Lighty

Christmas is in full swing with the hub/bub and me. The bub is obsessed about driving around and seeing all the houses lit up in their holiday cheer. I'm psyched that by next weekend, most of Alamo Heights will be caught up with us as far as decorating goes. I even broke down and bought a brown wicker yard deer for my son -- something I said I would never do -- who he quickly named Lighty. In retrospect, I wish I'd bid on one of those awesome blown plastic yard ornaments from the 50s, but hey... I'll only go so far. Anyway, Lighty is part of the family now, as the bub insists on kissing him goodbye every time we leave the house.

Last night, we had a candlelight pizza picnic on the front porch, then took a walk around the hood to take in those loony early Christmaslighters like us. My fave is what we've lovingly begun to refer to as "The Crazy Christmas House". For reasons you will see here....



Literally, the house is a block away and you can clearly hear the music in our back yard. The first thing out of my mouth when my husband showed it to me was "Can somebody call the cops on them for this?" It is that obnoxious and that awesome. My absolute favorite kind of Christmas cheese.

So after the neighborhood jaunt, we plopped down on the front lawn and marveled at the sky. The hub went on to tell the bub how lucky we are, and from there, my son waxed poetic about how lucky all his friends are by name. I'm not sure if he got the full gist of what he was saying, but tucked snug into the dewy grass with the Christmas lights twinkling in tune with the stars, it sure seemed like he did.

Squish

Thought I would share this delightful photo a friend took of the bub and then lament my lame Canon and its crappy picture quality. Alas... Christmas won't be coming early at our house.

That said, today is a much better day than the former. I got my baseline mammogram, and having had one when I was 20... I have to say, it hurts far less with aging, post-baby boobs than it does with taunt, nubile boobs. Today was the first time I thanked the heavens for that little bit of sag. Who knew it would come in handy?

That said. I am trying not to let crappy moods effect my life, as ultimately, it is all too fragile and fleeting. I am alive. That's doing pretty damn good considering all the things in the world that aren't. I mean I could be a dinosaur for instance... and not only would I be extinct, but I would have all kinds of people digging up my bones and fondling them in all kinds of unnatural ways. I could be a minke whale on the plate of some clueless Asian diner. I could be one of any number of soon-to-be-dead roaches making their way to the "surface" of my house since my husband sprayed for them last week. I could be one of my Dad's hair follicles, laying lifeless on the floor on my guest bathroom. So yea, when you view it from that perspective, things are looking pretty good.

After

The day after I ship my family home for the holidays. It is always the same. You learn a lot about yourself when you spend five days trying to escape insanity. I feel pretty sad that my family is as stressed out with each other as they are. Sometimes I feel like we are all just sitting around looking at my son hoping the grownups in the room don't actually speak to each other.

Twins

Someday I'll get my camera back... alas... how awesome is this freezing cold San Antonio weather!?! We actually had a fire going last night making my living room the picture of Christmas awesomeness. Right now, the family is out shopping (lunatics), my son is sleeping like the baby he is, my husband is doing some finish work on the house we are trying to sell, and I have about 20 minutes all to myself.

Thanksgiving dinner was a success. The only downfall... the turkey was a little overdone, which wouldn't be a big deal, except that when you are foolish enough to blow $45 on a fresh, free-range, brined turkey... anything less than succulent and juicy is a HUGE disappointment. The hub was still kicking himself this morning for not taking it out sooner. I didn't really notice though as my portion was completely soaked in about eight ounces of the most incredible gravy ever to grace my dinner table. The hub pulled a recipe from America's Test Kitchen that was incredibly time-consuming and labor intensive, but made of pure evil. And I mean the good kind of evil... the evil that makes Thanksgiving dinner the 5000 calorie kind of meal rather that the 300 calorie kind.

