Category Archives: Uncategorized

Two are better than one

We got the first real rain of the season yesterday, making driving fun with the mix of rain plus fog yesterday morning. Richard and I have been keeping fingers and toes crossed that the rain would wait a bit longer this year, because as expected, the builder called to let us know that the rain would delay them a few days. Luckily he counted on rain when he came up with the schedule, but I can’t help but get anxious. I want that house done, and the sooner the better. I’m more than ready to move, despite how much I hate the process itself, simply because I want to *be* in that house.

Saturday we went out to look at the house – our weekly trek to the construction zone. They’ve finished the ceiling skeleton for the second floor, and we stood in the bay window of the master bedroom and stared up at our peaked ceiling and wow’d to each other with glee. This house is going to have a ton of attic space, and I wandered the second floor, peering up at the lattice of ceiling beams trying to figure out where the roof access might be. I have this teeny dream of one day finishing the attic space, simply for storage more than any type of living space. I just think it would be so cool to be able to say “Oh, that’s up in the attic.” I have a feeling, however, that the access will be inside a closet somewhere, and may require some significant remodeling if I really want a more permanent way to climb up. We’ll see – there’s plenty of time yet to worry about that.

We went to a Home and Garden Show on Sunday afternoon, with the vague idea of it being useful. Unlike the one we went to back in May (which was rather small), this one was larger, but focused on lots of things we didn’t need to worry about anymore. Windows and doors have been taken care of. Roof is something we’ll have to work on later – but the only decision we’ll need to make is the color. It was still fun though, wandering the aisles, signing up for all the raffles by putting down the address of the new house. If anyone tries to send us snail mail spam, it’ll bounce back, I’m sure, but we really weren’t interested in getting on any mailing lists anyway.

The shining moment of the show was the display of appliances at the very end. A number of people have suggested that we get two ovens installed (that whole resale thing, and of course it comes in handy cooking huge dinners, they say). I’ve got no problem with having two ovens. My biggest issue has simply been that if we get two ovens, suddenly I’ve got to give up counter space for the range. Considering that the kitchen of the house we’re currently in has absolutely no counter space and I’m salivating all over the kitchen we’re building because I’ll finally have *room*, I’m not exactly all that thrilled to be pondering the idea of giving it up.

So this is why I got all excited at the Maytag display. They’ve got this marvelous stove that’s actually two ovens plus a range top, all in one. The top oven is half-size, just large enough to cook bread or cakes or casseroles in it, and the bottom is a normal oven. Two ovens and no additional counter space taken. How much better can it get? I drooled all over the oven, opening doors, poking and prodding, eying it wistfully. We’d agreed to get a gas stove, and this one only comes in electric (yet! But I don’t think we can count on them magically producing it in the right fuel within the next two months). I’m sure it’s the type of thing that will consume our entire kitchen appliance budget, and so I’m been half-heartedly trying to convince myself that it probably has a big huge and potentially fatal flaw. It’s not exactly working very well though – the convincing, that is. But I’ll keep trying.

Panicked optimism

As we wind down the first release of this project and everyone has had a chance to step back and take a deep breath, we’re gearing up for the second.

Or at least in an ideal world, it would be like that. At this point, it’s more that everyone is frantically trying to get release one into shape so it can be deployed to production, and at the same time we’re taking this rather unstable system and intend to start new work on it for the second release. It doesn’t seem like the greatest of ideas, but then this is what happens when business runs development instead of I.T.

On the plus side, I’m guardedly optimistic about this second release because, *finally*, all the development teams have realized that gosh, we need to work together. One of the other team leads and I have been conspiring on a list of things that we want to do to make sure that at least this release goes much smoother. We’re trying very hard not to repeat the mistakes of the past. The only stumbling block will be if the business tries to get in the way.

