End of an era.

For a variety of reasons, tomorrow is going to be the last day that Squirms and I spend at home together in uninterrupted stay-at-home parent and child situation.

I never, ever thought I would be a not-working-outside-the-home parent. But it's really been the most enjoyable two and half years. Yes, there were times when I thought my face would melt off from playground induced boredom. Yes, I've despaired at what has become of my education and aspirations. But I've been lucky to always live in an urban, intellectual, walkable, wealthy area and we always made the most of it. I loved cuddling with her late in the mornings, and eating breakfast in my pjs, and going to library and having lunch with friends whenever we wanted to. I loved reading to her, and steering her clear of crappy toys and books and tv shows, I loved that we had time to hang out and not be rushed when we saw each other. Obviously, this isn't the right thing for everyone, but it was for us. I think Squirms eats better, sleeps better, is more literate and numerate, watches less tv, is more independent, and more affectionate because she's been home with me. I think I've learnt to be more respectful of other parents in the world (who the fuck knows who has a secret law degree!) and generally patient with life. I swear less (a bit less!). I don't buy tabloid magazines anymore.

We've had a good run.

Some random thoughts

Blueberry frozen yogurt. Mmmm.. yum.

• The Jay Leno Show is the biggest waste of television time and money in the history of television.
• So I switched over to Home Alone. What I like best about that movie is the family home. See also: The Family Stone, Father of the Bride.
  
• While I watched I was eating this delicious bowl of frozen yogurt and frozen blueberries.
• Which made me think of this post from Shapely Prose about various favourite foods that have appropriated as diet foods. I often choose fro-yo or sorbet over ice cream (because icecream can be really gluggy) and I do sometimes get a pang of DIET FOOD! gross! this is all you'll eat forever! when I do. Fuck you, diet industry.
• The number one food ruined for me by dieting is ricotta cheese. Doesn't that suck tons? On the South Beach diet you eat ricotta sprinkled with Splenda, like, twice a day. Foulness.
• Which leads me so nicely back to the show I was watching before Jay Leno and his giant stupid chin got all up in my TV face: The Biggest Loser.
• I am so conflicted about that show. It's clearly just fat porn. Aren't I watching because omg all those people are fatter than me I'm so good? Shouldn't I just switch off?
  

Thanks for letting me empty my brain all over here.

Uppance update

Our car looked like this, too. Then Boogs dug it out.
Someone else's car via Washington Post.

A neighbour with a truck kindly drove me to Target/Old Navy this morning. I snagged boots (a size too big- blargh) for Boogs and a coat for Squirms. They had no shovels but I did get the very last ice scraper in the store- the worlds smallest ice scraper BTW, the runt of the ice scraper litter. I got a car washing brush that will reasonably double as an extremely annoying short handled ice brush.

Then, via a community listerv, I bought second hand from a different neighbour, snowpants and snowboots for Squirms. Boots were a little big, but she was keen to try them out in the snow anyway.

The roads were slippery as hell. Before we even made it off our block there was someone jackknifed across the street, completely stuck. It took about eight dudes pushing the car and others shovelling and sticking carpets and cardboard under the tires to get that station wagon moved. We were in a giant 4-Runner, so we were OK. Once we got out on the streets it was creepy and quiet and icy.

It was actually pretty great to see all the people out on the street walking to and from the supermarket instead of driving, and helping each other with the shovelling. It was nice and village-y.

Our street and the surrounding streets still haven't been plowed. The metro is still closed. Boogs' work is canceled tomorrow. More snow day!

My uppance has come

Can you see me shopping in this weather? Or driving?

I cannot have been more stupid about this snow storm.

Up front, let me say, it's totally gorgeous and wintry and Christmassy and fun and I am in no way being a Debbie Downer about the actual snow. It looks like tomorrow is going to be heaps of fun playing in the snow with snowballs and snowmen and sledding.

It's just that our family did not in any way prepare for this. Oops.

I am the only one who could go outside today because I was the only one who had boots. Not good boots, mind, the cheap shitty ones I mentioned here. So I had to be the one to go outside, with my shitty back from falling down the stairs, and trek to the supermarket to buy milk and cereal and noodles and carry it all home in a heavy backpack and canvas bags becoming increasingly soaked with ice. I had to do this walking in the three feet of snow and more coming down because all yesterday I had mocked the fools who were stocking up and I had assumed I would go do the grocery shopping on Saturday like I do every weekend.

Squirmy has no snowboots, no snowpants, no ski coat, no waterproof mittens, and no hat that doesn't cause her to throw a mind-meltingly intense tantrum.

