Confessions of An Overachiever

Sometime around noon today I had one of those significant personal realizations where you see yourself from someplace else in the room with absolute clarity.  On October 28th one more piece of my personal puzzle fell into place.  Right now I am in Iowa attending a conference to learn how to improve communication and cooperation between parents and their teenaged children.  Partly because the campus here is so large and the town so unfamiliar I got lost on my way to the training.  I drove 350 miles without incident, but managed to get lost between the hotel and the University extension building.  Being lost is an important detail and clue number one for this story because I was more concerned about being late than any other outcome.  Once I got there, I was concerned about not being in the right parking lot.  The number of the lot I parked in did not match the lot number on my parking pass; a problem I corrected at the first break.  I walked in at exactly 8:30 a.m. which is exactly when the training was scheduled to start. I had my blank check in my folder and was concerned about getting it to the facilitator so it didn't appear I was trying to shirk my obligation.  Right there, right then in Iowa it occurred to me:  I am an over-achieving, approval seeking, slightly neurotic woman with perfection as my personal standard!! Right then I should have gotten up, mussed up my neatly arranged materials, belched or something and released my need to color inside the lines.  No one cares that I am obsessively punctual or that I pay my bills on time or that I RSVP and send thank you notes.  What folks notice are the things I don't do well and those become the things for which I am known.  I've got to relax.  I don't get extra credit and noone cares.

It's Getting Hot In Here

Sometimes not disclosing the truth is worse for your reputation than simply coming clean.  Case in point: the officers of the Northwest Airlines jet that flew past their target won't say what was going on in the cockpit that distracted them to the point of embarrassment and painstaking scrutiny by their employer.  What happened in the cockpit continues to baffle me.  What were they doing?  Smoking a joint?  Having sex?  Watching Iron Chef?  Oh come on- they weren't knitting!  You can look up from your knitting.  My problem with the sex and illicit drugs theory is that neither of those activities take an hour for regular people.  (Rumor has it that Sting is the exception.)  The pilots are unwilling to account for an hour.  Maybe they had a similar moment to Jodie Foster's in the movie Contact and were visting with dead relatives. Maybe the boys were texting and checking their Facebook pages.  Oh for Pete's sake tell the truth and that way noone has to write their own ending; and depending on the author that could be a very undesirable outcome.  In my story someone is naked and drunk but they are in a four star hotel with 700 thread count sheets not a 10' x 7' closet with faux leather seats. Besides, we all know closets are for clothes; perhaps they should consider coming out of theirs. 

Harper Valley PTA  written by Tom T. Hall
I want to tell you all a story 'bout a Harper Valley widowed wife
Who had a teenage daughter who attended Harper Valley Junior High
Well her daughter came home one afternoon and didn't even stop to play
She said, "Mom, I got a note here from the Harper Valley P.T.A."
The note said, "Mrs. Johnson, you're wearing your dresses way too high
It's reported you've been drinking and a-runnin' 'round with men and going wild
And we don't believe you ought to be bringing up your little girl this way"
It was signed by the secretary, Harper Valley P.T.A.

Well, it happened that the P.T.A. was gonna meet that very afternoon
They were sure surprised when Mrs. Johnson wore her mini-skirt into the room
And as she walked up to the blackboard, I still recall the words she had to say
She said, "I'd like to address this meeting of the Harper Valley P.T.A."

Well, there's Bobby Taylor sittin' there and seven times he's asked me for a date
Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lot of ice whenever he's away
And Mr. Baker, can you tell us why your secretary had to leave this town?
And shouldn't widow Jones be told to keep her window shades all pulled completely down?
Well, Mr. Harper couldn't be here 'cause he stayed too long at Kelly's Bar again
And if you smell Shirley Thompson's breath, you'll find she's had a little nip of gin
Then you have the nerve to tell me you think that as a mother I'm not fit
Well, this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites
No I wouldn't put you on because it really did, it happened just this way
The day my Mama socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.
The day my Mama socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A

