2010,

It’s time for my letter to you. I’d call you “dear,” but you are no more dear to me than giant cockroaches, slimy silverfish and moldy bread. In short, there’s less than a day and a half left of you, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to see you go.

Being obsessed with details and prone to concessions, even where undeserved, I’m not the kind of girl to assess any given situation in a black-or-white way. So I’ll concede that 2010 brought me some good things ~ deepened friendships, online and off. A sense of contentment (resignation?) with where we lived. I saw M. I went to the lake for the 4th of July. Two good friends were married. I had a new job that I was thrilled to acquire. J.Lo also miraculously landed new work. With a great new church, my faith deepened. And 2010 did bless me with countless little everyday joys. Not to mention a fabulous new pair of boots.

But let’s just be blunt: As a year, 2010, you pretty much blew. Early on, you ripped me off for a few hundred dollars on an airline ticket that, due to ticket transfer fees, I’ll never get to use. I saw M, yes, and on my birthday to boot, but then unexpectedly had to drag her all the way up the east coast to my grandma’s funeral. And although I wasn’t close with them, my grandma’s sister, brother and goddaughter also all died in subsequent months. My brother had skin cancer and my father was diagnosed with Barrett’s Esophagus. J.Lo’s way-too-premature cataracts worsened. Bailey Brown, a.k.a. sweetest dog alive, had an oral tumor scare. And you took M and s.m.’s Zep!

You killed our car time and time again, and hundreds more dollars, as well as a great, smoking heap of frustration, was spent on towing and labor. You gave me the prospect of teaching a graduate-level writing class on slavery – and then oh, that didn’t work out, either. And granted, it didn’t work out because we decided to move, but if J.Lo’s job hadn’t sucked ass in the first part of 2010, we wouldn’t have had a need to find a new one. So thanks a ton for keep him in a low-paying, demoralizing, soul-sucking, badly managed environment and giving him no other choice.

And thanks, too, for making our move so damned difficult. I mean really. J.Lo’s 2-hour-a-day, 6-hours-every-weekend commute was a real thrill for two insufferable months, especially those times the car died and required new alternators, a post-bedtime rescue mission an hour outside of town, an 80-mile tow, and a painfully long refund process. Among other inconveniences.

Also, single-parenting during that time was super-awesome. And by super-awesome, I mean exhausting, depressing, confining, frustrating and not altogether great for my parental self-esteem.

The house-hunting process was also uniquely joyful. J.Lo is so scarred from early property viewings, he still can’t even divulge many details beyond ceiling holes, bird skeletons, faulty framing and leaky basements. And then there was the place we thought we had, only to be slapped down at the last second in the face of an uptight homeowner and an $11,000 deposit because we like to keep our dogs indoors.

Thanks – no really, thanks a bunch – for not one single flipping house showing in 2010. Talk about making the process difficult. Oh wait – there was a single showing appointment, conveniently scheduled during moving week, in which I worked my ass off for 12 hours straight to make the place presentable and no one ultimately showed up. And no one told me. That was rad.

And it was super-awesome as well when you decided to change my job that I loved all around so that I quit and un-quit and am still, still on a ridiculous emotional roller-coaster ride, wondering if I should stay or go. Way to strip away the goodness and meaning.

Strep throat on Thanksgiving was a real treat, followed by the Death Cold, a fallen arch/bum ankle and another cold smack dab in the middle of the moving process. (And that was all just me, nevermind J.Lo and the children’s own illnesses, doctor visits, medications and bills. And my caring for them.) But none of these compared to the stomach bug acquired the night before Moving Day. Vomiting my face off until 3 AM. I mean, you had to be kidding me. Except you so weren’t. What the EFF, 2010. I could barely lift a damn box the next day, much less drive myself, the dogs, the fish and the children 3 1/2 hours to our new destination.

And since we’re leasing/holding down a mortgage simultaneously, finances are as interesting as ever. You know the details, and you know they suck. Thanks for not doing us any favors there.

Now nearing the bitter end of you, you insist on maintaining your awesomeness. Why not go out with a  bang, eh? Throw an esophageal cancer diagnosis at my longtime BFF’s father and put another relative of ours in the hospital – why not. It’s fun stuff. For you.

I’m sure there’s more, but I’ll not waste another second lamenting you. Let’s just hope that in spite of the Apocalyptic-fearing culture that’s about to unfold in response to misinterpreted Mayan predictions, media hype and Ashton Kutcher’s annoying preparations, your younger sibling 2011 does better. Because let’s face it, the bar has been set pretty low.

Not at all fondly,

penelope

Bite Me, Revisited

For my original Bite Me post, please see Smartini. This post serves as the official entry for Sarah’s Pushy Neighbors Contest. Mwah.

Dear Pushy Neighbors,

You’re new here, I get that. And I understand there are all sorts of ways to get acquainted and become next-door *pals.* My way is a nice smile and a friendly hello, yours seems to be close-talking and a toddler-like insistency. So we’re a little different in our styles, that’s okay. However, your not-so-secret agenda—namely, switching parking spots—is not actually acceptable. In fact, it may be downright ridiculous. I’m torn between guessing the motivation behind said switch (establishing Alpha dominance? Hurley from “Lost” told you there’s bad luck in the number 3?) and rustling up a copy of our lease to show you that legally, we cannot switch. Our hands are tied.

