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Current event
A white woman as Secretary of State? That’s so retro!
I actually like this appointment. Despite the fact that Secretary of State is a career-killer, I can’t imagine that Hillary has given up her dream of being POTUS someday. Which means that she will still be mercenary and politic, which is how I like my Hillary. Good old Hillary.
Thanksgiving report
It is my pleasure to thank my sister, Bythelbs, for graciously hosting me and my fabulous coterie over the Thanksgiving holiday. I want to take this opportunity also to apologize for anything we might have broken. Not that I know of anything we might have broken. ::shifty eyes:: I know nothing. I was hopped-up on Robitussin the whole time. Okay, for the last 12 hours. Anything broken in the last 12 hours of our stay, I plead ignorance. Did I mention that her apple pie was delicious?
I got to play Guitar Hero for the first time. I discovered, much to my opposite-of-surprise, that I suck at Guitar Hero. Also, that should I ever come in possession of a Wii, I would become even less productive than usual because I would always be playing Guitar Hero instead of doing something productive. You see what a weekend of Guitar Hero has done to my writing skillz alone? No wonder I blew off NaNoWriMo. (Yes, I am blaming my poor performance over the course of an entire month on a couple hours of playing Guitar Hero on Friday. That is my way. Some things will never change.)
New Elvis phrases
“Don’t poop in your underpants.”
“Don’t flush your underpants.”
“Don’t cut my eyebrows.”
An overheard
Princess Zurg: Why do they call it “the Book of Esther” if Esther didn’t write it?
Madhousewife: Because it’s about Esther.
Sugar Daddy: Why do they call it “Genesis,” when Phil Collins had nothing to do with it?
Mad: It was one of Peter Gabriel’s, before he left the band.
WELCOME TO DECEMBER, SUCKAHS!
My recital last Thursday went very well, though I felt a tad let down when it was over. I had worked so hard, and it was so much fun, I really wanted to do it more than once. I’m sure my husband is glad that I’m not doing it more than once. He was supportive during the six weeks of extra rehearsals, but as he put it, “I’m happy to support you, but I’ll be happier when I don’t have to support you anymore.” So there it is. My moment in the spotlight is over, and my husband doesn’t have to support me again until next spring. Congratulations, honey!
I think all the complaining I did about the long, long, looooonnnnnng drive to my sister’s house in Washington served as some kind of pre-emptive strike, as I encountered absolutely no traffic either to or from my destination. Not in Tacoma, not in Seattle. On Memorial Day weekend! I must have been doing the Lord’s work, because the other side of the freeway was a parking lot, but on my side it was like the parting of the Red Sea. I made each trip in less than four-and-a-half hours, and I wasn’t even speeding (much). Fate loves nothing better than to prove me wrong (or more specifically, to prove me a big fat sissy whiner).
About one thing I was not wrong, though: Girlfriend napped in the car and was subsequently up all night, both Friday and Monday. There was no joy in being right on that count, alas. It was a small price to pay, though, for the three of us had a wonderful weekend–especially Princess Zurg, who had the time of her life playing with all of her cousins.
Sugar Daddy asked me what we all did this weekend, and I’m not sure what he was expecting me to report. When my family gets together, it is sort of an event in and of itself. In fact, this is the first time all of my siblings and I have gotten together since my wedding eleven years ago. (At least, I think my siblings were all at my wedding. That day’s kind of a blur for me.) We all fell into our usual patterns: my older sister cooked a lot, my younger sister helped her, my youngest sister read a book, and I dealt with my needy children. I don’t remember what my dad and brother were doing.
Well, my brother was there to go on dates with a girl, so a lot of the time he was doing that. The girl came over for dinner on Sunday night, so I got to meet her. She seemed nice. I hope he marries her. I really can’t tell you how much I want my brother to get married and married soon. Mostly because I know he would like to get married. But also because there’s this stigma against unmarried Mormon men of a certain age (say, 25). Usually not without good reason, as Mormon men are highly motivated to marry young, and the most common reason for a Mormon man not to marry young is that he’s creepy or has bad personal hygiene. Yes, this is a cruel stereotype, not unlike the stereotype of unmarried Mormon women over 21 being either a) fat or b) CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO! (For the record, I was “b.”) Anyway, I’m anxious for the next phase of his life to begin. He’s out of school and he’s got a job. And he’s related to me, so you know he’s good-looking. (Tall, long neck, doleful eyes.) So what’s the hold-up?
I’m being facetious, just so you know. It’s not like I’m pressuring him to get married. I mentioned not a word about it all weekend. I didn’t even so much as ask about his ladyfriend, much to SD’s dismay. SD wanted to know he smooched her. I said I didn’t know. Only I said it like, “I don’t know, you freak, what kind of pervert knows stuff like that about her baby brother?” He couldn’t believe that I hadn’t asked him about it. He said he would ask him himself when he sees him next week. Men and their giggly gossiping. Bah!
My sister just got a Wii Fit, and so we played with that some. I should be opposed to the Wii Fit on principle, and yet I couldn’t help but be impressed with how technology makes even the most mundane exercise more exciting. It was really fun–much better than being out playing in the sunshine. I did some Wii yoga. I learned that my center of balance is slightly to the left. I also learned that I suck at virtual hula-hooping. Also, that my Wii Fit Age was 32. Woo-hoo! I don’t know what they base their calculations on, but who am I to question the Wii Fit?
Anyway, it was a great visit. I think the fact that I had only two of my kids with me contributed heavily to the greatness thereof. When I left, I thought, “We should come back again soon. But not all six of us.”
