It's 2009 so come see me at my new blog:
http://www.thehollerinchef.blogspot.com
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Sunday, December 7, 2008
A Little Bit of Grace
We had a horrible accident at our house yesterday. It was both gruesome and tragic. We've been able to keep a low profile so there are not dozens of news vans outside our house, though I did spot Telemundo sneaking around our backyard. The carnage was unspeakable; half of his face torn off, his eyeball ripped out of its socket, a large gaping hole where his right cheek used to be. We were not able to shield our youngest two children from this tragedy. They witnessed it first hand. Our middle son tried to stop the senseless mutilation, but he was too late. The damage had been done and there was no going back. Eugene lay there on the ground, three quarters of the bear he used to be with his innards strewn about the floor. Star, our 7 1/2 month old puppy, sat there next to her victim with foam still stuck in her teeth looking guilty, but satisfied.
My son and daughter, realizing the sensless injustice of it all, cried out in anguish. How could this be happening to them? They have been careful. They have taken the necessary precautions to avoid similar stuffed animal deaths. But now it was happening to them and with not just any stuffed animal, but with my bear, their mother's bear. The sacred bear that I have had for most of my 40 years. Psychological pathology aside (how many grown women still have their childhood stuffed animals on their beds?), this toy has significance. Everyone knows that you don't mess with Eugene. He is special. He is important. This dog is a relative newcomer to our family and with utter disdain, she completely disregards our code of honor and she actually turns on one of us.
Needless to say, Lee and I had to immediately launch our PR blitz and put a spin on the whole mauling incident. "Look, it's merely a flesh wound!" I explain to them, lightheartedly. "The 6" hole in his head isn't that bad. Look we can just scoop up all this stuffing and shove it back into the hole. With a little reconstructive surgery he'll be as good as new! A little disfigured and missing an eyeball, but practically just like new." Lee offers, much like the French woman with the facial transplant, perhaps we can graft another stuffed animal's face onto the missing part of the bear's right skull. Eventually we are able to coax some reluctant half smiles onto their faces, but they remained resentful to their canine sibling for the rest of the day. Sometime this week either Lee or I are going to have to smuggle home some 5-0 prolene, needles and needle driver home from the hospital to perform Eugene's microsurgery.
I think my middle son must have been harboring anger towards the dog all day long, because later that evening while she had her shock collar on, he shocked her with the dial amped up all the way to 10. He could offer no explanation for doing this other than, "I just wanted to see what would happen." Normally, we don't even shock the dog, we just push the button that emits an obnoxious tone and she stops doing whatever undesirable behavior in which she is engaged. Initially Lee and I were concerned that this might be an early indication of antisocial personality disorder, but luckily, our middle son doesn't exhibit a pattern of cruelty to animals. He just has a pattern of poor impulse control. It has been a source of frustration for me lately and I am feeling like a bad mother for being frustrated and angry about my kid's behavior.
By themselves, none of the incidents are that alarming, but when I lump them together, I get ahead of myself and worry that we are raising a derelict. Don't get me wrong, I love my son and he is incredibly cute and charming and mostly well-behaved, etc, etc but...I'm just frustrated. As your kids get older you realize what little control you have over them. They make their own choices, good or bad and our job is to instruct them as to how to make good choices. I've always had pretty good impulse control and my other two, for the most part, are pretty rule oriented. So, this one is challenging me and I don't like it and quite honestly, sometimes I don't like him for making my job difficult. If he would just do exactly what he was supposed to do all of the time, then I wouldn't have to be perplexed and I wouldn't have to worry. Which leads to a deeper consideration; am I more concerned about his welfare or how I look as a mother? Tricky. I know that I am concerned about him, but I also want a good grade in the mother department. This parenting expedition is more than I bargained for, at times.
I don't know, I guess I just need un poco de gracia. Actually, I need a whole lot of grace, which is what God demonstrates to me all of the time. It's much easier to be the recipient of that grace than to exhibit it to others. Paradoxically, it frequently easier to extend grace to complete strangers than to those that you love the most.
Well, it's first thing in the morning on Sunday morning and we are trying to rally our troops out of bed to go to the early church service before we cut down our tree. And the little guy about whom I have been talking has just hobbled out of bed and into my lap.
I had intended on writing about how my middle son didn't realize that I was funny ("You're funny mom?" he asked me one day when I wanted to know who they thought was funnier, me or their dad). I was going to parlay that whole bear mauling incident into how funny I really am, but I must have needed to discuss my feelings of inadequacy as a mother. Thank God for his grace and mercy which he bestows upon us each new day, regardless of whether or not we deserve it. Now if only I can learn to do that with my own children and those that I love...
My son and daughter, realizing the sensless injustice of it all, cried out in anguish. How could this be happening to them? They have been careful. They have taken the necessary precautions to avoid similar stuffed animal deaths. But now it was happening to them and with not just any stuffed animal, but with my bear, their mother's bear. The sacred bear that I have had for most of my 40 years. Psychological pathology aside (how many grown women still have their childhood stuffed animals on their beds?), this toy has significance. Everyone knows that you don't mess with Eugene. He is special. He is important. This dog is a relative newcomer to our family and with utter disdain, she completely disregards our code of honor and she actually turns on one of us.
Needless to say, Lee and I had to immediately launch our PR blitz and put a spin on the whole mauling incident. "Look, it's merely a flesh wound!" I explain to them, lightheartedly. "The 6" hole in his head isn't that bad. Look we can just scoop up all this stuffing and shove it back into the hole. With a little reconstructive surgery he'll be as good as new! A little disfigured and missing an eyeball, but practically just like new." Lee offers, much like the French woman with the facial transplant, perhaps we can graft another stuffed animal's face onto the missing part of the bear's right skull. Eventually we are able to coax some reluctant half smiles onto their faces, but they remained resentful to their canine sibling for the rest of the day. Sometime this week either Lee or I are going to have to smuggle home some 5-0 prolene, needles and needle driver home from the hospital to perform Eugene's microsurgery.
