A Bit of Sanity after the Annual Nuttiness

Listening to: Random Hindi on the ipod

I know some people really love the holidays. Like look forward to them all year. I happen to not be one of them. I’m not Scrooge with the bah humbug stuff, I like the holidays fine. I just don’t LOOOOVVVEEE them. One of the reasons I don’t salivate over the holidays is that every year, the craziness gets ratcheted up a notch. With 1 birthday right before Thanksgiving and 1 right after, the holidays around here last from Halloween until New Years. It’s a long time. The decorations and trees come out a week earlier every year, the amount of people coming and going from our house increases, the decorations seem to increase every year like they’re having ornament orgies in the basement the whole year.   So with a (very quiet, lest I be accused of being said Grinch by my kids) sigh of relief, I have finished packing up all of the holiday paraphernalia and am completely ready to shove it back in the back corner of the basement under the stairs again. I am so ready to have my living room back to a semblance of order without the visual chaos that is a tree laden in trinkets, candles, and “stuff” set out on every flat surface. I love the holidays, but I love being able to pack up the craziness too.

Another beautiful thing after the holidays is shipping the kids back off to school every day. I love spending time with my kids, and I do enjoy the holidays for that reason, but heaven help me, I love the quiet and the school schedule that settles back over our house after the holidays. I’ve never been good at developing our own schedule at home and have really welcomed the schedule that school seems to bring. When the kids are home, life develops into a loosely scheduled free for all that usually includes way too many electronic gadgets. So the quiet of not having 2 kids at home, it’s a beautiful thing.

I think for the first time in my life, I actually got burnt out on having people coming and going at our house. I absolutely love having people over, feeding them, entertaining them, etc. For the first time in my life, I honestly wished I was a hermit that could go ignore the world in my cave. The last house guest who came over and stayed for a week broke the camel’s back so to say. Or perhaps it was the flu that I conveniently got right before she came over…. She was family, so un-inviting her was just not to be done. Anyhow, there has been a moratorium on people coming over. I am refusing to wash sheets, cook for a crowd, or drink too much until at least mid Jan. Sanity must return first.  As I’ve previously made clear, I’m really, really bad at finding limits, and I think I’ve found my people limit. I guess that’s good info to get to know once. Kinda like when I drank an obscene amount of alcohol just to understand my limits. Now I know, let’s not do that again.

Overall, we survived, and probably got some good karma forging some better relationships with family and friends.  But seriously, thank you jeebus that it’s January! 

Surviving the Ball Drop

Mood: Calm

Listening to: Oddly enough, nothing.

For the first time, well, ever, I went out for New Year’s eve. Alone.  Without my husband or my kids. Going along with my not understanding moderation, I went all the way. Times Square, New York City with a bazillion other nutjobs. I have friends who live in the city, so I was invited along to participate in some revelry that included smuggling in vodka laced orange Fanta, paranoia that someone was going to steal something important from me (like said vodka)and standing in what amounted to a cattle pen for 6 hours. It was actually pretty good fun. We met a group of painfully young (at least for my 30 year old friend and I) girls from North Carolina who were fun to talk to. After 6 hours standing up in the cold and not having anywhere to pee, I won’t be doing that again, but I’m really glad I went once. The ball drop always seemed like a very cool place to be when I was watching it go down on TV from the Midwest, but it was decidedly less awesome actually there, which was a little disappointing. I did enjoy my time with my friends though. It is a very rare occasion indeed that I get to spend any length of time by myself without my kids. This is also one of those things that I would be disappointed to not have actually done once if we end up moving out of NY someday. As we’re 30 year olds, we elected to stay home and eat grilled cheese and drink hot tea instead of continuing the party out at a bar somewhere. But this also turned out to be a good thing. We were coherent enough the next day to go out for brunch in the city…which is also something I have never done by myself.  

Here are some tips if you are ever considering joining said revelry in the city.

