And so it begins... Moanday Murmurings and Resolute Recrudescences Wait, not ready yet. Can we have one more holiday week
Wiping the tinsel and stardust from my eyes as best I can, I re-emerge from my little hobbit hole.
At home, once more I am a wife. Which is a lovely, lovely thing, although had my husband's plane just been delayed just half a day, I would have managed to finish Inherent Vice, a book through which I am currently at the ever breathless 80%. If this had been Infinite Jest, I would have barricaded myself in a hotel room and refused to come back until I was finished with the obsessive re-reading of various sections of the books and the interminable "huh... wow... huh..." unfolding that nips the heels of a finishing read. But Inherent Vice is more of a lark and a caper than THE ENTERTAINMENT. Blessedly my obsessive urgency is not quite at that level.
I can occasionally read while others are present in my home, but it is far more challenging. Being wrested from a paragraph by a passing comment from another person can feel physically agonizing once I'm properly hooked in. But as I said yesterday, I am never thoroughly able to draw my mind from an awareness of those around me - and that dual death of empathy and curiosity. An activity best left alone or in the solitude of thronging crowds.
I did a wee bit of reading after his return, to be fair. A paragraph or two while making breakfast (punctuated with panicked interruptions as various foods sizzled or sassed). And the end of a chapter last night before bed. I try not to read to close to bed, though, since it inevitably keeps my mind awhirring.
At any rate, welcome to the grand voyage of work year 2015.
This year I resolve the following:
- To gain 20-35 pounds depending on my doctor's orders over the next eight months or so.
- To take plenty of naps.
- To obsess over baby names endlessly but refuse to pick one because it would end the fun.
- To be a little more selfish and take it a little more easy, because this is my last shot.
- To find a way to finish my gosh darn book (possibly a few more of them, because again ... really kind of my last shot if I recall trying to read Ada, Or Ardor while visiting my nephews)
Peace, Love, and Dark Chocolate
Dromedary Didgeridoo-Da-Dooo-Da-Dee-Da Hump Day 2015
Well it's a wee minor hump, but we've reached it nonetheless. Bring on the fantasies of weekend wallowing and sumptuous Saturdays. Or... just sort of stagger through another day and hope to recover some of that color I left somewhere (oh, apparently it drained entirely from my face into my socks?). I feel that "glowing" is less apropos than "chalky and delicately haggard." But I guess my pallor ensures that I could be seen from outer space if set against the proper contrast, which is like glowing. I might glow under a blacklight at this point!
While I was at home devotedly siphoning off the lion's share my own blood, guts and gestational glory towards fashioning a little Wrightlet for Mr. (W)right, he was off skiing it up at some resort without a care in the world. I exaggerate. He had cares. Like tweaking his bicycle set up via motorcycle mechanics and thermodynamics, and possibly something ski related. Sniff Sniff. Hand to forehead! Woe would have been me had I not rather wanted a hermitage for my vacation week.
But being the magnanimous fellow he is, he remembered to bring home a souvenir from the excursion.
Good news: he did not bring home piles of snow and ice and insist on throwing them at me to give me the full "ski experience."
Bad news: he seems to have opted for a sweet little head cold that he picked up at the airport instead.
Generally, I prefer earrings. But it's nice of him to share.
Well I think I caught a cold from him. Given that I pretty much feel hungover and anemic a majority of the time (body shutting down to re-devote all resources to its little crafting project instead of its usual self-maintenance), it's hard to tell. But given that I was even whiter than usual and have had itchy eyes and a sore throat, plus phlegm that exceeds the standard reflux throat-frog (ribbit ribbit). And signs point towards "really? now???"
Ah well, it's not bad. I just probably should take it easy. Easier. Which is saying something. I mean, two naps a day and an earlier bedtime is pretty lavish in my book. I might just go on sleeping bag rest and get a laptop to work at the office at this rate!
Or cut back the capering. I did a little capering yesterday. Just a final goodbye lunch with "not coming back to Bellingham anytime soon" friend on his last day. Today he flies directly from Seattle to Dubai and then off to Beirut where I'm assured I can still catch him on Facebook or Skype.