I think my middle son must have been harboring anger towards the dog all day long, because later that evening while she had her shock collar on, he shocked her with the dial amped up all the way to 10. He could offer no explanation for doing this other than, "I just wanted to see what would happen." Normally, we don't even shock the dog, we just push the button that emits an obnoxious tone and she stops doing whatever undesirable behavior in which she is engaged. Initially Lee and I were concerned that this might be an early indication of antisocial personality disorder, but luckily, our middle son doesn't exhibit a pattern of cruelty to animals. He just has a pattern of poor impulse control. It has been a source of frustration for me lately and I am feeling like a bad mother for being frustrated and angry about my kid's behavior.
By themselves, none of the incidents are that alarming, but when I lump them together, I get ahead of myself and worry that we are raising a derelict. Don't get me wrong, I love my son and he is incredibly cute and charming and mostly well-behaved, etc, etc but...I'm just frustrated. As your kids get older you realize what little control you have over them. They make their own choices, good or bad and our job is to instruct them as to how to make good choices. I've always had pretty good impulse control and my other two, for the most part, are pretty rule oriented. So, this one is challenging me and I don't like it and quite honestly, sometimes I don't like him for making my job difficult. If he would just do exactly what he was supposed to do all of the time, then I wouldn't have to be perplexed and I wouldn't have to worry. Which leads to a deeper consideration; am I more concerned about his welfare or how I look as a mother? Tricky. I know that I am concerned about him, but I also want a good grade in the mother department. This parenting expedition is more than I bargained for, at times.
I don't know, I guess I just need un poco de gracia. Actually, I need a whole lot of grace, which is what God demonstrates to me all of the time. It's much easier to be the recipient of that grace than to exhibit it to others. Paradoxically, it frequently easier to extend grace to complete strangers than to those that you love the most.
Well, it's first thing in the morning on Sunday morning and we are trying to rally our troops out of bed to go to the early church service before we cut down our tree. And the little guy about whom I have been talking has just hobbled out of bed and into my lap.
I had intended on writing about how my middle son didn't realize that I was funny ("You're funny mom?" he asked me one day when I wanted to know who they thought was funnier, me or their dad). I was going to parlay that whole bear mauling incident into how funny I really am, but I must have needed to discuss my feelings of inadequacy as a mother. Thank God for his grace and mercy which he bestows upon us each new day, regardless of whether or not we deserve it. Now if only I can learn to do that with my own children and those that I love...
Monday, November 17, 2008
Mice and Tadpoles and Dogs Better Scurry...
Everyone breathe a collective sigh of relief...Snowflake has been found. Apparently in her small mouse mind, she was never lost in the first place. She was doing quite well living in the freedom of the open range of our home. Saturday morning as I sat quietly reading my bible and saying my prayers she scampered across the floor of the sun room. Within moments, everyone in our family was on high alert (even if that meant we were alert in various stages of dress-anywhere from underwear to nightgowns) with brooms and mops and buckets in hand. After a prolonged game of cat and mouse, we finally cornered her behind the refrigerator and as Lee pulled the fridge away from the wall, I trapped her underneath a tupperwear bowl. We got her back into the cage and within minutes she was back out again. Even after reenforcing the sides of her wire cage with plastic cable ties, she still pulled a Houdini and was running around the kitchen counter, but unable to find her way to the floor. Lee put her back into the tupperwear container and we called U-haul and relocated the Snowflake and her life partner, Piggy into the flat previously occupied by our tadpoles, Jupiter Flash 1 & 2.
I don't have time to go through their entire biographies, so I'll just provide a brief character sketch of the Jupiter Flash series. If my memory is correct, there were actually 3 of them (kind of like Lassie-we kept replacing them). The first 2 were mail order tadpoles and the last one was your run of the mill creek tadpole. After the first 2 died, Lee decided the reason the tadpoles were not living was due to inadequate housing and filtration/oxygenation systems. To house the pond tadpole Lee went and bought the Cadillac version of aquariums with the XL3000 filtration system. About 15 minutes after he put the tadpole in the water it could no longer fight the current that was sucking it into the filtration system and it died. The first two tadpoles had been given a very proper ceremony and aquatic burial (down the commode, of course). The 3rd tadpole was too big to flush, so I decided to bury it outside, but I didn't want to bury it in our yard. I thought it might bring us bad juju...so, I decided to bury it in our neighbors flower bed. It was about 10 pm and I was between our 2 houses, digging furiously before anyone walked outside and realized what I was doing. Well, fast forward about 2 weeks and I am getting out of the shower and I am standing in the middle of the bathroom wet and completely naked. We have a window in our bathroom, but the privacy fence prevents my neighbors (the neighbors with the dead tadpole in their zinnias) from being able to look in, so I never really worry about modesty. But this time, when I look out the window as I am completely naked, I see my neighbor on his roof staring into my bathroom...at me. The sight of me without clothes, while might have been something to stare at 20 years ago, could turn a grown man into stone now. Luckily, the poor old guy didn't fall off his roof and quickly averted his eyes and turned away. Later, I thought about it and decided that since I turned his flower bed into a tadpole burial ground, I was probably getting what I deserved (by making him an unwilling peeping tom)...bad juju.
It's a good thing that Star can't read. If she could she might decide that she'd be better off living somewhere else because most animals don't have a fighting chance in our house. But she's proving to be a pretty sturdy dog, so odds are, she'll survive us...
