The Queen's Rambles

I had such great plans for today. I was going to Get. Stuff. Done! I was going to start out the day right with an awesome workout, and go from there.

I was three minutes too late for an awesome workout. I arrived at the gym entrance intersection just in time to have the whole street blocked off by fire trucks and an ambulance responding to a huge crash in the intersection. The people all looked ok, but their cars did not. I could tell it was going to be a long time before the intersection was cleared.

The road system here is extremely convoluted. It doesn’t go in a grid pattern. Instead, it is made up of all kinds of swirly bits that don’t meet up with each other. With the intersection blocked there was literally no way for me to get to the gym. There was also no easy way for me to get home! I had to take a 15 minute jaunt into the next town over to loop around to my house. So crazy.

I really shouldn’t complain. My day had an unexpected turn, but at least my car wasn’t totaled in the middle of an intersection. I came home and started crossing other exciting items off my list, like scheduling a mammogram and a haircut.

I have been desperate for a haircut for several weeks, but I have hair cut anxiety. I knew I wasn’t going to my normal stylist. She keeps moving around and her prices keep going up. I went to her new, fancy Paul Mitchel spa/salon last time and was incredibly uncomfortable. To avoid finding a new stylist, I took a whack at my bangs (not the biggest disaster in the world. It all just blended into a big mess) about a month ago. However, an adult woman with short hair can only take so many whacks at their own bangs before looking like a clown. It was time to get serious.
I finally found someone and went in for my typical razor cut. My last gal would never cut my hair short enough to suit me, so I tried to make it clear that it was ok to be short. Well this new girl took that super seriously and now I’m bald. Erik’s hair is longer than mine. I want to curl up in a ball and cry. I had to run into the school and everyone’s eyes about popped out of their head when they saw me. I was dying inside.

When Elsa got home she was not pleased with the new ‘do. “But why would you DO THAT?” I don’t know, child. I really don’t know. I feel despair.

How about an unrelated rant before I have a mental breakdown about the hair?

It’s the end of the year, so time to gather up volunteers for the fifth grade recognition ceremony. It is traditional for fourth grade parents to help serve snacks so fifth grade parents can just sit back and enjoy the ceremony. I think that’s a great idea and am happy to help in that way. They are also doing a fifth grade Olympic Day as their big fun celebration. There are 65 fifth grade students. That’s a whole lot of parents. How many do you think have volunteered to help with the activities? Two. TWO. Now I am being badgered to go help and you know what? I don’t wanna. Pure and simple, I don’t want anything to do with it. I work my ass off at the school in many ways and I usually don’t even mind. But there has to be a limit. The parents of these particular children simply must step up. Why is it my responsibility make sure they have fun, when there are well over 100 parents who could give up their morning to go and help with the activities? I basically am refusing to do it. I can’t care more than the parents of the actual children. And yes, I understand a lot of parents work. However, I also understand that the majority of parents will be taking that day off for the graduation ceremony, so there are many parents that can be available if they so choose. It is up to them to celebrate their own children.

Whew! Felt good to get that off my chest!

Friday night we had the biggest PTA event of the year, our annual Sweets and Treats carnival. Usually this event is held in October, but no one wanted to chair it. I said I would chair it, but only if we could move it to May. You can guess how many hands shot up to do it in October, right? Not a one. Of course, once the event didn’t appear on the October calendar I had all kinds of parents commenting on it. I could usually shut them down by telling them, “Ok, I’ll put you down as chair for next yea for October!”

Prior to my leadership program I never understood just how badly people resist change. Personally, I love change. I get bored very easily and am always moving on to a new project or obsession. See also: moving to a foreign country with a guy I barely knew. Change!

The change haters were out in full force when they realized that not only did we move the carnival, we cancelled the spring sock hop. The horror! Last year there was literally one child dancing, Erik. Why are we renting the room and hiring a DJ to have the kids all come in and run in circles for an hour and a half? What a waste of precious resources. The carnival was a much better year-end celebration. Change haters can suck it up.

The event itself went really well. We’ve been doing it for ten years and the original planner had it extremely well organized. Of course, I can never leave well enough alone and added a few games into the mix. If I hadn’t done that, the whole thing would have literally consisted of me editing docs, sending out flyers, buying candy, and getting volunteers. Everything else was done. I ended up with a co-chair, so the work was very manageable. The hardest part was managing 25 middle school students the night of the event. My co-chair didn’t know how to deal with children that age, so I had to work my new leadership magic on her and get her to cool her jets. She was freaking out when they finished setting up and we had 45 minutes before the event started so they were playing the games. What harm comes from playing ring toss and Plinko? They are not consumable.

