It’ll All Pan Out in the End
03 Dec 2011 9 Comments
in Family, health care, Humor, kids, Life, marriage, Politics Tags: Christmas, frying pans, G.O.P., Ginger White, hell hath no fury, Herman Cain, Humor, husbands, kids, marriage, Politics, Republicans, scorned women
We went to the annual Christmas parade in town last night with the grandkids and had a great time. All the entries had to be decked out with lights and they did not disappoint.
We had some light rain at times during the hour or so the parade lasted, but nobody seemed to mind. A year long drought of epic proportions does that to you.
Afterward we high-tailed it over to McDonald’s and had dinner. When my husband (known from here on as Pappy) took his cap off, he revealed a somewhat black and blue area near his left eye. He’d had some minor surgery at the dermatologist’s office a couple of days before.
Now he wears a cap…not so in the sun-kissed days of his youth.
Our granddaughter (also known as Eagle-Eye Fleegle) asked what had happened to cause the bruise.
Pappy and I simultaneously (and facetiously) answered that I’d hit him over the head with a frying pan.
Miss Fleegle knows us well enough to detect that we were pulling her leg and demanded and got the truth.
This morning, I checked the news online and saw that Herman Cain had postponed his “major announcement” about the fate of his campaign from 11:00 to a little later in the afternoon.
You’ll remember that he had returned to Atlanta to face his wife for the first time since Ginger White came forward and said Herman had had a thirteen year affair with her and that Mr. Cain had admitted to giving money to Ms. White without his wife’s knowledge.
I mentioned the postponement to Pappy and he started to say:
“That’s because he had to go to the emergency room…”
which I finished for him with:
“…to have a frying pan removed from his head.”
Great minds do indeed think alike.
Romancing the Stone
07 Nov 2011 26 Comments
in Aging, Biology, Family, Humor, kids, Life, Texas, Travel Tags: Aging, Enchanted Rock State Park, hiking, Humor, kids, plantar fasciitis, Rice Krispy knee, Rick Perry, Rocky Balboa, Texas
My son and his family were here in Texas this weekend from California and one of the things they wanted to do was hike to the top of Enchanted Rock.
(Please click on the photos for enlarged views.)
Enlarge the view and, yes, those are people way up at the top.
Here’s a short video from the Texas Parks and Wildlife department:
Seven of our four adult, four kids and one grandma party of climbers decided to take the vertical attack in ascending the dome.
Two of us, my daughter-in-law and I, otherwise known as The Lame and The Halt, opted for a modified switch-back approach at about the three-quarters point in the climb.
My DIL suffers from a knee injury that causes her knee to sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies when she walks, and I have plantar fasciitis (heel pain) in one foot, with a little tarsal tunnel syndrome thrown in for added enjoyment.
We were traversing in a more diagonal fashion back and forth across the face of the rock instead of climbing straight up and it wasn’t long before we realized that we’d lost sight of the rest of our little group.
At that point we couldn’t see the top of the dome. We looked around us and saw no other climbers below us either.
It was just us chickens.
This must be how the Donner Party felt.
Finally we saw two women walking down from the summit and I asked them if the end was in sight.
One said, “Oh, there’s a flat area and then it’s just a little more after that!”
Her companion said, “You’ve got a long way to go.”
Great. An optimist and a pessimist out on a hike together.
But we did manage to get to the top not too long after everybody else and I have to admit the views were spectacular.
You can see the effects of the long drought on the vegetation.
Triumphant granddaughters!
I give new meaning to the name "Rocky."
Granddaughter in obligatory "pushing the boulder" pose.
On the downhill walk, looking back toward the summit.
Interesting rock formations. Discuss among yourselves...
Dear Governor Goodhair: Forget Cain, please send rain.
Hold the Phone
11 Jun 2011 18 Comments
in Aging, Art, Family, Humor, kids, Life, Women Tags: Aging, Art, artist trading cards, ATC, Humor, iPhone, kids, pet peeves, rude people, technology, Walmart
A lot has been written about cellphone etiquette lately, but that’s not going to stop me from adding my two cents’ worth to the discussion. It has become a pet peeve of mine, coming in a close second to people who like to rant about their pet peeves.
I’m not the only one who’s exasperated with the increase in “techno-rudeness” encountered every day by folks all across the social strata.
My daughter and her family were at a restaurant with their kids, aged 10 and almost 9. When they go out as a family, they expect the occasion to be just that—a family one, where everyone is engaged with the other members of the group. At the very least, eye contact is expected to occur at some point during the meal. Conversation doesn’t have to be witty and sparkling, but actual utterances beyond the monosyllabic shouldn’t be the exception.
