Bits of Tid...

Ok first of all, sorry for the delay in posting Part 2. I think I'll end up condensing it down to a single paragraph or two contained in this post. For the last couple days Monkey, Parker and I have come down with something.. We're not quite sure what but it's really kicking our butts in the energy and muscle ache department. Two days ago I woke up feeling like I was going to hurl, which I actually never did but felt like I was going to most of the day. I chalked it up to the migraine I got mid-afternoon and yesterday when I went in to get Parker from his crib he had a panicked look on his face and he was gasping. At first I thought he was choking on something so I proceeded to pry his mouth open and then even tried to gently feel around with my finger to see if I could feel/get anything. What I got was handfuls of vomit, poor baby.

The two days prior to that I was in a place I've never been in before. I was:
1.) Uninspired (been there)
2.) Completely exhausted (been there) and...
3.) BORED (NEVER BEEN THERE)

I don't remember ever being bored in my life. Nothing sounded like something I wanted to do. Nothing. But yet I was so bored. Monkey suggested I post but see #1? Lots of topics entered my mind to post about but I didn't actually feel like writing, ya know? Anyway.. So here I am, lots of tidbits to post about so I'll try to be as succinct as possible.

Monkey's News:

I told him I'd give him until (last) Monday to tell people but he was too busy feeling like poo and trying to milk it for all it's worth. So the big news is that he's going back to school. He's going for Networking Interface blah blah blah somethingcomputerIhavenofriggenidea part time at night. It'll take him 3 years to earn the degree but we're all very excited here. That's a long way from his post a month ago about lacking self motivation.

Do You Love Me Part Deux:

Essentially after I got my dad home he became the world's biggest pain in the ass ever (said with all the love in the world.) I brought him home Sunday and tended to his every need all day long. By 11:00 p.m. I realized I hadn't even had a chance to eat anything all day long and found that my dad didn't have any pots or pans (they were in the oven I found out later.) So I grabbed a bowl and a saucer plate and nuked up some ramen noodles just to have SOMETHING, threw the bowl, plate and fork in the sink with the coffee cup, plastic tumbler and three pieces of silverware that were there and trudged my arse to bed with plans of doing the dishes after making my dad breakfast. I awoke at 6:45 a.m. to the sound of my DAD DOING THE DISHES because I had left them from the night before. I soon found out that since he's been living alone for the last 4 years he's become quite cantankerous about his house. After I shooed him back to bed, finished the dishes, made him breakfast and did THOSE dishes, I quick washed up in the bathroom sink and ran out to fill some prescriptions and pick up some supplies. Before heading out he asked if I would change the sheets on his bed when I got back and of course I said "Of course, Daddy." I was gone an hour. When I got back he had changed his sheets himself, made himself a second helping of oat meal and had THOSE dishes in a sink full of soapy water and was starting to wash them. Remember, this is the day after I BROUGHT HIM HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL.

I did my best to keep up with him, keep on top of his needs and often sacrificed my own (food, coffee, showering, sleep.) But by Tuesday it was clear to me (and him) that he was truly well enough to take care of himself and that I was only irritating him by only being one person with two arms instead of two people with eight. I called Monkey and asked him to make the trek back to Michigan to pick me up after he got out of work. I spent Tuesday doing everything that I could think of to make my dad's life easier after I left. I wasn't terribly worried because his (temporary) roommate who USE to be a nurse and after decades of marriage and children has decided to go BACK to get her RN's licence again would be back on Thursday which meant he'd only have one day by himself and his best friend Jack who is a retired doctor would be visiting anyway. I did more shopping, laundry and dishes. I cleaned the bathroom and scrubbed the kitchen down. I even got the good people at Johnny Rockets to open up their doors to me an hour early and bought a huge tub of their chili for him. By Tuesday night I was so glad to see Monkey and to be going home I nearly cried. I've never been away from Parker for more than 3 or so hours before and it had been since Friday evening that I had been able to kiss ANY of my babies.

