Urban Drool

(Begin inner monolouge)

Sometimes I wish I could write long, thoughtfully considered and beautifully executed posts that read as smooth as a sippy cup of Bailey's Irish Cream.

But more often than not, my posts are an exact reflection of my thoughts - much more like mental diarrhea than my esteemed favorite, Bill Bryson.

(End inner Monolouge)


J-O-B

Neither of the two most recent firms I have interviewed at have deigned to hire my over-qualified ass.

That, by the way, is the most often-cited reason for not hiring me. I have a Bachelor's Degree from a private, well respected institution, I have a Juris Doctorate, I have 5+ years of experience under my belt. So, why am I looking to take Legal Assistant-Paralegal type jobs?

Why?

Becuase, frankly, a Legal Assistant position in downtown Cleveland is going to pay a lot more than what I'm earning right now. And even if I did take 2 months off to study, take the Bar and get my License, I would not be seeing any major increase in salary at the firm I am at right now.

I COULD get my license and try and work downtown, but I would lose even more time with my family than what I have right now. As an Assistant, I could show up at 9, leave promptly at 5, and tell the rest of the world to go jump off a bridge - the rest of my time would be my own.

I have worked with and for attorneys for years. I have seen how much of your life is sacrificed. I'm not going to do that. I don't care if it means I can never drive a brand new car. I don't if it means I will (almost always) live paycheck to paycheck.

I know what I want to do with my life.

I want to be a mom.

I want to be a mom.

I get 100 times more personal satisfaction from bathing my baby, dressing her in her PJs, and nursing her to sleep than I do from the most complex application I ever worked at to complete and file with the U.S. Department of State.

Taking the baby downtown, having lunch with my dad and pushing her around Public Square in her stroller and seeing her huge brown eyes go round and sparkly with excitement means so much more to me than plowing through a mountain of paperwork and getting a case approved just under the wire.

I cannot wait for PTA meetings, helping out with Holiday Craft fairs at her Elementary Schools, driving her to piano lessons and showing her how to make French Toast. I want to coach her soccer team and I want to take her camping when she's in Girl Scouts.

I dearly wish that someone could pay me a middle-class salary to stay home and raise my daughter. But they won't.

So.

I will continue to look for another job. Closer to home. With less stress. And more money. And more flexible hours. I know it's out there. There is a job out there that is meant for me. And I will always work. Becuase I have to. I have a mortgage to pay. I have nice baby clothes to buy. I have an expectation to build another 900 square feet onto my house in the Spring, so my baby can one day have her own room. And more space to run around and be a happy girl. I have a college fund to start building. I have a plan to take her to England and Ireland in 2 more summers. I have life insurance that must be obtained. I have responsibilities.

So I will still go to work. But I won't sacrifice any more time from her and her father than what is absolutely necessary. I really don't care one pee-daddle about my fancy degrees and experience and "advancing my career" and blah blah blah.

They don't mean shit when I look at her and help her count her own teeth that she's cutting and show her the new twinkle lights on her very own Christmas tree.

The End.

The days of Tuesday, November 21, 2006 through Monday, November 27, 2006 have a name.

Tis' not "Thanksgiving Week, 2006"

But instead, "A Very Lumi Holiday, 2006: The Vomitorium Tour"

Things I've learned:

Baby barf is bright pink if the baby has recently eaten cranberry jelly.

I have exceeded my own personal record for highest number of poops in one day (a.k.a. "the big 17")

If your baby has barfed more than 8 times in 12 hours, and is unable to keep even 1 ounce of water down, you're supposed to go to the hospital.

The organic, free range, $42 turkey that was supposed to be the tastiest damn thing this side of Sara Lee turned out to be the dryest, most taste-less thing I have put in my mouth in recent memory.

Men are the biggest fucking wimps imaginable. The same ailment that I had to suffer through (still managing to run to drug stores and empty the dishwasher and dish out soup and pour and administer Pedialyte) had my Boy and my father bed ridden and instructing me what to do with their remains, for lo', they were indeed soon to perish.

You can indeed launder your entire household's stock of bed sheets, towels and blankets in one day. Twice.

You will in fact go out and buy a Christmas tree, all by yourself, when you should really be fucking resting and recovering, becuase your husband really, really, really wants a Christmas tree. That day. But is too sick to go with you to get it. And you go and get it. So that he can spend the rest of the day in the bedroom (with the lights off, and the space heater going full blast), totally ignoring the very nice tree which you dragged in and set up in the living room.

You will not get (too) angry with him about the immediate aforementioned, due to the fact that he has a 101.5 degree temperature, a sinus infection, and a prescription for antibiotics from his doctor.

But you still bitch about it on your blog.

Happy Thanksgiving. I think next year the baby and I will go to Aruba instead.

I don’t remember 100% of those days and weeks…the last days before she came and the couple weeks that followed her arrival. That time comes back to me in teeny bits and snatches – like a surreal dream. But the small pieces of memory I do have are startlingly clear and sharp.