Princess Zurg was an easy traveling companion this time around. After we listened to the Corpse Bride soundtrack once (only once!), she let me play whatever CD’s I wanted to. I listened to Joan Armatrading, Todd Rundgren, Chaka Khan, and Split Enz. I even listened to some Better Than Ezra. “No, girl, you did not!” Yes, girl, I did. (Well, not the whole CD, just part of it.) I listened to ABC’s Lexicon of Love twice. That album kicks butt. It’s like Chic meets James Bond. One thing I’ve always enjoyed about ABC is that they put together some really clever rhymes. If you gave me a pound for the moments I missed/And I got dancing lessons for all the lips I should have kissed/I’d be a millionaire; I’d be a Fred Astaire. You have to imagine it being sung by some guy all overwrought and yet still British. Or maybe you have to be there. Maybe you have to have bad taste in music. Well, same to you, pal.
On the other hand, I spent the last leg of my trip listening to that other Chic-inspired British band, Duran Duran, and I was struck yet again by how messed-up those cats’ song lyrics are. They’re not clever, but neither are they inane. They’re beyond inane. They’re beyond ridiculous. “I’m dancing on the valentine”? “There’s a dream that strings the road with broken glass for us to hold”? What does any of that mean? It doesn’t mean anything! Really, there’s only one way to make sense of these lyrics: they were obviously some kind of code. Like, spy stuff. “The eagle has landed.” “The fat man walks alone.” “The union of the snake is on the climb.” If I had unlimited free time, I could probably decipher all of it eventually. You should watch in a few years for my book titled Is There Something I Should Know? How Duran Duran Helped Us Win the Cold War. Or alternatively, Notorious: How We Won the Cold War Despite the Best Efforts of Duran Duran. It’s unclear to me as of yet which side they were really on. (Research for this project may have to wait until I’ve finished my self-help tome, Everything I Needed To Know in Life I Learned from Depeche Mode. Chapter One: “People Are People.”)
So I’m back at home, super-behind on the laundry, house rapidly falling into chaos, but at least I did a blog for you. All for you. None of it was for me. Except maybe that part about Duran Duran. Okay, I promise I’ll write something more interesting tomorrow. Or the next day. We’ll see how I’m feeling.
It’s been a while since I’ve told you all how much I adore my mother-in-law. I do very much love and appreciate my mother-in-law. She is wonderful, and we have a great relationship. Sugar Daddy thinks she likes me better than she likes him. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m just putting it out there for you all to understand that I heart my mother-in-law. She should never be confused with my step-mother, whom I also love but who more frequently bugs the living crap out of me (bless her soul).
My mother-in-law is actually planning to move to Portland next year–to our very neighborhood, if possible–so that she can be closer to the grandkids. I don’t think she has any other reason to move here, as she is not fond of Oregon in any other regard that I know of. But that is neither here nor there. She is planning to move up here, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Mostly I will enjoy having her around. Especially when it involves free babysitting. Did I say that out loud? Anyway, the main reason I am looking forward to it is because I love her and like having her around. Unlike my step-mother, her I can stand having around for more than, say, a day. (Oh, that is so unfair. My step-mother is a lovely person. I can really stand her for up to three days, under ordinary circumstances.) But there is one tiny part of me that is looking forward to having her close by because of the ever-so-slim possibility that it will cut down on the amount of e-mail she sends me.
I’m not talking about chatty, hey-how-are-ya e-mail, or even those crappy forwards that test your IQ or read your mind or inform you that friendship is important. She sends those occasionally, but mostly she just sends links to random news stories and advertisements. Once she sent a link to an article about tree frogs. Nothing wrong with tree frogs. It was a nice article. Just random. The other day she sent us an image of the publicity poster for Prince Caspian. I mean, I guess we’re going to see Prince Caspian. Mister Bubby will want to see it, probably. I don’t imagine Mister Bubby would be terribly excited to look at a picture of some pretty boy wearing chain mail and long hair flowing in the wind. Just random. She also sends us stories about the weather here. Get Fuzzy comics even though she knows we don’t like Get Fuzzy. (Yeah, we don’t like Get Fuzzy, so sue us.) That sort of thing.
I don’t know why it should bother me so much, why I can’t just say, oh well, that’s Mom and she’s just random that way–for the record, no, I don’t suspect that she’s suffering from dementia–but it got to the point that I felt compelled to abandon our primary e-mail account and just let it become a Mom Spam folder. I redirected all other personal and business correspondence to a secondary e-mail account under my name. Was that wrong? Well, whatever. I’ve been happily ignoring-for-the-most-part that other account and only occasionally checking it in case something important slipped in there, or if Mom told me she’d e-mailed me something of (actual) interest. But apparently she is now hip to my game because this morning I opened up my “real” e-mail and found a link to the Murray School of Irish Dance in Beaverton. I dunno, kids. I guess the jig is up.
Also on the short list of random annoyances:
1. The house we’re renting has, like, 400 light switches. The average number of light switches per room is four, and in some rooms there are six or eight. It’s insane. All these light switches, and yet I still can’t turn on all the lights in the kitchen. What the freak are all these light switches about?
2. Also, the house we’re renting has a very heavy screen/storm door that opens the opposite way of the real door, which, I dunno, I guess that’s fairly standard, but it makes it very difficult to keep the screen door open while trying to close the real door and not have the screen door come crashing in on your leg or face or whatever. Our real house doesn’t have a screen/storm door. It just has a double door that is very difficult to lock, and it’s attached to a house with a burnt-up bathroom and no electrical power, so whatever. I’ll just shut up now.
3. Our school district doesn’t provide bus transportation to students who live less than one mile from their neighborhood school. Our real house is 0.9 miles away from the neighborhood school. It does not get bus service. Our rental house is 0.6 miles from the neighborhood school. It gets bus service. I am somewhat miffed and confused. Mostly miffed.
4. My baby slipped and hit her head on the hardwood floor yesterday. She’s okay, but she has a major goose egg between her eyesbrows, which makes her look like a little Star Trek alien baby. Which is annoying because I always thought Star Trek’s alien make-up was pretty weak.
