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April 29, 2007

Paint it Neutral

When B. and I bought our house eight years ago, the first thing we did - before we moved any furniture into the house, even - was paint. It wasn't just about freshening up the new place; it was eradicating our new home of every single bit of eggshell off-white. We hate eggshell off-white. Do I strike you as an eggshell off-white type? Of course not, because I'm not.

If you've ever taken a glance at my Flickr account, you've undoubtedly noticed just how not eggshell off-white our house is. There's the dark purple dining room/office, the kicky red kitchen, the blood-splattered red nightmare bedroom, and my character-filled vintage aquamarine living room. I love it all. Well, except for the blood-splattered bedroom. I got tired of it during the early days of this millinium, but it's a pain to move the bedroom furniture out and repaint.

But alas, it's all coming to an end. Our current real estate agent keeps encouraging us to "neutralize", which sounds a whole lot like "neuter". I swore that I wouldn't be like the idiots on Sell This House who get all, "But I can't remove my collection of 457 moldy old teddy bears from the entryway! Otherwise my house won't communicate who I am as a person!" Shut it and start shoving bears in a Hefty bag, Dumbass. This isn't about self-expression; it's about ditching your mite-filled crapshack. I swore that I wouldn't get sentimental about making changes to this house because it would mean we'd be that much closer to a great new house, where we'd have even more opportunities for self-expression.

And yet, this neutralizing the walls business hurts a bit.

At the start of the day the room looked a bit like this:

Purple walls, black and white photos of the Gateway Arch I took a few years ago, surrounded by gothy candles sconces, all contrasted with bright white woodwork and a wallfull of windows.

I remember the night we painted the dining room Grape Ape Purple. It was Halloween, 2002, back in those pre-parenthood days when two gallons of dark purple paint seems like a reasonable impulse purchase. I was throwing a party two days later and decided I was tired of the monochromatic teals (still visible in the hall at right) and simply must have a purple dining room to make the party really swing. B. and I spent the evening painting the room in a candy-fueled frenzy. And it was worth it. That party was a great one that included a 12-year-old boy kicking the asses of a bunch of drunk engineers at Jenga.

Around 3:30 this afternoon, my Grape Ape walls were transforming into Sugar Wafer:

I didn't cry, although I almost did on Friday when I bought the paint. The guy mixing it asked what I was painting with two gallons of Sugar Wafer. I slobbered all over his counter about how we're trying to sell our house and in doing so I have to sacrifice my beautiful colors that express who I am so well and you might as well just cut off my ponytails, take away my red lipstick, and permanently break my blog while you're violating my rights of self-expression, you imagination-free troglodytes.

By dinnertime, every muscle in my back hurt and I had this:

I don't think "Sugar Wafer" aptly describes this shade of non-color. I think a better name would be "Drunk Tank Cream". I mean, just look at it. If this color was on cinder block walls, it would scream, "government-run institution!".

I know it actually looks decent. It's got that fresh paint clean thing working for it. And I'll admit, we were long overdue for a new coat. That little hallway hasn't been painted since we moved in and I've never been happy with it. But this is just one small hallway and part of a room. If all goes according to plan, the rest of the dining room, our bedroom, and the living room will be Drunk Tank Cream by the end of the week. The red kitchen stays.

$40 in paint, hours of sweat equity, and damage to my psyche. This better do the trick.

Posted by Robin at 08:31 PM | Comments (11)

April 27, 2007

Friday Shuffle - The Sort of Tired, Sort of Sick, and Totally Sick & Tired Edition

I haven't said anything about this, because I hate it when people complain about low-grade maladies and I try to avoid such behavior, because I really hate it when I complain about low-grade maladies, but I'm a little sick. Last Saturday night I felt a throat tickle coming on. A little tickle, a little congestion, a little coughing ... never getting full-blown sick. Just sick enough to be in a constant state of mild discomfort.

That gets really tiring after a few days. And that's all I have to say about that.

As for being sick and tired, yes, that pertains to real estate.

Here was the plan for tonight:

5:00-5:30: Return home from coffeehouse.
5:30-6:00: Prepare simple dinner.
6:00-6:30: Eat simple dinner.
6:30-7:00: Play.
7:00-7:30: Bath and bed preparations for Clara Jane.
7:30-8:15: Play.
8:15: Put Clara Jane to bed. Sit on couch and knit until falling asleep.
8:30: Fall asleep.

This is what happened instead:
5:00-5:30: Return home from coffeehouse.
5:30: Enter house, listen to phone message from real estate scheduling company. An agent wants to show from 6:30-7:30
5:31: Freak out because scheduling company is supposed to call my damn cell phone. Cuss.
5:31-6:00: Commence frantic house-cleaning. Realize White Trash Dirt Bike Hoe-Down is happening in the front yard catty-corner from us. There are shirtless children everywhere. Cuss.
6:01: Why is Clara Jane drawing on the hardwood floor with a green dry erase marker? She's never done that before. Cuss.
6:02-6:18: More frantic cleaning.
6:18-6:21: World comes to hault so that Clara Jane, who's refusing clean undergarments, can sit in time out.
6:21-6:28: Boot angry husband out of the house. Dress angry child. Cuss.
6:28-6:30: Leave house. Notice that, in addition to White Trash Dirt Bike Hoe-Down, the dune buggy guy's got junker cars all over the street while he works on one in his driveway. Cuss.
6:30-7:25: Eat dinner at mediocre local buffet, since it's close and we're starving. You know what's depressing? People-watching at a buffet on a Friday night.

Did I mention that I spent $40 on interior paint and $20 on ferns today, all in an attempt to make my house sell? I did. I spent dinner hoping that my $60 had been wasted and a contract was being drawn up while Clara Jane gnawed on her over-boiled corn on the cob.

7:25: Scheduling agency calls to inform us that real estate agent has cancelled showing. B.'s livid. B. rarely gets angry. This is twice in one hour. Commence worrying about his coronary condition, as two angry moments + mountain of buffet fried chicken = potential heart incident. "Why call and cancel five minutes before the appointment's due to end? Why not just let us believe they showed it so we don't get pissed off?" Some questions will remain mysteries of the universe, Dear.
7:26: Try not to think that real estate agent and lookers drove down our street, saw the White Trash-o-Rama two-part event, and bailed. Try not to break steering wheel in frustration while driving home.
7:26-present: Shuffle around hated house, listening to hated dirt bike, muttering under my breath that throwing $40 worth of paint and $20 worth of ferns at rednecks won't fix anything.

1. Pandora's Aquarium - Tori Amos (Beatrice the iPod must know I'm IMing with a Toriphile friend while shuffling. Beatrice is smart.)
2. Lonely Old Lies - Neko Case & Her Boyfriends
3. ELT - Wilco
4. One Line - PJ Harvey
5. Answering Machine - The Replacements
6. I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow - The Soggy Bottom Boys
7. Jettison - Neko Case & Her Boyfriends
8. C'mere - Interpol
9. Bigmouth Strikes Again - The Smiths
10. Under Pressure - David Bowie and Queen

I swear, Beatrice the iPod is human and knows just how to calm and comfort me.

Posted by Robin at 08:56 PM | Comments (4)

April 26, 2007

The Classics

Before I jump into the subject at hand, I'd like to note that the irony of the recent BlogHer ads to your right has not escaped me. A book about the raw food movement advertised next to the "Go Meat!" people? Stuff like that cracks me up and I hope those ads stay up forever and ever. At least, until they decide to rumble. Not that it would be a good fight. The Go Meat! people will be all sluggish, what with having colons filled with five pounds of Meat!, and the raw foods fighters will be too weak by a lack of will to live brought on by the abscence of flavor and textural variety in their diets. Still, I'd watch it.

Anyway ...

For several days I've mentioned that I want to write about the books I'm reading. My procrastinationon this topic just emphasizes my point that much more.

A few weeks ago I joined the annual adult reading club at my library. No, it's not that kind of reading club. Do people who read "adult" books form clubs? Nevermind. I don't want to know. No, this is like the reading clubs you might remember from the children's library. Read so many books during a set period of time (in this case, 10 books or 50 hours of reading in three months) and win fabulous prizes and glory forever.

I think joining the club, much like majoring in English not once, but twice, might have been a mistake for the exact same reason. Let me see if I can put my overachieving nutcaseness into words:

I joined the club in mid-March. Before then, I was knocking out a book a week. Of course, I counted the two books I'd read prior to joining: Candy Girl by Diablo Cody and Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. Both were good reads. Not exactly fluff, but not exactly hard literature, either. Pretty typical of what I normally read, though.

Do you know what I've read since joining the club?

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Breakfast at Tiffany's: a Short Novel and Three Stories by Truman Capote

So, this is how it works with me: in my regular day-to-day doings, I stick with stuff I like with no regard to difficulty or impressability. But put me in a show-off position, and I'm destined to bite off way more than I can chew.

Books are hard to chew, so you know. But I do this with everything. For myself, I'll knit simple stuff, on the rare occasion that I actually knit something for myself. But when it's a gift involved? Oh boy. If the project doesn't give my panic attacks and hypertension, it obviously means I don't love the recipient nearly enough.

Food? Same thing, although I'm getting better about that. My mom called me the night before my first catering job - an art exhibit opening with fancy-schmancy passed hors d'ouerves for 100. She asked what I was making: smoked chicken with cayenne aioli on crostini, kalamata and Greek olive tapanade stuffed into mushroom caps, fresh pickled spring veggies, crab salad on cucumber rounds, and gorgonzola dolce spread with strawberries. "I don't know what most of that is," my mom said. Then she asked me what I'd made for dinner.

Hamburger Helper and bagged salad. Go Meat!

I did this in school all the time. If the choice was between doing a paper on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is beaten into the skull of every single child born in the state of Missouri starting about five minutes after birth, and The Sound and the Fury, better known as The Most Difficult to Read Novel Ever Written, you can bet I'll pick the latter, and even though I love to read I'll wait until two days before the paper's due before I attempt to read the four-part tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.

I didn't do that business with The Sound and the Fury once. I didn't do it twice. I did it three fucking times: once in high school, once the first time I was in college, and once the last time I was in college.

I swore that I'd never touch that damn book again, but now that I have a little over a month to complete the last half of my book club reading requirement, my God! I think I need to revisit the world of Benjy and Quinten and Dilsey and please, somebody smack the shit out of me right now, as I am this close to logging into the library's website and putting it on reserve so I can pick it up tomorrow.

Next on the list: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

I don't know why I won't let myself read ... not fluff, but the stuff I'd normally read. At the beginning of the year I toyed with reading nothing but American 20th century classics this year. That's always been my genre of choice, but there were a lot of books I never got around to reading (like the last three books I've completed) and ones I read many, many years ago that I want to revisit with an adult perspective, like the one I'm about to start.

But why start such a huge undertaking after joining this reading club?

