Sundays with Stretchy Pants

Oh, hi. I know this isn’t a political blog, but I have just one more thing to say and then I’ll get back to crap that doesn’t matter.

All of these election issues (the real ones, not the fake ones) make my head spin. For every economist who slams McCain’s plans, there’s another who slams Obama’s plans. It’s all just theory and hope (sweet, sweet hope) right now and nobody knows for sure what will happen if either of these candidates is elected.

Here’s what I do know: I’m a person. I have thoughts. I have a body. I have a life. And when people chip away at my person-hood by taking away my own very personal rights, it makes people think I’m less than a whole person. It happens subtly, but it happens. It happens in homes where sons are put on pedestals and daughters are put in boxes. It happens when a grandfather laments that there’s no one to carry on the family name because he has only granddaughters (sure granddaughters are great, but what about the name?). It happens when a teacher chooses over and over again to call on the boys in the class, allowing the girls to continue to hide within their ever-thickening shells. These girls don’t know their worth because the world thinks they’re worthless.

It happens when a woman of child-bearing age is passed over for a job because she is only seen as a fertile uterus who will need to breed soon, causing all sorts of HR issues (forget about paid leave, what if she wants on-site daycare? Horrors.) And it happens when a childless woman of a certain age is looked at with pity because people see her as a barren uterus that missed out on the only worthwhile thing that could’ve brought purpose to her life. We are more than our uteruses, but it’s hard to see it that way when we’re not even in charge of the ones right inside our bodies.

Let’s not get me started on violence against women not being taken seriously. I’m feeling very dark and gloomy, but even I don’t want to bring you down that far.

Here’s the thing, I have the right to decide to have my baby or not. I do. It’s ok if you don’t believe in abortion. It’s ok if you would never, ever have an abortion. You just need to believe that we all have the right to make our own decision about this really big thing. Because, you know what? If you don’t believe that, then you eventually have a hard time believing other things about my basic rights. For instance, did you know that I have the right to choose my very own favorite method of birth control and I should really have the right to be able to obtain it just as easily as crusty old dudes can obtain their vi@gra? It’s true. Do you know why I should have this right? Because I’m a person. Also, I have the right to be paid equal money for equal work. Guess why? Because I’m a person. Remember when black people first started being able to vote, only their votes were only worth 2/3 of a vote? Yeah, that was mean. And that’s the kind of thing that happens when people think you’re not a person. You end up with no voice.

Women are people. And Obama knows it.

(Most of these links came very handy-dandy like from this post at MOMocrats. And one of them came from my husband. I’ll give you one guess which one. It’s the one that is about something that starts with econ- and ends with -zzzzzz.)

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I meant to do something fun with the kids to celebrate the fact that they don’t go to school, but I’ve been on Michigan time, I guess. Apparently, Columbus kids went back to school yesterday, but I don’t have any little school kids around me all the time to remind me of these things like I did in Michigan. My nieces and nephews and little friends up north don’t start until after Labor Day, so I’ve been thinking ahead to that day. Usually, I spend the first day of school sighing with contentment and thinking about all of the running around that I would have to do as a school mom, with the lunches and the schedules and the homework and the talking to the teachers and the feeling like I have to volunteer to do crap (not that I would volunteer, I would just feel like I had to and then I’d feel bad that I didn’t and that kind of guilt weighs on a person) and the talking to other parents whom I don’t know but whose kids want to come to my house and eat my food. I only like to feed my friends’ kids. I’m suspicious of strangers’ kids and their need to eat. But I didn’t even stop to think about it on the first day of school this year and now I feel like I missed my chance to really revel in the homeschooling. Because, very soon after the first day’s contented sighing and whatnot, comes a day or two here and there when I think that maybe all of that running around that school moms have to do is pretty well worth it for 6 or 7 kid-free hours. Pretty. Well. Worth it.

