Onward and Upward
In my latest blog post, which you may or may not have read, I was recovering from a thick layer of Covid with the help of my friends and family. I can even say I had a Rona birthday, complete with drop off deserts and a friendly drive by of gifts on the fly. On the upside of things, I only had three panic attacks on return to work and on the downside, I still need to sell this house.
Some people say stress can be a good thing. It can really motivate you, and be the kick in the ass that you need to get things done. I would argue that two weeks of Covid, mixed in with one week of trying to wrestle the Red Dragon that is remote teaching, and two weeks of trying to get your house respectable enough to get on the market is really not a healthy dose of stress. I”m no Doctor Phil, but it feels a little much.
I guess I thought the house would go quickly. Like in my mind, I pictured a family of two walking down the road. The momma is pregnant and the Daddy looks like that guy that holds up the signs in Love Actually. In fact, HE IS holding the signs just like Love Actually and he asks her to marry him right there on my front lawn, by the rock. Collectively, we pick up the discarded pieces of poster board, the remnants of their love and we go inside the house and they find NOT A SINGLE THING wrong with it. It is perfection. We shake hands because this is a fantasy after all and fantasies are not consumed by loan programs, financial statements and sale contingencies. AHHH but I dream.
It’s not all bad. My house is clean. There is that. I am the most terrible house wife. Is that a term? It seems a little dated. Okay I am the most terrible Quicker, Picker Upper. No wait, I think that is a paper towel. But you get the picture. I don’t like to vacuum, I think spraying windex sounds fun for no one and I would rather sit on my porch with a glass of wine, then garden around it. I’m not even sure I’m a full fledged grown up yet, but I’m trying. I have also mastered the art of getting my eighty pound chocolate lab into the back of my car for all these showings, which I think makes me a freakin beast of nature. For one thing, he is long and awkward and I am short and weak and this just makes for a really bad combination. But it’s all for the love of that house I want. I gotta have that kitchen you guys. We belong together. So if you know anybody, anybody lookin, you know for a cute little house that isn’t too big, but isn’t too little. Send them my way. We are Covid free now. I will make them all the muffins.
In other news, I’m sorta fed up with technology for a moment. We need a break from each other. A good reprieve, maybe we need to start seeing other people, at least on the weekends. I thought I liked that little red Ladebug document camera. It turns out she is a real fickle thing, turning on and off when she feels like it, working brilliantly one second and terribly the next. I think I have Screen Castify down, but that might turn on me too. It’s hard to get good help these days.
Earlier today, I was in the shower, taking a break from the mirror mirror on the wall, which is to say Google Meet. My son decided to plunk down on the bathroom rug, with chrome book in hand and ask me question after question. Now I know our district is lucky as all get out , to have so many chrome books. We have chrome books coming out of our ears, we have so many, but I don’t want to see those machines on my off time. Not one iotta. I’m sure Dolly Parton would call them a backwards gift from the Devil if she could see over her chest to tap the keyboard.
So anyways, I am in the shower, just really taking in all the different scents and the nice heated air on this frigid day and my son proceeds to ask me what his homework means.
I tell him I don’t know.
And I mean this. His teacher knows, Jesus himself knows, but I probably won’t be able to help him.
“What is a transparent word?”
In my head, I am thinking what in the actual f? Has he skipped grade levels? Is he auditioning for Jeapordy? Am I raising a freakin genius?
“I don’t know buddy. I don’t know what that is.”
“Mom, you have two degrees in reading and you don’t know what my teacher is asking me to do?”
Okay now stop it right here, am I right people? Who does this little shit really think he is. Two degrees. Yes that’s correct, I have two degrees and there was not a class that taught me what transparent word meant. Transparent word. HMMMM Now I”m getting in my head about it. I’ve got that kid sitting beside me in fifth grade singing girls go to Jupiter to get more Stupider. You guys I’m not more stupider.
Before I am completely befuddled by the god damn chrome book and the see throughness of the words, it comes to me.
“Pay, does it say transition word?”
He chuckles to himself. “Oh yeah, that’s exactly what it says.”
I then unwind my stupid self and divulge all the ways in which I know what a transition word or phrase is and how to use it in reading and writing.
As I turn off the water and get out of the shower, I realize he is not even there anymore. And that my readers, is just how this week and my life in general have been going lately.