September 11 - Revisited

On this, the 11 anniversary of September 11, it seems appropriate to talk one last time about my brother.

Since my September 11, 2006 post, my brother has been deployed two more times. Both deployments were served in the United States, on a base outside Atlanta. He stayed behind to replace units sent to Afghanistan. All of us think about the soldiers he replaced who did not come home.

Deployment number two resulted in the postponement of his wedding until his tour was finished. Over half of deployment number three was spent traveling back and forth from Atlanta to his home, as his wife was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

This year was my brother’s twentieth year as a reservist. With twenty years in, my brother can retire. We all waited for the letter marking this twentieth year. The letter came and preparations were made for his retirement.

Because he actively served in the United States Military, my brother is entitled to an increase in his pension. However, this increase only counts toward his first and second tour, as the law granting military reservists additional pension was not grandfathered back far enough to cover his first tour.

On September 9, 2012, the same day that his unit was officially deactivated, M retired from the Army Reserves. On the way home from the Inactivation ceremony, he and his wife stopped at for dinner.

Someone picked up their check. To that person, who saw my brother and his wife at the Eat N’ Park in Altoona Pa, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

My brother served safely. He is able to retire, to live his life, to love and be loved. Since the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan began, 6510 members of the United States Armed Forces have died. Countless civilian women, men and children are dead due to an unholy combination of incompetence, ego and the desire for vengeance.

Pray for Peace.

Light

I did something different today.

J’s family decided to attend my BIL’s 10:30 mass (1). As I have made it abundantly clear that I will not be setting foot in a Catholic church (weddings and funerals excepted) I elected not to attend, even though it was the BIL’s birthday. At some point in the past few weeks I decided to maintain a stand on this position. This is becoming something of a tradition in my maternal family, as I am not the first cradle Catholic woman to walk away from the church with nary a backwards glance.

Instead I attended a Friend’s Meeting. My first one.

I have been kicking around the idea of attending Friend’s meeting for years. In the past year I learned that there was a meeting in Pittsburgh, but until today I had not gathered the courage to actually walk through the door.

But when J asked me what I was going to do today, I told him that I was going to the meeting, then the Arts Festival. I planned on attending the 9:00am Meeting (2), but Toddler Alien, who appears to be emulating the sleep habits of his aforementioned uncle (which is to say that he is sleeping far less than ideal for a child pushing 3), had the sort of breakdown that required a nap to restore him to good humor.

I stayed home, even after J insisted on waking Toddler Alien. After refereeing an argument about clothing  (Toddler Alien dislikes shirts with collars, J was not about to take him to mass wearing a Charles Darwin Origin of the Species t-shirt, cuteness of the frog be damned), the two of them headed off.

But I did not want my statement to be a lie. I decided to attempt to attend the 10:30 Meeting. I placed some conditions on the attempt. I would drive by the building, so I knew where it was located. If I could find the location until after 10:30am, I would not interrupt.

I found the place. I drove past it twice, searching for a parking space, as I felt odd using the parking lot next to the building.

It was scary, walking into this strange place. Scary, taking a step that I have spent so much time contemplating, but not doing anything about.

I was welcomed. I made a nametag. I walked into the meeting room. It was quiet, with windows open to the fresh air, the natural light. It was so, so silent. I sat down on a chair in a row to myself. After a few minutes, I sensed people sitting next to me.

Minutes passed. I contemplated on why I was there, on that day. What was it that made today different for other Sundays? Probed my conscience and my feelings, to figure out.

Two people spoke. One spoke about physics, and the search for truth. The other spoke about the difficultly in determining the mind’s truth. Between the two, I had a moment of clarity, that I was there, on that day, to begin learning how to speak and live my truth without anger or fear.

I watched the light, meditated on why it seemed so brilliant in one corner of the room. At the conclusion of the meeting, as the elders managed announcements, I stroked the walls. Brown velvet walls, absorbing and reflecting the light.

In the end, I stayed for the meal. I ate some salad, some fruit, a jelly sandwich. I spoke with a woman, another former/lapsed Catholic, who asked me, intently, why was I there? I told her the truth – I had heard many good things about the Friends from a former professor, that I had a lot of anger and needed a someplace to work it out that would not tell me what to do.

All day, today, I have carried an unfamiliar kind of peace with me. I am not different, but I am not the same person as I was at 10:25am. I do not know how to label this feeling.

