Twas Brillig

I came to you with an open mind–too open. Not being a part of this particular conflict, but just an impartial observer, I wanted to learn about both sides. I was learning BOTH languages. I was studying BOTH cultures. I knew that this was all bigger than me, but somehow I thought maybe one day I’d be able to help resolve it all.

I was only 12 years old. So were you.

We weren’t friends, or anything. We’d never met before. It was your assignment to show me around your school. I think we both thought that we could be friends.

You walked me through the hallways and discussed what you did at school and what you learned. You were learning Algebra. Hey, me too! You were learning biology, literature. We had so much in common.

At some point, we came to a glass-enclosed display. All I saw was cloth, stained and torn. I looked to you for an explanation.

And then your eyes changed. You grew dark, angry. It frightened me.

“Three weeks ago, three innocent men were killed. They are martyrs. This is their clothing here–the clothing they were wearing when they were brutally shot. You see their blood on their shirts. You see the bullet holes. We keep this here to remind us of our enemies and their wickedness. It reminds us of their unprovoked brutality towards us. They must be conquered. We must prevail.”

My breath caught in my throat. I considered telling you that you were wrong. Your eyes challenged me to do so. Thank heavens I didn’t–I likely wouldn’t have made it out of the country alive.

But I had been downtown the day those men lost their lives. These men, whose clothing hung here in a shrine, were no heroes. They had mercilessly slaughtered nine truly innocent people–three of them children–before the police had finally arrived and stopped them with their bullets. These three men were not martyrs, they were murderers.

“But you’re just children!” I said, instead. I had been forced to see blood, bullets, bombs. But I didn’t think that all children should have to. Certainly not at school!

“How else will we learn?”

And there it was–the great unbridgeable difference: My schooling taught me history. Yours taught you lies.
I couldn’t blame you for believing the lies. It was all you had ever heard. I couldn’t blame your friends, your parents, your teachers. It was all they had ever heard.

And now I was terrified. I couldn’t breathe. I had to leave. Your hatred, though not yet aimed at me, was suffocating and I couldn’t be there anymore. This place, this evil place, where children were taught to hate, was imprisoning me and I had to escape. I wanted to beg you to escape with me, though I knew you never would. I wanted to rescue you from this conflict, but you were too deeply entrenched. So I left you there.

We knew we could never, ever be friends.

I never said that the other side was right, but you are so very wrong.

And now I’m 28, as are you, and I think of you from time to time. I’m married. I have children. We live a safe, comfortable life. And you? Did you survive your hatred, or has it killed you yet, as it has killed so many of your countrymen? Is your life full of terror? Do you have children? Do you teach them what you were taught? Of course you do. You don’t know anything else. If you live long enough to raise another generation, that generation will be consumed with the same hate.

Someone has to break this cycle. I no longer think that it will be me. I can’t. I don’t understand. I feel helpless and hopeless. The more I learn, the less I know.

But I make an oath, here and now, that my children will never learn any form of hatred from me. And if that’s the best I can do, it will be a lot.

I see her there. I see her name as it pops up as she signs onto instant messenger. I know that she sees me too.

She was once the dearest sister anyone could have. Ten years my senior, she adored me, defended me, gave me a voice when others thought I was too young to deserve an opinion.

I don’t know when she became angry. Actually, as I think about it, she’s always been angry at someone–it just wasn’t ever aimed at me.

Months ago, at our happy family reunion, she’d had it with me. Right there in Disneyland, in a very loud way and in front of all my siblings and all our kids, she made it clear that I was no longer welcome to speak to her. She was no longer interested in me or my children or my opinion. She walked away, dragging her kids and husband behind her, and has not spoken to me since.

My attempts to apologize for whatever it was that I did have been ignored or, worse, ridiculed.

Life is too short for this! We mean too much to each other!

So I sit helplessly, staring at her screen name, knowing that I can’t be the one to make contact. I just wait, knowing that she sees my name there too.

A few weeks ago, I was at a grocery store going through the check out. I handed the cashier a nice, perfectly organized bundle of coupons. As if I weren’t standing RIGHT THERE, she turns to a fellow cashier and says, “you know, these people come through with coupons and I just want to say to them, ‘get an education!’ Seriously, they’re so pathetic.”

Uh…. First of all, being a cashier like her at Albertsons CLEARLY requires a higher education than what I have. Secondly, only DUMB people use coupons because SMART people choose to buy their cereal at full price. And, lastly, I WAS STANDING RIGHT THERE!!!

