grade classroom
I remember being so angry. So wanting to change the world. So wanting to change their lives.
But it ended up that it was mine that was changed much more, in all that I was taught while there.
Today I learned that it is much harder to find people in the third world via the Internet than it is here. "Duh," you are probably saying. But those I am trying to locate are rather established individuals. My mami just happened to appear in an online newspaper article dated TODAY, May 27, 2008, eulogizing her as an exemplary instructor for young children and giving the care and guidance that the young so need in today's world.
I am so proud. That doña is my mami! So I sent an email to the author of the article, commenting on the content of his statements and explaining a bit of the story of how this woman had also been my teacher, but not as a kindergartener but as a foreign exchange student whose life this woman greatly influenced in a very short time. I lamented the fact that our contact had completely ended 10 years ago and said that I wanted to reestablish contact. And I requested that he might either inform me as to how I might contact her through the school mentioned in the article (a school I have had no luck in Googling) or to somehow pass my information to her so that she might take initiative if she wishes.
I also found my favorite professor from Guayaquil, Profesor Vargas, and sent him an email. I met him again when I visited Guayaquil immediately following my years in Japan; I literally went from Japan to Oregon, dropped my bags there with my parents and then hopped down to Guayaquil for about a week. I needed to create a clean break with Japan and immerse myself in Spanish, especially as I had not spoken Spanish in three years yet had just been accepted into a tuition-paid graduate program as a grant scholar--ugh! I had to remind myself that yes, I still could speak Spanish! So I went to Ecuador in a jet-lagged fog. I remember Profesor Vargas taking me up to Las Peñas, a beautiful, rustic, very artistic central of Guayaquil. It was a beautiful day.
However, I remember in reality very little about that whole trip; my entire world was in such shock from leaving Japan. Even though I knew I had finite time in Japan I was still not emotionally prepared for my departure.
I was proposed marriage by my Ecuadorian "cousin" who I had been out with a few times back in 1992. I think he wanted an "in" in the USA to give him an extra edge in the shrimp market. When I told Mami I had to practially beat Frederick off with a stick, she was shocked and ready to call his mother--I had to beg her not to, that I just laughed it off, but unmarried women in Ecuador are treated by their families in a very protected manner. I really ought not have said anything...but at least, in the end, we could all have a good laugh about it!
Now I would give anything to be able to find his name so I could find out through him how to contact Mami, who is his aunt. Of course his last name is different. So I have had no luck searching the camaroneras guayaquileñas today--and yes, I have searched all of them.
Richie--I would love to contact Richie. He treated me like a princess and I was able to contact him from Japan and let him know I was heading down back in 1997. He had just opened his own discoteque and was starting to settle down a bit and really enjoy Life. One night in 1992 Richie and Jimmy took me to the licorería, bought a bottle of rum and a bottle of Coca-Cola, and we drove up to the Mirador--the Lookout--over the city. As the city lights started to waver and spin I became aware of all the "fun" that was being had all around me, and then of the fact that my toes were becoming wet--yes, Jimmy had started sucking my toes. Could have been an erotic experience had it not been Jimmy--no matter how drunk, that just was never going to happen. The police fortunately showed up and we went on a drunken, crazy, wild car race down the hill and back to my home in Las Cimas...
I felt safer in Guayaquil, a horribly poor and crime-wrought city, than I did in pretty much any other city besides Cuenca. Due in part to familiarity, I suppose. I never was robbed or had anything slashed. Followed only once; I have what is called a "determined stride" and I think that has kept me out of a lot of danger. I had worse experiences elsewhere. In Quito, the people were different. I did not like Quito as much. Not as...um...warm.
However, it appears I have nobody anymore in Guayaquil. In Manta, in Manabí, yes. Oh, how I would love to go back to visit! Manabí has its charm and, as a coastal province is a very open population.
What a rambling entry this is. I guess this is representative of just how jumbled my thoughts are today. I opened my photos and the Young Prince and I sat looking at them. I was thrilled to hear him chuckling, sharing my sense of humor at having seen cows walking in the street, a monkey that swung down in the Amazon and swiped my glasses off my face, an iguana swimming across the swimming pool, blue-footed booby birds giving besitos on the Galápagos...this is why I took these photos, now I am starting to reap more benefit than I had ever expected! I showed him pictures of Mapasingue, of my children flying homemade kites make of newspaper and sticks off a ledge of a broken-down house, of a "schoolbus", of the classrooms that had nothing plastered on the walls, of the playground that was simply cement blocks set over dust. He stared so seriously at them, uttering an "Oh" that sounded so profound for his almost-four years.
It was as if he could understand the differences, at even a most superficial level.
Perhaps the understanding has begun.
I am feeling a very strong pull coming from Ecuador--the Ecuador of my heart, a country that is backward and poor (not as poor as 20 years ago, mind you...) yet that is so rich in lessons to teach and experiences to have. I am not certain as to why I feel this way so suddenly; my sixth sense usually informs me when something is dreadfully wrong.
I pray that is not so this time.
This is perhaps due, in part, to the fact that I awoke to the news of a mild earthquake (a 5.-something) in the Guayaquil area. I was able to Google-map in on the epicenter and it was just a few miles from the neighborhood in which I lived; I think that, just because of the catastrophes of the past week I am a bit 'natural-disaster sensitive' at the moment.
I lived in Guayaquil for half a year in 1992. I lived with a beautiful family who adopted me as one of their own for the time I was there, I studied at the University at night and taught in a primary school in the slum of Mapasingue during the day. Fifth grade. One of my girls was kicked out when she got pregnant. Another younger student in the school died while we were there of leukemia.
Mapasingue, view from my 5th grade classroomBut it ended up that it was mine that was changed much more, in all that I was taught while there.
Today I learned that it is much harder to find people in the third world via the Internet than it is here. "Duh," you are probably saying. But those I am trying to locate are rather established individuals. My mami just happened to appear in an online newspaper article dated TODAY, May 27, 2008, eulogizing her as an exemplary instructor for young children and giving the care and guidance that the young so need in today's world.
I am so proud. That doña is my mami! So I sent an email to the author of the article, commenting on the content of his statements and explaining a bit of the story of how this woman had also been my teacher, but not as a kindergartener but as a foreign exchange student whose life this woman greatly influenced in a very short time. I lamented the fact that our contact had completely ended 10 years ago and said that I wanted to reestablish contact. And I requested that he might either inform me as to how I might contact her through the school mentioned in the article (a school I have had no luck in Googling) or to somehow pass my information to her so that she might take initiative if she wishes.
I also found my favorite professor from Guayaquil, Profesor Vargas, and sent him an email. I met him again when I visited Guayaquil immediately following my years in Japan; I literally went from Japan to Oregon, dropped my bags there with my parents and then hopped down to Guayaquil for about a week. I needed to create a clean break with Japan and immerse myself in Spanish, especially as I had not spoken Spanish in three years yet had just been accepted into a tuition-paid graduate program as a grant scholar--ugh! I had to remind myself that yes, I still could speak Spanish! So I went to Ecuador in a jet-lagged fog. I remember Profesor Vargas taking me up to Las Peñas, a beautiful, rustic, very artistic central of Guayaquil. It was a beautiful day.
However, I remember in reality very little about that whole trip; my entire world was in such shock from leaving Japan. Even though I knew I had finite time in Japan I was still not emotionally prepared for my departure.
I was proposed marriage by my Ecuadorian "cousin" who I had been out with a few times back in 1992. I think he wanted an "in" in the USA to give him an extra edge in the shrimp market. When I told Mami I had to practially beat Frederick off with a stick, she was shocked and ready to call his mother--I had to beg her not to, that I just laughed it off, but unmarried women in Ecuador are treated by their families in a very protected manner. I really ought not have said anything...but at least, in the end, we could all have a good laugh about it!
Now I would give anything to be able to find his name so I could find out through him how to contact Mami, who is his aunt. Of course his last name is different. So I have had no luck searching the camaroneras guayaquileñas today--and yes, I have searched all of them.
Richie--I would love to contact Richie. He treated me like a princess and I was able to contact him from Japan and let him know I was heading down back in 1997. He had just opened his own discoteque and was starting to settle down a bit and really enjoy Life. One night in 1992 Richie and Jimmy took me to the licorería, bought a bottle of rum and a bottle of Coca-Cola, and we drove up to the Mirador--the Lookout--over the city. As the city lights started to waver and spin I became aware of all the "fun" that was being had all around me, and then of the fact that my toes were becoming wet--yes, Jimmy had started sucking my toes. Could have been an erotic experience had it not been Jimmy--no matter how drunk, that just was never going to happen. The police fortunately showed up and we went on a drunken, crazy, wild car race down the hill and back to my home in Las Cimas...
I felt safer in Guayaquil, a horribly poor and crime-wrought city, than I did in pretty much any other city besides Cuenca. Due in part to familiarity, I suppose. I never was robbed or had anything slashed. Followed only once; I have what is called a "determined stride" and I think that has kept me out of a lot of danger. I had worse experiences elsewhere. In Quito, the people were different. I did not like Quito as much. Not as...um...warm.
However, it appears I have nobody anymore in Guayaquil. In Manta, in Manabí, yes. Oh, how I would love to go back to visit! Manabí has its charm and, as a coastal province is a very open population.
What a rambling entry this is. I guess this is representative of just how jumbled my thoughts are today. I opened my photos and the Young Prince and I sat looking at them. I was thrilled to hear him chuckling, sharing my sense of humor at having seen cows walking in the street, a monkey that swung down in the Amazon and swiped my glasses off my face, an iguana swimming across the swimming pool, blue-footed booby birds giving besitos on the Galápagos...this is why I took these photos, now I am starting to reap more benefit than I had ever expected! I showed him pictures of Mapasingue, of my children flying homemade kites make of newspaper and sticks off a ledge of a broken-down house, of a "schoolbus", of the classrooms that had nothing plastered on the walls, of the playground that was simply cement blocks set over dust. He stared so seriously at them, uttering an "Oh" that sounded so profound for his almost-four years.
It was as if he could understand the differences, at even a most superficial level.
Perhaps the understanding has begun.
I am feeling a very strong pull coming from Ecuador--the Ecuador of my heart, a country that is backward and poor (not as poor as 20 years ago, mind you...) yet that is so rich in lessons to teach and experiences to have. I am not certain as to why I feel this way so suddenly; my sixth sense usually informs me when something is dreadfully wrong.