What about whipped mash potatoes made with cheddar cheese and cream? Stuffing with sausage and sauteed onions and butter? Pumpkin pie with whipped cream AND ice cream? Yea. It was pretty sweet... but you know you've eaten too much when your father (who you see twice a year) looks up at you after dinner... while you are putting an ornament on the tree and laughing with your beautiful son and feeling pretty great about yourself and the evening in general... and tells you that you look like you are pregnant with twins. Nice, huh? Yea, I spent the rest of the night mockingly referring to my labor pains and picking out names for the 10-pound turkey chicks I was going to give birth to later in the evening.

Go Dad go.

Fir

Believe it or not folks, yes.... what you see here is indeed my Christmas tree. As of November 20 at 2:09 pm, my Fraser fir is not only up in my living room, but it is decorated and loaded to go for the holidays. Am I insane you ask? Hardly. My parents (as you may or may not know) are divorced, and I spend Christmas with my mom and Thanksgiving with my Dad, and the latter insists we have an early family Christmas in conjunction with the turkey carving. So yes.... I will spend the next month obsessing about refilling the water in the stand because if I don't, come Christmas Eve this glorious symbol of the holiday season will be nothing more than a crusty, brown branch with "smoke near me and the whole house gets it" written all over its prickly needles.

In a way, it was fun. You know, getting the house ready for company.... playing the music.... sweeping all the tree refuse out of the rug. Don't let my bitching fool you... I absolutely love the holidays, but sometimes it all feels like the cross I have to bear for being a child of divorce. Because my parents are no longer together, holidays are always fractured and no one really comes out happy in the end. My mom is never satisfied with the amount of time I can dedicate to coming home (really, how many other parents that live far from their kids get five full days at Christmas?), and my dad is resentful that he doesn't get the lion's share of the family celebrations (though he should have thought of that 32 years ago.)

It doesn't matter what you do to make everyone happy... like putting up your tree weeks in advance and spending $3,000 to fly your entire family to Virginia on the busiest travel week of the year.... nothing is ever good enough. No one is ever satisfied, and worse, the guilt just keeps on coming. No matter how much you love your family and how much you enjoy being with them, the good time always gets ruined by stored up resentment that comes busting out right about the time that second glass of egg nog is served.

Maybe next year, we'll convert to Judaism and screw all this ho-ho-ho bullshit all together.

Star Wars

OK, so being a child of the 70s, sure, I have some affinity for Star Wars. I remember attending my first day of kindergarten in a Princess Leia t-shirt, and was mortally humiliated when my mother stood up in the middle of Return of the Jedi to cheer the Ewoks. That's about as deep as it gets.

So two nights ago, I was shocked and tickled to see (many, many) members of the Star Wars Society of San Antonio marching in full regalia down Broadway in the 31st Annual Alamo Heights Christmas Parade. Who knew? (Notice, I don't have a picture as my camera is still on the fritz, but I stole this perfectly nice portrait off the SWSSA Book Club site.) As much as I should be prone to mock these guys, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. There was something about their enthusiasm and lack of self-consciousness that made the whole spectacle endearing. When I was younger, my family and I would drive around to look at Christmas lights and always make fun of the people who had really, really tacky ones. Years later, I realized even the folks with the tacky ones were at least trying to spread the Christmas spirit. Who the hell was I to make fun of their efforts at yuletide cheer?

So yea, even though I do inherently think it a little lame for grown men and women to be dressed up at a non-Halloween event as Imperial Stormtroopers and Wookiees... shit, at least they are up and out there doing something. At least they are passionate and motivated and obviously having a great time. That is a lot more than I can say for some people.

(Googling these guys, I also found this article from 2006 on mysa.com, which I found hugely fascinating.)

Net

Geez, the Internet is worse than TV isn't it? Like TV, it is totally addictive and utterly undeniable. Yet unlike TV, you can actually get what you want, all the time, 24-7. Was e-mailing with a friend tonight, and he implied that it is just one thing leading to another on the Internet. Sadly, now that I've almost completely purged TV, the Internet just sucks me in. DAMN YOU LINKS.

