Simplicity

I've been cutting out eight-inch squares of purple, blue, and green fabric for a quilt for the last few weeks. Chloë has an Elmo book, you see, on one of the pages of which Elmo is jumping on his bed with his favorite teddy monster, and on his quilt is a simple, impossibly puffy quilt of blue and green squares. Chloë has repeatedly talked about the quilt, and I got the brilliant idea of making her one like it since she needs a bigger blanket for her bed anyway. This was foolish as I have no time, and also want to make a (also very simple) baby quilt for my brother's best friend's new baby before we leave for Seattle next week. But I've been cutting out squares here and there, and now I've got enough to start sewing.

I thought it would be nice to get done slowly over the next few weeks, a couple of seams at a time, or however long Chloë was willing to bring me squares and sit in my lap and keep her hands away from the sewing machine. Alas: she's scared of the noise. It's too loud, she says (or "tu howd"). Ah well. When I get this other quilt done...because I will, right?...II'll start sewing hers together, a few seams at a time, in the evening. I'd had a much more complicated and awesome one planned before Maia was born: bears in the woods on a moonlit evening. But it didn't happen before Maia was born, so it won't for a while; and now I don't think I'd do that design since she's much more into water at the moment. (She might appreciate the bears, but only if they looked enough like Care Bears, which wasn't my plan.)

I miss doing complicated hobby work, but there's also something charming about the simplicity of a few squares here, a few square there. I also miss the sourdough and artisan bread I used to make, but I like having Chloe help me pile in the ingredients for our standard wheat every week or two (Though I do plan on trying a variation of King Arthur's sandwich rye soon. Also a cinnamon/applesauce bread for French toast inspired by their banana yeast bread. I'll probably freeze it in individual slices so we can store it for just that purpose.) Eric asked me about the logistics that a job on Bainbridge Island would entail, and when he learned that the commute would be long and we couldn't afford to live close, decided it wasn't for him. "Come home at 6:30, then immediately dinner, bathtime, bedtime," he said. "Not a thrilling idea." I think I always knew I would be retooling my life to fit around children, and this is what it looks like. I'll make them complicated quilts when they're older and can appreciate it more anyway.

Matters of state

Well, hello again. I've just recently closed down another blog, the garden one, so maybe I'll be able to remember to turn to this one. So far it's mostly been the baby blog and my worknotes (e-mails to myself).

Let's see. Important news: I am pregnant again. Go ahead, ask me if it was planned. I'm due April 26, and have just given up job-hunting because I couldn't in good conscience accept a job and then go on maternity leave five or fewer months earlier. I hate this, but there it is. Eric is a stay-at-home dad, teaching a class at a local community college and doing online tutoring at night, and it's working out well except that I need a new computer (or at least a new OS, but the new computer would be really nice too) and we don't make enough disposable income that I'm comfortable getting one. It's going on the Christmas list. Chloë is doing very well; she can walk and say "up" and "Dada" and can point to various body parts, and gives marvelous hugs. I'm alternately excited and scared of having a second one. We're just growing into this nice family. Nevertheless.

I finished my most recent craft project, a quilt for my new niece (born last Sunday, I shipped it today, so that wasn't as bad as it could have been). Currently in progress:

-a baby sweater for Chloë, nearly finished
-a kitty hat for Chloë's cousin's Halloween costume, nearly started
-designs for Christmas stockings for all of us
-various attempts at making fleece hats and mittens for Chloë for the winter

Chloë's already outgrowing the baby blanket I made her, and she'll be moving to a toddler bed next summer anyway, so I'm contemplating a big-girl quilt for her. Also one for the new baby. No ideas yet on either.

And I've started the Shoelace revision. Rewrite, rather. I've been doing some research and some thinking and have, I hope, a much better background and outline. Currently I'm some 3500 words in, mostly new. I joined the Novel Club, a quarterly novel-critiquing group, on FMwriters, and I'd like to have this finished to submit by March. Ideally I'd say December, but I know that's not going to happen.

My current plan: finish the above craft projects, start on the quilts, do this quarter's crit early, and plod through Shoelace. I've been taking my lunch hour at work to either craft or write, since if I don't I just end up working through, and that's been helpful. It's also been nice that Chloë has become more independent, and importantly very regular in her sleeping habits, so I have a little time every day to work--not much, but some. So that's the plan. (Rule the world/you and me/Any day--I watched Dr. Horrible twice this weekend, and now I want to keep watching it so I can acquire the music and not just keep singing the same phrases to myself.)

Merry Christmouse

So the mouse was not gone. Or at any rate a mouse was not gone, as we discovered when we trooped into the house at about 1:15 AM, having picked up my parents at the train station. They flew American Airlines, and after a delay in Seattle (due to O'Hare traffic, apparently, even though Seattle was getting what I believe was its worst snow on record) landed in O'Hare at about 1 PM to find that their connecting flight was cancelled. They were 66th on the standby list. American booked them on a flight for 7:30 PM the next night--Christmas Eve--which would have been a 30-hour wait in the airport. American offered no hotel or food vouchers. "Are we supposed to spend the night in the airport, then?" Dad asked, and the attendant said vaguely, "I hope not. We're sorry about this."

So I called six or seven rental places and found nobody had any cars to rent. Dad said he didn't want us to drive with the weather the way it was, so Eric and his mom checked Amtrak and bought two of the last train tickets out of Chicago, and Mom and Dad went off to the train station. We'd had to get first-class tickets, but that meant they got to go into a quiet lounge with free drinks rather than stand outside with the poor souls who were also stuck in Chicago but didn't have the travel staff Mom and Dad did and so were vainly begging for coach seats. Apparently a steak dinner with dessert was included, and they got a sleeper compartment to themselves, so it was actually quite nice. And they didn't have to spend thirty hours at the airport.

"The mouse isn't gone," Eric said when we stood there in the kitchen. "I just saw it run across the room."

