kellementology

life according to me

Tag: Teenagers

  • Don’t try to follow this train of thought…

    Okay, who’s the person that found my blog with a “motorcycle butt creme” search? Come on, you guys. I don’t write about that sort of thing…yet. But I couldn’t resist checking it out, and Golly Wally, I was the first hit! Of course, three hits down I found what the person was actually looking for — assistance from his online buddies about his Alaskan Buttpad:

    “I have a med on my strom seat as well, but my issue is the nose flying up when I stand up on the pegs. Then I have to spend the next minute or two pulling it out of my crotch, which results in weird looks and just general discomfort and a lot of frustration on my part.” Huh?

    Well, actually it looks like a pretty cool site, and you don’t even have to be a motorcycle owner to join their community. All righty then. My previous googlized reference to butt + creme was the odd connection between the advertising selected to sit alongside this commentary, and this snark session referenced here. But they’re both old news now. What’s really hot today is….you guessed it… American Noodle!

    Evidently, we’re all going to be sucked into the sensation of Fan-jaya-land soon. How about if I say let’s not, and say we did. I’m tired of his hair and charm as much as I’m sick of Haley Scarnatto’s blatant display of boobs (can’t call it cleavage because they just, well — hang there) and legs. UGH. Blink, blink, jiggle.

    What’s really news is that the Democratic Big Dogs are neck and neck in amassing their political war dollars so that we can be doused with rhetoric for the next, well, according to my desktop widget, 600 or so days. You do have one of those Bush countdown widgets, don’t you? I have mine wedged right next to my beloved whoopie cushion widget so that I can release pent up tension at will.

    As stated in Reuters “corrected” article today, Obama’s recent surge in the cash department or,”‘overwhelming response, in only a few short weeks, shows the hunger for a different kind of politics in this country and a belief at the grassroots level that Barack Obama can bring out the best in America to solve our problems,’ said Penny Pritzker, the finance chair for Obama’s campaign.”

    According to other sources, there is a new threat on the horizon to at least keep things interesting for Mrs. Clinton and her camp, who must have called Reuters this morning shortly after the first story aired about campaign funds, forcing the “correction.” Fred Thompson may be close to throwing his hat in the ring. Huh? You know, the guy who’s been in Tom Clancy movies and that TV show, Law and Order. He is a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee. This guy. Evidently there’s some serious potential voter lust growing for him out there in cyberland. It’s hilarious that he’s from the same county whose paper recently dropped Snarkann Coulter’s syndicated column for her continued inability to control her vomitous oral emissions. I wonder whether she thinks Fred is hot, too? Maybe she just likes guys from Tennessee, or guys with Southern accents in general and doesn’t know how to properly express herself. Buy enough batteries for this one, gentlemen.

    But enough of this drivel. Today is a day with no one at home but me. My Spring Break slacking RT and his cousin, who have been at our house on a major war monger toot for the past few days, have been:

    • blowing up minute military encampments that took hours to set up;
    • shooting air soft pellets at cans before 8am in Paradise;
    • engaging in lengthy sessions of Dawn of War online; and
    • sucking down copious amounts of Black Cherry Vanilla Coca-Cola without asking.

    But they have moved on to share themselves with my sister in law for a few days where they will most likely engage in similar behavior. Everyone. The future of America is safe.

    Silence. Ahhhh….

  • Suburban Posers Get Nailed

    Suburban Posers Get Nailed

    The highpoint of carpool duty today was seeing 10–yes, 10 city motorcycle cops looking buff and spiffy in their black boots and uniforms standing on the side of the road during the morning carpool jam. An Urban Commando Unit* car-pooler most likely cracked one of her NUTs and called the city of Paradise’s Finest to rat on non-rule-following car-poolers.

    If someone had actually planned this particular area of road, you might be able to call it an intersection. Imagine a capital X with the center being offset. Then try to picture two traffic lights so close together that only two cars can actually sit between them. Now for entertainment value, add a bike lane. That would be the real reason the cops were out today and holding a ticket pad instead of a donut. They were giving out citations for Flagrant Display of Egocentric Behavior.

    The morning dance of the carpools is the result of a middle and high school sitting within spitting distance of one another, and a huge number of parents who drive their kids to school. That’s about 3,000 teenagers. Why aren’t students walking to school like their parents — through the snow without shoes, carrying all their books, and a healthy lunch? Because a large number of them live more than five miles away, and those miles are anything but flat. Why not let them take the bus? In Paradise, if you live in the geographical boundaries set for a particular school, there is no transportation provided by our urban school district. Well, that is unless your child lives outside the boundaries, and attends a school classified by No Child Left Behind as “under-performing.” Then transportation is provided so your child can escape the horrors of his own hood and attend L-T-D Middle or High School instead. There’s another group involved in the mix: the uber smart people who live in a McNeighborhood outside of L-T-D Land, and who somehow have found a way to “get in” by joining one of those school boundary laundering houses that create phony utility bills and other documents that will help authenticate that their Prince or Princesa really does belong in the local schools. It is this last class of car-poolers who, after coming quite the distance and are so close to their final destination that they can smell it, make use of the bike lane to whiz past the rule-following, tolerant, resigned to this morning ritual, car-poolers. And today, these suburban posers got nailed.

