Name::The Gradual GardenerFrom::New England, United States
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The Gradual Gardener
Saturday, December 31, 2005
An Epidemic
Hey, my dad's got a blog now, too!
www.anothercynicalseeker.blogspot.com
See what you started, House of Prince?
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 2:40 PM :: 3 Comments: 
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Friday, December 30, 2005
Random Stuff...
So we listen to Christmas music when we set our tree up. What are we supposed to listen to when taking it down? Anti-Christmas music (Black Sabbath or something)? Christmas music played backwards? I couldn't decide, so I tried the radio but the station I like was all static-y. So I ended up with the Beatles Yellow Submarine. Hey, it was raining, after all.
I was looking in our local paper, and noticed the YMCA is offering synchronized swimming lessons. Yep, synchronized swimming. I don't want to take the class, but boy, would it be fun to watch.
One packet of oatmeal is not a very filling breakfast.
The people in my neighborhood are weird. I know you think your neighbors are weird, but trust me, mine take the cake. Last night we kept hearing car doors opening & closing, so we figured it was another party at the teenager's house. It went on for a good ten or fifteen minutes, so finally I got up & looked out. Nope, no party. The guy across the street was cleaning out his car. At 9:45pm. In the dark. In heavy fog.
If you've read my previous posts, you'll remember the guy across the street. If I knew how to do links, those who haven't read my previous posts would know about him, too. Would somebody please show me how to do links?
Speaking of the word "weird", when I was a kid my mother had two good friends, who used to joke about themselves as weird, weirder & weirdest. One of them decided to have T-shirts made up, but spelling wasn't her strong point. So when when I got old enough to wear my mother's clothes, one of the shirts I had to choose from said "WIERDER" across the chest. I got alot of funny looks.
Yes, I did do spell-check before I posted this to make sure I spelled "weird" correctly.Spell-check wanted to replace "weirdest" with "heartiest." I find that weird.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:45 AM :: 6 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Thursday, December 29, 2005
The Nativity: Next Generation
Ok, so I've written about how I set up our Nativity when I was a kid, and my sister has commented on how she did it. I don't know how to do links, so if you want to read those entries you'll just have to scroll through the archives. Now let's see how the next generation made out.
I set up our ceramic set, so Joseph & Mary are crammed in the corner with the baby as usual. And in case you're wondering, no, I'm not a control freak; I offered to let my daughter set it up but she didn't want to. However, her Playmobil advent calendar this year was a Nativity (also an entry you'll have to search for. It's the one about Vikings. Anyone want to teach me how to do links?). The Playmobil set is a little different from the classic scene. For one thing, they have a campfire. And cats. Since she got her pieces one at a time, the scene changed daily. Here's a description of the end result:
Mary and the angel are sitting on a bench in the stable. The campfire is right in front of them, with a wooden tripod and a black cauldron over it. The angel appears to be toasting her wand over the fire (hmmm, a wand and a cauldron...kind of makes you wonder what religion the Playmobil designers are, huh? It should be noted that both cats in the set are black). The shepard is off to the left, also sitting on a bench, toasting his hobo bag over the fire (you know, a hobo bag? The kind you would tie your toys up in on the end of a stick when you were a little kid and would threaten to run away from home? I always thought shepherds carried a staff, but this one has a hobo bag). The baby is in his manger, next to Mary, but not in the stable. I guess shelter's not as important for him. Joseph stands on the other side of the manger, holding a lantern. I find it funny that the shepard gets a bench but Joseph doesn't...he always seems to get the short end of the stick. Scattered around the people are a cow, a goat, a donkey with a saddle, and a sheep with two lambs. Oh, and there's a bright green basket with wood in it. And the cats are on the roof.
At one point a few weeks into this, a friend of mine and her eight-month-old son came over while my daughter was at school. I don't have many toys for babies, so I raided the Playmobil Nativity. The donkey and the cow have sharp points, so we ended up giving Mary and the shepard to the baby to chew on (Joseph hadn't arrived yet). Because I didn't want him to choke on little pieces, though, I took off Mary's scarf and the shepard's cape & headpiece first. When they left, I set the pieces back on the cardboard base without properly arranging them. So when my daughter came home she wanted to know why Mary & the shepard were disrobed, lying on the ground to the side of the stable. But hey, nothing happened, because the angel was chaperoning the whole time. I'm sure she would have used that wand to turn them into frogs if they were misbehaving...
