Privilege and Guilt

Ever have one of the those days when you question, "is this seriously my life?"

Today I did. Nothing truly extraordinary happened, we spent most of the day cleaning. But we were not cleaning to get ready for family coming over for Christmas, we just wanted to leave the house in the decent shape for the dogsitter and dogs to enjoy over the next few days.

This is one of those times where I have to kind of just stand back and be both thankful and disgusted at the life of extreme privilege that I live. Mr. RipeMango and I are off to Puerto Vallarta for a few days, and a young woman, who works with our dog groomer, will be sitting our dogs and house. How's that for pampered pooches?

Well, at least we managed to hold back on Christmas shopping when it came to the dogs. All 3 will be sharing this woman figurine, they already own and love to bite on the man.

Am I 13? Peer Pressure sucks!

I looooooooved my old place of work. More specifically, I loved my co-workers. I sometimes suspect that I'm not giving the new place of employment quite a fair shot. But I've decided I'm going to try harder, and so I decided to attend the holiday gathering at a local restaurant.

However, I decided to opt out of the white-elephant gift exchange. My reasons for opting out were: #1 I do not need to bring more clutter into my home! #2 My family is not even getting presents. But then, my peers told me all the cool kids were doing it, and I gave in and went last-minute shopping. I went out and bought movie tickets and raisinets and put it in a nice little bag, I thought it was a great gift and was happy not to add clutter to someone else's house.

So the gift exchange was fun and I ended up with a gift card to Victoria's Secret, not too bad, except I don't really shop there, and I'm not sure if I can get anything for $15 or so, but all things considered, not bad. I'm just happy I didn't end up with the giant tub of 100 plastic cookie cutters (yes seriously!) or the decorate-your-own-piggy-bank arts & craft set (piggy bank included) Phew!

All was well and everyone was having a good ol' time, then the check came.

I am almost 28, and it's been at least 8 years since I've gone out with a group of people who either aren't very good at math (so they can't calculate cost of meal & drinks+tax+proper tip), or worse are just plain cheap. It was awful, the bill came up short and the server was going to be seriously stiffed. Everyone at the table had ordered a million refills, and because we didn't walk in together she took our orders at different times and was generally very attentive. We were going to leave her a $16, so just about $1 per person! Although I'm the new girl, I couldn't stand it and became the tip police, insisting that this girl get at least 20% for serving a group of 14!

This event really made me miss my old co-workers. In my entire 4 years of going out to various dinners and events with them, there was always, ALWAYS a surplus of cash when the check came. Sigh, now it's like being a teen with broke-ass friends again.

Fresh and Fruity

I have been in complete denial but there's no more stalling it, Christmas must be deal with...

I used to take such pride in hunting down just the *perfect* gift for everyone on my list. I use to scour Robinson's May, Macy's, Target hunting just the right item with a personal touch for the each of the dozens of people on my list. But honestly, I'm way over it. Luckily this year my side of the family decided not to do gifts at all.

But the poor in laws are now signed up for the Fruit-of-the-Month club this year. I can't believe we've become the people that gift the fruit-of-the-month. Now don't get me wrong, I love fruit, the in-laws love fruit but I can't believe we're going to pay so much money to ship fruit that probably would've cost $10 for the entire year if just picked up at the grocery store instead. And oh my god let's not even talk about what they must add to that fruit to keep it fresh through so many levels of shipping. Oh and the fuel cost to ship small batches of fruit. Oh well, at least we're not sending yet another gift card, or some nonsense to add more clutter to their home.

In return Mr. Ripemango and I have received 2 gift cards from them in return. I'm just glad we're not getting small crystal figurines or some other useless stuff :)

Jimbo & Janin Mo are among our longest-time friends who just happen to be a happily married couple (is that even a phrase? or am I having ESL issues again? it really does sound weird to me), we have always enjoyed their company (individually or joint) and laugh until it hurts when we hang out. These two are 2 amazing people. Then one day almost 5 years ago, the Mo's became 3, then 3 years ago the Mo's became 4, and much to everyone's surprise this August the Mo's became 5!


Sadly we don't see the Mo's quite as often, but today we had the whole squad over for Sunday brunch and kind of all day hangout session. Since the RipeMango pack is also made up of 5 (but 3 are the canine variety), our household was alive with craziness today.


My favorite moments today include:

1. Teaching a 4 year-old boy how to say "scones with lemon curd" so that he can tell his teachers about his weekend dietary affairs.

2. Bringing out our tea set and nice dishes to play grownup hostess.

3. Watching a re-run of A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila with the Mo's. Ummm yeah :) I guess it's obvious we're grown up and classy.

