We all need somebody to lean on

What's disturbing me today besides the obvious, R's last day of work, which I won't even comment on because I'll get weepy, is this:  The men in my work group believe in child abuse as an appropriate parenting strategy.  I know.

 (Okay, a tiny comment about R. without getting too weepy, is that I've worked with her now for 10 years, and we've gone through 2 divorces (mine, hers), spent thousands of hours driving around King County together, dealt with hundreds of freaky people, and in general, I've probably spent more time with her than anyone on the planet in the past decade, and I will miss her like a hand.  May the road rise up to meet you, R.)

I'm in my stupid cube, minding my own business, and can't help but overhear one guy talk about how he was smacking his 4 year old who had colored on the bedroom wall with a crayon.  I tried to ignore it, but it was pretty disturbing, especially when B., who has no kids that we know of, piped in, "yeah, I'd smack the shit out of that kid.  I totally respected my dad, and he would have beat the crap out of me if I did anything like that.  He used to beat me, and I totally respected him."

I didn't say, um that's fear, B., which is a whole different thing than respect.  It didn't seem worth it, so instead, I said to the actual father, "See?  You don't want your kid to turn out like B., do you?  There are other strategies…"

Suddenly, 4 men were in my cubicle, defending violence against children, which I have to say came as quite a surprise, and not the good kind.  I was eventually able to focus back in on my little excel spreadsheet, and our boss called me in to his office to discuss the numbers, which I'm fairly interested in.  Okay, obsessed with might be more accurate, but let's leave that out of this story.

"S., before we delve into the data, may I comment on how disturbing it is around here?

“More so than usual?

"Yes.  The boys are pro-child abuse."

"??"

"Yep."  I explained how it started, and then the even more disturbing part, which is that one of the men, who was actually married to an attorney for a long time and has a child, gave me the old spiel about how violence delivered not in anger, but in a ritualistic way, is a benefit to the child, and it’s our obligation to spank them in order to teach them.  I should have shooed him out of the cubicle then and there, but instead, I took the bait, and said violence delivered to a small child in anger is horrible but potentially understandable, but pre-mediated violence against a small child is just super creepy and wrong, and has absolutely no place in an educated society, to which he responded that the children depend on us to set limits and the best way to do that is by spanking them, and I said that another name for that would be bullying, and it went like that until he said, hey, can I look at your charts?  Which I would normally perceive as a huge olive branch because he could care less about the charts but knows I'm obsessed with them, but I didn't even feel like accepting it, violating one of my personal rules, which is that life only hands you so many olive branches, and if you piss all over them, life kind of gives up on you.  It’s just wrong to not accept a peace offering, wrong on so many levels, but still, I wouldn’t let him see my chart.  I know.

My boss gets that familiar look, and says, "Betsy, I really admire how hopeful you are in the face of everything."  Which is code for "Jesus, you're naive.  How can you be so simple-minded and still create these lovely charts?"

The whole thing just made me sad, because I guess I didn’t realize that educated people still believe in spanking.   Not just as a thing that happens when a parent is exhausted, overwhelmed, and frustrated, but as an actual strategy. I thought educated people would be aware of things, like how the American Association of Pediatrics, that radical group, doesn’t endorse spanking ever, and how studies have documented that violence begets violence (shocking, I know), and children who are the victims of spanking are more likely to become aggressive bullies themselves, and so on.

But besides all of the research, I just want to say this.  Our children deserve for us to be their biggest fans, and to love them no matter what, and to find things to love about them even when it’s hard.  Hard for us because we’re exhausted and busy and irritated, because yes, young people can be so irritating.  And hard for them because the world is so big and complicated, and they aren’t sure yet who they are or what they care about, and they need us to study them carefully, and remind them what’s unique and amazing about them when they can’t see it, and help them see when they need a nap or a snack, or a better plan, because it’s each of our jobs to figure out what makes us able to cope.

They deserve for us to help them find the path to being civilized decent people by tramping that path down ourselves, and gently inviting them to come along.  We need to apologize to them when we don’t measure up, so they can see that we’re struggling to do the best we can, and it’s not always quite good enough, but we’re trying.

They need us to be empathetic, because empathy begets empathy too, and we would all be better off with more of that in the world.  We need to say, in an age appropriate way, oh, sweetie, your behavior suggests that you’re suffering.  What might you do to take care of yourself, and what do you need from me on that, because I hate to see you in pain.  And it sounds true to them because it is, and because they’re used to seeing us trying our hardest to be kind and decent.  That’s what our kids need, not being smacked or humiliated when they fail, which we all do.

That’s all for my preachy rant.  Thanks for indulging me.

Sing ho for the life of a pig*

It turns out that I’m very grateful for the expired canned ham, because it has provided a little bit of material, which is hard to come by.  Not just material, but stuff I can actually write about here.  For example, this dispute is still going on, but the people involved are actually kind of scary.  I met each of them again yesterday --- him because he complained that she was digging out the stream, directing more water to her side, and her because, well, I’m not sure why, but I do know that they’re going to court today, and generally creating conflict and acrimony where there should be brownies and neighborhood barbecues.  As an example, one party asked yesterday, “Is there a law that says I can’t put 10 signs in the stream buffer?  They need to face the stream because I want people going by in the water to see them.  Where is it in code that I can’t have the signs?”  (By the way, this is not the Mississippi River; it doesn’t get any water traffic.  Ever.  These signs are only seen by the neighbor.)

