357th Friday Blog Roundup
The strange coincidence that precedes the story I am about to tell you is important. As we pulled up to the soccer field, the ChickieNob asked if all the other parents knew about my fear of crickets. I told her that the ones who know me well already know that I’m a freak, and the ones who do not know me well yet don’t need to know what I freak I am so I’d appreciate her keeping my fear of crickets to herself.
So.
We are watching a soccer game, cheering on the kids, relaxing in the last strains of sunlight. When I got to the field, I was wearing sunglasses. Midway through the game, I switched to regular glasses. By the time we left the field, we were in the gloaming, hurrying through the dim light to our car.
I let the kids into the backseat, congratulating myself for everything going smoothly with the evening. Then I opened the driver’s door and that is when it happened.
A CRICKET JUMPED INTO MY CAR.
A quarter-sized brown cricket (which looked more like Hummer-sized cricket if you looked at it from the right angle) hopped onto my seat and began jumping around the inside of the car, disappearing from my view. I internally flipped out, my Plan A being to ditch the car and kids entirely and run home screaming. Then I realized that if I ran, I would be outside — WITH CRICKETS — so I went with my Plan B, which was to flag down another parent in the parking lot and beg them to rummage through my car until they caught it and killed it.
But in the three minutes since Cricketaggedon began, the lot had cleared out and it had gotten suddenly dark so that I couldn’t really make out if I knew any of the other people. The only person I recognized at all was a new woman I met that very evening, whose name escaped my mind as I tried to remind myself that Plan A was not a feasible option. So I did what any deranged, cricket-fearing woman would do. I called out to her across the parking lot: “Jason’s* Mommy? Can you come over here and kill a cricket for me?”
Mind you, she has just met me.
And bless her soul, she came over and bit her lip and said she’d have a go at it. When I opened the door again, the light went on and she could clearly see it against the passenger seat (thank you, black seats). She smashed it for me and removed it from the car. And while she may have gotten into her vehicle and explained to her son that some women really are that pathetic and consider ditching a perfectly good car just because it contains a cricket, she — at least — did not laugh at me to my face and reassured me that asking someone to kill a cricket is perfectly normal.
I got in the car after pledging my eternal loyalty and gratitude toward her and then quietly told the ChickieNob, “I just wanted to ensure that everyone knows what I freak I am.”
And to her credit, she only said, “I guess she knows that you’re scared of crickets now.”
Yes, I believe everyone knows.
*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
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I love the open notes to your old toys. I’m alternating between cracking up and getting teary.
Toy I most regret not owning still: I had the knight set for Playmobil — the OLD knight set — and mine came with one of those elusive pure white horses with a matte finish. I loved that horse so much that I would wash my hands before touching it because I was so afraid that I’d transfer dirt to it. Goodbye, dear Playmobil knight set, I loved you so.
What toy do you miss?
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And now the blogs…
But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:
- “Why I Learned to Dance” (Mrs. Spit)
- “That Facebook Thing” (Here We Go Again)
- “The First Year in Our House” (Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed)
- “So What’s a Fertile to Do?” (Yolk)
- “I Never Thought” (The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow)
- “The Unhealthy Truth” (Write Mind, Open Heart)
Still Kicking Your Collective Ass: We did so well two weeks ago with 11. This week, you could only find six? There is a whole world of blog posts out there worthy of a little extra attention.
Okay, now my choices this week.
The Infertile Bird has a post about those of us inside the computer. When things became strained with her face-to-face friends, when no one around her understood, she turned to the Internet and found exactly what she needed: friendship, understanding, support. She admits: “many of them I know only by their usernames, but their friendship is as real and sustaining to me as any other.” It’s a beautiful post celebrating friendship.
Dreaming of Quiet Places has a post about hope and whether you’d banish it if you could. As she says, “Hope gives us reason to get up in the morning, but it is also that Terrible Gray, that not-black-not-white space that won’t allow you to let go of the dream.” Go join in the conversation happening in the comment section.
Thalia’s Infertility Journey has a tiny, bittersweet post about the grip infertility has on the heart. It is the vague last line with the “it” undefined — is “it” infertility? hope? longing? — that twists the heart.
Lastly, Uppercase Woman got to meet Tertia from So Close and she has a great post walking down memory lane; the early days of the ALI blogosphere. It was just fun to read and remember.
The roundup to the Roundup: A cricket pretty much tried to kill me — death by fear. I love the open notes to toys, and what toy is missing from your life that you wish you could have back? And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between September 9th and September 16th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.
