"What are you? Like, a walking window?"

A busy last week turned into a busy weekend, which turned into a busy Monday--and here we are!

The weekend was mostly dedicated to Halloween-related activities. Namely, parties.

The MBA student organization had its Halloween bash on Friday night. It was held in a hotel on the Capitol Square, in a bar area overlooking the Capitol building. It was a good party--music, free pizza and beer--and there were some great costumes on display. Really, I was tremendously impressed by the creativity and dedication that went into some of those get-ups. Evan and I had planned to dress as The Walrus and the Carpenter, from Through the Looking Glass, but we ran out of time to get the necessary bits together. On top of that, Evan got home from an MBA-related competition in Michigan at 8:30 on the night of the party, and we had to throw something together at the last moment. Inspired by the fact that Evan won a nice chunk of money at this competition, we decided to dress up as "The 1%." Evan with his hair slicked back, wearing a suit, suspenders, and a tie clip; me in my black cocktail dress wearing all my pearls and my mink cape. We were definitely the classiest couple at the party. That makes the photos of us holding red plastic tumblers even more awesome.

We spent all of Saturday preparing our next set of costumes: Sydney Carton and Madame Dufarge from A Tale of Two Cities.  I won't even attempt to describe those. Just look:

Those costumes took us to a house party thrown by one of the guys in Evan's center. It was also a good party. We ended up leaving around 11:30 with a group of people who were headed down to State Street for the big Freakfest party. We went along for the walk, intending to find something to eat. We left them at the gates (paying $12 to access a street one can walk on any other day for free) and began to make our way home. Somehow that resulted in the two of us walking down Langdon St., aka Madison's Frat Row. At midnight. The night of Freakfest. =:oO For the first ten minutes or so, the drunken antics were amusing. Really, a couple hundred drunken revelers in costume should provide some entertainment value. After we'd been walking for a while, though, the obnoxious caterwauling and profane screaming started to get to me. It was one of those situations where I wanted to go up to every cop (the stand-ins for grown-ups) stationed at the corners and say, "Just so you know, I'm NOT one of them!" It was amusing, too, to see how many passers-by were genuinely delighted to be able to demonstrate that they recognized a guillotine. And then there were the people who had no idea, but felt compelled to yell at us anyway. My costume got some comments too, most notably the jerks walking a ways behind us who were yelling for the "pirate chick" to turn around, and then called me a choice name when I ignored them. Like I indicated before, it's all amusing until it becomes embarrassing for the entire human race.

Weekend!

Long weekends are the best. I wasn't needed at work Friday, so I 1) stayed out a little later than usual on Thursday, 2) slept until 8:30 and 3) didn't deal with vomit or rude men all day.

One of Evan's classmates held a nice, low-key get-together at her apartment--right across the street from us--that evening.  It was lovely; just a few adults eating snacks, drinking wine, talking like grown-ups, watching YouTube videos.... Four words: LeRoy Jenkins, Chuck Testa.

This morning, we had a tailgate for the WI-IU homecoming game at 9:00. Tailgating in the morning just  doesn't work out as well. There were burgers and brats, as usual, but also a table of baked goods and a Gatorade cooler full of screwdrivers. (The drink, that is, not the tool.) Those got me in trouble, but not for the expected reason. I had no issue with the vodka, but that much orange juice left me feeling utterly wretched. We left a little before 11:00 and went home to take a nap.

This afternoon, Evan spent entirely too long on the phone with Charter, trying to figure out why our internet was not working...again. They got everything straightened out (hence the blog post), and he has moved on to bottling his homebrew. I just cleaned and chopped 5 1/2 pounds of apples, which are now in the process of turning into apple butter.

Excuse me while I smash that plate over your head.

So yes. The father-in-law.

He met me at the door when I arrived this morning with a brief "Good morning" and a "What is your name?" and that was the extent of our conversation for the day. It isn't due to any language barrier; my employeress assured me that he speaks fluent English, "because he's an ophthalmologist." For most of the day, he just pretended I wasn't there. Okay, fine with me.

Not that we didn't interact, after a fashion. I think there was definitely some communication going on when he rattled his dirty dishes at me from his position in front of the TV, waiting for me to take them to the kitchen. His eyes never wavered from the screen. Plate. Bowl. Spoon. Rattle-rattle. This happened three times over the course of the late morning.  On the positive side, the Granny seemed determined to be extra-friendly, as if to make up for her son's treatment. My employeress told me this morning that her grandmother's only complaint about me over the last month is that I simply do not eat enough. I knew she was trying to fatten me up.

