So, Life Goes On

 I mean, it does, right? It's been over 10 years since I've written here, and today feels apropos.

I've had such a lovely life. My children are so wonderful, my partner so caring, my family so dear. I've been privileged inasmuch as I've had a healthy upbringing, good childhood, excellent education, and the theoretical possibility that I could do anything. Sitting here licking port wine cheese off of a butter knife seems like such a letdown to my life's promise.

Sure, I've overcome some shit and seen some shit and done some shit. My 10-year-old rescue dog still loves me Best of All Things and lets me hug him more than my children ever allow. I'm still here. More importantly, my oldest is Still. Here. I could have lost him, and I'm blessed not to have. But the struggles never end. 

Today I was watching a video about how to make epi de ble, and instead of admiring the deft hands of the baker, I sobbed to watch his preteen son look at him so earnestly while learning how to imitate his father's movements, with his encouragement and pride.  How did I fail to inspire my children? How have I never taught them anything skillful or useful or fun that left them rapt with attention and a desire to be just like me?

I know I've failed them thousands of ways - the microaggressions of parenting accumulating like papercuts. I don't know that all the good I've done for them will ever outweigh the burden of me, looming over them like the specter of depression that I am. I hope they can forgive me.

I sure would miss my dog...

You can say you understand what it's like to be a parent. You can even think you do. After all, you love your dog JUST LIKE he's your child.

No. The answer is no. NONONO you fucking morons, you don't. I had a dog more beloved to me than anything. I told everyone he was "my little baby" and was indignant to find out people scoffed at that. "It's true!" I said, "there's nothing I wouldn't do for him!" After I had a real child, I wanted to time-travel back to my twenties and smack the shit out of my younger self for being a fucktard - I wouldn't have understood what it meant, since "fucktarded" has only been around since it sprung from vampire Pam's vitriolic mouth last year, but I would have understood that older me meant business, and was a horrific bitch who slapped the rhinestone barettes out of my hair, made fun of my kilt... and then told me that my eyebrow ring really was pretty fucking awesome - back before you could get them at the mall - before disappearing.

You can't fathom it. You may as well describe childbirth pain to a man who'll go "Oh, yeah, it's like passing a stone, I've heard." Don't even talk to him - turn to a mother, nod at your shared experience and agree, based on eye contact only, that men will never understand. Just we do. And that's ok. We have each other.

Now, imagine describing sex to your virgin self:

"It feels really good."
"Like masturbating???"
"Well, sort of, but better."

Virgin-self walks off looking forward to something that feels like really good masturbation. Yeah - you can't get it because you have no frame of reference at that level of experience.

Now go back to your dog. Remember when he was a puppy. Remember that happy, goofy sensation you got playing with him. It feels a lot like love. Now remember how goddamned cute he was when he did something wrong and looked at you like THAT. You could feel your heartstrings pull having to punish him with that adorable wittle face. Now take those emotions, plus the love you feel for the person you want a family with and multiply them by 10 million. Wrap that in your combined DNA  put it in your belly. Have your body make its organs, blood, tissue, limbs, lips, eyes, hair color and wait 9 (seriously more like 10, let's be honest) months to see what he/she looks like. Then imagine what it's like to have all those new organs you made - in your own body - suddenly go live *over there.* Wait a minute. What the shit? That's MY stuff! Everywhere that kid goes, your heart gets pulled along behind him like it's stapled to him.

In our basest form, we're animals with instincts millions of years in the making - instincts that make us do nigh impossible things to protect those little things. Those little things whose own biology taps and exploits every emotion we have to ensure their safety. I've felt what's left of my primordial hackles flex and raise invisible fur down my neck and back, my teeth part and my lips pull back, and felt myself subconsciously puff my chest and rise to full height when I've seen strangers within 10 feet of my kids - readying myself to what? Attack them? Screech like a chimp? Throw feces? I dunno - even though here and now I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're safe over there in the sandbox and that's just another kid's dad coming to lift his kid out, dust her off and put her back in her carriage.