20 comments
I understand your fears of crickets. Mine is much more abnormal: people on stilts. A cricket is out of control, can jump on you willy-nilly, etc. A person on stilts really can’t move that fast. And is a PERSON, so probably has some kind of self-control. Earlier this year I was at a restaurant that had some pirate on stilts (with a peg stilt, btw) and I lost it. I literally got up from the table and ran to the other side of the room. Well, as I was running, I fell (out of a movie, I’m serious) and as I was getting up, the PIRATE WITH A PEG LEG ON STILTS WAS STANDING OVER ME. I screamed. In front of no less than 200 people. (This was at a restaurant in Vegas…trust me. 200 people.) I was so embarrassed. But still, can’t handle stilts. LOL.
So, I’ve actually started a running Friday Blog Round Up google doc so that as I read through posts in my reader, I can just copy and paste all that goodness until Friday and post it here. This is going to be a long comment, b/c there have been some seriously awesome posts this week.
Hope has written an empowered piece about accepting the infertility path she must now walk. I got chills reading it because the sense of purpose and power behind her words is inspiring.
Kir has a strong post about identity and what it means to have enough: Just Be Enough: Someone.
Here’s Katie’s awesome acceptance speech for winning the Hope Award for Best Blog for From If to When from RESOLVE Tuesday night. This girl ROCKED it! The Speech.
My heart is breaking for In Due Time, a fellow POF-er. She is currently miscarrying, the only pregnancy she has achieved in 7 years… and didn’t even know she was pregnant. It is a heartbreaking post: Over Before It Even Began.
And here come the 9/11 posts, b/c there were so many, and they were so good.
Kathy has a very lovely round up of previous 9/11 posts and talks about talking to her 8-year-old son about 9/11 for the first time. It’s a powerful read, if only for this line alone: “…including commenting that he was really glad that his Daddy and I were not killed that day, as then it wouldn’t have been possible for him, his sister Molly in Heaven and his sister Abby to have been born.” 9/11: Remembering & Carrying On.
LavLuz writes about her reactions to 9/11 a decade later and poses a series of very difficult questions: How might seek first to understand; then to be understood work on such a massive scale? What would that understanding look like? Could the simple act of seeking to understand bring a “peace that passeth all understanding”? Her post is here at Nine Eleven, Ed McCaffrey, Stephen Covey and me
Suzy recaps what the day was like for her and presents a call to action: to memorialize the legacy of 9/11 by being kinder and more mindful of others. It’s a great post: Pulled Together by Kindness
And I’m going to pimp out my 9/11 post, because not only am I really proud of it, I’m really proud of my dad for talking about a subject that has not been a comfortable one for him over the past 10 years: 9/11 Remembered Through the Lens.
Okay, all done.
I’m afraid of crickets, too. I would freak out if one jumped in my car. I make my husband kill any that come into our house, even though he mocks me.
But aren’t crickets good luck or some BS like that? 🙂
I don’t mind crickets. What I do mind are house centipedes. They are straight out of my nightmares. More than one has been sucked up into the central vacuum. House Centipedes-No thank you!
Mel, really: therapy! For the crickets. Well, I mean, for you, on behalf of the crickets. They are lovely creatures and make beautiful music and should not be squished
Full disclosure: I have just this week squished a cockroach because they gross me out though I cannot philosophically defend cockroach killing because, hey, it’s just being what it is (and I am not benefiting from its death as I do by that of animals I eat other than being less grossed out). So take the above with a grain of salt, but still, I am horrified that you kill crickets. Had I been Jason’s mom I’d have said, “No, but I’ll come catch it and move it out of your car for you.”
I’m even more of a freak. I’m scared of slugs. And all THEY do is just lie there, looking revolting. I’ll take care of the crickets if you remove the slugs, yes?
Bless the lady for helping you out.
When I was 22 I lived in a ‘cottage’ that was infested with crickets and spiders. It was horrible. I had to wear shoes at any time I was not in bed wrapped in covers. That was the stuff of nightmares indeed.
Add me to the cockroach-fearing category. And spiders. I really don’t like spiders.
I loved a post by Bloodsigns about the finding the right place:
http://bloodsigns.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/finding-the-place/
I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven. Sometimes I still wish I had one, even though I have a whole regular oven to bake in. ; )
I am way behind on my blog reading after a busy week, but I just read two different but equally compelling & well written posts about the (pg loss) support group experience:
http://bythebrooke.blogspot.com/2011/09/support.html
http://www.jackatrandom.com/2011/09/hi-my-name-is-josh-and-i-have-dead-baby.html
I thought of you because of crickets the other day. I saw a teeny, tiny cricket — like the size of a grain of rice — and the first thought that popped into my mind was, “I wonder if Mel would be scared of that cricket.” Anyway, I’m glad “Jason’s mommy” was there for you.