    The coppers stopped the bike lane hemorrhage by halting the interlopers and spreading down the line like they were taking remote orders for In-and-Out burgers and shakes. And would you like that with grilled onions? Bah-dah-Bing! Oops! Gotcha!

    The second group that were, like, well, so totally caught today were the entitled folk coming down the hill from one of the more the exclusive neighborhoods in Paradise. They like to block the first intersection by swinging their au-tos around the commoners already in line to cruise through the bike lane because, well, their time is more valuable than mine and the 45 cars behind me.

    I’m thinking Paradise took in some serious cash today.

    *Urban Commando Unit (UCU) — A vehicle that seats more than four passengers, more than one of whom be seen putting make-up on, or finishing homework, and usually transporting the family dogs, which has either a car or truck chassis, sits above a normal car’s height, and sports a number of stickers on its posterior, advertising everything the occupants are advocates of or interested in. Driver is predominantly female (about 90%), blonde with hi-lites (about 85%), and usually on a cell phone, blocking traffic with merge turn signal on, but is more engaged in talking and not merging. Car-poolees are spewed out into the street, so as not to lose premium space in traffic by pulling over to curb. Is extremely adept at being focused on not being focused.

  • My NUTs. And Yours?

    It’s chilly here today, making getting out of bed a bit more challenging in the feeble light coming through the windows above the blinds. But I can hear the RT in his bathroom, and after a quick glance at the clock, know that if I don’t get up, I will miss seeing him off for school. As he passes by our bedroom door, I notice that although he is sporting a different green tee than he did yesterday, he is wearing the same brown cargo shorts, and has yet to don socks.  I know, with very little analysis, that he will recycle the socks he wore yesterday, slung over his shoes where he left them yesterday .

    I make it downstairs on this non-carpool day, and am rewarded by the RT’s Mom smile– a warm and honest gesture that is often accompanied by a hug. Nice. Ten more minutes before he goes out for his ride into this grey and wet day. I know before opening the patio door that Ms. Jones is not going to want to pee on a wet patio, and I’m probably going to have to venture out in front of the neighbors so she can pee on the wet grass instead. Dog logic? She surprises me by pushing through the partially opened door and gingerly stepping across the flagstones and around the corner to take care of her duty.

    I call up to the RT who has gone to get in a few minutes on the Internet even though I’ve graced him with my presence, “You’re going to need your sweatshirt today.” I know that he wears it most days because it’s soft and comfy, and probably makes it easier for him not to pay attention to The Geometry Teacher, but I have to remind him. One of our cats is trying to rush for the door about now, paranoid that I’ll close it on his tail like I did last week, and makes it through only to realize that it’s wet outside. He backs up, sits near my feet and looks at me as if to say, “What the hell is this all about?” and consigns himself to the view from the back of a chair. Today he’ll have to settle for looking through the window at the birds in the jasmine and stalk their movements with flattened ears and that low “cackling” sound he reserves for moving targets on his radar.

    The RT is out the door about now, 50 lb. back pack hoisted over one shoulder, and the notebook I’ve asked him twice to organize in the past two days, tucked under an arm, still sporting the signs of complete disaster from its edges. I tell him to have a good day, hoping it will be better than yesterday. The two of us decided then that a 50% on The Geometry Teacher’s test was better than what we thought it would be, but getting an F on a test never feels great. I’ll have to put “Giving Geometry Another Chance” on my mental NUTs list. NUTs, you say?

    Nagging Unfinished Tasks, according to Michael F. Roizen, M.D., are things that we could fix, but don’t, thereby causing you and I “aging stress,” which is far more harmful than breaking a bone, because we learn to deal with that. He says those kinds of events are “important, but manageable.” Okay, so let me get this straight. In other words, I’ll just adapt to the circumstances of hmmm…. I know — having a humongous cast on my leg that sticks straight out, forcing me to be in a wheel chair; I’ll be able to get in my compact car, drive myself to the grocery store, carry my crying toddler around while trying to get dinner on the stove. Bathe. Go to the bathroom. Of course, there is absolutely no stress involved in any of that. My malleable demeanor will simply adjust. Instead, what will really get to me while the cast is on my leg, is the items on my NUTs list — the items I don’t take care of that are silently driving me crazy, creating unhealthy levels of adrenaline, cortisone, and other hormones in my system, and leaving me susceptible to myocardial ischemia, and at greater risk of a heart attack. What might those more pressing, driving me nuts, NUTs be if my leg actually was in a cast? Shaving my legs? Reaching that dust ball under the wall unit? Painting the chipped polish on the big toe protruding from my cast? The author cannot be serious.

