Some Pig

Texts I Have Sent

My recent Michael Phelps anecdote spurred me to look through my old messages and see what I could see.

On taking a family trip:

Help.  Am trapped in moving vehicle w hostile natives.  Now know how American capt felt when captured by pirates.  Pls send Navy Seals.

Response from dear, dear friend whose value will soon become clear:

Will send troops... and wine.

Response from other dear friend whose mind runs along a similar track:

Duct tape.

The social workers are SO rigid about those things!

Response from male coworker at a happy hour:

I would send reinforcements but we are all sadly stuck here with beers in our hands.

How tragic!  I would pray for you, if I weren't an atheist.

Anonymous Student is here. He sure did just follow me into the men's room and start a conversation with me from an adjacent urinal.  I am still so very uncomfortable.

EEEEWWWW.  It will take you all vacay to recover from that!

On marital harmony:

Dustin hearts Tony's [Donut's, a pastry emporium in the City Formerly Known As Home that makes the most kick-ass donuts you have ever let pass between your lips. I told my coworker's husband, who commutes to said city, to check it out.]

Is that a good thing?!?

Not for me, not for his cholesterol, but maybe for him.

I will eat ALL the Tony's Donuts to spare his cholesterol bc I am selfless that way.  Especially the crullers.  I WILL SAVE DUSTIN FROM THE CRULLERS!!!

On Warren's trip to Vegas:

From Warren:  In LV.  What are you doing?

Hi Daddy!  We're out having pizza, then home for a movie and then BED (Mommy hopes).  We love you! Have a good time in Bermuda! (India was a little 'fused) [NB:  I am transcribing my daughters' ideas with my own edits, so it's not as icky as it comes off here]

I'm on [the] strip

As long as you're not WATCHING the strip, that's okay by me

We need to come here, sans kids!

I'm expecting a very nice consolation prize, BTW

It would be much better with you.  Don't worry, I have my Ptown face on [NB: Warren lived in Provincetown, Mass., many moons ago]

Ptown?  Are you pretending to be gay?

No, I have my "I am not buying what you are selling" - it works for gay, bi and straight!

What are they selling?!

The more narrow question is, "what aren't they selling"

How was your day w the girls? My sushimi has an orchid in it!  I am not in KC (Kansas City) anymore.

And there is an 8 foot buddha in the rafters

[Ed. note: At least he is finding enlightenment while he's, um, sightseeing]

On fashion, to my friend Robin:

Warning:  Am wearing ridiculous overalls today bc my pants are tight around my waist and uncomfortable to drive in.

Fair enough!

Now they are covered w snot and yogurt thanks to Ceecee.

What Happens In Vegas, And So Forth and So On

So guess what???  Warren's left to go to a conference!  In Las Vegas!!!  Aaaannnd - drum roll, please - this time, the conference actually takes place during my vacation week!

There's just one eensy, weensy little problem.  I'm not going.  There's not enough money in the exchequer for me and the little ones to go, and there are no relatives nearby who can take two small children for four days and not need hospitalization afterward for exhaustion.  (No, Celeste still doesn't nap, why do you ask?) Also, economic realities being what they are, and so forth and so on, blah blah blah yada yada, now is not the time to go tearing through our disposable income like green corn through the new maid.  So we continue the trend of Warren goes to fun places while my ass stays at home.  (BTW, you may have noticed that sometimes I use euphemisms like "hiney" and sometimes I use other characters like @ss and sometimes I just say the word itself.  I am not sure why I do this, other than there are days when I am all teachered up and feel guilty for sinking to the level of using such coarse language, and besides, what if a member of the School Committee finds this blog? and other times I just don't give a rat's @ss.  But I digress.)

