Ode to my neglected out of town friends....
Becky.
Laura B.
Nick Ryan.

It's been wayyyy too long.

But I can explain!

In my new house, I don't get cell phone service about 50 percent of the time. I'm also scared to go over minutes, because my motherish-in-lawish will pay the overage charges without telling me and that drives me nuts. She is incredibly thoughtful and kind to the point where I have to tell her to stop. (She asked me what preference I had for lightbulb wattage and was really distressed once because in my ceiling fan, there were no more frosted bulbs, so clear ones had to go in there with frosted ones. Lady...you're a sweatheart. Know this...I will never ever notice. My question to you peers is this....

have you ever given a thought to lightbulb wattage?)

Anypoop, Here's an update....and I intend to call all of you this week. But Nick, I'm gonna need your number again, unless your cell phone is back on.

I'm due next Friday. And that's weird. This whole thing has flown by, and maybe because I've kept very busy...but I don't know.

So due November 24th...but I feel like I might go longer. The baby's head has dropped and he weighs about 6-7 lbs (which is good!) but I'm not dilated at all. A month ago, I was uncomfortable and sore, because he was resting on a very touchy nerve and I was in a lot of pain. Now that his head has dropped, I'm quite comfortable and I have tons of energy and I get a lot done.

I'm in no rush to have the baby, but I feel as ready as I'll ever feel, and pretty relaxed about the whole thing. So when it happens, it will happen, and you will be contacted ASAP.

Andrew's mom gave me her car. It's a 98 Subaru. On Tuesdays and Thursdays Andrew works late, so I pick up my mom from work, and we eat dinner together and I watch cable and sit on the Internerd. Tonight, Dad sprung for Chinese. I enjoy the car-time with my mom the most.

Day-to-day, I do this housewife thing for the time being, and I'm pretty good at it, but mostly because I'm used to working full-time, so sitting around all fucking day would make me crazy.

I wake up early, I cook two decent meals a day. I feed my boyfriend those two meals. Then I spend the day with the cat, and Percy. And I clean and paint and do laundry and write letters to my grandma. When Andrew gets home, we eat dinner, watch Seinfeld and King of The Hill and then we usually read library books on different couches for an hour or so.

Sometimes I make milkshakes in my blender, sometimes he has beers and makes me listen to records. He's old, so there are some good eras that I missed, that he caught. I can school him on The Band, Old Soul, and anything current and not local (minus the trivia...about which I still don't care). I like almost everything he plays but I wish he didn't revel in the personal lives of arrogant, train-wreck rock stars. The more I know about how full of shit everyone gets when they're famous, the less I can enjoy their music.

This rings especially true for John Lennon, though I would never tell Andrew that, because it would make him sad that I felt that way. Seriously though....There's nothing worse than a talented man's ego. Feel blessed by your talents, not empowered and driven to windbaggy guru-ness.

I go to bed late, I wake up early. I pee 10-15 times during the already short bedtime and every single time, it makes me really happy to walk through my kitchen to the bathroom. The kitchen in this house is amazing.

Percy and the cat are learning to live with each other. Though everytime I call Percy a good girl, I can tell she's thinking "When will you consider me good enough to let me eat that cat in there?"

Although I would never tell Andrew that either.

Inquiring minds have left messages about my address. And I have something to mail to Laura Braun and I need her address to do so.

Here's my address and goodnight.

Kelly Ann Allen
614 Northrup
Kansas City, KS 66101