Acorns And Oak Trees

I grew up hearing the cliche "the acorn doesn't fall far from the oak"; today, I had an opportunity to see it in action.

Today was a clean-the-house day, mostly because my birthday happened this past week and because I was a little snotty about the sperm donor's plans to spend both days with his guy friends.  Normally, I don't give a rat's ass about his social plans, except for when it's at the expense of the shit we need to get done at home.  Oh, and the birthday is relevant because I always ask for housecleaning for a gift...isn't that just sad?

So instead of spending two days helping other people, he gets one.  I think it's a fair trade, given we both work outside the home.  And in the spirit of the weekend, I didn't even start lighting fires under asses until at least noon.

But when I did, I presented the Sprout with a list of chores he was to do. Nothing beyond the ken of a child his age - clean up your own crap wherever it may be, gather your dirty clothes together, make your bed, unload and reload the dishwasher.  This last is where it fell apart on him.  As the sperm donor was scrubbing away in the kitchen, he discovered that Sprout had not emptied the utensil rack...and we'd all added dirty items to it, thinking that's what was there.  Himself lost it, sentenced the Sprout to wash every item in there by hand, dry it all and put it away - clean or dirty, every piece.  It degraded from there.

Between every task that child was assigned, he'd hot foot it into the living room, snatching up a hand held gaming device, or staring intently at the television. Even when the TV was turned to nothing but Pandora radio, he would stop what he was doing at the start of each song, running in to see who was singing or the name of the song.  Sperm Donor was beside himself - "Just get it done! The more you dawdle, the more of your day you lose!"

But see, here's the thing...the kid didn't lick it off a rock - he comes by this trait honestly.  And I know this because I watched his father today.  Scrub the counters and clean up the kitchen.  Go have a smoke and play sudoko on the iPad for 20 minutes. Clean the bathroom. Go have a smoke then sit on the couch and fiddle with a cell phone for 20 minutes.  Put away clean laundry.  Go have a smoke then pull out the laptop for half an hour.

I'm also amazed that every weekend, when there's cleaning to be done, the sperm donor tolerates a fantastical amount of procrastination, TV watching, video game playing and all-around shenanigans from the sprout...so long as I'm not harrassing HIM to clean.  Oh, now and then he'll mumble "Go do what your mother asked" and be ignored. But the minute HE'S on the spot, it's all hellfire and brimstone if you're not pulling your weight too.  It never bodes well for the sprout when Daddy's gotta clean.

Today, the acorn pissed the oak off so much that the acorn lost privileges. Only for a day, nothing too catastrophic.  Maybe I need to ride them both to clean EVERY weekend so it's not such an ordeal.  Or maybe I need to do that thing I'm very, very close to doing...hiring a cleaning service.

Blog-A-Palooza

I've been making a conscious effort to write more.  It's not always easy to find the time - remember that "About Me" post, and all the hats I wear?  Just like you, right?  Hard to find time for what you WANT to do in between all you NEED to do.

But writing makes me feel good.  Not as good as masturbating, but I think you get my point.  I get to take things that I think about while I drive, or shower, or vacuum - those mind-blanking tasks that let the brain do a little free-form exploration of it's own depths - and put them down in a coherent fashion.  Of course, I could be completely delusional and be completely incoherent and wouldn't know it unless you told me.  You'd tell me, wouldn't you?

I'm no Nikki Knepper (all hail She Who Came Before, Goddess of Honesty In Parenting!) - I don't expect I'll ever get a book out of being me, and frankly, I don't think I have the same angle of insight as Herself.  I do hope you enjoy my ramblings nontheless, I hope you'll comment when you do - or when you don't.  Keep me honest, gentle reader, and let me know if I'm writing shit. The gods know we have enough shit in our lives to deal with, no need for more.

Traffic Tetris

I drive too fast, and not very well, according to those who know me.  It's likely true, at least the "fast" part but I've been blessed by the gods with very few speeding tickets (knock wood), although I've been stopped for speeding and walked away with a seatbelt citation instead (see Double Standards).  I also drive a sizeable vehicle, not some little hard-to-see and hard-to-see-out-of compact car, and have a decent commute back and forth to my job on an interstate. The number of collisions I've had is one, in all my years of driving.  Near misses don't count, using the horseshoes and handgrenades theory.

One night, I had a co-worker from out of town follow me on the interstate so we could go to a show.  Cognizant of the need for him to both keep up and keep me in sight, I refrained from my usual driving pattern.  It made the trip long and frustrating, and I commented to my colleague that I hated "not using ALL the lanes" when I drove.  He looked at me oddly and I had to explain.

Being "That Girl"

A couple of weeks ago, I was on Crackbook and a friend from school started a chat session with me.  Turns out she's started seeing a guy I dated back in high school.  We had a chuckle together, I told her he was always a very sweet guy, I was glad to hear he had divorced his crazy-ass wife and - if it wasn't too weird - tell him I said hello.  She said she would, and we promised to get together soonish for dinner and drinks and that was that.

But being DT and loving time alone in my head, I started to wonder how it came up that he and I had dated.  Maybe she saw me listed as a Mutual Friend on Crackbook.  But in turn that made me think about me, my current relationship with some of my exes, and The Past.

Double Standards

A couple of months ago, we had a party at work. Now, my work is known for throwing parties. We're a partying bunch, and we're a drinking bunch, so it should have been no surprise when - following a celebratory dinner in the office dining hall - some of my colleagues and I decided we just MUST finish off all the open bottles of table wine.

We're also a fairly responsible bunch, so the finishing-of-the-table-wine was followed by the sort of deep and profound solve-the-problems-of-the-world conversations that wine can fuel.  In our case it was more solve-the-problems-of-the-organization, but still...  The kitchen crew, in their inestimable wisdom, took away our wine glasses and brought out glasses of water and airpots of coffee.  The evening progressed.

Grown Ups At Work

I manage a group of people.  If you only know me from here and from my Facebook identity, you might find that a hoot. Hysteria notwithstanding, I do manage people.  I'm supposed to be a responsible adult, the grown-up in the room.

I've been interviewing lately to fill a new position on my team.  It's been interesting, to say the least, because my staff is composed entirely of young men (ah, ya dirty perverts, it's not like that...). I'm faced with trying to find a new employee that has all the requisite skills, and yet won't likely be horribly offended by the rowdy locker room atmosphere of our group.

Keep your bodily functions to yourself

Dear Sperm Donor,

It is NOT the highlight of my day to walk in encumbered by both a large, heavy bag of groceries and my laptop case only to be serenaded by your ass explosions and grunts because you are taking a dump with the bathroom door open.

Nor is it the highlight of my day to have that magical sound and visual accompanied by the rancid stench of your efforts while I try to round up something to eat after the meeting I went to about our school system.

Oh, and thanks so much for NOT saving me some dinner, assclown.

Love,

DT