The town is one street long and almost all of the buildings look as if they were built in a previous century.
The children’s clothing store in town is called “Sugarbritches.”
Mail is delivered by Land Rover.
Half an hour away are some of the most gorgeous Georgian colonial era homes I’ve ever seen, each still with massive tracts of land attached.
One of our neighbors is named William Luck (not William, not Mr. Luck, he is always addressed by his full nomenclature) and he is utterly incomprehensible – my parents have to lip read to try and make out his conversation – but he’s welcome to hunt on our land whenever he wants.
The local barbeque joint is called Smokin’ Eddy’s, and apparently it’s to die for.
Strangely enough there is also a Portuguese resteraunt in town (who’da thunk it?).
Driving through the woods, is a surreal experience because, as Peregrine pointed out, it genuinely looks like someone with a chainsaw is going to leap out at you at any moment.
There is a hyperactive neighbor boy who is a pathological exaggerator (he has played in the NFL, trained with the marines, runs forty miles each morning before breakfast, and parachuted out of an airplane because teenage girls were chasing him in a lust hazed frenzy. Etc.).
It takes three people nearly a whole day to clear our lawn of leaves.
“Anybody can be good in the country.” – Oscar Wilde
J. and I are visiting the new family pile back East for the holiday. In order to fully comprehend Small Dog’s family, you must understand our one vital characteristic: we are chameleons.
We have generally accepted this philosophy to avoid cultural whiplash.
We have had to be. We have gone from a suburban Dutch commune just outside Brussels, to typhoon ravaged third world Pacific islands, and most places in between. And we have generally taken to each of them like a duck to water learned, variously, to speak Dutch/French/German and go scuba diving and spear fishing with the best of them. We can chop coconuts with machetes, hold our own at major social or political functions, and pack up and move to the other side of the world in weeks. I was chucked into cotillion training and also went deer stalking with my dad (and have suffered the subsequent social multiple personality disorder more or less cheerfully).
But now, my family has (to use what I think must be the local term) “gone country.”
They have a gorgeous house and 40 acres of land in the backwoods of the Eastern US far away from anything. The (I think I can be justified in calling it a) village is tiny, and much of it built in the previous century or so. Spaced out along the country roads, sitting each on their individual plots of land, are colonial and Civil War era houses (sporadically punctuated with mobile homes and trailers). But besides the pretty farms there is next to no development.
This place is loaded with character! There are fantastic white, steepled churches built in the early 19th century and still in use, planted wherever there is a cluster of houses. There a one or two large antebellum homes that have been turned into inns or B&Bs. The people here are poor, but fabulously nice and friendly. Life seems slower. It probably is! We’ve been traipsing around the world for the better part of thirty years, these people are born, raised, and die here.
It’s a completely foreign life to my parents. My father, who has 40 acres of land to do with what he will, is as happy as a clam! My dad was born in the wrong century, he was supposed to be a gentleman farmer only (as he said) then he couldn’t have had a chainsaw. He has the opportunity to build his own estate from the ground up and is loving it. He’s plating trees and shrubs, digging a pond, tramping through the river bottoms, chopping wood to giveaway to neighbors, and making messes to his heart’s content.
Mum is unused to the inconvenience of not living close to anything, but she loves her house and the area. My siblings are still making up their minds, they went from being considered very clever in their schools in the UK to towering geniuses in the county school here, and sundry other changes that sort of throw them off. The dog loves it. She chases squirrels and digs after moles to her heart’s content.
Next time, a few character sketches from the area.
“My outer child is holding my inner adult hostage.” – Unknown
I have this problem. Going home to see family. Desperate for my family to think of me as a Real Live Grownup, before every visit I agonize over what to wear, debate whether or not I should get a more mature looking haircut to make me look older, and lecture myself very firmly to avoid bratty behavior, and so forth.
"Where's C.?" "Drat! We must have left her in Calais! Should we go back?" "Nah. We'll see her at Christmas."
See, a couple of weeks after I turned 18, my parents shot off to Belgium leaving me with my grandparents to fend largely for myself. I got myself off to university in the States and all settled in needing only rides to and from airports. I didn’t see my family for six months until Christmas. And then not again until I went home to work for the summer. Ditto the next year. My junior year I stayed in the States for most of the summer except for a two week holiday home to England and didn’t go home for Christmas at all.
My point? Lots of people, like J., leave near enough to their families that they grow up (fully) with them. All the major milestones are covered and both child and parents can transition through the chrysalis stage and watch the child-butterfly emerge into adulthood pretty seamlessly. (This is in ideal circumstances, I know it’s not as easy for everyone, but bear with me).