(1) BIL is a RC priest.

(2) Fewer people, no social hour afterwards. I wanted to be inconspicuous.

Sporting Support - Much Has Changed

With J and Toddler Alien gone for the week, I took Friday off with the intention of sleeping in and lounging about the house until they arrived home. A last minute change of plans left me with a three day weekend to myself. Faced the prospect of too much free time, I emailed a friend, informing her that I was suddenly free for the next three days and asked if she would like to get together. B suggested coming to her Yoga class, then getting some breakfast.

Which is how I found myself digging through my drawer of workout clothing at 8:00am Friday morning, trying to find something suitable for a 9:00am Yoga class. As merciless and brutal as my initial post-baby purge had been, I still found myself putting on clothing that no longer fit.

Specifically sports bras. The bands of most of the bras have deteriorated over the past months and the cup sizes are mysteriously and ridiculously small. I managed to salvage three Under Armour bras, but they will not last more than a couple of months.

So after a class that left my upper body sore and my wrists aching and a smashing good breakfast at Pamela's, I set off for Marshall's to replace the bras. And walked straight into trouble.

Some time, in the past three years, the really great, supportive, tight compression bras that I am used to wearing while working out disappeared and were replaced with total, utter crap. Every single bra I tried on, even tried and true brands from my pre-baby life, were so loose of band and short of cup fabric as to be unusable.

Visits to two other Marshall's, a T.J. Maxx and a Dick's Sporting Goods over the past two days have confirmed my suspicions. If you are a woman who is large of cup but small of chest, you will not find bras to fit you in your average retail store.

The closest to success I came was an Under Armour bra I found it Dick's, which was tight of band but too small in the cup to be comfortable. I've checked online and I can order the bras from their website - but at $57.99 a bra plus shipping, I am paying dearly for the privilege of making sure my upper body stays put.

Opaque Bubble

Today was a shitty day, in which I allowed myself to be baited into a political discussion, lost my composure, as I am do every single time I allow myself to be baited into a political discussion, and came to the very firm conclusion that my SIL lives in an opaque bubble.

Part of me can't help but hope her bubble bursts in spectacular fashion, if only to see how long her ass will remain sore from hitting the ground. Part of me is furious with allowing myself to be baited. Part of me is just really fucking tired and ready to pull the plug on talking to anyone about anything until after November. And the rest of me feels depressed and isolated.

Burned Out?

I have not been in the greatest of mental spaces for the past day and a half. I’m cranky, irritable, mildly depressed and having a difficult time focusing on anything. I’m completely disinterested doing anything work or fun related. Last night I spent several hours in ten minutes chunks, moving from one activity to another and finding no satisfaction in anything. Angry Birds? Boring. Listening to music? Dragging me down. Nothing worth seeing on Netflix. Even researching activities for my upcoming vacation seemed too much work.

Work is overwhelming right now. Last week was 15 hours worth of meetings, primarily for the project I will be working on starting at the end of June. The rest of the week was spent frantically attempting to get data together for my current project, missing lunch most days to get back the some of the time spent in meetings.

This week I’ve finished data sets and am trying to set up my machine for testing on the new project. Except that I can’t even get past reading the instructions for the setup. The reading alone leaves me feeling overwhelmed.

One of my co-workers suggested that I take a day off, which I am already scheduled to do at the end of June. I don’t know how to get there from here right now. I feel paralyzed and out of focus.

The only movement I’ve done in the last two days is to yell at J for kicking me in his sleep for the past two nights. Last night he managed to hit the bruise I obtained earlier in the evening when I backed into the corner of a coffee table.

I went to the bathroom and tried to cry. I wanted to. I wanted the relief of tears. But I only managed to eke out a few salty drops. After several minutes, I crawled back into bed, tossing a pillow down the middle of the mattress as a barrier against future assaults. J’s comment about a chaperone elicited the response that the pillow would go once he stopped accidentally beating me up in his sleep

Against the Current

My cortex hurts. A fancy way of saying that my ability to think constructively has been hampered by a series of work and home frustrations. I have spent a lot of time over the past several months staring at a blank word processing screen, paralyzed by my inability to write anything I would find interesting while --edit: not finishing my sentences...