They tell us to put our kids in their cribs and let them "cry it out" so they'll learn to sleep without us. From experience, I know what happens. Your heart pounds, your hands sweat and every molecule of your being propels itself in your child's direction, because this is wrong.  It feels wrong because it IS wrong. Our chimp selves wouldn't allow this. You shouldn't be this far away. Your baby is in danger without you. Call it what you will, but that's evolution fighting our societal urges to separate from our children and give them some independence. We're the only mammal that puts our young someplace else to sleep - because we goad new mothers into thinking that wanting their babies to sleep with them will somehow cause distress later.

Tell me again how your dog is just like your child?

As a parent, this now extends to other kids. You see other children crossing the street and linger to make sure they make it safely. You catch a wayward toddler running from his mom in the supermarket, you hold open doors for people carrying babies. It's what we do, because it's how we're intended to become once we become parents.

Entrusting our kids to someone else is the hugest leap of faith ever, but it has to be done. You can't watch them every second. There's work, there's school, there are playdates and after school activities. During these times, your mind is ticking down an anxious internal clock to the time we can hold our babies again - to the time we can bring all those organs back to our own bodies so they feel close enough again.

That's why this horrible thing that has happened will touch parents everywhere. It will touch others, too, who recognize it as a horrific tragedy, but not the way it will touch parents. The parents of the victims have quite literally had their insides stripped away. All those things that originated in their own bodies and went into making those little kids have been wrenched away from them. You can't live without your organs, which is why parents are never the same after the death of a child. A mother or father may weaken and adapt and limp along on what they have left over, but they can't use their hearts in the same way when their second heart is gone.

I'm angered by the fruitlessness of my tears and overwhelmed by the depth of my sorrow for these strangers. My instinct of protection for my own kids has flipped me into crinos form, rabidly seeking out my children in the schoolyard, senses on red alert; yearning for their closeness; peering over them in tears as they sleep, and hugging them much harder and longer than they want me to.

No. These parents will never forgive themselves. They did nothing wrong and everything right sending their children to school, but they'll forever rewind an unrewindable clock in their brains, wishing they HAD thought his cough was too bad for school and kept him home; wishing they'd been there and somehow stopped it all! - they couldn't have; wishing that something, anything had happened differently that day to undo the unthinkable. They'll fight to stay asleep in dreams their children are in - where they can smell them and feel them and touch them again - and imagine waking to a world where all the calendars are missing the date December 14, 2012. Their lives as they know them are over, and I'll forever mourn for them, along with every other parent in the world.

To the childless: be grateful. Be grateful for not having the burden of knowledge we do. Because to us you're a virgin dreaming about what sex is like, a man imagining what childbirth is like, a dog owner who treats their pet JUST LIKE a baby. Feel a little indignant?  Like you've doubtless heard before, "You'll understand when you're a parent."

NASA addendum (from Cracked piece)

Let me just say that the final Quick Fix was drastically different than the article I submitted...which was way too long, and got heavily rewritten. I'm bummed my favorite jokes didn't make it in, but oh, well - In the end, I get to be on Cracked again and what is that? Fucking AWESOME, that's what.

Here's one of the entries that they didn't end up using in the final piece. I think this is a pretty cool technology:

6) Activate stem cells in bone marrow transplants. Or sterilize nailpolish.

Nanosilver has a bunch of awesome applications. It's is an outer-space disinfectant - since in spacecraft, you can't be spraying Febreze and Lysol around every time a shuttlemate snots into the communal helmet – but even more amazingly, it helps activate stem cells to accelerate healing and cell regeneration in patients. By inhibiting bacteria growth, it allows better cell regeneration after procedures as complicated as bone marrow and reconstructive surgeries. It actually makes progenitor cells from existing stem cells – meaning that fewer controversial cell-harvesting sources like embryos and cord blood are needed. Is that frigging amazing, or what?

But what if you are desperate to make use of this incredible substance and, tragically, don't need a bone marrow or organ transplant? Head right on down to your local manicurist and bawl your eyes out to her about your misfortune. She'll be using the same grody tools she did on the last nail-fungusy client, while she nods sympathetically and pretends to understand English. That's ok, though, those funky, manky clippers and files are now imbued with nanosilver to keep you from inheriting your predecessor's bacteria. Finish with some nanosilvered nailpolish and you've scratched your itch to get in on the latest NASA technology without even having to learn a thing.

New Cracked piece

I have a new piece going up on Cracked.com in a couple days. If they trim any fat from it, I'll post the scraps here.

