The Queen's Rambles

I’m sitting here, playing way too much Papa Pear Saga on Facebook. I’m over Candy Crush. What silly games we play, eh?

I figured an entry would be more productive than mindlessly shooting pears at vegetables.

I am kind of terrified of being PTA VP. The prez and I finally learned about the functioning of the PTA and we are basically completely hosed. In 2011 our district stopped paying for an activity bus, so our PTA took it on as their project. Any kids who live on a bus route can ride a late bus home on Tuesday and Thursday night. This costs about $25/day.

Problem? They have not really done much fundraising. They were just counting on their slush from previous years and that slush is G-O-N-E. We have $4000 that will go away the first week of school thanks to start-up costs. What the bleepity bleep are we going to do? Fundraisers, obviously, but our PTA is completely dysfunctional and I don’t know if the president and I will have enough determination and charisma to make everything happen.

What successful fundraisers has your school had? We do a book fair and this year we only did one catalog sale. It brought in $1700, but that is not enough. We were supposed to do BoxTops but the guy in charge of it never sent them in, so that’s about $1000 right there that we will eventually get.

I think we need to hit the BoxTops and restaurant night fundraisers really hard. I also want to start selling sponsorships in our newsletter and directory. We need a big fundraiser, though! Chocolate bars? First aid kits? Read-a-thon? Walk-a-thon? Mixed Bags? I hate the catalogs with overpriced junk and cookie dough. I send in a donation check instead of ordering something.

I’m really happy that our new prez is a working mom and says she refuses to take care of all the business during parent pick-up. This has been my biggest frustration. Instead of dealing with stuff during our PTA meetings, they do it all at parent pick-up and people who are not there have no clue what is going on. The prez and I are on the same page about the ridiculousness of that method. We also found out that none of the committee chairs have any oversight right now, which is why no one is doing their jobs. They are going to be shocked when the prez and I get in there and expect to be included and expect people to do what they signed up to do.

Hopefully this will end well, but I see a lot of drama in my near future.

Mike and I have been obsessively watching Orphan Black. There are only 10 episodes available, but we’ve breezed through 7 of them in three weeks. I know that sounds ridiculous to people without children, but for us that is a marathon. Love, love, love this show! It’s on BBC America, so you know it is a high quality production. I guess I thought it would be kind of lame because the main character is a clone and plays several parts, but she does an amazing job. It is hard to remember it is just one actress when she is switching between characters.

Time has really gotten away from me so I have to wrap this up. I’m dropping Elsa off at a sitter (yay babysitting co-op!) and going to the dentist. Luckily the sitter lives next to Erik’s school (yay MOMS Club for fostering hyper-local chapter boundaries!) so she can pick him up if the appointment runs late.

Hopefully it won’t run late.

I don’t want them to poke my gums with that sharp metal stick again. I hate that and don’t know why it is necessary.

My mom had a big secret to share with me today. My sister’s husband is not the father of her youngest child.

No shit, Sherlock. I knew that years ago. Child has brown eyes, both parents have blue eyes. I know genetics are not that simple, but I also know my sister. I’d be more surprised if the baby was her husband’s.

Anyway, apparently some program was offering free paternity tests and my sister and the baby’s father thought it would be hilarious if my nephew was really his so they went in for the test. Wham, bam, DNA proof, ma’am.

What will my sister do with that information? I have no idea. Hopefully sue the guy for child support, but I don’t know if that is possible since her husband is on the birth certificate.

My sister’s husband’s new girlfriend kicked him out so he rode the bus from New Jersey to Oregon and landed on my sister’s couch.

My sister is still with her loser boyfriend.

Is your head spinning yet? Apparently my sister likes to have two men to boss around and neither of them really care since they are getting a free government sponsored ride.

My mom was telling me all this because they are all getting along so well! Everyone is happy! No one is on drugs! I should go visit Oregon so my kids can see their cousins!

