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January 31, 2007

I Do Four Things These Days

1. I bitch about things like lack of dinner and back pain.
2. I obsess about house-related stuff.
3. I have magic teeth.
4. I knit.

That's pretty much the extent of my days of late. Which is fine. Well, I could do without the dinner issues and back pain.

Updates:

1. I had lovely Chinese food last night, at long last. Night before, we finally had the wine/cheese/fruit/salamifest. Unfortunately, wine + brain drugs wasn't a good idea. I think I'm the first person to have have a wine-induced panic attack. Of course, I'm also one of the few people who gets wired on Nyquil, so this shouldn't surprise me. My back, however, is fine and healthy.

2. Yesterday I packed seven huge boxes of stuff to move, four boxes of stuff to donate, and threw away four or five medium-sized garbage bags of trash while prepping the house for showing.

3. For the past two days, every single time I've stuck a toothbrush in my mouth, the phone has rung. If I had fillings, I'd think there was something electromagnetic going on. But seeing as how I've never had any metal in my mouth - no fillings, braces, etc. - I can only assume that my teeth have magic powers to make me popular.

4. Yes, I'm going to talk about knitting. You'll live. I promise. Unlike the poor guy who had the misfortune of sitting behind our knitting group last week who, while minding his own business, had a table thrown at him by someone in our group.

I'm still on the sock kick, despite a major roadbump last week. I got several inches into this sock when I realized I'd made a dumb mistake, probably because I was distracted by all the furniture flying around Starbucks that night. I tore and fixed, made another mistake, tore some more, and really fucked things up. So, being practical, I completely ripped out the whole sock, then went to the yarn shop and bought enough sock yarn to make two pairs, despite having failed yet again at sock-knitting.

Here's what I've got of the first sock. It's a gift for someone who reads this blog. Who knows - this could be your embryotic sock, you lucky devil!
Sock, take two

Speaking of gifts, I can only give you a peak at the super-secret project I've been working on for months. It'll be awhile before it makes it to its permanent home. Until then, this is all I can show you:
Super-secret knitting project

I've got a bit of an unusual project going on, and I need all the advice I can get. My coffeehouse pal Heather scored a darling hand-knit baby sweater from a thrift store. How cute is this, what with the cable-knit hoot owls?
Save the owls!
Problem is, the knitter did the neck way, way too small and Heather can't fit it over her daughter's head. And it's not even like her daughter's like Clara Jane was, with a melon that was literally off the growth chart. No, the neck won't fit over a normal-sized baby head. We're trying to find a way to snip the ribbed stitch of the neckline and expand it. Kat came up with some great ideas involving bias tape and elastic. Now, I just need the nerve to start snipping and biasing.

After the first sock debaucle, I decided to take a break from sock-knitting and finally do something with the pretty yarn Angela gave me for my birthday. If I learned one thing from the sock-knitting, it's that I rule the universe when it comes to dropping stitches, so what better than a project that relies on dropped stitches?
Drop-stitch scarf close-up

It's a scarf, and it makes me feel pretty in a smirky, dropped-stitch sort of way.

Posted by Robin at 12:05 PM | Comments (13)

January 29, 2007

Discombobulation

What a weird few days it's been. And yet, not really that weird at all.

Clara Jane's visiting my parents. She told them, "I love to visit Mimi and Grandpa ... but I also love to visit Mommy and Daddy."

We sent her to visit because 1)we were tired of listening to my parents beg, 2)we've got tons of house stuff to do before we start showing on Wednesday, and 3)my mom has a photographer friend who takes beautiful photos of my kid, and it's time for her three-year shots. (You can see six-week-old Clara Jane if you go to the "Maternity & Infants" gallery and click on the 15th thumbnail. She's also in the "Collections" section. The next-to-last thumbnail is a collage of her two-year photos.)

How productive have we been?

Friday After dropping the kiddo with my parents, but before making the drive home, I was striken. By what, I'm not sure. I felt similar to the way I felt six years ago when I had an ovarian cyst blow the hell up for no good reason. Well, not quite that bad, but I felt icky in a punched in the kidneys fashion.

I sent B. out for Chinese carry-out, as that was the only thing that sounded even a little appealing. Particularly, cashew chicken was the only food I could possibly consume that wouldn't cause my ovaries and kidneys to burst into flames.

He came home with hunan chicken. I'm still considering divorce in retaliation for this obvious attempt on my life.

Saturday We spent three hours in Prettytown, viewing houses with our real estate agent. We found two more winners, and learned that the agency's had quite a few requests to view our house. I have a good feeling about all of this.

After our appointment, we finally investigated Prettytown's wine and cheese shop. Oh, I can't move fast enough! It's two doors down from the coffeehouse. That's right - wine, cheese and coffee in the same plaza. If we don't find the perfect house, I just might live in a tent in their parking lot.

Before parenthood, our favorite dinner used to be several kinds of cheese and salami, good bread, olives, fruit, and a really great bottle of wine. I can't remember the last time we did that. It's not exactly toddler-friendly, although our toddler enjoys everything on that menu. Well, except the wine, but she digs sparkling grape juice. Anyway, we got three cheddars, bread, and a delightful, robust bottle of Meeker Mendocino County Zinfandel for dinner.

We got home, and B. went to work on the bathroom while I puttered around, made some jelly for my pal Stormy, and waited. And waited. And waited.

Long story short, it was 9:00, too late for me to drink wine without it reacting with the brain drugs. For the second night in a row, I scrounged the fridge for leftovers in a huff.

Sunday I can tell we're in house mode, because the idea of going to Home Depot or Lowe's doesn't fill me with anger and fear. I hate those places so much that I have adverse physical reactions every time I walk in the door. The only time I've enjoyed those places was when we were buying our current house. In fact, we were walking in the door of Home Quarters eight years ago this month when we got the call from our real estate agent, informing us that the offer we'd made on our house was accepted.

We went to Lowe's on Sunday, and I went so far as to pick paint colors for our new bedroom. Nevermind that I have no idea in which house this bedroom might be located, but damn if I don't know exactly what shade of green (Aloe Essence), white (Sea Salt), pink (Spring Romance) and purple (Dusty Plum) that room is going to be.

You know what's funny? Watching a long train of chained-together gas grills making a little road trip down the hill of the Lowe's parking lot. Granted, it wouldn't have been funny if someone had gotten injured. It also wouldn't have been funny if the grills had hit my car; no, that would have been cool, because we probably would have gotten a free grill. Note to Lowe's staff: when your store sits on top of a hill, lock the wheel on the ol' grill train.

But yes. We went to Lowe's, and I did not burst into flames.

Upon returning home we took a little nap while waiting for the cheese to come to room temperature. B. woke up before me and started painting the bathroom. I even joined him. But then I noticed the state of the kitchen, where everything from the bathroom had been dumped. It was past 7:00, again too late for wine for me.

Yes, I know there are so, so, so many people in the world who go without adequate food. You know I love America's Second Harvest and Operation Food Search and I think we should all give them lots and lots of money and help. But goddamn it, I was not happy to find myself dinnerless three nights in a row, especially with something as indulgent at imported cheese and California Zinfandel just sitting there! Waiting! Begging me to eat them!

At 8:30, I sent B. to our friendly neighborhood Indian vegetarian location for paneer tikka masala (because if I'm finally going to get a decent dinner, it's going to consist of my current favorite food), veggie korma, rice pudding, and samosas.

Today I'm not even going to talk about the return of the death backache from Thursday, because I've done nothing but bitch through this entire post. I popped some Alieve, looked at my disaster area of a house, and said fuck it. I'm going to the coffeehouse as planned, where I'm going to drink coffee, knit my sock, and gab with my newest pal, Heather.

Amazingly, after doing that, my back no longer hurts. My house may not be ready, but I feel better. That's worth something.

Oh, and in the meantime, Clara Jane's gone country.

What happens when Clara Jane goes to the farm

Posted by Robin at 08:27 AM | Comments (8)

January 26, 2007

Friday Shuffle - The Murphy Needs to Move Edition

We are officially in full-blown real estate mode. I dropped Clara Jane with my parents today, where she'll remain until Wednesday while we blow through our house, getting it spiffied up for the hoards of interested buyers who'll start tramping through it on Wednesday. Tomorrow, we're headed to Prettytown (A thinly-veiled pseudonym? Perhaps. I mainly use it because it does provide a smidge of anonymity to the 90% of my readers who reside outside the St. Louis area, and to give it an illusion of sarcastic dreaminess.) to view more houses. While I haven't given up on that house I love, we're being realistic. Despite being approved for way more than enough mortgage to pay for that house, it's not quite enough to buy a house that's not actually for sale anymore.

