Some Pig

Your Reputation Precedes You

When I was in grad school, my advisor was a prof who had done a lot of work on classroom management and motivation.  One concept that she (and all the methods instructors) pushed was that teachers shouldn't allow preconceptions about students to cloud their judgment.  For the most part, that makes sense.  No one wants to start the school year with a teacher who has already made up his mind to hate you.  It's also important for teachers to make sure that they're not unconsciously pigeonholing students based on anything from their home address to their interests to the fact that the kid's older brother came through five years ago and was a raging @sshole.  So the message they preached was, Give the benefit of the doubt.  Treat each kid as an individual.  Make each day a fresh start.  Disapprove of the behavior, not the kid.  No naming, no shaming, no blaming.

However.

(You knew that was coming, didn't you?)

There is a big down side to this approach, which is that I think kids aren't aware of the impact that their actions can have on their reputation, or they think that it doesn't matter.  It's even ingrained in the language we use - "Maddysohn doesn't make good decisions," instead of "Maddysohn lies like a rug;" "Jaxon has poor impulse control," instead of "Jaxon cheated on his test."  Kids have absorbed the message that "there are no bad kids, just bad choices."  Now, I agree that everyone should get a chance to have a fresh start and be judged on his or her own merits.  I also have had good luck over the years with ignoring reputations and giving the occasional mulligan, especially if I'd never had a bad personal experience with a kid.  But kids need to understand that the do-overs only go so far, and that people out there in the big, bad world DO judge you by your actions, far, far more than by who you think you are.  If you're 13 and you lie to your teacher once, maybe even twice, well, everyone does stupid stuff when they're young; that's why you're not allowed to buy real estate until you're 18.  But when you're 13 and you lie to me three, four, five, six times or more, even after I've caught you in your lies multiple times, then you are a liar.  If you take other people's things, even after you've been found out, then you are a thief.  You become what you do, and if you cheat, bully, backstab, lie, steal, etc., on a regular basis, then you are no longer a nice kid who happened to do x, y, or z - you ARE x, y, or z.  It doesn't matter if Mom managed to bail you out again, or you're going to therapy, or if it's unfair that you've always had to follow in your older sibling the honor student's shadow, if you choose to engage in these behaviors over and over again, then people are going to assume that you will do so in the future, and will treat you accordingly. 

I'll close with words from my favorite epigrammarian, Ben Franklin.  (Good ole Ben; he had something to say about just about everything.)  "Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never mended well."  Oh what the hell, why not chuck in some of the Bard as well?  "Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I ha' lost my reputation, I ha' lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial!"   And, for the grand finale, some words for the ages from one D. Stephen SomePig, my very own dad, who used to say, "Do that again and I'll knock you into the middle of next week."  Ignore all these at your peril.

All Worked Up

When last we left our intrepid heroine (me), I was lying on the table at the physical therapist's office, getting my back and hip joint stretched out to work on some nerve damage.  I was pleasantly surprised to find the visit consisted of gentle stretches and mobility work.  Being no greenhorn to PT, I was expecting something more involved, with the distinct possibility of those activities being uncomfortable and/or boring.  Heartened by my initial experience, I went off to today's appointment light of heart and only slightly gimpy of step, dressed in the shirt I wore to work, a pair of capris, and sandals.

Well.

The physical therapist greeted me with, "Nice to see you!  Let's start warming up on the bike!"

Cue the "you lose" music (you know - womp, womp, wooooommmmp). 

Can you believe, I went to physical therapy and they expected me to, you know, exert myself!  In my regular, non-work-out clothes!  Worse yet, I had to do multiple sets of the same exercises, exercises that resulted in me sweating - sweating into clothes I had no intention of getting sweat stained to start with, including my very best non-work-out bra, the heavy-duty one with the cushy straps and the extra lining so that it doesn't matter what I wear, I never have to worry about horrifying the students (or my coworkers, for that matter), or providing them with coming-of-age moments in the middle of a discussion about Jacksonian democracy.  Sweat!  In my bra!  Oh, the humanity.

