Screws, Angels and Cuteness

I knew there were three screws in my foot. I knew one of them was coming out. I saw them on X-ray films several times. I did not understand how big the screws are nor how much it looks like a screw you could have fished out of one Ryan's tool boxes. Have a looksie for yourself.

That is the actual screw the doctor took out of my foot. Two others shall stay in place. I may or may not set of metal detectors at the airport. We'll see.

No, there wasn't a screw in my hand. That picture is just to give you an idea of how big it is (the screw, not my hand).

Dr. Vickers gave me two shots in the top of my foot to make it go numb so he could make an incision and take the screw out (you can see the one stitch from where the screw was). The medicine was supposed to take 30 minutes to take effect but my foot did not get the medication insert telling it was supposed to go numb. After 30 minutes passed my foot was still not numb; the doctor would tickle the bottom of my foot to check it. If I giggled and pulled my foot away I flunked the test. After an hour my foot was still not completely numb so they gave it 1o more minutes. I could still feel him tickling the bottom of my foot but felt nothing on top when he poked and pinched me so I told him I was ready.

He put a tray with the sterile equipment over my lap and at a height as to block my view. It was very kind of him to do. I don't think I would have fared well seeing what he was doing. Even though I was mostly numb I did feel it a little bit when he started to pull the screw out. I didn't see the screw driver he used but the end of the screw makes me think it must have been something like an allen wrench. I wonder if he loses the screwdriver if he can use an Ikea allen wrench instead.

There is a hole in my bone that will fill in over the next 6 months and I can't do any running in the mean time. Oh, darn. If you know me you know how much I love running. Can't get enough pavement pounding in. Do I ever love the burn in the lungs and the mucous in the throat obstructing breathing. Fun!

****

I saw the Blue Angels today. I saw them on Thursday and I saw them on Friday and I saw them on Saturday but today I SAW them. Thursday was their practice day. We live close to Boeing Field so when they would fly down over Lake Washington they start up on the hill where we are and zip down over the lake then back up over our house. It is LOUD. Although, I don't think its as loud as when we lived in West Seattle. In West Seattle when they flew over our house you could feel the house shake.

Two people made seeing the Blue Angels possible today. Ryan's friend Mark invited us out on the water in his boat. FUN! But what is an invitation if you don't have someone to watch the tyke? Nada, that's what. So thank you Heidi for watching the little bambino!

Oh, it was so much fun being out on the water. It would have been more fun if I would have worn my bathing suit. It would have been more bearable if I hadn't been a putz and worn something other than blue jeans. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The weather was in the high 70's but I was sitting on the water in the direct sunlight wearing heat and light absorbing dark blue heavy fabric. I was ready to peel my pants off and jump into the water. Ryan would have died.

So, the Blue Angels. I pray Gavin never wants to become a Blue Angel. Do they have a death wish? Really! I freak out when I ride a bike and someone comes within 5 feet of me - and I'm not pedaling 400 mph. Sheesh! Fast and close. I guess I wouldn't be as excited to see the Blue Angels if there wasn't the element of danger. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

***

Here are some pictures of the Gavinator. Man alive he is CUTE!!!

Gavin & friend Ezra. Notice the ball lust in Gavin's eyes.


Uh, I didn't eat the toy...
So very precious

A face any one can love but this mother really loves it

Two sleeping photos. I just couldn't choose between cute and super cute.

Dada?

Gavin is his father's son: a male of few words. Sure he babbles but he mostly sputters and makes a cute hissing sound that kind of sounds like radio static. Over the past couple of days he has started adding a 'd' and 'k' sound to his babbling. It is of course, SUPER CUTE.

Tonight as I was patting his back and kissing his sweet, sweet head that was resting on my shoulder I heard him start to make his static sounds. I looked at him and he was staring at the colorful pictures on one of the walls in his bedroom. His smile was so big and bright and the sounds he was making were so cute that I couldn't resist. I pulled him away from me so I could look him right in the face. He smiled and started babbling. I started practicing "mama" with him but he was making 'd' sounds so I said, "Dada" over and over, slowly and deliberately. His eyes left mine and became fixated on my mouth. You could see him studying my mouth as I said Dada.

