I've been following an interesting story over in Montgomery County (the rich county in Maryland). It started with an article in the Post about an estate purchased by the county which included a large house and some acres of land. The locals were told that the land would be used to extend an adjacent park. Then the county council proposed that the house should be used as a shelter for large homeless families. Outrage ensued. Details came out gradually, and it became known that a specific family was being considered for the house. There were 14 children and one parent. The usual ugliness was said and written, but it was hard not to sympathize a little with the locals. Who wants 14 kids living next to them, poor, perhaps unruly? Without doubt, having a county-owned homeless shelter next door can only hurt the property value. So they fussed enough that the county decided not to use the house for the homeless. Let's not forget that this was a house already purchased by the county, and sitting empty...
The remaining details became clear today. The single parent is a former corrections officer who adopted her sister's 10 children. She had 4 of her own with her husband, and when her sister died of cervical cancer, she was determined to keep the family together. At some expense, she adopted the 10 nieces and nephews. Her husband divorced her, she lost her job and house, and because she adopted the kids, their father (fathers?) can not be held responsible for child support. She works at night as a security guard, which makes it easier for friends and family to help out. At this point, her guardian angel stepped in, and she has been given a new house by Extreme Makeover.
So I'm thinking that I'm glad she has a happy ending (well, beginning really), and that this is not a very controversial story. Woman does her duty to her family at some hardship to herself, and gets help from her community to enable her to do so. Yay. But there seems to be a certain amount of ill-feeling about this that I don't quite get.
1. Complaints about the size of the house (4800 sq. ft): anonymous internet goblins commenting on this story have noted that it is not fair that this family of 15 should be given such a large home, when so many normal families in the country are struggling to maintain their 1500 sq. ft houses. I don't think it is a virtue to envy someone else's good fortune, or to want to limit the amount of good just because other people are having trouble too. Besides that, a "normal" family of four (just guessing) would have 375 sq. ft per person, while this clan has been given 320. Considering how much space is always wasted in hallways, odd bathroom corners and foyers (ie, that space that you can stand around in, but not do anything useful with), I imagine that the actual space they have to lay their heads and store their clothes is not over-generous. I could easily live in 4800 sq. ft with my family of 4, and not feel particularly overwhelmed with space. Adding 10 more people would force me to run away.
1b. Muttering about the ability of homeless people to maintain a large house: this sort of complaint has not been diffused by the information that the parent has a long history of respectable employment and home ownership. Apparently, it is quite difficult for people to believe that bad things can happen to good people.
2. The family is taking tax money from the good citizens of the county: this is true. The county is paying taxes and utilities for the house as long as the family qualifies. There is a rumor that the county also holds the mortgage, so the family didn't actually get a free house, just a free place to live. This still doesn't bother me, because at the very least the 10 orphans would have been supported entirely by the county in any case, at far greater expense. Because they are adopted, their mother does not receive foster care payments for these kids. They do receive medical benefits. (I'm not sure about this mortgage business, because EM: Home asked the builder to donate the house and build it in a week. I hope it doesn't fall down.)
3. People shouldn't have 10 children if they can support them: Well, of course not. However, this seems irrelevant to me. The woman who had 10 children and didn't provide for them is dead. Witholding community support at this point does not punish her for her irresponsibility. It might be said that the aunt shouldn't have adopted the 10 if she couldn't afford them, but how many people could afford to help that many relatives? If the kids had been separated and sent to different foster homes, the cost to the county would have been more. This way, they are together, with a relative who cares enough about them to suffer on their behalf. Anyone who can learn from a situation like that, will.
So anyway, I find the whole thing simultaneously uplifting and depressing. I'm glad that self-sacrifice and family devotion still exist, but it's sad that some people went to great effort to keep these 15 people from getting help, and then many others had nothing better to do than to offer insult and blame. That's a lot of negative energy.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Social Theory
So, one of the lovely things about my tribe (Engineers, as opposed to my adopted tribe. You know who you are) is the willingness to have an opinion and take a stand on topics we know little about. We tend to be highly educated people, and some of us seem to think that having mastered the trick of getting educated, we can thus be masters of any topic in which we take an interest. For some, the interest is benign, and related to our direct skill set. Carpentry, mechanics, rail roads (real and hobby), etc. Others of us range farther afield...