Craaaaacked

Hi everybody... My shabby little blog has never had so much fun. If you read the article on Cracked, there were two entries that didn't make the cut. Here they are below:

Jacques Cousteau's 2,200-year-old wine

On a 1952 dive, Cousteau and his crew uncovered the wreck of a Greek trading galley dated to 250BC. The galley was headed for Marseilles, packed with wine from the Cyclades and pottery from Rhodes. Cousteau guessed that on the trip's final leg, the ancient sailors got wasted, since some of the bottle seals appeared "tampered with." Then, presumably arguing over which goddess would be the best lay, the crew proceeded to drunk-drive the fucker into the rocks just before reaching port.

Cousteau and his crew recovered some 1,500 amphorae, and already giddy with the idea that they were outnumbered yet not expected to surrender, they decided to pop one to celebrate.

Yeah, it was nasty – but perhaps not quite as grody as… (then the Mastodon juice followed.)

And:

The Salt of the Earth…that might be radioactive

Not many people have eaten something a quarter-billion years old, but those wacky NOVA folks are certainly down. Way down. They traveled 2,000 feet deep into the earth in search of the salt that hosts prehistoric water. Water trapped in the crystalized salt could hold DNA or bacteria older than dinosaurs and plants. Who wants a bite?

In addition to maybe holding 250,000-year-old microbes, this particular salt might even have another secret. Hey, where are we, anyways? They won't tell us. It's an undisclosed government location where they store radioactive waste, 2,000 feet underground.

Scientist Jack Griffith and journalist Ziya Tong had a mini-toast with the ancient mineral, tossed it down and declared that it tastes…just like salt. Just exactly like salt. Still, salt snobs everywhere envy the shit out of them.

Oink

I have eaten nothing but shit today. Literally nothing but shit. I love how I'm talking about something mundane like being a pig when I should be apologizing to you all for not having writen anything for a hundred fucking years.

I've had a hell of a year. I can't wait to tell you everything that's happened, but there are legal ramifications if I do right now. Once this crap's over, though, it'll be a fucking miracle if I don't get sued for libel after all the shit I'm going to write.

In the meantime, I may as well tell you that my ex asked me to come "home." No, seriously. Two-and-a-half years later. We were on Skype with my stepdaughter and my ex. She's the most beautiful girl in the world and I love her, and he - well, he's the father of my two babies.

He told me he hasn't been able to sell the house yet, and he just can't stay there and do it all on his own. He said this all with a sad look on his face, then crumbled into tears and said "come back."

Without hesitating, I said "No. Absolutely not," but I cried too. I cried because he finally said what I'd wanted to hear when I first left. I waited a long time to hear those words from him. And at the same time, I could see the mirage: My smiling stepdaughter, by pretty, manicured back yard out through the plate-glass window. Our little maltese dog, my mouse-catching black cat. Our neat, orderly home where so much pain was inflicted, all white-washed away through the little window on my computer screen. It's like the requisite part of all those fantasy sequences in movies that test the character of the heroes: "It's all right there. Everything you've ever wanted. Just reach out and take it." Harry Potter's Mirror of Erised, Alice and the looking glass, Daenerys in the House of the Undying, etc., etc.

The secret, of course, is to realize it's just a spell, and accepting it at face value will lead to doom. Seeing it as reality renders you insane.

Of course I know the reality. I've lived through the fear and anger, bumps and bruises, and lies and sadness. So I did what anyone would do: cried for half-an-hour in the shower; kissed my children while they slept, then crawled into bed and willed myself to sleep - so by the time I woke up to the smell of coffee in the morning, the spell was broken.

Everything old...

...is new again. How trite and true.

It was with a little tear in my eye that I walked my sons to my very own elementary school where my oldest is starting kindergarten. The very same crossing guard still works there, and she crossed us over with the same sunny disposition and bright smile she had 30+ years ago.

The school looks the same. It smells the same. It sounds the same. (I'll bet it tastes the same too, for the wall-lickers...)

It's kind of funny to think that I've left and come back half-a-dozen times trying to make a "new" life for myself, yet I may just as well have never left, for the way it turned out. I live in the same house - with my mother, for God's sake; taking my kids to the same school; driving to the same stores, etc., etc. Was it all for naught?

