I never should have disappointed Cortney in this way

She said she'd never have a friend who belonged to the PTA, and even though she promised me we'd still be friends even though I allowed myself to become treasurer of the organization, I know a little part of her love for me died that day. As well it should have, since I was clearly demonstrating that I was a person with no sense, totally blind to reason.

The two hour meeting the other night actually lasted 2 and a half hours and would have gone longer had I not announced that it must have been after 9 at that point and discussions were devolving into committee level detail. A vodka cranberry later, I was on the verge of quitting. However, I did make a commitment and I don't like to be a quitter, so the only solution that I could see was to air my grievances to the rest of the board.

This resulted in a shit storm of approximately 10 million emails back and forth-- some defensive, some productive, all tiresome (including mine). And now we get to have another meeting immediately before the meeting that we are scheduled, according to the bylaws, to have a meeting immediately after.

All of this just makes me realize that I should just be doing what I enjoy and actually impacts the students, like puppet shows about snowflakes, and not what makes me frustrated, like sitting through seemingly endless meetings about fundraising which was the part I thought we should be spending less time on, not more.

Why didn't I focus more on clinging to a friend 3000 miles away instead of my misguided do-goodery? Because I am a fool.

Sorry, Cortmee!

I know you said you wouldn't have a friend who went to PTA meetings... but now you have a friend on the board of the PTA. (I am still your friend, right?)

Luckily, I managed to not come off completely insane since someone else asked the same question I did about whether the other people who were removed from the running had removed themselves, or were tied up and gagged in a back room somewhere. (Something in the middle.)

So, here I am: Treasurer of the impotent little parent group at my son's elementary school. Just what I always dreamed I'd be on the cusp of my 34th year.

But it's not a coup...

Tomorrow night are the PTA elections for which I have thrown my name in the Treasurer hat. I just received a call saying that I had been elected treasurer.

"But the elections are tomorrow."

"Well, the board had a meeting on Friday afternoon..." And basically decided that they didn't want people running against each other...

"But isn't that what elections are all about?"

And it was determined that the other candidates for the positions "weren't as interested".

People are nuts

I'm guessing most of you know that the White House is going to have its own 1100 square foot garden, producing 55 different vegetables. Of course I think this is great. I am jealous of its size, but then I don't need to prepare state dinners, so it is better that I will not have that many perishables on hand. Good for the Obamas.

But this line from the article in the Washington Post just cracks me up:

With the Obamas as role models, it could also be a turning point in their battle to overturn the perception of organic food, farmers markets and gardens as the preserves of the elite.

Because the President of the United States of America is not elite?

This can't be good

Headline on Yahoo today-- Gold Rush: Unemployed Now Prospecting in California's Hills. I should have seen it coming since one of the dudes at our local CD store now has a mustache fit for a prospector. Perhaps he could just put his face in a river and see what sticks.

This is what we have resorted to, people? Madoff's pyramid scheme goes under, so I guess it's high time to go back to the good ol' days of pannin' the river all day and hittin' the saloon/brothel all night. Why not? There's plenty of cheap housing available.

A day full of crazy

It all started with the random stress reduction strategies, continued through the dispensing by a self-proclaimed "food snob" of Bagel Bites to my children, and has, I hope, ended with this:

Read the article about 30 lbs of pot seized a town or two away if you must, but the comments (as well as the commenter's names) are priceless.

Best Day

This is the first time that I am not disappointed in the results of a national election I participated in. (And for the record, I have voted in every election available to me.)

I never thought I would see the day that we would have an African American President. When I think of what this must mean to all the black kids I grew up with, and what this means for my own children, I get all choked up.

I may even start saying the pledge again...

A scene from Election Day All School Sing

Three teachers run out wearing "voting booths" over their heads and turn in their "ballots" to the music teacher. He starts to read them...

Music teacher: (pulls out first ballot) McCain...

5th grade girl: (audible gasp)

Music teacher: (pulls out second) McCain...

(Silence)

Music teacher: (pulls out third) Obama...

The whole room erupts into applause and hoots. One girl boos with a double thumbs down.

The final tally of the 3rd through 6th graders at Sebastian's school was 165 Obama-37 McCain. If only that were indicative of tonight's results...

But it's so yummy...

Yesterday we stopped by the co-op so Sebastian could have a quick puke on the floor of the deli (true story) and we could pick up some milk and eggs and yogurt. Over near the eggs is a little kiosk where they often have samples. Not yesterday. No no. Yesterday, Sebastian's friend, the education coordinator for the co-op, was passing out bags of chocolate and pamphlets for "Reverse Trick-or-Treating".

