Express Lane Thursday

Somber and disconsolate therapy with a side of musical theatre in the park. Overall, a well-rounded day.

Telephonic Invasion and Chick Fights

I have never been much for talking on the phone. I think I inherited that quality from my dad, who never liked to talk on the phone either. Don't get me wrong, I will talk if someone else calls me and be perfectly happy about it, but I am terrible about calling other people. I could blame it on the children and say that I am too busy and there isn't much quiet time to talk on the phone, but I don't think I called that much when I was a teenager either. I talked a lot as a teen, but usually when someone else called me, as I remember it. When I called someone else, I somehow took it personally if they couldn't talk, almost like a rejection. Well, maybe not so much that as I felt embarrassed that I had bothered them. So, from then on, I was afraid to call for fear I would be intruding. I think it's also because I get excited to talk to someone and then if they aren't there or can't talk, I feel a let-down. I don't even like making business related calls. It makes me uncomfortable. I think the reason for that is that I get tongue-tied. I know what I want to say, but once I am put on the spot, I freeze and can't think of the words I had rehearsed. Yes...I sometimes rehearse what I am going to say...don't laugh. I often hang up, only to recall something that I had meant to remark or query, but had forgotten. I am one of the few people that would prefer speaking to a machine, pressing numbers to make choices, or do as much as I can online and with email!

I wish I wasn't this way. I think it makes people upset with me for not calling them and as a result, I wonder if I have lost friends or failed to make friends.

So, for that reason, I don't talk on the phone much. Mostly just to Chris, who calls me several times a day. I talk to my mother maybe once a week (she and my brother like to text me as a rule). Other than that, maybe a few random calls here and there, but nothing regularly and nothing much to speak of. My phone is pretty quiet. The most common ringtone I hear, by far, is the one I assigned to Chris. Sounds sad, but I have resigned myself to it. When I delivered newspapers, I would have nightly chats via a hands-free attachment to my cell phone with a friend who also delivered papers. It was easy to carry on a conversation doing something as menial as flinging papers, there were no children to interrupt, and it kept us both awake. But, after she quit (and me too, not long after), my phone usage went back to sporadic. It makes for cheap cell phone bills! My husband, however, is the exact opposite. He will keep calling people until he finds someone available to talk when he's in a loquacious mood. He spends most of his day with his phone pressed to his ear. When we were first married and I arrived in Germany, where he was stationed, he warned me to use the phone sparingly. They charge per click--which I think was every 6 seconds, if I remember right--even for local calls. Turned out, he was the one to worry about. Most of the calls on the phone bill were his.

All that background aside, I was pleasantly surprised to receive several phone calls in the last couple of days. I had forgotten that I had that ringtone on my phone! Ha, ha. We are hosting a send-off party for Chris' foster parents, who will be moving to Canada later this year to begin their missionary work. We had sent out invitations, with an RSVP plea so we can ascertain whether to expect a few people or hundreds. I had three calls about their party. Then my friend from the newspaper, whom I mentioned in the previous paragraph and had not talked to for some time, called. We spoke for over 45 minutes. We likely would have chatted longer, had my doorbell not interrupted and caused me to have to excuse myself. Then today, Kimmy's friend's father (who is also their gym teacher) returned a call that I had made to his wife regarding Kimmy's upcoming birthday party. That was an interesting call because, while I have met him a couple of times, I was not aware of the fact that he and I had attended the same middle school and high school. So we chatted a bit. The girls were VERY interested in seeing his picture in my yearbook and Arrena has been carrying it around, looking dumbfounded, ever since. I think it's fun when I run across someone I knew long ago or at least crossed paths with. It's amusing to see their picture and know where they came from. I always feel that when people meet me now, they are missing much of the picture, by not knowing who I have been, if that makes any sense.

Anyways, five different callers may not be a big deal for some, but for me it was big-time busy because I usually don't receive that many calls in five MONTHS! And that is in addition to the calls I made for Kimmy birthday and speaking with Arrena's friend's mom about an upcoming sleepover. I feel all talked out now! At least when I was on the phone with my friend, I multi-tasked, doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen, dining room, and my bedroom while I was on the phone. Should have done that during the other calls as well... (Ugh!)

