the Blethering Spot

Lately I’ve been hanging out a lot at the soccer field, primarily watching women’s and girls’ games. I love seeing these fantastic women striding confidently around the field, wisps of hair escaping from ponytails to stick to hot faces, bodies free of jewelry. I love the thick shin pads on their strongly muscled legs; I love the cleats with their clods of grass and dirt; I love the voices of the women, roughened with exertion, as they call out to their teammates.

Perhaps it’s a backlash against the glossy Photoshopped fake women that smile out at me from magazine covers, but I can’t help thinking silently, “Ah…… now these are women.” They’re not skeletons, living on a pretzel a day in order to meet society’s expectations. They’re not airbrushed, Botoxed, siliconed, malnourished objects whose heads (complete with extensions) outweigh the rest of their bodies. These local, average soccer players are moms, friends, wives, sisters. They’re the girls behind the counter at Wal Mart… theirs are the voices on the local radio station… they teach our children in school… they’re the ones who pour our coffee in Tim Horton’s.

I love knowing that my girls are going to grow up in this small, rural northern town. I love standing on the sidelines on game days, watching my own daughters get breakaways, their faces intent, their self-confidence soaring as they take a shot on goal. Isn’t it wonderful? I look at my daughters’ teams and think, “Here are the women of tomorrow.”

Whatever it is that your daughter excels in, encourage her. One day, maybe I’ll hear your daughter playing the piano at the Chan Center in Vancouver. Maybe she’ll perform my hip replacement surgery, 50 years down the road. Maybe I’ll totter over to her veterinary clinic with my sick Teacup Poodle. (Okay, maybe not that one.) Perhaps we will watch her dive, or sprint, or win the long jump during the 2020 Olympic Games. Maybe your daughter will grow up and teach my grandchildren grade 7 Socials. Maybe she’ll be the one who offers me her seat on the bus.

My hope for my daughters is that whatever they turn out to be — a dentist, a hairdresser, a tree planter, an obstetrician, a stay-at-home mother — whatever it is, that they will love what they do, and do it well. I want them to go out into this big world with the belief that they can do anything, be anything, and love themselves for it. I don’t want them to be hindered by society’s expectations on them, or even by my own expectations. I want them to be free to do, and be.

Is it possible, in this crazy world?

I think so.

I am passing this on to you because it definitely works, and we could all use a little more calmness in our lives. By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed, “The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started but never finished.”

So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn’t finished, and before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, a bottle of Vodka, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos and a box of chocolates.

You have no idea how freaking good I feel. Please pass this on to those whom you think might be in need of inner peace.

We are off to Prince George today, to attend a [mandatory] Adoption Education Program. Horray! This will be one more item to check off the list. After this summer, all the AEPs are being extended to four-day seminars, so we are lucky, in a way, to slip in now and get it done in one intensive day.

When they said, “Lots of paperwork,” they weren’t fooling around. Here’s what we’ve done so far — this is Paperwork Stage One (the Home Study paperwork):

• Prior Contact Checks with the Ministry for Children & Family Development
• Criminal record checks
• Interpol screening (with fingerprints)
• May I note how cool it was to go in and get fingerprinted? What is it about the RCMP that makes them so totally cool? Is it the yellow stripe on the pants? Is it the way they can simultaneously talk and listen to the dispatcher? Is it that black belt thing with all that stuff hanging from it? Whatever it is, Reader, they are seriously awesome. I have some deep attachment going on for the RCMP.
• Personal autobiography, with timelines
• This took about FIVE HOURS to write. It’s not just stuff like, “When did you get your drivers’ license?” It’s more like, “Describe, with examples, your parenting philosophy,” and “Who influenced you most in your growing-up years? In what areas, and why?” I’m fond of introspection, but I did find that after five hours I felt a little emotional and tired.
• an Eco Map, which shows our family’s relationship and environment circles.
• Genogram — basically, a family tree.
• We have yet to do our medical checks, since our doctor is on holidays until next week.

Right.

In other news, I have begun pricing the Everest of garage sale fodder that has grown in my basement. WOW! There is SO much stuff down there, most of it donated by others. I sneakily pocketed a string of Christmas gingerbread-men garland that I thought would be really fun in my kitchen, but everything else is getting stickered and sorted. It’s not actually as bad as I expected; I’m just going by the motto, “If in doubt, price it at 10 cents.”

I checked the weather report for next weekend, and it’s supposed to RAIN! I don’t know what to do. There’s way too much stuff to fit inside the carport. Here are my options:

1. Just have the garage sale in the rain, fit as much into the carport as possible and just let the rest sit in the rain. (A tarp might work to cover the first bit of the driveway, if we can find something to tie it to.)
2. Postpone the garage sale, again. The next weekend is supposed to be sunny, so do it then.

What do you think?

Went to take the kids to school this morning, only to discover that a car door had been left ajar, and the interior light had shone brightly through the night.

This, then shall be our mode of transport today:

I’ve been feeling domestic again, and have tried, with indifferent success, to impress my family with my culinary prowess. Shockingly, I have heard things like, “Can we have Kraft dinner tomorrow?” and “What’s this green stuff in the bread?” It’s enough to make me grind my teeth in frustration. Ours is a high and lonely destiny.