Pb in MA

I've been meaning to write about this for a few weeks now, but the thought of sitting down and describing the process we've been through lately with lead has been just too draining to contemplate. But enough progress has been made and alcohol has been consumed over the past few weeks to have sort of numbed us to the pain, so I think I can share now. Act I, Scene I You see, in Massachusetts, the state really wants to make sure your children are safe. And Massachusetts has lots and lots of old homes. Old homes like ours. Old homes with lead paint. (That's 'lead' as in 'dead', not 'lead' as in 'feed'.) When we bought the house, we had just about every inspection ever imagined under the sun done on the house. Carbon monoxide. We don't have none of that. Creosote. We had some of that, but we made the seller get rid of it. Termites, dry rot, earthquakes, visible signs of plagues of locusts or frogs: check. None of the above. Towards the end of the process, the seller and I were talking and he said, look, the place was built in 1739, I can't guarantee there's no lead paint in the place. I said, yeah, I know. In fact, I'm guessing there is lead paint someplace, but I'm going to try real hard to teach our children not to lick the walls. This was, after all, right after the seller agreed to rebuild the entire chimney, clean and line all the flues, which is not cheap. And that being said, we signed some papers and moved in. Scene 2: Later that month... Squirmy went to the doctor for a kind of baseline, we're-back-in-the-U.S.A., let's get checked up test. I refer you back to that statement about the Massachusetts state legislature caring a lot about whether or not I'm letting my children chew on leftover bullets after I go to the shooting range. Actually, the state only cares if your child is under 6. After that, apparently it's fine. Which means that part of the local standard battery of tests if your child is under 6 is a lead screening. Squirmy pinged 'high'. Not 'poisoned' high. Not even 'you might want to take away the mechanical pencil refills' high. Just 'hey, you may want to check and make sure he's not using the apron from the Fisher Price E-Z-X-Ray playset as a safety blanket' high. We had a good conversation with the doctor about likely causes: maybe he found a stray chip of paint lying around and thought it would make a tasty addition to his cheerios. Or maybe it's just dust. Dust from the windows opening and closing an blowing around in a kind of toxic zephyr. It's a one-off, though, and we'll keep an eye on it. Or you can pro-actively get your house screened, and see how you might address it. Also, the doctor has to let the state know the results of the test, and now, our phone is ringing off the hook with state agency people who want to help us by telling us stories about how our child might turn into a drooling drain on society if we don't let them come out and do a screen. But, oh yeah, if we let the State do it, we have to address any issue they find, whereas if we pay for the inspector ourselves, we can choose what areas we focus on. With about 30 seconds of Google-fu, I found this story. Holy crap. I think I'll pay the inspector myself, thank you. Scene next: Man with lead gun shows up... We brought out an inspector who showed up with this really cool looking Star Trek-esque ray gun. He walked around our house for several hours, pointing it at pretty much every exposed surface, and spouting off numbers to his assistant, who diligently wrote these numbers in long columns on his clipboard. Turns out, about the only way we could have more lead in our house is if we started making home-made battery acid for the entire 18-wheeler fleet of New England. There's lead on the windows. There's lead on the door frames. There's lead in the floor paint. There's lead on the fireplace bricks. There's lead with a fox. There's lead in a box. There's lead in a boat. there's lead on the goat. I do not like lead here nor there. I do not like lead anywhere. So lead-gun man walks us around the house and points out all the places where the lead paint has turned up. Of course, some of the places are the inside of cabinet doors, 6 feet off the ground. Not likely to be chewed on by your average toddler, and therefore less critical to address. This is why we hired our own inspector, so we could focus on things like, say, the window ledge next to the crib, rather than the underside of the attic storage cabinet or whatever. Still, that leaves a whole lot of house to address... End of Act I. Join us tomorrow to see how our heroes rant and rave and feed their son liquid iron and fight off the evil lead. Also. There is drinking involved.
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On cars and trucks

