I finally made up my mind, and also abandoned this blog for a while.

It came down to thinking about spending four days driving… and how was that going to feel.  Nope. Couldn’t do it.

I took the kids to Chincoteague, Virginia, instead and we had a ball.  It’s a little summer fun town, and kinda deserted in March, which we oddly enjoyed. We saw wild ponies!

Thus, March passed successfully.

April is here, with flowers, and I planted stuff and that’s where we are now.

Little smiling green bits of arugala are peeking up at me; I have teeny seedlings of romanesco cauliflower (broccoli?), and meanwhile I’ve put in peas and I’m waiting to see them grow and flourish.

All around is flowering trees, rain storms, the smell after the rain, the changeability of it all. April, rushing  by.

That’s where I am now. Just thought I should say.

I keep going BACK and FORTH with this Florida trip decision. What it comes down to is … about 4 days of driving for about 4 days of being there.  Unless I either leave a day or two earlier, or come back a day or two later.  I have my serious doubts about how kosher it would be to miss work (I’d find a sub, but still… not sure how this would look.)

On the other hand, I guess I know of several other teachers at my school who wanted to do something and found subs, and nobody really said boo about it.

So getting a sub shouldn’t be too big of a deal, really, and that might mean taking 4 days of driving and having 5 or maybe even 6 days of being there. That would tip the scales some.

I’m still concerned about where we’ll stay.  I mean, it’s fine to flop on a couch bed when it’s just one person (me) but trying to sleep all tangled up with my two sweet children… well, let’s face it, they take up a lot of space. And one of them wets the bed about half the time.  She’s volunteered to sleep on the floor with her sleeping bag, but still.

So that’s really not too bad. I don’t mind snuggling up with Annie. She’s smaller, and Carla could be on the floor.

So that’s not that bad of a concession.

Thinking about this, I’m really, thinking thinking thinking about this.

It’s a LOT of driving for one person. Me. I’m a good driver, though, and have done marathon drives before. But not this long of a drive, by myself.  Cammy and I split the driving last time and it was still exhausting.

On the other hand, it would be really lovely to get to Florida, again. Spring as you drive down the coast is fun to witness. The south is having spring of course, earlier than here. So it’s going to be pretttttty.

On the other hand, we’ll be driving on stupid I-95 most of the time, and what’s pretty about that, anyway?

On the other hand, we’ll have all that quality time in the car together, listening to great books on CD.  We love audio books.

On the other hand, on the other hand, on the other hand…. what am I, an eight handed octo-mom?

Ugh, don’t answer that.

To drive, or not to drive… to Florida again. By myself this time.  I’m trying to decide on this, and it’s not easy.

Pros and Cons time:

Pros – sense of adventure, listening to lots of books on CD in the car is fun, good to see my dad because who knows when I will see him next otherwise since he’s old and he lives in Florida full time now, the kids want to go, it’s beautiful there, I love seeing the birds and the beaches, I love going on adventures, there have I come full circle now with the adventure thing?

Cons – that’s a lot of driving, that’s a lot of gas, my car is old and am I risking its continued existence by doing such a thing? Should I call the Car Talk guys? We don’t have a great option for where to stay this time, other than the 3 of us can stay on the fold out couch in their living room. Which means we will be in the way or else have to get up early and clear up the bed every day. And at night, the damn TV will be on and on and on while Dad watching annoying cable TV and all of the damn annoying commercials, and in the early morning we’ll be in the way of the early bird Dad’s wife! And did I mention that’s a lot of driving?

This isn’t so good… the con’s paragraph is longer. But each thought inside each Pro or Con isn’t equally weighted. I think we need to assign some numbers here in order to make a quantitative decision.

Pros… Scale of 1 to 10, 1o being most important…

See Dad- 9 See Florida’s beauty- 6 Have adventures with kids- 7 It’s what the kids want- 8 Listening to books on CD is fun- 4… So that’s five items in favor of the trip, with a cumulative average of “7″ on the scale of 1 to 10 of “important”.

Cons… Scale of 1 to 10, 10 is most important

Lots of driving, 5; Lots of Gas (and thereby money), 5; Risk to Car, 2; Accomodations Minimal, 5; In step-mom’s way, 4; The fucking TV, 6; So that’s six objections… and their value on average… about 4.5 on the scale of “important” whatever that means.

