Just breathe

Currently: I only want scratches

Yay, I am not allergic to CA!!!! I might actually not scratch my eyes out this year! I hope by the time I get back those crazy plants stop having all the sex. Kids these days!!!

New happy place

Yes, we can has

Favorite

2nd favorite

HAHAHAHAHAHA (mean people are funny!)

Moo

After drinking skim milk for a long while, tasting 2% is like drinking decadent, delicious cream.

(I have a new fondness for hotels that set out cookies AND milk to welcome you. I feel officially and heartily welcomed!)

Visitors of a different sort

Adults! That were not *my* adults (though really, even they've only been here once. Still.) It was strange, being the kid-host to not-my-parents. And in very close quarters. I think it went well. The death march around the city that tuckered us all out was a very clever tactic. Too bad I didn't know it was a tactic...

sleepy

They say you need less sleep as you get older. However, while I'm not sure whether my recent sleepiness is a trend or an aberration in my personal sleep schedule, I'm finding that I need a lot more sleep of late. My famously insomnia-fueled night-owl hours seem to be over and I find my self ready, willing, and able to hit the hay around or slightly past midnight each evening. Getting up at 6 or 7, or even 8 an 9, seems to still be just out of reach. I wake up many times, but, with each instance, find myself exhausted and incoherent and in need of just a leeeetle more sleep. Which turns into an hour or three. So, the upshot is, I've been getting steadily 9 or 10 or even 11 hours of sleep each night, and I still wake up with a big, stuffy head and feel quite distracted and exhausted. I mentioned it to my doctor, and she thought it might be a touch of seasonal affective disorder. As the seasons move seamlessly from winter to spring, though, I've been sleeping gradually longer, not shorter, hours. Even with the shades up and the (precious few hours of, at my house) sunlight streaming in. This can't be normal, right? I haven't needed this much sleep since I was a little kid. I used to get by just fine on 5 or 6, with a healthy catch-up on the weekends. What's going on??

Courtside lesson

Currently: sneezy itchy face!

Tennis is not only about hitting the ball back, it's also about hitting the ball back within the lines. Everybody now: ooh, aah.

TMNT

Currently: itchy and sneezing and slightly bewildered

I loved the teenage mutant ninja turtles while growing up. To a fertile young mind, what could be more exciting than giant turtles following a huuuuge rat around the sewers, eating pizza, skateboarding, talking just like me (well, aspiration me who wanted to be a Chinese valley girl, but in real life only had a trashy Masshole accent), and fighting crime (eh, maybe the gummi bears, or adventurous cartoon ducks)? Oh, and ninjas! Ninjas everywhere! Totally made sense. Good, clean, fun sense. Even the live action movies were decent. Followed the general plot, cheezy lingo, etc. This new movie, however, while slickly filmed? drawn? computer animated? all of the above? was a Hot Crazy Mess! And the turtle-centric plot line was actually fine, albeit typical stuff - trouble between brothers, true fighting power through unity, blah blah blah. The rest, however, was just NOT. I'm not sure even the little kids devotedly following insanely convoluted GI Joe plot lines could follow this folderol. Let's see, ginormous, The Mummy-era South American desert army battling to conquer the world, power-mad king who waits until the stars align to open a portal to another world...which makes him immortal, while turning his brethren generals to stone (STONE! I tell you!) and defeats both armies AND releases 13 monster-hell-beasts. And then it all has to happen in reverse!! Wuh??!! The only thing that made it weirder was that the king was voiced Captain Picard himself, and April O' Neil by Buffy. No, wait, the worst thing is that I know someone who has watched it (several times voluntarily) 7 times!! Oh, the horror!!!

(AND they didn't even use the original theme song. Fie on them!)

