Tag: Home

Family, Home, Humor, Travel

Real Live Grownup

“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!

Home, Humor, Husband, Marriage, Weekend

A Tale of Two Kitties

“Why the windows are full west!”
– Jane Austen

Small Cat Syndrome?

J.’s nickname for me, despite my legendary Small Dog Syndrome personality condition, is Kitty.  Not from any simliarity to my real name, but because apparently I have a cat-like tendancy to hide things.  Not consciously, but it would seem that after I use certain things they have the obnoxious habit of vanishing into the ether.  I also do admit to tucking somethings away in their “designated place,” the geographic location I immediately forget.  This means that our marriage is a constant smorgasbord of rediscovered treasure.

Hairpins turn up in the oddest places, especially considering I almost never use them, but we find bushels of them every time we vacuum or dust.  Pens!  Everywhere!  They breed in my pockets, purses, and cup holders.  Despite practically never carrying cash, coins (of mutiple currencies!)  rain from me like I’m some fairytale maiden who got on a witch’s good side.  I lose my glasses at least once a day.  They have been found, variously, in my jewelry case, under the couch, in the shower, beneath my pillow, and in my purse which both of us had searched thouroughly four times previous only to finding them smugly nestled besides my wallet.  The possibilities truly are endless.  And without fail, whever something turns up from somewhere it doesn’t belong, J. rounds on me with a pointed finger and an accusatory voice.  “Kitty!”

Just so we’re clear, and so my mother doesn’t wring her hands and ask where she went wrong, our house is not dirty.  That’s the amazing part.  We’re minimalistic in our decor, specifically because neither of us like clutter.  We deep clean once a week.  There is absolutely nothing to attract the wildlife.  People comment on its cleanlines when they come over.  And yet, when I go to plump the pillows – voila!  That book I misplaced a week ago.

And apparently the way to really unearth all the things I’ve “mislaid”  is to install new windows.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful.  Our old windows were nearly a half century old, leaked heat out, let cold seep in, and were generally a source of larger than necessary utility bills.  The largest one in our flat faces west and made summers in the desert a misery!  It got so hot during summer that our blinds would melt – or at least warp to a fantastic and almost unuseable degree.  So, new windows equalled better utility costs, temperatures human beings can survive at, and less destruction of our abode.  Plus someone else was installing them.  Terrific!

Saturday morning at 8:30am (who does that?  On a weekend!) my phone shattered the tranquility.  The landlords told us the contractors wou!d be by in an hour to rip massive holes in our walls.
“J.!  Get up!  Clean everything!  Move move move!”
Despicably undomestic as I am, I’ve got enough feminine pride/residual 1950s guilt to not want total strangers see my house a “shambles.”  Poor J. was dragged from his bed and forced to dismantle window blinds while I made the bed, dusted (before a bunch of workman came to chip away my windows…yeah…) and fell to scrubbing even the bathroom with religious fervor.

It was when we invaded the office/storage space/Room of Requirement that things started turning up.  Piles of papers neither of us could identify.  Chords to appliances we have never owned.  Boxes for things we never ordered.  A couple of cups we never missed.  Ribbons, Christmas gifts bought months ago, a couple of paintings…  J. was laughing uproariously by the time we finished.  We’d thrown out masses of stuff and I’d taken to sulking from his teasing.  “Kitty!”

Then we headed back to the front room to move the couches.  And found sweet, sweet justice.

Beneath the sofa I found an external hard drive, a leather business folder, two textbooks, and a pile of notes.  All J.’s.  The dumbfounded look on his face was priceless.  I danced in a circle around him crowing, “You’re a kitty!  You’re a kitty!”

Naturally ten minutes later, he found my glasses.  Again.  The status quo resumed.

Small Cat sulks.

*Second picture from Hyperbole and a Half.

Drama, Family, Home, Humor, Office, Work

Coming to America, and Other Challenges

“Is this Plymouth?  We’ve just come from Plymouth.  We’ve gone round in circles, lads…”
– Eddie Izzard

I’ve decided to just stop panicking.  First of all it’s exhausting and unsustainable, and second panicking will have absolutely no effect on my fate anyway.  For all I know, Chief is just as puzzled as the rest of us seem to be and just wants to get my side of the story.  Of course, he could also be preparing the Iron Maiden and Rack, but I’m choosing to be optimistic.

So, we’ll continue as if nothing is wrong until next Monday.  Play along.  There’s every chance that I’ll lose my cool and completely disintegrate into a useless puddle sometime over the weekend and I may need you to drag me out of whatever darkened corner I’ve thrown myself, in the fetal position, into.