So… if I can think of ONE more important reason in favor of going, I think I will have to go, just have to.

MEANWHILE… I am thinking about the niceness of growing things. I spent a lovely weekend yesterday and the day before really enjoying spring-like weather (in February! whoa, man!) I mucked out my compost bin and moved it to its previous location, and stirred up and was pleased to see LOTS of good soil/compost for spreading all around. I did a ton of raking of old leaves, which eventually will go into the compost bin with the kitchen scraps.

Now I have a pile of seeds that are talking to me… oh, not literally, do not worry I’m not actually insane.  Though the calculations above concerning Florida seem a little whackadoo, I will admit.

Today’s inspiration is Hamlet.

What my reader might envy about my life is the time that I have to do things at home. Like most humans, I squander my resources. I am sorry to say, that here I am at home, while the kids are at school and sometimes I really waste that time.

Sometimes, I use it industriously to do egregious tasks.

Sometimes, I squander it in personally enjoyable activities, such as reading or napping.

Sometimes, I decide I should memorize speeches from Hamlet. That’s one thing I did today.  I am trying to commit to memory the speech in which Hamlet describes his depression, how he really knows that the world, the air, mankind, etc., are amazing and all that, but his attitude sucks and he is Not Pleased.

To test my learning of it so far, I am going to try to write it out now.

I have of late, wherefore I know not , lost all my mirth.  … What a piece of work is  a man, how noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form and moving how admirable, in action.  How like an angel, in apprehension… How like a God!

It’s close, but not quite right. If you are a Shakespearean scholar, you’ll notice my funny punctuation.  A quick trip to Wikipedia and you may talk like a scholar, too, for there it explains how in different places where this brilliant speech is committed to paper, there are different punctuation marks. I don’t recall which is what, and why, but I did decide to memorize and say this speech to myself as it most made sense. So, I am saying that in apprehension, man is like an angel, rather than in action.  Daring, I know. That’s me.

You might notice that it has no P in it.

I am writing on a derelict com’uter that has a broken letter p.  I can ty’e a p when I try really hard, and ‘ress down on it intentionally. But most of the time, I will be too lazy to accom’lish that.  Sorry in advance. The a’ostro’hes will go as well. Oo’sy.

Well if that didn’t scare away the reader, then maybe the rest of this entry will be just for you, that one special person for whom a hard press of the letter will be made.

Today Pann is thinking about the nature of the egregious task.  What on earth is that, you may ask? An egregious task, in this household, really, is any kind of task that simly must be done, and no matter how much whining one does, it all comes to the simle fact that it has to be done, so it is.  Usually involves something unleasant or stinky.  When you have two kids, three cats, and two guinea pigs, there’s a lot of unpleasant stuff to manage.

POOP.  Not to mention, there is plumbing to be managed. It is annoying how often the larger mammals around here clog up the toilets.

Funny, though you may at this oint be thinking that I am complaining, I actually feel pretty good and I don’t meant to complain at all.  I did several egregious tasks today and I don’t mind much.

The one I really didn’t like was plunging the toilet.  Because, YUCKY POOP! Stinks, you know.

I also scooped the cat boxes. But that was stinky but not as bad as plunging. I also cleaned up my younger daughter’s room, which was messy but not poopy or stinky.  That wasn’t bad, but it is an act of fierce futility.  I looked and even entered my older daughter’s room, but the level of chaos there defeated me anyway.  I don’t know how she feels about it, but oh my. Egregious state of affairs indeed, and not even poopy.

The letter p key seems to be sticking less. That is good.  What is the point of this particular little missive? The moral of the story is, if you have the time, go ahead and do the yucky stuff that has to be done. You’ll be glad you did.

And maybe just maybe you’ll be lucky to have your letter p get unstuck in the process.

Perhaps.

It’s not like we didn’t KNOW this day was coming. There is red everywhere you look, and hearts, and candy, and the media likes a good sales holiday as much as the stores all do.  You know that it is St. Valentine’s Day, because it’s when you’re supposed to really think about, indulge in, and enjoy LOVE in all its gaudy aspects.

