Coming up: A toss and a tumble back to the "real" world beyond the summery simulacrums. Will Associate Thompson rally the troops to stage a coup against Fitness Instructor Adelia? Will our heroine reassert her bond with the pivotal golden SHEET OF STATUS OF CASES?? Will she survive the inevitable homicidal mania attendant to an officemate's fervent DTs and withdrawal symptoms? Andrew sets his clock adrift to sea, verging too early and too late with little left in between. Shall the loris find his Goldi-Locks by holiday times? Travels and moves roil in the ether, as future discussions fortend far-flung quests and final destinations. Will our DINKs find roost away from their beautiful B-Town??
No answers are ever complete, but consult the pill-case calendar, award a gold star, take a nap and plunge beneath the surface to discover the hints that lay below!
Return to DINK (er. it's close to Galbraith) Mountain And other tales of Amuricuhn Yup-yup-yuppeees
After our detour through the lands of Europe and the very long customs line, it appears that we (W)rights are gradually re-acclimating to our native environment. Gradually. Yesterday was a touch odd as can be expected. Mostly odd for the fact that (1) the boyfrianceband was actually awake and quite alert yesterday morning. I didn't even have a chance to rouse him before he was dressed and chattering. This. Never. Happens. (Except when it does) (2) the boyfrianceband was actually nodding off by eight p.m. instead of getting the inevitable second-wind. This is a drastic reversal of our typical diurnal cycles. Although I'm generally less inclined towards narcolepsy and less transparently TIRED when I am tired, I still tend to be the tamarin in the morning and the grumpy bear within fifteen minutes of my decidedly irrevocable bedtime. Jet lag is a strange mistress.
Things were also a little different because Andrew had decided to take the day off. Clearly not to sleep in! But he did get a lot of necessary dawdling, some trumpery transactions, and a fair bit of bike obsession in. He also stopped by my office for a brief "coffee" (and/or in Adella's case, "much bigger breakfast that had to be delayed because of medication timings") break. Which was very pleasant. Back when we both went to the UW, we'd meet on campus for little study breaks during the day sometimes. There was something a little sacred about that time, and I do miss those little windows of wooing.
I'm grateful that we can live in Bellingham instead of some garbage hole nearer to EI, but the long commute does negate such impromptu moments during the day. Perhaps to my husband's surprise, I've started to show more openness to leaving the beautiful B-town after my mom retires. Not that I desperately want to get the hell outta Dodge or anything, but I do recognize that Andrew did a pretty big thing being so willing to move up here due to my commitments and preferences, and it may be my turn coming up.
Whatever my next employment path may be, it's likely to be far more portable and less location-sensitive. Given that I'm increasingly drawn away from the absolute practice of law to the alternative dispute resolution and administrative case/project management aspects, I'm not even as wed to staying in Washington as I once was. At least starting out. Frankly, if Andrew and I were willing to move further afoot (all quite theoretical, as he loves his job and we both love this area), Andrew would easily make enough money to support us both as I tried to adjust to the next stage of my career.
Of course it would be nice if it were a place I'd want to live. With a comparable community and favorable cost of living, etc. etc. But it's interesting to have placed that in the horizon more assuredly. I've actually been clear with a number of colleagues that I wasn't entirely sure where I'd be in a few years, albeit in a far more mysterious manner. Perhaps that's just the travel bug talking in me and a sign that things aren't back to normal, but I even indicated that I was open to moving away from the coast (a truth about which I've been reticent for fear of encouraging it too handily)... if the conditions were right.
It would be genuinely nice to both live and work in the same accessible area. I know Andrew has fantasized about this extensively - and already mostly allotted the time regained from commuting to cycling and other personal pursuits - but the flexibility of seeing each other more often would be fun as well.
