Is a Month Long Enough?

I need to try to regain my sanity. Seems like this may not be the week. I've not blogged in so long that all three of my readers have probably stopped reading me. It's been a bit of a trying time lately. Between writing papers for Brainy Linguistics Prof and Brilliant Irish Studies Prof, teaching, freelancing, and navigating the murky waters of my personal life, I'm freaking tired.

My mom may end up being committed to a hospital--if we're lucky. In the meantime she's causing obscene amounts of stress for my saintly sister and moderately obscene amounts for me. I feel guilty every day. Not for my mom--she's burned too many bridges for us to feel bad about her situation. I just wish I could help my sister more. She's in the moment all the time, and I have the luxury of long distance keeping Mommie Dearest at bay. Seriously, our mom makes Joan Crawford look pretty good sometimes. Wire hangers be damned!

I don't know how things will come together, but I know that my sister deserves the little spare time she has to spend it with her family rather than being at the beck and call for the tyrant next door. I'll do what I can, but at this moment I'm not sure what that is.

In the meantime, I'll be looking for some holiday cheer. The snow is beautiful outside, and for now, it's making the world a little bit more sparkly. This is something I can be grateful for.

Why I Love Garth (and Trisha too)

Last night, Mortgage Partner and I benefited from my friend Dorothy's illness and hit the new Sprint Center for a Garth Brooks concert. MP was a willing accomplice; although, I must say he wasn't nearly as excited as I was about the event. The truth is, I secretly (well, it's not a secret any more) know all the words to a heck of a lot of Garth Brooks songs. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's because I grew up in South Dakota and had country cousins, or because I spent two miserable summers in southeastern Kansas where there isn't anything else on the radio.

Last night I had the opportunity to share my, er, skill with MP and thousands of others. It was a whole hell of a lot of fun.

Trisha Yearwood, Garth's talented and voluptuous wife (and as tabloid legend would have it long-term lover while he was married to another) opened the show. I was surprised to discover (cause Lord knows I didn't really think about it) that I knew most of the words to the songs she sang as well. She even had me tearing up when she sang "How Do I Live." Well, shucks.

Garth's portion of the show (he rocked out--or would it be country-ed out? for over two hours) was an energetic collaboration with some incredible bandmates (loved the fiddle and steel guitar in particular). It started with a guy playing what looked like a white baby grand piano, and then the fiddler came out of the piano. Garth apparently jumped out of the stage (it looked like he came out of nowhere) in his western shirt, tight Wranglers, boots, and cowboy hat. Well, yeehaw!

He was all about the audience sing-along, and he even signed his guitar (?!) for someone in the audience named Jane who had a birthday yesterday. I have to hand it to the dude--he's really engaged with his fans. Both he and Trisha made serious eye contact with the audience. Man, I just melted (because he does have kinda dreamy eyes--who knew?)

But the moment that Garth chuckled, swept his cowboy hat off his wispy, graying hair and said, "You guys are great. You're singing along to all my songs, and here I am up here just trying to hold in my gut..." Well, that's the moment I decided I don't feel so bad about my illicit affair with the cowboy and his songs.

Up With Sheeple!

Yesterday, Mortgage Partner had a great blog about philanthropy. Or rather, he linked to a blog about philanthropy. Whatever. Same thing. Also yesterday, while I was grading reading responses from my students, one of them commented that it seems charities really ramp things up during the cold months but seem to stagnate when it's warm. That got me thinking about the connection between giving and the so-called holiday season. I admit I'm prone to charitable acts this time of year--you know, the whole Sharing is Caring thing. And yes, the Salvation Army does some stuff that's a little too fundy for my liking, but the organization's heart is in the right place. I'd rather give to the red kettle than the panhandler asking for a downpayment on a cheeseburger.

But why is it that we open our hearts up so much this time of year and seem to want to forget that people are starving/needing medical treatment or shelter the rest of the year? What is this connection between the "holiday spirit" and philanthropy?

After all my family-related stress this fall, I'm planning to keep this Christmas low key in the gift-giving department. And for that matter, I'm kind of thinking that's how it should be year-round. I look at my own house and life and realize I don't need anything, and in fact, I have plenty to give. Not money really, because we're squeezing by as it is. But I have things to spare, and if I look hard enough, I even have time.