Then, very softly, I heard da da come out of his mouth. I gasped and said, "Dada" and he said in return, "da... da" I called Ryan in the room. He came in kind of surprised that I would call him in while I was trying to get Gavin to sleep. I turned my attention back to Gavin and told Ryan to listen as I coaxed Gavin to say Dada again. Ryan leaned in and said Dada and watched Gavin's mouth as he said, "Da". He didn't quite get a Dada out of him but several da's.

Everyone says it but this is all going by so fast. He's barely been out of me longer than he was in me and he is already working on his first word and he is really close to walking. Part of me looks forward to each new first but I know that as each first comes and goes so does the time that I have with him in this precious state of babyhood.

Buzzard

The whir of the blender's blades made my son cry last night. It was very sad and very cute at the same time. I turned the blender off and made a big smile face and said, "Wee!" and flipped the blender back on. He wasn't buying my isn't-the-noisy-blender-fun act. This time I turned the blender off and like a good mother I went over to my still crying son with his bottom lip protruding and his arms outstretched to me and kissed his sweet little head and unstrapped him from his booster chair.

I am going to miss the day when I can no longer make all right with his world by simply holding him and kissing his head. I won't miss the day however, when I can turn the blender on without him crying.

Wanting to finish what I was in the middle of preparing I took the little G downstairs to daddy. He asked eagerly if I was blending drinks for us upstairs. Nope. I was making my very first batch of hummus. Judging by his face I would say he was really hoping I was making margarita. Being the great wife that I am I told him I could make margaritas as soon as I finished the hummus. We struck a deal. He would entertain Gavin while I finished the hummus and then made the drinks.

As I was making the margaritas I poured in too much syrup so instead of making one drink I was going to make two - or at least hope that it would end up being enough for two. In went the ice then the tequila. I was following the recipe but one shot of tequila over two margaritas isn't much, even for two lightweights like Ryan and myself. So I added another half a shot. Then when I tasted them I thought, hmmm, pretty bland, where's the tequila? You guessed it, I added another dab.

Guess what? I found out where the tequila was. In no time flat. There I sat at the kitchen table talking to Ryan in the living room who was enjoying his margarita while lounging on the couch. I stood up to get something and wham! The tequila made its presence known. As I stood there all wobbly I said, "Alcohol and an empty stomach do not mix."

At this point Ryan was now at the stove making some boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner and I started to ask him a question we've been pondering for a few weeks in bible study: black, white and gray. Or is it just black and white? Where do we stand with gray? More importantly, where does God stand with gray?

As we were discussing this I started to say, "The bible says to not be a drunkard but what does it say about a buzz?" That is what I intended to say. From there we could go on to discuss Jesus turning water into wine (good wine, mind you, no two buck Chuck) instead of just purifying the water. Would Jesus really make something that would be sinful to consume? Jesus probably drank wine himself; wasn't their water kind of sketchy? That's what I've learned from all of the History channel shows I've watched about life in the time of Jesus. I used to think how could they survive just drinking wine until I learned that we get most of the water we need from the food we eat - we do NOT need 8 glasses of water a day.

So... that is the direction I saw our conversation headed with the statement I intended to say. The words that actually came out of my mouth were actually:

"The bible says its wrong to be a drunkard but is it ok to be a buzzard?" I had a flash of comic genius mid sentence and finished it with the buzzard bit. Apparently I found what I said to be funny. Not ha, ha funny but freakin' hilarious, so freakin' hilarious that I laughed so hard that I had tears rolling down my face and I was shrieking and wheezing at the same time. You know its a good joke when laughing interferes with breathing.

Or you know you crossed over from white to gray to black. Ryan looked at me with his eyebrows raised and said, "Really? Well, we know you think its funny." It was a joke that as it marinated with time became funnier and funnier to me. Not to Ryan, to me. What Ryan found amusing was that I was amusing myself so well. He is baffled most every time I laugh at my own jokes. I baffled that he's still baffled. Dude, we're coming up on 6 years of weddedness next month. We'll be at 7 1/2 years together when our anniversary rolls around.

****

I'm sitting in the basement writing this. I had a midnight snack of a small spoonful of peanut butter, some mini marshmallows and some chocolate chips. Yum. I felt a little guilty about eating it but I am so glad I did because it meant I had a bowl with which to trap an earwig that I spied crawling across the floor toward my feet.

