The One Where M Broke Mr. A's New Bike

For Mr. A's birthday last month, he got a new bike. After continuous comments for the better part of six months about how great a new bike would be, he was beyond excited to have finally gotten what he wanted.

After a few weeks, being able to ride the bike around the courtyard wasn't good enough. He started begging to be able to ride it to school. "How are you going to do that?" I asked. "I can think of a hundred things I'd rather do than run behind your bike, trying to keep up."


"You can get a bike, too," he said. Point taken. And I probably will, but who knows when that will be. Probably late one night in December, when I'm overtaken by some sort of manic urges to buy something. Or next month, when my travel card expires. But we'll see if I feel like riding a bike around then. In any case, I told him I'd think about getting one next month with the money I saved by not buying a travel card.


One morning, M decided to be nice to me by letting me sleep in and taking Mr. A to school. Mini-Minion wasn't having any of that, and she woke up as soon as they walked out the door. So I was curled up on the couch working when M came rushing into the sitting room.


"You're never going to believe what happened," he said. "I was riding Alex's bike back from his school, and--"

"What?" I asked.

He sort of waved me off, as if I had just asked the dumbest question. Of course it's perfectly normal to be riding a child's bike. :/



"I let him ride it to school, and I had to get it home somehow," he said. Or he could have just chained it up and let Alex ride it home later.


"Whatever," he said. "So I was riding by Mortlake Road and Lower Richmond, and I had to get back up on the sidewalk. I lifted up on the handlebars, and I got the bike up, but the handlebars kept coming and lifted completely out of the tube. But I kept going and had nothing to steer with, so it looked like one of those cartoons when they rip the steering wheel out of the car. I almost crashed into the brick wall, but I got my feet down in time. The worst part is, there were two workmen and a long line of cars down Lower Richmond who saw everything."


"I sat back down, but the bike seat was twisted 90 degrees, and I don't even know how that happened," he continued. "When I readjusted the bike and turned it around on the path, the tube inside the tire completely popped, so I had to carry the bike home. I turned to the workers and said, 'Wow, that could have been really bad.' One of them said, 'Yeah, it could have. Mate, I think that's a child's bike, and you're too big for it.'"

Blank stare.


"You broke his bike?" I asked.

"Well, I'll fix it," he said, throwing up his hands and rolling his eyes in response to the terribly offensive suggestion I didn't make.


"Yeah, but you broke his bike because you were popping wheelies on it when you probably shouldn't have been sitting on it at all," I said. "Just a hunch, but I don't think he's going to be thrilled about that."

"It was kind of funny," he said, "because my knees were practically to my chest while I peddled, so I'm sure I looked really stupid anyway."


I scrunched up my nose and turned my head to the side. "Maybe that should have been your first indication that you shouldn't have been riding it, yeah? The handlebars came out? Weren't you the one who put it together? Did you not tighten something?"

"Oh, I'm sure the problem is just that one of their parts sucks," he said. Of course. Totally logical conclusion to draw.


The afternoon came, and I was the one who had to pick up Alex from school. "Where's my bike?" he asked almost immediately. "Why didn't you bring it with you?"


"Ok, Alex," I said, "I'll be honest. Daddy broke your bike, but it's actually a really funny story, and when you hear it, I'm sure you'll think it's hilarious and you won't be mad anymore!" I sort of pumped my fists horizontally in the air to get him superwayjazzed about this fun and exciting story. Yeah! Your bike's broken, but your dad did it in such a stupid way, how can you not laugh?


The fact that in the end he actually did laugh about it should make his father eternally grateful that he has such a chill child.

Superwoman Syndrome

People who deal with me day in and day out can tell you one of the easiest ways to annoy me is to ask, "Why are you so tired?" Here's the rundown:


1. I work. Yes, from home, but I work just like anyone else. In fact, my job might be harder than a "regular" job, because I'm constantly interrupted. Imagine if you were working in an office and your coworker insisted on sitting on your computer or crawling all over you or talking to you constantly. Or crying. Or making messes EVERYWHERE. You've also got to make that coworker breakfast and lunch. It's not like you can ignore that. (Psst. . .at the end of the day, you have to like that coworker, too. Sucks.)


