Sad. Maybe lonely. Also out of processing cycles due to scheduling and arranging and managing and making sure there's something for dinner every night. Having a cold all the time both makes me feel depressed - I think it's some combination of not sleeping as well, being in pain, and echoes of fear surrounding being in pain.
Many ergs of mental energy are being used on real estate at the moment. There are both too many choices, and not enough uncomplicated choices.
Right now, my spouse is much occupied with other things. Marriage is a partnership, and heaven knows I have been on the other side of the neediness seesaw (see also: those two years of being sick, pregnant, sick of being pregnant, or pregnant and sick). Still: something to be endured.
Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moving. Show all posts
Monday, March 03, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
Winter, Houses, Viruses, Bacteria, More Winter
1) It was our birthday. (The spouse, my sister Pru, and I all share a birthday.) My family brought cake and the dog. The next weekend we left the kids with them for 24 hours. It was glorious. As we drove away, Bug asked "When can we go see Grandma and Grandpa again?" and Tatoe said "I want Lily-doggie."
2) For my birthday, Bug gave me a belated case of pinkeye and Tatoe gave me a horrible cold. The asthma is mostly okay except when I get a cold, and then I can't breathe* and then I can't sleep and... you get the idea.
3) This allergy thing, it is going to send me into a spiral of depression one of these days. I continue to develop new food reactions** and then I feel like eating ALL THE CHOCOLATE, with a side of frightened and sad and angry.
4) We have now looked at... twelve?... houses in person. One was too small. One was too shoddily built. One was delightful and affordable and lovely and the owners had just taken an offer that day. (SOB SOB SOB.) Four were "Not just no, but HELL NO." One had an impossible driveway that gave me vertigo on a warm, dry day. One was a drive-up-and-drive-away. One had lumpy drywall and was over-priced. One was lovely and wonderful, but had nowhere to plant a garden. The last one has a beautifully planted five acres, and is almost twice as big (3800 square feet - you could fit five Manhattan apartments inside!) as we actually want and they want waaaaay too much and it needs some work and we could maybe barely afford it and our car slipped on 1/4 inch of ice at the bottom of the enormous driveway and we would need a truck and an actual tractor and I just don't know. Oh, also it is down a narrow, winding road with a steep dropoff. Into a creek. What's the use falling down a hill if you can't end up in a creek? I can't tell if it's time to adjust my expectations downwards quite a ways, or hold out for spring house listings, or get in touch with that one builder, which idea frankly gives me hives. Dr. S is happy to make them an offer tomorrow. I need to dither first and stare at real estate listings for another few days first.***
4a) This is not the worst of choices to have to make. We can stay in our crappy apartment for two more years if we want (I do not want). It's not the end of the world, but at some point I would like to find my !@$% teapot and plant a garden again. I've put my life on hold for six years while my spouse pursued his insane-seeming career ambitions and I'm quite ready to move on, to say nothing of unpacking the rest of those boxes, one of these days.
5) I need to exercise. Then I would be less depressed and sleepless. I cannot exercise, because I feel like I cannot breathe (exercise elevates it from a feeling of shortness of breath to a feeling of being stabbed in the lungs with many pointy knives; no amount of albuterol fixes this). However, as we are now in the South, winter will be over in a month. Thank the Lord and pass the brandy.
* More to the point, I feel like I can't breathe but have perfectly adequate pulmonary function and oxygenation and therefore nobody will do anything about it. Which is perfectly reasonable, but doesn't help me when I wake up with a can't-breathe feeling in the middle of the night.
** I have the classical symptoms for a diagnosed condition. Dear Readers, I know you mean well, but please do not suggest that I have something else. I do not. I have this thing and there is no treatment beyond allergy shots (and an unreasonable amount of antihistamines) and it sucks.
*** There are 23,000 people in this entire county. The real estate market is not exactly booming.
2) For my birthday, Bug gave me a belated case of pinkeye and Tatoe gave me a horrible cold. The asthma is mostly okay except when I get a cold, and then I can't breathe* and then I can't sleep and... you get the idea.
3) This allergy thing, it is going to send me into a spiral of depression one of these days. I continue to develop new food reactions** and then I feel like eating ALL THE CHOCOLATE, with a side of frightened and sad and angry.
4) We have now looked at... twelve?... houses in person. One was too small. One was too shoddily built. One was delightful and affordable and lovely and the owners had just taken an offer that day. (SOB SOB SOB.) Four were "Not just no, but HELL NO." One had an impossible driveway that gave me vertigo on a warm, dry day. One was a drive-up-and-drive-away. One had lumpy drywall and was over-priced. One was lovely and wonderful, but had nowhere to plant a garden. The last one has a beautifully planted five acres, and is almost twice as big (3800 square feet - you could fit five Manhattan apartments inside!) as we actually want and they want waaaaay too much and it needs some work and we could maybe barely afford it and our car slipped on 1/4 inch of ice at the bottom of the enormous driveway and we would need a truck and an actual tractor and I just don't know. Oh, also it is down a narrow, winding road with a steep dropoff. Into a creek. What's the use falling down a hill if you can't end up in a creek? I can't tell if it's time to adjust my expectations downwards quite a ways, or hold out for spring house listings, or get in touch with that one builder, which idea frankly gives me hives. Dr. S is happy to make them an offer tomorrow. I need to dither first and stare at real estate listings for another few days first.***
4a) This is not the worst of choices to have to make. We can stay in our crappy apartment for two more years if we want (I do not want). It's not the end of the world, but at some point I would like to find my !@$% teapot and plant a garden again. I've put my life on hold for six years while my spouse pursued his insane-seeming career ambitions and I'm quite ready to move on, to say nothing of unpacking the rest of those boxes, one of these days.
5) I need to exercise. Then I would be less depressed and sleepless. I cannot exercise, because I feel like I cannot breathe (exercise elevates it from a feeling of shortness of breath to a feeling of being stabbed in the lungs with many pointy knives; no amount of albuterol fixes this). However, as we are now in the South, winter will be over in a month. Thank the Lord and pass the brandy.
* More to the point, I feel like I can't breathe but have perfectly adequate pulmonary function and oxygenation and therefore nobody will do anything about it. Which is perfectly reasonable, but doesn't help me when I wake up with a can't-breathe feeling in the middle of the night.
** I have the classical symptoms for a diagnosed condition. Dear Readers, I know you mean well, but please do not suggest that I have something else. I do not. I have this thing and there is no treatment beyond allergy shots (and an unreasonable amount of antihistamines) and it sucks.