I elected to totally ignore the problem until Mom and Dad had left, and the mouse--mice--fortunately decided to do the same. We had a nice visit--a little noisy the first two days since we were having two big holiday dinners with Eric's family, and then very quiet the next two. I got some con T-shirts and an enameled cast-iron pot and some books I've been wanting, plus a copy of The Bible According to Mark Twain, which I used to own but lost years ago--I left it with either James or Dad to read, but I can't remember which and both deny any knowledge of it, and neither ever found it again. Dad finally decided he'd heard enough of my complaining (though that's not how he said it) and bought me another copy, which pleased me to no end.

Mom and Dad got home without any trouble, although they decided to take flight vouchers for taking a later flight in O'Hare. Since they vowed never to fly American again I can only assume they're going to give them to James.

Yesterday after work we went and bought traps, some classic and some glue traps, and put them down. Then we went upstairs into the computer room. Not long after I came down and called to Eric, "We caught a mouse!" These glue traps are apparently great stuff. But it doesn't kill them, and despite the "anesthesia" advertised on the box this one was struggling. Eric and I discussed humane ways of dispatching it--I didn't want to let it starve to death--or die of thirst, though I think that's just a semantic difference with mice since they don't drink--and Eric ended up taking it outside and crushing its skull with a hammer.

Not long after I was in the pantry making my lunch and another mouse decided it would be a great time to rummage between the bread and the chips. "We definitely had more than one!" I said when Eric rushed down to see whether the shriek I'd emitted was because I'd been murdered. I put a glue trap up on the counter but no luck yet.

I'm really pissed off at that particular mouse. On the floor is annoying, but within the bounds of acceptability. On my counter means war. Also, what is the damn thing eating? There aren't any holes in the bread or chips or rice as far as I can see, but there are droppings so it's clearly eating something. M--f-- b-- mice.

Family concerns

I'm currently reading Anne Lamott's Blue Shoe. I picked this up at a thrift store in Ann Arbor while shopping for dyeing equipment. I've been meaning to read Anne Lamott's fiction since I read Bird by Bird, but hadn't until now. I'm not normally much of a mainstream fiction reader...or at least that's not what I gravitate towards, though I do have a few mainstream novels that are some of my favorites to reread. I realized this evening that I rarely read new stuff anymore. Generally I just reread what I have. I wonder if this is why when I do read something new, I tend to gulp it down.

At any rate, this kind of mainstream fiction is definitely not what I would think of as my sort of thing. It's very senses-oriented, descriptive, symbolic, where the events don't matter in and of themselves so much as in their effects on the main character. I have to slow down to read this properly. I remember doing that with the one Charles de Lint book I read, too. Unlike that book, this one is more direct in its message: acceptance, family, duty, love, that flaws are okay and the point is to be a good person, not a perfect one. I feel like I've been very close in my own mind lately, that I need to expand and breathe and relax into my own life a bit. It's an interesting phenomenon. I'm glad I'm reading this book right now.

Dad called me today to discuss James's genetic testing results. James called Monday to tell me about it, disrupting the night's plan of work. I've just now caught up to what I was planning to do then. If I understand him correctly (and he understood the doctor correctly), he's a cystic fibrosis carrier. The doctor says this may or may not be the cause of his pancreatitis; some mutations in the CF gene are codominant (most are recessive, meaning that one mutated gene is okay, but codominant means that one mutated gene will produce some effects, though not as many as having two mutated genes) and CF does involve the pancreas but he almost certainly got the gene from Dad, and Dad's family, and nobody has had James's sort of internal troubles that we know of.

"I don't really know what CF is," he said, so I told him a little about it--bodily defects, lung problems, diabetes, malnutrition, sterility, and constant pneumonia and bronchitis symptoms are what it amounts to, though I didn't go into all that--and that I planned to get myself tested. "James said his doctor said it was mostly passed down on the male side," he said, which is contrary to what I know--cystic fibrosis is an autosomal disease--so I said either he was mistaken or I had misunderstood what the results actually were.

"When is CF diagnosed?" he said, and I said usually at infancy. "Then Abby (James's daughter) probably doesn't have it," he said, in relief. Two of my cousins were already tested when a cousin on their dad's side died of CF, so it's just the last two cousins who need to know--based on current information they have a 25% chance of being carriers. James didn't specifically say to disseminate the information, but he didn't say not to, and it's a family concern.

He's going to tell Mom about it when he's there to explain it--he's on a business trip currently--and I'm going to call when he's home to tell Mom about my test results, that I have a blocked oviduct and I'll be taking medication, so that he can help explain that. I'm not that bad at explaining things but she does seem to understand quickest when Dad tells her things; the habit of thirty years of listening to him, I expect.

I was feeling very anxious and cranky about all this yesterday, which is why I didn't catch up on any work. I'm still out of sorts today, in an odd way I haven't experienced before. It's not quite like PMS (though I'm due for it), and it's not quite like the depression I had in 2004. It's more ephemeral, more trivial, more flat-affect than bad-affect, but it's still been preventing me from doing things. However, I'm hoping that's at an end starting tomorrow.

Not special

We spent today with Eric's family. It was a fairly nice gathering, but I heard more about my in-laws' opinions and feelings and prejudices than I have in a long time. As we drove home I thought, My God, he's just like his family, why did I marry him? and worried vaguely. So I asked him about it: do you think you're different from your family? In what ways? Why do I get so tired after a day with them when I don't after a day with you?

This led to discussions on the nature of giftedness and potential, and how in our younger years we were both expected to Do Great Things, and how those Great Things were always in the nature of "win the Nobel Prize" or otherwise change the world. We were never led to believe that we might someday use our potential to be passionate and voracious debaters, or excellent at customer service, or the person everyone in the office goes to for help; or that that would be an acceptable use of our talents. We were never told that we would most likely be just another speck on a cog in a machine, and children have, I now know, no concept that being an adult in contemporary society is just that. We were always told that we needed to sparkle externally, never that it would be okay to quietly be a good and talented person without being outwardly exceptional.

