My Infestation, Let Me Show You It

A couple years ago, shortly before we moved from DC to the Stupid Suburbs, my recently-transplanted-from-California friend sent me a camera phone photo and a hysterical text message.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS FUCK YOU EAST COAST

The picture was of the most hideous insect I had ever seen. Including the time I found a cockroach in my bathtub.

(Although cockroach encounters are almost like a bizarre form of street cred for City People. It reaffirms that yes, I am so hardcore in my desire to Walk To Things (translation: Starbucks) that I am perfectly okay with spending half a million dollars to live in a 800-square-foot hellhole.)

Anyway, this bug was ugly. It was obviously some kind of beetle but the kind of beetle that would eat ladybugs for lunch and then poop out some kind of flesh-eating disease. All over your face. While you slept.

I texted back.

HOLY FUCK KILL IT KILL IT I AM THROWING SHOES FROM HERE.

My phone was silent for a few minutes. And then.

FUCK IT CAN FLY IT CAN FLLLY FUCK

And a few minutes later, she called.

"Cilannnnntrooooo!" she wailed.

"WHAT?"

"Cilantro! I squashed it with Skip's shoe and now the whole room smells like rotten goddamn cilantro."

(Skip is her husband.)

We both got on our computers and started Googling "cilantro smelly rotten egg beetles" and quickly determined that it was a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug. A nuisance bug accidentally introduced to our continent from China, like a plague of mass-produced lead-painted Thomas trains. And we learned that by squishing the sucker inside her house, my friend had essentially broadcasted to every other stink bug in the area that her house was a nice warm place to infest.

"That's stupid," she said. "That's the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Come to this house, bugs! They have shoes! It smells like death!"

Then she fell oddly silent, and asked if she and her son could come over for awhile.

"Amy," she whispered. "There are like, five more of them on the outside of the screen door. They're just...sitting there."

"Oh my God," I whispered back, for some reason. "Grab your keys and the baby and get out of there. Don't worry about anything else. We have diapers and blankets and you can borrow clothes if you need them. Just GET OUT OF THERE."

When she arrived, I immediately told her about the time I found a cockroach in the tub. To this day I will never understand why she moved back to California.

***

And now we live in the suburbs. And every fall it's the same disgusting thing. Stink bugs all over the outside of the house and window screens, waiting, plotting, inevitably finding their way inside. Mosquitoes, too. They sense their imminent wintery death and go completely berserk in September, biting you through seventeen coats of DEET, making every trip outside to drop wine bottles in the recycling bin an exercise in terror. This year, we have a nest of yellow jackets in the flower bed right outside our front door and Jason found a dried-out snakeskin near our dryer vent. And then there's the fucking CRICKETS. And then! Three days ago I noticed some other giant (HUGE) mysterious beetle-bug-thing on one of our windows, and as I have considerable problem-solving skills, I simply closed the window to trap it, because it just looked entirely too substantial to crush with a tissue. As of right now, the thing is STILL NOT DEAD YET.

It's all so gross, this stupid nature.

This year seems like the worst one yet, though. Almost Hitchcockian. The stink bugs just all simultaneously APPEARED yesterday. I noticed one on the crown molding in the living room...right as I heard the telltale buzzing of another one taking flight behind me behind me don't land on me don't land on me gaaaah. I lowered the window shades and HOLY FUCK, they were everywhere, just sitting there. First-floor windows, second-floor windows. I checked all our screens for points of entry and armed myself with the Shop Vac. 

We have a service contract with a pest control company, and twice a year they come out and spray for termites and check the perimeter and windows and set out little sticky traps to see if we can figure out how the fuck all these bugs are getting in and twice a year the visit ends with a baffled shrug. 

Yesterday, I think I cracked the mystery.

(Oh hey, if you're still reading at this point but are like, itching from head to toe a little bit? You might want to finally cry uncle and bail.)

So ever since the Great Fertilizer Dog Buffet Debacle and subsequent shutting down of the Canine Liver Contingent, we've been diligent composters. Yesterday, however, I left the pile's offerings (bruised section of peach, apple core, lettuce) sit out on the kitchen counter for juuuuust a bit too long, as we've yet to buy a suitable indoor container. I went to toss a banana peel on top and OH MY GOD, a fucking mushroom cloud of fruit flies sprang from its depths. I gagged and grabbed the nearest bowl (Sorry, Dora the Explorer), swept everything into it and bolted outside to deposit it in our composter.

(EXHIBIT 28430290 OF WHY HIPPIES ARE STUPID, DAMN DIRTY)

As soon as I opened the back door, the stink bugs attacked. Five or six of them flew towards the opening at top speed. I shrieked and slammed the door shut. The motion once again disturbed the flock of fruit flies who were following me and my bowl of mush like the Pied Piper, and a stink bug ricocheted off the door frame and landed on my hand. I dropped the bowl and shrieked again, and the bug fell off my hand...and into my shoe.

