Pink Prickly Pear

This *would* be funny...

if I didn't actually have to navigate it later on this morning.

Spaghetti, anyone?

In which I am neighborly, but my neighbors are decidedly NOT.

One thing I will not miss is the playground/dog-park combo down the street.  You might think this would be a win-win situation, since I have children and a dog, but it's really not.  My boy needs all of my attention while he attempts to scale new heights at every playground visit, so unless Mr. Pear is with us and available to keep an eye on our dog, we leave her at home.

It would appear that the playground/dog-park combo attracts less families with dogs, and more child-free haters who have nothing better to do than to come to the park every afternoon with their ill behaved, decidedly not under-voice-control dogs, and let them not only crap all over the field, but mark every last vertical space on the playground, despite numerous signs posted requesting they keep their dogs on the field (and, by the way, pick up their crap)..

So yesterday, I'm at the park, and this big old golden retriever takes a massive dump on the grass within about four feet of the sandpit.  I look around.  Is anyone on this dog?  Apparently not.  Some youngish guy who'd been sitting nearby makes a stinkface and gets up and moves away from the massive dump.  He's with some other dog.

No one is paying any attention to Old Golden.  He lumbers over to the play structure and casually lifts his leg.  A surprisingly vigorous stream of piss splatters in the sand, and up a pillar.  I attempt to shoo the dog.  It blinks at me.  Finally, some old man notices and starts walking towards the playground.  I give him a smile and a friendly wave, "Is this your dog?  He left us a little present on the hillside there."

Despite my friendly approach, it all goes downhill from there.

Old Man gumbles at me: I'm moving him!

PPP: Yeah, that's fine.  Hey, the poop's right over there.

Old Man and Old Golden walk off in the other direction.  I give him the benefit of the doubt.  There is a handy little poop sack dispenser on the other side of the field.  But after a few feet, Old Man just stops and stands.  I give him a minute.  

PPP raising my voice a little.  Maybe he's deaf: Are you going to get this?

Old Man glares at me.

PPP, cheerily picking up my barefooted boy:  Do you need a baggie?

I start off across the field, grab a bag from the dispenser.  Old Man glares at me as I walk back across the field, but as soon as it becomes apparent that I am headed straight for him, to give him the bag, he quickly looks away and starts to walk in the opposite direction.

PPP:  Am I really going to have to pick up after your dog myself?

Old Man:  You do whatever you wanna do, lady!

PPP is momentarily speechless and just staring at him.

Old Man looks around:  What the hell are you staring at?

PPP:  Well aren't you neighborly?  

Old Man sort of...hoots?  Barks?:  Whatever.

PPP bent over and scooped Old Golden's nasty turd.  

So nasty, I know.  But if I hadn't, some poor kid would undoubtedly have stepped in it.  You know what's more disturbing than Old Man and his totally anti-social behavior?  The fact that not a single other person stepped in.  Not even the young guy who I know saw the whole thing from beginning to end (and apparently took great delight in watching my whole interaction with Old Man).

This is why I'm convinced the whole playground/dog-park combos attract malicious child-free haters intent on deliberately leaving little presents for the kids to step in.   I've accompanied Tanky to dog parks for several years now, and I have to say that this particular park with the playground has more abandoned turds than any other park I've visited, including the totally illegal impromptu dog park in the woods back in DC.  I mean, if ever there was a place to nonchalantly whistle and look off into the distance and pretend you didn't see your dog take a giant dump, it would be in an undeveloped clearing in the woods, but no way!  If you so much as delayed picking up after your dog while you fumbled in your pocket for a recycled Safeway bag, everyone would be all over you, "Who's on the black lab?!?!" "This little Maltese just dropped a number two!"  You better be standing there, plastic mitt on, hovering over a pile so fresh it's still steaming!

Asshole Old Man is so lucky I had my boy present, and therefore had my Modeling Good Citizenship hat on, because otherwise?  Otherwise, he would have found himself wearing that not quite closed properly bag of poo, and let me tell you, my aim would have been true.

Not scared of heights? Check.