You know, instead of keeping track of number of books, they allow people to keep track of hours reading, which includes newspapers, magazines and internet crap. But you know what? I'm only logging the hours I spend reading Hard Books.

For some reason I've always had it in my head that, unless I set myself up to fail, I'm not trying hard enough.

Who knows? Maybe I'll force myself to not be like this for the last month. Maybe I'll read nothing but Harlequin romances. Do they still publish those?

I will say this: I don't regret the time and effort it's taken to read "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter", "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I was long overdue for reading them. Everyone should read them. If you haven't, go join a reading club right now, read them, and freak out like I did. It's worth it. The situation I'm in is teaching me a bit about patience, priorities, and quality over quantity.

Posted by Robin at 09:23 PM | Comments (10)

April 25, 2007

The Good n' Bad

Yeah, yesterday I said I'd blog about books. My brain isn't working that well, though, so you'll settle for more fragments.

This wasn't a happy sight to see first thing in the morning upon letting my dogs outside:

Alas for you, Donkey from "Shrek". I guess since Boy got busted trying set fire to Donkey yesterday, he had to settle for impalement.

But this was good:

No, I didn't knit them myself. Angela gave me the yarn for my birthday in 2005, when I first attempted (and repeatedly failed) at sock-knitting. A few months ago, in a fit of failrure, I tossed all my sock-knitting supplies into a box and shipped them to my pal Dixie in Germany. About ten minutes later, I learned to knit my own damn socks. Regardless, she's still wrangling my previous, obviously cursed, yarn into custom-fitted socks for me, and the first pair arrived today.

Yes, I know they don't quite match. That's not Dixie's fault; it's an anomily with the yarn, which makes me love them even more.

This wasn't good, though. Clara Jane threw a massive hissy fit at Barnes & Noble today. When I stepped towards her to pick her up, she went all boneless on me in a heap on the floor. I put my hands under her arms and just as I lifted, her bones miraculously returned, rocketing her from the floor directly into my chin. She took quite a blow to the noggin - her second in three days. I've got a bruised chin, sore jaw, and bite marks on my lower lip. Eating dinner tonight was fun. The wine burned, but was obviously necessary.

When I got home with my battered mandibular region and tired, cranky, possibly head-injured child, I had an email from Kristina with a link to a leak of the new White Stripes single. That makes all the pain go away. Except for the ringing in my ears, but I think that's my own fault.

Posted by Robin at 08:48 PM | Comments (9)

April 24, 2007

Today's Thoughts in Three Parts

Sometimes, my brain's too complex for mere dots.

Real Estate Crap
Four new reasons why I have to move as soon as possible:
1. It was about a year ago when our neighborhood 7-11 closed, prompting me to realize that this neighborhood is really going downshill and we need to move, pronto. Well, a new business is about to open in 7-11's old building. A liquor store.

2. The building that has been in progress a few blocks from our house for months? It's open. It's a no-name motel. Our neighborhood is near the airport, but not that near. In other words, this place will be a flophouse.

3. You know I like my neighbor across the street, despite her bad taste in pants and her penchant for leaving Christmas lights up until mid-March. Otherwise, she's nice. Really. But her new friendship with the creepy guy up the street bothers me. Now, I don't care about the nature of their relationship. I do care that they spend every single afternoon adding new fake animals, plastic plants, and whirlygigs to her front yard. This isn't helping my property value!

4. Remember Boy, my cute next-door neighbor? Well, he's not so cute now that he's hit the 'tween years. First, he chucked all of his stuffed animals into the backyard. For three weeks, I can't look outside without seeing dogs mauling a 1:12-scale stuffed version of the donkey from "Shrek". What's worse than that? Looking out my window this afternoon just in time to see Boy, blue Bic lighter in hand, preparing to burn his stuffed bunnies in effigy.

The house was viewed today. We'll see, as always. We also got feedback from the first people who viewed the house last week. Now, let me preface this by saying that the agent wasn't smart enough to figure out how to unlock our front door. I think she was disgruntled because of that and decided to take it out on us by calling our house "cluttered, dirty, dated, and highly unlikely to sell at this asking price."

I want to punch her in the face. She won't even see it coming because she's fucking blind. Our agent thinks this message is purely bullshit. Rather, he said that many people simply lack "imagination". He's nicer than I am.

I promised myself I wouldn't take it personally when people don't like our house. For the most part, I'm not. Another set of people looked at the house 15 minutes after the people who thought it was dirty and dated, and they loved it, except for the lack of garage. That, I don't take personally. But when I spend the whole week, nee, the past three months doing little more than cleaning and packing and trying to make this place presentable, you damn well better believe I take it personally when someone says shit like that.

Obviously, my psyche is going to take a beating until this house is gone.

Clara Jane
We've established that my kid's funny, right? If you need more proof, today, we were buying planters for the damn porch to make the house look, as Allison put it, "All welcoming and shit." While waiting in line, Clara Jane held one 6" pot to her ear, another to her mouth and yelled, "Hiddie-ho! Clara Jane speaking! Hello? HELLO?!" over and over and over.

This was funny, too, but hardly her fault. While the house was being shown we went out for a late lunch. She hadn't slept nearly enough last night, was eating far too late, and was ate up with the slappies, causing her to dance from the counter to our table and then to the drink bar. I think she was moving as much as possible so she wouldn't fall asleep standing up.

While I was filling my iced tea and Clara Jane was plie-ing and pirouetting, a woman jumped up from the opposite side of the restaurant and bounded to us in two or three strides. Tall, lithe, willowy and asking me, "Did she just come from a ballet class?"

"Um, no. She went to yoga class. Once."

The woman went on and on about how we need to get her into a dance class, pronto, because she shows real talent potential.

Real talent potential! Right there in the middle of Noodles & Co., hopping like a frog!

"I have three tutus," Clara Jane told the woman, apropos of nothing. I think the woman kind of wanted to kidnap her at that point.

All through lunch what did I hear? "Hey Mom? I'm a ballerina!" I didn't have the heart to tell her that she comes from the two longest family lines of poor grace and balance in the history of the world. Do I have to remind you about how I injured my ankle a few years back?

In other news, Clara Jane keeps blurring the gender roles, this time by stealing my jewels and accesorizing her rubber dinosaurs before sending them into loud, snarling dino-battle:

Books
I've written enough. Tomorrow, books. In the meantime, if you didn't do as I asked and visit all the bloggers I interviewed, at least go see The Cuz, making baby pteradactyl noises.

Posted by Robin at 04:52 PM | Comments (4)

April 23, 2007

A Mind-Wobbling Interview

You know I don't do memes, except on MySpace, where I'm a whore for anything involving questions that allow me to talk about myself. Dirty little secret, right there. But I do enjoy the interview memes that float around the blogosphere on occasion. Since I've been in such a foul mood of late, I need something to distract me from the crabby-ass writing I've done in the past few weeks. So, when I saw Dixie and Hilda participating in interviewing each other, I jumped aboard. Here's what Hilda had to say to me:

Let's see I don't *know* you too well, as I'm a relatively new reader of your blog. So I'll go generic.

Whoa. I'll bet we know each other better than you might realize. I occasionally particapte on a message board where you were once quite active. We were even partnered in a swap for our spouses (as opposed to a spousal swap, which is something entirely different) way, way, way back when.

1) Did you go to college? If so where and in what did you major?

I've spent seven years in college and have yet to optain a degree, thus making me the dumbest overeducated person in the world. I have a big problem that involves refusing to take "required" classes that have absolutely nothing to do with my course of study. From 1991 until 1995, I was a communication and English double-major at the University of Missouri - Columbia. For a year and a half, starting in January, 2000, I was in the culinary program at a local St. Louis college. I took the classes that interested me and went to work. While I was building my teensy little culinary empire, I took a year of English lit and writing classes because I'm nerdy enough to consider that fun, and also to keep my student loans deferred while I got my catering company up and running.

2) How is it that you're familiar with Cuban coffee (as opposed to espresso - they are so *not* the same thing!)?

Mainly because I'm a coffee nerd, but I'll get to that in question #4. I'm also a foodie, as I'm sure you can tell from my first answer. About ten years ago I checked out A Taste of Cuba: Recipes From the Cuban-American Community by Linette Creen from the library and, shamefully, never returned it. It's still on my cookbook shelf, and I still use it all the time. I'd checked it out because I was interested in Cuban-American culture, and wanted to learn more about Cuban cuisine, since there aren't many options for it in Missouri. Anyway, Cuban coffee was mentioned in the book, and I was fascinated.

When I moved to St. Louis, I found a few coffeehouses and a little Cuban grocer/deli that made real cafe Cubano, and I was hooked. Still am.

3) We know all about the beautiful Clara Jane - was she planned or a surprise? Do you want more kids?

Clara Jane was a planned surprise, of sorts. I have polycystic ovarian syndrome and had been told by many doctors that my chances of conceiving without fertility treatments were slim. In September, 2002, I was having such problems with the condition that my doctor went so far as to utter the H-word - hysterectomy. I was a month shy of 30 at the time and even though I hadn't given much thought to having kids, that kicked me into gear. I didn't have the overwhelming urge to have a kid, but being told that I can't do something is a sure-fire way to motivate me.

We started trying, somewhat half-heartedly, in January, 2003. My ob/gyn wanted to start me on Clomid immediately, but I wanted to hold off for a year on the off chance I could get pregnant without medical assistance.

Lo and behold, four months later, I was pregnant. Shocked the hell out of us. Needless to say, I'm glad we skipped the Clomid because otherwise, I'd be dealing with three-year-old octuplets right now.

As much as I adore Clara Jane and enjoy motherhood (most of the time), I'm not hepped up to have another. While my pregnancy was damn near perfect, I had a horrible delivery that ended in an emergency C-section, which led to a staph infection. I was sick for a long time. I also had some pretty severe problems with postpartem depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. I don't want to go through that again, nor do I want to put my loved ones through that again. Besides, I was an only child. It's a darn good deal in a lot of ways.

4) How did you meet your significant other? We want a story!

Oh, we're another one of those online couples! Back in 1998, I'd sworn off dating for six months. When I hit 25 I realized I'd grown tired of being a swingin' single gal about town.

Three months into this break, a friend and I were reading personals ads on Yahoo during our lunch break, making fun of them. Oh, these guys were rich. And I don't mean financially. We're talking comedy gold. But there was one ad that caught my attention, only because it didn't contain any sexual innuendo and the guy seemed smart. What made him seem smart? The fact that his email address was decaf_is_evil@yahoo.com.

I commented to my friend that his ad was cute, and she dared me to email him. I said no. She double-dared. I said no. She triple-dog dared me. I can't resist that, so I sent him an email that simply said, "I like your email address", just to fulfill my dare committment. I didn't expect him to email back, but he was bored at work that day, as was I, so we wound up exchanging a few mails.

I made it perfectly clear that I was on a dating break and he would get nowhere with me. He was fine with that, but made it clear that, should I change my mind, he was fine with that, too. And he kept his word, which impressed me.

