New Norms

Four is old enough to grasp "President" and to recognize Obama's face in a storefront or on TV. She knows that he and his family live in the White House. She knows his job is very important.

I'm buried in the scraps of paper that collect in her cubby, and Stella's voice with excited recognition is behind me.

"Mama! These must be pictures of all the presidents!"

I turn to look high where she is pointing. "African-American Achievers" She is showing me pictures of Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks. Twenty influential black men and women.

Obama. Sotomayor. Preschool children. Maybe the world is changing.

Keeping House

I have learned that housekeeping means making your home look great for guests. Stack magazines, stuff clothes in drawers, wipe down the bathroom sink and toilet rim. Don't so many of us joke the only reason we invite people over is to clean up? I also straighten for the women who clean our home twice a month. Our house is truly clean for five hours, then everyone gets home and it's down hill from there. Today I cleaned for the babysitter- which was happily a pre-clean for the cleaner, who comes tomorrow.

I remember the first time I realized that not everyone cleans for guests or lives in a perpetually clean house (which is what I truly imagined). I was fully 25 years old, in midwifery school, going to the house of a classmate for a study group. She had three kids and a working husband. There was toothpaste on the bathroom sink. Kids' underwear on the floor. Dishes on the counter. Mail was strewn on the table. Her home was not in total disarray, but it was so clear that she had done nothing to prepare for our visit. I was shocked- and then moved by her vulnerability. She wasn't worried about us. She believed we would love her just as she was. Or maybe she hadn't the time to worry about us- but I was childless and had no concept of the magnitude of chores in her life. In any case, it was a revelation.

I am not neat. Why was I making a fake clean world for everyone in my life? I don't know why I wrote "was," because I still am cleaning for the architect, neighbor, friend, but now I am aware of the behavior. Cleanliness is one of my fantasies, like being tall or graceful or witty. I do not leave food crusted on the counter or let the trash overflow, but the papers stack up and the clothes don't return to the closet on their own.

As much as I think that I am in recovery since that fateful study group, the fantasy of a neat, clutter free life is full force in our house remodel. We will have a bay view, a beautiful kitchen, an elegant front entry. I am probably the most excited about the mudroom. This "drop zone" should replace the entry or kitchen or dining room table. All family members who enter from the driveway will pass through this vestibule first and have a place for backpacks, shoes, mail, lunch boxes, etc. I am convinced that my home will finally look neat all the time- because of the mudroom. I know this is not true, but I am like the girl who eats a half gallon of fudge ripple while paging through Vogue and complaining about her body. I stay up nights hunched over the laptop searching flickr or houzz for images of open floor plans, kitchen islands, and fireplaces while boxes remain unpacked and stacked in the corner of the living room. All of these homes are beautiful because they have nothing personal in them.

What is my real life like? Is it neat? Orderly? Um... I came home from my first hospital shift to shrieks in the bathroom. Apparently, Otto had just removed his shit filled diaper, got it on his hands, and rubbed it on his head. He was screaming because he was standing in the shower spray while his father stared at him. Tonight I came home from an evening clinic to low lights, the babysitter in the living room. She stopped me in my tracks and turned on the light. The dog had puked foamy, slimy yellow puke in ten spots on the rug.

But have no doubt, the mudroom will put an end to my pre-cleaning fits and my surprise bodily fluid nights.

Mark my words.

A Boy

Walking past closed doors, I knew each room held its own pivotal event, and I felt like a voyeur. I had heard report at 7am: sorrow and joy about to happen behind every room, most likely on our shift. And then sitting at the foot of of the bed in 19, I was in the core, the axis around which every other event would unfold. The third child, the first son, was born with his hair pressed slick with vernix into a beam of light and the smiling sobs of his father. Everything outside our circle vanished. There were no walls, no rooms with sick babies, new babies, and mothers in pain. There was no hospital, no city, no time. We could have been anywhere, anyone.

This birth was the first I have attended in five years. I was anxious for months leading up to Tuesday. Amidst moving, selling our home, planning for the new house, my return to deliveries was never far from my thoughts. They say it's like riding a bike, and it is, in a way. Obstetric fads come and go, one research trumps another, and we go from VBAC to cesarean, obsessive fetal monitoring to broad strokes, cervidil to cytotec. But the central pieces of watching a woman's perineum bulge, checking for a cord, celebrating the child, waiting for the placenta- these hold true.