So, the agenda during Clara Jane's absence looks like this:
1. Clean
2. Pack
3. Clean under the stuff that's been packed.
4. Paint the bathroom to give the illusion of structural integrity.
5. Sleep.
6. Eat Chinese food out of the carry-out box while sitting on the couch with my spouse, possibly while watching "Beavis & Butthead" DVDs. I'm not sure how this is crucial to moving, but it is. Trust me.
7. Finishing four major mostly-finished craft projects and getting them sent to their respective new owners before the items accidentally get packed in a pre-move, Cornholio-style frenzy.
8. Bury St. Joe already.
9. Tranquilize Murphy.

You remember what happened to my stupid little dog Murphy a few weeks ago, when she suddenly became terrified of her best friend, and just as suddenly got over it? Yeah, well, she has an all new neighbor-dog-related traumatic experience to overcome, and I'm not sure she can do it as long as we're residing in this house.

You might also recall the unholy union between one neighbor's miniature weiner dog and another neighbor's beagle-sheltie two months ago. Well, the products of that union - four long little miniature daucsheltles - were born a week ago today. One of them was born under my back steps, which I think officially makes us rednecks despite the many years of higher education B. and I have completed.

Yesterday morning, I caught the new mother running down our street. I understand. There were plenty of times during my first weeks of motherhood when I wished to run away from home, too. Had I been cleared to drive and not eaten up with staph infection, I probably would have. I ran her back home before she lactated all over my for sale sign and lowered my property value even more than she already has.

This morning, I threw my dogs outside while getting Clara Jane ready for her visit. The phone rang, and I was greeted with the always-lovely sound of my neighbor's phone greeting. Every time she calls, she always sounds surprised to find another person on the other end of the phone. "helLOOOOOOOOOO?" she bellows. It's delightful. Really. Especially first thing in the morning.

"I just wanted to tell you that my dog got ahold of Murphy. I don't know if she's hurt or not. She sounded like she was hurt bad," my neighbor told me after her shock at being on the telephone abated.

As for Murphy sounding like she's injured, she always sounds like she's suffering greatly. This is what she sounds like when she's content, relaxing in the red chair and stinking it up in a manner that reduces our property value by $10 every time she relaxes in it. I can only imagine what it sounded like this morning, when she walked over our felled fence (must add that to the list of things to fix this weekend), went to the neighbors' back porch, and was brutally attacked by a postpartem minature dachshund.

That's right. My 40-pound ill-bred hound was taken down by 10 pounds of lactating weiner dog. From what my neighbor described, the weiner dog went for Murphy's ears and it all went downhill from there.

Murphy's fine, physically. Mentally, not so much. Not that she woke up in good mental shape this morning, but having her ass kicked by a recently pregnant dog 1/4 of her size has left her shamed, which just makes the houndstink in my house that much worse. It's time to move. Murphy can't handle anymore shaming. Or shuffling.

1. Spiders (Kidsmoke) - Wilco
2. Guided by Wire - Neko Case & Her Boyfriends
3. Broken Ship - Immaculate Machine
4. Somebody to Love - Queen
5. Slow Jamz - Kanye West
6. Summer Teeth - Wilco
7. Twist the Knife - Neko Case & Her Boyfriends
8. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Otis Redding
9. Oh What a World - Rufus Wainwright
10. One Note Song - Tenacious D

Posted by Robin at 05:51 PM | Comments (4)

January 24, 2007

Mistakey Doits

Clara Jane and I spent yet another day at Hartford, because it's January and what the hell is there to do? Well, we went to the library, too. Not the branch where they're wicked to me. So, we can hang out at home, go to the library, or hang out at the coffeehouse. We both prefer the latter two options.

Just this morning, before we left, I was telling my mom how Clara Jane's making progress in the potty training. "I can't remember the last time she pooped in public," I told her. Instead, exactly fifteen minutes after we get home, she poops.

Yeah, I know. I'm walking into perilous mommmy-blog territory. Bear with me. There's a digression from poop.

Nearly-three is a weird age. She's making the transition from playing in the presence of other kids to actively trying to engage with them. She swings wildly between her father's bone-crushing shyness and her mother's overpowering gregariousness. I've caught myself worrying about this, even though it's not something I want to worry about. I never, ever want to pressure her in this area. I just want her to be comfortable with who she is. And yet, I can't tell you how relieved I was a few weeks ago when she started talking about one of the girls in her daycare class. "I play with L. She talks to me. L. is my friend!"

L.'s mom shared my relief, as I learned in the parking lot after we dropped off our girls a few weeks ago. She'd been equally nervous that L. wasn't engaging with the other kids. Turns out, our kids already have active social lives we know absolutely nothing about. Yeah, we're off to a great start. I bet we'll be surprised with they knock over their first liquor store in 13 years.

Anyway, poop.

Today, at the coffeehouse, Clara Jane hooked up with another little girl. We've seen her before, but the girls never paid much attention to each other. Today, though, they hit it off in a big way. Much noise, and much shared little girl giggling. I didn't get involved, and neither did the other girl's father. He seems to dump her into the play area and go about his business without paying her much mind. The girls simply took it upon themselves to engage, and it was a lovely thing to watch, as a mom, this first venture into society without my direct guidance.

When both girls ran past, I caught a wiff of two seperate varieties of poop. As my mom told me later, "You know how women who are around each other get their cycles synched? Well..." Apparently with three-years-old, their poop schedules do the same.

Since she never poops in public, of course I didn't have a diaper/Pull-Up/pair of training pants with me. I figured I'd take her to the bathroom, dump the contents of the diaper, clean her up and we'd make do.

My lord. Did Clara Jane's new friend pour a quart of chocolate pudding into my kid's diaper when I wasn't looking? What the hell just happened in your pants, Child?

Next time we go to the coffeehouse - assuming they let us back in - I'm leaving a ten-dollar bill in the tip jar to compensate for the nightmare we left in the diaper pail.

Not only has Clara Jane ventured into the world of making her own social life, she's also ventured into the world of going commando. The entire diaper, not just the contents, were left behind, and Clara Jane learned the free and breezy feeling of the cool January breeze blowing through her chinos.

I'm going to carry diapers until she and L. and her new friend J. wind up in poopy juvie together.

Posted by Robin at 08:52 PM | Comments (4)

January 22, 2007

Write This Ad! Sell This House!

Today, Clara Jane and I were on our way to our now-usual Monday outing at Hartford (three weeks in a row constitutes usual, in case you didn't know), when I got a call from our real estate agent. We're on the verge of having our house ready to show, and he's preparing the web site and flyers. Apparently, they like it when the "woman who lives in the house" writes a description of the house, as we gals tend to be more accurate, yet flattering.

Writing? Sure! People used to give me money to do that!

We went to Hartford. She played. I drank three gallons of coffee and visited with a delightful mom while I practiced my awesome new sock-knitting skills, confindent that I would have no problems composing a description of my house.

Heh. Right. I have been unable to come up with a description of the house I've lived in for nearly eight years.

It has ... uh ... walls? And floor, I think.

Doors! It has a bunch of doors that open and close! Well, mostly. I've never actually opened that one in the back of the basement, but I've heard rumor that it opens.

Somehow, I don't think such witty prose is going to sell my house. Since I was also bitching about not having anything to blog about, B. suggested that I combine my house description assignment with my desire to blog. I apologize in advance.

Old Classic bungalow in noisy neighborhood riddled with dune buggy-building drunken idiots active, interesting neighborhood! This house is full of endless headaches caused by the previous owners' lack of home repair and decorating skills character, including never-ending drafts loads of windows, floors covered with random nails and staples in perfect alignment, installed during an OCD emergency rustic hardwood floors, neighbor dogs birthing puppies under the back steps friendly neighbors, a sunroom which is actually more of a rainroom, thanks to the leaky ceiling, lots of shade until the 100+ year-old oak in the front yard decides to fall the fuck over, like all the other trees have done in the past few months, and a lovely backyard that completely lacks grass, but has a six-inch deep ditch around its perimeter from where our dogs run. We call it the Doggie Groove, and it's banked like Daytona International Speedway. Gardening shed along with half a tree that's been on its roof for six weeks and extra storage room which is really spooky and houses a toilet that our UPS man likes to use as a package perch.

New appliances include a GE Profile gas range and oven (1999) which replaced the 1960 rust-brown one-burner monstrosity that leaked not only gas, but radiation from one of the first microwave ovens ever made, gas water heater (1999) which replaced the one that was so old the entire bottom rusted out, and energy-efficient gas furnace (2000) which replaced the inefficient furnace that had a giant hole in its heat exchanger, which happens to be a very important part of the furnace to remain hole-free.

House is clean and move-in ready. You won't experience the horror of washing a 1970s amber-colored frosted window, only to discover that it's really a clear window with 30 years of accumulated fried-food residue and old cigarette smoke on it. You also won't vaccum enough blue fuzz out of the back bedroom to make a replica of the 93-year-old man who inhabited the room.

