When my husband and I were “expecting” our first child from China several years ago, we didn’t have much of a support group. I didn’t know about adoption groups on Yahoo!. So my husband and I weren’t aware of the effects of “THE WAIT” on previously normal people. Our agency never mentioned it, and as we don’t have any neighbors to speak of, we just came across it blindly one day towards the end of the eight month period BR (before referral). We had been dealing with our last eight kid-free months by carefully marking off the days on the calender. The effects of “The Wait” weren’t noticeable until about the six month mark. A day that will live in infamy. The day I cleaned the basement.
I’m not speaking of a normal basement in a normal house, where most people put their rec room, their spare bathroom and their in-laws. No, I’m talking about a 110 year old Michigan basement. The kind only seen in Michigan, and haunted houses in Virginia (and other places in the deep south). I’m talking about the kind of basement that Stephen King would feature in one of his books, or the type that murder victims would be found in 46 years later by new owners putting up canned tomatoes.
You enter our basement by a hole in the kitchen floor. At one time the hole was covered by a door in the floor that was about 8 feet long by 3 feet wide, operated by a pulley system by what was then the front door. Since then it has been reduced in size to about four feet long and two feet wide, and opened by pulling on a piece of rope that pokes out of the floor. You the put the rope over a hook and hope like hell it doesn’t fall back and hit you on the head as you descend the stairs.
The basement is under the original part of our house, and the walls are made of field stone stacked on top of each other filled with whatever farmers filled their cracks with back then. The floor has been concreted over, but was probably a dirt floor at one time. There is a ladder that leads up to a set of Bilco Doors (picture the basement doors that Dorothy’s Auntie Em had to get into when the tornado came and you get the picture.) The basement ends under the original part of the house and a crawl space (beginning about 3 feet up the back wall) is under the rest of the house (covered in dirt, dead mice and stalactite rocks that hang from the underfloor of the living room). Although I personally haven’t seen any skeletons in this space I’m not discounting old in-laws resting in peace under there...
The basement wasn’t as crowded then as it is now. But there wasn’t any shelving and things were stacked up against the wall. When you opened the door in the floor and hooked the rope back the first thing you saw in the light coming down from the kitchen was a dark shadow escaping back to the crawl space on the other side of the room. I’m still not sure if the shadows moving over to that side of the room were just plays of light and dark, or the spiders, zombies, ghosts and ghoulies returning back to the crawl space under the house..
Now, one doesn’t just march into a Michigan basement, vacumn cleaner hose in hand and start sucking up spiders. One must dress for the occasion. One wears one’s husbands old flight suit (but any one piece jump suit will do). This ensures that the spiders, and other squirmy things, don’t wiggle down the back of your pants into your unmentionable areas. You place your hair in a pony tail and put it up inside your husbands old Marine Corps helmet (to insure no spiders land on your head) and you put on jump boots (with those little elastic things under the pants leg to ensure that your legs are sealed off to the aforementioned spiders). Gloves are optional. Now you are ready to clean.
Armed with just an extension cord, a vacumn cleaner and hose, you bravely wave goodbye to your husband as he shuts the door behind you. You are now alone. Alone with the spider webs (the spiders are smart enough to hide), the dusty furniture, and any ghosts of that might be disturbed by the noise. You turn on the vacumn cleaner and start cleaning. You start with the ceiling first, to ensure that no aerial attacks occur. Next you clean at face level, same reasoning. Then down the walls to the floor. You clean one square foot at a time, ensuring that you leave yourself a wide enough escape path that no spiders can reach you if you have to leave the room at mach 5 because you finally discovered what really happened to dear Aunt Agnes or the “missing cousin” no one talks about.
After about two hours it’s time to switch vacumn cleaner bags. You’re not sure if it’s all the small chips of rock wall filling, dirt, or spiders you have sucked up but the vacumn cleaner isn’t working as well and the vacumn cleaner bag is moving all on it’s own. You scream for your husband to throw down a water bottle, PB&J sandwiches and another vacumn cleaner bag, because you know if you leave the basement unfinished you will never return.
You are now half way through the room and half way to the crawl space, which remains eerily black regardless of how many lights you have turned on. You continue to chase spiders, cleaning out dead pill bugs, large furry exoskeletons of who knows what (and you don’t really want to go there right now, do you?) and strange pieces of confetti that litter the floor. You occasionally wipe a spider web off your face, dust your helmet for things that shouldn’t be there and continue to vacumn at the speed of light (thinking Martha Stewart has nothing on your cleaning skills!)
By the time you are done the place is in apple pie order. For not only have you gotten rid of 2.3 lbs of spider webs, 8.6 lbs of exoskeletons, 14.5 lbs of rock pieces and confetti, but you have also organized everything by size, color and usefulness. You are now just inches from the crawl space. Being the intrepid cleaner you are you slowly put your vacumn cleaner hose to the edge of the space and tentatively start sucking up monster size dust bunnies. Then you stop. What was that? Was it just a light reflected back from the bathroom plumbing or something more sinister?? Not pausing for reflection you slowly back up, clutching the vacumn hose in one hand and the vacumn cleaner in the other. Slowly you turn, step by step, then run like hell to the stairs and out the door (doubting all the way that your feet even touched the ground).
Two weeks later your husband goes down to get the vacumn cleaner you dropped, as the upstairs is now as nasty as the basement was before you cleaned.
