peaceful early summer

Today with the babies was invigorating; Christopher the Drool-King exudes an aura of calm, so that even when he is not calm himself (such as when you abruptly put him down to take care of something else) he is so ridiculously relaxing to be around that I love working in the infant room. This child climbs into my lap at any given opportunity, usually accompanied by a self-launch at my face to wrap his arms around my neck and make happy baby noises. Today he topped off the gesture by fitting my whole chin into his mouth; I assume this was meant to be a kiss.

So freaking cute. I can't stand it.

I also caught up on bills today and rediscovered my kitchen table. The dishes are washed as well, so now I can sit back and thoroughly enjoy the evening at my leisure.

I bought The Master Butcher's Singing Club by Louise Erdrich at a discount at Barnes and Noble yesterday (what better way to spend part of a holiday than by browsing through my favorite place on earth) and I've already begun to read it -- a record for me, shameless purchaser of books which then accumulate dust on the shelf (but at least I own them). It's so good to be able to read again; the past few months have been full of planning, packing, moving, unpacking, and worrying when I wasn't doing anything else. So now, with no real worries that merit attention, I can once again take up my favorite hobby: Reading my eyes fuzzy.

Oh, haha, and a particularly boring individual at church (dubbed Chris with a House by Marianne et moi, because when we first met him and couldn't remember his name the fact that he owned a house was the only thing we knew about him), who has used every Sunday to wait doggedly by my shoulder until courtesy requires me to turn to him and ask about his week, where he then launches into a monotone tirade about how awful his job is and all the problems with his house and how much his week sucked, received a comeuppance a couple of weeks ago. I interrupted him mid-"I hate my boss" to say pointedly (though with a smile), "You know, it would be REALLY nice to hear 'My week was great and I'm doing well' from you sometime." --At which he sheepishly kept complaining.

The following week I determined to be outright rude to him; NEVER hearing a positive thing from his mouth had made me really angry with him -- I barely know this guy, why on earth would he pour out all his woes on my shoulder? What do I care? Besides which, QUIT WHINING and make the best out of your life that you can (BE A MAN) -- but he wasn't there, so I was saved from myself.

However, this past Sunday he was present, so I chatted animatedly to everyone else and didn't speak to him; after the service he came up and tapped my elbow and BECKONED me aside (I almost called him on it -- no one beckons me to do anything -- but decided I had been rude enough already), so I followed him out of everyone else's earshot with a momentary horror that he was going to ask me out, when he said, "Thanks for a couple of weeks ago."

"Oh?" I said, quickly switching gears to feigned innocence. "What was a couple of weeks ago?"

"A wake-up call you gave me."

"Oh," I said, really surprised, and so dropping the pretense. "So...you've had a good week?"

"A great one," he said. "Things at work are going much better."

"Well...good. That's -- that's really good to hear!"

The conversation didn't go on much longer than that. Apparently I can pleasantly tolerate his presence from now on. And once again, I speak the truth not in love and some poor dope eats it out of my hand and thanks me for it.

I've gotta quit doing that. Although, must admit, it will be nice not to hear a string of complaints when I ask about his week anymore. Maybe if I learn to be blunt with love instead of irritation at heart...

But we can't hope for too much at once.

not-so-lazy sunday

I plan to split this day between rest and work. Rest, of course, comes first. Hence blogging.

I am currently enjoying a Cherry Coke, one of my rare indulgences in soda (or "pop," as I can once again call it, since no one in the Midwest has heard of soda -- take that, all of my non-Western-PA friends). The mood for said pop arose with another phenomenon unique (as far as I can tell) to the Midwest, which I must extol here: Nelson's Port-a-Pit Chicken.

Our church had a huge tent sale yesterday (and lest you think it was a sale at which people purchased tents, I will specify by saying it was a garage sale that took place under a tent) and the college ministry (my Sunday School) sold Nelson's Port-a-Pit Chicken as a fundraiser. I skipped out on the entire deal yesterday, preferring to stay at home, but helped sell the leftovers after church today.

Manager-and-friend Ashleigh told me about Nelson's months ago, so I've been looking forward to the advent of summer to experience this palatable treasure. I'm not sure how everything works exactly, but the idea is that you rent a Nelson's truck which contains barrels of chicken halves soaking in some kind of marinade, then you barbecue it in a white sauce and sell it. I took one of the leftover boxes home today and devoured half of it standing in the kitchen. It is fabulously good.

And of course one cannot have barbecued chicken without sodapop.

