Happy birthday to my siblings

Today is my siblings birthday, yes plural, they are twins. I can still remember the flurry of activity surrounding the birth, though I am sure that there are details that have been lost, as well as many I never knew about.

My stepmother went into labor on Sunday the 3rd, after attending a party the night before. Sometime that day I was shuttled across the street to stay with my friend Eileen, who lived on the fourth floor of a brownstone with her blind mother and father. Her mother's sister lived with her husband, and two children on the second floor; their mother on the ground floor - she always wore black as all the good Italian widows did in our neighborhood. I was there because my mother had left our household less than a month before, unexpectedly, and was living in California.

After spending the night, I readied for school at the neighbor's but realized I had forgotten my gym clothes (I hated gym) so I dashed across the street. I have no idea what made me enter the parental bedroom during this trip, perhaps I heard a sound, but I was stunned to find my mother in the bed. I have no recollection of asking her anything but I suspect I did and the response was probably that she came home for the birth. Confused I made my way to school.

Coming home there was no one home and I headed back to my friend's apartment. At some point my father called there, and I eagerly waited to hear if I had a brother or a sister. The response was "It's a them!". I had one of each, and once again that day I was stunned, surprised and unsure what to say next.

My recollections are a bit fuzzy but I think they came home when they were five days old. The image that has remained in my mind all these years remains true. Fran sitting in the rocker nursing my brother, my sister in the single crib (did I mention we were not expecting two babies?) wearing a light blue one piece sleeper looking so tiny, so breakable. Standing motionless in front of the crib Fran told me to pick her up. I reached up and into the crib a bit terrified and awkwardly scooped her into my skinny arms hardly breathing for fear of dropping her. She seemed so tiny, so soft, and I felt nothing but love for these tiny beings. That feeling has never changed.

The next time I saw my mother was in late January when she came home to us and we became a house of six for a time.

In which our heroine exerted her constitional rights

October 2nd was my birthday, which actually started the night before
when TGF brought me some beautiful roses.

It is a rare and wonderful thing when she gifts me with flowers. On one hand I wish it happened a bit more often, on the other it leaves it a total surprise when it happens. In truth I adore surprise gifts of almost any kind for no reason at all, and this sort of felt like that given that things are tight and I thought her taking the next day off (my actual birthday) from work a total gift.

The next day we took advantage of the unique opportunity in Ohio to register and vote the same day. I was practically giddy, it was so amazing to vote for a presidential candidate without apprehension. The one unusual vote for me was giving the nod for a casino in Ohio. The economy here in Ohio is in bad shape with unemployment level the highest in over a decade, the GM plant is slated to close on December 23rd, and we still rank quite high in foreclosures nationwide. The truth is the "bad" elements are always around but the jobs are not, clearly.

Afterward we drove up to Tipp City which has a lot of antiques shops and is a spot TGF has been meaning to take me since we moved here. Tipp is a really cute town but clearly a republican area given the signs in front of peoples' homes. The houses are gorgeous, it has an open feel, and we apparently just missed their Mum Festival. We came home and took a luxurious nap together, something that we don't get to do very often any more.

We met her 'rents for dinner where we tried a new restaurant, Sake - Japanese Steak House. I was gifted with cash to use towards knitterly things as her mom didn't know where to shop for such things. It was very sweet. After dinner we dropped Wyatt off for a run in their yard while we went to The Evil Empire store for pet food (did I mention we have foster kittens?). However there lay another surprise - she had me pick out a new digital camera as my present! I have been using her old digital SLR which is big and clunky which feel familar of my old school camera however it's a drag to grab quickly and manage on walks with the dog. Plus I have been having trouble doing the close up work I want with my fiber and the color has been hard to get accurate sometimes. The photo above was one of the first pictures I took with the new toy.

Plus it was a gorgeous day, just that touch of crisp that only autumn does. Beautiful blue skies with perfectly shaped and hued clouds. The best birthday I have had in a long time - pretty much perfect. Thanks honey.

