Happy Suicide Tuesday everyone.
I am attempting to update today among a myriad of distractions, not the least of which is Avelyn's insistence that I perform the voices for the various characters from Thomas and Friends as she plays on her train table. So as you read this picture me sitting on the floor, telling engines to be 'very useful' in the booming Sir Topham Hatt voice or channeling my best John Leguizamo voice for Victor the Latino repair engine. Victor confuses me in that his job on the Island of Sodor is to offer maintenance services to all of the steam engines but he is a steam engine himself thus, no hands. How does a train with no hands repair another train? The short answer is: he doesn't. He just idles in the shop and bosses the humans around. Seems like his position could easily be trimmed from the budget. I guess anything is possible on an island where the trains rule the humans who operate them. The human-machine dynamic on Sodor is very confusing. Very. I could probably write a fairly in depth commentary on this, but I will not bore you. Perhaps I could get it published. If only I had the time. If only.
I have been thinking an awful lot lately about new ways in which to make money and become significant in the community, thus avoiding Suicide Tuesdays which are mostly spent thinking about how useless to society I am. A friend of mine from work has been tossing around the idea of opening his own pizza shop. I don't think I have what it takes to be a savvy business man (numbers are not my specialty) but his talking about the subject alone got me thinking.
*** Another distraction emerges as Avelyn decides to press the power button on my computer and run away***
Whatever the case, I have come to the conclusion that I need to get the hell out of the snooty suburban community in which I am living so I am going to need to find some sort of cash flow significant enough to get me a mortgage. I can't rent anymore, I spend way too much time worrying about carpet stains and broken refrigerator parts. And I can't live where I live any more. The members of this community are outrageous and I want nothing to do with them.
Today I took Av to her 'gymnastics' lessons at the new rich person YMCA down the street. Here is the dynamic. There are about 5-6 kids in the class, all between the ages of 3-6. They do tumbles and other gymnastics related activities, most of them very poorly and clumsily as the are just children. While she is in the class I am forced to sit in a chair outside of the room, watching through the window while all of the other moms sit and squawk about their stressful lives being rich trophy wife mothers or PTO representatives. Here are a few of the characters that I deal with.
There is the Spanish woman who does not work because her husband is very wealthy. I know this because she often says things like "My husband is very wealthy." They are taking their son and daughter to Spain for three weeks to celebrate her birthday. This, of course, is after they get back from celebrating Christmas in some tropical destination that I didn't quite hear. Yup. Tropical Christmas.
"Oh, my husband is very wealthy so we are lucky to be able to take the time off."
And all the other moms eat it up. Evidently if your husband is 'very wealthy' your children are allowed to spend significant time away from school.
Over time Spanish mom has made friends with many of the regular white lady suburban women as they sit around watching poorly executed gymnastics and gossip about school or playdates. Today, one especially talkative woman was going on and on and on about a conflict her daughter, who is in first grade, was having with another girl who she used to be friends with but isn't friends with any more. The other moms sat and listened in horror as she described how her daughter didn't want to be the other girl's friend because she was mean and gets in trouble at school (GASP!) and that the other day they were pushing and shoving on the playground (SHOCK AND DISAPPOINTMENT!) This, of course, was followed up with many a question such as "Who is the teacher? Where was she this whole time?" or "What do the other girl's parents do?" as if no first grader has ever pushed another first grader on the playground. Oh, the teacher must have stepped away from her surveillance cameras that she constantly has focused on your kid to make sure that everything goes perfect for her all the time. SOMEONE MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THIS!
Do these women not remember school? For Christ sake your kid got in to a tiff with another girl, probably because she was being a complete bitch about something, and there was pushing. Grow up. Wait until she is 15 and come talk to me. But, no, this conversation went on for some time bashing everyone involved (excluding her own perfect child, of course) and eventually spiraled in to outrage over how the principal of the school took too long to return an email questioning whether or not they would be telling the children about the Connecticut school shooting.
"I just, you know, she comes home from school at 3 and I don't get the email until 8 that night. I mean, what am I supposed to tell her if she asks? How do I know if they even talked about it at school? How do I know if I should bring it up? She could have been more proactive about this, I mean, what am I expected to do?"