I don't have time to go through their entire biographies, so I'll just provide a brief character sketch of the Jupiter Flash series. If my memory is correct, there were actually 3 of them (kind of like Lassie-we kept replacing them). The first 2 were mail order tadpoles and the last one was your run of the mill creek tadpole. After the first 2 died, Lee decided the reason the tadpoles were not living was due to inadequate housing and filtration/oxygenation systems. To house the pond tadpole Lee went and bought the Cadillac version of aquariums with the XL3000 filtration system. About 15 minutes after he put the tadpole in the water it could no longer fight the current that was sucking it into the filtration system and it died. The first two tadpoles had been given a very proper ceremony and aquatic burial (down the commode, of course). The 3rd tadpole was too big to flush, so I decided to bury it outside, but I didn't want to bury it in our yard. I thought it might bring us bad juju...so, I decided to bury it in our neighbors flower bed. It was about 10 pm and I was between our 2 houses, digging furiously before anyone walked outside and realized what I was doing. Well, fast forward about 2 weeks and I am getting out of the shower and I am standing in the middle of the bathroom wet and completely naked. We have a window in our bathroom, but the privacy fence prevents my neighbors (the neighbors with the dead tadpole in their zinnias) from being able to look in, so I never really worry about modesty. But this time, when I look out the window as I am completely naked, I see my neighbor on his roof staring into my bathroom...at me. The sight of me without clothes, while might have been something to stare at 20 years ago, could turn a grown man into stone now. Luckily, the poor old guy didn't fall off his roof and quickly averted his eyes and turned away. Later, I thought about it and decided that since I turned his flower bed into a tadpole burial ground, I was probably getting what I deserved (by making him an unwilling peeping tom)...bad juju.
It's a good thing that Star can't read. If she could she might decide that she'd be better off living somewhere else because most animals don't have a fighting chance in our house. But she's proving to be a pretty sturdy dog, so odds are, she'll survive us...
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Life Lessons
Lesson 1: Have fun with your kids.
The boys and I were talking politics the other day. This was their take on the President Elect;
Oldest boy (age 8, 2nd grade): "Nathan Freeman (not real name) told me that if Obama is elected president (this was the day of the election) then he is going to make a law saying you can hunt animals all year round."
My reply: "Hhmmm! That is interesting. Is that good or bad?"
Younger son (age 6 1/2, 1st grade): "I heard Obama hates dogs and always says bad things about dogs."
I can see that this is turning into a witch hunt so I decide to have a little fun with it.
My reply: "I heard that Barack Obama eats live human babies every morning for breakfast."
Both boys, with a mixture of fascination and disbelief: "Really!?! Are you kidding mom? Where does he get the babies? Really?!?"
Me: "REALLY! I heard it. Someone told me. It must be true."
Both boys: "You're kidding mom, aren't you? Does he really eat human babies for breakfast?"
Me: "It's true. Someone told me, so it has to be true."
Boys: "We can see you smiling mom. We get it!"
This was our first lesson in 'don't believe everything that you hear'.
Lesson 2: What's mine is mine and it's not yours!
Our next lesson, on sharing, occured the next morning.
Oldest son (to younger brother): "Give that back to me! It's mine!" (He's normally not too surly, but he was having an especially difficult morning and he yanked a pencil with photos of all the American Presidents away from his little brother).
Younger brother sits there stunned, still too dazed from having just woken up to put up much of a fight.
Lee: "I let him look at it. Give it back to him so I can explain something to him."
Oldest boy: "But it's MINE!"
Lee: "I told you to let him look at it."
Oldest boy: "But, I got it. My teacher gave it to me. He might mess it up."
Lee: "I'm trying to explain something to him."
After about 5 minutes of this, I couldn't take it anymore and my award winning mothering skills took over. I decided that I needed to provide oldest boy with an illustrative lesson and I took away the plate, but left him his toast.
"Give me that plate. It's mine! You know what, give me that cereal bowl. It's mine too."
This is where I officially lost it. I dumped his cereal on the counter and took away the bowl. My son started laughing at me and bent over and started eating the cereal like a dog off the counter. So, at this point, I decided to use my hand to push the cereal off the counter into the sink saying, "You know what? Give me that cereal too because it is also mine."
Both boys and my husband stare at me like I've lost it. The lesson in sharing quickly devolved into yet another example of how suddenly and seemingly little provocation mom can go from normal person to stark raving lunatic in just moments.
Lesson 3: Don't ever have rodents as pets.
Snowflake escaped. She plotted and planned and she succeeded. When the mice moved from our daughter's room to the boys' room they started escaping from their cage. The boys claim that they had never assisted the mice in their flight to freedom, but I don't believe them. Lee moved the mice to our spare bedroom thinking that this might solve the problem, but when he went to check on them this morning, Snowflake was gone. Coincidentally, there is a stange odor in our backyard. It smells remarkably like a dead animal. But, I don't think Snowflake could decompose that quickly and after a pretty thorough search, we couldn't find any escaped mice, dead or alive. My solution to the problem was to let the other mouse (Piggy) go in the backyard and then in a couple of days tell the kids that both mice had escaped and we would be free of our mouse responsibilities (because I REFUSE to buy any more rodents), but Lee, suddenly getting all moral on me said he wouldn't participate in any mouse genocide. He told me that I could do it, but he wouldn't be a part of it and he didn't want to know about it. When I reminded him that my mom made my brother and I set our mice free in the back yard when we were little he said my mom had been a sad and sick woman and obviously I was still suffering the effects of my childhood. To make matters worse, when I went to check on Piggy, she looked lonely and depressed. When I told Lee that I thought Piggy was depressed he said, "Of course she's depressed." Then I thought he was just shitting me, but he assured me that mice can definitely experience feelings of loss and sorrow. Now I feel bad for the poor mouse that her girlfriend (I'm not sure if Piggy and Snowflake were lesbians. They might have just been girlfriends in the sense that they are/were both female and roommates) is gone and I'm feeling like I should go out and get a replacement mouse. So, now I'm depressed because I'm never going to stop having pet mice because they keep dying or running away. In the mean time, Snowflake is going to start stinking soon.
The boys and I were talking politics the other day. This was their take on the President Elect;
Oldest boy (age 8, 2nd grade): "Nathan Freeman (not real name) told me that if Obama is elected president (this was the day of the election) then he is going to make a law saying you can hunt animals all year round."
My reply: "Hhmmm! That is interesting. Is that good or bad?"
Younger son (age 6 1/2, 1st grade): "I heard Obama hates dogs and always says bad things about dogs."