Potential buyers whose last name begins with the letter B will be given preference, as the previous owners installed a letter B in bright red carpet within the turd-brown shag on the basement stairs. We got a bargain on this place because, after a year in the market, we were the only clueless neophyte idiots people with a B-name who made an offer.
___________________________________________________________________

You know, I've made some bad job choices in my time. Tonight, I can honestly say that the best job decision I've ever made was the choice to remain out of the real estate field.

Posted by Robin at 08:26 PM | Comments (7)

January 20, 2007

The Saturday Shuffle - Because Beatrice the iPod was a Filthy Whore on Friday

Oh, was a duplicitous day and a half it's been.

Friday morning, we playdated with my friend Jill. Her older daughter is 22 hours younger than Clara Jane, and her younger daughter will turn one in April. I got lucky in that Jill needed to use the restroom just as the baby was growing sleepy, which means I got to rock her to sleep while sitting on the couch at Hartford.

At first I feared that I didn't remember what to do with a tired little baby. Despite being a parent, I've never considered myself a baby person. Not even when I had a baby. Babies are scary. They don't communicate effectively, and that makes me exceptionally nervous.

Honestly, I don't even remember rocking Clara Jane to sleep when she was a baby. I don't remember much of anything. But I guess I knew how to do it, because in seconds flat, Jill's baby went from whining and grabbing to sucking her thumb and drooling on my shoulder.

I am a mother. I rule.

But seriously, oh my. The sweetness of it all. I've never, ever really understood why people get so excited about getting to cuddle babies. See why I question my maternal instincts? Well, apparently I get it now, because I could have sat there with that baby snoozing on my shoulder all afternoon.

How to follow up such sweetness? With sex toys, of course. But first, dinner with Angela. With beer. Because good lord, we needed a drink for the place where we were going.

At dinner I received the most appropriate fortune cookie ever:
Most accurate fortune cookie ever.

Yep, that pretty much sums me up. If I ever decide to get a tattoo with Chinese characters, even though I speak not one word of any Chinese dialect, these will be the characters, but only if the tattoo artist can make them as blurry as the photo.

While I'm no prude and this wasn't my first party of this nature, let's just say I haven't been in a very spicy frame of mind of late. I made a point to dress all in black (not that this is unusual for me) with no makeup (again, not unusual), my hair in a ratty ponytail (again, de riguer). In other words, I pretty much went as myself, only I listened to The Smiths in the car on the way there, just to really put myself in an unsexxxy mood.

The sex toy party was for a good cause. It was hosted by a friend who recently had a roommate "borrow" her vibrator. Which is just a polite way of saying that her roommate "stole" her vibrator because really, that's not an item you borrow because I'm pretty sure the unwitting lender is never, ever going to want it back again.

I spent the evening with Tempe doing two things: 1) belching and blowing the fumes in my face (Sexxxy!), and 2) jabbing me with things that vibrate.

You know you're having a good time when you find yourself saying, "Tempe, would you please stop poking me with your big orange vibrating butt plug?"

How did I go from snuggling a warm, sleeping child to being poked in the hip with an item that resembles a trembling traffic cone? The only similarities between the two main activities of my day was the belching, as the baby did her share of that, too.

Angela cried. I don't blame her one bit. It was fun crying, though.

As for Beatrice the iPod, I allowed her to be violated at the party. I didn't think she'd mind, considering the amount of Peaches she's been playing lately. But last night, we hooked her up to the (not work-safe link!) iBuzz. My poor little iPod's innocence is gone. Not that we did anything but pass her (and Peaches) around. By the time I got home, she was too ashamed to shuffle. Besides, she probably just would have played "Diddle My Skittle" ten times in a row at that point.

And to completely change gears again, this morning we got up and went to Sesame Street Live. Like last year, I sobbed like a baffoon. Fucking Big Bird, making me bawl.

Clara Jane loved the first half of the show, but I think that was mainly because we allowed her to have a vat of popcorn the size of her bed, which we removed during intermission. We wound up leaving before the end of the show, with her pummelling my leg because I was not exiting fast enough for her liking.

"We're getting away from Sesame Street!" she yelled when we crossed the street to the train station. She was much more interested in the freaky bunny statue outside the arena, which we can view for free, instead of the show we spent nearly $75 to not see.

I could have bought an iBuzz for what we spent on those damn tickets.

This afternoon I ran away from home for a few hours and learned to knit socks in honor of my pal Dixie's birthday:

Socks!

They're blurry. Just like my future tattoo and that orange vibrating butt plug. And Cookie Monster, when viewed through tears. Even though Beatrice is still a little blurry, what with being vibrated to death last night, she's ready for a late, long shuffle*:

1. Hand in Glove - The Smiths
2. This Charming Man - The Smiths
3. What Difference Does it Make - The Smiths
4. Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now - The Smiths
5. William, It Was Really Nothing - The Smiths
6. How Soon is Now? - The Smiths
7. Shakespeare's Sister - The Smiths
8. That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore - The Smiths
9. The Boy With the Thorn in His Side - The Smiths
10. Bigmouth Strikes Again - The Smiths
11. Panic - The Smiths
12. Ask - The Smiths
13. Shoplifters of the World Unite - The Smiths
14. Sheila Take a Bow - The Smiths
15. Girlfriend in a Coma (Probably from a giant orange vibrating butt plug) - The Smiths
16. I Started Something I Couldn't Finish - The Smiths
17. Last Night I Dreamt that Sombody Loved Me - The Smiths
18. There is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
19. Fuck the Pain Away - Peaches

*This is the only time I've ever fabricated a shuffle. I figured since it's Saturday, the Friday Shuffle rules - setting the iPod to shuffle and posting the first ten songs that play - don't apply.

Posted by Robin at 04:49 PM | Comments (6)

January 18, 2007

Let's Twist!

I hate beating dead horses. I really do. I hate writing and talking about the same topics over and over and over again. Alas, that's all I've got, so I'm looking for interesting twists.

Real estate: Yeah, you know I'm dying to buy a house in Pretty Town that's no longer on the market. And you know that my house recently went on the market. The Twist: for once I'm not just sitting around, looking for random signs that things will work out on their own. Actually, that's not quite right. I'm totally mired in signs once again.

You're aware of our tree situations. In case your not familiar, here's the brief version: this fall, our trees decided to do just that. Fall. Big, massive, old trees. When we start making headway on getting the tree mess under control, another tree mess interferes.

Yesterday, I saw some tree workers in our neighborhood. Not unusual, considering they've descended, carpetbagger-style, on St. Louis. For whatever reason, seeing the tree workers a block away from my house, I decided, "That's it. I'm done with this tree bullshit. We're paying someone to fix it."

Before I had a chance to mention this to B. yesterday afternoon, we were approached by a father-son team from our neighborhood, looking to earn some cash. Do we have any trees we need removed?

Oh, how I laughed. And then how I hired.

While B. was outside, working out the particulars of the tree removal, he talked to another neighbor, one of the many renters on our street. Renter and his "old lady" (his phrase, not ours) actually like our street and are interested in maybe buying our house.

Today, B. talked to our agent. Apparently, he's had inquiries coming in already, too. Now that the tree situation's corrrected, we can get the inside of the house in order and start showing.

I bought my St. Joe statue last week at the coffeehouse in what will hopefully be my new neighborhood in Pretty Town. I intended to buy it at the big Catholic shrine in Pretty Town, but buying it at the coffeehouse? Too perfect to pass up.

My diseased brain: Anxiety and panic attacks. Whee! The twist: Having panic attacks during the day, while never boring, is so passe'. Having them in the middle of the night? Not boring and totally new! For the past three nights, I have woken up in the midst of an attack. At least this morning it happened pretty late - 6 AM - and it happened in the middle of a dream. I rarely remember my dreams, so the two previous dead-asleep attacks didn't seem to be attached to anything. Being able to attach this morning's attack to a nightmare helped matters. Luckily, I had a doctor's appointment for today anyway. Drugs have been tweeked. Perhaps now, when I scream in the middle of the night, I won't wake myself up.

My stupid little dog Murphy: Still stupid. The twist: She's so stupid that she's forgotten why she was terrified of our neighbor's dog last week.

My parents' idiot dog Chiggar: Still a a little too dingoesque for comfort. The twist: He now does tricks. With the use of rolled-up magazines, my mother has taught him to retrive the newspaper so she doesn't have to go into the cold. Only problem is, he only fetches magazines. He likes Birds & Blooms, both for fetching and ripping to shreds.

Clara Jane: Still enjoys playing naked guitar. The twist:Like her mother, she's going through a phase of the Great Big Screams in the Night. It's real peaceful around here. I'm sure that when someone buys our house, they'll hear the night screams echoing through the attic for at least six months.

