Bah, Humbug

Right now the cat is hiding under the covers, and I want to join him. I’m sure he was just looking for a nice, quiet place to sleep, but me, I want to hide from this day. It’s not that bad things are happening; on the contrary, it’s a day full of possibility and options. The problem is that I don’t want to do any of them. I just want to pretend I am the cat. Of the limited feelings I think he might express, being overwhelmed is not one of them.

Next week is the beginning of Chanukah, in less than two weeks is Christmas, and in my house, we celebrate both. Chanukah wasn’t such a big deal when my daughters were younger because their expectations and wants were smaller. A different colored dreidel, maybe a coloring book or a bag of gelt, and they were happy. It was mostly about unwrapping a gift and having something new. It didn’t matter so much what that something new was.

Now, as teenagers, they don’t exactly want a new coloring book. They each have a collection of dreidels, and they realize that gelt is shit chocolate and not really worth the calories. Finding something small for eight nights is not only more difficult, but it also cuts into my stocking stuffer options. Believe it or not, there are only so many tubes of lip gloss a teenaged girl wants. Candy is frowned upon because it makes girls fat, according to girls who eat it anyway and then bitch about looking fat, even though they are far from it. If I could find bags of gelt that were quality chocolate and came with a free counseling session, I would have it made.

The cat just sighed. I can hear him smacking his cat lips from under the covers.

Christmas shopping for my daughters presents its own set of challenges. I have two very different kids with two incredibly different lists. The older teen is very brand conscious, except none of the brands she wants can be found at our local mall or Target. Honestly, half of what she wants isn’t even found in our country. The Internet has made her wish list grow even more specific and difficult, and everything sold out the week of Thanksgiving.

The other one doesn’t really want anything, but if pressed to make a list, hers would include, in no particular order, a llama, a puppy, and a laptop, which even she admits she doesn’t really need. My challenge is how to make it fair. The fleece pullover the older one wants costs about three times as much as the sweater the younger one wants. So does she get three sweaters, or should the other one only get a third of her pullover?

The answer is that math doesn’t exist under the covers with the cat.

My husband and I are on the second year of not giving each other gifts, opting instead of home renovations. Last year, I wanted a new gas cooktop, which meant new counters and a new sink too. I have no regrets. I can buy myself clothes or a massage, but not having to clean grout on a tile countertop is the gift that keeps giving. Just kidding; you don’t think I actually cleaned the grout on my nasty tile countertop, did you?  I knew one year we would replace it.

So last year, we redid the kitchen, only we never finished it. We never made a decision on lighting, which was more than just replacing a fixture. It involved adding ceiling cans and under counter LED strips and rewiring the whole room and dimmer switches. With all of that, here was no point in tiling the backsplash until the electrical work was done. Which meant for the last year, I have been looking at unfinished sheet rock walls, when I could see them, because the whole room is so damn dark I have been cooking by flashlight.

So in the other room, after waiting a year to find one, is a good electrician, along with his father, who may or may not have tuberculosis.  He has removed all stuff from under the cabinets. He has run wires in the crawlspace. He has mounted under cabinet lighting and installed dimmer switches. While he did all that, his father stood around and coughed a bunch.

Then it was time to install the ceiling cans, and so he cut giant holes in the ceiling while his father coughed on the dust which has now settled all over my hardwood floors. And surprise, there was a second ceiling, like a secret panel, like the builder made a few calculation errors, and now what should have been a few hours of electrical work is turning into at least a long weekend of no access to my kitchen. And the best part is electricians don’t patch ceilings; they just put holes in them, while their fathers stand around and cough.

I am pretty sure if I crawl under the covers, the cat will leave, and I would rather hide with him than alone. Also, it doesn’t really count as hiding it looks like a boulder is under the comforter. Maybe I should hide with a glass of wine and a Xanax instead, under the actual bed. I bet no one would look for me there. I just know that I can't deal with what is happening in my kitchen, my children's lists, the holidays, anymore for today. I just want to be like the cat and hide.

Red Scare

Hey kids, remember last time when I was getting ready to have my kitchen torn apart? Well, it’s been torn a new one. If the kitchen is the heart of a home, mine is undergoing open heart surgery, and I am at a loss. That kitchen is my room. It’s where I show my love, what with all the baking and cooking and nurturing and happy smells and simmering and from scratch going on in there. But it’s been gutted, down to empty cabinets, no counters, studs on the wall, a skeleton. Eventually, the new pieces will be installed and it will again look like a kitchen, but until that happens, I have to admit, I don’t know what to do with myself or my creative energy.

The other afternoon, the granite guy came to do the templates for the counter tops and the island. We bought granite from a local place that seems legitimate since it has seven locations, but I can’t shake my gut feeling that something just isn’t right. The salesman looked like a standard Southern construction dude, complete with steel toed boots, a camouflage ball cap, wind burned skin, and rough hands. He offered us a great deal, with all sorts of things thrown in, including the kitchen sink, but when it came time to discuss price, suddenly he acted all offended we wanted an itemized quote. It turned out we were paying for everything, even for things we didn’t really want or like. After buying our own fabulous sinks and faucets, we went back to our sleaze ball and renegotiated a better price, and voila, we were ready to have our counters measured, which would be done by the men who actually work with the stone. All the stone men also happen to be Russian.

