Category: All True Adventures

. . . why would I lie?

Farewell!

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care . . . oh wait. Wrong month. Today is the longest day of the year–or was that yesterday and I missed it? Well, no matter. It’s Vacation Eve!

We leave at 9:00 a.m. The place is scheduled to take off at 11:45 a.m. We’ll arrive in Houston at 6:01 p.m., though it actually only takes about four hours to fly. I haven’t told my almost-3 year old daughter that we’re going because we have no framework or language to explain to her that we’ll be away from home for three weeks. I’m pretty sure she’ll be asking to go home way before it’s time to go home. Like tomorrow night.

The house is as clean as it’s going to get. My husband said, “Why does it matter if you clean the bathrooms?” and I said, “Because I want to come home to a clean house. Plus, if we die while we’re gone, I don’t want anyone to think we live like slobs.”

Because if I’m dead, it will matter to me what people think.

Okay. Maybe not.

So, the bathrooms aren’t as sparkling clean as I’d hoped, but I did get all the laundry done (IT’S A MIRACLE!), although I have at least 17 unmatched socks remaining.

I might have internet access while we’re away (I do not have a laptop–isn’t that alarming?). If so, I’ll post a little something here or there. Otherwise, just picture me sweaty and pockmarked with mosquito bites, wearing a pair of extra-extra-large Mickey Mouse ears upon my frizzy hair. I’ll be picturing you sitting in front of your computer screen, longing for my return.

Farewell!

First Day of Summer Vacation

We celebrated our first day of summer vacation yesterday by whipping up a batch of cantaloupe sorbet and swimming at the pool. Well, I use the word “celebration” very loosely, because I grumbled through the creation of the cantaloupe sorbet and only half of us went to the pool.

My twin 12-year-old boys are avid fans of the Food Network. Which is why when TwinBoyA saw a cantaloupe sitting on the sugar cannister, he said, “Oh! We can make sorbet!” This is a child who has never in his life eaten sorbet, or cantaloupe, either. This is the cantaloupe that I lovingly picked out by sniffing its brown scaly skin and waving it in the air to gauge its weight to size ratio.

Creating sorbet requires digging the food processor out of the front closet, which required shoving aside a Costco-sized package of DaycareKid’s diapers (which he no longer wears), removing entirely the dead vacuum cleaner and moving the box from a Hickory Farms Christmas gift which ought to be inspected and tossed, most likely.

Then, I traipsed to the laundry room, where I was compelled to switch clothes from washer to dryer and dryer to basket and basket to couch and dirty clothes to washer. That done, I pulled the ice cream maker from my utility room cupboard where it has been sitting unused for six and a half year. Before that, my ex-sister held it ransom for quite a while in her storage unit before she attempted to sell it at a garage sale. My mother brought it to me when no one would buy it for $5.00. Five dollars! My dad paid $39.99 for that machine, full-price when one day he got a hankering for homemade ice cream that did not involve rock salt and a crank. I haven’t used it since he died almost sixteen years ago. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure it was ever used more than once, after he satisfied his craving.

For all these years, I’ve kept the metal cylinder in my freezer, ready at a moment’s notice to turn cream into ice cream. That moment came yesterday, catching me off-guard, and involved only cantaloupe and sugar, no cream at all.

While TwinBoyA eagerly watched and advised me, I scooped cantaloupe to the scale where we could measure a precise “one pound, five ounces.” Then, we processed the melon until it was smooth and added a cup and a half of sugar and processed it another thirty seconds. He carefully set the timer for an hour and we chilled it the exact amount of time. When the buzzer rang, into the ice cream maker it went and he and TwinBoy B turned the handle three times every three minutes until it was done fifteen minutes later.

Then into the freezer it went.

My husband stayed home with Babygirl while I took the boys to the pool. I didn’t want to take her because although school is out, no one notified Mother Nature and chilly winds blew dour clouds around the afternoon sky. Despite the warmth of the heated wading pool, I knew Babygirl would be cold.

I wore blue jeans, a cotton shirt, a jean jacket, heavy white socks, red Ked slip-on sneakers and carried Jayber Crow with me to read. A pack of mostly pre-teen boys jostled in the pool, playing basketball, mostly. YoungestBoy had the diving board to himself and perfected a little chubby swan dive, while I held my book open in my lap, but mostly chatted with DaycareKid who ambled over to me and sat on the adjacent lounge chair. He was shivering, so I covered him in a towel and we chatted as if we had not already spent ten hours together. His mother came over, apologizing for him, but I said, “No problem. It’s no problem at all.”

