Extreme Pain in the Ass, Part I

After discussing the issue with various intelligent people (including some of my readers), and researching various options thoroughly on the internet, I finally came to a decision about what to do the damaged hardwood floors I uncovered when my husband and I pulled up the dirty, worn carpet in the living room and hallway of our recently purchased home.

Carefully considering that:

1.) Rental drum sanders are heavy and difficult for a novice to operate,

2.) Being that my husband is allergic to EVERY airborne particle known to humanity, including wood dust, the main person in charge of any DIY sanding project would probably be little ol' (I swear I'm still, really) 130 (give or take) pound me,

3.) Floor finish in homes built before the 1960s, like mine, often contain toxic materials, including lead, that can be harmful to small children if inhaled in dust form,

4.) Dana from Mamalogues was going to spank me or something if I covered the hardwood with laminate,

5.) Painting a hardwood floor would just be dumb,

I decided it would be well worth the money to hire a professional to sand and refinish my hardwood floors; if the extensive animal urine stains could not be removed by sanding, I thought, I would ask the professional floor refinisher to put a dark stain on the floor that would mostly conceal them.

I didn't want to let just anyone into my home; I've heard so many stories about shady contractors that I certainly wasn't about to pick the first name I found searching for local floor refinishers on Google. Aside from the obvious worries every homeowner has about whether a hired contractor will treat the homeowner's living space with respect and provide quality work for fair prices, the fact that I have a small child in the house, and the fact that I work from home both made it especially important in my mind to find someone who would give me a realistic estimate of how long the project would take, would show up on time, and would stick to whatever schedule we worked out.

Because of my son's age, and my husband's allergy issues, it was also extremely important to me to find someone who would be meticulous about containing the dust from the sander and cleaning up properly afterward.

My husband asked his friends at work if any of them had hired a floor refinishing company in the recent past. One coworker recommended a company called Extreme Hardwoods, a small business, based St. Louis, with its office in North County, not far from my house. She said they had refinished the hardwood floor in her daughter's bedroom not long ago, and they had done an excellent job. And, apparently, she herself had been referred to Extreme Hardwoods by friends of hers who had hired them to refinish floors at their house, where they had done a great job.

So, I called the company to schedule an estimate. I gave the business owner, Jeff, the square footage and a brief description of the extent of the damage over the phone, and he told me that, assuming none of the floor boards needed replacement, we would most likely qualify for their minimum job fee, which is $500. We scheduled an estimate for later that week.

He showed up on time, and seemed knowledgeable about the wood.

But when I asked him about the possibility of using a very dark finish, expressing my worry that the stains would not come out. He insisted he'd seen much worse stains, and that he was fairly certain the majority of the stains, would sand out. He said he thought that many of the stains I thought were urine stains were merely water stains caused by frequent foot traffic from the front door and the bathroom off the hallway.

I disagreed with that assessment, explaining that when I had pulled back the carpet myself earlier in the month, the stench alone was enough to convince me that animals had been, ahem, marking that section of the floor repeatedly for a very long time.

He blew me off.

(I probably should have recognized this as a red flag. However, during my several-year career as a young blonde woman I have become quite accustomed to men who work in professions such as construction, landscaping, car repair, car sales, clothing sales, grocery sales, science, medicine, and politics responding to my concerns and opinions on anything remotely related to their chosen field of work by completely blowing them off.

If I made a regular practice of excluding hired professionals on the basis of sexism, ageism, or blonde-ism, I'd pretty much have to do everything myself.)

I repeated myself until he finally agreed that, in the event the stains did not sand out even under the force of his amazing "super-powered" sander, he would be happy to stain the floor a dark enough color that whatever remained of the stains would mostly blend right in.

I asked him about dust containment, and he assured me that they would use a high-quality dustless sander that sucked up dust as it sanded the floor, that they would hang plastic tarps across every doorway to every area of the house that was not being sanded, and that they would use a heavy-duty shop vac to thoroughly clean all of the dust off of the sanded floors.

He said he could come to do the floors the very next week if I liked, and then he left. And I thought about it over the weekend. I checked around for price estimates at a few other places. I called my stepfather, who owns a saw mill, and asked his advice. I called my sister to see whether I could scare up a place to stay for a couple of days while possibly-toxic dust swirled through my home. I considered how I might rearrange my work schedule, and whether I would be able to do some work at my sister's house.

Finally, I called Extreme Hardwoods on Monday and scheduled the floor refinishing to start on Wednesday. Jeff told me that he would send a crew out at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday. I would move all of my furniture out of the way before the came, and the crew would start sanding the floors immediately. They would rough-sand a few patches in some of the worst stained areas right away to see whether the stains were coming up or not, and then they would paint three different finish swatches on the sanded spot of floor so that my husband and I could decide which finish to use. Then, we would leave. The crew would finish the sanding completely and put a coat of finish on the floor that day; then, if the finish had time to dry, they would come back in the early evening and apply one coat of polyurethane. In the morning, they would come back and apply a second coat of polyurethane. If everything went as planned, my floors would be completely finished in two days, and on the third day, after the top poly coat cured, I could move my furniture back into the room.

Jeff also said he would send someone over to my house with a contract on Tuesday, describing the work to be done, explaining liability policies, and confirming the $500 price. He said he would call me first thing in the morning on Tuesday to tell me when someone would be coming by with the paperwork.

During this scheduling call, we discussed the fact that snow was predicted in the area for Monday night and Tuesday morning. I worried that perhaps if too much ice fell, my electricity would go out, as it did in the last two major ice storms. He assured me that if the storm caused any delays on his end, he would call me as soon as possible to draw up a new schedule.

Snow came Tuesday morning, without ice, and my electricity stayed on. The roads in my neighborhood were plowed quickly. Relieved, I waited for someone from Extreme Hardwoods to call and tell me when they might be by with the contract. I imagined they would still be able to drop it by despite the storm, considering that their business address was so close to my house.

I waited for the call, and waited, and waited, until 3:00 in the afternoon, when Jeff called and said that because of the weather, no one would be able to come by with a contract on Tuesday.

In addition, he said, the weather had delayed work on another job, so the crew would no longer be able to come to my house at 8:30 as scheduled. They would now have to go back to the house they were currently working on first thing in the morning to put the final coat on the floor, and then come to my house at 10:30, but, he told me, he was certain they would still be able to finish the sanding and finishing part of the job by the end of the day; with luck, they might even still be able to apply the first polyurethane coat, as long as I did not mind them working late in my house. He would send the contract over with the crew.

I was a bit worried about not seeing the contract I was supposed to sign until the work crew was actually at my house for the job, but, I certainly understood that the weather might have caused delays. After all, my neighborhood hadn't been too badly hit by the storm, but I was sure the crew did work all over town, and they may have been working in an area where the roads were quite dangerous. I agreed to this new schedule, and rearranged the plans I'd made with my sister to meet her at her house after the crew set up. My husband arranged to work from home for the first half of day so that he could be around to look at the contract and help make a decision about the finish.

Early the next morning, we got up and moved all of our living room furniture into the dining room and our bedroom. We thoroughly swept the living room floor. Then we sat in the empty room, and waited for the crew to arrive. My husband fielded IM questions from work on his laptop. My son paced around nervously, asking whether we were moving again, but we assured him we were not. I took the opportunity to thoroughly clean the emptied shelves of my entertainment center.

At 9:30 a.m., Jeff called to say the men had been delayed by heavy traffic, and were only just now arriving at the house they had to finish up at before mine. However, he insisted they would arrive at my house by 11:30.

My husband told his supervisor he'd be later than he had expected. I tried to call my sister, but could not get in touch with her.

By 12:30, the crew was still not at my house.

I called Jeff on his business cell phone. Someone picked up the phone, and then it clicked off. I couldn't tell whether I'd just been hung up on, or the cell phone had lost the connection. Thinking that he might be driving through an area with poor reception, I decided to wait ten minutes to see whether Jeff would call me back.

He didn't.

So I called again.

This time he answered the phone, and before I could say much of anything at all, he said, "They're on your street."

"Really?" I asked. I happened at the time to be looking out of my front window. From which I can see pretty much all of my very short street. There was no one driving on the street. There were no commercial trucks or vans parked anywhere. "I can see my entire street right now," I said, "And I don't see your crew anywhere."

