Valentine’s Day Massacre (A Re-release, Updated With Happy Ending)
The girls had a Valentine’s party at school yesterday and much of the previous evening was, for me, spent doing devious tricks with fishing line to make a heart mobile with all the children’s names on wee hearts. It seemed like such a good idea at the time and happy was I, as I tied tiny knots around twigs and such.
The next day at pre-school, things weren’t so light (or indeed love)-hearted. On the way into the building, the wind whirled and dervished my delicate mobile all to a sorry, knotty mess. The next, tense half-hour was spent on the floor with some scissors and Plan B, muttering “This too will pass”. My dad, bless his hairy, Scottish soul assured that it only took half, rather than the full, numbing hour it would have taken had I had to do it myself.
In the end, the girls came home with lots of tiny wee V-day cards, which apparantly any mother in the know, any mother in the secret Valentine for the Under-4s loop, can purchase for $1.99, and in fact did. All the mothers except me, who failed utterly to realize that this was what was expected and, for that failure, I now look like the rubbishest mother of any Green Room child, I think, ever. Instead, I opted to provide a heartbreaking representation of the tangled, unfathomable nature of love, and in full view of the innocent children, took a pair of scissors to the “heart-strings”, if you will , and left the horrific, warped mockery swinging eerily from the light fixture.
Tonight, I’m prefering to think of the incident as a timely lesson for these children, as yet untouched by life’s mysteries and blissfully ignorant of the essentially tragic nature of love. “Hey, get those thumbs out of your mouth and listen up kids: life is hard and the sooner you learn it the better”. And if I can leave a metaphor of tortured and lynched love, turning slowly in the breeze of a pre-school classroom, by God, I will. I’m calling the piece “The Agony”. I think, at 3, they’re old enough to handle it. In fact, I think they’ve had it too easy for too long. Lesson 2: An Examination of Supply-Side Economics, using the medium of Play-Doh. What would we parents do without Play-Doh, eh?
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My dad, who was here on vacation for a couple of months, went back to Scotland yesterday afternoon too and I cried, causing Katie to get upset and cry too, so all in all Valentine’s Day was turning into a bit of a massacre. Then my lovely, funny husband came home and we went out for a lovely, funny dinner in a grown-up, serious restaurant that didn’t offer us any crayons at all. It was the chocolate on the aesthetically dodgy strawberry that was my Valentine’s day.
February 16th, 2006 at 5:11 am
It is a husband’s duty to comment. Please be gentle with your moderation
February 16th, 2006 at 5:16 am
How ’bout I’m “moderate” with my moderation of your comment. Bless you, Davey. You and your lovely, loyal commentary
February 16th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
I have read your blog. Jolly good read. Well done
February 16th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Barra! Well met, Dr. B! Thank you for visiting and you have special permission under Code 734b of “Problemchildbride’s Book of Blogging Etiquette” (not yet available in paperback, but available as a fully indexed pamphlet in my head) to be as erm-ingly British, and further, as aar-ingly Scottish as you please. Come back and visit again soon, when it’s raining out and there’s nothing good on telly. Bookmark me even! With love, old chum.
February 18th, 2006 at 11:12 am
I haerd about your website from another of your and ian barra’s old chums – ‘Decay’. It’s a year since experienced the bipolar bears and am a little more comfortable about it than I was then
Grandpa Bear
February 18th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Erm-ingly and aar-ingly are not in my vocabulary, and I am so envious. I am going to sniff around here and see if I can learn Scotspeak.
February 18th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Hey Grandpa Bear! Welcome the to the fray (although I think “fray” might be talking it up a little; scuffle, perhaps). You’re right, the bipolar thing is a bit of an albatross, which adds an avian element to its already ursine characteristics. Why stop there? Jumpy as a joey, busy as a bee, indolent as a sloth, bold as a lion, meek as a lamb; grumpy as a camel; ambitious as an ant; duller than a slug; happy as … well you can see this is heading menagerie-wise.
Thank-you so much for visiting problemchildbride, GB! I hope you’ll come back. If you fancy a bipolar bear chat at any time, email me. Your #1 son has my address.
I’ve been pretty lucky in finding a drug combination relatively quicklythat seems to work for me or at least trims off the excesses either way. Got some good ones! (party at mine!). I hope things are working out similarly for you. It seems to be tricky and involve a lot of luck and tweaking on the doctor’s part to find the right combinations to help a person. My mother is bipolar too and over the years, what worked tolerably for one year would poop-out the next and a new cocktail was needed. And the side effects, particularly with the older drugs, are no picnic either. I prescribe blind luck, thrice a day, in capsule form.
