** I momentarily interrupt June to bring you July...while sitting CURSED at the Harrisburg Airport, waiting patiently to find out if our 3 hour delay will turn into a cancellation...and you thought I was kidding about the curse....**
The Poisoned Client
While my travel curse is known from coast to coast, continent to continent, my ‘poisoned client’ curse is only now picking up steam.
In my line of work, I do a good amount of travel and a fair amount of client entertaining. As we’re in the food business, we tend to skip the “Let me impress you with a McDonald’s Happy Meal dinner” and at least go to somewhat nice restaurants that likely have passed any recent health inspections.
Last year my client Cathy brought her new hire Kate to the photo shoot. Kate was 7 months pregnant, one month on the job, and in the process of transferring to Camden from Chicago. Needless to say, a nice dinner out to toast the success of our photo shoot was embraced by all, especially Kate. We decided nothing said, “Open your wallet, you’re on expenses” quite like Crofton on Wells. Crofton on Wells is at least 10 steps above McDonald’s, and just slightly below serious fine dining in Chicago – regardless, a well known restaurant with a well know chef.
Anyone that knows me, has dined with me, or even thinks about dining with me knows what a pain in the a** dining companion I can be. I admit it, I’m a high maintenance food substitution snob. A recent true lunch order at Ruby Tuesdays, “Can I have the mini burgers please, no meat though, sub with sautéed mushrooms instead, no ketchup, no mustard, and if you put a pickle on the plate, I will freak out.” I’m fairly certain our waitress rolled her eyes at this point and muttered under her breath, “Great, one of those….” So at Crofton on Wells, imagine my co-workers surprise when I order a meal without substitutions and sit back to hear Kate order the following, “I’d like the scallops but no mussel reduction sauce. I’m allergic to shellfish, so can you sub the sauce with a different sauce.” Ah, a girl after my own heart!
Dining with a bunch of foodies has its challenges. Not knowing what a morel is in front of your dining companions can be embarrassing, or how about ordering your steak well done instead of medium rare, salting your food before tasting it, etc. But frankly, ordering the scallops while subbing the reduction sauce due to a shellfish allergy is a major faux pas – scallops are shellfish so this simple, yet complicated order either infers that 1. Kate is a liar, she’s not allergic or 2. Kate is not a foodie, she doesn’t know what classifies as shellfish.
The next morning Cathy walks in to the shoot…but where is Kate? Apparently at 3:00 a.m., Kate is rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with, you guessed it, food poisoning. My co-workers and I are all in shock, and one by one they all start pointing fingers at me, “It’s you, Su! You are the curse…you tried poisoning your client! How could you?” So unfair – she ordered shellfish, and said she was allergic to shellfish, what do you expect? And unfortunately for Cathy, dinner at Crofton on Wells was the last time she ever saw Kate again. Kate never transferred to Camden, had her baby in Chicago, and promptly resigned which only cemented my reputation of “Su – the Client Poisoner”.
I have managed to skate by poison-free for the past year, until last night. You see, I’m in Philly and yes, I took my client Liz out to dinner last night. Liz is not only a great client, but a ton of fun to hang out with as well. We had a great dinner at El Vez, great conversation, but apparently bad chicken. Liz was beginning to look at little flush by the end of our dinner, her stomach in knots (she swears it wasn’t because we negotiating contracts) and the sweat beads started to form by the time the bill came.
This morning I received a phone call from Liz, “Su – hey, I just wanted to check up on you and see how you were feeling.” Huh? Oh, crap…. “Liz, you didn’t by chance get FOOD POISONING last night, did you?” “Yes, I was praying to the porcelain gods, flu-like symptoms, fevers, night sweats, worst night of my life.” “Umm…do you feel better today, maybe going into the office? “ “Yes, much better this morning, just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” Well, as luck would have it for me, I did not get food poisoning. Although God has found humor to torture me in other ways with food, which is a story for another day.
While Liz is not planning on resigning (or at least, I’m unaware of it), she is moving off of her business and into a new position. Food poisoning + last day of current position = “You must have had dinner with Su.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
The Stairs
The Stairs
June 14th
After living in our current home for 11 years, you would think that I would notice that our brick façade on our front stairs did not match the brick on our home. Clearly, I’ve spent way too much time on the front porch drinking with neighbors, in which our stairs become slightly fuzzy and everything looks like it matches, instead of pondering what life would be like with stairs that matched. Dave, on the other hand, has apparently spent years letting our unmatched stairs fester in him like a splinter you can’t get out without undergoing expensive surgery.
So, in an effort to appease little Dave whispering in big Dave’s ear “The stairs suck – do something about it” – we did just that, we contracted with an Southside Irish concrete and masonry company and tore out the old mismatched stores for the new and improved version.
After a week of demolition, we were now ready to pour the concrete to finish Dave’s legacy. The kids placed mementos into the concrete to forever let any future archeologist know that Thomas the Train, Transformers, and a picture of a flower were left behind by pioneering Wrigleyville children. And so it was, that the new stairs were poured, life was good, and we went on our merry way to take the kids to soccer.
At this point, I have to interject a side story about our wonderful neighbor Jill. First of all, we love Jill and her family – they have made living on our block really terrific and they are wonderful friends. Jill – you know I love you, so calling you out on this blog is really just affirmation of how I feel about you. I digress. Many years ago an animal crawled into Jill’s backyard, clearly suffering and on it’s last legs. Jill’s kids lovingly cared for this animal, even taking Mike’s expensive Italian gloves to place the animal inside of the cat carrier. After feeding, petting, and talking the animal to “keep fighting the good fight”, Jill found out our other neighbor Julie was going to the animal shelter. Would Julie be willing to take the new-found sickly pet to the animal shelter? Of course! Imagine Jill’s surprise (and all of us who know the story) when Julie called to say, “Jill – remember that sickly pet you sent with me to the shelter? Well, they told what type of animal it is. That would be your common-everyday-I-live-in-Chicago CITY RAT! The rat clearly ate the poison that our city put in the alley, to you know, KILL the rats.” This back story is important how? Read on.
While returning home from the soccer game, we received a phone call from Jill. “Su, I hate to tell you this, but someone carved a picture and wrote something in the concrete while it was drying.” “What – well, what did they write?” “I can’t really tell, but it looks like a tree and two clouds, and it says something underneath I can’t quite make out.” “OK, we’ll be right home.”
After returning home, and seeing Dave’s legacy destroyed in one act of vandalism, we immediately recognized what was drawn, and frankly what was said. “Umm…Jill. I know you have five kids, did you conceive all five in the dark? That’s a giant male anatomy on our second stair.” And what’s written underneath, of course, “Ha, Ha, F***ers.” So is it any surprise, that this act of “humor” cemented us putting the house on the market? Ah, and June isn’t even finished yet!
June 14th
After living in our current home for 11 years, you would think that I would notice that our brick façade on our front stairs did not match the brick on our home. Clearly, I’ve spent way too much time on the front porch drinking with neighbors, in which our stairs become slightly fuzzy and everything looks like it matches, instead of pondering what life would be like with stairs that matched. Dave, on the other hand, has apparently spent years letting our unmatched stairs fester in him like a splinter you can’t get out without undergoing expensive surgery.
So, in an effort to appease little Dave whispering in big Dave’s ear “The stairs suck – do something about it” – we did just that, we contracted with an Southside Irish concrete and masonry company and tore out the old mismatched stores for the new and improved version.
After a week of demolition, we were now ready to pour the concrete to finish Dave’s legacy. The kids placed mementos into the concrete to forever let any future archeologist know that Thomas the Train, Transformers, and a picture of a flower were left behind by pioneering Wrigleyville children. And so it was, that the new stairs were poured, life was good, and we went on our merry way to take the kids to soccer.
At this point, I have to interject a side story about our wonderful neighbor Jill. First of all, we love Jill and her family – they have made living on our block really terrific and they are wonderful friends. Jill – you know I love you, so calling you out on this blog is really just affirmation of how I feel about you. I digress. Many years ago an animal crawled into Jill’s backyard, clearly suffering and on it’s last legs. Jill’s kids lovingly cared for this animal, even taking Mike’s expensive Italian gloves to place the animal inside of the cat carrier. After feeding, petting, and talking the animal to “keep fighting the good fight”, Jill found out our other neighbor Julie was going to the animal shelter. Would Julie be willing to take the new-found sickly pet to the animal shelter? Of course! Imagine Jill’s surprise (and all of us who know the story) when Julie called to say, “Jill – remember that sickly pet you sent with me to the shelter? Well, they told what type of animal it is. That would be your common-everyday-I-live-in-Chicago CITY RAT! The rat clearly ate the poison that our city put in the alley, to you know, KILL the rats.” This back story is important how? Read on.
While returning home from the soccer game, we received a phone call from Jill. “Su, I hate to tell you this, but someone carved a picture and wrote something in the concrete while it was drying.” “What – well, what did they write?” “I can’t really tell, but it looks like a tree and two clouds, and it says something underneath I can’t quite make out.” “OK, we’ll be right home.”
After returning home, and seeing Dave’s legacy destroyed in one act of vandalism, we immediately recognized what was drawn, and frankly what was said. “Umm…Jill. I know you have five kids, did you conceive all five in the dark? That’s a giant male anatomy on our second stair.” And what’s written underneath, of course, “Ha, Ha, F***ers.” So is it any surprise, that this act of “humor” cemented us putting the house on the market? Ah, and June isn’t even finished yet!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The Windy City
**Finally, I'm starting with June - June 13th to be specific....**
The Windy City
There are many urban, and true, legends of how Chicago got it’s nickname. The gusts of wind that come off of Lake Michigan and freezes the snot inside your nose in one theory. The other is attributed to the long winded speeches of local politicians – although I’m not sure if Mayor Daley can actually string together enough coherent sentences to be considered long winded (don’t worry, I really do love Mayor Daley!). The truth however behind the reason we are called the Windy City lies within the 2” root system of our trees.
It’s June 13th and nothing says summer and school’s out like a trip to DQ with the kids, when my phone rings. “Hey Su, it’s Tracy.” Tracy is our awesome neighbor who keeps an eagle eye for all things deemed important on our neighborhood and has come to our rescue more than once. “Hate to tell you this, but remember that tree in front of your house? Yeah, well, it’s on top of Jennifer’s car.” What? Grr…and thus is the story of living in the Windy City, where anyone can merely blow on a tree around our house and feel like David knocking out Goliath with a sling shot. Let me explain.
Many, many years ago, while our garage was being repaired, our neighbor allowed us to park our new car on their parking pad. While having dinner and looking out the back window, Dave notices that there is a slight breeze in the air. Well, that ‘breeze’ picked up a 50’ tree, with a 2” root system and promptly crushed our new car of two weeks in half, totaling it.
Last year, Jack lost his toe-nail. After putting his toe-nail under his pillow (eewww….) and waiting for the toe-nail fairy to arrive, we hear a loud thumb and crash in the front of the house in the early, wee hours of the morning. Yes, it appeared that the toe-nail fairy crashed into yet another 50’ tree with a 2” root system and toppled the tree over like a toothpick.
So there you have it – the real reason why Chicago is called The Windy City is merely a mirage; it’s all because the trees fall down (but apparently only at our house) just by looking at them the wrong way. And yes, we blame it on the wind…err, The Windy City.
The Windy City
There are many urban, and true, legends of how Chicago got it’s nickname. The gusts of wind that come off of Lake Michigan and freezes the snot inside your nose in one theory. The other is attributed to the long winded speeches of local politicians – although I’m not sure if Mayor Daley can actually string together enough coherent sentences to be considered long winded (don’t worry, I really do love Mayor Daley!). The truth however behind the reason we are called the Windy City lies within the 2” root system of our trees.
It’s June 13th and nothing says summer and school’s out like a trip to DQ with the kids, when my phone rings. “Hey Su, it’s Tracy.” Tracy is our awesome neighbor who keeps an eagle eye for all things deemed important on our neighborhood and has come to our rescue more than once. “Hate to tell you this, but remember that tree in front of your house? Yeah, well, it’s on top of Jennifer’s car.” What? Grr…and thus is the story of living in the Windy City, where anyone can merely blow on a tree around our house and feel like David knocking out Goliath with a sling shot. Let me explain.
Many, many years ago, while our garage was being repaired, our neighbor allowed us to park our new car on their parking pad. While having dinner and looking out the back window, Dave notices that there is a slight breeze in the air. Well, that ‘breeze’ picked up a 50’ tree, with a 2” root system and promptly crushed our new car of two weeks in half, totaling it.
Last year, Jack lost his toe-nail. After putting his toe-nail under his pillow (eewww….) and waiting for the toe-nail fairy to arrive, we hear a loud thumb and crash in the front of the house in the early, wee hours of the morning. Yes, it appeared that the toe-nail fairy crashed into yet another 50’ tree with a 2” root system and toppled the tree over like a toothpick.
So there you have it – the real reason why Chicago is called The Windy City is merely a mirage; it’s all because the trees fall down (but apparently only at our house) just by looking at them the wrong way. And yes, we blame it on the wind…err, The Windy City.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Ashes
** I know, I know, I'll get to June eventually...maybe before August is even here."
The Ashes
This evening, I took great effort to actually, surprisingly, make dinner as Dave and I were both home for the night. You would think after looking at recipes 8-10 hours, all day long, I would actually know what’s for dinner. I dunno – something is not sinking in because I never seem to know what I’m going to make at night.
I digress. After getting dinner in the oven, kids calmed down on the couch, Dave comes walking through the back door and leaves a gift bag on the kitchen table. “Hey honey, what’s in the bag? Did you bring me home something special.” “Well, yes, I did bring you home something special.” “Well, let me see – what is it?” “It’s K.C.” “It’s K.C.? Ohhhhhh…it’s K.C. Geez, do you think you have to leave her in the kitchen?” “Please Su, grow up.”
I have an aversion to ashes. It’s true – but there is a reason. Well, perhaps not a rational reason, but I prefer that the dead meet the earth intact, no need to burn remains, human or not, so we can carry vials of our dearly departed around our neck, in canisters that might be mistaken as ash trays, or decorative vases that you might accidentally water, and in that case, you don’t have ashes, you have mud. Cremated mud…ick.
About five years ago, I had my first experience with ashes. I’ve been fortunate in my life, that while our lives seem to be like Mercury constantly in retrograde, we’ve been blessed with few deaths among family, friends or even furry friends. But five years ago, I came face to face with “The Ashes” and it’s scared me from having K.C. rest comfortably on our kitchen table.
