Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 16

Making Mother’s Day Work

[image error]Christian (whispering to Julianna): Julianna, say “Happy Mothers Day, Mom!”

Julianna (out loud): What?

Christian (whispering): Say “Happy Mothers Day!”

Julianna (to me): Mom I am so beeyewteeful!

Christian: Julianna. Happy. Mothers. Day.

Julianna: Happy beeyewteeful birthday girl!

Christian (trading a wry look with me): Hey. We keep it real in this house.

A year ago I aired out all my grievances about Mother’s Day. My opinion hasn’t really changed, but I’ve had a couple of insight moments. First was the realization that I’m uncomfortable with all big to-dos aimed in my direction. It ends up feeling like pressure: pressure to make sure I’m appropriately grateful, pressure to make other people happy by making sure my reaction is what they want it to be. And I just don’t do well with that kind of pressure. I screw it up every single time.

The second was that a day “all about me” is inherently less satisfying than a day in which time is taken to offer a gift of self to others in some out-of-the-ordinary way. For a couple of years, Christian spent his birthday stocking a food pantry, and it changed the entire tenor of the celebration for him. I loved the vibe coming off him those days, when he came home.

Motherhood is already a perpetual emptying of self. (As witness: I had to get up in the middle of the night on Mother’s Day to go wake up my 12-year-old to make sure he didn’t have a concussion. Long story. Off topic. He’s fine. Nuff said.) Emptying myself out in the service of my kids is too familiar to qualify. But sitting around pretending to scrapbook while my husband stresses himself out to be both Mom and Dad for a day—cooking, cleaning, caring for the kids—is only going to underscore that whole business about needing to be grateful enough for what’s being done for me.

I was too darned busy this year to spend much time angst-ing in advance about Mother’s Day. Or planning for it, for that matter. Friday night I went, Hey, bike ride. Hey, invite Mom over. And that’s what we did.

Christian did the grilling, set the table, and did most of the cleaning (I really hate cleaning). But I made broccoli soup and chocolate pie and got the peaches ready for grilling and flavored the yogurt. I also folded two loads of laundry and put away dishes. And I had a nice day, because it was pretty ordinary. We took a bike ride as a family, but otherwise it was NOT ALL ABOUT ME.

We didn’t make a huge production of my mom, either. We just all relaxed together, shared a table, enjoyed each other, and let that be enough.

I sometimes catch flak about my jaded, negative view of virtually every holiday that comes around. But my objection is that they are all built up to be a BIG DEAL, and we are made to feel such pressure to live up to ideals that can’t be realized. You have to do grand (expensive) romantic gestures on Valentine’s Day and Heaven help you if you do not make sure Mother’s Day is the pinnacle of human existence.

Basically, it too often feels as if holidays have been exploited by those in pursuit of a buck, when the truth is, we celebrate best when we keep it simple and focused on relationship, not decorations, not gifts. That may not be true for everyone, but it certainly is true for me.

We kept Mother’s Day deliberately low-key this year. I stayed entirely offline except for a single post (which I scheduled through Hootsuite so as to avoid the swirling vortex of Time Suck that is Facebook), and I gave myself permission not to have a transcendent, forced-mushy day.

And it was a very nice day.

Friday Favorites: Bobby McFerrin

So I have two things to tell. First, when I was in University Philharmonic at Mizzou, Bobby McFerrin came to campus and did a concert. But not just any concert. It was a concert where he conducted us. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. The real memory moment was when he had the trumpets do the fanfare to the William Tell Overture (if you don’t know what that is, consider this your home schooling assignment du jour: Google it), and then had us all sing our parts.

So that’s one story. Now, watch the video, and watch his hands.

Do you notice that about halfway through the Ave Maria, the fingers on his left hand are “playing” the microphone?

I always thought he was solely a vocalist, but this makes me think he’s an instrumentalist too, because I do that ALL THE TIME. I have learned perfect pitch and I just start playing whatever is going on–in a concert, on the radio, in church. I play steering wheels. Concert programs. The backs of my hands. I don’t even know I’m doing it anymore. And Christian frequently says to me, “Kate! Stop playing my hand!”

