School Drop Off

Every year I get cranky about dropping my son off at school. He's in 4th grade, so I'm sure by now my husband is tired of hearing me complain about this. The short version is that people quite frankly are morons and cannot grasp the concept of pulling up as far as you are able, stopping, letting your child out, and then leaving. This is not rocket science.

You do not need to get out of your car.
You do not need to exchange long and loving goodbyes. (Do that at home if you are seriously still that joined at the hip.)
You do not need to get out of your car and go into the school. I don't care what the reason is. That's what the parking lot is for.
You do not need to get out of your car to talk to another mom.
You do not need to put their backpacks in the trunk of your giant SUV or minivan, which then necessitates you getting out of the car & popping the trunk, or worse, using the auto-open/close feature, which you then have to wait for. Your little darling is able to keep their backpack with them in the car. Really. Unless you drive one of those ridiculous Smart Cars, you have room. Stop showing off the auto-open feature and move it.

Finally, I understand that your sweet little princess is the light of your life, and as such she can't possibly be expected to walk further than seven feet to enter the school. But here's the thing, she CAN. You do not need to wait to drop her off until you are directly in front of the doors. Nor do you need to stop the line halfway through the drop off circle and clog up the intersection next to the school. Move to the end of the circle if you have room, and drop off there. Your child WILL make it into the school without you. If they can't, then you need to think about cutting the cord. I'm just sayin'.

And if you don't have to deal with this situation as your kids are too young or they take the bus or you homeschool, let me assure you that this is not just me. I have found plenty of other mom bloggers ranting about this too....

Mom-Peeves: The Pick-Up/Drop-Off Zone at School

10 Steps to a Successful School Drop Off

Dropping off Kids at School – or my own personal H%#$%

10 Things parents dropping their kids off at school can learn from Jesus - This is a nice list of scriptures to use in application with the ridiculousness of the drop off line. If that doesn't clue you in to how frustrating this process is, then come over some morning and get in the car with me.

I also found post after post on all kinds of message boards where parents expressed total frustration and exasperation with drop-off at their school. The only helpful words I can offer are these: I also drive my 7th grader to middle school fairly often. And guess what? This problem does not exist there. People pull up, the kids get out and walk into the school, and the driver leaves. And at my daughter's school, there's only room for two cars to drop off at a time, and it STILL goes ten times faster than the elementary school line.

So take heart mamas, there is an end in sight! Until then, I promise I will try not to let this get under my skin for the entire school year. I know in the grand scheme of things, this is minor. I may need to write myself a reminder note and tape it my steering wheel....

How to Ensure that Parents of Your Fans Will Hate You

I read recently that Kanye West is anti-reading.  I thought at first that this had to be a joke, because who would be against reading?  But sadly, it's true.  As disturbing as this is, what's even more disturbing is that this genius has now written a book.  Umm... what?  Yes, the anti-book rapper has 'written' a book.  And 'written' gets air-quotes because 1) he doesn't believe in books and 2) he had to have someone co-author a book that consists of random quotes, 'Kanye-isms' and blank pages.

As Jen over at Cake Wrecks said, "After banging my head against the desk and weeping for future generations," I thanked God that my parents did not feel this way.  We were always encouraged to read and to write, and had our own library cards from a young age.  We read mysteries, autobiographies, and poetry, along with the Bible.  Some of my earliest memories are of my mom reading books to us on long car trips, and of my father making up stories to tell us at bedtime.  I am incredibly thrilled and proud that I have passed the reading bug on to the Princess, who plows through books at an amazing rate.  She read the entire Left Behind Kids series in about two weeks.

As Thomas Jefferson said, "I cannot live without books."  As a lifelong reader and an aspiring author, I have the urge to tack Kanye's picture on my dartboard.  The celebrity platform is a gift Mr. West, and you have clearly squandered yours.  Young people looking for good writing by a black author, skip Kanye's 'book' and instead check out someone worth reading, like Howard Thurman or Rosa Parks.