I've been struggling with this ever since I left grad school, but I never thought about it in quite this way before. Eric says he has, because he had to come to terms with what he's decided to do with his life. He does feel he still has the capacity to change the world; but it's going to be more indirectly now, and he doesn't feel the need to change the world so much as to change his students. He has better goals now, more focused ones. I'm working on developing my own. I wonder what my EEP friends are doing with their lives, and whether they think about these issues as often as I do. I kind of hope not; I hope they've either become outwardly exceptional and are happy, or have come to terms with not changing the world and are happy.

(Also I hope that if someone does change the world, some of them have a hand in it. Far better them than, say, my mother-in-law, whom Eric says he's tempted to write in as his vote in the next election, but knowing what I know he knows about her political opinions, I don't think he's serious.)

The best is the enemy of the good

Complacency is my enemy. I think I have to remember that. I have received a kick in the pants from M, who is good at administering such kicks, to start working more actively on my career ideas again. I haven't forgotten them, but I've let them slide a little while I do all the other little things that make up my life.

Also procrastination. I have on my desk an Executive Crayon Pen, a Father's Day present for my dad. I did send his card, but this present is going to have to go expedited mail, and I'll have to get up early to get to the post office to do it. I'd have been better off sending it last week...but I didn't.

I am participating in the America on the Move challenge, which basically says that on average Americans are gaining weight and we need to stop it, and 1000 extra steps and 100 fewer calories will do it. I'm not worrying about my calories, but I'm participating in the "Oregon Trail" six-week challenge, which requires about 8400 steps a day. I'm currently at 9100, if my pedometer is to be believed (it isn't always, but it's all I've got), due to a half-hour walk at work and some gardening, plus walking to the other building whenever I needed the bathroom. I think this'll be good for me. I'm only doing it because Bev organized it and asked the family to do it. I have to admit it kinda burns me that she's ahead of all of us. Not enough to make me get up early to run, the way she's doing it, but I'm definitely feeling a competitive edge that I don't often feel.

I'm currently working on a post about gambling behaviors and feeling like I ought to cite. I probably ought to. I don't think Wordpress does superscript, though. I shall just have to use something else.

Ironically, resenting one's mother-in-law is extremely conventional.

When I'm at work--or generally with people who are not my close friends--I tend to pretend that I'm more conventional than I am: that I care about cars, makeup, celebrity gossip (I do care about work gossip). I smile, I make small talk, I laugh at dumb jokes, I stay quiet about my true thoughts and interests. I was thinking last week that perhaps that time had come to stop doing that, and start being more fearlessly myself.

But perhaps I was wrong. Yesterday Eric and I went over to his mom's so that we could visit and he could work on a video he has to do for school which isn't working on anybody's computer but his mom's. When we arrived, she was complaining about something that was wrong with her computer, so Eric naturally said he would take a look at it before starting on his work. Time went on, and his mom said something about it; he said, "I don't want to be working on this, I want to be doing my homework!" and went back to trying to figure it out. She went away. Not long after, she came back and said, "I didn't ask you to work on my problem. You shouldn't have offered if you were going to be that way about it. I didn't like your tone, and I'm tired of your rudeness."

He was surprised, since he hadn't directed it at her specifically, just meant to vent some irritation at the problem itself. He apologized, and she said again that he had been rude. Eventually she wandered away and fell asleep on the couch; he sat at the computer, upset and unable to work, and we decided to go home.

At home, he threw himself on the bed and I tried to talk to him about this, telling him that he shouldn't take it personally, that his mom had been having frustrations all day (she'd told us about them) and she was just blowing off steam. In the middle of the conversation, she called him. She started out asking why he had gone home, and whether he had finished his video. When he answered, she started a long monologue. I couldn't hear most of her words, just her tone; but in the middle she got louder and Eric sat up, and I could hear her say, "You know what it is? It's your haughty, arrogant, holier-than-thou attitude. The two of you think that you're perfect and the rest of us are constantly wrong. You criticize how Addie's being brought up, you criticize me for watching TV and getting text messaging, nobody can do anything right except for you two. It's not just me who thinks so, but I'm the only one who will say anything about it, and I'm sick of it."

She went on and on, Eric trying to interrupt, trying to say "I'm sorry," and being overriden. Finally she told him he should come over and finish his homework, and hung up.

"I guess it wasn't just her letting off steam," Eric said, and started crying.

He didn't know what she meant by most of the things she said, and neither did I--except that I know that we both (Eric especially) certainly do have opinions on things the mothers do, as well as everything else in the world, and we talk about them. So do the mothers. Essentially, Eric said, the rest of the conversation was saying that he was an arrogant, worthless human being, and the time had come for her to tell him so.

He sank into a depressive stupor. He's been clinically depressed before, and we've been thinking it's probably coming on again, especially with the stress of the past several months. Some things he said, then and later, confirmed it: that while in this catatonia he was thinking of different ways to kill himself, that if he were going to kill himself for being worthless--and since his own mother had told him he was, it must be true--he would have to hurt me too ("Sure," I said, "Otherwise, I wouldn't let you go through with it," but he said that wasn't it, it was:) just in case I happened to be carrying his child because he wouldn't want his genes passed on. That he would never actually do it because whenever he was low enough to think of it he never had the energy to carry it out.* One of my tasks today is to find a psychiatrist on our insurance plan. Eventually I got him to sleep.

*(This is why suicidal people first taking antidepressants have to be watched. The drugs give them energy before they lighten the depression itself. Finally, my psych degree comes in handy.)

Two hours later he woke, still wildly unhappy but at least able to move and talk; we had dinner and talked about what we were going to do about his mother. We toyed with the idea of never talking to her again (which had its appeal), of pretending it never happened (which didn't), of asking Edith for any suggestions, since we didn't know how serious Brenda was about what she had said or what she wanted us to do. Finally we decided we would stay away for the next couple of days, then ask Edith what she thought would be best.