On another subject, we had our first "Sig O's" bookclub meeting tonight and it seemed to go pretty well. We read and discussed "A Visit from the Good Squad" by Jennifer Egan. The conversation was more thoughtful and less faux-intellectual than any bookclub I've ever heard of. My one complaint is that I fixed my mother's famous, nationally-known, award-winning buffalo chicken dip and no one ate any. Except me, of course. But then, the other goodies were...let's just say, not up to bunko levels. Wine, cheese, and veggies, nothing fattening, no beer, very little chocolate. That's gotta change.

Friday, Friday, etc.

Ahhhhh, the sweet smell of the weekend. No really. Something smelled really amazing on the way home tonight. Someone was grilling brats and someone was burning leaves (is that legal, here?) and the combination of those smells--along with the earthy smell of the leaves lining the sidewalks--was just heavenly.

Not much to report on the job front. Today was a fine day, despite the fact that I was overly tired and cranky when I got to the apartment this morning. That grumpiness evaporated when I found that my employeress had a canister of chocolate-covered almond butter toffees to which I was welcome to help myself.

Om nom nom nom nom.


The father-in-law arrives on Tuesday, and I'm not quite sure what to expect on that front. Updates will follow, I am sure. The good news is that it sounds like I have next Friday off AND I also have the Friday after that off so we can fit in a long weekend trip to Fort Wayne.

Today: A story.

Once upon a time...
We had a good weekend. Rumor has it there were parties and keg stands involved, but I wouldn't give that too much credence. Unless you've seen the video Evan sent my mom.

Things went swimmingly today. The morning hours flew by, the child ate, the child slept, we went to the park, and my employeress came back at a reasonable hour, despite her dire warning that "hours will be longer this week." Of course, she also came home 3 minutes after the bus I had hoped to catch was gone, giving me the choice to 1) wait an hour for the next bus or 2) do my walking thing and meet the bus as far away as I could get in an hour.

My job isn't that bad, but given the chance to but some space between myself and them, I'm always going to choose that option.

Anyway, I walked four miles, rode the bus for about 1 mile, and got back off to meet my husband at Grainger (the business school building).  We did some shopping and headed home. The end.

Epilogue: I found out this morning that my employeress's father-in-law--son of Granny--is going to be coming from India next week to spend "5 days." I put "5 days" in scare-quotes because I'm scared. They told me that Granny was originally intending to stay a month, but she has now been there 5. If they say the father is staying 5 days, what does that actually translate to? This would not trouble me so much were it not for the fact that it sounds as if he'll just be hanging around the apartment all day..... But who am I kidding? More stories!

Stay classy, UW-Madison

I'm sorry, but the University of Wisconsin is crazy. These are just some highlights of our trip across town on game day:


--A man with his (pink) pants legs rolled up, showing off his glowing white ankles and blush suede oxfords (worn without socks, of course). On top, he had on a *very* tight red WI t-shirt with the sleeves cut off.

--A pack of girls, all wearing red and white striped overalls with one strap undone, many of them with only a sports bra on underneath

--A man wearing leggings...under a pair of booty shorts with "SCONNIE" emblazoned across his rear end

"...the monkey chased the weasel...."

Another 7:00 AM day. It's getting easier to wake up, although no more enjoyable. As Evan astutely remarked last night, "Oh, you're one of those 'eight hours of sleep' people." I had to correct him. I'm one of those 10-11 hours of sleep people.

The early start meant lots of gorgeous morning hours, which Prita and I spent at the park. I used my handy-dandy smartphone (I still can't get over that thing) and found a city park with a playground about a mile away. We walked down and Prita spent the next two hours running, jumping, swinging, sliding, and staring at all the bigger kids. I was happy to let her go as long as she wanted because, of course, lots of exercise means a better nap, right? Or no nap, if you're dealing with this kid. She managed 10 minutes of sleep in the stroller as we walked home. That was it. She was good to go for the rest of the day. Not that I didn't try to get her to nap again. We spent 45 minutes in the rocking chair, singing. If sound stopped coming from my mouth, she would cry. I cannot count the number of times I sang "Pop Goes the Weasel" to the wee beastie.

For all that, it was a pretty good day, and the mother came home over an hour early, so I get to spend the entirety of the evening with my husband.

Gone Walkabout

Firstly, we had an excellent weekend in Fort Wayne. Buca was delicious. The Johnny Appleseed Festival was awesome, as always. Church at Redeemer was church at Redeemer, and therefore difficult to beat, this side of Heaven. Even if Pr. Petersen was AWOL. I got hugs from some of my very favorite people (besides my family, I would have to count Jacqui, Lori, Nancy, and the Reunings in that extremely exclusive group).

