03.29.09
Where You’re From
I wrote the following for a community columnist contest at my local paper. I wasn’t selected, but why let good writing go to waste.
On a work trip to San Francisco recently I heard a lecture predicting the next big earthquake to hit northern California. Apparently, a major earthquake occurs along the Hayward fault near San Francisco on an average of every 140 years. The last one was in 1868. So, 1868, plus 140 puts us at … 2008.
Listening to the data was pretty scary. It made me want to come home to Alabama as soon as possible. The predicted earthquake would wipe out the public transportation system, bridges and roads; break gas lines and cause fires; destroy roads and prevent emergency workers from getting to people who needed help, and so on. It sounded like a tragedy of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina, except with no warning whatsoever.
As I left the presentation I couldn’t help but think, “So what exactly does this guy want people do? Move away from San Francisco? And what about after this thing happens? Spend millions or billions of dollars to “fix” northern California?” I wanted to ask the people around me – native San Franciscans – why do you still live here if you know that any minute this thing could happen?
All of these thoughts led me to think about loyalty to where you’re from. If a group came out today with a report stating that my city was going to be sucked into a black hole, and as a result tried to shut us down, I’d stay put, just like people did in New Orleans post-Katrina and as I suspect people in northern California will do if and when this big earthquake happens.
After Katrina, I read opinions that parts of New Orleans shouldn’t be rebuilt because of the risk of more hurricanes and the amount of work and money needed to make those areas habitable again. At the time, I tended to agree. Why waste money on something that runs the risk of being destroyed year after year?
Yet, we Americans form strong bonds with the places we live. They are part of us. In an autobiography I am reading the author talks about how in his younger years he couldn’t wait to get out of the rural coal-mining community where he grew up. Yet, he realizes later how much a part of him that community was. Today he is an activist trying to “save” the town where he grew up, since devastated when the mining industry moved on.
I am always so proud to tell people I am a native of my city, where I was born and raised. I love Alabama! I love experiencing the pride that wells up in me when I sing along to “Sweet Home Alabama” at local sporting events. I love cotton in fall and red clay. I like knowing the quirky history of this place and watching it grow and transform while still keeping its small-town charm. It’s kind of “the American way” to live where you want to live, even if it’s at your own risk, and to be committed to the history and the heritage and the future of the place you are from.
My official drink of summer
Sierra Mist has a new flavor for summer – Ruby Mist. Sierra Mist + Ruby Grapefruit. It’s so good I’ve decided it will be my official drink of summer. Plus Target had coupons for free 2 liters. They didn’t actually have 2 liters in stock, so I had to buy cans, but it doesn’t matter since I’ll be getting more anyway.
03.27.09
Pay More, Get Less
From today’s paper:
County garbage rates could be going up
Those who get twice-weekly pickup for $13.50 a month would be scaled back to weekly collection and pay an additional $1.
First, I am one of “those who get twice-weekly pickup.” Second, I heard buzz about this last week — that the sanitation director wanted to cut back county trash pickup from two days to one. And I was OK with it. Really. I’ll admit, I was a little miffed, at first, that I was going to have to pay the same price for half as much service. I thought they could have at least reduced rates by like $1, you know give us a little something so it doesn’t feel like we’re getting totally ripped off. But I don’t consistently use the two days I currently pay for, and we could get buy with just one, so I was cook with it.
But no. They want to cut my garbage pick up service in half and then charge me more. What?!? This makes absolutely no sense.
Review: The Motherload
In short: I laughed until my cheeks hurt and then I wanted to go home and play Hungry Hungry Hippo with my kids. (Fortunately, they were in bed so I didn’t actually have to play Hungry Hungry Hippo.)
Betsy Stover did a magnificent job telling my life story. Well, it wasn’t mine, really. It’s actually Amy Wilson’s, the mom who wrote and originally performed The Motherload. But The Motherload is the story of the modern mother, so it very much felt like my story. It’s like the writers had actually been to my house! Even the set — a messy living room — could have been straight out of my house!
It’s a one-woman, hour-and-a-half act where a mother (played by Stover) expresses all the stress and frustration of today’s moms while trying to have the perfect home, perfect children, and be perfect moms. In a very, very humerous way, Stover vents and questions where these pressures come from — magazines, books, doctors, other moms — by talking through personal experiences with infertility, pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, the second baby, and life with 3 kids under 5. Note: I know these probably weren’t Stover’s actual experiences, that she was acting. But they very well could have been her own because she sold it so well. It didn’t feel like you were watching an act, it was like just watching a really good mommy-friend share her stories.
As she talks she’s slowly straightening up her living room, folding laundry, etc. only to realize after 90 minutes of talking through these things, that the clean house and the perfect children don’t matter and aren’t the point. She feels guilty for not having it all together like the magazines and books portray, but then feels guilty for always telling her 3-year-old she can’t play Hungry Hungry Hippo because she’s spending too much time doing all the other stuff that’s needed to be the perfect mom. It is a fine line between being the mom you think should be and being yourself, and the show is great for letting you laugh at yourself and for making you think about how important it is to find balance.
My friends and I could relate to nearly every comedic portrayal of this mom’s experience, so we laughed hysterically throughout the whole thing. Aside from the plot, Stover had excellent delivery with quite a few right-on impersonations of the people we meet in life — the stuck-up preschool director, the skinny mom at the gym, the disapproving doctor, the cheery and unsympathetic labor & delivery nurse — her acting was magnificent!
I highly recommend it to all moms of young children!! It’s in my city through the weekend, but it’s a traveling show so see if there’s one near you, grab a couple girlfriends and go!
