News

I spent most of the day in a state of high anxiety because several people from high school had cryptic Facebook messages about how they were "shocked" and "sad" and their "thoughts are with the family..." but no one would say who had died.

It didn't turn out to be someone I knew well, although I did know her way back when. I think she was in my high school psychology class junior or senior year. It's very sad. It's always sad when a young person, a young mother, dies.

We're so fragile. We hold onto this life by a slender thread. One tiny thing goes wrong - your heart beats the wrong rhythm, a blood vessel in your brain weakens, a car on your block spins out of control, and you're gone - your children are left motherless, your husband left a widower, alone and grieving, in the blink of an eye.

Tragedy is always one heartbeat away.

And somehow most of the time we are able to put that knowledge aside and go on about our lives, pay our bills and clean our toilets and not think about the fact that this could be that moment when our whole life changes - or stops. Could we exist at all if we saw every possibility? Could we function if we thought, "It could be any time! It could be NOW!" as we went about our days?

Of course not. In order to function we have to put that knowledge of our own mortality, of the mortality of people we love, out of our heads most of the time. But it's hard to ignore when someone, particularly someone your own age, dies suddenly and randomly.

It's hard to ignore right now.

(If you're a Grammaland High School grad, you can friend me on Facebook or e-mail me for more information... I hate to be cryptic, too, but this isn't my story to tell here. If you're reading this on Facebook and it seems redundant, please know that my personal blog auto-feeds to Facebook, so this was originally posted at http://prettybabies.blogspot.com).

Sit Down!

Kanye your site at http://kanyelicio.us/ - and after the "s/" in that address, type in your full URL including the http:// part. So mine is:
http://kanyelicio.us/http://prettybabies.blogspot.com

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

In response to my own challenge the other day in that ranty post that we're not going to talk about anymore, I applied to be a crisis counselor at the local crisis line. Unfortunately, we're going to be traveling during their training session this fall, and you can't miss a class because you don't want some guy to call up and say, "I'm going to end it all!" and you say, "I'm sorry, can you hold for like, four hours until my shift is over, because I missed that class and I have NO IDEA what to say to you."

Actually, come to think of it, that might not be the worst strategy. I'll have to suggest it when I take the winter training class.

Instead, I signed up for MOPS - Moms of Pre-Schoolers - which, while it may sound like a social club, actually will probably end up being more of an opportunity to take casseroles to women with new babies. I suck at casseroles, so I may take pizzas, instead. But it sounds nice, and it actually fits into our schedule for the first time ever this semester, so I thought I'd go for it.

So you see, I am effing doing effing something... Whether it's talking Area People off of ledges or taking casserolespizzas to families in need, more something will be being done by yours truly shortly.

Unfortunately, effing doing effing things leaves less time for blogging.

Last night we took the kids miniature golfing. It was hilarious! Both of them "played" by walking around with the club in one hand, the ball in the other. They'd walk over to the little cup, and drop the ball in, and say, "YAY!" Then they would completely get in our way as BJ and I tried to actually golf, in miniature.


At one point, Claire had dropped her ball in the cup and was returning to us, when she happened to notice that there was music on. She stopped everything and started to do a little dance, in the middle of the hole, while her daddy and I were repeating, "C'mere Claire, get off the green, Claire, stand on the rocks, Claire, come stand on the sidewalk, Claire... Claire... Claire!" She got tired of us and turned her back, so she was facing the hole again, and did this hilarious little booty shake, as if to say, "You can't understand, Mom and Dad, the music... It moves me..."


Sometimes, it all just got to be too much for her, and she sat down in the middle of the green.


Hi-freakin'-larious.

Mary Grace was a doll baby, too. We've been doing a star chart at home - when I catch them being good or kind, I give them a star. When we accumulate seven stars, we get a treat. Well, they just happened to hit seven stars that night, so we called our outing their "treat." In reality, BJ and I wanted to go practice swinging at softballs before the big game that we ended up forfeiting today... So we went to Denny's for dinner, then headed to the Putt Putt place, swung at $5 worth of softballs, then played mini-golf (and got a discount because the lady working the counter's middle name is Mary and she has a sister named Claire, and because MG got pinched by the gate of the batting cage, and BJ got a blister, and she said that she felt bad that her Putt Putt was beating us up - she was really sweet). After mini-golf, we got ice cream. Before we even left the Putt Putt Palace, Mary Grace was saying, "Thank you for bringing me here. This has been a very special day." She must have said it a dozen times. It was really sweet.