Well, I have my kids, for one thing. And I suppose I've grown in ways that I couldn't have, had I stayed in one place. It's a nice life here, in the upper-middle-class suburban bubble. Maybe I couldn't have appreciated it this much without all those laboriously-learned "life lessons" that everyone so stereotypically talks about.

I can't be "one of them," though. That can't happen, ok guys? I mean, I think to do this, to live this life, to take my kids to soccer practice and bake pies - I am going to need to make up a fantasy in my head that I am a pod, sent here to observe the suburban mother in her natural habitat - among hydrangea, speed-walkers and toy-breed dogs; having deep-conditioning treatments, taking yoga and whining to therapists about how stressful life is. That's it. From now on, I am a pod-observer.

Of course, I'll have to infiltrate their society and act like one of them. I'm going to start right now - right this second - by jumping into the SUV to get a tall, skinny, non-fat, half-caf latte on the way to my bikini wax. Waxing hurts so much, though. Don't you feel sorry for me? I mean, isn't life HARD??

I got a job

Really. I did. A good one.

AND here's the best part - it's for the parent company of the company I worked at in Holland. It all makes sense. It comes full circle. The universe puts all the shit back together that got pulled apart, and things happen for a reason.

All those days I rode my bike in the freezing rain and snow to take my kids to two different schools before taking a bus to the city, then a tram across town, worked, went BACK on the tram, a bus, the bike, picked up the kids, made dinner, bathed the boys and got them in their pajamas all before their asshole father came home to shit all over me, all the times I wondered "Why the fuck am I putting myself through this?" - well, now it makes sense. Those long, long days and short-ass, exhausting nights had a purpose.

I didn't understand. Why? WHY did I get the job of my dreams only weeks before having to leave it behind? The one thing I kept coming back to was "If I leave, I lose this job forever." I probably let that keep me there longer than it should have.

My hands were shaking when I wrote an email to my old boss to tell her I'd applied for a contract with the parent company. The hiring manager called to tell me he'd gotten an internal reference from her about me. I looked on linkedin and found that he was a 2nd-degree contact through my old boss.

I can almost cry thinking about all of the elements, hardships and experiences that dovetailed to create this opportunity for me. (I've only been rejected from about 15 other similar jobs in the meantime.)

Thank you, everyone and everything. Thank you blog, and Amsterdam, and coffeeshop, and asshole ex, and amazing former coworkers. Thank you bakfiets, babysitters, neighbors, daycares and friends. I don't know why you all did what you did when you did it, but you helped this happen - and helped me feel like I matter, and like things make sense even when everything feels fucked up beyond recognition and like nothing can ever be good again.

I'm not my job, or my address; my body, my haircolor, my anxiety, my health problems, my maternal and filial failings. But having those things, knowing what they are and making peace with them makes me feel like I can settle into my life. I HAVE a job. I live HERE. My body is scarred and imperfect, but strong; my hair is dyed, but pretty; I get scared more than I should, and I deal with it; I get sick from being scared and I get well again; I'm not the best mother or child I could be, but I'm working on it.

Having a job is another piece of my whole fucked-up little human-being puzzle. I'll be able to take better care of myself and my kids now and not have to lean on everyone all the time. That's niet niks. I want to be strong again, and get some independence back.

(Oh, and because it's in America...this job pays about three times as much as my old one. Suck it, Holland.)

Maybe it's just a coincidence

In February of last year, I wrote this post.

Why is that funny? Well, in the last line of questioning, I wrote: "How much longer until I have a nervous breakdown? (10...9...8...)"

I'd like to point out that it was neither 10, nor 9, nor 8 months later, but 7. I was THIS fucking close....

Pat, your Magic 8 Ball was just as good as any other predictor, as predicted. You should've shaken it again. It's going to keep me up at night thinking about what its next swam-ic answer would have been.

A little impressed with its prophetic answer to number 4, too. And if we wait a little longer, 5 will become correct. That's it. I'm getting me one of them things....Never mind...it totally crapped out on 11. Three questions WERE too many. Or maybe it too will become correct. See?! I knew this future prediction crap was for real.

Holland STILL sucks?!

You know - I've been writing (or NOT writing) this blog for a couple (3?) years now, and - more amazing than the fact that people actually read it - is the way people get here.

