The Biggest Trigger of All the Land

Donald Trump should not be taken to jail for whatever "entanglement" he had with whatever playboy bunny (and make no mistake about it...opportunistic misogynistic bottled blonde lady). I hope she at least uses her new found fame and fortune to help charities, instead of more surgery that perpetuates women's dissociation with their own bodies...dating back pre- Gen X through modern day girls and women. For real, the fight against Donald Trump and the time and money we have spent on this typically fluffy political BS has brought Stormy Daniels from level of featherweight queen to paid guest on MSNBC. Tonya Harding must be pissed off. 

WE HAVE FAR MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO FOCUS ON! YOU, ME, OUR KIDS.

Not to say plastic surgery is wrong. It is technology, baby. I used technology in all sorts of ways. Plus I respect Queen Jane Fonda's making it ok for anyone to be real, and still have plastic surgery. Every silver lining has a touch of grey.

OMG, my feminist heroes. WHERE ARE YOU? I get the core principles of the Democratic party and supported the freaking Clinton scam during my young 20s. Even gave them money, while I had two half-time jobs, plus a part time job at Marshall Fields. 

The Clintons diverted funds donated by the good citizens of the world to their "Foundation" after the first of two devastating earthquakes in the massively underserved island of Haiti. Why the diversion of funds donated by the common people? Because Chelsea was getting married and who really has a cool 3 million in the bank to foot that tab? Not even Bil and Hil.

Not only did Bill seduce subordinates...and if we are being honest, young girls, really...once exposed, he tried to make them to look like trampy 'hos. That is the bottom of the Arkansas White Trash Barrel if you ask me. But, no one cares. But it really is same-same, minus the frequency, as if it a sport, and huge age gaps. 

Also, DEMOCRATS, why? WHY? Bill and Hillary should not have been carpet-bagging in Westchester Co. We already had JFK-freaking-JR, fully ready to go. The Kennedys carpet bagged when it was actually a useful thing. So these hick IL and AR clowns move in and use limited NYC resources to maintain an office in Manhattan? God knows we need the police elsewhere in our beautiful emerald city that is being obliterated (by money grubbing politicians who are just frozen or not very bright) much like our oceans and deserts. It is not good to focus on the past (but Bill Clinton granted China Most Favored Nation status for trade in the 90s, when girls were not always allowed to be born in China which, IDK, MAJOR human right's violation, especially as a member of the Cheetah Girls Squad). And take a look at the current US deficit.

I am no reporter but used to travel to NYC quite often and usually was able to reduce my need for sleep just on the energy alone.  I just walked and walked and subwayed and walked. It is so busy but it is also Zen. Especially prior to the De Blasio admin.

One time, when I was walking back to my hotel on Lex, hiding modestly in the shadow of The Plaza, I was told that I was walking by the Obamas. Or at least President Obama's Escalade. I think they are both rockstars together. I felt chills because I remember when I first heard Barack Obama's voice at the Dem Natty Convention. And it was a blip in political years until we realized what soul he had, backed by the queen spouse, ofc., and suddenly he was our president. It was really like the deep meaning of destiny you see in a Pixar film. That is one of the reasons I became a fan girl of New York. Random sightings of inspiring voices and people. I also saw Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman shooting a scene from 5 Floor Walk Up. I love them both anyway and also in this move, OMG...ofc, I made sure to see the finished movie! And also saw their footage on that little part of 5th Ave they were filming that night. 

I had a college friend who was raised in NYC.  Back in the 90s, he and his friends would see John Cusack and the Beastie Boys. NYC is uber cool, ofc.

But, then another time, while walking back to my little hotel on Lex, I was trying to get back but could not cross the street. I just had gotten dinner and had to get back to my room to finish a bunch of stuff for the next day, work-wise. It was a total blockade going on from the north end of Manhattan to Midtown. Since I had to just stand there, some cool cop from Brooklyn was telling me how this happens all the time. They just get called out. And then they have to wait and patrol. My delay was small compared to their inconvenience (and also, perhaps opportunity elsewhere in the city to help) The reason: Bill and Hillary and Chelsea and whoever else was with their clan, had tickets to a Broadway show and their security and motorcade were making its way down from the Bronx. Literally, the sitting President of the US of A had a lower level of fan fare and disruption in America's busiest town than Slick Willie & Co. What in the actual hell? For real...why Westchester? And Clintons, I know its not "sexy" or the hippest of areas but did you not think your hometown needed you? (see: Esq and Democrat with class and depth, Jimmy Carter).

#dirtyboulevard

We have lost our soul. Obviously there are no standard bearers for women in the Dem party currently (looking at you Pelosi and Hilary). Where are you, m'ladies and gents of the Dem party that taught us that we are ALL JUST PEOPLE? And, holy hell, what a shitshow that is going on now...we don't need to usher in the Trump take-down era. From 2020. 

Please, please help you, us and the next generation.

Leave Trump alone. Focus. Focus on kids who cannot afford to buy the national champions a full meal. Make the Clintons divert the 3 mil for their kid's wedding back to Haiti where they sure the fuck could use it, or at least to the national debt that they sowed and fostered. 

