We are a cliche.
It comes as no surprise to us.
But, last night, the cliche walked up and punched me in the kidney, just to remind me of its big fat presence in the room.
Start at about 5:30. Mr. Meat and Potatoes walked in the door. I had an SUV full of groceries, which I was hoping he’d bring in for me. (Cliche #1 – I do the grocery shopping. Cliche #2 – I drive an SUV.)
I forgot to get dog food, so he was going to go back out for it, but first I forced him to carry in four bags just so I could feel better about the whole thing. (Cliche #3 – I am a control freak and a nag.)
Then he asked me what’s for dinner, (Cliche #4) which is in theory is a fine question because I cook the dinner ninety percent of the time (Cliche #5) and like it that way, but I was tired last night, and had all those groceries to deal with and a baby who doesn’t poop and dirty floors from all the rain we’ve had, and I just didn’t know yet what I would whip up for dinner (Cliche #6 – everything is a competition and everyone works harder than the other guy).
Mr. Meat and Potatoes let me know he was hungry, so whatever it is, can it please be on the table chop chop? (Cliche #7 – forks banging on table)
I rattled off a list: I have a chicken, some ground beef, a flat iron steak, some pork chops, and two KC strips. (Cliche #8 – MEAT MEAT MEAT is what MEN EAT!)
“Whatever is fastest, as long as it’s steak. Save the strips for the weekend.”
Flat iron steak it is.
So I cooked up something hot, brown, and plenty of it while Mr. Meat and Potatoes bought dog food and brown liquor, which are apparently things that men can shop for.
Flash forward to later that evening: The Chiefs’ last pre-season game is on, and I don’t watch football, and Mr. Meat and Potatoes can’t be forced to watch football on the sub-par television in the bedroom. But I want to watch Season III of The L Word which is only available from Netflix streaming so I need the good TV because it comes with the blu-ray player. (Cliche #9 – fighting over tv, Cliche #10 – football v. “mommy’s stories)
We are fighting over the TV.
Later, pan through our living room. I am sitting amidst a pile of whites, folding towels and sheets. My husband is across the room cursing at the sports teams on the television, and I have ill-fitting ear buds in my ears while I watch lesbian psycho-dramas play out on the laptop screen. Also, I’m braless and wearing a smelly tank top and yoga pants. (Cliche #11 – women “give up” after marriage, Cliche #12 – women do the laundry, Cliche #13 – all women secretly want to make out with other women, Cliche #14 – men always win where the TV is involved.)
So yeah, there was the kidney punch and then I started laughing, and then I had a cocktail, and maybe another although you can’t prove it, and then we went to bed at 9:30, smug and happy, good ole’ Bag O Cliches and her husband, Bundle O Stereotypes.
Some weeks ago I applied for a job. A job with a title that I would have scornfully laughed at only a few years ago: social media specialist.
About six years ago my friends encouraged me to start a blog, and then I HAD! TO! GET! ON! MYSPACE!
Mildly embarrassed, I set up my first Myspace account. And I got a little addicted.
Then I got bored with it.
Then my brother invited me to Facebook, which irritated me because wasn’t Facebook for college kids? It made me feel like a sorority girl. Myspace was more my speed. A little seedier, a little less mainstream.
But I signed up so I could be friends with my brother (and how weird is that phrase?) and then I pretty much ignored the whole thing for about six months, until suddenly this person and that was popping into my inbox, asking to be my friend. And, slowly but surely, I got to be an addict again.
My husband created a page, and we used it to keep up with each other and his friends while he was on the road. And then we used it to document the birth of our son.
While I was on maternity leave, my husband and I filled time by playing the insipid Farmville, even though I mocked my Mafia-Wars-addicted co-workers.
Facebook was deeply entrenched in my life. And then came Twitter. I got wind that my favorite blogger, Dooce, was “tweeting” quite some time before, so I set up a Twitter account just so I could read her witticisms more often, but, like Facebook, it lay dormant for quite a long while. And then I upgraded my blog, and I decided to search for a little more audience, and I started to self-promote, via Twitter. It was all very “organic” as they like to say these days.