Music: Yep, still a music nerd. The twist: Let's pretend that I'm not going to mention that today, I was listening to my iPod on shuffle, and had this sequence: "The Late Greats" by Wilco, "Whiskey Bottle" by Uncle Tupelo, and "Chickamauga", also by Uncle Tupelo. Let's also pretend that I didn't stand up in the coffeehouse where I was partaking in a cappucino and scream, "It's a sign!".

Posted by Robin at 07:52 PM | Comments (6)

January 16, 2007

The Librarians are Out to Get Me

I'm inadvertantly following a theme with my posts this week: why the hell can't women just be nice to one another?

That said, I think the librarians at the local branch of my library hate my guts.

We've been going to this branch for nearly two years, and the librarians have always been nice to B. and me while they fawn over Clara Jane. Our neighborhood isn't exactly the most progressive in the St. Louis area, and I understand that B. and Clara Jane are one of the few father-daughter combos they see on a regular basis. That's reason for fawning, and I'm cool with that. I'm a bit of a red-headed stepchild. No bother. Just give me my books, I'll give you the ones I've completed. We'll exchange pleasantries and we'll be just fine.

A few months ago, B. went through a spell of checking out piles upon piles of books that didn't reflect well on me. He was looking for books to help him improve his husbandly communication skills, or so he says, which is what led him to check out books like the entire Divorce Busting series and How to Change Your Spouse and Save Your Marriage. I think I saw him reading a copy of "My Wife's a Total Bitch and I Need to Get Her Off My Goddamn Back NOW", concealed behind an issue of Popular Science during this spell.

I didn't make a big deal about this, despite the fact that I wasn't thrilled to see a book on how to change me floating around the house. It crossed my mind that since all the librarians know us, they're getting a a big pile of fodder regarding our personal life based on the books B. was reading. I gave the librarians credit for being professional and not judging us based on the materials we check out.

Oh, but how things have changed since B. went through his little communication self-help spell! Suddenly, librarians who used to talk to me ignore me, even when I say hello to them. They glare, but they don't speak. They speak to Clara Jane, but not to me.

Today, I went to the library by myself to drop off a book for B. - about dragons, not about divorcing my sorry ass - and pick up some reserved books for both of us. One of the librarians who used to be nice to me came to the counter, glared at me and barked, "Next?"

"Hi. B. and I both have some books to pick up," I said with as much chipperness as I could muster. That took some effort, because I'm currently in the midst of supposed-to-be-period week, which means I'm anxious and panicky, which means I didn't sleep much last night, which means B. stayed home with Clara Jane so I could go to the library, get my two books, and spend the afternoon reading them in the peace at the damn library and maybe calm the hell down instead of sitting on the couch, crying for no good reason all damn day.

"Are B. and Clara Jane with you?" she asked with 100% pure, deep-from-her-heart chipperness.

"No, I'm afraid not. She's got a bit of a bug and ..."

"Oh." Her chipperness was suddenly as gone as mine.

She went to the reserve stacks, slammed my books down on the counter, checked them out. "You have fines" was all she said before returning to the stacks, getting B.'s books, slamming them down on the counter, checking them out, and shoving them to me. She didn't even bother to tuck our check-out reciepts into the book, instead leaving them to flutter to the floor when she shoved the books.

Regardless, I thanked her. Not that it mattered, because she'd already stormed off.

I'm ashamed that I cried when I got to my car. I really don't care if people like me or not but shit. Would it kill people to be civil? I almost went back in while crying to say, "Do you have any idea how your shitty atttiude might affect people?" I didn't, though, because I've found that doing such things doesn't instill the guilt it should. It just makes people think you're nuts.

Like I said, I'm delicate today and probably blowing things way out of proportion. But if it wasn't for the fact that, over the past two months, every single librarian I've encountered has suddenly started treating me like I'm persona non grata, I wouldn't have been nearly as thrown by today's rudeness.

So, what to do next? I could call the management and complain. Or I could frequent another branch, as there are several near me. Just disappear and be done with it.

I could include a letter with the next books I return, explaining the shoddy treatment. Or I could grow some balls and present the letter directly to management.

I hear that librarians aren't fond of patrons vomiting mass quantities of candy corn in front of the circulation desk. I could probably arrange to do that and ruin a few peoples' shifts.

More likely, I'll keep frequenting this branch without a word, instead exacting my revenge via my checkouts. Here's a list of books I'm going to add to my reserve list tonight:

With apologies to all my librarian friends. I know you'd never act in such a manner. I also know I can count on you to give me more ideas for my reading list.

With some apologies to B., even though this is really all his fault.

Posted by Robin at 04:16 PM | Comments (13)

January 15, 2007

Questionable Dots

After one too many visits to Hartford Coffee in which I became irritated by my fellow parents, I hadn't frequented them very often, aside from the occasional playdate.

While I don't do resolutions, at the beginning of this year I decided that I needed to take Clara Jane to Hartford more often. It's fun for her, since they have a play area that's usually populated with kids her age. And it's fun for me, because I can sit two feet away from her with three gallons of coffee and a book. Everyone wins!

We went last Monday, and it was perfect, aside from the fact that I forgot to bring a book. I read all the local free newspapers while she played, and had a lovely conversation with one of my favorite animals - a stay-at-home dad. I love spotting them in the wild. They're always fun to talk to. For some reason I tend to take on quicker with them than with other moms of my ilk, simply because conversations with dads aren't nearly as likely to be loaded with Mommy War fodder.

This week, things were different. The coffeehouse was more like a prison for very, very short offenders who'd organized a very disorganized riot. The place was crawling with toddlers who were flinging toys, screaming, and falling directly in my path.

Have we walked in on a Junior Espresso Drinkers of St. Louis meeting? And if so, can I get my three gallons of coffee to go, please?

No such luck, as Clara Jane clambored over the piles and piles of babies on her way to the train table. I got my coffee, climbed over the baby heaps, and took a seat on the couch in the play area.

Now, this struck me as being not right. Despite the army of children in the play area and the ample, comfy seating, the play area was nearly devoid of parents. Two women sat at the closest table, visiting over lunch, while one of their sons repeatedly climbed onto the train table, jumped on it, and launched himself through the air to the couch. This boy was easily a year or two older than Clara Jane.

I caught myself thinking horrible things about this child, hoping that he might inflict a slight injury upon himself. Nothing serious or disfiguring, of course. And not because I was upset with the kid. Kids do what kids do. I just wanted to see what it would take for his mother to shut the fuck up and manage her kids.

As for the rest of the kids, they appeared to belong to a gaggle of moms who were sitting at a large table, completely out of sight from the play area.

I don't get this. I really, really don't get this. Perhaps this is an artifact of being an only child and having an only child. Most of these moms seemed to have two and three kids each. I can't fathom how hard it is to parent that many kids, how exhausting it must be, and, if I had that many kids, how desperately I would cling to any opportunity to forget the kids and partake in some adult interaction. I'm trying really hard to not judge because parenting is so, so, so hard and I can't know what motivates any other parent. Hell, there are plenty of times when I'm not 100% sure what's motivating me as a parent.

But dammit, after the fifth time I had to tell someone else's kid to stop snatching toys away from my kid, I started feeling like these other parents flat-out didn't give a shit. As hard I was trying to not judge, I kept thinking, "Selfish parents, selfish kids." But as soon as I'd think that, I'd want to slap myself for being one of those moms, the judgemental, mean ones who act like her parenting methods are the only correct ones and everyone else is neglectful and terrible.

It just seemed like a lot of those kids really, really wanted some attention.

Luckily, the craziness began to end quickly. The stay-at-home dad and his wife came in with their little girl, so the rest of the afternoon was filled with fun, intelligent conversation while the kids played in relative peace. It restored my faith a bit that maybe I'm not just a hardass as a parent, or a bitchy, competitive mom. It also verified something I knew deep-down: the episode of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" featuring Danzig, while it's an accurate depiction of selling a home, isn't appropriate for toddlers.

Posted by Robin at 09:13 PM | Comments (3)

January 14, 2007

Hail! Hail! Music Geek!

Yesterday afternoon, I did something I've been meaning to do for the better part of two decades: I finally watched Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll!. For the uninitiated, it's a documentary/concert film from 1986. For Mr. Berry's 60th birthday, Keith Richards assembled one hell of a band - George Harrison, Robert Cray, Eric Clapton, Etta James, Linda Ronstadt - to perform with Chuck at the Fox Theater in St. Louis.

If you love music, you must, must, must watch this. It's on Sundance Channel tomorrow, and a 4-disc DVD set was released last summer. It's a must-see for the music, of course. The concert footage is once-in-a-lifetime stuff. Etta and Chuck doing "Rock 'n' Roll Music"? Holy God. If that doesn't make you shake your ass, your ass must surely be broken. But it's also worthwhile watching to see the flaws in our pop culture gods.