1. Pee before you go, and then pee again. Then try your best not to drink ANYTHING for as long as possible. Seriously. Depending on how crazy you want to be, you may be standing there anywhere from 6 – 12 hours. You will not be allowed to generally wander around and pee. I actually saw people who left 2 hours before the ball dropped who just couldn’t wait any longer. If you’re a man or just don’t have any sense of privacy, bring a bottle to pee in.

2. Pack snacks or sandwiches, preferably not salty ones that will make you thirsty. See above. You will not be wandering about for food either.

3. If you like beverages of the adult type, at least pretend to be discrete about it. You won’t get in with a wine bottle, or any glass bottle at all for that matter. Same goes for anything blatantly alcoholic. The cops aren't going to test a soda bottle as long as it’s plastic. Empty half and add liquor of choice and you’ll be fine. Just remember about the peeing thing – alcohol mixed with soda fills your bladder too.

4.       For the love of god and everything holy, this is NYC. It’s a safe city, but a city nonetheless. Do not bring anything you cannot replace with minimal cost at a drug store. This means you should be carrying your id and your snacks/drinks. Do not carry an expensive phone, do not wear flashy jewelry, do not keep your wallet in your pocket or in your bag. If you must carry some cash or a credit card, keep it in a zipped pocket on your body where you can see it. Crowds encourage sticky fingers and this is the mother of all crowds. Do not bring a purse.

5.  Plan a little extra time to get where you are going. The police get a little nutty around 6 pm. Certain streets start closing and you’ll be asked to walk up and down blocks to go around road blocks. Lines generally build up at entry points because yes, they check each and every person’s bag and run you by a metal scanner. Every single person. The crowds get a little pushy as the night gets longer and you may find yourself pinned in at an entrance point. Take a breath and try not to push the people in front of you. You’ll get in.

6. Do not play with the police. Do what they ask and cooperate as best you can or you will get your ass kicked.

7.  Don’t bring a book bag or anything larger. I actually saw people get turned away for having a book bag too. I was sad for them for 5 minutes until I realized that had they done a tiny bit of research for this, they would have known better.  Seriously, snacks, drinks, and perhaps a blanket. You don’t need camping gear for this.

8. Make friends with those around you in the pen. Most likely you’ll be surrounded by tourists, but I enjoyed being with the people I was with this year. It passes those hours much more quickly than being with 1 or 2 people who run out of things to say after an hour. If you are lucky to be next to some friendly natives (and most of them really are) feel free to ask for cool pub locations for afterwards. It’s the best way to find some awesome spots for some post penned drinks.

9. Do not bring an air horn. There are always one or two of these assholes, and the native New Yorkers will always be trying to get through the crowd to beat some sense into these guys because it’s so annoying. Don’t be one of them.

10. Kiss someone at midnight. Just do it.

11.  Plan an alternate route in a few directions back to your hotel after it’s done. The police will be moving the crowd in one direction and will not give a crap if your hotel is in the opposite direction. You can’t argue with NYC policemen who are trying to keep order in a crowd that big. They will beat the crap out of you. Their job is to disperse about a million people, not hold your hand back to your hotel. Seriously, get a map and go in the dictated direction until you pass the road blocks then go around the block until you can reach where you are aiming for.

11.  You will not find a taxi on New Year’s eve. It just ain’t happening. The subway is also going to be mobbed and you are best avoiding it if possible. If at all possible, take in the festive atmosphere and just walk back to your hotel or apartment.

12.   Keep your eyes and ears open on the way home. You should not be falling down drunk and by yourself. Again, it’s past midnight in a city, be aware.

So whatever you decided to do this year, be it joining an epic stampede capable crowd in NYC or celebrating at home as we usually do, here’s to a better 2011 than 2010 was. 


Becky

Why is Everyone an Asshole at Christmas?