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:45 AM :: 3 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Why He's Not Allowed To Hold The Checkbook
My husband is a sucker for anything sold on TV. We have a whole collection of dusty boxes in the basement: Six Second Ab-Machine, Buns of Steel Video Tapes, That Wheel-Thing With A Handle On Each End That You're Supposed To Hold In Both Hands While Kneeling On The Ground And Let It Roll Forward Leading To Cries Of "Help, I Can't Get Up!", etc. etc. The Ab Machine never left it's box, and although the plastic seal on the videos has been broken, a quick glimpse at either of our buns will tell you how often we've used them (steel? try souffle). Last I saw of the Wheel-Thing it was rolling around behind the closet door in the bedroom. I'd assume it's still there, except that I swept behind that door a few weeks ago and didn't see it. Then again, that was a awfully big dust bunny, even for my house...
It's not just excercise equipment. Jehovah's Witnesses leave my house thinking Hubby has not only converted, but will be bringing a noodle casserole to the next pot-luck night. A guy came by selling 10-dinner packages for a local restaurant, and he had Hubby out on the porch for a good fifteen minutes, nodding away, before I intervened with a polite "No Thank You" (ok, ok maybe polite is not the correct word, but hey, I didn't invite the guy to come here). Seriously, I like dinner out as much as the next person, but since Hubby & I have gone out to eat together, I don't know, maybe twice in the last three years, it didn't seem like the best purchase to me.
One night last month I woke up sometime in the wee hours to hear Hubby talking on the phone. Not just talking, but clearly ordering something. I didn't get up to investigate, but I'm pretty sure my dreams for the rest of the night involved being chased by a large Wheel-Thing while juggling Buns Of Steel videos. In the morning I asked him about it, and all he would tell me is "I got something for you." I was home when the box came in the mail, and it was a relatively small box, which I though was maybe a good sign. Then again, Buns Of Steel probably comes in DVD format now, so it was with some trepidation that I opened the gift Christmas morning. Fortunately for Hubby, it was not excercise DVDs (which I would not have handled gracefully). Instead he bought me a thirteen CD set of soul music, which suprised me, because it actually isn't a bad gift. I don't usually listen to soul music, but I don't mind it. I doubt I would have ever bought thirteen CDs of it, but I'm sure we'll listen to them all eventually.
So along with the CD set, I've started to get magazines in the mail. Apparently they offered Hubby free 3-month subscriptions. You didn't think he'd refuse, did you? So now we get Entertainment Weekly, Us, and Time. If we don't call to cancel them by the middle of February, they'll bill his credit card for an annual subscription for each magazine. You did notice he chose all weekly magazines, right? Why choose a 12-issue subscription, when you can have 52-issues for five times the price! For Entertainment Weekly and Us, I'll probably cancel early, so I don't risk missing the cut-off date. I might keep Time, though. I like Newsweek better, but Time isn't bad. The 12/26 issue has a really good article on the last page, called "The Year We Questioned Authority," about how we're not blindly following the government's every whim quite so often these days. Hey, it's a start.
But please don't come to my house and try to sell my husband anything. There's (intentionally) a very small credit limit on his Visa, and I'm not giving him the checkbook.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 1:57 PM :: 0 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Unruly Houseguests
I've offered to take in two houseguests for the winter. They've been staying in the spare room for a couple of months now, and they've been pretty quiet. They don't hog the bathroom, and they never raid the refrigerator in the middle of the night. The puppy likes to play tug-of-war with them, and they do a pretty good job of protecting the kitten when the puppy gets too rough. A few weeks ago, though, they started overstepping their bounds by inviting guests of their own. First only a few, then more and more. My attempts so far to evict the new guests have not been successful, so I may soon have to resort to drastic measures. That's right: genocide.
The houseguests are 4 foot ivy topiaries, and the guests they've invited in are aphids.
