I've always felt like I'm a pretty hip mom, a pretty with-it grandma.
Apparently I've been deluding myself.
Brianna and her boyfriend, David, were visiting recently and we, along with Jim, somehow got on the topic of Facebook, of which I'm a member (see, I'm sorta hip and with it).
Brianna said, "Yeah, I just became a fan of 'When I was your age, we had to blow on our video games.' Did you see that one, Mom?" She and David laughed as if it was the funniest thing on earth.
Jim's face went blank as he's not on Facebook and didn't get any part of the conversation. My face went blank as I tried to figure out what the heck that group could be about. All that came to mind was the old games in which miniature metal football players or hockey players moved across a metal playing field via magnets under the players' feet. I didn't remember those ever having to be blown into position, but then again, I never really played those games.
Brianna quickly realized I saw no humor in the blowing on video games group.
"Don't you get it?" she asked.
Uh, no.
She and David tried to jog my memory -- and Jim's -- with tales of having to blow on the Nintendo cartridges when the game froze up. They laughed and went through the motions of cartridge blowing.
"Everyone did it. Don't you remember?" Brianna asked again, as if maybe it were just a matter of diminished memory.
No, I don't remember. I don't remember because I never did that. And I never saw the girls do it while playing the Nintendo. (Sheesh ... what kind of mother am I to not notice such a weird thing?)
It was a moment of generational differences made oh-so clear. A moment that shattered my Cool Mama/Cool Grandma facade.
A moment that was to bound to come, I guess. Because I'm old. I'm uncool. And I never blew on my video games.
But, ya know what? If there's a Facebook fan group called "When I was your age, our video game was a dash-shaped paddle that volleyed a two-dimensional black ball back and forth across the screen" I am so all over that one.
Because, believe it or not, I am still hip in some circles.
Today's question:
What game do you remember playing most often as a kid?
My answer: I did play PONG as a kid, but more often than not, I was out and about, making up imaginary lives with my BFF, in games that didn't include boards or technology of any sort.
Warning: This post is sure to make you think I'm a crotchety old woman. Maybe I am. You decide.
Over the last few weeks, I've been helping Brianna with the final preparations for (finally) moving into her new place. In addition to cleaning and painting and such, we've done a lot of shopping, for everything from toilet innards to flat-screen TVs.
Which means we've made a lot of trips to retailers of a variety of sorts.
And I gotta tell ya: I just don't understand kids nowadays! Not crying kids in carts who need a nap and shouldn't have been brought to the store in the first place. I'm talking about the kids who serve as cashiers, customer service reps, stockers.
They're all a bunch of idiots! And they have no manners, no professional courtesy about them!
I know, this isn't anything new. Everyone laments customer service nowadays, and I'm certainly one of those regularly complaining about the lack of manners -- and smarts -- on the part of those supposedly servicing the customers. But just this past weekend, Brianna and I experienced such idiocy to the nth degree.
At the hardware store, where we needed an electrical kit for the dishwasher and new innards for one of her toilets, Brianna politely asked the young man working in the electrical supply aisles if he had an electrical kit for a dishwasher. She held up the old cord that no longer worked as an example. He looked at her with a smirk. "Yeah, we have that," he said ... and just stood there. No attempt to locate it on the shelf, no sign he was going to even tell her where it's at.
"Good," Brianna said, thinking that would urge him into action. But he just stood there, looking at her like there was an inside joke she'd not yet caught on to.
"Can you show me?" Brianna asked.
"They're right over here," the guy said with a chuckle then headed down the aisle to retrieve the kit. Brianna and I just gave each other a "What a friggin' dumbass!" look behind his back, then politely thanked him for his assistance.
We also were confronted with -- at another store -- a young (and I mean YOUNG) itsy-bitsy tiny SuperStore cashier who sported a huge, HUGE pregnant belly and appeared ready to pop out the baby at any moment. She wore a tiny T-shirt, low hung pants and a sweater of some sort hanging around her butt and tucked into the waist of her pants. A very unflattering look. But what was even more unflattering was the way she completely ignored the older woman in line before Brianna as she went through the motions of her job. No fake smile, no "How are you today?" No "Thank you for shopping at this madhouse." She did the very same with Brianna.