That is why my BOOKMARKS are so important. Sure I can get lost in a string of links just like the next guy, but for the most part, I try and stay loyal to the Bookmark. Some things always stay on the Bookmark and some things get rotated out, but for the most part, there are never more than about 15 HTMLs. Some are just necessary, like BBC, Netflix, CNN, my bank, etc. Some are must-haves like Etsy, my Google account, eBay, Flickr. Only a handful of coveted spaces belong to true surfing, and that is exactly the way I want to keep it. I mean think about it. Everybody you've ever known (barring some friends of your grandma) is on the Web, offering you unlimited access to all your ex-BFFs, ex-boyfriends, past psycho bosses, old classmates, etc.

I remember when the Net first hit, I asked an Internet savvy friend (now my husband) to look up the address and phone number of my elementary school sweetheart. When he brought me in a small piece of paper filled in with the boy's (man's) contact information, it seemed to me no less than a miracle. A decade later and now I can view that guy's Myspace/Facebook/Web/Blog page and find out not just his address, but get a satellite image of his house, read what his mom is up to, view his uncle Ted's obituary, browse his resume and see pictures of him and his boyfriend on the beach in Hawaii with their adopted baby from Thailand. Internet stalking was what it was called at first, but now everyone's lives are so well-documented, it is like they want everyone to know everything about them. Like you never really quit knowing someone because they are always there. So it is no longer stalking, but now more like catching up. The past is ever present.

At the funeral of my mom's friend, I spoke with a girl from my childhood. I wouldn't really call her a friend. She never spent the night at my house and I never had her phone number, but she definitely ran in our group. Anyway, she mentioned she'd Googled me and read some articles I had written. At first I found it weird, that someone who barely knew me would be Googling me. That she was stretching so deep back into her past that she would want to see what me, a past acquaintance, was doing was a little strange. Then I became flattered because, damn, if she is looking for me, think who else is out there looking for me and perhaps someone I want to find me someday will.

Hey, I guess when you grow tired of reading about your prom date's perfect life without you, you gotta go somewhere. Why not the girl from high school who you barely talked to but sat beside in algebra class? It is called The Net after all. Along with the tuna, you’re bound to snag a few dolphins, some perch and a jelly fish or two.

Jolly

All of a sudden the bub gets Santa. Last year, I think he understood conceptionally, but at still under two, I believe Mr. Claus was just a merry-faced character from a book to him.

Last week my son was at the local Whole Foods coveting a stuffed toy moose, and begging me to buy it for him. With no forethought at all I turned to him and said, "Put it back on the shelf, and maybe if you write Santa a letter, he will bring it to you for Christmas." Without so much as a word, the moose was back on the shelf, and we were on our way. Five aisles over and 20 minutes later, a sweet older gentleman stops to say howdy-do to the bub, and the little guy looks right at him and says, "Santa's gonna bring that moose over there for Christmas." Then drags the poor old guy over to see it.

Hum, I thought.

A few nights later, the hub and I were reading him a book about Santa and his reindeer, and his eyes (literally) began to sparkle. We both saw what was happening, so together we began to recite The Night Before Christmas and his eyes grew even wider. It was in this moment that I decided to explain to him the theory of "good boys and girls" and presents on Christmas morning, and how you better watch out, you better not cry, etc. Well, in the past few days, if the bub has started to throw a fit or be mean and nasty in any way, I need only to haul out the "good little boy" speech to get a complete 180 in his behavior.

I almost feel guilty manipulating him like that with the proverbial carrot-on-a-string, but it is absolutely irresistible. I'm sure generations of children have been disciplined using the "lump of coal" method, but still, its potency strikes me as a wee bit cruel. Make no mistake, I'm not about to stop using it now that I've seen its magic powers, but still....

Anyway, seeing as how important Santa and his ilk have suddenly become to the boy, I am totally psyched to be on the brink of his first cognizant Christmas. Let the fun begin.

