Secret Worlds

'Tis the roach season.

Well, ok, yes, it's south Louisiana. Every season is roach season.

But this time of year, the nights get a bit cooler, and the roaches, accustomed to our usual subtropical temperatures, get nervous and scuttle indoors. Every morning, every room bears witness to their occupation: the night's leftovers, the aged or too enthusiastic bugs who flip over and are left flailing on their back sides, waiting for the kitties to bat them around until I come and squash them. The thrill of squashing the big bad bugs is poor compensation for the knowledge that for each roach squashed, dozens, oh lordy, hundreds, lurk. A secret world, alien creatures, right here among us.

Then the roofing guys come and solve the problem of our rather large living room leak: The wooden planks beneath the shingles feature several rather large holes--and a large, exuberantly healthy, and well-entrenched colony of termites. Apparently we've  been sharing the house with the termites for quite some time. . . . another hidden and horrifying universe, existing parallel to my everyday reality.

I retreat to the comfort of my laptop. I miss my boys. So like any good mother, I log onto Facebook and go stalking.

But but but--who are these people? where are these places? when did that happen? what the fuck are they talking about?

Secret worlds, hidden universes. Except you can't squash these alien creatures.

Nativity Sets

I am sick. Massive quantities of phlegm sliding down the back of my throat, a downright impressive chesty cough, a sore throat, an ear ache. . . yeah, the whole shebang except, dammit, no fever. And without a fever, one is not truly sick and one cannot really take time off without feeling that one is a total slacker. So one pretends to work while feeling really shitty and put-upon.

Rather than continuing to whine in this annoying way, I will, instead, turn y'all over to another blogger, who has posted the 27 Worst Nativity Sets of All Time. These are truly wonderful. Enjoy and be blessed:
http://whyismarko.com/2011/27-worst-nativity-sets-the-annual-growing-list/

New Light

I've been looking for a new lamp for awhile and so was delighted to see that my niece today posted a link on her Facebook page to a real possibility: a vagina lamp. (Check it out: http://www.regretsy.com/2011/11/04/cervix-with-a-smile/). But what really tickled me about this lamp was the notation above the picture, which says "Filed in  Decor, Vaginas." I had no idea there was an entire category of vagina decor. I guess I really don't get out enough because I thought my only option was a Georgia O'Keefe flower painting. After all these years of enduring phallic symbols everywhere (especially in Baton Rouge, where the state capital building really should have a condom put on it, it's such an obvious erect penis), I am delighted that vaginas are getting some, um, face time.

Neighborly

The dog next door is barking. The dog next door is always barking. I have actually contemplated buying a pound of raw ground beef, lacing it with rat poison, and tossing it over the fence. Except I don't throw very well and we'd probably end up with blood dripping down our side of the fence and glops of poisoned meat all over the flower beds. The thing is, I like our neighbors--the human ones. They're good-humored, good-hearted folks, just, you know, with a dog problem. So I grit my teeth and swallow hard, avoid the meat section of the supermarket, and try to focus on being thankful for my own quiet dog. He may be prone these days to bleeding and vomiting, but he's not a barker, bless him.

Plus my hunch is that the folks next door with the incredibly annoying dog often have to grit their teeth, swallow hard, and hold themselves back from sending us a nice neighborly plate of brownies flavored with arsenic. In fact, I fear that everyone on the street, or actually two streets since we occupy a corner lot, is having to do a lot of teeth-gritting and insult-swallowing these days, for we have become Bad Neighbors. More precisely, we have become The People Who Do Not Take Care of Their Yard.