Before I knew it, I had a personal blog on Wordpress, a weekly blog/column on Lawrence.com/The Lawrence Journal World, and then another blog was born on their Wellcommons site. I was social-est media-est person I knew.
So, when a job came open with such an outrageous title as “Social Media Specialist”, I thought, WHO BETTER THAN THIS SOCIAL MEDIA WHORE?
So I applied, and I interviewed, and I interviewed again, and even though it was clear to me that the job was a lot more sales-related than I was cut out for, and that it was going to entail more than just Tweeting my every completely unnecessary thought, I got my hopes up. Because at this point, I spend so much time working on social media projects, and getting paid very little, I decided it was time that the internets? Who were getting all this TLC from me? They SHOULD PAY ME.
Needless to say, I wasn’t qualified and didn’t end up getting the job, but it did make me stop and really think about my social media quotient.
Recently, a friend of mine died very suddenly. Hours after hearing of his death, I thought, “What will become of his Facebook page?” This was the first time someone I had been friends with on Facebook had died.
People started commenting on his page, telling him how much they’d miss him, recounting little stories. I piped in myself.
Later, my husband said, “Can I just say how much I HATE the whole ‘write on the dead guy’s wall’ thing?” Surprised, I fired back that “I LOVE IT!” He feels creepy about it, like there is some oogy Facebook ghost thing going on and it’s unnatural. I got a little warm feeling when I wrote on his wall, like I got to talk to Jim one last time. I can check it now and see people memorializing him, much like we have memorialized Johnny’s birth via Facebook.
I think people, if they’re “cool” are supposed to be a little embarrassed about being big users of Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, and beyond. But I’m not. And even though I don’t get to have a real “social media specialist” title, I’m proud to say that I’m an inkernet nerd, and yes, I probably need to “get a life” as the more superior only-a-few-times-a-week users might sneer.
But you know, I have a life, and I’m just living it very much out loud. And I’m grateful that I have such portals for communicating – even with the dead.
Dear Baby,
Today you turn one year old. As I am wont to do on any anniversary, I have been thinking back for the last week or so to the days around your birth, and the journey we’ve made this year.
At the time of this writing, you have six teeth, a decent amount of hair (although most of it is concentrated on the top of your head, and you can sport a really rad faux hawk if you so desire), and a very demanding sleep schedule. As in, you don’t really sleep, so you are very demanding on your dad and me.
About a week ago, you decided your bed was evil, like, it must contain a sucubus or two, and maybe the mattress is full of venomous snakes, the kind that appear at 4:00 am and threaten to cut off your air supply, or at least your access to the wiffle ball. Losing the wiffle ball, by the way, would be the worst punishment. You are very into the wiffle ball, and have for over a month been playing excellent games of catch with your dad, and nothing has ever made him happier in his whole life, not even that one time when I left him alone in Vegas with his brother for a night.
So you quit sleeping almost altogether, and when you do sleep it is in two hour increments. And then at about 4:00 am, you are finished with the game, and you scream as if you are being forced to watch back to back episodes of Blossom! and you have to get in bed with us wherein you begin the game of alternately sitting up and laying down as fast as you can. But you are nice, and at about 6:00 am you are ready to sleep again, so long as we leave you in our bed, which we cannot do because OH! we have to get up and get ready for work! Working is really getting in the way of our sleeping. Our fatigue has nothing to do with you.
We had your birthday party on Saturday, and all your favorite people came. Your Grandma Barbara, and Grammie and Grandpa Reno, and Grandma and Grandpa Stuke all arrived bearing gifts, as did Aunt Debi, Aunt Rikki and Uncle Jud, Aunt Kalli and Grace, Aunt Heather and Uncle Glenn, and even your buddies Evan and Drew came to take a swim with you on your big day. Chris and Steve were nice enough to host your party at their pool, Happy Fun Joyland, and kid, you RAKED IT IN.
We were worried you’d behave like a hormonal teenager because you refused to take a decent nap before the party, but once you arrived and saw ALL! THOSE! GREAT! PEOPLE! you lit up and charmed everyone for hours. Really, Baby, you could not have been cuter.