Similarly, though a lot worse, my dear friend Kate was joyfully spending lots of money in Vegas a few days ago. She asked a sales lady if they had a certain pair of pants in a larger size. *I pause here to define “larger.” We are not talking about a gigantic size, here. We are talking about a perfectly healthy, normal, socially acceptable size–and somewhat smaller than MY current size…* Anyway, the sales lady said that no, they do not carry that size anymore. Later, Kate was in a dressing room in the same store and overheard the sales lady saying, “yeah, Corporate doesn’t carry the FAT sizes anymore. I guess they don’t want FAT people shopping here.” Snicker, snicker. Kate, of course, heard every word.

Sales people can be really dumb. Clearly.

Have you had things like this happen to you? This is a chance to share your worst stories! Also, how did you handle the situation?

My darling hubsters called me on his way home from work yesterday to announce that I didn’t need to make dinner because he was taking us all OUT to dinner. In that moment, I really should have called the local mental institution and had him locked up because he was clearly going BATTY.

So, I got all the kids ready to go and even put on my new sassy jeans (yeah, I took back the shoes and got new jeans… so much for buying groceries, right?)

Well, as it turned out, Hubbadubba was taking us to dinner because he’d been given a gift certificate. It was to a Mexican restaurant in Orem, about half an hour away. There are, of course, approximately a billion Mexican restaurants in Utah, so we didn’t think anything of the fact that we’d never HEARD of this particular one.

We pulled up to the “restaurant” which was a little hole in the wall of a strip mall where everything was in Spanish. Everything.

As we were getting out of the car, Bubba peed his pants. With some pants, you can hide the wet spot. Bubba was not in those pants. He was in the pants that reward a little pee a with a great big wet spot. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I really had no other option than to take him in to the restaurant, wet spot and all.

We walk into the “restaurant” which had about 6 small tables set up, 4 of which were fully occupied by very burly, drunk, Hispanic men.

Let me pause here to say that I am not of those people who has a problem with Hispanics. At all. I did volunteer work in South America for a year and a half and I speak Spanish fluently.

However, in this situation, my little family of six felt pretty little, very young, and COPIOUSLY white.

And, of course, we had all eyes glued on us from the moment we walked in the door.

The menus? All in Spanish. I had to translate for Hubby and the kiddos. A waiter, who remarkably spoke pretty good English, came over to us and we ordered. It took forever, but eventually our order was in.

In the meantime, the kids were gorging themselves on the free chips and salsa. Scooby was in a high chair with no straps to keep him in, so he was climbing all over the table and throwing menus onthe floor, etc. I was working so hard to keep everyone and everything under control. I didn’t want to be one of “those moms” who goes to a nice restaurant and sits back while the kids turn it into a disaster area. Fortunately, this WASN’T a nice restaurant. Still, I was determined to keep the kids under control. Then the baby started screaming. Hubby picked him up and discovered a total diaper blow out. Again, I had no handy change of clothes, so now I had one pee-soaked child and one screaming poop-soaked baby. And then Scooby, climbing out of his high chair, grabbed the salsa and guzzled it. What do you suppose he did next? Well, he screamed his brains out, of course, because the salsa was HOT.

Our waiter walked by, and Hubby decided to ask what he should have asked in the first place, which was, do they take this gift certificate. The waiter looks at it and said, “No.”

WHAT???

They don’t take gift certificates anymore because of gift certificate fraud. Too many copies. Hubby points out all the security seals on this particular gift certificate–watermarks, security seals, etc. in an attempt to prove that this one was NOT a copy. The waiter was unimpressed. “No, we do not take any gift certificates.” “Well, then we won’t be eating here,” Hubby announces. The waiter shrugs and says, “okay!”

I nearly died. Really. I think my poor, pathetic life began flashing before my eyes.

So we loaded up the screaming, poopy baby in his carseat, grabbed the screaming Scooby out of his high chair and told Bubba and Fluffy to head to the door. “NO!!!” they yelled, almost (but not quite) in unison.

“Excuse me?”

And now, in all-out tantrum mode, “NO!!! WE’RE NOT LEAVING!!!! WE’RE SO HUNGRY!!!”

We grabbed them and pulled them out the door, leaving our blurry-eyed, burly Mexican friends to stare at each other in awe and say, “what in the Giminy Christmas was THAT???”

Indeed. What WAS that?

So, we went to Taco Bell, where we didn’t look like freaks at all, in comparison…

Okay, I know I’ve posted a million times today, and those of you have me on google reader are probably ready to kill me right about now. But, as you can see, this is still a very new site and I’m trying my darndest to get it up and running. So, lucky for you, I’m pretty much posting everything that comes to mind right now! hahaha

So, yesterday while I was at my Relief Society meeting, a VERY PREGNANT woman came up to me.

