You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2007.
We bought a used dining room set this spring. It wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, but we needed something because our existing chairs were falling apart. The price was fair, the quality great, and it was owned by a wee Scottish woman who I was instantly charmed by.
There was no way I could say “no sale” to her. She reminded me SO much of my mother, both in age and mannerisms. We hit it off immediately and, by the time we left, she was playfully teasing and scolding me as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The cheeky old woman didn’t even come up to my shoulders.
It took two trips to load the heavy-ass furniture and truck it home. After the second load was ready to go, she hugged me and said the table had seen many happy meals with her family, and wished the same for us. I got all teary-eyed, so did she (or maybe she was just laughing at how big a sap I am), and once we were home I phoned my mum for no reason but to say “Hi”.
Anyway, I have an antique platter that my mother served countless suppers on when I was a kid, and that (more sappiness here) I snitched and now use for special family meals like Cob’s turkey birthday. I was trying to carefully put the fragile platter back into the china cabinet that came with the table, but because of the plate’s bulky size, I had to awkwardly contort and stick half my head into the wood and glass display case.
“Ugh, ” says I, wrinkling my nose.
“What?” says the husband.
“Have you noticed that when you open this thing it still smells like…”
“Old people?”
“Yes! Exactly! So you smell it, too?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it that makes that distinct smell, I wonder.”
“Dunno.”
I returned to washing the dishes, but a thought snuck up on me.
“Doc?” starts I.
“Yeah?” continues the husband.
“Do you suppose we smell like old people yet?”
“I don’t think so,” he laughs, ”but then how would we know?”
We’re hoping that the fact that we can still smell the Old People Smell means we’re not geezers quite yet. But maybe it’s like stinky feet – you don’t notice your own.
The summer’s half gone! How is it that summer flies by even faster as an adult, than it did as a kid?
I’ve intended to come blog here many times but it’s just been nutso. I have a lot of good excuses for not writing, though. Here, look…
- Cob’s first crush, and the resulting (but fascinating) teen drama
- Jan and her boyfriend’s car getting stolen, and the resulting drama
- Jan’s boyfriend getting injured at work, and the resulting drama
- my extreme distaste for, and avoidance of, additional drama
- a surprise phone call from the only uncle I have on this continent, saying he was in town
- my guilt at avoiding seeing said uncle
- visiting with other relatives (and saying “no” to them about things, too, complete with more guilt)
- cutting up, lifting, carting halfway across our property, and then throwing over a five foot fence whilst trying not to amputate an arm or swallow an earthworm-filled dirt clod, a little over A TON AND A HALF of sod
- digging, prying, cursing, and clawing deck piling holes into four feet of clay conveniently filled with bricks and rocks
- the FIVE TONS of crushed rock I already whined about
- carefully lining up and measuring exterior grade lumber, then accurately levelling and constructing a perfectly square deck with it, only to have it shrink and change measurements unpredictably with the weather
- discovering that the exterior of our house consists of a strange and crumbling substance that nobody can identify, so we can’t finish the deck until we buy a new window and re-side (and possibly re-build) the front wall
- struggling not to physically ”deck” my neighbour every time he comes outside and taunts “Aren’t you finished that thing yet? If you just put in a full day’s work you’d be done in no time.”
- building baby furniture with one of my best friends, and having two 3′x6′ wooden pieces left over that aren’t the same size, shape, or even colour as the picture of the dresser on the box
- Jan getting her learner’s license
- Cob getting HIS learner’s license
- me getting a trophy for living with three teenagers, two of which are new drivers (Actually, I didn’t get a trophy, but doncha think I should?)
- Jan’s boyfriend reportedly running a fever of 103 for over a week, and the resulting drama (are we sensing any theme here?)
- getting the opportunity to meet a famous rock singer (no, a different one)
- ultimately passing on the Meet & Greet (his concert was awesome, though)
- starting a new business, and obsessing manically over the finances, marketing plan, website, and content, with periodic ”what the fuck am I doing?!?” storms
- and then Cob’s birthday today, for which he requested a full, home-cooked, turkey dinner. (He’s my baby, so, hell, yeah, I’m going to spoil him – for as long as he’ll let me.)
Okay, fine, none of these are excuses, never mind good ones. But now I’ve documented my boring but hectic life for all to read and yawn over, and isn’t that what a blog is supposed to be about?
Oh, wait, I almost forgot – I’m supposed to post some cute cat pictures, too!
The slimed fur is from being used as a chew toy by our dog.
There. It’s official. I’m a cliché (more than you’ll ever know). Oh, and… summer makes me stupid.
I thought maybe it was the beer. Or sunstroke. Or even just sheer exhaustion. This is the second weekend we’ve spent ripping up heavy sod and preparing the site for building our deck. Yesterday consisted of shovelling, then wheel barrowing, then raking and levelling about 10,000 pounds of crushed rock. FIVE TONS, carted the length of our property (brilliant move, that), backyard to front yard, in the hot July sun.