I suppose I’m hopelessly jaded when it comes to development, having been a code nerd for years, and lately, a project manager, but on the I.T. side. I understand that the business needs to be involved, but there are times when I wish we could limit that involvement – bring them in on a case-by-case basis as needed, but then shoo them away when we were done with them. They’re well-meaning, but at times it’s like trying to paint a room with a toddler. They really do want to help and you can’t really shut the door because then they’ll start to cry, but they slop paint everywhere and even if some of it does get on the walls, you’ll simply end up having to smooth it out and do it over anyway.

So we shall see. The next three weeks promise to be insane as we try to nail down design – but then that seems to be the norm lately, so much so that some of us are starting to wonder if we’ll ever get back to anything resembling ‘normal’, ever again.

Dishpan hands

My fingers are wrinkled from washing dishes, but I don’t mind. It’s a chore I actually like. This house we live in has a dishwasher, but it’s rarely used because it has this tendency to leave odd streaks on the dishes and I only end up having to wash them again. So we simply use it as a dish drying rack. At least it serves some sort of purpose, although not what was originally intended.

We’ll have a dishwasher in the new house – a brand new one that will, no doubt, be whisper-quiet and actually clean dishes instead of turn them varying shades of speckled. But I don’t think that it will get much use. Oh, a functional dishwasher is always nice when I’ve made dinner for a crowd and there’s dishes piled high from the entertaining. But there is something rather soothing about washing dishes by hand. I stand at the sink, soaping up pots and pans and plates and cups and it’s one of those mindless tasks that I can just do without thought. My brain is free to wander aimlessly.

I prefer to wash dishes in silence. There’s a radio in the kitchen and every once in a long while I might turn it on. But usually I prefer silence. Then it’s just the sound of the water running when I rinse, or the soft squish of soap bubbles under the sponge, or the clink of dishes as I arrange them in the dishwasher.

We used to tease my mom about her methods with the dishwasher. She would nag us if we put the dishes into the sink instead of the dishwasher, but then as soon as we started to fill it, sooner or later, she’d be there, rearranging, putting everything where she thought it should go for maximum washing efficiency. Imagine my chagrin when I found myself doing the same thing to Richard as I watched him wash dishes one time. He started to put them into the dishwasher and I couldn’t help beginning to rearrange them. I’ve gotten into the habit of having them ‘just so’ as well, even if the thing is only used as a drying rack. Funny how the little things pass down from mother to daughter.

It’s not a problem anymore though, because I’m the one that washes the dishes. A casual conversation led to the discovery that he hates washing dishes, and I hate vacuuming (a poor trait in a woman who has seven shedding furballs, but nevertheless…). Our eyes met. The light bulb went on. I don’t think we shook on the deal, but it would have been appropriate. Let him wrestle with the vacuum cleaner. I’ll deal with the dishes and the kitchen counters. We’re still working out the rest of the chores, but at least these have been dealt with in mutual agreement – at least until we move into the new house and the amount of floor to clean increases. Then I think the decision will have to be renegotiated. But for now, it works. I get my quiet random thoughts wrapped in delicate bubbles of liquid detergent. He gets the fun of trying to avoid sucking random cat toys into the vacuum hose.

Somehow I can’t help thinking I got the better end of the bargain.

Another year comes snuffling in

I’m sick. Still. And I’m getting really sick of being sick, too. It’s been three weeks. I think that’s plenty long enough to put up with snuffling and hacking and sneezing, don’t you? I broke down and went to the doctor two weeks ago, who took my request to ‘make it go away!’ with tolerant amusement, prescribed a round of antibiotics, diagnosed me with a sinus infection, and sent me on my way. I dutifully took the horse pills three times a day, but they didn’t seem to make a difference. This thing – whatever it is – subsided briefly around Christmas, but by New Year’s, the snot factory was working overtime again, and I resorted to skulking in grocery stores, pondering the merits of drowsy versus non-drowsy versions of over-the-counter medications and blithely ignoring the label warnings about how much to take in one day.

