As Week 22 hovers near half a year of wrinkly pruney Fonzarelli frenzy, rueful returns to the Com of Cast (that scourge which bites the hand of those who pay it) brought the internet into the world once more in time for wrinkly banana babies to slurp the amniotic ambrosia. Office order is cast into anomie as furniture and staffing goes all atumble. And wee little bumps biggen while belly buttons flatten.
Humpless Hump of a Semi-Relaxed Hump-Day
We're definitely over the hump here. Then again, that hump-thingy probably toppled over the apex on Monday or Tuesday. Those were the days when all the excitement calmed down, the home settled, the hubba-hubba got so bored during his long-forestalled sick day that he set up our internet; these were the days when we sat down together once again to watch our netflix in our new library. Said "hump" might have abated further into decline when confirmation of hubba-hubba's status as being on-the-mend came in yesterday. Sleeping through two nights in a row! This is promising. And the appetite is back more promisingly!
I do suppose there's some complicated and taxing work stuff hereabouts, but I feel like I have more of a grasp on it today than yesterday. And the settling of home-life really goes a long way towards making work seem manageable. This week. Before Leslie's last hurrah and disappearance from our company roster throws all into an appreciable anomie hereabouts as we try to transition into a two-person well-oiled machine.
There's still oh-so-very-very much to do at home and at work. Reshuffling teems and abounds in atolls of microenvironments. The entire restructuring of our office. The finalization of all that moving. Setting up our cleaning service. Appointments. Let's not even begin to contemplate my list of "things we can't think about until after the move": changing our investment strategies; estate planning; life insurance; registering for baby stuff; finishing that contact form that the condo association wanted us to fill out; meeting the neighbors; hanging all those pictures; buying genuine maternity clothes; figuring out THE FUTURE after mom-boss actually does retire and I'm confronted with my resolve to not be a family law attorney in the future... the list goes on.
But for the remainder of this week, I'm on staycation and workation. Or something like that.
As Bob would put it "I'm on vacation from my problems," except instead of problems I guess "I'm on vacation from my obligations and self-expectations"
I'll send y'all a postcard. Except I probably won't because that's an obligation too!
Tippee Top Hoppety Hop Towards A Crashingly Good Weekend So we hope
And hope pullulates with that verdant vernal foliage thirsting for our irrigation system to start working (we have this nifty set up that should theoretically drip-water the poor darlings, but which doesn't seem super effective as far as I can tell)!
We finally had a date night based from our new location last night! It's been a while with last week's craziness and the lethal lurgy lurking in Andrew's belly. And since our starting off point is now a different locale, we began a little exploration on the northern side of Bellingham. By going to a Japanese place in the other Grocery Store parking lot. Yeah, but this is way classier than the strip mall one in the Freddy's parking lot. Trust me on this! We are upscaling baby! It was good, though. Andrew had a dish he'd never had before and I had the dish I always have (deconstructed avocado maki, in which most of the rice is scraped off into a pile and the rest is rewrapped into a horror of culinary ginger/avo/nori/wasabi mush to be eaten by hand).
In other hopeful news, parts for my busted treadmill (a/k/a "the most fanciest and technologically flashy stationary standing desk ever") arrived at the office yesterday. The repair people are not scheduled to install said parts until a week from today. Heave and gasp at the prospect of yet another week after what is nearly a month now of resentful and fidgety "standing." Still, there's some palpable sign of progress. And that brings me hope.
As does the lovely weather, although I'm told that is slated to turn to rain by the weekend.
But by the weekend is great by me. A little rain might just dampen the instinct to do too much on a weekend strictly reserved for doing very little. And water our poor, underwatered plants.
So hope all around and a happy almost weekend hereabout!
Bilious Bibacity (of Amniotic Ambrosia) and the The Half-Year old Fonzarelli-Papapapaya-Chou Prune
Week 22, baby! That's almost the beginning of my sixth month of this pregnancy nonsense. Whooo. I'm moving right along here, despite the measured disbelieving exclamations that I'm far "too small" to be five month's preggers! Big frame, trim abs... it'll explode fast soon, I can tell, as can most anyone who sees me regularly, but I shan't complain too much that nobody yet wants to touch my belly other than me.
But my little piece o'produce is getting bigger in time for next week's check-in. No ultrasound this upcoming visit, but I'm sure I'll get to hear all about the joyous and jubilant Gestational Diabetes Test! A/k/a nightmare torture test for somebody like me. For those who have not experienced this excitement, this is a test requiring (initially) two blood tests taken an hour apart. After the first one, you are required to pound this glucose grog that has roughly 50 or more grams of sugar. The second blood test will compare blood sugar levels and see how efficiently the body processes said sugar. If that one raises red flags, there's a three hour test to add on.