We Make it Home

 

As much as I complain in signs on the body- backache, leg bruises, a sore thumb- I like settling in. I shift pieces like a puzzle of sliding squares. Couch to the right, kid table around the side, filing cabinet left? No, right. This nesting is satisfying. We will be here ten months, more or less. It needs to be home.

 

What We Leave Behind

Each crystal slipped between my fingers, wet with the cleaning spray. One wipe and they were dry, sparkling again. Only two, maybe three times have I cleaned the chandelier. The first time it was a two hour job. Preparing for our wedding, my husband's mother and sister and I worked together. We took off every piece and scrubbed them in warm, sudsy water. We removed years of grime and specks of ceiling paint. We readied the new house.

Our new apartment is comfortable. We have two small dark bedrooms, an efficient kitchen with a farm table in the center, a small family room off the kitchen that extends the kids' room. There is a peaceful living room with windows on three sides, the world's smallest bathroom and a laundry. We have a view of palm and plum trees and the shop signs on Grand Avenue. Today the kids' room is an oasis in the stacks of boxes.

The laundry door frame has half a dozen pencil lines marking growth of a teenager in 2005. I noticed the marks while putting in a load of curtains from the old house. Dread knocked me down. I forgot to photograph or trace our marks. Now they're painted over! There are few irreplaceables. During this move, I have understood how a person who has lost her belongings to flood or fire can exclaim, "I feel free!" We are burdened by so much Stuff. But a growth chart with dates and names? There is really no way to let it go, really no way to carry it with us.

Last night it happened on the living room carpet.

The kids were dancing to the Counting Crows, and I was taking in the scene. Stacked boxes, furniture moved, art off the walls. For months now we have been running toward a single goal: Move to a neighborhood with a better elementary school. Before we went to Brazil, we closed on the new house, turned in Stella's paperwork, and sighed relief. We returned 10 days ago and started putting the details of seven years in boxes- or in the free box out front. Augusto said goodbye to some "really nice pants" from 1986. I admitted that I'm never going to sew those scraps of fabric into something beautiful. The kids chose toys to donate.

The movers come tomorrow.

In Decmeber, when our real estate agent came by with the stager, I couldn't listen when they debated new colors for the dining room. The dining room is exactly the color of my grandmother's living room. I brought a chip of paint from her wall. I felt mixed pride and regret when we cleaned up the neglected garden. But I stayed on task.

It was on the floor that I unraveled. It went like this.

Right there by the mantle we toasted our wedding. I remember the picture of us raising our glasses. We were smart when we picked this flowered rug and brown couch. It does hide the dirt from the kids and animals we anticipated. It's dark now, but this room is so great in the sun. We can never spend enough time here, just laughing.

Augusto is sorting his papers in front of the furniture that would change our lives. He is sandwiched between the two places our children were born. The bathroom is a little too big, but it was perfect for a mom pushing out a baby, surrounded by her husband (with video camera in one hand, son's head in the other), two midwives, and assorted equipment. The office never did get organized, despite a few genuine tries. It wasn't until after Stella came out that I realized I had stopped there to have her. It didn't matter.

Upstairs we have two bedrooms. When we moved in it was one large master suite with a knotty pine ceiling. There are animals and hand prints and shooting stars there. All three babies were conceived under that constellation. I need to remember to take a picture of the ceiling.

Our kitchen! Why do all parties end up there? Everyone crowded behind the counter with Augusto serving drinks and some gracious friend loading the dishwasher. How many bowls of soup did we serve? How many glasses of wine? How many debates started and (mostly) resolved? I love opening the dutch door in the mornings, folding laundry onto the counter.

We really are moving out of this house.

Before we started packing, I wanted to make a video tour- something to show the kids. Look, you were born right on that rug! Here's the window seat we made, letting you live mama's fantasy. This is the circle you rode around on your little bike. I never made the video. A house is just walls, right? I see that clearly in our new place, torn down to the studs. Even so, how do you leave a place of firsts? A wedding, a loss, two births. What were we thinking, doing all of these important things in the non-forever home?!

Sometimes I long for the houses we left when I was a kid. The one with the willow tree. The one with the small creek. The one with the endless cross country skiing. The one where I had high school parties. I stalk these homes from time to time. I wonder who lives there now.

