My Message in a Bottle

I found an absolute jewel in the journal section at Chapters the other day.

It's a Writer's Journal that gives you ideas for things to write about!  I cannot tell you how many times I have been stuck for ideas.  Now I have over five hundred!  My goal, (once it's officially written down, there's no going back), it to do every, single one of them.  If nothing else I'll get some practice writing and my blog will be full.  Hopefully I can have some good fun along the way.

The opening writing prompt was this:

                "While at the beach you decide to write a message in a bottle.  What would it say?                         Who would you like to find it?"

Wow.  Talk about diving right in.  This is really thought provoking.  What kind of message would you want to send?  Something inspirational?  Something funny?  A warning?  Who would you want to read it?  A stranger?  A child or an adult?  A family member?  

In my head I would love my message to be some Oprah-esq nugget of inspirational wisdom, but in reality, I'm not that elegant.  I can be funny, but, I can be funny anywhere.  This is a message in a bottle!  Whatever I write is going to travel in a delicate glass vessel, through stormy seas and calm bays and get thrown around in a violent surf until it washed up on some far away shore.  To just attempt that journey it must contain something of significance, not some cheesy one liner.

Who would I want to find my message?  I could direct it to another 40 something woman, but really, I think by this age most of us have the big things sorted out at least a little.  There are or aren't children.  There are or aren't spouses, careers and goals.  I don't need to send another 40 year old woman advice,  I need to meet up with her and down a  bottle of wine!  Kudos lady, we made it this far!

I could send my message to a man.  Lordy Jesus could I give a man some advice!  But, as we all know, men never listen anyway, so why waste the paper.  Maybe if I chose a young man, a teenager.  I'm sure parents of teenage boys are laughing hysterically at the idea of teenage boy absorbing anything a middle aged woman has to say, but maybe a 12 or 13 year old.  Someone young enough that they have friends who influence them, but they aren't quite old enough to think their parents are total losers yet.  Do they exist?

Then, like all writers should, I turned my thoughts inward, to my own past.  What did I need to hear as a youngster that helped me to become the person I am today?  At what age did I most need to hear it?  When was I the most vulnerable?

Twelve to thirteen year old girls are under a kind of stress and pressure that would drive the highest powered executive straight to the shrinks couch.  At twelve and thirteen, girls are physically morphing into women, while mentally still girls.  Forget the pressure to do well in school and to achieve in extra curricular activities.  That's nothing!  Throw in the pressure to be beautiful, aka thin, popular with other girls and attractive to boys.  The pressure to wear the right clothes and have the right phone.  Don't forget peer pressure from friends to drink, use drugs and have sex. Toss in a sprinkling of a parents crumbling marriage or financial distress, PLUS, and never forget this one, you get your period.  Yep, I would say if anyone could use a tidbit of wisdom it is a 12 year old girl.

So hear is what I would write in my message in a bottle, that I hope would be found on some distant beach by some stressed out twelve year old girl:

                 "Your history does not define your future, and the measure of your success will                             always be in people, not possessions."

Some of us have shitty childhoods, or get into trouble as teenagers, or make a series of bad choices, but the adults who look at themselves and say, "I am this way because of my childhood", or, "I am this way because of what happened to me", are doomed to be miserable failures.  The past is the past.  We don't live there anymore.  It cannot be changed.  If the only thing you learn from a crappy childhood is that you don't want to repeat it, awesome.  Use that as a motivation to be better, not as an excuse for why you're not.

When will you know if you have succeeded in being better?  Look at who is around you, not what is around you.  You can be poor and joyous or rich and miserable or any combination in between.  Would you rather have a modest income and drive a Honda, but have a huge circle of friends and lots of interests and hobbies, and the time to enjoy them, or, drive your Cadillac Escalade to your McMansion in the suburbs and spend every other waking minute earning the money to pay for them? 

    

These were vital realizations for me at a time when I needed them the most.  I would hope to be able to plant these seeds into the brain of some unsuspecting teenage girl who thought she was just going for a walk down the beach.

So there you go.  Exercise number one complete.  Feel free to leave a comment with the type of message you might choose to send, and who you would like to find it!

Peace out!

The Decline of The English Language

I love writing.  I have for a long time.  Ever since grade 12 English classes were I got to start choosing some of my own source material for essays.  It's so much more satisfying to write about something you're actually interested in, than to have to write about some boring, curriculum determined subject.  I like to write in all kinds of styles.  I love, LOVE children's lit.  I love poetry, (all different styles), I love essays.  Fiction and non-fiction.  I love writing funny stuff, which hopefully is reflected in this blog.  I love that the action of writing something out, and reading it, and editing it, really makes a person absorb and mull over what it is they are trying to say.  When we write something, we tend to spend a lot more time and thought expressing ourselves, than we do when we are just talking.  All the better to avoid putting ones foot in their mouth!

