If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother...

So I have been back in my house for about a month now and for two weeks it was wonderful. Not perfect - I had no kitchen nor any running water downstairs and my brother (whom I'll call Bro) was with us - but it was still home and better than where we were. Then, about a week and a half ago my Mother (whom I'll call Flo - yes it's her real name and no I don't anticipate any liability nor privacy issues) arrived. And my home bubble has burst.

I know you are thinking how bad could it be? It has been annoying, frustrating and disgusting (as you will soon see). Sure, feel free to analyze and tell me perhaps a shrink and a couch would help me a bit, but in the meantime I am suffering from having her in my home and I don't know how I will survive the at least two months until their house is done (their slowness in fixing their house is fodder for another post). Yes, I have lived with her before for an extended period (in addition to childhood) when my home was being renovated the last time - and that sucked too and it was by choice.

Mealtimes are enough to make me twitch.  We have no kitchen and rely upon canned goods and takeout for the most part right now.  We get Chinese and we have to get her pizza because she won't eat Chinese (my brother has conveniently removed himself from all of this as he is no longer ever hungry at meal time, having already eaten - when she wasn't staying with us he ate with us all the time).  Then we get pizza which she does not want because she had it when we had Chinese.  So, I offer a meatball hero (it comes with a family package) which she tells me she'll eat but then when offered turns it down as she has realized it "came from a different place than she thought and she won't eat meatballs from a place she has never had them before because she won't know if she will like them."   If you are thinking "huh?" right about now I don't blame you.  So we give her the baked ziti that also came with the meal (and which was supposed to be our next night's dinner, but hey we are kind and don't want her to starve).  She has about three bites of it and won't eat anymore because it isn't really hot (but she won't microwave it either because it doesn't taste right ). By the way, if you are forming a picture of a selective gourmand with high food standards, let me crush that by telling you the only cheese other than American she likes is Velveeta. I am starting to re-think the part about not letting her starve. 

At this point we have bought her dinner for about five nights (and she has rejected or complained about half of them) in a row.  The next night Big Guy is with Mini-Me the Elder at her softball game and it is just me and the younger in the house with Flo and Bro.  Flo proceeds to announce that she is going out to get dinner for her and the Bro.  I waited but the offer to pick up something for me (you know the person who has fed her for five nights straight rather than let her starve) does not come.  Um okay.  Not to get into too much of a tit for tat but seriously?  Who would not offer to pick you up something in this situation? Shoot that should just be common courtesy.

But none of this compares to the dog poop incidents (yes, that's right - incidents - plural - involving dog poop).  For those who remember way back at the beginning of this blog, their dog Mookie is staying with us as well.  She was with us in my sister's apartment and is now in my house.  During the brief period in the apartment when Flo was with us, we had an incident in which she picked up after the dog and for some reason chose to not throw out the um, bag of shit in the garbage pail outside but rather to bring it into the apartment and put it on a chair in the kitchen.  In the kitchen!  I responded to this rather strongly and laid down the law that poop that is made outside stays outside.  This seemed a pretty straightforward rule and not unreasonable I might add.

Fast forward to a week ago and Flo's return.   Not three days into her stay here and guess what?  Dog poop in the kitchen.  Walked the dog, picked it up and brought it into the house, put it on top of my brand new corner cabinet which is waiting to be installed and then left it there to be found by Big Guy the next morning.  It was in my house overnight!   Again, I found myself explaining to an adult that poop that is made outside stays outside.  There are trash bins out there - use them! 

These are just examples of the day in and day out behavior that comes from living with Flo and I need to do it for at least two months.  To sum up, you buy her dinners she doesn't like and won't eat, she won't buy you dinner in return, and she leaves dog shit in your kitchen. 

Kids and Mornings Don't Mix

I can't seem to get out of the house in the mornings.  It has really become quite torturous and I am late to work on a pretty consistent basis which is really not like me.  Now there are a million reasons why someone could have a difficult time getting out the door in the morning - finding clothes to wear, lack of sleep making you move a bit more slowly, spilling coffee and having to clean it up.   You know, little things that throw you off a bit.  But those are all things that happen from time to time and I usually find them pretty manageable - take care of it and move along.  My problem is more consistent and more difficult to solve.  I have kids and they are there in the morning while I am trying to get out of the house.

