Shaky Egg

I call this post blather because I haven’t a single braincell left, I swear. I am so freaking tired.

My husband and I mapped out our plans for our back yard, as far as raised beds for veggies and, as I put it, a vista, a path, a resting place, and a destination. Now, our yard probably isn’t 200 feet long. Anyway, while it seems huge when it’s time to mow or think about planting and tending it, it’s not nearly big enough for a real vista, or path, or destination. But that’s what I see in my head, and that’s what we’re going to have. We’ll have places to stop and ‘rest’ on our way to the ‘destination’ at the far end, and I’d like to have some herbs and a wild area that will attract bugs and birds and butterflies. I’d also like to let some portion of it grow wild, but we have to leave enough room to play croquet, which needs 100 feet or so, so we may not have enough room for much of a, er, meadow.

Then, we busted our asses tidying up the house and mowing the yard and so were exhausted when our guests began arriving around four.

Tonight we provided the house for a party for a friend of my husband’s, who’d just been promoted. It was a small party, nothing on the scale of the housewarming, but nice. We grilled out and drank beer and the guys played horseshoes for hours– score! Finally someone got some use out of the pits my husband worked so hard to measure out and dig and build. It was hot, but not unbearable, especially with a cold beer in hand. It is soooooo nice to have a place I feel comfortable inviting people. I’m not saying it’s a palace, I’m just saying I am proud of it and enjoy opening my home so that folks can socialize. And… we have worked hard to have a place we feel like sharing.

We didn’t cook or anything. After busting my ass cooking for my vegetarian father last week, I just didn’t have it in me, and we really didn’t want to spend the money on one of my extravagant dos. I felt a bit weird– have friends over without piles of home cookin’ over which I slaved for hours and which broke our grocery budget? But… it was kinda nice. We provided chips and dip, soda, ice, some beer, some hotdogs, just a few basics. A friend brought over his industrial food-service looking gas grill and the promoted guy’s wife brought pasta salad and baked beans. Yum.

One of my husband’s friends just had a baby in May. I was ecstatic to see the baby, I hadn’t seen her since she was a newborn and the mommy was still in the hospital and– I can’t tell you how thrilled I was when the mom said she had to run home to get a pacifier, and casually asked, would I hold her? WOULD I??? Jeez, who did she think she was talking to? That kid was so good, and so precious.

Then later when the baby was fussy and her mom couldn’t calm her, I took her and put the clamp on her, the clamp that used to put my baby to sleep, gripped snugly to my chest with, you know, the bouncy walk? I kicked off the platforms so I wouldn’t fall over holding her and off we went. She conked right out. She stirred a bit and lay her fat dimpled little hand on my chest– I *knew* that low cut sweater was a good idea! That little bit passed right out and I felt sooo proud, and so grateful for the opportunity. There’s just nothing better. I wrapped her in one of my child’s plush Raggedy Ann and Andy blankets and lay her on my bed. It just felt soooo good to fuss over a baby. I got this little jingle of pride when her mom kept her wrapped in the Raggedy Ann blanket the rest of the afternoon.

When the baby woke later and, after an hour or two of adorableness, got fussy again, I had to restrain myself, twisting my hands together to keep from being a bossy grabby mom. I knew I had to let her handle this in a way that was right for her. I want her to like me, and to come back. She gave me a hug when she left. Snif!

I just want to be useful to my friends with babies. Are you reading this, M? I wanted to tell you and our other friend with a birthday this month that for your birthday you each get two free hours of housecleaning and two (or as many as you want, dinner and a movie?) free hours of babysitting from me, good absolutely any time you want. I just didn’t want to tell you in front of people.

The word is out among the friends that I want another one. I guess my husband has talked with them about it, or at least to the new daddy who talked to his wife the new mommy. I had to clarify, did my husband say he wanted one? No, he said I wanted one. I’m not a bit embarassed about it, thankfully. It’s just a fact. I want to stay home and have another one, even though I know I have some spiritual work to do first– not work, like I haven’t earned it yet, but work, like, get in the frame of mind I want to be in.

We, the wives present, talked about it briefly– the politics of our marriage making it just, well, easier for me to work so I can say, I work too, dammit, so help me with this. We’ll see.

As the party wound down– a couple of hours of poker ensued once it was too dark to hurl heavy pieces of iron through the air– I was thinking about my birthday party, which will be in October when the weather will probably be lovely. It’s two months away, my birthday, but I’ve already started thinking about what sort of theme I want and what I want to serve. I’m not a tea party girl, but for some reason the idea of a tea party popped into my head, maybe from thinking about playing with my child and her little girlfriend who was over tonight, so maybe I’ll do a bad girls tea party or a moms on the lam tea party. But no, I want a house buster like our housewarming was, so I will have to invite spouses and guys in general as well as girlfriends… Anyway, one item will be wonderful tiny sandwiches on white bread– cream cheese, herbs, a paper thin slice of onion, cucumber or tomato, salt and pepper. Mmmmm. Isn’t that an odd choice, and an odd thing to be thinking about?

Blather, I tell you.

Oh I cannot tell you how happy I am that it’s Saturday night and tomorrow is Sunday.

I have to be on the road Monday through Wednesday this week, and Sunday through Wednesday the following. I’ll be travelling a lot more for my job, from now on. It will make it harder to blog, I think, but it may actually make it easier for me to write, lots of time alone. That is, if hours on the road driving and being nice to people don’t rob me of my few remaining brain cells.
Speaking of time alone, guess where I get to stay in my travels? When on business, I get half off at our state’s parks– I can get a ‘cabin’ or chalet, an entire house really, for fifty five dollars a night. All to myself! Out in the middle of lovely Appalachian foothill nature nowhere, ALONE. How nice will that be????? I forgot to make my reservation today, worrying about the party, but the lady assured me on the phone that they have plenty of room. Oh it’s going to be soooo nice.