What is reverse trick or treating, you may ask? Well, that is when your child goes around the neighborhood as he normally would, begging for candy from strangers. After receiving a piece of chocolaty yumminess, he then hands the person a card with a piece of Fair Trade chocolate attached and says one of the following things:

• Thank you! Here is a piece of Fair Trade chocolate for you!
• Here is a card about how to end child slavery on cocoa farms!
• Here is a card on how you can help end poverty for cocoa farming families!

So, now we have this propaganda in our house and Sebastian wants to participate, but he doesn't really understand what it is about and, I think, just wants to make his friend happy. While I appreciate the sentiment of this exercise, I have a few problems with this.

1. I think it is rude to take the candy that you are saying is wrong and tainted by the blood and sweat of children. If you don't want that candy and don't think people should be buying it, then don't take it in the first place. If you just throw it away, the efforts of those little slave children will be totally wasted.
2. Why not just hand out the propaganda and leave the candy for people who want it? Raising awareness is a good thing, but making someone feel bad for giving out candy to neighborhood children is just plain mean.
3. This cause is probably not the cause of 95% of the kids who will be passing these out on Halloween. This is their parents' cause. This is child exploitation, too. All the information that came in the packet makes it clear that a child should be giving this out. For example, if you go to a community event instead of door-to-door, the instructions read, "As you walk around the event, your child can approach other parents..." Don't make your child your pawn, people!

Obviously, I don't want kids suffering for my chocolate addiction. Bloody chocolate probably doesn't taste as good. But I don't think that this method of informing people about the business practices of "Big Chocolate" is appropriate. If you want to pass out Fair Trade chocolate at your house and give out a pamphlet with it, go ahead. Maybe I will just pass these out with our organic lollipops, but Sebastian will definitely not be carting them around our neighborhood.

My new theory

The other day, I decided that Sarah Palin was nominated because the Republicans want to prove they can have someone dumber than W elected to a high office.

But this morning, I realized that this has been Republican policy for as long as I have been aware politically. They seem to like the combination of an older man with a questionable psychology and a "likable" doofus.

Reagan/Bush: Bumbling old fool for Pres, former CIA agent prone to weeping for VP

Bush/Quayle: see above for Pres, spelling-impaired young'un for Veep

GW/Cheney: drunken, born-again with fake accent for Prez, creepy psychopath for VP

McCain/Palin: POW "maverick" for Pres, completely uninformed small time clown for VP

It has been a pretty successful MO for them so far.

And I was disappointed to hear so many women supporting her while I was at the dentist this morning. The woman is just plain not prepared to do this job. If she weren't so ignorant, I would think it was great that she had been nominated. She's a woman who doesn't come from a privileged background. She would be the embodiment of the whole "anyone could be President" ideal that we are spoon-fed as elementary school students. But she is the perfect example of why just "anyone" shouldn't be.

Was it just me?

Or did anyone else notice that despite having a podium aiming toward Obama, McCain was facing the opposite direction the entire time? He couldn't look the man in the eye.

Jerk.

Most ridiculous thing I heard all day

At the Kindergarten registration, after Sebastian, along with 10 other kids, had been under observation for an hour or so.

Me: I would prefer that he start in the 1st grade. What is your opinion?

Kindergarten teacher: My gut says he should start in K. We get a lot of fluent readers in K.* Because, really, if you miss out on that social component, it can never be made up. But the other kids always catch up academically.

*Exactly the opposite of what I was told in February.

_____________________________________________________

Imaginary diatribe directed toward the aforementioned teacher.

Okay, first of all, you are suggesting that Sebastian is somehow socially inept. As if he is incapable of relating to other people and especially children his age and younger. And second of all, have you even met anyone in this world? There are a hell of a lot of people out there that are decades older than my almost 6 year old who are unable to read as well as he can. They obviously "caught up academically". And there are also a lot of socially retarded people that have attended Kindergarten and it apparently didn't do them any favors. And you cannot tell me that the entire 1st grade class is full of impeccably well-behaved, well-mannered children and that Sebastian will be the only one bumbling around because he didn't spend a year sitting in a room full of 5 year olds being taught letters and colors and shapes that he has known since he was 15 months old. It is not his fault that you have a completely arbitrary age requirement. The boy next door just moved here from CT and is 11 days younger than Sebastian, but he gets to be in 1st grade because the cut-off date in CT is different so he could go to K last year. And I'll tell you what... he is not any more socially capable than my child. He just happened to be in the right state at the right time.

___________________________________________

And the worst part of all this, besides the fact that I am trying to completely remodel a house in 3 days at the same time I'm dealing with this bullshit, is that I don't even really want to send him. Why would I when this is what I get from these people?

