Mirabile visu...A.K.A. You might not want to watch...

It is now finally SUMMER.  That glorious time of year when living in Narnia really pays off...I have long maintained that you can practically throw candy out of your window and make candy trees here, though I do realize that's not true, seeing as how I've yet to actually grow Big Boy tomatoes successfully (shaming the generations that came before me greatly, but I just can't quite get it together well enough somehow; the plants grow, but nothing ever comes of it...sigh...). 

For his Birthday, he wanted watermelon.  You've never seen anything like it.  Even when he was 3 years old, and could barely speak and screamed most of the time as his only form of communication, he could eat watermelon by the plateful.  Plate after plate.  It's not natural.

So...happy summer.   There will be TOMATOES (YAY!) and watermelon and corn and cucumbers and squash and lots and lots of heppiness while we swim and ride horses and practice all the skills he will need in fourth grade.

Wish me luck!

Toodles,
me

*Mirabile visu is the snarky retort that the cows make after seeing the pigs eating their slop in our favorite Gregorian Chant CD EVAH... Grunt: Pigorian Chant by Sandra Boynton.  It is translated loosely as "what an astonishing sight"  :) 

You Keep Using That Date... I Do Not Think it Means What You Think It Means....

So it's your Birthday.

So, you think your Birthday occurs at 11:00 AM on the 24th of May because you were born at 11:00 AM on the 24th of May.

Does that mean anything at all?!?  Nope.

You were born on a Monday.  It is Friday.  The equivalent repetition of that Monday would, from a celestial standpoint, occur only when everything in all the heavens were exactly the same...  NOT HAPPENING AGAIN for a while, to be sure.

Your birthday is NOT a mathematically precise moment.  It is a day that is attributed to the nearest thing we have for calculating our age based on the revolutions of the earth.  There are no octave spheres in which you ascend year by year at a specific time/date.

That is covered under Astrology.  That is NOT Astronomy.

Happy Birthday Lil' Bro. Next year, could we please spare mommy the nuts convo's about EXACTLY PRECISELY when your birthday occurs?  It is CELEBRATED when we decide to celebrate it.  It is not repeating a moment in time from nine years ago...

Ugh.  Some days I just have to laugh while I beat my head bloody against the brick wall that is "something stuck in his head".

Commercial Television Was Wrecking Our Life: A Year in Review

Spongebob was a great character for da Creature.  He really really loved the silly innocent childsponge who thought bubbles were fun and played pranks on his friends.  However, Spongebob came with unnecessary baggage in the form of Nickelodeon.  He also had this equally nefarious traveling companion The Disney Channel.

While we were on our giant adventure last year, for one full week we were at Ghost Ranch (which turned out to be a very different place than it was when I worked a Presbyterian Youth Minister in the early 90's---ACK!).  Our accommodations were spartan, miserably hot, and mostly without modern conveniences.  After an initial jerkfest of about two days, something very very strange happened...

...the mouthy, attitude-driven snarkmonster that had been our ENTIRE existence with my son for two years suddenly, almost breathlessly abruptly, died.  It was gone.  He was suddenly patient and respectful and willing to play cards for hours and sit and stare at sunsets and calmly accompany us places that were new and uncomfortable and be part of the family group without all the cheeky resistance.  It was weird.

I decided at first that it was just the heat and weirdness of no modern conveniences making him cling to the only normal left---the Firstborn and myself.

However, we moved on to our next destination at the end of the week...a hotel with a television included.

Twenty minutes of Spongebob later, the monster returned.  I will never forget my perceptive Firstborn uttering what sounded like a death sentence for my sparse freedom-from-autism-constant-monitoring-for-safety life that I had while he was watching tv, she said "I think it's the television that's doing it.  We should stop him from watching it."

And with that, because it was so clearly true, I removed Nickelodeon, Disney, and ALL commercial television from our life.

A year later, we've watched a LOT of Netflix tv shows.  Star Trek: TNG, Star Trek: the original series; Star Trek: DS9; and apparently the never-ending story itself---Stargate SG-1.  During the year, we added Doctor Who catch up for my son, and that is still ongoing (there are rather a lot of things to catch up on).

It has opened up worlds for him and for us.  We are now cosplayers, we go to sci-fi conventions, we have new friends and new things to look forward to.  Mostly though, his attitude is fantastic.  His concentration has improved, and he is happier with the adults around him being adults.