Does she not realize that telling me my sister is living with her boyfriend and husband is the opposite of showing me everything is happy and stable? I am glad I have grown enough that I can laugh in her face instead of running off to buy tickets and subjecting myself and children to two weeks of hell.

I’ve been a busy little bee this week. Yesterday I started taping for the next phase in my “paint the whole damned house” project and got a little carried away. I spent 3 hours taping, spackling, sanding, removing pictures and so forth and one hour painting. Even when I am in middle of a project I am still thinking “I can paint that so fast!” and not paying heed to the “yes, but it takes 3 times as long to prepare for the painting!” facts of life.

It was worth it though. I am so, so, so glad to get rid of all the crayon marks, purple address stamps, random paint chips and everything else that has been driving me crazy. It looks so clean and fresh! I’m still no where near done, but the worst walls are covered in new paint.

Afterwards, I went to our county wide PTA training with random paint splotches all over. I was worried it might be awkward because I recognized several names on the sign up list from one of the MOMS Club chapters I work with that completely imploded. One of them is the wife of one of Mike’s co-workers.

Never to fear. There were 300 people there, so I didn’t run into anyone except the people from my school and random people from the gym. People look so different in real clothes and combed hair.

I learned a lot about the goals of the PTA, which are not really the goals that our PTA seems to work on. The main point of the PTA is politically advocacy, which was a big surprise to me. They want members so they have a powerful block when they take education issues before the county, state and national politicians. The tag line is PTA: One Voice and they really mean that. If you are a parent you really should join your PTA, even if you never attend a meeting. Your name on that list adds strength to the people advocating for your children’s needs.

Of course, I also believe you should attend meetings and volunteer at the school if it works for your life. The more you are visible at the school, the more attention the principal will give you when you have a personal issue with your child’s education.

I was going to write more, but just realized I better take a shower if I am going to get Elsa to her MyGym class on time! This is our last official class, though I have a punch card for drop-in classes and we are signed up for six days of camp this summer. I am going to be sad to leave them, it has been such a great place for us. I will most likely be signing Elsa up for real gymnastics in the fall because she seems to have an aptitude for it. I can’t really justify preschool, MyGym and real gymnastics, even if MyGym is a wonderful program.

Before I start, I need to ask you if you have a good recc for a book about race. I need something to read to Erik and/or I need something to read myself that will help me know how to talk to him. I can talk about penis or vagina all day, even though it is awkward and embarrassing. I have no idea how to talk about race. We live in a minority majority county so this is a big problem. I suppose it would be a big problem anywhere, actually.

We’ve had some problems in the past with Erik being bullied because of his skin tone and with Erik saying racist things about other people. At this point I know we need to have a more in-depth talk because he has started asking why the characters in books and cartoon shows are white. Shouldn’t they be black? How can Judy Moody have two white friends? And how can that hot dog vendor be white? He is outside all day so he should be black because the sun will turn him black. And why does Erik have to wear sunscreen? If I would let him go outside without sunscreen he could be black like his friends.

Sooooooooo. . . .

Help me.

I am completely out of my depth here.

I don’t really understand why Europeans are white. I understand the whole melatonin thing, but then wouldn’t the native people of Canada also be white? But they are probably descended from Asians that crossed over the Russian land bridge. But how long does all this take? I don’t know. I need to find out. I need to start googling like crazy I guess. I would prefer a credible book.

Other than that, life is going full speed ahead. We have our last soccer game on Saturday, thank the good lords of Kobol. What a complete time suck. I feel like we never have a weekend anymore thanks to the Saturday games.

Though I should feel like we have weekends! Did I tell you that we saw Kenny Chesney on Memorial weekend? It was us and a Redskins stadium full of drunk girls. Lots and lots of drunk girls. They were making out with each other, random men, the security guards. The big, burly security guard in our section was not impressed with the fondling drunk girls trying to give him tongue.