"Oh, well, maybe they're lost," he said.

Finally, at 1:15 p.m.-- that's one hour and forty-five minutes past 11:30, two hours and forty-five minutes past 10:30, and a full four hours and forty-five minutes past the originally scheduled time of 8:30 in the morning, a man carrying a beat-up, dusty old drum sander knocked on my door. The crew of two came in and started setting up their equipment. Slightly miffed that they were so late, but relieved they had finally shown, I asked them whether they had brought the contract Jeff had told me we needed to sign before the work began.

They had not.

I asked if someone could be sent over from the office with it.

One of the men called Jeff on his cell phone. After they talked for a while, Jeff asked to talk to me. He told me the men could go ahead and start the job without the contract. I told him I didn't want to start the job without seeing what was in the contract first. I asked if my husband could go pick up a copy of the contract, but Jeff said he had the only copy in the car with him on the road. He told me that if I let the men start working, he would come by the house as soon as he was finished with some business downtown to give us the contract.

I explained that once the men started working, we had had to leave. My husband had already spent half a day working from home and needed to go in to the office right away, and I needed to take my son to my sister's house; I couldn't have him in the house once the sanders were going full blast, because the dust would be everywhere, and anyway (given his medical condition, which I did not take the time to explain) he would be terrified by the noise. I asked if he could bring the contract by my husband's office instead. He didn't answer. Then the phone cut out. When I tried to call him back, it said the number was unavailable.

The crew and I waited for several more minutes before finally receiving a call from Jeff saying he would bring the contract to my husband's office.

It was now almost two in the afternoon. As reluctant as I was to start work without a contract in hand, we had already moved all of our furniture and made arrangements to stay at my sister's house; my husband had already spent half the day out of his office, and I had spent half the day NOT working on a major work project of my own. Not to mention the fact that I was already tired of trying to protect a wood floor missing half of its finish from a two-year-old for the past couple of weeks.

So, I let them finish setting up their equipment. I was worried about my curtains, which I had left hanging so no one would see that the house was unoccupied and under construction and decide to waltz in and take a few things, but the crew just flipped the curtains up over the curtain rod. I asked them to put down the finish swatches Jeff had described to me during the scheduling phone call.

The men looked confused. "We have to sand the entire floor before we put down any finish," they said.

"The entire reason my husband stayed home from work today was so he could read over the contract, and help pick out the finish. And now you are telling me we can't do either one of those things?"

They shook their heads. "No, ma'am, but we can't put the finish down today anyway. It's already two in the afternoon. It won't have time to dry before you come home tonight. We'll have to do it in the morning. So why don't we just put the swatches down after we finish sanding tonight, and then you can tell us in the morning which one you want?"

At this point, I was pretty much furious.

But the men who had shown up to do the work seemed nice enough. They were truly apologetic about the delays. Had it all really been a case of miscommunication between Jeff and the crew, exacerbated by the weather? I didn't know.

All I knew was that I had planned my entire week around getting this work done, and if it didn't get done that day, I might not be able to arrange for it to happen for another month.

So, I went to my sister's house. My husband went to work.

Jeff called my husband at the office and said that he couldn't bring the contract by when we'd planned because instead of coming straight up from downtown, as he'd told us he would, he had driven to O'Fallon.

He finally sent an associate by with a contract a 4:00 p.m.

When my husband called Jeff back with a question about the contract shortly after receiving it, Jeff mentioned that the crew had already finished the sanding and left our house.

Which means they were working at the house for less than two hours.

When we went by the house, I discovered that the crew hadn't even finished the edge sanding around the doorways. There was a clear demarcation between the areas of the floor that had been edge sanded, and the area of the floor that had been sanded with the drum sander, indicating that they had not done the final buffing job on the floor.

The swatches were on the floor, but none of the three colors shown there were dark enough to cover the stains. Which had not sanded out.

And there were piles of wood shavings on the floor, and there was dust EVERYWHERE. They hadn't vacuumed it all up.

And they hadn't hung plastic in the doorways.

Every piece of furniture in my dining room, and every appliance and every flat surface in my kitchen, was covered in 1/16th of an inch to 1/8th of an inch of wood and finish dust.

***Continued next post***

What Lies Beneath

Most of the (fifty-year-old!) hardwood floors in my new house look like this:




(Cue choir of angels).

(Yes, that is a Queen-Anne-style bookcase and a floral rug. No, I am not somebody's grandma. I am just . . . sophisticated . . . for my age. Shut up).

So, though I expected that the hardwood floor beneath the ugly, cheap, smelly carpet in my living room and hallway would probably have a few scuffs and stains, as hardwood floors trapped under cheap carpet generally tend to, given the condition of the floors in the rest of the house, I had hope that the floor beneath the carpet might be, well, passable.





I was wrong.

That is what the hallway looked like AFTER I swept it twice.

That's not glue you're seeing there on the floor. Oh, no.

That's about seven years of dust.

Seven-year-old dust congeals into quite a tenacious sort of paste when mixed with seven years of cat urine.

Oh yes, yes it does.

So, this is what the hallway looked like after I removed the urine-and-dust paste:



And this is what the living room floor looks like, everywhere the previous occupants didn't have furniture:




As you can see, before they put the carpet down, they apparently thought it would be fun to test some white wall paint out on the floor. On the fifty-year-old, still-in-pretty-good-condition, genuine-hardwood-of-a-quality-that-would-cost-a-
frillion-dollars-to-install-throughout-a-house-these-days floor.

Look, even the two-year-old thinks this is such a tragedy he wants to help:



So, I figure I have four options:

1.) Pay someone several hundred dollars to sand the floor and refinish it. In a dark, dried cat urine color to cover up the stains. Only we won't call the color dried cat urine. We'll call it Rich Espresso.

2.) Attempt to sand and refinish the floor myself. With expensive rental equipment that I have never used before. Using chemicals that require ventilation-- i.e., open windows. In the dead of winter.

3.) Cover the hardwood with laminate (sacrilege). Because (see above) I cannot afford to replace the hardwood with hardwood.

4.) Run over it a couple of times with my hand sander, paint the whole floor some unobtrusive color with porch paint (SACRILEGE!), toss around some really big area rugs, and wait five years until I CAN afford to replace the hardwood with hardwood.



Opinions? Suggestions, Internets?



(I know I've been doin' you wrong lately, Internets, by rushing past you with little more than a tip of my hat when I see you on the street, not even bothering to say hello, or ask you how your day has been.

But I know you still love me, Internets.

Right?

Don't you?)

The Keeper

A pestilence descended upon the house.

It struck the child, though the parents were spared.

The child awoke vomiting in the middle of the night.

He heaved again and again, until there was nothing left to spew, and then, he heaved some more. And cried.

His mother spent the night holding him, trying to give him sips of water, catching the bile he heaved up in a towel, for hours, until, finally, some water stayed down.

Then he slept.

And then he woke up and vomited some more, and more.

Then he drank some juice, and stopped vomiting, and slept again. When he awoke, he began to play.

Just when the parents thought that perhaps the child might be on the mend,

he vomited again,

all over his recently-showered mother's hair.

The mother did not flinch. She did not retch. She did not turn away. She held the child while he vomited. Then she hugged the sobbing, vomit-soaked child to her vomit-soaked chest, and told him it was not his fault. Then she and the father washed the child, and changed his clothes, again.

When the child was clean, the father looked at his sleep-deprived, filth-encrusted wife, and said, sincerely, "My beautiful love."

And the mother, strangely, felt beautiful.

(And the mother showered again, and the child felt better in the evening, and managed to drink a whole cup of Gatorade without spewing it back out all over himself.

And then they all went to bed).

Because We Need to Lighten Things Up Around Here

Especially after all of the vomit I washed off myself today. Boy, that doesn't go with this picture, does it?

You Are a Jam Cookie

On the outside, you project a straight-laced, innocent vibe. But on the inside, you're complex, exotic, and full of flavor.

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

This cookie test, it was surprisingly accurate in its assessment of my personality.

Unfortunately, I really don't like the jam cookies much. Too bland on the outside, too gooey on the inside.

Luckily, I just ordered some Thin Mints from the girl across the street. Because even when my house has apparently been temporarily converted to a vomitorium, I cannot resist the siren song of Thin Mints.

