Detailing

When you get a normal car wash, they quickly run the vacuum across your car interior — maybe.

When you get your car detailed, they do a good job of vacuuming.

When you get the extra-special insanely-expensive detailing package, they actually remove the seats from the car. If you have toddlers, this is what is lurking underneath your back seat.

The cheerios and crackers don’t really decay, oddly enough. The bread? Ewwwww. The detailing was worth every penny.

A prize to the person who most closely guesses how long we can last until we crack and let Burrito and Tamale resume eating in the car.

Thoughtful Thursday: Thief

Welcome to the January Intelligentsia, the people who have commented on every Thoughtful Thursday post in December.

#27: Elana from Elana’s Musings
#23: A from Are You Kidding Me?
#23: Lost In Translation from We Say IVF, They Say FIV
#19: Strongblonde from Strong Blonde
#11: Tara from Turkey In My Oven
#10: Ana
#9: St. Elsewhere
#8: Lori Lavender Luz from Write Mind Open Heart
#2: Sara from Aryanhwy

Last week during Thoughtful Thursday we talked about the many lies of our nanny. First, you should know that she is now our former nanny — precipitated by the theme of today’s post, theft.

It all started with Mini Eggs. Last year around Easter, I bought a big bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs in Canada, because most foods are slightly better in Canada. When I got home, there were some other perishable sweets I needed to eat first, so I put the bag in the sweets drawer for later. Day by day, the bag got smaller and smaller. Eventually, it was totally empty, and I’d never eaten a single one. DH doesn’t eat Mini Eggs, and Burrito and Tamale never went near the kitchen, so the only remaining culprit was the nanny. I don’t really care if someone eats my food, except when I have specifically imported it from another country. Back then, we were very happy with our nanny in every other way, so I let it go and never mentioned it.

As a nanny, she was really great, up until she wasn’t. Aside from the lying I talked about in the last post, over time she became a crappier and crappier employee (good with the kids, but bad as an employee — late, lazy, didn’t improve in response to feedback), and the lies accumulated, and we got increasingly sick of her shit but felt trapped, not wanting to take a chance on hiring a new nanny who might be a better employee but not as good with the children. The devil I know is better than the devil I don’t know.

Then, last week, we figured out that our nanny had stolen more than Mini Eggs. As in, a lot of money. Equivalent to 1/3 of an IVF — or maybe more here and there from our wallets, but that’s how much we can prove on our credit cards. At that point, we could no longer look the other way, and even though losing our childcare a few weeks before we move far far away really screws things up, we had no choice but to fire her. And then we called the police.

I asked DH about his own history as a thief. After 4 minutes of contemplation, he came up with his grandest larceny: a chocolate bar, at age 8.

I stole something even smaller as a child: at age 7, I would take a single pinto bean from the bulk bin every time I went to the market. I thought they were pretty. I bet the store would have objected much more to a kid’s grubby hands fishing around in the bulk bin than to the loss of a whopping 5 pinto beans over the course of several months. As an adult, I decidedly do not steal. If a store clerk accidentally gives me too much change, I am likely to go back into the store — or drive across town the next day — to return it. I don’t steal, I just don’t. The only thing, aside from pinto beans, I can think of that I ever stole was, uh, my friend’s boyfriend. But that was more than 20 years ago. I don’t know if it makes it better or worse that, looking back, he totally wasn’t worth it. I’d much rather have 5 pinto beans than that loser.

Our friend Mr. OH (mentioned last week as a nonstop fibber) also stole something 20 years ago: half of an IVF, in cash. He felt that he had it coming to him from an employer who was stiffing him, so he skimmed from the cash register over the course of several months. He absolutely thought he was morally justified. I absolutely thought that he was not justified, and told him so, many times. DH agreed with me that it was wrong, and he would break Mr. OH’s balls about it now and then, but he fundamentally doesn’t like to judge anyone, particularly his friends.

After The Nanny Situation, though, DH saw it from a new perspective. Even though it’s not true, our nanny could make the same argument as early 1990s Mr. OH did, that we didn’t pay her enough and she worked so hard and she had it coming to her and we would barely miss it. When DH called Mr. OH to fill him in on The Nanny Situation, it all came together in DH’s mind. Mr. OH commented that 1/3 of an IVF was a lot of money; DH replied without even thinking, “Yeah, but not as much as you stole from your bosses.” DH and I have had fun breaking Mr. OH’s balls about his crime for the past 20 years but now, having been on the other side, it’s not so funny.

What is the biggest thing you ever stole? Do you have categorical rules about stealing, or is it justifiable in certain circumstances?

