All Rileyed Up

When I started my blog, it was intended to be humorous observations of the mundane. Nothing too personal, mainly jokes and quips.

Little by little, as I got in with other bloggers and as I read more posts, I found the more interesting ones were the ones that got personal. I even find that on my own blog, the personal posts often get more comments than the impersonal ones. Perhaps because it is more raw, more real–nonfiction always sells better (so the book marketing people say).

The big question became how does one draw the line between personal and too personal? Harmless joke and insulting? I thought I knew, but like MC Hammer and his pants, I was wrong.

I considered stopping the blog, and putting the newfound free time to other purposes (kids, novel, returning books on time to the library). For the time being, just expect less personal posts from me. And more posts on singles ads for tarantulas and organization tips from the Notorious F.O.X.–

You clean up this room up this instant!

The real article: Netherlands bans magic mushrooms

Suggested edits:

“A major Dutch producer of the psychedelic mushrooms said he stood to lose millions of euros as a result.” But added that thanks the wonders of something called the Black Market, he knows he has other options.

“The Netherlands is famed for its liberal drugs policy, with marijuana openly sold in licensed cafes.” Contrary to what was expected when the cafes first opened, there was no explosion in tourism due to several factors:
a) everyone who wanted to go kept forgetting to get the required documentation and/or kept losing it.
b) they missed their flight because a Scooby Doo marathon came on TV.
c) they couldn’t remember the name of the country.

“Magic mushrooms, more properly known as psilocybe.” (CUT: psilocybe, INSERT: shrooms, man, fu-ckin’ shrooms).

“Currently in the Netherlands the sale of dried magic mushrooms - in which the psychoactive chemicals psilocybin and psilocin are stronger - is banned but fresh mushrooms are allowed. This is because it is more difficult to ascertain how much of the chemicals fresh mushrooms contain.” Plus, everyone loves a good loophole.

“The problem with mushrooms is that their effect is unpredictable. It’s impossible to estimate what amount will have what effect.” Of course, this has never concerned American pharmaceutical companies with their drugs.

“She said all the incidents had involved magic mushrooms in conjunction with other drugs.” Like legally sold marijuana, alcohol, and NyQuil.

“Users of fresh mushrooms experience effects ranging from giggling fits and intensification of colours, lights and sounds to, more rarely, hallucinations.” And the desire to play with Stretch Armstrong.

“Negative effects can include vomiting, and anxiety.” And the concern that one of your friends may in fact be the devil.

Interestingly, nowhere does this article address the concept of personal responsibility, because what the hell is that these days?

What would this one say?

(See more pix here: wordless wednesday
Wordless Wednesday )

Back when my brother was in town, I took him to the Bowers Museum. We met the Queen of Kilimanjaro there. Who is she, you ask? Not a person. Oh no. The Queen of Kilimanjaro is much more entrancing and much less perplexing than any person. She is a tiara. A most beauteous tiara that was created by the magnificent artists of Silverhorn Jewelers in Santa Barbara: a white gold interlacing of diamonds and garnets, all of which serve as an accent to a motherload of blue tanzanite: 242 carats, to be exact. She is, by far, the most appealing display in the Gems! exhibit (as is often the case, the picture does not do it justice). When I first saw it, my jaw dropped and I said to my brother, “Well I don’t know who the fizuck the Queen of Kilimanjaro is, but I like the way she rolls.” (I’m very couth, I know.)

I had no idea that the Queen of Kilimanjaro was a nonentity, like my high school boyfriend or Dead Elvis. I imagined her to be some tribal woman living mountainside with her clan of the cave bear artisans and metallurgists, lavishly clad in expensive jewels while riding elephants. (In other news, I’ve just been asked to participate in a sociology study, “Idiots, and Their Misperceptions”).

Another piece, the decadently named “Ceylon Sinflower” was a gold flower pendant with a Ceylon centerpiece. The pendant was so heavy that they designed a gold flower stem to hook it onto once you were tired of it adorning your neck. This piece and its title depressed me, much like the man driving a Jaguar with a vanity plate that says “Poverty” (I’m not even making that up). For that matter, the entire Gems! exhibit can only be beautiful and exciting if you push to the back of your mind the concerns of where these beautiful stones are coming from. Also, you should ignore the entire “jewel art” section which attempts to follow the tradition set by Faberge of using jewels to create art, only instead of eggs, these people were decorating animal statues. There was a mouse on ice skates. If it weren’t for the jeweled eyes, I probably would have assumed it came from the dollar store, because I’m familiar with cheap animal statues. When I was a kid, my mom always came home with presents from her students at Christmastime–excuse me, Winter Holiday–and every year we were guaranteed at least one animal statue, usually of birds. Teachers = Bird Statues? I don’t get it. Too bad she’s not a teacher anymore, because my understanding now is that the popular gifts are candles and bath stuff, and man, do I stink.

