Random Thoughts of a Wine Soaked Mind

Entirely too many folks in this world function in a constant state of drama.

The big Jobs Speech by our President isn’t being received well by Wall Street and I’m pretty sure most Americans didn’t watch him deliver it last night – but they did watch the football game.

The liberals really live in a world of gumdrops and rainbows with unicorns that fart cotton candy – get a grip folks!

This Tea Party Movement in our country is a disaster – those folks also need to get a grip (on reality).

The economic problems are not the fault of a single political party but an entire generation of people who just don’t get it.  A lousy job was done with this group getting them ready to lead the world.  There isn’t a natural leader in the group.

It does not seem like the President or Congress really understands what is going on with the American people.

Weekends are the only time I can really get a good night sleep (well except for Sunday night – because that is an anxious night)

What does a credible but unconfirmed terror threat mean?

Dad was right, sometimes life just isn’t fair – deal with it!  (that one is for me, mainly)

So, these were many of the random thoughts that just came into my mind today – have a great weekend!

As I sat with my 13-year-old son eating ice cream last weekend we discussed the 8th grade dance he had attended the night before.  I was shocked to hear that some of the kids I have known for years, rode to the dance in the middle school gym in a limousine.  What the hell is wrong with my generation?  A limo to take your kid to a sweaty gym based 8th grade dance?  But wait, it gets worse.

Last night my 11-year-old niece graduated from the 5th grade.  As you know, I’m the Mother of 4, and when it comes to over blown graduations and school programs I am a 20 year expert.  As I like to say, this wasn’t my first rodeo, or maybe it was.

I’ll be damned why my children’s elementary school makes such a big deal out of moving from elementary school to middle school.  This isn’t the 1800′s, it is the fucking 21st century.  We don’t need to rip our kids out of their youthful pursuit of education so they can come man up and help us on the farm.  We all live in the suburbs for God’s sake.  The only farming going on in our neighborhood is on Facebook.

But wait, it get’s worse and my opinion gets stronger…and possibly more graphic, I have had a glass of Chardonnay.

The whole 5th grade graduation began at 7pm.   I thought I would be homeward bound by 7:45.  After all how long could this take?  Once again, I my assumption was way off base.  As I watched the soon to be 6th graders walk in the gym in rhythm to Pomp and Circumstance I might have said “What the Fuck” out loud, but I’m not sure.  I know most of these kids, we live in a rural area and we all live in the same private community.  There was the boy from down the street wearing no less than a tuxedo.  I am not kidding you a tuxedo.  Two girls were in full-fledged prom dresses.

Again I ask, “what the hell is wrong with my generation?”  What are we doing to our children.  Getting through grammar school is not something tuxedo worthy.  Woo Hoo your kid can read and write and knows the alphabet and a little algebra!  Let’s rent a fucking ballroom and throw a party.

But wait….it get’s worse….

Then came 10 minute speeches from three hand-picked students which chronicled their entire life from Kindergarten through 5th grade.  These children may be good students but orators they were not.  At this point I was 30 minutes in, I was committed.

Then came the awards, the awards that seemed as if they would never end.   I am fairly certain that after this 45 minute interlude every child got at least one award.  They gave awards for “good attendance.”  I am not kidding!  Good attendance!  I was waiting for the “came to school a few times” award.

I realize these children are leaving the best time of their life.  From here on out it is all downhill.  Their next stop is middle school.  Middle school is equal to hell on earth.  Those fresh-faced 5th graders will soon fight acne, begin developing their personality disorders and be tormented by each other for the next three years.  High school won’t be much better.  Some of them will end up in college and for a few years they will think life is paradise.  Then they will get a job, be verbally abused by insecure bosses and co-workers, have their paycheck raped by taxes and realize that adult life is not much different from middle school.

Maybe the end of elementary school is something to celebrate in the grandest of fashions.  It is all downhill from here.

In my career and personal life over the past many years I have always attempted to approach things with low expectations.  I find that low expectations cause great excitement when things turn out better than you anticipated.

Don’t misunderstand, I have high expectations for myself but try to maintain moderate to low expectations of those around me.

I violated my own rule this week.  I was recently in a situation in which the facts were so clear it seemed as if having high expectations was safe.  I was wrong.

There is always a lesson to be learned, no matter how much you think you have it figured out.  I learned a valuable lesson about the people I am around, the expectations I should embrace and my true place in a collective mission.

At the end of the day, the only person who sees value in the things you accomplish is you.  That, in the end, has to be enough to sustain you.

I am perhaps one of the last carbon form beings on the planet who does not regularly use a Global Positioning System.  I have always prided myself in not only being able to read a map, but also being able to fold one.

I will admit that reading a map while driving is a challenge and in those cases I do prefer an Atlas book.

Once my husband got an iPhone a few years ago we used his GPS but that application does not compare to the Garmin.   I recently became the owner of a Garmin GPS.  I won it actually.  I thought I had no use for it.  I thought, seriously?  I can read a map.  I used my Garmin for the first time on a trip to Arlington Virgina.

I have  a few observations about this talking, sometimes squawking box called a GPS.

A GPS is addictive.  I decided when I first got it free from its hermetically sealed packaging I would try it out around my neighborhood.  Overall Ms. Garmin did a good job getting me around my neighborhood.  Then I programmed her for my trip and away we went.