In other news, my whole family seems to be finding life Stateside a bit of a chore.  Mum is putting a house together, Dad is job hunting and running his small business, Gio is pacing rings in the carpet trying to work (in spite of torrential rains at our Uncle’s house where he is staying) and waiting for university to start, Buddy and Snickers are “looking forward” to (another) new school.

Family, Friends, Home

To Paraphrase…

“I had to scrap and entire post about my future library because you beat me to the punch.”
“That just means you have good taste too!”
– C. and Vodka

The term “Someday House” entered my vocabulary at a very young age.  My family has had many houses as we’ve flitted from country to country and continent to continent, but my mother and father would often (usually in the middle of a Great Purge) get a far-off look in their eyes and say, “In our Someday House, we’ll have…”

The insides change, but for some reason, my SH's exterior is invariably Georgian. This particular house with a yard for dogs, kids, and croquet please!

A Someday House is more than a Dream House.  The latter you just wish for, the former you actively plan for and will absolutely achieve one day.

The first time I used the phrase, “In our Someday House-” to J. he was completely baffled.  These days I can smugly note that it’s part of the Small Dog Family common vernacular.  We are slowly building our Someday House in our head together (awww…) and it’s shaping up to be a rather nice one, though I say so myself.

I was talking with Sav and Vodka the other day about future homes, and let the phrase “Someday House” slip.  I felt a bit silly saying it to Outsiders, but it turns out they both loved it!  We then had a long in depth conversation about our Someday Houses, and I was planning on blogging about my desire for a library…when Vodka did it first!

Go check it out, she said everything I was thinking, only better!

Books, History, Home, Movies

Liberal. Education

“A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.”
– George Santayana

We here at Small Dog Syndrome got some fun  emails from a previous post (the post about things one’s kids ought to know.  Not the post about beating one’s kids.  Very different).  And so, because it’s summer and I need something to do on my lunch breaks and weekends, I think I’ll start up a bit of a series on the subject (again, about what’s one’s children out to be exposed to, not domestic violence.  Just so we’re clear).  Nothing formal, and certainly not organized; that’s just not the way we do things around here.  Let’s think of it as an ongoing project that will intermittently interject into our regularly scheduled reading.

Do you have something to share with the class?

I’m opening this up for discussion as well, be free with your comments, accolades, scathing rebukes towards my taste, etc.  And by all means, add your own suggestions!  I’m looking for books, movies, TV shows, vacation spots, and the like, all I ask is that you keep it culturally-minded.  Meaning while Spongebob Squarepants may have been your favorite drivel growing up, I’m looking for the quality things that you’d truly want your future spawn to know of.  More importantly, why.

Food, Friends, Home, Humor, Work

Half. Baked.

“There is a peculiar burning odor in the room, like explosives.  The kitchen fills with smoke and the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookies.  The war has begun.”
– Allison Lurie

The end of a semester is always a bit sad, largely because we often have a turnover in student employees.  Today is Daae’s last day and Sport’s second to last day.

In honor…actually, in mourning…of the day, Wise and I decided that we wanted to do something for them and I said I would make a bunch of cookies for the office.  Unfortunately I had my creative writing final which lasted until 8pm (which was a surprising amount of fun, but that’s another post) and then I had to spend half an hour Harley (yes, I named it), so I didn’t open my cupboards until 9:30 which is when I discovered we had no butter – or milk, or bread, but who’s keeping tabs?

(Side note:  We go through butter at an alarming rate.  Perhaps I should up my Harley time to an hour?)

So, off to the store.  While I went in with the best of frugal intentions, I came out with butter, milk, bread, apples, oranges, carrots, dried fruit, yogurt, English muffins, granola bars, vegetables, chocolate chips, and evaporated milk.  Oops.

Now, I'm no culinary wonder, but I do know my chocolate chip cookies!

Then I got to work whipping up a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and thanking Mum and Dad for the foresight of getting me an industrial sized Kitchen Aid for a wedding present.  It was all going swimmingly until I pulled the first pan out of the oven.

Something had gone terribly wrong.  They didn’t look like cookies at all, they looked like scones.  But they didn’t taste like scones, they tasted like incredibly dry biscuits.  But they didn’t feel like biscuits, the felt like hockey pucks.  You can imagine my confusion.

We picked up some donuts this morning instead.