Now I don't know what to do. The bug is trapped under the bowl but do I just leave it there and ask Ryan to take care of it in the morning? I would vacuum it up I'm afraid that would wake up Gavin. Besides, I would have to immediately change the bag because I would have nightmares of it laying eggs in the bag and then having them get out and be blown all over the house out of the vacuum's exhaust system. And changing the bag with an earwig in it would induce a serious case of the willies.

Yelch. I hate bugs in my house. I don't particularly care for them in the outdoors either but I won't kill them when they are outside. If the bug isn't super gross, or if it is a slow moving spider - nothing that jumps or flies - I will even transport it outside. But the earwig definitely is classified as super gross. I believe that you can find it under the classification S. grosseous.

I hope the smell of the peanut butter that is left in the bowl doesn't permeate the carpet because I think it is going to be there until morning when I will ask my knight to slay the wicked bug before he goes off to fight traffic jams and restore peace and order with new means of mass transit and coordinated traffic lights.

Hardware Removal

Next Wednesday I'm going to be less a few screws. Not in my faculties, those screws may be loose but they are staying put. The screws I'm going to be losing are in my foot and I will be glad to be rid of them.

I am not, however, looking forward to the actual removal of said screws. The doctor is going to give me two numbing injections in the top of my foot. Ouch. A shot in the arm is bearable, a shot in the foot? Not so much. Two shots in the foot? The fact that I'm thinking about it a week in advance shows that I'm a tad scared. Just a tad, though. I've come a long way when it comes to fretting about shots. When I was little I would ask my mom when my next shots were due after we would leave the doctors office. She would tell me it would be a long time, when I was 10 (or 15 or whatever) and I would pull out my hands and start adding up the years from 5 or 6 to 10 or 15 to see how many years I would have to obsess over my next poke.

Today I start physical therapy for my big toe. Yep. My big toe. It isn't bending like it should when I walk. It seems kind of funny that I'm going to physical therapy for a toe. Toes are taken for granted. No one takes much notice of them unless they are buffed and polished and cute in a sandal (or gnarly and in a sandal). I am painfully aware of how great it is to take for granted one of my tiniest members now that it isn't functioning fully.

I've mentioned before that my right foot is a different shape than my left foot now. One side effect is that there is big space between my big toe and the second toe. HUGE space. When I walk in flip flops now the right one goes flying off my foot because there is no pressure put on the the strap that goes between the toes. My flip flop days may be coming to an end.


****


PT went well yesterday. Jennifer did a great job as usual - she's been my physical therapist for about 3 years now. I usually have something flare up about once a year and I'll go in and see her for several weeks. This is the first time it isn't related to something being hyper mobile but rather immobile (as related to the foot surgery). The session was much less painful than I thought it was going to be. Normally when I go in to see her I get some form of deep tissue massage. If you've never had a therapeutic massage I'll give you a little insight.

PT: Where does it hurt?
me: here, here, and here
PT: I'm going to massage those areas.
me: woo-hoo! Massage!
PT: Wa ha ha ha (evil laugh)
me: whimper
PT: (hands poised over body in attack position) tell me when it hurts
me: ouch
PT: ok
me: I said, "ouch"
me: For the love of all things holy, I said, "OUCH"!
me: Why, God, why?!
PT: In a couple of weeks when I do this again it won't hurt
me: meaning that for the next couple of weeks it will feel like you are inducing the worst charlie horse ever?

Of course, she's right. She's always right. She's Jennifer, PT extraordinaire.

Fortunately it looks like this round of PT is shaping up to only be mildly painful. She massaged my foot. Notice, no quotes around the word 'massage'? When she said she was going to rub my foot I instinctively tensed, waiting for the torture to begin but I was pleasantly surprised that it was a pleasant massage. There were no burning sensations, no tears welling up in my eyes, no gritted teeth, I didn't know what to think of it.

Jennifer's massages were not my first introduction to deep tissue massage. My Grandma Martha used to give a mean massage. Well, it's done out of love but she could give Jennifer a run for her money. I must have been 8 or so when she gave me and my cousins back massages.

I remember laying on the brown carpet in her living room and Grandma starting to massage my back. Yowza!!! I felt like a chicken that was being prepared for dinner as a skinless entree. I don't know where Grandma learned to give those massages, maybe life on the farm required therapeutic massage, but when she was done you felt invigorated and relaxed. Maybe the invigoration was from the blood flowing to the surface of the skin and the relaxation was out of relief that it was over.

