Reality is that which remains

I used to work for a company whose president constantly quoted the refrain, “Perception is reality.”

And that would royally piss me off.  It still does, actually.

Because it was his way of saying that it didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do, all that mattered was what people thought of me.  So what if I killed myself trying to meet an impossible deadline.  If the client thought I was stupid, that was all that ultimately mattered.

It really killed any desire I had to go above and beyond the call of duty.  I mean, what did it matter?  I had no reason to knock myself out if the perceptions weren’t going to align with the reality.  And what if it’s in someone’s selfish interests to ignore facts in order to maintain their false perception?  I don’t quite buy it.  Sure, we all have our own viewpoints which will almost always slant in our favor.  But there has to be some common facts on which reasonable people agree.  Something hard and fast, not subject to interpretation.

Nowadays I find myself in the unenviable position of trying to explain this theory to my kid.  Her perception is that some of her teachers hate her.  My perception is that some of her teachers are really lousy teachers, and that she is so disorganized that she pays a huge penalty on that front.  It doesn’t do any good to do homework and forget to turn it in.  Her teacher’s perceptions are that she doesn’t give a good goddamn about the classwork and why should they try to change her point of view.  Sadly, they’re at least partially right.

So how do you explain this theory, when you rail against it personally?  Do I take a jaded attitude, tell her life’s inherently unfair, and she needs to learn to play the games or pay the price?  I don’t want her to learn the hard way, the way I did, that following the rules and having personal integrity simply isn’t enough to make it in the big cruel world.  Hard work isn’t always appreciated or rewarded.  Sometimes it’s even punished.   Being right and speaking your mind won’t always garner you respect.  Fight for justice but don’t expect it.

When my own parents tried to teach me these lessons, I scoffed at them.  I didn’t believe them, I thought they were old and had already surrendered and taken the easier path, not the righteous one.  I guess we all want to protect our kids from harsh realities.

$56 at Hobby Lobby

Here’s what you can buy for $56 at Hobby Lobby.

1.  Four neon pink feather boas.

2.  One small bag of plastic jewels.

3.  Two disposable fountain pens.

4.  Two plastic vines of pink flowers.

5. One roll of poster paper (15′).

6. One large container of neon pink stencil paint.

7. One set of 8″ alphabet stencils

8. One package of six plastic tiaras.

9. Two wooden dowels.

10. One package of three sponge brushes.

The jewels and the fountain pens were part of a different project, but all the rest is for the team banner parade.

It’s going to be awesome.

She has the flu

“She” being me, of course, and the “flu” probably being more of a bad cold.  Not enough to make me stay home with the covers over my head, but enough to make me sound like I’m hacking up a lung every few minutes.

I thought I was going to escape my annual chest cold this year, and segue right into spring allergies instead.  But there’s some nasty bug making the rounds at the office, and I seem to have acquired it.  Maybe it’ll last long enough to get me past the spring blooms.  I can’t suffer from seasonal allergies if I’m already swimming in a pool of viral goo, right?  Please, can this be true?  I don’t mind one or the other, but both would just be too cruel.

Still, feeling like watered-down crap has its benefits.  I’ve been deliberately going to bed early and sleeping in as much as possible, so the time change didn’t make such a big mess with my internal clock.  And I let myself have a little down-time this weekend while my kiddo was with her father.  I caught up on the entire TiVo queue, AND half of NetFlix.  Because I’m biologically incapable of just sitting still, this meant I did some half-hearted work in the form of grooming the hairy dogs and prepping the labels for my next club mailing. Both things I can do slowly, from the comfort of my couch.

The Yellow Knight

My kid had her 12th birthday party at Medieval Times Saturday night.  She spent the entire day with her team, competing, and then I took them to the mall to window-shop and Medieval Times for the party.

What a place.  It’s a big chunk of change but you definitely get a performance to remember.  We were sitting in the red section, and the Red Knight was even so kind as to throw flowers in my daughter’s direction (the girl the left caught one, and the girl to the right caught one…I think he was surely aiming for the girl with bright pink hair).   But for some unknown reason, the girl-herd became fixated on the Yellow Knight.   They cheered.  They booed.  One girl who looks much younger than the rest, but isn’t, jumped up and down like a crazy thing, screaming for the blood of the evil Lord Chancellor.

Afterwards they waited for the cast to autograph their placemats.  You can’t read a single signature, but they decided the Yellow Knight’s name was Alex.

Alex the Yellow Knight, thank you for being a good sport.  You made eight little girls extremely happy, and gave them something to daydream about.

He had the flu

My ex-husband is diabetic, and, he’s an alcoholic.

When I went to retrieve our daughter from his house the other day, he was having a diabetic episode again. I didn’t know he was back to drinking (he had supposedly quit), but, I know now. The beer bottles lying around everywhere sort of gave it away.

