Practically Summer

So it was a downright balmy 51 degrees here in our lovely nation’s capitol today, and if I were a better person I probably would’ve gone for a run or some other “New Year, New You” activity but instead I crawled back in bed and slept for three glorious hours. During the school year I don’t sleep past 8am on any given day as I take Leila to school on my days off and the days when I work a later shift. Normally I would have at least one day a week when I could sleep in and catch up on sleep but those days have disappeared now that Christmas break is over.  I am also the worst nap-taker in the world–I cannot seem to fall asleep completely and my stomach will tighten into anxious knots. But as I had only been awake for the hour and a half it took me to ready Leila for school, take her to school, and get home, after I read Dame Agatha’s gentle storytelling for a bit I passed right out. And it felt AWESOME. When I woke up, rumpled but rested, the sun was out and I saw my neighbors out in the parking lot in their tee shirts. This was perhaps a little overoptimistic on their parts but putting on a light jacket instead of my (extremely adorable but frankly I’m tired of it) red winter coat cheered me immensely.

In two weeks I’m visiting David and I’m THRILLED that he is having a warm SoCal winter and it should be around 74 degrees every day that I am there. God bless Irvine. I think it will help to bring me out of the winter blues that have been flying around my head for these past few weeks. (I’m lying. Months? Yeah, probably months.)  Five days of sunshine with the man I love? Better than Prozac. (Well, for me. Since Prozac turned me into some sort of psychotic zombie. Hint: don’t treat a bipolar chick with antidepressants alone.)

In summary: beautiful day, vacation soon, and I’M BACK.

For Your Viewing Pleasure…

Leila is really buying into the whole Christmas Creep thing…we bought this tee shirt before Halloween.

 

It got cold really quickly this year, with hardly any in-between days! (Yes, she is posing in front of my ironing board. She was whining about being too hot and I had to snap this picture FAST. She’ll never be a supermodel, posing for hours on end without complaint.)

Me: “If you want to sit on the couch and watch TV, you have to pick up your toys.”

(five minutes of silence, I walk around the corner to see this:)

Me: “I thought you were picking up your toys! What is this mess?!”

Leila: “I’m PLAYING.”

Well, of course. Playing always requires a headdress to rival the queen’s and a mess to rival something on Clean House.

(I could not figure out how to post these pictures and had to edit this post eight hundred times.)

Bullet Point Thursday, Edition the First

• Yesterday all the traffic lights in Montgomery County were broken. I often read on the bus in the evening, and while Leila was with me, she was asleep, so I didn’t notice anything was wrong for a bit. Then it took us a half an hour to get to Medical Center Station, which is the first metro station on my way home (we hit Medical Center and Bethesda, then I get off right before Silver Spring) — I buried myself in my book so that the time would go by faster, and the next thing I knew we were at a standstill, caught between Bethesda and Silver Spring, not moving for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes is a long time in traffic years. It’s not as if the bus is a comfortable place to be stuck. This morning due to further problems Leila was fifteen minutes late to school, which was the cause of much sobbing and dramatics. As I ran into the office, windswept and out of breath, another mother was at my heels with HER tearful child. At least my child isn’t the only drama queen this side of the Potomac.
• I love the Anita Blake books.  I also hate them. They’re like brain candy–they taste good, but they’re bad for you. It has honestly devolved into erotica at this point, which is awesome if that’s what you’re after, but I’m not in need of erotica. I want to read about the vampires, the monsters, Anita’s feelings on turning into a monster, her conflict over being a necromancer, and Richard’s struggle to become the Ulfric his pack needs. My inner nerd (Um, who am I kidding with this inner nerd shit? My nerd self, period) is very into vampires and werewolves and the horror genre. The first eight or so books are freaking awesome, and then suddenly there’s so much sex that I only read half the book because I start skipping the pages. I only need Micah to tell Anita that she’s his Nimir-Raj once per book, thanks. And I like the characters, too, but they get virtually no development besides telling us how hot they all are. Also, LKH, you might have a thing for long hair and big, erm, appendages, but not all of your readers do. Can you mix it up a little? And the dropped storylines, my God, woman, who is your editor? You should punch them. In fact, I’ll do it for you.
• Um, I had more. I had multiple bullet points, I swear to you. It really does seems stupid to only have two bullet points,  but I guess that’s what I have for you. At least you get a post?

Stay-cation

I’m off work (!!!) for five (!!!) days while David is in town (!!!) and I am sitting on the couch while David, J, and Amanda teach Leila how to play Sorry. I was not aware that David has a latent competitive streak which might come of growing up with two brothers, and he is matched by Amanda’s wicked, pouty, aggressive brand of “I ARE THE WINNAR,” — so naturally he is enjoying beating her ass. He also just “sorry’d” my five year old kid. I anxiously await his white-boy victory dance.

We normally spend these stay-cations running around the DC area at the frantic pace of PCP-fueled lab rats, but this time we haven’t done much of anything except for eat ourselves into oblivion. Yesterday we ate a boat of sushi and three appetizers while initiating my coworker Ashley–it was her very first time eating any sushi besides California Rolls. (Which I HATE.) She discovered that she does not like tuna, though she ate an admirable amount of everything else. Tonight we gorged on Mexican, and this morning we tried donuts at The Fractured Prune. (I had a rolo donut. It was food-gasmic.) We also shopped yesterday, buying epic amounts of candy at Marshalls. (Protip: Don’t buy things that contain nuts at discount emporiums like Marshalls. The nuts in everything I bought are ever so slightly off.) (But I got the biggest Toblerone I have ever seen.)

