29June
2005
maura @ 10:41 pm
Phew, just barely coming up for air here before we jet off to the great Midwest for our 5 leisurely days with the grandparents, woo hoo! Things have been a mite crazy-busy recently, I’ve had lots of work, Jonathan’s had lots of work, and of course Gus is off school all this week. He and I have been seriously head-butting too, which doesn’t make anything easier. We are so similar, so stubborn, it’s a bit scary at times.
But never fear, for tomorrow we hit the promised land! Gus never wants a thing to do with us when the grandparents are around to attend to his every preschooler whim. Playdoh on the porch! Endless hours spraying everything with the garden hose! No pants ever! So we lounge, read, sleep, occasionally take a field trip to the playground or supermarket. It’s just lovely. I have FOUR books in the suitcase right now, AND my journal.
And, since that hotel date was so successful a few weeks ago, we think we’re going to try an overnight in Chicago while we’re out that way. I have been seriously suffering from the Chicago nostalgia recently. I read this, which I REALLY loved (even though it’s an Oprah book, o, the shame!), and of course reading Mimi Smartypants gets all the Chicago up in me, too. Our college friends we’ll be staying with told us that Demon Dogs, our favorite hot dog place (conveniently located under the El tracks), has closed, though, so who knows where we’ll eat. At least we can still have breakfast at Ann Sather. And I have this weird desire to see Millennium Park, does that make me completely uncool? Of course, if it’s 90 million degrees out we will not be spending any time outside, so I guess we need a plan B. Any ideas?
So, finishing the abovementioned book has put me in a bit of a fiction depression. I’d been on a serious, hardcore non-fiction jag, really for a few years now. But that book was so good, so dreamy, romantic, but not sappy, with all those tasty Chicago tidbits… Finishing it has left a big hole in my literary life. I know not what to read, I’m interested in nothing beyond reading MORE stuff EXACTLY like that. Sigh. Made an emergency run to the library last night to grab a few new books, so hopefully one of those will grab me. And if any of my 4 readers have any books they’re loving, let me know!
22June
2005
maura @ 10:05 pm
What a difference 13 days make! I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that my wounds are nearly completely healed now, with the exception of my knee. Of course I reopened that puppy by banging into the coffee table tonight while I was “playing” Mousetrap* with Gus. Duh for me. On the bright side, the face wounds have healed scab-free and are completely makeupable. If I’m wearing pants, no one even has to know how much of an idiot I am!
* “playing” Mousetrap with Gus involves setting up the whole trap mechanism and having him trap mice, in this case the red + yellow mice, repeatedly. No actual turns are taken, no actual game is played. It’s mind-numbing, but in a fairly inoffensive way.
So I’ve been meaning to expound on Anne’s comment from last week that the found stroller is cursed. You know, I think she may be onto something! Since I found that stroller we have been sick and sick. AND, last week my computer’s hard drive crapped out! Luckily I live in Nerd House, where there are 3 other computers to choose from, though I miss mine, a lampy iMac. Since then I’ve been on a PC where things are uglier. I’m so sorry for your ugliness, dear PC-users.
At first I thought the curse was an unhealthy curse. I found that stroller on the way home from the gym, and all the illness + injury has kept me from going to the gym much. But then the busted computer, I don’t know how that fits in. I mean, it is 3 yrs old, though I must admit I’ve never had a hard drive die on me. Anne, any ideas?
My friend S said, “are you going to get rid of that stroller?” and Jonathan was like, “no, we cannot, I LOVE it.” So there you go.
And in the making lemonade department, we used the computer fixit shop errand as an excuse to have lunch at Shake Shack, where we’ve been wanting to go forever. Gus ate his weight (about 28 lbs.) in cheeseburger, fries and chocolate milkshake, which astonished us. And it was yuuuuuuuuuummy.
And in other weekend news, my mom came up for a sleepover with Gus, and we hightailed it way across the river for a hotel date night. We stayed here, ate here, saw this and drank this (little cans! bendy straws! so festive!) staring out the window of our room. The next morning we slept til almost 8:30am! Such is the childfree life. Of course, we had to run back to Brooklyn quick because we missed that kid so much, but what are you going to do.
