girl at large

I like to write about life when you have a job, some kids, a fixer upper and a fatal disease.

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  • Gratitude

    It’s time again for the annual “What are you grateful for” proclamation. Like New Years resolutions, I don’t get it. I’m grateful every day for friends and family and all the little things, like ziplock baggies, that make my life good. In times like these I’m also, depending on the day (and wifi connection), grateful to not live in Houston or Puerto Rico or to work with a-holes, and to have health insurance and a rewarding, living wage job. All those things and more—it’s a given, right?

    But, if compelled to select one thing I am grateful for this year, on this day, it is retail and hospitality staff.

    As we careened down the hotel hallway this morning, double stoller laden with inflated swim gear, we turned the corner just as the staff meeting was released. Like a flock of nuns, the women who made our beds, and made my holiday, came around the corner in a flurry.

    I spent more than twenty years in retail and service. It is flexible and rewarding, and the skills required VASTLY underappreciated (anyone running for public office should be required to have successfully completed a holiday shift). Those who go without holidays, who fit their own family traditions in between shifts and put up with the public’s general shit, are my heros. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

    Also, about the barfy towels. I’m so sorry.

     

  • All The Little Things

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    When I wore my favorite dress on my birthday and forgot that the fourth grade teacher did "birthday spankings". He made me crawl through the "spank machine" of my classmates legs as they paddled my bottom, at the end of the tunnel he put me on his lap, lifted my dress and spanked my bottom.
     
    When the gym teacher asked if I could "run with those things".

    When my freshman (high school) roommate came over to my bed while I was sleeping, woke me up and made me pretend to give her finger a blow job in front of her gaggle of friends to humiliate me.

    Every single time someone said "but you have such a pretty face".

    When the doctor, during my very first pelvic exam, slapped my thigh and said "What are we going to do about these saddle bags?"

    When the school president asked "Which one is the smart one and which one is the pretty one?"

    The time the guy started to go anal without asking.

    The time the guy creeped his hand over to caress my thigh while his other hand was holding the hand of his girlfriend on my couch.

    The time the two male business partners started talking about a female vendor: "How could someone that good looking smell so bad" as we waited for the meeting to begin. When the next party arrived, who was male and not their employee, they stopped talking.

    The time a grown man pinned a sixteen year old me against the pole on a crowded train car and rubbed himself against my backside until he was yelled at and ran off at the next stop.

    Every single time someone assumed that fat is an insulator from assault and a barrier to love.

     

  • Fall Back

    Viv was born five years ago, or just yesterday, depending on how much sleep you've gotten. My emotions have been heavy these past weeks, heavier each passing week as the daylight dwindles. Fall does a number on my body clock, disrupting my sleep, which then in turn chips away at my emotional fortitude. In a typical year this is a speed bump, easily countered with walks and a sun lamp. This year, I am crushed.

    Viv's birthday party was so important to me; not just because we only do "big celebrations" on the 5's and 0's, but because this has just been such a crap year. A big failure at work kept me away from the kids both physically and emotionally for six months of the past year; the regret is hitting hard now. At the time, I was just heads down to power through it. Now that it's over, I look back and am newly overwhelmed with regret for agreeing to something that in my gut I knew was wrong for me. But the fear of losing my work, losing clients, losing status during such a vulnerable time overpowered me. (Anyone who experienced the financial disaster, got laid off, foreclosed, or has been on maternity leave knows this fear well). We have a long way to go in understanding how to support parents returning to work in our culture, including inside our own heads.

    I think maybe, it could be possible, there's a chance…I was trying to make up for a perceived lack of attention with a big to-do for her 5th birthday. I spent a lot of time arranging and fussing and worrying about it being good enough. As luck would have it, she had an amazing time putting on each and every pair of the ten pack of Sesame Street socks that her Aunt Peg gave her. Because she's five. And it's her birthday, and why not?

