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Were there little ones in my life, apparently I could be a “helicopter parent” and would need to be chased off by some Universities.

Colleges Shoo Away Helicopter Parents

I’ll admit that the concept of “helicopter parent” is still somewhat foreign to me, despite what I have read. The rallying cry of my childhood was, “I’ll do it MYSELF!!” and my folks did everything they could to let me “do it myself” right up until the point where I would injure myself. When it came to college, my folks helped me move into my dorm room, and then I seem to recall chasing them off like they had some highly communicable disease.

I still remember being exceptionally conflicted one winter break when my Dad told me, “Hey, our office needs a receptionist over Christmas break, would you be interested in doing that instead of temping?” While the job sounded great, I also didn’t want to be “Don’s daughter” at the office, lest people think I was just a dingbat whose Dad got her a Christmas job. On top of that, everyone adored him, and I didn’t want to disappoint him, and also wanted NO treatment that was different than anyone else because he was my Dad.

I ended up taking the job and it was great – because everyone (including, and maybe especially, my Dad) was more than willing to dump any and all work on me that they thought I could handle. Right there I knew that I wasn’t a token timesheet. However, I will admit that a perk of working with your Dad is that he will make sure you get lunch before the cafeteria closes for the afternoon. The worst day was the first day – I busted my butt to accomplish anything and everything asked of me – and I wore heels. Then Dad wanted to go Christmas shopping afterwards. I certainly wasn’t going to say, “No Dad, my feet hurt!” I seem to recall walking around Tower Books & Records in Tyson’s in my aching stocking feet, and trying very hard not to cry from the pain. (I’m fairly certain I wore flats for the rest of the engagement.)

The only real time Dad intervened was when I came walking downstairs one morning with a skintone somewhere between green & grey – he took one look at me and said, “You go back to bed, NOW. We can cover the rest for the day.” He was right, as I was rather violently ill for the rest of the day. (Occasionally, parents do know what they’re talking about.)

But that was really the extent of my parents involvement in my college and professional life. Had I asked for assistance, they would have gladly provided it, but they never said, “Let us handle this for you.” It was always, “If we can help somehow, let us know.”

Now, if I had a little one of my own, I am quite sure I’d be insanely protective of them. However, I would also like to think that I’d raised them in such a manner that when the time came to do things on their own, they could do it without my intervening on every level. I really can’t comprehend getting terribly involved in their college careers other than providing $$ for tuition and board, and being a sounding board when they needed it, or getting involved in the job process other than, “Want me to fake interview you?” In my mind, beyond that, you’re not helping, you’re just hindering their independence.

Stability results were moderately low which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious.

Orderliness results were low which suggests you are overly flexible, improvised, and fun seeking at the expense too often of reliability, work ethic, and long term accomplishment.

Extraversion results were medium which suggests you are moderately talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting.

trait snapshot:
messy, disorganized, not rule conscious, rebellious, rash, weird, ambivalent about chaos, likes bizarre things, anti-authority, not good at saving money, not a perfectionist, leaves many things unfinished, low self control, strange, desires more attention, romantic daydreamer, abstract, impractical, unproductive, leisurely, likes the unknown

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was trying to say, “Go home.”

I cannot relax. Seriously. My companions are great, the food is spectacular and the water is awesome, but I *cannot* relax.

If this were a one week stay and we were leaving on Friday, I’d go ahead and pack it in now, because I can be this tense at home. I can only guess it is a confluence of many small things because I can’t put my finger on any one big thing, and I’m finding it very difficult to enjoy myself because I just can’t shake this underlying, unidentifiable stress.

Friday morning Carmen had a (quite literal) massive hissy fit upon being dropped off at the kennel. (What idiot doesn’t know to leave the cat in the crate until the cat is ready to come out of the crate on its own? Oh – that would be me. I don’t know WHAT I was thinking.) However, her scaling the front of the 6′ bank of “suites” and installing herself in a kitty cube at the top was tactically impressive. Always go for the high ground. I did speak to the kennel later and they said she’d calmed down and both had eaten dinner enthisiastically and they were both fine if “a bit reserved” – reserved still being better than hissing at everyone that comes within 2 feet.

