Settling In, In Spite of The Nefarious Forces That Thwart Me

Man, I can be so productive when the kids are in school. It’s amazing!

On the other hand, it appears that there is a Force In The Universe that wants to thwart all of my attempts to be productive.

When I need to get in touch with someone, the FITU ensures that that person will not answer their phone, and further, that the person’s voicemail box will be full.

When someone needs to get in touch with me, the FITU hops onto that person’s keyboard so that their email to me goes somewhere else entirely, leaving me to stalk them incessantly because they never got back to me with the answer to my pressing question, even though they think that they got back to me and are therefore, who are we kidding, probably screening my calls at this point.

When they hand out uniforms at M’s soccer team, the FITU channels the grossest possible jersey in her direction so that I will feel compelled to wash the garment four times in a row, each time with a different chemical cocktail designed to make the stains slightly less horrible than they looked after the last wash. Incidentally, what the hell is the deal with clothing 12-, 13-, and 14-year-old girls in white shorts, anyway? I mean, aren’t we all adults around here? Don’t we understand that this is a recipe for disaster? Is this part of the FITU’s efforts to make middle school as unpleasant as possible?

I think that I have The Force on my mind because Cute W and J are already chomping at the bit to see Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. Why yes, merchandise has already been acquired. My enthusiasm is so low for the franchise that I had to be reminded about who they were talking about when a twin reference was made, but I’m pretty sure that’s a good Force, right? Not FITU. This back-to-school FITU is purely malignance.

For example, when I decided to try to tidy up the sloppy mess hanging above our file cabinet (I’ve got a magnetic white board that had all manner of outdated junk hanging from it), the FITU decided to use that little bit of a lean from me to tip the entire filing cabinet over so that it 1) landed on me 2) broken and 3) spilled out the many, many files.

Also, between you and me, I’m pretty sure that the FITU is behind people’s perverse requests for folks to “Reply All” when they send out a mass email. I mean, there’s no logical explanation for crap like that. It’s ridiculous.

But, I’m battling on. Courageously. Okay, perhaps courageously is a strong word.

We bought a new filing cabinet and I finally threw out many, many old files that I hadn’t needed for years. I managed to eliminate, oh, at least five different stains from the jersey. Progress is being made.

School’s going fairly well for the girls. M’s enthusiasm was low at the beginning of the school year, but she’s slowly picking up steam. J has been super-motivated lately: she’s getting her homework done like a champ, which in not always easy with her gymnastics schedule; she spent the day off of Rosh Hashana learning how to knit, which required slightly more patience than I had that day, but I still appreciated her motivation; she’s been practicing the ukulele; and most recently, she’s begun the trumpet. At the moment she is extraordinarily enthusiastic about the trumpet, but check back with me in a couple of weeks. Last year at this time, it was the cello, but we probably weren’t even a month into cello lessons when I scrapped it because there was simply too much sobbing. She insists that the trumpet is an entirely different situation and, well, I can only hope that she’s right.

Umm, what else? We went shopping at Target in Niskayuna the other day, and I felt compelled to take a couple of photos. First, I thought that those of you with little children would be interested to see this:

It’s a Carter’s store! M was not interested at all. She was, like, Mom, why do you have to take out your camera? I need shorts. Black only, because I am not crazy like all those people who plan our uniforms. Let’s go.

And then, inside the store, look what’s apparently totally back in!

Legwarmers!! Oh my gosh, you guys! I used to love legwarmers. Seriously. I was a 90s girl who did ballet and gymnastics, so HELL YEAH. I stockpiled these things. I had that famous Harvey Edwards Legwarmers poster on my wall. When it came to legwarmers, I was all in. And so I stopped next to this display and I wanted four different pairs. And while I actually still own a Capezio bodywarmer thing  from my ballet days that I wear on especially cold winter nights, I understand that I am a 40-something woman and wearing these things is ridiculous enough when you’re a teenager. And so instead I petted them and sighed over them and took a photo.

Fashion is so weird. This reminds me that M and I went through a struggle because she owned what I considered to be perfectly adequate blue jeans, but she declared that they were too awful and hideous and wide-legged. I finally understood that, in her opinion, only the skinniest jeggings were worthy of gracing her legs. Will she ever wear actual blue jeans again, or will she come around in a couple of decades? Clearly she will not be adopting this ankle-thickening legwarmer trend.