Palin is a flake

She's quitting her job as Governor of Alaska. For a laundry list of muddled excuses. What other interpretation is there, other than outright flakiness? I mean, really? What I really want to know is, how many other governors have quit prior to the end of their term? And for what reasons?

Maybe It's The Heat

Just a short post to note some changes. Firstly: New Duck has killed her blog, it seems. This is my first experience with such a devastating loss. I miss her terribly. It makes blogging feel like a looooong layover at a bus station or something, and you get to know the people next to you, but then they have to go their separate way eventually.

Blogging has its painful sides, to be sure.

As for me, I can't seem to gather my mojo for anything fun or interesting on my own blog, and I know it's been rather sucky lately. Luckily, I've found Suburb Sanity to help inspire me. And while I miss New Duck, I'm thanking all the others on my sidebar for still going strong. I love you guys!

I dreamed about Obama last night

WTH? That was a new experience. He somehow had recently become the CEO of our company and was so new to the place that he still didn't know where all the departments were located or how to file his paperwork, etc. This was at the headquarters of a national organization, and in the dream I was like, "Huh? Why would Obama take a job HERE?" My duties involved operational support, and in my corner of the corporate world, we seldom saw anybody from the front office (I'm throwing terms around as if I use these everyday. What IS a front office, anyway?). When he sort of accidentally explored his way back towards my part of the operations (it was some industrial/textile type place...again...wth?), I suddenly became all flustered and bumbled everything and dropped stacks of papers and basically was a total dork while he was taking a tour of the facilities to meet all the staff and he graciously acknowledged me and I was mortified by my incompetency in front of him. It bemused me and ticked me off too, 'cause I was damn good at my job, and I knew it, and I knew other people knew it...except for him.

I never dream about celebrities or politicians. I don't seem to dream much at all, lately (that I can recall by morning). What the heck was I doing dreaming about Obama? And as I type up this post, I see all kinds of parallels about him being in charge and being new and not knowing all the details of how the place was run. But I'm a supporter of his, in my waking hours, and I get kinda bristly when people make cracks about his competency or lack of experience, so that just makes it all the weirder that my dream would highlight those qualities/circumstances, like I'm internalizing the perspective of his critics, of the people who disagree with his ability to lead.

In the dream, I made sure to put his time sheet in the right slot (I just happened to be walking by and noticed it lying there on a table...other people's timesheets were nowhere in my job description, so this was a totally gratuitous act on my part), because he had not known to put it there and it was probably not going to get processed if I didn't take care of that for him - which just furthered my annoyance that I was behind-the-scenes competent and in-front-of-The-Boss-incompetent...but I did it anyway. 'Cause I'm nice like that.

Camp WouldaCouldaShoulda

It is hot here. Q and I went camping in this crazy heat, from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. We got home safe and sound. Q does not wish to repeat the experience. I cannot blame her. I'm not sorry we went. But I agree (with someone else who was there) that it coulda, shoulda been much better than it was. Maybe we expect too much.

I went camping when I was a kid. It was at a sleep-away camp, called Camp Wonderful (just kidding...that's not it's name), for two weeks. When I was 7. Yeah, you read that right. (Doesn't that seem too young for being gone for two weeks? I would never have sent Q away for two weeks when she was 7. I'm not sure I'd do it now, when she's 9. She's spent the night with different friends and with her cousins a handful of times, but always just for one night, inside someone's house, complete with air-conditioning. She's gone overnight camping with me twice so far.) My brother, who was two and half years older than me, went also. So my parents felt better about it, since we weren't going alone. We had each other. Except he stayed in the boys' camp, and I stayed in the girls' camp, and I remember kind of always twisting my head almost 180 degrees whenever we marched anywhere, straining for a better glimpse of any boys I saw, to just get a sense of his whereabouts. To know he was around. I seldom saw him randomly like that. But we saw each other at meal times, and other large group events.

All in all, I don't have very many specific memories of my time at Camp Wonderful. It was before the internet age, and before people took pictures of every activity that came along. No pictures at all, that I'm aware of. That's too bad.

I do remember "Christmas in July". I remember archery, and I think I dressed up as an Indian Princess for the weekend between the two weeks when parents were allowed to visit, and I kinda remember proudly showing off my archery skills for my folks. I remember playing Capture the Flag. I loved Capture the Flag! I loved running around amid a bunch of other kids, while employing strategy. That was awesome. I remember Froot Loops for breakfast (my mom would NEVER let us eat sugary cereals at home, so that was a huge, huge deal to have Froot Loops for breakfast). I dimly remember singing songs around a camp fire. I distinctly remember learning to sew, using certain knots to make bluebell flowers on burlap fabric, sewing a pretty little scene, which I still have and am still proud of. See?



