I'm so very versatile...

I woke up this morning not feeling the best because I am having a mid-life crisis.  Why?  Oh, because I'm 41, I'm a substitute teacher (OMG), I've never lost the weight I swore I would lose, I have disgusting night sweats/farts and facing all these facts is sobering, to say the least.  Then I got on line and saw that Angie at Angie Uncovered has passed on the Versatile Blogger award to me.

Thanks Angie!  Actually, to be perfectly honest, when I saw what she wrote about me I thought "Omg, that is so sweet!  Oh crap, now what do I have to do?"  because that is just the kind of person I am and as a blogger, I'm not all that versatile.  I'm kind of a one trick pony.  Maybe this is kind of like getting awarded Miss Congeniality in a beauty contest, or winning a "participant" ribbon at school track and field day.

So, the conditions on getting the Versatile Blogger award are to acknowledge the person who gave it to me with some nice words, tell five little known facts about myself, and then pass the award on to five worthy bloggers.  So here goes.

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Angie

I got wind of Angie's blog through The Fred Effect.  He really likes her so I thought I'd check her out.  I like her too.  She's funny and irreverent and always makes me think.  She's feisty and she puts her kids in laundromat dryers if they get lippy.  

You gotta respect a lady who has the cojones to do that!  She's also written some beautiful things on her blog like this, that I find inspiring. Check out Angie!  

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Five little known facts about me

1. I always put the salt in the pepper shaker and the pepper in the salt shaker. I don't do it on purpose but when I fill new ones I always think, "okay, I did this wrong last time and I was sure I was right.  Do the opposite of what you think," and then I do it again and never change it because they never run out at the same time.  So if you ever come to my house for a meal expect to shake the shit out of the pepper shaker to get five measly flakes, and expect to get enough unwanted salt on your food from one little shake to make you thirsty for a week. 

2. I once fed my whole family a turkey that when I took it out of the packaging I was pretty sure was past it's prime because of the over powering dead-body smell.  I just cooked it longer than usual.  It was delicious and nobody got sick, but also, nobody appreciated it when I told them I was sure the turkey was rotten before I cooked it.  Lesson: keep your trap shut when you serve rotten yet delicious food to people.  Ignorance is, apparently, bliss.  

3.  My sisters and I stole a bus-tour in Washington D.C.  The bus was a double-decker open-top and the website said that it was a "hop on hop off" type tour.  You buy a ticket for 31 dollars and then you can hop on or off any of their busses all day.  We hopped on and nobody was there to take any money.  We toured for about an hour and then hopped off.  I felt more invigorated than guilty.  I think this might lead to a life of crime.

4.  When I was about eight years old I used to put super-balls in my tube tops because I was sure I was convincing the whole neighborhood that I was in the midst of puberty.  I can't believe the confidence I had that I was fooling everyone.  Turns out I wasn't really fooling anyone because not only was it obvious that a scrawny second grader isn't in puberty, but I wasn't very careful about making sure the superballs were the same size or that they were even.  People probably just thought it was a clever place to keep my balls.

5.  I love to pick things and peel things which is not a little known fact about me, but what is a little known fact is that when Sam was little and would get scrapes or bug bites, he would never EVER pick the scabs and if left to his own devices would let them heal on their own until the scab fell off (can you imagine?) When he was sleeping I would sneak into his room and pick the scabs that I had spotted that were totally ready to be picked.  I'm not proud of it, but if he wasn't on to me, and if he still got as many scabs, I would do it again.  

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And the Award goes to...

1.  Anne at Life Is Good because she is my friend, and I love her and I love reading her blog.  She is a great mom and wife and is honest and funny and positive.  

2.  Kady at A Lady Reveals Nothing because she has just about the funniest blog I've ever read. Her blog is about her life of travels and adventures, tampons and poop, her crazy family and her adorable roommate.

3.  Jane of Jane's Junk and Treasures.  Her blog is about decorating and organizing.  She's funny and has great taste and does some amazing projects.  She hasn't been blogging that much lately because she's busy being a good daughter, but she'll be back and when she is, check her out.  

4.  Lawrence at The Lawrence and Julie and Julia Project.  I'm giving him the Versatile Blogger award ironically because of the ridiculous corner he has painted himself into blog-wise.  He is watching the movie Julie and Julia every day for a year and blogging about it, much like Julie Powell made a recipe from Julia Child's cookbook every day for a year and blogged about it.  He's almost to the end and he's losing his mind.  

5.  A. from Milk and Cake.  I don't know if she wants me to put her name on the blog because it isn't even on her blog, so I just put A.  I stumbled on her blog a few years ago by pushing Next Blog and I've read her ever since.  She is very Versatile!  She blogs about her family, her job, her projects, food etc, etc.  I especially love the projects she does.  She's very creative and I would love it if she would come to my house and make me some stuff.  

Working

I haven't been subbing nearly as much as I would like this year so I am taking jobs that last year I would have turned down.  For instance, gym.  I'm not a gym teacher.  I don't like noise and I don't like to try to yell over loud echoing noise in humongous gyms because my voice isn't very loud.  But I do have my very own whistle for just such occasions!  I taught middle school gym last week and they were swimming in the pool.  They are very cute in a pool because some of them are soooooo skinny that they can barely float.  Fat is like a life vest.  My fat is my life vest.  I'm only tubby in case I ever find myself stranded in the ocean for days at a time.  I could do it.  I could tread water for days.  In fact, I couldn't NOT tread water.  I could never drown because I'm too buoyant. So if you ever hear that I drowned, I have been murdered.  I pop up like a cork.  Even when I try to be stealthy and swim under water, my butt pops up.  Oh well.  I'm not chunky, I'm buoyant.  Like a bubble.

I taught third grade last week which is my favorite grade, but this particular class is about 1/3 behavior problems so it was a challenge.  You know what I've noticed about kids since I've been teaching?  Little boys who have mohawks or earrings are little assholes.  And I've seen the same boys without the mohawk and they are NOT assholes when they don't have that strip of long hair running across the top of their otherwise bald head.  Moms, don't let your little boys get a mohawk.  It's not cute and it turns them into little dicks.

