The Value of a Village

It’s been said and published and possibly pushed off to the side, but “it takes a village to raise a child.” If you’re not sure what that entails, the basics are as follows:
1. You and your child(ren) are part of a community, like it or not.
2. You and your child(ren) will interact on a nearly daily basis with that community.
3. The community will influence, and possibly instruct you and your child(ren) on how to live in that community, like it or not.
4. If all goes well, the influence and instruction are beneficial to the mental and physiological well-being and safety of all members of the community.

This doesn’t presume that the Village is always correct in all facets of thinking, nor steered by a reasonably-moral compass. Inversely, if all (or enough) goes badly, you find yourself in a barter community ruled by vigilant, self-absorbed despots who value strict order over neighborliness.

But enough about your local HOA…

As this article is titled, yes, I am parenting your kid. “I” is me, in this case, but “I” could be any parent, or adult of influence. A teacher, perhaps. A coach, for sure. A neighbor who hires local kids to yank weeds and rake leaves for a couple sawbucks an hour, absolutely. Kevin’s mom. Shalea’s dads. Derek’s step-parents. All of us, influencing kids. We’re all in a position to be influencing the development of kids if we’re around them on a semi-regular basis. And we should be.

I’ve been around enough kids to know when they crave attention, and how they can seek it. I sit here writing this after a double playdate, siblings hosting siblings here, and half of the visiting team is a boundary pusher. Within 15 minutes of arrival, I was told by an 8 year old that my video games suck. Not long after, after educating him on a safety issue regarding the use of NERF blasters (Rule 1, No close shots), was told that I was “being a hater.” I stared at him in the face. His challenge back to me was a stare. Here’s a kid waiting to see what that will get him. Well, he gets my attention.

I took the blaster away, and reminded him that it’s okay to play a bit rough but we have to take care of each other. And that nobody hates anybody who plays by the rules. And that the next time he does it he can’t come back to the house without his parents, who will be told of his behavior afterwards. Wow. His eyes got big. Then I took out my notepad and jotted something in it. He asked what I wrote… sI truly don’t care if your kid is in my house, a playground, my yard, a flag fooball squad I’m coaching, or a touring theatrical troupe’s presentation of “Hamilton, Jr.”, disrespect is bullshit, and will be met as such.

So yes, I step in and correct what I see when I see it. If I know the kid’s name(s) I’ll address them directly. I’m not trying to overstep any other parenting; it starts inside-out and as a coach I know that external yelling can hurt the process (your kid is playing over there because they LIKE to play there, not to embarrass you, which you’re doing fine at yourself). To use a nearly tired-out phrase, I “adult” when they “kid” so everyone stays within the rules of safe play. Rough-housing is fine if all the kids are into it. But sometimes a kid is swinging a stick that is dangerously too dangerous for this particular session of Flyer’s Up, and somebody really ought to put that stick where it belongs.

For the record, Capt. Talkback has been demoted to PFC Bigmouth and is barred from the grounds until further notice. His parents were notified. And each time he asks, or is brought up as a possible invitee, I’ll remind whomever is within earshot that manners maketh playdates. Likewise, I tell other parents and adults to correct my kid’s behavior that might hurt somebody else, break rules, or worst of all, embarrass me or my wife. Kids are Kids, and I’m not trying to mitigate their natural playful (sometimes criminal) instincts, but they need to have reinforced boundaries, too. Nobody’s perfect, but a village only needs so many idiots.

April 1, 2018 0

Nearly Died Again

I was driving to work yesterday in typically rainy weather in the Seattle area. I live a bit North of Seattle, where the median home price has dipped into the high $600K’s, ha ha ha so overvalued! ANYway, on the road and driving, and the people in my area drive pretty well. But I did have a moment where I thought, “This is it… I’m going to die.” Adrenaline is an amazing window-cleaner of your soul; I was crystalline in that moment, every image of my sons and my wife and my friends blinked. And I was terrified for a moment, but also had a flash of peace.