I believe, after this year of "deprivation" that I really can say that the "entertainment" being force fed to our dormant children by the businesses whose sole goal is their bottom line is destructive propaganda which seeks to separate adult authority from the home just so that children become consumers at a much younger age.  It is appalling to think back on the things I watched with him during our "anti-parent TV" days.  Disney has gone round the bend.  Nickelodeon is right behind them.  If you have not actually WATCHED what your children are watching, I STRONGLY encourage you to do so.  It is not just the shows, btw.  The ads are constantly reinforcing the core message.  If you pay attention, you will see families depicted as having idiot adults who muddle around with these snarky children who always know better than the adults do, and should therefore be allowed to rule the roost and have "fun" at the expense of others as their entertainment.  It's scary if you really watch and if you value your child's belief in conscientiously-applied authority being the best path to safety.  They will not believe it anymore in very short order.

So, I am grateful we were brave.  I am grateful we persevered.  I am super grateful for NETFLIX and Comcast on Demand.  

Outcome Donut Surprise

Lil' bro logic du jour:  "Mama, can we go to Donut Palace?"
Me: "It's Wednesday, we do that on Fridays."
Him: "But it's LIKE a Friday, because we don't have any more school."
Me:  "It's not Thursday.  Thursday is the last day of school."
Him:  "But we have brunch tomorrow and donuts would be too much with brunch."

Fine, so we went to Donut Palace on the Wednesday Friday.  *shakes head*  The logic was inescapable, and frankly once he's made up his mind, I can say "no" but some stuff isn't that big a deal, so I don't.

I also usually don't share outcomes of my imagined catastrophes, but this one is years in the making so it definitely should be shared.  His Special Education classification re-evaluation determination was yesterday.  There weren't any surprises for me, but I think there were a few for the evaluators.

Da Creature and da Teacher:  Happiness

He came out of their assessments with "severely autistic" and an IQ 123 composite (138 verbal, 106 non-verbal).  I've said all along that all he has going for him socially is that he is smart and smart has currency in the teenager social world which is barreling towards us at light speed.  Being weird is ONLY okay if you are also smart and generous with how you use it.  If you use it to make other peoples' lives in the system better, use it to win against vengeful teachers (and yes, there are those out there, and it sometimes comes in handy to be able to write down the 50 states in alphabetical order in under a minute) then occasionally, it is okay to be yourself and still be part of the group.

Not being allowed anywhere near the group because you are weird is one of the most painful things that can happen to a child.  Trust me.  Been there, witnessed that.

So, we are now still fighting to get him classified as gifted.  Should be easier with the IQ well within range, but there are bureaucratic hurdles still to assail.  Wish us luck.  The system is broken and the "fallin'-thru" cracks are wide.

In the meantime, we are getting ready for NOLA Time Fest.  If you are in the New Orleans area on June 29th, you should join us.  It will be super fun. 

I Am Taking the Day Off. Now Go Say Prayers for Oklahoma Families...

...and first responders...
...and search, rescue and recovery crews...

Real catastrophes take precedence over all the imaginary ones we create for ourselves. 

The Other Requisite Geek Attire

It's all well and good if you can wear the costumes, but do you really have what it takes to be called a Geek, and a Nerd?  This morning, Lil' Bro proved he does and acquired his other requisite Geek Cred Card for this school year:

The event was loud, long, and full of other people getting pretty ribbons he did not get, so there was a lot of this over on his part of the floor (the demon stink-eyes and cloud of smoke rising must have been mostly my imagination, surely, *wink*---might have been the malfunctioning camera, too):

And then, finally, at the very last set of awards they gave out (an hour of sitting still in a crowded noisy room where everyone else got things and he didn't), he got to go up on stage.  Of course, because of his disabilities and balance problems, he can't stand on risers.  Not to worry, Lil' bro doesn't mind equalizing a playing field to his advantage, even if it embarrasses da Mama:

Nevertheless, he has done remarkably well this year, and for that my hat is off to teachers...I will bring your teacher presents after school and meet you in the parking lot...your answers to my impromptu "Red, or white" question were quite helpful---NOW GO SPEND TIME WITH YOUR HUSBANDS and forget about all the daily fun of teaching for a bit.  Thank you all, from the bottom of my geek mom heart.

Mobicon, R2D2, forgetting to blog, and IT'S SUNDAY!!!

My Femme Captain Jack Harkness cosplay

The busy got me this weekend. 

We haven't found anything beautiful to get behind yet this weekend, and seeing as we are somewhat ill and under the weather, I doubt that we are going to be able to.

We did have a blast this weekend tho, playing at Mobicon.  I even got to see the insides of R2D2 which made my weekend super happy.

The Petit Four had a very good time at Kidcon, and da Mama (a.k.a. Femme Captain Jack Harkness) was pleased that he stayed for ALL of kidcon and no one brought him back to me.