(Gardening clogs, okay? That I promise I only wear for GARDENING. And picking up dog crap. And fine, maaaaaybe taking Noah out to the school bus sometimes but it's just because they are usually right there by the door and that's just really convenient.)

At this point I probably looked and sounded like I was being attacked by bees. Or sharks. Or hell demons. I kicked off my shoe and sent it sailing across the yard and stood there for another three or four minutes shaking my limbs and hair and clothing while gasping out stuff like "ew ew ew ew ew shit shit shit."

When I stopped to catch my breath and retrieve my shoe and Dora bowl (opting to allow the compost to stay where it fell, providing all kinds of essential nutrients to the wood of the back deck), I made the mistake of surveying the back of our house.

Stink bugs. Everywhere. On the brick, on the windows, on the gutters. I slooooowly reached for the screen door handle and I SWEAR, they all fired up their wings, ready to attack. 

I dashed in as fast as I could, slamming the storm door closed (AND LOCKING THE DEADBOLT, BECUZ I ARE SMARTER THAN THEM BUGS). I walked over to the sink to deposit the bowl...and felt something on my ankles.

Two mosquitoes. I smashed them, leaving smears of blood on top of the already-forming welts.  (FOUR BITES, already. FOUR.)

And that's when I noticed something in my hair. Multiple somethings.

You guys. They rode inside the house IN MY HAIR.

By my count, THREE OF THEM. I have since vacuumed up one, another is MIA (shakes hair shakes hair shakeshair), and I have cornered a third one inside the living room blinds, unable to coax it quiiiiite close enough to where my vacuum can get at it.

No, seriously:

The way we live now.

(And just for the sake of completeness, besides the two mosquitoes that used my ankle as some kind of illegal border crossing van, minutes later I found a third one, BITING MY BABY ON THE FACE. Without thinking, I smacked it off him [AND THUS, HIS FACE], which shocked him so much that he did the whole heartbreaking face-melting-sobbing-real-tears thing, and then STILL woke up this morning with EIGHT gigantic angry red bites on his face and legs. Obviously, the suburbs are dirty, disgusting and absolutely no place to raise children.)

Weekend Vignettes

For reasons that I believe can go mostly undocumented, we thought the dog had salmonella on Saturday. We found stray mussel shells from a disastrously ambitious dinner scattered in the yard; puddles of sick scattered pretty much everywhere else. She's actually just fine, but I just wanted to mention it anyway because I had to clean up a LOT of barf. You know. Just in case Ceiba ever reads this website one day. I cleaned up your barf, and I didn't like it. And now you never call! Ingrate.

*They ALL DIED before we could cook them. I set them on a paper towel for ONE MINUTE and every goddamn mussel decided to commit ritualistic suicide rather than face the hot pan of death. I was going to drown you in WINE, you bastards. WINE. We should all be so lucky to die such a death.

***
In other best-left-to-the-imagination news, we have a mouse in our kitchen. And clearly, the most useless-ass pets EVER.

***

Scene: Every Saturday Morning In Our House, Ever

Jason: Anything you want to do today?

Amy: I want to go to Ikea.

Jason: We're not going to Ikea.

Amy: (dramatic flailing)

Fin.

***

You probably know by now that I eat pretty much everything. Food is my hobby, since I don't know how to knit and dislike standing for long periods of time. I'm actually trying to think of something that I won't eat. Wait, okay, I've got it: raw onions, Cool Whip, head cheese. Tongue as long as it still resembles a tongue. I used to not eat rabbit -- because you know, bunnnnnnies! -- until we moved to the suburbs and a goddamn rabbit ate all my flowers and now I will eat the hell out some rabbit. I will eat that rabbit, if my dog ever stops gnawing on diseased mussels long enough to catch the stupid thing. (Hey, here's a recipe!)

Saturday night I ate pork cracklins for the first time -- fancy cracklins, apparently, since they were served on a charcuterie board alongside wee little pickles -- and for the first time in ages I was completely flummoxed by a food item. It was salty, crunchy and aggressively unhealthy -- my top three most favorite adjectives for food -- but OH MY GOD, IT WAS SKIN, RECOGNIZABLE SKIN, THERE WERE VISIBLE HAIR FOLLICLES. I could FEEL the skin-like texture on my tongue, I was Homer Simpson, sampling from the regenerative bacon buffet in the Garden of Eden.*

So instead of eating them, I lined a few up on my arm and asked Jason to get another few orders because the restaurant was chilly and I wanted a cardigan. Jason was all, "give those back, they're delicious."

