………and my favorite city.
Month: September 2012
Madam Speaker
When the kids were in grade school, I was asked by the PTA to be in charge of the all-school reading program. I said I would but only if I could change everything about it.
Prior to taking it over, the reading program was a contest between classes to see who could read the most minutes over the course of a week. The winning class would get a pizza party. There were two problems with this.
#1. Kids cheated so their class would win. I know it’s a damning accusation but it was true.
#2. I don’t believe reading is a contest.
I started an all-school book club with activities in the lunchroom every day geared to all age groups. The first year we did Charlotte’s Web. Swoon. By week’s end we had set up a mini county fair on the first floor with blue ribbon pies, quilts and dioramas that the 3rd graders made.
I knocked it out of the park.
After that success, the PTA asked me if I would be the chair of programs for the following year. I knew that doing this would require me to get up in front of an audience each time to introduce the guest and I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t stand up in front of others and talk like a normal person.
I declined but said I’d consider being the treasurer as I was a loan officer in my before kids life and could manage a budget. This is one of the hardest jobs to fill and they must have been high-fiving each other when I offered to take it without even being asked.
It wasn’t the most well thought out decision.
#1. People would show up at my place of employment looking for a PTA payout and get pissy when I couldn’t give them their money because I didn’t carry the checkbook with me. To my job. Where I was being paid to work not run an ATM.
#2. It’s a two year gig. After being treasurer for a year you become VP of Finance which is a mentoring position for the new treasurer. TWO years of regular PTA meetings followed by PTA board meetings.
#3. I had to give a budget report each month.
I’d shot myself in the foot but good.
Every meeting I’d get up in front of an audience in the cafeteria and give a shaky voiced report on the status of the money. While I rarely strayed from my printed report, once in awhile I’d wing it and look out at an audience who seemed to be showing outright pity over my anxiety. I would try to calm myself and regroup but usually ended up gagging on some wayward spit.
For the last two weeks, we have watched both the Republican and Democratic conventions and geez…………..where do these women come from? These powerful, eloquent women who can speak to thousands of people in a convention center and millions of people at home and never skip a beat. Never have a crack in their voice that induces sympathy. Never continually rub their forehead as anxiety induced pain roars through their bodies. Never have armpit stained dresses or beads of sweat on their newly waxed mustaches.
They came from somewhere but it sure wasn’t the PTA I was in. That produced somebody like me who exhibited all of the above when speaking in front of thirty people and that was after a bathroom run due to a case of The Nervous Poop.
The Super Bowl
Labor Day weekend may be about celebrating the American worker, but in my part of the world it’s about the Sparks Flea Market.
Sparks Kansas.
Yep, it’s in the middle of nowhere.
Last year we took Will and he thought it was all kinds of fun. This year we took Maggie and Nate. Prior to leaving, Nate told the siblings, “Kids, this is your mother’s Super Bowl, now don’t do anything to spoil it.”
Yeah kids, don’t make me get out a can of whoop-ass.
The siblings got along. They bought stuff, they survived ridiculously hot temps, they ate corn dogs and sat in a tub that a farm boy cut in half and made into a loveseat.
The Farm Boy is not married. He’s never even dated which led to some awkward silence on our part. If I knew a guy who was that talented I’d snap him up in a heartbeat, but I didn’t say that out loud as you never know the sketchiness of the kind of guy who would tell complete strangers that he’s never dated.
We came home with an old trellis, a rusty blue tool box, a green oar, a bowling pin, birdhouse, some locker baskets and a shelf made from an old piece of luggage.
And just before we left, we ran back to buy one more thing from the farm boy. That’s when we discovered that he may have some issues with gas.
Go Tell It On The Mountain
The first time I ever saw a protest was in the sixties when we were piled in the family station wagon headed to see our grandparents. It was a civil rights protest that we passed and it made The Queen Mum really nervous. Dad said they were standing out there to make a point and weren’t interested in bothering anybody.
A few years ago, our church organized a walk to join a protest in Kansas City against the Iraq War. I told The Big Daddy that we needed to put our money where our mouth was when it came to this and so the whole family went. He and I might have been more effective protestors had we not both been suffering from A Massive Hangover. As I was walking with a friend, she told me she was suffering from the same affliction, and that church of ours wasted their best intentions on some of their slacker parishioners who thought the prep was to get shit-faced the the night before.
When the Westboro Baptist Church showed up at the kids high school with their “God Hates Fags” posters, every man, woman and child within twenty miles came to that protest to drown them out and send crazy packing.
Last week in New York City, two dozen women protested their right to go topless. One woman said that her dog has six nipples that anybody can see, but if she were to show her two she’d be arrested.
But your dog isn’t picking the kids up from school, making a deposit at the bank or digging in the freezer case at the Winn-Dixie for the Green Giant Sweet Kernel Corn that’s two for one.
My years of living make me believe that if we all gave peace a chance we’d be better off. And while I appreciate the right to protest and wouldn’t hesitate to do it if I believed in the cause, I’d rather passer-bys just be looking at my sign.