Not annoying, but random:
I was at the Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe on Wednesday, and the [Portland Suburb] Atheists Meet-Up Group was having a gathering. I’m not sure why this struck me as amusing. Bible study groups meet at the Moonstruck, why shouldn’t the Portland-Suburb Atheists have a shindig there? Atheists need the fellowship of other atheists, I suppose. I think what I found amusing, in a surreal way, was that they had put out a table with various brochures against religion and against evangelism specifically. Not to overstate the irony, but it’s just not something you see every day.
Actually, I found it somewhat heartwarming to see all these people of various ages, races and walks of life being able to bond over their common embrace of rationality. Or is was heartwarming, until one of them came up to me and asked if I wanted a free picture of Richard Dawkins. Then I said, “Get the #$*& away from me, you freak!” and suddenly milkshakes and mocha lattes were flying everywhere. Just kidding. None of that happened. They took no notice of me. I’m very quiet.
I guess that’s it for now. Have an awesome weekend, kids!
While I was in California my stepmother told me that I should start telling her and my dad now which of their many possessions I’d like to have “after they’re gone.” This is weird to me because I remember when my mother was dying, she started asking each of us what things of hers we wanted to have, and that was very painful because she only had two weeks to live and I didn’t want any of her things, I just wanted her to keep living. My mother was not a woman of many possessions, anyway. Or rather, she was a woman of many temporary possessions, not the sort of things one usually bequeaths to anyone else. My parents’ life together was one of looking forward to the day when they would have more money (or fewer liabilities) and more time (or fewer responsibilities), and finally be able to get something nice and go someplace exciting. My father actually went to a lot of exciting places on business—Europe, Russia, Japan, Hawaii, who knows where else—but it was not usually practical for my mother to go with him. She did accompany him to a conference in Boston once. That might have been the only trip they took together (alone) since their honeymoon. It’s ironic, in the Alannis Morrisette sense, that just as they were on the cusp of empty-nestdom, she should leave the nest herself. Wherever she is now, I reckon it’s at least as nice as Hawaii, but I think my dad still wishes in retrospect that he had taken her to Hawaii when he had the chance.
My dad is well aware of the opportunities he missed with his first wife, so he hasn’t made the same mistakes with the second one. Of course it helps that he has more money and all that et cetera, but still, he’s learned his lesson. Also, my step-mother isn’t shy about telling him what she wants. Or what she doesn’t want—but she only tells him about that after he’s already given it to her. And then she tells anyone else who will listen about how much she doesn’t like it and why on earth would he buy such a thing for her. It’s a bit hard to take because a) despite his documented shortcomings, my father is very thoughtful about gifts—even if it isn’t what you wanted, he sure has a lot of reasons why he thought you’d like it, and b) my mother never got anything as nice as the stuff Dad buys for Step-mother.
Step-mother is a wonderful woman in many regards, but she could use some work in the graciousness department. I don’t claim to be a paragon of this virtue myself, but I do know that if my husband bought me a piece of jewelry that he thought I’d like, I’d suck it up and wear it. At the very least I would refrain from calling it “tacky.” While we were there last week, I got to see my father at his wit’s end, trying to explain to his wife that the earrings made from diamond chips he gave her for their tenth anniversary really were diamonds.
“I don’t see how they’re any different from cubic zirconium,” she said.
“Because they’re diamonds! They’re 100 percent diamonds, made from carbon! Cubic zirconium has zirconium in it!”
“So I have genuine fake diamonds?”
“You have genuine REAL DIAMONDS! And they weren’t cheap, either!”
That’s when I told her that if she didn’t want her genuine fake diamonds, I would gladly take them. Only I’d pass them off as real. Then everybody laughed. Which was good, because I was about to punch her. Also, I don’t have pierced ears, so a fat lot of good genuine diamond earrings would have done me. Maybe I could have bequeathed them to somebody.
Which brings me back to my original subject. My mother had no jewelry to speak of, aside from her wedding ring, which she was buried with. It was a simple white-gold band, just like my father’s. My dad remembers that they bought the set at Monkey Wards for $65. It’s a sweet story, I think, but that’s neither here nor there. She also had no china, fine or otherwise. I think she used the same white Corelle dishes for the first twenty years she was married. Then she bought some dinnerware with a country goose theme. This was after she decided that she was going to be into geese. She bought some goose glasses to go with them, but quite a few of them broke. She couldn’t find the same pattern anymore, so she bought some slightly different goose glasses to replace the broken ones. A lot of those broke, too. I inherited the lone surviving goose glass a couple years ago. It has since broken. I wasn’t too torn up about it, though, because I’d also inherited the goose dishes and the goose salt-and-pepper shakers, which are packed away like they were fine china, and not just some country kitchenware that isn’t my particularly my style. I have naught against geese, country or otherwise. I just have my own dishes that I registered for at Target ten years ago, and I hardly ever use those, either. We prefer Spiderman and Barbie plates at our house.
I also have my mother’s old melamine serving platter. It’s yellow-green and too thin and thus has a crack in it. I don’t use it anymore. It’s entirely useless, and not valuable. It’s not even attractive. I keep it because it was my mother’s, just like I keep her old reading glasses, which she may very well have bought at the Pic’n’Save, for all I know. They are in the same cheesy glasses case I made her for Mother’s Day in my eighth-grade home ec class. It’s one of those plastic-grid needlework crafts, a yellow flower with a white background. It is, of course, filthy. It’s been filthy since a week after Mother’s Day twenty-three years ago. Good Lord, twenty-three years. The glasses and the case are in the bottom of my temple bag because the last time I went to the temple with my mother, she had me carry some of her stuff in there. Sometime after she died I cleaned out my temple bag and found them, and I just left them there. Where else would I keep them?