I had poured myself a hot cuppa into my insulated travel stein, which keeps the contents near their entry temperature for about 2 hours. It was worth the $7 I paid for it at Value Village, just had to scrape the lipstick off the side and paint over the “DONNA’S DIVORCE PARTY 2005!” on the side. And off I go…

I was driving down the hill from we I live, and the road winds down and around a number of blind curves. To the right is a guard rail, and beyond it a large ravine, as in 50+-foot steep-roll to the bottom-ravine. The rail is scarred and bent with reminders of speed and inattentiveness. A car coming up the hill crossed the centerline about one wheel’s-width into my lane. I swerved and blurted “HEY! Dude.” Nobody wants to die on the way to work, let alone be on the way to work.
Around the bend, near the bottom, is an on-road that is a cut-over street from a neighborhood that sits beneath this hill. That cut-over helps people back in the corner of those ‘hoods to bypass about a half mile of turns, but only legally allows the person to turn to the Right, or DOWN the hill. The person at the intersection, coming up from the ‘hood, darted out to make a hard left UP the hill. The rain and traction didn’t mix, and I began to brake, hard, while the car behind me approached my rear-bumper at about 40mph. A car coming up the hill thought coming into my lane was a good move (it wasn’t), but I swerved, missed the cars, and horns were a-blaring. Heart’s racin’ now.
Around the next curve is an elementary school, and is not in busing zone, so it’s 95% drop-off. Some people park across the street and walk over from a large lot. This was the drop-off period so there are easily another 300 cars in that spot in about 15min. There’s a light at the cross-walk, and to the East of that light is the school lot’s entrance. So if people are crossing, the light’s red, and the cars can turn into the school with no traffic. As I’m going 20 because of the School Zone, the guy behind me gets impatient and wants to cut ahead… As he starts to, a car pulls out of the parking lot across from the school and the cutter gets so close to my car I can smell the scent of his vape contraption (“Slavic Tramp”). He brakes, falls in line, and we’re back to it. This isn’t even a half-mile from home yet…
I get through the left-turn which leads me eventually to work, and make a jaunt to the right at the next light. As I yield to the car coming across (per the signage), the guy behind me jams his horn like he’s in a jazz trio and starts gesturing as if his anti-spaz meds haven’t kicked in. I’m still rolling, just slower than 40, so I point to the Yield sign with my middle finger, which he takes as a conductor’s cue to hit that F# from the Kia again. I accelerate, swerve around another car that decided to just pull off with no warning, and a teaspoon of molten coffee escaped the travel-mug’s sippin’ hole. With the heat of nearly 3 suns, the drop hung in mid-commute, consumed enough gravity to turn downward, and landed directly on the most-specific spot of a man’s lap that hot liquids can cause the most discomfort. I thought “This is it… I’m going to die.”

I didn’t die. I yelled “WHY THE SHIT, AMERICA!?” and almost rear-ended this guy pulling into the gas station without his blinker on.

I did start draping a kitchen towel across my lap while commuting, however. Can’t be too careful.

January 11, 2018 0

Time Travel

The past almost-6 months have been crazy in various ways.

Work-wise I as given a project that is like living with a demanding, under-medicated chimp. It could rip your arms off and eat your hands, or just kinda hang out and cuddle, READY HERE WE GO nope, all good.

Life-wise, we’ve had some vacations (LegoLand: We Hope You Like LEGOs All The Time!) ed. note: We do…. and some trips to the ER (on my birthday! for me!)… and some other life-lessons (don’t have a discussion about money the day after you buy expensive stuff).

Societally, I now know the politics of 78% of my kids’ classmate’s parents, and some of them are pretty surprising, if not downright frightening. Lotta people buying bunker supplies already. Not sure if I’m nervous or turned-on.

ANYway, I wanted to say that I’m sorry for not writing more. Between the Project, the Infection, and the Election, my life was all sorts of crazy. I feel like I aged from 38 to 43 in the past 3 months. But as I always try to do, the lessons I’ve picked up have been wonderful. For example…

