A New Kind of Love

Some think I am a bit bizarre. But I have found at least one who shares my love.

Yes, new love, new discoveries.

I haven't come up with a name for it yet.

"Cottage Salsa"? ""Hot cottage"? "Mexican Cottage"?

Whatever you call it, I call it bliss.

Take fat free cottage cheese. Mix in medium spicey store brand (Giant) salsa (it has corn and beans in it, delectable). And eat.

Most scoff at me. One friend at work stopped laughing long enough to pick up a spoon.

I am the next Emeril. Try it. I dare you.

and oh shoosh it doesn't matter if I might have discovered this one night after quite a few drinks. It tastes good even without the tequila. So be quiet.

I FOUND A WIFE!!!!!

I am truly, deeply and profoundly happy.

Today I found a wife.

For years I have been lamenting that I do not have a wife.

The men I work with don't vacuum, dust, clean bathrooms, do laundry, mail packages, take dogs to vets, pick up drycleaning, go grocery shopping or do any of the mundane tasks I do in ADDITION to being a lawyer. They are just lawyers.

For years I have had to explain why I need to come in to work late, "Because I don't have a WIFE!"

That all changed today.

Liz came into my life today. She lives in the neighborhood, has great references, is competent, articulate, funny, loves my dogs, and asked permission to move the furniture when she vacuums so she can get the baseboards. Um, YES?!

For a mere $15/hour, Liz will do it all: clean, shop, run errands, take care of my dogs, do yardword, weld (yes I said weld - weld what I don't know - whatever needs welding I suppose), spackle, paint, fix stuff. She is the perfect wife.

Actually, she's even better. I don't even have to sleep with her.

OK apparently I AM old - the adrenaline crash

Last week was litigation craziness at work, which I love (when it's not all the time, which it hasn't been.) I am in a sweet spot at work where I am senior enough to run my cases and teach the "kids" but junior enough that I don't "own" the firm or have that crap to deal with. I love where I am right now.

Wednesday night I "owned" the brief however. I committed to getting a draft to the partner by 7am Thursday. Yes BossMan does get in that early.

Hence staying up until 6am on Thursday to get the brief done. I will admit, writing a 20 page reply brief overnight is pretty cool. Why yes I am a Law Geek. What's it to you.

I caught a nap then went to work. I had a team of 4 "kids" helping me refine things, gather research, gather exhibits, etc. We had a team meeting in my office in the early afternoon and I was rockin'. One of the kids (26 years old, very OCD and dedicated, childless, relationshipless, lives 2 blocks from the office), was amazed at my stamina. They kept saying, "How are you even awake?!" I told them the thrill of the game! And, this ain't NOTHIN' compared to raising twins.

I worked until after midnight Thursday, was back in the office Friday by 8. Stayed until 10pm when the filing was done.

Got home Friday night full of energy somehow and watched a movie.

Saturday morning? Could. Not. Wake. Up. Had a slew of plans for Saturday - cleaning, errands, exercise.

Instead I woke up at 10 - only because the dogs couldn't hold it another second - then went back to bed. Yes. I did. I didn't sleep - I surfed the web on my laptop (wireless is such a double-edged sword), talked to my family, played with my dogs (in bed). Finally, still exhausted but embarrassed to stay in bed any longer, I got up a little after one. 1:00 p.m. In the afternoon.

Apparently, the adrenaline gave out and my body said, "WHAT THE FRICK WERE YOU DOING THIS WEEK? YOU ARE NOT IN COLLEGE ANYMORE!"

Yeah, body, thanks for the reminder.

I think I'll go take my Metamucil and go to bed now. It's almost 10pm....

Too A.D.D. for a simple movie?

What happened to sitting down and watching a movie?

It's Friday night. I finally arrived home from work at 11pm. Yes, 11. Not that I didn't go in at 8am. When we have a filing deadline, life gets like this. And I love it.

I live for craziness. For juggling. For multitasking.

Lately I have been melancholy because with the kids gone and the job slow, well, there is no multitasking. No insanity. No craziness.

This week? I have it in spades.

And so, the brief filed, my deadlines met, I come home to a fire, a glass of wine, a movie and...facebooking, blogging, research (on a personal level) . When did this last bit of "and" come into my life? When did I forget how to sit down by myself and simply watch a movie?

When did I become my children?

Egad.

