Aw, Steve Clark, you shouldn’t have!

On the Portland Trib dropping to one edition per week:

“We fully expect that there will be those who will criticize our strategy. Through the years, we have routinely been scorned by some, including bloggers who are prone to vitriolic negativity.”

Vitriolic negativity? We are playful around here. C’mon, Steve. We’re just clowning around. (Mostly not for Jesus.) And making fun of the local politicos. And tucking our children away in large wooden shoes. Are we pillars of society? Please discuss amongst yourselves. I have no opinion on that one way or the other, but you know. The devil does make work for idle hands.

Just think, if you were a blogger, you could have just called us all “douches” and moved along to your next post.

kisses,

WM

Dear Thursday 13ers and Usual Suspects,

Here is a weather update from Portland, Oregon, where it rains most of the time. People somehow cannot deal, in spite of the fact that it always rains. Well, except for (sometimes) part of July, (usually) most of August and (often) into September. And (once in awhile) we get October. The first two weeks in October, at least. Then back to Your Rain Channel.

New Yorkers: “It rains just as much in New York, inch-wise. It’s just all at once.”
me: “I do not think so.”

The weather! It is baffling!

This, in spite of the fact that Oregon, She is Constant. She is Constantly Raining. Except in the desert, where it is drought, and the people, they are all, “Again with the drought? Why does God hate us? We could use some of your Portland rain.” Etc.

Portlanders, they start to think, starting around now (end of January) maybe the rain will let up? Maybe? So our conversations go like this…

1. You think it’s going to keep raining?

2. Wow, it’s raining really hard!

3. It’s not raining that bad.

4. Did the weathermen say snow? Do you think it will really snow? I mean, a lot?

5. Do you think they’ll close the schools?

6. Do you think we’ll get a snow day?

7. Do you think it will be freezing rain, instead of snow?

8. I hate the freezing rain, don’t you? It’s so scary! How the roads get all icy? It’s hard to drive in.

9. It’d be nice to get some sun.

10. Maybe over spring break?

11. Geez, people here really don’t know how to drive in the weather.

12. I mean, I can handle it. But other people really do not know how to drive in the weather.

13. It didn’t rain that much today.

Honest to pete, I need to stop reading Hockey God’s blog. You know Hockey God, aka Steve? My husband? Yeah, everyone is weighing in on his blog re: should the Wacky Family move or not?

You don’t see them over here packing. You don’t see them kicking pitbulls for me.

My response?

Dear NoPo Parent,

First of all, re: “But we can’t get going when the going gets tough.”

Yes, we can. See ya. And see this.

You’re not married to me (and for that, you should thank God, because really? I’m a handful) but Hockey God is married to me, and this conversation should we stay/or should we go now? has come up about 50 times since we got together 10 years ago. This is nothing new for us, talking about leaving.

Which you don’t know because you and I are not married, see? So you don’t get to weigh in here.

Portland-metro area is and has always been fifth choice for me, or sixth, after San Diego (family, great weather, Mexico close by); Lisbon, Portugal (where my husband and I fell in love); Oh, Canada (on the prairie, or East coast, hockey); Iowa (family, Amish country, boating on the lake); and Manhattan (always, always my first choice, but not my husband’s).

Has a pitbull tried to eat you lately? I’ve had it with that shit. At what point did I say, “I’m done”? Last Thursday, when a pitbull tried to nibble on me. Try saying something to me like, “Sheesh, sorry — that must have been a drag” or “I’m glad you’re OK,” or something, would you? instead of rambling about restaurants and “wrestling with questions” and yadda-yadda-blip.

I love my neighbor (not the Nekkid One, although I do love her, or the Nasty One, who I do not love at all, but another one who lives nearby). But when she showed up on my front porch last year, with a pitbull attached to her leg, I wasn’t that fucking pleased. So when I say, I love most of my neighbors and will miss them… Yes, I will. But I won’t miss the other shit. I won’t miss calling my sister and saying, “Library/community center/neighborhood is in lockdown, I can’t stop by.” My sister lives nearby and there have been numerous times we haven’t been able to navigate the twenty-odd blocks between us because the police? They’re either over in her neighborhood or they’re here in mine. And usually someone has ended up dead, or close to dead.

We are divided and at each other’s throats here, and that is the last thing I wanted. I thought we were past all that. See: Chavez Blvd. We are so not past that.

This is my life. This is my reality, not yours. Mine.

