A Season for Everything

Matt called last night. Could I please come get him when I finished working today (I had a half day, remember)? Graduation was tonight. He wanted to see a few friends get their diplomas. Oh, and can I have him home in time to work tomorrow at 4:00 p.m.?

Sigh. It was Tim who answered the phone and Tim who told him “yes.” It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 95 degrees today with very high humidity. It was beyond sweltering on the bus. The last thing I felt like doing was jumping into the car and making the 3 hour round trip to bring Matt home. I did it anyway. That’s what moms do.

So, is he at graduation? Nope. He went, but it stormed and the ceremony was moved inside. Each graduate only gets 2 tickets for family members in that case. And all that rain? It killed his cell phone. He took it to the mall and found out he has to pay a $50 deductable and call the manufacturer to get it replaced.

Taking Matt back tomorrow is promising not to be a simple thing either. The refrigerator started acting up again on Monday….you know, the one that spontaneously fixed itself a few weeks back and the repair guy said he couldn’t fix what wasn’t broke? Well, the repairman is coming back tomorrow. Sometime between 7 a.m. and noon. Replacing the compressor is supposed to take 2 hours. I had to ask my mom to be “on call.” If the repairman comes too late she will take Matt back.

Otherwise, I made it through the last day. YAHOO! I got cards from the kids and even a gorgeous bouquet of roses from a sweet little girl. As for the thorn in my side (the infamous and notorious “D”), his only comment came when he was getting off the bus at school this morning….”I only have to see you one more time.”

Right back at ya, kid. Right back at ya.

There are, as a parent, days when dealing with the offspring are about equal on the fun scale with, oh say, nursing a migraine at a heavy metal concert. Today is one of those days.

You’d think my darling daughter would have had a good enough weekend. Friday night was the final 8th grade dance for the year. She got a new top and skirt of the slinky, sexy, you-look-way-too-mature-for-your-own-good variety; very grown up strappy silver shoes and a press on french manicure. She looked about 20 when she put it all together, did her hair and applied make-up. Did we say anything or suggest that she tone it down in any way? No, because in the scheme of the 8th grade social scene, she was one of the milder examples. Other looks spotted at the dance ranged from prom queen in full regalia, to sex kitten, to street walker, to punkers with an up-yours attitude.

Saturday, my darling daughter took off with one of her aunts for half the day and ran off to hang out with friends as soon as she got home. She had a friend stay over last night and this morning she went with the same friend to the mall. A mere 5 hours or so later, I called her, just wondering when she might be coming home. Not for another couple of hours was the answer. Okay, but I mentioned I wanted her to come home when she got back. KABOOM! My sweet little princess went into pout mode that quickly deteriorated into tantrum mode when I didn’t give in and say she could stay out with her friend as long as she wanted. She got nasty enough that I hung up on her. She called back a little while later all sugar and spice….until she realized she was still coming home as soon as she got back. Again, I hung up on her.

Tim stepped into the picture when the madam got home. He tried talking to her about her attitude and the way she speaks to me. That earned him the most amazing round of eye rolling and pouting. Megan whined to her daddy that she didn’t do anything, that she never does anything, that it’s me. I yell at her and she gets in trouble for everything she does. Dear old dad wasn’t impressed and became less so as she continued her rant and pretty much called me a liar. By the time she had finished, Tim had grounded her and given her an assignment. She has to look up the definition of “respect” and write it 1000 times. Ouch. The grounding ends when the assignment is finished. In the meantime, no television, no music, no phone, no friends.

Since then I’ve been enjoying silent glares, not-so-silent stomping and slamming, an entire symphony of sighs and some fine high drama. Has Her Highness written anything? I have no idea, but if I know anything about her….no.

Don’t think we’re horribly strict monsters and call Children’s Services to report us. This is a rare severe punishment, which is most likely part of the problem. The other parts adding up to the sum are Meg’s A.D.D. and the fact that she is a hormonal brat just as most 13 year old girls are.

I was raised by a man who was old enough to be closer to 2 generations removed from me, rather than the usual 1 between parent and child. Dad came from a generation that believed and taught “children should be seen and not heard.” Now, I don’t buy into that at all. I remember how much I hated that rule growing up. What I do believe in whole-heartedly is that children should show their elders respect. Period. I won’t put up with my child speaking to me (or anyone else) like she is Bart Simpson and I am Homer and as of late that’s what I’ve got.

IN OTHER NEWS:

THE RAIN HAS STOPPED AND THE SUN IS SHINING!!

Elvis is limping around after having jumped out of Megan’s bed Thursday evening (the bed is a loft type thing). He refused to put any weight on his right hind leg all of Friday so I called the vet and we took him in for x-rays on Saturday. The little goof broke his toe and just like with people toes there is nothing they can do. So, once a day I give him a pain pill and he goes on like nothing happened.

