How Morning Cartoons Changed my Life

30 years ago today, I was 4 and went to turn on the TV to watch “Teleranek,” Sunday morning cartoons…but there was no reception. My grandfather went to call his brother to inquire about the TV problem but the line was dead.  A few minutes later, a balding man with thick glasses (General Jaruzelski) came on the screen and broadcast to the nation of Poland that we were now officially under a “State of War.”

My parents and I were just coming back from a ski vacation in the South and had stopped in on my grandparents who lived in Czestochowa, to celebrate my 4th birthday.  Now it was 6 AM and instead of leaving for Gdynia, 9 hours to the north, everyone started debating whether it was safe to travel, safe to be home, what it meant to be in a “State of War” (also know as Martial Law).

This was an era far from Facebook, the internet, cell phones.  It was more the era of the telegraph, as a lot of people didn’t even have landlines in Poland.  Most information was relayed by word of mouth.  It became clear that things would be drastically different now. While things were not awesome up to this point (shortages, inflation, rising prices, overall poor standard of living although apparently ski vacations still happened), this marked the beginning of more serious limitations on Polish civil liberties.  Strikes were now illegal punishable by a min of 3 years in prison, congregation in groups not allowed, a 5 or 6 pm curfew enforced.  The streets were patrolled with automatic weapon-toting Milicja, tanks rolled through the streets, national borders were sealed, and travel was restricted.  Approximately 100 people were killed during Martial Law and countless others were arrested.

My parents, being young and a bit careless, threw caution to the wind and drove their Maluch (a soviet car that makes the Mini Cooper look like a Cadillac) home to Gdynia, prepared with several extra containers of gas in the trunk.  To this day, they rave about how great the roads were “so empty, we just flew home.”  The only vehicles on the roads were military vehicles and tanks.

The next day, my father reported to work and did not come home for 3 days.  The Merchant Marine School (Szkola Morska) where he taught organized a strike to mirror those happening in the shipyards of Gdynia and Gdansk, led by Lech Walesa.  It was the original “Occupy Wall Street” kind of deal where the workers did not leave.  By the end of the 3 days when tanks and military cleared the the shipyards, the Szkola Morska had only 8 strikers left, one of them being my father.  Over the next week, middle-of-the night arrests were made and my father’s friends were sentenced to 9 years in

prison.  For some reason, probably because he was not high ranking enough, my father was not arrested.

To me, this was all pretty run-of-the mill. I personally enjoyed seeing tanks in the streets and loved curfew. It led to many sleep overs whenever my parents friends and children came over for dinner.  I never wanted for food or clothing, and lack of exotic items such as everything but vinegar made these items that much moreprized. For instance, I asked for canned ham (really) for my 8th birthday and ate so much that I would get nauseated by the sight of it years later.  Nothing was more amazing than finding a watermelon rind in the playground and my little playground buddies and I would all stop and stare thinking in envy, “this person had watermelon and they didn’t even eat that part here which is pretty much still red.”  We all shook our heads in disapproval at this mysterious person’s lack of sound judgement.

3 years after Martial Law was declared, my father left Poland, hoping to set up a life for us somewhere in the West.  We stayed behind and it was just my mother and brother and I.  Still, life was terrific.  I spent my days running around our neighborhood with my posse completely unsupervised.  We visited my cousins in fancy Sopot often.  I missed my father but we sometimes got packages from Austria and America with Munchichi and Nutella, which to this day make me so happy I could cry.  We often sat inour kitchen eating meals listening to the tapes my dad recorded for us.  I had my entire bedroom plastered with pictures he sent us of himself from America.  When it was time for us to leave, I was thrilled to go, to see my dad.  We left Poland in May of 1986, right after Chernobyl blew up.  My mom was so glad to leave the radioactive cloud and I was excited because my teacher gave me all As even though I didn’t deserve them (she wanted me to get a good head start in America).

The cartoons I watched in America were not as good as Teleranek.  For one, I couldn’t understand them.  The only English I knew was “orange” and “squirrel.” No joke.  I took lessons from a guy who I don’t think spoke English.  We had more stuff (a phone, 2 cars, nicer clothes) but I felt poorer.  It was hard to make friends, for years.  My parents worked hard and long and had a tough time adjusting to their new world.  I missed my old life but as a kid, never really consciously thought about it.  It’s obvious when I look back on some of my art pads, filled with patriotic poems about how Poland is my country and America never will be and big red hearts with arms and legs that have the world “Polska” written on their tummies.

