Dysfunction Junction « Like I Have Time For This?

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Eat. Pray. Love. Read. Rinse. Repeat.

Published June 21, 2008 Dysfunction Junction , Weekend Reading 5 Comments

Every once in a while, I like to go down to my local Borders bookstore where I:

a) blow the college funds on trash fiction and vanilla lattes
b) take a little break from the kids and the house
c) regain my sanity
d) all of the above

hmmm…oh, yes…OPTION D….

Anyway, I’d been seeing this book, Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert displayed prominently on the nonfiction shelves for quite a long time, and I kept avoiding it. Why? Well, first of all, it’s nonfiction, and I have only a certain amount of time to read during the week, and I prefer to spend it on fiction or poetry. And second of all, it looked suspiciously like a self-help book, and I’ve grown a bit tired of all the self help literature out there. At some point, you have to stop READING about how to fix yourself, and just… FIX yourself already.

Anyway, so I avoided this book, until my mother-in-law (the one who wishes I was dead) recommended it to me.

At first, I was all suspicious. After all, she had just told me that she’d never used iceberg lettuce in her life and had no idea how to break it up and mix it in with the Romaine lettuce. Why would I listen to her literary recommendations? She can’t even rip open a head of lettuce. (Or perhaps the truth is, she can, but she wants me to think differently. She wants me to think she never fed her kids iceberg lettuce because iceberg lettuce is the BASTARD CHILD of all lettuces, and no self-respecting mother would ever put that in front of her children. Maybe she was just trying to unbalance me, make me feel like a bad mother.)

But then after the whole lettuce incident, she showed me this book and said: you can keep the book; it’s not something I need to keep on my shelves. And so I did, because 1) free books are just too good to pass up, and 2) she liked it, but not enough to keep, which meant that the book definitely had possibilities.

So, I took it home with me, and let me tell you: IT’S A KEEPER.

This book chronicles a year in the life of Elizabeth Gilbert, award-winning writer, who has just come through a bitter divorce in which she lost everything. She takes a year off of life to travel to three countries, Italy, India, and Bali. In each of the three places, she learns everything she possibly can about three things: pleasure in Italy, prayer in India, and balance in Bali.

Gilbert has an excellent sense of humor, and truly takes you with her on each part of her journey. Here’s an excerpt from one little moment in Italy when she and a friend travel to Naples because another friend of hers there told her to go to a certain small pizzeria that makes, quite simply, the BEST PIZZA IN THE WORLD.

Giovanni passed along the name of the place with such seriousness and intensity, I almost felt I was being inducted into a secret society. He pressed the address into the palm of my hand and said, in gravest confidence, “Please go to this pizzeria. Order the margherita pizza with double mozzarella. If you do not eat this pizza when you are in Naples, please lie to me later and tell me that you did.

So Sofie and I have come to Pizzeria da Michele, and these pies we have just ordered — one for each of us — are making us lose our minds. I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Meanwhile, Sofie is practically in tears over hers, she’s having a metaphysical crisis about it, she’s begging me, “Why do they even bother trying to make pizza in Stockholm? Why do we even bother eating food at all in Stockholm?”

All’s I’m sayin’ is: that’s gotta be some damn good pizza. Kinda makes me want to go to Naples. Like, tomorrow, perhaps.

After four months of pure sinful EATING in Italy, Gilbert goes off to an ashram in India where she changes gears and gets down to the business of fully experiencing all that a life of prayer has to offer. It takes her some time to get used to it, to clear her mind, and this is why I love her. Her early experiences with meditation remind me of my own, here in my house with a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old, where every 5 minutes or so, someone is calling: MOM? Hey, Mom? Mom! Mom? There you are, Mom!

These aren’t the right years for me to attempt any sort of serious meditation, I guess.

After four months in India, Gilbert moves on to Bali where she spends the rest of the year keeping company with a wise old medicine man, a young woman who’s also a healer, and an intriguing older Brazilian man named Felipe. All of them teach her valuable lessons about family, love, and balance.

If you haven’t read this one yet, go out and get it. It’s worth every cent and every minute. And it definitely deserves a place on your shelves afterwards, no matter what my mother-in-law thinks. And about that iceberg lettuce, I asked RegularDad about it, and he assures me that all they ate when he was a kid was iceberg lettuce. Drizzled with bacon bits and some sort of dressing laced with high fructose corn syrup.