Knocked down

currently: see title and below

I'm not that same little kid, kept inside during recess (sitting on the hard, wood bench outside the principal's office like some kind of baby delinquent) because springtime and fall allergies were overwhelming and could result in a lack of...breathing. Decades (eek!) later, through many pharmaceutical innovations, various dosage trials and errors, a move down south (where, for some reason, even though there is more pollen, it's not quite the same pollen of my youth, and therefore I seem to be slightly less allergic to it, which, thanks be to the gods, because if I was as allergic to redbud and dogwood as I was to northeastern plants, I probably would have keeled over my freshman year, back when I actually went outside and didn't live in an office), and a carefully orchestrated pill-popping and steroid-taking regimen, I can mostly function at nearly 100% during the months of budding and flowering. No, I'm not at my sharpest for a good few weeks - there is much sneezing, itchy and watering eyes, and stuffiness of the nose. I can, however, take at least limited pleasure in the recession of dead, brown winter and the burgeoning of grassy, rainbow growing things.

Except.

The first few days, well after the flowers are in bud and the grass begins to unfurl, when the weather is nice enough to tempt me outside...to play, to stroll, to hit some balls down on the courts, to revel in the sunshine and the bask in the spring...I pay heavily for my enjoyment. My whole body shuts down with almost flu-like symptoms: I can't breath, I feel beaten, my body is exhausted and my mind is uninterested in being engaged. I claw at my red, swollen, tear-filled, monstrously itching eyes (always convinced and secretly terrified that I'm going to pop an eyeball) and my oily nose (well, whole face, really), which is constantly exploding in sneezes and alternately stuffed and dripping. I am detached from life and work, my appetite diminishes (fretfully - I'm still hungry, but I don't know what I want and nothing tastes particularly good), and I can't concentrate. It's the epitome of April fools and no. fun. at. all.

Still, Virginia in the springtime is so beautiful that it's just barely worth it (because I can breathe!), and sure beats missing recess.

Get your own pond

What are you doing at the office? We don't even have a pond!!

These critters are mean, very large, and not at all afraid of humans. In fact, they consider us to be vending machines for their pleasure, and don't seem adverse to approaching people, wielding their substantial-looking beaks in a threatening manner, and demanding that the dispensing of food commence immediately.

Here's what I was hoping

That I would cuddle my tired, floppy niece and, as her skinny monkey arms slipped around my neck and her soft, silky, baby cheek brushed mine, my heart would burst with love, an orchestral (or ocean, not picky) swell resound, and the world become awash in a rosy glow. The birds would shout alongside my life changing realization - I WANT THIS. My fears about family life and ugly/mean/stupid children and overwhelming responsibility and lack of sleep/money/personal time would fade away, quieted by the music of certainty and desire.

But it didn't.

Sigh.

What does that mean? That I don't want children? That the babyhunger is lurking just around the corner, waiting to chase me down and knock me into madness as I descend into my 30s? That it will never come? I WANT TO KNOW.

Not healthy

My cholesterol shot up by almost 50 points in the past year - mostly in the "bad" cholesterol. My doctor was all, "Woman, what did you DO??!!" And I answered, in a small voice, "discovered my love for live-in eggplant parmesan."

So, babies.

(By which I mean small people under the age of 5 or approximately a height of 3.5 feet)

Are cute.

But sometimes not, especially right at birth. The red, wrinkly, skinny, squashed-head look doesn't really tug on my heartstrings.

Force you to become an adult.

And thus our prolonged childhood/adolescence is truly over.

Are great subjects for photos. I will take more pictures!

Of only the kids.

Can smell nice.

But often smell like many not-so-nice bodily fluids, which I am then responsible for dealing with to make the nice smell come back.

Make appealing sounds. New words are fun! And exciting!

Make appalling sounds. That annoy other people within a close-to-medium vicinity.

Feel wonderful in your arms. Upside: toned arms.

Get heavy eventually and want to be carried everywhere. Downside: aching back.

Need you.

All the time. And eventually, none of the time, because they (might, I grant) hate you.

Will satisfy the 'rents that the dynasty will be perpetuated.

You have the raise this portion of the dynasty.

Are sweet. And can be loving.

Once they take notice of you. While they take notice of you.

Make great story fodder.

As long as your friends/family still care.

Make your heart swell with love (or so I've heard).

And eat up all your time.

*******************

So, I'm still on the fence. Weekend with the adorable niece was wonderful and draining and fun and startling and irritating and fulfilling. Maybe I should ask for one of my friend's or family's children for longer than a weekend to see if I can/want to cut the whole parenthood thing. I do sometimes wish that biology would just kick in and solve the question for me. Though, at the same time, I don't think my potential child would want to born out of (er, more specifically, I wouldn't want to have one only out of) manifest biological destiny. It would be nice to make the conscious choice.