In 2003, after returning home from work, I came through the front door and picked up the mail, including a brown, paper-wrapped box from UPS. Hmm, I wonder what’s in the UPS box. I turn the box over, only to read the following, “Human Remains. Handle with Care.” I highly suspect screaming and dropping the box on the floor does not qualify as “handling with care” but when you aren’t expecting a dead person to show up at your door step, you never know how you’ll react. “Dave – someone sent us a DEAD person’s ashes TO OUR HOUSE!” “Oh, Grandma came?” “Umm, what do you mean ‘Grandma came?’” And so it goes that Dave’s deceased Grandma of seven years was making the tour and came to our house. I asked Dave to kindly remove Grandma from the kitchen table (I’m sensing a pattern here) and Dave obliged putting Grandma in a safe and loving part of our house.
Many months later, after being told, that Grandma had been sent to her final, final resting place (our home was merely a pit stop on the way to eternal happiness) I found myself in my closet looking for a pair of shoes that I had not worn in some time. I moved a box to get to the shoes, got myself dressed and then looked at the box, which had the all too familiar markings, “Human Remains. Handle with Care.” Geez, I thought Grandma left, now she’s one my shoes? Ugh. “Dave, what’s up – Grandma’s still here…on my shoes no less, Grandma has over-welcomed her stay, she needs to leave.” “Alright, alright, I’ll call my mom.” And arrangements were made to have Grandma transported to Indiana where she could have a proper final resting place.
Each year, we send one kid to hang out with Dave’s parents for a week. It’s a great chance for them to have one on one time, and gives us a momentary break from the chaos of three children. Such was the case in 2004 (notice this is one year later) when I drove Delaney to a half way point in Indiana and met at the local McDonald’s. I was never so happy to see a bathroom, and Dave’s mom was very happy to see her granddaughter. “You go, I’ll take care of getting Delaney in the car so we can leave.” When I returned home that evening, child-less, Dave said, “Did my mom get everything out of the car?” “I assume she did – I mean she did take Delaney, her car seat, and assorted gear for a week ‘o fun.” “Oh, O.K., I was actually wondering if she took Grandma.” “WHAT?” “Umm…yeah, I put Grandma under the driver’s seat and asked my mom to make sure she took Grandma out of the car.”
And now you know why, right or wrong, I have a problem with ashes. K.C.’s ashes were given to Kathy tonight, with Kathy saying, “You are welcome to borrow the ashes if you ever need to.” A time share dog is one thing, time share ashes? Not my thing. “That’s okay Kathy, I have issues with ashes. You go ahead and keep them.”
The Ashes
This evening, I took great effort to actually, surprisingly, make dinner as Dave and I were both home for the night. You would think after looking at recipes 8-10 hours, all day long, I would actually know what’s for dinner. I dunno – something is not sinking in because I never seem to know what I’m going to make at night.
I digress. After getting dinner in the oven, kids calmed down on the couch, Dave comes walking through the back door and leaves a gift bag on the kitchen table. “Hey honey, what’s in the bag? Did you bring me home something special.” “Well, yes, I did bring you home something special.” “Well, let me see – what is it?” “It’s K.C.” “It’s K.C.? Ohhhhhh…it’s K.C. Geez, do you think you have to leave her in the kitchen?” “Please Su, grow up.”
I have an aversion to ashes. It’s true – but there is a reason. Well, perhaps not a rational reason, but I prefer that the dead meet the earth intact, no need to burn remains, human or not, so we can carry vials of our dearly departed around our neck, in canisters that might be mistaken as ash trays, or decorative vases that you might accidentally water, and in that case, you don’t have ashes, you have mud. Cremated mud…ick.
About five years ago, I had my first experience with ashes. I’ve been fortunate in my life, that while our lives seem to be like Mercury constantly in retrograde, we’ve been blessed with few deaths among family, friends or even furry friends. But five years ago, I came face to face with “The Ashes” and it’s scared me from having K.C. rest comfortably on our kitchen table.
In 2003, after returning home from work, I came through the front door and picked up the mail, including a brown, paper-wrapped box from UPS. Hmm, I wonder what’s in the UPS box. I turn the box over, only to read the following, “Human Remains. Handle with Care.” I highly suspect screaming and dropping the box on the floor does not qualify as “handling with care” but when you aren’t expecting a dead person to show up at your door step, you never know how you’ll react. “Dave – someone sent us a DEAD person’s ashes TO OUR HOUSE!” “Oh, Grandma came?” “Umm, what do you mean ‘Grandma came?’” And so it goes that Dave’s deceased Grandma of seven years was making the tour and came to our house. I asked Dave to kindly remove Grandma from the kitchen table (I’m sensing a pattern here) and Dave obliged putting Grandma in a safe and loving part of our house.
Many months later, after being told, that Grandma had been sent to her final, final resting place (our home was merely a pit stop on the way to eternal happiness) I found myself in my closet looking for a pair of shoes that I had not worn in some time. I moved a box to get to the shoes, got myself dressed and then looked at the box, which had the all too familiar markings, “Human Remains. Handle with Care.” Geez, I thought Grandma left, now she’s one my shoes? Ugh. “Dave, what’s up – Grandma’s still here…on my shoes no less, Grandma has over-welcomed her stay, she needs to leave.” “Alright, alright, I’ll call my mom.” And arrangements were made to have Grandma transported to Indiana where she could have a proper final resting place.
Each year, we send one kid to hang out with Dave’s parents for a week. It’s a great chance for them to have one on one time, and gives us a momentary break from the chaos of three children. Such was the case in 2004 (notice this is one year later) when I drove Delaney to a half way point in Indiana and met at the local McDonald’s. I was never so happy to see a bathroom, and Dave’s mom was very happy to see her granddaughter. “You go, I’ll take care of getting Delaney in the car so we can leave.” When I returned home that evening, child-less, Dave said, “Did my mom get everything out of the car?” “I assume she did – I mean she did take Delaney, her car seat, and assorted gear for a week ‘o fun.” “Oh, O.K., I was actually wondering if she took Grandma.” “WHAT?” “Umm…yeah, I put Grandma under the driver’s seat and asked my mom to make sure she took Grandma out of the car.”
And now you know why, right or wrong, I have a problem with ashes. K.C.’s ashes were given to Kathy tonight, with Kathy saying, “You are welcome to borrow the ashes if you ever need to.” A time share dog is one thing, time share ashes? Not my thing. “That’s okay Kathy, I have issues with ashes. You go ahead and keep them.”
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The Travel Curse
** Once again, I had hoped that July would be relatively calm so I could back track to June, but alas, nothing but chaos reigns in my life and June will have to wait until the eye of the storm is overhead, instead of the hurricane force winds that continually surround me. Read on – enjoy! **
The Travel Curse
I’m not sure when exactly my curse started and why the travel gods decided that I would be their travel virgin that they would sacrifice and bestow all sorts of travel calamity on. I believe I am the first Bermingham with the true curse, which likely coincided with my dad’s retirement as a United pilot. The curse is known far and wide, among family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers. I have been told, likely true, that there is the curse by association – merely being in the air at the same time that I am raises the probability of flight delays, cancellations, emergency landings, mechanical failures, etc. In fact, I’m fairly certain that the passengers on Lost’s Oceanic Flight 815 went down simply because I was somewhere in the air, or on the plane on that fateful, television day.
The curse generally, but not always, leaves me alone when traveling on pleasure. It rears its ugly head on business trips to the point where co-workers literally will not fly with me on the same plane. Seriously, you think I’m joking – I’m not. It also typically only strikes on one leg of a round trip – if I have a pleasant trip outbound, my inbound flight will be equivalent to travel hell and vice versa.
And such is the back story on my curse du jour. I am actually typing this while I am 35,000 feet in the air returning from Portland, OR. In other words, by simply typing about my curse, I doing the equivalent of thumbing my nose at the travel gods and saying, “Ha, Ha, I win!”
Yesterday, after work, I put packed away my business attire, threw on my “Sherpa Su” attire and headed to the airport to pick up Jack and Delaney from a short visit with my parents. Like any good Sherpa, I loaded my back with their “bag o fun”, schlepped backpacks, water bottles, Nintendo DS, iPods and assorted other necessary items to drag them up the 35,000 mountain of “You may now remove your seatbelts and pound your head against the seat in front of you” and dropped them off with Grandpa John and Grandma Lee – and promptly turned around and went back home so I would not miss one exciting moment in the office. And after yesterday’s travel curse, I’m fortunate to know that today I can travel in peace and make it back to Chicago in one piece.
Let’s get back to yesterday, back-to-the-future style. United has adopted the “We want to keep you informed – we’ll pound you with information so you can stop asking all of your whiny questions” mantra. In my opinion, sometimes less is more. There are many things in life I would prefer to be utterly naïve on – like how I was conceived, finding out someone in my office completely drops his pants to his ankles to take a leak, learning that Delaney likely has worms, etc. United should go back to the creeping delay, pissy gate agents, and leave all of us in the dark.
After boarding our flight on-time (after all, this was technically a pleasure flight, the gods generally leave me alone), and scooting back from the gate, we go and sit in the penalty box, also known as plane purgatory – you’re not sure how you got there, and you’re not sure if you are ever going to get out.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking – we have a small mechanical problem that we are addressing and we should get back to you in the next 20-30 minutes with our new departure time.” So, the obligatory 20-30 minutes goes by, and then the messages become increasing more detailed. I’m fairly certain the captain was playing a practical joke on the co-pilot and injected him with a high dose of truth serum just to freak all of us passengers out. “Hi folks, this is your first officer speaking. Well, it does look like we have a problem. You see, a rock hit the nose gear of the plane. And not just a small rock, a BIG rock, and now we’ve got fiberglass cracking all over the place and you don’t want to be in the air at 35,000 feet going 500 miles an hour with fiberglass falling off the airplane. That could be VERY dangerous. So, we’re going to move ourselves to a gate so we can have some more mechanics look at the problem and I’ll get back with y’all in the next 45-50 minutes.” I know, you think I’m joking, you thinking I’m making this stuff up for comedic value – umm…no. Seriously, that’s what he said. Read on.
“Hi everyone, this is your first officer again. Well, we got out the digital camera and took a picture of the nose gear and we’re sending that photo to San Francisco so the FAA can evaluate the condition of the plane. Then we’ll find out if we can slap on some duct tape and roll out of here or have to replace the nose gear. I’ll get back to you in another 45-50 minutes.” Did he really just say duct tape? Come on – I know duct tape has a million uses. Like hemming your pants when you’re too lazy to go to the cleaners, rolling it up into balls to hit each other with, taping your kids mouth shut when they’re a little too loud, (Noelle – I know you work for the DCFS, I was JOKING!)…you get the picture. But where on the packaging does the duct tape say, “And when in crisis, will fix commercial airplanes.” I sincerely hope the duct tape in question is not the same variety I buy at Home Depot – although if it is, I’m shocked we don’t have a line item on our airline tickets noting, “Duct Tape premium”, right next to “You’re traveling with luggage? That’ll be $100”.
“Hi y’all – this is your first officer again. Well, the FAA looked at the pictures and remember when I mentioned that fancy tape, well, we’re just going to patch this plane right up and get us out of here. Sorry for the 3-hour delay.” Fancy tape? Fancy tape in my world is double-sided tape, or white-out tape, not tape that can band-aid the front of an airplane traveling 4 hours to Portland. And oh yeah, you didn’t mention fancy tape, you mentioned household strength, gray duct tape. Yeah, duct tape that is going to hold this tin can together. By the way, that 3-hour delay now qualifies me as a cast member of Gilligan’s Island.
And just to make my 3-hour delay in my window seat (not ideal for a girl with a small bladder) plus my 4-hour plane ride that much more enjoyable – I get the joy of sitting next to the hippie couple. They look kinda like the crunchy Oregon tree-hugger hippies that crossed paths one too many times with the Unibomber. And Mr. Hippie, my middle-seat companion, is wearing a freaking skirt. A skirt! Geez, I hope he’s wearing underwear under there. And of course, they have managed to sleep through the 3-hour delay, the 4-hour flight to make me want to burst like a kid learning how to potty train.
And that my friends, is a typical story of one of many travel curses. I am looking for a remedy to the curse, I believe it involves finding a new travel virgin to sacrifice to the travel gods, while mixing used ticket stubs with small bottles of vodka in an airplane toilet while chanting, “Curse Be Gone!” 100 times while seated, with my seatbelt on.
For those of you that have experienced, or can confirm my curse first hand, feel free to post a message on this blog.Next up – “The Windy City” from mid-June, unless of course my current life is more exciting than my past tense version of events.
The Travel Curse
I’m not sure when exactly my curse started and why the travel gods decided that I would be their travel virgin that they would sacrifice and bestow all sorts of travel calamity on. I believe I am the first Bermingham with the true curse, which likely coincided with my dad’s retirement as a United pilot. The curse is known far and wide, among family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers. I have been told, likely true, that there is the curse by association – merely being in the air at the same time that I am raises the probability of flight delays, cancellations, emergency landings, mechanical failures, etc. In fact, I’m fairly certain that the passengers on Lost’s Oceanic Flight 815 went down simply because I was somewhere in the air, or on the plane on that fateful, television day.
The curse generally, but not always, leaves me alone when traveling on pleasure. It rears its ugly head on business trips to the point where co-workers literally will not fly with me on the same plane. Seriously, you think I’m joking – I’m not. It also typically only strikes on one leg of a round trip – if I have a pleasant trip outbound, my inbound flight will be equivalent to travel hell and vice versa.
And such is the back story on my curse du jour. I am actually typing this while I am 35,000 feet in the air returning from Portland, OR. In other words, by simply typing about my curse, I doing the equivalent of thumbing my nose at the travel gods and saying, “Ha, Ha, I win!”
Yesterday, after work, I put packed away my business attire, threw on my “Sherpa Su” attire and headed to the airport to pick up Jack and Delaney from a short visit with my parents. Like any good Sherpa, I loaded my back with their “bag o fun”, schlepped backpacks, water bottles, Nintendo DS, iPods and assorted other necessary items to drag them up the 35,000 mountain of “You may now remove your seatbelts and pound your head against the seat in front of you” and dropped them off with Grandpa John and Grandma Lee – and promptly turned around and went back home so I would not miss one exciting moment in the office. And after yesterday’s travel curse, I’m fortunate to know that today I can travel in peace and make it back to Chicago in one piece.
