Renaissance

A couple days ago, I took a day off from my regular job to accompany the Queen and Rock Girl to the local Renaissance Fair that went on at Woodward Park in Tulsa. The Queen made Rock Girl a medieval looking (or as she likes to say, "renaissancesy") dress, and she did an incredible job on it too. Rock Girl also contributed some suggestions when the Queen asked and made some very appropriate choices as to certain items that would enhance the dress and make it look even better. Granted, I've always thought the Socialite to have an incredible handle on what looks good to wear, but Rock Girl isn't that bad either.

The day kicked off with some people from this aviary in Bartlesville, whose claim to fame is bringing the bald eagle off the extinction list. We saw several types of bird from a very small falcon to a majestic golden eagle, who only weighed six pounds (though one kid guessed 300, which made the guy thank them for believing he was so strong). It was impressive to see these creatures so close, and the overall demonstration of each of them was very pleasant.

As for this fair, it had its ups and downs. While they were all serious (some deadly serious) about what they did, some were more prepared to deal with children than others. Our most notable deer in the headlights was a lady who does mosaics. Now, her work on display there was quite impressive, and I'm sure she does an incredible job, but a teacher she is not. Our group gathered around her table while she was hanging out in her car, and when she approached, she looked like she had no idea what to do. Fortunately, their teacher had them sit, so she was free and clear for her chat. Her explanation of the glass mosaic process, however, was so jam-packed with jargon and industry terms that I doubt anyone understood her fully. And no, children are unlikely to know what to do with grout, and no, their parents are NOT going to let them swipe the bathroom tiles to make mosaics with.

Her downfall was when she commented that what she was showing them was hard to see with them sitting down. Queue 30 kids standing up around the table. Queue one mosaic lady going into shut down mode. Her bright idea? Let the kids cut the glass. She cut some strips, and had them line up. Although she cut her hand earlier that day on the glass, she was all about safety. Yikes! The Queen was quick to protect me when she commented as a kid held the cutter backwards that the glass could fly out the other end and put someone's eye out.

We had Rock Girl ask about adhesives they might have used in the Renaissance period. I won the bet there, because she didn't know. In fact, what did this have to do with the renaissance theme anyway? It was supposed to be Renaissance Art, but I guess that person didn't show.

They all weren't that bad, though. We saw a guy who played bagpipes. He also used a load of jargon that I understood most of as he described how to start into playing the bagpipes. He played a stand alone chanter before kicking into the pipes themselves. He talked about his buddies in the band, and how he normally plays drums because they need someone to do that too. But his winning move was his tale of the Scottish army that decided it was hot out so they took off their kilts and tied their shirts between their legs to go into battle. That wouldn't have been so bad, but he showed us all where his shirt tail ended by lifting up his kilt. Fortunately, nothing showed.

He was a talker, though. About the time the buses were leaving, he was just getting into showing off his ceremonial sword and razor sharp knife...and he just kept talking. Finally, the teacher had to cut him off and thank him for his time so we could go.

Earlier that day, we saw some better ones. There was a lady who spun her own yarn on a spinning wheel. She described the process and went over the whole thing in a fairly understandable manner. I initially thought she was a bit boring, but in the end, she wasn't so bad. She described life back in the Renaissance era, and passed around several items that she made in the manner of that period. It ended up being moderately interesting. Of course, she talked about modern life with so much contempt and disdain, it made you wonder what she really did with her time.

There was a station where the kids could write with quills. Now this one did scare us a bit because Rock Girl was wearing a light color that black ink might not come out of no matter how water soluble it is. However, she did fairly well and only got one little spot on her sleeve. The cool thing about that station was what she did on her paper.

You know when kids are given free reign to write or draw whatever they want, they tend to reflect some piece of themselves, or write or draw something they really love (inevitably their name ends up on there somewhere). What did Rock Girl do? She wrote "My family," had the name of her sisters, and wrote "sisters forever" at the bottom. We remain so proud of her.

The highlight, though, was the "Society of Creative Anachronisms." These people not only knew their stuff, but had the timing down to an art. They talked about spinning, clothing, weapons, armor, materials used, and even gave us a full contact fighting demonstration. It was fun to listen to and watch these people do what they love to do. It's easy to complain about stuff, and hard to go on about how good something was because you don't have anything to complain about. They just knew their stuff, and very much seemed to enjoy being in front of a group of people showing off what they loved.

At the end of the day, we were a bit worn out, but we had a lot of fun. While Rock Girl headed back to school, we found that we had a little more time before we had to be back and relive my mother of babysitting Sassy Pants, so we took a rare stop at Sonic for a drink -- just the two of us. We don't get much time alone, so it was nice to have a few minutes together away from all the chaos we normally endure.

