What a day!! Some woman was screaming at her kids in the parking lot at 6 a.m. One thing she said was so close, I woke up, alert, thinking that she was in our bedroom. There was nothing but the blue light of morning, the awareness of every second left on the alarm clock, the sound of some kids slamming a car door. I made the best of the forty minutes that remained, and then got up.
Kara was asleep when I stumbled into her room. I sat on her bed, and she rolled over and groaned. "I'll give you a few more minutes," I said, mostly to give myself a moment. Couch time. Time to wake up, have some cereal, catch a few minutes of news. I go through periods of watching the news obsessively and not caring. When I watch it obsessively, it is because of the future. I'm trying to assemble some kind of now which will suggest then. And that future is usually about money: the housing market, the DOW, the Fed. I think a lot about money these days.
Caleb gets up happy. I hear him thumping around in his room, and so I open the door. If he gets up early, he will sit against his door and talk himself awake, usually ending with a variation on "Daddy." (One of the best sounds on earth.) Today I caught him early enough so that he was just sliding out of bed. He stumbled around like a cold boy scout and then picked up a toy car. I open his shade and morning light fills up the space.
The rest of any morning is just getting things done. Changing a diaper--sometimes the first thing I do in the morning--or fixing some breakfast. L. and I have the system worked out. I get the beds made. She dresses Kara and does her hair. Everything was going okay, though slow, this morning until we discovered that the holes in Kara's earlobes had grown together a bit during the night. It took fifteen minutes of screaming, crying, cooing, ice cubes, rubbing alcohol, and pain to get new earrings in there. I felt terrible for Kara, and so did L.
Dropping Kara off at school everyday feels like an apology. I'm sorry I can't go with you. I'm sorry we can't play at a park today or go and have breakfast together and make faces over pancakes. I'm sorry that I drive off and if you need to call me or miss me you can't just open your mouth and call me. I'm twenty miles away most of the day, and, trust me, there are times in the day I'd like to pick up the phone and call you. "Say, how's music going for you today? How's that spelling? When are you taking your test. Gotta go? Okay, I'll see you later. Hugs and kisses."
My chair at work has gotten progressively lazy. When I first snatched it after a co-worker left, it was habitually vertical. Sitting in it was a reminder that one slip and some horrible error, like an egregious typo or a bleeding running head, could occur, permanently scarring the work and effort of half a dozen people and more than that number of months. Now, however, it has relaxed, tilting back and back until it comfortably reclines like an off school adolescent working the kinks out of Halo 3.
Well, 11:44 p.m. I posted. Goodnight.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
L talking about "the weekend of no house"
The following longer quotations are taken from some e-mail L wrote in the last few days talking about "the weekend of no house." The plot is quite simple. We looked at a house that was almost what we were looking for. And, in the course of a weekend, we went from talking ourselves into it to talking ourselves (quite rightly) out of it.
"Thom and I have continued looking for a house and we are going back today to look at one again that we are pretty serious about. It’s a older home (by regular standards, not New England standards – meaning it was built in 1967 – not 1867! ), but VERY well kept up. It’s in a very established neighborhood where everyone seems to keep their homes and yards very nicely taken care of. It’s a 3BR, 1.5 bath – not our favorite plan, but it would work for our family. It’s a ranch style house where the garage has been nicely converted into a den and utility room. The biggest selling point for me is that it has a beautiful deck and a fenced yard where the kids could play safely and I could sit on the deck. The deck is so large it would be great for entertaining – having my parents and my brother and sister in law over and the yard is the perfect size. For car coverage it has a two-car carport that is also well-maintained and not tacky-looking – you see a lot of car ports down here and some are better than others. The house is very livable and yet there are some areas where we could make upgrades over time – bathroom could be updated, kitchen, etc. but it’s all cosmetic, not structural. So, we’re praying about it and thinking about it and talking about it. It’s in our price range, which seems amazing to us, since our range is pretty small and this house has been so well kept up and is in such a nice neighborhood. So, please pray with us about this, it is a huge decision and we want to be sure we make a wise choice. I’d tell you the list price, but you’d drop over dead when you compared it to house prices in New England!"