I blame Keith. Now, "Blame Keith" is the default mode in most areas of my life but honestly, the yard has always been his thing. When we married, he had a condo with a small back yard, in which he'd fashioned a series of raised flower beds and vegetable plots. I had spent years as an apartment dweller, with nary a potted plant to my name. So he kept doing the gardening and lawn care, and I didn't. And when we moved to this corner house with its large front yard, side yard, and back yard, Out into the Wild he went, encircling the house with serpentine beds, laying out an enormous herb garden, experimenting with lettuce, planting perennials, grappling with ground cover, trimming, digging, culling, mulching, mincing, dicing, slicing, pruning, cultivating, and whacking away,

And then he changed jobs. And now he's far too busy, far too intellectually and emotionally and physically engaged in his work, to have time or energy or interest in the yard. And here in the semi-tropics, where plants grow several inches overnight and veritable armies of insects wage constant warfare, even a momentary lapse of attention allows nature to thrust in and take back its own. On our beautiful street, a boulevard lined with live oaks and a variety of flowering bushes that guarantee splashes of color all year round and a series of carefully cultivated lawns running in front of wooden porches, our yard stands out--and not in a good way. It's like the students who stumble into my 8:40 class at 8:55, their hair greasy and clumped, traces of last night's pizza still on their unwashed faces.

I get these moments, when I look at at the tangle out there and think, "I could do something about this. I should do something about this." And then I think, "why?" The homeowner gene seems to have passed me by. I realize I'm incredibly fortunate to own a house, but I've never found it in the least bit interesting.

So. The dog next door barks. Our weeds grow. I grit my teeth and my neighbors grit theirs. We meet periodically for drinks and remind ourselves how much we all actually like each other. And someday soon, I hope, we'll move. Maybe the new owners will be enthusiastic gardeners. Deaf enthusiastic gardeners, even. And all manner of things shall be well.

Progeny

We're no longer sleeping on the floor. Our bed finally arrived and, astoundingly, we actually learned from our mistakes and paid the delivery guys to set it up. Massive, solid, wooden, it now bestrides our bedroom, a furnishings colossus. It is, very clearly, a bed for spawning progeny. Sadly, our spawning days behind us, Keith and I will have to bequeath it to one of the boys and let them produce the progeny.

Owen, however, is not quite on board the progeny-producing project, as he "can't really see the point of babies." Our hopes rest with Hugh. He surprised me the other day when he declared that he and his future wife would adopt. Thinking that his plans constituted a heart-warming affirmation of his own adoption, I was delighted. . . until he added that his wife of course will be incredibly hot and he doesn't want her figure wrecked by pregnancy. Before I could bellow my response, he went on, "And we're only having one child because I'm going to buy it the best of everything, you know, designer clothes and stuff."

Maybe we shouldn't get our hopes up.

Christmas Sanity

I'm sitting on the sofa, comfortably ensconced in Christmas. Colored lights--which the British call "fairy lights--twinkle like, umm, little fairies and the various miniature Nativity scenes (most of them Mexican, testimonies to Keith's many spring break trips to Mexico with college students when he was a university chaplain) and Santas and Christmas-themed Beanie Babies and nutcracker soldiers and snowmen and angels all jostle together in a glorious mishmash of folk art and children's drawings and drugstore tacky.

Over it all glows the 8 1/2 -foot tree. I suggested maybe a table-top tree this year as I'm having foot surgery in a couple of days. . . Hugh reacted as if I'd proposed that we cancel Christmas and spend a week digging latrines in Somalia. Needless to say, Hugh won; Hugh always wins--and this time, at least, I'm glad; it's a beautiful tree. Like the rest of the decorations, it's far from elegant or tasteful, just a jumble of clashing ornaments: here a ceramic Snoopy that I bought in high school, there a silver penguin that Hugh and I picked up last year in Sea World, San Antonio; on a branch below sits an olive-wood manger scene that a friend bought for me in Bethlehem while I was lying, feverish and stricken with debilitating diarrhea, in a nun-run traveler's hostel in Jerusalem, and just above it perches the glass bird my mom brought me from her trip to Austria when I was in junior high. And over there, see, by the real-life-size glass McDonald's French Fries ornament? Next to the picture of Owen in day care, wreathed in glitter glue? That's a clay Viking, bought during one of our many family trips to York when we lived just a short train ride away in Manchester. And on and it goes. No overall design, no aesthetically pleasing pattern, just the haphazard relics of our haphazard lives.

