A Cliche I'm Embracing

A long long time ago, when Bill Clinton was just a friendly, big mac eating, flirtatious, long shot, the pundits said that IF he won, it would be thanks to the soccer mom vote.  I was a single twenty-something,  working as an assistant at a private school during the week and teaching skiing on the weekends.

I was (mostly) having a ball.  I had roommates in a big purple house.  We had parties. We had friends who made home-brew. One time there were 37 watermelons in our living room. (Why?  I don't know. But it was fun.  They make a tremendous noise when you chuck them off the roof.) And a lot of dishes in the sink--most of them mine. (I was a PIG! Sorry, Tia and Jeff!!) And man I was broke!  Teaching skiing was the only way I could afford to ski.  It didn't pay enough to afford gas AND beer, so we carpooled.  My love life was torturous: I was really good at dating guys I'd quickly realize I wanted to be shed of, but I was not so good at cutting them loose.  And I don't even want to go into the episode where I was the one who got cut loose!  The Horror!  The Humiliation!  The wretched snivelling (thank you to all the friends who put up with my misery! Boring!)

I remember driving from one job to another, the gas gauge hovering near E, listening to those pundits and thinking:  "Soccer mom.  Mini van.  Dog.  Sunglasses on top of my head.  Car full of kids in shin guards. Juice boxes.  No more dating.  Hallelujah!  And you get to decide who's president.  Doesn't sound so bad.  I could do that, maybe.  Someday."

So I voted for Bill.

Someday is here:

Some girls in the carpool!  Yay!  We banished the boys to the way back. 

A van full of freezing, muddy, hungry kids singing ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.  I have a slight headache.  Bill, do you feel my pain? Still, when I think back to the era of diaper bags and nap schedules and midnight feedings,  it's comparatively light duty.  I'll take it.

Do I still get to pick the president when I'm an empty nester who drives a mini?

Hurling Invective

The Smaller Hooligan is EM-PHA-TIC.  When he wants to make a point his words take on a particular sound--each vowel is round and dense, a bowling ball encased in a hard consonant shell.  The subject matter is not necessarily of much consequence:  "MOM, I. HAVE. NO. PANTS!"  There is no inflection--it's a steady stream of capitals.  I am thrown against the wall and then I pick myself up and gesture towards the dryer.

Ain't braggin

If it's true.  The man who lives in my house also cooks in my house.  We came home from a soccer tournament (it was a bloodbath.  Our blood.) to a table set with candles and plates heaped with fetuccine alfredo* with salmon, green beans, and homemade herb bread.  The hooligans were so hungry that they would have eaten cardboard, but I noticed.  Everything was excellent.  I heaped the praise on fairly thick, but he was still fishing after we cleaned up the kitchen, so I'm sending it out to the internet:  IT WAS A FABULOUS MEAL! THANK YOU!

*he made the sauce from scratch too.

Fashion--who knew they noticed?

"MOM, This is a TANK TOP.  I DO NOT WEAR TANK TOPS!  THEY ARE STUPID LOOKING!"

Really?  I actually always thought so too.   This one had cool graphics of smart cars and vespas, so I made an exception.  But that's ok, we'll give it to goodwill (I didn't really let him throw it out).

Aesthetic investments

A long time ago, The Larger Hooligan was a luscious scrumplet with fat pink cheeks, such sturdy legs! (his rolls had rolls...)  and a maniacal grin that showed teeth like pearls.

 

That lasted for a few months and then he tripped while barreling along the sidewalk and fell--I heard a CLICK!--shattering the right front tooth.  He didn't have a dentist--he didn't even have molars yet.  I spent the day at the University of Maryland Hospital ER, wringing my hands and curling into a fetal position under the gurney (The Man Who Lives In My House interjects here:  "You were NOT helpful.") while dental surgery residents poked and prodded, extracting the shards.  A child under anesthesia is disturbing to witness.  They make a lot of yodeling noises, even though they are clearly out of it.

So we got through that and he was asymmetrical for a long time.  He looked like a thug.  We got used to it.  He was a cute little thug.  And he never was a biter, anyway (small favors).