Dear God Please Help 

#GenX #Savetheworld #Republicans #Democrats #Haiti #Saveourkids #karma #Trump #Clinton #Obama #nationaldebt #areweinsane? #cheetas #whereareyou

Willy

Back in the day, 80 years ago, we were farmers. The main income was farming, with a supplemental income through life insurance sales. 40 years before that, dads died inhaling allergens and extracts not intended to be consumed at that level, by doing the work of tending to crops. At home, mamas and their babies and soon to be born babies were left without the main bread winner. And everything depended on the weather.

His grandfather lost his dad before he was born. His mama was a talented seamstress at the turn of the century. Sewing beautiful wedding gowns for clients in their small town. One time, his grandfather was tasked with delivering a beautiful gown, adorned with lace and hand sewn one of a kind detail that we could not even comprehend in Y2K, and dropped it in the mud. His widowed mother had to scramble to repair the damage.

His mama was a university student, majoring in education. It was 1940. She carried on the tradition of her grandfather, who started a small town high school, and was its first principal in the 1880s. She may have came home from her college, 180 miles from her hometown. She was an only, her mama almost died during her birth. But the first of her eight children came to her during that first year of college.

She came home, they built a cape cod on the area that was once the family farm pig pen. The baby was born in August, they moved into their new home, and new life on December 7, 1941. 

The After

 Post Covid has done a number on so many

The kids. Those who were never connected to anyone lost any possibility of connection. And were set back. And now we have the Buffalo, NY situation, that trails the other more deeper disconnects we have fostered. And, sweet Milwaukee. And LA. And other places. 

The quieter kids may not have that kind of murderous rampage wake up call, but they were affected. Where were the mentors? The karma. Elementary, middle and high school kids were like WTF is wrong with the adults running the show?

The Seniors. Our senior citizens. For those who had their precious, beloved families as their anchor. Or, who relied on a neighborhood center for connections. They just quietly wondered their fate. And, if lucky, have reconnected with the priceless.

For parents, GenX, Millennials and any other gen classification, I hope... we just realized how we need to quit being so divisive, despite what has been fed to us by politicians for...ever. Life and sickness, and they joy in between are all that matters.

The Olympics, Dichotomy

 I love watching the Olympics with a glass of wine. Same with the Packers games.

Sleep and timelines

It is dark at 6am.  It's going to be darker soon with daylight savings.

Sleep training is organic.  We are babies, up all night, training our parents to become early risers, if they take lesson, so they can get ahead of us while we sleep as teens.  We sleep all over the map from ages 10-20 (+/- 4) and then sleep train for our jobs or careers.  If one finds themselves working third shift at a manufacturing plant or 24 hour shifts as a transplant surgeon or embarking on a morning commute, the career path becomes the baby sleep trainer.  We are trained for this.

Fall mornings are training for dark winter mornings.  The September Equinox in the northern hemisphere represents a deep shift and change is hard.  I read on a blog about depression that September is tough.

I start back to work on Monday.  Once again.  This time, family and health and sleep and work over anxiety/depression about the fundamental changes & shifts daily or quarterly or annually that reach my very core but I don't always know how to acknowledge because I want to know, or think I know.  Infinite wisdom knows what we need and guides us every day when we are still.  We can't know it all so we lose sleep, wondering why what we now know isn't what we thought.  We don't get quiet and still and listen to that little spiritual voice from God that knew before it got drowned out by the uncertainty of the world.

Sleep and know you don't always know.

Unemploy, day 2

Technically, it's not unemploy since I am still on the payroll to wrap up lose ends.  But, there was nothing left for me to do there.  I took a job and a situation that totally demeaned experience & the hard work I've done over 20+ years in selling stuff.

I ran into a former superior at my previous job with my now ex boss.  I was so intimidated by her known brand of superiority, dishonesty that I messed up the intros.  I knew it was the start of my demise at this lil' start up

I was acting on stress & fear, especially after my last weird departure from a job.

I was shut out from the process and couldn't prospect enough business.

Ugh, now I have to find another job.  And I am in a fog all around this time around.   Unlike the clarity I had the last time in leaving, with experience and relevant contacts.  

There are people fighting so many harder battles but job loss sucks.  I am praying for those who are profoundly devastated in TX.

Dad

You died last year.  On February 23rd.  You were a small but strong man.  I know you cared about people very much.  I think you were neglected as a kid, not by design, just by Catholic baby boomer family on a small town dairy farm standards.  You were the oldest.  You had to run that place with your Dad while going to school and he sold insurance.  You had 7 younger siblings who you also cared and looked out for. You had an awesome, classy, academic and life skills talented sister just behind you.  You both got college degrees in the 60s which not everyone did.  Especially when you had to do it on your own as the eldest farm children from Lomira.