No cell reception for anyone in the house. Last year we were on the cusp, and this year the trees have grown just enough to knock it out altogether. Purchased internet seems to be working for others, but very slow & sketchy at best for me – I am not one that needs to be connected 24/7, but some level of access to the rest of the world is nice, and there are some internet based services I will need to use over the course of two weeks. (And it seems to work best when I enable wi-fi on my phone and then tether that to the laptop – I really don’t think that should work better, but it does.) This after my laptop decided to puke all over itself on Saturday and simply decide to not work properly. I got it going again, but I still have no idea what went wrong in the first place.

Massive insomnia 2 out of 4 nights, that I cannot ascribe to anything other than an inability to turn my brain off.

Thunderstorms Saturday and today, which is leaving the dog decidedly unimpressed with beach life.

I guess the phone ringing off the hook 24/7 the last two years down here just blocked out all the other little annoyances. Or maybe I have just never really mastered the art of relaxing – it never was one of my strong points. But I can’t say I really relish the idea of always being tense until I die…

Not all my stuff, but I have noticed lately that there are certain items in my life that seem to simply disappear. Some reappear in spades after replacement, but not all. I will admit to being more than a tad stymied by it all.

1. Mini Mag Lites. Every July I go and buy 4 Mini Mag Lites for the beach trip. It’s the middle of summer, thunderstorms and power outages happen, and if you’re in an unfamiliar house, it’s nice to have a little flashlight on the nightstand should you wake in the middle of the night and have to make your way to the bathroom without breaking an ankle. (I do try to be the hostess with the mostest.) We go to the beach with 4 little flashlights and come home with 4 flashlights in the Beach Equipment Box. By Christmas, I am lucky if there are still two of these flashlights in the box or the pencil holder on the kitchen desk. By March I am usually down to one flashlight and both bulbs have burned out on it…

This begs the question – where the hell did the other 3 flashlights go? In theory, they should turn up in various places about the house as I go about my day to day business. Except that they don’t. If I ever move out of here, I am quite certain I am going to find some sort of packrat nest that has about 20 Mini Mag Lites in it.

2. Hex keys. Given all the various and sundry things I have purchased from Ikea over the years, I should have at least 3 of every size and shape of hex key available. And yet, I have none. (And right now, I need some.)

3. Hair clips. These do a disappearing and reappearing act. As soon as I am down to one of these spring loaded barrettes, I go snag another 3 pack of them at the drug store. And a week later, I find I have a dozen of them.

4. Fluffy black socks. A few weeks into the fall, it’s always the same thing. I find I have 4 pairs of fluffy black socks to wear with my Timberlands. I check the pending laundry – no fluffy black socks. I hit Kohls, get a six pack of socks, and three days later, I will do a load of laundry and there are 10 pairs of fluffy black socks in it… The upside is that I won’t run out of socks for near three weeks, but seriously – WHERE WERE MY SOCKS????

I’d blame the cats, but this has been going on for too long, and even during the year I was catless. (I can’t blame the dog, he’s not much into the ‘taking stuff and hiding it’ games.)

Well over 50% of the underlying issues with last night’s insomnia was the fact that I could not shut my brain off, and tonight, I feel like I’m right in the same place.

Part of the reason I’m not feeling particularly optimistic about the sweet escape to dreamland is that my brain has been going about 150MPH all day today, and it’s only gotten worse as the day has progressed into the evening. It’s been a day where every self-doubt, every question of choices made, and the rest of my mental flotsam and jetsam has decided to come bubbling up to the surface.

I was talking with a friend earlier about a mutual friend who had gone off and tried something new and potentially terrifying. Granted, it was a no-lose situation, but he went outside his comfort zone to do it. And we were both proud of him for the attempt, regardless of the outcome.

