I’m Melting

Salt Lake City is known for being hot and dry in the summers.  Hot and dry.  We get a few big thunderstorms that usually dump a large (for us) amount of water and then disappear leaving blue, clear skies for WEEKS.

Normal relative humidity in the summer months is below 30%.  And I like it that way.  

Today?  Today it’s at an unbearable 69%.  All my books are soft.  All my clothes are damp.  I’m sticky and hot and miserable and crabby and I just want it to end.  It actually rained this afternoon for about 5 minutes.  But it’s still humid.

What do you people who live with humidity DO? HOW DO YOU SURVIVE?  I need survival techniques here, people.  My fingers are pruning!

da effin bomb (edited)

edited to add this link to the article on swamp coolers by wikipedia

Some of you (those who know us well, or who clicked through and read the old posts) might have gotten a little confused at the reference to ME climbing up on the roof to get the motor off, and to ME climbing up on the roof to put the motor back on.  “Wait a minute,” you might be thinking to yourself, “doesn’t Chicory call up her daddy whenever something goes wrong on her house?  Isn’t her complete helplessness with all things house-repair-related the reason they still live in Utah, so her dad can fix all of her problems?”

Well, yes, that’s partly true.

Ok, that’s a lot true.

But Grandma and Grandpa Chicory were off at, as Sassa puts it, “Fairytale Land”.  With their other grandchild and He Who Could Sell Snow to Polar Bears and his wife.  And no, they didn’t invite us.  Not that we’d have gone.  But whatever.  Dumb.  We got left watching the Dog Who Smells Like Poop.  Not that we’re bitter or anything, like I said we wouldn’t have wanted to go anyway.

So, Grandpa Chicory was off with his favorite people and completely unavailable to help us fix our swamp cooler.

So I had to climb up the big ladder myself, in the heat.  As I said in my last post, Klove went to the depot and got a new motor.  So I took my life in my hands and carried the motor up to the roof.  And discovered that when they say there’s a motor in that box, they mean just that: a motor.  No electrical plug, no pulley for the belt. So I had to take the motor in my hands and climb back down again so I could take the electrical cord off the old motor and put it on the new motor.  And then I had to try and get the pulley off.  It was rusted on.  I banged, I cursed, I got burnt oil all over my hands, legs, and clothes.  I smashed a finger.  I broke a paving stone trying to bang the damned thing off.  Klove and I played tug of war with the motor and the pulley as our “rope”.  All the while our neighbor’s airconditioning whirred in mockery of us.  We hated him for his cool house.

so finally I marched over there and demanded that he make reparation for his working air conditioner by helping me pry the pulley off the motor.  Luckily he had a pipewrench which is the one tool I don’t have and actually needed.  Together we got the pulley off and while he offered to let us come live in his house until my dad came home, I scoffed at his offer and stalked back to our over-heated allotted living space.  I slipped the pulley on the new motor with a sense of quiet triumph.

So, this time armed with a properly-outfitted motor, I once again took my life in my hands and climbed back up the ladder.  This time the sun was out and our white roof was blazing with light and heat.  I’m pretty sure it was 765 degrees up there.  My own hand danced in front of my eyes from heat refraction.  I had a hard time grasping the securing bolts with my sweat-slick fingers.  But eventually I got the motor in its cradle, the belt on (surprisingly harder than I thought it would be) and the motor plugged in.  A quick holler to Klove to turn it on and

HOLYFUCKINGSHIT IT ACTUALLY WORKED!

I fixed our swamp cooler all by myself (the neighbor’s help doesn’t count.  it just doesn’t)

I rock.

Of course, it’s trying to rain here, so our humidity level’s up too high for the swamp cooler to work effectively… but whatever.  Today will pass and tomorrow will be arid again and the cooler will work all because of me (and Klove for buying it, of course) and all before Grandpa Chicory comes back from fairytale land.

Who’s da bomb?  I am.

Deja to the Vu

Last night, while having some friends over to play the rocketship game, suddenly there was a burning smell. A horrible burning smell. Investigation revealed that the swamp cooler that I’d just turned down had actually stopped. The motor was burned out. We’ve been running it day and night for weeks.

It got very hot in our house very quickly.

All those competitive people firing rocket ships around will do that.

We had a very hot night and this morning I got the big ladder out and climbed up to the roof and took the motor out of the cooler before getting dressed and going to work. As soon as I hit publish on this post I’ll go home and hopefully find that Klove has taken the motor to go find a new one. So I can climb up in the roof again in the heavy July heat and put it back in.

But, the good news is that this proves we really are back to where our lives were hijacked 3 years ago. Just check out this series of three posts if you don’t believe me.

Why is it that our coolers go out in the last weeks of JULY?   Really, October would be a much more convenient time.

Monster Faces

Today I tried to approximate this craft with the girls.  I almost bought the kit, but then realized that I could do it much cheaper with plain paper plates, finger paints, and sheets of uncut foam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girls painted the plates themselves, then told me what body parts they wanted, how many of each, and placed them themselves (I did the cutting).  They also drew the pupils in the eyes themselves, and the line down the tongue.  So, how do you think they turned out?