I come up like #3 or #4 in searches for "Holland Sucks" and "Amsterdam Sucks." For all the hits I get from those searches, I really feel disloyal to those people. I should write MUCH MORE about the various forms of Dutch suckage, but basically, I'm just too darn busy bitching about my own life. Ahhhh. The nutshell of Americanhood. "I hear you, but how does that relate to ME?"

And why exactly are people searching for "Holland Sucks"? That's really more of a statement, isn't it? I mean, wouldn't "Does Holland Suck?" or "Holland and the ways it sucks" be more appropriate and informative?

I don't search about things I already know. If I did, what would my list look like....?

"My ex is an asshole" (see previous post)
"Water is a tasty and healthy drink"
"It snows a lot here"
"Trees: tall, green, oxygen-giving"
"Ingrown toenails should be avoided"
"The usage of 'you and I' versus 'you and me'"

(OK, I admit, that last one is valid for many people. Perhaps not for you and me. Why don't you and I go look it up, just for fun and information. It might do you and me some good to know when to use "you and I" when we're talking to ourselves and others. But I digress. Then again, digression is kinda my thing. Oh dear. I have written myself into a little circle here, haven't I?)

In any event - that search will either bring you here or here. Neither scintillating.

So - to the "suck" people: What information are you looking for? 'Cause I got a whole bag of suck right here with your name on it - just tell me which flavor you want. I am extremely versatile in the bitching department. Some people find it my winningest quality (you poor bastard:)). But I suspect y'all are just looking for voetbal scores or landse cup info. Nietwaar?

Me, me, me... Enough about me, let's talk more about you. How do you like my blog?

This just in...

So, one year later, I get email from my ex. Not just any email - a response to the email I sent him just over ONE YEAR AGO asking him to please work it out with me so we could be a family. One of those heart-rending, self-prostrating, remember-how-great-it-was, whatever-it-takes kind of emails.

The response that took him a year to write said "I miss u 2." I had looked at my blackberry while I was half asleep and saw this message on it, so I kind of befuddledly replied "A year later? Are you kidding me?"

Now, what could have provoked this? I'd say "maybe he was stoned," but that is sort of his natural state. Maybe he WASN'T stoned. Maybe his joint-rolling hand was crushed in some kind of industrial accident, forcing him to take a 20-minute dope break before learning to roll with his feet. That could have sobered him up long enough to write four half-words.

Maybe he means the band.

Maybe he made a New Year's resolution to FINALLY plough through that overstuffed inbox and answer everyone he owes an email.

Maybe he finally lost a road rage fist fight and the non-retard lobe of his brain got knocked (partially) back into place, leaving him retroactively sorry, but only semi-literate.

Maybe he's just been REALLY busy.

Maybe he ran out of ironed shirts and figures four words might be enough to get me back so he doesn't have to send them out.

Maybe he figures I might remember his birthday is coming up and buy him a present! Awww. And after not sending any Christmas presents to the kids....

Well, whatever the reason was, if he writes me again, I'll just be needing the two words.

There will be turkey. Oh yes, there will be turkey

I finally am getting my Thanksgiving. Fina-fucking-ly. I have waited six years for this. It better be the best friggin' meal I've ever had.

We have a big family, and it used to be in years past, that we'd ALL go to one house, pig out, and let the kids run riot while the parents fell asleep in front of the football game.

Last year my mother had it here at her house. They always used to call on Thanksgiving day and pass the phone around to any cousin, aunt or friend who wanted to say hi. Every year I'd fight back homesickness tears, telling everyone how great it was going, how well the kids were and what we were doing for the holiday (which in Holland is called "Thursday").

Last year hearing all the familiar voices echoing off the walls of my own house with the dogs barking and kids laughing, I had to bite my mouth to keep the tears from heaving out. I'd just lost my job at the coffeeshop because of my ex's criminal record (yes, the cops actually fucking collaborated with city hall to have me fired), and had just started unravelling the truth about my ex's "friend." (Again, for the record and those of you keeping track - shorter, fatter, uglier, and older than I am; married to a cripple with whom she had three adult kids. That's nice.)

When I've come to visit in recent years, my family has usually been nice enough to indulge me by making a Thanksgiving-style meal for me, since there is something fucking wrong with turkeys in Holland. I think they are more like game birds - very tough, dark-meated and chicken-sized. You have to order "American-style" turkeys specially, and they cost a fortune. It would have been nice to have one, maybe one year, but my ex couldn;t seem to spare the dope money.

