Bleak: Now there’s a word for you.

I love the word bleak. I like how it rolls off my tongue. How it feels in the mouth. The wretchedness it evokes. A very vivid word, bleak. I feel as though it gets used just enough about town to still feel special and evocative. There’s a newness, no, a freshness about words that don’t get thrown around willy-nilly all the time. As though it still has that “new car smell” to it. Or the cellophane still on it. I like that. Bleak. Just love it. What a word!

Not bleak.

So, here we are. Wednesday. Hump-day. Middle of the week, day. Again. Seems as though we were just here. I wonder what day is most peoples point of reference. Do you look at your week from Sunday to Saturday, or Monday to Sunday? Friday to whenever the hell you like? I don’t know. I guess it would depend on a whole host of factors. Do you work alternating shifts? Nights, weekends, evenings, or a 9 to 5? All of those could alter what day of the week you use as a reference point. Lots of people have those Sunday night blues about going back to work on Monday. So are you always refocused on your life come Sunday, or is it the awful trek to work on Monday that orients your week? Are you working for the weekend to get blotto on Friday through Sunday afternoon, just to make it to next Friday at 5pm? Lots to unpack here. I have a fairly introspective hobby, with this blog, so I constantly evaluate my week, and each day within it. Domestic Duties Monday slash bleed into Tuesday, is a common refrain here. Same with Hump-day, thinking Thursday was Friday, Thank god it’s Friday, and then the rush to go do as much of nothing as we can for the weekend. Which is a conundrum. Do too little and it feels wasted. Do too much and it feels draining as you head back into the work week, with all of the evenings responsibilities. It’s a whole thing. Finding the right balance of something fun, but not overwhelming, and a whole bunch of nothing to book end it, to make the weekend seem restful. A balancing act for certain.

Also… ugh. I hate to say this, as my kids are a handful, and we try desperately to rein them in when out and about. But exert some semblance of control over your shitty kids please. How often do we have to see and hear them all run amok at every god damn second of the evening when out at township programming. Take your unruly kids elsewhere. Take them for a walk. Go look at cool rocks outside. Show some parenting and calm them down. Get your face out of your fucking phones and be a parent for a second. Jesus christ. Look I get it. Watching 7, 8, 9 year olds fumble their way through patterns is less than appealing to most, but why make it worse with your little shit heads screaming, and shouting, and running about on the side lines making things worse. The kids can’t hear their instructors, who then need to shout, and then the meek kids check out because of the angry tone, and then other kids start to chatter, and it becomes this cascading failure. I’m not asking people to beat their children. But rein that shit in. If you know they’re hyper, go DO something with them, instead of hoping that THIS time they’ll sit still and be quiet. Act accordingly. They are your children. You should know if they can or can’t sit and watch others do stuff for an hour without needing a break, or skipping it entirely to run around in the park for that hour like a maniac. Be their fucking parent. Not their buddy. You have to make hard choices. Know their limits. Work within them. Jesus. It isn’t rocket science. I’m not asking for perfection here, god knows we aren’t able to attain it ourselves. I’m not asking for you to physically restrain your child(ren), but to *NOTICE* how out of tune they are with the surrounding environment, and act on it, within reason. You can wander the hall with your child, go look at the display cases, talk to them outside the training area, play tag with them elsewhere. Just don’t have them act like shitty kids infront of thirty others who paid to be there, and are actively trying to learn what is being taught. I’m sure your little ones would love it if others chose to run a jack hammer outside their classroom as they are trying to learn a skill they are fond of. Treat others with the respect you would like to receive yourself. Again, I’m not asking for a muzzle, or straight jacket, or wee automatons that are seen but not heard, this isn’t the 80’s. No hitting, no screaming, no anger. Just ACT. Do something about it. Remove the child if they are over stimulated, if that is something they respond positively to, so that they can calm down and come back. Not asking for them to be hidden away. But perhaps 30 seconds to run the hall or play a game might bring them back down to a calmer level. Just don’t sit there, face in your phone letting them disrupt every body else because it’s too much like hard work to parent for a bit after you sat down, or zoned out. Yeah, it’s tough, and thankless. I get it. I don’t like having to miss out because my child chose that moment to go apeshit. But you do it. Calmly. And with love and affection. Eventually they’ll figure out self regulation and can do it in a calming peaceful nurturing fashion. But you gotta be willing to lead them in that learning. It’s not a punishment. It’s a loving, and positive correction of behaviour. But man oh man, do I hate it when parents abdicate that responsibility. Grinds on my nerves.

Looks like the snow is here. Gotta be Thursday tomorrow if the snow storm is here today. 2022/2023 the years of the Thursday snowmageddon. The mid week snow shovel break that nobody asked for. Glorious. And on that note, I will bid you adieu. Ciao Bella!