On Memorial Day, about a month after that first email, I gave him a call and said, "I'm coming to St. Louis for the day. If you want to meet, great. If not, no biggie."

We met. Spent the day driving around the city and hanging out at his favorite coffeehouse, and have been together ever since, even though I swore for the first three months that we weren't dating and I wasn't his girlfriend.

5) Have you ever been to New Orleans? If so what was your favorite thing about it?

I have, but I don't really remember it. Not for the reason most people have fuzzy memories of New Orleans trips, but because I was a little younger than Clara Jane when I went. My parents took me all over the country when I was but a wee tot. I sort of remember playing on the white sand beaches in Mississippi during that trip, and I remember feeding peacocks in Jackson Square. Or was it the zoo?

My mom tells a horrible story about me and that day in Jackson Square (or zoo), which I probably shouldn't repeat but I will. Again, central Missouri isn't exactly the most diverse place in the world, especially in 1975. This was before I started preschool, so most of the people I encountered were in my family and looked just like me. Obviously, not the case in New Orleans where, upon seeing what was probably the first African-American person I'd ever laid eyes on, I loudly proclaimed, "Mama! Look at that chocolate man!"

I'm happy to announce that I didn't grow up to be a horrible racist who loudly and publically points out peoples' cultural differences. These days I have friends of all flavors.

Now it's someone else's turn to play if they wish: Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.” I will respond by asking you five questions in the comments here on this post so check back here. I get to pick the questions. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Posted by Robin at 07:50 AM | Comments (18)

April 22, 2007

Yarns

No, I'm not going to blog solely about knitting today, although there will be knitting content.

Dear, sweet Rachel, with the beautiful fuzzy head, did a great job of reading between the lines on my last post. She realized that I while I was joking, I was pretty well worn-out. She's astute that way. We met at Kaldi's for lunch, coffee, knitting, and some much-needed gut-spilling on Saturday. And she brought me some more of her wonderful hand-dyed sock yarn! Worthy? Me? Not even slightly. Spoiled? Most certainly.

That's her handywork on the right, the gorgeous deep pink and black. It's called Derby Girl, in honor of the Arch Rival Roller Girls. Hand-dyed sock yarn and roller derby - what's not perfect about that combo?

After lunch we went to Knitorious, the yarn shop that employs Rachel, the other Rachel, Tammy, and I can't remember who else. Sandy, the owner, of course. Those are the folks who let me come in and fondle yarns, loiter, talk to the help and prevent them from doing real work, and occasionally nap on their oh so comfy couch.

The thing that cracks me up about going to Knitorious is that my blogging reputation preceeds me, thanks to Rachel. She introduced them to my blog via the story about my neighbors' dog having a wiener dog stuck on his wiener. Apparently, Tammy has grounded Rachel from telling the story because she just can't take it anymore. I understand. I had to find other horrific stories to tell yesterday. It wasn't difficult.

Sandy and I had a long discussion about poop, to which Rachel yelled, "My God, Robin! Do you talk about anything but poop anymore?" No, I don't. You can either listen to me talk about poop, or bitch about my house. If I were you, I'd go with poop, because at least it's funny.

Besides, what else are you going to talk about when you're at a building where someone is performing a Reiki healing session on the toilet?

Not that the Reiki healer was sitting on the toilet. I mean, she was trying to heal the toilet, which really doesn't sound much better. Regardless, I picked up some Reiki tips on selling my damn crapshack, which I intend to shamelessly borrow. Much like burying St. Joe in the front yard, I'm going to borrow from as many religions and belief systems as possible. So far it's working really well for me, don't you think?

Anyway, Saturday was good. As much as I love sitting on my ass in front of the TV while I knit, there's something wonderful about knitting with others. I don't know if it's the lack of eye contact, since we're often looking at our work, or just the act of being in the same place at the same time doing the same thing that loosens tongues and inhibitions. Whatever it is, I needed that yesterday. The free yarn and poop stories helped, too.

Posted by Robin at 04:30 PM | Comments (5)

April 20, 2007

Friday Shuffle - The Cannonball Edition

I'm tired of complaining. I'm tired, period. I'm tired of cleaning my house and packing, only to have people who look at my house call it "cluttered". Well, life is cluttered, you stupid fuckers.

I'm tired of bad news.

I'm tired of constant loud buzzing motors, be they from the illegal dirt bike one neighbor keeps running up and down our street late at night, or the teensy-tiny chainsaw another neighbor's using to remove a very large tree. This is the same neighbor who drunkenly careened into his trash can Sunday night. Drunk driving + illegal dirt bike + chain saw + helmetless rider = Darwinian solution to both problems, you'd think. And I'm tired of thinking like that. It's mean to mock the stupid people.

I'm tired of my three-year-old not being potty trained. Today, I was more tired of it than I have ever been. We were at the coffeehouse, and as always happens at the coffeehouse, Clara Jane pooped. I don't know why she always poops at the coffeehouse, but she does. I'm not giving her coffee, so that can be what's causing it.

Anyway, as usual, she pooped at the coffeehouse. I took her to the bathroom, laid her on the changing table, and removed the poopy Pull-Up. While I was dumping the Pull-Up's contents in the toilet (after I fished the Pull-Up out of the trash - I mentally blanked, as I often do these days, and accidentally threw the poop away and felt guilty), I watched in abject horror as my child's ass turned into a poop-shooting cannon.

The first ball landed by my foot, and I screamed like Jamie Lee Curtis, circa 1976. I took some toilet paper and while I was picking it up, the second ball landed in front of me, on top of the floor drain. As I removed that ball, the third only traveled a few inches, from my child's butt to the end of the table. I guess a kid can only maintain such a high velocity for so many poop bombs before they fizzle.

I'm too tired to make a shuffle-related pun.

1. That's All Right - Elvis
2. Train in Vain - The Clash
3. Fast Cars - U2
4. After the Fire is Gone - Loretta Lynn
5. Cherish - Madonna
6. Getting to Me - Kelly Willis
7. Electron Blue - REM
8. Heartbreaker - Dolly Parton
9. Company in My Back - Wilco
10. I Get a Kick Out of You - Frank Sinatra

Obviously, Beatrice the iPod adores me and would never, ever shoot poop bombs across the room.

Posted by Robin at 05:41 PM | Comments (14)

April 19, 2007

Dots, for I am too Tired to Make Paragraphs

• I guess I don't have to say how horrified and disgusted I am with the profilation of the VT killer's homemade snuffish videos and photos being plastered everywhere. I especially enjoyed opening cnn.com this morning, with my child by me, and being greeted by a large photo of that motherfucker pointing a gun at us. Good morning, Sunshine! You're now traumatized for life. The news won't show flag-draped caskets of our soldiers returning from Iraq, but they'll show this bullshit. I tell ya, I'm so glad I made the decision 15 years ago to not go into news journalism as I'd planned for most of my life.
• Aside from Andrew Bird and being horrified, I've spent the entire week cleaning and packing. The new agent started showing our house today. We had two lookers. They stayed awhile, according to the neighbor. No one received parking tickets or summonses. They left business cards, which none of the past agents have done. I hope that means something. And by "something" I mean "we'll be getting an offer because the 7-11 up the street that closed last summer is being converted into a sleazy-looking liquor store, and the awesome donut place across the street is for sale and I can't live here anymore!
• I've learned that I can drown a miserable week by buying sock yarn, which I think means I have an official problem, especially since I'm too tired to knit.
• I have acquired two Andrew Bird CDs this week and yet, I was in such a foul mood today that they made me sad. So instead I've been listening to London Calling in its entirity on constant loop all day. Has there ever been a better album made? I think not. This is, without doubt, the worst album ever made.
• I want to spend all day tomorrow at Hartford Coffee. And maybe buy a new desk chair.
• I have to make a seperate list that entails the multitude of weirdness Clara Jane has exhibited this week.

• We have a new inhabitant at our house. Her name is Baby Emily. She was three for her birthday. She has just a little bit of hair. Her hair's green. At least, that's what I'm told. I haven't actually met Baby Emily, for she exists solely in Clara Jane's imagination.

  As a big fan of imaginary friends - mine hung around until my age was in the double-digits - I'm thrilled by this. And yet, a bit creeped out. I don't know why. I know it's normal. I wasn't normal, but everything worked out mostly okay for me. I can't tell if Baby Emily is a seperate entity from Clara Jane, or if Baby Emily is an alter-ego she's created for herself. There's a girl named Emily in her daycare class. Is she the inspiration for Baby Emily? I don't think so, because Daycare Emily doesn't have green hair. I just don't know. There is so much going on it that little blonde head of Clara Jane's, stuff I have no control over, and it makes me want to take a Xanax.

• Tonight, she was sitting in the backseat, laughing hysterically at what? I have no idea. So I asked her, "Clara Jane, what's so funny?" She snorted and said, "Me," then resumed her hysterics.

• Speaking of hysterics, Clara Jane is no longer allowed to watch "American Idol". I mean, I try to keep her away from commercial adult television, but she always seems to catch a performance or two on "AI".

  Yes, I watch "American Idol". Shut up.

  Anyway, I was watching Tuesday's "Idol" last night on the Tivo. Clara Jane heard Melinda Doolittle singing Trouble is a Woman and, because my kid has good sense, she came running, overcome by excitment, and danced like I've never seen her dance before. We had to watch the performance eight times. We had to dance with her. Life was joyful again! And then she said it.

  "I need to see the boy with the curls."

  Not thinking it was any big deal I flippantly said, "He's not on the show anymore. They sent him home."

  My child face crumpled like I'd just told her our dogs had eaten our cat. "That ... makes ... me ... so ... sad!" she said before completely falling the fuck apart. She wailed and sobbed to the point of hiccups. To the point where I was pretty sure she was going to vomit. B. held her tight while she bawled and screamed into his shoulder. The only thing that calmed her was Chris' mediocre, losing performance of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic".

• Clara Jane has started writing lyrics. Remember the falling-down pizza dance from nearly a year ago? Well, not only does she still do the dance in a manner that reflects the progress of her coordination, but she has started singing lyrics to the tune. They change every time, and I'm lucky if I can understand half of what she's singing. She always sings about falling down, which makes me think that perhaps she's composing a song about a dance step, like "The Twist", "Mashed Potato Time" or Walk it Out. But then the lyrics vary, depending on what she's done recently. She's also been adding lyrics to Pachelbel's Canon in D, which is also programmed into her $5 pink piano. Today's version was about flowers and what a beautiful day it was.

• Is it any wonder I'm so very, very tired?
  

Posted by Robin at 09:00 PM | Comments (8)

April 18, 2007

Music is Fun

You read Fluid Pudding, right? Of course you do, which means that you know what I did last night: I spent the evening with Angela at the Andrew Bird show.

Let me preface this by saying, for all my music geekness and musician worship, I've got problems with approching famous people on the rare occasions that I see them. Well, maybe "famous" is too strong a word, since most "famous" people who send me into a tizz aren't famous beyond a handful of like-minded nerds.