Quitting Is Not An Option: Look, sometimes, it sucks. Work. The day. This party. Stain removal from the party. Your kid’s friends. And I want to say F THIS S, and just stop doing what’s not fun and move on with whatever. But I don’t. I wake up, I thank G-d for another day to try to get it right, and I check “Didn’t Kill A Punk Bo-Hatch” off my list. I can’t quit. I have bills.
Quitting Is An Option: Yes, you can chuck it all and bounce. You can. Your moral level-line likely keeps you from doing so, but yeah, you can escape. My older son quit coach-pitch baseball this season after 6 weeks. 3 of which were rained out. 3 games. 90min practices. And the coach, meh, he’s a great coach for 10 year olds. But not 6-7 year olds, like my son. And my kid’s happier, getting to focus on soccer and football and reading. And I got 8 hours of my week back.
Apologetic Assertiveness: I’m not assertive unless what I’m dealing with is Wrong, on a moral, practical, or personally financial sense. I was called “a push-over” at work by somebody on another team, because I didn’t push back on a topic 3 other people had talked to death. When I remarked that any agreement and discussion on the call would have just been expensive noise, seeing as how we’re all being paid to talk instead of work on the problem we all agreed on, I don’t really care what he thinks of me. Then I had to assert myself when asked why so many people were in a particular meeting.
1. Because the initial invite list was 8 people, and 3 of those people invited 2 other people (14 now), and 3 of those 6 invited 1 other person each (17 now), and 2 of them invited 2 other people (21). And only 5 of the original 8 are even talking. So this went from a discussion to a weekend party when the parents are gone and everyone heard about it. Why don’t we ask the people who aren’t talking why they’re here? (Silence)

So, yeah, I don’t dictate attendance, I just make the meeting go.

ANYwho, we’ll come back around to some stuff at some point.

The biggest news is that I’m down 20lbs from the start of the year, and my Flag Football team started the season with a 20-7 romp over the Northshore Vikings. So, things are good.

Thank you for reading. Anything I can write up for ya?

April 25, 2017 0

The Energy Vampires Arise

Energy Vampires are people who leave you exhausted after you spend time with them. I have a few in my life, some at work and some in regular world life. The work EVs are the worst. They don’t realize what they’re doing. They can’t stop talking about things they have either ALL the knowledge about and steer conversations to those areas, or they have no idea what’s going on and spew opinions that are counter to what common sense and decency dictate (Election Season!). They are in a constant state of near-panic, yet when somebody suggests that we’re going to get the work done and it’s no reason to freak out, OH WELL WHO IS FREAKING OUT I’M NOT FREAKING OUT AND IF I WAS FREAKING OUT I WONDER WHY YOU GUYS AREN’T FREAKING OUT…

Point, proven.
That shit gets old, fast. It starts off “weird” and tails off to “annoyingly tiring.” And usually, the EV’s – much like regular vampires – don’t see their reflection and so, can’t change it. They find any reason they can to turn up the tension, though it’s usually whatever’s going on within manifesting outwardly. I was once stuck in a 30min car ride with one… 30 MINUTES… and it resolved itself soon after a 4-hour period of brisk walking and green tea.

I’ve had two pop up recently. One at work, one in my personal life. I’m positive I have been, and will probably be in the future, a bit of/an EV. I can be a handful of weirdness if I ain’t slept much and get hungry. I’m human and I would bet a bag of O-neg that I’ll have my own version of “Twilight” happening before Inauguration Day.

This blog, MindBodyGreen, has a great reference of EV’s, listing the various types… Anybody look familiar on here?

“Energy vampires can be your family, friends, clients, colleagues, teachers, neighbors, lovers, or even strangers. And they come in all types…

There is the blamer, who lays blame on everyone else without ever taking any responsibility. (Narcissists are some of the old-blood EV’s)
The guilt trippers use shame to get what they want.
Jealous bees can never genuinely feel happiness for anyone else.
Then there are the insecure ones, who pull others down to their level of low self-esteem.
The fun haters seem unable to embrace joy. The bullies stomp on the little guys to elevate their egos.
The Debbie downers, the whiners, the short-tempers, the gossipers, the drama queens, and the list goes on…”

I don’t have any real advice that isn’t covered in that blog, so if you’re vexed by such sucking of energy please visit that. I have a few that I’m keeping an ear and eyes open for, psychological garlic in hand. Stay strong out there. Stay out of the shadows.

