jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

I’ve struggled today with how or if to write this post. As much as I would like to bulldoze forward, I think I will have to acknowledge my immediate past.

A terrifying January was punctuated by the suicide of my beloved stepdad.

There’s a huge story there, full of fearful decisions, crushing expenses and some very public disaster. Even in my current frame of mind, I know I’m overdrawn on my adjective account. But a stark noun just isn’t getting the job done today. I may tell that story here later. Probably I will. But tonight we’ve just gotten back into town, we have Chinese food in front of us and American Idol on the TV. I am whipped.

Alden is passed out on the couch next to me. He has stood up amazingly through six flights and 20+ hours in the car over the past 10 days. He’s been a bright spark of hope.

Right now we’re just dropping pebbles into a well, trying to fill that void.

I know that it’s going to get colder. I know that we’re going to have at least one big snow, probably two. None of that changes the face that I am ready to be out. I would like to sit in the grass, please. It is well past time for me to illegally feed the squirrels. They eat right out of my hand! (I know, I know). I’m also ready to walk and walk and walk and walk, as that is frequently my favorite thing to do. See, I missed a lot of fall last year because my additional bulk kept me inside more often. I was just so hot, you know. Although I did walk about 60 blocks two times in the week before I gave birth.

In other news, we’ve made enough progress with our bathroom renovation that I’m tentatively ready to talk about it again. But not a lot, because renovation is still boring. Taking a shower still requires taking a walk to someone else’s apartment, but our realistic hope is this coming week will be the last of that. Two coats of cheerful red paint are on the walls, one more coat will make it perfect. There’s a wavy white tile with a snappy trim covering one and a half walls. A new standup riser is attached to the tub. Oh, and we have a ceiling. So now we wait for vanity and sink installation and a re-glazer for the tub. A few more small tweaks here and there and we can boot the workers out and throw the deadbolt. My mom suggested we take down half the wall between our kitchen and our hallway and all I could do was ask if she was trying to make me cry. That idea will go right back on the shelf. Honestly, we’re not going to do anything else to this place. It becomes more and more clear that at some point we’re going to start leaning harder toward our old home in the south. We want some grass for our baby to roll around in. It’s that tricky job stuff that we’ll need to figure out.

Who was it who posted the entry about what kind of gross things you’ll do when it comes to your kids? Because I was just holding Alden over my head and he drooled right into my mouth. And yet I did not move out of the red zone, because he was laughing and it was totally worth it.

When we were in Florida my mom bought Alden a stuffed Bumble and a stuffed Elf Who Wants to Be a Dentist (I can’t remember his name). We put the elf in his crib to keep him company when we’re doing things like making dinner. Sometimes they fight, and we can hear Alden yelling “Rak rak rak. Woooooo.” at him. When I go look he’s staring daggers at the elf and giving him a stern lecture. But sometimes… Alden will reach out and clasp the elf to his breast. And then suck on his nose.

My team loves how excited I get on “Build Your Own Burger” Fridays in our cafe. I don’t actually eat, you know, the traditional burger. But they have a veggie version. And it’s the good kind, not the mushy kind where you can see the peas and carrots.

You get to pick:
— bread (I went with sesame bun)
— burger (I went for veggie, but you can have beef, turkey, chicken or tuna)
— three toppings (caramelized onions, tomatoes and sauteed onions for me)
— two sides (cole slaw and onion rings please!)
And then there are about half a million sauces at the pickup spot. I put roasted pepper aioli and tomato ketchup (as opposed to the mango ketchup) on my burger and added barbecue sauce for onion ring dipping.

When I order onion rings in a magazine building cafeteria I cringe the teeniest of cringes. I mean, there are models roaming around. There are magazine ladies eating their magazine lunches. But today I saw my hero standing a few feet in front of me in line. She was a totally normal-sized woman (neither a toothpick nor a Michelin Man) who got onion rings and French fries as her two sides. That, my friends, takes guts. It’s now my mission to discover her identity and make her my friend.

That is my second best Friday lunch story. Because nothing beats standing in line behind Helen Gurley Brown while she Builds Her Own Burger.