Tag: life

An Unimaginable Century – Live Long and Prosper

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

We had just returned from enjoying a morning at the neighborhood pool. The kids were demanding snacks. Somewhat distracted as I grabbed our pool bag, I yanked the car’s back hatch down. Whack! The corner of the hatch struck the side of my head.

I might be a bit of a klutz, but I can take comfort in the knowledge that I will likely live to be an old klutz. In theory, I have good genes, even if my spatial judgment is lacking. My grandpa is turning 100 years old this Monday and the family is coming from all corners to celebrate. Well, at least many of us are. My cousin’s daughter is expecting her first child any day now*, so she has a pass.

The birth of the newest edition means that my grandfather will still be alive at the birth of his first great-great grandchild. A few months from now, the newest edition will be given a string of vaccinations that weren’t even discovered the year my grandfather was born, let alone up for debate by the general public. Penicillin wouldn’t be discovered for another thirteen years. Just imagining coping with my sons’ double ear infections without something like Amoxicillin makes me shudder. While it may amaze me that five generations might be living under the same sun, perhaps it shouldn’t. As life expectancies increase, this could well become the norm.

The year my grandfather was born, Bell Labs introduced the technology make the first coast to coast telephone call possible. Today, you may well be reading this on the other side of the world seconds after I click a publish button. The year my grandfather was born, movies like Interstellar could not have even been dreamed up as Einstein didn’t formulate his theory on relativity until November. Forget manipulating time and space via a space ship and artificial wormholes, there were so few cars at the time, stop signs weren’t needed on the streets of Detroit until that December.

Even if someone did dream up a flying ship (fueled by magic as liquid fueled rockets weren’t invented until 1926), many of the movie’s plot details would be missing. It would be unlikely that the mission’s astronauts would send or receive family messages as short wave radio wasn’t invented until 1919. Nor would they have droid assistance. The first robot didn’t appear until 1921.

Wormhole
‘Wormhole’ – Image by W.H. de Vries courtesy of Flickr

My dad begged and pleaded with those of us coming to the party to share our stories of grandpa. In addition to being clumsy, I am a terrible driver, and my Grandpa is partially to blame. A survivor of the Great Depression, Grandpa is not one who wastes. When I was learning to drive, he pointed out that braking was wasting gas. The adult me recognizes that what he meant was that I should remove my foot from the accelerator well before the light turns red. The teenager heard “drive hard, don’t brake until you have to, and when you have to – brake fast!” It’s a habit I am still trying to break (all the more reason I strongly support telecommuting – another thing not imaginable one hundred years ago).

I’ve been told by Grandpa on more than one occasion that I look very much like his sister, especially after he has told me something in Croatian. I don’t speak a word of Croatian, but the strong resemblance makes him think I should. I wish I did, but I just have never had a knack for languages. I have a hard enough time with English. But still he tries again with each visit. And I smile. And I say we’ll see you again soon. And I mean it. He’s lived 100 years, why couldn’t he be around for another 100? More unimaginable things have happened.

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*The newest edition to the family was born on 5/29/15

 

Bottoms Up!

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

The hubby and I married in our early twenties. After announcing our engagement, I remember a handful of people, including my dad, ask if I was really ready. My mom and dad had married young and were divorced, so I understood their concern. After making assurances about my decision my dad offered a piece of sage advice:

Be very careful what chores you do. Whatever you do more than three times in a row will be your job for life.

I must not have been careful enough because as the years progressed I somehow found myself responsible for emptying all the trash cans upstairs. Downstairs? Those bins are different. Either of us will take their contents to the curb as needed. It stinks or overflows, and out it goes without further prompting. But bins upstairs? Those must be weighted like the hammer of Thor as only I appear to be worthy of lifting them.

Most of the bins upstairs are small and accessible, except for the one in the laundry closet. Instead, that room has a kitchen sized container wedged firmly in the narrow space between the dryer and the wall. The only way to empty it is to pull the entire thing up over the dryer, a difficult task when the can is full but not much better when empty. I am, as they say, vertically challenged, reaching above and around the dryer is no easy feat for me. When I realized I’d been tricked into dealing with the small bins, I asked the hubby if he would at least help with that one. I thought it was a pretty good offer; he wouldn’t have to empty it nearly as often as I did the others.