Let’s get back to yesterday, back-to-the-future style. United has adopted the “We want to keep you informed – we’ll pound you with information so you can stop asking all of your whiny questions” mantra. In my opinion, sometimes less is more. There are many things in life I would prefer to be utterly naïve on – like how I was conceived, finding out someone in my office completely drops his pants to his ankles to take a leak, learning that Delaney likely has worms, etc. United should go back to the creeping delay, pissy gate agents, and leave all of us in the dark.
After boarding our flight on-time (after all, this was technically a pleasure flight, the gods generally leave me alone), and scooting back from the gate, we go and sit in the penalty box, also known as plane purgatory – you’re not sure how you got there, and you’re not sure if you are ever going to get out.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking – we have a small mechanical problem that we are addressing and we should get back to you in the next 20-30 minutes with our new departure time.” So, the obligatory 20-30 minutes goes by, and then the messages become increasing more detailed. I’m fairly certain the captain was playing a practical joke on the co-pilot and injected him with a high dose of truth serum just to freak all of us passengers out. “Hi folks, this is your first officer speaking. Well, it does look like we have a problem. You see, a rock hit the nose gear of the plane. And not just a small rock, a BIG rock, and now we’ve got fiberglass cracking all over the place and you don’t want to be in the air at 35,000 feet going 500 miles an hour with fiberglass falling off the airplane. That could be VERY dangerous. So, we’re going to move ourselves to a gate so we can have some more mechanics look at the problem and I’ll get back with y’all in the next 45-50 minutes.” I know, you think I’m joking, you thinking I’m making this stuff up for comedic value – umm…no. Seriously, that’s what he said. Read on.
“Hi everyone, this is your first officer again. Well, we got out the digital camera and took a picture of the nose gear and we’re sending that photo to San Francisco so the FAA can evaluate the condition of the plane. Then we’ll find out if we can slap on some duct tape and roll out of here or have to replace the nose gear. I’ll get back to you in another 45-50 minutes.” Did he really just say duct tape? Come on – I know duct tape has a million uses. Like hemming your pants when you’re too lazy to go to the cleaners, rolling it up into balls to hit each other with, taping your kids mouth shut when they’re a little too loud, (Noelle – I know you work for the DCFS, I was JOKING!)…you get the picture. But where on the packaging does the duct tape say, “And when in crisis, will fix commercial airplanes.” I sincerely hope the duct tape in question is not the same variety I buy at Home Depot – although if it is, I’m shocked we don’t have a line item on our airline tickets noting, “Duct Tape premium”, right next to “You’re traveling with luggage? That’ll be $100”.
“Hi y’all – this is your first officer again. Well, the FAA looked at the pictures and remember when I mentioned that fancy tape, well, we’re just going to patch this plane right up and get us out of here. Sorry for the 3-hour delay.” Fancy tape? Fancy tape in my world is double-sided tape, or white-out tape, not tape that can band-aid the front of an airplane traveling 4 hours to Portland. And oh yeah, you didn’t mention fancy tape, you mentioned household strength, gray duct tape. Yeah, duct tape that is going to hold this tin can together. By the way, that 3-hour delay now qualifies me as a cast member of Gilligan’s Island.
And just to make my 3-hour delay in my window seat (not ideal for a girl with a small bladder) plus my 4-hour plane ride that much more enjoyable – I get the joy of sitting next to the hippie couple. They look kinda like the crunchy Oregon tree-hugger hippies that crossed paths one too many times with the Unibomber. And Mr. Hippie, my middle-seat companion, is wearing a freaking skirt. A skirt! Geez, I hope he’s wearing underwear under there. And of course, they have managed to sleep through the 3-hour delay, the 4-hour flight to make me want to burst like a kid learning how to potty train.
And that my friends, is a typical story of one of many travel curses. I am looking for a remedy to the curse, I believe it involves finding a new travel virgin to sacrifice to the travel gods, while mixing used ticket stubs with small bottles of vodka in an airplane toilet while chanting, “Curse Be Gone!” 100 times while seated, with my seatbelt on.
For those of you that have experienced, or can confirm my curse first hand, feel free to post a message on this blog.Next up – “The Windy City” from mid-June, unless of course my current life is more exciting than my past tense version of events.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Timeshare Dog - K.C.
** I had planned on starting in June and catching up to today, but alas, some events can't wait to be told, so I'm sure my posts will be out of chronological order...but you're all smart, educated people. Keep up - follow along. **
I vowed to my girlfriends tonight that I would not rush home and send a post and call them by name…umm, sorry Megan, Meg and Molly. But three drinks after dinner and voila, here I am typing my little heart out.
At dinner tonight, Molly regaled us with stories of her very sick Uncle in New York, with his very sick dog that needed to be put down and the wrangling to get her Uncle’s partner to do a power of attorney to put down the dog while her uncle was in ICU leaving Molly and her brother to share the news of the dog’s passing while running to catch a flight. As Megan said, “Why didn’t you just go to another vet and pretend it was your dog and not your Uncle’s?” Duh…. Regardless, I shared the following story with the girls – little did I know that the story was virtually unfolding while I was drinking.
15 years ago, I ventured past the suburban sprawl of a strip mall showing cute puppies to pet, and lo and behold, I decided that I needed a dog. Which dog did I pick? Why of course, a Shih Tzu, because affectionately, it could be referred to as a “Sh** Su” and seemed rather appropriate. I named her K.C., which was short for Killer Canine, because frankly, she was an enormous fur ball and anything but killer, and barely canine – she could have passed for a furry city rat at the time.
For many years, K.C. was my constant companion. She moved from one state to another with me, helped me through a divorce, was with me when I met Dave and transitioned from a Chicago suburban and Milwaukee dog to learning to pee and poop on city concrete. Ah, the life of a city living!
Dave and I were fortunate enough to rent in Chicago with awesome landlords, that not only let us have a dog (BTW, small dogs aren’t Dave’s thing, but he liked me enough to put up with it and learned to see K.C. as a big dog with his 3-D glasses on) but was willing to watch the dog when we were away.
Once we had kids, K.C. took second billing and suddenly we became the owners of a time-share dog. A what? Yes, a time share dog. In case you are unaware of what a time share dog is, let me tell you about it. Kathy, our former landlord, agreed to take K.C. in full time, while we agreed to pay for all vet bills and maintenance for K.C. Whenever Kathy would leave town, we would get K.C. for a visit, and the kids actually, legitimately, thought we owned a dog. The 4-week a year dog would end up in the family Christmas letter, in the kids pictures, and most importantly, the day to day task of caring for the dog fell to Kathy who embraced this idea whole heartedly. I suppose it’s like having joint custody without the fall-out of a divorce – who knew that the time share scenario would work so well…unless of course, it was an $400 vet bill, an $800 tumor removal, etc… I’m sure if we added the annual costs for K.C. vs. the time we had her, she was an expensive 4-week a year dog!
We had K.C. this past week at our house while Kathy was away on vacation. Mind you, K.C. is OLD – no longer running up and down the stairs, preferring to be held up to and off of the bed. As Dave and I were sleeping the other night, we heard a thud in the middle of the night. Yes, K.C. fell off of the bed (shh…don’t tell anyone…). I turned to Dave and asked (at 2:00 a.m.) – “You didn’t just kick the dog off of the bed, did you?” “Listen, I turned over, and the dog is on the floor. They are not mutually exclusive.” “Dave, you cannot use big words with me at 2:00 a.m., I actually have to think about what you said.” “Listen – I just picked up K.C., she seems fine – in fact, I think K.C. is half cat. Yes, she has nine lives, and it appears that she landed on her feet.” And so it was, K.C. seemed A-OK…and Dave promptly did the same thing the next night, with the exact same results.
After Kathy picked up K.C. last night – and K.C. could not have been more thrilled – I commented to Kathy that I thought perhaps K.C. was depressed being at our house. Chaos, commotion, Dave kicking her off the bed, etc. She seemed so excited to be escaping the prison of our home, it was palatable.
This evening, when I returned home, Dave met me at the door with the following news, “I just got home from Kathy’s, K.C. passed away this evening.” “What – you mean she didn’t have nine lives – you killed her didn’t you?” “No, I did not, she passed away peacefully at Kathy’s.” “You’re lying, I see a smile lurking behind those sad eyes…and I’ve been drinking which is so unfair, because I don’t know if you’re being truthful or lying.” “I’m not lying – in fact, I brought K.C. home. She’s on the kitchen table.” “Geez! On the table? OMG!”
And while I sincerely thought I would minimally see my 40th with K.C. celebrating alongside, and possibly even hitting menopause with K.C. curled up in the corner, her nine cat-like small-dog lives expired tonight. At literally the same time I was talking about K.C. “The Time Share Dog” with my girlfriends. Who knew….
So – may K.C. rest in peace. She was a wonderful dog, a great companion, and lived a happy life among multiple households, many homes, etc. And may Dave feel just a tad bit guilty for kicking her off the bed in the final week of her life.
I vowed to my girlfriends tonight that I would not rush home and send a post and call them by name…umm, sorry Megan, Meg and Molly. But three drinks after dinner and voila, here I am typing my little heart out.
At dinner tonight, Molly regaled us with stories of her very sick Uncle in New York, with his very sick dog that needed to be put down and the wrangling to get her Uncle’s partner to do a power of attorney to put down the dog while her uncle was in ICU leaving Molly and her brother to share the news of the dog’s passing while running to catch a flight. As Megan said, “Why didn’t you just go to another vet and pretend it was your dog and not your Uncle’s?” Duh…. Regardless, I shared the following story with the girls – little did I know that the story was virtually unfolding while I was drinking.
15 years ago, I ventured past the suburban sprawl of a strip mall showing cute puppies to pet, and lo and behold, I decided that I needed a dog. Which dog did I pick? Why of course, a Shih Tzu, because affectionately, it could be referred to as a “Sh** Su” and seemed rather appropriate. I named her K.C., which was short for Killer Canine, because frankly, she was an enormous fur ball and anything but killer, and barely canine – she could have passed for a furry city rat at the time.
For many years, K.C. was my constant companion. She moved from one state to another with me, helped me through a divorce, was with me when I met Dave and transitioned from a Chicago suburban and Milwaukee dog to learning to pee and poop on city concrete. Ah, the life of a city living!
Dave and I were fortunate enough to rent in Chicago with awesome landlords, that not only let us have a dog (BTW, small dogs aren’t Dave’s thing, but he liked me enough to put up with it and learned to see K.C. as a big dog with his 3-D glasses on) but was willing to watch the dog when we were away.
Once we had kids, K.C. took second billing and suddenly we became the owners of a time-share dog. A what? Yes, a time share dog. In case you are unaware of what a time share dog is, let me tell you about it. Kathy, our former landlord, agreed to take K.C. in full time, while we agreed to pay for all vet bills and maintenance for K.C. Whenever Kathy would leave town, we would get K.C. for a visit, and the kids actually, legitimately, thought we owned a dog. The 4-week a year dog would end up in the family Christmas letter, in the kids pictures, and most importantly, the day to day task of caring for the dog fell to Kathy who embraced this idea whole heartedly. I suppose it’s like having joint custody without the fall-out of a divorce – who knew that the time share scenario would work so well…unless of course, it was an $400 vet bill, an $800 tumor removal, etc… I’m sure if we added the annual costs for K.C. vs. the time we had her, she was an expensive 4-week a year dog!
We had K.C. this past week at our house while Kathy was away on vacation. Mind you, K.C. is OLD – no longer running up and down the stairs, preferring to be held up to and off of the bed. As Dave and I were sleeping the other night, we heard a thud in the middle of the night. Yes, K.C. fell off of the bed (shh…don’t tell anyone…). I turned to Dave and asked (at 2:00 a.m.) – “You didn’t just kick the dog off of the bed, did you?” “Listen, I turned over, and the dog is on the floor. They are not mutually exclusive.” “Dave, you cannot use big words with me at 2:00 a.m., I actually have to think about what you said.” “Listen – I just picked up K.C., she seems fine – in fact, I think K.C. is half cat. Yes, she has nine lives, and it appears that she landed on her feet.” And so it was, K.C. seemed A-OK…and Dave promptly did the same thing the next night, with the exact same results.
After Kathy picked up K.C. last night – and K.C. could not have been more thrilled – I commented to Kathy that I thought perhaps K.C. was depressed being at our house. Chaos, commotion, Dave kicking her off the bed, etc. She seemed so excited to be escaping the prison of our home, it was palatable.
This evening, when I returned home, Dave met me at the door with the following news, “I just got home from Kathy’s, K.C. passed away this evening.” “What – you mean she didn’t have nine lives – you killed her didn’t you?” “No, I did not, she passed away peacefully at Kathy’s.” “You’re lying, I see a smile lurking behind those sad eyes…and I’ve been drinking which is so unfair, because I don’t know if you’re being truthful or lying.” “I’m not lying – in fact, I brought K.C. home. She’s on the kitchen table.” “Geez! On the table? OMG!”
And while I sincerely thought I would minimally see my 40th with K.C. celebrating alongside, and possibly even hitting menopause with K.C. curled up in the corner, her nine cat-like small-dog lives expired tonight. At literally the same time I was talking about K.C. “The Time Share Dog” with my girlfriends. Who knew….
So – may K.C. rest in peace. She was a wonderful dog, a great companion, and lived a happy life among multiple households, many homes, etc. And may Dave feel just a tad bit guilty for kicking her off the bed in the final week of her life.
Monday, July 14, 2008
2007 In Review
December, 2007
Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of All Ages,
Step right up and grab a seat for the greatest show on earth – our annual holiday letter. Without further delay, we present to you “The Year in Review”:
Dec 2006/Jan 2007 - No year is complete without giving your hard earned bucks to the four-fingered mouse on the high seas. Yes, we took a trip on a memorable NYE Disney Cruise. In one last testament to the Bermingham travel curse, the kids bags were accidentally tagged and sent to the other warm weather location – not Florida, but HAWAII. With Delaney on the FBI no-fly list, and the baggage now in Hawaii, we have confirmed that the travel curse is definitely hereditary. For those of you that can’t get enough of our family chaos, send Su an e-mail and you too can read the tome of our cruise – 20,000 other folks did online, now you can too! For Christmas, Su gets Dave his annual iPOD in hopes that this year, he’ll maybe be able to keep it for at least 12 months.