Oh My Goodness Gracious,

I feel better after letting that rant out. (See immediately previous post). I really do.

I didn't even tell y'all everything, and I still feel better.

However, thinking about it today, I realized that I totally gypped my readers by not providing photographic evidence!

So, without further ado:

This is a photo of the tree that was damaged during the December 1st ice storm that I took during the walkthough just a few days before closing:



Click on it to see the bigger version to get a detailed view of some of the damage.

This photo here, also taken during the walkthrough, shows a wider view of the extensive damage, and also shows how close the tree is to the power lines:



This is a picture of part of the tree lying in my yard after the January ice storm, on top of my phone and cable line, taken the day the branch fell:



Yes, I know my fence is rusty. Thank you. We'll be replacing it eventually. Sometime after we get around to fixing this:



Which is the nice hole the cable line left when it was yanked out of the house.

Thank you, real estate agent who refused to negotiate with the sellers over trimming the tree that was damaged while the house was under contract. Thank you very, very much. I've always wanted to learn how to hang new siding!


Ah, now, moving right along, let's check out my bathroom! (It's a tradition here, after all).



Come on, click! This really has to be viewed full-size to get the full effect. Here you see the remains of the ancient towel rack the sellers oh-so-skillfully re-replaced the nice one we'd seen during the house showing with. The one that fell down the very first time we tried to hang a towel on it. If you look not-too-carefully, you can see the poor spackling job they did to attempt to hide the holes where the nice towel rack had been.

And this would be why the re-hung old towel rack would not stay up:



See that gaping hole in the wall there behind the towel rack hardware? Uh huh. This is what happens when you remove a towel rack carelessly, spackle the old hole poorly, and then attempt to re-hang the old towel rack half-assed-ly in the exact same poorly spackled spot.

And now, the piece de resistance:





See that empty screw-hole in that first pic? Did the sellers bother to screw this cheap replacement toilet paper holder in after they damaged the wall ripping the nice one out? Oh, no. They glued it in. Crappily. Apparently, we buyers are not even worthy of a pair of screws.

If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say . . .

I've written a number of blog posts in my head over the past two weeks. I haven't committed any of them to magnetic patterns on a disk. Not even in a draft folder.

It's been rough, the move, rougher on me and the family than I thought it would be, and I've been angry, and sad, and tired a lot lately. It's been hard to strike a balance in my head about what I should and shouldn't write about. Am I overreacting to things? Am I being selfish, or diva-ish, or ungrateful? I feared posting a complaint about this or that inconvenience here, only to be chided, perhaps a bit justifiably, in my own comments section for raining on my own damn parade. After all, I got what I wanted, didn't I? I got a house. A house that will, eventually, with work, be a much better place to live than my previous apartment.


But still, I've been angry, and sad, and tired.


I've been angry at the sellers, who really left the house a mess on their way out. I mean, really, in more ways than I alluded to two posts ago.

They tore down pictures and curtains in such a manner as to leave gaping holes in the walls. They scuffed the walls, and the floors, on their way out. They tore a hole in the carpet in the living room, which they concealed during the walkthrough with a rug. (They left us the rug. The damn cheap ugly rug. I suppose as compensation?)

They took out decorative outlet covers and switchplates. They replaced some of them with cheaper or broken plates, and others they just left bare. They took out a nice new towel rack in one of the bathrooms and replaced it with the the original 50-year-old towel rack that originally came with the house, which I suppose they had been saving for that very purpose. They did such a poor job reattaching it that it actually fell out of the wall the first time we hung a towel on it, leaving a gaping hole.

They ripped out the cable connections from all of the bedrooms (which, incidentally, they had advertised as a feature of the house in the original listing). Not just the terminals for the cable connections, but the cables themselves. Ripped them right out of the walls and the floors. Ripped out the junction box allowing for multiple connections.

They cut holes in the walls to bring some plumbing up to code, as required by the contract they signed. As part of a list of code-required repairs that they delayed our closing, twice, to complete. And they left the holes there, in the walls. 12"x6" holes. Left them.

They left random piles of leaves, and piles of sweet gum balls, and piles of yard waste, and piles of dog shit in the yard.

The thing that gets me the most, I think, though, is the fact that they tore out the built-in toilet paper holder in the bathroom, damaging the bathroom wall in the process, and replaced it with a cheaper one, WHICH THEY GLUED IN. Crookedly.

Who knew it was even possible to care about a toilet paper holder so much. Apparently that toilet paper holder was a family heirloom or something.


I've been angry with the utility companies, every single one of which managed to mess up something major with the process of transferring our services from our old home to our new home. I had no phone service at my new home for four days. I had a slack electrical wire sitting in the branches of a tree in my backyard for nearly two weeks. A situation which, incidentally, the sellers had promised to have fixed before the sale, but did not. Then the phone company and the cable company both overcharged us on our first bills.

I spent something like 25-30 hours on the phone during my first week here just trying to get all of the utility problems fixed. On my cell phone, of course. Because the regular phone didn't work.


I've been angry with the mortgage company for telling me again and again when I asked them again and again that yes, they had all the paperwork they needed for closing, and then calling me AFTER closing to tell me they had forgotten things that I would have to fax to them immediately. Because, you know, I know exactly where these things are in all my half-unpacked boxes. And I have a working phone line, and a fax machine. Sure I do.


I've been angry with my real estate agent for refusing to talk to the sellers about possibly trimming or cutting down a tree that was severely damaged during the December 1st ice storm, a tree which had dropped branches during that storm that tore down the electrical service drop to the house and ripped off siding-- all damage which happened after we made an offer on the house, but before we closed the sale.

I am angry because right now I can look out my kitchen window, and see the very same dangerously damaged branch I pointed out to my real estate agent sitting on the ground in my backyard, on top of my downed phone line, that took a nice chunk of the just-replaced siding with it. The phone line that should "Probably get fixed by the end of the day on Friday. Probably. If they can get to it. Big storm, you know." (I know. I had no electricity, no cable and no reliable phone for days. Thanks).


And I've been sad. Sad to see my two-year-old shaking in his bed each night until midnight, unable to fall asleep because his new room is "weird" and "scary." Sad to see him refuse his lunch three days in a row because he "doesn't feel good." Sad to understand him so completely when he looks me in the eye and says, "Mommy, THIS IS NOT RIGHT." I've been sad, sad, sad, that fate has seen fit to gift my beloved child with an ability to adapt to change in his environment about as well as the average person could adapt to a punch in the face.


And I've been angry with myself, and sad, over the fact that I haven't been able to roll with these punches better myself. Because I DO have what I wanted. And I AM grateful. And somewhere under all of these, what I know will one day seem, petty annoyances, I am happy. And in love with the old bones of this old house.

But I'm tired. So tired. Of being tangled in packing tape, and painter's tape, and red tape. Tired of staying up even later than my son to fix all the things here that are broken.


Swing away, Pollyannas.

Time to Mail 10,000 Copies of the Bill of Rights to the White House

Guess who recently added a signing statement to a postal reform bill granting himself permission to open and read any piece of domestic mail, at any time, without a warrant, without notifying the sender or the recipient, without documenting the fact that the mail has been tampered with?

I'll be happy to give him the opportunity to read a postcard that's actually addressed to him, from me, bearing the following text:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Scenes from a New Old House

SCENE ONE

WIFE: So, I guess at some point we should get the ladder out and check out our new attic, huh? I mean, since we own it, and all.

HUSBAND: Uh, yeah, I guess you're right.

WIFE: You know, I'm kinda scared to go up there.

HUSBAND: Yeah?

WIFE: Yeah, I mean, you know, what if there are like, dead bodies hidden up there, or something? (Giggles).

HUSBAND: Um, actually, to tell the truth, I'm kind of scared to go up there, too.

WIFE: Well, I mean, the home inspector did go up there. And he said everything was fine up there. No mention of dead people. I'm sure he would have mentioned that.

HUSBAND: What if Aragog is up there?

Silence.

WIFE: Look at all this stuff we need to unpack! We can look at the attic tomorrow.

