..until he came to the place where the wild things are

Maurice Sendak died early this morning, at the age of 83.

Where the Wild things Are is one of those books I buy for all young children. It never becomes old, never dated. I read it and reread to my oldest son so many times I could repeat it by heart. He never grew tired of requesting it.  I used to have the tattoo and when small children would ask about it, I’d tell them the story from memory.

I seems every child can relate to making mischief of one kind and another, and still want to be where someone loves them best of all.

Maurice Sendak illustrated 100′s of children’s books and wrote a dozen of them himself. His stories, considered to be instant classics, were granted numerous recognition from the Caldecott Medal to the Hans Christian Andersen Award.

President Bill Clinton presented him with the National Medal of Arts award in 1996.

As a child he had been often homebound with illness, survived the Depression era, and loss of relatives in the Holocaust. His past fueled his exploration into the darker side of childhood emotions. He had a self-proclaimed obsession with children and survival, and his art work, unlike the rosy imagery that was the norm for children’s literature, was ground-breaking.

“His books have helped children to explore and resolve their feelings of anger, boredom, fear, frustration and jealousy.” President Bill Clinton said.

Nerd Girl

Nerds are in. Don’t believe me? Check out hot topic lately, nerd glasses, nerd t-shirts, I love nerds bracelets. Nerds are cool. Being twelve and being called a nerd is definitely not cool however.

Jeremy gave me the heads up last night that Madeline had come home very upset, some little boy had kept calling her “nerd girl” on the bus.  Prompting her to pin a note to her bulletin board.

Remember to style hair in morning

Prompting me into leading some of my worst parenting advice to date.

“Cameron on the bus kept calling me nerd girl” she says this morning.

“I know honey, that sucks, it’s a good thing it’s not true” I say.

I tell her the speech about how people who tease other people usually just are insecure themselves. She does not buy it. I tell her that she’s better than them anyway and her coolness is probably just intimidating. (Brandon always loved that one) She’s not buying it. Finally I offer the old worn out mom solution to all things-Just ignore it.

“I can’t, they won’t stop” she whines. She always whines when I give advice, I’m not sure why.

“They will if you don’t let them know it bugs you” I say. They might not. Fifth grade boys are the devil when it comes to teasing. Maybe she can sense my doubt.

“They won’t it’s been since Monday”

“They will” I say.

“Can I just punch him?” Definitely my child.

“Fine” I sigh. My famous, we-don’t-fight-because-we-are-better-than-those-mother-fuckers, speech that worked so well on the older boys, seems to have skipped her.

“In the throat” she says. Yeah, definitely my child.

“Well you can’t go around punching people in the throat” I tell her. It’s at this point I remember that as my child, she might get really mad and attack a person but she can’t actually take a hit worth a damn.

“Ummm honey? I should warn you that people tend to hit back if you just run around punching them”

“It’s a boy mom” Apparently the “you don’t hit girls” speech I gave her brother was heard loud and clear.

“um yeah, they hit back too if you punch them.”

“Fine then, I won’t punch him in the throat” she said, opening the door.

“Good” I say, and wave as she skips up the sidewalk to school.

She looks back and smiles sweetly, “I’ll just punch him in the head.”

Moral of the story? Do not give parenting advice without sufficient caffeine. I’m so anticipating a call from the bus driver today.

 

Feeding the Devil

I work in a tattoo shop, I pay commission to my boss, I pay the state for my license and continued education course each year. Therefore I charge shop prices. Tattoos are forever,  they should cost more than shoes. Just saying. I also like to buy supplies from suppliers that sell exclusively to shops. It’s a basic respect thing. That said, I completely missed the UPS guy and needed needles and ink caps (note to self never ever miss UPS on Friday or your Sunday is screwed) probably waiting until the last damn minute to order is not my best trait either. Regardless I headed out to the semi-new Tattoo Supply store on White Horse Rd.

In a pinch I’ve been to Whatever 3 before but honestly their prices are crazy, their merchandise mediocre and the staff is generally snotty head shop boys. So I hate giving them my cash.

I hated this too. I waited in line for literally 20 minutes listening to the guy behind the counter sell a lady on tattoo out of a magazine.

He said, “a shop is going to charge you around 300, (it’s true it was a huge celtic cross thing) I can do it for half that because I don’t have to pay commission”

She said “Do I have to go to your house or will you come to me?”

