Tell It To COACHIE

I could list all of the excuses I have for not having time to write, like going to a wedding in South Bend or the Weber Grill in Chicago or the snow cone stand in Bethany Beach. I could tell you that wedding and moving preparations are kicking my butt and that HP is hogging the computer for his online class.  I could tell you all of this and wait for the sympathy to pour in, but instead I’ll just list what I would write about if I had the time and brain power.  One of these days, you just might hear about:

1.  College bars and why grown women with three children should not ever go inside of them

2.  Why I never do shots and how a recent reaffirmation of why I never do shots has led me to conclude that I WILL NEVER DO SHOTS

3.  Budget Rent-A-Car and how they only escaped a 3000-word screed by giving me a free Chocolate Éclair

4.  What it’s like when the moving guy arrives 35 minutes early to evaluate your stuff

5. How much I love Chicago and in particular my trip to the Weber Grill

6.  Things I actively avoided doing through the baby and toddler years, and now God-willing will never have to do

7. My opinions on excessive PDA during a wedding by two people who are pushing 40 in a chapel that held less than 40 people (including - not in addition to - the entire wedding party, organist, soloist, and priest)

8.  The first official beach outing (with bathing suits) of the season

9.  Outdoor water fun that is keeping the kiddies from messing up the toy room and leaving them so exhausted that they fall asleep in seconds

10.  How I met someone with so much charisma, he gave me some insight into why everyone who meets Bill Clinton likes him so much  (Easy now, this guy only tried to talk me into tequila shots)

Our future home in middle America has been described by our realtor as a buyer’s market. I’m no expert, but given the number of houses available, he may be right. When the HP asked how we would ever narrow down all the choices, I had two words for him: hardwood floors.

We have a biennial tradition in our family that involves pushing back the furniture, then rolling up the carpet and kicking it to the curb. Children, even cute, well-behaved children like ours, are generally disgusting when it comes to what they drop and/or spew on carpets. When Marty was a baby, he spit up every single time he ate.* Every. Single. Time. Sometimes he spit up on me, but most of the time he spit up on the floor. If I was holding him over my shoulder, if he was sitting in his bouncy seat, if he was rolling around on the floor, no matter how sure I was that I had burped him and no matter what great length of time had passed since he’d eaten, h’d spew on the carpet. Around the same time as the Marty pukefest, Lauren was in the throes of potty-training, and although she didn’t have many accidents, the ones she had were always on the carpet.

In time we joked that if we ever happened to kill someone in our living room, we’d totally get away with it. If the boys from CSI had come in to find trace evidence on our carpet, they would have been temporarily incapacitated - blinded by the luminescent glow of wall-to-wall DNA.

Another lovely phenomenon in our house in Kentucky was the regular pooling of sewage in the hallway. About every three months or so (usually if we were having a party or else in the middle of the night or on the weekend), if we had run the dishwasher and washing machine on the same day, we’d hear a gurgling sound from the utility closet, and the next thing we knew water would be streaming out from under the door into the hallway. Apparently our house was sloped toward the living room, because if we didn’t catch the flood soon enough, the water would run right down along the wall under the sofa and soak the rug under there.

To make matters worse, we had children learning to sit up, stand, walk, etc., while we were in Kentucky, so we bought the thickest carpet pad available to protect the kiddies’ huge domes. More than once people told me that even though you clean the carpet, the pad never gets clean - eventually the stains come back up from the pad to the carpet. Our extra thick, extra cushy pad validated this theory on a regular basis. Basically, those carpets were biohazards, and we were lucky that someone had left a construction dumpster in our housing area that we could visit under the cover of darkness or we probably would have had to pay a HAZMAT team to remove them.

Here in Virginia, things have been a bit better, but although the kiddies’ control of their bodily fluids has greatly increased, they still knock over drinks at least a few times a month onto our carpet. We never had any illusions that we’d roll it up and take it with us. That is why we buy it unbound off the roll at Lowe’s.

But those were OUR gross carpets, covered with OUR kiddies’ spewage and OUR laundry’s sewage. I don’t want to move across the country to live with the historic messes of someone else’s children (or pets or sewer). I don’t think I could move into a house with carpet, unless the carpet was installed after the owner had moved out. And even then, I don’t want to spend the next years chasing the kiddies around and worrying about the carpet. From what we’ve seen online, not too many houses in middle (of nowhere) Missouri have hardwood floors, so it definitely helps us narrow the list.