You had old work shirts with a "Standard" logo that you wore to take care of the three acre plot we lived .  You worked in the 50-60s era service stations and knew how to fix the classic autos.  You went to Detroit to learn drafting, but then decided you wanted to apply the math and science so you went to sweet MSOE where they train the best engineers a corporation could ever hire.  Grandma says you lived down there in a campus apartment that had cockroaches that ran across the floor when the lights went off.  It was totally ghetto but you were from the old school non entitled days.  You worked every angle in any environment.  I remember when Todd and I used to look through the piles of mail for the Catholic Appeals fund that you chaired when you had a house full of kid and a full time job and a farm full of beef steers or steer.  I like steers.   Every minute of every daylight hour was spent working.  Sometimes you took a 45 minute nap on the couch, even though you had screaming kids in the house and chaos on the farm.

You lived on a farm before silo unloaders, manure spreaders, barn cleaners, automated milking machines...and tractors that required more maintenance than output.  You were taxed in a manner that my entitled Gen X self could never appreciate, until I started reading historical fiction more.  None of your little siblings had to deal with any of that as you were on the cusp of the industrial farming revolution.  Despite all that work, you taught us all to love Wisconsin and its farming roots, not to mention its sports and political ones...you watched the Packers every Sunday in the 70s when they sucked and you knew Bob Betts and got Packers to speak at events and even stalked Al McGuire once to his car until he caved to host your fund raiser, per your pal/BOL, JG.

I probably wasn't your favorite kid other than the fact that I was the first girl *yay* or likely the most rebellious and limit pushing kid any parent could ever not wish on their worst enemy.  Your favor was consumed by concern and energy sucked making sure none of the other four strayed so far off the beaten path. I am sorry.  I am glad you now know that it was never at the level your 80s media consuming parent mind would think of a child who got home at 2 and slept all day until I had to go work at the gas station, where I gave my friends free food when they visited.  I still have never done the cocaine you told the school counselor you suspected me of doing.  I was a Miller Light gal.  Now I like wine.  Thank you for being conservative, sometimes micromanaging, when other 80s parents were permissive.  I am certain as a 40-something that you and mom knew intuitively that is what I needed and I never said, thank you, Dad, for not taking the path of least resistance, especially when I was a surly brat.

I am not sure what any one of the many people you knew in life saw but what I saw was you always still tried, even when I or others who should have had your back became so completely detached from everything that you had to deal with.  All the stress that I cannot even imagine.  I think most of it came from being a people pleasing community builder.  You did make many friends.  You had a creative and good business mind but really, you were an engineer.  I think you and Grandpa Schill are conferring on that now because he told you that too.

It is admirable that you had farming in your heart, or wanted to be your own boss, or a combination of both that drew you to farm the land.  I remember you on the Ford tractors sold at West Bend Implement, down the road from Puppyland, where we usually got our farm dogs.  I remember that red and yellow combine.  I remember your gold Mustang you had when MC was born.

When I went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC with TM in the late '90s, we both agreed that you would like that place.  You were an agricultural engineer as well as an industrial one.  Even in the drought of '88.

I am so sorry that you were so stressed and I never stepped up to help as much as I could have or should have.  Your live was amazingly busy and you liked it that way.  Lance remembers you gold Cadillac and your tan leather car coat type jacket back in the 80s.  You liked your car and your smokes.  I am glad you didn't have to suffer for too long without your life and your community.  You went away for three months in a maze of interventions before you died.  You tried so hard to live.

Thank you for everything you taught me.   I heard and knew you even when I didn't acknowledge it. You raised us all to have solid values and traditional character that is sometimes lost in the world. Your whole family misses you and cannot wait to see you again.

'Sup

I have a new job as a SOM for a start up.  It's pretty interesting.  I am definitely learning as I go with Excel, which is cool.  Back when I took Adobe PageMaker through expensive courses my employer covered, you couldn't find all the instructions on line.  My boss lives in Chicago so I rarely see him.  I had a 6th floor private office in a huge complex we had rented from.  But, last week we moved to this nice building in a wooded lot within the corporate complex wasteland.  It has an atrium and desks and booths which is great.  Because I am now in a non window office with three programmers, the CEO, and my boss when he comes up.  So, many of us will utilize the vast atrium space for work.  My office is portable...I am using it right now.  It's a good gig and hopefully, we can launch this nice little start up.

Natalie graduated from 8th grade.  They wore cardinal red cap & gown and she got an honor cord to wear and everything.  She is such an awesome kid.   She will do great things because she cares, and she works hard in school and her athletic pursuits as well.   We exposed both kids to a lot but so did everyone else in their sports obsessed town and school.  Natalie shined all on her own.  I can't put into words how much I love her.  She is really still very close to me and knows I more than have her back.  But she is 14 and going off to a big high school next year.  She will be exposed to all kinds of people and opportunities so our conversations will change a lot.  I have to let go and hopefully she will stay close.  She is so intuitive and has always been part of showing me the way through the unknown.  

It's nice to have a graduation ceremony as meaningful as she did.  50 kids, lots of memories good and bad but what I remember most about Natalie's days were her steadfastness and hope and hard work.  

Four more years.   Presence.

Charlotte worked up the nerve to transfer to public school.  She transferred at semester so she could hang with the elementary crowd before going off to middle school, which will be quite a different experience.  It can be great.  Middle school is hard everywhere, I'm told.  She will be 11 in 7 days.  I don't know how to slow down this fast moving train.  She has four more days of CCES.  It was a great semester and I am so proud of her.  She is so sweet and kind and she has learned a lot about people that she hadn't learned in Catholic school.  

