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It's fall here, and it actually feels like fall. The sunsets are all honey and amber. The leaves are damp and heavy on the ground. The air smells of fire and dew. I can't believe it's been two months now since Noah was born. It actually feels more like an eternity. I can't really remember what it was like not to have him, just the vague memory of a time when I could do pretty much anything at anytime with no set plans, even not come home , if I wanted. I probably should have taken more advantage of it. But I don't mind it. He's my bud. He really is the cutest baby ever. Just check out my faceb0ok album if you don't believe me. I'm excited for the time when I can read books to him and he'll actually understand me. For when he can talk, and crawl.
Living back at home again. It has advantages: no bills, help with the baby almost every evening, never ending baby advice. But I definitely feel the need for my own space, for a routine and a lifestyle I can make and call my own.
And now, all of the sudden, I really want a career. Not just a job, not just benefits and a salary (which I do desperately need), but a career. Something with job satisfaction, promotion potential, co-workers, and an office softball team (I've never played softball in my life). Sure, I still wouldn't want to settle for a cubicle job, a coffee machine in the break room and the relief of the 5 0'clock bell, but I'd like to believe (and actually am starting to harbor the distinct possibility) that there is something better to be had. Something better that I could have.

I really love my garden. I think plants are pretty amazing. I mean, take a couple of dried up corn kernals, put them into the dirt, add water. Voila, magically, a few weeks later there are wiast high or chin high rippled grass stalks adorning your formerly barren patch of dirt, seemingly out of nowhere. And in a few more weeks, they’re growing cobs of corn you can actually eat. Most plants require very little maintenance. The cucumbers and squash seem to thrive on little more than the rain and a few good thoughts I push in their direction. Why can’t life be more like that? Stand in the shower, think good thoughts about the job and the life that you want, and voila in a couple of weeks it shows up on your doorstep. Like it was sitting on the porch the whole time, just waiting for you.
I have read books that claim that this is the case. I have yet to see it really work, without some work and effort on your part.
A seed contains within itself everything it needs to grow and produce and be fruitful, minus some water and basic nutrients that are generally readily available. They’re programmed to grow.
I guess we’re supposed to be the same way. We have everything inside of us that we need to succeed. Right? Where is it that we start floundering? Plants don’t need money and big screen tvs, they don’t need friends, except the bees, they don’t need cool clothes and jobs. A raspberry knows it’s a raspberry. A pepper plant knows it’s a pepper plant and that hence it’s supposed to produce peppers. And it will, left entirely to it’s own devices. When we’re left to our own devices we seem to stagnate. We lack direction.
Water and good intentions alone don’t make us successful. Maybe they do for some people? I’ve heard it said that the right attitude can accomplish anything, that a positive outlook will bring success to you. Still it seems like the only thing humans are really programmed to so is want.

So I had my second sewing class this week. I’m paying $150 to basically teach myself to sew. The instructor is this older New Yorker woman with a prety heavy NY accent and dyed red hair blowdried out to about a 4 inch circumference around her head. She used to be a designer. She teaches all the sewing and design courses at the visual arts center. Which is a shame. I’m sure she’s a very nice person and a talented seamstress, she just can’t teach. She has the verbal ADD. I don’t think she finished a single sentence in the 2 and a half hour class. She’d say things like “ great, ok, so look at this fabric, I got his from a clearance when I was in New York – anyway- it was on sale – I haven’t made any – I was planning on making a - well – some kind – of – anyway – this is the type of fabric we’re gonna use for this proj – but be careful cause the thing you really don’t want to do is – oh look, this is the ruler I was telling you about before – I couldn’t find it but”

