B and I are going out for a belated anniversary dinner tonight---yum. Really looking forward to that. Our conversation in the car last night centered around how we should order wine---Bottle? But we want different kinds. "We'll just get red, okay?," he said. "Since it's almost my birthday and this is technically an anniversary slash my birthday event."
Love that.
And, about Michael Jackson. I am strangely not interested in all of the talk about his death. When Heath Ledger died last year, you'd have thought he was my own brother. I was online every hour checking for updates! I was devastated. Had it been possible, I'd have hopped a plane to wherever his funeral was just to stand outside and sob mascara streaks onto my face.
But MJ? Not so much. And what interests me about that, really, is that this hasn't happened, well, ever, when I am not interested in celebrity drama. Sorry to say, I love the stuff. I've probably told you MeMe had a subscription to People Magazine and that I was and am always bummed when the bulk of the "articles" are about everyday folks and their ordinary lives. I like the pictures of the plastic people. But not Michael Jackson, and I don't think it is just because of all of the molestation charges. I feel like he sort of evaporated a long time ago---and that every time you'd see him out, he'd be stranger and stranger. But is it even that?
Whew. Confession.
Don some waders and git feeshin.
In case of the winter-in-July doldrums, strap on a pear of mens' XXL waders and get fishin. Especially if you're really tired because you haven't slept much the night(s) before and your family is thees close to not liking you anymore (if they say "Just take a nap and we'll go play without you. We'd prefer it, really.").
And if you're like me, you'll remember a similar time, before you were married, when you did exactly this---but did it differently. You hair would have been styled, you would have been in makeup, you wouldn't have complained about having been up at 5 (certainly not about being so tired you hated everyone and everything). In fact, if it was 11 in the morning, you'd have probably already had sex that day (sorry, mom and Al B.).
Good times, then and now.
And if you're like me, you'll remember a similar time, before you were married, when you did exactly this---but did it differently. You hair would have been styled, you would have been in makeup, you wouldn't have complained about having been up at 5 (certainly not about being so tired you hated everyone and everything). In fact, if it was 11 in the morning, you'd have probably already had sex that day (sorry, mom and Al B.).
Good times, then and now.
Just Keep Doing Stuff
One of the many facets of my personal organizational structure is the need to keep moving, keep functioning. I've always done it and these last couple of months are no different. If I can be creating, organizing, baking, running, and working, then I won't have a regret 30 years from now that I didn't do something when I was young. Or something like that.
I was reading this post on a website I love, wherein the author ponders the significance of an old Korean tradition that requires new mothers to rest as much as possible in the first month after giving birth to a new baby. That tradition had to have been thought up by people like me (or, rather, people who lived with people like me).
B is like me. He gets itchy and irritable if he has to sit for too long.
***Although, now that I am thinking about it, there's nothing better than a sick day if wireless internet access is available. (Without it? Crazymaking).
Anyway, we're going home in ten days. Next (next) Wednesday, we will say goodbye to this crazy summer of travel and head back to Middle Earth, where it's so hot in August that you have to get up before 7 am to do anything with kids outside.
Anyone else have panic attacks over hot playground equipment? Holla!
Before we leave, though, we've decided to re-do two rooms here at the Maine house. Two big rooms whose functions are shifting to something more visitor-friendly (i.e., a separate space for people to get away, ha ha, wonder why that's a task for this summer?). We sent Granddad out to get the supplies for the project, partly because he likes to help and partly because he and B working together looks like this:
He came home with 9 gallons of paint, rollers (three different kinds in three different sizes), tape, drop cloths, sandpaper, and spackle. He's measured windows so that we can order new shades and there's a guy coming in two weeks to carpet. There is a lot of work to be done and I've already complained. Why didn't we just hire painters? That makes me feel better.
I was reading this post on a website I love, wherein the author ponders the significance of an old Korean tradition that requires new mothers to rest as much as possible in the first month after giving birth to a new baby. That tradition had to have been thought up by people like me (or, rather, people who lived with people like me).
B is like me. He gets itchy and irritable if he has to sit for too long.
***Although, now that I am thinking about it, there's nothing better than a sick day if wireless internet access is available. (Without it? Crazymaking).
Anyway, we're going home in ten days. Next (next) Wednesday, we will say goodbye to this crazy summer of travel and head back to Middle Earth, where it's so hot in August that you have to get up before 7 am to do anything with kids outside.
Anyone else have panic attacks over hot playground equipment? Holla!
