Edgy Mama

Who knew that summer can be the most stressful time of year? When you’re a kid, summer’s the best. When you’re a big kid, it’s still great. Even if you’re working, the days are long, the pants are short, and life tastes like chlorine, light beer, and coconuts.

When you’re a parent, all that changes. Summer becomes the season of dread. You wonder how you’re going to keep the kids occupied. How are you going to get your work done? Why is it light so late and no one will go to fricking sleep? And, most importantly, you wonder when you applied for the summer job of taxi driver.

I’ve had some interesting conversations about this issue over the past few days. Last night I talked to the owner of the local pizza restaurant about how our mothers sent us out the back door every summer morning, and seemed to have no clue where we were and what we were doing, just so we were back in time for dinner. Okay, that may not be quite true, but that’s what it felt like.

Yeah, times change. I send my kids out the back door, but they have clear boundaries, and I keep close tabs on them. But they’re also young.

My seven-year-old likes activity. She wants to go and do. Camp is great for her. But finding the camps that she likes and scheduling them practically requires a spreadsheet. Last week was 8:30-3:00 at The Nature Center, this week is 9:00-5:00 at the Earth Science Museum, next week is 9:00-4:00 at the Tae Kwon Do Academy. I think.

My four-year-old likes to stay at home. He likes to play in his room, watch videos, build things outside, and hang on Mommy. He says I work too much. He goes to the church nursery school for nine hours a week. That’s too much for him. It’s too little for me.

I’ve got too much time with one child, too little with the other, and next to no time for me. Not to mention anyone else.

What’s also difficult, and seems exacerbated in summer, is the tedium. A friend of mine said today, “It’s like that movie Groundhog Day. You have to do the same shit over and over again.”

Laundry, shopping, food preparation, clothes and backpack organization, keeping up with the myriad details of multiple lives. It’s stuff that everyone has to do, but it feels exponential when kids are involved. You have to feed them when they’re hungry. You have to put them to bed. You have to drive them to camp and class and playdates. And I’m convinced that dirty laundry reproduces while we sleep.

Of course, some days, summer is wonderful and rewarding and fun. And other days? It’s the most challenging, tedious chaos I’ve ever known.

School starts August 17. Hurrah. I’ll miss them.

Everyone’s talking about this cute article by Amy Sutherland that was in The New York Times a few days ago. I’m off to buy books on training exotic animals (think they’ll include a section on mini-homo sapiens?).

I knew that would get your attention.

A couple of you got upset with me for giving guys hell about their cute little foibles (like not being able to find things and liking flatulence jokes). Okay, I was totally objectifying–I know some of you prefer blonde jokes.

In truth, I love men. Yes, I tease, but it’s just to get a rise, create a little conflict, foster debate. All of which I also love.

So, today, just because, I’ll tell you a few reasons why I adore the hairier sex:

1. Men’s bodies are hard, even when they’re soft. They have a different feel to them than women’s bodies, as if the bones are closer to the skin. I like that. I especially like the contrast between hard and soft. Between woman and man.

2. Men are witty. I think many men learn humor as a defense mechanism early in life, but that’s okay. It works. I read blogs by women for content and emotion. I read blogs by men to laugh. It’s true. Think about the blogs you read and why. Yes, lots of the women are funny too, but in a different way. They’re funny-neurotic or funny-silly, but rarely do they express themselves with that punny male wit that I’m drawn to.

3. Men aren’t particularly good multi-taskers. Girls, this is a good thing. Yes, they can’t watch a sports game and talk to you at the same time, but so what? It means when they’re focused, they’re focused. And that means in bed too.

4. Men can lift things that I can’t. I’m pretty strong for a medium-height female who weighs around 128 pounds. But, I can’t pick up my sofa. As far as I’m concerned, the primary reason for sexual dimorphism is furniture re-arrangement.

5. Hmmmmmmm. I could get naughty here, but…we’re keeping it PG-13. Right. So let’s just say men have body parts that women don’t have, and, as far as I’m concerned, that is a very good thing.

