My new active lifestyle

Location, location, location. Just being here I’ve magically become athletic. It’s wild. Every day I do at least one, usually two, often more, of the following: swim/bike/walk/run. (Run! I know! And I’m not even being chased!) Nowadays, just walking around, I am pleasantly aware of my muscles which are happy being used. And I am just exhausted by nightfall. It doesn’t even feel like exercise, though. It feels like fun. I suddenly get, suddenly remember from my own childhood, why Little Girl runs and runs: for the joy of it.

In the morning, for example, we may bike to a park twenty minutes away, and on the way back detour to a nearby equestrian stable with a free petting zoo (free petting zoo! I know!). Maybe in the afternoon we’ll swim (Little Girl, if she has her vest on, is like a little fish, and darts around). Every evening we take the dogs for a walk/run around the lagoons and then back on the beach. When Husband’s not working, we’ll hike or bike through a nearby nature preserve. My in-laws, who, despite US Airways’s best efforts, did in fact arrive*, are up for reduced-speed versions of most of these activities. Something about this place just invites activity. Glorious really.

* I ran the numbers, and they could have driven here faster than it took them to fly: their trip averaged 71 miles per hour.

Proof of running:

Today

It’s our sixth anniversary. I’m not one to make too much of these sorts of things, but it did, as it turned out, hurt my feelings when Husband set out on a three-hour biking photography expedition, leaving me home to finish cleaning the bathrooms. Sure, he asked me several times if I was okay with it, but I know how much he enjoys taking pictures, and we didn’t have any specific plans, so I told him to go ahead. And then I was sad to be alone, that he didn’t want to do something fun together. So while he was gone, Little Girl and I went to my favorite restaurant and were sure to order dessert.

This afternoon our Atlanta home, still nowhere near being sold, had an open house. Yesterday the real estate agent called us to tell us she was quite sick and a colleague would be showing it for us. Okay, sick is sick. Except she had friended me on Facebook and her status for today was “going to church, going to a birthday party, watching [some sporting event].” Niiiice. And we haven’t heard a thing about the open house.

And, particularly awesomely, an asshole who (date) raped me in high school suddenly contacted me via email this evening. Like I want something to do with him. I’ll just ignore it, but I hate that he’s now in my thoughts. Hate.

So, not my favorite anniversary so far, then.

Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Early Friday morning, the 26th, my parents-in-law in Sweden got on a plane to Frankfurt, fully expecting to connect to a flight to North Carolina, and from there to Savannah, the closest airport to us. They were going to be here for nearly two weeks and carefully-timed arrangements of vacation time (for us) and dog-sitting (for them) had been calculated, and they were to return to Sweden in time for their son’s wife’s first child’s due date.

Except they’ve been in Frankfurt now for two days and the insulting excuse for an airline, US Airways, has no plans to get them to the United States before Tuesday and doesn’t even seem all that interested in getting them here then. FIVE DAYS AT AN AIRPORT! Come on, this trip should take 20 hours door-to-door, max.

First they waited four hours to get on their cross-Atlantic flight, and then boarded, only to be told the plane had mechanical problems and they had to stay the night and leave 24 hours later. That next day, the flight left three hours late, flew for two hours, and then turned back. And all flights until sometime next week are already overbooked, and the airline is telling them to get their luggage and get a hotel and just, what, wait and hope the third time’s the charm? And it’s affecting some 200 people, elderly, people with little kids, just waiting…

Meanwhile, when Husband or his brother call US Airways, we’re told they’re on a flight right now. And when we inform them that indeed they are not, they “customer service” people are like…”Uh…well…let me give you this number to call.” Or they want my bewildered in-laws to call an American 1-800 number from Germany on their Swedish cell phone. WTF?

Honestly, I think at this point, since we are seemingly unable to get them on another airline and this “air carrier” is clearly unable and unwilling to carry people in the air, we might just have them sent back to Sweden and give right on up. The kicker is today is my father-in-law’s birthday, too. What do they say in Frankfurt? Scheisse?

