Spit and Polish (or Polish)

I am exhausted. I spent the morning running around like a lunatic, emptying wastebaskets, cleaning out the four hundred books and Burger King toys from under the kids' beds, and tidying up all the surfaces in the house. No, we're not having company. Today the cleaning lady comes.
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I know what you're all saying, "Oh, poor you, too tired from preparing for someone else to clean your toilets? Is your champagne is too bubbly or this caviar too salty as well?", and I'll take the judgement. Any of you who have had a cleaning lady, you know the particular stress I am talking about.

Years ago, when I was a teenager, I remember my first friend whose mother had a cleaning lady. This was so odd to me. We were rousted out of bed Tuesday mornings, at the early hour of ten o'clock during summer sleepovers, to get the hell out of the house in order for this Irish woman to come in an work her magic. Her ethnicity, made the situation even stranger for me. Of course my mother didn't have a cleaning lady, since we were just one generation from having been the cleaning lady. Didn't everyone's mother clean her own house, in her uniform of polo shirt and sweatpants, scrubbing tubs and toilets, using straight bleach, with her bare hands? When I became of age, seven, I was pulled in on the action and became an expert, knowing that Comet bleach powder was for the toilet, but it left too much residue in the bathtub. My sister, however, was apparently immune to this brain-washing. She literally had mushrooms growing behind her toilet at some point in her twenties. I took the lessons to heart, and this knowledge served me well into my adulthood, where much to H's chagrin, I (and after marriage, we) carried on my mother's tradition of spending Saturday mornings cleaning, hoping not to pass out from the Clorox fumes.

As H became more successful at work, and we became more conceited about the trappings of success, we eventually hired a cleaning lady. At this point we had no kids - what the hell were we doing with all our time? Sadly, I think finding time to watch Law & Order reruns played heavily into this decision. And thus began our weekly fight about "cleaning for the cleaning lady".

Many jokes have been made, usually by men, about this activity of preparing your house for it to be cleaned. And these jokes usually imply the woman of the house is such a neat freak she doesn't trust anyone to clean but herself. But, once and for all, let me make this clear, cleaning for the cleaning lady means putting all your shit away so she can actually clean the surfaces, not spend twenty minutes putting away your spare change, collar stays and the random business cards you collected at last night's NASDAQ event. Even the kids give me hassle. How is Anna, our Polish cleaning lady, supposed to change the sheets on your bed with eighty-five stuffed animals and every book in the Judy Moody series in her way?

And yet...I do sometimes get carried away. The truth is, I am uncomfortable having someone else do my dirty work. I can't help but wonder what these lovely non-English speaking Polish women are saying about me as they yammer away to each other, much like the Korean women at the nail salon when plunk my callused stumps in to the pedicure tub. I don't work, so why the hell can't I find the time to dust? Well, I try to make myself so scarce when they are there, so maybe they do think I am employed. Nothing is worse than being stuck at home, for example, with a sick kid, when your cleaning lady is there. You sort of bumble around, feeling constantly in the way, being chased through the house as they progress from room to room. There's no better feeling than when your kid is demanding a snack and you have to literally step around the woman who is hunched over on all floors scrubbing your kitchen floors.

This guilt and fear of judgement pushes me to extremes when I am preparing for Anna and Sofia's Thursday visits, lest I give them any evidence with which to think badly of me or my family. Some examples of the lengths I go to:

Wastebaskets must be emptied of anything other than paper. H wants to know why we have to empty the one in Little Man's room, which usually contains that morning's urine-soaked diaper. Because these women signed on to clean a suburban home, not the urinals at the Penn Station TGIFridays. Other things they are not required to touch - tampon applicators, used dental floss and particularly full tissues.

In the bathroom, H's razor and the nasty, plastic tub stopper need to be taken out of the shower and hidden away. Shampoo bottles must be lined up. The toothbrush holder must be cleaned of scuz, and the back of the toilet must be wiped of any urine. She knows she's touching our filth - let's not give her technicolor evidence of the fact, shall we?