Except that on Saturday we received one of those listing books from our Missouri realtor. As I paged through it and marked a few places that I wanted to see, I found another descriptive selling point that I hadn’t expected: Beautiful home on paved road.

Paved road?

That would mean that some of them are on, uh, dirt roads?

Oh my.

*He also had chronic ear infections (gross ones with perforated ear drums), and then one day I met a new, crazy pediatrician (he had just come into the army as a Lieutenant Colonel - I never did get a chance to find out how all that happened) who told me that he had a theory that all these ear infections and spitting up were caused by an undiagnosed prenatal sinus infection. He cultured whatever he found up Marty’s nose and it turned out to be amoxicillin-resistant influenzae. He wanted to put Marty on a super high dose of Augmentin for 17 days (so high in fact that the pharmacy called him to see if it was right). I guess some people might not have offered their adorable 6-month old up for experimentation, but I did (our kiddies have always tolerated antibiotics really well). It totally worked - I am an absolute convert to the wacky doctor’s theory. After those 17 days Marty stopped spitting up and as far as I can remember has not had another ear infection.

One of the things I pulled out of a cabinet during the pre-yard sale shakedown was this set of glass coasters that I bought at Pottery Barn about 10 years ago.

I thought they were nice (I still do, in theory) and we had a lot of leafy accents in our living room. We were in our first apartment as newlyweds, attempting to at least decorate our living room so that we would be ready to do some of the forced fun entertaining that the army promotes. As it turns out, these coasters are forever entwined with my memory of hosting my first “Officer’s Wives’ Coffee.”

The wives’ coffees come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes they are a full blown dinner followed by a little craft project, sometimes they are a quasi-business meeting (of the quasiest kind) followed by cake. In Maryland ten years ago, the coffees were generally painless get togethers where the general’s wife would hand out information sheets while everyone ate hors d’oeuvres and dessert and enjoyed a drink or two. While we were going over the hand outs at my coffee, a major’s wife picked up one of my glass coasters and said, “These are pretty,” then put it down and slid it a short way across the table, “but we could never have anything like that in our house around our daughters.”

That little remark immediately filled me with contempt. I was disgusted by this woman in her John Boy wire glasses and big denim jumper and nun-like haircut who was basically saying that if you have kids you can’t have anything nice (or apparently wear anything nice or get a haircut that required more than 30 seconds of styling). In my mind she was part of the camp that said everything has to be about the kids. (Looking back, I can see that I was being way too harsh. I’m not usually that judgmental, and honestly I would easily befriend someone with John Boy glasses and a nun hair cut if she was nice or at least funny, but at the time I was on a bit of a hair trigger (heh) due to a former boss who was the epitome of the overindulgent clueless yuppie dad with out of control children).

So when I pulled the coasters out of the cabinet recently, I wondered, “Am I now that woman?” I don’t have a big denim jumper, but when I had kids I did put away the glass coasters. However, after a few seconds of thinking about it, I remembered that I put away the coasters because they are crappy. The top is smooth glass, so when water starts to condense on the outside of your glass, the coaster will stick to it until it’s about six inches above the table and then crash back down. I don’t know why the etched part is on the underside; it seems like rather poor engineering. (Please don’t mention any of this to the people who are coming to my yard sale).

But if you look at this pile of stuff yard sale treasures, you will see another concession to my life with kiddies - sofa slipcovers.

When we were first married, we bought a queen-sized sleep sofa, and it has been our main piece of furniture ever since. We are now on our fourth slipcover, because the couch itself is threadbare, the cushions are all split and the plastic cord has sprung out from the piping. Why haven’t we replaced the couch?

Last summer when we were rolling in deployment cash, I was planning to buy a new-fangled sofabed like my parents bought for their new house. My mother pointed out that if I was going to get an expensive new sofa, I would have to start making the kiddies eat breakfast at the dining room table, instead of lounging around the living room. She was right, so I never ordered the new sofa. I didn’t want to upset the kiddies’ morning routine and I didn’t want to have to order them back to the table all morning to get them to eat.

Our couch is really comfortable and the bed inside is still in very good shape. A few years ago we inquired about getting it reupholstered, but that was almost as expensive as a new couch. With a (machine washable) slipcover over it, the couch may not be super stylish, but it is definitely still functional. Even so, is this the top of a slippery slipcovered slope to kiddie domination of our lives?

