ChiKat

Wahoo! The last day of NaBloPoMo! I officially posted everyday during the month of November. What I've learned:

1. If I ask the dog for a blogging idea, the dog will race out of the room only to bound back in seconds later with his favorite squeaky toy, making me wonder about the secret life of squeaky toys
   
2. Being part of a Fussy randomizer leads to a 50% increase in traffic, which leads to a 100% increase in embarrassment when I realize the new readers were exposed to total drivel because I was scraping the bottom of the idea barrel…although at least I didn't ACTUALLY post my theories about the secret lives of squeaky toys
   
3. Getting comments from the superstars who made the effort to comment on NaBloPoMo blogs truly rocks
   
4. Writing everyday is, as our President would say, hard work. Really hard work.
   

My husband grew up with his mom and two sisters. He is DELIGHTED that we are having a baby boy. He will finally be in a household with his gender as the majority.

I have no idea what kind of mom I will be to a baby boy. I don't care about cars, dinosaurs or robots. I shriek when I see a spider. I ask my husband to change the light bulbs.

I used to have a very close guy friend who had two brothers, no sisters. His mother was THRILLED when I came by, because she could talk about all her favorite television shows with me. She would show me her latest shopping purchases. She'd ask for my opinion on her hairdo. In short, the woman was desperate for a daughter-in-law.

I don't want to be that mom, the mom that clings to her son's girl friends in a desperate bid for female attention. But maybe that's my inevitable path. I was telling my best friend this the other day, and we had this conversation:

ChiKat: "Promise me you'll prevent me from becoming the woman who asks her son to invite his girl friend over so I can talk about Grey's Anatomy."
ChiFriend: "Wow. You're really freaking out about this. I have to say, out of all the things to freak out about while pregnant, this one is really lame."
ChiKat: "I'm just trying to figure out how I'll be the mom of a BOY. I wear pink! Often!"
ChiFriend: "Look at it this way…at least you won't have to share."

Last Saturday, two plain clothes police tried to arrest a man in my neighborhood. According to the police, the man tried to reach for the officer's gun. According to witnesses, the man had both hands in the air and never reached for the gun. The police fatally shot the man in the stomach.

Yesterday, there was a big protest in my neighborhood about the shooting. Local news covered the event, although their coverage was really short. They aired a few quotes from protestors, but didn't provide details about the arrest, details about why people were protesting, or the police's reaction to the protests.

After the story was done, I looked at my husband and said, "Wow. That story is intense. I wish they had provided more details."

My husband said, "Maybe it's a busy news day and they didn't have time to go in-depth."

Then the next story aired. It was about a couple who lost their parrot. There is a $2,000 reward for its recovery.

Really? That's news somehow? I used to volunteer at the Animal Care & Control Center. Everyday someone came in looking for lost pets. It's a terrible thing when a pet is missing. But how many of them get their story on the evening news? And when there are serious questions about a fatal shooting by the police department, isn't it more important to spend a little time on that issue rather than the lost pet?

I guess I should be relived that at least the parrot news was AFTER the news about the protest.

Four posts left for November. I'm almost at the end of the month, and I'm so proud of my post a day (including weekends!). It was much harder than I thought. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, so you now get to read a post I wrote awhile ago, but deleted because I didn't want to offend anyone.

There is a Walgreen's about 10 blocks from my condo. It's in a very popular spot, so it gets a lot of business. If you talk to any of the clerks on the floor, they are reasonably helpful. However, the cashiers are awful. They are rude and unhelpful. If I ask them a question, they will ignore me. If I ask louder and more forcefully, they will look at me totally irritated that I am wasting their time and then they will mumble an answer that is often inaccurate. I will bring my things to the counter, and often they will just stare at the items blankly for a few seconds as if they can't remember what they are supposed to do when the items. They are all women in their twenties and thirties. They all have nails that are so long that they have trouble hitting the register keys. I have seen then clean their teeth with their nails and then handle someone's merchandise.

In the past, I would have called these women ghetto trash, but I've been reprimanded for using that term. I understand the reprimand – there are racial connotations with the term. If the women were white, I would call them white trash or trailer trash. I think you have a pretty good idea of the type of woman I describe.

The first few times I was there, the customers in line included me, a few other white people and a black guy. The white people were all treated incredibly poorly. The black guy was fawned over. I assumed the lousy treatment had to do with the fact that we were white.

Imagine my surprise when I was in line behind a black woman the other day. She was treated just as poorly as I was. Wahoo! Racial equality! The lousy treatment had nothing to do with me being white; it had everything to do with me not being a cute black guy.

In retrospect, I'm kind of surprised at how easily I jumped to the conclusion that they disliked me because I was white rather than the simple fact that they disliked me because I was a customer and therefore they had to work. I've been thinking about race so much lately that I've started to assume that it's at the root of all things. But sometimes, there is nothing racial about a situation. Sometimes, working in retail just sucks

Yesterday I told you about our experience with the 911 mistake. I forgot to mention that as the two cops were leaving, I wished them a Happy Thanksgiving. They looked at me like I was totally insane, which was pretty understandable since it was clearly NOT a happy Thanksgiving for them. I am terrible when it comes to saying the right thing at the right time.

Worse, if I have any doubt about a situation, I usually opt for cheery brightness, which can really grate someone the wrong way. For example:

"I might lose my job."
"At least you'll have free time during the holidays!"

Right. As you might have guessed, that was a conversation I had with my husband. Luckily, he's used to my cheer, so he has developed a tolerance for it. The two cops seemed to chalk it up to crazy white-person behavior. I'm fine with that. One of the perks of not fitting into the neighborhood is being able to say, "Oh, I'M not crazy! ALL white people are like this! Really!"

I just have to get my husband to stop rolling his eyes. He's hurting my credibility.

