Not Inadequate

Now that I am the proud new owner of a Kindle, I am busy loading it up with books.

Generally, I am drawn to the literature genres known as Trash and Crap.

I like a little romance, knowing that it will end with happily ever after. I love mysteries, but nothing too gory. I shy away from anything that’ll make me sad or books that feel too much like Quality Literature.

Also – and get ready, this could change everything about our relationship – I hate animal stories. Especially if they are labeled as “heartwarming.”

Heartwarming = Gag

I have been known to go to the bookstore, settle in the coffee shop with a stack of celebrity biographies – Martha Stewart, Tori Spelling, and even (heaven help me) Kendra Wilkinson - and greedily gobble up the highlights; I am definitely not an elitist, but I can’t bring myself to pay money for swill.

Yummy, illicit, swill.

So I don’t usually have a lot to add to book conversations, lest I reveal the true shallowness of my preferences. The delicious, nutrient-free, candy-coated shallowness.

I have, on occasion, inadvertantly read more Important Books. Books that are sometimes thick and called novels. Here is what the word novel means to me: there is no happily ever after, and there is no murderer handed to the reader on a silver platter. Instead the story seems to stop when the author reaches his word limit.

Okay, not really. But you have to admit, novels rarely have a neat tidy ending. I am usually left thinking, “wait – what? that’s it? what happens next?” and feeling vaguely dissatisfied.

Here are a few of the real books that have stuck with me over the years:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. About a girl who discovers she can literally taste the emotions of the person who prepares her food. Interesting premise, and I didn’t mind the odd writing style (there are no quotation marks in the whole book); but the ending left me going “wait – that’s it? I still don’t understand the chair…” Nevertheless, I quite liked it. It was lovely and weird.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Disturbing and brilliantly written in the form of letters from Kevin’s mother, Eva, to her husband. Kevin is in prison for killing his classmates in a Columbine-esque spree. The letters recount the entire story of the family as Eva tries to understand what went wrong. The ending is a complete surprise and absolutely shocking - as well as unrelated to the school shooting I was steeling myself for from the beginning. Haunting. I read it years ago and sometimes think of it even now.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. The story of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney, the woman he left his family for (and she left hers for him). Firstly, I was completely unaware that that Frank Lloyd Wright was a cheating bastard, and could not believe Mamah abandoned her young children to be with him. It was the end of the story, though, that kept me up until 3 in the morning, sobbing. I was not expecting such a shocking and horrifying ending. The book was sad all along, but the ending! I was heartbroken for days.

Ok – now you. What should I add to my Kindle? Bear in mind my affection for trash, so no pushing the classics at me, okay?

(oh, and no vampires! good grief, will all the vampires please DIE already? gah.)

Okay, so here’s what happened.

In this neighborhood, there lives a tiny pack of six geese. All the locals seem to feed them and they wander around the neighborhood, fat and happy. They are cute, and we make honking noises when we see them. A couple of days ago, they were right down the street eating some corn a neighbor had set out, and me and the kids walked down to see them.

We stayed across the street from them; and when the kids wanted to get closer, I took the opportunity to tell them that animals will protect their food and their babies, and that the geese might LOOK all soft and cuddly, but they are wild animals who could hurt us if they wanted to.

It was all nature-lesson-y and stuff.

So we watched and talked and the geese were very cute and ate their corn.

And then the geese had enough.

They started walking across the street toward us, making little screechy chirping noises, hissing, and puffing up their feathers.

WELL.

I knew this was a bad sign, what with being an expert birder and everything, and started to hustle the kids back down the street. But our retreat was not hasty enough for the geese, and they kept advancing. Faster and faster on their little geese legs.

Of course, in my mind I was all, “walk backwards. make eye contact. NO! don’t make eye contact! wait, that’s dogs. Run down a hill! They can’t run down a hill! or is that bears? they are getting closer!” etc. etc. etc. After about three seconds of being stalked by a flock of geese, I calmly invited the kids to run back to the house, and I told the geese “OKAY! We’re leaving!”

I did not run, but kept backing away as fast as I could, keeping myself between the geese and my kids. For all I knew, running would provoke them, and I steeled myself to take a bird DOWN.

Eventually they were satisfied they’d chased us off and went back to the corner for a victory lap around the corn.

When I got back, the kids were hysterical, having flung themselves at their Daddy, sobbing that “the geese were ATTACKING US!”

I recounted the whole story to him, but when I got to the part where I had heroically put myself in danger to protect my children, he only looked skeptical and said, “THAT’S why you didn’t run?” and didn’t give me any credit at all for being a self-sacrificing SUPER HERO.

Which I so obviously AM, JIM

OBVIOUSLY.

I swear. Rude.

Every night before bed, I have this conversation with my daughter:

“Go pee.”

“I DON’T NEED TO GO PEE!”

“Try anyway.”

“I DON’T NEED TO GO PEE!”

“Just try for a minute.”

“NOTHING COME OUT!!!”

“Just sit there for a minute and make sure”

“NOTHING!”

“FINE! GET IN BED THEN!”

Five minutes later ~

“Mom? I need to go pee.”

