fresh eggs

What I remember most vividly about having chickens as a kid are the smells: the dry hay, the poop, the heat of the coop in the California sun, and the sweet, cool dirt scratched up by our four hens. And most delicious: the smell of eggs before they’ve seen the inside of a refrigerator.

Popping my head into the barn of a local farm to snap these photos last weekend, I was slapped by the smell, all old and familiar.

babies babies everywhere

Three babes born to three friends in three weeks. Pictured here is their first meeting. I can’t say for certain, but I suspect they were all drunk.

Kinkos? KinkNO!

When I managed to find a parking spot within car-seat-hauling range of the Harvard Square Kinkos, I thought it was a good omen. But it must have been just a spot of plain-old dumb luck, because it all went to hell from there. Off we go:

I find the only Mac in a sea of PCs, only to discover that it costs 40 cents a minute, whereas PCs are a relative bargain at 25 cents a minute. “Why?” I ask.

“Because this is a design station,” I’m told, as if that clarifies the situation. I look down and notice that the “design station” comes equipped with a keyboard blackened by a thick patina of grime. (If Antiques Roadshow has taught the nation that a natural patina increases the value of a fine piece of furniture, it must be understood that there are exceptions to the rule.) “Let me know when you’re ready to print,” the guy adds.

It’s a simple enough task that I’m there for: Print my document on card stock. But I sit down and immediately start to panic about my per-minute fee. The baby helps things out by fussing. Can’t hardly blame him, though, because he’s still bundled up for the cold, causing him to roast in his own juices like those turkeys cooked in plastic bags (a question for another day).

With the document ready to go, I look for the guy with the power to print. “He’s gone downstairs for a few minutes,” I’m told. “But he’ll be back.” In my mind, I see a giant digital tally of my mounting fees, like the tickers that calculate the national debt. But before too long, he’s back, attempting to connect my “design station” to the “printer.” Without luck. We reboot. Twice. Finally we’re ready to go, but what’s this? Someone else is printing out what can only be a copy of War and Peace, double-spaced in Courier. “I guess we’re gonna have to wait,” I’m told. On my dime (and nickel and quarter)? There goes the kid’s college fund. But, wait! It’s finally our turn. He loads the paper, I hit print. Paper jam. We do it all over again.

“I guess you can’t print on this paper,” he decides, after the page comes out smudged but unprinted.
“Whaa???” I stammer. (Henry backs me up with a “WAAAAH!” of his own.)
“I guess you could buy our card stock downstairs and use that.”
“But I want to use this card stock, the card stock that I’ve already paid for,” I say. (Henry is a beat behind in the conversation: “WAAAH!”)
“Well it doesn’t work in our printer.”
“ ,” I say.
“ ,” he replies. “Or I guess you could try using this other printer,” he finally volunteers.
“There’s another printer?” I say. “Hook me up!”
“It costs twice as much. I guess because it’s a color printer.”
“But I’m printing in black and white.
“Yeah, I know. . . . ”
“But it’s still twice as much? For the same thing?”
“I guess so, yeah.”

In the end, I declined the offer. I didn’t buy their card stock. I didn’t pay extra to print my black and white document on their color printer. And the kind young man generously offered to credit me for the whole 20-minute transaction. So I collected my stuff, including my crying baby, and walked out of there none the richer and none the poorer, either. Except I did score 20 minutes of free “design” time.

The lesson? Next time, hire a professional.

stay-at-home torture

There are few things worse than being pinned to a chair by a nursing infant while the radio, within earshot but out of arm’s reach, broadcasts an NPR fund drive. Make. It. Stop. Please?

he must have been late the day they handed out necks

unnecessarily exclusive coverage

“Only Entertainment Tonight follows Anna Nicole to her final resting place.”