15June
2005
maura @ 11:19 pm
Gentle readers, have you been waiting with baited breath, wondering how my owies are doing? You have? So sweet of you. Why yes, I’d love to share the gory details, thanks for asking!
(If you were here I’d show you the wounds, but you’re not and the camera is all the way in the other room, and my knee hurts, dammit!)
We’re now on day 6 post-idiotic-falling-while-running-accident, and I’m pleased to say that nearly all of my wounds have stopped oozing. Yippee! A glaring exception is my knee, which is still in pretty bad shape. But this morning Gus said, “Mommy, your face looks better!” He then proceeded to kiss my eyebrows (sort of his security blanket, my eyebrows), so I know he means it.
One thing about injuries, they provide a fantastic vocabulary-boosting opportunity. Did you know that the yellowish-white goo that oozes from an abrasion is called exudate? Did you? Well, now you do.
I ointmented and bandaged myself up on Monday and hobbled into work (damn those 50+ subway stairs), where I was instantly mortified by everyone’s sympathy (yes, I am an idiot, please don’t remind me!). BUT, I’d completely forgotten that one of my coworkers is a bicycle racer, and thus knows a thing or two about road rash. He had some great tips, chief among them this new, cool, cling-wrap-esque bandage that’s actually letting me bend my knee without excruciating pain. Thanks, Xavier!
However, my face, while mostly non-oozy (save for a tiny spot on the bridge of my nose), is still a sight. I now have 3 big and 2 tiny red patches where the ooze used to be. Luckily I can cover them with makeup now, since they’ve dried out (and luckily I still have some coverup from last year’s forehead carcinoma removal, the first of what I’m sure will be many forays into the land of skin cancer). But vanity, thy name is ME, ooh boy. If the carcinoma is any indication, these owies will fade to lovely pale white spots, paler than the rest of my skin. Thanks, Celtic heritage, for giving me that easy-to-scar skin. Off to the pub to drown my sorrows in a pint.
Or not really. Really I am drinking a glass of wine and wondering why I am still awake at 11:05pm. It’s Gus’ fault — he didn’t conk out til after 9:30 tonight, and I gots stuff to do, blogs to read, PTA tshirts to coordinate. Plus, after 11 days of evil heat (ending with a few days of the mid-90s, a temperature that I believe should NEVER be reached at this latitude), it’s a breezy and fabulous 70-ish degrees today. The house is airing out, and the piles of laundry I couldn’t stand to do in our apartment without an outdoor-vented dryer are all lined up for tomorrow morning. All is right with the world.
I suspect Gus, at 3 1/2, may finally be ready to give up his nap. The problem is that he goes to school every day and they nap there. So we have no control over it, really. I guess we’ll just move the bedtime stuff back a bit to accommodate his wakefulness. Drag, though, as that shrinks the evening grownup time evermore. Maybe we can get him to play quietly by himself while we check email. HA hahahahaha! I’m so funny.
11June
2005
maura @ 11:50 am
No Poconos for us, no nature, no getting out of the hot hot city. Woke up this morning and though my face has scabbed over nicely (if there even is such a thing) my knee is still oozy and swollen, and has produced in me a fetching limp. Man, this sucks. Plus, every part of me that hit the pavement (nose, lip, chin, shoulder, elbow and esp. knee) still hurts. Owie owie owie.
So now we’re stuck here all weekend. Jonathan’s taken Gus to the playground this morning, and hopefully by the afternoon I’ll feel okay enough that we can all do something together.
Mostly I just still feel like a huge, total, complete loser. I dread going into the office on Monday, and having to explain the face carnage. Maybe I should start making up stories now. Barfight! Mugging! Chainsaw accident! Sandpaper mishap! Nah, none is as lame and painful as the actual truth.
Mope, mope, mope.
