The Dishbreak Bop

The kids are adjusting ok to all the changes lately. When I say ok what I mean is that they haven't started listening to Rage Against the Machine and smoking dope, which is exactly what I've been tempted to do lately but have not. Their dad and I split up in August, and I think they're doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. There are lots of difficult questions to be answered and intense emotions, but then there is also the usual ridiculousness. This morning I made pancakes from scratch and Claire complained that, though they were tasty, they were too fluffy.

"So what you're saying is," I said, for clarity's sake, "they taste good, but the texture is too light and heavenly?"
"YES!" she screamed, pushing away the plate.
Here is a child, I thought, who would find something to complain about if we won the lottery.
"Well," she'd say, skeptically eyeing the pile of cash. "A hundred million is nice but won't this bump us up to the next tax bracket? Were you thinking about that at all before you wantonly bought that ticket?"

So how am I doing? I'm ok.

Our dishwasher is broken so I've been washing all the dishes by hand lately - and also not washing them at all and letting them pile up, which works for me too. I HATE doing the dishes. Doing the dishes for me is Claire's nightmare equivalent of a stack of fluffy pancakes. So the way I've been muscling through it lately is by playing videos on youtube and dancing while I wash. This is a process that takes longer, exspecially if I'm listening to ska and I have to stop washing for a second to hop in place, but the end result is good. Me and the kids have clean dishes and I'm in a good, peppy mood, despite dish pan hands. How could I not be when accompanied by lyrics like this:
dancin am dancin to the restafarian up--beat,
hangin with ma rude ska brothers in the--street,
our brother oer here say turn up the box-a,
dancin'n'dancin, rock us all the day long!

Can I sing it? No! In fact, I didn't know what the words were until I googled them just now. I only knew that the name of the song is "Skankin to the Beat" and that was enough for me.

And when I'm feeling really angry about having to do the dishes (when the kids aren't home) I'll play Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name." Why is it that's there's something healing about screaming "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" whilst scrubbing a plate of caked-on ketchup? I can't tell you friends. But it works. And if I'm feeling real fiesty I'll play White Zombies "Thunder Kiss '65." I'll try to dance like the girls in the video, all hippy-shaky and sexy, but I'll end up stumbling around like Rob Zombie instead.

When the kids are home, though, the selection changes. It'll be "Rio" by Duran Duran, or "Dancin With Myself" by Billy Idol because sometimes if I play stuff like that the kids will dance with me. Especially is I play "Cool For Cats."

As you can imagine, there have been some dish casualties as a result of this. Cups and plates have broken, sure, but I look at it this way...um, there are now less dishes to do. Yes, that is how I have chosen to perceive it. You could say that my dishwashing process has a Darwinian touch. The strong survive. The weak can't handle hearing Metallica's "Seek and Destroy" one more time, and toss themselves over the sink onto the floor. I'm not just doing the dishes. I'm thinning the herd.

God, I can't wait to get my dishwasher fixed.