The concert was really fun, other than that. I am not sure Mike would agree–I think he thought watching the drunk girls was the highlight. He is not really a country fan.

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary last weekend with the most expensive date we’ve ever had. We had a super yummy dinner at a local restaurant that focuses on sustainable farming. We finished off the meal with red velvet cake, which I liked! First piece of red velvet cake that I’ve ever liked. It usually tastes like food coloring and I’ve never been able to understand why food coloring is a flavor.

We also went and saw Star Trek at the Imax (it was the only showing that fit our schedule). I really enjoyed it. I’m not a Trekkie. I used to watch ST:NG and DS9 with my friend and Mike and I watched Enterprise together. I’ve seen all the Next Generation movies. I know nothing about the original series so the re-boot hasn’t bothered me in the least. I thought it was a fun movie especially seeing Sherlock as a complete badass.

Mike enjoyed it, but thought it was lame as a sci-fi movie. He thought there should have been fun aliens, not just a bunch of earthbound politics.

The thing that really made the date expensive: paying the babysitter $20/hour. Yikes! No wonder we never go out. We’ve gotten a little better now that we have a babysitting co-op, but we wanted to be free to not worry about getting back for one of my friends. Plus, no one in our babysitting co-op really uses it for evening dates so that would have been a little awkward.

Our other friends took our kids the weekend before, so we couldn’t ask them to do it again. I’ve practically begged them to let us take their kids, but they don’t seem to be interested in going out. They say it is too expensive, but eat take-out several times a week. I don’t really get it. I’d say it’s all good since they are happy, but it turns out they are not. I am trying to get my friend to understand that they NEED some couple time, but they are just not interested. Like I said, I don’t get it. I guess if they want to implode there is nothing I can do to stop them. Too bad everyone doesn’t want me to solve all their problems. I’d have the world lined out in minutes.

Erik has 8 more days of school. Last summer was a free-for-all. I didn’t make him do a single bit of school work after our awful year. He’s done much better this year and I don’t think it would cause hour long screaming fits if I schedule in some learning this summer. Right now I’m planning on doing 20 minutes of DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) time for the whole family. Elsa can easily look at her books for 20 minutes, so I think it would be good for the kids to see me reading as well. I’m also going to set aside 10-15 minutes a day for some kind of workbook for each kid. I already bought a workbook for Elsa and she’s been eagerly working in it. She’s not doing what she’s supposed to be doing, but I am not letting it bother me. Four years ago I would have been an insane person, wailing and gnashing my teeth about why this rebel child wouldn’t circle the correct fish. Four years ago I WAS an insane person when it came to this type of thing, come to think of it. These days I’m just happy she is trying to move her pencil around the page. It’s good to be mellow.

Ok, time to put the boy in bed. Yet another night slips through my fingers.

When we moved in to our house four years ago we paid some seriously bad painters to paint the house. I don’t know how they consider themselves professional painters, but they screwed us over big time.

The former owners had painted over all the light switches and outlet covers. We were first time home owners. I’d never paid attention to light switches before. I guess I just thought that was what you were supposed to do.

You see where this is going?

We let our totally crappy painters paint right over those switches again, really sealing them in.

It has bugged me for 4+ years. If there’s ever any question of removing the switch plates or just painting over them, REMOVE THEM. For the love of all that is holy, don’t paint over them! Ugh!

Four years.

That’s how long it takes me to get off my butt and do something to fix a small irritant.

In my defense, I thought it would be super hard to get the plates off the wall since they were painted on. I’ve since discovered all it takes is a razor blade, a flat head screwdriver, and a lot of elbow grease. As we paint the main level, we are replacing light switches and the switch plate covers. Did you even know there was a modern look for light switches? I didn’t. But there is! I bought a bulk pack of fancy new switches and Mike has been installing them. I am too scared of electricity to try it myself.