He even got to play Munchkin with other kids which was a super big deal for him

There was no joy at the Costume Contest...as there was a kid cosplaying Link from Zelda: Skyward Sword that even I would have given first prize to, and then there was a baby.  Babies will jank your chances at winning EVERY TIME.  At least the baby was a Whovian.  

Enjoy having a look through the slideshow, and steal pics if you are in them and all that stuff.

To conclude, I had a great time helping out Krewe du Who and being a sci fi nerd all day.  So did the little one.  We missed our Romana II, but we did spendidly on our own.  SUCCESS!  I will tell tales of the Romana in Romania tomorrow.  Go forth and SUNDAY now.  :)

Identity Deconstructionism--what 48 year old creative women do instead of buying red sports cars...

From an FB friend:  "What do you get when a blonde goes brunette?"   
Artificial Intelligence.  

 
Here's my favorite "before" picture (yes, there are layers in that statement which only the very clever will "get" and kudos to you).  I'm the doofus on the left with the silly grin on my face and the blonde hair.  I've been a blonde or red head all my unnatural life and it was fun and I understood it.

Here is yesterday's "after" picture, after several hours at the salon trying to change everything I've ever known about myself and what I should look like...have I ever mentioned that my hair does NOTHING that cosmetologists have come to expect hair to do when they put the same chemicals on it they put on everyone else's hair?

Not only is that new hair, it's also my cosplay for Mobicon, which starts tonight.  I am looking forward to being a lady.  A lady who is costumed in a manner which should evoke the character Captain Jack Harkness from Torchwood.  I've assembled as much of the costume as was practical and affordable and I cannot wait until I get to work the table at Krewe du Who in the morning.

Along for the ride and lots of fun are a friends' daughter who will help unload Dalek Eric, and of course, my darling Petit Four (see sidebar), sporting a few upgrades to his costume for the kids costume contest.  :)  Wish him luck and then high five him no matter the outcome!

SEE YOU AT MOBICON!

Tweek and the New Camera

So, what do you do on the last day of MCT's (that you resent in the first place) which happens to be the MATH DAY, which he can do in his sleep anyway?  What exactly does a responsible parent do to prepare her child for this most important activity (and btw, during the only guaranteed week every year with no homework---because no homework is important to testing, but not to having a family life over, say, Spring Break or Christmas Break, or Thanksgiving break, but !hey! we've got to be rested and happy so those tests will go well and the teachers won't be penalized... *shhhh, you're not supposed to notice all that...just look at the picture of Tweek*...)

YOU GIVE HIM A GIANT CUP OF DARK ROAST COFFEE WITH SUGAR AND CREAM!!!!

 

That'll get the job done.

I bought a new camera last night, since my good camera is in Romania.  So, I sat in my recliner in my bed room and took a picture across the room of his royal highness, the sandbag supreme himself:  Spot.  There's a joke here, and it starts "Spot is SO fat..."  I haven't figured out the punchline yet, but if I can get a picture of him sitting like a sandbag, I'll upload it.  The verdict so far on the new camera?  It's good, but it's certainly not as good as my big Rebel Canon one.

Odo is the small one who seems to be hanging on to Spot's blubber 

in a vain attempt to comfortably sit in the cat tower, too.

Balderdash and Brimstone

Educational Psychometry:  a mythological system of psychological analysis which seeks to explain quantitatively to what extent your child/husband/crazy Aunt Sarah can not learn things exactly the way the rest of "us" do and should therefore be approached differently if you want said child/husband/crazy Aunt Sarah to behave properly in a classroom.   

Or at Thanksgiving Dinner.

We can all agree that Aunt Sarah should just tone it down and maybe lay off the cough syrup and Schnapp's.

We might even agree that husbands learn best when they are, um, "content" with life, especially in the mornings (This is a kid friendly show, folks, but that giant *wink* was directed at you grown-up married folk).  Otherwise, you're just gonna spend a lot of time trying to explain WHY he needs to do it your way and he's gonna do it his way anyway.  Psychometry could help, but you'd have to get a diagnostic test done, then probably a behavioral analysis to see why his aptitude and behavior are not matching up, and then there's the whole setting of goals and objectives and applying any necessary accommodations to the goals and objectives and then assessing the effectiveness of your teaching program, making modifications and then re-assessing his aptitude in light of the recent changes, wait, you were doing all that already weren't you?  I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that was in the secret girl handbook we all got in middle school.

