Logic is Also Subjective

My mother used to say that the best thing about having 3 teenagers at home despite the fact that the grocery bill was through the roof because of them was that no matter what, when she and my dad came home with food, there were 3 eager helpers to put food away. It's not that we were so eager to be helpful of course. No, we just wanted to see what they got and plan how we were going to keep the other two from eating all the good stuff. I've since learned that my step-brother was hiding boxes of the good cereal in his room. And he would wrap anything he wanted to eat in aluminum foil because he knew no one would look to see what was in it. Dastardly and genius. But I digress...

My children are not teenagers yet. But I make them put the groceries away anyway because that's the mean kind of mom that I am. They are more eager to put groceries away if they haven't actually accompanied me to the store. Last night there was all kinds of hooting and hollering because of all the incredibly AWESOME food that I bought. The boy-child has complimented me several times on my shopping excursion. I think he actually thinks this makes my heart sing with joy, as if I live for nothing other than to have a perfectly awesome grocery shopping trip as defined by a 7 and a 12 year old. Yeah, right. But if slipping some treats in here and there gets them to put away groceries? Well, I'm not above that. 

This morning, I realized that one of the consequences of the kids putting the food away is that they don't necessarily put them where I would. I'm not an overly uptight person when it comes to kitchen organization but I do have my methods. Basically, food is grouped by the type of food that it is. For example, one cabinet is for pudding mixes, nuts, dried fruit, peanut butter and miscellaneous bread mixes. The other one is for tea, coffee, hot chocolate, honey and soup mixes. There is a cabinet for cereals and snacks and the lazy-susan in the corner is for canned foods. This all makes sense to me. I assume because the kids live in the house they know where much of this stuff goes. 

Yeah, you know what happened. I assumed wrong. 

This morning, I was looking for sweetener for my tea. I looked in the cabinet where the tea is. Not there. I looked in the one next to it. Not there either. I had to stop a moment and think, where would my kids have put it?

I recalled a conversation we had last night. The boy-child had a bottle of olive oil in hand when he came down to talk to me while I was walking on the treadmill. He held it up to me. "It's olive oil," I said which is just stupid because like he cares!

The girl-child piped in, "It's a bottle. It goes in the lazy-susan."

"No!" I yelled. "It's olive oil! It goes in the cupboard by the stove with the spices!" 

All I heard was "Okay!" as the boy-child bounded up the stairs.

If bottles go in the lazy-susan, boxes go where? With the cereal! Sure enough, there is the box of sweetener with all the boxes of cereal. So I guess now that I have passed on the responsibility of putting groceries away to my children I have to think like them. Food will not be put away according to use or type but rather by container. Boxes in the cabinet, cans and bottles in the lazy-susan, cold stuff in the fridge and really cold stuff in the freezer. And despite my protests, the olive oil did not make it to the spice cabinet. It's in the lazy-susan. Because it's a bottle, duh.

By George, I think I've got it. 

How My Snow Blower Got a Name

I am not in the habit of naming inanimate objects like cars or power tools. Once when I was 11, I did name an orthodontic appliance "Reggie" but that was an aberration.  A lot of people name their cars. My mother, for example, while working for the federal government (as a boring, old loan officer, not the FBI or anything) named every one of her G-cars. There was an Emmy (green car, short for emerald), there was a Lucy (a red car), a Prince (it was purple, we're from Minnesota) and a Hi-Ho (silver car). This is not my way. And contrary to the belief my cousin from Wyoming has, it is not customary to name our snow blowers here in Minnesota. At least not that I know of. 

Fact is, I've never really given my snow blower much thought. It's red. It takes up a lot of room in my garage. It's heavier than hell and truth be told, I'm kind of scared of it. I feel like it pulls me around the driveway and just moves the snow around rather than actually removing it from my driveway. Every time I've used it, I end up covered head to toe in snow and looking like a yeti. I apparently don't have the gene for heavy machinery, which to my way of thinking, this snow blower is. Fortunately, I have a parent who takes pity on me and comes over to man the snow blower. Yay!