My American sons will never ask for ham for their birthdays nor will they ever see tanks rolling through the streets.  They will never spend hours everyday thinking up games like burying broken bottles in the ground and stealing fruit from gardens because I will be watching over their shoulders. If they ever move to another country, it will be as rich Americans.  And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

A New Me

For those of you who like the old me, you may find what I’m about to say slightly disturbing.  I am about to craft the new me.  That’s right.  For the last 34 years, I have been the old me but that is about to change.  While there were some positives associated with Old Ania, you may enjoy some improvements of New Ania.  And yes, I fully understand that I must be breaking some kind of law by not appreciating myself or loving me for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I have pretty good self esteem.  I haven’t yet figured out if I have too much self esteem or too little based on objective human value, but I feel pretty fine about myself overall.

But I am turning 34 on Monday.  That seems a bit old.  And all those things I always thought I’d change about myself with time haven’t really improved.  When I was younger, I wanted to be smarter and better looking, have more friends.  Today I want to be younger, cognitively un-embarrassing, and keep the friends I have made.  I am still not that great looking (those of you who wish to differ, speak up now) and am even more unorganized and frazzled at all times (yes, it’s shocking, isn’t it?).

As a mom, I’d like to teach by example.  I would love my kids to grow up idealizing me, idolizing me.  Of course, I’m sure this is every parent’s dream and probably scientifically impossible.  But the person I see myself through my kids eyes is not the person sitting in this messy apartment, with a chipped manicure, eating cheerios.  I imagine their friends teasing them about their hot mom (who is on her way to the gym).  Them telling their friends that mom is away for a month curing AIDS in Africa.  Sometimes they accompany me and gain serious insight.  We live a beautiful and clean house where I happen to “enjoy cooking.”  Yes, I had to put that in quotes.  I have some fancy kitchen, all those Williams-Sonoma appliances, in copper of course, and I have a sexy apron.  This will be a huge draw for when the kids go off to boarding school at Exeter or back for Christmas break from Harvard.  I guess I’ve shifted a few decades ahead, so I assume that by then I will have developed an understanding of current events, financial markets, and picked up a hobby or two.  While I have always wanted to have a passion for photography (the kind where I occasionally show my work in galleries) I am now bored of the idea and am looking for new interests (taking suggestions).

I will definitely have stopped biting my nails and will always have shaved legs and armpits.

Mostly, I will just be calm, relaxed, and happy (while maintaining hotness).  With a glass of wine, laughing with someone about something.  Not a care in the world.

That is what I kind of see the New Ania as.  Glamorously beautiful.  Put together.  Toned.  Fun. Relaxed. Brilliant. Organized.

So how will I make these changes, you ask skeptically?  I suppose that as “organized” keeps making its way into my goals I shouldn’t just “wing it and see” as I am tempted to do.  Perhaps a timeline with goals and deadlines written in Excel.  In a file I can locate easily (I can never find these damn personal files which is why I’m blogging this lengthy embarrassing entry).  I should start with simple things like finding my credit card and keys (lost again). I don’t really know and am open to suggestions.

A Response from the Lepers

WE HAVE BEDBUGS.  There, it is said, and it is said on the internet.  It is time for us, the bed bug victims, to unite against the discrimination that is maliciously perpetrated against our kind.  It is not our fault that our wall-sharing neighbors sent the little critters underneath the wall.  We are the bitten, the itchy.  We are lunch.  And now we suffer the social stigma.

Our best friends have denied us entry to their home (http://www.herbietown.com/blog/2011/11/03/bed-bugs/ ).  Apparently, we are contemporary equivalents of the Lepers of Biblical times.  Friends will never come over for dinner, so we packed up our plates and party fare and are ready for a storage unit.  It is sad.  It would be sadder if we ever had friends over before we were infested, but still, the option has been taken from us.

But there is a silver lining.  We have purged our apartment of anything we don’t love or need.  There was no need to get a donation bag going, which is always a source of guilt for me (“someone might want this nice leather Kenneth Cole briefcase”).  No, no one will want a bed bug-infested briefcase.  No one on Craigslist will take that table.  No one wants the glasses, the books, the crappy kid toys.  Garbage, garbage, garbage.  There is an indescribable catharsis that comes with throwing crap out.  Every time another useless item hits the economy sized black construction debris bag, my heart flutters a pitter patter.  Tim tries to convince me that my African art, which he’s always hated, is a bed bug haven.