So I'm MAKING my mother have Thanksgiving here this year. Not everyone can come, but I'm sure as shit getting my fucking turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce on this side of the ocean this year.

You spin me right round...

I thought I'd try a spin class for some exercise since I miss biking so much, and since I'm fighting the constant battle of not turning into an evil American twin version of myself...fat and so lazy that I'll watch the Jersey Shore with my mouth hanging open rather than get off my ass to find the remote control.

I'm still pretty well conditioned from cycling, so I figured it would be hard, but nothing too awful. Fuck, man, did I have my ass handed to me? Yes, I did.

Spin class scoffed at my Dutch biking experience. (OK, maybe I DID bike with a joint hanging out of my mouth, and occasionally with an open umbrella in one hand, but I'd like to think that coordination counts for something. I've even seen people in Holland bike while reading the newspaper. Young couples bike holding hands. Dorks.)

Here are a couple of things I realized:

-There are no hills in Holland, and "creating" a hill by turning up the bike tension is just fucking stupid.
-There is no reason to EVER bike at speeds that high (I mean, would I be getting chased by something? I'd let the fucker catch me, if biking like that were the only alternative.)
-Sitting UP on a bike is much more comfortable than hunching over one.
-When you stop pedaling on a bike in real life, you coast. Ain't no coasting in spin class. Stop pedaling and your feet fall out of the foot straps and you look like a douche.

I thought I was going to barf about 10 minutes in. To be fair, I DID pedal the entire class without cheating by turning down the bike tension, but I could NOT bounce up and down and stand and sit in the trained-seal way everyone else did. The teacher said I did "awesome" for my first class, which I'd like to think she meant, but wow, I was shocked by how hard it was.

I was so happy when it was over, and I felt that great "having-exercised" high. The trick then became not going into Dunkin' Donuts next door for a celebratory coffee roll. Sigh.

...And another thing!!

I totally had forgotten about road rage. Not other people's, my own.

My ex used to take every opportunity to screech to a halt and bounce out of his car in traffic. Sometimes he'd kick in a door, but his signature move was reaching in through the driver's window, pulling the guy out by his collar, then punching him in the face. Ah, Amsterdam. At least people don't tend to carry guns as often there.

Today, by the Boston Museum of Science - a shit traffic location any way you slice it - I got totally cut off by a woman determined to hit my car if I didn't let her into the line of traffic.

First, let me tell you about my truck. (And it IS a truck. Not some whiny little top-heavy SUV built on a car chassis.) My father bought this truck in 2000, I think, shortly before he died. It was a beautiful, top-of-the-line, all-the-options model. Twelve years ago. Now it's a hulking, rusted monster with giant bumpers, a huge engine, and completely inadequate brakes that we just don't have the heart to say goodbye to.

It screams "I don't care. Stay the fuck away - I have no insurance, no money and I'll crush your tiny, shiny piece of Asian crap into origami and use it as a hood ornament."

And it's WAY bigger than a garden variety SUV. As my friend at work said "It's just so honkin'."

So you'd really have to be a special kind of moron to jump in front of this thing.

This dumb broad had her kids in the car (which I didn't immediately realize, or I would have had a little more self-control. I'd like to think so anyways...)

Oh my God. I honestly didn't know I could swear like that. It was like an out-of-body experience and totally surreal. She had her window down - like most people - and halfheartedly waved out the window to me, so I know she heard the onslaught. I think I called her stupid. And maybe worse. I'm might have used the c-word, and I KNOW I used the f-word. Then I was really cute and said something like "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't realize you had your kids with you! I'd fucking hate to see how you drive WITHOUT them in the car..!"

I swear in front of my kids. I used to try not to, but I've developed Tourette's Syndrome since becoming a parent. I'm a firm believer that kids should hear swears once in awhile in order to understand when their use is appropriate, and learn not to use them inappropriately. At least I tell myself that to justify my potty mouth.

You see kiddies...It's ok for grown-ups to use the f-word, because we're important and we know more than you do. And sophisticated, mature adults sometimes call each other names in traffic, because it's the calm, mature and level-headed thing to do. And sometimes your dumb, fat, ugly f*cking c*nt mother deserves it for endangering your little ugly bastard lives.

