Freedom Writers

After a long day of gardening and such (we planted radish, beet, carrot, lettuce, spinach and squash seeds) we watched a movie, Freedom Writers. It's based on a true story of teacher Erin Gruwell and her high school English classes which have turned into The Freedom Writers Foundation. Amazing stuff.

What I learned about myself through this movie is that while I know that poverty around the world is my problem because I'm human and a child of God and I am moved to live such that I intentionally make a smaller footprint on this planet, my heart is tugged most strongly by issues of the inner city.

That makes no sense because I have no ties to the inner city and my life and experiences are pretty far on the opposite end of the spectrum closest to the Anglo-Rural arrow. But that's how it is.

I'm not sure where to go with this newfound realization, but right now I choose to sleep on it.

Happy Birthday, Little K

 

No more coddling now that you're 5 - make your own birthday cupcakes and make mine with extra icing, please.

Preaching to the choir

Not including Kevin's sleep insecurities, he has gotten much less clingy but still always wants to have another person with him - at all times. He's ok staying in a room when I leave if he has a friend or really anyone else in the room with him. He's an only child so it usually means he tags along with Andy or me like a puppy. That can be a bit annoying, especially to a couple of introverts like ourselves.

On Tuesday night, Kevin went out on a date with Elesa to dinner and the toy store. When he got home I asked him, "Was it nice to go out and have fun without Papa and me with you?"

He replied: "Yes, it was nice to have a break from listening to you."

His first word

In the car the other day, Kevin wanted to read his kids Bible. Usually that means just looking at the pictures but he said, "Look, Mama - I can read!" Then he focused his eyes on the first word of the page and started sounding it out.

"Buh - uh - t."

"Buh - uh - t."

"Buh - uht."

Then his eyes got wide, he clasped his hand over his mouth and he started giggling.

"MAMA! Do you know what this says??"

I started laughing because his reaction was funny but also because he had proven that he was really reading the word on his own. I tried to explain that he was reading the word "but" and not "butt" but he just couldn't stop laughing.

Andy chimed in, "That's the Bible for you."

Ocean's 13 - booyah!

There aren't too many movies made these days that I want to see. On the rare chance we have time and space to go to the movies, we have a hard time figuring out what to see because there isn't always something available that we're interested in.

Exceptions to this are anything by M. Night Shyamalan (I don't love everything he does (see: Lady in the Water) but I love enough to want to see 'em all) and Ocean's 11, Ocean's 12 and - coming June 8th - Ocean's 13. Oh yeah!

The Twilight Zone

Andy has a collection of DVDs containing original episodes of The Twilight Zone and last night he watched "The Odyssey of Flight 33" in which a commercial jet flies into a jet stream causing them to break the sound barrier and be transported back in time.

Andy: They broke the sound barrier. That's not fast enough for time travel.
Dianne: *blink*
Andy: Theoretically.

Evolution of Laundry

Early marriage:
"Honey, where are you?"
"I'm getting dressed."
"Where??"
"By the clothes dryer, where my clothes are."

Later marriage:
"Could you fold the laundry, please?"
"Yes, if it's a load of towels instead of socks."

Preparing for baby:
"Aww, these clothes are so small they don't even fill the washer. How uncontrollably cute!"

After baby:
"Could you fold the laundry, please?"
"Yes, if it's a load of socks instead of baby clothes."

Growing child:
"Child, put your clothes in the hamper. You don't need my help with that."

Older child:
"Child, let me put those in the hamper for you so I can pre-treat the stains and empty the playground mulch and matchbox cars out of your pockets before they go through the washer."

Vindication

Gmail is off the hook (as in not guilty of anything rather than being the bomb - although that is also true) for putting a message we needed into my spam folder. I am off the hook for deleting that message.

We received a forwarded message of it on Monday morning and when I looked at the original part, it was sent when they said, but our email address was typed wrong so we never got it. I guess the person who sent it found the returned message on Monday morning and re-sent it after we'd already gotten it from other people on Friday afternoon.

Phew!

And the interview went well. Andy doubts he'll accept the job but they haven't officially offered it yet, so we'll see.

Can we push the date of that interview back a few days?

Andy has a job interview on Monday. He wasn't looking for a job but a friend forwarded Andy's resume when he saw a job opening at the company where he works.

The recruiting specialist that Andy spoke with said that Andy needs to fill in an online application this weekend before his interview. She said who would be emailing it and to let her know if he didn't get it.