Maybe she was in pain as she struggled through another shift with a ready to drop baby, in hopes of covering the cost of diapers for her soon-to-arrive little one. I get that. And I get that it really sucks to be a young mama living a life you didn't expect to be living. But c'mon! You've got a job -- something many folks would kill for nowadays -- and part of the requirements of that job should be that you be considerate to -- or at least acknowledge! -- your customers.
As teens, my daughters worked as servers in restaurants -- Brianna and Megan at a microbrewery; Andrea at a local burger place (made famous by "Fast Food Nation"). They worked those jobs throughout high school. And they made mega tips, more money than they make now in their chosen "adult" careers. The reason they made so much as servers? Because they had manners. And they knew how to treat the customer right. And they knew that if they didn't have manners and treat the customers right, they'd likely lose their jobs.
But apparently the rules are different for retailers. Those employees don't work for tips. Or maybe the rules are just different all around nowadays.
I remember watching educational films on manners at school during my formative years. Goofy black-and-white films -- or the really cool Disney "I'm No Fool" shorts hosted by Jiminy Cricket -- that taught kids proper etiquette in a variety of situations. Kids apparently aren't forced to watch such propaganda anymore. And it shows in their conduct out in public.
I think such films should be brought back. I'll start if off with the one below. Sure, it's about office jobs, but the same rules apply for any job. So if you have a teen or young adult child hoping to secure employment, share this video with him. It might help him secure a position. And it surely will help keep some crotchety old woman from bitching and complaining about him in a blog posting!
Today's question from "If... (Questions for the Game of Life)":
If you could choose exactly what you will eat and drink for your last meal before death, what would the menu consist of?
I would like boneless buffalo wings with lots of chunky bleu cheese dressing on the side, homemade macaroni and cheese (with real cheese, not Velveeta), fried okra (also dipped in the dressing!), and hot apple pie ala mode. To drink, I'll take a cherry limeade from Sonic. Nothing healthy there, but what difference will it make at that point?
Preparing for Thanksgiving often feels like piecing together a puzzle: making the location fit with the friends and family, the menu fit with tastes and traditions, the green bean casserole fit in the oven with the turkey.
For me, Thanksgiving not only feels like the piecing together of a puzzle, it includes a puzzle.
Let me give you a little background.
When my girls were teens, it was hell -- as the mother of any teen girl will tell you -- to get them to verbalize why they were so frustrated, angry, stressed and hateful so much of the time. Being a girl myself, I know that the teen years just plain suck and the hormones and boys and friends and enemies do a number on an otherwise normal kid's psyche. But I wanted them to talk to me about it.
So I did things to try to encourage conversation. I continued the practice I'd started with them when they were elementary-school age of sharing a private blank book with each one, for filling with thoughts and concerns -- good and bad -- and placing under each other's pillow for reading and responding. Sometimes it's easier to write about things than to say them out loud. For both sides. (I still have -- and cherish -- those books.)
I also came up with the idea of having a puzzle set up on a card table and in the works, in hopes the girls would piece it together with me and spill tiny portions of their guts while we were engrossed in the task, heads down and not looking one another in the eye. I'd read that side-by-side activities (such as riding in the car) provide opportunities for honest conversation more so than flat out "We need to talk" interrogations. Plus, I remembered puzzle-work being the setting for many honest conversations -- and a saving grace regarding the working out of some intense teen feelings of my own -- while living with a friend's family during the second semester of my junior year of high school.
No earth-shattering revelations ever came from the girls during the times one or another would take a seat by me to find a piece or two in the puzzle. But I enjoyed the camaraderie of working on a common goal together at a time when they really didn't like their mom too much (which, as I now understand, is pretty typical of teen girls but was heartbreaking then).