*****

Gavin is trying to get some diluted juice out of his sippy cup. He has the spout on top so none of the juice is making it out. He's looking a little perturbed - mommy to the rescue. I flipped it around for him. He looks much happier; never mind, he just threw the cup on the floor. He still doesn't quite get the cup concept; I think he thinks if you suck fluid will come out even if the cup is not tilted back. Heck, he can get milk out of me any which way.

Since I have the external hard drive hooked up to the laptop I'll post a photo of the Gavinator.

The Story That Almost Was

Today could have turned out to be a day that I would never ever forget. A day that would live on in my family and I'm sure one that would surely have made it into the lore of the local fire station. Fortunately, that was not my destiny. The Lord surely shone His face upon me today. And for that I am very, very grateful.

My sister-in-law is being induced today and will be giving birth to her second daughter. Today seemed like a good enough day to mail a baby gift and birthday gift for her first daughter, our niece, Erika whose birthday is next month. We will be visiting them in Virginia next month but instead of packing the gifts us I figured it would be better to mail them.

Instead of going to the post office I went to Beacon Hill Mail Center because the owner is so gosh darn nice and I want to support a local business. That and they will pack the package for you. Normally I like to save a few bucks and pack it myself but that would have required finding a box in the house which usually involves taking stuff out the box and trying to find some other container for the stuff and since I've been getting rid of lots of stuff there isn't a suitable box to be had. I didn't think it would be worth my time and it probably would have been a colossal waste of gas to go to a store, buy a box, bring it home, pack the gift then take it back to ship it. So, I let Mr. Beacon Hill Mail Center owner do the work.

But before I was able to let him do the work I had to get from the car to his store. I pulled the stroller out from the back of the car and instead of putting Gavin in it right away I grabbed the presents from the front seat and put them in the storage portion of the stroller. Here's where the story gets interesting. When I went to close the front door I dropped the car keys.

Dropping the car keys is something I do often. Car keys, house keys, it doesn't matter, I drop them. This time was different since they fell into a storm drain.

Oh, no! Was my first thought. OK, to be truthful it was a little stronger, maybe a little closer to "Drats!" Or maybe even a little stronger. Just a little. I did just drop our only set of car keys into a storm drain, after all.

Fortunately the drain was chock full of leaves. I got down on my hands and knees and stuck my fingers in the almost wide enough slots. I wiggled my fingers, I willed my fingers to reach the keys. Finally I gave a little push and plop, my hand went in the grate. I reached the keys!

Unfortunately I couldn't grasp the keys and pull my hand out at the same time so I had to stick my left hand in the grate, but just the fingers and I was able to grab the keys from my right hand and put them in my purse. Now I all I had to do was pull my hand out of the grate and get away from the stinky storm drain.

That's all. Pull my hand out.

I pulled expecting it to come out with the same ease with which my hand went in.

Nope. It was going to require a little more effort to get my hand out.

I pulled a little harder.

Nothing.

I pulled a little harder.

Nothing other than some scraping on my wrist.

I pulled a lot harder.

Nothing but the sensation of my hand trying to separate at the wrist. Not a good feeling.

Before I panicked I thought, am I going to have to call the fire department? How are they going to get my hand out of an iron storm drain cover? They would have to weld it out. Before calling the fire department I thought I should try to check my purse for lotion to lube my hand.

I didn't look for the lotion because I had my best idea yet. I pulled up with my left hand the skin on my right hand that was sticking right above the grate and with some scraping my hand was freed. My skin was bunching up under the grate causing a little bump that was keeping me lodged in the storm drain.

If that little trick didn't work I would have been up a creek because I didn't have any lotion in my purse and I wouldn't have been able to reach the glove box or the middle console. At least my phone was handy otherwise I would have had to yell for someone to help me.

So, there it is. The story that almost was the most embarrassing day of my life but instead is just embarrassing enough to make a good story and not enough to send me to therapy.

Uh, it's July, right?

