The disaster that is the Little Green House

My mother-in-law -- my dear, compassionate, generous mother-in-law -- just left town after a 10-day visit. As always, it was great. I took her to Powell's and let her buy me books. She made me chicken soup. We went up to Mount Hood and played in the snow. We played lots of Boggle, always a key to any successful visit.

And yet . . . It's so nice to have the house back. Mostly because my dear, sweet, loyal, brilliant mother-in-law is a tiny tornado of a woman. Like a serious wind, she carries things in her wake: New York Times Magazines from 1992, half-knitted scarves, random bottles of moisturizer, pomegranate juice, gelatin for her nails, the lonely, lost skins from long-forgotten grapefruits, foot powder, nail files, small stuffed animals that she forgot to give to TheBoy.

Oh, and takeout food containers. Lots of them. Here's a sample of the damage:

I'd rather be boarding

Why do I always sound like such a wet rag in AR's posts? Truth be told, I kind of feel like a wet rag. I think it's all the toddler music classes and 3-year-old birthday parties I've been attending - events which AR has managed to avoid thus far. I think I've become a housewife.

I love spending time with The Boy. He's a delight, and it's fun to watch him play and learn and grow. But being 3, he's also in need of constant supervision and someone to wipe his ass. I'm beginning to lose my mind. Six months ago, I felt like I could do this stay-at-home thing for awhile no problem, as long as I knew I could step back into my career in a year or two. I felt if I could just get over the job uncertainty and stop worrying about the declining likelihood of ever finding meaningful work again, I'd be having a great time with The Boy, taking him to museums and the zoo, for bike rides, to the park and on playdates. But when the highlight of my week was taking him to get a haircut, and I find myself looking forward to his first dentist appointment because it means we have something to do and I don't have to plan an activity, it's time to get serious about getting a job.

Before I came out to my mom, she used to say this about being gay: I don't think there's anything wrong with it, as long as it's not my child. Totally un-PC, I know, and yet that's how I feel about staying at home: I don't think there's anything wrong with it, as long as it's not me who's doing it. (My mom, by the way, was totally accepting of me and AR when I finally did come out to her, even though I know she struggled with it silently. My mom rocks.)

Truth be told, I'd rather be shredding. All I want to do is go up to the mountain and carve turns in the snow. Is that wrong? AR thinks I might be depressed.

April surprise

Judybat picked up our taxes from the local neighborhood accountant this week and immediately called me.

JB: "How much do you think you're getting back?"

AR: "This is a trick question, right? Am I getting anything back?"

JB: "Yes, something. How much?"

AR: "Um, maybe $600? Is that too high?"

JB: "Yes. Guess again."

AR: "$1,000?"

At this point, Judybat began snickering. "Try $12,000."

Stunned silence from me. And then, it hit me: "I'm buying a laptop!"

JB: "I knew you were going to say that. We should talk about that."

AR: "Talk? Talk?? What's to talk about? We're loaded! Or, at least, I'm loaded. Heh."

JB: "We're putting in new windows upstairs. We're replacing the carpet. All those things cost money, remember?"

AR: Whine. Sulk. Pout. End of conversation.

The bottom line: I am getting a heap of cash back from the IRS because, in the past year, I turned into an adult, with a mortgage and a kid and child care bills. And I cannot spend any of that money because . . . I'm an adult.

This stinks.

Maybe the funniest thing ever

I must thank my friend Cassidy for this. I saw it on his blog, which features fun stuff like a purple knitted mobius strip and a scale model of San Francisco done in Jell-O. But this item had me laughing so hard that tears were running down my face. My sides still ache.

Boob job, revisited

I had a mammogram today. No, you're not reading an old post; I had to go back for more pictures, because whoever looked at the first ones saw something in them and wanted to get a better look to make sure that it was nothing. Or something like that.

I wasn't worried. They told me the first time I went in that younger women often get called back because the younger breast tissue can look a lot like whatever lurking evil a mammogram is supposed to expose. So aside from the fact that it's nice to be referred to as a "younger woman" at this point in my life, I was annoyed that I had to shlep back to another appointment to get my boobs squeezed between plastic and metal. I was much less amused by the procedure than I was during the first go-around, and not just because this time it was a little bit painful as they mashed and pulled my breast into more exotic contortions.

