contractors

Kathy and I have issues with contractors.  Every time we have one, I am shocked.  I wonder when I am going to learn to lower my expectations about this.

I think most people tend to think that they are reasonable.  I am no different in this regard.  I know there are times when I am being unreasonable, and can't seem to help myself, but generally, on this topic at least, no.    And yet, all too often, when we have to hire a contractor for something, we experience the same set of issues:

Getting an estimate.  No one ever wants to give us one.  When we were fixing up our flooded basement, once the first contractor fell through, I called three other contractors for estimates, and only two of them even bothered to call me back, one showed up, and zero returned an estimate.  I thought a full-scale basement remodel was a decent sized job, especially in a recession, but apparently the contractors in our Westchester town could not be bothered.  And, it's not like I only called these people once.  I made multiple phone calls.  For the basement, this threshold issue was so severe that we eventually just did the work ourselves.

Timing.  The first contractor that fell through on our basement did so because he couldn't meet our timing.  And by that, I mean that we received an estimate for the work in August, and in November he informed us he wouldn't be able to start until after the holidays.  I think that six months is an extremely long time to wait with your basement furniture sitting in your foyer.  It was at that point that we said thanks, but no thanks, and I started trying to get other estimates.  We've also had this problem with a painter and a gardener.  Delays of months before they are willing to even get started on our projects.

Communicativeness.  Okay, so maybe I am a little bit horrible at returning phone calls sometimes, but come on.  If someone hires you to do work, calls and leaves several messages that say "When can you start?" I think common courtesy requires a call back in under six weeks.

the name

This is always a controversial topic, and so for a while I have avoided writing about it.  But as my wedding draws closer (less than 6 months!) it occupies increasing brain-space.  This is a topic that everyone has their own opinion about, and I think we can all agree that each woman's (person's?) decision is made for deeply personal reasons.  But.  That does not stop us from judging each other about it. 

I am talking, of course, about changing your name when you get married.

The first time I got married, I did not change my name.  At the time I thought it was because I had a firm sense of my identity, and that included my last name.  Now, I am thinking maybe it was, a bit, that I did not have a firm sense of my identity, and that hanging onto my name gave me some much-needed stability.  Or, maybe my decision not to change my name reflected some deep ambivalence about marriage, or that particular marriage, that I was not prepared to acknowledge explicitly at the time.  I don't know what the "real" reason is, I only know that changing my name was not even really an option for me.

living on the roof

When I was in high school, I was in a church youth group, and was simultaneously horrified and amused to come across this:

Better to live on the roof than share a house with a nagging wife.  Proverbs 21:9

This morning, this particular verse sprang to mind as I was trying to avoid getting up, and I heard Kathy say to A, in the kitchen, "Erin says you need to clean up those clothes on the floor of your room before your birthday party tomorrow..." followed by some muffled things I could not hear.  Sometimes I think my family would not so much mind living on the roof.

So, let's unpack the nagging wife, shall we?  My reactions to Kathy's comment (and Kathy's reactions to my reactions), the Bible verse above, the archetype of the nagging wife, and my realization that I am becoming one.

(a view of our rather inhospitable roof, from A's bedroom window)

water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink

(an ancient mariner)

Last week, while we were skiing, we got a call from the local fire department.  They let us know that our sprinkler pipe had burst and was flooding our yard and pouring out into the street.  So the fire department broke in and shut off our water, and turned off the gas to our hot water heater.  Apparently the water was just starting to seep into our basement.  That's not that nice of a call to receive while on vacation. 

When we returned home Friday night after dropping the kids at their dad's for the weekend, we found that the basement was on the verge of flooding and that the water was, in fact, shut off.  We couldn't just turn it back on, because then the ruptured pvc pipe (which went to the sprinklers we didn't use last summer) would pour water back into our yard, and our basement would definitely flood.  We have these two holes in the basement that fill with water when the groundwater level is high.  They are probably sump-pump holes, but because our house's previous owners did not seem to do anything correctly, there is no sump-pump installed.  Anyway, one of these holes was about to overflow, and the other one was overflowing and the water was slowly seeping toward the carpet we had to replace when the basement flooded last spring.  We sighed, rolled up our sleeves, and began frantically bailing out the gross holes.  They instantly re-filled with water.  So we did what any lesbians in this situation would do.  We went to Home Depot.

boys will be boys

Today, Meg at APW wrote a brilliant post about being a self-full wife.  Which means, roughly, being a wife that doesn't feel the need to sacrifice everything while husband walks down the street whistling with his hands in his pockets.  Which reminded me of a topic I think about often enough that I actually don't need to be reminded.

I have had enough of letting men off the hook.  I have seen some of my favorite women, otherwise strong, independent women, women with careers and families and lots of opinions, women who kept their names when they got married and marched on Washington for women's rights, sacrifice for men because of gender stereotypes. 

This is the thing.  Men actually can figure out how to wash a shower.  They can also do a load of laundry without destroying clothing, and load an unload a dishwasher.  Without having to be "reminded."  They can also tell you when they are upset instead of just walking around sulking and cranky until you pry it out of them.  They can fulfill your emotional needs.  The reason they don't is that it is not required of them.  Because we, as a culture, let them off the hook. 

(I would like to put Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus into the Freedom Trash Can.)


My grandmother passed away when my grandparents were in their late sixties.  My grandfather was diagnosed with cancer a short time later. In addition to the pain and loss at the death of his lifelong partner, my grandfather was faced with a terminal illness and a house full of machines he did not know how to operate.  Like the washer, the dryer, and the stove.  And guess what?  Within a pretty short period of time, he figured it out.  The man was not going to walk around in dirty pants and eat nothing but peanuts (although he actually tried the peanut thing for a while, until his doctor told him he wasn't allowed to do that).  I'm not saying he was perfect, or that the women in his life didn't step in and show him the ropes a bit.  But if that old dog was able to do these new tricks, all men can.