1) Anne and I had an adventure on Saturday. I will leave with nothing more than the following photos.
2) It was raining on Easter Sunday which meant we didn't do the Easter egg hunt for the first time in eighteen years. We did a family trivia thing instead and that was fun, although maybe more fun for the adults than the children.
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| Strawberry fluff |
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| Brunchy brunchy. Complete with fluff. It's amazing. |
I'm worried that my niblings are growing up a bit too sheltered, though. My oldest niece is 18 (she can VOTE) and acted SHOCKED that someone in her class told her to fuck off. My SIL, her mother, said, "can you believe that language?" and I looked really confused. When I was in high school, every other word I said was fuck.
THEN! There was a conversation about how Iowa has created a dumb fucking law that is allowing people to have vouchers to parochial schools (listen - I am 100% in disagreement with my inlaws about this and don't want to have this discussion here, but the literature shows that in order to have solid public schools you need solid parents to help with the intangibles) and in the last year since this law has been in place, there are fistfights in the school. FISTFIGHTS, my SIL said. I shrugged. It's not like I went to some tough school - just a rural school in Michigan - but there were fights. Blood was drawn. Suspensions happened.
3) April weather is so mercurial. It has been so windy and randomly rainy, but also randomly LOVELY. And it can all happen ON THE SAME DAY. Today I literally sat in the car shivering and whined about how I was never going to be warm again, but my computer is telling me that temps are going to jump overnight, so who the hell knows what's happening hour by hour?
4) In the mail! Look at postcards that have made their way to me in recent weeks.
5) I'm not purposefully being vague, but things are not as awesome as I would like in my life. There is hard stuff (ugh - the news), harder stuff (family stuff), and more harder stuff (some health stuff). I am doing my best to keep a stiff upper lip, but I'd like you all to know that I am screaming inside a lot. This brings me to my request. I will be in the car approximately twenty hours by myself next weekend. I'm looking for either a good podcast series or a good audiobook. I want it to be engaging, but not want to make me throw myself off a bridge. What recs do you have for me?
Campus museums! Isn't it wild that there are just DINOSAURS hiding out in that perfectly unremarkable building?!
ReplyDeleteI mean, what's really remarkable is that you think it's just a sort of interesting museum about rocks and then you turn the corner AND THERE'S A ROOM OF BONES. Insanity.
DeleteI really liked Good Dirt on audio and also the new Abby Jimenez
ReplyDeleteNoted. I'll look them up in my library to see if I can get them.
DeleteFor me the weird part of your SIL's reaction is...c'mon she went to high school didn't she???? I went to a private school, and I can confirm that telling people to fuck off was a regular thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on #5 - we all have our things that we can't blog about - I mean we could but it would not be helpful. I think that about the best you can do is to keep blogging but drop in a "hey I have stuff going on" reminder from time to time.
Audio book suggestions: anything by Alexandra Horowitz (dawg book! She wrote The Year of the Puppy) or Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten.
The nasty secret is that they all went to Catholic school except for me and one of my BILs. And because they were able to cull the herd and dismiss behaviorally challenging students, there was no fighting (or cussing, I guess) when they were in school. Even my husband was shocked to find out that there was fighting at my school. So, yes, my SIL went to high school, but I don't think she went to high school like I went to high school.
DeleteIn my unworthy opinion, homeschooling etc exists for the purpose of indoctrinating kids. Public education should always be supported.
ReplyDeleteSorry about your various concerns, including health.
Can you listen to audio books on your long journey?
I can listen to audiobooks. I just need good recs!
DeleteUgh, so sorry about your hard stuff. I'll have to get back to you re: podcasts, because I listen to a ton of them but they are almost all the "chatty" variety, if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteYour niblings do sound sheltered. I remember some pretty wild things from my teen years, but more recently, my sons certainly were exposed to fights and swearing. I think the education system in the US is way different from here. For one thing, funding to public schools is not specific to taxes from that area. Although, of course, schools in poorer neighbourhoods do suffer in that they don't get the extras that come from parent volunteering - hard to volunteer when you're holding down two or three jobs - but funding is per child and is set and is the same for each school. Anyway, my own kids have been dropping f-bombs for many years, and a funny story they told me was from their junior high years. There was "slap boxing" going on in the boys' change room, which is exactly what you'd think. So the principal corners Jake's friend and asks him to tell him "what's going on in the boys' change room." He's like "Oh Mr Johnson, we're all just having fun with the slap boxing, no one gets hurt, etc etc" and Mr Johnson was like "Wait, slap boxing?" He was asking about a vape problem! Lol. So now he had two things to deal with.
