Why Nate May Not Make It to 17

Nate: "I ordered new windshield wipers for your car the other day and according to the system, your engine is a supercharged V6."
Me: "I told you it was a V6."
Nate: "Well, yeah, but you're....a girl."

Prizewinning Day

About, oh, six weeks ago, I was made a supervisor of sorts. It was a much bigger change than imagined! Then a little over two weeks ago I was asked if I would be willing to move to an area that I haven't worked in for nearly 3 years...and I said yes. Most days since then I have questioned my willingness to do this, but things are slowly getting better. I may even survive through New Year's :)

Today was a real prizewinner-and I'm not joking! I won a prize for talking to more upset customers than any of my peers.

I also dealt with the usual supervisory stuff-the stuff that makes me feel like I do more parenting at work than I do at home. Like this conversation:

Him: "My internet isn't working for some reason."
Me: "Ok, I need you to unplug your modem for about 30 seconds and then plug it back in."
Him: "I can't do that. If I do that I am pretty sure from experience it will just stop working for like 30 minutes. I think I should just wait around until it works again."
Me: "So what you are saying is that you know you have trouble with your modem, and you know you need your modem in order to work, but you haven't gotten it fixed or replaced?"
Him: "Oh, no, there's nothing wrong with my modem."
Me: "I guess you will need to call your ISP, then...but I am warning you, they *will* make you unplug your modem!"

Nate's New Blanket

You know those double-layer fleece blankets that are held together by fringing the fleece and tying hundreds of knots? Well, Nate outgrew the one I had made him years ago, so my friend and I made him another yesterday. Last night we curled up to watch NCIS LA and he couldn't decide which blanket to use. (Nate tends to anthropomorphize a little too much.)

Nate: "I feel like I am cheating on my old blanket, because I want to use the new one. I've had it for years. I don't want to hurt its feelings."
Me: "It's a blanket. It doesn't have feelings."
Nate: "How do you know?"
Me: "Well, it didn't scream when I cut it all those times."
Nate: "Maybe it's Emo."

Success!

*Ahem* I have cut three minutes off my walking mile time this year!

I find this exciting news. I have been using MapMyFitness.com, which I find enables me to log activities while completely skipping calorie-counting, weight-loss emphasis (it's there if you want it, but easily avoided). I use the free option, so some graphs and such aren't available to me, but it has what I need.

What it does not have are activity codes for hooping or table tennis. So sad! I will just keep choosing 'Other' for now, and know in my heart that 'Other' means 'Ecstatically Fun Activities.' Also, I completely fail at getting their apps on my Android phone to log my walks real-time. Some tech support I am, huh?

If You Live With a Guy Named Phil...

If you live with a guy named Phil, you should really *know* that you are living with a guy named Phil. This is so that when Phil gives me the phone number at your place because I need to call him back two days later, the conversation doesn't go like this:

clearly just-woken man "Hello?"
"Hi, may I speak to Phil?"
"I'm sorry?"
"May I speak to Phil?"
"Who?"
"Phil?"
"There's no Phil here...wait...maybe there is..."
"Hi, this is Phil."

It was at least 10 in the morning...and Phil has apparently lived there for days, and had the phone number, and yet...

Dear Teacher Man in Asia,

Dear Teacher Man in Asia,

It was fun talking to you. I like how you began our conversation by disparaging my Latino colleagues, and then continued that theme as you put down my gender as a whole and also the country in which you reside and the citizens you are supposedly there to educate. By the end of our conversation, I was quite relieved to feel no sadness whatsoever at the fact that I could not solve your problem-a problem that was created by your own ill-advised behavior. Oh, and by the way, I meant to tell you that your entire computer is infected with a virus most likely acquired while watching porn. Sorry 'bout that.

