blogging

Ranting Mamas


UPDATE: This post got me unfriended on Facebook by one of the mommies who inspired it. I’ll leave you to guess which one.

There is so much about the mommy blogosphere that I am out of step with. I don’t worship at the Buddha bellies of my offspring (who are too old to be Gerber baby round and Downy fresh anyway). I don’t believe motherhood fulfilled me in a Frodo-esque LOTR’s type of way. I am not terribly concerned about how much time other women put in or out of their homes. Blogging for the trinkets of the marketplace doesn’t interest me and, generally speaking, my husband is for snuggling, bragging about and thanking God for (if I inclined in that direction and mostly I don’t anymore).

I can rant with the best of them. I have ranted. My dear readers will happily step up and attest to it, but I will disclaim for honesty’s sake anyway.

But  there are some places that the mommies go that I just don’t get or can’t follow along with like these recent examples.

The woman who greatly embellished her recent TSA encounter for instance. Being no fan of heightened security in any of its forms in the United States, I feel her frustration, but she didn’t really tell the truth. In fact she was so over the top that the TSA actually deigned to defend itself in the form of releasing the actual footage of the incident the woman, Nic White, ranted about on her blog.

And there was the woman who went ballistic because her honor student daughter’s feelings were hurt when she was correctly busted for a dress code violation. While I agree that the VP in question needed schooling in bedside manner – and for the record not being polite is almost a prerequisite for being a VP in most of my experience – her child was in the wrong, and the fact that schools have big issues to take care of these days doesn’t mean they should ignore things like dress code violations even when the offender is a good kid with excellent grades. It’s really beside the point.

In my experience, far too many “good” kids are taught that their academics and overall nice personalities somehow put them above the rules that lesser children/students are held to. That’s simply not real world. What is real world are superiors who blow up at you for minor things out of the clear blue even though you are a good employee. Or being pulled over for being 5 miles over the legal limit even though you were being passed right and left and are an exemplary driver. And generally not being immune from the occasional self-esteem ding even though it’s widely acknowledged that you are so incredibly wonderful.

The first rant example apparently backfired to the point that Ms.White had to close comments. The second resulted in a disturbing yet typical hen-fest of sympathy where almost no one bothered to point out that perhaps being an honor student did not exempt a child from the rules that the trailer park set are subject to and on a common sense level, no one held forth with the radical idea that summer wear is as inappropriate to the school setting as it is in the workplace because the way things are going economically most of our kids are going to be wearing some version of a work smock anyway.

“I don’t get it,” I said to Rob. “When I venture into the mom’s realm, I read about women who find motherhood so overwhelming and under-stimulating that they need to drink daily, shop excessively, pop antidepressants and Xanax like Pez and believe that husbands are snark targets for the enjoyment of their readers.”

He didn’t comment. He didn’t have to. As I have noted before, I am not a mommy-blogger and therefore I don’t understand.

The Hangover


Generally I need a holiday to recover from our holidays. Especially when air travel and family are involved. It’s not that it was an awful trip or a bad time. Even with the transportation snafu’s*, nothing came up that wasn’t manageable. Inconvenient, exhausting and enough to make a person question the various intelligence levels of those who thought saving the airlines after 9-11 was a good idea – but the whole thing was very doable. The family experience was one of the smoothest and most enjoyable I can remember.

The trouble is that I usually don’t get a break from my routine when we travel. My routine follows me. Part of it is that I write constantly. Even if it is just in my head. Another issue is food preparation. My allergies are worse than they were because of my avoidance habits. Exposures, even tiny ones, cause instant reactions. This means I do the cooking and at Mom’s I am cooking for a minimum of four and most of the time twice that. As an example, I made pizza on Sunday evening. Four pizzas plus a pan of bread sticks (which I cheated on and used Pillsbury despite not really being able to eat them myself). I did this after a three hour drive back from the wedding brunch in Pella and while dealing with Dee and her cousins and nOne’s girlfriend (a rather pleasant girl who is sufficiently smitten with nOne to help him watch his two little cousins.)