My In-Laws Party as the End of Women's Suffrage

Every year the church my in-laws live across from have an entire fair come set up on their vast lawn, complete with games, rides, fair food stands, gambling, rap music and the vast collection of people from every walk of life Toledo has to offer, from 280 lb Bobbi Sue in her little sister's tank top that the Salvation Army wouldn't accept and her 5 children whom are afraid of soap and water to Biff and Muffy in their his and hers matching Polo shirts and tennis sweaters. To celebrate this event my in-laws throw a party (and lemme tell ya, this family knows how to throw a party. Enough food to shame Thanksgiving and enough booze to.. well get a whole lotta people a whole lotta drunk.) It's the kind of party that their kids aren't afraid to invite their friends to. Their ADULT kids. Monkey invited his best friend and his wife and a very good time was had by all until religion, politics and women's rights were brought into topic. That's when I felt like the floor was pulled out from under my feet. When the reality of how much just four short years can change who people are slapped us directly on the face.

It's easy to think you still know the beliefs of your friends when you don't talk about them. It's natural to think that someone you've known for years still feels at least in the same fundamentals as they did when you last spoke with them about it. In other words, it's easy to be wrong and.. well you know what they say about when you assume.

We were speaking about our plans the next day and well, this being on a Saturday, we openly discussed the possibility of going to church (I refuse to be ashamed of my beliefs and am not shy about talking about them, but that's for another post.) They go to a Baptist church just down the road from my in-laws and we go to a Unitarian church downtown. The conversation drifted from how involved we were or were not in our church to our own personal faiths. I was saying how I'm very much a hippy kind of believer where God is all about love and peace and acceptance and understanding and she was conveying how she's still very founded in the religious roots in which she was raised, fire and brimstone. Anyone who really knows me knows this is the kind of conversation I live for. I LOVE "deep" conversation with good people, ESPECIALLY when they have different views. I thrive on the opportunity to grow and learn and have a better understanding of who they are as people and of the world in general. Unfortunately the conversation took a turn I didn't expect or prepare myself for and I found my mouth agape. As I look back I see that I was the one that opened the door for that direction, too.

My first husband was born and raised Baptist. Not just Baptist but farm community old school Baptist. And he wasn't just born and raised as a Baptist, he actually got a bachelor's degree in Religious Study and Inner Discipline at Mt. Hope Bible (then College now Training Institute) in Lansing, MI. and served as a youth minister for awhile. I decided to share with the two guests we had invited of the time when, right before we were married, my first husband told me he expected me to recite the traditional Baptist wedding vows where the man promises to be a strong and loving leader and the woman vows to submit to his leadership. Before I could even voice my disbelief that someone would want such a thing Monkey's friend's wife was wholeheartedly agreeing... WITH THE VOWS.

They come from a dual income family and as of yet have no children (which they're working on) but she quickly and quite succinctly stated that if they were to have children she would happily stay at home and raise them. Good for her, right?! I mean I AM a stay at home mom, I love being a stay at home mother, I love my children and I love raising them. I think every parent should do what's right for them and if staying home is what her heart tells her to do then more power to her. But she continued. She wouldn't expect her husband to do "anything" when he came home from work but sit in his favorite chair. No housework, no lawn work, no fixing broken plumbing, no taking out the garbage, no parenting, nothing. She would do it all. She would rub his feet, make his drink and be happy, and I swear to God this is a direct quote, "to cut his toenails for him." She would tend to his every whim and need. I sat there stunned feeling as though someone had pelted me in the face with a snowball unexpectedly. And then I continued to listen, and try to converse, as she would start to complain about someone with whom she worked that had a stay at home wife who actually expected her husband to DO things when he got home.. and then follow each statement with "oh but you probably agree with that" as if I were some sort of dirty evil tramp street urchin out to drag her unborn children into a life of drugs, sex and *gasp* women's liberation.

Don't get me wrong. PLEASE don't get me wrong. If this is what they want, both of them, then I do hope they have all that they want and are happy with it. I just really had no idea that people we hang out with on a semi-regular basis could have such different values and outlooks from ourselves. And I'm having a hard time reconciling how to proceed with a friendship. Do we simply stick to topics that are of common ground like the latest game console to come out or do we simply agree to disagree while secretly knowing that I'm the dirty evil street tramp that will show their children the gateway from doing chores to hell?