Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Road to Independence

Most parents would define the road to your child’s independence as fairly obvious accomplishments; potty training, dressing themselves, cutting their own meat and so forth. As my son inches toward high school, each day the apron strings are cut just a little bit more. I feel proud that he is developing into an independent person, gratified that I haven’t screwed him up too badly yet (although there is still time); and sad that there will come a time where he just won’t need for me anything. My heart breaks a little.


Today’s step towards independent life skills came in the form of ordering a pizza. It sounds a little silly but the reality is we all learned how to do it at some point and today was his day to learn it. As adults we’ve all ordered a pizza no fewer than a thousand times. It’s rote. We can do it in our sleep. We know what questions will be asked and how to answer them. I had to remind myself that for the inexperienced pizza ordering rookie the whole ordeal is a bit nerve-wracking if you have no idea what to expect.

I am pleased to report that my son called me before ordering a pizza to ask how to do this. Yes I am happy to be needed for something as mundane as pizza ordering 101. I quickly discovered it wasn’t the act of ordering the pizza that was daunting; it was the tipping of said pizza delivery person. This is understandable. For an adult, tipping is a confusing and inconsistent custom. There were lots of questions. How much do I tip? Do I pay the bill for the pizza and then give the tip, or give the whole thing at one and say “Keep the change”? 

Ultimately for my son it wasn’t just about ordering the pizza, as was about ordering the pizza and not looking like a dork. I get it. No one wants to be the subject of ridicule back at Pizza Hut Central when the delivery driver relays a story about a couple of 14 year old kids ordering a pizza for the first time. Life at 14 is hard enough without that kind of pressure.

At the end of the day the pizza was ordered, the driver was paid (“Keep the change”) and one more skill was added to the life experience toolbox. And one more thread was cut on the apron strings. My heart breaks a little.

Monday, August 30, 2010

The Internal Filter

Authors Note: Close friends and spouses are exempt from the filter rule. They endure all sorts of ramblings on a variety of subjects. It’s the quid pro quo factor of these relationships. You know who you are.


One of the things that is nice about being in my forty’s, is life experience. I’ve got a few years under my belt, have seen some things, done some things, grown up a lot (I hope) but most importantly I’ve learned to filter what’s in my brain before it rolls out of my mouth. Part of that filtering process includes the very important question “Is what am I about to say something the listener cares about?”

Disclaimer: I am by no means perfect at verbal filtering. Really. Especially if I have had wine. Or worse. Tequila. Then everything seems really important and you can just sit back and listen to the verbal diarrhea. Trust me; I still manage to wedge my size 8 foot in my mouth more often than I would like to admit.

I am referring mostly about the casual friend, acquaintance or co-worker. You know – someone you see every so often. Someone you’re friendly with but you’re not exactly BFFs. This could be the spouse of one of your friends – the tag-along to the casual friendship. It’s nice, pleasant and cordial but you’re never going to go shoe shopping together. You see where I am going with this, yes?

Some of my good friends (the ones exempt from the pre-emptive filtering rule) and some casual friends get together every few months at a local eatery to indulge in classic over-eating and a little smart talk. This will come across as snarky as all get-out for which I am really not terribly apologetic. Why am I not apologetic? Because, if you had to endure the unfiltered conversation I endured recently, you wouldn’t be apologetic either. Like me, you would be only too happy to have walked away from the whole experience without resorting to jabbing a fork in your eye. Trust me; the fork would have been less painful.

Let me state, the offender in questions is a nice woman. Very young and a little pretentious, which I am sure is a quality she is unaware that is being projected to the whole of the world. Despite being an educated woman (a trait I’ve learned means pretty much nothing in regards to filtering) her internal filter has not matured. She fails to filter on a wide variety of subjects, but mostly on the subject of her dog. She loves her dog. I get it. I am all about pets. I love my pets too. I am the first one to admit I coddle and spoil and treat my pets like children. But I do said coddling in the privacy of my own home. And I really don’t tell people about it because of the “does the listener care” rule. More often than not, I am firmly convinced the listener does not care about my cats. Nor do they care how cute they are, if they like their tummy’s rubbed, the hairball they just gaked up or cuddle time on Sunday mornings. I’m fairly confident that if I waltzed into work each day and began spewing tales about my cats, I would quickly obtain crazy cat lady status and no one would want to have lunch with me ever again.