Humor, Life, Marriage, Stupid People

An Upstairs, Downstairs Drama

“It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door.”
– Publilius Syrus

Those of you who remember this little fiend, will be happy to know that he has departed for grimmer and more diabolic realms.  Alternatively, you will be saddened to know that he has been replaced with something far, far worse:

Our new upstairs neighbors. 

Artist's rendering of the neighbor's parties.

Not only do they fight, constantly, at the top of their lungs, specifically at ridiculous hours of the the night, but they are also completely incapable of walking.  No, no.  They stomp.  Which makes our ceiling shake.  And they throw parties with loud friends in which they, as far as we can tell, practice riverdancing.  Or dropping bowling balls.   

The other night, when we were watching a movie, we heard the door above us slam and moments later the light fixture started rattling around.
“Ah good,” J. said, “Lord and Lady Stompington are home.”
Obviously all this PBS watching is starting to rub off on him!

Family, Food, History, Home, Humor, Life

My Love-to-Hate Affair With Mac & Cheese

“At least she’s eating better things than macaroni and cheese.”
– Heidi Klum

Translation of fragment: "Mac and Cheese is food fit for dogs. And Gauls. Go Rome!"

Throughout my life my mother has been in school, in some capacity or another.  When I was about three or four, she had to leave Dad and I for a few weeks to finish up something or other with one of her degrees (I misremember which.  Which isn’t me being a bad daughter, it’s her having one in Asian Studies, one in American History, and now another in Classical Studies from Cambridge because she decided to learn Greek and Latin.  In other words, my mother is exceptionally awesome).  Time has blurred the details a bit but as I recall, this was an absolute highlight of my short life because Dad and I subsisted on mainly pizza.

I didn’t realize this during the Great Pizza Blitz, but it turned out that my Dad hated cooking.  Really hated it.  He encouraged my Mum to go to school, continue her education throughout her life, and work if she wanted, but by golly the one thing he wanted was dinner to be on the table, because left up to him, dinner would come grudgingly from a frozen package.

So, a few years down the road when she decided to teach for a semester or two at a local university, I thought the Pizza Affair would be reborn.  I was sadly, terrifyingly mistaken.

This is NOT food.

Mac and Cheese.  From a box.  Every night.  Some days even for lunch.  Sometimes we varied it up with chunks of hotdog, but mostly not.  Again, I’m sure both time and horror have worked their magic on me and the vile orange sludge was not as prolific as I remember, but it sure seemed like it at the time.  When my mother’s teaching finished, I refused to eat another disgusting, processed bite, and I’ve never touched it since.  Once when shopping J. picked up a box for himself on days when I’d be at school late or he needed a lunch, I had to swallow escaping bile.

However, watching Food Network the other day, I saw a recipe for ‘Grown Up Mac And Cheese’ and thought suddenly to myself, “That doesn’t look so bad.”  It sounded pretentious enough that I could assure myself that it would be as un-Kraft-like as possible, but looked really easy to make.  So, on Sunday I girded my loins and made Mac and Cheese for the first time in years.

And you know what?  It was pretty darned tasty!

**I’ll still never make the packaged stuff again.  My children will not be subjected to this powdered cheese monstrosity, except to survive the Zombie Apocalypse.  And even then, I might choose death.

Family, Holidays, Home, Marriage, Travel

This England!

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,—
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
– Shakespeare

So!  Flew in to Heathrow on the morning of Christmas Eve, met at airport by Dad and Snickers, drove home to Suffolk.  Day spent hugging, talking, and trying to stay awake.  Christmas Eve feast was superb.  Went to bed.  Woke up Christmas morning (siblings showed infinite patience and let us sleep in longer than I’d ever imagine they’d be able to) and tore into both presents and breakfast.  Rest of day spent in rest and relaxation.

The adventures begin on December 26th, also known as Boxing Day.  It’s part of the Christmas holiday in England and most people keep holiday hours on it, but this was the day chosen to go to London to show J. the sights.  We checked online and it appeared some things would be open, so off we went.

Mum, left in red. Me, middle in red. Gio, right of me in red. Dad, right of Gio in red. Buddy...in black. Snickers, hidden. J., behind camera.

Never trust the internet.  The Tower, which really is the historical base of the city (thanks, William the Bastard/Conquerer) was closed.  Luckily Westminster Abbey was open.  Some of you may recall my raptures at visiting it two years ago?  Well, it was nothing compared to this time.  I was so obnoxiously happy to be back in England that I had a hyper litany of sheer enthusiasm trilling through my head as I forced myself to walk somberly through its hallowed naves.  The Shakespeare alone was particularly thrilling, I may or may not have muttered the St. Crispin’s Day speech as I meandered past Henry V.  Anne of Cleves got a nod and a, “Well done.  Better off without him.  Much,” Congreve got a cheeky grin, Elizabeth I another critical glance over (still not as pretty as she thought she was).

