if only what to sew next was my most pressing problem

Genevieve playing with bias tape in one of the three reversible apron dresses I've made.  © 2012 Amber Schley Iragui

More changes. The nanny has been fired a second time, and my heart is sad. Because I liked her, and Ike will certainly miss her, and she was getting quite good at making blueberry madeleines. But I couldn't rely on her. Our dear old A is going to take up some of her hours for a few months until we decide what to do. It is for the best; really, I don't need so many scrumptious madeleines sitting around the house.

Genevieve needs surgery, after all. And it seems that not only will she need tubes in her ears, but a full adenoidectomy. Her hearing test on Holy Tuesday had just as poor results as the one she took last month. At this point she's had at least six months of hearing loss due to fluid in her ears, perhaps more. The adenoidectomy more than doubles the time under general anesthesia and requires an overnight stay in the hospital. The recovery time is about a week, while if we only had tubes she should recover in a day. I am still debating, as we could just get the tubes. The tubes will drain her ears and help with her hearing and speech—the reason for the surgery in the first place. However, the doctor believes that her adenoids are so enlarged that she is unable to breathe much through her nose. Removing them would make her less susceptible to colds, would cut down on her constantly-runny nose, and help her sleep better. Whatever we decide, the date for the surgery is set for about a month from now.

For one day last week I was convinced we had bedbugs again. Our now-fired nanny said she'd moved out of her apartment because it was infested. I responded as calmly as I could, and when she was gone began manically washing everything. I took whole boxes of hats, gloves, coats and stuffed animals and dumped them in the drier. I pulled the beds apart (all mattresses covered with anti-bedbug encasements) but found no trace of the bugs. And none of us had any bites. No matter, I was suddenly itchy all over. The next day she told me she'd been wrong, her apartment was not infested. Just one apartment in her building had them. Whew.

And then I got a jury summons and an annoying letter from the IRS about a problem with my social security number. 

But the weather is delightfully warm now, and we spent yesterday afternoon in and around Central Park's Conservatory Gardens. We used to go there often when we lived in South Harlem, and I forgot how much I miss that big old park. We packed a Pascal lunch of chocolate, ham, Pont l'Evêque, Italian truffle cheese, pâté, Belgian framboise, and strawberries. Our friends brought French chocolates, brie, pantonne, sliced cucumbers, and homemade pastries. Genevieve helped herself to a good portion of the pâté. It was as much a Paschal feast as one could imagine.

I am posting some photos here of clothes I've made for Genevieve. If only what to sew next was my most pressing problem.

The back of the apron dress. I used a Liberty lawn for this one.  © 2012 Amber Schley Iragui

A 1960s pattern I bought on Etsy, in an Amy Butler voile. Still a little big on her.  © 2012 Amber Schley Iragui

                                                          It buttons up the back, and looks cute with her lemon yellow crocs.  © 2012 Amber Schley Iragui 

And finally, photos I've already posted on Facebook, of the blouse I made her. I think I like it best of all.  © 2012 Amber Schley Iragui

I hope this is the last of it

I'm sitting on my couch while my daughter squirms around inside and makes breathing feel much more necessary than I'm comfortable with. I just returned from a three week "forced" vacation (which was pretty nice, I'm not complaining!) while the 3-week extermination process for bed bugs took place in our apartment. I've been back two days now and I'm overwhelmed and exhausted. Here's the short and fat of it:

Since we got home, both Ike and I have had a reaction to the chemicals used by the exterminators-- sore throats, itchy eyes, upset stomachs, headaches and diarrhea. It turns out the last application of the chemicals was done by a different exterminator than the first two applications, and this last guy sprayed the place voluminously. I waited 6 days longer to return than is suggested for pregnant women and young children, but that doesn't seem to be enough time.

It is hard to know how to even begin cleaning this place up. All our clothes and bedding (all things we own with threads in them) are up in our storage space in Yonkers. I counted on Alba--Ike's babysitter and our housekeeper--helping me bring everything back, but it turns out her doctor just told her she needs to take it easy because of a spike in her blood pressure and blood sugar. She has been coming anyway, but I don't want her working too hard. (Kirsten, Dario and Christopher, my back-up plan for help, are in the middle of a move right now themselves and need our help with moving and babysitting.) The literature provided by the bed bug exterminators say you're not supposed to clean the chemicals off for two weeks to help ensure the bed bugs don't return, but seriously, I've had to nix that plan. I need these chemicals gone. We've rolled up the rugs because they are so coated with chemicals I don't want Ike to play on them until I can get them professionally cleaned. We are leaving the windows wide open to air the place out, but without our warm blankets and clothes (up in Yonkers!)--and without any control over the heat--we are freezing. This all makes our apartment feel like we moved into it last week and not three months ago. 

