Monday, October 31, 2005

Act 2, Scene 20: “Househusband Freed! Temporarily. Destination: Barcelona”


TRL and S venture overseas for their first vacation in years. Escape from the kids, escape from the burbs, escape from their jobs. Escape!

TRL and S’s parents provide childcare for C and E, who are already well acquainted with their grandparents. It’s a win-win-win for all. C and E get total attention, grandparents get the joy of hanging with the newest generation, and TRL and S get some sleep and adventure in beautiful Barcelona. The house is perhaps the only possible loser in all this. And the lawn. TRL will not be around to take care of things. But something has to give.

TRL calls up the pediatrician to check that no long-term mental damage - abandonment issues - will be experienced by C & E. For TRL remembers, or at least remembers the story, of when he was first left with his grandparents as a two year-old so his parents could take their first no-TRL vacation. TRL refused to greet them when they came home, instead holding on to grandma’s leg in a big Fuck You to his parents. TRL is still not sure if 13 years of analysis has dislodged this trauma. And he doesn’t want it repeated with his sons.

But the nurse practitioner, not an MD, granted, but someone with experience, says Go Go Go. Apparently, little kids don’t have a real good lock on the concept of time (S would argue that this applies to TRL as well): one day away and one week are experienced as similar things for the little ones. So away they go.

After a lovely flight (it was delayed, but so what: TRL and S were free of responsibility, no children to watch. So it was all good. Lots of reading, some movies, some sleep. A little minivacation on the way to the vacation), TRL and S take a train to mountains outside Barcelona. They stay in a near-empty mountain inn, sleeping late, taking long hikes, eating leisurely meals, sipping beer and eating olives on the terrace as they kick back, read, and do nothing. Sweet, sweet nothing.

TRL and S then head into Barcelona for tapas, wine, prowling the winding stone streets at midnight (jet lag is a real help in embracing the late-night party atmosphere), trips to Gaudi architecture, and most importantly, long meals, lots of sleep, and complete and utter leisure. Sure, TRL thought about C & E. But it was nice to mostly think just about where the next restaurant would be, what type of tapas to order, and which street to turn down.

At some point, reembracing city living (No car! No grounds upkeep! No plumbing/heating responsibilities! No problems!), TRL did think about all the time he had put into his lawn. The watering, pruning of bushes, arranging (and paying) to have it mowed, thinking about getting trees cut down. And also dealing with the garbage every Monday night, wheeling the huge plastic garbage can down to the curb, throwing his body over the top of the can at 11 at night to tamp down all the garbage bags so they wouldn’t be charged extra for additional bags poking over the top. And chasing down and dealing with the crazy schedule of the electrician to get lights installed and electrical upgrades made ($$$). And the plumber and oil man to make sure the house continued to function. TRL’s conclusion: they need a super. Someone to deal with all of it for him.

It was a time/value issue in his judgment. Less time dealing with the lawn and house upkeep means more time to make money and doing things he would rather be doing. He would be leveraging the services of a super to get ahead in his career and spend more time with his family. TRL concludes he needs a Suburban Super.

Someone to call when the heat went off, when the lights flickered, when they needed a new refrigerator.

Someone to make sure the lawn was perfect, the house leak proof, the trees around it safe.

TRL supposes this is what the rich would call a caretaker. But he and S were not rich. So he wanted what apartments in the city had. Someone to deal with lots of families. There were certainly a lot of families in SB. Did other families feel the same way? Was there someone who would be their super?

Friday, October 21, 2005

Act 2, Scene 19: "Terrible Twos"


TRL goes downstairs into the kitchen. He says hi to the nanny, who is chasing after E.

C is crayoning the floor.

No, C, no, says TRL, and puts newspaper under him so he can express himself without redoing the color scheme of the kitchen.

Later, though, TRL comes down and C is using the refrigerator as a giant coloring book. TRL rubs and rubs but the crayon won’t come off. Now he and S have a Jackson Pollock Signature Frig.