Here are my "famous" musician encounters, in chornological order:

1. March, 1993. I met Joan Baez and had an instant excuse to talk to her: she was a customer in the art gallery where I was working. Since none of my sorority girl co-workers knew who she was, and I was in a puddle behind the counter, biting my fist to keep from squealing, they gladly agreed that I should be the one to help her. She was so sweet, and funny, and within a minute or two I really wanted to leave work and hang out at the nearby coffeehouse with her for the rest of my life. She bought a frog sculpture and some earrings, gave me an autograph and a hug, and was ever-so-gracious when I burbled on and on about what a wonderful human being she is. The sorority girls laughed at me. Fuck 'em. I got a hug from someone who headlined at Woodmotherfuckingstock. I win.

2. July, 1996. With the same friend who joined me in the fool-hearty task of stalking Courtney Love a year earlier, we repeated with Paul Westerberg, formerly of The Replacements, one of my all-time favorite very best bands of all time. We loitered outside his tour bus, where he happily signed autographs and talked to fans. I managed to maintain my cool while he signed my ticket and a poster I'd gotten by flirting with one of the guys who was also standing in line. I thanked him for years of music that had touched my soul like few artists had. He, like Ms. Baez, was most gracious. It was my friend who went all apeshit fan-crazy. And the sad thing is, I had drug her to the show because she had insisted on dragging me to see the Goo Goo Dolls, probably the worst Replacements rip-off band of all time. So impressed was my friend by Paul that she rambled on and on and on about how she got to know his music by hearing it blasting from my room when we were roommates. I physically removed her.

4. November, 2001. A quintuple whammy: while standing on the floor, waiting for U2 to take the stage, Kristina realized that, direcetly behind us, were three members of Weezer (minus Rivers Cuomo, who we later learned was in disguise a few rows behind us) and both members of Tenacious D. Jack Black, People. Do you know how much I love Jack Black? A lot. And there he was, not five feet behind me, but I didn't join the people who had gathered around him. 1) I didn't want to bother, and 2) I didn't want someone stealing my spot close to the stage. This was just a few weeks after the release of Jack's homage to fat girls, Shallow Hal. I settled for making sleazy come-hither faces in his direction. He looked like he might call security, so I stopped.

5. May, 2002. I stood in the rain with some friends after a show in hopes of meeting Martha and Rufus Wainwright. Martha was little more than a back-up singer then, but has since found a bit more much-deserved success. Very sweet gal. As for Rufus, I didn't have to worry about coming up with something non-stupid to say to him. He beat me to the task. We were still quite a way back in the crowd, waiting for autographs and photos, when Rufus pointed at me and started screaming, "Oh my GOD! That shirt! I LOVE your shirt!"

That's right. I managed to impress a man who is not only gay, but also in the music industry, with my wardrobe choice. Granted, in such a situation, it's hard to go wrong with a snug black t-shirt with a bedazzled photo of Marilyn Monroe with a guitar.

6. April, 2007. Angela and I were dining at Thai Cafe prior to the Andrew Bird show. We were waiting ... and waiting and waiting and waiting ... for our check to arrive when a teeny little man with a pointy face, floppy hair and dark denim jacket walked past. Angela was in position to get the first look at his face, while I glimpsed him through the exterior window. We realized simultaneously that - holy shit! - Andrew Bird was having dinner two tables from us! Damn, we missed our chance to talk to him. Oh well.

About fifteen minutes later, while still waiting for our check, he came back.

He came back! We watched him walk into the restaurant and rejoin his bandmates two tables away from us.

And there we sat, heads together, desperately trying to come up with something, anything to give us reason to stop by the table.

How many hundreds, possibly thousands, of people come to Fluid Pudding and Poppymom daily because we're just so damn witty, charming and have such a je'nes ce quas with words? Well, you'll all be disappointed to know that we couldn't come up with a single goddamn thing to say that didn't sound totally stupid.

I sort of wish I'd been wearing Mom jeans, Keds, and had more of a suburban mom vibe about me. Then I could have went to his table and went all apeshit about seeing the real-life Dr. Stringz! Right there in Thai Cafe! Would you mind singing the Dr. Stringz song to my three-year-old on my cell phone? At least that would be funny in a humiliating, ironic way.

Funny thing, late in the show several people called out requests for his Dr. Stringz song, but he declined for fear that Viacom would come shut him down. Then he muttered the first line under his breath and I fell in little in love.

As is always the case, we were flooded with things we could have said to him much after the fact. Like, during the horrendous opening act, I considered storming back to Thai Cafe, marching right up to his table and yelling, "Do you have any idea what's happening on your stage? Do you? It's horrible, I tell you! Make her stop!"

I don't even know what her name is. I don't want to know because if I know, the urge to send hate mail will certainly be stronger than me. Angela nailed it by describing her as "crestfallen Cocteau Twins meets down in the dumps Edie Brickell meets really below standard My Bloody Valentine." I thought she was a lot like Morrissey, but without the joy and talent.

She made me laugh, and I don't think she meant to.

Her synthesizer player kept laying on the note that makes people inadvertantly lose control of their bowels. I feared for my pants, and I noticed a lot of people jumping from the seats and running away.

She played a teeny tiny little white keyboard. No good ever comes from that.

She drove me to drink. I was going to just have one beer, but after that set I sat with my credit card in hand so I could fling it at the first server to walk past me while screaming, "Beer! I need beer! Or a fifth of vodka! Anything that will kill the brain cells damaged by that set! You've got to help me erase her from my brain!" Which made me realize why so many opening acts are so utterly awful: it's good business for the bar.

Had I known he wasn't going to do Fake Palindromes during the show, I certainly would have lifted my rule about making requests at concerts: "The musician is not a jukebox. Leave him alone," and I would have said please, please, "Fake Palindromes"? Please? I have red lipstick, an old death kit I've been meaning to use, and see? I've got blood. Blood in my eyes for you. I'll let you swap my blood with formaldehyde if you do."

On second thought, it's just as well I didn't do that because it almost certainly would have been another security near-miss.

He told a tale about a raccoon getting into his chicken coop and creating great carnage. Had we known that, Angela could have empathized with her rodent problems. Are raccoons rodents? If so, are pandas rodents? This is why I have blood in my eyes, from entertaining thoughts like this.

The show, after the whiny, shrieky lady with the Casio? Stupendous. Mind-blowing. I'm going to echo Angela and say stunning. Instead of describing the show, go watch his network television debut from Letterman last week. During last night's show he mentioned that they had tons of equipment failure on Letterman, as they only had a few minutes to set up, so you won't get to see the double-grammophone spinning, or get to hear the brilliant Doppler sound effect it creates on the violin loops. Just imagine it, okay?

And if you happen to see Mr. Bird somewhere, please ask him what he had for dinner last night. Because that's what I always want to know - what people eat.

Posted by Robin at 03:50 PM | Comments (6)

April 16, 2007

A Very Perfect Day

That's what Clara Jane declared while I was pushing her on the swing. I didn't exactly agree with her, but when my kid thinks the day's perfect on a day like today, either I'm an excellent parent or an excellent liar.

It all started pretty good. Lovely weather. Renewed hopes of the house selling, despite last night's momentary neighbor-induced malaise. We went to the coffeehouse and spent lunchtime with Beqi, Heather and their kids. We had to leave a bit earlier than usual because the real estate agent's coming by, as is the kiddo who's going to help finish our yardwork. We had enough time left for a quick trip to the park, though. On the way, I gave B. a quick call, like I always do in the afternoon.

That when he dropped the bomb: the sellers of the house we love have opted to not renew our contingency contract. They're putting it back on the market. Sure, we can bid on it again, but we've just taken a huge step backwards.

Who the hell am I kidding? I'm not thinking "huge step backwards". I'm thinking "our house is gone".

Did I mention that, for the second time in a week, I forgot to take my Prozac before leaving the house? Not a good day to forget.

So while I pushed Clara Jane on the swings, I tried to not think about the house at all. Or how, even with the new real estate agent, I don't feel confident that we're going to sell anytime soon. How I have no faith in anyone in the housing industry right now. How I don't want to raise my kid in a neighborhood where the nearest park's brand-new playground equipment is already covered in graffiti, including messages inside the tunnels about who fucked whom in that tunnel, and when.

I put on my mama blinders, smiling and squealing with her, pretending everything's okay when it's not. When all I wanted to do was sit just inside the tunnel slide and have myself a good, self-pitying cry.

Then I came home and saw the news about Virginia Tech. Over 30 people. Dead.

It's about as far from a perfect day as it gets.

Clara Jane had a snack of toast with homemade peach jam and some milk. We read two stories and snuggled in the rocking chair until she fell asleep. Her day has continued to be perfect, innocent from all of this. I don't think she's innocent to the fact that this afternoon, her mother's hanging on by a rather thin thread. She snuggled longer than normal before her nap. Bargained less for more awake time. Smiled when I kept telling her over and over how much I love her.

She's napping. B. will be home in half an hour. The real estate agent is due here in 10 minutes, with our yard kid not long after. I'm not turning on the TV, because I can't handle it right now. I need to ground myself from the CNN and NPR websites. I need to pull my shit together, just for a few more hours, because 9 PM's not far away, when agents and yard boys will be gone, Clara Jane will be down for the night, and maybe I can finally do whatever the hell is necessary to undo a little of this unperfect day.

Posted by Robin at 03:52 PM | Comments (11)

April 15, 2007

Another Depression Valley Sunday

No, I'm not depressed. I'm just sick to death of living in what I'm realizing is a shithole of misery. This neighborhood ... to say I can't wait to get out of here ... I've said it so many times I'm no longer able to express it anymore, aside from standing on my front porch and screaming, "Get me the fuck out of here!"

I guess it started a few days ago when one of my neighbors came running out her front door, screaming, "Get your ass back in this house right now!" to her two-year-old, who had opened the door and walked out.

Gee, here's a hint, Dumbass: if you want your toddler to stay in the house, lock the fucking door. It's a lot more effective than screaming at him in such a manner that he'll want to suffocate you with a pillow while you sleep 14 years from now.

Today we went to an improptu baby shower. An old friend who lives about a mile from us is about to become a grandmother. She's 37. I have a feeling our invite, which came via phone call last night, had more to do with my computer-skilled spouse and their virused laptop than anything else. I heard some things during the party that made it obvious it wasn't as impromptu of a gathering as B. had been told last night. Regardless, we went for a few hours, ate cupcakes, made small talk, hired our friend's youngest son to help with some yardwork, and left before the gifts were opened. Which was fine, since we hadn't brought anything.

There's something about a baby shower for a girl who's due a week after her high school graduation that makes me sad. This is despite the fact that I have a feeling she'll turn out fine. She's got a good support system, and she's got a plan for furthering her education. I hope she's able to do it.

