Prattle Inc.

Parenting Fail Whale

You know, you bring the baby home and he's small and beautiful and perfect. You did good by managing to successfully grow an infant and to get him out with no damage. You earn an automatic A+ in Parenting.

Then he's a toddler and all pudgy and cute and even though his head is bigger than his body and there's still that little equilibrium issue, he learns to walk upright and only has the perma-bruise smack in the middle of his forehead for a couple of months. Rock on, still doing well Mama. Parenting grade: A

Elementary and middle school proves that the boy is turning into a compassionate, fun and likable little guy. Excellent report cards, teachers' notes, sleep overs and jillions of birthday party invites confirm: Good Parenting.

He makes it through high school with no unplanned pregnancies and no arrests. He graduates. He's got upcoming college courses/schedules penciled in on the calender, is a hard worker respected by his peers at his first "real" full-time job and is a mature young man with a good head on his shoulders and generally speaking, makes good choices. Final score: Parenting = successful.

Until.

The DUMB invades.

Scene: Friday night. Four 18 year olds just out of high school. Bored. Small town. Too young to go to a bar, no one on premises with a fake I.D.

No girls around. (Obviously.)

Dumb Idea: "Let's all get tattoos." But the tattoo parlor is closed for the evening. Not enough money pooled for 4 tattoos anyway.

Dumber Idea: "Let's brand ourselves."

Dumbest Idea of All Time: "With cutlery!"

WTF?

Scene: Mom wailing and flailing on the kitchen floor. "Oh how, oh how have I failed you, Tee? I thought I was doing such a good job at the Parenting. I birthed you and borne you and raised you up right. You're smart and fun and good. And now? NOW? You make the deliberate decision to have the permanent scar of seared fork tines on your body? Tell me child, what did I do? Was it all of the hot dogs I made you eat when we were single and poor? The red Kool-aid that only once, I swear, once did I make out of desperation? Were you trying to impress a girl? Get back at us for taking away the cable? Were you drunk? Drugged? BRAIN fucking DAMAGED?"

Yes, they heated up forks and branded themselves like cattle. What's that you say? It doesn't look like a fork-print? No, no it doesn't. Because someone hid it from his mother and step-father for over 24 hours by choosing to spend the day on a well-known bacterially laden body of water in boats and kayaks listening to live bands for 12 hours and got a monstrous infection to the third degree burn. The infection spread to the surrounding cells/tissue etc. and the doctor had to physically scrape off layers of charred, dead skin with a scalpel and sent him home with a healthy dose of antibiotics.

But no pain pills. Maybe that'll teach him not to sabotage his mother's excellent Parenting skills with the DUMB.

Sticking It to the Man, Teen Style

The weeks of scrounging change from sofa cushions, the laundry room, end tables, some light babysitting and paper filing has finally paid off. This is what $121.53 looks like in Bratface's world. Once the $25 I owe is added to the pot we will be skipping along to the Verizon store so that she can upgrade her cell phone to a model more befitting a rising sophomore. (e.g. "Not the free one you get at contract renewal, God Mom!").

In protest of the inflated prices that the cell phone store charges, Bratface plans on making the company work just as hard to collect the money as she did to save up for it. Other than cashing out the check, she will be taking the jar into the store as-is* to pay for her purchase.

* There is paper currency in there, but also exactly $14.53 in change - $7.53 of that in pennies.

C'est La Vie

Oh my lord, y'all. I had no idea that it would be this hard to get cable turned OFF.  When the first day came and went without the cable going bye-bye, I let it go. For three days. When I called they said they had "lost" the work order. Appointment #2 - no show. I let it go for a day, then called again. This time they tried to talk me out of it altogether then to bribe me with a "deal" (which with 40% of the programming at 10% discount off of full selection? Call me crazy, but I don't see the gift here, guy), and rescheduled. You'll just never guess what happened - nothing! When I once again asked why the technician would not show up and just TURN IT FUCKING OFF ALREADY, they had the nerve to go full circle and try to upgrade us (at our expense) to HDTV. Aargh!

Funny thing happened during that time, the kids suddenly developed an insatiable appetite for television programming. Every day for over a week has been like Christmas for Tee and Bratface. They'd pop over to the box, turn it on to find that we still had programming, give a little yelp of excitement and then proceed to be utterly glued to every single waste of brainspace show, no History channel here, no sir, that they could absorb before Doomsday. They were storing up like camels before the long, hot descent into the desert.

When Tee got home from work this afternoon and turned on the tv only a blank blue screen popped up. My poor little sports fan is royally pissed by the thought of having no cable because this means no Pro Football game showings this fall. "What's next Mom? Are you going to take away our heat this winter?"

We're free! Free again to have hours and hours of quality time together. Maybe by chopping wood! We do have a wood stove in the storage space that we can set up.*

*The storage space that we pay monthly for that holds all of the excess items from the blending of Jefferson's bachelor pad and my single mom's abode when we married and bought our current home. Six years ago. Shut up.