February - Good bye to our carefree Februarys where nothing good happens. We could have written a novel on February alone. To start, Su gets snowbound in Philadelphia for two days. After finally getting on a plane headed home, Su is stranded on the runway for six hours only to turn back to the gate. The gate agents told everyone to stay in the gate area, which is code for “If you’re smart, try to go stand by on another flight.” After Su puts her name on the stand by list she returns to her original gate to check the status on her malfunctioning plane – only to find out that United has apparently given her first class seat away. Su chooses some words that are not fit for print – and clearly not learned at Wheaton College – only to be told “Another peep out of you and we’re calling security.” Once back in Chicago, our family gets great news – Warner Bros. is interested in using our house for a top secret movie. If our house makes it to the finals of the beauty contest, none other than Christopher Nolan and his crew would be checking out our humble abode in person. So, on a wintry day, we cleaned up the house and welcomed Christopher Nolan and about a dozen of his crew to sniff around the house…and soon after declared it unworthy of movie stardom. Alas, our home was not bat-worthy, and a new bat cave would have to be found. We’ve rationalized our heartbreak by saying, “Well, what if they wanted to use it at Batman’s drug-house…that would be really embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”
March - Max finishes his terrible two’s and enters…his terrible three’s. And for the third year in a row, Dave enjoys his annual “Mancation” – yes, that would be a ski trip with the boys while Su collects her points by watching the kids at home. Soon, Su will have collected enough good-will vacation credits to travel around the world…alone. Dave goes on a business trip to California, with both sets of car keys. With a spare car key in hand, but no way to get into the garage, Southside Sandy comes to Su’s rescue and within seconds has broken into the garage. On a separate note, sad but true, Dave’s new video iPOD only lasted 3 months before it turned up lost. Looks like Su knows what Dave is getting for Christmas this year.
April - Su, Dave and Jack all celebrate birthdays in April which makes us really old, not as old, and a mere 5 years old. As Easter rolls around, we once again spend it in Michigan with Su’s parents. As the grandparents watch the kids, Dave and Su once again trek to dinner in the country. Upon returning home, Su swerves and instead of missing, hits the raccoon dead on. Being the second year in a row that we have created Easter road kill (Dave killed the Easter Bunny last year); we are beginning to get concerned that we have created a new family Easter tradition. Word to the all the Michigan critters – stay off the roads when the Oliveiras are in town.
May - Everyone has heard of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy…how about The Toenail Fairy? It’s true, Jack stubbed his toe and his toe-nail had to be removed by the great Dr. Pete. After putting the toe nail under Jack’s pillow, the Toe Nail fairy brought Jack enough money to buy something extra special. Unfortunately, on the Toe Nail Fairy’s flight to Jack’s room, it hit a 50’ tree in front of the house and knocked it over, crushing the car across the street. Apparently the Toe Nail Fairy needs to get its wings checked. Su took Jack to buy his Toe Nail gift and after purchasing, caught Jack praying in the back seat, “Dear Lord, thank you so much for helping the Toe Nail Fairy get to my house, I love my new toy and I don’t even miss my toe nail.” Delaney, our capitalist pig child, is jealous of Jack’s new toy and we find her trying to pry off her toenails, one by one.
June - Su ends up in the ER and gives the family the gift that keeps on giving – Parvovirus! We’re quick to point fingers at the dog, but apparently parvovirus can’t be transmitted from animal to human. Unless you are talking about our family, then all bets are off. “Umm…adults don’t usually get parvovirus….” Every two weeks, each kid comes down with it – and like good children, they do it in chronological order. Other parents run in fear of our kids, but we know that nothing says family like a case of Parvovirus. Our long time nanny, Bridget, heads off for a month’s vacation in Belize while Su’s niece Kassie nervously signs up for Oliveira Day Camp. Welcome to Chicago Kassie!
July - Tis the season of the Chicago monsoon, both inside and outside. While Kassie is corralling our kids into some semblance of order, a plumbing problem has it raining from the second floor to the first. The next day, Mother Nature furious and not be outdone by a mechanical issue, whips up a fury of her own. 8” of water in the basement and sewage back-up has Kassie counting down the minutes until her return flight to LA. Su beats about 50 other customers at the local hardware store for the last wet vac. Of course, Dave chooses to be in California during the great flood, likely to try to find his missing iPOD. Our basement resembles the Chicago reclamation district and while the kids would like to swim in our new sewage pool, we suggest that perhaps we find alternate activities for the tykes. On Friday the 13th, Bridget is expected back in town from her month away and Kassie packs her bags and heads home. We find out on the 14th that Bridget has gone AWOL and we are without care for the kids. Without batting an eye lash, Kassie graciously hops on the next flight out of LA and shockingly, heads right back into the chaos of our family to help us out until we can find new help. We finish out the month by joining friends at the Police concert and celebrating Dave’s mom’s birthday in Michigan. We also were allowed to see the filming of the “oh-so-secret-bat-like-movie” while it was in town thanks to our new found location scout friend, Patrick.
August - Su whips up a couple of hurricanes and sends them to Belize just to let Bridget know that we’re thinking of her while she’s sipping her Mai Tai’s on the beach. Delaney turns eight and Su gets mom of the year award. We take Delaney’s 8 friends to the tween sensation, “High School Musical” on stage and then after a couple of calls to the four-fingered mouse, Disney shows HSM2 on television when we return home for the sleep over. Chicago experiences our own mini-hurricane Katrina, and with 75 mile hour winds, we sustain enough damage in the neighborhood to fully appreciate trees and foliage, of which we are sorely missing now. Dave, thankfully, is home for this natural disaster, and we are finally well on the way to basement renovation.
September - After Delaney whines that she wants a puppy (what, the time-share dog K.C. isn’t good enough?), we settle on an animal that requires minimal care and is virtually indestructible – the Hermit Crab. Affectionately referred to as “Hermie”, she makes her public debut at show and tell for school. Su notices that Hermie hasn’t moved in the three days that we’ve had her and is concerned that we sent a dead Hermie to show to tell. After turning off all the lights and conducting her own stare-down with the crab, Hermie finally comes out of its shell, gives Su the finger and promptly goes back into hiding wishing that some other family would have rescued her from the confines of the Meijer fish tank. Days later, we host lots of friends in Michigan for the annual Apple Cider Century ride. We wake to screams of youngsters, “Something’s wrong with Hermie!” It appears that Hermie has rolled on to its back and simply needs to be flipped over. With Dave to the rescue, he gently rolls Hermie over only to have all of its legs go flying all over aquarium. It appears that in the middle of the night, the anti-animal-fairy has brought its mini machete and chopped off all of Hermie’s appendages serving up a crab leg feast fit for a pint-size fairy. Sad, but true, the indestructible Hermie is dead after only 9 days. Dave blames Meijer, Su jumps for joy, and Delaney starts the “can I get a puppy instead” banter.
October - Thanks to the good folks at Children’s, we have medical proof that Max does indeed have a brain. We thought for sure that all those recorded Thomas the Train shows had left a permanent indentation of a train on Max’s impressionable young brain, but alas, it’s all there. Su, feeling quite old, celebrates her 20 year high school reunion. A quick trip (ok, not so quick, more like a week-long vacation) to Salon Blonde rids years of anxiety and general graying on Su’s tresses and momentarily lets Su relive the 80’s. Andrea and Mark make the trek to see us and Oprah, and we learn definitively at dinner that the whole reason Su has kept her maiden name was due to Andrea and our best man making a quick dash to our house after the wedding. You see, Dave tore the marriage license in half to write directions to the house to our best man and promptly gave him the half with the signatures. Without a marriage license, there’s no SS#, and no name change. We end the month with Halloween and the boys requesting to be a Power Ranger and Thomas the Train. Unfortunately, Su got rid of last year’s costumes which also happened to be a Power Ranger and Thomas the Train. After ordering new costumes, it’s quickly realized that Jack’s Power Ranger costume might leave Jack unable to bear children later in life after the too-tight ill-fitting costume debuts in Wrigleyville to the horror of dads everywhere.
November - Nothing says Thanksgiving like family and friends, and three turkeys. We host Dave's family in Michigan and try our hand at smoking a couple of birds. Su even renounced her vegetarian vows to partake of the feast, only to regret it later as she prayed to the porcelain gods. We ended the month with our annual Lakeview Pantry Toy Drive. More than 800 toys were collected in a banner year for this event. K.C., the time-share dog, required surgery to remove a benign tumor. Pet insurance would have been a good idea – boy the kids are going to be surprised when they open up a tumor under the tree for Christmas in lieu of toys.
December - Su has not lost her golden touch for face-value tickets, and following our annual Santa Party, Su took Delaney to the Hannah Take-My-Money-Montana concert. While the squeals of young adults were enough to break the crystal chandeliers, Su found solace just outside the concert doors, with none other the Governor. Yep, the Gov with the good hair and Su chatted it up and Su even got a picture with the Gov while Delaney rocked out the show with the hottest ticket in town. Dave and Su are celebrating what they believe is to be their 10 year anniversary at the end of the month, although it’s questionable that they’ve actually been married for 10 years. While we applied for a license just prior to our wedding, the license wasn’t actually granted for another two years – apparently those signatures are kind of critical to a license. So, we’re either celebrating 8 years of marriage, or 10 – either way, it’s been a wonderful ride and one that neither of us would change for anything.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of All Ages,
Step right up and grab a seat for the greatest show on earth – our annual holiday letter. Without further delay, we present to you “The Year in Review”:
Dec 2006/Jan 2007 - No year is complete without giving your hard earned bucks to the four-fingered mouse on the high seas. Yes, we took a trip on a memorable NYE Disney Cruise. In one last testament to the Bermingham travel curse, the kids bags were accidentally tagged and sent to the other warm weather location – not Florida, but HAWAII. With Delaney on the FBI no-fly list, and the baggage now in Hawaii, we have confirmed that the travel curse is definitely hereditary. For those of you that can’t get enough of our family chaos, send Su an e-mail and you too can read the tome of our cruise – 20,000 other folks did online, now you can too! For Christmas, Su gets Dave his annual iPOD in hopes that this year, he’ll maybe be able to keep it for at least 12 months.
February - Good bye to our carefree Februarys where nothing good happens. We could have written a novel on February alone. To start, Su gets snowbound in Philadelphia for two days. After finally getting on a plane headed home, Su is stranded on the runway for six hours only to turn back to the gate. The gate agents told everyone to stay in the gate area, which is code for “If you’re smart, try to go stand by on another flight.” After Su puts her name on the stand by list she returns to her original gate to check the status on her malfunctioning plane – only to find out that United has apparently given her first class seat away. Su chooses some words that are not fit for print – and clearly not learned at Wheaton College – only to be told “Another peep out of you and we’re calling security.” Once back in Chicago, our family gets great news – Warner Bros. is interested in using our house for a top secret movie. If our house makes it to the finals of the beauty contest, none other than Christopher Nolan and his crew would be checking out our humble abode in person. So, on a wintry day, we cleaned up the house and welcomed Christopher Nolan and about a dozen of his crew to sniff around the house…and soon after declared it unworthy of movie stardom. Alas, our home was not bat-worthy, and a new bat cave would have to be found. We’ve rationalized our heartbreak by saying, “Well, what if they wanted to use it at Batman’s drug-house…that would be really embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”
March - Max finishes his terrible two’s and enters…his terrible three’s. And for the third year in a row, Dave enjoys his annual “Mancation” – yes, that would be a ski trip with the boys while Su collects her points by watching the kids at home. Soon, Su will have collected enough good-will vacation credits to travel around the world…alone. Dave goes on a business trip to California, with both sets of car keys. With a spare car key in hand, but no way to get into the garage, Southside Sandy comes to Su’s rescue and within seconds has broken into the garage. On a separate note, sad but true, Dave’s new video iPOD only lasted 3 months before it turned up lost. Looks like Su knows what Dave is getting for Christmas this year.
April - Su, Dave and Jack all celebrate birthdays in April which makes us really old, not as old, and a mere 5 years old. As Easter rolls around, we once again spend it in Michigan with Su’s parents. As the grandparents watch the kids, Dave and Su once again trek to dinner in the country. Upon returning home, Su swerves and instead of missing, hits the raccoon dead on. Being the second year in a row that we have created Easter road kill (Dave killed the Easter Bunny last year); we are beginning to get concerned that we have created a new family Easter tradition. Word to the all the Michigan critters – stay off the roads when the Oliveiras are in town.
May - Everyone has heard of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy…how about The Toenail Fairy? It’s true, Jack stubbed his toe and his toe-nail had to be removed by the great Dr. Pete. After putting the toe nail under Jack’s pillow, the Toe Nail fairy brought Jack enough money to buy something extra special. Unfortunately, on the Toe Nail Fairy’s flight to Jack’s room, it hit a 50’ tree in front of the house and knocked it over, crushing the car across the street. Apparently the Toe Nail Fairy needs to get its wings checked. Su took Jack to buy his Toe Nail gift and after purchasing, caught Jack praying in the back seat, “Dear Lord, thank you so much for helping the Toe Nail Fairy get to my house, I love my new toy and I don’t even miss my toe nail.” Delaney, our capitalist pig child, is jealous of Jack’s new toy and we find her trying to pry off her toenails, one by one.
June - Su ends up in the ER and gives the family the gift that keeps on giving – Parvovirus! We’re quick to point fingers at the dog, but apparently parvovirus can’t be transmitted from animal to human. Unless you are talking about our family, then all bets are off. “Umm…adults don’t usually get parvovirus….” Every two weeks, each kid comes down with it – and like good children, they do it in chronological order. Other parents run in fear of our kids, but we know that nothing says family like a case of Parvovirus. Our long time nanny, Bridget, heads off for a month’s vacation in Belize while Su’s niece Kassie nervously signs up for Oliveira Day Camp. Welcome to Chicago Kassie!
July - Tis the season of the Chicago monsoon, both inside and outside. While Kassie is corralling our kids into some semblance of order, a plumbing problem has it raining from the second floor to the first. The next day, Mother Nature furious and not be outdone by a mechanical issue, whips up a fury of her own. 8” of water in the basement and sewage back-up has Kassie counting down the minutes until her return flight to LA. Su beats about 50 other customers at the local hardware store for the last wet vac. Of course, Dave chooses to be in California during the great flood, likely to try to find his missing iPOD. Our basement resembles the Chicago reclamation district and while the kids would like to swim in our new sewage pool, we suggest that perhaps we find alternate activities for the tykes. On Friday the 13th, Bridget is expected back in town from her month away and Kassie packs her bags and heads home. We find out on the 14th that Bridget has gone AWOL and we are without care for the kids. Without batting an eye lash, Kassie graciously hops on the next flight out of LA and shockingly, heads right back into the chaos of our family to help us out until we can find new help. We finish out the month by joining friends at the Police concert and celebrating Dave’s mom’s birthday in Michigan. We also were allowed to see the filming of the “oh-so-secret-bat-like-movie” while it was in town thanks to our new found location scout friend, Patrick.
