Ranting and Raving

This could be a whole long capslocked post about how much comcast sucks as a company, but instead here is a picture of a pie I made:

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Gotta Get Up Every Mornin’

I am writing this entry on my back porch.

I’m also writing in a word document ( I actually tried to figure out desperately how to get wifi so I could compose this entry when I realized there’s this thing…called word processing software…) which feels totally foreign to me, considering I’ve done the majority of my creative writing on the word press site to date. But I can’t get wifi on my porch even though the router is really not all that far away from the porch. In fact I’m probably closer to the router on my porch than when I’m in my bedroom. On the porch I get no signal. In my room I get a glimmer of a signal which then craps out mid tense awesome Good Wife episode soooo.

Holy baloney I’ve been ignoring this blog.

I have no excuse other than everything has gone out of my control this summer and I just sorta gave up. I have so much to say but so much of it is repetitive crap you all probably hear when you speak to me in real life. I felt like if I were to write a blog post these days it would go like this: Ready?

I HAVEN’T FOUND A JOB YET I SEND OUT DOZENS OF APPLICATIONS A WEEK AND NOBODY BITES AND I AM GOING INSANE AND I FORGET THE JOBS I  APPLY TO IMMEDIATELY AND THEN I AM SURPRISED AND DISCOURAGED ALL OVER AGAIN WHEN THEY REMIND ME I’VE APPLIED BY SENDING ME A REJECTION EMAIL. EAT CHEESE. RINSE. REPEAT.

That is the majority of my inner monologue.

I have come to realize that job hunting is a special sort of hell. The same sort of hell reserved for long discount bus trips, packing to move apartments esp in the summer months, searching for said apartments on craigslist. All of these things sound so awesome when they’re only twinkles in our little thoughts eyeballs.

A new apartment! How dreamy!!!! A trip to New York City? Why, let me book the mega bus!

We (or I, at least) seem to have selective memory about how craptastic these adventures eventually turn out to be. Specifically the drama llama known as Craigslist apartment searching which you’ll probably remember as my angst du jour in 2012. 

Something else hurting me in the job search is that for every single job I apply to I sit down and I really think about it. I picture myself there and I can usually always see myself doing a good job and finding a way to enjoy it. No matter the work I do I always, always, always find a way to make myself do well. Except for maybe the time the lab supervisor wanted me to slice hamster brains on what amounted to a medieval deli slicer with minimal instruction, a “hamster brain atlas” from 1972 and 8.25 an hour. I will readily admit I didn’t do a good job at that one and didn’t worry that much about it.  I like being productive and I like making money and I have always asserted that while I do want to have a job I enjoy that uses my talents and skills, the abstract idea of family and building a home is more exciting to me.

Oh the drama of the everyday modern woman.

But when I started allowing myself to look into non guidance counseling jobs I felt this IMMENSE sense of panic and failure.

You just got a master’s degree! I cried, to myself. You are going to have to pay loans on a degree you might not even use?!!? Woman!!!! GET A GRIP.

Rational Sarah says, “But this field takes time to break into and you have the pay the bills. You can do something else, there’s no shame in it.”

BUT ISN’T THERE? Maybe some shame I’ve put on myself. Yes.

Is that why I haven’t been sleeping this entire past July? BY GEORGE!

Oh you guys.

Don’t go to counseling school.

Because if you go to counseling school you’ll be able to therapizeeee yourself and it will create a self loathing ravine so deep you won’t be able to dig yourself out and you’ll retreat to your bed with Saint Andrews, Triscuits and the entire 9 seasons of the Good Wife on hulu.

*note to concerned family members, this is hyperbole in an attempt at makin’ light, call off the Harvard Pilgrim approved clinicians.

Basically, I’ve put an inordinate amount of pressure on myself to find a job and it has taken a toll on basically…everything.

Working starting today to remedy it. Tried to remember other things in life that make me happy and fulfilled and then remembered, OH YEAH I HAD A BLOG!

I posted a while back about not “needing” the blog as much. Whoops. I was wrong. I need this thing. I currently feel so much better tip tapping away over here.

OH YEAH SELF CARE I LEARNED THIS IN GRADUATE SCHOOL.