    But back to reality here, and my current state of angst. In an attempt to embrace the concept of Roizen’s NUTs (no pun intended whatsoever) to identify my own NUTs (anatomically impossible) and add “Relearning Geometry” to the list, I can combine my smarts with those of the RT, and thereby assist him in improving his understanding of Geometry. Bear in mind that because the RT is almost 15, and should be learning to employ skills which will last a lifetime, I actually believe he would be better served taking advantage of the student-run tutoring center at school. However, I also believe I can’t take him there and make him do it. He has to want to do it himself. But that’s because I’m a relentless, suck-it-up-and-get-it-done, erstwhile educator.

    My NUTs: 1) Get a job; 2) Complete filing papers; 3) Call the local charity to get rid of things in the garage so my husband can park in it, too; 4) Complete unfinished upholstery job on two bedroom chairs; 5) Complete stain and seal of outside furniture; 6) Paint unfinished patch over downstairs bathroom door; 7) Truly clean refrigerator

    What are your NUTs?

  • Matilda the Hun Lacks the Uber Gene

    Matilda the Hun Lacks the Uber Gene

    Can a teenager’s toilet ever be truly clean? I mean, think about it. And if you had two other bathrooms you could use, would you ever go in the teenager’s bathroom? No way. You sort of cruise by his area on your way from the office to other areas of the house and wonder how many words you could have saved over the years telling him (and his older brothers who are no longer living here — much to their chagrin) how to clean the bathroom, when to clean the bathroom, what to clean the bathroom with, when to flush the toilet, what not to flush down the toilet, and most importantly, when to report you’ve flushed your shorts down the toilet. You purchase nice towels, plush rugs, and let him pick out prints to hang on the wall so that the bathroom is a pleasant place to be. Now that I think of it, he doesn’t spend much time in there at all, so the whole point of making it look pleasant is a lost cause from the start. I’m thinking, now that I have this remarkable opportunity, that he probably just makes it to the toilet before letting loose, and then is moving away from the porcelain before he’s quite done, or is flushing while finishing, or something. And the shower? Record showers. We’re pretty certain he’s wetting his hair instead of washing it. Are you having a wet dog sensorial moment about now? You get the idea.

    I made the mistake this morning of suggesting to the Resident Teen (RT) that, “when you clean your bathroom this weekend, can you please take extra time to do a good job on the toilet, because it’s pretty gross right now.” Yes, that is how I said it, with absolutely no tone of sarcasm or derision what so ever. These conversations occur with me looking up from the first floor, to him after he hears me and finally graces me with his physical presence instead of just his ears. This is done begrudgingly. He’s pretty cautious about his expression most of the time when these exchanges occur, because he knows I’ll nail him for having an evil thought about his mother. I notice it’s easier to gauge his expression this morning because the ex Mr. Mom took him for a hair cut a few days ago and now we can see his face completely. I can tell he’s condoning my instructions at this point so let him interrupt, which is pretty difficult since I rarely take a breath when I talk.

    “Mom. Mom. I DO clean my toilet….” he begins, but of course, I cut him off because I can which isn’t very nice.

    “Well you need to go look at my toilet then, because it needs to be cleaned, too, and at least I can tell it’s white. If you want, I’m happy to come up there and show you how to do it the right way.” One of his eyes has that flat look going on about now and is sort of twitching. Really.

    None of this discussion has taken place with the slightest raising of voices. He usually wins, because he’s a nice kid who is genetically wired to make his parents feel totally crappy if they’ve actually expressed that they’re disappointed in him. It completely sucks. He has no idea he always wins these little battles, and ends up back in his room tinkering with his thousands of tiny warrior figurines, and more than likely creating a new battle scenario where they rally the troops and launch a full attack on the Huns and their fierce leader, Matilda.

    How have I managed to raise three — T-H-R-E-E — incredibly passive resisters? There has to be a person in my family somewhere who has a passive resistance uber gene and my boys are the only recipients. They’re lives just seem so much more peaceful than mine, except that I’m their mother and they’ve had to deal with me. Remarkably, they seem like they like me most of the time.

    It’s time to salvage the day and speak to the RT. But I am NOT cleaning his bathroom. People who stand up to pee just need to clean their own toilets. Besides, it builds character, right?

  • Carpool Flunky

    Carpool Flunky

    My husband used to be Mr. Mom in our family before I dropped off the face of the working planet. Yes, he works too, but somehow over the years as I became more and more involved in my career, he took on more of the domestic responsibilities. No one had to ask — it was by osmosis. He’s like that.

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