Then again, of course, we'd be absolutely stuck with each other and I'd lose all that extra house-time I already have. What with the husband able to come and go as he pleases whenever and without the hour and a half's notice either way. And inevitably, our sleep cycles would have to readjust. Don't get me started on the potential for me to isolate myself so far abreast from my last hold out coffee-date friends and both of my parents, whom I'd miss quite deeply. To which I trail off in yet another ambiguous etc. etc. with a side of yadda yadda. But the future is always scary and exciting in turns. I've done enough scary shit to know things shake out over time.
Still, I'm glad that's all a fair ways off. I still need the motivation to get back into work and come out fighting. Fall is when things pick up around here and I've got office work (hell even some of my own clients who have yet resisted reconciliation), a Collaborative Professionals Retreat to which to apply my secretarial organizational iron-fist, and a volunteer gig at the DRC that is still very much in transition.
After Vanessa left there has been a lingering question mark about my exact role at the WDRC. I've gotten plenty of really cool work and I do think Cynthia and Luke have been grateful for my help, but it's also kind of a crapshoot every time I go in whether they'll actually have work for me or feel hard-pressed to confabulate something on the spot. Sometimes I think they look a little terrified and disappointed when I report that I've completed a task with more celerity than anticipated (I'm sharp, so that's a pretty common occurrence, even when I channel my inner-intern and stall). Sometimes I admit I fear that I'm more of a burden than a help. I guess that combined with all the intermittent vacation and medical interruptions have dulled my eagerness to pop in. Which in turn has made it easier to cancel on shifts when I'm tired or otherwise don't expect much to be going on. Which in turn puts off any sense of regularity, momentum or habit. Which...
And, back at work, mom-boss was quite keyed up by a busy and daunting day. Leslicita was feeling the afterburn of a detox self-cruciation in the form of a raging coffee-withdrawal headache. And I was still kind of disoriented and jetlagged. A very appropriate first fall day somehow.
It was even a mite productive, as I spent the entire day updating the case status sheet. This is becoming akin to the task of outlining in law school. For the uninitiated, most law school exams are several hours longs and "open book." This means you have certain allowed resources, and can bring in a self-made outline of the course material for reference. As it turns out (in some "you had your courage all along Cowardly Lion" literary cheap trick kinda way), crafting a competent outline is such sufficient study that you'll likely not need it once you've completed it. Outlining more or less forces a student to re-analyse the entire body of the class in retrospect and synthesize personal and global understandings of how each thread interweaves. Trowling through office records and billing statements to make a single document representing THE STATUS OF THE OFFICE has a similar feel. It definitely shook off any remaining cobwebs from those lovely baroque-coco-nouveau-gothic apses we visited.
And it seems that Andrew's day off from work worked wonders for reorienting him along the temporal grid. As of this morning, he was loris-laggard at each stage of rising. I believe he took exactly ten minutes between my official announcement that breakfast was ready (he had admittedly gotten out of bed and commenced his ab workout by that point) and his grand appearance in the kitchen. And about five more minutes to locate the sufficient items of clothing requisite for sitting down to breakfast. I think he was still eating when I left (a few minutes later than my usual departure time), and only occasionally coherent through the veil of sleep inertia. This means all has returned to normal I believe.
And hey, after weighing in at yet another two and a half pounds less than before my trip, I regained a whole pound overnight! It's a miracle!! And/or I've rehydrated. Given I was trending lower than I should have been before the trip, I'm still back to eating closer to 3k calories for a spell to see if I can right that a bit, but gravitating towards ordinary in any form is a positive.
Today the mom-boss has enough time to actually explain all the work that's earmarked for me and I've had enough time to tell her all the things that maybe slipped through the cracks last week. Bring on the autumnal ado!
DINK-gal is ready for action!
Looby Lady Lolls into Laggardly La-La-Land Taking a Fall with Fall
I do love fall, and I'm rather excited to have returned from our wild wanders to equinox itself. That said, my how the days have shortened. Quite rapidly and quite notably during the single week of our absence. We left a sun-soaked greenhouse and returned to a deliciously overcast bluster from what I can tell. No more sunrise on the way to work for us. And dinner shall be accompanied by the ambient flicker of several household lights. It may well be time to extract the SAD light from its trusty corner and at least feel a little more covered for having filled up my pill case with Vitamin D caplets.