One time, about two days after I got home from the hospital after having Little, literally having just been gutted like a fish and a 9 pound baby yanked out of me and having all my innerds being held in by staples and good luck, I was standing at the sink washing baby bottles.

And my husband came up to me while I was working, cradling his hand and pointing out a paper cut he had gotten at the hospital. I was all, “are you serious right now?” and he kept insisting, “you don’t understand! It REALLY hurts!”

And then I pulled down the front of my sweatpants and flashed the gigantic bandage that was keeping my guts from falling on the floor.

And then he goes, “oh.”

I swear. Men.

That’s not relevant to anything, except I think it’s a funny story and I like to remind him about it every now and then.

Plus also I have been thinking about babies since there were 3 heart-stopping days last week when I sat anxiously balled up on the couch with a calendar, thinking rude thoughts about the urologist and trying to figure out if we would be adding a third child to our brood; because of course that’s how an unplanned pregnancy would happen to us – after I am firmly in my forties and we have finally given away every last vestige of baby stuff. And are homeless.

But no, I guess it was just stupid peri-menopause messing with me. Thank goodness. I mean, I love babies and everything, and I did have a few flashes of what a sweet big sister Little would be….but I’m FORTY now. I heard enough sentences that began with “…well, the risks at your age…” when I was pregnant at 35. Jim was equally relieved when I came out of the bathroom on Thursday and flashed him a thumbs-up. He’s significantly older than me, you know (forty-THREE).

What? I said it was a non-story.

As I mentioned last Friday, I have a problem with my hair.

It has some nasty build-up on it. It’s all tacky. Sticky.

It’s a mystery. And it’s increasingly upsetting. Are there tiny elves in this house that paint the top of my head with vaseline in the night? Is it something in the water?

Is it (please no) some new side effect of this stupid peri-menopause?

What?

Am I ever gonna get it out and go back to the silky Lesbian Cop Hair of yesterday?

Every time I get out of the shower, I shove my head in Jim’s face.

Me: Feel it. Does that feel weird? No, really – does it, or is it just me? Stop laughing. Just feel it. Is it worse than yesterday? Feel it. FEEEEEEEEEEEL IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT.

Jim: Pats me on the head and leans over because I am blocking his view of the television.

Me: Pay attention! I don’t know what’s happening here! It’s really bothering me!

Jim, dryly: I can see that.

Me: And you are acting like you don’t even care!

Jim: I’m pretty sure I said that straight out.

Me: OH NO YOU DIDDENT

And then I wished we were still at home so I could drive to my best friend’s house and force her to not only touch my hair, but make sympathetic noises and help me brainstorm solutions.

Then I remembered one time, in like, 1984, eavesdropping on one of my mother’s conversations and the other woman swore that the way to get out all that 80′s hairspray buildup was to rinse it in vinegar (and everyone who commented on Friday had the same suggestion).

Pro Tip: If you decide to pour an entire bottle of white vinegar on your head in the shower, don’t open your eyes and consider shaving your legs while it soaks in. That liquid dripping down your face is not water.

As I was lathering up again, wondering if the fourth time would be the charm, I realized two things simultaneously: first, that the hot water was gone; and second, that I had forgotten to wash anything else.

Update: as I got out of the shower and briskly dried my hair with a towel, it occurred to me that maybe the TOWEL is the culprit and I am transferring FABRIC SOFTENER to my hair. Further investigation shall be forthcoming.

Also, the vinegar DID work (and my eyes only burned for TWO HOURS after some idiot opened her eyes under a cascade of vinegar and Head & Shoulders), and my hair is back to being mostly silky. I’m going to get another bottle of vinegar just in case. You can’t be too careful.

** Get it? Because I SMELL LIKE SALAD DRESSING NOW.

My, I was maudlin the other day, wasn’t I? It’s almost as if I wrote that post in the middle of the night.

The black, bleak, night.

Huddled in the dark…alone. With only the light of the monitor illuminating my tear-stained face…

It’s not like my poor children have been limping through the streets, barefoot and in dirty rags, seeking out the one kind shopkeeper who will turn a blind eye as they pilfer a roll of day-old bread; whilst I am at home, cackling cruelly at their misfortune and shoveling expensive chocolate truffles into my mouth by the handful.

It’s more that I want to work on being focused on them when I am talking to my children, and less distracted by the mental grocery list I am making. My brain gets noisy, and sometimes I don’t feel like I give ANYthing my undivided attention. I want to focus less on the future and more on the present. That’s what this year is about. We’ve realized that we tend to have a Grass-Is-Always-Greener outlook. We lived in Seattle for almost 4 years, but instead of exploring and experiencing all the amazing things that area has to offer, we were obsessed with paying off our student loans and wondering when we would decide to move back to Colorado. Looking back, we realize we squandered that time because we were focused on the future while the present kept sliding on by.

So 2012 is going to be the year of focusing on the present. One year of no fretting about our retirement account. One year of not worrying about raises or promotions. One year where we choose whale watching instead of adding to our savings account. One year to take the detour to see the world’s biggest ball of string instead of being in a hurry to get home. One year to waste Saturdays exploring the beach instead going to Home Depot and then yelling at the kids to stay away from that saw! all weekend.