Ugh. The funding model for schools here is absolutely discriminatory and bogus. I get so upset about it, but my inlaws literally do not care that they are part of the problem. It's a point of pride for me that I went to a lousy public school (sarcasm) and had the highest test scores of the lot of them. I generally don't brag about it because test scores don't really mean anything, but they get so superior about it.
DeletePoor Mr. Johnson. He didn't know what he was getting into!
Ugh. I am so sorry things continue to be rough on so many fronts, Engie. I hope you find an excellent audio accompaniment for all your travels. My favourite book so far in 2025 has been The Secret Book of Flora Lea, but I think our reading tastes are fairly divergent?
ReplyDeleteHooray for time with friends; I'm so happy you and Anne get to hang out quasi-regularly.
I've never had strawberry fluff...but I will say it looks very tasty!
It has been fun to force Anne out of her house every once in a while!
DeleteStrawberry fluff is so good. I also enjoy its sister cherry fluff.
Sorry about the Hard Stuff. I feel bad for you. For an audiobook- what about a Stephen King? I trust him to always have an engaging story. If you don't want horror, he has some that are not. Also, as you know Ken Follett will keep you entertained for hours. HOWEVER, I am not recommending Pillars of the Earth (not sure if you've already read it.) It is making me want to throw myself off a bridge. I just want to finish it so I can move on with my life without all this drama.
ReplyDeleteFlorida does private school vouchers, obviously. Because, Florida.
I really want to read The Stand and I looked for an audio version through my library and couldn't find one. Dang it!
DeleteOh, here's the thing. I LOVED Pillars of the Earth. I ate up every second of it. I can't believe you aren't in love with it the way I am!!
# 1, 2, and 4 are delightful...
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry about #5, Engie. I want to shout: enough already! Things need to turn around for you... Nicole used to send me "Care-Bear stares" I'm sending some to wrap you in some virtual care right now! XOXO
I will take the Care-Bear stare!!!
DeleteOh, Engie. If only life could be like Strawberry Fluff. Amirite? Love that stuff.
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend David Sedaris's books Calypso, or When You Are Engulfed in Flames. They're not going to last 20 hours I don't think, but they're fun and insightful and very good. He always makes me laugh. If you want something historical and a bit nerdy, there's Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It's about President Lincoln and how he assembled his cabinet by purposefully choosing men who ran against him and would challenge him and and his ideologies. President Obama later used him as a model for his own cabinet choices.
Finally, yikes! on the sheltered lives of your relatives. I went to a really tough jr. high with a lot of fights--one almost every day. My high school had them, too. Funny how I never got into one and neither did my brother or sisters. Just because they happen doesn't mean you're involved. Same with swearing (But come on! No way they're shocked by the eff word). And do NOT get me started on vouchers, charter schools, or school funding. Seriously.
Could you imagine my niece at a junior high like yours? Maybe it would have toughened her up. Or maybe she doesn't need to be toughened up? Ugh. It is all so complicated.
DeleteI think we are in agreement on school funding, Nance. It's ridiculous and unfair.
Oh ugh, sorry about the hard and harder stuff that is being thrown your way.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to be even more enraged about public school funding, you could listen to the podcast "Nice White Parents." Or "Sold a Story" that's a good one too...
You know, I feel like once or twice a week my 13 year old will come home and casually say, "There was a fight in the hallways today." and I'll say, "What did you do?" and she says, "I just kept walking past." I feel like she's getting really good at developing the skill of not getting involved in other people's drama. If everything was happy and clean in school, you wouldn't get to develop those muscles.
Yes! Your 13yo is learning how to mind her own. LOL. I can't believe how much I apparently prize that skill.
DeleteI'm sorry things are hard. No book suggestions (he only audiobooks I've listened to were Harry Potter series and the Enchanted Forest series. So probably not what you're looking for.) As someone who was very sheltered in life, due to caring parents and general obliviousness, I think your niblings will be fine - they'll figure out this cruel world -they have good family support.
ReplyDeleteAt least you got to see dinosaur bones!!
Honestly, listening to Harry Potter again would not be the worst way to spend the time...
DeleteI wish I had podcast suggestions -- I never listen to them so no help here. The last audio book I listened to was years ago by Peter Mayle about food in France. 20 hours is a long, long road trip -- I hope you find the right thing! And I'm sorry you're experiencing hard/harder/hardest and hope they all level out soon. I hear you on the voucher situation. Your niece's story made me laugh. Granted-- I was in college starting in 1969 and language was different then. But I remembered when I first started hearing fuck in its various grammatical forms, and "Foul Mouth Betty," a fellow actor at the U with quite the vocabulary. Believe me, it wasn't long before I learned the ability to throw it around with the best of them if need be!