So you can understand why it seemed perfectly plausible that I may be losing my mind when I thought I heard a bagpiper.
Doc was away on a mission to buy yet another expensive tool that we needed and hadn’t factored into our grand plans, and the kids were all gone, so I had no one handy to tell me if I was going crazy or not. Generally, this isn’t a problem in our household.
I listened as many of the traditional songs of my heritage floated above the city street noises, carrying over from what seemed like only a block away.
Psst. I’ll let you in on a deep, dark, secret. I am not really a fan of the bagpipes. Ach, aye, I ken, that’s blasphemous for a Scot – even a first generation removed one – to admit, but ’tis true. I’m much more of a rock chick. Barroom country, at times. Oldies and crooners, the occasional heavy metal or classical, and I’ve even been known to smile and recognize the odd polka, from dancing as a wee girl on my father’s feet.
But bagpipes are a whole other beast — and a mortally wounded sounding one, at that. Not something I’d ever pop into the iPod and groove to, ya know?
Still, the rake moved noticeably easier and my arms felt lighter as I worked, listening to what was obviously a skilled piper run through the classic repertoire. It went on for about ten minutes, then abruptly stopped. Right before Doc got back home.
Figures.
Today, we finished up the building site and soon we’ll actually be able to start screwing lumber – whoohoo! I was just stepping out of the shower and towelling off the last of the endless grime, carefully patting the sunburnt and tender areas, when a familiar but rare sound strained to be heard through the wall.
“Doc, c’mere, listen!” I called as I hastily threw clothes on (ow, ow, ow!!) and gimped my way outside. I was a bit surprised to find a smile on my face.
Sure enough, the piper was back – I hadn’t been imagining things after all! As he/she invisibly played again, I sat on our front steps, bone-tired, cradling a mug of tea, and envisioned what our yard may someday look like, if only I had unlimited time, money, and energy. Involuntarily swaying to music that somehow runs deeper than taste, I realized a new appreciation for the phrase “in your blood”.
It was a wonderful, unexpected gift. The last time I heard live bagpipe music was at my uncle’s funeral. The time before that, at my niece’s. Too often, it seems, the passionate, soulful music of my culture is only dragged out for solemn occasions, and the sadness tends to hang in the air and linger far longer than the pained notes ever do.
But now I have a newer, happy memory to go with them. My husband grinned at me and suggested that I go explore, to find out where it was coming from and why on earth a bagpiper was playing in a residential neighbourhood. I was curious, to be sure, but I opted not to know. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that sometimes magic needs to be left alone.
(bonus points for anyone who understands the title)
The last two weeks of June found me shuttling Jan to writing centres to write her diploma exams. Since the writing centres were in a town over an hour away, and I have an aversion to shelling out more money on gas than on food for my family, that meant a significant number of hours spent waiting around for her to be done.
The first day I explored a few local shops, then sat in the car and listened to music for the rest of the time, squirming at the forced inactivity and thinking about all the things at home that needed my attention.
On the second day, I wised-up and chose to just enjoy the problem.
So our daughter is now graduated. It’s feels very weird to say that, in part because she doesn’t know any of her final marks yet and there is always the possibility that something went awry in the final process. Hell, in her Work Experience Course, she had to do the prerequisite, one credit text course THREE TIMES because the school kept screwing up. She submitted the text course in grade eleven, but never received a credit for it – or for her Work Experience, because she had to have the text done first. With a little investigation we determined that the school had applied the credit for HER work to her older brother Ari’s grades.
Ari needed that course credit more than she did, and was being a schmuck about getting it done, so Jan decided not to tell the school of their mistake, and she just hangs onto that tidbit to lord over her brother whenever useful. She found the text course to be dead easy anyway (then why was it taking Ari months to…. ach, never mind), so she just bit the bullet and whizzed through and did it a second time.
At which point the school lost it.
Fortunately, she had kept a full copy. So when they insisted that she hadn’t submitted it, she immediately zapped yet another copy off to them, and then I harassed the teachers involved until they emailed me and confirmed that Jan finally received the credits earned. I printed hard copies of their emails. God help them if it doesn’t show up on her transcript.
Yup, we’re starting to finally get the hang of this now. Now, when two thirds of our kids are done with the dog and pony show. Sigh.
So, at last count, Jan will graduate with about 105 credits. You need 100 credit to be able to get a diploma.
Ari, who is now 19, took this extra year of school because he needed six more credits. He has managed to complete four, including the incredibly stupid Grade 10 PE course requirements that plagued him for four years. Four credits in a full school year. He says he thinks he’ll have another one finished by today. That leaves only a one credit course between him and his diploma.