6. Now I’m at a loss for words, because, well, certain sparks are firing off in certain of my body parts with all this talk about men and how great they are, so….

7. You may continue the conversation if you wish.

Kisses to all who are male.

After witnessing the Asheville Tourists’ baseball manager act like a three-year-old yesterday (see below), I remembered another baseball-related story that I wanted relate.

My seven-year-old, as I’ve mentioned before, has a competitive spirit and has always been sports-obsessed. The most recent love of her life is baseball.

Every morning she is the first one up, and I know she’s awake when I hear the front door slam. The first thing she does daily, is run outside to get the newspaper. She brings it back in (slamming the door again), spreads it across our dining room table and devours the sports section.

By the time E-spouse, typically the second to crawl out of bed, makes it downstairs, she has a full report ready, including the previous night’s scores, her favorite teams’ standing, and the individual performance stats of some of her favorite players.

A few weeks ago, when we were at the beach, my girl made an amazing discovery. Baseball is televised.

She blames me for keeping her in the dark, so to speak. I don’t think I specifically hid the fact that baseball is often televised from her, nonetheless, now the occasional live minor league game supplemented with the sports page and Internet links to her favorite team home pages are NOT enough.

Tonight she had to go to a neighbor’s house to watch part of the Tarheels-Beavers World Championship Game (how unfortunate is it that a team is called the Beavers? I keep imagining the team cheers: Go Beavers! Whack those tails!).

But, hey, it’s social. She hangs with the neighbors. I keep my sanity. Tube time in the pnav remains limited. Although if the Braves or the Indians or the Red Sox go to the World Series, we’re either going to have to get cable for the month or move into the local sports bar.

Anyway, at the beach, my girl was allowed, through the intervention of grandma and great-aunt, also baseball fans, to watch a lot of ball.

E-spouse and I watched part of a Braves games with her. At one point, the pitcher hit the batter with the ball. Accidently, I’m sure. The batter was not happy, but the cameraman was thrilled to give us a close-up of the batter mouthing a rather nasty word to the pitcher.

“Did he just say what I think he said?” I asked.

“Yep. He said ‘MF,’” replied E-spouse, glancing at my girl.

Then she piped up: “He said ‘Memphis’?”

“That’s exactly what he said,” I answered.

Since then, “Memphis” has become one of my favorite curse words. Try it. Next time someone cuts you off in traffic or you slam your finger in a drawer, scream “Memphis!” at the top of your lungs. It’s cathartic.

I wonder if that’s one of the words Joe Mikulik was yelling at that umpire on Sunday.

Asheville’s in the national news, thanks to our beloved Asheville Tourists baseball team manager, who made us proud yesterday. Here’s the clip that was featured on Good Morning, America today.

I’m glad my seven-year-old girl, a baseball fanatic and a huge Tourists fan, missed this game.

Check it out.

The good news is that the mutant squash made a yummy casserole, supporting Edgy Mama’s first rule of cooking: you can make (almost) anything taste good if you drown it in olive oil, salt, pepper, crushed garlic, and Parmesan cheese.

The bad news is there are eight more mutant squash sitting on my kitchen counter. Though they taste like regular yellow squash, they’ve lost that lovely crookneck-phallic shape. These are fat-bellied, gone-to-the-dogs squash.

I think I’m going to grate them all and store them in baggies in the freezer to use in soups and sauces.

Luckily, after picking the remainder of the mutants, E-spouse ripped up the vine to make room for my basil, which was being strangled and shaded by the mutant leaves and viny shoots.

I wonder if squash pesto would be any good?

I just stole this di-rectly from Hoss because it’s silly and it totally cracks me up and, not only do I know people who do and think like this, I have FAMILY who do and think like this:

You know you’re a redneck when:

You take your dog for a walk and you use the same tree.

Your boat has not left the driveway for 15 years.

