Am I a sap?

So, how did I spend my red, white & blue holiday?

I looked out my window at neighbor kids frolicking with sparklers on their front lawn and I missed my tykes.

And I roamed the internet researching an extremely obscure piece of history on behalf of a friend from work.  After about four hours, I had enough information to know what needs to be written for this project she volunteered to do at the urging of her boss.  Then she realized she had no clue how to put together the document that’s been requested.  While I still worked there she asked me to take a look at someone else’s previously rejected attempt.  I also rejected it and pointed out that it was missing everything the law requires.  Our organization has written a whole guide on how to fill out these forms.

On the other side of this, thinking now that it wasn’t really very hard (just time consuming) I am wondering if I’m being used.  Was this just not that hard for me, cuz I’m a whiz kid?  Does she really have no clue where to start?  Isn’t it obvious that you start with “who” and that to find out who that was, you need to dig into the history of a different place?

She has offered to pay out of her own pocket, but she doesn’t make much at this place either (and I’m not even sure what this work is worth, to be honest).  The fact that she was willing to part with cash made me think she just didn’t really have a clue how to proceed — but now I’m feeling a little ….  something…..

While I still worked there she asked me to look at a draft of something she wrote and I reworked it.  And the big boss asked her to write an application and I provided about a page of researched text for that (partly because I know the local history) and then rewrote a garbled bunch of text she sent me after a phone interview she did.

It’s this bulk of stuff that is making me feel funny.  I don’t want to become her ghost writer.  I hoped she gave me some credit on the big boss project, but most people wouldn’t if they weren’t forced to do so by the presence of the person who assisted.

I want credit for this thing.  It is part of the volunteer project she signed up for with a downtown agency.  It will be submitted somewhere else in hopes of accomplishing what the previous person could not.  I could just add it to my resume…

Here’s me drawing a line in the sand.

No more of this.  I’ve got other things I need to do.  (Even if it is kind of fun.  No consequences writing and editing.)

Too bad our employer doesn’t have the bucks to pay me on a project basis.  As it is, there’s rumor and subsequent paranoia there will be another person let go.  Fine by me, because then it confirms I was “let go” as opposed to “fired” because I was crappy.

 

O’er the rockets’ red glare

I have a flagpole.

Not one of those little brackets you attach to the house.  I’m talking a two-story metal pole, stuck in the ground and made permanent with cement.  

Oh, don’t look at me.  It was the previous owner who put that in.  Though, I confess that after we moved in, I found it amusing for the first several years to run up a flag.  I have a long history with flags — living on military bases and hearing the trumpet call that accompanied the flag going up and coming down, flags fluttering in the breeze at various official ceremonies, living abroad where the visiting dignitaries (us) would be honored with a display of the stars and stripes, and I have a fond recollection of a Fourth in a little New England village when my dad flew the British flag in honor of English guests and when the colonial militia noticed the flag passing on parade, they halted and “fired” upon the house.

So I enjoyed flying flags (and other things) from the pole out front.  Until that strange war — well, not so much the war as the forced concept of “patriotism” that was slathered on the American public.  Remember how we were mad at the French so the White House cafeteria changed the menu board and one had to order a burger with  ”Freedom Fries”?  The public burning of cds when a lead singer criticized the president’s policy?  I was embarrassed by the notion of “patriotism” and refused to fly a flag that would in any way imply I bought into what was going on.  (And had I explained this to certain people at the time, I’d have been accused of not supporting the troops, ergo, being a traitor to the country.  The people who claimed to bleed red, white and blue just didn’t get it.)

But that all seems a distant memory now.

So I’ll dig the bunting out of the attic.  I’ll run a flag up the pole (in part because I’m thinking of ripping the thing out once and for all).  And I’ll smile at the red, white, and blue.

 

a different lens, sort of

Side a, with kid art

I planned ahead this year for the end of school  Last year I just couldn’t manage the teacher gift/note concept.  I wanted to avoid the flurry, the rush, the lack of ideas.  So this year, I thought ahead and we decided to go “green” and make tote bags for carting groceries or whatever.  (All teachers seem to walk from the parking lot to the school building toting bags of stuff, so even if not used for groceries, we figured our gift would find purpose.)

I gave the kids fabric, acrylic paints and fabric markers.  The oldest took as his inspiration a puppet his teacher keeps in the classroom — a moppety sort of marionette on strings.  He also made a bag for the teacher he adored last year; she loves chickens.  The youngest made a pretty flower (cuz girls like flowers you know), added a butterfly and a ladybug, and his name in red letters (signature of the artist).  They helped me pick out the fabric combos (two on the outside, a lining fabric, and straps).  I cut and assembled, using a pattern from Alicia over at Posie gets Cozy.

Side b, with applique

The three of us were quite proud of the outcome.  

In an exchange that I now recognize is typical, we proudly displayed these for my mother whose only comment was that she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want a bag with my kid’s name on it.  I’ve gotten to the point now where these things don’t hurt because I recognize them and defuse them.  The kids aren’t around them long enough for it to have any lasting effect.  And with my mother’s outlook uncertain, at this point I actually find them sort of charming.   It is an essence of her, an insight into whatever it was she grew up with that formed her outlook on the world.

