Hours on the road – 18

Jayne hats knitted – 2

Mojitos consumed – 2 (and 2 fewer than I wanted to)

Meetings attended – 2

Friends visited – 25

Trips to Walmart – 3

Number of times we listened to the same CD without noticing – 5

Calories consumed – too many to count

Hours slept – too few to mention

That pretty much sums it up.

 

Been just drifting lately after my bout of financial-collapse-inspired indignation.  Now I am resigned.

Counter-intuitively, I tend to drown my sorrow in cheap luxuries when all the big ones are out of reach.

Pretty Yarn.

The knitting has been giving me a lot of satisfaction lately.  It makes people happy when you spend the time to make them things.  Knowing that you give someone something to wear and cherish is really just the icing.  I complain about the Jayne hats, but honestly, I wouldn’t dream of charging for them and it makes me happy that I can do something people want.   It makes me feel happy to just handle the yarn and watch the project work up. 

Oh, and sometimes I just like to run my hands through it and look at the colors.  Just one of my minor indulgences, like hot bubble baths and ice cream.  

Leave me my little luxuries and I will be just fine.

 

I think this is probably one of my mostest favoritest definitely-in-the-top-ten-ever posts by a mommyblogger:

http://badladies.blogspot.com/2008/09/milk-it-does-body-good.html

CCCOW!

Want a pretty good primer on how the heck we ended up in this financial mess?  Straight from the mouths of the horses involved?

The Giant Pool of Money

Sit back.  It’s a wild ride.  If your jaw doesn’t drop at least once, you weren’t paying attention.

Ever have one of those days where, no matter how much you fundamentally love your job, you really just teeter on the edge of walking out?  You know you will regret this in the morning, but at that very moment in time, it just seems like such a powerful idea that you really have to calm your breathing and keep from chunking a book at someone and heading for the car.

It’s particularly vexing when the issue that has brought you to this point really has absolutely nothing to do with the actual work you are doing, but that somebody just got their nose out of joint and you aren’t in the mood to placate them and make them feel better, when, damn it, they are simply out of their territory.

Deep breath.

Deep breath.

Repeat after me:  I love my job, I love my job, I love my job…

 

That is the news on the leg front.

I had my third x-ray this morning.  The orthopedist’s reaction was “Well, huh.”

No, there still is no visible bone growth.  

Nothing has changed.  Nothing.

But, there is no swelling (never was).

And there is no pain (none after the first couple weeks).

And there is no movement of the fracture.  It is, in every way, exactly the same as it was the last x-ray.

So basically, my doctor shrugged.  He pronounced it “stable” by the dictionary definition of the term, and said that something MUST be happening in there, on the simple basis that it hasn’t gotten any worse, even though I have been walking on it.   If I can walk on it and there is no pain, he doesn’t feel the need to go in and have a look-see.  Here’s a brace instead of that cast.  Yes, you can drive.  Come back in a month.

So I am walking around on a broken leg, that is still broken after NINE WEEKS and nobody apparently finds that distressing.

Who am I to argue?

You work your way through school to give yourself an education in this country. To better yourself. To make better decisions. To contribute to society. To claim your cultural heritage. To give your children a better life.  To make your parents proud.

THEN YOU ARE AN ELITIST.

If you fulfill the American Dream by having a better life than your parents.

THEN YOU ARE AN ELITIST.

BUT – if you build a political career off of your Daddy’s money (or your Wife’s Daddy’s money), then you are “just one of the common folks”.

The same people who sneer at entitlements start clamoring for a government bailout of financial instituitons that thrived on deregulation, rampant speculation and greed in a move that amounts to nothing more than corporate welfare for rich people that mortgages my son’s future, and the future of all of our children and grandchildren. But if we don’t, we bankrupt the retirement accounts of ordinary people (the same accounts that privatization free market capitalists INSIST were the answer to the failing Social Security system) and plunge my parents and my generation into retirement years of poverty.  But the people that benefitted from the collapse, the people at the top of what was one giant pyramid scheme built on the promise of the American Dream – they get to keep their money.

Elitist.  

I do not think that word means what you think it means.  

Apparently it means – succeed, but not too much except where it involves speculation and imaginary money.  Don’t, by any means, do it through education and hard work.  And don’t, under any circumstances, try to give any of it back to society.

Excuse me while I bang my head against a wall.

I don’t care who knows anymore.

Comments are turned off for this one, because I am not usually a political person and really am not interested in this becoming slugfest.  This is as statement of my support and my informed opinion because this is, after all, my blog.

But I am begging you – stop and THINK about who you are voting for and why.  Don’t cherry pick your facts.  Don’t buy into the bread and circuses.  Don’t knee jerk.  Don’t assume.

And by the way – that chain letter you just got, ANY chain letter, is probably full of lies.

…pair that is.