I have also attempted to ameliorate some of the frustration and stress by spreading some kindness – sending an old college classmate a vintage Esterbrook pen from my small collection. Waving that guy in the big ass truck into my lane. Driving slowly through downtown Pittsburgh streets while listening to electronic tango music to calm my nerves against the inevitable road rage.

This past weekend was spent playing referee between J and TA. J had a headache for most of the weekend and made the decision to power through it without taking aspirin, acetaminophen or ibuprofen for the pain. The headache made him impatient and short with TA, which trickled down to me.

The result was the two of us attempting to come to some sort of agreement on an appropriate standard of public behavior in restaurants. I am of the mind that as long as TA is eating the majority of his meal with a fork and/or spoon and is not screaming, crying, throwing food, running around or otherwise acting in a manner that would be disruptive to other dining patrons, then we can give him a bit of leeway in how he sits at the table, as long as he is not attempting to lie down.

J is of the mind that TA should sit up straight until the end of the meal. Which lead to two incidents over the weekend in which TA was chastised by J for slumping and cuddling up to J while we were finishing up our meal. As to the point of this mommy-blog entry: Guess which one of us had to remove TA from the table and deal with the tears?

By Sunday evening I was worn down by J's untreated headache, TA's totally appropriate 2.5 year behavior and refereeing their battle of the wills.

Only to get sucked into another battle of the wills. In this case, the battle being an extended “discussion” over the disaster that was this last development cycle following an official product release. A development cycle which was mostly spend fixing defects in the newly released product. Which could have been avoided with a short cycle of integration and regression testing before release. Which was scrapped in favor of adding new features. And the defects? My fault for not regression testing during the development cycles.

Forward Progress, Maybe?

I’m tired. Too tired to write, even though I find myself missing it more and more. Since Christmas I’ve been intermittently sick, first with the nastiest 24-hour GI bug I have encountered in a long time, then with a sinus infection capped with a bout of bronchitis. Every time I feel like I have recovered, I get hit with yet another illness. Falling into bed at 7:30 without bothering to have any dinner has become a common occurrence, a habit that I want to break.

As happy as I am to be working full time, doing what I enjoy and feeling as if I contribute, I find myself often overwhelmed by day-to-day home life. TA is peeing through his nighttime diapers, which necessitates a daily washing of his bedding. The laundry still needs done, the dishes still need washed, the bathroom still needs scrubbed, the cats still need food, fresh water and a clean litter box. There always seems to be at least one pair of socks on the living room floor and the bookshelves, dining room table and buffet are usually piled high with miscellaneous papers, J’s coins and other sundry materials that have no remote connection to literature or dining. Any conversation about hiring someone to come in for a few hours and straighten up the house a few hours a month (not even a week) is shut down as a waste of money. Add the guilt I feel at J picking up my significant slack with my tiredness at struggling to just keep clutter out of the main rooms, and I’m hair trigger cranky.

But there is progress.

I've starting sitting in and conducting interviews with job candidates. Not phone screens, which are handled by my manager, L. Actual face to face interviews in which I must come up with technical questions (and know the answers) and evaluate whether an individual will be a good fit within my department.

With the exception of the first interview, all of them have been done in tandem with a second person from my department. The experience has been eye opening.

The first candidate was competent, talented, and had a strong work ethic. The only stumble during the interview was when I asked the candidate to define the ideal person for the job. Part of the response included a mini-dissertation on the importance of having a very specific degree to qualify for the job. Which is a fine answer, unless the person conducting the interview doesn't have the degree in question. I found this amusing (rule one in my field is "never assume") and voted to extend the candidate a job offer. It was turned down in favor of accepting a position in a more than pleasant city on the west coast.

The second candidate had a great resume on the surface. Good degrees, memberships to several professional organizations, professional certification and a considerable amount of job experience.

But something about the certifications piqued my interest enough to do a bit of additional research. One of the certifications in question came from an organization that has faced blowback in the past several years for charging a substantial sum of money for individuals to take a test to call themselves "certified" without actually teaching them anything of substance. Candidate two turned out to be a disaster during the interview, with zero practical experience and poor reasoning skills.

Another candiate was a complete nightmare. Between myself and my coworker, we got managed to ask four questions (total) in a forty-five minute period. The questions were answered in excruciating detail. Most of the time was spent nodding and saying "uh huh".

The debriefing was derailed when the CTO, after listening to five other interviewers express strong reservations about this person's ability to work in a collaborative environment, wanted my manager to do a background check anyway. The exact phrasing was "there is nothing wrong with being an odd duck".