I’m going to say no. I’m probably more dependent on the kiddies’ morning routine than they are. I’m the one who wants things to stay easy and uncomplicated, so I’m the reason we don’t have a new couch. I’m not looking at the world through John Boy’s glasses.

I’m Alexander Haig. I’m in control here.

And I don’t want these crappy coasters anymore.

When the HP took the kiddies out shopping for Mother’s Day, they returned with a secret bag of presents and a copy of the Little House on the Prairie, Season 1, DVD. When I was seven, I was literally obsessed with LHOP. I can still remember sitting at the reading table in second grade and daydreaming about the episode I had seen and wondering when it would be on again. I wanted it to be on every day, and clearly remember asking my mother repeatedly when the show would be on again.* This past Friday as we made our five hour trek to Delaware, the kiddies watched the episode** that described the girls’ first day at school, where they didn’t have a slate, and Laura didn’t know to erase one. Ms. Beadle had Willy Oelson show her and everyone laughed and Nellie sneered that Laura and Mary were “country girls.” Oh Laura and Willy and Nellie, you had it so easy.

In preparation for our gigantic yard sale tomorrow, I dragged our enormous old computer out of the closet, and sat down to figure out how to reformat the hard drive to erase all of our top-secret information. I can’t think of anything even remotely secret that we ever did on there, but I really don’t want stray copies of my school excuse letters circulating in the general population. After a bit of searching, I was informed by all corners of the internet that reformatting the hard drive will not destroy all of the data on there, and that anyone with a forensic data-recovery program could dig up everything that I thought was deleted and gone.

I’m not sure how many people with forensic data recovery programs are going to come to my yard sale, and I’m not sure what they would do with our Christmas lists from 2002 once they recovered them, but I decided I shouldn’t take any chances. I downloaded several free programs onto this computer, each time a little fearful that I would make some errant keystroke and destroy all the data here (including original copies of all my blog posts which probably will be worth millions someday). I then attempted to put the programs onto a disk to transfer to the other computer, but all of my disks are approximately 10 years old and too small to hold the programs. Then I put one program onto a CD to transfer it, but my old computer is so old, it couldn’t identify the file. I even contemplated trying to reconnect the old computer to this modem, but disregarded that idea because I knew I’d probably end up spending the whole day trying to get it to recognize the modem.

Of course plenty of data removal programs are available for sale online, but I didn’t have time to buy one and have it shipped. Then I remembered that there are stores out there, where you can go out and buy stuff, and you know, take it right home with you. Like an utter fool, I looked on the Best Buy website, and they had a program listed and a little link on the side said that it was available for pickup at most Best Buy stores. I didn’t actually check on our Best Buy store because I am stupid I figured as the only Best Buy in the area, it would be a pretty well-stocked store. It’s not. Why does anyone ever go into Best Buy?

Finally, some rusty gears started to turn, and I remembered that we have a Staples right nearby. They had a program called “Disk Scrubber” which I bought after first wondering why they chose that name because “scrubbing” in the data world does not mean deleting, but some other company has cornered the market on the phrase “data wiping” (and ew they can keep it.). I brought it home and after a few brief hiccups that brought me to the verge of using the sledgehammer method to “clean” the hard drive, the program finally got going.

Earlier in the day, while I had been reading all of the warnings about how hard it is to remove everything from your computer, I was thinking about Karl Rove (gag) and how he must have deliberately erased his e-mails for them to be so totally irretrievable. I spent the better part of the morning begging something to clear my data, and when I finally got a program to do it, I had to confirm 10 times that I wanted to erase everything. Thinking what a criminal he was, I walked into my kitchen to fold the laundry, and then, I kid you not, I saw a county sheriff’s car pull up outside my house.

We live on a corner with a stop sign, so for a minute I thought that they were just driving through the neighborhood, but they parked and two deputies got out of the car and started walking toward my front door. At the time I was having a minor freak out that something had happened at the kiddies’ school, but from the way the deputies were walking, it seemed more of a casual errand. When I opened the door they both smiled and asked if this was the Willis residence. Everyone in a military housing area has to have their name on the door, and our name is not similar to Willis (whatchutalkinbout Willis), so I guess they must have been required to knock and ask based on whatever papers they were trying to serve.