Your DH (dear husband) tells you to stand in the yard so he can hose you down. You stand there covered in grey stuff, not really caring that the neighbors are watching you getting sprayed off like a dirty car. You are just trying to ignore the creepy feeling that somehow something with at least eight legs has found it’s way down your back and is heading towards your underwear.
This concluded the cleaning cycle of my “Wait”. Afterwards, to fill my time I obsessively joined adoption groups, tracked FedEx Airplanes and searched for the phone my husband hid because the agency threatened us with legal action if I call “just one more time!”
Mary Who survived the wait five times successfully and is now surviving it “just once more”.
Monday, September 14, 2009
“THE WAIT” (Dateline August, 2004)
Okay, Ladies...let’s discuss “THE WAIT”. You know - THE WAIT...as opposed to just “the wait”. It’s what every adopting parent finds out about and is never prepared for, regardless of how much pre-adoptive training your agency gives you. There’s no cure for it. It’s just something you live through, which eventually makes you a stronger, better parent when you survive it. It’s the time period about one to two months before you should receive your referral (or maybe three to four months before, depending on your psychic makeup).
THE WAIT usually starts about 6 weeks prior to the day you are supposed to get your referral. For us, it was month 6.5 of an 8 month wait for our first daughter from China. As first time parents who were “older” we thought we were prepared for parenthood. We had both been involved in parenting to one degree or another (me with my nephew and my husband with his first daughter). But no one ever told us about the effects of “THE WAIT” on a normal person.
It starts out like this:
About 6 weeks before you are expecting “The Call” you start checking your voice mail for messages. Then you start calling the adoption agency when you leave home, even if it’s just to the grocery store, to ensure they have your cell phone number (they do - it’s in your paperwork). Then you start checking your adoption group web page every two hours (if you are adopting from China like we were, it’s the APC group, or your agency group - where ever the news would hit first.) Then you start finding increasingly devious ways to track the FedEx plane from China that may (or may not) be carrying your referral.
By Referral (R) minus 4 weeks you start feeling like you’ve had too much caffeine (even before you get out of bed). A ringing phone makes you jump at least a foot, and you begin answering the phone in a low, breathy voice that keeps the telemarketers calling you back over and over. (The think you’re running a home based ‘business’, when all you’ve been doing is dashing from the back forty to the phone in ten seconds or less...)
By R minus 2 weeks you start getting physical. Sitting still is no longer an option. You have gone over your packing list to the point you can recite it in your sleep. You have packed, repacked and unpacked at least sixty times. When your spouse sees “the look” in your eye now he just dives behind his paper as you remote-control your way to the bedroom to stare at the suitcases, sure that you have forgotten something, such as the kitchen sink.
By R minus 1 week you start cleaning. Not only can you not sit still, but your adoption agency is threatening you with a protection order if you call more than 3 times/day. You start with the bathrooms...then the windows...then the hall closet...then the front stoop. You clean everything down to the bare bedrock.. Then your fevered glance spots the yard and your fingers start to twitch.
By R minus 4 days you have finished half the yard with a pair of lawn sheers, as the lawn mower has mysteriously disappeared. The police report says the tractor was last seen in a pack of about twenty-five other lawn-tractors heading to the neighborhood bar at a reckless 15 mph. (The police think they’ve found your husband’s tractor parked in back, but are too afraid to go inside to check. There are too many reports of manic laughter coming from the place and too many reports of pre-adoptive dads drinking white wine sprintzers and reciting packing lists Did I mention you have spread the word about how great adoption is to sooo many neighbors that you infected the whole neighborhood?)
By R plus 1 week you are now almost totally bald. Sleeping is for weenies, coffee is no longer required for that jittery feeling, and your adoption agency no longer takes your call. Somewhere in one of the 150 adoption groups you now belong to you someone has posted that referrals are slowing down (probably because someone has told the world about how great adopting from China is.) Referrals are now taking 9-10 months, and you are only ½ way through month 9.
The day finally comes. It’s probably raining. Or not. You don’t notice anymore. You have started at the phone so long it’s broken (or so you think). You no longer take a shower “just in case”. You haven’t left the house in six weeks for fear that your agency really doesn’t have your cell phone number. You have called in sick to work so often that they think you’re terminal.
Then the phone rings. You answer with a dispirited “hello”, as you just don’t the energy for anything else. It’s your agency. You have been assigned a perfect little girl, 9 months old, a cutie pattootie so wonderful that all the stars in the sky dim in comparison. You stand there in stupefaction, and the only words out of your mouth are “What?” “What?” “What?” Then it hits you. You scream. You dance. You run out into the street to join your neighbors who also got the call and are dancing in the street in their nighties too! Then you rush back into the house and pick up the dropped phone to get the rest of the information. Don’t worry - your agency is used to it. They’re still on the phone, patiently waiting for you to come back, calm down and take down the particulars; which you do, eventually...when you realize you ran out of the house in your towel and not much else.
Congratulations! You’re a mom!
Now the real worrying begins! How are you going to find your husband amongst all the other adoptive fathers at the local bar and grill (where he’s been receiving his mail for the last two months)...
Don’t worry - this is where the laws of nature kick in. By sheer osmosis (remember all those new mommy hormones wafting over the neighborhood like a pink fog the men are notified. Soon the streets are clogged with riding lawnmowers - the men are coming home. Let the packing begin!
THE WAIT usually starts about 6 weeks prior to the day you are supposed to get your referral. For us, it was month 6.5 of an 8 month wait for our first daughter from China. As first time parents who were “older” we thought we were prepared for parenthood. We had both been involved in parenting to one degree or another (me with my nephew and my husband with his first daughter). But no one ever told us about the effects of “THE WAIT” on a normal person.