Here's where I step into the story as a key player. I rarely look at my spam messages before deleting them (Gmail's spam filter is amazing) but yesterday as I hit the delete button, my eyes scanned to a message that mentioned a job. That isn't strange as plenty of spam messages mention job opportunities but this one fired more than the usual number of neurons in my brain but it was too late to get the message back when I realized that may have been the message Andy was waiting for.

When Andy got home I told him so he emailed the recruiter to get another copy of the message. He opened the crazy long application page and read through it, filling in the easy stuff before dinner - addresses, etc. - and reading through what else he'd have to do (a couple of extra conflict of interest forms on top of the crazy long application.)

After dinner I was checking email and surfing around when I accidentally hit "Back" while on Andy's application page. I thought I should be concerned about that until I saw the message that came up - "This page is no longer available for security reasons. If you need access to this page, please contact the person who provided you with the address." Then I KNEW I should be concerned. My heart raced, my eyes widened and my skin got prickly. I searched my fairly internet-programming-savvy brain for a solution to cover my tracks. No results were found.

It turned out that we could still access the link from the email message and he didn't have to contact anyone for yet another correction for his space-case wife's mistake (that's what they would've thought I was at that point, I'm sure.) Unfortunately, all of the data Andy already entered was gone.

When Kevin and I returned from running errands this morning, Andy was at the computer. He said he was going to let me type in the information I deleted yesterday but he was filling in some new stuff. Later when he got up from the computer, I asked how far he'd gotten. He said he'd moved on to writing his answers down on paper after accidentally closing the window that he'd typed his answers into.

If you're ever going to comment, do it now for my sanity

Please, can someone (or someones) please remind me what the federal government is doing for me besides annoying my socks off?

Between umpteen tax forms that were so confusing I lost sleep over them (not because I'm afraid of owing taxes or being audited, I just couldn't figure out what to do on some of the forms that kept telling me to go fill out more worksheets that asked for data from the ones that sent me which just put me in a circle of not having any information and can you tell how aggravating that must've been??) and being denied a simple change at the social security office with the appropriate paperwork except for something that we were not given in the format that they say they need it in even though I have plenty of other proof that was issued by their same federal government who writes their laws and signs their paychecks and to which they owe their existence.... I'm really ticked off.

If you're not a programmer, this will not be any fun

The website Worse Than Failure (used to be known as "The Daily WTF") provides sneer-inducing material for programmers. Although it's easy to look down one's nose at the code examples, I know that we've all written code that could be featured on that site.

I enjoyed this quote from the introduction of a recent article:

Now there are different levels of evil. Ruby is normally elegant but resource intensive. PHP was designed as an example of how not to name functions. Perl has its own special circle, ancient and full of strange characters. If you want real evil, though, you have to find a web application written in C.

Good stuff.

First Date?

Andy: Who invited you to their house?
Kevin: Reem
Andy: What did she invite you over for?
Kevin: To watch a Princess movie
Andy: Who was hugging you when I came to pick you up today?
Kevin: Reem
Andy: Were you hugging her back?
Kevin: Yes
Dianne: Who was knocking on the front window when we got there this morning to wave to you?
Kevin: Reem
Dianne: Who was waving at you from the door of the room when we walked in?
Kevin: Reem
Andy: Reem was also waving from the door as we walked down the hall to leave, looking doe-eyed.
Dianne: (looking in Kevin's lunchbag) Oh, good, Grave Digger came home today
Andy: Who wanted to play with that this afternoon?
Kevin: Reem

Fortunately nobody has introduced the term "girlfriend" into Kevin's vocabulary yet and the boys often want to hug him goodbye also.

Movie Reviews

I've seen these three movies in the past three days - that might be a record for me. Nobody pays me for, or even asks for, my opinion of movies. Here they are anyway.

1) Music & Lyrics (theater, Hugh Grant & Drew Barrymore)- We planned to see Breach but it was sold out, even 2 showtimes in advance, so we got tickets for the later showing of Music & Lyrics and went to a restaurant. At 4:30 pm on Saturday afternoon, we were told there was a 50-60 minute wait for a table. ?@#$!@#$?! We didn't necessarily mind as we planned to walk around shopping a little anyway, but the idea of there not being an available time to beat the crowd ticked me off. We arrived at the theater 30 minutes before the show and had to sit in the 5th row, below the main walkway. I got a headache from straining my head up to see the whole screen and from being hot in there. The movie itself was ok. I don't think I'd recommend it, but some people have said they liked it. Hugh Grant's character's one-liners were the best part of the movie.