A week later my coworker and I learned that this individual found our questions inappropriate and complained that we were "confrontational". This person, with 20+ years of industry experience, stated that they would not be comfortable working with us, but somehow managed to find all the managers quite amiable. 

Both my coworker and myself were momentarily floored by the feedback, as neither of us had an opportunity to say much of anything during the interview. The CTO, who passed this feedback to my manager to give to us, stated that we needed to focus more on selling the company then assessing the technical skills of potential candidates.

The Hard Way to Say Goodbye

I picked Axel's ashes up from the veterinarian today. It has been almost three weeks since we put him sleep and the call that his ashes were ready peeled away all the scabs that had formed since Christmas Eve.

The house is cleaner now. Until he was gone, it never occurred to me how really messy Axel was. The piles of food and spilled water next to the cat's bowls. The litter scattered in front of the box in the basement and throughout the doghouse in the kitchen. The hairballs and piles of half-digested food on the floor. There is no longer an undertone of eau de piss from his persistent peeing underneath the puppy pads in the corner of the dining room. The pee in the dining room and the messy litter boxes we knew about. The rest came as a surprise, as we assumed it was a combination of all three of them.

The house is quieter now. We don't hear the thumping that told us he was running across the floor, lifting up his useless back legs to gain some speed. We don't hear as much meowing. There isn't as much purring. He isn't waiting by the door or on the stairs.

We were too late to help save him. Irritable bowel disease. Possibly a tumor too. A heart damaged by an unknown murmur. By the time we realized he was ill, he had lost two pounds, had bloody diarrhea, was consistently throwing up almost everything he tried to eat. Over a month's time we tried one medication, then another. He refused his food, threw up the medication, spent most of his time hiding underneath the bed. His spark was dying. By the morning of Christmas Eve we knew that it was time.

I took some photographs, that last morning. Axel on the bed, sitting in the sun.

One last trip to the veterinarian. One last consent form. One last credit card payment. A thousand dollars over a month's time, to save our cat. One last goodbye. Me in tears. Toddler Alien confused and a little bit scared, seeing his mother cry and his father so sad. An empty carrier, a long, sad drive afterwards to my parents for Christmas Eve.

Just shy of twelve years ago, we adopted Axel. A Valentine's Day gift from me to Jeff. Our first decision as a married couple, adopting a cat. Saturday, Jeff and I celebrate our twelfth wedding anniversary. Axel's ashes sit in a slightly tacky looking tin box above the china cabinet. My mind racing ahead, some to an artisan, to be shaped in the glass. Some to be scattered in the backyard, Axel in the outdoors he loved.

Jeff stops my thoughts. We have time to decide, he says. Give it time. 

Toddler Alien asks where Axel is.

Jeff glances at the tin on top of the china cabinet. He's home, Toddler Alien. He is here.

Heavy

I am overweight. By enough that my nurse practitioner made the gentle observation that I had gained a considerable amount since I last saw her two years ago. She did not lecture me about the additional weight. In fact she was concerned enough to order some labs to make sure that the weight gain was not caused by an underlying condition, such as an poor performing thyroid. She also ordered a fasting test to check my glucose levels, as diabetes runs on both sides of my family.

The labs were all negative. Simply put, I am fat, out of shape and otherwise healthy. My thyroid is in balance. My glucose levels are good. My cholesterol levels are good. My blood has the appropriate balance of red and white blood cells. I have not had a reoccurrence of HPV. My blood pressure is on the high side of normal, mainly because I have not exercised with any consistency in the past two years.

I'm not comfortable being like this. There aren't many pictures of Toddler Alien and I. Partially because I'm the one usually holding the camera, partially because TA is a daddy's boy and not very keen to sit still long enough to get his picture taken with me. Out of the few snapshots we are able to capture of the two of us, the majority end up getting deleted because I hate the way I look in them so much. It shows – in my posture, in my face, in my whole demeanor in front of the camera.

The dumbest part? I've basically been given orders by my health care provider to start exercising again, in order to keep myself healthy. But I'm not sure how to go about it. It was easier the first time around, when I did not have to feel guilty about J taking on the greater share of Toddler Alien care. While intellectually I know that we can work something out, emotionally I'm uncertain as to how to make it happen. Pulling rank by stating that this is no longer optional, it is necessary feels like a shitty thing to do to J.