Now I know that my readership isn't tremendous, but those of you faithful readers who do come by here occasionally, I'd like your feedback on the whole philanthropy-holiday connection. I know most of you personally, and I also know I'm preaching to the choir here. But maybe you know of some people whose ears could stand to be bent a little. As I noted on Mortgage Partner's blog, we need to be thinking about Phil Anthropy and not Phil Entropy.

Boo frickin' hoo!

Well, thanks to the overwhelming response regarding my new blog persona...ok, not really. Seriously, despite the fact that I know I'm writing for myself, I'd like to think there's someone out there who'd be willing to help me out with my name (besides CM who I know will always persist in suggesting cunninglinguist--I did like Lingenie, but I'm still thinking about it).

Whatever. I'm not here to grouse (ok, who are we kidding?), mainly I'm here to pose the following question:

What do we do when we need to parent our parents?

My sister and I have been going through a ridiculous amount of stress and drama with our parents (mainly our mother) in the last year--longer really, but we're ok with letting some of those things be bygones. I'm heading up to the homestead this weekend to help my sister deal with our mother's crap. I know I've written about this before, but it pretty much consumes my thoughts (that is when I'm not thinking about school, work, how much work it is to keep my own house clean, and the fact that I'm able to gain weight just thinking about food).

My mom buys things/collects things/refuses to donate or throw away things because things make her feel better. Granted, I sort of get this. I like going to Target because it makes me feel happy to buy new pillows or even air fresheners. But I don't do this on a regular basis, and I don't buy so much stuff that it swallows up my whole house. Yesterday, my sister came across a pile of clothes in our mom's secret lair (they covered an entire sofa) that for the most part had never been worn--the tags were still on them. Now, I try not to air my family's dirty laundry too much, but my mom is constantly complaining how she has no money, no one ever helps her, and she shouldn't be forced to live the way she does.

We know she has problems--I've seen these people on TV before on Oprah or Dr. Phil. But how do you even begin to do an intervention on someone like this? I think this goes beyond Suze Orman territory; she needs a psychiatric evaluation because this is getting into what resembles manic.

The thing that just kills us though is how she complains to us, to anyone who will listen, that we're such ungrateful wretches to let her life get this way. Are we? From her point of view, she thinks we should be regularly toting that barge and lifting that bale over at Momtown. I''m not so sure that she didn't have kids just to put them to work. From our point of view, we worry that maybe we're enabling her when we do bail her out (which seems to happen on a very regular basis).

Where do you find the happy medium? I know this woman needs some serious tough love, but we're not sure how to start. It's easier when you're the parents because you do have authority over your children. But when you're the kids...well, the channels are a lot more obscure.

One thing I've noticed as an adult is that I tend to surround myself with friends who are stable. I don't have time for drama (although in the past I have often stepped in to be the voice of reason in many situations--I'm seriously old beyond my years). Additionally, my stable posse seems to have pretty freakin' stable parents themselves. Indeed, many of my friends have parents I covet. You know, happily married, frugal, healthy, and sane enough to travel and spend time doing fun things with their adult children. I have no idea what this might be like, but it always looks pretty awesome to me. Perhaps this is just another case of the grass being greener--this case in someone else's family tree (weird, weird mixed metaphor there).

You can't pick your families, it's true (although God knows I'd pick my sister if I had a choice because she rocks). But how do you deal with the fact that you can't exactly write them off either?

Define Me!

Hey blog-reading friends! I've never been overly attached to my blog persona (moniker? not sure--you know, the thing I call myself), and I'd love to hear your suggestions for a new one. No offense (in fact much praise is owed) to David Bowie for the creation of JeanGenie, but I think I can do better and be more original. Remember, it should be creative, original, and not my "real" name. I'm not sure what I can offer, other than fame on this here blog for helping me out, but I'll try to think of something.

Always the Babysitter...

Oh hell! Dorothy just gave me a fab shoutout, so I thought I'd write a blog seeing as how what I should really do is edit, grade papers, work on my presentation for tomorrow, or write up a research proposal. I'd much rather blog. It's so cathartic.

