The World According to "Aaarrgh!"

My sister invited me to join Facebook back in May.  Since I’ve joined, I’ve reconnected with people I haven’t seen in 30 years.  And that is cool!  I hope that is what the creators of Facebook intended – a way to easily reconnect with people you wouldn’t normally connect with.  I know that that is wrong, that the intent was what Numbers 2 & 3 use it for — to chat with their friends.  And that is why I hate Facebook.

Number 2 has spent hour upon hour upon hour upon friggin’ hour chatting with friends on Facebook.  Many friends simultaneously.  Friends that she could talk to if she picked up the phone, but you can’t talk to many people simultaneously on the phone.  Which is why I find Facebook to be so obnoxious – it allows one to be rude.  When I am talking to someone, I expect their undivided attention during our conversation.  On the telephone, I have that.  It’s just me and the other person; that’s it.  With texting and Facebook chatting, I no longer have the other person’s undivided attention; they could be talking to 20 other people at the exact same time!  I find that rather inconsiderate, rude, and insulting – I’m not good enough for your undivided attention?

And then there are the stupid quizzes.  Number 3 loves these.  Obnoxious is the only word I can use to describe these.  Enough said.

Number 3 lied about her age (she couldn’t wait 5 days) to get a Facebook account.  She even went across the street and used the neighbor’s computer to access Facebook when she didn’t know the password for ours.  Number 2, when she has computer access, is a Facebook junkie.  She’s going to die if she doesn’t talk to her friends at least six hours every day!

You know, while I like my friends, I don’t really need the know the minutiae of their lives.  Just the general thoughts of the day is adequate.  I know that blogs are, well, “yesterday”, but I miss them.  They were like letters.

I know that those on Facebook expect me to update every hour of every day.  In all honesty, if I go on Facebook once a week, that is a lot.  You want to know how I am doing?  It’s all right here on this blog.  And I intend to keep it that way!

My boss’s wife was out of town for the week, and I suspect he didn’t realize how much he took his enviable stable marriage for granted until his partner was gone.  Why?  He made a comment about the challenge of being both mother and father.

He is very lucky, and I envy him, as his “single parent household” status was only temporary.  There are many millions of people out there whose “single parent household” status is permanent.  Both V and I, for example.  Let me just tell you that there are days that it is very very challeging.

There are days when I come home and I am beat.  I’d like nothing better to do then sit down a watch t.v. for a while.  But I can’t.  I have obligations to my kids.  I have to cook dinner, do the dishes, do the laundry, give baths (sometime with the help of my older children, sometime not…), brush hair and teeth.  And with school starting next week, we can include helping with homework and school activities to the lists of tasks.  These things must be done before I can ever even think about relaxing, and usually by that time, my body just wants to go to sleep.  This is a saga shared by millions of others.

It gets frustrating when people who are part of a two-parent household proffer their opinions on how or when things should be done without a clue as to reality.  Do you think I like eating at 9 or 10 PM every night?  Hell no!  It sucks!  The reality is I work about an hour away, and by the time I get home it’s pushing 8 PM.  Why do I work so late?  There are errands to be done in the morning that only I can do, as I do not have someone else who can do them for me, and when places don’t open until 8 AM or later, that puts me at work at 9 AM or later, then add 9 hours (8 hours and lunch), and you get the picture.  It’s a vicious cycle, but it is the way it is.

I think every person who is part of a two-parent household should try being a one-parent household, if even for a week.  I think it would give a better appreciation of the single-parents, and of the great thing that they have as part of a two-parent household.

When we went to St. Louis a couple weeks ago, I noticed that my octogenarian father was wearing my shirt.  Or, at least I thought it was my shirt.  I commented to the kids that I must have left the shirt that my Dad gave to me a while back at his house, as he was wearing it.  I commented that it looked much better on me than on him, but if I left it behind and he was now wearing it, then it was his again. 

This morning when I grabbed the first shirt in my closet, I was shocked at what I saw.  It was the shirt!

What does this mean?  It means that my father and I own the exact same shirt!  I have the same fashions as an octogenarian.  Kind of creepy, when you think about what would have happened if I had worn that shirt when I went to St. Louis.  My Dad and I would have looked like twins!

(POSTED BY AAARRGH)

I have been fascinated with the story of the Air France jet that broke up somewhere over the Atlantic.  I have flown only a handful of time in my life, and not since January 2001.  If I can drive, I do, even if it takes me a couple of days.  I have been ridiculed as a coward because I don’t want to fly, but they are entitled to their opinions.  There are two basic reasons I don’t fly.  First, it messes up my inner ears, and I feel so cruddy that I am basically down and out for the next day, so whatever time advantage I gained by flying is negated by the fact that I am pretty much useless for the first day after I land.  Second, I worked in the aircraft industry and saw planes manufactured, and saw how fragile they really are.  I remember standing on the shop floor looking up at a bundle of electrical wires about as thick as my arm thinking to myself that if only a couple of those thousand wires were not installed properly that that bird would go down.  Kind of a breathtaking thought, isn’t it?  And now they are saying that the Air France jet suffered catastrophic electrical and system failures….maybe I wasn’t as cowardly and paranoid as some thought I was.  Honestly, if I never have to step on another plane in my life I will die a happy man.  Yes, that restricts my travel options, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.