Even as I dream our new home the Forever Home, I know it isn't. History has proved I don't stay in one place. But I want to, I really do.

This is so wrong

 

It's Ours!

 

We were number 2 on four houses. Each time we were out bid, we decided it was for a good reason (i.e. we had less money than someone else), and we decided to try again. This is in a down, buyer's, crashing market. And we were overbidding on major fixers, each time Augusto never letting on how excited he was- and then me crying over the defeat. Something was wrong.

Then we find this true dump of a home. The eye sore of the block. The one that makes most sensible people walk out saying, "Not for me." A bad smell. A peeling ceiling. Curling-edge oak floors. Missing elements like railings, floorboards, a driveway. And naturally, as with any house I WANT, other people are already making offers. I swear I could start a new service: Want to sell your home lickety-split? Then let me love it and there will be a dozen offers after just 17 days on the MLS! So we leap headlong into the abyss and offer full price on a home that needs gutting. Wait... not over asking, just asking price. And it disappears from the MLS--- because we won! We won!

We are motivated buyers, but we are not insane. The house's ultimate value is spectacular- just like the bay views. The layout is ideal for our family. The land is gigantic (by urban standards) and has some level parts. The street is quiet and walkable to a commercial area- and a great public elementary school.

 

 

Oh, and it comes with this sweet 1966 Beetle. If anybody is interested, we're selling.

 

Post Election Blues

Last week we were on the way to swim class and we passed a large group of people chanting and waving YES on 8 signs. "What are they doing, Mama?" Stella asked from her car seat. "Well..." I thought about how to explain the California proposition to change the constitution.

Me: "You know that Papai and I are married, right?"
Stella: "Right."
Me: "Do you think that's OK?"
Stella (a little confused): "Yeah."
Me: "And you know Mark and Lina's Daddy and Poppy are married, right?"
Stella: "Yeah."
Me: "Do you think that's OK?"
Stella: "Yeah."
Me: "And do you think two girls could get married?"
Stella (thinking this is silly): "Yeah."
Me: "I think so too, but those people with the signs think that only a boy and a girl should be able to get married."
Stella: "WHAT?!" (as if I told her there was no more color blue)

Today I am elated with Obama's victory.

I need to let that statement stand alone. But (WHY does there need to be a "but"?), I am sad too. Living in the Bay Area bubble, I really thought Prop 8 wouldn't pass. I shared my little legislative lesson in hate with Mark and Lina's Poppy and he said, "We lost the battle, but we won the war."

True.

There is hope for the next generation.

Gluing the Pieces

Modern day homemaking hazards are different than 30 years ago. We have disposals. We have Cuisinart. We have glue guns.

I plugged in my 10 watt gun, purchased just minutes earlier- when I realized oh, shit! Boo at the Zoo is this weekend, I don't have all the evenings of next week to make a dog and a parrot!. The gun warmed while I gathered feathers, felt, googly eyes, and a foam visor. I began without a plan, but after the first miracles of hot glue marrying felt to foam and feather to fabric, the Way of the Parrot made itself clear. Shoot, press, shoot press, and I laid feathers like shingles, bottom to top. Two lines of hot glue here and a 3-D beak appeared.

I felt a little guilty and a lot thrilled to realize that what I would do in two hours would have taken my mother several evenings. No needles and thread. No lugging out the machine. And then I burned my finger. And I burned it again. Who knew the costume maker's modern tools would still make tender fingers?

With seared fingers, glue silk spun across the counter, feather fluff on the floor, I was awake later than advisable with nothing else "done." And I was completely happy. I arrived at a moment for which I had been waiting, this feeling of I CAN DO THIS. I am good at this job. I am happier providing for my kids' enjoyment than doing anything else. I imagined all of parenting was this way. Why else would people have children?! I am usually self-conscious when I meet the stranger or friend who answers "Great!" when I ask them how it's going with the family. Why isn't that my response? Do they have it easier somehow? What is their secret? They must be lying...

And then I made two Halloween costumes at the last minute without a plan or pattern. I wanted to read, felt compelled to clean, and needed to sleep, but I made the costumes because I wanted to. Because I didn't want to buy them. Because I promised I would. And in the cutting and gluing, I mended a piece of myself.