The kids swam and played for two hours while I read in fits and starts, depending on the interruptions.

The sorbet’s exile to the freezer came to an end just as we walked in the door. The boys each had a scoop and I gave my husband two for good measure.

My husband advised me he prefers his cantaloupe unprocessed. The boys ate their small scoops, but no one clamored for more. Next time we use that ice cream maker we’ll be using fudge, marshmallows and broken up Oreos. And we won’t be waiting sixteen years, either. I predict a summer full of ice cream and many more days of wild play at the pool, clouds or not.

Spider-Killing and Kicking Butt at Baby Showers

The hour of David Letterman has nearly arrived and I am still sitting at my computer, peering at the screen with contact lenses still in place. I am creating documents and maps and beautiful works of art to aid me in my presentation tomorrow. I am training volunteers to work during our week of Vacation Bible School. I need to hand them gorgeous hand-outs, complete with cute little clip-art lions and elephants and zebras, oh my.

Even though my throat hurts (only when I swallow . . . must . . . not. . . swallow . . . gulp . . .).

Only two more days of school. Who are we kidding, though? We’ve sputtered to a dead stop. The public school plans parties on the last days . . . and now I know why. The kids have pretty much done all they can do.

I keep forgetting to tell you about the baby shower game. I am a ruthless competitor when it comes to baby showers. You know how you have to do a handful of silly games before the mom-to-be opens her stacks of gifts (“awwwww, how cute!”)? Well, I can’t help myself. Suddenly, I turn into fourth-grade Mel and I must finish the test game first. This time, it was a word scramble and instead of zooming through it with embarrassing quickness, I struggled a bit. This scramble was a challenge! Everyone was finally “cheating” out loud and yet, they still didn’t have all the answers. I puzzled and grimaced and rewrote the letters in the margin and finally shouted, “I’M DONE!”

I won a $10 gift certificate to Cold Stone Creamery.

Usually, I sweep the games completely, but this time the other games were random and unwinnable by simple will-power and brain-power.

As for spider-killing (and, yes, I know–spiders are good, spiders are our friends). Tonight, my mother called and asked if I could come over. I was going out anyway to buy posterboard, so I stopped by her house first. She launched into a tale of a spider, a spider so gigantic, so enormous that she could not walk through her kitchen to her bathroom for fear this arachnid would . . . well, I’m not sure what the spider would do to her since she is ten thousand times the size of a spider, but she is terrified of spiders, especially bigger than average spiders. (None of our local spiders are venomous, either.)

I am not fond of spiders myself. I don’t like how they look at me. But I rarely kill them. I’m too scared to kill them. (I know, irrational. What a girl! What’s wrong with me?!) I ignore them if they are not bothering me or have someone else kill them if they are lurking in the bathroom sink or something, standing between me and my toothbrush.

But my mother is beyond mere fear. She cannot sleep in an apartment if she’s seen a spider crawling around. So she called me.

As we chatted a while later, sitting on her bed, clipping her new kitten’s claws, the spider lurched toward us. She began to babble and scream incoherently, leaving me to be the brave rescuer. I had to spring into action. I grabbed a crockpot box sitting on her bedroom floor (why? because she’s a packrat) and slammed it down onto the spider.

Then we both clutched our hands to our chests and felt our hearts pounding.

Eventually, I gathered enough courage to lift the box, poke at the smooshed spider with a fly swatter and flush it down the toilet.

I hate it when I’m forced into being the Brave One. Aren’t mothers supposed to do this? I mean, shouldn’t my mother be the one protecting me? When did this shift happen?

And now, it’s your turn!

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I will be flying on an airplane with four children, ages 12, 12, 7 and 2 and one husband (age 44). Upon arrival, we will be whisked away to a villa on the tropical sands my in-law’s home in hot, humid, burning hell Texas where we will stay for ten days or so.

Then, due to more circumstances beyond my control, I will be boarding an Amtrak train with my four children and one husband (who has aged after staying at his relative’s home and who will then be 47). We will be on the train for thirty-seven HELP! STOP ME! SEND VALIUM! hours.