Oh my pills cases. They remain things of wonder as I plunge ever further into heavily supplemented and thoroughly medically matryoshka'ed!
For those missing the hormonal carousel's first million installments, I'm now on a month long protocol that involves covering myself in estrogen patches along with pills. Just to see how ladylike such perilously high doses will bring me. May I faint at the thought of rough handling, afflicted with the vapors? I'm sure I could have come up with a bevy of better chauvinist stereotypes, but it's still dark out and I'm - as noted - I've got more estrogen pumping through my veins than your average sorority house.
The protocol started out innocuously enough at roughly similar doses to what I'd been taking (two weeks out of a four week cycle) the month before. But we're adding patches and pills left and right by the week. My body is starting to become a patchwork of residual marks from whylum Vivelle leeches. Today is the next jump up in doseage to "pretty darned high" which will last for at least two weeks before an ultrasound determines what craziness to hop to next.
And today is the first day to add yet another pill to my midday pills. I'm ever so excited! Those pill cases are really getting full usage these days. Although they are still awfully plain and demanding of glitter.
Needless to say, I'm anticipating a week or two of sheer drooling stupor. When you tally estrogen bonk + autumnal exhaustion to + the dregs of jet-lag, you get a very special superpower allowing (nay, compelling!) you to stare right through walls into the fractal land of of atoms and animism beyond. I'm sure this will all go splendidly for my next slate of necessary tasks.
On the bright side, the jet-lag weight loss proved to be just that. No massive impacts from travel, thank god. I prepared so very doggedly, it would have been a shame to still splutter out poundage.
And all this is not to say I'm incapable of some semblance of mad-Adella managing. I did determine that yesterday was the absolute most important crucial day to figure out THE HOLIDAYS and to promptly purchase travel tickets (oh yes, yes I did - I did split that infinitive in twine because English ain't no Roman language folks and I'm just that much of a cowboy!). Utilizing several chat messages and a few google shares of calendars, I cornered the boyfrianceband into agreeing to tickets (after apparently compelling him to figuring out his bevy of ski vacation options with his mother over lunch break).
Travel planning. It's a fun logic game.
I have my rules: I don't want to fly anywhere more than once in less than a month's time; If possible, I will celebrate near to Christmas with both of my parents, though the exact day is negotiable; I prefer not to fly on the premium days where flights are twice as pricy and infinitely more insane (this is fortunately a shared preference).
He has his rules: he will get a ski vacation in; it may in fact be two ski vacations, but one of them doesn't need to involve me; he also has the holiday days given to him by EI and two additional days of vacation to draw from.
Despite these various constraints, our Thanksgiving at least seems somewhat determined and we'll even be in San Francisco over the actual holiday despite the slightly better fare for missing it entirely!
Furthering my claim to almost-consciousness I made some passes at kitchenry last night. Nothing grandiose, but I do have greens again, and my yogurt has been made as of this morning. Which is good. I was making do with some small greek yogurt packages mixed with cottage cheese. Not bad, but all that protein at once was kind of filling! I was dragging myself to bed with a roiling stomach.
For his part, Andrew made his annual "oh yeah I don't really like this" pilgrimage to a local cyclocross practice at Lake Padden last night. He did not, in fact, enjoy himself. I am not, in fact, heartbroken to hear he might not be making "staying out until after 8 p.m. on what was usually our date night to come home muddy and bloody tired" a regular habit. But glad he gave it a shot. Sounds like he's realized that he remains a Rooster (Blue in color) at heart, so the pressing issue of "which team shall I join" has been decided.