(My God, this has gotten long. It's going to be much longer. Well, this is what happens when I no longer use my notebook as a regular journal.)

Not long after, of course, Brenda called. She wanted to come over. Eric agreed. She sobbed in the entryway that she didn't want to fight, though Eric hadn't been fighting and I hadn't entered the issue at all except as accused by her; then she complained that she wanted to sit but didn't want to take her shoes off (as is our rule in the house), so I told her just to walk into the living room in her shoes. "Yeah, but I just walked over in the mud," she said as she crossed the carpeted floor.

She said she knew she was overly sensitive sometimes, but we were so arrogant and cynical, and she was bothered by it. I asked what she wanted us to do differently, and she said she didn't. She and Eric discussed it, and went on a great number of tangents, and it emerged that she didn't exactly want us to change our behavior, she just wanted to tell us that she didn't like it. She couldn't explain what made us so arrogant except that we didn’t seem to like the same things she did, that most people do: that whenever we say we do things differently, that means we think we're better than her. The Addie thing was completely made up, as was the "it's not just me but I'm the only one who will say anything" bit.

"What can we do to prevent this from happening again in another six months?" I asked her, when she asked what I thought and why I was being so quiet.

"Nothing," she said.

She dragged me over for a hug, and joked at me, and asked why I gave her an inscrutable look sometimes and complained that it unnerved her. The inscrutable look is what I wear when I'm annoyed by her (or whomever) but don't want to say so. I will continue to use it. I will try not to spend much time with her. As a friend of mine (to whom I ranted about this this morning) said, I wouldn't want to be arrogant and critical. I will try to be less myself around her.

And until Eric gets sufficient help, I will try to get him to be less himself around her, too. She knows he's had problems with depression before and that he's under a lot of stress now. She doesn't believe in psychiatrists, though he's seen one in the past with excellent results; he mentioned I was going to find one for him, and she didn't actually tell him it would be useless but expounded on how there was no such thing as a good psychiatrist. (She knows I was a psych major too.)

He's feeling much better, now that they've talked. He says that when it happens next, Edith and I are to simply force them into a room together until they talk. We both know it will probably happen again. If she felt justified in attacking him this time, she'll surely feel justified in doing it some other time. He's going over today to work on his video, but I think this soon after this incident they'll be safe.

Now that he's feeling better, I'm free to feel worse, and I am. The I'd-have-to-hurt-you-too thing didn't faze me at the time, but I'm disturbed by it now. (Not that I don't think I could take him. As he frequently points out, I've taken kickboxing and fencing and I stretch daily and exercise semi-regularly, and his exercise consists of pacing in front of a blackboard all day.) I don't want to go through this again. I probably will, sometime in our lives; but I'd prefer it be for a different reason. And I still don't know how much truth there was to her accusations. Maybe I do need to continue keeping myself to myself.

Mostly bad beginnings

Well, this week isn't starting out much better than last week. However, this may be due partly to my mood. Eric's having health issues, James is having (more) health issues, my birthday's coming up, and it's That Time of Month. Of course work isn't all that calming or appealing right now.

Eric is on a couple of seizure medications, and last winter he had a scare when he thought they weren't working and we went to the ER. It turned out actually to be a potassium deficiency, but he got on extra medication anyway due to some side effects of his epilepsy he'd been noticing have increased in intensity. This stuff--Keppra--has made him a lot more tired. This past week, on his spring break, he's gotten almost nothing done because he's been tired and listless; part of this seems to be that he has no structure or stimulating influence--such as his wife nagging him--to do things, but he feels part of it is the medication, too; he's been having this problem for a while. He's going to get an appointment with his epileptologist this week, and he's going to try taking a loser dosage of the Keppra to see if that helps. I am on changed-behavior watch.

James's doctor called him Friday and said, "I got your blood test results. Um, how are you feeling?" Apparently his lipase levels are abnormally high, which is a bad sign. James is on a liquid diet (which is making him exceptionally crabby, he says) and will be getting an MRI on Tuesday, whether he can pay for it or not. Fortunately his boss is being supportive and is actually getting him on insurance early to help him out; that may take effect tomorrow or it may happen on April 15, depending on what the insurance company has to say, but at any rate he can wait two weeks. Then, another surgery and, with luck, a solution.

I talked to Mom last night and she said, "So, I'm not sure I'm supposed to tell you this, but...have you talked to James lately?" I assured her I knew what was happening, and she talked about it, mentioning that James had consulted Dad and received his advice to get it checked out and she was glad he had done it early this time. I'm pretty sure I'm the one he consulted, or at least first. I could see him not telling our parents that he talked to me, either so as not to hurt their feelings or to protect me from them being upset that I knew he was in trouble and hadn't told them. I also think it's kind of amusing, and kind of sad, how much the four of us keep things from each other, just to try to keep each other's worrying to a minimum.

I'm not too concerned about the birthday except I'd like to be able to do something for it and can't really, and I mentioned to Eric that I might want to skip the symphony (which is on that day) and he dismissed the idea instantly. So we're going out to dinner at an inexpensive Mediterranean place instead, either before or after the symphony, and I don't know what I'll do otherwise. The normal Saturday thing, I imagine.

At least it's gotten warmer. I'm going to work in the yard tonight if at all possible, and I have seeds to start and, when my order of yeast gets here, bread to bake. I tried the no-yeast pumpernickel recipe over the weekend and it turned out terribly. But I have the other pumpernickel and a multigrain sandwich and a gruyere bread recipe I want to try soon. And there are plants that need tending and dirt that needs spreading and shrubs that need trimming. Eric predicts this year we'll have no spring at all, that it won't truly warm up until it suddenly becomes hot and humid. It's happened before, he says. I suppose at least it'll be good tomato weather.

We could probably find a renter for the house.

On the way to work today I heard a radio DJ discuss how he went with a friend to an appliance warehouse and was embarrassed when his friend tried bargaining with a salesperson for a TV. "He said, 'I don't like this price, how about X instead.' I was mortified. I put my head down and walked away. I mean, who DOES that??" I turned it off because I was yelling, "People from other cultures, you narrow-minded twit!"