Then, to add insult to injury, the exercises I had to do were straight outta Jane Fonda's Workout Record, which I last completed when I was in college and people still had record players.  Really, haven't we advanced a long way from leg lifts, people?  Meanwhile the very nice PT guy, who is totally oblivious to my complete and utter disgust with the whole sweating-in-non-workout-clothes situation, is going on about blah blah core strength yada yada blood flow blahbitty musculature blah.  Which translates as, "you have all the flexibility and muscle tone of a turnip."  And I had to do so. many. reps. of EVERYTHING.  Think of the most boring thing you can think of to do in the world - flossing teeth, reading audit compliance reports, watching paint dry, whatever - and now think about doing it for three sets of 30 reps each.  Uh.  Muh.  Gaaahd.  And to make it worse, they had the TV tuned to the Food Network, so while I was doing modified crunches on a slant board with a Bosu ball, Guy Fieri was driving around the country to taste-test the country's 300 best BBQ joints, all with sides and dessert.  Somehow I'm not quite sure that an outfit dedicated to helping restore people to health and fitness should be broadcasting images of pulled pork, slow-cooked short ribs, and peach dumplings.  All I know is that by the time my appointment was over, if there had been a rib shack within smelling distance of that office, I'd've broken down the door to get to it.

Finally - finally - I got to stop doing front leg lifts and side leg lifts and other side leg lifts and other other side leg lifts and move on to the good stuff, which is when I lie there inert while things are done to me and I don't have to count to 30 in my head a jillion times over.   I proudly recounted how I had managed to do my (supposedly daily) floor exercises twice - TWICE! - in the intervening week, which is something of a small miracle given the fact that the events I predicted earlier came to pass (namely, being swarmed by various curious member of every species we house under our roof). The PT guy was very diplomatic about it all.  "That's ... good," he said, somewhat halfheartedly, probably choking on his desire to add, "IF YOU WANT TO WIND UP PARALYZED AND IN PAIN FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO EFFING LAZY TO FIND TEN MINUTES TO STRETCH OUT YOUR BACK, YOU MORON."  I for one appreciate the gesture.

Meanwhile, I have to go back again next week (yes!  I know!  Like, it wasn't fixed already or something!), and I am bound and determined that I will be dressed appropriately next time.  And by "appropriately" I mean, "in striped leotards and leg warmers a la Jane Fonda in 1985," because, dammit, if I have to work out like the Jane Fonda record, I wanna LOOK like the Jane Fonda record.  So there.

I Am Raising A Wanton Floozy

"I'm listening to the song 'Last Kiss,'" Cici announced in the car.  "It's a Taylor Swift song!  It's about a boyfriend and girlfriend, and they kiss, and he's moving away, and it's their last kiss."  She paused.  "It's like me and Will," she said, her voice tinged with nostalgia.  "Except we had a last hug.  You can't kiss at school.  The teachers won't let you kiss at school because of germs!  Even Mommy and Daddy would have to hug!  Even you couldn't have a kiss at school."

"Is Will your little boyfriend?" Warren asked.

"No," Celeste said, matter-of-factly,  "I'm going to marry Andrew-from-school." (That's to differentiate him from Andrew-next-door.)

I'm not sure what to make of all this, but I think Warren needs to take up sharpshooting as a hobby.  I hear nothing keeps ardent suitors in line like meeting their date's father when he's cleaning and oiling his gun.

Nerve-ous

Well, I finally made it to my physical therapy appointment today - the one I had to make for my sprained @ss.  Just getting there was a complex logistical operation, something akin to passing a camel through the eye of a needle, involving dance class drop-off, visits to the neighbor, tag-teaming coverage with the hubs, and serial dinner plans.  And I only have to go eight more times!  (*headdesk*)

This appointment was just an evaluation and intake visit.  I was feeling a little sheepish, since most of the pain and symptoms have gone away for the most part, so I felt like maybe I was overreacting just a smidge.  I mean, I fell on my @ss, I went boom, the end; wouldn't a little Tylenol and an ice pack make it all better?  The nice physical therapist was putting me through my paces, bending knees and testing reflexes and the like, and with the exception of a twinge or two, nothing felt out of the ordinary.  In the middle of the polite patter about so-what-do-you-do, kids and job and isn't-it-a-nice-day arglebargle, I felt compelled to apologize.  "Really, I did fall down," I said, by way of explanation.  "Oh, no," he responded, his pleasant demeanor changing instantaneously to all business, "there's definitely damage there."  Those words, I have to say, did not make me feel any better, although at least I no longer felt guilty for wasting their time.