When all the crap is gone, the apartment seems very dirty.  The walls are all scratched up (all wall hangings were removed), the kitchen cabinets, now emptied, are gross.  There are random Melissa & Doug letters hiding behind bookshelves that were moved away from the wall.

Turns out, we don’t like our furniture, so out it goes.  No need for rugs, especially with the new sanitary measures we are implementing.   Why are our clothes so ugly?  Why do did we not throw out unmatched baby socks earlier?  Was I ever going to return the junk I bought and meant to return (i.e. Container Store metal basket you hang on a toilet and put magazines into which never fit- why the F did I buy that?????) The portable washing machine I got last year so we wouldn’t get bed bugs from the laundry room…..hmm…let me think, GARBAGE.  The enormous carpet shampooer I bought so we wouldn’t get bed bugs from the local hardware store rental one…hmm….I know, GARBAGE.

Most importantly, what do we buy to replace the junk we throw out?  Obviously, we won’t be buying a Design Within Reach tulip table with the marble top, as it is likely to get infested.  Our purchases will be IKEA.  And since we are chucking our stuff and starting over, we might as well go from “country” crap to “modern” crap, which is abundant at IKEA.  And how do we decorate knowing that NO ONE WILL EVER COME OVER TO SEE THE DÉCOR?  No matter how exterminated, steamed, spotless our place will be, no one will want to come over for drinks, dinner, a movie, a play date.  They will not even want to see how we’ve turned Jacob’s bed bug-infested bedroom into an office/dining room.  No matter how awesome the Pottery Barn table-turned-desk will look.  How does totally private consumption affect the decorating décor?  Should we just make it one large play area with toys everywhere? A little kid table, a kid kitchen, space for bike riding and ball playing?  Or should we maintain a semblance of normalcy and implement “serious” furniture and storage?

And what about accessories?  With all the free time we will have on our hands, having been discarded by those whom we once considered our friends, won’t we need little perks in life? Like a nice place to keep the toilet literature?

First Responders Never Run (in a red and white striped bikini)

“Isn’t that true?” asked Tim.

“What?”

“Isn’t it true that first responders never run?” He asked as he walked into the kitchen.

I hadn’t ever really thought about it.  I didn’t seem to recall that particular phrase being echoed in any of my BLS, ACLS, ATLS, PALS or other first responder classes.  Would have thought first responders would want to get to where they needed to go quickly.  But you did see FD and Police, etc. more scurrying with hoses and whatnot rather than sprinting, to the scene of an accident.  It makes sense that you wouldn’t want to get your adrenaline flowing too much, or arrive too quickly in some disaster area, or scare anyone into a panic.  I had never really thought about it.  And Tim tends to correctly remember weird slogans like “First responders never run” or medical phrases like “systemic lupus erythematosus” that he randomly throws about in conversations. So I said, “I guess probably not.”

This after-dinner conversation from several weeks ago was replaying itself in my head as I was running to the Atlantis Cove Snackbar in response to a “Is there a doctor in the house?”.  Let me explain.

So, here I was, lounging on a Caribbean beach in what I call a stretcher (others call lounge chair), all relaxed in my white and red striped bikini, big navy blue straw hat, big Jackie-O sunglasses, Ipad in hand reading Agatha Christie, Jacob nestled between my bosom and left arm, drinking an appropriately named “Bahama Mama” drink.  It’s a beautiful day at the Atlantis resort.  I’m loving life and someone in my book was just murdered.  Does it get any better than this?

Tim, who had been running around with Ben appears from behind my palapa and, looking very concerned, exclaims that something happened at the snackbar, someone passed out, it looks bad, people are calling for a doctor and that I should go.

“THIS IS IT” I thought.  This is the moment I’ve been training for.  4 years of medical school.  4 years of Emergency Medicine residency.  I went into this field because I wanted to be that guy on the plane who, when someone yells, “is there a doctor on this plane?” confidently arrives and saves the day.  Many of my residency friends had experiences of intubating people on the side of the road or aboard a deck of a gay cruise.  Now it was my turn, my chance to shine, my inner test.

An Emergency Medicine doctor  is THE doctor you want to have next to you when you collapse a lung, have a heart attack, break a femur.  That is what we train for, that Golden Hour of opportunity when a potential disaster can be averted with our intervention.  If you pass out at the snack bar at Atlantis, you want an Emergency Doctor at your side.

