Well, That Wasn't Our Best Day

Dave, at 10:00 last night, opening the second bottle of wine (thanks, Dad!), "So let us recap today."

"First, you are meditating and using incense to set the mood. And instead, you set off the fire alarm.

Then, after ADT calls, you decide to move the smoke out of the house by turning on the attic fan and while sucking up the smoke into the attic, it also sucks the 110 degree, 100% humidity air into the house.

And then you realize that the fan is still broken and you can't turn it off and, potentially, you will be sucking air into the house all day long on one of the hottest day of the year.

And then you call me and I can't come home and fix the fan and we realize that your arms are not as long as my monkey arms* and I cannot effectively describe my trick of turning off the fan and you are too lame** to actually do it yourself.

So then you stand outside in the 110 degree, 100% humidity weather turning the fuse switches off and on, off and on, off and on, multiple times around the box until you finally figure out which one turns the fan off.

And then you go out in the Subaru to run some errands. And the check engine light starts flashing while the power nearly cuts off in the car. You coast into the post office parking lot and call me. I call AAA and find out that they will not be able to tow the car for two hours. You have a choice of sitting by the car in the 110 degree, 100% humidity weather or walking back 15 minutes back to the house in the 110 degree, 100% humidity weather and then walking 15 minutes back to the car in the 110 degree, 100% humidity weather when the tow truck arrives and then walking 15 minutes back to the house in the (by then) 115 degree, 100% humidity weather after the tow truck leaves. You opt to walk and have some time in the a/c vs. sit by the car like a roasted idiot.

And then you get a call from our daycare at 4:30 in the afternoon to decide which pre-K class Conor is going enroll in: the going-to-kindergarten next year pre-K class or the going-to-wait-another-year-before-going-to-kindergarten pre-K class. This bring to a massive head the discussions we've been having for the last week about whether it would be better for Conor to be the oldest or the youngest student in his class. He will always be the tallest, but should we honor his introversion or his curiousity in when he starts kindergarten? We continue to note that everyone we know who has been the youngest in their class has hated it while those who have been the oldest or in the middle have not noticed it. The benefits for holding Conor back are numerous and could include more self-confidence now and college scholarships later. The benefits of letting him go forward include keeping him apace with some of his friends and keeping him from being bored for his first few years at school. Daycare gives us a week to decide while we try to make one of the biggest decisions in Conor's life thus far and we cannot get his reasoned input on it.

And then we get a call at 8:15 at night from the Fancy California IVF Clinic to 'discuss test results.' And while everything looks great on the fertility side (blood levels and egg counts), there is a problem with another test and they have decided to cancel our IVF cycle this month, resolve the test issues, and reschedule the IVF for October. You point out your lack of vacation days or sick days as a professor, but agree to the delay. They point out that nothing is inherently 'wrong' or 'bad' but we're delayed. Again.

So does that kind of sum up how the day has gone?"

Ummm, yes. Not the best day we've ever had.

*Maybe I was being cranky. **Maybe Dave was too.

Anita, The Musical

Do you sing? A lot? I don't mean, "do you sing along with the radio?" (It is well established that I do and I'm serious about it) I mean, though, do you sing every day about whatever is going on at the time? I do that. A lot.

I sing about making dinner. I sing about Conor being cranky. I sing about Conor being bugged about me singing about Conor being cranky. I sing about going outside and all the things we're doing once we are out there. I can make up a song about anything, really.

Dave calls it living in "Anita, the Musical." Conor sometimes sings back to me (when he's not cranky at my singing. I can only sing after he's had breakfast. He does not appreciate morning musicals). His singing generally involves one high note and sometimes I can't even tell he's singing or he's squeaking. Nonetheless, he appreciates the music in our house.

But, along with Michael Chertoff, am I the only one who does that?