I didn’t care for it much, the evening we couldn’t come home because of the sharpshooters on the corners. I don’t like the SWAT teams circling. I don’t like the way the kids get scared when the cops are searching house-to-house. I don’t like when a Hispanic family’s house gets raided and then INS or the FBI is all, oh, sorry! Wrong family!

I don’t like how I’ve taken to yelling, “Move, bitch!” at male drivers. I don’t like that a homeless man was shot to death right down the street. (Edited to say: And worse, that no one seemed to care.)

I don’t like my nearby neighborhood schools being in fucking lock-down every time there is an “incident.” I don’t like it that Jefferson High School is in perpetual lockdown, just because PPS said so.

I don’t like that the Nekkid Neighbor asked us to walk to the library and later, I was glad that we didn’t go because a man was shot to death on the corner. Five minutes before my neighbor walked by.

I was glad she had called me, because all I could think was, maybe that was her five minutes that made the difference. What if she and her baby had been right there, right then? What if my babies and I had been with them? Would the outcome have changed? Would it have been more than one person dead? How can I know?

She was so shook up, all she could say was, “I saw his feet.” They were sticking out from under the police blanket.

My kids are going to be at home and in public schools here for about ten more minutes and then they’ll be off to college. So please you will not try to run our show. Go get your own blog and go off on there, would you? You have plenty to blog about, it sounds like.

And last of all, I don’t like the nickname “NoPo,” cuz the word po’ is colloquial for “poor.” Were you aware of that? NoPo to me has always sounded like, “No mo’ po’ people around here, boss, just us chickens.” It’s not North Portland that I’m leaving, or Northeast, where I’ve lived my entire life.

It’s NoPo.

Thursday 13ers and Usual Suspects,

Are you thinking to yourself, “You know what WM needs to do? The girl needs to become a Sunday School teacher!”??? Were you really? Because I was, too. Spooky!

13 reasons i became a sunday school teacher
by Wacky Mommy

1) I couldn’t find a “real” job

2) If you saw how disorganized I truly am (well, maybe you have a clue, given how random this blog is), you’d realize I really need to throw some stability into my paperwork and life. Lesson plans! A set schedule! A need to wear grown-up clothes!

3) My husband thinks it’s sexy. Meow.

4) I pawned off my children on my unsuspecting mother today, so I was free. FREE! Freeeeeeeeeeee… Mom, thank you, you rock, Mom. I bought myself some take-out for lunch, then I watched a little of “One Life to Live” and a little of “General Hospital.” (Both dull, I am sorry to report. Can we sex it up a little, soaps? Because, damn.)

I was looking through the Good Vibrations sex toys catalog, after I watched “Weeds” on DVD, after I got bored with the soaps. Then I had an iced coffee.

When your children are away for the day, it is good to multi-task.

Then I went to Teacher Training tonight at church! People, it is the little quirks and turns in life that make it beautiful.

5) Also, the church staff asked (read: begged) for volunteers, cuz we were way short on teachers. They needed me!

6) Teaching is stressful, it turns out, and you know what a little stress biscuit I am. High on Stress! (I used to have a T-shirt that said that.)

7) Who needs sex on Sunday mornings when you can go teach 20 little wildcats all about music, love, Zen principles and Earth Day?!?

8) That’s right. I go to a hippie church. An all-inclusive, extremely accepting, gay-friendly, “fudge-packin’, crack-smokin’, Satan-worshippin’ motherfucker” church. (That’s from Nirvana, remember them? Their “good boy” T-shirt said “flower sniffin’, kitty pettin’, baby kissin’ corporate rock whores.”)

Because where else would I fit in? When you see the church-folk marching at the peace rallies here, right behind the No War Drum Corps, that is my church. I love my church. And I would like to say thank you to the drum corps, if they’re reading, for fricking rippin’ it up all the time. (They start off with the drums, we start marching, my daughter asks, “Mommy, why are all those police there?” and points to the 200 cops on bikes. I say, “To escort us!” and off we go.)

9) I like kids. I think they deserve love, peace and no wars. I think that little kids, Iraqi kids especially, deserve for their grandparents to not be killed by the U.S. government. I think the U.S. government should get behind this sentiment. “War Kills Grandmas” was a slogan Wacky Girl came up with, all on her own. I was very proud, the day she dreamed that one up.

