IF IT'S GOOD, WE DID IT

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Heck with all this move stuff. Now here's something important. The first Edelman Dykshorn report card that has GRADES ON IT.

We picked Sarah up from school yesterday and huddled around the report card in the parking lot, like kids trading baseball cards.

Then we sang songs about As and Bs all the way to gymnastics! And we went out to dinner and told the waiter! And ate too much dessert!

Funny though. People seem to think that we parents deserve a lot of credit for this. Yes, we do the flash cards and the butt-kicking and the correcting of homework and the setting of rules and limits. But WE did not get the A- in math. WE did not pay attention in class and remain patient with ourselves while learning the concepts. This is Sarah's moment. Not the parents.

As for us, we are happy that simply doing our jobs, is helping Sarah reach what is her own personal potential. (And fearing we are not saving near enough for college.)

And of course, we are happy that we are the most embarrassing parents in the school. Here is the song we wrote after dessert:

• Report card, report card, you make us so fat
• Report card, report card, we love you for that
• With all of your As and Bs, you certainly aim to please
• Report card, report card, only 30 more till the SATs!

DOES NOT LOOK THAT BAD

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Well, as of this morning, here's how Marco Island looks. Pretty good! You don't see a lot of debris or down trees or anything. We still have not heard about our building in particular, but newspapers said the hurricane moved further to the south and so most of the island was untouched.

PRAYING FOR THE LEFT TURN

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Egads. Hurricane Wilma is headed straight for our property in FL!

KEEPING OURSELVES OCCUPIED

Sunday, October 16, 2005

The last time Don's favorite baseball team, the Chicago White Sox, were World Series contenders, he was 3 years old. (There were still only 48 states. A loaf of bread cost 20 cents. You get the picture.)

Needless to say, we're all baseball all the time.

Sarah and I only today learned that Mike Sosa is no relation to Sammy Sosa. Don would be embarrassed to be hanging out with the likes of us, but really, he got no choice.

Meanwhile, our cat, Oakley, has given a commentary on the whole waiting-to-sell-a-house limbo:



Right on, Oakley.

THE RABBIT, THE DWARF, AND THE UNDERWEAR

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

I met Holly right after I had the most amazing lunch of salmon eggs Benedict. I just had to photograph it for you because it was so charming.

I had driven around Holly’s neighborhood a little bit before lunch, and it’s quite cute. It’s an area of older homes adjacent to a very pleasant shopping area. I could see myself getting a latte across the street and dropping off the dry cleaning and then zipping to work. I was excited to meet Holly and see what she was like.

Holly invited me into a living room that could have used Susana’s talents for a good week (see earlier post: the obsessive compulsive cleaner). There was clothing, toys, and various household items, just everywhere. I’m not sure where they sit.

In one corner was a cage with a giant white rabbit. Ricky. Ricky looked at me with his red eyes as if to say, really, are you sure about this? Because I’m not, I just have no choice, being a bunny and all.

Holly is on disability because her epilepsy medication makes her sleep constantly. Sometimes she works in a chiropractic office and sometimes she works at Von’s (a grocery store). But mostly, she has to sleep.

This explains why Holly is a tad behind in her and her son's laundry. She sorted boy’s underwear on the table where we talked. (OK while she talked. I was for some reason not in a sharing mood.)

Some of the conversation:

• You’re moving from Chicago? My neighbor is from Chicago. Maybe you guys know each other!
• My sister has three kids and she never does the dishes. It gets so bad at her house that she sometimes has to throw away her dishes and get new ones.
• My other sister has 2 disabled kids and whenever I stay there, I never get any sleep because they bang on the piano and they can’t be quiet when someone’s sleeping on the sofa.
• I was working real steady for awhile, but I had to stop for awhile because of an infected tattoo and then they wouldn’t let me come back.
• I got my son a mouse as a pet when he was 3 and a half and he kept that thing alive for two years. We’re not sure where the mouse actually went.

Honestly, it was like viewing a train wreck… you know you should move on but there’s just a morbid sense of wondering what’s next.

