Diary of a SubUrban Housewife

Happy Mother’s Day to all my fellow mothers out there.

In keeping with tradition around here, I opened my gift from Chuck at 12:01 last night. Well done honey! (In fact, I opened it live on our podcast, so go and have a listen.)

But probably the best part of Mother’s Day for me, besides pressure washing my backyard, was that I got breakfast in bed. Zoe woke up at 8:00 and scampered into the kitchen to make me pink pancakes (regular pancakes with food coloring, but we’re all about exotic here) all by herself.

The thing is, I didn’t wake up until 10:15. But at 10:20 she came in, with a beautiful tray with ice cold orange juice, and a plate piled high with ice cold pancakes.

They were the best damned pancakes I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.

Bon Bini from Curacao (and if we weren’t using this hateful upgrade to WordPress I’d know how to put a lovely little cedilla under that second “c” the way Chuck can, but know that I know it’s supposed to be there).

Vacationing is something I do best. But my idea of the ideal vacation involves white sand and a comfy lounge chair, juicy novels, and being waited on by cute boys bearing beverages of the frosty and tropical variety. In the distance–but not too far away–will be clear blue tropical seas that I can dunk in when I get a bit too toasty.

So imagine Chuck’s surprise when I somewhat readily agreed to do a discover SCUBA dive  yesterday. Chuck sort of wants me to love SCUBA as much as he does. (Only sort of because he knows that if I do become a diver he will become my sherpa. He knows there are several things I do not do, and schlep heavy things is high on that list of things I do not do.)

Intrepidly we headed out yesterday morning with the Dive Bus to their dive hut for my trial dive.

Chuck took off for a shore dive and Mark (the owner) spent about an hour with me and Zoe going over stuff–SCUBA stuff. He was great. He very nearly put me at ease.

We made our way out into the bay. Zoe was ready to start diving despite only having had an hour of classroom training and no actual practical in-the-water experience (outside of a swimming pool).

Me, however, not so much.

I tried. I really did. Mark tried. He really did. Zoe tried even. And that just pissed me off because here she was, swimming around like she had freakin gills and I couldn’t submerge for more than three minutes without having an anxiety attack.

I know this will come as something of a shock to some of you, but I’m a bit of a control freak. And you know what? You can’t actually control the ocean.

So this time the ocean won.  Maybe next time I will.

Because it’s a day that starts with the letter “S”, Katie is here. The usual regimen was followed–TV watching, giggling, jumping on the trampoline, and bike riding.

This afternoon the two of them absolutely begged me to take them to In-N-Out for lunch. Being the mean mom that I am I said no. But then in a maneuver designed to show me off as extremely magnanimous, I agreed to take them. In exchange for them vacuuming the living room. Naturally they thought I was joking and agreed to the deal immediately.

Well, we got home from In-N-Out about 30 minutes ago. About 25 minutes ago I reminded them that they needed to vacuum. Much hemming and hawing about chores and the shock and horror in discovering that I was serious about the vacuuming ensued. But I did not relent.

It was all going so well until I heard the kind of noise one should not hear when operating a vacuum, immediately followed by Zoe screaming, “Oh My God! Katie! Turn it off!!!!!”. Being a natural at this whole parenting thing, and goddess of housekeeping I knew that this was not good. I immediately ran in there to discover that somehow they had half vacuumed up one of Zoe’s Chuck Taylor’s.

Said shoe was finally extricated from the vacuum and cleaning resumed.

Now, Zoe’s sneaker is dust free, and so is my living room carpet.

It seems over the last year we have had some climate control issues.

Recall the spider in the heater incident of earlier this winter?

While that sucked, truth is, I’d rather be too cold than too hot. When you’re too cold you can always throw another blankie on, but when you’re too hot…man that sucks.

And I’m here to tell you it’s been hot here in LALA land. Temps were in the triple digits every single day last week, and into the weekend. We’ve seen some relief the last couple of days if you call high 90′s relief.

Anyway… It’s been really hot here. So our central a/c has been working hard over the last week. I will point out that we are responsible about the thermostat, because while I hate to be hot, I’d hate to turn over every single penny of my hard-earned salary to the Department of Water and Power to pay for the electricity that we would consume using the a/c 24/4.