The cynical part of me really despises this holiday. I look at all the build-up and see yet another religious holiday that is dressed up for the commercial benefit of our economy, of our sales and purchases and how they can be pumped up a bit more.

But there’s a part me that just loves this day, too. I work with kids. So I receive lovely little notes, with hearts, and sometimes candy, and I can enjoy that a great deal. There is sincerity, amid the chaos of the world, and it often comes from small people.

I dream a lot.  In my family, it’s become something of a hum-drum conversation. I wake up, and I want to share my dreams with everyone, and I’m still a little surprised or offended that people aren’t fully fascinated with the goings-on of my brain overnight.

When I was first taking an anti-depressant drug, I think it was Lexapro, I was finding that my dreams were ultra vivid, and much like movies in my head.  They were fully visual, with complete colors, details, sounds, even smells.  They were very real.  I figured that my mind was simply responding to a stimulation due to an increase in serotonin from the medicine.

I actually stopped taking anti-depressants approximately 10 months ago, and dreams were the least of my concerns at this radical departure.  Because I’ve had a variety of symptoms of mental depression, the worst of which were the suicidal thoughts, I took anti-depressants for a few years.  But sometime last summer I came to a place in my life that felt safe, secure, happy, and I began to wonder if I really needed the anti-depressants anymore.

I decreased them, and eventually was off entirely. All was well. I’m still well, and have made it through most of winter, including the difficulties associated with the winter holidays.  I have weathered quite a bit of anxiety about our financial situation– and a big concern that our children would not only have stop going to private school next year, but be forced to stay home THIS YEAR as well, because we didn’t have enough money to pay up on our current tuition.

All of this uncertainty, anxiety and fear are real, and I feel so proud to have coped so far.  I still have uncertainty but things are looking up.

And I’m pleased to say, I still dream lot.  What is the meaning of our dreams? If they are merely the idle playtime of the brain, why do some dreams seem to guide us, others just seem to be there to please us, and yet others make us wake in fearful sweats, grasping for reality as much as the blankets bunched up at our feet?

I woke up this morning feeling sweet.  My dreams had been good, so very good. I didn’t seek reality in the morning light to try to figure out whether a feeling of well-being was really called for.  I just accepted my good mood and went on to make pancakes and coffee.

After dropping off the kids to school, I put away laundry, and made my bed.  Then I had the urge to write, and write and write. Could be the  coffee, but it could be the dreams, too.

Last week sometime, as I was driving home with my girls one evening, chatting amiably with them, we arrived home and I went ballistic in a sudden and furious spate of rage.  I stopped my cordial talking mid-sentence. I was really, really, pissed off all of a sudden.  Why, you ask?

Because my parking spot was taken.

I blew my top. I blew my horn.  I got out of the car and yelled at the empty street. I got into the car and sat there fuming. I used choice vocabulary.  All because of a parking space, you ask?  What the hell?

It was an emotional reaction, so there’s part of me that wants to say, hey look, I can’t really explain it.  I was just mad. Really mad.  I can tell you the rationalizations that I have for expressing so much rage.

It’s fairly simple to rationalize this reaction.  You have to know something about my geographic location:  I’m live in a neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia, in which day after day, our particular streets are usually pretty empty and there’s ample parking. This is not true of many neighborhoods in my city, but it is true here. Usually, if someone is in “my spot” I just park a few feet down from there.  However, it’s February, and our street is still extremely cluttered with a foot of snow that fell several weeks ago.  There are two spots on my side street, which are clear of snow, and which are MY SPOTS because I spent several hours clearing them.  Shoveling heavy snow and ice to make it possible to park there.

The custom around these parts is not to park in people’s spots. It’s just considered bad manners.  People will put out chairs, or other obstacles to make this clear, most of the time.  I had recycling bins out to mark our spots.  It turns out that my husband hadn’t put them on the street, however, when he had gone to work, so someone had parked a big pickup truck right in the middle of my hard-earned parking places.

What particularly made me angry was the fact that a driver of such a large, rugged truck with its large, rugged wheels really should not have had much trouble parking on the un-claimed, poorly cleared, icy areas on the other side of the main street.  He or she did not need to park on my clear, dry, parking spots. Yes, spots. For this truck had not only taken up ONE space, no indeed. He or she had parked in such a way as to block BOTH of them. It made me unreasonably angry.

