Workin' for a Living... Room

Becoming a new homeowner is kind of like becoming a new parent.

When you become a parent, you instantly take on dozens of other new jobs that you didn't prepare for. And that, sadly, you will not be paid for. You'll be a:

Nurse.

Chauffeur.

Nutritionist.

Teacher.

Child Psychologist.

Similarly, when you get your first house, you get a bunch of new jobs. A bunch of new, labor-intensive, Home Depot stock-raising, unpaid jobs, like:

Landscaper.

Plumber.

Spa cleaner. (If you're lucky? I think?)

Painter.

Carpenter.

Luckily for me, Jeremy got stuck with most of those jobs. Although I did punch the clock as Painter for a little while there. And we called in the big guns (aka Grandpa) for the difficult job of Electrician. I mostly got the awesomely easy job of Box Un-taper. And Children's Interior Designer. And Kitchen Organizer. Not too bad, as a whole. Guess I'll go update my resume now. Or not.
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Dear Monday

Dear Monday, April 19, 2001:

You totally sucked.

You started out kind of exciting, with a trip to the escrow office to sign loan papers. Then, someone popped in and said, "Oh, guess what? You're closing today! And also, your loan lock expires at 5pm so you better get all your money into escrow in... say... now? kthxbye!"

And then the shizzle totally hit the fizzle.

I spent over two hours trying to get Bank of America to wire my money into my escrow account. (On a related note: Dear BofA, You also totally suck.) Two. Hours. Three times through the automated phone system. Four customer service reps. One massive pile of suckitude.

Jeremy spent what morphed into a day and a half trying to get another portion of the money wired and in the end felt as though he'd been put through Count Rugen's Machine. "I've just sucked one year of your life away. I might one day go as high as five but I really don't know what that would do to you."

Once it was finally past 5pm and there was nothing more we could do involving financial transactions, I thought you might stop sucking a little bit.

But no.

Then you handed me a four-year-old with a raging earache. An earache so painful that it was impervious to Tylenol, mother-cuddling, and Barney DVDs. And of course, as Chelsea writhed and howled in my arms, Savannah voiced her protest as only a two-year-old can: loudly.

Monday, you are already a sucky day in general. What are your redeeming qualities, exactly? (Psssst: You don't have any.)

So what business do you have adding extreme financial anxiety and sick children to your repertoire?

None, Monday. You have none.

I'm giving you six days to clean up your act, motherflipper.

No love,
Heidi
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Driving Miss Fussy

It's almost sundown. I'm driving along, westbound, Savannah in the backseat.

The sun is right in our eyes.

She whines: "No 'un! No 'un! No 'un!!!"

I say, mostly calmly: "Close your eyes."

Her, whinier: "No 'un! Nooooo 'unnnnnnn!!!"

Me, yellier: "Turn your head!"

Her, yellier to match: "NO 'UN!"

Me, extra yelly: "Hold up a book in front of your face!"

Her, super yelly: "NOOOOOO 'UNNNNNN!"

On and on and on.

We come to a stop light. The sun is blocked by a tree. I am ready for relief from the yelling.

Her: "Where 'un? Where 'un go? Where 'un?! WHERE 'UN GO!?"

Me, pointing: "It's behind that tree."

Her, whiny: "Where? Where 'un? Where 'un go?"

Me, driving again: "There it is."

Her, the rest of the drive home: "No 'un! ... Where 'un go? ... No 'un! ... Where 'un go? NO 'UN! WHERE 'UN GO?!!!" She whines it, cries it, yells it, tries out a gravelly-devil voice version of it. She even works on the "s" sound, "No zhun! Where jun go?"

I give up talking.

We turn the into our complex. She finally stops whining. Her eyes go wide.

Her, smiling: "BUNNY! I see it! Bunny hopping. Hopping! Hopping everywhere!"

She bounces her two chubby little fingers in the air: "Hopping! Hopping!"

Then just one finger: "One bunny. I see it. Hop away. Hopping everywhere!"

Sun? What sun?
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Warning: This Post Contains Graphic and Disturbing References to Poop. For Parental Audiences Only.

Picture this: Two cute little sisters, sitting in the tub, innocently playing with their bath toys.

Parents both in the bathroom with them, using the time to review home inspection report on the house they are trying to buy.

Older child: "Daddy, what's this?" And hands him a small, brown lump.

Mother: OH MY GOD IS THAT POOP!???!!!?!?!?!?!!!

Chaos ensues.
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I know, I know. I should count myself lucky. This is our first (and hopefully last? knock on wood/fingers crossed!) poop in the tub. And it could have been much, much worse.

At least it wasn't hot-mustard-explosion newborn poop? Right?

It was "I am two years old and hell no I don't eat any fruits or vegetables except maybe bananas if you're lucky, so I pop out mostly rabbit pellets" poop. (TMI? Sorry about that. Just keepin' it real.)

At least we have two bathrooms (for now). So we had an alternate place to wash off the poop-water covered children.

And at least I wasn't home alone. (Now I know that I wasn't just lazy, I was a genius to never give them baths when I am home alone.)

So there's that.

No photos this time. You're welcome.
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Savannese 101

A few translations, if you ever happen to be baby-sitting my youngest child:

"Webbiss" = breakfast

"Oohbiss" = goldfish (crackers)

"Eye-belly" = library

"Oy" = Chelsea (I know, this one is nuts. How you get to "Oy" from "Chelsea" is a mystery.)

"Nanna" = Savannah

"Ooh-lee-nana" = Juliana (my mom's name)

"Mamma" = Llama (she's still into them)

"My" = I (as in "MY DO DAT!")