Class dismissed.

Funeral attendance etiquette for retards

Something awful has happened. The garage where I work is owned by a family - Father, son and daughter. Our families are very close and I am therefore subbing for the daughter while she is on maternity leave. The son (who was also the head mechanic, and a sweet young man) died this week in a motorcycle accident.

There aren't words to describe the depth of the tragedy and its impact on, well EVERYTHING relating to the lives involved, not to mention the future of the business.

As I made dozens of phone calls with the sad news, and called customers with cars still at the shop, I felt like compiling a hit list of assholes with big fat stupid mouths who shouldn't be breathing the same air as the wonderful people I work for.

Me: "I'm sorry we couldn't complete the additional work you requested, but your brakes are finished and your car is ready for pickup"

Him: "You really didn't fix the door?"

Me: "No sir. Yours was the last car (the son) worked on on Friday (the day he died) and he just didn't get to it."

Him: "I thought he said it was a quick fix that would only take a minute."

Me: PAUSE (Really? Am I ACTUALLY having this conversation?) "That may well be, but he just didn't get to it." (You know. Before he DIED.)

Him: "Well, are you going to be getting a NEW mechanic?"

Me: PAUSE. PAUSE. PAUSE. (Stay professional. This is their business. Be respectful for them.) "COME PICK UP YOUR CAR" *Click*

I'll couch this by saying that MOST people were extremely sorry, understanding and sympathetic. (One guy whose appointment I canceled said sheepishly "Geez, that sure puts my stupid air-conditioning problem in perspective") But they sure make the jerks stand out like sore, retarded asshole thumbs.

And the details. The pushing and pressing for details. "What happened? HOW did it happen?"

Why? Why, oh why? Does it matter what happened (aside from - perhaps - the concern that no one else was injured)? A 25-year-old kid has died. A friend of mine. The part owner of the business, son of the dear old man beloved to everyone who meets him. Brother of the sweet, beautiful girl who runs the shop. IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Here's a question asked to me repeatedly at the funeral home: "Why is the casket closed?"

Why the fuck do you think it is, you insensitive prick?

One person started to speculate about the circumstances of the death and just how that would affect the head, face and body of this kind, hard-working kid. And not subtly. I saw my other coworker's nostrils flare at this comment and I said to the man quickly "Stop talking. Right now."

At the very least, I hope that fielding the questions of these moronic douchebags spared the family from having to hear and answer them.

I'm not sure when the shop will open again, or even IF it will. I don't know if my boss can face working next to his son's empty garage bay every day, or if his daughter will be able to go back to work in the same place where she and her brother grew up together working on cars.

But I know one thing: I SURE AM SORRY we didn't get to fix that door for you. Prick.

Limping along. Sometimes skipping.

So I'm still here. In Boston, at my childhood home with my two children and my mother(God help me). I am not as horrifically unhappy as I was when I first arrived.

I'm working at a temporary job, getting my kids up and running in daycare, and trying to find something more permanent to do. I am like a weird little oddity at work. All the customers want to know who I am, why I am working instead of the usual girl, and once I start answering questions, things just get weirder and weirder.

No, I'm not a member of the family (like everyone else there). Yes. I'm a friend of the family. No, I'm not here permanently. Well, I'm an editor. Yes, still looking for something in my field. Where was I working before? Um. Holland. Well, it's kind of complicated. Yes, I am living with my family just down the road. No, I left the bastard in Holland. Yes, I speak Dutch. I agree, it IS a fucked-up language. Yes, I speak Italian too (like everyone else there). And Spanish. Yes, I probably should get a job using my language skills. If you have one to offer me, get to it, otherwise get the fuck away from my desk.

I should pretend I'm a deaf-mute.

Random people keep moving into my mother's house.

I used to miss American television, now I can't fucking stand being forced to watch things like "Real Housewives" and cooking competitions. It is a whole shitload of inane bullshit.

I'm still a bit lonely, and imposing myself on friends and family way too often. I hope I'm not that annoying-but-nice friend you feel bad for but still wish would go away.

Yesterday I bought 5 pair of underwear at Victoria's Secret for $25 and got a free pair of flipflops. God Bless America.

Marathon/Birthday

Well, I'm going to avoid the current unpleasantness of my social life right now, and just talk about my sons.

