busy people

it's no wonder i can't find any friends. everyone is just too busy. few things irritate me more than hearing the cliche "we are just so busy" as an excuse for why no one does anything fun anymore. i guess with kids' activities scheduled back-to-back seven days a week starting at age three, parents do stay occupied. maybe i am just selfish, but i don't want to cart my kids around town from soccer to ballet to baseball from the time school gets out until bedtime. and i don't think that my child has to try every sport ever invented to be well-rounded. i didn't grow up like that and i don't intend for my children to either. i am secure in this decision. but that is not my problem. my problem is that it seems everyone else has chosen this lifestyle so that when i am loafing around on the beach in the afternoons, i am alone - with my kids. and when i meet another mom that i think i might have something in common with (i.e. someone who enjoys drinking in the afternoons), i find that they are generally unavailable for social engagements because of little henry's soccer practice followed by his basketball game followed by his voice lessons. and so it seems that these people, when you do see them whisking their budding athletes and musicians from school to hit the activity trail, they always say something like "we have just got to get together sometime. we just stay so busy. maybe when baseball season is over..."
do their kids enjoy these activities? my kids have complained about every organized sport or activity they have ever been involved in. in fact, the more expensive the sport (like karate), the more they hate it. so i find that i don't want to take them there, they don't want to be there and i am paying $100 a month for it. so when we moved to the beach last year, i decided i didn't want to do it anymore. after school, they could loaf around on the beach and i could drink beer - everybody wins. or so i thought. sometime after christmas, mac expressed an interest in baseball (albeit the mario-super-slugger-wii kind of baseball) and my husband thought it would be a good idea (and i couldn't seem to find an argument against it) to try baseball. i started researching local leagues and was told that he was "a little old" to be just starting baseball. he's seven. so, here we are, three practices in and we have spent at least $300 and this week, we have practice or games on four out of seven days. i can't imagine that the kids are taking this nearly as seriously as the parents. i am, however, going to reserve all comments on the zealousness of baseball parents for i am pretty sure that will be the subject of an upcoming blog entry.
so it appears that my already-suffering social life will take another hit. or maybe i will make a friend in the baseball stands and we can plan a get-together for when little henry goes off to college. or maybe, like i did in high school, i could sneak some beer into the stands. in any event, i hope that i am too busy to notice that i have become one of the "so busy."