I pray that is not so this time.
domingo, 25 de mayo de 2008
bird droppings and corresponding good fortune
I have found myself at three different points in my life, the most recent being yesterday, wondering if the belief that, when shat upon by a bird you are to be graced with good luck, is a semi-truth with roots in wives' tales...or a huge crock of, well, guano.
(By the way, etymology of the word guano dictates droppings not exclusive to bats but rather, with roots in Quechua--the Language of the Incas--to indicate any bird dropping, usually that of sea-living birds--sorry, nerd moment...but I did learn something out in the Ballestas of Paracas, see???)
Yeppers...just outside Buckies. Shat upon again. Right on the right shoulder.
Rather than this destiny being met with the dreaded "Ew, gross, Mom!" or the more infantile (and fitting for a three year-old), "HA HA HA HA HA!!!!" responses I was expecting, I was instead the object of great fascination by my children.
Oh, Mom, does this mean you are really lucky? How many times has a bird pooped on you? I wish a bird would poop on me. Did you see it coming? Did you see the bird? I wonder what the bird ate...
You get the picture.
After rushing into the Buckies baño to wash off this Mark of Distinction from my newly tie-dyed-by-hand-thank-you-very-much t-shirt I proceeded to place our order, then we sat outside and ate our Buckies treats that we, yes, biked downtown to enjoy (yeah, I'm still trying to save gas even if others have given up the fight. I'm stubborn like that.).
A lady we know then stopped to say hi, then invited us to swim today (we didn't end up having time, unfortunately). Then said that we could come at any time during the summer that we wanted, because she owns (not rents) in the complex where the pool is located and all we have to do is sign in saying we are her guests.
Dude. Major score.
And all occuring within nano-um-minutes of having been shat upon.
My honest side then kicked me in the ribs and I asked, "Well, isn't that a violation of some sort of ethical code or rules or something?" "No," she responded. "I own there, so I can say who goes on my name and who doesn't."
Oh. Okie dokie then.
Pros: It would save a lot of gas while giving us something cool to do--less than a mile from home and the kids can easily bike there. The closest pool is almost 2 miles down the major street--which isn't bad getting there but the operating term there is down. Which means going uphill all the way home is a completely different story with the Youn 3.75 year old Prince riding his own, um, self-propelled chariot.
And it would save a lot of moo-lah as well, even for an August-only membership at that pool.
Cons: We would be the only ones we would know there and I would not take advantage of this extension of kindness to "invite" others on my invitation. I just am too guilt-ridden (can you tell, born and bred Catholic?!) to consider that. And I would still feel like I was completely taking advantage of an invitation that perhaps was simply made in kind; it can be very, very hard for me to discern sincerity from niceties. I have an inbuilt defensive side, always cautious, always wary of fully trusting. This inhibits my very well-developed sixth sense, so much so that my sixth sense has been put on the back burner lately.
Anyway, digressing to the bird poop.
Was this all coinki-dink? I also succeeded in getting two screen doors installed yesterday, completing the front door this morning. The little monkeys and I had a glorious day filled with joy and togetherness at the Town festival with La Princesita demonstrating some really beautiful facets of her personality (no, I am not being facetious). I am so truly blessed...
...or just bird-sh*t lucky.
(By the way, etymology of the word guano dictates droppings not exclusive to bats but rather, with roots in Quechua--the Language of the Incas--to indicate any bird dropping, usually that of sea-living birds--sorry, nerd moment...but I did learn something out in the Ballestas of Paracas, see???)
Yeppers...just outside Buckies. Shat upon again. Right on the right shoulder.
Rather than this destiny being met with the dreaded "Ew, gross, Mom!" or the more infantile (and fitting for a three year-old), "HA HA HA HA HA!!!!" responses I was expecting, I was instead the object of great fascination by my children.
Oh, Mom, does this mean you are really lucky? How many times has a bird pooped on you? I wish a bird would poop on me. Did you see it coming? Did you see the bird? I wonder what the bird ate...
You get the picture.
After rushing into the Buckies baño to wash off this Mark of Distinction from my newly tie-dyed-by-hand-thank-you-very-much t-shirt I proceeded to place our order, then we sat outside and ate our Buckies treats that we, yes, biked downtown to enjoy (yeah, I'm still trying to save gas even if others have given up the fight. I'm stubborn like that.).
A lady we know then stopped to say hi, then invited us to swim today (we didn't end up having time, unfortunately). Then said that we could come at any time during the summer that we wanted, because she owns (not rents) in the complex where the pool is located and all we have to do is sign in saying we are her guests.
Dude. Major score.
And all occuring within nano-um-minutes of having been shat upon.
My honest side then kicked me in the ribs and I asked, "Well, isn't that a violation of some sort of ethical code or rules or something?" "No," she responded. "I own there, so I can say who goes on my name and who doesn't."
Oh. Okie dokie then.
Pros: It would save a lot of gas while giving us something cool to do--less than a mile from home and the kids can easily bike there. The closest pool is almost 2 miles down the major street--which isn't bad getting there but the operating term there is down. Which means going uphill all the way home is a completely different story with the Youn 3.75 year old Prince riding his own, um, self-propelled chariot.
And it would save a lot of moo-lah as well, even for an August-only membership at that pool.
Cons: We would be the only ones we would know there and I would not take advantage of this extension of kindness to "invite" others on my invitation. I just am too guilt-ridden (can you tell, born and bred Catholic?!) to consider that. And I would still feel like I was completely taking advantage of an invitation that perhaps was simply made in kind; it can be very, very hard for me to discern sincerity from niceties. I have an inbuilt defensive side, always cautious, always wary of fully trusting. This inhibits my very well-developed sixth sense, so much so that my sixth sense has been put on the back burner lately.
Anyway, digressing to the bird poop.
Was this all coinki-dink? I also succeeded in getting two screen doors installed yesterday, completing the front door this morning. The little monkeys and I had a glorious day filled with joy and togetherness at the Town festival with La Princesita demonstrating some really beautiful facets of her personality (no, I am not being facetious). I am so truly blessed...
...or just bird-sh*t lucky.
sábado, 24 de mayo de 2008
aching hands and bruised egos
If there is one thing I absolutely despise, it is having to depend on someone else, namely someone stronger than I, to be able to complete a task.
Case in point:
So I break perhaps five state laws this morning leaving my children home alone while I ran to the local National Home Store Chain at 7:00 this morning. Granted, I did go this early for many reasons: 1. I knew I wouldn't have to wait as long as I would if I had gone later, so my children wouldn't be alone as long; 2. they are addicted to Saturday Morning Cartoons, a rich cultural tradition that I was also raised on and will not withhold from my children, although I might limit it a bit; and 3. I wanted a Buckies breakfast date with them before I started my Project of the Day. Plus, not only does La Princesita know how to call my cell; I also called into The Store before I went, spoke to a representative from the Doors department, read off the sku and model numbers of exactly what I wanted so he would have them ready for me; and I was stuck without the Truck as my husband, who did not mention he was not going to take a taxi to the airport this morning, in fact did not, so I had to fold down my seats in my Outback and everything to be able to get the doors in my car.
The kids, in that scenario, would have had to have been roped to the top, which would have broken more laws.
I also purchased a new electric drill and some new bits that I knew I needed, since I was there.
I did well for the most part, really. For some reason the door handle hits the weather strip when I open and close the door. I am not sure what to do about that. I only cut myself to bleeding twice. The frustration comes when I get to the point of being unable to do something due to the lack of pure brute strength. I cannot drill through the brass footplate to attach the door opener--one that must only go on the bottom, not on the top. Nor can I drill into the doorjam enough to get the screws in all the way to attach the doorjam connector of the opener. It is on, but with four screws sticking a whole 3/4 to 1 inch out. I just can't.
Then the instructions tell you how to attach the glass into the frame, but say nothing about the screen. I can't get the damn screen to stay in the door. It has been in now for about an hour, but I just don't feel confident that it will stay in.
I am a do-it-yourselfer. I get that from my father. And I hate, in my independence, having to depend on someone else for help in completing MY projects--namely a man. I thought that doing home projects together was a given in marriage, but I ended up marrying a man who no only does not believe in do-it-yourselfing, he does not have interest in learning or expanding his world a bit to try to acquire some new skills or to have that self-satisfaction of having done a job by oneself--or as a (gasp!) team (imagine that) while having learned something new in the process. Easier to just hire someone.
...as if we were made of money. I know that is what a lot of people around here do, but when you actually (double-gasp!) live on a budget, you have to figure some things out by yourself.
Kudos go out to La Princesita who, in her 6 1/2 year old wisdom and prowess helped me to the greatest of her abilities. She was a real trooper. I have one more door to do--but we'll see if she's up for the challenge on Monday.
At least I now have a screen door up on the back door! I have wanted that for years!
Case in point:
So I break perhaps five state laws this morning leaving my children home alone while I ran to the local National Home Store Chain at 7:00 this morning. Granted, I did go this early for many reasons: 1. I knew I wouldn't have to wait as long as I would if I had gone later, so my children wouldn't be alone as long; 2. they are addicted to Saturday Morning Cartoons, a rich cultural tradition that I was also raised on and will not withhold from my children, although I might limit it a bit; and 3. I wanted a Buckies breakfast date with them before I started my Project of the Day. Plus, not only does La Princesita know how to call my cell; I also called into The Store before I went, spoke to a representative from the Doors department, read off the sku and model numbers of exactly what I wanted so he would have them ready for me; and I was stuck without the Truck as my husband, who did not mention he was not going to take a taxi to the airport this morning, in fact did not, so I had to fold down my seats in my Outback and everything to be able to get the doors in my car.
The kids, in that scenario, would have had to have been roped to the top, which would have broken more laws.
I also purchased a new electric drill and some new bits that I knew I needed, since I was there.
I did well for the most part, really. For some reason the door handle hits the weather strip when I open and close the door. I am not sure what to do about that. I only cut myself to bleeding twice. The frustration comes when I get to the point of being unable to do something due to the lack of pure brute strength. I cannot drill through the brass footplate to attach the door opener--one that must only go on the bottom, not on the top. Nor can I drill into the doorjam enough to get the screws in all the way to attach the doorjam connector of the opener. It is on, but with four screws sticking a whole 3/4 to 1 inch out. I just can't.