During the party, our move to Prettytown was mentioned. "That's pretty far away," someone I've never met before said. "Why are you moving way out there?"

My friend, the 37-year-old grandmother, beat me to the punch. "Her daughter's too smart to stay in this school district." And she wasn't being fasicious when she said it, either.

After we got home and Clara Jane napped, she wanted to go outside. Not wanting to play in the mudpit that is our backyard, we went to the front so she could ride her trike and draw on the driveway with chalk. I'd planned to stay inside, but since B. took the bubble machine for its inaugural run, I put Chloe on her leash and joined them.

I wish I hadn't.

The people who aren't smart enough to prevent their two-year-old from escaping via an unlocked screen door with a missing window pane are having a cookout. A part of the evening's festivities? Teaching the two-year-old the proper use of the word "fucktard".

B. and Clara Jane just walked in as I was writing the last paragraph. He said, "That business about our kid being too smart for this school district? You better believe there's no way I'm letting her go to school with that [gesturing to the Fucktard house]. Those kids are doomed."

Parenting is hard. I'm the first person to admit that because I've struggled with it. Continue to struggle with it. Will always struggle with it. I lost my temper with Clara Jane on Friday night and felt horrible about it. She was overtired and uncooperative. B. was trying to change her Pull-Up prior to dinner, and she was fighting him every inch of the way. I intervened, and when she fought me I decided that was it. I didn't care that it was only 7 PM and she hadn't eaten dinner; she was going to bed N O W.

I rocked her for 20 minutes. She was asleep within the first five, but I didn't want to put her down. I was afraid that if I put her down, I'd be abandoning her and she'd think I didn't love her. Even though I'd gotten angry, I know I did the right thing. She was tired and needed sleep more than she needed dinner. She slept over 13 hours and has been a delight ever since. I gave her what she needed. I just wish I'd did it a smidge more calmly.

Not once did I hit my child in this. I did raise my voice, but I didn't yell or call her names. I had to do my damnedest - and oh my God it is so fucking hard sometimes - to keep my own frustration and irritation under control and think, "Gee ... my kid's doing something wrong. What can I do to guide her through this situation, since that's my fucking job."

This all sounds so self-righteous. I'm trying to not be self-righteous. Really. About a nanosecond after my anger flared at the neighbor when she screamed at her toddler to get his ass back in the house, I had a pang of empathy. This woman has four kids. The two-year-old isn't the youngest. I've rarely seen her partner without a beer in his hand. He comes home daily around 11 AM with a case of Bud. They fight a lot, often on the front porch with the two littlest kids watching through the screen door. Not that her shitty conditions excuse bad parenting, but it sure as hell doesn't make her job any easier.

While the fucktard language lessons were transpiring tonight, three houses down the block we witnessed one of the finest examples of drunk driving we've seen on this street in, well, probably an hour or so. Another neighbor arrived home, completely plowed. And speaking of plowing, that's exactly what he did to his trash dumpster. Plowed into it. Luckily, his cat, who had taken refuge behind the dumpster, escaped unharmed.

Later, Mr. Plow went to his backyard to build a drunken bonfire, shortly putting it out because no one would come outside and play with him.

I am so goddamn sick of living in a neighborhood where I can't take my daughter outside on a nice evening without her hearing people scream at each other. Or seeing drunks stagger around. Or worry that some loaded jackass is going to careen off the street and kill her in our own driveway.

On Friday the street department finally made it to our block and removed the pile of storm debris that's been outside our house since December, which will hopefully improve our chances of selling. We sealed the deal with the new real estate agent Saturday. He's got until July 14th to unload this shithole. If he can't do it, we're calling one of those places that buys ugly houses and rips off the owners in the process. We no longer care. We just want out.

There are no guarantees that our next neighborhood is going to be any better. We're going by what friends in the area have told us, the school district, and quite honestly, by the way the neighborhood looks. In the 16 years I've lived away from my parents' house, I've never lived in a decent neighborhood. Ever. It's never bothered me much, but now that I have a kid, it bothers me. Although at least where we currently live, I know who's drunk and verbally abusing their kids. Who knows? Maybe the in the "nice" neighborhood, the same shit goes on, but the people perpetrating it have enough shame to keep it in the house.

Posted by Robin at 07:27 PM | Comments (6)

April 13, 2007

Friday Shuffle - The Lazy Writer/Mediocre Photo Blogger Who Crafts Edition

This is bothering me a little. Not enough to make me stop, but bothering me nonetheless. I've always fancied myself a writer. I've been paid to write. These days, my blog is my primary form of writing, which is fine with me. Problem is, I'm getting so lazy, thanks to my camera.

Take yesterday. I could have described the pretty pink roses the Trader Joe's wine manager dumped into my shopping back. Instead, I took a half-assed, poorly-lit photo of it and effectively said, "I don't feel like coming up with a cool way to tell you how the pink fades into creamy white. Here. Just look at the damn picture. I've got an ass to sit on and a brain to rot."

Since I spent four hours in the car with B. and Clara Jane today, thus nearly completing my brain-rotting process, I'm going to burden you with more pictures and less description.

Tempe complained about my lack of knitting content, despite the fact that I've never claimed to be a knitting blog, but I'm also going to satisfy my knitting requirements.

In the past few months I've alluded to a super-secret knitting project. The project's finally in the hands of its rightful owner, so I can post about it.

I did a variation on Wild Stripes for Sal's new son. It combines knitting and quilting and gave me panic attacks.

I finished my first Tropicana sock last night. Even though it's pretty, I'm not happy with it.

I tried to increase the top to fit my chubby calf, but I'm not skilled enough to know when and how to decrease it to fit my rather normal-sized ankles. The result: pretty sock that gives me cankles. I think I'll be redoing it after I read Sensational Knitted Socks.

In more competant crafting news, I've scored another super-cool quilt made by my granny and great-granny. The backstory: My great-grandma died in 1980. Her daughter, Granny Viv, never throws anything away. I'm not certain, but I think she recently hit a stash of Great-Granny Velma's unfinished quilt tops in her attic, and she's been finishing them. I stole one of these creations from my mom a few months ago. Not that I deserved my own quilt, thief that I am, but Granny Viv gave me another of her beyond-the-grave quilt collaborations:

You know that line in Peggy Lee's "I'm a Woman" that goes, "I can make a dress out of a feedsack and I can make a man out of you?" Well, I don't know how many men my granny and great-granny made, nor do I ever, ever, ever want to know such a thing, but they sure can make pretty things out of feedsacks. That's where the fabrics in this quilt came from. You know the story behind gals making things out of feedsacks, right? You should.

And finally, some disturbing crafty news. Remember a few days ago when I mentioned that Clara Jane was going to take a yoga class? She did, and it was fun. Well, I thought it was fun. She was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. At the end of the class, the teacher, who - I kid you not - is a licensed joyologist - brought out the fingerpaints and asked the kids to paint their yoga experience. Clara Jane bypassed the multiple neon shades and this is what she painted:

Then she told me that she wasn't feeling very Zen, and could she, please, go home, sit in her closet, and listen to her Morrissey CDs?

As we were leaving, the joyologist asked me if Clara Jane is always so "cerebral". Yes. Yes, she is. Except when she shuffles to the barbeque joint without her pants:

1. I'm Going Upside Your Head - Jimmy Reed
2. Green Green Rocky Road - Kate & Anna McGarrigle
3. Dream Baby - Roy Orbison
4. Orange Blossom Special - Johnny Cash
5. Monday - Wilco
6. Things Get Better - Eddie Floyd
7. Shadow in the Way - Tift Merritt
8. You Know I'm No Good - Amy Winehouse
9. Parakeet - REM
10. I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams

Posted by Robin at 08:45 PM | Comments (9)

April 12, 2007

A Day of Wine & Roses, with a Little Sugar, Freon and Real Estate on the Side

Some days are just flat-out surprisingly good.

1. I had my follow-up doctor's appointment this morning regarding the blood sugar weirdness of six weeks ago. I'm fixed. The extensive bloodwork concluded that not only is my blood sugar a-ok (as long as I don't go more than a few hours without eating, but really, we should all do that), but my cholesterol, thyroid, and hormones are all exactly where they need to be. That bullshit about all fat people being unhealthy? Fuck 'em. I'm one fit fat girl. And I'm through with gouging my fingers four times a day!

2. I get my truck tomorrow. The $800 air conditioner repair bill we thought we were facing wound up being a mere $300.

3. New real estate agent! We met with one-half of the team last night, and I'm officially excited again. Much, much more confident that these agents will actually, you know, try to sell our house via things like proven marketing techniques, instead of our previous agent's method: waiting for people to drive down our street and call him. Did I mention our street is one block long and it's rare for people who don't live on our street to drive down it, thus meaning that our house has primarily been marketed to the 20-odd people who already live here?

4. I wasn't using the allusion to "The Days of Wine and Roses" in a metaphorical way. Look what I got today:

I honestly didn't notice the half-drunk bottle of Three Buck Chuck Shiraz sitting on the counter when I plopped the vase there to take the photo. It's appropriate, though, because guess who gave me that lovely bouquet?

The wine guy at my local Trader Joe's.

No, it's not because I'm such a great wine customer. Believe me, I'd like to be a much better Trader Joe's wine customer, but I'd also like to maintain that clean bill of health. I didn't get those roses because I'm their highest profit-maker on cheap wine. You're surprised, I know.

Fact is, I'm not sure what the motivation was, and I'm working hard to not question it and just enjoy a surprising act of kindness.

I've only talked to the wine guy once, about three weeks ago when I was buying wine and beer for that shindig I hosted a few weeks ago. Granted, we talked at length. He was having a slow day. I was sans kid. And anyone who knows me knows that, if you get me started on wine, food, (or just about any topic, truth be told), I'll talk for hours and hours and hours until someone physically removes me from the scene. I'm a friendly gal. I like to talk to people. I really like to talk about food and wine, especially with people who work with them for a living.

There were a few moments when we were talking where I thought he might be flirting with me, but come on. Guys don't flirt with me. I'm a chubby 34-year-old mom who's usually wearing a ponytail or two, no makeup, a t-shirt, and black Mary Janes that indicate 1) my Amish belief system, 2) my refusal to leave the year 1994 in the past, or 3)orthopedic problems. (The correct answer is B).

I probably seemed like I was flirting because, like I said, I'm friendly. Friendly + female is often misconstrued as flirt. Whatever, I bought three bottles of wine and a 6-pack of beer that day. Hardly a big haul.

Today, I dropped Clara Jane at daycare and hit Trader Joe's for my weekly shopping in the time I had to kill before my doctor's appointment. Frozen naan, three jars of natural peanut butter for my dad, fresh pineapple, a jar of korma sauce, no booze. Pretty typical TJ's run for me.

What was atypical, though, was how the wine guy was rapidly working on a bouquet of pink roses at the service counter. Even more atypical was the manner in which he ran by my check-out lane, hollered, "I'm just in time!" as he deposited the flowers into one of my shopping bags, not even stopping his sprint.