I have gotten into reading James Altucher and am trying to improve my business skills.  The seven months of freelancer salary really knocked us down fiscally.  Things are slowly getting back on track but with the rental going down in a freak explosion, it was an interesting year.  I am so glad I left my old job.  I think back on how much I started to lose my mind with the travel.  It was totally unmanageable and I am surprised we made it through those last few years.  I haven't traveled in over a year.  It's odd and freeing yet I got pretty good at it so I miss the adventure.

It's the beginning of June.  I am going to use this month as a foundation for my growth plan.

I've been a bad, bad girl

I have finally ended a private, personal, sustained drama.  It was so off base and threw me for three years.  It was like a necessary combustion that went on longer than anyone should be able to stand because of my life at the time and what brought me there.  But the combustion lasted three years.  I put it all on myself.  It was so, so wrong and cruel.

It was unnecessary.

I am finally FREE.😊😂😊😂

Siblings, Forthcoming Holidays, 180 degrees from warm TV commercial genre

I love Christmas.  My favorite contemporary songs are:
Blue Christmas, Elvis
Joy to the World, Jewel
Silent Night, my kids and the rest of the children at SMG on Christmas Eve

Natalie is a Christmas related name, I guess.  Someone also told me it's Jewish.  The nurse at the hospital told me it was so beautiful it made her shiver. 😇


When I grew up, we all had Christmas with an aunt or uncle or grandparent.  I am not sure how it went down when I left the house because I was usually going back and forth from my family's home to Lance's home and I thought it would always be that way.  I thought it was like a tradition.

Fast forward to my raising young children in the family tradition of Christmas.  Suddenly, no one could go to my parent's house because my sister's kid had asthma and my dad, try as he might with every smoking cessation option on the planet, could not quit smoking and did so in the house.

Sister had kids and we started spending all the time at her house.  Typically with her in laws who lived down the street.  We lived two hours away and they always let us know it, we didn't fit.  Sisters new family ruled the roost in that brash, small minded sort of way.  Belittled our kids.  It kind of sucked and wasn't very welcoming.

Brothers got married and same pattern of migration to the shiny, new family occurred.  Traditionally, this is to be expected and we were raised traditionally.  So, I get that.  My brother and his wife even tried to make it all the way to Madison a couple times but no one else did.

My mom usually worked her nursing home job where she is always needed and made a meal for my dad who probably was just glad to have the day off from his stress-filled life.

Things change.  No aunts, uncles, games, stories, memories for my kids on the holidays.  I tried to address it with them but was dismissed as negative and crazy.  How do you even fight that?  Why do I even have to have the conversation in the first place when I feel it should just be, at least with my family.

Try as he might, Lance cannot get anyone in his family to like each other.  It has been a long 85+ years for his mom.  She is now in her nursing home, as was her life plan using her inheritance.  All his older siblings are 1-2 generations older and have grandkids almost as old as Lance, grandkids WAY older than ours, drug and mental health issues, etc.  No one gets along so no holiday parties anymore.

Trying to come up with my own thing here.  Maybe I can get some friends to stop in for the kids. On their way to or from their own family events.

The A

The first year of off campus housing and a 25 minute trek was about to end.  Five girls in one 800 SF flat with one bathroom and one porch converted to a bedroom.  That last slumlord undercompensation was a problem in January when the tiny radiator started working.  I was lucky that I had a regulation bedroom, with a roommate who stayed at her boyfriend's.

College was fun.  It was the best time of my life.  There were weird social groups and tangents but it was fun.  I think I needed more attention than I got as a child.

I am not sure how it happened but I knew when it did.  I wasn't telling the truth with anyone at that time, really.  It came out easily with most of my friends and associates but this big secret only came out at inappropriate times with people who didn't have my back.  I was really desperate to talk with anyone beside the well-meaning clinician.   It still hasn't left me, that decision.  It was the most painful of my life and I have given myself a lifetime of penance when I read about strong women in literature or even when I have the fortune to be witness to someone's experience or story.

I woke up during Wednesday of final exam week. I had to run to our tiny kitchen compartment that was a separate room from our actual apartment.   I stood, hunched over, eating saltines.  I grabbed one of the five country crock spread containers and tried to eat face to face against the mid century cabinetry. I  knew that I had an appointment to make the following week.  It was surreal.  It was my choice.

I finished my exams and went to Milwaukee.  We went in the next week.  There was no other options laid out but probably because I wasn't looking for any.  My nurse was very pro choice.  Very anti stepford rule of womanhood.  She was confident and I was wrecked.  Everything happened kind of quickly.  I looked at the medical devices around me and felt, like my body, I couldn't identify what any of it did, or was doing to me.  It was very early.  And I had my boyfriend's apartment to stay at and sleep for a day afterward.  A lot of women don't have any of that.

Living life by comparison, fear and guilt has wrecked me for a long time.   I am grateful for the profound experiences and they way I look at mine now.

