Mom to the Screaming Masses

I Have a Fantasy

Driving to the beach - the farther one, not the public one - I pass a couple of small, family owned restaurants. Crabs! scream the signs. Fried fish! Shrimp! They are little, side of the road places - the kind you see in movies, the dark hole in the wall places that you just KNOW serve the best seafood.

I fantasize that I leave the beach, hot and sandy, worn out from the rigors of laying out in the sun for hours, and stop at one of these places. I fantasize about walking into this little hole in the wall restaurant, wearing a beach cover up and flip flops, and sitting down to a nice cold drink and some equally cold shrimp. I have it all planned - know exactly how it will feel to walk in, sun soaked, salt and sand laden, and sink into the air conditioning, dreamily sucking the crab meat out of the legs and dipping the chilled shrimp into the cocktail sauce. You know the deep fatigue I speak of, the one that comes from doing absolutely nothing. Fish in baskets on the table, tartar sauce and hot fries. I'll eat hush puppies until I explode, and then make my way home to sleep a deep, dreamless sleep. I picture it in my mind every time I drive past these places.

Yes or No?

It's a deeply polarizing issue, one that threatens to split our people clearly in two separate - yet equally diverse - halves, and I'm curious to know where you, my lovely readers, stand.

Are you ready?  It's such a divisive question that I'm almost afraid to ask.

Will you get up to watch the Royal Wedding?

Or do you just not care?

Me? Meh.

I was up at 4 to see Princess Diana wed, and up for the funeral - I was awake and nursing/rocking an infant Mackenzie at the time - but I'm so definitely not getting up for this one. I'll admit that I do have some interest in seeing the dress and if she chooses to wear a tiara, but not enough to get up at 4.

What are your thoughts?

The (Kinda, Sorta) Weekly Reader - April Version

So, I kinda, maybe, sorta, haven't done this in a while. I maybe forgot to link it up. Here are some of the books that I've been reading over the past couple of months. Of course, it goes without saying that I reread the entire Outlander series - it was that time of year for me. I download a lot of books - it helps that one of the companies I work for pays me in Amazon certificates.

You Forget A Lot in a Year

Like the fact that we need to bring dry towel to sit on for the ride home. Or the fact that sand gets EVERYWHERE - and SOME people can't handle it in their private areas, and so THOSE people become especially irritable. It's something that these people have to become ACCUSTOMED to, I was told today.

We forgot that water bottles get hot when they sit outside.We forgot how aggressive seagulls are when you try to eat a sandwich. And we forgot that there may very well be a reason those thing are called SANDwiches in the first place. Wind that blows one way at home blows many ways at the beach, you can never have enough shovels and pails, and sunblock feels just exactly as icky as it ever did.

It was still nice to be back.

_____

Freschetta By The Slice Giveaway here

Easter Fun

Colored bubbles. The first, and the last, time we will use these staining monsters.

It's a Good Friday to Name Call

I'm tired. Unspeakably tired.

I was able to sleep in for the first time in a long time, and had such crazy weird dreams that it seemed as if I didn't sleep at all. I woke reaching for my husband - to encounter a snoring 7 year old sprawled sideways across my bed, head buried in my stomach. By 10:30 I had two in tears, one in the corner, and one VERY self important teen who was furious that the fighting had woken her - when she wanted to SLEEP IN - yeah, at 10:30.

We went to Good Friday services, meeting a friend there, and came home to 5 people in unexplicably horrific moods. Names were called - really cruel and mean names that girls love to torture each other with - feelings were hurt, tears were shed.

Yes. Those girls both read here every day. Please know that what you said to your sister was rude, it was mean, and it was uncalled for. Pretty appropriate on this, Good Friday, when the most Holy of all was tortured and reviled - but that doesn't make it right. I hope you were able to get the additional rest that you clearly needed, what with the hours earlier bedtime you earned.

I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. My house should be a beacon of calm, a refuge for those who are struggling out there in the world - and it's as if, when they enter the door, the good behavior that they display for others is shed like the sneakers they leave tossed around. I'm tired of hearing great things about people from teachers, from instructors, from babysitting clients and other parents - only to see rude glares that would burn a hole if unchecked.

I just realized something. I hate the fighting because it tears the other one down. But I can't stop it. Only they can stop it.

There was *one* bright spot to today.

Gabriel was awarded Star Student in Muay Thai. For excellence in study, for increase in power and form and all of the other cool things. It broke my heart when he asked if he'd been chosen by lottery, or if I bribed the instructors. He KILLED it in testing this week and I hate that he doesn't see that.

Hopefully tomorrow will dawn a new day. A quieter, calmer day.

 

As Far From Perfect as One Person Could Possibly Be

This past weekend I attended a Muay Thai boxing seminar. It was taught by the head of the Thai Boxing Association of America, the man who brought Thai boxing to America. Ajarn Chai Sirisute. The seminar was about 90% men and about 1 person there was my age or older. It was 6 hours long on Saturday and I left feeling stupid, dumb and slow. I went home and went to bed about as depressed and upset with myself as one person could be.

I've been training Muay Thai for 4 years and in many ways feel as if I've never learned a damn thing.

The Lessons You Learn at Your Neighborhood Target

I went to Target in a hunt for sneakers last week. It's really a pain to try to find sneakers that fit the dress code when you know that the kid will only wear the shoes for six weeks - then the summer comes, the sneakers are abandoned and poof! Fall arrives and you've got to go look for new ones.

So we combined a trip to Target with a refilling of prescriptions. I had requested that the doctors office call in a new Advair for Riley and Allegra, and I had arranged for my own refills of the other asthma meds that we needed.

Oh, Spring and Pollen, how I adore you so.

If I Could Only Lay My Hands on the Person Who Stole My Debit Card Number

Thursday night, I checked my voicemail to find a message from the fraud department at my bank. The automated voice left a number for me to call. I did so, listening to yet another automated message, but hung up before entering the last four of my debit card, as requested. I didn't feel safe doing so.

Friday was payday, and I thought I should double check with the bank before I headed out to do "big shopping.

Interesting aside from Facebook: Riley came downstairs Friday morning for breakfast. She was disappointed in her choices, and then she turned to me and said, "OH! I remember! Today's PAYDAY!" with a fist pump. She completely cracked me up.

How Not to Complain

I'm a fan on Facebook of many local businesses. I'm also a big fan of well made cupcakes. On Wednesday, the best cupcake store in the area - my very favorite - put on their Facebook page that they'd made a trial batch of lemon cupcakes with lemond curd and buttercream, and please stop by if you wanted to try.

Oh, yes I planned to do so at once.

Planets aligned and I only had Gabriel with me at this particular time, and he was really interested in tasting the cupcakes, but he was worried about his food allergies. I've encouraged him to be in control of his allergies, being that a) they are his and b) I won't always be there and c) I want him to be more assertive and comfortable talking to adults.

When we walked in, a customer was dealing with the clerk. Before the door even closed, I knew that the customer was upset. She turned to me and said, "I can't believe that a business can make such a mistake." Apparently, she had come in the day before and placed a special order for a dozen cupcakes with a special decoration. The order had been lost and no one could find it. In essence, they'd taken her money and she had nothing to show for it.