as we drive off to someplace cheap and amazing

maura @ 4:41 pm

People are probably wondering how we made out during the transit strike. We were okay! Thanks for asking. With Jonathan working at home all the time and me part of the time, that part of our lives wasn’t affected very much. But we do take Gus to school on the subway (usually) or bus (less often). It’s only about a 30 minute walk to his school, but it’s uphill on the way home, and even though he’s still a peanut he is heavy to push in the stroller. Plus, he was very very very sad to not be able to ride the trains for THREE WHOLE DAYS. We had to sit in the station and watch lots of trains going by on the day the strike ended, just to make up for lost time.

Luckily Santa brought him a couple new Thomas trains, just like he demanded, as well as a subway ornament from the Transit Museum store. Merry Christmas every one!

As for me, Santa brought me a cool new bag (in bright lime green), some good books, and some fancy shoes, among other things. Actually the fancy shoes are stressing me out. I love love love them, but they are ever so slightly too big, and the place they’re ordered from doesn’t have them in one size smaller. And I can’t find them anywhere else online (damn you, Google!). So I’m not quite sure what to do with them. Suggestions are welcome! I’ll keep you posted.

I have this whole week off from work and I’m having that thing where I’m wanting to luxuriate in the free time, just roll around in it and feel its silky smoothness on my skin, BUT (everyone I know has a big butt) there is so much I could be doing (and, the evil part of my brain says, SHOULD be doing) that I’m kind of at wits end just thinking about it. Jonathan’s mom + stepdad are here for the next coupla days, so at least the Gus-load will be light. And we get a date! Yes indeedy, a date. That is, as long as Jonathan can get over the stomach flu that’s been dogging him for a few days (and fingers crossed that no one else in this house gets it, dammit).

I have things to do — leave me alone!

all the little things you do will end up coming back to you

maura @ 1:48 pm

What I’d really like to be doing right now is curling up on the sofa with a blanket, a nice book (fiction), a nice cup of tea (mint), and a nice CD on the machine (Cocteau Twins: Treasure). But the holidays are coming, so I’m on a small nutritional pit stop (i.e. eating lunch at the computer) before I throw myself back into this day of accomplishment. Errands! Presents! Baking! Cleaning! Kill me now!

We are having sort of a Santa issue here. This is the first year that Gus really seems tuned in to the whole presents thing, and ever since his birthday he’s been running around like a right little greedy first world child asserting that for Christmas he wants “all of the Thomas trains that I don’t have.”* Then at some point the Santa** factor was introduced, and Jonathan explained to him that he needed to write a note to Santa specifying what he wants for Xmas. Well, now apparently Santa is to be expected to get him $500 of Thomas trains. Argh. Of course we (and most of our family, too, I think) are already finished shopping for him, and have not gotten him any Thomas trains (Come ON! He got 3 for his birthday, and is slated to get at least 2 more for Xmas!). But now I’m thinking that the trust in the Santa concept will be broken if he doesn’t get at least ONE thing on his “list”. So I guess we will be buying one more gift, after all.

* Sadly, this is fully our fault since we neglected to take the product insert (with ALL the Thomas products on it) that came in the trains he got for his birthday away from him, and now he calls it his “map” and carries it everywhere.

** I’m sort of ambivalent about Santa, having been raised in a non-believer household. My mom didn’t want to lie to us, so we always knew that Santa is a fake. But I don’t feel deprived, or anything (people always look at me like I’m some sort of FREAK when I reveal this). If anything (and esp. now, as a parent) I can totally understand and respect where my mom was coming from. Anyway, I’m fine with it, but admittedly it does make me somewhat less sympathetic to the whole Santa playacting thing.

Ack, I’m too busy to be writing this, leave me alone!

you can sing most anything

maura @ 10:02 pm

Internet should be free everywhere. I’m sitting in a Starbucks right now* waiting to meet Jonathan for an appt with our will lawyer, and I’ve run out of things to say in my journal.** I do, however, have a ton of email to answer, plus would love to read the Times. But no free internet for me here, not even after buying a $2.50 bottle of OJ. Poor, deprived me.

* Of course, by the time you read this I will no longer be sitting in the Starbucks, I’ll be home and copying and pasting this into my blog. Who knows when that will be, it could even be tomorrow! Hellooooooo from the past!!!

** Here’s the other annoying thing: I have a constant stream of narrative running through my head at ALL down times: on the subway, walking down the street, waiting in line, etc. But when I have a laptop and some time to get it down, where does it go? Poof, right outta my head. Duh.

Hey, I’m out of books to read! What should I read? Just finished Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott, which I love love loved, even though she is a Christian and I am not. And I’m still waiting for Collapse to come back in for me at the library. And I’m actually caught up on New Yorkers. Help me, easy readers!

Tomorrow is Gus’ birthday. It is completely blowing my mind that I will soon have a FOUR (4!) yr old. Four! This week he read his first word (kinda). Okay, okay, it was a good setup: he + Jonathan were shopping for a bike pump, and there was Finding Nemo bike basket there. Gus picked up the basket and said “N-E-M-O. Nemo!” Kinda cheating because there was a picture of Nemo right there, but kinda reading too!

Gotta go to the lawyer, adios!