In the bedrooms, all laundry should be put away and all beds cleaned under. One time Anna found a pair of my underwear under our bed and left them, neatly folded, on top of the freshly changed linens and I WANTED TO DIE, imagining the look of disgust as she folded, what I'm sure she knew, were dirty underpants.

In the kitchen, the recycling must be censored. We can not leave it in its usual state, overflowing out of the pantry. We also must remove 50% of the beer and wine bottles so the ladies can not add "drunk" to "lazy" and "dirty" to their list of adjectives for me. The breakfast dishes must be washed and put away. H asks, "Why can't they wash dishes if they're here to clean?" Because they are cleaning ladies, not housekeepers, like Alice from The Brady Bunch. Should they make dinner too?

Speaking of the kitchen, this is where the staff of my house intersect. H thinks using that word is funny and I indulge him. Thursdays are also the days my sitter, S, comes. Talk about a wave of white guilt? Since the cleaning lady had to switch from Wednesdays to Thursdays, it's a tsunami. Now I not only have the ladies upstairs cleaning, but S is folding laundry in the basement at the same time (while I get Botox and drink martinis - or go to the dry cleaners). The level of my mania was brought to my attention by S when I asked her to wash the breakfast dishes on Thursday. She said, "She cleans today, no?" forcing me to explain I don't like to make Anna do that, causing S to give me the "crazy white lady" look. She works for a very wealthy family in an adjacent town the other four days of the week and she is constantly laughing at what I will and won't ask her or the cleaning ladies to do.

When S first started working for me, I asked her sheepishly, if she would be able to fold the laundry during Little Man's nap, since finding her rearranging my silverware drawer and organizing the kitchen towels by size and color showed me she was looking to be useful, rather than watching Spanish soap operas all day, as was my fear. But even as she agreed, this domestic task had me riddled with anxiety. The first day, I pulled out all my underwear from the pile and put it away myself. I didn't think handling my thongs or nasty, period underwear were going to gain me any respect from S. Eventually, I allowed her to fold my intimates, since going on that Easter egg hunt every Thursday was proving to be a pain in my ass, and I usually missed some anyway. I still cringe thinking about it though, especially the one day I found she had reorganized my undies drawer, including the more adventurous stuff that hasn't seen the light of day sine we were trying to conceive #1.

Perhaps some day I will relax with having people work for me, but having grown up in such a do-it-yourself family makes it really difficult. It also makes me worry about the kids' attitudes and abilities when it comes to housekeeping. We have gone through periods of time when the cleaning lady has been let go and I go back to doing it, but it seems their memories are so short. I casually mentioned one Thursday morning when the girls were complaining about emptying their beds of all their crap, that one day they wouldn't have to do this because we wouldn't have a cleaning lady. They asked who would be doing it, to which I responded, "You guys. Why do you think I had all these kids?" I fully intend, when they get a little older, to turn the cleaning of the house over to my children, with a little supervision. H scoffs, thinking it unnecessary. Or really, Money Bags? How irresponsible would it be to send people out into the world who think they're too good to clean their own homes? Nothing is more grounding than having to pick your own pubic hair off the back of the toilet.

So I will continue to be an outcast from my own home every Thursday, hence, my current writing location, the library, and continue to thank God that I have them. I don't think my working-class, white guilt will ever completely go away, and I will continue to be embarrassed by having other people do my work for me, but it won't stop me from enjoying the benefits. I will also try not to smack the smug look off H's face every Wednesday night as we prepare for "my staff".

We run the world in four inch heels...

Hi, remember me? ALL of the children finally got back off to school Monday, just in time for me to get a too-many-trips-to-the-park-the-movies-bouncy-playland cold. There was a suspiciously drippy looking toddler at the bouncy place I am blaming it on. I know I have to get back to writing when my father in-law, who made it possible for me to lie prostrate on the couch, sniffling, watching Life as We Know It, My Life in Ruins and The Switch*, unmolested by my children, tells me he's tired of reading the same old post every day.