Oh, I don't know- stop worrying so damn much? First of all, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if your child is in first grade the principal isn't coming over the intercom and spitting out the horrible details of a school massacre that happened to victimize children the exact same age as they are. Just a hunch. At most, they carefully and delicately go over school lock down procedure or what to do if something bad happens without offering any specifics. The teacher isn't saying "If anyone comes in here trying to murder you do this." No. Not how it works.
But you should totally stress yourself out completely over an email you sent to the principal instead of just deciding how to deal with it if your kid asks because, you know, there is a much better chance of hearing about it from an older kid in the hallway or from TV or the radio or 9,000 other places that aren't her totally irresponsible teachers and principal. But don't worry, you'll bring it up at tomorrow's PTO meeting just to be sure. Good plan. I mean, good God, someone get this woman a job. Or a landscaper to sleep with while her husband is at work. Or something to do besides try to perfect parenting all day long.
As bad as these mothers are the absolute worst are the Russians. There are two Russian children in gymnastics class who appear to be training for the Olympics, or at the very least for some sort of qualifying competition. While my clumsy kid is running around not paying attention and struggling to do somersaults these two are mean-mugging all the other kids and trying to perfect dismounts.
While they are in there doing this the mothers are video taping them and cheering them on from outside. Give me a break. These kids are 4-years-old. Mine dressed herself today. She is wearing a kitty shirt, polka dot pants and a green skirt. One boy is laying on his stomach and spinning around like a helicopter rotor. Take it down a notch. If you want your kids to be that serious take them to a class that is that serious. Don't stand over my shoulder with your video camera and yell in my ear while I am trying to play Fruit Ninja.
That is another thing. All of these parents are very focused on what their children do in this class. Maybe I am a bad father but I pay attention to probably 10 percent of the time Avelyn is in there, and that is usually just to make sure she isn't causing any trouble. I just don't care. She isn't doing anything competitive, or out of the ordinary for that matter. She is running and jumping and tumbling. She does most of this crap in the living room. She is having fun. Big deal. No need to hone in on every movement and analyze why this gymnastics class is better for this skill set or why the teachers mannerisms will help them adapt when they move up to the next skill level. Leave your kids alone. Let them have fun. They are toddlers.
That's another thing, these moms are sitting there complaining that their kids aren't paying attention at dance class and aren't working hard enough at gymnastics. For Christ sake they are children! Maybe this is why I am not 'very wealthy' or taking my family on tropical vacations. Maybe this is why I suffer through Suicide Tuesday. Maybe this is why my daughter is uncoordinated and refuses to acknowledge that the number 15 exists no matter how many times you teach it to her. Maybe my parents didn't push me enough as a child. I don't know, it all seems just totally over the top to me.
Kids are kids. Be nice to them, teach them stuff. When they go to school let the teachers deal with them. That is a perk, not something to be overly concerned about. I could see if you were living in the ghetto or some community with horribly funded schools but even then, the teachers tend to be pretty well educated and dedicated even if the facilities are lacking or the kids are a little more rough and tumble. If you want one on one constant supervision for your kid home school the little bastard. Then it can grow up to have no social skills or concept of actual reality and live in a gated community and send panicked email's to your grand children's school and get totally upset that the teacher has a life outside of work and wasn't able to respond until 8 p.m. Teachers should get CEO money.
Anyway, after sitting and listening to 'push gate' and the outrage over the lack of timely response to the school shooting email I reached the end of my usable life, which is good because that was right when class ended, otherwise I probably would have ended up saying something to one of them. It isn't just like that at gymnastics, it is everywhere in this rich little suburban seaside town. Sure, our apartment is pretty nice and the streets are quiet and the schools are safe, but these are just the worst kind of people. I live with the 1 percent. I live with the people who don't think poor people deserve help because they don't work hard. I live with the people who leave the raising of their children to nannies and the walking of their dogs to "dog walking professionals" but it is fine because they take their children skiing every weekend.
So, this guy right here needs a cash cow of some kind so he can get his family out of this environment before his daughter becomes snooty and exclusive. Maybe I will try and make money from the blog. Today I started a blog Twitter page. I am still not quite sure how I am going to utilize that. Stay tuned. My hope is that it will somehow generate page hits and eventually someone will offer me a book deal based on this incredibly famous blog. It seems to happen to people with a lot less talent than me, so it is worth a shot, right? So, if anyone knows a publisher or two, tell them to tweet me. (Not really, though, because I probably won't get it or understand how to respond).
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