So that's about as much thought as I've given this snow blower in the 5 years that I've owned it. Until now. Right before Christmas, the stupid snow blower decided to stop working. On Wednesday, December 29, 2010, it went into the shop. Now if you don't live in eastern North Dakota or western Minnesota, that date won't mean anything to you. If you do, you know that that date is the day before the double-header snow storm hit. Over the course of 3 days (which just happened to be New Year's. Bye-bye New Year's plans, hello House marathon on USA) the two storms dumped around 10 inches of snow in the area bringing the 3 month total to 45 inches. 

Since I live on a corner, most of the time the wind blows the snow right out of the driveway which it did during the first storm. During the second storm, the wind switched direction and blew the snow in. And no matter what way the wind is blowing, the sidewalk to my front door always gets blocked by massive amounts of snow. By the time the storms ended I had around 5 feet of snow from my front door to the end of the sidewalk and around the same at the end of the driveway. Usually, I just count on my 4 wheel drive to plow though my driveway but after the street plow came by, there was no way that was going to happen!

Now I feel guilty enough that my step-dad comes over to man the snow blower but since he doesn't seem to mind too much and I'm scared of that stupid thing, I let him. And bake him apple pies. But I wasn't going to make him come over to shovel since I'm really not scared of a shovel. I have no love affair with them but you know, I can handle it. I made the kids come with me to help. We start with the front door and sidewalk. In a word, it sucks. The wind is still blowing and mostly we get faces full of snow. And while the snow is pretty light, the problem is that snow piles up pretty quickly next to the sidewalk and it isn't long before we're trying to throw snow above our heads. Fortunately, we quickly get a clue and walk the snow over to shorter hills. 

Since we have nowhere to go that day, we leave the driveway for the next day which was good plan as it wasn't windy that day. Again the snow is light, which is good because it's deep. Shoveling snow? Yeah, my back doesn't like it one little bit. So we're shoveling and pretty soon I notice that I'm singing Kenny Rogers in my head.

Kenny Rogers! Seriously, I haven't thought of Kenny Rogers since sometime in the 80's. And it's not even The Gambler or Coward of the County which would be the songs I most remember (this is made all the more unusual by that fact that, in general, I dislike country music very, very much) but is a song I barely remember called Lucille. Do you know that song? "You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille"? Yes, that's what I was singing. 

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.

4 feet of snow and a blocked in driveway.

I've had some cold times,

Lived through some snow storms,

But this time the snow plow has won.

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.

And because I sang this stupid song over and over again not only while I was shoveling snow but for days afterward, (OMG! Seriously, can it stop already?), I came to the only logical conclusion. The snow blower must be named Lucille. It's the only explanation why it would choose the week of a double snow storm to quit working. 

So there it is. Lucille, the stupid red snow blower who bails in my hour of need. I hope she comes home soon. She has a lot of work to do.

How to Mortify Your Children

So not the 60's...

Once upon a time in a decade not nearly so close to the ancient 60's as my children would believe, I was a basketball player. And like most adolescent basketball players, my parents would come to the game to cheer me on. I had one parent, however, who thought it was acceptable behavior to SCREAM at the referees for every call he felt was made incorrectly. In fact, to say that he was at the game to cheer me on is really quite generous. Mostly, it seemed, he was there to harass the refs. In fact, he would yell so much he would get ejected from the game by the refs. Yes, ejected from the stands for being a poor sport.

Were these playoff games of any kind? No. Was there anything to be gained from winning other than pride? No. Was I even on the varsity team? No. I was playing 9th grade basketball where everyone still got to play, we barely knew plays, traveling with the basketball was common and occasionally someone would shoot at the wrong basket. The refs had their hands full just trying to make sure the game resembled basketball in some way, never mind getting every call right.  But still, this parent of mine thought it a big enough deal to scream at the referees until he got ejected from the game. As a spectator.

