One Cobble at a Time

During my Seattle trip I had the opportunity to watch two excellent hostesses at work. I observed them fairly closely because I want to be as good a hostess when I have guests.

The first excellent hostess was Donna Strohl. She opened her home to Howard and me and all our kids. She did this without ever having met any of us. We’d met Dan before, but not Donna. Dan also gets marks for being an excellent host. Throughout our visit they did everything they could to make us comfortable. They fed our crew many times even though we more than doubled the number of people to feed. When they noticed that Link was anxious about their dog, they took the dog to visit a neighbor for the rest of the day. The dog was also removed for the schlockfest party so as not to bother the guests there. When my kids began to get bored, craft projects appeared. When my kids helped to trash the entire downstairs, they did not show a single sign of dismay. We felt comfortable there from the moment we walked in the door until it was time to leave. There was never a sense that we’d over stayed our welcome.

The Strohls’ wonderful hosting is mentioned many times in many of the blogs I’ve written about Seattle, so I want to focus on the second hostess. Her name is Sara Barnes. She is the wife of cartoonist Bill Barnes. They hosted a BBQ for many of the cartoonists who came into town for the convention. We arrived at the party late and I could feel the dismay of my children as we walked in to that room full of strange grown ups. The BBQ food looked wonderful to me, but not to my kids. I loaded a couple of plates as best I could and corralled my kids into a corner. Gleek disappeared to play with a couple other children who were present, but Kiki, Link, and Patches all hovered near me. They were very polite and didn’t make a loud fuss, but were constantly requesting food that they liked or just to leave. They did not want to be there at all.

Howard observed this and quietly told me that we wouldn’t stay long. But I know how important these social events are to make business contacts. I also know that they are part of what makes cartooning so enjoyable for Howard. I could tell that I would not be able to mingle, but I was determined to make sure that Howard would not miss out because the kids and I were along. There was a shelf of children’s books nearby and I was able to distract the children for awhile with that. Patches was moving from quietly displeased into noisily displeased when Sara came over and offered to bring out some toys for the kids. She brought a tub full of cars. Patches and Link played with the cars happily for awhile. Kiki located a comic book and occupied herself. For the first time that evening I found myself able to sit on a chair rather than on the floor with the kids. I still had to focus almost entirely on them, but I had a little more space.

After awhile Patches got pulled into a game with other kids and Link got bored of the cars. I was again hearing frequent requests to leave. Sara Barnes appeared again and asked if Link would like a marble toy to play with and a quiet room away from the crowd. It was a perfect suggestion. She watched my child and discerned his needs. Once Link was set up, Sara then spent some time talking with me. She identified whom I might enjoy talking to and she introduced me. By the end of the party my kids were all having a great time and left only reluctantly. Howard got to visit without interruption and I was able to have some adult conversations. The kindness of Sara turned a miserable event into an enjoyable one. I want to be that kind of hostess.

When Howard and I are visiting an area we like to try to hold a Schlockfest event where Schlockers from the area are able to congregate and visit. We did it last December in California and we did it while we were in Seattle. Our kind hosts volunteered to let us use their home for this event. This was very brave of them because in California we had 25 people attend. The Seattle attendance was much lower, only 15 people. I think that was because many people elected to meet Howard at Emerald City Comic Con instead.

The majority of people who attend Schlockfest were people that we’ve known online for several years. Some of them we count among our first fans ever. It was so nice to have a chance to visit with them. Visiting with Schlockers has always been a joy. All the ones I’ve met have been both intelligent and polite. It is fun to be able to sit down for several hours and just talk with people who share some core interests. This event was no different. We all sat in the Strohl’s front room and watched as Howard drew pictures for everyone who attended. The conversation was always lively and laughter was frequent.

Three days later on April 1st we had something of a reprise. Pi, Kreely, and Vermillion invited us over to their home for dinner. Raif, Magneticheeks, and Jean were gathered there as well. We were particularly glad to see Jean since she colored Schlock for two years and we’d never met her in person before. That evening was one of the truly relaxing events of the vacation. I left the kids with the Strohls and was able to just relax and socialize. That was good. For the rest of the vacation I was hostessing or watching kids but for that one evening I really had a chance to enjoy. (The other relaxing times all took place at the Strohls house when the kids were happily busy and I could just visit or rest.)

The Strohl’s house has a craft room. In that craft room there were a pair of clothing racks. These racks were filled with costumes. Most of the costumes were sized perfectly for Gleek. Over the course of our stay, Gleek tried on at least 20 different outfits. Most of them were various forms of princess. But once she discovered a set of huge feathered wings, all the costumes were winged. These costumes were impressive and beautiful. Several times I found myself wishing they were in my size so I could try them on.