It was fun having them over but we were left feeling so exhausted that it once again reminds me how being a parent on a full-time basis seems like the absolute most insanely difficult thing ever. I'm almost 28 but I still can't shake the suspicion that being a parent, a good one anyway, requires one to have some sort of special gift and and I think I may have been skipped when that talent was handed out.

I still wish Atticus was my dad.

Do you think that pretty much every 9th grade girl who ever read To Kill a Mockingbird wishes Atticus Finch was her dad? I'm currently reading TKAM with my freshmen, and I'm falling in love with Mr. Finch all over again.

In my case, I did not fantasize about having Mr. Finch as my father because my real father was somehow inadequate. To the contrary, my dad was perfect, entirely too perfect.

My father was an amazing gentleman. He raised my 3 (half) brothers as his own, and even got my oldest brother, whose heart had been shattered by his own father, to eventually call him dad, and mean it. My father, who despite his clown-like presence got caught up in the entrepreneurial spirit and succeed, if only for short while. The only thing he ever did wrong was he died too early. He passed on exactly 3 months before my 4th birthday.

And during the last year of his life he knew he had terminal cancer.

Can you imagine the choices you would make if you had a 4 children, one only 2 years old, a loving wife, a thriving business and only a year to live? Yep, my father was perfect but for too brief a time. And so Mr. Finch filled in the gaps for my fantasies of what it might've been like if I'd had my father for just a few more years. What would he have taught me? Would my values be any different? Would I be a different person?

Animal cruelty?

One day I woke up and realized I am one of those people. The people who can't stop talking about their pets in the same obnoxious way that many new parents can't stop talking about their newborn infants. So here it is, another post with pictures of my boys. Although it is now mid-December, I decided that since I had my camera out, I might as well bust out their Halloween costumes since I never got around to taking pictures on Halloween.

Quasi-Bee

Cal (actually Calpurnia but don't tell him)

I know it's all so wrong in so many ways.

The high cost of beauty.

So in my continued half-assed attempts to attempt a more frugal and conscious lifestyle I've made it out the farmer's market two weeks in a row. Truth be told our farmer's market kind of sucks, there are very few vendors. But in order to get to a better market we'd have to drive 20 or 30 miles which really seems to defeat the purpose of it all.
I was so proud of myself for walking away with a bunch of fruit and even some asparagus for under $10. After my Friday's cheap and fun outing with friends, I was feeling really good!

But then I had to pick up my dogs from the groomer and handed over $85, ouch.
Oh well, it's not easy looking this good.

I wish I could do this myself, but then I look at my own image in the mirror and realize that if I'm not willing or able to give myself a decent hair style, I can't really do anything for these little guys either.

I was so pleased with their looks that I went a little crazy with the camera. Here's a shot that shows how Quasi earned his name: you can see his funny little teeth, his messed up little leg, and even his little tail (a no-no in the schnauzer world). Now, don't worry, I'm well aware that Quasi won't be winning any beautiful-baby contests anytime soon, but the little guy has a heart of gold, is beautiful on the inside, and other heart-warming cliches.

And more on being drunk.

In her most recent post, June Cut-Off Cash tells about her imaginary childhood alcoholism, that girl cracks me up! Her post reminded how I always felt so lucky that all of my uncles were weekend alcoholics.

Now, usually a family full of alcoholics isn't fun at all, but to my broke 5 year-old self, drunk uncles were the best!

Every Sunday, after visiting with the Lord, I was given an allowance. While it was always a day of rejoicing, it was also a day of difficult decisions. You see, my allowance was just enough to buy either a chocolate bar OR an ice cream bar- not both. So for a long time I had to make this most difficult choice, that is until I started hanging out with my drunk uncles.

For some reason, my uncles only bought one beer at a time. Maybe they thought they would have "just one more" and it wasn't worth to just get a six-pack. Maybe we didn't have six-packs back then. More likely though, they probably only had one glass bottle to trade-in toward their next beer. In Mexico, you must return glass bottles everytime you're going to purchase another drink, if you don't return bottles you have to pay a pretty steep surcharge.

Anyway, this recycling model and lax laws about selling alcohol to minors meant that the sales clerk would happily allow me (at 5, 6, and 7 years old) to buy beer throughout the day. So if I volunteered to do the beer runs and I played my cards right, I was allowed to keep the change. So to make what should've been a short story longer, I was then able to sometimes buy a chocolate bar AND an ice cream bar.

Thank-you drunk uncles. Thanks for getting me started on the road to diabetes.

I love wine and good friends (equally).

My former co-workers hosted the most awesome fundraiser, it involved wine, appetizers, and friends, what more could one want? Seriously, this is the most fun I've had with $20 in quite a while. Truth be told I kind of feel like a cheapskate for only donating the "ticket price" to attend the event. All the money is going to improve the lot of high school kids in East Los Angeles. The hosting group of teachers are a bunch of individuals who do amazing things with crappy pay, few resources, and a district that does everything possible to make their life a living hell.

