kdiddy.org

This weekend was so great. So, so great. So great that I’m not even that bitter that I don’t have off of work today like seemingly everyone else.

As I mentioned on Friday, we were going to be attending the VIA festival. I was worried that we were going to be too tired to rally for all of the events, but it turned out that we had almost non-stop fun for nearly three days.

I was late to the dance workshop at the Shadow Lounge on Friday because I had to take the bus over after work. Even though I left my office a few minutes early, the bus was late and I wandered in when there was only under an hour left. But I got to see the husband, the baby, and the sister-in-law, who was in town for the festival, work on their footwork.

I joined in for a bit and felt pretty confident about my new dance skills until Manny, one of the guys leading the workshop, came into the center of the floor to demonstrate what footwork looks like when done well and at full speed.

It was, um, humbling.

We hit up Buffalo Blues for (a somewhat disappointing) dinner before heading back out to see a pop-up arcade. This was a raw, storefront space that had been taken over by Babycastles. The baby got a huge kick out of it and it was cool to see people creating their own video games right then and there. The baby lamented that I don’t let him play games like Call of Duty and such. I consider myself very liberal in what I expose him to via media (read: if you’ve written an indignant blog post about parents taking their kid to an R-rated movie, I was probably the object of your outrage), but there are a few things that I’m just not comfortable with, and some of the first-person shooter games creep me out. When he’s still kind of little and sweet, I just can’t take watching him pretend to be a hardcore assassin. But the pop-up arcade was inspiring because he got to see people making fun games that weren’t whatever is most heavily marketed. Got a fun idea for a game? Make it! Don’t wait for someone to sell it to you.

I could tell that the baby was really happy to be out doing stuff like this with us. He’s intrigued by the fact that we regularly go out to hear music and stay out very late and I hope that his desire to someday do that with us remains intact until he is old enough to do so. In the meantime, he was off to spend the night at my mother-in-law’s house. As we put him in the car, he very sweetly called out to us, “Have fun at VIA!” Ugh, he’s amazing. And the VIA folks need to make that into a commercial.

The musical acts that night were going to be in the old PNC Bank in East Liberty. Zuzuka Ponderosa was great, but we were all pretty unimpressed with SSION. Things reached some kind of weirdness apex when none other than Girl Talk took the stage wearing a Steelers uniform. He played some noise for about 10 minutes tops while some seizure-inducing strobe lights kept up. People in masks handed out and threw Arby’s roast beef sandwiches to the crowd before a confetti blast went out. It was bizarre.

Tiger & Woods got us interested again, though, and Spinn and Rashad took things to a frantic level of fun. I was completely drenched in sweat from dancing so hard. We headed over to the after party to hear Santiago Salazar. We were dancing until 4:30 in the morning. When we finally left, the temperature had dropped at least 20 degrees and it had started to rain. So Pittsburgh. So lovely.

The next night was the highly anticipated performance by Moodymann, who is one of our favorites from Detroit. Nearly all of our friends were out, which made it that much more special.

The hotties from Pittsburgh Track Authority. I’m partial to the one in the middle.

Moodymann played hot and sexy and fun house music and displayed his legendarily bizarre personality, taking the opportunity to talk briefly about the Steelers and hand out cups of Hennessy to the crowd.

He was sitting over near the door when things were wrapping up and I had to go and tell him how much fun I’d had during his set. He appreciated my tshirt, which was from the roller rink in Detroit where he throws a skating party during the festival there. While he chatted with the sister-in-law, I talked to his daughter, who was one of the sweetest girls ever.

One more after party, before we dragged our selves back home at the relatively reasonable hour of 3:30.

Something to add to your list of universal truths? Pizza, even a weird hipster Domino’s pizza, tastes amazing at that hour.

I love that I danced my butt off to musicians from all over the world in old banks and odd little speakeasy-type places and then found myself chomping on nachos at a Steelers game less than 12 hours later.

The sister-in-law and I, wearing a combined total of 57 shirts, 8 pairs of pants, 20 pairs of socks, and three Terrible Towels.

Pittsburgh is just so weird and wonderful.

So, you know how I mentioned in my last post that I was nervous about running the Great Race? I totally downplayed just how freaked out I was. Friday night I was getting really worked up and thinking that I should just not go. Especially after we drove from around Frick Park to downtown on the way home from a relative’s house and I thought, “This is really faaarrrr. Shit. It took us awhile to drive this distance. What kind of crazy person runs this?” Saturday I was home by myself most of the day, which was good in the sense that the husband and the kid didn’t have to be subjected to my panic, but bad in the sense that I really got down on myself.