Now. You tell me. How do I best survive this? I haven’t flown in an airplane since 1996. (I’ve only flown flapping my wings as I jump from the uppermost reaches of my two-story home.) Seriously. What should I pack? How does the whole thing work when you bring your stroller to the gate for gate-check? What is your best travel tip?

And for those of you who are curious:

1) Houston.
2) Vacation.
3) Walt Disney World.
4) Because I am clearly insane.

Don’t Mess With Me: I Have Stamps and I’m Not Afraid to Use Them

A couple of years ago, we had our mortgage refinanced. The mortgage company set up our account to hold funds in escrow for our home owner’s insurance and our taxes.

A year later, a representative from my insurance company called and politely requested that we remit the $441.00 we owed for our policy.

“Oh,” I said, “Our mortgage company is responsible for that payment.”

“Oh,” she said, “They said they weren’t and that we should call you.”

“Oh,” I said, “Let me call them and get this straightened out.”

I called my mortgage company and the customer service representative was unhelpful, but did notice that they failed to withhold the funds. Oops, they said. Sorry. We’ll fix that and you’ll have to pay the insurance company yourself.

We live on a very tight budget and at the time, I did not have an extra $441.00 lurking in my bank account or my pockets or even under the couch cushions. I can’t remember how I managed to scrape together the cash, but I was irked at having to do so.

I used to work in customer service in the correspondence department, and I know a thing or two about writing a compelling letter to a company. I whipped up a complaint letter. I asked that they “make me happy.” I demanded an apology and a refund of my $441.00. I did this all in a tone so sweet it could give you a cavity.

Some numbskull called a month or so later. As I recall, I was holding my infant daughter while she cried and he explained to me that there was nothing he could do for me. I said, “Well, let me talk to your supervisor.” He left me dangling on hold for a while, then returned and said, “My supervisor says this is our regular procedure and there’s nothing we can do.”

“Then send my letter to your supervisor and tell her that I want a written response that makes me happy.”

I never heard back.

About six months later, I sent a second polite letter, decrying the insurance company’s lack of responsiveness, describing my unhappiness. I asked again for $441.00 and an apology. In writing. I am unable to accept phone calls during the day as I am busy taking care of two babies, I wrote.

Soon after, I received a phone call. My annoyance abated when the customer service representative asked for a copy of the $441.00 bill. I mailed it in. And never heard back from them.

Six months later, give or take, I sent another letter, still polite, more insistent, suggesting that I would never be able to refer anyone to this particular insurance company if they did not make me happy. I received a generic response telling me they were researching my issue and that they’d respond within three weeks.

Another six months passed. I wrote yet another letter, attaching my previous letters. This time, I researched the name of the company’s president and including a notation at the bottom “cc: President’s Name.” (I didn’t actually send a carbon copy, though–I figured just the idea of him getting a copy would motivate them.)

Yesterday, I received a phone call from the office of the company’s president. She explained my problem (as if I were clueless) and said, “So, we could reimburse you the $441.00 from your escrow account, but then you’d have a negative balance in that account.”

I said, “NO! I don’t want the money to come from MY account. I want the money to come from the company’s account to compensate me for my inconvenience. This was not my mistake. This was your mistake.”

So, she offered to reimburse half the amount to me.

I agreed. (Now, I think I should have held out for the whole amount.)

Don’t mess with this housewife. I have a computer, a printer and a supply of postage stamps and I’m not afraid to use them. If you are a company who crosses me, I will prevail or bug you until I die trying because at some point, composing demand letters highlighting your incompetence and demanding satisfaction becomes a hobby to me. Your “no” only means I need to talk to someone higher in the food chain at your company.

Persistence pays. And so does my mortgage company. Ha.

Keeping Promises and Making Kids Cry

While Babygirl napped this afternoon, I decided to take my couch-potato, GameBoy-playing sons for a hike. I took them back to the trails at Point Defiance, which were so lovely that even the memory of Babygirl weeping and wailing as she hiked did not deter me.

The air was still, cool. The boys chattered incessantly as we briskly walked down the trail to the beach. I’d point out the trilliums and they wouldn’t quite yawn, but really, all they wanted to do was find a good stick. I described the process of decaying tree trunks and new growth and they scarcely blinked. I used the word “ecosystem,” but it didn’t spark any flicker of recognition.

