Thank you for this lake, for these friends, for this family, for this life.
Tag: family
A Wild Rumpus Tradition
There is somewhere you must visit if you are in Minneapolis, Minnesota if you are a reader, or a parent; if you are a parent of a reader; if you are a lover of books; or if you are a lover of pets. You must visit Wild Rumpus. You know the allusion right? From Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Thing Are.
“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”
Let’s start at the door, shall we? The youngest Afthead is almost too big for the small purple door built into the normal grown-up sized door. Almost too big, but not quite. 5 years now we’ve been making an annual trek to the purple door.
You walk in and the store is half zoo, half pet shop, half bookstore, and half magic land. (Yes, I know that equals two, but this bookstore is greater than a single bookstore.) It has cats with no tails, chickens, doves, creepy albino rats, cockatiels, chinchillas, ferrets, tarantulas, fish hidden in the mirror in the bathroom, and a really ugly lizard. The cats are free to roam the store and their tailless ends are usually followed by a parade of children trying to grab a pet or a snuggle. The chickens are also free to roam with a similar parade of kids, but they aren’t normal chickens. They are like poodle chickens cute but a little foreign. If chickens and cats need a break they retreat behind the sales counter taunting the children with their proximity and inaccessibility.
When you are done staring at the floor looking for animals your eyes travel upwards to the shelves and shelves of books. There are books taller than you can reach: picture books, beginning readers, later readers, science books, geography books and even grown up books. In the back of the store there is a scary section. The albino rats live there, and there is a hole in the floor where some other creature lives. When I was a kid, this would have been where I lived. I’ve always loved scary books. Not my kiddo though, she’s in the beginner readers picking out books she’s never seen outside of her classroom and she’s delighted.
About this time you glance up to stretch your neck and notice the boat carving a path through the ceiling. Yep, in case there isn’t enough magic in this place the ceiling is actually a river with a rowboat carving a path through the white ceiling and leaving a path of blue green water behind it.
If you are in Minneapolis carve out an hour and go visit. It’s right by the airport. You won’t regret a moment there. In fact, you might end up feeling like you’ve doubled your investment.
Finish something, part deux
Now that the Afthead lice infestation is officially over, my hands were itching to do something more productive than comb hair. (I spent a lot of time examining my daughter’s afthead, let me tell you!) I wanted to finish something, like my BFF Neil Gaiman encouraged me to do a few weeks ago. The novel is still inching along, but I’ve had a knitting project in the basket since February, and I had Women’s World Cup soccer and Tour de France to watch this weekend. Knitting time!
My husband jokes about my knitting and my writing, “You’re so lucky. You’ve already got all your old-person hobbies figured out.” In retaliation I poke him with my knitting needle and make fun of him publicly on my blog. I’m excited about my first knitting blog, because I can try some cross linking between my Ravelry page and my blog. If you aren’t a knitter just look at the pretty pictures and wonder why on earth I’d want to work with a toasty pile of of wool when it’s over 90 degrees out. The pattern is the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, and I used Liberty Wool from Classic Elite Yarns. It took about 3 skeins of the light tone (color 7804) and 3 skeins of the dark tone (7898). It’s a really long scarf. 
I also have a shower to go to next weekend for a dear friend’s baby boy. Well there’s nothing I love more than knitting baby hats, so I also started, and finished a baby hat this weekend. I watched a Lynda course about design and by the time it was done my yarn had become a hat! I have found that I can learn from those online courses if my hands are busy while I’m watching. It alleviates some of the tedium. I’ve yet to be brave enough to bring knitting to a meeting filled day at work, but I bet it would work in person too. Sadly I think knitting at work is at best weird and at worst rude.
This pattern is a modification of the Magic Coffee Baby Hat pattern. I used three Debbie Bliss yarns; the brown and blue are cashmerino aran (300008 and 300005) and the red is cashmerino astrakhan (31006) which is a yarn with a little texture to it. The cashmerino yarn makes the hat both not-itchy and machine washable, critical for a baby. I did a slip stitch on the fourth stitch of the brown row to make the brown bump in the blue stripe. I think it’s cute and should be a great first hat for a September baby. 
We are supposed to bring a book instead of a card to this shower, and as the book lover in this group of friends, I picked out the books for three of us. I’m like a kid’s book personal shopper. I love all three of these books. The hat is included in the picture so you can see how teeny tiny it is. 
What a productive weekend! Now I just have to wait two months for anything I created to get worn. The best part is, now that I’ve finished two somethings, I can start something…or tackle that sweater that was under the scarf in the knitting basket. Just one more sleeve! Maybe I can get it done before winter.
