Category Archives: musing

October 14, 2013 · 1:27 pm

Why is there hay in my hair?

Ahhh, Fall. The leaves are turning, the crock-pot is humming, and I can finally break out my gargantuan collection of tights and stop blinding everyone with my pasty bare legs (you are welcome.)
Parenting means one other Fall tradition as well:
The annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin patch.
I don’t remember this being a thing when I was growing up – but now it is a “where and when” not an “if” conversation among fellow parents. You don’t question, you just GO.

In the city, Pumpkin Patch Day meant a visit to the grounds of the church where Jr. went to daycare as an infant. They trucked in MASSIVE amounts of pumpkins, set up hay bales and corn stalks and photo areas, and BOOM, insta-urban pumpkin patch. “Pumpkins for Jesus,” as The Mr. and I affectionately called it, was Jr’s first pumpkin patch. It was laid back, not too crowded, and provided ample opportunity to wander through the rows of pumpkins with a cup of cider, take plenty of pictures, and pick out a pumpkin or two. No muss, no fuss.

Pumpkin Patch Day in the suburbs? It is no undertaking for amateurs, sucker. No, no, no, it is serious advanced family fun business.
First you have to pick your patch –and there is dizzying selection available in the farm areas that stretch out just beyond the suburban sprawl. More important than which farm you visit is WHEN you go, as we learned after a last minute impulse decision to “just go check it out” sent us into the battle zone at peak crowd time last year. (Gigglesnort. We were such rookies.)
Plotting your actual route to the farm carefully is imperative as well. These things create their own traffic jams the way large forest fires create their own weather patterns. Approaching from the wrong side could add to the in-car wait time as you inch along in a marching-ant-like line toward your destination. This seriously increases the chance that your adorable child will already be in melt-down mode before you even plant his tiny feet in that muddy field.
Speaking of the field, jockeying for the good gourd and charming pictures of the offspring tromping through the rows of pumpkins is hard as hell when you are surrounded by every person who lives in the damn county.
But it isn’t just a pumpkin patch. OH NO!! We can’t forget the Family Fun Area!
Farm animals, corn mazes, hay rides, pumpkin bouncy houses, face painting, and loads of caramel apples to assure that it all sticks to your kid real good. Oh Yeah.
Some kiddos are THRILLED to be there. So thrilled, in fact, that extracting them leads to screaming tantrums a billion times more scary than any haunted fun house. Other munchkins are less excited, yelling through the staged family photo op, crying down the giant inflatable slide, and recoiling in horror from the Shetland ponies in the petting zoo. Either way, it’s a lot of screaming.

It’s kind of Halloween Hell.

Except that it’s not.
It’s holding Jr’s hand while he runs on top of a track made out of hay bales and squeals with unmatched Toddler glee.
It’s watching him and The Mr. carefully comparing contenders to find *the* perfect pumpkin to cut off the vine.
It’s this picture.

Hammin' it up at the Pumpkin Patch

It’s kind of pretty great.
Oh –and it’s also NOT being rookies anymore and being smart enough to go at 9am on Sunday morning during prime church-going time. A plan that would have totally screwed us back at Pumpkins For Jesus, BTW.

Leave a comment

Filed under musing

Tagged as , , , ,

September 30, 2013 · 10:41 am

Well, we can drive around this town….

I keep making wrong turns.
I am not talking about metaphorical “woe-is-reluctantly-suburban-me”, “how-the-hell-did-I-end-up-here” wrong turns.
I mean really, I keep turning in the wrong places.
In the town where I grew up, where I could probably have driven blindfolded 15 years ago. But that blind familiarity is kind of the root of my wrong way issues.
Last Friday on my way to the local craft brewery (which we did NOT have when I was younger – cheers to progress, Colorado style,) I was mentally checking off the running “to do” list for upcoming weekend plans and piloting the Keri-mobile along my merry way.
Until I put ‘er in park, grabbed my purse, put hand on door handle and stopped short.

I was in the high school parking lot.
THE HIGH SCHOOL PARKING LOT, FFS.