Cutting to the chase, when I landed on my not-inconsiderable tushie, I jammed my pelvis into my spine and did... something... to a nerve.  Which has a specific name.  As does the part of the back I jammed; what, do I look like I was ever interested in going premed???  I assure you, one go-round of dissecting frogs brought it home to me that I was not.  So after a lengthy explanation that I could not recount now if my life depended upon it, the nice PT guy had me lie down on the examination table with my legs bent, after which he straddled the table and HEY NOW WHAT GEE HMM WHERE EXACTLY NOW HEY WHOA JUST A MINUTE THERE because I may talk a good fight, but the reality is that ever since the night the hubs turned his slate-blue eyes on me lo these twelve years ago, I have not been (nor have wanted to be) in that close physical proximity to any other man and THAT FREAKED ME OUT, YO.  And I have *no* idea what the proper etiquette is when a man who is not your husband is grabbing the back of your legs to stretch out the compressed nerve in your back.  Are you supposed to look him in the eye?  Up at the ceiling?  I settled for a gaze off into the middle distance while conversing as if nothing was bothering me, but I still am not sure what I should do.  Maybe Martha Stewart will know?

So after ten minutes of intense awkwardness, he let me off with instructions NOT to stretch my leg out completely if I can avoid it, and a back-stretching exercise that I'm supposed to do on the floor.  Clearly that exercise was developed by a single person with only a goldfish for a pet, because I noticed that the directions say nothing about what to do if you're constantly interrupted by a face-licking dog, two hungry cats who consider any stationary human to be a legitimate target for pestering, one daughter practicing her interrogation skills for a future career with MOSSAD, and another daughter who wants to mimic everything her elders do that occurs at her level.  Those could be the longest ten minutes of my day.  I wonder if I can double up on those pain meds they gave me at the hospital?  I think I'm gonna need it.

Maternal Instincts

"I think I'll make my Mother's Day gifts ahead of time!" India announced merrily one afternoon a few weeks ago, laying her containers of Model Magic out on the table. 

[An aside:  That is how you can tell she is Warren's child.  She is a capital-P Planner.  I, on the other hand, am guaranteed to forget Mother's Day unless I happen to pop into the drugstore beforehand for some Tums and then am confronted by the card display rack when OH HOLY CRAPBALLS IT'S MOTHER'S DAY dammitdammitdammit will the cards make it on time if I buy the cards and mail them RIGHT friggin' NOW?!?][Actually, I did send mine this year, thank you very much.] [But only because I had to go to the drugstore for something else anyway and then I remembered.]

[Another aside:  I hereby nominate the inventor of Model Magic for canonization, or at least a Nobel Peace Prize, that peace being within the walls of my happy home.  Oooh, I loves me some Model Magic:  So clean!  So non-crumbly!  So easy to take out and put away!!!  The inventor of Play-Doh is going to have to be satisfied with a century or two in Purgatory, while I will gladly stoke the flames of whatever eternal fires roast the bones of the creator of Moon Sand.  Why?  It's in the very name:  Moon SAND. Who...WHO thought it would be a good idea to create a toy that mimics the texture AND scattering capacity of damp sand???  Did someone go for a stroll along a beach and think, "Hey, you know what people really like?  They really like walking across the floor and getting sand all over their feet!"  Because that person?  Would be identically WRONG.  When the girls were little, they couldn't have Moon Sand because the baby would eat it, and when the girls got older, they couldn't have Moon Sand because it wound up in every crack and crevice in the floor before transferring to the bottoms of my feet, upon which point I stuck it on top of the fridge way in the back where they couldn't see it until they forgot about it and I could throw it out.  So you're welcome, American Psychiatric Association, for the future therapy sessions my girls will no doubt require to get over being deprived of developmentally appropriate play materials because their mother can't stand the feeling of grit on her feet.]

