Month: August 2015

grumpy about positivity – 99 problems

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I’m working on being more positive.

Jesse’s workbook on grumbling too much says some people are more positive and some people are more negative. Some people are more pessimistic, some are more optimistic. Some people are flexible, some people are inflexible. Some people are pains in the ass (pain in the asses?), some smell like mangos and buttermilk.

“Who do you know who tends to be negative? Draw a picture of that person.” Said the workbook page. Jesse drew herself and me.

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Before you think weird things, I can explain the body drawings. Those aren’t my ovaries dropping into my groin, nor is Jesse portraying us wearing either hoochie-mama outfits or BDSM gear. Jesse has been working with one of those 3D wood body forms to figure out body dimensions and movement points. She draws bodies with ball joints now, and proportions have been out of whack for a while. And now that I look more closely, she does appear to have given me a cleavage. Huh.

Oh. On the “who’s positive” side of the workbook, Jesse drew a picture of Nick with the caption, “most positive thinker ever.”

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I think she’s right. You remember that Sesame Street ditty, “One of these things is not like the other”? That’s Nick, trapped in a house with three pessimistic, pretty inflexible people. Poor little awesome guy.

The workbook says you can exercise being more positive and flexible. You have to learn to jump hurdles. See the hurdle. Decide to jump it. Figure out how to do it. Jump.

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Four easy steps. Jesse read it a few times and pondered as we sat together. She wanted to know why the pictures showed a cow jumping hurdles. She looked at me curiously, expectantly, but then before I could say “It’s a metaphor,” she wandered off into her own mind and I left her alone.

A while later she came back to me with a sheet of paper. “Look Mom, I took each of the four steps and I wrote them like what they actually mean.”

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Not bad. I guess she doesn’t need cows. But her approach is a little abstract. We worked on it for a while and we’ll continue to do a bit of learning every day on this.

Anyway, I decided to work on being more positive today because, you know, I’ve got to be a better role model. Jesse and I spent much of the day together, because Anthony took Nick on a solo adventure. They took the dog to the beach and went out for food and lots of fun stuff. Jesse sat in the house while I painted wood siding. It was a just punishment for when she bit Nick on the face last night.

Oh no I didn’t! That wasn’t a nice thing to out Jesse on – I’m getting negative already!

Come on, girl. I’m trying to be positive here. Reboot.

After I cleaned up from the painting, Jesse and I went to lunch. I realized I’ve been forming a positivity mantra lately without even knowing it. Every now and then I’ll announce to Anthony, “I got 99 problems but [insert whatever I’m thinking about] ain’t one!”

It’s very upbeat, yeah? I decided to use it with Jesse today.

Jesse and I went to Qdoba. On the drive there she started in on her strange penis chatter.

“I got 99 problems but a penis ain’t one!”

That stopped her. “Mom.”

Jesse wanted to eat a not-much-cheese chicken quesadilla, with pico de gallo and corn salsa, dipped into tortilla soup. We picked up our food. “I got 99 problems but my lunch ain’t one!”

“Mommy, that’s weird.”

“I got 99 problems but being weird ain’t one!”

“Mom. Stop.”

“I got 99 problems but stopping ain’t one!”

“Mommy! You’re embarraassing me!”

I don’t think it worked with her. But bellowing it at her cheered me up for sure.

After lunch, we went to the bike shop and spied out bikes with 24-inch wheels. Jesse found a Trek she love-love-loved, jet black with a matte finish. Soooo emo and soooo expensive. I offered Jesse a bribe, part of my stealth plan to sidestep the meds. “You work hard for the next month on two things: following directions, and improving your mood, you know, like feeling better about yourself and being happier so you stop being so hostile to us. You don’t have to be perfect, but you have to try really hard. Do that for a month, and then if you chip in a hundred bucks from your savings, we’ll get you the Ninja bike.”

Jesse’s eyes opened wide with optimism and a dream of awesome bike rides to come.

We’ll see what she can muster. I’m not optimistic.

No wait. I AM optimistic, really I am!

I GOT 99 PROBLEMS BUT THIS BIKE AIN’T ONE.

I found myself thinking about 99 problems all day long after that. I tried to apply it positively as I bent over to paint board after endless board in the back yard, my back and thighs aching from the uncomfortable position, the thumb tendon of my painting hand throbbing in pain.

I got 99 problems, but rain ain’t one! (Damn. Looks like I’ve got no excuse to quit painting.)