It starts out like this:
About 6 weeks before you are expecting “The Call” you start checking your voice mail for messages. Then you start calling the adoption agency when you leave home, even if it’s just to the grocery store, to ensure they have your cell phone number (they do - it’s in your paperwork). Then you start checking your adoption group web page every two hours (if you are adopting from China like we were, it’s the APC group, or your agency group - where ever the news would hit first.) Then you start finding increasingly devious ways to track the FedEx plane from China that may (or may not) be carrying your referral.
By Referral (R) minus 4 weeks you start feeling like you’ve had too much caffeine (even before you get out of bed). A ringing phone makes you jump at least a foot, and you begin answering the phone in a low, breathy voice that keeps the telemarketers calling you back over and over. (The think you’re running a home based ‘business’, when all you’ve been doing is dashing from the back forty to the phone in ten seconds or less...)
By R minus 2 weeks you start getting physical. Sitting still is no longer an option. You have gone over your packing list to the point you can recite it in your sleep. You have packed, repacked and unpacked at least sixty times. When your spouse sees “the look” in your eye now he just dives behind his paper as you remote-control your way to the bedroom to stare at the suitcases, sure that you have forgotten something, such as the kitchen sink.
By R minus 1 week you start cleaning. Not only can you not sit still, but your adoption agency is threatening you with a protection order if you call more than 3 times/day. You start with the bathrooms...then the windows...then the hall closet...then the front stoop. You clean everything down to the bare bedrock.. Then your fevered glance spots the yard and your fingers start to twitch.
By R minus 4 days you have finished half the yard with a pair of lawn sheers, as the lawn mower has mysteriously disappeared. The police report says the tractor was last seen in a pack of about twenty-five other lawn-tractors heading to the neighborhood bar at a reckless 15 mph. (The police think they’ve found your husband’s tractor parked in back, but are too afraid to go inside to check. There are too many reports of manic laughter coming from the place and too many reports of pre-adoptive dads drinking white wine sprintzers and reciting packing lists Did I mention you have spread the word about how great adoption is to sooo many neighbors that you infected the whole neighborhood?)
By R plus 1 week you are now almost totally bald. Sleeping is for weenies, coffee is no longer required for that jittery feeling, and your adoption agency no longer takes your call. Somewhere in one of the 150 adoption groups you now belong to you someone has posted that referrals are slowing down (probably because someone has told the world about how great adopting from China is.) Referrals are now taking 9-10 months, and you are only ½ way through month 9.
The day finally comes. It’s probably raining. Or not. You don’t notice anymore. You have started at the phone so long it’s broken (or so you think). You no longer take a shower “just in case”. You haven’t left the house in six weeks for fear that your agency really doesn’t have your cell phone number. You have called in sick to work so often that they think you’re terminal.
Then the phone rings. You answer with a dispirited “hello”, as you just don’t the energy for anything else. It’s your agency. You have been assigned a perfect little girl, 9 months old, a cutie pattootie so wonderful that all the stars in the sky dim in comparison. You stand there in stupefaction, and the only words out of your mouth are “What?” “What?” “What?” Then it hits you. You scream. You dance. You run out into the street to join your neighbors who also got the call and are dancing in the street in their nighties too! Then you rush back into the house and pick up the dropped phone to get the rest of the information. Don’t worry - your agency is used to it. They’re still on the phone, patiently waiting for you to come back, calm down and take down the particulars; which you do, eventually...when you realize you ran out of the house in your towel and not much else.
Congratulations! You’re a mom!
Now the real worrying begins! How are you going to find your husband amongst all the other adoptive fathers at the local bar and grill (where he’s been receiving his mail for the last two months)...
Don’t worry - this is where the laws of nature kick in. By sheer osmosis (remember all those new mommy hormones wafting over the neighborhood like a pink fog the men are notified. Soon the streets are clogged with riding lawnmowers - the men are coming home. Let the packing begin!
Christmas Letter In July (Dateline July 2004)
In an effort to really stay on top of things this year, I thought I’d send out our Christmas letter a little early. So close your eyes, sit in front of the air conditioner, and enjoy!
The kids are doing so well! Our eldest son, now 7, and will be starting Harvard Law School in the fall. He expects to graduate with a law degree by June and will launch his own law practice close to home! (Isn’t that just wonderful!) Our eldest daughter, who turned 6 a few months back, is getting ready to graduate Suma Cum Laude from Harvard Medical School in November! Having the two kids together in the same school has been such a relief! They can have snack time together and ensure they get to bed by 8 p.m. (You know how strict I am about bed times!)
Our newest son, home just a few months from Taiwan, is now a house builder! We loaned him out to a local housing contractor and he has quickly become an expert in house deomolition (the dear, dear boy!)! In just a few weeks he has totally demolished six (6!) older homes! The two youngest are doing well too. At the tender age of 5, they are now fashion designers and consultants for Wal-Mart! Can you believe it! No more clothes bills for me! The get all their clothes for fee!!
Ah, life is so good. Dave got such a large pay raise that I’m now a lady of leisure. I spend my time eating imported chocolates and reading Mickey Spillane books. Having a chef and a housekeeper is just so wonderful! Everyone should have one! And the gardener has made the yard just blossom!! Did I tell you our yard will be on the cover of ‘Better Homes and Gardens’ March issue!