Guess she didn’t unbalance me after all.

Yes, I’m gonna pass the bean dip…just as soon as I’m done sprinkling a little arsenic on top of it.

Published June 3, 2008 Dysfunction Junction , Homeschooling , Parenting 10 Comments

So, while we were in Colorado, we had to take a drive up to see one of the Great Aunts. She just retired a year ago after working 30+ years in a New Jersey public school as a speech therapist. Upon her retirement, she and her husband sold their house in Jersey and moved out to Colorado and bought themselves a 10-acre alpaca ranch with a house that needs remodeling.

So, after I was done writing poetry in the mountains, RegularDad picked me up and drove me all the way back to civilization, and the next day we piled into Grandma’s car and drove an hour-and-a-half north to where this Great Aunt and Uncle live now. To see the house. To let them see the kids. They don’t have grandkids yet, and since this Great RegularAunt is actually older than my mother-in-law, and the chances of her EVER having grandkids is getting slimmer by the year due to various other circumstances I don’t have time to get into right now, there’s a little bit of jealousy rivalry insanity I don’t know what to call it really between the two women.

Anyway. So, we got there. And we had some lunch. And we chatted. And we took the tour. And there was a belated birthday gift for my 5-year-old, but nothing for my 7-year-old. But my 7-year-old was cool about it, which I found really refreshing and wonderful of her. And then we had ice cream sundaes, and Great RegularAunt served up Way More Than I Usually Allow, but I didn’t say anything about it, because it’s important to let these things slide. And my 5-year-old was acting up in ways that usually warrant Time Spent Alone In A Room Far Far Away From Where I Am Currently Sitting, but I had to let all THAT slide as well in the spirit of Letting Great RegularAunt See The Kids.

For most of the day, Grandma and Great RegularAunt were busy having this very bizarre passive aggressive fight about printer cartridges. Apparently, Grandma believes that the Great Aunt removed the printer cartridges from her printer last winter because she was going to get them refilled. And so Grandma has believed all this time that Great RegularAunt had these cartridges and she asked for them as soon as we walked through the door because we needed them to print out our E-tickets to get back home the next day. And Great RegularAunt was all: Printer cartridges? What printer cartridges? I never took your printer cartridges. So for the rest of the day, every 20 minutes or so, Grandma would turn to Great RegularAunt and say: Are you SURE you didn’t take them? Because you SAID that you were going to. And Great RegularAunt would say: No. I never did. I can’t imagine what you did with then, but I don’t have them. Then on the heels of that, she’d add: I think I’m gonna go give that pony ride place a call again.

Because that was the OTHER thing we were supposed to do that day. Pony rides. Great RegularAunt just happened to live right near this little farm that gave pony rides. And all week long, that was what the girls anticipated the most. The penultimate pony ride at Great RegularAunt’s house. But of course, as luck would have it, we couldn’t get in touch with the people all day. And of course, when Great RegularAunt explained this whole thing to me in greater detail, it turned out to not be so much a pony ride as a Mile Long Trail Ride On Very Large Horses That My 5-Year-Old Would Not Be Able To Control. So, while the kids were looking forward to this event, I actually was NOT. And after waiting about four hours and trying to get someone on the phone, we decided to just drive on over there and see what the deal was.

When we got there, NO ONE was there at all. Oh, there were some animals in a rickety little pen attached to a rickety little stable with a hand-painted “PETTING ZOO” sign on it. A few goats, a llama, some sheep, and yes, some ponies. And they all looked really sad and bored and THIRSTY, and I wasn’t really getting a warm fuzzy from this place at all. And then we saw another paddock with more ponies and the girls went running over to pet them, but RegularDad had to tell them not to, because the fence surrounding them was electrified.

We hung around for about 15 or 20 minutes, to see if anyone would show up and notice us. But the only thing that happened was a bunch of baby goats managed to escape from some unseen pen. They came wandering around the side of a far off house, saw us, and… CHARGED. Right for us. My 5-year-old began to shriek as they ran toward her and Great RegularAunt scooped her up, and RegularDad grabbed my 7-year-old, and that’s when I said, I think we need to go now. And we all trooped back to the car, my kids sobbing the whole way. So much for the Penultimate Pony Ride.

