shokufeh is…home

Tonight, we went out to dinner with my parents to celebrate – the Birth of the Bab, MrMan’s resumption of swimming classes, and my newfound emotional freedom due to dropping the course I was taking. They’d met up with us, in their respective cars, at the gym, so we took all three cars to Sushi Brothers. I know, so American, but New Orleans is small, so it wasn’t an extraordinary waste of gas. Except….

We enjoyed a yummy meal, sat around chatting afterward, and went back to our multiple cars. Except this time MrMan got in our car, instead of the car my mom was driving, was he’d done for the gym to restaurant leg. As I was leaning over to buckle him in, I heard my mom’s car (which is actually my dad’s car, which maybe makes the rest of the story a little worse) humming a bit. “That’s odd,” I thought, wondering if somehow my mother had triggered some engine mechanism in remotely unlocking her car. At the same time, she was standing on the sidewalk, wondering why our car, parked in front of hers, was making sound when we hadn’t yet started it.

I started toward my driver’s door. And then realized that the humming was not some quirky remote response. My mother’s car was ON, after we’d been away from it for well over an hour. Door unlocked. Key in the ignition. Still sitting there.

As I got into our car, my mother yelled, “You can’t blog from the car! Wait a few minutes after you’ve gotten home, so your father can learn about this from me, instead of the internet.”

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I had nice, much-needed time with MrMan this evening. We dropped Sam off at home so that he could have a breather, and then we did the mundane.

We went to pick up our leftover clothes from a kids’ consignment sale.  Seeing how big my stack was, I was afraid that nothing had sold, but my check was for $62.  Not bad for time spent ironing, something I’ve decided I need to do more of – it’s rather relaxing.

Drove through the ATM to deposit the check. I get such a kick with Chase’s new(ish) deposit system. Just stick in my ATM card, stick in the checks, accept what it reads. Done. I think it’s super cool to get a receipt with the image of the check printed on it.

Detoured past the house with the cats. They weren’t there on our normal pass-by on the way home, but this time we saw MsCat’s Furry Friend and MsCat’s Sister. MsCat was not to be seen.

After we came home, he ate some leftover pizza and donned an outfit that hadn’t sold. It’s a smidge on the small side, which is why I’d tried to sell it, but he was insistent.  He was also insistent that he put on swimming goggles and we go for a walk.  So, despite the dark and the mosquitoes, the two of us walked around the block.  It’s hard to say no to a kid asking for a bit of physical activity, especially when he’s wearing a quirky getup.  We talked about his powers, bestowed by the goggles – lightening power. We talked about our upcoming trip to the woods. We talked about soccer starting next week, and how Sam and I will take him instead of MaJan. We talked about how Coach Dave wants him to get a good night’s sleep and eat well. At which point he described the food he should be eating as “nourishing.”  I love this kid.

I think the hardest of life’s challenges of late has been his obvious preference of Sam over me.  It recently became very obvious that part of the reason for this is the amount of time I spend away from him.  So I’m making more of an effort to be out of the house less, even if it sometimes means missing an LSA meeting. Tonight I also learned that sometimes it’s also okay to trade the time I would have spent cooking dinner for bonding over leftover pizza and cold cereal.  And hopefully we’ll spend more time doing stuff like the above – nothing spectacular, but special nonetheless.

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From time to time, I need a memory check. If it’s in relation to something that might have happened in the past seven years, this tends to be a good place to do that check. My brain doesn’t have such an efficient search function.  Inevitably, doing that check results in some strolls down memory lane, reading through my archives, reflecting that there’ve been some good things I’ve written over the years.

Tonight, doing that check made me sad that I’ve lost that writing mojo. Both in quantity and quality. I know part of it is the evolution of social media, that I focus on 140-character status updates, instead of details.  Part of it is not loving my current computer as much as my old one, stolen last summer.  Part of it is the overwhelming nature of life these days – I recently concluded that the only way to strike the life/work balance is to have no friends or to have no hobbies. Not a very healthy conclusion, but one that feels kind of real these days.  I’m sad that I’ve stopped documenting my life here.  I’m sad that I haven’t been taking the time and energy to express myself, providing a creative outlet and maybe contributing to greater sanity.

I’ve been feeling at a crossroads for much of this year. It was exciting to pay off my school loans in the spring, but it created some professional confusion for me as well, I think. I spent ten years working to pay off my degree – now what am I working toward, and is my current job helping me get there?  Having paid off those loans also meant a little more financial stability.  I was feeling like finances weren’t such the stress they’ve been for the past few years.  And then two weeks ago, we got the news that we’re slated to become a one-income family at the end of year. A pretty huge blow.  I’d let myself think about staying in this apartment longer than a year, even started considering the idea of purchasing a house. Despite my describing myself as an avowed renter, I was taking mental steps toward committing to staying here for a while.  Poof. Gone.  Now, we don’t know what things will be like after December 31.  The most we can plan is the fallback of putting stuff in storage and moving in with my parents.  Not really the thing I’d thought I’d be doing at this point. I know we’re one of many families in this situation, but that knowledge doesn’t do much to alleviate the stress (and teeth grinding).

I keep trying to recapture the feeling of being me five years ago – it wasn’t that everything in my life was perfect, but that when the waves would come, I’d paddle and catch a good wave to ride.  Soon.

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