Rebecca at Trying Not to Scream had an interesting post this week about a MFI issue I’d never even heard of. (Granted, we have no MFI issues so I don’t know much about it period, but no one really seemed to have heard of this).
http://tryingnottoscream.blogspot.com/2011/09/possible-explanation.html
My son spent last week waking up in the middle of the night demanding we silence the crickets making a racket outside because he was afraid of them. I was at my wits’ end, and in my late-night stupor, told him to get a grip. Poor kid. I did apologize later, but now I feel especially bad.
My problem is that my short term memory goes nowhere and my long term memory is filled with useless information. Therefore, I can’t remember what happened yesterday, let alone what I read. But I read this one today, and it made me smile…
http://blog.chron.com/goodmombadmom/2011/09/seen-this-look-before/
Are there a lot of crickets on the East Coast? I have never seen one up close. I’m sorry you have so many encounters with them 🙁
Some really good posts this week:
Loved this one from Second Hand Happiness (Esperanza’s other blog) asking readers whether she should save or pay down debt: http://secondhandhappiness.com/?p=273 The comments are fascinating, too.
And this one, from Not a Fertile Myrtle was a wonderful reminder of what we all can do to make the world a better place: http://www.notafertilemyrtle.com/2011/09/i-will-not-forget.html
Because her cats are adorable: http://www.hannahweptsarahlaughed.com/2011/09/the-gratuitous-post-about-my-cats/
I have a huge fear of crickets and grasshoppers. I think my problem is anything that can jump on me and is an insect lol.
As for the blog reading. This is my first week contributing but I found something that should be shared. A friend, who is a baby loss mom, posted the lessons that her daughter’s short life taught her. They are beautiful and moving
http://onceamother.blogspot.com/2011/09/lessons-from-my-daughter.html
Hilarious cricket story! 😀
I don’t miss one toy in particular, but I do miss being young enough to play dolls without being considered certifiable. A friend of mine and I played dolls up until age 12 (and kept it a secret from all the cool girls at school who were already wearing eyeliner and shaving their legs and hadn’t played dolls since age 6). But we just loved pretending to be mommies.
Now she is a mommy of two and I am still waiting.
Love,
Maddy
Reposting my original comment b/c I had some seriously sloppy HTML coding. So now, the links should actually all work… sorry about that! Mel, feel free to delete the first comment for me. Thanks!
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So, I’ve actually started a running Friday Blog Round Up google doc so that as I read through posts in my reader, I can just copy and paste all that goodness until Friday and post it here. This is going to be a long comment, b/c there have been some seriously awesome posts this week.
Hope has written an empowered piece about accepting the infertility path she must now walk. I got chills reading it because the sense of purpose and power behind her words is inspiring.
Kir has a strong post about identity and what it means to have enough: Just Be Enough: Someone.
Here’s Katie’s awesome acceptance speech for winning the Hope Award for Best Blog for From If to When from RESOLVE Tuesday night. This girl ROCKED it! The Speech.
My heart is breaking for In Due Time, a fellow POF-er. She is currently miscarrying, the only pregnancy she has achieved in 7 years… and didn’t even know she was pregnant. It is a heartbreaking post: Over Before It Even Began.
And here come the 9/11 posts, b/c there were so many, and they were so good.
Kathy has a very lovely round up of previous 9/11 posts and talks about talking to her 8-year-old son about 9/11 for the first time. It’s a powerful read, if only for this line alone: “…including commenting that he was really glad that his Daddy and I were not killed that day, as then it wouldn’t have been possible for him, his sister Molly in Heaven and his sister Abby to have been born.” 9/11: Remembering & Carrying On.
LavLuz writes about her reactions to 9/11 a decade later and poses a series of very difficult questions: How might seek first to understand; then to be understood work on such a massive scale? What would that understanding look like? Could the simple act of seeking to understand bring a “peace that passeth all understanding”? Her post is here at Nine Eleven, Ed McCaffrey, Stephen Covey and me.
Suzy recaps what the day was like for her and presents a call to action: to memorialize the legacy of 9/11 by being kinder and more mindful of others. It’s a great post: Pulled Together by Kindness.
And I’m going to pimp out my 9/11 post, because not only am I really proud of it, I’m really proud of my dad for talking about a subject that has not been a comfortable one for him over the past 10 years: 9/11 Remembered Through the Lens.
Okay, all done.
For next week’s round up. This post is so amazing from Mo at Mommy Odyssey. http://mommyodyssey.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/lessons-of-loss/
I miss my collection of horses… Breyer, Barbie, Lone Ranger, you name it. I adored them. They lived together in herds and organized their days. There were pairs who had babies, and they tried to stay away from people and live free. Barbie sometimes was a secret helper who could communicate with them and bring them food. See? Freak too. 🙂
Are you also afraid of grasshoppers?
Sorry if someone already mentioned this… I don’t have time to read through all the links right now. I LOVED this post so much. http://jjiraffe.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/how-strangers-change-our-lives-for-the-better/