Sincerely,
Jenny-Fair

Things I Learned on My Vacation:

1. Mosquitoes are evil.
2. When living amongst swarms of mosquitoes, teenage boys are apt to re-name cortisone sticks "Happy Juice."
3. Children are more likely to fight over homemade salsa than they are candy.
5. When subjected to a TV- and Internet-free existence, children may beg to play Yahtzee and complain they don't have enough time to read their books, what with all the swimming in the lake and Yahtzee-playing they are doing.
6. After teenage boys catch 'pet' frogs, they can spend happy hours with dimestore butterfly nets catching 'frog food'. One net was even pink, but you didn't hear that from me.
7. Country men manning a teensy Ace Hardware store that keeps its overstock in a barn covered with a tarp next to cages of rabbits are mightily amused at city girls asking for hula-hoop making supplies.
8. Ladies of size may be more easily able to hula hoop with a *giant* hoop. No joke-I thought my chest-high hoop would do it, but I didn't really get it until I made a five-foot diameter hoop. I would not have had to make that hoop had we been able to pack our hoops into the van, but it was packed so tightly we may actually have misplaced a child at one point.
9. Hula hoops tied to the top of a van make a LOT of noise at 70 mph.
10. If you have a dog and live on a hill, you will *never* need to buy a Stairmaster.
11. When locked in a van full of folks singing Justin Bieber songs at the top of their lungs, my camo-wearing, Bieber-hating son will give in and sing along.
12. Children (ages 10-16) who run through the woods, catch frogs and frog food, swim in the lake twice a day, and go fishing in a paddleboat take naps without complaining, or at times, even meaning to do so!
13. I need to move to Mexico, to a town where siestas are still de rigueur.
14. Most of my sleep problems appear to be due to stress. Except for the night before our return, I fell asleep when the light went out and slept like a rock all night long. Now I just need to figure out how to better deal with the stress in my life so that I can sleep well every night!
15. It's easier to learn dog names than human names. We met Snaps, Jake, Bruno, Oprah and Winfrey.
16. 10 year olds make excellent tour guides.

High School & Hypocrisy

Facebook is an interesting place. Although I live in the same town in which I grew up, I 'see' more school chums on Facebook than around town, even when they still live here, too. Since it's been nearly 20 years since my graduating class graduated without me, these virtual relationships bring surprises. One good high school friend, for instance, persists in refusing to speak to me just because I got pregnant during senior year. Seriously. And it's fun to see who married whom, who has kids, etc.

All this to say that this week a 'friend' un-friended me all because I dared criticize our high school!

For those who don't know, Nate attends two classes at the same high school I attended (German and French). He's been very blessed in the instructors he's been assigned. However, he's still in a public school two hours a day, with all that entails. This week it entailed something that his mother found irresponsible, unnecessary and above all, not educational in the least. And I posted about it on Facebook. No-Longer-Friend answered that she thought the same thing happened when we attended. In answering this No-Longer-Friend's answer to my complaint, I pointed out that in Washington State, an average of ten thousand dollars in tax money is used for each student, far more than private school tuition, but the results of the education are far less impressive. In fact, at this particular high school, less than half of 10th graders pass the 10th grade Math exam, and only slightly more than half pass the Science exam. The way I figure it, if they are taking this money, but not getting the job done, then the last thing they need to do is waste class time and administrative power on non-essentials such as a school-sponsored electronic dating service (no, I am not making this up).

Anyway, fast forward to where I am called a hypocrite for daring to repeat the above. Well, thank you, No-Longer-Friend, for pointing out yet another area in which our alma mater failed us: The use of a dictionary!

Hypocrite n.
1.
a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.

How does pointing out flaws in a school at which I attended (not by choice, even) make me a hypocrite? I didn't like the school then, didn't feel it was giving me a good education or preparing me for life, and I feel the same way now, only more strongly. Apparently I am a hypocrite for hoping my son and sister make better choices and have better opportunities than I did?

Shall we assume, then, that No-Longer-Friend is going to encourage her daughters to take their mom's romance novels with them to middle school and read the naughty parts aloud to their lunch table? I ask because this is my earliest memory of No-Longer-Friend. Or is it just possible that growing up, we gain wisdom and learning? Actually, Nate and I often have a conversation that begins with me saying I wish I had been more like him at his age and him pointing out that if that had been the case he would not exist.

It is never hypocrisy to learn from your mistakes, or even from the mistakes of others. It isn't hypocrisy to change your mind. It isn't hypocrisy to have rules for your kids that you didn't follow when you were a kid. And it definitely isn't hypocrisy to point out the flaws in an entity that you were once a part of. Some might even call it progress in the making.