Housing

My brother-in-law and his now 37-weeks-pregnant wife just bought a house. To our great disappointment it’s not in the little village in Sweden where we’ll be moving and where they’d wanted to live, too; unfortunately, no little old ladies died so nothing has been available (one got sick, so we got our hopes up, but alas). They found a place in the city. We’d had this whole fantasy worked up about our children running through the fields between our homes, exploring the forest together, attending the little village schools as a cousin-group…and it may still happen, but I think they think it’s easier to move house with kids than it is. I suspect they’ll be in that townhouse in a while. But I’m glad they found a place they like.

We still plan, of course, on living in that little village, population 700. But I’m starting to wonder about what we’ll do with all the space in the big country home. We are only bringing furniture for three rooms (dining room, living room, Little Girl’s room) but that leaves another living room, the kitchen, and the four other bedrooms empty, not to mention the full basement. (My mom keeps telling me not to get furniture, to wait until my grandparents die and she’ll send us their stuff. Uh…) I think I’m going to feel like an idiot knocking about in that huge place if I don’t have a bunch more kids. And I took this quiz online that said I would do best with just one child, and you know how authoritative internet quizzes are. You don’t want to question their findings.

Not only that, but I’m not even sure what rooms should be what. I’m starting to get why, in Sweden, they don’t say, “This is a three-bedroom house.” They say something like, “This is a seven-room house.” It’s up to you to figure out what goes where! So on the bottom floor you have four big rooms, all interconnected. Right now the kitchen is on the left when you come in, which is fine, I’m not crazy enough to move a kitchen, and then down a hall on the right is the dining room. The stairs to the upstairs go up from the dining room (???). The back right room is the formal living room (rarely used) and the back left is the library/guest room (even less-used). We had planned to knock out the wall between the kitchen and the library to make a bigger kitchen/family room thing, but now I’m thinking we should put the dining room there and have the other front room be the family room. Basically I don’t know that I want everybody stomping by my antique china cabinet filled with Limoges porcelain fifty times a day.

Upstairs are three rooms that are definitely bedrooms (uh, except right now one is the office, and one is the TV room), one little room off the main hall (currently a walk-in closet), and two other little rooms (with windows) off two of the bedrooms. What are these rooms? Are they closets? Kids’ bedrooms? Home offices? Gah. I just don’t know. In the past they’ve been all these things (my in-laws had three kids and a foster child to fill the house). I am having trouble imagining living there without nailing these details down. Which we do need to do since the renovation will be progressing apace.

Oh, I know, omigod, poor me, my delightful Swedish country home is too spacious. But just think of how long it will take to clean those floors!

The view from the kitchen window:

My staff

You may recall my mother insisted, as part of letting us live here, that we employ a housekeeper. I did and do find this insulting, irritating, not to mention unnecessary, given that I am perfectly capable of keeping house and this one isn’t even that big and is relatively easy to maintain, especially as we aren’t allowed to let the dogs in it beyond the kitchen. But I didn’t have a choice and said I would find one.

First I put up a Craigslist ad and got several responses. I had one nice lady come to the house and, though she talked me into paying her nearly twice what I’d posted and didn’t have her own supplies and had scheduling difficulties, I felt so guilty and uncomfortable about the housekeeper thing (too much women’s studies at college?) I hired her anyway. And then thought better of it and told her I had to find someone else. I made interview appointments with two more applicants; one didn’t show, and the next canceled the hour before. Finally I took the recommendation of a neighbor to try her housekeeper, who, like the first lady, asked for 20 dollars an hour. Look, I don’t quite make 20 an hour! (At my research job it’s 19.77 now. I do, or did, make more teaching. Just, you know, FYI). 20 dollars an hour! Christ.

But by this point, it’d been two months here and I still only had a fictional maid when talking to my mother, so I asked her to come today. I was going to have her do things I technically can do but likely will not, like cleaning the window exteriors. And now it looks like she’s not showing up, either. Sheesh. Why is this so difficult? I guess I’d be more pissed if I actually wanted some household help, but I’d at least like people to keep their appointments. *

There’s also a yardman, one my grandparents originally hired. He speaks Gullah, which I am slowly learning to understand, and requires Cokes whenever he comes by. My mother, and now I, pay him really just excessive amounts of money to do very little, as my mother insists I clean up the yard, instructing that “no palm frond should be on the ground more than 24 hours.” And there’s also a handyman, and thank goodness I don’t have to pay him, as he is jovial and talented but OH SO SLOW. I haven’t asked him to come as Husband is up for all that kind of handyman stuff, anyway. (For that matter, he also mowed the lawn.)