Liberty just reminded me that I’m 10 minutes late for breakfast, according to our new fall schedule (breakfast at 8:15 sharp!) so I told her I’m going to put her in school if she doesn’t shut it. And then I said, “The other kids in the neighborhood got up at 6:15 and got on the bus with a Pop-Tart, so you should just be glad you got to sleep this long and that you’re getting a hot breakfast when I’m done with my blog!” She responded with, “What kind of Pop-Tart?” *sigh*

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There was an animal in our wall for a couple of nights in a row. I swore it was a raccoon or something worse, like an escaped gorilla from the zoo. Bryan figured it was a squirrel or a mouse, but it sounded really big and slow to me. I felt I had more experience in these matters, having lived through the great red squirrel invasion of ‘82 when our old farm house became home to several families of little guys. This animal didn’t scurry when we pounded on the wall. I figured that was because whatever kind of animal it was knew that it was big and bad and rabid, and when you’re big, bad, and rabid, you don’t have to lower yourself to scurrying when some random human pounds on your new home. So I declared it an emergency and made Bryan call the rental company yesterday afternoon. Oh, our rental company apparently does not have an emergency number for weekends and holidays. I was upset about that yesterday. Until we found the empty hamster cage in Lena’s room. Then I was just grateful that we didn’t call Varmint-Gard and pay them to come rescue our frickin’ hamster out of our own wall.

After discovering that our neglected beloved Choji was missing, Bryan thought it would be a good idea to announce it very crassly in front of all 3 very sensitive girls. Right before bedtime. The girls then proceeded to throw themselves on the floor and wail, “Chooojiiiii! NOOOOOO!” and “Chooooojiiii! I LOOOOVVVVE YOOOUUU!” and “Oh, God, WHY? Why did you take Choji? You should’ve taken me instead!” and “Why didn’t we play with you more? WHY?” Why he couldn’t have waited 2 minutes until every kid was in bed, is beyond me. It’s not even like he told them in a very serious, funeral director way. No, he was laughing hysterically while he announced to his children that their very first pet was in the wall. Lucky for us, Choji chose a wall that had a removable panel so we could get to him easily, which we did. And then the children took off their sackcloth and ashes and ceased beating their chests in anguish and remorse. And then Bryan and I got down on our hands and knees and thanked the good Lord that our rental company indeed does not have an emergency number. We would have died from embarrassment.

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Summer is almost over and I’m trying to use it all up. My baby is turning 5 on Sunday and I’m trying to buy her stuff and wrap it all pretty and ignore the fact that my BABY is turning 5! She was supposed to remain a baby. Fail!

I’m trying to get Kids Know Stuff going which involves lots of emails to PR people in which I’m supposed to sound authoritative, like what kids think matters and stuff. And I’m supposed to do all that without using the phrase, “like, kids are important and stuff, you know?” And I’m supposed to do that without getting diarrhea, which is hard because ***TMI ALERT*** I have anxious bowels. I really don’t have time to have anxious bowels right now. Fail!

Fall will be here soon and then I’ll have to switch from feeling good about doing math with the girls all summer, to feeling bad that all we (officially) do is math all during the school year. Unschooling everything else is hard for people who like to check things off of a list. Fail!

*sigh* How we’re using up summer today: water gun fights at a friend’s house. Yay! Goodbye.

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Seriously, who is screwing with me with the search terms? Who in the world searched for “fanny pants yum yums”? Who did it? And what are they? And why did you click over to my blog? I mean, aside from the fact that my blog is the first link when you google that phrase? And why is my blog the first link when you google that phrase? That makes me vaguely uncomfortable.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: My favorite part of this blog is looking at my stats to see what search terms led people to this place. Fanny pants yum yums? Come on! Sometimes I think Bryan types in these ridiculous things just to mess with me. He did that once and now every time I come across something odd, I blame him. He swears he’s not the one googling “Pac-Man pants,” but that is one of my most popular search terms so I don’t believe him. In fact, if I combine all of the different combinations of “anorexia” and “runners,” then “Pac-Man pants” is the 3rd most popular search term right behind “stretchy pants.”  And now I’m only fueling the fire by typing it in here. Of course it piqued my interest, so I googled it and I still don’t know what it is these people are looking for. Pac-Man doesn’t even wear pants.

What about the rest of you bloggers? What is your most interesting search term?

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Ok, I made the videos on Kids Know Stuff public now so people can actually see them. I’m a frickin’ genius.

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Dear Kroger,

When I bring my own bags to your stupid store, please understand that the one with all the padding is called an “insulated” bag. Insulated bags are for keeping things insulated. You know, protected from the heat and whatnot? You know? The Heat? Melter of frozen things? I can assure you that my cereal boxes are not in any danger from the heat. Thank you for trying to protect them, but you can rest easy knowing they are safe in the regular bags.

