Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

Valentine’s Day

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I don’t remember much about Valentine’s Day last year.  In general it was a stressful time. The house was going up but insurance was dragging its heels to pay out a portion of the settlement that had been long negotiated. This meant the builders weren’t being paid which was so anxiety inducing for Paul and me. We had jumped through so many hoops to get the wreckage torn down, then even more to get the plans for the new house approved and now we were getting to make a thousand calls just to get money that was ours and should have been paid out weeks before.

The wheels were coming off with the kids too. Eden had been begging for months to homeschool . At her Valentines’ party I found out she had told everyone she was leaving after the party and that some of her friends had been sobbing in anticipation.

“It’s not going to happen.” I assured a couple of concerned mothers. Apparently Eden had offered for me to homeschool some of her friends too, as their mothers worked outside the home.

“It’s not going to happen,” I told the second grade wanna-be dropout. “Not this year. We’ll talk about next year once the house is finished.”

Valentine’s isn’t really a big thing for Paul and me, but I usually do something for the kids, (chocolates and a card or a special breakfast) and I think that’s important, especially as they get older.

I can’t even remember if Paul got me a present last year, but I do know he gave me a card.

 

I’ll be honest, it didn’t look promising. And then I opened it.
Please note the googly eyes to the right and below.

I’m sorry you don’t get the lovely effect of glancing at the crazy eyes and then reading the copy.

I loved that Paul characterized himself as happy during such a crap of a time.

We were children when we started dating.  I was in 9th grade and Paul was in 10th, the ages Lydia and Christopher are now. Paul’s dad took his own life a year later and it’s been up and down ever since.

So much has been taken from us but, at the end of the day if all we have is each other and the kids, we’ve been given so much.

Fiction and Non

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I was talking with Eden the other day about writing and the fire.

She is an accomplished writer. When she was in Kindergarten she wrote a book for her dad, a memoir, as a gift for Father’s Day. The plan was originally for it to be forty pages (each page being a chapter) but she settled for twelve, I believe. She went on to write many more books all of which I stacked on top of the bookcase in the hall outside our bedroom. I walked right past it that last morning and I have wished, more than once, that I grabbed them on my way.

The other day I told Eden that someone had asked me to write a short account of the fire but I was having a little trouble.

She sat up straight. “You need to write her back and tell her (the editor) that it’s impossible; it’s going to be long or nothing at all. It’s impossible for it to be short. I was going to write a book about it but I decided not to because it’s too long.”

“You were going to write a book about the fire? When?” I said.

“In second grade.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Cuz in a book you have to write your feelings and all that stuff, but in a story you don’t have to. It’s just a story, such as:  ‘Henry held the frog. Henry thought the frog felt nasty.’ That’s random, but it’s something.”

I agreed. It was.

“In a story,” she continued, “you don’t have to say, ‘But I was really scared.’

Small Appliances

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The good thing about losing everything is that you get to buy all new stuff.

Surprisingly, this didn’t really excite me. I’ve never been much of a shopper and after the fire I was really clear on how little we needed.  I didn’t want to rush out and buy a bunch of things. And yet there were little pockets of interest where my mind would go and rub its hands together in gleeful anticipation.  One of these was small appliances.

In the kitchen of the house that burned I tried to keep the counters uncluttered.  As I planned the new kitchen I thought carefully about my counter real estate.  I loved my jadeite green Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  My old kitchen was all white and the pop of color was so pretty and cheerful, but I could not find a replacement for my Kitchen Aid.  Apparently it was a special Martha Stewart shade only offered through Williams Sonoma for a limited time.  If it wasn’t going to be a pretty green I decided I wanted the mixer in the pantry.
Waring had a blender in jadeite that was just beautiful but we don’t use a blender often, which brought me back to a toaster.  I did find a minty green one that was so pricey I would be embarrassed for you to know how much. 
I hadn’t completely ruled out the blender and there was still the dim hope of finding the stand mixer on ebay, so I just thought about it from time to time. But I was leaning towards the ridiculously expensive toaster.
One day a large box was delivered to our door.  It was addressed to Paul and I was so excited   I think I called him at work to ask if it was OK for me to open it. He said it was something that he had ordered.

I had an immediate sense of foreboding which was confirmed as soon as I pulled this bad boy out of the box.

Holy Cheese and Crackers, Batman!

It boggled the mind and the senses. You can see that it’s a black plastic, two slot toaster with a…is that a GOITER?