I knew I was forgetting something

For at least a week or so I kept thinking that there was a birthday I was forgetting about. TGF was February 1st. Jennie was January 29. Aunt Suze February 5th. My grandmother's would have been, I think, 90 on Wednesday. There wasn't another one I could conjure up until the 13th.

Suddenly yesterday I see an email with the subject "Re: Where you can find us" - the title I gave a post I wrote to many people once we had established residence. It was from Elaine, a former client. Her lovely daughter turned one and her mama was touching base with me. This birth was a hard one, I wrote about it here (it's labeled graphic because for some it would be, not for me but others maybe).

This is just the sort of thing that makes me ache to go back to the work. It is so special to be present at a birth, clients touch you in a major if short lived way. Those last moments of a birth, those first moments a new life in the room, it's like breathing in god. Somewhere in the chaos of the year since that birth, my subconscious remembered and kept nudging me. Had Elaine not written, I would have never realized what I kept searching for, and I could only begin to tell her in my email back to her how much it meant to me to hear from her. To hear how happy she is with her life as a parent, how much her daughter fills her with joy. I miss witnessing the glimmers of that doing doula work. I don't miss being on call but I miss the work, the joy in those rare moments that are not replicated by anything else I have even done.

Happy Birthday Hattie.

The hunt begins

Monday, October 1^st rather than starting her job TGF had her “official” interview. Since we were still down to only one car and rather than potentially go stir crazy I went along for the ride and hoped for hopping on some wireless at a close by café. I wouldn’t call where I went a café, not in the Northampton or Berkeley sense of the word but there was wireless to be jumped on. Well until my battery threatened to die out since there were no outlets by any of the seating. See? Not really a café like I’m used to hanging at. Also, yes this did mean that this little interview went on for quite sometime.

In an attempt to be proactive regarding our housing situation I wrote to Maureen to double check about the brick beauty we had driven past the day before. She wrote me back while I was still researching housing and surfing the net to say the house was available. In fact she give the name of the realtor, Holly. The house was bought by Michael, Holly’s husband, because he and Theresa were key people in this rehabbing of South Park. Later I called Holly leaving a message about the brick house on Hickory that we drooled over. Maureen, the SP head cheerleader actually called Holly so she was expecting my call. Wow.

TGF finally comes around to get me, seriously over 2 hours later, maybe it was closer to 3, who remembers anymore. All sounds good. The following Monday she goes to corporate training in Indiana for a couple of days and then they will put her in Boy Wonder’s store. This is good because the opening of the Springboro store had been pushed back again but they want her working for them ASAP. We want that to since income is always a good thing. We make an appointment to see Hickory and invite TGF’s mother along.

Tuesday finally arrives and we see two rental properties in the neighborhood before going to Hickory. I feel good about doing this because motel living is getting to me and we really need to get our lives in gear. The first rental is doable and kinda cute but it’s a shared, tiny yard which puts TGF off. “What if the neighbors suck? There isn’t room for Wyatt to run, no fence.” The second, eeww! We didn’t want to touch anything even though it had be “redone” it was all so hideous and badly done that we couldn’t wait to leave but the realtor was very nice.

Finally we approach the amazing house. It’s an older brick home, two stories, on a double lot and has a garage. It’s higher than we want to pay because funds are short for a down payment and there is a question about if I could get a mortgage for that amount though the monthly payments would be totally doable. My dear friend Jennie only buys yarn that makes her heart beat faster. My heart was beating so fast walking through this property I thought I might go into cardic arrest. All the wood work on the first floor had never been painted. Never! It had a beautiful pocket door. It was huge, beyond huge – like 3000 square feet. The bones on this place was just beyond compare. However there was mold, we were all bothered by it. There was no way I could live in this house and work on it in that state. Mold remediation can be a very expensive endeavor. We knew we had to walk away from the property. Holly said that she thought Michael had bitten off more than he could handle with this one but at least they would secure it to prevent vandalism until something more could be done.

Later we met up with The 'Rents to a Rat Pack type of restaurant to celebrate my birthday. Mostly all day I forgot it was my birthday. Seriously. There was so much to adjust do, errands to run, and potential housing to look at, a thing like a birthday was just far down in priority for me. The Pine Club is one of those places with a limited, but old fashioned high end menu. Translation: lots of meat. No windows, dark wood paneling everywhere. The waitress was lively and the food was tasty (I got fish).