So the thermostat is on a timer and is at about 75-77 when we’re home, and at about 85 during the day — we don’t want the house to heat up too much and suffocate the pets, but no sense in running it pointlessly.

But Sunday evening, when we’re all home, getting ready for a new week, is not luxury a/c time. That’s prime usage time.

And when the fan thingie on the a/c started to make funny noises at 9:00 Sunday night I was not pleased.

(On top of this new fan noise, we’ve had an ongoing issue with the a/c where every time it turns off you can hear water rushing around. It’s gotten better since we cleared out the line, but you can still hear it. I wondered if the water rushing noise issue had something to do with the fan thingie? But…one never knows.)

So I did the only thing I know how to do when it comes to home a/c repair: I turned off the a/c and changed the filter.

I came back in and turned the a/c on. It started right up this time with no weird fan noises. Ta da. I was waiting for the angel music to start.

Well, just as the harpists were warming up, Zoe got out of bed to tell me and Chuck that the a/c was making a really bad noise. We investigated. Sure enough, it was a really bad noise. I did the only other thing I know how to do when it comes to issues with the a/c…I turned it off.

It was already almost 10 on a Sunday night. It had cooled off outside. I opened the house up, moved the fans around, and figured I’d let the a/c have a little rest. I mean after all, it had been a really hot week and it had been working like crazy. A little rest. Yeah, that would fix the problem.

So about 11:30 we toddle off to bed. I figure an hour and a half is a good amount of rest. I go to turn the a/c back on. Then I have to turn it back off immediately. The really bad noise was still there. It may have sounced even a little worse at this point. Oh the horror.

I went to bed with the windows wide open, fan going at high speed. Luckily it was cool out and I slept quite comfortably. But I knew the comfort was not going to last for long. The temps were supposed to go into the high 90′s again Monday. Ugh.

Early Monday I called my friend the heating and air conditioning dude who did such great work with the spider issue and explained my predicament. I’m here to tell you Sal rocks. Had someone been home he could have had a technician come by that afternoon. Alas both Chuck and I were at work and neither could break away to get home. But he promised to have the guy out here at 7:00 Tuesday morning.

OK, in the big scheme of things I knew I was really lucky. It’s primo a/c usage time. That means it’s primo a/c breakage time. Had Sal not been the rockinest HVAC guy on the entire planet I’m sure we’d have had to wait a week for a service call.

So Monday night was hot and sticky. Chuck and Zoe were clever enough to spend most of the evening at his mother’s air conditioned house. I was not that lucky. I seriously considered sitting in my car in the driveway with the a/c going full blast. But I decided that perhaps that wasn’t such a brilliant plan.

I faced the inferno that was my house. I came in Monday night. In a moment of delusion I tried turning the a/c on again. Yeah, really bad noise still there. So I opened up the house, adjusted the fans, and realized things could be much worse.

Anyway…the HVAC babe showed up at 7:02 this morning. He and Chuck talked. A/c dude made some adjustments. Cleaned some stuff out. And otherwise looked like he was fixing things. I told him about the rushing water noise which he thought was rather curious, but not the current issue.

I left for work and left Chuck large and in charge.

When I phoned about an hour later he informed me that a/c dude had some kind of a/c emergency and would be back with some parts later that day that would hopefully solve the problem. That’s all well and good that he had an a/c emergency somewhere, but I was having one right in my house. And Chuck was leaving in a few hours for the airport, so how was a/c babe going to get back in to finish the repairs????? Enter the leap of faith department. Chuck left the front door open so a/c babe could let himself in and fix the a/c.

It seems the flux capacitor we didn’t need this past winter we did need this summer. So we have a new one. And that rushing water noise was the problem because apparently all the water that was rushing around in there shouldn’t have been and somehow corroded the freakin flux capacitor. So he fixed the water line issue and the a/c is humming like a kitten.