Ashleigh's good-bye party went well. I had the best margarita of my life at the Hacienda (this is the correct spelling; I was too lazy to correct it in my previous post) and met several of her good friends, who are loud, wild and fun.

Smoking Neighbor Ted is still alive (last week for a few days the stairwell between our apartments smelled funny and the smoke stopped, so I called my dad to ask how dead people smell, just in case; but then Smoking Neighbor Ted seemed to start showering again -- the odor was mainly that of Unwashed Aging Male -- and the smoke kicked back in, so he is apparently, if not alive and well, at least alive). He seems to be the kind of irritating person who posts notes from "The Management" on the door to the stairs leading up to our apartments, saying things like "This door is to be kept closed and locked at all times" and advertising to the world that Bell 2A is for Sarah.

Sarah is going to type up a revised version of the note from "The Management" changing her name to something gender neutral. I know that the landlord didn't write the note from "The Management" for two reasons: 1.) because the note appeared on Saturday morning, and when I called the landlord on Saturday afternoon to ask advice regarding the REALLY loud music of the other downstairs neighbor (who works nights and whom I've never actually met, but who apparently likes easy listening nature albums and the "Grease" soundtrack, all loud enough to shake my dishes) and learned that he was in Chicago for the weekend and 2.) because the handwriting of the note matched the handwriting on Smoking Neighbor Ted's mailbox.

Thank God for at least one good neighbor -- Colette.

testing, testing...1 2 3...

I don't know if anyone will be able to read this or not; no computer I've tried in the past few days can access my poor blog, but we'll see if publishing a new post will help anything.

Life is delightful right now; I'm really settling into my job and now that I have the whole weekend off I can devote time to cleaning up the apartment. This morning I slept in and took my time getting about the day, so currently I'm still unshowered and luxuriating in not having to be anywhere till this evening. (Manager-and-friend Ashleigh's Marines unit has been activated, so she's having a good-bye get-together at the Hacienca tonight.)

I'm developing some new friendships, which is wonderful, and next weekend I get to journey home to witness the marriage of Eric and Kristin. It's going to be great.

And since I don't know if anyone will be able to read this, I'll end here.

Monday exhaustion

Pretty bad when you wake up tired, but that's Monday, I guess.

Also pretty bad when you know the parents of the children whom it is your job to watch and teach haven't been putting their children to bed at all over the weekend, so Mondays are needlessly emotional with tired kids.

However, I prayed a lot more than usual today and got through it much better than I otherwise would have.

I have discovered a new love: avocados. This would be thanks to MP, who would occasionally salt one and have it for dinner. I followed suit tonight. Aldi (some things never change) has avocados for 79 cents in Indiana, and I take advantage of that whenever I can. I've been having tacos the past few days (Okay, so I'm not eating the same meal for a week anymore, but honestly, what is one girl trying to lose weight to do with an entire pound of ground beef?) and chopping a bit of avocado on top seals the tastefulicious deal.

Most of the boxes are cleared out of the living room by now, and many of the ones in my bedroom as well. This weekend I have THE ENTIRE WEEKEND OFF and I intend to spend it as I spent yesterday: sleeping and cleaning. As soon as everything is put in order, I'm going to paint my apartment. Sage green and taupe in the bedroom, sage green and white in the bathroom, avocado green in the kitchen, and ___________ in the living room (this one I still haven't figured out). Naturally I love green. This should be fun; a facet of home improvement that I've never tried before.

All right, I'm tired, so I'm going to pop in Monsters, Inc. -- the movie I watch to relax.

i'm back!

At last, at long long last...

So much for a cleaner apartment.

Georges is going to Lebanon for the summer to learn Arabic, but has said he would e-mail, which gave me the final push to get on the phone with tech support and figure the darn thing out. I'm giving myself clever points for calling them on a Sunday, since my groundline phone won't work and I can only use my cell, so that today's phone call to SBC was free.

Today was the first day off I've had since I moved, and I spent it emptying boxes in my bedroom and napping. There's still something magical about a nap when you're exhausted. It's discouraging sometimes how quickly a carefully maintained sleep schedule goes to pot -- a week ago I was well-rested, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; due to three nights of later-than-usual bedtimes I am suddenly worn to a frazzle and barely able to keep walking around at my second job. So this day off, and this magical nap, were just what the body needed.

I am so glad to have the Internet back.

i would have internet at home but...

...I'm lazy.

