Thursday, August 29, 2019

Ms. Cranky McCranky Pants Swears A Lot


Well, today had its ups and its downs, especially if you were Magnolia June. By the way, she's posing in front of her very own Magnolia tree. I believe it was planted over her placenta because that's the way we do things 'round these here parts. In that picture she was very happy. She was wearing her new dance clothes which she picked out herself and which are actually gymnastic clothes but for the class she's going to the kids can wear whatever they want as long as they have the right shoes. So she was happy, as noted, and excited and then it was time to start class and the world turned upside down. Turns out that these days parents can't actually observe the class first-hand, they sit in a lobby of sorts where there are video screens which show the classes via camera. There were only four children in the class- three little girls and one little boy and the teacher was wearing a pair of gym shorts and a Dr. Seuss T-shirt and had bare feet and you could see where her eyebrow piercing jewelry had been taken out and all of this was a bit new for old me who remembers when dance teachers, even for the very young, wore the classic tights and leotards and ballet shoes, etc., etc. I suppose all of that balletness was to give the children a picture of the ethereal being that ballerinas are as a sort of motivation. Or something.
This is not a criticism of the teacher of this class or of this school in general. It was just a bit unnerving for me.
So Maggie was being a bit shy but she went into the studio and she did stand on her spot for the first half of the class wherein they wore tap shoes and did little tappy things and when I say "they" I mean the teacher and one little girl who had taken dance over the summer. Maggie and the other little girl just stood there looking shocked and shy and the little boy stood in the corner looking vaguely amused. Or something. I'm not sure. It's difficult to see over the nanny-cam.
As soon as the tap shoes portion of the class was over and the children came back out to put on their ballet slippers, Maggie lost it. She wailed. She cried. She clung to her mommy. She did not want to hear anything about how nice the teacher was or how after class she could get a cookie at Publix or ANYTHING! Eventually, when class resumed Lily took her back in the class and stood beside her by the door and finally she slipped out of the door which brought on fresh new tears and wails and finally, the teacher opened the door and let her out.
Ooh boy.
Not a great beginning.
But you know- some of us just have a hard time at first with new experiences.
Before we left she did thank the teacher which took quite a bit of bravery on her part.

Since we had about an hour before it was time to pick up Hank for lunch, we decided to go by Costco where, we discovered, everyone in Tallahassee was shopping for hurricane supplies and filling up their cars with gas. I mean, people were lined up to the road waiting for gas.
Okay. First of all- the storm isn't even supposed to hit Florida (if it does hit Florida which it probably will but really, who knows?) until Sunday. Three days away.
Secondly- people were buying flats of water. In plastic bottles. Of course. Now, I'm not sure that people who are on what I call "city water" ever lose their water during hurricanes. The city has that covered. Okay? And why in HELL can't people fucking save containers and fill them up with tap water if they feel the need to have extra water on hand? You ever hear of a bathtub? You can fill that sucker up and use the water to flush your toilet for days. It's ridiculous. And sure enough, it was announced that Costco had run out of water before we finished our shopping.
This whole thing just sickens me. Do people not realize that the water they're paying out the butt for in planet-destroying plastic bottles comes from municipal water supplies for the most part? I talked to a woman later on in the day about this and she said that she generally keeps four cases of bottled water on hand because that's what her family drinks and she had been down to only two cases so she bought five more to have in case the hurricane gets here and she has two little children and they need to stay hydrated in this heat.
WTF?WTF?WTF?
I have no hope for this planet. None at all.
And guess what? We don't deserve to live here. We're too fucking stupid.

Okay. Calm down. I'll step off my soapbox for a second.
Take a breath.

We went to lunch at Maria, Maria's and it was as great as it was the first time and there were lots of customers. Good for them! The food actually reminds me of Mexico. Now don't get me wrong- I love Tex-Mex as much as the next gringo but to eat food that takes me back to the streets of Cozumel is a pure pleasure. It was good to see Hank and Rachel. By this time Maggie had completely gotten over her trauma and calmly and steadily ate her way through a goodly portion of chicken fingers and french fries and no, they're not Mexican, they are Childrican.

They still don't know what this storm is going to do. Right now the National Hurricane Center is giving a forecast that looks like this.


As you can see, the entire state of Florida is in the aptly named "cone of uncertainty." If you want to read a truly scholarly and fully fact-filled opinion about what's going on you can go HERE. 
I feel certain you do not so just go ahead and watch the weather channel and see people go into histrionics about it all. One thing that most of the forecasting models do agree on is that the storm is going to be a Category 4 when it hits land and that, my friends, is a strong fucking storm. Winds of 130 to 156 mph and nobody wants to be in that kind of crazy. Did you ever see a full-grown tree bend in half? I doubt we'll see winds like that here in the Panhandle of Florida and we may get almost nothing at all. Or hell, it could cross the state, hang out in the Gulf and gather strength for awhile, head north and knock the shit out of us. 
You just never know. 