Now I have to call the principal at 8am tomorrow to try to convince him to accept Sebastian into 1st grade. School starts a week from tomorrow. Will they have time to test him? Will they even bother offering that option? Who knows, since they have been too lazy to call me back or try to set anything up. The principals of the three elementary schools apparently get together tomorrow for their little draft process where they discuss who will take which children. "I'll take the dyslexic and the stutterer if you'll take the kid with the obnoxious mom." I can't wait to find out if we get picked!

My nemesis is on his way out

O, happy day!

Yesterday, as I was being chauffeured to exercise class by a princess, I saw the best sign I've seen in a long time. The jackass who moved here from California, claimed to be committed to the neighborhood (which he calls the "hood" and it boils my blood), said he wanted "to bring a little Berkeley to Brattleboro", started the most ridiculous neighborhood organization ever, and just generally annoyed the shit out of me now has a sign in front of his house reading For Sale By Owner. This proves my theory that he was not so committed as he should be committed.

I was invited to join their listserv despite living on a side street. Then I made them all mad by (gasp!) disagreeing with some of what they were saying. This family moved from CA without ever seeing this house or the street it is on. Had they bothered to visit, they would have known that the street is one of the major arteries in town and that their house is by far the nicest on the street, which everyone knows is not the house to buy. They decide to put up a huge fuss that cars and trucks are actually allowed to, of all things, drive on the street. When I said that I didn't think 10 cars in 10 minutes was an unreasonable number, they said they didn't want people "bringing negativity" to the group and said maybe I shouldn't belong. I told them if they only wanted people who would agree with everything they said, they could go ahead and remove me from the list. They, of course, didn't have the nerve. When I saw that someone else was ranting about how she shouldn't have to leash her dogs and no one at all took issue with that, I was totally done.

And now they are leaving! Though, they will probably only be replaced by another of their ilk, foolish enough to buy a very cute house in the second worst neighborhood in town.

Super Tuesday VT-- with bonus Update!

We finally get to have our primary today, well after most everyone else and completely overshadowed by Texas and Ohio. At least I did hear that the Obama campaign was focusing on our little state because if they can get up to 70% from 60% of the vote here it could make a huge difference for them. According to his website, their goal is 1,500,000 calls to registered voters by today. To achieve this goal, I was personally called 4 times in 3 days. Whatever makes them feel better. Three of the calls came from live people, and the fourth was a recorded message from Barack Obama himself which I am convinced was actually Dave Chapelle doing his white guy impression.

The voting in town is always a little useless, featuring many offices which read "vote for no more than x candidates" with there being less than x to choose from. At least we have a decent race for Select Board, who are the people who get to decide if we can be naked downtown and important things like that. This year we also have the vote the whole nation is excited about/embarrassed by/disapproving of. Yes, today I get to vote to arrest Bush and Cheney for war crimes and general nogoodery. I can't wait! Considering we are the only state in the nation that they have not deigned to visit, I can't imagine this will have much impact. It's not like they pop up here to go to Mocha Joe's every weekend and we can nab them then.

For the presidential primary, I'll have my choice of Republican, Liberty Union and Democratic tickets. I will be choosing the Democratic. I've spent a lot of time deliberating this one. I've always wanted to see a woman president, and I remember being very excited about Geraldine Ferraro's run for VP. But I also was a big supporter of Jesse Jackson's run for president at the time. And truly, I think that anyone could do better than the current administration. A friend was telling me about a piece Gloria Steinem wrote concerning black men historically getting more equal treatment before women do. And that sucks, but mostly because we should all be getting equal treatment anyway so it shouldn't be a matter of first. But all things being equal, I'm not looking at these candidates for their superficial, unchangeable traits like gender or race. I'm basing my vote almost entirely on the votes they made regarding Iraq and what I think their decisions say about them. And, therefore, I will be voting for Barack Obama today. Jeremy will be voting for him simply for his voice, but that's his decision to make.

***Update***
Since I originally posted this, I have both gone to vote and read the Gloria Steinem piece. (Thank you to listmaker for the link.)
1. Steinem says this: This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers. We have to be able to say: “I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman.” And I would like to say that, but I'm not sure I agree with the first part of the statement. I don't think feminism should be about supporting a woman just because she's a woman, but because she's a person who can do a good job at whatever it is that needs doing. Had I voted for Hillary Clinton today, I would have been trying to make an empty point. That being said, if she ends up being the Democratic candidate she will be my choice come November and I will feel satisfied with that. But given the choice, which I was today, I would choose Obama.
2. Silly thing on our ballot today, I was asked to vote for someone named "Pickles" Bedard. What a town! And in case you are interested, I took a peek at the exit poller's clipboard and way more people are voting to indict the Pres and VP than not.