Skyline

A week before September 11th, I was riding my bike down Sixth Avenue, and noticed how spectacularly placed the World Trade Center was. It seemed that every north/south avenue in Manhattan was put there to frame the buildings in the most perfect way. Up until that moment, I had not given the towers much thought. Nine years in the city, and I'd never even been up to the top once. They were just the subway stop that got me to Century 21 (the discount shopping Mecca across from the WTC plaza). It was funny that on that day, I would suddenly notice how awesome they were, and how no matter where you were in the city, their silhouette loomed. Five days later they were gone and the look of the city was changed forever.

Today, driving downtown, I noticed the skyline of San Antonio -- a sight I've admired since I moved here. Seeing all the buildings and the Tower of the Americas all lined up against the clouds really reminds me that this is indeed a city. A microcosm of what New York is, but a real living breathing urban hub all the same. Many a day have I been headed south on 281 and seen that great cityscape headed into downtown and felt like I was on the brink of something new and exciting -- not unlike the way I felt as a kid seeing the Statue of Liberty off the highway for the first time. I know San Antonio is a far cry from New York, but I still happen to love it here. Sure it doesn't have all the glamour and sparkle, but when you're in the heart of all the glittering, it starts to loose its luster. At this point in my life, San Antonio is just the right speed for me. At the moment (at least), this is my city and I love that my son will always be a born Texan no matter where he ends up in the world.

That said... this morning as I am headed in, I notice something new on the skyline of San Antonio. The god-awful Convention Center Hotel. It is still partially in scaffold, but it's clear to see what the finished result is going to be. A giant, ugly, plain rectangle that obscures part of the Tower and in general casts a large, characterless shadow on a skyline that was once pretty interesting.

It is sad to think that whoever gave the green light on that thing wasn't thinking about what it would do to the character of the skyline. Part of the reason the World Trade Center is still on hold is that everyone understood how important its replacement would be to the overall look of the city and they wanted to make sure they got it right. The look of our city must have been the last thing on the minds of the San Antonio City Council or whoever gave the go-ahead for that monstrosity.

I know it will bring money and jobs and tax dollars into the local economy, but really.... Couldn't they have built something a little more strategically placed and architecturally exciting? In my mind, the skyline is ruined now. Ugly. Ugly. Ugly. A shame really.

Allergies

Keep getting these whiffs of my own mortality lately. Watching as the bub grows longer and longer, two giant steps away from turning into a real boy and one hop-skip-and-a-jump from being a man. Realising I am 35 years old, and putting off having another child -- even for a year -- begins to teeter on the brink of "I'm too old for this sh...."

It's bad enough that I have old lady allergies since I moved to the Cedar State, but soon all else will start to go to hell. In my brain, I feel the same person I've always been. Having the same wonderings now that I had as a kid of 15. Sure, currently they are more nuanced and complex, but similar thoughts all the same.

Am supposed to be working on a story that is due into the paper in two days, but always get those nagging doubts... right up until the minute I pen the last words. Always thinking that I've blown it again. Always thinking that at some point I'll get to a place where I feel 100 percent and confident, yet that place never comes. I'm sure in the morning, I'll bite the bullet and finish the damn thing, but right now I'd rather swim in a sea of uncertainty so that I can wake up at 3 a.m., worried that I've failed again. Then fall asleep dreaming about scorpions and owls stealing eggs. (My son's nightmare from last night as described by him upon waking.)

Worried that I'll sleep through the day and wake up an hour too late to hand in the story. (Yea right. Like that could ever actually happen.)

The truth is simply this. I can't breathe. And when I can't breathe, I start to have doubts that my sinuses will ever be clear again. And I feel doomed. DOOMED I TELL YOU.

Hub

It is almost 9 o'clock pm on Sunday night. I am sitting in my bedroom at the farm, looking through the window at my husband digging out the bottom of the smoke house, getting it ready for the new cement floor next weekend. It's pitch black out and all I can see is his silhouette in the clamp light, and he's got Bob Dylan blasting from the car radio. The bub is asleep in his room and all just seems right with the world.

