MWLM Blog

Wild Thing, You Moooove Me

Before I climb back into the Don’t Get Me Started saddle and begin espousing on just what is wrong with this world of ours (Immigration laws, Al Qaeda, Tom Cruise…), I would like to take a moment to thank the great many people who have emailed asking, due to my writing lapse of late, if I was, in fact, dead.

Your concern has been as touching as it has been blunt.

No, I have not been dead, near dead, or even trapped under something heavy. I have been moving.

Come to think of it, dead, near dead, and trapped under something heavy is a pretty fair approximation of that act.

You see, my family finally completed the longest move in the history of relocation. What began nearly three years ago when my husband drove off to a new job in Minneapolis, has finally culminated with our arrival in Austin.

Yes, Rudy did initially drive off to the north, but much happens in three calendar years (ok, fine – because I know he will get his panties in a wad when he reads this, it was only two years, eight months and eleven days), and a new job found him that brought him back south.

That being said, it has been a long three years of separation, single parenting, weekend sex, sometimes once-a-monthly sex, keeping the house clean for showings, etc.

But here we are now, having completed the move to Austin – completed being a relative term, for while we now inhabit a new city, the "move" will be ongoing until I unpack all the %^&$# boxes and rearrange the furniture 1,001 times.

It’s not so much the moving to a new locale that bothers me. Quite frankly, I grew up moving every few years, and Rudy & I have done it so often since hooking up, that I liken us to carnies (although we do have more than four teeth between us).

So it’s not frightening or unnerving, rather what bothers me are all the logistical hoops that must be jumped through in order to make it happen.

Utilities, doctors, school transcripts, vet records, mail forwarding, movers, cleaning, etc…

What my family views as a painless transition is really a lot of behind-the-scenes legerdemain by yours truly.

They simply walk out of one home and into the next and VOILA! The toilets flush! ABRACADABRA! The lights turn on! POOF! The TVs all transmit their beloved Nick Jr and ESPN!  ALAKAZAM!  Letters of recommendation speed their way into advanced classes and athletics!  SHABOOM!  Soccer practices before the boxes are even delivered!  (Seriously, we drove directly from closing on the new house to the soccer pitch.  Do not pass go, do not stop to head butt anyone in the chest.)

Yes, for Linda Copperfield’s next trick, watch as she pulls a fully functional house and lifestyle OUT. OF. HER. ASS!

Oooooooooooooooooo!!!!!! (or would that be Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww??)

Then there are these boxes. I swear that more were delivered in Austin than were loaded in Dallas. It doesn’t matter how many I unpack and collapse during the day, like corrugated rabbits, they mate in the night and I wake up to ten more.

If you listen close, around 1am, you can hear them, their flaps softly smacking as they hump in the night. Sometimes you can hear packing tape tearing – I surmise those to be virgin boxes.

And in those many boxes? Who the hell knows? Vague descriptions adorn the outsides, so badly misspelled that I would bet all my money on the moving company not requiring high school diplomas from its employees. Brom Kendll Clot (We found this one in the garage. Inside? Clothes from Kendall’s Bedroom. She was not amused.)

And once you do break the tape on one, there are fourteen trees worth of paper that must be dealt with in order to free the one item they actually packed in the box. I’m not kidding. Anyone who has ever been professionally moved will vouch for this: They are paid by the pound, so the more pounds the better. Pounds = Paper in moving land. And they will wrap anything in ten sheets of it.

I have arrived at a new destination and unwrapped empty macaroni and cheese boxes, two pencils, a handful of pennies, a pretzel. Hell, these people would wrap a fart if they could catch it in order to add one more pound to the manifest.

But I digress…

We are one week into our new home, and all grousing aside, things are going well. The kids have all started in their new schools and are acclimating like pros, I am once again Team Manager of two new soccer teams, I know how to get to WalMart and back without getting lost, and best of all, at the end of the day, The Sharps are actually a family again.

