My sisters are going to the pool today, and none of my kids are in the mood to go, especially since I've told them they have to go to the rodeo tonight, which they hate. I am failing at being a rural parent I guess. Anyway, I said, "What about if I let you bring a friend?" and Emmett said, "I would rather bring a friend to the National Dumpster Diving Championships. I would rather bring a friend to the Monsanto slag pour." As he thought about what he'd just said, he followed up with, "Actually, if it weren't so far away I actually would like to take a friend to the Monsanto slag pour." He's not wrong--my feelings toward Monsanto are conflicted at best, but flaming crap running down the side of a mountain is high-quality entertainment.
Just thought you'd like to know.
Friday, August 26, 2016
who can explain the thunder and rain but there's something in the air
Posted by Layne at 5:44 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: family
Monday, August 15, 2016
he grew up to be a jerk, just like me
Well, there's nothing to put a shine to your day quite like having an argument with one of your kids in which both parties take turns accusing each other of being too intense about something that really doesn't matter so why are you making such a big deal about it. The golden years of parenting are now officially coming to an end and I hate it. I've said that my kids just keep getting better and better, but now we've begun the slide that all parents of teenagers experience eventually, and which never really ends. I'll never get Grant back. He'll continue to pull away and be a bigger and bigger brat until he graduates, then he'll go on a mission and it will be almost like he died for two years, then he'll come home and be all preachy for a while, then he'll settle down and we'll have a brief glorious moment in the sun of being a close-knit family again, and then he'll get married and start having kids and so on, and that's the end of it all--it'll never be the same. Even though all of these things are things I expect and want for him (minus the brattiness and the preachiness), and even though what's up ahead will bring its own kind of joy, I can't help but mourn the death of the part of my life that nobody warned me about. Everybody said to enjoy the time when my kids were little, which was stupid, because there is nothing I miss about that part of my life. But this part? The part where everybody is grown up enough to be fun and interesting and we all love to be together all the time? This is the best, and it sucks that we only get a couple years of it.
Posted by Layne at 4:47 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: family, navel gazing
Friday, May 13, 2016
then your heart will start to jump, in your throat you'll get a lump
Currently reading: So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson. Loving it. Next up, Gumption by Nick Offerman. High hopes for that one as well. I feel quite proud of myself for reading nonfiction, even if it is easy reading. I started out looking for a Dolly Parton biography, but ended up with these other ones.
This morning I'm going through the male sock basket, which is where I put all the socks that John and the boys wear. I have my own basket and Willa has a drawer. The boys all share, so it doesn't make sense for me to try to parcel socks out to them in equal amounts or try to remember who has the orange Nike socks and who has the green ones. For the past few months the leftover socks have been multiplying, so this morning I'm going through them and anything that doesn't have a mate is going to the dust rag pile or the garbage. No single socks in here, this is a family community!
I've got tomatoes and lettuce and Swiss chard and kale and strawberries planted. I have to replant the strawberries pretty much every year because they keep getting stomped on. I want to buy a horse trough to put some peppers and more tomatoes in, because even though building your own raised bed is cheaper, according to some, it's not actually cheaper if you never get it built. Well, I guess it's cheaper, but it doesn't really accomplish what you want. And I love John very much, but when he says he will build a raised bed for me he is lying--lying unconsciously, but lying all the same.
Posted by Layne at 12:20 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Monday, May 2, 2016
music, music, musicland
The choir director at the high school is retiring after a long and illustrious career. I was in her first year teaching here, and Grant is in this year, so that's a fun little set of bookends. There is an alumni concert for all her former students, so of course I was like YEAH MUSIC. They also said that spouses who were up to it could participate, so John was also like YEAH MUSIC. So John and I and Grant are all going to sing some gorgeous music together, and the songs are really pretty and meaningful and I'm going to be a total mess up there. But let me get to the point of my story, which is of course a complaint about somebody else:
Posted by Layne at 1:26 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: family, music, people are weird, school, scolding, society
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
stop hover-peeing
Do you even Neko Atsume? This is a game a coworker told me about, and I call it the cat hoarding game. You attract cats to your yard with food and toys, and they bring you fish, which you can use to buy more food and toys. They never poop, and if you don't feed them it doesn't kill them, they just don't come to your yard. It's like a giga-pet without the stress! Highly recommend.
UMMM GUESS WHO WENT TO CHURCH WITH BILL CLINTON ON SUNDAY? It was me. Grant's choir was performing at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and who should walk in and basically commandeer the entire program but Bill Clinton and Charlie Rangel, large as life and twice as natural. He gave a stump speech for Hillary, which was good but went on and on, and it seemed like the pastor was getting a little miffed about it. Like, we understand your position Mr. Clinton, but we've got a sermon about the Israelites to deal with here. But it all worked out and the sermon was great and the music was great and I hope those kids understand what an incredible experience they had. I cried a ton, which surprised nobody. MUSIC!
Posted by Layne at 4:27 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: cats, church stuff, government, music, travel
Monday, April 4, 2016
on cheetos
I think we can all agree that Flamin' Hot Cheetos are a treat for a specific type of person. Like, when Britney Spears was married to Kevin Federline and was being photographed going shoeless into gas station bathrooms? That kind of person. And there's a snotty part of me that thinks I'm a better kind of person than the Flamin' Hot Cheetos kind of person. They seem like a snack from a misanthropic cartoon.
Posted by Layne at 10:11 AM 1 comments Links to this post
Labels: food, roller derby, society
Friday, March 11, 2016
pirates are fun
I just finished reading "Primates of Park Avenue" by Wednesday Martin, and I heartily recommend it. I was certain that I would loathe every person in the book, and take pleasure in doing so, and for the most part I was correct. I do find the "tribe" being discussed in the book to be an embarrassing, immoral blemish on our purportedly democratic, egalitarian society. But that doesn't mean that I can't recognize that for them, the manufactured competition for resources is as real and terrifying as the struggle for daily survival was for our ancient ancestors. And of course, when you really study a culture, you're bound to find at least some traits worthy of admiration. It gave me new insights into human social behavior, and that's fun.
Posted by Layne at 12:22 PM 0 comments Links to this post
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
have a little priest
Remember when we were thinking about getting another cat? Surprise, we did. Here is a poor-quality picture of her:
Posted by Layne at 12:52 PM 2 comments Links to this post
Labels: cats, family, self-improvement, television
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
you're making it very hard to root for you, freddy krueger
Immigration law is a weird thing to me. I need to study it more because in my Pollyanna way I am confused about why we don't welcome any and all law-abiding people who want to come here. From the cursory internet research I've done it looks like the United States didn't institute quotas until 1921, and I'm wondering what else was going on socioeconomically or geopolitically or whatever that the quota system was put in place.
But I guess there were country-of-origin exclusion policies clear back in 1882, so it's not like we were living up to our professed ideals even then.
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Posted by Layne at 8:23 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: government, politics, society, the motherland
Thursday, January 28, 2016
let's get ready to look SO GOOD
Last night I opened a book I just checked out from the library, and realized to my disappointment that I'd already read it--this is probably why the title seemed so familiar when I grabbed it. It's "The House on the Strand" by Daphne DuMaurier. It's a good one, so if you like DuMaurier's style you'll appreciate it.
Posted by Layne at 10:09 AM 2 comments Links to this post
Labels: books, my war with my body, self-improvement