Beth's Help

Amy and Beth and I were determined to get some good pictures of ourselves while we were on our trip.  We are constantly taking pictures, but they are usually of our kids who don't really take bad pictures.  Beth was a bit stunned by my total inability to take a good picture, which led me to record some Bethisms (thanks for the idea Kady and Summer) so she thought she'd help me out by snapping candids of me when I wasn't expecting it, thinking that maybe if I didn't know a camera was pointing at me, she could capture the real me.  These are some of the shots she got.

Walking the streets of Annapolis:

On the train to NYC:

And then: Finally!  A half-way decent one!

(That's me on the left)

Bethisms from our trip:

"Amy, you re-ran over that squirrel"

"If I took my kids on a plane, I'd drug them."

"The new cool will be having LESS Facebook friends!"

"What are you doing with your face?"  said everytime she looked at a picture snapped of me.

Thanks, Beth!

Does this make you mad too? Why does it make me so mad?

I got in the car after work and I caught the last five minutes of Talk Of The Nation on the radio and was instantly enraged.  Usually I only half listen to the radio but something about this caught my attention.  A man was talking about how nobody understands his plight and how much he's sacrificed in his career and personal life, and how his male friends can never understand what he's gone through and how his kids are better because of it blah blah blah blah, and I thought, surely this man must have done some amazing, heroic act so I kept listening to hear if it was something like donating his bone marrow to 1000 strangers, or saved a family from a burning building, but no.  What, you ask, could the heroic thing he did that he and Neal Conan both were patting him on the back on a national public radio show?  What amazing sacrifice has he made?

He stayed home and raised his kids.  Yeah, that's right.  There was a show all about how wonderful and  unique and noble this guy is because he took on the unbelievably difficult job of care of his own offspring.  I was driving, and frothing at the mouth and was digging out my phone to call in to the show and then the show ended and now my only outlet is to write about it on this blog.  When a woman stays home and takes care of her own kids BIG DEAL.  If anything there are hints that she's selfish because she isn't contributing to the financial well-being of her family because really, shouldn't the woman of the new millennium really be expected to bring home at least half the money AND take care of her kids and family and house?  Not only did this man on the radio not express any guilty feelings for not possibly doing enough for the family, but he got on the radio and bragged that he provided the primary care for his own children!

In this same vein, a friend on Facebook posted an article that some idiot woman wrote in to an advice column to ask about how come her friends with kids always say they are so busy.  What are they doing all day?  How hard is it to take care of a couple of kids?  AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!  Here it is:

I love the reply, btw. But why is it that when a woman does a job, any job except maybe race-car driver, the general consensus (from both males and females) is "Eh, so what.  Couldn't she possibly do a little more?" But when a man does it he brags about it and pats himself on the back and gets paid more money than his female counterparts.  Yeah, women still only make about 80 percent of what men make for doing the same job.  Maybe it's because men know how to toot their own horns better than women. I don't know, but it really bothers me. The thing is, I stayed at home with my kids when they were small and I totally agree with the braggart on the radio that it IS a hard job, but I would NEVER go on a radio show and brag that I decided to do a job that millions and millions of other people do every day, and act like I invented the idea of providing primary care of my own children. And the fact that he got a national platform to brag about doing something that women have traditionally done for thousands of years, what the hell? 

You know, I don't know why this makes me soooo mad.  I only heard about five minutes of the show so maybe the guy really did do something phenomenal.  Just a minute, I'm going to look it up....

Okay, I looked up yesterday's show and the guy is named Pat Byrnes and he stays at home with his daughters and he writes a cartoon about being "Captain Dad."  The cartoon is kind of cute but again, how many moms stay home with kids and then write hilarious blogs about it?  Tons.  None of them get on Talk of the Nation.  Here is something Byrnes said that exemplifies why he pissed me off so much:

There are more than 150,000 stay-at-home dads these days, according to the 2010 Census, but Byrnes says there's more to it than that. "There are a lot of dads that kind of share the responsibility," he says. "I mean, I know at least two firemen [who] work their, you know, 24-hour shifts. They got a couple of days. You know, they trade off with the mom. So that's becoming more and more common where dads are, you know, manning up and taking care of the kids."

Manning up and taking care of the kids?  Seriously?  Men who work but also look after their own kids on their days off should somehow be praised for it?  Oh my god.  

My Favorite Picture

Oh my god, we are so in love

Russian Samovar

I have a couple of stories for you from my sister's vacation.  We had tickets to see Wicked at the Gershwin theater for Tuesday night, so before the show we planned on eating at Russian Samovar.  I chose that restaurant because when I looked up "good placed to eat in Midtown" when I was planning our itinerary, that name kept popping up.  I'm not much of a fan of Russian anything, but that restaurant kept getting rave reviews, so I thought we should check it out.  When we walked in I didn't think we were in the right place.  It looked like a bit of a dive.  What caught my eye was the light fixtures with wires hanging out all over the place.


Here's a picture of Amy and you can see the light fixtures, but you can't really see the wires.  Oh well, believe me, it was a bit weird. 

We decided to be totally Russian and drink vodka and eat caviar.  The waitress who was an adorable Russian girl with a thick accent brought us a list of flavor infused vodkas so we ordered some. 

The first one I got was lemon and it was pretty good.  Next I ordered a chocolate one and the waitress looked me square in the eye and said, "No."  I said, "Pardon?" and she said, "No. Is no good."  So I told her to get me a good one.  She brought me pear.  It was good.  We ordered our caviar:

See, it's served with little pancakes and onion and boiled egg and sour cream.  It was surprisingly delicious.  A bit fishy but guess what?  It's FISH EGGS!  I ate fish babies and they were delicious.

"Thank you ma'am, your babies were delicious."

Sometimes I feel bad about eating meat because I've seen footage on factory farms and how meat is processed and it is so barbaric and gross I can hardly stand it, but I don't think I will ever think of fish as an animal.  When we go to the Great Lakes Aquarium and see all those fat salmon swimming around it just makes me ravenous. 