He definitely is back to morning grog with the help of that later night activity. When I went upstairs to announce breakfast, I found him standing in the middle of our room staring reproachfully at a vacant space on the floor. He made it downstairs in his pjs after several minutes before immediately retreating upstairs to find his slippers. He returned again, broadcast a general confusion and ventured upstairs yet again to find the coffee he'd apparently left on the washer and dryer (for no particular reason). So I'm saying that we're both super sharp these mornings, I suppose!
And despite my sopor, I must now attempt to draft some final papers and - oh my - get my trial prep checklist out for not one but TWO cases. Oh god, I think there's a declaration to draft before tomorrow too. And no caffeine. Thank god for the synthroid, which has blasted me back from hypo to vergingly hyper-! I'll just drink my decaf tea, keep my head down and pretend the tea is about ten shades darker and muddier.
Reign of the Rain Boots And other tales of fall tumbles
I love my rain boots. I endued myself in these slick little sweeties this morning on the supposition that the tat-tat-tat on my rooftop indicated a wet walk to work this morning. As always, the microclimes of Bellingham are such that weather conditions at my house have less to do than the price of tea with weather conditions a few miles down the road. While the walk from my car to office was quite dry, at least I'm covered if the storms start to bluster.
These boots are genuine BOOTy from a shallow dumpster-diving street-sweep up by the college. A few months back, I was maundering about town when I saw several bags and a "free" sign abutting the sidewalk. Never one to pass up the opportunity to browse in an environment that forfends future retail horrors, I indulged a meow of curiosity and emerged with a heaping bag full of potential raiments for future wear.
The girl who had left these little nuggets (or so I assume it was a girl given the sizing, style, and general mien of the discarded wardrobe) seemed to be moderately petite (no skirts or pants would come close to long enough), sporty (my favorite technical jacket was from this pile, and given the emblem on the back I suspect she liked tennis), and a little nerdy. Although she did shop at Forever 21. I thoroughly washed the wardrobe upon returning home and gave myself a little fashion show.
Hence how it came to pass that Adella owns a few hopelessly vexing shirts from Forever 21. They look like they should look good, but they just don't quite. Still I can't get rid of them just yet. There were also some definite finds that have made it into my regular rotation. That jacket in particular. But I awfully much love these boots as well. Being a Pacific Northwesterner, I'm stubbornly averse to rain gear. Umbrellas strike me as silly. Actual rain jackets tie poorly around waists and don't breathe well. Boots are just a little uncomfortable trekking up and down stairs. But sometimes they breach well into fashion statement territory, and then I can hardly resist hobbling about on dryish pavement.
At any rate, it is promising to rain hereabouts. I'm promising to attempt some sort of work as the clock ticks down to "this really needs to be done." I have a client from a ways back calling me this morning. Which is inconvenient, as I have to stop walking to hear the telephone. I try to train these people to email me as much as possible, but some people are oddly wed to their antediluvian "talkie" technology that lingers in several smart phones still. Pshaw.
And I'm still not feeling it at work. Well, that's not fair. If "it" happens to be "a spaced out but not entirely unpleasant ennervation" then I am most certainly feeling it. Yesterday, of course, being The First Day of the Rest of My Crazy Estrogen Protocol, I'm a bit bonked out on double my initial dosage of the looby-lady juice. Add jet-lag, fall, and what I think to be fall allergies, and I'm kind of ready to just curl up in a corner with a blankie and a crossword for the rest of the day.
Andrew and I had our belated date last night, which turned more into our "binge on Mexican food and then crash ceremoniously on the couch in a cacophony of yawns" night. We definitely got in our oxygen for the evening! And for whatever reason, this prompted the loris to leap from bed this morning and be quite thoroughly conscious by the time I came up with coffee... disturbing things are afoot!
But if I'm to be disturbed, let it be on a Friday heading into a (finally!) normal and mellow weekend with maybe just enough rain to make staying in feel extra cozy.
