FMB: On Friendship (4)

An unfortunate encounter with a new-faculty-spouse-in-town reminded me that  I have a reflexive revulsion for persons too stupid or irresponsible to vaccinate their damn children, and years of listening to idiots have pushed me towards the belief that there is only one right choice!  Delayed is better than not at all but the reasoning is idiotic.  Not only do I not want my children - particularly the baby - around unvaccinated children, but I see the issue as a litmus test for social responsibility, passing acquaintance with the scientific method, and general intelligence.

This person failed.

More on Gardening, and Metaphorically on Friendship

It turns out that when you round up half the parents (mostly mothers, but the occasional father) of preschool-aged children in a very small town, you get a very motley group.  I did not previously know any full-time waitresses.  Nor magazine editors from the Southernmost Swamp by way of Movieland, USA.  And now I do!  I choose to find it fantastic and delightful instead of really, really surreal.

A friend gave us some spare plants for our garden, and said they were squash, but they turn out to be zucchini instead.  Here, everyone we know: have the gift of zucchini.  We have nine plants of it.

Right of the trellises: Only part of the zucchini.  The trellises are 4 feet tall. Oh, dear.

Someone I know here, probably one of the people I like best, happened to show me her family's prepper stash the other week, including more weapons and ammo than I have seen outside a large gun store.*   NOT what I was expecting.

We drew up a plan for our garden, but some of the plants died, and then there was an incident with tomato plant buying in which we failed to consult each other (there are about 30 now... maybe 40), and then the corn got eaten by crows and we put in more cucumbers, which was probably ill-advised.  And also two of us are pregnant and so the squash patch ended up a little haphazard, and the bunnies ate a couple of them, plus we didn't label which ones were butternut and which ones were cantaloupe.**  Besides - that patty pan squash totally said it was bush-type on the packet, and yet, it is vining up a trellis as we speak.

The bed that is mine, all mine.  Patty pan squash trellis in front. The obsessive block system is in NO WAY reflective of my personality, y'hear?

The person who owns the garden is not someone I would have thought I had a lot in common with.  She's my opposite in terms of personality - and also a warm, loving, generous person who also likes to garden. Sometimes things that aren't what I planned turn out okay!  Sometimes people's lives intersect at strange places and it's still an interesting relationship.

(Sometimes your despair at someone else's strawberry patch leads you to suggest that on Sunday, you could get together, dig up the whole thing, and replant the crowns the RIGHT way.  I swear, it'll grow better this way.  Fertilize!  And add lime, the soil here is CLAY!)

I am now extremely grateful for my slightly desperate, boredom-inspired chatting up of every random stranger in town. My life here growing, although I hope  less like the zucchini (why is it so big?  why did I plant so many?  what was I thinking? I don't even like zucchini!) and more like the cucumbers (in an orderly and directed, yet still organic, fashion).

This last year has been awful in so many different ways and - unexpected bonus child aside - I'm still holding out hope that it's starting to get better.

* The question perhaps arises, how many gun stores have I been in?  Well, they sell guns at Walmart down here.  Plus, a lot of good hiking/camping gear at gun shops.  And if you want a decent pocketknife - yes, I carry that around; yes, it's legal - your local huntin' an' fishin' store is the best bet. 
** When they set fruit I am sure we will be able to tell the difference, so...

And Now For Something More Cheerful

A couple weeks ago, someone on the main road trimmed their bamboo.  I sat my children down on their lawn, gave them each a pole to 'fish' with, took off all the side branches with my hand clippers, loaded it all into the passenger side window of my Honda-Civic-plus-two-carseats, and drove it over to the garden a friend is generously sharing with us.

This week, someone else in town cut down a huge pile of huge (HUGE) bamboo stems, each about twenty feet long.  One of my new gardening pals and I, over the course of two days, with two small children in tow, sat by the side of the road with our clipper collection, whacked off all the side branches, chopped it into manageable lengths, and loaded it into her truck.  Now we have all the bamboo for poles and stakes and trellises and a tipi in her backyard.  For free!

(Two people of our acquaintance drove by yesterday while we were doing this and texted my friend, "What ARE you DOING?"  Oh, small towns.)

Also, last week, the local grocery store was giving away all the rest of their seeds.  For free!  And I told some friends and we all got free seeds!  (They're remodeling and apparently couldn't be bothered to care.)

In Which I Go Full-On Watering Pot at Toddler Storytime

Last week, I took Tatoe for his regularly scheduled Library Toddler Storytime.  I brought along my knitting, as I usually do, because toddlers can be boring.  Afterwards, they were all playing with play dough and a woman I kind-of-know asked what I was knitting.

