Anything Said: October 2007

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Extra crispy

This afternoon marked the dramatic first encounter between Cletus the Chicken and the inside of a pumpkin. The child deemed pumpkin innards slimy, enjoyable, and well-suited to munching. The pumpkin deemed the child entitled and intrusive.

I'm going back and forth about trick-or-treating. I mean, it IS her first real Halloween. Last year she was but a screaming lump, so that doesn't count. And I DO enjoy free candy. And I HAVE certainly given out my fair share of mini Snickers bars to other people's children over the years, so I think I'm due. Because let's be real - I'm the one who's going to be chomping into the stash, not her. But on the other hand, the whole ordeal might end up just freaking her shit out. At the Halloween party we attended today, there was a little boy dressed up like a skeleton, complete with ghoulish Scream-esque mask. The moment she laid eyes on him, and every time he entered the room thereafter, Cletus burst into hysterical tears and buried her face in my lap. I'm guessing there will be a scarier lot than that prowling the streets come Wednesday night.

Also, our neighborhood is having a block party on Halloween night. No one in our neighborhood speaks to us, we're guessing because we are the only renters for miles amidst a vast sea of old school homeowners. I ask you: should we attend, and if so - should we bring a bag of pork rinds as our contribution to the potluck?

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Accounting for my whereabouts

Do you ever just sit and stare at a blank Blogger screen for, like, 30 minutes, and then write about it, and then instantly hate yourself for meta-blogging?

I have been extremely busy this past week doing important things like watching the entire first season of Friday Night Lights on DVD. People. Do you enjoy living vicariously through the angst of fake teenagers? Then speed this one up to the top of your Netflix queue post-haste. It has filled my Veronica Mars hole to a wholly satisfying degree.

Also, I've been busy trying to not die while driving. Yesterday's afternoon commute marked the third time in the past week that I have been cut off by men driving SUVs or trucks who, upon hearing the hearty protest of my Hyundai Accent's menacing horn (which, if translated into human speech would sound something like "ummmm, excuse me, i was wondering if i might, oh never mind"), became enraged at my gall to almost comic proportions, so enraged in fact that they decided they must run me off the road. In other words: they nearly hit me, I dared to honk at them to stop them from hitting me, then they nearly hit me again. Is this a dude thing? Because I've seen some asshole female drivers, and I myself am certainly guilty of the occasional obscene gesture out the window, but I can assure you that I have never once actually TRIED TO CAUSE an accident. One of these fine gentlemen actually went so far as to line his car up next to mine -- after I honked at his attempt to knock me out of my lane -- and drove parallel to me for about a mile, all the while making jerk-off motions with his hand and swerving sharply so as to give me the impression that he was about to sideswipe me. Classy.

Is it customary, by the way, to make jerk-off motions in the direction of a woman? Because I've got nothing down there to stroke, is all I'm saying.

Oh, and also? This past weekend the husband and I dropped the baby off at my parents' place and went "away" for a night's hotel stay on our own. The night itself was much needed and appreciated, but that's not what I want to tell you about, because that's grown-up stuff. What I want to tell you about is this: on our way to the hotel we drove through some random town that was plastered with hand-made signs reading: "Evilsizor 4 Sheriff". Now I ask you -- exactly how awesome would it be to have a sheriff named Sheriff Evilsizor? That guy would just have to be a bad-ass, you know?

Also, I have been completely loving my lunch breaks at work again. They fell out of my favor temporarily due to a bunch of scheduled lunch meetings and online reference shifts, but now my calendar is clear -- with the exception of next week's mandated fun by way of a lunchtime Halloween party, where there will assuredly be jello salad and lasagna because there are ALWAYS jello salad and lasagna -- so I have been sitting and reading and eating for 30 blissful minutes each workday and it is filling me with such joy. Coworkers sometimes try to sit next to me and talk to me during these 30 minutes and I really feel that they just do not appreciate the fine line they are walking between being People I Tolerate and People I Do Not Under Any Circumstances Tolerate. You don't mess with a mama and her baby-free meal.

Cletus and I were back at the pediatrician's office AGAIN this morning, this time for a nasty cough, congestion, a broken arm, Gulf War Syndrome, and the plague. Or at least the first two. Does anyone else feel like life would be a lot more easily managed if they could have their paychecks direct-deposited right to their doctor's office? No? It's just me?

And speaking of Cletus, I've managed to write this post by plopping the sickly child in front of a stream of tivo'd Sesame Street, which she is watching with her nose basically pressed up against the screen. You can have that Mother of the Year Certificate faxed right over - I already bought the frame.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

For your reference

I don't remember how much I've written about this here, but when I was on maternity leave last fall my workplace implemented a major reorganization and everyone got stuck with new jobs. I went into labor a reference librarian and -- poof -- two months later I found myself in collection development. For the uninitiated (read: those of you with social skills), that means I select and buy new books for the library and get rid of the gross ones from the shelves. Unless you freaks keep insisting on checking them out, which you do -- en masse -- if the books have anything to do with unexplained, grisly murders in small towns or if their titles start with the odious words "Chicken Soup For The". Basically, I'm the person your email goes to when you submit an online request for the library to purchase "Love Letters From A Duke" or "Every Thug Needs a Lady". And just so we're clear: we do remember your name, especially when you send in 15 requests for soft-core porn in one twenty-minute period.