After we ate, we went on a bit of a "walk." He walks with striking celerity. Particularly for somebody already diminished by exhaustion. I was, shall we say, winded and starting to feel my lunch warming up for an encore performance. And I did walk on the treadmill earlier in the day.
So no more friends for a while! Or slower friends. Maybe I'll just hobble them upon greeting to make sure I can keep up.
In the meantime, I shall lock my office, douse myself in sanitizer, and click clack away in passable pretense of work.
May you do the same until you're off the hook and free to roam the world (at a reasonable pace!)
Birthday Monster's Last Stand!! The Icing on the Cupcake
Nobody will ever attempt to eat Morty the birthday monster cupcake. Morty is - most likely - toxic. Or at least, his concentrations of pure sacchariferous slurm is enough to straighten my hair and bug out my eyes to twice their size. Yowza. But he does make a fine companion for a boss lady's 63rd I think.
Sadly, he's falling a wee bit into shambles, as birthday monsters do on the days following their coming out parties... if only we could shellac him and turn him into a permanent desk installation. Just think what the cleaning lady would do with that! (grumble grumble, god I hate her and her presumptuous way of putting everything where it doesn't belong in some kind of grand artistic editorial on the conflict in Darfur).
At any rate, Mom-boss had a good enough birthday with a little bit too much work in my opinion, But some good results sprang from that work, so she is happy. Having completed her birthday workday, she's playing hooky today to go all the way to Seattle for a follow up thingy from back when she had that cancer related surgery stuff years and years ago. Kind of just a pilgrimage they make you make once you've reached remission to give offerings to the cancer-gods, really. I've been on a few, but they are supremely dull and involve driving in Seattle.
I considered going even today - since there will be an appointment with the geneticist about risks for family and so on - but I have a delightful appointment with the IRB again today. Oh joy of joys. And how nostalgic. The last IRB meeting was five weeks ago on the day that I got my very first positive on a pregnancy test and spent the entire phone call in a daze obsessing over the various qualities of urine and timing required for the second test to confirm or confuse the first one's results. Which was, regrettably, far more interesting than the long debates over a single sentence should instead be two sentences to hit that eidetic "sixth grade reading level" that apparently means to some doctors that we should write in Seussian rhymes with illustrations.
Which means today I am - drumroll please - a whopping nine weeks pregnant! In short, our little creature is a fanged green olive with big eyes and teeny tiny indeterminate genitals. Is that cute or what? Almost as cute as Morty maybe.
I suspect that I will eventually succumb to my toddler temptations and smash Morty into my face to recreate photos of my first birthday... or maybe just kind of continue picking at him and then going "URG" whenever the frosting hits my delicate taste buds. Gotta have something to do while the boss lady is away!
Magi-Monday Merry Mojo (Maybe)
I shall and will prevail over the petty slings and arrows of such scurrilous fortunes as the cleaner messing with my office again! This time, I hid the sleeping bag and pillows out of her path of devastation. Instead she reverted to moving all my computer stuff out of alignment, putting a stool on my treadmill (obviously!) and closing the window in my office. This she has been told repeatedly not to do, considering the office boiler burbles our little domicile away from domicile into incalescent torpor without a little help. She also mucked up mom-boss' desk (as always) and turned off the fan in that office. Maybe she thinks we want to work in a tropical jungle during the hot season?
But oh the windows are open and the fan is on and it shall be a Monday. And I shall prevail. Or at least kind of muck through the irrational hormonal reactions to pecadillos that pique me until it's glorious nap time. Of course Monday means meetings (oh boy!) An office meeting, and then a big old Whatcom Collaborative Professionals Meeting. They have been warned about my delicate position (proper euphemism really, as I feel fragile) and I'm optimistic about our new president's sense of direction and momentum. Hopefully it should be a pretty good meeting. Or at least one that doesn't bring me to tears or public displays of lalochezia.