The point that I wished to make but didn’t is, um, there’s no law against tapping your foot in an annoying way, but if someone in your space finds it annoying, could you just stop?  But see, here I am writing about these people again, which seems like a Bad Idea, due to all the suing and counter-suing and restraining orders that are going down.

So maybe you can understand my new found appreciation for the ham.  The other day in the grocery store, the woman in front of me in line asked the clerk about her lambs.  I was sort of spacing in and out of their conversation until the clerk said, “yeah, I’m gonna try castrating them myself again this year.  Last year, it didn’t work out so well – I got one testicle on one ram, and none on the other.  I didn’t realize it at the time.” 

This is the kind of thing I wish I hadn’t overheard, because it sort of sticks with you, not in a good way, and my first thought was, dammit, that’s gonna show up on my blog, and soon it will be littering everyone elses’ brains too.  Which I will apologize for right now.  I’m sorry.  But you see my point about the ham providing material that's not about failed castration or people who are likely to sue me?  I’ve gotten some excellent suggestions about what to do with it:

Give it to a foodbank.  (I don't think they want a piece of meat that expired while George H.W. Bush was president, but I could check into it.);

Donate it to Science.  (Does Science need a dead pig that’s as old as my daughter?  Does anyone have an in with Science?)

Cut a small hole in the can, leave it in the garden, and see what happens;

Open the can, dispose of the ham properly in a food waste bin, rinse and recycle the can;

Give it to Pesha, who said she’d take care of it for me in gratitude that I’m dealing with the crazies and she thinks she might have assigned that to me.

Still accepting suggestions...

Ham in a can*

Last night, shortly after I arrived home from an excellent weekend with other people’s teenagers, my own came home. Soon I noticed a canned ham on the counter.

“Hey, R., what’s with the canned ham?”

“Dad sent it. And by the way, this isn't a zit on my nose. It's a second, smaller nose.”

"I was wondering when your second nose would start coming in. Why did Dad send the ham?”

“Because his girlfriend brought it from Oregon where she’s cleaning out the house of a dead person. And of course, she and Dad are both vegetarians.”

Okay, let’s back up just a second and say that I hope I don’t seem like the kind of person who wants to eat canned ham (ever), but I must say I was intrigued to be the recipient of a canned ham donated by my ex-husband’s girlfriends’ dead customer. The ham, alas, expired in 1991, which may explain why it wasn’t donated to a food bank. Should I just get the cats? Truth, please.  Because this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened.

And alas, so much material from the weekend with 30 middle school people, but I probably shouldn't write about that. I will confess that I have a huge crush on Port Townsend, and would move there in an instant if I had a job, house, no kids to consider, friends, and it didn't require leaving all my freaky obsessions. Other than that, I'm there.

Wrong side of the fence

They built a locked fence around the access to our beach, which, if this were a book, would have been foreshadowed here. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that I didn’t realize it was foreshadowing at the time.

As a bit of background, I live near a small lake that’s completely developed with homes. My property doesn’t abut the lake, but the community, and I use that term loosely, owns two lots that all of the non-lake front owners use to access the water. One is developed into a beach, and the other is mosty forested, and used for fishing.

I ‘d like to just object to the fence here on my little blog, to my faithful readers. It’s wrong to limit access to water on so many levels, and I don’t want any part of it, and I’m embarrassed to be part of such a bitter, territorial, fear-driven community.

The behavior that is being stopped with the fence? Teenagers coming up here on hot days in the summer and swimming. Yup. And the occasional parent with toddlers, playing in the sand and water.

Dazed.

Oh my, Courtness (I think that accidental spelling means Cortney combined with Countess combined with Goddess), I'm so discombobulated.

I have too much on my plate, so much that I think my stress-induced psoriasis is causing my hair to fall out in clumps. Have any good tips on wigs or fun hats? (No, I don't have an Adam's apple that needs cloaking with a scarf, just bare, scabby patches on my scalp!) And how does the Courtness deal with time management any way?

Next, my city-fied (NYC city-fied no less) daughter actually suggested we take a mushroom growing workshop together. You know, where you drill holes in logs, fill them with mushroom spores (uh, the edible, NON-psychotropic kind) and keep the log damp, in a shady place until you have lovely little shitakes, oysters or what-have-you, yes, mushrooming all about? In all my spare time. High heels, theater, modeling (the daughter, not me, for those three) and mushrooms. And at age 22 she actually wants to do something with me, her mother. Hmm.

Discombobulated is a word that fits, don't you think?