A family separated by fornicating boxes and a forest’s worth of packing paper, but a family again nonetheless.

Your concern has been as touching as it has been blunt.

No, I have not been dead, near dead, or even trapped under something heavy. I have been moving.

Come to think of it, dead, near dead, and trapped under something heavy is a pretty fair approximation of that act.

You see, my family finally completed the longest move in the history of relocation. What began nearly three years ago when my husband drove off to a new job in Minneapolis, has finally culminated with our arrival in Austin.

Yes, Rudy did initially drive off to the north, but much happens in three calendar years (ok, fine – because I know he will get his panties in a wad when he reads this, it was only two years, eight months and eleven days), and a new job found him that brought him back south.

That being said, it has been a long three years of separation, single parenting, weekend sex, sometimes once-a-monthly sex, keeping the house clean for showings, etc.

But here we are now, having completed the move to Austin – completed being a relative term, for while we now inhabit a new city, the "move" will be ongoing until I unpack all the %^&$# boxes and rearrange the furniture 1,001 times.

It’s not so much the moving to a new locale that bothers me. Quite frankly, I grew up moving every few years, and Rudy & I have done it so often since hooking up, that I liken us to carnies (although we do have more than four teeth between us).

So it’s not frightening or unnerving, rather what bothers me are all the logistical hoops that must be jumped through in order to make it happen.

Utilities, doctors, school transcripts, vet records, mail forwarding, movers, cleaning, etc…

What my family views as a painless transition is really a lot of behind-the-scenes legerdemain by yours truly.

They simply walk out of one home and into the next and VOILA! The toilets flush! ABRACADABRA! The lights turn on! POOF! The TVs all transmit their beloved Nick Jr and ESPN!  ALAKAZAM!  Letters of recommendation speed their way into advanced classes and athletics!  SHABOOM!  Soccer practices before the boxes are even delivered!  (Seriously, we drove directly from closing on the new house to the soccer pitch.  Do not pass go, do not stop to head butt anyone in the chest.)

Yes, for Linda Copperfield’s next trick, watch as she pulls a fully functional house and lifestyle OUT. OF. HER. ASS!

Oooooooooooooooooo!!!!!! (or would that be Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww??)

Then there are these boxes. I swear that more were delivered in Austin than were loaded in Dallas. It doesn’t matter how many I unpack and collapse during the day, like corrugated rabbits, they mate in the night and I wake up to ten more.

If you listen close, around 1am, you can hear them, their flaps softly smacking as they hump in the night. Sometimes you can hear packing tape tearing – I surmise those to be virgin boxes.

And in those many boxes? Who the hell knows? Vague descriptions adorn the outsides, so badly misspelled that I would bet all my money on the moving company not requiring high school diplomas from its employees. Brom Kendll Clot (We found this one in the garage. Inside? Clothes from Kendall’s Bedroom. She was not amused.)

And once you do break the tape on one, there are fourteen trees worth of paper that must be dealt with in order to free the one item they actually packed in the box. I’m not kidding. Anyone who has ever been professionally moved will vouch for this: They are paid by the pound, so the more pounds the better. Pounds = Paper in moving land. And they will wrap anything in ten sheets of it.

I have arrived at a new destination and unwrapped empty macaroni and cheese boxes, two pencils, a handful of pennies, a pretzel. Hell, these people would wrap a fart if they could catch it in order to add one more pound to the manifest.

But I digress…

We are one week into our new home, and all grousing aside, things are going well. The kids have all started in their new schools and are acclimating like pros, I am once again Team Manager of two new soccer teams, I know how to get to WalMart and back without getting lost, and best of all, at the end of the day, The Sharps are actually a family again.

A family separated by fornicating boxes and a forest’s worth of packing paper, but a family again nonetheless.

Too busy to BLOG!