You think “The Nutcracker” is something you do off the high dive.

You have the local taxidermist on speed dial.

You come back from the dump with more than you took.

Your grandmother has “ammo” on her Christmas list.

You keep flea and tick soap in the shower.

You’ve been involved in a custody fight over a hunting dog.

You know how many bales of hay your car will hold.

You have a rag for a gas cap.

You consider your license plate personalized because your father made it.

Your lifetime goal is to own a fireworks stand.

Your llama breeding isn’t exactly working out.

You have a complete set of salad bowls that say “Cool Whip” on the side.

Your working TV sits on top of your non-working TV.

A tornado hits your neighborhood and does $100,000 worth of improvements.

You missed your 5th grade graduation because you were on jury duty.

You’ve used your ironing board as a buffet table.

You think fast food is hitting a deer at 65.

Now that I’ve received the “Best Writing” award from the slightly biased but lovely BlogAshevillians, I’m feeling the pressure. Which makes me queasy. Because, really, I would be much more comfortable winning the “Biggest Hack” award.

Next year, by the way, I think we should have Oscar-type statues created, but instead of Oscar–the buff, bald dude–the statuettes will be golden reproductions of Asheville’s central phallic display, the Vance Monument.

But I digress. I want to tell you about the mutant squash. And I will. But first, I know you all want to know why I have been blogging so little, writing so rarely, well or otherwise. Don’t you?

Whether you do or not, I’m in an excuse-making mood. So….

One, the kids are not in school.

Two, I went to the beach.

Three, my four-year-old son and I just had three days alone together. Our house is much quieter without the extrovert, type-A spazzes around (Enviro-spouse and the girl) although I missed all that non-stop energy.

The boy and I hang. A lot. We re-enact scenes from his two favorite fairy tales: Jack and the Beanstalk and The Three Little Pigs. As I write this, he’s building “houses” out of tambourines. Three of the Seven Dwarfs are standing in for the porky ones. Grumpy, of course, is the Big Bad Wolf.

Additionally, the boy and I read books, take slow walks, eat meals whenever we want, and sleep late (relatively). Life is good, albeit quiet.

Today, we discovered the BBC’s kid’s website, CBeebies, which has interactive fairy tales AND nursery rhymes AND pages from said stories to print out and color. Both my computer and much of today’s writing time were thus co-opted by the boy and the BBC.

How soon, I wonder, until we have to buy the kids their own computer? And install 800 parental screens?

In other news, every year in our vegetable garden, we have random volunteer plants. In past years, we’ve always had a squashy volunteer vine that turns out to be a butternut squash vine, which rambles its way across our yard producing 20-30 yummy golden-brown squash.

This year, when the squash-like vine sprouted, we left it to its own devices, waiting with mouth-watering hope for the butternuts. Yesterday when I went to check on the garden and pick some sugar-snap peas, I discovered that the vine is not of the butternut variety. Nor is it of the yellow-hooked or zucchini variety. It is of the mutant variety.

Anyone have any recipes for weirdly-shaped mutant squash? Anyone want any mutant squash?

I was feeling a bit sad this afternoon in the grocery store check-out line, so I bought myself a copy of People Magazine. The cover reads: “Hottest Bachelors! 39 Pages of Great Guys.”

I figured if 39 pages of Great Guys couldn’t cheer me up, nothing could.

The cover photo is of Taylor Hicks, whom, I must say, is a cutie. Unlike most Americans, I know next to nothing about Taylor Hicks. Until recently, I had no clue why he had suddenly shot to fame.

I don’t watch TV. I own a TV, but I don’t get cable, and up here in the mountains that means I receive the local news channel fuzzily, but that’s about it.

I’ve never really watched TV. Even as a kid, I would sit with my family in the evenings, as they watched the boob tube, and I would read a book.

I was thus shocked and amazed when my local newspaper actually started running a weekly column whose subject was American Idol. Not only did they run the column, but it consistently got a high click count on the newspaper’s website. In the weeks prior to Taylor getting crowned, or whatever he got, there were actually front page articles about, you got it–American Idol, in several newspapers, including USA Today.