Anyway, I digress.  Soon Celeste joined in the fun, and at the end of one of the pleasanter pre-dinner-hours we've spent together, they presented me with their magnum opi.  (Sorry.  I can't even think about typing "magnum opuses".  My high school Latin teacher would hunt me down and kill me, and even though she's a retired nun who stands about four-foot-ten, I'm still terrified of her.) Here is India's:

No, I don't know why the picture insists on turning sideways.  Damn you, Picasa! And curse you, Warren, for downloading Picasa, which won't let me use our old and perfectly fine photo software!  

Does this not just scream "first born child"?  There is nothing - nothing - out of the box with my elder girl, who is, for all intents and purposes, a very conventional child.  Who is this for?  MOM.  What is the appropriate emotion?  LOVE.  The applicable symbolism?  A HEART.  Done and DONE.

Then Celeste proferred her wares. 

Here is gift #1:

I would give you some kind of noun, proper or not, to describe this, but I'm sadly bereft of words.  Is it a polka dot?  A mushroom cap?  A genetic sport of a ladybug, sans wings?  I dunno.  But wait!  There's more! 

Gift #2:

Again with the sideways.  Sorry, folks.

"Here you go, Mommy!" Cici chirped, placing the above... object in my hand and running off.  Let's look at it again:

It's some kind of ...oblong... thing.  With one big - what? eyeball? - on its... head?  arse? 

Wait, let's take one more look:

Then it struck me.  My daughter, in celebration of Mother's Day, made me, with her very own hands.....

 

...........wait for it..............

 

 

.....a one-eyed trouser snake. 

Because nothing says "I love you" on Mother's Day quite like a Freudian gesture.

Pride Goeth

Well, I just got back from the orthopedic doctor.  He diagnosed my injury as a gluteal strain.

In other words, I sprained my butt.

OF COURSE I couldn't have some kind of INTERESTING injury, like a hamstring pull or a bum knee, that I could blame on my hard-core athleticism.  Ho no, not me - I have to fall on my @ss in public....and then break it.  On top of THAT, I have to go to physical therapy twice a week for four weeks.  TWICE. A. WEEK.  Dear Buddha, I don't have time to do ANYTHING twice a week unless it's laundry or cooking!  So when are they adding the extra couple hours to the day?  Because that's what it's going to take.

I've Fallen And I Can't Get Up

Well, I was meaning to post a couple more entries this week, but events kinda got away from me - and by "events" I mean, "disasters," and by "got away from me" I mean, "occurred to me."  But!  The blog must go on!

On Wednesday, I made a concerted effort to be double-super-extra efficient.  There was a shitton of work to be done chez Pig; errands to run, food to procure, rooms to tidy, laundry to fold.  So I hustled my muscles out of school at the earliest possible moment, picked up the youngest from pre-K, zipped over to the elementary school to nab the elder child, threw everyone in the car, and ferried my happy threesome hither and yon to get! stuff! done!!!!  With the brutal efficiency of a CIA hit man, I executed all the necessary tasks until the only thing left was a visit to the local grocery.   I was especially glad my appointed rounds were almost complete because an unexpected rainstorm left us all a little damp and cold.  As I walked into the store, I looked forward to a quick whip-round the aisles before hustling home to my sweatpants and tshirt. 

I set my left foot inside the door, no problem.  Then I set my right foot down on what must have been a gross of ball bearings, because my right leg went flying out at a tangential angle to my body, leaving me windmilling in the air a la Wile E. Coyote right after he strolls off a cliff into thin air.  Unlike Wile E., unfortunately, I did not pancake into a neat accordion shape when I hit bottom and bounce back up.  All I know is that one second, I was on my feet, asking Celeste if she wanted yogurt pops with her lunch, and then the next there was a lump of a person lying on the floor crying in pain, and that person happened to be me.  Lovely.  Better yet, I managed to fall just inside the sweep of the automatic door, so someone had to hold it open lest it keep trying to shut on my head over...and over....and over...while potential customers had to step over and around me to get inside.  Hey, when I humiliate myself, I do it ALL THE WAY, BAYBEE. 

