A regular sort of day
Today was a pretty typical day for us. At some point I emerged from the morning fog, aided by several cups of coffee, I'm sure. The boys were dressed, there were remnants of breakfast at the table, and some beans were soaking for chili, so evidently my morning autopilot functioned correctly. There's this bit of a tune, a chorus for a song, really, that's been bugging me, oh, since Easter, at least. It's driving me nuts, because I can't get the rest of the tune, just the chorus, and there are these lyrics that insist on associating with it. I don't do lyrics. At best, the rhymes are forced. At worst, well, let's just say, I don't do lyrics. These are at the best level, forced rhymes and all. And I'm pretty sure they're ripped off from something else. And I don't, really, really, don't do lyrics.
Anyway, I decided to write it down, and see if that would either get it out of my head or shake loose the rest of the song. No luck so far. I rounded up the manuscript paper and a pencil, looked for my triangle and couldn't find it, and decided neatness wasn't really that important since this thing ought to be in the middle and not at the top of the page anyway, only I don't know where the middle is yet. I got sat down, okay, the boys aren't attempting to kill each other, and started writing it out.
"Ding Ding Da-Da-Ding-Dong!"
The front doorbell stammers. The back doorbell rings properly, but the front doesn't seem to be able to quite get the hang of it. I put the pencil down, pissed and disoriented from being knocked out of my trance. It's got to be Mom. No one else would come by the front today. See, my brain wasn't working: it's dead week at the college and there is no way we will see Mom this week, she is too busy helping her international students with papers.
Nope, not Mom, two women in skirts. Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. Sure enough, Jehovah's Witnesses. They looked sad. They introduced themselves, but I wasn't yet quite aware enough to catch their names. June and Jane, or something to that effect, both J's, anyway. I couldn't figure why they looked so sad, I mean, the lady next door is Mormon, but she's a sweetheart and wouldn't have been mean to them. On the other side is the accountant, and he's only in his eighties or nineties, and his secretary's nice, too. I see these people all the time, and I just couldn't figure who would have made these two women so unhappy. They gave me their little speech with the Bible Verse while I stood there blinking the notes out of my mind, Beau jumped up and down being two, and Hemi came crawling up to see if it was Nana.
They wanted to give me their Watchtowers, and I said No, thanks, explained that I go up to the Methodist Church. (literally, up hill.) Then I explained what I am doing for Habitat (in ten words or less) and what Habitat is (in twenty words or less) and asked if they thought there was anyone in their church I could contact to see if their church would be interested. They were very doubtful about this, but said that there is some elder I could contact. I'm not sure elder was the term they used, but I was still somewhat dazed. I got the impression that the man (quite sure about that) was the Jehovah's Witness equivalent of a pastor, anyway. So I said good bye and herded the boys back inside and went back to this wretched little snatch of tune.
My husband came home from running some errands up at the University, and I went to expose the tomatos and peppers to the daylight. Some tulips have come up in the planned vegetable garden, and I have been excavating them and putting them in a planter for now. Still, there is a lot of digging to be done to turn over the soil there, and some of the ones down on the end are blooming. Or were. I picked all the tulips and brought them in. They are red and lavender, and look very interesting in the vases. I have a mystery plant in the future vegetable garden. The known plants are the tulips, violets, grass, hemlock, and a local weed called lambsquarters. I understand there is some sort of flower called lambsquarters, this is not it. It outcompetes the grass, and is a real nuisance. This other plant, my mystery plant, is mixed in with the lambsquarters weed, and has crooked roots like it. To me, that indicates it's a local weed, too, the native plants tend to compensate for the rocky soil even when they get in a garden and don't have to. But, the leaves are shaped like basil. It is not basil, but it kind of looks like it. It also looks a little like the hemlock, but it is not that, either. I can't decide if I should try to save it with the violets (which also have crooked roots) and tulips, or leave it out in the sun til it's good and dead, then put it in the garbage, like the lambsquarters.
So I came in and put the tulips in vases, and my husband's friend called. My husband has an invisible sign on his forehead that says "If you have relationship issues, come talk to me!!!" I swear, he does. Everywhere we go, constantly, people keep coming up to him. And they always have issues. Well, this is one of his classmates. My husband is studying computer programming. This guy is one of those geeks who has no other hobbies. And there's a girl making his life hell. We've been dealing with him for a couple weeks. He's a nice guy. He genuinely means well. He only wants to help her. This is the first girl he's ever dated. She's got a lot of problems. After today, it's over. She's pissed. She told his voicemail so, in detail. So is her 'best friend'. She told his voicemail, too. So, he spent a good part of the afternoon here. He is no longer letting them use him to get a new apartment. This is a good thing. He and I had a little chat about credit reports today. His is as squeaky clean as can be. He realized they were using him. Life sucks. He's going to go home and spend the summer with his parents and play with his nieces and nephews. He promised me he would find a hobby other than computers. You know, so he could meet real people. So the next time someone looks at him and says, "Hmm, bet I could use him," he'll recognize it sooner. And he promised not to assume that other people are only out to do good. We use our children as examples of how selfish some adults are. Pretty sad, huh? I hate having to be part of shattering this guy's illusions, but he'd get hurt worse in the long run if we didn't. I suggested in the future he save his altruistic impulses and volunteer with a charity where someone else will have done the vetting of the potential recipients. He liked that idea. Why does the world have to be such that people like him only get used and hurt?
