Excitement on the side

Day 39: Learn Swedish.

I’m working on it.  And if I am lucky I won’t be alone in my efforts.  So far today I have learned that when you ask someone to “Listen Up!”  it looks a LOT like “Whore Up.”  Not to be confused with “Man Up” and not to infer that men don’t listen.

I am not alone in my efforts to follow Benrik’s book.  But a few of the Laydeez along for this ride have been slacking lately… Below is a fine example of some facebook shit talking and some Swedish being laid down!

Oh.  And P.S.  Six, as in the number… yeah, it’s totally “sex” in swedish.  Upon learning this…. I am hysterical.  A six-pack…. I just wanna know how to order a “Sex Pack” of Bud Light in Swedish….

Sigh… one day, I’m gonna be so grown up.  Until then…

Day 38: Spend some time in a church today.

Ahhh… sweet synchronicity.  Just a few days ago I had what seemed like my 653rd conversation with Emily about how I really don’t think it was God that made it rain for the third day in a row.  And wasn’t she paying attention when we read that awesome weather book? And then the following day MQD mentioned again that he thought we should try to catch a service at the local Unitarian church (an idea we have tossed around for well over a year.)  And then… yeah, still another mention, Amy asks me last night if I would be interested in joining them at the Unitarian church, as they went last Sunday and really enjoyed it.  And now THIS?  It’s a SIGN, God Dammit!!  I need to carry my ass to church!

I have been thinking about getting involved in the local Unitarian church for… since forever.  I first was interested in Unitarianism when I was in Williamsburg.  I had several professors that were active members and I really liked the idea that there was a community of people joined together, not by their common beliefs, but by their desire to appreciate each other’s beliefs and spend some time reflecting on their own.  (And to be perfectly honest I was down with the Drum Circle possibilities.)  This interest was filed away in the Things To Do When I Stop Sleeping Until Noon on Sundays bin.

It surfaced again when Emily was a baby and I realized that while it may not necessarily require the proverbial village to raise a child it would be much appreciated.  I had an interest in establishing a community for the first time in my adult life.  Motherhood… it’s crazy shit.  Made me learn to sew, and make soup and buy matching silverware.  This desire to attend a church didn’t really surprise me.  But I reasoned it away.  I was too busy. And I worked on Sundays.

And now here I am.  I’ve shed my “single parent” status (a subject that is long overdue in my writing about) and I am out of excuses.  I want a community.  And I don’t want Emily growing up thinking that MQD and I are the only people on earth that don’t pray to God before we eat or think that God is responsible for Green Town (the Emily-named phenomenon of driving all the way to school without a single red traffic light, of course.) I don’t so much care what she grows up to believe.  But I know I want her to decide for herself.  And I want her exposed to  a big, fat assortment of theologies.

So yeah… we’re going.  I mean, not this weekend because MQD is out of town and I am phobic about doing shit all by myself, and well, the next weekend we’re all out of town.  I guess we’d better go the 17th?  Because you know the Demolition Derby is on the 24th.  And I know Jesus would want me to go the Demolition Derby.   Jeez.  What do I wear?  Jeans?  Patchouli? I guess I should bring my hula hoop?

Man… I am disappointed to report that today’s challenge is another in a string of challenges I am failing before I ever really begin… I peeked at the challenges coming up in the next few days and I am pleased to report I shall be attacking them!

But today… Day 37:  Eat and Run, dine and dash, chew and screw, fuck your waitress (and not in the way you hoped when at your favorite bar in your twenties…)  I won’t be participating today.

I don’t have a lot of moral platitudes I hold dear.  But “what goes around comes around…” I can’t help but believe.  The karmic boomerang is not something I’m willing to tempt.  My luck has turned around so significantly in the last few years that I am not about to start stiffing waitresses.  Heh.  In most restaurants if your table walks out you are responsible for picking up the check yourself.  Depending on the size of the tab this can eat up most of what you’ve made that night.  I can remember in college, working at Berret’s as a Pav Girl (What! What! Shout out for my Pav Girls (and Mike P, Jason, Andre and Joey, who were (in my heart) Pav Girls) I had a few tables walk out.  It was so easy to do there, the Pavilion had entrances at all of the corners and a restroom only inside so it was easy to lose track of your customers.  Fortunately for me I was typically well lubricated by bourbon and gingers and never really felt the pain of picking up some bozos $40 tab… but still…. I know whereof I speak.  I didn’t bring you buckets of Bud Light, let you talk shit to me all night for the pleasure of picking up your check at the end of the night.  So I just can’t bring myself to do it….

Now… lest you think I don’t have a single shred of “stick it to the man” in me…  oh, but I do.  I stopped at Food Lion the other day.  Mums were two for $10.  I told the kid at the checkout counter that I wanted four.  He looked at me blankly, as I had nothing in my hands to ring up, they were all still outside.  I said “They’re two for $10, you need to ring up the SKU for mums at that price twice.”  Again… a blank stare.  He charged me $10.

I totally put four mums in my trunk.  Take that, Food Lion.  Shhh…

The challenge today is shut the fuck up, in so many words… This isn’t something I’d likely be capable of under the simplest of circumstances.  But today I had a billion people to call and it wasn’t an option.  However, to those who know me even marginally it is likely  a surprise how often I am quiet for most of the day.   At least a couple of days a week I don’t see a soul in my office and it’s just me and the tunes… if I was so inclined I could probably get away with Do Not Disturbing my phone and enjoying a day of solitude while in my office but I’d struggle with explaining to my daughter that I’d not be opening my mouth all day.  Not that she can’t appreciate some quiet.  She can see the need for quiet spread across my face and she’ll ask “If you want me to, Mom, I can just be silence?”

She hasn’t yet come to understand that sometimes “being silence” is not a means to an end but the goal in and of itself.  I’ve always enjoyed the quiet of my own mind.  And I am more than pleased to see that Emily is content to go up in her room and busy herself quietly.  Coloring, puzzles, looking at books…. she can give quietly entertaining herself  a pretty good run most days.  I like that she’s inherited this.

I could go on and on about this…. but that kinda defeats the purpose, huh?

So here I am being “silence.”  Sadly, I can not seem to communicate to my forehead the need to keep a lid on it. My forehead has tons to say….