A few years ago, the BBC tried a new comedy show centered around a the staff of a city planning department. I don’t think it ever took off, and I guess I can understand that. It’s the TV equivalent of watching paint dry. But still.
I had a conversation with the co-chairs of the Planning Department at local university just before the BBC show came out. They were bemoaning the fact that enrollment was down, that they couldn’t seem to get enough young people interested in the field. It’s not a particularly high-profile profession, not very sexy in the traditional sense. Where would young people learn about what planners do?
I have a theory that there’s a relationship between the most popular professions and what’s showing on TV. Think about it: cop, lawyer, doctor. Actor, model, chef. Rich housewife. So what does it mean that my newest favorite shows are so fringe-y? Can we expect kids growing up hoping to be a sister wife, a pot-dealer, gigolo, a serial killer with a conscience? A vampire? If our future workforce degrades any further, I’m going to blame HBO and Showtime. Amazing how they can make those lives just so darn interesting to watch, isn’t it?
I’ve been blogging for a while now. I started out in earnest back in March of 2007 at eleven-bee.xanga.com, and then in January of 2009, I registered my own domain name, and began using RapidWeaver to build my blog. RapidWeaver boasts on its website that it “is ideal for anyone looking to create a beautiful website. Whether it’s your first or five-hundreth [sic] website, RapidWeaver has all the tools you need to quickly create pages you’ll be proud of.” The good people at RapidWeaver failed to mention that this software is also great for those bloggers who hope that all entries from their blog will be mysteriously deleted at random times, without any warning whatsoever. For those people, RapidWeaver is perfect.
All was going well until May of this year when I realized that everything I had previously written had been deleted. Poof: gone. I jumped onto the RapidWeaver community online and discovered that there were numerous threads describing exactly this phenomenon. The response from the RapidWeaver people was decidedly understated. It was the equivalant of a cyber-shrug. “Sorry?“, they seamed to be saying.
So what did I do? I picked myself up, brushed myself off, and then kept on blogging using RapidWeaver, until… August 3rd when (insert record scratch sound here) my blog disappeared again. That’s when I came running here to WordPress. Same domain name, different website, and so far, so good. (Knock on big wood.)
WordPress allows me to track things like the number of visitors that come to see what’s new each day, and also the words that people search my site with. And so, for those of you searching for “trilogy financial services,” “san francisco mexican bus,” and “preparation h feels good on the whole,” (quite an eclectic selection of blog topics, don’t you think?) I’m working on restoring things on the old site, which I am now hosting, for archival purposes only, here.
But from here on, I’m looking forward to a more predictable blogging experience at WordPress. And in the meanwhile, here’s a little something for RapidWeaver:
There is an excellent scene from season one of Weeds where Nancy Botwin, America’s favorite pot dealing soccer mom, has to hand over her Land Rover to her dealer as collateral for a debt she owes. In turn, the dealer hands her the keys to a tricked out 1980’s Cadillac hoopty, complete with those hub caps that continue to spin even after the car has stopped moving. On her way home, Nancy is stopped at a stoplight when some thugs in a fancy Escalade pull up next to her, their window rolled down, their stereo bumping. Nancy’s got an arm resting out her open window as she glances over and then turns back to turn up her stereo, ostensibly to show up the guys in the car next to her. And out blares the tell-tale Bum, bum, bum bum… Bum, bum, bum bum — the theme song to All Things Considered on NPR.
Aw yeah.
I felt a little like I was channeling my inner Nancy Botwin today as I was bouncing around the neighborhood with my windows rolled down, and my stereo blasting… Kenny Rogers. The Best Of, baby. Cuz that’s how I roll.
Everyone considered him, the coward of the county…
This is the kind of music that typically begs to be played quietly indoors, isn’t it? Maybe in the basement? When there’s no one else around? Today when I got home from work, I found a package on the kitchen counter, a padded envelope from my friend C in California. A few months ago, when I learned that he was, for some reason, heading to Cracker Barrel, I had jokingly urged him to pick up a copy of Kenny Roger’s latest greatest hits cd for me. I had completely forgotten about my off-handed comment until I ripped open the envelope today.
Kenny hasn’t aged gracefully physically, and really, his music is just as cheese-tastic today as it was when I first started listening to him oh so many years ago. But there’s something about him… It just brings back such good memories, which, frankly, is a little surprising because usually when I think of those young tween years the word that most often comes to mind is “awkward.”
I popped the cd into the car stereo this afternoon as I set out to take care of some errands, and found myself singing along, word for word, to all of the songs. You got to know when to hold them…. But we rely on each other, uh huh… I used to think the lyrics to Lucile were “You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille. Five hundred children, and a crop in a field.” But when you listen to the digital recording, it’s clear that we’re talking not about 500 children, but five hungry children. See? I learned something.
