Thankful November, 6-16

6.  I am thankful that my daughter has become a pretty good sleeper.  Life is much better when your kid goes to sleep most nights without much of a fuss and then generally sleeps through the night.  I do occasionally wish she woke up a bit later, but it seems like she's like her grandmother and great-grandfather (her namesake), and is a morning person.

7.  I am thankful for my job.  I am always busy and never seem to have enough time to get everything finished, but I really do like it most days.

8. I am thankful that, every night, when I come home from work, my daughter smiles, stops what she is doing, and runs up to me to give me the biggest, best hug in the world.  I don't even mind that most of the time, she inadvertently rubs boogers or food all over my work clothes.  The hug is that good.

9.  I am thankful for books.  They are, and always have been, my favorite things.  I do wish I had more time to read grownup books, though.  Around here lately, we're pretty much only reading children's books.  As a corollary, I am thankful that my daughter seems to have inherited my love for books.  Every night, we read a handful of books, but always end with the same two.  My husband and I know them by heart, and I think the baby does too.  She always laughs at one part where I yawn, pretending to be a very sleepy cow.

10.  I am thankful for the washer and dryer in my condo.  I hope to never live in a place with community machines again.

11.  I am thankful to be as old as I am and to still have a grandparent around.

12.  I am thankful for being able to have a cleaning service come every other week. I am also thankful that, for all those years that I didn't really need it, I kept it up.  Because, boy do we need it now.

13.  I am thankful that my daughter makes me laugh every day.

14.  I am thankful for Ikea.  This morning, I took a quick trip down there to buy my daughter's big holiday present -- an easel.  All of a sudden, out of nowhere, she really likes to color.  She sits on the floor, with her markers or crayons, and sings to herself while hard at work on her masterpieces. Obviously an easel is the next step.

15.  I am thankful that I get to take occasional weekend afternoon naps.

16.  Right now, this minute, I am thankful for the little bit of quiet time to myself.  Ordinarily, I'd be asleep, but I took a nap this afternoon, and as a result, am wide awake.  But a little quiet time after my husband and daughter are asleep is the only reason I can catch up on this list.  And read a little bit of a grown-up book.

Thankful November, number 5

Today, I am thankful for living in a country where I have the ability to vote, even if I dislike the current state of the two-party system and most of their candidates.

I am equally thankful for the fact that, as of tomorrow, there will be no more election ads on television, at least for a little while.

Thankful November, numbers 1-4

At this point, I've come to terms with the fact that I'll probably never finish writing a novel -- particularly over the span of a NaNoWriMo.  I am very keenly aware that, at the rate that I've been writing, I'm not even likely to complete a NaNoBloPoMo (or whatever it's called).  But I can find many, many things to be grateful about this month, and so I will make an effort to post them.  One for each day this month, just maybe not every day.  And, of course, I'm starting late.

It's November 4th, so here are four:

1.  This face.

The real Cookie Monster.

2. The fact that my husband didn't make fun of me when I told him that I generally prefer Van Halen with Sammy Hagar and not David Lee Roth.

3.  The caramel brulee latte at Starbucks.

4.  Trader Joe's milk chocolate salted caramel butter cookies.

Baseball shoes

Yesterday, we took a family trip to the ballpark. The husband, the kid, and I dressed up in our team colors and went to our first game together this season -- our first game together since last year's playoffs.

Mommy-Baby bonding.

I have a cut on my foot -- a blister from a pair of ballet flats that I wore to work last week -- so I tried to find a comfortable, supportive pair of shoes to walk around in, particularly since I was going to be carrying the baby in the Ergo all day. I settled on a pair of grey Pumas, old, but not too old. What that means is that I've owned them as long as I've lived in this condo, but I did not own them when I moved to DC from Florida. I'm certain that I have not had them for over 10 years, but I am also certain that they're more than 5 years old.