Back at Great RegularAunt’s house, I spent a few minutes printing out our E-tickets on her computer, because, AS WE ALL GLEANED FROM THE AFTERNOON’S MAIN TOPIC OF CONVERSATION, Grandma’s printer cartridges were missing, and Great RegularAunt DEFINITELY DID NOT TAKE THEM. Cross her heart and hope to die, somebody, for the love of God, please stick a needle in her eye. Not that I cared, really, that they couldn’t stop fighting about this STUPID topic. At least we avoided talking about homeschooling, right?

Which brings me to my point. The only reason I’m telling you this whole ridiculous story is that yesterday afternoon, Grandma called. After she’d finished talking to the girls, she asked to talk to RegularDad. Ten minutes later he came up to the kitchen to tell me what Grandma wanted to talk to him about:

Grandma: Look, I want to tell you something, but I don’t know how to. I don’t want to upset you.
RegularDad: Okay. Just tell me.
Grandma: Well… a few days after we all visited Great RegularAunt, she called to tell me that she noticed that both the girls have a lisp. And if you don’t get anything done about it, they’ll be like that FOREVER. She’s really really worried [because I'm a homeschooler and my kids won't be evaluated by the SYSTEM].

Because, if you’ll remember, Great RegularAunt is a retired public school speech therapist. And she was probably the most horrified of all the relatives when we told them we had decided to homeschool. Can’t really blame her. Her entire career, she worked in public schooling. For special ed children.

Of course she heard a lisp. My 5-year-old just turned 5. Like, a month ago. And my 7-year-old is growing new teeth, and has just had three silver caps installed on her baby molars. Yes, she has a slight lisp. Very VERY slight. I figured it would go away on its own. No doctor has ever once suggested to me that my kids need speech therapy. And every day, when we pull out our readers and sit on the couch, I listen very closely to her diction. And I don’t hear anything out of whack. And this is a moment that Great RegularAunt will never witness: how my daughters and I read together. She sees them maybe 2 or 3 times a year, and rarely, if ever, talks to them on the phone. Yet she felt duty-bound to alarm the entire family with this information about lisping.

I laughed if off as best as I could with RegularDad and told him I’d check it with our pediatrician.

But, of course, the seed is planted. I sit here today OBSESSED with the possibility that my 7-year-old has an undiagnosed speech impediment that I missed because I homeschool her. I spent hours on the Internet last night reading up on speech impediments and evaulations and therapy courses. Like I have time for this?

So, I’m super-busy this week working on my bean dip. Just a few more EXTRA SPECIAL ingredients, and I’ll be ready to pass it. By flinging it across the room at her with my spoon.

When asked how he felt about what happened, he said: “I was sad.”

Published May 28, 2008 Dysfunction Junction , Homeschooling 15 Comments

If you haven’t seen this news report yet, please click this link:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,358956,00.html

and read about the little 5-year-old boy with Asperger’s Syndrome whose kindergarten teacher humiliated him by asking his classmates to state reasons why no one liked him and then held a vote, Survivor-style, on whether or not to let him remain in the class.

I’d rant and rave about this, but, really…do I have to? Aren’t you already ranting and raving along with me? Aren’t we all screaming the same exact things in our hearts at the exact same moments?

When asked how he felt about it, he said: I was sad.

That one little statement rips me up the most somehow. His response to what happened to him is so muted, yet also healthy. He seems to have a better grasp on emotional states than his teacher, if you ask me.

The school district and its many officials and administrators are practically falling over each other to assure the general public that the situation has been handled. That the teacher has been removed from the classroom. That everything is fine. That we should all look…over…THERE…now. Pay no attention to the fuck-up behind the curtain. It’s no one’s business anyhow. And hey, that kid shouldn’t have been eating his homework anyway. Plus, let’s face it, that humming really was distracting. Oh hell. The kid probably had it coming. Besides, Survivor ROCKS! Don’t you just love Survivor? Totally awesome.

And I’m sure that teacher will be back in the classroom before too much time. She is tenured, after all. A little slap on the wrist. A little R&R to get a break from all those….CHILDREN…. That’s all she needs. Or maybe they’ll transfer her. She might even end up in your kid’s classroom next year. Lucky you.

As for the kid, oh well. He’ll be fine, right? Kids bounce back, right? They’re so…resilient. Right?

