A Girl...

The Storm Before the Calm

The lapse in posting is due, of course, to much extrablogital relations of the holiday variety.

We've been on dates and shopping excursions and breakfasts. We've had guests over for scotch and brownies, we've gone elsewhere for drinks on the house, we've been to my office party and a coworker's night-job's party and another coworker's non-denominational-but-let's-sing-about-Jesus-anyway-even-though-most-of-us-are-lapsed-Jews caroling party. The pic above is from the last of those, during which I was "accompanied" on the piano by a rotating lineup of other people's toddlers. The place was lousy with poo diapers, and everyone seemed to be speaking French, even the little ones. Quel bizarre.

We have also beat each other in cribbage, cleaned our apartments out of respect for our respective catsitters, and seen the new Narnia and Hero. We have done a lot--A LOT--of dishes and slept in late uncountable days in a row and taken a gajillion pictures of shiny happy people getting all festive and stuff. There has been much to be glad about, including new exfoliating mittens and the Victoria's Secret fashion show and the inflatable mattress we bought to go in the back of the car.

At work there have been looooong meta-meetings (let's hold a meeting to analyze the structure of our meetings! yay!) and big manuscripts to finally send to the designer and entire magazines to proofread in one day and huge boxes of chocolate and popcorn and freshy-pressed olive oil from our printers and authors and sales reps. There are two pregnant ladies sharing an office and two more working at becoming pregnant ladies, and it seems like everyone is going home to celebrate whatever they celebrate with family.

This Saturday, Simon leaves for England, and Monday next I leave for Salt Lake, where it will be 0 degrees and windy instead of 65 and brilliantly bluesky. I will miss him and the way he makes warm walnut-and-brown-sugar-and-kaluah-coated brie for my office party and the way he comes home from band practice with a big ol' goofy country grin and the way he rubs his face on my shoulders like a cat marking his territory with his whisker-bed glands. I will make myself crazy trying to pull together his Christmas present (knowing he has picked out something fantastic and perfect for me), and I will pull my hair out a little when I think that his birthday is only four weeks away.

This weekend I will send Simon on his way, then clean the apartment some more, hug the cats some more, pack up all my Christmas music books, paint my toenails hollyberry red, and dig around for the sweaters and the thermal underwear. Mittens, check. Scarf, check. Hat, check. Earmuffs, check. Coat, check. Coat check, check. Chekarama.