Guilt-driven Forced Donating

This post is probably not going to be very flattering.  At least not for me.  YOU might feel better about yourself afterward though!

Today, I went to the grocery store in a town nearby to pick up a few small things.  I left my wallet at home, had $20 in cash in my pocket and there was no other money in my car.  Pulling into the parking lot, I see a gathering of people at the exit.  Something told me to drive past and when I did, I got EXTRA annoyed.

There, jammed around the exit, was a group of about ten or more high school kids.  They were collecting donations for something school related and they were dressed up in their sports jerseys and school colors.  Lots of excitement was going on and there wasn't even a departing shopper there.

I watched a young victim guy exit the store, totally unprepared for what was waiting.  I knew what was coming and I wanted to jump out of my car and yell, "Retreat!  Retreat!  Find an alternative exit, good man!" 

Those kids were all over him like stink on a litter box.  All of that school-pride-in-your-face-fueled-by-teenage-energy was flying around as they were bouncing all over the place.  They were talking way too loud all at once, asking, "Would you like to donate to blah-blah-blah??"

I had stopped in the middle of the parking lot, staring in awe as the poor guy was mauled by the teenage vultures.  It was like a bad accident.... I just couldn't look away.  I watched him digging in his pockets while trying to balance his bags (which no one cared to help him with; they just wanted his money) and heard myself say out loud, "Oh......my......gawd."

There are quite possibly tire tracks in the parking lot from my rapid acceleration from zero to 30.  I would rather leave without my stuff than be forced into forking over cash at that moment.  I was so outta there. 

Right away I started thinking about Justin.  He always gets annoyed when they hit him up for donations at the the register, let alone when he's leaving the store.  I used to get so pissed at him, calling him a greedy Grinch and all sorts of guilt-inducing names.  

Once when the cashier asked him if he wanted to donate to some big charity, his response was an exasperated "REALLY?  C'mon!"  I thought I was going to die of embarrassment, even though he did give them money.  

His explanation was, "How in the hell do you say NO without looking like an asshole?  It totally puts you on the spot.  And everywhere you go they ask you for money toward some cause.  It's like they know you'll do it so you don't feel like a piece of shit."  I totally get that now.

Guilt-driven Forced Donations.  GFD.  It's spreading like wildfire!

Not that I'm trying to make excuses, but I think I'm a pretty generous person when it comes to charity.  Until recently I was donating monthly to four separate organizations.   When my father passed away, I took a set percentage of the money that he left me, bought goods and donated them to an animal shelter.  I don't think twice about saying "yes" to "would you like to donate ___ to ______" when checking out at a store.  I'm right there with the "of course!"

But enough!  There has to be a limit to all of this.

Right?

This new found attitude hasn't been easy to adapt to.  I was raised Catholic and their "thing" 40 years ago was to give a percentage of your income to the church.  My parents didn't follow that rule to such an extreme, but they gave money every week.  (I say "they" but it was really my mom, since my dad was at home while we were at church, busily being part of his own creative religion)

Not so long ago, I had a table full of relatives give me a lecture about how I needed to cut back from four charities to two since we weren't exactly Rockerfellers or Trumps or Carnegies or Gateses or Buffets.  We were, and still are, majorly limited with our funds.  I argued my case pretty hard and we agreed to meet in the middle.  From four to two.

My point in the argument was that we need to help others.  I want Allie to grow up wanting to help others.  It's all part of karma and it comes back to you in some way.  Maybe when you need help, it will come to you because you were there for other people.  Or maybe what you receive will be an enlightened understanding to what is going on around you.  

I want Allie to know that there are people who are very ill and need help; there are families who have lost everything in natural disasters and are living with almost nothing...and yet they are grateful; there are people who went to war for our country and now they need us to help them create a normal life; there are animals discarded like garbage on the side of the road who have the potential to be the most loving and devoted friend a human can know; and  there are children who are neglected and abused and all they think about is fighting to survive.

And I want her to know that she can help, even if it seems like a small gesture.

When you look carefully outside of your own little "world", you become compassionate and empathetic and your spirit grows.  I want her spirit to be just freakin' enormous!  I want it to get in peoples' way and block traffic and shit.

