It’s been almost 2 years since I returned to the work force after staying at home with my kids for a few years. When I first went back to work, I took a temporary job in DC covering for a woman about to go out on maternity leave. I got up while it was still dark, put on dress clothes with sneakers, drove to the VRE train and rode for an hour and 15 minutes to L’Enfant Plaza. Then I hopped off, crossed the street and hopped on the metro. Then I hopped off at West Farragut and walked 3 blocks to my office, where I took off my sneakers and put on some heels. Then I did all that in reverse to get home again.

This was actually a step up from what I started – driving up 66 and just metroing up into DC. The train took a little longer, but it was worth it. I got to sit and relax, read a book, work a sudoku puzzle, read the paper.

Still… it was about an hour and forty minutes of commuting. It sucked. Almost 4 hours daily just getting to and from work.

So when I took a permanent position in the Falls Church area (merrifield, really) it was a big improvement.

I seem to recall from last year that the commute was easier in the summer. For some reason, after school gets out the roads clear up. Is it all those teachers who no longer are going to work? Is it because now parents don’t have to get out the door at a certain time to avoid buses, or drop kids off? I don’t know what the reason was, but I do remember it being easier. I keep waiting for it to start getting easier. Shorter. Zippier!

For some reason or another, I’ve begun to think wishfully about staying home with the kids. I don’t know why, but as they get older and “real school” looms on the horizon, I want to be home. Specifically, I want to be home when they get home. I don’t like the fact that they’re in preschool until 5-6ish each day, even though we all love our school. Even though they’re out on a HUGE playground, running around having a ball with their friends. Even though I know they like school, they are happy when they get picked up a little earlier on occasion. On days when they get picked up a little later than usual, and things in the evening are rushed with dinner, cleaning up, laundry, bathtime and bed with little playing time, they complain.

So for whatever reason, when I think about them in elementary school, the thought of extended day just really doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe it’s the fact that I was never in any sort of day care when I was growing up. Do I want to be there when they get home because my own mother was? I don’t know. Ethan is starting kindergarten in the fall. I don’t know about you, but that qualifies as “real school” to me. We are keeping him at his current school, in their private kindergarten, so I am not too anxious about this dream of staying home YET, but I have decided to try to pick them up earlier than we have been doing. I guess the thought is maybe if I can swing it, then maybe later on when they’re in “real school,” I could work it so I’m home from work in time for school ending. I don’t even know when school is out for the day, but regardless, I’ve been trying to get in early to work so I can leave early, and pick up the kids early. So far, “early” has only equaled picking them up at about 5pm. (IE: not very early, but it’s better than nothing.)

I keep waiting for the “easy summer” commute to start. Every monday I wonder if maybe NOW the traffic won’t feel like I’m sitting in a dentist’s chair just WAITING for the drilling to start. But every Monday it sucks ass. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting up earlier now, but it even seems like it’s worse than before.

Today it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to get from home to desk. Grrrrr.

So 2 years of doing this commute is making it really really old. It’s making the romantic visions of staying home seem even dreamier, and it’s also making me dream about moving. To a house in a nice neighborhood with a fenced in yard and beautiful mature trees and ample gardening space with friendly neighbors, excellent schools, and is equi-distant between mine and james’ places of work.

Sigh.

I hope the magical easy 15 minute summer commute starts on monday.

And I’d also like a pony.

James rented a bike in Moab one day and took the point and shoot camera with him.

This is my brother Joe, doing what I would call, “facing certain death”. Probably what he would call, “a total blast!”

All of the shots James took on the small camera are now on his flickr site.

Another shot, this one of my brother Larry and Joe, taken by Larry:

(look, there’s lonely mountain down there!)

Click for bigger version.

So, Sunday night I posted that I felt like I was going to be sick. My throat had that scratchy feeling that made a taunting sing songy bully voice in my head sing over and over, “You’re going to be siiiiiiick!”

And it was correct. Oh boy was it correct.

