The Madwoman and the Roomba

by Sandra Tsing Loh

  However, here’s what my Pocket Pema Chödrön says: “You can feel as wretched as you like, and you’re still a good candidate for enlightenment.”

  So starting today, I’m going to be newly proactive about my house problems, which are many.

  BAD FRONT YARD

  When I first bought this house, the grass was green. Our new gardener Vic—who seemed to immediately materialize out of a hedge—was a genius at setting sprinkler timers. The lawns looked great and then we got our first—? Well, it was less a water “bill” than a water citation. Water tirade. Water hazing. Our utility company began mailing us accusing bar graphs showing what hogs we were compared to our (far superior) neighbors.

  So, in response to the drought emergency declared by Jerry Brown, we decided to let the lawn turn the color of the governor’s name. It was a badge of honor. A few years went by. I became increasingly short-tempered. First I thought it was menopause. Then one day, I realized it was because our gardener Vic was coming every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. With a high-pitched, shrieking machine, he would blow dead leaves around our brown yard for an hour. The ear-splitting sound was no doubt meant to prove that he was busy “gardening.”

  It took another two years for me to let him go. The irony was that I would have kept paying him to simply stop leaf blowing, but having a diligent work ethic (or perhaps a secret love of ear-splitting leaf blowing?), he refused.

  That said, I would still like to apologize to our neighbors, block, zip code—really, to everyone, in Los Angeles—less for our front “lawn” than what is now a rectangle of compacted dirt. Our small Okie Dust Bowl is actually dangerous due to the heavy dead palm fronds that intermittently plunge from the sky like Damoclean swords. I want to throw a sheet over our front yard, like a corpse! Or at least put up a sign that says, WE KNOW, WE KNOW. AND WE’RE SORRY!

  PAINTERS

  If only home reno was as a simple as on HGTV’s Fixer Upper, which I’m obsessed with. In it, toothsome Texans Chip and Joanna Gaines will show an anxious couple three falling-down houses. The couple picks one. I love how easy Chip and Joanna make it. The couple says what their personalities are like—she says: “I’m a homebody. He’s outdoorsy.” Chip and Joanna proceed with sledgehammers, tearing off the “ship lap,” repainting it cobalt, and festooning it with design elements from Joanna’s handy online store—stainless steel fixtures, antique farm lamps, adorable distressed-wood flower boxes. Two months later the couple returns to a landscaped backyard terrace that magically “brings the outdoors in” with a throw pillow that says NATURE.

  You have to live in Texas (literally, Waco) to be on the show. If it were L.A., you’d spend a year just waiting for permits. And contractors!

  I am trying to just get the outside of our house repainted. The exact same color. This should be simple. From Angie’s List, I get three estimates. The first guy (a fastidious Asian American with bouffant hair) thought I had a lot more money than I do. He went to his immaculate Prius to pull out an unnecessary binder of satisfied client letters, including one from the Sultan of Botswana(?). Quote: $20,000. The second guy, a white sixtysomething hippie artisan with a back brace, quoted $11,000, but estimated it would take him three and a half months. Until he fell off the ladder and broke his hip—then years could go by.

  Third estimate? $3,500. Done in seventy-two hours.

  How is that possible? I think. Is the paint radioactive?

  A Latino crew of six shows up on time, 9 a.m. on Tuesday. They’re professional, neat, focused. They measure, cover, tape. The next two days, twelve painters show up, working ten-hour shifts. I’m both thrilled and horrified. I’m taking out a calculator trying to figure out how much each guy is getting paid. (Is negative five dollars an hour even possible?)

  Ah, well. I have to say, the house looks great.

  Just add a throw pillow from Joanna’s store that says GUILT.

  A BAD WEEK IN THE KITCHEN

  In my home economics class at Malibu Park Junior High in the 1970s, Mrs. Shellkopf taught us girls to:

  Punch-hook a rug

  Resheath a pillow

  Make a recipe box of easy appetizers like “Foxy Franks”—basically cut-up hot dogs in ketchup, soy sauce, and brown sugar

  Four decades later, I feel a major part of modern home ec training has gone missing. In the history of America, first there were no appliances, then there were helpful appliances, and now we have high-maintenance/too-smart-for-their-own-good appliances.

