Heading For The Outback
5:05 p.m. - 2004-03-17


Yesterday as I sat in the car, using up the last few precious minutes of my lunch hour, a breeze sprang up. Tendrils of air passed through the blossom-laden trees in the parking lot, and swirls of blossoms whirled through the air all around the car, ending up in drifts on the pavement. It was just like a snow flurry, and beautiful.

When I was in kindergarten, my mother would braid my hair every morning into two long red braids, and comb the bangs over my forehead. This sounds like a time for closeness, but in reality, a woman with, at that time, 5 kids, does not have time for much chit chat. Having someone else comb your hair is often a painful experience, because they can't feel the tangle until after it hurts. For some reason, I was very embarrassed about my braids, thinking them old fashioned when the other girls had perms and ringlets. Sometimes I would sit in the story circle with one fist around each braid, thinking this would hide them. Then one day we had a unit about Indians, who were Indians then and not Native Americans, and we made construction paper headbands with a paper feather sticking up. When we wore them for our Indian dance, the teacher commented that I was the only one who looked authentic. After that I wasn't ashamed of my braids anymore.

Kids really do get the funniest ideas. My daughter, in addition to worrying about getting sucked down the drain, used to think a little white scratch on her skin would cause all her insides to leak out, making her shrink away like a leaking balloon. About this time, Mr. Rogers had a song on his show about how you can't go down the drain, and this made Melissa feel much better. Mr. Rogers was very useful to me, may he rest in peace. And after I finished laughing about the scratch thing, I made a little scratch on my own arm to show her it was OK, so she didn't worry about that any more either.

There is a lady at the office, who shall remain nameless, who complains about everything. Today she came in and couldn't get her computer to boot up, so came to ask me what to do about it! As if I would know! Anyway, I told her that Sue, who knows all things computerish, was out to lunch and would be back soon. So Nameless said, "I supposed I could work on Such and Such, but this infuriates me because I usually come in and get the computer up first thing!" So I just said, "Well, not today." She kept on and on about it so I told her to go ask Paul. She didn't want to, and I came to realize that she expected me to handle it all, go get someone, and make sure it was fixed. So I didn't. I just sat there and worked. I already raised my children, thank you very much, and I expect the adults I work with to be adults and not expect to be waited on. She comes in every day with some complaint about the weather, her health, how sick she was last night, how bad she feels now, how her feet hurt ad infinitum. I just sit there and think to myself, "Shut up. Life is good, the world is beautiful, and Survivor is on tonight!"

Ha! He just called me and wants to take me out for prime rib. Time to get me some mad cow.