One year. The Adventure Experiment.

It’s going to be a bunch of working on myself, which I find quite boring and tedious. I already have to reprimand myself sternly when I’m on Pinterest; because I get seduced by decorating ideas and before I know it, I’m fantasizing about whatever house we buy when we are finished traveling. NO! I tell myself. NO Pottery Barn Catalogs for you! Stop thinking about throw pillows and craft closets!

I’ve worked out a schedule and am prepared to devote 23 minutes per day to self improvement.

Unless it’s a day that has a new episode of The Real Housewives airing. Those days shall be considered holidays.

So here we are at yet another new year. A year in which I will turn 41, dammit, thus being firmly ensconsed in that dreaded decade. Is there any way I can spin 41 to somehow still being in my late thirties? If I find a way, I will let you know.

I was certainly glad to see the arse-end of 2011, which was quite stressful; and am delighted to see 2012, which stretches out in front of us, deliciously empty and full of possibility.

In 2011, we went bonkers and decided to sell our house and everything we owned and set about showing our children the United States.

That tiny sentence does not even begin to hint at the difficulty and stress and worry and arguments which happened as a result of that crazypants notion, but if you’ve been reading here for the last few months, you’ve probably had enough of my whinging endlessly about it, so I’ll move on.

Ever since Christmas was over, I have been exhausted. Bone-tired and itching for a nap from the minute I get up – at 10:30 am, thanks to a generous hubby who mysteriously does not begrudge my sleeping in. I think 2011 finally caught up with me, and all the tiredness I’ve ignored for the last 6 months because we have crap to get done here, people! came crashing down on me the second I sat still.

In thinking of 2012, I can’t help but think about 2011, and why we started down the drastic house-selling road in the first place.

We want to be more present.

To really see and hear our children. To look at them, pause, and memorize their ever-changing faces. To gaze into their eyes, not distracted by the house and the bills and all the stuff that’s mostly nonsense, and think of nothing except what they are saying…thinking…feeling.

To slow down, and just be.

To cook together, read together, learn together, and experience more than suburbia – together.

To get to know each other better. To create happy memories. To work on sharing and being kind.

To learn to make a proper nine, once and for all.

To prevent our children from lying in bed with their spouses in the future, talking about us the way we lie in bed and talk about our parents. Sadly. Disappointedly. Angrily.

To stop staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, wondering if I even looked my children in the eye that day. Because I’ll know I did.

To stop wondering if I gave them enough kisses. Because I’ll know I gave them hundreds of kisses, and cuddles besides.

To stop trying to remember if I listened to them at all, or did all our interactions that day consist of me bossing them, or scolding them, or way more often than I’d like to admit - yelling at them. Because I am going to work on being calmer and more patient and I shall soon brimming with awesome-momness.

To stop wondering all the time if I am screwing this whole thing up.

(why yes, I AM a barrel of laughs in the middle of the night)

To spend less – or even no! time focused on the condition of the grass and where are we going to get the money to fix the air conditioner and how much longer can we expect that ancient thing to limp along before we have to shell out the really big bucks to replace it and where are these stupid ants coming from, I guess we’d better make a trip to Home Depot and while we’re at it let’s replace that broken doorknob and did you pay that bill and do you think you’ll get a raise this year and your mother called and–and–and….

So that’s what 2012 is going to be about.

Being present.

And maybe teaching these kids to chew with their dadgum mouths closed, for heaven’s sake.

So naturally, after all the bounty of Christmas, wherein Santa brought every Lego under the sun to our house, we had to have a big, tear-filled conversation about Sharing and Not Being Selfish and People are More Important Than Stuff, and so on and so forth ad nauseum.

We seem to have this conversation all the damn time around here, which makes me sigh internally and roll my eyes and think to myself “we covered this already! Quit being selfish, love your sister, and share your crap! Learn It, Love It and let me get back to Pinterest for crying out loud!”

Little, of course, has many typical little sister qualities – like when Big hates broccoli, Little can’t wait to declare her undying LOVE for broccoli; and when Big gets in trouble for not sharing, Little can’t WAIT to share and be a perfectly generous angel. I remember some of this behaviour from experiences with my own little sister, who would blink innocently while pinching me under the table. I was an idiot who would turn around and smack her in front of everybody and get in trouble. Subletly has never been my thing.

One time, my sister carved MY name into my mom’s sewing machine. My mother actually believed that I had done it, in spite of my protests that I surely would not be stupid enough to carve my own NAME if I was vandalizing something.

Anyway. That’s not relevant.

Character training makes my brain go all fuzzy. I’m never sure if I’m doing it right. I’ll figure it out, though. I want my kids to have a life-long closeness. To be best friends forever. To celebrate birthdays and holidays and be there for the births of each other’s children and all that stuff. I don’t have that with my own sister, and I wish I did.

Blurgh. I need another cookie…

This is what I got my sister for Christmas.

Yep.

It’s a chicken hat.

You’re jealous.

Admit it.

(probably you’re also jealous of my mad photography skilz, too. I mean come on – a chicken hat posed artfully on a partially used roll of paper towels? You don’t see that every day.)