Meanwhile the leak caused by the construction on the apartment above us (the apartment from which the bed bugs came in the first place) seeped into the bathroom and then my closet--causing me to lose a lot of clothing in boxes. Silly me, I didn't realize that the curious smell of sewer water in my bedroom was coming from my closet! The nasty water had already soaked two boxes of pre-pregnancy clothes and dried, leaving lovely yellow and brown stains, before I realized what had happened. Clearly I'm not being vigilant enough! This happened before I left for vacation, but when I came home two days ago I found the leak had spread to my office and a wet spot had formed on the ceiling above my computer, not to mention all along the wall adjoining the bathroom. Dampness in the wall had ruined some artwork I'd hung above my desk. Did I mention that the electricity was out in the room due to the water damage? And because there is no electricity I cannot check to see if the water dripping from the ceiling has affected my computer. Nonetheless when the plumbers came today to look at the problem they said they could find no leaks and we'll just have to wait until new tenants move into the apartment above us and see if the leaks continue (more patience and vigilance required!). This on top of the fact that the pounding from the construction had knocked off one of the glass light fixtures on the ceiling and broke all over the floor.

Because of the last exterminator's generous spraying technique, our Chinese lacquer cabinet is probably permanently damaged. He doused it in chemicals, leaving streaks all down the front. We looked up how to repair damaged lacquer, and all the hits recommended not ruining your lacquer in the first place since it's so difficult to repair. I found a book about how to restore antique Asian lacquer furniture, but it turns out it costs about $500 on Amazon. Luckily the NY Public Library has a copy, although it's in the research library that doesn't allow people to actually check out the books, in-house use only. Helpful.

And although this may seem like a small thing, dripping from the upstairs apartment's a/c units have literally covered our windows with dried-on drywall-dust marks from the construction, and I'm at a loss to know how to clean the outside of windows on the third floor. Did I mention the view is one of the reasons we moved here? Too bad we can't see much anymore!

In order to keep the bed bugs from returning, I need to caulk up every crack in this whole apartment. But of course, we need to wait until the wet ceilings dry (which, by the way, still smell like sewer water)--and for the construction to stop pounding and making new cracks--before we can begin this process. And then of course we have to wait for new tenants to move in to make sure the leaks don't return. Hopefully this all happens before the bed bugs return!

So far the bed bug situation has cost: $380 for dog inspection, $175 in laundry, $750 in dry cleaning, $200 for bed-bug-proof mattress covers, $750 for two tickets to Seattle, and about $600 in help (i.e. Alba) prepping for the extermination, and letting the exterminator in while I was away, and in the ongoing regular vacuuming that has to happen all the while. We are already at nearly $2000 in costs, I am not yet including the cost of the caulking and cleaning up of the chemicals.

Also, in the last two weeks we've learned that the suspicious protein showing up in Charles' urine is the sign of an incurable kidney condition called IgA nephropathy, which may eventually require dialysis or a kidney transplant. He is luckily in the "not inflamed" state at the moment, but with all the problems in our apartment I can't help imagining that his kidney is inflaming. Meanwhile, his best friend and indispensable co-worker Valerie, who was away on a trip to Peru, is now stuck in the hospitals there on dialysis because something (probably returned cancer!) has blocked her bladder and caused her kidneys to shut down. She is in too precarious health to undergo a CAT scan to find out what really is going on, much less an airplane ride back to the USA where better doctors could look into it. Perhaps in sympathy with both of them, my bladder has stopped working as well, and I'm hobbling cross-legged to the bathroom every 10 minutes or whenever I hear water running. Although I suppose this is really the result of my daughters increasingly large head pressing down on my bladder.

The good news is that for the moment the bed bugs are gone and I haven't seen a roach since I returned. Also, my doctor appointment went fine today and the baby seems healthy (although I am of course worried that these chemicals could be affecting her!). Additionally, the 2nd glucose test I took (the three-hour one where they force you to drink and nasty bottle of sugar water and then draw your blood every hour in the process of checking for gestational diabetes) came back negative, so at least I don't have that to worry about. And Kirsten, Dario and Lola are moving into our building today, so we'll be neighbors again. She is expecting her second in February, which is awesome timing!

