Throwaway Life

I was washing out my roasting pan this morning, and getting all emotional and bent out of shape that one corner has a big ding in it and it's kind of warped. Still, thinking about it makes me want to cry...just a little. It hasn't always been dinged and wobbly- but I borrowed it to someone this year and it got damaged when they moved.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I'll get you another one!" he said.
"No, no, I don't need a new one, it used to be my grandmas" I said.
And I got that blank stare that means "why the hell are you upset about that old hunk of crap, we have the technology, they have bigger better shinier faster touch screen roasting pans now!)

2 roasting pans, one small, one large
2 (used to be 3) Pyrex mixing bowls
2 cast iron frying pans
1 old square cake pan
1 wire whisk...
7 really orange Fire King coffee cups
...old, well used, perfectly, wonderfully, good things.

I have somewhere along the way discovered a love for vintage Pyrex and Fire King glassware- I know I'm not the only one, you can see on  EBay it's a booming collectors trade these days- but here and there my collection grows, as friends and loved ones come across a piece and think of me and my little fetish. It's not just because they're nifty looking (a lot because they're nifty looking), but they used to belong in someone else's kitchen. Maybe someone who loved to bake and cook as much as I do. How many great birthday cakes started out in those bowls?

Besides that, why go buy new ones when these are perfectly good?

I was gifted a beautiful shiny new roasting pan this year- not because there was anything wrong with Nan's, but it wasn't big enough for the Thanksgiving Pterodactyls we like to cook.

I am a consumerist slut. No kidding. I don't even know how I got to this. I (we)  own an OBSCENE amount of unnecessary, superfluous CRAP. We have more than one working version of nearly every electronic item we could ever need, and when one  stops working, TRASH! Away it goes. REPLACE!

Yeah, I'm bouncing all over the place here- I think I forgot how to write this year, bear with me

Break, Trash, Replace

That is the model of our society. The gadgets we buy are already obsolete by the time they hit the store shelves. And they aren't designed to last. The camera button on my cel-phone stopped working, and the guy at the phone store laughed at me when I asked about getting it fixed. "It's cheaper to get another phone". We're at iProduct version 17 now and people haven't even peeled the plastic off the last model before they're lining up for the next one.

SO much crap. I could do away with all of it... except for the internets machine I guess...and the phone... oh crap. where to begin?

I guess where I'm going with all this... Wouldn't it be something if they made things to last anymore? This Throwaway mentality, and super-consumerism and the Happily Ever After expectation we've been programmed to look for... it's spilling over into all the aspects of our lives.


Car doesn't work? too expensive to fix? spend 4x as much plus interest over 5 years for a new one! People will sign for a car loan on longer terms than they can commit to a relationship! Wife won't bake cookies anymore? Too expensive for a boob job? Lose half your stuff and say bye to the kids and GET A NEW ONE!

What the hell?

It appears I don't have a point. Just a lot to wonder at.

The Boss of You

(a love letter to my 8 year old son)

There is a difference between "You are responsible for you and only you", and "I am the Boss of You". You are the only one who can make the choice whether to mind and follow the rules, but ultimately, I am the one who gets to decide what those rules are. I am the one who can force you to mind. I will use reason, and if that doesn't work I will use consequences, and failing that, I will use ultimatums. Because I am your mother. I carried you and birthed you and I survived your colic and your projectile poo. I am still dealing with your bodily fluids to some degree, I am the one who feeds you and picks up after you and makes you feel better when you're sick or sad or hurt. So yes, I get to decide what time you have to go to bed. I get to tell you that you must do your homework as soon as you get home from school. I get to make you clean up your room and learn to do your own laundry. Its my job. Eventually these decisions will be yours to make. Like when you're finished school and capable of supporting yourself and NOT living in my basement. THEN you can stay up all night, wear dirty underwear, eat cheese whiz and ketchup sandwiches and use swear words. It won't matter to me if you leave the house with every light on and the refrigerator door open. It's my job right now to teach you that this is how life works. This is how you get enough sleep, this is how you get the right food, this is how you handle your responsibilities. When you're on your own, that's when you get to experiment. Get your electricity cut off. Get scurvy. Sleep through your alarm and be late for work. Tell someone to go fuck themselves and find out what that means and what happens when you talk to people like that. Your first girlfriend will ask you if you were raised by wolves, or in a barn or something and you'll have to tell her "Actually, my mom would have kicked my ass for behaving like this". You will know how to cook at least 10 different meals, and operate a vacuum cleaner and an iron and how to shop on a grocery budget. Maybe by then you will even be proficient at wiping your own ass! So it will be a choice to live like a pig. Right now though, and for the foreseeable future, we do things my way. So fight it if you like, but you need to accept the fact that I AM the goddamn boss of you. And even if you never suffer the urge to thank me, you'll be glad for the skills. I promise.

The Job Hunt

An open letter to all the wonderful people who haven't hired me yet.

To whom it may concern,

Seriously, just call me. I'll put on my least disgusting hoodie and a clean pair of jeans and a charming smile, and come down and talk to you about the job. You'll like me, I promise. I'm funny and clever, and by the end of our little chat, you will want to hire me.

Yes, I really can do anything. I am very, very smart. Hand me a scalpel and stand me over a bursting appendix, and I will do just fine. I can also answer the phone, deal with miserable people, count change, and streamline your inventory control system. I make terrific coffee, and I will always remember what you like in it. I have an over developed sense of urgency, which means I am usually waiting outside in the parking lot half an hour before the traffic issue that will cause everyone else to be late that day.

No, I did not finish school. Nobody is perfect. Now I am a 30 year old mother, and the time and money involved in going back to train for "How to Take Minutes", and "Avoiding Workplace Harassment" just aren't there. I just want a job. Something I can do to get out of the house, pays more than I need to fork out for childcare, and makes me feel useful.

I don't like to be bored. Give me something to do when there's nothing to do. Or let me bring a book. I'm going to need time off sometimes. I am first and foremost a mother, and my vomiting child will always trump your business needs. Also, my husband makes more money than I do, and gets more vacation time. We go places. You will like when I come back with a tan and a smile- I will bring you wonderful things from far away places, and be a better employee for it.

I have an amazing sense of humor. If laughter and joy are against the rules in your workplace, maybe don't call me. People do die of The Brain Fog and I don't want to be another statistic of that epidemic. But you should know, I will make it more fun to work there.

So, if you feel you can provide a work environment suitable to my wide variety of skills and strengths, or are willing to take a chance on your appendix, please call me. I have several references from people who can attest to my extraordinary personality and abilities. And there's no harm in offering me a great job; the worst thing that could happen is I turn you down.

Should Have, Could Have...

Indulging in regret, is a self defeating game if there ever was one. But I like games. As I look through my tiny collection of old family photos, I indulge (let's just call it nostalgia). I sigh and I wonder as I turn them carefully over and peer at the unfamiliar handwriting on some, and smile sadly at the so familiar hand on others. Names and dates and places on many of them are just as perplexing as the ones that have been left blank. There is no-one left alive to tell me about any of them. I scour my brain for snippets of recollection- I'm sure she must have told me about these people! Some of them she even wrote into songs! And it's all faded away, crumbling at the edges, yellowing with time in front of me.

It was all so meaningless when I was younger. Bored and dazed I would sit through the family gatherings; I would let my mind wander away while my aunts and uncles and Grands and Greats would reminisce. I would roll my eyes when Nan brought out the guitar and everyone would join in and sing about that thing that happened at Boundary Falls, and dissolve in hysterical laughter when they got to the chorus in another song about so-and-so's daughter.

Those things bored me TO DEATH once upon a time... and while I have access to a fairly comprehensive geneal...yawn...um, yeah. I look at those pictures and wonder. Who were you? Who were your kids? Have I met any of them? Do they look like me? I have a mental list of last names that are supposed to trace back to common descent from some very large families. I meet an Armstrong or a Love or a Field and I have to resist temptation to start grilling them for their parents names and where are they from. Are you my people?

And what do I tell my son? He won't listen anyway; he'll be taken over by that same glassy eyed stupor I used to suffer. Someday he might want to know and what is there to tell him? Worse, what if I'm not there for him to ask? Haha, now I'm indulging in regrets that haven't happened yet. Who are his people?

We live in an era of immediate access to information. Anyone can turn on a computer and search for the origin of a family name. And for those willing to pay (an arm and a leg) they can join websites that bring people together from around the world to sit in the shade of their digital family trees. Somehow that's not the same. We've lost something. We've lost the context; the value of oral history. I can google my great grandparents and there they are, on screen, scanned in, immortalized by the internet. But where are their memories? What was it really like to get on a boat and set sail for another continent to make a life? And who is that in the picture in front of that cabin with an apparently dead bear? Who was behind the camera?

This makes me guilty about how lazy I can be- I should be preserving what I can, and creating a physical history to put in my son's hands someday. If not for him, for his children. Maybe they will look like me. They will be my people too.

Plight of the Non-Migratory Creature

Those are Light Pillars. Go look it up.

I have to leave the house today. And not to go visit friends, or do anything "Fun". I have to go do grownup things; Get gas, walk a friend's dog, go to the bank, get groceries... I am, this instant, just short of a full blown panic attack. It is winter, I am depressed, and I'm not ashamed to say it.

This is supposed to be the month of Escapruary. We're supposed to be days away from getting on a plane and going somewhere else. (of course, travel also fills me with anxiety and dread, but the payoff is always worth it)

However, this year we are foregoing the traditional Escapruary Exodus for a trip in April instead. April is a LOOONG way away. April may as well be forever or never. It's weeks and weeks of grocery shopping and gas getting and school lunches and un-fun trips to Cubs. I want to be warm and drunk, and preferably not on my livingroom floor in front of the fireplace at 2 in the afternoon!

I was in the same shape this time last year, and the year before that, so I know that this too shall pass. In the mean time, I will put on my Big Girl Underpants (the ones that say Thursday), and a coat and a hat and mittens... and go do all the Important Things. In the cold.