So I confidently shot up from my stretcher, handed Jacob to Tim, and started running.  Boobs and flab flapping, ass jiggling. Not a pretty sight I realize instantly and I slow down the pace.  I recall that “First responders never run” conversation.  Whether it’s true or not, I’m not sure.  One thing is for sure.  Fat first responders in a bikini should not run.  It’s just not professional.

Should I be going over some ABC’s in my head?  What if it’s cardiac? Do they have defibrillators.  That should be easy.  Head trauma? Pressure.  Tension pneumothorax?  That could be fixed by jamming a  straw through the left chest into the lungs,  like I saw on a movie once where a young female doctor is killed but haunts her ex boyfriend and actually guides him through this life saving procedure at a restaurant in the final denouement of the movie. Shouldn’t be a problem.

At the snack stand, there is a huddled group around a body on the floor and everyone else is staring (while still maintaining their place in line).  On the ground lays an 11 year old girl.  She is smiling and looking around, clearly excited by all the attention.  Not a sign of a dire situation, but still.  You should never just assume everything is OK.

“Someone called for a doctor” I say.  Strictly because that was true.  Later I would go over in my head the other potentially more eloquent introductions, such as “I’m Dr. R and I’m an emergency physician.  Is there anything I can help with.”   It seemed like something Dr. Goldfrank or someone older, more experienced would say as they WALKED, not RAN, over to the site of an emergency.  But this got the point across and I squatted next to the girl.

She was surrounded by a nurse, another doctor, and her mother’s boyfriend.  So I was the second doctor to arrive, which created a territorial quagmire.  Awkward.  How do I tactfully express, that clearly, after my 4 years of Emergency Training, I must be the more qualified expert? So often it’s dermatologist, opthamologists, radiologists who arrive on the scene.  They are usually scared as they try to recall the last time they had a life-threatening situation in their hands, sometime during internship.

The other physician was an OB-Gyn.  Part-midwife, part-surgeon, OB-Gyn’s are definitely comfortable with life and death, but this one seemed happy as a clam to leave the situation to me.  I implemented my greatest pediatric screening skills and assessed in less than a second that there is nothing wrong with my patient, she is and will be fine.  If this was the ED, I’d check her urine for pregnancy and send her home with her parents.  Here, by the snack bar, I wasn’t sure what else to do.  I struggled to stay professional and  linger around long enough to seem thorough and answer questions (“Yes, it may have been the antibiotics and not eating all day.”)  I then gave my name and told the family  where to find me if they needed any further assistance (under that palapa over that way).

Walking back to my stretcher on the beach, I was still shaking and nervous.  Now that I’m not working, this interaction constituted a significant portion of my medical exposure for the year, so I needed some time to regroup.  And old man peered out from his stretcher and asked if everyone is alright.  ”Yes, nothing to see,” I said in my most fireman voice.

I felt proud.  I was a doctor and I helped, or at least could have helped, someone in need.  All that training was really paying off.  Or at least could have paid off if it had been needed.  I had some skills beyond changing diapers.  Awesome.

“So do you think you are as good as an EMT in this kind of situation” asked Tim as soon as I sat down.  ”I mean, they are trained for this kind of thing.  By the time you get the patients, they are all packaged up.  I was thinking that in this kind of situation, my wife the EMT would be more useful than my wife the ER doctor…”

Eh what?

The goldfish died and that’s OK. Very OK.

We watch a lot of Polish Elmo over at the Hannan household.  One of Ben’s few words is “Emo.” For those of you who don’t know, Elmo has a goldfish named “Dorotka” (in Polish, possibly Dorthy in English? I wouldn’t know).  I thought it would be great to get Ben a goldfish, name it Dorotka.  I imagined he would stare at the bowl transfixed making fish mouth gestures with his lips, trying to feed it, catch it.  I assumed I’d have to put it up out of reach so he wouldn’t start drinking the bowl water.   It would come out whenever we watched Elmo on TV or played with the Elmo doll.  Kids love fish.

I assumed wrong.  Turns out, Ben doesn’t care about fish.  He dedicated exactly 3 seconds of his short attention span to Dorotka when I introduced them.  While he did show an inclination to throw in a handful of fishy-smelling flakes into the bowl at a few feeding times, the fish was otherwise completely ignored.  Left for me to take care of.