*If you know what I'm talking about here, congratulations! We can be friends. We'll eat some deep-fried skin and then go get ice cream.

***

On Sunday, we went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Noah loved everything about it, except for the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese, whom he eyed warily from the table, nervously eating bites of pizza. When the costumed Chuck E. Cheese (who was missing one furry glove for most of the proceedings) showed up, we had to retreat to a safe distance.

Noah: THAT BUNNY NEEDS TO GO AWAY.

Amy: He's a mouse, sweetie.

Noah: THAT BUNNY MOUSE NEEDS TO GO HOME.

***

As we drove home, Jason and I had a 20-minute unironic conversation about minivans and the many, many attractive features they offer. We're certainly not in the market for a new car or anything, but Jason rode in his coworker's Odyssey and like, maaaaaan, that thing was sweeeeeet. You don't even have to fold the stroller or anything. I remembered the same thing about a friend's minivan in a fit of retroactive lust, shaking my head at my naive young ATTITUDE towards minivans, back when I knew NOTHING about the world and what happens to all your "adequate cargo space" once you have two children.

Amy: I mean, just THINK of all the stuff we could buy at Ikea!

***

We never made it to Ikea. We went to the Big Box Baby Store instead and bought additional baby gates, because our 9-month-old does not have the sense God gave a bunny mouse. While shopping, I was approached TWICE about the Ergo carrier and whether I liked it (yes, oh God, yes), what age I started using it (31) (haaaa, I'm an ass), and then approached again by someone trying to decide between two different floor gyms and which one was better (is it for your baby? no? okay, get whatever one blinks and makes noise.)

Less than an hour after that, we stopped at Whole Foods and a timid young thing in high heels asked me what the difference was between brown eggs and white eggs, and if she hard-boiled the brown ones would they like, be the same? With a white part and a yellow center? She then admitted that this was her first grocery-shopping trip out on her own, and I noticed that her shopping list contained the instruction to "open egg carton and check for broken shells."

Amy: Wow, I must look like, really extra helpful today, or something!

Jason: I think it's more that you just look so much like a mom.

Amy: Do I look like I drive a minivan? Because I don't. Yet. Seriously, the back seats FOLD INTO THE FLOOR, OH MY GOD.

***

We've been pricing up laptops for awhile now -- the Macbook's motherfuckingboard was going to cost a motherfucking fortune to fix, plus it seemed like the water damage was pretty damn catastrophic, and the repair couldn't guarantee that other inside-techie things hadn't shorted out -- and I was resigned to buying a cheaper non-Mac, because. Well. Cheaper. I officially put off the purchase waaaay too long, leading to lost posts and enormous amounts of frustration once the mouse key broke, randomly moving the cursor to different parts of the screen while I typed gaaaaaaaaah kill.

So on Thursday we went to the Big Box Computer Store and I glumly pecked on some keyboards and finally declared one "pretty okay." I knew we could get it cheaper online though, so we didn't buy it.

On Friday -- before any of this other stuff happened, even though Jason probably knew it was a pretty safe bet that I would make stupid jokes out in public, that I would bug him about taking me to Ikea, that I would wander around stores looking like a frumpy, frizzy, minivan-lusting mom -- he came home from work and pulled a brand-new Macbook out of his briefcase. I was stunned.

Jason: You use it every day. It's what you do. It's important. You should have the one you want.

Our anniversary is in a few days. Eleven years. Our life is nothing like the one we thought we'd have once upon a time.

(I still have the one I want.)

It's Input, It's Input Time

Okay, so a lot of you demanded to see photos of the headband. A lot of you do not have much goin' on for you, these days, I'm guessin'. Anyway, I wasn't intentionally holding out on you, I just...um...haven't been washing my hair much this week, in order to test out some new dry shampoo and various oily-scalp things for the Advice Smackdown. Results have been...mixed. Helmet-head-ish, with a side of Ye Olde Timey Powdered Wig. You know, REALLY PRETTY. Really ready for a close-up self-portrait to be published across the land.

I bought it at H&M after watching entirely too much Top Chef, because that one girl always wore double headbands like this one, only not really like this one at all, as you can see close up:

Even the girl on Top Chef had re-thought the headbands by the reunion show. I should have learned a similar lesson, including the fact that this fucker HURTS MY HEAD.

Anyway. The glittery headband is just all around Bad Idea Jeans, I realize that now. Moving on! It is now time to talk about how ugly my kitchen is.

See, when we moved into this house, we were completely thrilled with the kitchen layout. The previous owners had knocked down walls! Installed a breakfast bar! Extra cabinets, lazy susans, built-in wine racks, A SPONGE CUBBY! Huzzah!