(Ah. That’s negative. Try again.)

I got 99 problems, but making dinner ain’t one! (Because I’m spending the entire f*&^ing day painting these damn boards and I don’t have a kitchen to cook in anyway.)

(Shit. Still negative. Try again.)

I got 99 problems, but Jesse screaming at me ain’t one!

(Because she’s inside playing with her iPad, so I’m just delaying the inevitable. Gawd, I’m such a bad mommy.)

(Bah.)

I got 99 problems, but going with Jesse to the new psychiatrist this week ain’t one! (I’m refusing to go. Anthony has to do it. I can’t believe we’re going to be reduced to meds. Shaking my head.)

I just can’t do it. I’m born and bred to pessimism.

I got 99 problems, but a functioning kitchen ain’t one!

I got 99 problems, but a functional toilet on the same floor as our bedroom ain’t one!

I got 99 problems, but being underweight ain’t one!

I got 99 problems, but time to exercise ain’t one!

I got 99 problems, but being positive ain’t one!

grumpy about the construction project (sweaty with equity)

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I woke up this morning prepared to do paint battle on a bunch of cedar clapboard siding. We had priced out having someone else do the exterior painting on the addition, because I don’t actually want to climb up to the peak of a tall two-story house with a can of paint. Call me crazy, but I’m worried about falling.

But the estimate came back at about $2500. Ouch. We can save a lot by doing as much of it ourselves as possible. So this weekend we’re priming siding and putting a first rough coat of paint on before it goes up. Our guys do work right, so when they nail those boards on they’ll wipe each and every nail head with some sort of solvent (napalm? naphtha?) that keeps the nail from making paint colors bleed. Then they’ll caulk things and do whatever other magic they do, and then the second coat of paint will go on. That’s when we’ll probably hire the painter to come do whatever parts we’re too scared to do. Up high.

The day started out badly as I set out to prime. I headed out the basement door into the back yard and walked around and up the hill to the front of the house. Now my shoes were dirty and my goal was to avoid going in the basement again, because I just shampooed the carpet in there last night. I opened the garage door and wandered around in the garage, organizing my thoughts on what I needed to do, and then I realized I needed to get upstairs in the house to find my work gloves. I walked back out of the garage and tried the kitchen door. Locked. I tried the fancy main front door. Locked. Shit shit shit. Anthony had already left with the kids on an adventure, so I didn’t have anyone to let me in.  I headed back around to the basement door and wiped my feet carefully on the entry rug, and then I tip-toed across the blasted carpet and up the stairs to the main floor. I found my gloves. I headed through the house to the kitchen door. As I walked through the kitchen, I noticed the gaping opening into the garage, where a door will shortly be installed.

Old habits die hard. Our house hasn’t had an entrance from the garage directly into the house. It does now. I just need to remember that new reality. Sigh.

Finding space to lay out a bunch of siding is a head scratcher. I ended up using the old cream city brick we saved during demolition to set up little blocks to hold up siding pieces off the grass in the back yard. I carried a lot of bricks from here to there. Also I had to lug the siding from the garage, where it was stacked, to the back yard. Lug lug lug. Then paint paint paint in various positions – squatting, bending over, on one knee, on two knees, on my ass. I worked almost non-stop from about 10 until 5:30 or so. I almost finished priming both sides of 50-odd boards, ranging from 12 to 20 feet in length. I’ll finish priming tomorrow morning and then put on the rough coat of finish latex in the afternoon.

I’m not used to this sort of work. As I recuperate this evening, my tired right hand, which held the paint brush, is struggling to lift this margarita to my lips. Ugh. (I’ll just move that glass over to the left side of the keyboard; all better.) Oddly, my left leg (but not my right) is cramping from calf to hip. My lower back is aching all over. 48 years of experience on this earth are speaking to me through my aching body.

Bah. I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s boring and no fun. I think I’ll just leave the siding where it is and let the lawn grow over it. The Tyvec wrap on the house looks just fine.

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grumpy about the construction project (futile gestures)

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The project has slowed down for the past week or two because of delays with getting our utility company to approve and accomplish work it needs to do to upgrade our electrical service to 200 amps. Every day for the past week I’ve heard the sound of what I thought was my teeth grinding. But it turns out it was the sound of a monopolist utility’s bureaucratic machinery doing its thing.

