Priorities

Having guests tonight. I've chosen the wine, purchased fresh flowers, and made the dessert. Now I just have to figure out what's for dinner. First things first.

Why so ragged?

Someone asked me the other day why I call this blog "Worn Ragged." Don't I have only one child? Don't I work from home? Doesn't my husband have a good job? Didn't I think that I actually have it pretty easy?

It got me to thinking.

I started with Gramma in Broadview, who had nine kids, was widowed when the youngest was about two years old, who lived through the Dust Bowl in Saskatchewan in the 30s, who had no running water in the house until the 1970s, who couldn't drive a car, who kept her own chickens, who collected rainwater in a barrel for washing hair and clothes, who had 5 kids fighting in WWII in some capacity or other.

I can't compete with that. Bone-crunching labour, loneliness, fear, poverty, responsibility.

This is what I have for today:

Woke up at 7.55. School starts at 8.30. (Husband under misapprehension that his family was up and around.)

Fruit fly infestation in kitchen and bathroom, making breakfast a revolting experience for all involved.

Only clean pants for Kid are summer-weight formal slacks.

Car is iced over, requires much scraping.

Sunrise hits only partially-defrosted windshield, causing temporary blindness in middle of left-hand turn into school parking lot. Kid gets the first of today's late slips.

Kid leaves mitts, scarf, hat and backpack in car.

Back to the school.

Gently berated for not announcing myself at the school office and hanging Kid's belongings on appropriate peg without having first verified my security clearance.

Email migration at work causes much confusion, lost time; looming proposal deadline gets looming-er.

Kid breaks glasses on way home for lunch.

Dog escapes up the hill, poos on a neighbor's lawn. Neighbor is watching. I have no bags. An awkward conversation and fervent promises take place.

Water on the boil for lunchtime pasta has by this time boiled to nothing. No fire, but one must begin again.

25 minutes before the school bell rings. Lunch now on table.

Lunch now on table is judged to be "gross" by blind Kid, who wants to know how to spell "resuscitate."

Fixing Kid's glasses does not go well. A trip to the repair shop will be necessary.

A ritual phone call, one of several thousand, is made to the school attendance line. They must prepare the second of the day's late slips.

Up the hill to pick up poo. More than one bag required. Back down the hill. Back up the hill. Back down the hill.

Kid pitches fit in optometrist parking lot. His Smarties, given to him by a GIRL, have been left unfinished on the kitchen table. His mother is CRAZY LUNATIC CRAZY for not allowing him to miss another 20 minutes of school while he goes back and eats them.

And where are his school Valentines?? CRAZY LUNATIC CRAZY mother has not realized that there is no school until Valentine's Day is over and has not thought ahead by six days. Kid wishes to have lifetime supply of paper bags in which to stick his head. Oh, the shame.

Kid safely dropped off. Car begins to smoke. Has apparently dumped 3 litres of oil in last five days.

Hello 450 thousand fruit flies. You've been busy!

So: not Depression-era poverty, widowhood and striving in Saskatchewan. But surely enough to wear anyone ragged, right?

Or do I rename this blog "Spoiled baby whinging"?

Directions to Camelot

Asked Husband for help finding the Crossroads Market so Kid and I could join darling friends at a Loose Moose performance of "Young King Arthur." Annnnd...this is what he defined as "help":



This is the kind of thing that led to knights roaring around Europe on horseback for decades, looking for something they never found.

BLACKWATER VYING FOR $1 BILLION CONTRACT TO TRAIN AFGHAN POLICE

I would happily give them $1billion to train my son to EAT WITH A FORK.

Winkie beetle pheromones

At UCDavis, like lots of universities with a central quad, there were well-maintained "official" walking paths cut diagonally through the park, which no one ever used. They stomped out their own paths like undergraduate buffalo--and those paths, while clearly defining a purpose, looked like nothing so much as the dirt version of the sparkly slime left by winkie beetles as they winkie beetle in whatever (completely random) direction they are headed.

I was reminded of those adorable beetles this morning as I watched Kid head off across the snowy field toward the just-about-to-be-closed-on-the-last-stragglers school door. He seems to have a compulsion to be the last kid in and will execute a series of serpentine comings and goings that extend his time-to-door by about 140%. It's fascinating to watch and on Monday I think I'll invite an anthropologist to come along and do a field study. "Peripatetic approaches to authority: A field study of small insurgents." I'll then be able to present this to school authorities who accuse me of habitual tardiness and overall poor parenting. Although what's "poor" about maintaining a near-perfect consistency, even if it is in lateness?

Religious Life

This morning i have already prayed to the dryer (please let Kid have a pair of pants to wear to school this morning), the coonhound (please do not relieve yourself on the neighbor's front step), and a bag of black beans (please reveal yourself in this hellacious wasteland of a pantry hey is that actually Satan I see behind the 14 partial bags of alphabet pasta i thought you'd be taller). The first two prayers were answered. Satan, however, has apparently absconded with the beans, perhaps to unleash some not so fresh hell on the creatures of light.

Peanut butter and gi

In 15 minutes the kids are supposed to be barefoot and obedient in their karate class. Instead they're downstairs drinking Coke, eating crackers and peanut butter, and horsing around with Lego Atlantis.

They're happy, but I'm happier: I don't have to get in the goat-mobile to drive them to class, wait for them to figure out how to get into their little pajamas, wait some more while they're actually shuffling and whacking and whooping and hollering, wait again while they try to remember what locker they put their boy panties in, wait in the parking lot to get out, wait in the turn lane, drive all around the twisty-turny suburban cul-de-sacs and crescents that GOD HELP US if we ever have to evacuate this city, we'll all be circling our own neighborhoods for 25 minutes trying to figure out how to get out, and all this in a rusting stationwagon that smells like a certain sweaty coonhound. And all this while trying to edit a business proposal that must be out the door in about an hour. In Los Angeles. And WHOSE bright idea was it to forbid open bottles of alcohol in moving vehicles?

I think I'll couch this latest parenting failure in terms of a beaming gift of childhood. Here, boys, take it easy. Eat some junk food. Teach each other some swear words in the basement. You're welcome. Don't get Jiffy on your gi or I'll skin you alive.