Monday Round II

I am not a morning person. Never have been. I have distinct memories of my mom and dad spending hours (or so it seemed) trying to get me out of bed for whatever event it was that I was supposed to be attending (school or church probably). I never took 8 AM classes in college, and still roll into work around 8:30, even though I swear I am coming in earlier to get work done. My kids haven’t changed this either. Oh – I get up with them. You sorta have to. But the first 30-45 minutes entails me laying on the floor in the family room, snoozing and letting them play on and over me. Then we get coffee and slowly, our day begins. And for all of you making disapproving clicking noises or shaking your head, its not like my kids get up at 8 AM. No, her highness is a 6 AM baby – so cut me some slack. And no offense to my husband, but he doesn’t get up with them that early, at least not on a regular basis.

And even though I roll into work between 8:15 & 8:30, I still need a few minutes to read the news, check email/schedule for the day and have my coffee. This morning, for whatever reason, it was an extra battle to get out of bed. I am sure there are a million reasons for why that is, but it was a cosmic showdown kind of morning. Final score was easily 3-1, in favor of the cosmos, but the real tally didn’t come until after I was out the door.

But here I was, getting out the door a little later than I like (Cosmos: 1, Meghan: 0), running the mental checklist – cell phone; check, computer; check, coffee; check, lunch; check… by all rights good to go. Pull into the parking lot and go digging for my ass-pass/id badge that I have to have to get around the office, and can’t find it in my purse. This in and of itself, not a surprise. I have chronicled the interworking of the Mombag before. It’s a dangerous place. A forlorn place of many twists and turns that will trick and cajole the average user. Joe won’t go near it with a ten foot pole. But, I am not the average user. So I dive in deeper, looking for said id badge. When pretty much all of the contents of the mom bag were covering the front seat and dash of my car, I realized the obvious… for what is probably only the 4th time in 4 ½ years, I left my badge at home. Now, in a normal world, I would just walk in with someone and deal with the inconvenience of a lack of badge. But we have loco security policies, so I had no sooner turned off the car, than was turning it back on go home and get my badge (Cosmos: 2, Meghan: 0). The only saving grace at this point, is because I was running late, the traffic was not an issue (Cosmos; 2, Meghan: 0.5). Get home and sure enough, there it is sitting on the kitchen counter where I put it last night. And I distinctly remember saying to myself, “Self, put that in your purse so you don’t forget it tomorrow.” Further proof that I need to listen to myself more often. So get back into car and head back towards work. Again. Contemplated swinging through the coffee shop for another cup, as it was shaping up to be that kind of morning, but decided that I should probably just get my butt to work and deal with the caffeine issue later. So heading back to work and notice that the clouds that were decidedly dark on my first run to work are getting darker. And for those of you that don’t follow the meteorological trends of Des Moines, all of our weather comes in from the West. Thank you Colorado. And this time of year, storms move fast. And after unloading the contents of the Mombag only 20 minutes ago, I am fairly confident at this point, that the umbrella is NOT in my bag. Or car. Get to work and my parking space is still open, (Cosmos: 2, Meghan:1) but it has started raining. And I have no umbrella. (Cosmos:3, Meghan: 1).

Long story short – made it to work, 30 minutes later than I should have, a little wet and needing more coffee as the annoyance factor to my day was more at end of day levels than beginning of day levels. And its only Tuesday.



Now Listening: The Rhumb Line by Ra Ra Riot.

Yee-haw

I have never lived on a farm. Never lived near one. Never owned livestock. Closest I think I can claim is horseback riding lessons that I took when I was in elementary school. I think that is an important fact to start with. In fact, I could probably count on one hand the number of friends that I have that grew up in a considerably rural surrounding. I say this now because even though it’s the 8th month of 2011, election season is upon us. Not the 2011 election for planning commissions, local state representation, maybe a school board or two – nope, we are entering the fray of the big dogs. 14 months from now, give or take a week or two, we will go to the polls (HOPEFULLY) and vote for our President.

What this means is that Iowa has now been thrust to the forefront of the political race and with that, the stereo typical representations of what we Iowans stand for. Case in point, this one right here that I saw today on CNN.com

Iowa greets you honestly.As you fly into Des Moines, the state confronts you, flat and blunt, green fields disciplined by straightforward grids. The people are direct, too. Soaring rhetoric and urban glitz not only fail to impress, they seem ridiculously out of place here. Iowans dress to work, not to affect. Rhinestones are reserved for Friday night at the state fair, on women's jeans.