I also do laundry. When will I learn to underpack when a washer and dryer are on site? We take along too many articles of clothing (in part because the weather is unpredictable this time of year) and then I end up washing anyway (mostly because of the destroyed and soaked luggage thing this time).

I also clean. Mom complains that she can only clean so much and then she is merely cleaning clean stuff, but I think she could spend more time on the bathroom and on things like sweeping, vacuuming and possibly overcoming her resistance to the idea of a kitchen waste can as opposed to a plastic sack in the sink. Seriously. But I have always cleaned when I am at my folks. It was my way of avoiding the ever present tension that went resentfully unspoken. And it is because, despite my being an indifferent clutter person at best, obvious grime on counters, in sinks and bathtubs and on eating surfaces grosses me out.

“You’re such a good little scullery maid,” Rob remarked at one point.

“Call me Cinderella,” I said. Really, do.

We arrived home to pouring rain, wild winds and a cat in full meltdown mode, and there was unpacking to do, laundry to start and supper to make (bean and veggie soup with bread sticks I had made before we left and froze). We were all in bed and asleep by nine. And we are all still dragging today. Dehydrated, headachy, and wishing I could have slept in, there is the grocery to hit and Ashtanga in the afternoon plus Dee’s new winter coat needs to be washed so she can start wearing it. I put her on the bus in layers that might keep her warm enough today but won’t suffice for too many days longer. It is fall on the brink of winter here.

*The last leg of the trip was mainly delays but forty minutes here and twenty there add up and weigh a person’s patience down. I didn’t crack though. Good on me.

Feeling the Love


If you saw my early morning Facebook status, you would have been heartened to learn that our flight out of Cedar Rapids on Northwest was on time. Seconds after posting that status, the flight was delayed by an hour due to weather. Talk about inviting the jinx into the mix for the day.

Our connecting flight is later today, so if we manage to escape Iowa and arrive in Minneapolis by noon or so, we should make Edmonton later today. If not, and given the general crappiness of our air travel experience thus far, the next flight to Edmonton is not until 9PM. I have taken that flight before with just Dee. By the time one disembarks, clears Customs, collects baggage and makes the 45 minute drive home – it’s pretty fucking late.

Oh, did that not sound Zen/chipper?

I am actually quite grounded (emotionally and philosophically as well as literally) this morning. At some point – this week hopefully – we will be back in Canada. And the next trip to Iowa will be by vehicle or we’ll fly into Chicago and drive. Cedar Rapids – despite the free wi-fi which is aiding my mood considerably and is far more progressive than the airport in Minneapolis – is a Bermuda Triangle. Flights simply vaporize. Even now there is a line stretching from the Delta counter several feet deep with travelers who are probably well screwed in terms of making it anywhere but Minneapolis today. Unless Delta is busing.  Last Thursday they were simply loading up Greyhounds with displaced passengers and sent them on their hours delayed way. By bus. As if they do that kind of thing all the time. Which is an alarming thought.

For those wondering, the TSA experience was tolerable. We were even complimented by security in Minneapolis for our knowledge, speed and our ability to get out-of-the-way of others. It surprises me the number of people who aren’t prepared when they hit the first “checkpoint” on the gauntlet. There was a couple in front of us who didn’t have their ID’s pulled from the plastic sleeves in their wallets, held up the line while the TSA personnel walked them through the carry-on screening (how can you live in the police state which is America and not know that shoes come off and laptops come out?). Then they blocked the lane while they redressed and packed on the other side. The male actually had his boot up on the rollers tying them while Dee and I stood, shoes on and packed, behind him.

And the TSA was not it’s usually frowny, humorless self. We got a few smiles and a “thank you,  have a nice day” although the last bit may have been sadistic.

I am afraid that Rob and Dee are losing their humor. Dee is insanely exhausted. A weekend with Grandma and both cousins always means late nights and early mornings. The mattress situation (small, hard and somewhat lumpy) left Rob near sleepless too. Neither one of them functions optimally in travel situations sans sleep. I am still brimming with optimism that should last me until we are stranded again for the night. I can’t really say yet where that might be. I do know that without a vehicle it will suck beyond my ability to articulate properly unless profanity is involved.

At least there is tea and free wi-fi, which is only civilized.