A Short Story Apropos of Nothing

Last December my parents bought a dyson vacuum.  When we came over to visit a few days before Christmas, I asked how they were liking it — was it doing as good a job as they thought it would?  My mother gave a twisted smile.  ”Oh, it works,” she said, “why don’t you ask your father what happened to all the area rugs and tree skirts.”

I’d noticed that something was different when I came in, now I realized it was the absence of the rugs and the skirtless trees.

“That dyson’s got a powerful suction” was all my father said.

This was a whining “we are so broke” post.  And then we sat down and did a budget and realized that we make plenty of money… we’re just not so used to paying attention to where it goes.  So, 2 weeks and we’ll be back on track.  

Move along… nothing to see here…

And Then I Wonder if We’re Speaking the Same Language

Me: Sassa?  I see you ate all your chicken salad, would you like some more?

Sassa: What?  

Me: Would you like some more chicken salad?

Sassa: I ate it all.

Me: Yes, I know. Do you want some more?

Sassa: Are you going to eat it?

Me: No.  I’m full.  I’m asking you if YOU want to eat more?

Sassa: You can’t eat mine!  You have to get your own!

Me: I don’t want any chicken salad.  Do you want to eat more chicken salad?

Sassa: Why did you eat my chicken salad?

Me: I didn’t eat your chicken salad, you ate your chicken salad.  Are you still hungry?  Do you want more chicken salad?

Sassa: I don’t want chicken salad, I want pie.

Me: We don’t have any pie.  I guess you’re not hungry, I’ll just put this chicken salad away.

Sassa: why are you taking away my pie!  I need it! I need my pie!

Me: We never had any pie, this is chicken salad.

Sassa: well I want it.

Me: You do want more chicken salad?

Sassa: Well, I said so, didn’t I?

Why I Think I Like Parenting a Toddler More Than an Infant

Then:

Middle of the night.  Screaming.  More screaming.  Baby falls into a fitful sleep only to wake up screaming 5 minutes after you lay her down.  Pacing, rocking, bouncing, wondering: what is the problem?  What is hurting her?  She’s not running a fever, so is she sick or is she just trying to ruin my life?  Why won’t she let me sleep?  WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HER?  Finally decide to try baby ibuprofen; infant finally falls asleep.  Doctor’s appointment later that day determines that the baby has an ear infection.

 

Now:  

Middle of the night.  Toddler comes and climbs into bed.  Kicking, twisting, turning, poking in the eye. Stern warnings from mamas to go to sleep or go back to her own bed.  Finally: Mom, my ear hurts, I need medicine.  Mom, bleary-eyed, gets up and digs out ibuprofen.  Toddler finally falls asleep letting moms get a little more sleep, too.  In the morning Mom makes doctor’s appointment for ear infection.

 

It’s so much easier when they can tell you what’s wrong.

Comment Policy: Why You’re Not Allowed to Tell Me That My Child Shouldn’t Have Been Born

I was nervous to post my little post about my friend G. I got a lot of people commenting on it, and a lot of people got kicked into moderation status either because they’d never commented before, or because they were commenting with a new configuration — new ip address, or nickname, or email address. Each time I logged in and saw that I had comments in for moderation my heart skipped a few beats. I do not live on conflict. In fact, in my ideal world everyone would be polite and kind and considerate and there would never be any conflicts ever.

I’m pretty close to that ideal: I live in Utah where everyone stuffs conflicts and arguments down and just simmer until they explode. So, you know, we’re almost there. I know that the Utah culture of “smile and try to get along - at least on the surface” drives people from more direct cultures nuts, but there you have it. I am a child of my environment.

I’ve had trolls before. I’ve had legitimate trolls whose only purpose was to be as vituperatively offensive as possible. I’ve had trolls who don’t get me or where I’m coming from, and who don’t want to get me because I’m WRONG WRONG WRONG and they’re here to show me what’s right. I’ve had trolls who really were genuinely angry and who had a legitimate point but an incredibly hurtful way of making it. And I’ve had trolls who are normally decent people stung into hurtful speech for some reason. I generally let the last two types of people comment. Because I allow people to disagree with me, and I allow people who’ve been hurt by me (intentionally or not) express that hurt. But after a few run-ins with the first two types of trolls, I don’t let them comment anymore. Their comments get deleted, because I refuse to let people talk to me like that in my own space. So, like I was saying, I was worried that I was going to get homophobic trolls. And, eventually, I did get one. I’ve decided to let this comment serve as an example of my comment policy and which comments will be getting deleted.

So, this person left the following comment on my post:

Wow, Really? What would’ve been best for the child is that he hadn’t have been brought into such a sad situation. This is why same sex couples shouldn’t have children and why heterosexuals shouldn’t get divorced. The kids are always the ones who suffer. Poor G??? Poor O!!!

