Dog #4 and actually all the dogs

I feel I should correct the record on Dog #4, who turned out to be affable and relatively low-maintenance. He arrived with the name "Rocky"* but since he was a stray, we can call him whatever we damn please, and there's nothing about this dog's personality that calls for "Rocky." (Dog #1 was an owner surrender whose owner didn't have time for him, which is ludicrous because that dog just wanted to sleep in your bed all day, and his name was "Maddy Boy," but we didn't have the heart to take away the single point of stability in his life.)  I'm pretty sure Dog #4's name should be Kevin or Jason, because he feels like a midwestern junior in college in the '90s who's the nicest guy in one of the lower-key fraternities. His soul wears khakis every day. However, the kids outvoted me, and we're calling him Teddy.

Teddy is a sweetheart. He knows no commands, and his elbow calluses suggest he's spent a lot of time sleeping on concrete, but he doesn't act like a yard dog. He loves being petted, lets you take food right out of his mouth, sleeps uncomplainingly in his crate, is easy to walk on a leash, and adorably insists on pawing all his blankets and cushions into a complicated nest. He's got a few negative points. He peed in the house once. He's un-neutered (which the girls find embarrassing and horrifying), so he actually drools and licks obsessively when he smells plants that lady dogs have peed on, and he will hump people if you let him get both paws up on any body part, but we've learned to head it off by never letting him get both paws up on any body part. (And he's got a neutering appointment in two weeks, which should temper the humping a little.) The vet thinks the sad raw skin on his back and sides is a bacterial infection secondary to a flea infestation, but he has no fleas now, and his skin is healing up nicely. A few ticks have come off him - after Dog #2 we're pretty sanguine about ticks in quantities smaller than fifty. Duchess is a pro at tick removal, and we keep them in a jar on a shelf. 

Conclusion: a week in, Dog #4 is giving Dog #1 some strong competition for Best Dog Yet. We'll see how he shakes out. 

I've learned a lot about fostering since signing up. It has been rewarding, but I don't think we'd have signed up for it if we knew then what we know now. It makes a very very (VERY) tiny dent in all the overwhelming awfulness of the world, which feels both good and wildly inadequate in the current state of things. I didn't realize that dogs come to you in a state of physical and emotional distress - even if they're not coming off of years of neglect, they are coming off of weeks or more in a stressful shelter environment and then a long trip. Even Dog #1, who had a naturally confident and even-keeled temperament, and whom I don't think had been abused or even really neglected, spent a lot of his first week with us just sleeping in his crate, doing what the dog rescue fanatics call "decompressing." You're supposed to keep your house very calm, keep the dog confined to a small area, only interact with them when they approach you, and more or less ignore them otherwise. It takes weeks (or longer, for the worse-off dogs) for them to feel safe enough to start to relax and be themselves. And then, if you're successful, they get adopted and you cry.  (I have high hopes for Teddy, whose awful-looking skin was making him a very unattractive adoption prospect straight out of the shitty under-resourced shelter he was living at - I think he'll be very adoptable once he's neutered and his fur grows back.) And then, unless you've had enough, you start all over again with another dirty, exhausted, stressed out, bug-infested, bacteria-infected, peeing-in-the-house, sad-eyed beastie whose personality and history is a total unknown.

*As far as I can tell, every pitbull who arrives at any shelter is given one of maybe six names- Rocky, Champ, Blue, Missy, Sadie, or Nala. 

Ha, and I thought perimenopause was crummy!

We're "social distancing" here in Oregon. Today was the first day for me of working remotely. My office is encouraging everyone who can to work from home with no/limited in-person meetings, and Cook's office is reorganizing around staggered shifts and partial teleworking so they can all stay six feet away from each other all the time. (All the meeting rooms have been assigned quotas based on their size, so the smaller meeting rooms can now accommodate two people who sit pressed against the opposite walls.) I was supposed to go to a conference in Chicago next week, but it was cancelled. (And I was really looking forward to it.) Skipper's school trip to Japan in June has been cancelled. (Though our family trip to Japan is not cancelled- we're going to hope as long as possible that we can pull that off.) Skipper's baseball season and Duchess's ultimate frisbee season (long story) have been postponed. All my meetings have been cancelled or turned into video chats. THE LIBRARY SYSTEM HAS CLOSED.