I don't even care that the parrot looks like a chicken and the dog is cow-like. Stella beamed with joy and Otto ran to put Rex's toy in his own mouth. I call that success.

 

 

 

Stolen Post... I couldn't resist

Not too long ago, I wrote about my friend Mage, who had breast cancer. She's 35 and recently had a mastectomy and four lymph nodes removed. She started a blog when she was diagnosed. Her entry from today, about getting a compression sleeve to prevent lymphoedema- and the revelation that came with the shopping trip- is here for you. Whenever I am stuck in my own high quality "problems," I unwind laughing and crying with her words. Enjoy.

Good Enough

Once in Boulder, I made a fitting appointment at Hangar Orthotics and Prosthetics.

Susan, the kind, competent and exceedingly petite woman who answers the phone and manages the front desk, took me into an exam room and measured my arm with a yellow tape. She asked me which kind of compression sleeve I was here for.

I had no idea, I didn't even know there was a choice. She shrugged and made a decision without my input. I like to think she made the right one.

She copied my insurance card and told me she'd call me when the sleeve arrived.

A week later, I was back in the office to pick it up. Susan wasn't there that day, so I sat alone in the waiting room until Angela, the CPO, had time to see me. I don't know what a CPO is, but I know she is one because there was an article about her stuck up on a bulliten board near the front door. I also learned that she plays the banjo.

After a few minutes of waiting, I decided to look for the bathroom. I didn't find it. I gave up after I accidentally opened a door to another exam room where a patient was waiting to be seen. I didn't see the man's face. He was sitting kind of behind the door. But, I could see his leg, propped up on a chair. I could also see that he didn't have any foot at the end of the leg.

Like most people would be, I was horribly embarrassed to have opened the door to someone else's exam room. I closed it immediately and went back to my chair.

I imagine I am also like most other intact-bodied people in that I am uncomfortable when confronted with missing body parts.

You know how it is, you don't want to avert your eyes, but you don't want to stare right at their stump either. You want to act like you didn't notice, but not like you are insensitive. You want to appear cool, when really you are just clueless.

I asked myself, "Why I am so on-edge around amputees?" Maybe looking at their altered bodies triggers my own fear of injury and loss? Maybe their difference from me sparks a physical curiosity that feels socially inappropriate? Maybe I am struggling not to feel pity for them?

I don't know exactly. It's a complex issue. But, as I've noticed before, I don't need to really understand my emotional hang-ups in order to move through them.

What shifted for me that day was my sense of "otherness." Here I was, sitting in a room decorated with advertisements for artificial limbs and posters celebrating differently-abled atheletes. I wasn't here with a friend. I wasn't here to sell something. I was here to be treated. I was one of these people.

I couldn't help but notice that I didn't feel quite as embarrassed to walk in on that man as I would have before my surgery. Yes, I was still a stranger barging in on his private space. But we had something in common too. We were both patients in this place. We were both missing pieces of our bodies and here to be helped with the resulting health complications. We were on the same team; in the same club.

Yesterday I rode the bus from Boulder to Denver. A man whose left arm ended at the elbow was sitting behind me. I didn't pull out my usual cool-but-clueless routine. Instead, I threw him a goofy grin with an upward nod. I'm sure he thought I was some kind of weirdo, but for me it felt like a secret handshake. I wanted him to know that I'm like him...we are the same in one small way.

Now, I am not trying to compare loosing a breast with loosing an entire limb. Physically, I am able to do almost everything I could do before. Socially, my loss is nearly invisible. Obviously, there's a big difference between my story and that of the guy in the bus or the man in the exam room. But, we share something that most people don't, and I can't help but want to acknowledge that.

I think that's normal. The world is so big and we are so small. It's just nice to be able to separate the giant mass of humans into smaller groups. It's comforting to know what group you belong to, and to connect with others in the same group. At parties, we light up when we meet someone who loves the same music, plays the same sport, or collects the same kind of hand-painted Moroccan pottery as we do.

This urge to identify and reveal ourselves to other members of our various sub-cultures is even stronger when the group we belong to has a history of being riduculed, persecuted or pitied by the larger population. I think the urge is stronger because we feel safe with each other in a way that we don't feel safe with others.