I have really been paying attention to my own kids writing as they go through school.  For the most part it has been pretty abysmal.  Spelling is egregious.  When I was a kid I remember have a spelling test every week with about 15 words that I had to practice as homework.  Neither of my children has had a spelling test since World Wall Words in the first grade.  William may have had some french dictee words in third grade, but that's the last I can remember.

Punctuation is non-existent.  My 7th grader still doesn't always use capitals and periods.  CAPITALS AND PERIODS!!  I'm not talking advanced editorial punctuation here!  Commas?  What are those??  Paragraphs?  Not in their writing.  I think, by 7th grade, a student should have a pretty good understanding of the make up of an essay; opening, supporting arguments, conclusion.   He has done "presentations" in front of his class that required him to do research, take notes, make cue cards, create a bristol board backdrop with one or two sentence blurbs of information, but nothing that required him to actually sit down and write a cohesive, paragraphed, grammatically correct paper on any given subject.  I 'm pretty sure he knows of these concepts, but he has written precisely zero essays so far in his school career.   With one exception.

In 6th grade my son's class was given the option, (THE OPTION!!!) of preparing a speech to present in front of their peers.  You can guess how many kids actually took on this task.  I told my son he was doing it.  There was no way he wasn't doing it.  Aside from reading, writing and math, one of the most important life skills you will ever learn is how to speak effectively in public.  When I was in grade school we had to do a speech every year starting in grade 2.  Not optional. My first speech was about my teddy bear Buford.  I brought him with me for moral support because I was terrified.  I was so painfully shy I would run and hide when company came over.  By fourth grade, I was winning awards for public speaking.  Having the ability to speak in front of a crowd has benefited me in all aspects of my life.

In order for my son to present his speech, first he had to write it.  Finally he got to put his knowledge of the process into action.  This is how skills are developed, through doing, again and again and again.

Creative writing has been coming home more often this year.  My 7th grader was given the following assignment; write a descriptive paragraph about a character or scene from the movie, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".  He chose to describe a scene, the only problem was he did not understand the difference between a "scene" and the "scenery".  He wrote out a minute by minute account of everything that happened during a certain part of the movie.  Fail.  No, literally, he failed.  We tried the assignment again at home.  He was gobsmacked when I explained to him that a "scene" and the "scenery" were two different things.  He decided he wanted to describe the character of the Grinch.

Here's how it went:

Me:  What colour is he?

Alex:  Green.

Me:  What shade of green?  Green like what?

Alex:  Um.  Green like old pea soup.

Me:  Is he smooth, hairy, scaly?

Alex:  Duh.  He's hairy mom.

Me:  What is the texture of his hair?  Is it soft? Scratchy? Wiry? Thick?  Thin?

Alex:  It was thick and rough.

Me:  Like?

Alex:  Like old strips of leather.

Me:  Oooooo!  Good one!

And on and on it went.  What are his eyes like, his lips, his teeth, his feet, his toenails.  Does he smell?  It was this process that taught him how to actually describe something.   I was absolutely blown away by the depth of his descriptions in his next writing assignment.  It was fantastic.  I thought we were turning a corner, and then he brought home his latest writing assignment.

His class had just finished reading, The Outsiders by S. E Hinton,

This is a fantastic story with tremendous depth of character and emotion.  He was given a list of about 6 events that happened in the story and told to pretend he was a character in the story and to write out how he would react or respond to these situations, by tweeting.

Tweeting

I wanted to scream.  Is this were we are going to let things go?  To Tweetsville?  140 characters or less to express the emotional heartbreak of a close friends death, or a buddy getting beat up outside a movie theater?  Really?  What was the point of this exercise?  This could have been an amazing opportunity for these students to practice expressing emotion through writing, but instead, Alex produced this Pulitzer winning gem:

"Just found out my buddy got jumped outside the movies. Gonna go kick some Greaser butt. #dieGreasers, #Soc'srule!"

Dear sweet Jesus.  It's times like this that I seriously question why I didn't home school.  This was a marked assignment!  He got a B.  #sobummed.