When we went to pick up Rock Girl, we wondered whether she would have changed out of her dress (she was wearing a shirt and shorts underneath it) or if she would have kept it on. When she emerged, she still had it on, so I guess she liked it that much. And why not? The Queen did an awesome job on it. She knew how cute she was.

The End of Juliet and Allison

After the five months of fun with Allison, she did the only goo thing she could have done: she got me to go to college. Now, being who and how she was, this was not to last much to my regret, but for a time, I did go. You see, to this day, I have never completed more than a semester of college and that was back from the fall of 96, but like so many other times in my life, some rather interesting things happened. 

Right before college began, I was driving this 86 Camaro. It was a nice car. I really liked it. I had gotten it about a month before I left the Army. Anyway, about a week or two before the semester started, I was driving back to Allison's house with the troll in tow in the dark, and we hit a log in the middle of the road. The car went airborne for a moment before crashing back to the ground since the log was about the size of the car's wheel and we were going about 55mph. No one was hurt, but the car was totaled. The hit cracked the frame, and I was left carless with a 45 mile drive ahead of me for college.

My parents stepped in and helped me get a car that served me until 2004, I think. It was a red 1993 Probe with a manual transmission and not a lot of frills at all -- not as many as the Camaro, anyway. But it was a good car, and I liked it pretty well. So I loaded it up and made the drive to Claremore where Rogers State College (which was renamed sometime during that year or shortly thereafter to Rogers University, so I'm not really sure what it was at the time).

During my time there, I met some interesting people and had some interesting experiences. Some of it is worth going into in full, but maybe I'll do that in subsequent posts, since they all have their own individual tales and like so many other experiences in my life, I'm surprised it all went down in such a short span of time. But for this part, I'll hit the Allison/Juliet side of the tale, since that's what I wanted to focus on for now. All the other stuff was very short term, and really none of it impacted my life to any real significance. I did work for a grocery store as a cashier for a bit, proving once again that I have no gift for face to face customer service as evidenced by the following conversation.

Customer: Hey be careful with that apple. It hit the wall [at the end of the bagging part of the register -- it had rolled down there and smacked the end]

Me: Hey, I didn't put the wall there.

Yeah, he complained. I actually lasted the entire semester before they fired me.

It was during this time that two significant things happened in my relationship world. First, Allison was unable to maintain the college life, and she and Hedy dropped out during that semester. No surprise there, but there was also very minimal contact with me during that time, leaving me free to actually not only concentrate on school, but I also got back in touch with Juliet, and by some miracle, she was willing to not only talk to me, but see me again.

It will come as no surprise, though, that this still didn't end well. I mean, I'm happily married to the Queen, so this can't end well.

Anyway, it was in November 96 that I made a trip to Colorado to see her at a cheeleading competition and go out with her to a movie. It was our only real date, and it's hard to say how it went. We went to see Space Jam, of all things, and yeah, we made out during the movie. I know we went somewhere after the movie, but I don't remember where, and in the end, I dropped her off at her school where she'd left her car, and that was the last time I saw her. I know I loved her at the time, but you'll have to keep in mind that since Camelot in 94, we'd seen each other a total of five times. 95% of our relationship was wrapped up in our communication, and most of that was letters. Emails and IMs would have made that a whole lot easier, but we didn't have them then.

There are few things I regret more in my life than what happened next. Thinking about it now just makes me sick, and if I could change anything, I would have done anything different back then. I know at this point, I am very happy, and I also know she is in a far better place than I could have given her at this point in my life, so everything worked out for the best. I know that, but it doesn't change the regretful situation that occurred.

You see, I was ever susceptible to Allison's influence, and that made me do some really dumb things after this. Allison was not exactly happy about my rekindling of that particular flame, especially since she was aware that she would never, ever measure up in my mind to Juliet, so she brought the hammer down about as hard as she could, and...well... She insisted that I break it off with Juliet as permanently as possible, and she invented some rather vicious things about her that I stupidly believed.

Long story short, since I would prefer it short since I don't like it, I ended up burning the letters I'd gotten from Juliet and sent her pictures and trinkets back to her (the trinkets tore through the envelope and were lost). It was all gone. Not a trace of her left anywhere, since I had been holding on to every piece of her that I had up till then. Allison lasted about 3 more months before she broke it off with me, and I was alone again. 

I spoke to Juliet only once more in 97, and I told her what I had done. She was broken hearted and had every right to be. That's when I learned the trinkets had never made it back to her with the pictures. But that bridge was burned with the letters detailing our entire relationship. You see, that was all we had to keep us together. It was our memories. It was her feelings. And I destroyed them. 