For Christmas the whole family will gather together for a huge meal, prepared by Pierre, our chef. We expect the neighbors will come to stare, so we have prepared a concrete pad outside the front window with drool buckets for those that need them. No presents will be exchanged, as we have put aside all our money that we would normally spend on presents and will give it to the nearest Salvation Army bucket this Christmas Eve (I’m sure the extra $40 will go a long way to alleviate some of the need of our not-so-better-off neighbors…)
Ah, life is wonderful in Buckley these days….stop by and gaze in wonder if you are in the neighborhood. And if you decide to stop by, remember to call ahead. The butler has been instructed not to let just anyone in.
Ok, ok, I lied. The chef and housekeeper are figments of my imagination, and the only hot meal the kids get is from Mcdonald’s. The laundry is piled so high I can’t find the door and the kids have taken to wearing their clothes three days in a row because if they take them off they never get them back. The youngest two just turned five, and I managed to keep all the promises I made (trying to get them to bed). The trip to the water park is planned for a day it’s not 50 degrees outside (I mean it’s still only JULY, it should warm up to 75 deg by Labor Day).
The yard is mowed with an eye to a “natural” look (i.e. the grass is so high in places we would need a tractor to take it all down). So far we’ve managed to keep the local snake population down to a manageable level (i.e. we haven't seen any by the swing set recently). I haven’t done any Christmas shopping – it’s not even December 24th yet for crying out loud! The kids didn’t get kicked out of school this past school year (thank the Lord) although Tanner came close to getting kicked out of pre-school for wacking other kids. I managed to enroll all the kids in the local school public schools (and not one of them is slated for reform school yet!). Their immunizations are up to date (the doctor’s office just loves me), the dentist knows we are coming and hasn't moved yet, and the church still lets us in - so I guess we are doing OK.. Right now I’m typing with my toes because I have a five year old under each arm trying to hit each other, a six and seven year old in each hand slinging spit balls, and a baby cat between my teeth to keep her safe.
But the coffee is always on, there's beer if you want it, and on really bad days I have been kown to drink a glass of wine at Mach 5 speed (before five sets of dirty fingers sneak into my glass for a "taste".
Life is hectic, loud, and dirty. Enjoy it! They grow up so fast...
Love from Buckley
The kids are doing so well! Our eldest son, now 7, and will be starting Harvard Law School in the fall. He expects to graduate with a law degree by June and will launch his own law practice close to home! (Isn’t that just wonderful!) Our eldest daughter, who turned 6 a few months back, is getting ready to graduate Suma Cum Laude from Harvard Medical School in November! Having the two kids together in the same school has been such a relief! They can have snack time together and ensure they get to bed by 8 p.m. (You know how strict I am about bed times!)
Our newest son, home just a few months from Taiwan, is now a house builder! We loaned him out to a local housing contractor and he has quickly become an expert in house deomolition (the dear, dear boy!)! In just a few weeks he has totally demolished six (6!) older homes! The two youngest are doing well too. At the tender age of 5, they are now fashion designers and consultants for Wal-Mart! Can you believe it! No more clothes bills for me! The get all their clothes for fee!!
Ah, life is so good. Dave got such a large pay raise that I’m now a lady of leisure. I spend my time eating imported chocolates and reading Mickey Spillane books. Having a chef and a housekeeper is just so wonderful! Everyone should have one! And the gardener has made the yard just blossom!! Did I tell you our yard will be on the cover of ‘Better Homes and Gardens’ March issue!
For Christmas the whole family will gather together for a huge meal, prepared by Pierre, our chef. We expect the neighbors will come to stare, so we have prepared a concrete pad outside the front window with drool buckets for those that need them. No presents will be exchanged, as we have put aside all our money that we would normally spend on presents and will give it to the nearest Salvation Army bucket this Christmas Eve (I’m sure the extra $40 will go a long way to alleviate some of the need of our not-so-better-off neighbors…)
Ah, life is wonderful in Buckley these days….stop by and gaze in wonder if you are in the neighborhood. And if you decide to stop by, remember to call ahead. The butler has been instructed not to let just anyone in.
Ok, ok, I lied. The chef and housekeeper are figments of my imagination, and the only hot meal the kids get is from Mcdonald’s. The laundry is piled so high I can’t find the door and the kids have taken to wearing their clothes three days in a row because if they take them off they never get them back. The youngest two just turned five, and I managed to keep all the promises I made (trying to get them to bed). The trip to the water park is planned for a day it’s not 50 degrees outside (I mean it’s still only JULY, it should warm up to 75 deg by Labor Day).
The yard is mowed with an eye to a “natural” look (i.e. the grass is so high in places we would need a tractor to take it all down). So far we’ve managed to keep the local snake population down to a manageable level (i.e. we haven't seen any by the swing set recently). I haven’t done any Christmas shopping – it’s not even December 24th yet for crying out loud! The kids didn’t get kicked out of school this past school year (thank the Lord) although Tanner came close to getting kicked out of pre-school for wacking other kids. I managed to enroll all the kids in the local school public schools (and not one of them is slated for reform school yet!). Their immunizations are up to date (the doctor’s office just loves me), the dentist knows we are coming and hasn't moved yet, and the church still lets us in - so I guess we are doing OK.. Right now I’m typing with my toes because I have a five year old under each arm trying to hit each other, a six and seven year old in each hand slinging spit balls, and a baby cat between my teeth to keep her safe.