Random Venting On A Wednesday

[image error]

Image via Pixabay

Can someone explain why you would ever put carpet in formal dining rooms? I don’t get it. Of all the rooms in the house you would NOT want carpet in, the top two I can think of are bathroom and—dining room. The two rooms most likely to end up with messes on the floor. (Note: I was just looking at a $1.2 million real estate listing, which prompted this moment of befuddlement.)

Speaking of real estate listings, I’m getting a lot of them in recent months as we’re looking for empty ground to build on–or a plot of land holding some run-down trailer we can dispose of and start fresh. We took the cap off our MLS request so we could see how much it would cost to get the piece of ground we’re looking for, but I’m starting to think what we’re looking for almost doesn’t exist in this school district. In the meantime, I’m getting more savvy about eliminating listings by looking at one line on the detail: “HOA.” If the word following the colon is “yes,” the listing is off the table. We’ve had enough frustration resulting from the very low-cost, low-maintenance HOA we’re part of right now. In sum: We have a standard 2-car garage and no unfinished storage in the house, and storage sheds will get you sued by the HOA, which means our garage looks like this (Laura F, hide your eyes):

[image error]

And this is missing two bicycles and the tomato cages, which are in use…I feel there could be some snarky comment inserted here about whited sepulchres. Ahem.

Incidentally, the above mentioned house with the carpet in the dining room? Their annual HOA fee is $1500. I shudder to think what nonsense is wrapped up in that.

Also speaking of real estate, I’m noticing a pattern: the more expensive the house, the less character it has. That’s not a 1 to 1, but it’s close.

[image error]

My current motto. Paired with “get a better attitude, Kate.” (Image via Pixabay)

On another topic, I sometimes think I’m just not a very nice person. Without getting into too many specifics, I had a really frustrating late afternoon and early evening yesterday, trying to deliver kids to two different activities starting simultaneously yet located a twenty-minute drive away from each other, and then getting home in time to grab a bite and get Michael to his first baseball game ever. There were some…shall we say…hiccups in the process. Some with my kids. Some with…other people. And I was kind of a butthead to an adult I’d never met before. I had some provocation, and I didn’t say anything nasty, but I sure gave him a lingering nasty look that let him know exactly what I thought.

And the trouble is, it really wasn’t important. I was just in a bad mood because I feel like I’m running helter-skelter through my days a step behind control and half a step ahead of a complete meltdown.

I know so many people who roll with the punches and when other people screw up or display massive incompetence, they’re so gracious. They say, “Oh, that’s okay, don’t worry about it.” I don’t know if those people are just suppressing their annoyance/anger/frustration/irritation, and will vent about it in a safe space later, behind the back of said Screwup Causer, or if they are genuinely better people than I am. I only know that I seem to be almost completely incapable of NOT displaying whatever reaction I’m actually having inside.

This feels Confession-worthy.

We are now on Week Four of activities every single night of the week, including Fridays. Spring is always ridiculous in this household because we do baseball and it’s intense, but this year it seemed less so. I didn’t realize it felt that way because our kids’ coaches were not giving us a schedule laid out for the entire season, they were doling it out it week by week for quite a while. By the time I realized what was going on, I was deep in the middle of it. I was not mentally and emotionally prepared. Overnight I went from thinking, “Oh, this is so much better than it has been the last few years!” to holding-on-to-the-edge-of-a-cliff-with-my-fingernails.

There has not been a single block of time since Spring Break, which began March 26th, when Christian and I could have a date. We think the last time we went out was to see Hidden Figures. But we aren’t really sure, and we really hope we’re wrong because that was deep in the winter sometime.

Such is the state of my world. How ’bout you?

Mayonnaise versus Miracle Whip, and other things that just don’t matter all that much

 

 

OK, so if you haven’t picked up on it by now, you can’t possibly have been paying attention, there’s this: I am really opinionated.