He goes to her. Has gun will travel. Yes I know they are not “guns” but that was in fact what the sign in the shop advertised so it’s fair. He did however guarantee that it would be totally sterile. Never seeing the inside of the woman’s house I figured that was probably a moot promise. Either way I bit my tongue because I was late, because I really did in fact need the damn needles and at this point I was too short on time to turn around and go to Whatever 3, who at least doesn’t undercut shops by illegally soliciting and offering to perform illegal tattoos.

The joy? When it was my turn the tattoo man did not know how much a box of needles were. The owner was friendly enough, said I could bring cards in and offers discounts with proof of certification and license. Nice gesture but also completely moot if his desk help is completely undermining the need for either.

Fuckers.

Brithdays Brownies and other disasters

Tommy’s birthday was this week, and in my long tradition of poor parenting, I was ill planned. I don’t mean to be, I intend on being Mrs. Cleaver, but I’m usually more Roseanne. Unorganized and biting off more than I can chew. Work gets in the way of life and life gets in the way of work. It’s my struggle.

The first item of disaster was treats for his class. I normally have Mondays off but had set an appointment that ran late enough to ensure I would be baking at 11 pm. Originally he had asked for cake balls. Once, last Halloween, in an over confident attempt to wow the classes I made cake balls. They were my first try and mostly glued wads of soggy frosting mash dipped in chocolate. Tommy loved them, as did most of his class. Madeline and the fifth graders not so much, so when he requested them again I declined arguing a shortage on time and a desire to avoid the mess. He conceded asking for Brownie cookies instead.

I’ve seen the recipe for them on Brownie boxes so how hard could they really be I thought? I thought wrong. They were a puddle of liquified Chocolate, which spread too much to be cookies and spread too thin to cut into bars. In the end they made a fine addition to our garbage.

The next morning I sent the kids off on the bus and headed to Walmart to figure out this treat thing before the nine o’clock snack. Let me just say, thank god for Wilton. While browsing one of their idea books in the craft section, I saw a recipe for brownie pops. By this time I had enough sense to not try to bake anymore and instead just grabbed premade brownie bites from the deli. Candy dip, sprinkles, pop sticks and treat bags compliments of the Wilton company and less then an hour later, I looked as if I actually knew what I was doing.

Came home to find this beautiful “Brithday” banner his sister had made him, 4 bingo dobbers and a roll of masking tape. In her credit Tommy was so excited about the banner he never noticed the misspelling.

The gifts, there had to be 10 because double digits are a big deal, were bought at the last minute. I knew what we were getting him but just hadn’t had time to shop. He’d asked for a hint and when Jeremy said “nothing yet buddy” Tommy in his great optimism didn’t believe him.

While waiting for the bus he said, “Mom I know you wouldn’t  have forgotten to buy me something” I assured him that, of course I had not forgotten to buy him a gift, then headed to gamestop to make my purchases..

Tommy's amazement at his 3ds

What I DID forget in all the commotion though was a cake. So we celebrated over banana splits, convincing him we would save the cake baking for his actual party with his friends on Saturday.

All and all we pulled it off with the chaos I’ve grown to accept. Now he can’t wait to shop with his birthday money from the grandparents!

Carefree living

I have a preteen. I’ve had preteens before but never girl ones.

Today Madeline stayed home for cramps. She hasn’t had her period yet but it got me thinking that she probably will soon enough and I should problably get her some basic equipment. Knowledge she has, just no tools, so off to Walmart for the Carefree pantyliners, just in case.

She flaunted them to her brother.

“Wah-cha! Pads!” she said gleefully flashing them at him. Maybe a small talk about period tact is in order, who knows?

This week has been preteen week. We discussed the possibility of light colored eyeshadow, (umm no, maybe next year in junior high) We had our second annual nail painting Tuesday, and period talk.

Tonight we celebrated summer with fresh watermelon with dinner and watermelon nails..It’s going to be a rough few years ahead of me.

The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry~Shawshank Redemption

I love technology, I really do, I embrace it like that cute boyfriend, that you just knew was bad for you but damn it he was fun. I want an entire jukebox at the tip of my fingers, I like instant mail, and I want to play Draw Something with random people when I want to play. Technology caters to the five year old in us. “I want what I want when I want it..and now”

That being said, I’m pretty certain it’s contributed to the human race’s growing impatience.  Like the title. We don’t wait for mail, wait to look something up, wait until someone has a phone to call us. It’s there.  Everything and everyone is right at our fingertips. Did that one bitch in high school go and get fat? Let’s look. Any random pondering any need is attainable. This plays to my ADD side nicely. The downside. I don’t have patience for people’s impatience.

