Category Archives: baltimore

The cretin stole candy from my baby

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Iain’s truck was broken into last weekend. The lowlife or -lifes responsible found fit to steal:

  • a roll of pennies
  • a roll of toilet paper
  • a roll of Pez.

That Pez was part of Owen’s reward for a successful week of potty training. He diligently answered nature’s call from his thronely repose many, many times a day. He carefully placed each sticker in its own grid-like box on the chart I made him by hand. He earned that candy, man.

And some dumb cluck mucked it up. It’s not a great loss, I know. But I wish I knew what kind of dunderhead breaks into a parked vehicle in the dead of night to steal toilet paper, pennies, and a kid’s candy. He must be pretty hard up.

Spoken like a true Marylander

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Owen, with head cocked and hands clasped, to me at the dinner table:

“You done your dinner, sweetpea?”

Well, I died right there, I tell ya. Bless his heart.

“Done your.” Geez. If he had only replaced “sweetpea” with “Hon” I’d have known we had a true bilinguist in our midst: American English AND Bawlmerese.

Was this how my New York parents felt the first time they heard their children ask for a “pop” with our flat Midwestern twang?

hell is other parents

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Took Owen to the library yesterday. No few than three children, in three separate incidents, came up to him and took toys right out of his hands. Their parents (when they could be discerned) merely watched. In one case the mother reached in to take a few more from in front of him. In one case I could not tell who the mother was, because there was a gaggle of Rich Bitch mothers complaining about who had the busiest schedule and the most community service projects and the most inept husband, and none could be bothered to remove her daughter, Kevlar, from being all up in Owen’s shit.

I pride myself on his good manners. He says please and thank you to employees, he shares with other children at the toy tables, he does not yell or hit. He picks up what he drops.

But it’s pretty fucking hard to teach him that sharing and good manners is the right thing to do when none of the other parents are enforcing that with their own children. What. The fuck. Just because he is well mannered does not mean, Mrs Loud Hippie, that your daughter is entitled to HIS trains, which he dutifully followed library protocol to obtain, merely because she prefers them. And you should certainly not be encouraging her to take them.

Goddamn.

This is why I hate people. This is why I do not join playgroups. I am trying to teach Owen to respect personal space and property. And the poor kid is rewarded by being pushed aside and having things forcibly removed from his hands. And I am having to sit on mine, because MY mother taught ME never to smack uppity strangers in the face.

I should crochet an utterly sincere, non-ironic tea cozy in protest

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Edit: I don’t want to be an asshole. I want to be clear that I am not criticizing the article or the author or the artists profiled. I’m bitching about scenesters.

More of the c-word today.

So I haven’t been picking up the City Paper lately, but today something told me to look at the newstand this morning. “They’re Crafty” was the headline to change my mind today (as I was walking to work with a ball of yarn and a crochet hook in my bag, my neck wrapped in a handmade scarf).

Briefly: the article would like to remind us that the “Baltimore Craft Community” is thriving. Sweet! But I get the feeling they don’t mean at church bazaars, they mean the kind of indie craft that is Okay For Young People: you know, people with nose rings. Cool people. “Indie” people. Punk Rock Crafters, that sort of crowd.

Was anybody really concerned? Who could think that the indie-punk-DIY fad was fading already? I mean, I suppose there’s a chance that the hipsters and yippies have run out of yarn, or something, or moved on to woodworking, but I really don’t think so.

Though I was interested to see that there’s now a Charm City Craft Mafia (I remember thinking of starting one ages ago), my first reaction to the article was a big roll of the eyes. I think it’s because of my brief experience with some of Baltimore’s larger (not just craft) “indie scene.”

When I first moved here from Corn Town I just loved how crazy and artsy and liberal this city was. I thought it was quite refreshing to see a new aesthetic that actually had some weight and support behind it. But after a while, I found a sour taste in my mouth (and it wasn’t the homebrewed beer talking, either): aesthetic was the only thing. Not talent or passion or love of the arts, just whether or not you were “indie” enough.

It’s possible that I just happened to meet the wrong people, the nasty, puckered, nervous gatekeepers instead of the truly passionate. But that’s who I met. And boy, they did a nice job of changing my mind. I thought college was the time for posing hipper-than-thou (goddamn art majors), silly me, but apparently that’s just the training.