I’m not going to be able to finish. Everyone there is going to be a serious runner since it’s a longer distance. I’m going to collapse on the side of the road in tears by mile 2.

I had only gone the full 10k distance once on a treadmill and I had had to walk and stop quite a few times. I was not at all confident that I would be able to go the full distance on the road and the controlled environment of my gym.

But Sunday morning came around and I found myself lined up with about 5,000 other people in Frick Park. I nervously stretched and danced around to keep warm and reasoned with myself.

If I have to walk a little bit, I’m not going to get upset about it. I will finish this.

The starting gun went off and we slowly funneled our way to the start line. It took me about five minutes to finally get there. As I started running, it seemed like absolutely everyone was flying past me. I kept feeling my legs trying to speed up to catch up with them, but I kept telling myself, “You can’t keep up with them and that’s okay. You need to just keep going at a pace you can maintain.”

I felt like I was going pretty slow, but I had put together an awesome playlist that was the perfect tempo to keep me at a reasonable pace. I was surprised to see the first mile marker since it didn’t seem like we had gone that far. When we got to Carnegie Mellon, the second mile marker appeared and I was not ready to collapse. I knew that the halfway point would be smack in the middle of the Pitt campus and if I could make it that far, I would take a walking break if I really needed to.

Close to the halfway point, it started to rain and I realized that I was feeling pretty good and might actually run the whole way. I was wearing the hat that had come in our race packets, and I was so glad that I did since it kept the rain off of my face. I also used it to prevent myself from looking too far ahead and getting worried about how much farther I had to go. Instead I looked at the feet of the people in front of me and matched their steps to the beats of my music. It was kind of hypnotic.

I missed the 4-mile marker entirely, but looked up when we got close to Duquesne because a band was outside cheering everyone on. There was a guy on the other side of the road shouting and cheering and letting us know that we were at mile 5 and only had a little over 1 mile to go.

Mile 5? Whoa, this is almost over.

I also knew that we were past all of the hills and it would be downhill and then flat the rest of the way. At that point, I realized that I could totally make it the rest of the way running.

So I did. I just kept going.

The rain started coming down harder and I laughed when “Just the Two of Us” by Bill Withers started playing in my earphones.

“I see the crystal raindrops fall and the beauty of it all…”

I guess the proverbial runner’s high was kicking in. I felt great and proud of myself and everyone else that was splashing toward the finish line with me. I couldn’t believe how willing my body was to continue. At the Great Race 5k last year and during practically every run between then and now, I had let my brain tell me how I was too heavy to run so far and that I couldn’t finish without walking some. But here I was, just doing the damn thing.

Point State Park finally came into view and I literally could not believe it when I saw the finish line. I ran through and trotted into the muddy area where everyone was meeting up and wolfing down water and bananas.

My legs felt like they were vibrating and when my mom found me I could tell that my eyes were wide and that I was babbling that I had ran the whole time.

I don’t think I can even begin to explain how excited I was to achieve such a goal, even though I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to. I think I’ll let my soggy grin tell that story.

P.S. The title of this post comes from one of my running playlist mainstays, “Running Up that Hill” by Kate Bush:

The other morning, when the weather was all, “And now…AUTUMN!” the baby and I stood in his room digging through a bin of last year’s school clothes. We were looking for a pair of pants that would fit. His 10 slims were now too short and too tight around the waist. At some point over the summer, my beanpole had gone and acquired a little meat for his bones finally. Those of you who saw him eat, or “eat,” as is more accurate, when he was a toddler will know what a relief this is. I think he consumed a total of 500 calories from the ages of 2 to 4.

But the 10 slims were all that we had and as I looked at his face contorting as he tried to determine if he could stand to wear a pair of them all day, I realized that he was just going to have to wear shorts.

“Well, there are a couple of ways you can play this,” I told him, as we walked to the bus stop, his chicken legs exposed to the brisk, dewy air. “You can pretend to be one of those people who claim that the cold doesn’t bother them and who wear shorts and tshirts in the middle of winter. Like, act super tough. Or just tell everyone that you have an extremely mean/irresponsible mother who made you wear shorts today.”