Once again, the angels can sing. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

As a kid growing up in New York, like nearly every other Jewish family, we headed up to the Catskills and spent the summer at a bungalow colony. (The movie A Walk on the Moon with Diane Lane, Viggo Mortensen, and Liev Schreiber is a fairly accurate depiction of the place and time and is a highly nostalgic look at the time, particularly if you lived it.)

Anyway…thoughts of the bungalow always bring back memories of Shell No Pest Strips. There was always one hanging up somewhere in the kitchen of the bungalow — summer after summer. (I’ve come to find out now that these fabulous little bug-nabbers are illegal in the United States so if an arm starts growing out of the top of my head I’ll know who to blame I guess.) I’m guessing that any of you who are around my age will remember them as well.

We have a bit of a problem with flies around here. Every summer they come in droves. It’s positively disgusting. And before I wrote this entry and Googled Shell No Pest Strips, each summer I would wander the aisles of various hardware stores looking for them–to no avail.

I’ve purchased the fly bags, which are positively fabulous for outside, though some of them can get a bit stinky and they are positively revolting if you get the refillable ones because you have to open them up and dump the bug guts and whatnot out and wash it out before you can put fresh bait and water in them. And they do work great, but they’re for outside. This leaves me with a bit of a problem combating the flies that make it inside.

One summer I bought fly paper but that stuff (while perhaps effective) is nasty. It’s virtually impossible to unroll one of the rolls and get it hung without it clinging to your arms and/or getting stuck in your hair. And while there may not be flies on it already, the thought that it attracts flies totally grosses me out.

This summer I found what I thought would be a great compromise: the Victor Poison-Free Indoor Fly Trap. It’s a long square tube covered with sticky stuff and pictures of flies. Real flies see the pictures of the flies and go to visit their friends and get stuck and die. No swatting, no muss, no fuss. It seemed absolutely fabulous, but for some reason mine wasn’t catching any flies — and it’s not like there was a shortage of them flying around my house.

I had it in the laundry room for a couple of weeks, near where we feed the cats. No flies. So a few days ago I moved it into the kitchen. The laundry room flies all seem to have migrated into the kitchen anyway. I stuck it on the ledge of the window in the corner away from food and potential pet interaction. Still no luck catching flies.

Tonight Chuck and Zoe were running around the kitchen on a fly massacre and I was quietly wondering why my fabulous poison-free indoor fly trap was letting these little buggers go free.

Well it seems I failed to remove the protective tape which exposes the sticky fly attractant. Oopsie.

We all bow to the genius that is my husband for discovering this little boo boo. (And not five minutes after removing the protective film, don’t you know it trapped it’s first fly.)

Apparently dropping dead a few months ago wasn’t enough drama for my cat Gable. Of course, that was just one more in a series of life and death experiences for him.

Because between the whole near-death thing and living with five other cats, three dogs, and a nine year old, life is really rather hum drum, as you can imagine.

So he decided to get a really nasty ugly cyst on his eye that required surgery (to the tune of $500, thankyewverymuch).

But apparently that wasn’t enough for him either, because when he came home from his surgery he stopped eating and drinking. And then he vanished. He’s been MIA for the last 48 hours. And he was in such a state when he left that Chuck and I were absolutely certain that he’d gone off to die and we were really looking forward to breaking that news to Zoe when she returned home this afternoon from visiting my mother in Florida.

On the way to the airport, between wracking sobs over another cat going away to die and facing the prospect of never finding him again, we agreed that we would wait until we got home from the airport before breaking the news to Zoe. The plan was to tell her that he’d been missing for a few days and would she help us look for him. The entire drive home and throughout lunch it was just under the surface. Every time Zoe said something about being excited to go home and see the animals Chuck and I would look at each other. I was almost dreading getting home.

The minute we pull in the driveway, Zoe bolts out of the car because the kittens are out and about. As she’s off to greet Sparkle she asks why Gable isn’t wearing his collar.

What? Gable?

He was in the bushes in front of the house just laying there. Very dirty and very still. But alive and purring.

We tried to coax him out with his favorite treat–Star Kist solid white albacore tuna in water. But he wouldn’t eat. He hadn’t eaten in days. I reached under the bushes to pet him. I could feel every bone down his back.