Hopefully all of this  will make her feel good about herself and want to just keep learning and giving.  It can be an endless cycle.  If she sees US giving in some way (monetarily or otherwise), maybe it will become second nature for her to do the same during her lifetime.

With all of that being said, it still pisses me off when I feel like I'm being ambushed and I have no choice but to give money.  The message sounds more like, "Would you like to donate cash or would you prefer to look like a selfish bastard to everyone around you?"  How is that going to make anyone feel good?  

And for Pete's sake, don't come at me with the same hyped-up-on-hormones-but-looking-like-I'm-on-crack-too energy that I couldn't stand, even when I was one of them 25 years ago!

Approach with caution and ye shall receive bank!!  

Okay, maybe not "bank", but probably a smidgen of US currency.  

(Sorry about that "bank" thing.  I was just trying to fit in with the cool kids.  Fail.  Yikes.)  

The Babies = Weight Loss Theory

Where did this past week go?  It's like a big blur to me.  I know stuff happened, but I can't remember much beyond talking to furry beings for a good part of my day.  Oh, wait!  I do recall some nice weather.  Thank you Mother Nature for showing some mercy.

Operation Fattypants is still in effect.  Eight pounds gone.  I'd say "lost" but I'm not planning on looking for them.  This isn't a cat.  8lbs have vacated the premises and no one is in hot pursuit.  No one is going to be putting a photo of those 8lbs on the side of a milk carton with MISSING and REWARD IF FOUND printed near them.  (Do they even do that "missing persons on a milk carton" thing anymore?)

For the first time since I was pregnant, I got on the scale and the second number has changed to a rarely seen digit.  Prior to that, I hadn't seen that number since 1997.  A whole other century ago!  Way way back in the olden days.

Now, some of you might be scratching your heads.  That last paragraph was confusing in regards to the timeline.  I can explain.

26 years ago I weighed ABC.  After that, I "blossomed" up to ADC.  There was this whole Every Diet Known To Man experiment that I had going on for about 23 years where.... um... nothing happened.  Stationary/static fatness.

Then I got pregnant.  

I was determined that I was not going to be a woman who had a baby, gained 80lbs, and then spent the next 10 years blaming pregnancy and birth for being a chubster.  The doctor gave me one speech about weight.  ONE.  He said, "This is not an excuse to eat everything under the sun.  You're eating for one pregnant woman.  NOT two people.  One. pregnant. woman.  I'm not going to mention your weight to you again unless there's a problem.  If I don't say anything, consider yourself within healthy limits."  That was all I needed to hear.

This is where my occupation began working with me physically.  (It took long enough!)  I was walking all day while carrying this little package I couldn't put down.  To boot, this additional human being was sucking up 500 of my calories by just existing.

I gained twenty-one pounds.  For the first time in my life, my doctor was telling me that I was the poster child for healthy weight.  With a BMI of seven trillion for the past two decades, I sucked up every one of those pats on the back and beamed like a beacon.  I was so damn proud of myself.

Allie was born and a month later I got on that scale and saw a number I hadn't seen since I was twenty-five!  What followed was what any other woman in disbelief would do after weighing herself. 

I got off of the scale, shook it, put it back on the floor and got on it again.  Same number.

I took the scale into another room, stood on it and stared at the number.  Then I stepped off, flipped the scale over, took the batteries out to reset it, and tried weighing myself again.  Hot damn!  Could it be?

It was a joyous moment!  

It didn't last.  

Why?  I have no idea!  If I knew why it didn't last, you would be reading my New York Times Best Seller book on weight loss right now instead of my One-in-a-sea-of-a-kajillion-blogs ramblings.  

I can confirm that eating was involved.  That definitely contributed to the weight gain.  (Imagine that.)  I just don't know what happened between the joyous scale moment and me stuffing my face with reckless abandon.  Whatever occurred was a trigger to make me go from happy to porky ASAP.  That trigger is my enemy.  It does not want me to be healthy.

But my Little Peanut does.