I always know where I am going, but, on certain roads, there are destinations so deeply engrained in who I am, that I just end up there without meaning to.
It happened A LOT with the house where I grew up in the first months after we moved here; I even ended up IN the driveway (my traditional high school parking spot,) one time. Can you imagine looking out the window of your home as some random lady pulled her ride up under your basketball hoop like she owned the joint? (Don’t worry – it is just that for so long, I kind of did. But maybe lock your doors so I don’t absentmindedly end up in my old garden level bedroom before I come to my senses next time.)
The old rec center, the Mexican restaurant where I worked, even the building where my bank was – I’ve ended up at all of them. It’s an internal autopilot I seem powerless to overcome.

Honestly, even if I am actively aware of where I am going, chances are still good that I won’t end up where I mean to in an efficient manner. Our little town is, frankly, not-at-all little anymore. That means roads. Lots and lots of new roads. “Take the second left past the park” is sort of how I get from A to B. That used to get me to the grocery store. But 3 new roads later, it got me into a hospital construction site. Every time I leave the house, I should probably pack a snack (well, there are the floor goldfish,) because who knows when I will find my way to where I am actually supposed to be!?

Evidently, I am on the road to 1993 in my mind. (Come to think of it, KBCO is still playing the same music, maybe I am being hypnotized by the Gin Blossoms.)
Pardon the doddering old lady in the parking lot, students of BHS.

3 Comments

Filed under musing

Tagged as ,

September 23, 2013 · 8:41 pm

The M.U.V.

Frederico Escapé is a mess.
Let me qualify that statement, actually. The INSIDE of Frederico Escapé is a mess.
For realzies.
The depth of the disaster hit me full force recently when “Corporate-y me” found herself feverishly pitching Scholastic order forms, hordes of napkins, junk mail, bobby pins, paci-covers and gah-knows-what-else into the back seat so my colleague from the Boston office could get a lift. (lucky him, eh?)
He is one of my faves, and has witnessed the special horror that is my desk, so he was a-ok with the sitch, but seriously, yo, it’s getting pretty thick in there.
The thing is – 99.99999999999% of the time the Keri-mobile is transporting Jr. and Mommy. Nobody else.
My beloved U.U.V. (Urban Utility Vehicle) of my city-dwelling, self-centric days has given way to the unintentional, unavoidable metamorphosis of suburban parenting:
The M.U.V. (Mom Utility Vehicle.)
Deceptively clean and serene in outward appearance : blueish gray, shiny, windows free of grime.
But crack open one of those doors fitted with the extra sun screen to protect tiny eyes and ZOMG!
Who pulled the pin out of the mom-supply bomb!?
Wet wipes and tissues, blankies and pacis, tiny baseball caps and T-shirts…. All mixing together, ever-churning as the car stops and starts and turns and takes on new layers.
A suddenly-yellow light produces an almost-impossible-in-size forward wave of sippies and goldfish “cackers” and school newsletters from below the seats. It is surreal, even to me.
Don’t misunderstand me here – I am not going down without a fight. I have all kinds of equipment designed to keep everything I could ever need in my M.U.V. organized, tidy, and available with no digging below the seat required. There is the handy cargo bay organizer wedged next to Binky-the-wonder-dog’s collapsible crate in the “way back.” It houses extra coats/layers for the whole family, picnic blankies, balls, and other “outdoorsy” items any Colorado native feels somehow compelled to drive around with at all times. It is stuffed full. I never remember what the hell is in that thing. It does make a nice wedge to keep Jr’s City Mini stroller from sliding around when I stop fast with it back there. (Stopping fast seems to cause a lot of issues for me. Maybe I am not the stellar driver I think I am. Nah.)
In the seat pocket in front of Jr’s throne car seat, an industrial-sized container of wet wipes, a box of tissues, and a trash bag for keeping the used versions of those paper products contained. Mostly. (Again, see “stopping fast” references. Damnit!) Below his feet a bin for toys and pacis and cloth books (no paper when I can’t reach him – he is a paper eater, and the freeway is no time to attempt to break that habit.)
In theory I have everything in place I need for the M.U.V. to be as shiny on the inside as it is on the out.

