The only time it's good to sit next to a stinky guy on the bus...

... is when you and the toddler in your lap are both covered in a hastily-wiped-off varnish of vomit,* and you're trying to get home quickly without calling too much attention to yourself.

*Hers, not mine. The jury's still out on whether it was motion sickness or sick sickness.

The good part

Last week I sat in the sunshine on our (OUR!) front porch, waiting for a contractor, while the kids ran in and out and around the house, gathering sticks, scraping them with rocks, and doing other mysterious kid things. Also, they yelled. They stomped around inside and dropped things on the floor. I didn't shush them, because hey, no downstairs neighbors! I didn't have to go inside or outside with them because hey, it's all our space.*

I'm really looking forward to a lot of stuff about living in our own house, and the added freedom for the kids is a big one. Also, I was just given the awesomest book, and now I'm very much looking forward to pruning.

On an unrelated note, I think Dutch has pinkeye. Alas.

*It actually belongs to whoever currently owns our loan, of course. But you know what I mean.

No, damnit, I don't really know what it means when you say that my house isn't grounded. Please explain it to me like I'm stupid.

I like things to be easy. I like milk chocolate. I like People magazine. I like trashy books. I like slip-on shoes. When I find a song I like, I listen to it over and over and over and over.

I do not like things to be hard. I do not like to be challenged. I'm capable of digging a little deeper; I just prefer not to, and I complain about it when I do.

On the list of things I do not like to do:

1) Be responsible for things

2) Make decisions about things I don't understand very well

3) Manage people

4) Confront people

5) Tell people things they don't want to hear

6) Work hard

7) Talk on the phone

8) Spend a lot of money

However, I'm in charge of getting us moved into this house, and thus I've been responsible for doing all those things. I have been choosing contractors, checking their backgrounds, getting them to come in to do bids, scheduling the work, pushing them to do more work (or less) than they want to do, etc. The cellphone rings 25 times a day. I don't like it. I'm not comfortable with it. I hate calling the asbestos abatement contractor (popcorn ceilings!)* to try to figure out why on this green and now-asbestos-polluted earth his bid is more than twice as much as the other contractor's bid.** I hate trying to push Al the floor guy (who gave us a really cheap bid ) to give me a precise description of what he plans on doing with the quarter-round. Yes, the quarter-round. Because you know, I know EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

So I'm building a lot of character. And I am really, really tired. So is poor Skipper, who's been dragged back and forth to the house with me, and has gotten her one nap of the day in 20 minutes in the Ergo (while I talked to a contractor) the last two days in a row.

However, I've met the neighbors, who have been in the neighborhood for 32 years. They were able to tell me that our grapes are Concords, and two of the three vines have been there for over 60 years. Also, the guy who lived in our house until he died in September used to make wine in the garage (using different grapes) and store it in the room in the basement, which explains the mysterious stains. I'm pretty excited about moving in, once all this character-building is done, and the floors (and possibly the quarter-round) look beautiful.

*Hey, can we talk about toxics? Did you know that in the 1970s, people thought that EVERYTHING they put into their houses should have asbestos in it? (As opposed to now, when we just put it in some things.) Our house was built in 1922, and while it has some nice personality, it is by no means a historical showpiece, nor was it terribly well-built at the time. Anyway, 1922 was a good year for slathering everything with lead paint. As far as we can tell, the next time it was renovated was in the late 1970s, which is pretty much the exact time period when you would rather your house NOT have been renovated. Therefore, we are assuming that it has asbestos and other unpleasant things in ALL the ugly materials with which it was renovated.

*Do you want to know why, according to him? Because "I guess some people are just hungrier than other people."

We officially own a home! I'll post some pictures and stuff, but right now I'm too busy freaking out about how much money we have spent and are about to spend. Also, about the Antique Electric Outlet of Death in the front bedroom.* And, you know, my job.

