Pertinent to my Interests

Documentary reviews, body neutrality, parenting, Jupiter, piano, cats, European history, ghosts, rodents, the collapse of civilization, and if this goes on long enough I'll probably end up cataloguing my entire smushed penny collection.

  • WKC

    Casey

    I attended the Westminster Kennel Club show once. This was back when I lived in New York City and the show was held on weekdays in February at Madison Square Garden. I took a day off work and spent a lovely series of hours immersed in dog show culture. My favorite part was wandering around the backstage area where all the dogs (and handlers!) were getting groomed for their big moment.

    I have no deep thoughts on this topic other than to say it’s one of those opportunities I’m glad I took advantage of when I lived in NYC.

  • People Who Love Exercise

    Casey

    I really don’t enjoy exercising and I never have. I do it regularly, or at least I try to, because otherwise I feel awful and have no energy. But I have often wondered what is wrong with me that I struggle so much to find motivation to exercise. When does it get easier? All these other people seem to be effortlessly showing up to the gym on Saturday mornings. I can’t even get myself to put on running shoes on a random Tuesday morning when I have nothing else to do.

    You know what I do enjoy? A tidy house. Keeping the house tidy comes naturally to me and I don’t have to make myself an extensive schedule or hire someone to help me learn to organize. I might sigh and complain while I do it, but unless I am horribly sick the house is going to be neat and tidy before I go to bed every night. And it doesn’t take hours to summon up the willpower to make it happen. Like magic, the motivation is always there.

    It finally occurred to me the other day: my compulsion to tidy must be similar to what other people experience around exercise. They aren’t signing up for the 10K because they need a reason to get on the treadmill every week, they’re signing up for that 10K because they actually want to run a 10K.

    This basic realization has changed my attitude toward exercise. I will always dislike exercise, that’s just how I am. I will always need to make myself goals and have friends who hold me accountable. It will always be a battle to get my running shoes on. But it’s not a moral failure to dislike exercise, just like it’s not a moral failure to have a messy house.

    Motivation comes in all different flavors.

  • Partial List of Thoughts at 4:45 AM

    Casey

    1. I have to remember to turn notifications on for my stupid cooking app.
    2. Am I showing the kids enough love?*
    3. Ugh what if we can’t get the water turned back on at the cabin this weekend?
    4. I forgot to switch out the toothbrushes after my youngest got diagnosed with strep.
    5. What if it’s a mistake to force the kids to do piano?
    6. It makes me weirdly nervous that I only have one living ancestor now.
    7. I need to pay more attention to my friends.
    8. I need to pay more attention to my husband.
    9. I need to serve more veggies.
    10. I need to serve less sugar.

    *Note that the question is not do I love my kids enough but rather am I showing them enough love. I am not at all effusive and never have been so it’s an ongoing project for me to intentionally demonstrate my love to my children.

  • Home Alone

    Casey

    My kids are old enough to be left home alone now for very short periods of time. It’s a game changer, and the biggest parenting level up I have experienced since the day the youngest went to Kindergarten.

    Driving to the paint store without grumpy kids in tow this weekend brought back memories of my own childhood spent at home without supervision.

    At some point in her long struggle to find childcare my mother decided that my sister (19 months younger than me) and I were old enough to be home alone all summer while she worked. My brother (5 years younger than me) was consigned to several more years of sad summer daycare situations.

    Those summers spent home alone with my sister are some of the best summers in my memory. We were too young to get jobs, we weren’t responsible for our brother. I think we had some chores to complete, and we had to move sprinklers around for my mom all day but that was it.

    Here are my main memories from those summers:
    1. Doing cartwheels in the living room and listening to Jewel’s Pieces of You album over and over and over.
    2. Watching The Sound of Music every day.
    3. Watching My Best Friend’s Wedding every day (this was the summer after the The Sound of Music summer).
    4. Accepting the religious pamphlets proffered by the Witnesses who came to the door one day, and then spending the next several hours meticulously altering the pamphlets into “The Monkey Bible.”

    Other kids–perhaps the types of kids who enjoy leaving the house and doing things–probably wouldn’t retain such fond memories of a boring summer spent at home with their mother’s CD collection and no video game console in sight. But I still think back very fondly on those summers.

    I hope my own kids enjoy their freedom from supervision as much as I did. I am certainly enjoying not supervising them!

  • That Disney Adult post that you all knew was coming.

    Casey

    I’ve been trying to think of a clever way to present this new information to you all, but I guess I’ll just come out and say it.

    I love Walt Disney World.

    We went during spring break this year. It was too crowded. It was too hot. The wait times were too long. And I still had the most fantastic vacation of my life.

    Magic Kingdom: fucking magical. Hollywood Studios: so fun. EPCOT: ehhhhh…. I maybe don’t quite get this one but it was still a great day. Animal Kingdom: amazing.

    I did not go into this experience primed to become a Disney Adult. I hate traveling. I hate warm places. I hate crowds. I really hate amusement parks and amusement park rides.

