Xiobhan: All About the X

Think Happy Thoughts, Happy Thoughts

Our good friends Matt-n-Chris have suffered a serious loss. Last night their house burned. The good news is that they weren't injured, they are insured, and the really irreplaceable things were either in storage or wrapped up due to the construction. I have been trying to wrap words around it, unsuccessfully, and then our friend George sent this email around. Since I had no words he said I could use his.

Hey folks:

Short version: Casa Vorobek caught fire this afternoon. Back half burned. Everyone is okay. They will rebuild. We got drunk.

Long version: I just got back from topping off two bottles of zinfandel (Biale, quite nice) and one bottle of tempranillo (Dare, delicious) on Danmatt & Chris's frozen front stoop. Sad news today: the upper floor of their house caught fire and flames tore through the roof. This happened at around 1:30pm. The top floor is fucked (bathrooms, computer room, hallway), the second floor is screwed (new construction, hallway) and water is dripping down into the kitchen and has collected in the basement. Ashes, debris and puddles are everywhere. It smells blackened and crusty and looks like an alien gave birth in there. All is not lost, however: the TV room is fine, the living room & dining room are okay. Basic structure is fine. Since construction workers & Dorobek were there when the fire broke out, it was as contained as possible.

Though it did make the news.

Good news is: no one was injured & it happened during the day while people were there to deal with it. Culprit seems to be one of those corkscrew CFL lightbulbs, but no one really knows just yet.

The guys have been staying with Danmatt's parents in Potomac during house construction anyway. Looks like they'll be there for longer now. Daisy is fine. Actually, shockingly/unsurprisingly, she sidestepped this death sentence, too! She's now 1,276 years old.

Matt & Chris are okay. Matt is a trooper: he's taking this as a challenge. The current challenge is to see how exquisitely he can make over the house! Chris is really sad. He was brave tonight, but he's very upset. But these guys are tough. Perspective and wit intact. Given enough wine, someday they'll look back and...drink more wine.

An insurance contractor was there tonight. Someone called him. He said: "Yeah, we're at 2710. Just stop the car when you see a bunch of people drinking wine on the front doorstep." Let me say this: the wine was very good. I paired it myself. Zinfandel has the spicy chutzpah to counter the charred stew of their home.

Funniest part: The neighbor has a stoner roommate. He got this telephone text message while at work: "Dude. Your house is on fire. But it's cool now. You should probably come check it out."

I'm sure (they) would welcome a happy thought!

George

You probably recognize the place from a good portion of my Flickr stream.

Banner Saturday

Our preschool is a co-op meaning that as parents we have to volunteer a certain amount of hours. Three times a year there are mandatory "School clean-up" days and Saturday was my turn to get up at the crack of dawn, put on my oldest, nastiest clothes, and head over with a bucket and rags. I started with Beck's room because I of course am selfish and want the toys my kid puts in his mouth to be the cleanest. Also, I like to see what it is exactly he plays with all day.

Now that I am back at work I have very little contact with the school's teachers or the other parents. Super Au Pair picks up, or drops off. This was my big chance to get to know some of the other parents. Not sure that I made much of an impression. Mostly because all the other mothers wanted to talk about were school re-zoning issues, where Little Riley was at developmentally vs. Little Tyler. What teachers were the best at which schools and who had that teacher. It was pretty lackluster conversation, so I focused on the task at hand, cleaning like a demon unleashed from hell. (Do demons from hell clean when unleashed? I need to Wikipedia that.)

Every toy, lego piece, dinosaur, matchbox car, plastic animal EVERYTHING had to be dunked in a water/bleach solution and then dried. Do you have any idea how many friggin toys there are in a preschool? I tried to make conversation, and cracked some jokes that fell flat. (After one of the women finished a huge bin of polished rocks and shells, "You do know my kid is just going to sneeze on that tomorrow, don't you?")

Thankfully there was a guy there with a sense of humor. Me, "So anyone clean this big bucket of chocking hazards? No? Not yet?" (Looks of shock, and horror from Moms, muffled laugh from Dad.) After pulling the front off the window air conditioning unit and seeing black mold, dust and dirt I went from room to room to do the other units. One of the Dads in the other room saw it and said, sarcastically, "Eh, that's not so bad!"

I said, "No, not, really." (Holding up the disgusting filter.)
He: "Builds up those little immune systems! Prepares them for life!"
Me: "Like working in Beijing!"
We bonded.