Anyway. My point is… What? Nothing really. Just that I had a fun time this afternoon singing bad 80’s country songs by myself and remembering those days long ago when the Columbia Music Club suckered an eleven year old me into unknowingly agreeing to to buy a whole shoebox full of cassette tapes of bad pop music. It was all about Kenny Rogers and Air Supply back then. Life was indeed simpler.
I’m just glad that I don’t care (much) what people think when they see this middle-aged soccer mom cruising the neighborhood, grooving to undeniably ungroove-able tunes…
***
Apropos to absolutely nothing, here’s a sweet little video that features the two neighborhoods where I lived prior to moving here to Stepfordton. I thought this was hysterical.
I tell myself that I dislike perfection, that I am drawn to the flawed. When pressed, I explain that I don’t trust perfection, that there’s something about it that rings false to me, that I just don’t have time for it. And I’m sure that’s mostly true.
My kids dress themselves, so their outfits are rarely coordinated, except by the most abstract of young-boy fashion standards. It’s all I can do to mow the lawns once a week, so often the edges go untrimmed, the weeds are left unpicked. And my husband and I often find ourselves running late for whatever, so we may go days without really connecting. Right now as I’m typing this, there’s a giant smudge on the right lens of my eyeglasses, and I may, or may not, get around to de-smudging it.
The thing is, not only do I not have room for perfection in my own life, I am instantly suspicious of those veneered individuals who drop words like “blessed” and “wonderful” with such frequency that it starts to seem almost like a verbal tic. I’ve written before about the odd sense of pleasure I get in catching glimpses of strife in otherwise perfect looking couples in the park. Just those small moments where mom will say, through a smile of gritted teeth, “No dear, I asked you to bring the sunblock…” It’s not that I enjoy seeing anyone else in an unhappy moment — really, I’m not happy that little Johnny is at risk of getting a sun burn at the park, or that dad will get the guilt treatment later on for allowing said sunburn to occur — it’s just that I find those instances so relate-able, like a quick psychic bonding moment on the fly. I send out a silent “Umm hmmm. Man, we’ve all been there…” to the other couple and am oddly comforted to know that it’s not just me.
The potential problem pops up mostly when I don’t ever see those chinks in the armor of domestic perfection. That’s when I start to get restless. That’s when I have to resist the urge to pick, to poke. To ruffle.
Clearly I’ve got issues. It’s entirely possible that my strong distaste for perfection is just a defense mechanism, perhaps just a bit of overcompensation on my part, no? If I were to strive for perfection and fail, well, that would suck, wouldn’t it? Isn’t it much easier to just play it down with a well-orchestrated, off-handed “Who needs perfection anyway”? And people might be tricked into believing that I just don’t give two hoots, until I blow my cover by penning a suspiciously long blog post on perfection…
It terrifies me a little that, in this family, I am the designated paperwork minder. Remember me? The mom who almost didn’t get her son enrolled in kindergarten because she forgot to return the required confirmation paperwork? I am also the one who handles our taxes, the one who spearheaded the refinancing of our home, the one responsible for making sure all our car registrations are up to date. (Oh, that reminds me…) Eek.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that I kinda missed out on the whole open-enrollment benefits thingamabob at work. As a result, I’m now stuck with the default coverage that my company has picked out for all slackerlicious employees like me who can’t muster the energy to navigate their way through the convoluted maze of health care options.
It’s the bureaucratic equivalent of the ostrich sticking its head in the sand, and it always, always, comes back to bite me in the end.
These were the thoughts running through my head last week when I found myself in a low end strip mall optical center, leaning back slightly, trying to avoid the foul breath of the underpaid third key manager. Her name tag said “Audrey,” and she was six feet tall, if she was an inch. She had an oddly shaped Frankenstein-like head, covered with a thin drape of hair (with bangs!), and she wore thick cherry red press-on fingernails. She was leaning towards me, and she was speaking. “It does not appear,” she said, her deep voice affecting some approximation of a feminine tone, “that you have eye care coverage.”
We spent about twenty minutes on the phone, trying to track down the 411 on my coverage, until I finally called uncle and decided to go home and figure things out there instead.
I don’t mean to appear ungrateful — although I get how I may come off that way…
… and even though I mucked things up by not taking advantage of the very generous optical plan that my company offers, I at least have the flexible medical spending account, so I can cover the cost of three months of new contact lenses with my pre-tax dollars. So there’s that.
I must have health care on the brain right now, what with the current debate raging in Congress, and across the nation, about a major overhaul to our health care system. The thing is, that while intellectually I get that a system that ensures health care for all is a worthwhile goal, my experience in the public sector has lead me to doubt the capacity of the government to provide such a thing effectively. Which isn’t to say I don’t think we should continue to strive for an improvement to the current system, it’s just that I’ve seen the inside of the sausage factory, and it’s not good.
eleven bee 