So, in today’s world, I guess it’s not enough to watch a TV show. You have to read about it the next day–in the newspaper or on the Internet. It must be deconstructed like a great work of literature. It must be examined minutely by the masses.

Wow.

Me. I think I’ll remain sans TV.

But I’ll drool over Matthew McConnaughy’s photos in People Magazine anytime.

I’m partially recovered from my party flu thanks to a large platter of fat and grease, more commonly known as beef nachos.

Most of my living room furniture is back where it belongs, though I considered covering the couch with plastic and leaving it in the front yard (every once in a while the white trash in my blood sings). The couch on the front lawn was a stroke of genius (thanks, E-spouse) and was the evening spot of choice for Syntax, Bliss, and Felicity.

The empty beer bottles are off the lawn and in the recycling bins (ummmm, whomever said bloggers don’t drink much didn’t count on fifty or so people consuming a pony keg in two hours and having to send the cute convertible sports car and the beer scooter out for more beverages–whomever would be Screwy and E-spouse).

None of the neighbors have complained, yet, about the fact that we had a five-person BAND playing in the living room until 11:00 p.m., and then Mike from Jolt Wagon (the band) and E-spouse decided to set off firecrackers at midnight (you missed it, Screwy!). Crazy pyros.

Jolt Wagon totally rocked. These dudes need to get a CD made–pronto! Though if they want to be a blogger band, they need to get with the program. I overheard several convos in which one of us tried to explain to one of the proliferating band groupies just exactly what a blog is. Sheesh.

In addition to band groupies consuming lots o’ brew, there were blogger groupies, which, as far as I’m concerned, is totally cool. As long as they don’t turn into psycho stalker groupies, which is my brother-in-law’s concern. But I figure as long as he’s worried, I don’t have to. Which I know is illogical, but the grease globules coating the lining of my stomach are being transmitted to my brain right now, so logical reasoning is impossible. It’s my nachos inhibit rationality excuse.

In other news, the BlogAsheville Awards were inspired. And not just because I’m a winner. Okay, I did consider a Rocky dance on the two front steps on the pnav but the white trash blood, even alcohol-tainted, could not quite overcome the debutante.

Anyway, for the full list of awardees, go to BA. Edgy Mama (yes, little ole me) won “Best Design” and “Best Writing.” For which I am humbled and honored. Though I can take credit for the writing on this site, I cannot take credit for the hot, sexy design. Thank you, Eddo, who, as I must remind you again, designed this site for nothing in return except a T-shirt and a copy of my novel. I have sent him a bit of business.

I also tied with the injured Jim Jenkins, who, sadly, couldn’t come to the party, but was with us in spirit, for “Best BlogAsheville Post of 2005-2006″ (remember my vent: “To the witch who hit my van” and ran? It seems that ire entertains). I also placed second for “Blogger You’d Most Like to See Naked,” behind the FIFTEEN Scrutiny Hooligans‘ bloggers. So not much of a loss.

Thanks to all of you who came, for coming. Seeing friends, making new ones, and spreading the creative love, was fun and memorable.

Sorry none of you out-of-town bloggers could join the celebration. Next time, I’ll try to give you more notice. Although you can’t stay with me, because my brother-in-law would not be able to sleep worrying that you might Charles Manson my family.

And thanks to Ash, who not only guest blogs when I’m away, but who came to the pnav on Sunday to help with clean-up and furniture rearranging (Sorry I dropped the couch on you, guy. Hope your foot is okay).

O, and to those of you, and you know who you are, who threw ciggy butts on my lawn–to you, I send an evil hex that said cigs will singe the tips of your littering fingers and fill your lungs with toxins. If you, like Screwy, sweetly deposited your butts in my olive dish/ashtray, may your fingers remain unblistered and your lungs clear of tar.

Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.