Anyway, we had a wonderful time there drinking vodka, and eating appetizers and desserts (cheesecake and little tiny doughnuts with a raspberry sauce that was so good you could have eaten it with a spoon).  We loved our waitress and so we were trying to figure out how to say thank you in Russian and when I looked it up on my translator on my phone, this is what came up:  Спасибо.  I was looking at it for a few seconds and my sisters said, "What does it say?" and I said, "I don't know.  I don't know how to pronounce 'six'," but we figured it out and thanked her in Russian like the dorky tourists we are. 

Because we are middle aged and have to pee every 20 minutes, we asked our adorable waitress where the bathroom was.  She pointed us through these heavy velvet curtains to a staircase and said, "Up there," so we went upstairs to the exact room where Mikael Barishnikov took Carrie on their date on Sex In The City.  It was totally empty until a tough-looking man came shooting out of a back room, looked us over and said, "You must go downstairs."  We told him we were looking for the bathroom and he said, "Downstairs" and herded us to the staircase.  We decided to hold it.  When we were walking to the theater Beth said that the waitress probably sends women who she thinks would be good for selling into white slavery up the steps (aww, thanks!) but the guy got one look at us and thought to himself, "No.  Too old.  Too fat.  Couldn't make the profit margins," so he shooed us away.  Rejection!  We couldn't make a profit as sex slaves. Oh well, one less thing to worry about, I guess. Which reminds me of one more quick story from the trip:  One day we were walking around downtown Washington and there was a guy playing a banjo at an outdoor produce market.  He was just playing, not singing.  He was pretty good until I walked past him and he started singing "Where have all the young girls gone...hmmmm hmmmm hmmmm hmmmmm...." to the tune of Where Have All the Flowers Gone.  Hey Banjo Guy, you are no spring chicken either so SHUT IT. 



Another picture of MEEEEE!

Remember when I told you I am the most unphotogenic person in the world and you said to yourself, "Face it honey, you're just not as good looking as you think," but then felt bad for being so snotty?  Well, I may not have the face (or body) of a supermodel, but I really really am unphotogenic and it is well known in my family.  After my Grandma died and we were super sad and cleaning out her apartment, we were looking through her photo albums and my aunt would giggle quietly to herself and then show me a picture of my Grandma and me where I look like a total fool (every picture) and say, "This is a good one of you."  Some of them my face looked like I was a serial killer, some of them my hair was sticking out in tufts from my temples for no reason, and some of them I was in adolescence.  Mostly I just looked incredibly fat.

Well, I sent her a picture of my sister and I and Corn Husk Lady and this is what she said, "Whoa!  CUTE PICTURE OF YOU!  WTF!"  and I don't know if she is being sarcastic like when she was looking at the picture of me and my grandma when I was in my twenties but was wearing a polka-dotted dress fit for a toddler and for some reason was making my mouth like I had an overbite and no lips, or if she really means it.  You be the judge.  

Other than the fact that my left eye socket looks empty, it's not too bad!

Corn Husk Lady

When my sisters and I went to Mount Vernon last Saturday, it happened to be Family Fall Festival Fun Day, or something like that.  That meant that it was rather crowded with people with little kids which was obnoxious.  Not because I mind little kids.  What annoys me are the super parents who are obviously making up for something by being WONDERFUL PARENTS in public in the loudest fashion they can manage.  After we parked the car and were walking to the property, we were sort of in a crowd of people walking the same way, and one of the people was a little girl named Zoe, although I'm almost positive her parents spell it with umlauts, but since I don't know how to make umlauts on the computer, I'll just settle for writing it the pedestrian way, Zoe.  I know Zoe was in the crowd with us not because Zoe was being naughty, or running into the street or anything, I knew her name was Zoe because her dad was being SUPER! and kept saying her name. "Having fun yet, Zoe!" "Zoe, let's race!" "Zoe, hop on my back and I'll run and make really loud plane noises in a fun way that's really irritating to anyone within twenty yards."

Before we even got in the doors my sisters and I gave each other conspiratorial looks that said, "First thing: Ditch Zoe."  Which we did.  It was a gorgeous day to be at Mount Vernon, (but then again, there isn't a bad day at Mount Vernon), so we walked all over the property and saw the gardens and there was a special festival down by the threshing barn and there was a George Washington impersonator talking about the revolutionary war.  He was very compelling, but didn't look like Washington.  He looked like Henry Winkler. (I wonder if it was Henry Winkler? OMG!)

In one of the barns people in old-timey clothes were helping people make corn husk ladies.  Amy and Beth and I made some.  Amy's was perfect.  (I think she makes them in her free time.)  Beth's was weird.  It had a tiny pin head and three arms.  How do you even get three arms?  Mine was okay but only because I re-did it about four times until I was satisfied.  I love her with her crazy hairdo and her nutso face.

I took her with me everywhere.  Here she is in front of the Washington Monument.

Here she is peeking over a wall at the WWII Memorial.

Here she is with the Empire State Building.

And her she is spying on Amy over the bathroom stall.  Oh Corn Husk Lady, you're so silly!

Continuation of my "Gift"

Directions from the sisters on this self-portrait as we were standing in line waiting to get into the Mount Vernon Mansion: "Let's look up (to minimize double chins) and off into the distance (to look contemplative and beautiful and deep)."  Needless to say, it didn't work out!  Son of a bitch!  I don't look contemplative and beautiful!  I look like a dork.  I actually look like I'm honking.  Amy didn't do much better.  She looks crazy.  Beth looks okay, but she didn't follow directions.  Notice the guy behind us giving us the rabbit ears.  If this would have actually turned out to be the only good picture of me in the history of the world, I would have punched him in the guts for ruining it.

Take two:  Not much better.  Amy is still laughing hysterically about take one, I don't know what I was doing.  What is wrong with me?  Beth is actually following directions and does look contemplative and deep.  Good job, Beth.  Connnnnnnngggggggrrrraaaatttuuuuuullllaaaaattttiiiooooooonnnnnnsssssssssssss.