As for the actual look of the kitchen...well. The previous owners had also used the cheapest, crappiest cabinets and countertops possible. We planned on eventually replacing the counters and at least refacing the cabinets, but...well, again. That's not going to happen for awhile, what with our current state of brokeassness. We've also (obviously) scrapped any talk of moving back to the city, since Noah (obviously) needs to stay here in this school district. Thus, we're trying to do that whole "make the best of things" (uh) THING. So while I can't afford to really change the kitchen, I believe we can afford a couple gallons of paint.

But I am TERRIBLE at this stuff, Internet. Seriously. I read those design/decorating blogs and it's like there is a hole in my genetic code where that sort of talent should be. I mean, I can look at a photo and be like, THAT, RIGHT THERE! I LOVE! But then I have no idea how to make my actual house look like that. I go for "eclectic" and the result is "cluttered mish-mosh." I go for "modern" and the result is "Ikea." I go for anything else and the result is "Amy got this because it was on sale, and it was on sale because HOLY GOD, LOOK AT IT."

So. Here. Help me. I know this is spectacularly boring, but I am clueless.

We have your typical plain white laminate cabinets and a black-and-white-and-grey laminate countertop. There's kind of a tiny bit of a brownish-putty color in the counters as well, but it's really nothing I'd want on the walls. The current paint is a really terribly blah shade of yellow that doesn't look good with the white AT ALL in real life (it looks oddly more neutral in photos, not so much in person). Besides, I've pretty much utterly destroyed the paint job anyway.

I can't really judge the chooser of this color though, because I know EXACTLY how it came to me: the stark cabinets and black counters and modern handles ended up looking a little cold and boring, so yellow was chosen to "warm the room up," or some other great idea that only works if you have any real eye for color. Which they didn't. (400 different shades of beige! Every wall a slightly different shade of beige! That's not a color scheme, that's an obessive compulsive disorder!).

So my ideas begin and end with: Let's paint it white. At least white won't actively clash and bug me so much. But then there are the floors, which are a darkish reddish hardwood, and ALSO kind of clash with the modern black and white. We installed the floors back when we were so sure that a kitchen makeover was next on our to-do list. Back before everything went, you know, BOOM.

(We also wanted floors that matched our dog, just so she could camouflage herself for maximum Getting Stepped On. Success!)

So there you have it. We need a new paint color. The appliances are all white, and will likely be staying that way (see: BOOM, etc.). Would you paint the walls white? White with an accent wall? Totally not white but some other awesome color that I'm too stupid to think off? (And one that we also wouldn't have to paint over in the unlikely even that we DO move in a couple years, like the crazy bright blue we had in our old kitchen that we thought was SO AWESOME until we painted it white before listing our condo and then were all, "Oh. This looks much better. Huh.")

Also, please know that I am not handy enough to attempt anything like a tile backsplash or really, anything other than paint. Although I AM incredibly tempted by shit like this, which seems cheap and easy and thus guaranteed to end in disaster.

Thank you, dear one Internet, for any help you can provide in this clearly very important matter.

Sincerely,
PRINCESS AUDITOR GENERAL AMALAH SPARKLE HEADBAND OF THE NIGERIAN AMALAHALAHS, ESQ.

To Do: Drive to Doctor's Office, Walk in Door, Fail Spectacularly

Here, I drew you a picture of our trip a new pediatrician this morning:

 

(Click to embiggen and like, really DRINK IN the artistry of those brushstrokes)

After regarding the mailbox for awhile and determining that it was, in fact, a standard blue United States Postal Service mailbox and NOT a pediatric practice with a bitchin' infant drop-off system, I figured we should head towards the nearest actual office building. Which as you can clearly see, is Not The Doctor. Not Our Doctor, anyway. There were many doctors in it, and I'm sure they are lovely doctors, even if the design of their building leaves something to be desired, as...I don't know, I figured DOORS are usually somewhat adjacent to PARKING LOTS and basically ended up circling the entire building -- like some kind of suburban obstacle course designed by MC Escher -- before finding the door. Which was Not The Door To The Doctor Anyway.

The Doctor was at 101313 Major Big Ass Road. Not The Doctor was 101310 Major Big Ass Road, although the building number was -- YOU GUESSED IT -- not anywhere near the goddamn door, but sort of diagonally facing the road, and blocked by some trees.

And that's how I ended up wandering down a major big ass road with Ezra strapped to my chest and Noah's hand in mine while I barked threats of NEVER WATCHING TELEVISION EVER AGAIN AND THAT INCLUDES THE LITTLE MERMAID SO HELP ME GOD if he dared pull his hand away. It was either that or the swamp, or scaling a fence.

(Or getting back in the car and strapping everybody back in and like, driving to the correct building. But I think it's pretty clear that course-correction out in the field is generally not one of my strengths.)

EPILOGUE:

We made it to The Doctor.