Now, I fully understand that the press works in generalities. They create identities, feed a ravenous public what they want to hear and generally rely more on tweets, cell phone videos and speculation when reporting than actually doing their job. This saddens me at many levels and is a whole other post. So it doesn’t surprise me that this type of editorlization of my state is happening. So queue the footage of cows, tractors and grain silos. I would be willing to bet that this person flew into Des Moines, spent maybe a few hours in town, before heading up to Ames for the Straw Poll and turned around and left. Maybe he checked out the State Fair. And don’t get me wrong, I love the Fair. I do. But my reasons for loving the Fair are its novelty. Not that its representative of the entirety of this state. But without fail, we will be depicted as old school, blunt, bedazzled, overall-wearing, yahoo’s who spend more time speculating on hog futures than if Kim Kardashian will wear Vera Wang or Monique Lhuiller for her wedding dress. Because THAT is important and indicative of a level of sophistication that clearly we are not capable of. Bottom line, it just bugs. I am not saying that I am above or superior to the rural inhabitants of this state. Far from it, the rural life can be tough, demanding and never ending in its demands on your time. But to fixate on it as it’s the only thing going around here grates on my nerves some times. And by some times, I mean roughly every 4 years when the election cycle comes around to caring about us again. Plus, if you look at the actual stats, we are not as rural as some would have you believe. According to our good friends at Wikipedia,

Iowa's population is more urban than rural, with 61 percent living in urban areas in 2000, a trend that began in the early 20th century.[55] Urban counties in Iowa grew 8.5% from 2000 to 2008, while rural counties declined by 4.2%.[65] The shift from rural to urban has caused population increases in more urbanized counties such as Dallas, Johnson, Linn, and Polk, at the expense of more rural counties

So, while this doesn’t bode well for the future of the farmer, the idea of Iowa as this bastion of farm country is a changing one. Obvious to everyone, save the press. I guess what I am saying, is that while you will watch the news over the next months, please be sure to take the depiction of all things Iowa with a grain of salt. Because if nothing else is true, this is… no one, and I mean NO ONE should wear rhinestones – state fair or otherwise, not even Kim Kardashian.

Now Listening: The Shepards Dog by Iron & Wine

I Feel Pretty

I know that I often (ok, practically daily) bitch about my body. Too fat, too short, too…whatever. Mostly fat, but that is besides the point. The point is that I have no qualms about bitching and moaning about a few things I dislike about my body that are ENTIRELY in my control to change. I am just lazy. And I like sleep. But that doesn’t stop the complaining.

Fairly certain that I have mentioned before that I am prone to cold sores. And no, don’t let your gutter-trap minds run amok. This isn’t some slutty side effect of college experimentation or anything like that. I get em’. My mom used to get them. Fairly sure that is where they come from. Never actually had one until my freshman year at college. At the time, didn’t know what it was. But yeah – I got me some herpes and its nasty. The one thing about my body that I can’t control.

And not like you see on those commercials, where the cute little woman talks about the uncomfortable red speck on her lip. Where in 3 short days she is off to whatever it was that was so pressing. No I get the drop-down, drag-out, see em’ from a mile away kind. The kind that don’t really respond to medicine. It may shorten it down a day or so, but pretty much from that first slight tingle, its about 10 days before they say adieu until next time. I would wear a burqa right now because that’s about how pretty I feel.

And here is the lousy part … aside from the itching and pain that they cause –which is very real. For the record.

• I can’t kiss my husband. At all.

• Can’t kiss my kids. At all.

• Can’t share anything .

• Will have to buy a separate chap stick to apply to the non-impacted portion of my mouth and then throw away as not to spread.

• Have to cut up my meals into smaller than usual bites as opening my mouth can be painful. So a big-ass burger or the like? Out of the equation until I heal up.



And trust me, I get that in the grand scheme of things – this is minutiae that is like, so inconsequential its not funny. But for right now, YUCK with a capital Y.

A small Google search on ways to prevent tell me things like: make sure you get good, regular sleep; try yoga; avoid stress; exercise. Basically this is medical code for we can’t cure it, don’t know how – so just sit and spend most of your time meditating. That should keep you stress free and therefore , cold sore free. Yeah, check my life for about 10 minutes and tell me how to keep stress out of my world.

Yep. All I got today.



Now Listening: Crystal Castles by Crystal Castles