Before the party, you helped Daddy put your new red wagon together, and then at the party you swam and had your first cake and ate ice cream even though it made you cough the whole way home. It was worth it. You really loved the ice cream part of the show, and here’s hoping your milk intolerance subsides with age, because otherwise you will be, as our favorite lullaby suggests, “the saddest boy in town.”
You are crawling so fast we can’t keep up with you, and you’ve figured out how to stand and “cruise” along the furniture which gives me about forty-nine heart attacks every day, but you tend to have an uncanny sense about where your head can and cannot go, and thus far have avoided any serious accidents.
Baby, there is nothing in the world like the little sing-song voice you use when you are contently sitting on the floor banging on your drum, or the peals of laughter you make when your dad plays “getcha” with you. There is nothing better than falling asleep with your little hand on my face, or watching as your eyes light up at the sight of our big mutt, Pearl.
We marvel daily at your progress, and remind ourselves how ridiculously lucky we are to have you, because you are, indeed, The Very Best One. You are not only smart and cute, but you have a sunny personality and are delighted in the smallest things. You wave bye-bye and my entire body turns into a puddle of pudding on the ground. You give a high five and my heart swells nine sizes with pride.
Now, if you could just learn to say Mama, my life would be complete. I will not ask for any more accomplishements from you, except maybe that you someday learn to play the stand-up bass.
It is my greatest honor and challenge to be your mother, and it is my greatest hope that I can live up to it.
Everything,
Mama
My mom used to take us on vacation. In a car. Three kids, one mom, and a Buick.
Can you think of anything worse than being the one adult in that car, travelling for two nights and three days one way, with a passle of kids ranging from 5 to 14?
But we loved it.
Once, she drove us to Idaho. We stopped at every roadside attraction between Kansas and the northern nether regions of the country. We stopped at a tower. I don’t know what tower, where. I remember there were stuffed animals hanging out the windows at the top, and none of us cared enough to go up except my brother, who went up there and waved at us and came back down. “Worth it,” he said.
We loved a roadside attraction. I have pictures of my brother hand-feeding a prairie dog and Prairie Dog Town, in Oakley, Kansas, where we also saw a two-headed cow and a six-legged steer.
My mom stopped at craft stands for us to buy ugly God’s eyes and friendship bracelets, and we swam in bliss in the occasional indoor pool. Oh, how I lived for an indoor pool. Even if the weather was hot, I prayed we’d be blessed with an indoor pool. Why? LUXURY. An indoor pool meant we were living the high life, no matter how old or less-than-the-Ritz the joint really was.
My siblings remember fondly yearly summer trips to South Fork, Colorado with our extended family. Being the youngest, I only have a few vague memories of said trips, but mostly they just include being rejected by the older cousins and siblings who would form treehouse clubs and not let me join because I was too little. But I still have bracelets of turquoise and black hills gold to show for those excursions, so I must have enjoyed them.
I cannot imagine that with my dad gone, my mom much enjoyed these trips, but she dutifully loaded us up about once a year and we headed for one hill or another. And we still fondly recall that I, at age five, played with the same Golden Dream Barbie for three days straight on our way to Idaho, and my sister sat in the back seat and read VC Andrews novels until she practically peed herself.
Our family has visited Branson, MO, cultural mecca that it is, many times. There was a trip to Dogpatch USA wherein we saw entire cities made out of toothpicks and acted wretched on a boring paddle boat ride. The coup de grace, though, was the epic Shepherd of the Hills production we endured. Or, did we walk out before it was over?
Recently, at work, I made a passing joke about The Shepherd of the Hills, and was practially stoned by my co-workers for blaspheming their favorite Branson experience. “I’ve seen it four times!” one co-worker shouted, as another topped him with “SIX!” Apparently my family is missing the gene for grand productions. I mean, we walked out of Star Wars in our initial viewing, for heaven’s sake.
Still, it’s all there in the memory bank, to be pulled out and rehashed and laughed about again and again, and that’s what it’s all about, really.