    As I work to build my own family, I am navigating emotions that are really the lingering shadows of emotions I had years ago. When Viv started kindergarten, I was completely blindsided; just being in a school building (and interacting with administrators) brought a wave of unexpected negative feelings. Everyone claims to have had a hard time in school, do we really have to experience it twice?

    And that's just my own, small internal world; let's dive into the emotional exhaustion that is the rest of the world and all it's suffering. I am struggling to fully live the lovely moments that are my happy family life, the completely normal, mundane interactions with coworkers and customers and shop keepers and neighbors that keep happening despite the staccato reports of disaster, chaos, injury, violence, terror, and death of innocents.

    How can I enjoy the innocence of these soft and curious creatures in my house without the intrusive thoughts of the random misery inflicted on others? Others so like me. And us. And this house of coffee and cartoons on Sunday morning.

    Forgive me for crying. Where the fuck is the sun?

     

  • Location, Location, Location

    Viv: "When I grow up I want to marry Miss Tia"

    Mama: "Where will you live when you and Miss Tia are married?"

    Viv: "Why not right here, this house is great!"

    Mama: "This is mama and papa's house, you can't live here once you're grown up and married."

    Viv: "What if you're already dead?"

     

  • My Balance Is My Own Damned Business

    Kate-Mikkelsen-232x350  2017-09-17 13.43.52
                                                                                                                                                                                     

    "By a show of hands, how many here this morning are married?" "Again by a show of hands, how many of you have kids?"

    This is not a family event. This is not a parenting class. This is not a working parent support group. These are the OPENING LINES of a PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S DEVELOPMENT event. Professional Development. As in business, the workplace, professions. As in growth, learning, development.

    I should have had a clue from the start at my table. The ice breaker activity was answering the question "What is the best thing that happened to you this week?". I was running about five minutes behind the rest of the group (having stood outside the daycare at 6:55 am, dropped Viv off when they opened at 7 am, and then hauled across the county to attend the 7:45 am event), so as I sat down with coffee, I cheerfully shared my big win of the week. Up for a long-shot, very large-dollar project bid, a junior member of my sales team had just got word that we won the deal. When she called to tell me, I had to hold the phone away from my ear because she was yelling so loud with excitement. It was a big moment for the company, a big moment for the team, a huge moment for her. And I was thrilled to be her coach.

    "So, that was a pretty rewarding win this week". Smile, head nod, next.

    Gal next to me, at this moment a complete stranger: "But Kate, what was your personal win this week?"

    "Um, actually, I've spent a lot of time coaching her so for me it was a personal win." Roll eyes, turn to hear the introduction of the keynote speaker. I thought, well, that was awkward, but let's see what the keynote has to offer.

    It did not get better.

    Line three of her presentation was "You can have it all". Um, we are all working women, and now we know which of us has kids. It's 7:55 am. We are all here. At a work event. Please, tell us something we don't know. It would factually appear that we do know how to "have it all". What even is that? That is not a thing.

    When do male-dominated or mixed-gender BUSINESS EVENTS ask such questions? They don't. Don't get me started on the rambling, self-obsessed drivel that was a presentation on how she got to where she is, which is the Bench. Ok, I'll start, here's a sampling:

    " A lot of women have to work these days, I mean houses are expensive. Everything is expensive". "My brother's wife raised her kids to be stay at home moms, they got pregnant young, out of wedlock, then got married and then got divorced. One got remarried, and he's very supportive and now shes back in school but shes so far behind. I mean, education is so important". "All my kids are going to college, they are going to college no matter what. Don't get me wrong, for some kids it's trade school. And that's fine. College can mean so many things. But my kids are all going to college. And I can't say enough good things about Google Calendar, it's a must."

    PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S DEVELOPMENT.

  • Things I Learned In Kindergarten. Or, Why Working Parents Lose Their Shit.