Last Tuesday I accompanied Ryan to his indoor soccer game with Gavin. OK, not really. I accompanied him on the ride to his indoor soccer game in Tukwila. Once he had his gear and was out of the car I hopped in the driver's side and went down the road a few miles to Babies 'R Us in the heart of Southcenter shopping hell. It, Southcenter, is the site of all things big and too much. But we had a baby gate that needed to be returned because it was missing some critical piece hence the trip. We didn't have the receipt since it was a gift from last year and I'm not that good at keeping track of such things. Correction: I wasn't that good. I'm better now. (I tell myself that if I keep telling myself that and I exert a little effort then it will become true).

I'm glad I took it back when I did because their exchange/return policy is changing effective August 10th. Currently as it stands you can return any item without a receipt if it was purchased from your registry. Cool. Not everyone gives a gift receipt, although we did get one with this gift - I just don't know where it is. Oh, wait. I think I know where it is. Too late.
Anyway, in the future you have 90 to return an item but it must be accompanied with a receipt. That means if you have a baby shower at 6 months and your lovely friends buy you stuff that is on your registry but don't give a gift receipts and you try to return something that just isn't working for whatever reason after the baby is born you are out of luck. Too bad. Stupid box stores.

I just watched a documentary, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Cost". Grr. Stupid Wal-Mart. I always knew they were evil, now I just have facts to back up my opinion. Well, I had numbers to back up my opinions. Now I can just say, "Yeah, well, Wal-Mart expects their employees to take advantage of welfare and government subsidies to fill the gap in life expenses that their wages do not cover." Or, or, or...

Stupid short term memory. Between me and Ryan we have it made. His short term memory is great. Mine sucks. Ryan's long term memory is horrific, I'm surprised he remembers his extended family member's names sometimes. My long term memory is unbelievable. I'm surprised I don't remember the doctor spanking me after I was born. Seriously. I remember playing with my mom's hands, sitting on the living room floor making funny sounds with my lips, fighting sleep on my grandma's shoulder as she stood in her living room, my eyes heavy and blinking slower and longer and the red and white checks on her shirt coming in and out of focus as I blinked.

This is going farther and farther away from why I started this post. Back to Babies 'R Us. After returning the gate and getting store credit I walked back to the far corner of the store to pick up some diapers and to check out their baby food. I bought some stage 3 food for Gavin that was on sale - Earth's Best Organic, for those of you who care. Stage 3 is a big deal. It has chunks in it. Woo-hoo. Chunky food. 9 month old babies can eat chunks. Too bad Gavin has disliked every 'real' food in stage three except the fruit. No chicken and stars pasta, no spaghetti and cheese, no sweet potato and whatever bisque. I tried it and I don't blame him for not liking it. Bleh.

As I sauntered to the check out and was almost to the Kiddie Kandids photo studio I saw a display that made me stop in my tracks. I just stood there, staring at the clothing display trying to remember what month it was, I do have a bad short term memory after all. Maybe it was fall already and I didn't know it.

A sales associate very politely asked me if I was ready to check out. Still standing and staring at the display I glanced to my left to the nice young woman and said, "It is July, right?"

She replied, "Yes, but it'll all be gone by October."

Yes, all of the cute Halloween clothes will be gone by then because people see it on the store shelves in FREAKIN' JULY and think, "OMG! I have to buy it now because if I wait until a few weeks before Halloween (or Thanksgiving / Christmas / Valentine's Day/ St. Patrick's Day / Easter / Fourth of July) it will all be gone when I want to buy this $20 onsie that will probably be too small for my son / daughter / grandson / granddaughter / niece / nephew / godson / goddaughter when they can finally wear it for ONE DAY and I will be the worst mother / father / grandmother / grandfather / aunt / uncle / godfather / godmother EVER for not buying it in a timely fashion!"

Of course that rant makes me a huge hypocrite because I bought Gavin a Santa hat in October or November last year. How can you have a newborn at Christmas and not put a Santa hat on his cute head? It's impossible. And I have a Santa hat for him to wear for this Christmas but this one is a hand me down so neener neener.

That's right: neener neener.

I'm not one to brag. Unless its about my son - he is the CUTEST ever. I'm sure he's the smartest ever, too but I think its best to lay off the mental acuity challenges until he's the ripe old age of one year. Actually, I think the smartest baby is Isaiah in my mommy group. He was the first to roll over, sit up, crawl, stand up, walk (with assistance) and cruise and he says, Momma, Dada and dog. Holy cow! He's only 10 days older than Gavin. Oh, well. Gavin can't be the best at everything. Tough lesson to learn so young.