All the stores are out of toilet paper, which briefly seemed very problematic when I thought this morning that we had only two rolls left in the house. Turned out we had an unopened box in the basement containing 36 rolls, so we'll make it a bit longer.

The kids are out of school as of today, through next week and the following week (which is spring break) and half the week after that (unless they extend it). All activities are cancelled. I'm not sure how that's going to go. Based on experience so far, Duchess will spend it lying in bed texting, and Skipper will read a bunch of books and periodically appear to ask questions like "What's communism?" or "What's a nuclear family?" or to startle me as she did this week when we were talking about COVID-19 and she said "Well, Mom, one death is a tragedy, and a million deaths is a statistic" and I said "ARE YOU QUOTING JOSEPH STALIN AT ME?!?!?" and she looked at me with a puzzled expression and said "Yeah!" like that's a normal person thing.

None of us know how to prepare or what to do. Skipper had a sore throat and abdominal pain this evening - do we now all stay in the house for 14 days? Are grocery stores going to run out of food as the supply chain falters? Should I have bought more canned beans today? Is it really going to snow tonight? The future, even the immediate future, feels wildly uncertain. And yet, people are still out and about, going to work and to bars like it's normal. I met a colleague at a coffee shop this morning; he was firmly in the this-is-overblown camp, and mentioned that his 75-year-old mother who has compromised lung function is really paranoid right now and makes everybody wash their hands. Sitting there, eating an almond croissant, with people socializing cheerfully all around us, I felt crazy. (And I told him his mom is right and he should wash his damn hands.)

Anyway. I bought a puzzle and the new Hilary Mantel book. We may starve to death, and/or have to wipe our butts with rags and moss, but we're not going down without reading material.

2017

Well. It's a new year!

Things I expect to happen in 2017:

• Duchess will become a teenager. 
• Skipper will sleep over at a friend's house for the first time.
• Duchess will move into the basement (aka The Dungeon of Asbestos and Radon).
• I will get a new job. 
• Cook will finally get fed up with his job and will also get a new job.

I don't have any resolutions, though of course I'd like to be a better person. Though I think I'd like to wear more wool. And sing more. Sleep more. Try not gain all that weight back. (I don't have any actual plans to make these things happen, so they're just New Year's Vague Notions.)

We've had an exceptionally mellow two weeks. The girls have pretty much just laid around and read a LOT of books.  Duchess is done with it and ready to see her friends, but Skipper, unsurprisingly, says she'd be happy to log a few more weeks of this. We've also been enjoying a nearly-complete hiatus from extracurricular activities, and are musing over how nice that is and what that might mean for future choices.

Duchess attended one day of Zombie Camp this last week, and her reportage from that experience was interesting. She was one of the few kids who didn't get caught and "infected," and she spent the entire day pretty much running away from and hiding from the ever-growing zombie hordes in the woods. She said she was on high alert all the time, and that her vigilance, while exhausting, was what kept her "alive" because she was the first to realize whenever the zombies were attacking, and the quickest to leap up and sprint for safety. I find this reassuring given the growing likelihood that society will completely collapse in the next few years - Duchess will survive, at least for a little while. (She will, however, NOT protect any of the rest of us. She figures we'll be the sacrifices she'll have to make in order to get away.)

Skipper chose not to go to day camp that day. Skipper hates day camp, because day camp is all about new stuff all day - new place, new kids, new teachers, new activities. Ugh. New stuff is the worst. She instead spent half the day at my office and half at Cook's, with a shared pizza lunch interlude. Both offices were very empty and she was very quiet, so it worked out fine.

So - 2017. Let's hope for no zombies.

Sunday

This is how we spend our weekend mornings, whenever possible: on the couch, with books/tablets. Skipper sits in her Safe Place.