And who knew fish pooped so much?  I didn’t have pebbles in the bowl so all the poopies were visible.  And plentiful.  As soon as you change the water (did it twice, thank you very much), they are back.  And the food flakes just kind of disintegrate and make a cloudy muk.  Dorotka’s water was rarely crystal clear, I’ll be honest.

And boy was Dorotka slimy.  I wouldn’t really know because I would obviously never touch Dorotka or put myself in any kind of situation that would allow Dorotka to skim past any part of my body.  In general, I’ve gotten pretty hands off when it comes to pets . I NEVER touch my parents’ stinky cat Kicia (see post “I can’t believe Kicia #3 is still alive”); I have even cut down petting my own dog Rio to a minimum as she is a bit stinky.  So obviously, the sliminess of Dorotka was assumed, not verified.  I did my best to prevent any interaction.  Really, the only danger time was when changing the water so I strategized a way to do it without taking the fish out of the bowl.  I call it “dilution.”   I dumped out as much water out as possible without Dorotka taking the plunge into the sink, and then filled the bowl back up with clean water.  Then again, water would be dumped and refilled.  And so on until the water was crystal clear.  I think Dorotka liked it– she got pretty active with all the turbulence, kind of like swimming up a river.   Never had to take the fish out or put it back in the bowl, threatening a possible collision between fish and hand.  Then I  was supposed to do add a couple of drops of something that neutralized the chlorine in the water.  But that bottle was somewhere in the kitchen so I never did that.

So that’s probably why Dorotka died.  Too much chlorine, or maybe the diluting cleaning method wasn’t as awesome as I thought.  Maybe too much food.  Or too little, as Dorotka went on a diet when we went to Panama for a week; this may have weakened her system.  After the last cleaning, Dorotka started swimming real low. So low I got suspicious. I figured that maybe it was because the water was still a little chilly from the fresh tap, some kind of instinct to stay deep in the pond at winter.

But apparently, these were Dorotka’s last moments with us.  A couple hours later, Dorotka was swimming very much at the surface of the water, belly up.  When fish die, their “swim bladder,” a cavity that is filled with oxygen and helps fish with buoyancy when living, fills up with with too many gases and the fish goes straight up.  The belly also fills with gases, some of them from decomposition, so belly up.  It was gross.  I waited for Tim to get home to flush Dorotka to Nemo land and throw out, not recycle, the bowl.

I sometimes feel a little guilty about the chlorine drops but mostly I’m just happy I didn’t get the $45 dollar fancy goldfish with the big cheeks and flowy tail.  Dorotka was a 19 cent fish sold as food for bigger fish. So really, we gave her a few extra weeks of life before she met what was her destiny.  Much easier than returning the fish, bowl and all, to the store, with a lot less spillage along the way (my plan before the timely expiration).  And Ben never even noticed.

Working for the government, going commando

I, like the President, am now a public servant.  I did not have to take an oath (although I really thought I should have) but I had to watch a video about taking one.  Let me explain.

I’ll be doing some moonlighting shifts in the Emergency Room at the Veteran’s Hospital across the street from our apartment.  It’s a good gig, well-paying, convenient, not too difficult.  I’ve been trying to start since July.  But the amount of red tape at the VA is astounding.  3 different and apparently completely independent agencies within the VA had to process me.  After months of lost papers, wrong forms, then outdated forms, signatures, approval committees and their approval committees, after 2 PPD shots and a cholesterol check, after all this, I was now invited to orientation.

And I cried.  I sat there in the room simply called “Assembly Room” and tears rolled down my face.   Not from happiness or misery but because I was now  a public servant.  I think the videos really got to me, or maybe the photographs of war on walls, or the conversation I had with the veteran who was as fascinated with Revolutionary War history as I am (the stakes were so against us, I still can’t believe we won).  But I was joining the United States government.  I was going to help those who have served our country.  I was actually thanked (on video) for my service! I, a Polish immigrant!  My POW grandfather would have been so proud of me.  It was too much.  My bosom almost started leaking from emotion(this happens sometimes, it’s very annoying).