2011, One Word at a Time

Let’s sum up each month of 2011 with a single word, plus the corresponding post.

January: Smiling
February: Bridesmaid
March: Emotion
April: Audit
May: Mothers
June: Mailbox
July: Limbo
August: Satisficing
September: Zen
October: Kiln
November: Yaaaaaay!
December: Transition

Why no link for December? Because I’m telling you about it right now.

Fittingly, December’s events bring me full circle to the encounter with Lori that started the year. In January, her family came to my region of the country. In December, I visited her house as part of a reconnaissance trip, because… this coming January, I will become her neighbor.

I got a job! A better job than any of the four for which I’ve been the runner-up in the past year and a half! We are moving to Loriland!

I am temporarily in transition, but I am finally out of Limbo.

Uhhhh… anybody want to buy a really cool house? I’ll throw in some pottery!

Happy New Year!

Thoughtful Thursday: Liar

Aside from my years of duplicity trying to hide infertility, I am scrupulously honest. That’s just who I am. Sometimes it requires some creativity to be totally honest but still say something someone wants to hear. If asked about someone’s new dress that doesn’t flatter her, I might say, “That’s a great color,” or “It coordinates so perfectly with that gorgeous necklace.” That also means that if I say something, you can believe it. Unlike most people, I don’t even like to tell white lies to toddlers; rather than saying that we don’t have any cookies, I come up with truths like “we don’t eat cookies at breakfast” or “we are not eating any cookies today.” DH and I are so opposed to lying to our children that they will never experience Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or any other magical creations. Of course, the Judaism thing also takes Santa and the Easter bunny out of the equation, which is actually very convenient: a Christmas-celebrating family who refuses to acknowledge Santa is going to get a lot of pressure from all sides. “Burrito and Tamale are Jewish” gets us off the hook pretty easily.

A coworker of mine says that he is honest all the time not for moral reasons but because he has a bad memory. If he were to lie, he’d have to keep track of who knew what. So, he stays honest.

One of my sisters-in-law, Murphy’s mother, only lies when it comes to compliments. Do you really look great? Is she actually happy for you? You’ll never know, because she says the same things, in the same over-the-top syrupy voice, no matter what. It has served her well at times, such as when she worked the front desk at a day spa and told the customers how fabulous their skin looked after their facials. Some people see through it, though — like my mother, who once remarked that DH’s sister was “a little too nice” and “kind of fake.”

The flip side of the easy compliments, though, is that DH’s sister expects them from other people. Last week she flat-out asked me whether a parenting choice she had made with Murphy would be bad for him long-term. She is currently very unhappy with the results of her actions and she desperately wants her baby to stop doing what he’s doing, and I don’t foresee what she’s doing turning out well. So, I told her that. I was matter-of-fact but truthful. I wasn’t harsh, but I didn’t soften it. I would never have said anything about it at all, except that she specifically asked me. But, even though she asked, I don’t think she expected me to tell her the truth. Although we email each other often, I haven’t heard a peep from her in over a week since I told her the truth.

DH’s buddy Mr. OH is such a fibber. I never realized the extent until we went on a road trip with him a few years ago. He made all sorts of personal and business calls on his bluetooth while he drove, and to every single person he lied about something. He is pretty convincing when he lies because he is kind of sleazy whether he’s lying or telling the truth. Usually it was something unimportant which would never come up again. Sometimes the lie did benefit him, which I don’t agree with but I can understand, but usually the lie did not benefit him at all. The most bothersome to me was when he lied to his wife, who had stayed home; it was a pointless lie which didn’t benefit him and wouldn’t hurt him. If you’re going to lie to your spouse to protect their feelings, or because you’re having an affair, or whatever, fine, I get it. But lying for no reason, just for the sake of lying? Bizarre.

Which brings us to our current nanny. I posted a couple of months ago about the tremendous tolerance I have shown for her lies, some of which she has been caught in and some of which I have detected without letting her know. In most cases, I wouldn’t have had any objection to the truth; in almost all cases, I would have been willing to go along with it or work something out if she’d just asked. A few weeks ago, I discovered a lie that was particularly annoying. She took my car to the supermarket while Burrito and Tamale were napping to stock up our groceries, which she does several times a week. The market is about a mile away. She came back 2.5 hours later, long after they had woken up from their nap. She had a convoluted story about getting pulled over by a cop and having him lecture her about her driving for an hour. Even if that were true, it doesn’t explain the huge block of missing time. Because she’d taken so long, I couldn’t run an errand I’d scheduled to pick up my finished pottery, nor could I go to my office. That night, on the dashboard I found a parking meter slip from a town 20 minutes away — 5 minutes away from my pottery studio. If she had just asked me, I would have driven her and dropped her off to do whatever she was doing (more on what that was next week) while I did what I’d planned to do; an extra-long, with-my-compliments lunch hour. But she didn’t ask, so I sat around the house for 2 hours waiting for her to come back. But, the part that annoyed me the most: she didn’t even cover her tracks and remove the parking meter slip. She is never very detail-oriented, and it obviously slipped her mind to remove the incriminating evidence. If you’re going to lie, at least be good at it.