*** There are 23,000 people in this entire county. The real estate market is not exactly booming.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Contradictions
I live somewhere poor and rural - except for the city, which is full of very rich Mountain U. students and faculty. I'm a frugal housewife, but I also have a bunch of fancy degrees. (The people in town think frugal means keeping last year's JesusPhone.) I liberate unattended fruit. I make things. I read science articles.
It turns out there aren't a whole lot of stay-at-home analytical thinkers - in this small town - who both make things and don't suffer from paranoid delusions about vaccines/gluten/Democrats.
Of all the people I've met here, the one I like the most (personally) is a card-carrying member of the Tea Party. I'm planning to help her plant her first big garden in the spring. Our children all love each other beyond words. Her child wears camo all the time and will probably hunt once he learns to hold a gun.* The spouse and I are pacifist liberals who, literally, make crunchy granola.
Anyhow, the summary version is I feel a bit adrift and, even though it's better than all that deeply unpleasant uncertainty, I haven't figured out exactly what shape my life is going to take in the next few years, or how it will weave in with the amazing assortment of personalities here.
* I'm all for hunting for one's food - after all, I eat meat, and deeraren't exactly endangered are a pest and a menace around here - I simply don't.
It turns out there aren't a whole lot of stay-at-home analytical thinkers - in this small town - who both make things and don't suffer from paranoid delusions about vaccines/gluten/Democrats.
Of all the people I've met here, the one I like the most (personally) is a card-carrying member of the Tea Party. I'm planning to help her plant her first big garden in the spring. Our children all love each other beyond words. Her child wears camo all the time and will probably hunt once he learns to hold a gun.* The spouse and I are pacifist liberals who, literally, make crunchy granola.
Anyhow, the summary version is I feel a bit adrift and, even though it's better than all that deeply unpleasant uncertainty, I haven't figured out exactly what shape my life is going to take in the next few years, or how it will weave in with the amazing assortment of personalities here.
* I'm all for hunting for one's food - after all, I eat meat, and deer
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Not A Good Year
This past February, we decided we were moving. We started packing up and getting ready to sell our house and move almost a thousand miles.
By May, Bug was clearly feeling fairly displaced. The tantrums and screaming, the emotional dysregulation, which had been slowly fading away after The Year Of Three, started coming back.
By July, when we actually moved, he was throwing a screaming tantrum every time we walked in the door to our apartment (townhouse, whatever). He talked about how he was 'anxious' about our old house and how he missed his old house and his friends. I tried to help him work through the feelings, while emphasizing that this is our home now. We went on lots of long walks, and ran around with the soccer ball, and went to every park in the area. We fed ducks, rode on a trolley, petted horses, played with dogs.
He pushed his brother down the stairs. He hit Tatoe and made him bleed. He dislocated Tatoe's elbow. He started grabbing things out of Tatoe's hands - not once, but once every ten minutes - and saying "But I wanted it!"
I waited it out. We made some friends, had some scheduled activities, started preschool three days a week. It got a little better. He likes the preschool.
But. But. Tuesdays are a nightmare. Thursdays are almost as bad. Last week he screamed, whined, cried, and shrieked for four and half hours straight; it didn't stop for more than five minutes at a time. Every time he hears the word 'no' or encounters any disappointment - and I mean "No, you may not grab that out of your brother's hands" or "We need to put shoes on so we can go to preschool" or "Three cheese sandwiches is, as I have told you three times, enough; what else would you like?" - he goes into a nuclear meltdown. He hits. He kicks. He refuses to listen to anything until everything he wants has been taken away from him. Quiet time always inspires another nuclear meltdown; by then, Tatoe is napping, so he gets to throw a tantrum on the porch, or strapped into his carseat (only in appropriate weather, of course). He's fine while Tatoe is asleep and it's just the two of us, but the moment little brother wakes up, it's back to the hitting and screaming and stealing.
I can't deal with it. I stop caring why he's screaming and I just want him to stop. I grab him and pull him away from hurting his little brother. I'm usually in tears by naptime. I don't have anything left. I try to talk to him about what's wrong, or help him draw out some pictures, and he either can't or won't articulate anything to me. It's fine when/if we get out the door (usually accompanied by an hour of wailing by both children; sometimes, however, not optional all the same), but as soon as we walk back in, wham. I do fun things just with him. Dr. S and I both give him all the attention we can. But there are other needs - clean clothing, food, meals, another child - that I must also meet.
I'm trying to remove all the sources of conflict that I can. But also, this week, I am calling up the therapists in town, and telling that I don't even want to be around my sweet child, my dearest firstborn, that most days I want to hurt him or send him away, because there is so much conflict and screaming and him hurting my other child, that since I cannot manage to parent my own child, I need them to work it out for me. I feel like a failure as a parent. I had one job, and I can't do it.
By May, Bug was clearly feeling fairly displaced. The tantrums and screaming, the emotional dysregulation, which had been slowly fading away after The Year Of Three, started coming back.
By July, when we actually moved, he was throwing a screaming tantrum every time we walked in the door to our apartment (townhouse, whatever). He talked about how he was 'anxious' about our old house and how he missed his old house and his friends. I tried to help him work through the feelings, while emphasizing that this is our home now. We went on lots of long walks, and ran around with the soccer ball, and went to every park in the area. We fed ducks, rode on a trolley, petted horses, played with dogs.
He pushed his brother down the stairs. He hit Tatoe and made him bleed. He dislocated Tatoe's elbow. He started grabbing things out of Tatoe's hands - not once, but once every ten minutes - and saying "But I wanted it!"
I waited it out. We made some friends, had some scheduled activities, started preschool three days a week. It got a little better. He likes the preschool.
But. But. Tuesdays are a nightmare. Thursdays are almost as bad. Last week he screamed, whined, cried, and shrieked for four and half hours straight; it didn't stop for more than five minutes at a time. Every time he hears the word 'no' or encounters any disappointment - and I mean "No, you may not grab that out of your brother's hands" or "We need to put shoes on so we can go to preschool" or "Three cheese sandwiches is, as I have told you three times, enough; what else would you like?" - he goes into a nuclear meltdown. He hits. He kicks. He refuses to listen to anything until everything he wants has been taken away from him. Quiet time always inspires another nuclear meltdown; by then, Tatoe is napping, so he gets to throw a tantrum on the porch, or strapped into his carseat (only in appropriate weather, of course). He's fine while Tatoe is asleep and it's just the two of us, but the moment little brother wakes up, it's back to the hitting and screaming and stealing.
