Black Swan

We've been having a relaxing time and the nightmare of last week is well behind us. Jon is riding my uncle's bicycle along the river path, Max is napping upstairs and I'm watching Black Swan dubbed in French. It's the middle of the movie and Natalie Portman is starting to crack under the pressure of having ot dance the lead. I always forget what a good movie this is.

Here is a picture of Max playing in the grass in my cousin's backyard.

Living in the city, Max never really gets to play in grass. But here he is a country baby. I'm going to have to find a patch of grass for Max to crawl around in when we get home. There's a nice one about a mile and change from our house but hopefully I'll find one closer.

It's the point in the movie where Natalie Portman is finally performing in Swan Lake. It's the intermission and she's just had a fight with herself or so she thinks. Fantastic ending to a fantastic movie.

Today, I am going shopping with my aunt. Sunday here is France's version of Mother's Day. And the women in my family are celebrating. I want to get a present for my mother and my grandmother.

World Weary

May 23, 2012

It’s 7:20 am in France. And as usual I am the first one awake. The baby is sleeping in a very comfortable crib in the room next to ours. And my husband is lying asleep in the bed where I am sitting and writing this entry. It’s been quite a journey but we have finally arrived. Our trip was very difficult. Well, part of it was very difficult. Max surprised me by sleeping on the plane for most of the trip. The difficult part arrived when we did in Schiphol, Amsterdam. What a shithole. Our flight coming in from New York was very late on arrival due to bad weather at JFK airport. We had 45 minutes to make our transfer from one extreme end of the airport to another. This included going through security, passport control and getting boarding passes at the gate.

If we had had a longer transfer, we probably would have figured out sooner than we didn’t have a ticket for the baby to make the connecting flight. But instead we learned this at the gate with 10 minutes to board the plane. They denied our entry onto the plane. Denied - at the gate - with people waiting for us at our destination city, Luxembourg.

Once we got over the initial shock of missing our flight, we rallied and went to the transfer desk where Jon worked out problem with the assistance of a very helpful KLM ticketing agent. Turns out, the lunkhead who checked us in in New York City was supposed to SELL us a ticket for the baby to get on our flight per our arrangement with DELTA/KLM as we made it online and confirmed over the telephone.

But instead of giving us a separate ticket and boarding pass for Max, the agent gave Max a boarding pass using my information. So in essence we had two boarding passes for one ticket. Max’s boarding pass listed him as VALERIE BLACKELL/infant boarding pass. That should have raised a red flag for us before we got on the flight, but we blindly trusted that the slack jawed moron who did this knew what he was doing.

Even my mother, who works for an airline as a ticketing agent, didn’t notice this huge gaff. Until we got to the gate for our connecting flight with seconds to spare in Schiphole, we had no idea at all that a mistake had been made.

The only thing we could do, was go to the transfer desk and get tickets for a later flight, which was much later. 7 hours later. What do you do with a baby at an airport for 7 hours while you are waiting for a connecting flight. I’ll tell you. Not much. We ended up letting him crawl on the dirty airport floor for most of the afternoon while Jon and I watched the hours slowly tick by.

If it had just been us that had been effected by this scheduling change, that would have been enough drama for one family. But there was an additional drama. My aunt and uncle were waiting for us in Luxembourg at 10:30 in the morning and we had no way to get in touch with them. Around 11:30 Jon and I found a Starbucks and turned on our computers. I wrote to every family member that I knew could get in touch with my aunt and uncle to let them know what happened. I called my mother repeatedly in New York starting at 3 in the morning New York time, so she could also get in touch with my relatives.

At some point during the day, I received notification that my aunt and uncle had been informed of our dilemma. How nice it was to see their smiling faces as we emerged from the Luxembourg airport. But our journey wasn’t over. We still had along car ride. It was during this car ride that Max cried, really cried for the first time in two days. He started crying in the car, and continued crying until he fell asleep around 9:30. He is still sleeping now. And it’s now 7:40 in the morning.

We anticipated that how Max behaved would be the most difficult part of the journey. We didn’t count on all the problems we encountered in Amsterdam. But we made it through the journey and Max doesn’t seem any worse for the wear. Although he does seem wary of our relatives, I’m sure he’ll warm up to them after a good night’s rest.

It’s amazing what you have to do to earn vacation sometimes.

The end.

　

　

Central Park Zoo

Jon and I thought it would be a good idea to take to the Central Park Zoo. It was Saturday and the weather was beautiful -after several days of rain. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea. When we got to the zoo, the line was 50 people deep. I don't know what we were thinking. Of course, on the first warm day in May, people would want to take their children into the zoo.

A Book

Being a stay-at-home mom is very hard work. I find myself getting lost in the details of the day. Yesterday, on my fourth walk outside with Max snuggled in his stroller, I found myself walking into the library and drifting over to the NEW ARRIVALS section, where I picked up a copy of a Jennifer Wiener book. Thrilled to finally have the space in my brain to actually read a book, I got into bed at 8 p.m. last night and started reading. Unfortunately, I was too tired to read more than 15 pages and went to sleep shortly after I began. Maybe I'll read another 10 pages today.

Catching up

The last time I entered a post on my blog, we were experiencing one of the worst winters on record. More than a year later, we are experiencing one of the mildest winters on record. It's amazing how much can change in a year.

Since my last post, we met our son Max. Max is now 13 months old and is starting to really develop as a little person. And boy does he have a lot of personality.

If you were to ask me what I think about being a parent, I would tell you that it's really hard work but incredibly worth it.  When Max gives a little hug; when he pulls my hair; when he looks at me that way before he bursts into tears; when he smiles sheepishly because he's about to do something he's not supposed to; when he's sitting in my arms perfectly content; these are the moments that I would use to try to sell parenthood to my friends without children.

We waited a long time for Max and now that he's here, I can't picture our lives without him.

Snow and Laundry

Because of the expectation of snow, I'm pushing up laundry one day. Tomorrow, my goal for the day is to finish the laundry before the snow comes. Snow doesn't stop me from doing anything but it sure is difficult pushing a shopping cart through slush and snow.

So. My two least favorite things will happen on the same day - snow and laundry.

The Cobbler

Two winters ago, my mother-in-law bought me a fantastic pair of winter boots. Two weeks ago, I wore those boots to contend with weather. My feet were getting wet and I couldn't understand why. At first, I believed that snow was getting in through the tops, by my ankles. We had some pretty deep snow. But two days later, I figured out that the soles were worn out and water was getting in through the bottoms of my boots. 

Two days ago, I dropped the boots off for repair at a new cobbler. And today, I discovered that he's a great cobbler. He replaced the soles, cleaned them off and now it's like I have a new pair.  He did such a good job, I dropped off another pair that I picked up at DSW last year. Those are much cheaper quality than my snow boots but I really, really like them.

They are falling apart at the seams. He said he could fix them no problem. I'll let you know what happens when I pick them up in two days.

Hoarders - Season Finale

This may be the first time ever, that I have felt compelled to watch a show and blog at the same 

I am watching the season finale of Hoarders. The focus of this show are two animal hoarders. One hoards cats and the other hoards rats.

I can understand the cat hoarder. While I no longer love cats the way I used to, I still like them. They are somewhat lovable. But the cat hoarder doesn't just hoard cats. She compulsively hoards everything. She picks through trash. She holds on to things. In the past, she's promised her family that she would sort and recycle all of her belongings, but we fans of the show know that hoarders have a problem with organization. And they have unnatural attachments to their belongings. In the case of the cat hoarder, she is rebelling against a controlling father.

In the case of the rat hoarder, he suffered a great loss which triggered his problem.

Commercial break now - skin care, creepy clown, a new FX original series, Toyota Corolla.

We're back. The rat hoarder just explained how much work he has to do to maintain his rats. Dr. Zasio just introduced herself and she is entering the rat hoard. She is appropriately horrified at the number of rats crawling all over his house. But she is holding  it together and not freaking out. She respects him and the fact that he is using the rats as a substitute for his family. Interestingly, he doesn't hoard anything else but rats. And now Dr. Zasio is tapping into his pain and making him cry. She is going to help him process his grief for his wife who passed away years ago which will hopefully help him deal with his loneliness. But I have a feeling it's going to be a tough clean up. He is really attached to those rats.

Meanwhile back at the cat house, Lisa our cat hoarder is meeting Dr. Scott Hanin who specializes in obsessive/compulsive behavior and anxiety disorders. He is going to help her get control of her life. She is taking him on a tour of her home and while she is able to identify every room they all look the same. Every room is stuffed with crap both literally and figuratively. There is cat shit everywhere.

Commercial. Another exploitative show that pretends to care about its subjects. Will I watch it? Maybe. It might have a friendlier tone than The Biggest Loser. Claymation for hotel.com. I wonder if that was done by that guy I knew in high school who also did Celebrity Deathmatch. Toothpaste commercial. Two people on  a date with fresh breath. I guess that's what you need to date these days - fresh breath. And Lyrica for those citizens with fibromyalgia. Dannon - yum. There's a commercial I can actually relate to. A fashion model using a washing machine - Kenmore. Okay. I guess I need to lose weight to do my laundry now.

Ohp. We're back. This is the segment where the cleanup experts come in and break the hoarders hearts. Matt Paxton is the guy assigned to the rat hoarder. He's a good guy. I like when he does cleanups. The rats are getting exceptional treatment from animal control. Animal control is humanely removing the rats from his home. It is unbelievable the amount of damage the rats have done to this house. They are scurrying every which way. Matt Paxton, the cleanup expert just explained how truly difficult the rat cleanup is.

Uh oh. Glen was just called to the veterinary tent to make decisions about some critically injured rats. He has to put them down. And finally, he's reached his breaking point. Up until this point, he was coping very well, allowing people to help him by not resisting the rat roundup.

Cut to the cat hoarder. I have a feeling her cat cleanup isn't going to go as smoothly. The rat hoarder recognized that his rats had to be taken away in order to save them.

The cat hoarder, in the meantime, hid 40 of her cats from animal control so they wouldn't be taken away. The cat hoarder's father has come to investigate the property where his daughter is living. He has to decide whether or not to evict his daughter from this house.  Her hoarding is definitely about control. Her father is being very understand and she is very defensive which means to me that while he is being nice to her now, he was probably very hard on her when she was growing up. 

Lisa has just walked away from the meeting where everyone gathers to discuss the cleanup. Getting rid of her cats is too much for her to handle. She'll never be able to handle getting rid of junk as well.

We're back from the commercial break. And now we're looking at the animals who have died as a result of the hoarding. A crew is breaking apart the walls of Glen's home to get to the rats. His house has been completely destroyed by his pets. The rats have built pathways in the walls, in the floors. The rat hoarder was able to find the one rat Dr. Zasio told him he could keep. Commander Whitehead was just given a clean bill of healthby the vet. But sadly more dead and dying rats are being brought forth and now Dr. Zasio is helping him deal with the loss of his wife, who died suddenly of a heart attack so many odd years ago.

Cut to the cats in California. Lisa is resisting the cleanup at all costs. She refuses to participate in the cleanup. She feels judged and wants to stop everything before it gets too hard. The cleanup expert is working with Lisa one on one because she couldn't handle the whole cleanup crew going through her things. I am always amazed at how caring these professionals appear to be and often wonder if they are indeed as caring as they appear. Lisa completely checked out of the cleanup. I wonder what her outcome will be.

Commercial. A and E's new show about heavy people looks compelling and upsetting. A and E's Beyond Scared Straight looks ridiculous. Why are they rewarding prisoners with airtime, even if they are scaring kids straight? And why exploit these kids who may or may not commit crimes? Just show them the first season of OZ. That's enough to keep anyone out of jail. Besides, truly sociopathic or psychopathic people wouldn't respond to the scare tactics used in the Scared Straight program to deter them from committing crimes. . . . Whenever I see a commercial for a product with a spokesperson, I always wonder how much the spokesperson is earning everytime the commercial is show.

Sun rise in California over the cat hoarder's home. Good news. Lisa wants to throw everything away. Oh wait. Five minutes later, she's changed her mind. She's done. She's not going to clean up anything. It's so sad when they don't except the help. They're done. She's finished. Another failure. The experts just told her father that Lisa regused the help. He's disappointed and he's probably going to evict her.

Let's see how the rat guy is doing.Glen is luring the rats out of his walls with some food. The rats didn't fall for it and the crews are destroying more walls. They just removed a bathtub to get to the remaining rats. Glen, the rat hoarder, is in amazingly good spirts considering his home has been completely demolished. The rat count is 2000. And before his 2000 plus rats get taken away, Glen says an emotional goodbye. He's definitely one of the more likeable hoarders that have been featured on this program. Dr. Zasio is my favorite expert on the show. She did a good job with Glen.

Final notes of the show. Glen is at peace with the fact that his rats are getting adopted. 500 have already found homes. He is getting grief counseling.

Lisa on the otherhand is hopeless. She refused all offers of aftercare and her father will most likely evict her. Animal control will most likely remove her cats.

The end.