Living in a deconstructed shithole is okay when you see work progressing rapidly, but when things slow down, it gets oppressive. Nick and I headed out on an adventure this morning, after eating breakfast in the basement. As we trudged to the car, he held my hand and looked up at me. “How much more days do we have to live like this, mommy?”

He sounded a little depressed. I answered as honestly as I could. “I don’t know, little buddy. A while. Maybe two more months?”

He shook his head in grim resignation and climbed into the car. “That’s a looooong time…”

It has gotten to be a little tough, I guess. We can’t live in these spaces, i.e., most of the house.

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We do have a living room that’s untouched, but it’s open to the larger construction space, and somehow we don’t end up there. This is a pretty good shot of the living space we’re spending most of our indoor time in lately.

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That far wall is full of all the kids’ art supplies. Pile of toys and junk to the left. The little table is usually their art table, but these days it’s where they eat. Yup, that’s a drying rack with our towels on it, next to the sofa.

If you sit on that sofa, you’re staring right at our makeshift kitchen, which still looks like this.

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It’s all a wreck. We’re doing our best to keep it as homey and livable as possible. Anthony even put art on the wall over the sofa.

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We clean best we can every day, but it’s hard to keep up.

The past week there was a fair bit of work in the kitchen and entry area, which is right over the basement bathroom where we do all water-based activities (shower, toilet, sink, laundry). With everything but the original plank subfloor gone, bits of debris fall through the cracks constantly. If we’re lucky, we’re in the bathroom when it happens and that stuff gets right down to our scalps and stays there all day.

Some crazy person installed off-white wall-to-wall plush carpet in the basement before we bought the house. When tradesmen come into the basement, their dirty shoes grind highly visible filth into it. When we cook and eat and drink tea or coffee, every little dripping leaves a filthy stain. After hearing Nick’s indirect complaint this morning, I realized the carpet has become totally disgusting in the last month.

But still we hold on to vestiges of our formerly tidy life. We still wash the dog’s feet when she comes back in from a walk. I don’t know why I bother. Anthony dusts and mops the wood floors diligently each evening to get rid of the day’s work debris. We still avoid shoes in the bedroom. We even shower regularly. They’re all futile gestures, token remembrances of a cleaner, first-world life, one we hope someday will return to us.

The only really visible bit of work done this week, from our living-here perspective, was fresh demolition in the powder room and kitchen entry. Talon and Dan did it earlier this week. It’s really strenuous and difficult work, pulling up what looks like 5 or 6 archived layers of flooring, and it’s noisy and messy. I didn’t think it was that much of a change — just a new small area of the house reduced to bare subfloor planks. But I guess the kids don’t see it that way. Jesse walked in the kitchen door in the afternoon after the work was done. I was still out by the car when I heard her start screaming.

Come to think of it, the guys started demolition work early that same morning. Even as we made breakfast and got our day started in the basement, the ripping, pounding, and reciprocating-sawing were going strong. Bits of wood and plaster showered us gently when we used the bathroom. Jesse walked into the bathroom and came out screaming. “AAAAAAH. I CANNOT GO IN THERE!”

Anthony and I chided her. “It’s just construction dust. You can deal with that.”

“NO I CAN’T, THERE IS GLASS ON THE FLOOR!!”

Huh. Anthony investigated. Sure enough, there was glass everywhere. The glass cover on the cheap light fixture over the toilet had fallen off from the shaking of the demolition. It shattered as it landed, leaving shards of glass on the floor and filling the toilet bowl itself with glass.

Anthony had used the toilet just a few minutes before Jesse walked into the bathroom, and then Nick too. We were fortunate no one was on the can when the cover fell. Unfortunately, Nick doesn’t like to flush this basement toilet, so it was full of his urine. I love Anthony for many reasons, and now I can add a new one: he did the dirty work of reaching into the peepee-filled toilet to pull out the glass shards. It was nasty work, but somebody (other than me) had to do it.

This evening, after a week of suffering and getting by, the filthy carpet finally overwhelmed us. I pulled out the Bissell and shampooed. It’s a hopeless act, really, but it’s Friday night and at least we can enjoy the clean floor for a couple days before the gang-o-workers returns on Monday to trash the joint again.

grumpy about parenting (how to fail 101)

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After a horrendous spring and summer, during which I’ve lost my voice several times from screaming so much at Jesse, and gained 10 stress pounds and 200 linear feet of stress wrinkles on my face, I have had an epiphany.

I know I know, I have a lot of stupid epiphanies. But this one is less stupid than usual.