And there's nothing we can do about it except to buy lots of bottled water and make sure our cars have gas in them because nothing says fucking stupid like getting in a car in a hurricane to evacuate at the last minute. 

This has not been a very Zen-like post. I would apologize for that but I've never claimed to be a Zen-like person. I'm a cranky old woman who swears like a dirty sailor who has already seen enough hurricanes to last her the rest of her life. 

Catch you tomorrow!

Love...Ms. Moon


38 comments:

  1. Maggie will figure it out soon and become a prima dancer, I bet. With the solid foundation of all her family's love, she's set to conquer the world as soon as she gets used to the idea.

    I read the whole Wunderground article (well, mostly). Very interesting, scary enough as is, I'd say. Keeping my fingers crossed for you all in FL that it withers away, which is a minority opinion, unfortunately. But weird things do happen, as I repeatedly would tell my statistics students.
    I'm with you on the bottled water thing. I also don't understand it At All. Cranky seems like the only reasonable response to hurricane plus clueless people.

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    1. Maggie either will adjust to class or she won't. Because she's been home with her mother and father most of her life I think it's probably harder for her to be in new situations with new people. Owen still goes through it. But we shall see. And here we are two days later on Dorian and it looks as if the storm might just skip Florida entirely.

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  2. The predictions have become scarier in the last hours since you posted and if this moves it could effect my area. I will be getting some water and non-perishables but I don't go crazy. I am filling mixing bowls and other containers which I don't have many of and no tub.

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    1. I looked at my plastics recycle bucket. I have at least four half gallon or gallon containers in there. All I have to do is wash them out. But living alone, you may not have the luxury of already having such large containers.
      Looks like the storm is going to pass us by!

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  3. Quite the storm, both at dance class and heading towards Florida. I'm sure Maggie will come to enjoy her dance class. Though why they don't allow parents to sit quietly in the room is beyond me. Especially when the children are so young.

    I don't get the bottled water either. I guess there are a lot of people who figure they'll worry about the environment next week...after the storm. :p

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    1. The kids know that their parents are watching. It's just odd, especially for an old person like me.
      We are all guilty (or at least I am!) of not being very environmentally conscious when it's not convenient. But this water thing really freaks me out.

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  4. Yes, "next week" is the attitude I find among folks to whom I mention conservation. Or, worse case, "let the kids worry. Give them something to do."

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    1. I think the kids will be busy trying to figure out how to get any clean water and also, oh yeah, food and clean air.
      Humans suck.

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  5. I am most pettily hoping that the hurricane hits ground on the golf course at Mar a Lago. (hurting no one nearby, of course)

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    1. We would all wish that but unfortunately, I don't think it's going to happen.

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  6. Poor little Magpie, that was not at all what she anticipated- I remember my first class was disappointing as hell my mom bought me a bright turquoise "leotard" made out of pucker searsucker, and our first "move" was to wad up like little turtles...That was not what I had in mind at all. So Yes, I agree with Maggie. Get your money back on that one and let her dance to videos!
    Humans - so stupid- now we are taking our so called brilliance in to space to continue our inability to get along.

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    1. I think that all the little ones believe that in their very first class they will be magically transformed into floaty and beautiful fairies who can dance on the air. It is SO disappointing to realize that this is absolutely not the case. But yes, she can definitely still dance to her heart's content at home.
      Yeah. Space Force. Let's send DT to another planet. In a galaxy far, far away.

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  7. Oh my god -- the water bottle thing. Out here on the left coast, we have doomsday-like earthquake supply stores that sell these giant containers that'll hold 50 gallons of water. We use hose water and drop a little tablet in to purify it and then seal it up for five years. I think. I need to check that.

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    1. We're not that smart here, Elizabeth. Please. We are Florida Men. And Florida Women. If there's a wrong way to do something we will absolutely do it.

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  8. My 5 year old grandson (a fairly gregarious kiddo) gave me a lesson about his feelings on a drive home from daycare a couple of weeks ago. He said, "Nanny, sometimes I just feel very shy and I need some time before I can talk to people. But I will be okay after a while." Maggie, no doubt, may feel the same way. Or perhaps she thought she was going to be able to free dance and the class felt like someone was telling her to do the equivalent of painting inside the lines. :)

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    1. What a brilliant little boy! I love that!
      And I do believe you're right about Maggie thinking that dance class would be about...dance.

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  9. We hear too many scare stories here to be sure about water. Our university (built in a historically African-American area) put in its own water treatment center because the tap water was too gross for the students to drink. Other neighborhoods supposedly have lead and contaminants; certainly the water is sometimes gray, sometimes yellow, and always furry-tasting in the poorer neighborhoods. I'm not saying don't trust city water... but yeah, unless you're in a well-heeled neighborhood, don't trust city water. And this isn't Flint, it's the south.

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    1. I don't mean the students were more worthy, I mean it was just straight up institutional racism. Locals get gray nasty stuff, but little suburban kids need clear water. BOO.

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    2. I understood what you meant. And that would be incredibly concerning to me as well. But that's not how it is here in this area. We have wonderful tap water.