Alternatively, I go bumbling along more or less on my own gumption for huge stretches of time, growing up and developing into an adult, but largely out of view from my parents. Then, when I do finally get to see them, I’ve none of the requisite adult child skills or abilities to interact maturely with them. I slip into bad habits from six years ago, ones that (I could have sworn) I’d outgrown.
The real irony is that my parents do think of me as a Real Live Grownup, this inadequacy I feel is strictly in my head. My parents are fantastic, they’ve never treated as if I were younger, stupider, or less capable than I am. The problem is me. When I go home, I’m seized with the desire to wrestle with my siblings, pout when I don’t get my way, and roll my eyes at individual family members. An exact copy of me as a snotty 17 year old. Because I literally don’t know how to act 24 around them. It’s disgraceful.
I imagine there is some disconnect for them as well. After all, in one year I graduated, got a job, and got engaged, and planned a wedding completely apart from them. They were great sports about it all, but I wonder if they ever feel like they’re scrambling to catch up on me too?
Note: not six and eight anymore.
It’s getting better, but I’m really still an idiot in a lot of ways. See, this disproportionate view of development goes in the opposite direction as well. When I moved out, my sister was six, she’s now 13. Gio is a freshman at university right now, both he and Buddy are several feet taller than me and eat acres of food just to keep alive. When I moved out, my father was still in the midst of a nice, international career, my mum was mostly still raising kids. Now Dad is retired and Mum is teaching Western Civilization at university.
Where my family is concerned, I will probably never be a Real Live Grownup. The sense of constant vertigo is too strong. In my head, my brothers are still shorter than me, my sister is practically an infant, and my parents are at very different places in their lives. Coming home and looking two feet up into Buddy’s eyes or sharing clothes with my sister or visiting a new house (usually in a completely new country) is just too much to keep up with.
It’s just as well. Being a kid in my family isn’t too bad!
“I can’t think why mothers love them. All babies do is leak at both ends.” – Douglas Feaver
Wise and R2 are both pregnant and due about the same time. I’ve had a slew of acquaintances spawn recently. Last Friday the office girls and I had that conversation about childbirth that traumatized three-quarters of us, and at dinner last night my god-uncle (jokingly) asked when J. and I were going to add to the list. Short answer, not any time soon, Deus Volent. Pregnancy seems to be on everyone’s collective brain these days.
Apart from my completely lack of desire to have children in the near future, pregnancy, as far as I can tell, produces all sort of undesirable social effects. I can’t begin to count the times that pregnant women have been accosted in public places by, as far as I can tell, perfect strangers. People seem to feel it’s their prerogative to run up, clap hands on their stomach, and demand when they are due or coo over them in an alarmingly possessive manner. I can personally guarantee the first stranger who tries that with me when I’m eventually ready to have kids will have their ears blistered.
Also, it seems to turn people (in their minds at least) into friends with everyone in sight. Which can be awkward for the individual on the receiving end of this jovial goodwill.
Friday evening I ran to Nordstrom to find a baby shower present for R2. When I stepped off the tile floor into the carpeted are of the baby section, I might as well has crossed the Bosporus!
There were choruses of “Awww!” from every corner, even though I saw next to no people anywhere. A creepy enough beginning, but it got more bizarre. Wandering past a rack of clothes a perfect stranger leaped at me out of nowhere clutching tiny shoes in her fist.
“Aren’t these the most adorable things you’ve ever seen?!” she demanded shrilly before disappearing behind shelves of diaper bags.
A bit shaken I began flipping through clothes when a woman on the other side of the store held up a pair of pajamas, waved them back and forth to get my attention, and when I furtively glanced up, yelled, “These are just too cute, I had to share them with someone!” I nodded and moved away quietly…
Ducks. Gender neutral enough? You decide
Only to back into a third woman who held up two onesies asking my opinion which one she should buy, launching into the life story of both herself and the person she was buying this present for.
“Uh, the one on the left?” I offered.
“My left or your left?” she demanded. “Are ducks gender-neutral enough?”
“Um. Yes.”
“By the way, when are you due? You’re not showing at all,” she said, reaching for my stomach.
“I’m not pregnant,” I managed through clenched teeth, nearly tripping as I backpedaled to avoid her hand.
“Oh. Well, you have time,” she said, patting the shoulder I couldn’t wrench away in time.