I distrust the entire field of psychology.  I think it has brought a great deal of unnecessary suffering into ordinary broken lives which could have been avoided by belief in something outside ourselves that we can trust, and turn to when we have made mistakes.  Mental dysfunctions which are not biological (chemical brain imbalance) seems to be mostly aberrations of guilt.  Guilt drives a lot of malfunction and dysfunction and dispelling it is difficult, unless you can really get behind the idea that you can be and are forgiven.  However, that's perilously dancing on the precipice of preaching outside in the rain without an umbrella and NOT what I'm after here.

Why am I yammering on about this today?

Lil' bro yet again "failed" his Gifted testing.  He's autistic and reads words that are at an 11th-12th grade level, does math years beyond his ken, sings Italian opera off the score, and in so many ways is clearly gifted.  Everyone can see it, yet no one here in the district seems to be able to properly test it, year after annoying year.  Yay psychometry! <sarcasm>

Meanwhile, he's also being re-evaluated for his SpEd placement this year (well, this week actually).  No surprises there, but in a state with no money and dwindling program access and availability, no amount of reassuring me "it's all fine" will assuage that terror that they will decide he isn't autistic suddenly (I must have "CURED" him, no? Aren't I super special, I'll write a BOOK and go on TV and stuff?), and wreck his little life with removing his status and accommodations.

That's why I'm yammering.  Because it isn't enough to be angry about the situation, I MUST project it onto all things and generalize about it until it bears no resemblance to the thing I started with.  Then and only then can I collapse in a heap and stare mindlessly into the void, and...

...claim my "cat-ass-trophy" for the day.

*sigh*

Back to Dalek slats.  There are only two more.  This is good.  I was about to start writing angry letters to Moffat just to ease my Whovian angst. 

MCT's Actual, The Firstborn Aloft (STILL.....), and Dalek Slats from Hell

Kiddster #1 (Lil' Bro) is actually now headed off to the factory to be tested for his viability as a useful cog in the machine that is our state-run schools.  I have dutifully provided pigs-in-a-blanket for his class to snack on, and am hopeful that he will not wreck a classroom when he gets bored and feels trapped. 

The Firstborn is STILL traveling.  This cheap flights thing is sort of a mixed bag of yuck.  If she does it again, I think I'll book her flights myself and she can travel alone but for less time.  24 hours and counting and they are still flying and waiting and flying and waiting.  Just to get to Budapest.  They are beyond exhausted.

Dalek slats.

Do NOT get me started.

Trying to make something look nice when the angles involved are nasty and you have to shim every single piece you attach, but shim it ahead of time, then silicone it into place.  I HAVE to get this done today without fail.  I also need to balance checkbook, pay bills, and start cleaning the house before we leave Friday.  Ugh....

Not exactly woman's work, but it's all still got to get done. 

Godspeed to the Firstborn and Tall One.

Scatter Splatter

What do you get if you roll a hand grenade across a kitchen floor?*   (you're gonna hafta wait for a bit for that one... or scroll on down and then we'll join you in a minute)

My mind this morning won't make for great blogging, but should be a bit entertaining if I'm lucky and you're as twisted as I am.  *smirk*

Ever watch (from a safe distance) as a mischievous child drops a water balloon from a balcony onto a seated, dressed, scrunch-faced sourpuss of an adult?  You know those long moments as you casually watch time expand and you can't help but being wickedly amused at what will happen next, embarrassed for the sourpuss who will over-react, and sad for the kid who thought it would be funny? That would be an adequate metaphor for my thoughts this morning.

So, the Southern Chorale begins its epic tour in Hungary and Romania today.  These are the children who I know well enough to warn about things like solar flares and gypsy pick pockets.  That is Yoda, the world-traveling Jedi stuffed animal backpack.   As the Firstborn's friend (we'll call him The Tall One) related to me that his mom wasn't worried about the trip, per se, I shared what our family plan was for the unlikely event that solar flares wipe out all electrical devices while the group is overseas, and that they would have to walk across Europe and catch a working clipper ship to America.  I also mentioned that I would reward him as well as Han Solo if he brought her home safely....  *wink wink* *nudge nudge*

Of course, I'm using the ridiculous to convey a real hope that they look after each other a bit abroad as they do at home, making sure the other one is where they should be, doing what they should be, when they should be doing it at all times.  They are friends and they are good at that sort of thing, after being traveling companions now for about 13 years.

Me? Meanwhile, I'm quietly muttering to myself  "be the water balloon, be the water balloon", not the sourpuss at the bottom.

They will be fine, as always, and the Chorale will be magnificent, as always.  My thoughts will go with them everywhere, and in the meantime, lil' brother and I will turn our eyes toward MOBICON and finish the Dalek for this round of fun and I will NOT worry about things I cannot control.

