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Awkward


That’s my daughter’s favorite phrase. Everything is “awkward” from her nearly eight year old perspective.

We shop at the Safeway and like many chains, they have a discount card that lures people in and promotes loyalty by tossing bones here and there in the form of special member promotions and discounts at the gas bar. Rob gave me Shelley’s card to use after we moved in with the assurance that we’d get it replaced later as it had her name on it.

It was a hectic time. Moving from Iowa to Alberta. Getting married. Unpacking and packing and enrolling Dee in school and applying for residency and now it’s nearly three years later and I am still shopping with Shelley’s card at the Safeway.

And I don’t think about it very often. Oh, sometimes when a clerk makes a scrunchy bunny face at the card and my credit card but thinks better of asking why the names don’t match before handing it back. On those occasions I think “oh yeah, the names don’t match” or “whew, dodge that awkward conversation”. Well, not so much “conversation” as painful monologue because there is no conversation after the words “yeah, that’s my husband’s late wife’s card”. Although there probably is quite the conversation after I’ve left.

Today there a woman was being trained on the register by a clerk I am familiar with who smiled her recognition as she bagged the groceries.

“Are you a new club member?” the trainee asked.

“Excuse me?” I replied. Because I forgot about the name thing.

“Your club card has a different name on it.”

And instead of saying oh … nothing … or agreeing or anything else than what I did, I said,

“Oh, that. It’s my husband’s late wife’s card. We just haven’t gotten around to changing it.”

Silence.

She hands the card back and looks at the other employee, the one I sorta know but who probably didn’t know this, and she is looking wide-eyed back.

Awkward.

Very, very awkward.

Smoke Means Fire


Somewhere anyway. Not here. But about 30 minutes north of us a forest/brush fire went rogue yesterday and the air is hazy and distinctly firepitty in our little hamlet today.

On the possibly the warmest day of the month, our windows are as sealed as they can be and we have no central air to off-set the stuffy or the warm.

My lungs have been aching all weekend between the smoke and the neighborhood grass mowing frenzy. I should be used to it, but this asthma business actually gets harder to wrap my zen around as time goes on.

Between the wasps, bees, pollens, dust and now smoke, I am holed up in the nicest of weather in an effort to not get sick and die. Well, just not get sick. I probably won’t die though a sting could be an issue if my epi-pen isn’t handy. They are so cumbersome and not the tiniest bit attractive.

In case you’ve been missing me, I was here, here and here last week, but mostly I have been scaling back again. I mentioned on my FB status that I wanted to pull away near completely from the Net – again – but I was prevailed upon to rethink that by a few wiser heads than my own. I am going to try to take a bit of a break for the summer though – finish a few big projects and plot out my employment prospects for the fall.

Today, it’s off to the consumer hell of Costco and preparing for soccer – I’m snack mom tonight though Rob says that if it’s too smoky, I’ll have to stay home. Can’t risk a full blown asthma attack days before a training weekend.

Happy Monday, people!!

“Single Ladies” Are Not Seven Year Old Girls


My objections to the only slightly less morally questionable than pageants world of dance festivals has been clearly illustrated by the following video of a seven-year old group of hip hop dancers in a recent competition:

The company YAK that distributed the video has forced YouTube to remove the video but you can view some of it on the GMA link below.

Not a single group of girls at my daughter’s dance school is even a tenth that talented and I am including the older teenagers. It’s part genetic gifting on behalf of the universe and part internal combustion propelling one to work it, but … where the hell were their parents when those costumes were handed out?

And seriously, seven-year olds shaking it like their dinner was at stake?

You can argue the skill it no doubt takes to perform the dance, but it will in no way detract from the fact that whoever let those little girls dress like hookers and get up on that stage to grind out what adults would be willing to admit was the softer side of soft porn if the dancers were grown women has no internal compass where right and wrong is concerned.

Sorry.

Normally the scantily clad ends when their tummies lose the round baby fat look and starts up again at late pre-teen. I haven’t personally witnessed girls in the 6 to 10 range so tarted up, but I am not surprised either. Just feeling vindicated that my spidey sense about the whole “dance” culture is accurate and glad that my seven-year-old is losing interest in favor of soccer and yoga.

I was relieved to read that web reaction was generally uneasy to appalled.

But who are their parents? Surely at least one of them thought this was really wrong? Even if they didn’t speak up too loudly? Of course, the dance mom culture being what it is – sheep-like and creepily willing to go along with ideas and demands that I am pretty sure non-dance parents would roll their eyes at and refuse to do – I am not too surprised.

We are a sick, sad culture. Hypocrites who moan about go-go dancing tots while feeding our children’s dreams of dancing near naked on stage with our own addiction to Dancing with the Stars*.

Age appropriateness.  When did that become passe?

Update: My friend Alicia wrote an excellent bit of commentary on this at her blog. She brings up the valid point of parental responsibility in teaching our children how/when to say “no”. She also points out something that hadn’t occurred to me. Music is internalized. We become the music – taking on its intention – when we sing and dance. Think about that minute.

Additional Update: Two of the parents of the girls – who are eight and nine year olds and not seven – appeared on GMA to defend themselves. They talk about context and that the performance wasn’t meant to be seen by anyone outside family and friends and other competitors. They also fell back on the tired excuse of “but it’s pop culture and everyone else is doing it”. Naive, blinkered, and typical of the kinds of parents I ran across all the time when I was teaching  in public school. They never question or consider the long term consequences.

*Not my addiction, mind you, I watched it with my mom, BIL and sister, DNOS, over Spring Break and was puzzled, and weirded out by the way flat screens make everyone look puffy in a partied too much on the weekend kind of way.