Back in the saddle this morning or rather, the van, I heard, for the first time, Beyonce's new song, "Run the World".** The opening marching band drum roll (stolen from Gwen Stefani), and the awesome lyrics "GIRLS! We run this mutha'!" set the stage for some major Beyonce sass, and it delivered. Although the examples of success focused a little too much on "checks", for my taste, and the sexuality-as-power expressed with the phrase "my persuasion can build a nation" made me gag a little bit, it is, yet another, perfect girl-power song. Also perfectly timed.

I've been trying, my damnedest, as of late, to finish up some articles and get them published (read: write the last two-thirds of them and submit them), and it just doesn't seem to be working out. I won't go into it all again. Use the search bar above to query the terms "single parent/work widow", "school volunteering" and "housework" and you'll be all caught up. H and I had a pretty intense, wine-fueled discussion about it while cooking dinner Saturday night, during which I told him I was tired of being "a supporting character in my own life" (lucky guy, that H, huh? Histrionics like that are only part of my charm). H was loving, complimentary and supportive, as any man would be when dealing with a half-drunk hysteric holding a knife, telling me what I do is so important. And I do believe that, some days.

Look at almost every important job, and if you follow the chain backwards, you wind up with mostly women, making this work possible - nurses, secretaries, nannies. Is this the work we are drawn to? Are women more naturally inclined to cooperative work and made to feel badly for it in this society of shining stars? Before World War II, when very few women worked outside of the home, keeping a home was considered a profession, and caring for a family was a woman's life's work. Giving to others, your family, was considered a duty and privilege. Now it seems sort of sad, if a woman does that with anything but thinly veiled bitterness.

After hearing this song though, it made me see, again, what so may women do that can be viewed as supporting, is really, what makes the world turn, and always has. I think the difference now is, we want some recognition for it, that, without us, the worlds we have created would collapse.

So thank you, Beyonce Knowles, for while the world at large, may not recognize enough the contribution we make to a functioning society, you do. Even if you do it wearing a truly fucked-up looking headdress.

*Which were good, awful and very good, in that order. Jason Bateman is like the bacon of acting. He makes everything better - even Jennifer Aniston movies.
**Thank God, the radio in the van is finally fixed. It took the dealer a month to get the new part. Four weeks of listening to Little Man's incessant babbling ("What color is the sky Mommy?..."Blue, buddy."..."Why, Mommy?"), and the girls re-tell me entire chapters of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, from memory, and I would have been institutionalized.

See you at pick-up, LOL, ;)

I know, I know. This week got away from me. It included Little Man being off from school which translated into his spending the entire week so all over me it was as if he was trying to crawl back in. My dad was also visiting, which was actually extraordinarily helpful, but distracting. Then I ran a Girl scout meeting that involved teaching twenty girls to sew when I, myself, stare at popped-off buttons helplessly, telling the kids, "Ask you grandmother". And the finale was changing out all the winter clothes, which found me, yesterday afternoon, in the middle of a shoulder-high pile of fleece waiting to be sorted by size to be packed, shared or donated, and bursting into tears. So there you go.

During this crazy week I was trying to make several different plans for various offspring, and myself and H, and as I did so, I made a startling discovery. I no longer like the phone, pretty much at all. What??? You have a vagina, therefore you must love talking on the phone! Isn't talking what women love to do? Don't women use something like four thousand times the words men use in one day? I do use all those words, I just use them caring for for and speaking to my children. I bet the number of times I yell, "Little Man, DON'T DO THAT?" must account for a full two-thirds of my daily quota.