Uh, no.

Part of that kid has been destroyed. By one stupid, vapid teacher.

Destroyed. Forever.

Yeah…. We homeschool. Any questions?

In which a more successful day at the dentist is overshadowed by a gloomy victorian portrait.

Published April 30, 2008 Dysfunction Junction , Parenting 7 Comments

I wish I’d had my camera with me on Monday when we went back to the dentist to fill those dreaded cavities. Because I really wish you could see the waiting room. For the most part, it’s a pretty standard pediatric dentist’s waiting room. There’s chairs, and magazines, and LOTS OF TOYS, and a television, of course, tuned in to the Disney Channel, all day every day. (At least it’s not Nickelodeon, right?)

And on the walls, here and there, are some framed photographs of the dentist’s own children, all grown up now, but still worth talking about. Incessantly. I know more about our new dentist’s kids than I do about some of my good friend’s children. He likes to talk about them. And show me pictures of them. Did I use the word “incessantly” yet? Oh, I did? Whoops. Sorry. Don’t mean to get all repetitive on you, but he does talk INCESSANTLY about his own kids. I take it as a good sign.

So, anyway. On the walls, there are a few shots of his kids, and then on the sliding glass partition the receptionist sits behind, there are some cool translucent sticker designs. Flowers and such. It’s pretty. And below the glass partition, there’s a silly mirror that the girls really like standing in front of.

It’s pretty much a waiting room that would give Sesame Place a run for it’s money. Except, that is, for the GIGANTIC GLOOMY VICTORIAN PORTRAIT hanging way way above the glass partition. It’s huge, it’s mostly black in the background, and it’s a full head-to-toe portrait of a young girl wearing a full-length yellow dress. She’s standing there staring down at us, with her curly dark hair piled formally on top of her head. She is NOT smiling. At all. Compared to this girl, Mona Lisa is positively GRINNING. And if we were to take the thing down off the high wall, it would probably stand as high as RegularDad, it’s THAT BIG.

I have no idea why this portrait is hanging in this waiting room. It goes with absolutely nothing else in the room, and it’s so large that it just overpowers everything else in the area that’s supposed to be cheerful.

My 5-year-old finally asked about it late Monday morning as we were patiently waiting for her sister to be finished with her fillings.

That is the MOST HUMUNGO picture I have ever seen! she said.
Yes, I said. It certainly is big.
Who is she?
I don’t know, I said. It’s just a picture.
Whoever she is, she’s not very happy.
Nope. Doesn’t look like it.
Maybe she’s got bad teeth. Maybe she had cavities.
Maybe she did, I said, and started laughing.
She should floss or something.

Then my 5-year-old turned back to the TV, where a bunch of psychadelic rainbow colored bunnies wearing sunglasses were hopping around singing a happy song. Each bunny had one pristine white buck tooth sticking out of its mouth, and you could just tell those bunnies know how to brush, and brush RIGHT.

In which a bad day at the dentist’s spirals down into murkier depths of insecurity.

Published April 24, 2008 Dysfunction Junction , Parenting 21 Comments

Well, the girls have cavities. We’ll be returning to the dentist on Monday to begin the process of getting them filled/crowned/fixed/etc. We’re looking at maybe $2,000 worth of work to be done.

I am A TOTAL WRECK.

First of all, I hate the dentist. I am terrified of all dentists. While the girls were giggling with this TERRIFIC dentist I totally LUCKED into, I was the one clutching my 4-year-old’s stuffed elephant in a death grip. I kept this hidden under my arms so no one could see, but I was totally gripping that elephant.

Second of all, I’ve neglected the whole going to the dentist thing since we moved. It’s been over 2 years since we’ve been to a dentist, so I have no one to blame for the kids’ teeth but me. I spent two hours in the dentist’s office today telling myself that the women behind the counter Were Not Whispering About Me. That all those sidelong glances had NOTHING TO DO WITH ME AND MY KIDS’ CAVITIES.

Right?

So, after all that hell, of finding a dentist, scheduling appointments, getting to the dentist on time with a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old, getting the bad news, feeling like a total failure, trying not to let the paranoia show, I get home and call RegularDad, and I’m practically crying because the kids have cavities, and it’s just a bad scene, and he’s all: “Wait…HOW much did you say this is gonna cost?” And I was all: “WHO CARES ABOUT THE MONEY?” And he was all: “Lemmee call our dental insurance and get back to you.” So, then he calls back and says that the dentist I picked isn’t in our plan, and he asks me to find a new dentist.