10June
2005
maura @ 9:37 pm
I did a hugely stupid thing today: while running to get the bus (wearing slip-on shoes and dragging the folded umbrella stroller beside me, duh) I tripped and did a giant face plant right on the sidewalk. My hands are abraded, my arm has a few scrapes, my knee is angry red hamburger, and my nose + mouth area looks like I got into a fight with sandpaper (and lost). Sigh. What a klutz am I. A friend/neighbor even walked by when I was sitting there on the ground, cleaning myself up with wipes. O, the embarrassment.
Then I had to surrender the day and sit at home with ice on my face + knee, ditching Gus pickup (Jonathan did it, I didn’t just leave him at school forever!) and our afternoon playdate, too. Sigh. I think I have the beginnings of a black eye, too. Gus said, “Mommy, your face is yucky. If I had those owies I would cry. I do NOT want to have those owies. No no no.” Thanks, kid. Luckily he followed it up with an offer of a hug to make me feel better.
And then he insisted that I paint the the toenails of my right foot with his blue nail polish (I’d already done the left foot yesterday). Yes, I recently purchased my son his first makeup: a bottle each of blue and pink nail polish. A little (boy) friend of his at school’s had toenail polish on recently, and Gus has been mighty envious. Of course, he is completely deprived in the makeup department, since I don’t really wear any (except face powder, which he occasionally asks to use and applies with a completely straight, serious face. It slays me.). So I bought him some nail polish. He’s been carrying the bottles around ever since, proclaiming his love for them. He prefers the blue, because it’s his favorite color, but pink is his second favorite.
Meanwhile, I am remembering from high school that, man, I hate nail polish. As my friend IMed me this morning, makes me feel like my nails can’t breathe. I’ve consented to do the feet but there is no way he’s getting that on my fingers, no way in hell.
Between the wretched heat (in the upper 80s with matching humidity here all damn week), some general grumpiness and today’s sidewalk mishap, it occurs to me that this has been a pretty crappy week. EXCEPT for the most excellent new Ivy CD, which Jonathan gifted me for my bday last week and which I really, really love. There are a few tracks that are kind of eh, but the good ones are really, really good. Of course I am doing that thing with music that I seem to not be able to stop doing lately, which is listen to it over and over and over again. Then stop, and move on to a different CD. Obsessive, much?
That’s pretty much it from my world. Tomorrow we are supposed to go to the Poconos with some friends/neighbors for fun + nature, but I might have to call it off if my face hasn’t improved. Drag, too, as I speedy-ordered a new bathing suit for river swimming, having been possessed by sudden and insane vanity this week. Which of course is probably why I did the face plant. See, it all makes sense now!
3June
2005
maura @ 12:41 pm
Ooh, I have a whole hour between now and when I need to pick up Gus from school, yay for free time! (And look, I’m getting a handle on that OCD thing by NOT cleaning the bathroom right now, even though it really needs it. Go me!)
Since our last chat, we’ve all been sick here. AGAIN. Last week Gus had an ear infection (Tu), double pinkeye* (Th) and strep throat (Sa) [AGAIN]. I did feel pretty bad for the poor kid — much of the time he just wanted to sit on my lap and watch videos, which he never does normally so he must’ve been feeling pretty bad. Then Jonathan got sick, some sort of strep-like bacterial throat thing, so now I am the only person in the house NOT on antibiotics (though I have a sore throat, too, but it hasn’t gotten worse than that). And of course now Jonathan has a cold. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: kids are germy.
* and here I would just like to point out that if you can love your kid when they have evil caterpillars of chartreuse (“a color that I have not seen”) goop coming out of the corners of their eyes, you pass the parenting test.
What was a huge drag about the sick thing was that my mom had come up over the weekend to have a sleepover with Gus, and Jonathan + I were going to have a hotel date (the first time we’d have ever been away from Gus overnight). But then he got sick, so those plans were scuttled. Instead we went out to dinner in Manhattan, which was a very decent alternative. We narrowly got a table at Prune, a new (to us, but really 3 yrs old I think?) place in the East Village. And it ROCKED. ComPLETEly lived up to our expectations. We had cocktails (Pimm’s Cup! I am so girly!) and sweetbreads (deep fried!) and suckling pig with garlic mayo and cornmeal poundcake with strawberries and braised lettuce, peas and artichokes in butter sauce. Yum yum yummy yum. And my new favorite summer wine ever, Ca’ del Solo’s Big House Pink. I’m going to make my neighbors go in on a case of it with us so we can make it our sandbox + baby pool wine this year.