-The sheer weight of my enormous belly…dragging, stretching and in my opinion, not a very pretty sight.
-The bright red dots of blood in the bathroom sink after brushing my teeth in the mornings…horrible, awful bleeding gums
-The way my blue cotton bathrobe and matching slippers looked in my first hospital room…so carefully hung up by the Boy
-The sound of me peeing into that ridiculous plastic-measuring-over-the-toilet thing that the nurses insisted on me using
-The nervous giggling the Boy was unable to stop when I told him my water had broken and was dripping all over the floor
-The smell of the orange and lemon scented cold towels that my doula used to wipe my face
-The metallic sound of the bed rails being slammed together in even, steady repetition…bang, bang, bang…growing progressively faster in tempo as every contraction peaked and eventually subsided. For 23 hours.
-The dry, crinkly feel of the blue paper that hung down and tickled my mouth and throat during the C-section
-The sound of her first cry
-The very hot and very wet and very heavy feel of her body when they pulled her out of me and flopped her onto my upper thighs while they suctioned her (and me) out
-The tiny little square shaped button, very green and always lit at night, with a jaunty little white nurses cap painted in the middle. That little button on the side of my bed in my post-partum room. A push of that button and my little white percoset would be whisked in to me. Every 4 hours. Like clockwork, baby.
-The smell of the disgusting omlette with the single slice of Kraft American cheese melted on top that was the “main course” from my “breakfast tray” every morning. I never did understand why over $30,000 in hospital charges couldn’t include halfway decent food.
-The sight of my white, thick milk whizzing out of my left nipple and zinging across the living room under the industrious and very pinching fingers of the nurse who came to my house the week after we got home to examine the boo-bear and me.
-The hooting sound of my laughter in immediate reaction to the point listed above
-Her smell. Her amazing smell. Her incomparable smell. A combination of Aveeno lotion, warm milk, soft hair and pure, heavenly baby. My God, is there anything more intoxicating then a newborn?
-The sight of her umbilical cord stump, gray and shriveled and dry…after it fell off, we kind of put it on top of the TV set and then kind of…forgot about it. It sat there for weeks…right next to the never-used remote for the DVD player.

So strange. I’ll never really understand how I can simultaneously feel like I never EVER want to go through it all again, but deeply desire to have it all repeat itself starting tomorrow morning.

I feel like I need to update the internet about the update that I posted last Friday becuase seriously I got six comments and I cannot remember the last time I got six comments and am I really a comment whore like I accuse my poor Boy of being but back to the matter at hand the Firm I really wanted to get a job offer from hasn't contacted me yet despite the fact they said that they hoped to have a decision made by last Friday so I went to a second interview at another Firm which would be fine to work at but not as nice as the first Firm and I think that second interview went really well becuase they want me to come back for a third and final time this week and so we shall see what happens there it's going to be weird though because that Firm is "professional office dress only" which means I would have to shlep to work in nylons and pumps and suits every fucking day and man I really don't want to do that but at least it wouldn't be at this damn place but you know what I was really surprised last Saturday at how well my visit with my friend went and I think we are going to be able to reconnect plus the baby really loved her and she had lots of lovely gifties for the baby and all in all it was a great Saturday which was good becuase Sunday kind of sucked what with the baby being amazingly cranky and me starting to get a nasty head cold and maybe an ear infection but at least my Boy came home with chocolate peanut butter chip cookies.

Fine, I'll write.

(grumble...grumble...grumble...)

I am so frazzled and turned around and life is in such chaos but I cannot hop onto my blog one more morning and see that same little Halloween greeting that's been up there since the Clinton administration.

Erf.....grr....ahhhhaacck.

(anyone here read Bloom County? Remember Bill the Cat? Remember how he always had that perpetual stoned/dazed look about him with his tongue hanging out the side? Yeah. That would be me.)

What do you want to hear about? You people tell me.

Do you want to hear about...

1) How I've had TWO job interviews in the past 9 days and will hear a decision about one (or both) by the end of the day today? Hello quiet despair and hysteria. So nice to see you again!!!

2) How the Pickle started day care this week? Day Care. That's Day Care as in, someone other than her Papa or her Grandma(s) or her favorite Auntie Mya's Mommy. This week. My heart and soul, they will ne'er be the same again.

3) How the Boy was back in the hospital last week. Again. With tests and scans and more people shoving more instruments up his what-not. Again. Peeing blood and back on 2 antibiotics. Again. And Percoset. Again. And a for-sure-we-cannot-avoid-this-anymore-you've-been-able-to-put-this-off-for-16-months recommendation for surgery. Abdominal surgery.

4) How my dogs keep digging holes and escaping from the backyard and I am so terrified that one of these days we won't find them in time and...and...(all I can think about here is poor J.D. from "Dead Like Me")

5) How...how...how...I don't know.

6) How I got an email 2 weeks ago from one of my closest friends. To whom I have not spoken nor seen in almost 4 years. The stormy silence? Totally her fault. She all of a sudden wants to have lunch. Tomorrow. And I am simultaneously thrilled and scared to death. I don't know if I'm going to hug and kiss her on sight or punch her in the nose.

7) How the fucking cat keeps pissing on the baseboards of the bathroom sink/vanity (...the hell???) and I'm so fucking tired of cleaning it up twice a day that I just don't fucking care anymore. The Boy says that the cat is "angry" with us and he will stop pissing on the baseboards of the bathroom sink/vanity (again with the "...the HELL???") if we "spend more time with him and tell him goodbye whenever we leave the house."

Oh my God. I hate that asshole cat. But I'll probably do as the Boy suggests anyway becuase I also love that asshole cat.

So...what do you want to hear more about?

And how has YOUR life been lately?