Moving Bodies

Alex and Lucien ran a 5K last weekend.  The forecast said it would be a beautiful crisp day but when we awoke at 5:45 a.m. to get the guys out of the house, it was just damn cold.

The plan was for Coco and I to meet Lucien and Alex at the finish line so I could share the glorious moment of my firstborn finishing his first race.  But someone (Alex) forgot the plan.  Instead of texting me as they neared the finish line so I could get into place, he chose to cross the finish line discreetly and take Lucien inside for hot chocolate, leaving me outside in the cold to wonder where the hell everybody was.

Here's a nice picture of people finishing the race but they are not related to me

I was outside for a long time, walking Coco up and down in the stroller to keep warm, glancing at the finish line from time to time, looking for my boys.  I became concerned when the race participants became decidedly more unhealthy.  There were several who sat down immediately upon completion and refused to move.  One had diabetes and was taken to the medical tent.  One rather out-of-shape woman cried and yelled for water.

Then there were tourists wearing fanny packs crossing the finish line.  They posed for jokey "crossing the finish line ha ha!" photos and yelled at their friends in a foreign language so they would notice how funny they were being.

When the 15K race participants began crossing the finish line,  I thought, "Oh holy hell what have we done to Lucien?"   If the out-of-shapers and the diabetics and the German tourists wearing sandals AND the 15K participants have lapped him, perhaps this was a bad idea. 

Then I got a text -- "We're in Bay Pavillion!  Lucien finished in half an hour!  He did great! He's had five hot chocolates now! Come pick us up!"

It was an epic communication breakdown, suckas.

I wasn't happy upon entering Bay Pavilion but I was still very proud of The Loosh.  He didn't slow down, didn't stop, just ran that entire 5K like a boss.  He wasn't even tired as evidenced by his jumping on the couch all afternoon.  We've now signed him up for track and field where he will likely receive the nickname, "That Hyperactive Fast Kid."

Have you guys heard of Car2Go?  I learned of it from Blonde Seattle Mom, who knows everything.  We went out for drinks last week but it started raining so we didn't want to walk home.  Blonde Seattle Mom said, "No problem, we'll just grab a Car2Go!"  She made some magic happen by waving a card around and suddenly the three of us were crammed into a Smart Car and she was driving us the ten blocks home.

What's happening?  Can someone tell me what's happening?

The best part of Car2Go is you don't have to make reservations and you don't have to return it where you got it.  You can just ditch it wherever you want: sidewalk, tree, wherever.  It's a Smart Car so you could probably put it in your pocket and carry it around for awhile if you wanted, too.

This isn't an endorsement, I'm just recounting another unexpected occurrence in my life (my favorite kind of occurrence).  I have now signed up for Car2Go and look forward to popping a wheelie in a Smart Car in the near future.

Our neighbors are exactly like us;  they are suckers who purchased a beautiful old "fixer" home (theirs was formerly full of artists who turned out to be squatters, remember them?)  and now spend all their time fixing it and looking stressed.  We share house fixing tips such as, "this sh*t's f*cking hard and takes forever" and wave at each other weakly across the driveway.  They are oftentimes wearing large gas masks -- which reminds me, I should really ask them about that.

As I put Lucien to bed the other night, I glanced out the window and realized people who fix old houses can sometimes look like serial killers --

Whatcha doin' in that plastic-covered room with that spotlight and giant garbage bag, neighbor?

Not that I'm one to talk.  Banister Abbey recently looked like this --

All of us fixers end up with Dexter rooms sooner or later

What the above photo doesn't capture is the dank smell of wet drywall plaster.  Also, the several huge fans set at high speed that sounded like airplane engines all night long and made the plastic billow, flap and ripple in creepy ways. Downstairs was terrifying for two solid weeks.

 

Our dining room was no longer inviting

 And the refrigerator no longer hospitable

Since the plastic has come down, my life has revolved around priming and painting all the new drywall.  I haven't made it to the gym in the past few weeks but like to think I'm getting some good "Karate Kid" workouts -- roll on, roll off, up ladder, down ladder, brush on, brush off, lean in, lean out too far from top of ladder, fall off ladder, get back on ladder, repeat. 

I can probably kick some arrogant blonde guy's butt right now and don't even know it.

In happy news, Coco is a Butterfly Princess and if you tell her otherwise, she will kick you in the shins --

Coco is also now taking a ballet class. There's a special place in heaven for people who teach ballet to small children.  It's the most accurate example of the phrase "it's like herding cats" I've ever witnessed.