“Hi!” she says. “I heard that you had your babies at home!”

“Three of them, yes,” I replied, not sure if she was going to admire me or condemn me to hell for such “endangerment.”

“Oh, that’s so great. Can I have your phone number? I don’t want to go to the hospital too early when I go into labor, but I’m afraid that if I wait TOO long, I might end up having this baby at home and I’d need your help, since you know all about this and you live so close.”

I was flabbergasted.

Just because I have given birth at home does NOT mean that I automatically know how to deliver a baby!! That’s like saying that since I had surgery on my kidney stones I can now perform the same surgery on someone else?

As if my midwife hadn’t gone through years of schooling, hundreds of births, and an extensive liscensure process. And as if I just happen to have oxygen and pitocin and other possible necessities lying around my house that I could stick in my trunk and bring to her birth.

However, I was taken off guard just enough that I said, “Um, sure! Call me anytime.”

Hahahahaha. YIKES!

So, yesterday was a terribly busy day.

Besides getting all four kids (the oldest of whom is 5) fed and bathed (which should count as a full day’s work) I had a meeting with the Realtor who is selling our old house (yes, the hot one). We hadn’t found a babysitter, so Hubbyhubs and I had the kids with us. After that meeting we had ANOTHER meeting an hour away about our NEW house–a construction meeting thingy. We were flabbergasted to see that the whole thing is framed out, the roof is on, and the windows are installed. They were working on the electric when we got there. Our once far away dream is becoming a reality! There was much traipsing around the construction site with all four kids in tow, including one who peed his pants. Sigh.

From there, Hubs dropped me off at his car which I took out to our old house while he took the kids “home” to his parents’ house, where we are currently living. I spent THREE HOURS going through crap in the basement, sorting, arranging, etc.

Then I went to my Releif Society meeting(a women’s group devoted to service and kindness and empowering women) and mingled and giggled and had a nice little well-earned break from the crazinesses of real life.

Then I went BACK to the old house and continued the basement project. Didn’t leave until after 11:00 p.m. Got “home” at about midnight.

And WHY does any of this matter?

Because I did it all in sassy three-inch heels, thank you very much!!!

I know that just about everyone I know and love (besides my dear husband) received some degree or another from the illustrious Brigham Young University (including both of my dear parents, who were professors there and retired from there). This is not meant to be an offense to you… I’m just becoming less and less interested in your University…. which is difficult… since they’ve been on my very-dark-if-not-completely-black list for some time now…

I just heard the SUPER DUPER news today–Dick Cheney himself is going to be speaking at BYU’s commencement this year.

Our dear Vice President was available, of course, because NO ONE ELSE ON THE PLANET WAS INTERESTED IN BOOKING HIM!!! Seriously, people! Dick Cheney? The guy who tried to convince the American public that TORTURE was okay? The guy who stands beside our dopey president as he breaks one federal or international law after another?? The guy who leaked info about a CIA agent?? And does ANYONE besides me remember Haliburton???

Oh, but wait. He’s a Republican. And this is, after all, the land of the Blind Republican Sheep. He could eat your children in front of you, but he’s a Republican. Therefore, we must admire him and shout his praises. And maybe even teach a few Sunday School lessons about his endless virtues…

Okay, as many of you know, I’m building a new house, which means that we’re selling our old house, which means that Hubsters and the kiddos and I are living with my mother- and father-in-law. There are so many stories to be had here…

So, the realtor that we’ve hired to sell our house is, well, really hot. Which is awful, because he looks like he’s about 15. HAHAHA. He’s not, of course. He’s married and has a kid. Still, he’s got to be a few years younger than my 20-something self. What’s funny, though, is that because he’s so hot, it’s TERRIBLY uncomfortable for me to carry on a conversation with him. I don’t know why that is. If he were ugly, it would be no problem. But since he’s hot, I feel like I’m somehow breaking some vow simply by speaking to him. Hahaha. This is so embarrassing…

Anyway, the point is that TODAY my old house will go on the market. Hubby-loo and I worked our keesters off getting it ready to sell for the last couple of weeks. Our hot realtor has not been all that excited about our old house all along. Not that I blame him–I’m moving because I don’t like it either!

However, yesterday he walked through the newly cleaned, painted, and recarpeted house and he was so freaking impressed! WOOHOO!!! He wants us to raise the asking price significantly!!!! YIPPEEE SKIPPPEEE!!! I finally feel like the last few weeks of agonizing work will actually be worth something. Raising the price, though, will require my signature all over again, which will require that I speak to Hot Realtor in person, which is already making me feel anxious! I’m so, so pathetic.