SCENE TWO

MOTHER: Hey kid, I'm going down to the basement now to do some laundry. Don't try to come down after me without telling me, because these stairs are really steep and kind of old and rickety and there is no hand rail and there is nothing but cold hard concrete at the bottom, so if you want to come down the stairs I need to hold your hand while you climb down, okay?

CHILD: (Singing eerily from the next room)

Mommy, oh Mommy, be very careful
Going down in the scary basement!
Do not fall down the stairs.
Do not fall. Fall. FALL!

MOTHER: Uh, thanks. I think. I'll be careful. (Under her breath) Sheesh, kid, I was already afraid of the attic.

SCENE THREE: CHISTMAS EVE DINNER

WIFE: So, what do you want to do about dinner? We've been eating out too much during the move, I think. I'm afraid we're spending too much money.

HUSBAND: I know. That's why I brought this frozen toasted ravioli and frozen potatoes and some tomato sauce and this cookie sheet, and these canned vegetables. I thought maybe you could make us dinner tonight.

WIFE: Well, the thing is, I'm not sure I feel like making dinner. I'm really tired. I spent all morning unpacking. I finished the tree and I finally put up the Christmas lights in the window, but they keep falling down, and they're driving me nuts. I tried masking tape. I tried packing tape. I tried duct tape. I tried those new clippy things we got at the hardware store. Nothing works. The lights hate me.



And did I mention that I have been cleaning this damned kitchen for the last six hours straight? I spent three hours cleaning the refrigerator alone. And I used half a bottle of Murphy's Oil Soap already on these cabinets! Do you see how clean these cabinets are now?



Do you remember how incredibly dirty they were before?



I swear, I don't think anyone had cleaned these cabinets out thoroughly in the last forty years! I had no idea they were this dirty inside when we first looked at the house. I had no way of knowing, because the sellers had all of their food in the cabinets still. Can you believe they had food in these cabinets?

HUSBAND: Um, so . . . dinner?

WIFE: Do you see this blender the sellers left behind in one of the cabinets?



They used it and then they put it in the cabinet without even cleaning it! It has chocolate shake or something all over it. (Verging on utter hysteria) They put it in the cabinet WITHOUT CLEANING IT, even though most of the parts say they are dishwasher safe, and THEY HAD A DISHWASHER. HOW HARD IS IT TO LOAD A DISHWASHER?!?!

HUSBAND: Um, so, do you want me to make dinner?

WIFE: I just can't believe it! I can't believe anyone would leave a house this way when they knew someone else would be moving in to it! It looked so clean when we looked at it a month ago! Their real estate agent must have made them clean it up for the showings by threatening them at gunpoint!

HUSBAND: Because I mean, I can totally make dinner-- I don't have a problem with that at all. I can start right now. The stove looks really clean. You did a great job cleaning it--

WIFE: I used three different kinds of cleaner on that stove! Three kinds!

HUSBAND: So, I'll just make some dinner now then.

WIFE: No! No! Wait, don't make dinner. You've been moving heavy boxes all day. I'll make dinner. Although, toasted ravioli is not exactly what I envisioned as our Christmas Eve dinner . . .

HUSBAND: Well, I mean, we could eat out. I'm sure someplace is open.

WIFE: No! We are spending too much money eating out! I will make dinner!

HUSBAND: Okay . . .

WIFE: So, did you bring some aluminum foil, or some vegetable oil, or some cooking spray or something so the ravioli and the potatoes won't stick to the baking sheet? Because this is an aluminum baking sheet. It's not the nonstick one. And last time you made ravioli on this baking sheet without using any cooking spray, the ravioli burned and stuck to the pan.

HUSBAND: Um, no . . . I can get some at the store . . .

WIFE: It's Christmas Eve! It's after five! The stores are closed! (Pause). Did you bring a can opener for the vegetables?

HUSBAND: Um, I forgot.

WIFE stares murderously at HUSBAND for several silent seconds.

WIFE: So, we are having a one-course Christmas Eve dinner of burned ravoli stuck to a pan?

(Pause.)

HUSBAND: I'll be right back.

WIFE: Okay! I'll just get to making YOUR burned Christmas Eve dinner in the kitchen I spent all day cleaning for YOU, then!

Unreasonably distraught WIFE bangs random things around in kitchen while poor, beleaguered innocently forgetful HUSBAND scurries out the door. Minutes pass. Husband returns.

HUSBAND: Look! I got some Pam!

WIFE: Where on earth did you get that?

HUSBAND: I borrowed it from the neighbors. They were outside. They said we could just put it in their mailbox when we're finished with it.

WIFE: That is amazing! You saved Christmas Eve dinner! I'm sorry I was so terrible to you before. I'm just so tired, after all the cleaning, and painting, and fixing, and moving. I was at the end of my rope. We still can't open the cans, but really, who needs vegetables with dinner, anyway?

WIFE prepares baking sheet, pulls ravioli box out from freezer, pauses.

So, uh, dear, just out of curiosity, what were the neighbors doing outside anyway? I mean, it's dark, and it's like, 40 degrees out there. And it's Christmas Eve.

HUSBAND: They were in their hot tub. They have a hot tub in the backyard.

WIFE: You mean, you called our brand-new, just-met-us-yesterday next-door neighbors out of their hot tub, in 40 degree weather, just to ASK THEM FOR SOME PAM?

HUSBAND: Uh . . . well, you see, it was very dark outside, and I just heard them talking in the backyard, and I didn't realize at first that they were actually sitting in a hot tub . . . But they were really nice!

WIFE: OH MY GOD. Now we will be known throughout the neighborhood as the obnoxious new neighbors who call people out of their hot tubs at night in 40 degree weather just to ask them for Pam! Oh. My. God. I am totally mortified. I am totally, totally mortified. Excuse me while I die now.

WIFE dies.



(Okay, so I didn't really die. I had a child to make Christmas happen for in the morning, after all. Happy Belated Holidays!)

Okay,

The reason I have not been posting this week is that, after many delays, I am finally closing on a new house, like next week!

What? Next week, you say? Like, as in, the week before Christmas?

Why, yes. Yes. In fact, it is.

*head explodes*

I Know He Was Not Switched at Birth

MOTHER: Would you like some milk?

CHILD: Yes, I want some chocolate milk, please. With chocolate in it.

MOTHER: Okay, I'll get you some chocolate milk.

CHILD: With CHOCOLATE in it. Chocolate milk. With chocolate.

MOTHER (handing Child a cup of chocolate milk): Here you are. Chocolate milk.

CHILD: With chocolate in it?

MOTHER: YES.

CHILD: Mmm. I like chocolate.

An Addendum to My Previous Letter (See Below)

P.S. It is so nice to see that you finally shoveled and salted the walks throughout the complex today, six days after the snow-and-ice storm, and three business days after electricity was restored to the complex. Seeing as how much of the snow on the walks had already melted yesterday, it's nice to know you were still willing to put forth a half-hearted, belated effort to show you can pretend you want to keep your residents safe. And here I was fully on the point of buying an industrial-sized snow shovel and fifty pounds of salt so I could clear the walks myself!

I am sure that if my blind, partially deaf elderly next door neighbor who walks with a cane managed to work up the courage to try to walk more than a step past his front door over the past few days, he had great fun slipping and sliding around as he attempted to navigate the ice-encrusted walks. Way to keep an old blind man on his toes!

The Letter I Wish I Were Sending to My Leasing Office

To Whom It May Concern:

My husband and I will not be renewing our lease ending January 31st 2007. We are purchasing a house, and plan to vacate our current apartment by the end of January.

Incidentally, our new residence will have a fully functioning stove and microwave, and, according to our home inspector, does not appear to have faulty wiring that causes the power to go out in a drizzle, faulty plumbing that causes water to gush through the fan in the bathroom ceiling, squirrels in the ventilation system, a chronic ant infestation problem, or a chronic carpenter bee infestation problem, all of which were definite selling points compared to our current abode.

Thanks for nothing,

Ms. Jaelithe J.

Just a Note

To say that my electricity is back, but I have had a very busy weekend catching up on all sorts of things I couldn't do while I had no electricity, so you will all have to wait to read all the entertaining anecdotes I have been planning to share regarding my adventures in real estate until I recover from storm craziness.

I hope all my hometown readers are warm tonight . . .

Deja Vu

Read this.

Switch summer to winter; switch record highs to single digit lows; keep the whole half a million homes in my city without power, some possibly for days, thing.

Oh, and mine is one of them.

Again.

See you when the electric company decides my apartment is as important as the video store across the street . . .

This Is Not Snow:

Click on the picture and look at the big version.

This is tiny balls of solid ice.

They are falling now outside my apartment. They bounce when they hit the ground.

(What do you call this? Is this sleet? Miniature hail? Any lurking meteorologists out there to enlighten me?)

The parking lot to my apartment was flooded with about an inch of water this morning from heavy rain. It now looks like a skating rink. Covered in tiny ball bearings made out of ice.

My husband is still at work.

*sigh*



******************

Edited to add: my husband is home and not dead. The car is also fine. Because I was not riding in it, obviously.

Meme-alicious

Eeep! I've been tagged, by Dana from Mamalogues, to write a post about five things people don't know about me. Hmm. But which people? Blog people? Real Life Friend people? Family people? Professional Contact people? I suddenly feel like no matter what I post, someone is going to comment and say, "But I KNEW that about you, Jaelithe. That's totally lame. Where's the good stuff?"

(Does the fact that I am having such a difficult time coming up with oddities and secrets mean that I live an utterly banal, unmysterious life?

Or does it mean that I am even more secretive about the few certain secrets I do keep than most other people?

Hmmm . . .)

Five things (some) people (probably) don't know about me:

1.) I attended a very swanky, expensive private school from sixth through twelfth grade. In fact, I attended the most expensive private school in town.

On scholarship.

The first day I walked into that school, I wanted to kiss the polished marble foyer floor. The library was the size of my previous school's cafeteria (which, incidentally, had a been a roach-ridden, poorly lit, unfinished basement). For the first several weeks of classes, I fully expected a choir of glowing angels to descend at any moment.

That is, of course, until the other girls in my class started calling me Bag Lady for wearing second-hand clothes.

By my freshman year in high school I figured out that if I wore black all the time people would think I was just being artsy and moody and wouldn't notice that I didn't have a walk-in closet at home filled with three months' worth of outfits from the Gap, Abercrombie and J. Crew. This trick did indeed work wonders for my social life, though I must say I rather tired of my high school photography teacher calling me "Johnny Cash."

2.) In my life thus far, I have been in six car accidents in which the car I was a passenger in was totaled. I was not driving in any of these instances; the accidents happened with several different drivers, and each time it was not the fault of the driver I was riding with.

The first time, I was riding with my father and we were hit from behind by a taxi in the middle of a downpour. The second time, I was riding with my mother and we were hit from behind by a teenager driving a new sports car coming down the highway off ramp. The third time, I was riding with my father and a man driving in the oncoming traffic lane had a heart attack and died, and his SUV swerved into my father's car and smashed it into a guard rail. The fourth time, I was riding with several high school friends of mine coming home from visiting a haunted house for Halloween, and we were hit at an intersection by a speeding drunk driver. The fifth time, I was coming back from the grocery store with a college friend of mine and we were hit by an old lady who ran a stoplight. The sixth time, my husband had just picked me up from work; we were stopped at a red light coming out of a parking lot and a college-age guy in an SUV rammed us at 40 mph from behind; he was speeding and claimed he didn't see the stoplight or the cars stopped in front of him because he was talking on his cell phone.

I've been a passenger in three other minor accidents where the car was not totaled.

And once a car actually flipped and flew through the air OVER a car I was riding in on the highway, but the car I was riding in was not hit.

(Oh, and I'm not sure this one counts, but my mother was in a car accident when she was seven months pregnant with me.)

3.) I am terrified of driving. (Note that I can drive, but it terrifies me.)

4.) I once quit a job I needed and liked, loudly, in front of about seventy-five co-workers, after a self-important manager practically everyone secretly hated falsely, publicly (and rudely) accused me of lying. My co-workers actually cheered for me as I walked out. It was one of the best moments of my life.

I have quit two other jobs based solely (or, okay, mostly) on moral principle. One, because of religious discrimation against a co-worker, and another, because my boss was embezzling from the (non-profit) company.

5.) I can't stand a certain sound that is made by certain types of rough surfaces scratching on cloth. It makes me want to rip my own teeth out. It's like fingernails on a blackboard to me. Only actually, I'd prefer to listen to fingernails on a blackboard. However when I hear someone making this sound, by, say, scuffing their booted feet on a carpet, I generally clench my fists and do not say anything, because I want people to like me and not think of me as that insane woman who yells at people for scuffing their feet.

And yes, this does give me a special level of understanding when it comes to my son's reaction to the sound of my blender . . .

********************************

Edited to add: Woah, did I forget to tag someone? How lame. It was midnight when I posted this, though. I tag Raquita, only because she hasn't posted in a few weeks and I want to hear from her again (only if you have time, though, lady), and Stephanie, because, well, I get a feeling she probably has some interesting answers for this one . . .

This Just In: Peace Termed Offensive, Divisive

Um, I don't even know what to say about this.

Is a ban on "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" next?

Hark! The herald angels sing
Glory to the new born King
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled
Joyful all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With angelic host proclaim
Christ is born in Bethlehem
Hark! The herald angels sing
Glory to the new born King
To the new born King

Wait-- "Let There Be Peace on Earth"-- that one by Sy Miller? That's on a bunch of Christmas albums, and it's EVEN WORSE:

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me,
Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.
With God as our Father, brothers all are we,
Let me walk with my brother, in perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me, let this be the moment now,
With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow,
To take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally.
Let there be PEACE ON EARTH, and let it begin with me!

What about "Silent Night"-- doesn't that one have that word in it, too? "Sleep in heavenly--" GAH!

That's it-- THAT'S IT! We have to ban Christmas music altogether, people. We're at war, after all, and that means we can't have any mention of, well, of, that, that word that begins with the letter P, okay? Because it offends people. It divides people.

In fact, I heard from this that every time someone says that word out loud, Baby Jesus cries. For real.

Maybe we should just have it removed from the dictionary.

Let the Hate Mail Commence at 10:30 P.M. EST

***Shameless self-promotion to follow***

Tonight I will be joining Kristen from Motherhood Uncensored, The Mom Trap, Cool Mom Picks, etcetera, on her BlogTalkRadio show.

So, listen already. The show begins at 10:00 p.m. EST / 9:00 p.m. CST, with the debate I'm participating in to begin at 10:30 p.m. EST / 9:30 p.m. CST.

Bobita and I will be debating infant circumcision.

*DUCKS*

Goodness Gracious

Where have I been?

Well, I know I've used this excuse before, but it's still happening: I've been trying to buy a house for the first time. We had one offer accepted, only to have it fall through due to what I can only describe as seller insanity (more on that later, when I have time for a good three-page post. Heh). Now we're working on another offer.

No one mentioned to me by the way (and I'm glaring at YOU, everyone) that this house-buying thing was a full-time job. My apartment is starting to look decent to me, and that's scary.

I've also been working on a work project that is, of course, currently deciding to take 1/3 again as much time as my client originally projected it would. As all projects invariably do. So I'm not sure why I even feel the need to mention that it's taking more time than I thought it would. But with that on top of our recent adventures in real estate-- forget you people-- I feel like my son is shortly going to forget my name. Aren't I, um, a stay-at-home mom? I thought I was . . .

Anyway, my birthday came over the weekend, and I turned 25 again.

(I have decided, as of this year forth, that I shall turn 25 every year until I am 60. All right with you folks?

What?

You say 26 is not old and I should shut the hell up? You say I'm an addle-pated uppity whippersnapper who is too big for her britches? La la la I can't hear you.)

On my birthday, no presents were lost. We weren't kicked out of any restaurants. And I didn't get food poisoning. So, all in all, I'd have to say, this was a huge improvement over last year!

However, the most momentous event that happened on my birthday was that my mother called me.

My mother called me on my birthday, for the first time in seven years.

The evening before my birthday, being an evil daughter, and a connoisseur of the sarcastic tone, I had formulated a wicked plan to call my mother late in the evening on my birthday. After waiting all day for her not to call me, I would call her myself, and, the moment my mother picked up the receiver, without even giving her the opportunity to say so much as "Hello," I would say,

"Mother, I am calling you to give you the opportunity to wish me a Happy Birthday."