When I was a teenager, I had hours and hours to while away on the phone. Planning a trip to the mall could easily involve ten phone calls lasting approximately thirty minutes each. Now, I have about three minutes before somebody comes looking for me with a request for a beverage, homework help or to wipe their ass, so time is of the essence. So with that in mind, I have a request, OK, a demand. I demand that all mothers embrace technology and begin using text and email. We're all busy, right? Then why do we insist, when making plans, on five minutes of chit-chatty bullshit before getting to the point of the phone call? When I do make phone calls, I feel rude if do not participate in this verbal dance, wanting desperately to get back to the other things that need doing.

MM:"Hi Randon Mother, it's Mary."
Random Mom: "Hi! How are you?"
MM:"Good."
Random Mom: "What a beautiful day, huh?"
MM: "Sure is. The reason I'm calling is I was wondering if we could arrange a playdate next week."
RM: "Sure, OK, let me look at my calendar. OK, Monday is dance, Tuesday we have the dentist, how is Wednesday?"
MM: "Sure does after school to five work?"
RM: "OK, let me see, I have to get my older one at skating..."

OK, at the point the conversation has lasted more than five minutes and I only have half the info I need. Doing this via text would have taken two minutes total, disregarding lag time. Instead of waiting on the phone while this mother figured out her schedule, she could have consulted her date book and gotten back to me. I'm not interested in the process, just the results.

And email. I move that it be mandatory for the care-giving parent to check their email once a day. Why do I bother sending out detailed emails about school board stuff, only to be asked about it at the preschool? When I send permission slips as attachments for next month's class trip for you to print and sign, I assume you will read your email at some point, rather than harass me for copies at pick-up since, contrary to what you must believe, I do not actually have a copy machine in my house.

While we are on the topic of these technologies, let's discuss etiquette and eliminating some of the social anxiety that might prevent their full usage. Ladies, short, succinct, info-filled texts and emails are not insulting, they are effective. I don't need a joke or the email equivalent of small talk to know you still like me. An email that states "I'll pick your kid up at three, let me know if that works" and you name, is fine by me. Can we also stop over-using exclamation points and emoticons, trying to electronically hug one another after being brief? Actually, how about we stop using emoticons at all? Especially that wink-face. Do you dot your i's with hearts? And, once and for all, TYPING IN ALL CAPS IS THE ELECTRONIC VERSION OF SHOUTING, SO STOP DOING IT.

Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes the internet will not do and I need a long conversation with B, with her being eight hours away and all. I talk to my father every morning while unloading the dishwasher, and I would be lost without my desperate, I-am-going-to-lose-my-damn-mind chats with S, but when I am making plans with any of these people, it always occurs electronically. Although with my dad it must be through email alone, since he, like serial killers and drug dealers, only purchases one of those disposable cell phones when necessary.

I know it is amazing that with my love-hate relationship with technology, that I have embraced it so fully when dealing with logistics (I'm still holding out on the Kindle, despite the kicky new Lilly Pulitzer cases) but when your entire life can be streamlined, allowing you to avoid five minute discussions about whether white on navy or navy on white would be better for next year's Open House banner, you can't help but love it. Plus it saves us all the awkward pause when Little Man interrupts me mid-sentence to shout "I MADE POOP!"*

*Sidebar- trying to use the medical insurance voice-prompt menu while home with a constantly babbling toddler should surely be one of the Dante's circles of hell.

Ladies' lunch...or snack

Excuse the absence, dear readers, H is home all week before he begins his new job on Monday. While it has been enjoyable, with many fun coffee trips while the kids are at school, it has also produced some friction since he is in vacation mode and is in that mode in my office. Nothing is more annoying than needing to jump on the desktop to retrieve a file for Girl Scouts and he’s on there looking up flat screen televisions, asking my why I need the computer at that particular moment and can’t I use the laptop. I don’t come to his office, troll Zappos and leaving dirty laundry, empty coffee cups and soda cans everywhere, now do I?