Here's Mini-Pear getting harnessed up for some fun on the trapeze.

 

No fear.  At all.

Of course, D'anjou wants to go to there... 

 

And would she be content to just hold on with both hands?  Of course not!

When we signed up for Girl Scouts, we had no idea just how much fun she was in for!  A huge thanks to Dawn for setting it all up.

 
 

 

Movin' on up...

My girl had a great birthday.  She started off early with a scavenger hunt around the house - this is so much fun than opening wrapped gifts and nicer to the planet to boot! 

Both kids had appointments at the chiropractors.  Mini-pear loves going, so no mama guilt over appointments on a birthday;)  We came home for a little while before meeting Mr. Pear for a birthday lunch - burritos at Raul's - she can be a good cheap date sometimes.  D'anjou fell fast asleep and stayed asleep for over 2 hours while we ate and then visited a local toystore to spend some birthday money.  She loves her brother, but it was nice for us to have such a big chunk of one on one time.

It was a gorgeous day.  We left the car at Mr. Pear's office and all walked to lunch together.  We sat at Raul's little sidewalk tables and took in the local scene - there are always lots of characters about.  It's exciting to think that in just a couple of short weeks, we will be living so close to the beach and downtown (not San Diego, but our little beach town's downtown). 

We stopped at Jimbo's looking for dairy free whipped cream.  I'm not a fan of food substitutes, so we compromised on whipped cream on the side, as opposed to filling, her Victoria Sponge Cake.  Mr. Pear sent a timely text, "Ha Ha.  Stole yer wallet."  Not very funny.  I still needed cake ingredients.  Mini-pear hadn't spent all her birthday money*, so spotted me enough for organic whipping cream and strawberry jam.

We stopped home to decorate the cake before heading out to karate.  We detoured to pick up my wallet - I needed money to top up the gas tank and am paranoid about getting pulled over without my license.

It was a good class.  It's Bring a Buddy week at the dojo, so Mini-Pear had two friends along.  She was super excited to share her karate experience with them, and even more so because she was going to be presented with her hard earned blue belt at the beginning of class. 

Mini-pear looked like she might explode with pride;)  Later on, the blue and green belts were called up to demonstrate some moves and mini-pear remained seated until she got a friendly jab from her friend, "That's you!"

Yes, it is;)

^{*Not only did she not spend it all at once, but she bought me a little present!   So thoughtful.}

excessive celebration

At happy hour this weekend, I happened to have one eye on the game.  I'm no football fan, but I like big butts and I cannot lie...

So, I'll admit, I was halfway paying attention to the men in tights.  Suddenly...

Triple P:  That man is riding his team mate like a pony in the end zone!!

Mr. Pear [glancing up at screen]:  Oh yeah.  Excessive celebration.

Triple P:  Huh?

Mr. Pear:  Excessive celebration.  Yep.  See - the ref is calling it.  They're getting a penalty.  15 yards.

Triple P:  For riding a man like a pony?!?!?

Mr. Pear explained (briefly, because he's not particularly a fan of the game either) the history of excessive celebration and the banning thereof.  Makes me sad.  What's not to like about a bunch of grown men riding each other like ponies and, in general, reveling in their big score in the football game?  Besides, celebratory acts, excessive or otherwise, are so subjective.  For those of us not actually interested in the actual game, it's one of football's saving graces.  I'll take a 350 lb. man's funky chicken over some choreographed cheerleader routine any day of the week!  

My anaconda don't. want. none. unless you got buns hon.

(Are you going to be singing that all night now?  I've found it both amuses and soothes the boy.)

So ladies (yeah), Ladies (yeah)
Do you wanna roll in my Mercedes (yeah)
Then turn around
Stick it out
Even white boys got to shout
Baby got back

Let there be funnel cake.

Mini-pear's dojo puts on a karate demonstration at the county fair every summer.  Last year, we were only just getting into the swing of things, but this year, she was excited to participate.  She's the orange belt, second from the right.  The kids definitely enjoyed themselves, but as the hour wore on, the portion of the stage exposed to our strong California sunshine got a little too hot for bare feet.  They had to keep moving things towards the back of the stage.