As much as I wish that show would take the big dirt nap, is it really worth the ratings?

there was much rejoicing in the land . . . and then the hospital bill arrived

If Henry were a chicken for sale at the grocery store, his cost per pound at birth would work out to be $2,625.98. Per pound, people. And there were seven and a half of him. Fortunately for us, we send an indecent percentage of our take-home pay over to the folks at the insurance company, who are finally earning their keep.

The damage, incredibly, came to $19,957.42. That figure includes $376 in pharmacy charges, $11,700 for “semi private obstetrics,” and $386 for a labor room that was used only to store our bags while the baby was delivered surgically in the $4,538 operating room (where I received $1,159 worth of anesthesia). Had I known, I would have done a more thorough search for sample-sized shampoos or other value-add souvenirs in the labor room; $386 seems steep for three hours of luggage storage.

from the glad-it-wasn’t-me department

If, on a Saturday morning, after your wife has been awake for several hours feeding and soothing and entertaining the newborn, she taps your arm and asks you in her please-won’t-you-help voice to change the diaper, and you promptly fall fast asleep for another hour and a half, then wake up and ask your wife if she isn’t ready to hand over the baby so you can go ahead and get that diaper changed, but then the baby starts crying on the changing table and you’ve lost your marbles and you put the kid back in his pjs diaper-free, please don’t register shock or awe when the baby pees on your chest.

genetics

Burton’s eyes are Caribbean blue; mine are poop brown. We’ll have to sit tight for a few months before discovering which way Henry’s will go. But one inheritance, at least, is clear: That boy is wearing my furrowed brow.

fool for love

Never have I been so impressed with someone who offers so little. Honestly, if he were to post a personal ad, it might read: “SWM: eats, poops, and pees. Usually enjoys gas, except when it makes me cry.”

And me? Hopelessly fallen.

the footling arrives!

Henry Calder Flint, not willing to wait around, was born on Jan. 30. Seven pounds, nine ounces, and ten delicious toes.

thoughts on a ball and chain

Three sets of flip-flops, shades, and cargo shorts pass me on the sidewalk. "I don't think it's going to be that bad," one of the owners says to buddies 1 and 2, who are visibly concerned. "I mean, a lot of the important stuff has already been put out there--like baseball. She knows I have to watch a lot of baseball."

"Ok," says buddy #2, who is wearing a Captain Underpants t-shirt. "But does she really know what that means? I mean, like, what if she doesn't GET it?" His voice is shrill with tension.

Buddy #3 doesn't say much, yet manages to say it all: "And what about the fantasy league? And pub quiz?"

"I know," says the one considering a trip to the dark side. "But really, I don't think it'll be that bad."

As they pass out of earshot, Captain Underpants moans, "Dude, you have no idea!"

the altogether true story of a wayward afterbirth

* Gentle reader: Do not fear the worst. No one was harmed in the creation of this true story. If your stomach is steely, please read on.

Sunday morning, around 11: Wellesley's campus is crawling with alums wearing feather boas and funny hats, the better to celebrate reunion with. A large herd of students have stuck around after exams to work the weekend, in exchange for a small wad of cash and the chance to rub elbows with gainfully employed people. The staff is also there, of course, exhausted from the weekend itself and the weeks of envelope-stuffing leading up to it.

A couple of townies take a dog for a walk on campus, strolling past one of the ponds. What's that floating at the water's edge? A bird? A plane? In point of fact, it was a placenta.

The police show up with a bulldozer and a police boat, anticipating the worst. The news vans and helicopters follow, like remoras with satellite feeds. The campus is locked down until every dorm room and dumpster can be searched for a sign of a baby or a mother or some explanation for a wayward afterbirth. The pond is emptied, trash is picked through, and the campus canvassed by dogs. Twelve hours later, still no explanation.