And I’m thinking, - wait! What is it that we really don’t want to do ? go back! Sometimes she goes off on tangents, sometimes about sewing, but since none of us in the class have any idea how to sew we never know what she’s talking about, sowe just sit there on our metal stools and stare at her, waiting for some kind of cue that she’s going to go back to something relevant that we need to know. This past week we got our fabric and started pinning and cutting our patterns. The girl across the table from my sister and I was looking sympathetic. Occassionally we would motuh to one another “do you know what she’s talking about?” … “No”. Eventually Clare and I decided to just start working on ours and figure out as we went. I guess there’s something to be said for learning to teach yourself. In the meantime after the teacher finished cutting out the first part of her own garment, another girl in the class who had bought a different pattern from everyone else, asked for her help and the instructor ended up spending the next hour figuring out the girl’s patter and helping her get it all setup. Talk about monopolization, Finally, it occurred to her to ask if anyone else had any questions. When Clare and I said that we sis, she went right back to what she was doing for aboutanother 15 minutes before responding. The rest of the class was trying to figure out how to lay out their material and get started, when there were only two tables for 9 people and the teacher and the monopoly girl were taking up one whole table. In the end for the 2.5 hour class Clare and I together managed to cut out half of one pattern. The teacher told us to get everything cut and pinned at home for next week. I’m not really sure what the point of the class is. I guess just the moral support from your peers, and the motivation of the $150 non-refundable, non-transferrable fee.

Venting

Paula, my friendly cubicle co-worker, is getting crazier by the day. She said herself just yesterday that she might be getting 'the dementia'. At least her epic three week long phone battle with Hawaiian Airlines over her incorrect frequent flyer miles seems to have been resolved, or at least given up on. So, now we've moved on to the hourly updates on her apparent menopause symptoms. Mainly she whines about them to Flo, who is a remarkably good sport about it. But she has to stand up and lean over the cubicle wall, hands on hips, and talk really really loudly, so that everyone around has to hear about her hot flashes, hunger pains, and sudden memory loss, amongst other things. She asks at least 5 times a day if there isn't some drugs the dcotor could give her. In fact, yesterday she spent a good 15 minutes on the phone with some clinic trying to convince them she was in real need of medication.

She's also been regaling me mercilessly with cat stories. I guess she plays hide and seek with the one cat, now that the other cat is dead. She also enjoys telling me stories of how she stereotypes people at her security check job at King's Dominion theme park. Although, she claims it's also largely her special 'sixth sense'.

Right now, she's making sure she isn't required to help the woman she's on the phone with, cause the woman is asking for info about a county park. She is very pleased to discover that it's not in her job brief that she has to help her or give her any info, even though it would be simple enough to do. This has freed her up to go back into a description of her sleep problems. It must be real tiring to be a hypochondriac.

Yesterday she poked her head up over the cubicle wall and asked very suspiciously if I had seen anyone poking around her desk when she wasn't there. Of course, I said no. On account of I haven't. Most people here wouldn't be caught dead in there. She asked if I was sure, because somehow her timesheet keeps disappearing from the folder she thinks she's been saving it to on the computer. This is the third time I've talked her thru how to find it and save it to the desktop.

I'm really not a judgemental, impatient person, like I'm sure this blog makes me look, but somedays having that incredibly loud, uneducated, red neck voice in my ear for 8 hours really starts to grate on my nerves. I don't even know what to say to most of it, just smile and nod and hope for an incoming call. I've honestly never seen someone work so hard at finding ways to not help people.

She's getting paranoid. She claims she's having memory loss, and she just can't handle dealing with people, and she's having hot flashes. When Flo suggested she try some natural herbal supplements she scoffed and said no way, she doesn't need to get cancer.

Oh, god. Now she's looking at me. Now she's popping over the cubicle wall to interrogate me about my lamaze class, and 'when is you gonna hae dis child.' I really wish I could tape some of the things she says and play them on here, just so you all could share in the experience.

One of these days she's going to be standing in the lunch room staring at you with those dull eyes and giant gums and suddenly sway forward and attack you with a plastic knife, and try really hard to do some damage while you just stand there and ask her what the hell she's doing. Just wait for it.