Duchess and Skipper have been horseback riding the last two weekends, preparing for Duchess's horse camp adventure this summer. Duchess loves it a LOT. (Skipper likes it fine, but is mostly interested just in making sure that Duchess doesn't get away with an extra privilege/treat.) Duchess is currently trying to figure out how she can continue to do kung fu twice a week. dorks-in-the-woods all weekend once a month, and dorks-in-the-fort all Saturday once a month AND do ultimate frisbee twice a week and horseback riding as often as possible. She is aware there isn't enough money, time, and/or parental goodwill to support her dream extracurricular life. But she's still wishing.

The most arduous thing I did today was work on a puzzle.

I'm having a vacation. Today I heaved up all 70 pounds of Duchess plus her book and sat on the couch for a while under a pile of girl, and then (after Skipper woke up from her nap) a pile of girls. I just sat there. I didn't multitask, or even task. It was lovely. I also ate cookies and satsumas until I felt faintly sick, and read trashy books. It was a great day. Tomorrow I may try going outside.

July, middle of.

Tonight we ate part of our yard! We didn't get to the grocery store as planned, so we had an empty-cupboard dinner. We did have pasta and 9 ounces of ricotta, so we used that, salt, parmesan and olive oil, plus yard chard, yard garlic,* and yard basil. It made me feel (briefly) kind of like a real, honest-to-goodness gardener.
In other news, today Cook officially launched the Paint-the-House-By-Himself project. (I plan to help, of course. Just not with the parts involving power tools, which I hate, and ladders, which I also hate. Otherwise, I will be very, very helpful, I'm sure.) Here's phase one... the back of the house! Our house has experienced some additions in its time, mostly done hastily and on the cheap - you can see that the mudroom (to the right) was added on to the nook (on the left). Cook's desire to make everything better (if not perfect) is slowing him down, as he keeps seeing bubbles and blisters and cracks he wants to fix. Officially, we're just doing the trim, and will do the rest (and get rid of the orange color!) in a few years, when we're rich and can afford to hire people to do it for us. Unofficially, I suspect that there will be a lot of sanding and touching-up of the horrible orange paint, because Cook can't let those bubbles and blisters slide.















And this is our parking strip, which got a makeover recently - Cook dug out all the lawn and lots of the dirt underneath, and we got our lovely Friends of Trees cascara tree, and added two kinnikinnick plants and an Oregon grape (natives all!). Cook and Antarctic Uncle spent an afternoon in the blazing sun making those pavers PERFECTLY LEVEL (it's a genetic thing, apparently, as Antarctic Uncle also cannot let sloppy work slide), and then we got a Ziptruck-bed-full of hazelnut shells for mulch.

Tonight the girls are camping in our yard.**






















I can still hear them giggling.





































*We harvested about 36 heads of garlic - that might last us through August. In order to be self-sufficient in garlic, I think we'd have to plant about 150 cloves. The yard would be nothing but garlic. However, they're sort of magic - HOW does a clove turn into a head? Magic, I tell you. And having them hanging in the basement makes me feel like Ma Wilder, like if I turn around I'll see squashes piled in the corner, and jars of preserves stacked on every shelf, and a big barrel of salter pork. ** In the ancient, mildewy 2-person tent Cook and I bought 15 years ago, when we thought we were the sort of people who would go camping more than once every three years.

2012

2012 is going to be Dutch's lucky year. She announced that tonight after beating me at Carcassonne. She got the green light to stay up as late as she wants tonight, as she has every New Year's Eve since she turned 3. I think the first year she actually fell asleep before her normal bedtime, and she's never made it past 10:30, but tonight she's going strong, and I suspect she'll make it. I probably won't, however.

I feel a little wary of 2012. I'm really tired of being in limbo. I'm getting too old to be in limbo. Even if this isn't a fabulous year for me personally, I'd really like to see some positive social changes out there, lest I become a terrible, terrified, cynical shadow of a person, crouching in a cave waiting for everything to come crumbling down. However, there are plenty of anti-cave forces in my life, and plenty of reasons to hold out hope and enthusiasm for 2012. I'll focus on those.

