Author Archives: Cindy

the trip home, part 2

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Sorry for the delay in getting all this written down, I’m unpacking like a maniac and I’m actually having a hard time making myself sit down at my computer, which is freakishly rare for me.

SO! We spent the night at Cat & Tony’s house, and the next morning we all loaded up our respective children into various cars and went our separate ways. I dropped Catie off at daycare, and went to check out the new house. Still no power or water. I checked on the cats, dropped off our suitcases, and went to run a couple of errands. Came back to the house, and got to work setting up Catie’s room. I wanted the new house to make a good impression on her, so I figured that making sure her room looked like “hers” was a good place to start.

The utilities finally got turned on around 3:00. I was elated. I drove back to Cat & Tony’s house to retrieve our fridge & freezer food that we had stashed at their house. Came back, and picked up Catie from daycare. Dave got home a few minutes before we did, so we both got to witness Catie’s first reaction to the house. She seemed to like it, she was very excited to see a lot of her toys that she hadn’t seen in over a week. She kept saying, “Wow! Hey! Where’d that come from?” Like she couldn’t fathom how her stuff all magically got transported from the old house to the new house.

She’s had a couple of meltdowns since then, where she cries, “I no like new house! I wan’ go home!” Which stinks, and I hate it for her, but I think that once we get this place feeling a little more like a home and a little less like a box factory, she’ll start to like it more. Last night was rough, I found her standing in the dark hallway screaming her head off because she was scared and didn’t know where she was. (There are nightlights in both her bedroom and the hall, but it didn’t seem to make her feel less freaked out.) I’ve been trying to get things set up quickly to help her relax. The kitchen is almost done, then the family room is next on my agenda. I’m so focused on trying to ease Catie through this transition, I have a feeling that I won’t get Dave’s or my stuff unpacked until last. Oh well.

So. The transition is sucking, but we’re here. And this house is still beautiful and perfect and the absolute house of my dreams. So we’re good.

the trip home, part 1

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Yesterday was one of those travel days where it was almost comical how horribly awry everything went. Or rather, it would’ve been funny if it happened to someone else. Like maybe someone I despised. Let’s recap, shall we?

* Up at 5 a.m., so we could leave the house by 6:45 for our 8:25 flight. Catie didn’t get enough sleep and had a huge screaming meltdown before leaving my parents’ house. Fun!

* Got to the airport, got checked in, everything ready to go… then no plane. Or rather, no boarding onto the plane that was sitting at the gate. Turns out there was a mechanical problem, so our 8:25 flight was delayed until 11:00. That means that Catie & I both could’ve had an extra couple of hours’ sleep if we’d known in advance. The ticket agent got us rebooked on the next flight, so we actually left Jackson at 9:40.

Side note to American Airlines: please find the guy who was working at Gate 4 at Jackson International Airport on September 15th, and give that man a raise. I don’t know his name, he’s a thin young white guy with a little beard stubble and almost too-pretty eyes. He was fantastic, he was very fast at getting everyone taken care of, he remembered my name, and he made sure that my 2 year-old and I had seats adjacent to each other (something another ticket agent apparently didn’t think was necessary).

* While waiting to board our first flight, Catie cried, “Mooommy, I go hooome. I see Mimi & Pop-Pop.” I reminded her that we were going home to Daddy and the new house. She replied, “No, no Daddy and no house. I jus’ go hooooome.” Yeah, you & me both, kiddo.

* High point of the day #1: Catie slept the entire flight from Jackson to Dallas. Halle-freaking-lujah.
what she looked like 5 minutes before our plane landed.
Ok, this picture is actually from the flight there & not the flight home. Still, it’s a pretty accurate representation of the moment.

* Got to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport about 10 minutes after our connecting flight had departed. Sigh. We were rebooked on a later flight, and then had three hours to kill until the next plane left. Fabulous.

* High point of the day #2: We found the children’s play area at DFW and Catie had a blast running around playing with the other kids there. Way to burn off the energy, kid. But really, she was very sweet and nice during the entire layover, no meltdowns at all. I could hardly believe it. Lord knows I wanted to throw myself on the ground and scream for a good long while.
revisiting the Dallas/Forth Worth airport children's play area

* Finally got on the 2:25 flight to Raleigh. (Irony: if we’d made our original connection, we would’ve already been home for an hour by the time this plane departed. Sigh.) Oh, but first we had to stand on the jetway for 20 minutes in 90-degree heat because maintenance had to replace a seat cushion. WTF?

