By MBPDLPayday Loans

Archive for August, 2009

Aug 30

Truth.

After a whirlwind week of nonstop running and zero relaxation, James and I dragged ourselves home last night and moved almost every major piece of furniture in the apartment.

When I say this, what I really mean is that I felt a little restless, so I pointed at big objects, and then the floor space occupied by other big objects, and suggested politely that perhaps the book shelves would all look better elsewhere. The desk, too. And perhaps the fridge? No? Not the fridge? The fridge is fine where it is? Are you sure? Ok. Just the desk then.

Shuffle shuffle shuffle, and around 10pm, we found ourselves watching the Jets beat the Giants while the kittens re-acclimated themselves with the word “NO!” (Mom and Grandma were not big on the NO! use when we were upstate. Moose ate thousands, maybe millions, of bugs. Elephant lived mostly on tree bark and Q-tip tops. They were allowed to ricochet off any piece of furniture their little bodies could reach. It was a good life for the monsters, that week of vacation.)

We packed the cats into the bathroom and crawled into bed, agreeing that next year, our vacation will be less feline-focused, and that we need to get away for a weekend, just us. I laid my head on that comfy place where his arm meets his chest, and he rested his chin on the top of my head, and I said, simply, “I think I’m struggling.”

“What, with the new layout? I like it…”

“No, in life. I don’t feel like I have direction anymore. I don’t know what I want to do any more.” He gave me a little hug, shifted me closer into his side, and I admitted what I’ve been a little hesitant to say to anyone else: “I’m scared of not having direction.”

I think the hardest culture shock of being out of school are the sudden lack of goals. I love my job, but there’s only so much I can strive to accomplish there.  There’s only so much room for growth. I’m not considering leaving, because the money is good and the people I work for and with are exemplary, but do I want to be a retail manager forever? Probably not. I don’t think I have what it takes to do this for a lifetime. (And mark my words, the people who run the retail operations where you go, disrespect the staff, mess up all the shelves and still receive smiles and good service… Those are stores run by people with a combined exceptional talent and exceptionally high bullshit tolerance. It’s a gift.) I know what I do every day when I get up and go to work. I don’t know where it’s leading me anymore, though.

This is where the doubtful voice, who expects me to fail, pipes up… So, then, what? And why are you wasting your time?

I slept restlessly all night, trying to find a clever answer for her. This morning, as Moose carried around his favorite washcloth (we tied a knot in a washcloth and wet it and freeze it for him when his little teeth bother him, because did you know kittens teeth, too? Every day’s an adventure…) it made me realize how blessed I am to have everything I call my own. James. The Evil Kittens.  My family, my health, my job. And after reading Kyran Pittman’s post about being daring this morning, it hit me.

I’m not wasting my time. I’m biding it. I’m waiting. I don’t know for what. I don’t know when I expect to know. I just know that right now isn’t the time to make radical changes.

As for the So then, what? Well, I still want to be what I did when I was a little girl. I want to grow up to be extraordinary. I want to inspire people to look inside themselves, find the good, and push it out for everyone to see. I want to be like Kyran, and Heather Armstrong, and Cate Hewett and Maggie Mason and Alice Bradley and Eden Kennedy. I don’t know exactly what that looks like for me specifically yet, but I’m working on it.

The next step is going back to school to Get Qualified, and after a couple phone calls tomorrow, and some editing from the posts at home, so you can enjoy my vacation like I enjoyed my vacation… It’s time to start charting a course.

The question is not in the doing just yet. It’s in finding the new goal. The specific goal.

Then, the only answer left is How do I get there from here?

-M.

P.S.- uuuvfvfvvyv 3wes   Love, Ellie

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Posted in The Moxie Chronicles., The Ugly Truth, Working Girl

Aug 29

A Tidbit.

James and I are still at his parents’ house on Long Island, so the Settling In phase after vacation hasn’t quite started yet. We’re still feeling the slowing breeze of the whirlwind brush our faces.

The week was too epic to put into one post, and I need to get my 35mm film developed because as soon as I got home, I packed my SLR away in favor of the grind and click of a classic film camera.

But to hold you over, the little morsel of perfection that warranted the trek home in the first place: Jonas Kyser Joseph Putman.