Did I mention I am really sensitive to sugar? And concentrated sweet things like juice tend to make me ill? I'm not looking forward to how that glucose is going to go down at all. Oh yeah, we're also supposed to not eat much going into it, so that will all be on an empty stomach. The joys of childbirth!
But back to the adorable little "overripe red prune" of wrinkly vernixey shock-white hair and pigmentless eyes. Wee Fonzarelli is finally graduating from a banana. Bahnaaaaanaaaaah bye bye! This week she appears to be:
A Spaghetti Squash! With that lanugo to match a squash's stringy interior, I suppose.
A Papaya! Yes! I called this one last night. Or wished it to be so. I was sitting and thinking, you know, I think it should be a papaya today. That's almost as much fun to say as banana. Papaaaaaayaaaaaaaaaah.
A Cabbage - Aww ma petit chou! How french!
In addition to the usual circus act and thrashing, she's giving back a little in the form of a huge amount of bilirubin for my liver to process. How sweet. I give to her and she gives back to me! Mother-daughter bonding. There are also folds forming on that otherwise flat brain of hers. Pretty soon she's going to start thinking and then we're all in trouble, trust me!
I'm told that my feet are about to get larger. Which will be weird, but at least I've been forewarned. Apparently a mix of the usual swelling and the sprawl of relaxed ligaments.
I'm also promised dizzy spells and uncomfortable sweats! I have been running into those reeling spells from time to time out of nowhere already. Kind of entertaining. Pregnant ladies may not get to drink, but sometimes you really don't need to. Forgetfulness, erratically enhanced moods, a sense of warmth, the occasional staggering: who needs alcohol when you've got several tons of hormonal stew coursing through your body?
In terms of the heat, I'm promised there are "chilled pillows" to provide some succorance should I need them. I'm not sure about this. But the other suggestions of setting up fans, opening windows, wearing loose clothes, etc. etc. are pretty well no brainers. I've been told that some cars now have air conditioned seats, as well. I apparently need a new car!
In other news, it's FRIDAY! One week from today will be Leslie's last day, which is utterly surreal, but we're gradually making plans. Mine have been mostly furniture related, but there are other elements involved. Realizing that I don't often meet with clients and that I am about to have plenty of reason for more office space to keep some baby stuff (and possibly even a baby) we are moving the gigantic round table from my office into what will soon be "the conference room" (Leslie's current office). Mombossa and Leslie actually moved the table out of my office after I left yesterday. It's out in the main office area and I've received a much smaller student desk that we used for filing back in the day. It's kind of perfect, actually.
Very exciting!
And both the (W)rights have mostly recovered from the prior excitement. Andrew went on an invigorating bike ride and I've discovered how to retrieve the mail finally. Still have no idea how to get into the rec center. There are about fifty keys on a key ring labeled "mom" that appear to open nothing. Actually several of those keys are copies of each other, and one of those was the mail key. But none of the keys open up the rec center area. Also, we can't figure out how to work the fancy drip irrigation watering system that the prior owners installed at great cost and effort. Cannot find a control box, period!
Ah well, in time, in time... I'm just glad we got the mail before the box itself exploded!
Quickly popping in as the belly button continues contemplating popping out
Ho ho! It's the weekend!!! And I started the morning more or less - after a relaxing linger with the hubba-hubba (who was disturbingly alert and pert enough to remove his own handsome figure from the bedroom and appear downstairs by 6:30 a.m. this morning) - with a massage! A nice, happy, heavily propped up prenatal massage. With a new masseuse. I liked her. She was prompt, perspicacious, and effective. My muscles are all unclenched and my skin is happy for all that extra blood flow.
After a walk and an excursion to Safeway (I like Freddy's better, but at least I tried) It's time to get my domestic dervish on a bit. Beans in the slow cooker, future freezer meal in the rice cooker to use up the very last of the Passoveaster viands. Well, I suppose I still have some of that charoset my dad and I made, which subs quite nicely as spread for a PB&Jish type sandwich. And I froze some of the herbs left my by the holiday spirit (Casper the friendly mensch).
The weather has been about as variable in mood as my three year old nephew: two minutes ago, I had all the windows open and was regretting the indoor designs on my afternoon; now the windows are being slammed shut and I'm oh so happy to stay indoors! It has also hailed a couple of times between seductively sunny skies and bloviating little zephyrs.