I can see that this is turning into a witch hunt so I decide to have a little fun with it.
My reply: "I heard that Barack Obama eats live human babies every morning for breakfast."
Both boys, with a mixture of fascination and disbelief: "Really!?! Are you kidding mom? Where does he get the babies? Really?!?"
Me: "REALLY! I heard it. Someone told me. It must be true."
Both boys: "You're kidding mom, aren't you? Does he really eat human babies for breakfast?"
Me: "It's true. Someone told me, so it has to be true."
Boys: "We can see you smiling mom. We get it!"
This was our first lesson in 'don't believe everything that you hear'.
Lesson 2: What's mine is mine and it's not yours!
Our next lesson, on sharing, occured the next morning.
Oldest son (to younger brother): "Give that back to me! It's mine!" (He's normally not too surly, but he was having an especially difficult morning and he yanked a pencil with photos of all the American Presidents away from his little brother).
Younger brother sits there stunned, still too dazed from having just woken up to put up much of a fight.
Lee: "I let him look at it. Give it back to him so I can explain something to him."
Oldest boy: "But it's MINE!"
Lee: "I told you to let him look at it."
Oldest boy: "But, I got it. My teacher gave it to me. He might mess it up."
Lee: "I'm trying to explain something to him."
After about 5 minutes of this, I couldn't take it anymore and my award winning mothering skills took over. I decided that I needed to provide oldest boy with an illustrative lesson and I took away the plate, but left him his toast.
"Give me that plate. It's mine! You know what, give me that cereal bowl. It's mine too."
This is where I officially lost it. I dumped his cereal on the counter and took away the bowl. My son started laughing at me and bent over and started eating the cereal like a dog off the counter. So, at this point, I decided to use my hand to push the cereal off the counter into the sink saying, "You know what? Give me that cereal too because it is also mine."
Both boys and my husband stare at me like I've lost it. The lesson in sharing quickly devolved into yet another example of how suddenly and seemingly little provocation mom can go from normal person to stark raving lunatic in just moments.
Lesson 3: Don't ever have rodents as pets.
Snowflake escaped. She plotted and planned and she succeeded. When the mice moved from our daughter's room to the boys' room they started escaping from their cage. The boys claim that they had never assisted the mice in their flight to freedom, but I don't believe them. Lee moved the mice to our spare bedroom thinking that this might solve the problem, but when he went to check on them this morning, Snowflake was gone. Coincidentally, there is a stange odor in our backyard. It smells remarkably like a dead animal. But, I don't think Snowflake could decompose that quickly and after a pretty thorough search, we couldn't find any escaped mice, dead or alive. My solution to the problem was to let the other mouse (Piggy) go in the backyard and then in a couple of days tell the kids that both mice had escaped and we would be free of our mouse responsibilities (because I REFUSE to buy any more rodents), but Lee, suddenly getting all moral on me said he wouldn't participate in any mouse genocide. He told me that I could do it, but he wouldn't be a part of it and he didn't want to know about it. When I reminded him that my mom made my brother and I set our mice free in the back yard when we were little he said my mom had been a sad and sick woman and obviously I was still suffering the effects of my childhood. To make matters worse, when I went to check on Piggy, she looked lonely and depressed. When I told Lee that I thought Piggy was depressed he said, "Of course she's depressed." Then I thought he was just shitting me, but he assured me that mice can definitely experience feelings of loss and sorrow. Now I feel bad for the poor mouse that her girlfriend (I'm not sure if Piggy and Snowflake were lesbians. They might have just been girlfriends in the sense that they are/were both female and roommates) is gone and I'm feeling like I should go out and get a replacement mouse. So, now I'm depressed because I'm never going to stop having pet mice because they keep dying or running away. In the mean time, Snowflake is going to start stinking soon.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Mrs Bean the Crazy Meandering Machine
We have a elderly neighbor who likes to wander into everyone else's yard. It's kind of like "Where's Waldo", because no one knows who's yard she will be in next. Today she might be investigating our garbage, but tomorrow she might be peeping into your front window. Until recently, she was on the architectural review committee of our neighborhood association, but her term either finally expired (after 48 consecutive years) or her Sanford and Son landscaping and yard art didn't appeal to the committee. As frightening as it seems, she still drives and she is a firm believer in the "I'll take my half in the middle" school of automobile lane changing (as evidenced by witnessing her turn left from the right hand lane the other day). Most days she can be found cruising the streets in her white Ford Focus far, far from her own home. She has managed to vex just about everyone on the street with her intense scrutiny of all of our lives. Though she might be wearing yesterday's breakfast on her pajamas today, she isn't the least bit hesistant to knock on your door and tell you that your garbage cans are exceeding their capacity or your recycling is out too early.
Lee and I have created a story line with her as the lead character. Because she is so odd, it's only fair that she should have a fictional villian fashioned after her. By day, our protagonist, who we will call Mrs Bean, ambles up and down the street in her inside out pajama top with her long stringy grey hair in a pony tail off to the side. As she walks, stuporously, she runs her fingers through her pony tail over and over and over again. By night she lurks high in the trees in her leather cat suit, stroking her whiskers and listening to the details of other peoples' lives. As she jumps from tree to tree gathering information she purrs with satisfaction. She is a spy, really, and with this evidence, she will damn people. 2710 leaves the water on while they brush their teeth. 2738 has not converted to LED lighting. 2800 drinks organic milk, but they throw their aluminum cans in the garbage.
I've decided that I need to institute a "Mrs Bean Alert" for my neighbors. Whenever she is in one of their yards sifting through the shrubbery at 8:46 am or driving dangerously close to someone's grass (who remembers the term, "trenching your yard"), an APB must be sent out to all who are within earshot. Instead of an "Amber Alert" it is an "Old Woman Alert". My next step is to install lights in the trees so when she is perched up on a branch in her leather cat suit, the floodlights will shine on her directly.
So, if you see someone in your trees late at nite, remember Mrs Bean's Ford Focus can wander far from home!