Which brings me to my latest great theory about society and culture. I think that to the extent that something is wrong with our (US> east coast> mid-atlantic) (the previous just emphasizes that I know my sample is limited) culture, the problem is our unwillingness to judge each other. This may seem counter-intuitive, given our general ability to dislike each other for trivial reasons (see previous post), but bear with me. For this forum, here is my first piece of evidence, an article from The Washington Post on June 23: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/22/AR2008062202205.html?hpid=topnews
To summarize, people in the DC region have been stealing public land for private use. These are usually homeowners whose properties abut a public park. Sometimes the theft is unintentional, as when a previous owner sited a fence improperly, but the crime can also be blatant, like the guy who put his invisible dog fence deep into a public park. His justification is that his two dogs keep the deer away, which protects everyone from ticks. To my eye, this guy is just a thief. No shades of gray, no excuses. The reporter who wrote the article, the park service employees, and neighbors interviewed for the article all carefully avoided the "thief" word, instead dancing around with various euphemisms.
I say that we are all at fault when our fellow citizens commit obvious wrongs and we fail to call them out on it. What are we afraid of? How far does tolerance extend, and what harm are we doing to our communities when we don't set limits? Sadly, I see the obvious problem with this call to arms. We humans can be very bad at picking issues of importance, and even worse at moderating the punishment to fit the crime. Used to be that fornication could get you run out of town, and interracial marriage could land you in jail. Those are some community standards that I'm glad have become obsolete. But I still feel that we are in danger of going too far with our laissez-faire attitudes. We should speak up when our neighbors steal public land, or leave their spouse and kids without a dime or a clue, or pull their kids out of school and never let them out of the house again (ref. Bonita Jacks in DC). Some things are so wrong that we shouldn't let them become ok.
The difficult work here is figuring out sets of community standards that work for people of any religion or none, new immigrants or natives, young or old, that don't chafe too much against any particular group. What if some religions and cultural practices can't be accommodated? That might be a pill we have to swallow, but we should start talking about it in a rational way, instead of making rules piecemeal to address individual cases. That's a whole different rant though.
ps. Holy Mackerel, a completely relevant piece of tangential evidence: http://www.slate.com/id/2193872/ . This is one of those topics that never bothers me unless my kid is around, but clearly I haven't thought about it enough.
Which brings me to my latest great theory about society and culture. I think that to the extent that something is wrong with our (US> east coast> mid-atlantic) (the previous just emphasizes that I know my sample is limited) culture, the problem is our unwillingness to judge each other. This may seem counter-intuitive, given our general ability to dislike each other for trivial reasons (see previous post), but bear with me. For this forum, here is my first piece of evidence, an article from The Washington Post on June 23: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/22/AR2008062202205.html?hpid=topnews
To summarize, people in the DC region have been stealing public land for private use. These are usually homeowners whose properties abut a public park. Sometimes the theft is unintentional, as when a previous owner sited a fence improperly, but the crime can also be blatant, like the guy who put his invisible dog fence deep into a public park. His justification is that his two dogs keep the deer away, which protects everyone from ticks. To my eye, this guy is just a thief. No shades of gray, no excuses. The reporter who wrote the article, the park service employees, and neighbors interviewed for the article all carefully avoided the "thief" word, instead dancing around with various euphemisms.
I say that we are all at fault when our fellow citizens commit obvious wrongs and we fail to call them out on it. What are we afraid of? How far does tolerance extend, and what harm are we doing to our communities when we don't set limits? Sadly, I see the obvious problem with this call to arms. We humans can be very bad at picking issues of importance, and even worse at moderating the punishment to fit the crime. Used to be that fornication could get you run out of town, and interracial marriage could land you in jail. Those are some community standards that I'm glad have become obsolete. But I still feel that we are in danger of going too far with our laissez-faire attitudes. We should speak up when our neighbors steal public land, or leave their spouse and kids without a dime or a clue, or pull their kids out of school and never let them out of the house again (ref. Bonita Jacks in DC). Some things are so wrong that we shouldn't let them become ok.
The difficult work here is figuring out sets of community standards that work for people of any religion or none, new immigrants or natives, young or old, that don't chafe too much against any particular group. What if some religions and cultural practices can't be accommodated? That might be a pill we have to swallow, but we should start talking about it in a rational way, instead of making rules piecemeal to address individual cases. That's a whole different rant though.
ps. Holy Mackerel, a completely relevant piece of tangential evidence: http://www.slate.com/id/2193872/ . This is one of those topics that never bothers me unless my kid is around, but clearly I haven't thought about it enough.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Race Relations
What, you say? Two posts in two days? Well, like any new project, I expect to have great enthusiasm for this for another week, then will drop it like last year's perfume. It just so happens that I am moved to write about something so pivotal to our society, so central to our image of ourselves, that not writing would be a breach of civic duty. The topic is race. The context...
wait for it...
you won't believe the importance...
is hair.
