Wonderpet Powers, Activate!

Before I go into all this, let me say that all parties involved are still alive. That is, unless I give in to the urge to kill them before you read this.

Since we moved, we have been having some problems with the pets. They seem to have, among other things, developed the ability to fly, pass through walls, and yes, even ingest the utterly indigestible in a single bound. I do not know how this has happened, and as yet no human occupant of the house has developed similar characteristics. However, I provide the following cases in point of proof of my assertions:

-- Tuesday, 3pm, May 13th--
All is quiet as I unpack yet another box while wondering if they have started to repack themselves, since I am sure I have taken these very things out of a box just the day before. I realize with a shock that it IS quiet. Too quiet. Our house is never quiet. The kids are at school, yes, but something is amiss. I listen closer, and hear frantic whining that I had previously dismissed as being too far away to be MY dogs, who are safely in the back yard, Tyler free and Baci on a lead, since the fence is lower than we would like and while Tyler is old and well-behaved, Baci is young and...well...freaky. However, I decide to go outside and investigate. Imagine my surprise when I find the ONE dog that is still in the yard, Baci, tangled in the chicken wire that spans the unfenced yard-and-a-half near the corner of the yard near the house, all ninety pounds of him, and Tyler, the GOOD ONE, running around like a maniac in the neighbor's yard! ARGH! How on EARTH did they jump up onto the retaining wall between the houses, maneuver the chicken wire, which was pretty secure, so that it would make a pass through, and how on EARTH is it that the LAME dog managed to get through fine while the gigantic PUPPY sits there crying like an idiot? I call Tyler, who sneaks over because he knows he's screwed, and somehow manage to untangle the idiot puppy, who makes himself even more tangled by wriggling all over (which is saying a lot in a dog that large), and haul them into the house, hoping no one noticed their little escapade. At least the cat is normal.

--Tuesday, 4:30pm, March 13--
The new house has two sleeping porches, and I decide to leave the door to the upstairs one open to get some air and to let the dogs sit outside while I unpack the zillion upstairs boxes, all of which are labeled 'Sheets and Misc' (?!?!). I see the cat go outside, and hear her hiss at Baci, who she hates with a passion that would rival the Red Sox' hatred of the Yankees, and think, good, fresh air for the cat, too. The porch has a high, sturdy railing and narrow slats. It's perfectly safe. This is when said cat activates her new superpower, Flying! She leaps to the top of the railing, jumps from our second-story porch into the neighbor's tree, several feet away, and takes off for parts unknown!!!!!!! I finally find her five hours later, covered in dandelion fluff and cobwebs and looking quite pleased with herself. She has since gotten out twice, and we have no idea how, since I have been careful not to let her onto the balcony again. DH thinks she may have found a way to get behind the drywall in the basement to the stone foundation, and may have found an exit that way. I think she is passing through the walls. Cats are demons, anyway, right?

--Tuesday, 7pm, March 13--
We have rotisserie chicken for dinner from supermarket. After dinner, we clear the table of everything but the Remains and various stuffs, which we will get after putting the kids to bed. An hour later, we come back downstairs to discover the carcass is gone without a trace. Nothing else has been disturbed. There is no juice, no gristle, not a shred of meat. We are baffled, and search the house. The only thing I find is Baci, asleep on his back in the kitchen, SNORING. No, it couldn't have been him. How would he have gotten to the middle of the table without a) being completely on it and b)without disturbing anything else? The next morning, however, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak - doggie diarrhea all over the back yard. Thank God for rain.


--Wednesday, 9am, March 14--
Dogs make a break for the neighbors' yard again, regardless of reinforcements performed on fence. The only plausible explanation for this would be invisible opposable thumbs. I once again drag them into the house and sequester them to the entryway and upstairs, since the piano tuner is in the dining room, which adjoins to the living room. I go upstairs to collect laundry, and open stained glass windows in the stairwell; windows have no screens, but are quite high, particularly the one on the first landing. I am not concerned about intruders in our neighborhood, anyway, at least not in broad daylight. After stuffing laundry into machine, I sit down, stare at the wall and drool. From my reverie, I hear a jogger telling something to 'go on - go home!', and get a sinking feeling that something is wrong with the force. I get up, look into the entryway, and sure enough - Baci is gone. The only way he could have gotten out is through the second story stained glass window, which is now pushed all the way open. I go outside, and there is The Dog, running in the neighbor's yard, totally confused as to how to get back here. That makes sense, since the way he got out - through the window onto the lower roof that covers the hot tub area, and then down another FIVE FEET to the ground into the yard next door - wasn't really a feasible way to get back. I drag dog back inside, cursing a blue streak, and begin the process of chipping off the paint from the edges of the window (it had been painted shut initially, so when I opened it there were clumps of paint stuck to it) so I could shut it enough to lock it. As I'm doing this, I hear the piano tuner stop working and say something, so I turn to come downstairs and see what he needs, only to find the door between the kitchen and entryway OPEN. Baci, of course, was in the kitchen, staring at the piano tuner like a lovesick sailor.