Perhaps anger is not the appropriate response when my doctors are just being careful, but I can't help wondering if it was really the best idea for me, a 36-year-old woman with no family history of breast cancer, to expose myself to radiation in order to get a baseline mammogram, when the odds were good that the results would come back inconclusive, and I'd have to expose myself again. I'm not saying it was a bad idea; I just don't know. That's the problem with modern medicine. We do what our doctors tell us to, because we think they have all this information and will lead us to do what's in our best interest, but in fact, what they don't know WAY outweighs what they do know for sure. Just ask my neurologist.

And how much do we really know about our doctors' decision making? Is it based on their belief that there is no ailment on this earth that cannot be fixed by the godlike powers of western medicine? Or on their fear of being sued? Or on the very latest information available and their desire to give us the best care possible? I like my primary care doc and believe that when she said I should get a mammogram she was driven by that last option, but I also think that very latest information, which contradicts the very latest that came out five minutes ago, may welll be contradicted by a study released next week.

The outcome of today's mammo, by the way, was that everything is A-OK.

Shredding, or not

Judybat and I celebrated our 12th anniversary (this past Sunday) and Judybat's birthday (next Sunday) by dumping TheBoy and heading to Mount Hood for a day of snowboarding.

Or rather, Judybat went for a day of snowboarding. As the bruises on my knees, elbows and rear end suggest, I went for a day falling down like an uncoordinated imbecile.

It's galling, how much I suck at this. Back in high school, I played three sports and was agile if not exactly graceful. Today, I ride my bike to and from work, I take the family on the occasional hike, and I secretly practice my golf swing in the basement when nobody is looking. But the basics of snowboarding escape me.

It's not that I don't enjoy the activity. If I can manage to make it down the hill, jerking this way and that, usually standing straight up on the board in fright, I have the same little rush of excitement -- "Oh, movement!" and "Mountains! Pretty." -- that seems to draw all this funky looking people in their oddly colored pants.

What's really aggravating, I guess, is that Judybat is so much better, and so quickly. The instructor explains something, and she immediately seems to get it. She glides down the hill like a curly-headed butterfly. She weaves. She flies. Meanwhile, I'm transported back to AP Calculus. I'm hearing the words, but they sound a lot like Latin.

I'm sure my size is part of the problem. Even on a little snowboard, it's a looong way down from where I'm standing/crouching. And snowboarding seems to be all about gradual movement -- "Shift your weight slightly," and, "Bend your knees, slowly." There's really nothing gradual in the way I move. As, after 12 years, Judybat knows all too well.

And yet she loves me anyway.

Grading is hard

I just handed in my final grades for my first teaching gig. Handing out the As were easy; they all went to B+ students with perfect attendance who participated in class discussions and came through with some really nice work in their final portfolios. Handing out the Fs were easy; they all went to students who quit showing up halfway through the quarter or, as in the case of one student, just didn't hand stuff in. (ME: We have two weeks left till finals and I don't have any work from you. STUDENT: Really? That's weird, because I've been taking lots of pictures.)

The hard part was the middle of the pack. I created this elaborate 12-point system with points alloted for things like composition, technique, expression, participation, presentation, etc. and weighted so that the work they did at the end of the quarter - when they had learned a thing or two, supposedly - was worth more than assignments handed in at the beginning, and I found myself agonizing over a point here or a point there out of a possible 144, because I wanted to get it right.

What do you do, for example, with a student who's not the best photographer, but thinks s/he is, and so ignores much of the constructive criticism you direct his/her way, but also makes a huge effort and resubmits assignments, but doesn't correct the problems you pointed out in his/her original submissions. You want to encourage this person, but do you really want to encourage this person? Where is the grade for that? I think it's around 6.5 - but do you round up or round down?! And what about the kid who has a great eye for composition, but shows up late for class, doodles during discussions, slacks off on the early assignments, but puts in a valient effort on the final project?

Wait a second - I think I just described myself as a student.

