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Sunday, June 26, 2011

State Parkin' it!

So, the kids are getting big. Like bigger than me big...but they still get excited about going with us...IF we're going somewhere they like to go.

Fortunately for us, we live in the Finger Lakes, we have no shortage of awesome places to take off to right at our finger tips!

If there is one benefit to having kids close in age (12, 14, 16) it's that they're pretty much interested in the same stuff.

Diving into the Olympic sized swimming pool...
The opportunity for new FaceBook Profile Pics...
Dad's grilled Steak & Mushrooms...







                     
Hiking the Glen
















and a little freedom to wander while mom gads about taking pictures.            


In a few years, they'll probably have better things to do than hang out with mom and dad...swimming and grilling and chilling.   And wondering why their mom is video-taping the ground, from an inch & a half away...But for now they're all mine. And we have this beautiful place to live in.



Badly attempted video of a winged ant dragging off a spider.

Best wishes,
Rebecca Flys

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

8th Grade Graduation

So, I don't remember having a Graduation ceremony before...you know...ACTUAL high school Graduation.  We just didn't do those sorts of things "back-in-the-day."  But my own kids? Yeah, they learned to zip up their coat in pre-school and they "graduated" to the zipper-upper line.

It started with Pre-K Graduation, then Kindergarten Graduation, then 6th grade Graduation....

Now I'm not saying it isn't a wonderful thing to sit an a newly remodeled auditiorium, which nobody thought to install an air-conditioner or de-humidifier in...it's simply lovely.  I do it for every recital and choral concert of the year. 

I just can't help but wonder how much of it is for real. It seems like a political move by the school staff. Lining them all up on stage in front of us...the new Interim Superintendant giving a big old speech...the Vice Principal (closely followed by the Interim Superintendant) keeping his legs crossed so long the kids beside me started timing it and wondering if he'd be able to stand up without cramping when it was his turn. Babies crying, people clapping before the end when the Principal specifically said not to....It often makes me wonder what the heck we're really all doing there.


They give out a "best boy" and "best girl" award at the 8th grade Graduation.  I have to wonder how that works exactly. How exactly do they determine who is best? Grades? Personality?  What???  Because as I watched the kids all cross the stage (except for the 30 students who have to attend summer school to pass the year) I was proud of them all. Middle school is tough.  I'm sure each one of those kids had someone in the audiance who thought they were the best.  I know my kid did.  

After all the hoopla is complete, a Graduation Ceremony is a great excuse for ice cream after the event is finished. And for some new clothes and shoes, which can later be worn to funerals and weddings. Planning ahead for these potential future events is a good reason to buy the clothes a size large and try to see them as investments, though the truth is my Grow-A-Kid usually only wears the outfit just that once. As a rule of thumb, I've trained myself to consider these things the "bright side" even if I'm likely deluding myself.

As the stage-crossing ceremony commenced I found myself squinting at the kids as their names were called, imagining their faces as I remember them in my heart.  Remembering...the kids in my groups when I chaparoned for the Space Center, and the Oliver House Museum, and even the Punkin' Patch and the Easter Egg Hunts.  Remembering their soccer games and lacrosse games...and even what some of their parents looked like back when we were all in lamaze class. Tonight, these kids looked so grown up. So much like high schoolers.  Where did the little Kindergarteners with their little mini cap and gowns go?

Everybody kept saying how time had flown, how fast they had grown up.  And they really really have.  Watching my 14 year old son swaggar across stage felt like a surprise all of the sudden.  Somehow, the "I want peanut butter and jelly with no holes in the bread" days flew by, flew into these "Mom, she's not my girlfriend...just a friend who's a girl I SWEAR" days (as the phone rings at midnight). 

For me, having kid has been something like when you adopt a kitten. You love playing with the little bugger, you adore it to pieces and you know it's inevitable that it'll grow up...but as it chases string and lets you smother it in kisses...you can't imagine it in a shirt and tie...crossing a stage...shaking hands and graduating....I mean you can't imagine it as a full grown cat.

Yeah, I don't remember having all of these graduations when I was a kid. We didn't have them. We say...that times are faster now. That the computer era has changed us for the worse. We say that things are faster now and everyone is in a hurry.  Yet, here we are...listening to the Interim Superintendant tell us how great our town is, and waiting to see our kids cross a stage and become high schoolers. 

We're all slowing down as a community, to create an event to celebrate our kids and how amazing it is that they're all heading into a new phase of their lives. And this process is something a part of this new generation. 

Somehow, sitting in the nose-bleed seats and inhaling the world's most humid air while listening to the kids next to me (who happened to be my daughters) snicker at the Vice Principal...I realized, some changes are for the better. And hey, our generation may actually have something figured out, that our parent's didn't.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Maybe They Had it Right


So, in the olden days, things like Adultery were illegal.  In fact, it was the law in Texas until 1972 that a man who found his wife in bed with another man was justified in killing the wife and the other man. Of course wives did not enjoy the same privilege.