My NP suggested doing exercise on demand, and working my way up from that to a regular gym routine. She pointed out that Toddler Alien would most likely want to join me, which was a good opportunity to spend time with him while doing something good for myself. It is a great idea, one that never occurred to me. I just don't know if it would work, as I am too easily distracted when I try to exercise in the house.

I need to figure this out, and soon.

The Devil You Know

 I am not good at work conflicts. I am, in fact, something of a coward when it comes to dealing with bullying, backstabbing and other inevitable high school artifacts that plague the majority of decent sized businesses.

Up until Tuesday morning I had an awesome supervisor who stood between my department the rest of the high school, which meant I could do my work and not worry about the rest. S had spent the last 10 years helping to build the company (her employee number was 5), working her way up from writing documentation to leading a unified team of testers, tech writers and support services employees.

Four weeks after I was hired, the company went through a reorganization. As part of the process, a CTO was hired to forge a development roadmap for the company's future and resolve the issues fracturing relationships between different departments.

When the CTO came on board, we all had brief meetings to discuss what we perceived to be the strengths and weaknesses of the company. S had a lot to say about the relationships between the different departments and where she felt the source of the dysfunction was coming from.

In particular, S had some choice words to say about a coworker, V. V has consistently made it difficult for other departments to effectively do their jobs. In charge of writing specifications and managing projects, she did her tasks poorly, when she did them at all. She routinely shows up late for meetings and expects all conversation to stop until she is bought up to speed. She contradicts herself constantly, when speaking and in writing. She micromanages her employees. In the past two years, four have quit and explicitly cited her as the reason for their resignation.

It is important for this narrative to mention that S was not the only employee to find herself in frequent conflict with V.

The same day the CTO's hire was announced, support services was removed from my S's sphere of responsibility. This was painted as a way for her to concentrate on her proven strengths in documentation and QA. In addition, she was informed that she would report to the CTO and her boss was moved to a client facing position. In the months that followed she was left out of meetings that she should have been attending. Her perks were cut. Her input was no longer solicited or welcomed.

Cue the firings.

First to be fired was D, who was informed that her job was not longer necessary due to the hiring of the CTO and the shuffling of departments. D had a long history of conflict with V. In the same breath that she was told that her position was being eliminated, she was asked to stay on until the end of the week to wrap up her work.

D accepted her severance and politely refused to work out the remaining week. Her job responsibilities were given to a recently hired male employee.

Two weeks ago the second firing took place. J was a direct report to V. J had been actively trying to move out from underneath V's sphere. Hired for what she believed was a specific positions, J was instead thrown into projects in which she had little knowledge, with no time to learn. J's job was taken over by a male employee.

This past Tuesday it was S's turn. The CTO told her that he could not envision a role for her in the company going forward. But instead of firing her outright, the CTO offered her the option of between coming back as a contract employee (at a reduced rate of pay, with no benefits) or taking a severance package that was 1/3 the size of the package offered to D. It is our impression that the CTO thought a crappy severance package would induce S to stay on as a contract employee.

S refused. She packed up her cubicle and was out of the building in less than an hour. Two of my coworkers helped her move 10 years worth of personal items to her car, then went out to lunch with her. I learned that she was fired when I walked into her cubicle to ask if she was ready to go to a pre-planned lunch and found it empty.

The CTO scheduled two meetings Tuesday afternoon. The first with my department, to inform us of the personnel change, the second with the entire development team to unveil his roadmap of the future. At the conclusion of our private meeting, he asked the senior qa member, L, to stay behind to discuss some transition issues before the development meeting.

And offered him S's position.

Since the meeting with the CTO, we have had two chats. The first took place on Tuesday after the development meeting. In that chat, L implied that there was some shady dealings occurring with the firings. I slept on this Tuesday night.

Wednesday we met again for our weekly department meeting, sans department head. In that meeting I pointedly asked L if the “shadiness” he was implying had anything to do with the fact that three mid-level female employees had been fired in the past four months and their responsibilities had been reassigned to male employees. L confirmed this statement and also reminded me that all three employees had a history of conflict with V.

It appears that V has trouble working with other women. So the solution to the problem was to fire the women and reassign their responsibilities to men instead of correcting the source of the problem.

The problem is that I am currently working on a project in which V is the project manager. And I may be working with her on a routine basis for the next year. With S gone, I am directly in her line of fire. This worries L.

