Category Archives: TheHubz

Acting Squirrely

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As I may have bitched about mentioned earlier, my husband travels every few weeks for work.  This week he is in San Francisco, staying in Union Square, and thoughtfully texted me a picture of the beautiful holiday scene right out his hotel window:

SanFran

I’m sure that he sent that picture because he missed me and wanted to share his holiday cheer, and not at all to rub it in my face that he was on a mini-vacation in a beautiful city.  Well, little did he know that at the precise moment he sent me that picture, I was watching my own extremely interesting scene:

Squirrel

That is a squirrel humping an empty peanut butter jar on the street in front of my house this morning.

At first, I thought, “Oh, how adorable, the squirrel found an old peanut butter jar and is having a delicious snack.”  But then I walked a little closer and noticed that the lid was still on.  And the squirrel was, um, on top of the jar.  Making angry, high-pitched grunting sounds.  Before I realized that this scene was not as adorable as it first appeared, I pulled out my phone and took some pictures, and then once I figured out what was going on I felt like a total perv.  (But not so pervy that I deleted the pictures, obvs.  You’re welcome!)  Then I tried to run to my neighbor’s house so she could see this — I mean, she took care of my kids while I was totally incapacitated, the least I can do is show her a real live squirrel humping a peanut butter jar.  But as soon as I made a step towards my neighbor’s house, the squirrel ran away.  Dragging his beloved jar behind him.

Maybe he was just trying really hard to get the lid off.  I will avoid all of the very obvious and highly inappropriate sentences that I could write after that one.  Anyways, that’ll teach my husband to send me pictures of his fancy-schmancy work trip.  Or maybe it will encourage him.  Dammit.

Monkeys, Minaj, and More

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So I started thinking that I had nothing to write about today and then I see this:  Image

It is like the universe is telling me to write and is sending forlorn pocket-sized monkeys as its messengers.  If you happened to lose your adorable, tiny, shearling-coat wearing monkey today, he is apparently wandering around an Ikea in Toronto.  And he’s wearing a diaper.  And according to at least one woman in the store who posted a video of the little guy on YouTube, the whole experience was “terrifying.”  OH my god, now I just read that this monkey was locked in its crate in a car, and it managed to get out of said crate, OPEN THE CAR DOOR, and make it across the presumably huge Ikea parking lot to do a little shopping.  That IS terrifying.  The owner wasn’t supposed to have the monkey in the first place, so now the Toronto authorities aren’t giving him back.  What will become of this poor monkey?  Well, at least he’s dressed appropriately for winter in Toronto.  Do you think he’s going to go to a zoo or animal shelter now and be like, “Why the hell are all of these monkeys naked?”  And all the other monkeys are going to be all, “OH, look at fancy clothed monkey in his warm shearling coat and poop-catching diaper, he thinks he’s better than us, let’s eat him.”  Poor, poor monkey.

In other news, sometimes my daughter says something so thoughtful, so sweet, so insightful, that I am in total awe of her.  And then other times, she asks me to call her Nicki Minaj when I pick her up from school.  

I just had to write that down because I don’t want to ever forget it.  

Anyways, by this point in my stay-at-home mom adventure, I expected to have some insightful perspective on the whole thing.  I thought I’d have some clarity about what was better for my family, for my kids, for me.  But instead, I have never felt so old in my life because my body is going batshit crazy.  

First, I tore the meniscus in my knee because I had the nerve to actually work out for the first time in, oh, a year.  To quote my orthopedist:  “Who do you think you are, doing lunges at your age.”  Why I never.  Luckily it wasn’t a bad tear and I only had to wear a gigantic brace and hobble around for about ten days.  But, as my mother always told me, walking like a peg-legged pirate for ten days has its price.  For me, it aggravated a back problem I hadn’t even thought about for like four years and caused me to HERNIATE A DISC.  That is in all caps because it is TOTALLY MERITED.