I’m tired of being unable to breathe quietly. I’m tired of lying in bed and staring blankly into the dark and trying to convince myself that the cold meds will kick in soon, really they will. And to make it worse, along with this latest bout of snotty fun, I’ve also been gifted with insomnia. I should be tired. I should be dragging around and demanding naps, but no. I’ve tried the nap thing. It doesn’t work. I lie in bed and try desperately to sleep and it doesn’t happen. Every little sound jerks me back to consciousness. I doze in fits and spurts, but never long enough to feel as though I’ve rested. I’m not sure quite where my body is getting the energy to stay awake. Even my old standby cure for insomnia doesn’t work. Sitting with a softly sleeping cat in my lap has always worked before. There’s something too restful about a lapful of cat when the feline is asleep. The nose is warm, and the paws curl cutely around the face. Sometimes they stretch, toes extended, before curling tighter, nestling closer, trusting completely that you will keep them safe while they slumber. Even fully rested, my eyelids will start to get heavy when I’m being used as a cat bed, but not now., when I need sleep the most.

This insomnia has had a small benefit. We spent last night at my older sister’s house, not wanting to drive the hour trip home on New Year’s eve. This morning I heard my nephew get up and once I heard my sister’s voice quietly shushing him, I slipped out of bed and went out to join them. We left the men snoring upstairs and headed downstairs with Aaron. While he ate cereal, she and I talked and laughed. We let him stir the waffle batter and then I blew bubbles for him while she made us breakfast. She and I don’t often have a chance to talk, just the two of us, and so it was a rare and welcome gift.

Sniffles and coughs aside, it was a nice way to start the new year.

But you carry it so well

The end of the year is coming, and with it, the end of the millenium. Yes, yes, I’m one of those annoying little nay-sayers who loudly proclaimed last year NOT the end of the millenium. Look at it this way, for all of you who are sitting there insisting that I’m wrong. Let’s say that someone is going to pay you $2000 and they’re going to do it in pennies (humor me here and don’t think about the weight of the truck you’ll need to haul all those little useless coins away). If we go by that silly logic that the end of 1999 marked the end of the millenium, why then I’ve gotten away with only paying you $1999 bucks. See, when you finish counting out all the pennies for the 2000th dollar, only *then* will you have a full 2000 in cold hard coinage. Not one penny before.

So anyway, the new millenium approacheth, and I’m going to celebrate it in wild and fanciful style. Along with Richard, my older sis and her husband, in the grand tradition of my family, we shall engage in an all out movie-watching, ice cream-eating frenzy, guaranteed to leave us bloated and bleary-eyed by the time that ridiculous little ball drops in Times Square, but also managing to get rid of all those pesky leftover Christmas cookies and candies once and for all.

It’s all for a good cause, see, because come Monday, it’ll be the New Year, and time for all resolutions to kick in. And this year, like so many other women out there, my resolution is – you guessed it – to lose weight.

Oh, come back here and wipe that horrified look off your face. Don’t worry – I have no intention of boring you to tears with a careful recitation of how many calories I ate each day, or how many ounces I lost in water weight on an hourly basis. My intention, in fact, is to mention my battle of the bulge as rarely as I can in this journal. Oh, I may slip in a note here and there when I’ve reached a goal, but considering how easily I lose weight (uh – *not*) you can be pretty certain you won’t hear a peep on that for months at a stretch.

My family, I’ve determined, was built for the caveman days. We would be cheerfully able to withstand any sort of famine, no matter how severe, merely by looking at pictures of food several times a day. Our bodies are capable of extracting calories from simply inhaling the aroma of freshly baked pastries, and once those calories are gotten, we hang on to them with the grim determination of a steel-jawed trap. Losing weight, for all the women in my family, is a long and torturous affair, riddled with exercise programs, copious amounts of swearing, and a tendency to gain a deep-seated hatred of anything that involves the words ‘low-fat’ or ‘sugar-free’.