Yummies and Yuckies
When my daughter was little our pediatrician encouraged us to start doing “yummies and yuckies” as part of our bedtime routine. Each night we’d all share the best things (yummies) and worst things (yuckies) of our day. Sadly this little tradition has gone by the wayside – I think it had something to do with my daughter’s behavior being a yucky one too many times – but I’m going to bring it back here to catch you up on the life of the Aftheads recently.
Yummy/Yucky #1
- Yucky – my daughter got lice. It finally happened. I’ve been dreading this day and threatening to abandon her at the fire station if it ever happened. (I’m convinced that “safe haven” thing extends to seven year olds, but only if there are lice involved). I didn’t leave her though. I’m mommed up, dumped insecticide on her head, and combed through her long hair for two hours and 45 minutes removing lice, nymphs and eggs. Then for a week after I spent an hour going through her hair and my hair with a literal fine toothed comb – man I really get the imagery behind that phrase now- to ensure we were done with the infestation. She had a really mild case. It wasn’t that bad. I won’t get PTSD, unless those crawly things end up in my hair!
- Yummy – The lice killing chemicals had detailed step by step instructions for dealing with head lice, and vague references to “pubic lice”. I am thankful that I didn’t have to decipher those.
Yummy/Yucky #2
- Yummy – we had an amazing trip to Washington D.C. to kick off our summer. We took my daughter when she was four, and she really didn’t have any context for why our nation’s capital is a cool place. This year she got it. She knows the president lives in the White House. She stood on the step where MLK gave his “I have a dream” speech and recited the first few lines. Making it even more special was that we got to go with her best friend. I’ve got an adorable picture of the two of them, head to head, wind whipping their hair in front of the Washington Monument.
- Yucky – the best friend had lice when we were in D.C. but no one knew it yet. If you zoom in on the Washington Monument picture you can see those little burgers leaping off the friend’s hair into my daughter’s hair riding the currents of the wind to a new fertile land.
Yummy/Yucky #3
- Yummy – Marriage equality happened! I have friends and co-workers whose lives are changed because of this, and I’m so thrilled. I didn’t find out the way I’d imagined, but I got to find out with my daughter and we had a great conversation about what the supreme court ruling meant. It went like this,
Me – “Kiddo, this means people can marry whoever they want. If a boy loves a girl they can get married. If a boy loves a boy they can get married. If a girl loves a girl they can get married.”
Kiddo – “I don’t want to get married. Why do kids have to get married now?”
Me – “No I meant a man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman now.”
Kiddo – “Oh. I don’t ever want to get married.”
Me – “That’s still okay.”
Then we picked up one of her friends and headed to camp. The two seven year olds had another great conversation about the ruling:
My kiddo – “Hey my mom said that anyone can marry who they want now. It’s a big deal.”
Friend – “Yeah, people can kiss whoever they want. I hate kissing.”
My kiddo – “I’m not getting married to anybody.”
Friend – “Me either.”
Thus the nation changed to be more tolerant, more accepting and more equal, but you still don’t have to kiss anyone or get married if you don’t want to.
- Yucky – I kind of forgot that everyone wasn’t anxiously awaiting this ruling. Its made some people I really love and care about pretty angry. While that doesn’t change my feelings it does remind me that change is hard and this ruling doesn’t mean that every individual has become more tolerant and more accepting.
Two more days of lice hunting and we can claim the infestation over. Maybe then my head will quit itching and I’ll have time to write again.
E-mail divorce
I am going to share an image with you. I predict that you will have one of two responses to this image:
- Nothing
- Your eye will start twitching and you will run to find your own phone just to ensure that those little red numbers aren’t really there… Dear God is that 5,793 UNREAD EMAIL MESSAGES?!?! The horror….
In case it isn’t obvious, I am in camp 1. This is a screenshot of my phone. I leave e-mails unread, voicemails unlistened to, I have no earthly idea what Redbox wants to tell me 77 times, and none of this bothers me. My husband is in camp 2. He has a sparkling clean, organized, empty inbox. He clears up all those calendar items, whatever they are. Mostly, our relationship is pretty symbiotic. He deletes stuff he needs sometimes, but I can find that precious message in my heaps of electronic data.