These are the things that families are made of. Ever since Johnny was born, Mr. Meat and Potatoes and I have fantasized about the trips we will take with him, the memories we’ll make. We imagine the Omaha Zoo, and I mention The World’s Largest Ball of Twine. He rolls his eyes, and then they light up as he says “Disneyworld!” and then it’s time for my eyes to roll.
But we’ll probably do all these things and more, always schlepping in a car to one destination or another, and always looking for a joint with an indoor pool. It’s this stuff that makes my past seem techicolor, and it’s the fantasizing about the next one that makes a future equally blinding.
Maybe we’ll even give the old Shepherd of the Hills another go-round, just for old times’ sake.
I can’t remember when I met Chris and Steve. I have no recollection of being formally introduced to them.
I do recall some of our early meetings. Maybe once I saw them at the Red Lyon – I remember Steve wearing pressed khakis and suspenders, and Chris was in his “tucked in sweatshirt” phase.
I remember they came over to my friend Scott’s one night, cooler in tow, and I thought they were hilarious in that “I can imitate Bill Clinton better than anyone else can” way.
But I don’t remember when or how we became friends in our own right. It just happened. One day they were “those guys” some of my friends knew, and the next day they were my baby’s “Guncles” and we were going to their pool almost every weekend. Which I guess I’ve been doing for the better part of what, eight, ten summers? I’ve lost count.
So our friendship grew at the pool. We watered it. It blossomed.
(photo by Trina Baker)
I met a lot of people in my twenties. Some of them stuck, and some of them didn’t, and some of them only stuck partway.
(photo by Trina Baker)
But the Happy Fun Joyland crew has been solid. It’s a little amorphous from year to year, but by and large, we can pretty much count on seeing the regulars there all summer for parties, cookouts, and cocktails.
(photo by Trina Baker)
Chris and Steve drink Coors Light. Only. Always. And they play old Monty Python and Kids in the Hall tunes over the outdoor speakers. Which we laugh at, every stinking time.
We used to be younger, and more exciting. We used to sit over there until the wee hours, knocking back cocktails and mooching their Coors Light. Now, we’re getting older, have to get the kids to bed, plan to get up early in the morning for grocery shopping.
But there are new things happening at the pool. Where it used to be whiskey and gin, it’s juice and formula.
And budding friendships still grow there, with the help of a little water and sunlight.
As most of you know, we were burgled in January.
And after the burglary, my stream of consciousness went something like this:
Time to get up, where’s the baby, what can I wear today, the baby is crying, oh! someone is trying to get in the house and kill me, no they’re not, what can I eat for breakfast, I’m going to be late, does the baby have any clean socks, oh there’s that noise again, the killers are definitely coming in the back door, I bet they have pantyhose on their heads, what can I hit them with, I don’t think this diaper bag is heavy enough, oh wait it’s the wind, here’s the baby’s other sock, there are no diapers in the diaper bag, is this shoe black or dark brown?
I was convinced that in order for the intermittent thoughts of being butchered in my sleep to subside, we would need to move TODAY.
So I started looking. At houses. And then I looked at our finances. And it became abundantly clear that a move would not be happening this week, or maybe even next.
So we got a dog, and we put up some scary signs, and we turn on our alarm system – even if I’m home – and we set to fixing up our house and our finances.
I figured that, in a year, we could move away from the trailer park down the street. Because that trailer park? It is the root of all evil. It is where the Children of the Corn go to play and hang out in their downtime. See that tiki bar in front of that trailer? I wonder whose back yard they stole it from. And did you hear that loud sound just now? No, it wasn’t a car backfiring. I’m sure it was a gunshot. Someone’s wife is probably down there missing half an arm right about now.
So my thoughts about the place are very rational and reasonable, as you can see.
I am usually not an elitist. I do not hate poor people, or poor neighborhoods. (in fact, we qualify in both categories.) Actually, I’m very comfortable with both. I am not really up for the idea of moving to a “safe” suburban neighborhood full of beige houses and people who wear track suits.