"A present for a friend's baby." I said. "She had some tragic events recently and I hope this baby makes it."

"Oh," she said.  "We lost four.  Seven pregnancies, three children.  We lost three right in a row.  I look at little girls who would be that age, sometimes, and I still feel sad.  And nobody talks about it, or they do and then they get upset and you end up reassuring them and it's even worse.  When did your friend lose hers?"

So of course I said "I'm so sorry to hear that, it's just terrible" and told her (in general, privacy-protecting terms, though these people will almost-certainly never meet) and we both sat there in front of all the small children and their parents and the librarian with tears streaming down our faces.  I've never lost a child, but I know so many people who have, all the way from garden-variety infertility to sudden and inexplicable stillbirth, and it's such a tragedy and awful and terrible and I'm probably going to cry every time it comes up ever.   

Anyhow.  Clearly I should bring a different knitting project to the library.

A Cherished Memory

I have no idea why this suddenly popped into my head, but there you have it.

December 1999

A group of college friends has been giving gifts.  Someone has given our friend E, a blonde, bubbly, zaftig, future-librarian Quaker, a soft-antler headband and a red nose that lights up.  Her boyfriend N, a nerdy physicist with dark curls, looks on dubiously

E: "Look!  I'm Rudolph! You can see me in the dark!"
N: "I guess we could... play reindeer games?  ...oh, dear."

Everyone bursts into laughter.

I am sorry to say that I've lost touch with all of them, due to some unfortunate personal circumstances in grad school, also known as "My ex took those friends when I ditched him."

More Extremely Assorted Items

• Somehow, now that my child-swap/ Tatoe napping while Bug is at school are no longer in effect, I find myself unable to focus.  I wonder why THAT is.
• It keeps raining here.  I don't mean a drizzle, I mean torrential downpours. Do you know what around here is a) indoors and b) open on Sunday?  The hardware store and - you guessed it! - the Walmart.  
• It's a good thing I gave Dr. S such cynical advice about his postdoc advisor, about a year and a half ago.  Subject of advice: projects you take with you. Dear readers, you can extrapolate from there.
• He asks me some hilarious small-college questions sometimes.  (I went to Small College On A Hill, he went to Buckeye State.)  Like, "This student wants to jump ship from another lab and join my lab.  I should say no, right?  Whose lab?  Oh, the guy here who most wants to hire me long-term."  Not just no but hell no, dear.
• He also runs his job applications by me.  This always involves a bottle of wine and funny-looking diagrams, and my contribution is always "Blah blah blah, RNA, DNA, who cares?  Why do we care about this?  Where are the LASERS AND ROBOTS?"
• I'm never sure how good my advice is, but it always amounts to 'you need to sell this better'.
• I keep thinking about friendships with my mother's friends/old family friends in Next Town Over and negotiating boundaries and being mis-calibrated for Southerners, anymore.
• Speaking of which, I visited my old friend of the late-evening wedding, found to my surprise that I really like his new spouse a great deal, and therefore am willing to chalk it up to WeddingZilla Moments rather than a general loss of their wits.  It happens to the best of us.

FEEEEEELINGS About Moving

1) Bug's feelings, as far as I can tell, break down into two categories: a) Get me away from my little brother and b) dude, where are all my tot friends, dammit.  We are working on both of those, by way of making more tot friends.  Regrettably, I cannot Just Add Water, Instant Friends.  If anyone sees one in a packet, buy me an extra.

2) My feelings break down into the categories you would expect:  I am bored; I am lonely; I miss my grown-up friends; I miss having Bug's tot friends around; I miss the FREE PRESCHOOL!; I am apprehensive about finding real friends here; I am bracing myself to not find real friends here; I am bracing myself to probably-maybe-who-knows leave in a year anyways, therefore repeating this entire experience again; I am fucking pissed about the house-not-closing shenanigans; I am anxious about house closing; I am both depressed and anxious about ME finding a job here or anywhere; I am annoyed that Dr. S and I cannot sleep in the same bed without waking each other up all night*; I am annoyed that Dr. S is SO annoyed about re-doing all the moving-related things that I already did once; I am very tired of being with my children all the time; I bitterly miss my twice-weekly cup-of-tea-and-kid-swap.  And my partner in fruit-related crime.**  (The wild raspberries here are amazing, and I have already staked out two apple trees.  But it's a lot less fun, alone.)

3) Tatoe clearly has some feelings too, but since he's only 21 months old, it mainly comes out as screeching.

4) At least there's a university gym.  And it's free.  I can go work off some of my feelings with the weights.
4a) Related: I am very sore.