I'm not a fan of the cult of celebrity that exists in our society, the constant scrutiny to catch famous people in the act of horribleness. We set these people to such a high standard, then we purposefully shake the pedastal. I don't understand it at all. But then again, I've always viewed my pop culture heros as being above human. I guess this started when I was a kid, when I couldn't even imagine that the musicians, actors and writers I loved did something has horrid as take a poop. Sex? Out of the question, as were drugs and alcohol.

I have no idea where I got these ideas, but they lasted for a long time. Now, I think it's interesting how artistic genius seems to go hand-in-hand with large doses of human failability. While watching the documentary, and seeing Chuck and Keith spar over the proper way to tune an amplifier, it really struck me. For one thing, listening to two of the greatest guitar players ever, argue about amp tunage? Yes, I'm a geek, but I enjoyed that, just as I enjoyed watching Chuck correct Eric Clapton's playing technique. But even moreso, consider their histories. Clapton's had his share of drug and alcohol problems. I don't even have to tell you about Keith Richards' history; you've heard all the jokes, I'm sure. Chuck Berry's had more than his own share of issues. He's done time in jail and prison. There have been lawsuits and rumors about his unorthodox sexual proliclivities, as well as his legendary arrogance.

So he's an asshole. So what? How many nice, normal people invent stuff like this?

I don't know what I'm getting at, other than I think it's sad that we expect such perfection from people in the public eye. Not that they should be excused from bad behavior. No, I don't know where the line. I just think there needs to be more respect for eccentricity, because that's so often the root of invention and genius.

Watching the documentary and concert filled me with an uncalled-for amount of pride. I'm not from St. Louis originally, but Chuck is. We're both from Missouri, and I hold a degree of civic pride for my fellow Missourians that borders on mental illness.

This is how close I've come to Chuck Berry. My grandfather's name is Charles Berry. The only time he's gone by Chuck has been in recent years when my in-laws started calling him by that name instead of his usual Charles or Charlie. The switch to Chuck also might have been brought on by this incident.

A few years ago, my grandparents got a late-night phone call. My grandmother answered, and on the other end of the phone was an old man, looking for Chuck Berry. Not my grandpa. He was looking for Chuck Berry, and was calling all the numbers he could find for Charles/Charlie/Chuck Berrys in Missouri. My grandmother talked to him for a bit, and learned that the man had once played in Chuck's band years and year before. He was at the end of his life and was tying up loose ends, including ones with the other Chuck Berry.

No one in my family had ever made that connection before, that our Charlie is Chuck Berry from Missouri. Grandpa Chuck just happens to be two years and five days older than the other Chuck. And white. And he doesn't play guitar like a ringing a bell. Or duckwalk. I've heard rumors that he can sing, though. Maybe we can talk him into a verse of "Maybelleine" at Granny's birthday party next month.

Chuck (the famous one) is 80 years old, and he still plays at least one show a month in St. Louis at Blueberry Hill. In the eight years I've lived here, I've only seen him once, in 2003. I'm generally not a fan of seeing performers far past their prime, as it's usually embarrassing, a fact illustrated to its full extent at the Loretta Lynn spectacle I witnessed in 2005. But I think seeing Chuck is a part of living in St. Louis, just like acknowledging the Gateway Arch whenever it happens to be in view. If you don't acknowledge the history in your own backyard, then pretty soon every backyard in the country's going to look exactly the same.

When I was in school, I got so sick of having Mark Twain shoved down my gullet in every English and history class. It wasn't until I went to college with people who didn't spend their early education being flogged with a copy of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" did I realize that not everyone got the Twain education us Missouri kids got, and just how lucky we were to get such first-hand knowledge of one of the greatest writers of all time.

I grew up less than a mile from The Maple Leaf Club, where Scott Joplin composed his most influential pieces of music. Again, I didn't realize how important this was until I took an American music class in college that pointed out Joplin was the first to cross color lines, taking influence from both upper-class white music and traditional slave spirituals. Had he not crossed that line, which eventually led to blues, jazz, and rock 'n' roll, then what?

Chuck Berry did the same. He took "race" music and added an element of the hillbilly music that was popular in St. Louis at the time. Had he not done that, who would have inspired John Lennon, Keith Richards, and Eric Clapton to pick up their guitars and learn?

Where would I be if none of that had happened? I'm sure I'd be here, and there would be something else that reaches me the way music does, but I can't fathom what it would be. I don't want anything different than what I've got.

There was a song by The Rainmaker, a band out of Kansas City in the 1980s, that created one of my favorite scenarios: what would it be like to float down the Mississippi in a rowboat with three of the most important Missourians in history - Mark Twain, Harry Truman, and Chuck Berry? Listen for yourself.

This is what I'm going to miss when we move across the river to Illinois. I'm going to miss being a Missourian. I guess I'll just need to find out more about that Illinois Lincoln fella.

Posted by Robin at 03:17 PM | Comments (3)

January 12, 2007

Friday Shuffle - The Found Edition

If any of you have seen the news tonight, I'm sure you know that I, like just about everyone in St. Louis, am overwhelmed. What happened today will surely be one of those news moments I will remember for the rest of my life.

On Monday, a 13-year-old boy was snatched while running home from the bus stop after school. These stories are always sickening, I know. My pal PKB and I were IMing when the story broke. In fact, she alerted me to it, and we talked about how such stories fill us with dread.

This afternoon, Clara Jane and I were playing in my bedroom. The TV had been left on in the living room. The volume was low enough that I couldn't make out what was being said, but I could tell that Oprah had been preempted for a news bulletin. "Fuck. They probably found that poor kid's body." I had no desire to rush to the TV to hear the gory details, preferring instead to stay on the bed, snuggled up with Clara Jane and listening to the rain outside while I considered the possible ramifications of not letting her out of my sight until she's in her mid-thirties.

I returned to the living room about ten minutes later, just in time to see photos of the missing boy and a boy who'd been missing since 2002 on the screen. I figured they were simply comparing the cases, since they were similar. When I heard the truth - that both boys had been found alive and physically healthy in the apartment of a known sex offender - well, overwhelmed.

I don't have anything more profound or insightful to offer. I just had to express the obvious that's being expressed all over town tonight.

Thing is, though, I was planning to write about finding people today before this amazing thing happened. PKB and I had lunch today, and she told me about recently reconnecting with an old friend. Funny, because in the past week I'd reconnected with two people from high school who found me online. When I came home from our outing, I had an email waiting from a third.

Now, I wasn't exactly popular in high school. I wasn't unpopular. I pretty much went to class, did my duties in a bunch of extra-curriculars, worked a part-time job, and stuck to a handful of friends who were as inocuous as me. I haven't attended any of the three class reunions, and I've kept in touch with very few people from that time in my life. I always assumed that, since being a teenager wasn't the most pleasant time in my life, I didn't care to spend any of my adult life reminiscing about my not-so-great old days.

If I'm good at anything, it's cutting ties. Maybe a little too good sometimes. Which might explain why the three reconnects this week have made me so stupidly happy. I don't have the desire to relive the past with any of them, and I don't get the impression that any of them want to do that, either. What I'm loving is learning what they have become, what they have done, how they've lived. I have no doubt that, if I didn't know any of these people and I was introduced to them by a mutual friend, or we met in a coffeehouse, I'd like them.

A few weeks ago I was reading a back issue of the Oprah magazine from my never-ending pile of hand-me-down magazines. There was a great piece written by a woman who reconnected with her childhood best girlfriend nearly fifty years after the author had moved away. I can't remember how they reconnected, but I know they corresponded for a bit before meeting face-to-face (only to learn they lived minutes from each other). Before that first in-person reunion, the author asked herself, "Will I like her as much now as I did when we were young?" Turns out, she did. The women, who were in their early sixties, hadn't even been teens when the author moved and they lost touch. And yet, they picked up their friendship.

As I read, my mind went directly to my old pal Kara Joy. We had been friends in elementary school, drifted apart in middle school, sat by each other at our high school graduation (a situation brought to us by the letter W, which began both of our last names), and that was it. Until, about this time last year, she tracked my ass down on MySpace.

We're so different now than we were in middle school and high school when we drifted apart. You know how those years are, when you're so busy trying to figure out who you are that you can't be bothered to realize you are exactly who you were all those years before. Do I like her as much as I did when we were kids? Hell, yes! More, even. She's just like tht girl I knew in fifth grade, only moreso. And yet, totally different. It's the difference between grape juice and wine. Grape juice is tasty and all, but wine's even moreso, and with a lot more depth, flavor, and character.

I think we reach a point in adulthood where, whether we want to or not, we gain a degree of comfort and acceptance in who we are. And more often than not, who we are isn't much different than who we were when we were ten years old.