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Posted in Family Shackles, Manhattan Globetrotters, Mine All Mine, My People, Warm Fuzzies

Aug 21

Cat-ass-trophies.

Any day on which you have to inform your vet in the most convincing tone you can muster that you are not actually trying to kill your kittens is not a great day.

Since we’ve had the, neither kitten has had two consecutive solid poops. I know Heather Armstrong makes no pretenses about conversing on the more fecally-related aspect of life, and I found all her insights lovely and entertaining, but I must admit that until we got kittens, I never really had common ground with her when it came to matters-of-the-bum. Life with kittens revolves around poop. Diarrhea, to be specific. The boys I hooked up with Sophomore year COULD NOT EVEN RECOGNIZE ME NOW, my life is so involved in the poop of these two cats. (To be fair, they probably couldn’t recognize me anyway, poop or no poop, but poop is what I’ve got, so poop is what I’m working with.)

Then last week, Moose pooped out blood. You know how sometimes, I tend to over react, and sometimes, when it’s a real emergency, I revert back into Nanny Mode and could fix broken arms with nothing more than some chewing gum and a toothpick? I can always tell whether or not it’s a real emergency by whether or not I’m freaking out. If I freak out, chances are it’s nothing. If my brain instead starts quickly and quietly flipping through my Oh, Shit! Rolodex, I know we’re really buggered.

You see blood in your boyfriend’s stupid cat’s butt-juice and you whip that rolodex out faster then you did when you had to find a way to explain to your mother how your sister’s arm has a bruise the perfect shape of your fist, and why she suddenly has no interest in raiding your closet any more.

I bagged the poop and dropped it off at the vet for testing. That night, Moose pooped out worms, ACTUAL LIVE WORMS, and I did what I always do when the cats are into something gross: I demanded that James COME LOOK THIS INSTANT! He was equally impressed with the grossness.

Then I flushed them. Because surely if there were full-grown worms (3 of them) in this poop, they CERTAINLY found worms in the poop we dropped off earlier that day, right?

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong. So, so wrong. Painfully incorrect. And the next week, we spent countless hours cracking open litter-dried kitty poop in hopes of finding more worms. Or stalking the kittens every time they looked at the litter box, in hopes of catching a fresh puddle of poo. Have you ever HOPED your kitten would have the squirts, Internet? Have you ever hunkered down with the litter shovel and waited, searching eagerly for signs of life in the ooze?

It’s a low-point, folks. That’s all I’ll say about it.

A week passed. No worms. Not. A. Single. Fucking. Worm. Lots of blood, some mucus, LOTS of poop, but no worms. My mother likes to point out a lot that trying times lead to Growth of Character. My mother encourages this type of growth, as apparently, it makes you a better person. You learn stuff about yourself, you see. At 23 years old, I’m at quota for Stuff I’ve Learned About Myself This Week, and so, learning that I have issues with poop just about shoved me over the edge of my mental capacity.

Blood? I can handle. Vomit? No problem. You have mucus? Snot? Puss? I’m totally your girl. I can handle almost every bodily excrement you can come up with with grace and nonchalance. Being a Nanny in Tribeca will do that for you. Being a founding sister in a sorority will do that for you. But nothing… I repeat: nothing can take away my aversion to poop. Having to sift through poop for a week straight was more than my constitution and gag reflex could handle.

Thank God that boyfriend of mine has balls of steel and zero olfactory issues.

Finally, last night, Moose’s pooped simplified itself down to, essentially, blood and worms. I tossed it in a baggie with efficiency of which my mother would have been proud. Jubilant, I texted James. He was equally excited about the worms, which just tells you how perfect we are for one another. I was all “WORMS!!! I GOT WORMS!!” and he was all “YOU ARE A TOTAL ROCKSTAR!”

Welcome to my new reality.

We took the worms to the vet, complete with the poop. They couldn’t see anything. I started to lose my temper, so James kindly turned the gentleman vet tech around so the steam shooting from my ears would not alarm him, and nobly poked at the baggie of poop again until he found what we identified as A WORM. The vet tech agreed and gave us pills for both kittens.

Pills.

Let me just say that again, in case you missed it: P.I.L.L.S.

