Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

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Settling — A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Chapters 38-45

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What is your price? How often do you settle for something far beneath what you are worthy of because it’s the best thing you’ve been offered so far? Do you even know that you’re giving up something greater?

Francie knows. When she agrees to stay on at her job and become the city reader, she knows that she’s giving up her education and her future dreams. She knows she could be doing something greater with her life but she also knows that her family needs the money now and that she has the means to take away their present problems by sacrificing her future happiness.

The decision sickens her to the core and tears at her young heart. She is doing what she thought she would love and she is finding out that though she has life better than her mother had it and though she is more successful this year than she was the year before, it is not enough.

The interesting thing is, she doesn’t even know the extent to which she is being cheated, underpaid and overworked. She just knows something’s wrong.

When I am selling out, giving up my chances for a grand life because the illusion of something better than my current situation sits tangibly within my grasp, I know something’s wrong. Do I always know how desperately wrong? Do I always care that it’s wrong or do I just go for the something better that’s at arm’s length instead of leaping into the darkness for the unimaginable greatness that is beyond my ability to hope for?

I fear that I often accept the small victories in life, too afraid or too ignorant to really become the worthy protagonist of my life’s story.

Links:
Lauren writes from a New Yorker’s perspective about the ways our world has changed and how it remains the same.
Allysha says “[…]Often times it’s heartbreaking as Francie has to negotiate the world she has created in her mind with the reality she lives in.[…]” In her usual thoughtful way, Allysha discusses this week’s section about growing up. She discusses beauty and truth and one of my favorite sections of the book.

Schedule:

Pease let me know if you’ve blogged about the book and I’ll add a link here. And remember, you don’t have to stick to the schedule. If you have something great to say about the first page, let us know.

One Year Ago Yesterday

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I clicked “post” for the first time over at daringyoungmom.blogspot.com. In honor of that momentous occasion, I will publish this post one year and one day later and the stars will align and the 8 remaining planets will hum peacefully in their orbits.  It was 2:01pm August 30th and I wrote about milk.

The following is a list of some memorable posts from each of my 12 months of blogging:…

Read More »

Meta and Mumps

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Meta – Sorry about the confusion with new comments. I set things up so that the first time you make a comment, I have to approve it. That should keep the spammers out since I will never approve them and regular commenters will only have to be moderated once.

Mumps – If, like me, you laugh out loud when you read The Daily Mumps, you may just feel an inward chuckle with my mad photo-captioning skills over at Parenting.com today.

An Evil Genius… minus the “evil”

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The Daniel, he is a mastermind. Sometimes his genius frightens me. I design my blog. I rejoice. I change the wrong semicolon in the code. I weep. Daniel whips out his little black box (he calls it a “command” “prompt”) and VOILA! A new home for Daring Young Mom.

He has spent hours and hours of work and I have spent hours and hours of play making this all possible. I know there are still weird bugs and things that have to be tweaked.

Please let me know if you have problems with anything on the site. I am mostly responsible for the code and I know nothing about code. He has spent scads of time cleaning up my messes and he’d love more to clean up, so give him a challenge. I dare you.

Is it slow to load? (Please don’t respond to this if you’re still using your grandma’s 386 with 16MB of memory. I love you but cannot accommodate you on this site. Let me know and I’ll send you a plain text email of my posts.)

Do things go wonky in your weird-open-source-Macish-save-the-world-from-software-monopolies browser? (I would like to try to accommodate you. Feel the love man and pass the tie-dyed onesies.)

Do you think my floating head is too pretentious now on its framed cushion of velveteen fabric?

How can I better serve you on this blog? Need a new shoe-lace or just a hug? Please, let me know your wants and needs and I will try to address them expeditiously.

911 — If You Dial It, They Will Come

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This post originally appeared on The Parenting Post on August 13, 2006.

I offer this wisdom up to ye of the Internet as a warning and a safeguard against wasted tax dollars and, even more importantly, total personal humiliation.