Now, on one hand, I was tempted to let it through. Because in the middle of it is a nugget of truth. The truth is that the true victim of this situation is O, not G. My sympathy is all with G, because I see myself in her. But my outrage (that I was trying, albeit not completely successfully) is for O. No child should have a parent (or any loving, caring, respectful person to whom they’re bonded) forcibly taken from their lives. I worry about what this will do to him. I worry about his attachment to future caregivers. I worry about his ability to love without fear. And I worry for his relationship with J. I believe she’s shooting herself in the heart with this move and that her relationship with O will be the more constrained and limited because of the limits she’s placed on his ability to express love and the reactionary controls she’s exercising over him. So yes, Homophobic Reactionary Troll, you have a smidgen of a point.

But you moved into troll territory when you not only state that same-sex couples shouldn’t have kids* but that O’s real problem is that he was born to those women at all. Because (as I know the “reasoning” of this “argument” goes) this result is inevitable when two women decide to create a family. But for every case like this there are multitudes of cases that no one hears about because everyone behaves like adults and works everything out with grace and love. And in states where joint adoption and co-parent adoptions are allowed, it is far more likely that such workings-out take place, because there is a legal structure in place to encourage and enforce it. The problem isn’t that O (and, by extension, my daughter, and the children of my friends and most of the readers of this blog) was born to same-sex couples, the problem is that O was born in a culture that doesn’t value him, his relationships, the relationships of those around him, and the safety and security of his family and relations. He was born in the context of a larger society who worships at the altar of connectivity while simultaneously severing all ties and responsibilities to anyone and anything who differs (if you are connected to nothing that is different than you, then to what are you actually connected? Are you not just one bloated entity?) And when his parents (and me, and my wife, and a majority of the readers of this blog) choose to love and create relationships in the face of such appalling hypocrisy and opposition — in an attempt to bring more love into this word — the vulnerable are battered, beaten down, punished. And then, like all punished, are blamed for their condition and the condition of those in their care, and all other “collateral damages”.

So that, dear readers, is an example of a comment that was deleted, and why.

As an example of a comment that disagreed with something I said, and which I strongly disagree with in turn, but is not a flame and is not from a troll, I submit this comment which did not get deleted:

…That being said, I refuse to demonize J. I don’t know enough about her side of the story td to pass judgement on her. In the public’s eye all lawyers have a taint of fire and brimstone about them, unless they work for next to nothing defending the habitat of some cute and fluffy animal from being bulldozed by greedy developers.

There are a number of things I disagree with here, and I’m not going to get into them now, and I’m not posting this so that a bunch of you can leave comments on this post about how that comment is wrong, but rather to show that commenters are allowed to post things that disagree with me, or even flat out call me wrong. As long as it’s not insulting to anyone involved in the discussion, it gets through. Just so we’re clear on that.

*and let’s not even go into the whole no het couples should divorce… because, I mean, really? REALLY? Never? So a woman who’s being beaten, and whose kids are being beaten and/or sexually abused should stay with her husband because, you know, it’s better for the kids than divorce?!

New Year, New Look

Yesterday marked 3 years since I started blogging. In the land of lesbian parenting blogs… I am older than the hills and twice as dusty. I’m capable of telling blogging stories that start: in my day there were only a handful of lesbian parenting blogs and only 2 other blogs by non-bio moms and mom-to-be. And in my day every lesbian parenting blogger knew each other and commented on each other’s blogs and we were tight, TIGHT. We knew the value of a link back then, yessirreebob!

Of course, considering that I often forget to link, I never respond to memes, and my blogroll has been out of date for 2 years now, you can also call me a hypocrite when I tell such tales. Or perhaps my memory is just going. I keep meaning to meme and link and update the blogroll and then 14 months have passed and I realize that I never did.

To celebrate this anniversary, the lovely Calliope gave me a new look, and I treated myself to a new URL. Even though I’m terrible at my blogroll (but will be updating it this week! I promise! I tied a string around my finger and everything!) please change your blogrolls and bookmarks to Anaccidentofhope.com so my stats recover from the hit of changing urls. Thanks.

In a post a couple of days ago I mentioned that it feels like Klove and I have been recovering the path and life we were derailed from 3 years ago. Now, on one hand it feels like a betrayal of the love I have for my daughter for saying that — since her entire life fits in the derailed portion of mine. And yet, she was on her way here before we got sideswiped, so I don’t think it really is. But I do want to clarify that I have loved every moment of having her. SHE is not part of the derailment.

But in case you haven’t been reading me from the very beginning (there are a handful of the oldtimers who check in here), or aren’t as obsessive as Mrs. Bluemont and her printing out of complete blog archives, you might enjoy a peek at the pre-motherhood me — when Sassa was merely a bump in Klove’s belly, I hadn’t started the hell-job yet, and I was a newbie blogger seeking community and sister-hood, and thrilled to have anyone leave a comment — let alone link to me. I’ve opened my archives up — not all of the posts (lordie, I have over a thousand by now!) have our new pseudonyms on them, so please be kind and don’t refer to the fact that our underwear is showing, please.

I don’t know how long this “blogging” thing is going to last, but I’m here for the long haul.