Best. Thing. Never?

It may just be me, BUT. When someone tells me that dazzling best-thing-ever-in-life software update will "sync" contacts between my phone, computer and their cloud, I am assuming that means = "make them all the same."

However, if by "sync," they meant "make into three slightly different versions of mostly the same information, with different permutations of duplicates," then yes. It does "sync."

strokes.

After a hours-long conversation with hubby about "surviving without strokes (compliments)" as the primary learning opportunity from my last job, I receive a super nice super complimentary email from new boss.

And it's like finding that spot on your puppy that needed scratching.

Ahhhhhhh. It feels so good.

how to how to.

When my mom insists that those nubby blue dryer balls need to be replaced at least annually, if not every few months, I google: "how often buy dryer balls."

As part of my search, I come across the following:


How to use a hairdryer? Hairdryer?
Not. In. Shower.
Seriously.

the dresser-shaped clot in his brain.

This is the dresser that almost killed my husband.

Not from being trapped beneath it, oh no. Nor from being crushed, as it dropped from a 30th story window. No.

Rather, from the dresser-shaped clot that formed in his brain, over the 4-hour task of putting this thing together. The sharp corners of such a clot, are apt to get clogged in some artery or another, causing the head to... explode.

"I hope whoever designed this dresser dies of bubonic plague," says he.
"Sadly, it would be an insult to plague sufferers everywhere," I say.

A cautionary tale, internet. There IS NO SUCH THING AS CHEAP FURNITURE. You always, always pay.

marvel.

Marveling a little at the fact that I have had nothing to say on this space in over a year.

There were the first bites and the first bubbles. First birthday and first bruises. A few exciting new kitchen appliances. Now, we are inching ever closer to potty training, and me = VERY excited to spend significantly less time talking/thinking/planning around... poop.

There is also the fun of living with a small person who can now talk. ish. Consists a lot of a series of very short conversations stuck in an endless loop:

At 5AM:
"What doing, Mommy?"
"Sleeping."
"What doing, Mommy?"
"Sleeping."

(Now repeat seventeen... hundred... times. You get the idea.)

And if I were to simply read it all on paper, it would sound insane, the idea of planning life around poop and spending the day having the same silly conversation over and over. And over. But there is something so wondrous about these little people, who are discovering the world new everyday, so joyful, so open, whose love is so guileless and so free.

That to belong to one of them, is an experience so fleeting and so lovely it almost hurts. I feel it slipping through my fingers each day, as I feel the shock anew of her growing up and away. From a squishy, blinking baby to this little person with opinions, and demands (oh, the demands!), a curly-haired soul so vulnerable, confusable, giggleable, wonderable. And mine.

Even if just for this little while.

indignity.

...is paying $80 for a really bad haircut.

dinosaurus.

My interns are making me feel like a 30-something dinosaur.

Me: I don't know. I feel sort of overwhelmed by facebook. It's like another inbox calling to me with a million things I'm not doing. Do I really need that in my life?

Intern: But it's awesome.

Me: And then the social networking--it seems to just jump from this NOW thing to the next. Like what ever happened to Friendster?

Intern: What's "friendster"?

Me: Sigh.

what goes in.

Making my first batches of homemade baby food. Tonight? A local favorite, okinawan (purple) sweet potatoes.

Wondering: If her poop will turn purple.

Thinking: I spend waaaay too much of my day thinking about poop.

really small objects

Sometimes when you're feeling in need of a life overhaul, it turns out all you really needed was to get your bangs trimmed.

Ah. Much better.

old japanese people? totally rock.

Bought our first place, and it was indeed a little bit like this. Except that it turns out that a hundred thousand dollars buys you like 30 square feet in Hawai'i. Our place? Little, but good.

Our new next door neighbor lady, Mrs. S, is the kind of old Japanese person who will bring you a bag of papayas that she has carefully and individually bagged.

Old Japanese people? Totally rock.

Best. Thing. Ever. #3

Spunky monkey: perfect, small, and all dressed up. Friends bearing handmade gifts? Best. Thing. Ever.

Doing the once a month cooking thing, in attempt to cut food costs and eat less preservatives. Have cried "uncle" on the idea that we can cook every night. But we do seem to be able to cook once and then defrost and reheat for the following 30 days. (It does get a little repetitive, but so does Chinese take-out, right?)

The whole scheme is entirely enabled by the fact that my father-in-law has an enormous deep freeze on the property. I have to admit that there is a certain Martha-like satisfaction in a freezer stocked full of a month of impeccably labeled frozen meals.

This month? Rosemary roast potatoes. And lots of 'em.

It's an indication

I have a small kukui tree in my office. It is alternatively subject to being cared for, and totally neglected, and is a total indication of how my life happens to be going at the moment.

At present? Totally denuded, but for one little new leaf bud poking out on the top.



So, perhaps things are looking up.

Reconnecting.

Have spent the better part of the last two years seriously... Under. Water. Only now, do I feel like I am finally in the process of rising to the surface, to reconnecting--ready to rebuild bridges between past lives and present.

Was talking to my wonderful friend Tal the other day, and making analogies about phases of our life and "senior year." Like, throughout our lives, we progressively graduate from one thing to the next, leave shed one life to enter another. We move to another apartment, take a new job, move to a new city. We buy homes, have babies.

And as much as I love that analogy, I realize how much of the last two years has been less like graduation (the shift from the senior year of one thing into the freshman year of the next), than a truly difficult and painful transition from one kind of life to a totally new one. Like a birth. Painful, poopy, and lots of tears. But once everyone is cleaned off and sewn up... you stare into the wide light and the possibility of everything. Right there in your arms.

Best. Thing. Ever. #2

Adding baby giggles to the list of best. thing. ever.

Better than Expected.

So, my kid was born on a Sunday afternoon, and the birth? It was totally not as bad as I thought it would be. (I think it probably says more about my expectations than it does about labor.) But will spare you the details, internet.

And post-baby yes, there is a lot of crying and pooping, and not a whole lot of sleeping--which on the whole is kind of tough, but less tough than say, my graduate comprehensive exams. And definitely less excruciating than most of junior high.

moo.

1. Give into craving for pie and pulled into neighborhood Zippy's, purchase entire chocolate cream pie for self.
2. With pie in hand, walk back to car to find person in next spot parked 7 inches from driver-side door.
3. Try passenger side door, discover cannot fit ass into car on this side, either.
4. Again, with pie in hand, crawl through back of hatchback and into driver seat.

= Sequence of events that will inevitably make you feel like a cow. (But totally worth it. Pie. Mmmm.)

big box love.

Yes, yes. Big box stores are bad for local small business and our island way of life. But if we have to put up with having Walmart on this rock, we might as well have a Target.

And at least (as far as we know) now we can shop at a big box that hasn't been storing iwi under its parking ramp. Sigh.

34 weeks

If it looks uncomfortable, it's because... it is.

Misnomer.

So we went to the first of our birthing/childcare preparation classes.

Because I am apparently the kind of person who will take classroom instruction on just about anything, I signed us up for every class offered in our health plan's Health Education catalogue. K has wisely said nothing about this crammed class schedule, though he could probably have reasonably asked me if I was "on crack or something." But this is why I married the man.

Anyway, after two hours of lecture and videos on labor and delivery, I decided that this class should be more accurately named "large plastic items that we can fit up your manko." Yeesh.

this one.

Now, THIS is what I want in a baby shower cake.