What’s left at my parents’ house is a whole lot of pretty nice stuff I don’t want. What I want is the crap stuff I grew up with. I want the Keane paintings my mother bought in a garage when she was still young and single. They aren’t worth anything and I reckon my husband would sooner die than have them on his walls—but they are integral images of my childhood, and therefore they appeal to me. They are both night scenes. One is of a lone little blond girl sitting on a step of a long staircase in the moonlight. The other is of a young woman on a busy street. In each picture the subject is staring straight at you with their giant eyes. Yes, it is creepy and weird. (This was before Margaret Keane became a Jehovah’s Witness and started painting happy pictures.) My mother bought the woman-on-the-street picture because it reminded her of herself—a young single woman on her own. She even looks like my mother did in those days (at least as much as anything Keane painted could look like a human). In the background there’s a sketchy image of a man who looks like the young version of my Dad. To us that gave the painting a sort of mystical quality, since my mother was years away from meeting Dad when she bought it. Dude, her destiny was right there in the freaking painting, and she had no idea! My brother has that painting. I suppose it’s appropriate, since he’s the only single one left among us. Maybe he’ll meet a blond woman with giant eyes someday, and their kids will be similarly impressed by the magic painting that can tell the future.
After my mother died, everything she owned became a holy relic to me. There was so little, materially speaking, to remember her by. She hated having her picture taken because she hated how fat she looked, so we have very few pictures of her. Most of the things she had were not meant to last. They were meant to be used until they could be replaced with something better. This is why I still have Post-It notes that my mother wrote on. Stuff that should have been thrown away a long time ago has taken on ridiculous significance simply because I know there will be no more of it. It will never be replaced with something better.
I suppose this is the legacy my mother left me, that I can live with not having the best of everything—but also that I won’t have forever to do what I mean to do. As much as possible, the doing should be done now. It shouldn’t be saved for later.
My sister called yesterday to let me know that my dad had an accident on his scooter and broke his hip. He’s having surgery today.
And yes, by “scooter” I mean one of those Razor scooters–not the electric kind. My dad has always been youthful and active. Well, youthful in the active sense. My husband doesn’t think it’s very youthful to play cribbage or watching Judging Amy, but he didn’t always play cribbage. He took up Rollerblading when I was in high school. He used to skate around the church parking lot while I was in my early-morning seminary class. Everyone thought he was a pistol. He was supposed to go on a “wilderness adventure” trip in August. I guess that’s off now.
And yes, Rollerblade®, I realize I should have said “in-line skating.” Sorry about that.
This morning I told Mister Bubby that Grandpa had broken his hip and had to have surgery. He said, “People have to get surgeries a lot when they’re old.”
True. But here’s the problem: if my dad is finally getting old, then I can’t be far behind.
Yes, I know I had a birthday last week.
P.S. I am not really 40.
I am a recovering pack rat. The cynical among us might say that I’m a recovering pack rat in the same sense that Mel Gibson is a recovering alcoholic. Fortunately, when I fall off the wagon, I don’t blame some innocent minority group. I blame my parents.
Actually, I blame myself. I blame myself first, anyway. Then after I’ve heaped the damnation upon my own soul, I blame the modern consumer culture I live in. Then I blame my parents. Then I go back to blaming myself. It’s a vicious cycle.
You see, I’m just a tender-hearted soul. I attach far too much emotional significance to material objects. I’ve learned this about myself, okay? I admit I have a problem. I’m well aware of my internal struggle. It’s huge. That’s why I get extra-mad at people who tempt me with more material objects to horde. They should have more compassion for my disease.
Sugar Daddy and I have moved seven times in our marriage, so with each move I had the opportunity to do a major purge of my ample stuff. I was extremely proud of myself for giving away my collection of gift bags to a needy gift-giver. She asked me if I was sure I wanted to part with them, as they come in so handy when it’s time to give someone a present. “I’m absolutely sure I don’t want to cart them out of state,” I replied. “Anyway, I can always get more.” Actually, for the first year and a half after the great gift-bag giveaway, I was reduced to wrapping my gifts in manila envelopes, but everyone else thought that was so creative and hip that I didn’t mind. Anyway, it was better than storing those infernal gift bags. Whew. That’s my success story.
Now for the sad stories. I’ve gotten rid of tons of other stuff over the years, and I don’t miss or remember any of it. Unfortunately, I can’t feel good about those purges because they’ve made only the tiniest dent in my Huge Pile of Crap that I seem to add to daily. I pack stuff up for the Goodwill, but then I don’t take it to the Goodwill. It somehow becomes unpacked and strewn about the garage. Some of it ends up creeping back into my house, and I say, “AUUUUUGHHHHH! WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? GET OUT OF HERE!” and I pack it up for the Goodwill again, but I don’t take it to the Goodwill, and, yeah, that’s pretty much how that goes.
After we bought the house, my step-mother brought up about, I don’t know, twenty boxes with my name on them, stuff that had been sitting in her and my dad’s garage until I had room enough to store it myself. I told her many, many times over the years that I didn’t know what was in those boxes, but I did know that I didn’t want whatever it was. I had too much already. Whatever was in those boxes could not possibly improve my quality of life, and if I didn’t know what it was, I’d never miss it. I told her to throw it away, throw it all away, don’t even so much as peek inside, just throw it all away. She couldn’t do that, of course, so she held on to it for seven years and then packed it in the back of her Prius and hauled it a thousand miles so I could throw it away myself. I made the mistake of looking inside. I saw stuff I wanted to keep. I wouldn’t have missed it if I’d never seen it, but having seen it, I had to keep it. I only wanted to keep a small minority of the stuff, though. Most of the other stuff fell into one of three categories:
Category 1: Stuff I Don’t Want and Which No Person in Her Right Mind Would Want
This would include stuff like the envelope that my SAT scores came in (not the scores themselves, mind you, just the envelope), my fifth grade spelling book, and a fifteen-year-old tube of holiday M&M’s. Why? you might wonder. Why indeed. I have no idea. But at least I didn’t pack it in a Prius and drive it a thousand miles.