Except Life.
Except when 2 nights of barfing makes it MANDITORY for me to cover every square inch of interior in the burp-cloth collection I am relieved to say I still have pack-ratted away in the basement just to drive the 5 minutes to the doctor’s office. (Which end up not being barfed on, and living wadded up on the floorboard for months, because that third arm I keep asking for seems to be on backorder.)
Except that a toddler with a snack trap full of cheerios is happy as a clam eating away and singing along to Veggie Tales until that moment when he isn’t – and the cheerios become some sort of anger confetti, whipped around the interior of the vehicle to express his unease. This never takes place on a side street when pulling over might be possible. Not offering snacks at all IS a possibility; however it may result in said toddler deciding that the carseat is, in fact, the portal to hell, and the firey flames are creeping up his backside as I attempt to pilot Frederico safely to our destination.
The Mr’s reaction to this, er, situation, ranges from a mild side eye when I rush after a minor crumb explosion in the garage (“ants, Keri… you will cause ants,”) to recoiling in horror at the idea of actually riding anywhere in my rolling preschool.
Whatever – I’d pit my M.U.V. against his Jeep that he treats like a Bentley in an end-of-times sitch any day.
Blankets, water, books and games – hell our family could eat like kings off that floor board for WEEKS and be fat and happy. (Kings eat ground up teddy grahams and goldfish, right?) Crisis AVERTED.
What do you suppose The Mr. would do in the same situation in his ride? Keep warm with that tiny little shammy he cleans his sunglasses with? Gnaw on a floor mat?
Mmm hmmm.
LONG LIVE THE M.U.V.!!!
(Seriously though – what’s that smell?)

4 Comments

Filed under musing

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 10, 2013 · 9:06 pm

That walk-in closet is turning on me.

One of my most over-used longest-running jokes about how I ended up out here is my line about selling my soul for a walk-in closet.

Anyone who has searched for a home in the central Denver ‘hoods I love so well can tell you that it isn’t much of a joke, sadly.
Finding good closet space in the city is wack, yo.

I won’t lie – I had a moment when I saw my current closet the first time. As Alyssa-the-wonder-realtor can attest, I had a moment in a few suburban closets when we were on the hunt for a place out here. The idea that NOT ONLY would we have enough closet space for our clothing, but we could BOTH house our things in the master bedroom? Downright nutty and intoxicating. Fess up city girls – how many have separate closets? Keep a shoe horde in the pantry? Hell I had one friend who kept sweaters in the OVEN (not a big cook, obviously.)

So my giant closet and I have been getting along famously, and Jr has his closet all to himself instead of not having one at all sharing with mommy

BE THAT AS IT MAY…

I had a wardrobe crisis of EPIC proportions on the way to happy hour tonight, and it reaffirmed that I just don’t know how to outfit myself (I almost said “how to outfit my rack” – but that situation is just a whole different therapist’s couch post, m’kay,) for AT LEAST half of the situations I come across in the burbs.

Here’s the thing. I am DOWN with getting dressed in the city. Be it drinks, or dinner, or a quick lap around the park with the stroller, or maybe dropping by a friend’s place for a visit, or the ever-popular impromptu shopping jaunt? Urban Me had an outfit (or 5) for that, No problemo.

The same sitch, in this fishbowl,  is a whole different ball of wax, people.

So tonight, while attempting to dress appropriately for a celebratory drinks and dinner incident at a casual but independent, adorable little place  in honor of a lovely couple’s anniversary, my giant closet and I went to war.  No prisoners were taken,  and I am still not sure if I can truly say there were any survivors.

Everything looked either too done, or too dumpy. There was no in between.
… And for land sakes – in a closet that size with a wardrobe that just keeps growing to fill it all up – the option anxiety was crippling. That which I love has betrayed me AGAIN; much like the time the discarded nacho container flipped up at me on the road and splattered liquid cheese all over Frederico Escapé.

Too much of a good thing while trying painstakingly hard to NOT stick out like a sore thumb.