I'm sure we'll get back to a routine in say, a few weeks or so.

bees, bedbugs, and process of making gold

S E C O N D   D I D A C T I C   P O E M

The honey of man is
the task we're set to:     to be
'more ourselves'
in the making:
                       'bees of the invisible' working
in cells of flesh and psyche,
filling
          'la grande ruche d'or.'
Nectar,
            the makings of the
incorruptible,
                     is carried upon the
corrupt tongues of
mortal insects,
fanned with the wisps of wing
                   'to evaporate
excess water,'
                    enclosed and capped
with wax, the excretion
of bees' abdominal glands.
Beespittle, droppings, hairs
of beefur: all become honey.
Virulent micro-organisms cannot
survive in honey.
                             The taste
the odor of honey:
each has no analogue but itself.

In our gathering, in our containing, in our
working, active within ourselves,
slowly the pale
dew-beads of light
lapped up from flowers
can thicken,
darken to gold:

honey of the human.

--Denise Levertov

* * *

I am eating a ripe nectarine and the baby inside me is kicking. I am sitting at my desk, sunlight falling across my left shoulder and onto my glass paperweight, and I feel at peace: all my gathering and containing might thicken to gold after all. Which, considering the panic I viewed the world with yesterday when it first occurred to me that we might have a bedbug problem, is considerable. We still very well may have a bedbug problem, and I am waiting for the guy with the dog to call back. It's the standard way to detect bedbugs in NYC--you pay $300 for a guy with a trained canine to come, and the to dog sniffs them out with 95% accuracy. At our old condo building near Central Park there was a tenant with bedbugs and a cute beagle named Russell came and declared our apartment free and clear. Of course, at our old condo building we didn't have to pay anything, the management company took care of it and made sure no one in the building had bedbugs. Yesterday I was longing for that building, with its new wood floors, smooth walls, and general lack of bugs. I can't remember ever seeing a bug there. Here it's another story.

Ever since the lady who lived above us moved out and construction began, our apartment has been overrun with bugs. Ladybugs swarm our living room floor lamp. I killed a worm larvae inching across our bed yesterday. The night before I had Charles kill a mammoth flying beetle that appeared in my office. Let's not mention that scouting roaches that have appeared (and only a month ago I paid a roach exterminator.) And then, over the weekend, Ike began sporting a number of patches of bites on his arms and legs. Yesterday it occurred to me that these might not be mosquito bites he got at the park. He went to sleep with two bites and woke up with five more. I searched his room for a spider to no avail. Then I looked at photos of bedbug bites online. A perfect match. Ughhh. My lovely pre-war three-bedroom with river views went from being a haven to a hellhole filled with blood-sucking baby biters.  I was suddenly very itchy.

Charles is not happy either, primarily because treating a bedbug infestation can be very expensive: at least $1000, not including all the washing and dry cleaning to be done. Alba and I stripped all the bedding in Ike's room yesterday and moved the bed, and this morning he woke up without any new bites. But I am still waiting for the dog guy to call. Meanwhile the pounding goes on upstairs, opening up little cracks along the seams of our walls, accompanied by the sound of plaster and Lord-knows-what-else tumbling down inside them. Sending all the little creatures down to us.

I have been feeling industrious lately. Perhaps the nesting instinct combined with the effects of reading Kristin Lavansdatter, set in fourteenth century Norway. Kristin is always sewing, weaving, spinning, or brewing ale. After reading about hot steaming bowls of porridge for the 30th time, I went to the kitchen and made some. Yesterday I filled the house with pitchers of water when the plumbing was turned off due the construction, and it felt almost like a treat not to have running water. Of course, Kristen might have had bedbugs along with the maggots in her straw bedding and that doesn't sound like a treat. Nor did the excruciating birth of her first son, where the men milling about waiting kept referring to her likely death.

But nevermind. I am thinking more along the lines of sewing some curtains with an electric sewing machine I'll buy on e-bay. Maybe making some throw pillows--or at most industrious--a little dress for the new baby out of material from the expensive shirt that Charles accidentally tore this weekend. Lord knows I think it's a grave hardship that I don't have a dishwasher or a washer and dryer in my apartment, I can't imagine having to spin, dye, weave and then sew all my own clothes.

Which brings me back to the poem above, about the task we're set to. To create--and to make ourselves "more ourselves" in the process--what is sweet, fragrant, and thick from all the minute gatherings of life. Lapping up from among the little things, making dinner or washing the dishes by hand, the dew-drops of light. "Active in ourselves" which reminds me of the Theotokos, and she kept all these things, pondering them in her heart, and turning them into gold.

{ p o e t r y  w e d n e s d a y }