Grateful Thursday, early today

I'm starting this post early today, because I'm in a nice mood, feeling grateful and happy for a lot of things.

1) I'm very grateful that I bought the dress yesterday. I never splurge on things. Well, I take that back-- lately I've splurged on a few things. New perfume, a new purse, a new rain jacket. But those were things I needed and even my husband told me I needed to get. I'd been out of my perfume for a while, using the same purse for a year, and suffering at the cold, wet baseball games. The dress though, that is a splurge, and I didn't even ask permission. (When I say permission, I don't mean in a "it's his money and I'm just the wife so I have to ask permission to spend anything." I mean that we both ask permission of each other to spend anything over $20 or so on something that's not necessary. We never fight about money because we're so open about it, another thing for which I'm extremely grateful.) When I told him about the dress, all he said was he was excited to see me in it and that he knows I'll be beautiful. So of course I wasn't mad for long. It's not his fault he's a man and can't read my mind, I suppose.

2) Bub is ok, relatively. They said his knee felt a little better, but not as much as they had hoped, but he definitely isn't a surgery candidate. Their suggestions? Don't let him run or jump, but get him to lose weight. Thanks? So I starve him now? How else do you get a dog who can't run or jump or be active to lose weight. I've been researching diet dog foods. He's not that big, but he could stand to lose a few I guess. But I'm just glad he doesn't have to get cut open or put under again, and I'm thankful it was a relatively cheap visit, even if all they could tell me was he's fat and still not healed.

3) Purple. Yes, the color. It just makes me happy. I should wear more of it.

4) A pretty quiet week at the office. Five of my coworkers, including my boss, are gone to a convention, so I've actually gotten to leave at 5 pm every day this week, and I've caught up on a lot of work that's been sitting on the back-burner for a while.

5) My stomach is so much better. Thank goodness for Prilosec. After a totally sleepless night Monday and a painful day Tuesday, Tuesday night I ate a big plate of mashed potatoes right before bed (the best thing I could think of to keep the acid where it belonged), and I actually slept all night. Between that and the Prilosec, I've only had a couple pangs since then.

tempted

I got an email from Banana Republic this morning offering me 40% off any one regularly priced item, today only.

It's like torture, slow death-by-almost-affordable-fashion.

There's a dress over there I've had my eye on for a while, a pretty little wrap dress, simple, but could be worn pretty much all seasons (except maybe the hottest of hot), even in the winter with a turtleneck and tights. It's $100, which is more than I ever pay for most things because A) I'm cheap, and B) I'm tough on clothes. After the 40% off, once you add shipping and tax back in it's still more than I really want to pay. I mean it's just a wrap dress... a really cute wrap dress... in a really versatile shade of gray....

Bub is at the vet right now, getting his back leg checked again, after a week and a half of being on pain pills. They told us they may have to put him under to check the elasticity of his leg without him fighting them. It's 30 minutes til 5 pm, and I have heard nothing. I'm a nervous wreck because 1) I'm worried and want to know what's going on (freaking out a little, actually) and 2) how much is this going to cost us?

So I made a deal with myself that if his visit today isn't too expensive, and it turns out he doesn't need another $1000 surgery (yes, we've already had one of those, two years ago this month), then I'll get the dress. I do have until 11:59 pm eastern time tonight to press that Purchase button. But if he really needs the surgery, I'll forgo the dress. More comfortable in jeans anyway. I'll just keep telling myself that.

Edited to add:
I just bought it. And not because Bub's appointment happened to be under $80 or because they said he doesn't need surgery, but because my husband pissed me off by going to the baseball game without telling me or inviting me, leaving me to babysit our drunk, stumbling, whining dog myself all night. So there. I might order myself some dinner too.

weekend report

I hurt myself on Sunday. Internally, not externally. I've done this before; I don't know why I don't learn from my mistakes. But, lord, it hurts.

We had Indian food for dinner Sunday, and staring down into the chana masala, at the mostly-raw onions floating in the acidic tomato sauce, all I was thinking was how good it was going to taste. And the fried cauliflower with so much red pepper you could hardly see the vegetable through it? Yum. Course it's always good going down. Once it gets there, that's another story.

Last time this happened, fish tacos were the culprit. Lime juice mixed with essentially raw salsa made from onion, bell pepper, and hot peppers... it did me in. My chest burned for two weeks, at first constantly, and then every time I ate or was hungry, and then just when I was hungry, because I had learned to eat only crackers and milk by then. Back then, my mother had recently had her gall bladder removed due to stones, so when I went to the doctor, they thought I was having the same problem. After an ultrasound came back with no negative results, though, they sent me home with Prilosec and an order to eat only bland food. Thanks, I thought. At least it went away.