August - Su whips up a couple of hurricanes and sends them to Belize just to let Bridget know that we’re thinking of her while she’s sipping her Mai Tai’s on the beach. Delaney turns eight and Su gets mom of the year award. We take Delaney’s 8 friends to the tween sensation, “High School Musical” on stage and then after a couple of calls to the four-fingered mouse, Disney shows HSM2 on television when we return home for the sleep over. Chicago experiences our own mini-hurricane Katrina, and with 75 mile hour winds, we sustain enough damage in the neighborhood to fully appreciate trees and foliage, of which we are sorely missing now. Dave, thankfully, is home for this natural disaster, and we are finally well on the way to basement renovation.
September - After Delaney whines that she wants a puppy (what, the time-share dog K.C. isn’t good enough?), we settle on an animal that requires minimal care and is virtually indestructible – the Hermit Crab. Affectionately referred to as “Hermie”, she makes her public debut at show and tell for school. Su notices that Hermie hasn’t moved in the three days that we’ve had her and is concerned that we sent a dead Hermie to show to tell. After turning off all the lights and conducting her own stare-down with the crab, Hermie finally comes out of its shell, gives Su the finger and promptly goes back into hiding wishing that some other family would have rescued her from the confines of the Meijer fish tank. Days later, we host lots of friends in Michigan for the annual Apple Cider Century ride. We wake to screams of youngsters, “Something’s wrong with Hermie!” It appears that Hermie has rolled on to its back and simply needs to be flipped over. With Dave to the rescue, he gently rolls Hermie over only to have all of its legs go flying all over aquarium. It appears that in the middle of the night, the anti-animal-fairy has brought its mini machete and chopped off all of Hermie’s appendages serving up a crab leg feast fit for a pint-size fairy. Sad, but true, the indestructible Hermie is dead after only 9 days. Dave blames Meijer, Su jumps for joy, and Delaney starts the “can I get a puppy instead” banter.
October - Thanks to the good folks at Children’s, we have medical proof that Max does indeed have a brain. We thought for sure that all those recorded Thomas the Train shows had left a permanent indentation of a train on Max’s impressionable young brain, but alas, it’s all there. Su, feeling quite old, celebrates her 20 year high school reunion. A quick trip (ok, not so quick, more like a week-long vacation) to Salon Blonde rids years of anxiety and general graying on Su’s tresses and momentarily lets Su relive the 80’s. Andrea and Mark make the trek to see us and Oprah, and we learn definitively at dinner that the whole reason Su has kept her maiden name was due to Andrea and our best man making a quick dash to our house after the wedding. You see, Dave tore the marriage license in half to write directions to the house to our best man and promptly gave him the half with the signatures. Without a marriage license, there’s no SS#, and no name change. We end the month with Halloween and the boys requesting to be a Power Ranger and Thomas the Train. Unfortunately, Su got rid of last year’s costumes which also happened to be a Power Ranger and Thomas the Train. After ordering new costumes, it’s quickly realized that Jack’s Power Ranger costume might leave Jack unable to bear children later in life after the too-tight ill-fitting costume debuts in Wrigleyville to the horror of dads everywhere.
November - Nothing says Thanksgiving like family and friends, and three turkeys. We host Dave's family in Michigan and try our hand at smoking a couple of birds. Su even renounced her vegetarian vows to partake of the feast, only to regret it later as she prayed to the porcelain gods. We ended the month with our annual Lakeview Pantry Toy Drive. More than 800 toys were collected in a banner year for this event. K.C., the time-share dog, required surgery to remove a benign tumor. Pet insurance would have been a good idea – boy the kids are going to be surprised when they open up a tumor under the tree for Christmas in lieu of toys.
December - Su has not lost her golden touch for face-value tickets, and following our annual Santa Party, Su took Delaney to the Hannah Take-My-Money-Montana concert. While the squeals of young adults were enough to break the crystal chandeliers, Su found solace just outside the concert doors, with none other the Governor. Yep, the Gov with the good hair and Su chatted it up and Su even got a picture with the Gov while Delaney rocked out the show with the hottest ticket in town. Dave and Su are celebrating what they believe is to be their 10 year anniversary at the end of the month, although it’s questionable that they’ve actually been married for 10 years. While we applied for a license just prior to our wedding, the license wasn’t actually granted for another two years – apparently those signatures are kind of critical to a license. So, we’re either celebrating 8 years of marriage, or 10 – either way, it’s been a wonderful ride and one that neither of us would change for anything.
2006 In Review
December, 2006
It’s that time of year again when you can strap on your seatbelt and enjoy the ride on the highway of family madness. Without further adieu, we present 2006 in review:
December 05/January 06: We hosted Dave’s family in Michigan between Christmas and New Year’s while Dave’s brother Mike used our house in Chicago. What are the odds that our shower in Chicago and our shower in Michigan would simultaneously stop working? We literally had plumbers in both homes at the same time trying to fix the same problem – just 75 miles apart. In the last hurrah of the year, Su and Michelle Charles decided to take the girls to breakfast at the Walnut Room. After waiting in line…outside…for 45 minutes, we finally made in the doors of the hallowed halls of the State Street Marshall Fields to be greeted by the local news channels. “How does it feel to have Marshall Fields CANCEL breakfast on New Year’s Eve? Does it bother you that they never let anyone know?” All we could say was, “Tis the season….”
February: Every February we enjoy the bliss of having happy, sunshine days and no more black clouds over our lives. Of course, this would be the shortest month of the year, but truthfully nothing too exciting to report for February (don’t worry – keep reading, we make up for it later).
March: Delaney is given the “Student of the Month” award at Blaine. She was “caught” cleaning up after some other kids, and generally being quite helpful. Max enters his terrible two’s – as we jokingly say, “If he was the first, he’d be an only child. Dave “advises” Su that he’ll be doing a boy’s ski trip for a long weekend. Oh yeah, and maybe tie in a work trip either before or after the ski trip…or both. Yep – Dave left Su with three kids for NINE days. When you read years from now that Su has taken a month-long girls trip out of the country, you won’t question it and you definitely won’t feel sorry for Dave.
April: Dave, Su and Jack all celebrate birthdays this month. In fact, at dinner our dear friend Emily turned to Su and asked, “Are you celebrating a big one?” Thanks Emily…and the answer of course is “Not yet.” And Dave did manage to remember Su’s birthday with minimal prodding. We spent Easter in Michigan. With Su’s parents watching the kids, Dave and Su snuck out of the house to go purchase goodies for the kids Easter baskets. What happened next is simply a tragedy – on the way to the store, Dave swerves in an effort to miss (which is debatable) a bunny but thankfully not the Easter Bunny… We now have a lucky charm in the tire of our Cooper.
May: Christopher and Emily joined us in Michigan for a weekend away. As many of you may remember, we sold our Union Pier home last year and moved three miles to Three Oaks. Suddenly, after putting the kids to bed and enjoying a glass of wine in the living room, the electricity went out. While all of our neighbors had generators, we being the Chicago-folk ran around the house to find…a battery operated boombox to plug in our IPod. Who needs light if you have good tunes? Christopher and Dave decided to drive around the neighborhood to see how far the outage was and see our neighbors sitting outside on the back of the pickups waiting out the outage. Dave wanted to stop but realized the neighbors wouldn’t appreciate the city folks pulling up in a Mini-Cooper convertible. This leads to Dave’s “brilliant” thought, “Hey, maybe we should get a country car, you know our neighbor’s won’t take us seriously driving around the Cooper”. Good idea, Dave. We have decided we are ‘Citybillys’. Sometimes you can’t take the City out of us as much as we try to fit into the country.
June: Our friends Mike and Helen Cameron (who’s Uncommon restaurant will go unnamed…) used our Michigan home. The pool looked so inviting that who needs swimsuits when you’re on 15 acres, right? Too bad, we failed to advise them when the pool cleaners were coming, We got a note the following week from the pool company to remind our guests the days of service, and to maybe wear their bathing suits. J Delaney has her first lemonade stand, selling lemonade and water to thirsty Cub fans and hiring Max and Jack to “just act cute”. After negotiating a good corner to set up her stand (you don’t want to mess with the regular’s and their corners), Delaney makes $60. After paying Dave and Su their parental commission, Delaney has just enough money to buy a snickers bar. Dave has discovered how to pay for college.
July: We took the kids to see the Su's family in beautiful Seattle, where the sun does not set this time of year until 11:00 p.m. We took the kids to the fireworks, which were held behind a small, 2-story office building. When the alarm system in the office building sounded, we just assumed some juvenile delinquents were trying to break into the building. What we didn’t realize was that one of the fireworks started a brush fire on the back-side of the building. When the flames turned the corner and headed to us, we did as all Seattle-ites do…just take a couple of steps back and continue watching the fireworks. When the flames were finally bigger than the kids, we thought maybe we should head back to the car…and continue to watch the fireworks. Delaney and Jack stay in Seattle with the grandparents while Dave and Su bring Max back home to begin potty training. First time in 7 years we haven’t bought diapers - we now have enough money to buy that Country Car – Dave’s thinking Pickup Truck – Su’s thinking not.
August: Delaney celebrated her seventh birthday. Upon return from a birthday manicure and pedicure (they start young, don’t they) Su and Delaney see a host of police cars and officers in front of our house. Dave rushes Su and Delaney inside while Dave talks with the officers. Apparently, while Su and Delaney were gone, Dave noticed a “strange man” peeking his head in our neighbor’s backyard. So, Dave being the good citizen calls the police. While Dave’s on the phone, the would-be-robber jumps the neighbors fence and takes off with the Trek bike (leaving behind his Huffy…apparently he was trading up). The cops catch him at the corner and thanks to Dave, the neighborhood crime rate has gone down for the month of August. The neighbors all congregate on our front porch to “relive Dave’s heroic actions” when we notice another “strange man” coming out of our gangway. With maybe 15 people on our front porch, the “strange man” was somewhat polite and said “Excuse me” as he tried to dodge the myriad of children. When someone yelled out, “Hey!” the “strange man” took off down the street with Dave and Eric Anderson in pursuit. Since the cops had only made it to the end of the block, they cut him off at the corner and clearly the robber had “been there, done that” as he quickly lay on the ground spread eagle. Turns out while Dave had taken the cops through our garage to show them where the first robber was, the second robber slipped into our garage and broke into our car. Since the second robber was on probation, Dave had to testify in court as the DA was trying to put him away for 8 years. All for stealing a first aid kit out of our car, that we never knew we had. Oh yeah, Jack and Delaney both had their tonsils and adenoids out.
September: Max ran away from home – it’s true. While in Michigan, Max took his blanket, and headed down the driveway and around the corner. Thankfully a neighbor brought him back home – but the lesson learned, “That kid is a sneaky one!” Need a way to insure your spouse never flies again? Simply use their briefcase and then don’t empty it out before your spouse uses it again. As Su was making her way to Florida, she used the “joint” roller-briefcase. Just as she was going through security, Su decides to put her wallet in the front pocket. Funny – it didn’t fit, what’s in there? Su reaches her hand in the front pocket and pulls out a bag of unmarked pills, a giant glue stick, shoelaces, chapstick and the clincher…a giant BOX CUTTER. Yes, pretty much everything was in the briefcase except the Koran and detailed instructions. Thanks Dave! Oh yeah, remember that country car? Not a Pickup but a Jeep which is as country as we could handle at this point.
October/November: October was probably the longest month of 2006, so long that we’re not sure where October ended and November started. Missing the home cooking of the hospital food, Su heads to UCH for a little surgery, anesthesia and R&R. Dave makes Su’s hospital room his personal Yahoo! South office location – even managed to get a WiFi connection in the room. Unfortunately that meant Dave sucked all the energy out of the operating rooms just to stay online. After a couple of days, Su was discharged to go back home where Grandma Lee was waiting to play nurse maid. Five days at home, and Su was ready…to go back to the hospital. Since Dave decided that California was much warmer this time of year, Su recruited Emily to spend far too long in the ER while a room was being found. After another four days, Su was discharged and we sent Grandma Lee back home to Seattle since we had Bridget to care for the kids. After a couple of days at home, Su noticed that Bridget wasn’t looking too good. “Umm...are you okay Bridget? Do you need me to take you to the doctor?” Su loaded up Bridget and Max, bypassed the doctor and went straight to the ER. After getting Bridget admitted, Su brought Max home and contacted Bridget’s husband Seth to go straight to the hospital. An hour later, Su gets a phone call from Seth, “Su, our car broke down.” “Hmm..okay Seth. Take a cab to our house and use our car.” Turns out Bridget’s heart was racing and she was admitted to the cardiac floor. “Mom? I know you’ve only been home for two days, but do you think you might want to fly back to Chicago? The grandkids miss you.” After giving Bridget some much needed rest, we finally sent Grandma Lee packing. And then suddenly it’s Thanksgiving. We hosted Dave’s family in Michigan for our annual Turkey cook-off. And this year? We like to think it was a tie. Su got a phone call late in the evening from Bridget. “Su – Seth and I were driving to the store and then we stopped at the stop sign and got rear ended…by a CTA BUS!” The car was totaled and now Bridget wasn’t feeling too good. “Bridget – get off the phone with me and go to the hospital.” So back to the hospital Bridget went and spent a couple of days getting the best chicken broth and IV fluid diet known to man.
December: We hosted the annual Lakeview Pantry Toy Drive. The weather conditions in Chicago on the day of the party, were nothing short of “tropical” – okay, it was the first big snow storm of the year. But we had 250 people turn out and collected 600+ toys for the kids. As always, we head to IHOP for a greasy breakfast at 2:00 a.m. with the Haites and Su’s brother Jeff. We decided to leave Jeff’s illegally parked car while we’re having breakfast and pick it up on the way back.. One problem, on return at 3:00 a.m. the car is GONE! Welcome to Chicago Jeff, we have tow trucks here…and unfortunately, vandalized of his tip money. Here’s to hoping that Jeff comes back next year! The following weekend, we hosted our annual “Breakfast with Santa”. Since all parties that start in our house eventually end up Murphy’s Bleachers, this was no exception. With 150 people at the party, the best quote of the day was from Beth Murphy who described the party as, “It’s like a Cubs game…just smaller people.” The rest of December will encompass Christmas with family followed by a family vacation on the Disney Cruise with the kids.