Camp Wonderful is closed now. So, no legacy spot at camp for Q. I checked out similar camps in the area (there are over a dozen of them). They run about $1200 a week, usually with a two-week minimum. Hahahahahahahaha. Oh, yeah...whew...(let me wipe the tears of laughter out of my eye now). Yeah, so, no repeating such joyous camp experiences for my own kid. No reliving my youth through her. Not on that scale, anyway.

I Dislike You! I Really Dislike You!*

*A twist on the 1985 Oscar acceptance speech by Sally Field, Best Actress for "Places in the Heart," after having won in 1980 for "Norma Rae": "I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" But usually it's misquoted as "You like me! You really like me!"

............................

Leo sent me 8 tips for liking someone better (or disliking that person less) this morning. It was his way of helping me deal with some stuff at the office this week. And by "stuff", I mean:

There are 2 "consultants" at the office working on this project (the project that got in the way of my Master Plan to study for the June LSAT. My husband's unemployment got in the way, too, sort of, but anyway...).

Yesterday I was terrifically frustrated with one of the consultants in particular, and of course, Work Husband was there to add to the misery. (And no, I'm not talking about the kind of frustration that we all crave once in a while, the kind that makes you rub up against doorknobs or sit on top of a washing machine during the spin cycle. I'm talking you-are-really-pissing-me-off frustrated. And "Work Husband" is just not capturing the essence of our relationship. It's more like how you would feel about an ex-husband. Does Work Ex-Husband make sense? 'cause that's what he is.)

I was so annoyed/frustrated/angry by the time I got home, that I kvetched mightily about it to Leo, who just really doesn't want to hear much beyond the first 300 words.

Still, trying to be supportive, he sent me the article. What I liked most, though, were the comments.

You'll see that several commenters disagree with the author's advice. I love them for that.

Here are two of my favorite responses:

"I prefer to not like them. If I try to like them, then I'm stuck tolerating their obnoxious behavior. I'd rather not :)"

"This has to be the dumbest article I have read in such a long time. Why isn't it OK to dislike someone... We don't have to like everyone!"

This is why Trannyhead's weekly rants are so popular, I presume. Because it feels good to vent, and it feels good to know that I'm not the only person sipping a strawful of screw-you cider.

A House Divided Cannot Stand Itself

So for some reason we watched Song of the South last night, a bootlegged version with Japanese subtitles that Leo's uncle gave us yesterday. My mother-in-law was here and watched it with us. There was a heated discussion after we watched it about the film's general offensiveness and why people had urged Disney not to make the movie in the first place. Leo's Mom got quite upset with us for criticizing the film. She kept saying it was a story about a little boy and about the rich oral tradition of storytelling among the slaves on the plantation, and we kept saying it was unnecessarily cheerful about plantation life and of course it's offensive to depict that period of time as pleasant and desirable and that only white people (like her, like us) would wonder why anybody would object to the film. I tried to shift the focus. I told her, imagine a film that was set in the sex trade, and some nice old woman (forced into a life of prostitution), too old for tricks but with a kindness of character, was the one telling the stories to the little boy - the grandson of the pimp/matron of the house - how would she (my MIL) feel about the film then? Would she still insist that we were missing the point? Or would she think the film was offensive?

She got very grumpy. She pointed her finger at me and said, "Have you read Team of Rivals?" (which she loaned to me about three months ago). And I said, sheepishly, "I'm just up to Chapter 3." And she looked me dead in the eye and said, "Read Team of Rivals!" and went into her room and shut the door. This morning, she immediately began packing her car very purposefully.

I see her point, too, of course. She's saying, well, that's how it was, why try to lie about it or hide it or deny it happened? Why couldn't there be some good things to say about that time, and why not celebrate the folk stories of Uncle Remus featuring Br'er Rabit, Br'er Fox, Br'er Bear?

Uh, because, really? Was plantation life really like that? You were there?

Anyway, I can't have this discussion and not link to Cracked's list of The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters.