Oh it can’t be that bad you say? Oh yes. It can. The following is actually unfiltered dog dialogue. Only the name of the dog has been changed to protect the innocent.

Her: “Duke likes it when I change his food. Duke’s eating fish flavored food now. Duke likes fish. He’s a dog.”

Me: Blankly staring

Her: “Duke is 30% dog, 30% cat and 60% rabbit, because Duke likes to jump.”

Me: Eyes glazing over

Her: “Duke weighs 7 ½ pounds. Duke is big for his breed.”

Me: Searching for a length of rope.

Now string all of the unbridled Duke wonderfulness over two hours and you can now appreciate how very torturous it is to endure non-stop unfiltered monologues on Duke, the most amazing pet that ever lived. And while I desperately want to say “Please shut up because even though I think your dog is cute, I don’t really care”, my matured filtering system already knows that yes, the listener in question doesn’t care.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Revoking the parent card

I am by all rights a cool mom. At least in my opinion I’m cool. I’m sure other freakishly obsessive controlling parents would color me un-cool, too open and too forthcoming with my 14 year old son. But he still talks to me so I consider my approach, at least so far, successful. He’s starting high school this month so ask me in four years how this approach truly worked.

My son has inherited my affinity for movies. Inherited is probably a strong word. Let’s be honest. I’ve been molding and shaping his exposure to film since I took him to see the re-release of The Wizard of Oz when he was three years old. Oh yes, he’s all about the wieldy action adventure popcorn movie but he is also a closeted rom-com watcher (he’ll never admit it), thinks the Bond movies with Sean Connery are the best ones, can recognize Cary Grant and likes Charlie Chaplin (although I have to reluctantly give a nod to my mother in law for that influence). He loves movies. I’m mama duck proud.

Now that he has hit 14, PG-13 is sooooooo yesterday’s news and he is beginning to push the “R” rated envelope for movie watching. I admit, in some cases an “R” in 1984 is not quite like an “R” in 2010. Parental latitude has been given. So his suggestion for us to watch Revenge of the Nerds on a recent Saturday night, seemed reasonable.

Having seen it a few times, I did the mental rolodex, thumbed through the scenes in my head. Yeah ok – some language, maybe a quick boob shot, some sex references…how bad can it be? I mean 16 Candles has a full on boob shot of Caroline Montfort in the shower and that was PG-13. And the kid goes to public school. He’s been hearing f-bombs on the playground since he was 6 – at least I would be sitting next to him during the movie offering full-on parental support.

Important parenting tip. If it’s been, oh say, 15 years since you’ve seen a movie, it may be a good idea to do a quick refresh of said movie in lieu of relying solely on the mental rolodex . IMDB.com has a nifty little “parental advisory” feature of every film which outlines the f-bombs and other adult situations. It’s a nice little memory jogger. Too bad I didn’t use it in this instance.

Apparently my mental rolodex failed to recall these key classic Revenge of Nerd film moments:

  1. The “hair pie” reference. Yeah. I know. It’s a really dated and rarely used slang term to reference the coochie. It’s so dated it prompted the following question: “Mom, what’s a hair pie?” Mental head slap.
     
  2. The panty raid scene which includes multiple scantily clad girls running up and down the dorm room screaming, full on boob shots bouncing up and down.
     
  3. The cameras in the shower scene which sets up the classic movie utterance by “Booger”….”We’ve got bush, we’ve got bush!” I’m not sure if I should be relieved or worried my son didn’t ask “Mom, what’s a bush”. I think he figured that one out on his own. 

At that point I wouldn’t have been surprised if Social Services broke down my front door with an axe and revoked my parent card with all rights and privileges therein. My son, of course, thought the movie was hilarious and I’m sure I’ve officially locked in my position as the coolest mom on the planet award – at least for one day.

And in an act of spousal transparency I disclosed some of the more mature elements of this classic feature film to my spouse, who responded with a Beavis and Butthead laugh.

“Heh heh, heh-heh-heh – you said bush.”




