Tales from the Shark Tank

I have some interesting neighbors who just moved into the house next door. There are two guys, who are decorating the house inside and out at a great rate. Everything has appeared from a Pooh flag and flowerpots in the front to windmills, a stone patio and a fountain in back.

I’ve seen them together, and I would venture a guess verging on certainty that the emphasis in housemate is on “mate”. But our neighborhood really is pretty conservative, and they are being as circumspect about that as I am about my freedom of religion advocacy on behalf of the Indiana Pagan community. I don’t blame them a bit; one of them teaches 5th grade in the county just north of us, which is, if anything, more conservative.

My dilemma is in how to convey to them with some delicacy that they don’t need to worry about it with us, and that any appearance of conservatism on our part is entirely due to well developed chameleon skills. This is mostly a problem because my approach tends to be very direct. Li suggested I get them matching towels for a housewarming present, monogrammed “his” and “his”. That’s interesting, but not quite me.

There will certainly be ample opportunity. We have a 5 year old; the neighbors on the other side of them have a 3 year old. Both little boys are enchanted with the yard in the middle. Where my son goes, I go. Something will open the conversational door, or I’ll think of a way to open it. I’m sure of it.

Things accomplished on Saturday:

1. Re-screened the back door.

2. Planted parsley and basil.

3. Bought clothes; picked up something nice to make for dinner.

Results:

1. Got home to find that husband had taken son for pizza and so had already had dinner.

2. Watched ducks devour parsley and basil.

3. Watched son, in enthusiastic attempt to discourage ducks, thoroughly de-screen back door.

I’m still giggling.

I just read an article in my local paper. Some enterprising souls have devised the fish equivalent of a wheelchair for an ailing goldfish.

I couldn’t make that up if I tried.

It was an exercise in total, complete, absolute chaos.

It should have been relatively simple. Collect Li, get my houseguest Sarah and her boyfriend Elliot about 3 blocks away (and not out of the way at all), drop Li off to pick up her car, (again, right on my way) drop Sarah and Elliot at my house (half a mile off my route at most), pick up Joseph at his babysitter, take him to my folk’s house for the usual Wednesday evening visit. I allowed 45 minutes for what should have been the first 20 minutes drive, and overall an hour and a half for a total of 45 minutes driving.

I knew we were in trouble when Li and I hit the parking garage to find a line stretching up to the third floor waiting to escape. It only got worse from there. Courtesy of construction delay, the 3 block drive to Elliot’s place of employment took 15 minutes. The alternate route I tried was backed up. The next alternate route was doing its best imitation of a parking lot. All told, what should have been at most a 25 minute drive took an hour and a quarter. I arrived to find Li’s mechanic had closed nearly half an hour before, about 5 minutes before my son’s babysitter was expecting me.

Couldn’t leave Li stranded, so I took her to the lab. Again, that should have been a 3 minute drive. Heck, it wouldn’t have been more than a 20 minute walk, but Li was carrying far too much for that to be practical. Driving, it took over 10 minutes, courtesy of more construction. So now I’m 10 minutes late to get my son, and Elliot and Sarah have not been dropped off. And did I mention I left my cell phone for Sarah, and my husband forgot to give it to her? I couldn’t even call the babysitter.

We went straight to the babysitter’s house. More snarls. More parking lots with street names. Distance from lab to babysitter’s: 2.5 miles. Driving time: 20 minutes. I arrived to find a frightened, crying child sitting on his babysitter’s lap. She wasn’t angry, fortunately, but she had been really worried.

So I comforted Joseph, put him in his booster seat, and took the other two back to my house, arriving thereat over an hour later than anticipated. I called my folks, who were by then also beginning to panic, as by that time it was 40 minutes later than I usually arrive at their door, let alone my own. We agreed to meet at a Chinese restaurant Joseph likes that’s about half way between our homes, as by the time I got to their house we would have had about half an hour before I had to take Joseph home to bed.

I hate construction. I hate construction. Have I mentioned just how much I really, really hate construction?

Heard on a weather report this morning:

Current temperature: 33
Low today: 47
High today: 65

I couldn’t help but wonder if the announcer was listening to himself.

Last Wednesday and Thursday were the first two nights of Passover. I hosted and cooked Seders for both nights. Seder mean “Order” but I can tell you, in our case it was a total misnomer.

To start with, several of my guests cancelled, not merely at the last minute, but after we had actually started. So there were several empty settings at the table. Two of my guests got lost (they bought a map, but I don’t know why they didn’t call) and showed up a solid hour and a half late. And worst of all, our son came home with a horrible cough and fever, which the doc told us next morning was croup. Fine; that night he wanted the one and only original and authentic Mommy. So having cooked and served a 6 course meal (Marinated mushrooms, Cold cherry soup, strawberry-romaine salad, a sort of spinach almost-lasagna with tzimmis and kugel, cheesecake, and tea with candied nuts and citrus peels) and cleaned up thereafter, I ended up holding a little boy in the recliner to help him breathe until 6:00 a.m. His Daddy tried to take over, but that created hysterics, which made the breathing even worse. Mommy stayed.

After that I slept til noon. I must heap blessings on my house guest, Sarah, who got up with Joseph. Once I woke up, she took care of him while I did the darn thing all over again. The wonderful thing about that was that my dad, who is disabled and all to often can’t make it out, managed to get there for the second Seder. (Different menu: chicken soup, salad, brisket with tzimmis and potato kugel, walnut sponge cake and strawberries.) For all the surrounding chaos, it was pretty good, with lots of laughter and joking. Of course, the brocolli was chopped and ready and didn’t get cooked either night. First night I forgot it, and second night, as my husband put it, Joseph was stapled to my lap. So it got stir-fried with onions and almonds for dinner Friday night.

I’m glad I only have to do this once a year. I’m really glad Dad got to come. Most of all, I’m glad Joseph is much better now, so I don’t have to sleep in his room with one ear open to make sure he keeps breathing. Yes, it was that bad. Steamy bathroom helped; next stop would have been the E.R. Gah; not something I ever, ever want to repeat.

I took time off work for the adventure, so I had a very long weekend. (State of Indiana closes for Good Friday.) I need another of similar length to recover from it. Anyone got a tropical island they can lend for a few days?

Passover starts tomorrow evening. My house is still being cleaned, and I’ve a guest who will be staying with us for at least a week, and possibly two, whom I shall be picking up at the airport tonight.

I’m hoping that works out well with our little guy. He doesn’t handle disruptions to his routine well at all. And you know, cooking and hosting a seder is quite enough. I really have no interest in fielding an autistic meltdown. Hopefully it won’t happen. At least everyone who is coming knows our son, and won’t crowd him unduly.

I like to cook, I really do. I enjoy having people over, under most circumstances. I do this every year. And you know, someday maybe I’ll manage to carry it off without spazzing over it, but if anything is obvious, it’s that this is not going to be the year.

Part of my job is sitting as an administrative law judge, determining if people should keep their driver’s license when they have medical conditions that their doctors think impair their driving. They get very passionate in their pleas; this is their independence we’re talking about. I understand that.

But today I spent two hours explaining to a gentleman that the reason his license had been invalidated and wasn’t going to be given back wasn’t that his doctor mailed in a medical evaluation late; it was that the evaluation said he couldn’t control the movements of his body and limbs under stress. And he can’t; he sat in the hearing room contorting himself into a pretzel even as he tried to argue that he could drive, he could, if we would only let him prove it. It took him 4 tries to hand me a letter that turned out to be irrelevant. (It was from his state representative, explaining the administrative hearing procedure.) It looked almost like slapstick comedy; hold it out, snatch it back, repeat and repeat — except the snatching back was completely involuntary, and his frustration completely unfunny.

I feel sorry for him. I really do. This must feel like the door of the prison of his body clanging shut. He said he had an appointment with a new neurologist; I offered to wait for her report. I’m not even sure he heard the offer. I know he didn’t respond to it, or really to anything else I said. It’s quite obvious, even to my layman’s eye, that if he responds that badly to a situation where nothing is moving quickly and everyone’s voice is low, he should not be out where he might have to make a split second decision and execute it. My job is to make sure everyone is safe, and I’ve done that. So why do I feel like the bad guy now?