2. I'm doing a full-time, one-year master's program. In the States, our MAs are two years. Here, they're one. So two years of work crammed into one. It's intense enough as it is, I think, without all the other stuff added to it. I know some people who have a hard time juggling school and work.


3. I have two kids. Two young kids. In between doing the first two things, M and and I have potty-trained Mini-Minion, which has not gone as easy as I would have hoped, and certainly not as easy as it was with Mr. A. We also have to make sure Mr. A is taken care of. His current roster is:
Monday - swimming
Tuesday - free!
Wednesday - guitar
Thursday - combination dance & cub scouts
Friday - drumming & power station

I also try to go on field trips with him when I can. And on the weekends, my silly kids actually want to do stuff. With us.



4. Somewhere in there, I have to squeeze in time for M, friends, seminars, conferences, and calling family. They're all really, really important for different reasons. I need to add professional organizations to that list eventually, but right now, I just can't see where to fit it in.


This isn't for people to say, "Oh my gosh, how do you do all of this?!" It's so people understand why, at the end of the day, what I really want most in life is to sleep for a week. I'm really not complaining about my workload, and I don't think I complain about it much in person (maybe I'm wrong). My wants and interests are bigger than my time capabilities. This can cause problems sometimes when I have to make a decision between doing two things I really want to do.


We didn't make gingerbread ornaments for Christmas. We did nothing for Valentine's Day. I didn't even get valentines for Alex's class. We didn't make Easter eggs this year. The kids didn't have baskets. I keep pushing Alex's birthday party back. It's next weekend. I still haven't given the kids their invitations. I have no supplies. I'll probably throw it together at the last minute on Friday, and I'll be sad that nothing is the way I wanted it to be.


Are the kids upset? No, not really. Well, not at all actually. But there's a nagging sensation in the back of my head that never forgets to remind me that they'll only be little once and only for a short amount of time. I only get one shot at raising them. I don't want regrets.


As I said before, I haven't joined any professional organizations. They freak me out. I'm not networking like I should be. My seminar and conference choices are very limited in scope, and between the two, they're limited to about two or three per month, because I don't want to be away from the house more than I need to be right now. I have no job prospects in archaeology after graduation.



Is it a huge deal right now? Probably not. I've got time. But I'm not getting any younger, and if I want to be serious about this, then I've got to put myself out there. Opportunities are not going to show up on my doorstep. And I'm very aware that the more time that goes on, the less I'm actually getting accomplished professionally, and that's not going to be good for me five years down the road.


But the bottom line is: I can't do it all. I would love to be able to work, take care of the kids full time, keep the house spotless, do all the school activities, go to several conferences a week, make contacts with people from other universities, do research, travel with the kids, spend time with my friends, call everyone in my family once a week, find time to write, keep up with the blog, do personal development stuff like learn new languages or new crafts, read books, watch all the latest movies so I can at least carry on conversations with people, and do all those holiday activities you're "supposed" to do. And these are the things that weigh me down every day. I hate having limitations.


Deep down, I feel like a failure for not being able to swing it all. And when people ask, "Why are you so tired all the time?", it feels like they're saying the same thing. Like it should be easy.


But it's not, and rationally, logically, I know that.


I just can't seem to break the cycle of feeling like I need to do it all.

Paris vs. London

I really do think about this blog quite often. It's just that by the end of the day, when everything else is taken care of, this gets pushed to the backburner pretty much so every day. Along with about 20 other projects.

I'm still working on FAQs Part II. But here's another one that gets its own. Do I prefer London or Paris? I get asked this a lot. A LOT. This is probably the third most frequently asked question aside from "Why did you move?" and "How's London?"

This is kind of a funny question to me. I don't know how to compare two totally different cities. But here we go. We're going to stack them against one another. Warning: this post contains lots of stereotypes (both real ones and the word).