To say I am proud of my husband would be an understatement. When we met over a decade ago, he was a totally different person. Not really at his core, as he is and always has been a selfless, sweet, kind, funny and smart man. Now though, he is almost fearless, something I could never have said about him when we started dating eight years ago.

The man who was first too embarrassed to read aloud to our son, now sings the Happy Wanderer to him at the top of his lungs while walking down the street. The man who once was boxed in by his life in NYC is now outside building on one of his biggest dreams. The man who once never wanted kids, is now the best dad in the world.

And me.... well, I am only gonna say this only once, but for the most part women suck. Sure, we are loving and snuggly and loyal and nurturing, but in a lot of ways we can be selfish, coldhearted bitches. It is just in our genes to be self-centered. Men on the other hand will do anything for the women they love. I'm not saying women won't go to the ends of the earth for a man, but they are just less prone to be thinking about caretaking their relationships all the time. We women spend far too much time obsessing, thinking and then working out those thoughts aloud.

My husband almost never misses a beat when it comes to taking care of me. He gets the big stuff right, but he also lives in the details. He makes sure I have homebrewed-iced coffee in the fridge even though he doesn't touch the stuff. He leaves the porch light on for me if I'm out of the house after dark. He'll buy purple pansies for the garden because I love them, even though he prefers the yellow. So many of the things he does everyday, even the things I don't notice right away, he does to make me happy.

Is there some part of him that does it out of fear that I'll bitch at him? Sure, that's probably in there somewhere. But, I have to believe most of the time he does those things because even after all his time he wants to impress me. He wants to take care of me. I have friends with husbands who can't change a light bulb, and my hub is out there right now, building a smokehouse. I have to say, I'm impressed. In today's world where the noble savage seems to be a lost cause, that kind of skill and motivation is an amazing gift to have. He is to me a daily inspiration.

Geez, I'm sorry for the million and one times that my husband does something kind for me and I don't notice because I am too worried about something ridiculous. Just like a woman.

Born

Spent the day on Friday with a good friend and her daughter at the zoo. Well, kind of at the zoo. We got there a little late -- forgetting it was Friday -- and spent 20 minutes in a swamp of elementary school kids in matching T-shirts before opting for a snack and a train ride around the park instead.

Somehow we got on the natural childbirth subject, and I was surprised to find out she was a Bradley Method girl as well. It's been a while since I thought about all that, and it was fun to talk about my experience and remember. I just feel so lucky to have had such an easy labor and birth, and that I was able to go all the way drug free and unencumbered by tubes and machines. It was pretty hardcore, but I wouldn't trade a second of it. I mean how much more alive do you get?

I saw the trailer today about a new documentary called The Business of Being Born and I can't wait to see it. I believe the premise is how the medical industry has brainwashed women into thinking elective C-sections and painkillers are better for them, when really, they are just better for doctors. Essentially, they get to charge more money for less work. I know having a child naturally isn't really for everyone and some women don't really have a choice, but it is such an amazing and once/twice-in-a-lifetime thing that I wouldn't have missed it. Sure it hurt like hell, but what's one day in your life?

Anyway, I try not to get on the soapbox too hard about it, but it is the kind of thing you want to share with people. I can laugh at the downsides though, like having the lovely touchstones when I drive down the highway of... "Oh look honey, remember... that's where we had to pull over so I could vomit." And... "Just think, three years ago, we were standing in this parking lot and I couldn't walk."

Too funny. But seriously, in the end, it's fear that gets us. Really in everything in life. That built in fear that whatever it is is gonna be horrible or too scary and too painful and there is no way I can deal, when really as human beings, we can pretty much deal with anything that doesn't kill us. Once I heard a quote about childbirth that went... "Why walk to Los Angeles when you can fly?" Well, when you fly you can't move. You're stuck in your seat for hours with nothing to look at but some crappy movie and the clouds. Where when you drive, you get to see all the scenery and can stop at that little out of the way eatery for a slice of apple pie. Corny, but it works.