So what can we do about this?  Well, I don't know!  I'm not a teacher.  I don't make the curriculum.  I don't mark the papers.  My kids would have a collective stroke if I tried to home school them now!  I know!  I'll go on my blog and craft a well written post about the failures of the education system and that will make me feel better.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  That's better!

Peace out!

PS.  I am sure a professional editor would crucify me for my use of quotation marks for emphasis and uppercase for anger along with many other grammatical sins.  #nobodysperfect

The Contractor Conundrum

Well, spring has finally arrived in Canada.  Hallelujah!!  The rain that has plagued us for two months is finally abating.  I almost feel safe to put away my purple, high healed, wedgie rain booties.  What?

So, the time has come to tackle the biggest household repair project that I have ever been faced with.  The deck.  And by "biggest" I also mean ridiculously expensive.  We need to put new deck boards and railings onto our twelve hundred square foot, second level deck.  That's a lot of deck.  We also need to replace the eleven log support posts that hold up the deck and the balcony above it on the third floor.

The existing boards, which are rotten and gross, are all attached to the frame by brackets mounted underneath the deck and screwed in with about fifty thousand screws.  Each of those screws must be removed in order to pull up the boards and save the frame, which is the only part of the deck in good condition.  Aside from getting the new log posts, none of this project is rocket science.  Pull up old boards, put down new ones, add railing and ta da, margaritas on the deck!  However, this job is very time consuming, (did I mention the fifty thousand screws??), and, frankly, Mama's got shit to do.  I could write you out a list of my daily household chores, volunteer commitments and after school ferrying of children around, but there isn't enough space on the internet.

Now, usually I am a do it myself kinda gal.  I learned quick during my teenage years, that if I wished to do something I'd better learn how to do it myself.  Want clean clothes?  Figure out the washing machine.  Wanna eat?  Better learn how to cook. Things didn't change much after I met my husband and we started living together.  He is more of a talk about, maybe, one day, discuss getting around to it type of guy, than an actual doer.  Cupboard door broken?  Better get out the tools to fix it myself.  Need patio laid?  Better get out the stone saw and figure out how to use it myself?  Need drywall done?  Floors laid?  Painting done?  I have taught myself how to do it all.  I could easily re-do my deck myself.  But I don't want to.  It's hot, buggy, tedious work that would take up a lot of my time.  I have tackled large, time consuming project before.  Basically, my family lives off McDonald's and pizza, the house goes to hell, laundry doesn't get done and I look like a homeless person.  So, enter The Contractor.  Dun, dun, dunnnn!

I have learned something recently about contractors.  They are very busy people.  They are so busy in fact, that they don't really care if your job is worth twenty thousand dollars, because there is so much work out there, that they will happily pass on your child's four years worth of university tuition money, because Bob down the street has a job worth fifty thousand dollars.  So far I have had four contractors come out to give me quotes.  The first one was from a decking company.  He definitely knew what he was talking about.  Seemed very professional. Spent over an hour taking measurements and taking to us about what we wanted, blah, blah, blah.  Said he'd have a quote ready for us at the end of the weekend.  Never heard from him again.  Not so professional after all.

Second guy was a general contractor.  Same deal.  Very professional. Very knowledgeable.  Spent a lot of time measuring and such.  Said he'd have a quote for us by the weekend.  Never heard from him again either.  Seriously!  Do I have to beg you to take my money???  Perhaps he is still angry that my children banged their football off his brand new truck.  Thanks kids.

Third guy was an independent contractor.  Pretty cute in a middle aged surfer dude kinda way.  This guy however, was so in over his head it was ridiculous.  He had clearly never tackled a job of this size before and he worked alone.  Dude, I want to be using my deck by July, not October.  I could finish it myself faster than that!  He also quoted me over thirty three thousand dollars.  Sigh.

The last guy to come out said he wouldn't even start a project like ours until we had the support posts replaced, which has to be done by a log home specialist.  Fair enough.  Then he said that removing all the screws from the underside of the deck in order to save the frame would be more expensive in man hours that tearing down the entire deck and rebuilding it from scratch.  Seriously.  I didn't just fall off the turnip truck yesterday bud, that happened a long time ago.

The log home guy came out and is preparing a quote for us to replace the support posts.  Each one has to be cut and peeled by hand, cha-ching, and will cost between four and six hundred bucks.  I need eleven.  They are so busy, it will take up to two weeks just to get the quote.  Seriously people, get your kids into the trades!!  They'll never be unemployed and they'll be rolling in dough!