While we were on our way to the ballpark, I felt that there was something sticky on the bottom of my shoe. "Great," I thought. "Old gum."

We started walking, and the feeling went away. We walked around the stadium, fed the baby some gelato, and then, I went into the bathroom to wash my hands. For some reason, I looked down at my feet, and was astonished. My shoes were literally falling apart -- the sole had split into pieces and the padding was falling out in chunks. I was leaving a trail of sneaker bits behind me as I walked. It was worse than when I was living in London and the only pair of casual shoes I had with me were Chuck Taylors with the hole in the heel.

So, I did what any rational woman would do: I sent my husband to the gift shop to see if he could find me a solution. He came back with a pair of blue flip flops with red sequins. Team colors. Also: ostentatious and hideous. He also told me that they had black ballet flats, but that they cost $80.

I have the best, smartest husband. And now, I no longer have a pair of cute, grey Pumas, but I do have a pair of hideous, blue flip-flops with red sequins.

Nice shoes, right?

Five Years

I can't believe five years have passed since that day, that horrible, wretched day. But I'm having a hard time getting the words out this time. It feels like I've already said it, over and over again.

I still miss my mom, every single day. I look at my beautiful, amazing little daughter -- who has her grandmother's eyes -- and I am just so sorry that the two of them never got to meet each other. I hug the baby just a little bit tighter when I think about it. On the one hand, I want to shield her from such loss; on the other, I know that's not healthy for her or for me. I want her to be brave and strong, and you don't get that way if you're raised in a bubble.

And then I finally see that there's a silver lining, a small consolation prize from all of this crazy grief over the past five years: my mother's death made ME stronger. Maybe that's the last gift she gave me.

New Year, Resolved.

Before my husband and I got married, we discussed our vows, and agreed that the foundation of our marriage is that we both promise to try to not be an asshole to the other. When we looked in each other's eyes on the beach while repeating back the minister's words, that is what we meant. We may have said a lot of words, but that was our only promise. It's a promise that we can both keep.

That brings me to New Years' resolutions. I hate them for that very reason: they are promises that are not likely to be kept. I've said so before. But every year, better judgment notwithstanding, there are always a few things that I promise myself that I am going to do better.

This year, there are three of them: (1) Be healthier; (2) Be better with money; and (3) Try not to accumulate things that I don't need.

There's some overlap. If we eat healthier, home-cooked meals, we are likely to save money. If I don't buy things we don't need, we will also save money. Still, all of this is a challenge.

My husband and I have been good over the past eight days. We've made healthy meals, gone out less frequently -- and ordered more salads when we have. I think I've eaten more vegetables in the past 8 days than in the past 8 months! And, other than a cute outfit for the baby (on clearance at Babies-R-Us!), a toy or two for her (now that she's almost 6 months, the toys are way better!), and some (clearance!) ornaments for our Pagan Winter Solstice Shrubbery, I haven't really bought anything that was not addressing some kind of immediate need.  I mean, maybe we didn't need quite so many boxes of oatmeal...but they were on sale and we will eat it, sooner rather than later.

I'm also going to try two different approaches to save a little bit extra cash. In one savings account, I am going to save $1 per day, for a total of $365 (duh!). In another, I am going to save $1 the first week, $2 the second week, $3 the third week...and so on, for a grand total of $1378. Not sure yet what I'm going to do with that $1743, but I hear that college will be very expensive in 2030. (Sigh.)

Wish me luck.

Gasoline and Matches

My heart broke last week when I heard about the elementary school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. My daughter is the most precious thing in the world to me, and I can't imagine what it must have been like for these parents to send their babies off to school on a morning like any other, to only have them not come home again. I cry when I think about it. I cried again on Monday, when I dropped the baby off at her school and got a letter explaining the security protocol in the wake of the tragedy.

"We keep the doors locked."