I had been thinking that I’ve been on the edge of a parental nervous breakdown for several months. But I realized some time in the last 48 hours that I’m in the midst of a nervous breakdown. In fact, I’m thinking I achieved full breakdown some months ago. Instead of being on the edge of a nervous breakdown, I’ve been on the edge of reason.

The threat of putting Jesse on meds has moved me past insanity to reason. Anthony is taking her to see a psychiatrist next week. I’m not going. I realized after we started considering meds that I really, really, really don’t want Jesse on them, especially in these critical years when she heads into puberty and massive body and brain changes.  I understand the argument that anxiety-style meds may be positive – they may bring her down to a place where she can more effectively participate in behavior modification strategies and cognitive behavior therapy. But the same anxiety that makes her crazy also heightens her perceptiveness and imagination, and it lays some of the groundwork for her beautiful poetry, her insight into people, and her quirky humor. What would I feel like if meds take that away from her?

So the threat of it has made me come to my senses. I got down to practical business a couple days ago, which is to say I googled shit and bought some books. On the parenting front, I got “the opposite of worry,” by Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D. It’s “The Playful Parenting Approach to Childhood Anxieties and Fears.”

I don’t know why the title uses no caps, but the sub-caption uses initial caps. Why? WHY?? You’d think that with a doctorate, Dr. Cohen could do something about that. Or at least afford a better editor. Who decided it would be cute to mix up upper and lower case like this? What, this guy is the ee cummings of child psychology?

What? Oh. It’s an okay book. I started reading it and it’s mostly about normal anxiety and fear, but stuff like this can be a refresher to help get my own parenting ideas flowing anew for Jesse’s more extreme needs.

I also ordered “The Explosive Child” by Ross Greene. No, rude reader, it’s not about poop and gas. It is, rather, “A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children.” Right up my need alley. I’m sure I’ll read several chapters.

I have a theory about how books like this work, at least for me. The fact that they’re in major paperback publication, and sold on Amazon, tells me that there are a significant number of people who believe they have kids just like mine. That’s what these books actually do for me — their mere existence is much more important than their content. No one wants to be alone; solidarity engenders relief. I’m relieved I’m not the only parent with a jackass child. In fact, the Explosive book’s cover declares that it is “The Classic Parenting Guide–More Than 500,000 Copies Sold.”

In the 21st century does “than” get capitalized in that phrase? What the fuck is happening to my world?

Shit shit shit. I’m engaging in classic avoidance, and my long-beaten inner grammar nazi is raising its ugly head from the P-trap of my brain’s toilet. Wait a second while I flush it back down.

Right, I’m back. So I’m going to read The Explosive Child, because I need something out of the norm. And also, Jesse is explosive. From both ends, frankly, especially since we allowed her to be poisoned by a giant chewy egg-bearing Sweet Tart on our drive home last week. Two weeks’ of safe vacation, and on the very last day she gets exposed to eggs. How did I let that happen?

Speaking of eggs, I had to go to Home Depot tonight. I still hate Home Depot. 40 Home Depot employees wandering around the aisles like lobotomized cast members in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and only ONE — EXACTLY ONE — checkout stand is open, with 12 people lined up and waiting to get out of that shit hole.

Hold on. I need to flush again.

I bought Jesse some books too. Best to flood her as much as me with too much information and no innate ability to organize it. I discovered a “What to Do When…” series, written for kids (but not by kids). Pictures, simple talk, ideas for practicing and helping your grown-ups do a better job of parenting you. These books do a better job with capitalization, sort of. I got Jesse What to Do When…

-Good Enough Isn’t Good Enough. The Real Deal on Perfectionism.
-Your Temper Flares. A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Problems with Anger.
-You Worry Too Much. A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Anxiety.
-You Grumble too Much. A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Negativity.
-Bad Habits Take Hold. A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Nail Biting and More.
-Your Brain Gets Stuck. A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming OCD.

Do you think it’s too much?

I encouraged her to start with Grumbling. It’s actually really well done. It talks about being naturally pessimistic versus optimistic, and flexible versus inflexible. It describes pessimism as having a magnifying glass that makes bad things seem bigger, but a kid doesn’t know it’s the magnifying glass. The kid thinks it’s how the world actually is. And so on. There are exercises to help you be more flexible and optimistic. All good.

Jesse got through the first two chapters and started screaming.

