Cranky Mommy

See, I can write a (mostly) positive and upbeat post! Just watch me.

Tomorrow, my brother-in-law is going in for surgery to remove a lung tumor that was found unexpectedly — in preparation for minor surgery. Although my husband and I aren’t particularly close with his brother, he is in our thoughts right now.
We don’t know if it cancer or not, yet. One doctor thinks it might be and other said he doesn’t.
The fact is, that he hadn’t smoked cigarettes in a long time, although he’d exposed himself to his own second-hand pipe smoke for years. By comparison, my husband, his brother, smoked 2 1/2, yes that is right - two and a half, packs a day. He started as a teenager and quit shortly after we got married, and hasn’t smoked since 1999.
I feel badly for my husband’s brother, but I also take it as an ominous sign for my husband. His father died of pancreatic cancer (although largely aggravated by alcoholism). I know that it is all left up to fate at this point, and I have no control over any of this stuff. However, it kind of makes me want to run off to a health food store… and start sprinkling some magic antioxidants on top of his breakfast cereal, or something.

To the idiots who drove their cars and S.U.V.s up the WALKING path at Linkwood Park:
A-duh, It’s a WALKING path.
And, when someone tells you nicely You will get a ticket for parking IN the park, that really means:
Get your EXTREMELY lazy butt back in your vehicle, drive it back down the WALKING path, then walk up the path like everyone else. And try not to run over any toddlers on your way out.

For the few of you who don’t know, a blogroll is a list of other weblogs, which is usually on the sidebar. I have decided I am pretty much not getting the whole blogroll etiquette (if there is one). I’ve searched the internet trying to find some kind of information on this, but haven’t found anything concrete.
Do you blogroll the blogs you want to read? Do you blogroll the blogs that link to you? What about those guilty pleasures (the blogs that you don’t like very much because they are kind of trainwrecks but you have to read them anyway?) What are the rules here?
What if there is a blog on your blogroll that is boring you to death, do you just remove it?
I originally stopped blogrolling the local weblogs I read on Blogtimore but now I am rethinking that.
There are blogs on my blogroll who are linked to my old blogspot blog and haven’t bothered to update their blogrolls to this address. And it has been like six months. And I wonder if they read me or if I should boot them. Still haven’t made a decision.
There was a weblog on my blogroll that I linked to for a really long time. She never blogrolled me. And I thought, Heck, she’s pretty entertaining, but she hasn’t bothered to link to me in several years, and I can just find her blog at so-and-so’s site, so I unlinked her. And then what does she do? She blogrolls me. And then notices she’s off my blogroll, and un-blogrolls me. I guess like me, she doesn’t ‘get’blogroll ettiquette either.
Someone else un-blogrolled me, and part of me wondered, why? And then another part of me thought, who cares!
Then, there are blogs that have blogrolled me, that I have yet to blogroll, because my blogroll is already too long — and I hardly have time to read the ones on my blogroll.
And what about those weblogs that haven’t updated in 2 months? Are they down for the count or will they be back soon?
Sometimes I want to delete the whole darn thing.
So, I now that I have way way way overthunk this, but here is my personal blogrolling policy:
I don’t know what my blogrolling policy is.

The boy is peein’ in the potty, suddenly…. and staying pretty much dry, all day!
All of the sudden. (Don’t ask me, I don’t know what I did).
But let’s keep quiet on this, and I will just knock on wood.

I first heard about this book, Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads, on A Mama’s Rant (and I also found a link to an article about this book at Dot Moms). The book, which I haven’t read yet, discusses Mom Cliques.
It was a subject very important to me right after I gave birth to my son, and all my friends were childless and I had no “mommy friends” to speak of. Now, it is of less importance, because I have a number of “mommy friends” here and there who I enjoy spending time with (who aren’t a part of any clique, thankfully).
A Mama’s Rant asks these questions of her readers, which I though I would elaborate on: what’s your take on mommy cliques? Do they exist? How have they affected you? Are they responsible for the so-called Mommy Wars? And - dare I ask - what category do you fit in?

