Today was pretty swell, actually. I pulled up my biggest girl panties and called my doctor's office to find out what their new protocol is for getting blood drawn before an exam. In the last few months, my doctor has changed the group he is in and whereas I used to go to one building to get all sorts of labs and scans and x-rays, I am going to have to go to different places. In some ways this will be good in that it could sometimes take hours and hours, waiting to get my blood drawn, but now I'll be making an appointment at a lab for a specific time. I'll worry about the rest later. But just making that phone call was enough to chill my bones.
Mr. Moon was getting ready to leave to go fishing as I was running around here trying to get things done before I left for town to pick up August and Levon, and so we were running into each other as he packed things up and I was doing laundry and things like that. We carried on a conversation, room by room as we encountered each other, both hurrying to get on our separate journeys. Some kissing may have been involved.
I got to the school on time, parked, and walked to the parent pick-up place. You carry tags with you that have the child or children's names on them that you are picking up and you show those to a door monitor who then calls the child. All of the kids are waiting there, sitting in groups on the floor and before I could catch the monitor's attention with my tags, I saw Levon and he saw me and I could tell that he wanted to jump up and run to me but he knows the drill and he waited until he was called.
Both boys gave me very sweet hugs when they came out of the building and both began to tell me stories from school and both wanted to know if I'd brought a treat and if so, what was it, was it NUTELLA, and could we watch videos of a gorilla fighting a lion and so forth and so on. I had gotten them animal crackers which I figured would not make much of a mess before the violin teacher got there but they were vaguely disappointed I think. Sometime I should get them Nutella to dip their animal crackers in. That would make them happy.
When we pulled back into their driveway, I said, "Well, mission accomplished!" and August said, "What do you mean?" and I said, "Well, I got to your school on time, picked you up, drove you safely home and here we are."
"Why wouldn't you have?" asked August.
Oh, the blessed innocent belief in adults that children have.
I really liked the violin teacher. She was adorable. I hear she has a classical background but she certainly was not stuffy at all. She told August she loved his toenail polish and she wanted to know my name, both the one that most people call me and my grandmother name. I asked if I could watch just a little bit of the lesson and she and August both said that was fine and so I did. Just a very few minutes.
When it was over, she said August did great and that she'd given him a sticker but she had more stickers that she liked to okay with the parents or some adult family member before giving them to the kids and I, without thinking, said, "Well, unless they have Trump's name on them, they're probably fine," and then I thought, "Shit, Mary, what is wrong with you?"
But she showed them to me and they were like heavy metal music stickers with all sorts of different goth-y sorts of themes and I said that was okay and then she showed them to August who said, "Heavy metal! I love heavy metal!" and she was happy to find a little fellow metalhead.
So speaking of things I probably should not have said, the other day I saw my Trump and DeSantis signs neighbor and we chatted for a few minutes about how we'd fared the hurricane and of course she had to tell me that it was due to the LORD that they'd survived and I said, without thinking, "Well, you should have asked the Lord not to send the storm in the first place," which was so fucking rude. I mean, really. But Gee Dee. Why is okay for religious people to be shoving that shit down our throats all the time and for us heathens not to point out the obvious fallacies of their thinking? She said something about how it wasn't the Lord that sent the storm but his winds and rain, and come on- it's not like the wind and rain have a mind of their own which can take precedence over god's love for his people and wanting them to be safe and not killed by falling trees or flooding. That argument sort of works if you're talking about humans having free will and causing war or choosing to murder, but a hurricane?
It did serve to end the conversation in a timely fashion.
Speaking of rain, it poured down hard as I was driving home with great forks of lightening flashing in the skies. I took it slow and drove the backroads which I normally do anyway and was fine. It's stopped now and it is mercifully cooler.
Thank you, Chac Mool! (Mayan rain god.)
Damn patriarchy.
Not me, baby. That's for sure.
Another lovely and eminently readable blogpost. You certainly seem to be in good spirits. I love your notion of this being a tiny, beautiful planet hurtling through space but where the hell did God fix the handles for us to hang on to? Please ask your neighbour!
ReplyDeleteShe probably say the Bible and the church. Meaning of course, HER church.
Delete37paddington: I love the image of our tiny beautiful marble of a planet with its swirling winds and rain, and may we be spared to watch our precious children begin to learn the violin. That’s a wonderful portrait of August. If he goes far with this instrument your photo will be gold.