Also, Dutch, who's been struggling to balance her enjoyment of wild play with the boys at recess with their increasingly unpleasant roughness, finally tattled on two boys today (after being punched in the face), bringing large punishments down upon their heads. Cook and I have been wrestling with this for a while - how do we encourage her to stick up for herself and not fall into the tragically feminine trap of trying to make everyone happy? How do we help her walk the line between enabling something bad and being a tattle-tale? How are we supposed to know what's really happening? Anyway, she told on them, and she feels very positive about it, because she thinks now the problem is solved. It sounds like she did the right thing, but I'm pretty sure the problem isn't solved, and now there are some social weirdnesses. Geez. Elementary school is complicated.

Anyway. More later.

*You unscrew the plug out of the wall (this is very easy to do) leaving a nice socket into which a small child would be mightily tempted to stick a finger. Then the small child would die.

Better loud than dead.

I have had no scheduled activities today, other than dropping off and picking up Dutch. I'm flailing a bit. I haven't gotten anything done. Skipper and I went grocery shopping and pretended to go on a few trips. I've been READING A BOOK! It's lovely.

So I have the leisure time* to inform you all that no, fluorescent jackets are not required in Portland. My rain coat, actually, is black. However, the more time Cook and I spend in the world of "active transportation" (walking, biking, and even taking transit), the clearer it has become to us that pedestrians and bicyclists need to be as visible as possible, especially in the winter.** As we replace everyone's worn-out/outgrown raincoats and bags over time, we go for Really Bright Stuff. This makes our family outings look kind of garish. (Especially since Dutch's eccentric fashion choices often involve seriously clashing colors and patterns.) But you know, it's yellow, it's ugly, it doesn't go with anything... but it could save your life.

I've been thinking a lot about pedestrian safety because there have been several pedestrian deaths in Portland recently. Dutch is also eager to walk by herself,*** so we've been talking a lot about how to be a pedestrian. This is a skill set**** I didn't learn until adulthood, and I think it's really important for kids to learn. We've been practicing. She walks ahead of me on the way to school, and I watch from 50 feet behind. She's very easy to see in her electric-lime-green jacket!

*Yes, TECHNICALLY I should probably be washing dishes, doing laundry, or tackling the drifts of dustballs.

** At least until we get rid of all these damn cars.

*** Which we're not going to let her do for years.

**** To the basic list, I've added more (all of which can be boiled down to "Assume all drivers are distracted AND completely ignorant of all traffic laws."):

1) Always make eye contact with drivers before trying to cross a street, to ensure that they've seen you.

2) When crossing at an intersection, ALWAYS look for cars turning into the street you're crossing.

3) When you're crossing multiple lanes in the same direction, don't assume that the drivers in the second lane are going to stop just because the drivers in the first lane did.

4) You have the right to cross at any corner (in Oregon), and drivers are supposed to stop for you. Almost no drivers obey this law, so don't assume they will, even if it's a marked crosswalk.

An Outing

She's going to run me over with her SUV!

Skipper likes to wear sunglasses and play with purses. She doesn't like being photographed by the paparazzi when she's doing that.

Dude!

We bought a house!

We went out for dinner to celebrate!* Skipper ate beans, Dutch ate pork, and I had a margarita, which I'm pretty sure was more alcohol than I've consumed altogether in the last five years. I'm feeling pretty woozy, and I don't know if it's the overwhelming feeling of indebtedness or the alcohol.

*Thanks, Auntie & Uncle Taekwando!

Hello, you homeowners!

We don't own a house, yet. But here are my questions:

1) What should we plant in the big bare space under the window in front of the house? It's on the west side of the house, shaded by the porch just to the south of it. It should be attractive, low-maintenance, and hard to kill.

2) What colors should we paint the interior? This is a whole new world for me. And it turns out that Cook and I disagree. He thinks that my orange-y-red kitchen plus yellow breakfast nook combination isn't very palatable. Help us not get divorced!

3) What do we really, really need to know?

How it feels to be unemployable

I asked Dutch last month what she thought I would most like for Christmas, and she said "A job!"

