Talk to the Hand!!

I love advice columns. One of my favorites is Dear Prudence in Slate. In her latest column she tackled a situation that I find myself in.

Dear Prudie, I am the flip-side of your letter last week from Bliss in Exile. Many years ago, when I was in high school, I did something very cruel to a friend of mine: I took her boyfriend. Now we are both married to other men. I found her on Facebook and attempted to contact her to apologize for the cruel thing I had done. She took your advice and hit "ignore." I feel terrible that I was not even given the opportunity to admit to her that what I did was wrong and try to make amends. I also feel a little angry because I think it is immature to hold a grudge or resentment for so long over something that a teenager once did to you. Now that I have been ignored by the person I would like to apologize to, should I just let it go? Or should I take another avenue to try to contact her to tell her how sorry I am? —Blocked

This is me, except that I'm the friend!!! When I was in high school, a very good friend slept with my boyfriend. I was devastated! Now we're all grown up and obviously I'm over it, but just because I'm over it doesn't mean that I want to be FB friends. I take issue with the idea that because I ignore your overtures means that I am somehow immature. I'm not holding a grudge or holding on to resentment...I'm simply not interested in being friends with you.

Further, where do you get the audacious idea that you deserve an opportunity to apologize? Let me get something straight...you do something terrible to me and I owe you the opportunity to apologize? I don't think so.

My back stabber former friend and I have close to 40 friends in common. We comment on the same photos and status updates. We 'see' each other all the time. And I am perfectly content to leave it at that.

Here's Prudie's advice.

Dear Blocked,
In response to Bliss in Exile, I have heard from several people who were the miscreants in high school and have successfully used Facebook to contact their victims and make amends. But the problem with simply making a friend request to someone you've hurt is that the person on the other end has no idea about your intentions. In cases such as yours, it's a better idea to use your Facebook network to get an address for your former classmate and write a letter explaining that what you did has weighed on you all these years, you are asking for forgiveness, and that you want to reconnect. Give your phone number and e-mail address and add you'd also be happy to be contacted through Facebook. If you don't hear anything, just be glad you did the right thing now, and accept that there are some people for whom high-school graduation was one of the happiest days of their lives.

—Prudie

Prudie, honey, there is a 'message' feature on FB. There is no need to stalk our mutual friends for a physical address or phone number. If my former friend sent me an apology message, I would simply say, "It's all good. Glad to see you are doing well. Peace!" There is no need for further communication.

So tell me, what do you think?

I did it all....now what?

On Monday, my hubby took my daughter to school - like always, but about thirty minutes after they left, I heard the garage open again. Evidently, because we are so good about keeping up with the school calendar (not!) we didn't realize that Monday was a teacher planning day, so I unexpectedly had Jade home with me all day.
I wasn't prepared for that, but still I managed to :

1. Cook the main course for Monday's dinner
2. Play with the kids. Like, chase the kids and roll around on the floor, play.
3. Nurse the baby and put him down for a nap.
4. Make Jade a snack and have a 45 minute lesson on letter writing with her (taught her how to spell 'Dear' and 'Love' in the process)
5. Wash a MOUNTAIN of dishes. Seriously....a mountain.
6. Blog
7. Make Jade lunch and put her down for a nap.
8. Make O lunch after he woke from his nap.
9. Build a block tower (or two, or six) with O.
10. Sweep and mop the floor
    
11. Read for 45 minutes to both kids (well, O was in and out)
12. Make the rest of dinner and serve it to the kids.
13. Clean the kitchen...again.
14. And put the kids int he bathtub by the time the Hubs got home.

Now that may not seem like a lot to you supermamas out there, but for me that was huge. Especially because I wasn't planning on having both of the kids all day. If I am planning on it, then I, you know, PLAN an activity or something. Also, because I managed to spend quality time with my kids individually and together AND do domestic stuff AND do something just for me. That's HUGE. A day where I actually had....the mythical 'all'.

Now this creates a problem. How did this day come to be? I didn't follow a plan to perfection. everything was totally off the cuff. And furthermore, if a day like this is possible, why has it been so difficult for me in the past? Have I actually been slacking the previous four years? Is this the Bizarro World?
What in the world is going on?

Tub Fun

The other night while playing in the tub, Jade took a toy frying pan, put it on her head and said, "Look mom, I'm a pothead!"

HILARIOUS!!

Wheeee-heee-HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

I love how kids just break out in random happiness. The other day I was shopping with Jade and O and since the store wasn't crowded, I allowed Jade to push a full sized cart all by herself, just to appease her.