However, as my daughter told me later, they were taken aback by the family seated next to them; one that was quite similar in composition to theirs, with pre-teen kids and two parents.
The difference, though, was that everyone, including the kids, was on an iPhone busily texting or otherwise absorbed in their own electronic world. No one looked up at the other family members gathered around the table.
No warm smiles, no shared laughter. Nada. Zip. Bupkus.
This is what we have come to.
No man is an island, but you can certainly tune out any intimate contact with people and go there on your iPhone when it’s convenient.
The other thing about cellphones that makes me “peevish” is the sheer obliviousness by chronic users of this technology to their own rudeness.
I was at WalMart the other day (they’re going to set up a cot for me in the back since I’m there so often) because I had to return a toy I’d bought for my grandson.
It was a Ben 10 Ultimate Alien “Ultimatrix,” and unless you are up on the stuff 10-year-old boys covet, I won’t go into the details beyond saying that he’s desperately wanted one since last August when all the Christmas toys first made their appearance at WalMart.
At that time it cost twenty dollars, which is a lot of money for some plastic, but the toy manufacturers know what they’re doing and have us all by the habichuelas, so what’re you gonna do?
Last week they marked down the toy to just seven dollars. What a deal! My grandson had four dollars saved and I told him he could do some chores around the house and easily earn the other three dollars. The fly in the ointment here is that Mom and Dad have been trying to discourage rampant consumerism in their kids and have been keeping the lid down on toy consumption lately.
But, Memaw saw a way around that. I went back to WalMart the next day and bought the toy before it disappeared from the sale rack with the idea that I would hold it in safe keeping until my grandson could earn the dough to pay for it.
It turns out, the next day my grandson phoned me and in an excited voice told me he’d done a lot of yard work for his folks and earned the money for his prize, which he had purchased himself. I was happy for him and didn’t tell him or his parents that I’d done an end run around them and had bought one too.
Everybody wins!
So, I found myself at the returns desk at WalMart behind the most obnoxious woman who was loudly talking on her cellphone while she was trying to conduct a transaction with the patient woman behind the counter.
I mean, she was jabbering into the phone while she was looking straight at the WalMart lady, Rosa, an Hispanic woman in her fifties.
But it was like Rosa was invisible!
To her credit, Rosa just kept a neutral expression on her face and carried out what she had to do for the bitch, occasionally trying to get a word in edgewise to complete the deal. Unbelievable.
When it was my turn, I thought Rosa deserved to be treated like a human being, so when she asked for the reason for the return I briefly told her the story of my grandson earning the money himself without any help from me.
Rosa smiled a warm smile and told me that when her son was five, her sister had a house cleaning company and had offered him a job of picking up fruit off the ground at one of the houses. She paid him $20 for his work and he was very proud of the money he made.
Then, he did something extraordinary for a five-year-old. He told his mother he was going to take her out to dinner with the money. And he did, proudly squiring his mother at the restaurant.
Rosa went on to say that now he’s 28, a Marine, college educated and on his way to obtaining a doctorate degree. Eventually he wants to work for the CIA. She is so proud of him and I told her she has every right to be.
It was a wonderful story and the woman who had been standing behind us said she couldn’t help overhear it and it had given her goosebumps.
I left feeling really good for my grandson, for Rosa and her terrific grown son, and for the human connection I’d unexpectedly made that day.
And all because I chose to treat someone with the respect they deserve.
As the old phone ads used to say: “Reach out and touch someone.”
Crouching Tiger Mom, Hidden Agenda?
18 Mar 2011 18 Comments
in Family, kids, Life, Women Tags: Amy Chua, ATC, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, kids, mothers, Parenting
I just finished reading “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” by Amy Chua and I have to admit I have conflicting feelings about it.
My own kids are grown and most likely irreparably damaged at this point, so I didn’t read the book to get any great insights into parenting techniques.
I’m just joking about the damage part—my son has a Ph.D in neuroanatomy and is a successful magazine editor and publisher and my daughter is a furniture designer who’s had her home featured in national magazines and on television, so I guess I didn’t screw them up too badly.
(I also didn’t have anything to do with their career choices, so all the praise for their successes should go to them.)
I try to keep my nose out of their business when it comes to raising their children. I figure they have every right to louse their kids up as much as I did. Dr. Phil (sorry about bringing him into this) says that parents do the best they can “with what they knew when they knew it.”
In other words, we don’t always have access to the right information all the time as parents and often we learn more in hindsight when it’s too late to apply that knowledge.