Chuck finally got him out and brought him in the house. We tried to get him to drink something but had no luck. After much back and forth we took him to the vet. I was hoping that they’d say he’s just a bit dehydrated and would pump him with IV fluids overnight and pronounce him on the road to recovery (again), but what I really feared was that it was too late and we would have to put him down.

Well our favorite vet was on call–the vet that brought him back to life a few months ago, and the vet that helped Chuck make the decision to do the surgery last week. She examined him and we decided to do some blood work on him to see what was going on before making any decisions. They took him into the back to draw the blood. When our favorite vet tech Laura brought him back she brought from drawing blood she brought a can of cat food with her.

Let’s pause for a moment here to remember that he hasn’t eaten in days and no matter what we tried, we couldn’t get him to take a bite of anything.

Laura pops the top on the can of food and what does he do? Yeah, he starts eating. Little nibbles, but eating. Stupid cat.

Well the blood work reveals that he’s a bit anemic and as we know he’s very dehydrated so he needs a blood transfusion ($359, arg) before they can hydrate him without causing other complications, but his prognosis is excellent.

So Gabe is spending the night at the vet but he can come home tomorrow. I’m hopeful but realistic. I figure we only have a few more months to maybe a year with him, but if he’s eating and happy and comfotable I can live with that.

Yesterday Chuck and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. Gifts were exchanged. And due to a babysitting snafu, Zoe joined us on our date (but since she was there for the wedding–albeit microscopically–it seemed almost appropriate that she be there for the anniversary celebration).

It was a lovely, if low-key, day.

It seems each year, for as many years as I’ve had a web presence, I’ve written about it. (Yeah, I’m lazy, so feel free to scour archives if you really care to.)

But this year, in addition to material things exchanged, I made a change. A big one for me.

Yes, after ten years of marriage, I’ve decided to start using my husband’s last name. (I laughed out loud as I typed that because it seems vaguely comical.)

Why start now? Why at all? Why didn’t I 10 years ago?

Since we’ve been married I’ve typically used two last names, no hyphen. I’m here to tell you this has caused immesurable confusion. When in situations where you have to line up under the letter of your last name to register for something, for example, I never knew if I’d be under “R” for the first last name or “A” for the other last name. No one could grasp the lack of hyphen.

Think: Hillary Rodham Clinton–note two last names, no hyphen. But I’m guessing she doesn’t usually have to worry about which line to queue up in.

The only place I was always Mrs. Atkins was at the pediatrician. It just seemed easiest. But everywhere else I was Beth Reinstein or Beth Reinstein Atkins. At my old job, everyone knew me pre-marriage, so they stuck with Reinstein, or my personal favorite Beth RA (my superhero name).

The thing is Reinstein, my maiden name is ethnic sounding. Beth Reinstein, a nice Jewish girl. Beth Atkins–sounds vagule WASPy. I’m not that. I couldn’t embrace it.

Then there was the fact that I was 35 when Chuck and I got married. I’d been Beth Reinstein for a good long time and that’s who I was. I couldn’t quite get my head around taking someone else’s name.

So it’s been two last names no hyphen for 10 years.

But I figure after 10 years it’s time. So now I’m official Beth Atkins. Happy Anniversary honey. I love you.

We’re back from Mexico. We’re tan. And we all have sun rash. I’m here to tell you that using a sunscreen with a high SPF factor is useless against it.

I’m also here to tell you that a complete lack of willpower as far as going without a tan after spending a week is Mexico does not help.

We did get Zoe a groovy swim shirt from a groovy surf shop in Mazatlan, because while I’m too far gone (because tan fat looks much better than pale fat, and you can quote me on that), and completely addicted to tanning, I protect my baby’s skin at all costs .

What other exciting things do I have to report? Well, no sooner did we land in sunny Mexico, than I got a cold sore. Ugh, yeah, I know.

I haven’t had a cold sore on my lip in about 5 years, but I do have a prescription for Aciclovor (sold here now under the brand name Valtrex–by prescription only). I keep it on hand on the off chance that I start to feel that little “tingle” that tells you one is coming on.

In the last five years I’ve “felt” it once or twice, pop a few pills and all is right with my world.

