The Mommy Blog™ | Adventures from the Wonderbelly of Motherhood™

Monday, April 19, 2004

I have been immersed in thinking about myths lately. Not that I have been poring over texts at the library, or browsing much on the Internet, or frankly, doing much more than watching Disney�s Hercules over and over with my children and filling in back story where needed.

What I�ve been doing is more along the lines of ruffling through my own thoughts, memories, preconceptions, belief systems, lessons learned, behavioral tenets, and other manifestations of Mindy�s personal Weltanschauung (read: that which, at the core, explains why I�m such a wing nut).

There�s a lot of crap in there, but there�s also a fair amount of interesting stuff that, as I grow older and hopefully wiser, only reinforces for me how interconnected we are by a collective unconscious and shared mythologies, and how these shape our wishes and hopes and dreams, which in turn shape our actions. At least, when I examine my own personally held myths, I see how they have either helped or hindered my own psychological, social, economic, and interpersonal development.

(Note to readers: if you were hoping for a meme or dirty joke, I�m terribly sorry. I woke up in this mood and can�t shake it. Try back tomorrow; this pendulum usually swings on a 24-hour arc.)

This morning I came across this discussion of how myths have been variously defined, and quite liked it:

�� Indeed, they often reveal the archetypes of the collective unconscious (Jung). They are symbolic and metaphorical (Cassirer). They orient people to the metaphysical dimension, explain the origins and nature of the cosmos, validate social issues, and, on the psychological plane, address themselves to the innermost depths of the psyche (Campbell)��

This is sort of what I have been examining�the inner side of personal myth. And then, there is the outer side, which I really don�t have the energy to think about just now, but that last line seemed especially important:

�� Some of them are explanatory, being prescientific attempts to interpret the natural world (Frazer). As such, they are usually functional and are the science of primitive peoples (Malinowski). Often, they are enacted in rituals (Hooke). Religious myths are sacred histories (Eliade), and distinguished from the profane (Durkheim). But, being semiotic expressions (Saussure), they are a “disease of language” (M�ller). They are both individual and social in scope, but they are first and foremost stories (Kirk)��

They are first and foremost stories. So wtf are you getting at, Mindy?

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Humor

There’s an even CHEAPER way to start appreciating what you’ve got at home! Craig’s List rules.

”Thank you CL men for saving me from a night of sluttiness”

:ponders:

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Humor

I just love McSweeney’s. And I am really, really glad that I haven’t received my Pottery Barn catalog lately.

CORRESPONDENCE FROM MY POSTAL PLANT MANAGER
BY JUDSON MERRILL

Dear Postal Customer:

I want to extend my sincere apology as your Plant Manager for the enclosed document that was inadvertently damaged in handling by your Postal Service.

We are aware how important your mail is to you. With that in mind, we are forwarding it to you in an expeditious fashion.

The United States Postal Service handles over 202 billion pieces of mail each year. While each employee makes a concerted effort to process, without damage, each piece of mail, an occasional mishap does happen.

You can help us greatly in our efforts to improve our processing methods if you will continue to properly prepare and address each letter or parcel that you enter into the mail-stream.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.

- - - -

Dear Postal Customer:

It has long been our policy to get your letters and parcels to you in the efficient, timely manner you deserve. It is not officially our policy that our carriers defecate in your Pottery Barn catalogues before they are delivered. I swear that it was an absolute emergency, and sincerely apologize for any catalogues you may have received/will receive that give any impression to the contrary.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.

- - - -

Dear Postal Customer:

It appears that the mail we deliver to you today is not among the many hundreds of millions that we delivered just this morning without incident. Indeed, as you can see from the need for this bag, your mail is not entirely in one piece. We have managed to salvage several bits of the front of an envelope that once contained a letter intended for you.

It is not the policy of the USPS to rip apart mail and throw letters to the wind, making it impossible to deliver more than a few scraps of paper. However, it does happen from time to time. In the future, you can help us improve our delivery systems by not sending your mail in inflammatory envelopes.

Also, the original postmark on this envelope is illegible, but my friend Steve and I think it is from late 2002.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.

- - - -

Dear Postal Customer:

The USPS always sees an increase in mailed parcels during the Valentine’s Day Holiday Season. This year we moved over 17 billion parcels during the first two weeks of February. Most of these were delivered in a timely fashion, as is our policy. A few, however, were set aside until late last night.

The packages were then moved to an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront, at which time an anonymous call was made to local heavy known only as Hansel. Hansel arrived at the warehouse shortly after two in the morning. He wasted no time in working over the parcels first with a baseball bat, then with a crude machete and finally with a small yet powerful acetylene torch. Per his anonymous instructions, he left the packages outside our local plant, soaking in a drum of vinegar.