This is probably my last vacation for a bit as Holiday is approaching quickly–it’s pretty much all downhill after October begins–and since I work in retail I will be busy dealing with crazed customers and stressed associates. One last hurrah and I won’t see David until after Christmas. Sometimes during Holiday Amanda and I don’t see each other for weeks with our weird hours. (And yes, by the way, if you worked in retail it would be Holiday with an upper-case H, too.)

Leila just won! I won last night. Obviously it’s in the genes.

In Which I am So Dorky It Hurts…

Our short break is over, and…(Okay. It wasn’t that short. I’m sorry.)

(Why does Rachel Zoe say “lit-rally” every five seconds? Is she unfamiliar with the actual definition/pronunciation?)

Yesterday I dorked out. Now, I say this as if it is something that doesn’t happen very often, but actually I am a huge nerd. I mock David and his WoW-playing but then I sit online all day and read blogs and belong to a message board — the very one where I met David — and I read Laurell K. Hamilton books (everyone at work makes fun of me. Not for the books themselves, but for the reading.) and various other nerdy things.

But! Yesterday was absolutely the dorkiest I’ve ever been. And this is coming from the girl who met not one but TWO significant others online. What happened to bring out my most socially awkward, nerdtastic self? Y’all. I met Amalah. I’ve been reading her blog since…2005? Maybe before? And due to the intimate (somewhat falsely intimate, but still intimate) nature of blogging, I feel like I know a lot about her. So of course I went awkward and stalker-y instead of “I’m such a fan!” which is what I should have said. But of course, what is life without a shit-ton of “shouldas” — you know? But she was COMPLETELY sweet and cute, and her husband? Super adorable. And also tall.

When I was done blushing (my face was BRIGHT red. My associates were like, “Um, Jackie? Are you okay? You look like you’re going to pass out.” See? Dorky?) I immediately twittered. Because I needed to complete the dorky trifecta–a) meeting blogger and acting like she’s the president b)calling my boyfriend and squeeing–loudly–over said meeting and c)twittering incoherently about it.

Amy? I’m sorry I acted like a stalker. I swear I’m not going to hunt you down in the middle of the night. I was just really, really excited, and what I meant to say was: Thanks for sharing your life with us. And you looked WAY too cute for someone with two kids. Jeez. How do you get ready with them clinging to your legs? I can barely do it, and I only have one.

Whoa. Senior moments, so soon?

I came home, exhausted, dragging Leila with one hand and groceries in the other. I took out the trash, unloaded the groceries, and changed into jammies.  Stared at the fridge. Sighed. Decided to make my favorite late-night dinner: deli ham and mustard on Hawaiian King sweet rolls. Three is a perfect number for the little snackwiches. God, you know you’re tired when making a sandwich with three ingredients seems like too much work. The rolls are hard–I keep them in the fridge because everything molds in the summer–and so I cut them in half and open the microwave.

Where a carton of butter pecan ice cream sits, completely melted.

I can only guess that in my half-dead state Friday night, after indulging in a massive bowl of ice cream atop a Mrs. Field’s cookie (what, jeans? My ass is growing? I can’t imagine why.) I put the ice cream in the microwave instead of the freezer… I had to text my brother, the man who once stuck our remote control in the fridge and then, with growing puzzlement, helped us search the entire living room for it. Obviously it’s genetic.

Random Fashion Rant

Fashionistas: you are on notice. This gawdawful Oliver-Twist-meets-Nirvana style hell that is going on right now MUST STOP. Your scuffed granny boots with stirrup pants and OhMyHeavens, are they truly SELLING a flannel shirt TUNIC at Urban Outfitters?–ladies! That is not cute! You do not look pretty! And for the love of GOD eat a sandwich and apply your eyeliner correctly!

Early to bed, early to rise.

Went to bad crazy early last night, got up crazy early this morning. Might be having a slight nervous breakdown. Be back tomorrow.

Coming of Age

Y’all, I saw it this morning, as I was applying eyeshadow. I had my hair pulled straight back from my face (too hot and humid for bangs) and I was carefully sweeping on eyeshadow (you must be careful when applying crazy colors. Such as green. I love being a fair-skinned redhead–I can rock me some zany eyeshadow) when I saw it. A wrinkle. Not just any wrinkle–I have plenty of small ones peppering my face–but a deep, pronounced wrinkle, a half-inch below my widow’s peak. A wrinkle from SQUINTING and making jillions of crazy faces over the last 27 years. A wrinkle that screamed: “Jackie! You are getting old! You should probably marry that man who puts up with you and have another baby rightquick before you turn into one of those mothers everyone judges because they are waaaaaaaaay too old to have small children! YOU’RE GETTING OOOOOOOOOLD!”

And then I locked myself in the bathroom and refused to come out.

Barely Conscious

RAWR. I probably take a nap once every three weeks. My phone sometimes goes the entire day only ringing twice, once in the morning when David calls on his way to work, and once at night when he calls on his way home from work. But somehow every telemarketer, coworker, or friend seems to SENSE that I am napping that one time every three weeks, and calls for no reason whatsoever, or for me to repeat some instructions that they really should’ve remembered. (For instance: please pick up Leila’s immunization records. Like I asked you to two weeks ago. At the same doctor she’s been going to for five years. Not that I am naming any names, there, FI, but really, could you not remember which doctor it is when I just repeated all of these things to you yesterday?)

I do not wake up prettily. I have some crazy reaction when the phone wakes me up–as if it must be someone calling with bad news.  So when I am jerked away from my nap by that shrill ringtone, I am not likely to be happy. In fact, I am likely to become a grumpy bitch.

And now you know what kind of mood I am in.