My Painting House

When I was hoping to have children, one thing I looked forward to was imaginary friends. I can't remember ever having an imaginary friend of my own, but I thought it would be fun to observe my children having them. Sadly, Baby A and Baby B have shown no sign of having any make-believe buddies. However, they do have imaginary houses. These houses are known as painting houses.

When Baby B first started talking about his painting house, I thought he meant a house he had painted. And actually I think in the beginning maybe he did. Maybe he'd drawn a picture of a house at daycare, or on his Doodler (sort of like an etch-a-sketch) at home. I think it's significant that he started talking about this imaginary house around the time we were moving from one house to another. Baby A listened jealously and then declared that he too had a painting house. It's been a couple of months now, and the tales of the painting houses continue.

The painting houses are like our house, only better. "I have a toddler bed at my painting house," Baby B will tell me. "But it's blue."

"I have a GREEN toddler bed at my painting house," Baby A will say, not to be left out.

The painting houses also contain all the videos that the boos would like to own. "I have a video about Dora at my painting house," Baby B told me the other day.

"Oh, do you?" I said. I try not to argue with them about their painting houses, or ask too many questions, but it's hard. Once when Baby B was talking about sleeping over at his painting house, I asked whether he would sleep there all alone.

"No," he said calmly. "With my grandmother."

This seemed very sweet and sad, since boos do not have any grandmothers.

"I stay with my grandmother too," said Baby A.

"There's one for each of you," I agreed. One ghost grandmother apiece.

Sometimes I say I have a painting house too, but the boos think that's pretty ridiculous. It sounds nice to have a painting house, with everything you ever wanted inside. "At my painting house I have a cook and a housekeeper and eleven desert tortoises," I say.

"Huh," says Baby A, unimpressed.

Sometimes boos seem to get mixed up and think the painting houses are real. This week they were asking me to take them to their painting houses. "I don't know where they are," I said.

"Yes, you do," said Baby B, annoyed. Apparently I am in charge of everything, including their imaginations. Later, he mentioned that he lives at his painting house with his mom and dad.

"Oh," I said, "you mean your other mom and dad?"

"No," he said, as if I were an imbecile. "I only have ONE mom and dad."

"But I don't live at your painting house," I said. "I live here, at my house. It must be some other mom and dad at your painting house."

A look of terror and confusion crossed his face. Immediately I wished I hadn't introduced reality into the discussion. I'm being a bad mom, one who doesn't support her children's fantasy worlds. "Don't worry about it," I said. "I'm wherever you want me to be."

The conversation moved on to other topics, such as who got to hold whatever toy both of them wanted to hold at the exact same moment.

The next day we were making muffins. "I have a video about muffins at my painting house," said Baby B.

"That's nice," I said, and meant it.

Who do you love?

Having my sisters visit -- and then leave -- has reminded me once again of the puzzling contradiction that has been in my life since 1988, when I left northern California to go to graduate school in Michigan. I don't live close to the people I love the most.

OK, you're right, I live with my husband and children, and I love all three of them very much. But they aren't the only people I love. My former top favorite person in the entire world was my mother. She's gone now, but my two sisters are awfully high on the list. I dote on my little boys, but they're so difficult, so much work. Rocket Boy and I get along OK, but not as well as we did pre-twins. And after all, I've only known him for 12 years. Compare that to 51 years for one sister and 49 for the other.

Yet, since I don't live in the Bay Area, where my sisters live, I don't see either of them very often or for very long. When I was younger, I would stay with my mother for weeks at a time. Can't do that anymore, now that I'm a family of four. Most of the time I have to rent hotel rooms. I have to keep my husband and children entertained. I have to pay for a pet-sitter for Pie Bear.

The first summer we were in Ridgecrest, I did take the twins to the Bay Area for a month -- rented a condo and saw one or both of my sisters every day. But that was very expensive and rather a drain on everyone involved. The twins are no longer adorable babies, they're rowdy little boys, and I wouldn't inflict them on anyone for a month, even if I could afford to.

Fortunately there's email, and the phone.