We got to see Sensei Paul, a 16th degree black belt, demonstrate some of his moves.  Wouldn't want to pick a fight with him in a dark alley.

Despite my intention not to wander around the fair all day, we didn't get home until almost four o'clock.  We checked out the livestock halls and found a homeschooling friend's 4-H sheep, took in some piglet races, indulged my craving for hot fried dough and sugar, and examined case after case in the gems and minerals hall (a sudden surprise interest on the part of mini-pear).  No monster trucks!  And I was too tired to hang around for dune buggy racing.

Mini-pear wanted to do this trampoline/bungee bounce thing the minute she saw it - probably the highlight of her day.  No pregnant ladies allowed.  Wah.

We have no moral compass: educational philosophy

Last night in karate, there was a discussion about Honor.  The Sensei shared a story about her friend from college and how he asked her for help with the answers during a test. 

"What was the right thing to do?"

Mini-pear's hand shot up immediately, "Help your friend."

A collective gasp from her classmates and an overwhelming raising of hands.  The Sensei cocked her head, "Well, would that really be helping him?"

Mini-pear considered this for a moment, "Yes.  He asked for your help.  Help your friend."

Of course this was not the answer the Sensei was looking for, and of course Mini-pear's classmates were happy to set Mini-pear straight.  At some point, she craned her neck to look over at me with a look best be described as outraged bewilderment.  What was going on?

I'm quite proud of Mini-pear's moral compass.  She cares for her friends and her family.  She's thoughtful and considerate.  She's honest and trustworthy.  Parents of her friends frequently tell me how much they genuinely like her (for some reason, the phrase most frequently bandied about is, "She's a really cool kid") and on more than one occasion, someone has exclaimed, "She's so thoughtful!"

Okay, enough with the bragging.  What I really want to talk about is school and what an artificial environment it is, how completely unsuited it is to prepare children for (and this is their term, not mine) the real world.  I'm not advocating cheating, but I do believe that school, with its (often quite arbitrary) punishment and reward system, can set good people up for cheating.  These same people would never even consider cheating in the real world.   They would never dream of cutting corners to the detriment of someone else's safety, or deliberately benefiting from another's misfortune, or taking advantage of some one else's generous nature.

There are very few scenarios outside of academia where one is expected to regurgitate one's accumulated knowledge without benefit of referring to external resources.  A highly skilled surgeon consults with her peers when deciding the best course of action to present to a patient.  I hope the anesthesiologist, in calculating the correct dosage for someone of my height, weight, age, and medical condition, isn't relying on a memorized chart.  I'm sure the mechanic who recently repaired my car probably referred to a manual or a computer program or a co-worker.  It's not a brand specific shop, I don't expect a depth of knowledge about my aging Saturn sedan.  From the flurries of evening and weekend text messages and phone calls, it would appear that Mr. Pear and his colleagues find their business grows and runs more smoothly when they brainstorm collectively.  A lawyer doesn't sit in her office racking her brains to remember precedent setting cases, she looks it up.  If she's lucky, there is a specialist in her office who concentrates in a particular area and can tell her the information she needs.  It may save her hours of research to ask the right person.  As long as she pulls her own weight and shares her own knowledge when asked, the co-worker should be happy to oblige.

Obviously, there is a certain level of knowledge expected in any number of given situations.  These are usually quite specific.  Emergency medical technicians and military personnel prepare and rehearse and follow a series of prescribed maneuvers designed to ensure success in a variety of unpredictable scenarios wherein people's lives are, quite literally, at stake.  Within these scenarios, we rely on specialists.  We don't expect an EMT to be able to fix the ambulance as well as the patient. 

Mr. Pear can't read a knitting pattern to save his life.  Luckily, I don't think anyone's ever needed a knitting pattern to save their life.  If it interested me, I'm sure I'm capable of setting up a firewall on our home computer.  It doesn't particularly interest me, and I'd rather spend the time I'd waste on that steep learning curve doing something I truly enjoy, or something that serves my family in some other way.  Mr. Pear can set up a firewall standing on his head.  I'll leave it to him. 