This worries me slightly, but having already dealt with an epic incident of douche baggery in the past two years, I'm better equipped to deal with it this time around.

Bad Day

Toddler Alien had a bad day. Instead of coming home sunny, chatty and rearing to zoom around the house chasing a ball in a fit of giggles, he was irritable, angry and cried almost non-stop. He cried because we wouldn't lift him into his high chair. He cried because he didn't want to wait for dinner. He cried because we wouldn't give him more cheese. He was rude to J and cried when I reprimanded him.

So upstairs he went after dinner, an hour earlier than usual, to get ready for bed. He cried over being changed. He cried because I put him in pajama pants instead of shorts. He cried because he I picked out the books. Believing that his fidgeting was due to extreme tiredness, I put him down in his crib, which made him cry some more.

I finally picked him back up and lay down on the bed with him. With his milk in one hand and his teddy bear in the other, he galumphed to the edge of the bed, slipped down the side and headed towards his books, pulling out the ones he wanted me to read to him.

Finally he began to calm. I asked him if he had a good day.

“No” he replied.

“Did you have a bad day then?”

“Yes” he answered.

“What happened?”

Silence.

“Was someone mean to you?” (1)

“Yes”.

“Can you tell me who?”

Silence.

We continued reading, making our way through three readings of Dr. Seuss' the Foot Book and most of the Eric Carle board books in the house, finishing with Good Night Moon and a second reading of Have You Seen My Cat?

I put Toddler Alien in his crib and closed the door. Twenty minutes later I came back to check on him. He was dozing, but still awake. I blew him a kiss and touched the side of his check. He blew me a kiss back, smiled and rolled back onto his side. I moved Teddy to the top of the crib.

“Thank you” he said as his hand reached out to grab the bear.

I can't pretend that I'm not worried. (I also can't pretend that I'm not annoyed to be burning time writing about my child instead of discussing the spreading protests, the upcoming hockey season or ten other things that have nothing to do with the mom part of my life).

I was a sensitive kid and had a rough time up until I left for college. I know I can't prevent Toddler Alien from getting his feelings hurt, but I don't know how to help him shake it off better than I did. And it is hard to explain to a kid who isn't even two years old that sometimes people suck.

(1) This was precipitated by an incident last week in which a slightly older kid informed Toddler Alien when he arrived that he was not allowed to play with the cars. This proclamation was delivered with such a hostile tone that Toddler Alien promptly burst into tears.

Movement

Since vacation, I have been reading a lot more. I still have two very thick novels (Bolaño's 2666 and Byatt's The Children's Book) to finish, both started and abandoned while I was pregnant, unable to focus on anything more complicated than a Gilmore Girl's episode, during the endless months of fatigue and nausea.

I've started small. A Jo Nesbø novel (complete with classic deus ex machina). Some of Bolaño's poetry. Nonfiction on adjusting to a new identity post baby. The collected works of Amy Tan. Slowly I find myself gravitating towards works that require a little more heavy lifting.

It feels good, as if I'm finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. There is still a lot I know that I need to deal with. At the top of the list is finding a replacement for my doctor, who retired last year. Second on the list is convincing her replacement that the intestinal issues I have been suffering from since Toddler Alien was born are serious and affecting the quality of my life. 

I'm still tired a lot. I still find it difficult to put my thoughts into coherent order. But I'm getting there.

 

Outer Banks III - Control

One of the frustrating things about sharing the house was J's family was the complete inability on the part of some members to acknowledge the the world does not always work the way they perceive it should. Never was this more apparent then when discussing the different options of dining together as an extended family of fifteen.

While the Outer Banks is a tourist destination(1), it is also populated with individuals who live on the islands year round and support themselves running shops, restaurants and other establishments that take tourist dollars.

Which means that there are months in the 12 calendar month year when they are not making much money.

J's family had a very difficult time understanding why the restaurants are so small and require reservations for large parties. My repeated suggestion that they either make reservations, call ahead to find out if a place could seat fifteen people or eat early enough that it would not matter were dismissed as fear mongering. My attempts to point out that these were businesses that still needed to make a living during the winter months earned me “you have a second head growing out of your neck” looks.

In short, when it comes to dining out some of J's family acts like fucking tourists, the ugly kind that you want to hit soundly and squarely on the head with a heavy object.