ReplyDeleteI'm actually really worried about my niece, but I think it's going to be fine because she's (this should be obvious, right?) going to a Catholic college. LOL.
DeleteI want some strawberry fluff! That’s definitely going on next year’s birthday month list.
ReplyDeleteI laughed out loud at the "fuck" part. I say it way too much. I used to use the word in my blog until my parents told me they didn’t like it. I was in my late forties at the time. Being the oldest daughter can be complicated sometimes.
Sending you love. I’m sorry things are hard. 💜
I know some of my readers are sensitive to language, so I don't use it egregiously on the blog, but I do swear and I think it's important as the salt and pepper of language. A little seasoning is important.
DeleteI've never seen strawberry fluff before this last weekend and now twice in as many days.
ReplyDelete"... I am screaming inside a lot." We all are. That's why I find bloggy friendships so important, a source of sanity away from people I know through geography and family bonds.
Strawberry fluff is SO GOOD. I mean, it's basically sugar on top of sugar, but there's nothing wrong with that, right?
DeleteI don't recall fights in my (fairly small, private) high school in the 80s, but oh, we threw around that kind of language for sure! I recall my friend group being particularly fond of fuck-a-duck and fuck-a-bunny. I'm sorry you're on the pyramid of hard right now; I hope that settles down soon. Which the weather settling into niceness would help for sure!
ReplyDeleteFuck-a-duck and fuck-a-bunny!! I've never heard of those!! I'm going to try to fit fuck-a-duck into my conversation today.
DeleteI said fuck so much as a teen, my uncle and aunt pulled my mom aside about it, and they were pretty cool folks. I think I was in the middle of a phase there, and they were cool so I thought I could just go for it. Which I could have, within reason.
ReplyDeleteI am VERY anti-voucher, and I hate how schools are funded in the US, and that I just voted for MORE money for my local high school district, when the neighboring district could really use the money a lot more. It sucks. My mom put us in a private school for a year and then homeschooled us for a year, but she was seriously pissed at the education we were getting and the fact that my brother’s teacher told him he was ‘retarded’ and his baby sister (me) was a better reader than he was.
Have you listened to Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers? SO FUN, and I’m pretty sure there is nothing in there that will make you want to kill yourself.
No indoor Easter egg hunts? Hmmm. Seems like we’ve done those before if the weather is too rainy.
I’m sorry shit is shitty right now. I mean, if the big world shit has to be so fucking shitty, can’t the family and health stuff just settle the fuck down and be excellent? Please?
What on earth - the teacher said these things? It was a different time and things nowadays are bonkers, but THAT? So horrible.
DeleteUgh. Schools are so tough. You can have a good school with one bad teacher and a bad school with great teachers. But the funding model is so messed up. I can't believe a teacher would say that - I know "it was a different time," but was it ever a good time to be mean to kids?
DeleteWell, the indoor Easter egg hunt thing is difficult. My FIL's wife, quite fairly, doesn't necessarily want the kids rooting through her stuff. I don't blame her and I think it would have been a mess to have the eleven (ten? I don't know if the 18yo would participate now) of them running around. I mean, it might have been fine, but maybe not?
Yeah, my brother never learned to like school. Partly because of that comment, but also he was somewhat dyslexic and maybe had some ADD or something, don’t know. He could get A’s on his science exams because he knew the facts, read about them in a book that he wanted to read, but would rarely do his homework because the school books were so boring. One of our (excellent) HS teachers called my mom and said he recommended that my brother get the hell out of school before it killed him. He ended up getting his GED and was MUCH happier without school. Didn’t really like college either. Does fine for himself, and swears a lot (unrelated, I just put that in for the hell of it)
DeleteYeah, I wouldn’t want that many kids tearing around my house looking for eggs either!
I have no real recommendations for a good audio book but you might like the podcast True Weird Stuff. And I'm sending you lots of virtual hugs for all the hard stuff. I'm so sorry you are dealing with whatever you are dealing with. xo
ReplyDeleteTrue Weird Stuff has been added to my podcast list. I'll check it out!
DeleteSo many pearl clutchers about the word fuck. Respectfully, I suggest they direct their shock elsewhere like that Iowa nonsense you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteRight? You get it. The priorities are wrong.