On the way back "home" (aka Mot*l 6) we drove by two other properties I had scouted earlier. I had already emailed Holly about these and we wanted to scope them out a bit. I was on a mission!

In which our heroine pulls a surprise

TGF has been in the dumps a bit of late and was very much not in the spirit of things birthday-ish. A few days before the actual birthday (which was on Thursday) she spoke about how she didn't even want to celebrate. Can you imagine how that pulled at our heroine's heart strings? Given my "in debt up to my eyeballs and no work on the horizon" graduate student reality I had no funds to whisk her off to the Bellagio, or even up to a cabin on the Mendocino coast. So what's a sweetie to do? Evidently throw together a surprise gathering on four days notice, that's what!

An email was sent to a pile of people who, oh my god have lives and thus, were not available, but fortunately some were. Whew number one.

Many emails then went back and forth deciding when and where. Together we came up with a potluck at our place, great for my budget. Whew number two.

On the premise that the house was getting to me, especially if I was to be finally taking my vacation from the neverending thoughts of "I ought to be doing school work RIGHT NOW" I cleaned the house on Saturday. However not manically (though TGF kept checking if I were feeling alright. Sheesh, one would think I never clean. So not true. I even took random breaks to check email (needing to check on my peeps!) and winding yarn which was totally not related to cleaning with the vain hope it would throw her off track. House got rather tidy. Whew number three.

While checking emails it becomes clear that our friends would be coming through with awesome eats meaning I didn't have to also profess to get caught by the cooking bug as well. Whew number four.

Before leaving to do the dog walk thing she mentions something about having a "date" when we return. I reply enthusiastically but wonder how I will wiggle this out - the timing has to be just so! During our duskish walk with Ruth and Piccolo (who were both in on this plan), Ruth begged off a little early. Excellent, as TGF wanted to stop for pet food on the way home. However she also wanted to stop for a Mt. Dew and a pack of cigs. Obsessively through these adventures I am checking the time. Okay if we finish now we will get home in time for her to go out back for her sin stick before Wyatt (who always goes out with her) might smell or spy Piccolo. On the way home her stomach growls prompting her to ask about dinner options. Casually I say, Oh I'll come up with something, and now I can say if pressed let's eat before "retiring to the bedroom". Whew number five.

While biding my time at the house, after the errands my cell rings. As I rush to grab it I am trying to figure where she is, hoping she didn't hear it. Sue and Sarah checking in to say they will be a little late. I push Sarah off the phone quickly with a series of "it's fine. no problem. alright then" comments. Shortly after we are both on the couch when I get a text message. Dammit all to hell! It's Jennie asking if they can come in early because her son needs the bathroom. Quickly I punch in "yes". For some odd reason TGF doesn't really acknowledge this activity. Whew number six.

A few short minutes later there is a knock at the door. I pull out the "Oh, are you stopping on your way through" line (since this happened while TGF was out of town I figured it might work to divert attention). "Oh, yes. G really needs to use the bathroom, if you don't mind." TGF hasn't seen our Ms. Jennie is quite sometime and is surprised to see her but happy. So taken aback in fact that she doesn't realize that Jennie has put two bags of junk food on the dining table. We all stand around talking in the living room. When there is another knock on the door, I tell TGF to get it. It's Ruth, with Piccolo bearing cake and bbq. At was at this point that she figured out something was going on. Sue and Sarah arrived a bit later with KFC (another favorite of TGF - her friends really do know her!), an enormous bouquet of balloons, and themed party things (plates, table cloth, party hats and more!). The theme? Elmo of course! Fabulous. On the even later side (hey these are our friends and it's how they roll!) Liz and Andrea came bearing a box of Kr*spy Kremes. Totally awesome.

TGF seems very pleased. Whew number seven.

This morning as I walked into the dining room the sight of the Elmo table cloth brought quite the smile to my face. However, I will never again...wait, never say never is the rule isn't it? I am unlikely to try to pull off a surprise party on such short notice again.