Do mommy cliques exist? Most certainly. Not all the time and everywhere, but they are out there. Even on the internet, you can see “cliques” of mom bloggers, which I find quite funny. One hopes it all ends at high school but apparently it doesn’t. Of course, I am destined to fail with any clique at any point in my life, partly because I have always hated them, and partly because I am too socially inept to figure out the games and rules.
How have they affected you? I remember that when my son was younger, I was blown off by a lot of moms who were part of the “Attachment Parenting”, “Natural Living”, and “Natural Childbirth” crowd, a clique all unto itself. Not that I don’t have friends who aren’t into all of that (and I wasn’t into some of it) but the most hardcore advocates want nothing to do with you if your child sleeps in a crib which they call “baby jail” right in front of you. I also have, at times, felt a bit outclassed economically by some of the more upper-middle-class moms. Generally speaking though, in my current life I somehow manage to avoid most of it (for now, until my son hits school age, I suppose).
Are they responsible for the so-called Mommy Wars? I’ve heard about the “Mommy Wars”, which I think is the so-called wars between working moms and stay-at-home moms. I don’t think mommy cliques have anything to do with them, but I hardly know any working moms, so maybe they do! The working moms I know are working out of need and not out of love of work or need for career self-fulfillment, and one can hardly fault anybody for just trying to make a living. I used to think much worse of some working moms who were trying to “have it all” materially, and weren’t making the sacrifice to stay-at-home with their child. At this point though, I figure — happy mom, happy kid, and there are much greater crimes against humanity and I should just keep my mouth shut on this matter.
And - dare I ask - what category do you fit in? A hard one. In some ways, Outcast Mom. However, I do have “mommy friends” (hehe, some people can put up with me) so I don’t know if that fits. In other ways, I think I defy definition and would like my own category. Perhaps Iconoclastic Mom. Cynical-Snarky-Depressive-Silly-Cranky-Arty-Farty Mom. That works for me.

I managed to get rid of those tickets on Freecycle. (Only today, my thinking-more-clearly-than-I friend suggested that I go to a Stereolab Fan Yahoo Group and try and hock them there. A great idea too late). Instead of the hubby and I going out and seeing a band, we watched the medicocre Walk The Line. Bleh. I don’t know who raved about it (it seems like everyone and their uncle liked it) but we sure didn’t.
It was simplistic and slow. Not Akira Kurosawa Good slow, just bad slow. Johnny Cash’s character and motivations weren’t developed enough, so I couldn’t empathize with him much. And okay, Joaquin Phoenix looked and sounded a good bit like Johnny Cash (perhaps an octave higher) but it just made me want to listen to the real thing.
And then there were little things that really bugged me, that prevented me from suspending my belief any further. Like, when Joaquin Phoenix goes off to the Air Force and says good-bye to his mother, and I’m thinking his mother looked young enough to be his girlfriend. And, how Jerry Lee Lewis’ character was wearing a bad wig… with a $28 million dollar budget, couldn’t they have afforded a better wig? And, how the guys rockin’ out in Fulsom prison looked more like out-of-work L.A. actors than prisoners.
It was nicely shot. And, the acting was…okay… but it didn’t make up for the simplistic script.
Seeing Walk The Line reaffirmed the fact that I should pay absolutely no attention to award shows for films (at least the Academy Awards and The Golden Globes). In fact I am struggling to think of a single Hollywood film in the last ten years that has made me go, Wow. Until Hollywood makes something worthwhile in films, I seek my solace in television. If it isn’t good, it’s at least cheaper. I’m look forward to the antidote: Dead like Me Season II.

Guess what I am happy about?
I can… get this… breathe… through one side of my nose!!! YAY!
Of course, I still have this awful snot. The rubber cement kind. So does my family. This year, sitting around the table with us at dinnertime, is like eating with three Darth Vaders. 3 Snorting, mouth-breathing Darth Vaders.
I need to come up with a good use for all of it. I am thinking, adhesive. I just found some green stuff stuck to the wall that undoubtedly my son wiped and stuck there who knows when, and it took me a hell of a long time to get it off — that stuff is stronger than super glue. I’m not sure about my writing or artistic abilities, but damn, I we make some pretty good snot, and I need to market it.
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On another note… although I have put out notices on Craigslist D.C. and Baltimore for my 2 Stereolab tickets, I have no bites, so they are about to go on Baltimore Freecycle. C’mon, there has got to be somebody in Baltimore who is stuck in the 90s like me and wants to see Stereolab. For free. $18 bucks a piece.( And, the tickets are snot-free, too).

I am sick (of course). And babysitterless. So, please, buy my tickets. Best offer.

Stereolab at the 9:30 Club, Washington D.C. 2 tickets. for Tues. Mar.21 (tomorrow)

It will be picked up by you, or I can meet you somewhere, since there is no time to mail.

The woman dancing with me in this photo, wearing the wig (and that very see-through, hand-crocheted-by-herself dress), is my grandmother, Gerda, whom I called Omi. This picture of us is from my wedding in 1998. She died today of heart failure at the ripe old age of 87, and was my last living grandparent. It was unexpected, after a short illness.
Quite a character, she was not an easy person to have as a family. Overall her life had had some tough spots, and I am sure that was partly a consequence of that. However, the person we called Hurricane Gerda — a tiger of a woman who put fear into the heart of many a waitress, city council person, and family member — grew into a mostly sweet, appreciative little old lady with dementia who was much easier to love. She was able to reconcile somewhat with her son the last years of her life (they hadn’t spoken to each other in over 30 years, until my wedding).
Up until a few days ago, she lived fairly independently in a senior home, despite her dementia (which I wrote about this past December). She was just getting to the point where my parents thought it might be time to move her. Thankfully, she was spared having to go through the stress of adjusting to assisted living or a nursing home, and suffered little at the end. Although I miss her, I feel very happy for that.