Now having three daughters of my own (fate is funny that way), I consider whether I would allow one of them at the age of fifteen to go out with a nineteen year old Army guy. What would I do? The kneejerk reaction is a resounding no, which is exactly what her father did (no hard feelings, Ed, I promise). But at the same time, I was not the average Army guy. Unlike most of them, I had very little relationship experience. Emotionally, I was probably at her level or even less, inexperienced as I was. Would that change anything? I don't know. I would probably still give the same answer her father did, not because of the maturity, but because of the different places in life each is in.

It's been a long time since I've pondered any of this, and while it could have ended better, the ending was an inevitability. I remained broke in Oklahoma, and she went to Virginia. Still long distance. She needed to be able to live a little without being tied to some guy miles and miles away. I needed to be able to try and make something of the life I'd screwed up to that point. 

While I did get a couple of emails from Juliet since then that I did respond to, I haven't heard from her in a long time, and that's fine. My hope for her is that she is happy where she is now. You never forget your first love, and without a doubt, depite all the odds we were up against, she was the first person that I actually loved. I know that I came out of the experience (via both Juliet and Allison) a little older and a little wiser for it all because I learned what I really wanted and how to be more assertive when it comes to how I want to get it.

As a result of this experience that spanned nearly three years of my life, I was a different person when I met the Queen and really much better for it. The Queen reaped the benefits that forced to me to grow from someone who'd never been in a relationship to someone who had figured out how to handle himself and deal with others. I don't know what Juliet saw in me that day in September of 94, but whatever it was is buried under a layer of wisdom that I gained through my stupidity.

More happened during my "Silent Years," but I thought I should put this to rest, since I felt the need to do so. The Queen doesn't much like these stories and would prefer I stick to ours. But for the sake of completing my life story, I thought I should include this unfortunate tale of love lost because thorough these experiences, we grow and become the people we were meant to be and end up with the people we're meant to end up with.

Where are they now? I know Allison finally figured out that Hedy was in love with her (yes, in "that way"), and she left Hedy high and dry after reading her diary. Could be another story, but that was her email several years ago when she apologized for her actions. I spotted her in Wal-Mart once, and she had another girl traveling with her. Who knows?

As for Juliet, she got a degree in engineering, found herself a frenchman and was married in 2006. She now lives in France.

The Clock is Ticking

The time is getting close. I'm down to single digits remaining at my second job at the world's largest retailer. Only 9 working days remain, or as the Queen prefers to think of it, three weekends. We worked out the remaining checks from there, and we can stick to the original plan of my leaving there the weekend before Memorial Day, so I can have the three day weekend to just rest and try and get back a measure of the energy I've lost over the past (almost) year. It will be so very nice to have my weekends (as well as Monday and Friday nights) back. Everyone will be better off as a result.

The only kink that may result is how the retailer handles two week notices. I plan on being perfectly honest and ethical in my dealing with them as I have since I started, and that means giving reasonable notice of my impending departure. The trouble is that with child jobs such as that one is, they occasionally don't deal well with notices of departure and may just fire me on the spot as soon as I give it. Why? Well, because if I am choosing to leave at a set date, they no longer have anything to hold over my head. I'm a wild card at that point since I hold 100% of the control. Typically, the employer has control over the employee and maintains that control via the threat of job loss. Well, if the employee has declared they no longer want the job and in two weeks will be leaving anyway, they have nothing on that person. So, they just sack them to get rid of the liability. I'm not sure which way I prefer.

Over the weekend was a little on the odd side, so the Queen tells me (I was asleep). Apparently the "horticulturalist" and former owner of our house dropped by and wanted to know if she could have some of the irises she had planted on the south side. Given that these irises multiply like rabbits every year, she had no issues letting her have at them, but of course, we had no shovel to offer her. She wanted to com back in a month and see if another of the two toned irises had come up and retrieve them as well. Naturally, she commented on what we'd done to what she could see in regards to the trees missing. We blamed the storm. Wow, what a convenient and perfect reason (yes, reason!) that ice storm made for us to not have to offer the explanation of "your planting scheme sucked" to her. Ah, but she recently finished her master's in horticulture or something. My mind wanders to a Doctor Who episode called The Seeds of Doom.

Today, one of our more favorite clients reared her head as she tends to do every day, and Optimus remarked that if he ever has a last day here, he would probably contact her daily for a good long time to relieve some frustration. He would call her up and pretend to be a middle eastern man with a billing problem. Naturally, there would be no account, but he will have received a bill with some ridiculous amount that he feels he shouldn't have to pay. This would go around and around for about a month, and then he would be calling about her having personally sent his account to collections which is ruining his credit because he is buying a house. He would go on about being oppressed due to his heritage, and this would likely go on as he needed to relieve frustration for about 6 months.

Now, he threw out some name ideas, but I think my idea would work the best: Fuqiou. When she asks how to pronounce that, he would become deeply offended and ask her how she thinks it should be pronounced. Naturally, he must always be addressed as Mr. Fuqiou, and this would make him happy since that's what he feels like he's told her daily for years now. Of course, when he considers a "last day," he honestly hopes that day never comes (within reason, of course).