That story is not as good as the one that came to me as they left, where the sheriff shows up looking for evidence and the (ahem) sweet housewife professes ignorance and sends them on their way. Meanwhile, the camera pans to the dining room where the Disk Scrubber churns its way through the hard drive, removing every trace of the transactions that sent all that embezzled money to Switzerland.***

* I find it a bit depressing that I was apparently unfamiliar with the days of the week and calendars when I was seven, given that I regularly direct my five-year-old to go count off the days between now and whatever she’s waiting for. Was I an idiot?

** From the driver’s seat I could only listen and marvel at how bad the acting and dialog were - still, those early episodes were awesome.

*** I know some people would rather launder money through the Caymans, but I hate the Caymans and would probably rather head to the clink than spend another minute there.

For those of you breathless with anticipation to know what finally happened to the old computer, I’m happy to tell you that it is clean as a whistle and available for sale tomorrow. Better come early!

1. Forget about Friday’s Teachers’ Appreciation Lunch until after dinner Thursday night.
2. Start making mother’s famous lemon bars.
3. Call mother to confirm recipe.
4. Make lemon bar crust and put in oven.
5. Move on to lemon part of lemon bars.
6. Discover you need four eggs and that you only have three.
7. Decide 9 pm is too late to borrow an egg from neighbors.
8. Roust dozy husband from couch and tell him to listen for the timer and take the crust out of the oven.
9. Change out of pajamas.
10. Drive to Shoppette.
11. Walk into shoppette, pausing only to wonder why a soldier in dress greens is stationed outside and is standing up to warn each customer about the evils of drinking and driving. (The guy in front of me asked him how many more days he had to stand there warning everyone. The soldier said four. I guess this punishment indicates that maybe he didn’t observe some aspect of drinking and driving law.)
12. Find eggs in shoppette that expire the next day.
13. Obnoxiously root through cooler to find eggs that expire in two weeks.
14. Wait in line, observing soldier in front of line buying Hypnotiq and Grey Goose.
15. Decide he may be the next soldier stationed outside warning people.
16. Watch the check out clerk and a manager hold a heated conversation over a money order that was sold earlier in the day.
17. Exchange look of annoyance with soldier buying Grey Goose.
18. Wait.
19. Consider asking for a shot.
20. Wait some more.
21. Watch the Grey Goose soldier stand and repeatedly ask how much he owes.
22. Finally check out.
23. Walk past DUI warning soldier as he warns dad and 6-year-old son about drinking and driving.
24. Go home.
25. Grab egg and make lemon filling for lemon bars.
26. Put lemon bars back in the oven.
27. Remove lemon bars from oven.
28. Leave 11 other eggs sitting on the top of the washing machine overnight.

NEXT MORNING

29. Dust top of lemon bars with powdered sugar.
30. Attempt to convince husband that eggs left out over night will not be “fine.”
31. Throw out eggs before husband starts scrambling them.
32. Remember that friend down the street went to the hospital to be induced and needs you to watch her four-year-old.
33. Run down street to tell friend’s husband that you’ll be back for the four-year-old after you drop off lemon bars and children at school.
34. Run home.
35. Begin anxious heart palpitations that lemon bars will cause friend’s husband to miss the birth of their child.
36. Cut lemon bars into 20 even squares and 8 tiny rectangles.
37. Locate big plate from closet and wash.
38. Decide lemon bars are too messy and should be put in cupcake wrappers.
39. Put lemon bars in cupcake wrappers.
40. Decide lemon bars won’t fit on big plate.
41. Find big tray from closet and wash.
42. Look out window at friend’s husband anxiously pacing outside.
43. Order children into car.
44. Lock up house and put lemon bars in car.
45. Realize big tray is not labeled.
46. Go back inside for masking tape and sharpie (easily located due to kitchen clean out several weeks ago).
47. Label big tray.
48. Buckle children into car seats.
49. Drive to school, carefully observing speed limits after sister’s cautionary tale of the day before.
50. Pull up to student drop off spot and ask head of PTSO where to deliver the lemon bars.
51. Offer profuse thanks when she offers to take them for you.
52. Watch her put them aside on the concrete loading dock.
53. Wonder whether any bugs will get into them before they are delivered to the lunch.
54. Decide you don’t care.
55. Drive home, carefully observing speed limits.
56. Retrieve friend’s four-year old.
57. Walk home and wonder if 8:45 am is too early for a Grey Goose.