Pass the rolls, and the porn

I don’t remember how the conversation got started, but it was somewhere between passing the rolls and passing the omega-3 infused light margarine. Somehow the subject of soft core porn versus hard core porn was on the table. My mom felt that hard core porn wasn’t really attractive or a turn on. My brother-in-law to be, Anthony, felt that soft core porn was pointless. Tori, my little sister’s friend who’s been living with us for about a year, observed that this conversation would never happen in a million years at her family’s dinner table. My mom’s husband just laughed at the whole thing. It moved on from there to the ever interesting subject of whether or not all guys would universally give themselves oral sex if they were physically capable of doing so. Anthony felt that it would be kind of gross. Everybody else felt that guys will be guys, and they’d totally do it. This channeled us to a more general discussion of fellatio which even my younger sister, Clare, gave some input on.
It’s never a dull moment at our house.
For Anthony’s birthday yesterday we went out to the Olive Garden for dinner. It always amazes me how that restaurant is so big and always mostly full, even on a Monday night. Especially since I don’t think it’s all that good. My mom and her husband came, Clare and Anthony of course, my brother-in-law, Izzet, (my sister Jami is away at Yoga camp in Yogaville, VA), myself, and we even invited Randy (estranged boyfriend who now wants to settle down and be a family). It was one of those dinners where there are 3 or 4 conversations going on at once and never one unifying one that everyone is involved in. But inevitably someone isn’t being talked to. But it was alright. Poor Anthony even had to endure being sung at by a chorus of olive garden staff. I think we ate our weight in breadsticks.
After dinner Randy and I went to the mall to walk around (this is supposed to help bring on labor and get the baby in the right position). We walked at the mall because it was late, but also still really humid and about 90 out. We encountered an entire subculture of mall walkers. I wanted to ask one of the larger groups if we could join in with them. They were older and all kind of egg shaped, wearing brigth white sneakers, pumping their arms and rolling their hips, probably discussing retirement savings plans and golf carts. But they were pretty fast, I think they got a little irritated when they lapped us and had to try to get around us, walking at our leisurely pace – amateurs.
Randy and I made the usual small talk for a while. I know we have serious and unpleasant stuff to discuss, but neither of us is ever ready to be the one to broach the subject, so instead we talk about what’s going on in the family, and at work, and what good restaurants we’ve eaten at lately. Finally I broke the ice and said we should talk about the serious stuff. But that just led to some pouting on his part and some arguing. I came damn close to leaving his butt at the mall with the barracuda mall walkers.
It’s really hard to know if I’m doing the right thing. I can see how the people around me think that starting a relationship back up with him is a bad idea. He hasn’t shown a lot of compatibility with me in the past 2 years, and walking out on the whole pregnancy bit doesn’t score in the plus column either. And ultimately I think I may end up wanting someone I have a little more in common with, who can be the decision maker and who I can learn from, and they can learn from me and we make each other better, and more well rounded. But on the other hand, growing up in a broken home I can also see the value of providing a normal family life and the value of a partner who may not be perfect, cause no one is, but who is at least there and supportive. But there is a whole wide world out there.

Other than that I’ve just been working and gardening. We have serrano peppers and lemon cucumbers and bell peppers now. The tomatoes and tomatillos are starting to ripen, and the corn has tassles. We even have a couple baby watermelons. It’s very exciting. The two sunflowers that survived have reached epic proportions. The larger of the two is gargantuan, like Jack and the bean stalk. It’s taller than me, with leaves bigger than my head and a stalk about 3 inches in diameter. The runner beans are also very good producers, but the damned Japanese beetles are eating all the leaves.
Now that Clare’s friend Tori has actually been at the house for a length of time we’ve also been having rounds of late night card tournaments and cookie baking, which has been really fun.

The Final Countdown

I am really tired today. i got no sleep last night between visions of my sister in wedding dresses (i've spent about 4 + hours watching her try on wedding dresses, not to mention countless hours looking at her picks from magazines and the internet), and the baby doing somekind of jazzercise routine.

I was falling asleep at my desk by 2 pm, and after work I have to go to my other job and teach a class at the Red Cross. Then I get to get up tomorrow and do it all over again. At least the day job. This will be my final Red Cross class for a while. I have to say I'm a little bit glad. It's fun at first, but after teaching the same 8 hour class for a year, it's a drudge. Especially when you end up with a classroom full of people who, despite being there to learn how to help an ill or injured person and potentially save someone's life, couldn't be less interested if they tried. The very first question I always get is "Will this really take 8 hours? or is there the possibility of getting out early?" Tonight, though, I am teaching a 4 hour review class, so hopefully the people will be a little more lively. It's also alittle disconcerting to teach this 8 hour class, where you hands-on practice pretty much everything and watch videos and read about how to do it, because at the end we pass out surveys. There is a series of questions on the survey about whether or not you would now feel comfortable responding to an emergency, or recognizing an emergency, or if you feel prepared for an emergency situation, or how likely you would be to step and respond in an emergency situation like you learned about in the class. You rate your level on a scale of 1-6. Half or more circle 3 or 4 or below. Some people circle "not likely" or the equivalent. It makes me wonder why I wasted time teaching these skills to people who will still leave the class and be the kind of people who sit there in a restaurant and watch the person next to them choke to death. Or stand around and oogle the scene of a car accident and do nothing to help.