I've used insecticidal soap twice, but to no avail. Unfortunately, using something stronger will require dragging the topiaries outside first, and they're not lightweights. The weather's supposed to be pretty warm this week, though, so I may attempt it.
Don't you hate it when houseguests have to be physically dragged from the premises?
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:23 AM :: 1 Comments: ---------------------------------------
What Happens When You Leave A Big Tub Of Flour Uncovered On The Kitchen Floor
Black kittens mysteriously turn white...
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:18 AM :: 0 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Monday, December 19, 2005
Who Says Indoor Cats Don't Get Exercise?
This one of those posts where you'll need to scroll down slowly.
This is my Christmas tree. Certainly not Rockefeller Center, but not bad (as long as we don't turn on the fan). See, the top looks ok, maybe a little ornament-heavy, but otherwise an acceptable tree.
Now start scrolling...
...until you get to the bottom.
Beads hanging down, ornaments on the ground, the train off the track...
If you look at the bottom left of the photograph, you'll see the source of all the chaos. A.K.A. The Hoodlum.By the way, the reason the top of the tree is ornament-heavy is because we keep moving them there from the bottom, where dangling Drummer-boys and Snoopys are easy prey for little paws.
A closer view of The Hoodlum at work, along with his occasional accomplice:
You'll be pleased to know that the cats are getting along much better these days. Just witness this shot of Sammy hugging Peppercorn. See how happy Peppercorn looks? And how enthusiastically Sammy is hugging? Why, Sammy's so enthusiastic, it almost looks like he's trying to strangle Peppercorn. Oh yeah, he is.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 10:21 AM :: 3 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Christmas Gifts For My Family
We're not doing much in the way of Christmas gifts this year, except for the kids in the family. I actually miss this. Shopping can be a pain, especially for people you don't know well enough to know what they want. But I know what everyone in my immediate family likes, and I keep seeing things I want to get them. Then I remember...oh, we're not doing that this year...
So I decided to make a list of things I would get for my family if I could. I'm not sure what I'd get my mother, but that's ok, because I won't celebrate with her until Christmas Day, so I have time to think more about it. We're celebrating with my dad today. So here's the list:
For my dad, I'd get him an extremely generous early retirement package, so he could take that job giving tours at the seaport or a museum. The tour job would be part-time, so he could enjoy his sailboat (a new, seaworthy sailboat, not that thing up on blocks in his yard). And I'd give him a new administration in the White House.
For my stepmom, I'd give her a big enough gap between my dad leaving his old job and starting the new one to let her company send her to England or Africa, or wherever she chooses for six months (provided she chooses somewhere safe). And I'd offer to take care of her gardens while they were gone. Only six months, though, because I'd miss them if they were gone longer than that. And it would be nice if her company threw in extra plane tickets, so family members could visit. Oh, and a new administration in the White House (actually, that gift would work for a lot of people).
For my sister and her husband, I'd give them season passes to all the Uconn women's basketball games, and the time to actually use them. I'd also give them peppermint ice cream year-round, not just at Christmas, and sticks of pepperoni with only end pieces, and brownies with only middle pieces (actually I am giving them brownies with only middle pieces, but hopefully they won't read this until after I see them later today). And that new administration thing...that too.
I won't be celebrating with my grandmother today, except in my heart, but if I could give her a gift I would make her arthritis and all the aches and pains of aging go away. Also I'd move her north, but that's purely selfishness on my part. I don't know my grandmother's political views, so I would only wish her a new administration if she really wanted one. You do want one, don't you Gramma?
And to Mosby, I'd give all the dog treats he wanted, and he'd be allowed to eat them without someone balancing them on his nose first. And, uh, a new administration...
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 10:00 AM :: 4 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Friday, December 16, 2005
Bragging II
Behold the finished masterpiece:
I think it came out wonderful, especially since she waited until LAST MINUTE! AGAIN!
