Roller Derby and Love's Mixed Messages

Tonight me and the kids and I went to Roller Derby. In case you don't know what that is, it looks like this:


Actually, that looks very polite. Imagine those three women shoving each other with some "bam!" and "pow!" signs around them, like in Batman fight scenes, and that's closer to what it's like.

This goes against the skating etiquette that I have taught my kids, where you DON'T shove into people and make them fall over. But in a ring with loud music, whistles blowing, and women in fishnet stockings, it's ok. This is just one small example of the mixed messages of my parenting.

Take, for instance, our conversation about love and marriage earlier today. We were driving passed the church where a bride and groom were walking briskly out of the fromt door towards the white Royals Royce that was waiting for them.
I said, "Awe, look guys, it's a wedding!"
They looked at where I was pointing and made impressed noises.
"Congratulations!" I yelled, as if they could hear me.
"Congratulations! Good luck!" the kids yelled, and we all waved.
"Mom," Emma asked me a minute later. "Were you happy on your wedding day?"
Ah. They like to do this, ask me questions about my wedding day and marriage to their father. The best I can do is answer them honestly, which I did.
"Yeah, I was," I told her. "And we were married in that church."
"The one we just passed?" Claire asked.
"Yep."
"And you really were happy?" she asked.
"Yes. I really, really was. It was a great day."
In the silence that followed there was another question floating around that I'm glad they didn't ask. "If you were so happy, why didn't it last?"
"I wanna get married," Emma sighed. "And I want my husband to have freckles."
"That would be cute," I said.
"On his face," Emma added.
"Well, yes," I said.
"And he'll have red hair and he'll wear glasses."
"Do you have someone in particular in mind? That's specific."
She ignored my observation and continued, "And we'll see each other for six months and then he'll ask me to marry him."
"Hold up," I said. "You should date him for atleast a year."
"But YOU got engaged in less time than that," Claire said.
"Uh....yeah. And...."
"And Grandma and Grandpa got engaged after just a few weeks."
"Uhhhhh...........yeah."
"They're still together."
"Yes, well, even they would tell you that it's best to get to know someone first."

Sometimes I find myself tripping over my own relationship advice because most of my relationships have been like this:


But I know that they say it's best to take things slow and I've never done that. Four of my closest friends who have been married to the same people for over ten years also dated those same people for atleast three years before that. So that's the advice I gave the kids.

But then I thought about something else.  A cousin of mine dated the same guy for ten years, then married him and they got divorced after two years. Then someone I know who was in a 29 year marriage which had started off sensibly, they had dated for a couple of years, got jobs, bought a house, had a kid and STILL got divorced. On the other hand, a friend of mine had a one night stand with a guy and she's been in a monogamous relationship with him for over twenty years. Another dude I know had an affair with a married woman. That was 14 years ago. They've been together the whole time and now they're married. Then I remembered another affair that turned out that way, one which EVERYONE was sure would never last because of how they'd started off.

"You know what," I said told the kids after thinking about all of this. "You just never know. I still think it's a good idea to get to know somebody for at least a year but I'd be lying if I told you that I know any secrets about all of this stuff. Just pick somebody who's good to you, and be good to them too. That's all I got. Let's go to Derby."

And we did. And it was like this:



Roller Derby is as risky as love, but there are nachos and men dressed as Elvis who throw candy into the stands.  Who knows maybe that's the secret to happy relationships that no one has shared with me - nachos and Elvis. Those uppity bastards and their secrets about love.

The Third Yell is the Breaking Point

I got up at 4:00...and so did all three children. I don't understand how this happens so I won't speculate, but it really throws off my writing groove. So I'll write what I can during the serious, nerve-busting, frantic time crunch that exists between the hours of When The Kids Wake Up - 6:15. Because of the commute, that's what time we have to leave to get to work and school on time.

The morning began with a cry from a kid in the shower, "MOOOOOOOOOOOM! There's no water pressure! Did somebody flush??"
"No," I muttered, staggering out of my bedroom.
But I didn't mutter loud enough. She two seconds later, "MOOOOOOOOOOO@#@#@%#@$%^??!!!OOOOMMMMMMM!!! THIS IS TERRIBLE! THERE'S NO WATER PRESSURE!"
"I know, honey. I know it's a pain." I say outside the bathroom door. Still didn't hear me.
"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!"
I slap the door. "I HEAR YOU! DEAL WITH IT!"
"BUT MOM!"
'BUT WHAT? WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT? I'M NOT A PLUMBER! SUCK IT UP!"

See how things turn around like that? I'm a rational, sympathetic person until the third yell. That seems to be my breaking point. The whole last part of that conversation is how I would imagine my landlord and I would speak to each other if she answered her phone.

We hate this house. The water pressure is moody, the dishwasher broke and the landlord won't respond to my phone calls or texts about it, and some of the light fixtures work and some of them don't, as if the house has had a stroke. We can not wait until our lease is up. Every time I take a shower and the shower head dribbles a tiny stream of water as if it's weeping over it's patheticness on top of my head, I begin to plot my escape. I imagine a large U-Haul truck pulling into the driveway with the same fantastical pleasure as if it was a stretch limousine with a bouquet of flowers waiting for me on the backseat. Ahhh...moving.  It'll be nice when I'm my own landlord again, but honestly I can put up with having a lousy landlord again if it means that I don't have to commute for over two hours a day anymore.

It is now 5:45 and I need to go stand under the shower head so that it can drool like a mental patient onto my hair.