I’m so fucking exhausted doing this.
As if I needed further illustration of how dramatically different three siblings can be from each other, Cob, who finished grade nine with an 86% average, was seriously debating voluntarily taking a summer school course (!!!) or two (!!!!) just to get “a head start” on high school next year (!!!!!!)
“You, um, know that you’d have to do school work during summer if you do this, right?”
“Moo-oom….”
At his insistence, I asked the school for information on how Cob could take the loathsome Grade 10 PE course as a summer school offering, since he will be doing a lot of things throughout the summer anyway.
Yeah. Once again, we underestimated the stupidity of the public education system.
“These are the people who we are trusting to teach our children?” I said incredulously, looking through the course outline.
Cob just laughed. “Yup!” he verbally poked, and chuckled some more when he saw my eyebrows raise even higher in disgust.
The first day of the summer school course: July 5th.
The last day of the course: July 26th.
Physical activity that has to be logged: 80 hours.
Cob decided not to bother. He’s a smart boy, that one.
I can’t remember if I’ve ever fully ranted about the Grade 10 PE course thing or not – I know that I’ve babbled about it in passing over the years but I’m not sure I’ve ever properly explained the deal. If I have, please just bear with me, because as with many things in life, I find that I end up going over them repeatedly in the moronic hope that suddenly their insanity will make some sense to me…
In our province, you have to complete Grade 10 Physical Education in order to get your high school diploma. Credits are awarded one per 25 hours of activity, with a minimum of three credits (75hrs) and a maximum of five (125hrs).
Wait, then how come in the summer school program they want 80 hours to get 3 credi… ach, never mind.
The logged activities have to be spread out over five different categories:
- Games (basketball, archery, bowling, etc.)
- Alternative Environments (skiing, swimming, cycling, etc.)
- Individual Activities (running, weight training, etc.)
- Dance
- Gymnastics
Numbers 4 and 5 were the bane of Ari’s existence, and – by extension – mine. He just flat out refused to do anything resembling dance or gymnastics. There isn’t an ounce of fat on the boy and he’s strong as an ox. There’s nothing even remotely physically unfit about him, but the government - in their misplaced, irresponsible, and insulting nanny-ness - says he has to dance and do gymnastics before he can graduate.
I have so many issues with this it’s not funny, but I, at least, usually have the sense to know when fighting something is more work than just maneuvering around it. Ari, though, not so much.
He didn’t want to do them. He acknowledged the warped logic behind the requirement, but felt it was stupid, so he drew his line in the sand. An alternative was presented: write essays about them. Nope, he didn’t want to do that either. He works in a warehouse lifting things almost as heavy as he is and scrambling around on shelving and scaffolding ten feet up, but none of that, no matter how gymnastic or agile it makes him, was deemed to qualify.
Ari enrolled in the PE course in grade ten, as required. He was plenty active enough in all the other areas, but he didn’t do the dance and gymnastics or finish the paperwork logging his activities, so he didn’t get the credits.
He re-enrolled in grade eleven, and didn’t do the dance and gymnastics or finish the paperwork to get the credits.
Grade twelve… yup… didn’t do the dance and gymnastics or finish the paperwork to get the credits.
So this year — his thirteenth year in school, largely because of this one friggin’ course — it was obvious that my stubborn and too-moral-to-just-lie son was prepared to head off down the same damned path. I was, frankly, tired of banging my head against the wall and seriously considered throwing my hands up and bidding him bon voyage. But I knew that would mean another year of stress for myself so I took one final crack at it and talked the PE teacher (who was a new teacher this year, thankfully) into letting Ari earn the credits in the other three categories only. That just left getting my obstinate and procrastinating son to complete the required paperwork.
I almost strangled him, but Ari pulled through in the eleventh hour and wrote up the activity journal documenting enough hours to pass the course, and sent it in. God help the school, now, if they lose it, or don’t pass him, or assign it to the wrong kid! Trust me, I’ll be executing my own gymnastics and dance on somebody’s ass if they do.
I am tired. So very, very tired, of the education system being both expected and in some cases empowered to parent our children. Look, I’m their mother. I’ll make sure they eat healthy and get off their asses once in a while. I’ll talk to them about sex. I’ll take care of educating them about responsibilities and consequences. God knows, the school system and teaching staff as a group are gross examples of the lowest common denominator and what NOT to do in those regards.
The schools? They’re supposed to teach my child how to acquire, process, and make use of information and collective knowledge. But… but… they don’t have the time or the resources, they perenially cry!
Gee, I wonder why.
I loathe the phrase “It takes a village to raise a child”, and I’d like to smack whoever says it. No. No, it takes a parent to raise a child. I’m keeping up my end of the bargain, but I naively thought that my village would help educate the children to reasonable society standards.
Yeah, I know. Not very bright of me, huh?