I was surrounded by other newbies, ones less emotionally shaken.  The middle-aged Hispanic woman to my right who was starting in Dental as an assistant broke the silence of our group.  She’d had experience working for the government before so she was not as idealistic, “Wojkin fo Riker’s  fo 10 yeys and jew tink jew’s set, but jew isn’t, they just lay jew off like that, benefits and all”  Apparently she had great benefits.    In front of her sat an older Black man, dressed in green from head to toe,  who was also going to Dental, either sterilization or assistant, he wasn’t sure.   He had on a green newsies hat, a green t-shirt underneath a green button down shirt with some gold chains peering through, green jeans, not sure about the shoes.  Behind him a man going to sales, a vet.  Up in front were a discombobulated psychiatrist who kept asking if she’d missed the meeting about benefits and an ivy-league-trained social worker.  In front of me sat a quiet ICU nurse who tried to pretend that she was also a newbie by faking getting lost.    But she was not new it turned out towards the end, she’d been working in the ICU for decades before getting put on probation.  Sending her to orientation was apparently supposed to be a new beginning.  I never did find out her dirty dark secret even though we were partners in a ice-breaker game called “get to know you” where we had to present our partner to the rest of the group.  Oddly, the game was played in the last 10 minutes before orientation ended and we all sprinted to our cars to beat the traffic.  The day was full of speakers, videos, computer training on things like sexual harassment and fire prevention, and lunch.  Finally, signed some more papers, was welcomed aboard, and sent to get an ID.

It was there I was told, “your application has been terminated”.  And not because I’m a terrorist (I’m not) but because the whole process had taken so long that the system started purging me from it.  Not sure why this was not picked up earlier but probably has something to do with the fact that NO ONE IN THE VA HAS ANY IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON BEYOND THEIR CUBICLE.  And that my friends is why I could never, as sad as it is, support a government run health care system.

I’m not wearing any underwear. And not because I’m sexy.

So I admit it.  I haven’t worn underwear in 2 days.  Not because I’m sexy (hey you, girl in your midtwenties at my brother’s party, I see you checking out my muffin top and I don’t appreciate it, this is what happens when you pop out 2 shorties in 2 years).  I’m completely out clothes.   And I lost the hamper.  So my closet has a mountain of laundry waiting to be done.  I haven’t done laundry since BEFORE my vacation 2 weeks ago.  If I could find my old bikini, I might wear the bottoms, but really, what’s the point?  If I just skip on the underwear altogether, I can convince myself that it’s not a sign of total lack of functionality on my part.  I’m not wearing underwear because, I, like many young and sexy ladies on television, chose not to.

It’s harder to convince myself that the homeless man outside the Lincoln Tunnel who told me I didn’t have my lights was a friend.  Or that I meant to leave the enormous suitcase full of baby laundry in our parking garage as opposed to bringing it to Jersey for my mom to wash (thanks mom).   Or that when I pulled into the parking garage in hell’s kitchen I MEANT to take the car keys with me because the car was parked just fine in the middle of the road with the door wide open.  Good thing I had lost my license the week before and SURPRISE, it was in the car all along.  The parking garage guy was able to trace me to my husband who supplied him with an extra set of keys.  This all happened within the last 2 days, since the last time I wore underwear.

I mention only these recent events because I can’t remember farther back beyond 48 hours.  This is the life I lead, people.  You should see my house.  It’s clean one minute and the next it looks like a Cheerios bomb went off in my living room spewing also Thomas the train parts.  My daily To-Do list goes something like this 1- get milk 2-get housekeeper(skillslate.com) 3-email that guy about a job 4-find hamper 5-look up adventure travel with babies 6-sell all furniture and buy new furniture (not a joke) 7-move to Binghamton (happening) 8-sign up for triatholon, preferably Iron Man (not happening, but wouldn’t I be awesome if it were true?)

And I don’t work, don’ t cook, obviously don’t do laundry.  What do I do with myself all day?  I have NO IDEA.  I think it must be a bunch of running  from crying baby to screaming toddler and back again.  Handing out cheese sticks and breast feeding.   If I were to describe to you what my day comprises of you’d say, “how nice!  you can nap and take a stroll ourside?  wonderful”.  But believe me and every other mother when we tell you, it’s somehow not that easy. Something about the psychological and physical fatigue mixed in with the knowledge that you really can’t take babies to adventure travel with you in Botswana, no matter how much you want to.

God’s perfect specimen

There is a psychiatric condition known as “Body Dysmorphic Disorder” in which the afflicted thinks he/she is hideous (wikipedia entry).  These are often the least hideous people with beautiful bodies, perfect features, tan flawless skin, and gleaming white teeth.  Those with body dysmorphic disorder never cease to seek improvements.  However, none of it helps and they still feel ugly.  No matter how beautiful they become, they just have bad self-image.

