Don't Make Me

While pursuing a Women's/Health website today, I was asked to categorize myself as one of the following:

• College Student
• Bride-to-be
• New Mother
• 40+

I don't want to be a femme Nazi and I don't really think that women should do everything men can-- just because we can. Sure I want to be able to vote, go to college, have a career, comparable pay, etc. But I don't think women can do everything as well as a man can and I don't think men can do everything as well as a woman. And that is OK by me. What's not OK is being asked to categorize myself into one of these four "life stages" as if its all we can obtain.

As I ran through the list, I quickly determined that I didn't belong at either end of the spectrum since I am a college grad (yea!) and not yet 40 (double yea!). Settling in the middle I focused on Bride-to-be. Hmm doesn't fit. OK, New Mother.. uhhh, let's try the other. Bride-to-be..... still no. New Mother- definitely not. Where do I fit?

This couldn't have come at a more ripe time. I've been recently mentioning to friends that I feel out of sync with them. Some of my friends are getting married; others are trying for babies, talking about babies, or otherwise babycentric; and still others already have babies. I feel more awkward and out of place than when I was the only fifth-grader with a d-cup under wire "training" bra.

What bothers me the most is that being a young pseudo-professional didn't seem to warrant a category. On a Women's/Health website one would think this would garner all of the attention for one simple reason: We don't have one fing excuse to not be at the top of our game. No babies, mothers-in-law, or groomzillas to distract us from our personal best.

And then it dawned on me. Perhaps we aren't the ones in need of all the help....

Doggie Day Care

Its Djo-Djo, again. Yes, picking up the slack once again. So, this morning I dropped my little drop of sunshine, Shelby, off at doggie day care, yes, folks, that’s right I pay $22.17 a day and drive 20 minutes out of my way (each way) approximately 3 times a week to make sure my little Shelby gets plenty of exercise and love while I am work. It gets worse, I dress little Shelby up for school... I mean day care, in cute little doggie t-shirts. (In my defense, her entire underside is white and those cute little t-shirts help keep her clean.) It gets better.... there are 2 guys that run the day care. They love asking me all sorts of personal questions as I drop Shelby off and pick her up. If I am dressed up they ask me if I am having a girl’s night or when Shelby missed a few days because I was in Vegas, they asked me who I went with, where I stayed, etc. Most recently, my parents loaned me my old Mercedes Benz (folks, lets be clear this is an old-school eighties mercedes) to use to take Shelby to and from day care. They asked all sorts of questions about the car, what my childhood was like, and concluded, “oh... you were one of THOSE girls.” Naturally, I completely disagreed w/ their assessment. I was nothing like THOSE girls—anyone who knows me, knows that. That’s my point, these guys think they know me, but they don’t. They just watch little Shelby when I am at work and she cant even talk about what I’m really like. Anywho, this morning, I show up post-daylight savings w/ no make-up wearing my husband’s sweat pants only to have them stare at me, give me a look, and say, “Shelby, I hardly recognized your mom today.” I think that extra $.17 I pay goes for the attitude.

Day Light Savings, How I Love Thee

As I marinate through the years, there is one thing that has become more dear to me than anything else, sunshine. I'll take it any way I can get it: directly, through rain clouds, in my house, outside, on vacation, at work (I heart you too, window cube), walking down the street, running, waiting for the bus, shopping on a Sunday. Well, you get the idea.

I first noticed my love for the sun when I was in my early teens. Trying to see how far back my memory would go (and trying to prove to my mother that we have indeed moved quite a bit), I conjured up my favorite memories. In all of these memories, there was one constant-- direct, unforgiving, and blinding sunshine. Later in life, when asked what my perfect day looked like, I began with the weather- and you guessed, sunshine was the star.

This past weekend, we all set our clocks one hour forward. Most are quick to gripe that we lose an hour of sleep but I beg to differ. Instead, I say we GAIN an hour of sun and there are few things more healthy than that. I found myself in my usual winter weekend postion, horizontal on my couch with remote in hand flipping mindlessly through reality television, with one small difference: I could not remove the ear-to-ear grin on my face caused by that big ball of fire in the sky.

Pleased with day light savings and myself, I celebrated by participating in my favorite activity: napping.

Idi Amin

I know, I know, I know- I suck at life (and blogging). I have tried to sacrifice everyone from some boring diatribe about my hectic life or how much I hate winter. Instead, I have been saving up my mojo for something more entertaining. Go easy on me if this doesnt quite live up to expectations, I'm just warming up again...

Idi Amin aka Ugandan military dictator in the 70's aka my econ instructor at Harold Washington

I'll start with a brief explanation why I, a college graduate and gainfully employed person, am taking macro economics at a city college. My freshman year in college (some nine years ago) I took macro for the first time rather conveniently at 8am. As social director of the 4th floor of my dorm and all around booze hound, I spent little time in class or cracking a book for this class. A less than stellar grade resulted and I am now taking this to prove to graduate schools that I do indeed understand the concept of supply and demand. (Because apparently my experience managing a 5mil budget does not suffice) Still waiting to find the irony of this situation...

Idi Amin, as I affectionately refer to my thick-accented econ instructor, does a horrible job of answering direct questions and out of sheer boredom last night, I decided to get the old feller going on an unrelated tangent. (Some things never change) After giving a disastorous explanation of the government's role in regulating the market. I politely (arms crossed and scowl prominently on my angelic face) asked him to explain how exactly a subsisdy for southern tobacco farmers benefited the greater good of all American citizens after the Surgeon General announced that smoking is harmful to your health. Idi returned with the simple mantra, 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' (Lack of clarity case-in-point) I then refolded my arms and pursed my lips and asked, 'Who exactly was in the room when my tax dollars were spent to support tobacco farmers killing people?' The class got all hostile and tried to compare it to alcohol production but I wasn't detracted. I asked if we were to apply this economic model to other markets, should we be funding asbestos production as well? Idi said with a chuckle (suprisingly, uncharacteristic) that he had had enough of this conversation. I closed my argument mumbling, 'Sounds like those tobacco farmers need a new widget.'