It’s that time of year again when you can strap on your seatbelt and enjoy the ride on the highway of family madness. Without further adieu, we present 2006 in review:
December 05/January 06: We hosted Dave’s family in Michigan between Christmas and New Year’s while Dave’s brother Mike used our house in Chicago. What are the odds that our shower in Chicago and our shower in Michigan would simultaneously stop working? We literally had plumbers in both homes at the same time trying to fix the same problem – just 75 miles apart. In the last hurrah of the year, Su and Michelle Charles decided to take the girls to breakfast at the Walnut Room. After waiting in line…outside…for 45 minutes, we finally made in the doors of the hallowed halls of the State Street Marshall Fields to be greeted by the local news channels. “How does it feel to have Marshall Fields CANCEL breakfast on New Year’s Eve? Does it bother you that they never let anyone know?” All we could say was, “Tis the season….”
February: Every February we enjoy the bliss of having happy, sunshine days and no more black clouds over our lives. Of course, this would be the shortest month of the year, but truthfully nothing too exciting to report for February (don’t worry – keep reading, we make up for it later).
March: Delaney is given the “Student of the Month” award at Blaine. She was “caught” cleaning up after some other kids, and generally being quite helpful. Max enters his terrible two’s – as we jokingly say, “If he was the first, he’d be an only child. Dave “advises” Su that he’ll be doing a boy’s ski trip for a long weekend. Oh yeah, and maybe tie in a work trip either before or after the ski trip…or both. Yep – Dave left Su with three kids for NINE days. When you read years from now that Su has taken a month-long girls trip out of the country, you won’t question it and you definitely won’t feel sorry for Dave.
April: Dave, Su and Jack all celebrate birthdays this month. In fact, at dinner our dear friend Emily turned to Su and asked, “Are you celebrating a big one?” Thanks Emily…and the answer of course is “Not yet.” And Dave did manage to remember Su’s birthday with minimal prodding. We spent Easter in Michigan. With Su’s parents watching the kids, Dave and Su snuck out of the house to go purchase goodies for the kids Easter baskets. What happened next is simply a tragedy – on the way to the store, Dave swerves in an effort to miss (which is debatable) a bunny but thankfully not the Easter Bunny… We now have a lucky charm in the tire of our Cooper.
May: Christopher and Emily joined us in Michigan for a weekend away. As many of you may remember, we sold our Union Pier home last year and moved three miles to Three Oaks. Suddenly, after putting the kids to bed and enjoying a glass of wine in the living room, the electricity went out. While all of our neighbors had generators, we being the Chicago-folk ran around the house to find…a battery operated boombox to plug in our IPod. Who needs light if you have good tunes? Christopher and Dave decided to drive around the neighborhood to see how far the outage was and see our neighbors sitting outside on the back of the pickups waiting out the outage. Dave wanted to stop but realized the neighbors wouldn’t appreciate the city folks pulling up in a Mini-Cooper convertible. This leads to Dave’s “brilliant” thought, “Hey, maybe we should get a country car, you know our neighbor’s won’t take us seriously driving around the Cooper”. Good idea, Dave. We have decided we are ‘Citybillys’. Sometimes you can’t take the City out of us as much as we try to fit into the country.
June: Our friends Mike and Helen Cameron (who’s Uncommon restaurant will go unnamed…) used our Michigan home. The pool looked so inviting that who needs swimsuits when you’re on 15 acres, right? Too bad, we failed to advise them when the pool cleaners were coming, We got a note the following week from the pool company to remind our guests the days of service, and to maybe wear their bathing suits. J Delaney has her first lemonade stand, selling lemonade and water to thirsty Cub fans and hiring Max and Jack to “just act cute”. After negotiating a good corner to set up her stand (you don’t want to mess with the regular’s and their corners), Delaney makes $60. After paying Dave and Su their parental commission, Delaney has just enough money to buy a snickers bar. Dave has discovered how to pay for college.
July: We took the kids to see the Su's family in beautiful Seattle, where the sun does not set this time of year until 11:00 p.m. We took the kids to the fireworks, which were held behind a small, 2-story office building. When the alarm system in the office building sounded, we just assumed some juvenile delinquents were trying to break into the building. What we didn’t realize was that one of the fireworks started a brush fire on the back-side of the building. When the flames turned the corner and headed to us, we did as all Seattle-ites do…just take a couple of steps back and continue watching the fireworks. When the flames were finally bigger than the kids, we thought maybe we should head back to the car…and continue to watch the fireworks. Delaney and Jack stay in Seattle with the grandparents while Dave and Su bring Max back home to begin potty training. First time in 7 years we haven’t bought diapers - we now have enough money to buy that Country Car – Dave’s thinking Pickup Truck – Su’s thinking not.
August: Delaney celebrated her seventh birthday. Upon return from a birthday manicure and pedicure (they start young, don’t they) Su and Delaney see a host of police cars and officers in front of our house. Dave rushes Su and Delaney inside while Dave talks with the officers. Apparently, while Su and Delaney were gone, Dave noticed a “strange man” peeking his head in our neighbor’s backyard. So, Dave being the good citizen calls the police. While Dave’s on the phone, the would-be-robber jumps the neighbors fence and takes off with the Trek bike (leaving behind his Huffy…apparently he was trading up). The cops catch him at the corner and thanks to Dave, the neighborhood crime rate has gone down for the month of August. The neighbors all congregate on our front porch to “relive Dave’s heroic actions” when we notice another “strange man” coming out of our gangway. With maybe 15 people on our front porch, the “strange man” was somewhat polite and said “Excuse me” as he tried to dodge the myriad of children. When someone yelled out, “Hey!” the “strange man” took off down the street with Dave and Eric Anderson in pursuit. Since the cops had only made it to the end of the block, they cut him off at the corner and clearly the robber had “been there, done that” as he quickly lay on the ground spread eagle. Turns out while Dave had taken the cops through our garage to show them where the first robber was, the second robber slipped into our garage and broke into our car. Since the second robber was on probation, Dave had to testify in court as the DA was trying to put him away for 8 years. All for stealing a first aid kit out of our car, that we never knew we had. Oh yeah, Jack and Delaney both had their tonsils and adenoids out.
September: Max ran away from home – it’s true. While in Michigan, Max took his blanket, and headed down the driveway and around the corner. Thankfully a neighbor brought him back home – but the lesson learned, “That kid is a sneaky one!” Need a way to insure your spouse never flies again? Simply use their briefcase and then don’t empty it out before your spouse uses it again. As Su was making her way to Florida, she used the “joint” roller-briefcase. Just as she was going through security, Su decides to put her wallet in the front pocket. Funny – it didn’t fit, what’s in there? Su reaches her hand in the front pocket and pulls out a bag of unmarked pills, a giant glue stick, shoelaces, chapstick and the clincher…a giant BOX CUTTER. Yes, pretty much everything was in the briefcase except the Koran and detailed instructions. Thanks Dave! Oh yeah, remember that country car? Not a Pickup but a Jeep which is as country as we could handle at this point.
October/November: October was probably the longest month of 2006, so long that we’re not sure where October ended and November started. Missing the home cooking of the hospital food, Su heads to UCH for a little surgery, anesthesia and R&R. Dave makes Su’s hospital room his personal Yahoo! South office location – even managed to get a WiFi connection in the room. Unfortunately that meant Dave sucked all the energy out of the operating rooms just to stay online. After a couple of days, Su was discharged to go back home where Grandma Lee was waiting to play nurse maid. Five days at home, and Su was ready…to go back to the hospital. Since Dave decided that California was much warmer this time of year, Su recruited Emily to spend far too long in the ER while a room was being found. After another four days, Su was discharged and we sent Grandma Lee back home to Seattle since we had Bridget to care for the kids. After a couple of days at home, Su noticed that Bridget wasn’t looking too good. “Umm...are you okay Bridget? Do you need me to take you to the doctor?” Su loaded up Bridget and Max, bypassed the doctor and went straight to the ER. After getting Bridget admitted, Su brought Max home and contacted Bridget’s husband Seth to go straight to the hospital. An hour later, Su gets a phone call from Seth, “Su, our car broke down.” “Hmm..okay Seth. Take a cab to our house and use our car.” Turns out Bridget’s heart was racing and she was admitted to the cardiac floor. “Mom? I know you’ve only been home for two days, but do you think you might want to fly back to Chicago? The grandkids miss you.” After giving Bridget some much needed rest, we finally sent Grandma Lee packing. And then suddenly it’s Thanksgiving. We hosted Dave’s family in Michigan for our annual Turkey cook-off. And this year? We like to think it was a tie. Su got a phone call late in the evening from Bridget. “Su – Seth and I were driving to the store and then we stopped at the stop sign and got rear ended…by a CTA BUS!” The car was totaled and now Bridget wasn’t feeling too good. “Bridget – get off the phone with me and go to the hospital.” So back to the hospital Bridget went and spent a couple of days getting the best chicken broth and IV fluid diet known to man.
December: We hosted the annual Lakeview Pantry Toy Drive. The weather conditions in Chicago on the day of the party, were nothing short of “tropical” – okay, it was the first big snow storm of the year. But we had 250 people turn out and collected 600+ toys for the kids. As always, we head to IHOP for a greasy breakfast at 2:00 a.m. with the Haites and Su’s brother Jeff. We decided to leave Jeff’s illegally parked car while we’re having breakfast and pick it up on the way back.. One problem, on return at 3:00 a.m. the car is GONE! Welcome to Chicago Jeff, we have tow trucks here…and unfortunately, vandalized of his tip money. Here’s to hoping that Jeff comes back next year! The following weekend, we hosted our annual “Breakfast with Santa”. Since all parties that start in our house eventually end up Murphy’s Bleachers, this was no exception. With 150 people at the party, the best quote of the day was from Beth Murphy who described the party as, “It’s like a Cubs game…just smaller people.” The rest of December will encompass Christmas with family followed by a family vacation on the Disney Cruise with the kids.
2005 In Review
December, 2005
The time is finally here when you can grab that cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy the ongoing insanity, also known as our Family Holiday Letter. Here goes….
December/January – Dave and Su took their first adult-only extended vacation after Christmas to none other than Puerto Rico. But no travel experience is complete without at least one final, year-ending travel curse. While our plane tickets were redeemed using our Merrill Lynch miles, apparently Su’s ticket was “ticketed” but never “purchased” – in other words, we walked up to the gate, had our confirmation number but was denied boarding unless we purchased a new ticket (this only took 90 minutes to figure out). You don’t want to know what a last minute ticket costs to Puerto Rico…..
February – February always seems to be the month where relatively little happens (I realize I am now sending a curse our way every February for committing this to writing….) Jack fell and hit his head on the armoire creating quite the gash…being the little trooper we played “Operation” at home and thought all was well. Recently, Jack pointed to his “still-there-scar” and said, “Mommy, I like the hole in my head.” Good…looks like it will be there for a while.
March – Nothing says family like bringing the Su's extended family clan together for a Disney Family Vacation and Cruise. And to start off the cruise, Dave conveniently “meets Su” in Florida (two years in a row) and leaves Su with two kids to get through Midway (poor Max stayed back home). Su realized that the travel curse really is hereditary when the gate agent for Southwest denied boarding to Delaney because she was on the FBI no-fly list. After showing passports and at least convincing the agents that Delaney was not a terrorist (we just wanted to see Mickey), Su then steps in the longest security line to board the flight. Two Chicago police officers pulled Su out of line saying, “You match the description of someone we are looking for.” Su said something along the lines of, “You mean harried mom traveling alone with two kids, one of which is on the FBI no-fly list. That description?” Oh yes, Max also turns the big one.
April – We could write an entire novel on April…seriously. First it started with Dave conveniently forgetting Su’s birthday…okay, not entirely, but Barb had to send Dave an e-mail with an end-of-the-day reminder that it was her birthday. But that pales in comparison with Dave’s next banner moment. Dave thought he had signed up for e-pay for People’s Gas where they magically suck money out of your account to pay for your gas bill. When Su couldn’t get the stove to light, we quickly realized that Dave actually signed up for e-bill there they magically send your bills to your e-mail account...an account that Dave never checks. Yes, it’s true, we got our gas shut off. And to add insult to injury, the gas company refused to hook us up for another week – this was the coldest week in April with highs in the 20’s. No gas means no heat, no stove, no hot water. So Su pulled her best Desperate Housewives act and rang multiple neighbors’ doorbells with various excuses to shower while Dave conveniently skipped out to a pre-work workout at the club with the hot showers. And the kids, well, they smelled for a week. Jack turns three!
May – Spring is here which means it’s never better to live close to Wrigley Field than when they have Neighbor’s Day. Through the lottery, we won a spot to have a picnic with the kids on Wrigley Field. Being city kids, they didn’t quite know what to do with all that grass. In fact, Max crawled around the outfield eating the grass like a cow. Before leaving the event, Max appropriately “christened” the outfield – I guess the chemical-enhanced grass did not sit well in his tummy.
June – We were about to start rehabbing our Michigan house when Dave casually suggested that we look at other properties that might be available. While Dave enjoyed the Red Sox/Cubs game, Su headed up to Michigan to look at a couple of properties. The first property Dave had already saw and was ready to make an offer. When Su saw it, the dead dog in the backyard was a sure sign that the house was not meant to be and therefore ventured to house #2. House #2 had 15 acres on the Galien River and while not exactly Su’s idea of a beach cottage, had Dave’s name written all over it (we don’t have grass in the city, this house has LOTS of grass for Dave to cut). In a strange turn of events, our realtor told us she had someone that might be interested in our cottage (don’t they all say that?) but indeed it was true and the stars were aligned. We had an acceptable offer on our home by noon and our offer on the new house was accepted by 12:30 that same day.