Last week I got a group email sent out by one of my former classmates to our whole cohort, asking if anyone else was planning to take a specific professional certification exam this year and wanted to join her for studying. "Oh," I thought, "That might actually be a good idea for me!" because hey, might as well be more qualified, right? So I looked it up and it turns out that in order to take the exam, you have to have had 2 years of professional experience in the field. Oh, well.

The next day, I attended a meeting (remember that meeting?) at the offices of the regional government body, which is always a little painful for me because I've wanted to work there since we moved to Portland, and I feel overwhelmingly jealous of all the employees I see walking around.* While waiting for my meeting to start, I saw several of my former classmates who now have jobs there or at other agencies (and were there for another meeting). It made me feel sick and sad and so, so, so jealous. And I feel bad for feeling so envious and ungenerous. These classmates are all perfectly nice people, and totally competent; I am sure they are good at their jobs. I am incapable, however, of being happy for them. All I feel is this terrible wave of envy and anger and humiliation that they have jobs - real jobs, in the field for which they trained, with benefits and even maybe some interesting tasks!- and I do not.

I have applied to I-don't-even-know-how-many jobs in the last year. I have interviewed for four jobs since I graduated. I've done informational interviews. Every single one of my professional contacts (and yes, my friends and relations, too) is sick of hearing me whine about my failure to secure a job.** It's exhausting and humiliating to try to jump through all the hoops and to still be rejected and overlooked at every turn, and I feel just pummeled into the ground. When my child-caring time increased in the fall, I used that as an excuse to reduce my efforts a lot, but I know I have to try harder, because I'm terrified that I have become unemployable. The longer I go without a real job, the rustier my connections and education and experience get, and the more I look like somebody who doesn't have a job not because of unfortunate circumstances, but because of some serious problem that makes me unemployable. I have completely internalized all the rejection, of course, and I FEEL now like I don't deserve a job. I may be a reasonably intelligent and conscientious person with lots of education, but my many failings*** are clearly too great to overcome those assets.

I know this is all stupid and narcissistic and self-pitying, and I've gotten to this point as a result of many factors, some of which are completely out of my control, and of course I deserve a job, etc., but all I really wanted to say is that being unemployable feels terrible. It does.

However, I want to end this (stupid, narcissistic, self-pitying) post on this note: I am really, really enjoying spending time with Skipper right now. I've been trying to get extra things done while I'm home with her (house-buying stuff,**** work, job applications, volunteer tasks, etc.), and that's a hassle, but when I'm not trying to get that stuff done and can just kind of hang out with her, it's rewarding and mellow and enjoyable. So a small hooray for underemployment, and the chance to spend some fleeting moments with my rapidly-growing little girl!

*I feel jealous of everybody in the whole world who has a job that has benefits and pays more than $15/hour.

**I am fully aware that it's not a good idea to whine to professional contacts, and that I should be radiating confidence and optimism, and chatting cheerfully about their professional successes. I'm not very good at that. Actually, I'm really terrible at it. I know I should be working on that, too.

***Sloppy! Lazy! Loud! Bad listener! Uninformed! Judgmental! Annoying habit of singing tunelessly! Etc.

**** Oh my god, the house-buying process is so miserable. The repair negotiation and the repairs have taken/are taking forever, the seller's agent has been really snarky and difficult, and we're really disappointed in our mortgage broker. Also, a crisis with the verification of employment at Cook's job... but it should all wrap up sometime next day. I hope.

Looking to increase GNH

The house that we're very slowly buying has popcorn ceilings. I had never heard the phrase "popcorn ceiling" before last month, when I learned that Cook LOATHES popcorn ceilings.* I'm the sort of person who has positive or negative feelings about a room, but cannot identify the elements that make it work or not, including things like moldings, paint color, and ceiling texture. I'm basically a disaster as an interior decorator. I'm not sure I was aware that there ARE different ways to texture a ceiling.

