We were out shopping and Rob saw a shirt he wanted at Target: it had a picture of a bird wearing a pocket protector and glasses, with “NIRD” under it. He wanted it quite badly, and I liked it too, and I said I’d keep an eye out for it to go on sale as those graphic tees routinely do. He countered by saying he really really really wanted it today, and I countered with huh. He countered with a dismissive remark about the skimpy amount of money saved by a sale, and I countered with the suggestion that when he was handling a household’s finances he could decide for himself whether sales were worth it or not. This was fun banter, not tense teenager-wrangling—but he really did want the shirt, and I was losing interest in the conversation and starting to walk out of the department.

As an aside, Rob’s clothes now need to be purchased from the men’s department. The MEN’S DEPARTMENT. I don’t think I’d ever really pictured myself shopping in that department for my children’s clothes. I guess I thought the kid sizes went…all the way up? or something? But no. MEN’S DEPARTMENT. (Why doesn’t spellchecker like “men’s”? Does spellchecker assume I can’t possibly be shopping for my child in the men’s department and want me to change it to “boys’ department”?)

Anyway, Rob then asked what I expected the shirt to go on sale for, and I said probably eight dollars. He asked if we could buy it today if he paid the two dollars that separated the full price from the sale price, and I said yes, and he bounded back to get the shirt and then spiked it happily into the cart. I reiterated that if he would just WAIT he could have it SOON without having to pay ANYthing, and he said cheerfully that he didn’t care, it was an awesome shirt and it was worth it to get it today.

It was a very happy transaction, including the part where we got home and he remembered on his own to get the two dollars and give them to me. The whole thing reminded me of the good parts of my own teenagerhood; I remember being pleased with the logic of “I can have the shoes I want if I pay the difference between the ones my parents would have bought and the ones I’d prefer.” Some of my friends’ parents would have gotten this wrong, saying that the child would have to pay the full price of the preferred shoes, rather than just the difference—which made it even more satisfying to be in a household where it was Right.

The cat situation at our house is going SO WELL.

I haven’t written much about the cats for awhile, because it seemed like it was Always Bad News. First the three cats we’d had since before we were married dropped off one by one, and none of them died quietly in their sleep, either: it was Issues and Decisions, one after another. One with congestive heart failure plus kidney failure, with a Decision About When to Make The Appointment. One with weight loss and peeing all over the house and finally a tumor, again with a Decision. And the third hit by a car, and a shattered unsaveable leg, and an unexpectedly sudden Decision involving the kind of equations a person does with a 16-year-old indoor/outdoor cat and a multiple-thousands-of-dollars procedure that would result in the cat being restricted to indoors.

All three of those happened over about a year, which made sense because all three cats were about the same age, but it was stressful.

Overlapping and interweaving with that, we adopted three new cats, NONE OF WHOM WE NOW HAVE. One didn’t get along with other cats, and eventually we brought her back to the shelter. The other two were hit by cars and killed. I felt like we spent a lot of time at the shelter, and that the shelter was going to start thinking we were not good adoption risks—and that we really WEREN’T. I was getting really discouraged: I just wanted to HAVE CATS. Why was this SO HARD?

So when we adopted two new cats (aiming for adult, mild-personality cats who were already indoor-only and had lived well in the past with other cats and children), I mentioned them here but then stopped mentioning them, because probably we were looking at another failure: the orange one was relentlessly chasing and scaring the grey-and-white one; the grey-and-white one was so skittery and scared, I worried he couldn’t be happy in our noisy house: we kept not being able to find him because he was hiding. I talked to the vet; we started using a spritz bottle on the orange one and various feral-cat-socializing techniques on the grey-and-white one—but I felt like we were dooooooomed just like before: the cats would never get along, and any replacement cats we got wouldn’t work out any better, and we weren’t going to have a plain “household with cats” EVER AGAIN.

