Holding Still

Ess-You-Vee

Heather guessed correctly.  It's an suv.  A Jeep Cherokee, to be specific.  It was born in 1994, is in pristine condition, and runs quite well, especially with its brand new tires.  We don't drive very much -- Alex works from home and my work and Lire's school are both within 2.5 miles of our house.  When the weather is good we use the bikes or the scooter.  

Those are all my excuses, er, reasons for driving a vehicle with not-very-good gas mileage.  That and the fact that the price was so very right.  And my pal, M, mentioned the environmental benefit of buying used, which is true, too.

Ok, that's done.  Pictures soon.  I'll try to drag the boys next to it to take a picture.  You know I'm kidding, right?  They adore the Jeep.  I think they would have liked almost any car/truck we brought home, but this one particularly appeals to their boy-ness.  Big.  Cool color.  Lots of buttons.  

We visited our old Camry in the boneyard of our local repair shop.  It looked rather sad, sitting next to an old white Olds and a very new looking Saab Turbo.  I have no idea why that poor Saab was there.  Another tragic Saab story, I expect.

The boys are in bed now, though I hear mysterious sounds coming from their room.  I also think the house may be haunted, since I've felt and heard lots of strange things in the past around here.  That and the strange effect it seems to have on my in-laws.  Speaking of them, I had been doing pretty well with this subject.  I had managed not to think about it every day for a good two weeks.  But then it resurfaced.  I think it was because I was doing another deep cleaning of our house.  The last time I had done a top-to-bottom like that was right before they came to take care of the boys last month.  I know, I should deep-clean more often.  

Every dust bunny I vacuumed, every fingerprint I wiped, I remembered MIL's disparaging comments about the cleanliness of the space she occupies while visiting.  The repeated disparaging comments.  The ones that continually hurt my feelings, no matter how hard I remind myself that it just doesn't matter.  I wrote a post about cleaning eons ago (sorry, couldn't find it).  About letting go of the clean house thing to preserve my sanity.  And I stand by it.  It helped a lot.  Isn't sanity more important than a clean house?

So it came back.  All the self-righteous indignation, the hurt, the anger, the throwing up of hands.  I have a thank you note the boys "wrote" to them for taking care of them last month.  It also contains a bunch of photos and a fun leaf light-catcher the boys made.  I still haven't sent it.  Sure I've been busy, and the light-catcher still needs a screw-eye with which to hang it.  But I think I should write something, myself.  I don't know what to write.  Should it be a totally objective, act as if nothing happened kind of note?  An apology for including a hand-made gift, since that isn't something they value, (yes, they said that) yet the boys really wanted them to have one?  Nothing?

Ideas?

Lame-o is my name-o

So much has been going on here lately, I seem to have actually forgotten it all.  Really.  The brain is tired of remembering.

I have been thinking a lot about the boys' development this year and a half since their arrival here in the US -- can you believe it!  We're going on two years.  I've also been thinking about my mothering style, which I'm still fine-tuning.  I think I'm a little naggy and am trying to stop talking again.  I'm attempting to use the guide I remember a yoga teacher mentioning once about whether or not to say something:  Is it kind?  Is it necessary?  Does it improve upon the silence?  If you can say no to any of these, then you shouldn't say what you were thinking.  I find myself testing my thoughts in this way.  For example, when I'm glooming and angering over the events of last month with the in-laws, coming up with things I wished I had said, I apply the guide.  Generally, nothing I'm thinking qualifies, though it satisfies a vengeful fantasy.  But that's not what I'm supposed to be wasting my life with.  Right?  But it can be fun!  Better to apply myself to my immediate family.  They are much simpler.  

In other news, we bought a new-to-us/used vehicle this week.  My dad found it through a former student of his.  Chuck is one of his first students, who graduated in '68, when I was a year old.   He's got his own garage and fixed us up with our brown bomber, the 1989 Camry wagon.  That was a great car and lasted two years longer than we expected.  