I can't deal with it. I stop caring why he's screaming and I just want him to stop. I grab him and pull him away from hurting his little brother. I'm usually in tears by naptime. I don't have anything left. I try to talk to him about what's wrong, or help him draw out some pictures, and he either can't or won't articulate anything to me. It's fine when/if we get out the door (usually accompanied by an hour of wailing by both children; sometimes, however, not optional all the same), but as soon as we walk back in, wham. I do fun things just with him. Dr. S and I both give him all the attention we can. But there are other needs - clean clothing, food, meals, another child - that I must also meet.
I'm trying to remove all the sources of conflict that I can. But also, this week, I am calling up the therapists in town, and telling that I don't even want to be around my sweet child, my dearest firstborn, that most days I want to hurt him or send him away, because there is so much conflict and screaming and him hurting my other child, that since I cannot manage to parent my own child, I need them to work it out for me. I feel like a failure as a parent. I had one job, and I can't do it.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Displaced FEEEEELINGS
You will be shocked to hear that I am still having FEEEEELINGS.
Invariable, when I meet new people here, they ask where I moved from. "Cold State," I say, "but I'm from Virginia." And then, invariably, I feel... off balance. Like a lego tower built by a two-year-old. I want people to know I'm a Southerner, even though I'm also kind-of-not a Southerner. (Some part of me also wants to skip the inevitable "The South isn't that bad/ this is a nice place to live/ you'll get used to it/ here are the local attractions/ the South is great" conversation that otherwise ensues.) I want them to know that, although I have largely rejected the perfomative femininity and gender roles that stereotype the South, I do know where it's coming from; that I don't think cows are 'sooo cute'; and that my desire to, one day, keep chickens is grounded by a full knowledge of how smelly and bird-witted they are.
I want a purpose in life beyond herding around a screamy, screamy 4-year-old (seriously, not a day goes by without him throwing tantrums for at least an hour) and making more jam than we can possibly eat. Even with the people I already know, I feel like I'm failing at negotiating friendships in an equitable and mutually agreeable fashion. (I'm probably not. I'm probably just full of woe.)
I feel like a round peg in a square hole. In Cold State, I worked at the bicycle company with a bunch of overeducated nerds. In other words, I fit right in. Here, I think my back brain wished I'd find more kindred spirits in a rural area full of PhDs. But it turns out there's the same distribution of fairly-well-educated wackaloons here as anywhere else. The nice woman who bakes her own bread also thinks echinacea tincture will cure her chronic infection. The outdoorsy person who hikes and hunts has a magical amber necklace on her kiddo. The women with PhDs are all professors with full-time jobs. The hippie-ish lady who just planted her first garden seems nice enough. The vet who stays home with her kids, and whose favorite website is PubMed, seems both nice and smart. But I need to give it time, to let relationships grow organically, to not push it.
I would also like to note that Rural County here is stuck in 1998, and has not yet discovered the Internet, and therefore the main way to hear about things is by signs posted on fences,* or people telling you, or occasionally the classified ads or the extremely-local paper. I am not making this up. (Mountain Town does have an events website, but a) it is incomplete and b) usually the events suffer from not having a schedule online. No, I do not want to call the number provided. I want to look it up on the fucking internet.)
BUT. These feelings are accompanied by a natural reluctance to invest too much effort and emotional energy in relationships here. What are the chances we'll still be here next year? I HAVE NO IDEA.** To be honest, there is a part of me trying to reject it (it's so hick! I can't get anything!) just so I won't be disappointed. And there's another part of me that really likes how we can go watch the horsieeeees where horsies mama? more horsies? where tractor?? every weekend, and having beautiful fresh eggs, and the monthly bluegrass jam full of very sweet retirees, and the hilarious sixty-something farmers and their honeybees.
SO MANY FEEEEELINGS.
* No, really.
** While Belle astutely pointed out that everyone's lives are full of job-related uncertainty, still, a one-year contract practically guarantees you'll be fired. So! It's a SPECIAL kind of certainty!
Invariable, when I meet new people here, they ask where I moved from. "Cold State," I say, "but I'm from Virginia." And then, invariably, I feel... off balance. Like a lego tower built by a two-year-old. I want people to know I'm a Southerner, even though I'm also kind-of-not a Southerner. (Some part of me also wants to skip the inevitable "The South isn't that bad/ this is a nice place to live/ you'll get used to it/ here are the local attractions/ the South is great" conversation that otherwise ensues.) I want them to know that, although I have largely rejected the perfomative femininity and gender roles that stereotype the South, I do know where it's coming from; that I don't think cows are 'sooo cute'; and that my desire to, one day, keep chickens is grounded by a full knowledge of how smelly and bird-witted they are.
I want a purpose in life beyond herding around a screamy, screamy 4-year-old (seriously, not a day goes by without him throwing tantrums for at least an hour) and making more jam than we can possibly eat. Even with the people I already know, I feel like I'm failing at negotiating friendships in an equitable and mutually agreeable fashion. (I'm probably not. I'm probably just full of woe.)
I feel like a round peg in a square hole. In Cold State, I worked at the bicycle company with a bunch of overeducated nerds. In other words, I fit right in. Here, I think my back brain wished I'd find more kindred spirits in a rural area full of PhDs. But it turns out there's the same distribution of fairly-well-educated wackaloons here as anywhere else. The nice woman who bakes her own bread also thinks echinacea tincture will cure her chronic infection. The outdoorsy person who hikes and hunts has a magical amber necklace on her kiddo. The women with PhDs are all professors with full-time jobs. The hippie-ish lady who just planted her first garden seems nice enough. The vet who stays home with her kids, and whose favorite website is PubMed, seems both nice and smart. But I need to give it time, to let relationships grow organically, to not push it.
I would also like to note that Rural County here is stuck in 1998, and has not yet discovered the Internet, and therefore the main way to hear about things is by signs posted on fences,* or people telling you, or occasionally the classified ads or the extremely-local paper. I am not making this up. (Mountain Town does have an events website, but a) it is incomplete and b) usually the events suffer from not having a schedule online. No, I do not want to call the number provided. I want to look it up on the fucking internet.)
BUT. These feelings are accompanied by a natural reluctance to invest too much effort and emotional energy in relationships here. What are the chances we'll still be here next year? I HAVE NO IDEA.** To be honest, there is a part of me trying to reject it (it's so hick! I can't get anything!) just so I won't be disappointed. And there's another part of me that really likes how we can go watch the horsieeeees where horsies mama? more horsies? where tractor?? every weekend, and having beautiful fresh eggs, and the monthly bluegrass jam full of very sweet retirees, and the hilarious sixty-something farmers and their honeybees.