I’ve had roommates who would simply ‘forget to eat’ and promptly drop five pounds over night. One girl in particular would get sick and consequently not eat for days on end, and then wonder why it was that she was ten pounds less than she was the week before. She was forever sharing her tips on how to lose weight with me. I wanted to hate her, but she was always so sweet and well-meaning and I knew that she simply didn’t understand that people like me who have the metabolism of your average corpse just don’t have the same capability to drop inches as people like her. Years later now, she’s finally reached the point where the pounds have begun to stick and she cannot seem to drop them without a lot of hard work and effort. I’m sympathetic, of course, but inside there is a teensy little part of me that evilly cheers and hollers “Ha! About time you saw how the rest of us have to live!”.

Heredity aside, I know that I need to do this. I’m 31 now and I’m not getting any younger. And I’m making sure to do this right. I’m not doing this for Richard, who has made it very clear for me that he would love me just as much if I were 300 pounds and covered in hairy warts. I’m not doing this simply because I happen to be getting married this year and I want to look good in my dress, because a perk of the Renaissance era clothing is that it’s marvelously flattering to those of us with ‘fuller’ figures. I’m doing this for me and me alone. I’m doing it because I want to be able to view myself naked in the mirror and not wrinkle my nose and say ‘ugh’. I’m doing this because I want to look at pictures of myself and like them. I’m doing it because I want to feel better about myself, because I want to be healthy, and because I know that there’s no better time to start then now. And if I use the beginning of a millenium as an excuse to kick it off, why then so much the better.

Dream a little dream

I’m on vacation this week. Glorious do-nothing, be lazy vacation. I’ve earned this, too many times over this past year and I wish I could take a longer one, but with this project, it simply hasn’t been possible. I left email addresses and phone numbers for how to contact me should something happen, but so far, I’ve only been fielding two or three emails per day and the phone has remained blessedly quiet.

This vacation has been wonderful. Lately, it has been too easy to forget how nice it is to relax. With everything going on, Richard and I often have our weekends planned far in advance, and time to just sit and do nothing has been a rare luxury. I’ve had a whole week of it, although despite my best intentions, I’ve not managed to have a completely unproductive day yet.

When I’m on vacation like this, it’s easy to start to pretend that it could be like this always – that somehow, I could simply quit my job and stay home. I love my job, really (despite the stress and the hassle and all the complaining I do), but there’s also a part of me that wishes so desperately that I didn’t have to go back. I love cooking, busying myself in the kitchen and timing it so that the house is full of wonderful scents as Richard walks in the door, home from work in the evenings. I love being able to lie in bed just a little bit longer in the morning, and then taking just a bit more time to savor a cup of coffee over the morning paper. If I didn’t have to work, I’d take classes – perhaps join Tae Kwon Do again, perhaps take quilting with my mom, perhaps learn how to build furniture. I know that if I were truly home all the time, I’d be scheduling all sorts of things throughout the day and I’d probably end up just as busy as I am now. But somehow that kind of busy seems infinitely more acceptable then this overwhelming, mind-numbing work-busyness that I’m stuck in the middle of right now.

I realize that even though both of us are earning far more than we need together, we simply couldn’t make it on only one salary – not with this house we’re building, at any rate. Our plan is to retire as early as we can so that (perhaps by the time we’re 50) we will be able to enjoy living instead of working so hard. And part of our goal is to pay off our mortgage as early as we can – another incentive to keep working these high-stress but high-paying jobs. But still, it’s hard not to dream of waking up one day and knowing that I don’t have to go to work, that I could spend the day puttering in the garden (we *will* have a garden in the new house – we certainly will have the backyard large enough for it!), or sit out on the back deck with my needlework, or whip up curtains for the house, or any of too many options to ponder. And having had just a little taste of it this week means that going back next week is going to be very, very hard to bear.