Goodbye for now, Dad

It is two days before your earthly 75th birthday and 5 1/2 months since you said goodbye to us here on earth.  I did not think you were going to go, even though I knew you had to.

I was finishing up my job at SI when you got sick.  I was on my way out, partially forced, partially by my own maneuvering, but in the end, was definitely the right move.  I'd worked there for 16 years.  You were never really on board with my sales job.  You asked me when I first started if they are a manufacturer's rep but I assured you that they had an engineering group and a couple patents with more on the way.  That job sucked my soul at times.  One Friday in February, two weeks before your last weekend, I was on my way to MKE from Richmond, VA.  I was going to head down to Kenosha to stay with my little fam for N's volleyball tournament and come up Saturday morning and spend the morning with you.  RIC is a small regional and my 6pm flight that I booked it from UVA to make was cancelled due to mechanical problems.  I thought I was going to lay out the young, free traveling lady who was blabbing with the agent for updates.  I finally got my hotel voucher for the Richmond outdoor corridor Motel to stay until my 6am  reschedule the next morning.   By the time I got to my luggage, I was looking like a raging hag.  I wanted to go home and I knew this was my last trip with many plans waiting at home.  There were two German businessmen also collecting their luggage who had the presence of mind to sweet talk the agent to the full service Radisson hotel with a bar.  They saw me and brought me in on the deal without me even saying a word.   It was a little traveling guardian angel moment that came few and far between during my 16 years of travel.  It is a stupid first world problem, I know.  We sat at the bar, they asked me if my education was in quantum physics due to my product line.  They sell chocolate manufacturing calibration equipment and travel 75% and had family complications I couldn't begin to manage so I was humbled.  It was time for me to leave my job though and that was my last trip.  I got into MKE at 9am and went up to see you in your room at Froedtert.  I hung out all morning and you talked about your career, your job at Simplicity and how you and your team once pulled an all-nighter but got the project done.  You talked about how your employer Gehl "hired Jimmy right out of college."  You didn't even take credit for the being the who you know in that networking equation.  You had a really nice nurse who grew up in Green Bay and her parents ran a bar.  You always got the nurses talking folksy and at Froedtert, they were the best.  You were so skinny and your veins were so weak that they couldn't complete a painful draw they tried to complete in your hand.  You had been intubated twice and the second time you pulled out the tube when the doctors and nurses were talking with Mom, Missy and Tim about the ramifications on your ribs and bones if they try to jump start your heart, or intubate again.  You pulled the tube out and said, "I want you to start my heart."  You wanted to live and you had spent 13 years with lungs so compromised that many would have given up on the discomfort many years ago.  You didn't like the effects of pain killers, ever.  You worked hard to sell your business when you were really sick so we didn't have quite as much to deal with when you knew it was your time.
The Friday before you died you were on a liquid diet due to recurring pneumonia and very weak swallowing muscles from having been intubated for multiple days, twice.  We were having a conversation with the hospice support team about moving you to a facility where you wouldn't need to be tested and poked and tubed and monitored to the point where your body couldn't even produce any markers.  You heard some of it.  I had brought you some of your favorite PB sandwich cookies from C's girl scout sales and you wanted to eat.  You rallied and ate that whole box, and had a root beer and a coke and sirloin tips and gravy over mashed potatoes and saw your mom and brothers before you left on Monday.
You traveled from Froedtert to Sharon S. Richardson Hospice in Sheyboygan Falls on Monday night, February 22.  Troy and Dr. Lipchik were with you when you left.  You asked your pulmonologist of 13 years if there was any other hospital, any other place he could send you.  He told you they would just say the same thing.  Dr. L told us the Friday before that he would not put you through another intubation that would combat what was now an overflow of CO-2 that was going through your lungs and body.  On the way to hospice, you drove through all your counties, Milwaukee, Washington and Sheboygan.  You met Mom and Missy and chatted and were happy.  They gave you a little oxygen and an almost clinically irrelevant amount of morphine to help you sleep when they left.  You woke up the next morning and said you would take pancakes and then went to sleep for the day.  When I got there mid-day, Tim was still there and he was suppose to have left to come back the next day.  We were all asked to stay.  You slept all day.  I didn't talk to you very much even though they said your hearing would be the "last to go."  I just looked at you sleeping and one of your eyes stayed partially opened so I thought you were looking at me too.  I prayed for forgiveness and told you silently I was sorry for being such an awful kid sometimes.  I am sorry.  I know that you gave so much to the world around you and I was too self absorbed to appreciate, or even know the depth of, your struggles as a human being.  You aren't any different from any of us and I am sorry I ever drew a line.
I know you are in Heaven.  I hope you will watch over us and help us with our struggles.  I pray for you and 2016 was so profoundly sad and moving.  I am grateful that you helped give me life and I promise to make the most of it, instead of living in analysis paralysis.  Thank you for life and joy.  We miss you but will always be inspired and hope we can make a spiritual mark on this earth like you did.  I hope to be a better person in your honor.

Work, work, work

I know I would fail as a SAHM. 