Color Me Beautiful

The end of the school year is often a race against time.  Every day becomes a challenge to squeeze in one more nugget of information, one more activity, one more homework assignment.  It's also a time when I question what I've done - have the kids done enough reading this week?  Should we have one more formal writing assignment?  Are their skills developed well enough for them to succeed next year?  There's a lot of curriculum to cover in the last quarter of the year, and on top of that, both the students and I are tired.  No, scratch that.  They're tired; I'm EXHAUSTED. 

Of course, we have a lot to cover this week, and of course, we have the usual panoply of interruptions and disruptions to our schedule just to make it even more fun.  But I've put the kiddos through the wringer over the past week, and there's only so much a body can take.  So today, I broke out the colored pencils and the outline maps and had the kids shade the Confederacy, the Union, and the border states.  Without exception, even at the end of the day when the kids with attention deficits have lost focus and the kids who hate school can't take it anymore and the kids who want to do a good job are distractable, everyone settled down to work without a murmur of protest.  Even better, every class experienced that golden moment of Zen calm when there's not a sound to be heard except for the soft shushing sounds of pencil on paper.

Tomorrow, we're going to have to get back on the bandwagon.  We have notes to take, primary sources to read, skits to perform, quizzes to complete.  But today, we experienced the simple pleasure of listening to rain patter on the roof while we applied color to paper.  And that was just what today needed.

The Ne Plus Ultra of First World Problems

"I wish I was getting married again," mourned my coworker, a woman who is not known for her romantic yearnings.  "Pinterest wasn't around when I got married!"

"I know!" chimed the other female coworker.  "I got totally gypped!  I want to plan my wedding all over again, since I didn't get to plan it on Pinterest!"

The lone, lorn male coworker in the room looked like he wanted to commit hara-kiri with his correcting pen.  That, or move into an armchair in front a TV broadcasting the NFL 24/7 and never leave. 

So let me get this straight - we have the ability to disseminate knowledge instantaneously, on a level and scope never before known in human existence, and we want to use it to... plan weddings.  Excellent.  We ARE ancient Rome, just with on-line bulletin boards.

That Went On About 49 Shades Too Many, If You Ask Me

So have you heard about 5o Shades of Grey?  Or is it Gray?  E-grey or A-gray?  Whatevs.  Anyway, in case you're NOT a middle-aged wife and mother, 5o Shades of Grey is an e-book that started as Twilight fanfic and then became a huge best-seller in its own right among the aforementioned mommy crowd.  It's gained a ton of notoriety because in addition to being a capital-R Romance, it's also about The Sex.  And not just sex-sex, but naughty sex.  Go Google "BDSM" if you want to know more about that element of it. Anyway, 50 SOG caught the attention of the New York Times (the business news part, not the Review of Books part, so that tells you something right there.  "I think you should read this," Warren told me, handing me the article and leering suggestively.  "I do not want to read that book," I snapped back, "it sounds stupid." Then one of my fellow book club members, the investigative reporter who interviews murderers for fun, suggested it for our next meeting.  What the hell, I figured, who am I to argue with the murderer-interviewing lady?  So, much to Warren's initial delight, we read the damned thing. 