Boogs has nothing warmer than his everyday uniform of tracky daks, sneakers, and t-shirts and jumpers that advertise an alcoholic beverage/sporting team/college event (bonus points if it's all three *cough Bruce Hall 1997 Inward Bound Powered by Bundy Rum cough*).

We have no snow shovel to clear our front path or dig out our car from its snowbank. Even if we got to our car, we have no ice scraper or brush to clear the ice off the car. Even if we had all this the roads are totally impassable, and we have no way of driving on them to the shops to buy snow clothes or any of the ice implements we so badly need. Even if we could get there, the shops are probably closed.

Also the metro is not running.

So our options are-
:Check in with the Metro again tomorrow to see if they have opened. Maybe I can get to the mall in the morning. I can get clothes there but not the shovel etc.
: Reinvestigate driving conditions in the morning. Maybe I can drive to the Potomac Yards shops where they have a Target and and Old Navy. Between them I could probably get all the clothes and shovelling devices I need, unless they are sold out, a distinct possibility.
:Wait until 12pm when the Gap Outlet on King St opens. I can walk there. They'll probably have clothes and boots for Squirms. Outside chance of boots for Boogs.
: I can ask a neighbour with an unburied 4-Wheel Drive to take me to the shops.

Seriously though, this is the second DC winter I have experienced, and it seems like every two weeks the whole city area loses its collective mind about a potential snowstorm that never materialises. Or its like 2 inches of slop and they still close the schools. Even OBAMA said this city was totally wussmo about snow. Can you blame me for skepticism?

However, indeed my uppance has come. Biggest snow storm since 1922. Biggest snow dump in December of all time.

I mostly feel bad for Squirms, who's going to have to wait until I can scour some clothes for her to wear before she can play outside. That's likely to not be until the afternoon. All the other kids in the neighbourhood will be playing outside from daybreak. Boo me.

Conceded: Or, Shoes Part Deux

These boots were made for walking... on my feet.

I bought these boots.

After wise words from a friend to the tune of:

1. How environmentally friendly can it be to have dozens of pairs of shoes shipped overnight to and from your house while you try to find the one non-fug pair of non-leather boots in existence?
2. How environmentally friendly can it be to buy a pair of thin plastic shoes (if that's all there is AND THAT *IS* ALL THERE IS!) and have them last one season (viz, the last pair of non-leather boots I bought for $50 that kept my feet freezing and fell apart after a year)?
3. Spend decent money on one pair of of leather boots and take care of them well and they will last many years.
4. You did your best. Now stop.

I researched the various environmental costs of leather vs plastic, and it seems leather still loses. And there is the ethical issues I still have with the dead things on my feet. I looked into which countries make the most environmentally destructive shoes, and have the most egregious animal treatment industries, so I could avoid them (guess what? CHINA WINS. Guess what else? CHINA MAKES ALL THE SHOES IN THE WORLD). I couldn't win there either. All I could do is buy a pair that uses vegetable tanning techniques instead of chemical tanning techniques. One win. And I sought a pair that had a sole that protected the upper leather at the sides, so it would last longer.

One win plus gorgeous, gorgeous boots.

Oh yeah...

Earlier this week I Twittered about how I fell down the stairs, and nearly killed myself. This resulted in much laughing, much worry for my well-being, the diagnosis of cracked ribs via Facebook, and frantic international concern from my mother and sister urging me to get x-rays and/or Percocet post-haste. I blamed the fall on a combination of comfortable footwear and good housekeeping. What I didn't mention was that I was standing at the top of my freshly mopped stairs in my fuzzy slippers LEANING OVER DEMONSTRATING TO BOOGS HOW SQUIRMY LOOKS WHEN SHE SLEEPS RIGHT ON THE EDGE OF HER BED AND NEARLY FALLS OUT ONTO THE FLOOR.

Thank you. I will now gladly accept my Almost Darwin Award. Let's call it the Alfred Russel Wallace Award.

These are the people in your neighbourhood

It's been eight whole days since I last wrote, becuase I was shocked into silence over the response to my last post.


KIDDING!!!!!


I have just been really busy and/or lazy.

I've been busy with kid stuff and uni stuff and gathering and reconsidering and then returning and then buying new versions of Christmas presents to send to my dear friends and fam at home in the O.Z.

