Chickadee

okmaybeifitypeitallasasinglewordi’llfeellikelessofasellout: Tea Collection is having a Big Sale. there you go. must go wash off the capitalist germs now.

DCists: It’s finally snowing. Can you dig it?

the proverbial rain-pour circumstance is upon us with job stuff, and it’s awesome: but it means i can’t blog as much. (lower lip quivering and pushed out)

But mamablossom, who came to visit with her theaterman hubby and little nugget of cuteness this week, runs a fabulous anti-bias early childhood education blog and I don’t mind telling you it is worth your time to read!  She turned me on to the Speak Up anti-hate speech campaign from Teaching Tolerance, which I love. I took the Speak Up pledge as soon as I read it!

baby stirs, gotta go!

if you’re sick and have to take your toddler to the zoo anyway, you can sit on your keister after you get home and read the interviews on Mamaphonic. It’ll help.

Sorry, just a little autumnal free associating there in that post title. Out my daughter’s new bedroom (!) window is a glittering blue sky festooned with yellowgreen willow and orange poplar foliage, rooftops and white clouds cruising windily eastward, so it’s easy to wax poetic about fall in our new surrounds. Let me dwell a moment on this dwelling, for those of you afield in parts not easily metro-accessible to DC.

We rented a house. The house of my dreams, actually. I pretty much thought it into existence. I forget, sometimes, this special power of mine to home in mentally on something I want and thusly make it so. ANyway. My folks helped us, I’m not ashamed to say, and that’s how we made it into this place without jobs, calloo callay.

The jobs we are currently conjuring with our brainwaves as I write this. One will materialize for me in the next three to four weeks. So don’t worry.

Back to the house: it’s green. Literally. Not green, as in, somehow smaller in its ecological footprint than other houses built in 1950 with clogged chimneys and drainage problems. Just green on the outside. It’s one floor, a sort of horseshoe-shaped floor plan, with three wee bedrooms and a bathroom at the end of a narrow hallway,  which opens to the right onto a livingroom-dining room combo space with a way-bigger-than-normal, feels-like-first-class picture window. Then you turn right again and you’re in the kitchen. At the far end of the kitchen is the back door, which egresses into the BACK YARD, bitches! That’s right, the place has got a ya-hard, a ya-hard, a ya-hard. We are thrilled with it and have raked all the leaves, repeatedly. We haven’t moved them from the soggy, ominously darkening archipelago of piles they’re now in, but we have merrily raked them, oh yes.  Also at the far end of the kitchen is a staircase down to the basement, which is finished in landlord-cold ceramic tile. It’s nice, though, with a second full bath, family room and “bedroom” which is going to be my studio and playroom for le bebe. If you’ve been following this space you know we’ve had a bit of a rocky time getting settled, but after two full weeks I’d say we’re almost there. Just a few more boxes to unpack, shelves and curtains to get, pictures to hang, etc.

SO, back to the kid-positive culture tip. Today in DC I am sorry to be missing this protest march at the Hall of Injustice (dept. of J) to call attention to the hate crimes escalating around the country of late, and especially violence against women.  Did you attend? If so, comment, comment!

We’re in the throes of completing move 2.0, from being snugged up in a corner bedroom chez grandma and grandpa, to a single family dwelling all our own–us, the cats, and three wicker chairs the landlord claims he’ll pick up “soon.”

 We still don’t have internet at the new place, so I’m using this stolen moment to come by and say, thanks for reading, stay tuned and I’ll post again real soon!

In keeping with the way of all things, the crapitude of last weekend’s flooding/questioning why we are renting a home with flooding problems has passed.   We emerged from that straight into a three-day baby fever with no known cause. This fever hung on stubbornly despite our refutations of its right to existence, our forcing it to eat Motrin, and our swabbing of the baby’s back with lukewarm wet towels. It wasn’t until we openly communicated with it, acknowledging its presence and politely asking it to leave, that it finally went its merry way this morning. The baby and we were most grateful.

It was a lot like an exorcism, actually. I feel like I should pour libations to keep the fever gods happy.

