Succubus

Last night I woke up at about 12:30, and I wasn’t wearing any pants. This is curious because I was wearing pants when I went to bed. After that, I did not sleep well. I just kept waking up.

And so this morning when the alarm spun up at ten past six, I actually got up. I heard the compact disc spindle motor whir to life well before any music played, giving me ample time to sit up and hit snooze before the opening notes of U2’s “Beautiful Day” or Kings of Leon’s “Sex on Fire” or Tracy Chapman’s “Change” vibrated forth, which makes me wonder why we have an alarm clock that can play compact discs in the first place. I knew the coffee would be finished soon in the auto-drip, and I’d only been about a quarter asleep for the past hour anyway.

Father and Son

I have a lot on my mind. We’re winding down our time here in Newport, and I’ve been thinking about my career and what potential opportunities I’ll find after the move. So yesterday I took Sean to the bookstore to have a look at some magazines on parenting to see if I might find a new venue for my work there.

Alas, no.

The idea I’d had was for a sort of “Father and Son” monthly column about my adventures with Sean. Sure, it would be another parenting column, but it would also be a traveling column and maybe a cooking column. It could be a lot of things. It could be really interesting and fun.

But America’s big child-rearing magazines—Parents and Parenting—don’t seem to have the space for something like that. They are almost indistinguishable from each other at a quick glance, and like many magazines, they are full of numbered lists and bullet points and subheads. It’s the website-ification of printed matter (he writes on his website), the “we’ll think for you” school of writing.

I’m being glib. Those magazines are in the business of service journalism, and that’s what a lot of parents are looking for. (Help me raise my kid! Please!) It’s just that they’ve gone so far into the realm of service journalism that they’ve left no room for anything else.

The January Thaw

In an attempt to cheer myself up, I left the bookstore with Sean to do some exploring. There is a road—Reservoir Rd.—that I’ve been itching to hike for months. It all started when Danielle noticed it on the map while we were out for a drive. But we couldn’t find the actual road sign. What we presumed to be Reservoir Rd. proved to be nothing but a two-track that was unsuitable for the Raptor, all-wheel drive or not.

What made this road even more mysterious to me was a conversation I overheard while waiting in line for coffee. One man was telling another that he’d been managing a “gentleman’s farm behind St. George’s (School).” That had to be off Reservoir Rd.! I had to see it.

So finally I was going to take Sean on an exploratory hike. The January temp had soared above the freezing point, and the sun was shining. We drove as far as we could along the paved portion of Reservoir and parked. Then I put Sean on my shoulders and set off.

The two-track was muddy and gashed by truck tires. Lumps of unmelted snow and patches of grass were the only safe places to step. Sean held onto me by the hair as I walked past empty fields. I saw the campus of St. George’s to the East.

And that was all there was to see. The house was not magnificent, and there was no livestock. I don’t know what I’d expected to see on a “gentleman’s farm,” but it was more than empty fields and rusted tractor parts. Is it just an excuse to own a lot of land? Maybe the recession’s been hard on them, too.

Nevertheless, I felt good as I walked back up the track with Sean on my shoulders, my hair in his fists. Clouds were moving in and snowflakes were floating down and it was a good morning.

Filling in the Blank Spaces

When Danielle got home from work, I finally got around to telling her that I had woken up in the night pantsless. She swore she had nothing to do with it. Some mysteries are doomed to never be solved.

They covered our losses, which were significant, within a week. I was beyond amazed by the level of customer service we received.

For those of you renting out there, if you don’t have renters’ insurance, get a policy. It’s cheap, and it covers you in situations like this.

Sean and I stayed with friends from the old neighborhood while we conducted our search. I gave Meg and Tim literally two days’ notice that we were going to be in town, but they swore they didn’t mind and opened their home to us. We spent the week laughing and telling stories just like we used to, as if it hadn’t been three years since we last saw each other.

While Sean and I explored apartments, Meg and Tim and their twin five-year-olds went about their day. It worked out great. Then on Thursday, the day before we were going to head home (having successfully found a place to live), Meg got sick. She did her best to keep from getting anyone else sick, but we knew it was time to let them have their house back.