* I got us both seated on the plane, then called Dave to let him know we were finally on our way home. Turns out, he had left his office a little early to meet the cable guy at our house. He got to the new house, only to learn that we had no electricity. Freaking fabulous.

* Highlight of the day #3: Catie and I both slept most of the way to Raleigh. I can almost never sleep on planes, but I bought some Dramamine at the airport, which helped a lot. Poor Catie just sacked out for the whole trip.

* We got to Raleigh. Finally. Oh, and American Airlines, seriously? I had a 3-hour layover in Dallas and you STILL managed to lose one of my two suitcases? Are you kidding me??? (They found it later & delivered it, thankfully. But still. ARGH!)

* I called Dave again. He found out out that our utility company had orders to set up our new utilities on the 17th, not the 11th (clearly a typo). So they shut off our utilities, thinking it was the previous owners’ that they were shutting off, not the new residents. No electricity might’ve been manageable – we have a generator, and it’s not insanely hot right now. But we also had no water. So, no. Not staying there. The utility company said the soonest they could get out to turn our utilities on was at 1 p.m. today (Wednesday).

* I called Cat & Tony, made hasty change of plans to instead go to their house to crash for the night. Called Dave, told him to bring the cold food from the fridge & freezer (so it wouldn’t rot), and meet me there.

* Highlight of the day #4: the bath that Catie and her cousin Elizabeth took together. Freaking hilarious.
Catie & Elizabeth in the tub

* We all crashed for the night, prepared to take on the day tomorrow, blah blah blah.

More about the big “new house” reveal later. I’m tired. Will update with pics soon, too.

memories, like the corner of the storage room

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For ages, my parents have nagged me about the fact that I have a lot of stuff still at their house. They’ve been griping about it for years, but it’s primarily been an issue since they moved into their current house in 2004. It’s smaller than the house I grew up in, which means less storage space. So the fact that I demanded that they keep all of my Barbie dolls, Baby-Sitter’s Club books, and about a bajillion other things from my childhood? Yeah, it’s been kind of a hassle for them. And I get it. But for the longest time, I was living in an apartment, so I had no space for my stuff either. And even after Dave & I got married, what were they going to do, haul all of my crap out to Seattle for me?

Well, now that we have a house in North Carolina (which, OMG y’all, we have a freaking house!!), they’re saying that they’re going to load up a U-Haul and drive this stuff up to me. I’m also getting my Grandmother’s piano (which is so beautiful, and was made in 1910) and a very nice dresser for my guest room, so this is a pretty sweet deal for me.

The only catch? I needed to rummage through all of the boxes of crap so they’d know what to bring to me. Which meant spending a couple of hours in the extremely hot & muggy storage room off the side of their garage, sorting through boxes and labelling what I wanted to keep.

Here’s how that played out.

Toss:
* The box of toys that had molded. Yuck. I don’t need any of it that bad. It was particularly sad because it meant throwing out my Princess Leia Barbie doll as well as my John-Travolta-as-Vinnie-Barbarino doll, but seriously, it was not salvageable. Throw away, move along.
* The Barbie dolls that spent the last 20 years in the attic; their faces melted and their hair got all sticky and gooey. Eww. No need. (I am, however, keeping the Barbie clothes, because OMG there is some awesome 80’s style up in there.)
* My notes from my journalism classes in college. I kept the final papers, but notes I took in class? And random pop quizzes? No. Gone.
* My cassette tapes. There might’ve been a couple of gems in there, but I don’t think I even have a tape player anymore. And do I really need all of those hair metal tapes? Um, no. I can’t remember a single song by either Lillian Axe or Lynch Mob, yet I had both of their albums. Why? I honestly don’t know.