Hi everyone,

It's been a long while since I had a chance to Blog.  With the kids home for summer break, the days just fly by.  As of the next issue of the magazine, I will no longer be the webmaster or senior editor because I am just too busy with my regular job to spend the proper amount of time on setting up the magazine every season.  Paula has found some wonderful gals to replace me though and the next issue will be great!  I will still be involved with the magazine illustrations so I'll still be around. 

Hope you are all having a great summer.

Take care!

Lucie

Be a Part of MWLM! Seeking Editors

We are looking for two women (mom writers) to join our team on the Mom Writer's Literary magazine editorial board!

Poetry Editor

The Poetry Editor will cover the Poetry department.  Duties include reading and selecting poetry submissions, editing accepted poetry, and writing acceptance and rejection letters. Editing experience and computer skills are vital.

Writing Resource Editor

The Resource Editor will cover the Writing Resources department.  Duties include researching writer's resources and preparing them for the MWLM issues and replying to any emails from writers with questions and comments.  Research and computer skills, and editing experience are all vital.

To apply for either of these positions, you must be a mom and a writer.
All work is done over the Internet.
Mom Writer's Literary Magazine is a volunteer organization.

Please send an email to editor@momwriterslitmag.com letting us know what position you are interested in.  Also, in your email, please send us a cover letter, a sample of your writing and tell us a bit about your life as a mom and writer.

Thank you - We look forward to hearing from you!

Paula Schmitt, Editor

Hello Everyone!

My name is Jackie Papandrew, and I'm the new Profile Editor at MWLM. I'm happy to be part of this great magazine! I'm a freelance writer in Florida, and I write a syndicated humor column in between raising kids and dodging hurricanes. I've posted a recent column below. You can read more at my website, JackiePapandrew.com. Thanks for reading!

Silence is Golden

Tell me I didn’t just hear that…

I find myself saying that almost every day, usually in response to some disturbing sound, verbal or otherwise, emanating from one of my children. Recently, though, I read about a new device, soon to be available, that will allow annoying noises to be switched off. Called The Mute, this remote control gadget sends a signal to two little buds that users stick in their ears. All you do is point The Mute at the reason for the racket and voila! -- sweet, sweet silence.

I am very excited about this. Consider how it could revolutionize the often high-pitched job of parenting. We’d still be able to savor a baby’s comforting coos, the patter of pint-sized feet, the priceless peals of our children’s laughter. But as those precious bundles of joy get older and somehow morph into little nuggets of noise with dirt on them, we could, on occasion, simply tune them out.

Sure, we’d still need to hear certain things, from the awesome (“I love you” coming from a grateful child) to the alarming (“Watch me fly” coming from the roof). But do we always need to perceive the blare of sibling bickering? Say, for instance, when a worrisome set of crashes, thumps and bangs reverberates through my walls as fratricidal force is deployed over access to an Xbox. I could just point and click Mr. Mute.

And I could sure do without that ubiquitous (at least at my house) phrase “Uh oh,” followed by a frantically whispered “Don’t tell Mom” (even worse when it is preceded by the sound of a toilet flushing). Or when the first sound waves of shattering glass resulting from a baseball thrown into a whirling ceiling fan begin to lap against my auditory antennae, I could act quickly. Point, click…serenity now.

The marvelous Mute would become even more valuable as our children reach adolescence and develop the desire to torment us acoustically. This could have profound philosophical and financial implications. If a teenage girl slams a door and screams “I hate you!” and her parents don’t hear it, did it really happen? Or if no one notices when an eternally hungry teenage boy stands in front of an open refrigerator stuffed with $300 worth of food and complains loudly “There’s nothing to eat in this house!”, do you really have to feed him?

Imagine the heightening of harmony in homes inhabited by teenagers across our nation if we could muffle their decibel-devouring music, stifle their sounds, cover up their cacophony. Imagine all the parents, living life in peace. It’s easy if you try.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m planning to have The Mute surgically implanted in my ears as soon as it’s available. Because sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and silence is golden.

© Jackie Papandrew 2006