The tide was low today and so the beach stretched out before us. TwinBoyB nearly fell on his head as he carelessly scrambled down the last ten feet of the trail. Then he slid on his bottom as he tiptoed across a fallen log. He finally screamed, “I HATE WALKS!” I ignored his outburst and carefully picked my way down the stairstepping roots of the giant beach-side tree.

We meandered down the beach. TwinBoyA was intent upon finding “aquatic life,” as he called it. We immediately came upon a pink and blue sea star. YoungestBoy held it and I photographed it. Then we discovered symmetrical holes in the rock, which turned out to be mudstone which contained oblong-shaped clams called piddocks. The piddocks opened like gaping bird mouths. If touched, they’d squirt and then sink back down into their holes.

We found rocks which crumbled in our hands and then it dawned on us that the rocks had broken off of the soaring walls of the bluff which bordered the beach. I think the rock was probably gypsum–it was soft as a bar of soap. We each carved our names into the rock wall. We could break the rocks with one hand, as if they were chalk.

TwinBoyB began to complain and suggest that we turn back. He is a whiner extraordinaire and always has been. His complaints are so tiresome and have ruined many an adventure. Today was no different.

We eventually turned back and found the roots of the tree which marked our trail. As we began our ascent up the trail, I said, “Children who do not complain will get a treat! Children who complain will get no treat!” I did not want to hear any bellyaching as we climbed back up the steep trail. I prompted YoungestBoy to tell the twins where we’d have our treat (Dairy Queen).

And then we trudged uphill. Although the trail was quite steep in places, it was not impossible. TwinBoyB immediately began a tirade of complaints: “I’m tired!” “I hate walking!” “Why did we have to do this?” “My legs are going to fall off.” “I’m going to explode!” “I think I am going to die. Seriously. I mean it.”

I realized that this boy would get no treat or my words would have no value. I even commented out loud and so in a great dramatic performance, he collapsed in tears and slid on his bottom on the path. His brothers were shouting encouragement and giving him their walking sticks. He cried, his face red, his attitude stinky. I dreaded what was about to happen. His brothers were frantic, cheering him on.

Just as we reached the parking lot, I mentioned that he would not get a treat. He wailed and gnashed his teeth, begging for another chance, for mercy. “Mom, what do I have to DO?” I said, “You needed to walk without complaining the whole way.”

His tantrum reminded me of Babygirl’s fit the other day. By now, his brothers were desperate. “Mom, PLEASE, you have to give him another chance!” YoungestBoy went so far as to suggest that if I’d been in his class the other day, then maybe I would have learned to think how I might feel if I were in another person’s shoes. TwinBoyA cautioned me, “Mom, God is frowning on you! Whatever happened to mercy and compassion? Huh? Huh?”

I said, “Look. I told you the rules. I made a promise. I have to keep it. He made a choice, a bad choice, and I’m sad for him, but I can’t break my promise.” At that point, TwinBoyB broke into a mournful yell, “JUST KILL ME! KILL ME NOW! I WANT TO BE DEAD!”

I stopped the car. I said, “Get out. When you’re finished, you can get back in.” He stopped screaming and looked at me through narrowed eyes. I started the car again, he started crying again and the TwinBoyA, in a great show of moral support, burst into loud weeping. He hid his face behind the sleeve of his fleece jacket. I think he was faking.

Behind me, YoungestBoy joined the chorus, sobbing so hard he could barely speak his accusations aloud. “You are so mean!” I turned to see tears running down his pink cheeks. All three boys were now crying in unison.

I wanted to roll my eyes. I wanted to laugh. But I calmly pulled the car over–again–and warned everyone to stop. I explained again why TwinBoyB would get no treat.

I think they expected me to crumble–and how I wanted to collapse under the weight of their collective disapproval–but I held steady. I pulled into the drive-through lane of the Dairy Queen and said, “What do you want?” to YoungestBoy. Then I asked TwinBoy A. I ordered a hot fudge sundae and two Georgia Fudge Mud Blizzards (one for me, one for TwinBoyA) and told TwinBoyB that I was sorry he didn’t get a treat.

He accepted his fate without a sound. TwinBoyA rose to the occasion and shared his whole treat with his brother. Before we’d gone a block, the sound of pleasant laughter filled my car.

I can only hope TwinBoyB learned something. I know I did. I need new hiking companions.

How To Freak Me Out

Without telling me, turn off the ringer to the kitchen phone.

