Tea and Snippets

I write these posts to start a dialogue, vent my frustrations and seek acceptance from the rest of the world hoping desperately everyone will love me. Forever. Amen.

One of the things I think that makes us human is how we react and interact when it comes to places and things that make us uncomfortable.

For me, one of those places is funeral homes.

Earlier this week, I decided, as a grown up, I needed to go to a visitation for one of my best friend’s Grandfathers who had recently passed away.

As a grown up, you take on these tasks because a) it’s the right thing to do, b) so someone, someday will return the favour and come to see you on your final visit and c) because doing things that scare us and make us a little uncomfortable is good for us.

Except I really don’t like funeral homes, dead bodies or know how to act around sad people.

While others find the experience a “celebration of life” or a beautiful way to gather, support and love each other, I feel as un-grown-up as a person can feel, out of my element and I almost always handle things terribly.

For starters, what should I wear?

I realize the t.v. shows of my childhood, from the late 70’s and 80’s had everyone in black hats with black, lace veils over their faces, several tissues balled up in their long black gloves, tasteful black skirt, lighter button down blouse with collar and a black blazer (with giant 70’s shoulder pads) bedazzled with a broach of a leaf with a small pearl on the stem.

Today’s uniform has been modified substantially. People wear jeans, not everyone wears a tie and I didn’t see a shoulder pad or lace face cover anywhere in the building.

When I tried on my first choice in dress, my Mother told me I should consider changing because (and she was right) I looked like I was going to a summer garden party on the beach. It was full of happy colours, a bright pattern and looked like a cheery, summer day.

This was a funeral, think sad clothes.

Instead, I went with something drab because my friend’s Grandfather would have wanted it that way?

Then when I arrived at the funeral home, I had no idea what kind of mood I was supposed to be in.

I’m generally a happy person with a positive outlook on life….right, life.

But I’m happy to see my friend and her wonderful family so my impulse is to smile and in my booming, outside voice, hug everyone and tell them how happy I am to see them.

Instead I keep my eyes on the burgundy carpet and barely make eye contact, forcing myself not to smile. I’m now scowling and dressed in ridiculous, mismatched dark clothes, palms sweating pretending I know who the people in the framed collage of pictures are from when they were between 2-7 years old and I’m wrong about each guess.

I compliment the beautiful flowers. Are you supposed to do that? The flowers are meant to be sad aren’t they? Or are they supposed to make a sad room a happy one? One of the bouquets reminded me of my first choice of dress. Maybe the flowers are supposed to be happy, but represent the only happy thing in the room and the dress would have flounced all over the message and meaning of the flowers.

Lastly, I know I’m supposed to start at one end of the family and make my way through the line but I almost always end up starting with the first person in the line and then joining the end of the line like I’m waiting to ride the roller coaster knowing the further down the row, the sadder it gets.

Several people walked into the visitation and I was the first person to greet them. Looking uncomfortable in my ill-fitting, colourless clothes, staring down, thinking sad thoughts, we had never met and I had no business standing with the family but I couldn’t force myself through the room and not say unthinkable happy things or think unthinkable happy thoughts.

Being a grown-up is the worst.

My parents recently spent some time babysitting our three girls while Greg and I went on our annual gay cruise four day weekend away.

Besides the obvious, our hair-cuts, the girls have pointed out two unbelievable differences between my Mother and me and couldn’t wait to sit me down to express their concern over our very different approaches to parenting.

1. Gummy bears.

Kids: Mommy, you know how when we have gummy bears, like never and we ask you for them and you always say no, like always, (they couldn’t have stressed this point enough—never any gummy bears, always denied when there are, which is never) but then when you do say yes, we always get four? Four gummy bears right? That’s what we get?

Long pause. Deep breath. I could tell this was going to be earth shattering.

Kids: Well Grandma only gives us one!

That’s my Mom.

1. Sandwiches.

Kids: You know how when you make us a sandwich, you use one piece of bread, you spread the stuff on it, either peanut butter or meat or something (I don’t ever recall spreading meat but I nod along because I’m really tired and craving gummy bears….four gummy bears) and then you cut the bread in half and put one of the pieces on top of the other piece?

