Kooky Neighbor

I don’t normally take life advice from TV commercials, but a few months ago, a line from one really resonated with me. It said something to the effect of, “the only truly scarce resource is time”. I think this hit home for me because it perfectly articulates a feeling that I’ve had for a while about living life based on your values. We only get as much time on this planet as we get (and no one knows exactly how much time that is) so why does it seem like we value so many things more than we value our time? Take money for instance.

Financial advisers are always telling us to stay within our budgets. Which sounds great, but what if staying on that budget means that you aren’t going to get to do all things you have wanted to do in your life? I just don’t think I can accept that. That you won’t get to eat exotic foods, or travel, or show your children some of the amazing things in the world? If you stay on that budget, doesn’t that mean that you value your money above anything else? It seems to me that in that case, the money becomes the master, and you its servant. If everyone had enough money, and it just needed to be properly allocated, then it wouldn’t be an issue but lets face it, financially, the deck is stacked against most of us. Wages haven’t risen as much as our costs to live. For example, housing and medical costs have skyrocketed in the last 20 years and our paychecks have just not kept pace. So knowing that you may only get one life to live, are we really supposed to buy this line about living life debt free? I mean, wouldn’t you rather be in debt when you die, than having not done something while you were alive? I just don’t get why more people don’t just say “fuck it” and do whatever they want no matter what the cost. If the game is rigged, then stop playing. Seems logical to me. What am I missing?

 

At Henry’s guitar lesson this afternoon, I saw the chatty, unfortunate mom from last week. She is always attempting to attend guitar class with the teens. She enters like she’s just another pupil. The teacher has learned her tricks and now asks the moms to wait in the lobby before class starts. I don’t know if she’s just a clingy mom or she’s hoping she too can learn the guitar under the guise of being in class for her daughter. Not to be sexist but you never see dads trying to sneak in to class. They seem to have more easily accepted their role as chauffeur. Not friend, not partner, just the driver.

I really prefer the Tuesday class to the Monday one. The Monday class runs concurrent with the little kids ukulele class. I can hear the bearded, overly enthusiastic instructor playing and singing silly songs for them in his cartoony voice perfectly clearly, from the lobby. This group was part of last semester’s recital so I know these little kids don’t actually play the ukulele. They just strum one chord, or stare into space with the instrument in their laps while he belts out “Over the Rainbow” and “Wonderful World” over them. At first I found him, and the class, charming but now it just annoys me. I much prefer the aging, jaded, rock guy teachers. Enthusiasm is so exhausting, even one other people.

I was fiddling for something in my purse today and something yellow rubbed on to my hand and now I’m seeing yellow spots everywhere. I rubbed it off with an alcohol pad from my purse but it still seems to be spreading, leaving urine colored fingerprints in its path. I still don’t know what this mystery substance is as there is nothing yellow in my purse.

It’s been a busy weekend. On Friday night, John and I went to see Jack Johnson at Fiddler’s Green. At dinner before the show, we ran into a good friend’s ex-husband and his current wife. It was a bit of a scandal as he knew the current wife in high school and was married very quickly after the divorce from my friend was final. This was the first time anyone in our group has seen him since the split. I stealthly took a picture of him with my cell phone in the restaurant and sent it to the ladies via text.

At the concert, I waited in line for 45 minutes for a drink, which I paid $14 for. When the show started, everyone in my section stood up, even though we’d all paid extra for reserved seats. Since I’m just a hair over 5 feet tall, I couldn’t see the stage, even on the jumbo tron so I just sat down. I proceeded to watch all the people in front of me whip out their cell phones cameras in order to savor the moment forever, and nine times out of 10, they were just filming the images displayed on the jumbo tron. Other than the fact that I got a super cute t-shirt, I think I would have been better off staying home and listening to all his albums on shuffle. Jack sounded great and his band, especially the keyboard dude, is really talented, but seeing artists in huge venues has lost it’s luster.

Today we went to a BBQ at a friend of my husband’s house. Everyone was making fun of the house next door which had been torn down and re-erected as a Tuscan mansion. “It looks like the Olive Garden”, someone said. It’s so ridiculous that people want to live in new houses that are faux painted to look like crumbling old-world castles. My friend Katie was there and she spotted one of her elementary school students. He had apparently told her that his dad was a famous wrestler who was always on tour, which she believed. We both agreed after seeing the dad that that was a lie.

The new season of Game of Thrones started tonight. It was great as usual and too short, also as usual. My mind was blown by the white walker giants tromping across a frozen field with the rest of the army.