Things That Piss Me Off Tuesday - the distracted by shiny things edition

I cannot focus.  I blame my self diagnosed adult onset A.D.D.  I've been very scatterbrained lately, and every time I sit down to write something, it ends up being the things I won't let myself write about.

OPD
Kinda like that rap song about Other People's Problems....but my issue is with Other People's Dogs.  At some point in my adult life, I became an unwilling kennel owner.  Meaning that I just watch other people's dogs.  No one ever watches my dog.  Yet, it seems like half the time I have a bonus dog. A bonus dog that gets into the trash, burps louder than any of the humans in the house, drags her ass on the carpet and throws up occasionally.

Over the weekend, my oldest kid watched the neighbor's dogs.  Which is usually fine.  Almost always.  Until the 100+ lb lab gets out.  He likes to run.  He really likes to run.  He doesn't come when you call him, he actually runs away.  He doesn't care if you're watching the Grammys in your nice warm house and it's 10 degrees outside.  Dogs.

You know how spending time with other people's kids makes you appreciate yours more?  Works the same for dogs.

Girl Scout Cookies
Back in the day, we used to take orders.  Then we would turn in our forms and get exactly what we needed.  Then we would have booth sales where parents weren't directly responsible for unloading cookies and all was right with the world.  Now, in a genius move that made cookie sales infinitely more complicated, they decided to distribute cookies to the girls first, without knowing what anyone would actually sell.

This has created a situation where all the parents are left asking for cookies from each other in a giant game of Go Fish, since none of us actually have what we need.  I have a running list of people I need to swap boxes with.


Marco.......Polo........

Good job, Girl Scouts....creating this sordid underground black market.  People meeting in dark parking lots, sending midnight text messages, going on benders when they locate six boxes of Samoas.  Creating high levels of anxiety for parents must surely be a good thing for little girls, right?

Interrupted Grief
I think part of why certain days are hard when it comes to losing my Dad is this: they are the only time I really get to grieve his loss.  Even that isn't exactly true.  It seems like I am always, always, always distracted.  Worried about something else. Putting out some other fire.  Dealing with some other drama. And it's never about him.  

Almost immediately after he died, everything else in my life went to shit.  People all around me started self destructing, and it was literally all I could do just to keep it together.  I couldn't be bothered with being sad or any of that, because I didn't have the time.  I didn't have the energy.  There was too much else I had to deal with, and I did.

I guess that's why I tend to get quiet and just sit with it when it comes uninterrupted.  I have learned to savor those times when I can just be with it, when I can have a moment of peaceful reflection.  It's strange to be grateful for grief, but sometimes that's just the break in chaos I need.  That Dad of mine, still telling me to calm down...

The Facebookization of Society
Yes, that it totally a word.  I just invented it.

Facebook, as well as all the other social media tools, certainly have their useful value.  I question though, whether for some people they do more harm than good.  I see so many people who shine up their lives, make 'em look pretty, then take a bajillion pictures to put out there.  Who talk about how wonderful everything is when you know they are lying.  Who try to convince the rest of the world, and presumably themselves, of how perfect everything is.

Trouble is, even when we objectively know it's all bullshit, we tend to fall for it.  We see the fake perfection and start comparing our lives to the imagined world we are fooled into thinking everyone else lives in.

We worry that our kids aren't in enough activities, happy enough.  We don't go on enough fabulous vacations.  We don't have a nice enough house.  We don't have a brand new car.  We don't go to the gym every day.  We don't go on enough date nights with our husbands that we are still completely head over heels in love with.  We don't drop the baby weight immediately.  We don't cook enough at home.  We don't cloth diaper.  And on and on and on and on....

Stop it.

There is no utility in comparing our lives to anyone else even when we know we are seeing the truth. Trying to do it when we only see what they want to show the world is even more misleading.

Let's all do ourselves a favor.  Log off Facebook.  Sit on a porch.  Talk to a friend.  In person.  Make memories for yourself and your family, not to put on display to the rest of the world.

Unplug.  Live.