Anyway. My take, at first glance this morning was this: As far as I’m concerned the craft community is thriving, yes. But the WHOLE craft community. Even the ones who make things like pastel granny-square afghans or angels out of styrofoam and yarn. Even the ones who wear, say, generic maternity apparel and have shaggy, growing-out haircuts and no visible piercings (who, me?). People who don’t have the street cred and have outgrown caring about it.

To me, there’s value in anything handmade; it doesn’t have to be featured in a “knitty-gritty” sort of collection to suddenly become worthwhile.

OMG! WEATHER! CUE PANIC!

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I promise I will not be an uppity Midwestern snob about this “Valentine’s Day Ice Storm.” This is me zipping my lips of all weather-related snark: zzzzzzzip.

So! That said, here are some weather-related things I’ve liked so far today:

• Kottke.org: “Right now, “Unknown Precipitation” is falling from the sky in NYC …”

• the Maryland Weather Blog

• Henry’s Meteorological Madness. (This is the blog of Henry Margusity, Sr. Meteorologist and Severe Weather Expert at Accuweather.com.)

• School canceled

• Wussy drivers staying home and off the roads so I can slip’n’slide to my heart’s content

• When the TV news (“news”?) reporters stage their reports Live From The Salt Dome!! OMG!. It’s cute. Unforgivably cliched, bordering on painful, but cute.

Stay safe and dry, y’all. And warm. Happy Valentine’s Day! Go cuddle up with your life partner or a puppy or something. And don’t forget to salt your fuckin’ sidewalk. Bing!

Backseat driver

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Every morning I dress Owen warmly and load the car up with bags — diaper bag, lunch bag, work bag, tote bag — and prepare to drive to day care. And every morning, from his throne in the rear of the golden carriage, the little prince tells me where to go. “This way” for south, “That way” for north. Vehement finger-pointing optional.

The nutter of it is, I let him choose. Yes, I am prepared to launch a ton or two of American-made steel in the direction dictated by a two-year-old. (In my defense, the difference between leaving our street at the top and leaving it at the bottom is 0.2 miles, so it’s no skin off my teeth.)

But dang. The kid can’t even reach the steering wheel yet, and he thinks he knows the traffic better than I do. I wonder if his father has anything to do with this.

Happy Independence Day

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american baby

We had a terrific time at the Towson Fourth of July parade this morning. It was hot and sunny and loud and we liked it that way. Wholesome, small-town entertainment (though I did tear up when the combat-wounded vets went slowly past — even bleeding-heart leftist feminists are moved by patriotism).

Iain sanded the hell out of the floors in the front room while we were gone, and finished up while Owen and I escaped to Target. *tangent alert* I am the worst sort of customer, I realized this afternoon. I will take up space in your place of business simply to gulp in the air-conditioned air; I will hand an assortment of products to my toddler to chew on and then slyly put them back on the wrong shelves; I will become absorbed in reading labels as said toddler knocks giant boxes of store-brand diapers of the shelves; and I will absentmindedly park my cart in the middle of the aisle for ten minutes as I scramble after him. To my credit, I do pay for all my purchases, but still.

We had pizza for dinner and put down the first coat of stain/sealant after Owen went to bed. Now we’re in the physically uncomfortably position of having painted ourselves a barrier to the bathroom. I give it another hour before I’m either scrambling in through the bathroom window or digging a hole in the backyard.

Tomorrow I go back to work, and we’ll try to put down another coat of varnish. And then, it’s Thursday.

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Deluge!

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Sure is wet here in Baltimore! How ‘bout dem raindrops? Huge, huh?! Nothing like five straight days of town-flooding rain to make you feel like dancing.
Every time I leave the house today the clouds are like, “Here’s your personal waterbucket, traveler! I shall happily dump the contents over your head!” Squish. Splash. Soaked from frizzy head to soggy toe.

But I did have a thrillingly enjoyable Flashdance moment in the parking garage elevator after work, swinging my sopping hair around and singing “She’s a maaaaaniac, MAAAAANIAC, on the floor.” I don’t often laugh out loud in public places, especially not at my own antics, but today I couldn’t help it. Today’s rain was more like a steamy communal shower than it was weather, and it was bizarrely liberating and amusing.

One thing, though: we’ve escaped any sort of water damage so far, but I would like to bitch mightily about the ants. A rising tide lifts all ants, apparently, and brings them straight to my door.