There was a time where I told The Universe, “Bring it on!!” Which she did, in spades. (Yeah, tempting Fate in the first place ain’t the greatest idea.)

But she’s winged about as much as she could at my head, and I’ve managed to survive it.

However, it’s left me ridiculously gun-shy. And I really hate that I’ve become a rather timid person for it – for no other reason that I’m tired of the fact that the Fates decided to have a psychotic break while cutting my strings.

But I just don’t want to discover that The Universe has more fun and games in store for me. I’ve had enough at this point, thankyouverymuch.

When you can’t convince yourself that anything new won’t end in spectacular disaster, it’s hard to psych yourself up for anything new and outside your comfort zone.

It’s quite an annoying spot to find yourself in.

So, I was sitting here a little while ago, minding my own business and paying some bills. An average day.

Then I hear a hissing noise coming from the right side of my laptop table. At first, I thought it was the soda can. Then I saw what appeared to be steam or smoke shooting sideways from the vicinity of my AirCard, but I still couldn’t really figure out what exactly was happening.

Then I heard a pop. Which as it turns out, was the battery cover to my AirCard being shot across my coffee table. Then things started happening in a rather rapid and disturbing succession.

The battery on the AirCard then shot out of the battery slot, ON FIRE. Not just smoking and threatening fire, actually shooting out FIRE in several directions. I’m then jumping up, cursing in several languages I never knew I was fluent in while half my brain is screaming PUT IT OUT, PUT IT OUT!!! While the other half of my brain is thinking, “Dear lord, my life has just turned into the ‘Caravaning in Dorset’ episode on Top Gear.”

I then upended a near full can of Coke over the entire thing. (Guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking vodka.) Then dumped it in a large glass of water in the kitchen. Then stood there for a while just wondering WTF had just happened.

Guess it’s time to see if I am eligible for an upgrade on my AirCard.

It was a brilliant plan that you and American Express had. I use my AmEx card, I get a Costco rebate voucher every year. It gets me in the door where I will proceed to be blinded by all things Costco and spend at least twice as much as the voucher is worth. Really, it’s a genius plan.

So, I marched into Costco today with my $152.57 voucher, loaded my cart with software, dry goods, batteries, dog biscuits and cases of glass bottle Mexican Coke*.

Not only did I not spend an extra $150 like you had so hoped, I got $1.67 in change at the checkout. HA! I WIN!!

*Hecho en Mexico are three beautiful words when it comes to Coca Cola.

Or maybe it’s just that freakishly hot week of weather we normally get right smack in the middle of spring just about every year.

Two days of 90 degrees, today is 80 degrees, it’s sunny, there is NO SNOW, and frankly, I don’t mind it a bit. (Though I do know that my allergy prone friends are in a bit of agony, but that is DC in spring.) Though it did throw me a little this morning, as I had read that today would be rainy & cool and instead I woke up to 80 and sunny, and discovered that the rain forecast has been pushed off to this evening. I’m not sure what it says about me that I can be thrown off by a change in the weather, but what can I say – I’d went to bed mentally prepped for a cool and rainy day!

Today’s challenge is seeing how close I can come to spending $152.57 at Costco. (Annual Costco cashback thing from my AmEx card.) I need Turbo Tax and AA batteries. The challenge of filling out that amount with things I actually *need* rather than just go “Oooh, good deal!” and then not spending another $300 on top of the $150. A challenge indeed. (And if nothing else, free lunch via samples!)

Well, off to blind people with my insanely white legs – sorry world, I have to wear shorts today.

So, Forbes came out with their list of the 25 wealthiest counties in the United States, and my home county of Fairfax came in second. (Congrats to Loudon for coming in at #1.)

The median household income in Fairfax County is $106,785

Wow – sorry to my fellow residents for seriously dragging down the average.  I’ve lived and worked here for longer than I care to admit, and not even on my BEST year did I have a household income even within spitting distance of $106K.