This afternoon, I took the kids to the splash park. For those of you who DON'T know what that is, it's a park with lots of "sprinkler" or fountain-type protrusions that spray the kids with water. My kids love it. There was a bench nearby that had some personal belongings on one end, so I sat on the other end and played solitaire on my phone and watched the kids. Pretty soon, two teenage girls, one teenage boy, and a little girl came back to the bench and I assumed the belongings were theirs. They had been sitting there next to me for a little while and I had paid them no mind until I felt a jolt of the bench. It startled me and I looked up and the two teenage girls had leapt to their feet and had each other in a headlock in front of me. At first, I was dumbfounded as to what was going on. It was just a struggling mass of bodies and I was trying to determine if someone was being assaulted or robbed and if I should step in to assist someone. When one raised her head, I finally figured out that it was the two girls and they were involved in a cat fight. One threw the other down hard on the concrete and I decided that it was time to deliver a brief motherly lecture. I lowered my phone and said, "Y'all need to take this somewhere else, away from all these children!" To my surprise, they acquiesced. They moved off over by the park building in the grass about 100 yards away and proceeded to pummel each other. The little girl was trying to call her mom, but couldn't reach her. Another mother nearby remarked to me, incredulous (and I suspect somewhat appalled), "They are really fighting over there." I just shrugged and said, "At least they went over there."

I used to be the type that minded my own business. I never spoke up, I kept to myself. And I still felt young enough, not to be in a position of authority over other young people. But, I am now of the mindset that it "takes a village to raise a child." In a better world, parents would teach their children to behave, but since that obviously ISN'T the case, I have no qualms anymore about teaching their children myself. Even if they happen to be standing right there. If I, or someone like me, doesn't, who will? Obviously not their parents--and we end up with a very rude and selfish generation.

For example, one day I was waiting for my girls to get out of school and Billy was playing in the sand with some of the other preschool-aged children whose parents were also waiting for older siblings. A couple of the children started to throw sand, which is all the invitation that Billy needs before his thin restraint cracks and he starts grabbing handfuls. None of the parents were making a move to intervene, so I stalked over, snatched Billy up by the arm and scolded the other children, "No throwing sand!" Then I removed Billy from the instigators.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the kids and I were at the YMCA outdoor water park. I was holding Billy and some little boy came by us, way too close, and was thrashing about and hit me hard in the mouth. He didn't mean to, but he was being careless and I was mad. So, I stopped him and said, "You need to watch what you're doing! You just hit me!" He apologized and went away.

So, if you are a parent of one of these holy terrors, don't be surprised or offended if you overhear me telling your child to excuse themselves when they push past us at the zoo or act rudely in any situation which confronts me. My children get the same lecture.

Okay, that gets me all worked up, so I'll close with a picture of Arrena's cactus garden that she made this week. Maybe it will have a calming effect.

Today we went to the zoo and the park. My husband said we were dumb because it's been cloudy and REALLY windy all day. But, the forecast said it wouldn't storm until later, so we enjoyed the cooler weather. We decided to pack it in when we were at the park and a tree split in half and half fell over the picnic table we had been eating at and the swing I had been sitting in only moment before! Yikes! Well, it makes for a good blog anyways.



At the zoo, one of the elephants decided the grass was greener on the other side...of the ravine that separates them from the people. So, she was reaching her trunk all the way over, her knees bent to stretch farther, only inches from us. It was so cute.

I meant to write and brag about my kids sooner. Arrena always deserves bragging because she is such a little grown-up and such a good helper. Sunday at church, Kimmy & Billy's Sunday school teachers were just raving about them. She said Kimmy is like their little ambassador, always very friendly to new kids. And she said Billy is always so good, which made me wonder if she had the wrong kid. Billy is never very good at home. But I am glad he is good elsewhere. I always worry.

Billy was so cute yesterday. The girls and I were saying our prayers and he wanted to pray. He folded his hands, bowed his head, and said, "Thanks [for] popcorn."

Scheduling, AKA, What We've Been Up To

I've never been a structured, schedule-oriented person. I don't like being confined. I want to do what I want, when I want. I might have a few things I want to get done in a given day, but I also like to get a wild hair and decide I need to run to the craft store for mirror pieces or to WalMart for material, etc. But, my children seem to fare better with structure. Especially Arrena. She likes life ordered and scheduled. She wants to know what we will do next and next after that and next after that and tomorrow and the next day, etc. I believe she would plan out her entire life, including her demise. And she's seven! I know I should be more scheduled--I'd get more done, instead of saying, "where did the day go?"

So, I worked on a summer schedule for us. That way, I manage to fit in fun, housework, and some schoolwork practice. Otherwise, we'll have fun all the time, the house will go to pot, and before I know it, the summer will be over and they will have forgotten everything they learned last year.