My New Year's Resolutions:
1) Whittle down and organize my various communication and media electronic files - email, photos, movies, etc. I know that sounds petty (and I should be whittling down other things), but it makes me feel weirdly out of control to have all this stuff piled up in virtual heaps. And I'm going to get my email inbox down to empty this year. Take THAT, 2012!
2) Be nicer. I'm not setting out any metrics for that; we'll see how it goes in a qualitative sort of way. Maybe I could at least avoid yelling at my kids for a few days, to kick things off.

***

Now it's 11:15 and Dutch is asleep on the couch in an elaborate nest of pillows and blankets that took a half hour to construct. I think I'll wake her up for the turn of the year, for the first time. Rituals and ceremonies are important to this kid. She offered some very solemn toasts at dinner, raising her teacup of sparkling cider to say big important words.

I wish you all a joyful, rich 2012. No caves!

How To Be Car-less With Kids: Sanctimonious Tedium Ahead!

Here's the question I always want to be asked, and never am: "How do you get around with kids with no car?" I want to be asked this question because I could answer it for HOURS, and I do love to talk about me. And what's a blog FOR but boring unsolicited monologues, after all? (With that said, you should all feel free to not read this post... you've all heard it all before, anyway!)

So here you go. This is how to be carless with kids, according to me. 

1) Locate yourself appropriately. Choose a home with access to bike and transit infrastructure, and a nice array of convenient destinations within walking distance. Choose all your activities, work, school, childcare, etc., based on accessibility. Don't overschedule.

2) Get yourself the right array of equipment, whatever works for you. Being car-free requires that you have options, and it's one of the great joys of escaping the car - when you walk out the door every morning, you have real choices in how to get where you're going. I love that. Here's my array.*

The Ergo. Now on its last legs, it's served us well. I now use it only when I want to take Skipper on trips involving the bus (no transit system is convenient with a stroller) and also more walking than I think she's up for. 

Trusty rusty stroller, also on its second kid. Skipper and I use this for longer home-based walking trips. Dutch, by this age, was both an excellent walker and so enormous she couldn't actually fit in the thing comfortably anymore, but Skipper is neither of those things.

Skipper's wagon, which we use for short trips or carrying large flat things home, like a bunch of tomato seedlings or a pile of wood chips we found in the street with a "free" sign on top. Notice Dutch's bike in the background. She would like me to mention that it is a very good bike. 

Our go-to Skipper-transportation mode. It fits two kids very snugly, or one very comfortably, with room for a giant package of toilet paper rolls, plus several bags of other groceries in the back. (Sometimes Cook or I take the trailer with no kid in it, if we need to fetch something really big.) Cook's bike and my bike both have trailer hitches, so we can easily switch the trailer between our bikes.

My bike. I love it. It's almost as old as me, it's this awesome shade of blue, and check out those brand-new full fenders, baby! Now I have no excuse not to bike in the rain...

This is a bonus piece of equipment. I got it super-cheap at a yard sale, and it's kind of falling apart, but excellent for kid-free walks to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk, a gallon of vinegar, ten boxes of pasta, a giant package of toilet paper, and, you know, whatever else tickles your fancy.

3) There's no 3. That's it.

We bike for most trips.We walk for trips under a mile unless speed or cargo necessitate biking. I take transit for trips downtown, trips longer than 5 to 8 miles (depending on weather and the pleasantness of the route), trips when I really can't be at all sweaty or disheveled when I arrive,**and trips when I feel like it's too cold and wet for biking. Cook doesn't take transit at all unless his bike is totally out of commission or he's going somewhere with me and I feel like it's too cold and wet for biking. We get a zipcar occasionally, mostly to pick somebody up at the airport. We rent cars for longer trips. We get rides from friends and coworkers sometimes.