So here's the answer to your punnishment for the day---     

 *Linoleum blown apart.

Toodles!

It's Sunday

Go find something beautiful and get behind it.

The Compartmentalization Conundrum: pt. 3: Shedding the Muzzle

For so long I've suppressed so much of who I really am because I thought it was the only way to have even the barest of a social life.  Sadly, too, there were real constraints on me professionally which kept me having to maintain a public persona, which is a really weird activity at best, and at its worst, is soul-crushing.  Maybe I've been a coward all this time, but I sincerely did not want to risk tarnishing the beauty of what we were trying to accomplish in the choir with my tawdry little life and other interests.

It got hairy when I evolved, through my preparations for our choir trip to Rome, into a more traditionally-minded Catholic.  Suddenly, I was at odds with our more liberal-minded parish priest, and liberal-minded youth ministers, but equally suddenly found myself embraced by a wonderful community of traditional-musicians and liturgists and I kept saying "I'm just in it for the music and aesthetics" while trying to keep bridges intact to both worlds.  There was constant pressure that I declare a side and be on it or be condemned.  It was super strange.  My goals were really, seriously, all about doing things well and conscientiously bringing the best of me to each new task.

However, it's TIME for being clear and risk all those  

crispy-fried bridges.

I wanted desperately my whole life to be the best servant of God I could be.
I suppose I always will.
Catholic music, aesthetics and parish political life are especially MESSED up.
I am weary of warfare.
I failed, in spite of pouring my life into the war for fifteen years.
I never meant to imply that I would ever become all the things people were demanding I become in order to be loyal to causes within the Church which I never fully understood.
I will declare a side:  Truth, Beauty, and abiding Faith.
Ooops...not really a "side" is it?

PLEASE STOP TRYING TO PIGEON-HOLE ME!
NO ONE CAN EVER LIVE UP TO THAT LEVEL OF EXPECTATION!
YOU ARE JUST DEMANDING FAILURE FROM PEOPLE IF YOU DO!!!!!!

I refuse to comply.
The future is wide open and FREE.
I will play with my children and teach them joy.
I will make friends and costumes and raise a few eyebrows.
I will neither walk away nor run toward.
I will be faithful.

Now, back to your regularly-schedule daily bit of sarcastic fun from the Catastrophic Carleigh.

The Compartmentalization Conundrum, pt. 2: Independent Thought

This is my Dad.  He is amazing.  He owned and operated a well-respected Machinery and Supply company for decades and then retired.

It's okay to have a job and a hobby.

It's still okay if your hobby is the Yacht Club and racing sailboats and you rise through the ranks of people who don't want to do as much hard work at their hobby and end up Harbor Master because you're are such a hard worker by nature.

It's even still okay to be the Machinery and Supply guy and the Harbormaster at the same time, but, it seems that when you then decide to also spend a year working on designing, building and traveling with your amazing midi-played computerized Calliope, your other-world-of-yachting-and-business friends do that scrunched up face thing I spoke about in my last post.

My Dad was a bit dismayed that the organ folk were so very organ-y and couldn't really be friends with someone who wasn't quite as obsessively devoted to organs as they.  He was equally dismayed that his other friends were mystified at what seemed an abrupt change of focus/personality.

I watched all of this from the sidelines, of course.  I adore my father like you wouldn't believe, and I know he's always moving on to new things.  Very complicated new things that require him to learn whole encyclopedias of information and apply it mechanically in innovative and amazing ways.

Once upon a time, he built two four foot-long (sewed the sails, machined all parts and designed all electronics, did all fiberglass work) replica America's Cup sailboats that operate by hand-held remote devices.  They actually tack.  They're made of fiberglass.  He made them while he was restoring his 1971 Corvette because he had gotten good at fiberglass and I guess it just occurred to him that a pair of sailboats you could drop in the water on a dead day at the reservoir while you're sort of racing your heavy boat that is going nowhere fast anyway might be a hoot.  It was a hoot.  Now they are gathering dust on the wall of his shop.  He moved on.

So, here's my suggestion for those who know someone like us:  get used to the idea we are good at many many things.  We work HARD to make each one work the best way possible.  When we are done, we are done.  Those things we were working on are now a little bit boring because the mystery is gone.  We can smile and still talk about them and enjoy your new-found enthusiasm for them, and we can even haul them out and take them places and still use them and be part of that world, but we have fundamentally moved forward.

It's more of an "both/and" thing, really.  It's not "either/or".   And guess what?  We don't expect you to change, too.  What I'd like more than anything else is if you'd continue being my friend in the way that makes sense to you and not get weirded out by my new friends and new activities.  You are STILL very important to me and you are STILL you and I am STILL me.  