  My house came with a fancy new KitchenAid refrigerator, with monolith-like steel doors that repel magnets—aka: family photos or children’s drawings. Arguably, this is an innovation, particularly for ashamed divorced parents. Anyway, the other week, it stops making ice. The fix-it guy from Sears comes over. He says it needs a new part . . . but here’s the twist. There’s no telling which part because there’s no model number on any of Mr. KitchenAid’s impassive steel faces.

  The only place KitchenAid put the model number was—get ready—on an ink-jet-printed paper sticker glued to the top right inside of the fridge. Right where we keep the milk. So, in fact, our entire household has spent years gradually rubbing off the model number with our forearms while pulling milk in and out of the fridge.

  Also, as there’s now much busy refilling of ice trays, with the taps twisting on and off, the kitchen faucet starts to leak. I take a wrench—and I’m amazed I can actually find a wrench—to try to tighten the hexagonal spigot . . . nut . . . thingy. Charlie senses I don’t know what I’m doing. So he steps in with his manly strength, turns the wrench the wrong way—and with a scream is rocked back with a propulsive roar of water.

  I’m embarrassed to say I now hysterically call the Pasadena Fire Department. In thirty seconds, three strong men simply turn off the water line mechanism/joint/rotator under the sink—

  Although now of course we had no dishwasher and, weirdly, no microwave because it has been so doused with water its—what do you call it, its brain board—? intelligence board—? smart board—? thinky board has fritzed. We are advised to test the circuit breaker. You mean that thing whose diagram used to be taped to the outside breaker box, which blew away a few years ago in that very strong wind? When all those palm fronds fell (Damoclean swords)?

  LIGHT BULBS

  A Series of Unfortunate Events

  Some light bulbs have burned out in my house, which means that’s it for indoor lighting in this house because replacing modern light bulbs is beyond my human ability.

  Apparently, it’s not enough to match the “flame-tipped candelabra” shapes of burned-out light bulbs, nor to match the sizes of the bases. The lamp warnings (yes, lamp warnings!) say it’s crucial not to screw a sixty-watt bulb into a forty-watt socket.

  But now I’m standing in the grocery aisle studying a package, thinking, So much for watts, but what about volts?

  Phone comes out. I google. Here’s a wikiHow essay from no less august a source than the Washington Post. Its literal title: “How to Navigate the Increasingly Confusing Light Bulb Aisle.” It’s by David Brooks, proprietor of Just Bulbs in New York. (Just Bulbs? Way back when, SNL’s “Scotch Boutique” was an actual parody.)

  Brooks addresses a question that has long been—vaguely—haunting me: Why don’t our dimmers work with those spirally new CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) bulbs? Apparently, CFLs use so little energy, with their clever phosphor coating, mercury vapor, and argon technology, that “old-model dimmers can’t even sense that there is a bulb there to dim.”

  So in that case, just buy regular bulbs—but instead of wattage you should measure lumens. What are lumens? So easy to remember! Wattage is energy, lumens is brightness. For example, a 100-watt incandescent has about 1,600 lumens, whereas a 40-watt incandescent has about 450 lumens. If you forget, you can check out the handy charts and tables at www.energystar.gov. In your spare time. Feel free, while you’re at it, to get a PhD from Cornell in the electromagnetic spectrum.

  Further, light bulbs come i
n a variety of shades. You’ll be horrified to learn, as I was, that each color has a temperature rating measured in degrees Kelvin. The lower the Kelvin number, the more yellow the light, the higher the Kelvin, the bluer.

  Brooks—who clearly has time on his hands—suggests buying different bulbs with different Kelvin numbers. Why? To see how you like them. “Every shade of white is good for a different reason,” he says. Modern spaces look better in whiter light, traditional rooms in yellower. A whiter, higher Kelvin light is more popular in the South, a yellower, lower Kelvin light in the North.

  In the end, experts recommend not buying too many of any one bulb because, as they say, “the technology is just changing so quickly.”

  YANKEE CANDLES

  What Are These?

  We’re all familiar with the piney theme candles realtors love for their open houses, like Winter Harvest, Christmas Wreath, Cranberry Potpourri. Or the candles of various girly fruits like Apple, Banana, Papaya.