A crisis of biblical proportions was waged in that closet tonight – oh the horror of the pile of shoes and skirts and scarves and tears… Oh the fashionable humanity.  Frogs rained from the vaulted ceiling.  My tears of frustration lasted 40 days and 40 nights while Potter-the-wonder-dog fashioned an arc from the hamper and marched my shoes in, two-by-two.  (ok – that may not be EXACTLY how it went down, but it was desperately close.)

I still can’t even really process the momentousness – there hasn’t been a melt-down like this since the great “pregnant and bloated but no one can know yet” wardrobe slaughter of Fall 2010. No sweater, clutch, or dress was left unscathed. It came from nowhere, was vicious and intensely damaging, and then blew right out, just like the crazy thunderstorms out here that come in late summer and early fall.

I can’t decide if it is time to hit up the Kohls and surrender, or rock every vintage EVERYTHING I could ever hope to find in the depths of that giant tomb of a closet and give the whole place a big old middle finger to end all birds.

Two steps forward – nine steps back, it seems.
But the question is – which shoes should I wear for the stepping?

1 Comment

Filed under musing

Tagged as ,

August 27, 2013 · 11:02 am

Special Delivery

I confess, my list of “Crap I Can’t Get in The Suburbs” is much shorter than I anticipated when we planted our flag in this uber-green little square of suburbia over a year ago.
I begrudgingly admit that. (I’d never admit it to The Mr., but to you? Ok.)

BUT!!!
(Here comes my big old BUT again.)

There is a food delivery option shortage issue about which I can no longer hold my (hungry) tongue.
Pizza, or Chinese.
Pizza, or Chinese.
Pizza or Chinese.

COME ON!!!
Don’t misunderstand, you can get all kinds of wonderful TAKE OUT from delicious places that will box up faves from around the globe.

Except I am sick.
I seem to have ACTUALLY contracted the dreaded “man cold” that The Mr. claims to come down with each time someone sneezes within a mile radius of him, as I feel like he ACTS each time that happens.
We are talking “huddle-on-the-sofa-in-a-Jabba-the-Hut-sized-pile-of-blankies-and-whimper” sick.
“Call-the-hazmat-team-to-contain-the-used-tissues” sick.
Sicky sick sick.
Like whoa.

I don’t want to cook. I don’t even want to defrost one of the frozen casserole-bricks I have stashed in the freezer for just this type of situation. “Cooking” right now is pouring another glass of cherry 7-up.
Also, I am fairly certain that any public appearances at this point would be met with extreme disdain from those around me, as I have no intention of getting out of these flannel pants or doing anything else crazy like combing my hair or using some concealer to douse my Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer nose. Hell to the no.
If I saw me waiting for a to-go bag at the local sushi joint right now, I would turn right around and walk out, calling the heath inspector as I peeled out of the parking lot. I am super gross, yo.

HOWEVER, I am not one of those people who gets sick and loses her appetite. Quite the opposite. I lay in my blankie heap on the sofa in a NyQuil induced haze, drifting in and out of delicious dreams of the various food-stuffs I am convinced would cure me. Sometimes I get up enough energy to act on the desire, and defrost some green chile from the freezer – but inevitably I end up falling back on to the sofa and into a nap, only to find my defrosted, spoiled snack in the microwave hours later. (Eating food that has been hanging out in the “temperature danger zone” is NOT going to make me less sick, this I know.)

Who will bring me food? Yesterday I KNEW a cubano sandwich would FOR SURE have stopped this plague in its tracks. But that does not fall into the two categories that actually deliver a-way out here.
Pizza or Chinese.

I need a food truck hotline number that I can call in emergency situations – surely they would understand that a vat of white cheddar queso could mean the difference between life and death, right?

RIGHT?

While we are at it, the liquor store at the end of our city block used to have a runner. Is it really too much to ask to have my Jack Daniels supply replenished? Mama needs a toddy tonight.

An open display of shameless begging request from a clearly dying woman (it really MUST be a “man cold”, eh?) someone, somewhere up here, open a joint that makes a little bit of everything and is willing to bring it to my door.

Bring me some more tissues while you are at it, k?

Leave a comment

Filed under Crap I can't get in the Suburbs, musing

Tagged as , , ,