When do you lie? When do you tell hard truths? Why do you tell the truth — because you should, or because you aren’t good at lying (can’t remember, can’t be convincing, can’t cover your tracks…)?

Thoughtful Thursday: Obsolete Entries

This year as I’ve sent out our holiday cards, I’ve taken a different tactic than usual for updating the list.

In the past, with these types of lists, address books, or birthday calendars, I would delete people who had become obsolete — either because they’d moved out of our lives, or because they died.

This year, I instead hid those lines on the spreadsheet. I did this for a couple of reasons: first, there are a couple of people whom DH has had me remove from the list at some point only to request that they be added in a subsequent year; hiding allows me to restore their address rather than having to contact them. Second, it’s hard to know what to do with people who have died. I remember reading a blog post from Mel several years saying that when people die, she leaves them in her address book untouched. At that point in life, her approach was very different from mine: I made a dramatic point of deleting them, a symbolic goodbye. But, I don’t think deleting works for me anymore, nor do I want to look at a potentially painful entry without warning. Hence, hiding the row.

Past deletion has come back to bite me: for example, a relative died last year, and I deleted his birthday from my list. Now, I couldn’t tell you his exact birthday. I know the month, but not the date. And so, when his daughter was suddenly sad on that day, I had no idea why, and I didn’t treat her as gently as I would have until someone else filled me in. Even if the deceased person can’t celebrate anymore, others might want to honor them — or mourn them — on that day, and it’s handy to have some kind of reminder.

There are some entries that I won’t forget, whether or not they appear on a list. I will never forget my mother’s birthday, for example, nor her address, nor the fact that she used to be at the top of my list and she isn’t there any more.

What do you do with obsolete entries in your address book, birthday calendar, etc.?

Thoughtful Thursday: There But For The Grace…

Some of you have seen recent news stories about a woman who recently died from childbirth complications. I was particularly interested not only because of the many parallels to my experiences — infertile for 7 years, boy-girl twins from IF treatments, planned c-section because one baby was breech, severe hemorrhaging after delivery — but also because I actually am separated from her by only one degree, through a common friend.

When our friend passed along the horrible news, I scoured the website and the news articles, curious about the extent of the parallels between our lives and wanting to know more about this truly special person. And yes, some degree of lookie-loo motivation too, there but for the grace of G-d go I.

When I told DH about her and the parallels, his reaction was to refuse to listen to another word about her, horrified at the parallels, there but for the grace…

DH can stop me from talking to him about this family, but he cannot stop me from donating to help a bereaved husband and overwhelmed father of newborn twins take care of those beautiful babies.

When you see someone just like you befall a terrible fate, do you want to know more or shut your eyes and pretend it never happened?

Thoughtful Thursday: Cleavage

Welcome to the December Intelligentsia, the people who have commented on every Thoughtful Thursday post in November (not as hard this month, since I only managed two Thoughtful Thursday posts).

#26: Elana from Elana’s Musings
#18: Strongblonde from Strong Blonde
#15: Ernessa from Fierce and Nerdy
#10: Tara from Turkey In My Oven
#9: Ana
#8: St. Elsewhere
#7: Lori Lavender Luz from Write Mind Open Heart

and new member Sara!

I just spent several hundred dollars on new bras. I’ve had the same bra size all of my adult life (38F), but I was near a top-notch bra store and thought I’d get fitted. I don’t know if it’s because of pregnancy and nursing or because my past fittings have been good but not great, but the size at which they measured me was pretty different: 34G-H.

Unlike most shops, which have slim pickings in my size, this shop had piles. Once the clerk had fitted me, she literally brought in everything in my size, and then I worked my way through about 30 bras.

Among the selections were a couple that I’d never encountered in my size: deep cleavage bras. I don’t ever wear anything that would require such a low-cut bra — with a chest like mine, at least at my age, showing a lot of cleavage would be overkill — but even so, it was pretty fun to try them on.