First Impressions of NYC

My sisters and I took a quick trip to New York on our sister's vacation.  I have never been to New York before so I was very interested to see what it is really like.  I found it to be very complex and dichotomous.  For instance, the women there are slim and trim and stylish and I'm not.  So I felt like a butterball rube, but at the same time EVERYTHING is so BIG in New York that I felt insignificant and teeny.  So, a teeny butterball rube.  Not the best feeling, but whatev. 

Another thing I noticed was about the cleanliness.  As we were walking the streets of Manhattan we saw people obsessively sweeping, hosing down, and even vacuuming the sidewalk, but take another few steps and you can get caught in a cigarette-butt tornado.  Which was super gross.  Beth got caught in the middle of one and she was trying to run out of it and was waving her arms and spitting.  She said she had grit in her mouth after that for a long time.  Gross.  Important: when you get caught in a cigarette-butt tornado KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.   Also, do you ever notice on shows set in NYC how "gritty" things look?  Like smudges on doors and just general dirtiness that you don't see around where you live?  It's really like that.  It's an amazing place but it's like the general housekeeping of the entire city is the responsiblilty of an apathetic octogenarian with poor eyesight and a bad back.  I don't think anything below hip level has been wiped down in the entire city in at least a decade. 

We went to a few restaurants while we were there and the food is GLORIOUSLY good.  One night we went to Russian Samovar and had real Russian vodka and caviar.  It was so good.  I've never had hard liquor that didn't make me cough and spit but this vodka was actually smoooooooth.  And who knew caviar would be good?  It was served on little pancakes with sour cream, red onions and boiled egg.  Of course, rabbit turds would probably also be good on pancakes with sour cream.  Later we went to a place called Sosa Borello.  We had some appetizers that were heavenly.  In the morning we went to the New Cosmic Cafe for breakfast.  Fabulous.  New Yorkers know how to eat. 

We also saw the Occupy Wall Street protester camp in Zucotti park.  Zucotti park is REALLY small.  I was fired up by the whole thing and was ready to start marching and carrying a sign, but Amy said she wanted to run through the camp and bang on tents and yell "GET A JOB, SLACKERS!"  She didn't do it. 

I have to stop now because I have to catch my plane to go home, but more later on this, Washington, the Sisters, Mount Vernon etc etc.  BYE!

Embracing My Gift

Amy and Beth and I went to Mount Vernon yesterday to bask in all that is George Washington.  Since this is a sister's vacation, it is important to capture the many moments on film (well, not really film, but you know, pictures).  Unfortunately for me; not, apparently, for my sisters; I am the most unphotogenic person on the entire planet.  I think I've taken about three good pictures in my entire life.  I don't know what happens to me.  I don't know if it is because I feel self-concious because I know a camera is pointed at me which causes me to make weird faces, or if I actually am hideously ugly on a split-second by split second basis, but seriously, those of you who have only seen pictures of me on this blog, I am sooooooo much cuter in real life than I am in any picture you will ever see. 

I've decided to embrace this unusual gift and see just how bad I can look in pictures.  My sisters wanted to take a bunch of cutesy pictures of the three of us, but I know I can't do it.  When I try, they look at the picture just taken and say things like, "... What were you doing...with your face?"  Well, I'm done trying to look adorable.  It's not going to happen.  So now I'm going to see just how bad I can look.  I am shockingly good at this. 

This is the first picture that this occured to me.  Amy wanted to take a picture of me in front of a model of George Washington's house.  In a split second this is what went through my mind:  "Oh great, I'm going to look like a moron.  No, I'm going to look like a huge moron because I'm in front of this tiny house.   Like Godzilla.  No, furrier, like King Kong.  Screw it."  And that is when I decided that if I'm going to look like King Kong anyway, I might as well not look like King Kong trying to be cute because that's pathetic, I might as well just look like King Kong doing what he does best.  I think the picture is pretty good.

Then Amy and Beth decided they want to get a cute picture of the three of us together.  It's not going to happen.  It wouldn't happen anyway, even if I tried so now I'm just seeing how bad I can make myself look.  Turns out it's pretty bad.

In my defense, they don't look that great in this picture either. 

This one might have been okay if I could take a good picture.  But I can't.  But boy can I take a bad picture!

More to come!  Much much much more!

My New Cloak

Beth came to Duluth tonite because we are going to Washington together tomorrow for a sister vacay with Amy.  She brought me my birthday present.  It's a faux fur cloak.  When I saw her bringing it to the door I thought she was holding a bear cub.  I tried it on and I love it.

I'm going to wear it whenever I'm with her for the rest of my life.  Kira asked where she got it.  Turns out she got it at a gas station.  (That sounds kind of tacky, but I know the gas station she's talking about and they do have some really cute clothes. I've got other stuff from there.) Then I was saying how warm it is and she said, "I know, I used to wear it in the fish house with Lorin," and I said, "How could you wear MY new cloak ice fishing.  It's only October."  And she said, "Oh, it's not new."  She said she bought it for herself not as a joke but she decided she couldn't pull it off because as she said, "The big-breasted woman looks like a tootsie roll in a brown, stretchy cloak."  Then we were talking and I got a bit of fur in my mouth and I said, "I got a bit of fur in my mouth," and she said, "It's probably dog fur.  Tess really likes to lay on that cloak."

De De De...Depression

"Where are you?"  I've been hearing that for a while now from my peeps on the internet and now that I'm on my way back, I'll tell you where I've been.  I've been depressed.  (HA HA! OMG, that's such a funny topic for a humor blog!) Well, it's true. In the interest of being an over-sharer with a blog, I'll tell you all about it. I debated writing about this at all because it's about the most personal thing about me, my biggest vulnerability and all, and frankly, that's nobody's beeswax.  But maybe someone out there needs a depression buddy and if so: HEY! WE CAN BE DEPRESSED TOGETHER! ;o) !!!  LOL!  Just kidding.  I'm starting to feel better so don't bring me down with your sob stories.  Just kidding!  Just kidding.  (seriously, kidding... boy, kidding looks like a funny word after you write it a bunch:  kidding kidding kidding, kidding kidding....)