Essentially, it's the choice of every woman, and no matter what you decide, going in clear-headed, fully-understanding all your options is the only way. Best day of my life.

Alport

RIP

Alport the Elephant

1958 - 2007

Splurge

Damn you Canon! My camera is kaput. And I've not even had it a year. Coincidentally, we are researching nicer Nikons in the hopes that when our other house sells (soon..soon) we can splurge on a more professional unit... So the damn little Canon could have held out another month... I guess I'm stuck with my camera phone in the meantime.

But... let us not complain, because today is a day of overindulgence.

This morning, I asked our cleaning lady to upgrade from once every two weeks to every week. I really lamented doing it as we don't really have the money and I feel like a bourgeois asshole, but hey, I'm working pretty much part-time now and find that every moment that I am not wiping my son's butt, reading him a story, picking up his toys, changing his clothes, driving him somewhere and feeding him, I am freelancing, so who has time to clean? In the past few months, the place has remained pretty messy. For the last year, I've done an excellent job of keeping up the clean while taking care of the boy and still getting dinner on the table by 5:30. But lately, the workload has become too much... where literally the only moment I have to myself (and this also includes taking a crap as I rarely can do that without the boy begging for a story) is when I write this thing... and while it is therapeutic, true time for myself it does not make. So after much hemming and hawing, the cleaning lady will be here to pick up my shit weekly, thus opening up more time for me to work. Yea!

I hope that doesn't sound like complaining. I mean, I am someone who can afford on some level to have a cleaning lady come every week... it could be a lot worse. I could be forced to work three shitty jobs while my son rots away in low-income daycare... or I could be some asshole senator's wife who sticks her kid with the nanny all day so she can shop and get her nails done. But this is about splurging right? I did feel a rush of adrenaline when I asked her to double her workload and pay... almost giddy really with the liberation of not having to wash my own clothes ever again. I feel like Grace fricking Kelly.

So yea, my next great splurge is getting a baseline mammogram next week, so that if god forbid, something bad happens to me, they would have a shot of my healthy boobs to match them against. Now that is decadence! Even though I am a huge leap away from being a lady who lunches, I get to have the best of both worlds... raising my son at home while still working my butt off. Isn't America grand?

Finally

Eureka! I think my problem with the bub's naps is that I have been trying to put him down too late. Who knew that if I tried 11:30, he would shut off like a light? So much for trying to settle him in at 2:30. All this time... oh what a fool I've been.

Feeling pretty damn good today. I know all parents must feel this way, but sometimes the bub is so unbelievably cute that you almost can't physically stand it. Like if he gets any cuter, your heart just might explode. My husband and I have been getting an overload of love in the last few weeks. It just seems like every day the kid gets cuter and nicer and sweeter and snugglier and funnier. Every night after dinner we sit around in the bub's world singing, playing with his animals, reading his books and getting sucked further and further in... lost in his little imagination and space and loving every second of it.

God, it almost makes you wonder at what point will we begin to disappoint each other. It would be wonderful to believe that it will go on like this forever. That we will always be madly in love with him and he with us. I guess theoretically it could, but then, who knows? I just can't imagine him ever thoroughly disappointing me. I have a pretty realistic picture of the future, and although I think he is capable of anything, there is the chance that he could end up a person I can't stand... but I seriously doubt it.

What a little joy he is. I wish we could bottle that toddler/parent love and sell it. Geez you'd think it could be the answer to world peace and hunger and global warming. But I guess, it's also, ultimately, the reason for all those things too. It's such an incredible love, that I guess if you've had something like that and lost it (or never had it to begin with), it could kind of unhinge everything.

Thinking back to those wee little Hitlers and Osamas, and what awful sad things must have happened to them once upon a time. It all goes back to the childhood doesn't it?