I'm just waiting for it to do the same thing this time. In the meantime, I'm sleeping in a sitting position on the couch, eating antacid like it's candy, and hoping to god it's not an ulcer and just simple gastritis. So it's plain macaroni and a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, possibly followed by a butter cookie.

At least I had a fun weekend. Friday was the John Mayer concert. He was funny and energetic and cute as a button. He's such a good lyricist, and there aren't many guitar players like him around anymore either. One of the few times he talked during the show (he gets himself in trouble talking, so I guess he's laying off) he told a story about a time he tried to take his dad to a Mets game but ended up getting a migraine with an aura. It's rare for men to get migraines, and it's even rarer for people with migraines to have an aura, so I felt a bit of kinship with him. People who know pain like that understand each other in ways no one else could. We survived Memphis and only got lost once, so that was a plus as well.

Saturday I spent with my parents, eating lunch and then visiting a couple antique malls including the one where they have their book booth. Dad's already up to $600 this month. He says he's getting tired of lugging boxes of books around, but he keeps doing it. We went to dinner with them that night as well, and then my mother, of all people, said she wanted a drink. I have seen my mother drink three times in my life, that night included. It was just one Amaretto Sour, but it was just so odd to hear her say she wanted one.

Sunday, we did absolutely nothing. We had planned on finishing the setup for our vegetable garden, including moving another truckload of dirt all the way to the back of my yard to fill in the second raised bed.

Unfortunately, we woke up to a deck full of snow. The snow was gone by 10 a.m., but the temperature never got above 43, so we stayed inside. We rented the second Twilight movie. Terrible. Even when I was a moody, depressed, hormone-ridden teenager I had better tastes in movies (and men) than that. At least the first one had action. This was just.... s l o w.

Here comes the pain again. Time to start eating my bland lunch, see if I can't get my stomach to stop trying to digest itself.

taste in words, and Grateful Thursday

Isn't it interesting how we all have preferences as to what we like to read and what we think makes "good" fiction?

That contest to which I entered my story-- they haven't picked the winners yet, but they've started to post stories they find particularly well written. So far, I'm not terribly impressed. A couple stories are good, obviously written by professionals, and one or two authors have caught my attention and made me want to read more of their work. But the problem is that most of them have a weird quirk about them, like the author is trying to be controversial or weird or just downright confusing. Just because the writing makes you go "huh?" or makes you cringe does not mean that it's interesting or groundbreaking. It may just mean it's confusing, poorly written, or in poor taste. I know I'm not the only one who must think this way, but apparently whoever is judging this competition disagrees with me.

If you could see me right now, you'd see me shrug my shoulders.

This has been a long week. Since Monday, other than hours spent sleeping, I have been at my house all of 6 hours. Monday was trivia night at a bar we frequent. We got all but one question right. The one we missed happened to be the last question, though, and we had bet it all because we were tied for first. How do I know which Presidents attended Harvard? Sheesh. Tuesday night I went to dinner with some work colleagues and out-of-town client guests. Last night was St. Patrick's, and being married to a man who loves to claim his Irish heritage, we went out for green beer and revelry. Well, no green beer, and no corn beef and cabbage (as he reminded me over and over as the night wore on and he had more and more Jamison and Harp). I went home about 8, but he was out til 11:30 with a couple friends until I ventured back into town, in my pjs, to pick him up. He was giggly-drunk, and I literally had to pull his shirt off him and push him into bed. No hangover though, he's truly blessed that way. He could black out and would wake up just peachy.

So today I'm grateful for a quiet night tonight. So quiet, in fact, that we're going to fill out our census papers. I'm also grateful for a night with just one friend tomorrow, at the John Mayer concert in Memphis, although I am a little nervous about being up there without a man to protect us. We'll probably park in the concert hall's parking garage and not venture downtown at all. And so far today I'm also grateful that I seem to be doing pretty well in my company's March Madness bracket. I picked my teams based on uniform color, as in, do I like red or green better? Red. I figure that's just about as scientific as anything anyone else does. If I win, I get about $75, which I will probably turn around and spend on a pizza party for the office, or something similar.

