There’s a Robin Sitting Outside My Window

There’s a Robin Sitting Outside My Window

Yes, there is. Oops…he’s gone. But that’s how robins are, I guess. My desk overlooks the giant trees in our back yard. It’s full of birds and squirrels and bunnies. They are all fat and happy and living in their own kind of heaven. I like that. And, I like January in Texas. We’ve had just about enough cold weather. It lasted for seven or eight days. Everyone has been grouchy because it’s just too damn cold. We even had to cover the azaleas.

There will probably be another week or so of that mess next month, but everything should start blooming by the end of February, which is just about right. I’ve discovered I do not have the attention span for a prolonged winter.

As with so many things, it is the tedium that gets to me. That’s always been the case. Routine bores me. I have virtually no interest in repetition which means I simply am locked out many, many enterprises.

It also explains a great deal about how my children have turned out. I am impatiently waiting for my first grandchild and it has made me start to think about what kind of mother I was. And I’ve been paying more attention to the mothers I see around me.

Yikes. I feel so sorry for their little kids. Yesterday I was leaving the gym and this hateful bitch with a son about 5 and a girl about 3 was marching through the parking lot to the Dollar General. The little girl was walking by herself about 30 feet behind her mom and brother, crying. The loving mother turned and told her to shut her mouth and get moving, not even breaking her stride.

Bad as that was, I was even more shocked by a horrible mother walking with her child through the grocery. The kid asked some kind of innocent question and mom sing-songed “I don’t know…” and walked away from the kid with a smirk on her face.

Who are these people? Why did they have children? Once you get sensitized to it, horrible parents are everywhere. Like crabgrass in the lawn or dog turds in the park…you cannot seem to avoid them.

Is this merely an example of the scientific principle “you get more of what you count” or is this an increasing trend? I hope it’s the former and not the latter.

How did your parents treat you? Most of my childhood memories are very good. I do remember some less than perfect moments…both from me and from my parents. But nothing like this casual rudeness and simple, hateful bitchiness that I’m seeing now.

It is something to worry about. But it’s much more interesting to observe.