It bothers me the most at work.  I blame Miami Ink. This is a day at the tattoo shop on television.

Kat: Can I help you?

Random dude with sketches and ideas.

Kat: yeah that sounds cool, when are you thinking about getting it?

Dude: I’m ready

Kat: Let me go draw this up..

One hour later and a good bit of video splicing you’re witnessing a beautiful backpiece photography shoot.

Things, that seem to confuse my clients in the last few weeks. When I say “can I help you?” It often means can I answer a few questions maybe jot down your ideas to draw on later, and get back to work.

The other problem is my time frame. I run late. I’m sorry I do. No one video splices for me. If I have an appointment that I think will take an hour or hour and a half I book 2 hours off in my calender. This leaves a little time to size the design, make changes set up, break down etc. This doesn’t account for the half dozen people who will probably come in and want to get prices and information. It doesn’t account for the guy that forgot to eat and got light-headed, or for the client who has to take that emergency phone call from her boss.  To be honest it doesn’t leave me time to eat or smoke. Smoking I manage (I have priorities) but eating is often done 10 hours later at home. To guess how long a tattoo is going to take is a lot more guess than knowledge. That easy rework I guessed at an hour didn’t account for the scar tissue or stretch marks I discovered later.. Shit slows me down.

Things to know about me. I really don’t fucking care. I don’t have a clock in my tattoo room, because it doesn’t matter. I can only promise that when I’m tattooing a person. Their time is my time. While they are in my room, it takes however long it takes and it doesn’t matter if there is someone waiting in the lobby because I know in my heart that when it’s that lobby person’s turn, I’ll take my time with them too. Tattoos hurt, they cost a lot, the least I could do is care. This is my system. Most people are cool with it, this last month has been a strange bombardment of impatient folks. They want to tell me their ideas and have me design it on demand, they are pissed if I stop to eat, they are pissed about the wait, they want me to rush my other clients because they are excited about their stuff.  It’s weird, and it’s slightly problematic for me, because in the end, I really don’t give a fuck. I love happy people, I love enthusiastic people, I love 99.9% of my clients. Impatient and rude people don’t make that cut.

And please for the love of god don’t make it a point to tell me how bored your small child is getting. Of course they are, that’s why babysitters rock.

I can’t really blame Kat Von D for ruining my life as much as I’d like too, because she paid her dues. Every tattoo artist knows if your machines aren’t running you aren’t getting paid. Clients don’t know this. They don’t know that I have to sketch on my days off so I can work at work and hopefully pay the rent man. I don’t want them to know that. I want them to have fun, be happy and have a great experience, and lately I just want them to be patient.

Books~a sad love affair

I love books.  It’s a borderline hoarder love. I have to admit I own multiples of books, just because I can’t stand to see them in a 5 for a dollar bin at a goodwill.

“Who gets rid of The Color Purple?” I say. or “Why would you donate Illusions, it’s supposed to be reread”  Stephen King is my weakness. I don’t read gore, but he tells a great story.  I can’t resist the fucking story, and the characters. Gets me every time.  About 5 years ago I decided during one hurried and limited space move, I would sell all my books at a moving sale. Except for a few specials. If they were really that good, I’d replace them I thought.

Replace them I have. The trouble is,  I’m constantly forgetting what I replaced so I replace it again and again. When we moved out of Lansing one of Brandon’s friends had made an admiring comment on my Stephen King collection. It was in fact one of the few truly intelligent things the boy said. I knew he was smart I just hadn’t been able to prove it until that moment. The next day I delivered 13 hardcover King novels to his house (duplicates!) So you know I’ve got an issue.

I learned my lesson though I don’t get rid of them. I love them. I love having an array of books at my fingertips. All different genres, all shapes and sizes.. Except now. Now that I’m packing I wish they were all Stephen King. Aside from the Green Mile chap books, and Colorado Kid (dimestore thriller style) they are hardcover, same height similar width. Those books pack like a dream. They lift like a ton of bricks, but they sure do pack nicely.

Just getting over Strep throat and walking pneumonia yippee yay. Excuse the scattered thought process Lots of Nyquil in my think tank