We discovered yesterday that our house had, in fact, been struck by lightening the night before, on my son's 18th birthday--how cool is that? Or is it scary? Anyway, I'm really suprised to find out that lightening can do relatively little damage. A couple of minor appliances are damaged, and there may be considerable roof damage and something wrong with a venting pipe, but all in all, it seems as though we dodged a bullet (to mix metaphors). The worst part is that our internet connection is down and since I am the family "guru" when it comes to such things--a sad state of affairs, I should add, because I am woefully unprepared to fill the role--I have been trying, futilely, to figure out where the problem lies--the modem, the router, or the cable itself. Naturally, after spending 30 minutes on the phone with a machine and another 20 with a real human being, our phone network dropped the call, so we may well have to start alllll over again. I've trudged up and down the stairs dozens of times this morning, wrestled with the ball o' wires that my dh has allowed to coalesce under our "main" computer, yelled at my kids several times, eaten random things to stave off hunger, and still the secret of service success eludes me. Since I would otherwise be re-reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (the first book of the series, which I have just started because a friend gave me the last volume and I finished that in a few hours on Friday-during the storm and right under the strike that hit our house I might add--and I always re-read a series straight through once I've finished the last volume--whew, did you follow that? I'm not sure I did--any way, to make a long sentence longer, I guess I cannot really complain about all the time I've wasted today because it would have been wasted anyway. Does time spent doing nothing but what I want to do count as "wasted" just because there are other things I COULD be accomplishing? If so, I waste a LOT of time. I gave up on "shoulds" many years ago, best decision I ever made (well, one of 'em, anyway) and have no real regrets until someone comes by and I have to face the incredible embarrassment of a house that is truly dirty. Not always cluttered (we "clean up" frequently), but always dirty--we never really "clean." I only feel guilty when someone else sees it or I wonder if my kids are embarrassed to bring over friends (not that I can tell, but I gotta wonder). Yet that does not motivate me to "do something about it." I love the time I spend doing what I want, and as long as my kids are doing ok, what else really matters? Is a clean house really all that important??
Those of you who live modestly will appreciate this--and if you fall above that "living modestly" line, consider this an opportunity to see how the other half really lives. I was talking with my AP US History students about the nature of women's traditional work--house work and child rearing--and how it lacks objective standards (what is the standard for a "clean house" or for knowing your work as a mother is "done"--for the moment, the day, the childhood of said child?) So I told my students (all of whom I had already taught for 2-3 years, so I knew them really well and they know me really well) that my standards for cleanliness were pretty low. About six of them all said at the same time, "But do you clean the house before the cleaning service/housekeeper comes?" and of course I burst out laughing and revealed to them that NOT EVERYONE HAS A CLEANING SERVICE OR HOUSEKEEPER!! They took that pretty well, although I would bet money that several of them will reflect on it at some point--no cleaning service or housekeeper? Is Dr. C [me] "poor"? Are teachers "poor"? Then they will move quickly back to the usual focus of their soft and lovely teen-aged lives (themselves, which is absolutely perfectly age-appropriate and one of the things I love best about them, huge, over-grown, license-bearing toddlers that they are :) If I can make them reflect even for a few moments on the realities of life outside their own experience, I have done something worthwhile!
I thought this post would be short, but this really is addictive. I imagine some unknown reader(s) stumbling across this blog, scanning without intending to read, getting pulled in by a phrase or dashes or the all-caps, and wanting to know more about me, re-reading this post and going back to my first, and making a note, or even, wow, a bookmark, to come back to for future posts. I don't yet imagine said reader(s) subscribing to my blog--I just discovered about 3 days ago that one could do that, and subscribed to my first (http://andybrouwer.blogspot.com/). But you, dear reader(s) (see how hopeful I am!), are in fact, highly valued and extremely important to the success and continuance of this blog-maybe. Maybe my ego will keep me at it regardless of the number of comments that never appear. Don't know and right now, I don't care, and don't know if I will ever care. It's very freeing not to care.
Love to you all.
Those of you who live modestly will appreciate this--and if you fall above that "living modestly" line, consider this an opportunity to see how the other half really lives. I was talking with my AP US History students about the nature of women's traditional work--house work and child rearing--and how it lacks objective standards (what is the standard for a "clean house" or for knowing your work as a mother is "done"--for the moment, the day, the childhood of said child?) So I told my students (all of whom I had already taught for 2-3 years, so I knew them really well and they know me really well) that my standards for cleanliness were pretty low. About six of them all said at the same time, "But do you clean the house before the cleaning service/housekeeper comes?" and of course I burst out laughing and revealed to them that NOT EVERYONE HAS A CLEANING SERVICE OR HOUSEKEEPER!! They took that pretty well, although I would bet money that several of them will reflect on it at some point--no cleaning service or housekeeper? Is Dr. C [me] "poor"? Are teachers "poor"? Then they will move quickly back to the usual focus of their soft and lovely teen-aged lives (themselves, which is absolutely perfectly age-appropriate and one of the things I love best about them, huge, over-grown, license-bearing toddlers that they are :) If I can make them reflect even for a few moments on the realities of life outside their own experience, I have done something worthwhile!
I thought this post would be short, but this really is addictive. I imagine some unknown reader(s) stumbling across this blog, scanning without intending to read, getting pulled in by a phrase or dashes or the all-caps, and wanting to know more about me, re-reading this post and going back to my first, and making a note, or even, wow, a bookmark, to come back to for future posts. I don't yet imagine said reader(s) subscribing to my blog--I just discovered about 3 days ago that one could do that, and subscribed to my first (http://andybrouwer.blogspot.com/). But you, dear reader(s) (see how hopeful I am!), are in fact, highly valued and extremely important to the success and continuance of this blog-maybe. Maybe my ego will keep me at it regardless of the number of comments that never appear. Don't know and right now, I don't care, and don't know if I will ever care. It's very freeing not to care.
Love to you all.
No comments:
Post a Comment