So, car-free with kids. Is it sometimes a hassle? Yes. Does it take more time? Yes. Does it put limitations on your life? Yes. Does it require more planning? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes, totally. I used to say that I expected we'd have to buy a car eventually. But I don't say that anymore; I really hope we can get away without being forced to get another car. It feels good to be car-free as a family. It is fun, it is easy, it is convenient, it is healthy, and it enriches us both literally*** and figuratively. We live in a wonderful place, and the activities and destinations to which we're "limited" seem pretty darn varied and terrific to me.**** The extra time that it takes to get around by transit and my own physical effort is not in any way wasted. We spend it getting exercise, seeing the world around us, talking to each other, reading a book, and doing all sorts of other valuable things. All the cheesy aphorisms about travel being part of the experience (The Journey Is The Destination!) feel a lot more true when you're out of the car, and I really value sharing that with my kids.

That is the end of my sermon. Thank you.


*When we get rich, I'm going to get one of these to add to our stable. We have friends who have one, and Dutch loves getting rides on it. I think it'll solve a number of our remaining  transportation dilemmas - giving a ride to a friend, getting Dutch somewhere when she really doesn't feel like riding her own bike, giving Skipper a good option during the awkward period when she'll be too big to comfortably ride in the trailer, but still too small to ride her own bike, etc. 


** I go to a lot of job interviews, after all. 


***Living without a car for over a decade has saved us  probably somewhere between $5 and $10K per year. That's a lot of money. The entire fleet in the photos above, plus Cook's and Dutch's bikes, cost us a little under $1000 total to buy originally. I get a free monthly transit pass through my job (the only benefit I get), and Cook gets a parking-cash-out benefit for not driving to work (his employer takes an enlightened capitalist approach to employee parking), so between those things, we spend very little additional cash on our transportation.  Cook does some basic maintenance stuff himself, and keeping his bike running well costs about $400/year (and that includes investment in decent raingear, lights, panniers, etc.). He rides about 50 miles a week. I ride only about 20, and Dutch about 15, so we have cheaper gear and maintenance needs. If we had none of the employer benefits that now cover almost all of our expenses, I think we could keep our whole fleet running very well, including replacement as needed, for $1000 a year, and meet all our transit needs for $800. Can a car-dependent household get by spending less than $2000/year on transportation? I'm thinking not. 


**** The one thing that I wish we could do more easily is get out of town for day hikes and camping. When we get rich, though, we'll be happy to rent cars more often to do that!

Making space, staying safe, and talking about death.

This is Skipper, building a "house" this afternoon.

Unexpectedly, the conversation veered toward the morbid. Listen to me attempting to be honest yet comforting about death, and ending up just being confusing.

Updates

We're painting. The color is actually "limesickle" rather than the yellow it looks in this photo.

And we're only painting ONE ROOM (at this time), but it's a giant pain in the ass. This is our

very first painting experience, and it turns out we had a lot to learn. We still do, but now we know a few things. We haven't even started on the trim yet, so our dressers will be living in the living room for a while. Our doors are also living in the garage (until we get around to cleaning up all the painted-over hardware, repairing the dings, painting them, and rehanging them).

Also, Dutch went to the orthodontist last week. She will be getting a baby tooth pulled in August, and a metal contraption installed to force her bossy new grown-up teeth to make room for one of their brethren. It'll be her first orthodontic experience, but definitely not her last.

Dutch won a strawberry shortcake walk at the grocery store yesterday (when neighbors invited her to hop on their cargo bike and come to the store with them) and again today when she went with me and Skipper.* She's now won all three cakewalks she has ever participated in. If you're considering buying a lottery ticket, I suggest you have her help you.

That's the news.

*That was complete overkill, because the kids ate the following samples while we were shopping: yogurt, cheese, strawberry kefir with strawberry granola, strawberry shortcake with mascarpone, strawberry tequila chicken, strawberry lemonade, chocolate-covered strawberry, and strawberry jam on baguette. Our grocery store is expensive and shiny, has fabulous customer service, and really goes to town on samples. We can no longer enter a grocery store without Skipper yelling gleefully "I want SAMPLES!!!"

update

We're settling in. There's an endless list of stuff to do, and I'm wasting some of that precious time posting photos!

This is the eagle in the living room, and one of the sconces that deeply trouble Cook. (The yogurt container holds vinegar and water for clean-up, in case you were wondering.)