I hope this picks up.

Kids: Well Grandma, your Mom (they emphasized Mo-om) FOLDS the bread in half. She doesn’t cut it, folds it!

Three gummy bear difference, cutting vs. folding? Who was this person?

For the first time in my life, I thought I might have been adopted.

The freeze is usually announced with little to no warning.

It can be called by either one of us as quickly as, “Hey do you want to play hide and seek?” and like that! We’re frozen.

The only way one can be unfrozen is if compression socks go on sale or they come up with a better pina colada maker or flashier t.v. remote.

It’s really just to keep us both in check. If we feel the other is over-spending frivolously on items we simply don’t need, or the other has no interest in, OR if one of us has to be tutored by the other on how something works and we resent said person for thinking we don’t know the difference between a lithium battery and an oblong one, we call the freeze so there will be at least some surprises Christmas morning.

While we aren’t “technically” in a freeze right now, I cautioned Greg while out shopping that if he bought one more dry-fit golf shirt, we would need to host a neighbourhood bonfire to successfully dispose of the pile of golf shirt kindling, overpowering every closet in the house.

He agreed, while “technically” not on a freeze, he entered the mall with the threat of a freeze lingering over him in the form of my icy cold whisper. “No more dry-fit golf shirts. Not now. Not ever.”

Then he walked out of the mall with this.

It’s the hot fudge brownie sundae with BACON!

No words, Denny’s.

No. Words.

My first thought was, what a liar! There is a stack of boxes behind the counter and I can tell by the way the tower is leaning, they are empty! Is she in the middle of some sort of online liquor-store-box Jenga game?

My second thought was, this woman should totally be a marriage counsellor because she knew exactly what I wanted before I had even asked.

I was hoping she may have also thought I looked far too young to be in a liquor store and just assumed the only thing I could have possibly wanted was to use the washroom or to get a box because there was no way I was old enough to be buying booze.

What if the box had been to save a turtle or to build a fort for a homeless, dwarf bunny?

I left empty handed but pumped about that whole, I must be too young thing.

When you think your kids aren’t paying attention. Think again.

I was recently on a field trip with one of my kid’s classes and I heard a conversation while in the bathroom between two students that had me chuckling.

Girl A to Girl B: My Mom doesn’t know why our teacher is so obsessed with this crap.

Just like that.

Perhaps this girl or boy, (wait, I already said it was a girl and I was in the bathroom with them so it would be completely inappropriate if it was a boy) has a lovely Mother who wanted the kids to focus more on spelling and less on bee keeping and during a state of utter confusion and maybe even while under duress she said something like, “Wouldn’t it be great to spend a little more time on spelling now that you are all bee keeping experts?” and that statement morphed into something sinister.

Later I heard from Ellie that a friend was spending the weekend planting trees around their property because as she explained, “Her Dad wants ‘privacy.’” She used air quotes when she said “privacy” which made me think the act of planting had been described that way to her with a focus on building a fortress and not for the other reasons people plant trees; beautification or saving the environment or for a place to put those wooden faces meant to stick on trees so they look like people.

Ellie: I guess her Dad likes to pee outside.

I know I’ve raved about my seven year olds artistic abilities in the past and have even posted a few of her masterpieces.

When she presented me with this portrait of the two of us I thought, Ellie, you have captured the inner Cyclops in both of us. Maybe, in all of us.

Nailed it.

I took my three year old to the park yesterday so she could swing, run, play the grumpy old troll who lives under the bridge.

She ended up staying in character and played the grumpy old troll who gets shocked on the slide, gets sand in her shoes and insists the underdogs on the swings were approached with a lacklustre effort and not the finesse her Mother felt she had really nailed.

After a couple of failed attempts at climbing up the slide (why have they not figured out this just doesn’t work) she became increasingly angry at the only person she could yell at aside from a pigeon who knew to keep his distance.

Chloe: Ahhhh!!! I keep falling!

Me: Chloe, why don’t you try the stairs, the ladder, or the pole with the giant plastic protrusions?

Chloe: What are pro-ter-oosens?

Me: Just try the yellow thing with the blue plastic things.

Chloe (falls again): UGHHH!!!!!