All the little things

Ah, Christmas. The gathering of the families. The opening of presents next to the twinkling lights of the tree. The traditional food – homemade sticky rolls for breakfast, cookies and snacks throughout the day, the candlelit dinner. There’s something very comforting about going home for the holidays and knowing that things will be the same.

Except things aren’t the same. They never really are, no matter how much you want them to be. You don’t wake up at your parents’ place anymore and gather, giggling, with your sisters at the foot of the stairs while your mom fusses with the camera. You wake up at home when the cats stomp on you and insist that you get up and play with them, and then drive over to your parents’ house at a more acceptable hour, when the sun has already risen. You do the traditional opening of the stocking presents before breakfast, but somehow it isn’t quite the same when two of your sisters are missing. You eat the sticky rolls – which are just as good as they always are – but unlike when you were a kid and didn’t care about things like calories and fat, you actually stop when you’re full instead of continuing to suck them down because they are so darn good, and you drink juice and take a vitamin that isn’t shaped like a cartoon character, but comes instead from a bottle that says, somewhere on the label, ‘mature’.

You perch on the couch instead of the floor when opening your presents because your knees like it better that way, and instead of the coolest new toy, you get things like ladders and industrial measuring tapes and books on home repair, and you’re pretty darn excited about it because that’s really what you wanted anyway.

In years past, the whole family has gathered, but now that the sisters are married with children, and one lives in another state anyway, you don’t have that ‘whole family’ thing going anymore, and when the older sister shows up with her husband and son in tow, it’s more like they’re visiting then that they belong here in the first place.

You were once the one who was ripping open presents with child-like wonder, but now you watch your nephew do it, as he carefully tears the paper off and gets excited about whatever is inside each one (“Wow! A box!”). You all lose bets on which toy he will love the most because even though the wagon that your father painstakingly built for him in the garage garners a lot of childish glee, what really keeps him entertained for the rest of the day is the umbrella made by Crayola, with wide stripes of color. And he keeps coming up to you showing you his umbrella. “Jeffer! Grabrella! See grabrella!” and you are ridiculously pleased about how he keeps asking you and no one else to put the cover on, and then remove the cover, and all the while he watches soberly before running off with his favorite gift.

You all sit around the table for ‘lunch’ and eat crackers and dip and cheese, but you know you’re getting older because you worry about the fact that there’s really no vegetables for the meal and you try to limit the number of cookies you cram into your face, even though Christmas has always been the one day that mom and dad didn’t watch what you ate and let you stuff yourself silly.

And then when your older sister leaves and the house is suddenly quiet, you look at your mom who has been quietly miserable all day with a nasty cold and you tell her that if she is wanting to cook some huge dinner just because she thinks that you’ll be disappointed, that you won’t be, and you’d rather just do leftovers or something. So instead of the traditional holiday meatloaf and mashed potatoes and baby peas served on the fine china, with grape Kool-Aid served in the ugly green pitcher, you all pile into the car and drive around all of Solano county until you find the one place that is actually open on Christmas and you join hordes of other hungry travelers over burgers and fries and shakes. So maybe it’s not festive and it’s not by candlelight and instead of the dulcet tones of a brass quintet playing holiday tunes on the CD player in the other room, you hear the din of a short order cook and the snarling tones of the woman behind the counter who is making it painfully clear that she would rather be anywhere but here tonight. You joke about how your last Christmas dinner at ‘home’ wasn’t the traditional one and how it will scar you forever and you’re sure to need counseling (all said tongue in cheek when your mother dithers out loud about how this is just not what she had in mind) until your mom finally realizes that it’s okay, you really don’t mind at all, and that what matters more than the presentation and the food itself is that you’re laughing and eating together and having fun, and that’s what’s most important anyway.