I think that's what I was trying to say to the guy on the bus. I wanted him to know he was safe with me. I wasn't going to pity him or think he was strange because his hand was gone. How could I? I am missing pieces too.

But, I couldn't say it outloud. I couldn't say it outloud for the same reason the urge to connect is stonger than if we shared a hobby or a hometown. I couldn't say it outloud because we belong to a group that has a history of being riduculed, persecuted or pitied.

Thinking about it this way, it is suddenly clear why I've always felt uncomfortable around people with missing body parts. I feel like I'm put on the spot. I feel like I'm being tested. I know I belong to the group of people with a history of persecuting, riduculing and pitying. I feel like I'm being measured against that legacy and that the situation pre-disposes me to being found guilty.

But now that I've turned in my perfect-body membership card, I feel relieved of such judgement. Even if other people don't know that I'm permenantly excused, I know. They can give me any grade from F to A+, and it's not going to affect me. I didn't even sign up for this class.

This is just one more place where cancer has taught me something I should have known already.

I'm not just good, I'm good enough.

Whew. What a relief.

Things That Make Me Happy Today

1.The dentist's office calling after I've left work to tell me that they're running behind, would I mind rescheduling? Would I? You bet! Time to stop at the grocery store and get a few things done before I need to get the kids- that's so much better than sitting in a hygenist's chair.

2.Multiple packs of size 4 diapers. There is a boom of babies my son's size. Ever since he was born the store is regularly out of the size he currently wears- and only that size.

3.Pupusas! Again, the Whole Foods is regularly out of them.

4.Coming home to scrubbed toilets, shiny floors, and fresh beds. Twice a month cleaning is being truly blessed.

5. MY POEMS PUBLISHED by mamazine! Woo Hoo!

We're Getting Older in Many Ways

Breakfast in bed was brought by Augusto and then shared with my two pigeons. They followed with a rollicking, off-tune, and round-like Happy Birthday and Parabéns. The tradition in Stella's school is to follow the song with, "Are you 1? Are you 2? Are you 3?" and so on. She learned to count to 39 today.

And then I hung out at the DMV for an hour because I like the Oakland diversity smashed into one space full of many pleasant and some very impatient people... and I needed to get a new license photo and fingerprint before today's expiration. It was worth it to be able to say my height and weight hadn't changed from 13 years ago.

In other news, last week I learned something new when Stella locked herself and Otto in the bathroom. She often takes him in and locks the door. Even though she can unlock it, we usually discourage the behavior. This last time, she decided to poop and was up on the toilet, so she didn't want to/ couldn't unlock the door. Otto was happily washing his hands in the sink. I nearly went for the special little pin key, until I suddenly realized that with both of then locked in the bathroom, I could actually eat my breakfast and read the paper in peace. Which I did.

***

Stella: "My wrist hurts."
Me: "Why?"
Stella: "There's a pain in it."
Me: "Well that certainly explains why it hurts."
Stella: "Huh?"

Fences Make Good Neighbors?

I keep creating fences. Actual fences that mark property lines or make a barrier from the street. We're visiting my mom in Southern Maryland where summer lingers in the lush two hundred year old oaks, the bank of the river which sits at the end of my mother's broad, green lawn. On this morning's run, I passed home after waterfront home- some old farm houses, some modern mansions, the odd trailer. I paused at the small cemetery, to see the local names: Joy, Younger, Lusby (the town's namesake)- deaths at the turn of last century. There are swing sets here, the same kind I had as a child. There was an old man on a shiny John Deere, circling his land. There was a Thai woman who had arrived by golf cart. She apologized that she was picking mushrooms. She showed me the plump russet caps. "No die,"she assured me.

The striking, unifying feature of the landscape is the lack of fences. My fifteen years of city living doesn't know what to do with all this interconnectedness. Azaleas and lines of oaks, or variations in grass height make the divisions known, but a person or animal or child could just wander from yard to yard unobstructed. I grew up this way for years, but it comes now as a revelation. Everyone with whom I currently spend any amount of time has a boxed-in yard. I am happy be in these open spaces, knowing the traffic is minimal and the distance from house to street, in most cases, far. But I still keep inserting fences. It is strange.

This one is up there on the list of really shitty days

How can you not imagine the details of your new home when you offer fifty thousand dollars over asking price on a house your whole family genuinely loves? Who would think that when you offer to close in 21 days and say you won't even inspect the home that someone else would nab it from you?