In conclusion, good help is hard to find, even when you don’t actually want any help.

* Okay, now she showed up, and I feel compelled the clean the crap out of the rooms she is not in.

I and the Destination

I ran across this poem in all the sorting when we were moving out. It was written and published in the school calendar when I was in the seventh grade and was about visiting my dad in Alaska in the summers. After a very dramatic court battle at age eight which I unfortunately remember quite well my dad won six-week visitation rights. I thought this was fantastic, as my dad let me watch TV, play video games, eat straight butter, and sleep until noon. Now, though, I get why my mom was not so on board with certain elements of the arrangement, like putting me on a plane–indeed, a series of planes–to fly across the country, all by myself. Ack, you know? But she had no choice. As it happened, I only have fond memories of those long trips and all in all I appreciate the traveling temperament and skills fostered by the experience. Anyway, here’s the poem:

I have now arrived.
I get impatient.
I want to get off this plane.
I strain to see the stewardess who will come and get me.
I think, for a dumb reason, those unfortunates like me who fly unaccompanied by an adult often have to wait for a long time to get off the plane because of a rule which says those under 14 must always be accompanied by a flight attendant until they reach their final destination, which, in my case is Anchorage.
I hate this, because I know the Atlanta, Salt Lake, and Seattle airports almost by heart. Finally
I see her. She smiled tiredly and shouts at me to get in front of her, to get my ticket, and to get off the plan if I’m the Frequent Flier Unaccompanied Child.
I shout back, Yes!
I comply with her request to get in front of her, and she hands me back my ticket over my shoulder.
I say thanks, and move off the great steel machine onto the walkway, and the static electricity in my stomach jumps 30 volts.
I strain again, this time to see Dad.
I spot him and walk faster.
I soon run, maybe hug, say hello, how are you? Great, I’m fine, the flight was okay, I sat by this weird lady who…etc., brief him on the tactics of annoying busy businessmen, saying anything except how good it is to see him. He signs the ticket quickly, and we get the luggage, can we leave?
I want to tell him how nice it is to see him, to stop pretending that it’s cool I haven’t seen him for so long. Only as soon as we leave the airport in his “Pregnant Rollerskate” do
I let my guard down. Now
I have arrived. Now
I’m the center of attention.

Out of work

It’s been years now since my dad was employed as a philosophy professor. But that’s what he is, and what he should be doing. (Really he’d be an excellent guru, and an even better cult leader, if he had the ambition and worked up a good shtick.) He was laid off about five years ago from his last university and though he applies, of his own volition and as part of receiving unemployment, to several jobs a week, it’s been nothing. For about a year and a half he worked in insurance in some paper-shuffling capacity, but he was, a year ago, laid off from that, too.

Every few months a job possibility that really excites him comes up, and it’ll be all he offers for his side of the conversation. He’ll talk about moving logistics, and tell me all about the program, and his hopes are always so high. And it never comes to anything. It pisses me off. What, they only want inexperienced, unintelligent candidates, is that it? There’s no one better than my dad at expounding on hermeneutics. No one! They are missing out! He oozes charisma and erudition. There’s a reason his grad students like to sleep with him. He is a captivating professor.

But I worry his teaching career may be over. He’s too old, he’s now been out of the game too long, his publications are not sexy enough. The possibility of just giving up and calling himself retired and trying to live on that pittance, though, well, I don’t know that his battered self-esteem can take it. He’s used to being master in the classroom, and he’s not ready to admit defeat and call it a day on a career he’d love to continue. Plus, he’d like health insurance.

