the pieces of my life

We were watching things off the DVR (catching up with Big Love, which I think has jumped the shark), when the phone rang for Adam. He told me to go back watching, but after peeking at Twitter, I felt I was missing out by not watching the Grammys, so I switched the channel. Adam was on the phone for a while, but he finally came back.

Me: I started recording the show, because Mumford and Sons is on and the girl loves Mumford and Sons.

Adam: Who are Mumford and Sons?

Me: Really? You know, “Little Lion Man.”

Adam: I don’t know.

I search online and find the video. I play it.

Adam: Oh, yeah. That kind of sounds familiar.

Me: Your daughter is more hip than you.

Adam: I expected that to happen.

Me: She’s five.

Adam: Yeah, well… [pause] Wait a minute. How does she know who Mumford and Sons even are?

Me: [Sigh.]

Adam likes to grow a beard starting on December 25. He keeps it for the winter and then shaves it on June 25. Last night, I looked at him and said, “I’m not sure I want you to grow your beard this year.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Well, looking at the holiday card, I think I like the photo better of you sans beard. Maybe you don’t start growing the beard this Christmas.”

Long pause. Finally, he says, “Um, I already started growing the beard.”

Oops.

Ah, the holiday season is well upon us. Also known as card season.

This year, as with most years, I came up with the idea for our holiday card (always a new year’s card to avoid the whole “we don’t celebrate Christmas” thing). I cajoled my son into contributing a picture. I picked the photos. I came up with captions. I designed the layout. I ordered the cards. I bought the stamps. I printed out the return address label. I sent out–in a timely manner–about 98% of my cards. The few that remain need me to hunt up an address or a husband’s name or the like. I reminded Adam to do his. “I’m going to do it tonight,” he’s said every night for the past two weeks. And within about fifteen minutes, he’s asleep on the couch. In the morning, the card pile hasn’t shrunk at all.

A week ago, I gave up. “Print out your list,” I said. “Let me at least take care of the folks I know.”

“No, no. I’ll do it myself!”

Three days ago: “Print out your list.”

“No, no, I got it.”

Yesterday he printed out a list for me. Today I wrote a good third of his cards (apologies if you’re one of his friends who gets a card from me; in all fairness it just means that I like you, which can’t be said for everyone on his list, so be flattered).

Today he called at 2:30. “I’ll be leaving in a half hour.”

“So you’ll be home normal time?”

“No, I’ll be home early today!”

Sure enough, he walked in the door early. 5:40. A whole 20 minutes early. We ordered in dinner for the family. And then Adam looked at the stack of cards. “Okay,” he said. “I’m ready to help with this.”

Um, excuse me? “Help”? With what? Everything’s been done. He can’t mean he’ll help with his own card list, can he? He saw my face. “I mean, I’m ready to write my cards!”

We’ll see if he’s able. It’s hard to write when someone’s shoved the pen up your a*ss.

Tonight was Adam’s work party. When Adam started at the company six years ago, he was the thirty-fifth employee. Tonight we were told that over 600 people had RSVP’d for the party. It was a fabulous party–the view was great, the food was good, and the booze was plentiful. I found a handful of people I like, and I stuck with them.

But the best part of the night? You know how at every work party there’s some boozy person who takes center stage and then completely overshares? She’s the one you whisper about for a few weeks, with a bit of pointing and laughing? Well, that person was there tonight. And for the first time ever, that person wasn’t me!

Hey, how about that! Maybe I will get a grip on this growing old gracefully thing!

No, not my kids. My husband. Getting ready for a trip, he’s got all his toys laid out. His Galaxy Tab. His iPad. His Blackberry.

And what’s wrong?

“I can’t find my iPod! My old-fashioned iPod! Damn, I guess I’ll have to go without it.”

Poor man. Not enough gadgets for a six-hour plane ride. What will he ever do?

I actually tried posting last night, but the WordPress app ate my post.