When my sisters come to visit, or I visit them, I'm shocked by how little time we get to spend together. The twins demand so much of everyone's attention. When my sisters and I took the twins to the park on Saturday, Nancy and I couldn't even talk for five minutes without Baby A biting Baby B and causing a total meltdown.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives (Annie Dillard).

The people I spend my days with now are Rocket Boy and the twins -- especially the twins. I love you, I say to them, as we read stories or dig in the dirt. I know that for now, I'm probably the most important person in their lives.

Defining the middle of nowhere, or train cakes are HARD

The birthday weekend is drawing to a close -- the twins are now officially four years old -- and I am a wreck. Too much sugar, too much food in general, too much fretting, too much fun. We did have fun. Aunt Baba (Barbara) and Aunt Nonnie (Nancy) drove down from the Bay Area, arriving on Friday afternoon just in time to walk to daycare with me to pick up the twins. Boos were so amazed and delighted to see their aunts that they just lost it: covered their faces with their jackets, ran around in circles, refused to leave their daycare room and come home with us. They really love their aunts.

We went to John's Pizza for their birthday dinner, and for a change we ordered off the menu, just getting the buffet for the boos, who never eat anything anyway. The buffet is so awful, it was very special not to have to eat it, even though the wrap that I had instead was just average. We spent most of our time in the games room, spending $5 worth of tokens on skee-ball and the candy claw and the airplane you can ride on (if you're 4).

After the boos went to bed, we started putting together the train cake. That morning, the boos and I had baked two cake mixes (one chocolate, one lemon), in 6 loaf pans (two large, four small), and in the afternoon I had made a batch of buttercream frosting. Now came the moment (or rather the hours) of truth: assembly. I had some instructions and photos that I'd downloaded from the internet, and I'd even watched a Betty Crocker video. Unfortunately, I liked bits of one internet cake and bits of another and bits of still another, and I hadn't thought clearly about exactly how it would all work. Nor had I thought clearly about where I was going to PUT two train cakes. Nor had I made enough frosting. I had enough cake for each train to have several cars, but there really wasn't enough room on my largest cookie sheet for each train to have even two cars and a coal tender (though we squished them all on).

Fortunately, I had two willing helpers (my sisters). And I did not panic. I kept thinking: my only audience is two four-year-olds. They will not notice that the frosting has big gaps on it. They will not care that the engines are falling over. They will not care that it looks absolutely awful. And I was right, they didn't. Next morning, when they discovered the train cakes in the fridge, they were in awe.

When the aunts arrived on Saturday morning, we opened presents and then played with them. Nancy's stomp rocket launchers were great fun, and soon there were rockets in both front yard trees, as well as on the roof. Later we took a walk to the park, came home for lunch (mostly leftovers), and then it was time to go to Trona. What's a birthday weekend without a trip to Trona?

The trip to Trona was designed to accomplish two objectives: a nap for the twins and a viewing of the Trona Pinnacles for Nancy and Barbara. Baby A did take a nap (Baby B no), and we did see the Pinnacles. This was my third trip to the Pinnacles, and I guess I've gotten a bit blase about the bad road you have to drive on to get there, not to mention the otherworldliness of the whole scene.

Barbara and Nancy were horrified by the road, and I think mildly blown away by the whole experience. At one point, Barbara made some comment about this being the middle of nowhere. I said, "Oh come on, you can see Trona from here. It's not the middle of nowhere if you can see a town!" To which Barbara replied, "Trona is not a town." So then I came up with various reasons why Trona is too a town. But I can see how it's a debatable point. So OK, Baba, you're probably right: you were in the middle of nowhere.

Friday and Saturday were so busy, we just didn't have time to do the pinatas, so on Sunday morning, just before the aunts left, we finally did some whacking.

And now I must pack up ALL the leftover goodies -- and there are many many many of them -- and put them in Rocket Boy's car for him to take to work tomorrow morning. The twins don't even know most of them exist, so they won't miss them. Tomorrow we'll play with the stomp rocket launcher, make a puzzle, read a book, and have a nice morning together. In the afternoon I'll get a little peace and quiet. And on we go, into the beginning of their fifth year of life.