Amy Chua’s book chronicles the early upbringing of her now teenage daughters. She mercilessly makes them practice the piano and violin and will not accept any grade below an A in anything except gym and drama. She puts forth the not unheard of premise that Asian (in her case, Chinese) parents create better outcomes with their children overall than Western parents do–particularly American ones. This is not something new, but the look into her family life with all its pressures (and triumphs) is pretty eye-opening.
The author has undergone quite a bit of backlash over her book, which she calls a memoir and not a “how-to” book. I agree with her on that. Not everyone comes from a family that has the monetary resources she does (she’s a Yale law professor and lecturer and her husband is also a Yale law professor and fiction writer). She spends oodles of money on lessons and anything that will help her children be the absolute best in everything they undertake—whether they like it or not.
This is where the backlash comes in. It’s one thing to encourage your kids to do their best and keep on trying at something like piano or violin when they want to chuck it in, but it’s entirely another thing to make them practice for six hours at a time until they get a certain piece “correct” while leaving teeth marks in the wood of the piano over middle “C.”
She berates the kids unrelentingly, telling them that she’s only doing it because she loves them and wants them to succeed.
At one point the youngest daughter rebels and refuses to do anything her mother wants her to do—including play the violin, which she has become extremely good at and actually loves. She feels that her mother just wants her children to be the best so that she (the mother) will look good.
Granted, the kids are amazingly talented and very poised for their ages, but one wonders if it was all worth the price they had to pay by not having a more “normal” American childhood. We’ll have to wait and see because at the publishing of the book the oldest was just sixteen and the youngest about thirteen or fourteen.
I think back to my own upbringing and wish that my mother had been more encouraging to me. She usually went with the assumption that I wasn’t capable enough to do something, whatever it was, for a variety of reasons—I was too young or just didn’t measure up to the task at hand somehow.
Now, looking back, I think she essentially wanted to keep me dependent on her because that was her “job”—being a mom.
When I was grown and already had two kids of my own, I finally got a chance to go to college and ended up getting accepted into the dental hygiene program at our local community college. I went up against 250 other applicants for a slot in a class that would be limited to just 24 students. I got in on the first try.
My mother, upon hearing that I was accepted, said to me “If it gets too hard for you, you just quit.” I guess it was her way of giving permission to fail, but that wasn’t exactly what I was hoping to hear at that moment—more like “Congratulations, that’s really great!”
Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m pretty sure I was a threat to the way she had lived her life as a stay-at-home mother. She initially didn’t even want me to apply to the school because she said that at the end of the two year program ”You’ll be thirty years old!”
I came back with, ”At the end of two years I’ll be thirty anyway, so I might as well be thirty with a degree in dental hygiene.”
Parenting can be really complicated.
It’s too bad we can’t know what we didn’t know when we didn’t know it.
Where’s Dr. Phil when we need him?
Not a Thing to Wear
05 Mar 2011 39 Comments
in Aging, Art, Family, Humor, kids, religion Tags: Aging, Art, artist trading cards, ATC, dressing rooms, granddaughters, Humor, kids, weddings
I’m almost sixty-four years old and I don’t own a dress.
There was a time in my life when I did have garments of such a decidedly feminine nature—back when I was about twenty-five, maybe.
Don’t get me wrong. I like dresses and sometimes find myself going through the dress racks at my favorite department store just to see what’s in style right now.
I have even been tempted to try some on, although the gawd-awful lighting and fun house mirrors in the dressing rooms make the experience more of a psychedelic one than I would wish.
It’s just that at this point in my life, I really don’t need a dress. I’m not a church goer (see The Orthodox Agnostic for more explanation on that) and I don’t have a paying job that I have to dress up for.
The kindergarten kids I read to twice a week wouldn’t care if I came to our sessions in pajamas. In fact, there is a Pajama Day at their school where everyone, including the teachers, wears his or her snuggliest jammies for a day.
Is that a blogger’s dream or what?
At this stage of the game, I’m more into comfort than getting dolled up in a skirt or dress. I have a lot of nice dark wash jeans (thank you Stacey and Clinton for the advice) and several pretty sweaters and tops so I always look put together when I have to go out in public.
So it was amusing when my granddaughter asked me a probing fashion question the other day as we cuddled together on my couch, while watching “Ben 10 Alien Force” during our weekly Sugary Cereal/Cartoon Marathon at Memaw’s last week.
Most of her inquiries in the past have been of a theological nature, which always leave me squirming a bit as I try to walk that delicate line between not contradicting what her parents have been teaching her and my blurting out that Genesis is basically a creation myth.