But the coffee is always on, there's beer if you want it, and on really bad days I have been kown to drink a glass of wine at Mach 5 speed (before five sets of dirty fingers sneak into my glass for a "taste".
Life is hectic, loud, and dirty. Enjoy it! They grow up so fast...
Love from Buckley
Hi God, it's Me" E-mail message to God on a Tuesday afternoon (Dateline May 2004)
Hi God. It's me (again). My kids hate me. They told me so today.
They hate me because I make them eat dinner and cut off snacks at 3p.m.
They hate me because they can't eat sugar at every meal and snacks at our house means apples and bananas (not quite what they had in mind).
They hate me because I make them take baths at night and comb their hair in the morning.
They hate me because I make them get up for school on time and wear clothes that aren't ragged and dirty.
They hate me because I make them clean up their messes, show respect to their elders and learn their table manners.
They hate me because I demand respect, personal responsibility and truthfulness. My children hate me because they have an early bed time, enough sleep and plenty of outside play time, yes, even when it snows!
My children hate me because they have updated vaccinations (let's not even go there), and I am strong enough to hold them while they scream during multiple shots (one of the side effects of adopting an older child).
Teach me Lord how to respond to people who remark to me that my children are well behaved in public, instead of gritting my teeth thinking of the hours and days and multiple repetitions that went into training my children in proper rules of behaviour.
Teach me Lord to remember that loving a child is a lifetime committment, and I'm in it for the long run, even after days like today.
Hallelluiah, my children hate me. Thank you, Lord, Amen
They hate me because I make them eat dinner and cut off snacks at 3p.m.
They hate me because they can't eat sugar at every meal and snacks at our house means apples and bananas (not quite what they had in mind).
They hate me because I make them take baths at night and comb their hair in the morning.
They hate me because I make them get up for school on time and wear clothes that aren't ragged and dirty.
They hate me because I make them clean up their messes, show respect to their elders and learn their table manners.
They hate me because I demand respect, personal responsibility and truthfulness. My children hate me because they have an early bed time, enough sleep and plenty of outside play time, yes, even when it snows!
My children hate me because they have updated vaccinations (let's not even go there), and I am strong enough to hold them while they scream during multiple shots (one of the side effects of adopting an older child).
Teach me Lord how to respond to people who remark to me that my children are well behaved in public, instead of gritting my teeth thinking of the hours and days and multiple repetitions that went into training my children in proper rules of behaviour.
Teach me Lord to remember that loving a child is a lifetime committment, and I'm in it for the long run, even after days like today.
Hallelluiah, my children hate me. Thank you, Lord, Amen
Welcome to "Lots of Potential" .... (Dateline May 2004)
When my husband and I began our married life in N. Michigan eons ago (dinosaurs, swamp gas, etc) we began the perennial, slightly psychotic all-American dance called “looking for a home. Having spent most of my life in Virginia I had visions of a big old southern style farmhouse with a huge wrap around porch. The kind of house you picture when you think of “Gone with the Wind”, mint juleps (hold the mint) and an 18 pound, 17-year cicada buzzing down your shirt.
So much for visions. Seems in Northern Michigan they don’t have summers (see above), you have winter. Lots of winter. Winter = cold temperatures. Cold temperatures = high heating bills. Heating bills = money (lots and lots of money). Therefore most houses here are built small (well, ok, there are exceptions for people in the ionosphere wage bracket but we won’t go there).
The houses we looked at in town were two storied older homes (circa 1900) with narrow street fronts. Seems in 1860 when the town fathers were still planning the local neighborhoods space was limited (why else would they build perpendicular to the street?)
Want to have your psyche stretched to the breaking point? Try living in a house that is the exact opposite of the layout you are used to. By this I mean if you are used to living with your house parallel to the street – switch house types. Try living in a house that goes perpendicular to the street. You will quickly find yourself running into walls where doors should be, especially on your way to the bathroom at 3 a.m. You will begin to finally understand that your neighbors aren’t married to abusive spouses, they just have to go potty at 3 a.m and just moved into the area just like you.
Your body will constantly tell you to walk out the side window enroute to the kitchen, or out the side door to the spare bedroom. Nine times out of ten you will find yourself trapped in the garage, blindly fingering tools and cinder blocks, muttering to yourself about pots and pans and where did your #$@#4 husband put the sink this time. As time progresses you will slowly become aware of a growing psychic uneasiness: feelings of being watched, a shortness of breath, a need to reach out and touch your neighbors house to see if you can really do it. Until finally you find yourself pacing up and down the five feet of sidewalk that front your property at 11 o’clock at night, just to get a little normalcy back in your life. Here is a little known fact of life – “back and forthness” is necessary for life on earth. Without it, you die in agony, waving your hands in front of your face and muttering about the sink. If you escape in time, you will probably find yourself in a long line of newcomers taking a long midnight walk back to someplace like Virginia where they know how to build houses.
So…after about eight months of living in psychic hell my husband and I began eating the real estate ads in an effort to ensure we didn’t miss even one potential house we could afford. Like all things that come to people who wait (and wait, and wait, and wait) I spotted one of those teensy weensy little ads in one of those pocket sized real estate fliers that some company puts out. There it was. Finally. My dream house. A one hundred year old house with some very large trees out front, off a county road. (Little known fact #2 – in order sustain life in N. Michigan you need a road in front of your house that the state snow plows will drive down. Otherwise you never get to the store and you die. It’s called food withdrawal).