I was thinking about getting emt certified. The local firehouse is so desperate for volunteers they train you to do emt and firefighter certifications free. But I volunteered with an emt unit for a couple nights last year, and I wasn't real impressed. Also, I'm not sure how that will fit in with the whole baby thing, and the engineering night classes I'm supposed to be taking at the local community college. I'm also starting a five week sewing class tomorrow night. I'm excited to learn a real life, practical skill. Something where I can use my hands to create an actual output. I'll be crushed if I suck at it.

We may go camping this weekend, about a half hour drive from our house. My sister and her fiancee bought a bunch of cheap used camping equipment they want to test out, and I think a little "stay-cation" would be good for all parties involved.

I've also run out of reading material for work, so today I ordered a couple of $3 used books. "Hell's Angels" by Hunter S Thompson , and "The Best of Abbie Hoffman" by Abbie Hoffman. They better be good. The shipping and handling cost more than the books.

While I was on half.com on a whim I looked up used Raffi cd's. Remember Raffi? 'Down by the bay.....', the "you brush your teeth, ch ch ch ch, ch ch ch ch" song. Yeah, sweet nostalgia. I never thought twice about it as a kid of course, but now that I see the cd covers, he's kinda creepy. What was that slightly older Canadian Pee Wee Herman looking dude doing dedicating his life to wearing primary-colored jump suits and caps and singing "six little ducks" ? It's just a little strange.

Not your mother's wedding vows

Alright, after a leisurely weekend, back to the grindstone. I had another routine dr's appt today. My ex-boyfriend has been e-mailing me, he's changed his mind, and now wants to really be involved, apparently. So I made him cut his hair, sign up for Daddy bootcamp and get a couple days off for my last 2 Lamaze classes, and told him he could have one more chance. (I know, I am weak). So he came to my dr's appt today. I thought it would just be the routine weight and belly measurements, blood pressure, and ask me how I'm doing. But I guess now that I'm within 4 weeks I have to get the exam every week now. Great first activity to attend with your estranged boyfriend. I made him stand in the corner and stare at the wall, which he was only too happy to do.

So, the baby's head is all the way down there, and I'm dialated 1 cm (I know you wanted to know that, but I'm excited). This doesn't really mean anything, except that things are progressing well. It could still be tomorrow or 4 weeks from now. But I'm counting on sooner rather than later. Then I showed the man where the labor and delivery wing was and we oogled the newborns in the nursery window. S O C U T E. So beautiful and wonderful and cute that you can barely stand it. Except their little plastic clipped umbilical cords, which look like some kind of alien apparatus, or something from the Matrix. But the rest of the cuteness eclipses this.

I also went wedding dress shopping with my little sis this weekend. She wanted to check out the David's Bridal $99 sale. They haven't set a date yet, and she wants to make her own dress anyway, but who doesn't want to try on a bunch of wedding dresses and get waited on? I am not a sentimental person, but seeing her up there on the pedestal in the mirrors, decked out in a veil and elegant wedding gown, it made me sniffle a little. She looked so grown up. I thought about trying to make the "dress associates" seek out some "maternity" dresses for me to try on, just for the hell of it, and to see the stares of all the other cutomers, but decided against it.

I have to admit that even I think about my ideal wedding sometimes, my dress, cake, flowers, guest list. But the thought of marriage is enough to dissuade me. I really do equate it to the death of a relationship. I may have something of a skewed perspective because half of my uncles, my parents, and both sets of grandparents have been divorced at least once. And my mom is a social worker, and my dad is a divorce attorney. It's possible.

But I hear horror stories (and see them). My dad likes to tell the story of a couple who came to him for a divorce. They'd been together just shy of 15 years, had kids together, been living together, happy as clams. They finally decided to take the plung, tie the knot, make it official.

