Daffodils

You know.  Sometimes you stop and think.  I have a son.  He is 7.  He is an arrogant little shit.  Really.  He is a sweet kid, and he cares about people's feelings but he speaks to people like he is some version of Raja and the people aroung him are peons.  He speaks to me like this.  I have called him on it and called him on it and called him on it.  I realized:

His father speaks to him like this.  His father speaks to me like this.  His father has been deemed by my therapist (from when I was seeing one two years ago) a narcist.  And so is my son.  WTF?

I am not sure how to live with either of them.  I have realized recently that I have changed who I am for my husband.  I kept who I was under wraps for my mother and father too.  I was always the good girl (I got dubbed "Sandra Dee" while acting like a teenager and playing "I never" with a group of drunk women recently.)  I can't do or say the things I think because it might embarrass my husband or my mother or now my kids.  I am rather tired of that.

I lost it - blame it on Steph in Suburbia

I was all about this funk I've been in and I just saw "My Life In Suburbia" latest post and I just cannot be cranky any more.

Please, go visit.  Too fabulous.  I need those clothes.  I need that sense of humor.  OMG!

Life Coaches?

So this is a bit snarky even for me - but I am puzzled by the whole "life coach" thing.  There are several women whom I know from "internet social/business groups" who are getting into some self defined employment called "life coaching."  I get "life coaching" I think Tony Robbinson is one yeah?  And Steve Covey, and even Suzi Orman could be called one though they focus on different things.  I do not get where these girls get off calling themselves life coaches.  They cannot pay bills.  One or two have made insane marriage choices.  One is living with her parents.  How are they qualified to be life coaches?  From the outside looking in I really do NOT want their life!

Type A Women... puh-lease

Ah... somehow I got "voted in" to go to Hawaii.  Yes, seriously.  I get on a plane on Saturday and head on out to Hawaii where I will meet up with three other women and spend a week in a timeshare.  It hasn't quite sunk into my little brain just yet...

I have NEVER been West of California and it has been several years since I've been even in CA so I'm stoked.  It seems a recent friend - "Fashion Police" I'll name her {she is always cute and always in style and thrifty about it too!} and her buddies planned this trip while Fashion Police's man was in Iraq.  Well one of the girls recently became pregnant and decided to opt out of the trip due to things like morning sickness and all.  And so Fashion Police gave me a call the week before Christmas to see if I wanted in.  "You are the only one we agree on" she says.  So I tell her "wow! but not likely."  She must have gotten with my man because he traded in airline miles and got  a free ticket and in my stocking was a ticket to Hawaii!  OH MY!  And he had already arranged for his parents to stay here with him so he can work and the kids can stay pretty much on schedule.  Wow.  So for the price of 1/4 timeshare fees ($230) I am spending a week in Hawaii.  

Tuesday the girls decided to get together for a little chat to see what everybody thinks they want to do.  One of the girls is a military wife and used to live there so she is going to be tour guide for us.  Well, tour guide starts telling us what we should pack, which makes sense as we've never been there before but then she keeps on going and gets to where she is telling me what to wear on the airplane.  

Okay look babe.  I get that you want a plan so we don't just sit on the each for a week and watch 20 something beach bums surf (is there a problem with that?)  And I appreciate that you want to share your experience so we pack appropriately, but before you go telling me exactly what to pack and how to dress let me explain.  I'm all grown up and I've traveled plenty.  You may be a military wife but I'm a military brat.  Which means you're an "in by marriage" and I have birth rights.  I know all about traveling light.  I've been on too many friggin airplanes and I've had my luggage lost plenty of times.  I'll deal.  But you need to have a glass of wine or something because staying in a condo with you telling me what to do for a week is gonna get old fast.  sheesh.

HIgh School People

There is a great song "High School Never Ends" that makes me laugh.  It was on the radio a lot two years ago when I drove back and forth from Fredricksburg several times between Thanksgiving and Christmas to check on my suicidal sister.

Anyway - last night was an unofficial Highs School reunion night - everybody in for the Holidays got together at Paul's Deli for drinks anytime after 7 PM.  It is funny to me.  I vaguely remember High School and I have pretty much avoided going back to "hang out" because there haven't been too many people I want to "hang out" with.  Lucky for me, enter Facebook, and I can now reconnect with people who either were interesting but not people I saw much then or are interesting now.  So I went.