…where J. has asked C. to quiz him on information for his business law class’ upcoming exam. For some clarification of the following snippets, it is helpful to note that his study guide seems to have been compiled by blind monkeys tap dancing on a typewriter. Let’s listen in, shall we?
“Name the conditions for unconscionability.”
“One party is Comcast?”
“Focus.”
~~~
“Talk to me about minors.”
[J. grins slowly]
“Not the ones in Chile!”
~~~
“Term meaning that the Court will leave you as it finds you.”
“…”
“Impere-” “Delecto. I was mixing that up with In flagrante delicto, but I knew that wasn’t right.”
“Um, no. No it’s not.”
~~~
“What is a ‘covenant not to complete?'”
“Uh, I think you mean ‘compete.'”
“Look. It says ‘complete,’ right there.”
“Oh, so it does. It’s wrong, though.”
“I could write a more coherent study guide than this!”
~~~
“Help, help, I’m being duressed!”
~~~
“Hold on! Are they making up legal terms?”
“Looks like it.”
“But they can’t do that! ‘Assign-ee?’ ‘Offer-or?’ ‘Oblige-or?’ These sound like video game character names! And I’ve counted six spelling mistakes on this page alone.
“Calm down, C..”
“I can’t! This is wrong!”
~~~
“That reminds me! Have I showed you that YouTube clip -”
“Focus, J..”
“The one from the Simpsons?”
“Don’t.”
“It’s funny!”
“I don’t care.”
“You need to see it -”
“Pay attention or I will papercut you to death with this thing, so help me!”
“You can watch this while I find someone who will perform a marriage ceremony between a crazed fan and a celebrity teen hostage. To the Internet!” – The Fairly Odd Parents
Savvy just did something which, considered in light of current societal attitudes and the fact that a movie title The Social Network was just released, is quite brave. She deleted her Facebook. Apparently it took hours of dogged, single-minded determination and clicking, but she did it.
"Honestly, C., had you no life at all?!" "I'm SORRY!"
I confess, I’ve toyed with the idea myself. Truthfully, the hours I’ve spent on that ridiculous thing will shame me when we’re all dead and get to watch the Big Movie of our lives.
However, I have a qualm. Surprisingly I do use Facebook for its original intent: to keep track of people. Having trucked over the world, keeping in touch with people can be a chore. It’s the same reason why I’ve never changed my Hotmail address: I got it when I was 12 or 13 and across the years have given it out to friends/contacts/employers in multiple countries. It’s the only way I keep in touch with a whole army of correspondents, I couldn’t do something so stupid as to change it simply because Gmail is en vogue (yes, yes, and better, yes I heard you).
Frankly, though, as the years have gone by, I’ve winnowed down my own social network quite a bit. Scarlett, Peregrine, Jane, and Venice are far off, but I still communicate with them regularly. Margot, Marie, Tink, and Angel, though busy, are still nearby. The majority of people I see everyday… I see everyday: Hennessy, Wise, Susie, Sav, and Vodka, as well as the traffic clerks. I regularly bump into Sadie on campus and we often get together with my whole godfamily to play, usually at least once a month. And now that my parents live on the same continent as I do, keeping in touch with them has never been easier.
So…what do I really use Facebook for?
Honestly, the occasional glimpse into long gone friends’ lives (once every six months), to keep in touch with Gio as he heads off into his first year of adventure at university (daily), and to play stupid games (also daily, shamefully). In other words, with very few exceptions, nothing really valuable.
I don’t know if I have the moral fortitude to completely go cold turkey as the indomitable Sav did…but I am thinking that I really need to start weaning myself off it.
And how many of these behaviors/tendencies have you displayed recently?
Make your voices heard, minions! Have you ever rethought your relationship with your techie relationships? How many people would simply vanish from your life if you ditched Facebook, Twitter, and whatever bastard cousin of theirs has popped up recently? And would you miss these people if they melted away? How much of your life would disappear, and how much of it would you get back if you tuned out? Weigh in.
“There aren’t enough days in the weekend.” – Rod Schmidt
Today I realized that, what with the insane week I’ve had at work/home/any other plane of existence that temporarily escapes me, I could not – for the life of me – remember whether or not I’d paid our October rent! On my lunch break I scampered over to our flat’s managers. She answered the door in her pajamas with scary hair and a sick-to-her-stomach looking face. Turns out, she’s pregnant and was having a miserably week to – and apparently so were a lot of other people living in our building because she waived the $15 late fee, citing life.
Excellent.