It also made me think, "You ain't seen nothin' yet, kiddo!" (Parents - is it impossible to impress your kids with Putt Putt once you've been to the Kingdom of Magic? I'm concerned.)

I think it'll be all right - Disney can't do this:

Neighborhood Choir

...and now, for something completely different...

I Used To Like People

I used to like people. I really did. I loved sitting down with people and talking about ideas and philosophies - I was on the goddamn debate team in high school (and if you haven't already noticed, this one is NOT going in the baby book!). I made a point of casting a wide net, and making friends who were different from me, because I thought they were interesting. How boring would life be if we all agreed on everything, if we were all the same?

I don't like people anymore. No, seriously, I am sick to fucking death of people and their politics. And people can't seem to talk about anything BUT politics these days, and I have had it. Had. It.

This morning, a friend's Facebook status got BJ and I going, to the point that we were scaring Claire because we were debating so vehemently. And this evening when I got downstairs from putting the kids to bed, a completely different person was baiting me via chat.

I can't talk to half my family anymore without getting into it (and no, D.C.M. you weren't the straw that broke the camel's back this time, and you were most pleasant and non-political the last time I saw you, so stand down!). I can't talk to 49% of my friends anymore without hearing Glenn Beck's talking points. I can't get on Facebook without seeing someone's Flickr stream from their latest Teabagging (and for the record, eeew! I don't think that means what you think it means). I can't even talk to my own husband about anything that may be relevant on a national scale without risking someone sleeping on the couch.

It has got to stop.

I don't know everything. I can't solve the economic crisis, fix the national debt, improve our relations with Iran and North Korea, get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan safely and without lasting consequences, and in my spare time fix education, the infrastructure, the space program, and every other thing that's wrong with this country and this planet. I wouldn't even know where to start, which is why I choose to be a fucking BOOKKEEPER instead of a politician.

I know that I believe that we can do better. We can do better for our children by improving the schools, we can do better for the weakest and sickest and poorest among us through national health care, and that maybe if we sit down and talk to people we can figure out some of the answers to some of the really hard questions that face us, as a society.

I voted for the person who, I thought, agreed with me. And he was elected. And I truly believe that he is doing the best he can in the face of unprecedented cynicism and obstruction.

I am not prepared to debate you, or you or you or you, and especially not you on every nuance of the president's latest speech, on every one of the four dozen things Rush Limbaugh is pissed off about today, and on every Fox News article you've read. I am not going to engage with you anymore on matters of opinion or politics. I am no longer going to get angry when I see signs that say things like "What's the difference between the zoo and the White House? The zoo has an African Lion and the White House has a Lyin' African." Because if the president can rise above that kind of trash, then so can I. He doesn't let it get to him, and I won't let it get to me, either.

But I will say this, before I go to full radio silence on the subject of politics for the next 3 to 7 years - we are not going to accomplish anything by name calling. We are not going to solve any problems by calling our leader every name from Anarchist to Zoroastrian (particularly when you don't understand what the names you're calling actually mean!). We are not going to serve anyone's best interests by yelling "You Lie!" in the middle of an address to Congress.

You may not have voted for him, you may not even like him, but show some respect.

And be careful of the company you keep - because if you align yourself with the haters and the racists and those who would rather shout about problems than try to fix them, you are at great risk of becoming one of them.

That is all.

I am finished.

Otherwise, I may find myself without friends, family, and a husband before this is all said and done, and no one wants that.

If you try to discuss matters of politics with me, in the future, I am going to simply reply, "I don't talk about politics." Instead of constantly bitching and moaning and fighting about things, I'm going to do something, and I would encourage you to do the same. And by do something, I don't mean pout like a baby and hold signs about how awful the president is - I mean get off your computer and fucking do fucking something - volunteer, read to a class (preferably not anything published by Fox News), organize a fundraiser for a disease that needs curing, be on the school board, go to a local government meeting, organize a neighborhood watch... Do SOMETHING.

Because it's very easy, and very cowardly, to sit at a keyboard, from the safety of the blue glow of your monitor, and pick on people whose views might differ from your own. It's easy to change your Facebook status to reflect that you support x or y cause. It's easy to blog about what's wrong. But it is NOT easy to be part of the solution.

We have enough problems.

I have enough problems.

Thankfully, debating with my friends and family is no longer one of them.

I don't talk about politics.