 

Weekly Words – Wood and that other thing…

Weekly words this week (hit tab at right for the links to everyone else’s photo interpretations) were (what were they Tink?) — wood and the letter “C”  

Considering that buildings are made of wood, and I have quite the collection of those, I could be here all day uploading “wood” photos.  So I limited myself to photos taken in the last month.  I have some thoughts on the letter “C” but haven’t turned them into photos yet.  If I get motivated, I’ll add them later.

Knock on wood.

 

Greeks & Romans, Countrymen (and women)

..lend me your brain!

You are all very clever and so I am calling on your vast knowledge and expertise.

A note from school advises me that I should assist the Big Kid with a grounding in ancient civilizations in advance of the next school year.  Books.  Movies.  (Ah, would that I had the cash for a flight to Rome, eh?)

So?  What you would suggest?  I find I have the same reaction when someone asks me my favorite song – my mind has gone completely blank.  Then if I think hard enough, I come up with vampy Cleopatra movies from the 50s or comic book stuff like “The Mummy.”

Books?  My mind stumbles after obvious choices like “You Wouldn’t Want to be a Gladiator” and its ilk.

Hmmm.  Kenneth Clark?  Russell Crowe?  Kirk Douglas?

 

Turnabout is fair play

We’ve all done it.

Googled ourselves.  Googled the old boyfriend.  Googled the possible new boyfriend.  You know, that sort of thing.

Have you ever wondered if any of them ever googled you?

I haven’t.  Because generally I don’t find much of anything when I google them.  Or, I find a lot of stuff but it’s some other person.  (I once had a teacher ask me about a bunch of things one of my similarly-named google-mates had done.)

And then along came an email from a guy I went out with ever-so-briefly a year ago.  He knew I was “looking.”  (Looking?  Was my profile up online and this was some jealous tweak?)  I wondered what the hell he was talking about so I emailed back and asked how he knew I was job-hunting and then even joked about my networking abilities spreading all the way to his state.

And he confessed he pulled up a page that has my photo on it.  Eye candy he called it.  And proceeded  into the loop of his life story that is one of the main reasons I’m not dating him anymore. 

Then I deleted the email and went about my business.

 

Me and the horrible, very bad, no good day… um… week?

The list:

rain

rain

rain  (and more rain)

Headache.

Kids screaming at the nurse approaching with needles (really, really screaming)

Headache.

Financial realities.  (Unemployment – COBRA – bills = unrealistic)

Medical forms in hand, was finally able to take kids to camp despite rain, rain, rain (and more rain)

Eldest decided he was too sick for camp (see above) after getting too many shots (see above) though I suspect it may have been just because sports are no fun in the rain (see above) so I had to go pick him up.

My mom went for a procedure and ended up in the hospital.

I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and am worried (about whether it will be covered by my former insurance or not, about what this lump is where I once had a thing removed, about whether I did, in fact, get lihm dizeze when I was visiting my parents and found two ticks on me, and whether there’s something wrong with me I don’t know about and I won’t be here for my kids).

 

Photos. Because I love you.

Weekly words this week were supposed to be about a favorite song.  I don’t have a favorite song.  Or, if you look at it another way, I have too many favorite songs.  (Is “favorite” defined by singularity?)

So, I’ll pick my own theme this week, which is randomness.  Because a week without photos is like a week without sunshine.  Right?  So here’s a little sunshine for you.  Including kid art from the kids’ school, which is always good for a smile.

 

panic attacks

Woke up a few times last night.  I felt like I had no control.  Nothing I could do for my mother.  

And, selfishly, I also worried about myself.  What if I have rogue cells attacking me right now?  What about my kids?  What can be done?  How can I afford the $800 a month bills for COBRA health insurance?  Can I afford to NOT pay it?

There’s a huge lesson there for me on the danger of putting things off for tomorrow.  I didn’t want to take a day off from work to go to the doctor and so I kept thinking “when this project is over,” “when those meetings are past” and now I’ve lost my job and I haven’t had a physical in two (or is it three?) years and I”m overdue for a mammogram (me, with the marker in my boob because I already had one breast [kanser] scare).  There’s also the matter of the [surrvikal] scare I had, though I did have that checked.

Somedays I feel as though we have messed up the planet and our food sources so dramatically that we will all end up with cancer.  I live near an EPA site.  I read in the newspaper about a local company venting air from their research lab and how many people in the labs have gotten rare forms of cancer (though just like in all the David vs. Goliath plot conceits, the company claims they had nothing to do with it), not to mention the highway and its exhaust fumes that divide me and said healthcare company.

Radon.  Pesticides.  Red dye in Twizzlers.  Weird sci fi side effects from genetically-engineered foods.

That’s not what last night’s panic attacks were about, but I can continue to flip myself out in the daytime if I choose to…..

 

Unsettled

I’m trying to put all these pieces together, get them in order, get Life organized.  There’s an acceptance that as we keep hurtling along, everything changes, but one tries to keep up.  I was feeling as though I had a handle on things.  Job-hunting, tasks on the to-do list, home maintenance, and on and on.

But that’s all gone out the window after calling my folks.

My mother has decided to let go of her brave, cheerful front.  She cried on the phone today  She is afraid.  She is unsure what the future holds.  She is afraid there isn’t a future.  And I have no answers for her, I can’t fix anything, I cannot think of a cheerful spin.  I can only distract her with updates and news, and she says the sorts of things she always says and because she can’t see me I roll my eyes and at the same time I must cherish it all because it’s getting to be the end of the time that I will hear those silly comments from her.