I've had bouts of depression since college, but I could deal with it and had devised methods of pulling myself out of it, but it got out of control after my second baby was born.  I got major post-partum depression but didn't tell my doctor because in my crazy, depressed brain I thought if she had any idea how I was really feeling she would call social services and they'd take my kids away.  I didn't want to go on anti-depressants because I thought that was a cop-out and if I was any kind of woman I could beat it on my own.  Then one day I misplaced the checkbook and reacted (and felt) like I had lost a child.  During this same time period I also tried to cook popcorn on the stove "old-school" and it burned and ruined the pan and I felt like a total loser-failure worthless piece of shit.  Yeah, that's right, because I screwed up popcorn.

Then one day I brought my little baby out for a walk in the woods with me on a nice day because I thought that might help lift my spirits.  While I was out there I kept having self-loathing thoughts and feeling guilty that my beautiful new baby was going to have to grow up with an insane mother and I had a split second thought that she would be better off if I left her in the woods.  Someone would find her and she'd be fine.  She'd be better than fine.  A part of me recognized the insanity and screamed to me to GET SOME HELP, CRAZY!  I talked to my doctor and told her that I had been feeling sad and tired and worthless etc etc. and she gave me a depression screening.  According to the test I was clinically depressed and she said it was totally treatable and she didn't once suggest that maybe I should not have custody of children.  She put me on Prozac.  About three weeks later the darkness lifted.  To say I felt better is a total understatement.  It was like night and day.

I've had people ask me what it feels like to be depressed.  It's hard to explain to someone who has never experienced it.  It's not a mood, it's an ever-present smothering darkness. Here are some of my personal symptoms:

being terrified (constant terrifying "what if" thoughts with feelings of terror totally out of sync with the situation)
feeling incredible guilt for no reason
feeling worthless
feeling like I am a drag on friends and family
feeling like a prima donna because I'm preoccupied with how I'm feeling from minute to minute and trying to find some way to make myself feel better.  Doesn't leave much room for thinking of anyone else.
feeling selfish
feeling stupid
having physical pain: heaviness in my chest, dull leg/back/headache
self-loathing - constantly sick to death of myself and my stupid brain.
feeling irritating and irritated by almost everything
hopeless - this is it, I'm never going to feel better.
helpless - there is no cure, I might as well accept this as my life.
feeling rage
loss of control
feeling mentally weak
Am tired all the time but can't sleep for more than an hour or two at a time at night.  Could sleep all day.
bored with everything
Tears squirting out of my eyes unprovoked at inopportune moments.
joyless

The stupid thing about depression is that when you are in the middle of it you don't recognize you are in the middle of it.  You think you can get better if you would just decide to get better.  Since I have been dealing with this for so long, I have become more self-aware and can tell when the depression is rearing its ugly head again.  It usually starts with fear.  I think things like, "what if Kira gets run over by the school bus" or "what if Sam gets hit by a car"  (lots of automobile themed fears).  When I register these thoughts I immediately try to think if maybe I've not been taking my Prozac regularly and most times, sure enough, I've not been the best about taking the meds.  Then, after I get back on and stay on, I feel better again.

I don't want to be on medication.  Who does?  When I first moved to Duluth I was off the Prozac.  I think, if I remember correctly, that after I went on them the first time and got better I thought, "OMG, I'm better.  I don't need medication anymore," and I went off them, and I suppose the stress of moving triggered a new wave of depression, and I then had to find a new doctor. My new (not current, thankfully) doctor insisted that if I wanted to continue with my anti-depressants, I had to have a consultation with a therapist.  I was about as open to that as a clinically depressed young mom can be and I went only because I had no choice.  I didn't see the point because NOTHING WAS WRONG.  I didn't need to talk anything out.  There was no real stress in my life.  My depression was completely biological/chemical/physiological, it was literally in my head.  The guy I went to was a total tool.  He tried so hard to be hippie/liberal/new age.  He had a little fountain on a table and he scotch taped some little plastic turtles to the rim.  He was wearing wool socks with Birkenstocks.  To work.  This was the person I was supposed to turn my mental health over to.  Ugh.  I got through the consultation, and because of the depression screening he gave me and the unstoppable weeping that seemed to make him incredibly uncomfortable for someone who should be trained to deal with people having mental breakdowns, he concurred with the G.P. that I was in fact, depressed. Um, no duh.

Since then, through painful trial and error of going on and off medication, trying less and more medication, I have learned that I will probably forever have post-partum depression.  Pregnancy pushed my already depression-prone brain over the edge.  That's depressing in itself, but what can you do?  Accept it, medicate the shit out of it, and move on, that's what.

If you are experiencing depression you are not alone.  There are LOTS of people that have depression (which kind of makes me feel not-so-spesh) If you have depression, take the advice I gave to myself way back when Kira was a baby, "Get some help,Crazy!"  Tell someone. Do something about it because you don't have to live like that.  Hang in there!

(and when I say "Hang in there" I mean it like this:

Awwwww.... cute!

Not like this:

Awwwww.....

Btw, I am in no way qualified to give any professional advice or be a spokesperson for depression.)

Jail: Part II

St. Louis County Jail is maximum security.  Meaning that to get to the where the prisoners are, you have to go through three or four guarded steel doors.  To get in to the first door you have to go through a metal detector that is so sensitive that it always beeps so then you have to be wanded by a guard with one of those metal detecting wands.  There is a long list of things that can't be brought in to the area where the prisoners are even if you don't plan on having them get their hands on it; sharp things, phones, poison things etc, because prisoners are cagey (ha ha, no pun intended) and can do a lot with a little.  I loved working at the jail because it was so interesting, for one thing, and I really loved the women I worked with who ran the activities program for prisoners.  The leader of these women was Robyn.  She was strict and I think now is the big boss at the jail.  


One time Kira found a teeny tiny bunny out in the grass in our yard and brought him in the house and said she wanted to keep it.

