Monday, April 23, 2012

I spent hours removing dozens of staples from an old, covered ottoman

my hands were red from squeezing a pair of needle nose pliers and ripping each staple (and there were many) from the wood and vinyl, then removing the hardware, because this is a storage ottoman, and now I dont feel like recovering it with the fabric I've cut out for it. So... it's just sitting there, next to all the clothes I've dumped out of it and onto the floor. I also need a bit more foam to make it more plush but I dont feel like going to Michael's or Joann's, either. Ah well.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Prom is for chicks

…and guys heavy into fashion, apparently. While teenaged girls are giddy with excitement, swarming the malls like manic lunatics looking for dresses and accessories to go with their shoes and hair and manicure designs, teenaged boys really aren’t pressed. Frankly, they don’t give a damn. This revelation was pretty sobering for me, a mother who was once an emotional teenaged girl who took big stock in prom. Mines didn’t live up to the hype so I was hoping to make my sons a little better, although he couldn’t care less. It has been a struggle to even get him to go shopping. Last Saturday he hemmed and hawed at the suggestion that we make a trip to get fitted at JosA Bank, which would’ve temporarily taken him away from his video game playing, so I backed off and let him and his friend continue slaying folks in Skyrim. He doesn’t even want his own chauffeured car, opting instead to limo-pool with two of his buddies, one of whom practically begged my son to buy himself a prom ticket. He didn’t want to “spend $65 on a dance,” so he waited until yesterday to get his ticket. Hemming and hawing, I imagine, all the way to the Student Affairs office.  At first I thought that maybe he didn’t want to go because he didn’t have a date but then I overheard (okay, I eavesdropped) him and his friends talking and discovered that two girls had asked him to be their date and he’d arranged for one of them to go with his friend, DJ who has never had a girlfriend. So Tuesday night before Glee came on he and I were chatting, as usual, and prom came up. We were laughing about one of the twins saying that his prom date last year looked like "a delicious chocolate mint" in her green dress, while he resembled a "giant pistachio." This girl asked him to be her date to her prom and his mother prodded him to accept.
That was maybe our fourth time discussing prom, after I'd had similar discussions about the other prom-aged boys in my family with my mother, and it finally became clear to me that boys just really don’t care; prom is primarily for chicks. The shopping trips, the manicures, pedicures, new shoes (one of his classmates convinced her dad to buy her a pair of $700 shoes, which the boys found utterly ridiculous), and new hairstyles, the glamour of it all is highly appealing to girls (who have all been sold Cinderella stories). Boys just tend to show up for the dancing and camaraderie, which isn’t novel at all, despite it never really getting old. While they were supposed to be out tuxedo shopping they were in my backyard sparring with each other like mixed martial arts fighters and videotaping it for their other friends to see. They didn’t have to get dressed up and admission to my backyard is free. Plus, the refrigerator was stocked.
So girls want that Cinderella experience and boys just want to box. I saw on the news that many parents are planning to spend a small fortune on prom for their daughters, equating it to a mini-wedding. How sad. As if to say “we’d better do this now, while we can because who knows if you’ll ever get married,” putting way too much importance on pomp and circumstance. The pageantry of it all will have at least half of these girls needing a shrink before they’re 30. So actually, it’s kind of a relief for me that my boy doesn’t need the type of validation and attention that teenaged girls crave. He’d actually rather SAVE me money than spend it. I guess I had him pegged all wrong, lol. Anyway, I’m glad that cultural mores have changed a bit and this generation’s kids aren’t feeling as much pressure and anxiety to fit the same mold we’ve been cramming ourselves into since the 50s. After all, it’s just a party.

Friday, April 13, 2012

There's nothing not to love about me! (c) Beyonce

No, no, no, there's nothing not to neeed about meeee!