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  10. Don't fuck with mother nature. Hope the storm dissipates over the ocean.

    And plastic water bottles. Well hell. I don't get it either. I was talking to a young nurse at work the other day and I said that every piece of plastic that I have used in my lifetime still exists in some form. Every plastic bottle, every shampoo bottle, every plastic bag, every toothbrush even. It's a sobering thought.

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    1. It really is a sobering thought. It's horrifying, isn't it? Just to think of the mountain of plastic that I myself have so casually created in my lifetime.

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  11. I think you're in a pretty good place, in the panhandle on the other side of the state. But you never know.

    Poor Maggie! Life can be hard sometimes. Hopefully she'll acclimate to dance class and then learn to love it.

    People can be very paranoid about city water. I've never understood it -- I drink straight from the tap all the time. I mean, think about what our ancestors drank. We have it so much better!

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    1. (Actually, as someone pointed out above, there IS the case of Flint. So sometimes people have a right to be worried. But for most of America and Europe I think municipal water safety isn't a concern.)

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    2. Yep. Looks like the storm is going to miss us. And oh, I hope Maggie learns to love her dance class.
      And I'm sure that there are places where the tap water is not safe for drinking but you're right- in most places it is. And people have no idea what's in that bottled water either.

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  12. My husband says the weather people get orgasmic when a hurricane approaches, they can finally take center stage. I used to sometimes unconsciously buy bottled water myself but my niece who is now living here is very planet conscious and has made me a bit more conscious, too. I love your rant. And poor Maggie. Why wouldn't they just let parents stay in the room for the first class, especially with just four kids. My daughter was also traumatized when I tried to enroll her in ballet and had to wait outside. The teacher was a thin, stringily muscled man with an eyepatch. She begged me not to go back and I was a wimp. I let her quit. In high school, when she joined the school's dance concert, a major annual event with long hours of rehearsals and students choreographing their own pieces, she asked me why I had let her quit, said I should have forced her to stay. I just looked at her and laughed.

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    1. That made me laugh! Lily started so many different classes and then convinced me to let her quit. And quite frankly, I would have caved with Maggie. I never could stand to hear my babies cry. I'm a wimp too!

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  13. To her credit, she laughed along with me.

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  14. I hope that hurricane hits mar-A-Lago dead on but then Trump will just devote FEMA to it and to hell with everyone else. poor Maggie. if she thinks the first day was traumatic just wait til the first recital! re the water...right? I read earlier that human destruction of the environment started like 3,000 years ago.

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    1. Well, it's not going to hit MarALago unless things change dramatically.
      Humans have been working hard to destroy our home for a long time, haven't we? But boy. We sure are giving it our best efforts now.

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  15. I just want you all to be safe and dry and your trees and roofs to stay in place.
    Poor Maggie. My daughter hated all attempts of ballet or any other type of dance. We tried A LOT. It was not on. She climbed trees instead.

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    1. Thank you, Sabine!
      Maggie BEGGED her mother to let her go to dance class. Begged and begged. She had been looking forward to this for months!
      Sigh...
      Tree climbing is always good. I did a lot of it myself as a child.

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    2. Me too, to tree-climbing ~ my mother was a girly-girl, but not me, I was happiest climbing trees, well into high-school years...some of my happiest memories are of those times.

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  16. Oh dear! Such optimism in the picture of Magnolia at the top and then the dance class causes her grief. I have the feeling that the dance teacher could have approached things differently. She could have had some fun "getting to know you games" before putting on some music and asking the kids to jump like rabbits or slither like snakes. It should have all been about fun with no tears of distress.

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    1. The teacher did do a little sit-in-a-circle-and-introduce-yourselves activity but not until after the tap part. It was just all far too much for our little woman.

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  17. I just Hope everyone in Florida and the various Islands that will get hit by the Hurricane can remain safe and not sustain too much destruction. Here in parts of our State the water coming out of the tap isn't very drinkable unless you filtrate it... I've lived in Countries where it wasn't drinkable at all... depends on the Wells and what type of ground and contaminates are around the ground water I suppose. Thus, we buy all our Water to drink or we wouldn't be drinking Water at all I suppose. And when it's 118 almost all Summer, hydration is important. Be safe, we have Friends in Florida and I always worry when Natural Disasters strike anywhere... since you just never know what it will bring.

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    1. What is it that's in your water? Is it dangerous or just nasty tasting? I know that when I was a little girl we all drank what we called sulfur water and it did taste horrible but it didn't seem to be a health concern. Of course bottled water hadn't been invented then. Everyone did have a tank where it was "aerated" although frankly, I don't think that did much.

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    2. Depends on where you live within the City and what Well it came from. Some areas warn not to let young children or lactating/pregnant mothers drink the City water but they aren't specific why. But, yes, in many areas it does taste bad and has a lot of cloudiness so I wouldn't drink it. We have a filtration system on our fridge for water we want to cook with and buy bottled water to drink at this new Home. In our Historic Home the Well serving that area was deep and very good water so we had no problems and just drank it from the tap.

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.