Category 2: Stuff I Don’t Want, Which Means Nothing to Me, But Which I Feel Ought To Have Sentimental Value Even Though It Doesn’t to Me Personally
This would include stuff like souvenirs I can’t remember the origins of and random gifts of which I forget the giver.
Category 3: Stuff I Don’t Want But Which I Feel Guilty Throwing Away Because It’s Still Useful, Only Technically It’s Not Useful Because I Don’t Want To Use It and I Don’t Know Anybody Else Who Wants It Either
This would include stuff like stationery and, I dunno, paper clips. I mean, all these things are useful, but one only uses so much of them.
You don’t have to tell me what needs to be done with all of this stuff. I know what needs to be done. Half of it is already gone. The other half is boxed up for Goodwill, only I haven’t taken it to Goodwill yet, and, oh, never mind.
Then there’s my record collection. But that’s another blog.
Anyway, my point is that I know I have a problem. I am working on my problem. Getting rid of the stuff I have is hard enough. At the same time I am also working on not acquiring additional stuff. I can’t tell which I’m worse at, but I can tell you that my loved ones are not helping by giving me stuff that I’m not even under the illusion of thinking I need. My mother-in-law–whom I love, dear as my own fine mother–collects things. I mean that she collects certain kinds of things, and also that she collects things in general. She also collects things that she sends to me. As in, “I thought this was a neat container, you could put craft things in it or something.” God bless her, I could indeed put craft things in it, but unfortunately the thing that’s keeping me from doing crafts is not the absence of a random plastic container with many compartments that once held cheesecake or hors d’oeurves or whatever. I enjoy having my mother-in-law visit, but I cannot throw anything away in her presence. I have to wait until she’s sleeping. On the plus side, my husband will suppress whatever pack-rat tendencies he’s inherited from her while she’s here, I think because he enjoys making her crazy.
But then there’s my father’s wife. I thought the Great Prius Dump of 2004 would end my obligation to my folks’ Midlife Simplification Project, but as it turned out, there was still a whole lot of other crap in there that she thinks we kids should divvy up among us. A few weeks ago she sent each of us an e-mail with twenty-nine attachments, which were photos of the stuffed animal colony that has lived in their garage for the last decade or so. This doesn’t mean there were 29 stuffed animals. There were 29 group photos of stuffed animals. When I talked to her on the phone a couple days later, I said that I hadn’t looked at any of the pictures yet but I knew that I didn’t want any more stuffed animals, because if I wanted them I would have wondered where they were by now. She said she wouldn’t get rid of them until I looked at the pictures because I might want them. Okay, I said, I will look at them before I tell you again that I don’t want them.
Well, I looked at the pictures, and I didn’t want any of those animals, not even the two that were technically mine. But I failed to respond immediately, so yesterday I received a package in the mail, which I didn’t open right away because I was cleaning my house, and the last thing I wanted to know was what was in that package. But then I checked my e-mail and I scared the baby because I screamed out loud when I read this:
“Too late! You never told me which ones you wanted, so I picked for you.”
Now, I’m sorry that I never got back to her about the animals I swore up and down that I never wanted and never would want even if I did look at them, but did she have to go and do that? Really. To add insult to injury, none of what she picked out for me included anything that once actually belonged to me. I was so angry that I felt like sending it right back to her. SD said he would enjoy setting the stuffed animals on fire and taking pictures of the burning animals to send to her in 29 separate attachments, but that isn’t really my style. I’m more the passive-aggressive type. I’m just never speaking to her again.
Just kidding. But I’m still mad.
A recent post at Feminist Mormon Housewives brought up the topic of appropriately accommodating diversity of beliefs in a family setting. The author’s sister-in-law had a Muslim husband who of course didn’t celebrate Christmas and didn’t want his children celebrating Christmas, but the sister-in-law still wanted to celebrate Christmas with her extended clan, and so what ended up happening was that the sister-in-law brought her little family to the big family Christmas gathering and celebrated Christmas herself while her grumpy husband and disappointed children stood around and watched everyone else open presents and have fun. Seemed odd to me. I think if you’re a Christian married to a Muslim and you agree to have your children raised Muslim, maybe you shouldn’t celebrate Christmas so conspicuously yourself. Do we get to hear our children cry so infrequently that we must make gratuitous efforts to have them do so? I don’t know.
Anyway, in the comments the author said that historically her family has bent over backwards to celebrate Christmas in as Muslim-friendly a way as possible, e.g. not singing Christmas carols, so as not to offend the Muslim husband. (I think they even fasted when Christmas fell during Ramadan, or something like that.) Someone else commented that their atheist relative had similarly ruined Christmas for them by being snide and grumpy and impatient with any expression of religious faith. That seemed excessive to me. If I were visiting people of a different religious tradition during a major holiday, I would not expect them to modify–or abandon–their rituals to suit me. Actually, I don’t think that behavior seems excessive. It’s patently offensive and unreasonable any way you slice it. Some people should just stay home on Christmas. The world would be a better place.
But all of this discussion reminded me of a recent series of letters in the Ask Amy column about a couple who were non-religious and took umbrage at their religious relatives praying out loud before a meal in their (the non-religious couple’s) home. The couple had no problem sitting respectfully through a prayer at their relatives’ home(s) but thought that their own home should be their secular castle, as it were. People responding to the original letter had vastly different opinions, and I wasn’t sure how I would rule on this if someone wrote to Ask the Giraffe with a similar issue. Our family prays before eating in our home, but we don’t take the reins of mealtime ritual in other people’s homes.