Anyway, the new job comes with one big perk and that is a fabulous schedule, one that is virtually unheard of for a professional librarian. I work 21 hours per week, whenever I want to work them. To make things easier for Cletus' day care I usually work the same 3-day schedule every week, but if something came up one week and I wanted to do all of my hours over the weekend, no one would care. In all honesty, it's likely that no one would even notice.

Which brings us to the negatives of the new position. It is isolating. It is my first ever cubicle job. It is MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING. I sit at my desk and stare at a computer all day. I had to get an ergonomic keyboard and a wrist brace due to all the repetitive mouse-clicking I do. All day. For a living. Never in a million years would I have imagined myself going all Office Space on the world. I sit next to the copy machine and people keep asking me to help them make double-sided copies. I don't know how to make double-sided copies. I have spent my entire life trying to avoid knowing how to make double-sided copies.

Yesterday morning I got called out to the reference desk to speak to a wee little man who was distressed with me. This wee man had dropped off a review copy of his book for me to consider for purchase, and I had turned him down. On the phone a few weeks ago, when I had called him to tell him as much, he had seemed perfectly pleasant and reasonable. But in the interim, apparently, his rage had time to grow and bear fruit. Did I READ his book, he wanted to know? Did I take the time to READ his book and offer him a THOUGHTFUL CRITIQUE? What did I MEAN, the librarians don't have time to read every book before making purchase decisions? What do you DO all day anyway?

I'm not going to lie -- the wee man pissed me off, which is in large part why I'm making sure that we're all clear on just how minuscule and teenytiny he was. But also? He made me realize just how much I miss working as a reference librarian. I miss it! I miss the mean people yelling at me every day because I can't find them the book that they're looking for based solely on the description "it had a green cover." I miss the senior citizens who don't understand that "computer" is not a synonym for "the internet." I miss the nutjobs who show up at the reference desk looking for advice on how to market the chocolate wishbones they just invented. I miss the masterbators. I miss the nametag-wearing Mormon boys sneaking porn on the children's room computers. And mostly, I miss the rare and rewarding patron who asks for something interesting, stays in the building long enough for you to give her an answer, and thanks you for it before walking out the door. I just miss liking my job.

It's so hard, because I feel like I'm in absolutely no position to quit right now. Say what you will about job satisfaction being paramount -- any of you who are doing the working parent gig will feel me when I say that a schedule as flexible as the one I've got is next to impossible to find. Plus the bastards have the nerve to pay me well, so there's that on top of everything else. I know, believe me, that there are worse problems to have. But I can't help daydreaming about that mythic perfect job that lets me mix work fulfillment with reasonable hours. Benefits would be nice too, but I don't want to push my luck. As long as there are lecherous men jerking off in the bathroom before coming up to the reference desk and asking to borrow my pen, I've got all the benefit I need.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

I'm worried that the rhythm is gonna get us

I don't think that there exists a song into which the word "baby" can be fit that the husband and I have not co-opted for our own personal diaper-changing use over the past 13 months. From Simon and Garfunkel ("I am just a baby though my story's seldom told") to the Beastie Boys ("Livin at home is such a drag/ Your mom threw away your best baby mag") to M.C. Hammer ("Stop! Baby time!") we employ a wide variety of tunes to distract the child as we try to wrestle her into a pair of Huggies and, on particularly ambitious days, pants.

When the baby was very small we tried singing her more traditional songs, lullabies and folk songs and such. The husband insisted on serenading her repeatedly with an old song his mother had sung to him when he was little, a ditty about marching onward together toward Pretoria. The first time I heard him singing it I was all "Are you rocking our child to sleep with a white-power anthem?" But apparently it was recorded by the Weavers and our parents sang it in church, so that makes it ok.

Yesterday was my day at home with Cletus, so I took her to an interactive music program at the local library. The program was a free sample of sorts , offered by one of those fancy music schools that teach singing and dance to in-utero fetuses for $600 per 6-week session. Cletus is actually going to be starting music "classes" herself in a few weeks (albeit the inexpensive sort given by the parks district, because we don't love her enough), so I figured this might be a good way to get her warmed up to the idea of being in a big room full of babies and tambourines.