2) The Pacifier (DVD, Vin Diesel) - I found this pretty funny. Although I didn't like Music & Lyrics because it was too contrived, too predictable, cliche and I didn't think the characters should've been together romantically, I liked The Pacifier even though it was contrived, predictable, cliche and the romance part should've been left out. I would recommend this movie.

3) Flightplan (DVD, Jodie Foster) - Great movie. Good plot with twists and turns, good acting, suspenseful... I definitely recommend it.

Big Girls Don't Cry

Andy: Waaaahhh! Waaaaahhhhhhh!
Kevin: Papa! Stop crying like a baby.
Andy: I'm not crying like a baby. Waaahhhh!
Kevin: Yes you are.
Andy: I'm crying like a grownup.
Kevin: Grownups don't cry.
Andy: Sure they do.
Kevin: Not like that.
Andy: How do grownups cry?
Kevin: Umm... tears come out of their eyes and run down their cheeks. They don't make any noise.

I apologize in advance

Andy's coworker just bought a new house and the guy who lived there before him installed a "theater room." He described it to Andy.

Andy's coworker: Picture this - dark walls, recliners, surround sound system, the screen drops down from the ceiling...

Andy: Picture this - me, in a pink thong, two sizes too small.

They say having a kid changes you

I got new glasses yesterday. My prescription was about 6 years old so I had to have an eye exam, too. Those who know me realize the drama hiding in that simple phrase - EYE EXAM. Did you hear the rumbling thunder as you read the words EYE EXAM? I did.

Obviously I've had EYE EXAMS in the past, in order to have glasses, but I've always signed a waiver stating that I wouldn't allow the doctor to perform all of the portions of the EYE EXAM needed to determine the health of my eyes. No worries about whether I had glaucoma, retinal detachments or that my eye was about to fall out - just give me the glasses so I won't run into anybody and I'll be on my way, thank you.

Yesterday I had Kevin at the eye doctor's office with me. He's extremely well-behaved in such circumstances so I didn't think twice about it until I stepped into the room with the PUFF OF AIR contraption and realized I had a very impressionable audience attending with me.

Hmm...

Over the past few years, I've found myself eating vegetables, considering every word that comes out of my mouth, being brave when I had to talk to someone new and scooping up critters with more legs than seem necessary. Pre-Kevin, I'd have turned around and left all of those situations alone. But now, I have to face them all for the sake of being a good example and strong mother to Kevin.

So what did I do during my EYE EXAM yesterday? I faced up to the bright lights, big machines, puffs of air and retinal scans just to show Kevin WHAT A GOOD MOTHER I AM.

Do you think I can eke out 10 years from this pair of glasses?

Taking care of business

About 5 years ago, my glasses broke so I got a new pair. Thankfully my prescription was only about a year old then, so I didn't have to get another eye exam. I'm still wearing those same glasses. Needless to say, I should get an eye exam. And new glasses, as these have loose screws that I have to tighten a couple of times every day and the lenses still fall out on a regular basis. And I got hit in the face with a volleyball on Sunday and they got majorly tweaked.

So I made an appointment for this afternoon. Yesterday morning, I woke up with only one eye functioning. The other was stuck shut. Ah, my old buddy, pink eye, has returned. "It's been awhile since I've seen you," I remarked. Then I added, "And really, I haven't missed you." Now I will wait until probably next week to take care of my glasses problem.

On the subject of buying a new car, we test drove some more over the weekend and had one of those "God!" moments. After the first test drive at a major-brand dealership, the sales guy was all like, "Is it the car you've been looking for?" "Aw, I was sure you'd come back and say it was perfect for you." "Do you want to step inside and talk some more?" When we left, I complained to Andy about how a salesperson who would act like a human would be much more likely to make money off of me. I probably complained for a good 10 minutes on our way to the next place.

When we arrived at the next place, it was as if we were on Candid Camera. The people we talked to there were exactly like I described wanting salespeople to be! They treated us like we were family. When Andy turned on a car to test drive it, the fuel light came on. The guy genuinely felt bad (someone else had just had it on a test drive, so we didn't think anything of it) but said, "Well, I'll have to drive it up to the corner to get gas in it or you can" and he handed us their American Express Business credit card.

We didn't find the car we want there, but we now have them looking for a car for us while we sit on the couch watching Ocean's Eleven and eating Bon Bons.

If we find out the service we received wasn't a fluke and they continue to treat us the way we hope, I'll be sure to mention their name and give 'em props - that way they get some free advertising to all 3 of you who read my blog.