Don't you see? It was perfect. The righteous irony would drip from my voice. The weight of seven years of daughterly disappointment, elegantly compressed into a single sentence, would barrel through the telephone line in a hundredth of a second, and, upon reaching the receiver on the other end, the smooth cover of seemingly polite words would uncoil in an instant to unleash a flattening blast of mother-guilt. Like a molotov cocktail, wrapped in silk.

It would be, in fact, exactly the type of brilliantly executed, impossible-to-dodge guilt-trip my mother herself is famous for.

But then, she called me.

Boy, that really knocked the wind out of the sails of my revenge ship.

In fact, it made me feel kind of guilty for plotting to guilt-bomb her . . .

Ah, touche, Mom. Touche.

Empathy

When I came home from giving a work presentation on Thursday, I found my son playing outside with his babysitter. He wasn't playing ball. He wasn't riding his new tricycle.

He was trying to put the fallen leaves back on the trees.

"I fix the trees, Mommy," he said, in a very serious tone. "The leaves fall down. All the leaves are down on the ground. I fix them."

How long will this sweetness last? How long can it last, in this world, in a boy?

It's times like these I want to wrap him in an impenetrable armor of love, freeze him in love, preserved, in his untarnished innocence, like a butterfly in amber.

But I can't. And I shouldn't try.

(And I can't.)

But I can write about it.

No More Mrs. Nice Lefty

Okay, remember my last post? The one where I was being all democratic and non-partisan, giving you links to local board of elections sites with information about the candidates and issues involved in today's election, encouraging you all to vote no matter your affiliation?

Yeah, see, here's the thing about true liberals (and note that I didn't say Democrat-- I said liberal), the thing that makes it so hard for us to "win": We value other people's opinions. We appreciate diversity. We believe in the power of democracy. We want everyone to have an opportunity to have their voices heard.

Embracing a diversity of opinion and promoting everyone's right to participate in their own government are core liberal values.

That's one reason why, if you're a liberal, underhanded, illegal tactics like this are gonna piss you off.

But you know what? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I believe most of my conservative friends should be pissed off by this too.

Because I know many true conservatives out there also believe in honesty, and fair elections.

So I ask you, my readers, all of you, for the sake of democracy, or, if you won't stand for democracy, dammit, then in the name of upstanding Americans' univerally acknowledged loathing of having their dinners interrupted by telemarketers, spread the word on this news today. Let your friends who have yet to vote know that the Republican party has been conducting a deceptive, illegal telemarketing smear campaign against Democratic candidates in a last-ditch attempt to make voters angry at the Democratic party, calling voters incessantly and attempting to pretend that the annoying robocalls naming Democratic candidates have been paid for by the Democratic candidates themselves, when in fact the entire enterprise has been funded by the Republicans.

And then, after you vote today, go home, and do something nice for a neighbor who disagrees with your political views. And then think about what we all can do to overhaul this ridiculously corrupt two-party system. And leave your suggestions here, because I want to hear them. I am so sick, sick, sick of deceitful politicians on both sides of the aisle. This is supposed to be our government-- the people's government. I want to take it back.

Of the People, by the People, for the People

My fellow Missourians,


Please drag your tuchuses out of your home or office long enough to vote tomorrow.


Don't know anything about the candidates?


Senate Race:

Incumbent Senator Jim Talent, Republican
Challenger Claire McCaskill, Democrat
Challenger Frank Gilmour, Libertarian
Challenger Lydia Lewis, Green Party


List of candidates for all other Missouri races.


Now you do.


Don't know anything about the issues?

Missouri 2006 Ballot Measures

Now you do.


Don't know where your polling place is?

St. Louis County Board of Elections Polling Place Finder
St. Louis City Polling Place Finder
State of Missouri Polling Place Finder

Now you do.


Got kids? A job? A ton of stuff to do tomorrow? Hate standing in line?

So do I.

Suck it up. Vote anyway.


Vote tomorrow, or I hereby revoke your license to complain about the government until you vote in another election :P

A Couple Marbles Short

From checking out my referral sources on Sitemeter (for the first time ever, I might add), I just discovered that my blog is currently ranked NUMBER ONE on Google for the search term "A Couple Marbles Short."

I leave you, my dear readers, to interpret this information as you may . . .

In Which I Come Out to the Internet as a Comic Book Geek, Part II, with Pictures

What? You want to take my picture in this costume you made for me? You want me to stand still, look at the camera, and smile so you can get a good shot? Uh, right.



Did you forget who you dressed me up as already?




Wait a minute-- what is this contraption?



I guess even The Flash will sit still for a loud, brightly colored electronic toy.

In Which I Come Out to the Internet as a Comic Book Geek

I would so show you photos of my son dressed up as The Flash, in a Halloween costume I made for him, with my own hands. I would totally show you right here, right now.

But Blogger won't let me upload any photos today. I have tried several times at different points in the day. No dice.

You're on my list, Blogger. Do you hear me? ON MY LIST. Right underneath home inspectors who lose your email address and phone number and therefore do not send you the rather significant, immediate-attention-requiring results of radon tests on your potential new home, but instead, just casually give them to your real estate agent who, not realizing you the inspectors never sent you said results, doesn't tell you about them either for three whole days.

Anyway, if you want to see pics of the cutest Flash EVER, and find out what comic book character I dressed up as, you'll just have to click the link to my Flickr account in the sidebar for now.

The City of St. Louis Would Like to Thank the Rain

I have to say, in my view, the wet field in the new Busch Stadium won Game Four.

But Game Five was all Weaver, Eckstein and Pujols (did you see Pujols throw that ball on his back? Damn).

Don't Tempt Fate

While reading this post over at Mamalogues I thought to myself, "Gee, I sure am glad my son almost never throws up."

So, guess what happened last night? All over the dinner table? While we were eating dinner?

Yeah . . .

Discombobulated

I am sorry; I just can't seem to write here right now. My head is full of things to write about, but I can't seem to bring my thoughts together coherently enough lately to post. I would say I haven't had time to post lately, but that's not entirely true. It is true that I have been terribly busy over the past two weeks, but I have left a couple of marathon comments on other people's blogs over the last couple of days and I could easily have spent that time posting here instead. But for some reason, I nearly always find it easier to respond to other people's thoughts than I do to organize my own. And the truth is, I enjoy reading and responding to other people's work a great deal more than I do composing my own.

I am not giving up; I will return. I have just been under a lot of stress lately, with a new work project, the prospect of buying a house, and all sorts of other random challenges popping up lately, as they are wont to, where I least expect or want them.

(For example, my glasses malfunctioned the other day. One of the lenses, which has never been quite secure since I got this pair a few months ago, popped clear out. I tried to fix it with my trusty screw kit, but the lens wouldn't stay in. So I took a trip to the not-so-close store where I'd gotten the glasses, and tried to get them fixed there. They fixed the lens, but in the process, they obviously scratched my not-cheap designer frames. When I complained about this, the technician who had made the error proceeded trying lamely and rudely to minimize his mistake, attempting to make fun of me by saying, "Do you actually need glasses if you are going to notice a scratch that small?" It was two scratches, and they were not small. After I glared at him he agreed to try to fix them. He made them even worse. The new gouge in my frames was so bad, he rushed out of the lab to search the inventory surreptitiously for a replacement frame, and then, realizing they were out, sheepishly offered to order me new frames before even showing my old ones to me. It will take two weeks to get new ones. Then I will have to risk my expensive, "you're so blind we have to send out to the out of state lab for your prescription, and that will take three weeks" polycarbonate lenses in the hands of this assclown or one of his associates once more. Joy. All sorts of random things like that have been happening lately).

(Wow, I just wrote a lot there, didn't I? Does this count as a post? I guess so. There you go, fans.)

(Now I am going to sleep, because it is already morning, and I have 50 billion things to do tomorrow).

You May Already Have Seen This

But if you haven't, take a look.

Why You Want to Be My Sister

Remember why you wanted to be my friend?

Being my family is even better.




Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake with Cinnamon Apple Almond Topping




Chocolate Chip Tuxedo Cheesecake with Oreo Crust and Fresh Strawberry Topping


Happy Birthday, Little Sis.




