Tripping sensuously over my pants

… to steal a line from New Zealand’s fourth most popular digi-folk paradists.

Hee. But seriously, though. Evidently I have finally lost the baby weight, because my jeans from last fall — a size 4 Old Navy abomination of denim — are falling right off my hips. I have to hold them up with one hand when I’m out shopping. But pushing the stroller and holding on to Owen leaves no hands left to hold up my pants, so my quest for Mom Jeans begins anew.

I dragged both boys throughout Ross Park Mall yesterday, hissing at Cormac not to touch things and explaining ad nauseum to Owen everything about everything. (“Why is that man—”) It was not a good scene. After three hours and a side trip to Plato’s Closet, I had tried on at least 15 pairs. And I figured out the problem: you never know what will happen to your jeans once you get them home. If you wash them, they shrink up to your calves. If you wear them, they start to droop and bag. Unless you count on them shrinking or drooping and they refuse to do either, leaving you with an expensive pair of pants that didn’t fit in the dressing room and don’t fit you now.

I went so far as to quiz the Gap clerk on shrink factors and inseam lengths. I need a 30.5” or a 31” inseam. My choices are a 30” inseam or a 32” inseam. The shrink factor, she said, was a quarter to a half an inch. If I get the 30” they will shrink a half an inch and leave me high and dry, but if I get the 32” they will shrink a scant quarter inch and leave me swimming. And my sewing machine is in storage, so they have to fit right off the bat — I can’t hem them myself.

I know this is high drama, and that you are on the edge of your seat, but come on. I’ve been on this planet for nearly 29 years (tomorrow!) and I have yet to find a pair of jeans to fit.

But I do have this little nugget to pass on: If you go to Plato’s Closet, there’s a kindly old man working there who will humor your children, and also the Citizens of Humanity jeans are only $45. They don’t fit me, either, but I figure somebody out there should benefit from my trials.

September 25, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 12 Comments

The world is going down the tubes, but I feel all right

So hey! The American economy is sinking like a pair of eyeglasses dropped over the side of the boat during the “It’s A Small World After All” ride at Disney World. But that’s OK, because Iain and I (and my father in law) are making progress on the interior of our new house … which we bought before the markets truly tanked, which means … probably bad things for our mortgage. (Not Lehman Brothers-bad, but I bet we could’ve gotten a better rate, dammit.)

There’s still a chance we might finish the work and move in before (American) Thanksgiving.

And the price of gas is spiking again, just when I’m close enough to visit my family on a semi-regular basis. But that’s all right, at least my dollar goes farther when I only have to travel three hours, rather than nine, to get to Ohio.

And, lucky me, I drained my 401(k) before the giant market fumble. I’m a winner all around!

p.s. VOTE OBAMA. McCain broke America once already (and that’s just this week! “Free market” my heinie!).

September 22, 2008 | Filed Under daily grind, house, news, politics | 5 Comments

GLARGLE. Please send reinforcements or, failing that, a reliable wi-fi connection

So hey! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING has changed. Well, Cormac’s lip healed, OK, there’s that. But everything else is dreadfully, awfully, the same. Our “new” house still smells like moldy old breath and we are still living with relatives. Owen likes to pass the time by asking me to describe his toys, which are all still boxed up in storage and many of which he hasn’t seen since June. As for myself, it’s been so long since I sewed anything that I’m afraid I will have forgotten how.

Rick Sebak documentaries on WQED have been nice for occupying our minds and hours, but it’s a weak condolence prize when my new house sits empty, bedraggled and unfinished for lack of time and childcare. We have yet to sand the hallway and third bedroom and then stain and seal those floors, plus then we need to replace the staircase (!), patch and prime and paint all interior rooms and wait for it to dry in this constant drizzle, and maybe THEN we’ll be ready to start bringing over truckloads of our cheap but beloved possessions from the storage unit. Oh hey, lovely story about the storage unit: APPARENTLY somehow, and I won’t speculate how this might have happened although I’d dearly love to do so, somehow a bottle of floor varnish (ironic! or whatever!) sprung a leak and leaked over a bunch of our stuff, coming to rest in a puddle under our brand-new Macy’s mattress that was the cause of so many marital tiffs over the last, oh, five years. I can’t get past the boxes to see the damage, but I’m afraid I might cry when I do.

Many small occurrences are making me question myself: Either this move to Pittsburgh is the smartest thing we’ve ever done for ourselves, or hands-down the worst. At this point I feel like it could go either way.

September 12, 2008 | Filed Under auto-categorized | 6 Comments

Land ahoy!

Hi! I bought a house last Friday and Owen started preschool and Cormac split his lip open on the granite fountain in the backyard and Iain is up to his ears in lesson plans and we are still living with my in-laws but we are here, we are still here, somewhere.

Perhaps by the end of the month basic renovations on the new place will be done and we can move in and resume normal activities. Meanwhile, I’m thinking of you guys as I wash dishes by hand and read the Post Gazette and twitch a little bit.

September 3, 2008 | Filed Under daily grind | 5 Comments