Anyway, Warren was fine with the idea of making this a family vacay, but he did point out that he is going there for a conference and would be occupied for approximately 17 hours out of every 24.  It seemed a little crazy for us to spend upwards of a grand for me to single-mom it when I can do that here for the cost of internet access and take-out pizza.  Adding to the complicating factors, Las Vegas has resolutely turned its back on its prior campaign to be a "family destination," other than actively encouraging the kinds of pursuits that wind up in making a family.  The hotel where Warren is staying does have a pool, but judging from the write-up, the management would look askance at a dumpy middle-aged woman in a skirted swimsuit and her two wriggly offspring yelling, "look at me, Mommy," a hundred million times clogging up the shallow end.  On the other hand, the hotel has bunnies, and what could be more child-centered than cute li'l fuzzy bunnies?  I asked a coworker who is a big Vegas aficionado if I could take the kids and have enough for them to do, and he mentioned walking around some kind of mega-luxury shopping area (this just goes to show you that people with small children should not ask the childless what to do with said children). Long story short (too late!), my efforts to unearth enough family-centric activities to keep the three of us occupied while Daddy talks about PLM/BOM whatever whatever came acropper and so I am home.  By myself.  With these people (View this photo). For seventy-two hours, minus whatever time I can convince my mother's helper to come over.

I was bitching and moaning voicing my disappointment at this turn of events at day care drop-off last week when the handsome young father in the business suit dropping off his toddler overheard me.  "Vegas isn't for wives," he retorted immediately, then looked completely taken aback by the fact that he'd admitted that in his out-loud voice. Sadly, I have to say that I think he's right. Warren better bring me a damn good consolation prize to make up for this, too.

Quick, While I Think Of It

If you need a laugh today, go here.

But if you are pressed for time, you can just skip it, because I am now going to share with you the most ridiculous part of the most ridiculous book concept I have seen in a long time.  Apparently one of the major selling points is this:

Contributors include Meredith Vieira, Ann Curry, Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Kathie Lee Gifford, and many others. Written in a friendly and accessible tone, with straightforward, honest advice and expert information, Today's Moms will help all moms feel more confident about their first year of motherhood.

And it was written by these people:

Two producers of Today share their experiences and wisdom on baby's first year, along with priceless advice and anecdotes from the anchors and experts on America's number-one morning show.

Excuse me if I'm just a leeettle skeptical about the premise behind what I am sure is a wonderful addition to the field of child-rearing expertise, but ... I'm skeptical.  You know what made me feel more confident about my first year of parenting?  My second year.  And I'm not sure that I could relate to the "wisdom and experiences" of two women who probably could afford nannies, housecleaners, and vacations during that first year.  In fact, let's look at this more closely:

Two Producers of the Today Show                    Me

Can afford nannies, housekeepers, etc.            My mom helped clean the month India was born

Picked up and driven to work                            Drive self and child to day care, work, store, etc.

Paid a bajillion dollars a year                            Paid less than a New York City garbageman

Plus, let's look at the contributors.  Okay, Meredith Vieira - I like her, I think she's pretty down to earth, so I'll give them a pass on that one.  But Al Roker?  Really?  The man whose job consists of telling us if we need a coat in the mornings, showing us cute pictures drawn by preschoolers and congratulating people for having birthdays is going to make me feel better about my parenting?  The anecdotes from the rich and famous are supposed to reassure us that we all put our pants on one leg at a time and we all heal from our episiotomies at the same pace (slowly), but somehow I am less than convinced. I read part of the excerpt available on-line and couldn't continue when I got to the point where Kathie Lee Gifford compared her lactating breasts to the Hindenberg. There's something about wealthy people with housekeepers and personal assistants pretending to be "just folks" that galls me. Maybe I'm just an oversensitive prole with a grudge against the bourgeoisie - okay, there's no maybe about it.  Tell you what, Al, Kathie, Meredith et. al., I will feel a sense of kinship under the skin with you when you relate that hilarious anecdote about how you were praying to the refrigerator gods that the remaining half-dozen fish sticks weren't freezer-burnt as you were running the mad dash between the two day cares at opposite sides of town because your afternoon meeting ran late, and you looked down your front only to realize that, hey!  You'd worn a dried-out smear of smushed banana on a sensitive part of your anatomy all day long and no one had told you!  THEN I will embrace you as a fellow traveler on the highway of parental stress.  And buy your book.  Maybe.