Mood: Idle 

Listening to: Scooby Do

I’ve been noticing lately that everyone has been especially nasty lately. That or I’m losing some inches of thickness in my skin, which is highly unlikely – I’m like a damn rhino, nothing gets to me. What is it about the holidays that encourages people to become super aggressive and rude? I’ve been complaining about people’s sense of entitlement and lack of public decency for the past 10 years, and it’s only getting worse. The sense of entitlement to do whatever a person wants and be rude and aggressive to anyone looking at the person has become unreal.  I know everyone doesn’t celebrate the holidays and people do occasionally have bad days. I’ve found that about myself. I have bad days and just don’t feel like putting up with anyone’s crap. But this seems to me to be a wide spread problem.  The other day, a person on the highway decided to have a conniption fit over something that totally wasn’t worth it. There was space in the lane to my left (not the far left) and I needed to get over to avoid merging onto a highway that didn’t go where I wanted to go. A car was 3 – 4 car lengths back in that lane, driving the same speed as me. I put my turn signal on and pulled in, only to see this car speeding up and missing my bumper by about 5 inches. She lays on the horn, is flashing her lights, the whole bit. She pulls into the other lane and drives 2 inches behind a semi just to drive next to me and scream at me. Eh, what? My apologies if I didn’t know you were going to be an asshole and speed ahead after I’d put my turn signal on and started pulling into that lane. But seriously? Was it worth it to have a tantrum? Anyhow, perhaps the reason that people seem rude is that SO MANY people out. You say that there is a recession going on and people aren’t shopping? You obviously haven’t been to the Walmart, Target, or grocery store by my house

.

At the risk of sounding preachy, can we all just stop acting like spoiled toddlers, at least for the holidays? Yep, there are lots of people on the roads and in the stores. A little bit of patience would benefit us all.  I’m tired of running into so many nasty attitudes and wishing I was a hermit.

Becky

Saying Goodbye to a Great

Mood: On

Listening to: South Park

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Leslie Nielsen has left the building. Unfortunately, we have to say goodbye to one of the comedic greats of our time.  I say we all have an epic Airplane and Naked Gun marathon. Even if that’s not to your taste, go watch something funny and have a laugh in his honor. The man mastered his craft and made us all laugh at that ridiculous sophomoric humor that I love so well. Thank you for all of the joy that you brought.

Divorce as a Spectator Sport

Mood: Calm

Listening to: Living on a Prayer – Bon Jovi

The mayor of the town that I live in is getting a divorce. Not only that, he is being arraigned on 9, count them 9, different counts of domestic violence against his wife.  I’ve been watching this story since it broke in February on the local news. Now I really like local news. I get some info on the community and what’s going on in local politics. But this nonsense makes me feel like I’m watching People Magazine on t.v. Not only is there way too much serious reporting of every single detail, you can almost see the reporters salivating over getting new details and what’s going to happen next. Is positively an ancient Romans at the coliseum cheering for bloodshed feel. Seriously. Stalking around outside the courthouse because the husband’s attorney is cross examining the wife today is kind of silly. That’s what they do in court hearings. I do think there should be coverage of this type of thing in elected officials. I don’t really support a wife beater in office (if he actually is one, they both accuse each other of abuse).  I just don’t think they should go over the facts weekly and turn them into a grand circus drama. They have 2 kids and their lives are falling apart. Give them some privacy ya vultures! Coming from a divorced, yet decidedly un-famous family, I cannot imagine all of our drama unfolding with a camera showing everyone our worst moments and watching them get a hard on over the prospect of  how much more there would be and how much further we could have sunk. It’s just so seedy. Divorces like this are messy business. Families and lives fall apart. Do we really need to give anyone a platform to act like an absolute asshole to their spouse on tv and give their kids more things to hate them for later on? Do we really need to shake our heads in condescension and congratulate ourselves that we’d never do something like that? I get irritated with the tabloids over this stuff too. But this is a news network. Their lives are dissolving into chaos, get out of their faces and give them some privacy to work through what’s going on.  

Becky

The One in Which We discuss Moderation and My Lack of it.

Mood: Rather Lost. I missed an entire week somewhere.