Then the instructions tell you how to attach the glass into the frame, but say nothing about the screen. I can't get the damn screen to stay in the door. It has been in now for about an hour, but I just don't feel confident that it will stay in.
I am a do-it-yourselfer. I get that from my father. And I hate, in my independence, having to depend on someone else for help in completing MY projects--namely a man. I thought that doing home projects together was a given in marriage, but I ended up marrying a man who no only does not believe in do-it-yourselfing, he does not have interest in learning or expanding his world a bit to try to acquire some new skills or to have that self-satisfaction of having done a job by oneself--or as a (gasp!) team (imagine that) while having learned something new in the process. Easier to just hire someone.
...as if we were made of money. I know that is what a lot of people around here do, but when you actually (double-gasp!) live on a budget, you have to figure some things out by yourself.
Kudos go out to La Princesita who, in her 6 1/2 year old wisdom and prowess helped me to the greatest of her abilities. She was a real trooper. I have one more door to do--but we'll see if she's up for the challenge on Monday.
At least I now have a screen door up on the back door! I have wanted that for years!
viernes, 23 de mayo de 2008
our drinks
I went to dinner about a year ago with an ex-student. She had asked me for a few recommendations upon her graduation, and I had done some Spanish brush-up sessions for her for some teaching interviews she needed to prep for.
There is a local chain that serves really good quality food in the different restaurants that are located in the region. The one we chose, as my ex-student is vegetarian, is the more fish-menued restaurant. Being a Friday night in Suburbia, there was quite a wait even for two people so, after getting our names listed, going down to Black House-White Market to shop then returning to find we still had yet to be called, we opted to sit at the bar and chat.
She ordered a beer, I ordered a glass of Clos du Bois. Pinot noir, I do believe.
She looked at me, and said, "That says a lot about you."
Immediately I jumped to the defensive (of course--after all, I'm Me). "I hope that doesn't mean I'm a snob!"
"No, just that you have refined taste and that you know what you like."
Oh.
My drink choices have evolved greatly since my days of a bottle of rum in one hand and a bottle of Coke in the other, chasing the rum with the Coke in a sort of free-style Cuba Libre. I used to go for the piña coladas, the daiquiris--the fruitier the better. Kahlúa and creme was also a favorite. Beer has never been a biggee for me, but a Corona con limón could never do me wrong, and Sapporo right from the brewery in Japan rocked my world.
I like drier drinks now, preferring a margarita to the fruities anytime, and reds to whites. True Spanish sangría is a treat, but that does not really count due to the cultural plug.
So what does that say about me?
Does a certain type of beverage make a statement about its recipient?
What is your social beverage (alcoholic or otherwise) of preference? I admit to loving my water, but when out socially I do tend to drink other things besides water...so discount water here, please, as that is a basic necessity for life on Earth.
And what do you believe your choice says, if anything, about you?
Excuse me, my glass of Spanish tempranillo awaits...
There is a local chain that serves really good quality food in the different restaurants that are located in the region. The one we chose, as my ex-student is vegetarian, is the more fish-menued restaurant. Being a Friday night in Suburbia, there was quite a wait even for two people so, after getting our names listed, going down to Black House-White Market to shop then returning to find we still had yet to be called, we opted to sit at the bar and chat.
She ordered a beer, I ordered a glass of Clos du Bois. Pinot noir, I do believe.
She looked at me, and said, "That says a lot about you."
Immediately I jumped to the defensive (of course--after all, I'm Me). "I hope that doesn't mean I'm a snob!"
"No, just that you have refined taste and that you know what you like."
Oh.
My drink choices have evolved greatly since my days of a bottle of rum in one hand and a bottle of Coke in the other, chasing the rum with the Coke in a sort of free-style Cuba Libre. I used to go for the piña coladas, the daiquiris--the fruitier the better. Kahlúa and creme was also a favorite. Beer has never been a biggee for me, but a Corona con limón could never do me wrong, and Sapporo right from the brewery in Japan rocked my world.
I like drier drinks now, preferring a margarita to the fruities anytime, and reds to whites. True Spanish sangría is a treat, but that does not really count due to the cultural plug.
So what does that say about me?
Does a certain type of beverage make a statement about its recipient?
What is your social beverage (alcoholic or otherwise) of preference? I admit to loving my water, but when out socially I do tend to drink other things besides water...so discount water here, please, as that is a basic necessity for life on Earth.
And what do you believe your choice says, if anything, about you?
Excuse me, my glass of Spanish tempranillo awaits...
miércoles, 21 de mayo de 2008
tagged...
The Rules:
Once you’ve been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random, facts, habits or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 6 people to be tagged, list their names & why you tagged them. Don’t forget to leave them a comment saying “You’re it!” & to go read your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you, so since you’re not allowed to tag me back; let me know when you are done so I can go read YOUR weird/random/odd facts, habits and goals.
*-----*
Okay, so here we go!
1. When I was in kindergarten I got put in the corner for shushing Karla, the rather portent girl with curly piggytails who was talking when Mrs. S had specifically told us to be quiet. Hey, I was just enforcing the rules. But no, I was stuck right in that corner with Karla and have never, ever been so ashamed in my entire life. And I never, ever acted out of line in class ever, ever again because of it.
2. I have fantasized about fingerpainting with chocolate Jell-O pudding since the last time I did that--in Kindergarten. Nothing kinky--just fingerpainting, then being able to LICK MY FINGERS CLEAN when I was done.
3. I once ran to my first grade teacher and reported that "The boys have been playing in the girls' bathroom again." "Why, how do you know that?" she asked. In my 6-year old worldly wisdom, I rolled my eyes and responded, "Well, all the toilet seats are up again."
4. I stayed after school every day for two months to teach my sixth grade math teacher how to play cribbage. She still remembers that. (told you I'm a nerd...)
5. When I imbibe, I instinctively want to dance. Always. It is so incredibly hard for me to sit at a bar or even just have a glass of wine at someone's house and to have to quench my intense desire to dance. I therefore taught a lot of non-dancing Japanese to dance in my three years there. What can I say...I left my mark.
6. I honestly thought I could become vegetarian until I learned that I was allergic to soy...even with my history of anemia. I was almost there. Even though I am not vegetarian, however, my mindset in how I eat meat has changed considerably in the past 10 years, by respecting as much of the entire animal that gave its life to feed me and my family by using as much of it as I can, and by making better and healthier (especially for me) meat-purchasing decisions--you wouldn't believe the soy in deli meat, or in feed given to mass-produced meat. I have to watch out for all those variables now--which is a good thing. I have had to be forced to become more conscious about what and how I eat.
7. I think I am part pyromaniac. I could stare at a fire or a flame for hours on end, creating images in my mind, watching the flame(s) dance and admiring the grace of this living yet non-living element. I love fire. I love the heat with which fire fills my soul. I love to watch it dance. I have since I was very, very young and would sit in front of the fireplace on Sunday nights after bathtime in my pink homemade bathrobe and let my hair dry to the heat of the fire. I would sit there and stare at the flames. Once my father threw a clipboard in the fireplace in an effort to get rid of some things. That made the fire turn lots of pretty colors...but sparks flew out the chimney onto the roof and Dad ended up outside hosing down the roof so our house wouldn't go up in flames. Not his smoothest move--but a great memory.
8. I have only been awakened with an orgasm once in my life, by a beautiful man I was blessed to have in my life for a short time while living in Japan. We had a lovely friendship that, in our third year of knowing each other, turned into something more. He had a passion for Latin culture and was learning Spanish and how to dance. He loved to travel. He was a climber. We laughed--wow, how we laughed when we were together. His eyes always laughed. He loved Life and loved even more to experience Life with such passion that his family in small-town rural Japan just could not understand him. I was so young--but I will never forget that morning and often find myself wondering, "What if...?" What if I had followed this free spirit of his? What if I had (DARED) gone against the grain of parental expectation? What if I had not told him to stop contacting me because I had met who is my current husband? Would he have come for me as he was planning to? What if I had followed his passion and started climbing, too? Would I have conquered K2 by now as well? Would I be any happier in my personal life? Where would we be?
9. On the day of my university graduation, following the ceremony I was in the courtyard with my family and my boyfriend's mother. I had just been given a gift and had my hands full of stuff--degree certificate, cap, gifts, camera, the works--and nobody was offering to help me at all. Something happened-I am not sure what, as I also had horrible cramps that day and wasn't completely aware of my surroundings-but my camera ended up in a bucket of water. I had just graduated magna cum laude, with honors and double major-double double-minor all in 4 years from my university, and my parents shot me the most disapppointed look I have ever received from anybody in my life--all because plop! went my camera when I was just too overwhelmed with crap to be able to handle it all. They instead criticized me for not having the wrist strap on. My boyfriend's mother later confided that she then, at that moment, understood all I had told her about my relationship with my family--all summed up in one single communal look. It was as if everything I had just done, all I had just earned and the positive recognition back to my family did not mean diddly-squat. It all came down to the fact that I am just a frickin' clutz and that I could never, not even on my graduation day, do anything right in their eyes.
10. I rehearse what I should have said in various situations, or what I should say if certain occasions should arise, when I am alone. In my house, in my garden, in my mirror--wherever. I always talk to myself and sometimes think I live too much in the Land of What-If.
So, now that you think I am totally nuts-o, I hereby tag:
Z--I need that confirmation that you are, indeed, as quirky as I am!
She-Ra--dahling, you can't be as normal as you always appear!
Windy--I just like to have fun with you!
Brad--I imagine you would have fun with this, plus you are a great meme responder.
Val--if you have time, I don't want to impose!
...um, that's all I can come up with.
Once you’ve been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random, facts, habits or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 6 people to be tagged, list their names & why you tagged them. Don’t forget to leave them a comment saying “You’re it!” & to go read your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you, so since you’re not allowed to tag me back; let me know when you are done so I can go read YOUR weird/random/odd facts, habits and goals.
*-----*
Okay, so here we go!
1. When I was in kindergarten I got put in the corner for shushing Karla, the rather portent girl with curly piggytails who was talking when Mrs. S had specifically told us to be quiet. Hey, I was just enforcing the rules. But no, I was stuck right in that corner with Karla and have never, ever been so ashamed in my entire life. And I never, ever acted out of line in class ever, ever again because of it.