Lee and I have created a story line with her as the lead character. Because she is so odd, it's only fair that she should have a fictional villian fashioned after her. By day, our protagonist, who we will call Mrs Bean, ambles up and down the street in her inside out pajama top with her long stringy grey hair in a pony tail off to the side. As she walks, stuporously, she runs her fingers through her pony tail over and over and over again. By night she lurks high in the trees in her leather cat suit, stroking her whiskers and listening to the details of other peoples' lives. As she jumps from tree to tree gathering information she purrs with satisfaction. She is a spy, really, and with this evidence, she will damn people. 2710 leaves the water on while they brush their teeth. 2738 has not converted to LED lighting. 2800 drinks organic milk, but they throw their aluminum cans in the garbage.
I've decided that I need to institute a "Mrs Bean Alert" for my neighbors. Whenever she is in one of their yards sifting through the shrubbery at 8:46 am or driving dangerously close to someone's grass (who remembers the term, "trenching your yard"), an APB must be sent out to all who are within earshot. Instead of an "Amber Alert" it is an "Old Woman Alert". My next step is to install lights in the trees so when she is perched up on a branch in her leather cat suit, the floodlights will shine on her directly.
So, if you see someone in your trees late at nite, remember Mrs Bean's Ford Focus can wander far from home!
Friday, October 24, 2008
First Your Right Hand...Now Your Left
I had to get fingerprinted yesterday so I can volunteer to teach Spanish at my daughter's preschool. Do not be lulled into a false sense of security thinking that your children are safe from predators because all potential employees or volunteers have to go through a fingerprinting process. The system is only as good as least common denominator. I'm here to tell you that there are many weak or missing links in the operation. I don't even know where to begin...These fingerprinting agencies are set up in spare rooms of low budget businesses. If you have an extra bedroom, you can set up shop. I felt like I was on the set of some bad BBC comedy. I was fingerprinted in a real estate school which was inside a standard office building. The actual real estate school didn't look very credible. Having been inside a 'real estate school' I am much more likely to check any future real estate agents' credentials. This place was essentially The Sally Struthers School of Home Selling. The whole premise of selling a home is based on first impressions and curb appeal. The place could be in shambles structurally, but if looks pretty, then you are more likely to get a bite. It reminded me of the doctor's office where my cousin had her sinus surgery. One walk into the waiting room and I knew that she should have walked right back out and found another doctor. The ripped plastic covers on the seats, the bad flourescent lighting and the dingy sea foam blue painted walls in the waiting room told you everything you needed to know about how much time was spent giving attention to detail. You want your surgeon to pay attention to detail. I felt like I was walking into the waiting room of a sketchy plastic surgeon on the other side of the border in Mexico. The kind that you see as expose's on the 6 o'clock news. This particular real estate school/fingerprinting office gave off this vibe.
The first person to greet me was a doughy faced boy with glassy eyes and unfortunate pock marks and an expressionless stare. "May I help you?" "No, but maybe I can help you", I thought to myself. He was able to hand me an application and I sat down on the cleanest looking piece of furniture I could find, a dining room chair with a plastic cover. All of the furniture appeared as though it had been purchased at the Holiday Inn on the axis road. You know the one, the one that has the commericals on TV saying "everything must go; all artwork, all desks, all lamps. Final Liquidation". Nothing was a matched set and it all had dings on it. There were fingerprints and smudge marks all over the glass top of the dining room table (the set had an Asian motif). I'm sure that if you ran a blue light (the kind used in crime scene investigations to find blood or semen) over the sofa the whole thing would have lit up flourescent blue. One doesn't normally come across window treatments inside an office building. Maybe mini-blinds, but certainly not antebellum era curtains and valences, the kind you might expect to see on a plantation down south, like Tara (these probably wouldn't have passed the blue light test either). So, I sat there, with my daughter (home from school due to illness) trying not to touch anything till my name was called.
As I waited, the proprieter of the school came out into the lobby. She was tall and really skinny and the kind of person who flirted with everyone, man or woman; the kind who talks to loud, winks at you inappropriately, glances at you for approval when she's not even talking to you, half laughs after every statement that she makes-as though everyone is interested in what she is saying or doing. All I could think was, "Why don't you stop talking, put down the Starbucks cup that you are clutching with both hands and get a vacuum cleaner and some Windex." Everything was inappropriate in this place, the furniture, her decorum and her dress. Though she was late 40's to early 50's, she wore skin tight jeans (the kind that are worn by metal band groupies) with a patch of an angel on her left cheek tucked into high heel boots, a sleeveless cowl neck sweater with a cleavage revealing tank top underneath and a big silver ring on her left index finger. You could tell she had a membership to a tanning salon and she had not seen her natural hair color in decades. The current overly treated blond that she wore was so brittle that it probably snapped off every time she brushed her hair. It was probably her idea to run the fingerprinting operation out of the extra room. This would allow her to be subsidized for all the time she spent doing nothing. Maybe she had an ex boyfriend who had been a cop who told her about the scam. "Listen, you don't have to do anything and you get paid $XXX for it a month. They just send you checks. You hang a sign in your window, have a spare room with some low budget computer system and you are listed on the registry of state sponsored fingerprinters." She probably broke up with him after he came home drunk too many times, but at least he got her set up with her little cash cow.