I forgot to ask which scenario he went with.

The baby is in fifth grade and in his last year at his sweet, little elementary school. I’ve noticed already that the homework is tougher and takes longer and there’s more of it and it makes me sad. The world is demanding more of him and his time now, time that the husband and I have to relinquish so that he can make his way. We don’t have as many spare hours in the evening to spend together because there’s work to be done.

He used to be mine to share with the world as much as I saw fit. Now he’s the world’s to share with me when there’s time.

When I got my very own rosacea diagnosis, the dermatologist did not say, “Yes, the persistent acne and blotchy skin is from rosacea…which, by the way, is a really nice way of saying, ‘You have tiny bugs shitting in your pores.'” He stopped at “rosacea.” If it hadn’t been for the internet, I would have spent the rest of my life slathering expensive prescription cream on my face, blissfully unaware of the horrors taking place on my microscopic levels. So, thanks Buzzfeed. I guess.

This is one of my nose mites, Fred. Say hello to the nice people, Fred.

And, you know, I long ago accepted that we’re all just piles of bacteria and nastiness moving through a soup of bugs and muck, but at least I previously hadn’t been thinking about our face bugs shaking hands when I kissed someone on the cheek.

Over the weekend, I launched a campaign to get the situation under control, which included ordering tea tree oil, which is supposed to help, and new mite-resistant pillow coverings. Then I announced that I was going to be washing our pillows.

“I saw it on Pinterest. What could go wrong?” I bellowed. I used these instructions, which are informative but I must warn you contains the concepts of pillows basically being sponges that double in weight over a year or so due to us seeping all of our face bug shit and life oil into them and oh wait I’m vomiting, brb.

And actually, the whole process was going just fine. I washed my pillow, the baby’s pillow, and a few spares that we keep for guests, and they all came out fluffier and much, much fresher than they went in. The husband’s pillow, for some reason, came out of the washing process smelling like a dog who had spent the afternoon swimming in the Allegheny. (For reference, my dad and I swam in the Allegheny once when I was a kid and my mom wouldn’t let us near the house for like a day and a half.)

I attempted to rectify the situation by washing it again with some baking soda and vinegar to no avail. So the husband is out trying to find a pillow today, probably with a stiff neck. He called me a little while ago to report that Target only had two down pillows that were both really expensive. He called me to update me on this in quite colorful language and I think he heard my sheepish grin over the phone. My defense of his pillow’s demise have ranged from honest regret (“I’m soooo sorry. Really. My intentions were good. I just wanted your pillow to stop eating your face,”) to butthurt (“MY INTENTIONS WERE GOOD, DUDE, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME? I JUST WANTED YOUR PILLOW TO STOP EATING YOUR FACE. EVERYONE ELSE’S PILLOWS WERE FINE. WHY DOES YOURS HAVE TO BE DIFFICULT? YOU AND YOUR PILLOW ARE EXACTLY ALIKE YOU DESERVE EACH OTHER,”).

Hey.

So, I had a pretty great weekend. How about you?

Friday, we had some friends over for dinner for what I think will become a regular gathering. The wife of one of the husband’s oldest and dearest friends invited us and a few other oldest and dearest over for dinner at their house a couple of times. We all had such a good time together we figured we should make it a regular occurrence. The rough plan is to have dinner at someone’s house once a month. The husband has been rolling his eyes about the whole thing, whining that dinner parties are for yuppies. But he’d by lying if he told you he didn’t enjoy seeing his lifelong buddies regularly.

I’ve mentioned before that my very simple goal in life is to host Thanksgiving at our house, to be the default house where everyone arrives at when it’s time to celebrate something with family. I’m not at that point yet for a number of reasons, so smaller gatherings like this give me an opportunity to scratch that itch. When the husband offered to lodge some musician friends of his who were playing in town, I went buck wild preparing this delicious breakfast. Our guests expressed their bewilderment to the husband, who replied, “Yeah, she likes to flex on shit like this.”

Fair enough.

So, of course, I got all excited about feeding our friends and made apple and fennel salad, roasted broccoli, tomato sausage lasagna, and chocoflan. Everything was delicious, if I do say so myself. Our friends John and Sarah brought their two little ones, including their 8-month old who is just so scrumptious. He and I got some cuddles in which I needed so badly.

