So, why have we lived
as though we’re in the process of moving for over
three years? Well, we are moving in a way -- towards
an exquisite, practical and perfect kitchen. These things
take time to plan you see. In Susan’s case, this
could take a lifetime. But fortunately there’s
a deadline to put this project in high gear. High gear,
mind you, involves stacks of catalogs, graph paper,
wood samples, paint samples, countertop samples, all
of which have no prayer of fitting on the dishwasher
box. They have their own extended range over where the
range might be, or the trash/recycling area will be,
or who knows? All in due time. But, that is the new
impetus for this kitchen to ever be actualized. A due
date. Yippee –- we’re having a second baby!
We middle-aged duffers intend to squeak another one
by Mother Nature.
We both emphatically
insist that the kitchen must be finished well before
we try to feed another mouth in this makeshift kitchen
with only dorm-room cooking appliances. Thank god! Not
just for the baby, but for the potential liberation
of the dishwasher. It’s hard for me to believe
that I’m saying that. I’ve never needed or
wanted a dishwasher. For my decades of bachelorhood,
I managed fine without one. The rest of my living spaces
might have been a total disaster, but the sink area
was always tidy. I hate dirty dishes. So, I never had
any. My method? No, not paper plates. I even recycle
envelopes, for earth’s sake. I simply use one plate,
one mug, one knife, fork and spoon. When I’m done
with anything, I wash it. What could be simpler?
I tried to impress Susan
with the efficient beauty of this system. You never
have to face a backlog of dirty dishes! Well, they say
opposites attract. Susan doesn’t want to bother
cleaning something after every time she uses it. And
she needs to start fresh with anything that’s going
to be used for eating. So what does this mean? It means
that when I unpacked our kitchen boxes, I shrewdly took
out only a handful of the bowls and small plates knowing
my wife’s habits. I made the mistake however, of
taking out the entire silverware tray. As a result,
wouldn’t you know that every utensil will be used
and piled up dirty before there’s any need to do
the dishes. There were only three of us, including me
still trying to use the one utensil method, and there
would be a counter full of dishes every night. It drives
me nuts. I’ve coped very happily with this kitchenette
of ours but now I’ve been looking forward to this
dishwasher’s unveiling more than any other part
of this kitchen project. In fact, I have my own ideas
of what a perfect kitchen would have.
Typically, you take a
utensil out of the drawer, use it, load it into the
dishwasher, wait till it’s full, wash it, unload
it back into the drawer, and start the process all over
again. You need separate storage when it’s not
in use and you handle each utensil several times. The
perfect solution from someone who never even wanted
a dishwasher? Get two! Think about it. You take clean
dishes out of one washer, use them, and put them in
the other until that’s full and washed, then reverse
the process. The idea makes me swoon. You think the
idea has a prayer of making it into the plans for the
ideal kitchen? About as much as having a commercial
juicer, steam power-washing and a drain in the floor.
Well, maybe some lifetime I’ll get to design my
own dream kitchen. In the meantime, as I said, there’s
another bundle of joy and dirty diapers to prepare for.
Unbeknownst to
me, Susan‘s welcoming preparations for another
dream child had begun long ago with the creation
of a tune. Inspired by the birdcalls on a mountain
hike, she began to whistle back to them and over
the course of a few daily hikes had a melody to
welcome a new baby. On the day the tune was completed,
she collected four spruce cones representing her
intent to add a fourth member to our family. Our
intent was mutual, but we were surprised at how
soon the pregnancy was confirmed. Delighted too,
of course, except for my typically male response
of feeling abruptly deprived of that rare pleasure
of concertedly trying to make a baby. Anyway,
it was then that I learned of Susan’s tune
and collection. How wonderful to discover such
charms in my mate. After that, the spruce cones
came to sit on the kitchen windowsill as a reminder
of the dishwasher, I mean child, to come.
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Fast-forward eight months
to the imminent birth of #2. Our daughter, Jillian,
was early. All of Susan’s mother’s deliveries
were early. We anticipated the same promptness this
time around and were frighteningly unready with our
living space in such disarray. Jillian’s birth
inspired lots of songs for me; a whole show in fact
–- “A Dad’s Eye View.” This baby
prompted several new prenatal ditties, the first one
reflecting our unpreparedness. It’s a variation
of a Cat Steven’s song:
It’s not time to make a change, just relax
take it slowly
There’s no rush, there’s still time, there’s
so much you have to go through
Find a groove, settle down, if you want -- change
positions
You are young, we are old but we’re happy…
About not coming too soon, we were serious.
When all three of our
different due dates passed, along with everyone’s
guess for the birth date, we were surprised, relieved
and then anxious. I had blocked two weeks on either
side of the earliest due date to not take any long-distance
gigs. One that was originally booked for May 10 however
was changed to May 31. Although it was as local as could
be at the Wareham Library, less than a mile from the
hospital, it wasn’t one that I could gracefully
pass on to a colleague if need and baby arose. The show
was a rehearsed collaboration to be performed with 18
young violinists in recital. If I had to bail, there
was no chance of postponing this grant-funded project.
The first long-distance
gig I had on the books was in central Maine on June
3 for a group of teen parents. Since I was specifically
hired for my “Dad” show, again, it wasn’t
a booking I could pass on to someone else. The money
from that show was also urgently needed to pay for other
overdue things -- bills.
