Domestic Psychology

like an amateur haunted house

// June 30th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // humor, me

Ka-chunk-a-chunk-a-clank.

The disposal makes a distinctive sound when there’s something stuck inside, but the sounds aren’t distinctive enough to identify the obstruction. It could be a harmless sippy cup valve. It could be a sharp bone fragment. It could be a brown recluse. Regardless of what is in there, the only way to retrieve it is to stick your hand in past your wrist and feel around in the darkness.

I checked the switch to make sure there was no chance of the horror movie gears grinding my fingers to nubs. I held my breath and reached down until I felt metal. I began fumbling around the blades to find the source of the problem and then . . . I felt something. It was hard and sharp, but flexible. I gritted my teeth and picked up what I was sure would be a bug. As soon as my eyes made contact with it, I knew I would reflexively fling it far, far away. It still had to come out of the disposal. With every muscle in my body tensed so tight I could have touched the ceiling if anyone had walked in and startled me, I pulled out my hand. Staring anxiously, my fingers emerged and I saw black legs and they were attached to a black body and as I heard my scream escaping, I saw the plastic ring attached to the toy spider. I stopped screaming.

My heart racing, I double checked to confirm that I was holding a spider ring. Then, I looked around to see if anyone had come to rescue the screaming woman. The sounds of children playing in the next room reassured me that my stupidity had gone unnoticed. I finally exhaled. The offending ring was punished for its’ crime with banishment to the trash. I paused, picked it up again and put it in the plastic recycling. I walked to the couch to calm myself. Evan didn’t even look up from his Lego Batman game. “Why did you scream mom?”

non-spoilery movie reviews

// June 27th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // movies

Toy Story 3
Beautiful. Fans of the first two Toy Story movies will appreciate the continuity and new fans won’t feel like they’re missing something. Before the movie, I accidentally read an article that said the writers thought about “The Great Escape” when they wrote this movie. I don’t want to spoil “The Great Escape” for anyone, but it doesn’t have a happy ending. That review combined with nearly every single person who saw Toy Story 3 writing that they cried during the movie made me very nervous. I didn’t want my children heart-broken over a movie. My worries were for naught. The children were the only people in our group who didn’t cry, but we ALL loved the conclusion of this trilogy. Unlike other studios that think a family movie is inappropriate jokes book-ended by flatulence humor, Pixar knows exactly how to reach out and pluck the heartstrings of the parents whose children watch their movies. It is more subtle than “Up,” but it is no less effective. See Toy Story 3 on the big, big screen.

Amy & Evan’s review: “Let’s go see it AGAIN!”

A-Team
They were trying too hard. I laughed out loud a few times, but the actors just looked uncomfortable in their characters. They clearly wanted the plot to be a surprise to the audience, but it was much too easy to see from the very beginning. The grandparents and small children in our group fell asleep during this one. The teen boys in our group did stare at the screen with grins on their faces the entire movie. Wait and get this one from Redbox or Netflix.

boy v. girl

// June 26th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // preschoolers, siblings

“Mooooom!”

Amy’s voice is extremely animated and expressive. She has a very specific tone if the problem is her little brother. When I heard her call me in that special way of hers, I expected to see her brother sitting on her, trying to steal a toy or doing any of the many, many things that he does only to annoy her. I didn’t expect what I actually saw. Amy was running hither and yon with her brother inches behind her the whole way. He pulled a sucker out of his mouth, slapped it in her hair, licked the sucker and stuck it in her hair again. “Evan! Stop right now!” Startled, he dropped the sucker and Amy raced to me for safety. Before I could even speak, Evan picked the sucker up and popped it in his mouth. “I just ate some grass.”

Amyisms

// June 23rd, 2010 // No Comments » // kid quotes

Me: “I need to make a grocery run. We don’t have Jack right now.”
Amy: “Who’s Jack?”

Amy: <- baby talk -> “Little Dharma is a cuddly, wuddly puppy.”
Me: “There’s nothing little about Dharma.”
Amy: “Except her brain.”

Me: “WHY did you dump the clean and dirty laundry in one pile on the basement floor?”
Amy: “Because you told me to look for Evan’s blanket.”
Me: “Wasn’t there a way to search that didn’t ruin my clean clothes?”
Amy: “But – I FOUND the blanket.”

work in progress

// June 22nd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // home, video

how not to shop

// June 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // clothing

After many weeks of listening to “I don’t have aaaaanything to wear” whines several times a day, I took the clothing-deprived complainer to a discount department store. Before we walked in the store, I asked what our focus would be. “I definitely need shoes. I also need pants and shirts. Oh, also socks and underwear.”

I wandered the clearance and sale racks, collecting more than a dozen potential clothing choices. As I did, my companion picked two black shirts to show me. I stood and waited while the mountain of options disappeared into the dressing room.

Another woman stood nearby, shouting at an unseen person in the dressing room. “Come out here so I can see if it fits.” The unseen shopper answered. “These pants are itchy. Can’t I just get jeans?” I could see the woman’s frustration, but missed the rest of their conversation as I wandered off to search the clearance rack for anything I might have missed. Nearby, a woman fussed with her shopping partner about the patterns on the t-shirts. “You don’t need any more shirts with dragons on them.” “But, this one has TWO dragons.”

My companion emerged from the dressing room. “I like these shirts, but the pants don’t fit.” We played 20 100 questions as I tried to figure out what “don’t fit” really meant. I collected different pant sizes while my shopping buddy took a potty break.