We had Easter dinner with Eric's family. I assisted by braiding the dinner roll dough and setting the table. Over dinner, we discussed making biofuels, moving to the country, white asparagus, conversations you never want to have with your mother (Brenda was having one and her daughter was trying hard not to), and our house. Angie says we overpaid, at least for the amount of time we're staying here. Eric (and Angie's husband) disagreed, saying that part of that judgment was hindsight; if the economy hadn't turned south, we'd have been fine. "As it is, we might have to move a year later than we planned," he said. Brenda said, "You won't move." I said nothing.

Previous to dinner, we were sent out to Kroger to get an Easter basket for Addie. She is one year and eleven days old. We got a felt basket, a little stuffed animal, and a box of banana toddler cookies, and the mothers added shoes before they presented it. On the way back to the car, we discussed whether we would want to give our kids Easter baskets and how we would celebrate Easter, if at all, since we're not religious. (Our solution was to get invited to the nearest grandparents' house for dinner ever year. And I'd be happy to celebrate it as a "welcome to spring" sort of thing.) "I mean, Christmas is more of a secularized holiday," Eric said.

"So is Easter," I said. "At least, where I grew up it is. I had no awareness growing up of this fish-on-Fridays thing, and I still don't think that our spring breaks always included Easter like yours did. And we certainly never got Good Friday off." I looked up my old school district (Lake Washington), and I remembered correctly. Their spring break is next week. We are moving. In one year, I start job-hunting.

2008 is shaping up like 2002. I don't like it.

James called me last night, saying, "I want to bounce something off you." Here's the something: he's having regular stomach pains that feel similar (though not as bad) as the ones he had when he had pancreatitis recently. His surgery was a couple of months ago. Here's the background: he has no insurance, $1500 in hospital bills, $17,000 in credit card debt, and a lousy credit rating. He's working 60 hours a week at an auto shop which has promised him all the work he can handle and a manager's position in a year, but it's not much money right now. He doesn't want to ask our parents for money to go to the doctor because they've already given him a lot of money and he feels guilty. Here's the bouncing: should he go to the doctor or not?

I don't see him really expecting me to say "No, don't go, maybe it'll go away." I didn't, anyway. I inquired into his symptoms, mentioned surgical complications, told him that his health was worth a little more debt, and suggested calling the doctor's office to see if they have any suggestions on how to afford the bill, seeing if he could get help somewhere else--essentially, that he should do whatever he can. He didn't ask for money, which surprised me a bit--but then, he hasn't asked for money since, oh, 2003, when he was behind on rent, and I've given it to him anyway for Christmases and such. Maybe he was hoping I'd offer. On the other hand, he also knows that we're short an income ourselves.

I offered to look at his budget, and he says he's spending as little as possible, but then he was calling me while driving to visit his ex-girlfriend at $3.50 a gallon in his truck. (At least, I hope she's his ex. He's said that twice, though, and the first time it didn't take.) He says he sold a bunch of our old books for $30. (I got the chance to look through them last year, so as long as they didn't include the Mark Twain book I've been missing for four years, I don't care.) Also he says he's spending all his spare money on visits to his daughter, and while I can understand the desire to do that, I wonder if he shouldn't be using that money for his existing bills instead. And even if he gets insurance through his work (I think they offer it after six months, and he's had this job for three), this will probably qualify as a pre-existing condition and won't be covered anyway.

I would send money if we weren't already tight. As it is, I'm going to see whether we have any leeway or not--it depends on when our tax refund comes and whether Eric will be taking one class or two this summer and whether he can get unemployment--and if we do, send him something for an initial appointment at least. I don't like the idea of bailing him out, but he's been in financial trouble long enough to know that gifts from family aren't enough to support him and he's going to need to straighten out his affairs for any sort of long-term viability. He's already aware that Dad's work a second part-time job for him, and it sounds like he's much more aware of how much money our parents have given him than our parents think he is.

Now may not be the time to have scruples about asking them for money, though. Or me. I've been thinking about ways I could make a little extra money, to give us a little more cushion; now I'm thinking about ways I could make a little extra money to send to my brother's doctor.

Hearth and home

I'm currently craving tofu-bean paste soup with chopped-up greens and sticky rice with black onion and a tiny bit of cinnamon. Apparently I'm having a childhood gustatory moment.

This weekend I made more rye bread (with oil this time; we'll see how it turned out when Eric finishes the current loaf), garlic-rosemary bread, and oatmeal bread. The oatmeal bread was 100% whole wheat and turned out flat and dense, but Eric liked the taste, so I'll give it another try with some AP flour substituted. I'm starting to feel baked out. At least this week.

This weekend we also went up to Ann Arbor to be maudlin about our ninth anniversary of meeting. I'm glad we'll be able to go up again for number ten, but after that we'll have to find another coffee shop to be sentimental in because we'll be on the West Coast if all goes well. Well, if all goes 67% well--we're figuring that in order to move, ideally three things would happen: he gets a good job, I get a good job, and the house sells. But we can still do it--potentially--with two out of three.

Incidentally, Eric's mom is considering buying the house next door to hers. It's $70K and could probably be negotiated down further so I can kind of understand her thinking--how can you pass up a bargain like that??--only that sort of thinking applies better to, say, shoes, or books, or maybe a nice set of pots, than a house. I asked her what she would do with it, and she said, "Whatever! Use the land, build a garage..." I'd say maybe she could buy our house, but it's less convenient and would cost nearly twice as much--well, depending on how the market goes over the next year.

I'm reading up on candidates to figure out who to vote for tomorrow. My phone keeps ringing with an 800 number. I don't pick up and they never leave a message.

We're off to Seattle! If all goes well, that is. I mean, we'll be off no matter what (we already are, I hear people pointing out), but if all goes well we'll arrive on time and with everything we intended to bring. We're not packed yet, though the important stuff--the Christmas presents and my knitting--are on the spare bed waiting. Eric gets off early-ish today and will be working on it, including finishing the last of the laundry so we have enough clean underwear. This has not been the most organized vacation run-up ever.