The costumes were particularly in evidence on the night of the Schlockfest party. Gleek, Kiki, and the Strohl girl all wandered past to get food. Each time they did, they were wearing something different. They were not just wearing different clothes, they were being something different. The next day I got to sort out the resulting costume mess. None of them put a single costume back and so there was much sorting and re-hanging to do.

We have dress-up clothes here for the kids, but none of our costumes are as wonderfully lavish as at the Strohls. Mostly ours are left over homemade halloween costumes. They’re all a bit ratty from being worn and left on the floor and shoved into a great big tub for storage. I would love to be able to create a costume space to hang them all, but I just don’t have a place in our house to devote to that.

One of our first Seattle events was a tour of Wizards of the Coast. This was arranged by the wonderful Stacy Whitman who is an editor there. We knew we were in the right place as soon as we walked into the lobby. The giant dragon sculpture was a big hint. The kids were very impressed with this dragon and with the larger-than-life knight who contemplated the dragon from the other end of the lobby. We took some pictures and looked over the display shelves while we waited for Stacy.

Wizards of the Coast is now owned by Hasbro, so there were some little kid toys out on the lobby table. Patches happily occupied himself playing with Mr. Potato Head. Gleek, rather appropriately, played with a barrel of monkeys. Stacy then arrived and took us on a tour of the facility. At first I felt just like I was walking back into a Novell office building where Howard used to work. Gray carpet and gray cubicles were everywhere. But then I realized that instead of the normal boring landscape art, the walls were covered in fantasy and science fiction art. Wizards was displaying concept art for their various games and books. Also Novell never had a life size model of R2D2. That was cool. The kids all greeted him like a long lost friend. But only Kiki and Gleek consented to be photographed with him.

The tour was somewhat abbreviated to match the attention spans of the kids. Patches was carried for the whole tour by Howard because it was hard for him to keep up. As we passed cubicles I noticed that many of them were very decorated, a practice Novell certainly never encouraged. I could tell that these were creative people and there was a sense that everyone was happy to be there. These were people working at their dream jobs and I could tell. They had everything from a little kitchen to a break area with two jigsaw puzzles in progress. I could tell that it was a good place to be.

The tour ended at Stacy’s cubicle where she had stashed free stuff to give to us. The kids were delighted with all the collectible cards, particularly with the neopets cards. They continue to play with them and Kiki has even ventured out to Neopets.com to create her own virtual neopet. It was a good tour and a good visit.

During the month of March I was very focused on writing and other projects. I felt compelled to bring some things, like the website and business cards, to completion. Now it is April and I’m feeling a little out of balance. I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days about the kids and my role as their mother. The oft quoted phrase from a leader of my church floats through my minds “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” I feel like I’ve been failing my kids. Their wants and needs have been pushed aside a lot lately as I try to make them all conform to my plans for the hour, or day, or week. I’ve also been thinking of my sister Nancy. When she was visiting here I watched her drop her things to respond to her kids. I don’t think I was ever as attentive to my kids as she is to hers. I certainly have not been lately. I’ve been thinking about the trip to Seattle. During the trip my whole focus was to keep the kids safe and to make sure they enjoyed themselves. This meant that I did not get to do some of the things I would have liked to do, but it was alright because I was really focused on the welfare of the kids.

I am a planner. I always have a plan. I invariably get grumpy when my plan gets rearranged. I need to build more of my plans around the things that my kids want me to do. I am always doing things for my kids. Many of them are things that the kids don’t feel need to be done or would rather I didn’t do. I need to make space to do some of the things that they keep asking me to do, but I fail to find the time for. Today I sat down and listed all the things that my kids have been asking me to do, but which I haven’t gotten done.

Kiki has been wanting to try putting egg into her hair to make it shiny. She also wants me to fix two pairs of pajamas. Kiki’s birthday is coming up and we need to plan that. Kiki also has big plans for an embroidery project that she needs my help to accomplish. Link has been asking me to fix his blankets for months. He is also wanting to find ways to earn money so he can buy a video game. He needs me to help him sort through his belongings and decide which ones to sell in a store that he sets up for neighbors and siblings. Gleek wants to have a manicure time. She also wants me to do craft projects with her. She wants to have time to talk at bedtime and her blankets have needed fixing forever. Patches is constantly asking me to sit down and play games with him, I almost never do. He really wants to know how to read and write, I haven’t been teaching him. He would also enjoy going to the library story time and sitting in my lap to listen to the stories.