Jesse is more interested in the OCD book. I don’t think she’s severely OCD, but she’s attracted to this book because the first exercise in it asks her to look in the garbage can and draw three things she sees in there. What kid could walk away from that? i may have to hide it. Avoidance seems to be a thing with Jesse too.

Anyway, bottom line, bottom line, here’s the thing. I’m fucking this parenting thing up big time. Right now, I’m getting the sense that this is the lineup of my major problems:

One. I have been yelling at Jesse too much when she’s really naughty, instead of properly separating and ignoring her.

Two. I have been shame-talking Jesse too much when she does really mean things, instead of properly separating and ignoring her.

Three. I have been nattering at and arguing with Jesse too much about stuff, instead of properly separating and ignoring her.

Four. I have been showing too much emotion, instead of properly separating and ignoring Jesse.

Five, I have been making idle threats. A lot of them. Instead of… you know.

ALTERNATIVELY, replace “properly… etc.” with “expressing understanding and compassion for Jesse’s feelings” in all of the above. But we’ve tried this model for many years, and it’s all used up.

So today I implemented drastic measures involving ignoring Jesse. A lot. I figure she got about two-plus hours of exclusion time today, based on 10-minutes-per-kick-or-hit and 5-minutes-per-threat and also 5-minutes-for-too-much-penis-talk. She had to sit on the stairs or go somewhere by herself, and she had to sit out a playground for 25 minutes while Nick and I played contentedly. Then she joined us and we had a great time.

It was exhausting and I felt awful. The hardest moment was when Jesse interrupted her “IGNORE JESSE” time by saying to me sweetly, “I love you, mommy.” And I had to wait 1 minutes 40 seconds before I could answer her. That sucked so bad.

But overall, at the end of the day Jesse and I agreed: today didn’t suck as bad as yesterday. So we may have to continue on this path for a while.

Until I discover that, instead of doing the right thing as a parent, I’ve been ignoring Jesse too much.

grumpy about the construction project (it’s all coming now)

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Monday morning came and I got to greet the carpentry crew for the first time since we got back from vacation. I missed these guys! Olivia Newton Dan-the-Man, Slammin’ Talon, and Erick the Boss. They were all here today, being easy-going and relaxed as they chugged along.

Today they worked on the roof lines to prepare for roof shingles and probably siding. It was all outside work. I think a lot of homeowners would have gotten to the end of the day today and thought, wtf did you three bozos do all day?? But Anthony and I admired their work for a long time as the sun went down. They did a bunch of trim and moulding work right under the roof eave. They also started putting in a false peaked roofline that masks the flatter shed dormer line of the actual roof, along the new edge of the extension. I had no idea that’s how it was done. I’ll try to find a photo to stick in here tomorrow. It’s very cool.

In my opinion and limited experience, this sort of work is painstaking and brain-draining. You can get to the end of the day and feel like you haven’t accomplished much. It takes time and care to do it well and to make it all fit. It looks like that’s what the Kurber crew is doing.

I also got to see first-hand some of the shop talk that goes down. Erick and I were chatting about some stupid question I had (I’m full of them), when Erick paused for a moment to direct Dan briskly: “Can you get the crown and a five-quarter on your horsies.”

Wow. Just… wow.

Anthony and I have formed a habit of collecting all our questions and thoughts weekly into an ad nauseum email that we send to Kristi-the-designer on Saturday or Sunday. These emails are full of garbage and redundancies, but they seem to have a positive psychological effect on me, so I subject Kristi to them without mercy.

Today she came over to touch base with me post-vacation and to go over my latest email laundry list. Some of it wasn’t as stupid as I anticipated, but mostly it was.

We stepped into the expanded future master bedroom. With the extension to the room, the existing ceiling light is practically abutting the new closet instead of sitting in the middle of the room. I asked Kristi, “will that light be moved?”

Kristi looked at me quietly for a two-second beat. “No,” she answered in a firm, but polite tone.

ASK A STUPID QUESTION…

Of course it’s going to be moved, and it’ll be a proper electrical box to support a ceiling fan even if we don’t want the fan, because that’s what code requires and Kristi actually cares about compliance, and perhaps just as important, she bothers to explain it to me instead of thinking I’m a dumb ass housewife who doesn’t need to know those details.

