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May 26, 2007

Friday(ish) Shuffle - It's Saturday, So This Must Be Sedalia Edition

On Thursday, after not going to her last day of daycare because flies! Flies eat babies!, Clara Jane and I hopped a train for my hometown. We had a pair of tickets from three weeks ago, when our train was cancelled due to flooding. I was told that there was a $3.60 price difference, which I could give to the conductor on the train. Nice fellow that he was, the conductor told me to keep my money.

I bet he was wishing he'd taken my $3.60 when, four hours later, I alerted him to the puddle of urine Clara Jane had left on her train seat. Let's just say that when one has a Pull-Up wedgie, the Pull-Up ceases to be absorbant. She put at least $3.45-worth of cracker crumbs on the floor, and I'm sure the pee puddle was worth way more than $0.15.

Before I had kids, they annoyed me, as did their parents. Then I became a parent and took offense at people who had no patience for small children and their adult hostages. After three years, though, I'm back to empathizing with those who get annoyed because honestly, us parents with small children can be rather deplorable. Just ask our Thursday night train conductor.

I'll be making the trip home on Sunday night, sans the Peemiester 2004, if she will let me. My independent child is still clingy and easily spooked from all the moving and craziness. Yesterday she told me on three occasions, "We need to go home. Fast." Today's been better. Hopefully by tomorrow she'll be sick to death of me and will be happy to see me go.

I feel a bit guilty, not being at home helping B. rebuild our house from the ground up, per the municipality's inspection. He assured me that I am a huge hinderance and would be much more helpful on the other side of the state. He's currently reinstalling our water heater, which frightens me to no end.

At least he started working on it in the morning. The last time he installed this water heater, he began at 7:30 PM. Oh, and we were leaving for Michigan 11.5 hours later. Perfect time to work with water pipes and natural gas! We'd been married six weeks. At 2:30 AM, I informed him that unless he gave up right that minute, I had no qualms about leaving his ass because nowhere in our vows did it say that installing major gas appliances in the middle of the night before leaving town would be tolerated.

Now, whenever either of us has pushed beyond the limits of good sense and is stubbornly pursuing an activity that might lead to 1) explosion, 2) flooding, 3) a stress-induced cardiovascular mishap, or 4) one of us moving to Nevada for a quickie divorce, all the other has to do is utter two words: "Water heater." It's as good as any legal Cease & Dissist Order.

Now do you see why he sent me away for the weekend?

Even though I'm not there, I'm doing my part to help with the moving process. You see, my hometown is home to umpteen bazillion discount/discontinued/fell-off-the-truck-and-found-in-a-ditch furniture retailers. The giant red Pottery Barn-esque chair often seen in photos of my living room? $180 at one of the stores in my hometown.

I don't ask where the stuff comes from. I just buy it. Like today. I bought a wood and suede lovecouch (smaller than a couch, bigger than a loveseat) and a brocade armchair for the new front room, all for the low, low price of $407. I also got a pair of black patent leather peeptoe wedge heels, a beaded necklace that matches the socks I'm knitting, and three chunky beaded bracelets for a whopping $9.

I love that I'm such a tightwad. I really do. I think it's one of my more redeeming qualities.

I think I wrote awhile back about how I always expect to see people I know when I visit my hometown, and I finally realized that, since I haven't lived here since 1991, the chances of that happening are slim to none. Even if I would run into someone I once knew, chances are I wouldn't recognize her, or I wouldn't be recognized.

After my cheap furniture bonanza, I was searching the store for my mom and child (who I feared I might have accidentally bartered in my transaction). I didn't find them, but I did find my high school creative writing teacher. Thank God she was wearing a name tag, which saved me from having to go to the next aisle, yell, "Nedra!", and then innocently wandering by to see if she was looking for the person who yelled her name.

Now really. If I'm going to run into an old teacher, which one do you think I'd most want to see? A math teacher? I don't even remember their names. Of course I'd want to see my creative writing teacher!

I loved being able to say, "Hey. Guess what I do for a living? I write," to her. I hope I remembered to thank her. I meant to. I've thought about doing that many times over the past 16 years. I had three teachers along the way who encouraged my writing and told me I had talent: my third grade teacher, my sixth grade teacher, and Mrs. Z. in high school.

I gave her my URL, so if you're reading Mrs. Z. and if I forgot to say it today, thank you for the push every 17-year-old needs. I apologize in advance for all the profanities you might read while you shuffle through my writing.

Posted by Robin at May 26, 2007 04:19 PM

Comments

Posted by: Dixie at May 28, 2007 06:16 AM

Posted by: Her Bad Mother at May 28, 2007 07:46 PM