This morning, when the baby and I were leaving the condo on the way to school and work respectively, a guy got in to the elevator, holding at least three guns, and several duffel bags. I can only imagine what was in the bags -- ammo, more guns? Instinctively, I pulled the stroller closer to me, away from the guns. What would have happened if this guy was angry, violent, unstable? We would have had no defense.

We live in a world where merely riding in an elevator puts my daughter at risk. How are such things even fathomable? And, perhaps more importantly, how are such things preventable?

Whatever it is that we're doing isn't working.  But what, exactly is it that we're doing? The conservatives/Republicans/pro-gun-advocates and the liberals/Democrats/anti-gun-advocates are busy calling each other names, lying to the people, ignoring the facts, ignoring reality. No one is talking about compromise or trying to find solutions that can and will work in real life.

The NRA just held a press conference where they said all sorts of ridiculous things. That the Newtown tragedy was the result of violent video games, and that guns are not to blame. That what this country really needs is a database tracking the mentally ill -- not, for argument's sake, a database tracking gun owners.  There should be armed police officers in every school. That the cure for gun violence is more gun ownership and less regulation. I could go on, but it makes me ill to think about it.

And, almost simultaneously, there was another mass shooting taking place, this time in Pennsylvania.

Almost everything said in the NRA press conference makes my head spin because it defies logic and reason -- and statistics. There is no statistical link between violent video games and gun violence. (Note: there is, however, a link between violent video games and being desensitized to violence.) Countries with stronger gun regulations have less gun violence. More guns means more gun violence. And, compared with other developed countries, the United States is particularly violent.

"Violence begets violence." --  Martin Luther King, Jr.

To be fair, I am not a particularly strong advocate for guns. Back in the days when I used to write with more regularity, I wrote about how, a billion years ago, in my last semester of law school, I worked as an intern in the office of the public defender. When I was working there, defending my clients against various misdemeanor charges, many of my friends were interning on the other side, in the State Attorney's office, and several of them thought that I needed to get a gun, or at least learn how to fire a gun, for my own safety. But I resisted. I was scared of guns in general, and wary that just by my having a gun, I would be able to protect myself. At 5'2" (in shoes) and (at that point in time) 115 lbs (soaking wet), if someone wanted to overpower me, they probably could, gun or no gun. In my mind, rightly or wrongly, the consequences of letting them get my gun were worse than my not having one at all. (Note: according to the statistics, I was probably right.)

I also wonder about the mix of guns with violence and instability, the sort of things that people don't talk about in public. But I know about that too. I have siblings, and one of my siblings had a difficult adolescence. That sibling was angry and unhappy, and often threatened violence. It was in the days before Columbine; in the days before such things were even thinkable. But there it was: many times, my sibling threatened to stab me in my sleep, threatened our parents the same way, threatened to hurt others, threatened self-harm. We all came out of it okay, thanks to therapy and the fact that adolescence does, eventually, end, and whatever it is or was seemingly became more manageable in adulthood. But when I think about it -- which I try not to -- I am glad that my parents didn't keep weapons in the house. In a rage, a gun would have made it too easy for something awful to happen. Instability, mental illness, violence -- they might be gasoline, but a gun is the lit match.

So, we're back to the guns and the violence, and whether there is anything we can do about it.

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." -- Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the National Rifle Association, Dec. 21, 2012.

I heard him say that during the press conference and I chuckled. It may be true, but you know what?  It's much easier for the good guy to stop the bad guy if said bad guy doesn't have a gun in the first place. The statistics maintain that keeping the bad guy from getting the gun is likely to stop the fiasco before it starts: "Making crime even a little bit harder made it much, much rarer."

Given the opportunity, I would want guns to disappear from the earth, or at least the country. But that's wishful thinking: guns are legal, abundant, and, as my husband said to me, "You can't put the genie back in the bottle."

That's not to say that I think all guns and gun owners are bad. For example, I don't necessarily agree with hunting for sport, but I know avid hunters, and, with the laws as they are, I have no problem with them having guns. The hunters I know are responsible gun owners. They bought their guns legally, they know how to use them, and they keep them safely locked.