New Fangled Toys

I find myself in an interesting paradox lately. I am a fan of technology (the blog being a good case in point) and I am not generally afraid of new things or trying to learn them. But these days I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all, and honestly, quite pretentious.

It started with the new van that closes the doors for me. While I truly enjoy being able to push a button and watch the door close on it's own whilst I hoist a small person and a purse and a bag of groceries, there is still just something ridiculous about it that unnerves me. Who do I think I am really, that I need doors to be shut for me? What kind of person is this lazy or uncoordinated?

The Man bought a Bluetooth for his phone a while back. He works in a state that does not allow you to talk on the phone while driving, so it's either use a headset or pull over. Unfortunately, he soon found that he couldn't hear very well on it. He said I could have it, and set it up for me. (I can hear on it just fine, because I have my mother's supersonic hearing. Remind me to tell that story later.)

So I went out to run some errands the other day, and took the new toy with me. I put it in my ear and immediately felt important, because clearly unimportant people would not need to have something this dandy. The Man said I looked like the Borg. I went about town, doing my errands, and wondered who I could call to try it out. This was when I realized that the new toy fell into my pretentious category. I only talk to probably four people on my cell phone, and one of them had just reminded me that resistance is futile. (If you aren't a Trekkie that was totally not funny, I know.) I finally decided to call my best friend to ask her a question about some plans for the weekend. That's it. Haven't used it since. I just do not lead a life that requires me to be that plugged in to other people 24 hours a day. And while I joke about it, at the same time I do find it very sad that people use this kind of technology to 'communicate', and miss the reality that they close themselves off to the real live people in front of them. I see it everywhere: a man and wife having dinner out, and the man has his ear plugged in to some other person.... a mom picking her kid up from school, also plugged in to some other person who isn't in front of her. And I wonder, how does that wife feel? How does that child feel? To be the person who is so uninteresting to you, that you can't even be bothered to talk to them while you share a meal? That you can't hang up and greet your child that you haven't seen all day? Unplug people, seriously! What the heck do you have to talk about that is more important than the person you are with?

Minimum Wage = Minimum Results

So the Princess and I are starting piano lessons. I'm pretty stoked about this. I took a year of piano as a teenager so I could get my ears pierced a year early but haven't touched one since. I always hoped to get back to it, and here we are!

Two weeks ago I took the Boy's godfather with me up to Guitar Center to get his opinion on digital pianos. He's a musician, and we really trust his perspective. We finally decided on the Yamaha YPG635. They had sold the two they had in stock that week, so they told me they could order it to be shipped to my house at no extra charge. The sales guy said it would be 4-5 days. This seemed like a good idea at the time, so I signed my life away and that was that.

After patiently waiting for a week I called and very politely asked where the wayward keyboard might be. I was transferred from one stoner dude to another who said he would find out the tracking number ASAP and would call me back in 'like, 45 minutes, k?'. I waited, forlorn, by the phone. Ok, I didn't, but my phone never rang. The next day I call them back and get connected to my same guy, who is 'totally sorry that he forgot to call' me back. He misses the part where I am reaching through the phone to strangle the Pearl Jam out of him. He says he will get the tracking number for me and puts me on hold. Five minutes later (which, as you know, is an eternity to wait on hold listening to Marilyn Manson) he comes back breathless to ask if I would mind waiting a while as he tries to find it. I acquiesce and go back to listening to thee worst version of Sweet Dreams Are Made of This ever. I take the phone with me while I move laundry to the dryer, correct math homework and remove the cat from the pantry.

My BFF finally returns and he does not have good news. Apparently the guys at the other store dropped the ball, and it's totally not his fault but they didn't ship it yet and he sent them the confirmation twice and they lost it and he is really frustrated with those guys and it's shipping out today and he's sorry and it will probably not arrive until this Friday. I asked about my parting gifts but only received a bright shiny apology and that was it. I'm not feelin' the love.

The next day, as I wrote out the list of things I would need to plot the demise of the ball dropping other guys, my knight in shining brown armor arrived with the blessed piano. My UPS guy never lets me down and even got it into the house for me. The Man assembled it later and the sounds of the children fighting over it now fill my happy home.