Except that here's the thing: the free program? Was operated under some kind of fascist regime. We walked in the door and it was wall-to-wall babies, and some woman was marching through the crowd strapping jingly bells around children's wrists and barking out "Shoes off! Babies AND parents, shoes off! This is a comfortable space for your babies! SHOES OFF!" Then the woman moved to the front of the room and cranked up some tunes on a portable cd-player. "Let's get started," she shouted. "Babies, shake your bells!"

Seriously, she said it just like that: "babies, shake your bells." Like, if it were that easy to get an almost-13-month-old to follow an instruction, I assure you I most certainly would not be spending my days off from work toting my child to the library. No, I would be at home teaching the baby to do her own laundry and fix me turkey pot pies.

So, I think it goes without saying that the babies all just sat there and stared at her. Cletus shoved her jingle bells into her mouth and swiped a little shaker-ball from the baby sitting next to her. The woman was not discouraged -- perhaps because, given her apparent methods, she's become accustomed to underperformace. She moved on. "Let's massage your babies' tummies! Pick them up! Put them in your laps! Rub their bellies to the rhythm of the music!" I reached out for Cletus, tried to pull her close. She looked back at me over her shoulder, all "woman, please, there's a red bucket over there with STUFF IN IT and I MUST REMOVE THE STUFF," and then crawled away.

And it went on like this for thirty minutes: the woman barking out orders -- "March your baby in 2/4 time! Now swing your baby in a circle! Good! Now babies, shake your bells in 4/4 time!" -- oblivious to the baby uprising going on around her. There were babies crawling all over each other, hitting each other with noisemakers, running away from their parents, eating paper and screeching with the joy of revolution. After a few minutes of trying to get Cletus to participate I just gave up and let her explore. I did, however, shake my own bells in 4/4 time, because I don't like to cause no fuss.

Please, somebody tell me that not all baby music classes are like this. Or else I'm totally out $90. And that would buy, like, 18 burritos, so this is a big deal here.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

People, here's the thing about the kraut.

I understand your hang-up, I really do. It's just that the sauerkraut made the cake so very moist and fluffy. It detracted nothing from the chocolaty deliciousness; in fact, the only noticeable trace its addition left on my life was a slightly pungent odor wafting from my garbage can, where the unused portion of the kraut had been discarded. And that was quickly remedied by taking out the trash. Really, a win-win.

And in defense of sauerkraut, I just have to add: eating a brat without putting some kraut on top is pretty much the same as letting the terrorists win. And that's all I have to say about that.

Friday, October 05, 2007

It's never that easy

After a glorious week filled with happy baby noises, happy baby movement, and happy baby sleeping, we woke this morning to fussy baby whining, fussy baby clinging, and fussy baby ear-pulling. It's back to the Land of Evil Nurses this afternoon for a re-check of the child's various and sundry infections. I'm not sure I fully appreciated just how long Cletus had been acting out of sorts until this past week reminded me what it feels like to have a cheerful, alert little girl. When she put her head down against the rug this morning and started crying, my heart just sunk. I thought we had this one licked.

Basically, my paycheck right now just exists to cover medical expenses. We have such a high deductible on our insurance plan that it's almost like not being insured at all. Each 5-minute visit for the baby's ears costs over $100. Not to mention last month's viruses and pinkeye and "well-baby" visit. Sometimes I do feel responsible for all this, like if I had kept breastfeeding her then she would have built up more immunities and wouldn't be having all these baby health issues. But what am I going to do, short of investing in a new set of boobs?

I've been having dreams - night after night - of my high school boyfriend, the one who's currently a missionary in Australia, married to a woman who looks like a horse. Not being mean -- just, she does, you know? Anyway, in the dreams he and I are dating again and I'm happy, or we're breaking up and I'm sad. It's always one of those two themes. Two nights ago he and I were sitting in a parking lot while he read me a list of questions he'd written on a sheet of paper, the first one being "Are we only together so that you can have sex with me?" Like, for real, he asked it just like that. And I was all "Ohhh, am I making you feel that way? I'm so sorry!"

What kind of messed up business is that??

Last night, though, was a refreshing change of pace, as the high school boyfriend was absent. In last night's dream, my husband and I had adopted an African baby named Sabrina, who we were taking on a cruise. To get to the cruise ship, we had to be ferried out to sea on an inflatable raft that couldn't seem to stay afloat. We ended up going underwater for a brief moment and when we resurfaced Sabrina was totally fine, totally still breathing, but I somehow decided to do CPR on her. Then I yelled at my husband that I was going to take her back to dry land, as the cruise ship appeared to be filled with what looked like drunk frat boys. He opted to stay at sea for the festivities.

I don't know what's going on around here these days. But pictured below is the result of our first try at Getting a Hobby: chocolate sauerkraut sheet cake with chocolate ganache frosting. We followed all of the recipe's rules including soaking the eggs in hot water, softening the butter on top of the pre-heating oven, and even sifting the dry ingredients through a colander onto wax paper. The end product is my first ever successful cake that didn't in some way involve Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines. Observe: