hodgepodge

every now and then i have a few things to share...some isolated incidents that are worth mentioning. and while none of them on their own is worthy of an entire post, when combined, i think they just might be. first of all, i just spent a wonderful weekend in williamsburg, va with my 3 college roomies. i took away a few things from the 24 hours spent together drinking wine and reliving days that are further behind us than any of us would really like to admit. williamsburg really is a nice little city full of pancake houses and historical reenactments. woo. instead of getting our history swagger on, we opted for laser tag, a visit to the winery and a record trip down to a bar on the one hip strip in the burg. laser tag:: super fun. ive played before and had a great time, but this time was even more fun thanks to the group of 15 8 year old boys out for blood. at one point one of them yelled at me when i missed an open shot on my best friend (on the opposing side) by screaming, 'shes blue shes BLUE!!! this isnt boys against girls, lady, its red AGAINST BLUE!!'. awesome. gotta love that enthusiasm. at that moment i was relieved that we werent in real combat (hed clearly be way too trigger happy) and of course that i have a son who i hope to one day have running around with guns yelling at random strangers with the same adrenaline filled conviction.

also, i know williamsburg isnt that southern by southerners standards, but seriously...i have a suggestion for all of you southern drivers on the highway....are you listening? rain is not the same as ice and you are not driving sugar cubes. please stop flicking boogers on my happy place behind the wheel and proceed at the speed you were just lollygagging at prior to raindrops falling on your windshield. this is not dangerous. this is not reckless. it is actually keeping you safer because those of us just passing through are raging at your sudden braking over the precipitation.

after spending the afternoon and night at the winery, we were tired and thankful for malena, our rockstar server who not only gave us great service with free wine and cookies, but also safely delivered us all back to our hotel when our lame cabbie never showed. at this point we all wanted to put on fat pants and relax in our room. that would make sense. but like a group of convicts just escaped from prison, we didnt want to waste even a minute of our precious freedom. so we boarded the bus to abilene, called another cab and ventured downtown with some nice turkish driver from istanbul here on a student visa at william & mary. i know you dont care, but being the big loser that i am, and having just watched patrick spend an entire year working on his thesis on muslim extremists, i was actually really curious to know what this guy thought of the terror threats abroad, specifically the extremist views in his home country of turkey. thank goodness i had a fleeting moment of situational awareness and simply shut up and color. i find it thoroughly amusing that my situational awareness on my girls night out now keeps me from chatting up the cab driver with current topics as opposed to other things. lets just say we've come a long long way.

once comfortably seated on high barstools created for the arse of a 12 year old, we promptly ordered waters and some bar food. this began the 30 minute litany of complaints and criticisms of our server by each of us. he was rude, rushed, didnt make small talk and rarely visited our table. hmmm. after a brief moment of clarity it occured to me it could be because we are at a BAR....ordering WATER....with a server who is serving, bartending and probably trying to pick up the table of COLLEGE chicks over there. im going to go out on a flimsy limb here, but i think we could finally be moving beyond this stage of our life at last. i mean really, when our topic of conversation at a bar revolves solely around our crappy service, we may be out of our zone. so we ate our crappy food, drank our tap water and called mr. istanbul to pick us up. home sweet home by 11, just in time to catch 9 hours of sleep before hitting a pancake house. an altogether great weekend with the best of friends. and no rain on the way home. perfect.

7 am

patrick made coffee this morning as he has done countless mornings before. its not that im incapable (i did make it yesterday with jack on my hip, trying to feed him a bottle with one hand without dropping the holy grail of brew with the other), its just that its hard to make coffee when i havent had any yet. my judgment is blurred, my reflexes nonexistent, my ability to speak temporarily unavailable. yesterday was a perfect example...who really tries to hold a baby and a bottle in one hand and a huge pot of coffee in the other?? someone who is clearly not yet awake and is in desperate need of the bean, willing to risk dropping the baby or the coffee in a crazy attempt at multi tasking. my sister in law lisa, (who btw is full of valuable tidbits and insights that you actually WANT to hear) once wisely summed up new parenthood as not really that difficult. i mean really, how hard is it to keep a newborn (lets throw in colic free) baby happy? its not. but doing it with 2-4 hours of sleep...thats hard. im figuring out slowly but surely its always the factor you didnt think of that makes tasks the most challenging. like navigating your way via taxi with a significant language barrier between you and cabbie. and in my case and my days as of late, its the fatigue factor.


im blaming most of my fatigue on georgia who continues to summon us to her room at all hours of the night for the most obscure reasons. a few nights back she, in a rare switch that had me smiling, called for her DADDY at the top of her lungs. when he got to her room, he immediately scolded her, 'georgia, why are you yelling like that??' to which she replied, '2 things, daddy. 1, i love you. 2, could you please put my blankie back on me?' good thing hed done his stretches that day, otherwise it would have been difficult for him to wrap himself entirely around her little finger. im also blaming shark week on the discovery channel which i cannot seem to pull myself away from regardless of the predictability (of course the guy talking on camera didnt get eaten by a great white shark unless hes giving the interview in the afterlife) or the hour to which it lasts (most recently to midnight).

and ive always been a night person, able and eager to spin my wheels at all hours of the night but im realizing as of late that the little people have not only their dads amazing blue eyes but his inexplicable internal alarm clock as well. and this, in a horrifyingly unfair twist of fate, has my night owl self being beat down by the morning people in the house. i have always reserved early mornings for God and birds, neither of which needed my attention during those sleeping hours. but now...well, now theres God and birds and children, who incidentally do need my attention at all hours. so im thankful that some sleepy ancient incans or mayans or egyptians or some other 'ans' discovered the magical bean and then had the idea to grind it up, heat it up and drink it. i imagine with so few interesting things going on back then and so few tasty beverage choices, they really persevered with the coffee idea. and im so glad they did. and that while my husband is annoyingly chipper in the morning, hes also wonderfully capable and willing to brew the best pot of pure joy imaginable. im off to refill.