Monday morning.. I don’t remember the morning. I vaguely remembering saying something about not going to work to James. That’s it. I don’t remember James showering or getting dressed, or the kids running around or anything. I do remember the weird vivid fever dreams I had. I woke up to stillness all around me and that weird feeling you get when you wake up not knowing what time it is or what’s going on. I went back to sleep. Around 10am I dragged myself out of bed, left a message on my boss’ voicemail that I wouldn’t be in that day, did a shot of Dayquil, and got myself into a steaming hot bath hoping that would stop the fever-shivering. It did, but when I managed to drag my carcass out of it an hour later, the shivering came back. I stayed in bed all day, not really sleeping, more like drifting along on a cloud of feverish unconsciousness. I don’t like it there. I dreamed about my raspberry bushes taking over the entire yard. I dreamed about digging huge trenches around them, and putting in cement gardening blocks to try to contain their growth. I dreamed about other things too, but they’ve now faded from memory. Luckily, no nightmares. Fever nightmares are the worst. I vaguely grew aware of the time and the parched state of my throat, and so I made a white-knuckles on the bannister trip down the stairs to get a glass of water, and then back in bed I called James and asked if he could pick up the kids. He did, but warned me that I’d have to actually supervise them, and make sure they get dinner and jammies and get put into bed, because he had class that night. I had remembered, but wasn’t relishing the idea.

When they got home, Ethan and Jocelyn were so cute. They came over and asked me if I was feeling sick, and why and assured me that they’d take care of me. Ethan is especially cute when someone is sick. He gets the victim his warmest blankey, and even offers them his treasured Pookie bear. I let them watch TV all night, eat PBJs on the couch, got them both dressed in their jammies in the living room, and then packed them to bed one by one with (very short) stories. The really sucky part about being in bed all day with a fever is that late at night when the fever has finally broken and you’re exhausted and yet not really sleepy and the thought of going back to bed where you spent all day is depressing.

Tuesday was a little better. The fever abated with the help of the Dayquil, so that I actually ate food and ginger ale, but stayed pretty solidly on the couch for the duration of the day. I took the opportunity to catch up on Gilmore Girls. I watched a few of them last fall, but then got discouraged with the turn of events in Loralei’s love life and stopped watching them as the TiVo recorded them. I just let them build up, so now I’ve got about 10 episodes to watch. I like doing it that way better, because then I can watch a whole bunch in a row and get to where everything is better again (and I know they will be. I KNOW THEY WILL BE.)

I even managed to get up and make some dinner for everyone. I knew that today I’d be going in to work, but was still feeling pretty crummy.

And I must say, for being sick, it could have been much worse.. I could breath through my nose OK. My throat felt a little scratchy, but not like I was swallowing razor blades or anything. My symptoms all zeroed in on my nasal passages not actually part of my nose or throat. Right under my eyes and behind my nose, I felt like somehow, a deflated basketball had snuck in there and then inflated. I felt as if my brain was trying to ooze out my ears. My neck hurt like a mofo everytime I tried to turn my head. My head itself felt like it weighed 50 pounds and was impossible to hold up or move. My ears popped and crackled everything I even thought about swallowing or moving my jaw.

Tuesday night, I was feeling better (read: no fever), but as all the congestion in my sinus cavities started to finally loosen, I would cough up, what I described to James as, “bloody pieces of my brain.” It looked that way, and it felt that way, and since more dark green bloody spew the size of my top ring finger knuckle got spat out into the sink and shower this morning, I decided that even if I was feeling a bit better, I should probably seek professional assistance. I mean, if it IS my brain, I certainly don’t want to lose any MORE of it into the sink. I know though, that it’s not my brain, it’s nasty infected horribly compacted mucus that has set up it’s home in my sinuses (sinusi? sini?). However, it’s much more fun to point at the sink and exclaim, “MY BRAIN! THAT WAS THE PART THAT CONTROLLED MY ESP!”

Ahem. Sorry about that. I hope you weren’t eating or anything.