  But the Yankee Candle Store has invented a new 4-D matrix reality where there is a candle scent called Leather. That’s right. Leather. Or White Cotton. Do you get it? This is a candle that smells like . . . white cotton. Not yellow cotton. White. What does white cotton smell like? You inhale the candle and suddenly you know! It’s surreal!

  And that’s what you start doing when you take a wrong turn at the mall, like I did the other week. You start methodically unscrewing and snorting these rows and rows of candles like an addict—

  Getting a Yankee Candle contact high—

  And now you’re into the next section—Marguerita Sunset. Caribbean Rum. Luau Colada. This is odd. Why am I standing alone in a mall and snorting candles that smell like hangover-inducing umbrella drinks from a bad Cheech and Chong movie? But were there any good Cheech and Chong movies? Who knows?

  Next section: food! We are talking candles that smell like, and I quote: “Root Beer. Maple Pancakes. Vanilla Frosting. Fudge Brownie. Bunny Cake.”

  It’s like an Escher painting: Who would burn a candle that smells like Bunny Cake while actually baking a Bunny Cake? What kind of sugar cleanse would that necessitate? As if in a trance, I buy four. I’m so exhausted from the light bulbs, I can’t help it.

  THROWING SOME SHADE

  Hannah is complaining about too much light in her bedroom. Her curtains are too gauzy. It makes it hard for her to sleep in ’til noon, which she considers her right on weekends. Because I know nothing, I foolishly say, “Let’s get you some blinds!”

  Swirling a fresh cup of coffee, I click open Angie’s List. I type in “blinds.” Do I mean “custom blinds”? Sure! Here’s a 10 percent-off coupon—I’m printing money! It’s for a highly rated custom blinds guy named Roger. Within two hours he’s at my house for a free estimate! #winning!

  Roger is charming, friendly, conversational, and—get this! Also a blues musician! He oohs and aahs over my 1906 craftsman house, with its large, beautiful, “unusually sized” windows. Older and wiser now, the phrase “unusually sized” should have been the tip-off that another custom-zero was being custom-added, but I thought nothing of it then. Oh no! Roger was so friendly, I offered him a cup of coffee. Presumably because I was home on a weekday, he asked what I did for a living. I said I was a writer. He asked what kind.

  Now I know that this is called emotionally “bonding” and you should not do it when getting a quote unquote “free estimate.” In hindsight, I realize I should have said, “I am unemployed,” and burst into tears, rather than trying to make my career sound so successful and lucrative. Roger then spends what seems like half an hour—he’s thorough!—measuring two windows. And he goes to his truck and returns with a thick, beautifully bound binder. Full of . . . blinds.

  Not just blinds. And I quote: “Window treatments of your dreams.” And I think, Who literally dreams of window treatments?

  Someone, because there are honeycomb ones, blackout ones, vertical ones—with different kinds of pulleys, cords, and stylish “valences”—in complicated colors like Banana Ice Milk and Taos Midnight Persimmon. Yankee Candle aromas will be coming next.

  Bottom line? For two bedroom windows, it will take three weeks for the custom shades to arrive. Cost? $1,800. “They will look amazing!” Roger enthuses. Inwardly, I agree. They will be the most amazing thing in my teen’s messy bedroom piled with laundry, makeup, snarls of electronics, and crumpled tissues. $1,800? We just want something to block light.

  After Roger leaves—in an air thick with mutual disappointment—I eye a trifold from Sally’s science fair project. I contemplate simply nailing blankets over the windows. In the end, I give Hannah a nice new sleep mask. Although that night I do indeed dream . . . of window treatments.

  And Bunny Cake.

  LIBERAL DIRT

  For decades, I’ve never hired a regular cleaning person. Why? Feminist guilt. In Nickel and Dimed, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich argued that it’s oppressive for a First World woman to pay a Third World sister to scrub her toilets.

  So when we first moved into this giant house, I invented a game for my girls and me to play. It was sort of an Upstairs Downstairs thing where we pretended to be the servants of wealthy people. I procured “fun” cleaning gear—a Miele vacuum cleaner, battery-powered Swiffer, products like “Kaboom!” Violent and possibly toxic, it cleans your toilet bowl. Sally in particular loved it. “Kaboom!” we yelled, and flushed, like we were getting away with something.