After a long week, though, I fell asleep pretty early. Or, more precisely, I fell asleep in the middle of changing the channel on the TV, all “52–zzzzzz.”

Saturday, my dear friend Emily was getting married. We, of course, were running a few minutes late and when we got to the church, Emily and her attendants were lined up and about to go down the aisle. I panicked and RAN down the aisle with the husband behind me hissing, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!” When he caught up to me, he said, “What is WRONG with you? There’s a side entrance!” Ugh, I am such an ass.

The ceremony was beautiful and I was so happy to witness Emily marrying her true love. When I got to say hi to her afterward, she said that when she saw me in the door of the church, that was when she started crying. “Oh my god, was it because I was late and busted down the aisle like a total moron?” Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. But Emily remembered how thoroughly I flipped out with joy when she told me that she had gotten engaged. It was pretty special, since how often do you get to feel that genuinely happy for someone?

I attempted to look nice:

At the reception, the kid was refusing to dance which seemed weird to us, so we kept telling to get his booty on the dance floor.  I eventually dragged him out to dance to “Shout,” explaining that it’s basically required to dance to that song at weddings. He was still unenthusiastic, to put it mildly, so I grabbed his hands and threw them in the air for him at the appropriate intervals. He screamed, “NOOOOOOOOOOO STOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPP” the whole time, which I think confused our fellow revelers. However, about five minutes later, he was on the stage, requesting songs from the DJ and dancing like the holy spirit had gotten him.

The kid had a soccer game the next day, which ended in a tie. Our team was up 4 – 1 until suddenly their defense fell apart. So, he was upset even though he had scored a pretty magnificent goal. He was sulking, so I took action.

Kid was upset that his soccer game ended in a tie. Followed him to the car saying “penis” kind of loud. Cheered him up. Parenting win. #fb

— kdiddy (@kdiddy) September 9, 2012

Crude? Sure. Effective? Oh, hell yes.

It’s so weird to me how, during any given week nothing much seems to change. But when I drop out of life to go be near where the land broke apart eons ago, I come back to a home that seems to have grown and changed so much in my absence. The Madagascar Dragon plant is suddenly huge and lush. The cayenne pepper outgrew its modest mason jar. Some forgotten piece of fruit begat 1,000 tiny flies that my kitten tries valiantly to catch. Intimidating pieces of mail arrived instructing me to go to a hearing to appeal my property assessment. I have to go and explain to some strangers that I haven’t given my house the makeover that I intended to and beg them not to believe otherwise so that my house doesn’t become yet another dream that was too big for me.

And my son, my baby, is thisclose to starting fifth grade.

In many ways, taking a vacation at the tail end of summer is the best way to do it. The weather is pretty cooperative. The earlier crowds have already come and gone and reentered real life weeks ago. And I feel like I’ve really squeezed every last drop out of summer.

I can’t really afford to take us on big vacations, so we always graciously tag along to the lovely places that people invite us to. (Diddy Family Motto: What we lack in money we make up for with good music, sparkling personalities, an endless game of punchbuggy, and weird arguments. Take us on your vacation today!) We go to the lake with my grandparents and every few years we go to the Outer Banks with my dad.

It was especially cool to be with the baby this time. While we were at the lake he spent most of his time with his cousins, but at the beach he was with us the whole time. He’s 10 and is at this weird point where he’s still very much a kid but is really trying out not being a kid. He’s not intimidated by adults and readily joins any conversation. But his lack of skills like small talk and telling jokes that are actually funny betray how young he still is.

Early in the week, some lingering phobias about jellyfish and sharks bubbled up inside of him. He was never a big tantrum-thrower when he was younger, so I never developed any real skills for effectively calming him down. I found myself trying to stay upright in the waves crashing at my knees and saying, “Stop. Stop. Please stop. What are you doing? Stop now,” as my kid thoroughly lost his shit for about five minutes. But I reminded him that throwing him into the gaping maw of certain death isn’t really my thing.

We rented sea kayaks for the week and the baby went out in his own little kayak with my dad and the husband. As he was rowing out to sea one time, he grabbed his paddle and pumped it in the air triumphantly. Out there he saw dolphins and schools of fish. When he came back and I was helping him out of the boat, he said, “I had so much fun today!” Such a simple statement but it was so happy and sincere that I’ve been replaying it in my head ever since.