I don’t know what all the requirements are in order to be a bagger at The Krogers, but I’m thinking that if there is a test, then the lower limits of what is considered “passing” need to be raised a bit. The first time somebody put my cereal in the insulated bag, I let it go. The second, third, and fourth times, I also let it go. The fifth time came after I handed the dude the insulated bag and said, “Can you put the frozen stuff in the insulated bag?” To which he replied, “Sure!” I don’t know if he was confused by the word “frozen” or “insulated.” All I know is my cereal was in my insulated bag and my frozen stuff was in my regular old bag. Where it was melting.

I hate you so much.

Sincerely,

Abby, who will continue to shop there because I’m just a cog in the machine. You’re the one who’s supposed to be the cog. I’m supposed to have power! Dammit.

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We’re all going to die. We’re all going to die and then people are going to run around trying to gather pictures of us to either put up on display at the funeral home or put into a nifty little slideshow set to music in order to play it at the funeral. While I was visiting Michigan this last time, I attended the funeral for the father of one of my oldest friends. He was one of those involved types, close to his daughters and their friends. His funeral was beautiful and sad and he had a slideshow with all of these pictures of him and all of the people he loved. Sad and lovely. Here’s what I did with my grief:

Those were all taken at my sister’s house immediately after the funeral. My kids weren’t there. They were camping, but I hooked up with them later:

We’re all going to die. Take pictures of yourself with people you love. Even if you think you’re ugly because you’re not. You’re somebody’s mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, daughter, son, niece, nephew, granny, pop-pop, cousin, or friend. And even if you really are ugly, your loved ones will want to look at pictures of you after you die.

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Carol tagged me with this blogging meme. I would link to her, but she doesn’t want the likes of you reading her intimate thoughts. I’m kidding. She doesn’t know you or else she would totally let you read her blog. I’m tagging all of you. So there.

1. Why did you start a blog?
I believe it was my undying love for my Nike + iPod that inspired me to start blogging this time around, back when I only had a myspace page. If you want to go waaaay back to when Lena and Liberty were babies, I started that because I had been active on the iParenting message boards and one of the moderators asked me if I wanted to start a “web diary” about breastfeeding twins. I’d always kept a journal, and they promised me a bound copy of it when I was finished, so I agreed. That was in September of ‘99 when I had dial-up and didn’t know about the glories of Trolls. In fact, at the first sign of a Troll who wanted to criticize me for breastfeeding toddlers, I pretended the girls weaned and high-tailed it out of there. I never did receive my bound copy that I was promised. That was also before I had read Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott and The Big Rumpus by Ayun Halliday, and realized that there was this whole other way of writing about our precious, precious babies so we wouldn’t come off as vapid lobotomy patients. I realized I could keep my horrible personality intact while writing about my life and it wouldn’t mean I hated my children. That knowledge would have come in handy back in 1999.

2. Why do you continue to blog? I continue to blog in an effort to keep my navel-gazing narcissism from spilling out all over my children. Hopefully. Also, ads would be nice, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. So now I have to pretend I don’t want to sell out by having ads on my site.

3. Do you have a blogmother/blogfather? That would be Dawn, of course. She shamed me into encouraged me to start a real blog over here instead of at myspace. And she set this whole thing up and fixes every little thing that goes wrong with it. For free! Just because she can. She’s awesome. You should hire her to do stuff for you.

4. Any downside to blogging?

Blogger’s block.

5. Do your ‘real world’ friends know that you blog?

My Columbus real world friends read my blog. But I think there are just a few readers from my pre-Columbus days. If I know you in the real world and you haven’t commented before, let me know you’re there. It’s fun! Otherwise, it’s just creepy that you know me and I know you, and you read my blog but I don’t know it. Stalker!

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Is there anything more degrading than getting splashed right in the eye with a little drop of water cast off from the toilet brush? This has happened to me twice, twice in my life, but both times were within the last 3 months. And both times were while cleaning my husband’s toilet. I don’t think it’s a coincidence, but whatever. Because of this, I have taken to wearing my sunglasses while toilet scrubbing. First, because I don’t have safety goggles. Second, because it makes me feel like a toilet-scrubbing diva. And if I’m going to scrub toilets, I might as well be able to look in the mirror and say, “Dahling, what are you doing here? You belong in a cafe, smoking long, thin cigarettes and drinking a caramel macchiato.” And I can answer myself by saying, “Yes, lovey, I know, but the conditions of my parole from my very sexy white-collar crime say I have to help out the poor by scrubbing their toilets.”

Pathetic? Sad? Yes and yes, but my toilets (and my eyes) are very clean. It can’t be helped.

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