I was at work today and, appropriately, read the news on a blog. 

George Carlin died.

And I was immediately sad, as if someone I knew and loved had passed.  Because he was like that funny uncle who could always make us laugh the hardest by laughing at ourselves.  He broke through all the crap and made us stop taking ourselves so seriously.

I must have been about twelve when I was introduced to George Carlin.  It happened the way it did for many of my peers, through “Class Clown” and its Seven Words.  My cousin had the greatest bedroom ever, with not one but two walk in closets.  One of those she had set up like a secret.  It was like a fort or a hideaway and we spent one afternoon in that room listening to her brother’s copy of “Class Clown” on her record player.  I must have been young, because I don’t think I even knew what all seven words meant. (A source of glee for my cousins, who reveled in torturing me over my naivete.)

Years later, I would have the opportunity to take my good friend to see the man live.  Tiny on the stage from our seats, he was as hilarious as ever.  I have photographs of the “Left Cheek Sneak” that make me smile to this day.

I tried discussing George with someone at work today and she referred to him as vulgar.  It suprised me, not only because of things I’ve heard fly from her lips, but because I actually found him to be the opposite.  The absurdity of how silly little words can be given such power by deeming them inappropriate  was more what he was about.  He loved playing with our language and pointing out the contridictions in our every day lives.

The good news, and there is some, is that his humor will live on to influence future generations.  And for that I am more than grateful.

I know we’re not supposed to go to bed angry…

But what if the fight starts after you’re already there?

Proof, again, that politics and alcohol do not mix.

My shoulders hurt.
My wrists hurt.
My neck hurts.
My back hurts.

This has been a bad week at work so far. Our usual light and happy mood was dashed yesterday when we were chastised for taking too many long lunches and too many breaks. (I would tell you what I think this is really about, but I’ve gotten myself into trouble blogging about work before, so…) I was a little miffed about the way it was presented - and I’m only partially sure this has anything directly to do with me - but do I just let it go?

I do not.

I dig my heels in and show her by working my tail off, eating lunch at my desk, and producing twice what I normally would. 

Hah!

Wait a minute…

Yeah, I’ve been pretty miserable.  And the rest of the team is quiet because of family drama/coworker feuds/just can’t wait to get out of here. 

The good news?  I have at least one full week off after next week.

The bad news?  I don’t get paid and we won’t know if we get the second week off until the last minute.

(Fingers are crossed here, folks, because even though I like my job and the people I work with, I think we’re sick of looking at one another.)

Otherwise this week:

• Boy is out of school.  We thought we had a job lined up for him but it didn’t pan out.  I’m not going to worry about him working as long as Husband keeps his part of the bargain to give him “one additional chore every day”.  If he keeps that up, the Boy will be looking for work before we know it.
• I got the “all clear” from Dr. Wallpaper.  This is great news, but it means I either live with “Fred” or I have mini-hysterectomy.  He gave me the impression I should wait a while to decided (”Have a nice Summer!”) and I think I’ll wait until my appointment next year.  I’m a little tired of surgery and the two week recovery time doesn’t really fit in with my travel plans (nor my earning a living plans).  Besides, what is another year of living with what I’ve been living with for the last fifteen?
• I’m going to meet my friend for coffee tonight.  She needs an ear and a shoulder as she just put her grandmother into a nursing home.  I know the stress and trauma of this situation and I had my mother as a buffer.  This poor woman’s entire immediate family lives out of state, so she’s stuck with these long drawn out conference calls whenever there’s a decision to be made and then she has to execute the results all alone.  My goal tonight is to make her laugh as much as possible.
• My BFF has no internet!!!  This is awful and must be rectified.  I was forced to actually call her on the phone yesterday!  Jeesh.
• I invented a new dish last night that Husband actually ate without changing a thing!  It’s Baked Pizza Spaghetti.  Yum.  I cooked the spag’ and let it drain, combined some jarred pizza sauce with some jarred spag’ sauce, cut up some turkey pepperoni (the best invention ever!) and tossed it in with that, then put the spag’ in with a good handful of shredded cheese.  I put the whole thing in a greased baking dish and put more cheese on top.  I baked it for about 15 minutes at 350.  YUM!  (I will admit, it came out a little salty, probably because I used too much cheese.) 

Finally, I’m thinking about trying to make some major changes in the way I do things.  I’m still in that planning/scared to try phase, but I don’t know how long I can deal with this melancholia brewing day in and day out.  All I ever want to do is lie down.  Then when it actually becomes time to sleep?  Yeah.  That’s not happening.

Why do I worry so much? Why don’t I give him credit? His father is like that, too, but then he’s like that with everyone. His dad was like that. Maybe that’s why I do it, too. My dad was like that sometimes. When he was there, anyway.

I can remember Dad yelling at me for getting paint on the patio while painting the shed. I had begged to do it because I wanted to please him, because it looked like fun, because I liked the bright green color of the paint. But I don’t remember him telling me that I shouldn’t get it on the patio, that I shouldn’t overload the brush, that I should put down drop cloths. I learned to paint, eventually, but I had to wait until I was a grown woman and had a home of my own. (And, thank God, HGTV!) Over the years I’ve become pretty damned mediocre at painting.

I do remember my dad teaching me how to smoke, though. Heh.

On the one hand, I feel like I should have been teaching him life skills like cooking and cleaning by now. On the other hand, I feel like he’s struggled through so much at school. I’ve always said, “School is your job.” and made that our priority. But what if what’s keeping him from being able to do things outside of school is his lack of real life experiences?

On the other hand, I’m just a paranoid mommy worried about her baby.

Other things going on in my world:

• I went to my regular doctor today and she’s doing the whole blood work thing again. Jeez lady, how many times till I pass this test? She also gave me a couple of new OTC meds to add to my growing pile of pills. I already look like I’m eighty if you’re going by my pill case. Why not add more to the pot? All of this took over two hours in her office. Grrr.
• I have an appointment Monday with Dr. Wallpaper. We’re going to discuss how much the D&C didn’t work and then go on from there. My regular Dr. agreed that the path we’re heading down is the “Big H” (or “Little H” in this case, as there’s a less invasive approach), but she said things have to play out a certain way. (To please the HMO, in other words.)
• Husband took PPP Jasmine to the vet on Tuesday. The vet said she was fat. Mean vet. Now Husband won’t give her any more treats. (Don’t look at me! I give her things like Turkey pepperoni and he gives her things like turkey gravy!) I blame myself as we don’t go on near the type of walks we used to, but, dewd, she gained nine pounds this year! That’s a bunch for a dog!
• Our DSL is down and my attempts to get someone on the phone to fix it have been for naught. I don’t mind at all, but it’s driving the Boy bugs**t.

And that’s it for now. I’m off to make my genius son some Thai Chicken with Brocolli.

Do we have Brocolli? Hmmmm.

From the Good News Department - our neighbors with the fire?  Turns out it was only their shed and it wasn’t close enough to the house to do any damage.  (I imagine there might be some melty siding, but they’re living in the house.)  It was still smoking last night as I came home.  Gives a nice flavor to the air and makes me yearn for ribs.  (I don’t like ribs, btw, I just like the idea of them.)

Also, my friend at work got her power back on this morning - a full two days before she was scheduled - so here’s hoping there’s power at my mom’s place, too! 

Now for the part that’s pissing me off…

Due to the power outage, our school district was closed yesterday.  This being the last week of school, we were a little surprised, but what are you going to do?  You can’t send kids into a dark building where the safety alarms don’t work.  (I don’t know why not.)  The schedule for classes this week is already confuddled for finals.  They were supposed to have two full days - yesterday and today - then three half days where they would split the time between two classes. 

Now, I know we’ve known the exams were coming for months, now.  And I know that, theoretically, if a student has been studying all along, they should have the knowlege base to do well on exams.  But I also know my son and his ADD and how much he relies on things like REVIEW SESSIONS and STUDY GUIDES and NOTES when taking tests.  So his missing yesterday’s chance to bone up, made me a little nervous for him.  He’s gotten stellar grades this semester and I don’t want bad exam scores to hose that for him.

We woke up this morning fully expecting that he trot off to school as usual and I was astounded to find that his school was closed again!  Not only that, but the other high school in the district was open!  Only the schools without power were closed.

Husband and I wondered and pondered about what they would do for the rest of the year.  With only three half days left, how would they make up these two days?  Especially since the days put us over our quota of “snow days” for the year?

Well, as a series of emails told me today, they are not going to do anything.  Their solution?  Students were welcome to come to school and get anything they needed from their lockers until 3 pm.

Thank goodness I have email.  And we live close enough to the school that I could send Boy hoofing down there to get his stuff.  What about the kids whose parents aren’t signed up to the school network and don’t get these little emergency notes?  What about kids who have no way of getting to their school?

All I can think of is my Chem final.  It was my Sophomore year, as well, and I cannot tell you how much I struggled with that class.  If it weren’t for the fact that the teacher went over every single thing that would be on the final, I would not have gotten 100% on the exam that I needed to pass the course with a D.