I did not like This Doctor as much as Our Old Doctor (who is now out-of-network; I may never really stop crying), but Noah thought the office had much cooler toys (meaning germy-looking busted-ass plastic baby toys instead of lovely hand-painted wooden bead mazes).

Ezra weighs 17.6 pounds and is in the 25th percentile for weight and height.

His enormous head is enormous. 95th percentile enormous.

I gave my GPS a good stern talking-to, it responded by moving my home address 100 yards north into a drainage ditch.

Pansy

I spent all weekend planting things. OUTSIDE things. OUTSIDE, where there are bugs. Worms. Dirt. Nature.

After working diligently for two whole minutes I commented to Jason that this wasn't so bad. This wasn't so bad at all!

We've spent the last 10 months or so going back and forth about whether we really want to stay out here in the suburbs -- we kind of hate it, honestly -- and we were *thiiiiiis close* to making an offer on a condo in our old neighborhood (hell, practically in our old building) right after Ezra was born (hell, he was still pruny and gory) but then waffled for five minutes because HELLO, pruny gory baby and our house wasn't ready to sell (despite our best psychotic nesting efforts) and then the condo went under contract and All The Stuff With Noah happened and finally we both admitted that yes, we really really really do want to move back to the city but it's just not the right time yet, maybe next year, in the meantime, let's get outside and plant some goddamn tulips.

So there I was, planting things -- some bulbs for next year, some shrubs and groundcover and a million and four purple and yellow pansies -- and after I planted the third bulb and STILL hadn't gotten bored and/or irritated enough to wander away from the project, I degreed that yardwork really wasn't so bad.

That's when Jason noticed that I was planting two-year-old dead and dried-out husky shells of bulbs instead of actual living bulbs that would...you know...grow. He suggested I move on to the pansies.

I spent hours planting pansies. Yellow, purple, yellow, purple. We dragged Ezra's Jumperoo out onto the lawn with us, using him as bait to Finally Get Our Neighbors To Talk To Us, while I planted and planted and every exposed inch of my skin broke out in various kinds of rashes (when I was in elementary school and was quizzed on my extremely long list of allergies I usually gave up halfway through and simply said I was allergic to "OUTSIDE").

(Photo not actually representative of this story, but inserted anyway because HELLO TALKY.)

When I was done, I had several garden beds of somewhat pathetic little lines of droopy pansies -- nothing like those landscaping shows that I watch whenever I'm in a "let's make the best of the suburbs!" mood. (Whenever I'm in a "screw this, let's move back to the city!" mood I watch shows about real estate, and whenever I'm in a "we probably couldn't move even if we wanted to because goddamn this economy!" mood I watch the Food Network for 76 hours straight and order a lot of pizzas.)

We still decided it was a Good Start, since the previous owners hadn't exactly exerted a ton of landscaping effort either -- when we visited an area nursery soon after we moved in we found a clearance table all the way in the back that featured every single plant and shrub currently residing in our yard. Next weekend we mulch, or something, I don't know, and then after that we start on some serious vegetable container gardens in the backyard. Or something. I don't know! Last year we grew herbs and tomatoes and this year Jason bought a book and is growing salad and peppers and is promising me all sorts of amazing things and I think he may very well have lost his goddamned mind.

Meanwhile, every indoor plant we brought here from our old condo has died of root rot. I feel very responsible. My misguided belief that we really needed More Closet Space led to plant genocide, including my favorite jade plant, which was the first one to die, and at the time I was all, "oh well, who cares, I have extra bathrooms!" but I've never stopped thinking about that plant, because I loved that plant, and I miss that plant, and how lovely it always looked on the windowsill at our old condo. And while I'm no gardening expert or a pyschologist, I get that it's probably not REALLY about that plant.

Meanwhile, I have a splinter in my foot and my back hurts and I couldn't sleep last night because I was stressing about how we need to cover our new plants with some sheets tonight so they won't freeze and do I have enough clean sheets? But I suppose that's preferable to stressing about April 16th, the freshly-set date for Noah's evaluation with the school district -- speech, motor, hearing, vision, social skills, sensory issues, the whole shebang -- an evaluation that will likely decide for us whether we belong here or elsewhere, whether the district will help him or if we remain on our own, whether it's worth staying where we're unhappy or time to move on, Montessori vs. special needs vs. something in between, public vs. private, suburbs vs. city, whether or not we'll still be here next spring when the periennials return.

Famous Last Words

FRIDAY:

"I don't think I've got the nesting thing as bad this time, you know?"

"Oh yeah, you're much calmer. You haven't even said a single word about replacing the kitchen cabinets."