My skin didn’t exactly survive the week. I got sunburned. Twice. And got a real burn on my arm while sticking it in the oven to check on breakfast that I was making. I heard *sizzle* and realized, “Oh, shit, that’s my flesh!” I also got a few tiny jellyfish stings and about 20 nasty mosquito bites. I also did a number on my knee while bodysurfing one day. I started to emerge from the water all, “Fuck yeah, I’m a badass,” when another wave was like, “NOPE!” and smashed me into the bits of shell and rock. I shrugged at the raw blotch on my knee until I sat down and observed, “Oh. I am bleeding.”

I gasped in wonder so many times. There was a meteor shower and we were far enough away from light’s pollution that I actually got to see them flying through the sky. It’s so strange to look up at that black cloak of old light and to suddenly see it move and dance. I got to see a dolphin swim away in a business-like manner about 20 feet away from me and gently paddled my way through a thousand swirling fish.

I also started to write the story of my vacation in the style of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: We were just outside of Corolla when the seasickness kicked in. I’m not out on the water often enough to remember that I get seasick. And being out in a tiny plastic boat is not the most ideal time to recall that fact. I did not, in fact, spew but I carefully warned my companions that if that was going to happen I wanted to not deal with the possibility of accidentally diving right into my chunks and/or watching fish eat them.

The best thing about vacation is the feeling like you can break some rules. Nothing major, like insider trading or anything. But you’re already not at work and aren’t expected to do much more than lay around all day. That kind of permission is so freeing. On Saturday, we were supposed to be out of the house by 10. And we just…didn’t. We knew that the new guests wouldn’t be there until 4. So we found a place to park the car and walked right back down to the beach. We swam in the now very chilly Atlantic (I like to think it was sad that we were leaving) until the sky turned dark grey and began to open up. We ran back to the house and peeked around corners to look for signs of people who might care. We scrambled into the outdoor showers and crafted a simple alibi in the event of capture. (“Why are you trespassing and using these showers?” “Oh. I’m so drunk!”) We toweled off fruitlessly in the brief downpour and then drove north up that narrow strip of land, the opposite direction than we should have been going to go home.

The old lighthouse beckoned to us, leading us into the safety of stolen vacation. The baby and I decided to make the climb up to the top. He charged ahead fearlessly, while I became anxious because of my inadequate footwear, certain that it would trip me. At the top, I looked out over the developed land that used to be barren when I was his age. He stuck his head through the safety railing to get a better view while I felt the need to keep one hand on the side of the structure.

We’re on vacation this week, and it’s been funny to watch how easily we settle into new routines. Every morning, cousins and parents and other assorted relatives gather at the cottage where my grandparents are staying for Danish and coffee. Then it’s to the lake or staying indoors to get a break from the sun, which is what I did yesterday. At dinner time, cousins and parents and other assorted relatives once again gather at the grandparents’ cottage for cheese, crackers, and adult beverages before it’s time to eat. Then there’s usually Olympics or Pirates games to watch and card games to be played.

Aside from the extremely old mattresses in our cottage (I just can’t deal with those and risk messing my up my neck) forcing the husband and I to sleep on the living room floor, where I came face-to-face with a millipede the other night, causing me to go through a rather elaborate process of covering it with paper plates, screeching, and eventually murdering it with a Kleenex box, we’ve settled into this temporarily nothing-but-pleasant existence.

EXCEPT FOR YOU! YOU GO TO HELL! YOU GO TO HELL AND YOU DIE!

The baby is having a blast hanging out with his cousins, dipping into a kind of free-range childhood that he just can’t get at home.

I let him pack his own clothes and he seems to have brought a collection of tshirts that are all either wrestling or monster truck themed. He’s fitting right in with the locals.

The other night, I mentioned a co-worker whose last day of work is today (Happy Trails, Em!) and I realized how strange it was to talk about the 9 to 5. Like, what is it? What do I do there? Occasionally, blips of real life will scuttle across my brain…I wonder if the mother-in-law remembered to put our garbage out or if we’ll be overrun with fruit flies when we return…I wonder if my plants are still alive…I wonder how our cats are doing. But they’re easily brushed away when I push off of the floor with my foot and set the porch swing going again.

PS: I wrote some funny (I think) stuff this week. Check em out on Act Classy and MamaPop.

So, hey. How’s your summer going? I feel like we haven’t really talked about it much.