Did this change the outcome of the game? No. Did it change the way we played? No. Did it change the calls the refs made? No. Did it embarrass me to no end? YES. Did it make me wish for a portable hole to crawl into and disappear? YES. Did I want to pretend I had no idea who that parent acting like a jackass was? Oh, how I wished I could have but living in a fairly small town didn't afford me such a luxury. I was already associated with him. 

After that year, because of his outbursts and some other things about our relationship that weren't going well AT ALL (imagine, not getting along with a parent who is such a jackass in public! I know! Shocking, right?), this parent was banned for the next 2 years from attending any of my games. It was such a relief to me and I was able to concentrate on playing the game rather than worrying about whether my parent was going to make such a scene that he got thrown out of the game. 

Cut to the very near past, namely Monday, where my girl-child was playing on her school basketball team. They played a team from a nearby private school and were getting slaughtered. It was incredibly painful to watch. The other team was simply better in every way. The girl-child's team was having trouble bringing the ball up the court because their dribbling is not that strong and the other team's defense was tough. When teams are so poorly matched, it can be really difficult to referee unless you want the game to last until Christmas. Sometimes you've just got to let them play as long as no one gets hurt. 

The parents of one of my daughter's teammates evidently couldn't handle the butt-kicking that was going on out on the floor. Rather than encourage our daughters' team, he and his wife started yelling at the refs for not calling the reach in (it should be noted that I coached against this guy and he complained about the same thing in a no-score rec league game for 5th and 6th graders when his point guards were no match for mine who were just simply faster). Every time down the floor, he would yell, "Call the reach, ref! Call the reach!"

Were they reaching in? Debatable, although I would say no. They played better defense. Period. The other team simply outplayed my daughter's team. 

When he got no satisfaction from that, he started yelling, "Reach in on them! Do it back to them! If they're not going to call it, reach in!"

Which, not to be mean or make light of what is inappropriate behavior, is funny from the standpoint that my daughter's team would have to catch them first in order to be fouling but that's a story for another day...

I find this kind of behavior appalling. Especially for 7th grade basketball where NOTHING is on the line. Many of these kids are just learning how to play the game. Even in the best games, the play is a big sloppy mess. It's just part of the learning curve. To take it so seriously is just the height of poor sportsmanship. 

JD, the girl-child's father, a guy who's a well filled-out 6'2" and less afraid to speak his mind than I am, turned to the guy and said, "Really? Come on, they're 7th graders." Unfortunately, that didn't stop him. 

Some days the mere fact that I breathe is embarrassing to the 12 year old girl-child. They are just so incredibly sensitive at this age. She had much anxiety in the days leading up to the first game because she was sure her father and I were going to embarrass her by SAYING something during the game. Admittedly we did coach her for 4 years and we are the kind of coaches who say a lot during the game. However, we managed to hold our tongues, let the coach do the coaching and only said cheering kind of things like, "Good job!" Even then we got an earful about how she could HEAR us during the game.

I can only imagine how that other child might have felt. It quite possible she's mortified by her dad's behavior much as I was by mine when I was her age. No one wants attention called to themselves that way! 

How can a parent tell children that bullying is wrong when the parent is guilty of bullying? How can a parent tell children to be good sports when the parent isn't a good sport themselves?  

It's sad when parents display this kind of conduct at their child's activity. They take the spotlight off their child and point it directly at themselves. Is that not the height of selfishness? If you really feel there is a problem or feel that someone is going to get hurt, wouldn't it be better to have a word with the coach? At any rate, it's just a game which they are currently learning to play. If your child's team loses, help them accept it gracefully and help them to work on the skills that will help them succeed next time. 

Bottom line: Yelling at referees doesn't do at all much except embarrass your child. Just don't do it. Your child will appreciate your good sportsmanship.