Busted, I think

Current mood: remembering DOH!

Last week was not good for me or my gym bag. I lost a necessary...uh, undergarment, and since I had it on in the bathroom and could not find it at home, and no matter how many times I shook out the bag upside down, I'm pretty sure I left it hanging in the the stall. HELLO night cleaning crew! And then, later in the week, I was blithely changing again, getting ready to pump some iron (eh, sort of), and specifically remembering to put all my clothes back in the bag. Until I got to the shoes. Which were not mine. And since there was no way I could run in men's size 9? sneakers, no gym for me! Which was actually a problem, because my gym is leaving me, and I'm counting down the precious days of it actually being on the way home. When it's a whole 10 minute drive in the wrong direction, I can't make any promises...

Our bad

me: The number is 94. No wait, 97! I called it in.

counter guy: Sure just a second...

cg: Um, when did you call it in?

me: Oh, about 15 minutes ago. For the cheese pizza deal! Isn't it that it over there?

cg: Er, what number did you call?

me: Hmmm, the 777 number...I think. Why?

cg: Well, that's the number for our other-

me: Oh crud! He dialed the number! I just placed the order! We called the new store, right?

cg: Sorry, yeah.

************************
UGH. Luckily, we hadn't hadn't decided to walk to pick it up and the other store was only a few miles away. Still, classic S-M-R-T!!!!!!

How not to do it

Telling your student with the A+ average that she should be ashamed of her level of effort is not an effective motivational mechanism. It's sort of laughable, but mostly just angry-making.

So help me, it really is SO good

I'm not one of those, 'it puts the wind in my hair" really, really annoying "Yoplait iz orgazmilkkk!!!" girls, but I have to say that WOW! this stuff is good. It makes me actually want to eat yogurt, not hork it down as quickly as possible to avoid puking because I eat disgusting, disgusting yogurt for health purposes ONLY.

Whatever they do to "whip" this stuff, it is AMAZING. I only wish it came in more flavors.

The best hotel/B&B/commune EVER

So, sometimes you can just WIN using the internet. This was our little home while in Mexico City. The pictures pretty much tell it all.

Our dining room/kitchenette. The galley kitchen isn't pictured, but it has a sink, a single-eye stove, a microwave, a mini fridge, and a fully stocked cabinet of cookware, dishes, stemware, and utensils.

Living room. Off to the left, not pictured, is another floor-to-ceiling window. That opens. To a beautiful courtyard garden.

My room.

Inner balcony/patio, entered from the kitchen door.

The girls' room, off the balcony. They picked this room to save me because this room lets in a LOT of light all day long, but especially in the morning.

Our preferred dining area.

Yep, there's a good reason why we didn't want to leave our apartment!!!!! The owners decorated the apartment with a mix of antiques and modern furniture from all around the city. Our bathroom was completely tiled in soothing blue mosaics. Each morning, breakfast was laid out downstairs, including fresh-squeezed OJ and some thick/dark coffee. The other folks were international and charming (Nudists! Cute gay boys! Beautiful women!) and the hosts threw happy hour and family-style cooking parties almost every night. A most wonderful stay.

Party like a Mexican

This pole-boat ride was one of my favorite parts of the trip. We only did a short "cruise," but we could see how wonderful full-on, whole-day, or afternoon trips down and around the canals could be. The canals are all that are left of an old lake basin. They are very shallow, so all of the boats are propelled by one pole man, much like the biggest gondola EVER.

The (huge!) families looked so happy! Singing, dancing, laughing, eating.

Well, the non-tourists, anyway. There was one small, be-suited family (mom, dad, mid-twenties daughter) that looked like they were having a mildly distasteful time - Asian, naturally (while we're being completely racist).

We had a mariachi group play us a song and bought "chili" (it made the beers red! and salty. and hot.) beers from a boatman.

Even worth the hours of non-air-conditioned, noses-at-car-exhaust-level, bumper-to-bumper traffic we had to endure to get there :)