So, after a very long afternoon of trying to find the house without the aid of directions or a realtor we gave up and called the number at the bottom of the screen….
(End of Part I - snack time!)
With the help from the realtor we finally located the house. It was built by a family in 1895 that had moved into the area from a more southerly county (probably on the advice of a real estate agent). The house stayed in the family until right after WWII when the house was sold and the family moved even further north. Originally, the homestead had been one of the first in this part of county, sitting on about 80 acres of farmland. But over the past century it had been reduced to just the old farmhouse, an old milking barn and a few broken down sheds.
The first thing I noticed when I saw the house (other than it was real old and parallel to the street) was the gravel drive way. It started at the road, went to the front of the “garage”, took a hard right and headed over to an old pig shed then turned left again and headed to who knows where. I couldn’t tell from the overgrown grass, weeds, bushes, trees, etc that decorated the property.
The 2nd thing I notice is the current tenant’s dog tied up in front of the “garage” – with a chain that had been strung through a hole in the wood. Nice dog. Broken down milking barn.
The house was described in realtoreese as “unpolished gem”. Actually the words she kept using were “lots of potential”. I must have heard it 386 times as we toured the property, each time her eyes getting just a tiny bit glassier as we viewed the “Michigan” basement (a hole dug for potato storage under the house), the “Michigan” bathroom (a closet with a toilet and a sink you banged your knees on when you sat down), the “Michigan” view (see driveway description), the “Michigan” open floor plan (all bedroom doors missing).
But it did have a porch, albeit a “Michigan” porch (just a floor and roof). The porch stretched from one side of the house to the other and was over eight feet wide (oh shades of mint juleps!) There were beautiful ancient lilac bushes in full bloom along the side of the house (hollow and full of bugs – but that’s another story), and a spectacular wild rose bush in full bloom (planted right where the old out-house had been).
So, just before the realtor ran from the house screaming, “It has LOTS OF POTENTIAL” we bought it. We bought a house with warped window casings that let the snow in during the winter (natural air conditioning), a leaky roof (natural cleansing), an overgrown yard (natural wildlife habitat), floors scarred from old wood burning stoves in every room (Michigan heating), and a back porch that sat directly over the septic holding tank (outlawed in 1943 but never removed).
The house was eventually renovated into a more livable condition, to the point where people have actually stopped just to gawk at our outdoor color scheme (it’s cream colored, not yellow, damn it!) They gawk at the place where the lilac and rose bushes used to be (the bugs are all dead now, rest their little souls), the beautiful paved driveway (can you say AMEN!) and the mowed yard (mostly – had to save some space for the gophers, I mean yard squirrels to live). Our neighbors have stopped gawking in awe now (it’s been over 5 years) but there is always someone who mentions that the yard hadn’t been cut in over 30 years before we moved in, or that the garbage hadn’t been hauled away in allthat time either.
Part of the fun of renovating a house this old is being able to gape and gawk at the workmanship. Without a level plane Mr. Kettle and a couple of his sons put up a house that has lasted over a hundred years. That’s a hundred “Michgan” years’… windstorms (60 knot winds not uncommon), snowstorms (September through May), rainstorms (any old time) and red wing blackbird infestations (March-April).
The real fun begins when you try to renovate a house with no square corners. I have to give my husband credit – he told me if I just tilted my head about 8 degrees it would look great and it does! During the latest renovation (making the back room even bigger to accommodate “just one more”) the local contractor remarked after about five minutes of looking: “This house isn’t square! There are no square corners or straight lines!” Such a nice guy – we got him saying “Lots of Potential” in about two days.
Stop by sometime. The roses and lilac bushes are gone but the occasional stray pony stops by to say hello, the local domestic duck population has stopped raising their babies in my bushes (thanks to the neighbors electric fence), but the house is still cream, the septic tank is new and the coffee is on. Just remember to tilt 8 degrees off of true north and repeat, “Lots of Potential”.
And if you forget there’s a sign on the freshly renovated front porch that says: “Welcome to Lots of Potential”
So much for visions. Seems in Northern Michigan they don’t have summers (see above), you have winter. Lots of winter. Winter = cold temperatures. Cold temperatures = high heating bills. Heating bills = money (lots and lots of money). Therefore most houses here are built small (well, ok, there are exceptions for people in the ionosphere wage bracket but we won’t go there).
The houses we looked at in town were two storied older homes (circa 1900) with narrow street fronts. Seems in 1860 when the town fathers were still planning the local neighborhoods space was limited (why else would they build perpendicular to the street?)
Want to have your psyche stretched to the breaking point? Try living in a house that is the exact opposite of the layout you are used to. By this I mean if you are used to living with your house parallel to the street – switch house types. Try living in a house that goes perpendicular to the street. You will quickly find yourself running into walls where doors should be, especially on your way to the bathroom at 3 a.m. You will begin to finally understand that your neighbors aren’t married to abusive spouses, they just have to go potty at 3 a.m and just moved into the area just like you.
Your body will constantly tell you to walk out the side window enroute to the kitchen, or out the side door to the spare bedroom. Nine times out of ten you will find yourself trapped in the garage, blindly fingering tools and cinder blocks, muttering to yourself about pots and pans and where did your #$@#4 husband put the sink this time. As time progresses you will slowly become aware of a growing psychic uneasiness: feelings of being watched, a shortness of breath, a need to reach out and touch your neighbors house to see if you can really do it. Until finally you find yourself pacing up and down the five feet of sidewalk that front your property at 11 o’clock at night, just to get a little normalcy back in your life. Here is a little known fact of life – “back and forthness” is necessary for life on earth. Without it, you die in agony, waving your hands in front of your face and muttering about the sink. If you escape in time, you will probably find yourself in a long line of newcomers taking a long midnight walk back to someplace like Virginia where they know how to build houses.