(Oh, and by the way, if you're reading this on Bitacle? Bitacle's lying, thieving ways are why I'm not posting the recipes for these beautiful concoctions today. If you want to know how to make them, you'll have to visit The State of Discontent at its real home on Blogger at http://jaelithej.blogspot.com and ask me.)

Chopped Liver

Today was my second half-day working in the office, and Isaac's first day alone with our new babysitter.*

I was worried that he would cry when I left this morning.

He didn't.

He did cry when the babysitter left this afternoon, though.



*John happened to have the day off of work the first day I went into the office, so Isaac stayed home with his dad that day.

Blub. Glub.

Ahhhhhhhh . . . applying for mortgage . . . searching for houses . . . sewing costumes . . . drowning in work from new project . . .

My latest project isn't even writing, you know. It's Search Engine Optimization Research.

I know, sounds fancy, right?

It involves spreadsheets. That is all I am going to say.

Anyway, if you don't see around me for a while, I probably:

1.) Pricked my finger with a needle and fell asleep for 100 years.

2.) Moved to some desolate unclaimed spot of land in the desert to build my own house out of adobe and straw.

3.) Got eaten by Excel.

But that doesn't mean I don't love y'all. Really.

By the way, did you notice that yesterday was my one year blogiversary? I should so have written about that, shouldn't I have?

Well, there's always next year . . .

The Way Things Work

This evening after dinner, Isaac started begging me to go outside.

"It's almost dark outside already," I told him, showing him through the window. "We'll have to play outside tomorrow when it's daytime."

He sighed in resignation and hung his head. Suddenly, he perked up, and asked, "Mommy, where does the sun go?"

My first inclination, honestly, was just to tell him the sun was going to bed. As he would be shortly.

I mean, how do you explain the reason for sunsets to someone with minimal language skills and only the most basic, mostly subconscious understanding of things like spatial relationships and geometry? Who doesn't have the foggiest idea he lives on a giant (how big is giant?) spherical (what's a sphere?) object called a planet (what's that mean?) that spins around as it hurtles through outer space (where's outer space?) around a much, much more giant flaming (huh? why? what lit it?) ball of nuclear (what?) fusion?

So, yeah, I was on the point of making up a clever one-sentence fairy tale (or, okay, let's face it, stealing one made up by some mother of antiquity whose precocious two-year-old decided to ask her the same flabbergasting question), when I thought about a conversation I had earlier today with Andrea about how amazed I've been at the volume of convenient fabrications that have come out of my mouth since I became a parent

("If you don't eat that turkey right now, I'm going to eat it all myself!" Says the vegetarian mother.

"Thomas and Percy are too sleepy to play. They want to go night-night in their cozy plastic box now."

"Mommy can't stay next to your bed reading to you for another hour and a half because she has to go potty right now. Right now! I can't wait! Sorry! See ya later! Good night!"

"Turkey? Oh, no. That's not turkey. It's white ham!"),

and then Andrea asked if I'd read any of the discussion quasi-recently over at The Mom Trap about whether deceiving children for convenience's sake undermines a parent's credibility, and I replied that that when it comes to getting my child to eat I am willing to say just about ANYTHING

("Thomas and Percy LOVE to eat turkey. Didn't they tell you?")

but that I had in fact read that discussion, and the whole "never lie" idea was an interesting theory, really.

So, when Isaac asked me where the sun goes, in a moment of guilt over my no-good dirty lying parenting ways, I grabbed a big blue exercise ball and an enormous flashlight and attempted to demonstrate the basics of planetary motion for a pre-schooler.

I don't think he understood a word of it.

But afterward, he kept pointing the flashlight at the ceiling and saying ecstatically, "Look Mommy! I made the sun!"

Which really cheered him up after the whole not going outside deal.

'Scuse Mama While She Gets Political for a Minute

Things that do not turn a person into a pedophile:


-Being a drunk. I suppose being a pedophile might turn you into a drunk, though.


-Being gay. Most scientific studies on the subject indicate that 98-99% of child molesters identify as heterosexual.


-Having been molested as a child. (According to multiple surveys, something like one in five women in the U.S. report they have been sexually assaulted at least once before the age of 18. Are 20% of adult women in the U.S. pedophiles? Uh, no.)


This has been a public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled fluffy little Mommyblog.

Pardon Me While My Head Explodes, Metaphorically

Hey, so, apparently my post about evilly destroying my son's avant-garde temporary art installation was deemed by the talented authoress of Bub and Pie to be worthy of a Perfect Post award for September.* What can I say? I'm verklempt (and I'm not even Jewish). But I didn't get the button up until today, because, DUDES. I am busy this week.

I have started a new contract project. I am trying to arrange a workable schedule for a (*GASP*) regular part-time babysitter so I can actually finish the parts of said project that require me to spend a couple of hours a week in an office. With grown-ups. Wearing office clothes. And makeup. And heels. All at the same time.

I have to train said babysitter tomorrow in the art of attempting to feed a severely underweight child with SI disorder who hates 95% of food.

I have been trying to work out some sort of crazy insurance issue with Isaac's OT provider. My insurance company is currently claiming the office Isaac's OT works out of is out-of-network, when in fact, the office is in-network, and has the current paperwork and network-provider number to prove it. Hmmm . . . Either way they are claiming they will only cover 20 visits per calendar year.

(Like I am going to let them get away with claiming my underweight child with severe eating issues only needs to see an OT to help with his eating for half an hour once every two-and-a-half weeks? When the OT herself wants to see him at least weekly right now, and his PCP agrees?

I don't think so, insurance bitches. Tiger Mama is now officially on the prowl. Tiger Mama eats deep-fried meaningless medical bureaucracies for breakfast, and often enjoys a refreshing frappe of the strained egos of ineffectual call center lackeys afterward to wash away the annoying aftertaste of red tape. I'm sure all my mothering readers out there have met Tiger Mama, so you know what I'm talking about.)

This week I have also been researching and calling several different financial institutions, because I am trying to find a fantastic deal on a first-time mortgage, preferably with low interest and low closing costs, despite having only average income and only decent credit, without paying tons of money to a broker.

(Stop laughing already.)

As part of this whole trying to get a great mortgage deal process, I have also been trying for weeks now to get one of the three major credit bureaus to admit 1.) that it does not know how to spell my maiden name, and 2.) that I, being an erstwhile bearer of such name, do in fact know the correct way to spell it. I spell my name correctly. Not them. Me.

(I told you to stop laughing, didn't I? Are you going to make me whip out my ruler, class?)

And, oh yes. I am still shopping for my very first honest-to-goodness, no shady landlords cuz I own it and that's that HOUSE.

I am looking for a three-bedroom, two-bath with a full basement, a garage or carport, and a fenced yard, with no major structural defects or health hazards, in a halfway decent neighborhood, for, oh, I don't know, less than $150,000?

Oh, okay, you can laugh at that one.

Or cry, if you live on either coast of this country, because that's actually POSSIBLE here in the Midwest! Ha! So there, you blue state suckers! With your five-star restaurants, and your critically acclaimed theatres, and art galleries, and good schools, and congressional representatives who don't enable child molesters, and . . .

(*Sigh*)


*Okay, so, apparently, she actually liked a post I made back in August better, but, hey.

Sign I May Be an Internet Addict, #432

Tonight as I was getting Isaac ready for bed, he started flipping through a Baby Einstein book he has that purports to teach children about rhymes. As he turned each page, he said the rhyming words to himself out loud.

"Chair. Bear!"

"Mouse. Dollhouse!"

When he got to the page with a picture of a frog next to a picture of a log, he very clearly said,

"Frog. Blog!"

Pardon Me While My Head Explodes

Yesterday I had a day-long, as in, from the moment I woke up at dawn til I finally slipped into blessed unconsciousness just before midnight, migraine.

Ugh.

The first time I ever had an actual, full-on, NO THIS IS NOT JUST A HEADACHE, THANK YOU, migraine, was when I was in my senior year of college. In the middle of film class while I was squinting at a grainy 1940s drama, trying to ignore a dull throbbing behind my left eye, I experienced a sudden sensation not dissimilar, I imagine, to what one would experience upon having a rusty iron spike driven into one's skull.