Now I know better. I know that a) Cook thinks popcorn ceilings are an abomination and b) popcorn ceilings are messy and time-consuming to remove AT BEST, and at worst are contaminated with asbestos, making them more expensive to remove or cover up (requiring a licensed asbestos abatement contractor - I spoke to a very nice one named Ed yesterday).

This is making me think about GDP, pollution, and planned obsolescence. Somebody paid somebody to put the abominable ceilings up, and now we're probably going to have to pay quite a bit more money to take them down. This is good for GDP. Pollution is also good for GDP, because somebody makes money doing something that pollutes, and then somebody makes money cleaning it up. Planned obsolescence is also good for GDP. Basically, anything that requires more action in the short run is good for GDP. Stuff that lasts, that makes things better in the long term, that doesn't mess other stuff up, is bad for GDP.

I was going to launch, at this point, into some brilliant thoughts about what is good for a country and what is bad for it, and possibly bring in some topical discussion of gun control and fear-mongering, but you know what? I'm just too tired of and sad about that. You know what makes me happy? Thinking about how I'm going to take back the lawn (at the house we don't yet own) and fill that space with native plants and vegetables. It'll be good for GDP and for GNH!

*I have learned so many things about Cook in the last few months. I would never, ever, ever have guessed that he had so many strong feelings about light fixtures and window coverings and whatnot. Yesterday, he drew up several designs for the stained-glass windows he dreams of adding to the living room in the house we don't yet own.

Status update

Today's score

Dishes: 1

Laundry:1

Calls to contractors: 1

Other important calls: 1

Volunteer task I promised to do:1

Letters I promised to write: 1

Dust bunnies: 1

Cookies I ate for breakfast: 1

Me: 0

Total tally -Piles of feeling-behind-and-guilty! But the day is still young.

Food

Things are STILL kind of zen around here. Except that the sunshine pouring in our windows is lighting up all sorts of crud on the floor. Damn you, sunshine!

Anyway, the work-storm wasn't so bad, which gives me the opportunity to tell you the exciting news that Skipper has expanded her diet horizons tremendously in the last few days. She has eaten potatoes, pasta that was contaminated with soup (and thus may have had a trace of vitamins), scrambled eggs, plain (tangy!) yogurt, and peanut butter.* I recognize that all of these foods are in the toddler-approved brown-white-yellow range, but we're still feeling pretty excited.

Skipper's eating is kind of depressing for me and Cook. Mealtimes don't feel anywhere near as happy as they ought, because they're always a little fraught with anxiety - will Skipper eat anything tonight, or be cranky and go to bed hungry? We try to present her with a few foods and not cater to her too much, but it sure is nicer when she's eating contentedly. The other night she finally tried the potatoes,** after making a big show of rejecting them, because no other food was forthcoming, and she was hungry (and they were one of the Acceptable Colors For Foods). I hope that she will continue to expand her horizons more quickly than she shrinks them.***

Anyway, all this is making us appreciate Dutch's willingness to try and enjoy a wide variety of tastes and textures. We never gave her enough credit for that before - compared to Skipper, she's a gourmet. As for Skipper, I don't know how she gets enough nutrition to grow.

*She only eats the peanut butter straight from a spoon, and prefers to have her bread plain, on the side.

**Not just potatoes, but potatoes roasted with quinoa and bell peppers! And, okay, covered in cheese.

***Tofu, for example, is now absolutely revolting, and she cries if she sees it.

zen!

I'm waiting for a pending explosion of work to be directed my way (any minute now!), but I thought I'd take a moment to celebrate my stay-at-home-parenting morning. Before taking Dutch to school, I washed the breakfast dishes and made semi-nutritious muffins to use for snacks this week. I got the kids out the door this morning on time and with only one small yelling episode,* and we were able to make the trip to school at a leisurely pace and chat with a neighbor along the way. I felt kind of on top of things! And Skipper is currently entertaining herself very nicely with a tiger finger puppet and two broken bead necklaces. So when I get totally behind things (in about 15 minutes, I expect), I can think back on this moment of relative serenity.

