I actually have 2,672 posts here.There are many, many things that I would like Google to find and many more that I would rather remained , oh, obscure.
Let’s see, if I edited 10 posts a day, how long would that take ? I am even too lazy to figure that out.
So, I’ll just add that to the list of a zillion things to do, and who knows.
Miracles do happen after all.
We just had a really, really Walton dinner. As The Father was working this evening, we had a dinner that the cherubs and I love and – apparently- so do Penny and Kevin. The Father loathes it, which is why, well duh, we had it tonight.
It most likely has about four pounds of vegetables in it.
It is some recipe that I found in the newspaper, some Indonesian dish. It consists of a mound of blanched bean sprouts and paksoi, covered with blanched green beans and blanched carrots, surrounded by tiny cubes of cucumber and strips of fresh red bell pepper. So, you put a scoop of these ice cold veggies on your plate, then you sprinkle , oh, shrimp chips all over it, cover it with a hot sate sauce ( peanut sauce) and then sprinkle crunchy fried onions all over it.
Boy, that went down well.
But the best part was, after everyone was full, we just kept picking over the leftover veggies and bullshitting. You know, comparing all of the Disney places to our local amusement park ( here, Baby, have some more bell pepper strips..), talking about what Kevin does, me telling the teenage girls that we have to get things all arranged for their new school. Just blah blah in a nice way, even The Boy enjoyed hanging over the food and just…chatting.
I suppose that The Girl told Penny and Kevin that they have to tell me ..oh, lies… when they want to go out at night. They were looking terribly…cool…this evening. I might even have remarked upon their suave demeanor. But oh, they were going to look at a house, they told me. They have an expression in Dutch which I do believe is impossible to translate ( feel free to stick your fingers up in the air now..). My feeling about it is that it means something like, go ahead, try to fool a cat.
No one has to lie to me. Why on earth would I deny them some fun?
I am simply the cook.
What a dreadful woman I am They did indeed go and visit a house. It sounds very , very nice for a first house ( read : cheap and spacious). We spent about an hour or so just talking about the house. Me and 4 teenagers.
The Boy, just barely a teenager, also enjoyed it very much, although he had to leave his standard role as The Girl’s nemesis far far behind.
The Boy is bone tired. I made him eat extra food this evening simply to pump some calories into his frail frame, drink a lot of fluids.
And it is only Tuesday…
Long ago and far away, we had an unlisted phone number.You know, back when phones had a dial.
The reason for this was that we have / had our own company and well, work hours should really be clearly delineated from non- work hours. You know, no schmo calling about 10 T- shirts while I am putting dinner on the table.
People seem to take cell phones far more seriously than telephones with a dial, they seem far more addictive.
Five minutes ago , I’m explaining a minor health problem of The Baby to The Father ( but she considers it a BIG, BIG problem) and that zapper buzzes and I am end of story. Probably some schmo calling about 10 T- shirts. But I and the problem are put on pause.
I hate f*cking cell phones. I am always second place when they buzz, ring or shudder.
Here I might tell you something true, as my eyeballs glance from left to right, looking for Google ( which so far seems to stay away from me) : I could give a fricking f*ck if it turns out to be about a make your life order from Ikea. There is work, there is life, wouldn’t it be lovely if the twain would meet ?
When Onassis knew that he was dying, what did he regret most ?
If you can answer that, you know why I hate cell phones today.
Golden ribbons…
The Father left a few hours ago for India. I made the children breakfast and sat down for my coffee and morning paper.
The first section of the paper is always national and international news, the second section local news.
Want to guess what was on the front page- towards the bottom- of the second section ?
Yep, my Kerry poster.
So, after Mr. Obama has taken a cooties age to pick a running mate ( quick, five bucks, name that guy…) I am trying to get some posters sent here.
Receiving a form mail response telling me how very, very busy they are does not raise my hopes.
On a lighter note, please share this moment from long, long ago, which I just adore :
I had nothing to do with this -
The Baby’s birthday presents meet Papa’s Christmas present:
You know, with everything that is going on, there is poop-de-poop on TV, no distractions. So, I’m up here in my little room of my own, catching up on my moaning and groaning ( uh, have I missed anyone).
Now, just around the corner from our back yard, there is this cafe. And tonight-obviously- they are having some sort of Levenslied festival, complete with a karaoke thinger, as we say around here.
You know, it is really, really loud. Like, I don’t know how the kids are going to sleep.
And in the end, a little bit of Levenslied goes a really, really long way.
Last night, Penny and Kevin moved their things into the Playroom… a few sad card board boxes filled with all that they own. They will being staying here for a max of two weeks, mostly because if we did not open our doors, they would be living in Kevin´s car. She is 16, he is 19 and for the last, oh, at least 6 months, they have been living in tents, at vague relatives homes, here and there for a night.
I first heard about them perhaps in May, when Penny´s Dad gave her one punch too many and she called The Girl in the middle of the night. The Girl promptly called the police leading to a discussion here at Casa Kitchen the next day, the point of which was that she should have woken us up and The Father would have called the police.
