Grrr

This morning, in the car on the way to work, I began listening to "Emotional Freedom" by Dr. Judith Orloff. A story she told hit me like the oft-mentioned ton of bricks. Here's a paraphrase.

A Native American chief tells his tribe a tale of two dogs inside his head. One is courageous and pure of heart. The other is driven by hatred and vengeance. The dogs are fighting, and are determined to go until the death. A young brave, lacking the patience to wait for the conclusion, asks, "Who will win?"

The chief's reply: "The one I feed."

Good Buy?

I am upset for a friend of mine who's heartsick over a child custody issue. Young teen daughter has been promised material things, vacations, and special privileges IF she goes to live with the other parent full time. Daughter has been bonding increasingly over the past several weeks with the "generous" parent and has become increasingly disrespectful to my friend, and resentful over my friend's reluctance to see this change take place.

At bed time tonight, when I sometimes chat with my kids about their day, I asked my two older sons what they thought of this situation (hypothetically, no names). My thirteen year old said he would like all the "stuff" but wouldn't want to go live in a place where it was just the stuff. My eleven year old said that it was the wrong thing to do, but if the daughter went there for a while, when she got a driver's license she could put all the "stuff" in a car and drive back to the other parent's house.

Before they both went to sleep, I asked them whether they had enough people in their lives whom they could talk to about any problems they might be having, other than Mom or Dad. One named three buddies at school (all good people from good families, yay) and the other named his aunt, cousins, and grandparents. OK, as long as they feel that they have support. Sometimes kids have heavy loads (at least as they see it). In my friend's case, it really is heavy for everyone involved, including my friend's son who has his own issues about his sister's impending change in living arrangements.

That old adage about setting someone you love free seems appropriate, but there has to be a clear way to come back. I hope and pray that it will happen, either as my eleven year old described or in some other way that allows love to continue. I also hope that the act of blogging about this will help me get some sleep, and I hope that my friend is able to get some rest tonight.

Geek Milestone

I'm beaming with pride over this personal Twitter milestone. Today, for the first time, one of my tweets was retweeted. (It was a pointer to an article that explained how a Boston cabbie almost took the rap when parents left their sleeping five year old child in the back of his minivan taxi.) Only a geek like me would appreciate this. Still: sigh, swoon. :-)

Wax to the Side of the Head?

This is a sequel to yesterday's post. As the day progressed, hubby was feeling so much better after having all that wax removed from his ear canal that he called me at work and said that he would gladly take our seven year old to his friend's party at Fun Zone (so I wouldn't have to leave early to get there by 5:45). Further, because he was tired of remaining cooped up in the house, he would stay there instead of merely dropping off. OK, sounds great, thanks. After I hung up the phone I'm thinking, "Who was that and why was he speaking in my husband's voice? Wait a minute, do I really want to know?"

So I went home and, in a relatively quiet house, cooked a lovely dinner of sauteed fish and roasted sweet potatoes for myself and the two older boys (who had been squirreled away in the corner trying to beat Sly Cooper 2 on the PlayStation). When hubby and Son #3 arrived (around 8PM!) I was treated to a full report about who was at the party and what happened, and who said what, and what the latest family news was. Talk about role reversal! I was loving it. Normally I take the kid to a party and then come home with the 411, and after I speak for five or ten minutes straight, hubby gives me a quizzical look that makes me think he hadn't heard word one.

I was a good person and did not respond to his news bulletin with a flip "Oh, did you say something?" but commented constructively and said how pleased I was that he had a good time. I'm hoping that in the future we can trade off more with "party duty." It might even be beneficial to him as an electrician: he heard from a friend that there's likely a big side job in the offing. Yeah!!!

Wax On, Wax Off

Yesterday morning hubby and the two older boys went fishing with close friends of ours and their boys. The charter boat from Captree went out for fluke, but our family caught five sea bass instead (which we will eat tonight). Hubby was wiped out upon their return, which I attributed to the sun, lack of sleep, and rough conditions. This was more than merely that, though. After about an hour nap, he went in to shower, and then he went back to sleep. From 3:30PM until 6AM this morning. At that point he got up, said he still felt lousy, went over to the job site to give the keys to the crew, and came home to lie down again. Symptoms: fatigue, sweats and chills, ear pain, and stuffiness.

He was able to get in this morning to see our ENT (otorhinolaryngologist, if you like fancy words). It turns out that there was a lot of ear wax buried deep in the canal. Took two different methods (including suction) for the doctor to extract it all. There might be a bit of sinus activity that's causing the congestion, but the doc said that the wax could've caused the rest of the problems. Hubby asked whether overzealous cleaning could have pushed the wax into the canal -- doc said definitely.

I'm glad it's not the swine flu or anything, but I'm definitely going to be gentler now when using the cotton swabs. Yeesh. My friend L told me this morning that her daughter has an ear wax build up that causes trouble for her, and they go to their doctor every three months for cleaning. Funny, whenever I used to think of ear wax, it was because of Dumbledore's amusing comment towards the end of the first Harry Potter movie (about Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans). Nothing amusing about this, though...

Don't Cost Nuthin'

"It is a little embarrassing that, after 45 years of research and study, the best advice I can give to people is to be a little kinder to each other." Aldous Huxley

Pshaw, I wouldn't consider this to be an embarrassing conclusion at all. In fact, just yesterday I was commenting on an early draft of a book an old friend is writing on survival in the business world. One of the suggestions I added to the "organizational behavior" chapter was BE DECENT. Brings out the best in people, costs nothing, allows others to be more gracious to you, and so on.

OK, Pollyanna is now leaving the building. LOL.

Greatest Misnomers

Tonight, after dropping Son #1 off at his clarinet lesson, I took a bunch of books and media back to the library. I was feeling in the mood for some mellow music, so I browsed through the classical and vocal sections of the CD room and found a few things to tickle my fancy.

One of the discs I chose was a favorite vocalist, who released a so-called greatest hits compilation in 2007. I'd never heard it, but a quick look at the track list made me realize that a few new tracks had been recorded for the CD. Right there, it's not really a list of hits, unless they're making the wild assumption that all the new tracks will be among the most popular for this artist, historically. Even I'm not that optimistic, folks!

I began to listen to the disc in the car, while running my other errands for the evening. I then realized that two tracks, both duets, had been re-recorded with new performers. So the hit songs in this collection of greatest hits are not the versions that became hits. Will these new versions surpass the other versions in popularity? I doubt it, because we often associate the first version with our idea of what the song ought to sound like.

This distills down to seven or eight tracks from the original CD releases. Greatest hits indeed. If I'd bought this disc instead of borrowing it, I would definitely be crying "foul!" Something has definitely gone awry with marketing and advertising in this country. Sheesh. (P.S. Both of the new duets are so-so according to me, as are two of the new tracks.)