finslippy

HEAT!

It was indeed the thermocoupler, and the bill was thrillingly small. The repair guy showed up at 8 p.m., so I had plenty of time to run around wearing three sweaters, moaning about how I was dying. Even though our heat is off most of the day, it doesn't seem quite as cold as it did yesterday, when we didn't have that early-morning blast to sustain us. My neighbor was telling me that they never turn on their heat, and I am still trying to wrap my mind around this. They don't like the bills, so they choose to be cold. How does one survive, in such a state? Does the constant shivering end, at some point, or is it like all-day aerobicizing?

You'll notice that today is the last day of October, and it's also the last day of the Donors Choose Blogger's Challenge. I decided to give you all a break and stop harassing you to donate, and accordingly most of you stopped donating, but still, Finslippy came in first among the mommy bloggers! So thank you very kindly for your donations. And since it's the last day, might some of you donate? I'm 21 dollars away from $5000, and it would be nice to round this baby up before the day is through. And no, I'm not doing the Pat Benatar video, I said I would do that if I won the entire challenge--which, okay, I kind of realized was impossible, given Tomato Nation's illustrious history. Readers have asked me to do the video anyway, which I considered, really I did, before we had this crazy idea to sell our house.

Speaking of which, we're moving back to Brooklyn. At some point. It's looking now like circumstances might keep us here until the spring. Which would make Henry very happy, as he's forgotten everything he loved about Brooklyn. That alone is reason enough to go back, but mostly we're going because Brooklyn still feels like home, almost three years later. We don't dislike New Jersey, but it wasn't the right fit for us. Sadly, we lived here just long enough that now we've made all these damn friends we're going to miss. But if we had moved back right away we might always have wondered if we should have given New Jersey a real chance. We'll miss a lot about this place, but we're excited to get back where we belong.

Hey, I've got a Wonderland post up today! And now I am off to costume my child. There is a Halloween parade at school, and Henry is Boba Fett.

So, so cold.

So I'm sitting here waiting for the guy who's going to arrive to fix our furnace, which stopped working at some point in the middle of the night. Nothing like waking up to the sight of your own breath turning to icicles in the air, I'll tell you what.

Anyway, I was panicked all morning and convinced that just as we're heading out we're going to have to fork over our kidneys in order to get a new furnace installed. (The word "furnace" is looking weird to me. That is the right word, right, for the gas heating type thingy in the basement? Furnace furnace furnace. It just looks weird.) But then I spoke to one of the parents at Henry's school, who told me the same thing happened to him yesterday, and it turned out it was just some sediment that had built up in some kind of coil thingy (I know all the technical terms), which of course meant no new furnace and also a very cheap bill.

Needless to say, my relief was enormous (not that it means that this is what's wrong with our heating thingamabob, but I'm choosing to believe it is, so shhhh) and so I proceeded to make out with the poor, surprised parent, who was all "what" and "uh" and "I don't think" and "would you please." Secretly he liked it. Anyway, my point is, Scott, I'm sorry you had to find out this way, it didn't mean anything, and also I'm pretty sure if you had been there you would have joined in.

Mulch madness.

It was the mulch that did it.

Before we moved to the suburbs, I thought gardening was a hobby for well-mannered senior citizens who wore long gloves and big floppy hats and pruned a bit each morning as they hummed their favorite oldies. I thought keeping up a yard meant mowing and watering. The End. I thought picking out lovely plants and keeping them in good shape just meant going to the nursery, saying "I'll take those, those, and those," and then they'd magically show up in our yard, and because I'm a spunky sort who doesn't need things done for me, nossir, I'd plunk them into neat holes that wouldn't be any problem to dig. Maybe I'd make Scott dig them, if the holes were large.

I was wrong on all these counts, of course. Planting and gardening involves science and heavy lifting. It involves endless weeding and finding out that your yard is composed of clay and unexpectedly large rocks. It means pulling muscles you never knew you had. Gardening is not for sissies. Those old people who like to garden? I wouldn't mess with them if you paid me, now. Who knows what they could do with a shovel?

But the mulch, damn it, the mulch was too much. I knew about mulch and its importance, vaguely, so the first time I planted some things I came home with a couple of bags of mulch—which were surprisingly heavy! Huh!—and proceeded to pull every muscle in my body dumping them out all over the garden bed, my feet, and most of my legs. I raked the mulch around, and then saw how little of the ground I had covered. And I wept.

It turns out, and I know you know this and you're shaking your head at what an idiot I am, you need truckfuls of mulch. You need to visit Mulch Planet, and fight the natives until they surrender or die, and then denude their Mulch Mountains and Valleys, and transport all that mulch directly to your backyard, and maybe that would be enough. So much mulch, you need.

And the mulch doesn't stay. It goes. And then you need MORE MULCH.

