Overbooked and Underpaid: Notes from a Yes-aholic

Analog Time

I have a love/hate relationship with technology. 

You couldn't pay me to go back to my great grandmother's day. Automatic washing machine? Couldn't live without it. Oven/stove that turns on "poof!" in a second? Love it! Toaster, stand mixer, blender, dishwasher - all good. 

My favorite technological advance in the last 20 years? Gotta be the snowblower. After over 40 years of shoveling snow, I bought one for my husband three years ago (in a rare moment of foresight, I gave it to him the year that it started snowing in October and then kept up through April with about 6 blizzards thrown in along the way.) We used to rationalize that we had two strong boys to do the shoveling for us, but it never seemed to work out that way. Either they were away from the house when the shoveling needed to be done, or else they were doing a pretty sucky job of it. Which I'm fairly sure was on purpose.

And don't get me started on the joys of furnaces and indoor plumbing. Biiiiig fan.

Then there are the electronic advances - telephones, cell phones, radio, TV, movies, VCRs DVD players, DVRs, computers and the internet.

First the telephone. Probably my favorite electronic invention of all time. It allowed me, when I was younger and living in a city where I knew no one, to stay in touch with my friends all over the country and all over the world. Of course, the connectivity came at a price - long distance was expensive in those days - but I saved up my money and rationed my calls and kept my sanity.

Cell phones. I pretty much hate cell phones. The amount of time to myself when I am truly unreachable has almost disappeared. And I hate that everywhere you look, everyone is talking on them instead of engaging with their surroundings. Surroundings like their friends, other diners, other folks in the check out line and the road they're driving on. On the plus side, I have to travel a lot for my job - sometimes in extremely hazardous conditions - and I feel a lot safer than I did in the old days when all you could do was put a "call police" banner in your back windshield and wait for some good samaritan to help you out.

Radio and TV - love PBS and NPR. Pretty much hate everything else except old time shows like Dick Van Dyke. Supremely happy not to have cable. I would most certainly go mad. I cannot, cannot, cannot stand commercials or reality shows. (I did get addicted to "Lost" in it's 4th season, but that was courtesy of netflix. When we had to watch the 6th season in real time, I almost couldn't stand it.)

VCRs, DVRs, etc. Looooove these. For a commercial hater like myself, these inventions were a godsend. Not to mention the fact that, with a tight budget and three kids, going to a movie at the actual theater is a luxury. One time we added it up - between the sitter, the ticket price and the concessions, $50 for just the two of us. Take the whole family? You have got to be kidding. 

The internet.

Ah, the internet.

I really have a love/hate relationship with the internet.

Like cable TV, I fought having the internet in my house for years. And I mean years. While John needed to have the internet at his office almost as soon as it was invented, we didn't hook up a connection at the house until November 2005.

Yes, you read that right - 2005. My sister - a real cutting edge technology girl - was sending me emails as early as 1995. She despaired of me as I took 6 weeks to respond. (3 weeks for John to remember to tell me I had an email, 2 weeks for me to start caring about reading it, and 1 week to actually plan out a time to get my butt over to his office to send one back.)

You can imagine how deprived my kids felt. Particularly my oldest, the techno wizard. He had to go to the library and set up an email account there. I maintain that the exercise he got riding his bike to and from the library every day was probably one of the best parenting decisions I ever made.

(Nowadays, I could not get away with this. Every one of my kids' teachers expects them to have ready access to the internet for research, rehearsal schedules, parental report card access, you name it. Especially as the schools go "paperless".)

I cannot pretend that the internet is all bad. It has brought the world to me in a way no other technology has. The number of useful things I can do with it and find out from it are infinite. And I particularly love email. I have established some incredible friendships via email and have cut my phone bills down to almost nothing.

And I love being able to keep up with what is going on in the world in real time. 

But - and now we get right down to it - the internet has slowly taken over my life.

Between us, John and I have 6 email addresses, 4 websites, 5 blogs, facebook and twitter . (I am still holding out against facebook - you can read my reasoning here,)

I'm exhausted just typing all that - let alone checking it all the time. 

When I first started this blog, I tried to get all my friends to start reading it. I hoped they would love it so much that they would spread the word about it (to basically every person they ever knew). It would go viral and I would be able to buy a new house (like the dooce lady). 