So, when you see me on the Discovery Channel pretty soon with my obnoxious Wonderpets, making all kinds of money off of their amazing abilities, please call me and remind me that the money is worth the aggravation, and I shouldn't auction them off to the highest bidder, or give them away on the street along with a $20 for your trouble!

Happy Mom's Day, And Nosy People (You Know Who You Are!)

First thing's first - here's my favorite Mother's Day song, EVER. Happy day, ladies! Did anybody get any exciting loot? I know that this isn't about presents, necessarily, but they sure don't hurt!!! I, myself, got a PS2 game, Innocent Life: Harvest Moon, which is a sim game, an angel figurine, and cast iron outdoor mommy and baby ducks (the mommy is about 6in tall) from Restoration Hardware. Also, I got a paper dollhouse (complete with paper staircase and some tiny paper furniture) and a popsicle boat, both made by Josie. All in all, a very good year.

I have to say, in the past, I have gotten some real Turkeys. My first Mother's Day was when I was due to give birth any minute, and The Man Who Did That To Me FORGOT to even so much as Mention IT TO ME!!!! Ooh, he was totally in the shi**er that day. After that came the construction-orange cardboard shelves, and the plans for an around-the-tree-trunk bench that never got built. In comparison, this year represents winning the lottery!

Now, for the Nosy People part.

As I write many of my emails, posts, etc, my kids, and my daughter in particular, typically hang over my neck to see what I'm doing. This lack of privacy drives me INSANE!!! Josie totally reads over my shoulder. All. The. TIME. I can't stand it! Sometimes, I can actually see her lips move as she reads my words to herself! Occasionally, I write a little note to her in the middle of whatever else I'm writing, like 'Is Josie enjoying her mommy's email?' but she either doesn't make it that far or pretends to not see it.

This is part of a larger trend of her seeming to feel like she has to be involved in every little thing I do. If I'm on the phone, she hangs around to see what I'm talking about and who it is. If there's mail, she wants to look at it. Lord forbid DH and I have a conversation, because inevitably we will either a) be interrupted to be questioned about what something means or b) be asked a question on the very same topic we just finished discussing that is impossible to explain without going into our entire conversation again for her benefit. Lately, I have taken to telling her that whatever it is was not her conversation, and if she wants to listen to other people's conversations, she needs to either keep up or keep quiet. This only seems to marginally work. Patrick hasn't really started this yet, being oblivious to half the universe, but I'm sure he'll pick up the habit sooner or later. How have you all dealt with this Extreme Nosing?

Living in Crates and Barrels

We are still living in Boxland, and I'm not planning on doing anything today to fix it. I've been seriously overdoing it the last couple of weeks, and yesterday I ended up with both a migraine and problems with my hiatal hernia, probably brought on by two weeks of catch-as-catch-can meals, too much caffeine, and practically standing on my head to unpack boxes that are half as tall as I am. I was up a good part of the night, and am still sore, so phooey on unpacking. It's almost the weekend - I'll work on it then.

Part of what's taking so long to unpack is that now I have to drive both kids to their schools, which are on opposite ends of town. We leave at 8ish, drop off Josie, drive across town, and drop of Patrick. Then, three hours later, I go back to get him, and three hours after THAT, I have to leave to get Josie again. I feel like I'm constantly preparing to leave, driving, or just getting back from somewhere. As hard as summer vacation can be to deal with, I'll be glad when school is over so I can stop feeling like a shuttle service!