Yes, my friends it is.

OK, it’s merely a goiter-like plastic appendage and it serves a purpose. That’s an egg poacher perched on the right side.  See the steam gathering?
Back To Basics is the brand name however, as those illustrations on the side show, this toaster is anything but basic.  

Below is Paul with Christopher, last summer. Doesn’t he look like a nice man? 
He is a nice man. 
Doesn’t he look like someone who, if he wants to poach an egg in a plastic goiter whilst toasting his bread you should just let him? 
Thinking about it that way and looking at his kind and handsome face, I know we should. Especially when I remember that he ordered the toaster within months of someone burning down his house. 
This wasn’t so clear to me when that plastic monstrosity was taking up half the counter at the rental house and leering at anyone who made the mistake of glancing at it. I need to remind myself that it was my house that someone set on fire as well.
We had all been hurt and PTSD is real, people. And yet, even without PTSD, I think Paul would have been tempted to order that toaster and I, almost certainly, would have pitched a fit.
When Paul came home that night I ranted how I wanted a four slot toaster, maybe a pretty one not this hideous, black plastic, bulbous nosed, two slotted one. 
Paul told me I could buy the pretty one, still.
I complained about how much space it took up on our small counter. He said we could store it under the counter in one of the nearly empty cupboards and I realized I was being a jerk and apologized.  Paul forgave me, as he has on so many other occasions, bless him. At the new house I found the perfect spot for it in a drawer at the end of the island just above the drawer where the bread and peanut butter and Nutella live. It’s almost like it was meant to be.  
The kids loved it immediately.  Paul makes them egg sandwiches almost every morning before school.
I want to suspend my snap judgments. I need to hold back my visceral disgust with things that intrigue or interest my family.  I want to be more curious and open for all our sakes.
 Do you have any suggestions?

Spree’s End

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Christopher called me from school today.  He was on his cell phone which spared me the visceral shot of adrenaline that follows seeing his school on the caller i.d.

“I’m afraid our spree of no homework has ended.” This was said abruptly and woefully.

“Oh that’s too bad.”  I said.  Personally, I was suffused with relief that I was not speaking with a. his support teacher or b. his assistant Principal.

“…because I have the bad luck of being assigned Civics.”

Now here I had a jolt of misgiving.  Civics was first semester, as today is the third day of second semester, he has no business having any homework there.

“Did you mean ‘Economics’?” I asked.

“No, no I’m not in Geometry,” he said, “I’m in fourth hour.”

We have these sorts of conversations on the phone, all the time and even face to face.  Being hard of hearing stinks.  And being fine of hearing whilst conversing with the former ain’t no picnic.

“E-CO-NOM-ICS!”  I enunciated, “Is that where you have homework?”

“Oh yeah!  Yeah!’ He said.

“Well you can do that,”  I said.  “I bet you can do that easily.  And if you need help I know Dad would love to give it.”  Economics was Paul’s major in college and his life’s passion.  Economics is not to be confused with finance.  I don’t have a ready metaphor for the difference, but I’m sure he does. It takes all kinds, right?

“OK, Mom.”  Christopher said.

“You should probably get back to work, Buddy.”

“OK, Mom.”

“I love you.”  I said, “Have a great afternoon.”

“OK.  I love you too.”

I have expended more adrenaline raising this kid than…I don’t have the strength to make an apt comparison and my sleep debt probably rivals what the U.S. owes the Chinese and, I’m thankful to remember, it’s worth every ounce, every minute.  He is. Worth it.

Pug Lovers

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This is unprecedented.
Up until last week Oliver would not be separated from Eden.
It’s like he read her Pug List and knew “That girl belongs to me.”
We got him January 1 and rarely have they been parted.  If she happened to leave him, God help the person who was dog sitting.  Until we know he is trustworthy in the house, we’re keeping a very close eye on him or putting him in his kennel.  Since he sounds like a tree frog being strangled when we do, we try to limit his time there to when we’re gone.
But last week something shifted.  I don’t know why, if  it’s that he’s starting to feel at home, but Lydia watched him on Wednesday when Eden and Christopher and I went to the museum and he and Jack slept on her bed while she studied and then Sunday I had him when everyone else was scattered hither and yon.
Pugs snore and snort.  They are wonderfully ridiculous dogs.  A dear friend of ours has family with pugs.  His brother tells him, “You can’t believe how relaxing it is to have a snoring pug sleep against you.”
The brother is right.