Our drive home was uneventful and we made pretty good time, despite missing an exit and ending up driving along Hwy 14 through Palatine and Barrington. I only cried sporadically...the whole way home.

It rained all night and into the morning hours, but it stopped just in time for me to make my walk to the bus stop. The rest of the day only got more beautiful by the hour. When I got to work, I discovered that Prita spent the weekend sick with whatever nasty cold I had last week. She seemed to be on the mend, though, with no runny nose and very little congestion. She and I took a long walk late in the morning, just after the sun finally broke through the clouds. I'm seriously considering writing to Google to request that their maps have some way to indicate on which routes you will be forced to push a stroller uphill. I was so warm by the time we got back to the apartment (despite it only being in the 60s, at that point), that Granny was a little alarmed and made me drink some water. She really is a nice old lady.

On toward Prita's 2:00 naptime, I was trying to wear her out by having her ride her tricycle up and down the apartment hallways. As we were heading back toward their unit, Prita started crying out for her mom and, when I turned around, there she was. She hadn't been feeling well all day and finally decided to give up and come home. I felt bad for her, facing the prospect of putting her daughter down for a nap AND stressing out over missing work AND nursing a headache and a cold. But anyway, I got to leave 4 hours early.

Practically skipping with glee, I got outside and pulled out my phone to determine what time the bus would be coming by. Turns out, the buses run much less frequently during the day and the next one was not scheduled to be along for another hour and ten minutes. Rather than go sit somewhere and wait an hour, I started walking along the bus route, keeping track of the stops and planning to stop just in time for the bus to catch up with me further down the line. Originally, I figured I'd just walk a few streets down, until I found a stop with a likely looking bench where I could sit and read. No. Instead, I ended up walking over half the length of the route between work and our apartment. When I got home, I figured I had walked just a touch under four miles. But it was a perfectly beautiful day, and I was full of energy and wearing really comfy shoes, so I didn't even notice.

Evan and I made good use of our unexpectedly free afternoon. We headed over to the DMV (which was, incidentally, on the route I took home) and Evan got his license renewed, while I replaced my IN license with a WI license. That felt oddly final and I'm afraid I pouted a little when I figured out that they weren't going to let me have my old license back. After the DMV, we did our second ever Big Grocery Trip, this time checking out Woodmans. Which was huge and overwhelming and delightfully cheap.

On Vacation

Evan and I are spending the weekend in Fort Wayne, so don't expect much from me for the next few days.

We have all sorts of plans. Tonight, we're having dinner at Buca di Beppo in Indianapolis with my Caston aunt, uncle, and cousins, and also with Grandfather Dear. My Grandmother Dear is ditching us to go hang out with her church ladies. The ostensible reason for the party is that my birthday was earlier this month, Evan's birthday is later this month, and Jonathan never got his birthday party back in April. Really, it's just an excuse for us to visit the family and eat way too much pasta. I'm okay with that.

Just a brief update on the nanny front: yesterday was good, even though it started off with me crying in front of my employer. I was overly tired and had a racking cough and no voice and the combination of the three just suddenly overwhelmed me. I tried to make sure that she knew that I was not crying because I hate my job. And I was not crying because I can't communicate effectively with either Granny or Prita, despite the fact that the tears started rolling just as I started talking about that. She was understandably freaked out, and I got a call later from her husband, making sure everything was okay and that I am really comfortable with the position. The answer, of course, was "Yes. It's only been three days. Any problems we have now will only improve with a little time. Stop worrying. There's nothing wrong here..." etc.

Otherwise, the day was good. We spent a total of 5 hours outside, walking. We walked to the Social Security office so that I could drop off the paperwork to get my name changed with the government. Later, we took a route that just happened to lead right through the nearest Starbucks. Talk about fortuitous. Incidentally, I finally discovered just why Granny wants us to get out of the apartment so often: she uses the time to watch her Indian soap operas. Really. Watch the full 5 minutes, I dare you. The full episode I got to see yesterday was even better.

"Walk walk walk walk walk"

Today started off much worse than yesterday, and by "much worse" I mean a whole half-hour earlier. That's right, ladies and gents, I woke up at 5:45 AM and was out of the house by 6:15. At that hour, life is not worth living. In fact, I'm pretty sure I wasn't alive, but rather undead.

Anyway, my zombified form made it to the bus stop on time. The ride went quickly and there were no hiccups or wrong turns. I was even the last one on the bus for the final 4 stops before my destination....Which must be why the driver decided to stop for coffee, 1 mile from my stop and 5 minutes before I was supposed to be there. The look on my face when he said he was stopping to grab some coffee must have been something to see, because he immediately changed his mind and got back behind the wheel, and I made it to work on time.