Franken Child

Saturday I took my protege, a sweet eleven-year old year to the circus; the "greatest show on earth."  If she enjoyed it half as much as me, she had a fantastic time.  It is an ideal outing for anyone with attention challenges.  Three rings of action!  Beautiful ladies twirling and swirling, clowns falling and running, and the ringmaster leading the charge.  The circus is truly an American production- a tribute to our ingenuity and independence.  So when I took my little friend, I had high hopes that the circus would touch her the way it did and still does me.  What caught my attention this time was the inability of parents to say no to their spoiled, rude children and the obscene amounts of cash parents and grandparents spent on ephemeral, flimsy bits of plastic that will soon be forgotten and broken with the other momentary delights in closets and plastic storage bins.  The family in the row in front of us bought thier son the $10.00 cotton candy/wizard hat combo, the elephant mug filled with rainbow sno-cone, smore on a stick and lemonade.  The boy decided he wanted the popcorn in the colorful box and mom finally said "no."  The boy slammed his little body into his seat, crossed his  greedy little arms and screwed his face up.  Dad immediately called the vendor over and bought the child the popcorn.  The interesting thing was that while all of this desiring and purchasing was happening, Jack Russell terriers were doing back flips, poodles were dancing and Maltese dogs were twirling in Kilts.  He missed the parade of ladies in the Siamese attire and the Russian guys flipping off of and onto what appeared to be snow board teeter totters.  The circus was the treat.  The other stuff was not necessary.  My fear is that these children will never accept no and will learn to whine, manipulate and bully their way into what they want.  Saying no doesn't make you the bad guy and they will recover.  We have created monsters.

Four Lessons I Learned Today

You do not need to experience the following in order for the lesson to be more meaningful.  Trust me. Four things I will remember!

1. Drive with a full tumbler of raw cranberry juice between your legs.
2. Don't mail the bills after eating cheese curls.
3. Do not kick what appears to be a strange mushroom with your camel-colored suede shoe. It's dog poop.
4. Always sneeze and squeeze.  The ladies will know of what I speak.

Worth His Salt?

This notion of who is deserving and who is not deserving is a perplexing one. What makes us deserving? More to the point, what makes us qualified to decide who deserves what? Was it some mammoth good deed that merits praise and admiration; or was some walloping injustice done to some unsuspecting, good-natured person who trusted their perpetrator? Bernie Madoff deserves whatever form of hell on earth that can be dished out and Obama doesn't deserve the Nobel. That man who imprisoned the young girl in some hovel in his back yard deserves to die a slow and painful death, while Ronald Reagan is deserving of an amusement park with rides in his likeness. It is interesting that we have a process for sanctioning or elevating people in the court of public opinion: the radio talk show, a Twitter topic, or a fan page on someones Face book. Public opinion is powerful and can influence the malleable. Drop by drop public opinion can turn a swell into a tsunami. We should tread with care, lest we drown. "It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee house for the voice of the kingdom." Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

He Won Now Get Over It!!

All of this talk about whether or not President Barack Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize or not, is becoming a distraction. So few pundits started their remarks with how proud they were of their president. Even my beloved NPR commentators were waxing on about the level of deservedness of the award bestowed upon the 44th President. The committee selected President Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people's" Hasn't he done just that? Why is it necessary to deconstruct the motives behind the award? If I had just been crowned Miss Missouri and the audience, local press and my friends were saying I had been crowned Miss Missouri 'cause the judges were sympathetic (about whatever condition or circumstance it was that made me the likely pity vote), I would be pissed. It is much like the comments overheard when the aging, slightly senile movie star finally gets the academy award they never received but were nominated for half a dozen times. Cut it out. Let President Obama deal with whether or not he feels he deserves it and be proud that the international community has stopped wincing every time the president is mentioned. On Hardball with Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan called it "ridiculous" that President Obama received the award. Admit it oh pessimistic one, people from other countries like our president. Imagine that. Rush Limbaugh, idiot supreme, said of the Nobel Peace prize winner: "This has created more embarrassment than losing the Olympic bid" Embarrassed that our president received the Nobel? Seriously? Oh go take some Oxycontin or something Rush.

The Little Beagle That Could

It was not that long ago that I proclaimed: "I will never have a beagle!" They howl, dig and run. Not a great combination for a contemplative evening. Then came Edith. Fat, sick and chronically homeless. No home training, no manners, but sweet and smart. Four months and two thousand dollars later, Edith is healthier, and learning how to potty outside. If Edith were a puppy none of this would be that remarkable, but Edith is about seven or eight according to my vet's estimation. I do love my beagle. She is a survivor and in my strange world a metaphor for the permanent damage poverty causes in sentient beings. A lifetime of no medical care, no consistent food or clean water source or affection makes for a neurotic adult. Dog or human.

The good news is that Edith can relax. She is home at last.