Well, not only did hardly any of them read it - they pretty much only read it once and then didn't share it with anyone else.

At first I was hurt. I spent a lot of time analyzing the blog's content and the format, trying to figure out why no one liked it. And I wondered how strong my friendships truly were.

Except, it turns out that is not the problem. The bits that my friends read, they adored.

No, the problem is the kind of friends I have.

They don't spend time on the internet. 

Unlike me, they are living analog lives. Lives filled with driving their kids all over town, going to countless recitals, plays and concerts, going out to dinner together, helping kids with homework, etc. They don't blog or read other people's blogs. They are not on facebook or twitter.

So I decided to follow their lead and take a huge break from the internet for most of the month of December. I had to do some stuff - John and I have websites and businesses to run, after all - but I cut waaay back.

And it felt gooooooood.

So, my first new year's resolution is to put my life back into its proper perspective and carve out what I'm going to call "analog time".

During my analog time, I plan to do stuff with my kids - like jigsaw puzzles and board games and such - , spend more non-work time with my husband, sit and enjoy a good sunset, read books and magazines (god, I miss reading print), do an occasional crossword puzzle, and get together more often with my friends over coffee/tea etc.

Because, untrue to my fear that my friendships were not strong enough, I have found that they are, not only strong - they are priceless.

Produce Drawer of Death or "I Need A New Fridge"!

So it's the holiday season.

 

And that means guests. 

 

Which means cleaning. 

 

Not just cleaning. 

 

CLEANING. 

 

As in everything.

 

As in all three bathrooms:

• The medicine cabinets. (You know people open your medicine cabinets).
• The mold and mildew in the shower. (You know they look at that too - I don't know why, but they do).
• The toilets. Including under the lid. (The boys in my life should understand this is a place some people will see).
• The ritual placing of the fake towels. (The ones no one in the family ever uses so they'll look nice for "company". And the "company" thinks they are also too nice to use so they sneakily wipe their hands on the shower curtain).

There's the moving of all the furniture when you vacuum because someone might actually change the position of a chair and discover what’s lurking under there much of the year.

 

And then the doors, door frames, light switches, and kitchen cabinet knobs that apparently have not been cleaned since last Christmas.

 

It's amazing how much grime builds up in all these places without my noticing. When I suddenly become aware of it I am stunned at its obviousness and our slovenliness.

 

Eventually our cleaning journey takes us to the inside of the refrigerator.

 

Yes the inside of the refrigerator.

 

Because not only is this the time of year for many guests, it's the time of year for many guests to help you.

 

They will be in the kitchen helping get food on the table and fetching things in and out of the fridge for you.

 

If you have not cleaned out that fridge, THIS is the moment of truth.

 

The moment when your friends come face to face with death.

Dead soup, dead bowls of spaghetti, dead half eaten yogurts, dead crystallized jam, dead Chinese take-out, and dead produce.

Many of the departed consist of optimistically placed leftovers.

 

You’d think, after 25 years, I would know which types of extra foods will actually get eaten and which are doomed to become a ritualistic sacrifice to the refrigerator gods. Yet I continue to put the supper bits in there blithely assuming they’ll turn magically into lunches.

 

Deceased leftovers represent a failure of portion planning.

Dead produce, however, represents a bigger failure.

A failure in a quest for healthy eating.

Salads never made, vegetables never served for dinner, oranges that, while they looked juicy at the store, have turned out to be little rind covered balls of sawdust.

I really do try.

Every trip to the grocery store sees me buying fresh fruits and veggies and filled with the optimism that we will consume every bit of them.

So where does it all break down?

I blame the produce drawer of death.

First of all, there are two drawers - one that says “moist cold” and one that says “vegetables and fruit”.

I cannot for the life of me figure out what is supposed to go into the “moist cold” one if it isn’t vegetables and fruit.

Secondly, the drawers are tinted like sunglasses. Meaning you cannot clearly see what is going on in there. Unless you open them constantly, stuff is pretty sure to be going round the bend.

Thirdly, the produce drawers are all the way at the bottom. I practically have to get down on my hands and knees to even get access to them.

Talk about out of sight out of mind.

So what I need is...

Drumroll please...

A new refrigerator that has the produce drawers right smack dab at eye level.

With clear plastic that one can actually see through.