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Now We're Not Weird, We're "Interesting"

This weekend we went down to a semi-annual three day frisbee-golf tournament on a rustic farm on the Potomac. There's camping, swimming and kayaking, too. It's a hot, sticky blast of a time. Our friend circle has many members who own real live land and quite a few parties like this are staged a year. When they were younger these weekends were the highlight of my kids' summers. Just water, dirt, bugs, fish and frisbee and other kids to run around with all day, then campfire and the sounds of adult laughter and live music lulling them to sleep at night under the stars. What kid can complain about that?

Once they hit the pre-teen/young teen years of their lives all of my kids wanted more "normal" family activities like bumper boats, amusement parks or going to the movies, though. They rebelled against our ideas of fun and had to be dragged kicking and screaming along with us. ("Why do you have to be such hippies? Why can't we stay in a condo or at least a camper, for godsakes? Where am I supposed to plug in my hair dryer?")  Luckily, they all come around and now it is Bratface's turn to move past the Bershon stage and even enjoy bringing her more suburban friends along for these occasions. So do it parents. Be weird! Your kids will appreciate it later on.

The camp-sitey festival-ish atmosphere is culture shock for Brat's friends and she off-handedly explains, "Oh, Tori we won't even bother with showering, but we can take a bath in the river if we get too gross. Mom brought bio-degradable shampoo," while her friend cringes at the thought of getting clean in muddy water. The half (or fully) naked toddlers running to and fro always elicit a gasp from the Friends and it's cute to hear Bratface toss out that "toilet-training is easier this way especially when they're outside and it's the chosen method in so many other countries." She explains tofu barbeque and eggs her friends to "try it, you'll love it". They walk the trails and search for fossilized sharks teeth on the shore of the river and she tells stories like "When I was six, right at that very spot..."

The big game of the weekend for the little kids is to trap insects and bring them over to the "Big Book" to try to identify them. In her normal life, Bratface wouldn't get close enough to a spider to kill it with her shoe, but out there it's all just part of the bigger picture. This weekend while her friend was busy screaming and jumping up and down, Bratface calmly and cooly reported that "It's just a brown water-snake. I don't think they're poisonous - come on, let's check it in the book."

She's turned it into a field trip of sorts and now her friends basically bribe her for turns at getting to hang with the "hippies".

Aw, I kind of feel like singing "May the circle, be unbroken.." right now.

Of course she comes back to her air-conditioned home, plugs in her ipod, immediately checks her Myspace, showers for 25 minutes, applies make-up and hair products for another 30 and then and only then will she venture outside to even get the mail.

Old Mrs. Rose Was In the Window When They Were Under the Lilac

Our Goth teen neighbor and my son are combing the dark street, checking up close in peoples' yards, poking through bushes and calling for Gothteen's missing cat.

His name is "Blood Death".

Sigh. Guess I'll put on a bra so that I'll be presentable when the cops get here.

Unplugged

I've told you all how we are not a TV-oriented family, how our tv sits for days and days without even being turned on? How our 20 year old television has no holes in the back of it to allow for plug-ins such as "modern" dvd players, computer games and the like so my kids also aren't electronically addicted? How when my father decided that he had enough of my child abuse (8 years of my kids' lives were spent with no cable television, no antenna, just a vcr and a handful of tapes) that he secretly paid for cable hook-up for us in the summer of 2001 and that I threw out the remote to at least hinder their tv-watching? It works, by the way, kids are so laczy - if they have to manually turn channels, or god-forbid, sit through commercials, they'll usually just get so fatigued from the effort they'll give up and go find something else to do.

I find television horribly lacking in quality programming and both Jefferson and I are pretty anal about what the kids watch. Yep, they're 18 and almost 15 but still,  we want our kids to NOT be shallow and vapid and don't encourage tv viewing of the following variety: reality shows, "documentaries" on troubled pop stars like Lindsey and Brittany, crime show after crime show, exploitation of sad and often mentally ill human beings ie: that show Intervention? sick!, and/or disgusting displays of consumerism and over-entitled teenagers (ie: My Super Sweet Sixteen and The Hills, Gossip Girls, etc.)  In fact, to this very moment we make them turn the channel or turn it off. Guess which answer they usually pick? 

Also, we have always had the rule that the kids weren't allowed to have televisions in their bedrooms. If we had to have cable (Thanks, Dad), at least we were still going to be a only-one-tv-in-the-household family. Ok, well, we all know how that went bust this Christmas, but I held firm on the no-cable-upstairs rule, so ha! (And we do get Netflix).

Of course we do have access the History channel, PBS and the Discovery channel, although even they have resorted to reality-type shows like Ice Road Truckers, etc., but honestly, we have computers! Every one of these channels and the shows they broadcast can be downloaded and watched for FREE.

Quite frankly, I've carried around a huge load of guilt for the past 7 years of being a cable subscriber. If I don't condone this type of behavior then why on Earth am I paying over $50 a month for the privilege of having round the clock access to 73 channels of shitty shitastic shows that we don't/won't watch? Why am I financially supporting broadcasting that I think is a fundamental travesty of intellect?

Not for long, kiddies. As of tomorrow we've decided to be a tv-free household once again. I'm calling the cable company to tell them to shove off.