(In contrast, Hugh tells me that his girlfriend's family's tree is black. With all-white ornaments. In an all-white living room. Poor Hugh. Once again his slovenly, academically-inclined, fashion-challenged, interior-design-handicapped family fails to measure up.)

I genuinely do enjoy Christmas and all that goes with it. It strikes me as odd and fundamentally sad that the most common interchange with casual acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors, and so forth is something along these lines: "How ya doin? All ready for the holidays?" "[groan] Oh lord, no. I can't believe how much I have to do. [roll of the eyes] Ho ho ho, right?" And then will come the competitive listing of how much must be done and what a drag it is to do it.

I don't get it. There are no Christmas police. No one is going to come fine you or arrest you for failing to ice the cookies or not sending out cards or deciding against populating your front lawn with gigantic inflatable snowmen. I am not really a very laid-back person (to put it mildly). Maybe it's because I'm so neurotic, almost professional in my neuroticism, really, that I regard Christmas anxiety as purely for amateurs. It's a bit bizarre: The one time of the year when everyone else goes slightly crazy, I feel somewhat sane. Kinda nice. I can see the appeal of this sanity thing.

Return to Heloiseland

I've posted before about my favorite newspaper column, "Hints from Heloise." I do love Heloiseland in all its order and enthusiasm and problem-solving spirit. This week, however, was truly a highpoint for Heloise lovers.

First came Cindy H. from Baytown, Texas. Cindy, weighed down with those "older bottles of spray perfume that [she] no longer liked or that, with age, had become too strong," has found a creative solution. "I now give a few squirts of spray to the inside of my cardboard toilet-paper rolls so that, with each use, a nice scent is released."

And just like that, we enter the threshold of an alternative universe: Heloiseland, where so little goes awry that its inhabitants have time and energy to fret over excess perfume spray bottles and where now, thanks to Cindy H. of Baytown, Heloiselanders can enjoy the fragrance of old perfume with every wipe.

But it got better.

Betty Hill, of Grove City, Iowa, wrote in to tell us, "After washing and drying sweaters, blue jeans, hooded sweats, etc., remove lint from the inside of all pockets by turning wrong-side out and rubbing briskly with an emery board. This works like a charm."

Gosh. I didn't even know about the problem of pocket lint! I will confess, that in a shocking reversion to traditional gender roles, I am the household laundress--ok, actually, I only do Keith's and my laundry; as soon as the boys entered middle school, I introduced them to the wonders of the washer & dryer, and insisted they take charge of their dirty clothes--which means that to get into bed every night, Hugh has to wade through a knee-high "clothesdrift" (it truly does resemble a snowdrift, except it's a lot more colorful and it smells much, much worse, but hey, that's his problem)--and I admit I'm a laundry "lay-about," as the British would say: the journey from dirty clothes hamper through washer/dryer onto the folding table (aka the dining room table) and into drawers and closets can take weeks, yea, even months. Occasionally, Keith will casually inquire, in his best "I'm a feminist and I am in no way implying you should be delivering clean clothes to my wardrobe" tone, "Umm, have you by any chance seen my khakis?" I ponder and then reply, "Oh right. They're in the dryer"--where they've been for six days.

All of which may help explain my reaction to Betty Hill of Grove City, Iowa.

Betty Hill, I am in awe. I mean, I'm scrambling through the dirty clothes hamper to find my no-line panty that I wore three days ago but haven't washed yet and now need because I'm going to wear my tight skirt, and you, you, oh amazing Betty Hill, you are filing--or perhaps buffing is the correct word-- the inside-out pockets of blue jeans and hooded sweats with your emery board.

Betty Hill of Grove City, Iowa: Can I come live with you? Will you buff away my pocket lint? And maybe squirt aged perfume on my toilet rolls so that when I poop, all I smell is ancient Charlie or Estee Lauder White Linen? And I know you keep Heloise's Always-Ready Basic Muffin Mix on hand, so that when unexpected guests drop in, you can quickly blend in an egg and a half-cup of milk, and voila! produce home-baked muffins in ten minutes. Betty, I could use a muffin. Please, can I come stay with you in Heloiseland?