The bagger, cashier and I all stood there, jaws dropped. It takes a lot to make me blush, but I could feel my face flaming all the way down my neck to my chest.

Oh shit. V-neck t-shirt. Chest glowing red. Boobs afire, possibly visible through gray shirt. Might die right now.

"He never bring me flowers anymore," the cashier finally mumbled.

I finished my transaction and went over to the service desk to thank the wine guy. I think I slobbered a little. I know the words didn't come out smoothly, and I think I might have had a small booger on the edge of my left nostril.

Did I mention that the wine guy's pretty damn cute? Did I mention that I'm married? And that he is, too?

See, that's the part I'm trying to not think about. I want to view this as a simple act of kindness, a kooky person doing something a bit out-there, just to give someone a pleasant jolt in the middle of a chilly, dull, day.

I spent a chunk of yesterday with Raquel and Beqi - have I mentioned that I'm only accepting new friends who have the letter Q in their names? Anyway, we spent a great deal of time ranting about stupid shit men have done in an effort to pick up women. Everything from revving their car engines to copping feels at clubs to asking the father of a gal's ex how she is in bed. Really abhorant stuff that happens all the time. At one point, when we were collectively calling for a large bowl filled with the testicles of these men, Clara Jane turned to us, let our a happy shriek, and shot us a big thumbs-up sign.

Obviously, she's being raised to be a strong woman who will break the face of anyone who messes with her.

And yet, less than 24 hours later, I find myself completely flummoxed by a surprise floral delivery that my cynical brain wants to say is likely motivated by the same things that motivate the crappy actions we were discussing yesterday. The difference is, this guy did something nice and beautiful, not something degrading and objectifying.

Now, I feel a little stupid for getting so giddy over flowers. I never got flowers from boys when I was in high school. The boyfriends I had over the years weren't always the most thoughtful of fellows, although the one I married is. That's why I need to take the man/woman thing out of the equation and just take this at face value: a clever person doing something spontaneous and kind to make another person feel good.

That's just good customer service, when you get right down to it. Damn good customer service. So good that I'm thinking I might switch from my Three Buck Chuck to the $20 bottles of Kenwood Zinfandel they sell.

Posted by Robin at 01:35 PM | Comments (14)

April 10, 2007

Bad Real Estate Agents, Bad Mothering

In exactly two hours and 47 minutes, our crappy real estate agent will be no more.

Nothing drastic. I mean, we're not having him whacked or anything of that nature. His contract is simply expiring, much to my extreme joy.

Thanks to everyone who made agent recommendations last week. While we're not going with any of those agents, since they're not as familiar with our area as we'd like, it was in researching those agents that I found our next ones. I somehow managed to surf into a website listing the top real estate agents, per St. Louis zip code. And that's who will be listing our house tomorrow - the agents who have sold tons of houses in our zip code. Now that we know what questions to ask an agent, we've got some confidence that they'll do a lot more for us than our current crappy agent.

The excitement's renewed, so much so that I gutted my kitchen cabinets and packed three boxes tonight. B. and Clara Jane did some work on her room to declutter, and this is all so mind-numbingly dull that you really shouldn't care about it other than perhaps you won't be subjected to boring real estate blabber for much longer.

You know what's more interesting than boring moving talk? Kid's yoga classes. We're taking one tomorrow. Clara Jane hasn't been in a very Zen place lately, and I can't keep giving her nighttime cough syrup just for my own benefit. Perhaps the yoga will clear the clutter and daily stress from her mind. Or at least give her the opportunity to pretend to be a dog - at least a downward facing one. Clara Jane's current favorite hobby involves pretending to be a dog, but I refuse to put a leash on her, no matter how much she demands is.

Seriously. She's been demanding a leash and wants us to "walk" her. Considering how tired I am of dirty Pull-Ups, the urge to let her go walkies outside is sometimes hard to resist.

In other excellent parenting news ... Clara Jane has two new favorite songs. "Alfie" by Lily Allen and "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse. Yes, this is from a parent who doesn't allow her kid to watch "The Doodlebops" or "The Wiggles". None of that crap in my house, but let's listen to tunes about weed-smoking little brothers and twentysomething soulful alcoholics 20 times a day! And sing along! Loudly! Perhaps in public, at the coffeehouse, where today she kept telling me, "I want to hear the song where the boy goes 'nooooooooooo nooooooooooooooo noooooooooooooo!'"

"Oh, you mean the song about being a drunk, Sweetie?"

"Yeah, Mommy! That's the one."

But I'm taking her to yoga! Free yoga! Healthy, economically sound, centering yoga! Which she'll do while I sit on a couch and drink coffee.

Posted by Robin at 09:11 PM | Comments (9)

April 09, 2007

Burn, Peep, Burn

Instead of starting with every detail of my Easter weekend, I'll jump directly to what you've all been waiting for...

What happens when you roast a Peep over an open flame, as illustrated by my cousin Hillary, better known as The Peep Reaper:

While some party-goers weren't impressed with the delightfully crunchy, caramel-coated runny marshmallow, most of us thought they were pretty damn good. Even a few avowed Peep-haters, like B.

For this, I spent a year and a half of my life in culinary school. So I could figure out that hey! Peeps cooked over an open flame might be good! And it was worth every tuition dollar, I tell ya.

Besides, they looked pretty cool. This is how traditions are born.

In case you haven't figured it out by now - which means you're probably new - my family's not big on doing things the way "normal" families do things. To whit: did your Easter dinner look something like this:

Ours looked like this:

We're a weenie-roasting family, but until now the weenie-roasting was a little more seasonally appropriate. My grandpa, uncle, and I have birthdays in late October, and that's when we used to set fire to our food. But recently my parents bought one of those patio-sized fire pits on clearance, and my mom decided that there would be no finer way to celebrate Christ rolling away the rock than to stab some tube steaks and set them aflame.

You know the awful cold snap that's hit the midwest, killing crops and causing havok? I think my blasphemous weenie-roasting kin might be responsible. I'm sorry.

Despite the fact that it was 27 degrees with a wind chill of "My God, my tit just fell off!", some of us brave souls loaded into the surrey for a ride:

That's my dad, family pal Blake, and Chiggar in the front seat. Clara Jane and I sat in the middle. The Peep Reaper and B. sat in the back. And all of our faces fell off from the cold.

Out of the 2309 people who attended the weenie roast on Saturday night - seriously, I don't know where all these people come from; our family's not very big - only a few of us were hearty enough to brave the cold: the two pre-adolescent boys, B., Peep Reaper, and me. You might recall that B.'s from Up Nort' - Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where he was raised in the woods and most of his meals were cooked with fire, often after being run through with an arrow. He was in his element and barely set foot inside all evening, opting instead to stay in the cold and seeing what would be tasty fresh from the fire. At one point he was muttering, "That spot right there ... the flames are perfect. I wish I had a chicken leg to stick in there."

Great Aunt Helen Hottie came out for some marshmallows in front of the freezing-dead magnolia tree:

Chiggar the Dingo stayed with us, too. How lucky are we? Blake almost got him airborne through the magic of centrifugal force:

But that was nothing compared to the moment when we realized that the large stick in Chiggar's mouth had flames burning on one end. Alas, no photos of that event, as I was running for my life.

It wouldn't be a holiday gathering in my family if someone didn't run for her life sooner or later. Speaking of which...

The Cuz is the source of many of our family's funniest sagas. My personal favorite happened when we were kids; she probably wasn't more than 5 or 6. Our whole family was doing what we used to do in those days: sleeping outside and providing ample feasts for the mosquitos at Truman Lake. Of course, every night involved weenies and marshmallows cooked over an open fire, and fried potatoes cooked in the electric skillet because no way was my mom camping without electricity, real toilets and showers, and shelter, for which I'm eternally grateful. Anyway, Wendy had achieved what every marshmallow-roaster aims for - the nirvana of having a ball of molten, blackened, sugar fireball on a stick. She stepped away from the fire with her flaming fireball and promptly dropped it into the center of Granny Viv's great big bouffant hairdo.

It's an important moment in every family when torches are passed to the next generation. Even if the torch is a flaming marshmallow on a stick.

Granny Viv remained inside all evening. I don't blame her. Not one bit.

Posted by Robin at 09:16 AM | Comments (8)

April 07, 2007

Friday(ish) Shuffle - The Good Friday Sausage on the Dashboard Edition

Of course I'm a day late. I'm always a day late with the shuffle when I'm in the hometown. It didn't help that I kept thinking yesterday was Saturday. Holidays confuse me. Especially this one.

Our travel plan didn't involve trains this time because 1) we had to bring our dogs with us, and 2) while in my hometown we were going to take advantage of cheap auto repair. The air conditioner in my truck recently croaked. Yes, I'm aware that many people in much warmer climates live without the luxury of air conditioning for their entire lives. I'm also aware of the dangers of Freon and the environment. But I'm also in constant danger of overheating and keeling over, something I'd prefer to not do while behind the wheel. I'm also lazy and spoiled.

Repairing the air conditioner in St. Louis? $800. We didn't spend that much to overhaul the air conditioner in our house last summer. Luckily, I come from one of those towns where just about every man knows how to rebuild a car from scratch. We bought the necessary parts and made an appointment with Bob, the 65-year-old, four-toothed race car driver who fixes cars for cheap. In this case, many hundreds of dollars less than we were going to pay at home. We had to be here by noon on Friday, though, because Bob's a busy man.

The original plan: Clara Jane would go to daycare on Thursday, as she always does. I'd spend the day spiffying the house for any weekend house-showings (in other words, cleaning fruitlessly) and packing. Around dinnertime, we'd drug Murphy with Dramamine, the drug recommended by her vet for the manic pants she gets when she travels, and then we'd hit the road. We'd arrive in my hometime in time for a decent bedtime, sleep in a bit on Friday morning before taking our truck to Bob and proceeding with our day.

What actually happened: Clara Jane woke up crying and covered in snot on Thursday morning, too listless to walk from her room to the living room. This child, who would go to daycare even if she had a finger dangling by a tendon, told me she didn't feel well enough to go to school. So I kept her home, which made the cleaning and packing difficult, especially when the diarrhea bombs hit. We opted to stay home, leaving early Friday morning, assuming nothing explosive was happening with our child by then.

Luckily, Clara Jane was much better Friday morning, thanks to a cough syrup-induced night of sleep. Yes, I resorted to drugging my child, since she hadn't had a decent night or nap in days because of her cough. I also resorted to drugging my dog, Murphy, as I mentioned before.

You know, I've always fallen a bit on the hippy all-natural school of thought when it comes to health care. But you know what? People used to get a lot sicker and die a lot faster back in the old days. Sometimes, you've gotta pull out the big guns. We celebrated Good Friday by living better through chemistry. Cough syrup for Clara Jane, Dramamine for Murphy, and my usual cocktail of antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs. It was a lovely drive. I think my entire family should stay lightly medicated at all times.