Where was I going with this? Oh, it has nothing to do with Gavin. I was just setting the stage for some bragging. It's easy to brag about this because I had absolutely nothing to do with it (other than "jokingly" planting a seed).

I get to watch the Blue Angels at SeaFair this year from a boat in Lake Washington! Woo-hoo! I am so excited!!! Ryan's friend bought a boat and his ridiculously expensive toy is going to bring me so much pleasure and maybe mild hearing loss! How do you say thanks for the best seat to the coolest show ever? Beer? Home baked snickerdoodles? Shortbread with chocolate drizzled on top? Biscotti with chocolate drizzled on top? Cash? Cash with chocolate drizzled on top?

And thanks to Heidi who is providing the greatest service of all: babysitting on said afternoon so I can partake of the greatest show on earth (sorry Ringling Bros. you can't touch the Blue Angels). Insert everyone's favorite song about not being able to touch it here. Ah! Now I have MC Hammer stuck in my head. At least its not ... ah, just thinking about it. My brain is burning! The visual in my head went from MC Hammer in parachute pants to the unfortunate video that I saw ONE time of him in those speedos. Ah, the humanity! Make it go away! Cursed long term memory!

Art Walk

Last night instead of studying our new book, The Life of Paul: To Die is Christ my Thursday night girlfriends went to the West Seattle Second Thursday Artwalk to support one of our own. Krissy was a featured artisan, displaying her beautiful jewelery at Keller Williams, my former stomping grounds.

Keller Williams really did have the best set up for the art walk out of the businesses that we went to. They have so much wall space that it is more like a gallery than the other stores that display local artists, some stores are so small that they just have a few token pieces. Besides, KW had music, catered food, two fabulous artists and of course, Krissy Maier, selling her handmade one of a kind pieces. You too can own an original Krissy Maier piece - check out her website (to be updated soon, I believe): www.orangeboxjewelry.com.

Yes, she is a friend so it only seems natural that I would promote her business but really, she is that good. My former boss bought 7 pieces of jewelery from her last night and had one cool necklace in her maybe pile.

Last night I bought the most beautiful necklace she has ever made. It's mine. All mine.

And since I am uploading pictures, here is one of me in my new glasses:

And here I sit at 11:32 on Friday morning. It has been 5 hours since Gavin woke up. He is 3 hours overdue for his morning nap. I hope this is just a fluke and not a new trend. If it is a new trend then I hope he will at least be kind enough to wake up at 7 and take a solid 3 hour nap in the afternoon, say from 12-3 or 11-2. He's half an hour late for the 11-2 nap time. Maybe he'll do 11:30-2:30.

No such luck. He is really enthralled with the OXO soup ladle I gave him a few minutes ago. So far as he's concerned it is the coolest new toy ever and I am the best mom ever for giving him said cool toy. It is part of a matching set, he already has the spoon with holes.

My luck changed. One second he's happily banging the big black plastic ladle with rubber handle on the floor and the next he arches his back and bonked his head. Oh, that sounds bad. It was not fortunate that he bonked his head... no, no. Not at all. After I consoled my sweet boy and kissed his sweet head he tugged on his ear and rubbed his eyes and rested his head on my shoulder. All signs pointed toward true baby fatigue so I laid him down and this time there was no howling, well, maybe 30 seconds worth, just sleeping. I peeked at the monitor when the screaming stopped because I figured he decide to entertain himself with his stuffed blue dog or by pulling himself up in the crib. Was I ever shocked when the monitor showed him lying down, sleeping. No standing, no crawling, no trying to bite the stuffed dog's ear off, just sweet, sweet, quiet sleep.

$30.25

I had an extra night off last week because I thought my mom's group was getting together for dinner a week earlier than we actually were and since Ryan agreed to watch Gavin I decided I should still go out. I chose to spend my few baby less hours by myself at the movie theater. Sure, I could have invited a friend but my girlfriends probably would have politely declined to see the movie I wanted to watch, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Almost more shocking than my choice of movie was the cost of my few hours out. Instead of planning ahead and taking the bus to the movie theater I drove. Since it was late at night, and by late I mean 7 o'clock, and the theater was downtown in an area with a dearth of off street parking and the pay lots only taking exact change of which I had exactly one $20 bill I parked in a garage. If I planned ahead, not enough to take the bus but enough to find cheap parking, I would have thought to look up the exact location of Pacific Place's garage where parking is cheap, relatively speaking, and parked there and saved a few bucks.