I checked e-mail, twittered and contemplated the condition of my toenail polish while the second round of pants were tested for fit. “They all fit and this pair is awesome. Feel how smooth they are. Really. Feel this fabric.”

We wandered to the shoe department. A woman walked around mumbling to herself. “Why do I have to buy them, take them home and bring them back four times just to get one pair he’ll wear?” A pitiful shopper whimpered, “I like my oooold shoes. New shoes make my feet hurt.” My companion scowled and passed judgment on the entire department in 30 seconds. “They don’t have any good shoes here.”

We checked out and walked to the car. “Why did you make me buy clothes?” Next year, every woman in that store should buy their shopping companions spouses iTunes instead of clothes for Father’s Day. Unfortunately, I still have to take Doug shoe shopping.

Friday afternoon press release

// June 18th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // humor, politics

This summer’s heat has been made increasingly intolerable by the presence of an outrageous quantity of mosquitoes. What has the other guy been doing while ordinary Tennesseans are being drained of the very blood that keeps them alive? Nothing. The lack of concern about this parasitic terrorism is outrageous. Where is their outrage? Why do they remain silent about the mosquito plague? What do they have to gain by the presence of mosquitoes? The outrageous support of mosquitoes is typical behavior for the other guy. We will not allow this outrage to continue. Unlike the other guy, we do not support mosquitoes.

CC: Aunt B

it’s raining . . . something

// June 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // children, pets, preschoolers

Two large German Shepherd dogs give lots of love, but they also leave a lot of mess. One of our dogs hides in the forest to make her mess. The other dog? She doesn’t care about privacy or the perfect spot. She goes anywhere. Since she, umm, walks it out, it is literally everywhere in the yard. Since dog poo is magnetically attracted to shoes, when the yard becomes a stinky mine field, Doug does maintenance. Doug’s method is something of a mix between a trebuchet and The Shoveler. In one movement, he swoops the mess and catapults it into the overgrown forest. It’s not my favorite Doug routine, but it’s effective.

While the pretend children of sitcoms cutely walk around in their parents’ shoes and hats, real children copy their parents words and actions. The less desirable the words and actions, the more likely they will be imitated by children. Knowing this fact didn’t make it any less horrible when I looked out the front window to see the 5-year-old flinging dog poop while his 8-year-old sister stood beside him. “I found some more over here.” Unlike Doug’s quick fling across the yard, Evan’s method was to lift the heavy shovel full of dirt, grass and poop just enough to hoist it all straight up and above where he and his sister stood. The result was the first thing that I saw out the window. I stood in horror as it rained poop all over my children. Before I could get them to stop, they looked like they had been attacked by Mr. Hankey.

I don’t expect a sitcom life, but I don’t think reality show children do this kind of thing either.

Buster

// June 12th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // life, people

The unofficial supervisors of our cove have always been the seniors who quietly monitored everything from the bug-free safety of their screen porch. They have been here longer than anyone and know decades of stories about the people and buildings in this wooded cul-de-sac. While his wife always sweetly charmed everyone, Buster stoically kept a distance from much of the world’s silliness. For reasons I never understood, Buster tolerated our big, loud, messy family with a patience that others couldn’t believe. He snickered when Doug decided to remove our sidewalk even though the pile of concrete still sits in the side yard. He grinned when Doug tried to cut down a tree and succeeded in mangling a very large ladder in the process. He just shook his head when our house gained a moat to fight the basement flooding.

All of the children in the cove use Buster’s yard as a shortcut. They treat his driveway like a bike ramp. On summer evenings, children chase fireflies everywhere in the cove, including Buster’s carefully manicured lawn. Besides watching the adults and children as if we we were a reality show, Buster and his wife fed our dogs. In exchange for the delicious treats, Molly would peek in their windows to check on them. She was very much a part of their family.

Then, Buster got sick. He fought it, but it got worse instead of better. He moved from the screen porch to the living room to a hospice bed. A steady stream of family and friends kept vigil as he became increasingly frail. He stopped leaving the house except when Doug did something odd. When Doug put a small tomato garden where most people would put a flower bed, Buster made the exhausting trip across the cove to get a close-up view of our shenanigans. When Doug wrangled a large snake into our backyard forest, Buster came outside to peek at the commotion. We half-joked that if we could be more entertaining, Buster might rebound from the terrible sickness that caused him constant pain while making the simple act of breathing a struggle.

It wasn’t our antics, but his beloved wife of 61 years that kept Buster going. When he was satisfied that she would be lovingly cared for, Buster finally left. One stormy night this week, his children stood in the rain and watched as Buster was gently taken from his home for the very last time. I sat in the darkness and watched the peaceful ceremony. Molly didn’t run across the cove to look for treats and collect love pats. She stayed by my side and supervised as our cove patriarch left.

For weeks, we have discussed what we should do to honor the memory of someone with quiet dignity and importance. I suggested planting a tree in the center of the cove. Doug tilted his head and told me that Buster said there used to be a tree in the middle of the cove. Buster had it removed. A memorial tree was vetoed. When the funeral services were scheduled for the same day we planned to begin construction on Amy’s playhouse, I was prepared to delay our project out of respect. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that putting on a show was exactly what Buster would have enjoyed. So, that is exactly what we did.

Goodbye Buster.

More Zoo Camp Tales

// June 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // kid quotes

Me: “Can owls turn their heads all the way around?”
Amy: “No. They turn 1/3 of the way, because their eyes only see straight ahead.”
Evan: “Only the Hatter can spin his head around.”