Coco's not too bad, but overall the girls in our class are the most uncoordinated group of children you've ever seen.  If the teacher tells them to skip, they lumber across the room like mini-Frankensteins, often with one leg dragging behind them and seemingly no understanding of the mechanics of their own body.  Most of the girls stop mid-lumber to pick their noses or sit on the floor to scoot around on their butts.

One girl is so hyperactive she runs back and forth across the room the entire class.  I don't understand how she makes so much noise doing so; all I can figure is her tiny feet are made of lead.  For another girl, jumping straight up in the air has proven quite a challenge; she kind of lunges to the side as the teacher looks at her with stupefied concern.

There's one little boy in the class.  Apparently the teacher and the boy's father had a difference in opinion recently because I overheard him say, "He's a little boy! Just let him hold his penis for Pete's sake!"  I'm going to stay out of that one.

There goes Ole Leadfoot

As our children make a mess of ballet, we parents sit against the wall and laugh so hard we cry.  We bury our heads in our arms so the kids can't see.  So far no obvious prima ballerinas have emerged amongst the 2-3 year old set but I'll keep you posted.

Skipping is hard,
MJ

Miss you, metro baby

Alex is having a hard time adjusting to life back in the U.S.  Maybe it's because he's not American.  Maybe it's because his work hours got longer when we returned (something no one thought possible).  Maybe it's because he misses wearing huge scarves and pointy-toed shoes without looking like an idiot. 

Or maybe it's because of the bus.

After the near-flawless (if you don't count all the strikes) Paris metro system, the Seattle bus system isn't measuring up.  Seattle's public transportation is a little less glamorous, a little less polished, a little more flannel-filled than in Paris.  But we don't care about that -- the problem is Alex's bus has an attitude problem.  It may get him to work on time today, but if it doesn't feel like it, it sure as hell isn't getting him to work on time tomorrow --

 

We swore we'd be a one-car family when we returned.  That resolution may not last long because I'm worried about Alex's mental health and my children's vocabulary.  Even if I'm in the shower (a rare occurrence these days because....I mean, why?) with lots of water hitting my ears, I can still hear a long string of expletives from the other room and know the bus is running late according to the "just how late IS your bus?" bus tracker online tool. 

So I yell from the bathroom, "ALEX, PLEASE WATCH THE LANGUAGE!  THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" and Lucien pops his head around the corner to say, "He can't help it, Mom.  It's that goddamn motherf*ckin' bus again."

(To those who are going to say Alex should get his butt out of the house earlier, I say "back off, kind sir."  Mornings are the only time Al has with the kids; they are not going to let him leave a second earlier than he absolutely has to and that's the way it should be.) 

I've suggested Al buy a new bike since his other bike has gone into deep freeze storage with our Paris stuff until we find a house to buy in this town.  He liked that idea.  Fingers crossed his new bike is always on time. 

But this brings me to another point about Alex.  Unfortunately, whenever Alex is pissed off at something not at all related to me, he seems to think it's related to me and I owe him an explanation and a solution.  He suspects I'm part of a grand universal plan to make him miserable.

"I was late to a meeting yesterday because the bus was late," is said with a slightly accusatory tone that means, "I know you are in control of the bus, woman, you are fooling no one." 

"I can't find my keys," is spoken with an undercurrent of "I know you took my keys." 

"Where is my important work file?" is said with a suspicious look that says "You are attempting to destroy all I've worked for by hiding my important documents." 

To my knowledge, I have never been the true cause of any of these problems (she says as she hides her Seattle Metro transponder and her "where to hide Alex's documents so he will never find them" study guide.)  I don't understand my Al sometimes. 

I also don't understand Coco's reaction when she asks for a piece of cheese.  She adores cheese more than anything in this world.  She follows me into the kitchen laughing her head off with cheese anticipation but when I open the refrigerator, she gets so excited she runs directly away from the refrigerator, away from the cheese, as fast as she can.  Then she usually trips over her own feet and falls in the dining room.  Wouldn't it be easier to just take the piece of cheese from mama at the refrigerator, kid?

Man, I really don't get these people.  Thankfully I'm on the same page as Lucien.  When he insists on eating dinner with his pants off because that's the way dinner should be, I'm like, "YES!  EXACTLY!"

Hey, good news.  One of our Presidential candidates has finally mentioned a pressing issue, one very close to my heart -- establishing moon colonies.  Finally, someone's got his finger on the pulse of the important issues affecting everyday Americans. 