Thursday, August 26, 2010

It’s no longer about the journey

I need to quick get this subject in under the wire, as it were. I am a few short weeks away from (finally) finishing my undergraduate degree. What? Do I hear champagne chilling in the background?


I call it the 25 year plan. Blutto has nothing on me*. Cue flashback.

Graduated High School circa 1985, hopped off the bus onto the UW Madison Campus wide eyed and full of optimism that I would be the next classically trained Opera singer. I learned a few things the hard way:

  1. Opera. Not my thing. Boooorrrrring!
  2. Soprano singers are like cats. You can buy twelve for a $1.00. A Soprano has to be really good to make it. I was neither really good nor really motivated. Insert kiss of death here.
  3. Hanging out at the Union with my friends was significantly more enticing then attending Botany 101 or reading my text book. I think I attended Botany class once. No comment on the reading.
A mere two years later I received the “You’ve been dropped from the University” letter. Having the conversation with my parents that I was been kicked out the University for stellar academic performance is very low on the fun scale, especially if you weave in the “I’m so disappointed in you” look written all over my dad’s face. Sigh.

25 years later (like to the month) I will finally (yes, finally) finish what I started. And it’s been a great journey. Ok, most of it was great. I could have seriously done without the math, the statistics or the accounting, but here I am three weeks out and I attended all my classes (even the yucky ones) and did all  most of my reading. But truth be told, I’ve gotten everything I wanted to get out of the journey. But with 3 weeks to go, I don’t’ care about the damn journey anymore. I just want my diploma. I want my life back. I want to be able to dust my house more than once every 4 months. Ok scratch that. I could care less about the dusting, but I would like to wake up on a Saturday morning and not be filled with dread that the day will be spent procrastinating about hitting the books. I freely admit senioritis. I also freely admit reverting to academic mediocrity to push through these last few weeks. Old habits die hard.

That’s it. I’m really close to being done. I never thought I’d ever be done. I hope to God I don’t get hit by a bus before I’m done. I wonder if the college awards degrees posthumously in the case of accidental death.

Crap. I hate when my stories have no point. See, I’m already failing blogging 101. I have no pith to wrap this up with a cute bow. No pith. No snark. No nothing. It’s probably best I am blog follower free. Ok. Ok. Write courageously even if that means I have no point, no pith, no followers. I am wondering if personal growth and creative courage is overrated. Sigh.

*The Bluto reference is, of course, a nod to the 1978 cult classic Animal House. You know the line…
“7 years of college down the drain.”

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Write Courageously

I blame my friend K. for planting the seed that I could and should blog again. This is really all her fault and any failure real or implied will be squarely heaped on her shoulders. I am not above tossing her under the bus if needed.


You blogged before, say you? Yeah. For a few fleeting months. I stopped due to time constraints. And fear. I have fear. Fear of blogging mediocrity. Fear of failure. Fear of self-editing. Will I be as sharp tongued and witty on paper as I think I am inside my own noggin? I fear I do not have the appropriate amount of snarkiness and pith to mass a following. Could there be anything more pathetic then the unread, unloved blog?

Time will tell I guess. I look at my attempt to blog, as an experiment to write courageously, to just say it and try not to self edit too much. Or as I tell girlfriends who are unsure about wearing the shiny black boots with the pointy toe; just own it. I can tell you it is significantly easier to dispense the “just own it” advice then follow it.

That said I will apply all the appropriate disclaimers to my blog. I will also add the disclaimer that I am free to edit my disclaimers at any time. My blog. My disclaimers. I am a girl. I can change my mind. So there (insert foot stomping here).

Everything is fair target. For example: if I blog about the putrid wrongful fashion sense of the holiday sweater and you are a lover of holiday sweaters, you are of course free to:

  1. Hate the holiday sweater blog entry and keep on blindly wearing your holiday sweaters even though this is really nothing fashionable about them.

    OR
  2. Experience a life-changing moment of fashion clarity that holiday sweaters are truly a bad idea, purge your closet of said sweaters and bestow oodles of gratitude upon me for helping you see the light.

The choice is yours.

For my part, this will be a self discovery opportunity to be brave and write courageously (with the appropriate amount of snarkiness of course). Yikes.