I liked the way she told me what was coming up, the time I would reach my destination and kept track of my speed.  Ms. Garmin does get a bit bitchy when you “drive away from the highlighted route.”

God forbid you take an exit ramp to the nearest bathroom.  It is almost as if the GPS gives you a big sigh and then says “recalculating”  followed by “drive 500 feet and make a U-turn.”

This piece of intelligent technology has an attitude.  If she is so smart shouldn’t she be able to figure out that after about an hour in the car the driver might have to take a potty break.  It would be much more useful if she said, “I see you need a bathroom, the Exxon 500 feet to the left has clean restrooms and an ample supply of snacks and beverages.”

Maybe the GPS could tell me where the best price for fuel in the area is.  No, Ms. Garmin just gets all pissy because I’m not driving on her “highlighted route.”  I also suspect recalculating is an irritating task because I swear the tone of the GPS voice changes when she has to do it.

All in all I liked using the GPS.  I anticipated her voice coming on 2 miles from my exit.  She did manage to get me a bit lost in downtown Arlington but she eventually got me to the interstate.

Now that I have entered the new generation and started using a GPS I will rest comfortably in the knowledge that if those satellites go down, I still know how to read a map.

It started with a series of sneezes.  My body telling me to slow down.   It wasn’t a lecture or a scream, more like a quiet suggestion that I stop moving at a break neck speed.  Of course I ignored it.  Then came the stuffy nose, the headache, the chills, the fever and the body aches.  This was my body yelling and screaming at me to slow the heck down.  After two days of being miserable I finally hit the wall.  I just couldn’t go to work, I couldn’t clean the house, hell I could barely move off the sofa.

After three months of a pace that would make a marathon runner tired I have been forced to slow down and rest.  Resting is always something I “say” I put at the top of my priority list, but in reality it isn’t something I do often.  Between moving from one home to another, closing out a sales quarter, the holidays and normal daily family stress and activities I had worn myself out.

I have really rested for the past two days.  I took time OFF work (only working a few hours a day), watched more TV than a 13-year-old girl and slept.  It seems as if the antibiotics are kicking in and I might be myself again very soon.  This morning I woke up feeling better for the first time in two weeks.

I haven’t put make up on in three days and the only time I have left the house was to visit the doctor.  It is no vacation but sometimes we need to listen to our bodies and take time to simply be still.  Of course when you are a mother of four you can never totally stop but with the help of a husband who is sympathetic I have rested, finally for the first time in months.

There really is no heroism in going when you are sick.  There is a certain amount of maturity in admitting that you need down time, a time of rest. It is a shame that for most of us we do not take this time until our body demands we do it.  Although I have said before I will learn from my mistakes, I am going to try to learn from this latest adventure with illness.

Maybe next time I need a break, to slow down, I will do in a way that does not include a Z-pack, multiple boxes of tissues and a blanket on the sofa.  I think next time I would like it to include a quiet vacation with my husband and my kids.  Yep, next time I am going to skip the sick and go right for the vacation.

Although my Mother tried every year to make Christmas a magical as possible, my father said the same thing each year.

“Christmas is canceled due to a lack of interest.”

As a very young girl I would try to figure out what the heck he meant.  At five-years-old I really thought there was movement a foot to rid the month of December of Christmas.  Year after year Christmas came, presents were unwrapped and cookies were baked.  Christmas was never canceled.

As an older child and teenager I began to think my father was just the personification of The Grinch.  I thought he was just cranky and hated the holidays.  Some of that may have been accurate but now as an adult I now understand what he was saying.

It is not that I want to cancel Christmas.  I want the holiday season to actually last longer.  I want December to be a month with six weeks.  It seems as if I never have enough time or money to make the holiday season anything but a stressful mess for myself.

There is a certain amount of pressure on parents to provide a holiday fantasy for kids.  My husband becomes frustrated each year with the commercialism of Christmas.  Part of that comes from the financial aspects of showering kids with yards of plastic crap that will be broken before winter break is over and part of it comes from his true abiding faith in his Lord.

He asked few days ago “how did the celebration of the birth of Christ become a time to  buy your kids a bunch of stuff you can’t afford?”

I didn’t have an answer and he didn’t expect one.

The entire point I am trying to make is I completely understand why my Dad tried to “cancel” Christmas every year.  The push and pressure of commercialism is much for parents to bear.

This year we are going to focus on family and food and surprises.  I am looking forward to Friday and Saturday, not because my children will have a ton of gifts to open on Christmas morning, but because I have my children and they have us.

I may not have the time or resources to shower the kids with computers and video games and new cell phones.  I will make the time to make cut out Christmas cookies with them today.  I will find the time to make a wonderful holiday meal next Saturday.  I will have time and resources to cuddle with them and watch Toy Story on TV, like we did last night.

I honestly don’t think they will remember that Christmas 2010 was the year they didn’t get something.  I do pray that they remember that Christmas in their house when they were children was full of fun and love and Mom and Dad were always there for them.  There is a value in those memories you can’t find a Target or the mall!

And an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. – Luke 2:9

And the angel said unto them, Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people. – Luke 2:10

for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. – Luke 2:11