Project by project, I learned from my father to work hard, be thorough, and pay particular attention to the details.  It seems appreciated everywhere you go and by everyone you meet.  I regret the confusion caused by moving on, and I hope we can all still be friends? 

The Compartmentalization Conundrum, Pt. 1: Threading the Needle of Your Expectations

This is a three parter!  :-o

Part One:  Threading the Needle of Your Expectations
Part Two:  Independent Thought
Part Three:  Shedding the Muzzle

So, you have known me in my professional hat for fifteen years and have come to think you KNOW me and any change in my priorities and focus is *gasp* weird and uncomfortable for you?  Imagine how your scrunched up face and cocked-to-one-side head-with-side-long glance look to me?  You look ridiculous.  Close your mouth and move forward.  I'm not the sum total of what you think I should be:

We need to manage expectations for a bit....

Yes, I enjoyed greatly teaching the ancient choral work that is Gregorian Chant and polyphony to semi-willing teenagers for the past fifteen years.  Yes, I think that camp songs, felt banners, and emotion-based liturgies are ridiculous and silly in the Church that created the greatest works of art known to man for thousands of years.  Yes, I think if you are going to believe in anything at all, you should believe in something ancient and mysterious and difficult to get your mind around, and do EVERYTHING in your power to respect the traditions and beliefs that come with that---"When in Rome,"  and all.

However, I have other interests, too.   Shocking, right?

What is this need to compartmentalize the people around us that so plagues our society?  It's always been there---this tribal need to identify like-minded people who won't challenge us or do worse things to us, and then cling to them like rats on a raft.  However, you should bear in mind, without those strange non-conformist rats who are willing to put up with the consequences of questioning the wisdom of the exclusive community of life on the rat raft, we'd never find the island. 

I can be a mantilla-wearing, Propers chanting, rabid rad-trad Catholic AND I can smile at and participate in sci-fi cosplay and admire the artistry that goes into the costumes and the devotion to imagination and joy which people exude who love what they do for fun, too, without violating any fundamental rules of social life.

However, I've noticed recently that you really can't...

Tomorrow we will talk about my Dad and the vagaries of him being Harbor Master for a few years and then abandoning that for making pipe organs and calliope's, and how you can't seem to retain your friends when you shift groups of people.  I want to talk about HOW in the future we might interact with those of us who do NOT fit the expectations of the community we have become known in, and what to do when we wander off and find something new.

Do you know what the common denominator is between these two pictures?  The photographer who passionately, deeply, enthusiastically enjoyed each one as a profound life experience where there was hard work and sacrifice involved just to participate.

ps---I've been a cosplayer for decades.  You just thought I was doing Dinner Theatres for fund raising.  What if I was doing them because they were fun?!?  :P  A pox on expectations.

  

Construction Adhesive is NOT Caulk...(and other lessons in humility)

When it happened, I told the kids we would NEVER speak of it again.

So, what do I do?!?

I write a blog post and publish it on the internet like a complete doofus.  It has been quite the week for working on my humility:  1) I have played in a Ruzzle League tournament; 2) bought the wrong product at Lowe's to attach slats to our Dalek; 3) waited around for said product to "dry" on a test strip;  and oh, yeah...4) left my car running and unlocked while we ate an ENTIRE lunch at a restaurant blissfully unaware of our peril.

Early onset Alzheimer's?  Probably not.

It's not that I'm too busy to notice details like "where are my keys?" or "did I turn the car off?" or "that silicone stuff isn't really sticking, what am I doing wrong?"  It's that I've been sort of distracted lately with the big life upheaval of not being a choir director anymore.

Oh, and the Ruzzle league kicked my butt.  I was good, in my seeded slot in group 11 (out of 12), but looking at the stats of the leaderboard people and watching them play in real time has been an awakening of sorts.  In order to actually be good at this stuff, I'd have to study.  A LOT.  Why on earth would I spend my time studying so I can beat people at a game on my cell phone?

Because, apparently, I am super competitive, unbeknownst to me.

Nope.  No more phone games for you, young lady.  Get yourself to confession, make a list of things of things to be done, do them, and for God's sake, TURN OFF YOUR CAR before going into lunch.  I cannot tell you how embarrassing and horrifying that moment of realization was, when we returned to our THANKFULLY STILL IN ITS PARKING PLACE car after our leisurely lunch.  I'm glad I had a full tank of gas.  I'm glad that car thieves were out doing other things, and I'm so glad my Guardian Angel was not on a coffee break.