2. I have fantasized about fingerpainting with chocolate Jell-O pudding since the last time I did that--in Kindergarten. Nothing kinky--just fingerpainting, then being able to LICK MY FINGERS CLEAN when I was done.
3. I once ran to my first grade teacher and reported that "The boys have been playing in the girls' bathroom again." "Why, how do you know that?" she asked. In my 6-year old worldly wisdom, I rolled my eyes and responded, "Well, all the toilet seats are up again."
4. I stayed after school every day for two months to teach my sixth grade math teacher how to play cribbage. She still remembers that. (told you I'm a nerd...)
5. When I imbibe, I instinctively want to dance. Always. It is so incredibly hard for me to sit at a bar or even just have a glass of wine at someone's house and to have to quench my intense desire to dance. I therefore taught a lot of non-dancing Japanese to dance in my three years there. What can I say...I left my mark.
6. I honestly thought I could become vegetarian until I learned that I was allergic to soy...even with my history of anemia. I was almost there. Even though I am not vegetarian, however, my mindset in how I eat meat has changed considerably in the past 10 years, by respecting as much of the entire animal that gave its life to feed me and my family by using as much of it as I can, and by making better and healthier (especially for me) meat-purchasing decisions--you wouldn't believe the soy in deli meat, or in feed given to mass-produced meat. I have to watch out for all those variables now--which is a good thing. I have had to be forced to become more conscious about what and how I eat.
7. I think I am part pyromaniac. I could stare at a fire or a flame for hours on end, creating images in my mind, watching the flame(s) dance and admiring the grace of this living yet non-living element. I love fire. I love the heat with which fire fills my soul. I love to watch it dance. I have since I was very, very young and would sit in front of the fireplace on Sunday nights after bathtime in my pink homemade bathrobe and let my hair dry to the heat of the fire. I would sit there and stare at the flames. Once my father threw a clipboard in the fireplace in an effort to get rid of some things. That made the fire turn lots of pretty colors...but sparks flew out the chimney onto the roof and Dad ended up outside hosing down the roof so our house wouldn't go up in flames. Not his smoothest move--but a great memory.
8. I have only been awakened with an orgasm once in my life, by a beautiful man I was blessed to have in my life for a short time while living in Japan. We had a lovely friendship that, in our third year of knowing each other, turned into something more. He had a passion for Latin culture and was learning Spanish and how to dance. He loved to travel. He was a climber. We laughed--wow, how we laughed when we were together. His eyes always laughed. He loved Life and loved even more to experience Life with such passion that his family in small-town rural Japan just could not understand him. I was so young--but I will never forget that morning and often find myself wondering, "What if...?" What if I had followed this free spirit of his? What if I had (DARED) gone against the grain of parental expectation? What if I had not told him to stop contacting me because I had met who is my current husband? Would he have come for me as he was planning to? What if I had followed his passion and started climbing, too? Would I have conquered K2 by now as well? Would I be any happier in my personal life? Where would we be?
9. On the day of my university graduation, following the ceremony I was in the courtyard with my family and my boyfriend's mother. I had just been given a gift and had my hands full of stuff--degree certificate, cap, gifts, camera, the works--and nobody was offering to help me at all. Something happened-I am not sure what, as I also had horrible cramps that day and wasn't completely aware of my surroundings-but my camera ended up in a bucket of water. I had just graduated magna cum laude, with honors and double major-double double-minor all in 4 years from my university, and my parents shot me the most disapppointed look I have ever received from anybody in my life--all because plop! went my camera when I was just too overwhelmed with crap to be able to handle it all. They instead criticized me for not having the wrist strap on. My boyfriend's mother later confided that she then, at that moment, understood all I had told her about my relationship with my family--all summed up in one single communal look. It was as if everything I had just done, all I had just earned and the positive recognition back to my family did not mean diddly-squat. It all came down to the fact that I am just a frickin' clutz and that I could never, not even on my graduation day, do anything right in their eyes.
10. I rehearse what I should have said in various situations, or what I should say if certain occasions should arise, when I am alone. In my house, in my garden, in my mirror--wherever. I always talk to myself and sometimes think I live too much in the Land of What-If.
So, now that you think I am totally nuts-o, I hereby tag:
Z--I need that confirmation that you are, indeed, as quirky as I am!
She-Ra--dahling, you can't be as normal as you always appear!
Windy--I just like to have fun with you!
Brad--I imagine you would have fun with this, plus you are a great meme responder.
Val--if you have time, I don't want to impose!
...um, that's all I can come up with.
domingo, 18 de mayo de 2008
proud mama
My little Princesita honestly never ceases to amaze me.
She is a beautiful, energetic and outgoing young lady. At six years old, she is starting to develop a wide range of hobbies and interests, both artistic and athletic, and has socially settled in extremely well to her elementary school.
She almost made a double play yesterday morning at T-ball--a play that would make almost any Mama Llama proud, when she, playing the pitcher's position, ran the ball up to home to out the home's runner, then threw the ball right to third--if the third base player had not been drawing pictures in the dirt with the toe of her shoe, it would have been a great play! Her little teammate is a dear, but does not yet have quite the attention span to really focus on the game--and her father is the coach, which already means she isn't going to pay perfect attention, almost by default.
Last week La Princesita and I decided to ride bikes over to her friend's home to play for the afternoon. We packed up some water and I led her through 2 1/2 miles of streets over to her friend's home, then a few hours later we rode home. Upon our return, she announced that her training wheels were "slowing her down" so I took a deep breath and removed them.
Over the course of four days she taught herself how to ride her bicycle without training wheels.
She did not put me through half of what I remember putting my father through when learning to ride without trainers. I remember his 6 foot 2 inch frame on my little bike, showing me that yes, it IS really possible and that the bicycle IS rideable. I remember him endlessly running down the road holding onto the back of my bike so I could get my balance.
I don't think I could thank my Princesita enough for NOT putting me through all that!!! Sorry, Dad, bless your soul, you haven't had your revenge quite yet!
We rode seven whole miles this morning, la Princesita and I. It was hard on her returning but she had a wonderful time and came home talking about all the beautiful nature we saw. We have something special we can do together now, shorter distances with her little brother (he rode a mile with us but training wheels started getting loose and I have decided I just need to now pack a wrench every time we leave with him on his bike) and it is really lovely time together, just she and I.
What has been even more poignant to me, however, has been watching her learn to master this new skill completely independent of me, except for my mere presence to give her the confidence and to make it "fun" by playing "traffic cop" while she and the Young Prince rode down the sidewalk. She has an incredibly strong will, motivation and focus that I so admire--yet is so fragile in that I can see (and have been told by a former teacher of hers) that I will never, ever have to push her as she is perhaps 10 times the perfectionist than I have ever been--and I am a perfectionist to the Nth degree.
*-----*
Not to leave the Young Prince out of this:
He ran to me on Friday when I came to pick him up from preschool, excitedly saying, "Mommy, Mommy, I got a sticker! I was the best helper!" He was obviously very pleased with himself, and his teacher (who also had been La Princesita's first preschool teacher) confirmed that indeed, he had helped clean-up more than all the other students in the class. And he knew he had done well.
He then walks around the entire preschool class to give all of his little friends a hug good-bye for the day, and kisses the hands (or legs...whatever he can reach at the time) of his teachers. He very much follows his sister in his desire to Spread the Love--filling all with warm fuzzies and making me extremely proud.
Together, they have their moments, but all in all they play amazingly well, love to cuddle and feel incomplete without being able to kiss the other good night. I pray I can do all I can do to help them maintain this beautiful relationship they are developing.
I am one proud Mama Llama.
She is a beautiful, energetic and outgoing young lady. At six years old, she is starting to develop a wide range of hobbies and interests, both artistic and athletic, and has socially settled in extremely well to her elementary school.
She almost made a double play yesterday morning at T-ball--a play that would make almost any Mama Llama proud, when she, playing the pitcher's position, ran the ball up to home to out the home's runner, then threw the ball right to third--if the third base player had not been drawing pictures in the dirt with the toe of her shoe, it would have been a great play! Her little teammate is a dear, but does not yet have quite the attention span to really focus on the game--and her father is the coach, which already means she isn't going to pay perfect attention, almost by default.
Last week La Princesita and I decided to ride bikes over to her friend's home to play for the afternoon. We packed up some water and I led her through 2 1/2 miles of streets over to her friend's home, then a few hours later we rode home. Upon our return, she announced that her training wheels were "slowing her down" so I took a deep breath and removed them.
Over the course of four days she taught herself how to ride her bicycle without training wheels.
She did not put me through half of what I remember putting my father through when learning to ride without trainers. I remember his 6 foot 2 inch frame on my little bike, showing me that yes, it IS really possible and that the bicycle IS rideable. I remember him endlessly running down the road holding onto the back of my bike so I could get my balance.
I don't think I could thank my Princesita enough for NOT putting me through all that!!! Sorry, Dad, bless your soul, you haven't had your revenge quite yet!
We rode seven whole miles this morning, la Princesita and I. It was hard on her returning but she had a wonderful time and came home talking about all the beautiful nature we saw. We have something special we can do together now, shorter distances with her little brother (he rode a mile with us but training wheels started getting loose and I have decided I just need to now pack a wrench every time we leave with him on his bike) and it is really lovely time together, just she and I.
What has been even more poignant to me, however, has been watching her learn to master this new skill completely independent of me, except for my mere presence to give her the confidence and to make it "fun" by playing "traffic cop" while she and the Young Prince rode down the sidewalk. She has an incredibly strong will, motivation and focus that I so admire--yet is so fragile in that I can see (and have been told by a former teacher of hers) that I will never, ever have to push her as she is perhaps 10 times the perfectionist than I have ever been--and I am a perfectionist to the Nth degree.
*-----*
Not to leave the Young Prince out of this:
He ran to me on Friday when I came to pick him up from preschool, excitedly saying, "Mommy, Mommy, I got a sticker! I was the best helper!" He was obviously very pleased with himself, and his teacher (who also had been La Princesita's first preschool teacher) confirmed that indeed, he had helped clean-up more than all the other students in the class. And he knew he had done well.
He then walks around the entire preschool class to give all of his little friends a hug good-bye for the day, and kisses the hands (or legs...whatever he can reach at the time) of his teachers. He very much follows his sister in his desire to Spread the Love--filling all with warm fuzzies and making me extremely proud.