How to Screw Up Laundry in 13 Easy Steps

I'm not sure how you do the laundry, but this is what I do:
1) Wear an outfit that I don't like to work.
2) Change into shorts and a T-shirt when I get home and throw the work clothes on my closet floor.
3) Four hours later, take off T-shirt and shorts and throw them on top of the work clothes on the floor.
4) Repeat process for 8 days.
5) Take a snow shovel and heap the laundry from my closet into the laundry area in the pantry.
6) Throw the snow shovel on the couch and get a forklift to gather the dirty clothes out of the kids' rooms.
7) Do 126 loads of laundry.
8) Pile clean clothes on the couch, and in the process bury the snow shovel, the remote control, my cell phone, car keys, the dog, my son's homework, and an unfinished burrito.
9) Complain that I can't find anything.
10) Begin to sit on the clean clothes pile because I haven't been able to bribe the kids into picking them up and putting them where they belong.
11) Begin picking through the pile whenever I need a clean outfit, most of which has ended up on the floor.
12) Repeat until the pile is gone.
13) Return to step one.

I am possibly the only person in southern Louisiana with a snow shovel and that's because everyone else can get away with a laundry basket, but I need a heavy tool with a wide scoop at the end. And really, I'm not sure where all of these clothes are coming from. I know what we wear! I see us every day! But tonight I came across an Emma-sized purple shirt that I'd never seen before.
"Emma," I said, "is this yours?"
"Oh yeah." She smiled, took it and dropped it to the floor. Before I could tell her to pick it up the rabbit hopped to it, grabbed it with her teeth and scurried off to make a nest. On the couch.
But where had it come from? Emma couldn't remember. How does this happen?
I know that when I was a teenager, the opposite was happening - I was constantly losing clothes and didn't know why until I found out that my middle sisters' friends were stealing my coolest band T-shirts. I couldn't blame them, but I was still pissed.
"Julie," I said, confronting one of them. "Where's my Soundgarden t-shirt?"
"Oh God that was months ago. I wore it home and then Jessica borrowed it, I think. Sorry."
"Who's Jessica?"
"I don't remember."
I don't know where these girls are now, but I hope that rabbits are making nests out of their pajamas.

Anyway, this morning, as the children and I picked through the clothes we needed off of the piles of clothes throughout the house, I made a declaration.
"Tonight!" I said. "We'repicking all of this up. No TV! No computer until it's done! Does everybody understand?"
It was 6:00 in the morning and they all made the same reply that went something like "Beeeehhlhhhhhaaaahhhhh...." like zombies pillaging a laundromat in slow motion.

And tonight when we got home, I stuck to that. I changed out of my work clothes, WHICH I PUT IN THE WASHING MACHINE (thank you, thank you, I know, you're too kind to acknowledge my accomplishment), I cooked dinner, and after the kids finished their homework, we spent the next hour organizing the clothes into piles and then putting them away.

I don't know if we'll stick to this. Not cleaning for weeks and then sudden bursts of cleaning are more my speed than a consistent load of laundry which we all pick up for five minutes a day. I'm going to try, but I'm holding on to my snow shovel just in case. It's made a comfortable groove in the couch and I don't think I could get rid of it if I wanted to.

Dead Things on the Seawall

Yesterday the kids and I went to the Lakefront for the first time since Hurricane Isaac hit. I wasn't sure we'd be able to drive all the way down there, really. The last I'd heard the lake had topped the seawall and flooded the surrounding streets. But the main street had been cleared and we were able to park by the seawall, and survey the damage.

Emma pulled on her Rollerblades and skated out of the car, and Christopher, Claire, and a friend of hers ran for the seawall and jumped on top of it to stare out into the lake.  You wouldn't think that much had happened to look at it. The sun glittered on the water, there were only wisps of clouds and besides a few tiny dead crabs on the path by the seawall, there wasn't any other sign that a hurricane had come and gone.

But as we walked on, we found other things. Like the bar across the street that was being gutted. The flooring and walls had been ripped out and were piled outside, and there was that sickening mold smell that will forever remind me of the way the city smelled in the months after Hurricane Katrina.  I swear it smelled worse than the dead alligator we found by the seawall. A full grown, I am not kidding you, alligator, washed up next to an empty gas can, and piles of brown weeds and sticks. Its jaw was open, looking ready to bite, except that it was dead, and ash pale.  Close to that we found a dead nutria rat, a small gar fish, more crabs and an otter.

"I didn't know we had otters," Emma said.
"Neither did I," I told her.
"I don't like all these dead things."
"Me neither. Could be worse though."

Could be people, I thought, but didn't want to depress her further by saying it. Sometimes I wonder, when I hesitate to say the dead, dark thoughts, if they're already in my childrens' minds. I wondered if she had realized that just seven years ago, in the aftermath of a hurricane there were people found just like the alligator, washed up with trash, and stumbled upon by other people surveying the damage. But seven years ago, she was four years old and in the safety of a neighbourhood that had not been flooded. Inconvenienced yes, but no one had died. So most likely, that thought, the thought of how it could be worse, was not in her head, and I hoped that she would grow to be a very lucky woman and she would never have to consider it.

We didn't stay long. It was blazing hot, making all of the dead things smell worse, and since the water park by our favorite beach was closed, I wanted to get home and hold the garden hose over my head.  Which I did, damn thankful for the uncontaminated water running through my hair, over my blazing feet, and in my stomach when I drank straight from the hose.

I hope it's back to normal soon. The lake's beach in Fontainebleau State Park has become our stomping grounds. We call it "our beach" and "our lake" as if it formed thousands of years ago just for us, and these hurricanes blowing through to disrupt our water time just will not do.