Annoyance | Annie Fox's Blog

Day 10: I don’t want to be here

June 18, 2009

Now that's a safe place to park

My Annoyance Challenge continues. (Huff, puff, grrrrrrr, $#@%! ) David’s getting with the program too. The other day while we were driving, I was grumbling about something. What was it? Hmmm. Ah yes! Well, now that I actually remember, it’s too embarrassing to mention…. too petty and infantile. You say you want to hear it anyway? Allll-riiiiight. Might as well. Otherwise my good standing in Bloggers for Ultimate Truth-Telling (BUTT) might be unseated. (NOTE: This sentence doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but wouldn’t it have made a great image if it had?)

Here’s what happened: We were on our way to meet Ezra and Sarah to check out a possible wedding venue. We were early and had temporarily parked a few miles from the place while David fiddled with his iPhone (yes there’s an iPod app) trying to cue up the book on CD we were listening to. Because it’s got 211 tracks and lost the bookmark where we’d left off in the story we had a problem.

D: “Was this the place?” (narrator reads…)

A: “No, we already heard that part about the decomposed yellow dress.”

D: “How about this? Sound familiar?” (narrator reads…)

A: “Uh… Franks’ ex-wife the manicurist? I don’t think so. No, wait. We did hear this.”

D: “How about this?” (narrator reads…)

A: “I dunno. Whatever! It’s fine.”

D: “No. No. I remember that part with the old guy’s coughing fit.”

A: “So we’ll hear it again!! Who cares, David?! Let’s just get going!!!”

A bit over the top, I’ll admit it… now. Then, I was just, you know, completely unconscious and irrational, like most of us are too much of the time. But my sweet guy didn’t get sucked into my nastiness. He just calmly looked up from his iPhone and said, “You’re annoyed. Why don’t you do whatever you do when you’re annoyed (so you can drop it)?”

His pointing out the obvious actually woke me up. I took a slow deep breath, then let it out slowly. (That diminishes my embarrassment after I’ve made a fool of myself.)

A: “Honey, I don’t feel safe parked here. I want us to drive to the wedding place… now.”

Telling the truth has a way of getting me back on track. Coincidentally, at that same instant David located the right track. With our story cued up, we pulled away from the curb and moved on into the next chapter.

Filed under: Annoyance Challenge,Parenting — Tags: Annoyance — Annie @ 12:12 pm

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Day 5: Send in the clouds

June 12, 2009

A grand night for dancing

If you’ve got a good reason to be annoyed, but honestly you’re not, does it still count?

That’s what I asked myself this afternoon, Day 5 of The Annoyance Challenge, as I sat on the low wall looking out into the school parking lot knowing I might have an hour to kill before David returned to pick me up. Normally at this time I’d be mentoring an 8th grader, but today, she stood me up after calling on Wednesday to let me know that she wasn’t going to make it to our weekly Thursday meeting and then agreeing to reschedule for today. And yet… after David dropped me off to do a Trader Joe’s run (we were out of chocolate) it became clear that my mentee had gone straight home without telling me or the afterschool program director. In her defense, tonight is the 8th grade graduation dance and I’m pretty sure our meeting wasn’t on her mind as she rushed home to get ready.

Of course I called David to update him on my situation, but he wasn’t answering his iPhone. (Can someone please explain what is the point of having a phone that can shoot video and find you the nearest Korean BBQ if you don’t pick it up when your wife is sitting in a parking lot trying to reach you?) I suppose I should have been annoyed by all this, but I wasn’t. Could it be that after only five days of The Annoyance Challenge I was no longer annoy-able? Nah. More likely I was just in a good mood because it was a lovely Friday afternoon in June, I knew David would be back for me in less than an hour and… I love clouds.

Waaay up there were the high wispy ones (AKA mares’ tails). And there and there and there… so many bunched up little pouffy puffs, no wonder they’re called les moutons, ie., French for “sheep.” How cute is that? And to the north, wow! Such strange and wondrously shaped celestial masses you’d swear they’d been air-brushed.

Four hours later across the Bay, David and I walked back to the car after a fine meal at an Indian restaurant and spotted a shard of rainbow in the eastern sky, illuminated by the setting sun. It was a perfect night for a 13 year old to dance her heart out.

Filed under: Annoyance Challenge,Parenting,Teens — Tags: Annoyance, clouds — Annie @ 10:47 pm

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Day 3: Since it’s you, I don’t mind

June 10, 2009

The "lost" wallet

My “gift” from the Universe hasn’t arrived yet. I’m imagining Ms. U in line at the post office. She’s waiting, doing some re-centering breathing, and feeling herself age as she watches the wall clock creep forward faster than the queue. When she finally gets to the counter, she discovers she hasn’t got the correct postage and can’t pay the overage. (What? You thought the Universe carries a purse?) Annoyed, she goes back to her 2 bedroom flat on Cosmos Circle, her contribution to my 30 Day Annoyance Challenge, tucked under her arm.

It’s OK. I’ll wait. In the meantime, the only thing annoying that happened yesterday wasn’t even all that.

Scene: I’ve just ensconced myself on the living room couch, a blanket for my feet (it’s unseasonably cold here in Northern California) and a cup of hot chocolate to fortify myself against the ice storm threatening outside. I’m all set to continue reading Schuyler’s Monster: A Father’s Journey with his Wordless Daughter by Robert Rummel-Hudson.

Pause. You may be thinking: “Laying on the couch reading on a Tuesday afternoon? No offense, but what kind of sloth is this woman??” No offense taken. I’m the self-employed kind. A writer who also does the seasonal work of student assemblies and parent education events… none of which happen after early May. But don’t worry about me, I’ll be back at it in September.