Leave three messages on my telephone answering machine. (I’m old-fashioned. What can I say?)

First message: “Hey, I’m at your house, picking up the tape, but it’s not there. Call me. I’m going to XXX this morning, but before I leave town, I want to deliver the tape to my secretary so she can finish typing it today.”

Second message: “Hey, I’m still in town. Call me and let me know if the tape is ready to be picked up. Are you okay? Maybe your husband could deliver the tape to my office if it’s not ready before I leave town. Call me.”

Third message: “I’m in XXX now and my secretary is standing by, ready to type that tape. I hope you are okay. Are you okay? I haven’t been able to reach you all morning. I called your husband and he’s not at his office. Is everything all right? Please call me at XXX-XXXX.”

———————————————–

At that point (1:24 p.m.), I knew that the reason my boss hadn’t been able to reach me was because someone turned off the telephone ringer downstairs. I knew this because at about noon, the worthless, barely working cordless phone was sitting on the couch and began to ring. But the kitchen phone did not ring. I picked up the kitchen phone, however, to hear my husband’s voice. He told me he’d called earlier, but I hadn’t answered. He was in Portland for the day.

I looked at the buttons on the phone and saw that the “ringer” button was switched to off. I turned it back on.

It was an hour later that I discovered the phone messages upstairs.

At that point, I panicked. Not long ago, I attempted to rewind a cassette tape (which I transcribe as a part-time job). The irreplaceable, valuable-for-legal-reasons cassette tape jammed up and quit working. This time, the envelope containing the cassette apparently disappeared from my front door, where I’d taped it for my boss to pick up. He told me to have it ready by 7:30 a.m. and I’d taped it there at 7:15 a.m., just about the time DaycareKid arrived.

I put Babygirl and DaycareKid to bed, then came downstairs to investigate. I called my boss: “I left that cassette taped to my front door for you to pick up. My phone ringer was off all day, so I didn’t get your message. I’m going to figure out what happened and get back to you.” I left a message on DaycareKid’s dad’s cell phone, “Uh, you didn’t happen to see or accidentally take an envelope off my front door, did you?”

I walked outside and scoured my front yard for evidence of the envelope or the cassette. Nothing, other than TwinBoyB’s socks which are balled up and soaked by rain on the front lawn (and I used the word “lawn” loosely).

Finally, I called my boss’s office to speak to the secretary. She answered after half a dozen rings. I said, “Do you happen to have that tape?”

And she said, “Yes.”

“You do?” I said, stunned and relieved.

My boss had his wife come and pick up the envelope and deliver it to the office.

Now, DaycareKid’s dad will wonder at my extremely bizarre message and my boss will wonder at my groveling message, but I don’t care. I didn’t lose the cassette. A quirky thief is not prowling my neighborhood for envelopes stuck to doors.

The end.

Mr. Smooth Strikes Again

Tonight, a strange man caressed my hand and now I can’t stop rubbing my thumbnail.

See, it all started a week or two ago when I couldn’t find a thing to wear on a Saturday morning. I had a blue-jeans crisis, which I solved later that weekend by marching myself into Eddie Bauer and plucking a pair of denim jeans from the shelf. I didn’t even try them on and didn’t have time to take advantage of the buy one, get one half-off sale. I was in a huge hurry.

Since then, I’ve regretted my hasty purchase of only one pair of jeans. I love them and I want another pair so I can rid my closet of the others that I hate. I had a rough week with the kids, so the second my husband came home, I went shopping. First, I went to my favorite store, Marshall’s, where I found an Easter dress and pointy-toed pumps. After that, I headed back to the mall to see if I could get another pair of jeans for half-off the original price.

I parked outside of Macy’s and zig-zagged through the store to the mall corridor. I had my force field up, yet the penetrating gaze of a kiosk employee caused some kind of malfunction. I never, ever, ever, ever take a survey or listen to a spiel or even make eye contact in a mall. I just don’t. It’s a gift, a special psychological shield which protects me from such nonsense. Plus, I have the fat-housewife invisibility thing going on. Works great. Usually.

Yet, this dark-haired man reeled me into his space and asked me, “Do you have natural nails?” And I held up both my dish-pan hands and with a laugh said, “Of course! I’m a housewife!”

He looked at me with pity and compassion and took me by one dried up, wrinkled hand with its one age-spot and said, “Oh, I can help you.”