Now THAT would have been a Catastrophe.  I would have won the Catastrophy.  But it is certainly funny, from a certain point of view.  Humility always is.  So I will laugh, and learn and move forward, delightedly driving a car I do not deserve.  (lol)

Standard and Poorsch

Our economy rests on the quality of our workforce.  Wait, no....

Our economy rests on the willingness of consumers to overspend money they don't have on things they don't need.  Closer....

Public education is the factory which creates our workforce and provides conditioned low-information voters who can be easily crafted into anything the ruling party desires, such that power can be perpetuated through the utilitarian application of principles of democracy.

Our children are thus but cogs in the great wheel of mediocrity. 

*OR*

Is there an or?  Is it delusional to presume that teaching creative, independent thinking and work ethic, which are SO out of fashion these days can provide society with men and women who will stand against tyranny, work hard to make their sphere of influence a better place, and sacrifice temporary comforts for long-term outcomes?  Maybe.  IDK.

However, these are my thoughts this morning as I package my little product of the state as instructed to submit him for his MCT's (Mississippi Curriculum Testing).  Seeing as what they've mostly done for months is teach to the test, one would presume that the children will do well.  I have a special needs child though, so all bets are off and let's hope that the accommodations we wrote into the IEP last Spring are remotely relevant this Spring and things go well.

I can say this, though:  he has a cold and is Captain Nosedrool and hates sitting around and waiting and being off schedule.  The next three days should provide a good laboratory for what will go wrong in fourth grade.  *sigh*

So, good luck to the teachers whose jobs are ridiculously linked to these tests.

Good luck also to the students who must bubble-in page after page of information to prove that someone taught them things the state wanted them to be tested on.

Good luck to parents everywhere who look at this process with the appropriate level of cynicism and disdain.

I wish no good luck to those who seek power through mass thought manipulation and creation of dependency through under-teaching children so the children become controllable commodities.  Some years, I wish the children would all hide  silly hats in their back packs and get them out when the tests begin and throw paper airplanes and pull girls' hair and chase the boys screaming kid profanities...

Childhood used to be about learning what it means to playfully and sometimes painfully exist in a natural pecking order and flourish anyway.  Those were the days, my friends...  Remember when the weird kids were the ones who had NOT broken their arms falling out of trees?

To childhood:  "sumer is i-cumen in, lhude sing cucco!"  

UPDATE:  Or, in an on-going Divine lesson in HUMILITY, I could have all the dates wrong and MCT's might not start until NEXT WEEK.

Dawn of the Dread: Someone call the CDC, the PLAGUE is here! :-o

Drama, intrigue, near death from tiny monsters, and soccer shorts, that's what the weekend brought.

I suppose many wives could tell stories about husbands who cannot tolerate the slightest sinus infection, much less the horror of a full blown COLD, but I could tell you tales of Asperger's and viruses that would rival The Walking Dead.  It is definitely the season for Mr. Cranky Pants Zombie to lurk and leer from under his blanket moaning and grousing at the horrible nose slime he still cannot properly expel from his nose (we call him Captain Nosedrool around here)...

Bear in mind, though, that I don't get ANY good information when these things are happening.  For example, this is how he looked at the State Soccer Championships (God Bless Top Soccer, they are such and amazing organization).  Can you even remotely tell he has the kind of sore throat that would make St. Francis of Assissi kick babies?  Nope?  Me neither.  And he NEVER breathed a word about it either.

So, the consequence of my not being an all-seeing know-it-all with psychic abilities and spidey sense is that he is now quite miserably dramatified about the whole nose thing and we are experience plague-level wilting and whining and nose slurping noises...

Gesundheit.

SEND HELP!!! I THINK I'M NEXT!!!!

It's Sunday

Go find something beautiful and get behind it.  There is an Una Voce Mississippi meeting tomorrow at noon at Broad Street Bakery in Jackson, if you, like us, are seeking beauty in worship and finding a lot of camp instead.  Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are camp--- wait, no.  That's not how that works.  Have a beautiful Sunday.

"Why is my first thought always that he got eaten by the cat?"

So, you are prone to catastrophizing.

Okie dokie.

So, thousands of dollars and decades of therapy were not able to rid you of the habit.

Okie dokie.

So, your angel, your firstborn, the child who you hang on her every single word, is going to Romania for three weeks on tour with a choir of gazillions of people.

After all of the "ooh, isn't that going to be amazing" supportive crap you have to say to make it okay for the kiddo, then you settle in to this panicked internal nutsness that can only be described thusly:

It will all be fine when she returns.  Until then, I will strive NOT to read or post airline safety statistics, sex-slave abduction stories, pick pocket gypsy videos, or "Americans are hated abroad" stories, or even ruminate on how often she trips and falls and how wonderful the medical care might or might not be in Romania.