I was escorted back to an room about 5' x 8' to get fingerprinted. There was a sign on the door that said "Secure Room. Enter only with authorized personnel. Everything beyond this door is recorded." It was supposed to make it look official, but the scotch tape holding it up and the poor grade computer paper that was crumpled on one edge made it loose effect. If you have ever seen the show "To Catch a Predator" you could imagine what this 'secure' room looked like. It was the room behind the 2 way mirror that the guy with the headphones, tape recorder, video camera and computer with voice matching capabilities was hiding out in while the bad guy sat on the other side not knowing he was about to get caught. ("I really thought she was 19. That's what she told me in the chatroom. I know I'm not a 15 year old choir boy, but I was gonna tell her that when I met her in person"). No one had bothered to wire this room appropriately. I guess if they needed to quickly close up shop (like when the real estate school accreditors came around) they could pull all the wires down and make it look like just another classroom. The wires poked out of a white tile in the ceiling and hung along the wall. There were 2 computers with a digital camera set up on a tripod attached to them. Along with getting fingerprinted, you had to have your picture taken-a mug shot. The fingerprinting machine was wired directly to the computer and it was like a mini photo copier. I stood in front of the fingerprint copy machine and the junior helper wiped each of my prints with a damp washcloth that had probably been used on the previous 12 fingerprintees and had probably been brought from home by the tall, blond lady. He did each finger on both hands and then all 4 fingers together. I showed my daughter the fingerprints on the computer and told her that no 2 people had the same fingerprints. "And no 2 fingers are the same either" added helper jr. "They are like a snowflake" I explained. To which she responded, "Like Snowflake's (the mouse)." "No" I said, "Animals don't have fingerprints". "What about Star (our dog)". "No, not even dogs" (even though I wasn't not completely sure about that one-maybe they do have dog-prints?).
I paid my $44.20 (which will be deducted from next month's tuition), got my receipt and we left. I guess the fingerprints will be uploaded into some national database to make sure I am not some criminal or creep. All, so I can go into my 4 year old daughter's preschool class and count from uno to diez once a week for 20 minutes. I didn't mind doing it. It's not like I had anything else to do. But, I did learn something. Nothing is probably as secure as you think it is. I have more confidence in my ability to judge a character than the official fingerprinting process. Know your kids' teachers and who they hang out with because this is a far better indicator of what is going on in their lives than some guarentee afforded to you by a beaurocratic institution...
The first person to greet me was a doughy faced boy with glassy eyes and unfortunate pock marks and an expressionless stare. "May I help you?" "No, but maybe I can help you", I thought to myself. He was able to hand me an application and I sat down on the cleanest looking piece of furniture I could find, a dining room chair with a plastic cover. All of the furniture appeared as though it had been purchased at the Holiday Inn on the axis road. You know the one, the one that has the commericals on TV saying "everything must go; all artwork, all desks, all lamps. Final Liquidation". Nothing was a matched set and it all had dings on it. There were fingerprints and smudge marks all over the glass top of the dining room table (the set had an Asian motif). I'm sure that if you ran a blue light (the kind used in crime scene investigations to find blood or semen) over the sofa the whole thing would have lit up flourescent blue. One doesn't normally come across window treatments inside an office building. Maybe mini-blinds, but certainly not antebellum era curtains and valences, the kind you might expect to see on a plantation down south, like Tara (these probably wouldn't have passed the blue light test either). So, I sat there, with my daughter (home from school due to illness) trying not to touch anything till my name was called.
As I waited, the proprieter of the school came out into the lobby. She was tall and really skinny and the kind of person who flirted with everyone, man or woman; the kind who talks to loud, winks at you inappropriately, glances at you for approval when she's not even talking to you, half laughs after every statement that she makes-as though everyone is interested in what she is saying or doing. All I could think was, "Why don't you stop talking, put down the Starbucks cup that you are clutching with both hands and get a vacuum cleaner and some Windex." Everything was inappropriate in this place, the furniture, her decorum and her dress. Though she was late 40's to early 50's, she wore skin tight jeans (the kind that are worn by metal band groupies) with a patch of an angel on her left cheek tucked into high heel boots, a sleeveless cowl neck sweater with a cleavage revealing tank top underneath and a big silver ring on her left index finger. You could tell she had a membership to a tanning salon and she had not seen her natural hair color in decades. The current overly treated blond that she wore was so brittle that it probably snapped off every time she brushed her hair. It was probably her idea to run the fingerprinting operation out of the extra room. This would allow her to be subsidized for all the time she spent doing nothing. Maybe she had an ex boyfriend who had been a cop who told her about the scam. "Listen, you don't have to do anything and you get paid $XXX for it a month. They just send you checks. You hang a sign in your window, have a spare room with some low budget computer system and you are listed on the registry of state sponsored fingerprinters." She probably broke up with him after he came home drunk too many times, but at least he got her set up with her little cash cow.
I was escorted back to an room about 5' x 8' to get fingerprinted. There was a sign on the door that said "Secure Room. Enter only with authorized personnel. Everything beyond this door is recorded." It was supposed to make it look official, but the scotch tape holding it up and the poor grade computer paper that was crumpled on one edge made it loose effect. If you have ever seen the show "To Catch a Predator" you could imagine what this 'secure' room looked like. It was the room behind the 2 way mirror that the guy with the headphones, tape recorder, video camera and computer with voice matching capabilities was hiding out in while the bad guy sat on the other side not knowing he was about to get caught. ("I really thought she was 19. That's what she told me in the chatroom. I know I'm not a 15 year old choir boy, but I was gonna tell her that when I met her in person"). No one had bothered to wire this room appropriately. I guess if they needed to quickly close up shop (like when the real estate school accreditors came around) they could pull all the wires down and make it look like just another classroom. The wires poked out of a white tile in the ceiling and hung along the wall. There were 2 computers with a digital camera set up on a tripod attached to them. Along with getting fingerprinted, you had to have your picture taken-a mug shot. The fingerprinting machine was wired directly to the computer and it was like a mini photo copier. I stood in front of the fingerprint copy machine and the junior helper wiped each of my prints with a damp washcloth that had probably been used on the previous 12 fingerprintees and had probably been brought from home by the tall, blond lady. He did each finger on both hands and then all 4 fingers together. I showed my daughter the fingerprints on the computer and told her that no 2 people had the same fingerprints. "And no 2 fingers are the same either" added helper jr. "They are like a snowflake" I explained. To which she responded, "Like Snowflake's (the mouse)." "No" I said, "Animals don't have fingerprints". "What about Star (our dog)". "No, not even dogs" (even though I wasn't not completely sure about that one-maybe they do have dog-prints?).
