Old Man

Yes, I know.  It's been ages since I've blogged.  I have SO MANY posts in my head.  But I can't simply ramble, and I rarely have the time nowadays to post them, but soon!  I promise. I'll make time.

Let's start with my dad's visit.  His first visit was March 2012, 2 years and 3 months after we moved. It was a good visit; the perfect amount of time--4 days, Friday-Monday.  This time, he booked tickets without checking with us first.  He booked a solid week, right before Halloween.  A week during which I was supposed to have jury duty, but luckily, you're allowed to reschedule once out here.  (And you pick the new date!)

There are only 2 things that I will share about his visit:

1.  He's old.  Proof:

--"Do you guys get Pandora here?"

--[peering at MacBook on desk] "So that's a Macintosh?"

2. Sadly, my dad is a magnet for bad customer service.  He's been bugging us about getting a newer car, so he helped us get a 2008 Prius when he was here.  When we bought the car, he and I were waiting for the finance guy to come talk to us.  When he finally came over, my dad mentioned that he is a banker, basically so the guy would know my dad's familiar with the lingo.  And then, just out of curiosity, he asked how long he estimated the paperwork would take.  The guy actually responded as follows:

"It's not like buying a hamburger sir, you're buying a car."

!!!

I'm sure my eyes doubled in size.  To my dad's credit, he didn't take the bait, but calmly responded that he realized the size of the purchase and his reason for asking.  I'm not sure why, but something made him tell the guy again that he's a banker, to which the guy then snapped,

"I know, you're a banker, you've said it like five times already."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This finally set my dad off. Keeping his voice at a remarkably low level, he went off on the guy and how rude he was being, what kind of customer service is this, blah blah blah.  Luckily, the manager happened to be walking by, so he stopped and smoothed things over.

So naturally, the rest of his visit, that was my new line to him.  "You know, dad, it's not like you're buying a hamburger."

Boston

Life has been surreal since the Boston Marathon Bombings.  It was creepy knowing that I had been in the area of the first bomb little more than 24 hours before; I had complained about being stuck in detour traffic.

About 3 days after the bombings, the entire city was shut down as they hunted for the suspects.  Luckily, we had planned to head to Baltimore to see the Dodgers play the Orioles, so when we awoke in Baltimore that Friday and saw the news, we were SO THANKFUL we were not in town.

It's odd--you see "Boston Strong" everywhere, and the news has an item about the bombings almost every single night.  To me, it feels like I'm a guest at someone's home, and something happened to that someone and I'm just going about my daily business.

There is one big signal that people are still on edge, though.  Sometimes, when I pick up big A, I wait in a side alley where I won't get kicked out of the "No Parking/Waiting" areas in front of his building.  If the baby is super fussy, I'll sit in the back with her while we wait.  It's not obvious I'm in the back because of the tinted windows.  And as people walk by, they can hear the radio on or see that the front windows are slightly open, and they'll quickly glance at the car and realize someone is in the back seat.  This didn't happen before the bombings.  I wonder if they realize they are doing this?

Hello

Life since baby V's arrival has been a wild ride.  My mom was here for a month--from 3 days before V arrived.  Silly me, I forgot to ask the doctor how long my recovery would be, so at the end of her visit I asked if she could stay an extra two weeks but she couldn't (she's so old school, she still pays bills with checks and in person and thus was worried about paying them.  Even though I told her we could do it from here).  Though it was probably good she left when she did--little A figured out how to get sympathy from my mom, so there was lots of drama, with my mom convinced we were just these horribly emotionally abusive parents, especially since you can't tell when big A is joking!

Since our stuff was shipped out from our storage unit, our place now looks like we're planning to move.  We still have a box in the corner of our living room with random crap hanging out of it, and near the door we have 3 boxes of books stacked.  I have two big shopping bags full of stuff I am Freecycling.  I Freecycled some stuff a couple of months ago and was shocked at what people will take!!

Today Little A and I attended the 3rd birthday party of a little Swedish girl we met through a friend.  It was a small party--only 2 or 3 other families attended--but very nice.  The dad heated hot dogs in a pan on the stove.  The only part that was kind of annoying was hearing about Sweden's phenomenal parental leave (400 paid days off, plus optional unpaid year).  It got to the point where I wanted to put up my hand and say "YES I KNOW FOR A DEVELOPED COUNTRY OUR PARENTAL LEAVE LAWS SUCK, THANKS FOR REMINDING ME."  But I digress.

One Swedish custom we learned was the distribution of party favors.  Apparently the kids go "fishing", but since it was so cold, the dad hung a sheet between a bookcase and the wall, and the mom would help the kids fish for a prize.

And yes, the home was predominantly furnished by IKEA.  :)

So I still dream of moving home within the year, before little A starts kindergarten but then I start panicking: could we afford the rent? (I very much doubt we'll be able to afford to buy.) Logistically, how do we ensure we don't go through the same madness that we went through when we moved here? What if deep down little A thinks this is truly home, though she often asks for family and misses her cousins? And how on earth could we ensure that we find renters for this house, let alone decent ones??

I think too much sometimes.

Stay tuned for another post on my new relationship with little A...