Over the next few weeks I want to get every one of these things done. There will probably be other things which the kids will want me to do as well. I can’t plan all of every day to be at the whims of my children, but I can make sure that there is time for the really important things. I will also be paying more attention to making sure that there are regular meal times and bedtimes. There have been many tantrums and upsets which could have been avoided if only I’d been ahead of the curve instead of behind it. Being a mother is my primary job and I need to go back to putting it first.

Today did not go as I intended. I planned to work hard all morning. Then in the afternoon and evening I was going to hang out with Janci. There was going to be laughter and lots of talking. I didn’t get as much done in the morning as I planned. The time with Janci started really well. We talked over her latest novel and events in her lives and mine. She wandered through my house with me and listened to me babble about all my plans for painting and replacing baseboards. Then we left the house in quest of some fabric for a birthday project for Kiki. We went to three different fabric stores. None of them had what we were looking for. By the end of that I was flagging. My head had begun to ache and all I really wanted was to curl into a ball somewhere and have some down time. Janci said she was tired too, so I dropped her at her apartment. I went in with her for awhile and that was a good thing because we realized that she already has some fabric that will work for the planned project. Also she gave me her old outdated laptop computer. It can’t connect to the internet and it has only a floppy drive. I doesn’t even have a working battery, it has to be plugged in. It does have a working USB port though. This means about all that it is good for is word processing. This means I can type things while sitting upstairs in the sunshine and then use a memory stick to transfer them to my real computer in the basement. There have been many many times that I wanted to work on a story or revision, but I didn’t want to sit in the basement to do it. Someday I’ll have a real laptop, but until then this may make things a little easier.

After leaving Janci’s I bought dinner for the kids and crashed into bed with a book. I finally crawled back out again about 20 minutes ago. I didn’t get everything done today. The house is far from clean. I’m headachy and tired and grouchy. I think I’ve got a sinus infection. When I look sanely at how much stuff I’ve accomplished in the last three days I’ve done plenty. But I’m still mad at myself for not getting more done today. And if I wasn’t going to get stuff done, couldn’t I have enjoyed having a break?

A few days ago Kiki asked if she could mow the lawn rather than having to do Saturday house cleaning chores. I’ve not been looking forward to solving the problem of lawn mowing. I hadn’t yet decided whether to hire a neighborhood boy or just buy a new mower and do it myself. Giving the job to Kiki is a possibility that I’d considered, but I really didn’t want to have to fight over lawn mowing. So when she volunteered to give it a try I figured it would be a good experiment. I want to see if she’ll still be as excited about mowing the lawn after she has actually done it once.

Since we currently do not own a mower I borrowed one from my backyard neighbor. We put gas in it and Kiki got started on the front yard. In order for Kiki to mow the back yard, there was a considerable amount of picking up to be done. One of the items that needed picking up was our saucer shaped snow sled. Apparently it had been acting as a little greenhouse for the last couple of weeks because underneath it was a circle of tall green grass. The kids were all amazed at this beautiful tall grass. Gleek in particular fell in love with this little patch of summer. She was extremely dismayed to learn that we intended to mow it. We then had our own little environmental protest in the back yard. It came complete with a civil disobedience sit in. Gleek plunked herself in the middle of the patch of grass and refused to move. She got the neighbor kids to come and sit with her. The only thing they didn’t have was signs and chanting although I’m sure they would have done that too if they had thought of it.

I had yet to decide what to do about the demonstration when Kiki needed help with a different section of grass that was especially long and weedy. I pushed the mower over the weeds and CRUNCH! The mower hit a large rock. That was the end of the mowing because the rock bent the mower blade so badly that it put an end to all mowing until the blade can be replaced. I had to go confess to my neighbor that I’d broken his mower. He was really nice about it and I’ve offered to pay for the replacement blade.

So the yard remains only partially mowed. With the threat of mowing no longer imminent the protesters have scattered to other activities. What they don’t realize is that later today the blade will be replaced and the little green patch will be mowed. Hopefully by Kiki, although the interruption has dampened her lawn mowing enthusiasm. Within a month the whole yard will be that green, so I doubt the protesters will miss the green patch much.

Our children hit the Strohl’s house like a little hoard of water-weary pirates. They quickly made themselves at home and proceeded to ransack and pillage. Most of the pillaging was of finished craft projects made from supplies provided by Donna. Although they also acquired further supplies for future projects here at home. The first of these projects was fuse beads which had the advantage of taking a long time to complete. This meant that the quantity to bring home was fewer. The suncatchers were a different story. Kiki managed to paint 20 of those in a single day. Gleek nearly matched this output. The boys did a single car each and called it good. Gleek also acquired a spare clear plastic merry-go-round designed to be colored. She got this merely by asking for it. The tactic was sufficiently effective that when it came time for us to go home, Gleek asked to take home some of the Strohl girl’s toys. I told her no firmly, but she did get a little easter chick as a going away gift. The other kids each got one as well.