Before we leave, though, we've decided to re-do two rooms here at the Maine house. Two big rooms whose functions are shifting to something more visitor-friendly (i.e., a separate space for people to get away, ha ha, wonder why that's a task for this summer?). We sent Granddad out to get the supplies for the project, partly because he likes to help and partly because he and B working together looks like this:
He came home with 9 gallons of paint, rollers (three different kinds in three different sizes), tape, drop cloths, sandpaper, and spackle. He's measured windows so that we can order new shades and there's a guy coming in two weeks to carpet. There is a lot of work to be done and I've already complained. Why didn't we just hire painters? That makes me feel better. Our goal is to finish painting on Wednesday so that, on Thursday, B and I can go for out for our annual anniversary dinner. Sunday is an event for B's mom here at the house and then we go home. Pretty much.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
***I know the answer to the question, thank you.
Worth every single solitary night without sleep.
You should know that I love my daughter so much that, for her, I went for an entire year without sleeping. Also, and most importantly, when we were in Savannah, at the pool? We found a fiddler crab perched atop the buoy on the pool rope (How can it live in all of that chlorine? How?). We stood close-by (but "not too close, Mommmm!") to check it out and---out of nowhere, swear to GOD---this new swimmer (approximately 3.5 years) comes barreling over the rope, knocking the crab off of the buoy, into the water. I watched in horror as that little crab, claws and all, swam faster and more efficiently than Michael Phelps onto my bathing suit, just south of where TM was perched on my hip.
"JESUS!," I yelled, doggy paddling with baby, crab, and all back to the stairs, where I deposited TM and searched in vain for the brown crab on my brown bathing suit. The reactions of others around me, both to my panic and to the fact that I yelled the Lord's name in vain in the South where I'm pretty sure people are still stoned for that sort of thing, were not lost on me. I was embarrassed. But the instinct to live is a strong one. I was frisking myself, TM was yelling for help. It was a mess. And it's not that I am scared of fiddler crabs, per se, but I'd say the experience was just as bad or worse than having a roach crawl across your naked skin. I wanted it OFF.
When I finally found it, I swatted wildly at it. I couldn't remember if fiddler crabs pinched and that didn't matter (does it matter if a roach bites?). It kept trying to swim back to me and I was zigzagging around like a maniac, trying to get away. It wouldn't have worked, really, I wasn't that fast. A sturdy looking dad came over and scooped it right out of the water and onto the concrete, where it spent the next two hours being poked and prodded by a group of four year old budding marine biologists.
Life has never been the same, for sure, since TM came along. I don't think I would have ever before made ten trips to and from the fiddler crab on the rope and I certainly wouldn't have gone for a year without sleeping. But life with a toddler is always interesting and I am so grateful for her preciousness.
"JESUS!," I yelled, doggy paddling with baby, crab, and all back to the stairs, where I deposited TM and searched in vain for the brown crab on my brown bathing suit. The reactions of others around me, both to my panic and to the fact that I yelled the Lord's name in vain in the South where I'm pretty sure people are still stoned for that sort of thing, were not lost on me. I was embarrassed. But the instinct to live is a strong one. I was frisking myself, TM was yelling for help. It was a mess. And it's not that I am scared of fiddler crabs, per se, but I'd say the experience was just as bad or worse than having a roach crawl across your naked skin. I wanted it OFF.
When I finally found it, I swatted wildly at it. I couldn't remember if fiddler crabs pinched and that didn't matter (does it matter if a roach bites?). It kept trying to swim back to me and I was zigzagging around like a maniac, trying to get away. It wouldn't have worked, really, I wasn't that fast. A sturdy looking dad came over and scooped it right out of the water and onto the concrete, where it spent the next two hours being poked and prodded by a group of four year old budding marine biologists.
Life has never been the same, for sure, since TM came along. I don't think I would have ever before made ten trips to and from the fiddler crab on the rope and I certainly wouldn't have gone for a year without sleeping. But life with a toddler is always interesting and I am so grateful for her preciousness.
So much.
TM and I just arrived in ME, caught an early flight (early as in Monday instead of Wednesday and 6:45 AM instead of 9:30 AM). We hopped from Savannah to Charlotte to Philadelphia to Bangor.
My grandmother couldn't handle our visit. I rearranged our travel plans when she told me, "Maybe this isn't the best time." She was in the ER when I left---has her second UTI this month and can't remember where her underwear drawer is.
Big sigh.
More soon? Trying to muster the energy to be present.
Maine is beautiful and I'm in a sweater.
My grandmother couldn't handle our visit. I rearranged our travel plans when she told me, "Maybe this isn't the best time." She was in the ER when I left---has her second UTI this month and can't remember where her underwear drawer is.
Big sigh.
More soon? Trying to muster the energy to be present.
Maine is beautiful and I'm in a sweater.
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