Responsible gun owners know that the "right to bear arms" is not absolute:

 "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."  -- District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).

(Note: I don't necessarily agree with the majority in Heller; I tend to think that Scalia's interpretation of the Second Amendment's language and meaning is a little tortured. But it is the law of the land, and it at least represents an acknowledgment from our most Conservative Supreme Court justice that the government can, in the right circumstances, enact reasonable limits to gun ownership.)  Responsible gun owners realize that, with any right comes responsibility: they are not the ones buying crazy insane assault weapons, high capacity magazines, and bullets designed to tear through body armor. They are not the problem.

But what about the Newtown shooter? His mom acquired the guns legally, and shot them as a hobby. But was she a responsible gun owner? In my view -- based on the "facts" as we've learned them -- no. Forget the number or type of weapons, or the size of the magazine. She taught an ostensibly mentally unstable kid how to shoot, and did not secure her weapons from him, or at least didn't secure them well enough. She dropped the lit match on the gasoline.

And for other recent mass shootings? All of them, legal. The gunman in Oregon borrowed his weapon, which was legally purchased. The Colorado theater shooter stockpiled his guns and ammo legally. The Virginia Tech shooter got his gun from an online dealer.

This country is between a rock and a hard place. We have a society where mental health issues are stigmatized and often left untreated. We have lax gun control laws because the Second Amendment allows for gun ownership, subject only to undefined (and largely un-enacted) "reasonable" limitations. We have a weapons market that permits guns to be obtained legally obtained and used in increasingly horrific, violent crimes.

We can't ban 'em, and we can't control 'em. Gasoline and match.

The passage of time

Today is my mom's birthday. Or today was my mom's birthday. Or today would have been my mom's birthday. Four-and-a-half years later, and I still don't know what tense to use.

In some ways, it's easier: it's a quiet undercurrent instead of the focus point of everything. With the passage of time, I no longer feel so utterly without mooring. But every once in a while, the loss hits home in new, unexpected ways. Like when I think about how my mother never got to meet her two amazing grandbabies, to see what an amazing mother my sister has become, or to look into my daughter's eyes that are so much like hers. She'd have loved it all, every second of it.

Something New

For the Scriptic "something new" quick challenge, instead of writing, I went out of my comfort zone and tried something new: black and white photography. The actual "something new" is the baby swing that my husband put together while I was at work today, for our little someone new, whenever she gets here.

Missing my mom

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a picture of my mom, holding me, when I was one day old:

I miss her. Especially today.  And especially now that I'm going to have a baby of my own.

My mom, the anniversary, and the Super Bowl

This week is always hard for me: the anniversary of my mom's death. It's hard to believe it's been four years.

This year is unusually strange because, right before my mom died, the Giants played the Patriots in the Super Bowl. In fact, the last conversations Mom and I had were, in part, about the chili my dad made for the Super Bowl party and how happy he was was with the outcome.

I've been a Giants fan my entire life (Thanks, Dad), but I'm not sure I can bring myself to watch the game tomorrow.

New Blog, Old Blog

I know, I know. I'm a crappy blogger. I only posted 18 times in 2011, which means I posted, on average, 1.5 times per month. I can't -- or won't -- promise to be better this year, at least not here. I love this blog with all my heart, but I've been cheating on it with a newer blog. But I have a good reason. Really.

You see, we're having a baby. And, as we're wont to do, we decided to start writing about it at The OliRue Baby Blog. If you miss me, or even if you're just curious, you should probably check the new site out.

On occasion, I will still update here with non-pregnancy and non-baby related items. And then, there's always Tumblr, where I share random nonsense from the internet, perhaps more frequently than is called for.

On how we met

Everyone keeps asking me how I met my husband. It's a tough question, because I don't actually remember meeting him.

