11.29.2012

Determined.

Yesterday, mid-way through my morning, I realized that I dreamed that I was having a very determined conversation with Jeremiah. Then I realized (with a certain amount of dread) that it might not have been a dream. You all know how much I like to talk in my sleep and have night terrors.

So I called Jeremiah.

E: By chance was I talking in my sleep last night?
J: Mmmm...Holy crap! Yes!
E: And my topic of conversation was...?
J: I have no clue. I was like, "WTF?!" (Except he actually said it.) You did not make any sense at all. And you would not stop talking.
E: Yeah, I woke up feeling so determined. Like I had tried to accomplish something fantastic in my sleep.
J: Well, you did not. I told you that you were not awake. Over and over again. Eventually you gave up.
E: I'm a quitter. Damn it.


So that made me laugh for awhile. Because my sleep is disrupted by Jeremiah's snoring on a regular basis. I am happy to return the interrupted sleep favor.


Also, you know what? I was getting into my car (I shall not be telling you where I was, but I certainly was not at work. No sir.) and this girl across the street was yelling at her son, who was maybe two. He was toddling his way towards the road and she was yelling, "Get your ass back here!" and when she caught him she asked him "What the hell were you thinking?".

First of all, please know that when I told you all to talk to your children, this is not the type of conversation to which I was referring.

Secondly, honey? Read a parenting book. That kid is not thinking ahead about dangers of the street. Plus, it will tell you not to swear at your toddler. Any parenting book. Give it a try.


11.15.2012

Craptacular Day.

Let me tell you why today is sort of sucky.

1. My neighbor decided last night to leave his dog out. Barking nonstop. At about three. I am pretty sure I saw Jeremiah cry and throw a mini-tantrum as he called animal control. The situation was pretty bad. It lasted about an hour. Houses here are so close together that for the first few minutes of barking hell I actually thought the dog was IN THE BEDROOM. I was all, "What the effff? Did we get a new dog?"

2. I keep getting all these emails. And they are HILARIOUSLY degrading and condescending and passive aggressive. Hilarious in the sense that if I did not laugh, I would cry. I really wish I could share them with you all, because you seem like the type of people that could appreciate emails like that. But you know, ethics. Maybe I will forward them to myself so in the future I can look back and say, "Wow. That sucked."

3. I pulled a butt muscle while working out last night and it is slightly awkward walking around, rubbing my butt. Typically at work, other people are touching my butt. Naughty teachers.

4. I can't stop thinking of the emails. Maybe I just tell you about one of the situations? It makes me giggle just thinking about it. I'll get back to you.

5. I have been having horrible dreams. Three times within the last month I have dreamed of tornadoes. It is crazy, but my main concern is for the safety of my dogs and cats. Jeremiah can apparently take care of himself. Anyone who can analyze dreams for me, go right ahead. I am thinking the tornado signifies the disarray and chaos in my life right now. I also had a nightmare about my brother and ended up texting him and schooling him and then I was like, "Shit. That was a mom thing to do." Not very little sister-y of me.

6. I don't have a sixth thing, but I don't like odd numbers.

11.13.2012

Thank You

This weekend when Jeremiah and I were at our local park, a huge amount of Veterans were gearing up for a 5k. There were men, women, young, and old. It was great to see them celebrated.

I am going to be honest. I don't think I ever thanked either of my grandpas for their service. And that makes me feel bad. They were in my thoughts as I watched the older gentlemen walk around the park.

In addition, I would like to send a belated thank you to Jeremiah's dad (thank you, Frank) and anyone else who has served our country.

I appreciate it.

11.07.2012

Hello! My Name is Childless.

 This weekend I was reading on Facebook a friend whose children had been reprimanded by a stranger in public. I don't know the details, so I am not really writing about the incident. What I am writing about is something that I have not been able to let go of since I read the responses to her post yesterday.

Someone (Okay. It was her husband. I was not going to mention it, but it got pretty ugly and at this point I am so disappointed in everything that played out that I do not give poo.) had responded that the reprimander, an older woman, was "a bitter, old, childless woman". Anger coursed through me and it would not stop. Has not stop.

To use childless as an insult?

To suggest that anyone without children must be bitter? My life is less fulfilling than someone who has children? I don't even understand this.