There was a period of about six months when I was desperately trying to break into social work and nothing was happening. The combination of impotence and desire–not to mention need–I recall was a constant cloud, a shame and disappointment that was hard to shake. I’m so unhappy my dad has been stuck feeling like his life’s work, all his knowledge and consideration and talent for teaching, is now, for all practical purposes, worthless. Because he’s not.

Aboutface

Today was Little Girl’s first day of “school.” Not only did I send her to preschool way before I’d planned (by which I mean: at all), but it’s at a church. A Baptist church. A Southern Baptist church in South Carolina. And it’s a super-religious program, too. All their little library’s books are about Jesus. They teach the shapes thusly: The Trinity is a triangle! The Bible is a rectangle!

And that’s okay. Eight six-hour weeks of religion at age two isn’t going to ruin her for rationality. And you know what it will do? It will introduce her to new buddies, as she pines for her old ones. It will give me some time to do my work-from-home gig, as I’m getting tired of squeezing that in between her bedtime and mine. It will keep her more productively occupied than I’ve often been up for lately, as they don’t show videos (more on that later). And it’s biking-distance! Cheap! And the people are very nice. And if Little Girl starts wanting us to take a moment to consider our good fortune before meals I think that’s probably a very good idea.

I teared up walking her into the room, and felt very sad as she clung to me when I made to leave and told me she was “gonna be sad, Mama!” But when I left she was doing a puzzle, only a little morose. And when I picked her up–”Mama come back!”–she greeted me, then went back to the toys. She hasn’t been especially forthcoming about what she did today, but I did get “I like my buddies!” and that’s just great.

In an impressively skillful bit of scheduling, I interviewed for the university teaching position off-island during “school” (sorry, I can only use ironic quotation marks when using that word for a two-year-old), and it went very, very satisfactorily. And that’s great, too.

(I was all worked up about how I had to be off-island for her first day of “school”, so pinned to her backpack is a very complex note for the teacher involving neighbors’ numbers and schedules. I also interrogated the teacher afterwards about activities and emotions, which none of the other mothers did, so I hope I don’t come off as neurotic as I, uh, guess I evidently am.)

Oh shit

For his birthday, Husband shaved off his beard. Then today he got back from a run, took a shower, and asked me to cut off his pony tail. He donates his hair to Locks of Love every few years. Well, my friends, I don’t quite know how, but I totally fucked it up. It’s uneven, it’s too short to put up (well, one side is), and he’s really, really, really upset. As well he should be. I’m very, very, very sorry. There’s nothing I can do, and it’s not like, on Sunday afternoon, he can get it trimmed right, and he definitely can’t get it to grow. He’s going to have to cut it short since it’s a stupid between-length and he hates it short. How did I screw it up so much? Shit.

(Honestly, I think it looks okay now he evened out the one side. Actually, it looks neater than before. I cut off like fifteen inches, and the last five were pretty straggly. I mean, it’s kind of flippy, in a kind of, uh, girly way, in the back, but, you know, it’s cute. It’s nice! Really! I ran out to get him grippier rubber bands, to see if he could still make a pony tail, which I think he can, except for a wisp, but he won’t try them. I also offered to let him hack off my hair, to make us even, but he has declined. He’s focusing on being pissed. Bad wife.)

An affinity for water

I like to christen my hair by waiting for just the right one, then diving under a rushing wave, kicking my legs, my arms out straight before me. Then I swim back and forth, with measured movements, just behind the waves, not far from the dolphins if they’re passing playfully by, underwater in front of our little stretch of beach. I keep my eyes closed and feel the changes in the water’s temperature; I like to think of warm patches as dolphin pee but of course it’s thanks to the sun. Late afternoon is the best, swimming into the sunset, alone in the water, Little Girl and Husband laughing in the surf.

I’ll take time for some somersaults, hand-stands. Then I’ll reluctantly turn back to the shore, and remember, and wonder if I can steal a few more moments to myself for body surfing. Then there’s the calculating, watching, throwing myself under, letting the pull overpower me until it’s time to right myself. I’ll stumble up, curious where I’ve ended up, and wave to Little Girl, who always lunges towards me. I’ll take my turn with her as the waves break, sitting in the shallows, lifting her up over the crashing water. Every so often she’ll turn to me, grinning, “This is so fun, Mama!”, then turn back to face the waves again, happy for hours. With her life vest, I’ll take her to sea, too, and she’ll ride my back like a little turtle shell, clinging to me like a little monkey, always pointing to the horizon. “Let’s go that way, Mama! I like the ocean!”