Burrito seems to have even more conservative views. Both he and Tamale rarely have opinions on others’ clothing, good or bad (though they are huge fans of DH’s bear sweatshirt), but Burrito has very strong opinions about my shirts. Normally I wear crewnecks or high v-necks, but every time I wear a lower v-neck or scoop-neck, he freaks out. He starts patting my exposed chest frantically and chatters in a very concerned way, “mama shirt mama chest mama shirt!”

What’s your stance on cleavage?

Why I Like Belonging to the Local Twins Club

A woman I just met for the first time at a Twins Club meeting told me:

My sister has twins too. Everyone asks me if twins run in the family. I say, “No, but infertility does!”

Thoughtful Thursday: Natural

On a different photo topic from being photogenic…

I had another instance of getting the wind knocked out of me this week. Burrito and Tamale both love technology (despite not being allowed near any electronic gizmos). They discovered the answering machine that is part of the cordless phone base. We switched to machineless voicemail a year and a half ago, so the answering machine has just been sitting there, idle. At the time of the switch, we happened to have saved a few messages, then never deleted them.

Burrito and Tamale decided to press all of the buttons. They played the messages.

1. Work thing for DH which is now very much moot.
2. “How are the babies?” message from former coworker.
3. Random message from my mother.

It was such a shock to suddenly hear her voice, out of nowhere.

I can still hear her voice in my head, but I don’t really have any good audio or video samples of her.

There were a few videos my dad shot when she was sick, in the hospital or in a rehab facility, to show me her condition. Not an accurate representation of her usual self.

During better times, whenever my mother was in front of the camera, she became decidedly unnatural. Still camera: bizarre, stilted pose with fake smile. Always the same one, but not a body position or face that she ever made off camera. Video camera: the most talkative person in the world suddenly clammed up.

DH is totally himself on video. With a still camera, he psychs himself out sometimes, and either smiles too much or not enough. When we just had professional photos taken, out of 300 photos, the only ones where he looks natural are a few where he forgot about the camera and focused on interacting with one of us. He does look good in many of them, but it’s just not quite him.

I like to think that I act and look pretty natural in front of the still camera. When a video camera is pointed at me putting me on the spot to say something, like the videographer at a wedding, I have nothing to say (sorry about your wedding videos, everyone). With everyday videos, though, like the ones we take of Burrito and Tamale, I am absolutely myself. For good or for bad, that’s me.

How natural are you in front of the camera?

Thoughtful Thursday: Happy Place

Welcome to the November Intelligentsia, the people who have commented on every Thoughtful Thursday post in October.

#25: Elana from Elana’s Musings
#22: A from Are You Kidding Me?
#22: Lost In Translation from We Say IVF, They Say FIV
#17: Strongblonde from Strong Blonde
#9: Tara from Turkey In My Oven
#9: Rebecca from Get Lost With Me, Darling
#7: St. Elsewhere
#6: Lori Lavender Luz from Write Mind Open Heart
#3: Heather from Joys in My Life

I just visited a Happy Place. Not my Happy Place, but Mel’s. I’ve written before about how it brings me peace to walk through kitchen stores, but this particular place is much more than that.

While I was there, aside from the regular thoughts (“Can I get them to eat this lentil salad?” “Aaaah stop running, Burrito! Please don’t knock over any displays!” “Mmmmmm frosting.”) I kept thinking, “This is Mel’s Happy Place. She has driven many hours out of her way just to come here.” Being so special made it more special to me.

My Happy Place is sometimes the pottery studio, particularly when I’m alone there, but this new place (which is otherwise far better than the old, in so many ways starting with the impossibility of disasters or calamities destroying all of my work) doesn’t have open studio time, so I’m always there with the teacher and other students.

I enjoy consignment shopping — I never pay retail for kids’ clothes — but I really enjoy the semi-annual consignment sale at my local multiples club. That is absolutely a Happy Place for me.

Last week, I was in a city about which I have mixed feelings (in large part because DH’s mother lives there; otherwise it has a lot going for it). There are many wonderful things in that city, but we usually end up staying in the suburbs and only spending time with people. I do have a Happy Place there, though. A city block that has three of my favorite places anywhere. I suggested going there during this trip, but DH poopoo’d it. He was right. This particular Happy Place wouldn’t be so happy while juggling toddlers.

Then, today, a new Happy Place when I came home from work. As soon as I walked in the door, Burrito and Tamale each burst into applause accompanied by joyous exclamations of “Yay! Mama! Yay! Mama! Yaaaaaay!”

The happiest Happy Place ever.

What is your Happy Place?