2008
Seasons Change
On my drive home from work last Friday it sprinkled rain for about five minutes and the air filled with that at once musty but fresh scent of fall–stale but new, like pulling out a favorite sky-gray sweater from under-the-bed storage. That night we turned on the fire and spent the evening in front of it chatting and listening to old-timey tunes on our modified old-timey radio. Yesterday we bought Simon a new sweater, and when he put it on this morning he said just feeling those soft long sleeves on his forearms made him excited for the change of seasons.
Today is officially the first day of autumn, and although the Bay Area likely won’t get actual, sustained fall/winter weather until November, it’s still a transition we’re enjoying more that usual for obvious reasons. Wombat is due in December, and although no month says “winter” to me more than December, he’s technically scheduled to arrive at the tail end of fall. Today it’s sunny and fine out but the breeze still has enough change in it to warrant a lunch of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, and before long I’ll be in sweaters, boots, and a coat that will hopefully fit all the way around me. In the evening we’ll sit by the fire and chat and listen to the old-timey radio while I knit a pint-sized orange and gray hat to match a bigger one I made for a bigger boy last December. Already even the cats seem fluffier, building their pelts for the cool weather to come. Change is everywhere.
2008
Dance to the Music
Yesterday evening after dinner I draped my body across Simon’s lap with no regard to his physical well-being (although I think he liked it) and we participated in one of those only-on-t.v. pregnancy rituals that felt so ridiculous even as I was doing it that I almost threw up in my own mouth. (Oh, no, sorry, that was just The Reflux. Wombat is apparently all up in my torso’s grill these days, which means my ribcage aches constantly, I get reflux if I eat more than four tablespoons of food at a time (and doughnuts are unfortunately not measured out in tablespoons), and I have to sleep with my head elevated lest I wake up dead the next morning, having choked on my own vomit like any number of classic rock stars. “Death by partying,” you might call that, although in my case it’s more like “Death by one bite too many of grilled chicken and green beans.” Glamorous.)
Anyhoo, the vomitous thing we were doing last night was putting headphones on my stomach–sending some sweet tunes to the baby, whose ears are now developed enough to hear more than just my heartbeat and digestive gurgles. Hooray for developmental progress! I sing to him in the car all the time (and tell myself I don’t look like a fool if I’m “doing it for the baby”), but this is the first time Simon and I have sat down and shuffled through the iPod on his behalf, and yeah, it was pretty much too cute to stand.
Simon started out with some Eels, which made the baby jiggle pleasantly about. Next up was Jane’s Addiction; Wombat was unmoved until the song ended, at which point he gave a thump of approval–approval that the screaming had ceased. We queued up the Donnas’ “Take Me to the Back Seat” (thumbs up), some African clicking-language song (no reaction), a dramatic solo from Les Mis (he LOVED that), and some Muppets (happy bouncy movements in all sectors of my belly). Perhaps the worst part of all this was that we were honestly looking for and then analyzing the baby’s reaction to each selection. “He really likes Whale’s “Kickin.’” “I guess that makes sense…”
But come on. What the hell are we thinking? The reality is that we don’t know what the baby likes or dislikes. (This would be so much easier if we could just see the expression on his face.) I mean, for all we know, the interuterine movement is not him grooving out but flailing around torturously because he HATES showtunes and indie rock and the Muppets (sacrilege!). Or, even more likely, he’s probably just moving because that’s what he does these days. He tests out his jabs, his right hooks, his froggy kicks, and none of it means anything other than that he’s alive and well and practicing his gross motor skills. (Simon asked me last night if I thought I’d eventually get used to feeling the baby’s movements and stop calling them “gross.” I told him they’re likely to just get stronger and grosser so he shouldn’t get his hopes up.)
And to segue from “gross” back into puke again, last night we found ourselves listening to Christmas music of all things, and I remembered this one song that sends me into a fit of giggles if I so much as think about it, and then I made the mistake of putting in on and, oh man, I literally (literally, y’all) laughed so hard I almost lost my green beans all over Simon and the sofa. It’s just so awesomely awful (the song, I mean) that I couldn’t stop lauging and then I couldn’t catch my breath and then, again, I thought I was going to barf and die. “Death by band concert,” they call it.
So that was what we did last night: played music for the baby, interpreted his reaction as if there were any truth to it, and then listened to Christmas music, which involved Simon putting the headphones on poor Eve so she could experience a chorus of dogs barking “Jingle Bells.” (The expression on her face made it very easy to interpret her reaction: HATE. DO NOT WANT. I CAN HAZ SUICIDE NOW?)
Christmas music in September…Look, I know. But CHRISTMAS IS COMING. And THE BABY IS COMING AT CHRISTMAS. It still feels far away, but not too far away, and that, my friends, is kind of crazy. We keep running across things with our baby’s due date on them–a gift certificate to the theatre, Simon’s laptop warranty–but the weirdest thing of all is that we now have mayonnaise in our fridge that will expire after the birth of our son. Mayonnaise that will be older than him. Mayonnaise that we have NOW and will still have when we’re PARENTS. This is what they call “Death by mayonnaise shock.” I guess there are worse ways to go. Certainly ways less creamy and delicious.
2008
Take a Deep Breath
One of the things about my new office building that I’m generously filing under “charming quirk” instead of “unsanitary labor conditions” or “workman’s comp” is the smell of the bathroom. It’s not a pleasant odor–it’s eau de stale pee and…something else, something specific and familiar, and I can’t quite put my finger on it, and I hate that I can’t quite put my finger on it (tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon a la bathroom smells! ew!), and so, even though it doesn’t matter AT ALL what, precisely, the bathroom smells like, I’ve made it my insane mission to figure it out.
Every time I visit the charmingly quirky (and quirkily charming!) bathroom (which is a lot), I go through the following process: sniff, recoil, and then sniff reeeeally reeeeally deeply because what is that? It’s stale pee and…something. Stale pee and…I don’t know what, but goddammit I’m going to figure it out.
Also, you might recall that my last office had views of the Berkeley Hills, Mount Tamalpais, downtown San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge (especially lovely during fall sunsets). Here is my new view:
That would be a pile of industrial waste outside the always-open door of an industrial wasteyard restroom. How quirky! And yet charming! It’s so bucolic the way the breeze tickles the loose end of the paper towel roll! (“Bucolic” is the actual word my officemate used to describe our view compared to the view from the office across the hall, which is of a perfectly mundane apartment balcony housing a perfectly mundane grill.) Anyway, so deep is my obsession with our office bathroom smell, I sort of can’t help wondering what that bathroom of an industrial wasteyard smells like.
Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of my life.