So what is wrong with 50 Shades of Grey?  It doesn't just require "willing suspension of disbelief," (which is a VERY FAMOUS QUOTE by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who is a SUPER FAMOUS PERSON, for any of you haters who think I make up my famous quotes that EVERYONE'S heard of).  No, 50 Shades of Grey requires that you deck disbelief in the nutsack, hog-tie it while it's still doubled over in pain, truss it up with a few of those plastic zip-ties the male protagonist seems to like so much, and then stuff it in the hall closet for the duration.  The disbelief starts with said male protagonist, who is a supposed genius multizillionaire money financial business-type person, and who is also an arrogant, cold, withholding @sshole (a la Edward in the Twilight series, hence the fanfic connection) AND is also drop-dead gorgeous AND is all of about twenty-seven years old.  See what I mean?  ONE of those elements I could take, but all FOUR?  I mean, yeah, I made a cottage industry out of dating unsuitable jerks when I was in my 20's, so I know those are out there by the truckload, but the rest of it gets to be so unlikely as to be laughable.  I believe there are arrogant richy-rich business tycoons out there, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, most of them are fifty-four and look like frogs, even if they think they're the handsome prince.  Then there's the fact that Grey blatantly rips off the Bella Swan character for the female protagonist, and then makes her even more passively annoying than the original. Seriously, how whiny can one character get?  "Oh, I'm so useless, I don't do anything, all I do is study and think about how to turn down all the unwelcome advances from every guy I meet."  I wanted to slap her across the face (although it turns out she liked that kinda action a little too much), buy her the collected works of Germaine Greer, and force her to join something already - Camp Fire Girls, the Rotary, anything that would get her out of her freaking house!  In addition to being basically housebound, Whiny makes it to senior year of college without having ever kissed a boy or gone on a bender.  Hey, I know the latest research (which I can't be arsed to go find) claims that college students are actually far less libidinous and licentious than generally imagined, but really, nothing?  By age twenty-one???  Not one unfortunate encounter with grain alcohol punch during freshman orientation, not a single regrettable incident with a Sig Ep at a Heaven and Hell party, nothing???  I call shenanigans on that, I say, SHENANIGANS ON THAT.

Then there's The Sex.  This book became notorious for the author's heavy reliance on, um, purple prose to describe the process of making the double-backed beast than for anything else.  But even with The Sex, the book is just...bad.  Shouldn't erotica have the effect of actually making the reader want to have The Sex?  If so, this book is a great argument for abstinence, the ultimate form of birth control.  There's one bedroom scene where whatsisface richy-rich guy fills his mouth with cold white wine and then spits it into Whiny's mouth while they're Doing It and it's supposed to be terribly erotic, but meanwhile, all I can think is, "EEEEWWWWW, BACKWASH!"  Because eight thousand years ago, when I was attending Podunky Region High School, we had a Big Thing about backwash.  If you asked a friend for a sip of the Hi-C Fruit Punch or Diet Pepsi that she got from the vending machines (which were right there in the cafeteria, another sign of bygone days), chances are the first statement out of her mouth would be, "Okay, but no backwash."  This meant that after you took your sip, you were supposed to slurp on the can to get that last little bit of drink that gets caught in the rim and has TOUCHED YOUR MOUTH OH GROSS.  Of course, we could have just not shared drinks, but that would be too easy, wouldn't it? Okay, that's ancient history, I know, but the point is, that scene evoked someone drinking a big gulp of too-warm white wine diluted with someone else's loogies, which makes me gag a little just writing about it.  It's hard to get a warm glow in the pants when there's a churning sensation in the gut, know what I mean?  Take it from me, it's a bad sign when you're reading an erotic novel and you deliberately start skipping the sex scenes because they're repetitive and dull.  Even the main character getting a riding crop to the saucebox wasn't enough to redeem this book.   

The worst part about this whole phenomenon is that it proves no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public (oh look!  Another famous saying!!!).  There are thousands of women out there who are actually reading it for reals.  And they're saying it's saved their marriages!  Apparently, reading about two highly unlikely characters doing redonculous things is enough to bring the bloom back to the rose and make the ole ball'n'chain look like the Handsome Prince once again.  To which I say, what is wrong with people?!?  There's not even a good subplot in this book!  There's not one single character who's even reasonably believable, no Team Jacob equivalent to keep the reader engaged!  Honestly, it's a sad, sad state of affairs when this is what America needs to keep the sanctity of marriage intact. 

P.S. If you want the TL;DR version of this post, my friend Natalie announced at book club, "I couldn't finish reading it.  It was written in crayon."  Or you can just do what everyone else is doing and watch Ellen DeGeneris recording the audiobook.  Enjoy!