Living in Pier One

Yesterday I did something I try not to do. Ever.

I entered the doors of Pier One.

What can I say? It was a football day (see last posting). And I'd had a less-than-productive week, one in a sequence of less-than-productive weeks, stretching back, oh, well, let's see, Owen's 19 1/2 years old, so that would be 19.5 x 52--gah! advanced math--let's make it 20 x 52--so, ok, stretching back about 1040 weeks. Thus I was feeling a tad bummed. And I was looking for Halloween ornaments. And where else does one go for Halloween ornaments other than Pier One?

I suppose the Halloween ornaments might need explanation. It's my friend Karen's fault. She bought me this beautiful metal table-top tree. And in one of those rare but evidently inevitable Martha Stewart moments, I thought, "Oh, wouldn't it be fun to decorate my metal tree for various holidays?" Back when I was sane, that moment would have vanished almost immediately as I moved on to do important things. But it's been a long time since I've done anything important and even longer since I was sane, and so Saturday found me Halloween ornament shopping at Pier One.

I found several, bought a few, bought lots of other stuff, too. . . had a delightful time. Left with great regret. See, here's the problem: I want to live in Pier One. I want to live the Pier One life. I want to change my dishes every season; I want wine glasses of every possible permutation; I want to dress in brightly colored Indian cottons and drift about my fully equipped, trendily furnished, patio-deck-back yard, glimmering with torch lights and seasonally colored little candles, while beautiful guests, accessorized with playfully themed cocktail glasses and party plates, mingle and reassemble in ever-changing, casual yet graceful groupings.Witty intellectual interchange abounds. We are Happy Multi-Cultural People. Partiers with a Purpose. We live the High Life, yet it is a Deep Life.

So, a couple of overpriced glass bats and skulls now hang from my metal tree. I drank my morning coffee from a new mug, my evening wine from a new glass. The High Deep Life eludes me. I'm thinking, maybe I should try Pottery Barn?

Driftwood

Once again, Keith and I are knowingly, willingly, even somewhat actively tossing ourselves into a situation that we 1) know we will hate, and 2) could easily avoid.

Nope, we're not having a third child.

Actually, I'd love to have a third child. . . yes, yes, I know I'm 50, but look at what's-her-name, you know, the blonde news anchor. But--me and Keith and the whole third child debate, oh, let's not go there. It's not, umm, scenic. . . .

So, we're having a garage sale. We've had garage sales before. We've sworn we would never, ever have garage sales again. Yet tomorrow morning we're having one.

Why do we do these things to ourselves? It's not like, say, indulging in a huge slice of German chocolate cake when you're on a diet, or having those last three glasses of wine when you promised you'd stop at one, or buying that oh-so-cool pair of boots when you had resolved to cut back on spending--I mean, with all those things, you get something you want. Yes, you do pay a price, and maybe it's not a price worth paying, but there is pleasure in there, fleeting tho' it may be.

Garage sales do not bring us pleasure. Not even flickery little fleeting bits.

First, garage sale people are--at least in our experience--strange. And not strange in funky, amusing, intriguing ways; no, this is the "ohmygoshsomeonegetmeoutofhere" sort of strangeness. (I do apologize to all you garage sale people readers. I'm sure you're the exception to the strangeness rule. The sort of people I'm talking about would not be reading a blog written by a menopausal liberal Christian history professor mom. Not a chance.)

Second, and far more fundamental, garage sales lead to existential angst. We're having a garage sale because we're drowning in all this crap, and--to give us our due--we don't want to just add it all to the landfill. We believe in "Reuse--Recycle--Re-" shoot--"re-something." Whatever it is, we believe in it and try to practice it. But from whence cometh all this crap? What sort of person am I, that I have accumulated, sought out, yea, even desired, such stuff? And more horrifying, what kind of Me do I project, who is the public persona I have created, that my beloved ones shower me with all this shit? And why have I saved it? What was it all for? Who was I hoping to become?