Silent night

At the end of one of my favorite books Watership Down, as everything is back to normal, the main character – Hazel- passes one of the female rabbits who is telling some of the young rabbits stories of the Black Rabbit’s adventures. As they pause to listen, they hear a fantastical story, and even though it seems unbelievable, there is a grain of truth, for the story she is telling is really the story of Hazel and what he managed to accomplish with his friends. Yet it is incorporated into the legend of the Black Rabbit – the one magical, mystical rabbit that watches over them all.

It’s Christmas Eve, and as usual, I am pondering the existence of God and of “The Reason for the Season”. I have questioned this as long as I can remember, unable to take the Bible for anything more than a collection of stories that might or might not be true, told and retold over the years until someone finally wrote them down, with no idea how accurate they might be, but with the understanding that these stories perhaps evolved from truth, much like the stories of the Black Rabbit evolved from true life in Watership Down.

My biggest problem is that I cannot believe in God as a father figure, watching over us, guiding us. I cannot believe in the presence of a Satan – of a distinct Good and a distinct Evil. I have read too many creation stories from different cultures that all have a common theme – that of the choice between life and death (sometimes humans make the choice, as in Genesis, and sometimes the choice is made for them). I am, unfortunately, too practical, too scientific to blindly accept this sort of thing on faith. It is easier for me to rationalize that the myth of the Supreme Being(s) makes it easier for people to follow rules if they have the threat of divine retribution, and allows them to explain the unexplainable, like hardships and pain and death.

I believe that Jesus was a man with a lot of radical ideas for his time. I believe that he was a compelling speaker and was able to convince people to share with each other, to think about things in a different light, and for that, he should be remembered. I can not, however, believe that he was capable of miracles, that his mother was a virgin, that any angels spoke to anyone about his birth, or that he rose from the dead. This, I know, makes me subject to eternal damnation in the eyes of some of those who are on the more fundamental side, but what they fail to understand is that the lessons he taught are just as important, and somehow mean more to me if he was a plain, ordinary man, than if he was really this magical ‘Son of God’ creation that right-wing Christianity has turned him into.

Jesus will, therefore, never be anything more to me than just a man – a man who said some important things, but still just a man. And I don’t know if I will ever be able to believe, completely, in God. I can accept that there is something out there greater than myself – some power that has the ability to alter things, although whether it is one or many I do not know. My mother, who was recently consecrated as a minister in the Methodist church, is probably one of the most accepting and open people I know when it comes to religion, and she and I have had a number of conversations on this. I don’t quite grasp her faith and her conviction in the existence of God, but I do admire her for it. She has this faith, not because she was told to believe it, but because she has found it for herself, somehow, somewhere. In a way, I envy her because, and perhaps this may seem odd, despite everything I wrote above, I *want* to believe. I want to be able to get my arms around that higher power and understand this thing called faith. I just don’t seem to be able to.

It’s Christmas Eve. In a few hours I’ll change into something a bit more presentable than an old flannel shirt and my favorite jeans, and go join my parents at the late night service, same as I have done for years. I’ll greet everyone with a smile and possibly a hug, and we’ll sing all the familiar Christmas hymns, and when we light the candles at the end and sing to that flicker of candlelight, I will get that same shiver up my spine as I listen to the voices around me. And as the last note fades away, the congregation will file silently out into the chilly night, not speaking above a murmur until we are outside because somehow it is more appropriate that way. After arranging times to meet at my parents’ house for Christmas morning, I will drive back home, my favorite Christmas album on the stereo, and then I will stand outside in the dark and look up at the stars as I have done nearly every year since I struck out on my own and let the spirit of Christmas settle in the silence of the night. I may never fully understand what it is, but for now, as it has been each year, it will be enough.

Happy holidays to all of my readers, whatever belief you embrace, whatever occasion you choose to celebrate this winter. And special thanks to Rob who managed to put into words his thoughts about God (which are eerily similar to mine) far more eloquently than I ever could.