I’d just like to move a little tiny bit farther away from this particular trailer park. Because I am not kidding, people, once I saw a nine year old drive out of that joint in a low-riding crown vic with a hooker on his lap. It’s just not a very “family friendly” kind of place.
I lay awake at night imagining that Johnny will get to be old enough to ride his bike and we’ll still live here. And I’ll spend my evenings trying to explain why he can’t go hang out with the kids down the street because, you know, their mommies and daddies sometimes eat their young.
The urgency for “project get the hell out of here” has waned, though, and I’m coming around to the idea that it might be awhile before A) we can find a suitable buyer for our house, and B) we can afford the kind of house I want to move into. No, I’m not talking about moving up to a McMansion, but I do want something with a third bathroom and a basement big enough to house a football watching husband and a boy who will probably have smelly friends because priority number one is to get these people away from me and my Housewives on the TV. Also, one day I’d like to have a dinner party, for more than four people.
So, I”m dreaming big and I’m not leaving until I get all my criteria met. Keep your eyes open for a place like this. Oh, and it has to have a pantry. I dream of storing a winter’s worth of off-brand mac and cheese.
These are the thoughts that get me through the day and help me sleep at night. The vision of rows and rows of $.97 mac and cheese, just waiting patiently there, the notion that never again will I open a cabinet door and have spaghetti drop onto my head and scatter on the floor like a game of pick-up sticks.
I told Mr. Meat and Potatoes recently that I am making a vow to Slow The F Down.
I had complained to Kalli that I can’t get anything done and I’m so tired all the time, and she patiently reminded me that I’m trying to live the same life I did before I had a baby, only now I DO have a baby, which means a lot of things besides just taking care of baby. (It means doing more family things and keeping up with more laundry and trying to shop for more people and generally just more of Everything.) She also reminded me that pool parties and tailgates will always been there, but this baby time will not.
In short, she told me to Shut The F Up, and Slow The F Down. I told her I heard her. Loud and clear. So I’ve done that.
I’ve been practicing forming the word NO with my mouth. It’s been hard. It’s been so used to yessing all over the place for years. And not yessing out of obligation, but yessing out of YES! I WANT TO! YES! LET’S DO THAT! YES YES YES, IT ALL SOUNDS GREAT!
Friday night, my friend Lydia was so kind as to let Johnny spend the night at their house so Mr. Meat and Potatoes and I could have a sort of date for my birthday. What a present. She’ll never know.
We went bowling with the EOF’ers and then to The Red Lyon and I believe we even stopped by The Replay Lounge before we called it a night.
And that was the last thing I did all weekend. Saturday brought cramps and headache so I allowed myself to lie still for awhile until the guys doing the fencing match in my uterus stopped their match.
Then I made monte cristo sandwiches and I’ll tell you more about those later. YUM.
Sunday, we cleaned and I made some baby food and a few other things.
It was heaven this morning, to wake up rested and to a clean kitchen, for the first time in months, and not be running hither and yon, picking things up and being here and not there and thinking all the while about the dog hair that has collected around the feet of the high chair.
I spent the weekend cooking, and holding my baby, and oh yes, watching him teach himself to walk. (click below for evidence.)
When we were first dating, Mr. Meat and Potatoes and I went all out for birthdays and Christmas. He’d buy me a nice piece of jewelry, and a cooking thing, and a book, and a dinner out of sushi or some other sort of “fancy” meal. Because we were in love! And a little bit stupid!
Lately, our birthdays have become a little more restrained. We no longer organize pub crawls to celebrate them, and we put about a $35.00 price limit on the gifting.
I am the sort of control freaky wife who rarely leaves gift giving to chance. So before Christmas or my birthday sneak up, I will send Mr. Meat and Potatoes some random links to things I like. Usually by the time the event arrives, I have forgotten that I ever requested said items. Since I usually send him between five and ten different things, he still gets to choose, and I always get something I like, and I’m a little bit surprised, to boot.
I guess quite some time ago I sent my husband an email stating that if he ever wanted to get me something because, you know, he’d like to show his gratitude for my brownie-baking abilities, I’d like one of these. I saw this one on Etsy.com, where all good things are born.