I am absolutely, stupendously sure that this will solve all of my fridge death problems and we will eat healthy evermore.

And, I won’t have to clean the fridge this year for company.

Are you listening, dear?

 

Epilogue:

A year has come and gone since I wrote that and I still have my cruddy old fridge and yes, I still plan to clean it before my big Christmas Party. I got started in a small way tonight. When I opened my produce drawers, this is what I found:

Tonight, funeral services were conducted for two heads of lettuce, some grapes, green onions and a desiccated lemon.

These grapes are both dried up and moldy - pick your poison...

I assure you, this lettuce smells every bit as delicious as it looks.....

This poor lettuce never even made it out of the plastic wrap....

My husband swears that, as I stroll through the produce aisle at the store, all the fruits and vegetables recoil in horror when they see me coming. Like the little fish killier girl in "Finding Nemo" 

Sigh.

New Years' Resolution number one: stopping killing lettuces.

I Don't Scrapbook

But if I did......................

The Joys Of Older Plumbing....

When I left you on Friday, it was with a story about our leaking shower. 

Which is really only the tip of the iceburg.

The plumbing in our master bath, along with what it's doing to our living room ceiling are the stuff of nightmares.

The house was built in 1928 which means that it has all these great architectural details like plaster ceiling moldings, french doors, and hardwood floors. Of course, this also means that it has 1928 plumbing which, on some levels is great (huge porcelain tubs and toilets with real power when you flush) but on other levels is awful because finding people who actually know how to fix it is like finding a needle in a haystack. Plus, much of the stuff to fix it with isn't made anymore.

(John has done some truly Edison worthy rigging in our toilet tanks to allow them to continue to function. The recent visiting plumber was actually impressed enough to ask John if he was an engineer. He's not. He just plays one in his comic strip.)

 We moved in in 1998 and, three weeks after moving in (5 weeks before Christmas and guests) we had a terrible incident involving our master bath tub. I had come home after a really long gig and was exhausted and decided to take a nice long hot soak in the big tub. Because it's so deep, you can really fill it up and settle in. Well, after I was done and was draining the tub, I heard John downstairs shouting at the top of his lungs "Stop!! Stop it!!! Stop!!"

It turns out all the water was draining into the space between the bathroom floor and the living room ceiling and it was literally raining in our living room. That's when most of our current ceiling cracks got started. In fact, as we were mopping up all the water (thank goodness we got to it right away so it didn't ruin the oak floor) I looked up and saw cracks in the ceiling starting to form in the shape of the tub outline.

Ever seen that movie "The Money Pit" ?

Remember the scene where the tub falls through the floor into the room below?

I seriously thought that was going to happen any minute.

Thankfully, it didn't. When the plumber came later we found out that, once upon a time, someone had the bright idea of taking off the pipe at the back of the tub into which the overflow goes and they didn't cap it off or anything. So, when I filled the tub past the faucet level and then drained it, it created sort of a syphon that sucked all the water into the overflow and gushed it right out into the floor. (And don't tell me that's what I get for filling the tub past the faucet level - what's the point of a tub 18 inches deep if you can only fill it to 10 inches? We have since put silicone around the overflow hole. So there!)

Since then, I'm pretty sure we've had other issues that are ongoing but invisible. The shower valve has been leaking for years, apparently, and the toilet used to have a leak near the spot where the tank joins the bowl and there is water damage to the bathroom floor behind the toilet that is probably ten times worse underneath.

I've been crossing my fingers all these years that the ceiling doesn't come down on us. We absolutely don't have the money to redo the entire bathroom but we're going to finally have to open the LR ceiling at least and deal with whatever plumbing issues are going on in there. Part of the problem is finding a plasterer that will do a good job and match the original plaster. Plus avoid damaging the plaster crown moldings.

I'm praying we can at least put if off until January after the big Christmas party.

And, of course, I am desperately hoping that, when we do open the ceiling, we don't hear the plumber say "Uh Oh........"

Cross your fingers for me!

 

Ornaments Ahoy!

In my previous post I talked about all the decorating I do for the holidays and alluded to the vast quantity of Christmas ornaments I possess. 