And sometimes it happens without ever having left the house.

To fulfill the family's need for a big meal J's brother, J and I organized an old fashioned stove-top clam bake. We purchased steam pots filled with lobster, crab, mussels, clams, onions, potatoes and corn. We added clam chowder, steamed shrimp, pasta salad, ribs, baked chicken and chicken fingers with fries for the kids. I ran to the store and brought crusty french bread, wine, beer and soda.

The majority of the family enjoyed the meal. J's father hated it. All of it. The potatoes were overcooked. The corn and crab legs tasted funny. The lobster was too tough.(2) He didn't like pasta salad made with balsamic vinegar. He had eaten better clam chowder from a can.(3) The steamed shrimp were too spicy.

He ran down this litany of complaints when I went in to relieve him from Toddler Alien bedtime duty. I offered to make him a sandwich(4), which he refused.

When I finished getting Toddler Alien settled, I came out of our room and began cleaning up the kitchen. J's mother told me to sit down, we would take care of the dishes later. I complied.

Once dinner was finished and the first load of dishes was loaded in the dishwasher, the entire family walked down to the beach to fly kits. I stayed behind to keep an eye on Linus. Before they left, J's mother reiterated that I was not to touch the dishes.

Thirty minutes after everyone had left, J's father returned and began giving haranguing me about the dirty dishes. After several minutes, I headed for the stairs as I did not want to argue with him.

I ran into J's sister on the stairs and suggested that she might want to stay out of her father's way as he had a hair up his ass about the dirty dishes.(5) J's mother heard my comments as she was coming up the stairs and immediately went up to see what was happening.

She came down several minutes later and told me to ignore him. She was not happy. I was not happy. Later that evening she suggested I pour myself another glass of wine and come sit out on the deck.

J's father rampaged through the final two days of the trip, making J purchase food items no one really wanted to eat, overruling cinnamon rolls for two cakes (anniversary cake for J's sister and her husband on Friday, birthday cake for same husband on Saturday) and assisting in celebrating the wedding anniversary by taking the entire family for out for a late dinner.(6)

At the end of the dinner, he turned to J's sister and complimented her on choosing a place that served a “nice” meal.

(1) The Outer Banks in July is Pittsburgh South. You can't throw a rock without hitting a Steelers fan.

(2) I agreed with his assessment of the lobster. It had cooked too long. The crab legs, on the other hand, were perfect.

(3) The clam chowder was made with fresh, local clams.

(4) I'm still amazed that I managed to keep my voice neutral and sincere.

(5) My exact phrasing. I was losing my patience.

(6) I regret that I did not have the nerve to flat out say no to the dinner, since we had to wait almost an hour for a seat and it was half an hour past Toddler Alien's usual bedtime by the time we got our entrees. Especially since I knew that was exactly how it would play out. In an astonishingly sensitive move, the anniversary BIL took Toddler Alien for a walk outside while we waited.

 

Outer Banks II – Bo the Wonder Dog

Before we left for the beach, Toddler Alien was able to meet two of my mother's siblings, his grand aunt A and his great uncle B. A and B came bearing small gifts from a nearby outlet mall, which gave the affair a strange magi-visiting-the-Christ-child kind of air.

Toddler Alien was mostly charming and his few moments of un-charming were caused by my bad decision. I'm not sure what part of my brain thought that putting brownies in front of an 19 month old was a good idea. Once the brownies had been whisked away, he settled down.

B presented Toddler Alien with a pair of running shorts and a matching t-shirt. B was a long distance runner until his knees gave out several years ago. The shorts and t-shirt were several sizes too large and apparently intended for girls instead of boys, even though there was nothing that would have marked the outfit as more feminine than masculine.

Knowing my uncle as I do, I also know that these clothes were chosen with zero consciousness about gender.

A gave Toddler Alien a plush dog. A Ty, Bo “The First Dog” Portuguese Water dog. Complete with red, white and blue Bo tag. A owns this breed of dog, a sweet, well trained girl with a ton of personality.

Unfortunately, we could not take Bo with us, as J's family contains several members who are conservative with a capital “C”. While a part of me would throughly enjoy provoking fireworks amongst the oppressed elite in my husbands family, the other part of me wanted no part of accusations of indoctrination and why liberals are the root of all evil in the Marvel Universe.