So Thursday night I packed up everything we wouldn’t need that night: toys, laptop bag, stroller, diaper bag, etc. Then I went to bed with my Kindle, my phone glowing softly on its charger, alarm set for early the next morning.

Tim was already awake when Sean and I got up and showered and went downstairs. He watched Sean while I went out to load the suitcase in the car…

…Only to discover that the glove box was open. That’s odd, I thought, before remembering what else had been in the car. A quick survey of the back end revealed the laptop bag had been taken, as well as a pair of my shoes. (I wouldn’t realize until the next week that the stroller was also missing.)

No windows had been broken. Which means either I stupidly forgot to lock the car, or someone was very handy with a slim jim.

I was so pissed off. We were in a nice neighborhood, parked in the driveway, and still, nothing’s safe. The part I found completely inexplicable was the shoes. Just a pair of beat up L.L. Bean camp mocs. Maybe they were the right size.

To cap off the day, Sean started really complaining when we hit the Palisades Parkway. Pulling his knees up to his chest and crying. I thought he was just sick of the car seat. But when we stopped for dinner (at a Barnes & Noble—he likes the quiche), he got sick in the high chair, even before he’d had a bite to eat.

We were in Norwalk, Conn., about three hours from home, but he kept getting sick. All our clothes were dirty (including the ones we were wearing), so I carried the little guy into Old Navy so we could get outfitted for the night, then I booked a room at the Doubletree.

Three hours from home. I watched “The Hangover” and Sean fell asleep in my arms.

He was fine the next morning. We had coffee and pastries at the Starbucks in Martha Stewart’s home town. (There were more than a few exceptionally nice cars in the parking lot.) And then we finally went home.

Next up: Why USAA Is the Greatest Insurance Company Ever

In the end, good sense prevailed. Sean and I took a road trip down to Norfolk and barged in on some friends in order to check out the situation. Turns out, the building I was so excited about would have killed us with various fees and, more than likely,rent increases. In addition to the already high rent, there would have been a monthly pet fee, a monthly fee to use the bike locker in the parking garage, and a monthly rent for a storage space. Oh, and they meter each unit’s water usage, so we’d have had a water bill to pay. (The lovely young lady showing me around tried to sell this by saying, “That way, you only pay for what you use. Most buildings just charge everyone a uniform amount and include it in the rent.”)

I was saved, in the end, by an old friend who’d decided to rent his home rather than try to sell it in a down market. It’s a completely different situation from what we thought we wanted: a strictly residential neighborhood as opposed to an “urban” setting; a first-time landlord as opposed to a professional management company; oh, and it’ll be a step up in square footage, as opposed to a step down.

All in all, we’re really excited and relieved to have this part of the move taken care of. The trip would have been an unqualified success if not for some bad luck the day we left town, but that’s another story.

201 21st Street

I am considering making a deposit on an apartment I’ve never seen the inside of. Is that completely loony?

Earlier this year, I had occasion to swing through Norfolk when Sean and I visited Danielle in Dahlgren. OK, since Norfolk is quite a bit south of Dahlgren, maybe “swing through” isn’t quite the right phrase. We did, after all, intrude on John, Ruth, and Theo, but, other than that, the main purpose was to scout apartments in Ghent.

201 Twenty One took me by surprise. It’s new construction located on 21st St. The building used to be a Sears department store. Then it was a grocery store, if I remember correctly. Now it’s apartments. And quite nice apartments if you can believe the propaganda promotional materials.

But I’m kind of a sucker for promotional materials when I really want something, and I really want an apartment in Ghent.

And I want it now. I don’t want to wait until November or December or, God help us, January or February. I want it now, and I want it locked in so I can stop thinking about it.

As if fate has rested her heavy hand on my back, 201 Twenty One is delivering addresses by floor and the final stage will be completed in February. And if I sign a lease now, the first month is comped.

It’s fate!