As a teenager, when I ate at my Catholic friends’ homes, everyone did the sign of the cross before saying grace. Well, everyone but me, because a) I could never remember what you did in what order (this was before I learned the spectacles-testicles-etc. mnemonic) and b) it seemed, I dunno, silly for a Mormon girl to fake Catholicness. But I certainly bowed my head respectfully and remained blissfully unoffended by a ritual gesture I didn’t happen to be practiced in. When I eat with friends who don’t, for whatever reason, say any prayer before eating, I don’t feel a need to do so myself. But perhaps I’m overly laid-back in this regard. It wouldn’t be the first time.
My husband says that when he was a missionary, this business of praying in public before eating was an issue because Mormon missionaries are so conspicuous to begin with. If you pray aloud over your Big Mac, people think you’re some kind of exhibitionist. If you don’t pray at all, people think you’re a hypocrite (or whatever). So for them the happy medium was to make this ambiguous gesture which involved putting your hand to your forehead and closing your eyes for about 1.5 seconds. They called it the Missionary Headache. It could mean whatever you wanted it to mean. Silly Mormons. It seemed to work for them, though.
I’m sure other people of various religious bents feel obligated to pray before mealtime and would be upset if asked specifically not to pray. I can’t really imagine having someone over to my house and then, when they start to pray, saying, “Hold it right there, bucko! Not under my roof!” Unless they had to be naked or pick their noses or something while they were praying–that I might have to factor in, I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t like confrontation, so if a guest got out her crystals and lit incense before eating, I wouldn’t think to object. (If she had to sacrifice an animal, I’d probably ask her to do it on the patio.) But still…it seems somewhat impolite to insist on your particular prayer ritual at the table of someone who has made it clear that they don’t share your beliefs and aren’t comfortable with the attendant practices.
What do you all think?
The following is dedicated to Scott, King of the Epic Blog Entries
Sugar Daddy said I would probably provide a travelogue of our vacation, which is interesting because I hate doing travelogues. I actually dislike being on the receiving end of a travelogue, which is why I don’t like doing travelogues. I bore myself, and I sense that I am boring others. Who wants to see a slide-show of my vacation? No one. (Good thing, too, because we took hardly any pictures. So many kids, not enough duct tape.)
Yet I feel obligated to give my report. Get it down for posterity. Sigh. So bear with me.
The trip started inauspiciously when we flew into St. Louis to discover that the airline had checked our bags to Chicago. It wasn’t the fault of the woman who checked our bags. She thought we were Mark Williams. He was going to Chicago. Where his bags ended up, I don’t know. But it was midnight in St. Louis and our luggage was MIA, including the stroller, which had been gate-checked, for the love of Mike. They gave us a loaner stroller, but for the next 22 hours we had to live with the clothes on our backs. (Except Mister Bubby, who had wisely insisted on packing all his worldly belongings into his carry-on Scooby Doo suitcase. Note to self: Next vacation, we all pack Scoobies.)
That was really okay, because it was hot and humid in St. Louis, and clean clothes would have been wasted anyway. So we went to the City Museum, as SD mentioned in his blog, with my sister, brother-in-law, and their daughter, who is Princess Zurg’s age. I will refer to her as Cousin Yinda because that is what PZ called her when she was two years old and couldn’t pronounce her L’s. My sister and Cousin Yinda came to visit me and PZ when I was pregnant with Mister Bubby and SD had gone trotting off to England on “business.” I was glad of the company, but PZ was less grateful. She did not cotton so much to Cousin Yinda, who was a few months younger and really, really wanted to be PZ’s friend, much to the annoyance of the anti-social PZ, who, lacking appropriate verbal skills at that age, responded to most of CY’s overtures with screaming, pushing or a frustrated scowl that seemed to say, “Don’t you get it? We’re enemies.“ They got along much better the next year, when they were both a little older, but since my sister’s family moved to St. Louis, we haven’t seen much of Cousin Yinda until now. I only tell you the earlier story as a dramatic contrast to this trip, in which PZ and CY became BFF’s, walking along holding hands, having slumber parties until all hours and whatnot. Ah, family.
So yeah, the City Museum–really cool, blah blah, definitely go there if you’re going to St. Louis, yadda yadda.
Moving right along, on Wednesday we all drove up to Nauvoo, stopping first at Carthage Jail, where Joseph Smith was killed. That was interesting, in the sense that I can now say, “I’ve been to Carthage Jail. It was interesting.” Some of it is original, including the door with the hole made by the bullet that killed Joseph’s brother Hyrum. But it might have been more enriching if we hadn’t had Elvis in tow. Anyway, we went to Nauvoo, which my brother-in-law aptly described as the Mormon Disneyland. The kids played at Pioneer Pastimes, where they got to play some old-fashioned games and run around like ninnies. The boys went and visited the old gun shop and the girls visited the Family Living Center or somesuch place–you know, where they bake bread and make rope and beeswax candles. In hindsight I wish I’d gone for the guns. I visited the Printing Press. Then we all trucked down to the cemetery, where some of my BIL’s ancestors are buried. (You don’t see that at Disneyland, do ya?) Then we said goodbye to sister, BIL and CY and went in search for food.
Let me save you some trouble, if you’re planning a visit to Nauvoo. Bring your own dinner.
We ended the day with Sunset on the Mississippi, which is a cheesy, mildly amusing road show put on by elderly couple missionaries and BYU theater students on summer break (I’m guessing). It was entertaining, but true to Mormon form ran about 45 minutes longer than it should have. We had to leave early because Elvis kept trying to wander into the river. Which, if you haven’t seen it yourself, is big.
The next day we finished our tour by visiting some of the historical sites maintained by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, now known as Community of Christ–or as I think of it, Mormonism Lite. The cool thing about the Reorganites is that they sell more souvenirs. I didn’t get the Joseph Smith root beer, but I did buy a magnet for my magnet collection. It was a nice tile one, with the Nauvoo Temple on it–an artist’s rendering but interesting in that it’s a rendering not of the historical building but of the one rebuilt by the mainline church. Princess Zurg and the baby got sun bonnets. MB and Elvis got a covered wagon and handcart, respectively. Ah, Reorganized Mormon capitalism.