Today we reached an impasse. We have had a shared e-mail address since we have had e-mail. We’ve managed our oil and water methods by keeping two outlook accounts where he can delete everything and I keep everything. However, a year ago we bought a crappy computer, moved to gmail and our system fell apart. Two outlooks was too much for the computer to handle so he took over the e-mail management. He moved everything into folders I couldn’t search and kept the inbox at a 50ish e-mail limit, thinking that was a compromise. But this was no compromise. This was him managing our joint inbox his way, and I hated it. So today we’ve had our first divorce in our relationship. 6 years after going to shared money, 10 years after getting married, 15 years after buying our first house, and 18 years after our first date I am leaving him and our shared e-mail. He gets custody, and I’ll have some visitation rights while I move my electronic stuff to my own place. We’ll still have some shared responsibility, but really it’s better for everyone this way. Me, my husband, and all those poor messages who have been stuck in the middle this past year. I can’t wait to watch my 5,973 unread messages start growing again.
Three Random Rants
A few things have been swirling around my mind lately and I need to get them off my chest. Three rants are below and are unrelated and unequal in magnitude.
#1: The acceptance of Caitlyn Jenner does not mean that the good ol’ USA is like Brave New World or 1984
Okay, folks, let’s chat shall we? Regardless of how you feel about Caitlyn Jenner, her choices, or the attention the media is giving her can we try to agree on one thing? Who she is and the choices she made has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the classic novels 1984 and Brave New World. This Washington Post article drawing similarities to conservative’s apocalyptic views and those two books has left my friends and family sick of listening to me. There was no freedom and no individuality in those books! That was the point! Yes, there were all kinds of perversity happening, but not this kind of perversity, if you consider this a perversity. Do conservatives not know that those who don’t agree with them worry that their policies direct us into the world of Big Brother and sameness? Pick another metaphor people!
Phew. On a non-rant note, I really appreciated Laverne Cox’s take on Caitlyn’s unveiling. At my local bagel shop there was an employee who had manicured nails, make-up, and a husky female voice and she/he didn’t look like Caitlyn or Laverne. I don’t know which gender she/he most identified with, but she/he was always polite, always had a smile for me, and was really a happy person. Working at a bagel shop isn’t going to give you the means to become Caitlyn, and that’s okay, so long as people respect who you are on the inside and outside. I hope she brings us a step closer to this kind of universal respect.
#2 Toilet stall doors that close by default are a horrible design
Okay, I hate walking into a restroom where all the doors are closed regardless of whether or not there is someone in the stall. Who decided that was a good idea? Walking around hunched over peering under doors or through cracks makes me feel like a hunchback voyeur. Make the doors open by default. Also, this format causes unnecessary lines for those unwilling to be creepy or rude.
#3 Hobbies and avocations are unexpected bridge builders
I met a new client this week who introduced herself by saying, “Oh, I know you. The owner at the local knitting shop said to watch for you at work.” Uh, what? This new client liked me before I ever met her because she knew I was a knitter. How awesome is that?
The end of random ranting. I feel better now.
End of School – Pain or Pleasure AKA Introvert or Extrovert
In the Afthead house we are plowing through to the end of the school year. Combined with Mother’s Day and little Afthead’s birthday, this time of year is non-stop parties, events and social obligations. This past weekend’s schedule for my family was:
- Friday – School, soccer game, family birthday party
- Saturday – Soccer game, arts festival at school, performance of Frog and Toad at school, sleepover
- Sunday – Soccer game, birthday party with 10 girls
Note that we only have one kid! How is this schedule possible? We made it, and Monday morning I dropped my exhausted daughter off at school and trudged back toward my car. When I saw a mom who I knew had a soccer party for 15 boys Sunday night I was excited to commiserate.
I started the conversation, “I hear you had 15 boys on your trampoline last night. You must be crazier than I am. I only had 10 girls and a swing.”
She looked at me and said, “Oh, it was so amazing last night. I looked at all those kids and all those families and just thought about how lucky I am. The kids got along so well, and the families were so great. I am just so grateful for this amazing school and these experiences we get to provide our kids.”
I think I may have managed a grunt in reply, which was way better than what I was screaming inside: “WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT LADY?!? AREN’T YOU TIRED AND CRANKY AND OVERWHELMED FROM ALL THIS STUFF!?!”
On the drive to work I evaluated the situation and, before I felt too bad about my reaction, a light came on in my dazed attic. I am an introvert. When things get crazy I want to lock myself in with my family and hide from the world. Sometimes it gets so bad that I don’t even want my family. By Monday I did not want to make small talk with some almost friend about how lucky we are. I wanted to hide, but her gushing made perfect sense. She is an extrovert. She was probably so energized by her weekend of soccer, festivals, performances and parties that she was ready to explode, but in a good way. Not the way I was ready to explode.