And what the hell was I trying to do to/for/with my kids? For so much of this junk testifies to parenting gone mad. The ridiculously expensive sewing machine, resting there like driftwood washed up from Hugh's brief fashion design phase. All the sports paraphernalia, the detritus of the various teams and lessons into which we jollied the boys. Spools of thread and glue bottles and felt squares and paint canisters and wood burning tools in an anarchic heap, leftovers from arts and crafts projects long abandoned. And the heaps of music books--cello and piano and drums and flute and harmonica and recorder and guitar (both rhythm and electric).

A bit here, some tat there. All these shabby remnants of dreams discarded and hopes shrugged off, of that horrible moment when vision confronts reality. All this waste.

Really. This whole garage sale thing. It's not a good idea.

Postscripts

Just so you know, I'm quite enjoying being an Ornamental Pillow Person . Every morning I make a new and different pillow pyramid. It's very exciting.

Maybe I need to get out more.

Or maybe I really do need to start using marijuana. No, haven't yet, despite my every intention and my discovery that you can find this stuff in some pretty surprising places. The thing is, it's illegal. And I always always always get caught when I try to do something that everyone else does all the time. I must just exude guilt. So I want to be sure that when I am caught, I can mount a really convincing defence, buttressed by all kinds of evidence showing 1) my long history of chronic headaches, and 2) my equally lengthy list of attempts to find a legal remedy. Which means acupuncture. I keep talking about trying acupuncture but, apart from the expense--fairly hefty, tho' honestly, what does weed cost these days? --

--"these days, she writes, as if back in "other days" she knew the cost of marijuana--

there is the little matter of needles. Nevertheless, needles be damned, acupuncture it will be. And then I'll be able to say, "But your honor, it's the American medical system that should be on trial, not me."

I also, despite every good intention, haven't yet killed my cat. The peeing one. Instead, I have banished her to the outdoors. Well, duh, you say. No, dear reader, not duh. Peeing kitty has no claws and so little chance of defending herself against predators and competitors. Plus she's one of those long-haired kitties, meant to decorate the living room, not live in the wild. Entire ecosystems of fleas and tics could flourish in her fur; shoot, birds could nest in there and we'd never know it. But--I've put her out, and after a few days of adjustment (punctuated by much mewing), she seems to be having a good time. Actually, she seems to have gone feral already. I know that sooner or later she'll be run over by a car or mauled by a stray dog, and I'll feel terrible, but at least she'll have had these days of unrestrained beastiness while I soak the sofas in cheap vodka. (Kitty shrink tells us it neutralizes the cat pee smell--not sure yet--I do worry about, well, flammability. Combustibility. Someone lighting a match and our alcohol-laden furniture igniting. Could make our parties a bit more interesting, I guess.)

Ornamental Pillow People

One might think that two relatively bright, aware, sensible people, married for 20 years and thus combining their relative brightness, awareness, and sensibility, would not repeat the same mistakes over and over and over. But we do.

We ordered a bed online. We know better. We have tried assembling furniture in the past. Many times--as our household interior bears witness, replete as it is with various wonky, wobbly chairs, desks, and tabletops. We are not handy people. We are not mechanically inclined. We have no practical function whatsoever.

We are now sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

Yet this return to a kind of grad student sparseness has occurred in tandem with a leap into bourgeois luxury. We have become Ornamental Pillow People.

It wasn't intentional. Keith, for one, hates ornamental pillows. Art is fine--he has no trouble spending money on paintings or photographs. Because art has a point--you look at it, you enjoy it, you're challenged by it, whatever. But the point of a pillow is to sleep on it. An ornamental pillow? No point.

I'm more ambivalent. I've always really been rather awe-struck by people with ornamental pillows on their beds. They're like the People Who Live in Our Magazines. But I dunno. Life seems complicated enough, without having to arrange a complicated tower of pillows on the bed every morning. Plus I nap most days. That means building the pillow pyramid twice every day.