Sometimes I feel like I’m under the scrutiny of a miniature Torquemada—but one who’s much more adorable than the original, I can assure you.
This time, she kind of squinted at me with those sweet, green eyes of hers as she posed the question:
“Memaw, why don’t you ever wear a dress?”
My answer was essentially what I’ve just been saying here; that I don’t really have the need for one and I like wearing pants because they’re comfortable and easier to get around in for what I have to do during the day.
She thought about that for awhile and then told me:
“I know when you can wear one.”
“When?” I asked, thinking she would say “to church” and that I would have to dance around that minefield once again. Instead, she said:
“To my wedding.”
I smiled (and melted inside) and said:
“You got it! I will definitely wear a dress to your wedding.”
My granddaughter is eight.
I figure I’ve got a good fifteen years before I have to start looking.
My very first artist trading card
Out of the Mouths of Babes
15 Nov 2010 9 Comments
in Aging, Humor, kids, teachers Tags: horses' butts, Humor, kids, kindergartners, macaroni necklaces, teachers
For a little over a month now I’ve been volunteering in a reading program for kindergartners at our local primary school.
Since my grandkids are in school pretty much full time now, and my daughter has either been working from home or at her new office digs during school hours, I found that after eight years “on the job” my services as child caregiver were no longer required.
I knew all along that day was coming, but it arrived a little sooner than I’d bargained for, leaving me with feelings akin to being told by a supervisor to pick up my severance pay from human resources and it’s been nice working with you.
Even though I’m essentially a creative, “free spirit” (cough) Gemini, I’m still a creature who needs some structure in her life in order to feel grounded.
To me, one of the worse things that can happen to an otherwise healthy person who’s retired is not having a reason to get up in the morning.
I know too many people who have taken to tippling during the day (and night) after retirement because they don’t have someone or something that needs them; something that requires their attention on a regular basis.
So my “something” has become five kindergartners, four days a week, in one-on-one reading sessions that usually last about twenty minutes each. I have two girls and two boys on Mondays and Wednesdays, and one teeny, tiny little ESL (English as a second language) girl on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
If you want to maintain a young outlook on life, go no further than a bunch of kindergartners.
They are a hoot.
Today, one of my boys was regaling me with a description of a picture he said he’d seen at the library of a horse giving birth. (I’m thinking he must have seen it at the public library, not the school library which has books just for Pre-K through kindergarten.)
Needless to say, it involved some very inventive thinking about horses’ butts and things that emerge from them.
I don’t know who was getting more of an education—him or me.
But when it comes to inventive thinking, today’s prize has to go to my first little girl of the day. She and the other girls came twirling into the reading room decked out in construction paper Indian headdresses and macaroni bead necklaces in honor of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
As I admired her get-up I murmured something about how clever the necklace was, being made entirely of dried macaroni of various colors.
My little Pocahontas wanna-be laughed at my patent cluelessness and said:
“That’s not macaroni! That’s dead food!”
I stand corrected.
Although, it could have been that the teacher had told them it was ”dyed” food.
And, more likely, it could have been, with my diminished hearing, that I misheard entirely what Pocahontas said.
Either way, a good time was had by all.
I can’t wait to get up tomorrow morning to see what the day brings.
E Pluribus Unum
01 Nov 2010 12 Comments
in Art, Politics, teachers Tags: Art, artist trading cards, ATC, kids, Pledge of Allegiance, Politics, school, teachers
Mom fights school district over Spanish ‘Pledge’ assignment
EDMOND, OK (NBC) – An Oklahoma mother is fuming over a mandatory assignment given to her son.
Melissa Taggart is now taking her fight to Edmond, OK Public Schools after her son was threatened with a zero because he wouldn’t complete an assignment that would require him to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish.
“My husband and I are appalled by it. We don’t believe in it and I do not want my child doing it,” Taggart said. “I just feel that it’s wrong, that he’ll have to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States of America in Spanish. That’s not how it should be taught. That has nothing to do with the Spanish language.”
Officials with Edmond Public Schools said that Melissa’s son was going to receive a zero for the project. A few hours later, they changed their minds and are now offering him another assignment.
“There are poems, lyrics, and great writers that she could have chosen that emphasize the Spanish culture … Why the Pledge of Allegiance,” Taggart asked.
When I was in high school back in the Stone Age of the 1960′s, I took Latin as my foreign language choice. My teacher, Mrs. Cargill, was from Argentina. Besides Latin, she taught Spanish and had a working knowledge of Italian and German. Even though she was one tough cookie when it came to making us toe the line, I adored her.