So, as usual, it's up to me.  This morning I got out my trusty power drill and started removing screws.  Gee.  Turns out it doesn't actually take that much manpower Mr. Contractor number four!!  One little ole me finished over a third of the deck in less that an hour.  Maybe "man power" is the problem.  If they hired women, maybe some shit would get done!  I've also removed ninety percent of the old railing.  It was so rotten it was gonna fall off and land on my car.  I had most of the old railing posts and panels removed and thrown down to the driveway in an hour and a half.  Then I went out to run some Mom errands and came back to find my sixty eight year old mother, with her bad hip and hernia, had stacked all the old railing and posts I had thrown down, into a nice, tidy pile at the side of the driveway!!  Unbelievable!!

I would expect, that by the time I get a quote, from an actual professional, I will have finished my deck by myself.  You will all be welcome to join me in sucking back a mojito or ten, while we sit back and enjoy the view.

Peace out!

Michy

Oh It's You!   Of Course . . .

Well, it's the last day of school.  My final chance to get my house in order before the kids are home to destroy it.  My last chance, for two months, to see clean floors and rooms that don't look like the after-earth of a post apocalyptic Nerf war. Last chance to vacuum before the floors are so covered in dirty clothes we forget what the carpets look like.  Last chance to pee in a toilet without having to disinfect it first. Moms of boys, you know what I'm talkin' about.

I prepared for this day, like any other day of hard house cleaning.  I rolled out of bed, pulled on a pair of ratty, paint splattered sweatpants and my big, baggy, "May the Forest Be With You" T-shirt.  Once Marianas Trench was blasting from the stereo I was ready to begin.  Boom!  Kitchen clean.  Boom! Vacuuming done.  Bathroom clean, Bed made.  I was on a roll!  Yeah!!!!  I was a not so lean, cleaning machine! Nothing was gonna stop me!!!!!!

 . . . Until I got that e-mail.

Doesn't it just always happen that way?  Turns out, I was needed to deliver something to the kids school.  Well heck.  Fine, ok.  It would give me a chance to say goodbye and thank you to my favorite teachers.  But, I had to ask my self, "Self, are you really gonna do you hair and makeup and change your clothes just to drive one minute, (literally), to the school"?  Was I really busy? Yes.  Do I give a shit what anyone thinks of me? No today.  Have I shown up at the school looking worse?  Probably.  Fuck it.  I decided to go as was.

In my defense I have shown up at school plenty of times looking great.  It's always a little alarming when you show up somewhere looking good and everyone does a double take and says, "oh my!  Your looking nice today!".  Makes me wonder how bad I look the rest of the time.  Well, now I know.

But this story isn't about the school, or about my little side jaunt to Timmies to get a grilled cheese pannini with tomato and bacon.  No, this story is about when I came home.

As I turned the corner onto my street I saw a sight that made my stomach almost expel said pannini. A truck, with the logo for Spetic Supply Co. on the door.  It was parked up the street near the mailboxes.  Must be hear for someone else, I told myself.  Surely not in the neighborhood for me.  It can't be spring maintenance time!!  It's June!

I drove down the street and turned in my driveway and watched as the truck cruised by checking out addresses.  Yes!  He drove by.  Whew!  I got out of my car and started up to the front door when I heard something behind me.  Oh shit.  He was backing in!!!  Nooooooooooooooo!

Side note:  for those of you who do not know why I might find this upsetting, please refer to blog articles, "The Great Septic System Debacle, Parts 1 & 2".

And of course, who should pop his handsome face out of the truck, as I stand there in my stained, baggy cleaning clothes, with my hair all efed up, squinting into to sun, holding a huge purse and a Tims cup, but Sexy Septic Steve.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge.

He looked up at me and smiled.  "I'm here for your spring maintenance".

"Of course you are", I said, "because I look like hell, and that is always when you show up".  I really did say this.  I'm sorry, but I'm starting to wonder if he doesn't just love catching unsuspecting ladies at their worst, just for giggles.  He looked down at his sexy as hell, blue collar workman's trousers and said, "Well, I'm not looking that great either".  Wait.  Does that mean he agrees with me??  Dammit!

You know what?  I'm gonna let that one slide.  Ya know why?  Because I just looked at the Service Call Record where Steve checks off everything he has to look at to complete the maintenance properly.  Beside checking off the boxes for inspecting the aerator and the controls, he also checked off,  "Effluent Checked"(Ew!), "Effluent Quality", (it felt good to me?), and "Squirt Height", (not sure how he measured that!?).  Bahahahahahahahahaahahahaha!  Remember that next time your complaining about your job!

Well, until Fall Maintenance, peace out peeps!

Michy