Wait, don't feel let down! I swear that hair is relevant to this important societal issue. I may have to contract the bounds of the discussion though, and clarify that I really want to reflect on race relations in Annapolis Maryland.
This has come up because after 20 months without a haircut, and after a thoughtful gift certificate from my husband, I decided to return to the hair salon. I stopped getting my hair cut because I was busy. I also take slight subversive pride in my low maintenance lifestyle: no more than 5 minutes for makeup, outsize efforts to buy clothes that don't require ironing, out of bed and out the front door in 20 minutes or less if I have to. So anyway, what with one thing or another, no hair cuts. Finally this spring, I started to believe that the burgeoning belly required some balance, perhaps provided by a coiffed head of hair. Four months after coming to this decision, I called to make an appointment. Now despite being generally low maintenance, and truly enjoying the engineering hat I usually wear, I occasionally find my inner girl, and she was rarin' to go. A week has been spent in quiet reverie over the new hairstyle. Would I go for a Jennifer Aniston: simple, yet glamourous? No, more like an Angelina Jolie: voluminous, luxurious, the kind of hair that clearly walks around with a Brad Pitt next to it. A pixie cut, like all those cute models with their supershort hair? Perhaps not so good for balancing the burgeoning belly (and the permanently burgeoned derriere). So, the Angelina it was. Then I got a call yesterday afternoon (while having my eyes dilated): "it's the salon, we have to cancel your appointment." In one second my little fantasy of luxurious locks waving about my face, eyes mysterious behind large glam sunglasses, lost some air. So what is it, sick hairdresser, no power, schedule conflict? No friends, it's not any of that. "We have to cancel because none of our stylists can work with your hair. We don't have anyone who does relaxers anymore."
So let's pause a beat and consider the general devastation: 20 months of buildup, a week of unmoored fantasizing, and the salon that I've visited (infrequently, but faithfully) for 5 years can't do my hair. The appointment had originally been a two-parter: one person for the perm, and my "regular" for the cut and style. So I asked if I could still get the cut and style. Nope, apparently it was decided that my hair couldn't be cut without the relaxer. The appointment is cancelled, the dream is over, the whole thing is called off. They did refer me to the salon next door though, where the woman who used to do my perms now works. I got ditched by a hair salon because my hair isn't relaxed, and they don't employ anyone who can handle it. To put this more plainly:
It is 2008 in the United States of America, and my salon "Doesn't Do Black Hair."
The last time this happened to me (oh, yes, it's happened before) was in 1997, when I first moved to this segregated enclave. I just picked a salon out of the phone book and went. They at least didn't want to admit their shortcomings, and after giving my a fairly bad cut and blow dry, admitted that they didn't usually (ever) do black hair. For a girl from the Tidewater, this was a bit of a mystery. We might have to blame it on my expatriate upbringing, or more likely on the extreme social weirdness of Annapolis, but for some reason I didn't know until 1997 that salons could be segregated. In good old Newport News, they taught me all about the intricacies of prejudice (black, white, yellow and brown), but there are so many types of people there that you'd have to work pretty hard to find a salon that refused your business for having the wrong hair texture.
So after moving to Annapolis, I went through a small odyssey, looking for someone to do my hair. Given my infrequent impulse to have anything done at all, this took years. For a while I had a woman in a "black" shop, and she was pretty good. The main problem with her was the whole barbershop experience, where a cut and style could take 3.5 hours. My inner girl just isn't strong enough to get me through that more than a couple times. I have things to do, structures to analyze, and I can't sit in a chair reading mindless fluff and fending off gossipy questions about my personal life for an entire afternoon. Then I found a lovely place just around up the street from the house. The proprietor was awesome, she would agree to any experiment with the hair, she wasn't too expensive, and I started getting my hair done all the time. Then within a year, she was gone. Shop closed, no forwarding address. So I finally washed up, battered and broken, at the salon in Eastport. They had diverse stylists and clientele, and I was set. (Ha, ha, small girl type hair dressing pun there.) All set until yesterday, when I got the boot. Rather than take my money, they sent me chasing after a former employee.
