Twas Brillig

Flashback Friday, Gentle Readers!

(Thanks, by the way, to everyone who has left comments on my last post. On Monday or Tuesday I’ll write a follow-up to it. In the meantime, I’d love for everyone to throw in their 2 cents. And guys! I haven’t yet had a GUY leave a comment and I’d really love to hear your point of view there too!)

Today’s Flashback Friday is one that I’m not even sure I’m ready to talk about. But here goes.

When Hubby and I were engaged, we were poor. Very poor. We needed a place to live. It was arranged that we could live with my Gramma D. For free. In her basement. We would be required to earn our keep, so to speak, by doing odd-jobs for her. She was nearly 100 years old at the time and had been wheelchair bound for forty years by that point, so there were lots of things she’d love for us to help her with. She was a millionairess, but it never occurred to her to HIRE someone to help her with things. She just usually guilt-tripped family or neighbors or the church into helping her with stuff. So it would be handy to have us there as her on-call slaves.

Hubby and me with Gramma D

Here’s the thing with my Grandma. She was not only extremely demanding, overly critical, impossible to please, manipulative, racist, and self-righteous, but she’d also made it clear from the beginning of my life that she did. not. like me. So why I thought that this would work out, I have no idea. But we were poor. Oh my gosh, we were so poor, and we had to live SOMEWHERE! Hubby was still in school full-time and I was working my butt off at a job where I was making just over minimum wage, paying for his schooling and our living expenses.

Gramma D at our wedding

I tried to get along with her. I tried every possible approach. My parents said that no one had ever broken through her shell as much as I had. Some days we got along and I made her laugh. I had a knack for making her laugh–it was my saving grace. Still, she loved to tell people how awful I was and even occasionally how abusive I was and how I took advantage of her, and so on.

Fortunately, she liked Hubby. She probably wondered why he had stooped so low as to marry someone as wretched and disgusting as me, and she likely judged him quite harshly for that, but otherwise she loved him. And since he hadn’t grown up with her, he didn’t carry all the baggage about her that I did. So that helped us all to co-exist.

We lived there for three years–I gave birth to my first two babies right there in her house. The hardest time was probably when Princess Fluffy was about 7 months old and I was already pregnant with Bubba. That’s just way too many hormones and emotions rolled into one human being, and living with a woman who thought I was a terrible mother and didn’t know anything about caring for my baby was very difficult.

One day she decided that I had made the floor dirty (in a room that I never went in, that had rotting linoleum floors that weren’t “dirty” they were just worn out and needed to be replaced!) and so she demanded that I get down on my hands and knees and scrub. I was pregnant. I had a crawling baby who kept trying to drink up the cleanser on the floor, etc. She sat in her chair and watched me, criticizing every stroke I made with the scrubbing brush. “Gramma, this floor is not going to get clean. It’s scratched. Scrubbing it will not make it look any better, no matter how hard I scrub.” She wouldn’t believe it. I just sucked at cleaning. She couldn’t believe I sucked so bad at cleaning. She would have to call all of her friends and let them know.

So, that’s Flashback Friday, friends! We will probably revisit Gramma D stories again in the future. There’s lots of blog-fodder here….

Yesterday, I told my husband about my friend Jenn in Holland who was missing home on the 4th of July and that she wouldn’t even be able to light the fireworks that she’d saved from New Year’s that night because it was raining. “So I told her to go see the hot guy who sells her cheese, and that would create fireworks for her.” I giggled. Hubby just stared at me.

Okay, not funny?

“Isn’t Jenn married?”

“Yes,” I answer.

We were then interrupted by little cherubs with big demands, but a few minutes later Hubby came back and said, “Do you think there’s a double standard? I mean, if two married guys had had that conversation, you would call them pigs. Why is it not equally wrong for two married girls to have that conversation?”

I acknowledged that the guys would be considered pigs. It’s one thing when Hubby acknowledges that a girl is “pretty.” That doesn’t bother me at all. But if he’d had a conversation about “creating fireworks” with some girl, it would have infuriated me.

He also pointed out to me that my girlfriends and I giggle about male celebrities, and hang pictures of them on our blog-walls, and talk about “drooling” over them, and so on. But again, if he were to put a picture of Pamela Anderson on his blog and talk about drooling, he would, again, be a pig.

True.

I offered him an explanation of why I thought there was this double standard, if you want to call it that. There really is a difference, I think. But before I tell you what I told him, I want to know how YOU, Gentle Readers, would respond.

So, is there a double standard? And if it is a double standard, is it justified or not? Lurkers, de-lurk today. I really want to know what everyone thinks of this. I’ll have a follow-up post in a few days.

Oh, and, um… this blog is rated PG. I know that this is a topic that could quickly turn… um… NOT PG. You KNOW I don’t like censorship, but I will have to edit things if they get out of hand so, um, don’t let them. Okay? Ready, set, GO!

What do Cate from A Beautiful Life, Jessabean of Unquiet Heart, Butrfly of Butrfly Garden, Kelly of Diary of the Nello, Megan of Velveteen Mind, Jenny of Absolutely Bananas, CableGirl of 42, and Dedee of The Quiltmaker’s Gift have in common?

They have FANTASTIC taste. They think I rock. Yup. All eight of them!!!! How I managed to dupe so many people, I’m not sure. Still, what an honor, right? I’d love to turn around and give the award right back to each of them, since they rock–oh yes, they rock–a whole heck of a lot more than I do, that’s for sure.

