Tuesday, September 27, 2011

PTA took my baby away.

Tonight was the first PTA meeting of the year. Some of you might be surprised at this acknowledgment. I am neither surprised nor ashamed. I actually enjoy it. The idea of "it" anyway- the meeting is nose hair plucking painful, but it is sprinkled with thoughts on learning, our children and the process of how we must vote to get things done. That I dig. A lot.
I find it personally lame that more parents don't show up. I get it though, they have read into all the anti-hype, they believe all the things that are being said about PTA meetings. I get it. I GET THAT. But let me ask you what political meeting do your feel completely enamored by? Which congressional hearing do you watch without taking a nap? Me? None. They are all boring. It so boring I am bored while I type, so I could possibly be typing in my sleep.
What I'm getting at is that things are boring. Especially when they are in a system, there is a protocol, blah blah blah... but I want to challenge that.
My Mother always said she would have been more involved in my school if she wasn't a single mom with 2 kids and more jobs. So this is for her, I guess. This angry, spicy rage I feel for all of those people who think they are too cool for the PTA. Too cool to help out at school, at home. To sign up to volunteer to do something that, sure you wouldn't want to do 15 years ago but welcome. Welcome to Fall 2011. Get involved. These kids are our future. They are the future of our social security and so much more. They are the ones that will be making sure we are set up when we can't do it for ourselves. Shouldn't we teach them how?
Gosh.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

With the last days of summer gone, the clouds of fall rolling in as I sit here. I just wanted to report that I've had a really good time.
Stay tuned for more bloggin. Once I get a few good naps under my belt, I will welcome fall and the break neck pace of it.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Strike the match

Today I took my kids to an annual festival called the "Wurstfest, mine and Eddie's old stompin grounds. When we moved in together (about a month and a half after we met) we lived in Middlefingerton, right smack in the middle of Wallingford.
Anyway, so we are walking around and buying cookies at the bake sale, where I saw my friend slangin' cookies. The event raises money for their school, which seems amazing all on it's own. The kids jump in the jumpy things, we ate bratwurst and watched Casper Baby Pants. We did our thing. Q rode the Cliff Hanger twice and waited for too long for something else, that he later bailed on... time was ticking. Time is always ticking, we have a toddler in the house.
Elvis jumped in her first jumpy house. I had to talk her into getting in because she was just not having it. Standing on the outside, she wanted to be in there, but walking up to the puffy slide thing you climb in on, not so much. We waited until there were just little kids and she finally took the bait. And I just sort of tossed her in. I knew she would love it and that way everyone wins and we can go home. I have been gone all summer. All I want to do is hang out at my house.
After about 5 minutes (I think the lady let them jump longer since it took 25 minutes for her to get in there, which was nice) it was time for everyone to get out. I hadn't given that part too much thought. I just forgot I guess. Not now. Now I remember how unreasonable babies can be. And that's when the fun started. I told her it was time to get out, I shook my hands to sign "all done". Nope. Nothing. I had to actually get in the jumpy house. I had to climb in and roll around and the only thing I could grab her by (because OF COURSE she thought it was hilarious that I was coming in after her) were her little tiny feet. I pulled her ankles and dragged her out like a fish at Pike Place Market. It was not my proudest moment. She was whaling and I just smirked at the line of freaked out mothers who were judging me. I'm certain as a jertain in a curtain.
I see a lot of that shit go down and mothers who talk loudly to their kid (as if they will then hear them over the fire truck volume scream) and they are reasoning with them, 'It's okay honey, you had your turn, it is time for some of the other kids to have their turn then it can be your turn again."
Horse shit. I was not bringing her back. We were out of there as soon as I climbed out of the door flaps and slid down the inflatable slide.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Win some, lose some.

It's all part of the game.
The growing up game.
As a kid and even teenager, I didn't have a ton of friends.
When I was young we moved around too much, there was no way I could keep a friendship and after a while, I didn't want to make one- as soon as we'd get close, I'd move away.
There was this one girl, Joyce. I can't remember where we were living, I think I was in 2nd grade. After we moved that time, I sort of made a vow to myself, to not make any more good friends. She was the best. I think I tried to change my name to Joyce. I asked my family to call me Joyce. They didn't. They never wanted to do my wacky stuff. Imagination was not high on the list at my house.
When I was in my early 20's I met a great group of friends and that was the first real batch of people I could count on. They were like family. It was like in the movies. After I met and married Eddie, and moved away, those friendships faded. Like the movies. The lights came on and I was once again surrounded by a bunch of people who were really not my friends.
Making friends in Seattle in 1999, after marrying Eddie after 3 months did not make me very popular. He had his group of friends that became mine by circumstance but it took some time to make my own. Out of the 10-15 people, I am friends with a total of 3 of them now.
I have been here for 12 years and it now my turn to have real grown up friends. I did the school circuit right, I joined the PTA and managed to stay away from the crazy ones (not the real crazy ones, they are too fun to watch) and make a handful of awesome friends. I feel lucky as a 35 year old girl, I get to have some men and women that are really my friends. Not my parents, not my old boyfriends, not my husbands. They are mine.
I am sad at the shedding of friends that happens when you go on to have a family and life just gets in the way. But I think it is just part of the cycle. I appreciate the cycle, when we have to go without we sometimes find the motherload.