But after two decades of connubial bliss, we decided to graduate to a queen-sized bed. (I worried about the implications of this move, I'll admit. Does it mean there's a growing distance between us? Are we no longer close? Actually, it just means we're both sick of being squished by the kitty.) Anyway, a new mattress means new bedding. And on overstock.com, I found this great deal on a rather attractive "12-piece bed-in-a-bag". I'll admit, I'm not a good shopper. I didn't really pay attention. I mean, 12 pieces. I just assumed, gotta include sheets, right? Comforter = 1. Blanket = 2. Sheets and pillowcases = 6. God knows what else = 12.

But no. No sheets. No pillowcases. Instead, lots and lots of Ornamental Pillows. I feel like a miner when I go to bed now--it requires much tunneling and shoveling just to find the sheets. Keith refuses to do the pillow mining. He just inserts himself into the mass--with the result that I come into the bedroom and it's like an episode of Doctor Who: alien pillow-shaped life forms have swallowed my husband's head and are munching their way down his torso.

Still, we're trying. Why can't we be Ornamental Pillow People? We're people. We like pillows. And heck, we're largely ornamental.

I used to be better

Today I bought a Dyson. Vacuum cleaner, that is. Not the roller ball kind, as I couldn't justify the extra $100 just so I could zoom around corners. It's not a race car, for pete's sake.

Today I also purchased ridiculously expensive black jeans from J.Jill. And I got a pedicure and manicure.

Can you tell it's been a really bad week?

When did I become a person who indulges in Shopping Therapy? Good lord. I used to be better than this. I used to be, you know, sane.

Because we've all been wondering

You know how you get those Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel catalogs and you think, "Geez, who lives like this?" Well, I've found the answer. Check out: http://catalogliving.tumblr.com/. : "A look into the exciting lives of the people who live in your catalogs.

Hoping for the worst

Is it a Bad Thing that I frequently hope that our strictly indoor cat will succeed in her never-ending quest to go outside, and then get eaten or run over?

Let me just note that I did have an indoor kitty who got outside--and got disembowelled by a stray dog. I still mourn her. There will always be a Spencer-shaped hole in my heart.

So I do know just how utterly horrifying the experience of a violent kitty death can be. And honestly, I actually like, even love my cats. Mind you, I'm not a Cat-Lover, not one of those people who decorate their homes with cat-themed items and think nothing of spending $10,000s on cat surgery and end up with 25 feline companions and no human friends. But I do enjoy having a cat or two around.

We have two. One is fine.

Then there is Smudge. Smudge is neurotic as hell. So am I. That's not the problem.

Technically, Smudge is Hugh's cat, tho' she lives in mortal fear of him and he finds her largely irrelevant to his now totally electronic life. It isn't really Hugh's fault that Smudge is terrified of him; she's terrified of everyone, except, usually tho' not always, me. If Smudge loves or trusts any human being, it's me.

And actually, I think she's lovely and I get a big kick out of the way she squeaks like some sort of land dolphin and I enjoy her company. But it would be a relief if she ran outside and got hit by a car. I don't want her in pain, mind you. A colossal accident is all I ask. Instant death.

Smudge, you see, pees on the furniture. On the sofas, on the beds, on the chairs, on the carpets. Unfortunately, I hadn't quite cottoned on to the peeing problem when I had her declawed as a kitten and therefore made her into an indoor cat. Nor is there much of a chance of finding a loving home for an indoor kitty with a pissing problem.

I've spent many many hours researching what to do about an incontinent kitty. And I've tried every single solution and suggestion. None of them--trust me on this--none of them work. (One of my all-time faves: "Cover your furniture with strips of aluminum foil. Cats hate it." Uh huh. Smudge treated it as a really fun new kind of kitty litter.)

Because of Smudge, one of my closest, most intimate relationships is with my Carpet/Upholstery Cleaner Guy. Cleaner Guy does his best. Nevertheless, sit on my sofas and soon--really soon if it's hot and humid, which is, oh, about 90% of the time here in south Louisiana--an unmistakeable odor will come wafting over.

