Letters to Holly

Friday, June 18

School's Out. For a Year.

Grades are due noon on Friday. Your Sister stayed up late stamping FAIL onto all her papers and got up early this morning to input the numbers on her school computer. I got up early to drive here there and walk back home. I had my phone and Pandora to accompany me. It fed me Lil Kim and Def Leppard. I can simultaneously easily and never get used to this.

She was at school when I got home Thursday evening, and I spent at last an hour cleaning the garden. It's again growing kelp because of more and more rain. I also staked the tomato plants. One of them is a behemoth with four thick stalks branching out everywhere. I may have to buy tomato cages. Your Sis brought me a bag of worm castings (read: poo), and I'll add them to soil mounds I'll build around the stalk plants.

There are no signs that Roo is planning to leave the cave. All is the same.

Moving Picture of the Day
I have it under good authority that this recent ad features Andre 3000 covering The Beatles.


Thursday, June 17

And Now: Whining.

The (hopefully) last weekly OB/GYN appointment went smoothly. All the signs for Your Sister are fine. We asked to peek at Roo with the scanner one last time, and we saw a mushy face. If pressed to say, I'd guess he looks like a mushy baby. We were left in a corner office for a time, and the nurses had turned off the Musak. We passed the time listening to Pandora on our new phones.

We have both admitted that we sometimes forget we're pregnant. We're so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as a two-man tag team. The notion of having a child sneaks up on us when we're distracted with other things. My mind retains the habitual anti-baby thoughts, and they like to whisper that we're bonkers for ruining a good thing. I remind that residue of why we're doing this and why we feel so strongly about it, and the ghosts of old thinking fade again. I agree with those who say they don't want babies, the world doesn't need more babies, and babies are icky. Yes. We said the same things many a time. But we turned a corner after repeated conversations, and we'll have our roommate any day now. I don't know if I'll become overly affectionate. I refer to him as a deputy, a bear monster, and a wet bag of limbs. But I get lightheaded when I see him on the ultrasound, and the abstract becomes concrete. Is that lightness fear? Is it joy? I dunno.

Either way, there will only be one. Your Sister cannot fathom women who become addicted to being pregnant. She doesn't feel like she's reached the peak of feminine existence. She feels like a creaky battleship. I suspect some of that alleged pregnancy glamor is actually the glee of being the center of attention. Case in point: Virtually every FaceBook message this week is a variant on "is it here yet?" I'm getting them because people know Your Sis gets on FB about as often as Abraham Lincoln. She's busy with work, but she also doesn't want that spotlight, despite everyone's good and kind intentions.

Picture of the Day
After she did some stuff in her classroom, we walked around the football field. This was after a day of heavy storms. Another day, I should say. I took this with the new phone camera, and I think that contraption is better than the camera I bought last year.

Wednesday, June 16

Boring.

Unless we perceive the usual summer storms as a foreshadowing for the arrival of an adorable antichrist, we have no signs that labor is imminent. Because Roo dropped, he has more room to roll, and he does. A lot. Instead of nesting in a pod, he's now in a slack bag, and his movements are dramatic.

Your Sister has made the house an icebox, and she seem more comfortable. She drops things more often and can't decide if it's because countertops are now farther away or her hands are clumsy. Whenever I hear something hit the floor, I rush over to pick it up. I try to keep her from kneeling or bending. We'll save that for the labor. Otherwise, she grades, she eats, she sleeps, and we both wait.

We jimmy with our new phones and trade discoveries. I'm surprised there is no Blogger Droid app. I can access the site through the phone browser.

Picture of the Day
Technology!

Monday, June 14

39 Weeks

We have two new arrivals at the house: Droid phones. As a joint Jailhouse-iversary, we bought each other the phones and data plans. Our old phones are from 2006, and they were antiquated yak boxes even then. These phones are intuitive but deep, and much fiddling is required. It took an hour to set them up in the store, but we got a good deal for the devices, and Your Sis was keen on the sliding QWERTY board.

It was a busy weekend for Your Sister. She attended a graduation party with teachers Friday night and stayed out much later than usual. I handed out copies of the comic and encouraged everyone to draw their monsters and send them to me as a secondary concern. I want them, yes, but I want more that they draw. I woke up early the next morning to donate blood. The Red Cross is responding to slow lines and instituted a faster processing pace. It was pretty obvious; the nurses seemed caffeinated. But it worked. I was done in a half hour, a record. It helps that I bleed easy. They eye my veins with something akin to Twilight lust. I always forget that donating leaves me with an upset stomach, and I was dying by that evening's birthday party. This was for a teacher's son, and we ate cookout food and Korean rice, made by the teacher's mom-in-law. Holy moley cow cookies, that was good stuff. We did not stay long as Your Sis was reeling from the festivities. She flopped on the couch, and we watched TV and fed her cold snacks.

We got the phones Sunday, and we took turns playing with them and grading papers. I eschewed the basketball game to watch the Tony's. Despite the hard push by the ceremony for American Idiot, other musicals won the big prizes. I can see why: Idiot is embarrassingly simple. Good vocal arrangements, yes, but the two song pieces I've seen from it are weak. Your Sis still wants to see the show when it tours, and we try, Roo willing. He, by the way, is not quite so antic, but he nudges and rolls to let us know he's still there. Your Sis is hurting from his weight growth.

We watched the U.S./England game Saturday, and it was a blast to watch. That keeper botch was so awkward that one suspects he was on the take. We learned watching soccer from South Africa is more fun when you also eat candy from South Africa.

The cats are back to their normal selves, and we suspect a new bottle of cat treats did them dirty. It's been chucked.

Picture of the Day
Mini A-Team!