Knitting socks is addictive.  And because I still have a Scots-Irish soul and can’t stand waste, here is the first of Harry’s Leftover Socks, knitted with the scraps leftover from mine:

Yes, I know there is something counter-intuitive to knitting something that: 1. Goes on my son’s feet and therefore will become disgustingly dirty, and 2. I can buy at Wal-Mart for less than $2.

But, widdle-bitty baby socks are so cute.  Even I, possessing of less femininity than some men I know simply cannot resist them.

C’mon.  Isn’t it cute?

I was home sick Tuesday.  My lungs decided on about my 40th birthday that any respiratory irritation of any variety – viral, bacterial or even the slightest drift of pollen – was an insult to their very existence and their response was to seize up in protest.   Last fall, at 43 years of age, I was prescribed my first albuterol inhaler, to which my response was “Where has this shit BEEN for the last three years?!”

But even the albuterol wasn’t helping me Monday.  After a day of hacking miserably in my office trying to work (do you know that if your fingers are on the keyboard when a coughing fit hits you, you can type amazingly long strings of meaningless text in an incredibly short time?), I decided to stay home, sleep in, dope myself to the gills with cold medicine and try to stay as immobile as possible (I’ve had practice lately, I am getting good at the immobility thing).

The morning did not start out well.  Apparently my lung’s tendency to overreact to the most minor of insults has permeated my mood as well, and Kris and I had a sharp exchange over nothing that ended up with me storming up the stairs (as much as one can storm with a broken leg and barking like a seal) and throwing myself back in bed.

I lay there with my head down in the pillows, trying to breathe while the decongestants and inhaler worked their combined magic, fuming at the injustice of the horrible world to poor little old sick me, and I heard the quiet padding of little feet and a soft scrabbling.  My son climbed into the bed, put his hand on my hair and lowered his head to peer down in my face.

“It’s going to be okay, Mommy.  You can come downstairs.  Come downstairs and play with me.”

No amount of personal pique can withstand a face that sweet and sincere.  I hauled myself down the stairs and settled in my chair to watch him play with his trains at my feet.  

As he sat down and pulled out his toys, without looking up, he said, in his most earnest little voice:

“I am sorry, Mommy.  I am sorry for making you angry.”

It was like a lance to the heart as waves of memory flashed over me; my own mother and her stormy moods and my own desperation to see her happy.  I remembered trying so very hard to be the big girl, the good girl, in the hopes of getting to see her smile.  I remembered the feeling of panicked failure when she retreated to her room or the kitchen in violent outburst.  I remembered tiptoeing through the house, trying to straighten the living room or put away the dishes, anything to please her and calm her and make her notice me, praise me, love me.

I do not want my son to be me.  I do not want the baggage of my childhood to be pressed into his hands.  I want him to see that people can disagree with respect and affection.   I want him to understand that he is not responsible for my anger, and that it does not change my love for him.   I never want his heart to suffer one minute of pain simply because I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

“Oh, baby, you didn’t make Mommy angry.  You make Mommy very happy.  And I love you very much – even when you do misbehave.  Even when I am angry.  Even when I am sad.  This is not because of you.  In fact, I feel better just sitting here with you.”

God grant me mindfullness.

Now, please.

…about the Tea Party.

I am starting to wonder about where we are placing our priorities in this world, and I often ponder on whether the fact that we are a coffee-drinking nation is a metaphor for this.

Coffee – caffeine packed, high octane, the-blacker-the-better stimulant that gets us through our day because we move, move, move from one thing to another.  The way we brew it is even fast – forcing hot steam in single-serving increments.  It’s all about instant gratification.  I think the only saving grace is that the emergence of coffee houses has encouraged some sort of socialization factor around our caffeinated culture. But less and less I see the congenial small talk around the corporate coffee pot.  More and more, I see isolated businessmen plugged into their laptops and Blackberries occupying the tables near the outlets and less do I see the tight circles of earnest discussion.  Even that nod to personal interaction has been co-opted to feed our never-stop-working ethic.

Tea is different.  Tea has to steep.  In fact, tea is at its finest when brewed for more than one,  in a pot, with the temperature just right.  Tea is not really a paper-cup commodity.  I don’t think it is a coincidence that iced tea is the table wine of the congenial, slower-paced South, where the offering of tea to a guest is still de riguer ritual.  Tea is made for real glass glasses and real china cups.  Tea makes you slow down.  Tea requires mindfulness.  Tea is neighborly.

I have a mind to give up coffee and switch back to tea.  I was a tea drinker until my 30’s when grad school made caffeination a survival necessity.  I do not think it is a coincidence that my life since that time has become increasingly hectic and complicated.  Of course, this could also be attributed to growing up, but I am sticking with the coffee theory.

I know I cannot quit cold-turkey – the resultant headaches from deprivation of my drug-of-choice have convinced me that weaning slowly is about all the pain I can take.  But I am determined that after that first morning pick-me-up, I am tea from here on out.

Care to join me?

I’ll bring the scones.