I kind of feel like this is the cutoff for my Christmas season. That isn't true; one of the first things we'll be doing in Seattle tomorrow is go buy supplies for making Christmas cookies, and one of the next things we'll (or I'll) be doing is wrapping the presents I didn't trust to stay wrapped in the luggage. There will be music and food and presents and evergreens and fun. But today is the last day I can look at my decorated home with innocent eyes (after Christmas the guilt sets in). I don't have all the presents that are staying wrapped and under the tree, and that disappoints me. I won't be able to make the cookies from my own Christmas cookie book before Christmas (unless I bring it, and I won't; I love Mom's cookie book too). My poinsettia will live or die without me.

Which is not to say I won't enjoy Christmas with my family, because I will (even with the recently-acquired knowledge that my brother is more of an idiot than I thought). I admit I'm getting tired of split holidays, though, and I've only been at them for a couple of years. My cousin Bev said recently that she wants to have Christmas at home every year, for her son. Now, they're traveling this Christmas anyway, because her son is the only grandchild around and there's much demand for him, plus she's coming up to see me at the family party on Sunday. But the concept is good. However, that'll be much easier to sustain if and when I'm settled within driving distance of my family. Until then, there will be more traveling and more dividing of Christmas.

However, it also divides up the present opening. Which is a good thing, especially considering my mother-in-law's love of giving lots of presents. (We audited our present stash last night and removed a few things to save for people's birthdays. I suspect my mother-in-law would consider us paltry givers, but I really think we did well this year; we just went slightly overboard in a couple of cases.) And to be honest, that's still one of my favorite parts of the holiday...though making Christmas cookies is also a top contender. Part of my time on the plane will be spent making a list of what to get. Flour, sugar, honey, cinnamon, lemon extract, powdered sugar...happy holidays!

(We just watched "Spaceballs," through all the credits as usual, and as a result I have the theme song stuck in my head. "What you've got is what we need/And all we do is dirty deeds...")

Happy Thanksgiving! I slept twelve hours last night. This is because I got four hours of sleep the night before. We watched our six-month-old niece so that her mother could go shopping at four in the morning, and she decided three AM would be a good time to get up and five a good time to go back to sleep, and six-fifteen a good time to get up again and stay up until her mother came back that afternoon. It didn't help that we also watched Michelle so the mothers could go shopping, and her injudicious attempts to get Addie back to sleep--mainly the loud singing--probably increased that two-hour window in the middle of the night. We put them in the same room--foolishly--and I was too sleep-addled to insist on moving Addie's Pack and Play, so I took Addie downstairs and got her to go to sleep on my chest. The next morning we had problems with Michelle insisting on doing everything for Addie and calling her mother to ask what to do with her, without talking to me or letting me talk to her mother. She also took the baby away from Eric while he was playing with her. Suffice it to say we will not be watching the two of them together again.

Thanksgiving itself was great. I made two kinds of bread, and while the buttermilk rolls were too heavy for my taste other people seemed to like them. All my dishes turned out well; all everyone else's dishes turned out well; with the aid of my sewing table we had enough surface area for everything; and we didn't end up with all the stuffing after everything was done, which was good since there were pounds and pounds of it. We ate a lot and played games and had a good time.

Today I helped my friend from work pack up and move. She and her husband were not as organized about it as I would have been, but then they haven't moved nearly as much as I have. Have I mentioned this will be the first time I spent two Christmases in a row living in the same house since 1999? And in the end it didn't take too long to get them on the road--they're moving to Akron, so I didn't go with them to help unpack. They're coming to our New Year's party if they can. On the way home I dropped off two bags at Goodwill for them and bought three new Christmas garlands there for a dollar each. It's not time for decorating yet, but with Thanksgiving over I can think about it. Tomorrow I work on mom's quilt and lament that I have to go back to work the next day. Why is it that a double weekend still doesn't feel long enough?

I'm tired. Eric had a bit of an emotional breakdown last night, which taxed both of us. But I think he's feeling a bit better now. I shall still keep an eye out for a psychiatrist referral though--I had called the local hospital to inquire a few days ago, because he's been having problems with sleep and depression and was thinking about seeing someone, and the woman who answered asked first "Why isn't he calling?" I didn't get that response when I called to schedule him a dentist appointment. Then she wanted to know his symptoms; then she told me the attending psychiatrists aren't taking new patients and his only option would be a resident's clinic from 9-10:30 Tuesday mornings.

James is home; they put a stent in his pancreatic duct (?) and didn't find anything specific, but the doctor suspects the general trauma and inflammation there were caused by his motorcycle accident a couple of years ago. I'll have to ask my dad whether I should send James some books or not.

I'm watching Michelle tonight, supposedly helping her spin, but after I agreed the mothers started talking about how they would be able to use the free time so I suspect they just wanted a childless evening. I was also asked to watch her tomorrow. To be honest I'm a little irritated by the mothers' assumption that we're constantly available for free babysitting. (Maybe they'll get Eric his expensive widescreen computer monitor and I'll forgive them.)

We're finally, finally, at last getting the driveway fixed, in two weeks. I have to move plants and reconcile myself to parking on the street. I will be so extremely happy to have a real driveway to park on this winter, though; for that I'd move ten times as many plants (or leave them to die, either way).

I do not think I will be posting here any more frequently than I have been. It may be time to give up a general-topic blog; I don't know. Or maybe it's just that I'm tired. I will be giving up crafts as a major hobby after the holiday work is done; I'll keep a project or two going, but nothing with a real deadline, so that I can concentrate on other things: writing and gardening and career and that sort of thing. Sorting myself out. You'd think there wouldn't be much to sort, and there isn't--maybe that's the problem. But clearing both my schedule and my head of the additional clutter can only help, right?