And I just refused.

After all that, I just couldn’t handle starting over again. I told him if he felt that strongly about it he would have to be the one to find the dentist, make the appointments, take the kids there, and that he’d better have all that done by Monday because that’s when their next appointments were scheduled for, made by the brilliant dentist who was like personal friends with Dr. Spock or something, and has written numerous books and articles on pediatric dentristry, and who was so concerned about taking care of my kids’ teeth that he was cancelling his personal day to do the work.

And then RegularDad said he’d call the insurance people back and hung up. And then I went into the bathroom and had myself a really good cry. And then I read a story to my 4-year-old. Then I called the dentist’s office and talked to the ladies there and they assured me that they’d work with me on paying this bill. That no one expected me to walk in there next week with the full amount of money. And then I went online and found out that it doesn’t matter if the dentist is in plan or out of plan, our insurance will pay the same amount no matter who we pick. So I printed all these charts out and called RegularDad and told him that and he was all: “Oh, okay, that’s cool. We’ll stick with this dentist. And hey, no one thinks you’re a bad mom, you know.”

So, I guess it’s all worked out, but I’m a STILL A TOTAL WRECK.

And, I’ve picked up a cold from my 4-year-old.

I thought I was doing okay with the kids and their food, but in the end it doesn’t matter. No matter how many healthy organic meals I feed them, there will always be a relative nearby who will feed them candy and ice cream, soda and McDonald’s. And it’s those relatives that are the kids’ favorites, of course. Not me with my carrot sticks and roasted cauliflower, and admonishments to wash their hands, flush the toilet, pick up the toys in the living room, keep their shoes on.

No matter how clean I keep my house, there will always be that one chair in the dining room that still has crumbs on it, and someone will invariably notice the crumbs before they notice that I cleaned the bathroom because I knew they were coming, or that I bought a box of Splenda because I knew that they preferred it.

No matter how on top of the kids and the house and the yard and the schooling and the healthy food and the budget and the activities and the politics of family and friends I manage to stay, there will always be at least one place where I’ve dropped the ball — like their teeth — and that will be the thing that people talk about for years. Not that I succeeded in teaching them to read, not that I hand sew the rips and tears in their stuffed animals because repaired stuffed animals help them sleep. No, it’ll be these cavities that will come up in conversation at family gatherings for YEARS TO COME. And I will remain, as ever, a total failure as a mother.

And I’m just a little tired of it today, is all.

Tea, insanity, and a little metal.

Published April 20, 2008 Dysfunction Junction , Stuff I Think About When I Should Be Sleeping 16 Comments

So, I’m on this quest to take better care of myself, right?

I’m doing really good with it, too. I’ve been writing poetry nearly every day. And I’m reading through Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, because it’s springtime, and I’ve never read the whole thing, and it seemed like a good piece to read and ponder as part of my self-assigned independent study.

I’ve also sketched a daffodil, and discovered that I really need to be sketching more. I plan on more regular sketching in the future.

I’ve also planted some pansies and a few other perennials in our badly neglected flower beds, and I’ve spent hours and hours and HOURS raking at least 5 year’s worth of leaves and junk from the dank corners of our new yard and dumping said leaves into large chickenwire bins I’ve made and next year it will be a nice organic leaf mold I want to use on the grass and in the flower beds. Thus begins my foray into organic gardening. And I’ve spent those hours listening to a symphony of birds mingled in with the sound of my daughters laughing and yelling and playing with each other and the little boy who lives behind us, pondering all the while the concept of BALANCE and feeling on the cusp of understanding things that have eluded me for years.

And of course, adding poetry and sketching and gardening to my already busy day means that certain things have taken a bit of a backseat. Things like dusting. And keeping my laundry bins empty. And exercising every day. And brushing crumbs off the chair cushions after every meal. And finding just the right brand of organic green tea so that when you steep it, it STAYS GREEN FOREVER instead of turning rather golden and tea-colored.