The issues are different for each but just as time consuming.  Mini-me the Elder is very self sufficient and actually very helpful.  She gets herself dressed, packs her school bag, gets herself together pretty quickly quite frankly - well ahead of when we need to leave.  And then spends the rest of the time talking to me, asking me questions, telling me stories (yes, she does want me to be looking at her when she talks to me because there is frequently something that needs to be performed) and showing me things.  I understand that this is a wonderful thing that she wants to talk to me and be with me.  That understanding makes me feel positively awful when she wants to spend five minutes re-enacting something that happened at school the day before and I'm all "I really, really want to see that but I really, really need to blow dry my hair."  Okay Mom.  Great thanks for understanding and it doesn't bother me at all that you look like I just kicked a puppy.  I am completely immune to that...no, no I'm not.  Go ahead - sure, you can start at the beginning. 

And, yes, she's the easy one.  Mini-me the Younger?  She is definitely not self-sufficient nor helpful (don't get me wrong she is just as sweet as the elder).  Sure she can get herself dressed if she actually does it.  Instead you will leave her in her room with the instructions to get dressed, she will answer okay, and then you will return 10 minutes later to discover that she has not made one inch of progress towards getting dressed; however, she is in the middle of a one act play with six of her dolls (she provides all of the voices) who you are pretty sure had clothes on when you left the room 10 minutes ago.  When I tell her to get dressed again she finally deigns to even look at the clothes and some portion or other of the outfit simply will not do - "but I need long sleeves/short sleeves/dress/skirt/flat leggings" (yes that's right - only straight leg leggings will do - no flare on the bottom for her).  The good news is that she does eventually get dressed - the bad news is that it took 20 minutes of my time for it to happen (and the chances are she still has no shoes on and doesn't know where they are).  Then there is the herding downstairs and out the front door.  This is a child who spends a good portion of her time in the house running.  Literally running:  from one end of the living room to the other, from the back of the house to the front.  We refer to it as her doing her laps.  But when I need to get out the door?  Has a living thing ever moved more slowly?  And touched more objects while walking twenty feet?  With commentary on each one?  While I am standing at the door mentally ticking off the time left until I will maybe miss my train if I don't get the lights, probably miss my train unless I hit no lights, or miss my train even if my car sprouted wings and I could drop the kids at their respective schools from the sky as I flew by without stopping. 

For those of you who are wondering where Big Guy is in all of this with all of our equality of parenting, he's already gone.  He needs to leave earlier than I do and has already done his share by taking care of breakfast and lunches.  Nothing personal but that parts easy.  There are no kids involved in it.

The entire process of getting ready on a weekday morning from the time I get in the shower until I leave can be anywhere from an hour fifteen minutes to an hour and a half depending upon my little precious bundles of joy.  Want to know how long it takes when there is no school and they stay home with Big Guy and I just need to get my butt only out the door?  I can do it in 40 minutes flat.  And unlike the hour and a half torture process I actually look pretty good when I'm done. 

Stop Signs Are Not Optional...And Other Common Driving Myths

This is a stop sign.  It is a red octagon with the words STOP in white letters in the center.  It signals to a driver that they need to come to a stop (usually at an intersection) make sure all is clear and then they can proceed.

For those of you who are thinking to yourselves "Silly snarky self, I know what a stop sign is - everybody does" - clearly you don't live in *my* town.  In my town there's a pretty large population of people who apparently think they are optional. 

Day in and day out I am simply flabbergasted at how many people ignore stop signs - whether a straight up blow through or a pause so slight, I just can't count it.  And I'm not talking about early morning or late at night when I'm one of five cars on the road.  This shit is happening on beautiful Saturday spring afternoons when there are a ton of cars (and kids) about.  I would like to blame it all on teenagers (and they are pretty guilty as charged) but it cuts across age and gender lines (sadly with a pretty high ratio of Moms - which is what most of the women my age in my town are). 

Alas, if it were only limited to blowing stop signs it might be manageable.  But there are a few other things that people in my town seem to be confused about when it comes to driving.

- Right on red means that you come to a stop at the red light and then make the turn if all is clear.  When I rode my bike to the train station over the summer I can't tell you how many times I was almost picked off by some moron who just cruised through that turn without even pausing.  Hey, don't worry about me; I'm sure me and my bike will hold up just fine against your truck.