Non sequitur of the post: someone at work got the new Pipas CD (yay iTunes shared library!). Thank you, baba alligator, whoever you are!
Man, am I actually out of things to say? How can that be? What can I talk about? How I read Unconditional Parenting again and it really has made a huge impact, yet even so Gus stuck an index card + a toy coin into the VCR last night, [temporarily, thankfully] busting it? I really want to get the apt. painted but I am too stingy to pay someone and Jonathan is too realistic about our moods to not pay someone? How I am already so very looking forward to our 4th of July visit to J’s parents in Indiana (Gus usually wants nothing to do with us there so we have lots of free time: last year I RAN OUT of books to read!)? How Jonathan’s been pretty busy with work lately so hasn’t had time to work on a new design for this, and I really should make one my damn self? How long my to do list is? Uh oh, I’m starting to freak the OCD again, I should go and load the dishwasher. Later.
19May
2005
maura @ 8:42 pm
So Jonathan is freelancing for an old boss of his right now, and she’s one of those enviable (to me at least) people who only needs to sleep about 5 hrs a night. Five hours! I’m a true 8 hr kinda gal, and though I can survive on 7 I usually will be tired + cranky by nighttime (like now!) and every few weeks will have to crash with Gus at 9pm and sleep straight through til morning. But if I could only sleep 5 hrs, or even 6, how cool would that be? Very cool, is how.
I could use the found time to do things I don’t have time to do now, not just boring cleaning or chores, but stuff I’d love to do more of like writing, making stuff, etc. I mean, it’s been a long time since I was spraypaint-stenciling tshirts with a weird logo I created called anal babies (high school), or making mixtapes for anyone and everyone (college + beyond), but lately I’ve been having a creative itch and it would be nice to get scratching. Writing in my journal just isn’t doing it (or here, apparently, since I can’t ever seem to get around to it).
And speaking of being late to the party, on heavy rotation at maurawebFM these days are: Pipas, Aislers Set, Sleater-Kinney (yeah, better late than never), and the wonderful Wednesdays at WFMU. AND my birthday’s coming up, which means that the new Ivy record will soon be mine, bwahahahaha. Almost makes up for the fact that, once again I realized too late that a band I like is playing in town (in this case, Pipas + the Lucksmiths at the beginning of the month). Sigh. Live music is just too hard when you need 8 hrs of sleep a night (and don’t have a babysitter).
Here’s a complete non-sequitur: I have only just recently realized that I am actually pretty obsessive-compulsive. Not medicatably (is that a word?) OCD, but definitely it’s a syndrome or something. I’ll pause now so that the people who know me (and esp., god forbid, any ex-roommates) can laugh long and hard.
Why has it taken me so long to realize this about myself? I don’t know, except that my mom is pretty compulsive too (I mean, it had to come from somewhere, right?) so I maybe always just thought that clean + tidy was the way things were supposed to be? Anyway now that I’ve finally acknowledged it I’ve started to notice my other weird compulsions. How I can’t leave the house without making the bed. Or how agitated I am when the garbage or recycling needs to be taken out. And of course cleaning has always been an enjoyable pastime for me. I could never work (school work) with a dirty house, and it’s such a great way to procrastinate.
Anyway, I guess this is all part of the larger need for control, another facet of the Bossy McBessy that’s me. I’ve been trying to get a handle on the control stuff recently with Gus, who’s in major-rebellion mode lately and has been running away from me down the sidewalk, which is a bit scary to say the least. The theory is that if I try to control less of his life then he’ll balk less at the things that must be controlled. Or something. And surely he’ll grow out of it someday, right? I don’t know, he’s stubborn as a mule (and twice as ugly), just like his mama.