October 11, 2016 0

Blog Fatigue in Bloom

A friend of mine on Facebook and in life who is also a mom raising a 3 year-old kiddo by herself (explained below) posted this on Facebook on Jan. 31. 2016. I think it’s absolutely brilliant and necessary. If you’ve ever been into a niche of blogs you likely picked up on common threads, thoughts, and trends. The niche here is “Mommy Blogs,” written by moms (presumably) about their child rearing, parenting, advisory efforts and often make it appear to be simply easy. And some of whom are very authentic. Regardless, this post was timely in that we’re easily inundated with information we seek… My inbox is about 40% Unreads from blogs, sites, or apps I tried a few times and *might* revisit, shrug.

So… here ya go.

Why I’m Unsubscribing From All the Goddamned Mommy Blogs

For fucks sake.

After a day of taking my kid to the skating rink and bowling alley and celebrating the birthday of my best friend, I finally get my threenager to bed (at like 12AM, I shit you not) and I scroll through my Facebook bullshit only to find out that I’m…

…a douche bag…

Yep.

Those moms at home, those moms at work, the moms with 3, the preggers ones…it’s such a fucking kill joy. I’m doing it all wrong. Somehow, some way.

Being a parent.

Blows.

It blows sometimes. More than sometimes…

I’m a single mom of a 3 year old. There is no dad to take her every weekend. (Not a bad thing, he’s batshit crazy)…I’m the Saint and I’m the Asshole. 24 hours a day.

But for fucks sake…

It seems like there’s a constant reminder. A spotlight on the shit stew of parenthood.

So what?

Maybe you haven’t found the right wine. Or right friends. Or family.

Ok.

Get yer blog on.

But why am I fucking subscribing to this shit?!

I realize it’s written with the intent to let you know that you’re not alone, but…

For fucks sake.

This little asshole sleeping on the couch. The love of my life. Is really awesome. And in the little bit of free stupid browsing time I have, I don’t want to read about the negative shit.

I want to be reminded of the good shit (and there is enough of it to go viral)

So….

….You don’t wanna have a 3rd kid (I don’t care why, just don’t),
you don’t know if your kid is gonna be ok because he ate formula (he will), you’re afraid your kid will be weak because you co-sleep (my head strong a-hole 3 yr old proves NOPE. Hell nope.)….

I have a feeling we shared some pretty helpful and relevant shit back in the day. MORESO! I think we supported each other much more personally.

You want to relate?

Make a meal. Offer to babysit. Clean the house. Sit around and talk the shit out of parenting…there’s a lot to be shared.

But don’t post your negative bullshit online. Women don’t need that. Men don’t need that. And kids don’t need their parents fed that.

So I’m Unsubscribing.

I don’t want to hear about why you aren’t doing this or that. Or why you’re judging someone for doing this or that.

My little asshole is 3 and she can’t help it. Scientifically, her brain just can’t control the ups and downs. And she is bright, and funny, and gorgeous, and way more outgoing than I’ll ever want to be…she’s got a charisma that I can’t begin to describe.

Write more stories about that. Meet me in person to focus on that stuff.

We’re all doing the best we can. Did they wake up alive? Were you parenting out of love?

Good on ya.

That’s the manual we’re all searching for…

https://login.skype.com/login/silent?response_type=postmessage&client_id=580081&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fbay181.mail.live.com%2Fdefault.aspx&state=silentloginsdk_1454374806492&_accept=1.0&_nc=1454374806492&partner=999

February 1, 2016 0

The Gig Files – No Time

Aaaah, the late show. In comedy, it’s either a blessing or a curse and it’s usually 40/60 to the curse. If you’re in a comedy club doing 2 shows a night, the late show on Friday is either very drunk or very underattended. I’ve seen some for comics (Gaffigan, Maron, Benson, Carolla) that are just as packed as others, but usually it’s 30-50 people who are either just out and about, or out and asleep.

No Time 1:
I accepted a good-money gig for a fundraising auction on a Saturday night. Everything was fine except the start time, in comparison to the time we went on-stage. See, if you give people in their 30’s-50’s 3 hours to mingle and drink before they have to sit and do nothing but try and pay attention… after drinking… and eatin’… and spending money… it’s tough stuff on the attention-needers (me).