But they get along now! They’re not snuggling up, but we notice they tend to do a lot of things together: they’ll go to their food dishes at the same time, or they’ll both be on the cat palace at the same time, or I’ll get out of the shower and they’ll both be standing on the sink. They tussle a little, but not excessively, and sometimes it’s the grey-and-white one who starts it. The grey-and-white one is still a bit skittish, and still sometimes runs from us, but much much much less—and he purrs when petted/held, and he doesn’t hide. We were able to go from multiple litter boxes down to one large shared one. They’re staying indoors and not trying to get outdoors! They sleep on the bed sometimes but not oppressively! They don’t mind if the kids pick them up! And the orange one has jumped up on my lap SEVERAL TIMES in the last week or so! They’re being GREAT CATS. They’re being HAPPY cats.

I am feeling cranky, because I took Henry to the dentist and it cost $155. No cavities, no x-rays, just a totally routine check. The dentist poked his teeth, the hygienist brushed and flossed them and did a 1-minute paint-on fluoride treatment, and it was $155.

The fluoride treatment alone was $38. That’s the same price I’d pay for 950 daily chewable fluoride tablets (generic, without insurance), so HOW CAN THAT BE? The fluoride came in a little plastic ketchup packet and was painted on with a little paintbrush.

And this wasn’t some sort of super-extra-special dentist—not a pediatric-specialist dentist, or a dentist with lots of child-distracting stuff or TVs or whatever. Just a regular family dentist.

HOW CAN ANYONE BE EXPECTED TO ROUTINELY AND UNBLINKINGLY PAY THIS TWICE A YEAR PER MEMBER OF THE FAMILY? PLUS EXTRA FOR X-RAYS AND FILLINGS AND SO FORTH???

Ahem.

Also, may I suggest that while charging $46 for seriously under a minute of tooth-examining, the dentist not mention his children are taking horseback-riding lessons? I realize even the children of regular-earning people sometimes take horseback-riding lessons, and that the dentist might very well send his children to such lessons even if he were, say, a teacher or a Target clerk instead of a dentist—but it is an unfortunately expensive hobby to bring to my mind at a moment when I am wondering WHY ON EARTH DENTISTRY COSTS SO MUCH.

I started my Gift Card Plan today! One down, twelve more to go! I got the same pretty butterfly as last  year, because they don’t have the Generic Holiday ones out yet. I’ll switch to snowmen or something at that point.

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You know what’s kind of challenging? Maintaining the parental philosophy of “The two of us are a united front” when a teenager is confiding agreement with me, against his dad, on something I disagree with his dad about. STRENGTH OF CHARACTER NEEDED, PLZ PROVIDE KTHANX.

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The rock tumbler is going to have to come to a Negotiation Stage soon, if the fad doesn’t pass off on its own. Here is exactly what it sounds like at 2:00 a.m.: “*someone sawing through a screen* *someone creaking up the stairs*”

THIS CANNOT CONTINUE.

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I watched The Lives of Others (Netflix link) last night, and may I not-recommend it to you? Except that it’s a really GOOD movie if it’s your style. This would be your style, if this movie was for you: Depressing and scary movies that show how bad things can get with a government and with the actions of the citizens under that kind of government—and it makes you believe it could easily happen in your own country, and that you wouldn’t be able to do anything to prevent it from happening. To YOU PERSONALLY in REAL LIFE. But it’s really well-cast and well-acted and probably gives a really good view of what that kind of life is like, because you really understand why all the characters behave the way they do. But OH GOD, SUICIDE SOUNDS LIKE SUCH A GOOD OPTION RIGHT NOW.

If that’s your movie style, I recommend it to you heartily! It was very…thought-provoking! (The thoughts were of despair and suicide.)

I DO appreciate that the schools do Fire Safety Week. I DO appreciate that they make homework out of it, forcing me to talk to the children about where to meet up, how to break a window, where to wait for the firefighter if they can’t get out of their rooms and we can’t get to them, how to keep low to inhale less smoke, and so forth.