6 months later they were in for a divore, at each other's throat, and in the middle of a custody battle. Something about that piece of paper just changes people. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's the evil influence of the ring... Maybe people just start to feel trapped. Or maybe they (men particularly) just think it means it's the end and they can stop trying. Maybe it's just that try as you might, once you're husband and wife expectations just change. I partially blame sitcoms. How many of those stupid, damned shows have the stay at home, beautiful, obliging wife, and generally absent kids, and the overweight, underacheiving, ungrateful "man's man" husband, who's always trying to put one over on her? But they always make up in the end. Maybe people feel like they have to fall into those roles. My Mom just got remarried last year. She says you have to know someone at least 2 years before you can possibly know them well enough to marry them. She and her husband dated for 2 years prior to marriage. Now (largely because of a very stressful house-building venture, resulting legal woes and financial stress) they are at each other's throats a lot. She says it's like he took a stupid pill when they got married. He just stopped registering what she says, or remembering things that he knew about her before. That he just doesn't pay attention.

I'm certainly not trying to discourage anyone here, or dissuade them from marital bliss. Reportedly, it works for some people. I've even heard rumors of people who've been happily married for 50 years. Hard to fathom, I know. I have even on occassion seen couples who look like something out of a toothpaste commercial and get along like best friends, and go together like fric and frac. Of course, I also sometimes hear about them not working out in the end.

What does marriage even mean nowadays? Legal right to your spouse's property and insurance benefits. That's about it. Is the potential ruin of your long term relationship worth it? Sure you get the party, and the honeymoon, the wedding and the presents, the glow. But that all wears off. All that's left is a sense of smugness that you've snagged somebody permanently, and that you're somehow more legitimate now, that people look at you with more respect.

I'd rather be looked down on and happy.

Tell me a good marriage story, just one. It would cheer me up.

Do I need to bring my own nails?

So, maybe I am just losing my customer service patience, but I'm really starting to get annoyed with some of these people.

Again, I work at the Virginia State Park reservations line. I am not one stop shopping for any and all questions you have. One woman called me up yesterday, she wanted to stay somewhere in the vicinity of Lake Anna. I asked, "Do you mean Lake Anna State Park?"

"Sure" she says.

Well, she didn't want to camp, and there were no cabins left available for this weekend (aka today). So then she wanted me to book her a hotel. I explained I only work for the state parks ( for the third time) but generously offered to google some hotels in the area. Before I even got halfway through doing that she was off on another tangent, and wanted to know about every lake in the state that has swimming. When I explained again that I only work for the State Parks she asked if I could give her the number there. "The number where?" I ask. "To the state parks." she says.

Seriously? Are you even listening to me? So I painstakingly go thru all of the state parks and which offer lake swimming and where they are, and when I finally find a cabin available for her, she doesn't want to go. She says it must not be a very nice park if it still has space available.

It makes me think of those V8 commercials where the non-vegetable eaters get bonked on the head. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with her.

Or when people call to make a reservation and I ask "For what days?"

And all I get is this: "Uuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Like I just asked an SAT question or something.

Or sometimes they just flat out say, "I don't know." Well, then how am I supposed to help you? Why did you call to make a reservation? How did you think that was gonna work? Or they'll say "Sometime in August" or "Either this weekend or next weekend." Hey, it's your reservation, you tell me when you're gonna go.

My favorite was this very nice guy who called to pay for his reservation. He'd made the res last week and was just calling back to pay for it. When I gave him his res number he asked "Uh, and what do I need this for?" and I explained - checking in, changing or cancelling your reservation, for your records etc.

Then he asks me "So, what should I bring?"

I was taken a little off guard. I guess I paused too long because he started to back pedal.

"Um, I mean, I have -like- a tent." Oh good, that's a start.

"But is there anything, like, inparticular I should bring?" Many things spring to mind - food, clothes, water, personal hygeine products.

I say "Ummm."

"I mean, do I need to bring my own nails? Or will they sell them there?"

"Sir, what do you need nails for?"

"Well, my friend told me they have tent pads there made out of wood. So I was wondering if I need to bring my own nails, you know to nail the tent onto the pad."

Seriously?