Also check out the writer, Amy Wilson’s, blog for more Motherload fun!
03.26.09
Moon Tree
I want one of these moon trees — sycamore trees grown from seeds that went to the moon with Apollo 14. It would have double significance for me. The NASA thing, of course, but also my college was the Sycamores.
03.25.09
To All the Cars I’ve Loved Before
The A/C in my husband’s car started having problems back in the fall. We didn’t worry much about it since it was getting cooler weather and we wouldn’t need the A/C again for several months. It’s already started to get warm here so we had it checked out a few weeks ago. They estimated $2,400 to replace the evaporator. What?!? It’s not quite 4 years old and has 60,000 miles, which to me seems a little young for such a big problem, considering our old car is nearly 12 years old with 175,000 miles on it and it’s A/C didn’t go out until last year. So we’ve started comparing what it would cost to get a different car versus paying for the repairs. Do we get the same kind of car or a different car? Do we get a car, or do we get a van or wagon Do we get a new car or a new car to us, aka used? Do we lease? Will someone give us enough for our broken car to pay off the loan?
This whole thing got me to thinking about all the cars I’ve had before (I say that like I’ve had a lot. Maybe I have. I dunno.) So a brief car-trip down car memory lane:
My first car I technically still have. I drove it last week, as a matter of fact. It’s a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. Green. That cool teal green that was popular in the mid- to late- 90s but that is not at all popular now. It’s the aforementioned 175,000-er. I got it the night before my 17th birthday as a surprise. It stayed with me through that last year of high school, went with me to college, and was one of the things my husband liked about our relationship — he preferred my car over his truck; I liked his truck. It endured 4 winters in Indiana and got it’s driver-side mirror knocked off once. It had issues with belts and A/C , and got a rebuilt transmission 3 years ago, but overall it’s been a good, dependable car. We currently use it as our “spare.”
My second car was actually hubby’s truck. A 1995 Toyota T-100 (the predecessor to the Tacoma). It was maroon and had a king cab. Very nice. It was one of the things I liked about him. I had wanted a truck but my dad wanted me to have something more appropriate for hauling stuff and hauling friends — a 4-door with a trunk and good gas mileage. The truck was great, but it met its fate one early, icy, Indiana morning when it skid on an icy hill and hit a telephone pole. Hubby was behind the wheel but wasn’t hurt, at least not from the impact (the air bag burned his arm). He was moving very slowly down a hill, aware of black ice, and there was just nothing he could do. The truck was totaled. We took the insurance money and paid off the Galant.
Fortunately by this time, we had already acquired my third car — our first car together. Sweet, isn’t it? A 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Sport. Our first SUV. We actually leased it because to buy it was too expensive. It was great for winter weather driving and looked nice too. The gas mileage was horrible, so when the lease was up we turned it back in. We were already back in the south by then and didn’t need the 4-wheel drive down here.
A few months before the lease was up on the Montero, we bought hubby’s Volkswagon Passat. Brand New. 2005. Silver, with leather seats. Very nice. He loves it. Drives it every day, even without a working A/C.
Finally, my Pilot. I made my first used car purchase last year — a 2005 Honda Pilot — and I love it. It had low mileage and we got the payments that I wanted. My service rep is a neighbor, so that works out well.
I imagine future car purchases including a truck — we’ve wanted one ever since we lost the last one, but it’s just not been practical (yet). I’d like to always have two different styles of vehicles — like one car and one SUV/van. That way there’s one vehicle with mega room and one that’s just right Think Goldilocks and the three bears: “This one’s too big. This one’s too small. But this one is just right.”
Of course, there will come a day when it won’t just be the two of us needing vehicles. I don’t even want to think about that. Our boys may end up driving a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant who’s color went out of style 2 decades ago.
03.20.09
How Finn lost his first tooth eating a lemon
Finn lost his first tooth tonight!! It’s been loose for a while and a few weeks ago really loosened up while he was eating corn on the cob.
Well, he loves lemons and tonight while eating some lemon wedges for dessert he asked me if his mouth was bleeding because there was blood on the lemon. I, of course, immediately thought of his tooth. It was still there but was much more loose and bleeding a little. He wanted to finish his lemons, so I told him he could but it would still bleed, was he ok with that? He just wanted to finish that one.
Well, if you’ve ever eaten lemons or oranges — any pulpy fruit — you know that you have to use your teeth to pull the pulp away from the rind. He continued to eat the lemon, and I couldn’t even watch because the way he was eating it I could just imagine the tooth pulling forward and it made me cring. Next thing I knew, what looked like a lemon seed popped out of his mouth towards me and landed by my leg on the couch. I picked it up, and sure enough it was his tooth!
The first thing he wanted to do was look in the mirror. Then he wanted to call Nana but I knew she was at a dinner, so he called Aunt Nanny (my sister) instead. I found a neat little jar to put the tooth in and we took a few pictures of his snaggle-tooth smile.
As I’m typing this the tooth fairy is trying to scrounge up some money to leave under his pillow. She wasn’t quite prepared for this to happen tonight! But she’s so, so excited it did!!
03.17.09
“World Spins Madly On”
This video is from the movie “Because I Said So,” which is a very cute movie, if I do say so myself. And I do. As do most movies these days, it has some content I could have done without, but as a whole it tells a cute story. The movie aside, this song from the movie, “World Spins Madly On” by The Weepies is very catch-y and has quickly become one of my favorites.
The Weepies – World Spins Madly On Album: Say I Am You (2006) Film: Because I Said So (2006)