Considering that one of the driving forces behind creating and implementing Operation Fattypants has been Allie, as well as the fact that she also helped me achieve this weight three years ago, I have come to the conclusion that babies contribute to weight loss.  Yup.... babies equal weight loss.

Can you imagine trying to prove that crazy theory?  REAL scientific conclusions get destroyed all of the time, and those ones actually have diagnostic information and endless experiments to back them up.  I'm just taking a shot in the dark with this one.  It's my own personal theory.  I'm nuts, so it's only fitting that my theory is as bonkers as I am.

Before I wrap this up, I wanted to share two photos.  After wondering what in the hell I actually did last week, I picked up my phone and tried to find some evidence.  Here's what I came up with....

Apparently my love of shoes has been passed down to the next generation.  I wasn't paying attention to what was going on behind me while getting ready one morning.  Suddenly, I hear "Mummm! Rook!" (that's what Mom, look! sounds like with that stupid binky in her mouth) I turned around and there was Allie wearing a pair of my strappy cork-wedge sandals.  She took two beautifully graceful steps..... and then face planted into the wall.  But those two steps were clearly indicative of someone with a natural love for cute, yet uncomfortable foot apparel!  I AM PROUD.

Last but not least, I found this (above) hanging on the wall at a customer's house this weekend.  It stopped me in my tracks.  I took a moment to read it and think about it.  As I walked down the stairs, I thought, 'What a great world it would be if things like that were hung in random places all over the place.'  We would walk around corners and find words of wisdom about all sorts of things.  

The question is, would we stop to read them?  Probably not here in New York.  Someone would steal 'em.

Survival and Surveillance

I survived Hell Week.  Survived.

It was a gazillion degrees out there.  I think God was having a little fun with me by matching the temperatures to my nom de la semaine (name of the week).

(That one year of French in high school paid off right there, didn't it?)

And The Big Guy Upstairs didn't let up.  Oh no.  The boiling temps hung around right up until my work schedule let up on Sunday afternoon.   Suddenly, it was positively delightful at 80 degrees with clouds and breezes.

I managed to stick with my little dietary change through it all..... despite the ice cream place at the top of the mountain calling my name every time I drove past..... which happened to be six times each day.  Six times of me yelling "I DON'T WANT ICE CREAM SO PLEASE STOP!" at the top of my lungs to nobody.

Unfortunately, I had a tiny taste of heat stroke due to a drop in blood sugar on two separate occasions (because I like to make sure that I learn my lessons well by repeating them until I'm 100% that I've f*cked up).  The weather people stressed high water consumption, but failed to mention that eating enough food was a skoatch important as well.  Things got yucky.  Dizziness, nausea, headache, etc. 

One afternoon I couldn't remember an entire hour spent outside.  It was as if i had been asleep the whole time.  I was completely freaked out.  I was in the middle of filing a phone claim (because that's what you should do when all of your faculties aren't workin' up to par) when I realized I was speaking English, but wasn't making sense.  I remember the fella saying, "Ohhhh!  Now I get it!" about 10 minutes into the call. ( I gave him a big fat Excellent rating in the survey at the end of our call.  He earned it.)
  

So, despite my little food faux pas, I walked over 75,000 steps, almost 38 miles, and lost 5lbs.  Operation Fattypants is still in effect.  Slow but steady wins the race, right?

Every time I look across the street I'm so grateful for the pool.  Even the kiddie pool that's heated by baby piddle.  A few days last week, we found time to schlep on over to cool our stuff off and let Allie splash around.  I love watching her with her little floaty thing on,  swimming around all willy nilly with no purpose or direction..... just like a baby duck.

The other day we had a genetic A-HA! moment at the pool.  The photo below was taken right after we had that.

On patrol

Let me preface this by saying that my mother should've been a private detective.  She would tell you that it's her ADD, but I think that her observation skills have been honed partially by her love of people watching, her natural curiosity about the unknown, and then maybe a little ADD mixed in with a sprinkle of OCD.

If a stranger drives past our area, conversation ceases, she'll get a kinda squinty, snap into PI mode and start with the questions.  Observational questions.  Many questions.  There's no distracting her.