We met in middle school, when I first moved from New Jersey to Florida at the beginning of the 8th grade. I mostly remember him from the bus, when he was sitting next to the boy who set my friend's hair on fire. On that same bus, later in the school year, he taught me the ingredients in a screwdriver.

I also remember him from classes -- mostly English classes -- both in middle school and high school. In 9th grade gifted English, he sat in front of me and had long hair that he would flip onto my desk. I had a brief crush on him -- but my crushes were always transitory, fleeting things.

We were always friends: we traveled in somewhat different circles, and we weren't particularly close friends, but I can honestly say that we always liked each other. (In retrospect, it's a little puzzling to both of us that we weren't closer friends when we were younger.) And then we left school and went in completely different directions, but somehow, 23 years later, we wound up here, together -- and now, married.

It's a pretty remarkable story, even if I can't remember the very beginning.

Eloping

When we first started talking about getting married, I said that I loved the idea of being married to him, but I just I didn't have it in me to do a wedding: I have enough stress with work that I didn't want to plan anything, especially anything major. Plus, the families are all over the place, and that's a pain to deal with.

So we would elope.

The next question was where. Vegas is cliche. Going down the street to the local courthouse seemed so boring. On a beach somewhere warm and tropical? Yes, please.

Then it became a question of when -- and the answer was that we didn't want to rush into it. But then, the perfect scenario presented itself: I had an upcoming work trip to the Caribbean, and he could take off a few days to go with me. Hmmm . . . .

We read the requirements for getting married down there. It seemed easy enough. We rushed around to fill out and send out forms and certified checks, to find an officiant, to get a dress and a suit and rings. And then the preparing was over.

We flew down to the islands. We picked up our license the next morning, and then I went to work. The next morning, Saturday, the officiant came to the hotel, picked us up, drove us to a beach, married us in between rain showers, took some photos, and drove us back to the hotel. He sent our paperwork back to the courthouse for certification.

I spent the rest of the weekend divided between work and touristy pursuits. On Monday, a full day of work.

Tuesday, we picked up the certified copy of our marriage license, and caught a plane back home. And here we are. Married.

I wish everything could be this easy.

Halloween

In February, when my boyfriend moved here, he found a federal government job almost immediately. They pretty much offered it to him instantaneously, with a catch: it was going to take some time for them to be able to get all of the paperwork done and have him start. Well, we know how this goes -- government budget issues, threats of shutdown, yadda yadda yadda. So, in the meantime, while waiting for the government to get its act together, he found a job with a moving company -- at the beginning he mostly worked as a mover, but now, most of the time, he schedules and supervises the movers. His job sucks, mostly because he generally works 12 hour shifts starting at 7 am.

This morning, on his way out the door, he told me he hoped that he would be home early tonight. I said, "Of course. Who moves on Halloween evening?"

In all seriousness, he said, that they have one job this evening. A guy named Vlad.

This can only end poorly.

A Portrait of Domestic Tranquility

Usually, my boyfriend has to get up very early for work. This morning, he did not have to be in until 10, so he made me very cute eggs and peppers for breakfast. He is very good at sneaking vegetables into my diet.

Right before I left, I told him that one of the things I loved most about him was that I am confident that, in the event of a zombie invasion or apocalypse, he will protect me and our theoretical future children. He then started planning our theoretical future weapons cache.

This is why he is my boyfriend.

Remembering

Today would have been my mother's 65th birthday.

Happy birthday, mom. I miss you.

Spiraling Towards Chaos

I've been reading a ton of stuff about Occupy Wall Street and We Are the 99 Percent. You should too.

As it stands, I have no room to complain. I have a steady job with a salary that, allegedly, puts me in the top 10% of all American wage earners -- although, to be completely fair, my salary is probably in the bottom 25% of people with my educational background who have been working for as long as I have. I have health insurance. After years and years, I finally paid off my student loans in January, and I have no other major debt.

I am finally financially stable enough that I bought a condo, and now, just before my 36th birthday, am thinking about having kids.

But here's the rub: I have a mortgage that, if I were to be out of work for longer than a month or two, I could no longer afford. And with the government on the verge on a shutdown -- again -- this is becoming is a real possibility to me.

The middle class is something of an illusion. Unless you are really rich, you are just a few paychecks away from utter chaos.

But it's bigger than that: how are we supposed to function with our livelihoods, our government, our nation in such disarray?

Adventures in Carsharing

After much debate, I sold my car. I had been thinking about it for a few years, as I barely drive, but it was somehow reassuring to own a car, just in case. Plus my car -- my shiny blue Volkswagen -- seemed to be a part of my identity. So I kept the car -- for ten years (and only 47,000 miles).

When boyfriend moved in, we found ourselves with a new problem -- two cars and only one parking space. It became a constant cycle of searching for -- and paying for -- parking. Saturday mornings were the worst, since neither of us had to get up for work, but one of us had to get up by 8 to feed the meter, and you know, sometimes you just want to sleep in.

Last weekend, I finally wound up selling my car to a friend of mine who had recently bought a place just beyond the beltway. So this week, I embarked on a new, car-free era. I will walk, take metro, and ride buses. Perhaps I will take cabs in case of emergency. And, to some extent, I can use boyfriend's car -- on mornings when he works and I don't (Sundays and the occasional holiday) if I need the car, I can get up early and drive him to work.

There's also car sharing. Zipcar is in abundance in my neighborhood -- pretty much every street corner has at least one of the orange signs indicating that a zipcar lives there.

Today was my first zipcar experience. When I enrolled, I got a credit that expires at the end of the month, and so, I decided to rent a car as "practice," so that when I really need the car, I won't have to figure out the process -- or worse, figure out that some part of the process doesn't work right. And so, this afternoon, I brought lunch to my boyfriend at work.

The car-sharing process was the easiest thing. (1) Apply for zipcar membership (which took about a week). (2) Reserve car (using internet or iPhone app). (3) Walk to the car (when you reserve, you are told which car and where it is parked). (4) Use your zipcard (or iPhone app) to open the car. (5) Drive. (6) Return car. They even sent me a text message 30 minutes before my reservation ended to remind me to bring the car back because someone had a reservation right after me. And if I needed to put gas in the zipcar, it has its own gas card.

The only downside that I experienced was that, when I went to go make my reservation this morning, I found that of the 20-or so cars parked within a six-block radius, only two were available. I wound up reserving a silver Nissan Sentra named Sinbad, parked about three blocks from my house. (Yes, all the zipcars have names. How quaint.) So the lesson learned was to reserve early, or face the possibility that a car will not be available.

So, car-free week one was a success. On to week two . . . .

Six Months Ago . . .

Just before Thanksgiving, I was sitting in the atrium of the National Building Museum having lunch with a friend of mine from high school. We were discussing our plans for the holidays, when I mentioned that I would probably be spending my New Year's Eve with my best friend from high school, having a party at her house, in Pittsburgh. My friend thought it sounded like fun, and started thinking that if he had nothing better to do, he might join us. And then suggested that we invite a third friend, who didn't live too far away from Pittsburgh.

When I told my best friend, she thought it was a great idea, but cautioned that our third friend would probably not be able to join us. I sent him a message anyway.

Ultimately, that friend did join us, and after a long New Year's weekend of drinking -- and subsequent crazy, random happenstance -- he is now the best boyfriend I've ever had. More than that, really -- he's the best boyfriend I could even imagine. And so, every day since then, I am thankful that I decided to go back out to the living room to check on him. And I am equally thankful that he decided that he wanted to kiss me when I held out my margarita glass for him to refill while saying, "I'm an excellent drinker." Mostly, though, I am so exceptionally thankful that he decided to move here and give this crazy thing a shot.

Happy six month anniversary.