Area #1: Well. . .AREA


Here's the deal. Our first apartment in Paris was freaking awesome. The location, the size. . .everything. But we didn't appreciate it, mostly because we suck like that. I'd love to transplant that apartment to London in a comparable location, and life would be SO good. Even our second apartment in France rocked, even though it was the size of my dad's walk-in closet.



Now we live in London. And our flat is nice. Mortlake is Nice. Richmond-upon-Thames is NICE. But it's so white bread. Someone used the term "yummy mummy" to describe the women here, and while that sounds totally gross, it makes me laugh, and now I can't help but think it every time I pass the women pushing their Maclarens in their black spandex pants, puffer coats and booties. Even so, laughing at your neighbors doesn't make an area worth living in.

WINNER: Paris, by a longshot

Area #2: General People

Don't hate on the lack of accents.

Oh, this is a fun one. Would I rather deal with the French or the English? It really depends on my mood. The French. . .are really not as bad as everyone makes them out to be. I don't really find them rude as much as almost apathetic about 80% of the time, which I guess can come off as rude. They're very into following rules, though, even if it's rules they've just made up.

On the other hand, 20% of the time, they're very alive and animated, which is great fun. That's the stereotypical passionate side, which I find very engaging, because I think I may be part psychic vampire. I like watching the French fight.

Besides, I can tune them out if it gets to be too much.



Then we have the English. What can you say when you really can't say anything bad? It's not bad. They're not bad. They're very lovely people. They're just so. . .proper. I've been told I'm rather infuriating at times because I'm an expert on talking without really saying anything. I've got nothing on the English. I remember someone saying once something like, "I would hate to be German. Could you imagine calling your wife 'Sie' while in bed? *shudder*" Hilarious! (For the semi-dense: yes, it was a joke.) But the English are like one step below that. Do they ever get mad? No, really. Do they ever show real emotion? No, really.

The best example of what I'm talking about is when someone dies, especially after being kidnapped or something. The newspaper reports, "The family is understandably distressed and requests privacy during this time." Distressed? Seriously, distressed? Distressed is like, I have a £50 voucher for Gap, and I don't know what I did with it (this is true). I think about it on occasion, and it stresses me out that a) I'm still fairly irresponsible with things and b) I'm cold and I want a real sweatshirt. So you could say I'm distressed. If someone I know dies, I'm devastated.

Add to this that I'm naturally fairly loud and I'm extremely animated when I really get going. I think this is a problem. I've never really felt stereotypically American when I'm out of the country, but I do here. I should buy a pair of white trainers, some sweat pants, and a bum bag. And surgically attach a McDonald's bag to my hand. I don't really see having an extra appendage as being a problem with writing my dissertation, because I'm probably too stupid to understand what I'm supposed to be doing anyway, and it won't get done. Or I'll end up writing it in crayon and turn it in with french fry (sorry, chips) grease all over the paper.

Yet for some odd reason (read: I'm stupid), I like the English anyway, and often stick up for them when many (read: all) of the other immigrants I've met have told me how distant and awful "the British" (American code word for something that probably is English) are.


WINNER: I don't know. It's between people who make me feel bad for talking to them and people who make me feel like I'm offending them for talking at all. Fine line. Let's call this one a tie.

Area #3: Scenery

There's an area of Paris by Ile de la Cite where heaven and earth collide to produce the most breathtaking pop-up of gargoyle-topped marble-chiseled (not really) buildings parted by the emerald serpentine Seine. That's really all I have to say about that. I have an amazing picture of Alex with it as the background, but I can't find it right now.

At first, I thought this would be an easy point to Paris. But then spring hit England, and like the Grinch, my cold, black heart grew three times that day (March 21, which ironically, I think was a rainy day). Besides, the English always give things fun names which increases the chances I'm going to find it somewhat endearing. Like Dorking. And Yorkey's Knob. Or they call their food spotted dick or clapshot. I'm obsessed.