Day one of vacation was a success. Breakfast with the in-laws at Rye. Then, over the protests of my children who declared they hate farms, we spent a couple of hours at Billings Farm, where we had to tear Pie away from the milking of the cows. Doodles helped make ice cream the old-fashioned way but didn’t want to eat any because “homemade ice cream isn’t that good.” A small cone of it convinced him otherwise. (Note: I believe I have the photo blog–linked on the right–working again.)

Adam went to college up here, so in theory, this is his neck of the woods. We went to dinner at an Italian place I remembered and liked. At the end, I said, “Should we get dessert here?”

Adam: Let’s go into Hanover. We can get dessert at the Dirt Cowboy Cafe.

Doodles: I want dessert here!

Pie: Yeah!

Adam: You don’t want yummy ice cream? Or cookies?

Kids: Yeah! Let’s go!

Me: Um, it’s seven o’clock in Hanover, New Hampshire. Are you sure it’s going to be open?

Adam: Definitely! The Dirt Cowboy is always open late!

So back in downtown Hanover, as we’re off in search of Ben & Jerry’s (“What?? It closes at six o’clock every night? Since when?”), my daughter is off with her normal stream-of-concious drones when she stops us with “Do you get to take toys with you when you go to juvie?” I’m particularly fond of the use of “when” instead of “if.” Doesn’t bode well for our future.

This a.m. we had breakfast at the Four Aces and then we debated what to do next. Adam asked the kids, “Do you want to see a Hollywood photography show?”

Doodles squealed, “Yes!!!” The boy is completely Hollywood/acting obsessed.

I asked, “Are you sure it’s open? A lot of museums are closed on Mondays.”

Adam said, “It’s always open. We’ll spend an hour there and then head for the Ben & Jerry’s factory and then Montreal.”

I don’t need to finish this story, do I? At least while we were back in Hanover the kids got new Dartmouth shirts to replace the ones they’ve outgrown. Although try as I could, I could not convince Doodles to get a Thing One Dartmouth shirt (Pie was completely on board with Thing Two; Dr. Seuss went to Dartmouth, which is the relevancy).

And now we’re on our way to the Ben & Jerry’s factory. Then onward to Canada. Hope Canada has ear plugs.

Adam got a new car. I may have mentioned this. Who can remember? His old Camry was a hand-me-down from my grandmother (it was his second from her). The Pimpmobile, so named for the gold-rimmed tires and the windows that were tinted to levels that are actually illegal in Massachusetts. He loves his fancy-shmancy new car. The GPS. The keyless start. The seats that remember who you are. That clean, nice new car smell.

He’s become a little obsessive about his car. And he declared the car a no-eating zone.

But then it became time for our vacation. And he was clearly torn. Pretty new car for hours on the road? Or slimey dirty kids in his new car for hours on the road? What to do? Old minivan? Or shiny happy car?

Car lust won. And I’m loving the look of horror on his face every time the kids open a new bag of peanut-butter crackers. Plus the kids found Radio Disney on the satellite radio. That’ll teach Adam not to have nice things!

(posting caveat: posts for the next few days are all being done on my iPhone so there may be more typos than usual.)

I so heart my podiatrist. I had my third visit with him today. My petroneus longus tendon has been giving me problems. Bad petroneus longus tendon! My podiatrist gave me a brace to wear and some exercises to do. It helped significantly. I can walk without pain. But the running is still an issue.

At the appointment today, I told him, “I know the no-brainer answer to my problem, but I don’t want to do it. My foot only hurts on long runs.”

He shrugs. “The no brainer being, ‘Don’t run long.’ How badly does it hurt?”

“I’m fine during the runs. But I’m totally hobbled after my runs.”

He nodded. “Well, I’ll give you a stronger brace to wear during your runs.”

I was elated. “You’re not going to tell me to not run?”

He asked, “Would you listen to me?”

Me: “Um, probably not.”

Doc: “So I’ll give you a stronger brace. But the minute that marathon is over, you’re coming back in for an MRI so we can see what kind of damage you did to yourself.”