A sane person would say, well, we could have hired a landscaping company to do the lawn upkeep and the mulching for us. That would have been the sane, sensible thing to do, but it would also be the thing to do if we had any cash with which to do that. Sadly, if we were to keep our yard looking halfway decent, we'd have to perform the upkeep ourselves.

I thought I'd get used to the fertilizing, the pruning, and of course the mulching. But I never did. I'm sorry to say this, yard, but now I dislike you. I see you and you're just a nagging reminder of all that I need to do, all that I haven't done, or the half-assed job that I did do just to make myself feel better. And now that I've mulched everything in the front yard that required mulching and I can't lift my arms without screaming, I am officially over having a yard. I want to move to a magical place where I'm only responsible for the inside of my home. Where if I feel any guilt, it's just because I haven't used the vacuum cleaner in a week.

If you're wondering where I am

I am vacuuming. I am planting mums. I am mulching like the world's supply of mulch is almost gone. I am polishing the faucets. I am organizing the shit out of my house. My closets are spectacular. My kitchen cabinets would bring you to tears. Meanwhile, Scott is replacing the shutters and painting the trim and the radiators and all the scuffed corners of the house. Our house is looking increasingly spectacular by the day. Why didn't we do this before? Because we weren't selling our house before. That would be why.

More later about why and where we're going. Just know that I am thinking of you, as I fluff the towels and bleach the grout. Thinking of you, and wishing you had a tall ladder and a fervent desire to wash my windows.

Another DonorsChoose giveaway!

Because I am a river to my people.

The generous and lovely Joanna of Product Body has offered a holiday-themed gift box of body products to one lucky donor. Until the end of this week, donate any amount to DonorsChoose via my challenge page, email me the donation receipt with the subject line "PRODUCT BODY," and you'll be in the running for FIGGY PUDDING, a box containing:

-a half bar of handmade soap in graham cracker carrot cake
-Crush On You (a body scrub) in apple crisp (5 oz)
-Fizzy Bath Salts in citrus pumpkin mélange (5oz.)
-a brand new cream to be launched during this gift box promo

Even if you don't win, I'll send you a discount code for 20% off all Product Body products.

Thanks, and good luck!

With friends like these, etc.

Henry's constructing a Bionicle in the backseat. "I built you a guy," he announces.
I look behind me. It appears to be some sort of three-pronged weapon. "Where's his head?" I ask.
"He doesn't have one," he explains. "He's an Electro-Stabber."
"Why don't you build something friendly?" Scott asks.
"Yes," I agree, "Can't you build something…non-stabby?"
Usually this response drives Henry insane, and he rails against our lack of understanding in such matters. Bionicles and the like were created as weapons of destruction, not diplomacy; when will we pacifist fools understand that?
But this time he pauses and says, "Okay."
A few minutes later he's done. "I built you an Electro-buddy," he says.
I look behind me again. "It looks exactly the same."
"It's a buddy!" he insists.
"Doesn't seem very huggable," I observe.
"Oh, you can hug him," Henry says. "Only if you do you'll get stabbed."

A brief, bewildering tour of where I spend most of my day.

Why hello! I've had too much coffee, and I've taken pictures of my workspace! Come along with me, won't you?

This is what my office looks like in the morning. Look how sunny! You'll notice there's no computer. That's because I compose my thoughts in a linen-bound journal, which I then read into a recording device, and send the digital voice files to a transcription service in Uruguay.

Actually the computer's just downstairs, and I'm too lazy to get it, so I was writing in my journal instead. I tend to write on whatever's handy. A journal, the side of a building, my son's forehead. Whatever.

Here you see the doodles I doodled at some point, I can't remember when. Doodling is essential to my thought process. I drew, as you can see, a heart, because love is very important to me. Then I drew the symbol for eternity, because I often ponder the big questions. Then there's a star and a star-like shape, and I don't have a reason for those. I like to practice the alphabet, because sometimes I forget what comes after what. The "catapult" note is about this deadly, enormous catapult that I'm designing… but I've said too much. Then there's a space for… for what? Who can say! You see how inspiring that is?

And here are the toys I play with, when I crave inspiration. Sometimes I like to take a break and go on a space mission. Or a "mission dans l'espace." It all depends. On what? Je ne sais quoi.

Here is my exercise ball. I have been known to use this for some forms of exercise. Usually I just leave it in that rattan basket, so I can pretend I am a bird, sitting on an enormous, bouncy egg. This amuses me.

This is my chalkboard easel, upon which I scribble angry notes to my inner critic. Here, as you can see, I have scrawled NONONO. This is because my inner critic told me to write something more worthwhile than this rambling mass of lies. Another day I might write POOP, or just draw a space man. I find this technique quite valuable, until my inner critic mocks my penmanship, and I cry.