Even within London, we've got Canary Wharf (yellow water birds), Elephant and Castle (the circus), Canada Water (Niagara Falls), Kentish Town (a Renaissance Faire), Chalk Farm (petting zoo). . .Those sound like fun places. Some of them aren't, but that's not the point. (For those who are lost, my incredibly awesome and somewhat childish associations are in parentheses.)

I can't think if many areas that compare to Soho and Camden Town.

WINNER: Overall. . .I don't know. I want to say London, especially because it's spring, but then I think of Pere Lachaise, and it all sort of goes out the window again. I'll tentatively say London.

CONCLUSION: There are so many other areas I could get into (language, for example, and accents), but I'll stop, because this might be incredibly boring. If there's any interest, we'll revisit in the future. So, we have Paris-tie-London. That doesn't solve anything.

How's London?

Aww, this was going to be FAQs part II (so exciting, I know!!!), but I just kept writing. It's sort of a thing lately with me. That's covered later, too. Ugh. I suck.

1. How's London?
How is London? That is an excellent question. You see, my fine friends, I had a brief lapse in sanity while selecting my courses for UCL. I know what you're thinking. . .ME, have a lapse in sanity and/or judgment? But I assure you good people that it does occasionally (often) happen. And it went like this:



Me: Umm. . .they're not offering Medieval Archaeology at the graduate level next year. Or any of the maritime classes. Of course not. Freaking of course not. Now what am I going to do? No, really. What am I going to do? (I then proceeded to get angry and make evil eyes at the computer, which is actually less common than you would think. . .it's all about how often you pull something out of your bag o' tricks. The more often you do it, the less effective it is.)
M (TOTALLY uninterested): I don't know.
Me: Ugh. Now I'm going to have to be interested in prehistory. I can be interested in prehistory, right? I can. Sure. (Side note: No, I can't.) I'll just take this British and European Prehistory course. (sweeping arm gesture) I'm going to be a prehistorian. And this Applied Archaeology in the UK could be useful. Oh! Experimental Archaeology. I can deal with that. What do I take for my last course?


M: What are your options?
Me: Reads list of options. . .most are boring and have to do with the Middle East or the Mediterranean, which I'm sure are insanely awesome to study, and I'm too stupid to realize it. Archaeology of Modern Conflicts? Maybe? (cue: YES!!! Tell me to take it!) No, I don't think that will be useful. (Future Me: Who CARES? You'll actually be interested, I promise!) How about archaeometallurgy?
M: What's that?
Me: Metallic artifacts. Yeah, I think I'll put that down. I like artifacts. I like metal things. They had lots of metal in the Medieval period. Maybe I can use it if they let me do a PhD in Medieval Archaeology. We've got a winner! (Future Me: Oh my god, I cannot even begin. Run. Run far away, Past Me. It's not what you think it is.)

I'm annoyed because I look like a 12-year-old. No, not really. I was going to say the standard "Get pissed!" but that's sort of weird to say here, and no one gets it. That's sad.

I had the most awesome supervisor ever in California. I took a really intensive lab class with her. We learned about lithics, I can name the parts of a flake, I can pretend to flint knap, and I can differentiate broadly between rocks. We did ceramics, and now I know about processing and decorative techniques, dating methods, tempur, and all that fun, fantastic stuff. We did historic artifacts, brief ossteology, faunal remains, archaeobotany. . .and I learned (in Jill's wise words) enough to be dangerous. (If you need help, that's because I'm not an expert. Got it?) I was expecting archaeometallurgy to be fun, Fun, FUN like that, but just with metallic objects.

So the first day of class, I get in, and homeboy in the front starts talking about Chemistry and all sorts of strange things. . .iron slag and smelting and metal grains (Wwwwwwtf are metal grains?), and he's pulling out all these insane science-y graphs. I had that fake "aha ha ha" smile on my face, and I could feel my eyes were sort of that abnormal shape they get when I'm totally not into a situation.



Oh, but then, my friends, THEN, he pulls out the big guns. We are expected to DRAW 4 artifacts and photograph them. The photography. . .that's ok. But the drawing? Drawing and I aren't really on speaking terms. It's kind of sad, and I keep making advances, hoping the relationship can be patched up, but drawing is kind of a jerk (you know, the kind who only hangs out with "special" people), and it's just not working out.