Mishmash

This is what my side yard currently looks like:

I'm killing the grass to put in an herb (and greens) garden this fall/next spring. I tried clear plastic in the vegetables garden and it didn't work, but I did it in the fall; I'm thinking the opaque plastic in early summer will be much better, especially since I bought this stuff under the label "landscaping plastic." Unless it's meant to work like the stupid landscaping fabric the previous owners put all over my yard, but whatever. For the next few months, I'll be growing plastic in my yard.

I have four basil plants (aside from the globe basil that I planted with the tomatoes pretty much to help the tomatoes grow and to see what they look like--they're quite pretty, actually) and tonight I made homemade pesto with my pasta for dinner. It was wonderful. Next time I'll use less parmesan and slightly less garlic than the recipe (straight out of my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook) called for, but it was fantastic anyway. Eric was slightly repelled by the bright neon green that it became, but I loved it. I'm definitely doing this again. And soon, because I have another serving in the fridge and my plants hardly look like I took any leaves at all.

I'm behind on the quilt I'm making for Phoebe's baby shower. This is partly because we had a baptism to attend today (we weren't told about it until late last night, or at least I wasn't told and if Eric was he forgot) and partly because we did a lot of shopping and then napping yesterday. Still, behind. At least I've gotten the worst parts over with.

James's exploratory surgery was Thursday. It was inconclusive. Apparently they did an EU endoscopy and it told them that James's pancreas is damaged and inflamed (you think?) and to get any real information they'll have to go in through the duodenum. So he'll be doing that in a few weeks.

The mothers are going to Germany for a few weeks and we've been tasked with feeding the fish, watering the plants, and paying the bills. Eric's sister is taking the dogs, because they don't want to leave the dogs alone all day and night for three weeks and they're well aware that I don't allow dogs in my house. I feel a little bad about it, but not a lot, frankly. They know about my allergies and that I don't want dog hair and spittle and urine all over my floors and furniture, and in fact neither does Eric. He kind of wants a dog, but he definitely doesn't want to have to clean up after one.

Oh, and they gave me a flat-screen monitor! For my birthday. They never gave me a present then (in April) and I didn't think much of it, but apparently they had planned to give me this but had never actually gone out and purchased it. It's partly because Brenda had once mentioned that when she was done transferring the information from her old computer to her new one, she might give me her old flat-screen monitor, since both had it; but she never did. I didn't worry about it, but apparently she did. It pleases me all the more because a flat-screen monitor was on my list of things I covet but don't rate above having that money in savings.

This week, we're finishing the thank-you notes (I'm working on them now, and typing this to rest my writing hand), calling for quotes on the driveway, and cleaning the windows. Did I mention my family wrote all over my windows with a paint pen? Yeah. A girl came to our house the other night asking for donations to TEENS of the Future or something and commented on it, giggling. Oh, and finish the quilt.

Why I've been Googling gastroenterology

"I haven't told Dad this yet," my brother said over the phone tonight. "But I will. And then I'll ask him to help me explain it to Mom."

He's been having stomach pain and general malaise for a while. He went to the doctor and they determined that the problem was his pancreas, because it was completely inflamed. They tried drugs, they tried an MRI, nothing's worked and the only thing they've figured out is that there's a big mass in his pancreas. So he's having a biopsy next month.

"There are only three things it could be," he said. "A kidney stone, a benign tumor, or a malignant tumor. They said that if it's one of the last two they'll schedule surgery for me that same week."

He said a couple times that it was "nothing to worry about," but he also said, "If you guys have any ideas, let me know. Though I've done some Googling and I think the doctors are right." Apparently his doctor is consulting his entire group because they can't figure out what's going on and he really shouldn't be having the symptoms he's having.

At the end of our conversation he said, "Love you, sis." He hasn't said that to me in years and years. He asked me to check up on him, and I said I would--I've been feeling guilty lately because he always calls me before I call him, so I would anyway, but now I'm going to be extra-careful to talk to him often. And if he does end up needing surgery, I'll fly out to see him. And then I'll kick his ass, because that's what big sisters do.

White satin anxiety

I had the inevitable emotional breakdown last night. We weren't getting enough done and the peach ice cream needed work and my house was a mess and my parents were coming the next day and nothing would be ready for the wedding and it would thunderstorm all day. We did end up getting a fair amount done, but I was anxious and weepy all night. I think I'm over it now--crying is stress release, you know. I do have the feeling that once my parents get here, everything has to stop, but that's not true; they're coming early so that they can help us do things. And it's a good thing.

I'm feeling a little funny about the wedding. It's a little more than half the size we thought it would be, and so does it really make sense to get dressed in a funny impractical gown and put crepe in my hair? And what if people think our ceremony sounds stupid? What if it is stupid and I realize that there's something I wanted to say that I'll never get to? Which doesn't make sense; I can say it whenever I want, ceremony or no; but by having this wedding without an official solemnizer we elevated it from legal requirement to cultural ritual, and I'm afraid we won't measure up.

Once we polish up the ceremony--yes, we're still not finished, and the officiant hasn't yet seen it, which I'm sure is causing her some anxiety--not to mention we threw in a "Princess Bride" reference that she may or may not go for--everything else is, to some extent, unnecessary. The programs are basically done; we delegated the cookie-making to someone else; we have decorations and food. We don't need bookmarks. We don't need a bachelorette party. We don't even really need music, though that's also causing me anxiety and burning the reception CDs is probably something I'll ask Eric and Mom and Dad to do tomorrow while I’m at work (as well as grocery shopping and maybe straightening the house). I've been bringing CDs with me to listen to while I drive to and from work, and I've found a couple of songs that could work, though nothing that strikes me as perfect. I guess that's okay. The wedding won't be perfect, and neither will the marriage--but it'll be as good as we can do with what we've got, and the people I love will be there.

