(Editor's Note : Okay, well technically, they're local "artists" and it showed up around noon but you get the gist.)
I was awoken at the crack of noon to a scream from one of my children, he came rushing into my room screaming "Mommee, the fair is in the park, the fair is in the park!"
I didn't really process the thought long enough to care, I thought - these Mexican park birthdays just keep getting bigger and bigger. I mean they've got bands, volley ball nets, Frisbees, jumpers and pinatas - what on earth now?
I said to Leif "Why are you waking me up to tell me that, and since we don't have windows on the front of our house how would you know? You've been in the front yard! You are bad! You are in huge trouble, now go away until I can open my eyes."
He dutifully ran off, but by then Brian was curious. So he opened one eye and realizing I'd decided to go back to sleep he crept to the window by our bed. I looked at him out of the corner of one eye, fully intending on pretending to be asleep if he looked at all interested in what was going on outside.
He looked out the window for so long that I didn't have to pretend. I woke up a minute later to the surreal notion of distant music. I couldn't put my finger on the genre, it was like a cross between Andean flute music and Cajun.
I insistantly asked of the man staring vacantly out the window "is that in my head, please tell me that's in my head and it's a dream hang-over?" to which he said
"hon, you have to see this."
I said "no, I don't. Because if I see it, it will really be there and I'm far to keen on not admitting there is a fair in the park next to our house - I mean we live clear across the freaking city from any fair-able parks - what the hell are they playing at?"
He said "no, hon, you really have to see this"
To which I, in my best dutiful wife voice replied
"No! I'm puling a pillow over my head! Don't they know people are trying to sleep their entire Sundays off!?"
"No! I'm puling a pillow over my head! Don't they know people are trying to sleep their entire Sundays off!?"
I started to drift back off but woke a minute later when he said "there goes a truck carrying a ride, and police cars, and a... a... dance floor?"
Denying I was fully awake at this point was pointless so I asked imperiously "Wait a minute! A dance floor, and police cars? Shouldn't someone have told us about this? Isn't there some kind of neighborhood association? Shouldn't they have posted a notice through the letter box?"
We don't have a letter box but still.
He said - because he actually probably is the better spouse 50% of the time "Do you want me to call the city and complain?" He had his phone out, 311 dialed and ready.
"Oh G------d I don't know, I just want to sleep! I mean do you have any idea how hard it is to arrange entire blank days on our calendar!?"
Then I sat up saying "you know they're going to park on our curb, you know they're going to step on my plants" I felt distinctly anti-social and felt entirely too guilty and sorry for myself that I hadn't enacted my plan on lining the curb with cactus.
Then, I lay there wondering how bad a person I was because I don't mind carnivals, and it is a city park and I'm sure the kids would think it was cool. Unfortunately, as hard as I try I can't control the entire universe, let alone the doings at fully public locales.
The under-lying point though was SRSLY!? This is the extent to which the universe goes to ruin my day?
For the record: I never claimed to be cut out of the soccer Mom mold. You have no idea what a hole buying a mini-van created in my soul. You have no idea how I force myself to schedule activities and and and play-dates and after-school activities and etc.. Because I owe my children a normal childhood and I knew that in child-rearing when we decided to have a tribe; baseball team; consortium of children that I would have to alter my personality this much. This is where the real work is. The work is letting the rest of the world have a piece of me. I grew up within a tribe of hermits and was raised by the hermits to be nothing more than a hermit. I'm the one who had to go to finishing school because I was so shy that talking to people literally hurt me physically.
I love baking cookies. I love finger paint. I love porch swings and lemonade. I'm just not, um, social. I'm not good with other mothers. I have a really hard time finding conversations about diapers interesting and I get tired of pretentious Mom who maintains a New Yorker magazine style personality while raising uberkinder. I can't deal with the people who act like this is the whole reason they were born into life, to live out of Redbook, Family Circle and Home and Garden magazines. I get tired of the "My pediatrician" fights on the playground "corn-syrup is fine in moderation, my pediatrician said so" "my pediatrician said it is the reason why your child has a sub-standard IQ to my children" "my pediatrician said you're stupid and that you only use cloth diapers because you're poor but you want to look granola" "my pediatrician said that your sorry excuse for motherhood will result in many years of therapy bills in 10 years"
Whatever.