(Did I forget anyone? My technorati is having issues–I KNOW!!! HOW DO I SURVIVE???–and not all of my beloved linkies are showing up, and it actually seems like there was one more, but I can’t for the life of me come up with it… I’ll update this post and add some more linky-love if I missed you!)

Okay, and here’s where the guilt sets in. See, this here site is still brand spankin’ new, doncha know, and I haven’t yet figured out what I want to do with the sidebar. (There used to be TWO sidebars, but y’all created such a ruckus that I had to take one down. I’m such a people-pleaser.) And so, I was waiting until I knew where to PUT my award before I acknowledged it. And then another award was given, and then another, and so on. And I’m just sure that if I’d put the little button into my sidebar, I wouldn’t have tricked so many people into awarding me.

My little plan worked. I’m so humbled.

So what’s the first thing I’m going to do? Put all eight buttons in my sidebar, of course (for now–cuz I think that might get really old soon…). And here too (and, fortunately for me, people have been tinkering with the look of the award, so I can actually put eight different ones in!):

Okay, then. Now for the fun part. Now for the taggy-tagginess. And I’ll even let you pick whichever blog-bling you want!

• The Road Lester Traveled
• GoldyWorld–Yes, I know Goldy’s not a girl. But it just seems like if I’m giving out awards today, one just HAS to go to Goldy! So, Goldy, feel free to pick a badge that doesn’t specifically say “girl”–or, hey, who knows? Maybe you want to be a rockin’ GIRL blogger? I bet no one’s ever called you that before…
• Annette Lyon
• Virtual Sprite
• Gaining Balance
• Believer in Balance
• Sugar Kane
• The Verge
• Omega Mum
• Debio
• PantryShelf
• Carla Stream
• MammasWorld
• Sheila (who prefers not to be linked to, but she knows who she is )
• Work At Home Mom Revolution
• Nanette
• Swistle

Okay, I could go on for hours. I really could. It seems impossible to narrow this thing down. But, there it is. Congrats, Ladies (and Gent) on your awards. Now what? Well, here are the rules: If you’re given the rocking girl blogger award, then in a post on your own site you link back to the blog that awarded you and then you award it to five other blogs. These should be blogs that are written by women who you think rock. And then they take the award, post it on their blog, link back to you, and award five more blogs, and so on, until the universe is overcome with rockin’ girl bloggers. Any questions? Good. Now go partake in the tag-aliciousness.

The scene: My littlest two boys are in bed for midday naps. Fuzzles, the ten month old, is secure in his crib while Scooby, the two year old, is in his room, which doesn’t have a lock, but the door is very tricky and in three weeks here he hasn’t yet been able to open it. The other two kids (Bubba, 4, and Princess Fluffy, 5) are outside playing on the park with some friends.

And I, well, I need a break. I see this moment of solitude as the perfect time to fill a hot bath and indulge for a few minutes–recharge the ol’ batteries, doncha know. A rare pleasure indeed.

And so, I immerse myself into the delicious water and close my eyes. Ahhhhh. After a minute, I hear some strange noises. I open my eyes to find Scooby (who not only got out of his bedroom but also apparently climbed up the pantry shelf) lording an open box of Lucky Charms over my bathtub. Before I scream, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” he turns the box over and the bathtub is suddenly full of Lucky Charms.

(Scooby and his Charms)

“Oh my gosh, how am I going to clean this up?” I say out loud. Scooby has an idea. He begins scooping the cereal out of the water and ravenously eats it. “Ewww! Ick! No, no!” I squeal.

I busy myself with trying to get the cereal out and keeping Scooby from snarfing it all down when I hear yet more noises. I turn to see Princess Fluffy and all of the neighbor children STARING at me. Me. Naked. In the bathtub. With all of my bits exposed. And let’s not forget the Lucky Charms floaties. (And now I’m just certain that their parents are going to sue me for the therapy that will now be necessary.) At this point I begin shrieking, “GET OUT!!! GET OUT!!!! GET OUT!!!!” And eventually, they catch on, and leave. Clever little things.

That’ll show me for trying to take a break. Mommy never EVER gets a break. I should know that by now….

…………….ETA:

On an incredibly bright note today–Believer in Balance awarded me a Perfect Post Award for my “Chad” Soap Opera Sunday series. What a huge honor! Thanks so much!!!!!

It’s that time again, folks! That time where I award my favorite post from the preceding month. For those of you who may be blogging under a rock, the Perfect Post Awards are brought to you by Suburban Turmoil and MammaK. Go check out their sites for other awardees!

And so, without further ado, June’s Perfect Post Award goes to Butrfly Garden for her post, Hunted.

If you haven’t yet read this post, go check it out. If you have, go read it again. It will send chills through your body. You will be sitting on the edge of your seat. Your heart will race. You will wonder if this is truth or fiction (it’s truth, by the way). This was an amazing post and the first time I read it, it left me begging for more–it left us ALL begging for more. And so, to appease her fan club (of which I like to consider myself the president…) she began her Punjabi series.

By the way, I was not alone in my adoration of this piece. Indiebloggers featured it on their site (a rare honor indeed, as they receive hundreds of submissions and only publish a small handful of those and only feature a fraction of the published ones) and Stacy of Jurgen Nation and Indiebloggers fame said, and I quote, “it is absolutely fantastic and I’m proud that we could feature it. I think it’s my favorite post we have ever received through the site.”

Wow. I will say it again. Wow.

Congrats, Butrfly! You SO deserve this!!!!