A reason to buy the Subaru

We're shopping for a car to replace my ailing truck. Yesterday we visited CarMax just to sit in a few different models that may be of interest to see whether they're even comfortable, before dealing with a full-blown test drive. This was particularly the case yesterday as we went out while the temperature was about 25 degrees and it was snowing, so there was no test-driving going on.

To get to Laurel from Ellicott City took much longer than it should have, with people driving 20 mph on I-95, which was merely wet with very light snow falling and lots of cars to melt it off the roadway. Talk about annoying!

We skipped the highway on our way home and took back roads. The back roads were covered in a dusting of snow (covered, but by less than an inch of snow) but they were hilly and curvy. We started down a hill only to see a large gathering of vehicles with their flashers on at the bottom.

"Abort! Abort!" we decided. There was one driveway along the hill so we turned around in it and tried to get back up the hill to go a different way. Unfortunately, we couldn't get back up the hill. Our newly-tired front-wheel drive with traction control van couldn't go anywhere but sideways. Andy and I know how to drive in the snow (really, we do) so we were a bit surprised to find that we were unable to negotiate getting started up the hill. There was a van identical to ours that turned around just after us and got stuck just ahead of us on the hill.

We tried various maneuvers for about 10 minutes before a diesel-engine, dual-rear-wheel Chevrolet truck came by and asked if we needed assistance. You bet! Andy helped him get his tire chains on and hook up the chain to the front of the van. While they were doing this I was wishing we were in his position, being able to help people so practically. I tried to imagine who he was - what kind of job does he do that he has such a truck, is he just out for something else and found all these people in need, etc. I thought through the outward-focused service mindset that our church is really working on and wondered where this man's desire (or at least willingness) to serve came from.

I saw he had some of those "awareness ribbon" magnets on his tailgate and I assumed they were war/military-related. I squinted to read them and could make out only the first and third ones which said, "Support Farting" and "Support Lap Dancing."

I'm going out on a limb to assume that he probably doesn't get his willingness to serve from feeling full of the Holy Spirit. But I could be wrong.

A dandelion in a field of poppies

I visited a Roman Catholic Church last Saturday for a mass in Spanish. I don't speak or understand Spanish. I know a few words, but that doesn't help in a real-life conversation - or a church service. I also was the only blonde in the crowd. I told Andy my hair said, "Look at me!" Then I realized that lots of people live their lives feeling like that everyday and it's good for me to be in that situation. Granted, my situation was insulated in that I was there with Andy's family including relatives visiting from Mexico, so I had a sense of belonging because they looked and sounded like everyone else there and I belong to that family. (And, surprisingly, they do take ownership of me.)

Were I Catholic, I'd know what was going on in the service despite not understanding the language, but I had the double-whammy of not understanding AND not being exposed to Catholic mass in the past except for a few isolated incidents. Yet, I could still tell that I shared something deep with these people - a genuine belief that God is bigger than all of us and that Jesus came to teach us to love.

Andy's dad and aunts asked me whether I liked the service. I thought it a strange question because, obviously, I didn't understand any of the service! But I did say that although I didn't understand any of it, I enjoyed being in that type of situation where I was wildly outnumbered based on my race and cultural experience because it helped me learn about other peoples' perspectives while showing me that deep inside our hearts, we all share so much in common.

So sorry, Mom - but not for when I was sick at night

It's generally not until people become parents that they truly realize the sacrifices that their parents made for them. This has specifically crossed my mind during the many hours I have spent awake when I should've been sleeping but couldn't because Kevin wasn't sleeping.

I've planned to write poignant thank-you letters to my parents but have not done so. I rationalize my laziness with figuring that I can write a letter at each of Kevin's big life changes, including starting elementary school, middle school and then high school, etc.

Last week, I came close to sitting at the computer to compose a letter of apology to my parents. I stopped myself when I realized that after all of the difficulties we've had in the past two years, it was THIS that made me apologize for my behavior as a kid rather than the "important" stuff of needing to be hugged while throwing up overnight, forcing my mother outside on cold nights when I had croup, needing to be run here, there and everywhere for gymnastics practices, meets and ballet classes, etc.

I am not ready to apologize for any of that yet, but I am ready to apologize for all of the "Grody to the max!" and "Yeah, that's the ticket!"'s that I ever said.

Because, really, I've had more "Yeah, Baby!" responses to my questions in the past 3 weeks than I can count and I've had it.