SATURDAY:

I made us drive two states and like, four counties south to look at houses, because I thought we could cut our mortgage in half and get a single family home with a garage and a whirlpool tub in the master bath and you know what we could do with all that extra money every month? We could replace the kitchen cabinets! I am brilliant! This is a brilliant plan! I've got a stack of realtor.com printouts and a good feeling about this one zip code, which is ridiculously extra cheap and I'm guessing it's just because other people have never HEARD of this zip code and not for like, a real valid reason like you need to keep a cattle prod handy to keep your neighbor's herd out of your tomato garden.

SUNDAY:

Okay, so that didn't go super well. I'm not ready to give up. I have a NEW stack of realtor.com printouts and a few different neighborhoods triangulated on the GPS. We won't drive QUITE so far out this time, and I have a really good feeling about THIS zip code, which is also strangely cheap even though it's really close to an area we totally can't afford, and again I'm just going to assume that this neighborhood simply hasn't crossed anyone else's mind as an option and not because of like, rapes and shootings and gangs and drive-bys. Or tractor-bys. Look at this little yellow house! It's precious! It's adorable! I know there aren't any photos of the inside and we've heard crazy stories about people pooping in the appliances and pouring cement down the pipes when the bank repossesses their house but NO ONE would do something like that to such a precious little house like this one, right?

SUNDAY NIGHT, AFTER WE GOT HOME AND INSTALLED A NEW LIGHT FIXTURE IN THE DINING ROOM WHICH MEANT WE HAD TO REARRANGE THE DINING ROOM FURNITURE AND HANG NEW PICTURE FRAMES, AND NOW WE NEED TO CALL AN ELECTRICIAN BECAUSE I WANT THE LIGHT FIXTURE CENTERED OVER THE DINING ROOM TABLE'S NEW POSITION AND OH MY GOD WE ARE SOOOO REPLACING THAT UGLY RUG AND AFTER WE RELOCATED THE LIQUOR CABINET AND REARRANGED THE LIVING ROOM FURNITURE TO ACCOMMODATE OUR NEW COFFEE TABLE THAT WE GOT AT THE POTTERY BARN OUTLET AND PULLED EVERYTHING OFF THE BOOKSHELVES TO MAKE THE ROOM SEEM LESS CLUTTERED AND I MADE JASON ORGANIZE OUR DVD COLLECTION WHILE I IRONED THE DRAPES:

"So what if we just REFACE the kitchen cabinets?"

Can't Blog, Wii-ing

I don't know if any of y'all have heard about this "Wii" thing -- I'm not sure how much "buzz" it gets from the "kids" on their "webbylogs" or anything -- but I have to say, Nintendo just might be on to something here. Illiterate people read it here first!

So Monday's entry aside, I really did buy Jason a birthday gift -- ye Gods, I am not that heartless -- and while this is definitively the final nail in the Not-Going-to-Blogher Coffin, the poor guy really did deserve a great big toy this year, and I don't think we're QUITE at the point where me taking a solo trip to California for four days would constitute a birthday present, IN SPITE OF me being completely annoying as all shit to live with.

(ALTHOUGH! Perhaps I could sell tickets for public performances of my hulking pregnant self awkwardly flailing around the room playing "tennis" while screaming THAT WAS IN, MOTHERFUCKERS at the bobbleheady figures on my TV. That might just finance the airfare.)

I am not really a big video game person. The last game I played was Grand Theft Auto III, and I only made it about halfway through the game before I realized I had to quit playing, since I found myself regularly planning my trajectory over highway medians and through that crowd of hookers while on my way to work. Yeah, that'll shave a few minutes off my commute for sure, especially if I can get some sweet air coming out of that aqueduct.

Hopefully it won't get so out-of-hand this time, provided I don't lose too badly at Wii Bowling tonight and like, break a lamp over Jason's head. Luckily, I have REALLY GOOD REASON to go outside occasionally.

Oh, it's so terrible for the lawn and yet so very, very good for everything else.

We're LATCH Compatible

So, we've shared a lot this week -- we've loved, laughed, learned! -- and I think we've all made some excellent progress towards Better & Fulfilled Marriages, most specifically in the areas of trust, vulnerability, communication and compromise, but I would just like to say that sometimes it is still all about the winning.

While Jason's suggestion of going a few months without a car payment was indeed fiscally responsible, and while I have no doubt that his offer to "work from home anytime [I] needed the car" was both sincere and well-intentioned, I calmly and rationally and lovingly explained that if I had to clear AND justify every single vehicular-based movement with him for so much as a goddamn week, I would stab him in the ears with a fork while he slept.

Sorry, I cannot blog today. I am far too busy thinking of places I can drive my hot new sensible momcar to. Look out world, it fits TWO carseats and features rugged all-weather mats for maximum stray-Cheerio collection. Wicked sweet, dude. Perhaps I shall go challenge some area minivans to a street race.

