Compulsion

I work at a place that is frequently visited by the general public. There is a water feature on site with a beautiful glass sculpture in the center of it. Most everyone knows glass is fragile but for some reason, the fact that it it is part of a small body of water, makes people want to throw coins at or near it. People see small ponds of water and regardless of logic to the contrary, feel compelled to turn them from artistic backgrounds to wishing wells. Needless to say, the glass cracks has to be repaired and the ponds have to be dredged seasonally. But people persist. They are compelled to throw coins into water.

I have noticed another odd human compulsion lately as well, and it involves watching someone slowly die. It's not pleasant when someone is ill or old . They slide downhill, usually fairly slowly and we are forced to watched the people we one relied on and respected turn back into helpless beings who need to be approached like young children. This is certainly part of the cycle of life and the process is inherently wrought with emotion. But what I want to talk about is people's compulsion to look on the bright side when someone is dying. Why is it never ok to admit and discuss that someone is on their way out? Why do people feel compelled to pretend that things are going to work out just fine despite all evidence to the contrary?

"I visited your dad in the hospital today. He never woke up, but they has shaved his beard so he looked much better", said one email. "Your dad remembered my name today. I talked to him for a little while before he fell asleep, I was so pleased."  Of course we don't want people to die. I certainly don't want my father to die, but I'm not blind and I know he's dying- as each of you that visit him should. Don't pretend it doesn't smell horrible in his hospital room. Don't pretend you can't see the catheter bag, or the bag collecting is diarrhea. Don't pretend falling asleep in the middle of a conversation or him not being able to remember your name despite knowing him for 40 years is normal. Don't think for one moment that his having a 24/7 babysitter is a good sign. Wouldn't it be more productive and emotionally healthy for us all to admit what's going on? He's not coming over for Thanksgiving. He's not going to wake up and stroll the courtyard with you. Stop blowing sunshine up my ass. Stop making me tell you what's really going on. Come say your goodbyes. Grieve. But for everyone's sake, please stop throwing pennies into the ocean. Your wish is not going to come true and I really don't need to deal with your disappointment on top of my own.

Middle of the Night

It's 2:48 a.m. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and can't calm myself down enough to go back to sleep. It's been a long, long time since I've "blogged". I've got a lot going on these days with work and two kids. I know it's no excuse but let's face it, this blog is unlikely to make me rich and famous, or even pay the mortgage so it falls pretty low on the priority list. But there's not a whole lot else a person can do at 2:48 a.m., so here goes...

I've been reading this book about becoming self-employed. It's peppered with all kinds of stories of people who have turned some kind of skill or service into a viable business. I find the idea of self employment very attractive. I've been working through some ideas in my head but none of them have really given me that feeling that it could work. I think the key is to find a product (preferably an online product) that bridges one thing that people already use, with another. There is a guy in the book that I'm reading that wrote a tutorial for an application that he used a lot. Turns out, there was a huge need in the market for that because the company that put out the app never did anything more than write basic instructions. Now, this guys just sells this resource online as a living. And, there's another story about someone who wrote an online application that allows music teacher to track and bill their clients. He cleverly sells an annual subscription to the service - but only to people who have over a certain amount of clients. Anyone under that can access it for free. Once they are reliant on it, and presumably making money from their services, he charges them. Brilliant. That's the beautiful thing about the age that we live in. You don't have to take your wagon down to the market to sell your goods anymore. Anyone with a computer, around the entire world has a market place in their house, 24 hours a day.

We are going to the Rockies game tomorrow and taking those sweet boys. I hope the weather gods smile on us. We're also stopping by a birthday party for a dear friend of my husband. The party was originally supposed to be a camping trip on his land near Ft. Collins. Land that is likely charred and burned now because of the High Park fire. I'm astounded by how many people have been evacuated and possibly have lost their homes in Colorado this summer. Damn you climate change! June is not supposed to be 100 degrees every day. Rain is supposed to fall every once and while.

It turns out that I'm not funny or creative in the middle of the night so I'm going to go try to sleep again. Sweet dreams everybody!

Thanks

Dear God (or whatever power might rule the universe),
Thank you for all the wonderful people and things in my life. I do not take them for granted.
Here they are in no particular order:

• The good health and happiness of my husband and children
• Bach's Stress Relief Chamomile Spray


• My BFF’s (including my huzzy)


• The internet


• Julie and Julia (the movie, not the people)


• Christmas cookies


• Hope (the feeling, not the person)


• Things that smell like trees (Christmas trees, tea tree oil ect…)


• High def television


• The music on my ipod


• Happy kids


• Grandparents


• Clean sheets


• Vacation time


• A good book to take you away


• Creative inspiration


• Fleece (blankets, jackets, hats, you name it)


• Jelly Bellies


• Burt’s Bees chapstick


• Netflix
• engrish.com

I'm off to Disneyworld next weekend. Merry Christmas to all, and to to all a good night.

Breaking the News Habit

I admit it. I can’t take it anymore. The sadness, the despair, the violence, the craziness, it’s all just too much for my little brain to take. I have to stop watching the news on TV.

Normally, I start off the morning with a little CNN Headline news. Sometimes, I’ll flip to local news or one of those cheesy morning magazine programs. But last night I told myself that I would quit, so this morning only the weather channel and the travel channel we shown on my TV. I also used to check various websites throughout the day for news updates at work. I’m trying to break the habit, but I must admit that I absent mindedly typed in the web address for CNN at least three times today before I caught myself.

Yesterday I caught my mom watching some Veteran’s Day memorial recap and sobbing.

How is the human psych supposed to absorb a constant barrage of horrible stories like child prostitution, gang rape and genocide? How do we wrap our minds around thousands of people dying after day in hideous ways? We were not built to take on all the problems of the world, hour by hour. Maybe that’s why so many people are unhappy or taking antidepressant medication. It just crushes your spirit after a while. Either that or you become so jaded that nothing shocks you anymore. I want to fight against the dying of the light. I don’t want to know that someone is stalking women at city parks; I don’t want to know that there could be a meth lab or child molester around every corner. And I never want to hear another story about what some sexual sadist did to another human being. So, I’m breaking the news…habit.

Misfit

I’m chewing a piece of Big Red cinnamon flavored gum. It’s yummy, but kind of gritty. Like someone rolled it in sand before I popped it in my mouth. Serves me right I suppose. I let my eighteen month son rummage through my purse over the weekend and I guess stomping on the gum was part of the fun. The worst damage was to my glasses, which I forgot were in the purse. I have bent them back as best I could, but I’m sure I’ll get some people cocking their heads sideways when they talk to me.

We have to attend a parent only school function this weekend. It’s at one of the other Kindergarten parent’s house. I’m dreading it. Not for the usual reason that I hate small talk, but for the brand new reason that I’m horrified to show up at their house again. Let me explain…the weekend before last, my huzzy and I booked grandma to babysit with the intention of going to the parent shindig. We showed up at this beautiful home with wine and a side dish in hand. The guy who answered the door seemed a little surprised to see us, but he introduced himself and let us in. We were in the kitchen, with the rest of the guests, mingling and enjoying a glass of wine. It was kind of odd because we kept trying to talk to people about school related things by asking questions such as, “So, whose dad are you?” They would respond with something like, “that’s my son over there, pointing to the 17 year old in the corner”. Or, “I don’t have kids, I’m so-an-so’s co-worker”. Ok. Fine. So they invited some of their other friends to the parent party. Maybe not enough parents could come. No big deal. A half an hour into the party the hostess discreetly comes up to my husband and me and asks us if we are there for the kindergarten party. We reply that we are. And she drops the bomb shell that we are two weeks early. The party had been moved some time ago due to a conflict with a school event. We have just crashed her crab boil. Ugh. She was very gracious and invited us to stay for dinner anyway, but we were mortified. I gulped my wine down in one sip and we were outta there. But now they think we’re morons and I never want to go back. But I don’t want to look like a chicken shit druggie mom either so I have to. Double Ugh. Normally, I look forward to the weekend, but this week could not go slowly enough for me.

It is not lost on me that I’m becoming more of a misfit as I get older. I feel like I hit my stride in my teens and twenties and it’s been a gradual decline ever since. Not in the “I used to be homecoming queen and my life sucks now” kind of way. Just that I seem to struggle more as an adult with fitting in, and being coordinated. This weekend I fell off a ladder when I was getting my clothes out of the crawl space. Last week I hit billboard pole parking the car. And the weekend before that…well, I won’t go there again. I am consistently embarrassed. I think I would make an excellent shut in.

Knipple (Take That Censors!)

Working in an office can be mind numbingly boring. I have to admit that whenever the weather is terrible, I’m happy to have a job where I work inside. But normally, I wonder if sitting inside a cubicle, starring at a screen, all day, every day, is really all that great. Then my catholic guilt steps in and I hear my mother’s voice say something like, “there are starving people in Africa that would be grateful to have a job like yours”. Then I feel like a jerk.

That reminds of a piece of irony that I meant to bring up….my place of work blocks all kinds of websites. Some are clearly sexual in nature, but others are just kind of ambiguous. I guess maybe they get a whiff of controversy (like the word “nipple”) and start censoring. Case in point: They have blocked the Colorado Lottery website. You can’t actually play the lottery over the website. No harm done by gambling at work, right? You CAN use the website to check the numbers of the lotto ticket you already purchased. A ticket you may have purchased in the convenience store located in the lobby of this very building. No matter that the newspaper publishes the same numbers every day, and that site is not blocked. And no matter that I can still access ebay, purchasing all kinds of contraband right here from my desk. And no matter that the dude down the hall can still access Russian porn. But God forbid that CNN publishes a story on men breastfeeding. Oh no! That is off-limits!

Snicker, snicker. Snort snort

I'm sure glad that today is hump day. For the first part of the week, everything I touched turns to crap. If I wrote something, there was a typo. If I wore a white shirt, I spilled coffee on it first thing in the morning. My biggest screw up of the week was that I found out that I must have filled out the wrong paperwork when registering Henry for Kindergarten. Luckily, a teacher alerted us to this fact and they had a spot for him. The correct paperwork was turned in this morning and all is well now. A great big thank you to huzzy, who had to have the potentially painful conversation with catholic school administrators that we could not produce a baptismal certificate, as our pagan child was not baptized.

I rediscovered this website today and it's really making me laugh. http://www.engrish.com/

Word of the week:
heuristic 
–adjective
1.
serving to indicate or point out; stimulating interest as a means of furthering investigation.
2.
encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems on his or her own, as by experimenting, evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error: a heuristic teaching method.
3.
of, pertaining to, or based on experimentation, evaluation, or trial-and-error methods.
4.
Computers, Mathematics. pertaining to a trial-and-error method of problem solving used when an algorithmic approach is impractical.
–noun
5.
a heuristic method of argument.
6.
the study of heuristic procedure.