Do you know what’s harder than getting a kitten into its carrier when it feels it should be allowed to roam free and hunt toes at its leisure? Convincing a kitten that it REALLY DOES want to swallow a massive, foul-tasting pill. Kitty-putty did not work. Breaking it into smaller pieces did not work. Trying to get Elephant to take it so Moose would get on board did not work.

Finally, I flipped Ellie over and cracked open her little mouth and pushed the quarter-pill back as far as I could. I had read Kittens for Dummies. I sorta-knew what I was getting myself into. I blew on her nose. I massaged her through. I watched her VERY CAREFULLY…

And that’s how I knew that she was choking on the pill before James caught on. I saw her arch her neck a little, and felt her body tense in my hand. “I think she’s choking.”

He leaned in closer, “No… I think…I think she’s OK…” Her jaw dropped open and a bit of spit slid down her lip, her eyes bugged out of her head a bit.

The voice in the back of my head said, evenly and calmly, She is choking. Heimlich. Gentle. Once. Up, under the rib cage.

“She’s choking!” I said it once, assertively, and took the butt of my palm and hit her once under her rib cage because I could tell she was about to buck out of my grasp. I felt the pill pop out of her windpipe… I heard it. I felt her suck a deep breath in, and then she got really calm. She stood still for a moment and I leaned in to make sure that her chest was moving. She was breathing, slowly, through her nose. She wasn’t moving, she was holding her own head up, eyes wide but not bugged, and she was breathing. I looked at James. “She’s breathing. Is she breathing? She’s breathing. RIGHT!” He leaned in. He told me she was breathing. I took a deep breath, let it out, and started sobbing uncontrollably. Hysterically.

Ellie had almost choked on a pill literally right in the palm of my hands.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit to pull myself back together. I had to hold her a couple times, and see that she would play, and run around, and wiggle to get away to go get her toy before I could calm down. I was a wreck. She’s my little Evil Kitten. If I ever lost her, I don’t know what I’d do.

We decided to grind the pills to powder and mix it with their food. Our cats are picky eaters, sure. They’re a little spoiled, fine. Once or twice we’ve given them new dinners because they didn’t seem thrilled with one kind of kitten food, so what? They’d totally eat the food with the yucky meds in it and not make a fuss, right?

Have I mentioned we’re morons? Like, no one should trust us with children, under any circumstances, EVER. They got through three, maybe four minutes of semi-eating the food and then quit completely, more than half the dose still in each dish. We scrambled a little, trying to keep them interested in their snack, to no avail. James went to get something from the fridge, or the freezer, and an empty wine bottle came crashing down from the top of the appliance to the hard ceramic tile floor. Shattered. Glass. Everywhere.

I yelled for James to grab Moose as I pulled Ellie into my lap and we put both cats into the bathroom. Shards were everywhere, they both needed baths to make sure that glass in their coats was not ingested when they cleaned themselves. Moose hates baths; Ellie tolerated her fourth bath this week. James had his panic-face on, so I stated that we had to call the vet, explain that they both got partial doses, explain that their food was contaminated and ask what we should do.

The Grammercy Animal Hospital, being angels of mercy, told me to bring the cats right in, and that a tech would administer the pills. “Uh, they’re both soaked,” I had to explain. She didn’t understand. “Well, the glass,” I said. “I washed them to make sure that there were no pieces in their coats.”

She told me I was smart, that I had done the right thing, and I wanted to cry, because it was the third time I thought we were going to kill the cats today. When I explained the same thing to the vet tech, who had no problem getting Ellie to swallow half her pill, and only had to try twice to get Moose to cooperate, he looked at me with slight astonishment on his face.

“I’m sorry we’re back here again today,” I told him, referencing when we were in earlier and I almost yelled at him for not being able to see the worms that were MAKING MY CAT POOP BLOOD. “I swear to God, we’re just trying really hard not to kill these cats.”

He laughed, only charged us for one pill, and let us take our babies home. They slept in the carrier, are eating and drinking, and will hopefully poop out all the evil parasites over the next few days while we’re on vacation.

It’s 9PM, and I’m totally wired from all the adrenaline of the day, just now starting to ease off the high. Now there’s just a quiet anticipation bubbling around the edges of a heavy gratitude that all our mishaps and adventures today landed heads-up each time. Nobody was cut. The cats have their medicines. James and I were a powerhouse team through it all.