Of course, there are drawbacks. Like, several hours after dropping the truck with Bob, I remembered the sausage biscuit that we'd left on the dashboard of the truck. We were sitting at the local Greek restaurant with my parents when I realized this. Since Bob had warned us that it would probably be several days before he could fix it, I thought we should go get the meat biscuit.

"That's okay," my mom said. "Bob's probably eaten it by now. He's not picky."

As my dad tossed us his truck keys so we could go to Bob's and remove the sausage biscuit before being pegged as responsible for a large, four-toothed, 65-year-old race car driver's death from food-borne bacteria, Dad said, "Just be careful that you don't let Chiggar out."

No. Oh no.

Sure enough, while walking to my dad's truck, I saw the silhouette in the passenger seat, with those unmistakable pointy jackel-style ears.

I'm trapped in a truck with a dingo.

Riding around town with Chiggar's not quite as bad as I'd expected. For one thing, he had a tennis ball to keep him occupied. While throwing a ball for a wild dingo in a moving truck probably isn't that safe, it's certainly safer than having an unoccupied dingo trying to gnaw the driver's ear off. Lesser of two driving evils.

We probably shouldn't have taken him to the coffeehouse drive-thru for a double espresso, though. In hindsight, that was dumb. But we didn't feed him the sausage biscuit when we got it from our truck. Nor did B., the biscuit retriever, bother to throw it away. Hours later, I found it lying on my mom's kitchen counter.

I've heard of meals repeating on you, but this is ridiculous. I threw the damn thing away a good twelve hours after it was purchased.

My family's a bunch of blasphemers. Except for my granny, who was recently put in charge of her church's business affairs after the surprise departure of their preacher. They've been holding auditions for a new preacher, a sideshow I like to call Pentecostal Idol, which means my seat in Hell will have a busted seat warmer that will toast my skin for all eternity, much like my mom's heating pad that I unwillingly sat on for an hour last night before wondering why my back and ass were on fire.

Anyway, blasphemers. Our Easter celebration's today because we like to sleep in on Sundays. Soon I'll be making glittery eggs with my kid. Tonight, lots of people are coming over to stand outside in the freezing cold around a totally Pagan bonfire, upon which we will cook the speared, cured, tubular spiced flesh of pigs and Peeps, which will no doubt shuffle our innards as badly as Bob's, had he eaten the dashboard sausage.

1. Fairytale in the Supermarket - The Raincoats
2. It's Five o'Clock Somewhere - Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett (Because my iPod knows it's in my mother's house.)
3. Horn Intro - Modest Mouse
4. The Wanderer - Johnny Cash and U2 (Because God loves me even if I am a blasphemous sinner.)
5. Sabotage - Beastie Boys
6. Keep Your Head Up - Eagles of Death Metal
7. Pledging My Love - Aaron Neville
8. The Junky Jews - Clem Snide (Because my iPod has a weird sense of humor.)
9. Sangria Wine - Robert Earl Keen
10. Situation - Yaz (which is perfect for the naked Pagan dance I'm going to do either around the bonfire or for the next installment of Pentecostal Idol).

Posted by Robin at 10:20 AM | Comments (6)

April 05, 2007

Allen Ginsberg Died Ten Years Ago Today

I have this weird thing about dates that involves my brain having amazing recall for them. This used to be my big parlor trick - give me a date, any date, and I'll tell you exactly what I was doing, what I wore, what I ate, and if anything historically important happened. It's a gift, really, that's sadly fallen a bit by the wayside. I don't think it's because of age; I think it has more to do with parenthood. When I got pregnant, but before I knew I was pregnant, I kept repeating stories to B. I'd tell him something in the morning, call him in the afternoon to tell him again, and then I'd meet him at the door and tell him the same story again.

This is proof that fetuses eat brains.

Anyway, I can tell you that Allen Ginsberg died ten years ago today. While I have always admired Ginsberg's work in an "I was an English major who digs American lit so therefore I sort of have to admire him" way. But the main reason I remember that today is the tenth anniversary of his death is because I heard it on the news about 15 minutes before I walked out my door and did this:

Yep, that's me, circa June, 1997. I was lucky enough to not only be cute and 24 years old, but to be dating a photographer. I think everyone has that one photo that they'll always look back to and say, "Yeah, I wasn't half-bad."

As for ten years ago today, I got that tattoo, the two bright orange poppies on my upper left arm. Funny thing is, I almost missed the ten-year anniversary, so corroded my brain has become since I became a parent. Had The Cuz not gotten her first ink earlier this week, the anniversary of my first (and, so far, only) ink might have been missed.

I remember that day so clearly. You know, once I got my memory jogged. I never used to have to jog my memory. That's probably the same as someone who was always skinny saying, "I didn't used to require jogging to keep my ass from becoming barn-sized."

Anyway, that day. My pal Big Daddy B spent the whole day with me. And I do mean the whole day. We went to rummage sales that morning, although I can't remember if that was the rummage sale spree that led to him buying a vinyl copy of the Xanadu soundtrack and a skanky stuffed Big Bird, which he purchased just to slip into the bed of his super-hung-over roommate and scare the ever-loving crap out of her. Not that any of this has anything to do with the tattoo, but that's how memory works.

We had Thai food for lunch, but it wasn't the trip to the Thai restaurant where the old Thai lady called Big Daddy a wimp for ordering his food mild while I went for flaming hot.

We waited all day because I absolutely had to have Spider at Dream Catcher do my tattoo. Spider didn't work on a schedule. You just showed up and waited. And waited. And waited while an entire sorority pledge class screamed through getting their belly buttons pierced in the next room. And waited some more until finally, the shop closed, but since we'd waited for hours, Spider did my tattoo.

They closed the shop and cranked up The Lost Highway soundtrack. Spider drew the poppies from the photo on a package of Burpee Oriental Poppy seeds I'd bought at Wal-Mart. After years of searching for the perfect poppies, that's what I found. Yes, I still have the unopened seed packet, despite having the image permanently etched into my flesh.

There was another person getting tattooed. He'd been under the needle all day. A young guy who was about to ship off in the Navy, joined by his father, a Navy vet. The guy was having an angel the size of his bicep put on his arm to protect him while he served.

Why did I get the poppies? I've always been drawn to them. We had a patch of them in our backyard when I was little, and I thought they were the most interesting flowers, the way their petals were thin as tissue paper and softer than silk. The way the unbloomed seed pods would bleed white milk when squeezed, and how the dead pods would spill tiny black seeds. The fuzz on the stems and leaves.

The only time I've ever had an opiate in my body was a morphine drip, post-c-section, which I grossly underutilized. When I told people my tattoo idea, a few of them said that people would think I was a smack junkie. That's a little extreme, don't you think? But as a person who's always had sleep and insomnia issues, I liked the idea of carrying a symbol of sleep and oblivion on my body for the rest of my life.

After the inking, we went back to Big Daddy's place to partake in our beverage of choice - a magnum of Beringer White Zinfandel, consumed while listening to the Xanadu soundtrack before closing down Contacts, the gay bar where Big Daddy's bartender friend served us Kamikazees in beer mugs. I don't remember feeling the alcohol at all. I just remember feeling nothing but adrenaline that started bouncing through my system the second the needle hit my skin, and didn't stop until I finally fell asleep around 4 AM.

I'm pretty sure my next tattooing won't go like that. My initial reaction to that is sadness, because it makes me feel old and miss "the good old days". But then I remember - holy crap! That behavior kills 34-year-olds, simply because 34-year-olds have gained the wisdom to know just how stupid having that much fun is. The knowledge alone is enough to kill us.

Yes, there's going to be another tattooing. I don't know when. I've been plotting it for years. Poppies around my ankle. It seems a little unoriginal, but ten years later, I still love my poppies. I love what they mean. Not once have I regretted getting them, although they're looking a bit beleagured and could use a touch-up:

I love how my grandma, who wasn't supposed to know about the tattoo, told me it was beautiful when she was making my wedding dress. I love how Clara Jane has gone from chewing on it with her toothless gums to asking me to show her my flowers. I love how, after we'd been together for awhile, B. told me he regularly forgot about my tattoo because he was so accustomed to it. I love that when I look at it, it still stops me and makes me smile.

The summer after I got the tattoo, I was making one of my frequent visits to Acorn Books. The owner, who always recognized me, spied my sundress-exposed arm and said, "Did Spider do that to you?" I said yes, he did. He complimented Spider's work and said that he often came into the bookstore to buy art books.

"You do know that when you're 90 and living in a nursing home, all the nurses are going to call you Poppy because of that thing, right? 'Poppy needs a new diaper! Poppy lost her dentures again! Poppy's causing a rucus in the lunchroom again!'"

For some reason, I liked that image. Thus a nickname was born.

Ah, the children of the '90s are getting old. All of us Clinton-voting, Nirvana-listening, flannel-wearing, Lollapalooza-going, tattoo-taboo-busting kids are grownups. We're old enough to be narrowed down to stereotypes based on the music and fashion of the times. I don't regret much, although I did a lot of stupid things. I really don't regret the ink that was put into my flesh ten years ago tonight. It's one of my favorite memories and a part of me. No matter how ugly I feel, I have something on me that I'll always think is beautiful. I have a souvenir of my youth that's become more than a novelty. It's a part of me.

Now, who wants a Kamikazee in a beer mug? No one? Good.

Posted by Robin at 03:47 PM | Comments (8)

April 03, 2007

Disgracefully Dull Dots

What can I say? It's been a slow few days. Dreadfully slow.

• In the spirit of both getting back on the horse and laying claim to our turf, Clara Jane, Beqi, her family, and I returned to the coffeehouse yesterday, where more smack-talk about Savior Dad went down. This guy really should watch his actions, as he's really not well-liked. Not even a little, it seems.
• For the second time this spring, Clara Jane and I were going to the botanical gardens today. And for the second time, we had to cancel. This time due to weather and possible plague. The kid's got a bug, or she's a really good faker. Either way, being cooped up in the house isn't good for either of us. Especially when one of us refuses to nap. I'm not pointing fingers, but I will say that my bed has looked so good today.
• I cleaned like a crazy lady today.
• Have I mentioned how irritated I am with our real estate agent? I don't even want to get into it. The fact that, after nearly three months, our house still isn't listed on his website. And that after being sent interior photos of our house twice, they're still not on our realtor.com page. B. flat-out asked him today if he's ever shown our house, because it seems it's only been shown by agents from other agencies. He replied that he'd driven people by, but they didn't want to look because of the brush at our curb.

Okay, screw it. I'm getting into it. For starters, we told him upfront three months ago that the house wasn't ready to be listed, mainly because of the massive storm damage in our backyard. We let him persuade us into listing anyway.

Now, as our agent, isn't it his fucking job to perhaps tell people, "Oh, that brushpile is a temporary situation. The city's working on it. In the meantime you should see awesome interior. Let's go inside!"