DeleteHugs and cute puppy pics for the hard stuff. Coincidentally, Eve is listening to Calypso by Sedaris right now and also highly recommends it.
ReplyDeleteMy kids are as sheltered as they come (nearly) and they probably heard the word 'fuck' a thousand times before they were actual teenagers, and there were fistfights in the high school halls (and drugs being done in the bathrooms) on the regular.
This made me think of the Easter bell story from David Sedaris and I feel like I need to find that story and listen to it because it cracks me up so much.
DeleteRight? Everyone was so shocked that the word fuck would be uttered in the hallow halls of this school! I was shocked that they were shocked! It was crazy.
Back in my day, school was rough and it seems rougher now seeing middle school through the eyes of my daughter. But it’s beyond swears (which she first heard in daycare, sigh) and onto fights and vaping and worse, but we try to keep her compass strong and have hope for common sense and resilience.
ReplyDeleteYay for adventures with Anne! And, oof for all that stuff. Thinking of you and sending thoughts of an easy drive. I always go back to revisiting something I’ve listened to and loved mixed with random podcasts that will keep me awake.
Daycare!! Sheesh! That IS early. I don't know if vaping is bad, to be honest - it's no worse than cigarettes and chew that were popular when I was in school. I mean, if you said someone was shooting up in the bathroom, I might be more concerned...
DeleteEvery time you post about hanging out with Anne, I get very jealous and want to smoosh our states together. (But Wisconsin probably doesn't want what Florida has to offer, oops.)
ReplyDeleteIf it helps at all, my nephews are not growing up sheltered but they make all of these fatphobic comments that are concerning. UGH.
Hmm... I'll give you some podcast series. Sweet Bobby is true crime but not gory and no murder. It's mainly a WILD ride, which will keep you entertained. Running from COPS and 9/12 are excellent. I also love the podcast series that Laura Beil has put out - Dr. Death, The Vaping Fix, and Bad Batch.
Ha ha! If I ever go to Florida again (stranger things have happened), meeting you and Jenny is definitely on my wishlist!!
DeleteI added Sweet Bobby, Running from COPS, and 9/12 to my list. I have already listened to the Laura Beil pods or I would have added those, too! Thanks for the suggestions.
I'm laughing at the Ef word issue. I assumed just about everyone over the age of 7 uses the f-bomb on the regular. I still remember the first time I said it in front of my kids. Tank was pushing my buttons and I said, No fucking way! or something. He didn't get the hint, so his older brothers started kicking him under the table. I was at the counter serving dinner and I saw the looks they gave him and the kicks and it honestly warmed my heart. "They see that I've been pushed over the edge and they are advocating for him to get in line." I felt so seen, or more accurately so heard. I know many people don't like bad language, but it sure beats getting violent.
ReplyDeleteWhenever people recommend podcasts, I feel slightly overwhelmed and out of the loop. As in, I'll never catch up and have time in my life to hear all these great podcasts. Like, I'm not sure where to start and so I just don't.
I just read The Many Live of Mama Love. I liked it -not sure how it would be as an audio book. Interesting? It was a page turner for sure. A suburban mom who steals from her neighbors to keep up her drug addiction, and her ordeal in jail and how she recreates her life after jail. I really liked it.
Sorry that you've got a lot on your plate right now. I agree with Julie, if something is challenging - couldn't the health and family shit settle into the backdrop a bit? Ugh. I hope the improved weather brightens your day and your walks with Hannah. Thinking of you.
It is interesting what my family does and does not consider worthy of worry. I don't worry about language, but I do worry that none of them have held jobs or seem to be held accountable. I don't know. It's hard to raise kids and I understand that, but I am also worried about sending them out into the world.
DeleteIt is hard with all the podcasts. It hard to get started. I feel like you just need a gateway podcast - if you find the one that really makes sense to you, then you will just keep going listening to more and more of them.
I’m sorry things are hard. For me the Harry Potter audiobooks are a go to comfort listen. I also liked Circe. I read the book but a number of people in my book club liked the audiobook.
ReplyDeleteI would recommend 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, but umm, I got that one from you! (Thanks, btw. My wife and I both love it.) Hit Parade is a similar music=based podcast if that's your jam.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear there are some hard things in your life. Besides the global shit show going on. It's a disaster but toppled with private stuff. I am sorry.
ReplyDeleteI just listened to the Will Smith memoirs (16 hours) and I found that weirdly entertaining with music snippets and acting out certain conversations. Maybe that is something for the ride?