But I DO wish they’d give us a heads up, so I could make sure beforehand that there was sufficient liquor in the house.

Does it seem amusing to follow a post lamenting the near-universal failure to follow a certain Bible verse about giving away riches with a post about purchasing unnecessary items? Very well then, it seems amusing.

And in any case, it has been pointed out to me repeatedly that that verse is no problem: as long as we don’t LOVE our riches, we can feel free to keep them, unlike the guy in the Bible story who was sent away by Jesus for keeping them. It’s too bad the guy in the story didn’t think of trying that argument with Jesus. But it’s not too late for US to try it!

I don’t want to give my riches away, either. Except to the store, in exchange for possessions.

New bowl (right size for ice cream or soup), $1.99 at Home Goods. Paul was complaining that all our bowls were girly and had birds and flowers on them. This one looks like it was carved out of the thigh bone of a freshly-slaughtered mammoth and then smoothed in the violent waters of a wild river, so I hope it works for him.

Sixteen acorn-shaped placecard holders from Marshalls. I’ve started having Thanksgiving at my house, and one of the best parts of hosting is the sudden need that opens up for certain Festive Dinner Table Accessories.

I first saw these in white, and I thought, “Oh, what a pity they’re WHITE. I’d want them if they were brown!” Then, several aisles later, I found a pack of brown ones. But I wanted four packs, so should I buy one pack, just on the HOPE that I would find more at other similar stores? Then I looked across the aisle, and there was a second pack. Well, then that’s enough for my parents and for everyone in my house except me, and I don’t need one because I’ll know I’m sitting where there isn’t an acorn. Then I thought I’d go back to where I saw the white ones and look again, because I hadn’t been looking thoroughly at that point. So we went back and looked again—and found two more packs of brown.

My mom spotted this clearance bird-patterned box at Marshalls. She really wanted it, but didn’t have a use for it. I thought it might be perfect for housing part of my postcard collection, so I bought it.

I keep a supply of these Melissa & Doug colored pencils and crayons in my gift closet, to be paired with either the Melissa & Doug coloring books or with any gift that seems like it still needs a little something.

This coffee I found at Home Goods might not even be any good, but I was sold by the packaging.

I had to go yesterday to a stranger’s house, because of some PTA volunteering I’m doing. Which is its own annoying story, and is probably the last in a long line of annoying stories that mean I DON’T wonder anymore why the poor PTA can’t find the volunteers it needs, and ANYWAY, I had to go yesterday to a stranger’s house. And the guy there looked and acted just like a politician. He was wearing an expensive-looking shirt tucked into belted trousers, just for hanging around the house. His hair was combed back over his head. He had a small, yappy dog and a big carefully-decorated house in a set-aside-from-the-majority neighborhood.

He had a large sign on his wall that laid out his household’s religious beliefs very firmly, and at some length. It wasn’t the kind of decorative item where the font and frame are pretty; it was the kind of sign a church office would use to lay out their charter: that Jesus was the son of God, that everything Jesus said was the word of God, that the Bible was also the word of God, and so on. Right by the door, just so we’re all clear from the start where this household stands.

You can take the girl out of the church but you can’t take the church out of the girl, so standing there looking at him and his clothes and his huge house and his huge sign, what came unbidden to my mind from the permanently-embedded archives was the verse from the book of Matthew in the Bible: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.”

I kept thinking about that all evening. That’s a verse that doesn’t get cross-stitched much, I’m guessing. It says, right from Jesus’s mouth, that if you are rich you’re not welcome. Not in heaven, not in Christianity. You may not join. Zero camels have fit through the eye of a needle, and the number of rich people who get into heaven is fewer than that.