In the middle of the day, TRL realizes he hasn’t gotten any phone calls. He grabs the receiver and there is no dial tone. He goes into the kitchen and sees that the line has been pulled out of the socket. Later, when he is with the boys for the afternoon, he watches as E grabs the phone line (not easy as TRL had tucked it out of the way) and yanks. Mystery solved.

C, don’t jump on the recliner, says TRL. C, sit down when you’re on the chair.

A puzzle piece whizzes past TRL’s ear. He turns towards the origin of the trajectory: E smiles and begins to jump up and down and screeches like a very happy monkey.

The boys are only 20 months old. TRL realizes the terrible twos, in this case, refer to the number of sons as opposed to any particular age. And they will only get stronger and faster, he recognizes.

TRL pulls a Red Bull from the refrigerator and vows to start doing sit ups and push ups. He needs to stay one step ahead of them.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Act 2, Scene 18: “Town and Country”


S’s parents watch the kids as TRL and S go to NYC for the weekend for a wedding. TRL and S stay with friends, jog around Chelsea Pier, walk around their old haunts in the West Village, meet friends in Soho for dinner. They come back refreshed. And poor.

Town: A Day In NYC:
Breakfast, Murray’s Bagels: $24
S’s Haircut, West Village: $60
Subway: $4
Cute T-shirts for C & E: $30
Shiatsu Massage, West Village: $42
Union Square Green Market, apples and pretzels: $15
S’s Manicure: $12
Ice Tea: $3.25
Cappuccino: $4
Lunch, Ino, West Village: $32
Dinner, Savoy, Soho: $130
TOTAL: $356.25

Country: A Day in SB:
TRL stays home all day. Cost is $0.
Though he does eat meals which are bought at Stop & Shop, so a typical day may cost him $20.
S drives to work, so gas on average costs about $3 per day. And she eats breakfast and dinner at home, and brings lunch to work, so that is another $20.
TOTAL: $43

Conclusion:
The city has now become The Big City, a cost prohibitive place, an extravagant trip rather than an every day occurrence. TRL and S are officially yokels.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Act 2, Scene 17: “Under Attack”


Ping… ping…ping TRL hears through the curtain of sleep.

PING!

TRL’s eyes shoot open. The alarm clock reads 3:00 am, the green glow of the numbers throwing a sickly illumination over the room. S is still sleeping soundly.

PING! Something ricochets off the aluminum siding of the house.

Acorns, realizes TRL. Fall was here and with seeming randomness the acorns had been falling from the trees throughout the day. And the night, TRL is now forced to acknowledge.

PING.

It’s like living in a tin hut on a fucking driving range, TRL curses to himself.

How long was acorn-falling season? he wonders.

PING!

The trees were exacting their revenge for TRLs thoughts of cutting some of them down. They were launching giant acorn torpedoes at his home.

Ping. Roll, roll, roll. PING.

TRL rolls over, reaches his arms across S’s warm body and tries to go back to sleep.

PING!

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Act 2, Scene 16: “Competitive Child Reading”


S sends TRL on a mission: get C & E signed up for the reading session at the SB library. Apparently these 45-minute toddler book reading series are the hot thing in town, and to avoid getting closed out one had to arrive at 10 am on the designated Friday in order to sign up in person.

TRL pulls in front of the library and in disbelief he sees a line of women and strollers snaking out the library door, along the sidewalk and out to the corner. It was like U2 tickets had just gone on sale.

Fuck, he curses himself. It was one minute to ten and he was still late it seemed.

He noses the car into a spot at the side of the library and marches out to join the line. By the time TRL steps behind the last person the stroller conga line had already retreated back inside the library, a good sign: it was moving. But he realizes it still stretches down a long hallway and around a curve, disappearing and possible snaking for miles and miles around the library’s book shelves, reference desks and old people reading newspapers with magnifying glasses.