Tomorrow night, I get to start my vacation, where I get to introduce the monsters to my Mama, and I get to spend time with my Dad.

Most importantly, I’ll get to meet Jonas, and hug Kristin, who is very relieved at  simultaneously finding herself in the middle of a beautiful new family and also no longer pregnant.

I bet her boobs are totally huge.

Cookin'.

After a wobbly day here in Weebleville, I can tell you we’re all going to rest easy tonight knowing that we managed to prance around the dark spots once again. Weebles wobble, sure. But we’re all still standing. And everyone is excited to try again tomorrow.

45ezxA#GHt … Love, Ellie.

-M.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Mine All Mine, My People, The Ugly Truth, Warm Fuzzies

Aug 17

The Phenomenon of Family

Until very recently, I took for granted what Family meant. Or, perhaps more accurately, I overlooked the deeper roots. I felt them, I just never considered them.

My mother always told me that family are the people who have to put up with your crap even when no one else will because if they don’t, it will be awkward at Christmas, and no one wants to have that unholy burden on them. No one wants to be the one who ruined Christmas. So you live and let live and forgive and love unconditionally even though none of your shirts fit anymore because your little sister and her enormous boobs have warped them all, and why can’t Mom just make her wear her own clothes? Sometimes, Family took more effort than other times.

In my mind, my parents went from being A Couple to being A Family on the very moment I showed up, their oldest daughter. (I find that often my misguided, misinformed assumptions about my parents revolve around myself, my presence and it’s subsequent glorious effects on their combined lives.) Rarely does it occur to children– innately selfish and simple-minded creatures, simply for not realizing there is a bigger scope-of-things to consider– that their parents had lives before them. Or that each parent had an entire life before they met one another and chose to team up.

It wasn’t until I was almost 20 that I realized two things about my father simultaneously. 1. He was a very cool guy, and if I was not his daughter, I would still very much like to be his friend. (Happily, I now get to do both.) And 2. That man can really tell a story. (And does he ever have cool stories to tell.) At 18, my mother had become my best friend, and I started to open my eyes to how much they’d given up for me, given to me… none of it begrudgingly. When children have this moment, it is the profound beginning of a new appreciation for the people who birthed them. I’m sure it seems to take forever, but eventually we get there, to the place where we realize they are so much more than the hander-out-ers of groundings and allowance. And there are perks in it for them, too. Below, you’ll see my parents on the day their oldest graduated college with a BA in Film and Screen Studies and then went out with her parents and got completely shitfaced.

My Parents... Featuring: My Father's Drunk Face.

My Parents... Featuring: My Father's Drunk Face.

Happiness looks good on them, together, 25 years after they stood up and promised to love each other forever. They’ve spent every day since making good on that promise and showing my sister and I firsthand what it means to be part of a Family That Loves Each Other NO MATTER WHAT (capital letters courtesy of my mother, who can push words through her teeth with a fervor that I can only hope instills subtle terror in the hearts of my children with the acute accuracy the way she once did to the hearts of my sister and I).

The Kiss.

Kristin and Ryan were just a couple in my mind, too, until the morning they had Jonas. Then they started being a family. Like, a real family, with a baby. (… … … KRISTIN HAS A BABY! … I am not freaking out… … … As long as I take time to pause on this matter… … … I am not freaking out.) When I got to talk to her the morning after her C-section, she told me, in these words, “He looks just like his father.” She meant Ryan, of course, who I knew as the-guy-she-was-sorta-dating before I knew him as her-boyfriend before he became her-fiancee and then the-man-she-married-in-the-park-by-the-lake. He’s now the-father-of-her-child… And, wow. They’re a family. The boy who didn’t kiss her under the fireworks all those years ago finally redeemed himself for letting the moment slip by.

He helped Kristin become a Mommy. They’re a family. One plus one plus very-tiny-one equals a family. Jonas has Ryan’s face, and that proves that my math is wholly correct. They went from couple, to family, literally, overnight.

James and I were laying in bed the night after Kristin had given birth, just talking. We talked about work, and about school, and about money, and about life, and about our futures, and about the cats, and about our vacation, and about our mutual friends, and about our non-mutual friends, and about the fact that Kristin and Ryan had a baby. We talked about where we wanted to be as people, and as a couple, in five years. We talked about our dreams, and about how we’d raise kids.

We didn’t talk about getting engaged, or  getting married. We don’t talk about those things. I don’t need to with him.

And somewhere in the middle of the conversation, it hit me: He’s my family now. Somewhere along the way, and I hate to admit that I think the cats had a very big part in this, James has gone from My Boyfriend to My Person to My Family. And together, we’re putting together the beginning of what it is that our parents gave each of us: a strong familial foundation on which our children will build their lives.

It never occurred to me that it’s a process, that two people have steps to take before they suddenly produce a child that make them a family. There are a lot of parents out there who are not families, and there are a lot of families out there in which the parental-units are not biologically linked to their children. They’re still families.

And to bring it full circle like this, it’s pretty amazing. To consciously be at the beginning of something so profound and awesome is humbling, and exciting, and empowering, and amazingly comforting. I know that James and I have what it takes to build a foundation so strong that nothing– not even Evil Kittens– can shake it. I know this because we have two sets of amazing parents who have taught us these skills every day, our entire lives. I know this because we have between us one of the strongest bonds of trust and respect and love that I’ve ever seen among two people.

And I know this because we both place equal value in the phenomenon that I’m witnessing, first hand, reveal itself to me in my every waking day: the Phenomenon of Families coming to be.

In the Making.

We have a ways to go… We’re looking forward to enjoying the ride. I’ve heard good things about the destination and better things about the getting-there. In the meantime, we have a very long road trip with two very-small kittens coming up in the next 72 hours.

Amazing what you’ll do to get back to your roots, your mother’s hugs and to hold the next generation of your very best friend in your arms. I’ll even travel with Evil Kittens.

-M.

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Posted in Family Shackles, Mine All Mine, My People, Warm Fuzzies

Aug 15

Jonas Kyser Joseph Putman

There is no such thing as personal suffering when your best friend is pregnant. Not because she allows you to feel no pain, mind you, but because no matter how nasty that papercut feels, I promise you it is not worse than having to fasten your jeans with bobby pins and rubber bands, or waking in the early hours of the morning to the wrenching pain that consumes you when your hips start to separate. You know. So the baby can get out. Stubbed your toe? That’s sad for you, but don’t cry to me about it until your vagina has dialated to ten centimeters. You get to that point, and you can have my attention.

Until then, Kristin wins. I got a phone call at 10-something yesterday morning telling me that Kristin was having contractions roughly two minutes apart, but that she could still talk through them. That’s the sign of not-serious-yet contractions, if you can still talk through them.

You’re confused, because I told you last Sunday that Kristin would have a baby by Monday. Turns out that inducing labor is not as fool-proof as it sounded, and Kristin returned home Monday night without a baby. She was none too happy. Do you know what a none-too-happy-still-pregnant woman sounds like? They told her she might have to wait several more weeks before giving birth.

I’m not sure which language she used to inform them of how stupid they all are, but one of them told her to go back in Thursday night to try it again and promised her that she would not leave the hospital until she had her baby. Kristin is a phenomenal negotiator in the sense that she can almost invariably procure what it was she wanted to hear in the first place. What she wanted to hear was that she would not have to stay pregnant much longer.

Ryan called me a little after 7pm on Friday evening to let me know that she was now 6 centimeters dialated and, though it had been rough for a couple minutes, she was now gloriously drugged and loved everyone and saw the world through lovely, rose-tinted glasses. He only had a minute to talk, though, because he had snuck out to update everyone and eat while Kristin’s euphoria over the largely wonderful state of the world had her adequately distracted. Ryan is a smart man.

I went home. I prayed. I had dinner with Maxine and James. I made bad crepes with delicious peach filling and adequate hand-whipped whipped cream. I waited. I hugged Maxine goodbye, as she leaves again for Spain for six months on Tuesday. I could not-can not, will not- get over how old we suddenly seem to be.