I got myself to a doctor this morning. I now have antibiotics, nasal spray, narcotic laced cough syrup for nighttime, and the label “sinus infection” to use on friends and colleagues in order to derive pity for my sad sorry state.

I just hope I stop horking up pieces of my brain.

In other not so good news, I’ve now used up all my sick time for the year and have started on vacation time. Yippee!

or at least better.

My back is A-OK, I must say. It’s not back to totally normal, but day to day activities are now able to take place without feeling like there’s a knuckle driving into my spine. I can’t just sit on our couch in the evenings though. Most nights I spend sitting on a stool, and for some reason sitting in my car gives me that knuckle in the spine feeling as well. It is getting much better though, and I was even able to sit on the couch last night for a whole 20 minutes! The arm pain was not nearly as well as I would have liked on MOnday, and so I did take Tuesday and Wednesday off to make sure that situation was totally under control. Sucks to be using this much sick time so early in the year, but I don’t think it was avoidable.

We do have some exciting news, we took advantage of me being unable to work by going car buying yesterday. We bought James a 2006 (so, used) Subaru Impreza WRX STI. (Read: super super sporty-fast-maniac-huge-spoiler-car) I did all of the legwork, which I kind of got a thrill out of doing and totally enjoyed, by calling around to all the dealers in a 250 mile radius to try to get the bottom line price. I managed to fanagle the price down while James sat looking out the window at his soon-to-be new car and drooling. I must say, it’s a very pretty car. So shiny! So fast! So pretty! I told him we should name it. He kind of laughed, and said he’s never named a new car before, so the rest of the day I kept dropping girl names.

“Don’t drive Miyoki through too many slushy puddles!” (she is a subaru, after all)
“Little Katelyn is soooooo pretty!” (I don’t actually like that one, because I think of a little toddler girl for some reason)
and finally, I’d open the garage door and call out, “Good night, Natasha!” before going to bed.

So yeah, congratulate James on his new baby, and condole with him on the departure of the very first car he ever bought, the ford contour SVT (it never had a name.)

Other names I can come up with (or came up with):

Shirozaki
Kirusawa
Miyzaki
Suzuki
Hiroshima
Natalie
Natasha
Katelyn
Mae
Totoro
The older sister in Totoro whose name I can’t remember
Mawazaki

Here’s the from it’s listing photo (ie: not a photo we took) It has silver wheels though instead of the gold (we made them switch them) Click to see a bigger version:

Anyway, it’s back to the grind now. Jocelyn’s birthday is on Saturday, we’re having a little party for her, and she has informed us that she wants THREE BALLOONS. Every time we ask her what she wants for her birthday, she says THREE BALLOONS!

So she’ll be (at least) getting 3 balloons on Saturday! Yesterday morning, she looked up at me and asked, “Am I three now?”

Not yet sweetie! Oh I wish it would be never! Ok.. maybe not really. But she was a baby such a short time ago. Sniff sniff!

more updates later. yeeee-haw, it’s good to be back!

still not updating.

getting more and more worried about my health. i’m unable to sit on my couch.

my arms hurt most of the day.

this sucks.

was going to go to work tomorrow. now not sure.

not sure if staying home will help either.

wah.

hi there.

i just want to say i haven’t forgotten you, internet. i was all excited to start posting again this week. however the grueling schedule of working day and night and even weekends and holidays (and birthdays, i’m 33 now) seemed to have taken a toll on my body. specifically, my back and my arms (carpel tunnel) are leading a revolt against me. chiropractic care and wrist braces are my weapons of choice.

as anyone who has ever felt the twinge of CT knows, the only real way to get rid of it is to stay away from a computer. i fudged at that earlier this week, but today i drew the line and took the day off. i’m not planning on working much tomorrow either. hopefully a good 4 days away from keyboards will be enough of a gesture for my arms to forgive me and come back to health. once theyre in the fold, maybe my back will follow suit.

anyway. long way to say, sorry, but i won’t be playing catchup like i said i would. sniff sniff.

someone remind me never to beat myself up like this for WORK again. so so so so not worth it. i’m in PAIN, internet, PAIN.

hopefully i’ll see y’all next monday.

bye.