SO MANY FEEEEELINGS.
* No, really.
** While Belle astutely pointed out that everyone's lives are full of job-related uncertainty, still, a one-year contract practically guarantees you'll be fired. So! It's a SPECIAL kind of certainty!
Thursday, August 22, 2013
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.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Marital Problem-Solving
"Bug is being pretty intolerable."
"Can you just be more patient with him?"
"Can I lock myself in a closet instead??"
"Um... how about you take a vacation?"
I'm haring off to Our Nation's Capitol for five glorious days - including 10 hours of blissfully quiet train-riding! with books and knitting! uninterrupted by, well, anything - and I have even taken pity on my spouse and booked some half-time babysitters, so that he isn't locked in a closet when I return. (The spouse, not the child, though I wouldn't lay any bets.) My itinerary consists mainly of "visit everyone I can, then wander around."
Of course, Dr. S will be gone for another who-knows-how-long, interviewing this fall, so on the whole, it all balances out. Nonetheless, three cheers for the spouse.
"Can you just be more patient with him?"
"Can I lock myself in a closet instead??"
"Um... how about you take a vacation?"
I'm haring off to Our Nation's Capitol for five glorious days - including 10 hours of blissfully quiet train-riding! with books and knitting! uninterrupted by, well, anything - and I have even taken pity on my spouse and booked some half-time babysitters, so that he isn't locked in a closet when I return. (The spouse, not the child, though I wouldn't lay any bets.) My itinerary consists mainly of "visit everyone I can, then wander around."
Of course, Dr. S will be gone for another who-knows-how-long, interviewing this fall, so on the whole, it all balances out. Nonetheless, three cheers for the spouse.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
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.)
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.)
Friday, July 05, 2013
Long Discourses on Lots and Lots of FEEEEELINGS
No, really, it's going to be really long.
Okay. So I grew up in a moderately rural area of this fine state - gravel road, nearest grocery a 15-minute drive, no cable or cellphone reception or sushi or any of the other hallmarks of civilization. But the state capitol was only a half hour away. So the non-rural was accessible, but also half of everyone at my high school drove trucks with gun racks (it's only illegal if it's concealed, you see), and my parents' neighbors are - still, twenty years later! - two houses, a church*, two llamas, three donkeys, the llamas' owners, a corn field, and a horse pasture.
I went to college in a very (VERY!) rural area, but then spent the next eleven years in cities. I guess I never once pictured exactly what it would be like to move back. I was picturing dinner with my parents, and hiking in the mountains, and not all the Oh My God moments. Much like, before having children, one is thinking of snuggling a fuzzy little baby who will look up and smile, and one usually doesn't have a crystal-clear picture of the seventeenth 2 AM in a row. (This is as it should be; otherwise no-one would ever reproduce.) So here we are, and there are a lot of Oh My God moments. And I want you to remember, as you read this, that really, I have done the Rural South. A lot. So this isn't some lifetime city-dweller experiencing culture shock, this is... not stepping twice into the same river, or something.
Walmart: I last bought something from Walmart in 2003. The Walmart here is the best-equipped grocery with the most reasonable prices and, unlike the moderately-fancy chain, actually has such exotic items as anchovies.** (Also forty linear feet of ham, by the way.) I... I... I don't even have words to express how much this makes my brain hurt. Supply, demand, markets, etc., I know. But I need to go ice the sprain in my world-view.
The local Southern States:*** It has things. Useful things. Boots! Proper leather treatments! Chain! Feed! (I don't need feed.) Trowels! Growing things! It's like living out in the country again. Oh... wait....
The local utilities: Bafflingly incompetent. They are billing me starting next week. I could not convince them to do otherwise - nor could I set some of them up in advance; the water bill requires an in-person appearance at the Treasurer's office, which is right across the street from the most palatial fraternity houses I have ever seen in my life.†
Town and Gown: Oh my word. I can only imagine what most of the people in camo hats (also, at Walmart for the third time in three days, I saw a gentleman in his sixties, dressed in worn brown Carhartts, a battered straw hat, suspenders, boots, and a tee-shirt which read 'Van Helsing') think of the extremely wealthy college students (well, half of them; the other half are state-school students) and their billion-dollar endowment. And then there are the horse-riding socialites who retire/move here for some Gracious Southern Living. There's a whole clothing store for Southern Ladies Of A Certain Age. (I saw an immaculately coiffed white-haired woman, also of a certain age, dressed in beautiful navy capri pants and a matching sleeveless top, with pearl earrings and espadrilles, mowing her lawn this morning. Because the South.) And yet, the farmers do profit from the farmers' market (Wednesdays and Saturdays), even as they're sniggering up their sleeves, no doubt.
I suppose the real problem is I don't know which group I fit in with least.
And that brings me to the wedding. Theme: fake country. As in, greenhouse-grown colored yarrow, and those soft yellow flowers people grow as annuals, and not a Queen Anne's Lace or sweet pea in sight - not even the groom's mother's daylilies. Little cowboy boots on the little flower girls. Twee canned goods on the tables, and those brown paper labels tied onto the favors. Mason jars as far as the eye could see, but not old ones, new ones bought for the purpose. They didn't even go to the local goodwill/ junk shop for the glassware. The feeling was all... fake. I've had a country wedding (mine) and helped a friend (R) have another. I got dropped off at the side of the road with a bucket and scissors to pick actual wild flowers. For example. And! There was a whole reading during the wedding ceremony about - I am NOT making this up! - bruschetta. I can't think of a single more pretentious, yuppie thing to do. Really, I can't.
(I was, in fact, the only woman in attendance wearing a hat. Three people came up specifically to tell me how fabulous they thought my hat was, and one - as we were chatting - commissioned one. I rest secure in the knowledge that I was dressed with impeccable correctness, even if nobody else felt like a hat.)
What was missing was that kernel of humility - the recognition that the countryside has something genuine and valuable to offer, even if it's only wildflowers. This was a veneer of country over pure city, with not a single ounce of waste-not-want-not or even of genuine feeling. Everything was done for effect, and not because they thought it was a good, real thing to do, or even because they just liked it.††
In my world, a wedding is a party, and the objective of a party is to bring people together in joy for an occasion. (A funeral is a completely separate event, even if they frequently are like parties.) Also, seriously people: the way to show off one's wealth or design ability is to display impeccable taste. So the bride's mother was dressed in a filmy, very fancy, silk georgette floor-length ballgown, even though the bridesmaids were dressed in belted knee-length medium-casual dresses (very lovely and appropriate to the event). To me it was like wearing your diamonds in the daytime (for diamonds, I really mean cocktail jewelry): it's vulgar and shows not that you have money, but that you have no taste and want to show off, but all you're really showing off is that you have no manners. The correct thing to do is to wear a dress that's as expensive as you please, but appropriate to the situation. So wear a Chanel, but by God, wear a short dress to a late-afternoon outdoor wedding in the South.