Oh please!

I am so so tired of reading parenting magazines and celebrity Mom tweets.
I could just barf.
I mean. Who is enlightened here, besides them?
I could stop reading. But I can't really. I mean, I am a Mom. It's like part of the job, right?
No. I have friends that have never picked up a Parenting magazine. They do not care what Tori Spellings daughters bday party theme is... I do. Fucking shoot me.
I read and have read possible every article in Parenting and the ill fated "Cookies" magazines and countless others. I use to get them all. I have backed down a little. Who needs all that? After a few years it is absolutely all the same shit, different cover.
I'm just wondering who are they marketing? Mothers with millions? Why don't they just call it that?
I'm not a cheap ass. I do like to spend money on my kids but more I like to be interesting for my kids. I guess, moeny does matter but sanity and happiness matter more.
I read about like Brooke Burke, she writes about all the things she is doing and all the while trying to sound like a super mom but really, I think she is just being super famous and mothering gets her new fans. They send out tweets for you to go look a product (that they are getting for free by the way, for sending out the stupid tweet) and it's like an $80 bottle of nail polish. Pa-leeze. You know you don't wear that brand.
I'm just sick of it. Where is the Mommy role model for the rest of us? I want to read about someone who has kids, some style, someone who has a life (I'm kidding, I don't care if she has a life), can get me informed about something I didn't know and crafts like a mother fucker.
Or I can just keep reading about celebrity moms that pretend to have perfect, genius kids and husbands that have sex with them every night, right after they get off their bow flex. The same ones that get up at 5 a.m. "before the kids get up" to work out with their personal trainer to be ready in time to get their hair and make up done before a photo shoot. OR I can stop reading all together and just give it up like crack. I'm kidding, I never did crack, not because I didn't have the opportunity, but because crack, is for losers.
But I'll keep reading because I want to know stuff, I have a sickening fascination for celebrities and I am an artist to my bones. I have a thirst for parenting knowledge too, like I can't get enough of it, it's like I'm in college... for 18 years. Possibly more. Who knows... now THAT is an article I have NOT read. Would be nice though. If anyone from Parenting or the like is reading, call me, I'm available.

Wiggly stripes.

So a few days ago, there were millions of warm blooded american women lining up at the most ridiculous hour to get a cart(s) full of every type of clothing, bedding and house wares you can imagine- all with the same pattern. This has bothered me ever since. Can we not all agree that this is retarded? I use that word in the most literal way, as in Webster's Dictionary says "mentally slower than someone of the same age". I'd say that's right. Even though they were, no doubt, retarded women of all ages, I just can't think of a more ridiculous thing to do. It is NOT like Black Friday when people flock to the stores at the same insane hour- THAT is for a sale, people. I get that. And let's face it, most of you do too. Sales are sales and these days EVERYONE needs a sale. So sure, get up early, fight some old broad for a 90" flat screen for $50 and you've got yourself a deal (kidding, I know nothing about TVs except, I like mine small enough so that you don't notice them when you walk in my house, complete opposite of every american, I know, I know). So say you get up and you go get this crap that has the wiggly stripes and you fill your house to look like that commercial. What... No, no, no, no... Ok wait, first of all, why? Please tell me why? It's all the same fucking pattern people!!?? As I look around my place, first floor of my cozy (re: small) 3 story house, I see nothing that has the same pattern. The only similarities anything in here are the two pillows I recently bought. They match. There's only two... we don't have a rug anymore, so the pillows really tie the room together. I guess I'm just venting and irritated that so many people are talking about this wiggly stripe thing like it is anything to talk about. They just created something that is the price range that more people can clammer on to. The Birkin bag of Sex And The City.. um, no. Bitches can't be afforden' that shit. So they give us this line in Target, that they hype up and mass produce, all together now "MASS PRODUCE" (not that there is anything wrong with that) but what good is anything so trendy? Huh? Ugh, I shudder to even say that word. I hate the word "trendy", maybe it is because I grew up with that tag of "different" which I didn't like any more than trendy but now I get it. I get that the haters of my youth gave me the strength to stay away from the god damn wiggly stripes and all the like... I mean, can you imagine showing up at the bar with a fucking stripe wrap dress and seeing a couple other chicks with it on? I would feel... what's the word of that day again? Oh yeah, "retarded*". The only thing worse that showing up at the bar dressed like every other trendy wanna-be, special hipster, is showing up on the playground dressed like another mom. Dude. I need a nap. *I am not talking about anyone of special needs. I wish we could come up with a better describing phrase than... well all of the ones that have been known to plague this amazing group of people. If you think or take offense and think I am speaking hurtful about anyone who is living with Down Syndrome or any other genetic condition- well you don't know me at all and you should be slapped. Alright, that's it. Just trying to cleanse my head before I go to bed. Which is empty again tonight because my husband decided at the ripe old age of 14 that he wanted to be a rock n roller. So whatever, he is and I am going to wait for him- again, because he is waiting for me, allegedly.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

