Langer Loksh

Yes, He is an Assistant Scout Master

I just watched the PBS documentary Raising Cain: Boys in Focus, about the emotional life of boys and about how what we really need to give our boys is permission to have their inner emotional life be the way it is (i.e., violent and hormonal) and not label it as scary or bad. Boys are more active and we have to let them be that way. And we have to give them role models of men being openly loving and caring and respectful, to counteract the macho crap. Dads have to be really engaged with the family, so that boys see that men are defined by their own standards of masculinity--that you can be a "real man" and still be a caring human being.

What I took away from this was OH, so THAT'S why I married Jeff. That's why I must not divorce him over the sock thing or the couch thing or the TV thing. This guy rocks the party when it comes to sensitive manly manliness. He has more patience in his squat pinkie finger than I have in my whole langer loksh body. He can lift his diesel F-250 up off the driveway with one arm yet he's more gentle than I am on even my least psychotic day (which must have been sometime in 2001, because motherhood has rendered me permanently shrill). He could parachute into the Amazon with only a Leatherman and he'd hack his way out in three days, after discovering a lost tribe, recording their lexicography, teaching them to play baseball, and setting up a flu mist clinic. THIS is the guy you want raising your boys--and your girls too. But you can't have him, because he's mine.

The Hustle

Summer's little preschool/day care center is so extra fabulous that everyone for five towns around wants in. We have to submit our schedule requests now, in January, for the school year starting in September. Which means I have to decide now if I want Charlie to go to day care next year. Which means I have to decide if I want to keep working for Jeff's dad's construction company, or, like, get my act together and be a writer like I'm supposed to be.

Freelance writing pretty much sucks. It's like, 90 percent hustle and 10 percent real work. I loved being on staff at a magazine. I could concentrate on getting ideas and reporting and writing, not on begging for assignments. But my magazine got sold and moved to New York. So when Jim's office manager had a conniption fit three years ago and walked out the door without so much as a sticky note goodbye, I happily took on the work. It felt great to use my brain for something other than calculating how many hours it had been since anyone had last sucked on my boobs.

Now of course I have these stylish golden handcuffs. It's so nearby! It's so flexible! But something's missing from my life. This blog has made me itchy for real writing work again.

Even if there was a staff job out there, it'd have to pay about twice what I was making before to even cover the cost of two kids in day care. And I don't want to put my kids in full-time day care anyway. So I guess I have to start hustling for freelance work.

Doot doot doot doot doot do do doot do, doot doot doot doot doot do do doot do...

The Reason I Must Never Leave the House Without the Camera, Part II

I just went for a walk--  ALL...   BY...   MYSELF  --and I got an extra special treat. I was walking in the lovely old cemetery in our neighborhood and saw this hot air balloon (picture taken in the summer when it flew over our back yard) again.

Because I didn't have my camera, I must now exercise my writerly powers of observation and my cramped typing fingers (it is cold out there!). The sky was white. The tree branches were black and coated with fresh white snow. The sun glowed yellow-orange through the branches and up in the sky, the balloon's flame was the same color as the sun. The balloon's colors looked frosted.

It was awesome.

Charlie Pulls Himself Up

Today Charlie used our friend Matthew's Matchbox car ramp to pull himself up to standing for the first time. Go Charlie!

The Perfect Storm of Laundry

Jeff unhooked the washer and dryer so he could tile underneath them. Yes, the kitchen floor tile? That we ordered in July and did not open until December and that's when we noticed it was the wrong color? And then we got the right color two weeks later? That tile.

Despite this huge lead time, I had received no warning that the project was imminent and so was solidly into the ugly pants zone and getting dangerously close to the skirt sector of the closet when I temporarily lost the use of the Kenmore. Tonight, Summer threw up three times and had two pee accidents. And of course, we have a baby. The crusty bibs alone! Tomorrow, since Summer can't go to school because of all that barfing, we'll be spending the day at the laundromat.

This is what it looked like behind the washer and dryer. Some dirty socks, an old pink bunny. And this is the new tile. I love it so much, I don't even mind that I have to wear a skirt tomorrow.

It is Not Crap

The credit card bill came. It made me so nervous that I hid it in my underwear drawer. Then I got brave and showed it to Jeff when he came home. He proclaimed that we would not be giving Christmas presents to anyone who does not believe in Santa Claus next year. Meaning, all of our parents and grandparents and siblings and cousins. "It's just too much crap," he said. Summer piped up, "It is not crap. It is about love and giving." Awwww. And God bless us, every one!

The Reason I Must Never Leave the House Without the Camera

Once you have managed to tear your eyes from my gorgeous, frozen-turkey-aisle thighs, you will see Grandpa Francis (Jeff's grandfather) spontaneously dancing ballet with Summer one evening last September.

Perhaps only Francis's children can fully appreciate the reasons why I was so sorry I did not have my camera with me that night. He would not want to admit it, but at 89, Francis is no longer the same no-nonsense character who inspected his kids' rooms with a white glove on Saturdays. Though he has pinned above his desk, without irony, a picture of the President in the flight suit with the "Mission Accomplished" banner, cracks are developing in his depression-era North Dakota persona. He tells Summer, "I'd do anything you asked, if only I could understand what you are saying!"

Fortunately, Jeff's uncle Tom had his camera and wasn't afeared to use it.

Starting off the New Year Right

Sometime during the past week or two of Non-Stop Holiday Madness, Jeff was watching "A Very Brady Christmas" on TV. (Let's not even talk about what it would be like to be someone who feels there are enough seconds of time in his life that he can afford to spend any of them watching "A Very Brady Christmas.") Passing through the living room, I glimpsed Carol telephoning Jan.

Carol: "I'm planning to surprise your father for our anniversary... with a trip to GREECE!"

Jan: "Greece! That's great! I never did know who he loved more--you, or the Venus di Milo!"

As I don't need to point out to you, because you have a BRAIN, the Venus di Milo is an ITALIAN sculpture on display in a FRENCH museum. This has been bothering me for days.

Wait a minute. I just Googled Venus di Milo to make sure I got the spelling right. This is unbelievable. The Venus di Milo is actually a Greek statue. As in, from Greece.

I now must admit, on the Internet, that Jeff watching "A Very Brady Christmas" was a valuable use of time, because I learned something. Ouch.