One of our first purchases upon arrival was my Bride's car. We had sold off mine when we left, and we gave hers to her parents as a kind of retirement gift (which was later totaled by my Bride's cousin in a moment of carelessness. Grr.) And for the past several years in England, we drove leased vehicles. So we knew we'd end up purchasing two cars on our return, a thought that filled me with a mix of anticipation and gut-wrenching nausea. I like the idea of cars. Thinking about what we could get. Spec'ing out the options. Considering things like mileage and resale value and colors and interior. But the prospect of going to a dealership, negotiating and executing the purchase is about as much fun for me as scraping my teeth clean with broken, blunt shards of glass washed up with amongst the medical waste on a Los Angeles beach. Really. I don't like it. To minimize the pain, we did a bunch of research online first, and made several phone calls to dealers before stepping outside the door. We knew what we wanted down to the model and options, and ended up driving an extra few minutes up to New Hampshire once we found a dealer willing to talk in the right price range. And that's how we met Bill. Our salesguy. Bill is not small. Nor quick. Partly because he had broken his foot doing something with a dog. I didn't quite catch the details, other than it wasn't his dog. Really, I didn't care too much. I am just there to buy a car. Bill is there to sell the car. You would think that we would be able to focus on that transaction. But Bill likes to talk. Also, Bill believes the United Nations is colluding with the Democratic Party to make Bill Clinton the first World President under a global government. We have to watch out, because they have already begun diluting the history taught to our children through insidious alteration of text books. You know how I know this? Because Bill told me. Seriously, Bill. I just want that car. The blue one. Can you have it ready by Tuesday? Great. I'm going to take my children and go away now. You frighten me just a little bit. And also, you have funny looking hair. In the meanwhile, I'm still driving a rental. The one the dog crapped in. And that I've taken to the dump several times now. Hertz is going to love me. But I'm stuck with the rental for a couple more weeks. Because that's how it goes according to my Master Plan. See, I want to buy a truck. But not a new truck. I want an old truck. One that I don't have to feel bad about taking to the dump. Or to Home Depot for several bags of concrete, some plywood and maybe a table saw. Or whatever. But also, because I like old trucks. Big, and steel, and from Detroit. Something from the '60's or '70's. They had soul. And bench seats. I miss the bench seat. The problem is, it's difficult to find something like that here in Massachusetts. Unless they were taken care of, the winter weather and copious amounts of salt spread on the roads tends to have left only a rusty outline where the old trucks used to be. So finding a good candidate in decent condition up here is way more trouble than I can really be bothered with. But that's ok, says I. I know where trucks like this are scattered across the landscape, front yards and drive ways like chiggers in a pine wood. My parents live just an hour outside of Nashville. Where people seem to feel incomplete without a truck or two in the family, sometimes collecting used examples along with their plastic Wall E novelty glass of the week from Burger King. A quick search on Craig's List later, and I had found several good candidates. Like the great example owned by Wayne below.
Wayne lives in Fayetteville. About half an hour north of the Alabama state line. Wayne also believes Democrats are up to no good. However, his answer is much simpler and involves his property line, a shotgun and his dog Blue. When I asked Wayne if the truck was in running order, he told me that him, me, and my mechanic buddy could take it out for an hour or so, and if we weren't satisfied that it would get me back to Massachusetts in one piece, he'd take me for dinner at Cracker Barrel, we'd drop the truck off, and no harm done. The purchase is cash, with no paperwork other than the title exchange. I get a cheap vehicle, right up the alley I'm looking for, and even after a bit of investment in paint and some other work (like fixing those tires. Whoever came up with the idea of the low-rider should be introduced to the business end of Wayne's dog Blue. Wayne assures me it wasn't him that did it.) I'm not sure if I'll end up with this truck or another like it, but I know this: I like Wayne. This has now spawned my Master Plan. The Critter and I are going to fly down to Nashville in a couple of weeks time. We'll spend a couple of days visiting my parents, and finding the right truck. Then, she and I will drive from Tennessee back up to Massachusetts in our new purchase. I get the truck I want and an opportunity to re-introduce my six-year-old to America through the greatest family institution around: the road trip. I am brilliant. Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan. My Bride will have a complete itinerary for the trip, though, and I'll be making sure my AAA membership is up to date. Just in case.
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This is why God invented Tequila

As I mentioned, our packing process involved separating all our worldly possessions into several piles by category. Things to be discarded. Things to be put on a ship. Things to be put in our suitcases. And the in-between case: things that we-don't-need-to-carry-with-us-right-now-but-we-really-can't-live-without-them-for-two-months-while-it-crosses -the-Atlantic-and-clears-customs. This category went into a smallish grouping that was put on a plane, and would only take a couple of weeks to get to us. (1 day to make the journey. 13 days to clear customs.) It consisted of the clothes that didn't fit in our suitcase, most of our kitchenware and dishes and the like, my main computer, that type of thing. Last week, we got all excited when they called to schedule delivery of this shipment. Saturday morning, the guy with the truck pulled up, and my daughter and I ran out to meet him. She was excited because, hey, it's like Christmas. All that stuff we get to open. (Never mind that we just saw it in England two weeks ago). I was excited because, you know, it's got my computer in there. And I'm kind of going through withdrawal. Truck-Man gets out of his truck and instead of "hello" says, "There's a problem with your shipment." Uh-oh. Um. Ok. "It's all here," says Truck-Man, "it's just not all on my truck. There was a mix-up back in the warehouse, and Joey only put part of it on my truck. The rest will come out to you on Monday." Ok, whew. I can deal with this. I mean, no worries, Joey. Everybody makes mistakes. What's another two days? (You see where my polly-anna attitude is headed for a fall already, don't you? You cynic you.) So we unload the six (out of 24) boxes that we were expecting (what can I say? We've got a lot of clothes.) And we get some cool things. 1 wine glass. 1 regular glass. My main PC and monitor (but no cables or keyboard, which makes it kind of a giant paperweight). Our knife set and some clothes. Ok, cool. Monday dawns bright and clear, and everything is right in the world. Except they don't know where the rest of our stuff is. I mean, they know it's here somewhere. But it's, like, a really big warehouse. And Joey's still looking. It'll turn up, though. Don't you worry. Which is good, because I had only packed enough clothes for a limited duration, and the two pair of shorts I have are getting pretty tired. Wednesday, I hadn't heard from anybody, and I'm beginning to worry that Joey's been enjoying a new set of dishes and maybe some of my Bride's frillier underwear. Which would be fine, normally. I mean, I don't judge. But I'd really like my stuff now, you know. That's why we set it aside to get here quicker. (Meanwhile, the ship with our couch and other stuff arrived, and our household goods have begun the customs process. Which means they'll get here before the stuff that was so-expensively shipped via a plane.) Today, they called us to tell us that Joey found our stuff. And the elastic in my Bride's frilly undies weren't too badly stretched. Hooray! But, um, there's one itty-bitty problem. They had accidentally put it on a ship headed for Singapore. Singapore, Massachusetts? Um, no sir. Singapore, Singapore. Like the one in the South Pacific. WTF. No worries, though, sir. It should arrive in Singapore on the 24th of August, and we'll turn it right back around and bring it here (where it can go through customs again). At this rate, we should see our stuff some time in 2010. Dandy. Oh, and the dog shit in the front seat of my Bride's brand new Volvo. How was your day?
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