Life continues anon

–Happy 35th Birthday to Husband! He’s taking it rather better than his 30th, but really that’s not hard to do. I made him Moxie’s Bacon Brown-Sugar Coffee Cake and gave him new undergarments (this was fraught with symbolism, since evidently men’s underwear-buying habits improve with their sense of economic well-being) and a Thai cook book and a new but otherwise identical version of his favorite sneakers, which have disintegrated. Little Girl was quite thoughtful and gave him a pepper mill since our good one is in storage, awaiting Europe, and the man needs–deserves!–his fresh-ground pepper. She picked one out that’s got bunny ears and was on sale for seven dollars! Well done, Little Girl.

–Lowered price on house. It’s been shown rather a lot, actually, but those damn power lines freak people out. Look, Little Girl was gestated and reared in that house, and she is perfect in every way. What other evidence do you need of their harmlessness? They are not even that near the house! Really, the worst thing about power lines is that they make it harder to sell your house later.

–The university called me in for an interview. This is gratifying, even if I doubt the logistics will work out.

–Here in my glass-walled tree house (please, no throwing stones, ha ha) we have twice heard a THWUMP and then the dogs barking downstairs. Birds–first an Eastern Bluebird, then a Woodpecker–didn’t realize the walls were there and, well, thwumped. The first time Little Girl was with me when I had to take a shovel and bury it in the sand out under a palm at the edge of the property. She was absolutely appalled that I did not “give it medicine, make it all better!” The second time I managed to keep my layman’s gravedigging from her, to avoid further questions like “Where’d the baby bird go, Mama? It say tweet tweet?” I tried to explain about how it was dead, and it couldn’t fly anymore, and we couldn’t take it to the doctor, and it was sad, but she just looked at me, displeased with my bird-neglect, putting a baby bird in a hole in the ground. When we later went to visit my mother’s, which of course was the home of the, if not exactly adorable (she was scrappy), then fascinating, rabbit Inga, who just died, too, she likewise was dubious when I said Inga was dead, she couldn’t hop anymore, and we wouldn’t see her again, and it was sad. “Where’d Inga go, Mama? My wanna give her a carrot!” Ah, yes. That’s life.

Technical difficulties

God, there’s nothing like internet connection problems to frustrate the crap out of me. I have no patience in that area. Blech. I want my internet and I want it now and always.

Recently Little Girl and I went briefly to visit my mom and grandparents. Perhaps–probably?–it’s disrespectful and maybe even incorrect to think of it like this, but I always compare Little Girl’s developmental progress to her great-grandmother’s deterioration. Little Girl now leads in pretty much every area–mobility, following of social norms and directions, toilet usage, self-care, even fashion and logic. My hope for my grandparents had always been that they live as long as they enjoy it, but it’s beginning to be clear that my grandmother finds life only confusing, terrifying, frustrating, humiliating, and unfair. There are small moments–like when Little Girl gives her big hugs–that she lights up. But it is sadly obvious that she’s not at all happy or even content. She doesn’t even know she’s in her own house of the last forty years, and keeps pleading, “I need to get out of here. I need to go home.” So, mom, if I want my grandmother to pass on, it’s for her own good, not the cash. Her mind has failed her.

Husband has returned from Europe with great fanfare (i.e. Little Girl was so excited she didn’t go to sleep until after 11 PM). It’s just in time, too, since I have a huge, technical, crazy-making work project going on that combines translation with computer programming with the internet. I’m sorry, did I not go to grad school for something else entirely? I originally left this field for a reason. Sigh. I’ve actually been trying to get a university teaching post again but all the avenues of inquiry I have pursued–snail mail, phone, email–have been ignored. All that remains is just showing on up uninvited, but I’d have to bring Little Girl, which might not win me points for professionalism. She’s pretty cute, though, so I guess it’s worth a shot.