"Who is that?  Do you know that person?  I've never seen them before.  Which way are they going?  Is that a friend of (insert neighbor name here)? They were going pretty fast, don't you think?"

We tease her about it, but I do find it endearing.  Not to mention that we shouldn't mock her considering this skill could be quite beneficial should there be a crime within 300 feet of my mother's existence.  She will be watching, getting the deets, and writing them down in a little notebook somewhere for the police to refer to.

Back to the story.

We were in the pool and the lifeguard got up and started doing his thing and then BAM!  The P.I. genetics kicked in.   For some reason, she was very suspicious about the life guard and every single one of his actions.  Allie got all squinty-eyed, honed in on the poor guy and, suddenly, she was my mother.

"What he doing?"  (he was putting away discarded pool noodles)

"He's cleaning up."

"Why?"  (what a surprise that question is.  not.)

"Because that's his job."

"Why he doing THAT?" (now he was moving an umbrella)

"To block the sun."

"Why?"  (again.  love that question.  ugh.)

"Because it's hot and he should be in the shade."

She just dead on stared at him.  He sat back in his chair looking everywhere but at her.  He knew she was watching.  You could see that he found it amusing... and creepy at the same time.

"Now what he doing?"  (he was getting the net to skim the baby pool)

"He's getting a net to get bugs out of the pool."

"Why are there bugs in the pool?"  (I feel my chest tightening)

"Because they like the pool water, I guess."

"What is he checking that white thing for?"  (the cover to the filter)

"To see what's in the filter."

"**I** want to see what's in the filter!"  (starts splashing toward the stairs)

Oh.  My.  God.

Following up on suspicious activities

This behavior continued the entire time we were at the pool.  We always thank the life guard on duty when we leave, and as we approached him, we told Allie to say thank you.  She held my hand and walked by, never losing eye contact, mumbling "Thank you" quietly.  I was waiting to see her do the two fingered gesture that says, "I'm watching you. These eyes are watching you."

(Just in case you weren't sure what I was talking about)

If anyone is looking for someone to do surveillance or back ground checks on people in about 16 years, please give me a call.  I imagine my daughter will be highly skilled in this area by then.  Until then, if you live in my neighborhood, between my mom and Allie, you should sleep well at night.  Things are under control.  You're safe.  (wink)

Cactus Day Helpers Cool Off the Northeast

This is our very disturbing local forecast for a part of this week:

The rest of the week pretty much looks the same. Mudder
 flucker.

Why do I find this disturbing?

Please look at the little icon between Wed Day and 93 degrees.  Do you see
it?  It's not so big so you may have to get close to the screen to really see the problem.

The picture is a blazing hot sun with a cactus.   I live in the Northeast.

Cacti are NOT indigenous to our area!  That is NOT a good sign.

If it's going to be so hot that we are going to have cacti sprouting up all over the place, I'm so totally screwed! 

I suppose the cactus is appropriate considering it's my own personal Hell Week.  Maybe cacti will be flying up out of the ground.  Perhaps it's a side effect of hell freezing over; all of that cold air is pushing Hell's cacti up?  I've been watching the forecast since last week, fretting as each Regular Summer Day gets upgraded to Sunny Cactus Day.

Today, at the peak of the hot weather, I got locked out of a house.  The dog is panting, I have sweat rolling from the top of my head down, the dog just wants to lay down, I feel lightheaded, and as I reach for the doorknob, it's not budging.

A thought hit me like a sickening ton of bricks.  'My car key is inside with the key to the house and my phone is in my car.' Ugh.

I try the door again.  It's still not budging.  Damn persistent locked door!

Oh. My. God.  Really?  Now?!  It's skatey-eight kajillion degrees, for cripes sake!!

(Im working on curbing my foul language by substituting it with other less effective words since Allie has started repeating everything we say.)

A neighbor was home, thank God, so I borrowed their phone to call Justin.  I explained my drama and Mr. Don't Worry Everything Will Be Fine says, "Give me a few minutes.  I'll be there."

I sat under a tree with the dog and just stared at the ground, feeling driplets of sweat rolling down my everywhere!  As gross as I felt, at least I'm not walking around with a full length fur coat on like the poor girl laying at my feet was.