Nevermind the fact that I don't believe for a second that he's driven anyone by our house, since every appointment to look at the house has been made by other agencies.

The good news: I thought we were under contract with this loser agent until May 1st. B. looked at our contract, and we're actually less than two weeks from the end of the contract. Will we be signing on for another three months of this? No fucking way. St. Louisans, send your selling agent recommendations my way.

Please learn from my mistakes. If a real estate agent is working as a hotel desk clerk because he's not selling enough houses to make ends meet, HE'S NOT A GOOD AGENT!

We ordered Chinese for dinner tonight, something that has sadly become at least a once-a-week habit. I've sucked at cooking lately, and have no desire to partake. Anyway, my fortune cookie had two fortunes. Does that mean something, like when you get an egg with two yolks? I'm not sure. I just thought they were interesting:

Fortune #1: Good news of a long-awaited event will soon arrive.

Fortune #2: Your air of confidence naturally draws others to you.

Now, I try not to put much stock in things like newspaper horoscopes, fortune cookies, and such, but when fortune #2 is obviously true, and since I got a freakish double-fortune, surely fortune #1 pertains to selling the crapshack, right? Come on and humor me; it's been a bumpy day.

It's probably just referring to this weekend's family Easter wienie and Peeps roast, though. That'll be cool, too. Not selling-the-crapshack cool, but I'm really looking forward to celebrating the resurrection of the lord and savior by jamming sticks loaded with cured meat products and sugar-encrusted marshmallows into fire.

Posted by Robin at 09:03 PM | Comments (8)

April 01, 2007

Savior Dad

Parenting a 20-month-old is hard. They are, without question, the most difficult creatures ever created. But damn, they're cute.

When Clara Jane Jane was around 20 months old, she:

• wailed so hard at daycare I had to fetch her
  
• adjusted very, very poorly to daycare.
  
• rebelled hardcore by falling in with a bunch of frat boy hackey sacking faux hippies.
  
• cracked her head during an ABBA-induced Dancing Queen moment at Qdoba.
  
• puked her way through central Illinois.
  
• started yelling, "Oh for God's sake!" on a regular basis.
  
• urinated all over my house
  
• encountered crappy parents at the coffeehouse

My friend Beqi has a son, E., who's almost 20 months old. I adore this child, but he gives me flashbacks to those days. He's more physically wild, whereas Clara Jane's wildness manifested in the use of profanities and dancing in public to artists who embarrass me.

E.'s learning, as all 20-months-old are. And Beqi's one of the most attentive parents I've ever encountered. In fact, the day we met, I was thinking, "Wow. She's got her hands full, but she's on it." Because she is. E. pushes another kid or throws a toy, Beqi's right there, usually before the push or throw has been completed. Sometimes, I think she can read his mind and knows what he's going to do before he does it. That's how on-the-ball she is.

Few things irritate me more than parents who let their kids run wild. Because left to their own devices, kids will run wild. But if a parent is obviously trying, it makes all the difference in the world.

This morning B., Clara Jane and I met Beqi and E. at the coffeehouse, and all was right in the world, as is usually the case when we're at the coffeehouse.

Or so we thought.

There was a little girl, seven or eight years old, who Beqi and I have seen there before. She recognized the father, but I didn't. Most of the times I've seen them, he's dumped the girl in the play area and retreated to the front of the coffeehouse.

I've never talked to him, but Beqi has. The girl was adopted, and the one time she talked to him, he described himself as being her "savior" because he and his wife rescued her from the abject poverty of her native country.

Okay.

I have no problem with foreign adoptions. None at all. In fact, had I not been able to get pregnant, B. and I were considering that option for ourselves. What I do have a problem with is anyone self-describing himself as being someone elses savior/rescuer/knight in shining armour.

An old friend of mine suffered from severe bipolar disorder. She met her husband in a bar when she was 19 and going through one of her first manic episodes. Years later he gave her a charm for her charm bracelet - a knight's helmet because, as he told her, "I'm your knight in shining armour." She was pleased with the gift, but it gave me the cold chills unlike anything else.

No one gets to describe himself in that manner. No one. It's scary when it's in a romantic relationship. In a parent/child relationship? Strikes me as being sick.

So today. The coffeehouse guy dumped his daughter in the play area and sat nearby, not acknowledging her for the hour+ that she was playing.

This girl is one of the most timid, shy children I've ever seen. She played with Clara Jane a bit, but mostly kept to herself before encountering E., who did what 20-month-olds are prone to do: he greeted her with a shove. Beqi responded by jumping up, telling E. that's he's not allowed to shove, apologizing to the girl, and removing E. from the scene before he could do it again.

But it was too late. The father was in his daughter's face, yelling at her and thumping her on the head with his finger for ... wait for it ... not standing up for herself.

B., Beqi and I sat there, completely astounded at this display. He was so loud and angry that people on the opposite side of the coffeehouse stopped to see what was happening.

Now, let's break this down a bit:

1. Timid older child encounters toddler who's still learning the finer points of social interaction.

2. Toddler's mother intervenes immediately.

3. Savior Dad commences yelling and thumping hissy fit directed at his child because she didn't stand up for herself.

Hmmmm ... perhaps, just maybe, this child doesn't stand up for herself because, oh, I don't know, she's being raised by a abusive motherfucker with a god complex! I'm not a child psychologist, so I don't know. Just a hunch.

Oh, but that wasn't the end of it. After E. settled down, Beqi put him back down, and he approached the little girl, who had remained silent and expressionless through it all. When E. approached, Savior Dad leaned over the counter, wagging a finger in E.'s face, and yelling his disciplinary shit at the toddler.

How Beqi kept from beating the ever-living fuck out of this guy, I'm not sure. She informed him that she was taking care of the situation. To which Savior Dad responded by shrieking something about getting the hell out of there (gee, break our hearts, whydontcha), grabbing his daughter, grabbing his Mountain Dew, and storming out.

Proof positive that the caffiene in soda is much more mood-altering than that in coffee, which makes people happy and non-confrontational.

He stole the coffeehouse's soda glass, which pisses me off, too.

But oh, it gets better! Once he stormed outside he bitched to the guy who maintains the coffeehouse's yard about us. Later, he called to complain, telling the staff that if "those parents" are ever there again, he won't be giving the coffeehouse his patronage.

Now that takes some balls. He commits what amounts to verbal and physical abuse upon his own child, screams at someone else's toddler, storms out, but won't render the complaint in person, to the people who witnessed his outburst.

The coffeehouse staff asked us if we'd mind moving in so that he'll never, ever come back ever again. Turns out, he's not well-liked by the staff, to the point where they bicker over who's going to get stuck waiting on him.

For the rest of the day, Beqi, B., the staff, and I cracked multiple jokes about calling in complaints about each other. I think it was one of those situations where if we hadn't joked, we all would have been crying on behalf of that poor child. If he's treating his child like that in public, what the hell's going on at home?

So many things about this gall me, and I've been stewing in anger all day.

I think of my single 40-year-old friend who will be such a wonderful mom. I've seen how she's grappled with arranging her career, location, finances, and life to make her chances of being able to adopt higher. This woman, who has treated my child with so much love, who's willing to adopt a foreign child, or a child with disabilities, not because she wants to be anyone's savior, but because that's how loving and generous she is. And yet, because she's a single woman, it's going to be more difficult for her to adopt.

I think about another dear friend of mine who wants a baby, and who will make a wonderful father. Despite being with his partner for almost as long as I've been with mine, adopting's going to be extremely difficult for them because they're both men.

And yet here's this abusive, manipulative, screaming jackass, who was allowed to bring a child into this country and into his family by virtue of little more than being in what's viewed as a "normal" relationship. I'm sickened, and I wish that little girl had either of my friends in her life, giving her the love and respect she deserves.

Beqi made a good point - we can't save every child. If we could adopt every child who's been mistreated we would, but we can't. The best we can do is take care of our own.

Which makes me look at my relationship with my child. She's been tough this week, as you know if you've been reading for the past few days. Yesterday and this morning I told B., "I don't know why but she's stomping on my last nerve." That's a hard thing to admit about your own child, and it's even harder to deal with. Every day, I'm stunned by the amount of patience parenting requires, patience I never knew I had.

I'm not the perfect mom by any means. There have been times when I've overreacted, spoken too sharply, or taken my frustrations out in a less-than-adult manner in front of my daughter. But I've never done what I witnessed today, and I'm confident that I never will. Yeah, there's some self-righteous parenting smugness, but at what price? The price of the child who has a shitty parent?

I can't imagine how the rest of the day was for that girl. I hope that once he calmed down, maybe her dad realized that he'd overreacted. Maybe he apologized and they went to the nearby park to blow off the steam, have a little fun, and get their day back on track. I don't think that's the case, though.

There was so much anger in him, so much he directed it everywhere. I couldn't tell if he was angry at his daughter, Beqi, E., the coffeehouse staff, B., me. I think he was just angry, period, and he was willing to direct that anger at whoever wandered into his scope.

I wish I'd done things differently, instead of my stellar reaction to the situation: sitting on the couch, hands jammed under my ass, jaw hanging open, looking back and forth from B. to Beqi with my eyes bugged, while making sure my daughter didn't wander into the line of fire. When I get really angry, I can't speak, and I was at tht point. The most I could have said, had I tried, would have been something like, "You! Dad! Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean! Bad daddy! No!"

B. reminded me later that it was right for us to not intervene too much, because this guy was obviously unhinged, and you just never know when someone who's unhinged will run you through with a Mountain Dew straw. Beqi made the excellent point that, if we made more of a confrontation, his daughter would have been the one to pay for it. And I know they're both right.

However, if I see him again, and he's treating his child the way he treated her today, I'll be dialing 911 so fast it'll make his jacked-up Mountain Dew heart rate look slow.

I've grappled a lot with how aggressive I want to teach Clara Jane to be. I don't want people to walk all over her, but I don't want her to grow up feeling angry and entitled. She's a pretty mellow kid, all told. When pushed, she walks away. If someone takes the toy in her hand, she walks away and finds another toy. I've often wondered if I need to teach her to stand up for herself, or if maybe she's got the right idea. She knows how to roll with the punches. That's who she is. B.'s always said that any kid we have, especially girls, will take a martial arts class or two, just enough to learn how to defend herself with discipline and respect. I'm all for that.

I wonder how peaceful that little girl is going to be when she's grown. I'm going to wonder a lot of things about her for a long time.

Clara Jane's no longer stomping on my last nerve. I have a feeling it's going to be a long, long time before I feel that way. She's learning, and it's my job to guide her as she learns, no matter how frustrating it is. I wasn't put here to save her. She, like every child, didn't ask to be brought into this world. B. and I made the choice to bring her into the world and we owe it to her to teach her the skills to navigate it. Not bully her into it.

Posted by Robin at 04:12 PM | Comments (10)