We didn't do the schedule last week, just kind of let them have the first week off of school to relax. Then Monday, all the kids had spent the night at their grandmas' houses, so that sort of ruined that day's schedule. But, yesterday, I got busy. I was pleased that things seemed to get done and wondered why I hadn't done this before. I think my problem is that I get stuck on one thing. For example, I will sit down at this glowing screen and get mesmerized and end up surfing the web for half the day. Or, like yesterday, I had scheduled some time for scrapbooking, but I needed to dig out my scrapbooking desk first. I had been throwing stuff on it for weeks and it was a mound of report card, pictures, school artwork, etc. I had an alloted amount of time and it wasn't enough. I had nearly finished, but it was time to move on to something else. So, with great reluctance, I didn't finish the task, I went on to the next item on the schedule. I had to think on my feet a couple of times and rearrange some things (like can't take a shower BEFORE the gardening), but in the end it all worked out.



We took a walk to the little park down the street. Chris won't take the kids there. It doesn't have any equipment, but it's got a large pond and a walking path and lots of ducks to feed. But, it has a big sign out front that says it's for members of the homeowners association only. Well, I disregard this. The only person who could possibly know that I am NOT a member of the homeowners association would be the president and what are the odds that I will run into said president. We have been there maybe five times and only once have I seen another person in the park. What's the worst that could happen? They could tell me to leave? Oh well. Plus, I perform a community service--the kids and I pick up trash when we walk in the park. If that doesn't earn me the right to walk there.... I got a dirty look from one of the neighbors, but I shrugged it off. Later in the day, Billy (well, more me than Billy) planted a garden. The girls helped, but they will be making their own gardens in the coming weeks. Billy's was flowers, Kimmy's will be fruits and veggies, and Arrena's will be cacti.



Today, our schedule was thwarted by the library not opening as early as I had thought, and the YMCA's pool schedule not meshing with my schedule. So, we ended up throwing out the schedule. I worked out at the YMCA, then we went to the library. We went home then, but later came back to the library (they had a live Radio Disney event going on) and then to the pool at the Y. Billy doesn't like the pool too much and just hung around my neck like an albatross the whole time we were there. Then he wanted to go because he insisted he had to "go" bad. No matter that he had on a swim diaper and never worries about "going" in a diaper any other time. Tonight, we went to get ice cream and I had just changed him out of his big boy underwear into a diaper before we left and he stopped in the middle of the ice cream to look down his shorts. After a brief comment by him, I deduced that he felt the urge to "go" and was making sure that he had a diaper on so he could go ahead and relieve himself without interruption to his ice cream feast. {me rolling my eyes} Anyways, I sat down this afternoon and REWROTE my schedule to accommodate the library and the YMCA's hours of operation. Hopefully this schedule will work! I had such a sense of accomplishment yesterday!

Speaking of schedules, I got a new one at work yesterday! We have been dreading this for a couple of months, with a "redo", etc. But, I was happy to find that I had been awarded my 5th choice schedule (they recommended marking down hundreds of choices!), which is not much different than my hours now, but I now get Saturday and Sunday off! YAY! And my new supervisor, in my experience, is the nicest supervisor in the whole plant. So, I must say that I am satisfied!

We had a celebrity sighting today!

Okay, so it was a local celebrity, but it was funny nonetheless. Notorious, more than famous. If you have ever watched the TV show Cops, you know how dumb the people on that show can be. I always cringe when they do an episode in our city (Wichita, KS) because you don't want people to think that every person here is an inbred, ignorant hick criminal. There was an episode we had seen a few years ago that took place here and involved a woman. I can't remember what she had gotten pulled over for (erratic driving, speeding, illegal turn, something like that) and when she stopped, instead of pulling over to the side of the road, she turned into a driveway at Linwood Park. But, it's one of those driveways that is blocked by a chain, so she was half out in the road. I think the police thought she was going to turn around and run, so they pulled behind her to block her in, so they were both blocking the oncoming lane of traffic. And it had been raining, obviously, so that area was flooded. She was mad. I think something had happened before all of this (there was some allusion to her ex-husband or something like that), so she was already ticked off and that's likely why she was driving the way she was. The officers kept asking her what was wrong and if they could help her, but she refused and just kept saying, "you can give me the ticket so I can go." She was so belligerent that I think they ended up searching her. She was hot (very mad). It really wasn't the officers fault, she was just already mad about something, let it affect her driving, and got caught, so she took it out on the wrong people. And when they finally let her go, she spun tires and acted like an idiot. They probably had grounds to arrest her. Chris always said that he thought she looked familiar.

Well, today we were at the flea market, and as we were leaving, a couple of women walked in. I thought one looked familiar and I was trying to figure out where I knew her from. Then it dawned on me that it was that woman! I burst out laughing. I nudged Chris and said, "did you see that woman?" He smiled and answered, "it's the one from Cops." Made me want to ask for her autograph, but if her Cops appearance was any indication of her disposition, I figured I better leave that one alone.