We did not get a chance to visit the Nauvoo Christian Visitors Center before we left.
The best thing about Nauvoo for me was a) seeing the temple, which is beautiful, and b) seeing the landscape, which is even more beautiful. Both SD and I felt far more connection with the past by looking off of Temple Bluff than any of the other attractions.
Then we drove up to Chicago to see SD’s brother and his wife (the brother’s wife, not SD’s other wife). I shall refer to SD’s brother by the nickname the children gave him last week, which for some reason was “Uncle Buncle.” His wife is a medical student, so I will refer to her as…Medical Student Sister-in-Law. While in Chicago, we visited Millennium Park, got spit on by the giant fountains, gazed at ourselves in the giant reflective bean sculpture and had Chicago Style stuffed pizza for lunch. Stuffed pizza is good, but it’s got at least two pounds of cheese on it, which wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t gotten the sampler platter of deep-fried appetizers to start. Later that evening we would get frozen custard. If there were any dietary justice in the world, we would be dead by now. But we lived on to visit Navy Pier, view the city from atop the giant ferris wheel and basically walk all over downtown until we were just effing sick of it. We didn’t visit the Sears Tower because we’re too cheap. Also, there was a bomb threat or something. But mostly we’re just cheap. Anyway, the ferris wheel was high enough, and not a little scary.
The next day we stuck closer to suburban Chicago and visited a small petting-zoo type zoo I can’t remember the name of. Our friends from Wisconsin and friends from Michigan drove down to join us. What I found most interesting about this zoo was that each animal exhibit was accompanied by a sign explaining what the animal was good for. For example, there was “Chickens: Source of Nutritious Food,” with some pictures of eggs and whole chickens roasting on a rotisserie. That was surreal. Pigs are extremely useful, for stuff like glue and rubber and paint thinner or whatever, in addition to tasty ham and bacon. Each sign showed pictures of the cuts of meat we get from the animal. Except for the goat because in our country we really only consume goat dairy products, but the sign did point out that goat meat is eaten frequently in other parts of the world. Then there was the picture of the bunny being mauled by a wolf. You think I’m making that part up, don’t you? You’re naive, as I once was.
Then we went to a swim park, where SD was unsuccessful in shaming me onto the 200-ft. slide. For once.
We had Greek food at a diner, where we were waited on by a server of much spunk and personality.
The next day was Sunday, so we went to church, which was the same in Chicago as it is elsewhere. Then my sister-in-law’s parents and brother came over for dinner, and SD cooked Mexican food for them. SIL is half-Mexican and half-Puerto Rican, so once again my husband was cooking ethnic food for people of that ethnicity, but they very much enjoyed it, so that was cool. Later that evening we went on a riverwalk in Naperville, where we fed the ducks and rolled down a giant hill until we almost puked and died laughing.
Our last full day in Chicago was spent at the Museum of Science and Industry. That is a very cool museum. It kicks the crap out of OMSI. (Probably kicks the crap out of anything in Seattle, too, though, so nyeah.) I also picked up another souvenir magnet–this one with Chicago spelled out in periodic table symbols. Ah, capitalist science.
The next day was a traveling day, as we went back to St. Louis. BIL (the non-Buncle uncle) cooked us our first vegetables in eight days.
The day after that we went to the Butterfly House in Chesterfield. That was quite awesome. Kicks the crap out of the butterfly exhibit at the Oregon Zoo. I spotted all the Mormon butterflies–the Great Mormon, the Scarlet Mormon, and the Common Mormon. I felt a keen sense of accomplishment afterward, like I didn’t have to feel obligated to do my genealogy anymore.
We had more frozen custard at Ted Drewe’s on Route 66. I got the Cardinal Sin Concrete. It was beyond tasty. Totally worth the year it took off my life.
The next day I stressed out over packing to get home, and then we went to the airport and got stressed out over flying. SD yelled at some United employees. I got embarrassed. Then he told off an unhelpful fellow traveler who was yammering on her cell phone about Elvis’s testosterone-laden personality and the parents who spawned him. I got embarrassed again. Then there was another fiasco with the Missing Gate-Checked Stroller and SD got into it with another United employee, who was so snippy, rude and argumentative that I started yelling at her, at which point she turned her postal wrath on me, and I cried halfway to Portland. Elvis threw up on SD. The people on the plane were very nice about that. (Cell-phone Lady wasn’t on that leg of the flight.)
They lost our stroller again, but we made it home with the rest of our luggage.
To sum up our Midwest experience:
Humidity–bad!
Steak ‘n Shake–good!
United Airlines–flawed but sadly typical of modern air travel companies
Souvenir magnets–make me happy.
Madhousewife (to sister): I like this one because it spells Chicago using the periodic table, and that’s cool.
Sister: That is cool.
SD: You can’t spell Portland with the periodic table.
Sister: That’s right, there’s no R, is there?
SD: No, there is an R–but there’s no Or or Rt or Tl, so it all falls apart.
Sister: Too bad.
Mad: Can you spell my name with the periodic table?
SD: Sure–[Rattles off several elements that spell my actual name, which I won't reveal here]
Mad (to sis): Isn’t that romantic? He can automatically recite my name in periodic table format.
Sister: Most impressive.
SD: Hey, remember I diagrammed the molecular structure of your name when we were engaged.
Mad: That’s right–I’d forgotten. Whatever happened to those little gestures?
Sister: They just don’t court you anymore once you’re married.
Well, my step-mother is in town, God bless her. Last night she mopped my kitchen floor. I like to invite my step-mother to my home once a year or so to mop my kitchen floor, whether it needs it or not. It keeps the family ties strong. Actually, what’s great about having my step-mother here is that she somehow manages to get my children put away their toys. I don’t know how she does it. As far as I’m concerned it’s one of those ”don’t ask, don’t tell” situations.