I am heartbroken tonight. It was honestly a shitty day from start to finish. I woke at 5:40am to a jealous, screaming Stella, who wailed "pick me UUUUP!" when I managed to get Otto to sleep again in bed. He was asleep on top of me, so I couldn't get out from under and Stella would not shut up. I finally moved him to grab her and put her in bed with us (Augusto left before 5 am for an overnight to LA). Naturally he woke, cranky again after I jostled him. So that's how it began. We fought over shoes and teeth and exactly how to get into the car, and I arrived late to work only to learn that a term pregnant patient's entire family and fiancee were killed in a political-religious fire bomb riot half a world away. And another woman's baby died. And a colleague's father murdered his mother when he was a kid. And then we were out bid by someone who offered a little bit more and could close on the house in 14 days. And then the kids were shitheads, so I chugged two glasses of wine and bickered with them until they finally went to bed at 9:45 pm.

Oh, but they wanted to sell the house to us. We've heard that twice now and it only makes me feel worse. We wrote a letter to the sellers, spilling our visions of the future. What if we do find another house to bid on? How can any other letter be genuine after that one?

Now it's night two, up too late, barely keeping my eyes open, and I am still imagining our now non-existent lives in the house on the hill, not getting out of my head the many children under age five who live a house or two away, where I would put the hook for the dog's leash, curl up to read the paper, or plug in my phone to charge. And I am totally unable to imagine how you undo the visions of your life with baby and husband and grandparents and suddenly a friend of the family calls long distance and it is all gone.

I wish I could offer some perky optimism, but I used up this week's hope already.

Here We Go Again

I always manage to post when I should be doing something else. Right now I should be sleeping, or taking a couple of Valium, at least. We singed another offer on a house tonight. Fearing a repeat of the nine-offer marathon that led to our current home, we decided to jump off the cliff. Many factors pushed us to the edge: school applications due in December, conforming loan stimulus package ends in December, the general thought that if we're going to sell our home, we should get it on the market soon, and most importantly WE LOVE A HOUSE! I know, I know, I said that about the one with the sword ferns. After 8 offers in 2002, our Realtor asked if we really loved the house we ended up buying, because it looked like we were going to get it. By then, we weren't even letting ourselves get to that point.

The truth is, I loved the house from last month. Augusto didn't. It was crazy to offer. Today when we sorted out our offer, the energy was great. We have seen many homes now. We BOTH love this house. "Just tell me one thing you love about it?" I asked. He usually holds his cards close, and never wants to get his hopes up about anything. "I love that it's all one level, so when you come home in the rain with a sleeping kid, you can drive right into the garage, go directly into the house, and it's not 13 steps up to the bedroom." It is a great house. A sleek mid century modern with an amazing open floor plan. This home will truly be fantastic for our family. I stomped around the neighboring streets and met a woman who raised her adult son there. She filled me in on all the young families who recently moved in and how hard the couple selling the house had worked to improve it.

It is right that we are here now, offering thousands of dollars more for this one than we did for the other one. It was meant to be.

Marriage Understood, or How We Ended Our Weekend at the Russian River

 

Late weekend morning, I'm still in my pajamas, we're been talking about gardening for over an hour. Stella puts a glittery fuzzy hearts feelers headband on me.

Stella: Mama, let's get married!

Me: How do we do that?

Stella: You tell me.

...um...

Me (straightening my posture, wiggling the sparkly hearts perched on my head): OK. Stella, I love you, and I want you to be my wife.

Stella (with a rare, direct-into-the-eyes look): OK, I'll be your wife. Now go change your shirt and come work in the garden with me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beware: Cheezy Hippie Post About Dirt

I actually smiled when seeing car after dirty car in the work parking lot. The months of summer dry don't usually keep the locals from having shiny cars. But this season the lines at the car wash are shorter. There's hardly anyone with a bucket and sponge in their driveway. The summer fundraising kids are desperate on the corners.

The Bay Area water restriction means that homeowners need to use 19% less water this year than the same time last year. This was a hard challenge for us, as our garden is already drought tolerant and we have efficient appliances and low flush toilets. But we have learned to trust that the dishwasher will clean when the dishes aren't fully rinsed and it's packed to capacity. We have remembered the efficiency of a quick shower, the simplicity of reusing clothes. We let our tiny clover lawn try to die. We aren't making flushing an exciting part of Otto's potty training. We thought it impossible. We have reduced our water use by half.