“Let me show you this,” Mr. Smooth said. And he gazed into my eyes as he held my hand. I’m afraid I had a little smirk (which he may have mistaken for a grin) on my face because I was so amused and I was thinking, Oh, just wait until I get home! Perfect blog material! His eyes twinkled and I couldn’t help but notice his long lashes. And he had some kind of accent, but I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you if it was Middle Eastern or Italian or Latin. All I know is that he was buffing my fingernail with a small rectangular block and I was thinking, I’m SO not buying anything. I wonder how much that thing is? and if I ask him how much it is, he’ll think I’m going to buy it and I’m not.

I also remembered how my sister once gave me a nail-buffing kit and how it was fun to make my nails shiny and smooth one time and then it was just too much hassle. I think I sold that kit at a garage sale.

Meanwhile, Mr. Smooth is shining and buffing away. When the thumbnail is done, it glimmers and glows and Mr. Smooth smiles and blinks at me and insists I smell the different lotions that accompany the rectangular buffing tool. I sniff each one, make a face at some. He tells me his favorite and asks which one I like. I know where this is going.

Sure enough. “This kind of product would sell for $59.95! But we don’t have television commercials. You just tell your friends and I can sell this to you for $29.95.”

I raised my eyebrows in a Do-you-think-I-shop-at-Nordstrom’s-because-I-just-came-from-the-Marshall’s-clearance-rack-where-I-purchased-a-silk-dress-and-patent-leather-Ralph-Lauren-pumps-for-a-grand-total-of-$60-dude-look and said, “I don’t think so.”

He said, “No?”

I said, “No.”

He leaned in conspiratorially and said, “Tell you what. You’re probably my last customer of the night, so I can give you the lotion free and the whole thing is only $19.95.” I grimaced and said, “Uh, no.”

“No?” he said.

“No.”

He must have mistaken me for a desperate housewife who would fall prey to the handsome hand-holding antics of a long-lashed accented man, but no. I’m no floozy. And I also wouldn’t dream of paying $19.95 for a fingernail system when I could buy something similar at Target for half the price.

He said, “Why?”

I said, “Too expensive.”

He raised his hands in despair and shrugged and he was done with me. No lingering fingertips on my palm, no fluttering touch on my wrist, nothing. No more flirty gazes into my eyes. My force field snapped back into place and I was invisible again.

I said, “But good job!” and hurried off. He didn’t even say good-bye. All I have to remember him by is my silky-smooth thumbnail. I can’t stop circling it with my index finger. Mr. Smooth! You have ruined me! I was perfectly content with my neglected nails and now, I am obsessed with the ridge-free zone, the way the light glints off my thumbnail.

So if you a woman walking around tomorrow making tiny circular motions on her thumbnail and pressing said thumb to her upper lip to feel the smoothness, that would be me.

A Sign You Might Have Reached Brain Capacity

Following church on Sunday, I began to clear the debris and straighten up. My poor husband would like nothing more than to live in a neat, tidy dorm-like room, yet I continually torture him with my crazy piles. I have a pile of Babygirl’s clothes on my dresser, waiting to be put away in her room. A pile of my shoes sits jumbled on the floor. A pile of clothing drapes over the exercise bike. A pile of papers waits to be delivered to my desk. Piles, piles, everywhere. And none of them are his.

And frankly, I can’t stand it, either, when I don’t have time to put everything away. But Saturday was crazy–we flew through the party for YoungestBoy–loud, loud, loud boys, ten of them, descended upon my house and wrestled and shouted and celebrated. I highly recommend the 90-minute party. Just as you begin to wonder, “What was I thinking?” the first parent arrives to retrieve a child.

When the party ended and Babygirl settled in for a nap, I left to meet a new friend, my New Best Friend for a very late lunch slash early dinner. (She called it “linner.”) We chatted as if we had known each other for at least forty years (she told the waitress, “We haven’t seen each other for forty years!” and the waitress looked a bit puzzled and said, “No way! You don’t look that old!”) Three hours flew by and then I flew back down the freeway to my family. (And how cliche’ is it that I “met” my New Best Friend on the internet?) That night, I typed and typed on my transcription job.

Sunday then. As I was saying, after church I puttered around tidying up while waiting for Babygirl’s naptime. I put away baskets of folded laundry, returned shoes to the closet, made the bed, and then made the fateful decision to wash an item of clothing by hand in the bathroom sink.

