Chewymom

HT to Chewydad who took this picture. It is located on a fairly busy road, and I drive by it 2-3 times per week.

I found an important news item in today’s paper, and I wanted to make my three faithful readers aware of it.

Now, let me say at first I was certain this was local news, because it just kinda sounds like something that would appear in our paper. But no, this comes all the way from West Virginia!

A man was apparently arrested and charged with battery on a police officer. No light crime, there.

So how did he attack this officer?

He farted at him. And then fanned the odor in the officer’s direction.

My college friends are rolling their eyes, because they know that even now at the age of forty-two, I find farting to be funny. Maybe it is the presence of four boys in my home, I don’t know.

But I will say that this has given me a whole new line of conversation with my kids, and the lesson bears repeating on here. None of my faithful readers can claim that they weren’t warned.

Whatever you do, never fart at a police officer.

Today Sam, age 9, got into the car and told me about a couple of conversations he had at school. The first was with a boy in his class who claimed that for his birthday, he was going to Japan and taking Sam with him. The second was with a boy who claimed that the Chinese have made a REAL “Sonic” character, like the one in video games.

After Sam exasperatedly told me both of those stories, he said, “I don’t know why, but African Americans tend to lie.”

Now before you flame me or my son, hear me out.

Sam is my only son who has never attended school outside of this town in Alabama. My other children remember our time living in Atlanta. There, they were surrounded by people of all races and socio-economic backgrounds.

And that is a huge difference. Sam’s only experience here is that both African Americans and Hispanic people live in low-income areas, and a very few are bussed into his elementary school district. He freely befriends all kids–in fact, he was the only white kid invited to one of their birthday parties just a week ago. But he cannot understand the differences he perceives.

I talked through the socio-economic makeup of our city. The black people still live on the other side of the railroad tracks. In fact, there is one African American family in our neighborhood, and when we first moved here we were told that it was okay because the dad was a former MLB Baseball player. Whatever.

Sam and I talked through how being one of the only “poor” kids in a school might make someone tempted to say things that are untrue to try to bolster others’ view of you. We discussed what it must feel like to be bussed in when everyone else rides in a car or walks to our small, neighborhood school. These boys do not attend school with their neighbors. Most of them are in single parent households. Many do not have central a/c. Some live in apartments. And because our school is a neighborhood one, which definitely has advantages, nobody else in the whole school can relate. We all have central air, we all have relatively large homes, and most have two-parent families. The carpool line is full of Suburbans, minivans, and other cars less than 7 years old. Few have dents or dings, and most sport the required soccer and basketball magnets on the back. Many families are members of the local country club, and the parents socialize at their all-white, wealthy churches. Our kids cannot understand a world like the one that these few African Americans and Hispanics live in.

And so they generalize. And if their parents are from this area, they often do not refute the stereotypes because it is all they know as well.

I long for the day when our town grows to be less ethnocentric and more open toward people of all races and classes, and when we mingle freely with everyone just because we are all human!

I had the privilege of spending two days last week at the middle school, assisting with the seventh grade African mask project. Not only was I able to spy on my son and the many girls who send him text messages at all hours of the day and night, but I was able to get to know a few of the moms better.

Our conversations ran the gamut. We discussed the SAT, a teacher who drives our kids insane, the basketball and soccer teams, fun vacations, and toenails at Disney.

Actually on the latter conversation I was an innocent bystander. Three moms started talking about trips to Disney (I was all ears–Sally is begging to go to Disney!). From there the conversation went like this:

…and the GROSSEST thing is the women who wear sandals and don’t paint their toes!

Who in their right mind would make people look at that?

I felt my safely hidden toes curl up in my close-toes shoes. I have proudly worn Birkenstocks all spring and summer for years, and unless Sally forces me or I get a wild hair, my toes remain proudly unpainted. I always knew people around here didn’t think my toenails looked particularly cute. But I had no. idea. that in their eyes I might as well be picking my nose and eating it in public.