We arrived fairly early by Paul's standards and did a breeze through.  I saw nobody I recognized off the bat and I hate that whole, stand in a bar and look around thing.  I always feel like I have a neon sign flashing over my head "looser" if I don't immediately see somebody I recognize.  So we found a table and grabbed a "hot holly" {famous sandwich you really need to try} and waited.

Eventually people came in.  SAP Geek saw a local I'll call Mouse at a table behind me.  So I got up to say hi to her and ask about her family and the business and the baby.  The baby was there so she sent me off to see her.  Baby was with Papa, Papa's common-law wife and Mouse's husband.  Mouse's husband has seen me around enough to know who I am, Papa used to date my mother maybe eight years ago, and Papa's common-law wife I'd yet to bump into.  But I said "hello" and gushed over the baby.  Papa being a true southern gentleman asked about my siblings and about my mother.  Later on he {Papa} stopped by our table to say hello to my husband.

Hippie Chick's husband came in.  I asked him where his wife was and he pointed her out.  Went and said hey.  Hippie Chick and I were friends in High School.  She was one of two people I was actually hoping to see.  At some point she introduced me to her brother-in-law who is one of my high school heros.  No way!  So I sat down and talked to him.  Luckily I was spared having to explain who the heck I was, he remembered me,  but he didn't remember being in class together:

I moved here sophomore year and my last class of the day was with him, "Mohawk" and "Music Man."  They sat together and cut up  the whole hour and I just spent the time laughing.  I loved being in that class with those guys; they were hysterically funny.  

I learned a lot from him, High School Hero.  Stuff I'd forgotten.  Stuff I need to remember in dealing with my son.  It is okay to cut up.  It is okay to spend the day in the hallway.  Maybe you even fail a class.  

It is your life.  

I need to let go of my need to "make" my kids do and be.  They will do and be what they will do and be and that is okay.  I adored him.  Granted, he doesn't live a life my parents or my husband's parents would call "successful."  But he is happy with it.  Isn't that success?

Tolkien

I first read the Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was about 12.  I was fascinated by the elves and dwarves and Strider was my first hero.  In fact, Strider was my only hero for a long time, the teen-bot superstars my  friends were swooning over just didn't cut it when compared to the Ranger from the North.  

When the movies first came out, what 8 years ago or so, I wouldn't watch them.  The posters and advertisements were red flags.  What was with the girl?  There was no girl!  Why did the guy in posters look 19?  Strider was NOT 19!  I was so irritated.  My younger sister had gone with her boyfriend and said it was awesome.  She went again with my mom and again said it was awesome.  After her third time seeing the movie she called me and told me I should really just go.  I told her she didn't understand, I would never get over it if they had ruined Strider.

Okay, my apologies to Viggo Mortensen.

I finally did go that Christmas.

I was thrilled.

They got it.  They got Tolkien, they got hobbits and wizards and elves and dwarves and most importantly they hit Strider on the mark.  I was so excited.  Better yet my husband liked it too.  It is now tradition to watch all three every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This year SAP - Geek learned one of the guys at work hadn't seen the movies.  In fact, the guy was kind of holding out because at this point everybody is asking, how have you NOT seen these movies?  So he has watched movie one and two with us thus far.  

He has told me I am a major geek for being obsessed with this.  Tolkien is geek?  Seriously?  I thought it was English professors, tweed jackets over cardigans and pipes by the fire... that is geek?  This makes me laugh.

AWOL

I cannot believe we are half way through December and I have been away!  yikes.  Did you miss me?  Hah!  

Let me catch up -

I decided 2 weeks ago to start maintaining a blog for hubby's company.  He - hubby - can't be bothered - they never update the website.  Most of the website info is two years old!  And he won't twitter either despite my frequent requests that he try.  And so... despite the fact that he is SAP Geek and I don't speak geek I appointed myself the official pr person and blogger/twitter-er.  Since I started his blog feed burner has counted over 40 "unique hits" and since I only put the counter on last Friday I am feeling fairly okay about that.  In fact - not bad really.  

So to maintain my anonymity I am not sharing the blog with you but know that  posted 5 times last week, and twice so far tis week, and I've been all over twitter n attempt to help with "branding"

In other news my baby sister is in town this week.  I am to spend the day catching up on laundry so it won't drive me nuts and this evening she and I will bake Christmas cookies.  Yay us!

I am worn out!