Kevin´s Mother has a trail of children by various and sundry men and had her own business. Apparently, they had everything, right down to a pool in the yard. Then her business went bankrupt. All of the fine things that they had were paid for by loans and last summer, well, they lost everything. They even had to give away the dog. Big dogs can be pricey.
They are both nice kids. Kevin loves cars … came to the right house, didn´t he … and works at some fix your car place. Penny washes his work clothes by hand.
What do I hope this will all be, oh, just a break for them. A place where for two weeks they can just rest and be the kids that they are.
I know. Naive with a big N.
How am I supposed to sleep tonight ?
*** is very correct,because The Baby has really never gotten a smack in her whole life, when she did get a tick, she was horrified.Some time before the summer vacation, she was mouthing off and got a tick. Because she has never been hit, she was appalled. She was pissed off and told her best friend about it. Beaten black and blue.
Um, I saw it, I wasn´t pro, but she was not beaten.
Oh, small town life. Her best friend´s cousin, who reported all of this shit, is a year older than The Boy. Lord, how I hate this small town shit. Once, long, long ago, The Boy adored this cousin. The Cousin rather liked the Boy as well. I find myself too bored to explain all of this shit. The Cousin, the babysitter of The Baby’s best friend has constantly trashed Baby’s Habbo account, why oh why.
What we went through today was too hideous for words.
Now, the reasons that all of these horrible things are believed about The Baby is that she is, oh, not shy, but that she simply will not stand up for herself. Her teachers have told me that The Baby wants to be everybody’s friend. Now, being shy and reticent is also a clue to child abuse, I kid you not, and I understand their concern.; oh, and once, of the thousand and thousands of smiley, happy pictures that The Baby drew, she once drew a picture of The Boy beating the crap out of her. The Boy, beating The Baby. They called our Doctor, they called the school.
I don’t want to do this. I do not want to explain away something that never happened.
Tomorrow, one of The Girl’s friends and her boy friend are moving in with us, because we have a big old dirty house and if we don’t give them a place to stay, they will be living in a car.
I am too tired for words, and I start thinking of moving back to America.
I spent about an hour chatting in a casual way with The Baby this evening. We both hung over the kitchen table, alone, and she told me that she had read the letter from..The Child Protection Services. Then she read it out loud to me.
Then we talked about what exactly child abuse was. I told her that it wasn´t being made to clean your room up, or someone losing their temper and sending her upstairs if she was being annoying. I also told her that child abuse wasn´t when your mother didn´t see that your hair was always washed on time. Shoot me. I told her that the people coming tomorrow had a tough job, but that they only cared about little kids. Why, I said, they might get 50 reports and maybe, maybe, only one of them was a little kid who really needed help, because sometimes, really bad things happen to little kids. And they want to save that one little kid out of 50.
Of course I wondered if perhaps something else was going on in her life, something outside of the house, and so I asked her if anyone was really hurting her or making her do things that she did not want to do. Nope. I wasn´t surprised, for she is our Baby and we watch her like a flock of Hawks.
And I promised her that tomorrow, all that she had to do was show her face. If she did not want to talk to these very nice people, her choice.
And that is the way that it is.
The Baby started school once again yesterday. I was in for it, get back into the routine , read get something done, move out of vacation mode. Went well, lots of bustling and hustling, of the housewifely sort.
I woke up this morning once again in a fine spirit, a list a mile long of things to do. Must say that I handled yesterday´s mile long list very well and was proud indeed. Felt good.
And then the mail came today, at about, oh, 11.30, read, about 10 minutes before I had to pick up The Baby from school.
You know the flip routine with mail, junk, junk, junk… oh, a letter, addressed to us. Personally. 10 minutes before I have to pick up The Baby.
I move back into the kitchen, slide my finger under the edge of the envelope and read this sucker.
It is from, oh, let´s try to translate this, Child Protection Services . Sounds fair. They have received a tip that The Baby is being abused. Sent on the 14th, we received it TODAY. They are bee bopping by tomorrow at 10 am. Do I cry, do I fall apart, do I go to pick up The Baby and look at every mother in the playground wondering who turned us in. You bet ya. Do you know the worst thing that I could think of, regarding child abuse, for neglect is also considered child abuse. That I didn´t wash her hair enough in the two weeks since we have been back because her very, very favorite show is on at the designated bath time for The Baby.
I am stunned, I am horrified. I never, ever call The Father at work , not even when 911 happened, but today I borrowed The Boy´s phone, had him set it all up and went to the upstairs toilet. And told The Father about the letter. I tend to think that I actually bleated about how much I wanted to get done today, but now, how on earth could I do anything. He told me that he needed a few minutes to think about this and would call me back.
I had The Boy set me up to receive a call. Which indeed came after about 10 minutes.
The Father feels that this tip about The Baby being abused is strongly related to a vicious court case that he, his company, are involved in right now. Being the mature soul that I am, through my tears, I told him that if it did indeed turn out that the two…other guys were involved in this humanitarian tip, I wanted their balls sliced into carppaccio, sans painkillers, and served up to me on a silver platter. With a pesto dressing, perhaps a few pine nuts strewn about. Gracefully, of course.
Call me fucking Salome.