So, if you come to tea at my house and the green tea doesn’t look green, please just drink it anyway. Please don’t ponder out loud if it might have something to do with my water, or if the brand of tea is the exact kind you’ve got at home. Please just drink it. It’s what you asked for, so I gave it to you. I didn’t switch it for decaf at the last minute. I swear.

And if you come to tea at my house, and you find your chair cushion has some crumbs on it because it’s the seat my 4-year-old usually sits in, I would appreciate it greatly if you would just brush the crumbs to the floor and make yourself comfy. Or sit someplace else. Or just sit on the crumbs. You’re probably wearing jeans, after all. And it’s just crumbs, for God’s sake. It’s not like the cat took a dump right there on the damn cushion and I’m forcing you to sit on it. I’m a busy homeschooling mother who has no hired help at the time, who’s just trying to add a little extra sanity-saving time into her day, and who just DOES NOT NEED someone to stand offended in her dining room and ask for a chair with NO FUCKING CRUMBS ON IT.

By now, you’re all wondering a few things:

1) Did someone come over to your house and complain about crumbs on the cushions?
2) Was it your mother?
3) If it wasn’t your mother, was it your mother-in-law?
4) If it wasn’t your mother-in-law, who the hell was it?

The answers are: Yes, No, No, and it wasn’t a family member at all. It was a friend. A pretty good one, I thought, although I’m beginning to think I need to rethink that. She apparently DOES NOT LIKE CRUMBS. AT ALL. Who knew? And, let’s face it people, my LIFE is crumbs. And green tea that doesn’t stay green. What to do?

After that happy little afternoon of tea and insanity, I spent the evening listening to Ten Thousand Fists, the latest Disturbed CD. It’s the best therapy ever, if you ask me. Especially when your husband just happens to have all sorts of heavy metal recording equipment attached to the computer, so when you tell him about how your afternoon went and that you just have to listen to Disturbed at the most maximum CRANKED levels possible, he simply takes the CD, puts it in the player, and twirls a dozen or so dials to really boost the bass to give you the BEST HEAVY AUDIO EXPERIENCE EVER, Then he points to one of the dozens of dials and knobs and switches and says, That’s the volume, hands you the headphones, and leaves you to it.

Because you can’t have it both ways.

Published March 13, 2008 Dysfunction Junction 18 Comments

You know how sometimes you walk into a store or a waiting room somewhere and you see one of those signs that says: Children left unattended will be given an espresso and a free puppy? Yeah, those annoying things. You’ve seen ‘em, right?

Well, what I want to do is print up a bunch of little note cards that I can hand to receptionists and nurse practitioners and the like when I arrive on time for a previously scheduled appointment. A card that would say:

Hello. My scheduled appointment was at [insert time here]. I am sitting over in the waiting room with my [insert appropriate number here] darling children. You can’t hear us because I am diligently keeping my children quiet and orderly. Please keep in mind that just because you can’t hear us doesn’t mean we don’t exist and don’t have anything else to do today but sit here leafing through your old issues of People and Time. Please also be aware that if the wait for my appointment extends beyond 15 minutes, I will pull out an entire bag of M&M’s, a 6-pack of Mountain Dew, a toy percussion set, and a whole bunch of sharpie markers but no paper. And I will give these items to my children to play with until you see fit to call my name.

Have a nice day. We’re ready when you are.

I figured I’d print up a batch and sell them on eBay. What do you think? Anyone want one?

Shame on them!

Published February 5, 2008 Dysfunction Junction , Homeschooling 7 Comments
Tags: civic responsibility, Homeschooling, plagiarism

Go and read this article over at the Mad Editor.

http://www.madeditor.com/2008/02/id-rather-be-hated-than-used.html

It’s long, but it’s important that we all read this, especially those of us who blog. The blogging community needs to be aware that blogging brings with it an inherent responsibility to not be jerks. To not steal. And then to not blatantly tell the person you steal from that you don’t care, that you won’t own up to the fact that you’re stealing just because you don’t want to give up the increased blog traffic that you’re getting because you stole that incredibly cool and funny thing that SOMEONE ELSE WROTE!!!

For the record, the thing that got stolen is this: http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/001/bitter_homeschooler.html, written by Deborah Markus of the Secular Homeschooling Magazine. If you find this article someplace else, and it doesn’t give credit to Ms. Markus, please be aware that she wrote it, and that someone stole it from her.