Marathon day was awesome. The runners come right down our street, so we're forced to have a party every year, whether we like it or not. The kids had a blast. Not my kids. The relatives' kids and random people's kids.

My little one was sleeping. It was the day before his second birthday, and we were going to have a cake to celebrate, but he slept right through it.

My big one managed to loosen up and have some fun, despite other people wanting to use his toys. There were many tears, followed by locking up his prized go-cart in the garage, so no one could enjoy it.

Being Dutch, he felt compelled to pick up the runners' cups when they dropped them. Not ALL of them, just the ones HE had personally handed out. Very responsible. God, I love the little kid. He misses his dad, though. I can't blame him. I miss Holland too.

On my son's second birthday, I cried all day. I was so sad about the loss of our lives in Holland, and the traditions we had started to make there, that I felt like I couldn't catch my breath. I was crushingly sad all day - a day only made bearable by the efforts of my friend, who took us all to the beach, and did her best to make us all feel a little less dejected.

When we walked to the water's edge to wade and collect some shells, I got that freaky, weird, out-of-body feeling thinking about the water reaching all the way back to our beaches in Holland where we spent so much time together pretending to be a happy family.

Why the fuck do the right decisions always hurt so much?

A rare flash of optimism

Things are looking up. Really.

I have a new part time job, starting on the 26th. I found daycare for the kids. My friends are all happy to see me. Guys unabashedly check me out in this country, which I love (Dutch guys - I swear - don't bother to look at girls).

People love my kids. I mean it. Friends keep saying things like "Hey, let's take the kids camping/fishing/hiking/to the museum/aquarium/fire station/playground." It's like everyone I know has been looking for an excuse to do kid stuff and just needs a kid or two as a beard at the Children's Museum or park. I don't recall people calling me up to drag me around when I was single with no kids. It's weird. But nice.

OK - I'm going to bed early. Long day of friend-induced kid activities tomorrow, so I need to rest up.

They're not kidding

I've been looking around at daycare places near my home in lovely suburban Boston, and I am f-ing shocked.

Compared to Holland, these places look like rundown third-world orphanages. Even the better ones seem grubby and picked-over, poorly maintained and depressing. And then there is the pricetag...

I suppose that it isn't really much more expensive than in Holland, though the facilities are horrifically lacking in comparison. The major difference is that the governmental childcare reimbursement pays a huge portion of whatever a family's daycare costs are. Even with two incomes, we were reimbursed for about 75% of our costs - and that is immediately, not at the end of the year. The government actually pays the childcare center every month, and you just pay your own portion alongside that.

To send both boys to a preschool/daycare here for three days a week - HALF days, mind you - will cost more than my monthly salary in Holland. More than I made IN A MONTH.

I suppose the fact that salaries here are higher would compensate for it, but I don't have a job yet. Oops.

On the upside, grocery shopping is now taking me less than two hours a trip. So, I've got that going for me.

Coca-Cola, Wonderbra

So, we're living in America.

I can't stop shopping like I'm in Holland. My brother-in-law asked me today "Why don't you get more stuff at the supermarket, like five gallons of milk instead of one?"

The answer is that I can't pull the trigger. I buy one box of kleenex, one pack of toilet paper, one half-gallon of orange juice, a pound of coldcuts, etc., etc.

The result is that everyone is running around going "Where's the rest of the kleenex?" How can we be out of turkey?" "Who drank all the orange juice?"

I just can't get used to the idea that I am going to load it all into the SUV (well, I'M not going to load it...it gets sent underground via a conveyor belt to a drive-thru where they load your car while you sit behind the wheel) instead of carrying a bag in each hand, or loading the bakfiets with as much food as will fit beside two children.

Every time I go to the supermarket it takes me like 2 hours. I can't get used to it again. EVERYTHING I need, and tons of stuff I don't in one convenient location. Informative staff. Courteous cashiers. I walk around like a deer in the headlights with glazed-over eyes mindlessly filling a shopping cart big enough for my whole family to sit in.

I guess I just question the wisdom of buying jumbo-size crap. That's how we all get the jumbo-size asses.

Speaking of that - I have a friend (yes, you) fixing a couple of old-school English 3-speeds for me. I am so psyched. I can't wait. Now if ONLY I could get the bakfiets here...Well, I'm working on that.