After Westminster we tried for the Tower but that as you know was a fruitless effort.  So we traipsed across the city!  I didn’t make it over to Kensington where I lived but I did stare longingly at the High Street Kensington and Gloucester Road stops on the Tube for a while.  We walked through Trafalgar Square (scene of many a late night revel with Marie, Elizabeth, and AbFab so long ago), made our way to Leicester Square where, completely out of other ideas, we massacred three hours by watching Avatar.  An observation: don’t see this movie in 3D from the second row of the theatre.  Your inner ear thanks me.  After that we saw Stomp and made our way home at a ridiculous hour of the evening.

Sunday we tried to recuperate a bit and celebrated Buddy’s birthday with a quiet family evening at home.  The next day we celebrated it by scampering around the misty wet fields with nearly fifty people, shooting each other with paintballs.  I had only been paintballing once before and been shot in the mouth, so I didn’t have a high opinion of the activity (this time I was shot at point-blank range while guarding a little girl, but it was during our mad dash for glory in a game of capture the flag and we were welcomed to the splotched sidelines like heroes).  The boys loved it.

No, it's not the camera angle, the house really looks like that.

Tuesday we went to Lavenham, which is without question the most charming country village outside of the Lakes District.  I’ve written about it before, but allow me to gush a little bit more!  It’s just delightful, the crooked Tudor houses always make me grin like an idiot.  I rummaged through my favorite antique store (trying on an Edwardian hat, drooling over Victorian jewelry, and rifling through letter boxes and cupboards) and we ate lunch at The Swan.

Wednesday J. and I basely ditched the family and hopped on the train from Cambridge back down to London so he could actually see things.  The train was a necessity because, according to the news, a truck of pigs had gotten into a wreck on the M11 and, far from turning the passengers into bacon, a dozen or so had escaped and were wandering across the highway, grazing on things, and generally causing a bad time of it for the drivers who were backed up for hours waiting for the porcine perils to be rounded up.

We hit the Tower and the British Museum.  Going through it was like visiting an old friend.  J. seemed to especially love the awful imperialism it represented.  “I mean, these guys just showed up and said, ‘I like that wall.  I think I’ll take it!'” he said going through the Parthenon exhibit.  During the evening we walked from Tottenham Court Road to Oxford Circus so I could get in some much needed shopping before we made our way back to Liverpool St. and hopped back on the train to Cambridge.  Then, the next day, back to the States.

I’m going to be honest and admit that as we were driving back from J.’s parents house and I was looking across the valley and snow-covered mountains…I burst into homesick tears.  When we got home I was absolutely howling with misery (or lack of sleep, one of the two).  “I want to live two hours outside of London!” I sobbed, “I want to live where it’s green even in the winter!  I hate the desert!  I don’t want to go back to work on Monday!  I don’t want to live here for two and a half more years while you finish school!  I want my dog!”

J. just hugged me and promised to get me back there someday if he could, and he meant it.  I calmed down, went to bed, and woke up feeling alright about leaving England behind for a while.  In the meantime, I’ll just be here.  Missing it.

Family, Holidays, Life, Marriage, Travel

Six Month Anniversary

“So, every once and while I look up and go, ‘Oh, hey!  We have a fan in our kitchen,’ because I forget about it and you have these short little arms that can’t reach.”
“Shut up!”
-J. and C.

We spent January 1, 2010 flying in from London at 2am, crashing at my in-laws so we wouldn’t have to drive home at that ungodly hour, sleeping until 10 (jet lag), and lounging around waiting for nieces and nephews…who didn’t show up until ten minutes after we left, reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (which I couldn’t put down, go read it at once!), and crawling pitifully back in bed for a fitful night’s sleep.

It was also our six month anniversary. 

Now, J. might have an awful penchant for cracking short jokes, think that me getting furious is about the funniest thing possible, and not do the dishes as often as I would wish, but he also tolerates my stupid TV shows, kisses me at every opportunity, and flat-out orders me to a masseuse when my jet lag weariness won’t abate.

And that, my dears, is a very nice sort of husband to have.  I am terribly fond of him!

(Editor’s note: YES!  England trip updates are coming, I just keep forgetting to upload the – very sparse – photos we took!)