Anyway, one of the fun things we got to do this week was go to Bobby Flay’s Burger Palace for lunch after paying the usual $200 fine to get out of Target after only having gone in to buy detergent. The BF's Burger Palace offers an amazing array of burgers, with all different toppings, and the menu even includes a bread-less option where the patty is served over a lovely salad (called “topless”, which, eeww) . This is my usual choice so I have room to gorge myself on sweet potato fries. H scoffs every time, to which I reply, “One of us fits in her pants from college, and you?”, but this time he also made the observation that no man would ever order a burger on top of salad.

This led to whole discussion of foods that, men, in general, do not consume with any great regularity. Yes, I know there are exceptions, spare me the hate mail. I thought you might like to see the three we came up while stuffing our faces with ground beef.

Chicken salad – This dish is essentially leftovers, but women really seem to dig it. We also seem to love it with tons of crap mixed into it – grapes, apples, nuts. Is this trail mix or a sandwich? At first I thought it was a mayonnaise-based salad aversion men have, but I know plenty of guys who love tuna salad. H has even had a tuna sandwich with bacon on it (thanks for introducing him to that little gem, V). I think there’s some kind of law that you can’t have a bridal luncheon or baby shower without chicken salad, or a gift made of diapers in some clever formation.

Yogurt – This food sort of qualifies since little boys will actually eat the stuff. As evidenced by what’s available in the grocery store, the more violently colored, the better. Skateboards also feature prominently in the Get Boys to Eat Yogurt Campaign. However, it seems once boys hit double digits, their consumption of this spoiled milk product plummets. Women, on the other hand, can’t get enough.

If you watch “women’s” television, meaning network between the hours of ten and four o’clock, or anytime hour on WeTV, TLC or Style, you will be assaulted repeatedly by images of ladies lapping up all varieties of this dairy treat. Greek, low-calorie, “digestive health”, you name your need, and there’s a yogurt for you. The curious thing is, with the exception of Greek yogurt, most yogurt products are trying to disguise what it is you are actually eating. Flavors like Boston Crème Pie and Strawberry Shortcake are supposed to make us feel just as satisfied eating ninety calories of aspartame-sweetened goop as eating the real thing. H could not stand the Yoplait ads featuring a certain pixie-ish looking woman and her African American friends exclaiming over their yogurt that was “weekend in the Bahamas” good. It’s not a life-altering experience, it’s low-calorie dairy you eat to strengthen your bones and maybe lose some lb’s, calm down.

Muffins – Muffins had their heyday in the 90’s, before we all started to fear carbs. As long as they were low-fat, it was perfectly reasonable to eat, what was essentially, cake, for breakfast or a snack.

Back in our college days, H and I would stagger up to the student co-op for breakfast where he would order a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, and I, trying to shed some of my freshman fifteen, would sanctimoniously order a chocolate chip muffin. Sounds pretty harmless, unless you know what this muffin looked like.

Roughly the size of a volleyball, the “Coop Muffins” were a staple at my upstate New York university. I think it morally reprehensible that an institution my parents were paying to educate me and act in loco parentis made readily available carbohydrates of such gigantic proportions in a climate where it snowed roughly six months out of the year, and 50% of its female population was hungover at any given time. Is it any wonder I, as a childless eighteen year-old, found myself with stretch marks on my thighs at the end of fall semester?

Still unaware of the caloric carnage I was participating in, I continued to think my choice the superior one when H and I went out for breakfast for the next fifteen years. Then one day, I figured out the 500 calories, mostly protein, in his breakfast sandwich, that would keep him full until lunch, was nothing in comparison to the 800 I was consuming in empty carbohydrates, which would leave me ravenous ninety minutes later. Women today still participate in this sadly deluded nutritional dance, thinking foods like eggs and cheese the devil. Maybe if what you ate had some protein and fat in it, you wouldn’t need that yogurt at ten-thirty.

Given enough time, H and I will come up with a longer list, possibly including beverages (like Zima) or maybe even a list of foods women will not eat, like pork rinds, Campbell’s Chunky Soup and scrapple. Let’s take notice, shall we, that the list of foods women won’t eat are one that would, you know, kill you, or look like they are half digested. I’m just sayin’….