When spring comes around, travel season starts for me.  Relatively speaking, it is very manageable and I definitely don't mind the places I get to go.  It's the details and the work politics and the school politics and this growing need to control when there is absolutely no controlling that weighs me down.


I just want to punch a few people in the head too.


I am not at my best right now.

Disheartening

Somehow, both Natalie and Charlotte were blessed with athletic genes.  It goes beyond egregious, how the adults involved can manipulate and toxify the experiences for the kids involved.


I am so angry right now.  Catholic schools pretty much suck.  At least they have good grades.

Spring Break

We did the drive again.  I'd say one last hurrah. Buuuut, it is nice to save all that money on airfare.   Two trips to FL and one to coastal GA might be enough for this clan.  SD was a little better.  The kids were great and patient beyond their years.  Long, hot when you're south, car rides suck.  Poor Charlotte got out a rest stop in GA on our way back with a soaking wet T shirt because the A/C hadn't made it's way back to her, was not turned on right.   She cheerfully said her body is just efficient at letting go of heat.  She bursts my heart right open.


Anyway, the ride down is far more cheery than the ride back.  Daddy-O and I got in a stress argument at the KY-IL boarder.  I still feel the guilt.


Universal Studios was nice, in a packed spring break sort of way.  We rode the train to Hogwarts three times.  Natalie was in heaven with the Harry Potter area and both she and Charlotte loved their magic wands.  They were "selected" in a presentation by a wizard to be his "students" and trained to use their wands properly.  ie:  never put it in your back pocket.  When they walked out of the room, there was a cash register we had to visit.  Nothing is free, especially at the large theme parks!  The wands really were "magic" and the girls loved walking around Diagon Alley and Hogwarts making the magic happen.  Also, butter beer=good stuff.


Cocoa Beach was nice.  We got a late start that day and got there at 5 or so.  Haha.  But, we found parking and it was not crowded and still hot and sunny.  Charlotte was her little fish self jumping in and out of the waves.  The laughter I heard from Natalie as she brushed up against the waves coming in reminded me of when she was really little.  Pure joy.   Daddy-O loved it too.  He was really nice about asking what we did when I wen to FL as a kid, like he wanted to continue that tradition through the two trips we took.


Charlotte insisted on getting the academy award that said "best teacher" for Mrs. Barker.  Mrs. Barker is the most amazing teacher I have ever had the privilege to know.  She is a phenomenal human being so I guess that is the cornerstone.  Charlotte wanted to pay for the token herself too.  Love, lots of love.


While on break, our beloved Badgers advanced to the elite 8.  We watched that game from the NBA Restaurant at Universal.  I am so proud to be a Badger.  Our fans are second to none.  We got home in time on Saturday night to watch the win over KY.  What an amazing team...it still gives me chills to think of what a great squad they had and how adored they were by the rest of the country.  We will miss you, Frank the Tank. 


It really was a good trip...likely our last at the theme park capital of the world!


XO

up on stage

This morning, Natalie did a reading at Mass.  She got right up there and spoke right into the microphone with inflection and clarity and grace.  I was so proud of her.  Charlotte read a petition a few weeks back and was brilliant as well.  I am so proud of them.


Natalie is working very hard with the rigors of club volleyball and being positive though it all.   Charlotte is starting down the basketball path with Upward and runs and dribbles and puts forth such a good effort.  They both work so hard.  They are so good.


Unfortunately, these amazing kids...their parents got off track.  Or have been off track since the start, perhaps.  When love comes into your life, sometimes you are blinded by it.  Their daddy and I, are like oil & water.  On the rare occasion that he comes with us to an event, he will usually pull some low belt move like tell me "work out more to get a body like (friend I just introduced him to...one of our kid's classmates moms)"  Right in the middle of dinner out, where I am trying to be on for the team, the school team of politics that all moms have to engage in.  Below the belt.  That has been the MO.  It hurts.  It hurts the kids, that atmosphere.  It has messed with my mind.  For years, complaints about everything I had a part in and everything that was out of my control.  Loud complaints, abuse, awful insults and sadness, emptiness and alone-ness.


It was hard.  Single mom is hard too.  I need strength and hope and I don't know where to go to find it.  But, mostly, I don't ever want these kind, amazing souls to lose their hope.  I am struggling.

Not sure how this worked out, but it did

We had teacher conferences last night.  Our first one was with Charlotte's teacher, Mrs. B.  I had a couple email conversations with her and also a couple in-person ones when I chaperoned the field trip and when I showed up for the 3rd Grade Halloween party.  I knew how fond she was of Charlotte so I thought things would go pretty well.  Mrs. B is an exceptional teacher.  During Iowa tests, she would tell the kids "I just love you so much and don't want you to feel any stress."  Or, "these tests are only a report card for your school.  it does not matter how you do."  I mean, someone who finally gets how useless standardized tests are?!  Oh, how I longed for this day.  Mrs. B is just amazing.  And what is incredible to me is that she thinks my kid is amazing.  She said "Charlotte makes me stop and remember what is important...to be kind, to work hard, to be happy."   She said Charlotte always puts in the best effort and said she had basically nothing to critique her on.  We discussed her reading...since Charlotte did have some tutoring in first grade and last summer.  She's right on track.  Her writing?  It is evolving as it should.  Charlotte also loves math and makes no secret about it to us or to Mrs. B.  Mrs. B actually said she "feels blessed" to have Charlotte in her class.  Yes, my eyes welled up during out 15 minute time slot, several times.


Then, it was onto middle school. All the teachers were sitting at tables in the gym for optional check ins.  We walked in and were greeted by the school principal.  I am not a fan of hers.   I have gotten conflicting information from her.  To be fair, she seems to try her best but she comes off as phony and a coverer of the ass which maybe is the MO for all principals, but I think we can do better.  Especially at $350/month per kid.  We got our religious ed envelope and Lance was friendly with her and we walked on to the center waiting chars surrounded by a perimeter of teachers.   First, we went to see Mrs. F.  She is a very strict math teacher whose reputation precedes her.  Natalie is afraid of her.  I've heard that kids that come out of SMG are typically very prepared for freshman year, especially in math.  I say, keep doing what you are doing.  She told us that Natalie does very good work and is quiet (?!-translation: afraid of her) and then she refreshed herself on the grade she gave her (an A-) and confirmed that she's doing very well.  I chatted with the Spanish teacher a bit...doing well, received A.  We then stopped over by her homeroom/creative writing/lit teacher who told us that Natalie is "an awesome kid, an awesome student."  She is enthusiastic and works hard and takes a small idea and turns it into a creative story and is his go-to for information on anything related to Greek Mythology and always has a smile on her face.  I thanked him for helping guide her in one of life's most valuable skills (which I haven't mastered), writing.  He agreed it was a very valuable skill.  Our last stop was at the table of history teacher, Mr. R.  Mr. R once told Charlotte on teacher swap day that he knew some people from FDL with our (odd, from the old country) last name.  C was thrilled since she has had the burden of a phonetically incorrect LONG last name, along with a nine letter first name.  So, Mr. R told us that when Natalie first started Kindergarten, he was waiting to ask if we knew the R families he knew from FDL.  They were neighbor's, as Mr R described, "good Catholics."  Haha.  No doubt, this is why Lance, his mom, dad, etc. had no knowledge of these people with the same, obscure family name.  My in laws were more of the scam artist persuasion than anything having to do with Catholics.  Plus, Lance's dad blamed his rough, abusive childhood on his dad and mom's affiliation with the C church.  Yes, there is a thread of victim mentality that runs through the in laws, even today.  Not that Lance's in laws are anything to model but seriously...  So, Mr. R then went on to ask us about Natalie's love for Greek Mythology and said they will be studying Indian culture next and then on to Roman empire (which Natalie also loves) and just loves Natalie's hard work and enthusiasm and told us to keep up the good work.    Natalie loves history and said earlier this year she is thinking of majoring in history.  Thank YOU, Mr. R.


So, L and me.  How did we manage to birth these two solid learners with a strong moral compass. I mean, I am not one of those people who can comfortably rewrite history...I was a horrible student.  I had no teachers who inspired me.  I had a mentally ill PE teacher who was also my volleyball coach and she loathed me.  She really was mentally ill...she was committed when I was a freshman in high school.  I had a second grade teacher who I was so afraid of that I waited uncomfortably for about a half hour until I went into the third grade for my reading group to tell that teacher I had to throw up and then promptly did.  Unfortunately, the third grade teacher had left the next year when I would have had her full time.  I controlled my vomit to avoid the pyscho, ex nun I had for second grade who used to belittle and call me names. There were random teachers I liked but no one who I really felt inspired by or that they were at all invested in me.  I liked English so those teachers were always tolerable.  PE teachers typically hated me and my loving aunt Mary Beth told me (she majored in PE) was that PE teachers do not like students who aren't athletic.  MB always gave me great affirmations throughout my life...like when she told me not to become part of the statistic my friends and I came up with (10% of the girls in the KHS class of '87 became pregnant).  I mean, obviously, people really believed in me growing up!  I did not have the balls to tell my lovely aunt that me and my one friend were in the VC (virgin club) unlike the rest of our little clique of 12 more promiscuous seniors.  My parents tried to send me to flight attendant school even though I wanted to and did go to college.  I saw them not provide the assistance to my older, smarter brother who was in college at the time but had to take at least a year off b/c my parents pulled the rug out from under him so I pretty much knew my average self would be funding my own college experience.  This was despite the fact that my dad threatened to pull his (ultimately non existant) financial support if I took a higher paying life guard job in my high school hometown over the small town he made us move to (and almost made me go to school in) my senior year. 


Lance had it a little better.  He was the baby of the family and his mom, when she wasn't sleeping in while he got his second grade self off to school, doted on him during her waking hours.  He was a pretty good student and in his "autobiography" project for sixth grade, he quoted his mom as saying he was a "perfect specimen."  So he has a more positive inner dialog than I do but still...shady at times.  One time, we were attending a wedding of some guy who dropped out of our high school.  This fine young man's drunk dad came up to Lance at the wedding and grabbed him by the yoke, accusing him of making his kid a loser by teaching him how to grow pot at the age of 10.  Yeah, that was a classy night.  So, the kids do get the smarts from L and maybe my latent brain capabilities that were dormant under the crazy house I grew up in (my dad used to call us names all the time..."you are such a round head" (never did figure out what this meant) or "you are the dumbest" and my mom used to expect me to be her mother's helper to the more adored younger kids.  It was, with her, kind of an introduction to mean girl interactions, really.  The pictures I took with the working camera I bought were never good enough for her. Missy was playing with matches and almost burned down our house that Troy had to be rescued from and, despite my mom and I both being home, somehow this was my 12 year old self's fault?  It was crazy.  Hard to identify as a good person much less a smart one.


There is also the athleticism.  Natalie is showing major skills in volleyball, basketball, soccer and any sport she tries really.  This is much to the chagrin of the typical, competitive parochial school parent along with those who think their tiny 10 year old will yield them a Division 1 scholarship.  Charlotte has been doing cartwheels and full splits since Kindergarten and also is lauded for her soccer abilities.  She is starting bball in January.  This makes more sense.  Lance's bro Kim did receive the only full ride athletic scholarship KHS was ever offered for one of their students to UW well before my time there and still to this day (1972 was the year, I believe).  He did blow it spectacularly and spent years in a drug and alcohol fueled victimhood mode (which his family also echoed) so I did have to get Lance excited about sports and the genes he gave his kids.  Lance also was very impressive the one year he committed to the football team and probably was the best volleyball player at the multitude of games we played at our hs grad parties.  So, those genes are more direct than my bench warmin' high school basketball year.


I am so grateful to God for Natalie and Charlotte and whatever combination we came up with that made them who they are.  I know my parents didn't have very many good interactions with my teachers at conferences as I was often grounded post conference.  We are truly blessed to have these two amazing kids.  I am abundantly grateful and pray for their continued grace and well being.  Thank you, God!

What I really want to say...

What I really want to say is that I am so proud to be Natalie and Charlotte's mom.  Natalie, with athletic skills I don't possess and fearless on the volleyball court... growing into a confident tween so quickly.  Charlotte, with athletic skills I don't possess and a tireless, fearless soccer player despite her somewhat insane coach and a myriad of other people who I have to bite my tongue for, keeps her cool...always.  They want to do their own thing, but still seek my guidance.  Natalie's homework is getting intense, and she follows the rules.  She does work ahead of time and is very conscientious.  Charlotte works hard and with a confidence I don't recall ever having at her age.


They are amazing.

Yesterday, you went to camp

We took the girls off to their first sleepover camp, ever.  It's just two nights...a mini session for the sisters.  When we got there, we discovered there was another set of sisters there and they aren't always the nicest classmates.  I hope and pray that you are having fun, and learning and growing and that the mean girls have turned a new leaf over the summer.  I SO wish I could make life easier in this regard, or tell you that mean girls grow up to be nice and this is just a phase.


You are learning life lessons. 


All I know is that you cannot control others.  Good manners and good listening will get you far.


And daddy is pretty worried.  He wished he would have snuck that cell phone in your bags, or at least the Ipod for texting.  Both are frowned upon at camp.


We haven't gotten an email and my server is blocking the photo site.


We will see you tomorrow afternoon at 4:30.   And be anxious until that moment, hopefully unnecessarily.   


We close on our house in four days.


We go to St Germain in six days!


17 more days until school starts!  It will be a good year for both my girls...we will will it to be. 

the madness

My husband is shaming me in front of the kids (he loves to do this).  This time, it's about fruit flies and a clean house.  As I was scrubbing the nooks and crannies behind the counter that never get reached in an attempt to cover all surfaces, he walked by and said "I think I need to hire a cleaning lady."  WTF.  My choices are to react (and I've done this, sadly) or ignore and show the kids the high road (or show them a passive mama).


He does the wash like a factory worker.  And he bitches the whole time.  I still remember when we moved into our first place and he moved on from coin-op machines.  He pushed his way into laundry duty.  The problem is, the laundry never seems to get done until I get in there to cover it.  Still, he walks around like some martyr victim who has to do laundry.


They all act like victims.  His brother who lost his full ride scholarship in 1973 to play football at UW...well that was the fault of sports.  The fact that he was on a cocaine binge and got into a physical fight with a coach has nothing to do with it.  The poor estranged spouses that riddle his family...it's all their ex's fault. 


How do I fight this?  The girls are still smart and caring and interested but WTF am I going to do with this ongoing BS that I will never, ever stop?  I've suggested he think globally...real issues, lack of clean water, violence in the middle east affecting innocent families, etc.  All to no avail.  It's a singular mind he was raised, on the compound, where the whole world is at fault.  There is no undoing of that.


He is also very good at making it look like he is doing all the household work and I am just with this job that requires travel 6 times a year and woe is him has to pick up the kids at school with the mom out of town.  I had to work, we needed the income. It's like the mommy wars in our own household.  His job allows him to work two hour days if he wants, or skip out all together. 


I can't do this anymore.  There is no rhyme or reason and there certainly aren't going to be any winners.