The funny thing about this house was that portions of it resembled our grandparent's houses. The flat white ceilings, the 50s colors, the way the rooms opened into the straight hallway like independent compartments. Moving around in it, I passed through different ages: six, twelve, sixteen. It has been a long time since I thought about my grandparents homes. About how they felt as a boy, and I wanted to go back to each one and spend a moment there just for a little longer.
The kitchen is all knotty pine paneling with really ugly 1980s wallpaper and the bathrooms also need to be updated – one has aqua/torquise blue tile and the other is more hideous 1980s wall-paper – bold strips plus floral. The layout was a nice ranch style and the home had been very well kept up. There’s a deck out back and a fenced backyard.
At one point we went into the bathroom and L started to tell me, "The linen closet is behind the door." But, thanks to my grandmother's house, I already knew. As I told L. later, being there it was hard to think about purchasing the house. We were children intruding into the strange space of adults. They know the past which we will never know, and we could very well see the future which they will not see. In us, those two poles stare across a divide at each other and hardly know what to do.
By Sunday night, we were coming out of the reverie.
Here’s the catch – lead paint. Homes built before 1978 generally have lead paint on the interior and exterior surfaces. With the remodeling projects we were imagining it would kick up the lead-paint and cause lead-paint dust – which in turn becomes lead poisoning in children and seriously affects intelligence. It wouldn’t be a problem to live there, just to do any of the updates we would want to eventually do. So, after two days of hemming and hawing and not being sure what we thought we finally got a sense of peace when we decided it wasn’t the right house for us. My parents, who had visited the home with us on Sunday, think we’re making a wise decision to wait. It would have been livable and nice enough, but not really wonderful."
Try as I might, I can't see myself owning a home. It is like seeing oneself living in a foreign city or being one of those successful guys in the movies, hurring to cross the street with the cell phone wearing a four thousand dollar suit. I grow up slow. I can't help it. My corneas opened too wide one day and they can't close again. Nevertheless, when the time comes, we will.
"Thom and I have continued looking for a house and we are going back today to look at one again that we are pretty serious about. It’s a older home (by regular standards, not New England standards – meaning it was built in 1967 – not 1867! ), but VERY well kept up. It’s in a very established neighborhood where everyone seems to keep their homes and yards very nicely taken care of. It’s a 3BR, 1.5 bath – not our favorite plan, but it would work for our family. It’s a ranch style house where the garage has been nicely converted into a den and utility room. The biggest selling point for me is that it has a beautiful deck and a fenced yard where the kids could play safely and I could sit on the deck. The deck is so large it would be great for entertaining – having my parents and my brother and sister in law over and the yard is the perfect size. For car coverage it has a two-car carport that is also well-maintained and not tacky-looking – you see a lot of car ports down here and some are better than others. The house is very livable and yet there are some areas where we could make upgrades over time – bathroom could be updated, kitchen, etc. but it’s all cosmetic, not structural. So, we’re praying about it and thinking about it and talking about it. It’s in our price range, which seems amazing to us, since our range is pretty small and this house has been so well kept up and is in such a nice neighborhood. So, please pray with us about this, it is a huge decision and we want to be sure we make a wise choice. I’d tell you the list price, but you’d drop over dead when you compared it to house prices in New England!"
The funny thing about this house was that portions of it resembled our grandparent's houses. The flat white ceilings, the 50s colors, the way the rooms opened into the straight hallway like independent compartments. Moving around in it, I passed through different ages: six, twelve, sixteen. It has been a long time since I thought about my grandparents homes. About how they felt as a boy, and I wanted to go back to each one and spend a moment there just for a little longer.
The kitchen is all knotty pine paneling with really ugly 1980s wallpaper and the bathrooms also need to be updated – one has aqua/torquise blue tile and the other is more hideous 1980s wall-paper – bold strips plus floral. The layout was a nice ranch style and the home had been very well kept up. There’s a deck out back and a fenced backyard.
