First Cup.

First Cup.
Today, our brand new tech writer made me a cup of real coffee, using a coffee press. It was thick, foamy, and almost creamy. I've never had pressed coffee before. Just the filtered stuff, which requires vast quantities of a cream ingredient (preferably to achieve the HTML color code 996600 shade of brown) and a sugar ingredient in order to please me like a vanilla latte pleases me.

Pressed coffee is incredible! INCREDIBLE! I'm never going back. This is even better than a latte, for the love of all sacred things I never thought I could or would denounce.

Oh, and in other news, and we hired a new tech writer who makes phenomenal coffee. I'm sure he writes well, too, but ehhhh. I have my priorities.

Boy.

Boy.



Internet, meet Lucas. Lucas is both beautiful and crazy. Crazy, like, genius crazy. In fact, if you ask him, "Lucas, where's the excavator?" he'll point to the picture of an excavator truck amongst a page full of other dump-truck looking things. Dude, I didn't even know what an excavator truck looked like before a 20 month old pointed to one for me.

Before Lucas was born, I referred to him as "baby lu." Depending on which sex he ended up, he would be a Lucy or a Lucas, so "Lu" worked as a gender-neutral catch-all. The whole time his mother was pregnant, I had this vision of baby lu being cuddly and gurgly for a long time and then all of a sudden being in school and being a boy. It turns out that Lucas stopped being a baby lu long before being a grown-up. And it turns out that the inquisitive, becoming-a-person, genius toddler stage is even better than the cuddly gurgly stage. Totally better.

Here he is shining in the sunlight and investigating a non-digital camera. I love you, baby lu.

One down.

One down.
This whole first anniversary weekend was magical and lovely, except for the fight we had about cleaning the house for the party. (I was, however, impressed with our communication in the Fight Aftermath. You know, less “shut up, damn it,” and more “____ made me feel _____.”)

We spent much of Saturday getting things in order and cooking for the party, and then we spent a lovely evening with our friends and family. Sunday, we went sailing with my precious coworkers after church. All was beautiful and your standard sunny southern California sailing experience until the mast cable broke, sending the sail plummeting onto Erik’s head. His head broke through the canvas. I’m serious. In fact, after we pried him out from beneath it, we decided we had just missed a prime photo op and then staged a reenactment. There was much commotion and hullabaloo and two of my friends held out a towel to pick up the wind and carry us ashore in the absence of a real sail. I don’t think I could pick a better bunch of friends with whom to find myself shipwrecked.

That night, we shared a lovely dinner at Galoka, home of amazing all-vegetarian Indian food, fantastic art, a mostly organic wine list, and kick ass music. I pretty much cleared my plate. Except for those carrots. I once ate some carrots that tasted like dish soap, and I haven’t been able to forgive carrots since.

The anniversary weekend ended bittersweetly, with Erik driving back to Ojai this morning. SAD TIMES. However, the rest of the day was peppered with the following little gems:

Erik found out that as soon as he gets back into town from his National Forest job, he is starting up again at the county for election season. Thank you, sweet gods of employment.

Sarah came over tonight and we mastered “Cedar Tree” by the Indigo Girls. I had to tune my guitar down to DGDGBD and it sounded so beautiful I’m considering leaving it that way permanently and limiting my repertoire to drop-tuned songs.

Sarah was recounting a story to me from earlier in the day, in which she quoted herself as saying, “my best friend Julia…” I can’t even describe how lovely this makes me feel. Call me twelve, but I adore being a best friend.

As I retreated to the boudoir, I noticed that my sweet departed husband had left a mix-CD for me on my pillow. On my PILLOW! It’s a mix of sweet songs very dear to our hearts. (I totally feel like I’m being wooed by the main male character in a WB drama. A mix snuck onto a pillow is so Dawson and Joey.)

Never felt magic, crazy as this.

Wild Horses

Wild Horses.

While listening to that Sundays CD with the freaky looking baby on the front, I realized that, actually, wild horses probably could drag me away from Erik. I'd also get scratched up and break a few bones. Regardless of this physical and maybe even mental vulnerabilty for separation, it was really comforting to know that Erik would find me again, meeting me in the emergency room ICU after the wild horse dragging. We're pushed and pulled in so many different directions, physically, emotionally, etc., but the good news is that if I happen to be walking through some tough times on my own, my sweet husband and I will love each other the whole time and then we'd have the happy reunion of the long distance relationship variety, and rush to tell each other breathless stories with massive run-on sentences and kiss a lot and hold hands even in the car.

Today, I took a shiny new route to work which shaved off about 7-8 minutes from my commute. This makes me ridiculously happy. Granted, there's a highly convenient Peets Coffee and Tea on the way, which in turn adds about 10 minutes. This, too, makes me ridiculously happy.

This weekend, Erik and I are having a big party because in a few days we'll have been married a year! A FUCKING YEAR! I really can't comprehend how this year has flown by, but frankly, if the rest of our lives are like this, we'll get our "seven year itch" around our golden anniversary. I couldn't imagine another life, even now with the distance because then I wouldn't be getting my sweet groggy whispering phone calls while lying in bed in the wee hours of the morning (i.e. 8am).

Yesterday, my coworker John drunk-emailed me back and forth all morning. I'm going to wait until this sentence to tell you he was in the Phillipines for work, raiding the company-funded minibar in the wee hours of his time zone, because a mental image of a bunch of drunken engineers in midday suburban california with an empty minibar in their cubicle is really entertaining.

My very-different-from-me carpool buddy Matt just came back from Cancun, where he was PHOTOGRAPHING SWIMSUIT MODELS FOR A CATALOG. I'm completely serious. No, he didn't have any photography experience before this, and his pictures are actually quite good! And yes, he's bringing his new swimsuit model girlfriend to the party this weekend. Words fail me.