Ok, I'll stop yelling at her now. She did a fabulous job...much better than I could have. Straight lines were never my strong point. It actually looks much more impressive in person. My dad offered to scan it for me, but since it was due today and PERPETUALLY PROCRASTINATING DAUGHTER didn't finish it until ELEVEN-THIRTY LAST NIGHT, we didn't have time. So this is a photograph of the drawing on my refrigerator. Which makes me miss the days when I used to hang crayon drawings there.
It's kind of neat to be able to post it online, though. Maybe blogs will be the refrigerators of the future...
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 1:43 PM :: 0 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
A Designing Daughter
I've always liked art. I used to draw alot, and once I even painted ducks on the ceiling of my bedroom, as a very good friend who knew me in my duck-painting days recently reminded me. When we were kids my parents would take us to art museums, and I remember looking forward to these trips, and even enjoying them. When we became parents, Hubby and I tried the art museum thing once. Once. Bored Out Of Her Mind Daughter discouraged us from trying it again.
Our daughter has never really cared much for art. She loves music, but art just wasn't her thing. So I was a little surprised this year when she chose Design 1 as an elective. When we went to Freshman Orientation at the high school, we were told that the school used to discourage kids in honors-level classes from taking non-academic electives, like art, because it would bring their GPA down and hurt their chances of getting into a good college. Which is insane. Isn't the whole idea to try a bunch of different things, to find out what you like? If not in high school, then when? Fortunately the school must have figured this out, because they've changed their policy. Now kids in honors classes can take nonacademic courses, and "contract-up" to a higher level by doing extra assignments. To contract-up for Design 1, you have to profile several artists, and recreate one of their works. You can choose any artist you like.
Glutton-For-Punishment Daughter chose Escher.
For those who don't know him, Escher does optical illusions. Detailed architectural drawings, with arches and staircases that go over and under each other in ways they couldn't in real life. Really, really hard stuff to draw. This is an example of an Escher drawing:
If it were me, I probably would have chosen something like Van Gogh's "Starry Night", or Munch's "Scream", which are bascially a bunch of swirly lines. She could even have chosen abstract art. But she picked Escher. The simplest drawing she could find of his to recreate is this one (which really isn't anywhere near as simple as it looks):
Yeah. Good luck with that.
If she lets me, when she's done with the drawing I'll try to take a photo of it & post it (we don't have a scanner). If she lets me. The good thing about all this is that she's discovered she really does like art. Which she never would have known if she hadn't been allowed to take Design 1.
Now to plan that trip to the art museum...
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 8:36 AM :: 1 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Monday, December 12, 2005
Yet Another Indicator That I'm Old Now
In the student parking lot at my daughter's school, there's a blue Pontiac Firebird. When I was in high school that was the cool car to own; everyone wanted either a Firebird or a Camaro. And a surprising number of kids had them. I never liked them much myself; they all looked the same, no matter what year, and there were far too many around. I liked Mustangs better...much more original.
Anyway, this Firebird in the student parking lot? It has an antique license plate on it.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:47 AM :: 1 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Sunday, December 11, 2005
The Nativity
I have two sisters. When we were kids, we would take turns setting up the different Christmas displays in our house. I assume there were three displays, because there were three of us, and to have less would mean much arguing. At the moment, though, I can only remember two: the Nativity, and a winter village scene. Maybe the third person got to hang up the stockings? It's sad when the memory goes...
The village was not one of the expensive ceramic villages popular today. It had little houses made out of something stronger than cardboard but not so strong as wood, and little plastic people. The people were caroling, and building snowmen, and having snowball fights. We'd use quilt batting for snow, and sometimes we put things under the snow to make hills. We always cut a hole in the batting and put aluminum foil down, shiny-side up, for an ice skating rink (the display came with tiny ice skaters also). Sometimes we'd set up the village under the tree, with the train set. The years we did this the village was often ransacked by The Giant Monster Cat Who Liked To Chase The Train.
Getting to set up the village was always the most coveted job, but the Nativity was fun, too. I never put the people in the traditional pose, with the manger in the center of the stable and everyone surrounding it. My manger was always off in a corner, where there would be more shelter. Mary would be behind it, because she was likely tired-she had just given birth, after all. Joseph would be standing in front of the manger, but he wasn't looking at Jesus. He'd be keeping an eye on all these strangers, protectively shielding his wife and child from them. The animals would be off in the other corner, because Joseph would have shooed them there when they arrived. The shepard was usually standing a little closer to the family than the three kings, since Joseph would have been much more comfortable with someone closer to his own position in life. He probably would have been pretty leery of those kings.