I saw rainbow halos around Gene Tierney. Not the pretty kind of rainbow halos either. I'm talking about the thug kind of rainbow halos that dismember fluffy baby bunny rabbits and send the baby bunny rabbit pieces to you anonymously through the mail, postage due.

I slunk out of the lecture hall and staggered to the women's restroom, convinced I was going to hurl. What was wrong with me? Was I dying? Was it a brain aneurism? (I always knew I'd die tragically of a brain aneurism before I hit 25-- I just KNEW it!)

I wasn't dying, of course. I was being hazed. For initiation into the exclusive club of migraine sufferers. Ah, joy.

The migraines continued, at first randomly, then weekly, then, at the worst point, almost daily, for nearly six months. They seemed connected somehow to my vision; they were often triggered when watching movies on a big screen (so much for that "A" I was hoping for in film class) or when I spent more than an hour straight working at my computer. I saw several specialists and asked repeatedly whether my extreme nearsightedness might be a factor, and whether getting a new eyeglasses prescription or having corrective surgery on my eyes might provide some relief. A general practitioner, a neuro-opthamologist, and two optometrists all told me it would not.

I cut chocolate, coffee, tea, balsamic vinegar, parmesean cheese, asiago cheese, and wine out of my diet. I changed my sleep patterns. I tried to meditate. I took long baths. I took long walks. Nothing helped.

Then my glasses broke, and I got a new pair. The headaches all but disappeared.

I started eating chocolate again immediately, and attempted mightily not to wish chocolate-triggered migraines on all of my doctors.

Since then my migraines have been blessedly rare. As long as I keep my eyeglasses prescription up-to-date, I can go months at a time without experiencing one. Sometimes I even start to think they might never be coming back.

So, at first, yesterday morning, when I woke with a dully throbbing head, I tried to convince myself it was not a migraine. I was sniffly when I woke up in the morning, so I thought, hey, this is a sinus headache. I'll take a hot steamy shower and drink some peppermint herbal tea. That will clear up my sinuses, and the headache will disappear.

It didn't.

Around lunchtime, as the dull throbbing became more of a shrill hum, I realized I hadn't been getting much sleep the past few nights. Maybe it was a sleep-deprivation headache! Miraculously, my son fell asleep in my lap with no fuss whatsoever shortly after lunch. I decided to take a little nap with him on the futon.

When I woke up, my headache was worse.

Suddenly it occurred to me-- I'd had caffeinated tea or coffee every morning for the past five days until that morning, when, silly me, I'd tried to clear up my sniffles with herbal tea. Of course! It was a caffeine withdrawal headache. That was it. Look at me, an addict. What a terrible habit, making myself dependent on a certain drink ingredient every day to function. I told myself I would have to cut back on the caffeine. Right after I made myself a nice big steaming stoutly brewed cup of Earl Grey. To wash down some Extra-Strength Tylenol.

My headache stayed.

My husband came home to find me languishing in a chair under dimmed lights with my eyes half-closed while our half-naked child traipsed gleefully through our uncleaned house wantonly scattering plastic toys. Shortly after he arrived I shut myself in our bedroom, locked the door, and hid under the covers of my canopy bed, without a word.

Oh yes, Migraine was back, and Migraine was determined to punish me for forgetting that I am one of Migraine's Chosen Sufferers.

One of these days, I am going to figure out a way to kick that bitch Migraine's ass out of town.

As long as it does not involve giving up chocolate.

Cruel, Careless Mother Destroys Precious Avant-Garde Artwork by Child Prodigy

A Missouri housewife by the name of Ms. Jaelithe J was denounced by the international toddler arts community today for prematurely destroying a masterpiece temporary art installation completed just minutes earlier by renowned child prodigy abstract artist Isaac J, who is Ms. J's son. Child artists and art lovers everywhere will be shocked to learn that Ms. J apparently ruined the piece in full view of the artist, despite the artist's desperate pleas that his work be left intact.

Entitled "Ice Cream Railroad," the work, created with melted vanilla ice cream on a glass table top, depicted an abstract interpretation of the artist's grandmother and grandfather eating ice cream while riding on a train, according to Isaac, who was quite distraught at the sudden destruction of his most daring work yet.

"My picture, my picture, my picture! Mommy cleaned up my good picture! My picture is all gone," the boy genius is reported to have lamented, sobbing for nearly thirty minutes straight after the drawing was ruined.

The child artist's mother, apparently oblivious to the inestimable aesthetic value of the ground-breaking installation, seemed puzzled at the outraged response to her removal of the work. "Well, I told him it was a very pretty picture, but that Mommy needed to clean it up now, because melted ice cream just doesn't belong on the dinner table. I tried to explain to him that ice cream makes things sticky, and I told him if I left it there for too long it might attract bugs. Besides, how on earth were we supposed to eat breakfast the next morning off of a table that was half-covered in ice cream? Of course I felt kind of bad, but I told the boy that if he wanted a picture he could keep, well, he could always just use fingerpaints or crayons and paper."

Despite this sad incident, Isaac maintains he will not be daunted in his quest to create thought-provoking yet accessible art installations for his adoring fans. In fact, he is already working on a new project involving shredded cheese and carpet.

"Some people, especially from the previous generation, just don't understand the true spirit of post-modern art," a source close to the artist said. "But Isaac won't ever let that stop him from trying to enlighten them."



Update: Nominated for a September Perfect Post Award by Bub and Pie! Thanks!

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

So, I am sewing several components of my son's, my husband's, and my Halloween costumes this year.

I forgot one thing, though.

I suck at sewing!

I also do not own a sewing machine. So that means I have to sew everything by hand. With my suckitudinous sewing skills.

Minor technicalities, right? Right?

My Mother Would Be Proud

Today I went to a fabric store looking for fabric for my family's Halloween costumes. I found just the sort of fabric I was looking for to use in two of the three costumes, on sale for half price. Exactly the yardage I needed was all that remained on the bolt.

I walked into a resale store next door looking for a cabinet to store some of my husband's DJ equipment in-- something I could refinish to look decent. I didn't find anything suitable, but I did find two brand-name, never-worn skirts in my size with the original store sales tags still on them, on clearance for 99 cents each.

Later, after dinner, I went to the mall so Isaac could play with the Thomas the Tank Engine tracks at the bookstore. While my husband watched my son play with the trains, I wandered into a favorite store of mine to browse for a birthday gift for my sister. I can't tell you what I bought there, and I can't tell you how much it cost, because my sister knows this URL. But let's just say-- 75% off? Oh, yes. It was so cheap I feel like I have to buy her something else, too!

Yes, the gods of discount shopping were smiling heartily upon me today.

Tomorrow, I am going house shopping.

Shopping gods, do you like cheesecake?

More Beautiful

than anything I might have pushed my tired mind to write today is this quote from my son:

"Icicles are stars crying."

I believe the reason good poetry is so powerful to so many of us adults is that it forces us to think, once more, like a child.

Why You Want to Be My Friend

ARGH!

My electricity just came back on 20 minutes ago after being off for two hours.

Was there a storm? No.

Was it raining in my neighborhood at all? No.

Were there strong winds? No.

Was it so hot today that everyone was running their AC at full blast and the power grid got overloaded? No.

Do I have any effing clue why my power went off for two hours in the middle of the afternoon on a calm, mild, sunny autumn day? Did Ameren give me any information whatsoever about why the electricity was off when I called them?

No.

Did I mention this is the second time my electricity has gone off in the past five days? No. Because I am getting so used to my electricity going off for more than an hour at least once EVERY WEEK that it hardly even seems like a bloggable event anymore.

I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! WHEN DO I GET TO MOVE OUT OF THIS PLACE? WHEN?

Oh, that's right-- when my stupid lease ends in January. Assuming I have managed to pull something like $2,000 in closing costs and $5,000 in down payment out of my, um, hat by then.

*sigh*

They're Going to Get Along Splendidly

"Hey, Cammy!"



"Yes, Isaac?"

"I just had a lovely idea concerning an entertaining use for these nice new Botanical Gardens membership umbrellas our parents received this morning for being such responsible lovers of nature."

"I'm listening! Do tell."



"Let's whack this tree!"

"Oh! What an excellent idea, Isaac! Yes, do let's!"


Two-year-old conversation simulated. No trees were seriously harmed during the making of this blog post.