I tested my theory at work. Sure enough my mom friends who are extroverts thought my weekend sounded amazing and glorious. My introvert friend said, “this time of year is just survival mode” and she is so right. It makes me sad that I can’t revel in this situation. I want to be able to find utter joy in the past weekend, but I can’t, and that’s okay. I am so fortunate, but I am not lucky. I could use a week between each one of the events so I could be present and recharged and delighted for every one of them. This time of year the extroverts are lucky. I am going to avoid them until school is over.
Rebranding a dreaded dinner
We have a favorite dinner at the Afthead house. It’s called “a feast.” How do you make such an amazing meal? Let me tell you. You take everything out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter. Then you heat up the food that is still edible. You add in some crackers, pepperoni, and cheese. Then make quesadillas from the very last bit of cheese. (Don’t grate your fingertips!) Here is our feast from tonight:
Then you make it really special. You put a big beach towel down in front of the TV in the basement, or in the back yard, or some other non-traditional-dinner spot. Tonight we watched hockey playoffs during our feast.
“Wait a second!” I hear you shouting. “We have that same dinner. It’s called leftovers and we serve it at the table with sides of complaining and whining. You tricked us!”
“Cast off leftovers! Let that dreaded word never cross your lips again!” I shout back. Now, In a week, have your first feast. Make it mostly loved food with a few leftovers thrown in. Two weeks later put in a few more leftovers and a few less mini-corn dogs and potstickers. (Randomness is crucial to a successful feast. It should trascend rules of geography and cuisine.) Before you know it you’ll make entire meals out of food in your fridge, and let me tell you, magic will happen. Tonight I had mini-meatballs dipped in green chili which was a never before tried delicious combo. This is no trick. It’s a feast!
The wisdom of older age
As I get older I have moments of clarity where I suddenly see things with a different perspective or understand things that seemed mysterious. For example, there was the day I dropped my daughter off for a “sleepover with Nanna” and in her excitement I saw the joy of my childhood nights with my own grandma. Then the light bulb turned on: my parents ditched me with my grandparents so they could go out and have fun just like I was doing with my kid. Those weren’t just my special nights, but theirs too!
This morning I had another realization as a tweezed away the first of three offensive grey eyebrows. “Holy crap. This is why Aunt Bert had eyebrows drawn on with a pencil!” I left the other two. Random grey eyebrows is better than bald eyebrows.
Vocabulary fight
Last week was a crazy busy week. Thursday night I should have worked, or I should have worked on my book, or I should have worked on this blog. I didn’t do any of those things. I sat down and thought through my options and consciously said, “Screw it. I am tired. I am watching TV.” I sat my butt down on the couch and tuned out. I didn’t knit. I just sat there like a big lump and did nothing. I felt a bit guilty, but I consciously made my decision to shirk responsibility for a night.
My husband got home, walked in the door and said, “Wow, remember Monday when our house was clean?” Dagger through the heart. See, I’d gone through my list of things I thought I should be doing and chose TV. I did not go through the list of things others thought I would do. That’s when I realized my major life frustration right now.
“Ugh, do you know what I hate about our life right now?” I asked. “There is no fun without repercussion.”
My husband looked at me and said, “I think that’s the wrong word. I think you mean consequence.”
(We have an ongoing fight at our house about who has a better vocabulary. Mine is better, in case you were wondering.)
Then he went on, “You know repercussion is like percussion. What does that have to do with what you are talking about?”
I rolled my eyes because my mechanical engineer of a husband should not feign expertise in word derivation.
Cue the English teacher. I called my mom the next morning and told her about the fight. Then I asked, “So is it no fun without repercussion, no fun without consequence, or no fun without ramification?” I’d added the last word to the list during my nightly musing on the argument.
Cue the dictionary. Not the Google one, or the online one, but the big heavy red one that sits next to my laptop. Mom got hers too. Here is what we decided:
- Repercussion – there are unintended results to what you did
- Consequence – can be good or bad, and you pretty much know what’s going to happen
- Ramification – a derived effect of an action
So, mom and I decided I was right with my original thought. I don’t like the fact that every time I have fun there are unexpected negative consequences, and that equals repercussion. Before my husband showed up and yelled about the messy house I just had consequences. Had I been reprimanded at work the next morning for not doing something Thursday night that would have been a ramification. Glad we got that settled.
Cue the husband again. I explained to him our research, our logic, and our conclusion and he just looked at me like he couldn’t give a crap about the exact nature of my current frustration. That, my friends, is why I have a better vocabulary than he does. Because I care about the right word enough to hypothesize, research, and prove my case and he does not. I win.
Cue the raspberry noise! Phlbbttt!
Afthead 