We had the strangest experience Thanksgiving evening. We were home from our family dinner by 9 PM. Around 10 PM, the phone rang. I picked it up and had the following conversation:

Frantic sounding operator: "911. What is your emergency?"
Confused ChiKat: "I'm sorry. You have the wrong number. There is no emergency."
"Someone called from this line with an emergency!"
"But…no one called 911. We just got home. No one was home earlier."
"Some called from this number!"
"I'm sorry. We didn't call 911."
"Ok. You should tell your cell phone company that there is a problem with your number."
"But this is my land line."
"Your land line? That doesn't make any sense! Are you sure no one called 911?"
"I'm sure. No one was home."
"Ok. Goodnight."

5 seconds later…

Frantic sounding, but different, operator: "This is dispatch! What is your emergency?"
Exasperated ChiKat: "I'm sorry. I just spoke with someone else in your organization. There is no emergency. No one called 911. No one has an emergency at this number."
"You're not Cynthia Williams?"
"No. We don't know anyone by that name."
"What's your address?"
"I'm sorry. I know you say you're with the police, but I really have no way of knowing that…"
"Ok, how about I tell you the address we have, and you tell me if this number is anywhere near that address?"
"Ok."
"Blah blah blah" (I can't remember what they said now)
"No, sorry. I've never even heard of that street."
"Ok. Goodnight."

30 minutes later, the buzzer rings. It's the police. My husband and I are in our pajamas. He goes downstairs to let them in. They come charging into the building and hurry up the stairs. They don't stop to talk to my husband. They have their guns drawn by the time they get to our floor. They stop by our door, seem to remember that he is behind them, and ask him where unit X is.

ChiHusband: "That's Unit X. It's my unit."

The police officer moves to open the door, then registers what he said.

Scary but efficient Cop #1 talking to equally scary Cop #2: "He just said this was his unit."
Cop #2: "HIS unit?"
ChiHusband: "You can go in if you want."
Confused Cop #1: "Do you have kids in your unit?"
ChiHusband: "No, it's just my wife and I. We got a call from 911 earlier, but we don't have any emergency."
[Husband opens door. I am standing in foyer looking perplexed.]
Exasperated Cop #1: "Ma'am, do you have any kids in the unit?"
[Amazingly, I refrain from telling them that I'm pregnant and all the details about the pregnancy] "No. Is this about the 911 call? They called us earlier about someone named Cynthia Williams, but we don't know anything about that. We didn’t call 911 at any point this evening."
Cop #1 to Cop #2: "They screwed up again."
Cop #1 to us: "Ok, you can go back inside now. Thanks."

The cops, both women officers wearing flak jackets, looked really unhappy with dispatch. The operators on the phone from 911 and dispatch both sounded frantic and then frustrated. I can understand all the frustration. The cops came charging in with guns drawn, so whatever they thought was going on must have been serious. It was sad to know that somewhere in the city was a kid who needed help, and they couldn't find the kid.

While I'm thinking about the kids in the neighborhood, I want to share with you my theory about affirmative action in colleges.

I would like our country to re-think affirmative action. Instead of diving kids up based on race to decide who needs the most help, I would like to see colleges look at socio-economic factors to determine who needs a little leniency when it comes to entrance requirements.

I would much rather see a low-income kid from an inner-city school get a helping hand, regardless of color, rather than seeing some wealthy kid use a distant relative's bloodlines to claim special treatment.

We should look at income-level and environment rather than skin color. Is that naïve? Am I missing a bigger picture?

Happy Thanksgiving! Since I was eight years old, I have been saying the following on Thanksgiving, "Yes, I know it's Thanksgiving, but even on Thanksgiving I don't eat turkey."

My family has a tough time with that concept. They get that I don't eat turkey, but apparently there is a loophole in vegetarianism that I don't know about, a loophole that allows for turkey on Thanksgiving. It's like white meat:

"No, thanks. I don't eat meat."
"But it's white meat!"
"…"

Another loophole my family has tried to introduce me to is the "baby animal theory":

"No, thanks. I don't eat meat."
"But it's lamb!"
"Errr…lamb is still meat."
"But it's a BABY animal…it's HARDLY the same."
"…"

Anyway, while I fend off turkey, I will have a delightful time eating green beans, potatoes, vegetarian stuffing and salad. The whole time I will be thinking, "Thank goodness…less than a week left to this whole 'posting everyday' crap."

I don't know what was going on last night, but on my drive home through my neighborhood, I saw several cars driving more than 50 mph on the side streets, I saw several teenagers either running from the cars or swarming around the cars, and I saw several cop cars with flashing lights and sirens speeding through intersections.

In this neighborhood, with its mix of income levels and crime, I could have been seeing typical teenage fun, or dangerous gang activity.

There is a block in this neighborhood that is notorious for being the place to pick up (scary) prostitutes. On the same block, there is a great artist community that works with neighborhood kids to restore used bikes.

At night, the park areas are prime spots for mugging. During the day, the AYSO kids take over any available field for soccer. My dad, who used to be an AYSO referee, pointed out that there were more coaches and refs at those games than any of the suburban games he coached.

There is so much family and community involvement for some kids. But sometimes it feels like there are just as many kids offering you drugs in the alleys.

I'm angry that our "compassionate conservative" hasn't done anything to improve poverty in America. But then again, I don't really hear the democrats coming up with bright ideas. Are the politicians so far removed from the lower income bracket that they can't see how much help is needed?

It's a boy. We're pretty thrilled. I have to say, as much as I love all things pink, I think boys are a tiny bit easier than girls. My husband and I are both pretty thrilled.

20 weeks down, only 20 more to go.

I know this is an insanely short entry, but I have a dozen aunts to call. As one aunt already said, "Lucky you – you won't have to share any of your clothes."