Let me say that I had just seen one of my husband's female colleagues in the store. She is a professional working mother of two, I am a stay-at-home mother of two. Whenever I see her, she looks impeccable and I look a mess.
I run into her far too frequently around town. We aren't really friends, so the first time I ran into her, we chatted for a few minutes. Then I saw her about two weeks later; shorter chat. Then I saw her again at a birthday party; barely chat. And then there was this last time, I pretended that I didn't see her and she pretended that she didn't see me.
Well, as fate would have it, I turned down an aisle that she was on and we were forced to speak to each other...this whole 'pretending not to see each other' was just pure silliness, anyway.

However, I was mortified when a few moments later, as we were leaving the aisle, I heard Jade let out a LOUD, "Whee-hee-HEEEEEEEEEEEEE" as she pushed the cart and then hopped on the back for a short ride. Oh my goodness! I was soooo embarrassed!!!


But then I thought about it. She was so genuinely happy...it was clearly like the most authentic kid moment I've seen her have in a long time. I put my pride behind me and enjoyed her enjoying herself.
Sometimes , you have to let kids revel in their unabashed kid-ness.

The Cougar

Are you kidding me? I'm blog surfing/ watching TV and what do I hear....an advertisement for the latest dating show.....The Cougar. Yes, it is as awful as it sounds. From the website:

From the creator of The Bachelor comes a game-changing, provocative new reality show that redefines the rules of dating. One sexy, single, sophisticated woman is set up with younger men who are all vying for her affection. Through a series of weekly challenges, the men must prove they have what it takes to satisfy a woman of a certain age and avoid the kiss of death: a kiss on the cheek. Watch as The Cougar narrows her choices from 20 to 10 to five, ultimately choosing one lucky man to be her soul mate.

The depths to which reality television sinks never ceases to amaze me.

RANT!!!! ****Update****

OK, so I am watching the morning news shows and I find out that the bonuses have already been paid AND it has been public knowledge for a year. Then I see a clip of the President on television telling me that he is 'choking with anger'. No, Mr. President, I am choking with anger because you are trying to play me and you promised that you wouldn't. In your campaign you said you would bring a new kind of politics to Washington, but it seems to me that you are playing the same old game. You and your staff knew or should have known about these bonuses well before this week. That means that if it angered you, you should have been angry when YOU found out about it, not when WE found out about it. That means you should have told Secretary Geithner to employ every legal means to STOP the bonuses, not every legal means to GET THE MONEY BACK. I'm sorry Mr. President....I'm disappointed.

Sidenote: I was combing my daughter's hair and making breakfast while watching the morning news. My daughter, after listening to my rants for about 10 minutes, asks, "Mommy......um, why are you talking to those people? They can't hear you...they're just on TV."
Thanks, baby..ROFL!!!!!

RANT!!!!

Can we talk for a minute? I'm sure by now you have heard about the ridiculousness that is AIG.

• 80% owned by the federal government
• 170 billion in bailouts thus far

And the latest is the hundreds of millions of dollars in 'bonus' pay that AIG, in spite of being insolvent, will pay it's employees. Their reason for paying the bonuses? It was 'promised' before the economic meltdown and is necessary to retain the 'top' talent. Secretary Geithner wrote to CEO Liddy, imploring him not to pay the bonuses, but succeeded only in compelling him to reduce the amount by 30%. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm not making it up. Oh, did I mention that these employees, the top talent who Liddy is afraid will jump ship if they don't receive their promised bonuses, these are the people who work in the AIG Financial Products subsidiary. Yeah, that's the division that nearly did AIG in. Yeah, they are getting bonuses.

Now I know this has been discussed ad nauseam, but what I want to say today is directed at our leaders in Washington. On all the Sunday talk shows, in all of the online magazines, all across the news spectrum everybody is outraged about this. 'Bipartisan Outrage' a headline screams. 'Bernanke says AIG angers him most' says another. And on and on and on. You know what my problem is? If everyone is so hot about this, tell me, how come nobody can do anything about it? I mean, am I missing something? We own 80% of AIG and we can't make him kill the bonuses? And if we can't do it by force of law, we can't compel them to change their minds? You mean to tell me that we don't have a strong enough argument for why these bonuses shouldn't be paid? The best you (Geithner, Frank, Bernanke, etc)can do is go on the news circuit and tell me how mad you are? Frankly, I don't want to hear your moral outrage and indignation. I want you to do what you were hired to do and fix it!!! When I see you on TV and you are going on and on about how outrageous this is and how angry it makes you, it doesn't make me feel as though you understand where I'm coming from. It makes me think that you are pathetic and useless. If you can't do anything about this injustice, then tell me, what am I paying you for?

