Curious George and Oh the Humanity

The Man with the Yellow Hat (TMWTYH as he's known in our house) says, "No George, a 'collection' isn't just a bunch of trash you find on the street... it's something special -- like a stamp collection, or this collection of piggy banks..."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO" screams Jane, running from the room as the children begin to "recycle" George's "collection."

Which should give everyone a good idea of the state of her room. We have feather collections (so many feathers), rock collections, empty yogurt containers holding eggshells collections, pencil shaving collections, collections that are just scraps of paper from the creation of the display and exhibit apparatus of other collections... 

Sorry, TMWTYH, but you're wrong on this one. Collections can absolutely be just a bunch of trash you find on the street. And God help you if you throw that water bottle full of mineral oil and perler beads away. MOM! IT WAS IN MY COLLECTION! (followed by inconsolable weeping, etc)

Maybe she'll be an archivist when she grows up.

In other librarianship news, I like my new job. I'm in my second week and it's going okay. Dressing for it is definitely the most confusing part. I feel like I know my way around the ILS alright, and so yes maybe I did get lost in the closed stacks basement cage for a while there on Monday, but overall things are going pretty well.

I just have no clothes that say "employable grown up, circa 2013." All my employable grownup clothes were bought for me at the gap by my mom in 2001 when I graduated from UT :(

The fact that it's taken me over a decade to get a job where pencil skirts and heels are not absurdly laughable is kind of heartbreaking, but whatevs. I'm here now, and the clothes I wear generally say something different... more in the conversational vein of "So are you Jane's nanny?".. or possibly "Isn't it convenient that Savers is so close to your kid's elementary school?"

So every morning Chase has gotten up, chosen one of his indistinguishable pairs of pants, one of his button down shirts, and is a showered, coffee making, homework signing, kid shoe finding machine, while I'm still staring wide eyed and hopeless at a line of clothes like someone watching the Hindenburg go down (blimpy comparisons implied).

I don't even know where to look for the right kind of clothes. I mean assuming I had money. If Millie were here, she'd have already dragged me to some bizarre boutique probably owned by the daughter  or niece of one of her sorority sisters from Millsaps and/or Ole Miss. I would be standing, pantsless, in a pink wallpapered dressing room saying haltingly "I don't really know... but I don't think that's...?" while being efficiently steamrolled into trying on a barrage of legally blonde-esque lady lawyer clothes. I am not even kidding. That 100% absolutely would be happening if Millie were here today.

I'm picturing this like one of those terrible dead grandparent Family Circus cartoons (tm), where Millie's looking down from a cloud in heaven right now yelling "OH MY GOD JUST GO TO ANN TAYLOR LOFT DID I TEACH YOU NOTHING?" followed by "And please tell Chase he looks handsome in that shirt but it would look better tucked in."

Anyway... that's the current state of things. Trying to look like I didn't just pick a random assemblage from the "least holes" category of the closet for my interview.  Also now I have my OWN key to the cage in the basement. So, watch out? I guess?

dance dance revolution

I am looking for a dance class for Wren. When asked what class she wanted to take this year, she said Ballet.

So fine. That's doable.

Jane's taking Tae Kwon Do (of course she is) but that only lasts 3 months and then we might be putting her in whatever program we find for Wren.

So that's a slight complication, but still totally workable.

One would think.

However I have probably put about 8 hours of computer/phone time into this quagmire/land war and see no sign of a happy solution. Here are things that are wrong with every possible dance program we could do in Austin, in no particular order:

- the class descriptor uses the words pole and/or break.

- the class takes place at an absurd time, such as 7:30 on a weeknight. Or classes for my 2 children, separated by 2 years, take place at the same time on different campuses.

- the class costs a billion dollars OR only accepts a lump sum payment at the beginning of the semester (of a billion dollars). No prorating available, obvs.

- which you only find out by calling, waiting, chit chatting about pointe shoes, and then finally, like you're pulling fucking teeth, they will tell you how much it costs. WHICH IS ABSURD, and a waste of everyone's time, because chances are it costs too damn much for me to afford. Whatever lady, thanks for taking the time to tell me on the phone. It's so much more personal. I'm glad you so carefully guarded that secret about how much your business charges for its one product.

- the class requires prerequisite classes, from the age of 4.

- the company has the word Austin in the title but in fact takes place in Circle C, Round Rock, Manor, Lakeway or Elgin. Or downtown Austin at 5:30 which is just as absurd.

- yelp reviews mention that creepy dudes hang out in the parking lot to watch dancers exit.

- It has the word Vaganova Technique on its curriculum (I don't know what that is but I don't want anyone teaching my daughters about it until college, AT LEAST)

- the dance company has animation or music on its website that you can't turn off. I refuse to do business with anyone that would do that and I certainly won't trust the wellbeing of my child to them.

We've done classes at the JCC before and that works okay except Rosh Hashanah is really early this year, like starts today? I think? And that means we've got Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah to get through in just the fall semester, not to mention Chanukah, all days when the J is closed for classes obviously, and that's a whole lot of missed ballet classes, you know?

Blergh.

I'm concentrating on this right now so I don't have to think about the looming deadline of next Monday when I start work, and Ben starts.... what exactly? Hanging out at our house for 5 hours solo? I think 'scrambling' is probably the best verb for what we're doing right now. We refer to our small gathering of childcare options by their most depressing qualifiers -- "Well Broccoli Cottage was closest to work, but they were eating greasy lettuce leaves about 2 feet away from the open door where that one kid was pooping..."

Or

"St. Waythefuckfaraway has such a nice playground! It'd be cool if the tuition was only slightly more than HALF my paycheck and not like 90% of it."

BUT WHATEVER. Good problems to have, right? GOOD PROBLEMS. Looking for a dance class for my healthy, strong children with the requisite number of dancing legs among them, all functioning more or less to spec.  Looking for childcare because I got a JOB! WOOO! Too blessed to be depressed. That's us. All the damn time.

parties at home, parties abroad

gilchrist beach

Hello, Ocean? This is Ben. 

After the beach we drove down highway 87 until we hit the big waterslide that I probably spent about a week-per-summer on as a kid. All three kids loved it, although Ben slammed into a "clog" of high school boys half way down and got a giant knot in his forehead. Love those Gulf Coast safety regulations! We were there for an hour, and Wren did not stop the entire time. She was either walking up the hill to the slide, sliding down the slide, or swimming from the slide to the edge of the pool to get out and start walking up the hill again. I still have water in my ears. 

School started this morning for Wren, and starts on Wednesday for Jane. This was our last time on the beach this "summer" -- but real summer in Texas is no respecter of school calendars-- and the beach will continue to be hot and swimmable until at least the end of September. So we'll probably see you again before too long, Bolivar. 

this is our life now (phone photo dump)

what we're doing these days, in pictures: 

moving

unpacking betty draper's kitchen

bar first, of course

buying a trailer

gutting a trailer. 

finding out the trailer has no AC. 

painting barns

painting walls

painting walls again, after ben finds a wet paintbrush and "helps"

hauling things

building things (with help)

building other things

or at least watching jed build them. 

and being on hand to offer him beer and tacos when he's done. 

tearing apart other things

my bee hive tool has proven extremely effective at demo!

buying things

and then fixing those things. 

and running gas lines to them.

sewing things (roman shades, to be specific)

SOME of us have been taking naps. Never at naptime.

and rarely in a bed. 

and of course the constants in this world, other than death and taxes -

laundry,

and more painting.