So Bo stayed behind, to be picked up on our way back home. This morning Toddler Alien wandered around and about the upstairs with the dog in his arms, leaving a small trail of fake Bo hair behind him. When it was time to go downstairs, he gravely handed Bo to me to return to his crib.

Outer Banks I – Lost in Northern Virginia

 In a moment of weakness many months ago I agreed to an vacation with J's immediate family on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The primary reason I caved after almost ten years of just saying no, was because my father-in-law finally agreed to accept the monetary contributions from all interested parties that would facilitate the renting of a larger house.

I can't say that the week was all bad. The beach was lovely and it was good for Toddler Alien to spend time with his five cousins. But it was not the most relaxing of vacations and J and I are both leaning towards waiting another 10ish years before we even contemplate doing it again.

Our journey began with a drive to Northern Virginia, home of my brother and his wife. The initial drive as lovely. We skipped the highway in favor of navigating through the Laurel Highlands, past Nemacolin Woodlands. We did well and made good time until we got lost trying to find my brother's home. After several (increasingly desperate) calls to my sister-in-law, K was able to pinpoint our position well enough to come get us and lead us back to the home she shares with my brother.

A snack and two glasses of sangria slush shook the dust from the road. It was a late night for everyone, including Toddler Alien, who was enjoying the novelty of being allowed to play with tupperware well past his bedtime.

Because we could not check into the rental until Sunday, we spent Saturday trying to stay cool in the 90˚+ heat. K and went to Office Depot to find clipboards and to Wegman's to buy milk for the house and snacks for the road. We walked out with milk, snacks and four bottles of Folie à Deux Ménage à Trois red wine.

While J napped in the afternoon, K and I took Toddler Alien for his first dip in the pool. Because of the heat, the water felt like it came from a warm tub, but TA did not seem to care. He splashed and giggled and had a great time.

Sunday morning we packed up the car and started the drive south.

An Uncomfortable Moment

I have to make this quick and dirty, as I promised J that I would get some more sleep to mitigate the after affects of the migraine I suffered yesterday. The upside was that I was prepared and had medication ready when the aura started(1), so I was able to enjoy a pain-free day. But I am still wiped out and need the additional sleep.

J's parents and nephew T came today to help J clean up the back yard(2). T is 12 years old, loves spending time with his grandfather and volunteered to tag along and help out.

Toddler Alien adores his grandmother. In his hierarchy of favorite people Grandma is first, Daddy is second, I am third, then there is everyone else.

A little past four we gathered for dinner. Toddler Alien gets anxious when he sees that dinner is forthcoming. We have been working on getting him to remain calm while preparing him meals, but it has been a long, hard journey to turn him from screaming maniac to civilized child(3). Even though he had been snacking on cheddar Goldfish crackers all afternoon, he began to fuss. To quiet him I poured the rest of the crackers from his snack cup onto the tray's surface.

And he promptly and deliberately threw several of them onto the floor while screaming. J's father admonished not to throw food.

And I promptly and deliberately removed the tray, made him get down from the chair, pick up all the crackers he had thrown and walked him to the trash can so he could see me throwing them away. All the while he cried, but he picked them up.

All the while my in-laws, my nephew and my husband watched. J watched tense, ready to spring in an defend me. His parents and our nephew were silent.

The entire time this was occurring, I was incredibly self conscious. I knew that I was holding up dinner. I knew that the easy thing would have been to quietly pick up the crackers and not delay our guests. And I thought, This is really, really hard and embarrassing.

But I did it anyway. After the trip to the garbage can I put Toddler Alien back in his chair and we sat down to a nice meal of cold cuts, egg salad, cold drinks and cold pickles. Toddler Alien ate an egg salad sandwich, had some prosciutto and finished with some dried apples. Without acting up once.

(1) The worst migraines I have are always triggered by me running around in 80+ degree, sunny, humid weather without eating enough.

(2) Four trees down, four to go. I mourned the loss of the crabapple and quietly cringed that we had to cut down a mulberry too, but the ridiculously tall pine trees had to go. As it turned out, one of the trees was infested with stinkbugs to the point that the tree was probably going to come down on its own anyway.

(3) I can't even begin to imagine what prompts this behavior, but it is so otherwise out of the ordinary that even his daycare teachers have commented on it. J's instinct it to put him in the chair and let him scream it out. I'm more likely to try to find something for him to do to “help” me in the kitchen, but it is still difficult.