Listening to: Overload  done by Zappacosta (Dirty Dancing Version)

So…this thing called moderation. In theory, I am the biggest fan. I think moderation is a healthy approach to just about everything. But, and you knew there would be one didn’t you; there always is. But I find it incredibly hard to put this theory into practice. The area of my brain that says, “Ok, B, this is probably enough. Seriously. Stop. Right now you crazy heifer,” is either chronically late or conspicuously absent. As an example, it’s Saturday night.  I’m enjoying some Spanish Rioja with my husband and we have the ipod cranked up as far as two sleeping children allow. I get the munchies and wander on over to the fridge for a snack (yep, this is exactly what you think it is…..unless you think I smoke pot, which would just be ridiculous. I have enough issues already. Hormones, PMS, cough cough ahem.) I notice a thoroughly rotten cucumber has escaped my somewhat diligent attention as to the state of the fridge and has leaked some disgusting green goo all over a drawer. Now, a normal person would probably wince and grab a rag (or even not) and just clean THAT DRAWER. It struck me as an awesome idea to just go ahead and clean out the whole fridge, because, well, honestly it needed it. Badly.  No kidding. It only took 15 minutes, but seriously, who does that?  The whole fridge on a Saturday night. 

Exhibit 2. Hubs and I have friends who (whom?) we love dearly. The husband is a vegetarian which is totally cool with me – we have lots of veg friends  - and the wife is a chicken lover. They live a half hour away in NYC and come to stay for the weekend so we can all indulge in way too much wine, home cooked food, and usually plenty of conversations and laughing.  I have yet to determine why, but every time they come over, I pull out all of the stops and cook up a storm. Let’s stick in a caveat. I love, love, love cooking, I truly do.  I also love nurturing people I care about. But really. 2 days worth of at least 3 appetizers before dinner, dinner, dessert, wine, breakfast,  and other random eats. I’m not talking take-out either – I’m one of those ridiculous people who makes their own hummus. I like making it, but still. Every time they come, they beg me not to make so much food, but every time I end up doing it anyhow, because, well, I feel like that is how you take care of people. No matter how often I can logically agree with these friends that the company is more important than the cooking, that psycho mother hen tendency comes out anyhow.   

Exhibit #3 in the tom-foolery  – I have and regularly write in 6 blogs. 6.  Because throwing every topic I can think of into 1 blog just doesn’t make sense – we have to let the organizing demon take over. We’ll get to him in another blog.  I wouldn’t say he’s due to OCD because laziness saves me from being truly OCD.

I think I’ll go self-medicate with wine. Yeah, moderation doesn’t work with wine either, so it should be an interesting night.

 
Becky

Mummy in the Carpool Lane

Listening to: The genius that was/is Freddy Murcury singing Bohemian Rhapsody

Mood: Shifty

Let’s file this one under the same type of WTF as having a homeless person living in your closet. My husband told me last night about a woman who had been driving around for a while with a mummy in her car. Of a homeless woman that she was letting sleep in said car. Seriously. Here’s the link for the story if you want to read it:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39796763/ns/us_news-life/

Just stop and think about this for a moment……….Ok, yeah, so it doesn’t make any more sense than it did before, does it. Let me tell you, the confusion only grows as time goes on. Apparently the living woman was afraid of getting into some type of trouble, so she simply left the body in the car.The only thing that I could get out of my mouth when my husband told me this is “How in the world would that seem like a good idea??” That and to note that it wouldn’t really matter how many boxes of baking soda you drove around with, there is absolutely no way you could get rid of the smell, nonetheless make it tolerable. Seriously, a dead body. Baking soda is just not going to cut it. There goes the resale value of the car. Oh, don’t mind the smell; she just drove around for a while with a dead body. But look at that beautiful paint job! Another thought – who lets a homeless person sleep in their car? I applaud the thought, but who does that? Homeless people aren’t always clean due to lack of facilities, that in and of itself had to be a bit of a bad smell. 

Some people just really make me wonder. We don’t live in a fascist state. The police really are there to help you in certain situations. I think this would qualify. As long as you didn’t dispatch with the poor homeless person yourself, you have nothing to fear. There are laws here about how to dispose of human remains, and I’m pretty sure mummification by neglect is out of the question.

Becky