Velveteen Mind

In Sicily, Women Are More Dangerous Than Shotguns

Guest Post by Deb from Missives from Suburbia

I possess just enough vanity to beg Megan for a guest slot here.  However, I'm not so vain that for one moment I would think Velveteen Mind and Missives From Suburbia share any crossover traffic, because she is a high-priestess of blogging, and I... well, I could only hope to be one of her minion as I cut my teeth on this mighty medium.  Suffice to say, even though GoBloMeMoFo is kicking my patooty on my own blog, I couldn't resist the opportunity to hog a little of Megan's spotlight.  (I'm about as subtle as a ham and cheese sandwich in real life, too.)  So thanks for putting up with me today.  I promise she'll find someone more talented tomorrow to fill in for her.

Until then, you're stuck with me, and the most fascinating thing happening in my life right now is a move.  Yep, we're moving from St. Paul to Minneapolis.  Exciting, no?  Kind of makes you want to run right over to my blog at this very moment and see all the details, doesn't it?  Don't bother.  I'm already boring my readers (all one of them) with the whole gory mess, so for you, I bring a totally different tale:  My Discovery of the Real St. Paul.

About a year ago, we moved from Portland, Oregon, to St. Paul, Minnesota.  I quickly learned things aren't always how they appear in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.  St. Paul may look like Mayberry, but there is a seedy underbelly to St. Paul.   I call it the "St. Small Mafia".

The first thing you should know if you ever transplant from another state is that St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota.  Not Duluth.  Not Minneapolis.  You wouldn't be the first person shocked to learn that bit of trivia.  It is, after all, the most suburban state capital in the country.  Shhhht.  I don't want to hear it.  It's NOT a city just because you have a domed capital building in the middle of town and a couple museums.   It's a suburb.  There are only about 2,019 residents of St. Paul, and while we do have more than one post office, I dare you to find a liquor store open on a Sunday.   Heck, they don't even sell wine in grocery stores!  Any place where you can't go downtown to get your booze on seven days a week isn't a city.  It's not.

But don't be fooled by St. Paul's small-town, Bible-thumping appearances.  Church isn't so much about religion as it is about networking, and church... well, church is where the mafia's roots begin.   Transplants be warned: go to church, or you may find yourself wearing cement shoes, floating at the bottom of the Mississippi River one day.  To an outsider, "I saw so-and-so in church today" may sound like the opening volley to the next Gossipalooza, but to those in the know, the speaker is about to deliver information that could make or break you socially and financially in the fine city of St. Paul.

The best example is our local real estate mob boss, Terry Pardy*.  You see her face on bus benches all over the finer neighborhoods, and wherever you look, you'll see her name on "For Sale" signs across town.  But not just on any old cottage.  Oh, no.  Terry specializes in homes with more square footage than the local high school.  That's right, Terry is the warlord of high-falutin real estate, and let me tell you, if her name isn't on the sign in front of your snooty robber baron mansion, there's a good chance it's not going to sell.  I've actually seen houses sit on the market for months with another realtor's sign out front, and when the owners finally see the error of their ways and hire Terry, BOOM, the SOLD sign goes up.  "I ran into Terry Pardy at church today, and she said..."  Yeah, right.  It just proves that while you might be able to fight city hall, there's no getting around the St. Paul mafia.

But it's not just real estate.  The mob touches every facet of St. Paul living.  Case in point, our garbage collector.  I don't know his name.  All I know is he's got a lot of tattoos and he smokes Marlboro's.  We were recently packing for our spring move and building up quite the trash pile in our alley.  When Smokey the Trash Guy showed up, he pulled Hubby aside and said in a low voice, "Look, the company is going to charge you $75 for all that extra trash.  If you pay me $20 cash, I'll take it away."  When we told him we'd probably have a lot of trash the next few pick-ups, because we're moving, he said, "No problem.  Just tape an envelope with a twenty inside the lid of your trash barrel.  I'll take care of it."  Smokey didn't actually say it, but I'm pretty sure if we hadn't paid him, he would have left one of our dog's heads on our pillow or, at a minimum, spread trash all over our front lawn.  You know, with the mafia, the threat is always implicit.

Oh, and let's not forget the parking attendants.  We went to dinner last night at a restaurant inside one of our local hotels.  I pulled in, and the valet informed me that valet parking is only for the hotel.  He paused, ever-so-meaningfully, then leaned into my window and said, "But I do a little valeting for my regulars."  For a mere $20, you, too, can become one of John's "regulars".

Everyone's on the take in this stinkin' town.  It's worse than Manhattan.  But unlike Manhattan, it's a SUBURB.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent (the term "innocent" referring to me, of course).  Title credit goes to  "The Godfather" (I don't want to get nailed for copyright infringement).  Lastly, the "St. Small" reference is courtesy of Charlie Neimeyer, a lifelong inmate... I mean "resident"... of St. Paul.

Follow Deb's journey to becoming a "made" guy over on Missives from Suburbia.  Be sure to slip her a twenty on your way in the door.

Show Me the Money!

Holy crap.

Two counter offers later and they accepted our offer.

Now we just have to get a mortgage.

Holy hell.

Double Your Family, Double Your Holiday Fun

Guest Post by Nell @ Meanwhile...