Muddy Monday Madness!
Well if it's not the cleaner, it's the mom-boss: Somebody will mess with my office space over the weekend and leave me moorless and disoriented! The treadmill desk has now been moved several fathoms back and away from the computer and its monitor. Everything is still more or less functional(treadmilly itself excluded of course), except I need a telescope to see the screen, I can't actually charge my phone and keep it on the desk at the same time, and I can barely squeeze my pregnant belly through the teeny gap left between the arm of the desk and a neighboring bookshelf. So... it's going to be an interesting week!
This is for a good cause, her little belated April Fool's Prank. The treadmill repair people have promised to arrive on Thursday bearing mechanical know-how and a little Sole-sponsored elbow grease to (please please please be true) fix the treadmill. And she thought they would have an easier time if the treadmill motor was readily accessible, instead of buried underneath a bunch of wiring and wall space. Probably right. Further right she is that I'm not supposed to move heavy things and this is a multi-person job. So she enlisted her boy-toy to help on Saturday. They did it. They "helped" in a way that I hope will eventually be quite helpful. Although who exactly is going to move my treadmill desk back to normal after it starts functioning again... well, nobody has said anything about that.
But it can't last too long. With my belly continuing to grow as it is. I will eventually get stuck in here if I don't have a little more clearance between the desk and the bookshelves. No, I'm sure somebody will help me out... really.
Or I'll take the next couple of weeks off.
Which might be awkward once Leslie officially is off at her new job! This is her last week. Things are getting real and she's using up her remaining vacation. For part of the week. Smart girl, she's working the first two days (including attendance at our final office lunch), taking off the next two, and then returning for the open-house goodbye party.
Then... holy crap, we're on our own. I get to enjoy my beautifully spacious (if bizarrely laid out at the moment) office, we get a conference room, and we get to scramble with picking up whatever slack we haven't even anticipated yet from the absence of 1/3 of the Englettlaw team. Going to be exciting! And weird! Leslie's been with this office longer than I have. As long as it has existed and before that she worked with my mom at the nonprofit where my mom started her legal career. I think I've known her through several incarnations and metamorphoses of varying degrees of awkwardness. Not that we won't still see her, but she's been kind of an organ of this whole entity. This is like detaching a lung and visiting it from time to time. The experience of a Leslieless office will just be strange.
Like my treadmill desk and its new orientation!
Things are getting ooky here, but I guess we only learn through surprise and only grow by stepping out of our comfort zones.
I'm due for plenty o'learnin' baby!
Tango to Tuesday The Final Countdown of Final Finals Fritters On
I have yet to become haplessly and helplessly lost in the aretes, arroyos and crotchety crags of my current office desk-set up! Not for some close calls, but I think a good belay and some cautious twisting has so far allowed me a modicum of freedom. Just to be safe, I've ordered the cabana boys to prepare the jaws of life and - barring that or perhaps in preference - the vats of peeled grapes and emergency barrels of chocolate to sustain me in my incarceration.
Should I manage to remain unfettered, today will be another last something for our current office: the last "office lunch!" The office lunch is a - theoretically - monthly outing for our office. Fully sponsored for us employees and meant to build goodwill and satiation in our tumbly tummies. It has worked quite well even in the most stressful of office miasmas, and will have its own bittersweet tinge, with 1/3 of our motley crew heading off for new horizons.
And as we get there, we will - no doubt - have our last "several hours of dithering over where we would like to have said lunch" experience. Oh memories!
Yesterday, we had our last case status meeting with the three of us. Consequently, we let things run less tautly than perhaps a usual meeting. And by "we" I mean "task master Adella" since I am the one always attempting to move forward and stay oriented on "what needs to be done and who's doing it" instead of the nuances of the opposing party's hair or the manner of the attorney on the other side.
After this we had our last "leave Leslie at the office while we go to the Collaborative Law meeting" excursion. We attended the whole thing and everything. Even invited people to a going-away open house we're throwing for her on Friday. That's how committed we were to the full experience there.
I'll save until Friday the "last battle over climate control," but we'll keep on our skirmishing (me with the a/c on and Leslie with her heating blaring in our respective offices.
But as many lasts as there may be this week, there will be plenty of "one of a billion on either side" activities and possibly a few firsts. Hopefully the firsts are fun and the psittacistic stuff has purpose and meaning that persists into the future!
Or something.
No comments:
Post a Comment