I'm not "house-proud." I'd just prefer not to be engulfed in clouds of cat piss. Yet I can't just toss out an animal like an old pair of Dockers.

But if you happen to be driving by. . . and, well, it looks like there might be a kitty in the road, oh really, it's not, go ahead, accelerate. . . .

Running Water

We have running water in the kitchen! Hallelujah. Blessed be the saintly Plumber Guy. Much as I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when I was young, I'd be a really lousy frontierswoman.

Score one for Hugh

Shortly after we moved into this house we converted the attic into a small bedroom for Owen and a large tv room/ "hang-out" space for both boys. Given my sons' slovenly natures, general laziness, and inability to draw a connection between large piles of dirty dishes and the growing roach and rat population, the area quickly degenerated. Each boy blamed the other. So one day, Owen challenged Hugh: you keep track of the dirty dishes I leave behind and I'll keep track of yours--a kind of scientific tabulation of who was the greater slob. On the door leading to the attic staircase Owen hung a piece of paper titled "LEFT UPSTAIRS".

By the end of the first weekend, here's what was listed under "Hugh":
2 glasses, 1 plate, 1 fork, bag of popcorn, 1 spoon and yogurt cup, 1 bowl ramen noodles. And here's what was written under "Owen":
his dignity.

Look before you leap

So I've gotten a really short disastrous haircut and the rats have returned. There's a causal connection there somewhere.

Hair first. I was in need of a trim. It was a lovely spring morning, cool, the hint of the warmth to come, flowers ablaze in aching glory, the last day of spring break--a time for leaping. And New Haircutter Guy was in the mood for radical cutting. So, I leapt. He cut. I now look like an old lady with an erratic perm. Liberated by the short cut, my hair is doing what comes naturally: sprouting in odd curly combinations here, sulking in a fit of straights there, sticking out at random points in anarchic conviction throughout. It is not an attractive look. It does not bespeak the playful promise of springtime that New Haircutter Guy dangled in front of me like a chocolate cupcake.

What it evokes, nay, what it uncannily duplicates, is my grandmother the morning that I surprised her with a visit. Turned out it was her cleaning morning. When I sprung upon her, she was on her hands and knees dusting the crevices of an upturned kitchen chair. Usually immaculately coiffed, rouge carefully applied, pearls resting gently on her Marshall Field's blouse, Gram was in a duster, with bare legs and ankle socks, and her hair--her hair looked just like mine right now. She was horrified to see me seeing her crouching in that kitchen. Much like I am horrified to see me seeing me right now.

Much like the rats, actually. I thought we had defeated the rats some months ago, using a combination of poison, rat traps, glue trays, and, I dunno, human resolve, esprit, determination. But no. Putting away some suitcases in the attic late yesterday afternoon, I heard the telltale rustling and the rhythmic tat-tat-tat of little feet. And today, when I went down to the basement to get a packet of veggie burgers, I was stopped short by the sight of a rat, stuck in glue, right in front of the freezer.

It's all our neighbor's fault. He chopped down an ailing tree that, it turns out, housed an entire city of rats. But these rats do not act like poor refugees. No, they are rodent Republicans. They have Made It and moved to the suburbs. Freed from the packed confines of urban tree living, they embrace the wide open spaces of our human houses with great gusto. I keep expecting to find rat-sized Weber grills and built-in swimming pools, rat-marketed cul-de-sacs with names like Little Gnawing, rat versions of the tennis club. Big and sleek and well-fed, these are rats with really good health insurance plans. They Have Arrived. And they do not intend to leave.

So, I'm an old lady with crazy hair and rats. I always knew it would come to this.

Camping

Kitchen renovations stalled again. Still no sink. "Think of it as camping," I say to Keith.

Except we hate camping.

Bless ye, St. Patrick

I feel like I should be using a teeny-tiny typeface here, to signify that I am whispering. If I speak too loudly, I might jinx things. I fear disrupting whatever cosmic alignment has brought about this extraordinary development: three entire days without a major conflict with Hugh. I wish I could say it's all due to my extreme self-control, amazing sensitivity, and mastery of behavioral therapy. But, it's not. I didn't do it. St. Patrick did.