Granny* offered me breakfast, which in this case involved curried green beans, mystery orange curry, rice, and chapatis. It was all delicious, but my poor, cossetted stomach was not prepared for that onslaught at 7:00 AM. Note to self: buy granola bars. We had essentially the same meal for lunch, minus the chapatis and plus a boatload of homemade yogurt. At one point in the not-so-distant past, I deluded myself into thinking I would be happy eating Indian food all the time. I was so naive.

Prita and I were kicked out of the apartment around 9:00 and told--very forcefully--to "walk walk walk walk walk!" We walk-walk-walked for almost an hour, coming back just in time for the power to go out as we walked up to the apartment. Granny was trying to get lunch started and could not figure out why the rice-cooker wasn't working. Try explaining "power outage" without any common words. After I went around pointing to all the non-functioning appliances saying "power: off" and making a chopping motion with my hand, she caught on. The outage only lasted about 20 minutes, though, and the day got back on track.

After Prita's lunch, we were kicked out of the apartment again with another vigorous "walk walk walk walk walk!" Prita was asleep within minutes, but I couldn't make myself turn around and go back to the apartment. I made a tour of the neighborhood, wishing I had brought my book along on the journey. Finally, after 45 minutes of fairly aimless wandering, I gave up and went back, hoping to get some reading in while Prita finished her nap. She woke up as soon as we walked in the front door. Back upstairs, I laid down with her and she was nearly asleep again when Granny walked in, yelling for me to come eat lunch. At that point, Prita gave up on sleep for the remainder of the day and became her usual, hellion-like self.

Other highlights include peeling a basket-full of onions, being chastised (I think) for letting Prita watch me play Angry Birds to get her to sit still for 5 minutes, and seeing a dead body carried out of another apartment while out walking. Good times, all.

Overall, despite some mishaps, it was a much better day than yesterday. Tomorrow should be better yet: it's the last day I work this week AND I don't have to be there until 8:00.

*I should note that in referring to the grandmother as "Granny" I'm not being disrespectful or flippant. (That's reserved for the actual content of my comments.) Rather "Granny" is how the family refers to her, when speaking English. I haven't the foggiest notion what else to call her. Although, she knows to call me "Brittany." Amazing.

First Day

Ha. Haha. Hahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahaha....

Sorry. Crazed laughter over.

So, I started my new job this morning. I am nannying 40ish hours a week, taking care of a two-year old girl, only child of a young Indian couple. Those 40 hours began at 7:30 this morning. (Rather, they were supposed to. More on that in a moment.)

My wonderful husband got up early to walk me to the bus stop. It was a lovely morning, if a little cool, and he made that walk much more enjoyable. I got on my #14 bus and was on my way. Until the driver missed a turn, drove a couple miles out of the way, circled back around to get back on her route, and made me twenty minutes late for my first day of work.

Thank goodness the people for whom I'm working are very understanding and flexible. I called them and they told me not to worry about anything and just get there ASAP. When I got to the apartment, the husband was at work and the wife was ready to walk out the door, leaving me alone with their daughter and their eighty-year-old grandmother. Did I not mention her before? She lives with them. And she speaks no English.

The little girl--I'll just call her "Prita"--is a squirrel. She doesn't sit down to eat; she runs back and forth and you have to reach out at just the right time to get the food into her mouth. At least today, the grandmother did most of this. She would cajole her for 5-10 minutes (at least, I'm assuming it was cajoling...it sounded like it, but I really have no idea what she was saying) and finally Prita would back up against the far wall, lower her head like a bull, and charge. About the time she pulled even with the grandmother, she (the granny) would force a handful of food into her (Prita's) mouth.

Prita spent much of the day reciting her ABCs to me, or having me write them out one at a time on her Magnadoodle. Prita doesn't actually converse in English--she talks mainly in whatever Indian language the family uses--but she knows a number of English words that she can shout out. She especially likes cats and I cannot number the times she yelled, "C is for KITTY!!!!!"