The best part is a.) I am unfortunately still a smoker and b.) I knew the answer all along ((in case you really care, the government provided the subsisdy so that there wasnt a dramtic turn in the tobacco market and another country took the lead in production.))

Been busy

Sorry everyone. I admit I've been a total blogging slacker (as has my co-blogger, Luci), but I have an excuse. I've been busy. I know everyone is busy, but I've been really busy. Since November, my new husband and I traveled to Poland and India (and coincidentally in Mumbai during the attacks) I got a puppy (see the sweetheart above), served as Maid of Honor in my sister's wedding and I moved apartments. So, don't hate me but I'm back. And now that I am a new puppy owner, I have an excuse to post all sorts of new puppy owner stories and questions.

I've named her Shelby. We rescued her from a place called Thyme and Sage Ranch in Cazenovia, WI. She is a Cavalier King Charles/Havanese mix. We paid what we thought was an extremely reasonable adoption fee and felt great about our purchase. A few days after we got her, Shelby was sick and would not eat. She went to the vet twice in one day. They ran every test under the sun and turns out, she was perfectly healthy-she just missed her litter mates. We have had her about a month and she is perfectly happy and healthy. In any case, this morning I did a google search for the place we got her and up pops up all of these complaints about the place. The allegations were that someone got a puppy from there and it died one week later. There were also allegations that the puppies had health problems, etc. Which brings me to the point of my post (and I may take this one to Craig's list-havent decided yet). If you adopt a puppy from a rescue, you have to realize that you are not getting a dog from the breeder. The rescue has not had the dog for 8 weeks and probably has very limited information about the animal. You may have a large vet bill as a result.

How to get out of the funk... write a novel

I went home this weekend to IL for my sister's bachelorette party. This morning I was sitting around with my mom... I asked her about a recent situation that was troubling her. For those of you that don't know, both of my parents are immigrants. My mom has worked for a very wealthy family for almost 25 years. She used to take care of their house, kids, watch their dog when they went to Florida for the winter, etc. They are almost in their 90's so now she has been helping out a lot more. She makes their meals, does their groceries, etc.

Recently, my parents brought land in Canada adjoining the land owned by this wealthy family. The wealthy family purchased an easement on my parents property to get to their property, which previously was only accessible by boat. Well, as with many things that involve mixing "family" and money, shit hit the fan. My parents found out that the easement was not to give access to their one home, but that they planned on splitting their lot into several parcels and selling it for a major profit.

My mom was so upset by the whole thing that she spilled her guts to them, asking how they could take advantage of an immigrant that has done nothing but help them for 25 years. It brought back a lot of painful memories.... Here she is....the person named on their living will, the person that they call when they're in the hospital.... only to be taken advantage of bc the wealthy family wants to leave more money to their children when they pass (the children that don't call visit, write, etc. but always manage to cash their 50K Christmas checks.) The details are far too complex, but I turned to my mom and said, You should really write a novel, about this, about how you came to America and the struggles that you faced, etc. She thought it was a great idea. After so many years she finally felt free and all of these stories started to come out. Stories about how this family would brag about donating tens of thousands of dollars to scholarship foundations, knowing all the while that their immigrant caretaker's own children had to take on thousands of dollars worth of student debt. She went on and on....

I think its prime time to whip out that Rhetoric degree that I have not used in so many years. Since it is national "Write a Novel Month" I thought why not? So, I am actually going to give this a shot. I will start doing some research by reading the stories that are already out there. Wish me luck.

Funk

So, I'm in a bit of life funk. Usually, I am too busy to have the time to reflect that I am in a funk, but law school is over and so all bets are off. First, I am not happy with my job. I dont feel I am part of a team. I feel like I am trying to change an entire culture all by myself. On top of that, I should be happy bc just last week I got a big raise without even having to ask for one, but as I've mentioned in my previous blogs: despite my best efforts to the contrary a lot of things come down to comparisons. A new co-worker of mine is younger than me, less experienced than me, and less educated than me and makes $26,000 more than me. For whatever reason, it bugs me to the core. The funny thing is that my salary never really bothered me until I found out what everyone else was making (just one of the perks for working for the government-most salaries are public). I almost wish I didnt know. On top of that, three people told me today, "I don't know how you do it." The answer: I don't know either.

Next, I am not happy with my living situation. I live in a decent apartment that has become less decent in the past few months. There are mysterious stains all over the hallway. I have a creepy neighbor with one roving eye who stalks me and apparently doesnt clean up after his multiple cats bc you can smell them from my apt (even with the door shut). I wake up to shouts of "chug, chug, chug" from my bedroom window every football Saturday. I could go on and on.... Now, I know what you're thinking, don't bitch, switch. I looked into other apartments but they are twice as expensive and many are not as big as my current place. Plus, if I move I want to get a dog and I cant seem to find a nice place that allows them. Moving is always the pits and who wants to deal with the hassle of forwarding mail, setting up internet, etc.

Finally, I am not happy with my spouse situation... mainly I have something called an 'absentee husband.' My husband travels 80% of the year. We mostly see each other on the weekends. I acknowledge that we make a trade-off. Namely, my husband could quit his job and easily get a job here in Madison... but we would take a significant pay-cut not to mention that the long-term career prospects would not be as good.

So, in looking back at my dissatisfaction with my job, home, and husband, I can see why I am in a major funk. So major in fact that I almost adopted a little dog last week. You know you're in a bad place when shopping doesnt even do the trick.