Hence, Susan and I were
nervous about what would happen if the baby didn’t
come before the end of May. Another prenatal song that
Jillian and I had been singing to Susan’s belly
needed some new annotation. To the tune of “Barges”:
Baby, we will soon be meeting you
We will look into your eyes of blue (Susan and I both
have blue eyes)
Baby, you're a treasure we will hold
We will love you till we're very old (not that long
away for us old fart parents)
While we are waiting we will sing this song
You won't be in there very long (that's what we thought
a few weeks ago anyhow)
Out of this belly you'll be squeezing through
We will all be here to welcome you (I don’t want
to miss this birth for anything –
I’ll cancel if I have to)
The Cat Steven’s parody needed tweaking now too:
It’s about time to make a change, shake a leg,
let’s get moving…
A friend from my Therapeutic
Storytelling class was very empathetic to our condition
having had a baby head into a third week of overtime.
She confided to me what the solution she and her husband
came up with. They Noriega’ed him out. She had
to remind me that when the Panamanian dictator holed
himself up in his compound, the American military launched
a non-stop barrage of blaring music, alleged to include
the Barney theme song. Apparently Manuel opted for incarceration
versus insanity and surrendered without bloodshed. So
what was my friend’s inducement method? Hard rock
music blasting through headphones placed on the overripe
belly. Gee, it sounds like potential fetal abuse to
me, but apparently it worked as the baby decided to
quickly escape the assault with only the typical amount
of blood shed. To this day, the child displays an abhorrence
of Warren Zevon.
I relayed the story to
Susan on the morning of May 31 before I left for the
violin/story performance. We had a good laugh as we
brainstormed ideas of what music we might choose, knowing
that we would never actually resort to the method which
I redubbed – “Nori-egging” ‘em out.
Susan, Jillian and our little procrastinator came to
the 11:00 a.m. concert.
The meeting room of the
library had very live acoustics. Do you realize how
loud and piercing 18 violins can sound in a relatively
small room? On the parts where I had to speak over the
ensemble, I had to really crank up my wireless sound
system to be heard over the din. Perhaps our little
one was worried about his parents laughing earlier about
the “blast ‘em out” scheme and feared
that this was the start of the ambush. Many of those
fiddlers were under ten years old, and you know the
potential for the fingernails-on-the-blackboard effect.
In all fairness, the consort was very good, and they
did justice to a number of very snappy dance tunes.
Well, guess what?
Soon after, Susan notices the contractions taking
on a new rhythm and getting fiercer by the hour.
And 1/2 hour before June, ta-dum! –- Avery
Elazar Gillman made his vocal debut. Now it is
anyone’s guess whether he was trying to say
– “No more scratchy fiddles PLEASE!”
or “Hey, I want to DANCE!”
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The
performance was videoed for the local cable TV station
so a recording of the concert exists. Maybe I’ll
play back some of the songs at later times in his life
and try to judge his reaction. Feel free to ask me,
say five, ten years from now.
Given the fact that Avery
was late, what was remarkable about his arrival was
that it was during the one 12-hour window when I wouldn’t
have had to cancel a gig or leave Susan before we settled
back home two days later. What gracious timing. Well,
he doesn’t take after his parents.
Remember
that kitchen that HAD to be finished before the
baby? Given all of life’s curves, design
changes, and inevitable contracting delays, guess
when the installation begins? Right on the heels
of Avery’s heel prick. We are going to have
to move out of our kitchen/living space and consolidate
into the other part of the house. We’ll create
a temporary kitchen off of the bathroom for however
many weeks it will take. We’ll borrow a mini-fridge,
and continue to use our trusty toaster oven and
our untrusty hot plate. (We’re on our fourth
one now – they seem to have a planned obsolescence
of about six months.) We’ll manage. Come
visit and see for yourself. What would we like
for presents? Nothing for the baby please. Just
bring food. And your own dinnerware. |
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Today,
nearly five months after Avery’s birth, we actually
have a full working kitchen. Here’s what happened
this morning… A truck pulled up to our house. Jillian
announced, “The inspector is here.”
Susan corrected her and said it was not the inspector.
“Oh, then it’s Cape & Island Kitchens.”
“No.”
“Oh, then it’s Mike, the Electrician.”
Our three-year old daughter
knows all of the workmen who have been traipsing through
our kitchen over the past year. It in fact was Tom,
the plumber, coming to finish the gas hook-up for our
cooktop, after Mike the electrician went through hoops
to wire the ventilation hood now that Cape & Island
Kitchens has removed the one piece of wood trim that
prohibited the inspector from passing us. It’s
been a long, slow road but tonight Susan cooked her
first meal on our top-of-the-line Wolf cooktop. She’s
gotten so accustomed to cooking on one slow electric
burner that she was out of her element when given the
luxury of four high-speed burners. Whereas in the past,
she rarely burned things or had anything boil over,
in a short few minutes, she managed to boil over things
on no fewer than three burners. Suddenly that $10 hot
plate didn’t look so bad after all. Gratefully,
this last one actually lasted more than the previous
three’s norm of 6 month’s planned obsolescence.
Perhaps we should frame it and put in on the wall as
a reminder of our three years of dormitory-style cooking. |
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before… |
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after…
(click for a larger view) |
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