The last puzzle I'd set up in hopes of clearing the air with one of my daughters was one called Catmania. Andrea loved cats and I thought it would be the perfect way to draw out my baby girl. As was the tradition, we each signed and dated the inside of the lid upon starting the puzzle. But it quickly proved to be too hard. We lost interest and I, in my perfect-mother tone, said "Screw it!" I rolled up the crazy cat puzzle (on one of those nifty green felt puzzle keeper thingees) and I bought a Christmas puzzle to do instead.
From that point on, it became a low-level tradition (truly not one of our "must-haves") to begin a holiday puzzle around Thanksgiving with the goal of completing it by Christmas. It was the only time we had a puzzle table set up, and everyone in the family took turns now and then, as schedules allowed, to fit in a piece here and there.
We did that for several years. Except in 2007, the year we moved into our new house, because we closed on the house the week before Thanksgiving and puzzle work was not even considered. And I didn't set up a puzzle in 2008. I was in the throes of being outsourced from my job and I didn't feel like working on a puzzle when I was having a heck of a time keeping the pieces of my life in place.
But this year, I decided we need to have a puzzle to work on. But I told myself I absolutely could not start a holiday puzzle until completing the Catmania one Andrea and I had left unfinished. So I unrolled the green puzzle keeper thingee and opened the box of remaining pieces. Sheesh! The lid was marked with my signature and Andie's and dated November 2002! How could I have left a puzzle sitting for SEVEN YEARS!?
So I've been working on it for a couple weeks now. Brianna's helped a bit here and there, and we're down to just DAYS before Thanksgiving. I gotta get it done so I can begin my Christmas puzzle! Here's what it looks like this morning:
Luckily Andie will be home for the holiday beginning tomorrow night ... and she'll be helping me put the last few pieces in place -- which is fitting, considering she and I started the darn thing together.
So despite the two million and sixteen things I need to be doing right now, I'm determined to get the Catmania creation done and out of here. I've had the holiday puzzle bought for a couple weeks now, and I'm pretty excited to get it started. Here's a glimpse of this year's puzzle venture:
(Those of you who have been to my house might agree that it bears a weird resemblance to my living room -- minus all the cozy, cloying charm in the picture-perfect puzzle setting, of course).
I can't wait to crack open the box. Wish me luck in getting rid of those #@%! cats!
The sleep-time coughs and morning wheezing are getting worse.
Megan's scheduling a doctor appointment to confirm.
Apparently asthma runs rampant in Preston's family, so it's not too surprising it's reared its head in Bubby.
Jim starts his new job today. Woo-hoo! Hallelujah! Amen!
(On a side note: Apparently about the same time Jim was being told he got the job, my sister's significant other -- a good, hardworking, kind guy -- was being told he was losing his. Will weever all be out of the woods?)
I love King Soopers. I got my 23.76-pound turkey there over the weekend for TEN DOLLARS! That's a savings of $20.65. (And it wasn't even the store brand!) So I bought a second turkey, for the freezer: another $10 for a 19.69-pound turkey. Yay, King Soopers!
I had a scary episode last night -- technical term: "cognitive dysfunction" -- and seriously worry that MS is making Swiss cheese of my brain, despite the $1,800-per-month meds I shoot into my body daily. (Thank God for health insurance!!) It left me crying and Jim and Brianna trying to console me with 101 other possible reasons for my idiocy. I appreciate the effort, but I don't believe them. So I hereby promise to cease blogging if I become a blathering idiot so as to not distress my readers. But I'll leave an explanatory post so you won't wonder where the heck I am.
I wish an explanatory post had been left at Finding Trinity. One of my favorite bloggers is MIA and my e-mails have gone unanswered. I miss her musings ... and worry about her. If anyone knows what's up, please share.
I'm heading to the big city in less than an hour for brunch with my baby girl.
I've always felt like I'm a pretty hip mom, a pretty with-it grandma.
Thursday, March 11, 2010 
