Empty Nest: A Few Plans for the First Hundred Days

It's no secret that I'm having a hard time with this coop-fleeing shenanigans that my kids are up to these days. We dropped Peter and Danelle off at Washington State University in Pullman two weeks ago. Next Monday, we'll help Kat move into her new apartment in the University District, and two weeks later we'll settle Aleks into the Theta Chi fraternity at the University of Washington.

I've been whining about it all for months now, and I'm not about to stop now. But I am trying to see the up-side to this whole vacuumous situation. So here are ten things I plan to do within the first hundred days of being an official empty nester:

1. Eat dessert first.
2. Take off for a romantic weekend in San Francisco -- without telling the kids.
3. Buy some fancy-schmancy pesto-feta-pine-nut-frittatta thingamabopper at Trader Joes. It'll serve exactly two and cost, like $12.99.
   
4. Wash it down with a glass or four of two-buck Chuck.
   
5. Sing. Loudly. And poorly.
6. Have sex (yes, with their dad!) in the hall. At dinnertime.
7. Make Cream of Wheat (or nothing at all!) for dinner.
   
8. NOT wash 40 towels a week.
9. Come home in the evening to a house that's just as clean (or messy) as it was when I left in the morning.
10. Stand in five clean bedrooms... just to experience FIVE clean bedrooms! (I haven't insisted that the kids clean their rooms in at least six years -- but I AM insisting that their rooms be clean when they move out!)
    

"Shasta! Joe Biden!"

Quick story:

When Shasta was a puppy and we were training her not to bite, we'd say "Joe Biden!" instead of "No biting!

Poor Shasta's a pretty confused doggie these days.

An Open Letter to Ikea Customer Service

Dear Ikea Customer Service,

I love you. Your meatballs are yummy and your kitchen knives are to die for. Our family adores trips to Ikea so much that we consider them "field trips."

But really, dear Ikea, why are you such a tease?

When we went to Germany last summer to visit our exchange student daughter who lived with us a few years ago, her family bequeathed upon us the traditional German bedding that we'd fallen in love with during our trip -- two fluffy individual down-filled duvets, each in its own zipped fabric cover, to be paired with matching large, square pillows. While in Germany, we purchased a few sets of duvet and pillow covers, but recently I decided to add to our linen closet by purchasing a few more sets at (where else?) Ikea.

I wasn't surprised that German-sized duvet covers weren't offered on the American Ikea website, but I expected that they'd be available on the German site, www.ikea.com/de, so I hopped on over there and began to shop. The choices were immense and I even had the added bonus of having seen many of the same fabrics in the bedding department of our local Seattle Ikea store, so I knew exactly which duvet covers I wanted.

Fast, easy... perfect!

Since I know some German, I easily navigated around the site, adding choices to my cart and heading to the "Kasse" (the check-out page), thrilled that I'd soon have new German bedding without ever even leaving home.

Once on the check-out page, however, I began to encounter problems. Even though I expected the primary shipping options to be shipping within Germany (or maybe Europe), I also expected that somewhere in some corner of the site there'd be a radio button or check box that would say something like "do you want to ship internationally?" Ikea is, after all, a global company with global appeal, with common merchandise across global markets, and with a worldwide faithful customer base.

Surely I'm not the only one in America (or any other country) who wants to buy German bedding at Ikea! And what about my expat friends in Germany who might want to buy American bedding at Ikea Germany? Does this global company really only allow shipping within one's own country? Why can't they ship to me in America if I'm willing to pay the shipping costs? (And hey -- with the dollar in the toilet as it is, there might even be an extra profit to be made here!)

Sure, I have a friend in Germany who asks me to ship him Levis once every few years and yeah, he owes me a favor... but must I really go that route? I really like those duvet covers with the cool red abstract design and I want to give you the business. So what do you say, Ikea Customer Service? If I can't count on you, who can I count on?

Warm (as in under fluffy Ikea duvet cover) regards,

Carol

Blackberries: They're Weeds for Eleven Months of the Year. Then Comes August!

Most of the time, blackberries are a pain in the ass here in the Pacific Northwest. Once they make an appearance, it's just about impossible to get rid of them. In fact, there are businesses around here dedicated to killing blackberries "for good." All year long, blackberries threaten our yard, encroaching on our beloved landscaping, even threatening to take over, among other things, the stepping stone I made for Tom for our 25th wedding anniversary.
I hate blackberries. No -- wait. I love blackberries; I just hate blackberry brambles and bushes!