ReplyDeleteWe shall see. In my experience, a very small percentage of kids who take music lessons go on to be musicians but you never know. The violin or some other instrument may enchant him!
DeleteI love both of those things you said out loud.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting too old to be nice all the time.
DeleteWell, mission accomplished! I had to backtrack to read your blog, which posted much later tonight. That is a lovely statue of Chac Mool. So independent, not needing a lot of followers. I almost wrote a host. It's bed time. Good night.
ReplyDeleteYes! I always feel like the mission was accomplished when I deliver my grandchildren back into their parents' care and they are still alive and well. It's so funny. You'd think I'd never done this before.
DeleteI do love that statue of Chac Mool. He was one hell of a bloody boy.
I'm not a fan of having god dragged in everywhere, blamed or praised for no logical reason. I hope the violin lessons go well. He looks so serious and intent.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. And I don't know about where you live but down here it happens ALL THE TIME!
DeleteI hope the lessons go well too.
I love to listen to the Christians who want to tell me that America is being punished for their sins. Florida seems to be taking quite a beating lately, and I do find myself wanting to point that out.
ReplyDeleteI was reading in the car today in a parking lot, and a man came up with a pamphlet and politely asked me if I wanted to read that. I told him no, just as politely. He said that it would tell me whether I was going to heaven or not. I thanked him for his concern, but refused the pamphlet all the same.
Point it out, Debby!
DeleteYou were very kind to gracefully refuse that pamphlet. Sometimes with people like that I feel that they are probably suffering from some sort of mental difficulty and that their belief is a way to feel better about their lives and I try to be kind in those instances.
I went through a stage of being deeply religious in my teens. Speaking in tongues and all that crap. Now I look back and realise it is a very clever form of brain washing and scaremongering. I am happily atheist and would never try to convince anyone else they should think the same way. So why can't people give me the same respect and just bug off with their sermons and blessings and shit.
ReplyDeleteYou spoke in tongues? That's awesome! Not a whole lot of people can say that. Yeah, these "high demand religions" as the host of Mormon stories so kindly says, are really just cults and use the same exact methods to control their members. I would really like to hear your story of how you got involved in a church like that (were you born into it?) and how you got out.
DeleteI have no idea why so many Christian religions feel the need to proselytize but they do. I always wonder what would happen if I started knocking on doors with copies of Keith Richards' memoir and asked people if they know about him. I'd get put in the psych ward. Or jail. So why do these people who preach about their sky daddy get a pass? At least Keith Richards is a real being.
Was it August's wish to learn to play the violin....seems an odd instrument for such a young kid want to play! Great post as always.
ReplyDeleteYes. August wants to take lessons. His other grandma is a fiddler and she's been informally teaching both him and Levon for a few summers now.
DeleteHope August enjoys the violin. Glad you had a fun day with them.
ReplyDeleteHope the doctor visit is painless and over soon! Happy Friday!
It's not 'til the end of September!
Delete"Why wouldn't you have?" That is a fabulous question. Children do have a way of simplifying everything, don't they?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you challenged your neighbor on the hurricane. The degree of mental acrobatics it must take to be any kind of believer is astonishing to me.
Children really do have the best ability to ask, "Why not?"
DeleteCognitive dissonance. I think that believers must get so weary doing that dance. Mormon apologists are like the worst. Actually, probably not.
I , being human animal with tiny brain , know fuck all but am smart enough to know that I know fuck all. At least. August is the man, always, truth sayer.I do so love this post -the god thing always baffles! Thinking of you over here in the heat globe , amazed that anyone can live in hotness, you are a champion. Love LS
ReplyDeleteYep. You gotta be smart enough to know how much you don't know.
DeleteAugust is one logical dude. He's going to drive his teachers (and parents) mad.
It has been hotter in London than it is in Lloyd at times lately. Too weird. Well, maybe Steve's sunflowers will blossom.
I love August learning the violin and hope he becomes a master at it.
ReplyDeleteI have a super religious neighbour and everytime I question her God's methods (starving children (and families) in the thousands? Wars, hurricanes, epidemics, pandemics?) she says "He is testing us." To which I once said "perhaps we'd do better without so much testing" and she didn't speak to me for almost a year.
it was no more rude of you to say what you did to that woman than for her to say what she did. so there. I am not surprised that August is learning the violin.
ReplyDelete