Adultery "legal terminology" includes words like:  
•Criminal Conversation
•Heart Balm Torts
•Revenge
•Spousal Theft
It's also known as "alienation of affection" and Wikipedia says




"The defendant in an alienation of affections suit is typically an adulterous spouse's lover, although family members, counselors and therapists or clergy members who have advised a spouse to seek divorce have also been sued for alienation of affections."

Which surprised me, I mean I've never heard of someone sueing their mother-in-law for causing their divorce but it MUST happen, I mean it MUST!

I have to say, I think good anti-adultery laws could prevent a hella lotta angst, pain, and domestic abuse.  If there were actually results to cheating...maybe in a perfect Fly world...people would be more honest.  Maybe they'd say "Hey I'm unhappy" rather than going out into the world and finding someone else to drown their invisible sorrows in. Just sayin'


Adultery laws aren't totally dead in our country.  As of January 2008, the only states in the United States that allow alienation of affection lawsuits are: Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah.

Interestingly, let me note that in my home State of New York, the following law is still on the books;
S 255.17 Adultery.

A person is guilty of adultery when he engages in sexual intercourse
with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the other
person has a living spouse.
Adultery is a class B misdemeanor.
Apparently this misdemeanor can carry a $500 fine or 90 days in jail. And a Batavia, NY woman who was having sex on a park bench in 2010...with a guy who wasn't her husband...was actually charged with it.

No, really, it's true For Real Look!!!

Some states are more enthusiastic about adultery laws than others.  In North Carolina, jilted spouses have been awarded millions of dollars for something called "Criminal Conversation." Check it Out!

One North Carolina wife,Cynthia Shackelford, sued her husband's mistress and co-worker for "alienation of affection," and WON 9 million dollars. She sounds like a nice lady, and she knows that she'll probably never collect on her "winnings." 

I see her as a crusader for women just like me.  I mean, frankly, when you're washing a man's laundry, keeping his socks white, cooking his dinner, paying the bills with him, and wearing a thong instead of comfy granny panties for him... another woman creeping in and saying "let's just pretend you're single...for tonight!" well, that's a load of hooey.  And when he can't perform for her the first time...and she continues dialing him up and carrying on texting him to get a second try...well...that's just beyond sicko. Seriously, what is WRONG with people?

Falling in love is pretty easy business.

"Hey, you're cute" 
"Hey, you too"
"Hey, you smell nice"
"Hey, you too"

Throw in a really super romantic location (like the one my Skankzilla used)And you're in business;

Courtship is fun.  Then marriage, well once you get there, life is a lot more challenging.  My husband knows I snore.  I know he farts at night, and it's occasionally so rough that even the dog leaves the bed.  He's seen me give birth to his children (not pretty) and I've seen what's inside his...ummm well I watched while he had his vasectomy, enough said. But at the end of the day, this is the man who holds my heart in his hands. When he feels ill, I worry about him. When my back hurts, he asks me "Honey does your back hurt?" When he might be hungry...I feed him. When I drag home junk to upcycle, he sighs. When he polishes his golf clubs, I sigh. When he smiles at me, all is right with my world. 

I just love him. I'll take marriage to him with all of it's trials, tribulations, joys, laughs, good times and bad, until death do we part...because I love him. 

What we learned from his affair? It's simple. We don't want to live without one another. Will I ever take his love for granted again? No. Will he ever forget he couldn't stand being without me...and couldn't stand the thought of missing my birthday? No. Will we be working on moving past this mess for a while? For sure. Will we make it? I really believe so.

One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again. ~Judith Viorst
So continuing on...Cynthia says her lawsuit's purpose was to send a message to women like her husband’s mistress to keep them from going after other married spouses who are still living at home and sleeping in the marital bed. Cynthia, like a lot of betrayed spouses just wants people to respect the sanctity of marriage, saying "you don't go after married men and break up families.”  When she dies, there's a special place in heaven for her, in the Valhalla of Betrayed Wives.

My husband's "Mistress" liked to call me Medusa...even though we'd never met, and I didn't know she existed.  She called me Medusa because during her romantic liasons with my husband she laughingly said I had turned him to stone.  Funny, I thought he liked me a lot when I turned him to stone...lol.  Well, since some stories say Medusa WAS a poor pretty girl turned into a monster by a jelouse Goddess, I'll try to take it as a compliment.

I tended to call her "the pillar of salt" after he came home.

Now that my fear of her is behind me, and I'm excited about my personal future, along with the future of my marriage (the kids are getting older, we have so much more time to do things now! He has learned to TALK and I've learned to LISTEN.)

I think I'm feeling better. I'm feeling more like the woman I thought I'd be...when I was a little girl...than ever before. I think I'm going to be ok. And my family will be okay too.

Don't cheat. Especially in South Carolina (or Texas just to be safe). Talk to your spouse, things in a marriage are so much more fixable than the divorce statistics show us. Learn to SPEAK to one another. Oh, and pick up a copy of "The 5 Love Languages" they should be handing that out for free at the Courthouse when you fill out your marriage paperwork.
More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse. ~Doug Larson
Best Wishes,
RebeccaFlys