Walking Backwards

A shiny new cable modem now sits atop our server rack and I have an internet connection again. Yay! I have lots to blog about, but before I get into the events of the last weekend, I have to go over something that has been really pissing me off all day. Nico and I had a playdate this morning with the children/mothers from his preschool. This year there are four new families that are entering his class and one of the new mothers is the "room representative" who handles all of the planning and scheduling for the class. She was the host for today's gathering. Well, all morning, from the moment I got there, she keeps bringing up my yahoo username which I used to sign up to the class' group. The username is "conqubine6710". Okay, it's kind of strange, but I've seen weirder. I know it is misspelled and I have my reasons for picking it and misspelling it (the numbers have meaning too, but that's not important). The moment the room mother meets me she says that she was expecting someone more exotic with a name like that. I laugh the first bit off and then start talking to the other mothers that I knew from last year. She sees me again later and then says that I'm a little plain for such an exciting handle. When she brings it up a third time, I realize that she is an ass an needs to be completely ignored. Who tells the mother of a toddler that she is plain and lacks interest?! This woman apparently does not understand how difficult it is for me to reconcile my former self, where I admit I was more, um, interesting, with my current chasing-after-a-toddler-and-living-in-pajamas self. I cannot understand how a woman who I don't know could be so spiteful. Kate, one of the other parents from last year, was kind enough to tell me that she thought I was about as exotic as a parent comes. I know she was being nice, but, damn it, mothers should build each other up rather than tear each other down to make ourselves feel better about who we are. Go Kate!

Grrrr, now I'm all agitated again, so quick rundown of the past few days:

-Friday I dropped my brother off at the airport for his flight to Germany. He is going to be gone until the middle of next month studying at a university in Berlin. I have to say that, even though we have been getting on each other's last nerve lately, I miss him being here. Nico misses him a lot. He keeps asking when my brother is coming home. It makes me so sad when he says, "Uncle Bobee is at school. He's at school far, far away and won't be back for a long time" like it's his mantra.

- Saturday we met up with my dad for lunch and gossip and celebrated my friend Maria's birthday (after I bought the new Harry Potter book, of course). My dad was swell and gave me some great parenting advice. He basically told me not to worry so much. Great advice. We all had lunch in this dive of a sandwich shop that was so good and so cheap. We then went to Maria's for birthday festivities. Maria and I left the kids with the other parental units and headed to the San Antonio Museum of Art where we discussed very intellectual and adult things as well as the varying size of penises in Greek art. After returning back to her place we had dinner, cake, a watched a movie. Driving home after eleven at night was kind of difficult, but we made it back alive.

- Sunday we were supposed to go sailing, but it started pouring rain about the time we were supposed to leave for the lake. Instead we ended up being quite droll and cleaned the house and did laundry and sat around. I read. Nico played. Joe, I'm sure, did something.

So that is all my excitement. I know I'm no feeling too exotic at the moment either ;). I'm working on a photo essay of a regular day in my life, so look for that this week. If only I get my flickr stream working properly . . .