The other objective of the party is to celebrate with one's guests. Except this party was clearly to show off. I tried to go say goodbye to the bride and groom before leaving, but all I saw of the bride was her retreating rear, because by God she had to go do a formal procession thing into the reception. (I did manage to say goodbye to the groom. His mama raised him right at least in one way. His father was very embittered about the procession; we decided that a fanfare of trumpets and cymbals would improve it.) Also, although I was assured the event would be appropriate for small children, it started at 6:15, and pictures lasted until 8:15. Apparently dinner was served around 9, to the accompaniment of all the other small children melting down. I wouldn't know; mine were in bed.
So what I'm saying is, the nicest thing I can think to say about this wedding is "I'm sure it was just as the bride and groom wished it to be." And that's probably the nastiest thing I can think to say about it, too.
(I have more FEEEEELINGS about moving here but they will have to wait until another day.)
* Southern Baptist. Of course.
** Even 20 years ago, anchovies were not an exotic item in a coastal state.
*** Which has, mercifully, finally ditched its swastika logo (really!), which left a bad taste in my mouth.
† In fact, I have been to this town dozens of times, and have seen these very same frat houses, but it must not have registered how amazingly well-kept they are.
†† Or at least that's how my very snarky self feels about it at present.
Okay. So I grew up in a moderately rural area of this fine state - gravel road, nearest grocery a 15-minute drive, no cable or cellphone reception or sushi or any of the other hallmarks of civilization. But the state capitol was only a half hour away. So the non-rural was accessible, but also half of everyone at my high school drove trucks with gun racks (it's only illegal if it's concealed, you see), and my parents' neighbors are - still, twenty years later! - two houses, a church*, two llamas, three donkeys, the llamas' owners, a corn field, and a horse pasture.
I went to college in a very (VERY!) rural area, but then spent the next eleven years in cities. I guess I never once pictured exactly what it would be like to move back. I was picturing dinner with my parents, and hiking in the mountains, and not all the Oh My God moments. Much like, before having children, one is thinking of snuggling a fuzzy little baby who will look up and smile, and one usually doesn't have a crystal-clear picture of the seventeenth 2 AM in a row. (This is as it should be; otherwise no-one would ever reproduce.) So here we are, and there are a lot of Oh My God moments. And I want you to remember, as you read this, that really, I have done the Rural South. A lot. So this isn't some lifetime city-dweller experiencing culture shock, this is... not stepping twice into the same river, or something.
Walmart: I last bought something from Walmart in 2003. The Walmart here is the best-equipped grocery with the most reasonable prices and, unlike the moderately-fancy chain, actually has such exotic items as anchovies.** (Also forty linear feet of ham, by the way.) I... I... I don't even have words to express how much this makes my brain hurt. Supply, demand, markets, etc., I know. But I need to go ice the sprain in my world-view.
The local Southern States:*** It has things. Useful things. Boots! Proper leather treatments! Chain! Feed! (I don't need feed.) Trowels! Growing things! It's like living out in the country again. Oh... wait....
The local utilities: Bafflingly incompetent. They are billing me starting next week. I could not convince them to do otherwise - nor could I set some of them up in advance; the water bill requires an in-person appearance at the Treasurer's office, which is right across the street from the most palatial fraternity houses I have ever seen in my life.†
Town and Gown: Oh my word. I can only imagine what most of the people in camo hats (also, at Walmart for the third time in three days, I saw a gentleman in his sixties, dressed in worn brown Carhartts, a battered straw hat, suspenders, boots, and a tee-shirt which read 'Van Helsing') think of the extremely wealthy college students (well, half of them; the other half are state-school students) and their billion-dollar endowment. And then there are the horse-riding socialites who retire/move here for some Gracious Southern Living. There's a whole clothing store for Southern Ladies Of A Certain Age. (I saw an immaculately coiffed white-haired woman, also of a certain age, dressed in beautiful navy capri pants and a matching sleeveless top, with pearl earrings and espadrilles, mowing her lawn this morning. Because the South.) And yet, the farmers do profit from the farmers' market (Wednesdays and Saturdays), even as they're sniggering up their sleeves, no doubt.
I suppose the real problem is I don't know which group I fit in with least.
And that brings me to the wedding. Theme: fake country. As in, greenhouse-grown colored yarrow, and those soft yellow flowers people grow as annuals, and not a Queen Anne's Lace or sweet pea in sight - not even the groom's mother's daylilies. Little cowboy boots on the little flower girls. Twee canned goods on the tables, and those brown paper labels tied onto the favors. Mason jars as far as the eye could see, but not old ones, new ones bought for the purpose. They didn't even go to the local goodwill/ junk shop for the glassware. The feeling was all... fake. I've had a country wedding (mine) and helped a friend (R) have another. I got dropped off at the side of the road with a bucket and scissors to pick actual wild flowers. For example. And! There was a whole reading during the wedding ceremony about - I am NOT making this up! - bruschetta. I can't think of a single more pretentious, yuppie thing to do. Really, I can't.
(I was, in fact, the only woman in attendance wearing a hat. Three people came up specifically to tell me how fabulous they thought my hat was, and one - as we were chatting - commissioned one. I rest secure in the knowledge that I was dressed with impeccable correctness, even if nobody else felt like a hat.)
What was missing was that kernel of humility - the recognition that the countryside has something genuine and valuable to offer, even if it's only wildflowers. This was a veneer of country over pure city, with not a single ounce of waste-not-want-not or even of genuine feeling. Everything was done for effect, and not because they thought it was a good, real thing to do, or even because they just liked it.††
In my world, a wedding is a party, and the objective of a party is to bring people together in joy for an occasion. (A funeral is a completely separate event, even if they frequently are like parties.) Also, seriously people: the way to show off one's wealth or design ability is to display impeccable taste. So the bride's mother was dressed in a filmy, very fancy, silk georgette floor-length ballgown, even though the bridesmaids were dressed in belted knee-length medium-casual dresses (very lovely and appropriate to the event). To me it was like wearing your diamonds in the daytime (for diamonds, I really mean cocktail jewelry): it's vulgar and shows not that you have money, but that you have no taste and want to show off, but all you're really showing off is that you have no manners. The correct thing to do is to wear a dress that's as expensive as you please, but appropriate to the situation. So wear a Chanel, but by God, wear a short dress to a late-afternoon outdoor wedding in the South.