I haven’t seen The Da Vinci Code yet so please don’t tell me about it. I’m going next weekend. Last night the girls and I watched Last Holiday with Queen Latifha. It moved kind of slow at first, but it was a good story….a mushy, girly story. Tim hated it.

We started working on the pool this weekend. We’ve got the pump running and the water’s no longer green. Maybe in another couple of weeks it will be warm enough to actually use it.

and maybe your boss, a perspective employer, your college, your bank, your insurance company and who-knows-who-else!? That’s the latest word on blogs and online social sites, like MySpace and Facebook, in particular. While people (teens and young adults are emphasized) use personal web sites to meet people with similar views/interests and most are at least fairly smart about privacy, there are those who use their sites as tell-ALL forums. It’s easy to find sites where the owner brags about drunken weekend (or weekday) binges, illegal activities, and heaven knows what else. Lots of people publish pictures to validate the stories. The thing is, what you put out on the internet is no longer completely private…no matter what you do! It used to be that all you had to worry about was a sexual preditor finding your kids. Now you need to warn them (and take the advice yourself) that colleges check these sites looking for information on applicants, so do some employers (and the number is growing). Insurance companies look for information to see if you have a drinking history before insuring you. So, basically, what the experts are saying is that you shouldn’t put anything out there that you wouldn’t want any of those people to know about. There’s a good article on this in today’s Tribune-Review if you’d like to read more about it.

And as for the weekend…

We drove down to visit Matt (who is getting a copy of the Trib article mailed to him) yesterday and take him grocery shopping. I should have taken it as an omen of how the day would go when Tim stopped at a convience store to buy drinks and Megan got red Gatorade, which she promptly spilled all over herself and the backseat. We had to whip into the next shopping center to 1) buy her a whole new outfit at Target and 2) buy cleaning supplies so Tim could work on the car. That just seemed to set the tone for Megan’s day. She alternated between being in a foul, whiney mood to being in one of her manic moods where she talks (literally) non-stop and pushes everyone’s buttons on purpose for the shear amusement (hers, not ours) of it. I thought I did a fairly good job of being patient at Sam’s Club while she kept kicking the shopping cart away or putting gargantuan boxes of stuff I had no intention of buying into it. It was Tim that finally lost it and since he and Megan are (frighteningly) alike, it was not good. I did my best to calm them both down and they made up on the way home. It just really ruined the time with Matt.

There are so many restaurants down by Matt’s apartment that whenever we go down, we usually try some place that’s new to at least one of us. Yesterday we tried Quakersteak & Lube. The food was good, but that was about all I’ll say for it. The garage decor is okay, but it was as drafty and cold as the real thing. We were seated at a table right near the soda fountain, napkins, silverware, etc., so waiters were congregated there the whole time. And yet, no one waited on us until I put my hand on the arm of one and asked if anyone actually waited on the table we were sitting at. Then there was the whole bathroom thing. It looked like a gas station bathroom. It smelled like a gas station bathroom. It was decorated with framed, glossy photos of men in Speedos (or less). Most disturbing, when you closed the stall door there was a little mirror, about 3″x8″, hung so as to be at eye-level while you’re uh, taking care of business. What? Do they think I’m going to put on make-up at the same time?

Today we’re heading up to our friends’ farm. We were supposed to be going to help install the new kitchen cabinets someone made, but he called them last night and said they weren’t quite done. So, now we get to go just for fun and to help celebrate the wife’s birthday (the cabinets were supposed to be done and get installed as her birthday present…so we’re not mentioning those). I made an awesome Angel Lush with Pineapple Cake

This is Megan and Scooby. Cute, aren’t they?

Daughter surprised me by making dinner while I was out rejoining Weight Watchers last night….cresent rolls, mashed potatoes, and cheesy rice. What’s a mom to do? I ate some of everything and thanked her profusely. In my head I was contemplating bulemia.

Like Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation I am enamored of “good old-fashioned family Christmases.” And like Clark, I will go to great lengths to achieve my goal.

Back in, oh say, September, I got it into my head that I should take my kids to downtown Pittsburgh during the Christmas season so that they could experience Kaufman’s Department Store (sorry, couldn’t find a good link). Kaufman’s has been a cornerstone of Pittsburgh commerce since the 1800’s. The store encompasses 11 floors and includes a restaurant, deli, ice cream shop and auditorium among other things. It is definitely an upscale store and in these days of the Super Wal-Mart, it’s a true dinosaur, the likes of which are rarely seen. But if you’re going to see one, Kaufman’s, at Christmas, is the one to see. They still fill the windows along the street with a wonderland of animated scenes. Anyway, my idea became an urgent, screaming must-do last month when Kaufman’s announced it would be closing its doors at the end of the year. Selling out to Macy’s they said.