For the record: I never claimed to be cut out of the soccer Mom mold. You have no idea what a hole buying a mini-van created in my soul. You have no idea how I force myself to schedule activities and and and play-dates and after-school activities and etc.. Because I owe my children a normal childhood and I knew that in child-rearing when we decided to have a tribe; baseball team; consortium of children that I would have to alter my personality this much. This is where the real work is. The work is letting the rest of the world have a piece of me. I grew up within a tribe of hermits and was raised by the hermits to be nothing more than a hermit. I'm the one who had to go to finishing school because I was so shy that talking to people literally hurt me physically.
I love baking cookies. I love finger paint. I love porch swings and lemonade. I'm just not, um, social. I'm not good with other mothers. I have a really hard time finding conversations about diapers interesting and I get tired of pretentious Mom who maintains a New Yorker magazine style personality while raising uberkinder. I can't deal with the people who act like this is the whole reason they were born into life, to live out of Redbook, Family Circle and Home and Garden magazines. I get tired of the "My pediatrician" fights on the playground "corn-syrup is fine in moderation, my pediatrician said so" "my pediatrician said it is the reason why your child has a sub-standard IQ to my children" "my pediatrician said you're stupid and that you only use cloth diapers because you're poor but you want to look granola" "my pediatrician said that your sorry excuse for motherhood will result in many years of therapy bills in 10 years"
Whatever.
I just like my family and I like my down time (a lot) and I just about cried when I wrote the calendar last month to see 90 days lined up before me of activities.
So when I realized nothing was penciled for yesterday and I had a small nervous break-down last night because my blank yesterday was eaten alive by errands and household chores, I decided I'd keep my mouth and mind shut about the following blank day on the calendar. I would hold my thoughts because I damn sure knew the universe would step and fill the day up.
I turned my hours around when I began having children. Being a night-owl is a luxury you don't get when you're breast-feeding every 2 hours and have one child in school already. Sleeping every few hours for 20 minutes at a time is reality. That reality turns out to last a lot longer than nursing. I decided when I retire from having children I shall sleep like a coma victim.
When I spied that blank spot on the calendar, I deliberately stayed up with my husband last night (which bewildered him somewhat I'm sure since I am using the first down on a Saturday) and we watched Glee until dawn. I had a season of Glee we'd borrowed from Joan and I'm trying to get through the shows she's lent us before she up and leaves us for the eastern shores of America. I was surprised, after the pilot, that I wanted to watch another one. I wasn't toooo surprised because everyone in America seems addicted to it. I could say the same about Grey's Anatomy though and to be honest (which I can because it is my blog) I think that show us utterly repulsive. So I had a moment of contemplation realizing we'd just been hooked into another series. That is actually quite a pleasant feeling. I like having things lined up to watch with my husband on the occasional night I can maintain consciousness for 45 minutes after the last child is down.
I stayed up till dawn - on purpose. Stone cold sober. Because I was defying the karma that would surely come at 9am and take my blank calendar day from me.
Then, when he said, as he drifted off to sleep on the couch next to me "we should sleep - what do we have to do tomorrow?" I said "sleep. I have sleep penciled in for tomorrow" and he laughed and that's the last thing either of us remember.
Until I heard him say "what's Hawaiin shaved ice?"
Really? The bastage universe had to send snowcones? Did I ever mention that I spent my teen years breaking my snow cone addiction? Did I ever tell you that once in England Brian found me a snow cone - just once - and it was rock hard because it was pre-packaged and then one of the kids snatched it off me and whilst trying to run off with it they dropped it, and it shattered, and I actually cried right there in front of God and everybody at Opera in the Park.
Stupid universe. Eh - what can you do? I'm off for a snow-cone.
