Wednesday Rants: End of Summer

This was supposed to be out yesterday. However, I decided to snuggle a sick baby boy instead of post. Sorry.

I love summer. I enjoy going to the beach or pool.  I love the Dude’s new found enthusiasm for his smoker. There’s something uplifting and liberating about summer. If nothing else, it always reminds you of being a kid and the freedom of being out of school.

I also love fall. I love the crisp air, wearing jeans and sweatshirts, and fall baking. I am thankful for the reprieve from humidity that allows me to increase the thermostat to 74 without melting everyone. I especially love that the boys can play outside for more than 5 minutes at a time.

What I hate is the transition period. It generally starts just after Labor Day and can sometimes last for a few weeks. My distaste for this particular time frame stems from a few sources. First of all, Mother Nature can’t make up her mind… it’s chilly, jacket worthy weather in the morning and warm enough for shorts by the afternoon. Mind you, this makes little difference to me since my office is sub-zero all ALL YEAR LONG. But what the heck do I dress the children in? They each own a few pair of those light weight warm up/track pants so they’ve worn them a few days this week with short sleeves and a jacket in the morning. I refuse to do laundry during the week so I when they are out of light pants I guess we’ll have to decide if it’ll be cool enough for jeans or warm enough for shorts.

I also hate the effect the changing weather has on their poor little immune system. The first DAY the temperature dropped poor D2 woke up with a hoarse voice and cough. Then of course B-dubs start to get it. And B-dubs doesn’t do sick very quietly. He woke up at least 3 times on Tuesday night coughing and hurting. Then on Wednesday he was very fussy and weepy, and coughing horribly, and had a temperature. So he got sent home from school. Of course this happens during the week that the Dude is training out of town for work and not at his office 10 minutes from preschool. The poor bubby had to wait 35+ minutes for me to get there from my office.

Speaking of my commute… one other thing I hate about summer ending is the TRAFFIC! Apparently EVEYRONE decides that after Labor Day they’d better stop taking vacations and actually go to work. I swear on the 6 lane interstate I haven’t driven over 30 MPH for three straight days. It’s hasn’t been the fault of accidents or road work either. It’s purely due to an increase in volume that is congesting my drive and making me late to work and in a foul mood. Makes me look forward to the holidays when people start slacking off at work again.

What are your favorite/least favorite things about this time of year?

Wednesday Rants: An Ignorant Phrase

I love being able to write about whatever happends to be on my mind. I enjoy being able to fluctuate from (my attempts at) wittiness to seriousness on a whim. However, as you can all attest, I struggle with writing regularly. So I thought I would try adding a little structure to my blog (we all love rules, don't we Mr. Gray?). Plus, a lot of things bug me... Thus "Wednesday Rants" was born. Why 'wednesday' you ask? Mainly because there's nothing good on TV Wednesday nights, and it's the hardest day of the week to spell and I like to challenge myself. Now stop asking questions and read on.

Wednesday Rants- "The Gays":

I recently read an article entitled 'Why The Gays Hate Their Bodies'. This was shared on Facebook by a friend (as is most of the news I read), so of course I saw only the title of the article first. I immediately had an offensive reaction to the term "The Gays".

I hate that term. It annoys me that in this day and age, after all the hard work and struggles we've overcome in the name of civil rights, that we can still say things that sound so ignorant. To me, the phrase "the gays" is implicating gay people are so fundamentally different from other humans in our society that they require their own classification. It indicates that they are merely a subset of our society rather than part of our society. It is just another way to alienate people; to seperate "us" from "them". It's really no different than "the blacks" or the ever dreaded "you people", both of which have become essentially unacceptable in our society. There's also the issue of when you generalize a whole group of people, you are gauranteed to be wrong in at least one instance.

One of the biggest flaws that we face as a country today is the race to alienate each other; to create an "us" vs. "them" mentality. We especially see this in politics (even when it's not an election year), in religion, and even in socio-economic classes. Somehow we started making our differences into dividers. We should, instead, be appreciating the differences we see in one another, and using the unique perspectives we each hold to make a better place for everyone.

Now I do have to say, I did read the article in its entirety. It was written by a gay man, and I believe he was using that particular phrase to make a point. It is still important to remember, though, that LGBT people aren't just gay/bi/transgendered. They are our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, parents, employees. If you must address the community as a whole, how about saying "gay people". At least that attests to their humanity.