Prita is on a set schedule of meals and naps, although her mother was out the door before I could ask what time the nap was set for. It took granny and I several tries at gesturing and trying to find mutually-comprehensible words before I could find out from her that Prita goes to bed at 2:00. Well, come 1:00, granny scooped her up, beckoned for me to follow, and carried Prita off to her (granny's) room. She set Prita in the middle of the bed, laid down on one side, and gestured for me to lay down on the other. Uh...come again? I have no problem cuddling with a child who needs to be coaxed into sleep, but cuddling with a child and an 80 year-old woman who I've never met before and with whom I can't really communicate? Weird. I tried it anyway, but Prita was having none of this napping business. We gave up and let her run around for awhile. Several tries at putting her to bed were unsuccessful, so I let granny know that I was going to take Prita out for a walk in the stroller, to see if that would get her to sleep. Don't ask how I got that across, but I did somehow. Granny was also able to tell me to make sure Prita was wearing shoes and to keep the sun out of her face. Bethany and Granny: 1, Language-Gap: 0. That walk was the best part of the day. That that's despite my congested state which made the entire endeavor completely exhausting.

Anyway, Prita never did get a nap, but she did get increasingly moody and clumsy with every passing minute. By the time her mother got home around 6:00, she was mood-swinging like a manic-depressive and running into walls, but she would NOT sleep.

There are so many more quirks in this job, most of them will just have to wait.

No more isolation.

Not only do we now have reliable internet at the apartment, I have a super-fancy smartphone.

Ooooooh! Aaaaaah!

This is one of those things that I never really wanted but am now going to be completely addicted to and reliant on. Thanks, Evan. :o) It's amazing. My complete address book, email, Facebook, music: all with me all the time. Oh yeah, and it makes calls, too.


We were at the park this evening with a group of Evan's fellow MBA students and, while they played "networking games" I did not let myself check Facebook. Not even once.

On the Hunt

I finally sat down and got serious about looking for a job today.

Wait...just....give me a minute....

SNIFFLE

Okay. I'm fine, really. It wasn't that bad. I put in an application at Starbucks, both my home office on the Capitol Square and two others in town. I also looked up all the banks within walking distance and applied to the two that were hiring tellers. I took a deep breath and an antacid and checked the city and county websites for jobs, since that would be the place to find something library-related. No luck there, but that's really okay. As much as I loved my library job, I'd really rather not work directly for the government again. It always made me feel a touch squeamish. While I was holding my nose (or was it my breath? I don't know...holding something and feeling ill, anyway), I also checked one of the job sites with paralegal job listings. Then I came to my senses and realized that I would rather work at Sears--now hiring 7 salespersons--than go back into the law office environment.

I also checked out Craigslist, for the first time ever, and was immediately sidetracked by the weirdness. "YOU CAN BE A SURROGATE MOTHER. $30,000+!!!!!!!" "Make $3,000 a day from home. Not a scam." "Apprentice seeking Jedi Master." All good options, I'm sure.

The search continues tomorrow. And every day until I am successfully bound in wage slavery.

A View from Starbucks

We don't have reliable internet access at our apartment, right now. Madison has city-wide wireless, but it functions about as well as you'd expect. As Patrick said, "In Soviet Russia, you take what you're given." Being disconnected from the world at large is not an option, so I've been spending a couple hours every morning at the Starbucks on Capitol Square. Safely ensconced behind my laptop, drink in hand, I can watch and laugh at my fellow city-dwellers.

Someone just pulled a fire alarm inside the capitol building, so the square is flooded with people in suits, enjoying some time out in the sun. (There couldn't possibly be anything suspicious about a false alarm, pulled just before lunch time, right?) The fire trucks are gone and it looks like they've given the all-clear, but very few people have gone back in, yet.

There's a homeless lady who just came in and ordered a Venti latte in two cups, and the jerk on a bike who keeps riding through her pile of belongings. Sometimes I feel like such a sheltered, small-town girl. Despite having lived in a good-sized city, I am constantly shocked when I see the numbers of homeless people around here. Were they just better at hiding in Fort Wayne, or are there just that many of them here? I'm inclined to believe my hometown to be superior in all ways, so I'm going to say that this liberal Utopia of Madison is just a deeper hole.

A guy has been sitting two tables down from me since I came in. He's on his third iced coffee in an hour and looks wired enough to right every wrong complained about on the bumper stickers covering his laptop. He'd probably get along well with the father and toddler son duo riding around the square, their bikes bedecked with "TAX THE RICH!!!" flags.

In the same vein, there is a group across the square on a long-term hunger-strike. Their placards don't tell us what the strike is about, just that they're angry and hungry. Speaking of which, the Italian beef and Chicago dog cart just outside Starbucks has been taunting me for 3 days. I have food at home, I have food at home....

Busy-looking career women are everywhere, in their serious slacks and cardigans. Mostly I just make fun of them because I want so desperately not to be one of them. I'm perfectly content to sit here in my jeans and Cap'n Curt's t-shirt, looking forward (LOOKING FORWARD!) to vacuuming my apartment and doing more laundry when I get home.