Which makes me think about the kids who were found today. Because of what he experienced, the parents of the boy who went missing on Monday will have to get to know him again, but not nearly to the degree of the parents who were without their son for over four years. He was 11 when he was taken hostage. The four years between 11 and 15 are some of the longest years in a lifetime. I can't imagine what it's going to be like for that family to reunite. After four years, do they know each other at all? Does it matter? I don't think it does. The older I get the more I realize that no matter what happens to a person or how much time passes, they're essentially the same. There's a lot of comfort in that, just like there's a lot of comfort that comes from innocently checking your email and finding someone from long ago, who knew you when you were moody, zitty, and nerdy, who has taken the time and effort to say, "Is that you? What have you been doing all these years?"

Isn't that what we all want? To be important enough that there is always someone out there, willing to find us when we get lost?

Anyway... I guess this is sort of in the same vein. It's National Delurking Week, or somesuch business. Yeah, there's a graphic.


If you normally read and don't comment, I'd love it if you'd come out and say hi. If you knew me when I was moody, zitty, and nerdy, I might even sing the ol' Smith-Cotton fight song for you. That is, if you can tell me the lyrics. I really wasn't paying that much attention back then. Or maybe I'll just warble something I found on my shuffle.

1. Let's Go to Bed - The Cure
2. Who Invited You - The Donnas
3. Oh Well - Fiona Apple
4. Magic Dance - David Bowie
5. Unfair - Pavement
6. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow - The Chiffons (which, of course, is a variation on "will I still like you when we're grown-ups?")
7. The Lakes of Pontchartrain - The Be Good Tanyas
8. Have a Talk With God - Stevie Wonder
9. Almost Gold - The Jesus and Mary Chain
10. Airline to Heaven - Wilco & Billy Bragg

Posted by Robin at 07:28 PM | Comments (7)

January 11, 2007

The End of a Friendship

This isn't about real estate, for the first time in a week. This is about my stupid little dog, Murphy. You know Murphy, right?

How Murphy dealt with the blackout

For most of her life, Murphy has shared a yard with a hoodrat of a dog named Snoopy, who lives next door to us. He was born the same week as Murphy, and they've always been pals. So much so that long ago, we rolled back a section of the fence seperating our yards so that Murphy and Snoopy could spend every waking outdoor moment humping and barking.

You might recall that Snoopy recently had a weiner dog stuck on his weiner. The progency from that unholy union should arrive in a week or so. That poor weiner dog. She's so low to the ground, and so pregnant, that she looks like a snake with an eating disorder, slithering around the yard.

I don't know if that unholy union and its consequences have anything to do with this, but Murphy has abruptly decided that her friendship with Snoopy must end immediately. And not only that, she's absolutely terrified of him.

Granted, Murphy's pretty much terrified of everything. She's one of those dogs, the ones who cower and shake at the slightest little change in anything. Look at Murphy the wrong way, and she'll cry like you slapped her.

Murphy's a product of a puppy mill, but I'm sure you figured that out all by yourself. I mean, just refer back to the photo. She was rescued as a puppy and adopted by someone who had no business with a high-energy hound puppy. Her previous owner worked 12-14 hours a day and left Murphy crated by herself. By the time we got her when she was nine months old, she was beyond basket case.

Oh, but we had good intentions! We were going to get her trained up right! Obedience school! Patience and love!

Two weeks after adopting Murphy, I got pregnant. Trained up, she's not. Smart, she's not. Confident, she's not. This dog is such a chicken that - I kid you not - she sleeps with her eyes open.

Do you know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night and look across the dark to see blank, vacant brown eyes attatched to a snoring head staring back at you? But I love her nonetheless.

There. I said it. I love Murphy. Which is lucky for her because oh my God, she's refusing to go outside during the times when Snoopy's outside, which is roughly all of the daylight hours and half of the nighttime hours.

Murphy can be in a dead sleep in the front room. Snoopy can bark in the backyard and she'll wake up, panicked and trembling.

Right now, he's not even outside, but she's sitting on the couch, staring out the window in the direction of his house, trembling. The mere sight of his house strikes terror down to her very core.

Fucking dumbass.

Murphy will go outside at 5 AM when B. gets up for work, and again at 11 PM before we go to bed. She's mostly fine in the mornings and afternoons, but around dinnertime, she starts pacing and whining.

Pace and whine, looking worried. She'll look at me, look at the backdoor, and sigh.

Sometimes she'll even sit by the backdoor and look pitiful. But when we open the door to let her outside, she flees as if we're about to punt her into the fiery bowels of Hell.

Murphy's one saving grace is that she has never, ever peed or pooped in the house, so at least we're not dealing with that. I'm starting to get concerned about urinary tract infections and I swear to God, I'm not pouring cranberry juice down that dog's gullet or administering any ointments or creams. I love her, but not that much.

Last night was the worst. While dinner was cooking, Murphy awoke and started her dinnertime nervous pacing. Back and forth, across the living room, glancing to the backdoor. Snoopy was outside, barking. And so she paced. She paced and paced and paced until she managed to pace the nervous puke right out of herself, trailing it from one end of the living room to the other.

Yep, this house is gonna sell really fast. Who wouldn't want the pacy puke house?

Posted by Robin at 08:09 PM | Comments (8)

January 10, 2007

I Wish a Bite Plate

You know how easy it is to latch onto a line from a TV show, movie, book, etc, and find places to use it in your everyday life, I'm sure. Many of our lines come from "King of the Hill", and one of our favorites involves main character Hank getting a colonoscopy and the proctologist asking, "Do you wish a bite plate?" before inserting, well, whatever they insert during that particular test.

I have never wished a bite plate so badly in my life. My teeth and jaws are killing me. I'm a grinder. Always have been. The grinding increases with emotional intensity, which means my current state of real estate-induced mania/happiness/excitement/fear/disappointment/panic/joy is taking its toll. By the end of this week, my pretty teeth are going to look like tiny corn kernals. I'm pretty sure one of yesterday's grinding session impacted the top of my left incisor into my frontal lobe.

Yes, poppymom.com is now solely a real estate blog. Feel free to drop dead from boredom at your earliest convenience. I'm sorry. Really, I am.

As of Monday night, we have an official for sale sign in our front yard. We haven't started the freak parade of home viewers, nor have we decided on a selling price. Basically, we have a sign, an agent, and a pile of intimidating papers that need to be faxed to the agent. I'm placing a higher priority on getting a St. Joseph statue buried in the yard than I am on returning the paperwork. I almost stopped at a Catholic supply store the other day, but I couldn't remember which saint I was supposed to bury. It seemed crass to go in and say, "Yeah, can I borrow your religion for a month or two? Thanks."

All was going well until Tuesday afternoon. B. was putting together paperwork for our new mortgage broker and asked if I remembered the property tax amount for the new house. I didn't, so I went to the house's listing.

And it was gone.

If there was any doubt regarding how much we want this house and this move, it was vanquished when we made this discovery. While B. started the frantic phone calls to agents and such, I borrowed just about every religion I could think of, short of doing the naked Pagan real estate dance in my backyard, as 1) it's cold, and 2) that dance lowers the property value of the entire neighborhood.

The seller, tired of being stuck with a non-selling house, decided to take it off the market and lease it. This could work in our favor, if someone hasn't signed a lease already. In a perfect world ....

Okay, sorry. I had to roll around in hysterics on the floor upon using that phrase.

What I'd like to see happen: We offer to buy her house on contingency of ours selling, with a provision that she can rent it so long as the renters are gone when it's time for us to take possession. Sound reasonable? I don't know. I know nothing about real estate other than I don't want the real estate I currently have, and I want the real estate she's wanting to unload. In those terms, I think my idea allows everyone to win a little bit.

I'd also like to add a provision that the seller will purchase denture for me, because I'll surely be toothless by then.

Posted by Robin at 03:31 PM | Comments (7)

January 08, 2007

Listless, Listed, Listening, List-Faced

It's January 8th and my holiday design is still up. Please, somebody, punch me in the face.

Am I listless? Not really. In fact, I'm so giddy that my jaws hurt, as I've been grinding my teeth all day. Not necessarily in a bad way. Well, it was in a bad way this morning, when Clara Jane's musical "Blue's Clues" book became stuck, forcing me to listen to the BC theme song over and over and over. That will snap anyone's jaw.

No, most of my tooth-grinding has been of the positive, giddy kind. In about an hour, a real estate agent will be at our house to ... can I even type this without going into a full-blown psychotic episode? ... put our house on the market.

Did you feel that little shudder?

We're still on a constant rotation of "I'm the Man Who Loves You". Not by my choice, but by my child's. At this point I'm afraid to stop it.

I'm completely list-faced. It's like being shit-faced, but with real estate instead of booze.

