Monday, June 30, 2014

Still here, "keeping the show on the road".

It has been so long since I posted, I couldn't even find this page.  I had to find a link to it on my friend's blog, then tried more times than I should admit to remember the password.  There are plenty of big excuses; we moved houses, I took Bean and Sprout to the US by myself to visit our family, had two 3rd birthday parties for Bean (one on each continent), both my mom and The German's came for a visit (separately, thank goodness), it was mango season.  And then there are the mundane, every day excuses.  Like, today I had to go to the ATM.

Check out all these mangos waiting to be canned!

A few months ago, I read this post (http://sixdegreesnorth.me/2014/03/07/trailing-spouse-the-graveyard-of-ambition/), and it couldn't have been more timely.  I was just returning from the States, and feeling a bit sorry for myself getting asked countless variations of, "So, you're just a mom now?", "Aren't you bored, just sitting around?", and "But, like, what do you DO all day?"  Well, dear, well-meaning family and friends.  Yes, I am just a mom.  But, like, survivor style.  Well, city survivor style, at least.  I don't sit around.  It is hot season and if I did I would get the couch wet.  If I'm stationary, it is because I have found a patch of cold tile and I'm laying on it, naked, counting the minutes until it is acceptably late enough in the morning to turn on the AC.  And, what do I do all day?  Well, today I went to the ATM


 Want to make a salad?  Don't forget to factor in a few 
hours for bleaching and air drying your veggies!

This little adventure started shortly after 9 a.m. which is when I dropped Bean off for "playschool", which happens three mornings a week.  Sprout and I set off for the ATM to pick up money to pay Bean's teacher for the month.  I had waited until this morning to go, because I can really only go to the ATM with one child or less.  You see, there is no drive up ATM here, and the banks don't even have parking lots, so you just have to stop your car in the right lane, ignore the honks, wait for a brake in traffic to jump out, and run in. This is much easier when there is only one child who you have to maneuver in and out of a car seat and dart through traffic with.  The exception to this is the mall, where two of the three ATMs accept my card.  We tried here first, but one of the ATMs was down, and the other was out of cash.  The second ATM was also out of service, but I did get to witness a security guard getting chewed out for it as Sprout and I sprinted back to the car.  Side note, why, when coming out of the ATM box, does nobody here tell the next person in line that it is out of service?  So strange to me.  And what are they doing in there for five minutes to make those behind them assume it is working?  The thing is clearly blinking "hors service" (out of order)!  At the fourth ATM, we got lucky.  If being 10th in line for an ATM in hot season can be considered lucky.  Somewhere along the way, I pulled over so Sprout and I could enjoy a lunch of bananas and Pringles from a street vendor.  My poor second child and his neglected nutrition.


We exited the ATM box, both sweating and both more that a little cranky, at around 11:45, giving us just enough time to make it back across town to pick up Bean.  The irony of this all is that the only productive thing I did today was pick up money for the person I pay to entertain and educate Bean for me 9 hours a week so that I can be more productive.  And the reason I have a moment to write this now?  The German took the kids to get new passport photos.  Experience tells me they will be gone at least a few hours.  Plenty of time to cook dinner, do some laundry (if we have water pressure long enough), and even write my first blog post in months.

1 comment:

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