The Nest: Revisited

For anyone who only reads the blog and doesn't actually talk to or with me (or have Facebook, which is practically the same thing)--the air conditioner was leaking because a lead line was busted, they fixed it, it still doesn't cool the house, but I had two window air conditioner units installed and life is much more livable. So there it is.

Also in nest news, though, are some good things. With the motivation of someone special coming home, as well as the helpful presence of my mother, I've been finishing all the other little projects around the house that have been wanting done since we moved in six [freaking] months ago. There are now curtains in the bedrooms, for example. I am not using my night stand to hold the silverware. Little things like that, you know. The place looks like real people might live here now, and I'm so happy. Only a week and a couple days left...

Spent yesterday morning washing all kinds of teeny tiny little clothes. Can you just imagine the convenience of being able to wash every item of clothing you owned in a single load through the washing machine?? It was amazing. His whole wardrobe cleaned in an hour and ten minutes. Unfortunately, I'm told that he'll go through the whole wardrobe at least once a week, so maybe there's not so much to be thrilled about there. Still, imagine putting everything Joseph owns into the machine at once. Ha. The dryer would have a hernia.

p.s. Posting once a week? Every two weeks? Is this is future of my literary career? I dunno...I've had company or help in the house every day for three weeks, so not a lot of time is spent communing with the virtual world. Then again, who cares? :) September is coming. I'm so happy.

"Edema"

It's a fancy name for retaining water, and not really in the sense of "oh, wow, I feel fat today" but in the sense of "the climate is confusing my body so bad that my fingers and knees don't bend properly because of how edemic I am." The more you drink, of course, the less trouble you have with this problem. The human body is a funny thing. Somebody's RN mother explained to Joseph that my getting dehydrated could cause premature labor, and he asked me if that was why I drank so much water. I said yes, but if I got so bad that that was an issue, there was a serious problem. I'm still stuck, I told him, at the stage where I drink lots of water so that my fingers stay skinnier than my ankles.

Also swelling, by the way, is the number of people my very own age (or younger!!) who are having babies, going to have babies very soon, or have had a baby within the last six months. Among those I know in the college classes immediately above and below my own, I can name over a dozen mommies without even thinking--and a bunch more if I dig deep. This is cool, and wierd, and wonderful, and wierd. Joe said that he realizes a lot more just how un-normal it all is, though, from being around the other Marines. One of them told him the other day that we "were the first people he really knew personally, his own age, who were having a kid." Wow. And for us and our school perspective, we're actually "behind" the curve by about four months. How funny.

Smellin' Coffee

Always a bad thing--I'm trying to make coffee this morning, but (a) I have no chart for measuring the stuff and (b) I don't drink it so I wouldn't know nasty from nice. My company usually makes their own, for safety's sake, but I'm trying to be brave this morning.

So, this pregnant memory loss thing is really funky. I am unable, even whilst swearing upon the phone book, to remember anything about conversations I've had in the last month. I forget whether I locked the door. Two seconds ago. Spelling and typing are olympic events. However, all these great memories from the first two years of college are positively flooding my mind! It's wonderful! I mean, I remember down to colors and smells these snapshots of life when I had first met all my friends. I remember really early conversations with Joseph, I remember "first seeing him again" after those long, long, long mid-term breaks. I remember choir things, I remember the presidential election and staying up all night in the chapel to pray about it. I remember walking out toward Guardian Angel and back between Sunday choir and Mass, saying morning prayer with Joseph. I remember my first van run to town. I remember my first trip to Shoe Show with Cass and Laura, and my first trip to Winchester with them (on which we also bought shoes). All that stuff is coming back to me, at the expense of dinner, which I forgot was in the oven.

I'll take the memories. Such sweet things.

"Hey, great reception in here! Like, four bars!"