Now, maybe it’s high because it’s a per household number and not per capita, and we have a lot of dual income families in the county.  Or, it could just be that I am a total slacker to never really aspired to much of anything.  :)

OK, not really weird, but I like the alliteration.

– YAY for having friends working at a decent auto service station!  They can tell you the best time to show up to get your headlight replaced so you’re only waiting for five minutes instead of three hours.  (And bonus points for him getting the job done in no time flat despite the fact that I was seriously hovering watching what he was doing – only to come to the conclusion that had I tried to do it myself, I’d have likely broken $750+ of other car parts in the process.)

– Spring training is underway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Enough said.

– Yet another “NBC, you do seem to WANT to lose $200M on the Olympics given the way you’re doing this coverage” annoyance.  I really enjoy Curling.  The commentators seem to like it, too.  They talk about how each throw can make a difference.  And yet NBC will cut to commercials and skip 4 ends.  That, and I have also seen the same damn interviews of the same damn medal winners multiple times.  Kids, you did good, but your 15 minutes are OVER the second the next event starts.  I don’t care how you did it for the time being, because I would like to see others do their thing to get a medal rather than an interview with you.  It’s nothing personal, I’m just trying to see as many events as I can, and your interviews are really screwing that up.

– And on another sports note, I finally can admit that I can see the advantage to HDTV.  I have a normal TV, and it’s fine.  They say HDTV is awesome for sports – my only experience with it has been up at the pub.  Yes, it’s great because I can see the scores much easier on the screen.  But I have no need to see every individual blades of grass on the field.  HOWEVER – when you’re watching Curling??!?  You can EASILY see which stone is closest to the center.  Yes, Curling of all sports has made me an HDTV convert.

– More Curling.  I didn’t get to see a whole lot of Curling in the Torino Olympics because I was still spending an inordinate amount of time trying to teach people how to use my company’s accounting software, and I was being taunted on a near daily basis by my brother sending me IM’s of “I’ve seen more Curling before 9AM than most people see in a lifetime.”  But what I did see, I really liked.  And this go round, I’m not the only one.  I have come to the conclusion that it is an Olympic event that people watch and say, “Hey, that is something I could learn how to do!” Not necessarily on an Olympic level, but it’ss something that looks fun and doable for your normal person with the desire to learn the game.  You can’t really say that about a lot of the other events.  (I would have said it about cross country skiing until Petra Majdic skidded off the course and ended up with four broken ribs and a punctured lung.  I’ll stick with being the girl at the lodge ordering everyone’s drinks.)

– Even more Curling.  It’s become a well enough known event that no one even batted an eye as I found myself YELLING at the TV at the pub watching the Canadian ladies versus the ladies from Denmark.  I even had people asking me if a point had been scored.  (Thanks to little bro for giving me the scoring/hammer refresher course when things kicked off.  There aren’t a lot of televised Curling events outside of the Games.)  OH CANADA!

– The Snow.  It really needs to seriously melt down.  We’re supposedly getting a wintry mix turning to rain on Monday, and I am all for it.  The awesomedog even moreso.  The poor little guy is losing his mind.  He has the track I cut for him through the backyard, and he is willing to go snowplowing through the rest if he sees something interesting, but it’s certainly not the same as having his whole yard to bounce around in.  So he’s going a tiny bit nuts.  As am I – I love that the snowcover makes everything brighter, which is great in the winter.  However, I am wondering about permanent retinal damage due to the snowblindness every time I look out the window.

– Lent.  It’s somewhat entertaining to watch the confused looks of people when you have given up/tried to improve/done a few more good things for Lent and you’re not Catholic  I don’t do it to mock, it just seems like a slightly better idea to try and improve things during the Lenten season than doing the 1/1 resolution thing that gets broken within a week anyway.  (Despite my lack of overt religiousness, I do still have a few shreds of faith left, so it works for me.)

– And tomorrow is Saturday, so I can sleep in with no guilt over it whatsoever.  Hoorah for weekends.