We made the trip today. We took Daughter, brought along my 80-year-old aunt (who swung back and forth between being thrilled to crying because she’d never get to go to Kaufman’s again) and stopped to pick Son up at his apartment. We had lunch together at Applebee’s to give the traffic headed to the Steeler game time to thin out. We found a street level parking space in the garage right across the street from the store so Auntie didn’t have to walk too far. And then the fun began.

Bundled up in our heaviest coats, hats and hoods pulled down low against the blowing snow, and Christmas carols playing overhead, we began our wide-eyed stroll past the windows that encircle the building. Some featured bright, festive displays of holiday fashions or housewares, but the real attraction was the windows telling the story of a little girl named Virginia who wrote a very famous letter to the editor and that editor’s even more famous reply. The detail in the displays was amazing and I loved seeing the wonder on the kids’ faces as they took it all in. Then again to see the looks on their faces when they walked through the door and got their first look at the inside. We didn’t buy a single thing but we walked through each floor just so they could see it all and my aunt treated us to ice cream sundaes.

It was a perfect day. To amaze our jaded, materialistic kids was priceless….and so was the joy the trip down memory lane gave my aunt.

and it’s cold and very, very windy. It wasn’t enough, however, to make the powers that be cancel school. Drat. Instead, there was a 2-hour delay which really didn’t improve conditions. I managed in the bus, but all the secondary roads were (and still are) snow covered. With all the wind drifting is a big issue out there in the boonies, too.

I guess the delay did serve one purpose. Daughter informed me at 8:05 a.m. that the 8th grade Christmas dance is tonight, she is going and I need to buy her a dress. Hmm…had it been a normal morning I wouldn’t have seen her before I left. Wonder when she would have let me in on the plans?

Extra strength, please. I’ve been filling out student loan applications on line for Son (we’ve exhausted all the conventional avenues). Well, okay, for Hubby and I, too. Son would be the direct beneficiary of any loan I manage to secure, but Hubby and I stand to gain in that we would actually have two nickels to rub together. Currently, we are paying $700 a month toward Son’s tuition. We are managing now, but I’m concerned how it will go when I am not working in the summer. I’m also worried how we will manage the little things (like property taxes, Daughter’s social life, gasoline) in the long run if we have to keep paying out the equivalent of Haiti’s gross national product every month. We would still make the loan payments, but the amount would be more managable.

Anyway….I’m getting frustrated. So many questions. So many turn-downs. Either we make too much to qualify or, go figure, our credit isn’t good enough. I have filled out most applications 2 or 3 times in different ways each time in the hope that one will contain the magic combination that makes a squinty little loan officer somewhere in some forgotten back cubicle sit up and drool with the desire to give us piles of money. I’ve got one more to go then I quit for now. I can’t take any more.

*An added bonus this morning: Hubby is working on Daughter’s dream room and currently he’s gluing wood. With reallystrong glue. Maybe I won’t care what the nice bank says after a little more inhaling. Mmmm….smells like bananas (honest).

The tree is up! The tree is up! Unfortunately, not much else happened yesterday and most of the living space in the house consists of nothing more than pathways through stacks of plastic storage boxes. I really need to do something about that today. Soon. We have an anniversary party to go to later this afternoon.

Son backed my car into another car at the shopping center near our house yesterday. I am not mad at him. Accidents will happen. I am disappointed. He was supposed to be going to see a friend. He shouldn’t have been at the shopping center. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, he just wasn’t supposed to be there. He freaked out. I remained remarkable calm considering it will probably cost between $500-$1000 for a new bumper and we’re waiting to hear the estimate to repair 3 scratches (so says Son) on the other car. Nobody wants to involve the insurance companies. They’d pay, but then so would we, in the form of higher premiums. The other driver was apparently very nice and told Son she didn’t want to do that with him being a teenager and all.

I like country music. Toby Keith is my favorite entertainer. He’s a good song writer and ok, I think he’s kinda cute in a redneck sort of way. Baby Girl finds this absolutely disgusting….“He’s so old!” Yeah, a whole 3 years older than me (guess that makes me about ready for the old folks home) and one year younger than Hubby (does that make him older than dirt?). I take this attitude in stride and actually play up to it just for the sheer fun of grossing out BG. Then yesterday life threw me a little bone I just couldn’t walk away from. In searching online for Kenny Chesney posters, which I was doing because BG melts in her socks at the mere thought of the man (yes, she does think his tractor’s sexy), I came across an interesting little tidbit. Kenny Chesney, hottest country star on the planet in my daughter’s opinion is a mere 4 years younger than me! Being the loving mom that I am I felt it was my duty to share the information with her at just the right time. Namely when she was starting on Toby while I was singing along in the car. You should have seen the shocked look on her face, quickly followed by about a million thoughts and emotions passing before she conceded….”37’s not so old.” Sometimes life is sweet.