Posted by Robin at 04:57 PM | Comments (8)

January 06, 2007

I Love Signs

You know, I hate it when people leave their holiday decorations up far past their intended season. I usually give people a week's grace period before I start getting irritated, which means I have exactly one day to change my blog masthead before I flog myself for being everything I hate.

But that's not what I'm here to write about. I'm here to write about our house-shopping trip to Prettytown.

If you're a long-time reader of my blog - or if you started reading yesterday - you're aware of several things: 1) my love of Wilco, 2) my strong desire to move to a town I refer to as Prettytown, and 3) my ability to base my entire life and every decision I make on any happenstance coincidence that might possibly be a sign.

I'm open, Universe! Tell me what to do and I'll do it!

This morning we packed the vehicle for a full morning of house-viewing. The first song to shuffle up? Wilco's I'm the Man Who Loves You. Sure, I took that as a sign, because damn near every time I go to Prettytown, hometown boy Jeff Tweedy will come onto my iPod in one form or another. Not surprising, since I do have a great deal of Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, Golden Smog, Loose Fur and his solo stuff on my iPod. If I was a fan of doing senseless math, I'd love to give you the odds on a Jeff Tweedy-related song shuffling up during any 45-minute drive.

This time, it was different. Clara Jane, in the past, has showed an affinity for several Wilco songs. She loves Candyfloss, among a few others. But today, something in her toddler brain snapped when "I'm the Man Who Loves You" ended. "I want to hear it again!" Okay!

She repeated that sentence after every single repeated play of that song. We listened to it for the entire 45-minute drive to Prettytown. While driving between houses we were viewing, she begged to listen to it, even though there really wasn't enough time. She listened to it for our entire ride home.

Then she woke up from her nap. What did she ask? "Can I listen to Wilco on your pomcuter?" Which we did. I managed to veer her away from that one song a few times, Like, five or six times. Otherwise, it was another straight hour of the same song, with Clara Jane eventually partaking in her own nude guitar solos. With dancing, of course.

I'm not sure, but I think we've listened to "I'm the Man Who Loves You" 497 times in the past 12 hours. This could mean several things: 1) Clara Jane's inherited my musical quirks, 2) Clara Jane's inherited my affinity for signs, superstitions, and luck-inducing quirks, or 3) Clara Jane's just plain quirky.

I turned off the music during her bathtime because Christ, as much as I love Wilco, even I need a break every now and then. In absence of that song, she sat in the tub and mimicked the opening guitar riff with her voice. I must say, she's got it down-pat.


All I can see is black and white and white and pink with blades of blue that lay between the words I think on a page I was meaning to send to you I couldn't tell if it'd bring my heart the way I wanted when I started writing this letter to you but if I could you know I would just hold your hand and you'd understand I'm the man who loves you.

I'm sorry, but sometimes when you've heard a song 497 times in a 12-hour period, you've got to sing the first verse and chorus to get the damn thing to go away already before she wakes up in 11 hours and it starts again!

As for the houses ...

The first one was delightful, but too much money for what it was. The second one was an absolute no, just like the fourth one.

But the third one? The one I've been talking about for months, that I thought we'd lost? This one?

In November, B. decided we needed to look at this house so we could get over it already. Either we'd find out it was a rat trap and we could get on with our lives, or we'd fall in love and it would light a much-needed fire under our asses.

The latter happened.

I didn't want to leave. It's perfect. Well, not perfect. Perfect for us. It's over twice the size of our current house. It's in good shape. It's beautiful and different and fun and it just feels like we're supposed to be there.

We're going to talk to our sellers agent this week. Our house is going on the market. With any luck, our days in the Redneck Jungle are numbered.

Just to be safe, I'm setting "I'm the Man Who Loves You" on repeat and I'm not turning it off until I'm sitting in the formal dining room in front of the mosaic-tile fireplace in nothing but my underwear, drinking a bottle of Stag Beer.

Posted by Robin at 09:02 PM | Comments (10)

January 05, 2007

Friday Shuffle - The Falling Into Place Edition

I love nothing more than when life falls into place, which means I am beyond giddy today. Let's recap, shall we?

This time every year, I start getting a little nuts. All the togetherness of the holidays, as much as I love it, wears me down, and I find myself craving some alone time. Two years ago, on the orders of my therapist, I spent a night by myself at a hotel and it did wonders for my disposition. Last year, on my own orders, I did the same thing.

I've really been craving my now-annual hotel night for the past month or so. On Thursday morning, when B. slept through his alarm, causing me to wake up at 5 AM to kick him out of bed, I realized I'd reached critical mass. I hauled my exhausted ass out of bed, went to Priceline, and named a low-ball price on a room for Friday night. Hooray! They took the bait! With my room purchased, I relaxed a bit.

You know what happens when you are suddenly awoken at 5 AM and, in your sleep-deprived state, you buy a hotel room? You screw up. That's what happens. After I became slightly more alert and took the time to look at my non-refundable reservation, I realized that I had booked the room for Thursday night. Not Friday night.

Because of my stupid mistake, B. had to take off work today so as to not completely waste the money I spent on booking a room for the wrong fucking night. Nothing like a big dose of guilt to take to the hotel with me.

After my booking snafu, I took Clara Jane to daycare and headed for Prettytown. I had no reason to be there other than I was tired, cranky, frustrated, sad, and simply wanted to be there. I drove around, looking for houses. Lo and behold, the the house we love is back on the market. Someone had put a contract on it two days before we were scheduled to see it last month. Apparently, the deal fell through.

This is the house whose price was recently reduced by $15,000, putting if comfortably in our price range.

I celebrated this discovery by treating myself to lunch at my new favorite restaurant and paying my respects at their Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt/Jeff Tweedy shrine, as I always do.

When I got home, I did one last email check before leaving for the hotel. What timing - an email from one of my Prettytown friends with info about the real estate buyers agent they used last year. On the way to the hotel, B. and I discussed how we need to get moving on finding a seller's agent so we can get moving, already.

Of course, I had houses and moving on my mind while checking in. The desk clerk and I were talking, and somehow we got on the topic of housing, moving, etc. I mentioned that we were preparing to list our house.

That's when the heavens opened up and dropped a business card onto the front desk before me. The desk clerk's father owns a well-established real estate agency and the desk clerk works there as an agent. Since the hotel was only two miles from my house and my address was on my hotel registration, the agent/clerk told me that he's familiar with my neighborhood and what it takes to sell a house in this area.

Before the night was over, I had the county records of my house in my hands, along with a 15-page comparative report of all the houses that have sold in my neighborhood in the past year, and how my house stacks up.

Agent/clerk isn't licensed for Illinois yet, but his father is. By the end of the night, his father had a list of the houses in Prettytown we want to see. We start looking with him tomorrow at 10:00.

Late last night, I was sitting in my cushy hotel room, relishing the solitude and quiet while reading real estate reports when it occured to me: I'm not even supposed to be here tonight! I mentioned this to the agent/clerk. Had I not fucked up my reservation, our paths wouldn't have crossed. He doesn't work there on Fridays.

I don't know if anything will come from this. Of course, always the skeptic, B. and I are doing some research to make sure the agents and agency are reputable before we make any big leaps. I'm trying not to get too wrapped up in this being IT. But Jesus. In the course of twelve hours I fudged my hotel reservation, learned the house we love is back on the market, got the info of a buyer's agent, got the info of a seller's agent, had someone do a ton of the research we needed on our house (for free), and had someone make appointments for us to look at houses.

Oh, and another thing. You know how so many companies have had laptops with employee information stolen? One of those companies is a former employer of B.'s, and his info was on one of the stolen computers. Actually, this has happened twice. Anyway, because of this, we have all of our recent credit information, courtesy of his former employer. It arrived a few days ago.

It there's any Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, or Son Volt on today's shuffle, I'm going to start packing post-haste.*

*To the uninitiated, Prettytown is the hometown of members of these bands, who are among my favorites. Inevitably, when I drive into Prettytown, my iPod will shuffle up Uncle Tupelo, who lived in Prettytown during their brief but delightful career.

1. Let's Go to Bed - The Cure
2. Black Math - White Stripes
3. Run, Angel, Run - Tammy Wynette
4. Life During Wartime - Talking Heads
5. Take Me Home, Country Roads - John Denver
6. The Best - Tina Turner (I'm a little embarrassed that I have this.)
7. Bluer Pastures - Dolly Parton
8. Yes, Anastasia - Tori Amos
9. Ghost Wiring - Neko Case
10. Lady Stardust - David Bowie

Alas, packing will wait. Probably just as well, as I haven't even unpacked my bag from last night.

Posted by Robin at 01:07 PM | Comments (7)

January 02, 2007

My Kind of Year-End Wrap-Up

I hate doing year-end wrap-ups, but I guess I'll throw something together, if only to have an excuse to brag.