He went home, I put the kids to bed. Hemi screamed. He's at that age where going to bed is protested vehminantly even though he's exhausted. We (me and boys) got down on our knees, I said the Lord's Prayer, Beau chimed in with the Almond at the end. Daddy works late.
My husband's employers, seeing as my husband and what remains of his coworker 'class', are finishing up this phase of training, decided in their wisdom, or lack thereof, that they will host a potluck tomorrow at dinner break. That is, instead of giving their employees the precious half-hour off that lets them come home, kiss their wives and kids, and maybe scarf some dinner, they are forcing them to stay there and bring food to share with them. This is a inbound call center. Then they turn around and whine about their employees' lack of loyalty. Well, duh! You give a half-hour break for dinner, and more than half of these employees have small children, then you take it away and tell them to bring dinner with them because it'll build 'team spirit'? These people have no team spirit! You pay beans! Your benefits are overpriced and shoddy. And then you say, Friday night, when you're working til 11:30, you can't go home and kiss your kids goodnight. Then you wonder why they quit and go work for someone, anyone else. Idiot corporations. Well, my husband's been there a month. He started at the same time as twenty other people. Training's got two weeks left, the group is already down to ten people. If you treat your workers like dirt, don't expect them to treat you any differently.
Yes, it's temporary. The ISPs in the area aren't hiring just now. Summer Break, you know, and we'll see what fall brings. It's one of those things that you do to pay the bills, keep a roof over the kids' heads, and food on the table.
So the boys are in bed, and I've done what I wanted to with all you figments of my imagination online. Read blogs, news . . . and the inlaws called. It was quite exciting to have the police at church on Sunday, and they think the pastor's the greatest. (Antioch Bible Church, this is.) So I'm bored and out of things to do. If I go practice, the boys'll wake up again. I wish that dratted tune would just cooperate . . .
OK, blogger spell check doesn't know 'blog'. Or figments, though it suggests figment. Yeah, whatever. Sorry, you'll have to live with my mispellings. This spellchecker is too dumb for me to tolerate.
Anyway, I decided to write it down, and see if that would either get it out of my head or shake loose the rest of the song. No luck so far. I rounded up the manuscript paper and a pencil, looked for my triangle and couldn't find it, and decided neatness wasn't really that important since this thing ought to be in the middle and not at the top of the page anyway, only I don't know where the middle is yet. I got sat down, okay, the boys aren't attempting to kill each other, and started writing it out.
"Ding Ding Da-Da-Ding-Dong!"
The front doorbell stammers. The back doorbell rings properly, but the front doesn't seem to be able to quite get the hang of it. I put the pencil down, pissed and disoriented from being knocked out of my trance. It's got to be Mom. No one else would come by the front today. See, my brain wasn't working: it's dead week at the college and there is no way we will see Mom this week, she is too busy helping her international students with papers.
Nope, not Mom, two women in skirts. Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. Sure enough, Jehovah's Witnesses. They looked sad. They introduced themselves, but I wasn't yet quite aware enough to catch their names. June and Jane, or something to that effect, both J's, anyway. I couldn't figure why they looked so sad, I mean, the lady next door is Mormon, but she's a sweetheart and wouldn't have been mean to them. On the other side is the accountant, and he's only in his eighties or nineties, and his secretary's nice, too. I see these people all the time, and I just couldn't figure who would have made these two women so unhappy. They gave me their little speech with the Bible Verse while I stood there blinking the notes out of my mind, Beau jumped up and down being two, and Hemi came crawling up to see if it was Nana.
They wanted to give me their Watchtowers, and I said No, thanks, explained that I go up to the Methodist Church. (literally, up hill.) Then I explained what I am doing for Habitat (in ten words or less) and what Habitat is (in twenty words or less) and asked if they thought there was anyone in their church I could contact to see if their church would be interested. They were very doubtful about this, but said that there is some elder I could contact. I'm not sure elder was the term they used, but I was still somewhat dazed. I got the impression that the man (quite sure about that) was the Jehovah's Witness equivalent of a pastor, anyway. So I said good bye and herded the boys back inside and went back to this wretched little snatch of tune.