    But I love a good story, and that is where Disney excels. Every corner of Magic Kingdom hints at a new fantastic story. Every ride in Hollywood Studios is telling you a story. Animal Kingdom drops you right into the middle of a semi-real story about the world.* EPCOT… ummm… EPCOT teaches you about how to grow lettuce and… also you can go on a Finding Nemo ride? Like I said, still not quite getting the hang of EPCOT here…

    And Disney World is a complete removal from reality. I didn’t have to worry about finding transportation or food, a language barrier, or keeping the kids entertained. Disney World gives you everything you need right when you need it. It is actually the perfect vacation. And I will be returning as soon as I reasonably can.

    *In the Africa section of Animal Kingdom they had what appeared to be a real red mailbox with George VI’s royal cypher on it. I was amazed by this detail! Later, in Asia, I found prayer wheels to turn, something I did not think I would experience in this lifetime.

  • Margaret

    Casey

    I bring my kids to swim lessons on Monday afternoons. The swim school is great but overwhelming: too many harried parents and chaotic, wet children.

    There’s a toddler and father pair who are always there at the same time as us. The little girl must be around two years old and her name is Margaret. “Come on, Margaret!” her father repeats over and over as he tries to get her showered, get her dry, get her changed into clothes. “This way, Margaret! Over here!” She toddles along slowly behind him examining the other children, their shoes, the tile on the wall, the fuzz on her sock. “Come on, let’s go, Margaret!”

    My grandma was Margaret. She was ninety years old when she died in February and I only ever knew her as an old person. But time seems to fold when I hear “Over here, Margaret!” It’s my great aunts’ and great uncles’ voices calling to a young Margaret, the last of eleven children, in the yard of the old house on the farm. She probably ignored their commands too, or at least took her time in responding. I would only know her much later as a purveyor of fudge and apple sauce, a hilarious, happy woman who never worried, never hesitated to yell at her children and grandchildren, loved to travel, and always had ice cream in her freezer. But she too once toddled through life with the same brand-new curiosity of this little Margaret.

    It’s a strange thing but when I drive away from that swim school on Monday afternoons, I feel just a little bit closer to my grandma. Especially when I have to yell at my own freshly-showered children who are punching each other in the backseat of the car.

  • Spring Cleaning

    Casey

    I’m doing some spring cleaning around the house. This is the first time I’ve ever done an intentional deep clean in the spring, and I am largely motivated by our time spent at a Disney World resort last week. This place is a real dump compared to Saratoga Springs!

    It’s amazing how much time this takes. Yesterday was bathroom day. I was a young woman listening to the first song (Anti-Hero) on the Taylor Swift Essentials playlist when I started. By the time I finished I was nearing the end of the playlist (…Ready for It?) as an old woman. And I only have two bathrooms!

    I am also appalled at how much crap we have managed to squeeze into this little house. It’s tempting to blame the kids (I threw away an awful lot of plastic junk toys this morning), but I can’t quite figure out a way to blame them for the six bottles of expired calamine lotion I discovered in the basement bathroom yesterday.

  • Happy Little Hops

    Casey

    My kids are eight and ten years old. They both have this strange habit of adding in happy little hops as they walk. Four steps, hop, five steps, skip, three steps, hop.

    It’s very cute, and I know it won’t last. I would like to remember this.

  • Hot Topic

    Casey

    One day you’re twenty-two years old and walking out of Hot Topic for what must be the last time.

    And all of a sudden, you’re forty and walking back in to buy a Demon Slayer shirt for your anime-obsessed kid.

  • Documentary Review/ The Pez Outlaw

    Casey

    High on entertainment value but largely lacking in depth, I enjoyed this quick peek into the life of Steve Glew, the “Pez Outlaw.”

    Steve Glew spent many unhappy years working as a machinist in Michigan before he began importing European Pez dispensers to sell to US collectors in the 1990s. His rise to Pez infamy is of course followed by a fall from grace, but Steve is eventually reborn as a minor Pez celebrity.

    I enjoyed Steve Glew’s frankness about how much he hated his pre-Pez job as a machinist. He repeatedly stated how depressed he was to have to go to work every day, and how he felt like he was in a prison. The transformative power of money is made clear when the Pez profits started rolling in and Steve and his wife, Kathy, get to quit their jobs and start doing what they love instead. For Steve that meant buying and selling Pez full-time, for Kathy it meant getting certified as a horseback riding therapist. They were able to build a new house on their property and pay for their daughter to go to college. Money allows us to be the best versions of ourselves.

    I also appreciate Steve and Kathy’s honesty about Steve’s struggle with depression and OCD over the years, and his eventual diagnosis with bipolar disorder. There is no shame in their voices when they talk of it; it is a simple fact, just like Kathy’s Parkinson’s diagnosis.

    The Pez Outlaw is enjoyable and well done. The reenactments–which I normally hate–were irreverent and often made me laugh. Steve Glew is a multidimensional hero surrounded by engaging supporting characters and a likable wife. This is not a life-changing documentary, but it was a solid ninety minutes of entertainment.

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