Dorothy's post about finding a good babysitter gave me so many ideas, I pert near don't know where to begin. I've been babysitting since I was 11, so I guess that gives me 20 years' experience. Now I don't know why I was trusted with another child (though in her parents' defense mine were just across the street and said child was a very demure 7). I've seen it all--angels, hellraisers, whiners, pukers--but my favorite babysitting story comes from a time when I was a nanny.

I spent my first stint in grad school being REALLY poor, and I was a part-time nanny for a delightful family to supplement my puny teaching award. One night when I was babysitting, the oldest child, N. did something that merited a timeout in his room. Now, he was probably 6 or 7 at the time, so a timeout in his room really meant playing with Legos and Bionicles. But, he was still pretty pissed. At some point I walked by his room and spied him doing various ninja poses in his room. This itself isn't weird, except that they were accompanied by him giving the bird (to whom or to what I don't know). As a seasoned babysitter, I decided to let it go. Mainly it was funny.

Later, when his parents came home, I told them the story and asked them what they thought. His mom noted he had seen a driver giving another the bird one day, and N. asked what it meant. His mom told him that the bird-giving driver was angry at the other, and that the finger gesture was a rude one that shouldn't be done to other people. I liked her logic here--it sort of fits with those things that kids will do (flashing, touching themselves) that aren't inherently bad, but certainly aren't meant for polite company. So, N. interpreted this to mean you just don't give others the bird (but hell, no one said anything about the privacy of your own room!).

I have to say that I've found myself re-telling this story over the years. It's a great tidbit of parenting, and my demonstration of ninja moves with the bird is pretty hilarious.

Being able to share this has been good for me today. I'm overstressed, overworked, and generally hating of all things relating to my doctoral program (hello! Chomsky! I need to have a word with you!). I think I'll go in my room, channel my inner ninja, and give him the bird.

A Little Piece of Om

Over the weekend my sister and I engaged in a bit of housecleaning. Well, actually it was cleaning our mother's garage. There was a lot of crap in there. But amongst the crap, I found things that I treasure too, like my baby book. Damn, I was cute. Mortgage Partner commented that I looked like a fat Asian baby. Now, for those of you who know me, I'm as Anglo as they come, so this is pretty funny.

My favorite aspect of my baby book is the signed letter from George McGovern congratulating my parents on my birth. Yay for me! My mom's best guess is that it was a political connection of my father's (and not that South Dakota had so few kids born that year he sent letters to us all).

I like to think that I was a positive addition to 1976. Maybe there was a whole bicentennial baby campaign I'm not aware of, but maybe ol' George was just being optimistic about the future.

Finding this tidbit has gotten me thinking about the things we save and the things we pitch. I'm somewhat of a packrat, but dealing with my mom's stuff has definitely made me think about the stuff I'm willing to hold on to (or not). I'm astounded that I have everything I need (and more) already. I mean, seriously. I am a mere 31 (heh heh), and there really isn't a damn thing I need anymore. Forever. It has all become about things I/we want. We could live in this house for the rest of our lives, and other than taking care of our little piece of history (e.g. replacing old tile, refinishing the floors, winterizing the basement), we don't really NEED to do anything or buy anything. It's all about taking care of what you have and hoping that it will last awhile.

I see this in the ancient furniture that we have--Grandma's buffet, the 19th century dining room table, my mother's boudoir chair circa 1950, great-Grandma's iron bedframe...don't get me wrong, we are not posh people, but we have nice stuff. And we're lucky that it's been passed down to us. But there's stuff we don't need, either. You know, like old magazines and lotion circa 1998.

Being a saver, one has to think about these things. New is not necessarily better (Mortgage Partner's La-Z-Boy in teal is a testament to this--future generations will NOT be begging for this to be left to them). These things tend to fall to pieces, as Dorothy has noted. The bookcase you buy at Wal-Mart will have to be re-bought in a few years. And so it goes.

So I'm evaluating the things we have with a new eye. What stuff will my kids (or chimps, as MP wishes) want to have from me? What does all my stuff add up to, anyway?