Random musings of Sock Girl
Is this another post where Sock Girl moans about how hard this NaBloPoMo thing is?
Why yes, yes it is.
But I feel all achey and tired, and I’ll be back tomorrow… hopefully having considered my own “Pearl” challenge a tiny bit more. Thank you for your patience.
Well, it seems the Office Gnome (which was won for contribution to the internal office wiki) is not the only award I’ve likely won lately. I am on a roll, my friends. I believe I may well be in contention for yet another honour… that of Meanest Mommy in the Whole Wide World.
Let’s list a few of my fine contributions to this achievement, shall we:
I could go on for days. I will understand if you too are shocked by my behaviour.
Twice this week I even used the words “because I said so.”
I am exhausted.
It truly is tiring when you feel like you are saying “no” all the time. I think I say “no” now more than when the girls were toddlers. Just for once I would like to hear, “Yes, darling Mother, I will do that without question at the earliest possible moment.”
So, two awards in as many weeks…. I’m on a roll. I think maybe I should run out and buy a lottery ticket.
So how’s the new job going, you ask?
Well, while I admit the task I am doing is incredibly tedious, and I am doing the same task all the live-long day, I could not be happier to be where I am. I am working for a department that services a segment of the population I care a great deal about, the people who work there are warm, and friendly, and don’t mind the non-stop questions of a newbie. I love the walk to work and home again. Silly as it is, I even love my key pass thingy, even if it has my old face imprinted on it. It means that “there” is where I’m supposed to be right now, and that holds a lot of significance to me. The key pass thingy is like my invitation to be there, and I have waited a long time to come to the party. Well, any party actually.
For the most part I think things are going ok. The other day I was in the lunch room and many of the senior employees were there too. I told a story which had them laughing a great deal. Initially I felt pretty good about that… that they appreciated my sense of humour… it was only the next day that it occured to me that they may in fact have been laughing at me not with me, but whatever.
And I’m trying not to dwell on the fact that one of the higher ups calls me by a completely different name, so now lots of co-workers think my name is something else too. Not that it’s a bad name, like “Dumbo” or “Fang” or anything. And it’s sort of like my name… it’s just not my real name. Do you suppose the name thing would have any effect on a person’s forever job possibilities, or should I concentrate on the fact that “Old Fang does good work” is just as much a compliment as “Sock Girl does good work”?
Anyway, my apologies for the lack of blog posts. Still getting back in the work/school/back to real life thing. I’ll try to post more often as I really miss it here.
Shadows…. They exist, yet cannot be touched, or picked up and carried. They move and change yet take up no physical presence. Sometimes you cannot see them at all, but they are there, ready to appear with the next ray of light, however brief and unexpected.
Grief is like that too. Sometimes blatant, sometimes hidden and lurking, yet never gone completely. Intangible and tangible at the same time. Existing and changing despite the obviousness of physical presence.
I am beginning to think you never actually heal from some grief. It just changes. You get quieter because the only one who feels the shadow is you. You package it up so that life’s sunshine isn’t missed and the impact of the shadow is minimized. But years and years later it still has the ability to incapacitate you.
My son would have been 11 today. Happy Angelversary, baby. I love you and carry you in my heart always.
It’s just a guess, but I’m thinking that…
- the local drug store that printed a sale flyer with “we have Mother’s Day gifts” printed above a picture of dish soap probably needs a new ad agency.
- the makers of two piece swimwear for young girls probably don’t have daughters who are pre-teen.
- the chances of drive-thru messing up your order are directly proportional to how little time you have to go back and get it fixed.
So earlier this week I took my kids to the pool after taekwondo class to totally tire them out give them something fun to do for the evening, and I sat down on the little wooden bench to watch (because swimming is not really my thing). So, technically I suppose that I’ve just confessed to watching my kids exercise in some form or another for about two and half hours straight, while the only exercise my little keester got was from the car to the bench. Moving on….
Now the aquatic facility has two side by side pools, one competition and one leisure. As sycnronized swimming was practicing in the competition pool, my girls stayed in the leisure pool. And in the end, when Rainbow decided to try a little synchronized twirling of her own (can you be “synchronized” if you’re doing it alone?) my girls moved to the kiddie pool section of the leisure pool.
It was there that I noticed them… two older women, obviously out for a little exercise. And by “a little”, I mean about as much as I was getting. Only they sat in the kiddie pool, never swimming, just sitting and chatting together, for pretty much the entire time my kids played around them. Which brings me to my questions:
– Why would someone who just wanted to chat go to the trouble of dressing for exercise to do so?
– Wouldn’t a nice coffee have done the same thing only without having to endure putting on swimwear, getting wet and eventually smelling like chlorine?
– Should I be putting more effort into making my sitting look more like exercising? I mean… maybe they’re on to something…. kind of like dressing for the job you want to get…. dressing for the exercise you’d like to be doing. Maybe that eventually gets you slim and trim by osmosis or something? …And wouldn’t that be fabulous if it were possible?