So…after about eight months of living in psychic hell my husband and I began eating the real estate ads in an effort to ensure we didn’t miss even one potential house we could afford. Like all things that come to people who wait (and wait, and wait, and wait) I spotted one of those teensy weensy little ads in one of those pocket sized real estate fliers that some company puts out. There it was. Finally. My dream house. A one hundred year old house with some very large trees out front, off a county road. (Little known fact #2 – in order sustain life in N. Michigan you need a road in front of your house that the state snow plows will drive down. Otherwise you never get to the store and you die. It’s called food withdrawal).
So, after a very long afternoon of trying to find the house without the aid of directions or a realtor we gave up and called the number at the bottom of the screen….
(End of Part I - snack time!)
With the help from the realtor we finally located the house. It was built by a family in 1895 that had moved into the area from a more southerly county (probably on the advice of a real estate agent). The house stayed in the family until right after WWII when the house was sold and the family moved even further north. Originally, the homestead had been one of the first in this part of county, sitting on about 80 acres of farmland. But over the past century it had been reduced to just the old farmhouse, an old milking barn and a few broken down sheds.
The first thing I noticed when I saw the house (other than it was real old and parallel to the street) was the gravel drive way. It started at the road, went to the front of the “garage”, took a hard right and headed over to an old pig shed then turned left again and headed to who knows where. I couldn’t tell from the overgrown grass, weeds, bushes, trees, etc that decorated the property.
The 2nd thing I notice is the current tenant’s dog tied up in front of the “garage” – with a chain that had been strung through a hole in the wood. Nice dog. Broken down milking barn.
The house was described in realtoreese as “unpolished gem”. Actually the words she kept using were “lots of potential”. I must have heard it 386 times as we toured the property, each time her eyes getting just a tiny bit glassier as we viewed the “Michigan” basement (a hole dug for potato storage under the house), the “Michigan” bathroom (a closet with a toilet and a sink you banged your knees on when you sat down), the “Michigan” view (see driveway description), the “Michigan” open floor plan (all bedroom doors missing).
But it did have a porch, albeit a “Michigan” porch (just a floor and roof). The porch stretched from one side of the house to the other and was over eight feet wide (oh shades of mint juleps!) There were beautiful ancient lilac bushes in full bloom along the side of the house (hollow and full of bugs – but that’s another story), and a spectacular wild rose bush in full bloom (planted right where the old out-house had been).
So, just before the realtor ran from the house screaming, “It has LOTS OF POTENTIAL” we bought it. We bought a house with warped window casings that let the snow in during the winter (natural air conditioning), a leaky roof (natural cleansing), an overgrown yard (natural wildlife habitat), floors scarred from old wood burning stoves in every room (Michigan heating), and a back porch that sat directly over the septic holding tank (outlawed in 1943 but never removed).
The house was eventually renovated into a more livable condition, to the point where people have actually stopped just to gawk at our outdoor color scheme (it’s cream colored, not yellow, damn it!) They gawk at the place where the lilac and rose bushes used to be (the bugs are all dead now, rest their little souls), the beautiful paved driveway (can you say AMEN!) and the mowed yard (mostly – had to save some space for the gophers, I mean yard squirrels to live). Our neighbors have stopped gawking in awe now (it’s been over 5 years) but there is always someone who mentions that the yard hadn’t been cut in over 30 years before we moved in, or that the garbage hadn’t been hauled away in allthat time either.
Part of the fun of renovating a house this old is being able to gape and gawk at the workmanship. Without a level plane Mr. Kettle and a couple of his sons put up a house that has lasted over a hundred years. That’s a hundred “Michgan” years’… windstorms (60 knot winds not uncommon), snowstorms (September through May), rainstorms (any old time) and red wing blackbird infestations (March-April).
The real fun begins when you try to renovate a house with no square corners. I have to give my husband credit – he told me if I just tilted my head about 8 degrees it would look great and it does! During the latest renovation (making the back room even bigger to accommodate “just one more”) the local contractor remarked after about five minutes of looking: “This house isn’t square! There are no square corners or straight lines!” Such a nice guy – we got him saying “Lots of Potential” in about two days.
Stop by sometime. The roses and lilac bushes are gone but the occasional stray pony stops by to say hello, the local domestic duck population has stopped raising their babies in my bushes (thanks to the neighbors electric fence), but the house is still cream, the septic tank is new and the coffee is on. Just remember to tilt 8 degrees off of true north and repeat, “Lots of Potential”.
And if you forget there’s a sign on the freshly renovated front porch that says: “Welcome to Lots of Potential”
USMC Instructions...(Dateline May, 2004)
USMC Instruction 12396.2a: Things you never, ever say to/about a Marine
#1 “My, that was very sweet” - Marines are not “sweet”. Marines are tough, competent, intelligent, hunky, but never, ever sweet! (Per my husband, resident expert, retired Marine and stay at home dad).
#2 “That was very diplomatic of you”. Wrong again. Marines are not diplomatic. It’s not in their training. They are straight forward, and direct. (Again, per the resident expert in my house. Ok, ok, maybe some are...mine isn't and this about him anyway.)