D.I.N.K’s

It happened again – this time while we were sitting in the bank talking to an investment counselor about planning for our future (our goal is to retire as early as possible). I mentioned that at least we didn’t have to worry about saving for college educations and such because we weren’t planning on having children, and the man gave me that patronizing stare and a nod. “Yes, that’s what we said,” he noted in that tone of voice I’m beginning to hate. “I think my wife was about your age when we had The Talk.” I can only assume that this Talk was about her ticking biological clock, because he now has kids.

It finally dawned on me why it might be that so many people tend not to believe us when we say that we really don’t want kids. There is this myth out there that every woman hits some magical age where her hormones go all wacky and all she can think about is baby powder and diapers and gets an insane urge to paint one room pastel colors and go shopping for cribs. And I think the general thought is that when I say ‘we’, I probably mean that Richard is the one who’s driving this and I’m just going along with it until the day I’ll get suddenly weepy at an Osh Kosh B’Gosh commercial and tell Richard that we’re having a baby Right Now.

I laugh it off when people give us that tolerant smile and make some comment that indicates that they think we’re complete idiots who are destined to change our mind (when that big hormonal surge happens to me, I guess). We usually make a joke about how the only pitter patter of little feet around the house will be the cats, but it doesn’t matter. They don’t believe us – and most especially, they don’t believe me.

But even though I don’t let them see how I feel, it is starting to get to me – this too-common reaction to this sort of announcement. Neither of us came to this decision lightly. Prior to Richard and I getting together, I was in a relationship with a man who wanted very much to be a father. And because I cared about him, I tried to make myself believe that I wanted children too. Eventually, though, I realized that despite how I felt about him, I couldn’t be something I’m not and I’d regret that – and him – later. I’ve rationalized the decision upside down and sideways over many years, and I know that it’s the right one for me. Richard agrees with me – obviously, or we’d not be getting married because it’s something I’ve never hidden and we actually discussed it early on in our relationship. Our families seem to have accepted the news with little or no concern. Why is it that so few others can accept what is really our own decision? Where is it written that two people who marry must have children?

Sometimes I have wondered if there was something wrong with me for not wanting kids. There’s social pressure on women – we’re supposed to have maternal urges. It’s supposed to be ingrained in us to desire to procreate. Not me. When my biological clock (such as it is) starts ticking, it’s because I’m getting kitten urges, not baby urges. Baby drool makes me nauseous (Just ask my sisters. It’s a running joke in my family that you don’t hand a drooling kid to Aunt Jennifer). The thought of dealing with children for more than short periods of time makes me cringe. When we’re out and some small children nearby start to misbehave or scream or do something else annoying, Richard and I murmur ‘Dozens. We’re having dozens’ in our most sarcastic tones of voice to each other. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that we don’t *like* children. We both adore being aunt and uncle to our respective nieces and nephews and godchildren (related by blood, and simply by friendship with the parents), and we enjoy spending time with well-behaved children (note the caveat there) but that’s as far as it goes. I love my niece and nephew dearly and should anything happen to either of my sisters and their kids were going to be tossed into foster care, of course I’d take them in a heartbeat. I just don’t want one of my own.

There is a subculture out there that a lot of people try to pretend doesn’t exist. We are the Childless-By-Choice, and our numbers are growing. At least half of my acquaintances have decided to not have children. Some are married, some are still single, but all have given it just as much thought as we have. Most of the people Richard works with are married without children. And apparently, to some people out there, our mere existence is a threat. It’s as if somehow our choice to remain childless is a direct affront to their choice to breed. I’m not sure what rational reason there is for this reaction – most of us who are childless by choice have no objection to others spawning; we just don’t see the need to do it themselves. Of course, not wanting children means we often end up with a much lower tolerance for them. We don’t find it amusing when little children run screaming while we’re watching movies. We would love to have restaurants institute a no-children section, much like they used to have non-smoking sections prior to the marvelously wonderful “No Smoking inside” law they passed a few years ago in California.

