Babybel Cheese as a Classroom Soother

Sometime during these many months of our "current situation", I began to enjoy Babybel cheese or PacMan cheese, if you're me. 😁The cheese seems to be what my late afternoon stomach needs. I guess those cheesemakers were onto something. 

Then, our L began to come over to visit on a regular schedule. We'd visit, L might garden, and we might play games. Then I began to include L in my late afternoon PacMan snack. Instead of immediately smushing up and tossing the cheese debris, like me, L began to create. The first, that I can recall, were a trio of small fish. 

Who knows why, but my brain began to imagine a kindergarten classroom enjoying a quiet snack, after recess--especially with the creative possibilities to explore. A quiet snack, while smushing the soft, warm wax, into the idea in our head. Yeah, like that. 

Are you listening Babybel?

Love, K

Song Currently Playing Inside My Head

 

Preposterous

It's been awhile, but when I was a young person, I can recall hearing adults use the phrase, "you're lying to yourself...". 

"Preposterous!", I'd think, "Absolutely ridiculous! How can it be possible to lie to oneself?"

And now that I'm on the backside of young, that old reaction amuses me. We start lying to ourselves, from the time we open our eyes in the morning, and continue until we go back to sleep. Hopefully, dreams have only illusions, without the lies. Hopefully.

Huh, I wonder what actions we lie about most? 

• What or how much we eat and drink? 
• Whether we owe an apology?
• Or minimizing our responsibility regarding a problem?

I imagine, one could continue to add to that list--refining, defining, getting into the weedy details. What would you add? I'd like to know.

Love, K

Personal Struggles and Household Chores

Early on in my childhood, back in the sixties, I struggled hard against what I saw as a sexist division of chores. 
"Why do I ... ?"
"Why can't I ... ?

"This is stupid!"

Why oh why, would I want to be stuck inside, washing dishes, cooking, vacuuming or dusting? And then, there was a brief moment in my early adolescence, where my Dad allowed me to help/observe, while he worked on the family vehicles and when he helped (I mostly observed tbh) me to make a small foot stool. Which is probably one of the reasons, besides the folks being so done with parenting, I never learned to do laundry. Sorry about those sacrificed shirts, N. 

When I landed my first job at Sizzler, the struggle began again. I did manage to push all the way into my assistant manager training, but then the owners pulled the rug out from under me--saying I could only complete my training by learning to cook and manage the grill ... but not allowing me to use the grill. So I soon skedaddled. I heard, years later, from a younger co-worker, that she decided to pick up where I was left stranded, and was able to become an assistant manager. While I was happy for her, I was disappointed. Guess I was a few years too soon. 

When N and I, joined forces, that old struggle was still niggling at me. The day, I replaced a burnt out blinker bulb, with the incorrect bulb, and the brake lights went goofy on a long trip, was a moment. And when I tried to move a large, rolled rug by myself, and N came home to find me on the floor, unable to get my back muscles to cooperate, was another. I backed way off, until one summer, when our offspring were older, I decided I'd be doing N a favor, by mowing the lawn, every week. I mean ... I had summers off, so I wanted to gift him some free time.

His reaction confused me, until he spelled it out--I wasn't "giving" him free time, I was "taking" something away from him. Something he felt defined him. Once I could turn it around in my head, and see it from a different perspective, it became clear. Maybe my personal struggle was more about finding my place in the world, and then I didn't know when to quit? Or perhaps I was so deep into my own feelings and ideas, that I failed to watch and listen? Or maybe it took me that frigging long to grow up. Yeah ... maybe that.

Love, K

                                                            

Streaming 3.0

The Wire (series)

In the Heights (Musical)

Virgin River (new series season dropped)

Detectorist (series)

Lady in the Van (movie)

The Last We Spoke (movie)

In Bruges (movie)

All is Lost (movie)

The Road to Perdition (movie)

Ted Lasso (series)

Modern Love (series)

CODA (movie)

The Morning Show (series)

Schmigadoon (series)

Greyhound (movie)

Corman (series)

DCI Banks (series)

Dickinson (series)

Come from Away (musical)

Guilt (mini series)

New of the World (movie)

Palmer (movie)

Guilt (mini series)

Bombshell Blondes (movie)

Hacks (series)

On the Rocks (movie)

The Starling (movie)

Only Murders in the Building (series)

Wonder Years 2021 (series)

Great British Baking Show new (series)

Captain Fantastic (movie)

Mr. Roosevelt (movie)

(more to come...)

Morning Made

 All it took was an online comment from a bud, about the habit of licking the rim of their mug, while drinking the daily brew, to usher my Mum into my head this morning. It usually happened when one of us, in Mom's vicinity, would take a swig and an "ahhh" would sigh out of our mouths. 

"You used to do that when I was breast feeding you. Always wondered if you were copying your father's first sip of the day."

And then she'd share about her theories of being able to tell if other people were breastfed as infants, all because of the way they'd place their tongue, when they drank out of a vessel. 

Thanks, D. That made my morning. Love, K