Nuts and Balls
Mamacita says: I’m going to miss the huge shagbark hickory tree in the front yard (we’re moving) but I am so tired of walking on nuts. I’m tired of hearing them flop and fall all over the place. I’m tired of a constant barrage of nuts trying to dent the car.
I’m tired of my ankles turning because of the nuts. I’m tired of mowing over the nuts and flinging them towards someone else’s yard.
Everywhere I turn, it’s nuts, nuts, nuts.
I can’t even walk without stepping on nuts and tripping.
I’m reminded of a fall drive we once took, when the kids were small. We drove past a farm, and as usual slowed down so the kids could see the animals. In this case, pigs. Huge pigs. Huge male pigs. Huge male pigs who could hardly walk. And why, you might ask, couldn’t the huge male pigs walk around in their pen?
Same reason nobody can walk around in this yard. They kept stepping on their darn nuts.
The kids still talk about that trip. Well, not the TRIP, per se, but the sights. That one, in particular. In fact, the kids still quote me. I guess it IS pretty funny, what I said, but the truth was, I was flabbergasted by the sight of those huge nuts being stepped on by those huge sharp hoofs. I’d tell you what I said, but I’m afraid you might not respect me any more if you knew. Besides, one of my kids will probably tell you all in the comments anyway.
We used to have the same problem with balls, but that, like this, was purely seasonal.
Bring it on, Google.
Ten Things I Still Haven't Done Yet
Mamacita says: Here are Ten Things I Haven’t Done Yet. Still. At this point, why hurry?
1. I still haven’t ever used an ATM machine. Someone told me you had to put money in there to get money out. Well, that lets me out of that one.
2. Oprah’s off the air now, so my claim of “I’ve never watched Oprah” will stand unchallenged forever.
3. I’m still not tired of reading and re-reading the Harry Potter books. I find something new every time.
4. Still not bored with listening to Jim Dale’s sexy voice reading Harry Potter – unabridged – out loud to me as I grade papers.
5. I still won’t admit that an abridged version of any book is anything remotely positive. I never will – because abridgements are the devil. Yes, THAT devil.
6. I still can’t conceive of a teacher NOT embracing tech being of much good; refusing to keep up with the world brings students down, when a teacher’s job is to help students soar.
7. I’m still not completely moved out of this house into the other house. I’m living in a house with one chair, a table, a few appliances, and a bed. Everything else is in the new house. We’re waiting for our mover to come down and save us from our obvious insanity. Oh, is that politically incorrect? If the shoe fits. . . .
8. I still haven’t stopped believing that most euphemisms are stupid.
9. I have not yet given up the absurd notion that nobody deserves anything he/she hasn’t earned.
10. I haven’t changed my mind about public behavior, ie decent adults do not melt down in public, period, and people of any age who won’t/can’t behave properly in public have no right to spoil an occasion for anyone else. Wanna fight?
Here’s Number Eleven. Consider it a bonus.
11. I firmly believe that if you are using someone else’s money, no matter how or why you got it, you should be prepared and willing to jump through a few hoops for it. After all, it isn’t really yours because you didn’t earn it. You want my money? Cut my grass. That the last sentence there is a near-rhyme for “kiss my ass” is a mere coincidence.
Being broke sucks. Being broke and watching someone else buying ice cream and steak with my tax dollars sucks even harder.
I should stop going to the grocery store on weekends.
Not To Mince Words: Some Parents Are Scum
Mamacita says: I used to look at my young students every day and wonder what they went home to every night. Sometimes I did know, and my heart broke for them daily. With others, I had no idea. When a child comes to school in rags, shoes held together with tape and rubber bands, it’s pretty much a done deal that there’s trouble at home. Usually, these children were ravenous because the only ‘decent’ meal they ever got was at school so Monday mornings, so they RAN from the bus to the cafeteria for that free breakfast that was sometimes the first food they’d had since their free Friday lunch.
Most of the time, THOSE parents never darkened the door of the school for any reason. Occasionally, one of them would actually show up for a conference, and I would sit there on the other side of the table gritting my teeth and gripping a pencil so tight that sometimes it broke, because nine times out of ten, the parent of my raggedy little starveling was dressed pretty darn well, and it was rare that he/she didn’t reek of cigarette smoke. In other words, money WAS being spent, but not on the child.
Cigarettes in the purse, no socks on the child. Beer in the refrigerator, no decent shoes for the child. Nice clothes on the adult, rags on the child. Warm winter coat on the adult, a t-shirt on the child.
I can feel my blood pressure rising as I remember it.
Why, why, WHY, when these poor kids are constantly removed from these ‘homes,’ are they just as constantly put right back in to be mistreated just like before? Sometimes, in fact most times, ‘keeping the family together’ is NOT important. Sometimes, splitting a family apart is the best thing that could ever happen to it. When parents do not behave like adults, they have no business inflicting it on innocent children. Get the kids out of that house, and put them where they’ll be fed and clothed and loved. Any adult who would buy cigarettes when his/her child has no socks, is a monster, not fit to raise a child. Addictions? Cry me a river. The needs of children always come before any needs of an adult. And especially before an adult’s hobby, toy, or habit. In fact, the needs of children come before ANYTHING remotely to do with an adult.
“Wahwahwah, don’t I deserve to have a life?” Actually, no, you don’t. Not until you have made sure your children’s needs have been taken care of, and, sadly enough for you, sometimes the bars have closed by the time you can go. Of course, there’s always the 24-hour WalMart – you can throw a t-shirt on over your thong and your spike heels and get your cigarettes there. Hey, you might even show up later on People of Walmart! 8-year-old Susie can watch the younger kids till you get home. Wake her up and put her to work; she’s used to it.
Look around. Every person has a story to tell. Sometimes you can tell by their outsides, and sometimes you can’t.
Most of the time, that story has something to do with their home, and who was there, and who WASN’T there.
Some people are parents via biology or adoption, and others are parents via fate. There is no guarantee which kind will be the best kind.
I would bet money, though, if I had any money, that an adult who would put his/her own selfish wants and addictions over and above the needs of a little child, is not even going to be in the running. Shame on them. Shame, and more shame.
I do not understand many things in this world, and one of them is this: when “everybody” knows a home is not a fit place for a child, why does “everybody” talk about that fact, yet allow the child to remain in the home?
“What a shame, those poor kids, alcohol, drugs, prostitution, gambling, live-in lovers, possible molestation. . . . .” and then we watch them get on the bus, knowing they’re going “home” to hell house.
I know that mistakes are made all the time, in removing children from so-called ‘homes,’ but I think even more mistakes are made all the time in NOT removing children. Why should their worthless parents have all the rights, and the children have none?
I am so down tonight. I wish I could gather up all these kids and wash them, and feed them, and put clean socks on their feet, and intact shoes, and pretty clothes. I wish I could fill Christmas stockings and Easter baskets for them, and hug them, and give each one a doll or toy of some kind that would be their very own and nobody else’s. And if their worthless deadbeat parent tried to take it and sell it for drugs or booze, I hope a sensor in it would explode and wipe that bum off the face of the earth. Peace on earth, yes.
Read it right: “Peace on earth to men of good will.”
The other kind can bite me.
