Catching up

So what's new? Big changes at home. Hubby is working in northern NJ for the next year. He has an apartment close to work and hope to have him come home at least every other weekend. Flying home isn't as easy as it has been other times. Like all things NY/NJ the airport is overcrowded, getting there is in Traffic and parking expensive. Hopefully it will be a gig that is challenging and interesting. I am still a contractor at Wells but luckily got bounced out of my treasured cube and sent home to work. The work is periodically interesting, and sometimes frustrating but I keep saying to myself it is a job, they pay me and I am not in charge. The job is scheduled to end December 4.

I am working on climbing out of the miasma of inaction. With no one to cook for, or reason to get dressed before hubby comes home at 6 I have fallen into thinking yoga pants are clothes and cereal with a topping of fruit is dinner. I am making lists and working on a schedule that gets me dressed and makeup on before taking Zena to daycare. Baby steps. Next step is to fill the planters and set up the drip system. I can't blame "frost" any longer.

Had a wonderful weekend in Long Island to see the daughter of dear friends married. They invited four of us to join their family and friends. It was an amazing event. A true NY Wedding complete with glitter, dancing, to die for food and a ceremony that would be hard to top. The bride and groom were New Yorkers complete with active bar scene life, a cadre of friends starting with the grooms best man who was a friend from sonogram days to now, fraternity brothers, high school and work buds. The couple is 30 and as the groom said this is payback time for all of the weddings they had been in. Thirteen groomsmen and eight bridesmaids filled out the wedding party. The bride was breath taking and the groom handsome. It was black tie and the guests complied with tuxes and long sparkly gowns. Most of the guys wore their tuxes like second skins being part of the NY scene, it was the older guests like hubby who were in rented duds being at the "country club" event stage in clothing now. The band played non-stop, the guests danced, which now seems to be a group activity requiring aerobic strength jumping up and down. No more pairing off, looking longingly in each other's eyes, this is a group where members drop in and out, are drawn into the inner circle of energy or drift to the second ring. As the evening wore on there were dance offs with the bride at the center of the guys locking are in a circle out doing one another as one became the spotlight. The bride has more energy than a Zumba instructor and was quick to raise the tempo if it seemed to flag. She is not your typical princess bride, scooping up the front of her gown in a combination la la skirt and tango swirl. As the evening peaked at midnight there was the pre-requisite throwing the bride in the air by the groomsmen, followed by tossing the groom all be it not as gently. We bailed shortly after midnight but heard the giggle and good nights of the wedding party after they closed the hotel bar after a nightcap at 3.

We took advantage of a no golf Saturday to drive out to Montauk the scene of a serial The Affair to see the lighthouse and have lunch at Lunch the Lobster Bar. A true cold water lobster roll was our treat. Made a stop in East Hampton to see the beach and check out the beach cottages. Just in case anyone cares renting at house in the Hamptons is definitely off my list of possible things I might want to do. Give me a Carolina beach any day.

Heading home to another week. Norms mom Jean is with me and I am treating us to a car taking us home. It will wrap up an elegant weekend of luxuries we don't usually indulge in. Not sure why but maybe this will be the start of something new.

 

 

 

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A (fill-in the blank) changes everything

Work. How did I forget that work changes everything. It seemed like such a good idea at first. Tempt the fates, toss my name in the pot. Then the ego boosting lure. They called me right away. They offered me a choice: responsibility and more money or little responsibility and less money. I took the second. What I forgot is my hard wiring doesn't let me just let things run off the rails without offering to help. Guess I might want to rethink this sometime. But the part I did forget is the cost of working. I get nothing done at home. Christmas and a deadline coincided. My poor house was barely decorated, no baking -probably good - no parties, barely got the rooms ready for Meagan and Ashby to visit. My whole standard for having people over to watch the game has sunk to clean kitchen, sodas, water, maybe crackers and cheese and a take away menu. No theme napkins, staggered snacks, fresh veggies and dip. I don't know how mothers juggle children, home and work. Guess we will see what Spring brings.

 

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Every puppy is unique

Zena is ever so cute, but she is eternally being compared to Zed. I call her Zed sometimes. I remind myself all of the time that I am comparing her to a 13 year old dog, one that had adapted to us and we had adapted to him. Zena is so different. She is afraid of a lot of things. Trucks, lawnmowers, shadows, thunder and lighten and FIREWORKS. It is going to be a long weekend. She has spidey ears and can hear booms in another county sending her skittering back up the porch stairs. Then we have neighborhood fireworks - illegal - and random. They don't stop at 9:30 they just go off randomnly. She is terrified and trembling and wants to climb in our skin. She hates riding in cars so no seven hour drive up to the mountains, and in truth If there is a thunderstorm it is far worse in the mountains.

And I need an attitude adjustment. For six months I have railed against her insistence on getting up at 5am, maybe 5:15 on a good day. And I resent it and am angry. She poops on schedule at 5:25pm which means I need to leave work at 4:45 promptly. In truth I could go to sleep at 10, get up at 5 and easily leave work at 4:30. I took a no stress, buck does not stop with me job that pays less than half of what I used to make so I could do those things. I made the decision to get a new puppy, and I made the decision to go back to work, so I need to put on my big girl panties and adjustment my attitude. Getting up at 5:15 lets me have time to have a shower and breakfast and get to the office by 7:50 which lets me leave at 4:30. So how do I do this? I love sleeping, I love my bed. How can I learn to love starting to go to bed at 9:30, not playing games on my iPad?