Letter From A Broad, The Defense Rests Edition

Dear Friends and Family Members, most of whom haven't seen us in ages and several of whom have never met us before EVER,

I realize that we are slated for some of the warmest weather yet this year for this weekend.  I also am aware that my offspring have never met most of the extended family members they're going to meet this weekend at my family reunion.  And I am equally aware that you all are going to be looking at how my daughters are outfitted and passing judgment on them AND me based on the cuteness, coordination, and appropriateness of their outfits to the weather.  So I just want you to know, it was Mr. Geniushead's idea to squash his spare car into the little, teeny, tiny amount of space left over in the garage, which not-so-coincidentally happens to be located right in front of the storage closet that contains all the bins of summer clothes.  So if my girls look like they're clothed in odds and ends of things I found by digging through their winter clothing and looking for stuff I missed in the end-of-summer inventory?  It's because they are.  I preferred that to forcing them to wear winter clothes and having them pass out from heatstroke.

Signed,
Some Pig

PS Please try to overlook the fact that India looks like she's bursting out of her clothes, a la the Incredible Hulk in mid-transformation.  She's had a growth spurt recently and all the size 5 hand-me-downs are waiting for me - you guessed it - in the storage closet.  Fortunately for me, Celeste is a peanut and is still wearing the same size she took last summer.

It's A Wonder ANYONE Makes It To Adulthood

Today a particularly graceless and tactless young man on our team wandered up to me during class.  I was in the library, beset on all sides by students needing help with their independent research projects on immigration, which is of course the best time to ask me stupid questions that have nothing to do with social studies!

"What are we doing Friday?" he asked, in tones of great sufferance and boredom.  Friday is the day before our April break.  I gave him a thorough but curt answer, hoping he would go away and let me deal with other students who were, let's see, working on their projects.  But that just opened the floodgates:**

"Are we ever going to watch a movie in class again?"
"How come [name of other team] got to watch The Alamo and we didn't?"
"Why didn't we get to do x and y and z activities that all the other teams got to do?"
"We never got to have the [our team] vs. [their team] showdown, you know."

Given my distracted state, I snapped something back at him about how we've done things as a team that other teams haven't gotten to do, and didn't he have something better to do with his time anyway?  He allowed how he supposed he did, and he slouched back to his work, leaving me to stew.  It's a good thing I was so distracted, because his questions and his tone of voice and his WHOLE FRICKING ATTITUDE made me SO MAD I was looking at the world through a red haze of irrational anger.  It's a good thing I was so distracted, or else I might have said something really impolitic and impolite, such as:

Oh, gee!  I'm so sorry you're not finding your learning environment is entertaining enough for your liking!  Why don't you make a list of your top five or ten ideas and I'll get right on that for you??

or,

You poor, poor, deprived soul!  Please accept my profound apologies for not anticipating and fulfilling your every need! 

or I could have gone the blunt honesty route:

Are you really so spoiled and entitled that you feel you can say this to me with a straight face, or are you just putting me on?

Fortunately, April break is next week.  Otherwise I might not make it.

** When you read these questions to yourself, you will have to imagine the bored-young-adolescent whiny tone that goes with it.

An Ode To The Code

With the coming of spring and advent of "warmer" weather (meaning, fifty- and sixty-degree days instead of thirty- and forty-degree days), I have been exposed to more fishbelly-white skin than I care to remember.  And so I present the following poetic commentary:

                        Ruminations upon a Dress Code

                  
                        Boobs and butts
                        and thighs and guts
                        I don't want to see 'em,

                        I've got plenty of my own,
                        thank you,
                        And yours?  I do not need 'em.

                        Does your mother know
                        You left the house
                        Looking barely clothed?

                        Or does she think
                        You dress the same
                        Come spring or winter snows?

                        So if I called her
                        (on the phone),
                        And told her what you're wearing,

                        Would she scream
                        And drop the phone?
                        Or is she way past caring?

                        I don't know
                        what you were told,
                        As your parents you were rearing,

                        All I know is,
                        I'll rat you out,
                        And I'll do it within your hearing.

                        So if you wish
                        To avoid the call
                        That reveals how you've been naughty,

                        Might I suggest
                        You buy some CLOTHES,
                        And try putting them ON your body.

Higher Math

Skinny jeans + typical freshman girl = optical illusion of a HUUUGE butt and toothpick legs.

Skinny jeans + boxer shorts + no belt = schizophrenia between emo-boy look and thug-in-da-hood look.