Together, they have their moments, but all in all they play amazingly well, love to cuddle and feel incomplete without being able to kiss the other good night. I pray I can do all I can do to help them maintain this beautiful relationship they are developing.
I am one proud Mama Llama.
viernes, 16 de mayo de 2008
quirkinesses
Hmmm...I liked this, sounds simple in theory...shout-out credit going to OC for this.
...now to think, what could POSSIBLY be quirky about moi?
HA! (says anyone who knows me)
1. There is absolutely NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD with the same name (only first and last counted here) as me. If you were to Google me, I am She who you will find. This is NOT to say that google is the utmost authority on existence on this planet. However, my name is rare enough, with the combination being as such that the possibility is highly dubious.
2. I can debate myself about something so hard that I can talk myself out of (or into) almost anything. And I can do it out loud, too--anyone listening to me would think me nuts.
3. I am extremely obsessive about all that which I have really strong convictions, and must be very careful to NOT come across as self-righteous...a typical Taurean trait, might I add...
4. I have had experiences with what could very well be called ghosts.
5. My purple rabbit's name is Peter...get it? Peter Rabbit? JA! (Shoulda bought it 3 years ago...it has been a loooooooong time.)
6. I have eaten anaconda, hippo, guinea pig, fish, live escargot, raw horsemeat, and whale both cooked and raw. I would TOTALLY eat all but the live escargot, raw horsemeat and whale again.
Okay, that was fun, too. Thanks, OC!
Happy Weekend to all!
...now to think, what could POSSIBLY be quirky about moi?
HA! (says anyone who knows me)
1. There is absolutely NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD with the same name (only first and last counted here) as me. If you were to Google me, I am She who you will find. This is NOT to say that google is the utmost authority on existence on this planet. However, my name is rare enough, with the combination being as such that the possibility is highly dubious.
2. I can debate myself about something so hard that I can talk myself out of (or into) almost anything. And I can do it out loud, too--anyone listening to me would think me nuts.
3. I am extremely obsessive about all that which I have really strong convictions, and must be very careful to NOT come across as self-righteous...a typical Taurean trait, might I add...
4. I have had experiences with what could very well be called ghosts.
5. My purple rabbit's name is Peter...get it? Peter Rabbit? JA! (Shoulda bought it 3 years ago...it has been a loooooooong time.)
6. I have eaten anaconda, hippo, guinea pig, fish, live escargot, raw horsemeat, and whale both cooked and raw. I would TOTALLY eat all but the live escargot, raw horsemeat and whale again.
Okay, that was fun, too. Thanks, OC!
Happy Weekend to all!
jueves, 15 de mayo de 2008
after a glass of merlot...
Yeah...after a glass, finishing up my work week this week, I can do this now.
Using the first letters (I decided on initial blends as my name, for those few souls who know Mama Llama's True Identity would realize that my name definitely does NOT begin with /s/ but with /sh/) of my name I answer all questions, not using my name ever--THAT would be easy--and not making anything up.
So here is my stab at it.
1. What is your name? Must leave blank as I am anonymously Mamita Llamita except to those who have asked. But I *do* start with Sh-
2. 4 letter word: Shit (a-hem...)
3. Vehicle: Shiny
4. City: Shanghai (yeah, been there done that!!)
5. Boy's Name: Shawn
6. Girl's Name: Shandra
7. Alcoholic beverage: Shiraz
8. Occupation: Shmuck (is that valid?) Shriner? Shoe store salesperson (if nothing else...)
9. Something you wear: Shoes (duh)
10. Celebrity: Shirley Temple
11. Food: Shrimp (oh I think I'm gonna hurl...)
12. Something found in a bathroom: ummmmm....sh--ower.
13. Reason for being late: Shagging (no, I am NOT British...but it sure would be a damn good excuse!!!)
14. Cartoon Character: Shaggy (Scooby's cohort, if anyone isn't of that generation)
l5. Something you shout: "Shosta-frickin'-kovich!!" (seriously, ask anyone who has known me since high school. I am SUCH a nerd.)
16. Animal: shark
17. Body Part: shin
18. Word to describe you: Shameless!!!!
Wow. That was fun!
Using the first letters (I decided on initial blends as my name, for those few souls who know Mama Llama's True Identity would realize that my name definitely does NOT begin with /s/ but with /sh/) of my name I answer all questions, not using my name ever--THAT would be easy--and not making anything up.
So here is my stab at it.
1. What is your name? Must leave blank as I am anonymously Mamita Llamita except to those who have asked. But I *do* start with Sh-
2. 4 letter word: Shit (a-hem...)
3. Vehicle: Shiny
4. City: Shanghai (yeah, been there done that!!)
5. Boy's Name: Shawn
6. Girl's Name: Shandra
7. Alcoholic beverage: Shiraz
8. Occupation: Shmuck (is that valid?) Shriner? Shoe store salesperson (if nothing else...)
9. Something you wear: Shoes (duh)
10. Celebrity: Shirley Temple
11. Food: Shrimp (oh I think I'm gonna hurl...)
12. Something found in a bathroom: ummmmm....sh--ower.
13. Reason for being late: Shagging (no, I am NOT British...but it sure would be a damn good excuse!!!)
14. Cartoon Character: Shaggy (Scooby's cohort, if anyone isn't of that generation)
l5. Something you shout: "Shosta-frickin'-kovich!!" (seriously, ask anyone who has known me since high school. I am SUCH a nerd.)
16. Animal: shark
17. Body Part: shin
18. Word to describe you: Shameless!!!!
Wow. That was fun!
miércoles, 14 de mayo de 2008
reincarnated predispositions
I was explaining to She-Ra over lunch/snack yesterday my severe aversion to items coming into contact with my neck.
"I don't like close-fitting necklaces for that reason. I can handle a neck massage as long as I am only touched in the back of my neck. If there is any massaging on the side, I can only handle one side at a time. My mother used to put her fingers under my chin to make me look at her and I can't handle that feeling."
"That's funny," She-Ra responded. "Now, if you believed in reincarnation, it could be said that in a former life you were were strangled!"
We laughed, and then the conversation turned to my Mother's Day gifted broomstick (insert witchy laugh again here). Then She-Ra giggled and said, "I know. You were a Salem witch..."
"...and instead of being burned at the stake I was strangled to death!" I finished her sentence.
So here follow a couple of fun questions:
Do you have any odd hang-ups that could point to you in a "past life?"
Do any of your hang-ups indicate your possible fate in that past life?
I look forward to your answers! Have fun!
"I don't like close-fitting necklaces for that reason. I can handle a neck massage as long as I am only touched in the back of my neck. If there is any massaging on the side, I can only handle one side at a time. My mother used to put her fingers under my chin to make me look at her and I can't handle that feeling."
"That's funny," She-Ra responded. "Now, if you believed in reincarnation, it could be said that in a former life you were were strangled!"
We laughed, and then the conversation turned to my Mother's Day gifted broomstick (insert witchy laugh again here). Then She-Ra giggled and said, "I know. You were a Salem witch..."
"...and instead of being burned at the stake I was strangled to death!" I finished her sentence.
So here follow a couple of fun questions:
Do you have any odd hang-ups that could point to you in a "past life?"
Do any of your hang-ups indicate your possible fate in that past life?
I look forward to your answers! Have fun!
lunes, 12 de mayo de 2008
into the light
We had no power for eight hours this morning.
I never thought my dependence upon electricity could possibly upset my morning routine as much as I let it this morning. After all, I have lived in countries where we would have either no running water or no electricity--and a couple of times, both issues simultaneously--for days on end up to almost a week.
Yes, I could have lit the stove with a match and toasted bread on the grill instead of using a toaster. Yes, I could have opened the fridge only twice--once thinking well about all I wanted to remove from it, take it out and, when completely finished with everything that had to be returned to the fridge, open it again and stick everything in their places. Yes, I could have washed up with a cold shower (ugh--can do it but really, really hate cold showers when not in the Third World...at least there I feel like there is an excuse for the water being cold...).
But this was Monday morning. The day after Mother's Day, during which I didn't get to do anything I wanted to do because of torrential downpours and nobody else being willing to take the children for the day. So much for "custody" arrangements...
I got a broom for Mother's Day...
I call it my new transport...for a reason. (a-hem)
Don't worry. I *did* ask for it. (insert wicked cackle here)
Okay...back to the power. So at midnight-thirty I heard what sounded like balloons popping all up my street. I looked out the window--usually the transformers just go in one big BOOM but, with the heavy winds we were having I thought that perhaps something was blowing loudly down the street.
Then came the BOOM
and the silence.
I honestly expected the power to be back on by this morning, but it was not. It was still pouring down rain, so the only way to see if the elementary school around the corner had power was to drive by, as the office was still closed and not taking calls until 8:00 a.m. and I had no Internet access by which to check on anything.
How dependent I have become on energy.
So what did we end up doing? Packing up early and hitting the local 24 hour diner at 7:30 this morning for breakfast. The little monkeys loved it. Power was back on by 8:30, by the time we would have already had to have left the house, anyway. So I got home, got my hot shower, got the dishwasher running, started laundry and checked my e-mail.
All energy-dependent activities, of course. Ugh.
I never thought my dependence upon electricity could possibly upset my morning routine as much as I let it this morning. After all, I have lived in countries where we would have either no running water or no electricity--and a couple of times, both issues simultaneously--for days on end up to almost a week.
Yes, I could have lit the stove with a match and toasted bread on the grill instead of using a toaster. Yes, I could have opened the fridge only twice--once thinking well about all I wanted to remove from it, take it out and, when completely finished with everything that had to be returned to the fridge, open it again and stick everything in their places. Yes, I could have washed up with a cold shower (ugh--can do it but really, really hate cold showers when not in the Third World...at least there I feel like there is an excuse for the water being cold...).
But this was Monday morning. The day after Mother's Day, during which I didn't get to do anything I wanted to do because of torrential downpours and nobody else being willing to take the children for the day. So much for "custody" arrangements...
I got a broom for Mother's Day...
I call it my new transport...for a reason. (a-hem)
Don't worry. I *did* ask for it. (insert wicked cackle here)
Okay...back to the power. So at midnight-thirty I heard what sounded like balloons popping all up my street. I looked out the window--usually the transformers just go in one big BOOM but, with the heavy winds we were having I thought that perhaps something was blowing loudly down the street.
