Vendredi V - Everything I Needed to Know Edition

(Alright, so it's not really Friday. This last week sort of ratcheted up right at the end - you can pretend it's Friday, m'kay?)

Summer life gets a little loose around the edges, a little soft around the schedule. The kids are lovin' their summer Kids Club program where they go on cool field trips, swim, and hang out with their buds. They get extremely irate if I try to pick them up at the usual time, so I either take long lunches and work a bit later or go home first and get some PM time in before I go and sign them out from the day's festivities.

The sun shines long and late, and The Husband is biking to work, so we only sit down to supper around 6:30 or 7:00. By the time that's done, it's technically get ready for bedtime, but the kids want to play and it's too bright to sleep anyway, so bedtime is later, which makes wake-up time later, so each day starts off on a sliding scale, too.

When there's time to stop and smell the roses like this, I'm much more perceptive. I'm able to see past the immediate logistical conundrum or the petty annoyance seemingly sent specifically to drive me over the edge to the larger life lesson. And so, from this past week:

Top 5 Things I've Learned This Week:

1. The Girl is a diva. We had it out on Monday. She was overtired and overstimulated from a sleepover last weekend and it took until Monday night for the full brunt to hit her. She was wailing and inconsolable, desperate for my company but only so that I would bear the onslaught of her drama. It reminded me (forcefully) of when she was three and no day passed without a barrage of intensity. Unfortunately, it also reminded me that I, too, can be somewhat intense and emotional and (even more unfortunately) that her brand of crazy stokes the fires of mine.

Life Lesson Learned: Enjoy whatever sweetness you can now; the teen years will be buh-rutal.

2. CBC Radio Two execs are Mennonites. Or, if they are not, they have latched onto that quintessential Mennonite virtue of doing More with Less. The last time they changed things up, I was pretty upset. Having listened for almost a year now, I will admit that Tom's show isn't that bad. The music mix is actually pretty good, although the transition to Julie Nesrellah's classical show is still pretty jarring. As is she, so I don't bother sticking around.

Now, in all their wisdom, they've decided to shake things up again and add a "new" radio program between the classical and more modern drive home shows. This one's called Shift, to be hosted by poor Tom Allen, who no longer gets to home after his morning show for a nice mettaschloppe but instead has to do it once more, with feeling. Hmm. A transitional program with eclectic music, bridging the gap between the classical and the funky. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah - it was called Studio Sparks, hosted by Eric Friesen. Until they canned him and his show last year. Ah well, at least this time around they don't have to pay for an extra host.

Life lesson learned: Just because you're a radio show host doesn't mean you won't end up working twice as hard to make up for laid-off coworkers.

3. I am getting old. Ed McMahon. Farrah Fawcett. Michael Jackson. I totally remember them. Everything that I loved as a kid is getting a reboot and being marketed to a new generation (and their parents who invariably end up shelling out big bucks for Burger King crap). And Office Space is ten years old. How is that even possible that I've been filling out TPS reports for an entire decade?

Life lesson learned: "Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened." (Terry Pratchett)

4. Life is not a twelve-step program. Or five. Or three. I realized this week that I get totally hijacked by those internet articles like "How to Organize Your House in Three Easy Steps" or "Fifteen Minutes to a Flatter Stomach." I click on "Save Thousands From Your Monthly Budget By Following These Four Rules," only to discover that apparently other people spend hundreds of dollars on satellite and eat out three times a week. It's tough to cut back when you're on the Netflix/Hmm, what can I find in the freezer? program already. And those fifteen minutes? Are actually per day. So that was a bit deceptive.

Life lesson learned: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And you just wasted the time you could have used to actually DO some sit-ups by reading about them, thinking it would be a good idea, and then abandoning the idea because it sounded hard.

5. There's always time for music. Now that it's summer, I like to take an extended lunch hour and head outside to a local plaza where there's live music at lunchtime. On Tuesday, I was just finding a comfy spot on a bench when a line of cutey-patootie daycare kids, resplendent (and highly identifiable) in neon orange vests joined the audience. The musician started his act, and suddenly about 20 4-year-olds were swarming the stage. Some did the "wave your arms in the air like you just don't care" dance, some grooved with some modified disco, some did the "running around like an airplane," and others just jumped in place. You knew that before the day was through, half of these kids would skin their knees, half would have their feelings terribly hurt because Michaela Mae took away their toy, and all would end up in tears at some point. But it totally didn't matter. The sun was shining, and there was music, and they went for it. It was fabulous.

Life lesson: You gotta dance while the dancin's good.