Kristin was in labor for the love of all things sane. I wondered when I’d be able to talk to her again. I wondered when I’d get to hear her voice, and prayed that she not feel too much pain. Or, at least that she wouldn’t feel pain that wouldn’t be easily forgotten as soon as she got to hold Jonas for the first time on the outside. I went to bed and laid next to James and tried to be ok with the fact that Kristin was suffering somewhere very far away in the grand finale of the greatest act of selflessness I’ve ever known someone to perform: giving life.

Somewhere circling 1am, my phone danced to life again. I hadn’t been awake mere seconds before, but I was alert and focused and heart-poundy as soon as my eyes snapped open.

“Well,” Ryan exhaled. “You’re a God mother.” 9lbs, 11oz. 21.5 inches long. Jonas Kyser Joseph Putman was born the first child of my very best friend and her phenomenal husband sometime in the small hours of this beautiful August morning.

When he grows up, I will tell him that it was 85 and sticky-hot the day he was born. I will tell him that I talked to his mother for twenty-six minutes and seventeen seconds around 8am while he was being evaluated again, and that she softly asked Ryan three times where her baby was. I will tell him that I heard both his parents smile so hard I thought their faces would crack, and that when he was born he was the size of both of my kittens, combined.

I’ll tell him how Uncle James and I tried to find LEGO bedsheets for his nursery, but couldn’t (so we got him rainboots with planes, trains and automobiles instead) and that I had already sent him 5 pairs of shoes before I had even met him.

I will tell him how proud his mama sounded when she reported to me that he looks just like his daddy, and that if he wants to see what Happily Ever After looks like, all he needs is a mirror.

I will tell him that he doesn’t have to be perfect, but that he does have to be kind. And I will tell him how magically and profoundly he has changed all our worlds simply by showing up.

Then I will tell him that I love him, buy him a can of Redbull and a puppy and send him straight home to his parents.

It’s a happy day in Weebleville.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Karmic Gold, Mine All Mine, My People, Warm Fuzzies

Aug 13

90% Grit.

I broke 5 nails yesterday.

James always comes home and tells me The Story. Every day he has an interaction with a child that is so delightful, it reminds him why he gets up and goes to work each morning. I listen, jealous, struggling to find that moment for myself in the course of what had amounted to My Day. Often, I just remind myself that my team is phenomenal and that I’m learning a lot from Nick, who is a phenomenal teacher. And sometimes, I simply tell him that I miss the days when it felt like what I did mattered.

Yesterday, I broke 5 nails, and it was one of the most rewarding days I’ve ever had at work. I wish Nick could have seen me in action, but that would have made the situation moot. You see, Richie is moving and on vacation for the weekend. Today and tomorrow are Nick’s days off. We lost one of pur very valuable employees to the career opportunity of a lifetime. Yesterday I had borrowed staff scheduled to come in, and I was the only home manager in-store.

Everything went wrong. My opener didn’t show up and we had a very early client that we needed to accommodate right at 10AM. The W.B. Mason deliveryman set heavy boxes against our unstable window display and literally brought the whole thing crashing to the floor. UPS had three bikes and 20 boxes that they wanted to unload immediately. SoHo was short people and couldn’t spare anyone. I was put on hold. I wa forgotten. I was disconnected.

And I was smiling. It didn’t matter that everything was going wrong. It didn’t matter that literally every major disaster possible in a small retail store short of a water leak greeted me this morning. I didn’t get upset, lose my head or my temper, I just called for backup, called Union Square, briefed the team when they arrived and handled each situation as it rolled at me. I gave clear, concise directives and if I needed to, I didn’t hesitate to smile and politely ask for the patience of clients, as today was am abnormal situation. I cracked jokes, and poked fun, and laughed at myself and the absurdity of it all.

I was a manager. Yesterday, for the first time, I can honestly say I finally feel like I’m very good at my job.

And let me tell you, that’s all I need to want to go into work today.

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Posted in Mine All Mine, The Ugly Truth, Working Girl

Aug 10

Mama’s Little Helper

I’ve made an impressive dent in my Very Important List Of Things To Do Today. I sought legal counsel for a thing I’m not going to tell you about. I got my diploma from Pace. I visited a potential MBA program admissions office and asked all sorts of inane questions to the secretery, who would not let me speak to an admissions advisor.