It was so small I thought it was a mouse or a baby squirrel or something.  I've never seen a bunny that small.  I didn't think it would live, but I got it a tiny bottle, some kitten formula and read up on bunny raising.  They need to be warm and fed about five hundred times a day.  I thought I was up to the task and I kept up the pace for a few days but then came the one day of the week I was supposed to work at the jail.  I would be gone for 8 hours and I couldn't leave the bunny for that long. The following week we were supposed to take a family vacation to California and I still hadn't figured out what to do with the bunny while we were gone because you can't take a little wild bunny on a plane, can you?  What was I going to do with this little bunny that I had totally fallen in love with?  Kira couldn't be trusted to take care of it, and Mitch wouldn't so I really had no choice but to see if I could smuggle it into the jail. I figured if I could smuggle it in to the jail, I could easily get it past airport security.

I put on my hideously ugly overalls, stuck some velcro on the top of the chest pocket so I could close it so the bunny couldn't poke his little head out and give us away, I put the bottle of formula in another pocket and off I went.  I went through the metal detectors and of course the clasps on my overalls set it off so I had to be wanded.  Thankfully there is no bunny-detecting wand!  I got in and felt like I had just broken out of Alcatraz.  I beat the system!  Now I had to avoid detection for eight hours.

About every 20 minutes I went to the bathroom and fed the little bunny.  I got through the first six hours and was feeling pretty smug.  I wanted to tell someone!  I was just so proud!   Before my last class I went in to Robyn's office with a ridiculous smile on my face. She knew I was up to something.  She said, "...what.....WHAT?"  and I cracked.  I reached in my pocket and brought out the tiny bunny.  The look on Robyn's face was PRICELESS.  She was  stunned, and pissed, and overcome with the cuteness of the little bunny.  She gave me the obligatory lecture about contraband (but Robyn, nobody said anything about baby bunnies that need to be fed every 20 minutes) but then she couldn't help but say, "OOOOOOO!  HE'S SOOOO CUUUUTE!"  and she reached into a drawer and pulled out a perfect sized plastic cage for him and stuffed it with tissue so it was all cozy and comfy.  Apparently I'm not the only one who smuggles in cute animals.  She said I couldn't take him into my last class and I would just have to leave him in her office.  Fine with me.  I gave her the bottle and she snuggled him in her arms and fed him and said, "What were you thinking!"  I told her all about how this was a test run to see if I could get him past airport security and she gave me another lecture about how irresponsible it would be if I did that and he got taken away!  What would happen to him!  She would take care of him!  Jesus!

I went and taught my last class and when I came back to her office it was dark.  I thought she was gone, but she was sitting in there, in the dark, with the bunny.  I said, "What are you doing?" and she shushed me and told me the bunny was sleeping.

So if I can smuggle a mammal into the jail on my person with nobody being the wiser (and notice I said ON my person, not IN my person) what else is being smuggled into jail??? And HOW???  Believe me, you do not want to know.  I'll just tell you one little story.  This guy got arrested and was waiting to be processed so he was sitting on this out-of-the way bench in the booking area and he was handcuffed.  Apparently he was a plan-ahead type of guy, because he was prepared for just such a dilemma.  There was a camera trained on him while he got his pants down and grunted out the handcuff key he had shoved up his anus earlier that day? week? part of his morning routine?, and he unlocked his cuffs. TA DA!!!  It was quite the production which the guards were so fascinated by that they let it go on to see if he could get out of the cuffs.  And then they took his disgusting key away from him and recuffed him.

Jail: Part I

My friend Anne wrote to me and said:

"Hi Sarah!  I have a special request for a blog posting from you.  Will you write about your experiences teaching prisoners?  (you really did that, didn't you?  I mean, I'm so gullible that I'd probably believe you if you said that you taught ASL to chimps.) (which would also be a fun post)."


Anne, I really did teach prisoners at the St. Louis County Jail.  I really really did.  I taught them computer basics and poetry.  We even published a poetry newsletter!  I was trying to think if anything really blog-worthy happened while I was working there and I guess I have a few stories. 


I taught a two hour class of basic computers for the men, and then a two hour class of poetry for the women, and a two hour class of poetry for the men.  The guard would escort about 8 or 10 people in to my classroom and then leave and lock the door behind him.  Locking me in the room with a bunch of inmates.  If anything happened I was to use the phone and call for help.  Or just scream.  I don't think I was ever in any danger, but one time during the women's class a couple of the ladies got into a shoving match which threatened to turn into a full-blown fist fight.  I got in between them and broke it up.  Does that sound brave?  It wasn't.  They were both tiny and weak and one was about 6 months pregnant, and the other was about 8 months pregnant. They both had big bellies and they were willing to get in a fist fight.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  I thought I was on candid camera or something.  I only had to step between them and say, "Seriously??? You're going to fist fight while you're pregnant?  Really???"  Then they sat down and called each other horrible names until the guard could come and bring them back to their cells.  


I really liked talking to them about their lives.  They were very interesting people.  Some were quite intelligent, but had lives where if there was a chance of bad luck, they got the bad luck.  And some of them were incredibly stupid.  One guy came in and told me that he was so mad that he is in jail because he got busted for being in possession of Oxycontin or something like it.  He said he was already on probation and then he got the Oxy and took it but he didn't get high because earlier that day he smashed his thumb with a hammer and the Oxy only took the pain away from the thumb, and didn't get him high.  He was more upset about not getting high than being back in jail.  Idiot.  


There were some murderers in there with me too.  Guys who killed their girlfriends.  They creeped me out.  There was one guy that was there for over a year.  He was soooooo creepy.  He was in for being 28 years old and having a 14 year old "girlfriend."  I think they call that "rape."  He says they had a beautiful relationship.  I say GROSS.  He was skinny and pale and had a devil beard and he became obsessed with me.  I can't remember the exact details of all the creepiness, but I arranged it so he wouldn't be brought to class anymore and then he wrote me letters.  Ick!  The ladies that worked at the jail were really good about not letting him see me or anything, but in the break room they called him my boyfriend and laughed and laughed.  


One guy was there because he went nuts one night when he was high on meth.  He was having paranoid hallucinations and thought someone was after him so he stripped naked and ran down the fire escape and broke into another apartment and took the baby that was in there and he ran.  Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to see a naked guy come into your apartment and take your baby?  In his drug addled brain he thought he was saving the baby from the people who were after him.  I don't know exactly how it turned out, but I know the baby was returned unharmed and he had to go to prison for about ten years.  Whew!  I actually liked that guy when he was off the drugs.  He looked a lot like Jesus and he had a calming effect on the other inmates. Sometimes they would be rude to me and he could totally defuse any impending conflict and make everything calm and peaceful.  I was really glad to see him every week.  I'm sure he would have scared the crap out of me when he was on drugs.  