I said to my husband. I didn't make many friends. The moms don't think I'm funny. He said, "maybe your material is getting old." I said, "The letter this week was "K" and they had three on the wall. In a ROW. That is comedy gold."

After cleaning all of the toys, and all of the AC units, I went after other things with my Fantastik. The doorknobs, the floorboards, the picture frames, the cd player, the rails in the hall. I even wiped the fire alarm pull which was VERY sensitive and DAMN was that alarm loud. Who knew that no one there ever learned how to turn it off? Who knew that the firemen (and one firewoman) would show up with two different trucks? MORE jokes I made that no one found funny. (Maybe they just didn't hear me because of the din.)

Boy, this takes me back to high school.
Run!!!
I was just trying to get never invited back
Do we get to go home now?
Yes, I did it. And I'm sober!
(to the firemen) My kid LOVES you guys!
Well, at least now they won't catch a cold when there IS a fire!

After that I slunk home with bucket and gloves wanting only a hot shower and long nap Maybe a polite laugh. From my toddler. He thinks I'm funny. I kill with the three and under crowd.

Yes, we swear this much

So I'm back at work, which means working downtown. It has also meant more stories and less time to share. Like tonight, when the husband walked over from his office to mine. We stood near the corner of L and Vermont talking about something lame and uninteresting such as "What the hell are we going to do for dinner?" which I think is the 5:25pm conversation of almost every working couple everywhere when we turned to hear music and see police lights. LOTS of police lights. Walking down the middle of L street were about 15 teens and twenty-somethings dressed in either punk/goth attire or hemp and fleece. Platform lace-up boots stomped along beside cruelty-free leathers. Mohawks and white kid dreads. They were carrying a sheet banner and blasting music from a speaker on a dolly. The sign read, "DROP BEATS NOT BOMBS." There were about 6 or so cop cars driving slowly behind them, gently nudging them along as they danced and chanted. As they passed my husband turned to me and said:

"What the hell is that?"
"I think it's a march."
"That the saddest fucking march I've ever seen."
"Maybe it's like, an after school project. You know, 'Social Justice 101.' Extra Credit: Fuck up L street traffic."

A younger, ballsier me would have joined in for a minute or two and skipped along to the reggae, handed out a flyer or two, but I would have been a bit of a misfit in my high-heeled black boots and Ann Taylor sweater set. That, and we hadn't yet decided on what we were going to do for dinner.

A trip

Like most people my age, my parents didn’t take a lot of pictures. Those that they did take were processed as slides. No photo albums, no emailing of jpgs or Kodak galleries, only dark paneled living rooms and slide shows on the pop-up screen for out-of-town guests. Clink-CHINK! Clink-CHINK! Backwards. Upside down. Same pics, same jokes. Rarely were the slides in the carousel ever swapped out because Dad had determined that these were the best, or the most popular, or the ones that my mother agreed to. All that has changed. I am shining a very bright light on my childhood with the help of a slide scanner. Boxes of slides stored in bigger boxes are sitting on my dining room table. I have just become the family historian. In the next few months I hope to scan, catalog, and burn to CD everything. It’s not just for me; it’s for my sister and my brother. For my brother’s new wife who has never seen pictures of him as a child. For my children. It’s been fascinating, surprising, painful, and funny. There are photos of my father as a young man that I have never before seen and it’s as if I am meeting someone that I never knew. The Dad before I came. The young, cool, handsome Dad and you know what? I really like him.

I found this picture of me sitting in bed, around 1979.

I haven’t seen this wallpaper in 25 years. Just try and figure out in what direction there is a consistent pattern. I was so intrigued by freaks of nature and statistical achievements that I read and re-read the Guinness Book of World records. For awhile I could quote tallest, shortest, fattest humans. Staring of the photos of Fattest Twins Billy and Benny McCrary riding their motorcycles I wondered, "How did they not fall off? Did they ride because they couldn't walk? Did they ride everyday or just once for the picture? How did that Indian guy with the longest finger nails wipe himself? Or brush his teeth or comb his hair? What kind of bed did that giant Chinese guy sleep in?" These are the questions I pondered late at night and there it is on my bedside table, proof of my strange little obsession.

That's my sister's bed there to the right. We shared a room up until she went to college. While I moved my bed every few months -- or changed my sleeping position from pillow up top, to pillow at the bottom just to change my view and perspective of the world -- hers remained in the same spot for twelve years. She would line up the the round plastic feet of her bed rails with the indentations in the carpet. That's about all you need to know about my sister: she is about structure and order while I am about new adventures and change. And fat, motorcycle-riding twins.