And of course, my disc has the balls to herniate itself right after my husband leaves for a business trip and I am solely responsible for the kids.  Shit always hits the fan as soon as my husband is en route to his fancy hotel and his expense-account nights out with co-workers.  If not for my amazing neighbor swooping in and taking care of my kids while I whimpered on my heating pad, I have no idea what I would have done.  Well, I would have taken painkillers and drooled on myself – I guess I should say I’m not sure what the kids would have done.

So the worst part of the back pain is behind me, but it has slowed me down for going on four weeks now.  Which means for four weeks I have been feeling useless and not doing the looooong list of things I wanted to do after I quit my job, and my husband has been doing everything.  All while listening to me tell him he’s doing it all wrong (well, he is).  

So that’s why I just don’t have any perspective yet.  It’s disappointing, but maybe also a lesson – that when you have more unscheduled time in your day, there’s more room for stuff to go totally off track.  Or to stop trying to plan stuff and just take care of yourself.  Or that even when you are lying on the kitchen floor in excruciating pain, it will take a good 30 minutes of eating dinner before one of your kids says, “Hey, what are you doing?”  Or maybe I am just getting old.  

I’m going with the first two.

Should we salute?

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Now that I am no longer officially a “working” mom (oh my god, I know all moms are working, just calm down), I don’t really know what to write about. So for now, I will tell a funny story.

Once upon a time, before my husband and I knew about nap schedules and potty training, we went to Thailand for vacation. My husband has some long lost uncle or something (I still don’t know who he is) who lives in Bangkok, so once we were settled in our hotel, we called him. The first thing we learned about this “uncle”: he does not speak a word of English. And he wanted to take us around Bangkok for the day. We do not speak any Thai, but were psyched to have a native Bangkokian (that’s actually a word, I looked it up) take us around the city. Turns out the language barrier was no big deal – the “uncle” was the perfect tour guide, and drove us to some cool places we’d never heard of. And it allowed my husband and I to openly snark and make crass comments without worrying about offending anyone. It was really a win-win.

So it’s almost dinner time, and through a series of charades, “uncle” tells us we’re going to a nice restaurant. We pull up at a building with a large red sign with one word in English: “Abalone.” “Uncle” points at the sign and nods and says with enthusiasm, “Abalone!” So clearly, we’re going to eat abalone.

The restaurant has a formal, strangely Western feeling — white tablecloths, lots of silverware, American music playing, and lots of waiters and waitresses dressed in stiff white dress shirts and red tuxedo pants. My husband and I sit down and exchange glances to say: what the hell is abalone, why is 50 Cent playing on the radio, and why do the waiters look like they are in a marching band?

An older male waiter comes over to take our “uncle”‘s order. My husband notices the waiter’s nametag says nothing but “CAPTAIN.” He nudges me under the table to get my attention and we chuckle a little, wondering if his name is actually Captain, or if that’s the semi-cheesy title they came up with for waiters at this seafood restaurant. At least we think it’s a seafood restaurant – is abalone seafood? No idea. Still.

After an awkward silence at our table where “uncle,” husband, and I all stare at each other, Captain brings out our food. On my plate are several small, round slices of…something (meat?) that is pinkish and shiny, and covered in a clear, thick sauce. “Uncle” looks very proud and motions for us to eat. My husband and I are something other than proud. But not wanting to offend this man who has been lovely to us all day, we dive in. And it is not good. I mean, it’s not offensively bad, but it is rubbery and lukewarm and dense and kind of fishy. Wait, I think that’s the definition of offensively bad.

So my husband and I are trying to eat this new food without offending “uncle,” we’re jet lagged, 50 Cent is actually playing on a loop, and we’ve been sucking down tuk-tuk fumes for the past 6 hours. Then Captain’s helper, looking lovely and gracious in her dress shirt and red pants, comes to see if we need any water.

And her nametag says, “ASS CAPTAIN.”

For the rest of the meal, it was all my husband and I could do to keep abalone from flying out of our noses. I think the “uncle” took our stifled laughter as giddiness over our food, and everyone else probably just thought we were rude Americans. Which we totally were.