It’s true. I’m not a dumb ass housewife. But I am saddled with a sorry level of building ignorance, compounded by a tiny bit of knowledge and DIY experience. I’m the classic 21st century American homeowner. I know just enough to ask a lot of questions, but not enough to avoid the inane ones. The good news is, Kristi-the-designer and Erick-the-boss seem to be tolerating me with some equanimity. Superficially, at least. I hope I’m not annoying them too much. Also I hope they give me photographs of construction that went on while I was away. (Kristi? Erick? I know you’re reading this. Please can I have photos? And can you please continue to be as nice to me in the next couple months as you have been so far? My kids are taking me over the edge, and I could use an extra lifeline.)

The next couple weeks should be fun. I think the new electrical main (upgrading to 200-amp service) will get done in the next couple days, depending on whether our utility company, WE Energies, comes through. It’s possible that I will have a serious gripe to air here about WE soon, but I want to get more details from Kristi first. Roof shingles are going on this week. Doors and windows are going in. Closets are being studded out. Electricity, plumbing, insulation, drywall, it’s all on in the next week. The tile guy who’s pouring our shower pan stops in tomorrow to interrogate me and make sure I’m capable of doing an adequate tile job.

The kitchen cabinets arrived tonight at about 7:00 pm, 37 cardboard boxes of varying sizes that are now filling our entire dining room. I don’t know when the cabinets will actually be installed, but having them in the house makes me feel like we’re ready to turn the corner from destruction to creation.

Two guys driving a massive truck carried the massive boxes into the house one at a time. The men were exhausted after a full day of emptying shit out of that truck in houses and apartments from Chicago to Milwaukee. We were their last stop, but still they did a careful and professional job. One of them bumped into dangling old electrical wires in armored cable, and it caused a spark. He squealed like a little girl and cursed creatively. Then he started apologizing to me profusely for the language, which made me laugh and laugh as I begged him to stop apologizing. No one should ever apologize to me about potty mouth, obviously. I was more worried about whether he received an electric shock. The other fellow, a little guy with a strong accent, paused after dropping off a box to ask me, “you look Hispanic?” Nah, I answered, half Korean, but I’ve been mistaken for latino my whole adult life. Close enough. It was all very friendly and a nice way to end the day, and it reminded me that a lot of people making shit wages are working hard every day in one way or another to create a dream home for me. I tipped those guys well. I know they can’t possible be paid a living wage.

For all my bitching and moaning, I am as blessed and spoiled as any person could possibly deserve to be on the entire planet Earth. And I surely don’t deserve it.

I WAS NOT EATEN BY IN-LAWS.

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Now that we’re home, I feel clarity moving into my mind again, at least a little more than I’ve had for the past month. It’s time to start debriefing and detoxing from the vacation. The inevitable result of this process will be some guilty feelings and fresh grumpiness, but I’m okay with that.

After a mostly delightful week at the beach with a gaggle of friends (four other breeding families and a single male), we headed north to New Jersey for a few days at my in-laws’ home. The kids call them Big GrandMa and Big GrandPa. Contact with them is always extremely stressful for me.

Some years ago when I was pregnant with Nick, there was a big blow-up at the home of the BGs, mostly relating to Jesse’s behavior and their inability to cope with a challenging and free-spirited child. BGP blew a gasket and made all sorts of inappropriate comments at dinner one night about our parenting, and both BGs made a painful stink about accommodating Jesse’s egg allergy, and they were generally nasty. It was just another blow-up in a long string of blow-ups over the years, but this time it was about my child. That was truly intolerable. I swore I would never, ever, everrrrr return to their home.

But the kids always want to see the BGs, and I love Anthony, and life is short and full of regrets, so fuck me and my promises to myself. I voluntarily visited the BGs last year, and again this year. I’m a willing participant, but still it gets me all anxious and angry. With last week’s encounter behind me now, I’m realizing that for the past few weeks I’ve been doing exactly what any infantile, poorly-socialized parent would do in my shoes: taking my stress out on my kids.

* * * * * *

The BGs don’t like me. Anthony would beg to differ, but I don’t think this is an issue we’ll ever agree on. They undoubtedly “love” me — because what choice do any of us have after all these years? — but at best they tolerate my presence. Also Anthony’s brother appears to hate me; he behaves in a way that suggests utter disdain for me.

I’m sure the culture gap has something to do with it. When I was getting to know Anthony’s family in my 20’s, I had no conception that “English” is an actual ethnicity. They just looked like white people to me. But they’re definitively not white Americans, and I had no idea of the unspoken, essential strictures that apply to girlfriends and daughters-in-law, or of the bold emotional repression that appears to define the boundaries of relationships in an English household.