Alex is embarrassed by our new vehicle, and I feel a bit funny driving it, too.  But beggars cannot be choosers, we tell ourselves.  The price tag was all we could afford without borrowing, which we do not want to do, and we drive so little, the poor mileage won't impact us as much as if we were heavy-duty commuters.

It's almost 15 years old, so it's a spring chicken compared to the Camry, and it's in great condition.  A senior citizen sold it to Chuck the Mechanic.  There are also four new tires on it.  To offset Al's embarrassment, I purchased a neon green peace sign car magnet for its rear end.  That definitely gives it an air of hippy-ness.  It still has a ways to go, though.  He also wants a bumper sticker that says "my other car is a scooter."  I thought it would be funny to paint all of our excuses for driving it upon the vehicle's exterior, to assuage our guilt:  "It only cost $2500, we only drive 5000 miles per year, barely drive over 55 and tend to carry lots of stuff at all times.  Our children have very long legs and our dog is hyperactive..."

The boys are over the moon about it.  The dog loves it.  Lots more room.  I like the fact that both the heat and the radio work!  Haven't tested the tape deck yet, but I'll let you know.  We still have radio mixes on tape, if that gives you any indication how behind-the-times we are.  

I'll keep teasing you 'til I can take a photo of it.  It's been raining non-stop since I drove it from CT, so no pics yet.  You'll just have to make a guess...

Until then, here are some Halloween pictures.

Yes, I lamely wore the same "costume" as last Halloween.  The red wig with horns.  I can't help it, I've always wanted red hair.  And horns.  

"Where he is?"

First, I suggest you go over here to read Maia's eloquent post about election day.  Next, I'll give you ours courtesy of Lire:

"Where Barack Obama?  Where he is?"  Lire, in all his literal preschool-ness, thought that Barack Obama would be at the voting precinct.  When I told him that he was in Indiana, he couldn't believe it.    

Al and I took Lire with us to vote early in the afternoon.  He was done with school and hadn't gotten to vote for Barack Obama like his older brother had during the primaries.  He's been talking about this for months.  

"I go Barack Obama!"  

Al and I went in, Lire LOUDLY at our side.  He is small, but loud, and repeats himself.  A lot.  I don't think the name Barack Obama has been uttered more in ten minutes over the course of this campaign than it was in our tiny little meeting house yesterday morning.  Lire caused both great big smiles of happiness and embarrassed, uncomfortable glances.  The former smile-wearers had a spring in their steps, and met our eyes with a "can you believe it, I'm so happy!" look.  The latter grimacers mostly were forced into slight, creaky smiles by Lire's enthusiasm.  However, an entire family that we actually KNOW totally iced us.  Brrr!!!!  Even when we smiled and waved at them.  

Oh well.  Lire tries, but even he can't charm some conservatives.

Later that night, our cousins came over to watch the returns with us.  Lire and Habtam stayed up a bit later to watch part of it.  Lire thought we were going to get to vote again.  He warned Habtam to listen to me and get into his pajamas and brush his teeth:  "Habtam!  Listen Mommy!  Vote Barack Obama later with cousins!"  

I can only imagine the party he envisioned:  All of us with our cousins, Barack Obama in our midst, sharing popcorn and white wine, counting the blue and red shapes on the tv, pulling the lever over and over again.

"Mommy!  Barack Obama blue, John McCain Red!"  This was his morning revelation.  Even though they have scant concept of what a president is or does, H and L were very, very happy that Barack Obama will be ours.

Vote

I'm not sure why Lire looks so put upon.  I think I remember a brief time when he didn't like to have his picture taken.  I'll write more soon, once the hullaballoo that has been election season is done.  Al and I have been addicted to all news -- the funny, the informative and the plain bad.  I can't wait until it's over and I can go to bed at a reasonable time.  This combined with the death of our car, the Brown Bomber, have contributed to a rather tiring autumn.  I really miss our 1989 chocolate brown Toyota Camry.  If I had known I'd never see it again, I think I would have hugged it, or something.  I don't think I even have a picture of it.  Poor hunk of metal.

Coming up:  Lire's 4th birthday, Halloween and stolen Obama/Biden signs.