Back to the movie which, ironically, is "Age of Innocence." A movie about NY in the 1800's. No computers. No multimedia. One of the main characters is a lawyer (a guy of course). Somehow this whole situation is making me shake my head at myself.

Happy Friday my friends. I hope you're having a better Friday night than 1/2 watching a bad movie by yourself while cruising the internet and wondering if it's worth it to get your sad butt off the lazyboy couch and stoke the fire that is dying....

Crawling Out from Under My Rock

She's baaaaack. Well a little anyway.

Where did she go? Well it's kind of like I went to find myself. And I couldn't blog about it because I didn't want to hurt some of the people who read my blog and I didn't want to share with others who read my blog (strange, because this started as the place I could say Whatever to Whomever. But then PEOPLE find out and, well, you have to THINK about your audience!)

So here's what it looked like:

• The Captain and I took a little breather. I discovered he's NOT a rebound, I DO love him, and we need to figure out how to live closer to each other geographically;
• Although I love my job, I need to figure out if my job loves me - does it let me be me? It sure pays the bills. I have choices. This is a tough one.
• I am moving. Come May my house is going on the market. I am either moving closer to my job in DC into a smaller house with a doggie door and a fenced in yard OR chucking it all and moving to Florida. As the job market isn't so hot, I have a feeling it will be DC.
• I have to figure out how not to miss my kids quite so much. I loved loved loved having them home at Christmas. EX didn't want to set a schedule and let the kids go where they wanted. They wanted to be here. A lot. I loved it! But when they left in January the tears started again. I just miss them. Texts, facebook, emails, calls, Skype, it's not enough. I miss the piano going 24/7 and the jokes and the dishes in the sink and the laughter and the yelling and impromptu movie night. Things will never be the same. I am trying to figure out how to embrace that. So far, it's not going all that well.
• I need to get control of my body and my physical well-being. I was working out, eating well, feeling great until Dec 21. Then I got a cold and an infection and the cough from hell. I've gained the 10 pounds I lost and can't shake the crud. I need to Run Every Day, regardless of the hour. I hate being fat and out of shape.

There's a lot of other stuff swirling in my head. I worry about my parents all the time. They are so awesome and such an incredibly important part of my life, even though they live 340 miles away. I wish I could get them to come down here and live with me. Better yet, I wish they would move to Florida with me. I want to put them someplace safe and cook them dinner and chat with mom until all hours of the night and watch sports with Dad and tease him about his teams. I want to get my mom moving again and see if we can't get her to feel better. I want to get my dad away from behind the wheel of the car. In reality they are home where they are - they've lived in that house since I was born and I know it would be hard to get them out. I have a brother and two sisters within a mile of them, so it's not like I'm their only option. But I left 23 years ago and I really want to figure out a way to spend more time with them.

There have been a million blogable moments in the last two months. I am sorry I didn't capture them.

I will try to blog more often. Work is insane right now, which makes me very happy. I went to bed last night at 6am this morning and slept for 2.5 hours and I am still up tonight waiting for my turn at the brief that is due tomorrow. I have all the associates emailing me with questions/follow-up/assignments. We have a great team and I love being busy. But sleep would be nice, too.

If anyone is still reading this blog, thanks! I do promise to be back a little more often.

Total Phone Revisited

Does anyone remember the 80's when "Total Phone" came out?


Does anyone remember when you would call someone and, God forbid, they were on the phone and you got a busy signal?



At first we thought Total Phone was awesome - you had this thing called "call waiting" so we didn't have to worry about talking for hours on the phone and Dad getting angry because he couldn't get through. (Actually, it was Mr. Murphy who would get angry. The Murphys had 6 kids and lived two doors up. Many times around dinner we would get a call from Mr. Murphy asking us to run down to his house and "tell those damn kids to get off the phone!" (apparently he was trying to call Mrs. Murphy?))



One cool feature of Total Phone was the ability to get all your friends on the phone together. We figured out who of us had Total phone, then we'd call 1 person who didn't have it, and 1 who did. The one who did would call another friend who did, and etc. until we ran out of kids with Total Phone. Then all 6 or 8 or 10 of us would try to talk at once. Hilarious.