Of course, we could always try this *experiment* of yours for a week just to see what happens. I’m pretty sure the scratches, dings, and/or scrapes incurred to your vehicle, due to my inevitable disorientation after three years of assimilating to the nuances of Parking Slot 4, will change your mind. Also, you’ll need to be extra careful on the way to your car; I can’t guarantee the safety of any bodies that have the misfortune of being blocked from view by your ginormous SUV.

In closing, the answer is *NO.*

Sincerely Yours,

Your New Neighbor Pal

P.S. Please enjoy these cookies, I made them myself. Also, I hear that the people from Parking Slot 2 are pushovers? Just a thought.

trip part 3: dear whomever passed us the bug,

We're seriously considering egging your house. Be warned. They'll be nice and rotten.

Germy Hugs and Kisses, along with 4 Flipped Birds,
J.Lo and Pen

filters

Not Enough: It seems that one my favorite blogger/life activities is pondering/cataloguing personal pet peeves. Well, here is another: People who lack any ability to edit themselves when speaking. Speech (unless you're giving one) is not by nature a perfect form, and we all have moments where we wish we could have said more, or less, or simply said it better. And, you know, I suppose the people who cannot edit themselves at all may not be aware of the problem, or that it is a problem... but it is. My eyes glaze over and my mind insantly numbs up in the presence of a person who cannot exclude each and every uninteresting mundanity from each and every conversation. Blah. (Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.) I have a sort-of friend that I have been hanging out with less and less and am considering--all right, I'll be honest, I am decided--that I simply cannot hang out with the individual anymore, and this Lack of Filtering is a big factor. That, and the fact that not much else makes up for the time-killing burble to redeem the friendship. Sad, but true. (Again, dear readers: It's Not You.)

Let's Hope So: My parents' neighbors are quite crunchy and in many ways over-the-top with the lifestyle. Of diet, of occupation, the stories are alternately intriguing and apalling. Anyway, my mom relayed to me that R. takes an old 40-gallon pickle barrel to a spring and fills it for his drinking water. The black barrel sits out on his porch, covered, yes, but festering in this god-forsaken heat. Allegedly, R. runs the water through some sort of filter before drinking it, but seriously? Does it take a scientist to know that a dark container of untreated water sitting out in the heat is a veritable breeding ground for heaven knows what? No, no it does not. E.Coli, dysentary, and mosquito larvae immediately spring to my own mind, before I become completely ill and must move on. Oh, and the water, according to R., does taste vaguely of pickles. I guess as long as it's natural.

Undecided: Pick up any parenting book or magazine dealing with the topic of little ones, and you will probably read that so far as language development goes, it helps your baby from the very get-go to "narrate" your day. I mean... I just think you have to do what you are comfortable with, and not feel guilty about it. I am not a Big Talker. Of course I talk to K.Lo and show her things, let her know what I'm doing if she's interested, but it's as it comes up. And especially now that she is actually walking around, picking up new words every day, and generally acting more and more like a little person, the "narration" naturally comes more into play. Do I feel like she is behind the learning curve, though, because from Day 1 I didn't barrage the little lump of baby flesh in my arms with all the, um, mundanites (see: "Not Enough," above) of Mommy's existence? Hell, no. I listen to other mommies in stores, at story hour, etc, and as they prattle on about walking up the stairs and sitting down in their chairs, I kind of feel like jamming kabob skewers into my eardrums just so I don't have to listen to the sing-song anymore. Some people, it comes natural to, and if you're a Chatty Cathy and that's just the way you are, hey, you do how you do. But I feel like there is a lot of neurotic tension underlying much of the extraneous baby babble out there, an internal hand-wringing that says, OMG, if I don't tell the baby all of what's happening every moment of the day, then she won't learn her words fast enough, and she'll be behind the curve, and her Baby Resume will be spare and she won't get into the right preschool, much less the right college, and everyone'll think I'm a Bad Mommy, and, and, and... Relax, Chicken Little. I'm pretty sure it will be all right.

Too much: Again, speech is not perfect, and not being a Big Talker, I simply don't have as much practice, so maybe the woulda-coulda-shoulda-said-it feeling hits harder, festers with me longer. I'm also Tres Sensitivo, so that could be it as well. As I get older and allegedly wiser, I've gotten better at avoiding the Fester. I mean, who cares, right? Let them say what they will, because they will regardless. I guess I just wish, after all, that I weren't so easily disarmed, so almost too quick to filter. K.Lo had her 18-month checkup last week, for instance, and when the doctor asked what kinds of foods she's eating, I told him, vegetables, but not fruit. Milk. And... not much else. Meat? Not really, it's kind of hard for her to chew. And so then he says, while making A Note in K.Lo's chart, So she's basically just eating vegetables and carbs? Well geez, when you put it that way. It didn't sound quite right when he said it, and ever since, I've been thinking about all the foods I coulda-shoulda have mentioned, but didn't. I always leave out hot dogs, because society seems to consider them foul, but actually, hello, they are, for better or worse, meat. Also, while not consistently, she has eaten: bacon, chicken, a little bit of hamburger here and there. Not to mention eggs, and fish. The kid's even had lobster bisque a few times, oddly enough, and shrimp. Anyway, speaking of extraneous, boring information... I guess I just wish I were more okay with what the doctor recorded, because I live with the kid, I feed her, I know she eats more than veggies and carbs, and oh yeah, who cares. Talk about neurotic internal hand-wringing; I'd like to slap my own wrists to cease it, and move on.