I can’t wait to travel internationally with the kids and expose them to other cultures. But maybe we should do it before they learn to read.

Yay

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There is an ad on TV where a woman is constantly saying “NO!” to her family’s shenanigans. Her husband walks out of a dressing room with skinny jeans on and she says, “NO!” Her son tries to bring some slimy creature in a shoebox into the house and she says, “NO!” Her husband asks to quit his job and start a blog and, obviously, she says, “NO!” Because that’s just crazy.

Well, for some unknown reason, my husband did not say “NO!” when I asked to quit my job and start a blog.

I mean, the discussion didn’t go exactly like that. I don’t just want to start a blog, and it wasn’t like I said out of the blue that I wanted to stop working and just see what happened. Well, maybe it was a little bit like that. Anywho, long story short, I quit my job and am taking an “investment interval,” as Anne-Marie Slaughter would call it. I’m still technically a lawyer but I am not currently practicing, and I can’t even explain how good that feels.

This break has been a long time coming. I got sworn in to the Maryland bar in 2004, about six months after I’d graduated. I had already been working for a few months as a lawyer at that big-law-firm-that-shall-remain-nameless, and was beginning to really grasp what I had gotten myself in to. For my swearing in, I put on my best suit. My husband and I drove to a courthouse in Annapolis feeling celebratory and excited, and he snapped pictures while I stood up and took my oath. After the swearing in, I stood in line to get my official certificate that I was now a bar-certified lawyer. And I waited there, in that line of other newly minted lawyers in their nicest suits, and shook my head and cried. These were not happy tears. It was that kind of snorting, pathetic cry, where you’re surprised and embarrassed to be crying, which just makes it harder to stop.

I felt like I had just bought a pair of really expensive shoes that everyone said were beautiful, and I had just finally put them on and discovered they hurt my feet. And even though they hurt, I knew I was going to have to walk in them for a long, long time.

Turned out it was about 8 years.

But today I’m wearing flip flops.

Guilt shmilt

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My husband travels for work, and he was gone all week last week. After a week of dinners, baths, and putting the kids to bed by myself, I couldn’t wait for the hubs to get home and give me the night off. So he comes home, I kiss the kids good night and shuffle them upstairs with their dad – and instead of relaxing, I immediately felt SO SAD. Like the kids were going to miss me or have trouble getting to sleep without me there. I thought, “WHAT IS THAT?!!!” I will tell you: guilt. Soul sucking GUILT.

It’s apparently everywhere. I read this article about the regrets of a stay-at-home mom last week, and it’s been bugging me since I read it. Instead of some thoughtful advice for new moms, this feels like yet another example of a mom feeling guilty for her seemingly reasonable decisions. Some women’s decisions to stay at home are fairly cut and dry: if you make about the same amount as it costs for child care, and you want to stay home, then stay home; if you can’t survive without your paycheck, then get to work. But the author of this article had what seems to be one of those legitimately close calls. She admits she had little to no work life balance, she was emotionally strung out after the death of her father, she missed her babies, and she was able to do some freelance work while hanging with her kids. All of those seem like totally legit reasons to stay home. And 14 years later, she’s in a tough financial position and telling the world not to stay home with your kids?! Come on! (Also, it seems to me like the advice here should be “do some long term financial planning,” but nobody asked me.)

And then I see this “study” and think two things: one, how long till that kid scribbles with that sharpie on the computer?, and two, goddammit! When does it end?! I am over it, just so done with wasting time thinking that I should be doing something different or better or more thoughtfully or with more shamrock sprinkles (yes, I may have felt guilty earlier today for not making green cake pops with shamrock sprinkles for my son’s preschool party – again, WHAT IS THAT?!). So I’m not going to think about the laundry or the workout I should be doing, or the intellectual activity I should be pursuing (OH I just giggled typing that).

Instead, I will watch The Bachelor, and make snarky comments in my head about the women’s outfits and the ridiculous things Brad says. Wheee!