Then I got home. My productivity slammed into a wall. A Moose-shaped wall. A Moose-shaped wall that needs to sit on a lap. Specifically, my lap. Specifically, my lap as I tried to study for the GMAT. Then my chest, as I tried to study for the GMAT. Then my hands as I tried to work on my outline.

You’re so terrible! you tell me. He just wants to snuggle! you balk.

People, please. This cat would eat my liver if he thought he could get away with it. In the meantime he’s content to chew on our laptops, which is equally unappealing. And I’m more allergic to him than I am to Ellie (something about boy-cat pheromones, I’m not insane, it’s scientific proof they’re worse for allergies).

It is also a balmy, humid, hazy 90-degrees outside. And all the heat in our building gets trapped in our apartment, because we live on the top floor. And we don’t have AC. And he’s essentially a 6lbs weight. A HEATED 6lbs weight. With fur.

Mama’s not having it.

After a failed attempt to compromise by putting his cat bed on the window sill directly in front of the fan…

Moose Prepares for the GMAT.

Moose Prepares for the GMAT.

… he decided to guard my review material and wait for me to return to the couch.

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Posted in Book Worm, Family Shackles, I Love NYC, Manhattan Globetrotters, Mine All Mine, Warm Fuzzies, Working Girl

Aug 10

POP!

As you’re well aware, my best friend from back home is all sorts of crazy-pregnant.

No? We don’t believe me? Fine. I have proof. (Proof that she will kill me for posting, if she ever sees this installment.) Ladies and gentlemen: THE WONDER BELLY!

I was on the phone with Kristin as Ryan took this. We were chatting politely and then all of the sudden she was yelling, "DO NOT GET MY FACE!"

I was on the phone with Kristin as Ryan took this. We were chatting politely and then all of the sudden she was yelling, "DO NOT GET MY FACE!"

There are three things I now want to tell you all at once:

1. The baby is a little boy, and his name is going to be Jonas Keizer Joseph Putman. He is also going to be the most adorable baby EVER, until I start having kids. Then the panel will reconvene to assess the new competition.

2. He has not allowed a good photograph since his first sonogram, when he looked like a Hello, Kitty! gummybear.

Jonas Keizer Joseph Putman. The cutest little in-utero gummy bear to ever exist.

Jonas Keizer Joseph Putman. The cutest little in-utero gummy bear to ever exist.

3. Kristin went into the hospital last night, to be slathered with cream and induced into labor. Since she’s up at 6AM every morning, I have to assume that she’s already starting to gear up to give birth.

Like, TO A BABY.

Today, I haven’t even managed to put on pants yet, and my best friend is bringing human life into the world. I have so much catching up to do. I’m having a hard time not strangling James’ cat, who is sleeping across my wrists, making it very hard to type. He’s lucky he’s cute.

I’ll keep you posted as Ryan calls me with updates. I’ve been told that I don’t want to hear about her contractions when they’re 9 minutes apart and she can still talk through them, even though I assured Kristin that I’d like a phone call every fifteen minutes or so ALL DAY LONG, just because I’m so freaked out about not being there to see her. Hold her hand. Tell her she’s pretty.

Though I was informed that she’s bringing her whole makeup kit, flat iron and hair accessories with her to the hospital. Because if there’s one enduring lesson that Kristin has taught me, it’s that there’s nothing that can’t be done in style.

Even giving birth.

-M.

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Posted in Mine All Mine, My People, Warm Fuzzies

Aug 09

Coming up Rosas

It’s 8:14AM on Sunday and I have to study for the GMAT. James left just over an hour ago, and since both Evil Kittens have explosive bowel movements this week– leaving our noses to ponder what the hell they’ve eaten this time– all I’ve managed to accomplish is cleaning out the litterbox three times and finding a recipe for Molten Chocolate Baby Cakes that makes me want to invite company over for dinner, just so I can make them. Except, I can’t save the recipe because Moose is now eating something of entirely unknown origin off the floor.  When I try to pry  Whatever It Is out of his mouth (because if he dies on my watch, James will most certainly suspect foul play, and if I haven’t actually intentionally killed his cat, I’d rather not be blamed), I catch two angry kitten paws full of nasty, sharp claws to the face. That’ll look great in ten minutes when they swell up. … I’m not a fan of this morning, and I’ve been awake 40 minutes.