Keep:
* A few treasured stuffed animals that I’d like my kids to have.
* My books. Including school yearbooks. (I also came across an awesome photo album from when I was a kid, so if any of y’all knew me then and happen to be my friend on Facebook? You should be very, very afraid right now.)
* A box of letters and cards from various people over the years.
* All of the old school Fisher-Price little people, including all of their accessories (and dude, did we ever have accessories: the house, boat, schoolhouse, bus, etc. etc.). Catie promptly lost her damn mind over them and has been playing with them all day.
* My grandmother’s old jewelry and perfumes, which made me cry to sort through, because there are just so many memories attached to that stuff (she died in 1996). I honestly don’t want most of it, but it’s such an intense association of her to those things, I can’t stand the idea of tossing or selling any of it. So I’m hanging onto it. At least for now.

Of course, now I’m going to have to try to explain to Dave exactly why my parents are showing up with a U-Haul full of junk at our pretty new house when they come to visit for Thanksgiving. I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to spin that, but hopefully he won’t be too mad.

catching up

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I finally got the wireless set up at my parents’ house, so I can actually blog now that I can use my laptop. (My parents’ computer is not conducive for writing.) I don’t know where to start on the recap of this week, but here goes. Brace yourselves, this might get long:

1.) The flight to Mississippi was amazingly easy. Catie was an absolute angel, she had a minor meltdown on one of the three (THREE!) planes we had to take to get here, but overall, she was fun and delightful and just a complete breeze. I can only hope our return flight is as easy.

2.) The only bad part of the flight was that the airline lost our suitcases, so we panicked and ran to Wal-Mart to buy emergency supplies – pajamas for Catie, underwear and deodorant for me, etc. But the suitcases were found and delivered to my parents’ house by around 10 p.m. that night, so I returned most of the stuff that we bought.

3.) The funeral for my dad’s cousin was yesterday. It was great to see all of my cousins who I haven’t seen since my grandmother died in 1996. It’s odd because we’ve all reconnected through Facebook, so we keep up with each other and see pictures of each other’s kids, and it felt like getting to see old friends, which was fantastic. At the same time, it sucks that it takes something like a death in the family in order to bring us all together.

After the funeral, we all went to my cousin Suzette’s house for food and conversation – because, you know, that’s how we roll in the Deep South. They don’t call it comfort food for nothing, right? And all of my cousins’ babies were there, so Catie got to play with a bunch of other kids, and she had an absolute BLAST. In fact, she had so much fun that she completely wore herself out and she slept the two-hour drive back to my parents’ house. Nice.

4.) One thing that came up in the last few days that I haven’t mentioned, is that there was a remote possibility that our money issues were going to get straightened out, and that we’d be able to close on our house on schedule. So, before I left for Mississippi, I ran to the escrow attorney’s office to sign a document giving Dave power of attorney for me**, so he could close on the house without me, just in case the money came through on time. Turns out, the money DID come through on time, and Dave closed on the house today. The movers are unloading our belongings at our new house as I type this.

So, when Catie & I get home, we will be going straight from the airport to our brand-new house. My mind = BLOWN. It feels so weird that I’m not there for the move, but since Dave is calm about moving and I tend to freak out, it’s probably better to have me gone and let him handle it on his own. I’m sure he’s happier that I’m not there nagging at him about every tiny detail, but still, he is racking up the Good Husband points like you have no idea.

5.) One bit of bad news: when the movers came to pack up our stuff yesterday, they had both the front and garage doors open, and somehow Beaumont got outside. Dave has searched everywhere and hasn’t been able to find him. Our neighbors are all on the lookout, and I’ve posted a “lost cat” ad on craigslist, but I’m sick with worry. He hasn’t been an outdoor cat for a long time, and even when he was, we lived in the sticks. The street behind our house is very busy (with a 45 mph speed limit), and I’m freaked out that he could’ve gotten hit by a car. Or that he’s hiding in the woods, terrified. I hope he turns up. He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s ours and we love him. Please come home, Mr. B.

** For the record, the power of attorney document only applies to this one real estate transaction. It does not give Dave the right to have me committed to a loony bin. I sure hope he realizes that.

EDITED TO ADD: Beaumont has been found. Apparently he was hiding from the movers inside our box spring (there’s a tear in the fabric on the bottom, he hides in there a lot), and so he got loaded onto the moving van & spent the night there. He’s completely freaked out, but ok. I’m saying a prayer of thanks that we closed today and didn’t have our stuff sitting on the moving van for a week!