I paid my $44.20 (which will be deducted from next month's tuition), got my receipt and we left. I guess the fingerprints will be uploaded into some national database to make sure I am not some criminal or creep. All, so I can go into my 4 year old daughter's preschool class and count from uno to diez once a week for 20 minutes. I didn't mind doing it. It's not like I had anything else to do. But, I did learn something. Nothing is probably as secure as you think it is. I have more confidence in my ability to judge a character than the official fingerprinting process. Know your kids' teachers and who they hang out with because this is a far better indicator of what is going on in their lives than some guarentee afforded to you by a beaurocratic institution...
Monday, October 20, 2008
Animal Obituaries
I just finished reading one of the best books I've ever read, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. She received the Pulitzer Prize for this book of short stories, so I guess I'm stating the obvious by saying that it was good; she doesn't really need my endorsement. With my newly reduced work schedule I can do things like read. I've read more books in the past couple of months than in the past 10 years. Anyway, because her prose was so haunting and poetic and touched me so deeply, it's making me want to exercise my literary muscles. Rather than struggle to come up with new material, I'm pulling from my stock pile of old stuff...
September 11, 2005
"I loved him. He was my best friend!" The first time we heard this sentiment it was at the untimely demise of a tick that had been extracted from our eldest son's scalp. His younger brother was mourning the loss of the first family pet. His brother had fed that tick and nurtured it with his own blood. As the tick circled the dark watery tunnel of the commode, we bade him farewell. And then he was gone. Our middle son knew he'd never find another friend quite like this tick, a blood brother in the truest sense of the word. We prayed for the tick, thanked Jesus for the tick's presence in our lives, we told stories of how the tick would be happily reunited with it's mother and father and all of its tick siblings. Nothing could console our middle son. Something special happened that day between that tick and our middle son. A bond was formed and our 2 year old son was forever changed (or, even though he wasn't the one with the blood sucking tick-he was manifesting early symptoms of Lyme's disease).
Recently our middle son found a grub worm in the back yard. This was his new best friend. No matter that he had caused a near fatal crush injury to its dorsal half. His soul mate had been resurrected in the form of the common grub worm. As he rushed to show me his new discovery, I could see the joy in his eyes and his plans for their future together; They would take up residence together. Our middle son in his bed and the grub worm in a plastic cup sitting on his shelf above him. The worm would accompany our son to bath time, ride shotgun next to his carseat in the minivan. They'd be together forever, or at least until his dessicated carcass found its way to the dustpan and out to Monday morning trash pick-up. Our son eagerly waited to show his father his new invertebrate friend. His father was not keen to give free room and board to the grub worm and obviously was oblivious to the complexity of their, middle son and worm's, relationship. Lee had no compassion towards displaced grubworms, but acquiesed and allowed the worm to reside in a non-disposable drinking cup. He even put some water in the cup, at our son's request. As middle son ran across the yard to show his new worm habitat to his brother and sister, the worm was catapulted out of his new home. Just like that, in the flash of a moment, life was forever changed and the grub worm was gone. This time, middle son was able to reach deep within himself and pull through, launching the cup full of water, the former worm abode, into the air and baptizing his brother and sister.
This past Friday the kids and I drove north of town to an orchard. Lee was at home with a bad case of the shits that he had acquired subsequent to helping Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Along with Toby, a yellow lab, and a flock of guineas, we were the only people at the orchard. Before we could pick persimons and jujube's, my oldest son insisted on discussing a dog's life span and the neutrality of Toby's gender based on his lack of testicles. Finally his mind was able to wrap around the concept of involuntary emasculinization and we set out to harvest bounty. After about 15 minutes of intense gathering, it was time to break for lunch. While eating, a hummingbird landed near where we sat for our picnic. The bird was not quick enough to escape Toby and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to instruct the kids on the theory of 'Survival of the Fittest'. In the best Marlon Perkins voice I could muster I began my narration, "Watch children as the dog grips the bird in his teeth. See the bird's fragile bones shatter in the dog's teeth." Just before, "Look at how the bird glides down the dog's throat", in a miraculous twist of fate, the bird hopped out of Toby's mouth and onto a plastic chair. While the oldest son, youngest daughter and I went to go shake more jujubes out of the trees, middle son decided he needed to stand vigil at the bird's side. Daughter was scared to death of the dog. She knew that after all those years on a chain with those guineas just beyond his reach, Toby had finally tasted blood and if you put a few feathers on her, she might well be a guinea in the dog's mind. As middle son stood shiva, he decided to construct an altar for the bird; 2 towels were wrapped around it. But this configuration was not quite sacred enough, a 3rd towel needed to be draped on top of the bird and pressure, ever so slight, needed to be applied to the bird. As the bird entered into its afterlife (with middle son's assistance), daughter, believing the supernatural to be possible, lifted the bird by its bloody wings in the hope that it would take flight. And we all appreciated the moment for bringing new meaning and clarity to the circle of life."
This reminds me of the most recent loss in our household...Dottie...she was a victim of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Dottie had been left in the care of my husband while the kids and I headed out of town after the storm. My mother in law offered to house the mouse in our evacuation (and we did have an emergency mouse evacuation plan-she was to be loaded up into a tupperwear container with holes), but since the urgency of the moment had passed and truthfully, because 3 kids, a dog and a mouse for 5 hours in the car was more than I could handle, I opted to leave the mouse in the capable hands of my husband. The day that we are to return home he calls and says, "You're never gonna believe this (when ever anyone starts a statement like this, you know they are lying about something), but when I went to check on Dottie this morning, she was stiff as a board. She was fine just yesterday. I don't know what happened. I fed her and gave her water." Long story short, a replacement mouse was purchased before we returned home. The replacement mouse was a male and smelled like urine and had red eyes (original Dottie had black eyes), but the kids didn't seem to notice. Dottie #2 lasted a day and a half before my daughter assasinated her. If it is possible to be stunned to death, this is how Dottie #2 came to his demise. Either that or it was a crush injury (inside the vise grip of a 4 year old girl's hand). Upon learning that Dottie #2 (which the kids still thought was Dottie #1) was dead and gone, there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Misery. That pretty sums up the collective emotion. Or maybe it was heartache. Much time was spent eulogizing Dottie. Sometimes something will happen and all of the sudden Dottie will be remembered, "I remember when Dottie used to eat her food" or "I remember when Dottie used to sleep in her plastic cup" or everyone's favorite memory, "I remember when Dottie used to run on her wheel". Such bittersweet memories...all the more precious now that we have 2 new mice, Piggy and Snowflake.
