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| FridayI love a nice easy Friday. Today, we had several sets of plans fall through due to sick kids and late-working husbands, but I don't mind. It's a foggy day after what seems like a long week. We have a dinner party tomorrow, so it's nice to have tonight to hunker down and be quiet.
Spent time today at the grocery, in the pool and at lunch with a layout design source. At the grocery, I was amused to see one of the personal shoppers putting together an order that consisted of Donettes, an Entemann's coffee cake, large pack of Huggies and a large bottle of vodka. Been there! But didn't indulge it.
The pool, blah. Many, many laps in the drizzly fog. Lunch, nice. Another person to email about writing freelance. Not that it means anything. But the layout person is great. She's a feminist and we ranted about a bunch of that kind of thing. She returned Jilly's charm bracelets, which she had photographed for the magazine. I had a big bowl of white bean soup and tried not to mind her bread and cheese and cookie dessert.
Home now. Enjoying my Blake from American Idol toy that a friend got in a Happy Meal. I don't do Happy Meals these days, but I love my little beatboxing Blake toy. Jilly loves it too and is making beatboxing noises.
Ah, well back to my emails. And vacation planning. This week, I converted American Express points into a hotel room in New York for August. (This trip appears to be happening for real, for my friends J and B and R who may be able to meet up with me?? I actually have flights and a room and everything.) Splurged on a nice hotel, which wiped us out, point wise. Now I need to research Cooperstown. And get ready for some friends who are considering driving to Santa Fe with us in July.
What's on *your* Friday agenda?
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| Un-everythingIt's been unsunny for nearly a week now. After a teasing month of summer sunshine, wham. June Gloom, a month early.
That's the best guess I have as to why I feel so unsettled today, so edgy, so unhappy over nothing that I can put my finger on. I am listening to "Little Black Sandals" over and over, and if you know that song, you know my mood. A bit sad but determined.
But sad about what? Determined to do what?
I have an OK day planned. When Jilly gets to school, I have to hit the grocery and then I have a lot of pesky things at home. Book a hotel, with points if possible. Email a new editor. Try to figure out what birthday gifts I might want to order from Amazon or wherever for my son and husband. Swim my laps.
I feel nervous, though. Unhinged. Unorganized. Uninspired.
Maybe more coffee's the answer.
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| Wednesdays with JillMy daughter has no school on Wednesdays. The idea was to have one more year of fun mom-daughter days. And at times, I've been not so great at this. Mostly, however, I am. We have play dates or shop or go to Disneyland or get sea glass. Or just hang out and talk.
Today, she and her father spent the morning together while I hiked with a friend who is newly pregnant after eight miscarriages. Eight! She gave up trying and then, bam! Four months along with an apparently fine boy.
After, I came home and played with Jilly. We joked and read a Raggedy Ann book and talked.
"Mom, do you like God?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Do you like him or love him?"
"Love him," I said.
"Me too! I love him so much because he made us all. He made us be good."
"Mmm hmm." I'm trying to finish the last half-page of a book over lunch.
"Do you believe in fire?"
"Uh huh," I said.
"You do!" She is shocked.
"What?"
"You believe in vampires?" she demanded.
"No! Not vampires." I thought she said Fire.
"Whew!" she wipes her brow ostentatiously. "Have you been to France?"
"Yes," I said.
"All over France?"
"Yes." Thinking of this. Not *all* over, but more than just Paris. I've been to Beaune. Dijon. Like that.
"Were there vampires?" she wanted to know.
"No!" I told her.
Then she zoomed upstairs and is playing songs on her toy piano. Her real piano lesson is soon, and I asked her to give me a moment to write before we play in her room, making houses out of pillows for her stuffed animals.
But first, one funny thing my friend said today during our walk. (Which was a long walk, about three or four miles all along Crystal Cove, practically to Laguna Beach and back.)
When she was first pregnant with her daughter, now in fifth grade, her husband was on the road all the time. She didn't want to tell him the news over the phone, but he would be home Dec. 24 and then family was coming the next day. They'd have a private intimate Christmas celebration, and she would tell him then.
She decided to get him a card to break the news, and she found one with little bitty footprints on it that said, "You are the best daddy in the whole world!" She gave him the card, watched him open it while biting her lip and trying not to burst into early-pregnancy ridiculous tears.
He read it. Frowned.
"The cat got me a fucking Christmas card?!" he demanded. "You bought a card for me from the fucking cat?"
She paused, then said: "No! I'm pregnant, you idiot!"
And that's the best story I ever have heard about breaking pregnancy news to a future father.
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| Back in the waterI spent so much time entertaining and being entertained, then recovering and being tired, that I hadn't had time for much else. Finally, today, I was back in the pool. A mile-plus. It's good to get back to the basics again. Swimming, eating right, baseball.
Today, we had lunch with friends who just returned from a winter in Mexico on their boat. (Rough, huh?) We met about a year ago when our husbands were harvesting their stem cells at the same time. He had his transplant about two months before Marshall, and their experiences, advice and support helped us so much. So we timed a quick doctor's office visit with theirs, had lunch, caught up.
That pretty much took my entire day, the swimming and the lunching. I have managed to spend several hours, however, over the past few days going through all my memories of college. It's amazing how many people I've forgotten, how many last names have vanished. This makes me feel old and sad, and wishing like crazy that I'd kept a blog back in the 1980s. As embarrassing as that probably would be, today.
The reason for all the nostalgia is because C. and I have been planning our trip to Columbia, Missouri, for the 100th anniversary of the journalism school. Or something. I do know that it should be a grand reunion. So far, C., my friend D., an old friend G., maybe my sister, maybe many more, will all be there. And we can't wait.
All right. I need to go watch baseball, get the kids their dinners. State testing all week and next at school, so we need to get Aaron to bed early.
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| When the going gets toughI was at my doctor's for my monthly checkup. And I'm fine. I wish I didn't have to go.
But anyway. He told me that he has a friend or a patient, whatever, who works at the local hospital in the rehab section. And this guy said that they've never been busier. He said it's the economy. People are using drugs like crazy because they are freaking out.
It makes sense, I suppose. But it was sad to ponder this.
Meanwhile, I'm healthy. Normal blood pressure, and doctor even noted my weight loss. And that's with me in my big baggy sweats and Mizzou baseball shirt.
I'm frantic now, trying to clean up emails and go through papers.
Adios!
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