It seems the awareness of the drought is growing. It's not just the environmentalists who are forgoing clean cars. Judging by the lot, it's most everyone. Three months into the restriction, I am totally comfortable asking if I should flush or not when visiting someone's house. Lately, I even assume the house follows the Yellow Be Mellow, Brown Flush Down philosophy, and I just close the lid.

Saving water is a change of life. We do it not for fear of water bill penalty, but because we know water is scarce. We want everyone to have some. The cars in the lot made me happy because it was obvious that so many people chose to care for the planet over making the car shiny. I thought about going to the full service wash the other day, because my car was a mess, inside and out. But I realized the inside was more important to me- that's the part I see more often- so I shook out the floor mats and wiped the dashboard with a baby wipe. Good as new in 4 minutes, and only one wipe to the landfill.

Now if I could tackle the other messes in my life with such satisfying efficiency and environmental aplomb, then I'd really be smiling!

The last moments of Mage's "two-breasted life"

We didn't get the house.

Before we got the bad news, I took the kids to the local farmer's market and park and dreamily drove by the house. As I stalked by the house for the 15th time, I felt it was gone. I just knew they had accepted the other offer. I was really funked up about it. The letdown deepened this evening when I didn't find anything on zip realty that would work even in a pinch.

And then I read my young friend's latest entries in her brand new blog. She shares the (would have been surprisingly silly if it were anyone else's) details of her 8/8/08 mastectomy:

I know for sure that my breast looked okay in the conveyer belt room because as Eric #1 was pulling back my robe to get my breast exposed for the procedure, I told him, "You're the last person who is ever going to see my breast like this, so will you just take a moment and appreciate it?" This seemed to embarrass him. At the time I thought he was just uncomfortable because he was just trying to do his job and didn't want to think about the fact that I was a nice lady with a nice breast who was about to lose it forever. But, now that I am writing about it, it really does seem like the waffle-iron room happened first. In which case, maybe he just looked uncomfortable because I was asking him to appreciate a breast that looked like it was smeared with mud and had been attacked by bees. Poor guy.

Mage is one of those people who makes lemonade out of lemons. She has cancer and hasn't hit 40 yet. You need one hell of a juicer to inject humor into that scenario. Thanks for the mind-shift, dear friend. I'll take my two-breasted life into some other house some other day.

C-C-C-Changes

I've been obsessing lately. I am known to obsess. Pick an important topic, and it can occupy every nook in my life. Lately, it's a house. I am in love with a house. I am in love with everything about it. The windows, the natural woods in which it sits (with native Sword Ferns!), the funky butcher block kitchen, the delicious blackberries, the great, flexible floor plan, the little property line creek, the excellent neighborhood elementary, the dead end street. I love the way the street gently climbs through a canyon of native oak and then the house sits happily in a little clearing of sun. Get the picture?

The problem is that it's not ours... yet. We offered. The sellers countered. We countered back. Now we've been waiting for 24 hours and I'm gonna flip out. I know there is a another counter offer. So what is going on?! Please oh please, people of the universe, send your vibes to these nice sellers and let them choose us. And let the other people who offered find the house of their dreams very, very soon.

We arrived at this new home by some accident. We like our current home a whole lot. It has inlaid wood floors. Updated kitchen and baths. Mostly, I like it for its location and more for its history. We married in our back yard. I gave birth to both kids less than 15 feet from where I now sit. But it never felt like a forever home. The kitchen doesn't look over the yard. There are only 2 bedrooms on one floor. And the local schools suck. Real bad. I've been trying to help our local elementary for 4 years now. But I am losing hope. Stella enrolls in kindergarten this December.

I teased myself: If we find a 3 or 4 bedroom home within in a good school boundary that has a kitchen and living room that look to the back and a babbling brook- I'll move. Well, this house that hangs in the offer/counteroffer is exactly that house.

Both placentas are still in the freezer. I think I never planted them with a tree because I knew deep down we would move on. I've found where I want to make deep roots. But like those last weeks of pregnancy, never knowing when the labor will start, but seeing that child in my mind's eye... all we can do is obsess, and wait.