I know I gripe about kids all the time, and puzzle over their crazy antics, but at the heart of it? I like kids. I want them to be happy, and know we care about them.

10) We do fun stuff at church, too, not just political and educational stuff. We make art. Read. Have potlucks and picnics. Give each other flowers. Do the baby tree dance around the courtyard.

11) I like the other teachers, they’re kooky.

12) One word: snacks and juice.

13) God loves me.

Eh, it’s like my old roommate told me, after seeing the Mona Lisa on free day at the Louvre: “Talk about your unwashed masses, babe.” Yeah, that’s pretty much Oaks Amusement Park in Southeast Portland on one of the last days of summer before school starts. (Would you like e-mails from Chipper, the park’s mascot? Sign up here!)

I have never particularly liked Oaks. The rides, the cotton candy, the dirty boys who work there, the roller skating. Not my trip. We are ice skaters here, you know that, right? The organ music is enough to give me a screeching migraine. The only good part about Oaks is that we usually go for Salvadorian food after at El Palenque. (If you get the enchiladas or taco salad there, you will be happy. Especially if you get a strawberry margarita, Negra Modelo or horchata, too. But you will be missing out on the fried plantains, black beans and sweet cream, and the loroco pupusas with fresh slaw and salsa. Dear God, I miss living by El Palenque.)

I liked the Willamette River below Oaks Park plenty when I was a teenager. Because, as you probably have already guessed, I was a teenage girl. (more…)

From Overheard in PDX:

Pottymouth

Little girl in a stroller about 2 1/2, speaking to caretaker:
“Shut the fuck up.”

Caretaker (laughing a bit):
“Hey. I love you”

Little girl:
“Shut the fuck up, shut the FUCK up, shut the FUCK up.” (laughing)

Caretaker (to horrified passengers):
“Oh, ha ha she learned that in daycare. We just ignore it. ”

Little girl (leaning over in stroller and spitting several times on the floor):
“Shut the FUCK up. Shut the FUCK up, Shut the FUCK up”. (Spits on the floor a few more times before continuing her mantra.)

Caretaker: (Calling the father of this child on her cell phone):
“Yeah, she’s saying shut the “F” up, you know, in that cute little voice of hers.”

– Eastbound MAX on way home from work 7/25/07

— Overheard by Dyana, who writes:
(At this point, I am waiting for the girl’s head to rotate 360, and for her to puke pea soup.)

Wacky Mommy says: People, “No” is a complete sentence. Say “no” to children like this. Do not say they have a “cute little voice.” Do not just ignore the behavior. Do not laugh and giggle. Do not say “Gentle!” over and over until I am tempted to throw something at you. Say “no” and head for home.

I was trying to 1) run a book over to my friend’s house. My friend who lives five blocks from me, 2) drop off videos at Hollywood Video, because apparently Netflix and the library and its awesome DVD three-week check-out are not enough for us, we need Hollywood, too and, 3) get my daughter to her swimming class.

Then I saw 1) two cop cars blocking the intersection where I needed to turn and 2) another cop car, who let me through and 3) a SWAT team set up three blocks from my house and 4) another SWAT team? aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii I hate this shit! Let me out of my neighborhood! (more…)

Here, dear readers — My day in real time.

Sort of.

5, 6, 7 & 8 a.m.: Sleeping. Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Large Wacky Cat 2, the stripedy one, pins me in on one side; muscular husband pins me in on the other. Why does the Cat want to sleep with us? It’s so flippin’ hot. Unable to move. Sex? No. Have to sleep. Can’t open eyes. Consider a new lifestyle that involves not staying up so late at night. Hmmm. What time did we go to bed? Vaguely remember 11 o’clock news. Keep eyes closed. Sleep. (more…)

I needed to run some errands this afternoon — drop something off at my sister’s, stop by the library and pick up the DVDs I had on hold and return some books, and some other errand I completely spaced out on. Post office? No. Grocery store? What was it?

I’d already stopped by the vet’s office, mailed some cards, thought about how nice it would be to go for acupuncture. Ahhhh, acupuncture. My mom stops by to hang out with the kids while I’m running errands. (I’m thinking this is the first glitch with homeschooling — when do I run errands? Get pedicures? Go out for sushi with my girlfriends? Internet, I am a kept woman, I think you already knew this. I type for a living! From home! It has its perks. Speaking of, when the hell am I supposed to write? Manuscripts are waiting, and waiting…) (more…)

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