And clever husband that he is, he tucked the email away for birthdaying later.
Three peas in a pod. That’s us.
Finding things to feed Johnny is getting more and more challenging, like trying to find a nice variety of hats to fit Godzilla, or maybe selecting an array of paintings to spruce up a pup tent.
There are just too many restrictions these days, and I’m not just talking about the dairy thing. That’s the very least of our worries.
Johnny has mostly decided that being spoon-fed baby food is, Like, totally last month, Mom, and would like to feed himself, thank-you-very-much.
I can warm up a frozen cube of whatever puree I have in the freezer, or open a jar of baby food, but I’m lucky if I get him to take five good bites of it before he loses interest. And then the dog and pony show begins. I stand on my head while playing the squeeze box and while he laughs at me I shove two more bites in his gaping maw.
And then it’s over. But clearly that’s not enough solid food to sustain a growing boy, so I have to find something else to give him. Trouble is, my boy cain’t poo. So our dietary choices are now limited to things that will not constipate him or cause him to hack up a lung, but that he can pick up off his own tray, but not choke to death on. NO PROBLEM.
I can sprinkle some frozen peas or blueberries on his tray, and four or five will make it into his mouth before the rest end up in a nice salad on my kitchen floor. Sometimes I give him some chopped up cavatelli to pick up, and Gerber makes all kinds of “puffs” which basically amount to baby Cheet-o’s or fruit cereal. But all of those items I don’t think are really helping him to produce the poo. People, he looks like he’s making diamonds in there when he’s working on one. We’re waiting for the blood vessel to burst.
A cut-up piece of fruit can work, and we’ve discovered baby cereal bars which are from the Baby Jesus.
I’ve been avoiding giving him fruit juice (prune juice) because I just don’t think babies need juice, but I might have to break down and try that next.
Still, we don’t have a lot of options for what to put on his tray. Where’s the protein? He doesn’t do very well with meat unless it’s the mush that comes in a jar of baby chicken and rice.
What the boy really loves, and would have a steady diet of (and I’m about to start allowing it) is a graham cracker. He can PUT AWAY some graham crackers, and all poo issues aside, I think we’ve found his calling. Takeru Kobayashi could come and do a graham cracker eat off with our boy, and I promise, Takeru, not to make you sign away your rights.
You just have to take on a competitor who is this serious about his graham products.
I’ve always heard that people can get in anywhere if they wear a hard hat and carry a clipboard.
Need access to the Oval Office? Hard hat and a clipboard.
Want to get into that club where all the cool kids go but you’re too old and wear sensible shoes and no way are they opening the red rope to let you in? Hard hat and a clipboard. Or maybe just some cooler shoes.
Anyway, my job is one wherein people often need to pick up a hard hat. People who are in no way familiar with building and constructin come to our office and grab one, dash around a construction area, and come back looking radiant. They’ve just BEEN SOMEWHERE. Somewhere that feels forbidden.
We drive by construction sites every day but probably rarely take notice of what is going on. We turn our gazes away from the construction workers who we presume will say something lewd or make an obscene gesture. Lots of people think of that sort of manual labor as menial work. What would the lawyer have in common with the brick layer? Who cares about sheetrock or electrical wires?
But this is not my experience.
The construcion-y types I work with are not only respectful and kind souls, they’re FREAKING AMAZING. These guys can eyeball a room for square footage down to inches. They can make power go to forty-seven different outlets and ensure that a generator will keep a patient alive if the lights go out.
They can do complex math in their heads, and imagine what a renovation will look like before it’s even framed-in. They make sure toilets flush and boilers boil and all of us are hot or cold when we want to be.
Indeed, donning a hard hat gives one a sense of real power. I’ve been having a love affair with all things blue collar, ever since I started this job. I listen in silence and take in all the words my co workers say in meetings. Slowly, I’m becoming an electrician, an architect, an elevator technician.
So, if anyone needs to go anywhere, just call me. I can dazzle even the tightest of securities with words I know. Words like egress, and amp, and water main. And with my hard hat.