September 11, 2005
"I loved him. He was my best friend!" The first time we heard this sentiment it was at the untimely demise of a tick that had been extracted from our eldest son's scalp. His younger brother was mourning the loss of the first family pet. His brother had fed that tick and nurtured it with his own blood. As the tick circled the dark watery tunnel of the commode, we bade him farewell. And then he was gone. Our middle son knew he'd never find another friend quite like this tick, a blood brother in the truest sense of the word. We prayed for the tick, thanked Jesus for the tick's presence in our lives, we told stories of how the tick would be happily reunited with it's mother and father and all of its tick siblings. Nothing could console our middle son. Something special happened that day between that tick and our middle son. A bond was formed and our 2 year old son was forever changed (or, even though he wasn't the one with the blood sucking tick-he was manifesting early symptoms of Lyme's disease).
Recently our middle son found a grub worm in the back yard. This was his new best friend. No matter that he had caused a near fatal crush injury to its dorsal half. His soul mate had been resurrected in the form of the common grub worm. As he rushed to show me his new discovery, I could see the joy in his eyes and his plans for their future together; They would take up residence together. Our middle son in his bed and the grub worm in a plastic cup sitting on his shelf above him. The worm would accompany our son to bath time, ride shotgun next to his carseat in the minivan. They'd be together forever, or at least until his dessicated carcass found its way to the dustpan and out to Monday morning trash pick-up. Our son eagerly waited to show his father his new invertebrate friend. His father was not keen to give free room and board to the grub worm and obviously was oblivious to the complexity of their, middle son and worm's, relationship. Lee had no compassion towards displaced grubworms, but acquiesed and allowed the worm to reside in a non-disposable drinking cup. He even put some water in the cup, at our son's request. As middle son ran across the yard to show his new worm habitat to his brother and sister, the worm was catapulted out of his new home. Just like that, in the flash of a moment, life was forever changed and the grub worm was gone. This time, middle son was able to reach deep within himself and pull through, launching the cup full of water, the former worm abode, into the air and baptizing his brother and sister.
This past Friday the kids and I drove north of town to an orchard. Lee was at home with a bad case of the shits that he had acquired subsequent to helping Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Along with Toby, a yellow lab, and a flock of guineas, we were the only people at the orchard. Before we could pick persimons and jujube's, my oldest son insisted on discussing a dog's life span and the neutrality of Toby's gender based on his lack of testicles. Finally his mind was able to wrap around the concept of involuntary emasculinization and we set out to harvest bounty. After about 15 minutes of intense gathering, it was time to break for lunch. While eating, a hummingbird landed near where we sat for our picnic. The bird was not quick enough to escape Toby and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to instruct the kids on the theory of 'Survival of the Fittest'. In the best Marlon Perkins voice I could muster I began my narration, "Watch children as the dog grips the bird in his teeth. See the bird's fragile bones shatter in the dog's teeth." Just before, "Look at how the bird glides down the dog's throat", in a miraculous twist of fate, the bird hopped out of Toby's mouth and onto a plastic chair. While the oldest son, youngest daughter and I went to go shake more jujubes out of the trees, middle son decided he needed to stand vigil at the bird's side. Daughter was scared to death of the dog. She knew that after all those years on a chain with those guineas just beyond his reach, Toby had finally tasted blood and if you put a few feathers on her, she might well be a guinea in the dog's mind. As middle son stood shiva, he decided to construct an altar for the bird; 2 towels were wrapped around it. But this configuration was not quite sacred enough, a 3rd towel needed to be draped on top of the bird and pressure, ever so slight, needed to be applied to the bird. As the bird entered into its afterlife (with middle son's assistance), daughter, believing the supernatural to be possible, lifted the bird by its bloody wings in the hope that it would take flight. And we all appreciated the moment for bringing new meaning and clarity to the circle of life."
This reminds me of the most recent loss in our household...Dottie...she was a victim of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Dottie had been left in the care of my husband while the kids and I headed out of town after the storm. My mother in law offered to house the mouse in our evacuation (and we did have an emergency mouse evacuation plan-she was to be loaded up into a tupperwear container with holes), but since the urgency of the moment had passed and truthfully, because 3 kids, a dog and a mouse for 5 hours in the car was more than I could handle, I opted to leave the mouse in the capable hands of my husband. The day that we are to return home he calls and says, "You're never gonna believe this (when ever anyone starts a statement like this, you know they are lying about something), but when I went to check on Dottie this morning, she was stiff as a board. She was fine just yesterday. I don't know what happened. I fed her and gave her water." Long story short, a replacement mouse was purchased before we returned home. The replacement mouse was a male and smelled like urine and had red eyes (original Dottie had black eyes), but the kids didn't seem to notice. Dottie #2 lasted a day and a half before my daughter assasinated her. If it is possible to be stunned to death, this is how Dottie #2 came to his demise. Either that or it was a crush injury (inside the vise grip of a 4 year old girl's hand). Upon learning that Dottie #2 (which the kids still thought was Dottie #1) was dead and gone, there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Misery. That pretty sums up the collective emotion. Or maybe it was heartache. Much time was spent eulogizing Dottie. Sometimes something will happen and all of the sudden Dottie will be remembered, "I remember when Dottie used to eat her food" or "I remember when Dottie used to sleep in her plastic cup" or everyone's favorite memory, "I remember when Dottie used to run on her wheel". Such bittersweet memories...all the more precious now that we have 2 new mice, Piggy and Snowflake.
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