I have the opposite of that disorder.  In my head, I’m stunning.  I may know at some intellectual level that I am not particularly tall or have a “toned body.”  Tim often reminds me that I have a disproportionally long torso compared to what he calls my “stumpy legs.” My nose is too Polish, my chin looks fat and my left ear sticks out while my right does not, making for an odd asymmetric look (if you investigate closely).  And somehow, still, despite all that and for some strange reason, I still believe I’m very very attractive.

It’s disconcerting to get a glimpse of myself in a store window because what I see can be contrary to what I believe.  This is especially true since becoming a tired mom and even more so now that I’m massive and usually covered in yogurt/peaches/avocado.  If I shower, it’s a good day.  Shower + deodorant = me ready for a night out on the town.   Despite these peeks into reality,  I still believe I’m the kind of mom you read about in Us or People, like Heidi Klum (when I’m being fancy) or Jennifer Garner (on a casual day).

This disorder of mine is not just limited to the superficial, lest you call me vain.  I actually believe (or believed, as I will explain later) that my body–the mechanical structure–is perfect.  I’ve never been ill, not even chickenpox.  I’ve never worn braces. No asthma (a delusion of the west).  No allergies (from oversterilization in childhood).  No glasses (“yes I have perfect vision”).  No meds (see entry on how I got knocked up).  When checking off my medical history with the dental hygenist, I would glow with pride, and feel slightly ashamed for all those around me who could not share in my perfection.

This is partly the reason I cried when being hauled into my C-section emergently to give birth to Ben.  Yes, I was overwhelmed by the sudden danger of it all, by the fact that I no longer had 15 hours of hard labor to prepare for parenthood.  But I was probably more shocked that *I* was no longer going to be perfect.  Surgery.  My poor belly being cut apart in a medievally bloody operation by a part time surgeon (sorry OB/Gyns).  This would certainly smear my future declarations of  ”I have no medical problems” with “I have had abdominal surgery.”  Ugghh..  Not only does not sound good, but it can be medically significant in years to come, for reasons I won’t get into here.  Plus that ugly scar and the scar tissue underneath.  Even with the opposite of body dysmorphic disorder, it’s just not sexy.

In a month, my doctor will unzip that scar to get Ben’s little brother out.  I had the option of trying a vaginal birth; some may call it  ”natural” childbirth.  After spending years telling Tim the stories of 4th degree lacerations, floppy cervixes on the delivery table being pushed back into the vagina, incontinence, uterine prolapse, etc..that term “natural” has been replaced in our household with “historic.”   Because there is nothing natural about it. Historically,  humanity had no other way to get the baby out so out the vagina it came, ripping out whatever may have gotten in its way.  It’s no shock that complications from childbirth are still a leading cause of death in the developing world.  It’s about as natural as the foodchain.  No thanks we decided.  The last thing I need to add to my surgical history is  ”vaginal tightening.”

I lasted about 2 months as a stay-at-home mom. When they say it’s hard, they’re not kidding.  And this is coming from an immigrant who escaped communism before the wall fell, struggled alongside her family to make it in America, spent years in grueling  training to be a doctor.  I don’t really know how to relax.  Even on vacation, I need to at least be reading a trashy novel, preferably a historic or nonfiction one while thinking how I really need to learn about the culture of Puerto Vallarta or whatever other seaside resort I’m visiting.  Clearly, I am not a lazy person.  And yet, taking care of this little dude named Ben is killing me.  And I’m about to have another littler dude! I couldn’t describe what exactly is so rough.  As Tim puts it, all I have to do is “get up in the morning” and then I have “nothing to do all day.”  I’ve already threatened to visit him at work with a noose as part of my day of non-productivity.

That is why I’m hiring back my nanny (part time) and maybe a housekeeper/cook and going to look to go back to work (part time).  I actually had a dream about Bellevue in which I was helping orient some newbies.  Life is all about balance.  Stay at home mom or Stay at hospital mom is just not the answer.  I don’t know how other people do it, especially without any help (Greta Herbert, you are my hero).

My Brother Bartek- the next Mark Zuckerberg

It’s been so long since I blogged that I not only had to spend a great deal of time finding out my username and password but also where my blog was on that awesome interweb.  First I hit hanski.net,  which appears to be the website I made right after Ben was born and I still resembled my old self (will expand on this later).  But the blog is taking a little more effort to find.  In fact, I’m writing an email to myself which I will cut and paste once I figure out where the hell my blog lives or what my username and passwords are.  From what I remember, I liked it and I liked blogging.