#3 “You didn’t really mean that, did you?” Nope, wrong again. They did mean it when they threatened to give the cat away to the next passing car. You know, the cat that threw up on the carpet (again) or dragged their nasty rears across your dining room table (because it’s the only way to get the cat litter out of secret cat places). If your Marine said it – he/she meant it. Of course, being Marines they know how to take orders. Being a retired Naval officer I know how to give them. (End of argument).
#4 “I made an appointment for your physical, and there are needles involved.” Never, never, never, nevernevernever tell a Marine about needles. They will endure war, snipers, dinner with Bin Laden and nasty stuff between their toes, but not needles. So, if you need to mention needles at any time during your relationship with a Marine - wait until the last minute. Because boy can they run (even after 12 years of retirement!)
#5 “Oh, you USED to be a Marine”. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. They are deadly serious when they tell you “Once a Marine, always a Marine”. I don’t care if they were a Marine for one tour of duty 53 years ago, they are STILL Marines. Go ahead, ask one of them.
USMC INSTRUCTION 12396b: How you know the person living with you is a REAL Marine (and not some slacker):
#1) The hair cut. They may be the only guy in the neighborhood with a high and tight (besides your 6 year old son), but it’s the only haircut that doesn’t tickle their ears.
#2) The attitude. They may have retired eons ago, but the attitude of commitment, dedication and attention to detail never dies.
#3) They clean better than any one you ever met. They learn it in boot camp (we have the cleanest baseboards in Michigan). So kick back and enjoy it.
#4) They eat meat. Green stuff is for cows. How in earth can they stay mean and lean on cow food?
#5) They can still make that sound. You know the one…Urrrah. Hurra. Arrugh. Make that “ARRGGHHHH”. (This should get me some e-mail…)
To all the Marines reading this, I salute you. Mary (wife of a Marine and mom to the first female Commandant.)
#1 “My, that was very sweet” - Marines are not “sweet”. Marines are tough, competent, intelligent, hunky, but never, ever sweet! (Per my husband, resident expert, retired Marine and stay at home dad).
#2 “That was very diplomatic of you”. Wrong again. Marines are not diplomatic. It’s not in their training. They are straight forward, and direct. (Again, per the resident expert in my house. Ok, ok, maybe some are...mine isn't and this about him anyway.)
#3 “You didn’t really mean that, did you?” Nope, wrong again. They did mean it when they threatened to give the cat away to the next passing car. You know, the cat that threw up on the carpet (again) or dragged their nasty rears across your dining room table (because it’s the only way to get the cat litter out of secret cat places). If your Marine said it – he/she meant it. Of course, being Marines they know how to take orders. Being a retired Naval officer I know how to give them. (End of argument).
#4 “I made an appointment for your physical, and there are needles involved.” Never, never, never, nevernevernever tell a Marine about needles. They will endure war, snipers, dinner with Bin Laden and nasty stuff between their toes, but not needles. So, if you need to mention needles at any time during your relationship with a Marine - wait until the last minute. Because boy can they run (even after 12 years of retirement!)
#5 “Oh, you USED to be a Marine”. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. They are deadly serious when they tell you “Once a Marine, always a Marine”. I don’t care if they were a Marine for one tour of duty 53 years ago, they are STILL Marines. Go ahead, ask one of them.
USMC INSTRUCTION 12396b: How you know the person living with you is a REAL Marine (and not some slacker):
#1) The hair cut. They may be the only guy in the neighborhood with a high and tight (besides your 6 year old son), but it’s the only haircut that doesn’t tickle their ears.
#2) The attitude. They may have retired eons ago, but the attitude of commitment, dedication and attention to detail never dies.
#3) They clean better than any one you ever met. They learn it in boot camp (we have the cleanest baseboards in Michigan). So kick back and enjoy it.
#4) They eat meat. Green stuff is for cows. How in earth can they stay mean and lean on cow food?
#5) They can still make that sound. You know the one…Urrrah. Hurra. Arrugh. Make that “ARRGGHHHH”. (This should get me some e-mail…)
To all the Marines reading this, I salute you. Mary (wife of a Marine and mom to the first female Commandant.)
Ever notice… (Dateline April, 2004)
Ever notice just when you are about to totally loose your cool because your kids did the same dumb thing for the millionth time that day and you are hoarse from telling them to stop that something always stops you from extreme violence?
It's true about what they say about kids knowing which buttons to push...but my kids have discovered one more button I didn't know I had.
My son, recently home from Taiwan, is learning English in phrases, not single words. And, as anyone who has brought home an "older child" knows - their behaviors don't always reflect what you want them to be doing. So this son (who is 5) just pulled another big time no-no (and I'm being nice about this). And just when I'm starting to loose it (and forget that yelling is a waste of time on someone who doesn't speak English) he pops up with "I love you mommie".
Talk about a reality check! (Other kids have started it too... maybe I'm not so bad after all!)
It's true about what they say about kids knowing which buttons to push...but my kids have discovered one more button I didn't know I had.
My son, recently home from Taiwan, is learning English in phrases, not single words. And, as anyone who has brought home an "older child" knows - their behaviors don't always reflect what you want them to be doing. So this son (who is 5) just pulled another big time no-no (and I'm being nice about this). And just when I'm starting to loose it (and forget that yelling is a waste of time on someone who doesn't speak English) he pops up with "I love you mommie".
Talk about a reality check! (Other kids have started it too... maybe I'm not so bad after all!)
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