Sign me,

Dazed and Confused

My Dear Confusedness (which is a term for a temporarily confused goddess),

I have read your letter a few times now, and I can't quite think of any good advice.  Just this:  clean the bugs off your windshield (metaphorical and actual), put coconut oil (which is a solid at room temperature) on your scalp, and look forward to all of those mushrooms.  


How does Khortnee manage her time?  She tries to develop an obsession for the things that have to get done, and tries not to care about all the rest.  A little OCD goes a long way.


Yours,
Cortgneee


P.S.  Scarves are where it's at.  Put one over the bald patches, and perhaps over the mushroom log while it does its thing.







--

Hey now

A couple people have asked for more detail on this post.  First, the song.  I know, you've all heard it many times, but go listen to it in case it's been a while.  Here you go.  It really will make your day a little better.

Some of you were confused about what presentation I could possibly be making that starts out with The Scream.  That's an excellent question, and I'm not even sure where to begin, but to make a really long story as short as possible, the presentation is about a little expose research I did on how our effective our agency is.  I got a grant, and evaluated what we do for a couple years, and summed it up in a report that no one has read, and a powerpoint that I've given a half dozen times, but not to the people in my office.  Yes, got that?  I go out into the community and show people where we fall down, but the people in charge have not viewed it.  I keep saying, "um, you might want to see this..."  So, anyway, The Scream is a semi-good segue into the whole thing.

"I was walking along a path with two friends — the sun was setting suddenly the sky turned blood red — I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence — there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." - Edvard Munch, 1/22/1892

And, the exact scarf.  As B. says, "It covers up your old Adam's apple nicely.  No one would ever guess."

And finally, has the meeting been rescheduled? Uh, no, I'm still waiting by the inbox for that meeting request.  I think it's in the category of that excellent E.B. White essay which I think is titled, "Don't get too personal with a chicken."  It's about how if your plan is to kill the chickens, you probably shouldn't give them names and get to know their personalities.

Okay, thanks for being interested.

Love thy neighbor

Last night, I was sitting in my kitchen by myself, when I heard a voice call, “R?”, but they didn’t say the letter, they said the whole name of my son, but the voice was kind of disembodied and a little bit creepy because it was from outside, and not just outside, but the north side, which, well, no one goes there because of the weird neighbor and the lack of sun (except for me when I’m working on what I call My Project, but the children call my Freaky Little Obsession, which is the weed project that I am ultra-devoted to.)

So I’m home alone, trying to figure out if there’s a friend of R’s lurking around in the yard, or a ghost, or something else, and it’s dark out, and sort of late for that kind of thing.  I’m not really the door locking kind, which I know you’re not supposed to post on the internet, but just to be clear, I’m not revealing whether I actually lock the doors or not, just that it’s not my natural way.  My natural way also doesn’t include working in a cubicle, but I do it because I must.  So at any rate, the point here is that I’m not easily creeped out, but it was just weird and unsettling.

About 10 minutes later, R. came home from his job moving the items from the conveyor belt into the bag, and I mentioned how I had heard his name called from the North Side, which also seemed creepy to him.  He had a distracting story about a huge tall heavy guy who came through the line and gave R. a hard time about how last week, R bagged the rotisserie chickens in such a fashion that they spilled and were eaten by the dog, and the huge guy put his hand on R.’s shoulder and said, “I was not a happy camper,” but the story came later.

All I can figure is that the neighbors got another frickin’ cat and named it after my son.  I know, they’re the type of people who actually call their cat.  (That’s not what you do with a cat, is it?  Don’t cats just come and go as they please?) 

Okay, a little rant here.  First of all, I find these neighbors annoying for many reasons, but to give it a tiny bit of substance without getting too petty, I’ll just say this:  They don’t seem to realize that when they toss things that they don’t want any more over the fence, well, the other side of the fence is my actual yard.  Is that a complicated concept?  I thought object permanence was a 9-month old milestone.   Finished with that can of Budweiser?  Toss it over the fence.  Plant a geranium, done with the pot?  Over the fence.   I’ll leave it at that, but you see my point.

So their last cat was huge and angry.  I know, some of you think I just don’t like cats, which isn’t the case at all; the title of the blog is merely a reference to the fact that I’m this close (moves thumb and index finger to almost touching position) to being that person who lives alone with all the cats.  In fact, I am her, except for the living alone part, and the cats.  At any rate, when I go out into my garden, this mean cat would be there hissing and lunging.  I am not exaggerating.  The UPS guy used to deliver their packages to my house, because he too, was afraid the cat.  I know.

Their babysitter, a pretty awesome teenager from across the street, used to be afraid of the cat too, and her dad teased her, “It’s just a cat, K.  I can’t believe you’re afraid of it!”  But then one day, she forgot her phone over there, and asked him go get it, and he drove (yes, lives across the street), and didn’t get out of the car once he saw the cat.  My point is that this particular animal was more like a semi-domesticated cougar.  But the owner used to put a stupid jacket on it, and trust me, the cougars do not like to be dressed in pink fluffy jackets, and it seemed to just piss it off more than ever.

Is it worse to have a bad cat named after your son, a ghost, or a creepy stalker in the yard?