I didn't mention this after all the NaBloPoMo bru-haha in November, but I participated in Holidailies in December. Well, I somewhat mentioned it, as their tag is right there, if you glance to your right. Same premise as NaBloPoMo - post every day, although there's no dying involved if posting doesn't happen. Instead, they ask for 20 posts from Dec. 1 - Jan. 1. I eeked out 27. But that's not what I'm bragging about. The good folks at Holidailies has a super-secret panel of readers who select their favorite posts. On the list of 80ish favorite, three of my entries were selected: A Fairy Tale, Chocolate and Gravy, and The Hangover (which I feel rather silly linking to since, you know, it's right there if you look down a smidge.)

Holidailies super-secret readers panel, I don't know who you are, but there's a big box of homemade jelly coming your way soon. Promise.

Now that I've bragged, it's time to take myself down a peg. Remember about two months ago when I wrote about reaching my goal of finishing 25 books in 2006 and I reupped my goal to 30? I failed. I'm still in the process of finishing #29.

To my defense, books #26 and #27 were two of the longest, most involved books I read all year. I could have copped out and read fluff. But no. I like to set myself up for failure. I'm oddly skilled at it.

Book #26 also wound up being my favorite of the entire year, which came as a huge surprise. I originally added Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants to my reading list because I read so many good reviews of it. Honestly, I didn't think it sounded like something I would like. Life with a Depression-era traveling circus? Eh. But oh, what a life it was. Brutal, cruel, demeaning, hilarious, romantic, heart-breaking, life-affirming. I could have finished this book a little faster, but it was one of those that I prolonged because I didn't want to be without the characters.

Book #27 took forever, too, for the same reasons as #26. This one, I knew I would love because it took place in my world. Or, what would be my world had I not opted for family life. Bill Buford, in his early 40s, quit a good, stable job as an editor at "The New Yorker" to spend a year or two as Mario Batali's kitchen slave at the three-star Babbo, which led to a stint training under one of the world's best (and possibly scariest) butchers in Tuscany. Then Bill wrote a little book about it called Heat, which made me long to dig my chef's whites out of the closet and get back to work. Part memoir of his experience at Babbo and in Tuscany, part bio of Batali. Wonderfully written with depth, humor, and insight into what drives people to the kitchen life.

Book #28 also spoke to me in a big, deep way. Wade Rouse lived in St. Louis until recently, but his memoir America's Boy hit even closer to home. Rouse grew up in a tiny town in southern Missouri - not the greatest place in the world to be if you happen to be gay. Having grown up in rural Missouri with a dear, closested friend, oh, this one hit home. Even moreso, Rouse depicts the people of my childhood - good people from the Ozark who might not understand difference, but do their best to be loving just the same - with an accuracy that made my heart ache. His family is my family in so many ways. Even though the book's about Rouse's personal journey to accepting his sexuality and the tragic death of his older brother, it's also a lovely depiction of a place and time I know well.

And now we have book #29, Frank Portman's King Dork, recommended by the delightful supergenius, who I'm idolizing these days, what with the good book recommendations and the blog software assistance. Anyway, I'm about 60 pages from the end, and I hate commenting on books before I finish them in case they go to hell at the last minute. So far, though, I'm loving this anti-Catcher in the Rye take on Catcher in the Rye. The whole book has been a literary in-joke, and I'm dork enough to love that.

What did I gain by keeping track of all the books I completed in 2006? A lot more than I expected, it turns out. For one thing, I lost my ability to leave a bad book unfinished. If I invested the time to read the first 50 pages, I absolutely, positively had to finish the whole stinking, awful thing because dammit, if I'd invest that much time in it, the damn book was going to be on my list. I got stuck finishing two really shitty books that I would have otherwise ditched. On the plus side, this compulsion made me a lot more selective about reading materials. Like Water for Elephants - I probably wouldn't have read it before since circuses don't interest me. But since so many people were singing its praises, I looked past my limited interests in the name of good writing.

In the past I've tended to gobble up books and immediately forget them. "Oh, you should definitely read ___________________," I was always telling people. "What's it about?" they'd reply, and I'd stare at them like they'd just asked me to solve a calculus problem. Keeping track of my reading has made me a more reflective reader. I've looked back on my list a lot this year and invested more thought in what I'd read than I did in the days when I'd read and forget.

And of course, there's a sense of accomplishment. Until 2006, I honestly had no idea how many books I was reading in a year. I only knew that I was constantly reading. Because of its ever-presence, I didn't look at reading in terms of accomplishment. With knitting, I can tell you everything I've knit in any given period of time. I can tell you what mix CDs I made in any given year. I can tell you what I've sewn in a year, or what recipes I've developed. I can tell you what I've written in a year. But until 2006, I never could tell you how much I'd accomplished in terms of reading, and I've got to say, I'm pretty damn pleased with myself. By doing this, I've given reading the kind of high priority I place on my other hobbies. It's similar to the perspective I gained by doing NaBloPoMo and Holidailies. Sometimes, we do things so habitually that we fail to see what we're accomplishing, and that's a shame.

2007's goal - conquear the 30.

Posted by Robin at 04:37 PM | Comments (5)

January 01, 2007

The Hangover

Yes, I'm hung over today. It's not the kind of hangover generally associated with January 1st. I think I would prefer that form. All day yesterday I could feel the anxiety building. Around 10:00 PM, I decided to pop one of the super-mega pills I take when I feel the anxiety turning to panic.

I fucking hate these pills. Granted, I haven't felt so much as a twinge of nervousness today because I can't feel a goddamn thing except the layer of fog that's still around my brain nearly 24 hours later. That, and extreme thirst. Such is the price for controlling the chemicals in my brain.

Anyone who assumes that these medications make life normal, or are an easy way out, is wrong. There is nothing normal or easy about feeling like this. It's just better than the alternative.

My drugged state notwithstanding, bubbly was consumed last night.
More cheers!

Clara Jane woke up around shortly after I took my brain pill and announced, "I'm awake!" And she was. Wide awake. So I thought what the hell. I let her get up. A few weeks ago she'd sampled some sparkling cranberry juice at Trader Joe's and loved it, so I bought a bottle. It had been in the fridge ever since. Before the drugs completely obscured my cognitive abilities, I decided we should crack open the bottle and ring in the new year an hour early. I told her we were going to drink some bubbly and taught her how to clink glasses and say, "Cheers!"

Unfortunately, all I've heard today is, "I want to drink bubble-y." Why do I foresee this demand being made in public and a Child Protective Services involvement?

Speaking of surreal public moments with Clara ...

Yesterday afternoon, I left Clara Jane at home with B. to get a little peace and quiet, and perhaps some quilt backing. Hancock Fabrics has a huge annual New Year's sale and I have some restocking to do.

While sitting at the pattern book table, this is what I hear: "Clara, please leave that alone. Clara, stop that please. Clara, will you please come back here? Clara? Clara!"

Needless to say, this caught my attention. While my daughter's first name is Clara Jane, I do often shorten it to Clara, especially in public situations in which I'm trying to prevent Clara Jane from running amok.

I'm not used to hearing other people echoing my words like that. I looked up, not sure if I'd see a wayward toddler or a really rambunctious 90-year-old because let's face it - 90% of the Claras in the world are close to 90-years-old and the other 10% are toddlers with parents riding the Old Name Train.

This one was a toddler, about six months older than Clara Jane. Given name? Mary Clara, shortened to Clara in situations requiring fast communication. Which, let's be honest, is all situations when you're talking about a three-year-old.

To make matters even weirder, she looked like my Clara - huge eyes, round face, same haircut, dimples in the same spots on her cheeks, big grin ... except she was as olive-skinned as my Clara is fair, as brunette as mine is blonde, and as brown-eyed as mine is blue-eyed.

And it freaked my shit out. No wonder I had to go home and drug myself - if you wandered into The Dark Side and met the dark version of your own child, trust me, you'd need medication, too.

My Clara has always been ahead with her verbal skills. This Clara spoke like a six-year-old. At the fabric-cutting table, she had this conversation with an employee:

Dark Clara: Hey. What's that?
Employee: It's a cutting mat.
DC: Why do you need a cutting mat?
E: So I'll know how much fabric to give.
DC: Hey. Are you a grandma?
E: Yes.
DC: How many grandkids do you have?
E: Eight.
DC: What are all of their names?
E: rattles off eight names that may or may not have been real
DC: Hey! I didn't know your apron has three pockets in it!

I abandoned my 99-cent patterns and $1.98/yard flannel on the table and fled the store in an attempt to outrun my future. But I can't outrun it. I can only medicate myself against the onslaught of constant interrogation that surely awaits from my daughter in 2007.

Posted by Robin at 08:47 PM | Comments (3)