Every year Baton Rouge has a big St. Patrick's Day parade that rolls right in front of our house. Now, you have to understand that in south Louisiana, you don't just watch a parade. It's not, in fact, about watching at all. It's about The Party. Louisianians aren't really very good at things like, umm, government. Or education. Or economic development. Or urban planning. Or race relations. But partying. That we have down to an art form. By the time the St. Pat's parade rolls at 10 am on the Saturday nearest the actual holiday, the crawfish are boiling, the chicken frying, the burgers grilling, and the beer flowing. In vast quantities.

But this year, I declared that we wouldn't be joining the party. At least not in the sense of having our usual party. Kitchen renovations remain stalled: still no floor, no sink. So no party, no way.

Hugh went nuts. Hugh loves St. Patrick's Day. Hugh loves parades. Hugh especially loves the St. Pat's parade.

So, we compromised. I agreed he could have a party. Which meant he would have to do it. And he did. All on his own, with nary a prod or reminder or nag. He planned the menu, did the shopping, mowed the lawn, tidied his room, trimmed the bushes around the deck, cleaned the lawn furniture, readied the coolers. By 7 am on parade day when he brought me my cafe' au lait in bed (!!!!), he had already baked brownies, iced the drinks, and readied the veggie tray. And he was happy. So happy. Pleasant. Polite. Talkative. Fun to be around.

Hugh is 15. He is not happy. He is not pleasant or polite or talkative or fun to be around. Not with me.

But he was. And (sshh, don't say it too loudly), still is.

All of which reminds me how crucial it is to remember the Truth that I first realized when Hugh was two years old: this child hates being a kid. He's not really very good at it. But maybe, just maybe, he'll be really good at being an adult. Which would be great. At least one of us should be.

Not like that

Six weeks ago, we began kitchen renovations. It was supposed to be a three-week job. Now it looks like we'll be without a sink for at least another month, if not longer, and who knows when the kitchen will actually be completed. The price has nearly doubled.

Of course. That's the way it always goes with kitchen renovations. I know this.

Except not really. Everyone told me, and I nodded politely, but I didn't actually believe them. We had done our homework. We knew what we were doing. And most importantly, we are not Like That. We are Exceptions.

Except not really. I just hate that.

Like before I had kids and I met up with a friend who just had her first baby, and she went on and on about how she was so glad to get out and to see an adult and to think about something other than breastfeeding and spit-up, and then all she talked about was breastfeeding and spit-up, and when I drove away I thought, "Geez. Thank God I'll never be like that." And then I had Owen and we had a couple of childless friends over and at the end of the evening it dawned on me that I'd dominated the dinnertime conversation by describing each of Owen's first six bowel movements. In detail. Color. Consistency. Quantity. Overall olfactory ratings.

Just like that.

Or later in the grocery store with baby Owen--chubby-cheeked, chuckling, leg-kicking, arm-waving, toothlessly grinning. His colic has passed and I've lost all the baby weight and I'm feeling like, whoa, I've got this whole mom thing down, and I see some woman in a stained sweatshirt and mom jeans shrieking at some tangled-hair little kid wearing a torn Holly Hobby pj top and a bedraggled ballerina skirt and crying because she wanted the Disney Princess sticker pack. And I think, "Geez. Thank God I'll never be like that." And then a few years later I'm in the same grocery store, same goddamn aisle, and a little kid in Powerranger slippers, a pair of faded purple shorts two sizes too small, and my pale pink lace teddy is dragging on my arm and whining because he wants Shrek pasta shapes and I crack and scream, "I SAID NOOOOO!!!" and he throws himself to the floor, sobbing wildly. I look up, and there's this really pretty blonde Junior League type with her accessorized baby and they're both staring at me in horror.

Just like that.

And now I'm washing dishes in the bathtub and part of the sub-floor looks rotten and there's a problem with the vent for the oven hood. That's the way it always goes with kitchen renovations.
Just like that. I hate it when it's just like that.