At one point we went into the bathroom and L started to tell me, "The linen closet is behind the door." But, thanks to my grandmother's house, I already knew. As I told L. later, being there it was hard to think about purchasing the house. We were children intruding into the strange space of adults. They know the past which we will never know, and we could very well see the future which they will not see. In us, those two poles stare across a divide at each other and hardly know what to do.
By Sunday night, we were coming out of the reverie.
Here’s the catch – lead paint. Homes built before 1978 generally have lead paint on the interior and exterior surfaces. With the remodeling projects we were imagining it would kick up the lead-paint and cause lead-paint dust – which in turn becomes lead poisoning in children and seriously affects intelligence. It wouldn’t be a problem to live there, just to do any of the updates we would want to eventually do. So, after two days of hemming and hawing and not being sure what we thought we finally got a sense of peace when we decided it wasn’t the right house for us. My parents, who had visited the home with us on Sunday, think we’re making a wise decision to wait. It would have been livable and nice enough, but not really wonderful."
Try as I might, I can't see myself owning a home. It is like seeing oneself living in a foreign city or being one of those successful guys in the movies, hurring to cross the street with the cell phone wearing a four thousand dollar suit. I grow up slow. I can't help it. My corneas opened too wide one day and they can't close again. Nevertheless, when the time comes, we will.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Otherwise forgotten Sept. 5, '07
L. sent me this in an e-mail this morning. It was too precious a scene, so ordinary and fragile, and yet so sweet that I couldn't just consign it to the recycle bin.
"Caleb and I played under the kitchen table for a while. He is such a sweetie! It’s funny how we think alike sometime. We were sitting under the table. I was trying to think of what to do under the table. So we counted things for a while and then moved the chairs around. At one point, Caleb brought all of the chairs in close, and then he bent forward to give me a kiss--it was so sweet. Like it occurred to him that the space felt cuddly. Then he looked at me, and said “book,” and tried to get out and get one from a box he had seen me put them in yesterday, but I had since put them away."
"Caleb and I played under the kitchen table for a while. He is such a sweetie! It’s funny how we think alike sometime. We were sitting under the table. I was trying to think of what to do under the table. So we counted things for a while and then moved the chairs around. At one point, Caleb brought all of the chairs in close, and then he bent forward to give me a kiss--it was so sweet. Like it occurred to him that the space felt cuddly. Then he looked at me, and said “book,” and tried to get out and get one from a box he had seen me put them in yesterday, but I had since put them away."
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Ever Herded Cats??
I have!!! Well, not really, but it sure feels like it every time we try to get Kara to do her homework! I suppose any metaphor would do ... like pulling teeth or maybe something about gouging your own eyes out slowly because it would be more fun!
When Kara was four we often joked that she lived in Rainbow Land. We haven't heard from the residents of Rainbow Land in a while, but they have been replaced lately by the distraction of the moment. Presently it's a bleeding paper cut on the back side of her right elbow. Sometimes it's a shadow on the wall, sometimes it's an itch on her foot, back, neck, leg, ear, or whatever. As I'm typing this on one corner of the table, Thom is attempting to get Kara to read about 20 pages out of her reading book while she is complaining that she's bleeding from a paper cut! A PAPER CUT! We're thinking if it's not a puddle of blood on the floor, we don't care --- just read!!! Please!!! PLEASE just read!! No. Ok. Would a bandaid put you back on track? FINE! So, now she has a bandaid on a paper cut on her elbow and she's ALMOST done!
Did I mention we've been at this homework thing for nearly an hour already!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!
Admittedly this is only on reading nights that it feels as if the teacher hates us and wants us all to cry all night. Math nights!! Oh how I love math nights. She actually does her homework herself without anyone hovering over her and making her keep her eyes on the paper. Ah, math. We love math. The only thing better than math is art -- who doesn't love art. Ah, art.
Maybe someday they'll give homework in recess!
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