So what am I going to write about as my re-entry blog into the world of blogging?  Something about becoming a mother, the trials of chronic fatigue, making little baby dinners, finishing residency, getting pregnant againg and preparing for 2 babies, mine and Tim’s 5 year anniversary celebration, the death of my grandmother???

No, I’m going to blog about my recent experience with Skillslate.com.  http://www.skillslate.com/ My brother’s baby.  It’s a start-up web based company that looks to hook up NYC freelancers with people who need services.  Since I’ve recently become a frequent user of the site, my brother asked me to blog about my experience in exchange for 2 hours of babysitting.  If he hadn’t forced me back to writing, I think it would be another 2 years before I actually got myself together enough to blog again.  So thank you Bartek.  And who can refuse babysitting?

Skillslate was originally going to be named “Local Junkie” which I liked because it points to how New Yorkers are addicted to their local service providers to run their life.  If in NYC you aren’t outsourcing your housekeeping (Krystyna), laundry (Prestige cleaners), vegetable buying (Freshdirect)..you aren’t working hard enough at your dayjob.  Add to that nanny, dog walking, moving, painting, handy-work, and you have a typical New York yuppie like me and Tim (will expand on how I feel about this in a future blog).

We recently moved and needed pictures hung, IKEA furniture assembled, electrical contacts spray-painted (did I mention how anal I am about my apartment?- Those contacts were hideous).  Found a guy on Skillslate.com

http://www.skillslate.com/search?query=handyman.  He looks a little like a thug with a drill as a weapon (sorry Steve, you gotta smile), but he got good reviews.  Best thing about this website is that I never had to call him, all could be done via the website.  Tim believes I have a legitimate phone phobia, but I claim it’s just an aversion to that antiquated communication modality of the phone where alternative modes exist– text and email being my favorite.  I also did not have to create an account.  Whenever a website asks me to do this, I skip it.  Too many accounts have already been made and too many passwords forgotten.  I can never get in anywhere twice.  It’s just too much work.

Overall did a nice job hanging my old Warsaw drawing, securing our large mirror, putting together an IKEA bookshelf for Ben.  Formal review pending.  Seems like Skillslate is bringing Steve a lot of work as well, to the point where he doesn’t need to look for work anymore.

Then I also realized that our movers, MSP Movers, had the beginnings of a profile on there as well.  http://www.skillslate.com/ny/new-york/movers/markpaul

We highly recommend them.  Marc, the mover, may have back problems and knee issues that prevent him from actually doing any heavy work, but he has a team of helpers and does a great job of directing everything.  He’s as meticulous as I am, which is saying a lot.  Nothing was damaged.  This was the second time he had moved us; the first time was a year and a half ago from the UES to Jersey.

Can’t resist mentioning that Marc has our drill.   We got it from Bartek for Christmas a couple of years back and have loved it and used it often.  Last time we saw it was a year and a half ago when we moved.  Couldn’t figure out what happened to it but since we moved into the Ringwelski house, a black hole vortex of hammers, scissors, my electric sander, and apparently drills, we gave up trying to find it.  Then 2 weeks ago, in walks Marc with our drill to disassemble our bed!  It was amazing, like being reunited with a kidnapped loved one.  We can’t prove it, but we’re pretty sure it’s ours. Tim then remembered he had brought it with him to the moving truck on the trip to Jersey and thinks he left it there.  We loved that drill and have missed it dearly.  But we decided not to say anything.  We left it on his truck, he had no idea whose it was, and we didn’t want to seem like we were accusing him of anything.  Super nice guy.  We’ll get another drill.

Back to Skillslate.  So now that we’ve moved and started organizing our life a bit, we will be using Skillslate to find a housekeeper (http://www.skillslate.com/ny/new-york/cleaners) and a dog walker (http://www.skillslate.com/ny/new-york/dog-walkers), as I slowly relinquish all my household duties.  I long to be a lady of leisure and no lady of leisure scrubs her toilet and picks up her dog’s poop.  I will expand on this concept in a later entry which will be called something like, “From poor immigrant to housewife of NYC…what the hell happened to me???,” and here I will ponder the metamorphasis that is my life.  Am I the same person I was before I became a wife and mother?  It just makes me sound old and boring to say it.  But that will be a blog for another time.  I have to go and boil some carrots while trying to figure out how to avoid calling anyone in my search for a housekeeper.