Apparently this year is the first year since 1971 that all of Canada will have a White Christmas (“White” being defined as at least 2 cm of snow by the weather chanel). And here we sit in Prince Edward Island waiting for more snow Christmas Eve, followed by rain or freezing rain later, probably Christmas.
But this post is not about the weather, per se. No, this post is about the most famous reindeer of all…
You see, something has always bothered me about the entire Rudolph story. It didn’t sit well. It was upsetting, rather than uplifting. And really, shouldn’t a story about the underdog rising to hero be uplifting to a kid? But I’ve never actually voiced any objections, probably not having the language to do so, until I sat down and watched it with my girls tonight.
The story starts with a newborn Rudolph, whose father Donner, is not at all pleased that his nose glows. Enter Santa, Rudolph’s future boss, who solidly declares that he will never pull Santa’s sleigh with a nose like that. Follow this by attempts by his father to cover up his physical anomaly with some kind of nose squeezing disguise, shunning by most other reindeer, the reindeer coach kicking him out of the reindeer games, and on and on. It is only by proving some use to the team does the story ever seem to resolve into global acceptance.
And as I ranted about this out loud to my girls, to ensure that they received the message about how unacceptable this all was, Dolittle looked at me and said, “You’re going to blog about this, aren’t you.” And of course, she was right.
You see, to me, the most unacceptable part was the initial rejection from Santa, the father, and the coach. These are characters who should have had unconditional acceptance of Rudolph. “All of the other reindeer” included those characters. They were adults… characters in positions of authority… who acted as bullies to those who were different, instead of role models of appropriate acceptance. And while I realize this is a legend, to me it is morbid storytelling, and for the life of me I cannot understand how someone would think it would make a marvelous tale that should be sung about for years to come. And by singing about it, aren’t we saying that bullying is ok as long as eventually everything works out in the end? Because it really is not ok. Not ever.
So, because we are expecting more snow tonight, I have no doubt Rudolph will be leading the team again this year. I will personally leave the dear boy a special carrot because I too have had a boss that was a bully, and I know how much that stinks. Rudolph, I hope things are going well for you now. And that things have really changed for you and for all those who dare to be unique up in the North Pole.
Love,
Sock Girl
Now I am the first one, admittedly, to give a look of wonderment to adults I see out shopping who haven’t gotten out of their pajamas to do so. I don’t get it. It takes minutes and you know you are going to be out there in the population, probably amoung people that you might want to take you seriously one day.
Having said that, however, it is here I must confess that I have recently left my own yard in my own little PJs. Rainbow, you see, likes to go to school early to play chess… well mostly to watch chess because we can’t seem to get there in time… but nonetheless needs to be there about a half hour before the rest of us have to be out the door. And I am typically too busy zooming about taking care of waking, nagging, lunches, nagging, organizing, nagging, yadayada, to get myself ready until the last minute. So, as it was, I was not ready and she needed to be going.
So, thought Sock Girl, I don’t actually have to get out of the van… I just need to pull up to the school, she gets out, and I pull away. What really would be the harm if I just put my coat on over my jammies and went to drop her off? It was mild, the van didn’t need the windows scraped, I would probably even get her there in time to play instead of watch. So I grabbed my coat, and off to school we went. “Are you going out like that?” Rainbow asked. “Relax,” I replied.
Now, if you have already surmised (that’s for Mamacita!) that this is one of those times when what seemed like a good idea at the time really wasn’t, you would be correct. I had no sooner pulled up to the school when, because it was so mild, a huge hunk of snow slid right off the roof covering most of my windshield and was too dang heavy for the wipers to move. So there I was… van still in the street… with minimal visibility… my child on the sidewalk with other school kids… and me in my freaking jammies. Beautiful. I could either get out of the van and clean the windshield by hand, in which case parents, teachers, and children would see me in my flannel clad loveliness, and it would probably scar my kid psychologically for life, or I could sit there in the sunshine until the snow melted off the darn glass. What to do… what to do….
I’ll probably end up nominated for Canada’s Worst Drivers, but it turns out that I choose to inch down the road peeking though the top of the clear glass, and then things eventually shifted just enough for the wipers to work. Nonetheless, I would like to go on record as saying jammies out of your yard is never a good idea. I am now the voice of experience.
PS: I know that I am supposed to clean all the snow off the roof of my vehicle. But I’m 5 feet tall. And the van is taller than me. I do what I can.
Last week the universe decided to take my request to start showing me positive work results and go pfffft in my face. And I didn’t blog because I don’t particularly like to whine about life being pfffft. But it was. Oddly, I’m actually looking forward to it being Monday as it is sort of representative of a fresh start… a do-over.
So shaking off the gloominess that was last week, I have decided to begin my work week with a post, both to let you know I’m still around, and to say pffft right back to the universe.
Pffft. So there.
You really have to wonder why I keep failing job interviews when I’m so darned mature. One of life’s little mysteries I guess.