Mama's night out tonight with the ladies.  Don't wait up, Al -- going to be a late one because I'm searching for new and exciting places to hide your stuff,
MJ

Snow purgatory

It's Seattle Snowmaggedon 2012, or as I like to call it, "two inches of snow get a grip, city."  Seattle is a city incapable of dealing with snow.  If we get a couple inches of accumulation (what we would have called "a light dusting" back in Ohio) all the schools are closed and cars are sliding all over the place.  It's mind-boggling stuff.

Growing up in Ohio, school closure days were pretty rare.  We'd be hopeful and stay up to watch the late news only to hear, "Only fifteen feet of accumulation expected by morning so give up and go to bed, kids.  You're going to school even if you have to dig your way there yourselves using your tiny mittened hands and kitchen utensils."

But in Seattle, it's a couple inches and the schools close and everyone runs around all Chicken Little "STAY INSIDE WE GONNA DIE."

To be fair, of course, Ohio is flat.  Seattle is all big hills.  Ice on big hills is scary.  It doesn't help that Seattle has never heard of salt, not to mention salt trucks.  And I think the city must only have one snowplow and it must be somewhere else because so far I haven't seen it.  Keep all that in mind as you watch this video of my poor fellow Seattle citizens trying to drive in two inches of snow --

 Hang in there, guys

P.S. I think the person zooming past at 1:48 grew up in Ohio 

Even though I drive a badass four-wheel-drive Coloradomobile, I'm still not brave enough to face the menaces on the road.  Instead, I did something equally as stupid yesterday.  With both kids in tow, one in a stroller, I walked twenty blocks through the snowstorm to register our Coloradomobile at the King County administration building.

It was our last day to register the car without incurring a late fee.  It had been my plan for awhile to go Wednesday and dammit, a little snow and two kids home from school were not going to cost me $25.00.  Plus, I reasoned, there wouldn't be a line.  I'm a very good thinker.

It was one of the most miserable walks of our lives. Pushing a stroller through snow drifts and slush for twenty blocks with snow blowing in my face and Lucien asking, "Is this almost over, Mommy?" every ten seconds did not make for a leisurely downtown stroll.  My snow boots haven't arrived from France yet so my feet were soaked by block five.  The only gloves I have are the stylish fingerless beauties I bought in Paris.  Don't get me started on my houndstooth coat.

Crossing streets was exciting.  We stood far back from every intersection to make sure all cars that wanted to stop but couldn't stop slid down the hill past us before we started across.  For the most part, the drivers of those cars looked calm and resigned as they passed, kind of like, "ho-hum, snow day in Seattle here I go a-slidin' down to the waterfront I love coffee." 

We walked past quite a few employees of the downtown buildings who, after miraculously making it to work, decided to stand around outside watching snow mayhem instead of actually doing their work.  Several of them made comments like "Heh heh, you got four-wheel drive on that thing?" as I slipped and slid past with the stroller.  I resisted the urge to punch them in the face with a soaked-through fingerless-mittened fist.

 Downtown Seattle is lonely in a snowstorm

You should have seen the faces of the people at the vehicle registration office when I came through the door with hair plastered to my face, mascara running down to my chin and melted stroller snow trailing behind me like a river.  I immediately said, "I KNEW IT! NO LINE!" but no one congratulated me; they just stared at me like they couldn't believe a human being was stupid enough to come through a snowstorm to register her car.  Lucien told the lady behind the desk he couldn't feel his fingers anymore but I said "hush, child, mama just saved herself $25."  

I felt a real sense of accomplishment on the walk home as I tried to keep Coco's stroller on the sidewalk and screamed at Lucien "STAY NEXT TO ME OR YOU'LL GET HIT BY A CAR."  Most people just sit around, or worse, go out and have fun on a snow day.  But not us -- we get sh*t done. 

I do wish we were in a house instead of a downtown apartment during all this snow.  A yard would really come in handy right now, a fact that became obvious when Lucien flopped down in the middle of the sidewalk and tried to make a snow angel. 

City kid snow angel

I've just been notified schools are closed for a third day tomorrow.  Oh God.  A few days ago everyone was excited about snow days.  My friends' tweets and e-mails were, "Yeah!  Snow day!  Sledding!"  Then halfway through that first day they turned into, "Someone please take these kids" and now at the end of the second day they've turned into "Another snow day tomorrow?  Sweet merciful angel take me now, I'm ready." 

To end on a positive note, Whole Foods jalapeno hummus makes me proud to be an American.

Seattle, baby, your quirks are what make you you, but please consider a salt truck,
MJ