The group was awesome, don’t get me wrong. They were all very cool people doing a great thing for their community, this time not involving a small-caliber rifle and rodents. So I was happy to be part of it and help out any way I could, which was just to draw a few more in with my comedy skills and local F-list Celebrity status. (F as in “who the Fuck is this guy? He’s Funny, at least.”)

So they have dranks and noshing happening for about 3 hours, and an auction, and the results of the silent auction (Pat & Marty Boudoyn took home the 8-lb chocolate box AGAIN this year, $300), AND the Dessert Dash. AND awarding a scholarship to a local student. AND then it was time for the first comedian, an hour after we were supposed to go on. Why would this suck so hard?

Well, we get paid either way. Regardless, it’s way more fun when the crowd is into the performance. And by then, they were way more into trying to sober up enough to get home before the babysitter went to $20/hr. I understand it. So the 250 people quickly dwindled (walked) to 200 in the first 10min of the show. By the time I went on, I was working with about 80.

And I basically mentioned it as such, really important to fortify the remaining people and give it all ya got to make sure they enjoyed it. It’s a one-off, so I won’t be back next year, but I don’t want to leave anybody thinking they should have left and got more hammered in their garage like they WANTED TO BUT THEIR HUSBAND WOULDN’T LET ‘EM.

So we did the thing and got the money + a little tip which was nice, and a lot of high-fives and hugs on the way out. Not even close to the worst show I ever did. That’s another time.

It’s always a sign of how things went when your closing line is “Thanks so much everybody, I hope you’ve enjoyed watching me fill my contractually obligated time, get home safe!”

The OTHER “No Time” entry is this: I have been doing stand-up comedy for a solid 12 years now. So when I get a text from a booker for a low-$ gig in less that 24 hours with a >100mile round trip, to open for a comic I wouldn’t stick around to watch? Well, I guess I’m beyond being anybody’s booty-call at this point.

Unless Jessica Biel texts me up…

April 23, 2015 0

The Gig Files – No Mic

If y’all like this post, let me know in the comments or the LIKES! or send me a basket of gluten-free brownies shaped like Jessica Biel or Diane Lane (whatever your local bakery will do for you based on their politics). “The Gig Files” will be recaps of shows I recently did from the perspective of the performer. Yelp seems to be a sounding board for everybody’s gripes and very few KUDOS! which is too bad. Then again, I think people want to complain, and a bad dining/entertainment/hash oil-making-via-Groupon experience seems to resonate more than a great one. I’ve had so many dine-outs that could have been ruined because of something small that I just brush it off now. Same thing with gigs; it’s been a while since I had 3 in a row like these…

NO MIC
Saturday night show, crappy sportsbar/roadhouse about an hour North of Seattle. I’ve done 8 shows there and I’ve been happy with 4 of them. 2 were complete failures (back when I was about a year into comedy), 2 were “meh,” and this particular gig I actually rate under the Happy-Withs.

I brought a newer comic along as an opener, dude’s very funny, and is much more slowly-paced than I am. That’s good because I won’t have to really go all-out to get the crowd to pay attention. The bar holds about 80 people, speakers way up in the rafters, and you have to be eating the mic to be heard. I have no idea what the transfer rate of lip-herpes via shared mics is among comedians, but it’s gotta be higher than, say, motivational speakers.

15minutes into my 45minute set, the mic stops working. Cuts out. Dead. I wiggle the cable a bit, it comes back. Then blacks out. Then it’s back. 2minutes later it dies again. Staff kinda works on it, but then it dies again. Dead. Done. DOS(tage). And then they tell me, “Sorry. It did that the last couple shows, too.” Oh, okay then. Happy I’m not the WHAT?

So I shouted the rest of my set into the air. And it was work. I felt like I had to project even more, and subtlety was out the window without being able to whisper.

And it was in those 30-something, unplugged minutes I really felt like, hey, I’m gonna make this a great show for the people who are here. Nobody left, and it wasn’t THEIR fault the mic cut out, so it won’t be MY fault if the show sucks. I was friggin’ exhausted afterwards. It went fine. But honestly, that kinda sucked.

