December 4, 2014 We moved a lot when I was a kid. We followed my Dad’s career as a Pediatrician from Baltimore to the Bronx to New Haven to Chappaqua (twice), then to Garret Park and then Silver Spring (Not Silver Springs), MD. Our final move as a family was to Saul Road in Kensington, MD. It’s where I think of when people ask me where I’m from. It was a medium sized, three bedroom, one and a half bath brick colonial with a sunporch on one side, avocado appliances in the kitchen and light green shag in the living room. My mother moved us there after my father died in 1975. She did a lot of upgrading and remodeling, finishing the basement, adding a monstrous hot tub in the back yard and turning the attic into a dream room for a boy. She had the eaves raised in the back, making me a huge, private space to spread out my beer can collection, Rolling Stone cut-out collage, Farrah Fawcett posters and enormous mountain of teen-aged angst. She even let me choose my own color scheme which, in retrospect, might not have been the wisest idea. I chose Gulden’s mustard-colored walls and gold, cream and black shag carpet that looked like a Tabby cat had eaten a hamster and then spontaneously exploded. Given my aversion to cleanliness it probably smelled like that too. I moved in and out of Saul Road several times over the next fifteen or so years. A summer job after high school, then off to college. Back after college and then out to live with roommates. A huge break-up with a girlfriend and back home again. Mom finally sold the house in 1992 or ’93 to down-size to Leisure World in Olney, probably so I couldn’t keep moving back in. She gave us what we wanted, had a big estate sale for the rest and moved out. Just after the movers finished packing I went in for one last walk-through. It was awful. The empty house seemed sad and grim. The carpet brighter and less worn where my favorite napping couch had been in the living room. Marks from my dad’s old, green, leather chair along the walls. Chipped windows devoid of curtains, bare and stark and cold. Balls of packing tape, crumpled packing paper and dust here and there through the bedrooms. It wasn’t home anymore. I got out of there fast. Last Saturday Mandie had girls night out. She came home later than usual after a wild night of nachos and three glasses of wine. Maybe four. I put the kids to bed in an orderly fashion around 9:00 and at last check they were sleeping soundly. Mandie checked on them and discovered my daughter was very warm. She had a temp of about 100 and was a little wheezy. Over the next few hours she got much wheezier and developed a cough that sounded like a seal with a twenty year, pack a day Marlboro habit. Croup is a frightening thing. We steamed her out in the bathroom and brought her into bed with us to keep an eye on her. Anyone that’s ever slept in bed with a six year old knows that they defy the laws of physics and space. In the best of circumstances you don’t really sleep so much as take short rests with your eyes closed between heads to the ribs and kicks to the face. Adding croup doesn’t help. Mandie managed to sleep while I stayed up making sure that Perin the boxing phlegm tornado was OK. Mandie got up around five to stand watch and I got a few hours of sleep. We zombied our way through Sunday while Perin seemed to make a good recovery. The kids had had a half day on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and we were hoping that, after almost five days of giving-thanks togetherness, that school might offer the possibility of a reprieve. Croup is a nighttime thing. We had a repeat of Saturday night and Perin was, if anything, worse on Sunday night. Monday we took Perin’s healthy and happy brother to school while she stayed home and watched a Sofia the First marathon. It’s about a village girl whose mom marries the King and she becomes a princess. Overnight. She gets a magic amulet that allows her to talk to animals. Tim Gunn is the gay butler. Hi-jinx and hilarity ensue. Lessons are learned. I worked in the dining room and spent most of the day nodding off and inadvertently sending out emails with my face as I fought sleep deprivation. I took Perin to the Doctor where she got steroids for her croup. They cleared it up quickly and now we’re just hoping her head doesn’t grow to an unusual size (like her brother) and it’s not random drug-testing week at gymnastics. On Tuesday I force-marched her to school (with clearance from the Doctor) and she lasted all the way till 10:30 when she had to be picked up from the nurse. She came home. Sofia met a mean princess that stole her amulet and a friendly dragon that helped her get it back. Perin’s mother came home and I went to work to try to get a little sleep at my desk. Wednesday we got back to normal. Everyone went to school and work on their regular schedule. I spent the day working with my team for one of the last times before I start my new job. I was concerned about my daughter until dinner time. She and her brother were hitting eleven on the obnoxiousness meter while eating mac and cheese in the kitchen and Zekey squealed. I was in the next room and yelled, as every parent has: “I thought I told you two to knock it off, what’s going on in there?” “Perin’s trying to touch my nose with a knife!” “Perin, stop trying to cut your brother and eat your dinner or no dessert.” So she’s OK. On Thursday I spent the day with my boss and his boss interviewing people for my job, which was weirder than my daughter trying to cut my son’s nose with a knife while they ate mac and cheese in my kitchen. It was the type of out-of-body experience that everyone should have at least once. “So Patrick, tell me how I screwed up my job, how you’d address the incompetence I have foisted and fostered on my team and the ways you’d make them better than I ever could.” It was actually fun. Three of the candidates that interviewed were people I had hired onto my team, been promoted and were now coming back with a chance to run their old team. One of them will. Watching people I have hired and coached succeed is the most rewarding part of my job. This afternoon I came home at the end of our crazier than usual week in Watertown. My wife had a friend over and the two of them, her friend’s two kids and my two were spread out over the couch and floor amid a chaos of iPads, bean bag chairs, pillows, art sets, Legos and the smell of small, active children. I changed clothes and we bundled everyone up in coats and hats and mittens and walked down to Watertown Square to watch the lighting of the town tree and to meet Santa Claus. He arrived promptly at 5:15 in a Watertown Fire Department vehicle which parked, with lights flashing, on Main Street in one of the busiest intersections in the Metro area on a Friday during rush hour. I was not driving so was unaffected and amused. We got there a little early and my daughter complained that she didn’t know anyone. Fifteen minutes later the crowd had grown, the tree was lit and she and her brother and ten of their friends were running around the town square, tackling each other, trampling the gardens and making it feel a lot like Christmas. We had a big group back to our house for pizza and beer and more kids swarming and playing and running up our toilet paper consumption. It was a good day at the end of a challenging, but interesting week. It ended in the right place, in our house, which, while mostly a disaster of toys, coats, hats, mittens, crayons, half-finished juice boxes, cats and sticky floors, is home. Like Saul Road, but with better carpeting. Happy Friday.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 05:50:01 +0000
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