Absolutely Bananas: Seattle mom blog

A cluttered mind

Somehow I ended up getting hired to teach two classes at the University of Washington starting this fall. 

In order to finalize the hiring process, I’m supposed to fill out some paperwork and bring it, along with my passport, to the UW processing office.

No problem!

well, except for this one little problem…

I totally can’t find my passport.

Right away when I realized that I needed it, I went directly downstairs and pulled out the “passports” folder of my filing cabinet.  Jay’s passport is in there.  So is CJ’s.  Mine, however, has gone MIA.  Hopped the red-eye to Paris and never came back.

I suppose I should confess that for the past 6 months I’ve been using a *NEW* filing system whereby I ignore my filing cabinet and perform the following detailed and rigorous 2-step process.

Step 1: Place papers in careful piles on the dining room table.

Step 2: In the event of a) dinner guests, b) my MIL, or c) the pile falling over, swiftly gather up the pile and carry it down to the “office” where I thoughtfully position the pile next to or on top of the other piles.

Step 3: Go through the piles in the office and file them into appropriate folders when I have time.

You’ll notice I said this was a 2-step process BUT then I listed three steps.  (Nothing gets past YOU!)

The reason for this little inconsistency is that I never do step three.  Never EVER. 

Because, as it turns out, step 3 is boring and I have far too busy of a life to spend even five minutes filing.

Which brings us directly back to the “My passport must be in Paris” situation, in which Paris stands for somewhere behind the big green ball or on top of the precariously perched shelf.  Or maybe underneath the turkey roaster.

 I COULD go through all the piles of paperwork and hope that I’d find it.

OR I could figure out how to get a replacement passport.  Which seems to me to be the better option.  Because although I am DEFINITELY going to organize that room very soon, I really don’t have time for that today… or even this week.

(I’m a very busy person)

Heartbreak

~circa 1991~

I am perched on the hillside outside our apartment doing nothing in particular when I see him walking across the parking lot towards the playground below.

He has a certain ease about him as he saunters up to my sister (who is sitting in open-mouthed wonder on one of the swings).

“Hey,” I hear his greeting but can’t quite make out her response.

His hair is dark with bleached blond tips, and spikey and hard in the way that is so cool. He’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt and jeans and from up here I can’t quite tell but I think he might be tall. Or at least not short.

But most importantly he is a BOY and he appears to be MY AGE and he is LOOKING AT ME…

He is looking at me!

ACK!

“Hey.” and now he’s talking to me.

He is TALKING TO ME! This BOY who is definitely not short and who might even be tall and who probably almost CERTAINLY is very very cute is TALKING TO ME!

Something about being up on the hillside gives me a strangely brave feeling. I shout down at him and before I know what happened, me and THIS BOY are having a conversation.

He is new to the neighborhood! He is the same age as me! His name is Ian and he will be going to MY school when school starts in a few weeks!

I could just die from the thrill of it all.

And you know the best part? This Ian? He really seems to be into me. Really and honestly. At least from what I can gather from my perch up high on the hill.

Then he asks me, “So are you popular?”

Which might seem to you to be a rather revolting question, but then you’re almost certainly NOT a thirteen year old, so who are you to judge? Because in the world of the thirteen year old this is the ONLY question. I should know, I used to be one.

And in this moment up on the hillside with the evening sun slanting across my cheekbones in a highly flattering manner, I AM popular. I can do and be ANYTHING.

After all, now that I’ve met Ian, I practically have a boyfriend.

“Yeah, I’m pretty popular,” I tell him.

We hang out every day, Ian and I, meeting at the playground outside my apartment to shuffle our feet and talk.

I can’t wait for school to start. It’s going to be so DIFFERENT this year, I think. Me with Ian. Ian and I. The two of us together.

I picture us walking hand in hand down the hallway. Sitting together on the bus. Studying together. Laughing. Being popular. Because how could you NOT be popular when you had an Ian?

Life doesn’t work like that, does it?