Yesterday morning I went to Target to get some bathroom stuff, like little shelves, etc. Why do companies sell things that just plain don't work?! I bought these little wire shelves, just the right size to hold a toothbrush and a little cup, that have large suction cups on the backs to stick onto the tile around the sink area. I got them home, and they literally fall off within ten seconds. The suction cups are too floppy, and not deep enough. Now, seriously, why even bother making such a thing?! I tried wetting them, holding them on, everything, but finally gave up when I realized that if it was that much work to get them on EMPTY, there was no way they would hold up with anything in them. Now I have to go back and return them. Yagh.

I'm looking forward to Mother's Day this year. I know that Josie has made me something, and her Somethings are getting pretty cool as she gets older because she is extremely creative and artistic. I also know that DH has gotten me a game I've been wanting, rather than the usual odd choices like, um, one year he got me construction-orange cardboard shelves. Two other times, it was plans for something he was going to build me that never got built. Any year that I know the gift doesn't involve cardboard or plans, I'm pleased. :)

My mother-in-law, though, called the other day to tell me that her gift to all the women in the family was going to be a donation to the scholarship fund my nephew's parents set up in his name after he died. On the one hand, I appreciate this gift, but it's also the most depressing gift ever, and typically it's the only present she gives anymore. Ever since the fund was set up, every birthday and holiday gift has been that. It's kind of like having someone call me up and say 'Happy Whatever, but don't forget that Ryan died!' Like I could forget. I know that there's nothing I can do about this trend, but what makes it even more depressing is that the men in the family actually get Gifts. It's only the women who no longer get anything but the gift of sadness. I'm not sure why that would be. I don't want to seem greedy, because I honestly don't care if she gets me anything, and they're been very generous to us, but honestly. Sigh.

OK, I'm done whining. I'm going to try and take a little nap before I have to jump in the car again!!!

Ta-Da!

We're alive!!!! The house looks like a homeless village, but I finally found the power cable to my laptop, so here I am!!!!

Oh, I am SO tired. I am realizing that the downside to having someone else pack your things is that you don't know where anything is. They labeled the boxes nicely, but obviously every little thing isn't written on them, and a 50ish man packed the kitchen, meaning that he labeled everything 'pots and pans', whether it was actually a pot or, say, a baking dish. Or, just a lid, wrapped with a bunch of other miscellaneous items. Sigh. Also, the wrapping paper they used came in huge sheets a yard square, which they placed in big piles on the kitchen counters while they were wrapping things. They wrapped EVERYTHING, including plastic knick-knacks, in about four sheets of the stuff, turning everything into unrecognizable balls of slippery, cream-colored paper. My kitchen looks like a paper factory exploded.

The move itself was actually a pretty good experience. People actually showed up when they were supposed to, and everything in the house got packed, including our food! Tonight was our first home-cooked meal in almost a week; it's amazing how one can actually get tired of having to eat out, especially when the children's menus are pretty much the same no matter where you go. I was starting to think that Patrick was going to turn into a chicken nugget with french fry legs! Even our large playset was moved right away, which we had been told would not be able to happen. This is actually the first decent experience I have had with movers, ever.

So, here I am sitting, pretending that the boxes aren't all calling my name, mocking me. I am tired of looking at them, but I'm also tired of unpacking them. I'll do it tomorrow. At least I got the kitchen finished today, thank goodness, and the TVs are set up and finally working (our cable installation was all wrong, and I actually had to drive over to the company office this morning and exchange the remote because the one they gave me was broken - I waited around for four hours to get none of the channels I had asked for, no HD, and a broken remote! gotta love cable).

Tomorrow morning I will make my last trip into the old house (it's weird to say that) tomorrow morning, when I go to pick up my seedlings. It's so filthy, I was so embarrassed!!! Not only had I stopped doing anything but the most basic cleaning about two weeks ago, but add in the fact that the animals are shedding and all the furniture was moved so you could see the ugly underneath, and YEOWCH!

I have to say, as unhappy as I was initially, in the end I am actually glad that this all happened. We love this house, and it suits us so well. It's a wonderful neighborhood, and several people have already introduced themselves, including some kids who came to check out our kids. Josie has already spent several afternoons playing with Matt Across The Street. I think we're going to be very happy here.