Unpause. I was reading Rob’s book in preparation for my podcast interview with him next Wednesday. (See… legitimate work! Unpaid, yes, but totally valuable.) I’m only sixty seconds into this cozy reading session when the phone rings. And the phone’s way over there, in the kitchen. So, yes, I’m feeling a bit annoyed at the interruption, but we free-lancers don’t let a ringing phone go unattended so I hop up, taking my annoyance and cold feet with me and run into the kitchen. But the kitchen phone’s not in the kitchen. (Did anyone see the phone?) Ringgggg. (David?! Hmph. Must be on his office phone.) Ringgggg. I race into the family room and pick up that phone.

Annie (annoyance under control, professional voice in gear): Hello, this is Annie.

Ezra: Hey, Mom.

Annie (all annoyance instantly disappates replaced by love, joy and curiosity): Hey, Ez. What’s up?

Seems Ezra believes he may have left his wallet in our car after our weekend road trip to LA. Would I please take a look? What a question! Of course, I’ll look! I’m his mom. I live to serve.

So I put on my shoes, search for the garage door key, find it, trot out the front door, close the door, skip down the front steps, open the front gate, close the gate, use the key to activate the garage door, duck under as it yawns, open the back door of the car, see the wallet lying on the empty back seat, grab it, exit car, slam door, push garage door button, duck while it closes, open gate, close gate, trot up steps, open front door, close it, run back into family room, pick up phone. Elapsed time: 45 seconds

Annie: Hey Ez, if you wanted to play a game, you should have done a better job hiding the wallet. It was on the seat. Next to where you were sitting.

Ez: Cool! Thanks Mom!

Annie: You’re welcome, sweetie.

By the time I made it back to the couch, the blanket, the (less than) hot chocolate and the book, I started thinking: If that was a telemarketer I would have been pissed. Even though it would have taken much less time to say “Sorry I’m not interested and could you please take me off of your list and NOT CALL AGAIN!?”

But because it was Ezra, I immediately dropped my annoyance and replaced it with an eagerness to help him.

So, here’s the Annoyance Challenge probing question of the day: When you say “certain things just annoy me” that’s only half the story. It’s not just the occurrences, but who’s doing what. Obviously there are special people in our lives who may get a free pass even when they do something that would otherwise annoy us if someone else did it. Likewise, I’m thinking that there are certain people, that no matter what they do or say (“Hi. How’s it going?” “Nice pants.”) we automatically feel annoyed and might lash out. Seems unfair. Unproductive. So what’s with that? And how can we gain better control over those feelings because the world doesn’t need any more irritated, irrational folks (with or without guns).

Universe: ‘Nuff of them!

Filed under: Annoyance Challenge,Parenting,Teens — Tags: Annoyance, Robert Rummel-Hudson, Schuyler's Monster — Annie @ 3:03 pm

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Day 2: We’re all in the blender

June 9, 2009

Cream of Fresh Pea Soup (2/3 blended)

My sister-in-law Randee sent me an email pointing out the fact that yesterday’s announcement of the Annoyance Challenge needed some editing. From her perspective I was creating a Meet-up for Grouches Anonymous. (Paraphrasing alert!) And that would leave out the 90% of us who are generally happy and don’t jump on the impulse to shout down the person at the next table whose broadcast of David Carradine’s uh… mishap, makes a god-awful pairing with your baigan bharta.

Rereading my post I could see where she was coming from. So I asked her to suggest a revision. She came back with something that described the phenonmenon of “hooking into” the “little annoyances” of life. “It’s like taking another route at a fork in the road. Turn the wheel and it’s behind me. Like magic! Other times I am hooked before I know it and immersed in it.”

Thanks, Rand. That fork-in-the-road metaphor nails it for me. When I’m at the fork and I’m nodding off at the wheel, high probability I’ll go this way — up the onramp to the Why Does This Sh$$% Always Happen To Me? Freeway. But on those rare occasions when I’m awake enough to pay attention to what’s going on I’m much more likely to turn that way, and end up grinning and parked in front of DQ. Sorry, I just returned from a road trip so the driving metaphors are strong in this one.

My objective in doing this 30 Day Annoyance Challenge is to to be more awake at the fork in the road. And if you’re reading this, maybe you’d like more of that in your life, too. The way I see it, any life practice that leads to more frozen treats sounds good to me.

But I’m also a little worried about whether I can actually do this because of that old “Watch what you wish for…” thing. I mean, here I am, wanting to examine, at close hand, the mental processes that get triggered when you’re at the fork and blogging about it every day. And in order to do that, I’ve got to take it from the realm of purely intellectual discussion into the belly of the dyspeptic beast that is Life. I’m picturing the Universe, one of my earliest subscribers, slyly arching her brow, stroking her chin and muttering “So, Annie, you want some real annoyances, you say? Oooookay. I can do that.”

So far, here’s the only thing that happened yesterday that was mildly annoying: I was pureeing the third and final batch of tender garden peas (slightly steamed) with turkey broth (frozen from April and microwaved) for this wonderfully simple yet delicious Cream of Fresh Pea Soup recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest when the blender started oozing hot pea puree all over the base and counter. What to do? What to do? First I panicked. But the ooze could care less, so, in a race with gravity, I went to Plan B… unplug blender, lift the whole thing (base and all) and pour contents back into the pot.

Could have been a major annoyance. Wasn’t.

I’m guessing the Universe is going to kick it up a notch.

See you tomorrow.

Filed under: Annoyance Challenge,Parenting,Teens,Tips — Tags: Annoyance, Annoying — Annie @ 2:34 pm

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