Anyway, I’m back. Expect to see me here daily. If you don’t see me here daily please call, text, smoke signal berate me until I post again. Its good for me and hopefully good for you.

xoxo

S

Groupon Summer: Fairmont Battery Warf

So my friends it is with deep delight I announce to you that we have had a summer of groupon success! Though this technically wasn’t a groupon, it was a livingsocial!

Our deal was 24 bucks for dinner on the patio at the Fairmont Battery Warf in the North End where they have some really awesome fire pits.

Our living social included cheese fondue and smores for two, all for 24 bucks! I consider this a deal no matter what you say.

Of course everything didn’t go as smoothly as I’d like, because does it ever? No it doesn’t.

We had already tried to use this living social once before, but we drove to the North End on a gorgeous weather saturday night and couldn’t find a parking spot. SHOCKER! After circling a couple times I decided to cut our losses and we high tailed it to the cheesecake factory, our comfort chain restaurant of choice. Bad things happen when I can’t find a parking spot people, Mav describes it as watching me try to wring water out of my steering wheel as if it were a sponge. I knew it would be better to try again another day.

Fast forward to this past Thursday! I got out of work on the early side so I went and met Mav downtown at his office. It was a really nice day weather wise and though we could have taken the T we decided to walk. Mav said he knew the way (since we all know I never do) and I figured hey why not. Turns out we walked 2.5 miles.  2.5 miles is nothing to Mav and it isn’t much to me either except it was really sunny and hot out and I had to pee and I am a delicate flower.

Anyway after a long walk we made it to the Fairmont and went inside, the woman at the hostess stand at the restaurant saw my living social and asked if I had a reservation.

CRAP.

No, we didn’t have a reservation. The Living Social had said nothing about having to make a reservation.

Crappity Crap.

Now I was sweaty and hungry and frankly a little cranky but I tried to be pleasant. The hostess said she would go and see if either of the fire pits were available and asked us to go have a seat in the lounge which we did. Roughly 15 minutes went by and though I felt better having had been able to pee I was really hungry. Before I left to search for the bathroom I said to Maverick “start yelping places we would both wanna eat dinner at that aren’t too touristy” 

Eventually I spoke with the hostess again and she said “there’s a sofa with a firepit that should be opening up in a few minutes, would you like it?”

We told her sure and she then enthusiastically suggested we get a drink while we wait.

Mav and I are not “get a drink while we wait” people. We’re usually not even drink while eating dinner sort of people. So we retreated back to the fancy lounge chairs we had sat in before.

And waited.

And waited some more.

and waited.

When it became clear the hostess’s interpretation of “a few minutes” was different than ours we decided what the heck, we might as well go get a cocktail at the bar.

One hour, one gimlet and one white wine sangria later we were finally seated at our fire pit and oh man was it ever worth the wait.

 

our delicious fondue is in that cast iron dish above the fire. The plate had fresh berries, crusty bread, provolone cheese and something called “salumi” which neither mav or I enjoyed, and some delicious dried apricots and spicy peppers,

we got to watch the sunset

 

Then made our own smores on the fire with chocolate, bananas, and reeses cups. After this we both almost cried on the walk back from the T about how full we were.

 

It was a really awesome and unique dinner, I was already talking about going back again sometime on a double date for just the smores off the firepit menu and some rose. #grouponsummersuccess!

LOOK AT YOUR LIFE! LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES!

I would like to preface this blog post by saying I know that I am not a parent.

I am totally, 100% not a parent. But I play one on TV!

Jk.

I’m just a nanny. But I have been at this whole nanny thing for a while now and I’ve observed all sorts of parenting.

I tend to think, save for physical or emotional abuse, there is no “wrong” way to parent. Except for people who don’t vaccinate their kids. Those people should have to go live on an island because I’ll be damned if they’re gonna compromise my possible future offspring by relying on herd immunity.

For the most part, what I’ve seen of parenting, its about what works the best for you and your kid. You can be the most consistent and strict but still have a nut job kid running circles around you throwing darts. You can be totally laid back and free range and just shrug it off and get the kid a purple cast when they break their arm. Especially parenting young kids, that shit is a circus of epic proportions and so I try very hard not to judge.

THIS BEING SAID….

The one thing I’ve realized about parenting is that if you’re an asshole, and act like an asshole in front of your kid, you kid is generally gonna be….you guessed it! Asshole.