He did assure me that because my foot is improving and that I’m fine on my non-long running days that my foot is recovering and I’m not exacerbating anything. So I’m probably not doing any permanent damage. Which is good enough for me right now, surprisingly so, as I’ve not really been into my runs and looking for excuses to get out of them. But I’ve hit that point where I’m far enough along in my training that there’s no point in backing out now. I did 16 mile last Saturday and I’ll do 18 this weekend, which is pretty much there, so why bother bailing now? It’s just two months till Chicago, which means just six weeks till tapering, which means I better get my plane ticket soon.

Another thing I like:

En garde!

When I signed the boy up for an intro to fencing class, I had to call and manually register him because he missed the cutoff of age seven and the web site rejected him. But he got in. When I took him to his first class, the teacher asked if anyone else wanted to fence. Not-even-five-year-old Pie jumped right in as did another little girl. The teacher immediately nicknamed the two of them Giggles One and Giggles Two. She loves it. They’re both so darn cute out there!

And now, for the things I don’t like:

G.E. My oven is still broken. Yes, people, we are on to six weeks now and the appliance company is getting tired of hearing from me, but not so tired that they’ll fix the damn oven! The part that was supposed to take 3 to 5 business days is now on its 11th business day of travel. If I can’t bake a cake in my own oven for my babies’ birthdays, G.E. is going to understand the meaning of a Mad Housewife.

Running. Yeah, I really don’t like it anymore. And yet… And yet. Ugh.

The fact that my Ivy League-educated husband is incapable of flipping a light switch off or closing a cabinet door/drawer. How hard is it to open the cabinet, remove your coffee mug, and then close the cabinet. Every time I walk into the kitchen, it’s like there was some mass rebellion by cabinetry. Today there were two doors open, the utensil drawer open to its fullest, the overhead light on, and the pantry light on. And then when I went upstairs, his sock drawer was lying wide open. Really that hard? Just a little nudge of the hip and it slides closed again! It’s a miracle! They open and close! What will science discover next?

How freakin’ much airlines now charge. We bought our tickets home for our yearly jaunt to Miami Beach, and we have never paid so much money for that trip. I’m pretty sure the tickets to Florida were on par to what we paid to fly to Israel. And according to Farecast, the flight prices are only going up, which I can verify because between when we priced tickets on Wednesday and bought them on Friday, they had already gone up $100 a ticket.

That I wanted to upload video of the armed punks (well, armed with plastic foils), but my videos are too big and I don’t have time to figure out how to shrink them. So instead of a cute note, we’ll end with a cranky note. Freakin’ oven, cabinets, plane tickets, running, video. Grumble grumble.

P.S. Adam just called. I said, “Oh, I was just trashing you in my blog!” He laughed and said, “Oh good! Another usual Monday!” I like that. So we’ll end there instead of with the grumble.

As you no doubt remember from our last camping trip, just two blog posts ago, that we were woefully underprepared. Adam decided to make up for it. All of a sudden, Thermarests appeared. A new sleeping bag. A camping stove. (Do we need a camping stove? No. The camping stove is going back.) Bungee cords. Fire starter. A fancy lighter.

Labeled in 1982 by my mom

My sleeping bag is old school. I mean the “old” literally (damn! I cannot let go of “literally!). As I’ve mentioned before, my sleeping bag was once the Tweedle Twirp’s. She got it when she went to sleepaway camp in, I think, 1982. My mom labeled it–see there in the picture? Those Sharpies really last! It’s a big bulky sleeping bag, but it’s served me well over the years. I inherited the sleeping bag in 1994 when I spent that three months driving from Miami to Seattle. I took the sleeping bag in anticipation of youth hostels, which never had linens.  It was fortuitous that I had it, because halfway through the trip, I decided to start camping. I met a guy in Texas who was game to come with me for the rest of the ride, so I bought a tent and we camped our way through the western United States. I spent hours in the REI picking it out, asking the most basic of questions, as I had never camped before (other than the ill-fated seventh grade camp out in junior high). Supposedly it was a four-season tent. As my traveling companion pointed out, it was actually a two-season tent: too-fucking hot and too-fucking cold. That sleeping bag served me well on those “too-fucking cold” nights in the desert.