And just to clarify some basic rules of writing: If you take something someone else has written and post the entire thing on your own blog or website and NOT GIVE CREDIT to the original author, that’s plagiarism. And that’s theft. And if you do this, please be aware that you are being a jerk, and that you should stop being such a jerk because the world’s already got way too many jerks.

And if you find that you’ve accidentally linked up to the site that’s got this article posted without proper credit to Ms. Markus, it is my ferverent hope that you will change your link to point to the original author’s site and remove and all links to that other website that doesn’t deserve any more links EVER. And if you want to roast them alive in a fabulously scathing blog post, by all means, do so and let me know so I can read it and feel better.

One of the reasons I homeschool is that I want to teach my kids to be adults, and professionals, to teach them CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY, and part of that is teaching them that STEALING IS WRONG.

When I see homeschoolers stealing, it makes me so angry.

Your basic move.

Published January 7, 2008 Dysfunction Junction 9 Comments

Well, we’re half-moved.

The beds and most of the furniture are moved. And we’re technically living in the new house. But we have no working kitchen. The sink’s all clogged up, so we can’t install the dishwasher till that’s fixed, and the fridge is delayed till Wednesday.

Also, all my books and study furniture have yet to be moved. Not that I’ve got lots of free time to kick back and read much at the moment.

But my Internet’s working. So…I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice.

This house had never been wired for cable. Ever. The kid that showed up looked a bit stressed out when he realized just exactly how much work would be required. But he brought his dog with him and I watched that dog pee all over the neighbor’s trash and then wander through my yard (and you just know he left me a little something!) so I wasn’t too concerned about the kid’s emotional state.

He got busy, and a mere four hours later, he was running up and down the stairs trying to figure out why the phone didn’t work. By then, I was kickin’ back in my non-functioning kitchen reading Next by Michael Crichton and eating popcorn, watching him stress out. Yeah, the kitchen’s not really working but I’ve got the microwave and the coffee machine going. So I can make coffee and popcorn. And peanut butter and jelly. Which is pretty much what we ate all day today until RegularDad came home and we all went out for burgers.

So, it’s all screwed up, but we’re okay. We press on to better days. And dishwasher installation.

It’s just your basic move, really.

A RegularChristmas.

Published December 28, 2007 Dysfunction Junction 9 Comments

RegularDad’s family is, like, HUGE.

Seriously. There’s just tons of aunts and uncles and cousins and significant others, and squeezing in holiday visits to all of them in such a way that no one is unhappy or offended is something even Houdini couldn’t pull off.

Now, my family is small. There’s me, RegularSis, her husband and 2 babies, and our crazy mother. And that’s pretty much it. On RegularDad’s side, though, there’s at least 30 people. And they’re all crazy. In their own special ways.

This was the first time in 12 years that we were actually within driving distance of all of them at Christmas. And all I’m gonna say is that we managed to see just about all of them with only one crying session on my part, and only one instance of someone asking us: Now that you’ve bought a house here, will you be putting the kids in school?

The crying fit came as a result of my RegularDad’s mom insisting on wrapping the gifts I’d bought for people. For some reason, she just could not handle the fact that none of my gifts were wrapped by the time she arrived from Denver on the 22nd. She harped on it for two days. Every time I mentioned my plans to wrap gifts, she’d jump in and tell me that she would do it for me. At which point I would say, kindly: Oh no. You don’t have to do that. Which is my polite way of saying I would prefer to wrap my own gifts. That way I will know that everyone has the right gift and the tags will appear in my handwriting, ensuring that people will know that the gifts are from me and my family.

After two days of this, when I was finally ready to sit down and wrap, she immediately took over, taking my wrapping paper and bows and tags to the dining room table and proceeding to wrap everything. And all I’m sayin’ is: she’s a REALLY SLOPPY WRAPPER. And I am NOT a really sloppy wrapper. I actually take pride in how carefully and artfully I wrap gifts. It’s just one of my little quirks, okay? And there’s nothing wrong with being like that. And my MIL knows this about me. In fact, she comments on it every year around this time. And I smile and joke about it, saying things like: yeah, in my family, you had to pass Advanced Origami before you were allowed to wrap anything. But the truth is, I really like to make my gift wrappings as beautiful as possible.

But my MIL just doesn’t get that. And I suspect that she thinks I waste a lot of time over it. Because five minutes into the sudden TAKE OVER THE WRAPPING OF THE GIFTS EVENT she looked at me and said: Did you want me to wrap these nicely? and the tone of her voice indicated that I’d better not have wanted that at all. Because she was doing me a FAVOR, dammit, so I wasn’t allowed make comments about the shitty job she was doing.

At that point, the kids suddenly wanted to help, and before I knew what was happening, my 4-year-old had the scissors and was hacking up a tube of wrapping paper, and I yelled out: OKAY. THAT’S ENOUGH! YOU NEED TO STOP NOW.

And then my 7-year-old said: I’m gonna stay near Grandma because she’s nicer.

And that’s when I went into my bedroom and cried.

And then RegularDad stepped in and said: what the hell’s going on? And after we hashed through it all, he told his mother to leave me alone. And then she started crying and said she was sorry and that she had told herself to not take over but she did it anyway and it was all because she missed us so much, and blah blah blah, and then I felt bad because she was a guest and she was crying, and good hospitality indicates that One Should Not Make One’s Guest Cry During A Holiday Visit, so I brushed the whole thing off and we just moved on to dinner.

And then the next day she was scheduled to go spend a few days up at RegularDad’s brother’s house where she could content herself with taking over that household and driving them crazy. We were scheduled to go see RegularDad’s dad and stepmother and then to go see RegularSis and the small (and, might I add, patient!) contingent of people that is MY family.

And so, after the girls opened their gifts from Santa, and we’d eaten our traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and RegularDad and I had both showered and dressed, my MIL was still sitting on the couch in her pajamas, flipping through some books I’d gotten the girls. And finally RegularDad asked: Mom, are you going to shower before you leave? And she said: Oh, well, I’m not in any hurry. I’ll just wait until you all leave and then I’ll get ready.

Which was a HUGE RED FLAG for us. Because she obviously wanted to be alone in our house. Probably to clean it. And to pack up my study with all it’s clutter of books and scraps of half-finished poetry and forgotten tea cups with dried up dregs in them. And then, of course, there’s my underwear drawer to sort through and fold. And all that laundry just sitting around begging to be washed.

She’s done this kind of thing before — come into our house when we weren’t home and cleaned it. It’s not the nice gesture that you think it should be. After she’s done cleaning, it take me days to find everything and put it all back in the right places again. Once she somehow managed to throw out every sanitary napkin I had in the house, and being post-partum at the time, I really needed those things. It was humiliating. And infuriating.

But this time, we weren’t having any of it. RegularDad took me aside and told me not to worry. That we wouldn’t leave until she did. And then he asked her again to get ready because we needed to leave to visit other family. And again, she insisted that she was in no hurry and would wait until we had left to get herself ready. And then RegularDad told her that it would be better for us — better for the girls — if we all left at the same time.

She seemed offended. Oh, I would have thought it was the other way around, she said, eyeing the girls as they played on the floor with all their new loot.

No, RegularDad said. And I loved him for it.

So she showered and dressed and packed her suitcases and we all left the house at the same time. I made sure the doors were locked after she was out. This time, she didn’t have a spare key. Thank God.

And so we headed out to see other family an hour and a half behind schedule.

I could tell you more stories like that from the 3-day whirlwind that was our Christmas With The Family, but I’ve gone on long enough. You get the idea.

It’s taken me a few days to recover from the ordeal, but I’ve finally gotten to the point where I could sit down at the computer and check my messages and write this whole thing out.

Now my days are filled with preparations for our move to the new house. Ironically, we will be moving into the house exactly one year after we got on a plane in Denver during a blinding snowstorm to move back east to be near the family.

This has been the longest move I’ve ever done.

Like I Have Time For This?

Archive for the 'Dysfunction Junction' Category

Eat. Pray. Love. Read. Rinse. Repeat.

Yes, I’m gonna pass the bean dip…just as soon as I’m done sprinkling a little arsenic on top of it.

When asked how he felt about what happened, he said: “I was sad.”

In which a more successful day at the dentist is overshadowed by a gloomy victorian portrait.

In which a bad day at the dentist’s spirals down into murkier depths of insecurity.

Tea, insanity, and a little metal.

Because you can’t have it both ways.

Shame on them!

Your basic move.

A RegularChristmas.

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