One issue with this verse is that while there’s certainly a whole category of people we’d all (except for them, probably) agree were rich, richness is relative below that, and the verse doesn’t give any specifics. I was feeling a certain level of raised eyebrows at this PTA guy, but if we go back to the world spectrum concept for a minute, I myself am dripping in riches. I have a computer IN MY OWN HOUSE; in fact, I have FOUR. I have TWO cars in good condition. I have a house with MULTIPLE ROOMS. It has heating AND air conditioning, just built right in. I have TWO bathrooms, with running water in BOTH. I have many appliances. I have enough money to go to Wendy’s whenever I want to. I can support two animals who don’t contribute eggs or milk or meat or labor. Even when we live paycheck-to-paycheck, even when we rented an apartment, even when we had to put Wendy’s in a careful budget, even when we had one bathroom, we have still been on the far wealthy edge of the world spectrum.

I’ve noticed a common concept that if someone is well-off, what they have is a blessing from God. If God gave it to us, he must have meant us to have it. If he didn’t give to others, he must not have meant them to have it. What can a person do? *hands raised helplessly* This is where we need the parable of the good steward: what we have is given to us to do good with, on behalf of Someone Else. It’s not ours. In fact, it’s a test: what will you do with what you’ve been given? You are being graded on this.

I don’t have any particular point to this:  I’m not trying to get into the kingdom of God, which makes it difficult to tie things up with a sermon-type ending here. And it would be hard to turn it into a sermon anyway, if the person giving the sermon were still driving two cars and living in a multi-roomed house and making only financially-comfortable donations to charity, as I am: it’s not a sermon that can be delivered by a camel.

I keep thinking, “WHY am I so cheesed and sad and weighed-down-with-the-cares-of-the-world-ish over NOTHING??”—and then I remember, it’s not nothing: Paul is sick. It reflects the depth of my love and commitment that I do not put the word sick in quotes.

He has a cold. It is the same cold the rest of us have had. So he has dropped completely out of household chores, and in fact has gone past the “not helping” line and into the “putting his dishes on the counter instead of into the dishwasher right below it” zone. I suppose I should be grateful for the heroic effort it took him to unselfishly choke down sustenance and then to drag his dishes allllll the way to the counter, when after all he has a SORE THROAT and FEELS KIND OF TIRED.

Furthermore, one of the kids got an ear infection, and the VERY MINUTE that child said his ear hurt, you will never guess: PAUL’S ear started hurting! And when I took the child to the doctor the next day and the ear infection was officially diagnosed, Paul realized he had now been feeling sick for THREE WHOLE DAYS and HE needed a doctor appointment TOO. The level of woundedness he displayed when I suggested that grown-ups wait to go to the doctor until they have something the doctor can treat, rather than going when they feel kind of icky and want extra sympathy and drama and fuss made over them…. Well, let’s not discuss it. This topic always going to be a touchy spot in our marriage.

I genuinely worry that as he ages he will get some sort of long-term or chronic illness, because then I would be bound by the terms of our contract to deal with it. Which reminds me once again of the loophole.

I got off on the wrong foot in two ways this morning:

1. I was sure, SURE, it was the weekend. I woke at 4:45 and thought about it happily. I woke up again when Paul got up, and I thought, “Ahhhhh, now he will take care of any kid that wakes up, and I will get sleep.” Then Paul came back from his shower and turned on the light, and I was first outraged (“WHY IS HE DOING THIS TO ME ON A WEEKEND??”) and then appalled (“IT IS IN FACT TUESDAY AARRRRRGGGGGGGGG NOOOOOOOOOoooooooo”).

2. I was dreaming that I was packing up to leave someone else’s house after a stay. It was that part of packing where it’s like, “WHY did we think it made sense to bring so much STUFF?” and “Oh no, MORE shoes??” and “Shoot, I forgot this pile of dirty laundry. I need a plastic bag or something to put it in,” and “This is never going to all fit back in the suitcase” and “I just know we’re going to forget something.” It went on like that for an hour or so of dream time.