While it soaked in Woolite, I flitted about, creating order in my bedroom. I returned to the sink, drained the soapy water and began to run rinse water. I heard Babygirl downstairs screaming, so I hurried down to see why.

Once downstairs, I helped Babygirl fix her computer game. Then since I was near the laundry room, I pulled a dry load from the dryer and transferred a wet load from the washer. Then I started a new load. I noticed the cats’ bowls were empty, so I fed and watered them. I picked up things here and there, industriously decluttering and straightening as I went. After some time, I returned back upstairs, toting a laundry basket.

And then I heard the pleasant waterfall sound of a . . . waterfall? OH NO! I forgot to turn off the rinse water. I leapt to the bathroom, grabbing bath towels to dam the flowing water. Even after I turned off the tap, the water still cascaded over the counter. I stopped that stream and yet water trickled. I flung open the cabinet doors to find water, water everywhere. Then I opened the drawer and found an inch of standing water.

My husband returned home then and I said, “I am the stupidest woman in the world.” I explained what happened. He made a joke about my needing to find extra things to do because I am so “bored.” We made light of the flood I caused while I spent half an hour throwing away water-logged items and wiping others dry. A different kind of man might have yelled or berated, but my husband is the best kind of person to have in a crisis. He’s unflappable.

Today the ceiling has an enormous wet spot and many smaller wet spots. I haven’t even googled to find out what one should do in cases of self-inflicted water damage because I can’t bear to know if we must do something other than let it dry and repaint the ceiling. Please, if you have a horror story, DO NOT TELL ME.

So, when your brain has reached capacity, please learn from me and do not even attempt to adhere yet another post-it note to its paper-plastered surface. There is no point and sooner or later, you will find yourself dealing with a catastrophe you have caused yourself.

If I had an early warning system, it would have been flashing. Alas, I have no such system–I’m like a house with no smoke detector, only a sprinkler system to put out the fires I’ve started myself when all the flaming torches I’m juggling tumble out of orbit.

Mr. Snowman Blows a Fuse

Saturday morning means donuts at our house. My husband usually heads to the hole-in-the-wall donut shop and brings home a dozen warm donuts, which our kids then pounce upon. Babygirl ate the frosting off three of them this morning. Sometimes, there are a few left over for breakfast on Sunday morning.

This morning, my husband delivered the donuts, then went to the church for a pre-marital counseling appointment. I decided–what in the world was I thinking??–to sort through the storage room (10 x 10 feet of stuff) to find cast-offs I could donate to the church rummage sale, which takes place in two weeks.

Anyone with children understands the freakish nature of clutter. You have a child–or twins–and then suddenly, your garage is full of carseats and booster seats and outgrown toys and boxes of baby clothes and random wire hangers and ten thousand boxes of junk you can’t quite figure out how to handle. Not to mention four years’ worth of Martha Stewart “Living” magazines.

My parents saved everything–which explains why my mom has a stash of about ten boxes of worthless junk in my storage room. She lived with us for almost two years and left a trail of her belongings when she went. When my dad died, I held the Mother of All Garage Sales to get rid of the accumulated jetsam and flotsam of his forty-seven years of life. He was a ham radio operator and a computer fanatic from way back in 1977, when he built a computer from a kit. In those days, he actually programmed the thing using cassette tapes. He died before The Internet became what it is today, which is unjust. He would have loved The Internet more than anyone alive. He’d just been accepted into a program to study writing technical manuals at the University of Washington. Anyway. Apparently, I have become sidetracked.

Junk, clutter, stuff. It’s everywhere now that we have kids. This is particularly troubling to my husband because his idea of perfect interior design is a dorm room. And not a fancy-schmancy dorm room with a built-in loft. No. He’d love nothing more than to live in a room with bookshelves, a bed, a refrigerator (for his beloved Dr. Pepper and rootbeer popsicles) and a television. All this other stuff–the stuff that keeps us afloat, like winter coats and toys for the children and a bike rack for the car we keep just because some day we might actually take the bicycles somewhere and ride them, the mostly used buckets of interior paint–all this he considers worthless junk. He wants to live in austere simplicity.

But we have kids. And we have kids’ stuff. And we have a house. And Christmas decorations.