Also! Today was the first day I’ve worn a coat to work. It’s Fall! It’s my sister-in-law’s birthday so we’re going to her house this evening for cake. Tomorrow I get to play with Fairy and GS (whom I haven’t seen in weeks) for a lovely Ladies Only Afternoon. Last night I wore my chenille house slippers and made my first real cup of tea in a long time (with a teapot, as it was intended to be). J. is playing with the guys tonight so I think I will make a steaming pot of corn chowder and watch a movie.
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll be happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
– Socrates
Confession time. I was an excellent girlfriend when J. and I were dating. I was independent, clever, fun to be around, liked trying new things, was optimistic, and supportive (oh, and definitely humble). By anyone’s standards I really was a catch.
Alternatively, I’m starting to think that I really suck at being a wife.
To start out with, I am stressed all the time…but I think this is pretty understandable. When we got married, I assumed the rent, food, utilities, car payments, insurance, two credit cards, and the general livelihood of two people, solely by myself. Just so we are clear I am happy to do this, but I can’t lie, it’s an awfully big pressure. I live in fear of unlikely events (pregnancy, job loss, etc.) because of how it will affect my family. It’s a Great Big Worry to carry around all by myself and I confess, I probably exacerbate the stress by trying (in all my control freak, Small Dog glory) to plan and be prepared for every eventuality. Which is, of course, impossible.
It’s also very hard for me to adjust my thinking to his. His life revolves around school, I graduated two years ago and now work full time. Most of his friends still live in the area or within an hour’s driving, most of my friends (exception of Margot and Angel) are in different states/countries and my nearby family is pretty busy these days. Honestly, it can get terribly lonely working a subsistence job, having a thinned out support system, and bearing the financial weight of two people. I’ve always been pretty good at entertaining myself, keeping myself busy, but honestly it’s downright exhausting these days.
This stress builds up to the point the small things violate my sense of order. If the rubbish isn’t taken out when I ask, if the house is a mess, if I have a bad day at work, or if…you get the idea. Complete transformation into a snarling Gorgon.
Small things become massive disappointments, such as when J. applied for a job and didn’t get it (even though they wanted him) because he’s graduating in six months and they want someone for longer.
I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not fun to be married to these days. I’m worried, shrewish, tired, easily irritated…I’m the exact opposite of what I was as a girlfriend. And even though I’m sure a good chunk of this can be tied to my birth control being out of whack, I’m feeling miserable about it.
“…until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.”
– Sheryl Crow
We went to LA for the weekend to celebrate the finalized adoption of my brother-and-sister-in-law’s son. Hurrah, he’s ours! Back off LA county!
They live right off Santa Monica Blvd so we walked the pier, shopped 3rd street, and took in an installation art show on the beach. We went to Universal Studios, rode all the rides, and did the studio tour which went right through Wisteria Lane, as they were filming Desperate Housewives. I had a massive migraine, more on that later, but we soldiered on! We also had a celebrity sighting, some actor from Lost who I’ve never heard of.
Meanwhile, my little brother Gio started university, and Mum was hired to teach Western Civilization at a college back on the East Coast. J. had an interview with Firm #3 on Friday, and has a job interview today along with a couple of exams. I couldn’t find half of my things getting ready for work this morning.
“I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.”
-Thomas Carlyle
This past week/weekend:
-Marie had a bridal shower, reception, wedding, and luncheon (Wed., Thurs., and Friday respectively)
-We had our school’s Football season opener (and won!)
-Labor Day, several hours of which I spent throwing nieces and nephews around on a trampoline
-I bought food for the first time in over a week
-Ate a full meal…which seemed like the first time in over a week
-I didn’t sleep more than five hours a night, and apparently started grinding my teeth in my sleep (according to J.)
-Fall showed up. Seriously. I turned around and there it was with sweaters, boots, and temperatures plummeting thirty degrees. Unlike most people I know, I’m thrilled because Fall is my favorite season
-Had a perma-migraine
Weddings, even fabulous ones like Marie's, can have unforeseen consequences.
So instead of updating you as was clearly my duty and your right, my loves, I spent last night in flannel pajama pants, dosed with pain killers, and watching Emma – not sharing pictures from the wedding. Every once and a while I lurched to the kitchen for sustenance, but only at moments of near death. Apologies, but I really wasn’t fit for anything else.
I’ll get them up today, I promise. And I’ll never neglect you like that again.
– not sharing pictures from the wedding. Every once and a while I lurched to the kitchen for sustenance, but only at moments of near death. Apologies, but I really wasn’t fit for anything else.
Small Dog Syndrome 