5) I went to meet the nice doctor today and I have lost yet more weight, now putting me at what I weighed in 1998, 145 pounds.  (I am 5'7".)  I would be much more delighted if it had been on purpose, rather than because I can't eat anything.

* Perhaps time would fix this, or a bigger bed.  However, who wants to try it long enough to find out?  And we don't have any money.  Especially until the house closes.

** Is it theft if no-one wants it?  Abandoned fruit!  Just waiting for a picker! (Fruit on public land here can be picked for one's own personal consumption, i.e. not sale, as long as is not a protected species.)

FMB: Unsaid

A few years ago I asked about Truly Horrible Things that, I suspected, had happened.   And yes, this someone had lived Truly Horrible and also Amazingly Awful Things.*  (This is someone with whom I have a close enough relationship for personal questions.  Also, the Truly Horrible stuff was a really long time ago and this person has a happy, fulfilling life.)

I was glad this unanswered question was no longer hanging over our relationship.  At the same time, knowing was much, much worse than imagining.  I almost wish I hadn't asked; I don't know if I should have. I don't know if it's easier for the other person- this was something nobody ever talks about.  I know their family shut the issue firmly in the woodshed, locked the door, and threw the key in the lake. 

[Irrelevant digression: every so often I make a neutral noise like "Oh?" and someone spills forth with some personal drama, pain, or strife, sometimes accompanied by "Well, if you must know", and I always think NO!  I do not MUST KNOW.]

*Of a magnitude to make me abandon my pacifist sentiments and, should I ever encounter the offender (unlikely in the extreme,  fortunately), shoot 'em dead. The offender should be in jail.  But won't be, more's the pity.  I believe the statute of limitations has expired.

Why?

I still keep in touch with a couple friends from high school, including my slowly-cooling relationship with C, who you may remember.  C is expecting her third child; her spouse is still in grad school (he STILL!!!! has not finished those papers!) and they are still all four-and-a-fetus living on a humanities grad student's salary, roughly $25,000, in Big East Coast City.   

I called her this week, because I wanted to offer to make something for this child.  I did for the other two, after all.  I asked C if she needed anything, or wanted a less worn/ugly exemplar of something.  And she said "Oh... I think some crib sheets would be good, but knit ones because the other kind are kind of cold on their skin, and not flannel because I wouldn't want to use them in winter and I don't have enough storage space, and red, but not too red, or maybe green, but not kelly green or forest green.  Perhaps polka dots, but only if they match the red valence that I have, and the ruffle has ladybugs on it but I don't want to do ladybugs* if it's a boy** and... " then I tuned it out.

All I could think was what. the. !@$%****


* WHY NOT? They're so CUTE!!
** Because clearly then he would grow up to be gay.***  Or something.
*** Bug has an eyelet lace dust ruffle on his crib, which I made.  It's cute.  He doesn't care.  If he wants lacy pillowcases when he's 15, I'll make them too.  Or cars.  Or bugs.  Or unicorns.  I don't care.
**** After our wedding I wrote a whole series of mendacious thank-you notes for things I returned ("Thank you for the hideous green sheets and well-meant but completely useless tool set;, we already have four hammers." [Not really; I wrote "Thank you for your thoughtful gift" etc.])  because I was taught that one should be GRACIOUS.

Grow The !@#$ Up

Remember C of food stamps and spousal PhD on Lost Atlantis? Anyhow. I was talking to C. And her spouse, who has screaming-heebie-jeebie panic attacks over writing papers (publish or perish? iffy question!), predictably did not finish a single blessed one of his term papers. From last May.

They are still not done.

Regarding one, the professor said "Oh, just turn it in before the end of the year." So C said to me, "I almost want to ask the professor to set a deadline before Christmas! Or he'll be working on the paper our whole vacation!" I made a sympathetic MRRRR noise. And I thought, "There is something wrong here."

See, normal humans would, oh, say to the spouse, "I need you to finish your work before X date, so that Y can happen." And normal, responsible, adult spouses would, given six months and a stay-at-home wife and virtually no other responsibilities, be able to finish 3 papers. And normal human people who have been married to each other for seven years should, perhaps, have worked this out already. However, under none of these circumstances is it reasonable or professional to ask one's spouse's professor to step in.

In fact, this spouse needs to grow up. Also, in fact, I think that sacrificing one's family's well-being, health, and financial stability to pursue a useless PhD in the likely-vain hope that a tenured faculty job somewhere pleasant will result... is selfish, stupid, and childish. And either terminally optimistic, or something a great deal less flattering.

Grow up, honey. Grow up.