So anyway,  our week has been officially MADE by the news that our dear friends R. and C. have officially begun life as foster-to-adoptive parents!!! We are SOOOOOOO excited for them and their new 3-year old! We can’t wait for our kiddo to have an older playmate when next we make the trip to Chi-town. I also am having trouble imagining the leap from age zero–when you get to learn the baby’s needs and patterns without verbal interference from said baby itself–to age three, when the kid not only has preferences and the ability to voice them, but also the physical strength to try to enforce them!  We wish R. and C. a smooth and enjoyable transition to new parenthood with little T’R.

This is me attempting to regain my sense of humor.  Let’s first inventory the yin (or, if you prefer, “happy”) events of the past week:

–we rented a house! and it’s cute! and has a yard! and is near the train! and the beltway! and is on a cul-de-sac! and has a fireplace!  and a seemingly reasonable landlord!

–i’m being considered for at least two really great jobs

–the car is still running

–the baby is healthy if a bit tantrumy these days

–our friends mamablossom and her hubby and baby might be coming to visit! whoo hoo!

–tensions in Ye Olde House of Parents have abated significantly due to our impending departure

OK, now for the yang (Buddhist terminology for SHITE) events of the past week:

–job has not materialized as expected or desired, leaving us with a lease we can ill afford to pay on our current underemployed pittances;

– we arrived with a load of boxes at the new house today to find the entire lower floor (finished basement, family room, bedroom, bathroom and laundry room) submerged beneath an inch to an inch and a half of water. It’s been raining for several days, and the sump pump the seemingly competent landlord had installed either failed or broke or both. There was a hanging, busted-off elbow of PVC pipe just dangling above the pump area, so we think the pump’s heroic efforts to save our basement must have jiggled the pipe above it so hard that it broke free at its weakest point. Our TV, thankfully, was the only thing that didn’t make it.

hm. That makes two televisions we’ve destroyed in two years. A sign if ever there was one!

Anyway. These are the things that got me thinking: hey! at least we aren’t paying a mortgage on this property.

We’ve gotta make some difficult decisions this week. Thank goodness for credit cards! (hysterical, high-pitched laughter edging over into tears)

Thanks for reading this, you who still are reading this. I’ll be back into regular old roundup of kid-positive stuff….later. when I can find the positive energy.

…but reading great SAHD blog posts is a nice way to zone out!

Also, our article is the 7th most read piece on Alternet for the past week! Yay!

Dear Self,

Hello. What are you up to? Less than nothing, huh. Checking an empty email inbox incessantly while the baby sleeps doesn’t count as an activity? No. Reading the cereal box that’s been on the table next to the computer for over a week IS, however, an activity. Let’s see:

Gluten Free
Nut Free
100% Natural
Sweetened with Fruit Juice & Honey
Low Fat
Low Sodium
No Additives or Preservatives
Heart Friendly

Manufactured for Enjoy Life Natural Brands, LLC.  Which is where? Schiller Park, Illinois? Well would you look at that. Schiller Park! Way to go, guys! The Midwest is going and getting itself gussied up in organic drag like California, which is where I thought this cereal was from. Maybe those crunchy values will start migrating Eastward across the Rockies, too.

Also there is inexplicably a tiny snifter labeled for some sort of praline liqueur sitting on the table. And a bookmark from Korea that a former student of mine sent me. Oops! She sent me that because I agreed to write her a recommendation for grad school. I’d better get cracking on that.

How did I get to this point? Self-pityingly writing myself e-notes, unemployed, waiting for the phone to ring while my master’s degree and teaching experience slowly recede to the horizon and beyond? Another month of this and I’ll implode, surely. Or start showing Sasha how to set a table or some nonsense.

Still nothing in my inbox. Is the Web connection on the fritz? That could be the reason.
Nope. It’s working just fine.

Well, self, it’s been real. I need to go start on that recommendation letter for Younji.

And perk up, wouldja? Things aren’t going all that badly. You’ll figure them out soon.

Love,
Me