*Granted, it wasn't a great parenting moment; I lectured Dutch about how if she freaks out about a technical problem getting her sneakers on, she will be left without tools when she has REAL problems. It was... yeah, not so great.

My beautiful children

This is Dutch after a particularly raucous playdate. One of her complaints about this playdate was that her playmate told her that his rug was a magic carpet, and they were going on a trip to Africa, and then it turned out that it wasn't really a magic carpet, and he was only PRETENDING. Seriously. She was really upset about it. Dutch's belief in magic runs very, very deep.

And this is Skipper. The other day I found her alone in the living room doing something like this, saying happily "Side up down! Me! Legs! Side up down!"

Skipper has a snack.

Today

I have things to say about today. I'll save some for later (reserve time to read my rant about How It Feels To Be Unemployable - it should be really really interesting and not at all narcissistic or irritating.

First, work is not working for me. Car-free living is excellent in many ways, but it is NOT a good fit with irregular work and no regular daycare. Today I attended an Important Meeting. This entailed arranging childcare for both children. I woke Skipper up at noon, before she was done with her nap, and we bussed downtown to Cook's office, where I left Skipper while I went off to my meeting. After my meeting,* I went back downtown, collected Skipper from Cook,** and went to the home of one of Dutch's friends, where a babysitter was watching her and several other kids.*** We arrived home at 4:30.**** The kids were tired and cranky, and I had several pressing home-buying issues that had bubbled up over phone and email that I had to address IMMEDIATELY. I yelled at the kids. Both of them cried and screamed a lot. It was cruddy.

Second, Skipper. I've been having a pretty good time being stay-at-home-parent with her. She's a lot of fun, and is also currently oozing with cuteness. After I picked her up from Cook, she insisted on walking from his cubicle to the bus stop,doing her crazy bob-trot, with waving arms and wobbling head, and beaming smiles, and every single person we passed (except for a handful of people who were surely near-sighted, drunk, or totally hard-hearted) smiled at her. Many of them spoke to her. She started waving ebulliently at strangers, completely confident that she is loved by all. That must feel pretty great.

Third, I said I wasn't going to start watching any moreTV shows, because then I get hooked and have to keep watching until I give up because it's gotten so silly. But then we started a free trial of Netflix, and we just couldn't find any movies we wanted to see in the instant-gratification catalogue and look what happened to me! Damn you, Tina Fey!

*Total work hours: 1

** Total time spent by Cook: 2

***Total babysitting cost: $5

****Total time spent by me: 4.5 hours

2011

Today is my first day of official stay-at-home parenting. I'm supposed to be working 5-10 hours a week at my job (tapering off over the next month or two, but I have serious doubts about how well that's going to work, after less than one day.

In other respects, though, it's been a successful day. I finished one of the tasks I promised myself I would do to kick off 2011 - went through our files, threw out everything egregiously out-dated or unnecessary, re-organized the system, and filed everything in the to-file folder, including stuff that has been in that file for over a year. Skipper helped me hand-shred old bank statements. (Today, she's also sorted change and swept the floor. Such a helpful child. I'm not sure what she DID with the change or the dust, but she doesn't seem to be choking to death, so whatever.)

Tomorrow, I'm tackling the Random Box of Crap that's been sitting on the desk forever. I think it was once a Box of Stuff I Was Supposed to Do, which is scary. There are probably some important papers in there marinating. Tomorrow I'm also going to the bank to put our important documents into a safe-deposit box, one of the trying-to-be-slightly-more-adult tasks on my to-do list. Apparently, real grown-ups don't keep their important pieces of paper in a plastic bag labeled* "Important" in a file drawer. Who knew?

Dutch is back at school today after a 2-week hiatus. She had mixed feelings this morning, but we got her there without a hitch. Now I just have to remember to pick her up.

We're still in the house-buying process - the closing date has been pushed back, but the seller is making repairs now, and we have bought a washing machine, which means this is official!

*In my defense, it's a plastic bag- waterproof! - labeled carefully with a Sharpie pen - waterproof! See, some precautions were taken...