Well, it never occured to me to take my Rx with me, as it’s been so long since I’ve had a problem. And don’t you know, within hours of getting off the plane I felt one coming. I thought there was nothing I could do. But by Tuesday I was really miserable so I toddled off to the Pharmacia across the street from our hotel. I explained, in bad Spanish that I needed something for a cold sore. Don’t you know, that in exchange for about 120 pesos ($10.82 US) I walked out of the store with a handy little tube of Aciclovor. No prescription necessary.

Alas, I already had a little issue, but it never did get any worse. And by now it’s almost healed and hardly noticable.

So there was no lovin under that hot tropical sun. Sigh……

As vacations go, it was lovely. We spent a lot of time together doing just what I planned: sun, swim, sun, nap, read, sun, swim. Chuck has a full travelog coming.

The holidays are always a bit of a thing here. The season kicks off for us at the beginning of October. Between October 6 and New Years, there are five birthdays, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, and New Years.

So, needless to say, there’s lots of angst and planning.

We used to swap off Thanksgiving. One year at my mother in law’s. One year at my dad’s. One year here. But that sucked for a lot of reasons.

Let’s start with Thanksiving at my mother in law’s:
1. Her condo is the size of a matchbook, and with immediate family alone there are twelve. (That’s if no one extra like a girlfriend is invited.) Five of the twelve are under the age of 9. Four of those five have not been disciplined in their entire lives.
2. When you go to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving, even if you take a little something home, there are not enough good leftovers.
3. We end up eating at least two hours after we were supposed to.

Then we go to Thankgiving at my dad’s:
1. He’s a profoundly bad cook and everything comes to the table either cold, burned, underdone, or my favorite combination: burned, cold, and underdone.
2. See #2 above for no post-turkey day leftovers (which in this case is a blessing, cuz you couldn’t stand to eat that bad meal two days in a row).
3. He doesn’t start cooking Thanksgiving dinner until everyone has arrived so we end up eating five hours after we were supposed to.

So after a particularly dreadful Thanksgiving at my dad’s house a couple of years ago, Chuck and I agreed that, effective immediately, we were not ever going to anyone else’s house for Thanksgiving. Whoever would like to join us at our home is more than welcome to. We’re having turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, etc. But we’re having it at home and we’re planning to enjoy our leftovers for days to come.

Last year was our first “we’re not going anywhere” year. It worked out just fine. His family was invited, but as usual, they declined. My dad showed up, as did one of my sisters. The sister made a scene. But we were home. We ate turkey sandwiches for days to come and we were happy as could be.

So this year we’re having Thanksgiving at home again. The sister who made a scene at last year’s dinner has other plans, which is just fine. My other sister, who is now on medication and is actually quite lovely to be around while completely medicated, is coming. I suppose my dad will be here. And that was going to be that.

Well, we were discussing the whole Thanksgiving thing at dinner tonight and Chuck mentioned that in fact his family is coming. And let me say that this is perfectly fine. But let me also say that they weren’t actually invited. I mean they’re welcome and all, but no actual invitation was issued as far as either of us know.

This prompted the a discussion about issuing invitations. I mean, if you want someone to come you invite them, right? If you don’t want someone to come, you don’t invite them. Seems pretty cut and dried. But his family wasn’t invited (OK, yet, they weren’t invited yet, but yes, they’re more than welcome to come), and they’re coming anyway.

So life lesson here: just because you haven’t invited someone, it doesn’t mean they’re not coming.

As Chuck and I do not share the same faith, we Atkins’ celebrate nearly any holiday that involves gift giving. And as internet junkies, we do a fair amount of this shopping either online directly or place our catalogue orders online. As a result, we get dozens, perhaps hundreds, of catalogues on a regular basis.

For my own personal amusement I have started a new feature over there on the right, Catalogue Watch 2004. Starting today I will update that area with the number of catalogues we receive between now and December 25.

That tally will not include the dozens of fabulous offers I receive daily in my e-mail because I just don’t think there’s a number high enough to include all of that.

Keep track yourself and let me know how you’re doing compared to me.