Have you ever used a cheat sheet?  Maybe you smuggled one into an exam once.  Or maybe it's a crumpled sheet of paper tucked into your camera bag because, try as you might, you've never managed to commit aperture  and light speed settings to memory. 

Kids in school are told all the time that they need to step up, be responsible for their own actions, set and achieve goals.  And then they have to raise their hand and ask to use the toilet.  Have things changed?  In my blue-ribbon award winning high school, you couldn't politely excuse yourself, you had to wave your hand in the air before someone else decided if this was a good time for you to move your bowels. 

Why should a key member of the school's soccer team's participation depend on his memorizing the U.S presidents in order?  Maybe history just isn't his thing.  No matter if he excels in Biology and Math.  If he drops below average in History and Creative Writing, he's off the team.  Does that make sense, from a real world perspective?  On the soccer field, he's doing a whole lot more than playing a game.  It's up to the individual as to what they get out of any given pursuit, but let's imagine that this boy motivates his team mates.  15 years down the line, he motivates the employees of his own small business (which has nothing to with History or Creative Writing whatsoever) in the same way.  Pushing his body to new limits is also his focus.  He's very disciplined in this respect.  He will apply this discipline, this confidence in himself and what he can do when he puts his mind to it, to whatever comes his way.

But he fails the history exam and is benched from the team.  And the lesson he learns here is that he's a failure, that he's stretched himself too thin with his extra-curricular activities, that he's incapable of mastering at least five different academic subjects at the same time.  When else do we expect that of someone?  Quitting the soccer team or dropping his paper route are the only things under his control.  He's not allowed to decide that it's the History class that tips the scales, because someone else has determined the information imparted there is somehow more important to his future success than soccer.

I think that's ridiculous.

I will send a present to anyone who can list the U.S. presidents in order in comments without looking them up.  Just know that I will have to look it up in order to check your work.

Dear Anonymous in London,

Perhaps He-Man's creamy little thunder-pants are indelibly etched deep enough into your grey matter so as to cause you to misremember the rest of our happy afternoons spent in front of the television.   

It was too G.I. Joe who ended each half hour episode with a "Knowing is half the battle" PSA!  Google and Wikipedia and multiple G.I. Joe fan sites confirm.

We're going to have to settle the score with some wrestling.  On the bed.

Yours in perpetual correctness and encyclopedic knowledge of 80s pop culture,

Triple P

Too much sugar will make your teeth fall out.

Two days into the Great Unlimited Access to Candy Experiment of 2007.  Lots of candy left over, no eating until she vomits - although I've noticed that she slows down considerably after lunch.  This morning I offered to trade her a packet of sugarless Trident for all the bubblegum in her candy stash.  There are a lot a sticks in the Trident pack, so she quite willingly pitched the sugary stuff in exchange.  And for lunch?  Celery, carrots, apples, tomatoes, cucumber.  She usually makes herself a sandwich but the past couple of days, while making my own salad, I've prepared her a plate of good, hard, raw vegetables and while she ran and got some vibrant red Dots to add to her plate, the veggies all got eaten in the end.

I thought sugar was supposed to make you crash?  I came home from my horticulture class a little after nine, expecting her to be out for the count.  Instead she jumped on the computer until...eleven?  I think it was somewhere around there.  I went to bed long before she did.

We're embracing all the childhood vices at once;)

*****

While I have a quick minute, I'll tell you about my embarrassing efforts on the elliptical machine at the gym.  That was a workout for my fingers.  Why does no one else look like they are hanging on for dear life?  I thought I was going to hurt myself real bad.  After about 20 sweaty and agonizing minutes, I decided my time would be better spent riding a stationary bike or rolling with my old nemesis, the treadmill.  The old people were monopolizing the rest of the equipment.  I picked the bike because it was closer to the television with the - why do I care?!?!?! - Victoria Beckham interview.

Free Rice!!!

Go!

It's a fun game!

You can fight hunger (if you're smart enough!)

Tell your friends!