Only 2 more episodes of Lost, what will we do all summer? Cry over the giant disappontment that was Alias this season? Why no! Silly readers, we here in mauraweb will be catching up on Arrested Development, Veronica Mars, and Desperate Housewives, of course. All this TV, we might just have to get cable again.
11May
2005
maura @ 8:53 pm
Oh yes, April sure was full, and only sometimes with fun stuff. In brief (and in order):
– We visited my dad in VT
– I got a really heinous head cold
– Me + Jonathan did the dinner/silent auction fundraiser at Gus’ school, which raised a lot of dough (yay!)
– Gus got strep throat and was out of school for almost a week
– I got an AWFUL stomach flu (plus fever!) for 3 days. My mom came up to help and she + Jonathan insisted I go to to the ER, which was actually sort of a nice break from Gus, who’d been a bit feral
And that was that.
Now it’s May and things are better. Finally it’s mostly warm out — Gus and I hit the botanic gardens yesterday after school with our neighbors to play in the pink snow (what he calls the piles of fallen cherry blossoms) and smell the lilacs (purple smell better than white, says he [and I agree]). This weekend our whole building is having a stoop sale which makes me very happy: I get to get rid of our old stuff, make a few bucks, and hang out with the neighbors for a few hours, fun!
I also got four (4!) books out of the library last week, so the great nonfiction drought is over. Powered through the Mamaphonic book* and am really enjoying Unconditional Parenting a lot, much more than I expected, actually. Of course, the problem with any book espousing a parenting philosophy is that what sounds good on paper is often hard to put into practice in the field, when your 3.5 yr old is throwing his shoes down the hall steps rather than bringing them into the house, for example. But I’m game if he is.
*Man I am a SUCKA for the mothering essays. A stone cold sucka. Maybe it’s because they sustained me during that very tough first year with Gus, the no-sleeping-painful-breastfeeding-fussy-baby year. Maybe it’s because I worry that my brain is completely atrophying, and want to reassure myself that other moms feel this way too. Anyway, I at least have stopped buying them — they’re the ultimate literary candy for me and it’s just way more economical to get them from the library.
And anyway, it’s not totally Gus’ fault my brain is mushy. That started before he was born. I’d planned to tell you all about it, but Lost and Alias are almost finished taping and I have a date with 2 weeks worth of unfolded laundry, so I’ll catch you later.
8April
2005
maura @ 12:19 pm
1) Recently I realized that often when Jonathan or I have to go somewhere at night, we tell Gus we’re going to a meeting. This is often legitimate, like last night when I went to a PTA meeting (I’m way too involved in this fundraiser thing). But other times it’s basically a euphemism for whatever fun grownup thing we’re doing. “Bye, sweetie, Mommy’s going to a meeting. At the BAR down the street, with her FRIENDS, to do some DRINKING.”
2) A very, very, very weird (in a good way) thing happened to me yesterday. Last weekend we went to visit my dad, and we took the stroller (which was stupid in the first place since you drive everywhere in northern Vermont and the damn thing just sat in the trunk of the car all weekend long). And, of course , we forgot to pick it up at the gate at JFK when we got home, DUH. It was just a cheapo umbrella stroller, no great loss, but kind of a pain since Gus is not quite ready to walk everywhere yet. My friend has a stroller that I really like, a little nicer than our old one, so I found a store that carries them and was going to schlep there yesterday afternoon. Except that when I was walking home from the gym yesterday morning the most amazing thing happened. Right there on top of a pile of garbage across the street from our building, there was the EXACT stroller I’d been planning to buy, make, model, color, everything, and seemingly BRAND SPANKING NEW! I unfolded it and rolled it home, and it seems to be in perfect condition. Jonathan wiped the invisible garbage cooties off and confirmed that it seems to be completely brand new, maybe used once. What kind of karma have I accumulated that the perfect stroller just fell out of the sky into my hands? (I guess the kind that don’t mind bitching, because I’ve been complaining mightily about all my work schedule changes the past few weeks).
Now Jonathan and I are convinced that it’s probably possessed, like the numbers Hurley used to win the lottery on Lost. Or maybe it’s just that Lost has been so great recently we can hardly wait til next Wednesday. You make the call.
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