Mama Bear with the Baby Bears

We bought the kids sleeping bags off of Woot. They are lovely sleeping bags and much sleeker and modern than what I have. I have the Mama Bear to their Baby Bear sleeping bags. Although the original analogy I thought of was that my sleeping bag is like briefs to their thongs. The new bags are mummy types and they fold up small and they’re warm and toasty enough that the kids have yet to sleep in them because they kick them off for being too hot.

So when Adam said he was hitting EMS during his lunch hour to buy his new sleeping bag, I knew that my big honkin’ sleeping bag was going to feel antiquated. Huge. Old. Bulky. But I can handle that because in my newfound desire to be more ecologically aware, I’m excited to have something that has stood the test of time and that will still be with me for at least another decade or two. My sleeping bag is practical and comfy and just fine. Adam is all about the latest, newest. He’s an early adapter to the extreme when I don’t put the kibosh on it.

So he came home with his sleeping bag. And all I could say was, “Wow.” He bought… a sleeping bag. And what a sleeping bag it is. It is a sleeping bag that makes a statement. And what, you might ask, is that statement? The statement is, “I will never go back country camping.” Or perhaps it’s “I will never spend the night in a desert campground.” Or could it be, “I’m just pretending that I like to camp.” The thing is huge. The thing is rated only to 35 degrees (“What? It’s not like we’re going to winter camp!” ). It is the Papa Bear bag, that’s for sure. It makes my “briefs” sleeping bag look like cute boy shorts.

If my sleeping bag are briefs, Adam's is clearly a full-body girdle.

Well, at least we have everything we need to go camping. Even if it means we’ll never leave the car behind. Of course, we’re all done camping for this year. So his high-maintenance sleeping bag (“Don’t store in a stuff sack. Hang flat”) will sit (in its sack) in the attic till next summer. I’m thinking about a camping trip. In Denali National Park.

I’m pretty sure I’ve blogged about Adam and his phones (yes, plural, phones), but I can’t find it so you’ll just have to trust me. The boy has phones. He wants an iPhone. He has a Blackberry. He has a Nexus Droid. “For work,” he swears. “I need them to test our new products.” That boy is a tech junkie if ever one existed.

Today was kind of a crap day. I made my hallah dough nice and early so I could get baking done for the 4th of July, when we have a few friends over. I have big baking plans for Sunday. So I start softening my butter and getting prepped, when I decide to preheat the oven. My lovely, just over a year old, oven. It starts to preheat. And then it goes sizzle pop! and it stops preheating. And that’s it for my oven. Ever tried getting an oven fixed on the Friday before a long weekend? Ain’t going to happen. Our GE service contract made me an appointment for Monday morning, but when I called to beg them to fit me in, they said, “Monday? They scheduled you for Monday? We’re closed Monday!” I finally called a place called Same-Day Service, and while it didn’t completely live up to its name, they did promise to come tomorrow. Saturday. Sometime during the day. They’ll show up sometime between 8 a.m…. and 6 p.m. Yep. I fully expect them to show up, look at my oven, and then tell me they need to order a piece that will be in three weeks from now.

I went to Beetle’s house to at least bake the hallah dough that was rapidly over-rising. Both Beetle and Pie love it the crunchy egg that forms around the edges of the hallah, so I always pour on the rest of the egg wash to bake big pieces of it. Only Beetles’s oven is slanted. So when I put my loaves in, the egg wash washed right off the pan… and into the bottom of her oven. Where it proceeded to burn and smoke for the duration of the baking. Yep, that’s right. I smoked them right out of their house. Aren’t they glad they let me in?

Adam finally gets home. “I called four places to see if they had the new iPhone in stock, but no one did.”

Me: “Well, did you at least put my name on a list?”

Adam pauses a moment here, tilts his head, and furrows his brow. “Wow,” he finally says. “That would have been a great idea.”

Thanks goodness Adam likes his toys. Because I’ve expropriated his Nexus. I consider it my right by virtue of eminent domain. It’s pretty cool. But it’s not an iPhone 4. I need an iPhone 4. One with the bigger G.B.s. And the WiFis. And I want it now.