Luckily,  the first two exams Boy has are in History and Language Arts, which are two classes in which he does well.  As he said this morning, “I could take a boot to the head in Language Arts and still come out fine.”  And I was pleased to note that his History book was one of the books he brought home with him this weekend.  (Because, yes, I did tell him last week to bring all of his books home to study.  Of course, he forgot.)

Yeah, it’s the mama lion in me, but I think it’s an unfair disadvantage to these kids to have to take exams with fewer days prep than the other high school.  (Which, btw, and a higher per capita income than the kids in our school.  Not that I’m judging or anything.)   I understand that if they had closed down all the schools today, they wouldn’t be able to file their appeal and would have had to increase already scheduled days or extend the school year.  I get it.

I get it, but I don’t like it.

This only increases my advocacy for the year-round-school-calendar.

Holy crow!  What an interesting Sunday evening!

Yesterday, I dropped the Boy at the Mall on my way to take Jazz to the Dog Park.  This was in anticipation of her getting a bath later  so that she will smell fresh and clean for the vet tomorrow.  It was hot - as it has been for days upon days and I don’t know, but I’m not sure the dog wanted to be there anymore than I did.  I butted in on some conversation with some nice terrier owners until Her Highness seemed ready to go.  (That’s one thing I love about this dog.  She’ll let me know when it’s time to leave and it’s usually before I’ve thought about it.) 

We stopped on the way back at the pet store to buy her a new water bottle. The lady at the park had a really cool bottle with a tray/spout attachment that I thought Jasmine might use.  She’s particular about her water for some reason and it’s hard to keep her hydrated in the hot sun.  Then I went to MickeyD’s where I got a coke and a bottle of water and gave the girl a drink.  I also called the Boy to say that I was ready to go and would be waiting outside the mall entrance.

This whole weekend there were clusters of obnoxious little storms.  Lots of downpour and some very loud midnight hour hail, mostly just loud thunder.  I wouldn’t even have noticed much if it weren’t for how terrified the dog is of the noise.  And Sunday had, all day, been like walking around in stew from the humidity, so it was no surprise when the radio reported tornadic activity in a burb about fifty miles northwest of where we were.

Here’s where I must interject and explain that I listen to NPR almost exclusively while I’m in the car.  I find the reporters calm and understanding voices so soothing.  Ususally, on the weekends, they have some pretty interesting shows, as well.  More entertainment based than hard core news.  (I should point out that I know they are ultra-liberal, but that doesn’t bother me.  Nor does it mean I agree with everything I hear.  It just means, I am aware.)  But this is not the station you should turn to for breaking news stories.  I’ve run into this problem on more than one occasion and it will often bite me in the butt.    (On the other hand, if you want more details of the story than any other station wants to give, or if you want to hear about the story long, long after other stations have moved on to more topical stuff, NPR is your station!)

Boy started to get nervous about the pewter color of the sky on the way home and I (naively) assurred him that the storms were far away and not a worry for our ten minute drive home.  Just to prove it, I switched over to the local AM station (where weather and traffic are updated constantly).

We were just in time to hear about the line of severe thunderstorms we were about to drive into.

I don’t know how we lucked out, it shouldn’t have been that way, but we somehow edged around most of the real bad stuff and our biggest problem seemed to be the traffic lights being out.  They were all out; everywhere.  The closer we got to the homestead, the more damage we would see.  Signs blown away and tree branches blown down.  The road was full of debris and little leaf clusters mashed to a pulp by cars whizzing over them.

As we slipped into our neighborhood, the branches became bigger and bigger until we ended up skirting entire trees that were laying across the road.  I pulled into our driveway, worried by now, to find the electricity off, but Husband greeted us at the door, cussing about how he was in the middle of (insert task here) and now he’s screwed.

(Gee, Hon!  Don’t worry about us.  We’re fine!)

Gratefully, we had no damage to our home nor to our trees.  Everything seemed fine, except for the lack of light and sound.  (And within three hours, we had electricity back, too.)

The ladies next door suffered damage to two of their large trees.  Part of one landed in our yard, but didn’t damage anything.  Another took out their power and their phone lines.  They’ll be without those for a while, regardless of the rest of the neighborhood.

It’s one of those neighborhood building things, though.  “Did you see…?”, “It sounded like…”, “It happened so fast…”  All of standing in the drizzle chatting.  Everyone’s dogs running around, greeting each other.  And, once the electricity came back, everyone running for their homes to get back to normal.  (Our wonderful neighbors received plenty of invites to stay at someone’s home and ended up borrowing a generator from another neighbor.)