Tonight's project is setting up the SBC package that I picked up at the UPS station yesterday. Last night I was too darn tired.

Georges stopped by to return a movie that I had lent him and to spoil me with another half gallon of ice cream. (I do love being spoiled.) He sat down among the wreckage of books in my living room and we hung out for awhile. I had wanted to get to bed early, but I suppose social interaction has its advantages too. :) (MP was yelling at me the other day for not hanging out with anyone. At this point I've been so busy and exhausted settling in and working that I haven't felt up to it; but now that's ending and it's nice to talk to people.)

I skipped church last Sunday (bad me), but today got an e-mail from one of the Sunday School folks checking up on me. I love my church.

the drought has almost ended

I'm supposed to get internet at the apartment tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

Garbage bags and duct tape have indeed done (most of) the trick. Thanks, Josh. I shall be applying your other hints at first opportunity, but for now my apartment, although decidedly stuffier, no longer smells like a casino. It's an old house, with transom (sp?) windows that I think I can reopen, if I can get the paint off the hooks and bars that would hold them up, which would increase air circulation.

I think I have a new friend, the girl from the couple downstairs which is no longer the couple downstairs. She is residing alone now, and so we hung out the other night and had a good time and have set up a time to go to the local fresh produce market on Saturday morning. She's frank and nice and down-to-earth and funny and sensible -- all good qualities in an acquaintance, and very good qualities in a friend. She'll probably be staying here through the summer till she can find something smaller, so it's nice to know there's a nearby door I can knock on when I feel like a chat.

Here's hoping that when I start my computer tomorrow, the DSL network light will be on.

i can't live without the internet

This is killing me, Smalls.

Okay, brief update:

You know you have a great job when you can interchange your work clothes and your pajamas.

If I could be any Greek god, right now it would be Morpheus, because being the god of sleep and dreams would make naptime so much easier.

I'm settling into my life and my apartment. (Well, the apartment already felt like home, so now it's just a matter of organizing and cleaning up the boxes.) My only (and big) complaint about my new abode: The guy across the hall smokes heavily. Cigarette smoke seeps under my front door and pours through the vents in the evening, now that the heat is turned off. Help! How do I fix this? This morning I woke up feeling like I spent the night in a bar, and I hadn't even left my apartment. I refuse to allow my furniture, books, and clothes to smell disgusting just because my neighbor has a bad habit.

My favorite TV show ever (well, besides a few others like Star Trek: The Next Generation/Deep Space Nine, Will and Grace, and Dark Angel) just came out on DVD: The Pretender. It's taken them forever to come out with it. So last night I bought it and am in 90s TV drama heaven.

and all shall be well...

The move went amazingly well, due in large part to how hard I worked moving nearly everything that I could carry myself beforehand, due in almost as large a part to how hard my parents worked to move all the rest and clean the apartment (my mom is the cleaning queen, the old apartment looked fabulous when we left), and due also to the large pickup truck and the five wonderful church people who came to move the heavy furniture. That part -- the moving of Heavy Things -- took only an hour and a half on Saturday afternoon.

Mom and Dad left last night, which was hard, but I didn't spend the night in tears as I had expected, and I woke up eager to walk into my kitchen and savor the quietness of an old neighborhood and an old house.

So everything is going well.

W. Tim didn't come to the move, but not because he didn't offer. Unfortunately for him, by the time he called to tell me he was lost getting to my old place, everything was already moved into the new place and there was nothing for him to help with. So I sent the poor guy back home with thanks for making the effort.

See kids, the thing is, I don't date as a way to get to know people. I don't think that that form of dating is wrong; it just doesn't mesh well with my personality. I recognize that this means I am pretty much screwed at least for the next few years, but I have plans to be really involved with church and community as a way to meet people who like to do things to help others. I have always found dates to be painfully awkward, so I'd better find some activities where I would have to get to know people, so that any dating that takes place won't be with a total stranger.

The other thing is, I don't want particularly to be friends with W. Tim. So I don't want to call him. I don't expect him to call me either, unless he wants to, which he doesn't seem to. Everything he says to me is carefully noncommittal, so he can take his uncertainty and his control and make up his mind elsewhere. Frankly, I find him attractive but I'm not sure there's much personality there. He doesn't read. He's "smooth," which I've always mistrusted (I'll take blunt and down-to-earth and honest, thank you), and there's very little for us to talk about.

So as far as I'm concerned he's no longer an element in my life.

And I'm going to go, as I'm using the internet at work!