The Verve Of Margaret Thatcher

Okay, I do drive a British car and she does wear the Union Jack on her side view mirrors.  She is a tiny little sprite of a car that can escalate the freeway entrance at a very high rate of speed.  I am in love with my car.  However, it is a fact that I was raised in the era when the Irish Republican Army was at war with England, killing people with bombs that rocked Britain for some time.  Scary times.  Fearless Celts.  My kin.

Having lived in a household with a Celtic, alcoholic mother whose favorite saying was something like, "I am sending bullets to the IRA," going to see The Iron Lady with Meryl Streep yesterday was as much about an unceasing admiration of everything Ms. Streep does and the times I lived through historically.  Having a Celtic ancestry means you feel the domination of the British empire in your flesh.  Your hackles get raised by the inference and arrogance of the Brits because "your people" survived as poor serfs under their cruel power.  Ancestry is funny like that.  I wonder if there is gene for it.

We celebrated our anniversary by trekking to Fairfax in Marin County to chase another stupendous vegetarian/vegan lunch.  We went to sit in a very sunny window table at Cafe Lotus which serves gluten free/vegan Indian food.  The aroma in the small restaurant hit me like a lunch time truck and I was ready to order everything on the menu.

After consuming vegan Samosas, Bengan Bharta and garlic vegan Nan with brown rice, we were pretty darn happy.  We walked the small town of Fairfax and came upon The Scoop-organic, homemade ice cream, and I ordered a "real double" which was a very large two scoop extravaganza.  In fact, it took me quite some time to finish it and I was finally full. 

We eventually made our way to The Fairfax Theatre in town to watch The Iron Lady.  From beginning to end, I was moved, maddened, sorrowful, delighted and swept up by Meryl Streep's performance.  Ms. Streep is Margaret Thatcher and it left me thinking about my own path in life right now.  I have often felt that I wanted to do something that mattered, on a smaller scale, much smaller and I try.  I do try very hard to do just that.

There are parallels for me.  Friday I nearly quit my job because Mr. Big I and II went to clean up the irrigation shed because it was raining.  I was left raking in the rain and now soaking wet, and slowly but surely became incensed.  I made a decision to go find an indoor project myself but by then I was furious with my bloody sword drawn so to speak. My Celtic background fuels my sense of outrage at these kinds of things with a kind of bloodthirsty ire that almost seems I can hear the pipes coming up behind me.

This is the kind of outright sexist crap that I deal with every day.  Mr. Big II never gets that he is doing something unfair.  It almost seems that both of my co-workers cannot fathom what it is like to endure discrimination even though they are both from another culture, another male dominated world.  In fact, singling out their hard working, female counterpart for outright derision and isolation seems normal.  They don't even get it.  I find it exhausting. 

I write all this because in The Iron Lady, Thatcher's story as a woman entering the very kind of world in which I work is depicted in a way that allows us to feel the unfairness as well as her unrelenting force of personal strength and fortitude.  I have that also.  Most women have this kind of courage because we usually have to fight our way to the surface.  It is called male priviledge but that is really cleaning it up quite a bit. It is business as usual and we don't let it break us.  On the contrary.

In fact I have an interview for another job tomorrow and the pipers will be playing behind me as I enter the building to show my face to be one of reliability, strength and unrelenting character.  I am a great employee and co-worker and I refuse to continue to be left raking in the rain. 

They shall "rue the day" as Maggie would say.