Race in America. Whew, what a loaded issue. I'm a northerner, raised in the Midwest, schooled in the Northeast. My husband grew up in Orlando, a place I tend(ed) to view as non-regional, or uniquely regional (can central Florida be considered its own cultural region of the US?). His parents? Multi-generational non-land-owning southerners. Rural/small town, deep south kind of southerners. A fact I didn't fully grasp the significance of for quite a while. My husband speaks with a similar dialect to mine. He speaks it whenever he's around me and when he's around my family, that is. When we're around his family, suddenly it's "y'all" this and "y'all" that. It's boiled peanuts and collards. I am reminded of the scene in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" when they first escape and are eating the horsemeat-stew-about-to-spoil with the southerner's relative and he's recounting all the bad things that have happened to their extended relations. It often feels like I've just walked into the filming of that scene when I'm around them. The lesson I've learned here is that when you go on a date with somebody, and the guy totally blasts his family and has very few nice things to say about them, it would be wise to take him seriously.

Also, I just need to say that Leo's mom is a sweetheart. She is the very personification of The Giving Tree. She was upset by our disparaging reaction to her perspective of the film, and totally ready to hit the road this morning. Then we discovered that Q woke up with a raised temperature, sore throat, stuffy nose, and MIL stayed all day, went to the store for food, cooked some split pea soup at Q's request and typically does everything she possibly can at the slightest indication of being needed. We all have so many facets to our makeup. I try to stay on the positive side of things. But I'm also going to put up a fight when it comes to opening Q's eyes - and my own and Leo's and my MIL's - to the damages of racism and the dangers of remaining blind to it due to white privilege. If pointing out the inherent racism of Song of the South means that my MIL gets upset enough to cut her visit short, so be it. Clearly she's defensive about it, otherwise why would she be THAT upset?

She's right, though, that I need to get back to work on Team of Rivals.

..........................

Addendum: She just said to me that thinking about black/white issues is painful for her. She said she remembers a black guy she worked with at a library when she was in her early twenties (about fifty years ago), and that he was trying to explain to her that the military was his only real option. She said she didn't truly grasp at the time the import of what he was saying to her. She said, "People can be living right there, in the middle of it, and be blind to what's happening. I'm bothered by that aspect of Southern culture. And there's no way to be free of it. The only way my sons can be free of it is to marry someone outside the Southern culture. And the grandchildren...they need to be kept away, too."

That is deep, people. That is huge. Think about what this woman is saying, about her own heritage. About her children's legacy. That's some pretty powerful stuff.

Work Husband Defined

One of the search terms that brings people to this space is "Work Husband". I tend to throw terms out there and seldom bother to define them, but this one deserves some effort, because how I define my Work Husband is not, apparently, the accepted norm.

According to a CNN article (which I found via this WorkItMom.com article), there are seven signs that indicate that you have a "work spouse", such as:

1. You depend on a particular co-worker for office supplies, snacks and aspirin. Yeah, he's good for stuff like that.
2. There are inside jokes that you and a specific co-worker share. Only that he's a PITA and we are often openly irritated or possibly hostile toward each other. Which is not funny-ha-ha.
3. You can be bluntly honest with this person and his or her appearance, hygiene or hair (and vice versa). You're comfortable enough to point out that the other's hair is sticking up - or that someone's fly is down. Yes, I'm bluntly honest because I'm not terribly concerned with upsetting his freak of an emotional ecosystem. He's a 6-foot-2-inch three-year-old capable of ridiculous self-indulgent tantrums.
4. When something eventful happens at work, this co-worker is the first person you seek out for a de-briefing. Hell no. I seek to avoid contact with him, in fact. He's a back-stabbing manipulative snake-in-the-grass and I wouldn't trust him for a second, including, I wouldn't trust him to relay the gossip he knew in anything other than a self-serving manner that would probably screw me somehow.
5.At breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks, your closest co-worker knows what to order for you and how you like your coffee (and vice versa). He only drinks Diet Coke. Yes, he could probably order for me.
6. You and your co-worker can finish each other's sentences. Good lord, if I didn't step in sometimes, he'd STILL be talking, seriously.
7. Someone in your office knows almost as much about your personal life as your best friend or real-life spouse does. Okay, absolutely NO. I put up barriers a while ago and am proud to note that I've maintained them. In fact, they've gotten even stricter within the past six months. These people are NOT the people to share anything with. That's why I have a blog! Seriously.

Yet, he is still my Work Husband, if you ask me. Mostly because of this: "Work spouses often complement each other in terms of skills, abilities and their approaches to work. The two of you can make a very productive team." We can and often do make a very productive team, while also a VERY contentious and tense team.

But mostly he's my Work Husband because, much like my Real Husband, he isn't going anywhere and I have to figure out how to live with him. Isn't that marriage in a nutshell?