Then came the BOOM
and the silence.
I honestly expected the power to be back on by this morning, but it was not. It was still pouring down rain, so the only way to see if the elementary school around the corner had power was to drive by, as the office was still closed and not taking calls until 8:00 a.m. and I had no Internet access by which to check on anything.
How dependent I have become on energy.
So what did we end up doing? Packing up early and hitting the local 24 hour diner at 7:30 this morning for breakfast. The little monkeys loved it. Power was back on by 8:30, by the time we would have already had to have left the house, anyway. So I got home, got my hot shower, got the dishwasher running, started laundry and checked my e-mail.
All energy-dependent activities, of course. Ugh.
domingo, 11 de mayo de 2008
Reflections on Motherhood
To those who are mothers: Happy Mother's Day. I hope this has been more than a Hallmark-created holiday for you (!).
Today was a lovely day for me. I got the kids up and gently reminded them that they wanted to wake me up with their preschool and kindergarted creations so I walked them out to the dining room, reached up to the shelf where I had placed them out of the way, gave the decorated paper bags to the monitos and then rushed back to bed and pretended that I was asleep. They shook me "awake" yelling "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOMMY" and La Princesita handed me hers while The Young Prince took to unwrapping his own to give me that which was inside.
*---*
One Mother's Day, when I was a junior in high school, I had planned to give my mother a copy of the oratory speech I had done eulogizing mothers and the role they have played, historically and currently, in family life. It got personal as well, this speech of 10 minutes, and I brought home trophy after trophy with it. My coach had expected me to take it to nationals but, alas, the State judges didn't think as kindly and I lost at finals. However, I had bought an "Anything Book"...basically a blank book with lined paper and a fabric cover...and written the entire speech, in calligraphy, and was planning to give it to my mother for Mother's Day. I ended up throwing it at her when we had a huge fight as to my reasons for wanting to attend the last day of the speech tournament in which I had already lost placement--I genuinely wanted to see the others and lend moral support to my teammates. My mother thought that I must want to go for some other reason; namely, a BOY.
This was the topic of a great deal of problems in my adolescent relationship with my mother. I was accused of having illicit relationships with my teachers just because I was an excellent student who my teachers happened to love--probably because I was one of the few who actually truly respected my teachers. My biology teacher, rest his soul, an older gentleman who requested I be his 4th period aide my freshman year--his daughter had even babysat me when I was a child, we even went to the same church. Yeah, I was "doing something" I shouldn't be since he gave me a hug as a sign of peace during Easter Mass that year. Right in front of my parents, mind you. At that point, I was really too naive to understand what my mother was getting at (I was quite a late bloomer...).
Accused of something of the same thing with my orchestral conductor when he hugged me in the PDX airport and thanked me for all my hard work after two hard weeks of my leading the orchestra in Japan after I graduated from high school (again, an embrace that occurred right in front of my parents)--I had done something inappropriate, evidently, to encourage that kind of response. In reality, it had been such an amazing, emotional first-time abroad experience for all of us involved, including my conductor, that had created a common bond on an emotional level that only, in my life, music has ever been able to create in me. Of course, my mother could never have understood that.
Any gifts ever given me by a boyfriend were greeted with a snide, "So what did you have to do to get that?"
I was forbidden to wear black, a denim skirt or a denim jacket for creating the image that I was a "denim girl" (her words, not mine) or a devil worshipper. In my mother's eyes, evidently, the clothes made the person...no matter what. Even the most wholesome Little House on the Prairie-esque girl, who happened to be a close friend of mine, had a denim jacket but that did not phase my mother. She was convinced that, if I wore a denim jacket then I would next be out on the corner with the tree frogs smoking during break.
She told somebody, I have no idea who, that my best friend in school was a slut. Word got back to her, or her mother, or somebody and her mother told her that she was to no longer associate with me. From my point of view, suddenly my best friend did not acknowledge my existence. I had no idea what had occurred and, when I confronted my mother about what I came to learn in a heated blow-out, she denied absolutely everything.
Of course. Easier that way. I would kill to make that right, to show that one cannot judge others by the actions of their parents. But I cannot.
I have spent most of my life trying to please my mother, make her proud of me and the kind of daughter that reflected well the work of her parents, and moreso, to prove to her that I merited her respect and, moreso, her trust. I pushed myself to be a straight-A student in high school and college while being a star violinist, a star debater, a star on the math team, on the school board, holding various jobs at once, getting good scholarships to a good university, going to Girls' State, being a leader, being literally the best I could be in absolutely everything I overextended myself in doing and trying to always do good...but I always, in her eyes, made the wrong decisions. I was accused of working with "filthy folk" when I started volunteering with the Mexican migrant community in Northern Oregon. I was asked why I couldn't go to a rich country "like Spain or something" when I announced I was going to study and live in Ecuador. I then got a well-paying job right out of college teaching for the Japanese Ministry of Education in Japan...and that was good but "couldn't I have gotten something closer?"
I got a full-tuition waiver as a Grant Scholar and Instructor of Spanish at Tulane so I could pursue my Ph.D. My mother's last words as I left for school were, "You know, you could develop, um, 'other' interests"...meaning: "Find yourself a husband." So I did. That is what was expected of me, and I complied always with the expectation. Of course, she has worked to break our marriage apart since it began and my sister thought I was overreacting until she, too, got married and my mother stopped bothering me so much and started in on her.
If anything, this has done wonders for my relationship with my sister. We now understand each other so much better!
When I was 20 and so sick with monthly cramps that I could not walk, would turn ghostly white and would scream still after taking 8 Advil, my mother said that nobody could hurt that badly. My father, always my defender, took me to my doctor who ran blood tests on me and found that I was not only severely anemic but that I could be suffering some extreme endometriosis, which a surgery later that week proved that I was. My mother didn't speak to me for quite some time after that. I think she felt guilty.
I was told when I was pregnant with La Princesita not to ever expect any childcare or help from her. Then I was battered with thoughts from her like, "And what are you going to do if you have a 'special needs' baby? What then?" I still, to this day, don't know what she expected me to answer...but when I cornered her on this the THIRD time she started in when I was expecting The Young Prince, she denied ever saying such things. She visited me for an hour five days after La Princesita was born--after 20 hours of natural labor the placenta had adhered and I had to have it cut out of me--which ended up infecting at four weeks postpartum and I thought I was going to die when I went back into labor to deliver the placenta pieces, delirious with fever, all alone, with a new baby four weeks old, no husband around and no mother who would come help me. Little did I know then that my great-grandmother had died four weeks post-partum after having my grandmother and her twin brother, of the exact same thing back in 1924.
I, of course, was "overreacting"...just as I always had done.
I miscarried at 13 weeks and she did not come to help out because she didn't want to be a part of a "community event"--not to mention that it was believed by her that I caused the miscarriage because I lived too far away from "family support"...this coming from the same mouth of she who said that I was to expect NO support from her with my children. We had our huge accident in which my husband broke his back and I sustained chest injuries that had me not able to breathe well for six weeks, and she didn't come to help for the same reasons...thank God I have a family made of the greatest friends in the world here (She-Ra...to name-drop).
She thinks it unreasonable that we will not consider changing our entire careers so we can move back to Oregon and live by her. That had been her great motivation in trying to break up my marriage (which is falling apart well on its own momentum, thank you very much), to have me move back to where she is...all she wants is to have me there, she's not interested in the "package deal" I now am.
*----*
I have come to see and understand that my mother is jealous. Of what? Of opportunities I have had, of the generation in which I had been fortunate enough to have been born, of decisions I have made to just JUMP and do something new, of my being more like her own mother than like her--the same woman who she sees as having abandoned her not only after her own father died by marrying another and moving away but also by dying unexpectedly of a heart attack in the middle of the night when she was 62. All the people important in my mother's life have left her side at some level--my father left her widowed at 54; I had grown and flown at 18, never to return to live long-term in Oregon; my sister also left the area; her mother; her brother is only 300 miles north but they hardly ever see each other; the rest of her bloodline is pretty much all back in Minnesota. Her lifelong friends in Oregon are getting older and some are dying. She is alone, yet is unwilling to make any changes so that she is not so alone.
I am working hard to understand where she is coming from. I felt I had been pushed away from her when I made the decision to leave home and stay away in my early 20s. I felt she didn't like the person I had become and, instead of being a source of pride I was instead a symbol of how much she had failed as a mother. That is what she told me not two years ago--and I cannot counter how she has raised two daughters, both with graduate degrees, never been in trouble with the law or into drugs, with lovely children and lives of our own is normally not considered "failing" as a parent. But she sees our leaving her side as a failure on her part.
There are things that my mother did or said while raising the two of us that I will never repeat. The communication was terrible and I could not ask her questions or approach her in any way. I knew I would have things thrown back in my face or be teased to no end, so I ceased to depend on my mother as a source of confidence. She made that so. I can tell you the times I would go in and sit on her bed, trying to open up and talk to her. She closed the doors. I already do not do that with either of my children; I stop everything no matter what I am doing if they have to talk to me. I have made that decision. I want my children to talk to me.
There is so much in my upbringing for which I admire and thank my mother. She dedicated her life to raising my sister and I, making sure we always came home to somebody in the house, that we always had healthy food to eat, that we had ample time together as a family, that we had special traditions that we would look forward to for each season. She taught me the value of staying home with my children, which gave me the motivation to figure out a way to teach while staying at home--and thus teaching my children that they can do whatever they want if they can put their minds to it!
I love my mother very much. The last year or so has involved a great deal of introspection and attempting to comprehend better my mother's position in Life, and to learn to respect her, her difficulties, our misunderstandings and how I, as her daughter, can work to better our relationship. I speak to my mother usually about once every week or two, and our conversations are now much more pleasant than they had ever been. I have made it clear I will not discuss certain topics and, if she attempts to bait me, I will not continue the conversation. I will not tolerate attacks. Such limits have helped (at least me) to enjoy the time we have together and the conversations we do have.
Baby steps. So far, really, great strides have been made since my father's death. However, nobody is ever the same person following the loss of a life partner, a lover--and, from my point of view, a great role model and who was always my personal defender and hero. So we must adjust, adapt, and accept our new places in Life with grace while using what we have learned thus far to further deepen our respect for the Other, always, in our lives..