And here's a picture of the little precious-kins on her birthday. Just because.


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Recruit

I have joined the army.

Not THE army. Not even any actual army.

I've joined... the Zumba Army.

I have become one of the hordes of women who stand in line at my local Y on Saturday morning, grasping a tiny, numbered ticket which allows me passage into a massive gym. When the doors open, we all race in, eager to claim a spot, each of which is marked with a red star.

Once the doors close, no one else is allowed inside. The room is packed to capacity. Late-comers can only peek through the tiny windows high on the gym doors, listen to the lame apologies from the employee guarding the door, and hope to arrive earlier next week. I imagine that they eventually wander off to the weight room, where they run on the treadmill sadly, in silence.

Meanwhile, the Zumba Army warms up. Our instructor stands in front, on a raised platform. She cranks up the music and starts to dance.

Seventy women follow her lead. Our hips don't lie. We're livin' la vida loca. We'll spin your head right round (when you go down, when you go down, down).

We pound the gym floor: stomp, stomp, stomp. Our hands go numb: clap, clap, clap. We hoot and holler so loud that passers-by stop to see what's going on.

We wiggle, shake, and shimmy.

We are the sweatiest, sexiest army ever.

C'mon, you know you want to join. TEN-HUT!
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My First Hip Hop Show

I thought that I had gotten Jeremy the best Christmas gift. He likes activity gifts as opposed to stuff gifts and he likes the band Sublime. I got him concert tickets to see a Sublime tribute band at the House of Blues. (Sadly, the lead singer of Sublime is dead, so a tribute band is the only way to see them now.)

I was wrong.

Jeremy's mom outdid me. She got him tickets to see Del tha Funkee Homosapien at the Belly Up. Damn.

You've never heard of Del? Of course you haven't. Think back to that old Gorillaz song: "I'm happy, feelin' glad/I got sunshine in a bag/I'm useless but not for long/The future is comin' on." He doesn't sing that part. He's the rapper who sings the rest of the song.

I thought for sure Jeremy would invite one of his guy friends, who would appreciate a hip hop show. But somehow none of them were available and at the last minute, I was in.

We were there when the doors were set to open; the show was general admission and we wanted to get a decent spot, preferably a with a seat. Once inside we watched a couple of dudes prepping for the show.

The first was a young guy, in baggy pants and a bright red oversized shirt. He fiddled around with the equipment and the mics till he was satisfied. The other guy looked like a heavier, younger, blacker version of Mr. Rogers. Buttoned-up green cardigan over tight black jeans. He did his prep and hid again backstage.

Next thing we know, the younger guy comes out on a skateboard. And starts skating around the floor. In front of the stage, there's a big open area which is usually full of fans, but it was still empty. So he used it as his own personal skate park. He even set up a chair to olly over.

Should I have been impressed?

All I kept thinking was: If you're ready to go, why don't you start the show already? Instead of killing time on your skateboard?

FINALLY, the show began. Our young skateboarder was the opening act. He called himself Bukue One. (Pronounced "BooKoo" like a mispronunciation of beaucoup. Wha-huh?)

He did his set and mostly I remember it was really loud. He had his own "DJ" in the back. I put that in quotes because his "DJ" was a nicely dressed young woman, who looked like an employee of the club. But she stood on a raised platform behind him, wearing ginormous headphones, sort of bobbing along to the beat, in front of a table with a bunch of equipment on it.

Now here's the funny part. Despite his "DJ" in the back, Bukue controlled the show from what appeared to be an iPod in his pocket. He would turn the backing tracks on and off. Occasionally, to make her look like she had some purpose, he would tell her "Turn it up" and she would slightly nudge one of the control dials. It was ridiculous.

Ding! Round 2.

Out comes Mr. Rogers. No phony "DJ" for this guy. He's got his own separate equipment off to the side and he does it all himself.

First song: He raps, furiously fast, to Mozart's Rondo alla Turca (listen to a snippet here if you, like me, are not a classical music geek).

It. Was. Glorious.

I looked at Jeremy with my eyes bugging out of my head and yelled, "I think this is my new favorite guy!"

Oh, also? My new favorite guy's name? Busdriver. How rad is that?

So I'm salivating over the Busdriver, and he's the craziest rapper ever. He stands in one spot, and repeatedly bows, bending at the waist and popping back up again, while he's rapping. One hand holding the mic, the other wildly gesticulating to match his feverishly fast rapping.

But every song is the same. Furious, loud, unintelligible rapping. Accompanied by nonstop bowing and gesturing. And poof! The novelty was gone. And so was the incongruous classical music which had made it all so bizarre and fun. Oh well.

Busdriver's finally out. And we're waiting, waiting, waiting for Del.

He finally comes out to start his set at maybe 11:30pm? I was beyond tired at this point and not really able to care much about poor (rich) Del.

I'd heard his music before, of course, but hadn't seen him. I pictured him as tall, lanky, unusual looking, with offbeat clothes.

He looked like a straight-up gangsta. And he was Seacrest-size extra-small.

The thug look was more surprising than his height (or lack of it, badda bing!) because his music is decidedly non-gangsta. But what do I know?

He wore a dark track suit with big ol' tennis shoes. Covered with a hoodie AND a leather jacket. with the requisite baseball cap, pulled low. He had a matching little hype-man who followed him around. And guess who Del's DJ was? Why, none other than Bukue One! Hello again, Mr. Skateboarder.

Del's set was the shortest of the three, which was odd and maybe disappointing to the super fans, but not to me, I was ready for my beddie.

White girl OUT!
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