The other objective of the party is to celebrate with one's guests. Except this party was clearly to show off. I tried to go say goodbye to the bride and groom before leaving, but all I saw of the bride was her retreating rear, because by God she had to go do a formal procession thing into the reception. (I did manage to say goodbye to the groom. His mama raised him right at least in one way. His father was very embittered about the procession; we decided that a fanfare of trumpets and cymbals would improve it.) Also, although I was assured the event would be appropriate for small children, it started at 6:15, and pictures lasted until 8:15. Apparently dinner was served around 9, to the accompaniment of all the other small children melting down. I wouldn't know; mine were in bed.
So what I'm saying is, the nicest thing I can think to say about this wedding is "I'm sure it was just as the bride and groom wished it to be." And that's probably the nastiest thing I can think to say about it, too.
(I have more FEEEEELINGS about moving here but they will have to wait until another day.)
* Southern Baptist. Of course.
** Even 20 years ago, anchovies were not an exotic item in a coastal state.
*** Which has, mercifully, finally ditched its swastika logo (really!), which left a bad taste in my mouth.
† In fact, I have been to this town dozens of times, and have seen these very same frat houses, but it must not have registered how amazingly well-kept they are.
†† Or at least that's how my very snarky self feels about it at present.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Fifteen Years (Fish Nor Fowl)
Fifteen years ago, I packed too much stuff into a tiny clown car and my dad drove me up to Ohio.
Eleven years ago, I drove a moving van up to a really cold, miserable year in the Northeast. (It did improve thereafter.)
Five years ago, I drove a bitter orange tree a thousand miles to come live in the land of lakes, cheese, and sausage. Bug was just a tiny little lima bean.
Tomorrow, the children and I are getting on a plane and we are going back to the South. We may never leave again. Oh, God, we may never leave again.
I had to call around and was reminded of a few key facts: 1) Everyone in them thar hills has the same educated-Southerner-who-never-left-the South accent; 2) they all think I am some damn Yankee because I have the Southerner-who-went-to-school-in-the-North accent; 3) there is no such thing as a short conversation in the South.
My family is there, but I'm not. I don't sound like them, but I'm from there. Neither here nor there... this is going to be hard.
So: I'm happy! I'm sad! I'm going to a hellacious wedding full of lawyers! I'm travelling alone for ten hours with two little kids! We get to see my family! I'm living in the mountains! Oh, $%!+, I'm living in the mountains! Et cetera.
There's going to be some of this:
And some of this, except not Texas, of course:
And some bourbon:
And some deeply conflicted feelings:
And I'm pretty sure it will be all right in the end.
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Eleven years ago, I drove a moving van up to a really cold, miserable year in the Northeast. (It did improve thereafter.)
Five years ago, I drove a bitter orange tree a thousand miles to come live in the land of lakes, cheese, and sausage. Bug was just a tiny little lima bean.
Tomorrow, the children and I are getting on a plane and we are going back to the South. We may never leave again. Oh, God, we may never leave again.
I had to call around and was reminded of a few key facts: 1) Everyone in them thar hills has the same educated-Southerner-who-never-left-the South accent; 2) they all think I am some damn Yankee because I have the Southerner-who-went-to-school-in-the-North accent; 3) there is no such thing as a short conversation in the South.
My family is there, but I'm not. I don't sound like them, but I'm from there. Neither here nor there... this is going to be hard.
So: I'm happy! I'm sad! I'm going to a hellacious wedding full of lawyers! I'm travelling alone for ten hours with two little kids! We get to see my family! I'm living in the mountains! Oh, $%!+, I'm living in the mountains! Et cetera.
There's going to be some of this:
And some of this, except not Texas, of course:
And some bourbon:
And some deeply conflicted feelings:
And I'm pretty sure it will be all right in the end.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Sunshine and Roses
Just to mention that not everything is full of woe:
Yesterday, while Tatoe was napping, Bug and I went outside and threw paper airplanes in loop-de-loops for forever, and then lay down on a blanket to look at the sky, and he patted me on the arm and said "Mama, I love you. You're my best fwiend."
And then Nicole brought over gooseberry crumble, which I adore, and we had some iced tea together from my backyard mint.
And this morning Dr. S and I are goingcanoeing together on the beautiful lake out for lunch because there is a thunderstorm.
Yesterday, while Tatoe was napping, Bug and I went outside and threw paper airplanes in loop-de-loops for forever, and then lay down on a blanket to look at the sky, and he patted me on the arm and said "Mama, I love you. You're my best fwiend."
And then Nicole brought over gooseberry crumble, which I adore, and we had some iced tea together from my backyard mint.
And this morning Dr. S and I are going
Monday, June 17, 2013
In Which I Am Irritable
Much like all spouses or partners, mine drives me completely up the wall sometimes. For example... now.
I am leaving in nine days. Of ALL the moving things - including utilities, mail forwarding, finding preschool for Bug, selling/ giving away stuff, moving arrangements, movers for the moving arrangements, storage for the fucking moving arrangements (thanks again, R and C!), telephones, new-hire paperwork, transfer of medical records, banking, realtors, house-selling, AND SO ON, my spouse has done exactly two: he found us somewhere to live (faculty housing owned by the university), and watched the kids while I cleaned (and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned).
It's fine. I'm better at things involving a bazillion small details. He has a job, so I took care of it. I have the kids, who haven't suffered at all while I dealt with all these things, and who aren't feeling neglected one bit.
(Bug has now been whining and/or screaming for two hours straight. I've only been awake for two hours. Dear small child: shut the fuck up.)
However, the relentlessly negative attitude is starting to grate. I am, of course, a ray of cheerful sunshine at all times. But the negativity! About all things moving-related! "The house won't sell in a month. No way." (Full-price offer in four DAYS.) "No way the movers will come pick stuff up from storage. They'll whine and complain." (They said no problem, meet you there.) "We can't make it to the bank and to work in time." (We could have FUCKING TRIED, because, you know, it only took 45 minutes with both children in tow, which I did to make his life easier and most decidedly not because "open bank account with two screaming/fighting children" was, in any way, fun.)
Anyhow. I may be feeling annoyed, irritated, and underappreciated. Just A LITTLE TINY BIT.