Mississippi-bound

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Ever do something that seemed like a good idea at the time, and the next morning you sort of can’t believe it? Surely I’m not the only one.

Last night, my parents offered me some frequent flyer miles if Catie & I wanted to fly to Mississippi. My cousin hasn’t passed away yet, but since she now has pneumonia and isn’t conscious, we’re thinking it’ll be sometime in the next day or so. But more than that, I was thinking that since we’re going to be moving out of this house and then going into a holding pattern for at least a week, it might be less stressful for Catie if I could take advantage of the Mimi & Pop-Pop Distraction Factor.

So, we’re flying to Mississippi on Wednesday, and we’re coming back next Tuesday (the 15th). I fully expect that we’ll be attending a funeral sometime in there, but regardless, it’ll be good to keep Catie from getting all frazzled about the move.

Of course, now that I’ve booked the trip, it’s starting to sink in that I’m going to be leaving town two days before we move, and I’m making a mental list of all the things that still need to be done, and how I’m essentially dumping the entire move on Dave’s lap. So besides the moving worries, I have a nice Bad Wife guilt complex on top of it (even though Dave says he’s totally fine with us going, and in fact encouraged me to take the trip). My stomach is in knots. I haaaate this.

But hey, if you happen to live in the greater Jackson area and want to hang out later this week, drop me an email at poobou76 -at- yahoo -dot- com.

Saturday night's alright for whining

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Yesterday was a day of suckage the likes of which we haven’t seen for a while. FYI, this post is going to contain a lot of whining and it’s all very stream-of-consciousness blurted out by a crazy person in the midst of major sleep deprivation. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

1. We found out that we will not, in fact, have our money from the UK in time for our closing date on Friday, the 11th. The sellers have the right to completely back out of the deal and keep our earnest money that we put down, which we’re praying they don’t do. Hopefully they’ll just allow the closing date to get bumped further out. Again.

Meanwhile, this house that we’re currently living in has been re-rented, and the new tenants are moving in on Saturday, the 12th. So, we’re still moving out on the 11th, with nowhere to go. We’ll be putting our stuff in storage and then moving into a hotel, or with Cat & Tony, or who knows what. And then we also have to figure out what to do with the cats – our awesome neighbors have offered to help us out with them, so that’s a huge plus. Still, there are about 10,000 other details that we’re going to have to figure out in the next week. I’m not so much looking forward to that.

2. My dad’s cousin that I mentioned earlier is really not doing well. She has pneumonia, she can’t speak, they’re keeping her sedated, and the doctors expect that she’ll die sometimes in the next three days or so. I don’t know if I’ll be able to take off and fly to Mississippi for a funeral if Catie is sick and we’re in the middle of moving, but I’m going to try and do what I can.

3. Catie is sick. I’m praying that it’s just a bad cold and not H1N1, but the poor kid is really miserable. The cold triggers her asthma, so we’ve been having to give her medication through the nebulizer every couple of hours. As a result, none of us are getting very much sleep, so our house is not a very fun place right now. She started barfing tonight, but my Mommy Ninja Skills (acquired through countless other episodes of puking from this kid) meant that only one barf ended up on my socks, and none of them fully hit me. The rest I caught in a mixing bowl, and even managed to grab her hair with my other hand to keep her from puking in it. I’m telling y’all, that is talent. If only I could figure out a way to make money off of that type of skill… well, we wouldn’t be having issues with our house financing, that’s for sure.

* However, there was one good thing that happened yesterday: I got a job! Kind of a surprise because I went into the interview with zero expectations, but I’m going to be doing some freelance technical writing for a new, local software company. It should be a lot of fun, and the extra money will be really nice, so I’m excited about that.

But yeah, even in spite of the job news, it’s not so much a fun holiday weekend here with the sick toddler, terminally ill family member, and house troubles. I’m praying Catie sleeps a little better tonight, since I think that one solid night’s sleep alone would probably help improve my outlook drastically. Here’s hoping!

on parents & aging

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I generally have a policy of not writing anything on my blog that might potentially offend anyone in my family. I envy the bloggers who are willing to put it all out there, no holds barred, but that isn’t me. Most of the people in my family don’t read this site, but it’s not anonymous and they could find me easily enough, so I try to be careful.

That said, I’m about to write something here that might get me in trouble later. And I don’t care, I need to get this off my chest.

My mom recently had all of our old home movies burned to DVD, and she made copies for me, my brother, and my sister. Today I’ve been playing around with the files to make short little snippets that I can stick on YouTube. I keep watching this one – a trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast when I was around 6 months old (when my sister was almost-6 years old and my mom wasn’t even pregnant with my brother yet) – and I keep crying when I watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt04gvNQhpk

A little bit of me is crying because I really miss both of my grandparents. My dad’s parents. I wrote a little about my grandaddy here, and I haven’t written much about my grandmother. She died when I was 20. I don’t really know what to write about her. She adored us – her three grandchildren – and we miss her.

Another little bit of me is crying because my mom does that thing she does in every home movie we have, which is that you only see her for a split-second (in this case, at the very end of the video), and she waves the camera away. She always thought she was too fat and ugly to be filmed. I wish I could go back in time to tell her how gorgeous she was. And I make a vow to myself to be in more home movies so Catie will grow up and know what her mother looked like when she was in her 30s.

Mostly, though, I’m crying about my dad. He looks so young in that video. I don’t really remember him ever looking that young. (Although, he still has those farmer’s tan lines, courtesy of his thrice-weekly golf game.) I think of my dad as always having looked like this.

Catie and Pop-Pop

And I’m crying because I don’t remember him ever beaming at me with that new-dad pride that he has in this video. That’s the kind of adoring look he gives Catie. I didn’t think it was ever directed at me. To say that my dad and I have a difficult relationship is an understatement, but I’ll leave that for another post. I just really hate that I don’t remember that look.

My dad is 73. For the past couple of years, it’s been obvious that his memory is slipping. It keeps getting worse. I don’t know if it’s Alzheimer’s, or some other form of dementia, or maybe he’s having small strokes (he’s suddenly been having headaches, which he’s never had in his life). It’s impossible to diagnose because he refuses to admit any of it to his doctor. My mom is a wreck about it. Last year, she called his doctor’s office and told them to do a neurological work-up on him when he went in for his annual physical. The doctor refused. If my dad won’t seek help for himself, and the doctor won’t help, what other recourse is there?

Just as a few examples, in the last couple of years:
* He forgot where a major street in my hometown is located. He’s lived there for the past 39 years.
* He & I had a major blow-up fight last September, which he’s forgotten entirely. I guess I should be glad he’s forgotten it & isn’t holding a grudge, but it’s also frustrating that it got us nowhere.
* He took Catie for a walk in our neighborhood by himself, and he didn’t pay attention when she said she wanted to get down. She tried to squirm out of the stroller, and she ended up getting stuck with her head caught between the seat & the snack tray, while my dad obliviously kept pushing the stroller until she started to scream. He panicked & didn’t know what to do. Thankfully, a neighbor came along just then & showed him how to remove the snack tray so he could get her out. But she could’ve been really hurt, and that’s when Dave & I realized my dad can’t take Catie on outings by himself anymore. Which breaks my heart.

The latest thing is his cousin. My dad is an only child, but his cousin Sue (who everyone calls Bee-bee, and don’t ask why, I don’t have a reason except that we’re from Mississippi) is the closest thing he has to a sibling. Bee-bee has been very ill for a long time with a number of health problems. She’s spent months in the hospital. We’ve known for the past year or so that she could die at any time.

Bee-bee recently went into the hospital again, and this time, things look really bad. The doctors aren’t terribly optimistic about her prognosis. Her daughter called my mom to give her the latest update. When my mom got off the phone and repeated the news to my dad, he was stunned. He didn’t remember that she’d been sick. Now he has to grieve this loss all over again. And when she inevitably dies (whether that’s next week, or next month, or next year), he’ll have to grieve it all over again, because he will have forgotten. Again.

I don’t have words for how upsetting all of this is for my family. I’m not terribly close with my dad’s side of the family, but of course my heart breaks for all of them. For Bee-bee’s husband of 55+ years (they got married as teenagers), for her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. But especially for my dad.

I’ve decided that Catie and I will be flying to Mississippi for Bee-bee’s funeral, whenever that may be. I feel like I need to be there for my dad. It’s all I can do, really. I just need to be there.