He shakes his head. It was like a fucking rock concert, and he would never even wait this long for tickets to a concert. Instead, he would use contacts. But he had no inside people who could line him up with toddler reading club tickets, and he didn’t see any scalpers hanging around the library.

So he takes a breath and waits. He smiles at the woman dressed in polyester blue pants and a polyester-cotton green top pushing a stroller and two year-old in front of her. He smiles at the two women chatting together who line up in back of him - at least he wasn’t the last person now. But no one engages him in conversation.

In ten minutes, at least 15 other people join the line. Aside from an exceptionally fat man who has a manic smile pinned on his face as he pushes a stroller bearing a little boy, everybody in the line were women, and everybody seems to know one another, or at least share some secret quality that allows them to talk together. But nobody wanted to talk to TRL. Was it because he was a man, and one without a child in tow? Were people wondering why he was in line? Was he creepy?

Or was it the way he was dressed, New York City-hip shoes, San Francisco-relaxed jeans and T-shirt, rather than corporate dry cleaned or suburban casual (blue jeans taking the “blue” part much too literally, and sneakers with too much white)?

Not even the fat man who he smiles at and gives a head nod to, a time honored man-hi, will engage him in conversation.

He is finally the next person for sign-up, only two feet away from the sign-up desk, and he feels a rush of excitement and accomplishment.

Hi. Two 19-month olds, C & E, he tells the librarian.

She looks him over. TRL finds it ironic that she actually has a string connected to her glasses to hold them when she takes them off. It is so stereotype. She smiles at him, prints “C” and “E” in two available slots on her sign-up sheet and looks back up. That was it, realizes TRL. No tickets, no balloons dropping from the ceiling, just the names on a sign-up sheet. He wonders why he couldn’t just do this online.

TRL turns and as he leaves, walking down the line, he smiles at the people still waiting, hoping that the reading sessions will be full soon. He needs the list to be closed out to make this a true triumph. It wasn’t his fault if these people hadn’t arrived on line early enough. This was war. He who got a place for his children wins. And if everybody got a place, there would be no true winners.

Next year he aims to bring a cooler, chaise lounge and sleeping bag to camp out the night before.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Act 2, Scene 15: “Right Place, Wrong Surface”


E took his second crap on the bathroom floor today. TRL knew immediately once S yelled from the bathroom: TRL, come quick! We’ve got a problem.

It was like the announcements in grocery stores: Clean up, aisle 10.

So TRL cames up with paper towels and first sees C & E happily playing in the bath, which is what was supposed to be happening. And then he sees the squeeze. A lovely cylinder of brownish-yellow poop sitting on the tile floor. Without the mash of the diaper, which rendered most poo a squish by the time TRL or S got to it, this one looked like a real adult poo, only smaller.

Look, a little boy poo, remarks TRL.

He squatted, it came out, and then he was ready for his bath, announces S.

Efficient, says TRL as he bends over and collects what part of the poo he can scoop up with a piece of toilet paper, and then wipes the rest off the tile with alcohol and paper towels. This must be love, or at least the expression of it, he thinks as he tosses the poo present with the toilet paper wrapping in the toilet. It’s not that he is doing the clean-up, that is inevitable, it is that he doesn’t mind it so much.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Act 2, Scene 14: "Relative Visit"


S, your brother is going to Cape Cod with his girlfriend, right? says TRL.

Yup.

I have an idea. You think he could visit my grandma in the nursing home? He could pretend he’s me, that his girlfriend is you, and he could put on two sock puppets and call them C & E. My grandma wouldn’t know the difference, she would enjoy the visit and it would protect my inheritance.

Two sock puppets for C & E?

They’d be cute sock puppets, answers TRL. Very cute.

S walks away.

What? he says. Must be the sock puppets, TRL decides. He would have to come up with a better plan for representing C & E. Cups with styrofoam heads? Midget actors? Photos cut outs?