So, I vicariously lived the life of a woman's handbag last night, thanks to a special friend (you know who you are) who toted me through the length and breadth of O'Hare last night on her way to a flight. It was delayed, else we would never have made it in time. I went through the x-ray machine, I went to the restroom, I sat on the floor while she checked in, I stood in line while cappucino and danish were ordered, I waited on the seat while carry-on items were safely stowed in the overhead bin. It was great--and at the end, I knew exactly how one's purse feels. There to hear every conversation, there to endure every long wait and line full of cranky people. I enjoyed even (and especially) the conversations that the human has with herself as she tries to find the correct gate after an airline switch.

Who knew that you could run a phone through the x-ray machine and not drop the call, anyway? That was the coolest part. I could hear the machine running, then all the voices and people and bumpings of baggage as I came out the other end. Now we know.

Also, found out that "vicariously" has the same root as "vicar." A substitute or representative.

Treble Without a Clause

Feeling a bit schizophrenic today...Joseph has gotten me started on all these little projects that involve networking, getting in touch with people in one's field, etc. The obvious rock in my path is that I don't have a field right now. However, the networking website forced me to invent something, so I examined my life and decided, fairly enough, that I'm currently a self-employed researcher. I'm not paying myself anything at the moment, but I'm certainly undergoing a very eclectic, fairly rigorous set of tasks that involve researching things.

All kinds of things, of course, and that's what renders this exercise a little silly-feeling. After all, I have a grand plan in mind, but it's hard to explain what a Montessori handbook, neuroscience study, leadership manual, and Blink have in common. The only clue to my strategy, which is now sitting in the "to read" pile in my office [the dryer] is Classical Education at Home: Strategies and Systems for Teachers Learners to Learn. Taken broadly, I'm learning how to educate, all on my own. So, that's what I'm up to these days. I had no idea.

The Great Pumpkin

So, another interesting divergence of viewpoints on holidays. This time, though, it's more a funny story about my next door neighbor (whom I know does not read the blog--she has dialup) than a diatribe about the raising of children.

Due to an ongoing renovation project, a continual shifting of families from their [old] house to a [still old but nicely resurfaced] new house is taking place within my immediate neighborhood of about 60 homes. My neighbor and I are in Phase Eight homes, which means we'll be moved into resurfaced homes in October. (Phase One households were supposed to get their resurfaced homes by July 31st, though, and it didn't happen. I'm personally not holding my breath for October.)

Anyhow. For reasons which continue to cramp my drinking style (this is funny if you know me) and my fashion options (this is funnier if you've seen me in the last month), I am not excessively thrilled by the prospect of moving "sometime in October." Especially since I'll have a spouse in the field during most of the month. Moves, even moves financed, boxed, carried, and unboxed by the government, are things which one hesitates to do while nine months pregnant. I am not happy about moving in October, and I religiously waddle down to the housing office once a month to (a) let them see me waddle and, (b) find out if "sometime" has been narrowed down a bit. It never has, but I usually walk away thinking that it could be worse. I could be having twins. My housing lady is apologetic, but more or less useless. Things will not change, they will only continue to change on a weekly basis (this is funny if you know anything about the military).

My neighbor, on the other hand, is no tame woman. She's a steely-eyed sailor-swearing she-man. (Whom I like, kinda, in a keep-your-distance kind of way.) As I relayed the scuttlebut from most recent waddle, she became steelier eyed. She glinted. She tossed her mane and dragged a hoof across the linoleum menacingly.

"You know," she said, "I'm going to have to get myself down there and talk to those people. I mean, if I have to get in her boss's face and get serious with him, well then I'll do that, too, but she has got to understand. Being told we're moving 'sometime' in October just does not work! I mean, I have a child! I am NOT about to ask him to be moving the week of Halloween! No, I am not. No, there are things that have to be done that week, things that I re-fuse to have screwed up by their stupid moving schedule!"

Location, location, location.

A Mystical Body Part

New blog in the sidebar: an admirable friend's journey toward convent life. "Engaged to Christ," and what a beautiful way to put it, too. I told Joseph once, a long time ago at school, that it must be simultaneously humbling and motivating for young men to know that Christ, too, is a Lover who is after the hearts of young women of faith (well, all young women, but the context of the conversation really only included us more or less religion-minded dames). After all, being Perfection, you just know he'd be the best boyfriend ever. ;) Talk about competition.