Then she took me upstairs to show me the room. Also no furniture, and there were cat carriers and litter boxes absolutely everywhere, in addition to the continuation of the mess from the living room. She told me they had 4 cats and 1 visiting cat. (What could this mean?)

I didn’t really have the stomach to look at the bathroom.

Then we went downstairs for more fun chit-chat. At this point, her friend had arrived. Gina (pronounced jy-na… yes, like hip-hop anatomy speak), is a dwarf. My mother tells me we should be referring to Gina as a “little person,” but medically and technically, she’s a dwarf. She was drinking Coke from a 2-liter container. And she is a bus driver. It all seemed so disproportionate. She sat at the table while Holly resumed sorting the underwear. The conversation continued:

• No drugs. I don’t want to see you shooting up in the hallway [this was necessary to say, I’m sure, because I had on my low-rise jeans and I look sort of menacing in them]
• The street parking is usually real good. As long as you make sure you lock your doors and don’t park too close to anyone, nothing ever happens.
• My son is really smart. Like, when he was 3, he was eating a McDonalds, and he looked sort of green and asked me if hamburgers were made out of hamsters. It really scared him. I told him, no! Silly. They’re made out of hamburger.

There was a story about Spaghetti-O’s and hand-washing, but really, it’s not fit even for the Internet.

I would have stayed to see what would happen next, but I was starting to feel itchy. Ricky looked at me like, please send an SOS to Rabbit Rescue for me…

THE GREAT ROOMMATE DERBY

Let me start off this entry by its conclusion. As of November 1, I’ll be bunking up with Carol, an energetic 47-year-old divorcee who knocks around her 4-bedroom house alone in a gated community in Oceanside. Her two teen kids mostly live with their dad in the house they were raised in, a few blocks away, and she moved into this house so they could be in quick walking distance whenever they wanted. They wander over a few nights a week, and then on the weekends, when for the most part I’ll be gone anyway.

She is a gregarious person facing living alone for the first time in a long time. Although I’m in very different circumstances, we share that feeling of being in a transition, but also in a time of personal discovery. I’m sure we’ll get along great. (Also she’s been working out like a fiend since her divorce so maybe she’ll kick my butt into shape.)

Living in a house ended up feeling like the right thing to do. There are families all over Carol’s block. It feels like the normal rhythm of life. I have gotten way too used to the presence of kids, and at least 20 feet separating you from your neighbor. All the apartments I visited seemed so impersonal and cramped.

At Carol’s, I get my own bathroom and I don’t have to park on the street. The benefits of these things are apparent but you’ll see why they looked especially good in a few paragraphs.

On my way to Carol, I met lots of interesting characters that I chose not to live with.

There was Priya, who’s writing her PhD dissertation in the psychology of attachment. This would have been good, I might have gotten some answers about my personality. Hers was the most expensive of the listings, and without any furniture. I am not too keen on having to rent a bed for what I hope will amount to a really brief time.

There was Matt, who lives with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, also in a big house. I started to get the feeling that many of these people bought homes above their means and now that adjustable interest rates have adjusted, they need some extra money. Matt’s going for his masters in physical therapy and his wife works in management at a hard disk company. Matt was very cool and was actually my second choice. But my bathroom was also the 5-year-old’s bathroom. There’s just something ookey about shaving in a shower you know will be graced by a 5-year-old who’s unrelated to you; I would have been obsessively scrubbing that puppy every single day. And, I could see myself waking her up constantly because my flight schedule on the weekends to and from Chicago is kind of brutal. They would come to hate my body hair and my odd hours.

Then, there were the people who made me wonder: do you really expect that someone will want to LIVE with you?