I'm in a great mood today. Just spent a small fortune on some MMA tickets for my boy.  He's psyched, naturally.  Had a good, long, funny chat with my friend, Sandy.  She told me how she spent almost 25 years not realizing that she had a degree.  Crazy.  Then, I discovered that I have a small crush on a doctor who resembles Wesley Snipes.  Crushing is fun.  Acting on said crush is scary.  He waved at me the other day, that's how we began talking about him.  Then we went straight to Google and discovered he's sort of a boss. Credentialled the fuck out. Smh.  Fellowship trained at an internationally renowned school, medical degree, masters in engineering with a focus on physics, BA in electrical engineering, studied in France, has a degree in romance languages, too!  I'd totally be nice to him, lol.  The day he waved at me I was caught completely off guard.  I've seen him around a handful of times and only made note that he was black and a doctor, since you don't see too many black doctors on this campus.  But I've always gone on about my business.  Well, I was yapping on my cellphone, sitting outside of Emergency when he walked past, smiled at me and waved.  I was shocked.  So I just waved back.  And now I'm crushing.  His glamour shots on the internet are hot and "ringless" and he volunteers with children.  I have no plans at all to speak to him unless I am spoken to, though.  I'm just going to smile, wave and keep it moving.  No need in risking making a fool of myself.  I hope to keep this healthy happy crush from crushing me.
It's been raining and hailing all day.  I have to get home and check on my newly-planted infant trees.
I've been watching this video a lot lately.  Don't you just love Beyonce? There's nothing not to love about her :)  Especially when she's dressed in Rosie the Riveter meets Betty Page after work clothing.  I'd wear all of that TODAY
http://vimeo.com/11465235




Saturday, April 7, 2012

my kid is kind of awesome sometimes

My natural inclination is to worry about him but I really dont need to. And at times we'll have a talk that pretty much tells me to "relax, mom. I've got this." Last night I was fretting about this, that, and the other so I called him into my room and asked him what his plans were for prom. I wasnt worried about prom but that was my intro to bigger things, you know. The next thing I knew we were talking about the mission we built together for his 5th grade project, his elementary school principle coming to school one Halloween dressed as a giant pumpkin, how much fun he had at homecoming this year and the Royal Ball ("I was on fire," he said giving me a glimpse of his dance moves that night), how much fun we'd had in Hawaii together a couple of years ago, then Costa Rica last year, and how crazy we both looked on our passport pictures, lol, then, how excited we both were to get home after being away for an entire week in a Spanish speaking country (we dropped our luggage and kissed the walls, lol). What I thought would be a rushed 15 minute conversation ended up being a two hour conversation about his future plans, my future plans, his favorite cartoon, his government class, his closest friends (he has 6 bff's. Although he'd never call them bff's, lol), how ugly one of his bff's looked last year when he wore a pistacio colored suit to prom because that was the color his date had chosen for her prom. We also made tentative plans to take a trip to DC and go museum hopping. It'd be great if we could get there for the Fourth of July but I'm sure flights and hotels would be super expensive during that time. But we'll see. Anyway, he did more than put my worries away, he inspired me to live a little better. I've been somewhat paralyzed with fear, a bit complacent, and kind of weak. He asked me if I'd planned to work for my boss forever.
Earlier that day I'd come home to find that one of my favorite, vintage throw pillows was ruined and, of course, he had no clue what had happened. I instantly became frustrated and furious so I yelled and fussed and then slammed my bedroom door. About 20 minutes later I found him and one of his bff's (Kai) in the dining room trying to pin the pillow case back together. And then that night during our heart to heart he told me that he'd been in his bedroom playing video games with Kai all afternoon and that his ex girlfriend, who is now just his friend, and their mutual girl friend, were in the living room the whole time watching movies on the couch (this was confirmed when I came home from work at the same time the two girls had arrived). But he assured me that he'd get to the bottom of the mystery of my ruined, one of a kind pillow. So I smiled.
Eff that pillow. My kid is awesome sauce :)

Thursday, April 5, 2012

More talk about my home

I’ve figured out a way to rid my property of squirrels and other rodents: strongly scented flowers and oils.  Or so says multiple sites on the internet.  Daffodils, Wood Hyacinth, Allium flowers, and other scents like peppermint oil, pepper, garlic, and cayenne are said to keep them at bay.  So I’m going to plant some and see how it works.  All three flower species are lovely so if they work as promised it’ll be a win-win for me.  And, as suggested online, I’m going to soak a cloth in peppermint oil and put it inside a coffee can, then place it inside my garage to keep mice and rats from seeking shelter there.  My neighbor found a dead possum under his shed L  Gross.  I’m so glad I wasn’t home when he made that discovery.  Anyway, the planting instructions say I was supposed to plant these flowers at the end of fall so that they would bloom in spring but I’m hoping I’m not way too late, since it’s just barely spring.  As long as it’s not summer, I think I’ll be okay.  If nothing else it will be an experiment in learning to cultivate a green thumb.  Speaking of which, the trees I planted are doing okay, it seems *knock on wood.  And truth be told, I kind of enjoyed digging in the dirt and planting them.  I love decorating, even the outdoors.