Computer Ajuda

I still have no internet on the laptop. It's making me a bit insane. In particular would be the part where it did it out of nowhere and I have no clue how to fix it. And did I mention that the family computer is sticky. It is. And as of this afternoon, cue the annoying automated answering system provided by my ISP and you have the trifecta that will, in fact, have me swinging from the chandelier and throwing paste in short order. Verizon was no help whatsoever. A lovely computer voice informed me that if she had not solved my problem, that I was welcome to stay on the line until a rep became available. A click or two later and I was less then welcomed by a beefy voice informing me that the number was out of service, whereupon it hung up on me. At this point, I would be willing to throw myself on the sword of whatever barely-speaking-English tech support person out there who could help me.

If there is a lesson God is wanting me to learn from this, I'm clearly not getting it, or at least not in the mood for it. And no, I don't think that ajuda is spelled that way. But the spell check offers me nothing that fits, nothing! So I care not! I may try calling Verizon again tomorrow and begging for a tech support person to talk with. If I'm not back soon though, send the cavalry.

Dog People

So I'm fussing about today and editing and arranging things here, and I discovered that according to my Profile, I am in fact in the Accounting field! Imagine my surprise and delight! I had no idea that I was so smart with numbers. But being a person who is required to subscribe to rigorous honesty, I went and found the list of occupations so I could correct this. However, much to my rigorous annoyance, homemaking is not on the list. So I was torn with choosing between Agriculture and Law Enforcement. Somehow they both seem oddly fitting. I settled on Education in the end which seems fair enough.

I could also be some sort of animal wrangler I think. Or observer. Or annoyee. (is that a word?) I am an expert at being woken up at all hours by the neighbor's lobotomized mutt who barks at Every. Living. Thing. It's barking RIGHT NOW in fact. I confess that I am not a dog person by nature and I mostly just find them dirty and hairy and slobbery, and I get enough of these qualities from my children. But the sad reality is that dogs are a lesser evil in comparison to dog people. Dog people who think nothing of leaving their dog outside to bark at 11pm and 7am. Dog people who think nothing of letting their dog leave a large steaming deposit on my front yard and then scooping it up with a plastic grocery bag, as if somehow that makes it ok for your canine to defecate on my lawn. I'd like to see how they'd react if I sent my 5 year old over with his own fertilizer. Note to dog people - it's disgusting and offensive even if you clean it up with your baggie. Nothing will make it ok for you to allow your animal to POOP IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE. (I'm not yelling, somehow the capital letters are meant to convey my utter disgust.)

I do like some dogs though, lest anyone brand me a hater or PETA come with their torches. The Man's aunt has a spaniel that is an absolute gem and so very sweet. If all dogs were like her, and all dog owner's like the Man's aunt, my worldview of doggies would certainly improve. I think my overall frustration is the lack of concern in the universe for how one's actions affect the people around you. Put yourself in someone else's shoes the next time you walk your dog, or honk your horn, or grouse at a cashier. It's not so hard to be considerate and HUMAN.

*NOTE* The author is familiar with plenty of lovely and considerate dog people (including her own husband who is a mystery to her and who will live dog-less until the kids are grown) and this rant is mostly focused on two families in her neighborhood that do not comply with the normal standards adopted by humanity. It is by no means meant to be a slam at the dog community at large.

Stew

I'm in my stew pot today. Not a big pot, just a medium one, but still. I hate feeling like I don't have a friendship that I thought I had with someone. Like we're friends, but my perspective of the relationship is different than the other person's. I have expectations of how I will be treated, and they weren't met today. I know it's not the end of the world, there are bigger things to worry about in the world. Just doesn't feel great, and I don't like it. I hate when you suddenly get a new view of who someone is, and realize that things won't be the same anymore. You can't go back to not knowing this facet of someone else, realizing that they wouldn't have treated you the way that they did, if they thought more highly of you. Stew stew stew....