So that's it, my profound thought for today about race relations in Annapolis. I know I didn't actually write about race that much, about the explicit and implicit discrimination that is part of the social scene in Annapolis, but I think I prefer to let you do that sort of hard work for yourselves. Let's just say that when I get my hair done next month, with the former employee of my former salon, I won't walk out with the Angelina hair waving behind me. The expression on my face isn't going to imply that I have temporarily mislaid the Brad Pitt accessory, but obviously, given the fabulous hair, it must be around somewhere. Instead, I'm going to ask for an Oprah, and my expression will say something like, "I'm so fab and successful that no one would dream of declining my business. This hair adorns the head of a woman that will take your 1950s style discrimination and shove it down your cringing throat. Now out of my way, I've got code to write and a helicopter to design."
wait for it...
you won't believe the importance...
is hair.
Wait, don't feel let down! I swear that hair is relevant to this important societal issue. I may have to contract the bounds of the discussion though, and clarify that I really want to reflect on race relations in Annapolis Maryland.
This has come up because after 20 months without a haircut, and after a thoughtful gift certificate from my husband, I decided to return to the hair salon. I stopped getting my hair cut because I was busy. I also take slight subversive pride in my low maintenance lifestyle: no more than 5 minutes for makeup, outsize efforts to buy clothes that don't require ironing, out of bed and out the front door in 20 minutes or less if I have to. So anyway, what with one thing or another, no hair cuts. Finally this spring, I started to believe that the burgeoning belly required some balance, perhaps provided by a coiffed head of hair. Four months after coming to this decision, I called to make an appointment. Now despite being generally low maintenance, and truly enjoying the engineering hat I usually wear, I occasionally find my inner girl, and she was rarin' to go. A week has been spent in quiet reverie over the new hairstyle. Would I go for a Jennifer Aniston: simple, yet glamourous? No, more like an Angelina Jolie: voluminous, luxurious, the kind of hair that clearly walks around with a Brad Pitt next to it. A pixie cut, like all those cute models with their supershort hair? Perhaps not so good for balancing the burgeoning belly (and the permanently burgeoned derriere). So, the Angelina it was. Then I got a call yesterday afternoon (while having my eyes dilated): "it's the salon, we have to cancel your appointment." In one second my little fantasy of luxurious locks waving about my face, eyes mysterious behind large glam sunglasses, lost some air. So what is it, sick hairdresser, no power, schedule conflict? No friends, it's not any of that. "We have to cancel because none of our stylists can work with your hair. We don't have anyone who does relaxers anymore."
So let's pause a beat and consider the general devastation: 20 months of buildup, a week of unmoored fantasizing, and the salon that I've visited (infrequently, but faithfully) for 5 years can't do my hair. The appointment had originally been a two-parter: one person for the perm, and my "regular" for the cut and style. So I asked if I could still get the cut and style. Nope, apparently it was decided that my hair couldn't be cut without the relaxer. The appointment is cancelled, the dream is over, the whole thing is called off. They did refer me to the salon next door though, where the woman who used to do my perms now works. I got ditched by a hair salon because my hair isn't relaxed, and they don't employ anyone who can handle it. To put this more plainly:
It is 2008 in the United States of America, and my salon "Doesn't Do Black Hair."
The last time this happened to me (oh, yes, it's happened before) was in 1997, when I first moved to this segregated enclave. I just picked a salon out of the phone book and went. They at least didn't want to admit their shortcomings, and after giving my a fairly bad cut and blow dry, admitted that they didn't usually (ever) do black hair. For a girl from the Tidewater, this was a bit of a mystery. We might have to blame it on my expatriate upbringing, or more likely on the extreme social weirdness of Annapolis, but for some reason I didn't know until 1997 that salons could be segregated. In good old Newport News, they taught me all about the intricacies of prejudice (black, white, yellow and brown), but there are so many types of people there that you'd have to work pretty hard to find a salon that refused your business for having the wrong hair texture.
So after moving to Annapolis, I went through a small odyssey, looking for someone to do my hair. Given my infrequent impulse to have anything done at all, this took years. For a while I had a woman in a "black" shop, and she was pretty good. The main problem with her was the whole barbershop experience, where a cut and style could take 3.5 hours. My inner girl just isn't strong enough to get me through that more than a couple times. I have things to do, structures to analyze, and I can't sit in a chair reading mindless fluff and fending off gossipy questions about my personal life for an entire afternoon. Then I found a lovely place just around up the street from the house. The proprietor was awesome, she would agree to any experiment with the hair, she wasn't too expensive, and I started getting my hair done all the time. Then within a year, she was gone. Shop closed, no forwarding address. So I finally washed up, battered and broken, at the salon in Eastport. They had diverse stylists and clientele, and I was set. (Ha, ha, small girl type hair dressing pun there.) All set until yesterday, when I got the boot. Rather than take my money, they sent me chasing after a former employee.