The Cider Fridge Rules

Camera status: saved! A dry micro-shammy thing that was probably purchased off an infomercial many moons ago, back when I used to stumble home from bars and watch infomercials 'til morning -- damn, what a wild, crazy diamond I was back then -- lifted the crayon off the screen in about two minutes flat. The viewfinder was a tad more difficult, since Noah managed to really mash the crayon in there, but with a little help from a revolutionary new product (order now and get DOUBLE YOUR ORDER!) called a Q-tip, I was able to clean that up as well.

I possibly should have tried this, or you know, ANYTHING AT ALL before turning to the Internet, but...well, problem-solving is not my forte. I am not an Everyday Household Products As Practical Solutions Viking. I prefer to 1) panic, and 2) leave the problem for someone else to solve, lest I grab the Goof Off and allow it to leak into some tiny yet highly-sensitive electronic crevice and have the whole camera blow up in my hands like the Death Star, faster than you can bullseye a womprat.

Case in point: the rising levels of apple cider in our basement.

OK, so let me back up and explain that Jason and I operate our household firmly on a "smelt it/dealt it" system. You use the last of something, be it toilet paper or soap or whatever = you replace or refill it, right then and there. You toss a paper towel into the trash and it slides off the towering mound of garbage that's a good three inches past the brim of the can = put your shoes on; it's your turn to take it outside.

It's a fair system, but easily manipulated. Mostly by me. I will happily wander off to toss my paper towels into the powder room wastebasket for days on end if I suspect the kitchen trash is getting especially full and/or smelly. I will never admit that I actually don't understand how the under-the-sink soap-dispenser works and will wash my hands with dish detergent instead, I will then dry my hands on the ass of my jeans rather than retrieve a fresh hand towel from the dryer, and when confronted with a leaking gallon of apple cider in the basement refrigerator door I will just straight up ignore that shit until someone else figures out how to sponge up the three inches' worth of apple cider that has pooled into the shelf because seriously, that seems like it's going to take a LOT of paper towels.

OK, so let me back up some more. I did not buy the apple cider. I did not put the apple cider in the door of the basement refrigerator. I don't know why we had a gallon of apple cider in the door of the basement refrigerator and why it had sat there unused for six solid months. Thus, I ignored it. Jason likes to buy odd ingredients for recipes he finds online that he will never actually cook, but I am usually forbidden from finding an alternative use for them because NOOOO I WAS GONNA MAKE THAT TOMORROW I MEAN IT THIS TIME I SWEAR, even though I know he'll come home tomorrow and order a pizza instead.

(10 years of marriage this August, folks. We really should hit the how-to self-help circuit, since I'm sure we could be a real inspiration to dozens.)

Sooooo, our fridge tends to be littered with stray stalks of lemongrass and four distinct kinds of kale and smelly cheeses and the last time I looked closely in the freezer I spotted something that still seemed to have its head and neck and possibly an eyeball. Thus, I IGNORE THINGS. YOU CANNOT BLAME ME TOO MUCH.

And I ignored the cider at first. And then one day, about two months ago, when I opened the door to retrieve some bottled water, I realized that it was leaking. The rogue liquid was contained by a mercifully solid plastic shelf, but it was enough to pose a bit of a logistical problem, at least to me. Should I bail the shelf out, like with a cup? Would I need some sort of bucket? And what happened if I picked up the actual container of cider, only to discover that the shelf itself was stemming a total gush of the contents and it went everywhere? I have a lot of important piles of dirty laundry in that immediate area!

So I came up with my stop-gap solution: close the fridge door and go back upstairs, and then hope that Jason needed a bottle of water soon.

But then a problem arose -- Jason made trips to the basement fridge and said nothing about the cider, and the cider problem remained solidly un-taken-care-of. So I assumed we'd moved on to Phase Two of Operation Smelt It/Dealt It, which is a two-way battle of wills to see who can ignore a problem the longest. I tend to win these battles, especially when they are about clutter or dog poop or general squalor.

(I tend to lose the battles that involve insects inside the house and anything that requires the use of a power tool, because those are things JASON IS SUPPOSED TO DO FOR ME, AM GIRL, and he gets a tremendous kick out of watching me slowly wig out, yellow-wallpaper style, over a crooked curtain rod or OMFG THAT SPIDER OVER THERE DO SOMETHING DOOOOOO SOMETHING.)

(10 years! I believe the traditional gift is tin!)

Ahem. So. Cider. Rising. Leaking. Three inches of liquid slowly turned to four, and then last weekend I opened the door and a small amount of cider splashed up and over the side of the shelf and dripped on the floor, narrowly missing my pile of sweaters that have been waiting for the Dryel bag since...hmm...some of them are kind of cropped so I'm gonna have to guess mid-2004-ish.

I went upstairs and announced to Jason that I was Crying Uncle, it was time to break down and do something about the cider.

"What cider?" he asked.

I stared at him. "Please. You are not saying that you simply have not NOTICED the rising levels of apple cider in the refrigerator door? That has been there for TWO MONTHS?"

He stared back. "So...you're saying that there has been some kind of leaking liquid in our fridge for two months, and you've...just...IGNORED it?"

"I...uh...I thought you were ignoring it too. Isn't that the rule?"

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? WHAT RULE? JESUS CHRIST." And then he stormed down the basement steps while I stammered excuses about not knowing what to do and I figured he would because he's the engineer and I didn't know what towels to use because what if I used his good shop towels and the shelf/pressure/dam theory I had and I kind of thought maybe I could vacuum it up but that's probably not good for the vacuum, right? Right? Baby? You love me, baby, right?

Jason opened the refrigerator and looked at the cider. He gently picked up the half-empty container and swiftly placed it in the utility sink. Which is about two feet away from the refrigerator.

"OH!" I said.

And then he gently detached the entire shelf from the door and dumped the contents down the drain.

"OHHH!" I said again.

He rinsed the shelf out and snapped it back into place. He stared at me for a few seconds while I pulled a Lucille Ball face and sensed the years of feminist progress washing down that utility sink drain, and then he kissed me very sweetly and went back upstairs without another word.

The scene of my dark shame. Somebody should really carry that out to the recycle bin, don't you think?

Let's Just Call This One "Tuesday"

Yes, Internet, I fully and openly admit to coasting. Both emotionally and editorially. I have not updated since Thursday, greedily allowing the comments to build and build and pile up, checking in every hour or so to boggle at the number and inform Noah that OVER 200 PEOPLE -- WAIT 250! WAIT WAIT 271! -- give a rat's ass about the fact that he had a good day at the Mock Preschool For Children Who Can't Talk Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too.

Also? We've just been so good over here. Noah's little day of victory lifted us all -- even Noah seems to be happier and more confident, like...like he's some kind of actual human being whose quality of life is affected by his speech and sensory problems.  And here I thought all this stuff was dumped on ME for the sole purpose of pissing ME the hell off. Huh.

He's talking up a storm and busting out with some fairly random vocabulary -- I guess that one time we made mucus Christmas cookies made a fairly big impression on him, because he's constantly asking about the ROLLY PIN and COOKAYS. Mostly the COOKAYS.

"Cookay?" he'll ask sort-of hopefully, and then seconds later answer his own question, "Noooooo cookay."

And then again, JUST IN CASE HE WAS MISTAKEN ON THE COOKAY VERDICT, "Cookay?"

Anyway, it's been fun. With a decent chunk of the buzzing worry knocked out of the park, it's been a nice little honeymoon of a week, with lots of cuddles and hide-and-seek and maybe a couple living-room forts here and there.

(Oh, and one night of good-and-proper child abandonment, as we coerced the in-laws to come babysit over the weekend so we could go to Jason's company party and stay overnight in a hotel, which was also fun until 1) I was hit by the truck of What Do You Mean the Hotel House Label Chardonnay Was Not Exactly Top Shelf Wine at around three in morning, when I wanted to die, and 2) some asshole let their shrieking toddler run up and down the hotel hallway at six in the morning. Kids! They should all be kept in cages.)

It's also preschool application season around these parts, so we've been busy plastering big smiles on our faces, presenting our genius child who is a genius and...diaper? What diaper? Noooooo diaper. Please accept this check for AS MUCH AS MY COLLEGE EDUCATION COST AND PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE DIAPER.

(I told my mother-in-law how much the neighborhood preschools cost and she choked on her probiotic wheatgrass enzyme nugget and declared me to be talking much crazy talk. "Just find a little school run by a church!" she said. I told her that these ARE just little schools tucked away in church basements. But you know, NICE basements. One of them even had windows!)

(Her next suggestion was her all-purpose solution to All Our Problems: move back to Pennsylvania to live next door to them. I imagine Pennsylvania preschool prices have gone up since the late 1970s, but honestly, if we promised to move closer she'd probably be willing to start running her own preschool out of the garage. Grandparents! Their love is so easy to exploit.)

Wow. This is one hot mess of an entry. I go away for a few days and manage to completely fuck up the lovely narrative arc of my life story. (It goes something like this: Amy Faces Challenges, Amy Writes Many Words About Her Many Challenges, Amy Gets Meta About Her Challenges, Amy Either Conquers Or Gets Bored Of Her Challenges, Amy Gets Drunk And Falls Down. Repeat.)

Anyway. Us = good. Noah = outstanding. Preschools = uppity. Liver = shot. The end.