I hear the car pull up and two doors shut.  I hear Justin say, "C'mon, Al.  Do you have your tool box?"

"Yes, Daddy.  I can help Mommy too!"

And from around the corner comes Mr. Hear I Come To Save The Day and his trusty assistant with her tools.  It was so precious that it took by breath away.

She's my own kid, who I see perform cute acts on a regular basis, and I still couldn't get over it.  I had to take pictures with Justin's phone.  As I took this one, she said very seriously, "It's not funny."  She was NOT fooling around!

She got her toolbox from her Grandma (Justin's mom) and it's one of her favorite things.  I guess since it's in the blood (tool man's daughter) I should not be surprised.  Her little hammer, saw, screwdriver, wrench, nuts and bolts are in there.  The ultimate tool as in her other hand.

A spaghetti measurer.

That was the one that had me giggling.  I don't know what she thinks it is, but she thinks it's entirely necessary to get me back in the house.  And she doesn't think it's a laughing matter.

In the midst of my day, in what could easily be Hell's Bathroom, this sweet little ray of sunshine appeared.  Getting locked out of the house, sweating like a pig, feeling helpless.....none of it mattered and it was all washed away, leaving me smiling from ear to ear. The drama ain't got nothing on Daddy's Little Helper.  

May your Hellacious Cactus Days be filled with Refreshing Handyman Assistants too!

Non-Serious Sirius

Day three of Operation Fattypants is complete.  I walked 13,461 steps (just under 6 miles) and did 26 flights of stairs from when I woke up to just before plopping my ass in bed.  I burned 2302 calories being me today.  And you know what?

I'm really tired....and I'm freakin' hungry!

OMG, I want to eat waffles and eggs benedict and a heaping bowl of pasta and chocolate and cake.  Lots of cake.  I want to bake a whole cake, put it on a plate, frost it, grab a fork and eat it straight from the cake!  No slicing crap.

But I'm not going to.  Not today.  Hopefully not tomorrow either, but definitely not today.  

Today started what I refer to as Hell Week.  July is usually a very busy month, but every July there is at least one week packed with appointments from when I wake up clear thru until my Serta Perfect Sleeper calls me back home. This occurs due to two reasons: #1 - I hate to say no to people AND #2 - I say "yes" before I check to see if I blocked time to eat and stare at my family.  Every year I call myself a moron and swear it wont happen again, and clearly, every following year I do it again.

What saves my sanity is the Sirius radio in my car that Justin gave me.  Originally, I wanted it so I could listen to Howard Stern every day, but eventually I strayed to other channels and discovered..... the comedy channels.  Yayyyyy!

On more than one occasion, I've had to pull over on the side of the road because I couldn't see from laughing so hard.  This is usually followed by calling my mother or Justin to tell them what I just heard (they are the only ones who will laugh with me when I try to repeat the stories) and then I'm laughing  all over again.  

Recently, Sirius added the Comedy Central channel to the lot and I flip back and forth between that, Blue Collar Radio and Raw Dog Comedy.  Tonight there was an interview with Kathleen Madigan, my favorite, on Raw Dog and it was so awesome that I had to pause it and leave my car running while doing my work so I wouldn't miss any of it.  For an hour I was hanging out with her and Tom Papa instead of wishing I was putting Allie to bed, all jammed up in that toddler bed with her and the seven thousand stuffed animals she piles around herself.  Oh, how I wished I was there instead.

A hilarious take on why Kathleen thinks our economy is in the crapper

Her thoughts on Vegetarians 

 This is audio only, but if you were Catholic at any point in your life (or made fun of Catholics) you should enjoy this.... I wish I had a Bob to do my talking.

When the interview with Tom Papa was over, I realized that today my thoughts up until that point had consisted mainly of two things.... and one of these two things left me a little concerned about my sanity.

First thing - I just wanted to spend whatever free time I had with Allie, so when I had a small break I dashed home.  She's been very "entertaining/TWO" lately so you really never know what you're going to get. 