Me: Okay, this is getting dangerous. You are not going to be able to climb this very tall, twisty slide the wrong way so let’s try getting to the top another way.

She looked at me and the pigeon flapped its wings and took off.

Her next line would put Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth!” to shame.

She screamed, “HAVEN’T YOU EVER HAD A DREAM?!!!!”

I thought I was doing the right thing.

I had crowned myself “Queen of the School Field Trips.”

It wasn’t an easy title to earn, there were about five of us in the running, all worthy candidates, always on the back of the bus telling kids to keep bums in seats and ipods at least below the height of the cushion backs so they wouldn’t be caught. All we asked in exchange was a piece of fruity gum and control of the window.

We were at the museum feigning interest in mineral formations and at the conservation authority hoisting kids high above our shoulders to see if there were any blue eggs in the bird’s nests. Just to be clear, the only child I was hoisting was my own. Hoisting, lifting or physical contact with anyone else’s child disqualifies you from the competition.

Yesterday, I was sure my presence on this, the seventy-nine-hundredth consecutive volunteer outing would put me in the field trip hall of fame.

Except I wasn’t supposed to be there.

I woke up, showered and ate my oatmeal like any other day.

I made three lunches as opposed to two, found my ten year old mascara, still scrapably dry and stood in my closet asking myself, “If I were a teacher, what would I wear?”

This wasn’t like any other day. This was a field trip day.

When I got to the school, the kids were waiting outside to board the field trip bus, an arrangement I knew like the back of my soon-to-be-stamped-hand.

I moved to the back to keep my eye on things and awaited my group assignment.

When I heard, Janet’s group, then Sarah’s group, then Linda’s, my mascara started to clump. Anyone else’s would have run but mine was far too dry.

I raised my hand and asked the teacher in charge who I would be taking care of for the day and she said, “Oh, you are not on my list today.”

It occurred to me I hadn’t even said I was coming and later learned I hadn’t paid the $22 to accompany the kids in the first place.

Twenty-two dollars? No wonder I didn’t volunteer.

So now I’m a stowaway with a couple of options.

A)     I dive off of the now moving bus, still in the school parking lot and enjoy a free day while Chloe is with a babysitter after I bandage my scabs from rolling out of a moving vehicle or

B)      I stay on the bus, look out the window and pretend I couldn’t hear anything I was just told and ride along anyway.

Secret option C) I could tell some kids they are in my group and use their lunch money to pay my way.

None of this made any sense until I read yesterday’s post.

I am a Hobo.

When did grade four get to be so complicated?

My nine year old walks and talks the dramas I remember from high school yet has not mastered her multiplication tables.

She’s asking for clothes the costume department used on the cougars in the background at the Regal Beagle on Three’s Company (styles really do come and go in cycles) at the same time she’s learning to write her name in script and successfully return home with the water bottle I packed for her.

The girl drama aside, I think t.v. is in large part influencing the language of these young girls and I’m considering shutting the whole thing down.

Last night was a pivotal moment when my three year old, taking her cue from her older sibling, turned to a kid riding their bike down our street and with her hands on her hips shouted, “Hey, where are you going, you Hobo?”

Chloe laughed after she said ‘hobo’ but then looked in my direction with an expression that said, “I have no idea what I just said but I’m pretty sure there’s a laugh track playing behind one of the street lamps and I really hope my Mom didn’t hear me.”

She wasn’t quite sure why I might question her choice to shout at a happy kid out riding their bike that they were a homeless drifter, but she knew it could land her in hot water.

I called Chloe over and asked her what she said and she repeated, “I said, ‘hey, where are you going, you Hobo!” and proceeded to run away laughing.

I explained to all three girls when we went inside that name calling of any kind was not nice, that it was not acceptable behaviour and it would not be tolerated.

The two youngest “the informants” were quick to throw their older sister under the bus so my discussion turned into a one on one with Hanna about being a good role model, treating people with kindness and respect and that name calling was never okay.

She agreed. We had what I considered to be a great talk and I walked out of her room feeling like we had made great strides.

A few minutes later, she emerged from her room to ask me something.

“Mom, what is a Hobo?”