As we drove up the hill near our house this afternoon, Kat and I noticed that the blackberries bushes are filled with ripe, sweet berries. Within moments of pulling into the driveway, Kat was back outside, bowl in hand, beckoning me to pick blackberries with her.

So between a trip to Ikea to buy Kat a bed for her new apartment (sob), a trip to Discount Tire to fix the flat tire that literally stopped me in my tracks yesterday (sob), and Kat having to head off for work, we spent a few minutes picking blackberries.

The blackberry bushes haven't just taken over the hillside by our house, they're threatening to take over the street! But they're bearing gifts these days, so we Pacific Northwesterners are willing to cut them more slack than we do during the rest of the year.

The bowl seemed way big at first.

But we managed to fill it pretty quickly.

Sometimes we'd find a gold (or rather, a purple) mine and shout "Euerka!" and...

...pick away. (OK, we didn't really shout "Eureka!" It was more like, Yuuuuuum!")

The thorns on blackberry bushes are incredibly sharp -- and incredibly plentiful -- which must be why the deer haven't eaten all the berries. We joked that we couldn't tell the diffrence between the blackberry juice and our own blood! (Did I say "yuuuuum"?!)

On our way back into the house we stopped to visit Tom as he continued built the shed (alone, now that Peter's away at school), but he was nowhere to be seen.

I actually have a photo of Kat showing off the berries we'd picked after Tom came back outside, but Blogger sometimes rotates my photos for absolutely no reason at all, and no matter what, they show up that way. So turn your head.

In the time that I had the flat tire fixed, Kat had rinsed the blackberries...


...made dough for the crust...


...and prepared the filling.


But then she took off for work, leaving me with no photo of her baked pie (which will be baked later tonight)! So I did what any good blogger would have done: I grabbed photos of baked blackberry pies from Google Images.

Chances are that our pie will look something like this (yeah, right):


...or this:


But not like this:And would you believe that this is 200 calories of blackberry pie? How depressing is that?


And in other news: remember the hot air balloon ride that Elisabeth gave us for our 25th wedding anniversary? Well, either the weather hasn't cooperated or we've been too busy, but tomorrow is the day (if the nice weather holds out). Yes, I am, in fact, terrified already! When I called to confirm the reservation, the guy mentioned that dinner and wine will be served upon landing. I insisted that I could probably use some wine before we lift off -- to which he retorted, "Oh no -- only the pilot gets to do that!"

Thanks, buddy.

Don't worry -- we'll get pictures (if I don't chicken out)! Check back here tomorrow night!


ADDENDUM: Hallalujah! The blackberry pie has been expertly assembled...

and baked...

...and EATEN!

Connected

Last week I wrote about the connection I share with my daughters: Elisabeth and I are similar in spirit, while Kat and I seem to quietly share souls.

Sometimes that quiet connection with Kat is stirred awake in the oddest of circumstances. Last night, for example, I woke up in a sweat shortly before 3 AM. Normally, I'd kick the heavy German duvet off me and go back to sleep, but last night was different. Something felt amiss. Half asleep, and with no real purpose except to perhaps get a drink of water, I stumbled into the hall.

Standing at the end of the hall, silhouetted by outside light, Kat was completely still -- so still that I was instantly terrified.

"Kat?" I stammered. "What...? Are you OK?"

Kat's shoulders began to shake and she nodded no, then fell into my waiting arms. I knew this day would come. I knew her heart would break. And I knew that somehow, somehow, I'd find a way to be there to hold her when she needed to fall into my arms.

And I was. And she did.

Heartbreak in love at 18 is, I believe, like no other heartbreak at any other age because eighteen is young enough to be somewhat naively in love (having never experienced the pain love can cause), yet old enough to know true love.

Kat's heart was breaking because Stevo flew to New York this morning to attend NYU. They both knew this day was coming, but actually saying goodbye was excruciating and for Kat the darkness and silence of the wee hours of the morning probably magnified the pain.

All I could do was hold her and rock her. Hearing his daughter's cries was obviously torture on Tom, too, and he joined us in a long, silent three-way hug. Nothing we could say would make it any better; Kat just needed to be comforted.