But I still expected it to be emptied sometime. As I pulled clothes out of the dryer this weekend, I noticed that the can was overflowing with rodent sized globs of dryer lint. Empty detergent bottles were stacked up like the Tower of Pisa. Exactly how long had it been between cleanings? (To be fair, the hubby does plenty of other chores around the house, he is just terrible remembering this one. I suspect is it on purpose.) The next trash day I found myself alone in the house with a few minutes before I was to start work. Fine, you win. I’ll do it myself.

I opened up the laundry closet and hopped atop the dryer. As I pulled the trash can up, empty plastic bags and more lint bunnies tumbled to the floor near, what was that, an empty raisin box?! How long has that been there? Visions of house fires and roach invasions filled my thoughts.

In retrospect, I should have simply grabbed my vacuum, but instead I lay on my stomach and tried reaching over the side to grab everything on the floor by hand. It was just out of reach. I inched forward. I learned my dryer’s surface is surprisingly frictionless.

death by dryerI began hurtling over the side like a penguin sliding on ice. Man, did I ever pick a bad day to wear a skirt. I was going to crack my head on the floor. My body wouldn’t be found until the evening with my hind quarters up in the air for all the world to see. My friends would toast my memory with a ‘bottoms up’ and wouldn’t even pretend not to giggle. It was just the way I always dreamed of going.

I thought fast as the ground rapidly came closer. I threw my head back so that it came in contact with the wall. It was enough to slow my downward momentum, but not completely stop it. I felt my body slip another fraction of an inch.

As I hung there with my rump in the air and blood pooling in my face, I found myself wondering, was I really content with the legacy I would be leaving behind? I mean sure, Elvis may be known for dying on a toilet (or at least within a few feet of it), but at least he also had revolutionized rock n’ roll and served his country with honor. I wanted to be known for more than just being the petite lady who met her end via a dumpster dive inside the house.

Continuing to use my head as a tripod support I slowly pushed myself back up. Returning to an upright position, I nearly lost my balance as my blood returned to its regular circulation, but I survived. This time.

Our eldest will bemoan that we “never buy him anything!” and has recently begun asking for an allowance. It may be time to make him earn it. In any event, I need to get this second book published before life kills me.

Before you ask – yes the book is actually nearly done (yes – done, done). I’ve edited and refined all but the final chapter. I’ll be asking for volunteers for a round of beta reads in June. Please stay tuned for additional details or contact me if you think you might be interested.

Bugs and other blends

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

My house has been bugged.

No solicitation sign
I need to make this sign (Image from Pinterest)

It all started last weekend. The weather was lovely. Not too hot, not too cold. The hubby was working diligently in the garage with our eldest as first assist while LT and I drew chalk pictures on the driveway. It was perfect.

Obviously this scene of domestic bliss had to be interrupted. A man with a clipboard walked up to inform us that his company was in the area actively treating homes such as ours for any number of pests. I sent the door to door salesman on his way, saying “I don’t mind the occasional bug.”

And that’s where I went wrong. I should have learned by now to never, ever offer up an invitation to Mother Nature (she has quite the sense of humor). Either that or the salesman possessed mind powers and a suit in his van similar to the one Marvel will show in Ant-Man. In any case, as we were readying the boys for bed I noticed a large brown spot in the corner of a wall where hallway meets ceiling. The spot then moved.

Bleah! The hubby was promptly summoned to get rid of the creature while I continued with the bedtime routine (I am all for making sacrifices). My eldest saw the action and called out, “don’t kill it!” He wanted to add the little vermin to his collection. A collection of bugs I might add he has because of lovely person he refers to as his Nai Nai, his other maternal grandmother, and my stepmom.

image from wikipedia
What she lacks in maternal instinct she makes up for in style (image from Wikipedia)

Popular culture will often portray stepmothers as wicked creatures determined to insert a wedge between children of a prior union and the children’s father. They have a beauty that is only skin deep. Self-serving, often jealous, and never ever to be trusted, they are the perfect villains in children’s stories (i.e. Snow White, Cinderella, Hansel & Gretel – depending on what version you read, etc.) Some of my dad’s girlfriends (from my perspective as a child) could have easily fallen into that category had the relationship grown more serious. But luckily, my dad eventually met a woman who understood that there was still a “mom” in the word stepmom.