Now, I would like to say I have nothing against Russians, except they are the reason my great grandparents came to America, so maybe I do have a little something against them. I'm sure they are not all Jew-hating Cossacks, but you never know, do you? This particular group of Russian men could, and might, all be related to each other. They had the same thick eyebrows and necks with the same gold chains, the same heavy Slavic accents, and even the same clouds of cigarette smoke enveloping them. If they weren’t selling granite, they could have been selling ex-Soviet weaponry or a shitload of heroin. Or all of the above.

Last week, I had to go pick out the actual slabs of granite that were going in my kitchen, which meant I had to deal with the Russians. They all looked at me like they are undressing me with their eyes, only not in a good way. Really, they were probably sizing me up, figuring out what kind of a rube I am, and how best to con me before killing me and dumping my body. One of the Russians came to my house a few days later to measure all the counters for templates so they could cut the granite and deliver it, in theory. I watched him from my window as he finished his cigarette and entered the house, bringing his cloud of smoke with him.

He introduced himself and shook my hand, looking deep into my eyes Svengali style. I didn’t know what that look meant, but whatever it made me do would definitely be against my will. He made little heavily accented comments about the things in my home, the kind of comments that workers should never make about your stuff, as if he were Christmas shopping in my living room or, more likely, what he would enjoy when he moved in after my death. Luckily he didn’t take too long before he oozed his way back to his car. His presence was less than reassuring.

The next day, it was back to the granite shop to make sure the measurements fit on the granite slabs, which is referred to as the layout stage, although it wasn’t like we actually put templates on the slabs and picked the best parts. Slabs of granite are kind of heavy and not easily tossed around like, say, a blueprint. The shop manager, another hairy, smoke-cloud enveloped Russian with a gold chain, creepily introduced himself and confirmed that the granite I selected was, in fact, the granite I selected. He made me sign my name on some painter’s tape on each granite slab, and then asked if I had any questions. My only question was when I could expect installation, and he replied with a shoulder shrug and a lopsided grin that let me know how little of a shit he gave.

For the next few days, all I could think of was how scared I was to be alone in the house with a group of hirsute Slavic men. It wasn’t just that I didn’t trust them enough to have them in my home, it was that I didn’t put it past them to do something to me and my home. I don’t mean rape and robbery; I mean dismembering and arson. I spent several sleepless hours imagining my husband being unable to use dental records to identify my body because both my teeth and my face had been removed. I could picture the Russian granite men lighting my faceless, toothless corpse on fire, only to douse the flames with a healthy stream of vodka-laced urine. My gut feeling bordered on the psychotic side of indigestion. I take worry to a whole new level.

I convinced my friend, SF, to stay with me the day my granite was to be installed. If nothing else, she can run faster than me and would be able to identify what I wore last. Her mother agreed it was the right thing to do, since she too felt I would not be safe home alone with a group of Russian granite men. I found that very validating, especially since my husband thought my fears were totally out of proportion to any actual danger in which I might have been.

I am pleased to report that my granite has been installed, and it looks beautiful, and also I am alive and well. The installation was done by Latino men. They even sang Feliz Navidad, among other songs,  while they worked. That was the only song I knew, but SF knew all the other songs, since she is a native Spanish speaker. She not only offered me protection, she also assured me they weren't talking about me. Paranoia and fear are the chicken and the egg of mental disorders.

And the best part was that my hair wasn’t braided and then used to hang my body before I was beheaded and then set on fire.

The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Fourth Edition / Happy Anniversary

You know how some years, life falls into a nice, easy routine, low on excitement but high on predictability, and other years, it’s one crisis after another? Well, 2013 has been one of those crisis years. Maybe not the whole year, but the second half has been, well, one big clusterfuck.

When I am overly stressed, I do two things: I eat my feelings, and I put myself last on the priority list. I never claimed to be well balanced, just functional.  Dealing with one crisis after another has been a full time job, with little time for any self-care. So while I did find the time to gain weight this year, I haven’t done the same for writing, one of the few things I enjoy just for me. What used to be an every week habit has now become a rare event, even though almost daily, writing is on the to do list.

So here we are, in December, the tail end of Hanukkah waving at the start of Christmas, and I find myself wondering if I will be able to honor my annual tradition of writing twelve blog posts between now and the new year, or epiphany, or whenever I decide I have met my goal, because hey, it’s my goal, not yours. Go set your own ridiculously unattainable goal. Wait, this is attainable, because I’ve done it for the past three years. And I will do it again, starting now.

Presenting, the fourth annual twelve blogs of Christmas! (Cue the trumpets. Unfurl the banner.)

(I love the word unfurl.)

The rules are there are no rules, just like in life. I write about what I want. You read it. You are moved in some way, through laughter or tears or to do something else. Maybe you would like to leave a comment, something fabulously validating preferably. Sound good? Excellent.  Let’s begin.