The Strohl house was not the only source of new stuff. Kiki scored a copy of Girl Genius from Phil Folio himself. He even signed it for her. She squealed in delight. When we visited Wizard’s of the Coast Stacy gave us piles of Neopets cards and DuelMaster cards. The kids tore divided the piles with glee. I tried to stash all the cards away to keep them safe, but various children kept demanding them. Patches was particularly adamant about wanting his cards. He still carries around a little stack of Neopet cards for portions of each day. He loves to sit and sort them. None of my kids have a clue how to play the games asociated with the cards, but they’re sure that the cards are super cool. Some of the stuff we acquired we actually paid for. Gleek bought a stuffed seahorse at the aquarium. Patches bought a scuba diver play set. Link bought a game called “Don’t tip the Penguins!” Howard wasn’t to be left out. He bought a set of Girl Genius welding goggles. The kids all covet those goggles.

I’m not above doing a little pillaging myself. When I visited Kreely, she gave me free run to peruse her bookshelf and borrow a stack. I tried to be careful and selective, but part of me just wanted to shovel books into a box and run off with them. I now have a lovely stack of books waiting for me to find the time to read them all. This is a wonderful improvement over wandering through the house, bored because I’ve nothing to read.

So, lots of pillaging. But at least we’re polite pillagers. We always got permission first.

The ransacking was also by permission. Mostly it took place on the night of Thursday March 29. That was the night of the Schlockfest. The adults all hung around upstairs talking and eating yummy food. The kids all stayed downstairs watching movie after movie. They did make frequent forays into the kitchen to grab food and retreat. By the time the evening was over the downstairs was a jumble of toys, costumes, movies, chips, spilled drinks, and assorted other smashed or crushed food items. It definitely had the morning-after-a-wild-party thing going on. The next morning all the little pirates were required to help un-ransack the downstairs. I tried to make sure that it was put back as nicely as it had been before we arrived. I’m not sure I totally succeeded. Donna had everything so beautifully clean and organized. I’m just not sure everything got put back where it should have gone.

Now that the pirates are all at home I think I’ll make them all write thank you notes. See, we’re polite pirates.

My intention for today was to continue blogging about Seattle and to do some yardwork. Instead I was lured into the world of possibilities inherent in curtains. I browsed in Walmart’s clearance aisle and found beautiful curtains. Or rather a single panel of beautiful curtain. Unfortunately to hang them in my house I need a pair. I quested to a second Walmart to see if I could get lucky and find another panel. No such luck. (HomeTrends Crewel. If you happen to see them, email me and tell me where.) While I was browsing curtains I picked up some other possibilities for other rooms in my home. I’m not sure any of them will pan out, but I have a receipt. Then I realized that if I re-arranged the girl’s room I could give them some additional space and potentially I can hang canopies over their beds. So I dove into that project. Remembering my intention to do yard work, I finally put the supporting cross pieces on our grape arbor. The job on that is kind of sloppy, but hopefully in two years it will be so covered in grapes that no one will ever know.

In all, my brain was busy spinning plans all day long. Not once did I quietly create a space for continuing to blog about Seattle. I need to make myself slow down some, but making my home prettier is so much fun. It is also expensive. I need to take back some of those curtain panels which aren’t really what I want after all.

Our last two or three major road trip have all included vomit in the car. Usually we manage to bring the flu with us and generously give it away to all my relatives. I think I might change our family name to Vector. We’ll be the Vectors. When Patches came down with flu 10 days prior to our Seattle departure, I considered it inevitable. I was actually a little glad. Perhaps this time we’d be done with the vomiting before the trip. But just in case I packed a bucket in the car.

That did seem to be the case. One by one the flu mowed my children flat. One by one they got better. Then we left for our trip. On the day we left, I honestly thought we were all better. I did not think that anyone was still contagious. Then we arrived in Boise and I realized that I was not feeling well. Nor was Howard. And Link was still running to the bathroom a lot. Apparently I was in contagion denial. By the time we left Boise, we were all well. Unfortunately within 8 hours of our departure my sister’s entire family was mowed flat by the flu. They were still recovering on the following Monday and we decided to drive straight home rather than risk re-infection. Also my sister sounded so tired on the phone and I didn’t want to give her any more work.

I feel guilty about making them all sick. I’m tired of bringing new and exciting illnesses to give to my relatives. But I’m really glad that none of us were sick during our stay in Seattle. We enjoyed the trip. And the just-in-case bucket was not used once.