My grandmother had a beautiful, vibrantly painted Nativity that she made herself when she did ceramics. One year, shortly after I moved out on my own, she asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her I'd like her to make me a Nativity. This was probably around Thanksgiving, which is not nearly enough time to make and paint all those little figures, but I didn't know that. She never said a word, though, and on Christmas I had my Nativity. The figures weren't individually painted, but instead had what I think is called a "wash." They're white ceramic, with brown brushed over them. I actually like this much better than the painted sets, because it's neutral. Let's face it, the real Holy Family and shepard and kings probably looked much more like Middle-easterners than the pale white they're usually portrayed as in this country. My Nativity people don't look Middle-eastern, but they don't look Anglo-Saxon, either.
When my daughter was little she and her cousin would play with the Nativity, so now the donkey no longer has ears, and one of the camels is missing a foot. But I still love my Nativity. At some point I traded the green felt under the stable for a tan fabric that looks much more like sand, and this year the display is set up in front of a palm plant, which looks kind of cool. But Joseph still stands between the strangers and his family. That's the way it should be, don't you think?
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:17 AM :: 2 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Happy Birthday To My Sister
May this year be a happy one.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 9:36 AM :: 1 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Soggy Toliet Paper, And A Missing Sock
I try to take my shower in the morning after all the people have been taken wherever they need to go, and all the animals (at least the little ones) are asleep. Some days this works out, and some days it doesn't.
Today, Sadie was asleep when I started my shower, but apparently the sound of the water woke her up. Either that, or it was "puppy sixth sense." At any rate, I had been in the shower maybe 20 seconds when she started barking. She was on the bed in the spare room, and sometimes she forgets that she knows how to get off the bed, so she barks until someone comes to rescue her. Because I was soaking wet with shampoo in my hair, I ignored her, figuring she'd remember how to get down eventually. Ignoring a puppy is never a really good idea. The barking stopped, which prompted me to peek around the shower curtain.
Yes, Sadie figured out how to get off the bed. She also discovered toliet paper.
I looked out just in time to see her tail disappear into the hallway, followed by a long strand of the white stuff. Fortunately the toliet paper is on a movable stand, not attached to the wall (a result of 7+ years of having no bathroom walls, but that's another blog entry). I was able to reach the stand, so I broke off the toliet paper and turned it around so she couldn't get more. This didn't really serve any purpose, except to lessen the amount of toliet paper I would later need to pick up off the floor, since my wet hands completely saturated the roll and it was no good anymore anyway.
Without the toliet paper to play tug-of-war with, Sadie decided to amuse herself by redistributing the pile of dirty clothes I had left on the bathroom floor. I know, I know, I should have put them down the laundry chute before I got into the shower. It's probably good I didn't, though, because who knows what she would have discovered if the clothes weren't there to attract her attention.
I used to watch Sadie's older sister when she was a puppy, too. My mother was working all day then, not just mornings, so sometimes I would need to go out and leave the dogs alone. One day, my daughter came home from school to a house full of Q-tips. You know how dogs will get something in their mouth and just shake it? We figured that's probably what Daisy did with the Q-tips. From the bathroom, to the hallway, to the living room...
Anyway, after I got out of the shower this morning, I combined the usual "puddle" hunt with a clothes hunt (It's always a wise idea to do a puddle hunt if the puppy's been out of your sight for more than a minute). I didn't find any puddles, other than the one under the toliet paper stand. I found my jeans in the hallway, and my shirt and one sock in kitchen. My underwear was in the living room, behind the love seat but in plain sight of the front door. It's a really good thing I found the underwear before my daughter came home, since she sometimes brings a friend, and at fourteen her reaction to finding her mother's underwear on the living room floor would probably not be quite as good-natured as her reaction to a trail of Q-tips.
One sock is still missing.
The year Daisy discovered Q-tips, we wrapped up a box of them and gave them to her for Christmas (at my mother's house, not mine. My daughter may have been good-natured about it, but that didn't mean she wanted to clean them up again). I guess this year we'll be giving Sadie a roll of toliet paper. Maybe we'll give Daisy some more Q-tips, too. It really was fun to watch (at someone else's house).
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 1:24 PM :: 3 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
December Gardening
If anyone finds this blog while searching for gardening websites, they're probably going to be disappointed. Other than a brief mention of poinsettias, I don't think I've brought up plants at all. But it's December...I don't do alot of outdoor gardening this time of year, and houseplants just aren't that exciting.
Although I hear Seseme Street has a segment called "Desperate Houseplants." That could be fun.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 8:00 AM :: 0 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Radio Stations, And How I'm Slowly Driving My Husband Insane
I have two favorite rock radio stations, neither of which come in well in my town. One gets a good signal if I'm headed north or east, but mixes with a Spanish-speaking station once you get within 10 miles or so of my house. The other I listen to if I'm headed southwest, but it turns classical once you cross the river separating my town from the next. There is a rock station based in my town, but one of the DJs has an extremely annoying voice, so I listen to it only as a last resort. I mean really, if you have an annoying voice, why would you choose a career in radio?
The northeast station has a really good program, called "Acoustic After Dark", that comes on every weeknight at 8pm. Three nights a week I pick my daughter up from karate around this time, so I get to listen to it. The only problem is that in certain areas between our house and the karate studio, the station turns Spanish. Because the Spanish-speaking areas are small, and the car is moving, we'll get songs that sound like this: "...and she's climbing a (female voice singing unrecognizable words to very fast beat) to heaven..." and "...how I wish, how I wish you were (Spanish guy yelling very loudly, I figure probably a car ad because of all the yelling) swimming in a fishbowl, year after year..." I like the acoustic hour enough to put up with this. My daughter finds it humorous, because she takes Spanish in school so she can sometimes understand what new words they're adding to the songs. Hubby, on the other hand, thinks we're both nuts, and looks for opportunities to distract us so he can change the station.
This station also does theme weekends. "Forgotten Favorites" is fun for the first 3 hours or so, but after awhile you realize why some of the songs were forgotten. And when they do the "Eighties from A to Z", I usually switch to the southwest station. I mean, I grew up during the eighties, and I'll admit there were some good rock songs, but not enough to fill a whole weekend.
"...Gimme three steps, give me (a few chords from Beethoven's 5th symphony) baby, give me three steps towards the door..."
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 9:02 AM :: 4 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Monday, December 05, 2005
Extreme Ironing
My daughter and I went calender shopping this weekend. Do you know that there's an Extreme Ironing calender? Every month shows a different guy ironing in a weird place, like a the middle of a cowfield or hanging off the back of a bus.
I could have used one of those guys during the whole wet-karate-pants saga.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 1:42 PM :: 0 Comments: ---------------------------------------
An Evil Stepmother?
I have a stepdaughter who's 19. I've always had a fairly good relationship with her, although you couldn't call us close. We don't see her very often, which is Hubby's fault, not hers. He would take her for a day almost every weekend when she was young, but she got older and then he had the head injury, and it went from not very often to hardly at all. To give her credit, when we do see her it's because she sets it up. Hubby never makes the initial call. I don't call her because I don't feel it's my place to (she lives with her mother). Which is a cop-out, because she does have a cellphone, and truthfully it probably was my place to call her, at least for the period after the head injury, and if I had then I probably wouldn't feel awkward about it now. In my defense, I had alot on my plate then, but that's not much of a defense-she was in 7th grade, I was an adult. I do remember feeling incredibly guilty when I realized we'd missed her birthday that year.
Being a stepmother can be hard, and I realize that I've had it easier than most. My stepdaughter never knew her parents together (they split up when she was very young), so she never resented my place in her father's life. She never lived with us, so there were no discipline issues. I've been very careful not to overstep my bounds, and I've never tried to "mother" her.
Where am I going with all this? I'm not really sure. The reason it's on my mind is because she called last night to set up our Christmas get-together. Again, I do give her alot of credit for taking the initiative-it should not be her responsibility, and yet it seems to fall on her. I have alot of mixed feelings lately, about both her and myself, and I finally got up the nerve to explain it all to Hubby last night. Immediately afterward, he had a seizure, which means he won't remember any of what I told him. Which is very frustrating. So I will post it the basics here, worded very carefully so as not to completely alienate her if she someday finds this website.
I feel guilty because we haven't been able to help her financially as much as we should, especially with school. I'm disappointed that she graduated high school with no plans for future schooling or a job. I'm annoyed that several months later she asked for money for a SUV because she didn't like her car (at the time, she still wasn't working or going to school, and her car was newer than Hubby's). I was glad when she finally decided to enroll in a community college a year ago, and started working at a store in the mall. Again I felt guilty that we were not able to help her last summer when she really did need a car, because the SUV her mother bought her was involved in an accident. I'm angry that what we did offer then was implied to not be enough. And I'm embarrased because we had to revoke the offer because our financial situation changed. And I cannot understand why now she's taken on a job working in an adult store. She graduated high school as a Certified Nursing Assistant, and she wants to become a nurse. Wouldn't it be better to work as a CNA, especially since that's the field she wants to go into eventually anyway? What causes an attractive young girl to choose an adult store? Is it low self-esteem? Is the pay really high? And even if it is, is it worth it?
Then, I get mad at myself for judging her. Because that's not who I want to be. And over the years, I've tried really hard not to be that person, but if I'm honest with myself I have to admit that I have judged her. I judged her lazy when she wasn't working, and I judged her mother wrong for allowing it. I judged her materialistic when she wanted the SUV, and I judged her ungrateful when the money we offered to replace it wasn't enough. And now I'm judging her again, for working at the adult store. She would never know any of these things, because I've never let it show. I feel uncomfortable around her now, not so much because of the things she's done, but because of what the things she's done have told me about myself.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 10:37 AM :: 0 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Why I Won't Get Nominated for Mother of the Year
Yesterday my daughter had a belt-testing. She's already achieved her blackbelt in karate, and now she's working on jujitsu. The night before the testing, she asked me to wash her uniform. You know where this is going, right?
See, the top of the uniform is white, and the pants are black. So they have to be washed separately, unless I want the top to turn gray. To be honest, gray would be okay with me, but my daughter doesn't necessarily share that sentiment. So I wash them separately.
I did wash the uniform. Both pieces. And I dried one of them (the top). And I even put the pants in the dryer, along with a bunch of other dark clothes. But then I had to go out for a few hours, and since Not An Early Bird Daughter was sleeping in, and Hubby is not much of a clothes-folder, I decided to wait until I came home to turn the dryer on, since otherwise the clothes would sit there and wrinkle, and you can't go to a belt-testing with a wrinkled uniform.
I came home. I made lunch. I wasted an hour or so on the computer. I did not turn the dryer on.
Fifteen minutes before we had to leave, she asked where the uniform was. And I said "Oh."
To give her credit, Exceedingly Patient Daughter was gracious about it. She didn't even roll her eyes (it's not like this hasn't happened before). I suggested hanging the pants out the window to dry them on the way to the studio, like that old commercial where the guy is late for a big meeting and he closes his pants in the car window while he drives to work in his underwear, and the pants blow away on the highway-do you remember that commercial? I don't even know what it was advertising... Anyway, my daughter didn't like that idea. She may have actually rolled her eyes then.
Fifteen minutes is really not a very long time to dry pants.
She passed the test, wet pants and all. And fortunately they didn't do grappling, which might have been uncomfortable for her (and the person she would have been rolling around on the floor with).
Most importantly, the pants weren't wrinkled. I get brownie points for that, right?
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 10:14 AM :: 1 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Friday, December 02, 2005
When New Toys Fall From The Sky
If you're putting away dishes and you drop a wooden spoon, and there's a puppy at your feet, be prepared to chase.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 11:45 AM :: 1 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Checking up on Mother
Distrustful Daughter actually checked up on me! She thought I was exaggerating about the Playmobil catalog, but she found out she was wrong-they really did put a Christmas tree in the middle of the Viking castle seige. And the pirate scene. And the gas station. The tree at the gas station looks like it's about to be run over, by the way. They put it right next to the pumps.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 7:41 PM :: 0 Comments: ---------------------------------------
Vikings celebrate Christmas, too
Of the toys I had as a kid, there are three I would still play with today: Legos, Richard Scary's Puzzletowns, and Playmobils. I don't play with them much anymore, because my daughter is a teenager now so she doesn't ask me to very often (ok, never) but there was a time when we would spend whole days setting up elaborate cities in the living room. Since these were my favorites as a kid, I naturally wanted them for my daughter when she was old enough not to choke on the little pieces. Legos are easy-you can get them anywhere. They don't make Puzzletowns anymore, but fortunately I ended up with my childhood set. We have most of the Puzzletowns, except for Huckle Cat's cottage (I'd still love to get that one-I'll have to check eBay one of these days). And they do still make Playmobils, although you have to hunt a little to find them. Places like Toys R Us and Walmart don't carry them; you have to go to trendy, boutique-type toy stores (translate:expensive). I suppose you can probably buy Playmobils online today, but when my daughter was little I didn't have an internet connection (I know, I know-how did I survive?).
If I had to choose the coolest of my three favorite toys, I'd have to pick the Playmobils. The figures are pretty realistic for a kid's toy, and the detail-work is incredible. If you buy the farm, you don't just get the barn and cows. You also get bales of hay, and feed sacks, and buckets to carry water to the pig trough, and a bench to sit down on if you get tired from carrying water, and bridles and brushes for the horses, and ladder for the farmer to climb when he needs to get the rooster off the top of the horse stalls. And they don't just have farm sets-you can buy pirate ships, and Vikings, a convenience store and a police station, not to mention the airport and the zoo... They're really, really cool toys. Also the Playmobils they make today are the same quality as those I had as a kid, which is a nice change from say, the Star Wars toys (I mean really-when they remade the action figures in the nineties, was it necessary to give them all the body of Hulk Hogan? Including Princess Leia?)
My daughter is fourteen now. Last week I asked her if she wanted the Playmobil advent calendar this year, and her response was "Is there any other kind?" She has a point, really-there is no other advent calendar like a Playmobil. They come with a cardboard background with a different scene every year, and 24 little boxes of varying sizes. Every day you open the correctly numbered box, and get a toy, which you place on the background to eventually create a holiday scene. The last box, of course, is always Santa Claus.
I forgot about the advent calender until today, which is, of course, December 1st. Too late to buy online, so I headed out to the trendy, boutique-type toy store. Unfortunately, they did not have this year's calender, and we've already bought the two styles they did have. They called their "sister" store (trendy, boutique-type toy stores do not have branches, they have "sisters"), but no luck there either. So I decided to be creative and make my own Playmobil advent calender. I bought a Playmobil nativity scene (after counting the contents shown on the back to make sure there were at least 24 items), and a prior year's Playmobil advent calender. I'm going to put the nativity scene toys in the advent calender boxes, and we'll have our own scene.
When I opened the nativity set, there was a Playmobil catalog inside with a toy Christmas tree on the front. I figured, cool, at least I'll get to see what this year's advent calender scene was. As it turned out, though, there were no advent calenders in the catalog. Instead it showed all the main Playmobil sets, but with a Christmas tree and gifts added. Yep, in the catalog, the Victorian house has a Christmas tree, and so does the gas station. The pirates set up their tree right next to the dungeon, presumably so the prisoners get a festive view from the barred window. And in the Castle set, the tree is on top of the highest turrent, next to a Viking wearing a Santa Claus beard under his pointed helmet. The catalog castle is under seige, and all the characters are weilding swords and spears and crossbows. One even has a stick with one of those spiky-ball-things attached to it on a chain. The catalog shows Santa and his reindeer flying above the castle, but I think I'd advise him not to land there. Better to try his luck on the farm-the animals look pretty friendly.
Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 11:16 AM :: 0 Comments: ---------------------------------------