Skinny jeans + middle-aged celebrity = clear paranoia about remaining hip and relevant.

Skinny jeans + fluorescent orange and green t-shirt + dyed black hair = get your own iconic decade, losers!

Skinny jeans + Rock of Love bus = standing prescription for Monistat and penicillin.

Skinny jeans + slightly overweight adolescent = muffin top from HELL.

Skinny jeans + slightly overweight adolescent + inability to be realistic about what size you REALLY are = self-applied tourniquet.

Skinny jeans + mullet + wifebeater = violation of my rights as a prisoner of circumstances guaranteed by the Geneva Convention.

Skinny jeans + tramp-stamp tattoos = more information than I need to know about your love life, personal tastes, and/or favorite animals. 

Skinny jeans + one slightly (ahem) overweight middle-aged mom with delusions of MILF status = don't worry, it will NEVER happen in this lifetime!

Letter From A Broad, Consumer Confidence Edition

Dear Wally World,

Given that you are a retail concern that stakes its reputation on low cost and convenience, you leave a little sometime to be desired.  As a fickle American consumer, I feel it is my duty to point out your shortcomings to you so that you can cower in shame at my feet, begging my forgiveness rectify the situation in order to ensure my loyalty.  So let us begin.

First, there are some serious deficiencies in your supply-chain logistics (my husband's an MBA, so I get to say stuff like that with a straight face).  I realize that your home office is located in Buttsweatville, deep in the deep, deep South, but that doesn't excuse you from having a friggin' clue about the climate and weather in the REST of the continent.  Given that we've been thrilled around these parts when the thermometer breaks the fifty-degree mark, your policy of stocking the store with clothing suitable for a summer heat wave seems a wee bit premature.  If I sent my kids to school in the gauzy skirts and spaghetti-strap tops currently among your wares, our day-care providers would be well within their rights to report me to Youth and Family Services for neglect.  But hey, nothing coordinates with capris and sleeveless tops like gooseflesh and runny noses, right?  The same goes for nightwear, only double.  Would someone please tell your purchasing department that we are still experiencing nights in the high 30 degrees, so sleeveless nighties the size and heft of two large Kleenex are ill-suited to our needs?  At the same time, I would like to dress my girls in something that's not plaid, flannel, or a turtleneck.  You could make a killing if you'd make some childrenswear that offers enough coverage for chilly climes, but says "spring," not, "Shackleton's doomed voyage to the South Pole."

On to women's wear, specifically, hosiery!  Every time I try to buy pantyhose in your sock department, I have to plan on spending half an hour digging through every last box of pantyhose in a quest for the two or three pairs of size S you seem to think is a sufficient number to stock.  I realize that actually wearing pantyhose makes me a dinosaur, but I like wearing skirts and I just can't bring myself to go to work stocking-less if it's anything less than eighty degrees out.  (Plus, the thought of dress shoes and bare skin together makes my skin crawl!  Hey, all you Sarah Jessica Parker types, barefoot in your Manolos:  Don't your feet sweat bullets in your shoes when you don't wear hose?  Don't the shoes stick to your skin and pull?  Obvious exceptions for sandals and peep-toe shoes, of course.)  Whenever I try to buy pantyhose at Wally World, I wind up forced to choose from one pair each of ultra-support hose that look like nylon cement, thigh-highs that would reach about up to my chin if I even tried them, and one lonely pair of some weird color like "mushroom" that doesn't match anything I own.  Seriously, what gives???  Do short women not deserve to be shod and clothed too?  Is there a reason why sizes B, C, D, 1X, 2X, and 3X deserve to luxuriate in the full range of pantyhose fashion, but those of us in size A have to beg for just one pair in one non-weird color?  After all, there are lots and LOTS of us under 5'6" in the world, and I refuse to believe we're ALL rolling our waistbands!  So get on that, willya?