Last night, my sisters & 1 brother brought me right back to the 80's as we conference called each other. I had no idea my phone would still do that - apparently "Total Phone" is now standard. I was talking to my sister K, who had talked to Brother T. They hung up so Brother T could call Brother G & then get back to K. K called me, then T called back K on call waiting. She told him, "Hang up, we'll call you back." 5 minutes later and 10 failed attempts by K, I gave it a try and it worked. Then we realized we needed sister J on the phone. So Brother T tried it - we already ruled out K as a total failure. Oh My Goodness, that was pathetic. I am the baby of 5 and clearly the most technologically advanced, which is not saying much at all.

It went something like this:
T: What do I do?
ME: Hit flash, dial her number...
T: No no wait I have to write this down. Where's a pen. Damn that one doesn't work. Ok now I need paper. Yeah, this will do. Ok, What do I do?
ME: H-i-t Flaaaash
T: (writing) Flaaassh... (speaking) OK now what?
ME: Dial her number
T: What's her number? (she has lived in her house for 25 years!! Same number!!!)
ME: (tells him number)
T: ok then what?
ME: Hit flash
T: Do I have to wait until she picks up?
ME: (exasperated) NO! Just hit flash just like when you picked up your phone both K and I were on remember?
T: Oh yeah. Let me try this (mutters to himself "Flash, number, flash...")

Amazingly it worked. And I only pulled out a few hairs...

Very funny. I don't think we'll be trying that again. God Forbid I tell them about Skype or Oovoo!!

Defining M.E.

This fall has brought bigger changes in my life than the fall 3 years ago when Ex moved out. This fall, my identity left. And I didn't know who I was. I'm still figuring that out, but finally realizing why I was feeling this was has gone a long way to healing me.

Thanks Captain.

Yes, you're right, the Captain and I have officially taken a break, but of course I still talk to him and he sends me the most amazing and insightful emails. And he suggested something last week that I have been mulling over. And like Charlie Brown shouts out in his Christmas Special, "THAT'S IT!!" I have had a revelation.

No laughing now when you see how obvious it probably is.

For 18 years I have been a mom. OK I've been a wife, a law student, a business owner, a lawyer, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a friend. But first and foremost and above all else, I have been a mom.

I know how to do mom. I'm good at mom. At least I'm good at "full time mom." This far-away mom stuff? Not so good. I'm the kind of mom who bakes 125 cupcakes for the twin birthday - two classrooms, soccer practice, Brownie party, football practice. Yes one birthday they had ALL those things on their birthday and they wanted cupcakes for every event, so I baked. A lot. It was fun! And they were happy. We still laugh about that day and the cupcakes that were everywhere. I went to every game I could (which was almost every game). I volunteered in the classroom when certain teachers asked for such things. I went on field trips when the kids wanted me to. I played games in the backyard. I played video games, board games, taught them to sing & dance. I was involved. I tried hard not to be "that parent": the one who interferes. I made them stand up for themselves, sort out their problems with teachers, take responsibility for their actions. But I was always there for them.

Now they are gone. And along with all the things they took to college - their computers, posters, cds, bedding, shoes, and pjs - they seem to have taken my identity. I have been so focused on the kids, particularly this past year when I knew it was the last year, that I kind of forgot about me. All the sudden I have lots of free time and energy, yet I am so unfocused. I flit from thing to thing, from place to place in my head. Yet every day I keep searching for that elusive something.

Tuesday night, while I was home with the kids, cooking, laughing, joking, genuinely having a blast, the house full of their old friends, the feeling of overwhelming happiness, safety, contentment came over me. And then it hit me. The things the Captain said came back to me. He suggested that perhaps I have been so focused on the kids, I never truly dealt with my feelings about Ex, about the Captain, about my career, about my life. And now with the noise and bustle and chaos of the children gone, I am left with the quiet and the question, "What happened to me, Who am I now, and who do I want to be when I grow up?" Those are tough questions that I wasn't necessarily ready to face.

I think now I am ready to face them. Maybe that's what the bluster was about the day I proudly (prematurely) declared I was going to Take Back My Life. I was catching a glimpse of it, but only just figuring out where I really need to go.

I'm not really much closer to that goal today than I was that day. But I think now I understand some of the angst I am feeling inside. I'm still not ready for a relationship. I am taking baby steps trying to figure out M.E. But at least I feel like I have some direction, some sense of what it is I'm trying so hard to figure out.

Yeah, I know, OBVIOUS! But sometimes when you're in it, it's hard to see it. Like seeing the forest through the trees.....