Life in my head.  What a marvelously unpleasant adventure.  Like, all the time.

Bon voyage Firstborn.  Enjoy the paprika.  Don't stray from the group.  Don't drink the water.  Be sure your will is up to date.  Wait.  Let's just leave it at GodSpeed and I loves you.

ps---the title quote above is from the last few seconds of http://youtu.be/Vp2nb9Vq0yY

So much fun in one place it's hard to stop laughing

Let's Control That Population: Screw Euthanasia, Let's Just Eat the Eggs!

Because we don't want ALL of this BREEDING going on.  If you let that sort of thing go on too long, then you've got them everywhere and they just make everything messy and gross and then you have to clean up after them and they clog up the roadways and you can't get your boat into the water because the dock is FULL of them and there's all that slippery poo.  I thought these were MIGRATORY birds, but they never ever leave anymore.  Dock vermin.  Road vermin.   

So yesterday I had to pull off the road and truck my eight year old son up a muddy incline so he could see the goslings.  We talked about words like "signet" and "gosling" and then we started wondering why no one ever ate swans.

My life is so odd sometimes.

So, if you know why no one ever ate swans, I'd love to know.  No fair googling.  I didn't.  Clearly.  I suspect it is because we thought of them as nobler than geese.  I wonder why the perceived nobility and rarity of a species does so much for its long term survival rate at the hands of humans? 

Your Relentless FB Campaign has Finally Worked...My Core Beliefs in Flux

After being bombarded with so many well thought out and presented FB memes trying to sway me away from my core beliefs, it's finally come to pass.  I'm sure those who clicked "browse" and then "upload photo" and typed a snarky caption here and there will be quite pleased with their influence and impact. 

You see, once upon a time, I believed in the fundamental goodness of people, and in an imaginary system of self-discovery and redemption through the long journey toward a shared goal of fighting evil at all costs and trusting in plucky goodness to get you through.  Personal sacrifice was the cement that bonded friendships and made great achievements possible.

Then, real life happened.

So, now, as a result of all that wisdom floating about FB, I am pleased to announce I no longer believe as I once did.  I am embracing the cold hard realities that my belief in the fictional redemption of the quest is no more:  Han shot first and Bilbo cheated.  There.  Done.  Moving on.

What?  You thought this was about religion or politics?!?  I'm sure your mama told you not to discuss religion or politics in polite conversation.  :P

In other news...I crossed the 50 lbs of weight loss milestone this morning (for the second time in my life, btw, which is annoying on a certain level).  70 more to go.  Ugh.  My weight loss plan, you didn't ask?  The best gastric bypass of them all:  "No Thank You," and lots of to-go boxes. 

Toodles again.

Misfortunate Advertising

There is something unfortunate about this ad...  I've been stuck on it for a few days now and the more thought I cannot escape devoting to what's wrong with it, the more things leap to mind, but maybe the good folk at Subaru might not have said "she grew up in the back seat of my Subaru" as the child turns into a middle schooler... *shrug*

But the point is well taken.  You see, my usual Wednesdays have been like this:

Step one: drive 35 minutes to work to do two or so hours of choir prep.

Step two: drive 35 minutes back to the burbs, grab some lunch fast.

Step three: get in the %$%#% car rider line with the psychomoms who insist on getting there an HOUR early so they can get their overscheduled children to whatever activity is the most important thing in the WORLD today....(So why am I there, you ask?  I have no choice in the matter, because my son is brought out by an aide ten minutes before the rest of the children and I have to be in the front of the line so they can put him in my car and apparently the wisdom of doing this in the FRONT of the school where there isn't a line of overachieving psychomoms didn't sink in to the powers that be, but that's another rant for another day....)

Step four:  help my son do his OT, feed him something so he doesn't go boom at choir.

Step five: drive 35 minutes back to work, do choir rehearsal for an hour.

Step six: drive, and I'm not kidding here, 1 hour and ten minutes to get home again.

So it goes for my son, who has taken to listening to opera while we drive, opera scores in hand, reading and singing every note, every phrase, in whatever language the opera is in that he has chosen for this week, and the sad thing is it only takes TWO days for the Mikado.  The only time he listens to opera is in the car.  Don Giovanni only took a week.  That's just way too much car time, and we don't even DO anything anymore.

So, hat's off to Subaru!  Good for your ad team, reminding us that our children are definitely "growing up" in our cars.  *sigh* 

PS---It's GOOD not to work on Wednesdays anymore.  Not unhappy about THAT in the least.  :)