So that's it, my profound thought for today about race relations in Annapolis. I know I didn't actually write about race that much, about the explicit and implicit discrimination that is part of the social scene in Annapolis, but I think I prefer to let you do that sort of hard work for yourselves. Let's just say that when I get my hair done next month, with the former employee of my former salon, I won't walk out with the Angelina hair waving behind me. The expression on my face isn't going to imply that I have temporarily mislaid the Brad Pitt accessory, but obviously, given the fabulous hair, it must be around somewhere. Instead, I'm going to ask for an Oprah, and my expression will say something like, "I'm so fab and successful that no one would dream of declining my business. This hair adorns the head of a woman that will take your 1950s style discrimination and shove it down your cringing throat. Now out of my way, I've got code to write and a helicopter to design."
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Anxiety
You might think that anxiety would be the last thing motivating this blog, since it's lain fallow since last fall. However that may be, anxiety is playing a big role in this week of our lives. Let's look at the schedule, shall we?
Saturday: leave Newport News and drive to Annapolis in time for the kid's piano lesson. Lesson can not be skipped because of imminent recital. Nightmare on Friday that we blew the lesson off and the teacher gave us an angry and humiliating scold, then refused to teach the kid ever again.
Sunday: Father's Day, also known as "The Day I Never Know What to do With, Since the Husband Would Probably Like Nothing More than Two Cold Beers and 14 Hours of Sleep." Sadly, I'm incapable of doing nothing, so I jittered around until hitting on the idea of Go-Karts and Mini-Golf. This was lots of fun for the boys (hurray). The smallest dark note introduced by the waiter at lunch who could not leave us alone. I felt compelled to be nice to this old dude, even though he spoke to us every three minutes. I kept having to scrub spinach out of my teeth in between bites, so I could talk to this person I didn't want to talk to. Aggravating to be interrupted so much, and even more annoying to get a hate on against such a nice old guy.
Monday: Recital rehearsal in the strangest church ever. Actually, first a checkup at the useless doctor, aka the obstetrician. They confirmed for me that I have a bladder, a pulse, and a weight. See you next month! Then run across town to the weird church. The recital is in a Baptist Funhouse, featuring gymnasium and food court. Call me traditional, but I think it is weird for a church to have a food court. The implication seems to be that you will spend so much time there that you will have to buy several meals. Also, it seems mildly blasphemous. Should you be thinking about pizza and burgers in a house of worship? Even worse, should someone be overcharging you for junkfood, in the name of G-d? Anyway, on to dinner with Whit, who is shortly off to England. Important date, because I'm losing my closest s-i-l to the Land of Poms. Naturally, had nothing to say, and spent most of the evening waiting for dinner, then wondering why I had to order the spiciest damn thing on the menu. The peanut did not approve.
Tuesday: Must get something done at work. Have to keep the primary goal, eg, graduation, in mind. Started the day with a meeting and never recovered. Did manage to get the advisor and mentor on the same page as to what I should be doing. This may save a little time, as I was badly trying to tapdance between the two, and getting little of consequence done. I could feel this was leading to another one of those lectures about staying focused and thinking like a scholar (as opposed to the doofus I play in regular life), so it was good to head that one off at the pass. As the husband said, it was time for me to be the chief, and them to be the indians. So to speak. On to the real business of the day: lunch. The spiciest leftovers in the world. A word to the wise: a heaping portion of cucumbers and yogurt on top of tongue searing thai beef is not the way to make the pregnant stomach happy for more than 20 minutes. Spent remainder of afternoon trying to concentrate on work, instead of the burning pit in my torso. Then drove across town like a maniac to get the kid, feed the kid, dress the kid, and get the kid to the recital. Happily, it went really well! Finally, a big bright spot in the week. And by the time the concert was over, so was my stomach ache:) Just in time for take-out chinese at 10 pm, accompanied by requests for a second dinner from the kid, and (entirely unreasonable) demands from the mother, via telephone, that the kid get a bath before bed. Sorry mom, not happening tonight. Good thing he swims every day in camp.