If something embarrassing happens to me, I have the ability to step back and say, “Hey. It’s not so bad. At least I’ll have something to blog about tomorrow.” When the following story happened several months ago, I was unable to say that. I swore I would never blog this, but time heals all wounds, so here goes:

As Laylee was heading out of the bathroom following her nightly tubby time, I turned off the light and shut the door behind her. As usual, I did not shut my mouth. I was blabbering on and on to Dan about some scintillating detail of my day and he was paying attention, not a bit.

Me: Blah blah and then I said, “If she’s gonna wear green lederhosen to MY playgroup, then she’s just gonna have to handle the — ”

Dan: Laylee!
Me: I know. She’s right there. Anyway —
Dan: Her fingers!
Me: What about them?

You see, Dan was too concerned about the fact that I had slammed Laylee’s fingers in the door hinge and was holding it closed to care about my excessively diverting story. Laylee was too busy administering the silent scream to actually make a noise out loud.

I looked down at her beet-red face. I looked at the door. Something started to register. Uh, I should probably do something. What was it? Ah yes, open the doooooor.

When we pulled her fingers from the hinge, one little knuckle was smooshed flat. The silent scream suddenly became less silent and Dan and I did something we’ve never done before. We both came unglued simultaneously. Not good.

In our angst, we decided to dial 9-1-1. Yeees! They’re EMTs, the knowers of all knowledge. They can tell us whether to take her in to the ER or not…if they can hear us. The silent scream was becoming less and less silent by the minute.

So I did the honors. William Shatner and his crazily beshadowed Rescue 9-1-1 eyebrows had taught me exactly what to do.

EMT: 9-1-1. Can I get your address please?
Me: 555 Daring Cross Road, Small Town Seattle
EMT: What’s your emergency?
Me: Well, I’m not sure it’s an emergency. We wanted to call and ask you. My daughter slammed her fingers in the door and one of them looks kind of smooshed.
EMT: A unit has been deployed.
Me: NO. Seriously? Oh, my gosh. Please call them back. We were just calling to ask your advice.
EMT: The unit is on their way.
Me: For real. It’s not that bad. Please don’t send a unit.
EMT: You called 9-1-1. We need to deploy.
Me: Please don’t let them turn their sirens on.
EMT: Have a good night.

Oh, crap! A few minutes went by, during which Dan got Laylee calmed down and her miraculous spongey kid finger started to re-inflate. It was beginning to look slightly pink and a little swollen and Dan was holding it over her head while she whimpered softly.

BAM! CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP. They knocked once and marched right in like it was an emergency or something, two EMTs and a firewoman.

After assessing the situation with coy smiles back and forth, one suggested that he guessed he could make a splint. He’d just need to go out to “the rig” and get some tongue depressors.

Yes, he really said “the rig.”

I told him not to trouble with said “rig” because I had popsicle sticks in the craft drawer he could use. A splint was made. They were delightful visitors and Laylee had the grandest time meeting all of them and thus putting off her bedtime.

As they left, I asked if they needed our insurance information and the largish man in the gigantic boots and plastic yellow pants winked and said, “No charge.”

Moral of the story — if you squish your kid’s finger, toe or other minor appendage, no blood is showing, and their heart is still beating in their chest, call the nurse’s hotline at your pediatrician, but leave Bill Shatner and his posse alone. They have serious work to do and they WILL deploy a rig on you.

Red? There is No Red!

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There is no orange or purple either.

Dark pink?

Yes.

Orangy Pink?

Yes.

Purplish pink?

Also affirmative.

Laylee wanted you to know that.

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I just wrote what I like to think is my last post about BlogHer… for this week… and it’s being hosted over at the Mommybloggers’ site. They were nice enough to hand out (read this: attack people and brand them with) custom-made washable tatts at ye olde conference.

For those of you who were unable to attend, I accidentally grabbed about 30 of them from the table the last night (I swear they said something about “take as many as you’d like”)
mommyblogherblog this
If you’d like one of these fabulous tattoos, email me your address, tell me which one you want, swear a blood oath that you’ll email me a picture of yourself wearing it, and I’ll mail you a tattoo as a service to the town, courtesy of the Mommybloggers.

Then I’ll post a gallery of all the tattoees with links to your blogs.

***I’ll let you know when they’re gone***

One Year of Blogging

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This month marks my one year bloggiversary. What a wild ride this has been!