The voices inside my head were screaming Have you people never been outside of this country? No, outside of the South? No, wait, in a big city?? Do you realize that you, in your “high society” mindset are actually screaming your extreme ignorance? You might as well be saying, “Hello, my name is Mrs. S. and I have never stepped foot outside of my small town, except to go shopping in Birmingham. I have no idea how the rest of the world thinks, and I love displaying my ignorance within the small-minded circle of friends who also think life revolves around our itty-bitty country club and getting our names in the local newspaper.”

Thankfully those voices were not audible. So nobody knows what I think. Yeah, right.

Come spring, I’ll be walking around with my despicable, unpainted piggies, proudly displaying my ignorance of small-southern-town decorum.

My kids have a holiday from school today in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. day. I have a holiday from my community college for Robert E Lee day. Something I had never heard of even though I was born and raised in the south.

Talk about a way to offend some African Americans! Let’s take the focus off of a man who fought for civil rights for black people and turn it around to honor the man who was fighting with the Confederate troops to maintain the rights of people to own slaves! I know, I know, the civil war was about a lot more than that. I get that. But really–don’t ya think it might offend a few people to take the focus off of King and put it on THAT????

We moved to this town almost five years ago, and we were quite surprised when a day or two later the doorbell rang, and there stood the mailman! “Hi,” he said, “I’m Sam the Mailman! Welcome!” He proceeded to chat with us for a bit, told us he had been on this route for thirty years, and said to let him know if we needed anything. Let me just tell you that kind of thing never happened in Atlanta.

Once I walked out to the mailbox as Mr. Sam the Mailman was driving up, and as he flipped through the envelopes he noticed one for the previous homeowners. He pulled it out of our stack and said, “I know where they live. I’ll just run it by their house.”

In April we bought a new house, and in August we moved in. It is just around the corner from our previous house, so Mr. Sam is still our mailman. He has stopped in a number of times and walked through the house to see the kitchen remodel in progress.

And today, we found this note on the top of our mail.

Gotta love a mailman who stops in for a chat, hand delivers mail sent to the wrong address, and leaves little notes.

And in case any of you are wondering about the coffee, I have to admit that Tulipgirl directed me to this company, which I think she found via her sister Mountain Mama. I heartily recommend buying your coffee from Seth at Old Bisbee Roasters. He roasts it when you order it, and it arrives fresh in about two days. Shipping is free if you order two pounds. And it’s guaranteed to help you get to know your mailman! Tell Seth that Chewymom sent you.

I try to avoid grocery shopping on Saturday. I don’t have to go on that day, because I don’t work during the week. Today, however, we were out of food, and it was one of those things I had to do.

The other thing I try to avoid is taking kids with me to the store. Honestly, when I’m alone I save a ton of money. I compare prices, sometimes use coupons, and unless I’m hungry and pass something that smells or looks really delicious, I’m not tempted by junk that isn’t on my list.

Today I not only had to shop on a Saturday, but I had to do it with DD4. A recipe for disaster. I prepared DD4 ahead of time that we wouldn’t buy lots of extras. I also bribed her by saying she could pick out one special thing. Usually when I say that I’m thinking a thing of fruit roll-ups or a package of ice cream, but darned if that girl hasn’t figured out that even grocery stores carry Barbies. Ah well.

So DD4 and I made the trip to Kroger, and all went well in the purchasing department. I only came home with an extra box of princess fruit snacks, a box of princess cereal, a dinosaur pool floating toy, and two half-gallons of chocolate milk that weren’t on my list.

While I was walking down the baking aisle, an elderly woman stopped me. “Excuse me. Can you help me find the pickling spices? My vision is poor and I can’t read the spices.” I searched with her for a few minutes, and we found what she was looking for (and I learned about a spice I’ve never heard of!). She thanked me profusely, and I thought how challenging it must be to go to the grocery store when you have macular degeneration (I assume that was her trouble).

A bit later, I was in the produce section. A lady said, “Excuse me, you don’t happen to know how to pick a fresh pineapple, do you?” I can’t eat pineapples–oral mouth allergy–so I wasn’t able to help her.

And then as I was leaving, an older couple sat patiently in their van while I unloaded my groceries from my cart into the car. There were plenty of other parking spaces, but they seemed to be enjoying watching DD4 help me with my job. As we walked our cart to the cart return, the man called out the window, “You sure do have a great helper there!” And he was right.