[image error]

Photo by The World Through My Lense, via Flickr

I come from a long line of passionate and vocal opinionated people.

My kids are well on their way to continuing the family tradition.

A few weeks ago at Jazzercise, our instructor asked us “Mayonnaise versus Miracle Whip?” Now, considering we were all working our butts off, the response was fairly moderate. But still, we were all making faces and giving the stink-eye to people who swing the other way, so to speak. Myself included. But then it occurred to me, why the heck do we get so bent out of shape about this stuff? This is called “personal preference,” and there is no right or wrong.

That was the moment this crystallized for me, but it wasn’t the beginning. I’ve been pulling my hair out over the same issue lately in my family.

“Frozen is STUPID! It’s the WORST MOVIE EVER!” proclaim all the boys.

“No, it isn’t,” I said. “You liked it just fine when you first saw it. You’ve just seen it too many times. And Julianna likes it, so there’s no reason for you to be that way.”

“Jar Jar Binks is dumb!” (Alex.)

“No, he’s not, he’s totally awesome!” (Nicholas.)

Insert shouting match in the back of the van.

“GUYS!” (Me, at the top of my lungs.) “YOU CAN NOT LIKE JAR JAR BINKS, AND YOU CAN LIKE JAR JAR BINKS, AND IT DOESN’T HURT EITHER ONE OF YOU!” (Although Alex is right on this one. See also: opinionated.)

“Batman is the best superhero!” (Michael.)

“No, he’s NOT, HULK is the best superhero!” (Nicholas.)

“GUYS!” (Me, insert previous rant, with altered names.)

Okay, I hope you’re all chuckling, because this is the part where I hit the rest of us, who should have outgrown this a couple decades ago.

For instance: why can teachers not look forward to the last day of school, and work-at-home moms dread it, simultaneously? Both experiences are valid expressions of our own realities, and it costs us nothing to affirm and validate the experience of the other.

Or: why do we insist that the ONLY proper way to put the toilet paper on is over/under? I mean, really? Petty, ever?

Or: why can one person not say, “Decorating for every season makes me happy,” and another say, “Decorating for ANY season makes my head want to explode!” Why is it so threatening to us that people are–gasp–different?

It’s hardly any wonder that we can’t discuss the big issues with open minds and reason. We seem, collectively, to have decided every minor, unimportant, morally-neutral personal preference is a hill worth dying upon.

Which is why I’m stopping here today and sharing this (clean version of the) cartoon that came to me via one of Christian’s co-workers last week. It talks about the science of changing our minds–specifically, why we get so threatened by new ideas. It has a lot of food for thought in it. Hope you’ll click on through.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe_clean

(And I swear, if the FB or blog comboxes devolve to arguments over Miracle Whip versus Mayonnaise, I will…I will….I don’t know. Do something obnoxious.)

 

Photo Friday Funnies

If you’re on Facebook, you already saw these, but it’s worth preserving in our family history this way, too. Two nights in a row, this week, we went upstairs to go to bed, checked on the kids, and discovered this:

[image error]

By morning, it looked more like this:

[image error]

Happy Friday!

Grammar Nazi Watches TV

Seen on Syfy a week or so ago. $115 million dollar movie and they couldn’t afford to hire an editor? Sigh.

[image error]

(FYI, the movie is “The Core.”)

First Communion Day

[image error]

[image error]

[image error]

[image error]

[image error]

Photo Friday: Sunny Oak Through The Eyes of a Five-Year-Old

Michael had the iPad last night at Julianna’s last therapeutic horseback riding lesson of the spring session. Enjoy his photos, and a couple videos at the end!

[image error]

Meet Timothy the donkey. Whom Michael called a goat all night.

[image error]

I never noticed that I put the stickers on my computer upside down. Face palm.

[image error]

Revise, revise, revise until that novel shines…

[image error]

Julianna gives Richard Horse a treat.