July – July was a busy month. First, Su went to the NFL Mom’s convention for a cookbook she was working on with the group and Campbell’s – her claim to fame was getting “Honorary Mom Lucille O’Neal” (if you saw the pictures, you would know what famous basketball son she is the mom of) in the Congo line after dinner. Su also pitched in as make-up assistant for the Mother/Son fashion show (hard to believe, I know) and was then interviewed on ESPN with such stimulating questions as, “How long does it take to get the moms ready…what’s your make-up secrets.” We then went to Boston and the Cape with Dave’s family to celebrate Rick’s 60th birthday. And we capped off the month with a trip to the emergency room when Su suddenly had a “water baby” (gained 6” to my waistline in two hours – this is the third one). Since my charts said something along the lines of, “Mom of three complains of getting fat”, they made me wait in the chairs for six long hours. Finally, after Max was teased for being the last kid that still crawls, our neighbor Cindy suggests that Stride Rite makes great walking shoes (I guess the Payless versions weren’t working) so Dave took Max to the Stride Rite store to be fitted. Max crawled into the store and – no kidding – walked out of the store all the way to the car. For months to come, he would only walk if he was wearing his magic (read: expensive) shoes.
August – Delaney turns six and we close on the house in Michigan. Su get her fourth “water baby” and it looks like this one is here to stay for a while. Darn….we gave all of Su’s maternity clothes to our sister-in-law Sarah who is expecting their first child in March.
September – In case you didn’t know, Su sidelines as a ticket broker to the rich and famous. After scoring good seats for the Red Sox/Cubs game, Su tries her hand for Buffett tickets. Not only does she get great tickets, but gets Center Stage front row tickets. Needless to say, we sell the tickets for $800/ticket (paid $130/ticket) to the ticket broker and bank the money for our next family vacation. Su finds out that her magic touch is only effective for concert tickets and sporting events and does not apply to Body Worlds. After waiting far too long, Su and her sister Kim, venture out to Body Worlds with the only time slot available over Labor Day weekend…3:00 a.m.
October – Nothing says city living like Halloween weekend. After being awakened from a deep sleep around 4:00 a.m., Dave yells to Su to call the cops as two people are trying to break down our front door. When asked by the cops to give a description, Dave says, “Zorro with a Sombrero hat and a fat guy in a wig.” Turns out our very drunk, young, neighbors mistakenly thought our house was theirs. An expensive mistake to learn after shattering the custom glass in our front door.
November – After spending six months attempting to find the source of the Water Baby in Chicago, Su heads to Mayo Clinic with her sister-in-law Lisa acting as medical interpreter and Dave. Su’s medical knowledge is limited to what she learns by watching ER and quickly learns that saying “stat” at the end of each sentence when talking to her docs is rather annoying. The source of the water baby is discovered and manageable with medication. After a couple of pills, it magically goes away and Su can forever (really) hang up her maternity clothes.
December – We once again hosted the annual Lakeview Pantry Toy Drive where we collected 650 gifts, raised over $2000 and had 300 people turn out for the event. The following weekend, (because Su is legitimately crazy) we also hosted a Santa Party at our house for the kids. We thought this year’s party would be a breeze as Su worked out a deal to use the vacant neighbor’s coach house. About five minutes after bringing supplies into the coach house, we hear a crack and a gush of water. Yep – the pipes burst and the coach house flooded. What a way to end the year!
The time is finally here when you can grab that cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy the ongoing insanity, also known as our Family Holiday Letter. Here goes….
December/January – Dave and Su took their first adult-only extended vacation after Christmas to none other than Puerto Rico. But no travel experience is complete without at least one final, year-ending travel curse. While our plane tickets were redeemed using our Merrill Lynch miles, apparently Su’s ticket was “ticketed” but never “purchased” – in other words, we walked up to the gate, had our confirmation number but was denied boarding unless we purchased a new ticket (this only took 90 minutes to figure out). You don’t want to know what a last minute ticket costs to Puerto Rico…..
February – February always seems to be the month where relatively little happens (I realize I am now sending a curse our way every February for committing this to writing….) Jack fell and hit his head on the armoire creating quite the gash…being the little trooper we played “Operation” at home and thought all was well. Recently, Jack pointed to his “still-there-scar” and said, “Mommy, I like the hole in my head.” Good…looks like it will be there for a while.
March – Nothing says family like bringing the Su's extended family clan together for a Disney Family Vacation and Cruise. And to start off the cruise, Dave conveniently “meets Su” in Florida (two years in a row) and leaves Su with two kids to get through Midway (poor Max stayed back home). Su realized that the travel curse really is hereditary when the gate agent for Southwest denied boarding to Delaney because she was on the FBI no-fly list. After showing passports and at least convincing the agents that Delaney was not a terrorist (we just wanted to see Mickey), Su then steps in the longest security line to board the flight. Two Chicago police officers pulled Su out of line saying, “You match the description of someone we are looking for.” Su said something along the lines of, “You mean harried mom traveling alone with two kids, one of which is on the FBI no-fly list. That description?” Oh yes, Max also turns the big one.
April – We could write an entire novel on April…seriously. First it started with Dave conveniently forgetting Su’s birthday…okay, not entirely, but Barb had to send Dave an e-mail with an end-of-the-day reminder that it was her birthday. But that pales in comparison with Dave’s next banner moment. Dave thought he had signed up for e-pay for People’s Gas where they magically suck money out of your account to pay for your gas bill. When Su couldn’t get the stove to light, we quickly realized that Dave actually signed up for e-bill there they magically send your bills to your e-mail account...an account that Dave never checks. Yes, it’s true, we got our gas shut off. And to add insult to injury, the gas company refused to hook us up for another week – this was the coldest week in April with highs in the 20’s. No gas means no heat, no stove, no hot water. So Su pulled her best Desperate Housewives act and rang multiple neighbors’ doorbells with various excuses to shower while Dave conveniently skipped out to a pre-work workout at the club with the hot showers. And the kids, well, they smelled for a week. Jack turns three!
May – Spring is here which means it’s never better to live close to Wrigley Field than when they have Neighbor’s Day. Through the lottery, we won a spot to have a picnic with the kids on Wrigley Field. Being city kids, they didn’t quite know what to do with all that grass. In fact, Max crawled around the outfield eating the grass like a cow. Before leaving the event, Max appropriately “christened” the outfield – I guess the chemical-enhanced grass did not sit well in his tummy.
June – We were about to start rehabbing our Michigan house when Dave casually suggested that we look at other properties that might be available. While Dave enjoyed the Red Sox/Cubs game, Su headed up to Michigan to look at a couple of properties. The first property Dave had already saw and was ready to make an offer. When Su saw it, the dead dog in the backyard was a sure sign that the house was not meant to be and therefore ventured to house #2. House #2 had 15 acres on the Galien River and while not exactly Su’s idea of a beach cottage, had Dave’s name written all over it (we don’t have grass in the city, this house has LOTS of grass for Dave to cut). In a strange turn of events, our realtor told us she had someone that might be interested in our cottage (don’t they all say that?) but indeed it was true and the stars were aligned. We had an acceptable offer on our home by noon and our offer on the new house was accepted by 12:30 that same day.
July – July was a busy month. First, Su went to the NFL Mom’s convention for a cookbook she was working on with the group and Campbell’s – her claim to fame was getting “Honorary Mom Lucille O’Neal” (if you saw the pictures, you would know what famous basketball son she is the mom of) in the Congo line after dinner. Su also pitched in as make-up assistant for the Mother/Son fashion show (hard to believe, I know) and was then interviewed on ESPN with such stimulating questions as, “How long does it take to get the moms ready…what’s your make-up secrets.” We then went to Boston and the Cape with Dave’s family to celebrate Rick’s 60th birthday. And we capped off the month with a trip to the emergency room when Su suddenly had a “water baby” (gained 6” to my waistline in two hours – this is the third one). Since my charts said something along the lines of, “Mom of three complains of getting fat”, they made me wait in the chairs for six long hours. Finally, after Max was teased for being the last kid that still crawls, our neighbor Cindy suggests that Stride Rite makes great walking shoes (I guess the Payless versions weren’t working) so Dave took Max to the Stride Rite store to be fitted. Max crawled into the store and – no kidding – walked out of the store all the way to the car. For months to come, he would only walk if he was wearing his magic (read: expensive) shoes.
August – Delaney turns six and we close on the house in Michigan. Su get her fourth “water baby” and it looks like this one is here to stay for a while. Darn….we gave all of Su’s maternity clothes to our sister-in-law Sarah who is expecting their first child in March.
September – In case you didn’t know, Su sidelines as a ticket broker to the rich and famous. After scoring good seats for the Red Sox/Cubs game, Su tries her hand for Buffett tickets. Not only does she get great tickets, but gets Center Stage front row tickets. Needless to say, we sell the tickets for $800/ticket (paid $130/ticket) to the ticket broker and bank the money for our next family vacation. Su finds out that her magic touch is only effective for concert tickets and sporting events and does not apply to Body Worlds. After waiting far too long, Su and her sister Kim, venture out to Body Worlds with the only time slot available over Labor Day weekend…3:00 a.m.
October – Nothing says city living like Halloween weekend. After being awakened from a deep sleep around 4:00 a.m., Dave yells to Su to call the cops as two people are trying to break down our front door. When asked by the cops to give a description, Dave says, “Zorro with a Sombrero hat and a fat guy in a wig.” Turns out our very drunk, young, neighbors mistakenly thought our house was theirs. An expensive mistake to learn after shattering the custom glass in our front door.
November – After spending six months attempting to find the source of the Water Baby in Chicago, Su heads to Mayo Clinic with her sister-in-law Lisa acting as medical interpreter and Dave. Su’s medical knowledge is limited to what she learns by watching ER and quickly learns that saying “stat” at the end of each sentence when talking to her docs is rather annoying. The source of the water baby is discovered and manageable with medication. After a couple of pills, it magically goes away and Su can forever (really) hang up her maternity clothes.
December – We once again hosted the annual Lakeview Pantry Toy Drive where we collected 650 gifts, raised over $2000 and had 300 people turn out for the event. The following weekend, (because Su is legitimately crazy) we also hosted a Santa Party at our house for the kids. We thought this year’s party would be a breeze as Su worked out a deal to use the vacant neighbor’s coach house. About five minutes after bringing supplies into the coach house, we hear a crack and a gush of water. Yep – the pipes burst and the coach house flooded. What a way to end the year!
2004 In Review
December 2004
It’s that time of year again when I scratch my head and desperately try to find the unusual in our lives. A small change this year, Dave always complains that I write in the third person, “Only Leon the Budweiser commercial guy talks in the third person”, so I’ve now have done a global change of “Su” to “I” and “We” as Dave has taken to editing the letter (Please note – one page front and back; 10 point type). Enjoy!
December 2003/January 2004: - Since our last letter, Dave’s brother John married Sarah on December 27th in Ann Arbor, MI. In an attempt to make the wedding, see my parents in Seattle and get a few days of skiing in Whistler, we figured we were physically in 4 time zones in a period of 4 days. Our bodies are still recuperating from the jet lag. Dave skied for the first time (okay, I’m taking some liberties here, if he’s skied before, you wouldn’t have known….) and Delaney took her first ski lessons. The kid’s ski lessons were going well until Delaney led all the kids away from the teacher to do snow angels. I, being six month pregnant, was the only person in Whistler with child. Needless to say, I spent more time enjoying the use of Dave’s credit cards than watching Dave in his “Dumb and Dumber” gear make it down the mountain.
February - Seriously, nothing exciting happened this month. It’s pretty much a blur as I gestated, ate bon-bons, and opted to order room service for our romantic Valentine’s Day weekend which happened to be the day the Yankees “announced A-Rod”. Oh the romance.
March - About two weeks before my due date, I woke up in the middle of the night with rather strong Braxton Hicks contractions (you would think by the third child I would know the difference….) As opposed to waking up Dave immediately, I patiently counted the contractions until I felt fairly certain that I was in labor. Dave did his panicked Dick van Dyke, tripped over the ottoman and asked me where the bag was when I’m fairly certain I yelled something along the lines of “Bag? This baby isn’t due for two weeks!” Dave managed to pack some rather interesting items in the overnight bag (shirt, no pants, you get the idea). By the time we got to the hospital, child #3 out of 14 was born a mere 90 minutes later. I, having such terrific mother’s intuition, was convinced we were having a girl - imagine our surprise when the doc said, “It’s a boy…what are you naming him?” Needless to say, Baby Oliveira wasn’t named for a little bit. Maxwell Theodore Oliveira was born on March 13 and weighed in at 8 pounds 14 ounces, the runt of the litter. Why Max? Well, we loved the name although we were surprised to find it the most popular pet name. “Here Max Here Max” takes on a whole new meaning.
April - The highlight of the month had to be Delaney’s ballet recital. Our perfect angel dressed in her ballet finest to perform in front of all of the children and their parents. Little did we know that someone stole Delaney and replaced her with a three-headed ballet monster. The ballet instructor read the Toy Story and asked each girl to dance with the Woody Doll. I’m sure Delaney thought she said, “Don’t dance, stomp on Woody and have the other ballerinas look on in horror”. And to think this is captured in dozens of camcorders. Too bad – she looked so cute and could really do some actual ballet moves. On a side note, Jack officially enters his terrible two’s, I’m officially in my mid-thirties and Dave is stretching the definition of “early thirties” (yes, he constantly reminds me he is the younger one….)
May - May begins the month of checking things off of “There’s no way I would ever do that…” list. At the top of the list was the constant battle of we-have-three-kids-and-need-a-minivan. Frankly, I believe Dave wanted a minivan before he ever met me. So, after trying to squeeze three carseats in the Bavarian Bobsled, we thought it was time to get the car that drives through three zip codes at once. I swear I saw Dave dancing in the street….Dave’s brother John named his dog, Trot, after a Red Sox left fielder thankfully removing any chance of a future child of taking the name of “a fast walk yet not quite a run”.
June - I could write a novel on kindergarten admissions for Chicago – tougher than college! After securing a spot for Delaney at St. Andrews, we began to stress out about the commute and decided that perhaps the best place for Delaney was the public school she had attended for pre-school. We were informed that we were too late and lived outside of the attendance area. After utilizing some solid Chicago politics, Delaney found her way back at Blaine.