Not every woman has to have children to feel complete. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous.

Not every woman should be a parent. There are plenty of examples of these women in the news. After my accidental "trip" on prescription meds, I doubt my own parenting abilities. I fear I am a little nutty.

In addition, what about the women who have had children and lost them? The women who want to have (or wanted to have) children but could not? To them I imagine that being called childless is a slap in the face. The cruelest of comments.

I responded politely but with an obvious dislike of using the word childless as an insult. The response? That I think too much and that obviously any woman that would reprimand children that were not hers in public could NOT have children of her own (I mean, OBVIOUSLY).

Because all you parents raise your children in the same way? Because parents take an oath to never speak up in public when another person's children misbehave? Was there a secret handshake involved? Man, I am NOT pissed about being childless, but I AM pissed that I missed the secret handshake. I LOVE secret handshakes.

 I responded just as politely as I had the first time but this time suggested that perhaps the woman had indeed raised children of her own, but simply did not agree with the parenting style that she was witnessing. Was she in the right? Maybe not. But again? You are still being insulting. And to assume that everyone thinks you are the most awesome parent and that you never make mistakes and everyone wants to parent just.like.you?

Is just wrong.

Regardless of how you look at it - calling someone bitter and childless is defensive and insulting. It's a shame that some of us can't just say "Whoops. I did not mean to offend anyone."

Instead the response back was this: Is calling someone dogless if they don't have a dog insulting?

No, and neither is just saying that someone without child is childless. It's an insult when you pair it with all those other words.

At this point, he decided that I was a bitter woman (I would like to point out that if Jeremiah EVER called any of my friends names or made insulting remarks it would get ugly. Not that he ever would.) and I was just jealous. And that I was what was wrong with the entire world - people that made everyone else walk on eggshells. It was a shame that this value of respecting other people's privacy was not taught anymore. I should not read her posts any more and next time her name pops up on my screen, I should just keep scrolling and mind my own business.

I responded by saying that if you post something on Facebook, you lose your right to tell me to mind my own business. And then I told him I would work on minding my own business though, if he would work on being less insulting and stop name calling. It was a shame that no one taught their children that anymore, I said, because it would make my job a lot easier. I also told him it was a shame that two adults could not disagree without one of them making it ugly.

And then I unfriended my friend. Because seriously? Even if a friend of mine was completely out of line (which I was not) and rude (again, I was not) I would still have Jeremiah lay off or delete the post. But she just let her husband call me jealous and bitter and everything else.

He also said he wished he had been there to give that woman a piece of her mind. Like, in the woman's room?  My thought to this (which I did not say) was, Can she (my friend) not stand up for herself? And why do you need to yell at a woman? Too afraid to stand up to a man who might beat the shit out of your wimpy ass? So you go after women instead? That right there is a tough guy. Oh, wait. I mean an asshole.

Sad.

So he can have my friend from high school who apparently does NOT think too much and does not speak up for herself and her friends.

P.S. Edited to add: All the while he was attacking me, he and his wife posted about an adult bible study they were hosting at their house that weekend. That's really all I have to say about that. 

11.05.2012

Sedona

I had friends visit.

The other night, after working until a little after six (which was leaving early for me) I got to go to the airport to pick up my friend (and college roommate), Sara. We had not seen each other since a meeting in Chicago SIX YEARS ago.

Holy crap.

If that was not exciting enough, on the way home, we stopped and picked up my other college roommate and dear friend, Rachel. Plus her babies. She used to live here in Phoenix but moved back to Minnesota, so I had not seen her in a year.

I could have peed with excitement.

There are pictures that I took of the babies and a group shot of all of us, but I am not going to post those right now.

What I am going to share are pictures from our trip to Sedona.

Sedona is a few hours (depending on who is driving) north and west of Phoenix. It is wonderful. Jeremiah and I have gone up several times for hiking. This time we decided to try a Pink Jeep Tour. By this time, we'd already dropped Rachel and the kids off at her sister's house, so it was just the three of us.

Let me preface this, picture stealers, with a warning. Take my pictures? I will kick your butt. Or I will have Jeremiah do it. Or it's an empty threat but please don't take my pictures. It's rude.