  But as girls move into teenhood, they lose the joy and become judgmental. Hannah can be a great refrigerator-cleaner when she puts her mind to it, but she pulls out every gross thing and describes it to me as if it’s my fault. It’s like an unwanted show-and-tell from a precocious child from some hateful Montessori/Waldorf preschool.

  So I finally say, “To hell with Barbara Ehrenreich!” and I hire the cleaning lady Luz our nice gay neighbors enthusiastically recommend, because she needs more clients.

  See? By hiring a cleaning professional, I am providing employment in the world. I even insist on paying Luz more than the almost absurdly low price that is quoted.

  But then, of course, Luz arrives. She is like an avenging angel sent by Barbara Ehrenreich to haunt me, in my own home.

  Truth be told, Luz is on the cusp of being a little too old and frail to be doing this sort of physical labor. In the morning, she’ll wheel up a cart with cleaning supplies and enough bottled water to provide hydration for the next, clearly grueling, eight hours.

  Luz is mesmerized by this tree in our front yard that, to my surprise—is that what those are?—has guavas. She harvests them so diligently, I worry that, for her, they may represent a major food source.

  Also, it pains me to complain, but Luz will rearrange everything. She’ll literally move objects randomly from one room to another. It’s terrifying. In the evening, I’ll reach over to my nightstand, for the important books I was mindfully trying to read, jar of TUMS, reading glasses, New York Times crossword—all gone! Why?!?

  I feel violated because my intimate things are always being moved—and then I feel reviolated because I’m having such a foot-stomping, First World reaction. Soon I will have to pay more money to take myself to emergency Cleaning Woman Therapy.

  PLEASE DON’T EAT THE BASIL

  My new Green Goddess Cookbook has an inviting recipe for fresh pesto.

  It is a perfect opportunity (“A Passion for Ramps!”) for Charlie and me to go to our delightful local farmer’s market. Picture charming stands bearing gentle moraines of pesticide-free raspberries, votive candles women from Ventura have insisted on crafting out of honey, and a battered, blue-eyed soul brother crooning Crosby, Stills and Nash. It’s less a market than a lifestyle.

  We stop at Sunchoke Farm Sisters Produce. It is overflowing with the abundance of the earth: frothy kale, golden beets, gloriously tumbling oyster and shiitake mushrooms. I root around: okay, no, not here, not there . . .

  “Do you have basil?” I ask.

  “No,” the farm lady dec
lares, “too early.”

  I turn to Charlie. “March is too early for basil?

  “I’ll just take this parsley then,” I say.

  “No parsley today,” she corrects me. “That’s cilantro.”

  “I could use some dill,” Charlie says, pawing through an herb basket of lavender, marjoram, lamb’s ear, lemon verbena—“I don’t think they have it.”

  I turn again to Charlie: “So as usual, we have to go to the store.”

  “Instead of ‘farm to table,’ ” he agrees, “it’s ‘farm to Von’s to table.’ ”

  “Knowing us,” I amend, “more likely it will be ‘farm to Von’s to table, back quickly to Von’s, back quickly to table.’ ”

  So we go to Trader Joe’s, where they are also out of basil. But they do have live basil plants for $3.99.

  “I think that’s cool,” Charlie says. “Instead of buying dead basil leaves, why not buy a live basil plant, which will continue to make more basil?”

  “I’ll tell you why,” I say. “Remember last year when, charmed by this very concept, I took a basil plant home, placed it as instructed in the half shade and watered it daily? For kind of a long time?”

  He doesn’t remember—I complained about it so much he blocked it out. I continue: “No new basil leaves ever grew and the plant became rickety and woody and brown, but—the very morning I planned to throw it into the yard clippings bin it burst into flower! Like a ninety-year-old man flinging out giddy ‘jazz hands’ to fend off a lowering coffin lid. You can’t throw away a plant with flowers, so I kept watering it and moving it around and babying it because one day it might make leaves. I’ve been taking care of this basil plant for a year! It puts the pest into pesto!”