On Sunday, we were at church having lunch before the praise band had a rehearsal, and someone asked about the princesses and how we got them to act so good. Our three girls were quietly sitting at the table eating (or in the case of Sassy Pants, refusing to eat), while several of the other kids there were running around the sanctuary screaming and acting generally crazy. I had to think about this a long time because my immediate thought was discipline. And while this is indeed plays into their behaviour, it struck me that it was all too simple an answer to really show what it was that we did as parents to have them behave the way they do.

I admit that I keep wanting to say "make them behave," but in reality, that's incorrect. Really, we can't "make" them do anything. They have to make the right choices, and one of those is to behave properly in a public setting. As adults, we choose to behave; why do we do it? Because we choose to. We could run around screaming just as easily as the little ones do, but we don't, and the trick is to instill that same level of choice into the children.

It boils down to several factors in the end. One is explaining to them the proper way to act in any given situation. Then, putting out some consequences for their actions if they do not follow the social rules that we expect. You see, when I say discipline, my "social norm" meter flips right to "spanking," but that isn't the sum total of discipline. Buy the same measure, neither is grounding, time outs, taking things away, or any number of other things I can't think of off hand. Different methods work differently on each child and in each situation, so it's a matter of having a veritable arsenal and choosing the correct course of action for each "infraction," as it were.

As adults, we have laws that we follow (or don't, depending on how you are), and each of these laws has different consequences based on what it is, to what degree, etc. The law lays out our boundaries, so it is important to do something similar for children, and stick to that. Can we choose to steal or even speed? Sure we can. No one is going to stop us...initially. But there are consequences for those actions that must be paid, and maybe that will make us think twice about doing them again. Same with the sitting at the table and behaving properly in a social situation. They can choose to run around acting crazy, but we just might end up at the car discussing these inappropriate actions. They might end up having an early bedtime. It all depends, and the thing is, they don't know ahead of time because we don't lay out a list of infractions and punishments. We have taught them over time how to act, and we keep them in line so they maintain it as they grow up.

One thing we do that I know isn't always done is giving them the "why's" about the rules we lay down. If we say "don't do it," and they ask why, we don't punish them for asking. We sit them down and explain it to them so they understand why we have made a request of them that they may or may not find unreasonable.

The other day, The Socialite (who could just as well be called The Daredevil), was walking on the top rail of our fence in the backyard. Below her on the other side were dogs wildly barking at her. Naturally, The Queen called her down, and she wanted to know why she couldn't do that. The reasons were quite simple; first, it is dangerous (which likely didn't phase her) and second, if she fell into the other yard, the dogs might react violently and hurt her. That works worlds better than "Because I said so."

Are we incredibly strict? Yes and no. Yes, from my perspective, we keep them walking a line that is quite narrow and ensure they don't steer from it. If they stray even a little bit, they know it. But no, because there is a great deal of freedom that they do have to explore and learn and experience new things. They are allowed to try practically anything; to learn anything; to do whatever they want to do...as long as they keep to the teachings we have given them. From their perspective, they probably don't notice how tightly we keep them in line.

Why not? Because anytime they find out what someone else is able to do, one of two things happens. The first makes me prouder than I can even say because some of the things I've learned that Rock Girl has observed that some kids yearn to do, she has been able to explain why she shouldn't do them and why whoever is doing it shouldn't either. The other is that we talk about what this other person is doing, and explain the reasons why it isn't a good idea. This involves them in the decision making process, and while yes, mommy and daddy always win this process, it gives them some meaningful dialogue, allows them to ask questions and even tell us their opinions on it.

The result is three children that garner compliment after compliment from people who have seen them act properly in public. Yes, they see even their friends run around crazy, but they don't do it because they don't find it to be the right thing to do.We even bring it down to their level through the shows they watch. On one such Strawberry Shortcake, the character of Pupcake created a lot of chaos by acting crazy, and they observed this. This created a comparison they could relate to, and now we always ask for pretty princesses and if the craziness begins, they are reminded that puppies have to stay out in the car.

So all three are very sweet (most of the time), although Sassy Pants keeps her head on better when she isn't competing for attention with her sisters after school. They continue to learn and grow, but having them well behaved at a young age will hopefully translate into better behaved teenagers. We know full well there will be some rebellion and we have our eyes on different aspects of their personalities that will likely come out the most during that period of time, but anticipating it will (again, hopefully) help to deal with that time. Since we've already established dialogues on proper behaviour, we also hope this will help when they have harder behavioural and social questions than "Should I run around screaming in the sanctuary at church?"

I ramble on when I talk about them, but watching them grow is a pleasure, and I'm really looking forward to spending more time with them once this whole second job deal is over. I'm counting the days.