July - I thought I had outflown and outmaneuvered the dreaded Bermingham travel curse. After two TSA agents pulled two passengers off my Chicago-Philly flight, I should have realized this was going to be the trip from hell. I checked into my very nice hotel on Monday and was planning to depart on Wednesday. On Tuesday morning, I realized there was an outside chance I could make a flight back to Chicago if my meetings went well. I asked to split my reservation into two separate reservations so I could come back, if needed. “No problem, happy to help you” is what I believe the front desk clerk said as I left. As my day progressed, I realized there was no way I was making it back to Chicago, but that’s okay, I figured I had a nice room, what could be so bad? We worked late into the night, left Campbell’s out of the night entrance, had dinner with my client and finally, at 11:30 at night, headed back to my hotel. I suddenly remembered that, egads, I had left my overnight bag at Campbell’s at the main entrance. Ever try driving to Camden at 11:30 at night? From there it was on to the hotel. No reservations – sorry sold out. Ugh. My client, Erin, offered to put me up in her house. While I was happy to sleep on a bed, I especially enjoyed the touches of home, including the screaming baby and little sleep. The next day I was ready to get back to Chicago. All snug in my seat reading the latest People magazine, the gate agent comes on board to ask all of us to grab our belongings and exit immediately. Apparently, the entire Philadelphia airport had been evacuated and I was now one of about 3,000 people trying to figure out how to get home. Come to find out, it was a “fire/terror drill” and the FBI was never notified.
August - We decided to take a week’s vacation and take the kids up to Michigan to become one with nature, literally. I believe I woke up all of Union Pier with my blood curdling screams when a mouse (alright, in the middle of the night it looked like a rat) ran across the bedroom floor. At the end of the month, I took Delaney to Disneyland for her fifth birthday while Dave relaxed at home with the boys. The Great Flood of Chicago hit Kenmore street, again – so much for “less-than-a-year-old” carpeting in the basement. Dave enjoyed being Noah while I enjoyed the sunny, dry weather of California. Jack is now out of diapers leaving only one butt to wipe in the house.
September - Delaney started kindergarten in her blue and white finest – nothing is better than a uniform in the morning. Months of schmoozing with principals and Chicago politicking has finally culminated in homework every night and a super tired kid. In an effort to appear hip and happening, we decided to get a second car to compliment the mini-van. And what better compliment, a Mini Cooper Convertible, a car you can actually park inside the mini-van, thus making it the true urban assault vehicle.
October - Pigs fly! Hell is frozen over! Yes, the beloved Red Sox beat the Yankees and actually won the World Series. Thank goodness I wasn’t pregnant now, or I’m sure little Max would be named Johnny Damon. Dave made the trek to St. Louis for the Kodak moment of the first Red Sox victory in 86 years and fulfilled the dreams of all Oliveiras that have gone before him– too bad he left his camera in the hotel room. The kids were awoken to witness (with their eyes closed) the victory that has escaped many Red Sox fans over the years. Dave is convinced that Max is the “chosen one” and his birth reversed the curse. Needless to say Dave and the rest of the family is still walking on water.
November - Jack, loving fire trucks, decided it was time to have all of Chicago’s finest pay at visit to our humble abode. Jack managed to find the ADT remote, thinking he was turning on the TV, set the alarm to both the firehouse and the police station. Only 13 police officers and firemen arrived at our house to find our family on the front steps while Dave and Su blissfully toiled away at their jobs. Upon hearing the news, Su raced home to insure everyone that Jack only wanted a fire truck for Christmas and thought this was the best way to remind us.
December - Max has started the army crawl throughout the house – perfect to find all those things we lost under the beds. The beginning of December started pretty “calm” – hosting the Lakeview Pantry Toy Drive where we collected 700 gifts and then the following weekend hosting our annual Santa Party at our house. And I decided to leave the mayhem of Chicago for yet another trip to Philly…without my I.D. In case you are wondering, a Costco card with your picture works wonders!
It’s that time of year again when I scratch my head and desperately try to find the unusual in our lives. A small change this year, Dave always complains that I write in the third person, “Only Leon the Budweiser commercial guy talks in the third person”, so I’ve now have done a global change of “Su” to “I” and “We” as Dave has taken to editing the letter (Please note – one page front and back; 10 point type). Enjoy!
December 2003/January 2004: - Since our last letter, Dave’s brother John married Sarah on December 27th in Ann Arbor, MI. In an attempt to make the wedding, see my parents in Seattle and get a few days of skiing in Whistler, we figured we were physically in 4 time zones in a period of 4 days. Our bodies are still recuperating from the jet lag. Dave skied for the first time (okay, I’m taking some liberties here, if he’s skied before, you wouldn’t have known….) and Delaney took her first ski lessons. The kid’s ski lessons were going well until Delaney led all the kids away from the teacher to do snow angels. I, being six month pregnant, was the only person in Whistler with child. Needless to say, I spent more time enjoying the use of Dave’s credit cards than watching Dave in his “Dumb and Dumber” gear make it down the mountain.
February - Seriously, nothing exciting happened this month. It’s pretty much a blur as I gestated, ate bon-bons, and opted to order room service for our romantic Valentine’s Day weekend which happened to be the day the Yankees “announced A-Rod”. Oh the romance.
March - About two weeks before my due date, I woke up in the middle of the night with rather strong Braxton Hicks contractions (you would think by the third child I would know the difference….) As opposed to waking up Dave immediately, I patiently counted the contractions until I felt fairly certain that I was in labor. Dave did his panicked Dick van Dyke, tripped over the ottoman and asked me where the bag was when I’m fairly certain I yelled something along the lines of “Bag? This baby isn’t due for two weeks!” Dave managed to pack some rather interesting items in the overnight bag (shirt, no pants, you get the idea). By the time we got to the hospital, child #3 out of 14 was born a mere 90 minutes later. I, having such terrific mother’s intuition, was convinced we were having a girl - imagine our surprise when the doc said, “It’s a boy…what are you naming him?” Needless to say, Baby Oliveira wasn’t named for a little bit. Maxwell Theodore Oliveira was born on March 13 and weighed in at 8 pounds 14 ounces, the runt of the litter. Why Max? Well, we loved the name although we were surprised to find it the most popular pet name. “Here Max Here Max” takes on a whole new meaning.
April - The highlight of the month had to be Delaney’s ballet recital. Our perfect angel dressed in her ballet finest to perform in front of all of the children and their parents. Little did we know that someone stole Delaney and replaced her with a three-headed ballet monster. The ballet instructor read the Toy Story and asked each girl to dance with the Woody Doll. I’m sure Delaney thought she said, “Don’t dance, stomp on Woody and have the other ballerinas look on in horror”. And to think this is captured in dozens of camcorders. Too bad – she looked so cute and could really do some actual ballet moves. On a side note, Jack officially enters his terrible two’s, I’m officially in my mid-thirties and Dave is stretching the definition of “early thirties” (yes, he constantly reminds me he is the younger one….)
May - May begins the month of checking things off of “There’s no way I would ever do that…” list. At the top of the list was the constant battle of we-have-three-kids-and-need-a-minivan. Frankly, I believe Dave wanted a minivan before he ever met me. So, after trying to squeeze three carseats in the Bavarian Bobsled, we thought it was time to get the car that drives through three zip codes at once. I swear I saw Dave dancing in the street….Dave’s brother John named his dog, Trot, after a Red Sox left fielder thankfully removing any chance of a future child of taking the name of “a fast walk yet not quite a run”.
June - I could write a novel on kindergarten admissions for Chicago – tougher than college! After securing a spot for Delaney at St. Andrews, we began to stress out about the commute and decided that perhaps the best place for Delaney was the public school she had attended for pre-school. We were informed that we were too late and lived outside of the attendance area. After utilizing some solid Chicago politics, Delaney found her way back at Blaine.
July - I thought I had outflown and outmaneuvered the dreaded Bermingham travel curse. After two TSA agents pulled two passengers off my Chicago-Philly flight, I should have realized this was going to be the trip from hell. I checked into my very nice hotel on Monday and was planning to depart on Wednesday. On Tuesday morning, I realized there was an outside chance I could make a flight back to Chicago if my meetings went well. I asked to split my reservation into two separate reservations so I could come back, if needed. “No problem, happy to help you” is what I believe the front desk clerk said as I left. As my day progressed, I realized there was no way I was making it back to Chicago, but that’s okay, I figured I had a nice room, what could be so bad? We worked late into the night, left Campbell’s out of the night entrance, had dinner with my client and finally, at 11:30 at night, headed back to my hotel. I suddenly remembered that, egads, I had left my overnight bag at Campbell’s at the main entrance. Ever try driving to Camden at 11:30 at night? From there it was on to the hotel. No reservations – sorry sold out. Ugh. My client, Erin, offered to put me up in her house. While I was happy to sleep on a bed, I especially enjoyed the touches of home, including the screaming baby and little sleep. The next day I was ready to get back to Chicago. All snug in my seat reading the latest People magazine, the gate agent comes on board to ask all of us to grab our belongings and exit immediately. Apparently, the entire Philadelphia airport had been evacuated and I was now one of about 3,000 people trying to figure out how to get home. Come to find out, it was a “fire/terror drill” and the FBI was never notified.
August - We decided to take a week’s vacation and take the kids up to Michigan to become one with nature, literally. I believe I woke up all of Union Pier with my blood curdling screams when a mouse (alright, in the middle of the night it looked like a rat) ran across the bedroom floor. At the end of the month, I took Delaney to Disneyland for her fifth birthday while Dave relaxed at home with the boys. The Great Flood of Chicago hit Kenmore street, again – so much for “less-than-a-year-old” carpeting in the basement. Dave enjoyed being Noah while I enjoyed the sunny, dry weather of California. Jack is now out of diapers leaving only one butt to wipe in the house.
September - Delaney started kindergarten in her blue and white finest – nothing is better than a uniform in the morning. Months of schmoozing with principals and Chicago politicking has finally culminated in homework every night and a super tired kid. In an effort to appear hip and happening, we decided to get a second car to compliment the mini-van. And what better compliment, a Mini Cooper Convertible, a car you can actually park inside the mini-van, thus making it the true urban assault vehicle.
October - Pigs fly! Hell is frozen over! Yes, the beloved Red Sox beat the Yankees and actually won the World Series. Thank goodness I wasn’t pregnant now, or I’m sure little Max would be named Johnny Damon. Dave made the trek to St. Louis for the Kodak moment of the first Red Sox victory in 86 years and fulfilled the dreams of all Oliveiras that have gone before him– too bad he left his camera in the hotel room. The kids were awoken to witness (with their eyes closed) the victory that has escaped many Red Sox fans over the years. Dave is convinced that Max is the “chosen one” and his birth reversed the curse. Needless to say Dave and the rest of the family is still walking on water.
November - Jack, loving fire trucks, decided it was time to have all of Chicago’s finest pay at visit to our humble abode. Jack managed to find the ADT remote, thinking he was turning on the TV, set the alarm to both the firehouse and the police station. Only 13 police officers and firemen arrived at our house to find our family on the front steps while Dave and Su blissfully toiled away at their jobs. Upon hearing the news, Su raced home to insure everyone that Jack only wanted a fire truck for Christmas and thought this was the best way to remind us.
December - Max has started the army crawl throughout the house – perfect to find all those things we lost under the beds. The beginning of December started pretty “calm” – hosting the Lakeview Pantry Toy Drive where we collected 700 gifts and then the following weekend hosting our annual Santa Party at our house. And I decided to leave the mayhem of Chicago for yet another trip to Philly…without my I.D. In case you are wondering, a Costco card with your picture works wonders!
Introduction
Alright, I'm a blogging virgin. So, why in the world would I venture into the cul-de-sac of online bloggers barely wearing my internet condom to protect me from the harsh world of critics? Simply put, I'm 39 and had hoped to chronicle the last year of my 30s before all went downhill. You know what I mean - I'm sure once I turn forty, I'll wake up with head full of gray hair (well on my way), have to roll my boobs back from wear gravity now calls them home, and I'll begin to lose my memory (I'm sure I have early onset Alzheimer's).
I had hoped to start this blog on my birthday - April 5th. As you can see, I'm a bit late, but really - starting in July - 9 months before my 40th is rather fitting. It's like birthing the blog baby, which I'm sure is far less painful than the three children that call me mom.
For those of you that have stumbled upon this post, wondering if a working mid-western mom has anything remotely interesting to say - well, let me just say that you don't me or my family very well. We are the epitomy of chaos - if the suns are shining all around us - rest assured, there is a black cloud with hurricane force winds firmly following our every step.
In order to get everyone up to speed - we need to do a little ABC Lost flash-backs. I'll give you the basics to get started:
3 Kids - Delaney, Jack and Max
1 Husband - Dave
Dave and I are a carbon neutral couple, almost like a hybrid car. He works on the internet saving trees, I cut down trees publishing cookbooks. My kids used to think I had the cooler job (free books!), but I have lost out to the "they still do that in corporate America" internet game room at Dave's job, complete with Wii, shuffleboard, free drinks and snacks, etc. Needless to say, I'm booking the next kids birthday party at Dave's work.
I digress - in order to get everyone up to speed on the chaos of our life, I am posting our Christmas blogs, formerly known as our annual Christmas newsletter. Yes, you too, can read first hand about the chaos of our lives. Then, we'll back track to June, because frankly, I could write an entire book on June. Not in the "awesome" way that my youngest Max constantly says, but June could be chalked up to, "You've got to be kidding me."
Enjoy the next nine months of labored blogging - without an epidural! Ouch!
I had hoped to start this blog on my birthday - April 5th. As you can see, I'm a bit late, but really - starting in July - 9 months before my 40th is rather fitting. It's like birthing the blog baby, which I'm sure is far less painful than the three children that call me mom.
For those of you that have stumbled upon this post, wondering if a working mid-western mom has anything remotely interesting to say - well, let me just say that you don't me or my family very well. We are the epitomy of chaos - if the suns are shining all around us - rest assured, there is a black cloud with hurricane force winds firmly following our every step.
In order to get everyone up to speed - we need to do a little ABC Lost flash-backs. I'll give you the basics to get started:
3 Kids - Delaney, Jack and Max
1 Husband - Dave
Dave and I are a carbon neutral couple, almost like a hybrid car. He works on the internet saving trees, I cut down trees publishing cookbooks. My kids used to think I had the cooler job (free books!), but I have lost out to the "they still do that in corporate America" internet game room at Dave's job, complete with Wii, shuffleboard, free drinks and snacks, etc. Needless to say, I'm booking the next kids birthday party at Dave's work.
I digress - in order to get everyone up to speed on the chaos of our life, I am posting our Christmas blogs, formerly known as our annual Christmas newsletter. Yes, you too, can read first hand about the chaos of our lives. Then, we'll back track to June, because frankly, I could write an entire book on June. Not in the "awesome" way that my youngest Max constantly says, but June could be chalked up to, "You've got to be kidding me."
Enjoy the next nine months of labored blogging - without an epidural! Ouch!
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