When the adult teeth grew in, they appeared to be a gift from my mother:  very white (good), very large (good, I guess),  and very bucked--sort of horizontal.  They looked comical, and a little awful, and expensive.

I just wrote a check to the orthodontist.  It was for approximately the same amount that we spent when we closed on our first house (Granted it was a very cheap house, thank you Baltimore.).  I can see similarities here:  we invested in a house, hoping that it's value might increase over 4 years, or at least we would break even with the tax write-offs.  Since we were in the escalating era of the early 2000s housing boom, this worked out better than we expected.

They sent us a picture and a nice note after he got the wires put on:  translated into laymen's terms, it would probably read: "Thank you for the money."  You're welcome, and thank you for your expertise.  Orthodonture is not in my DIY repetoire.

In terms of child rearing, I'm hoping nice, straight American chiclet teeth will help the Larger Hooligan to mature, pursue an education and satisfying line of work, and move into his own apartment. We'll know we're upside-down in our Hooligan investment if he ends up living in our basement.

To be on the safe side, I'm considering a houseboat:

Arts & Culture

Last fall, The Man Who Lives In My House had a meeting in Washington DC.  We made it into a family trip, with the idea of exposing the Hooligans to some art and culture at the various Smithsonians.  Here they are in the sculpture garden next to the National Gallery:

I think their thought bubbles would read, "Why can't we climb on that thing?  I've heard of typewriters, but why would you want to erase one? Art is so weird.  And why won't they let us walk on the grass?" Clearly, they're being inspired to great heights.  Since our return, they've mostly talked about how cool it was when we saw the Obamas' dog being walked on the White House lawn.  (It was cool!  Cute dog.)

This morning, (6 months later) I came into the dining room to discover that the Smaller Hooligan had been paying attention.  He built a fairly comprehensive museum using toys and artifacts and the kitchen stools.

It included the Natural History exhibit:

And Air and Space:

Buildings and Architecture:

Art, both folk:

And fine:

(This is an Italian landscape my genius painter/illustrator sister, Abigail Marble,  painted a few years ago.  I begged &  cajoled and whined until she gave it to me.  She will tell you I do that a lot.)

I guess it was worth missing a week of school.

Varmints vs. Chickens: Guess who's winning?

The other night, my friend Erika and her 3 children (1,6, & 8) were enjoying the evening air between downpours.  Their flock of 5 chickens had been sadly decimated by raccoons.  Normally, raccoons are stealthy, nocturnal prowlers.  But at six in the evening a big one decided to pay a visit to the chicken coop.

Before Erika and the kids' eyes, their one remaining chicken, Sunshine, was hauled off and devoured, head first.  As Erika described it, "We threw rocks and screamed.  The baby was mostly screaming because we were screaming.  We used all the rocks that had formed a cairn over Peeper's grave (Peeper was the first chicken to meet this fate).  My daughter screamed so loudly that the neighbors came running.  That raccoon didn't bat an eye.  The only good thing about it is that Sunshine was so lonely she had no will to live, anyway.  She had spent most of her time standing in the rain with her eyes shut.  There's nothing more pathetic than a depressed chicken.  She hadn't laid an egg in a week.  I went to inspect the damage: nothing left but feathers, feet, and a beak."

This is why I'm in favor of (a) large, noisy dogs who like chickens and hate raccoons:

Otto is out to get raccoons, squirrels, and unfortunately, the mailman.  He also thinks my neighbor's chihuahua may be a squirrel.  This is a problem, but you can see why he'd be confused....I never said he was bright, just well-intentioned.

And (b) backyard artillery.  Last week, I re-homed my 3 elderly chickens. They now reside at a farm-themed day-care.  They will not become soup, although they may be at risk of being hugged to death.   I have five new pullets in our coop.  I want them to survive and get to work laying eggs.  Today, we're going to the army surplus store.  We need floodlights, and a siren, maybe some bottle rockets.  Are those legal in Oregon?  Can we make some sort of blaster?  I may re-think my attitude about pit bulls, or at least get Otto one of those  macho, spiked collars. The hooligans are talking about booby traps:  watch your step.  By the end of the day,  I'm expecting a tiger pit.