Fast forward to lunchtime the next day (raise your hand if you've lost your appetite!): Somehow, it seems, the police learned that the offending tissues belonged to someone who gave birth several months prior (everyone was healthy!) and must have brought her placenta home from the hospital in some sort of David Lynch-style doggy bag, at which point the placenta took up residence in the family freezer. As I'm sure everyone can relate, freezer space is a limited and valuable commodity. And there comes a time in every adult's life when stock must be taken and priorities laid bare. I like to imagine that moment went something like this:

Honey, I need to make room for the 30-pound bag of frozen berries that I brought home from Costco--do we keep the turkey carcass from two Thanksgivings ago that we'd swore we'd make soup with, or is it finally time to toss the placenta?

And then, unimaginably, a young mother or perhaps father decided to set the thing loose, Free Willy-style, into a small pond (a VERY small pond, people) on the campus of a women's college, whereupon the thing thawed and floated to the surface and was recognized by someone and/or their dog.

Don't believe me? Stanger than fiction, people.

a market for every product

The Watertown Mall is no Mecca for quality. Even the Gap there is second rate, selling pants with three legs and socks without openings. But still, I never would have expected this sign, posted by the roadside to lure in bargain shoppers:

Strawberries
All Used
Buy 3 Get 1 Free

lost and found

Susan was trying to pretend she wasn't, but she was shaken. In the Park Street T station a few minutes before, someone had snatched her wallet. She realized what was happening in time and even saw the perp running away. "HE STOLE MY WALLET!" she screamed. "STOP HIM!" Improbably, four strangers did. Three men and a woman grabbed the punk and pinned him to the ground. They retrieved Susan's wallet, then debated what to do with the offender. Turn him in? Let him go? Wait for the police, who may or may never show? Since no one had been hurt, they collectively decided against pressing their luck and let the guy go. Susan, amazed both by her luck and lack thereof, tried to thank the wallet-retrievers. "We have to help each other," one said, walking away.

Too late, Susan wished she had asked the punk if he needed money, then offered up whatever cash she had in her wallet. We do have to help each other, she said.

red line maneuvering

We had all waited the better part of an eternity for a train to show up, so by the time the doors opened, everyone crushed inside. But in a precise and practiced order: As always, the quick-steppers are first. Usually iPod-listening men in their 20s or 30s, they come from somewhere in the back in the pack, far enough away that they get a running start. With speed and a steely determination, they blow right past the ledge-waiters. Often short, older women or anyone who came without reading material, ledge-waiters claim their territory with a wide stance and cold stare. They plant themselves close enough to the edge of the platform that no one dares step in front of them. No one except the quick-steppers, who do so with a screw-you-all purpose. The ledge-waiters, once passed by like a wilted kale garnish on the fried-seafood platter of life, scowl and mutter and try to muscle their way through the doorway, as though terrified that they won't get on. Or just steamed that their first-in-lineness was so blatantly scorned.

And yet, despite the pushing and shoving, everyone fits in. We all do. Almost all of the time, people. Or is that not the point?

how public radio drove me to cable tv

Time was, I didn't have a tv at all. And you know when you dump a no-good lout of a boyfriend, then after a good cry and a few pints of ice cream you feel much better--so much so that you wonder why you ever liked the guy in the first place? In exactly that way, I didn't miss tv. I had just moved to Boston from DC, where I worked at NPR, so I was fully indoctrinated into the cult of public radio. I shunned Friends and ER in favor of This American Life, which was then in its early years.

Then I got a job that required a lot of movie watching (and it was The Worst Job Ever! true story!), which is how the insidious creature got into the house. As soon as the thing was plugged in and the VCR set up, Burton and I turned into the Augustus Gloop of television-watching. (Did I lose you there? Follow along: Piggy that he was, Augustus fell into Willy Wonka's chocolate river and was sucked up the tube to the fudge factory. B and I are Augustus, the boob-tube is our chocolate river, and the fudge factory is utterly irrelevant, but who doesn't like to say "fudge factory" and glance around the room to see who else is giggling? Oh, just me? Really?)

Anyway, we watched the worst of it, from America's Next Top Model to the whole of the Law and Order empire (though I never could stomach Friends). Too cheap to subscribe to cable, we bought whatever slop the networks were selling.