It couldn’t have been easy for her, marrying into our family. We were three young girls with one awesome mom already. Our things were stored in dad’s house long before any of hers were (even if we only played with them on the weekends), but somehow she managed to find a place. Not by trying to replace our mom, or by trying to be our friend (we were too young for that), but by choosing to act like a parent who just happened to miss the early years (no 3am feedings or dirty diapers – darn! why didn’t I think of that?)

She has loved my boys (and my nieces and nephews) since the day they were born. As far as they are concerned, there is no ‘step’ in their family. She is just another limb on their family tree. She has also spoiled them as much as any other grandparent might. One of these gifts is a clear plastic box designed to collect and store bugs. It’s the kind of gift that makes me, as a parent, question what I did as a child to deserve such ‘generosity.’ My son, on the other hand, thinks it is fantastic and has since set out to fill it with whatever he can find in the yard (or, in this case, hallway). Thus far, we have been blessed with pet stink bugs, snails, and centipedes (the horror!) I might see a box of creepy crawlies, but he sees them as new friends, all thanks to his Nai Nai.

The hallway bug in this story ‘got away’ (to a beautiful porcelain home complete with indoor plumbing) and won’t be joining the ‘family’ anytime soon (so sad), but my stepmom has shown my sons that when you let it, love can find a way no matter its origin.

Happy Mother’s Day

To wait or not to wait, that is the question

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

The number 4 stares back at me on the computer screen.

It is my eldest son’s waitlist position for the school he is currently attending and the number meant he had only moved up one position in a month’s time. When I first learned that he was placed on a waitlist I thought there must be a mistake. I mean he is already a student there. Why wouldn’t there be a seat with his name on it? I called the school and was told I would have to talk to the county representative managing student assignment, which I did.

The county assured me they would look into the matter.

To be fair, everyone I have dealt with thus far has been extremely polite and considerate, my son’s placement is nothing personal. Which is the problem. The existing system is based on numbers whether they be data points or funding dollars, rather than students and their families.

The county school system lists a multitude of options. There are public schools operating on the traditional calendar, charter schools, magnet schools, and schools that have year round calendars. Thus far, the year round calendar has been a wonderful experience. We only had to plan for three weeks of additional care at a time and could space out our vacations accordingly minimizing the impact on our jobs. At the end of each three to five-week break, my son would be itching to get back to his friends and could actually still remember many of the lessons he learned before the end of the break.

Therefore I was annoyed to learn that the county had arbitrarily placed my son in a school operating on a traditional calendar with a three-month summer break, especially at a school not even fully constructed yet. I was invited to apply to transfer my son back to his existing school. Five minutes after the web portal was opened, I had uploaded my request. A counter at the bottom told me I was the ninth request of the morning.

At the time, I wasn’t too concerned he wouldn’t eventually get back in. I had done some reading on the selection criteria and everything seemed to indicate that his transfer request would only be a formality.WCPSS School Selection Criteria

I later learned that the site left off some small print. The county is trying to fill the new school and this guarantee was really just for rising fourth or fifth graders. My annoyance turned quickly to anger mixed with helplessness. I had to watch as my son’s eyes welled up as I told him he might not be with his friends next year and unless four other children are placed elsewhere, and couldn’t do a thing about it.

I try to make the best of any situation I can’t fully control. I am a firm believer that things work out the way they are supposed to, but I also believe you have to take a stand from time to time, which is why I am now struggling. It’s a lot harder to be easy going when it’s your child being affected. Should I continue to fight for where I think my son belongs because it makes the most sense for our family today? Or is this a sign that I need to embrace other changes?

red or blue pill
“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” – from the Matrix, image courtesy of flickr

I am a fan of the show Mad Men, now in its last season. I will avoid spoilers for those who haven’t yet seen this week’s episode, but the entire episode was about the life not lived. It was purely coincidental that I watched it the night I learned that my son is now number four on the list. It is also coincidental that the number four is the least lucky number in the Chinese language. It is a good thing I am not overly superstitious…or is it?