Yesterday, when I asked her to pick one of two outfits to wear for the day, she said, "Come with me.  Lets ask Daddy which one he thinks is cuter."  Excuse me?  Suddenly her father is her fashion coordinator?  The man who I fought with for years about wearing navy blue t-shirts with black shorts?  The guy who still holds up clothes and says, "Are these acceptable? Do they go together?" before we get dressed to leave the house for an event?

The evening prior to that, we were getting ready for bed and she said, "Please turn that thing off," as she pointed at the fax machine that's still in her room.  "Why?" I asked.  "I don't like it.  I didn't like it when I was an angel and I don't like it now."

Angel?  Talk about giving me goose bumps.  Immediately I thought of the Nun who looked at Allie when she was a day old and said, "She's a very old soul."  When a Nun says it, there's a bit of credibility attached.  Enough credibility that family members started saying she was their favorite deceased relatives reincarnated.  

When I told my mother what Allie had said, she gasped and gave me the wide eyed look that says "ooooooo....spooky!"  And then she gave me the squinty eyed, judgey, tell-me-the-truth look and said, "Is your father still in that damn room???!!!!"

(She's referring to my father's ashes.  This is a bone of contention with my mother that I will reserve for a later time.  It'll probably come up when I mention Justin driving around for over a week with dead people that he found in a dumpster in boxes.)

Speaking of dead people....

Second thing - One of the most hilarious comedy routines I ever heard was played on Raw Dog Comedy Channel about 2 years ago.  It was an older, african-american comedian with a deep voice and for the life of me I can't remember his name.  I'm continuously checking the channel in hopes that he will pop up so I can check him out on YouTube.

Anyway, he was talking about how our government wastes money on crap like research that determines how many holes cheese has to have to qualify as Swiss.  And he brought up Jeffrey Dahmer.  I'll try to repeat it as close to verbatim as I can remember.

"The government spent a fortune on determining if Jeffrey Dahmer was insane.  Why?  Because he was pleading Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity.  Multiple psychologists were brought in and many months were spent analyzing this guy!   

I think I could save them a whole lot of time and money.  Why don't we have a law that says:  If you eat two or more people....you're insane.  And guilty too!  Because after you ate the first one, you KNEW you were wrong!"

The "if you eat two or more people" thing slayed me.  If you only eat one person, I guess you are a-OK in the mental department.  lol.

And what he said made so much sense, but I spent a good portion of my day trying to wrap my mind around this: Jeffrey Dahmer was trying to prove that he was insane to prove that he was NOT GUILTY.  So, if he's insane, he's not guilty?  Well, I think we all pretty much know that the guy was a few fries short of a Happy Meal.  Does that mean that our government would give someone who eats people a pass because he was nuts???

Better yet, (and don't worry, I'm almost done with this) our laws indirectly conclude that sane people can also be cannibals!  Why?  Because they did NOT find him insane.  The following is from wiki.answers.com:

As far as 'clinically insane', this was and still is a constant debate among professionals. While he was quite clearly mentally ill, there are several differences between mentally ill, clinically insane and legally insane. The purpose of his trial was to determine weather or not he fit the legal definition of insanity. He may VERY WELL have been clinically insane. However, one can be clinically insane and still not be able to prove LEGAL insanity or, even if they are able to prove legal insanity, the jury could STILL find them to be legally sane. Which was the case with Jeffrey Dahmer. All the psychiatrists that evaluated him agreed that he had serious mental illness but, they held different opinions as to weather or not he was legally insane.   

So, these people can't decide if eating people and then making furniture out of their parts constitutes insanity??  If he was not legally insane and ate humans and it was proven wrong, it's normal to eat humans?  He was crazy!  He was guilty!  Me and my 15-credits-short-of-a-degree-in-psychology can assess and confirm this.  No doubt about it, peeps.

I had to come to a conclusion on this debate in my head, and I decided after reading the above paragraph...... that no one knows what the fluck they are talking about.

And our government is so complicated that they can't even figure their own shit out.  It's like trying to nail Jello to a wall.  Keep hammering and if you're lucky, something will stick!

Welcome, all, to July's Hell Week.  It's going to be long ride!

Goodnight.