As we stood in the dark hallway, I realized that the drive to comfort our children -- whether to feed our baby's hunger, to soothe our child's boo-boo, or to console our young adult's broken heart -- is both a deeply physical and a deeply emotional instinct. My heart physically hurt for Kat last night, and there was (and is) nothing I can do to help her.

My mother and I were connected, too. And, as she shared with me just days before her death, it seems that she and her mother were connected after all, too, in spite of Mom denying for years that she was ever close to her own mother.

When she could barely talk anymore and when she was floating in and out of awareness, Mom uttered, "My mother..." as she stared intently at... at... nothing. It was the last thing Mom ever said to me and I can only figure that mother, my devoutly atheistic mother, saw something or someone that made her say that. And all I could say to her at that point was, "Your mother? Let me tell you about my mother."

And I did.

We're connected, we mothers and daughters. We share joys and pains and dreams, and somehow we know, often without words, every detail of each other's emotions.

Trippy, man!

This is a Facebook conversation between Aleks and a heretofore unknown girl who's also in the "University of Washington Class of 2012" group, consisting of thousands of random incoming freshmen.

Is this wild, or what?!

(............)

Jessica

August 19 at 2:47pm

lol its exciting for me!! I live in a desert! I live in R****

Aleks

August 19 at 3:37pm

Ohhh I used to live there! By like an Albertson's or something when I was like 4 haha. Yeah that place definitely is a desert tho, you'll definitely like Seattle!

Jessica

August 20 at 7:05am

no way! i live right be albertsons lol. We hang out in the parking lot sometimes cause its so lame here. its sad.

Aleks

August 20 at 1:37pm

haha thats wild. idk it was like...up a hill, in a neighborhood. and there was a park and playground and stuff. but yeah i know what you mean, i live in w***** and there isn't shit to do here most of the time either. next year won't be anythign like that :)

Jessica

August 20 at 9:10pm

dude, your trippin me out. I live up a hill, in a neighborhood and theres a park and playground. i live in a cul-de-sac and theres like a path that goes to the park! but yea, this year should be legit!

Aleks

Today at 4:48am

haha i think thats exactly where i lived... like there was definitly a path to the park...and this girl named christina used to live like across the street, she was lebanese...

Jessica

Today at 3:33pm

WTFFFF. holy shit. i think you lived in my house. No joke. Christina lives across the street. 178 n***** place?? This is so weird.

Aleks

Today at 5:01pm

holy shit im so tripped out right now, yeah thats it. WTFWTFWTFWTF. haha this is sooooo wiiiillllddddddd, i just told my parents and they were like "yeah we did all the landscaping and laid down the rocks (?) and left them a gift basket before we left, i remember the name k*****." im actually tripped out right now so bad its not even funny. my room was like, up the stairs and to the left in like that big bonus room.

Jessica

Today at 5:37pm

NOOOOOO WAY! THATS MY ROOM. hahaha this is scary. super weird. like what are the chances.

(And it goes on...)

Have I said it before? I LOVE THE INTERNET!!

High Hopes

Tom and I, as completely different as we are, happen to both be Sagittarians -- though at completely different ends of the spectrum, with my birthday on 11/29 and his on 12/20. Neither of us normally put much stock into our horoscope, though we often read it for the sheer entertainment value.

Today our horoscope said this:

So after dinner we went out and did this:

As we drove the half mile home from Safeway, we discussed how we'd spend the loot if we won, a conversation that was worth every penny the $6 we paid for the tickets. First we'd pay for our kids' college educations -- all of it instead of fretting about it quarter by quarter and semester by semester. Then we'd set aside some money so the kids could buy houses... but because we wouldn't want to spoil them (heaven forbid!), it'd likely be some sort of matching-funds deal. Then we'd share with our siblings and parents -- from fun stuff like cars to huge family vacations and college educations for nieces and nephews. Then we'd each give two weeks notice at our jobs, but we'd continue to show up every day of those two weeks just to do fun stuff with our staffs, like take our co-workers to fancy lunches and buy them tickets to cool local events. Then...

...then we drove into our driveway and I headed to my office to get to work.

Welcome to August in Seattle!

Pitter-Patter and all that!