I accept with a resigned sigh the fact that Richard and I will not escape the gentle pressure – however well meaning it is – to have children, until we’re simply too old for it. I accept that I will continue to find ways to joke politely when I’m asked who will take care of us when we’re old, or am told that I’ll change my mind when I’m older. No matter how much I might want to snarl back at those who do this to us, there is no point because I’ll never convince them.

I’m 31 now. I figure we’re going to have to suffer through about ten more years of this before people finally take us seriously.

Sigh.

Just a little taste

Richard’s been working from home this week – three days, in fact. This meant, of course, that he got to drive out to the house during lunch and see it in all its glory and I had to be content with simple pictures that he would take and upload for me (Did I whine at him about it? Yes I did). I’ve got the latest house picture as my wallpaper on my computer at work. People are probably getting sick of me showing it to them. (Do I care? No).

So all this week I’ve been impatient for Saturday so I could see it myself. This morning we bought breakfast food and then we drove out to the house, tromped around, and sat on a pile of boards to eat breakfast in our soon-to-be breakfast nook (Go look at the house page if you want to see it. Yes – a picture of me in there. How amazing is that?).

Okay, so it’s still just frames and no solid walls and no ceiling and no second floor, but at least we are getting a good idea of what it’s going to look like, finally, and it was so incredibly cool to wander through, pointing out rooms to each other (like we really didn’t know what they were). “Here’s the laundry room! Check out the size of our dining room! Oh man, this breakfast nook is the *perfect* spot for gaming!” Ah, even in the midst of yuppyness the nerd stuff sneaks in…

We actually got to meet a neighbor, finally. He came over and introduced himself, then pointed at a few houses around us and noted who we are going to be living among. One of them owns several fast food restaurants. One of them owns a highly successful shutter company. He rattled off more impressive facts and Richard and I looked at each other and grinned. Even before this we’d already determined that in our new neighborhood, we’re most likely going to be the youngest couple there, and our house will probably be the smallest (which, considering that it’s a tad over 2100 square feet, is definitely not a problem!). But his comments indicated that we’ll probably also be the least affluent people out there, and probably the most liberal. I think if we’d been out there prior to this past election, we’d have been the only ones with a ‘Vote for Gore’ sign in our front yard. This should make things fun, yes yes.

But all joking aside, nothing I’ve learned has made me any less excited to be building in that neighborhood. It’s quiet and calm, and we’ve been there at all times of day or night. The people seem friendly. One night when we were there, we heard the faint sounds of the local high school band warming up and that brought back so many memories (yes, I was a band geek.). We’ve talked about occasionally walking down to take in a high school football game. We’ll be able to sit in our back yard and watch the fireworks in the park that’s right behind our fence on the 4th of July.

It’s just a bit over three months left now, and I know we haven’t even begun to deal with all the really complicated decisions (like trying to decide once and for all whether we want a fireplace in the master bedroom. We’ve been going back and forth on this one for a few months now). But it helps to go out there now and have something concrete to see. The subfloor was nice and everything but it was, well, just a floor. Now we’ve got rooms. I’m starting to get a picture of where our stuff might go. The piano will go against the wall where the stairs will be (well, when I get a piano that is. Someday. Sigh). We’ll have couches around the fireplace. We need to find a round table for the breakfast nook (and because there’s all those windows, there’s no way we’ll ever keep the cats off of it so I don’t think we’ll even try). We have to paint the bathroom walls and learn how to marble paint on walls. We’re still figuring out which corner the TV will live, not that we ever watch it. Poor thing is probably feeling neglected.

It’s getting closer and closer now. And sitting there on a pile of boards, squinting because the sun was really really bright this morning, looking around and actually *seeing* it somehow makes the wait a bit more manageable. Does this mean you don’t have to listen to me whine about how long it’s taking? Don’t hold your breath. What it does mean is that our excitement is building and we know that this house is going to be beautiful and wonderful and perfect – just for us.