But what if it isn’t coincidence? What if, like my son, I have been stuck on a waitlist, only unlike him, my number is being called? What if the universe has practically put up a neon sign and I’m just too illiterate to read it? If so, how long will the universe wait before moving on to the next in line?

“If you want something you’ve never had, you’ve got to do something you’ve never done” – Thomas Jefferson

But what do you do when you’d also like to keep the something you had?

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

When life throws you lemons, make lemonade. That is unless you are a multimillion dollar food conglomerate, in which case why are people throwing lemons your way? Can’t you pay for high-quality reusable shipping cartons to minimize the risk of bruising? But I digress.

Happy Lemon

This weekend ended much like any other weekend. The kids were tucked into bed dreaming dreams of firetrucks and / or monkeys while the hubby (who has now requested I refer to him as Lamont – my apologies to Lamonts) and I enjoyed a few hours of child-free television. Lamont was kind enough to pour me a lemonade. It wasn’t the fresh squeezed, homemade variety, but it would do. Ahh, I thought as I took a sip. Spring had finally arrived. I’d better enjoy the weather now as all too soon neon yellow pollen would fill the air and coat every surface in sight. I took another sip, savoring the sweet and sour taste.

I shifted from my spot on the couch. I couldn’t get comfortable. A weight seemed to press up against my lungs no matter which way I sat. It was almost like being pregnant without the hormones. I took another sip while I sought a position that would relieve the pressure.

No amount of movement seemed to work. My breath became more shallow, my skin more hot to the touch. I turned to Lamont and calmly said, “I can’t seem to breathe.”

“What do you mean you can’t breathe?!” (I have a long history of understating things with regards to my health.)

“Is my face red? My skin is on fire.”

I looked in the mirror. Sure enough, both cheeks were brilliant lobster red. Another red stain spread down the center of my chest.

“I think I might be allergic to something in the lemonade.” (I am also a master at stating the obvious. It really should be on my business cards.)

Up until this point, if you had asked me if I had any allergies I would have said yes, to bee stings (something else I learned from an unfortunate experience), but now I know my body is still able to learn new tricks. Yay!

Confused LemonWe read the juice label as I took a Benedryl. Ingredients listed were water, sugar, and lemon juice. All words I could pronounce. All ingredients I enjoy in other forms on a fairly regular basis. Definitely nothing I expected to trigger an allergic response. The product advertised that it was all natural. Was it possible that some bees were accidentally ground up (naturally of course) in the manufacturing process along with the lemons?

The next morning (thank you Benedryl) I fired up the computer to see if anyone else might have written about a similar complaint. I learned my reaction is considered rare (lucky me!), but I also learned a few things about the juice manufacturing process that aren’t exactly advertised. Being the great moderately acceptable parent that I am, I feel it is important to practice sharing (even if it is a little off my usual topics).

For example, I learned that as part of the preserving process all chemical that give a naturally squeezed juice its flavor are removed leaving behind a tasteless liquid that no one would buy. The manufacturers then put in flavor and scent packets to give the juice back its, umm… err… juiciness depending on the tastes of a specific market. They don’t have to declare the specific make-up of these packets on the labels because they are supposed to be based on derivatives of the base ingredients (It’s a Fruit Loop-hole). A little citrus by-product here, a pitch of black magic rind there. Voila! Bon Appetit!

lemonscaryThese flavor packets can change depending on where the fruit is harvested and when and can be created by third party designers. Therefore not only do I still not know exactly what it was that caused the reaction, I also have no idea whether this was a one-off reaction or if more products could affect me in a similar fashion. Breakfast could become my own version of Russian Roulette! (Don’t ever leave me, coffee…)

You aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover (except for mine because my cover is awesome), but I didn’t realize you weren’t to judge a product by its label too (up until now I thought that was the point of the thing). Maybe one of these days I’ll learn a lesson the easy way. Here’s to truth in advertising!