I don't really know how to make clear to you the scope of the number of ornaments we are talking about. I guess the best way is in terms of Christmas trees. If you take your average 6 to 7 foot tree and decorated it modestly - you know, so that there is actual space between ornaments - I probably have enough ornaments to fill 5-7 trees. Needless to say, the 3 trees I do decorate each year (1 large, 1 medium and 1 small) are way overfilled and a number of ornaments just flat out stay in their boxes. I try to rotate who makes the tree each year, but, let's face it - some ornaments are stars and some are bench warmers.

It's not as though I have an ornament addiction - I have probably only purchased 25 or fewer ornaments since I got married and started actually setting up Christmas trees. No, the answer lies in heirlooms and the handing down of things and melding of households.

Ornament category 1: ornaments from my husband's childhood. 

Probable total: 35-45

These ornaments range from the classics handed down through the family since easily the 1940's......

to some of those golden oldie wooden ones everyone had in the 1960's (I had one too - John's is the Santa, mine is the two little children) ..............

                   

to some, ahem, "classics" of the 1970's...............

 

Ornament category 2: Ornaments crocheted or otherwise handmade by John's late grandmother

Probable total: 75-100

These have always been particularly special. She began giving them to us when we first got married and continued right up until her death. Some of the crocheted ones have been stiffened with a sugar mixture (which apparently makes them an irresistible treat for certain dogs - one of my sisters-in-law lost several of hers in a sordid cocker spaniel snack attack) and the ones she made after she moved into the nursing home are pretty floppy. Victims of my "some day I'll get to starching those" lifestyle.

starched

unstarched

 

Ornament category 3: homemade by my kids

Probable total: 15-20

I adore these - it was sad when my children migrated into public school where such things do not get made for mothers and fathers at holiday time. 

Ornament category 4: homemade by my mother

Probable total: 10 or so

These are also quite special but sporadic. My mother's life is even more hectic than mine so the time she has to sit down and embroider any more is rare. 

 

You can tell she had only two children when she made this one - imagine having enough time to find cute things to cut out of magazines, mounting them, cutting them out on the scroll saw and decorating them. Starting to see where I get my overbooked gene?

Ornament category 5: given by friends or ornament exchange parties

Probable total: 25-30

I won't bother with pictures of the ones from my students - they are pretty much all variations on the theme of harps - but I really like this porcelain gingerbread house from an ornament exchange - tremendously heavy though,

Ornament category 6: ornaments gifted to my children by my mother in law

Total: 43

There is absolutely no guesswork on this number as my mother in law has faithfully given each of my children a special ornament for every Christmas they have been alive.

Unfortunately, many of them are gone or in pieces in storage because for the first 5 - 8 years she bought adorable ornaments from Hallmark that turned out to be incredibly poorly made. Contrary to the longevity of ornaments purchased in my childhood that are still going strong, these usually did not last more than one season. For years John had a plethora of disembodied hands, heads, toys, you name it,  in his basement workshop waiting to be reassembled. But plastic does not take to being glued all that well and he eventually gave up. Luckily, my mother in law decided enough was enough and started investing in a different kind of ornament entirely. I am happy to say, all those have survived beautifully.

This one stays in its box - it's what holds the pieces together.

virtually unbreakable!

Ornament category 7: ornaments from my childhood or ornaments thrust upon me by my mother the year she swore off Christmas trees for the rest of her life.

Probable total: Lord knows

I cannot even begin to count them. To be fair, they are all wonderful and I am happy to have them - it's just there are so many!

My favorites are the glass ornaments that survived the great tree crash of '74. That was the year our favorite pug, Phoebe, got herself tangled in something at the base of the tree and brought the whole thing down on herself. As that tree was easily as full as my current tree, the loss of ornaments was considerable. It makes those that I have all the more special. It also gave my mother an excuse to go out scrounging tag sales for replacements, boosting the ornament count even higher. Here are some of my personal favorites - I'd be curious if anyone out there has similar ones.....

I've never seen this duck anywhere else.

There were several of these jointed 2-piece ones - this is the only survivor. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hang it, the paint is starting to crackle on the inside.

This one I have seen in collectable books

I love the three dimensionality of this one.

I love bells. Notice the length of the stem on this one.......

versus the length of the stem on this one.

Explanation: the green bell lost some of its stem in the great crash. My mother resourcefully just put a cap and hook on it anyway.

So that's a little journey through my ornament madness.

Next post: storing more ornaments than you know what to do with.