Since our class was during the first period of the day, we heard the principal’s morning announcements over the room’s intercom. These were always preceded by the Pledge of Allegiance, which he recited while all the students in the school stood and recited it in English with him.
Except for us.
Mrs. Cargill thought it was important to take advantage of any opportunity to bring the language alive by using it in situations that got us outside of the textbook. So, we memorized the Pledge in Latin and recited it that way while the principal spoke it in English.
My, how subversive.
I wonder if this same parent would object to the Pledge being recited in Latin.
How about French? German?
Somehow, I suspect there wouldn’t be anywhere near the fuss. The Pledge is not a sacred text that will be defiled if translated into Spanish. If anything, instead of giving a robotic and rote memory recitation as many students find themselves doing after years of saying it in English, it may get her son thinking about what the words actually signify.
Now, wouldn’t that be something?
Here’s to you, Mrs. Cargill. I’m sure you would be “appalled” that a valuable learning tool could be twisted around to such ignorant ends.
Ego vexillo Unitorum Statuum Americae ac rei publicae, quam refert ipsum, fidelitatum voveo: Uni Nationi sub Deo indivisibili, cum Libertate atque Justitia omnibus.
The Little Manipulator, Part 2
24 Aug 2010 7 Comments
in Aging, Humor, kids Tags: ATC, cartoons, cats, cereal, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Humor, kids, old age, treachery
I wrote awhile back about my granddaughter and her wily ways (see my post Old Tricks, Even Older Dogs).
The other day I ran up against another example of her trying to put one over on her old Memaw.
The grandkids, S. and her brother, C., were over at our house for their weekly afternoon of cartoons and all the sugary cereal you can eat.
They don’t have cable at home and eat sensibly the rest of the time, so one day of mindless entertainment and empty calories can’t do too much damage, to my way of thinking.
This is the stuff grandparents live for, believe me.
One of the cartoons that came on was “Courage the Cowardly Dog,” which they’ve seen before. It’s kind of a strange show, a bit surreal sometimes and probably more for older (12 and up) kids since it comes on later in the day.
The last time they watched it, there was quite a bit of gratuitous violence.
Of course, good ol’ “Popeye” and all of the “Tom & Jerry” cartoons are laden to the gills with that, but I found it a bit disturbing because it was directed at the dog who’s the star of the cartoon.
I dunno—I just didn’t think we should watch that particular show and gave the kids some alternative selections.
Then S. piped up with a dissenting view:
S.: Oh, I really want to watch that!
Me: No, I think it’s a little too violent. We can watch something else.
S. put on an expression that makes John Boehner look like a rank amateur while telling a lie with a straight face (but minus the fake tan).
S.: But Mommy liked this show when she was little.
And here we have the exact moment when S. overplayed her hand.
Memaw: This show wasn’t even on t.v. when Mommy was little.
Ah, the poker-face crumples into crestfallen disappointment. Foiled again.
One would think she could have anticipated since I’m her Mommy’s mommy, I would know this better than anyone.
Yet again, old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill.
Whistler's Kitty
A Pox on Thee
22 Aug 2010 10 Comments
in Art, Biology, Family, Humor, religion Tags: cartoon, chicken pox, Duggar Family, Humor, kids, neuter, spay
I read today where 12 out of the 17 Duggar kids who haven’t escaped are still living at home had been ill recently with chickenpox. All at the same time.
Gee, there’s a surprise.
Why would anyone expect the parents to do the right thing and have their children vaccinated for this completely avoidable childhood illness?
Surely not I.
Michelle Duggar believes God wants her to crank out baby after baby, so I guess to her it’s only fitting that those same kids should suffer some of the diseases He’s cooked up over the millennia.
(But not any farther back than 6,000 years, mind you.)
If every sperm is sacred, then every virus should have its day too.
On that blending of the ecclesiastical and the biological, I’m re-posting a cartoon I created when the Duggars announced the birth of their 19th child.
A Memaw’s Job Is Never Done
08 Jun 2010 7 Comments
in Aging, Humor, kids Tags: Humor, kids, second childhood, things retired old farts do all day
Going back to the grandkids’ tonight for another “sleep-over” since their Mommy is still in N.C. on a business trip and police officer Daddy has to leave for work tomorrow by 5:30 am. I’ll be with the kidlets all day again and then Pappy and I will take them to Dairy Queen for our usual mid-week dinner date.
Yeah, I know, it’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.
I saw this kid’s “To Do” list on Huffington Post and thought it illustrates my schedule perfectly:
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