Here is my cat. She likes to sit on this chair and stare at my back while I work. This keeps me awake, because if I nod off who knows what she'll do. She really cares about me, that cat.

In the adjoining bedroom is Charlie, who as you can see is lounging across our pillows. He does not care about my Art at all. All he cares about is himself. Himself, and his damned sleep.

Now he is pleading me with his eyes to go away, and leave him in peace. And so I shall.

The tour of my office is now finished. You are very welcome.

More prizes!

If you donate this week to my challenge and email me with the subject line "Javis Davis" (and your donation receipt), you'll be in the running for one of two pillow and blanket sets for babies and kids. Javis Davis has some great stuff, and the sets would be in the fabric of your choice.

Thanks, Javis Davis!

Birthday, boy.

I was really sort of hoping something would go wrong.

Okay, not really. But when Henry asked for a sleepover party for his sixth birthday, and I agreed to it, part of me thought, at least it will make a good blog post. This is how I survive the bad days, my friends. I mine my own suffering for content opportunities. This is how I get by.

We invited four boys to his party—that's four sets of parents who all thought I was clinically insane. I know they thought I was insane because they told me. "Good luck, but you're completely nuts," they said, in one form or another. One parent told me (after accepting the invite) that her son was prone to night terrors. Another told me (also, before I could rescind the offer) that her son tended to "wander" in the night. I had some second thoughts. As the night approached, I began to dread, a little, the idea of one child screaming bloody murder at 4 a.m., waking up the other kids, except for the one who had already gone missing. Surely no blog post can be worth this, I thought.

I know, can you imagine? I thought that. I am so sorry.

A few days before the party Scott insisted that he was going to initiate some kind of pumpkin-carving activity with all the kids. He would have them all design jack o' lanterns, and then he would carve the pumpkins. Five pumpkins. I pictured the children designing impossibly complex faces for their jack o'lanterns; Scott surrounded by pumpkin gore and weeping in frustration. Now that's something to write about. "Go for it," I told him. "But don't hack a thumb off, or anything. That wouldn't be funny."

So. Saturday night was the party, and you know what? The whole damn thing went just fine.

There were no night terrors. No one walked anywhere in their sleep. No one soaked their sleeping bags after finishing one juice box too many. No one got hurt, or cried for their parents. No one had to be driven home before dawn. Everyone got along, slept for a decent amount of time, and kept their hands to themselves.

As for Scott's insane pumpkin project, I am sorry to say that it, too, went without a hitch. Apparently Scott has superhuman forearms and can tolerate gutting one pumpkin after another—or maybe he was soaking his arms in ice water and downing black-market oxycontin when I wasn't looking. The children were a little confused about what they had to do. Scott had provided them with each with a template, and they had to draw faces inside the templates, and they couldn't wrap their minds around this. "I'm not allowed to carve pumpkins," they told Scott, "that's too dangerous." No, he explained, you're not carving, you're just going to draw. "How do I draw on a pumpkin?" they asked. No, he explained, you draw on—"When do you give us the knives?" Eventually he repeated himself enough times and they understood, drew their designs, and had their pumpkins carved to order. The End.

The night was not entirely conflict-free. Henry wanted to watch a movie, but it turns out he is the only child in his group capable of sitting and watching something for more than seventeen seconds. Within moments they were all bouncing around, throwing popcorn and loudly discussing the wonderfulness of the movie they weren't watching. Henry kept shushing them, and then finally declared that he was the BIRTHDAY BOY and needed to be OBEYED. He said it so many times that his friends, who still wouldn't shut up, began addressing him as "Birthday Boy." I don't think they were being sarcastic. I was pretty syre he was going to lose it, but then after a while he just gave up, chatted and bounced along with his friends, and peace was restored. And that was that.

I can't say I would have preferred to suffer for your benefit, but surely something could have happened. One episode of puking, SOMETHING. Instead they were all just adorable. Jerks.

Get your Cringe book right here!

Okay, people: Tomato Nation is kicking my ass all over town. This cannot stand. If you want to see me dress as Pat Benatar, you've got to take action. I'm not asking for much. Seriously, if everyone reading this donated five dollars right now, I could pull ahead by the end of the day. And you know what that means! Headbands! Scott dressed up as a sleazy dance-parlor manager! I've already said too much!

Because it seems that love being a battlefield is not incentive enough, here's this:

If you donate in the next three hours (That's 11:30 am EST - 2:30 am EST) and email me with a receipt of your donation, you will be in the running for one of ten copies of Cringe, the hilarious anthology of teen angst edited by Sarah Brown. (Thank you, Sarah and Random House, for the gifts!) I will have a third party choose randomly from the emails I receive.

Important note: in order to be considered, your email must have the subject line CRINGE ME! Thank you in advance, lovely reading people.

P.S.: there's a new Alphamom column up. It's about the vice-presidential debate. I have opinions.