a small, not very coherent, collection of thoughts

i know this is a very serene picture, but i'm not feeling all that serene, there are a lot of things bugging me and they are all tumbling in my head. i'll get the trivial out of the way first...what the hell is a groom's cake? what groom wants a cake? (i need to be where facebook is not...so much for the new "re-focused on what's important" timeline, zuck.) and believe me, the cheeto satan does not weigh a mere 239 pounds. what a shithole. or is it asshole? or is it shitty asshole? yes. yes. and yes.

and now on to the less trivial...several times of late, i have read heartfelt, earnest facebook versions of life stories featuring the storyteller patting themselves on the back for never having accepted any kind of help...be it food stamps or financial assistance of other sorts. as if that's something to be congratulated for. as if needing and receiving help is a horrible, awful thing. honestly, is that where we are? if so, that just utterly sucks.

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when you're crabby from being hungry, it's called hangry, but what's it called when you're crabby from not sleeping well?

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if someone says your podcast trailer sounds "so npr" and also "so american," is that an insult or a compliment? i suspect it was an insult, but i'm choosing to take it as a compliment.

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reading studs terkel's seminal work - working - from the 70s. and i'm realizing we haven't really progressed all that much. it's fascinating and deep and comforting and also disturbing. i have a library copy, but i think i'll have to buy it. so i can write and underline in it - things like this: "i think most of us are looking for a calling, not a job. most of us, like the assembly line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. jobs are not big enough for people."

that said, i genuinely do love my job. but i fear that's the exception, not the rule.

* * *

a friend went to a course with tom of holland

and i want to too!

i have a whole stack of things that need mending.

a flock of amateurs

we have signed the child up for a trip to st. petersburg with something called the ungdomsskole (youth school?), it's a public institution that's associated with the regular schools and they run a whole bunch of different after school activities and trips for kids from 7th to 9th grade. this is the first time they've planned a trip to st. petersburg and believe me, it shows. it seems that those organizing the trip haven't got the first clue about what it takes as far as visas and advising which clothes to take and how much money to take (they advised that the 12-13 year olds have a good selection of credit cards with them). and tho' i'm normally a very laid back traveler, this time it's driving me absolutely mad (both in the sense of crazy and of angry).

they even changed the dates of the trip slightly, but haven't published that anywhere - their website still has the old dates. they claimed to have sent the children who are signed up a text with the new dates, but both my child and her friend, who is also going, have received no such text. they guy in charge continues to insist they did. such a stupid lie is unnecessary. just admit you're a bit disorganized and didn't get it sent. don't keep lying about it when we can see the proof right there in two telephones. what's really stupid about it is that we need those correct dates for the visa application.

in order to get the visa, you have to have an invitation letter from someone in russia. in this case, the hotel where they will stay. only then can you fill out the application and apply for the visa. oh, and you must deliver the visa application to the embassy in person, you can't send it in. the embassy won't really say exactly how long the visa takes - if you pay extra, you can have it in 4 days, but it's likely to take anywhere from 7 - 14 days to get it if you don't pay extra. since they are set to leave october 15, time is ticking away. do you think we've seen the invitation letter from the hotel? no we have not.

do you think we've gotten a convoluted mail with some instructions about health insurance cut & pasted into it from the russian embassy website? yes, we have. is that the most important thing? no it is not. do you think this is causing me to pull out my hair? well, you would be right about that.

they held a meeting for the parents and the kids who are going on the trip on tuesday evening. i couldn't go, as i went to the salon allison park evening. but husband and sabin went. they met the three adults who are going on the trip - one is a bossy belorussian, one is a russian from st. petersburg who doesn't share a common language with the rest of the people going on the trip and one is a danish guy who was apparently heavily bullied by the belorussian throughout the course of the meeting. they showed some kind of only moderately informative power point with some pictures of what they would see and talked extensively about which credit cards the children should bring. they may have had some advice about what clothes to pack, but husband didn't write that down. he did, however, write down the following:

they will see:
* 4 shoe stores
* 6 candy stores
* 1 newspaper kiosk

they will spend 3 days in their hotel room.

nothing about culture was mentioned.

they are responsible for buying their own lunch, tho' breakfast and dinner are included.

this does not help me keep my hair. tho' i'm pretty sure most of it is a joke (except that thing about the lunch). he also drew a strange little picture of what appears to be a llama peeing. but i'm not sure what that has to do with the trip.

at this point, i actually have my doubts as to whether the trip is even going to happen. i want it to happen. i love the idea of my 12-year-old seeing the hermitage and the winter palace and the peter & paul fortress. i want her to walk the streets of st. petersburg and soak in the onion domes and see the canal where rasputin's body was found and feel the history that is lurking in every corner. all of this even tho' i am a moscow person. that flock of amateurs had just better get their act together and make this happen. a flock of amateurs, that's one of those danish phrases that maybe does translate.

why can't people just be normal?

on facebook i've subscribed to a few blogs and pages that are focused on sustainable living and/or foraging. while this means that i learn a lot of new things and get a lot of new ideas, it also means that occasionally, i stumble across things that make me throw up a little bit in my mouth.

because what is up with the sustainable living people? i feel like there are two extremes - either those who homeschool for christ or snotty hipster urbanists. i feel a bit like those of us who are more or less normal end up squeezed out. not to mention that i find myself feeling hesitant to identify myself as someone who is attempting to live more sustainably by foraging and gardening and making my own stuff because i'm neither gaga for god, nor do i have a hipster bone in my body (unless you count the tiny tattoo on my left second toe).

i know that there are a lot of normal people out there who are trying to live more sustainably (and i share a blog or two with a number of them) - whether this means seeking alternative energy sources or consuming less or making pesto from backyard weeds or starting a CSA of your own or buying appliance repair parts and fixing it themselves instead of buying new appliances, or making gifts instead of buying them - but i would like to hear more from them.

i guess it's like politics - it seems like the lunatics are the most visible.

and because of that, we get lists of things people don't spend their money on that include newspapers - on the grounds that they don't have the time to use the coupons anyway. no mention of the news at all in the reason - as if newspapers are about coupons (which may explain the state of the newspaper industry in the US). and then there was the frightening commenter who mentioned that she didn't spend money on toilet paper because at her house they used the family cloth. (singular.)

the fact that people like this are homeschooling their children deeply frightens me.

(by the way, i am intentionally not linking to these blogs, as i don't want to be responsible for sending visitors their way, but if you email me, i'll be happy to tell you where to look.)

i think living more sustainably and consuming less is a process. and it's hard work. i go up and down and i still crave far too many things (shiny electronics and chanel nail polish come to mind). but i'm working on it. and i'd love to read about others who are working on it who aren't doing it for jesus or to be the next unabomber or to be a hipster snob. i think the planet needs all of us to be thinking more sustainably. but it's pretty off-putting if i have to share used toilet paper with my family...