But back to the museum.

Also on display at the Bowers was an Egyptian mummy exhibit, part of the collection from the British Museum. I was excited to see this. I love Egyptian history – I’ve seen Aida AND Cleopatra (please note previously referenced sociology study).

While I enjoyed the mummy exhibit and found it informative and interesting, I also found it to be a bit, um, intrusive. Like I was that irritating person who always slows down to look at a car accident. I know everybody loves the mummy talk and oh, look at how much we learn by studying them, but that does not deny the fact that we are essentially studying and admiring the work of grave robbers, ie desecrators.

Did you ever witness your friends get into a screaming match with their parents when you were younger, or watch your friends get into a fight with their significant other right in front of you? It has happened a handful of times in my life, and I can’t stand it, the feeling that I am witnessing something I shouldn’t. That was the feeling that sank into me while I was walking around the mummy exhibit, looking at CAT scans of mummies and emptied coffins and the mummy of a child, feeling like I had defiled their graves myself. Feeling like we had stopped viewing them as people and simply as things.

Leaving the museum, I drove through downtown Santa Ana. There are many a pretty historic buildings there, and I wanted to show them to my brother. I learned recently that Santa Ana is going through a gentrification. I learned about it from a guy I met who was an interior decorator and longtime Santa Ana resident. He had decorated some of the new homes being sold to up the ante in the city. The new homes will ideally increase the value of the other places, the rents will go up everywhere, and eventually, a “better” class of people will live there. I asked what happens to the people currently living in Santa Ana, who won’t be able to afford the new prices. He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

And here I was worrying about our treatment of mummies.

(See more pix here: wordless wednesday
Wordless Wednesday )

Well, duh.

I’m surrounded by this remark on a daily basis. I think it. I hear it. I get mad about it. I don’t mind it.

I think many things about this remark, none of which will get much discussion today, save this version: being a mom is hard when there is something different about your child.

I have children with learning delays that defy categorization. Literally. Their preschool class is actually called the Non-Categorical Learning Delay class. The Boy’s delay we attributed to a lack of ability to concentrate caused by excessive itchiness. We have done much to resolve the dreaded eczema and while it is still around, its days are numbered. And his development is increasing by leaps and bounds. He speaks in FULL SENTENCES!!!

Little No Limit on the other hand, is a beguiling array of cute smiles and no words. Some school folks think she might be autistic, a fact I brought up to her doctor, who flat out said she is not. But what about her eyes? They all talk about her eyes, how she doesn’t make eye contact with everyone. She does sometimes. If she’s not focused on something. What is the difference between someone who can block out distractions and someone who is incapable of making eye contact? We have neurologist and naturopath appointments in coming months. Food intolerance tests, metal tests, maybe a CAT scan. The works. Fun. For her. For me. She’ll get scared and I’ll get to feel guilty while fretting over whether or not I’m doing the right thing.

What I wish is that I could be everything for my kids. That I could just snap my fingers and they could speak and make eye contact and make everyone stop worrying about them. But I cannot snap fingers and make it happen. I can, however, snap my fingers while singing the ABCs every single day and read books and do flash cards and wood puzzles and stack blocks and work with my kids every single day and keep a tracksheet of the vocabulary they use and understand every day and continue to meet with the teachers and discuss their progress, both at home and in school, and then go on to the doctors and regurgitate what the teachers and school psych think and try to mesh it with what they think all in an effort to make sure my kids get by in life. Whew. See how that was all one sentence? No time to breathe. Just like my days. This is why I try to end nearly every day with a trip to the beach. We get our feet wet and play in the sand while I write crappy poetry about water in my journal to relieve my angst and we all go home, feeling that much more light hearted.

What does not get done every day is my novel. You know, my dream? Like, a non-family related, personal goal? Every day I try to work on it. Some days, I succeed in working on it, though usually not to the degree that I’d like to. But even that’s better than the days when I don’t work on it at all.

So how do I fit it all in is the big question that has me in an uproar, and it this exact inability to figure out the answer that has me, dare I say it, sometimes frustrated by the responsibilities of being a mom. And that is why I am awarding a Perfect Post award to Toddled Dredge’s post The Ambitious Stay At Home Mom. Among other things, she writes, “When I have external goals like this, I desperately want to progress toward them, and when the children prevent my progress, I resent them for being obstacles, instead of enjoying them for being children.” Thanks for reminding me that I’m not alone, Veronica. You rock.

For more Perfect Posts, see Suburban Turmoiland Petroville.