Why did I stay in it? Well, I've gotten increasingly neurotic since I've been here, and I'm convinced that everyone I encounter thinks I'm stupid. But really, it's because I say stupid things. As in, REALLY stupid things. Things that later cause me to think, "I really should never open my mouth again. Or I could just die. Either or." I'll cover this in a different blog post, because I've really let some nice ones come out. Anyway, instead of admitting that I suck at life, I stayed in, which really probably says more about this whole sucking at life thing than actually staying in did.




All this to explain why I haven't been existing for the better part of two months. I don't know how London is. It's getting warmer. Although that might just be my brain overheating with concepts that are better suited to someone with a degree in chemistry. If this happens again, my brain and I are not going to be on speaking terms, and that could get way awkward. (I really don't want to have to divide up friends. I have a feeling they'll all go with the brain.)


Last note: This picture annoys me. It looks so staged. But I'm keeping it in for the families. It has an associated awkward story about this guy at the Natural History museum who kept following me around, trying to talk to me, and then out of nowhere, he's like, "Here, let me take a picture of you guys." Um, no. Go away. But M thinks that's ALWAYS a good idea. Me, not so much. But if you know me, you already know I have an aversion to photographs of myself.

Navigating Christmas After a Death

I was just telling some friends of mine about what our Christmas was like immediately after my mom died, and thinking about it made me laugh, so I thought it would be a decent blog post. Yes, the pictures are unrelated. :) Hope you can deal. Of course you can, because my pictures are often unrelated. Also, I'm not totally convinced I can do this story justice with such a short blog post. Each one part should really have its own post, and I wish I had related pictures.

A quick note about these pictures, though. We took the kids to Hyde Park on Monday. They're having this really cool Winter Wonderland area with a Christmas market, Santa's village, a carniVUL, not a carniVAL, and a circus (to Mr. A: "Would you like to go to the circus?" Mr. A: "No, that's ok." Of course he doesn't want to do something FUN. He'd rather run around yelling with excitement over common squirrels.). Mr. A got to go on a really weird carnival ride, Mini-Minion sat in a faux-Cinderella carriage, and both kids got to meet Santa. It was a great day, although we learned the hard way for a second time that Converse are NOT the shoes for snow. Ahh. . .will I never learn? Never.

Ok, so back to the blog topic. Picture this. . .My mom died the day after Thanksgiving in 2004. We won't get into all the details, because it doesn't matter for this story. My brother (R) was 12 (almost 13) at the time, and I was just determined that he was coming back to Paris with us for Christmas. In my typical bull-headed fashion, we got his dad to say yes, I spent a ridiculous amount of money getting his passport in two days, and then we just booked his return ticket for when *I* felt like it. There was no discussion with anyone. I felt he should go home on January 2nd or 3rd (whichever it was), so that's when he was going. It's a wonder people like me at all. I think I'm definitely one of those people you either really love or really hate.

Anyway! This was not going to be a ruined Christmas. Sure, we didn't have our other family members with us, but the four of us were together (remember, this pre-dates Mini-Minion), and that's all that mattered. We threw together a Christmas dinner with our wonderful friends Darci and Marla, both of whom were also teaching English in France. Darci had a friend, Amanda, who was flying in from Atlanta, and who was "crashing" our dinner party. The more the merrier!

I had gained another kid overnight. A greedy, materialistic tween kid who I now had to Christmas shop for. I scrambled around trying to find something to get him in Paris (not exactly the coolest place for a young lad -- "Oh, but I'm telling you, EVERY fashionable boy of 13 is wearing pink Lacoste polos this season!"). I think we expedited The Chapelle Show 1 & 2, The Simpsons 1 & 2, and I got him one of those crystal photo things with the Eiffel Tower or something.

Our house was full, the boys were taken care of present-wise, and I was convinced of my own awesomeness, which I assure you is ALWAYS the first indicator that things are about to go wrong. I made cinnamon gingerbread ornaments as gifts, because I was obviously the second coming of Martha Stewart. They started cracking as soon as they dried. No big deal. I gave one to Darci. When she opened it up, Gingey had been quartered. ("Here's a gift that comes from the heart! Merry Christmas!") Sigh.

Christmas Eve, we went strolling around Paris. The boys ice skated at City Hall. We walked by Notre Dame, and the evening mass bells were ringing. I don't possess the writing ability to tell you what it was like. Perfection.

For some reason, I was still on my "Yeah, I'm so totally awesome" delusional kick, so I decided it would be a great idea to make cinnamon rolls from scratch. So I send M to the store to get what I needed. I started making them at 10 or 11pm on Christmas Eve. I made my dough and set it out to rise. By 3am (yes, 3am), I finally accepted defeat and realized my dough was defective. Either that or it had something to do with my dear, sweet, wonderful husband accidentally picking up baking soda instead of baking powder. <--- (the least amusing of M's French adventures)

We had nothing to eat for breakfast, but the boys didn't care. They were excited about their gifts. M had a special one for me. "You remember that disposable camera we found in your mom's room when we were cleaning it out? I had the pictures developed for you." Isn't that sweet? R and I climbed up on the couch together and opened the first packet, excited to see what our mom was taking pictures of. These could have been the last pictures of a family gathering, my baby shower, her with friends. . .who knew? Well, we knew then. They were pictures of some teenage girls we had never seen on a trip to Disneyland. What on earth? Somehow either the cameras or the pictures got switched. Enthusiasm deflated.

Darci and Amanda arrived later that afternoon. Darci pulled M and I aside and said, "I want to pull a prank on Amanda. At dinner, let's tell her it's a Mormon tradition that everyone has to sing a full Christmas carole at the table before anyone can eat." Me: "Umm. . .ok. That sounds pretty ridiculous." D: "I know! It's going to be awesome!"

I tried to make egg nog (my confidence in my own abilities was pretty low at this point, but it obviously wasn't completely depleted) from scratch. . .without any kind of electrical equipment. Yeah. . .just don't. Seriously. Don't ever do that. But the rest of the dinner came out ok, until Darci decided she was the world's greatest gravy maker. I was talking to her, watching her scoop her flour out, put it in the sauce pan, stir a little, and then put another scoop of flour in. Over and over. Finally, I said, "Darci, how much flour are you putting in there?" She looked down and yelled, "Oh my God, it's like paste! I'm so sorry! I ruined Christmas." She spent the rest of the night making comments like, "Wow, look at me, I totally ruined Christmas." and "I bet you don't want to invite me to any holiday dinners again."

We (M, Darci, Amanda, Marla, Alex, Ryan and I) sat down to our gravy-less dinner (I'm not a massive gravy fan, so it made no difference to me), and Darci is giving me the eye. We had discussed our "plan" for Amanda in the kitchen, and we (M and I) were told repeatedly "Ok, but you can't laugh when you tell her." So M cleared his throat and said, "We have a tradition in the Mormon church that no one can eat until everyone around the table has contributed a full Christmas Carole. Darci, will you start?" Oh, plan hitch. No one had told Marla, who was sitting on the opposite side of the table, about our joke. She looked like a deer caught in headlights. Darci starts singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem," but it's coming out that kind of crackly high-pitched sound of someone who's trying really hard not to laugh at her own cleverness. She got through the first verse before turning to Amanda and saying, "I'm just kidding! It's a joke I came up with!" M and I were shaking our heads, Marla was visibly relieved, Amanda seemed confused, and Darci was still laughing at her own joke.

After dinner, we put Alex to bed and we all played Scattergories, which is the worst game ever to play with Darci and Amanda. They came up with the worst answers (Slogan that starts with 'A': "Athletes make for great fitness"). But it was really great to laugh. So in the end, Darci most definitely didn't ruin Christmas, and in spite of everything, that year remains in the top 5 Christmases I've ever had.