This is the built-in in the living room. If you visit, you can spend some time scraping out the contact paper and the ancient wallpaper with a putty knife.

This is the kitchen. We are attempting to paint some of the cabinets, which were previously sort of dark-brownish. This is not going very well,* and the patchiness of our brushwork is making poor perfectionist Cook kind of bonkers, but our assumption that even if we did a crappy job, it would still look better than what we started with is still holding true.

This is the dining room. We will at some point paint the walls. (In a neutral color of some kind, to balance out the sky-blue and yellow rooms.)

This is the kids' room. It's already a mess.

This is Skipper's crib, assembled without a drop-side as part of the program to convince her that sharing a room with Dutch is a Big Kid privilege. She slept in it (most of) last night, and didn't fall out!**

*Apparently it's not a very good idea to paint fake wood. I'm learning so much! Also, neither Cook nor I have the faintest idea how to paint. n adulthood of renting plus a childhood of not helping around the house have left me with absolutely no home improvement skills whatsoever. I googled "How to paint" and found all sorts of advice about how to paint trim, or ceilings, or whatever, but very little about stuff like whether your last stroke should be up or down, or how much paint to put on your brush, etc. I need something remedial.

** She will. We put down a bunch of pillows on the floor.

We moved!

We met the guy who delivers the mail. We rekeyed our locks. It's official!

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.

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...

Chippy's Revenge

Dutch and Skipper have been playing a game pretty often on these rainy days in which they make a corner of the living room into a restaurant. Dutch is an orphan girl who lives in and runs the restaurant with her pet chipmunk, Chippy (Skipper), and they wait patiently for customers when they're not repairing broken toys in their attic workshop or pretending to sleep. They both seem to have a great time, at least for a little while, and sometimes it goes on for a good half hour before deteriorating (though the deterioration usually happens very quickly, and often ends in violence before Cook or I can be bothered to intervene - Skipper's new favorite tactic is to seize Dutch's cheeks and squeeze really hard with her tiny talons*).

So if you're hungry for fake food cooked by a chipmunk in a garret, stop by!

*I kind of admire this, I have to say. As an older sister who tormented my little brother to violence many times, I am very sympathetic to Dutch's feelings, but because I know how she feels, I know exactly how pleased she is when she provokes Skipper into misbehaving (preferably with witnesses!), and I have to respect Skipper for standing up for herself the only way she really knows how.

Pretending to be adults

We are buying a House. This is how it happened.

Tuesday: The House came on the market.

Wednesday: I went to another (foreclosed, forlorn) house with a contractor and our realtor to see what kind of money we'd have to sink into the house if we bought it. After that review, the realtor and I went over and met Cook to see The House. That night, we asked the realtor to put together a report.*

Thursday: The realtor sent us a report on the The House, recommending an offer amount, and we scheduled a meeting with her at the house the next day to walk through The House and put together an offer.

Friday: When we arrived at The House, the realtor told us that another offer had just been submitted. We walked through it briefly (and ascertained that the basement was dry, in the middle of a week of heavy rains) and sat down to write an offer. I spent the rest of the day scrambling to get officially pre-approved, and the realtor called us that evening to let us know that the offer had been accepted. Cook and I felt sort of like we did when we found out I was pregnant (both times) - happy and terrified and pretty much oh-shit-what-have-we-done!?

Weekend: Cook and I both feel like we should be acting more like adults, like we're responsible enough to own The House, and we approached this in different ways, appropriate to our personalities. I took ten minutes to sew new buttons on a pyjama shirt, a task I've been meaning to do for a year and a half or so, and Cook took several hours and cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom. We took turns researching the various things we'd like to do once we live in The House. Cook wants to disconnect the downspouts and to break up the driveway, tear down the shed and use the space for gardening, so he looked up code requirements. I want a dishwasher, so I looked up dishwashers. We did paperwork and tinkered with a money spreadsheet, and realized that we really won't have money left over to do any of the things we want to do, at least for some time.** We put down our earnest money.