There went the first $10.

Since I see about 1 movie or less a year in the theater I decided it would be permissible to buy popcorn and a soda. Sure, I could have bought a jumbo box of candy at Bartell's and put it in my purse and saved some money for Gavin's college education but I didn't. I wanted popcorn with butter, lots and lots of fake butter that you can only get on the top layer because they fill the stupid bag to the top and hand it to you to put your own butter on because to have them put the butter on in stages as they fill up the bag would be too much work and they would have to charge too much for it.

Oh, wait. They did charge me too much.

My second $10 was for a SMALL popcorn and a SMALL soda. I asked the cashier how much for their #2 combo (medium popcorn and medium drink); he said without batting an eye, $13. I choked. He must get that reaction a lot because he just stood there staring at me. So, Mr. Cashier hands me my small bag of popcorn and jumbo cup of soda. Seriously. Why are soda sizes so relative? A 32 oz soda is not small. I should have ordered a child's size soda.

Of course it cost to get into the movie and it was actually the first money I spent, $10.25 for admission to secure a seat for my behind in the theater.

After getting hosed at the concessions stand I took my munchies and trough of soda and settled in to just the right seat. I was just early enough to catch the last trivia question and right on time for the witty spots on turning off cell phones and I got to watch all 21 minutes of previews.

TWENTY-ONE minutes of previews. Is that not a little over kill? C'mon, the feature presentation was going to be 2 1/2 hours, do we really want to add to our sore butt time and gotta-pee-'cause-I-drank-32 ounces-of-fluid-but-I-don't-want-to-miss-a-minute-of-the-movie-chair-dance? I think not.

It is time for me to divulge the name of the movie I watched. It is quite shocking. Really. Aside from Ryan I have only told one friend the movie I watched and she played like she wasn't too shocked but I really think she was.

Sorry, Mom, AnnaLisa, everyone else who thought I was 'above' this but the movie was...

Sex and the City.

Yep, your little April watched Sex and the City and aside from the sex parts she really enjoyed the movie.

I am a closet Sex and the City fan. I don't remember when I started watching it but it was after it had gone off the air and was being re-run on TBS. I think insomnia and pregnancy were involved and it is all TiVo's fault. It recorded the TBS re-runs under TiVo suggestions. One night when there was nothing to watch and I was wide awake I thought I would watch a minute of the show to see what the fuss was all about. I found out. Life. It was all about life.

As much as I despised some aspects of their characters it was easy to see the common thread of love that ran through the women on the show. In the heyday of the show women wanted to know if they were a Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbs, Charlotte York-MacDougal-Goldenblatt or Samantha Jones. I think I would be a bit of Carrie and Charlotte, minus the killer clothes. I would be the least like Miranda and it would be a cold, cold day in hell before anyone would compare me to Samantha. I didn't even like Kim Catrell (Samantha) when she did interviews. Bleh.

I knew the version of the show I watched on TV was the cleaned up version but I had no idea how much it was cleaned up. Yipes. The sex was just unnecessary in the movie. Really. Do we need to see that? Are we not an intelligent lot? Can we not figure out what's going on behind closed doors?

Watching a movie by oneself is not all the bad, especially if you like to watch the movie and not talk during the movie. This was the first time I ever went to the movie theater by myself. I will eat alone no problem and I actually enjoy eating by myself. Some people can't stand to eat alone, they feel all sad and lonely. Not me. I'm good company.

Ha.

The part about watching a movie by yourself that I don't like the is the after part: there is no one to talk to about it.

That part nearly killed me!!! I watched a movie I really enjoyed and I really, really, really wanted to talk to someone about it but who? Ryan? Ha. I told him that I didn't like watching movies by myself because I had no one to talk to about it.

Of course this is where the husband (in the fantasy land) says, "Tell me all about it, my dear. I will hang on your every word; let me see this girlie movie through your eyes."

OR where your real husband says, "Mhmh." As in, "Straight up! You have no one to talk to about this movie, ESPECIALLY, me."

