My little circle of friends is in a bit of turmoil right now. One of our glue people is awaiting results of a biopsy. This is very difficult to be a part of. I find myself wondering what to do, how to act. You know who your glue people are. They're the ones that hold everyone else together. This comes from the 90's sitcom, "Mad About You." You can search IMDB for more information. I am not meant to be glue. I don't think I want to ever be the glue outside of my own little family. I am more like shiny paper. I hold just fine when the glue is fresh but as soon as the glue dries, if bumped, I am apt to fall right off. But I realize there are times when the glue needs to be the paper or the glitter, or the foam shapes. So I will try to be the glue a little bit.
The weather is miserably hot. We were supposed to go away yesterday to the mountains in Virginia but we postponed our trip because of the heat. The house we are using has no air conditioning and with severe allergies and a little asthma, we decided to let the last wretchedly hot day pass in the comfort of our air conditioned home.
This is not how summer is supposed to end. Summer is supposed to end with fresh fruit and tomatoes, finally ripe, ready to buy and eat everywhere. It's supposed to end with the scent of new crayons and new clothes and new backpacks for Kindergarten. Instead it smells like dying grass and sweat laced with fear.
Say a prayer for my friend.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Right and Wrong
Every weekend, I sit at the pool and listen to an acquaintance complain to me about his spouse. Two months of enduring this agonizing moaning has made me wonder about our perceptions of right and wrong. I'm not talking about the big right and wrong; the ten listed in the bible, the ones that put you away for life, but smaller stuff that can get on your nerves. I pose to you a question: What if you stopped seeing these things as right or wrong and just started viewing them as "alternative?"
Take the dishwasher. Many people have a specific way in which they put dishes in the dishwasher. My husband loads from back to front, I load from front to back. I contend that neither way is wrong because the dishes are getting in the dishwasher where they are automatically cleaned and dried. Front to back, back to front; who cares. Bottom line is, they're in there.
Then there's the matter of putting the dishes away. We have a drawer for utensils but my husband often puts the utensils in the silverware drawer. I used to spend precious minutes searching for missing spatulas until I figured out where they were. I would be annoyed, move them back in a huff and spend a few seconds calling him a bone head or some other such minor insult in my head. Then I unconsciously started looking in the silverware drawer for the missing implements. The placement went from wrong to alternative. I now have identified all the alternative placements that my husband uses when he unloads the dishwasher and I'm much happier for it.
Household division of labor can be a very contentious topic, and I think it's because we are all stuck with this idea of "my way or the highway." How much happier would our homes be if we just accepted that everyone has their own way of doing things? As long as the task is completed, that's the most important thing.
Take the dishwasher. Many people have a specific way in which they put dishes in the dishwasher. My husband loads from back to front, I load from front to back. I contend that neither way is wrong because the dishes are getting in the dishwasher where they are automatically cleaned and dried. Front to back, back to front; who cares. Bottom line is, they're in there.
Then there's the matter of putting the dishes away. We have a drawer for utensils but my husband often puts the utensils in the silverware drawer. I used to spend precious minutes searching for missing spatulas until I figured out where they were. I would be annoyed, move them back in a huff and spend a few seconds calling him a bone head or some other such minor insult in my head. Then I unconsciously started looking in the silverware drawer for the missing implements. The placement went from wrong to alternative. I now have identified all the alternative placements that my husband uses when he unloads the dishwasher and I'm much happier for it.
Household division of labor can be a very contentious topic, and I think it's because we are all stuck with this idea of "my way or the highway." How much happier would our homes be if we just accepted that everyone has their own way of doing things? As long as the task is completed, that's the most important thing.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Reading Order
I'm sure someone would say the order in which you read the parts of your Sunday newspaper say something profound about you. Here is my reading order.
1. I read a feature called "Tell Me About It." It's an advice column that is in the Sunday Source section of the Washington Post. I enjoy the writer's cutting, to the point advice.