We have worked quickly since we found the packages this morning to get them to their owners in a timely fashion. You can facilitate delivery of your future packages by asking your senders to avoid busy holiday seasons and Tuesdays, which are never good for us.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.

- - - -

Dear Postal Customer:

I want to extend my sincere apology as your Plant Manager for the enclosed relative that was inadvertently damaged in handling by your Postal Service.

It is not our policy to meticulously stalk, track down, hunt, kidnap, and box up our customers’ loved ones. Still, the occasional mishap does occur. Because we know your family is important to you we are forwarding this cardboard tomb to you in an expeditious fashion.

You can help us greatly in our efforts to improve our processing methods by telling your relatives that we are a reality, we are not going away, and they can expect us to come to their homes, six days a week, in rain or hail or sleet or snow or heat of day or dark of night.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and sincerely regret any inconvenience that you have experienced.

Saturday, April 17, 2004

Me, Me, Me

Hello, everyone, I’d like to take it all back. I am no longer confused as to why people are coming here on searches about bitchy wives. I am the blue-ribbon holder in this year’s county fair.

Today’s workday was not especially difficult; routine tasks, wire transfers, financial stuff, a little legal policy work, some stupid shit to send to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (I managed to do this inbetween IMs with Jilbur—thanks hon! You made it MUCH more bearable!).

The antibiotics were finally starting to do their thing and today is the first day I hadn’t wanted to crawl under my desk in tears and curl up into a little ball. So I was as surprised as anyone when I came home and completely blew a gasket.
When I pulled up, there was some guy in the front yard, rototilling. Wonderful. Can only be progress. I came in through the garage and said hello to the children. They all wanted to know where Daddy was.

Yes, I know you told them you were in the front yard. Yes, I know they actually saw you go out there. Yes, I know that if they had put two brains cells together they could have told me this. And yes, I know you would never leave the children alone. This does not mean that the primitive part of my mom-brain did not register the words, “Mommy! Where’s our Daddy??” when I walked in the door.

I popped out the front foor and let Gil know I was home, and offered to feed the kids so he could stay out and help with the tilling. I put bread and PB& J out for the kids to make sandwiches. They love this, and it takes a while. Ideal, really.

Next order of business: get drinks. Logan needed something potent to take the yucky peanut butter taste out of his mouth from tasting one of the cookies I brought home, so I opened up a special treat, a Diet Cherry Coke, which immediately had to be shared three ways. Only there were no sippy cups. Actually there were plenty of lids, just none of those cuplike receptacles to screw under them. Arrrgghhh. Pet peeve… must ignore… must stuff down…

Anyone want to sing the first chorus for me?

Cherry coke: served in regular cups and immediately spilled all over the rush seats of the barstools, all over Daphne, all over the floor.

Peanut butter: smeared all over Dylan’s forearms (both!), his chest and his face.

Raspberry jam: same, with the addition of his hairline.

Cereal milk: all over kitchen table, where Logan had retreated to get away from peanut butter smell. (Go on, ask me how the Nutter Butters went over.)
When I knelt to clean the floor, the first swipe of the babywipe came up black. Then I noticed my knees were sticking to the floor. Aaarrrggghh.

Kitchen table: loaded with recycling items that made it half way to the recycling bin. The dinner table has become the purgatory of all things plastic, aluminum, and paper. Sure, they may be at the end of their useful life for us, but they often get to spend the rest of the day hanging out with the relevant folk until someone decides to walk them the next 10 feet to the garage.

Every frickin’ day I come home and move the recycling garbage to one side so I can sit down and scarf my dinner.

Can you see what’s coming? Can you say hallelujia?

”... [deep breath]... I have resisted the temptation to say anything for a long while because I know how hard it is to be home with the kids. I know how crazy-making it is. Which is why I know I’m going to sound totally out of line here, but for Christ’s sake, why is the floor always filthy, why are the kids always filthy, why is Daphne’s hair always matted, why is there always garbage on the kitchen table, why do I always have to move the garbage to one side so I can eat, why are we always scrounging dinner up all of a sudden at 7 p.m., why are the kids always eating with dirt-encrusted hands, why are the cups and the lids never within the same 12-foot radius, why is the sink always full of dirty dishes, why, why, why???”

Oh, man, I wanted to take myself out with a BB gun: I can only imagine what Gil was thinking. But honestly. Honestly.

Go on, hate me. But when I was home with the children on maternity leave for six months at a stretch, and even when we both worked and I arrived home first to relieve the babysitter, although the place was more often messy than not, there wasn’t garbage on the table, and there was dinner coming. Now will someone please come over here and shoot me for sounding like a such an asshole 60’s dad?