First, no matter what time you say your sale will start in your advertisements, people will show up one hour early. These are the hardcore. So you better wake up on time and get that coffee brewing.

Second, people don’t want to make you an offer. Everything we put the “make me an offer” stickers on sat all day, pretty much completely ignored.

And finally, after about noon, just give up. Garage-salers are morning people. They want to get up on Saturday morning, find a few deals, and then spend the rest of the day…doing whatever else it is garage-salers enjoy doing.

Nevertheless, it was a pretty successful sale. We had already sold our dining room table and chairs, along with the matching hutch. At the sale itself, we sold a lot of our miscellaneous items and some baby gear. We did not sell our various dish sets, so they, along with almost everything else that was left over, got donated to Big Sisters and to the thrift store on base.

The goal was to make enough money to replace our slapdash collection of dishes with Fiestaware. And, while we don’t really have any idea how much we made from the sale (because we forgot to make note of how much cash we started out with), we’re pretty sure it wasn’t enough to buy all new dishes. It was close enough, though, so we’re going for it.

As a result of the furniture we managed to sell, Sean now has two almost completely empty rooms to run around in. The Year of Liquidation continues.

First, I was bringing a six-pack upstairs for the weekend, and I looked at my remaining bottles of Bell’s Oberon and thought, ‘I need to finish those up. It’s starting to feel like fall outside.’ Then, I picked Danielle up after work. She had gone over to the package store for a few things to get us through the Labor Day weekend, notably, Post Road Pumpkin Ale and Samuel Adams Octoberfest.

Summer is over, my friends.

Our primary purchase was the CoPilot Taxi, but we also needed a helmet for Sean, a mirror for Dad, a basket for Danielle, a kickstand for stability while loading, and a new pump.

There’s a quick story about the old pump. Last year, we purchased Sean’s Badass Stroller, a.k.a., the Viper, and I had a hell of a time getting the tires properly inflated all summer. The main problem was the front tire, which takes most of the abuse from bumps. I assumed the problem was with the tube, and eventually had it replaced (after riding around for months with it basically airless, the only thing keeping the rim off the road being the rigidity of the tire’s rubber). Well, come to find out, the pump had gone defective. I can’t believe it took me a year to figure that out.

In any case, now that we are outfitted with all the necessary gear, we’ve been doing a little riding—and boy am I out of shape.

It didn’t take too long to get used to the additional thirty-ish pounds (Sean’s twenty-five, plus the seat) riding over the rear wheel, but it also didn’t take long for me to realize that I’m not going to be cruising all over the island this summer.

When I initially hatched the plan to put a child seat on my bike, I thought I’d be able to keep the panniers I have, thus making it a great errand vehicle. But I had to ditch the panniers. So now she’ll mainly be for recreation/exercise, and I had a great idea: Sean and I are going to train for next year’s Bike MS: Virginia’s Ocean to Bay Ride.

I’ll write more about the event and our progress. I might be deluding myself thinking I could do the ride with a toddler, but maybe not. In the meantime, it’ll be fun exploring Newport on wheels this summer while we’re in training.

While he was exploring in there, Danielle noticed that one of the reading chairs, the second-hand one I bought in St. Louis eight years ago, was more-or-less falling apart. Since the only members of the household to ever use the chair are the cats, and since it’s trash day, we decided to kick it to the curb. Of course, even before the Waste Management crew could get to it, somebody scooped it up off the sidewalk. Hopefully they can fix it up and give it a home.

This inspired Danielle to announce this year is all about liquidation. “We are liquidating so we have enough weight to get our books to Virginia,” she said. You’ve gotta have priorities.

We had already decided to say goodbye to several pieces of furniture before the move, many of which came from that same second-hand store in St. Louis. They have fulfilled their purpose, and we are ready to move on.

So we’ve put a moratorium on buying tea, because we have a large drawer full of it, a moratorium on buying new books (which we frequently break), and we’re not going to replace the chair. Every decision like this makes the move back to Norfolk feel closer.

And then I look at the calendar and realize, “Holy crap, it’s already March!”