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Summer reading

My whole schedule of reading and listening to books is off kilter. No more long drives anywhere. The last one was to my high school reunion when I listened to Memory Man. I like Baldacci and this is a new character and theme, I hope he continues to grow these characters. Last year when I was back and forth to Baltimore in the Spring I listened to The Invention of Wings. Not an easy book to read or listen to. It is written by the same woman who wrote The History of Bees. The problem with listening to a book when you get to a painful part it is hard to speed read through it, and sometimes it sneaks up on you, or the reader is so engrossing you are in the middle and don't know how to skip ahead. But I would read it again it is set in Charleston and is reasonably accurate - the author has notes on her research. In light of the recent tragedy it is an important read for historical context. The Husband's Secret is a good summer book. The Girl on the Train is Gone Girl with British accent. I recommend doing the audio book, hearing the words spoken correctly makes it much more interesting. The Silent Sister is gently introspective and well worth your time. If you are feeling that you need some more Southern subtext definetly read The Quiet Game. Good mystery, almost shades of South of Broad. Any recommendations for me?

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Elephants

Not a subject I frequently thought about until I read (listened to) Leaving Time. It was about lots of things like love and determination and lying and all the regular things but mostly it was about elephants. Now every time elephants are in the news I am reading the item as if I am an expert nodding my opinions. In the Sunday times there is an article about the Bronx Zoo and an elephant who is alone and lonely. There is lots of background that I feel as if I totally understand and can even offer an opinion. At one point the article comes to the question of a private sanctuary and rightly the zoo keeper opines that sanctuaries are usually run by well meaning people who love elephants but that they do not have a secure funding source like the zoo and they are not certified. Leaving Time is a lovely book, I am not sure what it is like to read but the audible book is read by Rebecca Lowman who does a wonderful job. It should be on everyone's summer list of books to listen to. It is a conundrum what to do for the Bronx Zoo. This single aging female has no family, she isn't one of the wise ones of the herd to be respected. She is isolated and has no skills of joining a herd or mothering. She is destined to live out her life alone. There is much to be learned from the elephants about family and aging and love. I think I'll listen to the book again.

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I am hooked

Last year we upgraded the garage door and added a new closer that kicked in after 5 minutes if I forgot to close it (not unheard of) and wifi to check if it was closed and even open and close it remotely. It was great. No more worry that after walking the pooch I went to bed and forgot to close the garage door. Next came the thermostats. Very cool. I could program them remotely and set up the weeks schedule. The thought had been to conserve power when we were away and then cool or heat when we were on the way home. Great idea but we stopped traveling for work but it was still nice to make the changes when the weather was erratic. Then I went back to work. Zena will go to day care MWF and have a dog sitter TT. Friends had complained that sometimes dog sitters said they came but didn't, and if Miss Zena was in distress I wanted to know so a friend could come to the rescue. Enter the Canary. Very low tech, no zoom or rotating eyeball so my field of vision is limited but I have eyes on her favorite perch and play area. We added a Bluetooth front door lock and now I have alerts from four sources on my phone. I can see an integrated system in my future. Doggy TV is addicting and I want more.

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Dinner converation

Once a month I get together with several women from the neighborhood for dinner.  We choose a different restaurant every month - with several repeats as favorites.  It is an eclectic group that started with a small core of women who knew each other and expanded by word of mouth to a group that includes about 20 names.  The size of the group varies depending on other activities but there is a small core of about 8 of us who are usually there.  Many of us only see each other once a month, but occasionally someone makes a suggestion for a road trip or event and sends out an invitation.

I love these dinners.  The group has no real reason for being, we come from different backgrounds, some of us are retired, others working, but it isn't a Golf Wives group, or work group.  So what is my gripe?  The flip side of only knowing each other casually, we don't really know each other's religion unless someone mentions something in passing, like my talking about my first experience actually cooking a brisket for "EastOver", and that was really about food and my lack of experience with both pressure cookers and brisket.  And we don't know each other political opinions.  Well that isn't quite true,  I know many people's political opinions and I choose not to debate them.  For some reason there is a strain of Republican's that doesn't just support the Republican platform but feel it is perfectly ok to denounce the President with a vitriol  unlike I have ever heard before.  It isn't even about policy usually it is about traffic being backed up today because the President flew out at 4:30 pm that some how translates into comments way beyond the issue.  I felt like saying try living or working in DC and having roads/sidewalks closed without notice while a motorcade with someone important passes through.  You may not have voted for the current President, you may not like the party positions, you may not like the economy, the weather, poverty, uncomfortable conversations on poverty, wages, freedom of religion and what that means, but they are conversations about policy and  it would be wonderful if we could actually talk about the issues without immediately launching into charges that obviously someone who was brought up a secret Muslim is trying to ruin our country.  The level of absolute stupidity has risen to a level that is exhausting.

Let's talk about my conspiracy theories on "think tanks" that are writing legislation for Republican held states and localities that has become a cut and paste policy to be put forward without question.  A city in our state may have been too balanced in the last election, so at the State level let's introduce legislation to redraw the districts and reduce the number of council members - no local input required.  It is "good" policy to over rule the Agriculture Commissioner who prohibited weapons at the State Fair,  No need in our State to focus on crumbling infrastructure, some of the lowest paid teachers in the Nation, let's introduce legislation that will allow you to pass on the double yellow line if the vehicle in front of you is going to slow.

I don't want to listen to the hate propaganda from either party, it is exhausting.  There are no issues that are being debated from any point of logic.  We now have people in high office that deny that there might be something going on in the environment that deserves actual scientific thought, there is still debate going on about creationism vs evolution, elected state officials feel that they with their advanced degrees in something should have the right to rewrite the history taught in school.  I am sad.  We have become a nation of hate, of absolutes -- you must absolutely buy into one agenda or the other - no questions asked.  I wish more people had actually taken history classes and maybe a small dose of civics.