Maybe the worst thing about being thirteen is that you still think life DOES work like that. And you’re set up to be horribly, painfully, pathetically miserable when you inevitably find out that it doesn’t. It so doesn’t.

So it is with me. I get up an hour early to get ready for school, carefully picking out my outfit and doing my hair. I walk to the bus with butterflies in my stomach.

When I get to the busstop, Ian is already there. But he’s not the only one. Brian is there too… tries-too-hard Brian with the embarassing laugh and the pimply chin. Only his chin isn’t so pimply and he and Ian are intently talking, glancing my way every so often.

I have the distinctly uncomfortable feeling that they’re talking about me.  And NOT in a good way.

Ian sits next to Brian on the bus. And at lunch. They walk together in the hallway.

And, just as I predicted, Ian is immediately picked up by the popular kids. Only it’s Brian who he carries with him on his rise to glory and power, not me.

I guess that first day of school Ian learned the truth about me. That I wasn’t popular. And he never spoke to me again.

Later that week I came up with a plan.

I can’t bear being ignored without as much as an explanation. I decide that I just need to talk to Ian. Surely then he’ll remember about the good times. He’ll realize that popular doesn’t matter so much. We were friends after all.

On the way home from the bus stop I run to catch up with Ian and Brian.

“Hey! Ian!” I call out, and the stop.

Ian looks at me as if he’s never seen me before. Brian looks uncomfortable.

This can’t be right.

“Ian! What’s going on?”

Still nothing. Brian shifts nervously from one foot to the other.

“Why aren’t you talking to me?” I hear the whine in my voice but am helpless to control it.

Ian looks at me with such disdain that my stomach twists and pull with sick dread.

The look says it all.

“Stay away from me,” he says and walks away. Brian stands for a moment with pity in his eyes and then follows his friend.

Tears stream down my face as I race home to bury my head in my pillow. My heart hurts so much that I’m sure it will burst in a mess of anguish right there on my bed.

how can I go on living?  I wonder. And in that moment my agony is so complete that I really mean it. Life seems too cruel, too awful.

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My dust bunnies have names and personalities

I make a lot of jokes about my sad attempts at housecleaning and inevitably one of my girlfriends will look at me with that shifty uncomfortable look and go, “Oh come on Jen, you’re not that bad!”

But the truth is… I am that bad.

My friends either KNOW IT and are embarrassed on my behalf, or else they DON’T know it (which means they really don’t know me at all).

My house vacillates between two stages.

Stage 1: We have a regular paid PROFESSIONAL house cleaner.

Stage 2: Our house desperately needs a regular paid PROFESSIONAL house cleaner.

There is no in-between.

I can count on ONE HAND the number of times I have washed my kitchen floor.  And I’m not even exaggerating.

I can count on NO HANDS the number of times I’ve washed all my windows.  As for moving the furniture so that you can vacuum behind it… do people really do that?

You’re cringing, aren’t you?

Heck, I’m cringing.

The thing is, I LOVE a clean house. I adore coming home to a sparkling, shining, everything-in-its-place, good smelling house.  It BOTHERS me when things are messy, when floors are sticky, when crumbs pile up under the dining room table and the windows have smudges.

But I just hate cleaning.

HATE it.

I hate cleaning almost as much as I like doing other things that are NOT cleaning.  Like playing on the computer or gazing out the window or reading a magazine or walking around the lake or calling a friend or painting my nails or spending a WHOLE day at the zoo with CJ.  I’d rather do my taxes, pay my bills and EXERCISE than clean.

Every once in a while I’ll read one of those homemaker Clif notes, you know like TEN EASY WAYS TO GO FROM DINGY TO DAZZLING or KEEP YOUR HOUSE CLEAN IN 5 SECONDS A DAY! And I”ll get all inspired.  In that moment I can totally picture myself as the consummate homemaker, complete with cookies in the oven and a fresh bouquet of flowers on the table.  “Hello, honey, how was YOUR day?” I’ll say while looking pert in my freshly pressed apron and heels.