And now this happens. This American Life. On cable tv. I am so there. A ball of putty in Showtime's hands, my friends. Show me where to sign my name, and I shall.

for immediate release

April 24, 2006

A tan bath mat, missing since early February, when it disappeared en route to the laundry room, was discovered on Saturday, April 22, safe and unharmed, but discolored and smelling of gutter run-off. The two-by-three-foot piece of terry, used to dry feet as they exit the watery environment of the shower, turned up outside the house, wedged between the foundation and some shrubbery.

Resident JennyMcFlint made the discovery while conducting some light weekend yard work. "My rake hit something back there," she told reporters gathered on the scene, "and it didn't feel like no pile of leaves!" When McFlint pushed aside an ugly yew that has never been liked, she found the bath mat amongst a pile of rotting leaves and brush. "I couldn't believe my eyes," she gushed. "After all these months, it was just under my nose, practically begging to be let back into the house."

As soon as its identity was confirmed, the Egyptian cotton mat was rushed to the nearest facilities and bathed "in the hottest damn water possible," according to McFlint. After a fluff cycle, the victim appeared "good as new."

There was no evidence indicating how the victim lost its way, nor how it survived on its own for months through an unforgiving New England winter. McFlint told authorities on the scene that she would not be requesting an investigation or to eventually press charges.

"We're just so happy to have a warm, dry place to step when we get out of the shower," McFlint told the gathering crowds. "My family would like to thank everyone for their loving support during these difficult times. Now please excuse me--we have to make up for a lot of lost time," she told the crowd of onlookers as she headed inside, clutching her Downy-fresh bath mat and adjusting her Hello Kitty shower cap.

let me introduce you to...

Walking down Newbury Street, I pass a teenage girl wearing a t-shirt (it's as snug as a bug that's been power-sprayed on a rug, by the way) that says, "I heart Army guys." Just behind her, walking with a different band of brothers, is a guy who looks as Army as Willem Dafoe in Platoon. His shirt says, "I like boobies."

If only she'd turn around, they could really hit it off. And have a good story for their grandchildren, too.

getting to ikea: a retrospective

Would never have imagined it could be so difficult to find a giant box store--a blue and yellow one, no less, roughly the girth of the Roman Colosseum and the Jacob Javitz Center combined, and as popular as Wal-Mart on black Friday. And yet.

Our fist mistake (of many): trusting Google Maps. When the directions eventually failed, we stopped at the first opportunity: a Quick Mart somewhere in the wilds of west Stoughton. As soon as Leah and I opened the door, the cashier sized us up and announced, "You got lost looking for Ikea, right?" Huh. "Go back out the way you came, go straight through five lights, about five miles, and it'll be on your left." Apparently we were but one of many in a long wagon train of urban pioneers, searching the suburbs for cheap home furnishings and trusting our fate to Google Maps.

Off we went. The fifth light put us somewhere in the wilds of east Stoughton. In every direction, all we could see were trees. Where was the pavement? The parking spaces? The shopping carts? The bargains? Clearly still lost, we stopped at a gas station with a falling-down sign and nary a customer in sight. I push open the door, and find an attendant sitting in a dank, dusty office, looking like he hasn't seen the outdoors since gas cost $1 a gallon. But we'd been driving for the better part of an hour by this point, so I get right down to business: Where is this magical land of Swedish imports?

"Go up to the light here," he says, pointing to whence we came, "and take a right."

"Do you mean this light?" I ask, pointing to the number five in view, where the only reasonable option is to turn left, unless you're the off-roading adventurous sort.

"Yeah."

"So I should turn left there, shouldn't I?"

"Nope, turn right," he insists, much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of the individuals who live in the house though which you would pass if you were to follow his directions.

We volley a few more left-right arguments before I give up. "Ok, so I turn right. Then what?" Three lights, turn right at the Exxon, and it's right there on your right.

Wouldn't you know it. The best directions of the day came from someone who couldn't tell left from right. Take that, Google Maps.