See Ya Monday

This will probably be my last post for a few days. Our internet connection here at the house is going to be turned off, and the one at the new house will be turned on. The little local company we use won't allow us to have a connection in two places, annoyingly enough, and forget rescheduling, we'd need a pardon from the Queen of England or something to get THAT done. As it is, we have the usual annoying window for service at the new place of somewhere between 3pm and the end of time.

I have spent the last few days totally knocking myself out, bringing Patrick to school, scrubbing and painting at the new place, picking him up, dropping him off at home with sinus-infected DH, and then going back over to the new place to scrub and paint some more. Then I come home, make dinner, clean up, read to Josie, and fall into bed, to have weird moving-week dreams. Today, for a little variety, I threw in a long drive to drop off Patrick with DH's sister, Jane, who I love, and his cousins for the weekend, and a mad vacuum-dusting fest at the current place so everything'll be ready when the packers come tomorrow. I never thought I'd be glad to see the day when I have 'only' one house to clean!!

Everyone I talk to says the same two things - 'Oh, that was so FAST, wow!" and 'Well, at least it's almost over.' It is all I can do not to smack those people right upside their stupid heads! We first learned of the potential for losing our house *five months ago*. Since every day I have spent looking at these walls I so carefully wallpapered imagining them being knocked down has been a long one, that's a loooong time to me, not to mention the emotional and mental 'time' I have spent dwelling on it. No, no, not so fast at all, and I would like some credit for all that time rather than a dismissively trite 'almost over' . Uh-uh.

This week in the paper, news of our neighborhood's plight has gotten out. I am not a financially secretive person - if you ask me what I paid for something, I'll tell you, no problem. But, seeing our names, address, and what we were paid for our house by the county as it's being demolished is disturbing to me. I realize that it's public knowledge, since it was purchased with public funds, but I still feel weird. Even worse, the article detailed how shoddily some of our neighbors are being treated! The poor people two doors up from us were offered their asking price on their house (which was for sale until the county told them a few months ago that they couldn't sell it), and then at a council meeting this week, after the owner had signed the offer, when it came time to do the final vote, two people on the county council *changed their minds* and voted AGAINST the offer they had previously voted FOR, one on the grounds that the offer was too high (but apparently hadn't been the week before?) and the other - my favorite - because since they've decided that only the front half of the property will be needed for the road widening, he wanted to buy ONLY THE FRONT PORCH, rip it off, and just pay for that part of the property, leaving the naked house front directly on the sidewalk. That, my friends, is a serious contender for Dillhole of the Year. What a Wipe! I was afraid of that very thing happening to us, and even reading the article made me have a nausea-inducing panic attack. Luckily, there were enough people with a shred of decency that the house was purchased, anyway.

Anyway, God willing, the movers will be here in the morning, and will pack all our crap into boxes that we can climb over until they get moved on Monday. Cross your fingers for me that everything goes smoothly from here on out!!!

The Gift That Keeps On... Waiting

What is it with the new trend of not opening presents?! I understand when we're at kid parties held at a remote location that it's easier not to do it, especially when you've dropped $300 so Little Jane and fifteen of her closest friends can give their parents migraines at Chuck E. Cheese. I get that. However, I have a problem with the following:

1. Recently, we were at a home birthday party, with about ten kids, all of whom were 5-6 years old, and presents were placed on a table and left there, unwrapped. I have never been to a party at someone's house where the gifts were left for later.

2. This morning, I visited a friend at the hospital with her new baby, who is absolutely gorgeous because of a) good genes and b) c-section delivery. I brought a gift for her, one for the baby, and one small thing for each of her two other girls, both of whom I actually know and see on a daily basis. I didn't expect her to open the girls' gifts, so I placed them on the floor near her bag, but I put the presents for her and the baby on the bed. She didn't open them. They sat there awkwardly for about fifteen minutes, and then she placed the bags on the floor next to her bed, where they stayed until I left 45 minutes later.

WTF?!

I have adjusted to not having gifts I have brought to kid events opened, even though I dislike paying money to bring a gift to a child I barely know and then never hearing so much as a thank-you afterwards. I, myself, have left gifts unopened at event parties, although I always make sure to have my child thank the person at the time, and then we thank them again the next time we see them, mentioning the gift and how much they liked it. Even at that, I'm still uncomfortable with it. Giving a gift is a personal thing, and receiving a gift should be personal as well. I feel that we are removing the personal from so much of our daily life with technology, and now even things that should be intimate are not. I guess that's another reason why I'm more OK with kids not opening gifts, since kid-to-kid gifts are typically not of a personal nature. However, I would not like it if I bought something for my niece or nephew and they didn't open it, because I love them and pick out things for them that I think they will love.