2. Next I read parts of the magazine section including Date Lab, Gene Weingarten's column, "Below the Beltway," and Jeanne Marie Laskas' column, "Significant Others." Date Lab can be very humorous, especially when the dates are disastrous. Gene Weingarten always makes me chuckle, and Jeanne (I can call her by her first name because I think if she knew me, we would be friends) always hits home to me in her column.
3. I switch to the Style section where I enjoy features like "Reliable Source" where I can read about who was where with whom. I also read "Ask Amy," another advice column. It's comforting to know that some people are so moved by their own lives they feel the need to write to a total stranger and seek guidance.
4. I move to news and read Metro so I can read how many people were slaughtered in DC and PG county overnight during the latest DC Metro Police "All Hands on Deck" initiative.
5. Finally, I get to the front page. By now, it's probably 10:00 pm and I am barely conscious. Probably better that way.
1. I read a feature called "Tell Me About It." It's an advice column that is in the Sunday Source section of the Washington Post. I enjoy the writer's cutting, to the point advice.
2. Next I read parts of the magazine section including Date Lab, Gene Weingarten's column, "Below the Beltway," and Jeanne Marie Laskas' column, "Significant Others." Date Lab can be very humorous, especially when the dates are disastrous. Gene Weingarten always makes me chuckle, and Jeanne (I can call her by her first name because I think if she knew me, we would be friends) always hits home to me in her column.
3. I switch to the Style section where I enjoy features like "Reliable Source" where I can read about who was where with whom. I also read "Ask Amy," another advice column. It's comforting to know that some people are so moved by their own lives they feel the need to write to a total stranger and seek guidance.
4. I move to news and read Metro so I can read how many people were slaughtered in DC and PG county overnight during the latest DC Metro Police "All Hands on Deck" initiative.
5. Finally, I get to the front page. By now, it's probably 10:00 pm and I am barely conscious. Probably better that way.
Structural Deficiencies
Imagine, if you will, that someone came to your home once every other year and thoroughly inspected it from top to bottom. Imagine, at the end of one of those inspections, if you were notified that your home had structural deficiencies that put it at risk of falling apart. What would you do? Would you wait two years to fix those issues that put your home in jeopardy? Very doubtful. You would probably take out a loan, or use your savings or hit up your parents and fix the problems as quickly as possible. Then why doesn't the government act efficiently when faced with a similar situation regarding our nation's infrastructure?
Think about your neighborhood. I live in an association where certain covenants require a level of cosmetic maintenance of all properties. Chances are you do too, or you at least maintain a certain measure of tidiness in your yard so you don't offend your neighbors. You also probably clean your house regularly, paint a few rooms every couple years, clean the carpet, reseal the wood floors, recaulk the tub, etc. You do these things to keep your home safe and comfortable. Businesses do the same thing. Yet the government doesn't.
Our bridges, highways, schools, dams and other municipally maintained properties are old and crumbling. We add trailers on the grounds of our crowded schools to avoid construction costs. We dot our roads with pothole patches to avoid complete resurfacing. I have no idea what scary stop-gap measures are taken to fix other infrastructure issues that affect the power grid or water treatment facilities.
I lived in Minnesota on and off for 20 years of my life. I watched with utter horror on Wednesday when the 35W bridge collapsed. I made my calls to my siblings, especially fearful for my brother who is two years older than me and studying for his master's degree at the University of Minnesota right now. Thankfully, as a family, we suffered no losses on Wednesday. But we all lost a little of our sanity. Who hasn't thought about the number of bridges they drive over everyday and started saying little prayers in exchange for safe passage? The Department of Homeland Security was quick to state that the bridge collapse was not an act of terrorism. I disagree. I am terrorized daily by reports in the news of crumbling schools in the nation's capital, of decrepit neighborhoods in Baltimore, of unfilled promises in New Orleans. Can we continue to fund activity in Iraq to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year at the expense of our own well being?
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