But I digress, back to how fun the evening was: I make an honest effort to see friends frequently but sometimes I get so caught up in the day-to-day stuff that I forget how great it is to just hang out with a friend (or fifty) and just catch up.

I spent at least an hour talking to Mr. and Mrs. GrisWeimaraner, the only people who are even more insane about their dog, than I am about mine. Only this pair understand the anguish that we're going through in trying to find a petsitter for the holidays, so we don't have to board our entire pack of dogs.

But I also met new friends. At the party, I found myself talking to artist Ramon Ramirez, a fellow Cal Bear! This dude is down to earth and just so mellow and cool. I've never known a real-life working artist, (but I've known plenty of stoners who claim they're artists but have nothing to show for it though, does that count?) so now I can check off that box in my to-do list of life experiences. Hmmm although I don't think he'd appreciate being a box on my to do list.

Turf War

Today some students came into my classroom wanting to know if I knew any details about the man that left via ambulance the previous afternoon. When I told them I knew nothing of this most recent tragic event they proceeded to inform me that an ice cream man was robbed and beaten near the tennis courts on our campus. The most frightening thing was that apparently this all happened right as students where headed home for the day.

Concerned about the safety of the general student population I decided to ask Mr. Principal about this event, he informed of the following:

1. The ice cream man (with the little Mexican style cart, not in an ice cream van) was in fact beaten.
2. He was beaten by another "more established" ice cream man.
3. The fight was over ice cream salesman turf.

I guess Wallace Stevens was on to something when he wrote that the only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.

It's not easy staying green

Today one of my students walked into my classroom and said he needed to talk to me. I asked him if it needed to be in private and he responded, "not really, it's just that I found this, and was wondering if you could turn it into the office or something" as he handed me a wallet.

I took a look inside the wallet and found:

1. A driver's license
2. Two atm cards
3. A permanent residence card aka a "Green Card"

I had a sudden flashback to 2003 when my wallet was lost then stolen with the my green card in it. Although I hardly ever carried this precious document, that was the week I was processing my new-hire paperwork for a big, evil district for my very first teaching job.

I cannot begin to tell you the anxiety, heartache, tears, and eventually resignation that losing that little piece of plastic caused.

Needless to say I immediately looked up the address on the driver's license and resolved to hand-deliver the card myself to this poor young woman who must've been wringing her hands even as I sat there looking at yahoo maps.

So I drive up the house, knock on the door and the same woman pictured in the id opens the door and a little chihuahua barks its tiny little head off and the covnersation goes like this:

Me: "are you Isis"?

Her: nods.

Me:"Oh, I found this" and hand her the wallet.

Her: "Oh okay" and looks through her wallet and seems disappointed when she realizes the cash compartment is empty.

Me: "Your green card is in there, I don't know if you've ever lost it before. But just so you know, it's incredibly difficult to replace."

Her: "Okay"

Me: "Okay, bye"

Her: Begins to close the door until the Chi runs out and tries to attack me, but I make it safely back to my car.

So why do I feel so disappointed? Shouldn't I be happy just knowing I returned her wallet?
The truth is, I'm not. I wanted her to be overjoyed, and express relief, and to be thankful, really thankful.

Beginning the process

Yesterday my co-worker had another miserable day at work. He finished his day, went home and took his own life.

The thing is, I barely knew him, and while I've told myself that this is mostly because I'm the new girl in town, deep down I know we never would've been friends. The only thing I know about my late co-worker, is that he'd been on the job for almost 20 years, and that his true passion was horses.

So here I am faced once again with the question of what it is exactly that I want to do with my life. No, I don't mean what do I want to be when I grown up, but rather what do I really want out of life. Sometimes I've been so focused on a destination, a goal, that I forget to look at and enjoy at all the craziness that is happening along the way.

If I can trust my earliest memories, some of the happiest moments of my childhood consisted of sitting in my backyard gobbling up juicy, delicious mangos from our trees. No worries about time, appearance, poverty or wealth; we simply enjoyed the experience.

And so what's my purpose in writing this here, in this format? I don't really know. I suppose I want some sort of record as I attempt to re-learn the art of taking joy in the little things.

The day I die, I want people to be able to talk about me as more than just my job description and 1 or 2 things tha I loved to do. I want people to say "oh yes, that RipeMango sure had an obsession with mangos! But you know, she was also a bit of crazy dog-lady, and a boy was she a flaming liberal! Did I ever tell you about the time she..." and I want everyone to burst out into roaring laughter when that story is finished.