Only once the cookies are halfway made I start to get tired and less than inspired and sit down to take a breather and now I’m reading Real Simple and motivated by the gardening section and decide that I really need to go outside and water my plants and then I’m chatting with the neighbor and we decide to take the kids to the park and WHAT DO YOU KNOW it’s time for dinner.  Dinner?  Dinner!  There’s no groceries in the fridge and no food in the oven… oven… OVEN! the cookies!  They’ve burnt!  Oh the acrid smoke!

I’m sort of at a loss because even though I feel like I SHOULD have a whole lot of time on my hands in which I can be productive and get this house licked into shape, the reality is that I can barely, just barely, stay on top of the laundry and basic sanitation.

Most of the time I’m ok with this personal failing of mine, but other times it really bothers me.

Like today when CJ pulled a dusty mop from the closet and asked me, “Mommy, what’s THIS?”

“It’s a mop, CJ,” I tell him, “You use it to clean the floor.”

He looks at me like I’m speaking in Martian… which I basically am.

“Mommy!” he says excitedly, “I want to use the moff!”

And so I let him.  He squirts and swishes and dabs and the floor starts to look a little less dingy.

He’s soon bored with the kitchen so, what the heck, I decide to finish what he started. And as the floor gets more and more shiny, I feel a weight lift off my chest that I hadn’t even realized was there.

“Mommy!” CJ is tugging at my shirt, “Now I want to wash the floor in my room!”

I give my eager cleaner a squirt bottle filled with vinegar and water and a couple of rags, and he proceeds to spend THIRTY minutes on hands and knees scrubbing the wood floor in his bedroom as it has never before been scrubbed.  Every few minutes I peek in at him, and see him toiling away.

The room reeks of vinegar and the floors are starting to sparkle.

Watching him makes me tired, so I sit on the couch with a magazine.

Clearly I need help.  My five-year old son is a more diligent cleaner than I am.

This is where you come in.  I know for an absolute fact that some of you… MOST of you… are better housekeepers than I am. Top-notch housekeepers.  Housekeepers to end all housekeepers, even.  Or, at least, you don’t have seventeen pet dust bunnies who’ve lived in the house so long they have their own NAMES.

I need you help!  I need your advice!  I need your tips and tricks!  And hey, we can all learn from each other. 

So… are you up for it?  I’m thinking a carnival where everyone shares their housecleaning advice.  The stuff you learned the hard way, or that was passed down from your mother, or that you just instinctively know.

Next Wednesday.  Mark your calendars.

I need you!

Not to be all man-bashing or anything, but it’s time for some serious man bashing.

The weather here in Seattle has gone from cold and gloomy to hot hot HOT.

Which means there’s a whole lot of pasty skinned folk running around like chickens with our heads cut off. 

It’s so HOT!

What do we do in this heat?

How can we COOL OFF?!

When it’s cool, we moan and complain about the UNSEASONABLY COLD WEATHER.  But the minute it acts like summer we make like snowmen and head for the AC.  Because even a teeny-tiny drop of sweat is surely a sign of impending doom.

AGGGHHH!!! I’m sweating! DO SOMETHING!!!

We’re a fickle lot.

So I’m reading the forecast and I see that HOT WEATHER is expected for the weekend.

“Jay!” I say, “When you’re at Target why don’t you pick up a kiddie pool.”

Which seems like a fairly simple and straightforward task, even for a man.  Right?

WRONG.

Not to be all man-bashing or anything, but it’s time for some serious man bashing.

How is it that you can send a man to the store to get something and EVERY TIME he comes back with something that is NOT THE THING HE’S SUPPOSED TO HAVE GOTTEN?! And not only will he not buy the thing that you sent him to get in the first place, but he’ll replace that thing with something that you definitely certainly ABSOLUTELY do not want and would never buy!

So off Jay drives to “get a kiddie pool.”

Except somewhere between our house and the Target checkout counter he ends up with a Color Stream squirt gun (which, by the way, is NOT a kiddie pool).

Because, well, it’s a gun that shoots COLORS.  And CJ wanted it.

“CJ wants a lot of things,” I moan, “It doesn’t mean they’re a good idea!  And how are we supposed to COOL OFF without a kiddie pool?!”

But my argument is too little too late and even I know a losing battle when I see one.  So I go back to cleaning up.

The next thing I know there is brightly colored dye dripped across my kitchen. CJ is covered with the stuff, as is half of our back deck.

“AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!”

Something about this dye-dripping gun making a mess of my freshly cleaned kitchen triggers RAGE and EXTREME ANGER.  I can feel the heat rising to my face and my fists are clenched and shaking.  I yank the gun from CJ’s hand and toss it in the sink.

“I am going to throw this gun in the street and run over it with the car!” I shout.

CJ looks at me as only your child can look at you when you’ve crossed the line into downright mean and nasty.

I immediately feel bad.  I don’t want to be this mom… the one who yells and storms about and is downright unreasonable.

“JAY!!” I bellow, “YOU NEED TO SUPERVISE THIS TOY!!!”

Jay comes upstairs and looks from the red splotches on the floor to the red splotches on my face.  He says in his most soothing tone, “Don’t worry, the dye is WASHABLE.”

Only it isn’t really unless by “Washable” they mean DOESN’T COME OFF WITH WATER.

“Hmm, it doesn’t really come off,” Jay mutters as he scrubs at the stains.

Imagine that.

I am tempted to get the Color Stream Squirt gun from the sink and bash my dearest husband right across the head with it.

Instead, I drive to Target and buy myself a kiddie pool.

Things that go bump in the night

It’s after midnight and I’m exhausted. I have a nasty cold, my nose won’t stop running, and my head aches and aches. It’s been a long day and all I want to do is sleep.

But I cannot go to sleep.

Our king-sized bed seems massive when I’m the only one in it. Our darkened house is foreign, eery, and fraught with danger when I’m the sole protector.

I kick off the blankets, sit up in bed, and…

What was that noise?

I cock my head to the side, listening intently. I am almost positive that something when BUMP downstairs.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand up. Ever-so-quietly I creep into the hallway and down the stairs. The moonlight shining through the window casts an eery glow across the basement.

It is silent.

But wait… over there…

What is that shape there in the shadows?

I feel as though I’m in the clutches of a bad dream, frozen to the spot, helpless to move. My heart races like a thousand horses inside my heaving chest.

Frantically I look around for a makeshift weapon.

WHY don’t I believe in guns, again?

Right now a semi-automatic or sawed-off shotgun is sounding pretty good.

WHY did we settle on goldfish rather than an attack dog?

I’d give my left elbow for a drooling rottweiler right about now.

Unfortunately the closest thing that I have is the broom resting against the wall.

This will have to do.

I pick up the broom and advance toward the suspicious shape.

Outside I hear a car engine starting up. A cloud crosses in front of the moon and the room darkens. My heart is pounding so forcefully that I fear it will beat its way right out of my chest and onto the floor.

As I get closer, I see that the shape that I’m about to attack is only a pile of unfolded laundry.

Blasted laundry.

I straighten up and heave a sigh of relief.

Might as well check one more time to make sure the house is secure.

And so I begin the fifteenth vigil through the house, checking to see that each window and door is fastened and bolted, and examining the closets and corners for evidence of lurking hoodlums.

It’s all secure. Still.

The only thing lurking is dust bunnies… and they’re harmless.

Wearily, I return to my bed.

The house is secure. I tell myself. Nothing is going to happen.

So why can’t I sleep?

And WHAT was that bumping sound?

The hairs along the back of my neck stand at attention.

This is going to be a LONG night.

Somehow I do actually survive this seemingly endless week of nights in which I battle imaginary burglers all alone while Jay “works” in London.

Finally, after getting his fill of biscuits and tea or bangers and mash or kidney pie or WHATEVER he is eating over there, Jay flies home across the Atlantic Ocean and into the arms of his bleary-eyed wife and amazingly well-rested son.

Who are VERY glad to see him.

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