 We stopped at a vista point. The sun was rising. I was driving. I seriously drove the whole time. This is impressive NOT because I dislike driving or because I am bad at it or anything like that. It is impressive because mountain driving scares the shit out of me.
 When we got out at the point, it was cold. For people that live in a city where the current temperature is about 85 and has not been below that since maybe March, it was much appreciated.  There was a better picture but somebody had trouble with auto-focus. Jeremiah.
Here is the view where you first see the mountains. You come around a corner and BOOM! gorgeous views everywhere. Seriously, it actually takes my breath away.

Here's the worst part of driving somewhere spectacular. You do not get to stare and marvel. So instead I was like, "Somebody say ooh and ahh! Say it now!" But not everyone was quite as expressive as I tend to be, and there was a lot of quiet marveling. I hope.
 We signed a form in case of accidental death and I whispered to Jeremiah: Oh, my god. Accidental death? What the hell?!

But then I signed and got our discounted price and then I mentally played the game "Who do I NOT want on the Jeep with me?" There were a couple of high maintenance soccer moms that I heard discussing soccer mom-ish stuff that I would have been cool with riding separate from and also a woman who, in my opinion, was treating her child horribly. And giving him juice. Because that is what you want on a two hour trip into the wild. A kid that needs to pee.

Even though I played silently and by myself, as we headed towards our Jeep, Jeremiah whispered that he had known I was playing. He even knew who I did not want on the Jeep. He's a sneaky guy, that Jeremiah.
 I took pictures of Sara, even though she said she hates having her picture taken and did I NOT remember that from college? I am going to say that no. I do not remember. And just keep taking pictures. So there, Sara.

 Way to photo bomb, Jeremiah.


 The guide posed us in these shots. I kind of dig them.

 Oh, and you know the mistletoe that people hang during the holidays? Apparently it is invasive and kills other plants by mimicking the host plant and then strangling it. So the above plants are BOTH mistletoe, but one was hanging on one tree (evergreen, I think) and the other mistletoe was hanging on something else. Strangling and killing both trees. Think about that the next time you kiss someone underneath it.
 Okay. So in this picture, there is a white line on the butte hundreds of feet up in the air. People actually BIKE THE LINE. I am not kidding. Watch this video.



Then from the biker's POV:


At first I was like, I don't think the guy is wearing a helmet. But in reality, if you fall, it probably does not matter if you are wearing one or not. You are already throwing caution to the wind.

 I went down the rest of this hill that does not look like a hill on my butt. Everyone was like, "You can do it." and they gave me much more credit than I deserved. They obviously do not know my gene pool (coughfallinginparkinglotinFrancecough) or that I recently got stuck in my mini fridge. So I slid down on my ass.
 And then we looked over the edge and I did not get very close. But it was close enough.
 We got to do some steep stuff in the Jeep.



 On the way out of Sedona we stopped to see the church in the side of the mountain. I forget what it is called and I am tired of recounting the trip so I am not looking it up. It is impressive and I like it mucho. It was designed by one of Frank Lloyd Wright's students, apparently.
 Our last stop before our pie stop was Montezuma's Castle, which is also built into the mountain but in this instance, hundreds of years ago. I kind of wanted to go in it. But you can't. Suck.
A creek goes right by the castle, which is part of the reason they built it there, according to the signs I read along the path.

That was our trip to Sedona. I had a great time and it was fun getting away from the city. Only at one point did I lose my cool driving, and that was because as the driver, NO ONE was helping me navigate the tourist laden streets of Sedona while I was going through NINE roundabouts (which I kicked ass at, by the way). Ahem.

I just told Jeremiah that I wrote this part and he was all, "That's real nice. All you remember is the bad stuff." I prefer to look at it as a celebration of me surviving mountain driving and only getting ticked ONE time. Baby steps. Because I mentioned all the wonderful things that happened on the trip and only one minor icky thing.

Oh, yeah. We stopped for pie at a place voted one of the top ten in the country - a little hole in the wall place about thirty minutes outside of Phoenix. It was pretty darn good. I wanted rhubarb but sadly it was not in the cards. So instead we got coconut cream, chocolate, and peach. Yum.

I also want to add this - it was incredible to see friends from so long ago. It was almost as if no time had passed at all. We were giggling and remembering the funny/stupid stuff we'd done ten years ago. And making new memories. Love it.