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    Registering Viv for kindergarten was frustrating. I first signed her up back in June, at the appointed time, bringing a file with our residency documents her vaccination records, birth certificate and her actual self. Then, in July, there were forms to complete online and a requirement to upload the same documents. Mind you, that same information also had to be submitted (in a different format) to the wrap-around daycare that maintains a completely separate, though just as convoluted, registration system. Actual kindergarten is only three hours, before and after she's in a partner daycare program. In the same building, in the room next door, but everything has to be done over again and maintained in a separate online portal. And don't get me started on the auto pay that took payment for every single no-school day extra charge for the entire year all at once. With no notice.

    In August, school fees were announced, but that portal didn't allow payment until after a certain date two weeks later. Then, I got notice that even if paid online, I still had attend something called Forms and Fees Day at the high school. At that appointed date and time, during the working day, I had to bring an additional two documents for proof of residency. It was at Forms and Fees Day, in my car afterwards, that I had a complete and tearful steering wheel break down.

    Little did I know that that was not the last hurdle.

    I received a message that the wrap-around daycare was having an open house the week before the start of school. Still trying to figure out if lunch was or was not served to the kids from the public school lunch system, I figured that was a good event to attend. I had a lot of questions still unanswered. (The school portal let me make a lunch program payment, but said no where if it applied to morning K4 classes, the daycare site said nothing at all about meals). We scrambled home from work, shoved a bottle in Charlie's face and walked over to the school for the daycare open house. Which turned out to also be a kindergarten open house/parent orientation. I was hoping to pop in and out, but instead got seated and then realized I was in for a lengthy presentation, without my phone to alert Paulie waiting outside with a fussy baby. I had missed one critically informative line in an otherwise obtuse letter in the packet received on Forms and Fees Day.

    If you're still following this, no, they do not participate in the school lunch program, we have to pack a lunch. I'm still waiting for my refund.

    Taking Viv to her first day of "school" was not tearful; I didn't "have a hard time" (but thanks again for asking everyone, and asking again just to give me another chance to prove I do have a heart). She's been going to daycare, which we call school, since she was six weeks old. She's had to change centers twice, each time was a bumpy few first days learning a new routine, but other than that, zero on the life altering events scale. Like previously, she had a pretty good first day.

    The rest of us are hoping the school district administration takes a Lean course.

     

  • This Guy

    We're having a little family do today. I mentioned in passing that I wished the garbage cans weren't so visible. Five minutes later, he's building a screen.

     

  • Just Another Morning

    Yesterday I cleaned and organized the playroom so that Viv and Charlie can now share it. I put all of Viv’s sealed “specimen” jars in a row on the shelf.

    This morning, all those jars are now empty and set on the table as glasses, being used for “school breakfast”.

    Ok, so where are all the fly heads?

     

  • Everything Is Different, Everything is The Same

    It’s been a difficult time, this new world we live in. Trump has unleashed the worst in people, and yet, no one at work mentions any of it. On social media and the news, the world is on fire. At the office, everything is hunky dorey.

    I’ve had one customer mention it, by round-about comment that the “direction the country is going in” is helping his business grow. I stumbled on that. Was he being facetious? No, he was fishing. Fishing for approval. Conversationally, I made an abrupt left turn to neutral ground. Later, I wondered, am I complicit?

    I ixnayed Facebook ad on my feed from Pro Life Wisconsin because A) I won’t change my mind about Choice, and 2) It’s misleading (erroneous information about birth control). Facebook asked me if I no longer want to see advertisements aimed at people who like the Green Bay Packers.

    It appears the algorithms don’t even know who is who anymore.

  • Summertime

    We grabbed one last weekend of summer at Elkhart Lake this weekend, 50 percent of which was spent loading and unloading crap from cars. Like all parenting, half was hell and the other half was amazing. Viv donned water wings and after an hour let me float her about four feet in to the pool. Charlie, dunked in a round floaty for the very first time, took to the water (both in the swimming pool and the huge bathtub) like a duck. Mama might have her new swim partner!

    After a season of stress and a newsfeed full of violence, grasping for a little old fashioned summer for my family is a necessity. I'll take my sheetcake with an ice cream cone please.

    Or as Viv says, "I love hotels, they bring everything we need!"