Some many years ago, before Jesse was born, the in-laws found the opportunity to tell Anthony (and then eventually me) that  I’m an awful person who has hurt their feelings and offended their sensibilities repeatedly. One important example BGM shared with me fits in the story like this (and I swear I’m being totally objective in the telling here):

Years before Anthony and I were married, while I was still in law school, BGM started talking about children. She wanted grandkids so she could be a better grandma than her own mother had been to Anthony and his brother. She would love to be a grandma. Soon. Before she’s too old to be a good grandma. Like, now. She would like to be a grandma now. Which means her sons need to have children. Soon. Now. ASAP.

After a while it got to be pretty offensive to me, especially since I had already told BGM I wasn’t planning to have kids. But what could I do? I tolerated it.

One Mother’s Day weekend we visited the in-laws. As we were heading back home on Sunday afternoon, BGM hugged me at the car door. I said “Happy Mother’s Day!” one last time.

She answered, “Happy Mother’s Day to you too!” Then she pulled back and chuckled, “OH I suppose I can’t say that yet, can I!”

I took a deep breath inside and answered with my own chuckle, “You better get used to it.”

And that was my great offense. Those six words apparently ripped a hole in BGM’s heart and stewed silently inside her for years and years, until they exploded all over Anthony and me.

Well never mind. I finally gave her grandchildren. My purpose in her life is complete.

* * * * * *

Last week’s visit went surprisingly well, at least if you’re evaluating the BGs’ behaviors.

There was only one classic moment, when Anthony showed BGM a photo of us from about 10 years ago. BGM examined it and declared cheerfully, “Oh what a lovely photo! Look how lovely you were, Cahla, back when you were so young and slim.”

And there you have it. BGM in a nutshell. Lovely, lovely. After 30 years of cheap shots at me, I guess I can’t blame her for slipping just one in.

One day we went to a lake in the New Jersey Pine Barrens to frolic in canoes. Anthony’s brother met us there. He behaved exactly as I anticipated, disdaining to engage in conversation with me, barely saying hello or goodbye to me, and largely ignoring Jesse and Nick and Anthony. He is entirely self-absorbed. But I think I was polite. If I wasn’t, I’ll probably hear about it in ten years, after it has plenty of time to fester.

We had to sideline Jesse for a lot of our time at the BGs’ home, because she was so out of control. I had prepared myself for the worst — grumpy BGs being grumpy about kids doing exactly what kids do, getting nasty about potential harm to all their precious household goods, and being weird tight-asses about eating schedules and tea. But instead the BGs were pretty delightful with the kids, and they were earnestly sad about how discombobulated Jesse is right now.

One day, Anthony and BGM took the kids to the active-adult-community pool down the block. I stayed in the bedroom sulking and being depressed about Jesse. I heard BGP’s quiet voice from outside the door. “Cahla? Ah you theh?” (You get the idea — do the English accent thing.)

I gritted my teeth, opened the door, and stepped out sheepishly, mumbling about having some down time. BGP fell to tears as he spoke. “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about how hard things have been with Jesse. I had no idea, and I am so, so very sorry. We’re so worried about you, Carla.”

I nodded through my own tears as my father-in-law, who I believe has held me in contempt for all these years, took pity on me. “Carla, can I just give you a hug? I want to give you a hug.”

I could hardly bear it. Why does humanity always surprise us with cruelty and kindness at all the oddest moments? An emotional dissonance brayed short and loud in my heart, and then my own contempt for the man — masked for so long by my belief in his contempt for me — took a step back. I accepted his hug and his love, and something long broken was mended a little.

Grumpy about the construction project (We’re home. Oh shit.)

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We got home Friday evening. We pulled up with vague feelings of trepidation, because two weeks’ worth of labors have happened in our absence. From the outside, we saw immediately that the skeleton of the addition is done. Very very cool, and very very exciting.

Before:

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After:

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Looks pretty good, huh?? The blue roof tarp adds a touch of class.

Then we walked into the house through the kitchen door.

The first thing I noticed was the ripe stench of raw sewage. It hit me like a hammer to the head. After I contained my gag reflex, I investigated. I discovered that our powder room toilet, which is right next to the kitchen door, was full of brown mucky water. Definitely sewage. The toilet in the second floor bathroom was the same. There’s no water running to those rooms, so it felt all wrong.  Also the towel rack over the upstairs toilet had fallen off. I have no idea why, since nothing has happened in that bathroom. Maybe the shaking from demolition on the other side of the wall? Hopefully it didn’t involve someone holding onto the towel rack while making sewage.

