Spring Break: A Survivor's Story

Spring break. There are no two words like them to draw abject terror into the heart of a work-at-home mother.
OK, maybe I exaggerate.
Pink eye is two words if you go with the colloquial version. In medical terms it's conjunctivitis that made me squirm a few weeks ago, on the eve of starting a new job with the fear the creeping crud would transfer to my eyes.
But I digress.
It was the Passover/Easter holiday that had me up nights debating how much work I would have to complete at night, after my husband had returned home and we should be enjoying family time, vs. the amount I could complete before she wakes in the morning.
Five whole days of uninterrupted mother and daughter time had me sweating bullets. I love my daughter, but you can't blame a girl for her fondness for food on the table.
The weather report wasn't helping.
Rain, rain and more driving rain, the sort that makes you drive to a neighbor's house even though the walk would take two minutes at most.
And then a break in the clouds - literally.
While most of Sullivan County was enjoying the sunshine for sunshine's sake, I was pondering whose toes I should be kissing for this miracle that allowed me to send the 4-year-old outside to play.
No more Wizard of Oz blaring from the living room.
No more Hess trucks being driven into my feet.
No more string cheeses to unpeel in the midst of a conference call.
Nothing but the sweet sound outside my office window of toy bulldozers being "vroomed" through a sandbox.
The crack of a ball on a bat, the twittering of the birds, they're all sounds of spring that used to make my heart soar.
Ah, but motherhood changed that. It's now the sound of a bubble mower creak, creak, creaking as it spits out soapy bubbles onto the lawn. The sound of chalk shrieking across a pavement driveway.
That, my friends, is freedom from a winter cooped up in a house with a 4-year-old and her entourage, freedom from one's legs being used as a My Little Pony stable, from one's arms being wrenched out of the socket at random moments with pleas to drop everything you're doing and please, please, please, please get me another yogurt drink.
Ah, spring, you gave me a break.



Add to Technorati Favorites

Post Office Cutting Hours? Try Cutting Us Off the Map

You never realize - at least not until you work at home - what happens when the post office doesn't think you exist.
It's just one sector of the government; how bad could it be?
Try to get a credit card in a post 9/11 world.
Try to have an electronic device delivered to your house.
Try to get your car insurance bill.
I love my house on its little road with its little yard. But make no mistake, I'm living in the postal version of the Bermuda Triangle.
And much like the triangle, it seems many people think I don't exist.
They don't want to give me a credit card because I tell them they must mail the bills to a P.O. Box.
They don't want to deliver a package because the post office computers - which both UPS and FedEx take advantage of - fail to include my little corner of the world.
Homeland Security's behind the push toward pinning down people's exact addresses, but last I checked it's run by the same folks who are responsible for contracting out the post office gigs.
It would be nice if the two met in the middle for a little chat.
If you live in half the towns in Sullivan County, you know what I'm talking about. Your 911 address is all well and good, but it won't get you your car insurance bill.
They want to send it to the garaging address. And a car can't be garaged at the post office, can it?
Now Washington is mumbling once again about cutting back delivery service to homes and businesses to a five-day rotation. It will cut costs they say - not to mention potentially driving more people to rent P.O. boxes to offset the building costs.
Sounds like the rest of America is going to learn to live Sullivan County style.



Add to Technorati Favorites