Also, lemon creme cookies. I really appreciate lemon creme cookies.

heavenly perdition

The heat, like controversy from centuries of hate rising from the ground, coils around all living things, snakelike, ethereal. Mossy trees hang low, moving slow in the oppressive air. Fat like beached whales, spongy and heavy with clammy skin, we stuff ourselves with all things fried, from pickles to defeated hopes. We've lost our way, but no worse than anyone else, no more blind-sided or false-prided than the others. Our children may struggle to speak, clamor to be heard by anyone, anyone who will listen and pick out the words from the slow slur, left behind in a system that promises the opposite, especially those deep in silty soil.

I rise above, I fall below. Born into it, I push against and swallow it whole, loving and hating it all at once, reveling in the history but denying the past. The struggle makes me tired, being tired makes me weak, and weakness makes me fail. I inhale the fumes of pepper and lard and smoke and slow, hard death. Panting, glistening, I wrap the mood around my bare, tan shoulders, draped like a flag, and carry on, raging against the stereotype I embody.

Does anyone hear me? This quiet girl from the South, this lone voice among wolves. I gave up on screaming a long time ago, on sarcasm more recently. People can choose not to hear me, choose to let my drawl slide in one ear and out the other, like music, like innocence, like ignorance. It doesn't bother me anymore; I am overlooked the way the rest of us down here are overlooked and ignored, or worse, mocked and skewered.

Laying on the succulent grass, ladybugs and mosquitoes buzzing around your ears, there's peace like no where else. The bones of the past are underneath, just under the surface, asking to be remembered, honored-- not forgotten, but not relived. Let sleeping ghosts lie. Above, the future spreads. On a clear night, you can see the stars here, count them into the thousands, hundreds of thousands. Here, you would have the time.

Grateful Thursday, quickly

This Thursday has gotten away from me, almost-- a busy day at work, and then dinner with friends.

1) Organizational clarity. Makes my work life easier.
2) Modern medicine. Or modern veterinary medicine really. Bub tore something in his knee-- they did an x-ray to see it, gave him pain pills for two weeks to see if he'll heal himself, and then they're going to put him under to check the elasticity of his tendons. If he's not healed, he'll have surgery. Oh the things we go through for our animals. Totally worth it, though. For him, anything.
3) Spring! And Spring clothing. I wore short sleeves to work for the first time today.
4) Good friends, and watching their kids grow up right in front of my eyes.
5) My Tom Petty tickets!! I can't stop talking about it.

summer plans, already

My firstborn son (ha) will be named after the pianist, Benmont, in the brown coat and red shirt 

Tom Petty is touring this summer, and you all know how I feel about Tom Petty. Love him. He's coming to Nashville, Atlanta, and Dallas and/or Houston (they're interchangeable aren't they?), and I'm smack dab in the middle of those. At first, we were going with Nashville because it is about an hour closer than the others, and it's not in Texas.

But a wild thought crossed my mind today-- ATLANTA. If we go to Atlanta, we can drive over the morning after to Charleston and stay with my friend from London, Betty, who I haven't seen in three years! Plus I've never been to Charleston and have always been looking for a reason to go. My secret plan (haven't told the husband this yet, he's still absorbing the extra time in the car I just tacked on), is on the way home to sneak down to Savannah for at least a quick drive-through and maybe a lunch if we're lucky.

Charleston beaches, here we come

 

So we're turning this into our summer vacation. It will be pretty economical-- only one hotel the night of the concert, otherwise we'll be at Betty's house, plus the gas, food, and tickets. We had thought, sometime last year, that this was the year we'd get to make it to Italy, but with the way the economy has been, neither of us have gotten the raises we expected, and neither of us feel comfortable asking for two weeks off just yet. We're moving back to our original plan on that trip and expecting to go the summer of 2012, as a 30th birthday present for me.

This will definitely do in exchange for now. Not only do I get to see my favorite band in person again, but I get to hang out with one of the coolest people in the world in one of the most beautiful cities in the world for a whole weekend. I'll take 12 hours in the car for that any day.

We're in the Tom Petty fan club, and as members we get to log into the presale tomorrow morning at 11 am central. Wish me luck on getting good seats!

Grateful Thursday

I almost forgot today was Thursday.

1) Warmer weather. Tuesday was 45, yesterday was 50, today was 55, tomorrow they're predicting 60. Yes, that's how quickly we warm up around here. This is spring, for the next couple weeks, then we'll be in full blown 90-degree summer. Yay.