Wednesday: The husband gets a shot in his spine for the never-ending and inexplicable back pain. The day really starts with the tree people who are removing 4 huge trees from our lot that are variously diseased, hollow, or just punk-ass. Major buyer's remorse there, except it's better to have them gone than to wake up to one in the bedroom one fine day. So the kid's at camp, the husband's passed out in bed, the yard is oddly sunny, the bank account is empty, and I have to run to the eye doctor for an annual checkup that hasn't happened for at least 3 years. Here's hoping they won't notice the abysmally unclean state of the contacts, and won't tell me I'm even blinder than I was 3 years ago. Then drive home with dilated eyes, get a kid, hopefully the right one, from camp, and maybe, possibly, get some work done today!
Like I said, anxiety can be a great motivator. Let's see if I make this appointment on time...
Saturday: leave Newport News and drive to Annapolis in time for the kid's piano lesson. Lesson can not be skipped because of imminent recital. Nightmare on Friday that we blew the lesson off and the teacher gave us an angry and humiliating scold, then refused to teach the kid ever again.
Sunday: Father's Day, also known as "The Day I Never Know What to do With, Since the Husband Would Probably Like Nothing More than Two Cold Beers and 14 Hours of Sleep." Sadly, I'm incapable of doing nothing, so I jittered around until hitting on the idea of Go-Karts and Mini-Golf. This was lots of fun for the boys (hurray). The smallest dark note introduced by the waiter at lunch who could not leave us alone. I felt compelled to be nice to this old dude, even though he spoke to us every three minutes. I kept having to scrub spinach out of my teeth in between bites, so I could talk to this person I didn't want to talk to. Aggravating to be interrupted so much, and even more annoying to get a hate on against such a nice old guy.
Monday: Recital rehearsal in the strangest church ever. Actually, first a checkup at the useless doctor, aka the obstetrician. They confirmed for me that I have a bladder, a pulse, and a weight. See you next month! Then run across town to the weird church. The recital is in a Baptist Funhouse, featuring gymnasium and food court. Call me traditional, but I think it is weird for a church to have a food court. The implication seems to be that you will spend so much time there that you will have to buy several meals. Also, it seems mildly blasphemous. Should you be thinking about pizza and burgers in a house of worship? Even worse, should someone be overcharging you for junkfood, in the name of G-d? Anyway, on to dinner with Whit, who is shortly off to England. Important date, because I'm losing my closest s-i-l to the Land of Poms. Naturally, had nothing to say, and spent most of the evening waiting for dinner, then wondering why I had to order the spiciest damn thing on the menu. The peanut did not approve.
Tuesday: Must get something done at work. Have to keep the primary goal, eg, graduation, in mind. Started the day with a meeting and never recovered. Did manage to get the advisor and mentor on the same page as to what I should be doing. This may save a little time, as I was badly trying to tapdance between the two, and getting little of consequence done. I could feel this was leading to another one of those lectures about staying focused and thinking like a scholar (as opposed to the doofus I play in regular life), so it was good to head that one off at the pass. As the husband said, it was time for me to be the chief, and them to be the indians. So to speak. On to the real business of the day: lunch. The spiciest leftovers in the world. A word to the wise: a heaping portion of cucumbers and yogurt on top of tongue searing thai beef is not the way to make the pregnant stomach happy for more than 20 minutes. Spent remainder of afternoon trying to concentrate on work, instead of the burning pit in my torso. Then drove across town like a maniac to get the kid, feed the kid, dress the kid, and get the kid to the recital. Happily, it went really well! Finally, a big bright spot in the week. And by the time the concert was over, so was my stomach ache:) Just in time for take-out chinese at 10 pm, accompanied by requests for a second dinner from the kid, and (entirely unreasonable) demands from the mother, via telephone, that the kid get a bath before bed. Sorry mom, not happening tonight. Good thing he swims every day in camp.
Wednesday: The husband gets a shot in his spine for the never-ending and inexplicable back pain. The day really starts with the tree people who are removing 4 huge trees from our lot that are variously diseased, hollow, or just punk-ass. Major buyer's remorse there, except it's better to have them gone than to wake up to one in the bedroom one fine day. So the kid's at camp, the husband's passed out in bed, the yard is oddly sunny, the bank account is empty, and I have to run to the eye doctor for an annual checkup that hasn't happened for at least 3 years. Here's hoping they won't notice the abysmally unclean state of the contacts, and won't tell me I'm even blinder than I was 3 years ago. Then drive home with dilated eyes, get a kid, hopefully the right one, from camp, and maybe, possibly, get some work done today!
Like I said, anxiety can be a great motivator. Let's see if I make this appointment on time...
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