Anyway, in the end I learned something about myself: I am an easy grader. I'm not sure what that says about me as a teacher, or if it even matters. What I do know is that if my students had thought about their photography as much as i thought about their grades, they'd all get As.

The world's scariest birthday cake

We had The Boy's first birthday party today. Yes, he just turned three, but we took a pass on parties his first two years because we figured we could. Sure, friends and family were horrified that we didn't fete the little guy with presents and cake the first chance we got, but he didn't notice. Shh, don't tell the DSS.

These days, however, The Boy is much more aware of what's going on in the world around him, and there's a good chance we could scar him for life if we deprived him of a party this year, (even though we did get him the best birthday present ever: a pink two-wheeler which he wants to be riding every second of the day.)



Of course, we may have scarred him anyway. I shelled out an extra eight bucks so the kind folks at Baskin-Robbins would draw Elmo and Grover on a white cake with pink ice cream, as The Boy requested, and here's what I got:

I wasn't sure if those were wild-eyed monsters coming to eat us or if they were just bugg-eyed from choking on their own huge tongues.

Fortunately, the kids seemed too preoccupied with shoveling the sugar to notice the terror in the frosting. The Boy, for one, was already asking for more with the first forkful still in his mouth.

So the party was a big success. We made pasta necklaces and construction-paper crowns, fought over balloons, ate pizza, and after the presents and cake, played a game of musical chairs that ended in tears which signalled it was time for everyone to go home.

Think pink

Today, TheBoy turns 3. He celebrated by padding into our room and scaling the mountain that is our bed at not-quite 6:30, then breathing his stinky little baby dragon breath fumes on us until we woke up.

"Mommy, Ima, come to my birthday with me."

See, the kid isn't quite sure what a birthday is. He's pretty sure it's some kind of an event, something that clearly requires audience participation and assorted hoopla. Balloons, no doubt. And cake.

Thus, he was a little disappointed when we explained that his party isn't until tomorrow, and that he still had to go to school, and that the biggest excitement of the morning was going to be eating his vitamin.

It helped that when he toddled into the kitchen, he found a big boy bike awaiting him. A pink big boy bike with "L'il Goose" printed on the side in silver letters.

For the record, TheBoy has now received a pink bike and two pink shirts for his birthday. He's pretty much in heaven.

I want to tell you a story

Click here to listen to an epic tale of destruction and redemption. Transcript follows:

Sandwich crust started to fly and juice started to spill in the big glass on the floor and giraffe clean up with a napkin and the mouse started to spill on the giraffe and the giraffe cleaned himself up and the building started to break 'cause the trees knocked the building down and the juice started to knock the water down and the giraffe cleaned the water up.

Don't spend it all in one place

I'm collecting panhandler stories. There was, for example, the time that a slightly deranged looking woman approached Judybat for change as she was lunching outside one lovely spring day in Raleigh.

My well-meaning but deluded spouse likes to give people something -- food, usually, or a chance to mow our yard, or perhaps an old New Yorker -- and hadn't eaten two slices of fancy sunflower seed bread that came with her salad. She told the panhandler that she didn't have any change, but happily offered up her bread. The woman picked up one piece, gave it a good hard loo up and down, and put it back on JB's plate.

"Sorry," she said. "I don't like that kind."

Repeat after me: Beggars really can be choosers.

Today's story: I was waiting downtown for a bus when a young man made his way through the crowd at my stop. He was holding, and clearly eating, a Big Mac. He cradled a large container of McDonald's fries in one arm. In the other, he held an extra large soda. He wondered if anybody had any spare change so he could catch a bus home.

Like the rest of the group, I gave that silent shake of the head that is ultra-polite Portland's answer to such behavior. But now, I wish I'd spoken out. Like, "Um, dude, why didn't you think of that before you ordered that Value Meal?" Or, "Don't they have a 99-cent menu at Mickey D's?" Or perhaps, "Didn't your mother tell you that it isn't a good idea to beg on a full stomach?"

Sheesh.



(P.S. Spellcheck wants to turn, 'Sheesh,' into 'Sheik.' I'm sure that's not a political statement or anything.)