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I wandered into the living room. The fish tank was murky. Verrrrry murky. There are three fish in there, but I can’t seem them. There used to be four. One died while we were away.

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The wood floors were dirty everywhere. Very dirty.

The basement laundry/bath room, the only place where we actually have running water — i.e., where we’ll piss, shit, shower, brush teeth, wash hands, do dishes, and get drinking water until some weeks from now — was completely filthy from mechanical work. I thought the laundry would be hooked up, but it wasn’t. My dreams of getting right to washing the 10-gallon ziplock bag full of vomit-covered clothing and beach towels, from yesterday’s drive, were dashed.

The carpet in our basement, in the zones around the mechanical work, was scary dirty.

The refrigerator was off for three or four days while we were away, so there was no cold food. Everything had to go. Also we had no other food worth mentioning.

Our gigantic window fan, which usually draws a massive amount of air into the house via a window in the middle room, wouldn’t cool down our haven bedroom. We slowly figured out it’s because there’s a giant hole in a wall where a window is supposed to go, and that’s where the fan is drawing in air instead of from our bedroom windows. The actual window can’t go in the gaping hole yet, because there’s a massive main-line electric wire bundle running out the hole. I’m sure it has something to do with the utility company being asshats.

And so on. But it’s cool. It’s groovy. It’s all good. Because this is what living in a home under renovation is like, right?

We eventually figured out that the vent stack for the house has been untethered, because it was all quirky and has to be redone with the new bathroom and all. Here’s the place where the vent stack used to head up:

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And the top of it heading out the roof:

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There’s a missing link, and the twain shall never meet again, at least for a while. If you don’t already know about vent stacks:  they’re really, really important. Those nasty gas bubbles that come up from raw sewage go up the vent instead of pushing sewage back up into your toilets. Once we saw that our vent stack had been dissected, we understood that gas bubbles had pushed sewage back up into our toilets. Easy solution: we carried buckets of water up from the basement and poured them into the toilets, and after a few pours it was all better. Fortunately, the drains were still in place. We forgot to check first. That would have been a disaster of unimaginable magnitude.

Our air conditioning still works, so we fixed the fan and heat problem by turning on the a/c. Easy-peasy.

Food deficit? Solved: Noodles and Company, and then Trader Joe’s. Each within six minutes of our house.

Filth? Solved: Anthony. He is a Type A machine when it comes to this stuff. Armed with a swiffer stick and a few boxes of swiffer wipes (wet and dry), along with a dustpan, he cleaned everything up. I vacuumed aimlessly in my poodle skirt and sweater set while he toiled.

Fish tank? Working on it. I scrubbed stuff and change the filter and changed out half the water. It’s recovering.

Laundry? Solved big time. I texted Kristi-the-designer to whine a bit about it. I wondered if the washer could be hooked up Monday. But the plumber came this morning (Saturday!) and fixed it up right away. His name is BOB. Bob the Plumber. Kristi refers to him affectionately as “Bob the P.” BTP totally came through for me.

I even remembered to call Time Warner before we got home. The cable line had been pulled off the telephone pole a couple weeks ago, right before we left on our vacation, so we had no internet connectivity. Talon, the demolition specialist, admitted he took the line down (unintentionally) with a mighty blow from his sledge hammer. I couldn’t blame him, because earlier in the day a visitor to my next door neighbor had rammed Talon’s car with her own and then tried to avoid reporting it to the police and insurance. Not. Talon had good reason for some aggression.

During our long and miserable drive home from New Jersey (where my in-laws did not eat me), I called Time Warner, and they came out before we got back home to fix our internet line. So when we got home, we actually had internet. We set the kids up for a quiet movie and all was well in the world (except for everything that wasn’t well).

And the new spaces in our house are starting to come together. It’s hard to capture in photos. but here are a couple looks.

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You’re seeing our future new kitchen and mudroom there, from a couple different angles. Looks good.

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Naked stud walls and bare subfloor planks upstairs. I love that look.

Nothing seems to be irreparably broken, despite the removal of an entire wall of our house. Jesse might appear to be broken, but I’m not buying it. I just need to try a little harder and get a fresh perspective. We’ll survive this renovation because we have no choice anymore. I’ll survive Jesse for the same reason, just as surely as she’ll survive me.