There were a lot of drug addicts in jail.  Meth was usually the drug of choice and let me tell you, Breaking Bad makes meth use look glamorous.  It's not.  At all.  It's disgustingness can be summed up in two words; "meth mouth."  People that smoke lots and lots of meth have little, smelly, rotten, black stumps where their teeth are supposed to be.  Apparently it is incredibly addictive because when a new meth head would come to jail, covered in scabs from compulsively scratching at his/her skin while high, the other meth heads would "buy" (with whatever the currency is in jail) the new meth head's scabs, yes SCABS, because apparently if you eat a meth head's scabs, you can get a little meth bump.  Here's a little advice for you; if you are ever in the presence of a bunch of meth addicts in withdrawal and they tell you they are willing to eat another person's scabs for a taste of meth; don't say, "Wow, and what would you do for a Klondike Bar?"  They don't think it's funny.  


I have another jail story but this post is getting too long so I'll save that one for tomorrow!  See ya!

Teenagers are Mean

When my kids were little everyone told me how sweet they were, and then they'd add "just wait until they are teenagers! Whew!"  Yeah right, my sweet little boy who was my very best friend was never going to turn on me. Get real!  

Well, he did.  He finally turned on me and broke my heart.  I know it's probably a normal teenager's reduced brain function, or hormones or something, but hey!  It still stings!  

There is a semi-formal dance at his school on Friday.  I asked him if he was planning to go to it and he looked at me like I was crazy.  No way was he going to a dance.  I thought it was only because he was too shy to ask someone to go along with him and threw out a few suggestions from the nice girls I know in his class.  He said no to all of them.  I suggested he go with his best friend.  He still said no.  What could be holding him back?  I know he wants to go.  Who wouldn't?  So I did the only thing a good mother could do.  I offered to go as his date. I offered myself up but it's not a truly altruistic gesture.  I really want to go to the dance.  I LOVED high school dances when I was in high school! 

He said, "NOOOOOOOO WAY!!!!" He acted like I suggested he run naked through the homecoming game.  What's wrong with me?  I've held up!  I'd pay for everything!  I'd even buy my own wrist corsage!  I told him all the advantages of going with his mom and he was not fazed at all!  Can you believe it!  I even suggested a double date with his friend Andy and Andy's mom. Still, he wouldn't think about it for even one second.  He didn't even try to let me down easy!  What a monster!  It's like I'm in high school all over again. 

But I'll show him.  I am going to find another date to this dance and just show up!  Then he'll be jealous!

Here comes Mommy!  Yay!

Kira in the Car

Kira:  Dad, guess what my dream job is.

Mitch:  I don't know.  What is it?

Kira:  Well, it's not really a dream job, but more of a work-related fantasy.

Mitch: ......

Kira:  My dream is to quit a job.

Mitch:  ... okay

Kira: And if I can, I would like to slap someone on the way out.

Mitch:.... huh?  You want to slap someone?

Kira:  It doesn't necessarily have to be a person.

Mitch:  ...?

Kira:  Like, it could be a chicken or something.

Based on this conversation, I can picture Kira getting a job at a factory farm, pissing her boss off, getting into a screaming fight and then slapping her way out of the big chicken pen and a lot of ba-GAWK! screaming from chickens being slapped out of the way.  My sweet little baby wants to go postal in a chicken barn.  When she dreams, she dreams big!

I have an honest to goodness TROLL!

Did anyone watch SNL last Saturday?  There was a skit on about internet trolls, you know, the people who write mean or nonsensical comments on stuff other people have written, and they do it anonymously because they aren't brave enough to even leave an internet handle. Well, I have one now!  I'm kind of torn between being annoyed by it and being happy that I'm getting more comments.  Seriously, comments are so great, even the bad ones are fun to read sometimes.  That said, I am a little annoyed with this person.  I got nine comments from him/her within about 15 minutes on various posts.  I wondered how this angry person found me so I looked at my stat counter page.  Here is their first entry.

As you can see, whoever it is was in Minneapolis, they were using a PC and Firefox as a browser.  They were directed to my blog by googling "girls dad molest" which, Mr./Mrs. Troll, is just a little disturbing, almost as disturbing as the fact that google sent him/her to me.  He/she happened upon a post I wrote about how weird I think Prolife Across America billboards are and his/her first comment was "Thank God we can still kill babies in this country. Fuck ya!"  Well Troll, thank you for the comment, but I don't think you read what I wrote.  I was writing about how weird the "I could ____ before I was (insert fetal age here)" campaign is.  Of course, I'm sure my political opinion on the issue of abortion probably shines through, but that wasn't what the post was about because that is an issue that nobody is changing their minds about.  This is what I can tell about this troll from that very first comment.  He/she capitalized "God" so it is a religious person (probably only when it's convenient, however, because flaming a blog is not something Jesus would do), which probably explains the prolife stance but doesn't really explain the venom.  It is VERY sarcastic, obviously, which tells me that this person is angry in a general way.  I don't really get the "Fuck ya!" Is it supposed to be "Fuck Yeah!" or more of a "Fuck you!"  because I'll take either one, I guess.


Then next comment was made a few minutes later on a post about Kira asking if you startle bees if it makes them poop out a little bit of pollen.   He says to that one:  "Too bad you didn't abort her. She wouldn't be asking such dumb questions."  Okay, more anger but I have to admit, that was a pretty dumb question.  Dumb but funny!  Which is why I blogged about it.  This post has absolutely nothing to do with my stance on abortion, but Mr./Mrs. Troll can't get over that!  Still mad about it!  