The last time he had our daughter overnight, she called me at 3 a.m. in hysterics, because he was having a serious diabetic reaction and he was talking and crying and telling her stupid shit and not letting her sleep. When I went and got her, I called his mother and she said he’d been fine lately, but maybe this was triggered by a bout of the flu he’d just had.

Then he claims to have had the flu last week, too.

Unless the flu virus is transmitted via Becks Dark, I don’t think so.

Diabetes + alcohol = The Big Stupid. He was in the hospital six months ago, and his sister told me he was down to 25% liver functioning and was on a liver transplant list (but his sister is a drama queen, and not above stretching the truth to serve her own purposes). Whether or not his liver is shot, he’s going to die if he keeps drinking. While it’s sad, it’s his choice, and as an adult he gets to make his own choices.

I thought once we divorced I’d be out of his sucky whirlwind of craziness. Now I can’t even sleep at night when our daughter is over there, for fear that I’ll get another middle-of-the-night panicked call and have to get her. I don’t think he’s drinking while she’s there, but if he drinks a couple of days before she goes over, it triggers the diabetic reaction. She only stays over two nights a month…you’d think it wouldn’t be that difficult.

He wants me to sign The Document, a fictional piece of paper he’s supposed to be creating that will let him move his girlfriend into his house, which is contrary to our custody agreement. And I’m considering it, because at least if she’s there, my kid won’t have to deal with his nonsense on her own. Besides, it’ll be interesting to watch that relationship implode as a spectator. What kind of woman starts dating a still-married alcoholic diabetic? Odds are ten-to-one that she’ll get sick of being his babysitter in a damn hurry.

Eastern Bluebird of Happiness

One of my odd goals is to be able to identify birds. It’s a pretty ill-defined goal, and not a very serious one, since I only think of it about ten minutes after I say, “Oh, that’s a pretty bird.” But about this time of the year, my yard is full of them. Maybe they’re migrating and on their way back north. Maybe they’re just hanging out here for the winter. Maybe my yard just has very delicious birdy treats. I don’t know. But, I notice them a lot more these days.

I had to take down the bird feeder because the squirrels were getting downright paunchy. And audacious, too. One evening I went outdoors to refill it, and the little rodents were lined up, waiting for the chow line to open. Plus, they’re messy eaters, and would spill seeds all over the place, which attracted their verminous cousins, who moved into my house. Ick. Cartoon rats are all good and well, but when the real ones move into your house and start eating your electrical system, the charm fades quickly. So my backyard birds have to make do with nature’s abundance, not mine.

But they seem to be thriving. Flocks of red-winged blackbirds cover the ground around the time sun sets. Yeah, rare bird, as rare as pigeons in New York City, but it took me several trips to my bird guides and the great Cornell website before I really believed they were red-winged blackbirds. With my birds, you can’t see the red hardly at all when they’re standing around feeding. As soon as they’re startled and take off, then you see the red, and it’s a glorious sight.

Today I took a friend’s daughter to the park for a walk, and we took the binoculars and spotted an eastern bluebird. He was very kind, and flitted about to different nearby branches to give us a good look at him. He was the bird celebrity of our walk. We saw cardinals and robins and sparrows, of course, but they’re easy. The bluebird? He was pretty special on chilly gray day.

A Gente de Minha Terra

I’m hoping, with that intro title, to get lots of Portuguese spam.  If you’re going to solicit spam, I always say, get the kind you don’t understand.  It’s so much harder to give away all your money to ousted Nigerian officials when you can only pick out a word or two of their heartfelt pleas.

Which doesn’t explain why I’m such a sucker for dogs and cats, since you’d think the utter lack of a verbal language would render it next to impossible for them to bend me to their will.  And yet they do, quite often.  Some of them aren’t even very nice about it.  The poor Nigerians use every flowery courtesy in the English language, and not a one of them has ever pooped on my bed, but it’s still Dogs: 55,017, Nigerians: 0.

Of course, mostly the dogs aim low.  A dog biscuit, maybe some leftovers, an extra blankie on cold nights.  I trust them to never raid my checking account, not because I think they’re above that kind of thing, but because none of them can drive, or buy stuff on eBay.    My oldest did have a fondness for twenty-dollar bills and my ex-husband’s American Express Gold Card.  But all she did was run around with money flapping in her mouth like a little green streamer, and put a hole or two in the credit card.  There was no actual financial damage.

They would work for me if  I’d let them.  Unfortunately, they have few marketable skills, other than the same skills you see listed as requirements for the girls on “Millionaire Matchmaker”.  They’ve got the silky, touchable hair.  They’re slim and leggy.  They are smart, but not smarter than me, they’re excellent listeners, and they would gladly move with me if I had to for my job.  The never ask me for anything outright, but graciously accept all my gifts.

I suppose this makes me their sugar mama.  Cool.