My husband came home from running some errands up at the University, and I went to expose the tomatos and peppers to the daylight. Some tulips have come up in the planned vegetable garden, and I have been excavating them and putting them in a planter for now. Still, there is a lot of digging to be done to turn over the soil there, and some of the ones down on the end are blooming. Or were. I picked all the tulips and brought them in. They are red and lavender, and look very interesting in the vases. I have a mystery plant in the future vegetable garden. The known plants are the tulips, violets, grass, hemlock, and a local weed called lambsquarters. I understand there is some sort of flower called lambsquarters, this is not it. It outcompetes the grass, and is a real nuisance. This other plant, my mystery plant, is mixed in with the lambsquarters weed, and has crooked roots like it. To me, that indicates it's a local weed, too, the native plants tend to compensate for the rocky soil even when they get in a garden and don't have to. But, the leaves are shaped like basil. It is not basil, but it kind of looks like it. It also looks a little like the hemlock, but it is not that, either. I can't decide if I should try to save it with the violets (which also have crooked roots) and tulips, or leave it out in the sun til it's good and dead, then put it in the garbage, like the lambsquarters.
So I came in and put the tulips in vases, and my husband's friend called. My husband has an invisible sign on his forehead that says "If you have relationship issues, come talk to me!!!" I swear, he does. Everywhere we go, constantly, people keep coming up to him. And they always have issues. Well, this is one of his classmates. My husband is studying computer programming. This guy is one of those geeks who has no other hobbies. And there's a girl making his life hell. We've been dealing with him for a couple weeks. He's a nice guy. He genuinely means well. He only wants to help her. This is the first girl he's ever dated. She's got a lot of problems. After today, it's over. She's pissed. She told his voicemail so, in detail. So is her 'best friend'. She told his voicemail, too. So, he spent a good part of the afternoon here. He is no longer letting them use him to get a new apartment. This is a good thing. He and I had a little chat about credit reports today. His is as squeaky clean as can be. He realized they were using him. Life sucks. He's going to go home and spend the summer with his parents and play with his nieces and nephews. He promised me he would find a hobby other than computers. You know, so he could meet real people. So the next time someone looks at him and says, "Hmm, bet I could use him," he'll recognize it sooner. And he promised not to assume that other people are only out to do good. We use our children as examples of how selfish some adults are. Pretty sad, huh? I hate having to be part of shattering this guy's illusions, but he'd get hurt worse in the long run if we didn't. I suggested in the future he save his altruistic impulses and volunteer with a charity where someone else will have done the vetting of the potential recipients. He liked that idea. Why does the world have to be such that people like him only get used and hurt?
He went home, I put the kids to bed. Hemi screamed. He's at that age where going to bed is protested vehminantly even though he's exhausted. We (me and boys) got down on our knees, I said the Lord's Prayer, Beau chimed in with the Almond at the end. Daddy works late.
My husband's employers, seeing as my husband and what remains of his coworker 'class', are finishing up this phase of training, decided in their wisdom, or lack thereof, that they will host a potluck tomorrow at dinner break. That is, instead of giving their employees the precious half-hour off that lets them come home, kiss their wives and kids, and maybe scarf some dinner, they are forcing them to stay there and bring food to share with them. This is a inbound call center. Then they turn around and whine about their employees' lack of loyalty. Well, duh! You give a half-hour break for dinner, and more than half of these employees have small children, then you take it away and tell them to bring dinner with them because it'll build 'team spirit'? These people have no team spirit! You pay beans! Your benefits are overpriced and shoddy. And then you say, Friday night, when you're working til 11:30, you can't go home and kiss your kids goodnight. Then you wonder why they quit and go work for someone, anyone else. Idiot corporations. Well, my husband's been there a month. He started at the same time as twenty other people. Training's got two weeks left, the group is already down to ten people. If you treat your workers like dirt, don't expect them to treat you any differently.
Yes, it's temporary. The ISPs in the area aren't hiring just now. Summer Break, you know, and we'll see what fall brings. It's one of those things that you do to pay the bills, keep a roof over the kids' heads, and food on the table.
So the boys are in bed, and I've done what I wanted to with all you figments of my imagination online. Read blogs, news . . . and the inlaws called. It was quite exciting to have the police at church on Sunday, and they think the pastor's the greatest. (Antioch Bible Church, this is.) So I'm bored and out of things to do. If I go practice, the boys'll wake up again. I wish that dratted tune would just cooperate . . .
OK, blogger spell check doesn't know 'blog'. Or figments, though it suggests figment. Yeah, whatever. Sorry, you'll have to live with my mispellings. This spellchecker is too dumb for me to tolerate.
posted by BoysMom @ 8:41 PM
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