I go to my happy place.

This week, my Happy Place is Cafeteria, where I had breakfast with Rosa on Wednesday, like real adult women who make time in their schedules for the friends the love dearly. Seeing Rosa is like getting on the E train in mid-January and ducking out of a blizzard only to get downtown and realize you’ve accidentally stumbled into a tropical paradise. The air smells like Loveliness. Her outfits are always perfect. Her smile is infectious. You suddenly remember why you bothered to think friends were worthwhile in the first place. It’s like taking deep breaths of Vacation for an hour and a half.

We talked about everything from the Evil Kittens to having to reference our college years as, “When I was in school…” It’s nice, because since graduation, it feels like I’ve been speaking about my successes in the past tense. It’ll change when I get into Graduate School and starting Making Something of Myself, but for now, there’s comfort to be found in someone who finds it equally bizarre that the bulk of our education is behind us. There’s still so much we’ve yet to learn!

Rosa -who I believe has been accused of this before, on this website, even!- is as brilliant as she is uplifting. She’s going to Law School. She’s dating a Columbia Grad who lives in Brooklyn. She tells great stories. She’s the kind of friend every woman needs because, despite the fact that you should probably be intimidated by all her Womanly Merits, she’s as relaxing as a glass of good wine, and helps you find your center. She’s the kind of friend who’ll listen to you freak out about your family, your boyfriend, your diet and the three pounds that won’t stop clinging to your thighs with compassion, offering real insight as to how you can handle your mother, evil kittens and an undying passion for chocolate.

Happy Place, Happy Place, Happy Place. My morning might smell like cat poop, but it can taste like omelets and fresh orange juice. It might sound like things crashing down to the tile floor from the very top shelf, but the noise will have to compete with the sounds of laughter of kindred spirits finding one another again.

I must, must, must study for the GMAT. Thinking happy thoughts, remember happier mornings, holding my breath for the next time.

Also, straight from kitty-paws:

hbbbb  khkjmmjmkbhmhbmmjbbmbb. Love, Ellie.

-M.

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Aug 07

The Perpetual To-Do

James and I have a list of stuff we’ve been Meaning To Do for a week now. This list gets tackled usually once a week, and as soon as we believe it to be vanquished, everything undoes itself and we have to start from the top reordering everything once more. It’s very tedious. It’s our perpetual To Do.

The list encompasses a roster that details everything from changing the kitty litter to doing the dishes. It seems we are always three items behind, and the list is always there. Staring at us.

My mother says it’s a sign I’m becoming an adult. I blinked at her. “But, so… My apartment really isn’t going to clean itself?” She was totally serious.

Allies to The Perpetual To Do List are The Evil Kittens, who seem to prioritize their mishief based on what we’ve just managed to accomplish. Bookshelf freshly organized? Splendid- it’s time for a climb! At top speed. And gravity takes care of the rest.

And it’s additionally due in equal parts to the fact that we both work a lot, and we’re both lazy exhausted on our days off. This week is a Nerd Gathering ComicCon in Chicago so James had been essentially working two full-time jobs without much rest for the past four days. This wears on him, and even Moose’s kitten head-butts can’t charm away the grumples. So tonight, when I get home, I’m tackling: The List.

1. Do the dishes.
2. Bag the laundry.
3. Scrub the bathroom.
4. Put the damn books back on the damn shelf.
5. Clean the litterbox.
6. Make tomorrow’s lunches.
7. Vaccuum the floors.
8. Feed Fish.

It might sound insane but that’s it, that’s what I always have to do when I get home. As soon as it’s complete, it’s already time to start over again. It is the new neverending story that comes packaged inextricably with my Happily Ever After.

Which is why I maintain we should get carnivorous plants. So that at least the list can contain something cool. No one would balk if I could drive it all home with:

9. Feed boyfriend’s annoying cat to Venus fly trap.

Then when James gets all “What did you do to my kitten?” I can just smile and say, “Well, dear, he climbed the curtains again, and it *is* on the list. Let’s just consider it ‘all in a day’s work’.”

-M.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Mine All Mine, The Ugly Truth, Working Girl

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