2010
What Would You Save?
You’re going to have to nibble the crust first before you get to the meat of this one. (Read: Two bits of housekeeping and then a real post.)
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Who doesn’t love a good momfail? When it’s not your own, I mean. (Disclaimer: Actually, I sometimes enjoy my own momfails when they’re not too bad; forget “blogging as community,” what did people do before they could turn their most embarrassing mistakes into Content?)
Click over here to share your best momfail stories (yours or someone else’s; when it comes to awarding money, agirlandaboy.com doesn’t discriminate against the childfree or the schadenfreudsters!) and you’ll be entered for a chance to win yet another $100 Visa gift card courtesy of BlogHer and our sponsor.
(For what it’s worth, I always try to tell stories with my reviews, and although they’re not, like, masterpieces or anything, I wanted you to know they’re more than just shilly productspeak. Who else is a fan of making sponsored posts worth your time? Why, it’s our old (young!) friend Alexa! After you read my review post, you should read hers too. Teaser: oxygen tank + baby + open flames!)
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And speaking of Alexa, the winner of a signed copy of her book is…#38, which is longtime reader Abby! Congratulations, friend! And now the rest of you can hie thee hence to buy your own because I don’t know if I mentioned this but it’s a really, really good book.
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The last morning I woke up in Guerneville I checked my email and saw I had a message from my mom titled “Sleepover at [Genius Baby Brother]‘s house (cats too!).” In the body of the message was a link to a news story about the massive wildfire that was burning out of control in the hills directly behind my parents’ new house, and so saying that they had a “sleepover” at my brother’s place was her casual way of telling me they’d been evacuated and were staying at the old house until the authorities let them back in. Needless to say those final few hours at the summit were a little less than entirely relaxing. (Like a nice massage but without a “happy ending,” perhaps? No? Wrong metaphor?)*
When I got back within range of civilization and cell phone coverage, I had a chance to talk to her about what was going on, and of course my first question about the evacuation was inevitably the question anyone would ask about an evacuation: What did you take with you?
“What do you think I took?” she asked.
“Your knitting,” I said, because she’s always making something lovely for someone, and doing it so effortlessly that I bet when she gets into bed her fingers turn to needles and she knits in her sleep, working not in cotton or wool but the night air because my mom is MAGIC.
“Well, yes, of course I took my knitting. The project I’m working on right now, at least. And family pictures, of course. And the cats. And the computer. Everything else can be replaced.”
“Right.” (We all know this is right.)
“Do you know what I did first, though? I had just come from work, so I changed out of my uniform. We didn’t know when we’d be let back into the house, so I had to decide what I wanted to live in for the next few days, and I knew it sure as heck wasn’t going to be my work clothes.” (She’s a nursing supervisor, so she wears white pants and a white jacket and occasionally borrowed scrubs in the aftermath of bodily-fluid-related incidents.) “I changed out of my unform and I put on my flip-flops. Couldn’t live without those.”
We talked on about the fire and how it had come within an after-dinner stroll of their house, how they watched the deer invade their streets with a little more urgency than normal. When the shock wore off and reassurance settled in, though, my mind kept going back to what she had said about not wanting to live in her work clothes, even if only until she could get to a Target and buy something new.
As far as symbols go, this one comes pretty cheap, but it’s no less powerful for that, I think. For the past thirty-plus years my mom has worked in the same career and for the same employer and done the good and necessary work of healing and comforting people (and indeed of saving many, many lives)–and yet she didn’t want to be stuck in that role against her will, and at a time when the truly important things were at stake. For her, changing out of her work clothes was a priority on par with saving the cats and the family photos. For me, that’s a lesson in how we do–or do not–let our careers define us.
When we’re just starting out, we want to define ourselves by our work. I daresay it’s expected of us. Before we’ve even performed the ceremonial ker-chunk of the mortarboard tassel from this side to that, everyone’s asking what we’re going to do with our lives, and they don’t mean what our long-term life goals are or even where we’re headed to celebrate immediately after the graduation ceremony–they mean where are we going to work, in what hallowed break room will we dutifully perform the proverbial ker-chunk of the time clock.