When claustrophobics come out of the closet

"Hi, this is Matt," said the message on Eric's phone, once we had used my phone to locate it. (It was under his desk.) "I was calling to talk to Jenny about the rice and beans meat substitute she made for tacos Sunday. There's a potluck I'm going to tomorrow. If you can, give me a call in the next hour or so, so I can go pick up ingredients."

I was extremely flattered. We had tacos for the not-a-shower, and I had made a Spanish rice with black beans in it that a couple people had praised (and that I like a lot; I had the last for lunch today), and Matt had said something about having a taco with that instead of meat, which I thought was quite the compliment.

It was two hours after he'd called and my mouth was full of homemade chocolate ice cream (excellent, except next time we'll definitely skip the chocolate chips--or maybe substitute with fudge), so it was a few minutes later that I called back. Matt is Eric's sister's husband, so he's my future brother-in-law squared, I think. Anyway, I got his voicemail, and said, "This is Jenny, sorry for calling back so late, we couldn't find Eric's phone. You've probably found something else for the potluck, but if not, give me a call, we'll be up for a couple of hours, my number is XXX-XXXX."

When I hung up Eric was giving me this I-love-you-for-this-thing-you're-doing look he gives me sometimes. I demanded an accounting. He said, "I like that you were flattered, and I like that you were willing to call him back."

I had come in a couple of hours ago from putting up rabbit fence around my garden because the kids in the backyard abutting ours were making me self-conscious, so my shyness was probably higher-placed in his mind than usual. I said, "Yeah, my last few jobs have been teaching me to keep the shy on the inside. Which is where it wants to be, really."

The not-a-shower shower

I have dirt under my fingernails. I planted sunflowers and beans and flowers, and I gave away some plants (thank goodness--my windowsill was overcrowded--plus I got a couple of nice ones in return), and I finished the herb bed, but today was not really a day about gardening. (Although it was a gardening day. It was gorgeous outside, warm but not too warm--I've still got the kitchen window open.) Today was our not-a-shower party.

We spent the first part of the weekend cleaning and organizing, which I was really grateful for. I hate it when my house is dirty and disorganized, and part of living with Eric is living with dirt and disorganization because I'm trying to, you know, compromise and stuff. So it was nice to get the dust off the shelves and organize the books by category and vacuum the carpet where Eric's books are normally scattered, even though I kind of hate dusting and vacuuming. (Organizing books I like. We have an interesting library. In the nonfiction section I organized books into: science, religion (3 books total there), history, language, reference, psychology, nonfiction narrative/biography, trivia books people give us, and, naturally, 'other.' 'Other' included things such as One Good Turn, the history of the screwdriver.)

We served tacos and homemade ice cream, and I harvested my first garden produce for it, a handful of green onions. The homemade ice cream--chocolate chocolate chip and mint Oreo mint--was a hit. The peach-with-frozen-peaches was awful, we discovered last night--the frozen peaches have an off taste to them--so we threw it out. we had two babies visiting, which was always fun, and Eric's groomsman tried on his vest, and Eric's dad and stepmom gave us an iron and a knife block/measuring cup/utensil set. (Immediately after we opened these, Eric got up to show everyone our new Kapoosh knife block. I didn't understand this lack of tact until Eric said later that he hadn't seen the knife block part of the set. Eric's sister also commented at one point that the air conditioning was on, even though the windows were open, and why was that? Eric started explaining that it had been too hot that morning, which it hadn't, and as I crossed behind her to turn off the air conditioning I muttered, "Because your brother's a freak," and she laughed.)

It was a good party, even though some people we were expecting (and needed to see, like the best man to fit his vest) didn't show up. We should do it more often. We should also make more mint Oreo mint ice cream, because man, was that stuff good.

Middles

So we were supposed to go to the florist yesterday. But Eric had to get an EEG (he's fine, it's routine), and so he had to shower the gel stuff out of his hair, and then we had to eat, and then it was too late. So I'm going today, alone, because Eric has a class. Pout. Anyway, we did the dishes and I watered the carrots and we went for a walk instead, and on the way home we stopped in at his mom's.

At his mom's was Addie, Eric's now six-weeks-old niece, and also the tail end of a confrontation between Eric's mom and Michelle. It's complicated, but suffice it to say that Brenda was unhappy about something Michelle had said, and Michelle had said it because of her lack of awareness of a situation she hasn’t been allowed to know about, so I think both were frustrated and I know both were unhappy. And Eric and I feel slightly caught in the middle, because Brenda more or less declared that she's not going to try to be Michelle's friend anymore (adding to us, "You two can do what you want…") and we kind of understand that, but we also understand that from Michelle's point of view that was uncalled for. And we're always being asked to do things with them, or watch Michelle for an afternoon, and she's in our wedding, and…well…it's uncomfortable. She's having a rough enough time with her parents divorcing, and having her home disrupted by this, even if it's temporary (and I can't think that Brenda will really be able to carry this out for long--she loves Michelle), isn't going to be any better for her.

My birthday present, my spinning wheel, is due to come today. I need to go to the florist, but after that I may invite Michelle over to see my new toy and give her a couple of hours in a house where nobody resents her.

After that I need to get spinning; I have a bunch I want to do before the wedding. And make curtains. And finish that quilt. And do the rest of the wedding planning--though that's mostly little things once the flowers and chairs are ordered. Oh, and planting a bunch of things and putting up some shelves and figuring out how to make my shoes not make that flip-flop sound. I have less than five weeks left.

We're having a not-a-shower party this Sunday, because we don't want a shower per se but we want to see people. We're having a taco bar (and Eric's dad offered to bring smoked ribs) and snacks, and we're serving three kinds of ice cream: mint Oreo mint, chocolate cherry, and frozen peach. The peach is a test batch using frozen peaches rather than fresh, since we suspect we won't get really good fresh peaches the week before the wedding. We made the mint Oreo mint already and it could use some more cookies but is otherwise pretty darn good. And I'm totally looking forward to trying the chocolate cherry. The peach is the only one we're planning on serving at the wedding (plus strawberry, orange, and chocolate), but our ice cream experiments remain interesting--and tasty.