9.9.09

On the eve of my daughters 2nd birthday I am taken back to the eve of her birth. I guess that's natural, it's heavy tonight though.
That night as I tucked my then 3rd grader in for bed on the night before school and the birth of his little sister, I remember thinking how much I loved being a parent.
I have never really loved doing anything too much to do it too long.
That makes me sound... odd I guess, but that is just the facts.
I liked doing everything once or twice, then I was over it.
Not parenting.
As Eddie and I put the finishing touches on our house that we would leave in hands of my Mother, I remember looking at the bathtub (that I could no longer get into) and thinking about the little girl I would bathe, the new bath toys that would no doubt line the bottom.
I walked up the stairs and thought "how in the hell am I going to go up and down those stairs with a baby, a toddler?". But I do. Everyday.
I thought about the living room and how we would have to make room for dolls and tea sets, something our living room had lived without.
Seeing Quattro's face as an only child, that last time, I had a moment of sadness.
He would no longer be everything to me, he would be one of my children, not my only child.

My life has never been the same since 9.9.09 at 8:16 a.m. Neither has my house.
I walk around and see all the dolls, the tub is full of classic rubber duckies and tomorrow a doll that not only goes into the bath- but she pees.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Macaroons

I was just thinking of the morning we woke up in Bordeaux. We walked across the street near the train and ate at a place called Paul. Eddie got a recommendation from the front desk guy. That's always hit or miss. Sometimes you will ask for a great place to eat or a place for desserts (we ate a LOT of those, can you say gym time?) and the person will just tell you an area, which is fine but if someone asked me where to eat in Ballard, I'd def narrow it down.
Anyway, the place was called Paul and we would have eaten there anyway- just the look of it. It was hectic and there was a line and people were in a rush, getting their morning fix, grabbing their favorite pastry. That's the spot you want to look for when it comes to coffee and sweets, there has to be a line. There needs to be a frenzy.
We had pastries of every kind, Q got a quiche and Eddie got this long yeasty, chocolate thing and coffee of course.
I ordered a pink macaroon to take with us. We made it two hours on the road before Q remembered we had it. It was one of the greatest things I've ever had. Not only that it was beautiful, it was crisp and chewy and my best purchase in France.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Happy.

Quattro ran some errands with me yesterday and while we were ducking in and out of places he said "you seem really happy".
I took that as the best compliment I have ever had. He knows me like no other, he sees me from the inside out. He notices. Eddie of course knows me very well but I think as adults we are distracted by ourselves, life and we know too much of someone's past to really see them for who they are right now. Eddie will always see me a feisty 23 year old, I think, he will no doubt always picture me like that- when we are old. I bet he will have the capacity to go "there" in his head and enjoy me in my youth. That's a good thing.
But my child, my son. He is another creature. He is very much about right now. It might be because he is so young and his perception is nearly 100% good stuff. He has had a very charmed life. But him noticing that I'm happy really made me stop and appreciate this happiness. I've earned it. Triumph is a reality. I'm fucking happy.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Sweet home... Seattle.

It is so good to be home. Those words sound lame compared to how I feel.
Our journey was fantastic and I would not change a thing but there is something about coming home... where you can lay your head in peace. No riots, no planes, no bus, no car, no backstage, no catering. Just us.
As we returned home we were greeted by our loving animals. They missed us so much. I am not sure anyone can fill the shoes for you as a pet owner, they needed a lot of lovin and we are doing just that.
Stella went straight to the groomers. She is a corgi and they shed like there's no tomorrow. The amount of fur that comes off those dogs- seriously, I am glad no one told me, I would have never gotten a corgi had I known. Ignorance is bliss because she is lovely.
Our two cats, Jake and Elwood are at my feet every second. They follow me everywhere, laying in bed with me now.
Little Monkee, or chihuahua, likes that her world has been restored, she likes when the whole family is together.
I'm still too tired to finish up my blog, I feel I need to conclude this thing, as far as the tour goes, and I just don't have the energy to be witty or smart or funny. I need to take a few days and get myself together.
Yesterday was our first day home and we had a lot of clean up to do, had to fill the house with food and go for a bike ride. Last night Eddie and I drank some wine we bought in Bordeaux, France. I drank too much and this morning I have a headache. Worth it though, the wine was superb.
Quattro is already at his friends for a sleepover. He starts school next Wednesday so he is getting in his summer time fun while he can. Eddie is hanging out with the baby, as he goes back out on tour next week as well, leaves the day after the baby turns 2. 9.9.11
More coffee please.