This is the second post I have written for the Velveteen Mind this month, and no, you're not missing anything, I didn't publish the first one. But the two are related. And in the interests of time (a valuable commodity in these final days of NaBloPoMo) here are some things you should know before I begin:

• There are always two or more members of my husband's family who are not speaking to each other in a given month, and this makes for some tricky organizing around the holidays.
• The first post was about juggling family during the holiday season and how much more difficult it is when members of your husband's family are not on speaking terms.
• Although half of S's family lives right across town, we barely ever see them. This is more or less a no-fault situation as far as I can tell, neither of us makes much of an effort, and we're all busy.
• I am terrible at remembering people's birthdays. I once called my very best friend in the whole world on her birthday, talked for half an hour, and then asked when her birthday was.

I was feeling like the post was a little whiny and was thinking about changing it anyway, when we received this email from S's brother in response to an invitation to our youngest daughter's birthday party next Sunday. It was sent simultaneously to S, his mother, his sister, and me.

Subject: I don't think so

Hey All,
The [X] family, over here by [X] St, will not be attending dear F's birthday, its not like we don't want to, or even that we couldn't if we so chose too. I just think I'm real sick and tired of remembering other peoples kids birthday, with real nice gifts, I might add, and have my cute, adorable, relevant child, all but forgotten by ALL [X] family.  Way to go Fam....Don't fear I will send a gift.
                                    Brother and Wife.

S's initial response was full of anger and sarcasm. What the hell was this? His relevant child, what the heck is that supposed to mean? We weren't asking for them to remember any birthdays or bring gifts, all we did was invite them to a party, how exactly does that make us the bad guys? And why does he sign it from both of them? We know it's him - she wouldn't say that shit.

I convinced him not to send it. "Don't go that way," I said, "it'll only antagonize him, make things worse. Be neutral, conciliatory."

He agreed and together we came up with this response, which we sent:

Brother and Wife,
We are sorry that you don't wish to come over. We didn't come over on Nephew's birthday because we were informed that he was sick and you weren't having party.  We have a present for Nephew sitting on our counter. We were going to give it to him when he came over. We always invite everyone in our family to our house for the girl's birthdays.  I'm sorry you feel like Nephew has been slighted in some way, that was never our intention, and we apologize for any misunderstanding.  The invitation still stands if you change your mind.

To which we soon received this reply:

your woman saw Nephew on his birthday and didn't even say happy birthday, still haven't heard word one from any one, unless you count your e-mail response just now. come to think of it. its not about the gift. lets just not pretend to be something we are not.

After stomping around the house saying, "Your woman? He calls me your woman?" about a million times, I calmed down enough to help S write another conciliatory response. We kept it brief:

Brother,
All I can do is apologize again.  There was no slight intended and we are sorry.  If this is something you can't forgive then I don't know what else to say.

It's true – I did see Nephew on his birthday. His birthday is on Halloween (and yes, I realize that this should make it easier to remember). In the midst of trick-or-treating preparations, I received a phone call from S's other sister saying that my nephews were sick, and just moments later S's brother showed up with his kids. It was hectic, and all I could think was WTF? You brought your sick kids to my house because why? Warm and loving birthday greetings did not even cross my mind.

I think the reason this bugs me so much is that there is so much that has been left out, so much that S's brother has conveniently forgotten about, and that if we brought it all up it would transform a few rude emails into a full blown feud. I have babysat his wild children so he could go to work; they've never even offered to take ours. We've always attended his kid's parties when they've had them; sometimes they come to ours, other times they don't even RSVP. This is fine, we're not that close with them and I know that not everyone thinks about this stuff the same way I do, I don't hold a grudge, it's not that big a deal. Until they start complaining about how they're always the ones who get shortchanged.

As a writer, I have this tendency to observe people, to speculate and examine other people's motivation for the way they behave, not to judge, just to understand. I often step outside of a situation and try to see it from all the angles, and I get why S's brother is upset, I really do, but the part that I don't get is why he feels like this is a good way to deal with his anger.

How is sending a nasty email to almost all of your family members going to help anything? Maybe he wants to alienate the rest of us? Maybe he wants to feel entitled to his anger and resentment, maybe they have become a part of his comfort zone; just the way things are for him. Maybe he gets stressed out around the holidays, a lot of people do, I get that, and yeah, their mom is not the greatest when it comes to thinking of others, but she doesn't hold a monopoly on that either.

I'm not sure what I want from them. I used to want them to be more like my family – open, direct, understanding (we're no where near as perfect as that sounds, but we do try to talk out issues as they come up) – but I let go of that desire a long time ago. Now all I want is for them to be chill, you know? No one's perfect, I know I'm not, but call me out on it! When I forget that it's your son's birthday, remind me. Don't wait three weeks and then send a nasty email to your entire family!

I'm sorry this post got so long (but hey, it's a double!) and now that I've reached the end I seem unable to compose a satisfactory conclusion. I will just end by saying that while juggling family during the holidays is never easy for anyone, it's even harder when you have to be the grown-up, and even as I've watched S's family do this year after year, I somehow never expected to find myself in the middle of it all.

Don't forget to commiserate with Nell over the insanity that is family over at meanwhile...