Living here now

Ridgecrest has been very Ridgecrestian the last few weeks -- in both good and bad ways.

The good: the night sky has been fabulous! Do you know that this month you can see, all at the same time, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter? I've done it a few times now, just standing on the sidewalk out in front of our house. Supposedly you can also see Saturn, but not until later at night, and so far I haven't remembered to do that, plus by then Mercury wouldn't be visible.

The sky isn't as wonderful at our new house -- now, why is that? It's a narrower street, houses closer together. The night sky is still piercingly black with piercingly white stars, but you can't see as much of it, which makes me sad. Still, all those planets can be seen. Mercury to the west, Mars to the east, Venus and Jupiter above Mercury and somewhat to the south. Just fabulous.

The bad: The city is in terrible financial shape right now, something to do with the loss of RDA money (and don't ask me what that is, I don't understand it). Some residents took out an ad in the paper encouraging people to give money to the city, so it can continue to operate.

I thought maybe I wouldn't do that. It's not that I don't want the city to operate, it's that I completely, 100 percent, do not trust the city to spend my money wisely. And I'm not the sort of person who doesn't trust the government. I trust the federal and state governments to at least try to do the right thing. I trust the city of Boulder. I don't trust the city of Ridgecrest.

There have been the usual issues with local businesses. A while back we were in Denny's and I ordered a dish that had red-skinned potatoes in it. Waitress came back and told me they were out of red-skinned potatoes, so could I order something else? Can you imagine a Denny's running out of potatoes? It was odd. Then a couple of weeks ago I went to a local shop to have three posters laminated. Went to pick them up a few hours later and was given a rolled up cylinder with a rubber band around it. Should have opened it there to look at it, but didn't. Got it home to find that the laminated posters were all on one roll. What did they think, that I was going to put them on one really long wall? Rocket Boy had to take them to work to cut them apart with a paper cutter (scissors too messy).

Our landlord's handyman has been doing some little fixes on the house -- he's very good, but when he says he'll come right back, he never does, and we can usually only get him back by calling him 3 or 4 times. He was here today (after 2 weeks of calling him to remind him to come back) and fixed something. While he was here, he mentioned that he's trying to hire someone to help him with little fix-it stuff like this, but he's having trouble because most people in Ridgecrest who are interested in doing that sort of work have lost their drivers licenses for one reason or another.

Can you imagine living in Ridgecrest and not having a drivers license? You'd be stuck here forever. The mind boggles.

I've been freecycling again, and that's always irritating, but nothing new there. I've started asking my more reliable donatees if they want things, rather than post them on the boards and end up with some weirdo who says he's "coming right over" and then never shows up. Grrr. Anyway, I got rid of a ton of clothes that the kids have outgrown, two huge bags worth, and my old boppy pillow, so now we have room in their closet for new toys...

Then there's the wind, which I guess everyone in the west and southwest is getting right now. Out here, wind means DUST blowing up everywhere. This morning, the kids and I were watching from the front door for a freecycler to arrive. Then I saw the wind pick up a wave of dust from our "yard" and blow it in our direction, and I closed the door quickly.

The ugly: Two nights ago we were burglarized -- that is, our cars were. We don't usually lock our cars when we leave them on the driveway or in front of the house. At our old house there really wasn't any need. It turns out that at the new house, there is a need. We're just down the road from a mobile home park, and I suppose that's the problem. Anyway, they got into both my car and Rocket Boy's, left the doors open (fortunately didn't drain the batteries), and opened all the compartments in the front seat, tossing stuff around. I can't see that they took anything from my car (nothing to take!), but Rocket Boy lost some CDs and more importantly the garage door opener. We have another one, so he had to reprogram the garage door and the other opener (and my car, which has a built-in opener) so that the burglar couldn't come back and break into the house via the garage door. Very annoying. And now we have to lock our car doors, in fact I should go do that now. I suppose next they'll break the car windows (to steal the rest of Rocket Boy's CDs, plus the other garage door opener). Might as well be in Los Angeles.