I am leaving in nine days. Of ALL the moving things - including utilities, mail forwarding, finding preschool for Bug, selling/ giving away stuff, moving arrangements, movers for the moving arrangements, storage for the fucking moving arrangements (thanks again, R and C!), telephones, new-hire paperwork, transfer of medical records, banking, realtors, house-selling, AND SO ON, my spouse has done exactly two: he found us somewhere to live (faculty housing owned by the university), and watched the kids while I cleaned (and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned).
It's fine. I'm better at things involving a bazillion small details. He has a job, so I took care of it. I have the kids, who haven't suffered at all while I dealt with all these things, and who aren't feeling neglected one bit.
(Bug has now been whining and/or screaming for two hours straight. I've only been awake for two hours. Dear small child: shut the fuck up.)
However, the relentlessly negative attitude is starting to grate. I am, of course, a ray of cheerful sunshine at all times. But the negativity! About all things moving-related! "The house won't sell in a month. No way." (Full-price offer in four DAYS.) "No way the movers will come pick stuff up from storage. They'll whine and complain." (They said no problem, meet you there.) "We can't make it to the bank and to work in time." (We could have FUCKING TRIED, because, you know, it only took 45 minutes with both children in tow, which I did to make his life easier and most decidedly not because "open bank account with two screaming/fighting children" was, in any way, fun.)
Anyhow. I may be feeling annoyed, irritated, and underappreciated. Just A LITTLE TINY BIT.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
"You Just Can't Get Good Sushi There!"
When in grad school, we would occasionally hear a particular kind of East Coaster- you know the kind - complain about job offers in such hinterlands as Chicago, or Minneapolis, or Houston. You know, those barren wastelands, tumbleweeds rolling across the landscape, no Macy's as far as the eye can see. "They don't have real bagels!" they would say. "Do they even have a symphony? Or a theater? I mean, really, it's all flyover country."
(I exaggerate for effect, but I did really hear heard people say all these things.)
Well, I'm about to move to a small town in the mountains (population 7,000, and I think that might include the students; two miles across). The nearest medium-sized town (my old friend's home town; I have probably been there a hundred times and have a very good idea of its amenities) has a population of 24,000 and is 40 minutes away. The next-nearest city-like objects are over an hour away.
Woe is me.
(It's in the middle of the mountains, next to a beautiful river and several state parks. WOE!!)
I grew up in a pretty rural area - the nearest grocery was a 15-minute drive down the main road - so I have a pretty good idea of what I'm saying when I wonder if one can get good sushi there. Except I'm not actually concerned about sushi. Is there an allergist in town? (Ha ha ha ha no.) In the next town? (Ha ha ha our crap insurance won't cover it.) Will I have to drive an hour each way? (Yes.) Is there even an ethnic grocery in any of these places? (No.) That doesn't cost an arm and a leg? (Really no.) Where will I find kosher meat? (Ha ha ha. I could start a kosher meat shop! Not really.) Am I going to have to bring a cooler every time I go to Richmond? (Yes.)
Anyhow, just imagine what you'd worry about if you were moving somewhere 1/50 the size of where you are now, and that's how I feel.
(I exaggerate for effect, but I did really hear heard people say all these things.)
Well, I'm about to move to a small town in the mountains (population 7,000, and I think that might include the students; two miles across). The nearest medium-sized town (my old friend's home town; I have probably been there a hundred times and have a very good idea of its amenities) has a population of 24,000 and is 40 minutes away. The next-nearest city-like objects are over an hour away.
Woe is me.
(It's in the middle of the mountains, next to a beautiful river and several state parks. WOE!!)
I grew up in a pretty rural area - the nearest grocery was a 15-minute drive down the main road - so I have a pretty good idea of what I'm saying when I wonder if one can get good sushi there. Except I'm not actually concerned about sushi. Is there an allergist in town? (Ha ha ha ha no.) In the next town? (Ha ha ha our crap insurance won't cover it.) Will I have to drive an hour each way? (Yes.) Is there even an ethnic grocery in any of these places? (No.) That doesn't cost an arm and a leg? (Really no.) Where will I find kosher meat? (Ha ha ha. I could start a kosher meat shop! Not really.) Am I going to have to bring a cooler every time I go to Richmond? (Yes.)
Anyhow, just imagine what you'd worry about if you were moving somewhere 1/50 the size of where you are now, and that's how I feel.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Traffic
'The only bad thing about Cold Utopia,' they said to us before we came, 'is that the traffic is really bad at rush hour.'
I was just out on the main road at 4:45 PM. It slowed down to 40 mph twice, for a total of maybe two miles. Ha, ha, ha.
Bad traffic is when you're driving back from a wedding on Long Island and it's 1 AM and they've decided to close all but one lane of the highway. The highway being I-95. Which then has a 15-mile backup.
Really bad traffic is when you stupidly leave somewhere in LA at 4 PM and spend the next two hours on a freeway full of people who want to kill you, still mysteriously barely moving, and then give up and try surface streets, and drive over an hour an a half worth of crazy full twisty little streets and then arrive home in complete frazzled exhaustion.
Insanely bad traffic is when, on the way back from your honeymoon, after ten hours of driving, you are a half-mile from the Tappan Zee Bridge when a pasta truck explodes, causing a fatal accident and closing the entire bridge both ways, and you sit there for four hours and only then do you get detoured 100 miles up a 2-lane road to Bear Frigging Mountain, which has a two-lane bridge handling all the traffic into and out of !@#$! Manhattan, and by the time you get home you're wondering if this whole marriage thing is going to work because you're about to KILL one another.
(All true.)
I was just out on the main road at 4:45 PM. It slowed down to 40 mph twice, for a total of maybe two miles. Ha, ha, ha.
Bad traffic is when you're driving back from a wedding on Long Island and it's 1 AM and they've decided to close all but one lane of the highway. The highway being I-95. Which then has a 15-mile backup.
Really bad traffic is when you stupidly leave somewhere in LA at 4 PM and spend the next two hours on a freeway full of people who want to kill you, still mysteriously barely moving, and then give up and try surface streets, and drive over an hour an a half worth of crazy full twisty little streets and then arrive home in complete frazzled exhaustion.
Insanely bad traffic is when, on the way back from your honeymoon, after ten hours of driving, you are a half-mile from the Tappan Zee Bridge when a pasta truck explodes, causing a fatal accident and closing the entire bridge both ways, and you sit there for four hours and only then do you get detoured 100 miles up a 2-lane road to Bear Frigging Mountain, which has a two-lane bridge handling all the traffic into and out of !@#$! Manhattan, and by the time you get home you're wondering if this whole marriage thing is going to work because you're about to KILL one another.