I suppose in that way gift giving is a selfish thing, because it also gives me pleasure to give, and to see the happiness in someone's face when I've gotten it right. I pride myself in giving good gifts, and I put a lot of thought into things I give to other people. When a gift is left unopened, the recipient is ungraciously denying me that pleasure.

I was particularly shocked this morning that my friend didn't open her 'congratulations' gift. She is not a person that I would expect bad manners from, and is in fact typically very sensitive and concerned about other's feelings, so I'm not offended because I know she didn't mean to disappoint me or be rude. But, since she obviously didn't mean to be rude, that means that it was a casual thing, which in turn makes me wonder if this is some new common thing in society now that I have missed out on. It must have been assumed that I would be OK with her opening it later on. Are we so removed from each other now that we can't even accept gifts comfortably? It makes me sad to think that.

Have any of you either given and gotten no 'opening', or gotten and not opened? If you don't open, why?

Goings-On

Phew.

Since we settled on the new house, things have been flying. Most of them have been dirt.

This new house of ours is the filthiest thing I have ever had the misfortune to clean. I can't imagine how these people actually lived here and didn't get sick! I know it was a single guy, and his kids half the time, and it's been empty for the past six months or so, but STILL. We're talking scary, crusted, sticky, cat-haired grime here. From the looks of it, they must have really liked soda, because that's the only thing that can get that sticky and bead all over the place like that, and it's all over the pantry, kitchen, and dining room. What did they do, have shake-n-pop parties with the cans?! I'm not kidding; it's everywhere. The fridge was full of it, and after six months of sitting, was nearly impossible to get off. Even more gross, the cabinet doors are so filthy I had to resort to scraping the edges of the doors with my fingernail after scrubbing with a windex-soaked paper towel (Windex cleans marvelously, but it removes paint, so don't use it unless you're planning to paint, which we are). Great Green Globs of Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts are all over the bottoms of the cabinet doors, and somewhere along the line they mated with the cat, because I would swear that there are entire kittens stuck to the base cabinet doors. UGH.

Interestingly, I met the ex-wife of the seller, Judy, yesterday afternoon. She wasn't what I expected at all; tall, thin, kind of crunchy, and very sporty looking. She was talking to a neighbor, and when I went out to introduce myself to the people standing outside talking to my kids, it turned out that one of them was her. She was very friendly, and I liked her. Also, she solved the mystery of the gross grey kitchen for me! On the kitchen wall there was a framed piece of what had looked like wallpaper that had grey and pink flowers on it; we had assumed that it was a piece of paper that had been original to the house and that over the years people had kept it as a piece of history. It turns out that it was actually a piece of flooring from her grandfather's house in Czechloslovakia! So, she asked if she could take it, and then laughed when I was so enthusiastic for it to go (that was before I knew why she wanted it). At least it's not their fault they had bad taste - it was apparently inherited.

I also met Judy's new husband, and I heard at our settlement on Friday that she has other little kids, so I'm thinking that she's the one who initiated the divorce, since she's married and he's not. For it to have been that nasty, something had to have happened. I'll keep you posted as I hear the goods.

DH is, unfortunately, sick. It started yesterday with a little wooziness, and progressed on to being a fever and bad headache. He came home and laid down, and has been pretty much in bed ever since. I do feel bad for him, because it's obvious that he's actually sick this time (as opposed to other times he's laid around whining). However, this leaves me to clean and paint the new house, tidy this one so it can be packed, and do everything in between. One small stroke of luck was that I was able to leave Patrick here playing video games and watching TV with DH laying on the couch while I went and did more work on the other house. I've put two coats on the cabinets so far, and it's going to take yet another to completely cover that awful, rotted-meat grey and putrid pink. Blecch.

In other news, some local firefighters came last night and picked up one of our old couches, our huge TV cabinet, and our old TV, so the living room is very big looking! DH set up the new flat-screen in the living room this afternoon in a fit of feeling-better-ness, and it's pretty darn cool! I'm psyched to break out The Matrix and watch it on the big screen!!!!!! That is, when I find the time to sit down. :)