Talking to my past self.

A few days ago, I was watching tv...  or reading an article...  maybe it was a commercial? about going back in time and giving advice to your younger self.  So then I started thinking about what I would tell myself.  I've certainly made my fair share of mistakes, and experienced plenty of pain, wouldn't it be great if I could avoid all that? If I could prepare myself for Aiden's death?  Save up enough money to NOT have to move to that crappy apartment on Soranno ave?  The more I though about it, though, the more I realized that I really didn't want to do any of that.  Nothing that I could have said then, or could say now, makes Aiden's death any easier or more fair or less traumatic.  Nothing was going to make that be all better.  And I know I wouldn't want to have changed how I treated him, like he was different from the other kids, or more fragile or (god forbid) try to distance myself from him so it wouldn't hurt as badly.  As for the mistakes that I've made in my life, it's really hard to sit back now and wish that I hadn't done them.  If I hadn't settled and dated someone that I knew wasn't right for me for so long, I wouldn't have realized what's really important to me in a relationship.  Hell, what's really important in life!  Struggling with finances is how I learned how to be more responsible with money.  Living by myself in a crappy apartment taught me how to be independent and how to throw myself into what I'm passionate about.  Moving to Monterey (even though I totally couldn't afford it) forced me out of my comfort zone.  I had to go be social, even when that was kinda scary, because I needed to make friends.  I had to ask for help when I knew I really needed it, and accept it graciously.  Living with Carina and Lesley taught me how to be a better roommate (something I'm sure my husband is appreciating).  If I had prevented myself from screwing up, would I still be here?  Would I know what I do? Would I be the same person?  I really don't know, and that's far scarier than living off ramen for a few months.  I like where I am; I like who I am.  Ok, so obviously I can't tell myself any specific advice, because there's no way I'd risk not being here, now, but what about more general advice?  I thought maybe I could just tell myself not to worry, because it'll all be ok in the end.  The thing is though, I was always mostly sure that it would, so then I'd just be telling myself something that I already knew, which seems like a waste of time travel.  Even if could remove that last lingering "what if?" doubt, I don't think I'd want to.  Doing things that make you nervous and scared is part of becoming an adult.  The only people out there who are completely sure that it'll be ok are the 5 year olds playing in the mud.  What I finally came up with, what I do wish I had done more is to just try harder.  Not even at anything specific, just in general.  Try to be a better employee.  Try to keep my frogs healthier.  Try to write more often.  I think the extra struggle that I'd give myself would have helped me out a lot.  When I was living in Pacific Grove I was a waitress and an amateur herpetologist.  Not huge claims to fame, I know, but that's who I was.  It's what I spent most of my days on (when I wasn't out running around Big Sur with the boy).  Moving here, both of those ended, and I realized that I didn't have a whole lot else going on.  I don't mean to say that I'm less of a person, or anything like that, but I didn't realize just how much my personal identity was tied with what I do, and not having anything to do was really hard.  It would've been easier if I was better at doing things that I'm not good at.  It all seems so silly and common sense!  I like writing, so why not write more blogs?  I like being outside, so why not go for more walks during the day?  I like science, so why not read more books?  Somehow that never really occurred to me, so I'd sit at home, bored and getting depressed, because I had "nothing to do," which is just such bull!  I have plenty to do!  I just need to go out and actually do it!  I'm not sure how much sense any of this is making, it seems awfully rambly to me, but eh.  At least I wrote something?  Besides, it's easy to get distracted when Futurama is on and the baby keeps kicking me.  

Car alarms, cookies, and too many dirty dishes.

There's one on every street.  You're sitting back, enjoying a nice quiet afternoon (although to be honest, I was more sitting back, bored out of my skull and starting to get sleepy from it) when you hear the honking.  It goes on, but only for a couple mins.  You figure "hey, we've all accidently set off a car alarm before, no big deal!"  Until 5 mins later, when it goes off again.  Maybe it's someone's kids setting it off?  That might excuse it, but shouldn't an adult have rectified the situation the first time?  Again, no more than a couple minutes goes by before it's off, and again, it goes back on again.  Seriously?  By now you're really wondering, what on earth is going on?  How do you accidently set off the alarm so many times?  And by now, shouldn't you be faster at turning it off?  Sadly, there are no answers.  Eventually, the beeping will stop, and all will be quiet once more.

Although that wasn't nearly as bad as the guy who let his motorcycle run for about 15 mins at 6 this morning, before finally driving away.  Of course, this time we all know who it was.  Yup, it was the cop who lives across the street and down 2 houses.  One would think he'd be a little more considerate of noise and whatnot, but nope.  Ugh.

I went to make cookies today (peanut butter blossoms, I made some last week with a new recipe and they were really, really good, and I had some leftover kisses, so I figured I might as well make them again!), but there was a sink full of dirty dishes.  Man!  I didn't want to do chores!  I just wanted some yummy goodness!  It seems like that always happens too.  Maybe I ought to be more on top of actually putting dishes in the dishwasher.  And of course, I couldn't fit all the dishes in there.  So there's still a half sink full.  Well, ok, now there's a full sink full again, but that's including cookie mess.  Somehow with this recipe I manage to use two different 1/2 cup measuring cups (that sounds really redundant....), a two cup pyrex dealie, all three different sized teaspoons, and another spoon for scooping out flour.  Not to mention the mixing bowl and the blade on the mixer and the pans and the dish I use to set the unwrapped kisses.

Awesome cookies make it all worth it though.

My husband is crazy

Ha, I just realized that my last two posts were about music.  What can I say, music makes me have feelings and thoughts and if facebook and social networks have taught me anything, it's that everyone must know my thoughts and feelings because I am fascinating!

Anywho.  As you probably know, I am married to a guy who thinks that running for hours and hours is fun.  Weird, I know.  This makes him do things like sign up for marathons, even when he hasn't trained for one, and the longest he's ran in months was 'only' a half marathon.  What you may not know is that in an attempt to be a supportive wife, I try to go with him to his races, even though I'll only see him for a few minutes at the start (sometimes, sometimes the start line is somewhere else and I don't actually go with him on the shuttle, I wait with the car at the finish line), and again at the finish line, which is always seriously anticlimactic.  Some people run through the finish with their arms triumphantly raised, shouting and cheering and just so clearly proud of themselves.  Some go through in obvious pain and you can see the relief they're feeling that it's finally over, but you can also tell how proud they are that they pushed through the pain and finished.  I'm always more impressed with those people.  My husband, though?  He just jogs through, nods at me, I point to where the exit is, then meet him there with his bag and water.  Then we wander around a bit so he can cool off and stretch.  "How was it?  You feeling ok?"  "Yeah, it was fine, you want to drive home though?  My hip is sore."  That's usually about it.  Because he didn't train for this one, he was definitely in rougher shape than normal, but even then, he was just concerned about getting his finishers shirt and medal (what's the point of running if you don't get the medal?) and getting away from the crowd (they had about 33,000 runners at today's race, plus all the support staff, friends and family, vendors, cops, etc).  The thing is though, marathons take several hours.  Even the really fast runners still take at least 2 and a half.  And it's hot here.  So they start early.  Really early.  We had to be at the parking lot by 3, so he could get on the shuttle, for the race that started at 5.  That means we got to get up at 2am.  At least I get to sleep in the car for a bit after he leaves, but still.  Car sleep is not the same as real sleep.  Clearly, I love the guy if I'm willing to get up at 2, drive for an hour to drop him off, then try to sleep in a car, all so I can watch him jog across an arbitrary line so he can get a cheap medal.

I'm gonna go take a nap.  He's already pretty unconscious.  

Christmas music tidings

I haven't had a job since I quit CPK in March.  At first, I was too busy to notice, what with getting married, going on a 3 week honeymoon, moving to Hawaii, trying to find a place to live, flying back to CA for my sister's wedding, and then getting pregnant, but it's been long enough now.  I'm bored.  Deeply, deeply bored.  I used to be all excited about having a baby because babies are cute and challenging and I want to grow and blah blah meaningful blah.  Now I mostly can't wait for him to get here because taking care of him will give me something to do.  I've even been a little busy today!  I went to the DMV (or, satellite city hall as this state insists on calling them) to get a license, and that obviously took forever.  And I went to Target to get milk and butter and stuff.  And I went for a walk.  And cleaned up cat poop that was somehow of the vertical side of one of the steps on our stairs (seriously, how do they even do that?  It's not like it was smeared, there was just a glob of it, hanging there).  But I'm beginning to be unable to tolerate more than 30 mins of non-activity   I've started watching TV standing up and pacing.