(All true.)
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Amazement
We have just spoken with our car insurance company. They propose to charge us the princely sum of $10/month for basic auto insurance, or 1/5 what we were paying. Because unlike SnootyTown, it is, in fact, safe to park one's car, even on the street.
The DMV, however, will not give us licenses. Why? Because we need a 30-day-old utility bill. Why? Why?
***
The Paper has stalled out at 'We observed subtle defects; specifically, .....'. I am waiting for my collaborator. He is MIA. Who needs to graduate, anyways?
The DMV, however, will not give us licenses. Why? Because we need a 30-day-old utility bill. Why? Why?
***
The Paper has stalled out at 'We observed subtle defects; specifically, .....'. I am waiting for my collaborator. He is MIA. Who needs to graduate, anyways?
Friday, August 22, 2008
Guaranteed to Raise Your Blood Pressure, Every Time
Look, kids! Stupid people still think vaccines cause autism! And their kids are getting a serious, potentially fatal, sends-you-to-hospital, totally preventable disease! Because now it's not the mercury, oh no, it's the immune challenge. Vaccines give you a fever! An unnatural fever! Then you get autism! Because little kids never get high fevers otherwise, oh no!
Gaaaaaah.
***
Baby also, I forgot to mention, measured exactly the right size. I have been mandatorily tested for a bunch of things I don't have. Including syphilis! And Rh antibodies. I am O+. Dr. S is O-. Ummmm....
***
Conversation with Dr. S:
Me: We could hire movers. I think I can go up stairs carrying stuff maybe three times in a day. And then I'll need a nap.
Dr. S: I can handle it! It's not that much stuff.
Me: Fine.
Next day:
Dr. S: Wait.... there's going to be heavy furniture to carry, right?
Me: Yes. Like that couch. And a bed. And chairs.
Dr. S: You didn't mention furniture!
Me: I thought you knew. You did know.
Dr. S: Maybe we could hire movers.
Me: Sigh.
(We're both a little stressed. He's usually not like this.)
Gaaaaaah.
***
Baby also, I forgot to mention, measured exactly the right size. I have been mandatorily tested for a bunch of things I don't have. Including syphilis! And Rh antibodies. I am O+. Dr. S is O-. Ummmm....
***
Conversation with Dr. S:
Me: We could hire movers. I think I can go up stairs carrying stuff maybe three times in a day. And then I'll need a nap.
Dr. S: I can handle it! It's not that much stuff.
Me: Fine.
Next day:
Dr. S: Wait.... there's going to be heavy furniture to carry, right?
Me: Yes. Like that couch. And a bed. And chairs.
Dr. S: You didn't mention furniture!
Me: I thought you knew. You did know.
Dr. S: Maybe we could hire movers.
Me: Sigh.
(We're both a little stressed. He's usually not like this.)
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Random Updates
- Packing: still boring. Belle has been giving us her charming company and help, though. It eases the pain. Also: still not done.
- Experiment: still not done. I don't want to talk about it.
- Dr. S: is from another planet, bless his heart. I want to hire some strapping young college students to move our stuff from truck to apartment. He wants to do it himself. ?????
- Dr. S's boss: is insane. No, he does NOT have time to do 'one more experiment.' That takes three full days. Because he is leaving on Sunday.
- Dr. S's boss: is also paying him in September. Half-time ('There is no way I will work for that man full time in September!' 'Yes, dear.'
- My boss: is also paying me in September. Full time.
- Nausea: in full force. Now on the Bad List: garlic, cold room, vinegar, canned corn, and lab sinks.
- Baby: lima-bean sized on today's Baby's First Picture ultrasound. With a little flickering heart. ('Here, see?' 'Are you sure that's not just noise?' 'Yes.').
- Mother-in-law: ecstatic that now she can tell everyone.
(Normally, we might wait longer, but... 1. we're leaving; 2. my tummy is so fat and poochy that I've already been asked twice; and 3. half my lab already knows.)
Friday, August 08, 2008
In Which, For A Change, Something Works
Yesterday, I did the Last Experiment. Again. (I also did it last week, the week before that, the week before that...)
And! It's really blurry. And not very convincing. And something definitely leaked into the next lane. But it looks like maybe, for once, it actually worked.
As a) I've been trying to do this for, no joke, six months and b) I really need to finish it before I leave.... this is really good. Now cross all your fingers for me that it works at least twice.
Bonus! We have an apartment. Oh, how I love efficiency. I called three days ago. Two days ago we sent an application. Yesterday they sent us a lease. A 9-month lease. Behold:
All for 2/3 what we pay now. And underground parking, thank you very much.
The List of a Thousand Cuts is slowly, slowly getting shorter.
And! It's really blurry. And not very convincing. And something definitely leaked into the next lane. But it looks like maybe, for once, it actually worked.
As a) I've been trying to do this for, no joke, six months and b) I really need to finish it before I leave.... this is really good. Now cross all your fingers for me that it works at least twice.
Bonus! We have an apartment. Oh, how I love efficiency. I called three days ago. Two days ago we sent an application. Yesterday they sent us a lease. A 9-month lease. Behold:
All for 2/3 what we pay now. And underground parking, thank you very much.
The List of a Thousand Cuts is slowly, slowly getting shorter.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Recycled
I inherited a ThingPlayer from M & B. It came with about 60 pounds of obsolete Things. No-one makes these Things or their player any more, as they weigh ten times as much as the DigitalThings that replaced them.
Free obsolete Things do not travel 1200 miles with me, but I didn't want to throw them away. Wasteful! Someone might use the Things! I advertised them on The List Starting With C. 'Free! ThingPlayer and classic Things! Works.' (This is the equivalent of, in car ads, 'Runs.' I did not claim it worked well.) I thought that, if I was lucky, one or two people might come look. Well, two hours later, I had to take the ad down because, in a quite mystifying manner, ten people had already replied.
So, on the grounds that said person was more likely to actually show up, I gave it to the person with the best grammar. Virtue rewarded.
Free obsolete Things do not travel 1200 miles with me, but I didn't want to throw them away. Wasteful! Someone might use the Things! I advertised them on The List Starting With C. 'Free! ThingPlayer and classic Things! Works.' (This is the equivalent of, in car ads, 'Runs.' I did not claim it worked well.) I thought that, if I was lucky, one or two people might come look. Well, two hours later, I had to take the ad down because, in a quite mystifying manner, ten people had already replied.
So, on the grounds that said person was more likely to actually show up, I gave it to the person with the best grammar. Virtue rewarded.
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