Sincerely,
Some Pig

Dear India,

When I decide, in a burst of generosity, to buy you a cute li'l spring outfit during my Wally World run, it is somewhat disheartening to have you burst into tears.  It is further disheartening to hear you moan on and on about how awful it is that the cute little sparkly butterfly shirt is blue instead of pink and how you hate the darling little capris with the ruffle trim because they're tan and you hate tan and you want them to be a color and it's not fair that you can't have pink and so forth and so on.  After all, I wasn't planning to buy you anything today in the first place, so anything you get should be seen as a bonus.  Furthermore, most of the little-girl clothing for sale either had that heinous Hannah Montana splattered all over it or looked far more suitable for STD Barbie than my sweet innocent child, so you're damn lucky that I was willing to look around a bit until I found something I thought we'd both like.  Rest assured, I am filing this away for future reference.  Just so you know, when you turn 12 and you're bitching about wondering why I buy spur-of-the-moment treats for your easygoing little sister, who likes everything and doesn't fuss, and not for you?  I plan to bring up this incident, and the many, many others similar to it that I have already experienced with you.  I'm just like an elephant: I never forget, and I have baggy wrinkles around my knees because my pantyhose is a size 3X.  You were warned.

Love,
Your mother

A Sad Commentary on Modern Life

Still busy, but the last post was such a downer I have to post something new.  Here's a short-n-sweet tale from the Caroline files:

One of Warren's favorite activities of a Saturday is to take his family on a reenactment of the Bataan death march on a leisurely walk through town, culminating in a stop at the playground.  Recently, damp weather made the walk a dicey proposition, so we drove (!) to the playground, figuring that we'd better use up lots of little kid energy before the droplets fell.  The sky was gray and threatening enough that we decided to decamp early, so you can imagine my consternation when the remote door locks didn't work.  Nary a peep of horn nor a glimmer of headlight greeted my repeated and increasingly panicky button-pushing.  I was mentally rehearsing all the possible contingency plans (I'll walk home while Warren - no, he's faster than I am; *Warren* can walk home and I'll walk the girls downtown for lunch, or maybe we'll stay here until it really starts to sprinkle and then we'll go for lunch; or maybe Warren can meet us at the library instead...), thus rendering me completely taken aback when Warren walked up to the car...

... and opened the door with the key.  Because, uh, yeah, those funny twisted-y metal-y things that hang on the key fob?  They're called "keys".  And if you put them in the "keyhole" and then "turn" them, you can "unlock" the door - get this - manually!  Without using the remote key fob!  Who'd'a thunk it???  "Not me" is the answer to that question, apparently, since I had managed to forget utterly and totally the fact that the car had regular ole keys in addition to the remote locks.  I have to say, the story of the lady who locked herself in her car and had to call 911 to figure out to roll down her window doesn't seem nearly so far-fetched to me now!

The moral of the story:  God forbid I should ever get an electric can opener.  If we had a blackout, I'd starve to death.

Not-A-Very Good Friday

Today my principal came up to me in homeroom.

"You know today's Good Friday, right?" he said, "Well, it's a very good Friday for you!" 

I'm getting that magical third contract that makes me a regular faculty member (e.g. non-probational).  Which is great news, for me.  However, at the end of the day, I walked past another second-year teacher leaving the building in tears.  She teaches home ec., which for those of you born before 1980, is now called Family and Consumer Sciences.  Because of budget realities, FCS and tech ed. (translation:  wood shop) are being reduced and staff positions cut.  One tech ed teacher is retiring, so no one had to get the axe in that department, but the other FCS teacher on staff helped weave Jesus' robes and ain't going anywhere.  So you do the math.

I teach in la-la land, and it's still pretty damn cushy around here, even with cuts.  Even if times stay tight, we've got a lot of bells and whistles for a public school.  We'll be just fine.  Maybe the programming will suffer a little for a few years, but we'll be fine.  I wonder how many other teachers around the country are leaving their schools in tears, in other districts that were running lean to begin with?  I wonder how many students will be sitting in classes of 25, 27, 29-plus kids with one harried teacher and no aide or Special Ed professional to help?  I wonder how many middle- and high-schoolers will be sitting in another study hall instead of taking a language, an elective, or a learning lab?  All over the country, school boards are deciding between aides in classrooms and a functioning library; recess monitors or paper for the copier.  Economic recovery funds will cushion the worst of the blow for the poorest of our schools, but there's plenty of hurting to go around.  I just hope your school isn't one of the ones hurting.