True Confession ***Update***

On my way home I was really worried about what I was going to say to the Hubs. I mean, it's not really cool to go and steal an afternoon for yourself when you are supposed to be at an obligatory family meeting.
So, I was really thinking..... what should I say when I get home? I would never tell a flat out lie, but I contemplated saying something vague. I even thought (briefly) about starting a fight to avoid the convo.
When I walk in the door, all is quiet. The first thing the Hubs says is, "Honey, I'm so glad you made it home safely. I was really worried." *gulp* Okay honey, way to serve up a guilt sandwich right out of the gate.

I start asking him about the afternoon and he reports that all went well. Then he asks me about the meeting. I hesitate. "Well, a lot of people couldn't make it, " I begin. He interjects forcefully, "People in that town couldn't make it and you drove 75 miles in this weather? That's ridiculous!"
He's so sincere and genuinely upset that I have to confess. "Well, I didn't exactly....."
He finishes my sentence, "Babe, you didn't go?" I collapse into his lap in a fit of giggles and run on sentences, nearly quoting my blog post verbatim as I tell him what happened.
He was so cool about it. He shook his head at me and rubbed my back.....he couldn't bring himself to tell me I didn't suck, but he did tell me that he loved me in spite of my flakiness.

I love this man and take back everything I said before about him, you know annoying me and not being helpful on the Snow Day and everything.

True Confession

I suck.
We were supposed to have a family meeting today. By 'we' I mean my extended family. The meeting was to take place at a relative's house located about 75 miles from my house. All week I had planned to go and another relative asked if she could ride with me. I agreed.
Then today, I woke up and the weather was bad. The Hubs said we shouldn't go. But then he annoyed me and I thought it would be a good idea to go and leave him and the children at home.
So, at the last minute I called my cousin Dee and confirmed that we were going, that I was leaving a little late and I would call her when I was close to her house.
But then I got in the car and saw the low fog that was hanging, the rain and the traffic. And I thought about having to drive all the way there and getting there late and then having to drive all the way back. I thought about spending three hours traveling for a one hour meeting and how I really didn't feel like going. I looked at the little sticker in the upper left hand corner of my windshield and, comparing the figure with my odometer, I realized that I'm nearly fifteen hundred miles overdue for an oil change. I listened to the squeal of my brakes as I approached a traffic light. I felt an overwhelming urge to do what I said I was going to do, what I was expected to do and what I had confirmed I would do not even twenty minutes earlier.......and I really, really, really didn't want to . So I hedged....I called Dee and asked if we could conference in to the family meeting. I told her that I didn't realize the traffic conditions until I got in the car and I really didn't feel comfortable driving all that way considering both my cars ailments and the rain slicked roads.
She was......not very understanding. And I see her perspective. As it turns out, other family members had canceled earlier and if she had known that I was not going to make it, she would have simply canceled the meeting altogether. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until after she talked to me and I confirmed that we were going that she let the host family know that the meeting was still on. She told me that the hostess had already spent more than a hundred dollars buying refreshments for a family meeting that was now canceled at the last minute.
I felt awful.
She went on to say that she had done a lot of research in preparation for the family meeting....had printed out information....in color, and it wasn't feasible to try to conference in.
She ended by saying that it was simply too much trouble for her to try and cajole the family into meeting every month and she wasn't doing it anymore. She hung up without saying goodbye.

As it were, I just so happened to be passing a shopping center that I used to frequent. I turned in and headed straight for a little coffee shop that I knew had WiFi. I ordered a tall hot chocolate, a chocolate chip cookie and promptly planted myself in a booth near an outlet. I didn't tell the Hubs that I decided against the meeting. I just plopped myself down with my laptop and a book and snatched a comfortable, self-indulgent day from the jaws of obligation. I've been here for nearly four hours.

I totally suck, right?

Eat the Cake Anna Mae!!!!

Do you want to hear a hilarious story? The other night, after O had already had his midnight feeding he woke again. I was tired, so I brought him in the bed with me (I KNOW!!!!). I'm thinking that he just needs to cuddle and go back to sleep. It had only been three hours since he last nursed. Do you know that he immediately started trying to nurse? I firmly told him "No" and took his hands out of my shirt. He kept grabbing my shirt, reaching into my bra all the while whining and insisting on nursing. I told him, "NO!" and I turned over. Well, he morphed into baby Ike Turner..."Don't turn your back on me Anna Mae!!" He grabbed my hair and pulled HARD. I yelped and he then grabbed my face and tried to turn me over. "Gimme milk Anna Mae!!!" He was totally out of control!!! It was like a scene from What's Love Got to Do With It?

Rudey Award!!!