I had my tantrum in front of my two girls. My girls rarely see me angry.  Sure, there’s the occasional spat with my husband.  Or I get peeved about politics or other idiocy. But they hardly ever see an example of my on a full-on, furious, demon-like rampage.  I was beyond agitated. I was loud, and outrageous. I wrote a nasty note, which my seven year old read over my shoulder.  She commented that she wouldn’t say the note out loud as it evidently contained a word which she’s not supposed to know, let alone use.

Smart kid.

But now, it’s quite a few days since my tantrum, and I’m thinking it all over, trying to see what part of the human condition is illuminated by all that noise and bluster. I simply didn’t need to make such a big deal over having to park somewhere else. There was another place to park, after all, even though it was trickier, further from home and covered with a dangerous, slippery, pile of ice.  But I did, because I just felt like I had to, express that rage.

I’ve gone through a range of emotions while processing my own “bad” behavior.   I was self-righteous at first, because I am a hard worker and I shouldn’t have had to work for some jerk to take away my hard-earned prize. I was embarrassed, after a bit, because of making such a fuss.  But now I’ve come to the new rationalization, that I did myself some good that evening.  I let myself and my kids know that when I feel, really feel mad, that I can express that emotion.

I can let it out, and then let it go. Let it out, people.  And then let it go.  That’s is the moral of this blog post.

Complaining is a form of critical discourse with one’s world.  I think you knew that already.

You can look around at the goings-on and let out a complaint.  Here are some fabulous examples of complaints, taken from real life:

“Ugh, my jeans are too tight.”

“I don’t have any clean underwear.”

“This dinner tastes too spicy.”

“I am sick and tired of all the snow. Can it be spring now?”

These and many more, and variants therein, I am sure you may have heard, or uttered, or at least thought.  I know that they are familiar and comforting to me in some way.

The best part of letting yourself complain, is that having voiced your discontent, it now gives you a direction in which to take your onerous situation.

Whining is a special type of complaining. It goes from merely stating the matter of discontent and takes it on the offensive. Now it’s time to take your complaint, and make the other people around you suffer, too! Just whip out the whining and you can punish those around you who are probably responsible for your misery anyway!

If you are someone who works with children, as I am, you will likely be familiar enough with whining at the pinnacle of its form, so that you will not be in need of any further example. Besides, making specific examples of whining in which they can be differentiated from the odd complaint is more difficult in written text. It would require a fair amount of inflection, for whining is that linguistic equivalent of the old fingernails-on-blackboard sound one hears in old fashioned classrooms.

In my work with children, both in a school setting and at home with my own daughters, I have to admit, it can be challenging responding to and dealing with complaints. Whining complaints are the worst, however.  If you work with kids enough, you may find that you grow either more immune to the pain of whining, or perhaps instead you grow less tolerant of it.  I think there are days when I lean one way, and other days when I go the other direction.

Whining from adults is the hardest to tolerate.  Complaints, on the other hand, are merely a call to action.  No matter who it is initiating the complaint, this is a function of human critical thought. It can be acceptable, even desirable, but only when the complaint is followed up with action of some sort.

I myself like to complain a bit now and then, as it reminds me and motivates me to do stuff. The lack of clean underwear can spawn some flurry of trips to the basement to wash clothing.  The tightness of jeans could inspire me to lay off sweets for a while.  Indeed, I encourage everyone out there to complain a bit.  And then LISTEN to yourself.  Whatever it was that bugged you enough to complain, do something about it.

But, please, don’t whine. At least not where I can hear you!

Trying to blog more lately, which might be a fool’s errand if nobody is reading my writing anyway.

So it’s for myself. Hey, look, a blog! written by me! how lame.

Punctuation, spelling, feh! who needs it?!

I am  just watching my sanity go away a little at a time. I don’t mind that much. I mean, what is sanity anyway? If I do a good job at my work, and take good care of my kids and treat other people well, then I am sane.

And it doesn’t matter how I feel inside. Behavior is the king of all things, right?

I am behaving nicely.  i can haz cooky?