The next comment was on another Kira in the Car post.  This one about what kind of plants she would least like to wipe with if she had to wipe with a plant.  To which he says, "Stupid children poopin' up our woods. Get the coat hanger!" which kind of made me laugh because the thought of kids poopin' up our woods makes me smile a little.  Then "get the coat hanger" which taken in the context of the other comments, I am assuming he thinks that I should abort her with a coat hanger for pooping in the woods.  First of all, she's eleven.  I can't abort her anymore.  She's not part of my body anymore.  She's been born.  For eleven years.  Secondly, abortions SHOULD NOT be performed with coat hangers!  I think that's the whole point of the pro-choice movement.  Abortions should be safe, legal and available.  No coat hangers!  Ick!  Dangerous!


Nextly, he/she commented on a post about nightmares I was having while reading the book Roots.  It's a pretty heavy, sad topic so I was having nightmares about babies being taken away from mothers.  My troll said, "Babies taken away? Just think of it as a really late term abortion. See, all better."  No Troll, I don't think you get the point.  If a woman CHOOSES to go through a pregnancy, she can CHOOSE to keep her baby or put it up for adoption.  It's about choice.  The slaves in Roots didn't have any choices about anything at all. Having babies, keeping babies, or anything else, for that matter.  That's what was so nightmarish about it!  They made a baby, loved it while it was in the womb, and then someone told them they had to give it up.  No choice!  Nobody WANTS to get an abortion.  Pro-choice isn't pro-abortion.  It's pro-getting-a-say-in-what-happens-to-your-body-and-your-life. 


A few minutes after that I got a comment on a post about when my niece was born.  My poor troll was starting to lose it and was making less sense.  The post was pretty much a birth announcement and he said, "Fucking abortion, man. I keep telling you but you don't listen. When did the fetus become a person? Oh after its born."  Nobody said anything about abortion so what does this even mean?  A fetus DOES become a person after it is born.  The first several weeks of pregnancy it is called an embryo, then it's a fetus, then after it starts breathing on its own and is separate from its mother, it is a baby.  So, I guess we agree?  I don't get why you're so mad at me.  


Then he commented on a post about what my sister was going to name her baby.  I wrote a post asking for suggestions.  His suggestion was "Abortion,"  which is not a good name for a baby at all.  I think he is still mad at me about the Pro-Life Across America billboards.  At this point I've pretty much decided it is a man who is doing this because women who are pro-life aren't generally so venomous.  This is the kind of anger I have usually seen in men who don't get what they want. 


The next comment was after a post I wrote about possibly the worst day of subbing I ever had.  It was in a remedial reading class full of obnoxious ninth grade boys.  Troll said, "Fucking Sped kids. Failed abortions." which is not a nice thing to say at all.  For one thing, I made a point to say that the kids in the class WERE NOT special ed. kids.  They were just jerks.  I don't think any of them were failed abortions either, but I have no way of knowing.  To be perfectly honest, I don't think abortions fail all that often so I don't know where you are getting your information.  


Next he commented on a post I wrote about how I told Mitch about how sometimes if my pants are tight enough I can make farts come out the top of my butt crack and how he was grossed out about that.  My troll friend said, "marriage abort! marriage abort! marriage abort!" which I don't really get.  What does that mean, Mr. Troll?  That we should divorce over back farts?  I don't think that is grounds for divorce but if it is, don't tell Mitch.  


The last comment was on a post about when Kira asked Mitch what is the thickest piece of beef jerky he has ever seen, which was weird, which was why I posted about it.  The troll said, "Its in my pants" which really made me sure it was a man because I don't think any woman would insinuate that her vagina was like a piece of beef jerky, but then again, why would a guy say his junk was like beef jerky?  Dry, dehydrated, withered and gross?  


So based on the little bit of information I have on my new troll named Anonymous, I think he is probably a man in his 30s living in the Twin Cities and he is mad about abortion because possibly he wanted to have a baby with a woman and she didn't want to.  Or maybe he impregnanted a woman and wanted to have the baby, but she opted for an abortion because sleeping with him was a big mistake, but not enough of a mistake that she should have to pay for it for the rest of her life by being forced to parent a child (poor baby) with him while trying to dodge his anger and venom and drama.    


And because he has a penis like beef jerky.  Yucky!

Kira in the Car

Today on the way to hockey Kira was unusually quiet.  Mitch said, "What are you thinking about?"  Here is their conversation:

Mitch:  What are you thinking about?

Kira:  About a pigeon.

Mitch:  What about a pigeon?

Kira:  I want to get a pigeon and sharpen its beak a little bit every day, and feed it a tiny bit of lead every day.

Mitch:  Why?

Kira:  Then when its beak is sharp enough and has enough lead, I'll teach him how to write, you know, like a pencil.

Mitch:  ....But why???

Kira:  Then after he learns to write I'll teach him how to do math so I don't have to do it.

Happy Birthday, MOTHER!

Today is my mom's birthday.  She is the big 5-0!  Just kidding.  She's way older than that.  Remember?  I'm 41?  I wonder if she would be mad if I said how old she really is today?  I don't know.  Probably not.  Anyhoo, in honor of her birthday I will tell you my favorite story about my mom.  She is very practical and not given to a lot of mushy crapola.


When I was 11 years old, we lived in Australia.  We were visiting the Apostles Islands National Park, which is a series of beautiful cliffs on the coast.


My mom wouldn't let us go within fifty feet of the cliff edge, obviously, but my dad went up to the very edge, and when he looked down he noticed that there was another ledge about three feet below the main cliff and he thought it would be really funny to jump down to the lower cliff because we, being fifty feet back, would think he jumped the whole way down. I think the joke was supposed to be on my mom because Dad told us what he was up to. He went to the edge, looked down, jumped and disappeared. I remember my mom gasped and put her hands to her mouth and then said, "Oh my god! He has the car keys!"


I'd put a picture of my mom up here but she hates having her picture taken, so I won't.  I'll put her Facebook profile picture up instead.  It's not her, it's my niece, but people say that my niece looks just like my mom, so you can use your imagination and pretend you know what my mom looks like:

My mom, however, hardly ever wears a pig hat.  


Happy Birthday to my wonderful, generous, thoughtful, practical, MOTHER!  I love you more than all your kids put together!* 






*suck on that, Amy and Beth.