I left our Kroger feeling energized and encouraged. As much as I sometimes get frustrated living in a small town in the south, there is a lot to love. When you go to the grocery store, do you find people are friendly and want to engage you in conversation? Or is everyone busy, crossing things off of their list, and not paying attention to anybody else?

By me, that is. You may recall that not only did I fire one doctor, but I also sent him a bill. I am sorry to report that he is delinquent in his payment. No surprise there.

DS16 has been seeing a dermatologist in Huntsville, which is the largest city near us, for about a year now. He goes every two months, and it is quite an ordeal. Generally, we leave our house around the time he would normally go to school. We make the drive, park in the garage, and walk into the office where we sign in. Then we wait. And wait. For an hour, minimum, and I am not kidding. After our hour-plus wait, we are finally called back to a room where we wait for a half-hour, minimum. And again, I’m not kidding. Finally we see the doctor, who I will admit is very good, thorough, and seems to not be in a hurry, which is a surprise since at this point she is at least an hour and a half behind schedule.

We then leave the office, drive through somewhere for lunch, head back to our town, and I check DS16 into school after 12:00, which is at least four hours after we left our house, so he can receive two hours of education. And this is repeated multiple times throughout the school year.

Sometimes, I have gone to the front desk and complained. They calmly apologize and tell me that there are only two people ahead of me, ask if I want to reschedule, and have me sit back down. And wait. Well, last week enough was enough. After an hour in the waiting room, I knew where this was going. I asked how much longer, reminded them that it was now eleven and my appointment was at ten and listened as the incompetent (apparently) office manager informed me that only one person was ahead of me and would I like to reschedule. And I blew a gasket and went off. Any other of my kids would have buried their head in a magazine and refused to acknowledge that I was even from the same planet, let alone their mother. But DS16 is a nice kid, and he just watched and waited patiently.

I told the manager that I have never in my life seen such a poorly managed office, that I could understand running behind occasionally, but every. single. time. was getting old. It was disrespectful of me and my time. Furthermore, a new dermatologist has come to town where I live, so this doctor is fired, thanks, in case she missed my point, to her poor management of the office calendar. With that, I said, “Come on, DS16,” and stormed out of the office. I would think that the others in the office probably figured I was a nut, but frankly they probably sympathized with every word that spewed from my flapping gums.

And I just have to ask, what is it with these Huntsville doctors? They seem to completely disrespect us patients and our time. I have lived in bigger cities, folks. Greenville. Atlanta. San Diego. Being in a large city does not give a doctor the right to assume that all of the lower-class citizens from podunksville have no life–and I have never had this kind of experience in any of these other places. And yet, that seems to be the mentality in the oh-so-big Huntsville. I think I’ll take our smaller town doctors who rub shoulders regularly with their patients–whose kids play on the same soccer teams and go to the same schools, who shop at the same stores, and who worship in the same churches–and who therefore respect their patients as regular members of society who deserve respect, over these too-big-for-their-britches types over in Huntsville.

Besides, I’ll save a bundle on gas and lunch.

We got up at 5:30 am to attend the local balloon festival. There were probably 60 hot-air balloons in all, and thousands of people there to watch. Here are a few pics of the morning:

Getting the balloons ready for launch:

As the sun rises and a crowd gathers, cradling coffee mugs, the first balloons get off the ground:

More balloons are up:

They’re all off:

DD4’s favorite balloon (they even gave out little bunny ears to the kids!):

After the last balloon drifted off, we wandered over to the booths and enjoyed a healthy breakfast of…funnel cakes. Hey, it’s just like a waffle, right??

I have just learned from a reliable source (our local news) that it is illegal to let people under the age of 19 play billiards without the supervision of a parent. I know this because the owner of a teen club in a nearby town was arrested, and the billiard tables are being confiscated because of underage-pool-playing. As one irate parent stated, we can send our 18-year-olds to Iraq, but we can’t let them play pool?? Another example of our laws working to protect us from the real dangers lurking in the world today. Pool tables.