Daffy DINK and the Delirious Kitchen-Sink Weekend Whimsies Tales of light rain and lighter chores
After a summer full of family frolics, work explosions, and international intrigues we've finally alit (I hope) upon an autumnal "normal weekend" at the tail end of September. Of course "normal" is a bit relative concept. The blend of jet lag, sudden seasonal change, and my looby lady hormonal surges are still mucking up any concrete sense of pat routine. As if there ever is or was a patticake pat sort of routine to begin with, something I am sure is thoroughly conjectural!
But I've tentatively reassumed the make-believe mantle of kitchen apron strings and very real houndstooth oven mitts. And Andrew has remounted his mountain bike. And we've both importuned upon mom-boss and boy toy for entertainment and family dinners. This goes a long way to meeting my requirements for "normal weekend."
Still a bit dodgy in the kitchen on my return, I've finally managed a brief oven flurry to make my protein bars and a new experiment with granola bars. I had a bunch of bananas that I froze before leaving for Prague. Assuming I'd have the urge to bake on Wednesday during Mr. (W)rights annual flirtation and subsequent renunciation of cyclocross, I thawed them. As one would suspect, they were getting kind of nasty. Thawed bananas tend to liquify. If you leave them in the peel for the freezing (much easier, so I do), the peels go ebony and may start to leak muddy condensation in whatever bag you've left them in.
As such, it was imperative to use all bananas immediately. Since my protein bar recipe only utilizes two, I did my traditional "what can I make with some modifications from cobbled together internet recipes" google scour and came up with oatmeal-banana-chia-jam bars.
In essence: I mashed the remaining bananas with the rest of some pluot chia jam I'd also thawed, then added two cups of rolled oats and some raisins. Then thawed one final banana in the microwave because there wasn't a sufficient mush:oats ratio going on. I will subsequently thaw bananas in the microwave instead of leaving them out. It is a far less disgusting process. Also, if you're cautious about the defrost function, the banana will remain slightly gelid and will be much easier to peel. Of course, if you are less cautious you might just end up with an banana-explosion. I suspect this is in my future cards given my general tendencies with cooking and attention.
For good measure, I chopped up some veggies and made some more hummus.
As previously mentioned, the bike-and-chain got himself back into the saddle and galloomphed about Galbraith. He has appropriately commence seasonal brooding over (1) bike part orders and (2) his 2015 racing calendar.
Being goo local-DINKs, we also attempted to support some local charities by attending a food truck round up. I admit it didn't sound much like my thing, but I was still game (with a purse full of a snacks) on the principle of "if every one else buys things with their truck bucks, I can take little samples of whatever they buy!" Fortunately, my adorable loris was dilatory in making the meet-up time, giving mom-boss and boy-toy a chance to realize the place was an Eschatological anomie. Just as Mr. (W)right emerged beaming from his shower, I received the notification that they were leaving, everyone had a headache, and we should definitely NOT GO.
Instead we had lunch at a little market down the street. Which was far less charitable, but very tasty nonetheless. The timing also afforded us a perfect window to take a nap together before seeing The Box Trolls, which is a perfectly marvelous movie that I highly recommend on this cusp of October.
For good measure, we went from movie to salad bar. And in celebration of a Saturday well spent, I proceeded to toss my salad quite violently and across the floor. Note to self: a stack of pizza boxes is not a stable foundation to rest your heaping salad plate. Thank goodness it was an all-you-can eat salad bar plate. Clearly I was just testing the limits.
Today, we'll be watching the weather warm up enough for a run. I'm expecting my tendencies in Prague to pull far ahead of a lagging hubby have come to an end. A mix of hills to slow me down and less daily walking to drag his accelerometer back should have us "pacing" each other into "a little faster than comfortable for either." But since the weather has turned seasonal, it will first necessitate a rather thorough spelunk through the closet for light-but-warm-running cover ups. Mostly gloves. My feet and fingers go numb once we get below sixty. An irritating quirk, but one that can be properly addressed with proper sartorial choices.
It's good to be back in a truer sense now! May all my fellow argonauts find their fleecies and cuddle with their cozies this weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment