I visited my prior place of employment this week. They’re in a new office, but the walls are the same, if you can get that. A few of the scientists and geographers I knew have endured. Lots of new faces in the admin departments. Nice folk though. Seems like a good crew. The crew was never the problem. I don’t care what you sell or how revolutionary a product it is. Your team is your business and you’ll never be successful until you get that. I learned this from my dad.
A brief interlude in my contract work has led me to a life of housewifery in these past two months. This period of occupational inactivity has led me away from my computer, including my much neglected blog, and on to more real-world activities. I would apologize, but I’m not all-together sorry.
I’m not sure that I’m entirely cut out for this home life in the long term. As much as I enjoy playing at other time periods, I’m eternally grateful to be living in the here and now, to be able to enjoy the rights, occupations, past times that women’s lib has afforded me.
11:30 p.m. on December 22nd:
I’m steadily working away on Christmas projects. Shawn is in the kitchen doing dishes and baking pumpkin bread. (Yes, we still have about 8 uneaten pumpkins hanging out on the porch from Halloween. I was considering getting them santa hats so they would blend, but I’m lazy.)
Shawn and I convene in the hallway to further plot our holiday course.
“When do you want to leave for your folks house?”
“First nap, I’d say.”
Luke fell asleep in my arms with his head on my shoulder. I laid him down, slowly pivoting him away from my body to lay him down in his crib. When he reached the mattress, he started briefly, flailing him arms though not quite opening his eyes. He soon settled out into a good sleep.
It reminded me of those dreams where you are falling. I wonder if that dream we all have isn’t just a derelict memory of the benign abandonment of being laid down by our mothers to sleep alone.
I had been planning on going as a witch for Halloween this year, but with the amount of sleep I've been getting, I think a zombie would be more appropriate. It would certainly be easier. I'd need no makeup and very little acting. It'd be a great disguise right up until my cousin, convinced the end had finally come, shot me, with a tear glistening in the corner of his eye.
Hmm.... Maybe not such a great costume.
It's pumpkin season around here. I know, it's pumpkin season everywhere, but I live in the Sacramento Valley in the middle of agricultural fields and so around here it's pumpkin season on the ground and not just in the grocery store. And not just Jack O' Lanterns but baking pumpkins too.
We grew pumpkins in our yard this year and came out with a respectable little lumina, which we baked into bread. Shawn came home from the co-op with a couple of pumpkins last week which we've baked, barbecued, and turned into ice cream.
It started a week ago Sunday. Luke began rubbing his head around his ears and tugging on his hair in a frustrated way. Shawn and I looked up at each other with eyebrows raised. He had new teeth coming in – this we knew. But this didn’t feel like a tooth thing. You get a sense for this stuff as a parent. It’s not quantifiable and it doesn’t fit in any pre-designated space on a medical chart, but there it is.
FRIEND 1: So, Shannon. What's the deal with drinking and breast feeding? Can you do it at all?
SWINGBUG: Yeah, you can, occasionally. You just have to be smart about it. Don't have a drink and then go off to feed the baby right away. You have to wait a few hours.
[Long conversation ensues. If you are actually interested in this topic, check out the info at La Leche's website.]
In an unprecedented alliance, the likes of which have not been seen since Janeway made treaty with the Borg to defeat species 8472, Meeko and Luke have struck an accord.
Luke, naturally, takes no quarrel with the cats on principal. In fact, he’s generally in favor of them with a degree of enthusiasm that often takes them aback – aback couches, atop of furniture, over baby gates... any port in a storm. You can imagine, then, my surprise to find Meeko willing sitting next to Luke and purring while Luke laughed himself silly and jingled his new little toy.
One night on a recent church retreat, Luke was getting a little fussy. I took him to the back of the chapel where a few comfortable stuffed chairs and couches sat in a small library nook. Luke and I settled into an arm chair and I nursed him to sleep, pulling a little blue flannel blanket over him as he dozed off.