Sweet Jackie is dangerously high on my list of Favoritest People Ever, because while I was away from my desk for a few minutes yesterday, I received four emails from her. The first one informed me that David Sedaris, my dream (gay) man, is coming to town and that we must go. The second, third, and fourth were all about how SHE JUST BOUGHT TICKETS FOR US ALL AND GOT INCREDIBLE SEATS. Jackie, I love you.

See the above three bullets for reasons why I love my job these days. Air delivery systems and thermal control and vibration analysis and alignment just get sweeter by the minute when there are scheduled tea breaks and car rides home and night hikes to look forward to with the best coworkers in the world.

I'm such a fucking sap.

Sail away.

Sail away.



This is the sail of my friend Greg's boat. About a month or so ago, we took it out onto Mission Bay in San Diego. I was completely taken by how beautiful the whole situation was. The glistening water, the movement, the giddy children, and this vast, solid sail swaying slowly above us.

Earlier, Greg's sweet wife, Shawna, had been talking about how they'd retire the boat after this summer; it was too much hassle. I could understand this. They had to load not only a toddler into their van, but also load up the boat trailer and the boat. And it was quite old and tattered and always needing repairs.

But lying on the edge of the boat as we skimmed across the water, fingertips breaking the surface, I whispered to Greg, "don't ever get rid of this boat."

Matchy-Matchy.

Matchy-Matchy.
In recent years, my sweet long-lost friend Katie introduced me to the term "matchy-matchy," designating overly and misguidedly coordinated outfits. Sometimes, copious color coordination looks great, like when the swank lady at my church wears a black tank top with a turquoise skirt and black shoes and a turquoise necklace and earings. Most times, however, it's easy to go overboard. Like wearing turquoise shoes. Or something that was black/turquoise-y patterned. (Ew, patterns.)

I had always been conservative when it comes to shoes - just a good solid pair of brown shoes and a good solid pair of black shoes and maybe some birkenstocks or flip flops for saturdays, and I was happy. Well, happy up until about 4 years ago, with the Great Tall Boot Purchase of '00. I was late on the tall boot bandwagon, but it was as if I'd discovered sex in shoe form. I had a new leash on footwear. I ripped my shirt open and let my hair down and wrote erotica and ate oysters with champagne. I became a bonafide Shoe Ho.

Now I have red shoes! pink shoes! green shoes! heels! pointy-toes! peekaboo-toes!

I always take care to walk the line between put-togetherness and matchy-matchy. If I'm wearing all neutral tones or all black, the shoes and one other accessory will suffice. And of course, some days no amount of shoe color coordination will save me from frumpiness.

However, this morning, as I pulled on my yellow cardigan and dark grey skirt, I pretty much jumped the shark when I thought to myself, "man, if only I had yellow shoes."

Sadness, Failure.

Sadness, Failure
I really hesitate to talk about this, because I'm ashamed and I'm afraid of hearing that I'm doing the wrong thing. This weekend, we decided that our home is far from the best home for sweet Franklin the cat. We've taken a few steps to find a new happy home for him, and we're probably not going to take him back to the shelter. Who knows if someone would pick him?

Looking back, I think we realized that it wasn't a good match from day 1. We've been mulling over this for over a month now.

I always hear about people giving puppies and kittens back to the shelter and it had always irritated me, like maybe the owners jumped into the decision irrationally. They should have thought about this beforehand! They should have considered all the consequences first!

As much as I tell myself that yeah, we did think about all this beforehand, and yeah, we considered the consequences first, I still join their ranks. I'm one of those people. I teared up at lunch today when a coworker told me that he's also a failure because he threw away his compost heap.

A glimmer of a silver lining is that if he were still in the shelter, he wouldn't have been treated for all of his little sicknesses - the parasites, the eye infection, the tapeworm, what have you. I do feel like we did make a positive difference in his life for just a short period.

But, for the long term, we failed.

The hard life of a lonely spouse.

The hard life of a lonely spouse.
I'm actually really happy at this moment, but I have to say that it is REALLY rough being physically and communication-ally apart from my husband. I haven't talked to him since a whispered, too early Monday morning phone call.

Stupid little things are really getting to me, like the (normally wonderful) fact that his side of the bed is always smooth and doesn't even need fluffing or folding in the morning. Like the fact that the soap in the shower is lasting me at least three times longer without him using it. Like the fact that his boy-cosmetics and deodorant aren't lined up on the counter right next to the sink where my elbows hit while washing my face, even though he has plenty of space in the medicine cabinet. Like the fact that the last grown-up/non "c'mere kitty" tone of voice the walls of the house heard was probably sometime mid-afternoon on Sunday. Like the fact that when the small of my back is cold in the middle of the night, I can't just wiggle over to his usual 400°F radiant sleep-heat. Like the fact that putting conjunctivitis ointment in Franklin's eyes is way easier with two people.

The hair on the bathroom floor is all long and blond. There are no boxer shorts or My Neighbor Totoro t-shirts in the washing machine. There's no cheese in the fridge. The CDs are piled up and EVEN THOUGH I PROMISE THEY'RE TOTALLY "ORGANIZED," look like they're in total disarray and not filed away in our cabinets alphabetically per genre, chronologically within each artist. I saw my coworkers kiss last night and while it was really OH MY GOD MY SWEET COWORKERS ARE KISSING AND ARE SO HAPPY, the way their lips touched made mine ache.

These negligible things expose absense and lack and I just want Erik to come home so I can feel his lips on mine and mess up the bed and watch him alphabetize CDs.