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I think I am going to have to rewatch Thirtysomething (Netflix link), now that I am in my thirties. The last time I watched it, I was in my EARLY TWENTIES. I was not married, I had no children, and I was watching it in reruns on daytime television, or on videotapes (VIDEOTAPES) after work. So. Things have changed a bit since then.

I think I might have a different feeling about how EXOTIC it is, now. Maybe it’ll be like magazines, where a magazine called Seventeen is actually aimed at 12-year-olds; and where Cosmo, which acts like it’s a magazine for grown glamorous professional single women living in the glamorous city, is actually aimed at high school and college girls. Maybe Thirtysomething is for earlytwentysomethings who want to feel like they’re getting a peek into their own future—but maybe it would be depressing and unrealistic and eye-roll-y for thirtysomethings who have already seen that future.

I am feeling cheerful today. I credit many things, but here are a few things I’ve thought of today with particular cheer:

1. Bird earrings. I got these at Target back in August. I wasn’t even going to buy them, but I had William with me and he was making the bird be all cute and hop around and look me in the eye and so forth, so I bought them. The next day I went back and bought more pairs to give as gifts.

hop, hop

buy me

2. Store-brand Moose Tracks ice cream. I was complaining on Twitter that I was disappointed in all the Breyer’s specialty flavors that looked so good but didn’t measure up, and Doing My Best said her store brand’s Moose Tracks was really, really superior. I have enough faith in her ice cream judgement to get a box of my own store-brand Moose Tracks, even though it was unlikely to be the same store brand. (But I remember reading somewhere that a lot of store brands are filled by the same manufacturer, so I had hope.) IT IS SO DELICIOUS. I’ve had two boxes of it now, and I didn’t buy more on this last shopping trip because I’d made myself feel sick having “just a little more” of the last box—and now I regret not getting it. I could be making myself feel sick RIGHT THIS MINUTE on tiny peanut butter cups and fudge (not fudge SAUCE, but FUDGE).

3. Pink zinnias.

A patch of some vegetable in the garden failed to thrive, so Paul pulled it up. Then he impulsively put a pack of zinnia seeds over that patch, and they succeeded to thrive. GOODNESS, didn’t they! And they seem to last way longer than they should in a vase. (That “vase” is an empty bottle from one of those frappuccino drinks they sell in four-packs. They make great vases.) Next year we’re going to grow assorted-color zinnias.

4. Snyder’s Chedder Cheese Pretzel Pieces.

It’s like someone broke a bunch of big pretzels into chunks and pieces, and then dusted them with an intoxicating cheese powder—similar to Cheetos powder or Kraft mac-and-cheese powder, and just a LITTLE bit spicy. SO YUMMY. Paul wrinkled his nose at the sight of them; then took one and ate it suspiciously; then took several more and watched the bag longingly as I took it away. MINE.

…I’m going to have to get a little bowl of them to eat while I write the rest of this.

5. Light pink Converse One-Star.

They are looking kind of grubby because I wore them pretty much every day all summer. They were an impulse purchase (70% off at Target, should I get them?, no, yes, no, yes, no, well I’ll just put them in the cart and think about it, okay I can always return them) and I LOVE THEM. I bought a second pair in orchid (a medium-light purpley color) but I haven’t worn those yet.

6. Prell.

Paul was out of shampoo, and he was trying very hard to work up the enthusiasm to respond to my incredibly boring questions about whether he’d been happy with that kind or did he want to try something new. He said the only time he’d ever had any sort of shampoo preference was when it was Prell, and that was just because it was fun to watch the bubble go up and down in the bottle. Good enough for me, and I enjoy a quest.

Target didn’t have it, so I checked our grocery store, which seems to cater to “people complaining that they can’t find such-and-such anymore.” Sure enough, they had it. I think it’s amusing that there’s a picture of a bubble on the bottle, like Prell KNOWS that’s how we all think of it. It’s fun to be using the same shampoo we both used in our childhoods.