April 21, 2015 0

A Mistake Made Is Proof of Production

I made a mistake recently at work… I think…

Not the kind that kills a project or gets anybody fired, but one that certainly led to the most easily-flustered to become flustered, easily. I had spent so much time updating the directives and forecasts for the area of the project I control that I hadn’t looked over to anywhere else it may have had an impact. And that’s my mistake; I should know it would do that. So when the team looked at my work for the 4th time, it hit one person; “Hey, if this is going to happen at that time, did we account for XYZ?”

No. We didn’t. None of us did. And the potential impact wasn’t huge in the terms of effort, but certainly would get people’s attention in the monetary requirements. But it was also a huge “IF.” And it was also highly unlikely EVERYTHING would come to fruition in that forecast. Which is why I went a bit over the usual ‘casting. And… nobody caught it. The senior members missed it. I missed it. We missed it. A mistake was made. After the smoke cleared from the panic alarms, I stepped back and realized I would NEVER make that mistake again. I doubt any of us will miss that portion in the future. It’s now an official “IF-THEN” part of the work.

And I thought back to the other parts of my life where I’ve made mistakes DO NOT TELL MY WIFE I ADMITTED TO THIS I WILL EMBARRASS YOU AT WORK… And wherein a lot of people make no mistakes, they also make very little noise or progress. At least they try something a little different. It starts conversations, it forces evolution, it builds character. Sometimes it totally blows a part of the Machine to shit, but it at least shows some “give a shit.” Some folks move up the ladder by never wavering from the narrow path of “The Middle.” But hey, I missed something, and if I miss it again then i should be let go. Like my granddad would tell me, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’m old as dirt and don’t appreciate this bull shit.”

September 22, 2014 0

I feel like there’s an innate ability to parent a child under the age of 1, basic care and feeding. Most people who have a baby can do that, unless they are warped in some way. Most of it is a game of getting the kid on a schedule of sleeping, eating, and playing so they develop eyesight, body control, and communication skills. Also, you can’t leave them alone with a gun or a violent-breed dog, which are about the same thing in cultures that see either a gun or a pit bull as a status symbol above having a child. Anybody can have a baby, but it takes about a week and a couple hundred dollars to get a gun or a pit bull. I’m not saying I’m doing all of this perfectly, but I’m sure as shit not letting people I know, and people you know, get away with being or raising narcissists.

Anyway… After the kid’s 1 they need boundaries. Not just a boundary of a baby-gate to keep them from barrel-rolling down the basement staircase. Nor a leash to keep them in peripheral view while Parent does some on-line gaming. No, I mean intellectual & behavioral boundaries. In other words, working to help the child understand why NO is not a bad thing. I have seen up-close the effect of no “No,” in people my age (sociopaths) and children (theirs and others), and it is about as unnerving as watching a pit bull gnaw at a loaded Glock .40cal.

The first thing I noticed was a person’s whining. For the adults it was usually an issue in a restaurant where they equated a missing item on the menu with a personal attack. A guy I grew up with pulled this a few times, and the second time he did, I saw what he was doing… because he’s a cheap asshole who plays this game, and doesn’t realize he’s the flat tire on the fun bus. Here’s the ploy:

1) Ask to modify a menu item by complicating the order (The cheeseburger, but with swiss instead of cheddar and an onion roll instead of regular and no pickles and medium-well).

2) Keep talking while the server tries to read it back, to confuse the server or muddle the communication.

3) Fries on the side, not on the plate.

4) Act like it’s no big deal and be just oh-so-sweet about it.

So, by telling this server to greatly change a simple thing, they set the entire chain up for failure. And usually it’s a break at how the meat was cooked. The average person doesn’t know Medium-well from Medium, but this fuckpuddle would always eat half the burger then send it back for being under- or over-done, and ta-daaa!

We all have to wait while they make a new burger for this dick, and he gets his for free as an apology for upsetting a grown man over the hue of the center of his meat patty. The heavens nearly crumbled…

As a child he got what he wanted by whining, because his parents had 4 other kids, and his whining was quickly shut-down/rewarded with the cookie, the toy, the shoes, the extra hour of TV, the 17”-rims on the new truck, and eventually the family landscaping business which he plowed into the ground after 4 months and zero work. Whining isn’t in his DNA (his brothers and sisters are talented, fun, hard-working people) but it is hardwired in at this point. He’s now divorced and bankrupt and it’s his parent’s fault for not helping him out of these jams, of course.