I feel cleaner already.

"The Wonder Is that We Can See These Trees and Not Wonder More" -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do y'all remember the old man in the underwear that I see from the lanai during winter? Guess what, I see him again. And also into the room in the house next to his where the toddler lives.

Boo for tree removal even if for perfectly good reasons! (Bad storm - wind and lightning damage.) Not one, but two 50+ year old Hawthornes had to be taken down from the yard next door and I feel robbed. The cover that those old trees provided was so enjoyable that sometimes we even forgot that we live in the city. I feel naked, exposed to all of my backyard neighbors and them, to me. There's an ugly gaping hole and it's so incredibly bright that I almost have to wear sunglasses in the kitchen. Not to mention the loss of  nature that our little corner of the world is now devoid of. Mornings are noticeably quieter without all of the songbirds that lived right behind us and Sadie, our dog, has been almost bored what with having no squirrels or opossum to chase and bark at for the past few days.

Must replace trees as soon as possible! The Instant Gratification Needer side of me says "Give me shade, privacy and nature or give me death!" I'm looking for the fastest grower I can find that should be drought tolerant, pretty and can't have giant octopus-like roots because our yard is tee-hee-ny and I don't need no foundation cracking or clogged pipes. And did I mention that our yard is tee-hee-ny? Also that now is kind of a bad time to want to buy shade and privacy what with the gas, the food, and both the electric and natural gas company just sent out notices of increase. Now is the time we should be cutting back, not being all spoiled and going out and buying shade just because we want to. That just sounds bad, huh?

But I'm planting hope right? Hope for someone else years down the line to be able to enjoy the shade, the leaves and changing of the seasons, for the wildlife that has been displaced to find new homes in new trees and for all of us to get back that little sense of nature that we enjoyed even though we live right in the middle of downtown. Put back what you take out. Isn't that a law in every household? Doesn't everyone already know that one? I do. And I am.

Note: we are in Zone 7 and if you have any suggestions for what kind of trees I should be looking for by all means pass it on. I need suggestions. Unfortunately, I have some time. Summers are brutal here and we'll have to wait for Fall to plant.
                          

        Before                                   During                                    After

Independence Day

And don't forget the backstory.

We Saw Purple Mountains Majesty On the Drive Down

I know. I know. I know. Am a very bad reporter. I've realized that I'm a Processor. I go and do and be and can't blog about it all while it is happening. I have to come back, decompress, sort it out and then I can tell you about it.

Down in TN: Met my new BFF in person. We talked, and talked and talked for 4 straight days. It's a good thing we don't live closer or we would never shut up and get anything done in real life. As it was, I went down to help out Sumgirl with the kids and the moving and the packing and the painting. We painted one room. I took my 11 years of gymnastic experience and taught her kids how to do handstands against the walls. (You're welcome for the footprints.)  I think I developed a crush on her husband. We moved a handful of boxes. And we talked and we talked and we talked.... I also met AT and Bell. He is quite the rogue and she was horrible and mean and nasty. -Kidding. Still stunned by the miracle that is the internet, we chatted over a couple of beers and it felt like we were all old buddies. I didn't start a blog to make new friends but it's a totally great side effect!

It was our first trip to TN and Bratface and I had a fun little mother/daughter roadtrip. Such lovely country. The mountains, the horse farms and the fresh, fresh air made it such a tranquil drive. It was also an educational experience since, apparently, they don't teach navigational skills in our school system and her's could {ahem!} use some perfecting. We took the scenic route on the way down to the tune of an extra hour because my co-pilot {ahem! ahem!} skipped three steps on the Mapquest directions and we got all jacked up.

I came home to my flowers blooming all over the place
but no vegetable garden. The groundhog to people population in my backyard is now perfectly imbalanced. Our under-the-shed-living pal went off and had five babies! They strip everything to the ground except pole beans. I want to trap and relocate them. Jefferson is at peace with them. We're at an impasse. I pulled up the raised garden beds in protest. So for the second summer in a row the farmer's market and I are going to be pretty tight.

Which isn't all bad. We're big fans of whole food and try to eat food in it's natural state that hasn't been processed, boiled, blanched, reduced, baked, or otherwise cooked to the point that the vitamins and nutrients have all been removed as often as possible. Of course, I cook plenty! I am a foodie you know, but summertime is the perfect time to eat whole food as much as possible because of the bounty of fresh local produce that just needs a little preparation,  or mixing up,  then boom - dinner is done. My kind of supper.

Last evening we had sliced fresh tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and crushed black pepper, corn on the cob and cooked but fresh black-eyed peas (fresh! while they're green - not dried. Hard to find around here. If you have access, mail me some, pretty please) with sauteed onion and sage and homemade cornbread. Easy. Healthy. Yummy.

I'm taking these to a Fourth of July cookout this afternoon. Man I love summer food!

Bean and Tomato Salad
White beans (used canned navies today)
tomato (fresh, chopped)
cucumber (fresh, chopped with peel for more nutrients)
artichoke hearts  (chopped)
sweet onion (finely chopped)
basil (chopped)
olive oil, juice of one lemon and dash of salt to coat