I love playing sudoku. It started with the washington post express when I had a temp job working in DC. I’d get the express, skim through it, and do the puzzle on the train into town. When I stopped doing that, my habit tapered off a bit… ok, I stopped completely. but that has all changed now that I have sudoku on my phone. I always thought I could never do that, I always thought I HAD to have paper and pencil to do a puzzle, but no. The verizon sudoku program is a good one, and I will often carry my phone to bed with me to have one more go at the current puzzle (and maybe start another one) before calling it a night.

Lately, I’ve noticed that I do some weird things while I work out a puzzle. Sometimes, I’m concentrating and everything is clicking and there’s just nothing going on in my brain to distract me.

However other times, when I’ve run into a dead end, I start talking to myself. (Not out loud, becuase that would be crazy.) No, I talk to myself in my head. I tell myself that the 2 can’t go in that column, or I’ll make note of where the 9 is in that other cube, or I’ll just mumble stuff as I stare at the puzzle and try not to be too tempted by that “hint” button.

OK.. so while talking to myself in my head may not be crazy, I’ve noticed that.. well… ahem… sometimes it isn’t *my* voice that is talking to me. The first time it happened, it was a deep throaty man’s voice. and not any man’s voice… the voice had a jamaican accent. Maybe it’s just my own way of amusing myself (and it worked. I was amused.) but it *was* fun to hear, “Ya cyan’t put that 2 there, mon. Think, wooman! think!”

Then it wasn’t anything for a while. Just me. My own voice. Until recently, when I’ve been hearing a man’s scottish accent.

So, yeah, the jury’s still out on my mental stability. But when I’m stumped with the sudoku puzzle, it’s always nice to have someone talk to me about the validity of whether that 2 is eliminated or not. Especially in a sexy scottish accent.

– amy

Oh, my, it’s a 641 page publication! that includes 371 tables that had to be converted from excel into html and tailored to a fancy stylesheet! I crawled out from under the actual conversion, but now the QC is squishing me! help! help! send lots of diet coke and altoids raspberry sours so i can get this sucker turned in tomorrow!

unfortunately after it’s turned in, i’m sure my client’s QC will find more stuff and I’ll be working this weekend again (last weekend i spent at the office). But by Tuesday of next week, I’ll be having champagne to celebrate the final emergence (like a butterfly! a squished and bruised highly caffeinated butterfly!) of me from under this huginormorificentish pub!

– amy

But I thought I’d log in during the 15 minutes I’ve alloted myself to shove handfuls of food in my mouth so that I can keep plugging away to tell you these 2 things:

Thing 1:

You know that disgusting sound of food wafting over from a neighboring cube? It’s that sound of the food item being saucy, so you can hear that squishiness as the cubee stirs it slowly, mixing the tupperware’s contents about to disperse the heat that the office kitchen microwave graciously beamed straight into one spot. It’s that SQUISH-SQUISH of moisturey particles rubbing against each other and then letting go that makes my stomach turn and my nose wrinkle and most of all, makes me reach for my headphones so I don’t have to hear it.

You know that sound? I can’t STAND that sound.

Thing 2:

You know when you settle down in your cube with your styrofoam container of edible food-stuff brought up from the cafe in the lobby, and you open it and there you behold (and smell! don’t forget smell!) the delicious scent of chicken marsala sitting in a delectable sauce on top of a bed of fluffy, cooked-just-right rice with taste-bud-orgasm potatoes au gratin sitting to the side, and you put your fork in, and carefully mix some of the rice with some of the mouth watering mushroom sauce and a little bite of chicken, and you cah hear the sound of the creamy moist yummiliciousness as you combine the three and then bring them to your mouth to savor? You know that sound? The one that is in all other respect, identical to the OTHER sound?

I LOVE that sound.

Back to deadline-ulcer-inducing work stress,

amy