The last time I saw him he started to pull the prank, I told our server, “He’s fine, don’t listen to him, he’s just joking.” He got pissed at me and sat quietly staring at SportsCenter while the other 4 of us laughed and drank. That’s right…

HE POUTED LIKE A LITTLE KID. Later he told another friend I was a dick. Behind my back. Good.

Now, a friend’s kid is a spoiled little brat if ever I’ve seen one. As an only child, he is treated like THE only child. His deal is that if he’s told “No” he reverts to pouting (he’s almost 6) and whiiiines and starts to fake-cry. His parents let it roll for about 3min while the kid stews in his own stink and then eventually, while the kid is still in pout mode, his parents say “Ok, you can have this now.”

So the kid hasn’t detached Pouting from Reward. Maybe his mom & dad think they have instilled a clean break between the whining and the lesson, but all they’ve shown the kid is, “Hey, hang on to being rude and withdrawn and eventually you’ll get what you want. You don’t have to apologize or ask nicely. Just be stubborn.”

I know this because I’ve seen it happen a few times. One time he tried to take a toy from another kid, and I said “No, you have to ask nicely if you can play with the Ninja Monster PitBull Cannon.”

Then he cries and says he hates me, which I find a way to overcome. Then he sits right there and turns away and cries loudly, as if his fingernails were being chewed off by a bullet-powered Rottweiler. Because of a “no,” and a reminder to mind our manners.

His dad swoops in, lest his child be scarred for life with such harsh discipline! After explaining to his dad what happened, his dad does the fatherly thing…

And asks the kid with the Ninja Cannon if his kid could play with it. Well of course the kid’s gonna give it up because a grown-up just asked him to. So not only did his dad miss the teachable moment, he killed the kid’s chance to build manners and a bridge to another kid. Double Middle Fingers, folks. But hey, at least his son quit crying, pouting, whining, or moving on towards growth. Yay.

It’s not easy to have your own boundaries, but it’s a basic need for most of us to keep our sanity. And it starts early. If we’re always told “No,” then we don’t think we’re worth anything and deserve nothing. If we’re never told “No” we don’t understand that some things must be earned, asked-for, or are just off-limits until further notice and some sweet talking and probably a bottle of wine.

But if somebody brings a loaded gun or chain-jerking pit bull into a Farmer’s Market, and nobody says “Hey, come on… This could get ugly, and it’s better safe than sorry,” and something terrible happens then either we have no market for these dipshits to come to, or we have boundaries that say “You have to stop here. There are very sensitive people within.”

June 10, 2014 0

Recap of Crap

Well it’s been a pretty crazy 2 weeks for me. Even as the year comes to an end, the world of business begins it’s own Casual Friday, and insurance companies stare back from the Abyss, my life has sped up a bit. In good ways, mostly. I can’t complain… WAIT, I take that back. I can, and will, because otherwise I’ll start crying and yelling at the same time and then i won’t be able to go back to that Starbucks.

Let’s work backward from today about crap I want to leave behind.