My step-mother watched my kids while I went shopping for new clothes today. I have been trying to buy myself a new skirt ever since the baby was born, but I have not had good fortune. For one thing, I am picky about my clothes. I’m just a simple girl trying to get by, you see. In my younger days I could do funky and fabulous as well as the next person, with a devil-may-care attitude about whether or not I’d still be able to wear an outfit in six months or if it would result in any incriminating photos. I had more disposable income in those days, and far fewer children climbing on me with their Goldfish-encrusted paws. These days, what with my being old and four-times reproduced and all, I can’t get away with the fashion statements I once did. For further explanation, see the chart below.
Old requirement(s) for clothes:
- Does it look good on me right now?
New requirements for clothes:
- Does it look good on me right now?
- Will it still look good when I wear it three days from now?
- Will it still look good with baby puke on it?
- Is it machine washable?
- Can my children pull on it without ruining it and/or indecently exposing me?
- Does it really look good on me, or does it make me look like a pathetic loser trying to be hip and fresh without success?
- Is it not white?
- Was it not made in China by political prisoners or child slaves? Vietnam, you say? Damn those American textile workers and their living wages!
Add to that the requirements for skirts:
- Does it not have ruffles?
- Does it not have a four-inch elastic band around the hips?
- Does it not have sequins and/or beads?
- Do I not have to iron it?
Add to that the fact that I am cheap. I went shopping at Banana Republic today, where I saw a lovely $128 skirt. It was lovely, but I can’t spend $128 on a skirt that my children are going to be anywhere near. Plus, did I mention that I am cheap? I ended up shopping the clearance rack at Ann Taylor Loft, which I think means that I am both cheap and old. But I have skirts that fit me and don’t make my butt look the size of Cleveland. I also bought something that was silk and dry-clean-only so I could get in touch with my frivolous side.
On my way to shopping today I was behind a car with these bumper stickers: “NO on 36,” “COEXIST” (written in various thought-system symbols), and “No One Is Free While Others Are Oppressed.” I understood “NO on 36″ because it was from the 2004 election and I was paying attention in those days. I understood “COEXIST” except that the “C” appeared to be the scythe from the old U.S.S.R. flag, and I didn’t know if it was trying to say we should coexist with old Communist regimes or the Oregon Green Party or what–but as it turned out, it wasn’t a scythe but a crescent and star, which represents Islam. So that’s cool, I guess. But the last one bugged me. I mean, I think I sympathize with the general sentiment behind it, which I assume is something like, “Regardless of how comfy our own lives are, we should not be comfy with people being oppressed elsewhere.” But what it says is, “No one is free while others are oppressed,” and that just isn’t true. I’m free. Others are oppressed. But I’m free. As free as one can be with four children and a mortgage, but you know, compared to the Chinese political prisoners and child slaves, pretty darn free. And I don’t think liberating the rest of the world is going to get me free babysitting or lower my interest rate, so…yeah, I don’t get it.
I mean, not to beat a dead horse, but slavery was oppressive and a white male living on the frontier in the early nineteenth century was still pretty darn free, wouldn’t you say? I suppose I’m especially bothered by bumper stickers that are supposed to be all deep but don’t actually, technically make any sense.
While I’m in the stream-of-consciousness spirit, I will now list my favorite bumper stickers that are intended to offend people but that I still find funny:
- “Okay–I’ve evolved, you haven’t.”
- “I love animals–they’re delicious!”
- “Earth first–We’ll strip-mine the other planets later”
- “Born Right the First Time”
The weirdest religious bumper sticker I ever saw–besides “Beam Me Up, Jesus!”–had a picture of Jesus on one side with the words HE LOVES ME, and on the other side was HE LOVES ME NOT, next to a picture of the Devil. It’s neither funny nor offensive, just…odd. That’s what I liked about it. Then there’s the JESUS: TOUGHER THAN HELL bumper sticker. Which I can’t make up my mind about. It’s like those pictures of Jesus smiling with teeth. Kind of creepy, but endearing in its way.
Tell me about your favorite and least favorite bumper stickers.
My mother-in-law will be visiting us over the next fortnight, so I will either be really scarce or I'll be on here every day, taking the free babysitting way too much for granted. I love my mother-in-law and I love having her visit, but one of the reasons I'd love it if she moved up to
Portland is that I'm growing weary of her refusal to fly. (Ride on an airplane, I mean. I wouldn't want you to think I was making an unreasonable demand.) The charitable part of me–the part I try to nurture whenever possible–understands that she has an irrational fear, and we all have irrational fears, and it isn't her fault that her irrational fear is really inconvenient, blah blah…that part of me is very sympathetic. The impatient, self-centered part of me thinks she should try harder to get over it because not flying usually means (for her) taking the train, which means that the trip from Los Angeles to Portland takes about ten times longer and her arrival is always delayed by several hours. And today it freaking snowed. In
Portland! I know! And because it never snows here, people don't know how to drive in the snow, and also it can't stay dry long enough so it soon turns into a big sheet of ice, so venturing out in this weather in one's vehicle to pick up somebody at the train station downtown in the middle of the night is not the most comforting holiday activity. Fortunately, we have life insurance.
What's wrong with Amtrak? Seriously. It's not a weather thing. They were four hours late coming into
Los Angeles from freaking
San Diego. There's no snow there. There's no snow when it's ten hours late in the middle of freaking April. A couple years ago she had to get off the train mid-trip because of some derailment or other train-related fiasco, and they put her on a bus. The train had been running several hours behind schedule, but the bus got her here several hours earlier than we'd been expecting her. Freaking Greyhound. Leave the driving to them. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure train rides are nice–I'd like to take one sometime. Just not if I'm in a hurry to get somewhere. But I probably need to slow down myself, don't I? Hmmph. I have to go fold my twelve loads of laundry. Maybe I'll just make like a train and do it tomorrow.
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