2) A good weekend. Tomorrow night we're playing board games with some friends who also happened to get a new lab puppy, Saturday my mom and I are shopping and then eating dinner with my Dad, husband, and my cousin. Sunday, husband and I are starting major work on our vegetable garden, including scraping up the turf from under where our raised beds are going, filling our raised beds with soil, and building a deer fence around it.

3) Blogger friends who remind me that most things I worry about never happen anyway.

4) Good sex. Sorry for any of you out there who don't like to hear things like this, just stop reading now, move on to #5, it'll be more your speed. But it's a great thing to be thankful for, isn't it? It means I love my husband and we can fully express that love with no hang-ups or shyness. And it's a release from the stress of the rest of life.

5) Toms shoes. It's like wearing slippers to work, only everyone just thinks I'm ultra hip and cool.

wanting and needing

My job is in jeopardy. Not really. I mean yes, really, it is, but it's not as bad as I make it out to be sometimes. This is life at a start-up, especially in a fickle industry like consulting and software. Life is dependent upon the opinions our customers hold of us, and lately opinions have taken a nose-dive. We released a new product too early, we got a little ahead of ourselves, and our reputation is suffering. I woke up to another email from a company wanting a refund-- we get probably 2 a week, which isn't that bad, but it points to a much larger problem lying just under the surface. I freaked out at first, but then I got a really nice email from a customer raving about something we added to the software that made her life easier, and about how open we are to suggestions and how wonderful that is, and I was perked right back up. Why doesn't everyone see it that way? It would make my life easier.

I was thinking on the way to work that I should start putting away, like a squirrel, half my paycheck every month and that we should start to live on beanies and weenies for a while. We've already got 6 months of expenses saved up as an emergency fund, and continue to put a little more in it every month, but it would be nice if it was more like 12 months with the way the economy is right now. I really don't want to go back to an $8 an hour job, but I suppose that would be better than sitting on my butt at home feeling completely sorry for myself.

I don't even want to think about it. That whole scenario is my worst nightmare. I hate being unemployed, unused, unloved.

But why suffer now just because of a small possibility my company will go under in the next several months? We've somehow made it so far, made it through far worse situations than this. Plus shopping makes me forget.

Target has ads out now showing dresses and purses and home accessories in prints from Liberty of London. Liberty was one of my favorite places when we lived there-- the fabric section alone could entertain me for hours, even though I don't sew. And the furniture? Heaven. My mom is coming to town this weekend, and I've already talked her into making the hour trek with me on Saturday morning to the nearest Target. Even though the Liberty stuff isn't out until the 14th. I can go back again on the 17th with Emily. Yes...

It's supposed to be a beautiful weekend, 60 and sunny, and there's just something about this weather that makes me want to shop, that reminds me that nothing I had last year I liked, and encourages me to restock my wardrobe with bright, happy colors. So despite the fact that I may actually need to be saving, all I want to do is spend spend spend.

At least Target is cheap, right?

possibly the last week of winter

This is, quite possibly, the last week of winter for us. I took a gander at the extended forecast this morning, and the high of 40 today goes up by about twenty degrees by the end of a week and a half. Of course that doesn't mean we won't have a random cold day again, but it looks like the continual cold is over. Last night when I left the office it was still light outside, making me recall the long days of summer from my childhood, when we'd stay out and play until dusk, when the street lights and fireflies finally came on.

Spring, summer, and fall agree with me. Winter does not. The cold dries out my skin, making me feel more like an alligator than a human, stands my hair on end with static, clogs and bloodies my nose, and zaps my eyes of moisture. I hate the cold, I hate dry heat inside, and I hate having to layer, to even think about layering, before going out for the simplest thing, like getting the mail. In about a month, I'll be able to walk down my driveway in nothing more than a skirt, t-shirt, and sandals, feeling the warm sun on my finally-soft skin, Bub running between my legs rather than huddling at the door looking at me like I'm crazy for even thinking of going out there.

We don't really have much of a spring or fall here-- a couple good weeks of 60s and 70s, then we're up to 90 pretty quick. It's ok though; I'm completely used to it. I love that feeling of getting in your car after it's been in the sun, and it's so hot you can't breathe. I like to sweat. Everyone here sweats. It's not a gross bodily function, it's just a sign of living in the deep delta South. I love fans and cool air conditioning and iced drinks served on a front porch in the shade. Come on, May.

But today, I've stolen the space heater from Emily, who is out of town, to try to keep my tootsies warm under my desk. I switch how I cross my legs, back and forth, putting one foot in front of the screen, and then the other, heating them up and then switching just before they sting. Cold toes are the worst.