I do my best to weed through the excess now and then. This is the first time we’ve actually lived in a house longer than four years, so I haven’t had the built-in pressure to throw dead weight overboard so we can sail to another port. This time, I just have to fling open the closets and toss stuff into black garbage bags and ditch it before the kids notice.

Which brings me back to the storage room. I thought Babygirl might be distracted enough and cheerful enough that I might accomplish sorting through at least the surface layer of debris in that room. I started–and handed her a bin of Fisher-Price Little People, the old kind that are choking hazards. She busied herself and I plowed forward, throwing stuff into a bag. Then she returned the bin to me and I found a play-toolbox for her to look at. That bought me another few minutes.

Then she saw Mr. Snowman.

Mr. Snowman is a plastic Christmas decoration that stands about four feet high. It plugs in. I figured she wouldn’t remember about the plug since she hadn’t seen Mr. Snowman since Christmas-time. She wanted him, so I carried him to the family room and plunked him on the floor, plug-side in, out of sight.

Next thing I know, TwinBoyA has plugged him in. Babygirl is thrilled and I peek in to see her hugging Mr. Snowman. I hurry back to the storage room, sort through eight-hundred Play-doh related toys, then hear shouting. Mr. Snowman is broken.

YoungestBoy has been smacking Mr. Snowman with a pillow. I told him to stop once, but he ignored me and now Mr. Snowman no longer lights up. This is a crisis for Babygirl, and how do I handle it, being the mature mother of four that I am?

That’s right. I yell. I yell things like, “Why can’t you just listen to me? Why did you have to plug in the snowman? Babygirl didn’t even know it would light up! Arg! Why didn’t you stop hitting it? Arg! I can’t get anything done around here! Arg!” (Yes, I say “arg” just like a pirate.)

Okay, fine. I call Babygirl into the storage room. She notices a package of markers–extra school supplies from last year. I have a serious addiction to school supplies and always over-buy. I say, “You already have some of those. Here, how about this?”

She will not be deterred. She wants those markers. My frustration level has reached orange now. Is that the higher level where you should look out for terrorists? That’s the level I mean.

I say, “FINE” and swoop her up, stomp into the kitchen, plop her into her high-chair, realize I can’t find paper, rip off some freezer-paper for her to use, tape it to the high-chair tray, open the drawer to get a bib so she doesn’t write all over herself and–HEY! The entire drawer front comes off in my hands.

Now I am really mad. I wonder for a second if I could be suffering from my week of PMS already. No, not possible. I am just angry because I can’t get any task finished. Babygirl is crying and rejects the marker after all that.

I take her out of her seat, comfort her and sit down with pliers and a hammer and Liquid Nails to repair the stupid drawer. This is the second drawer to break in my kitchen. I fix it, then retrieve the other broken drawer from the storage room and fix it, too. By the time I finish, I am calmer. I return to the storage room. Babygirl fixates on Mr. Snowman again.

So, I get a screwdriver and replace the bulb in Mr. Snowman. It still doesn’t work. I investigate further and conclude that Mr. Snowman has blown a fuse. As I am doing this, the boys are in the next room goofing off. I tell them to be quiet, to stop, to STOP! Moments later, YoungestBoy is crying because TwinBoyA did not stop and now he’s hit YoungestBoy in the eye with a stuffed Barney–the purple dinosaur.

Alert! Alert! I’m immediately back at Orange Level, yelling stuff that sounded to my kids like “Wahnk-wahnk-wahnk-wahnk-wahnk-wahnk” just like in a Charlier Brown special. I should be carried off to solitary confinement and have my vocal cords severed. I have blown a fuse of my own.

I give up. I fix lunch for the younger kids and the older kids make themselves something. By the time my husband returns home, I am normal, no longer frothing at the mouth and convulsing, but my kids gleefully tell him, “Mom is having a bad day.” I feel like I’m going to be sent to the Principal’s Office at any second.

That’s what I get for attempting to accomplish anything.

I managed to fill my trunk with donations for the garage sale. After I put Babygirl to bed, I delivered the bags to the church basement, then went to Target to buy more school supplies. My addiction to spiral notebooks (10 for $1.00) needs professional attention. When I returned home, we went to the pool where we met my mother and my neice and nephew. We swam until we were water-logged.

The warning level has returned to purple, or wherever it is that all you have to be concerned about is someone giving you a dirty look. Tomorrow morning, leftover donuts and then we head to church, where hopefully I can be redeemed.