The scary part came later, around eleven, when I was watching my Sunday night shows.  Husband and Boy were in bed and I thought I hear male voices outside, rather loud.  And a little urgent.  I peeked out the ground-level window to see a fully clad fireman hooking up a hose to the fire hydrant in front of our house!

I’m thinking this can’t be good.

I ran up the stairs and threw open the door to see one of the neighbors’ (down and across the street) back deck was fully ablaze and there were two full firetrucks and an ambulance in front of their house.  I hollered information up to the menfolk and ran outside.  All I could think was I had to tell the firemen that these people have little kids.  (I don’t know what I was thinking - of course, everyone was out and standing in the driveway!)

My next thought was, “These people are going to need clothes!”, and since the Mom was either very pregnant or very large it immediately occurred to me to volunteer.  However, I never quite made it that far.   One of the fireman asked me to do something for him and I did, then the neighbor to our west came out in her housecoat to get the scoop.  I looked over and it appeared that many, many neighbors had gathered around these folks and were taking in their kids.  Then family started to arrive and we knew things would be okay.  And I couldn’t get past the fire trucks anyway without interfering.

By this time Boy was outside with me, and I wanted to get him back to bed, so we headed home.  We were greeted by Husband who chastised us for running out there without shoes!  (He was right!  There were so many twigs and things in the road, it was difficult for me to walk back.)  Then we all tucked in for the night and slept quite soundly…

…Until the dying battery on my cell phone awakened us at 3am.  Grrr.

Hope you all are fairing better in this weather, ’cause it seems to be a widespread problem.

AK asked that we all chime in with our stories of our first true love.  So…here goes:

My first legitimate love was Joe-Joe Ackerson.

We met on the first day of first grade.  We had a short conversation in which we discovered that we were both fond of tadpoles and decided right then and there that we would be boyfriend and girlfriend. 

He was blond and had freckles and (probably) blue eyes.

His mom helped out a lot at school and I remember quite vividly being introduced to her while getting my MMR shot.   At one point, I know she met my mother and said, “I hear our children are getting married.” 

He had a little sister whose name was the same as mine and for some reason - even though she was born before we met - he insisted that she was named after me.

I remember the street he lived on (at six, I had his address memorized) and that it was on the way to/from my father’s work.  In those days, my Mom would drive to my Dad’s work every Friday to pick up his paycheck and bring him lunch.  Then we would go to the Bank (where the teller would give me a saftey sucker) and go grocery shopping.  Of course, when I was in school I missed all of this, but when I wasn’t made sure to pay attention to the street names as we passed and look for Joe-Joe’s house when we passed his street.  (It was green and had a porch with an awning.)

I believe at some point he became ill, or something, because I remember sending him a card.  That’s probably how I memorized his address, I guess.  And I remember exchanging Valentines.

I don’t remember what happened that next year.  I’m pretty sure Joe-Joe’s family up and moved.  Regardless, I had a crush on someone else by the time I made it to second grade.  But I will always remember Joe-Joe from the first grade.

Some other things that were memorable about first grade. 

• I threw up at my desk.  I remember it because our teacher was so kind and sweet about cleaning me up.  Unfortunately, they had me wait at my desk for my mother to come pick me up and insisted I put my head down on my desk, which meant I could smell nothing but the vomit on my sweater seave.
• Those great big crayons that came five to a box and were as big around as our chubby little fingers.  They smelled so good and my favorite thing was when you had to tear off the paper to reveal more crayon.  Oh, they should bottle that aroma.
• We had a bathroom right in our classroom.  It was right near the door and on the other side of the room was a wall of windows that overlooked the parking lot and a door that led to the outside.  And it was a new school, so they had green chalkboards instead of black.
• My teacher, Mrs. Williams, was a kind older (she seemed freakin’ ancient, but I have no idea how old she really was) woman.  After my traumatic Kindergarten experiences at Lutheran school, she seemed like the sweetest, most patient woman on the planet.  I will remember forever the day they came in to interrupt class.  They brought in a substitute and Mrs. Williams left the classroom.  She didn’t come back and we learned later (I think my Mom actually was the one who told me) that her husband had died suddenly.  I think that might have been my first experience with death on any level and it made me very sad.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this blogging thing lately.  (I hear it’s really catching on with the young folks.)  Mostly, because my friends have been thinking about it and I like to steal their thoughts and make them my own.  (Insert maniacal laugh here.)  The whole process seems to have lost something for me lately, but damned if I can put my finger one what.

I started my first blog about…six? seven? years ago.  I a friend (Hi, Jim!) started one when he up and moved to Beverly because he thought it would be an easy way to keep in touch with people.  Over the years I’ve changed sites, learned a little HTML (yep, I’m that old-school), expanded and condensed my content, and I find that my “purpose” still appears to be keeping in touch with friends.  Some have blogs of their own and update frequently.  Some have blogs of their own and never update. Some just lurk.  They are small in number and include several people I’ve known almost all my life and at least one person I’ve met because of my blog. 

Although, I like the way I write - and have been told others like it too - my life is pretty normal and boring.  It’s also been a long time since I’ve put any amount of real effort into cultivating an audience.  (At one point I had 45 subscribed readers.  It made me feel all warm and fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure that was the peak of my audience.)  And, like many things, I may have jumped on this train a little late in the game.  I think personal blogs might just be on the downward slope of what’s cool.  (I mean, doesn’t everyone have one, now?)

Part of my problem has been a desire to keep my blog “safe”.  I’ve pissed off a couple of friends, almost lost my job and had my husband in tears over things I’ve written online.  I tend to censure myself in an effort not to piss people off.  I know how easily people get pissed off.  I do it just about every day.  That’s also why I don’t comment as much as I once did.  You don’t need to necessarily know that you’ve pissed me off.  Nine times out of ten, one of us has misinterpreted something to begin with.   One of the reasons I know I’m keeping it a little close to the vest is that I don’t attrack a lot of Troll activity.  How can a reader say anything mean?  I’m not at all controversial.

I’m also envious, though, of those people with the big, big readership.  The ones who are the glitteratti of the blogosphere.  The ones who are loved and adored and paid to speak on television about their daily lives.  They’re not all pretty and thin and young and rich.  What makes them tick?  What makes the stories of their sleepless nights so much more compelling than mine?

Part of the problem seems to be that I have no niche, no point of view, no statement I’m trying to make.  Hello, I’m normal!  My kid is almost grown (too old for the mommy blogs), I live in a pretty unglamourous place, I don’t party like a rock star and I hate fashion.  My career is boring (which I love, and would like to keep that way by not blogging about my co-workers), my marriage is fine (and we aren’t going there anyway), I don’t think I have any childhood trauma that anyone else would be interested in exploring.  (Although, from the way the girls at work plop their dirty laundry on their desks, I could be wrong.)  This stupid thing started as a weight loss journal, but then I didn’t lose any weight.  So there. 

Just like everyone else, I struggle with relationships, career, money, vices.

Am I just here to hear myself type?

I’m going to have to ponder this one.

So I’m thinking about branching out and seeing if I can fall in love with the internet again.

I just spammed everyone in my mailbox.  Damn.  Those internet imps are getting tricker by the minute.  Preying on my need for attention.  Grrr.

My apologies to all.  But if I haven’t seen you in a while, where have you been!

Back at the beginning of the year, a friend of ours asked me if I would be interested in teaching a class on scrapbooking for the local community education  curriculum.  I was thrilled that she would think of me.  Of course, my first reaction was, “I can’t do that!”  But then I kind of got into it and decided to jump on board.

Then my gall bladder conked out on me.

And my grandmother died.

And part of the requirements for this job are having fingerprinting done, which I stopped to do one morning and was told could only be done between hours that are a very small window.  I’m at work during that whole window.    But I thought I could arrange it. 

Oh, and there’s a fee for that.

Then they told me that the classes for summer would only be in the daytime.  When I’m at work.  But I thought maybe we could arrange it if we had the class during the week we’re off work.  It would mean totally reworking my original idea of the class, but that would turn out better anyway.

Then they told me that there would be no classes that week, because of the holiday, so we cancelled the whole thing and decided to put it off until the fall.  (Which is now, in printing time.)

But I’ve decided I don’t want to and here’s why:

• I don’t want to commit to something and have some other part of me fall apart and leave me unable to attend.  Until we have completed the whole “Fred” project, I don’t feel like I can commit.
• I put together a scrapbook for a friend of mine.  She bought all the materials and provided the pictures and I spent a couple of long weekends putting it together.  And by the time I was done, I was pretty sick of scrapbooking.  If that was a labor of love and I found it annoying, what if I turned my hobby into my job?
• Who needs a class to tell them how to scrapbook?  Don’t they know there are a zillion free resources out there for the taking?  There are half a dozen magazines and at least three TV shows on the subject alone!  What would I have to offer someone that’s going to be worth my half of the class take?
• It would involve getting up off the bed, and I don’t really like to do that much these days.

So I emailed the contact and told her, “Thanks, but no thanks.” and emailed my friend and thanked her for the opportunity.  She emailed me back, saying, “No problem.”  Which I hope is true.