So check this out....Jade, Onyx and I were out running around all afternoon, so we stopped at Chick-fil-A for lunch. I bring Onyx into the restaurant in his car seat, grab one of those high chairs on wheels and rest the car seat on top. Picture this : I am carrying a purse and a diaper bag on one arm and pushing a car seat perched on a high chair with the hand attached to that arm. In the other hand I am carrying a tray full of chicken, fruit, fries and drinks and trying to keep Jade near me as I attempt to make it to a booth. I am heading toward a side of the restaurant where there are only THREE boothes; a couple occupies one booth, a booth in the middle is vacant but clearly dirty (not filthy, but you can see crumbs on the table) and a third unoccupied, clean booth. As I am walking towards the booth a woman comes from behind me, goes around me and sits in the booth that I am clearly headed for. She gets there about 4 seconds before we do. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS WOMAN?? It was so blatantly rude that I had to say something. I say, "Oh, I guess you beat me to it!" Then she has the nerve to say, "Oh, I thought you were headed for that booth," (the dirty one). Give me a break! I wasn't going for that one for the same reason she wasn't and she knew it. Like I explained those were the only seats on that side of the restaurant. I had to turn around with all my stuff and go back ACROSS the restaurant to another seat. I really couldn't believe her. Lady, you get the rude person of the day award!!!

McBurglar?

I know that we have all heard the story about the woman who called 911 because McDonald's ran out of chicken nuggets. But someone sent me an e-mail that examines this issue from another perspective. I am reposting it here. I'm trying to find out who the original author is and will update with credit. What do you think?




It seems to me like the media is focusing on the wrong part of this story.

Latreasa Goodman called 911 after she bought a 10 piece chicken nugget meal. She paid for her meal, got her change, and then the cashier told her they were out of chicken nuggets. She asked for her money back and the cashier told her all sales are final.

What sale?

Latreasa called 911 because McDonalds stole her $5 and wouldn't give it back after she found out that chicken nuggets were not available. The cashier said that she could have another item off the menu, but she could not have her money back. Latreasa called 911 (she did specify she needed police only in the phone conversation) to report that McDonalds took her $5 and wouldn't give her the chicken nuggets or her money back. The police department arrested Latreasa.

"The manager just took my money and won't give me my money back, trying to make me get something off the menu that I don't want, I ordered chicken nuggets. They don't have chicken nuggets, and so I told her, 'Just give me my money back,' and she tells me I have to pick something else off the menu. She is not going to give me my money back, and she don't have the right to take my money."
So is this about chicken nuggets or theft? How many people know their local police number (a much better option, but still...) $5 was obviously very important to this woman - which brings the next question...

Was this discrimination due to class?

If you walked into Home Depot and bought $1000 in lumber and they loaded your car with something else and refused to return your money because "all sales are final" then what would you do?

What if it was a $100 radio that you bought and then found out that it was out of stock - no returns!

What if it was $5....

Where is your limit?

Snow Day

It's snowing today. Really snowing. Like horizontal snow, thunder and lightening. We even lost power for a few minutes. And since we live in the South, when it snows, you stay indoors because nobody can drive when it snows. The hubs is not happy about this, since he had planned to go into the office today to get ready for a major meeting on Tuesday. So, he's been sulking around the house being grumpy all morning. He keeps complaining that he has soooo much work to do.
The baby took a 3 1/2 hour nap this morning and hubby used that time to get some work done take a nap. Then when our son woke up and while I was trying to cook the lunch that he requested (breakfast potatoes, homemade applesauce, omelettes, and biscuits) he allowed the kids to run rampant because he was trying to 'work'. Literally, the kids are running all over the place, calling my name every few seconds while I'm in the kitchen trying to chop, season, stir and fry multiple dishes and he is sitting on the sofa reading a treatise. It took me forever to finish cooking and I kind of messed up the meal because I had to feed the baby lunch and occupy my four year old while I was cooking. The hubs kept reading. I even took the kids outside to play for a few minutes WHILE I was still cooking because I didn't want them to miss the opportunity to play outside in the snow. The Hubs wouldn't even get the kids dressed so that I could take them outside. He just kept reading.
Finally lunch was finished and it was time for our daughter to take her nap and lo and behold the baby was sleepy again, too. So I take the kids upstairs, get them ready for nap and put them to sleep. All this time the hubby just sat on the sofa reading. I plopped down on the sofa and said, "Finally, a moment's peace." He gave me a sympathetic smile. I was going to watch TV, but I didn't want to disturb his reading, so I started surfing the net. Now here is the kicker....do you know that within ten minutes I hear The Hubs SNORING!!!!! Can you believe this ish?
Both kids are down and you take a nap, but you couldn't tear yourself from your oh-so-important work for thirty minutes while I was losing my mind?
Must be nice!!!!