[image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error]

I did not think I would be able to share any of the videos Michael took of Julianna riding, because I don’t have permission to show the other kids. But do you know that stinker is just the right height to take a video that shows the legs but not the faces of the other kids? Who knew?

But this one is the crown jewel video of the evening. I’ve always wanted to get Michael’s giggle on video, before he outgrows it.

Forgotten Posts (or: It’s All Good)

[image error]

Photo titled “Have no fear,” but what it says to me is “Chill. It’s all good.” Photo by Jonybraker, via Flickr

It’s been happening more regularly lately…I get to midmorning and go, “I was supposed to post a blog today!”

Lately I’ve acknowledged that my husband and I (and most of my family) are the Type As of the Type A world. Conventional wisdom around blogging is that your readers expect consistency; if I say I’m going to post on Monday, Wednesday, and sometimes Friday, I’d darned well better post on Monday, Wednesday, and sometimes Friday. In the mind of a Type A of the Type A world, spacing out is not acceptable. Weeks off are a copout.

Yet here we are. I’m contemplating a schedule that resembles, “I will post whenever I darned well feel like it.” Because the fact is, my hits already way below the threshold where it really makes any difference. I’m posting for myself and the scattered few who beg me not to stop every time I question whether it’s a good use of time anymore.

(Note to self: write a post on “learning to say, ‘It’s okay to say no.’ “)

The Conundrum of Wanting To Be a Christian Nation

[image error]

Bald Knob Cross, Southern Illinois. Photo by Nikonian Novice, via Flickr

Right after 9/11, a man I know shared a vision he had. His vision was of the people of the Middle East hearing American planes coming, except instead of dropping bombs, they dropped food and water and medical supplies. (He wrote it much more poetically than that, but that was the gist of it.)

At the time, I rolled my eyes. It seemed, in my infinite wisdom, hopelessly idealistic to think that giving help to people who already clearly hated us–as evidenced by what we’d just experienced–would do anything except provoke derision.

And yet, I’ve thought about it again and again and again over the years, because all our efforts to obliterate terrorism from the face of the earth via air strikes, drones, and military intervention seem to make things worse, not better. Take out Saddam and look what rises from the ashes. Cripple al Qaeda and you get ISIS. The more we sit in our ivory tower, trying to bomb bad guys out of existence, the more plentiful and more determined the bad guys seem to become.

Even the left doesn’t talk about taking my friend’s idealistic track very often. And I’ve never heard the right address it head on and say, “This is why that idea won’t work.” I really wish they would, because it’s getting harder for me to understand why we keep doing what we’re doing, when it seems all we’re doing is creating more people who don’t like us. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Periodically we get a lot of noise from certain quarters about being a Christian nation. But we don’t really act like one. The left says we can’t, because not everyone is Christian in this nation. The right says being a Christian (or at least, Judeo-Christian) nation is what made us great in the first place.

I’ve come to believe that the left is correct on this issue, even though I wish it were otherwise—because personally, I think being a Christian/Judeo-Christian nation would make us very great. The problem is, if you want to be a Christian nation, you have to embrace the whole package. The “care for the widow and orphan and alien” along with the “protect the unborn” and the “pray” thing. The example of the early Christians, who “held all things in common,” as yesterday’s Lectionary said, makes us squirm. For the first time this weekend, listening to that reading, I realized they weren’t setting up a commune, they were creating a family. To be a Christian nation, we would need to treat everyone in the country like family, and all the guests within our borders with the same level of hospitality as we would treat guests coming into our homes. (You can spin that out as far as you would like; I think the analogy holds a rational middle ground on immigration.)

But mostly, I look around the world, at all the places smoldering, needing nothing but a spark to ignite them. I think of the multitude of places where people are treating each other with horrifying disregard for human dignity—including in our own political system and on Facebook and Twitter—and I just wish we’d all stop and take a breath and think for a minute about what it really means to be a Christian, and where we personally are falling short in that regard.