Here’s today’s little anecdote:

After six years of deliberating and failing miserably to simmer anything, I am getting a new cooktop. My current range is a Jenn-Air 4 burner electric coil stove with indoor grill. When was the last time you cooked on electric coils? An apartment in 1992? Your parents’ house? Never? Well, I use mine every day. Every. Day. Lordy, it’s old. And filthy. It has two settings, high and off. And the grill? It makes an excellent trivet and crumb catcher. I don’t even know how to turn it on, and cleaning it never seemed a big priority because for six years I thought I would replace it.

Jenn-Air used to be a quality product, but now it’s like so many other brands that seem to be slipping away. The real problem with it, however, is its size. The only thing the same size of a Jenn- Air range is another Jenn-Air range, which is why we haven’t replaced it.

Getting a different brand of range poses a different issue. If we get a new cooktop, we need to get new countertops. Our current counters are tile. Whoever made the decision to sink a Jenn-Air into a tile counter top clearly wasn’t planning on doing a lot of cooking, but I have made do for these past six years to the best of my ability.

New stove means new counters. If I am getting new counters, I might as well replace my kitchen sink. And if I replace a stove, sink, and counters, well, let’s do something about that backsplash. And while we are at it, let’s do it all between thanksgiving and Christmas, the week after one child is in the local production of the Nutcracker and the other one gets her wisdom teeth pulled (at fourteen! Who gets wisdom teeth pulled at fourteen??).

Go big or go home, or something like that.

You know what I am not? A contractor. Yet here I am, auditioning people to do things to my house that I will use every day for a long time to come. How’s that for a little pressure? I know, I know, it’s a good problem to have, but still, it isn’t easy. Don’t judge me.

So far, things are going pretty smoothly, and if everything goes according to plan, it will all be done in less than two weeks. Except we all know nothing goes according to plan.

My husband and I think we have everything about ready to go, starting with the teardown this Saturday. We have written checks and transferred money and proclaimed the kitchen our Christmas present, so it better fucking happen or else I want to see a box of Frye boots under my tree come December 25.

On the floor in my dining room are my new sink, faucet, and cooktop, which is gas, five burners, and fabulous. Also, it adds another task to my contracting position, which is to find a guy to run a gas line and connect the range after the counters are installed. Yesterday, the right man for the job came out to my house to have a little lookie-loo and give me an estimate. It was a last minute appointment, one I really didn’t have the time for but wanted to squeeze in before the mad rush to the carline at school.

I have talked to this very professional and pleasant individual a few times, but had never put a face with a voice. When he showed up, I was taken aback. He looked exactly like a sad clown, only without the makeup. Large belly, gray page boy hair, and the face of, well, a sad clown. He looked in the kitchen and then kneeled over the new gas cooktop, lying on the floor, and started to wobble.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I still have my sea legs.”

“Oh, did you take a cruise for Thanksgiving?” I asked politely. Yes, I am capable of polite when need be.

“Twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,” he said.

I made a little more small talk, trying to hurry him along, which was difficult because his phone rang incessantly and he felt the need to answer every single call. I tried not to picture a too-small hat with a droopy little flower on his head.

He went to the crawl space and came out and took more calls and finally I had to remind him that I needed to leave ten minutes ago to get my daughters from school and could he just leave me an estimate. He told me he would get it ready that minute in his truck.

I went inside and locked up, then went to the driveway to get the estimate and say goodbye. Only he didn’t have it ready for me.  “Look at this,” he said to me, pointing to his computer screen mounted in his work truck. “Have you seen anything so beautiful in your life?”

He had opened a file of pictures of his cruise, all one hundred and fifty of them. Pictures of nature. Landmarks. His wife. The two of them at dinner. The two of them on shore excursions. Plants. Animals.  

“Lovely. Wow. Amazing.” I interjected appropriate and hopefully enthusiastic reactions to this sad clown’s vacation slides, like I gave a shit that I, in fact, did not. “Looks like a really good time.”

I was now fifteen minutes late.

“Yeah, it was really rough,” he said. He started to explain how the winds were over 45 knots per hour and the swells and headwinds and how the boat went up a wave nose first and then crashed down into a crest and I couldn’t follow because the whole thing sounded like a verbal word problem. I didn’t want to do that math, I wanted to leave, but I was being held captive by the sad clown who could make or break my cooking experience for the lifetime of my Thermador cooktop. This was not a person to whom I could afford to be rude.

“Listen,” I finally said, “I am really enjoying hearing about your trip, but I kind of have to get my kids.” I don’t know if it sounded that bad when I said it to him, but I have a feeling it was worse.

“No problemo, “he told me, and took my email address so he could send me the invoice and set up a time to do the gas line work.

Then I had to wait for him to back out of my driveway and get the fuck out of my way so I could be late to pick up my kids from school.

Here’s a word problem: if the sad clown estimates three hours of labor to do the work, how much of that time will be spent showing me his vacation slides?