She also irked me because she came in late and started snapping at all the volunteers to hang up posters. I had little slips of paper for the kids. Each slip had a job with very specific directions. They would come in, take a slip of paper, and perform the job. When they were done, they would put the slip of paper in the done bin and pick a new job. She came in and created chaos, not even asking them what they were doing before snapping at them to follow her around and hang up poster. We had a ton of kids there and I had them divided into two teams of three to hang posters.. I am very, very glad I have been learning about leadership because it took a lot of will power to reign her in instead of reaming her out. I’m finding the biggest thing about being a leader is having self-control.

Speaking of leadership. . . time to go answer my discussion questions about leadership. Answer the questions is easy. Finding a peer reviewed source to agree with me–not so easy. Six weeks to go!

Another day, another post!

If we’re Facebook friends, you know another reason I am so busy I can barely breathe some days. I am finishing out my second year as PTA president. Thank the lords of Kobol there’s a two-year term limit on PTA board positions so I can’t get sucked back in. I’m almost freeeeeeeeee!

My time with the PTA has been pretty rocky. For years I thought the main PTA people hated me because of where I lived. I don’t live in the McMansion neighborhood surrounding the school; I live quite a ways away in a townhouse community.
Last night I discovered that they don’t hate me because of where I live. They hate everyone who is not in their little clique. Most of the clique moved on to middle school last year, which has been great this year. No more tension! There’s just one of them left and she pulled quite a number at our last PTA meeting—tried to tell us that we had to pay $1,100 for a fifth grade field trip that the PTA has never paid for before and is not in our budget. We had an emergency board meeting last night and I found out that all the other people on the board have also been victims of this clique. And all those people live in the “right” neighborhood. I don’t know whether to be happy it’s not just me or sad that people are so immature and catty.

Honestly, I am ready to move far, far away from this school and this neighborhood. It was a cute little place when we moved in, but right now there are six cop cars sitting outside my house while the cops are doing who knows what inside one of my neighbor’s houses. My kids get nothing at school because the teachers are so busy trying to deal with the seriously bad behaviors of some of the other students. I am tired of it all. I always said I loved this town and how family friendly it is, but people are being stabbed in the Safeway and robbed outside the library. Now that my kids are both in school I barely see my friends. I think it is time to move on. To where, I don’t know. Hopefully by this time next year we’ll have a good game plan for both Mike and myself, employment wise.

Guess who!

It’s been two years since I posted, but I’m back! Maybe! We shall see.

Why did I disappear? I started a master’s program and became paranoid that my classmates would look me up and see the real me. Once I realized my classmates probably didn’t give two hoots about looking me up and looking into my life, I was so bogged down with homework that the thought of writing for fun didn’t appeal to me. I’ve been writing several scholarly posts each week complete with reference section for the past two years. It’s been exhausting, but daily blog writing prepared me well for it. I’m in my last class and am currently working on a 50 page research paper. Seven more weeks and I’ll be d-o-n-e with a master’s in strategic leadership.

How about a funny story for old time’s sake?

I have a new nemesis and her name is Crazy Cat Lady. She’s a 68 year old animal hoarding narcissist who hangs out at my gym. I think she’s a lesbian because she likes to run her hand along other lady’s arms and call them princess (and yes, she has done this to me before *shudder*). She’s hot all the time, so she likes to stand under the fan. I’m hot all the time and I like to stand under the fan. You see where this is going, yes? Problem is I get to class at least 15 minutes early so I can claim my spot under the fan. She gets to class at least 15 minutes late and still thinks she can stand under the fan–the very fan I’m standing under. She gives zero f—ks about personal space. She’s covered in cat hair and I’m allergic to cats. About five minutes after she arrives my throat starts closing up because the animal dander is being blown all over the classroom. We are standing under a high powered fan, after all. I have told her I’m allergic and asked her to stay away from me, but she refuses. She says all the right things, “Oh yeah, I’ll move, sorry.” But she doesn’t move. I hates her. I’ve rearranged my schedule so I don’t go to the same classes she goes to, but if I ever have an off week and have to attend a Tues or Fri class, there is is–just waiting to kill me. It’s too bad because I love the Friday teacher, but I love to breathe even more.

And that’s all for today, folks! Is there anyone still out there?