Anyway, all that was just a long, rambling introduction to get to my actual point, which I've barely started.  See, because I'm so bored, I also don't like quiet at much.  So I've been playing music.  There's really only one choice of music in December, Christmas music.  Especially since nothing else here feels particularly Christmasy (I'm wearing shorts and a tank top and had to turn up the AC because it was getting too uncomfortable in here).  The thing is, Christmas music can be...  difficult.  I don't mean difficult to find a good station (I mostly listen to Pandora) or at least something that's not just dogs barking or Mariah Carey, but it brings up lots of memories.  Mostly good ones, but it's making me homesick!  I just listened to Pachabel's Canon, followed by Carol of the Bells, and immediately, I was in my parent's kitchen.  Kids are running around being crazy, and they keep letting the dogs in, even though we keep telling them that they have to stay outside.  I'm helping with something food related, cutting veggies, or stirring sauce, or maybe just sitting on the counter with a glass of wine (something I seriously miss being pregnant btw, last night I told Joe he needed to open a bottle and kept stealing his glass from him just so I could smell it, and, ok, occasionally take small sips, but mostly I just love the smell of wine).  My toes are cold because shoes are annoying to wear inside, even when it's cold out and the floor is downright icy, but my body is hot because obviously I'm wearing a sweater (it's cold out!).  I've long since given up on having my hair styled in a cute way and have pulled it back from my face into a messy ponytail, and really I couldn't care less about how I look.  No one here cares either.  We're all family, right?  Even if we're not actually blood related.  And the best thing about family is not having to be at all self conscious.  I miss having my family around.  I mean, sure, my sister may drive me crazy sometimes, but isn't that what sisters are supposed to do?  I really didn't intend for this to come off as depressing, I'm smiling as I'm writing it, I just thought it was interesting how music can cause such intense reactions.  And hey, since I have nothing else to do, I might as well blog about it, right?

Music and First Impressions

I know it's been ages since I've posted, but tonight I've been thinking about something that is too long for facebook. Shocking, I know, that facebook may not always be the best way to communicate every thought.

Anyhow, my cats have always like boys better than girls. Except for Fuzzy during the day, but that's just cuz she's crazy and is terrified of everyone other than me when the sun is up. Vampire cat. *ahem* Because they like boys, especially ones they know, it's pretty common that when I come home from work, or the two of us are watching tv (at the moment it's Ottawa vs. San Jose and we're LOSING!!!! AAAAGGGHHH!!!!) or whenever, at least one of the cats will be curled up in Joe's lap. And every single time, it reminds me of that line from the George Strait song- "She thinks I'm perfect and that I love her cat, but you know me better than that!" Now, I know that Joe really does like animals, and that he (mostly) really does like my cats, but I'm always a little curious. Does he REALLY like them? Or is he only pretending? Dammit! George Strait has poisoned me!

But then that reminds me of something else. I dont know if everyone has a moment like this, but I distinctly remember the first time I actually listened to music. I mean, sure, there was always music in the background at the store, or on tv shows, and of course we'd all sing at church, but I never really paid attention to the fact that it was music. It was different from other forms of communication, and the melody and the mood and the instruments could convey as much meaning as the words themselves. That song, sitting in my parent's car, driving away from the music store, was Thunder Rolls by Garth Brooks. I'm not going to make any sort of hypothesis as to how that has affected me or my tastes in music, but I remember how dramatic it was and how it felt like desperation, even though at the time I didn't even know what the word desperation meant.

And I almost hate to wrap up this way, which no real closing statement (my various English teachers would be so mad), but sometimes blogs dont have a point. Anticlimactic, I know. I was just thinking about music, and the music of my childhood, and felt a desire to share it. Feel free to share your early memories. Or don't. That's totally ok too. :)