Consume

Been feeling a wee bit overwhelmed of late, and the world came crashing in when I went to see my doctor today. You never know how you really feel until you step into a vulnerable situation and the water works come on.

I guess the weight of all the current happenings came rushing in somewhere between the reception desk and the blood pressure machine. My poor Doc... though seriously, I imagine seeing people cry goes with the territory for those guys. God, I've always ragged so heavy on people who end up doing yoga (though I have done yoga) or become born again (doubtful that will happen) as a way to sort themselves out... but now I'm starting to see what the appeal might be. Not really to the specific thing, but rather finding anything that might help make sense of it all.

The thing that pisses me off about the way that I am feeling, is I've always been the nutty rock in my family. The one with the seemingly easy and perfect everything, who still managed to be a little bit edgy and off the wall while maintaining cool control. This is truly the first time in my life where I've really felt like I am loosing my grip. And even that feeling comes in waves. I am a black and white person. As I've said before on this blog, I hate the grey area and right now I am immersed in the sludge.

So, who knows.... but again I am distracted and distant even from my own moments. Trying to sit and write this now, only to have my mind wander to a million different places -- many of them dark.

When will the consumption end? Fart. Ugh. Humph. Dang.

Sleepy

This, my friends, is what you get when you offer Halloween candy as a before nap treat. Three hours later and your man is wandering the halls dressed in his winter hat looking like a drunken sailor on leave in Shanghai.

After a morning that consisted of a stage play (The Snow Dragon by the Tall Stories Theatre Company out of the UK -- excellent!) with his current BFF, a short jaunt to the library and a return drive home filled with french fries and milk, I thought for sure the bub would be ready to fall over. Alas, no.

Literally, three hours later and I still hear him in his room, playacting scenarios between his Schleich animals having something to do with "going to school", "riding the bus", "killing an aardvark" and "taking a penguin for a walk".

A few minutes ago, he just appeared in the back yard, wearing his hat and stumbling toward his favorite bucket of dirt looking for a good time. This almost never happens. Usually he goes down pretty quick and I am starting to panic that perhaps this is early onset of the dreaded "I no longer need to take a daytime nap" milestone of childhood.

My girlfriend warned me about this. The horrible day somewhere around the age of four when your child no longer needs to "lie down for a spell" in the midafternoon, thus stealing the last two hours of freedom you have left in life. I don't want to panic yet, but if he doesn't go down soon, I might be terminally screwed. I want to believe it is just that Nestle Crunch bar surging through his veins, but could it be a hint of something more... a glimpse into the terrible nap-free future? God help me.

Partay

Coming off a nasty cold virus and the best Halloween party ever! I sort of decided if my son is going to be an only child, I would have to fill his holidays with his friends so he is never alone. This was the second annual bub Halloween bash, and he had the best time. I had the best time getting everything ready... hanging the decorations and baking the cupcakes. It all ended up being pretty magical, with my son thrilled because all of his favorite people were here all in the same place. Not to mention in costume which was even more awesome.

My 84-year-old father-in-law, a renown grump, showed up in a scary mask and actually looked cool. I was proud of him. What was not so cool was that he got more and more agitated when my son wouldn't sit on his lap for a photo because he was totally fucking terrified by him. Go figure. How can the coot get some things so right, but ultimately turn them so wrong?

Both my son and I woke up this morning in a great mood (no red wine hangover or too much sugar crash surprisingly) and spent the first half hour dancing in the living room to Louie Prima and generally being carefree and ridiculous. I decided my son could be late to school so that I could take him to Whole Foods for a bean and cheese taco to celebrate our success, and as I curved out of the basin bragging to my mom on my cell about how well the whole thing went, I see the lights come on behind me and realise I am plowing through a school zone 14 miles over the allotted speed. SHIT.

So, two speeding tickets in six months. Talk about a buzz kill. And I'm the one who hates people who drive while talking on the cell phone. Geez. Unlike the last one, I totally deserve this ticket. Do I suck or what?