In celebration, the Mommybloggers are hosting my debutant ball over at their place. So put on your lace gloves, save me some room on your dance card, and stop over for a glass of lemonade.

Guy Kawasaki – My New Best Friend

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One fine collegiate day I was walking on BYU campus when I spotted a guy across the quad who looked SO familiar. It was amazing. I was sure I had seen him somewhere before, but not once, not twice, but over and over and over again. I felt I had seen him so many times that we had possibly been very good friends at another time in my life, possibly even relatives.

My casual glances turned into stares and eventually I made a direct beeline for the dude with one question on my mind. “Do you recognize me?” He looked so familiar that I simply HAD to discover our past connection.

As I drew closer, he began looking at me and smiling, a quizzical look on his face. I smiled and continued to close in, never breaking eye contact until I stopped, alarmed, 3 feet in front of him. It was Steve Young. No relation to Daring “Young” Mom.

My eyes widened. I turned on my heel and marched firmly back across the quad.

I’m the girl who walked up to Melissa my first 10 minutes at BlogHer and asked her name and whether or not she had a blog. Yeah, she’s tampering with a little blog called Suburban Bliss.

I got an email at the conference from my father-in-law Pops telling me that Guy Kawasaki would be at the FilmLoop booth and I should go over and say hi. “Sure,” says I. “I’ll go chat it up.”

So I walk over to the booth and start asking everyone their names. I can’t remember his name at this point but I’m sure if I hear it, it’ll ring a bell. None of their names are soundin’ familiar. So I start asking if there’s anyone else who might be working the booth later on and what their names might be. Do they know anyone else in the company with another name than the ones they’ve been listing?

The woman at the booth finally comes out and asks me why I want to know.
Me: Well, I’m supposed to meet somebody named “Guy Something”.
Booth-Lady with British Accent: You mean Guy Kawasaki?
Me: Ye-AH! That’s it. He here?
BLBA: He’ll be here tomorrow but I’m sure he’ll be absolutely swarmed.
Me: Cool. I’ll just stop by.
BLBA: He’ll really be swarmed. Would you like me to set up an appointment with him?
Me: I… I… don’t know who he… is? My father-in-law told me to say hi.
BLBA: We should probably set up an appointment.
Me: No, I really don’t have a clue who he is. I’ll just try to catch him tomorrow.

The next day in a moment of Zen I not only see Guy across an empty ballroom, but I actually recognize him (okay, how many Asian MEN were actually at BlogHer?) and yell out, “HEY! Are you Guy?”

guy kawasaki

“Yeah” he says in that there’s-a-Wikipedia-entry-about-me-but-I-still-try-to-act-like-a-regular-“Guy” tone of voice. I explain that although I have no idea who he is, I’d really like to take a picture with him to pass along to my daddy-in-law. He humors me.

Pops – This one’s for you!

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner — Especially Not at BlogHer

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Today, I’m catching up on all the things I missed at home, helping my mom move me into the new house. She is a whirlwind of productivity and organization. My Dad is a rock-star of building and home repair. Bob Veela should quake in his presence.

Please head over to parenting.com for my latest post over there.

The conference was a blast. I met amazing, intelligent powerhouse bloggers who have a passion for writing and are working through their blogs to make the world a better place to live. It was so fun, in fact, that Chris and I both “accidentally missed” our flights back home yesterday morning. I’ll be doing at least a couple of posts this week about what went down. I’ll try to focus on the things I learned that could be pertinent to the women bloggers who read my site and shy away from the ephemera of BlogHer, questions like:

Kathryn from Daring Young Mom and Kelly from Diary of the NelloWhy was our good friend Johnson’s baby repeatedly put in a corner? How did I end up with that tattoo on my arm? Can Kelly-Nelly be trusted to find fabulous cheesecake in the state of California? Why did Mir act as an enabler, allowing Chris and I to miss our flights? When asked on video if we’d been drinking, due to our extremely giddy behavior, did someone respond “I’m a little drunk, she’s Mormon”? (Apparently the two have a similar giggleular response.) Were we informed that this video will appear on the website of a major PR Firm?