BTW: I read recently that taking ANY medication alongside milk was a bad idea as the milk would decrease its absorption. And grapefruit. For some reason, there’s loads of drugs you can’t take with them. I’ve long since suspected that grapefruit of being a grandstander (pushing the other fruit out of the basket, dominating all the other fruit salad flavours. Grapefruit must see a drug as competition “No she’s mine: I will not have her body recognize anything but me, take that! Bif and Pow! I shall block your receptors (maniacal laugh) and you will be rendered a Poor and Useless Thing – reduced to the level of a vitamin.” Seriously. Damned grapefruit!
Jenn!
It is a real honour to have you visit. Am going to show off about you being here in today’s post. (If anyone else is reading this bit though, Jenn has one of the best blogs on the Web “breed’em and weep”. Go and read it. Jenn’s pal is going to go and live in Lewis soon, believe it or not, and I think that we, as former Leoseachs should give her as much unsolicited advice as we can; such as Church Street chips are superior to Point Street chips, and don’t hang your washing out on a Sunday.)
SCOTSPEAK: a primer for you. “plooch” (aspirated hard “c” on “ch”) = spot or pimple; “dreich” – one of our many, many ways of describing how wet it is outside; “Furry boots?” – only really useful in Aberdeen, the meaning being an inquiry as to where you hail from, as in “Furry boots are ye frae?” or Where abouts are you from? Aberdonians all “F” their “Wh”s for purely bloody-minded Aberdonian reasons.
February 21st, 2006 at 5:45 pm
I was amused by you varied animal references – suggest you forget about the menagerie and summarise it all as colorful as a chameleon.
It seems to me that the masks we wear in life (adapting to different situations and circumstances) can often give us the appearance of that creature. Any thoughts please?
I’m amused too by nicknames and acronyms and was envious of the many that you had amassed and referred to in one of your earlier entries -can’t remember witch one. (this computer experiences glitches too)
I’d be interested to know where ‘wirepeach’ comes from. It could be abbreviated to ‘wp’ with its many possible connotations – word processor, west point, wonderful person to mention just a few. However, I guess you might have some difficulty coming up with a Gaelic equivalent for ‘wp’.
Still on the same theme, I experience (living here in Yorkshire) occasional references to the ‘War of the Roses’ in Tudor times – when the folks from Yorkshire were at war with their neighbours in Lancashire. (the phrase is stilled used in connection with first class cricket matches between the two counties).
Coming from Lancashire (and being a tolerant? chap) I try and avoid any confrontation on this issue. So when asked about my roots I usually answer with my place of birth and an added word.
Now here’s a puzzle for you to solve
Best wishes
Grandpa Bear (alias ‘ecake’) -
Can you guess what the ‘e’ stands for?
February 21st, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Eccles! You’re an Ecclescake! Although I must confess I didn’t guess it; I tried to follow the link to your ecclescake website but was turned away by a sternly worded techie message. Do you still have the site?
“Wirepeach” comes from a recurring dream I had when I was wee which happened to have been on my mind when prompted for a username. It really wasn’t a dream about anything or in any place; it was just two alternating bits: one full of black and white jaggedy lines and clanging, discordant noise; the other, very quiet humming and a soft peachy colour. That’s it, that’s all there was but it was vivid and I had it, on and off, for years and years. Oddly enough, the peachy bit was more menacing than the harsh jaggedy bit because i knew how the dream worked and that pretty soon the noise and edges would be back. So that’s wirepeach, but I did like the “wonderful person” moniker. For, after all, I AM a wonderful person! Just ask me! But not, obviously, anyone who knows me because for wp you might get something along the lines of “wretched person”, “wet puddle” or “who, pray?”
Your chameleon analogy was interesting, and I am keenly aware of my own primitive lizard hindbrain, but, as the mask I usually wear is more notable for its pallor rather than its colour, especially in sunny, tanned California, I think the chameleon thing, for me, is a bit too exotic. I’m more your common or garden angleworm. To be a simple vertebrate is, as far as I’m concerned, an impossible dream, metaphor or no.
February 23rd, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Thanks for your reply which I found colorful, even though it might come from behind a pallid mask.
I’ve always enjoyed words (their origins and use) and think that the alternative suggestion for wp “who, pray?” was brilliant. I might even be tempted to address you in this way in future exchanges.
Overall it seems that there is some color hidden behind your mask (particularly as it is tinged with sunny tanned California) and it has added to the diversity of colours in my perception of the tapestry of life.
Will sign off here and continue elsewhere
Best wishes
Grandpa Bear