Yesterday, my father made my drive by bringing me a bag of "snacks." They all were variations on our Christmas discussion on chocolate covered junk food. Mostly of the chocolate covered potato chip variety, but with some variations. I got a chocolate bar with potato chips in it; I got chocolate covered potato chips (although instead of single chips dipped in chocolate, these manifested via more of a big pile of potato chips slathered in milk chocolate); I got "Ruggedly Adventuresome Cowboy Bark" (toffee, pretzels, peanuts, and almonds); and I got Bark Thins Dark Chocolate Pretzel. Drool.
The final entry was my favorite (had a simple and clean profile of dark chocolate, crunch and salt), although the Ruggedly Adventuresome Cowboy bark did complement my reading of the Western (the "existentialist Western") novel Warlock. Almonds, toffee, peanuts all slathered in sumptuous dark chocolate: A good candy to desperately try and fail to do what's right, while pride and the petty ephemerality of human intent and chimerical heroism turns it all to a mad mushy hash instead. Just don't be surprised if you're forced to kill your best friends... for that last nummy bite of this deeelicious bark. I'm pretty sure that's in the TJ's flier.
I was a wee abstemious on the chocolate gorging, since my stomach still doesn't handle too much candy well at a time. Besides, we were driving down to have lunch at Bamboo Gardens. It was stuffed to the vegan-faux-shark-gills but surprisingly efficient and tasty. They did drop the ball a bit in getting us to-go boxes (took fifteen minutes of asking several times before my dad got up and grabbed some). Still, impressive.
And we saw Tosca at McCaw Hall, which was our main purpose for the trip. Well, we saw most of it. I admit that we bailed at the second intermission. The last act was 25 minutes. The intermission preceding it was also 25 minutes. We decided that maybe instead of waiting 50 minutes to complete the everybody dies operatic mission, we'd just leave it at "the volatile and jealous heroine who flubs everything up for her sweetie repeatedly (and then decides she'd rather commit murder than bargain her body for his life, but both were equally ineffective options anyways) stabs the nasty lecherous chief of police and thinks maybe she's still saved her lover's life." Almost a cheery ending!
It was a lush and lavish production, and the singing was spectacular. That said, it wasn't my favorite opera by a long shot. Puccini is very hit or miss for me. I think La Boheme is painfully overrated, although some of the arias are beautiful. Madame Butterfly is exquisite. Turandot is oddly compelling in its heartless grandiosity (especially with the contrast of the highly sympathetic character of Liu). Tosca was good, but I heard hints of better. The music was beautiful, but I feel like many of the themes and soaring ideas were developed subsequently into Madame Butterfly and Turandot. And really, there's something about the structuring of the plot that doesn't quite hit the agitated passion of the music; the contrast left me emotionally unattached. Not an opera to bring one to tears or goosebumps, though it is a juicy little potboiler.
And maybe I just don't really care for any of the characters. I find Tosca especially unlikable (and without without a Liu to contrast her). Her lover is good hearted enough, but not particularly dimensional. And the villain is villainous, but not in an exceptionally novel way. There's a nuance lacking in any of the motivations or emotional states that left me slightly less than rapturous. But that said, again, gorgeous singing and some amazing uses of a large chorus.
And I'm glad to make an opera! I missed Don Giovanni back in 2014.
I was equally glad to make it home a little early. The bike-and-chain did, as promised, spend all day working on his bike after a prior all day of wandering around the Chuckanuts with a teammate of his. I suspect that as long as he has a list of things to do that include "sign up for that difficult professional exam that may or may not be a pain to apply for" and "refresh resume and start considering other job options" he might have a lot of new bike projects coming up. This weekend, it'll be a charity ride in Woodinville. For a good cause, anyways. And hey, I'm not a 100% reliable to be anything approximating "good company" these days, so perhaps the extra Adella-staycation will be good for all involved.
I'm glad to note that it's cooled down considerably to almost chilly. Thus have I thwarted the evil cleaner and righted the office! Ha!
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