Our bedroom switches were making me nuts b/c they are also painted over, but I have no plans to paint those rooms (our room and Erik’s room are in desperate need of a paint over, espescially Erik’s booger wall, but let’s do one thing at a time). Today I spent a good 20 minutes prying the old ones off the walls, then announced to Mike that he had a job to do.

You have no idea how happy it makes me to see a pretty white switch one each of those walls. SO HAPPY! Mike thinks I’m nuts, but the ugliness was building up my anger every time I looked at those stupid things.

I’m still slowly working on my painting project. I hate taping, so Mike has been taping off sections for me and I do all the spackling/sanding/painting. I am antsy to complete the project because the fresh paint on the bottom half of the walls makes the trim and top half look about 10000000 times worse. It doesn’t help that Elsa got ahold of my address stamper and stamped our address all over one of the walls. Maybe I should use it as a teaching moment and teach her to spell our last name. The stamp has our last name in really big letters at the top.

The other thing that makes me ridiculously happy?

My random purchase of a year’s supply of Costco brand Claritan. Due to my reaction to Benedryl (I pass out hard for 12 hours), I though allergy meds were not realistic for me, but these said “non-drowsy” so I gave them a shot.

Changed.

My.

Life.

I didn’t even know my allergies were that bad!

I could tell I forgot my pill this morning because as soon as I started walking around my nose started burning and I filled up with snot. I haven’t felt like this in a month. It’s so crazy.

I have no idea if this is related, but I have zero eczema right now. None. NADA.

My hands look like a normal person’s hands.

I’ve done so much through the years to control the eczema. I have to be very careful of any product that touches my skin. I can’t use dryer sheets (Woolzies are a great alternative). I keep Cortizone 10 Intense Healing Lotion and O’Keefe’s Working Hands on every floor of the house. All of this kept it to a manageable level (maybe a quarter sized patch instead of the whole hand being covered), but I don’t think I have been completely eczema free since I was a teenager.

Again, I have no idea if this is related to the allergy meds, but the theory is that eczema is caused by allergies so it might be.

Or it might be the baking soda. The only way we can keep Elsa’s private area from being red and angry all the time (I think she’s allergic to her own pee), is to give her a baking soda bath every night. When we first started I noticed instant relief of my eczema. Now my eczema is gone.

Yup. It’s the little things in life. Baking soda, pills and clean light switches.

So I had to let that breakfast conversation stand on its own for the most punch. Sometimes a fake writer has to do what a fake writer has to do. It would not have had quite the impact if I was posting OMG OMG OMG lalalalalalalala. . . fingers in ears. . . I want to hide under the table. . . is this really happening?????

Yeah.

Those conversations are not comfortable for me. I am somehow able to pull them off, but the whole time we are talking about it my blood pressure is rising, my heart is racing, and I can feel prickles of sweat popping out on my hairline. When he asked if I enjoyed it (what 7 year old talks like that? Seriously? Did I ENJOY it? I credit his Maggie and the Ferocious Beast obsession from his preschool days with his prim questioning. Hmmmm. . .I need to get Elsa interested in this show, STAT!) I thought I was going to hyperventilate. I did not actually hear the bus. We got to the bus stop about five minutes earlier than usual and he thought the bus driver was super late since he had a lot to time to play tag with his friends.

Every thing I’ve read says the best way to give a child a healthy attitude towards sex is to openly and honestly answer all their questions, but only answer their questions. Stop talking and don’t elaborate on anything. That’s the approach I’ve taken and I’m really proud that he feels no shame or hesitation in asking me anything. I may be freaking out on the inside (as most parents would, I assume), but at least I can play it cool on the outside.

I sincerely hope he doesn’t ask his teacher if she enjoys her husband’s penis. I’ll have a CPS call on my hands.

Hopefully Elsa waits until she’s much older to start having questions. Erik was 4 when I had Elsa, so it is only natural that baby making was on his mind. Where did this tiny, fat, hairless creature come from? He didn’t find out that the penis went in the vagina until six months ago, I think. Yesterday was the first time he’s ever brought it up since that initial conversation when he declared it “gross” and said he was never going to do it. Believe me, I was very VERY glad of his grossed out reaction. I was scared he was going to want to try it out right away.

What am I going to do when I have teenagers in the house? I think I grow a gray hair every time I think of it. I suppose I will do what I always do and carry on. Think of England. Try to be Swedish about the whole thing you have to start watching at 2:05 if you don’t want to watch the whole thing.)

And now to the happy update! We have mulch! I saw the landscaper’s truck roll by about 10 am and danced a little jig. I drove by the playground around 12:30 and it was mulched but there were big piles of trash everywhere. I tried to remain calm and told myself it was lunchtime. Surely they would be back to clean up. Surely!

And they did. No need for my panic.

Now I just need to see if someone will fix all the loose screws and boards. I hate to say it, but I think I am going to have to become a regular at the board meetings. It was incredibly boring, but our street needs an advocate. Our community is chopped up into four small courts plus our long street (which dead ends). The board members are all from the other courts so there is no representation from our street. The community manager told one of my neighbors that they don’t care about us because we don’t attend meetings. She made it sound like there were huge meetings with everyone in those neighborhoods in attendance. LIE! But even if I was not on the board, just having my voice there could be beneficial. Plus, I’d really like to keep an eye on the lying liar who lies.

I’m not really sure how the whole board thing works. I know the community manager is a paid employee of the board. She works for a place called Community Associations. She manages several communities in the area, so my neighbor and I are planning a drive-by of those communities to see if they are as shitty as our neighorhood. The website for the company says that our manager is a “company principal” so I wonder if that means she is one of the owners of the company she works for? My plan is to talk to as many people around here as possible, get an idea of how community management works, join the board and try to fire this management company. They are doing a crap job and lie to our faces. Time for a change!

When will I have time for this? I have no idea. I enjoy tasks like this, but maybe I should put my efforts towards paid employment.

Erik, 7, completely out of the blue: It must be really hard for a dad and a dad or a mom and a mom to get any kids.

Me: Yes, it is very difficult, but there are some ways they can do it. They can adopt a baby like [our friends] did, or they can do some medical procedures to get babies.

E: What kind of medical procedures?

Me: Well, dads can find a nice lady or two to help. One can donate her egg–the doctor has to go get it with a surgery. Then the other lady can grow the baby in her womb. The doctor can put it in her tummy. If it is two mommies, they can just find a nice man who has extra sperm and the doctor can put it in her tummy and hope it grows a baby.

E: That seems like a lot of trouble for the moms. Why don’t they just tell the nice man to put it in the old way?

Me, dying: Well, sometimes they probably do that if they don’t have the money for medical procedures but ladies who love other ladies think it is yucky to have a man’s penis in their vagina. Plus, they don’t love the man so that makes it extra yucky.

E: Hmmm. Well, that’s what I’d do if I was a mommy who wanted a baby.

Me: Ooooookkkkkkaaaayyyy.

E: Wait a minute! Did you like it when daddy put his penis in your vagina? I know he did it twice because you have two children! Did you enjoy that?

Me: Oh! Look at the time! The bus is almost here!

I don’t get the whole thing with jar recipes. I understand the salads, I guess. Somehow if you layer things correctly, the glass is better than plastic and everything stays crisp. I can get behind that idea if you need to take a salad in to work.

But dessert in jars? Why? WHY??? Yes, a cake or pie in a jar is cute, but it is completely impractical. It would be difficult to get the ingredients in the jar, espescially if you are going to try to layer pie crust up the side, then it would be really hard to eat. All in the name of cuteness?

It says they are for a picnic, but it sounds like a major pain to take a bunch of glass jars in your basket. What if they break?

I’m all for cute, but not when it comes to getting every last bite of cake!

I made a stand tonight. I put on my best jeans (I’m so fancy) and a clean blouse, trying to look half-way decent for my impromptu presentation. I arrived at the building a few minutes early and found three old men sitting on a bench. They were the HOA board.

Eventually we were given a room number, so the four of us rode the elevator to the room and waited for two more board members and the community manager.

The manager was 15 minutes late. As we were sitting there, the five board members started bitching about the things I wanted to address–mud pits, trash everywhere, lack of grass.

The community manager, a paid employee, finally arrived so the meeting got started.

I went first and gave a little speech about the disgusting state of our play area and the lack of safety (screws sticking out, no mulch for two years, etc). I also told them about a glass table that had been broken over the playground in October and never taken care of by the community. The effin’ community manager tried to tell us that the lawn contractors came out and took care of it, but I argued right back that another resident and I cleaned it up. Then she said that there was no graffitti on the playground and I argued with her, citing specific things that are written on the stupid playground. It’s not gang tagging, but it’s unsightly.

I pointed out that I’ve sent multiple e-mails to both her and the board about the situation. The board members were confused and said they didn’t even have an e-mail address. I told them the address that’s on the pamphlet I got when I moved in and they were still confused. The manager said that she checks that e-mail and puts the e-mails in their monthly packet. They had never seen any of my e-mails, or any e-mails at all as far as I could tell.

I was pretty aggressive in getting my point across and they all agreed that it needed to be mulched, and should have been mulched and inspected months ago. They moved on with the meeting and it was soooooooooooo boring. We spent 45 minutes talking about various ways to re-finish the parking lots now that Montgomery County has banned all coal tar products.

At the end I asked how they would take action to get the mulch taken care of. They all said it was a part of the landscaping contract so it would be taken care of this week. The community manager said to call her if it wasn’t done by Friday. Then she said she had to check the contract and that she was confused and it was not a part of the contract. Everyone started yelling at her to get it done regardless of the cost. She said they had to vote for it at the June meeting and all the board members starting yelling at her to get it done and they would worry about contracts later. Then she said “Oh, yeah, it’s right here!”

Soooooo. . . we shall see. She is a lying liar who lies. I am going to be all up in her business until it gets done. This is going to be exhausting!

I have been reading through my journals starting with Erik’s third birthday. I sound like an insane person. What was I thinking? I had myself so worked up over things that I have zero recollection of now. Also, I should have been going back and doing proofreading because even I, the person who wrote the words, can’t follow the plot of some of the posts.

Apparently Erik was randomly peeing on things in anger around his third birthday, including his piece of birthday cake. What the hell? I have no memory of this. I wouldn’t lie about it in my journal, so it must have happened. I was also talking about hypothetical baby number 2 a lot. I didn’t think I wanted a baby when he was 3. It’s so strange how your brain can completely forget the reality of the past.

I feel a lot calmer these days. Frazzled, yes, but happier and more in tune with reality. When Erik was little I thought every little thing he did was super high stakes and a bad day meant he was going to end up being some kind of illiterate backwoods moonshine brewer. These days I know bad days happen. They are not fun to live through, but they don’t have much long term meaning.

We ended up having a really great afternoon. We met up with some friends at the park and the kids ran like crazy for two hours. Elsa didn’t have a single crying fit! My friend and I got to sit and talk about some serious issues she’s having.

I remembered to start dinner in the crockpot before we left, so there was no stress when I got home. I need more crockpot recipes that I enjoy–crockpot cooking makes life so much easier, but everything tastes the same! Mike broke my old crockpot a few months ago so I finally got a new one and I love it! My old one was HUGE. It was much, much too big for a family of four. The food didn’t come out right because there wasn’t enough in it to fill it properly. The new one is only 4 quarts and is perfect for our needs. I’ve noticed a difference in the quality of food coming out of the pot.

I guess I better go to bed. I just discovered a new show that I’m enjoying: Orphan Black on BBC America. I’ve only seen one and a half episodes but it’s very promising. I’m going to try to talk Mike into watching it with me.