If we’re lucky, we find a job we like, and if we’re crazy-lucky we find a job we love (*raises hand*), but even in the best circumstances–actually particularly in the best circumstances–our jobs begin to matter less and less as other parts of our lives establish themselves and begin to matter more. As we live and grow, we’re able to loosen the death grip our identity once had on our career–or vice versa–and we’re able to let go not just because work got forcefully shoved down the priority ladder by things like, oh, let’s say true love and children, but also because I think that as we get older most of us realize that we don’t want or need to be defined by our work, and we certainly shouldn’t seek that out, especially in a shaky economy and as part of a generation that read all about Willy Loman in high school English and have thus been forewarned.
By now you know what I’m saying, so I don’t really need to go on, but even as a person who loves her job, I wanted to say–because I don’t think it’s said enough–that for all that our first-world Oprah-American culture believes we should find a way to make our greatest passion our paying career, it’s actually a wonderful and healthy thing to be able to treat one’s job like a job and not feel like we have to, as my mom put it, live in our work clothes on a permanent basis. Besides, if everyone were spending forty hours a week working their passions, what would become of our free time? Would we spend it poring over TPS reports? Sometimes the things most precious are the things we do when no one’s watching (and I’m not talking about happy endings here, your pervs).
*Maybe I’ve already written about this before, but it bears repeating: Simon’s bro-in-law swears to god that he was offered a happy ending after his massage at a spa in a mall in suburban Southern California. I refuse to believe this would happen in a spa in a mall in suburban Southern California, even though Simon (who was at the spa the same day and yet was not extended the same offer, much to his dismay) (not that he was dismayed because he would have accepted but because it’s nice to be thought of, you know?) (perhaps the difference was because the bro-in-law is English and the suburban Southern California mall-spa workers are excited by exotic clientele?)–*ahem* even though Simon swears that sort of thing happens all the time (not that it did to him on that day, mind you). I know most of you out there are women, but do you have any light to shed on the topic? Is it perfectly reasonable that a[n English] man would be offered a happy ending to conclude his massage at a spa in a mall in suburban Southern California? Or is that such stuff as crazy lies are made on?**
**One hundred gold stars for catching the reference, and if you did, you might be interested in this.
2010
Ritzalicious
I’m one of those delicate flowers who needs to eat every few hours or else I get all weeble-wobbly from low blood sugar and have to be revived–from the chaise onto which I have gracefully swooned, naturally–with a treatment of smelling salts. But because smelling salts are harder to come by this century, instead of carrying around a vial (or vile–get it? because salts stink? ha ha?), I usually opt to equip myself with a handful of snacks, which is awesome because wherever I am and whatever I’m doing it’s like I’m some sort of enchanted turtle wizard who carries not her entire home on her back but instead just the pantry, stocked with a seemingly endless supply of goodies. My purse is like Mary Poppins’ carpetbag, but instead of pulling out coat racks and floor lamps it’s single-serving tide-me-over munchies.
In a perfect world, I might build my own snacks out of fresh ingredients and package them in reusable containers, but let’s face it, the world I’m living in is far from perfect and most of the time I don’t have the brainspace for anything that sophisticated, and so grab-and-go saves the day. About a year ago I reviewed Ritz Crakerfuls as a good take-everywhere emergency snack, and now they have a new flavor–Cheddar Cheese with Bacon–and my friends, you just can’t argue with bacon.
Click here to read my review of the new Ritz Baconfuls…er, Crackerfuls, to pick up your Ritz coupon, and to enter for your chance to win a $100 Visa gift card. (Go buy yourself something pretty. You deserve it.)
2010
Weddingzilla
I’m getting married…sometime?…soon?…and I need your help. Tell me what you guys think about this wedding theme: Swamp Oasis.
Dreamy, huh? It’s magical yet gritty, down-to-earth (literally) yet full of whimsy, and above all else it’s unique, original, one-of-a-kind…except not so much now that it’s being featured on a reality show this month.
Click over to my review blog to read more and to enter for your chance to win one of five $100 Visa gift cards. (You know you want one.)