There was Sherri the realtor. I should have suspected something, when a realtor in one of the hottest markets in the country, is renting an apartment. At any rate, this woman was a major collector of flea market items. It was as if everything on eBay that lists for 99 cents, was in her apartment. She had everything from wall clocks to little tea sets, all meticulously displayed nearly everywhere, but never dusted. She had classic furniture such as the pink tweed La-Z-Boy with the doily on the back. Her listing said “beautifully decorated.” Hm. Anyway, she pounced on me immediately about my family’s plans to move to the area and our plans to purchase housing. I felt as if I would be subject to a Chinese water torture of talk about buying a home if I moved in with her. Not to mention we’d have to share a bathroom… which also had a curio display case in it!

There was Dee, whose listing said she was English, when what she really meant was, she speaks English. Dee is a perfume saleslady who works 2 other jobs and lives with her teenage son, Tez. Tez was dark and brooding, like a rap sheet in the making. I would be sleeping with my eyes open.

There was Susana, who is a divorcee living with her 9 year old daughter. Susana is an obsessive compulsive clean freak. She cleaned the whole 15 minutes I was there and washed her hands twice. There was nothing to clean. She worried me.

But the topper was Holly. I am going to devote a post purely to Holly in a minute.

WHAT WOULD JANET DO?

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Starting to look for roommates. Here are exerpts from ads of a few I am NOT going to pursue. For your enjoyment.

5 BEDROOM HOUSE IN OCEANSIDE
Four people are living at the house at the moment; two of us leaving. Roommates staying: 28 year old and 27 year old male professional touring musicians; working most of the time and playing shows most of the weekends. Male or Female, must be financially responsible, very clean, easy going and a love for reggae music is a definite plus. No drugs.

Paints a picture, n'est pas? Do ya wonder why the 2 are leaving?

$7 - FREE FOR WOMAN INTERESTED IN FUN ATMOSPHERE
I live in a very comfortable apartment in North County. My place is centrally located and it’s in close proximity to the freeways. I am a conscientious, spiritually open-minded oriented man. I am honest, intelligent, and governed by morals and ethics, and I am willing to consider welcoming into my home a fun, feminine single female who is looking for a nice place to live, and desires working on a relationship.
THIS IS NOT A PROPOSITION FOR A SEX SLAVE. I want love, passion, and I long to find that special person. this is just one of many ways, in which I might find her.
Of course we will have to meet so that we can interview one another, talking about family, friends and so on.

Does he really want a girlfriend who's actually just looking for a place to crash? Also is he actually doing to collect the $7 in rent if she's not interested in fun? How does this work, exactly?

Thankfully, there are also perfectly normal people out there too, whom I will be calling up shortly. Or at least, more normal than these.

IT'S COME TO THIS

Well. It's become clear that our homes are not going to sell immediately and that I will have to go to Plan B.

For awhile it was really not clear what Plan B was. The options:

• Pospone starting my new job. This didn't make me very happy, because who knows when the properties will really sell? Indefinite = bad. Also I really want to start!
• Move everyone out to California and rent a place temporarily. Also not a great solution because the kids might have to change schools again once we find permanent housing. Sarah would be in three 3rd grade classes in one year. It just did not seem fair. Not to mention the expense of 2 mortgates and rent.
• Join the military. Free housing at Camp Pendleton. I think this won't work. I'm way too sissy to get through basic training, and Don has flat feet.

We finally faced the prospect of my moving out in advance of the family and renting something for awhile till our real estate issues resolve themselves. Using our endless supply of frequent flyer miles, I'll fly back on the weekends to be with everyone and spend the weeks in San Diego.

I have not lived by myself in 14 years. When I think back to the time when I did live by myself, it was generally not good. I was a mope. I ate the same thing for dinner every night. I need people.

This is when it hit me. I need roommates. Rooming with others will help defray the cost of this interim period. And, I won't be such a mope!

Maybe I can be like Janet on "Three's Company"!

GLAD THAT'S OVER

Well, we received our Canadian lead testing kit in the mail last night. After dinner, Sarah and I suited up in HASMAT-like fashion and tested the lunchboxes.

I'm proud to report that we in fact are NOT poisoning our children.

As well, our whole kitchen smelled like sulfer for a good hour. Gross. But a small price to pay for the truth.

Back to obsessing over moving...