Happy Mother's Day.
Today was a lovely day for me. I got the kids up and gently reminded them that they wanted to wake me up with their preschool and kindergarted creations so I walked them out to the dining room, reached up to the shelf where I had placed them out of the way, gave the decorated paper bags to the monitos and then rushed back to bed and pretended that I was asleep. They shook me "awake" yelling "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOMMY" and La Princesita handed me hers while The Young Prince took to unwrapping his own to give me that which was inside.
*---*
One Mother's Day, when I was a junior in high school, I had planned to give my mother a copy of the oratory speech I had done eulogizing mothers and the role they have played, historically and currently, in family life. It got personal as well, this speech of 10 minutes, and I brought home trophy after trophy with it. My coach had expected me to take it to nationals but, alas, the State judges didn't think as kindly and I lost at finals. However, I had bought an "Anything Book"...basically a blank book with lined paper and a fabric cover...and written the entire speech, in calligraphy, and was planning to give it to my mother for Mother's Day. I ended up throwing it at her when we had a huge fight as to my reasons for wanting to attend the last day of the speech tournament in which I had already lost placement--I genuinely wanted to see the others and lend moral support to my teammates. My mother thought that I must want to go for some other reason; namely, a BOY.
This was the topic of a great deal of problems in my adolescent relationship with my mother. I was accused of having illicit relationships with my teachers just because I was an excellent student who my teachers happened to love--probably because I was one of the few who actually truly respected my teachers. My biology teacher, rest his soul, an older gentleman who requested I be his 4th period aide my freshman year--his daughter had even babysat me when I was a child, we even went to the same church. Yeah, I was "doing something" I shouldn't be since he gave me a hug as a sign of peace during Easter Mass that year. Right in front of my parents, mind you. At that point, I was really too naive to understand what my mother was getting at (I was quite a late bloomer...).
Accused of something of the same thing with my orchestral conductor when he hugged me in the PDX airport and thanked me for all my hard work after two hard weeks of my leading the orchestra in Japan after I graduated from high school (again, an embrace that occurred right in front of my parents)--I had done something inappropriate, evidently, to encourage that kind of response. In reality, it had been such an amazing, emotional first-time abroad experience for all of us involved, including my conductor, that had created a common bond on an emotional level that only, in my life, music has ever been able to create in me. Of course, my mother could never have understood that.
Any gifts ever given me by a boyfriend were greeted with a snide, "So what did you have to do to get that?"
I was forbidden to wear black, a denim skirt or a denim jacket for creating the image that I was a "denim girl" (her words, not mine) or a devil worshipper. In my mother's eyes, evidently, the clothes made the person...no matter what. Even the most wholesome Little House on the Prairie-esque girl, who happened to be a close friend of mine, had a denim jacket but that did not phase my mother. She was convinced that, if I wore a denim jacket then I would next be out on the corner with the tree frogs smoking during break.
She told somebody, I have no idea who, that my best friend in school was a slut. Word got back to her, or her mother, or somebody and her mother told her that she was to no longer associate with me. From my point of view, suddenly my best friend did not acknowledge my existence. I had no idea what had occurred and, when I confronted my mother about what I came to learn in a heated blow-out, she denied absolutely everything.
Of course. Easier that way. I would kill to make that right, to show that one cannot judge others by the actions of their parents. But I cannot.
I have spent most of my life trying to please my mother, make her proud of me and the kind of daughter that reflected well the work of her parents, and moreso, to prove to her that I merited her respect and, moreso, her trust. I pushed myself to be a straight-A student in high school and college while being a star violinist, a star debater, a star on the math team, on the school board, holding various jobs at once, getting good scholarships to a good university, going to Girls' State, being a leader, being literally the best I could be in absolutely everything I overextended myself in doing and trying to always do good...but I always, in her eyes, made the wrong decisions. I was accused of working with "filthy folk" when I started volunteering with the Mexican migrant community in Northern Oregon. I was asked why I couldn't go to a rich country "like Spain or something" when I announced I was going to study and live in Ecuador. I then got a well-paying job right out of college teaching for the Japanese Ministry of Education in Japan...and that was good but "couldn't I have gotten something closer?"
I got a full-tuition waiver as a Grant Scholar and Instructor of Spanish at Tulane so I could pursue my Ph.D. My mother's last words as I left for school were, "You know, you could develop, um, 'other' interests"...meaning: "Find yourself a husband." So I did. That is what was expected of me, and I complied always with the expectation. Of course, she has worked to break our marriage apart since it began and my sister thought I was overreacting until she, too, got married and my mother stopped bothering me so much and started in on her.
If anything, this has done wonders for my relationship with my sister. We now understand each other so much better!
When I was 20 and so sick with monthly cramps that I could not walk, would turn ghostly white and would scream still after taking 8 Advil, my mother said that nobody could hurt that badly. My father, always my defender, took me to my doctor who ran blood tests on me and found that I was not only severely anemic but that I could be suffering some extreme endometriosis, which a surgery later that week proved that I was. My mother didn't speak to me for quite some time after that. I think she felt guilty.
I was told when I was pregnant with La Princesita not to ever expect any childcare or help from her. Then I was battered with thoughts from her like, "And what are you going to do if you have a 'special needs' baby? What then?" I still, to this day, don't know what she expected me to answer...but when I cornered her on this the THIRD time she started in when I was expecting The Young Prince, she denied ever saying such things. She visited me for an hour five days after La Princesita was born--after 20 hours of natural labor the placenta had adhered and I had to have it cut out of me--which ended up infecting at four weeks postpartum and I thought I was going to die when I went back into labor to deliver the placenta pieces, delirious with fever, all alone, with a new baby four weeks old, no husband around and no mother who would come help me. Little did I know then that my great-grandmother had died four weeks post-partum after having my grandmother and her twin brother, of the exact same thing back in 1924.
I, of course, was "overreacting"...just as I always had done.
I miscarried at 13 weeks and she did not come to help out because she didn't want to be a part of a "community event"--not to mention that it was believed by her that I caused the miscarriage because I lived too far away from "family support"...this coming from the same mouth of she who said that I was to expect NO support from her with my children. We had our huge accident in which my husband broke his back and I sustained chest injuries that had me not able to breathe well for six weeks, and she didn't come to help for the same reasons...thank God I have a family made of the greatest friends in the world here (She-Ra...to name-drop).
She thinks it unreasonable that we will not consider changing our entire careers so we can move back to Oregon and live by her. That had been her great motivation in trying to break up my marriage (which is falling apart well on its own momentum, thank you very much), to have me move back to where she is...all she wants is to have me there, she's not interested in the "package deal" I now am.
*----*
I have come to see and understand that my mother is jealous. Of what? Of opportunities I have had, of the generation in which I had been fortunate enough to have been born, of decisions I have made to just JUMP and do something new, of my being more like her own mother than like her--the same woman who she sees as having abandoned her not only after her own father died by marrying another and moving away but also by dying unexpectedly of a heart attack in the middle of the night when she was 62. All the people important in my mother's life have left her side at some level--my father left her widowed at 54; I had grown and flown at 18, never to return to live long-term in Oregon; my sister also left the area; her mother; her brother is only 300 miles north but they hardly ever see each other; the rest of her bloodline is pretty much all back in Minnesota. Her lifelong friends in Oregon are getting older and some are dying. She is alone, yet is unwilling to make any changes so that she is not so alone.
I am working hard to understand where she is coming from. I felt I had been pushed away from her when I made the decision to leave home and stay away in my early 20s. I felt she didn't like the person I had become and, instead of being a source of pride I was instead a symbol of how much she had failed as a mother. That is what she told me not two years ago--and I cannot counter how she has raised two daughters, both with graduate degrees, never been in trouble with the law or into drugs, with lovely children and lives of our own is normally not considered "failing" as a parent. But she sees our leaving her side as a failure on her part.
There are things that my mother did or said while raising the two of us that I will never repeat. The communication was terrible and I could not ask her questions or approach her in any way. I knew I would have things thrown back in my face or be teased to no end, so I ceased to depend on my mother as a source of confidence. She made that so. I can tell you the times I would go in and sit on her bed, trying to open up and talk to her. She closed the doors. I already do not do that with either of my children; I stop everything no matter what I am doing if they have to talk to me. I have made that decision. I want my children to talk to me.
There is so much in my upbringing for which I admire and thank my mother. She dedicated her life to raising my sister and I, making sure we always came home to somebody in the house, that we always had healthy food to eat, that we had ample time together as a family, that we had special traditions that we would look forward to for each season. She taught me the value of staying home with my children, which gave me the motivation to figure out a way to teach while staying at home--and thus teaching my children that they can do whatever they want if they can put their minds to it!
I love my mother very much. The last year or so has involved a great deal of introspection and attempting to comprehend better my mother's position in Life, and to learn to respect her, her difficulties, our misunderstandings and how I, as her daughter, can work to better our relationship. I speak to my mother usually about once every week or two, and our conversations are now much more pleasant than they had ever been. I have made it clear I will not discuss certain topics and, if she attempts to bait me, I will not continue the conversation. I will not tolerate attacks. Such limits have helped (at least me) to enjoy the time we have together and the conversations we do have.
Baby steps. So far, really, great strides have been made since my father's death. However, nobody is ever the same person following the loss of a life partner, a lover--and, from my point of view, a great role model and who was always my personal defender and hero. So we must adjust, adapt, and accept our new places in Life with grace while using what we have learned thus far to further deepen our respect for the Other, always, in our lives..
Happy Mother's Day.
viernes, 9 de mayo de 2008
I am SUCH a nerd!
This is the realization I came to this morning while pouring over my bookcases in an effort to figure out which is The Book I would take with me if I could only take one...the Book Meme from Brad.
My initial instinct, of course, is my textbook that I have written. For me, this is a huge accomplishment and yet, while not quite completed, I have been teaching from it for the past year and it is so symbolic of a huge leap of faith, of the self-confidence that I could actually follow my dream and make it real...which brings me precisely to my book of choice.
I also tried to figure out what book I would not have an easy time replacing. I think most in my library could be replaced in some fashion, so I then decided that would not be a good measure to use.
So I ended up with the Bill Moyers interview of Joseph Campbell in hand, entitled
The Power of Myth.
I was an honors student in my four years of undergrad out in The Grove in Oregon. My freshman year, we went from professor's to professor's home on Monday nights throughout the year and studied this text. It was monumental in the beginning of my self-definition--who I am, where I am going, what I need to be, what I believe, my spirituality, my drive, my motivation--and the single quote I use almost weekly in some capacity from this book, one that I have internalized so deeply into my being, is:
"Follow your bliss."
That has become my mantra. I wish sometimes I could live it more truly, but looking back over my life, my travels, my experiences and the fullness and fervor and passion with which I have lived my life and experienced my life, that this quotation from Joseph Campbell provided me with the courage to do exactly that--define and follow my bliss.
Z, She-ra, Chief and OC, I would love to hear from you.
Basics of the rules are:
If your entire library was about to burn up (think of the firefighters in Fahrenheit 451 invading your home) and you could only have one* book to take with you other than the Bible, what would that be and why?
Simple Rules: Answer the question. Offer one quote that resonates with you. Tag five (or four, in my case...) people whose response is of genuine interest to you and inform him or her that they have been tagged.
*And it cannot be an entire series of something, that’s cheating.*
Happy Friday!
I also tried to figure out what book I would not have an easy time replacing. I think most in my library could be replaced in some fashion, so I then decided that would not be a good measure to use.
So I ended up with the Bill Moyers interview of Joseph Campbell in hand, entitled
The Power of Myth.
I was an honors student in my four years of undergrad out in The Grove in Oregon. My freshman year, we went from professor's to professor's home on Monday nights throughout the year and studied this text. It was monumental in the beginning of my self-definition--who I am, where I am going, what I need to be, what I believe, my spirituality, my drive, my motivation--and the single quote I use almost weekly in some capacity from this book, one that I have internalized so deeply into my being, is:
"Follow your bliss."
That has become my mantra. I wish sometimes I could live it more truly, but looking back over my life, my travels, my experiences and the fullness and fervor and passion with which I have lived my life and experienced my life, that this quotation from Joseph Campbell provided me with the courage to do exactly that--define and follow my bliss.
Z, She-ra, Chief and OC, I would love to hear from you.
Basics of the rules are:
If your entire library was about to burn up (think of the firefighters in Fahrenheit 451 invading your home) and you could only have one* book to take with you other than the Bible, what would that be and why?
Simple Rules: Answer the question. Offer one quote that resonates with you. Tag five (or four, in my case...) people whose response is of genuine interest to you and inform him or her that they have been tagged.
*And it cannot be an entire series of something, that’s cheating.*
Happy Friday!
miércoles, 7 de mayo de 2008
don't you dare
Don't you dare attack, however indirectly, my parenting. I am around my children 24 hours every single day of the week and have adopted effective disciplining of my children which will involve yelling when someone is in danger or raising my voice when I am on the aforewarned third time saying something (which I preface with a "I will tell you nicely twice. The third time will not be so nice.").
Don't you dare even insinuate that the children seem to cower to you when you raise your voice to them as a result of my somehow abusive nature toward them. Be a fly on the wall one day. I think you would be damn impressed in my management of the children and, consequently, the mutual respect and confidence we enjoy and continue to develop.
Perhaps it is because you never raise your voice to them (and they walk all over you), that they cower to your voice on the rare occasions it becomes authoritarian. You do not separate them nicely and peacefully when they are bugging each other; neither do you let them work it out for themselves. You get involved and raise your voice...then have the gall to accuse me of improperly raising my voice withe the children. I usually tell them, more in an exasperated tone rather than out of anger, to go have some alone time for fifteen minutes. That solves the issue with no voices raised, no time-outs, no fears and no tears.
Don't you dare corner me while I am in MY bathroom and accuse me of maltreating my children. You have no right, especially when I actually take the time to be with them, learn how to work with them in order to effectively discipline (both positively and negatively) and don't just stick them in front of the TV or let them onto the computer whenever we have time together. I do not hit my children with wooden spoons...and yes, I know people who do. I have spanked my son once and only once--ever. I have never spanked my daughter. Maybe you should hang out with other parents and children and see, if you can get out of your own little ideal world in which everything is always hunky-dory, how The Real World is...maybe then you would come to understand that my children are the respectful, well-balanced, active, healthy, happy and well-adjusted children they are because of ME, my attentions and my parenting.
And don't you dare forget that.
Don't you dare even insinuate that the children seem to cower to you when you raise your voice to them as a result of my somehow abusive nature toward them. Be a fly on the wall one day. I think you would be damn impressed in my management of the children and, consequently, the mutual respect and confidence we enjoy and continue to develop.
Perhaps it is because you never raise your voice to them (and they walk all over you), that they cower to your voice on the rare occasions it becomes authoritarian. You do not separate them nicely and peacefully when they are bugging each other; neither do you let them work it out for themselves. You get involved and raise your voice...then have the gall to accuse me of improperly raising my voice withe the children. I usually tell them, more in an exasperated tone rather than out of anger, to go have some alone time for fifteen minutes. That solves the issue with no voices raised, no time-outs, no fears and no tears.
Don't you dare corner me while I am in MY bathroom and accuse me of maltreating my children. You have no right, especially when I actually take the time to be with them, learn how to work with them in order to effectively discipline (both positively and negatively) and don't just stick them in front of the TV or let them onto the computer whenever we have time together. I do not hit my children with wooden spoons...and yes, I know people who do. I have spanked my son once and only once--ever. I have never spanked my daughter. Maybe you should hang out with other parents and children and see, if you can get out of your own little ideal world in which everything is always hunky-dory, how The Real World is...maybe then you would come to understand that my children are the respectful, well-balanced, active, healthy, happy and well-adjusted children they are because of ME, my attentions and my parenting.
And don't you dare forget that.
martes, 6 de mayo de 2008
feelin' just a little funky
I always seem to get into a bit of a funk this time of year. I love Spring and all the splendor, but I absolutely hate my birthday. I always have; I have never felt good around this time.
Perhaps this year is meant to be different...
I was considering making myself a yummy chocolate cake.
But no...wait. I remember the Christmas Cookie Fiasco of 2007.
Gluten-free soy-free goodies are just not in my line, and especially not when I am in a time crunch. I instead packed up the little monkeys and they rode bikes (I am still yet pushing the Young Prince up big hills so, if he goes, no bike for me) to Whole Paycheck this afternoon to buy Mama Llama a nice, big, gluten-filled, soy-filled chocolate cake (but made with the best glutenated and soyed ingredients, of course!) and eat little piece by little piece (sharing, of course, with any interested souls who wish to join me!), and drink enough red wine with it that I will then care less how I react!
Sweet, moist and fudgy with frosting. That is what I want.
And that only comes in soy.
Well....soy I thought (oh, I crack myself up...)
Turns out they now carry a Flourless Chocolate Cake.
Do you REALIZE what this means??
Gluten-free, Soy-free (yes, I checked the ingredients) Sinful Delights!
YIPPEE!
Too good to be true? We shall see, but I will be a good girl and wait 'til Thursday. To be accompanied by Haagen Dazs Vanilla Ice Cream.
Rough life, eh? ☺
---
Now I am officially on the Downhill Stretch to 40. (Of course, I tell everyone I'm turning 25 on Thursday.) Dad almost died at 40. It scares me to be getting older. But I am a different person with a different history--who knows how my dad's time dealing with hazardous chemicals in the Air Force in the early 60's might have affected what ended up happening to him. But the thought never leaves your mind.
However, I have made up my mind that it is to be a good week, which a big step ahead of where I was this past weekend! Will go out for Artie's (I am assuming, am I right? ...or rather, "is there anywhere else to go, really?") either Thursday or Friday night with some friends, maybe spend Saturday in my garden, now know that I have at least one student on Sunday of this coming week and I have a full schedule of classes to teach otherwise so I had better get my birthday/Mother's Day obligatory garden time in while possible. I'd like to fit a trip to the gym in, too; for spending the money on the membership, it sure is almost impossible for me to get there. Maybe I ought to think twice about continuing with the membership...
I decided to go ahead and pay off my piko ring, too. (insert sparklies here). Whoo-hoo!
Happy Birthday to me!
Perhaps this year is meant to be different...
I was considering making myself a yummy chocolate cake.
But no...wait. I remember the Christmas Cookie Fiasco of 2007.
Gluten-free soy-free goodies are just not in my line, and especially not when I am in a time crunch. I instead packed up the little monkeys and they rode bikes (I am still yet pushing the Young Prince up big hills so, if he goes, no bike for me) to Whole Paycheck this afternoon to buy Mama Llama a nice, big, gluten-filled, soy-filled chocolate cake (but made with the best glutenated and soyed ingredients, of course!) and eat little piece by little piece (sharing, of course, with any interested souls who wish to join me!), and drink enough red wine with it that I will then care less how I react!
Sweet, moist and fudgy with frosting. That is what I want.
And that only comes in soy.
Well....soy I thought (oh, I crack myself up...)
Turns out they now carry a Flourless Chocolate Cake.
Do you REALIZE what this means??
Gluten-free, Soy-free (yes, I checked the ingredients) Sinful Delights!
YIPPEE!
Too good to be true? We shall see, but I will be a good girl and wait 'til Thursday. To be accompanied by Haagen Dazs Vanilla Ice Cream.
Rough life, eh? ☺
---
Now I am officially on the Downhill Stretch to 40. (Of course, I tell everyone I'm turning 25 on Thursday.) Dad almost died at 40. It scares me to be getting older. But I am a different person with a different history--who knows how my dad's time dealing with hazardous chemicals in the Air Force in the early 60's might have affected what ended up happening to him. But the thought never leaves your mind.
However, I have made up my mind that it is to be a good week, which a big step ahead of where I was this past weekend! Will go out for Artie's (I am assuming, am I right? ...or rather, "is there anywhere else to go, really?") either Thursday or Friday night with some friends, maybe spend Saturday in my garden, now know that I have at least one student on Sunday of this coming week and I have a full schedule of classes to teach otherwise so I had better get my birthday/Mother's Day obligatory garden time in while possible. I'd like to fit a trip to the gym in, too; for spending the money on the membership, it sure is almost impossible for me to get there. Maybe I ought to think twice about continuing with the membership...
I decided to go ahead and pay off my piko ring, too. (insert sparklies here). Whoo-hoo!
Happy Birthday to me!
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