Next Week: I don't know. There'll be some inspections, and more expenses, and more paperwork and stuff. Holy shit, we're buying a house!

* Throughout the house-hunting process, people keep saying "Oh, you'll know it's the house for you when you see it!" which I think is kind of bullshit. It's certainly not true for us. We can't afford "the house for us." But we have a list of what we want in a house, and this house meets all the required items and lots of the bonus criteria. So... we're buying it!

**We can, however, afford to install a retractable clothesline, something Cook has wanted for his whole adult life. Our dreams are coming true!

Up in the air, without George Clooney

I'm going to graduate in June.* I have no idea what will happen after that. Actually, we know that Dutch will be in kindergarten. Somewhere. That's ALL WE KNOW about the fall. There are all sorts of scenarios. Cook and I both have remote possibilities of permanentification of our current jobs. I have to start applying seriously for permanent jobs all over the country starting in April-ish. The public school transfer lottery takes place in mid-March, though if Dutch gets into none of the programs for which we apply, we'll probably just have to move to the catchment area for a different school before September.** In the meantime, we have to attend six meetings for the various programs, and fill out a ton of paperwork, just in case.

We really have no idea what we're doing.

In other news (consistent, though, with the theme of total cluelessness), today Dutch had an Art Sale, in spite of my efforts and Cook's to persuade her that she needed to think the idea through a little more. She stood at the end of our driveway with a crumpled brown paper bag containing three battered (and, truth be told, ugly) artworks brought home from daycare over the last year. She had no sign and no table, and it was raining. And cold. Plus, the foot traffic on our street is pretty much limited to the crazy guy with the bandages wrapped around his head and the dog with the poop-crusted back end, and a steady trickle of down-and-out trudgers walking to the stab-n-grab convenience store down the street to get cigarettes. No art was sold in her 45-minute shift. While I was peeved by Dutch's cranky insistence on doing something so ridiculous, and even kind of embarassed by the whole venture, I also felt grudgingly respectful of her determination and slightly charmed by the sheer weirdness of it. She may not have a ton of potential as an artist or an entrepreneur, but she has the courage of her convictions.

*I AM! No matter how hard my group project buddies try to drag me down.

** We believe in public school, and in investing in your neighborhood school. But we don't want to continue to live in our current neighborhood, due to the long bus commute downtown, and we have reason to believe that Dutch is not a child who will do well with school-switching. So we need to start investing in a different neighborhood school in a neighborhood where we might be able to stay. Besides, the neighborhood school in our neighborhood burned down in the fall, so the kids are busing across town, which is crappy.

Yes, more videos.

First, Happy Mother's Day!

Second, the Bunny and Monster cooking show.

Spring!

It's 70 degrees! It's sunny! Flowers are blooming! Ants have invaded our home! We are so grateful! We've had a long stretch of rainy, cold, grey days, and it's pretty blissful to have a sunny day.

I'm taking the day off, and not thinking about my Big School Project at all. Dutch went off on a five-hour playdate with Best Friend, and Cook worked (he's doing some consulting, so he spends all his off-work time working, the poor man) much of the day before biking off to play frisbee. I took a semi-nap* and then did some minor chores of the sort that I habitually overlook, like washing the leaves of all the houseplants. The leaves were so dusty that the plants were starting look more like fuzzy fauna than the flora that they are. That was sort of satisfying, but reminded me of all the other annoying little housekeeping tasks (like cleaning the baseboards and moldings and whatnot) that need to be done even after you've done the big stuff.

And... that's pretty much all the news. Sorry it's so boring. I've got to go sit outside on the steps and get my vitamin D for the month.

*I'm a terrible napper, almost unable to nap during the day, and generally disoriented and cranky after any nap I do get, but I did lie in bed and doze and listen to the birds and the traffic for a good 45 minutes. Which was awfully nice.

File under New, Small

She's here!*




*I realized after I posted this that it might look to the careless reader like I was announcing the birth of an unexpected sibling for Dutch. That is not the case. I haven't even met her yet. But just LOOK! Isn't she beautiful!?