That necessitated about six trips to the post office, of which today I conducted three and the last led me to this nasty human. Allow the story to unfold...

~~~~~~~~~~~~ doodle do doodle do doodle do wiggle-fingers-make-Wayne's-World-dream-sequence-noise~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I finally finalized all my presents, wrapped and labeled them at home and took them to Post Office A. At this point Squirms and I had just come from yoga and we were walking down the street all bourgey-suburban holding hands and it was nice and pleasant. As soon as we arrived a woman came to the door and put up a sigh saying 'Office closed for computer malfunction'. It was like a scene from an movie set in the Depression, where just as our hero is getting to the front of the line for jobs at the canning factory, an old man walks out with a sign saying 'no work here'. Boo.

So we walk back to the car and head to Post Office B. At Post Office B I wait nicely in line and Squirms waits squirmily in line then we get to the front, fill out a page long customs for and then, THEN, the lady tells me I can't send perfume to Australia. Oh BULLSHIT. I fought it a little bit, but the way that the Post Office clerks kept consulting with each other and pointing at regulations that said things like "may be hazardous" and "if wrapped improperly", and me being a lawyer and knowing the difference between the language of obligation and the language of authorization, made me think this was just a matter of their judgement, so if I just took that shit home and relabeled it 'cosmetics', we wouldn't have an issue. So I did, and that led me to Post Office C.

At Post Office C there was a Christmas tree with ornaments. Squirms dropped to the floor as soon as we went in and was, no kidding, patting the ornaments when the clerk yelled at her to stop touching the tree. So I got her back, we wait, I get to the front with my box of cosmetics and pick Squirms up to keep her with me while we sort out the mailing. On the counter is a stuffed toy dog with a Santa Claus hat and a bell on top. So, Squirms starts wiggling the bell and making it ring. I asked the clerk if she could hold the dog, and she says no, she doesn't want her to break it. Break it. A stuffed toy dog. Then she turns to the man next to me and says personally, I would never let my child touch someone else's stuff. Some people have no respect for other people's things. So fine, she's a mad bitch. So *I* picked up the dog and was wiggling it around for her making its hat ring. The lady snatched it out of my hands and was all really don't touch it she'll break it. Oooookkaaayyy... so now the lady is not a mad bitch but acting like an *actual child* DON'T TOUCH MY PRECIOUS THINGS YOU'LL BREAK THEM!! She was not sharing like a big girl.

I wanted to say to her: lady, you work at the Post Office. That means at Christmas, people will come in and want to mail packages and since you only open Monday to Friday from 9-5, that means sometimes they will have children. So if you don't want them to play with the toys you have lying around, maybe don't put toys around. That was a motherfucking toy dog in a Santa hat. A toy for children. And she was guarding it like it was the Arc of the Covenant.

But I didn't. I finished writing the label and then let Squirms hold the plastic biro while I paid. Which the lady also proceeded to snatch back, becuase, hey, who would let a child practice air-writing (not chewing, not drawing) with a 25c plastic biro to keep them occupied while their parents paid for their goods? Blargh. At least we were done at that point.

You may be wondering what was the response of the man to whom the commentary on my parenting skills was addressed. Well, since his English was not great, and he was sending a package to Italy, which the clerk had just yelled at him to relabel, since he had addressed it Italian and this is America! You have to write in English!, he just kind of went, yeah, heh heh and ignored her.

I have no idea how that package is going to find its way to the actual address in Venezia, Italia, that she made him cross out and rewrite in English to Venice, Italy.

Anyway, I was all steamed up about this (and no shit, I nearly cried in the Post Office when she snarked at the Italian Dude) and then I was like, hey whatever. You have a terrrrrrible job. You're probably way more poor than me and you're black and you live in the South. People probably treat you like shit all the time. I can take it. In the end I was glad I wasn't a bitch back to her.

Is it too much to ask that I be allowed access to some nice boots?

Not my boots.

World, bewares, first world problem of the highest order coming your way.

I can't find any good boots to buy. I think I want them knee-high, brown and flat. Maybe riding boot style? But I'd settle for scrunchy-down ones if they looked good. But none of them do look good. Because I am trying to not buy leather. I dunno, I just feel like leather is the wrong thing to do these days. I'm not eating meat. I'm not wearing leather. And there is NOTHING out there in not-leather that doesn't look like awful, cheap, plastic crap. I think people who make non-leather boots assume that one doesn't buy leather becuase one can't afford leather. So the shoes are poorly constructed and thin and designed for 12 year olds who've saved up their pocket money to splurge $50 at Aldo. FUG FUG FUG FUG FUG.

I have bought and returned EIGHT PAIRS OF BOOTS online in the last few days. I have had my heart broken over and over again. Especially when I learnt that the "vegetable leather" invovled in these boots doesn't mean "leather made from vegetables", it means "leather dyed with vegetable-dye". Fuck this shit.

What I'm making do with (oh, poor suffering me) is a pair of vintage cowboy boots from an op-shop in Old Town and a pair of three-year old quilted faux-fleece lined cheap, leaky, snowboots from Target. The cowboy boots are leather, but it doesn't count because they are 30 years old. So I'm not killing any new cows to get them.

Tell me, where are my boots? I HAVE MONEY LET ME SPEND IT.