I can't say I blame him. If he came home after watching Laura Croft: Tomb Raider and was dying to talk about all of the action my eyes would glaze over. Actually, if Ryan ever uttered the words, "dying to talk" and he wasn't quoting me I would keel over.

Right there. On the spot. Don't get me wrong. Ryan talks. We talk. We have good talks. But he is never DYING to talk; not many men have a pressing need to gab.

Curtain Tie Backs

It is the little things in life that make us happy. We all know this but we don't all take it to heart. Happiness is in the cup of coffee freshly brewed that you sip at the dining room table as you gaze at your clean living room. A living room that is clean for no good reason(the 'good reason' usually being that company was expected to arrive any time soon). Happiness is in knowing that the jumble of stuff that has been collecting dust for two years in the entry way has been pared down, sorted and taken care of so that paper clips, staples, pens, batteries, receipts, coupons, scissors, safety pins, etc., all have a drawer in the new 9-drawer box I bought from Ikea. Happiness is seeing the top of the dining room table and not just the legs.

It's so nice to have the upstairs part of the house so close to being exactly the way I want it: neat, organized and clean. Clean and neat are not the same thing. A house can be tidy and organized but still be dirty. I wonder if the Spring Cleaning Bug is hitting me now because our winter lasted well into June. Whatever the reason I don't want to fight it.

The last couple of days I've been tying the curtains back when I open them in morning (late morning). I think this is a huge milestone for me as a mother. Yes, a milestone because when, in the not so distant past, you were so sleep deprived that you napped every second the baby napped and cried when baby woke up crying because you could have easily slept 8 more hours. To make matters worse you couldn't reach the curtains even if you wanted to. There was no way to get to the curtains anyway without an overnighter at base camp because the house was a complete hovel and you couldn't physically get past the baskets of clean laundry, the swing, the exersaucer, the basket of books, the briefcases, the shoes and baby toys. Even if there was an open and easy path to the curtains why would you want to flood light into your home and disrupt the land of perpetual naps? Of course to get out of Perpetual Napdom one must forgo naps for a couple of days but that is easier said than done when Napdom is the only reason you get any amount of sleep at all.

So yes it is a momentous occasion to tie back the curtains. You are no longer fighting the light and you have time and energy to spare by walking 10 feet out of your way to get the tie backs and, here's the exciting part: you still have energy and motivation to tie the curtains back and let in the sunshine! Glorious, glorious sunshine. We in Seattle see so very little of the sun that when we are graced with its warm, glowing presence we flip out. So elated are we that our feet don't touch the ground, we float along, gracefully scattering flower petals in our wake as we smile and wave gracefully to our fellow levitating flower tossing neighbors.

That is of course on the first day of said glorious weather. On day two of the same glorious weather only a degree or two warmer and we melt into a collective puddle of sweaty grumbly goo. We wanted summer to come but to come on our terms. 'Our terms' are for the weather to stay a perfect 79 to 81 degrees with just a fluffy cloud or two in the sky, maybe a few feathery clouds to frame out Mt. Rainier, and the softest of breezes kissing our skin as it brings a hint of salt water that it collected as it skimmed the Puget Sound.

We are a fickle bunch. We live in a green state, physically and conservationally, we have an abundance of water, at least West of the Cascades, we have mild winters and mild summers (again, West of the Cascades) and we still find reason to grumble on day two of 'heat wave'. Of course when the heat wave is over we are happy for all of one day before we grumble about summer being gone so soon.

You know it is day one of real summer weather when you are stuck in traffic on the 520 or 405 or I-5 or 167 or 169 or 518 or 509 or 99 because no one seems to care they are stuck in their cars. Traffic flows anywhere between 0 and 8 mph and everyone has their radio on listening to Sheryl Crow's or Will Smith's song about summer, drivers all have their left arm hanging out the window and everyone is sporting a huge, relaxed smile. Good vibes all around in this love fest of beautiful weather.

Day two of same glorious summer weather and you are stuck on the same 520/405/I-5/167/169/518/509/99 and the smiles have vanished, the windows are rolled up and the a/c is blasting. Instead of smiles and friendly wave-ins being passed around it is now the bird. It flits from car to car and horn to horn.

Happy Summer!

Happy Independence Day!

I'm watching Blood Diamonds right now and I'm even more grateful to have been so blessed to have been born in America.