- When you are at an intersection with a green turning arrow and it then turns red, that doesn't mean any car that was within a 1/4 mile of the light before it turned red can still go through.  Every morning when I need to cross the highway to get to my daughter's daycare, about 6 cars get through on the green arrow and then like another 6 go through after it turns red. I'll spot maybe the first one but after that you're all just greedy.  And if I am just a few cars back I'll probably miss my light cause my lane can't go until you all stop turning.

- Your car should go in between the parking space lines in the parking lot - your whole car from front to back.  I understand, you're in a hurry, you pull in quickly, you pop out to run for the train, the movie, your cappuccino - you simply have no time to notice that half of your car (front or back, doesn't matter) is in the next spot.  Don't worry about it, I'll go find another spot.  I'm not in a hurry - unlike you I apparently have all the time in the world to find a spot next to someone who pulled in straight.

- Speaking of parking, when the parking lot is really full, you can't just make up a new spot closest to the store you need to go to (and blocking the part of the lot the cars actually need to drive).   I sometimes want to just wait at that car for the person to show up so I can find out from them exactly why they are so special as to be able to park wherever they want. 

Seriously people, it's time to brush up on your knowledge of traffic rules.  If you aren't sure go ahead and google it or text a friend - most of you are already looking at the phone in your hand anyways.

You Can't Fool Me Big Guy

So, the home renovations continue and the bills are mounting and from time to time we need to decide to do something ourselves, within moderation as we are not particularly handy.  For example, this time around we did all of the painting as that can cost a fortune and, as long as there are no fancy techniques, it's really not that hard (and do not even ask how much insurance estimates as the cost to paint).  Plus, the tricky spots tend to be really high and out of sight, so you can get away with a few mistakes here and there.  And, if anyone actually pointed out a sloppy corner, you can just say how Hurricane Sandy destroyed your home and you couldn't afford a real painter.  That puts an end to it and they slink away.

Anyhow, I tried to draw the line when Big Guy started talking about staining the stairs himself.  We had to replace the bottom half of our staircase and in case you've never had a new set of stairs put in (this is our second set, so we are old pros) they come unfinished and require sanding, staining and a finish.  I was not a fan of this idea - nothing personal against him but the stairs are in a pretty prominent spot (front entry hallway) and, um, right at eye level (not to mention the elaborate large post right at the bottom).  No room to hide any errors.  We found a painter that would do it for a reasonable price (as well as touch up some of the edging around our house - the painter's idea, which only goes to show how impressive our painting skills were to a professional) and I thought I had Big Guy convinced.

Then I came home one day last week and after a day of errands and some more expenses (he's a Dean in a middle school and had off for spring break) he announced that he had decided he was definitely going to do it himself.  It made the most sense, he had stained things before and we could save the money.  He was pretty set on this, started in on the "have a little faith" and repeated again how we could save the money if he did it himself.  Then he made his fatal error...by slipping in, as an aside, "or use it for something else."  A-ha!  Cue the screeching brakes as we now arrive at the real reason behind the logical decision.  "Ok, out with it, what are you planning to buy?"  He tried to insist that it was nothing, he was "just saying," (famous last words) but I know him too well.  In fact, had he not mistakenly added that "or use it for something else," I know in about a week he would have innocently mentioned some new "must have" item assuming I wouldn't connect it to the "do it himself stair staining, money-saving idea."  As if.  Really guys, you can't put these things past us and I don't know why you try.  We've been together twenty years and I can assure you, I've been paying attention.

So, after a few more half-hearted denials, the truth came out.  He had *already* purchased the "something else."  When we bought our appliances a couple of weeks back, the store had a huge gas grill on sale (ours was drowned by Sandy).  Like a moth to a flame, as we were looking at stoves, dishwashers and fridges, he kept going back to that grill.  He was enthralled by it.  Men and their barbecues.  So, when he had a day off, he took another trip to that store and encountered the perfect situation - still on sale and no Snarky Self to veto the transaction with silly comments like "a barbecue isn't a high priority right now, we need to stain the stairs."  And when the fait accompli of the purchase became known, he would be in good stead, having already stained the stairs thus paying for the barbecue so it all equals out in the end.  Well according to his math. My math likes to end up with the money in my pocket.

So now there is a giant barbecue in my shed.  It was able to fit in there because my beautiful armoire that was too heavy for him to carrry into the house alone was moved in by the guys who delivered the barbecue for a few bucks thrown their way solving that problem.  I guess he figures that gesture will protect him from any future comments about his little plan.

As if.