Negative Self-Talk: Before 9am today I had counted about 12 put-downs of myself, for everything from the shape of my body to “not being retarded and forgetting Gift XYZ I need to return!” Well I forgot it anyway because I didn’t take my ADD pill, and had no coffee because I was going in for a doctor’s appointment and wanted a clean blood stream.
30min late! I was 30min late for the doc because, well, I don’t know why. I had apparently transposed the times of appointments and was 30min early yesterday for a different one. So I had less time to talk with this doc. But soon after arriving, I was told they no longer accept my insurance (as of last week), albeit for a noble cause. Doctors sometimes do NOT get paid by insurance companies for any number of reasons, and the cost falls back to the patient, so in this case the doc decided to cut my carrier out as of MONDAY. So… a short, intense appointment nearly followed by $500 worth of blood tests, so already my day’s just going greatly…
No Blood Test; A $500 hit in the next month isn’t totally undoable, but certainly it is NOT a budgeted expense at the moment. I know I have ranted against the insurance system in America before, although it does have its place and can be helpful… But I’m the child in the divorce of Doc and Carrier, so I have to deal with the overflow there.
NO COFFEE OR ADD PILL: By the time I got to work there was already a lot of mental traffic to sift through, from paying for the doctor’s appointment that barely happened, to rescheduling with a recommended doc for Monday, and 2 other phone calls I need to make. All of this without the quieting effect of a low-grade stimulant for which my career and many relationships should be thankful.
Light and Sweet, AH SHIT: I get to work and get a machine-made cuppa, and when I reach into the shared fridge for my cream (real cream, not fat-free Hazelnut Cinnamon Elf Creamer) some dickbag had knocked it over with his bagged lunch, spilling a good 50% of it onto the shelf. So let’s add another 10min blankspot to my day while I clean that up. Pill still hadn’t kicked in, and my coffee was getting cold, so the emotional weight of the moment was pretty palpable.
Ante-up: The Fed is tapering off their dollarly funneling of stimulus into the American economy, which means anything subsidized, backed, hugged, or accepted by the Fed as “good for business” will get less financial backing. Fannie and Freddie’s demands and rates will go up if you wanna buy a house, unless you have great credit and/or a phaaat down-payment. Not great news for this family here trying to save for a new house in the next 12 months.
Figuring The Finances: Soon, businesses with big ticket items, including “Tom’s House of Oversized Novelty Tickets and Certificates,” will have to decide if they will stand firm on their pricing in an effort to not lose a profit percentage on every sale, or if they can drop their prices in an effort to drive volume. This is where the real “Trickle Down” economics lesson could apply: If suppliers charge less and retailers charge less, everybody’s money aligns a little better. Idiots trying to outbid each other for homes that aren’t worth $450K just piss all over those of us waiting in line for a good $350K house.
Check, Please?: I have a couple hundred in outstanding invoices for comedy shows I performed recently. One of the checks is overdue, the other was mis-dated and easily fixed with a group I love working with. So I have calls to make. (Or I could write a blog entry)
Duck Dynasty Dismissal: One of the hill-billies from a TV show called “Duck Dynasty” had some comments that amounted to his not being even a little bit accepting of sexual encounters between men. WHY that concerns him, I don’t know. If he’s thinking about it a lot, well he has some of his own blinds to quack from. He got ousted because his employment with the show depends on the show being watched by people who advertisers will target and pay for commercial time during said show. Ultimately, too many Americans would rather support dummies via viewership than ignore them, drive viewership to the bottom of the holler, and move on down the road.
Holiday Spirits: I got accidentally drunker than a Kennedy on Saturday night, not factoring in the few tugs of Fireball I had in between my 3 cocktails over 5 hours. Took me all day to recover on Sunday, so I am pretty sure, yeah, I need to pace my Fireball consumption. I just cannot recover the was I used to. It wasn’t until I had a bottle of low-cal Gatorade, dinner, and half a beer that I felt somewhat normal. Oh well, lesson learned. STOP MIXING SHOTS WITH COCKTAILS!
Wrap it Up: It is a great fear of mine that my 4 year-old son will make realizations about the existence of Santa Claus and feel disappointment at a young age. I was 5 or 6 when, overcome with excitement, I awoke to sounds at 3am and snuck down the hallway to see my parents “in the Santa way.” It crushed me. I laid in bed and cried. A co-worker told me her 10 year-old son just figured it out earlier this year which I think is on the other end of the spectrum, possibly a disservice to the kid AND the parents. I don’t think parents and family members should bypass getting some credit for their giving and thoughtfulness by letting Santa take all the glory in his absence. Instead, I think we’re doing a decent job of involving our oldest guy in gift-giving to others, as he got to choose a few toys and some clothes for other families in need. He may not get his head or heart around it, but I’d rather have THAT take root in his sweet little heart as a part of Christmas than the idea of giving Santa all the credit after we’ve worked all year to pay for new underwear.

So hey, there ya go. I’m done. Friggin’ tired and gotta hammer away at this work stuff.

Have a Merry Merry Christmas, with family, friends, lovers, and losers. The gift of selflessness is what it seems to be about, no matter how it’s advertised.

December 19, 2013 0

Category: Interactions