Today I was nannying in unfamiliar territory, a really affluent town outside of Boston. One of the families I work for is in the process of moving and is staying with family until the new house is ready. Not feeling confident with the lay of the land but desperate for some sort of structured air-conditioned activity, we set off for the library which was a few blocks away. I figured the library would be cool in both senses of the word, and I couldn’t stand to watch the 3 year old be hypnotized by the IPad for a moment longer. We got all excited, packed the baby into the carseat which he HATES (the way his eyes look once he realizes he’s been placed in there, its truly priceless.) and we set off on our library adventure.

When we arrived the librarian in the children’s room informed us that today was Movies for Munchkins day! (more screen time! great! nanny of the year!) It would be a roughly 50 minute presentation of classic children’s books animated on a DVD. The second she said it would kill an hour I was sold and we headed off to the play area to do some puzzles while we waited for the non-story story time to start.

Eventually we filed into the story time room with a gaggle of parents and small children. There was a rug and two rows of small child sized chairs. My 3 year old buddy, which long time readers might know better as LPP (Le Petit Prince) sat down on the rug and eagerly awaited the show. He’s a kid and he loves tv, I can’t blame him that much. I just watched two episodes of So You Think You Can Dance in my underwear, whatever.

The second the movie started the chaos began. Out of the 20 or so kids in that room only a handful could sit still and say quiet. Not a single parent reprimanded a child banging on a chair, attempting to drop kick a book held up by his sibling. I wasn’t necessarily shocked by the behavior because kids are nuts, but the fact that the parents never once thought to try and teach their kids consideration for others. This is something I have come to loathe about all the children’s programming I’ve attended in my tenure as a nanny. As a culture we tend to say these days “oh, well they’re little! They don’t get it!” This is true, developmentally they have NO concept of consideration because toddlers are completely self-centered by design. Just like kids aren’t programmed out of the womb to say please and thank you we must teach them these things. Sometimes it takes forever. Sometimes you have to say “Hmm, how do you ask for something that you want?” 95 BILLION TIMES before the kid up and says “can I have a juicebox please” one day unprompted.

Anyway.

I just feel like the appropriate response is to try and redirect your kid into being quiet and attentive so as to not ruin the enjoyment of the other kids in the room. If they’re not capable you take them out of the room and try again another day. Or you explain “we can’t sit in the room with the movie because its a quiet activity and the other kids in the room might not want to hear you scrape a child sized chair around the room like a janitor on meth, do you want to go back in and try again?” (well maybe not exactly like that but you get it.)

For some of the parents in the room this was what they did. After about 15 minutes the room had mostly cleared out, parents realizing their kids weren’t going to be able to participate and cutting their losses. I did feel sad for them because every caretaker needs 20 minutes of iphone scrolling time but that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

By the 16 minute mark only 6 children were left in the room including LPP and his little brother Baby LPP. The four children that I was not in charge of sang, kicked each other, wrestled, almost ripped a book in half etc. Their mothers made very little effort to discipline them. They instead had an animated conversation amongst themselves about everything from health insurance to birthday party planning, occasionally stopping to say something to the effect of: “Billy! Stop that right now! There are people in here that are actually trying to watch the movie!” Then immediately turned back to her adult conversation and continued it, at a normal speaking volume, right over the stupid fucking movie.

And it just made me wanna stand up on the little lime green child sized chair, sleeping baby slung over my shoulder and whisper yell LOOK AT YOUR LIFE LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES! MAYBE YOUR KIDS AREN’T RESPECTING THIS SPACE BECAUSE YOU ARE SHOWING THEM ITS OKAY BY NOT PAYING ANY ATTENTION EITHER!?

TREE, MEET APPLE.

I’m not at all saying that children and parents are or should be equals, because we all know they really aren’t. The parents are the parents for a reason, after all they totally get to say “because I’m the parent and I say so!” 

And sure, nobody is perfect, but you gotta try. You gotta try to model the behavior you wanna see. The be the change you wish to see in your child.

At one point one of the moms said to her son “See look how nicely that little boy over there is sitting!” (in reference to LPP)

I wanted to turn to her like an informercial and say “You too could experience this! For free just some repetitive installments of effort and patience!”

Because lady, I don’t wanna hear about two different birthday party plans for your child. I wanna watch this fucking animation of Harold and the Purple Crayon with the sweet boy who keeps turning to me with smiling eyes and saying “HE DREW THE MOON!!”