Ours is pretty good, but a little too busy for my tastes. I mean, we’re busy in a good way. We go a lot of places and do a lot of fun things, but I need a lot of time to just be at home and be an introvert, which is annoying because that is no fun for anyone and I have, like, a family that wants to hang out with me and I’m like, “No, I need to sit here and watch My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding or I’m going to cry in public.”

I was beginning to feel like I hadn’t actually been home in months and the resultant disorder was beginning to really upset me. Understand, I’m a messy person and generally exist in a moderate amount of chaos, but I do have a breaking point that is somewhere well below Hoarders.

Generally not how I operate.

But last Friday I had an unexpected day off from work with nothing planned. I was excited because that meant that I would be able to get some stuff done around my house. The only problem with that plan was that it was 100 degrees on Friday. And we don’t have air-conditioning.

I was determined, however, and strapped an ice pack to my neck so that I could vacuum and tidy up and fold laundry with at least some degree of comfort. I ended up sweating profusely anyway but at least my entryway was clean and free of winter coats finally.

The sister-in-law was in town and on Saturday she agreed to help me make a second attempt at that goddamned cake. This time things went slightly better, but omens began raining down upon us when a thunderstorm showed up and the lights began to flicker just as I was getting ready to put the cake layers in the (electric) oven.

“I just need the power to hold out for like 15 minutes,” I pleaded.

Sure enough, 15 minutes and 2 seconds later, the power went out. The cake layers were fine but we needed to wait for a bit to make the icing. The main issue there was that it was still 100 degrees and we no longer had the ceiling fans to move the swampiness around. It was gross.

When the power returned and we had made the icing, we packed up various cake elements and headed to my mother-in-law’s for dinner, swimming, and air-conditioned cake assembly. Infuriatingly enough, even with the air-conditioning, the cake was a total mess again. Though the individual components were all pretty delicious. I know that I can’t really get too angry, considering that I stupidly attempted the cake on two of the hottest days of the year. Feh. Baking failures really gnaw at me.

Onward.

We watched the 1990 Total Recall on Sunday night and I remarked during the part where Ahnuld and Melina are sucked out into Mars and their eyes are bulging out that that was what the sister-in-law and I looked like during the power outage.

Sucked.

We were amused at how prophetic that movie’s vision of the future was: hand blenders, tablet computers, TVs integrated into the wall, controller-less video game exercising, 3D ultrasound. Well, that last bit is what I kept thinking about when Kuato came onscreen. I’ve always found those 3D images of in utero babies more than a little odd. I mean, they’re cool and all and perhaps I’m just jealous that those weren’t around when I was pregnant 800 years ago, but the resemblance is uncanny to me.

(I really wanted to post a picture of 3D ultrasound here but knowing my luck someone would be like, “That’s my baby!” and I’d have to leave the internet for suggesting that someone’s fetus resembled an underground mutant rebel leader of the future. Like that’s not a huge compliment. God.)

Anyway, the heat finally broke the other day and it’s been pretty nice. I think tonight the husband and I will go to the drive-in to see the Magic Mike/Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunterdouble-feature because obviously. And I will maybe make some moves on him.

This encapsulates our interactions so perfectly I can’t even stand it.

A few weeks ago, the husband and I were at Wal-Mart exploiting workers, further diminishing the low rung of the middle class that we exist on, and stocking up on groceries. As we made our way past the clothing section, the husband stopped to take a look at their tshirts. He lazily flicked through the tshirts on a sale rack when suddenly his eyes lit up.

“Kel. You HAVE to get this shirt.”

He held the shirt up for me to see: a patriotic monstrosity the likes of which I’ve seen on people with too little intelligence and too many votes. It was on sale for $8. It was glorious. Taking in all of the elements of the shirt was almost too much for me and I actually teared up a little bit.

Before I could protest or accuse the husband of illicit drug use, the shirt was in our cart. We giggled while checking out and the husband made me promise not to reveal it until 4th of July.

Yesterday, he reminded me at least three times to wear my shirt and when I finally put it on there was much rejoicing chortling.

It was the bright spot in what had been shaping up to be a frustrating 4th. I had spent my morning working on a cake that I had been wanting to attempt since last 4th of July. The cake layers had turned out beautifully, but I ran into some serious trouble when trying to apply an ice cream layer between them. It was simply too hot in my house and the bottom layer of cake ultimately ended up swimming in ice cream soup. I kept trying to forge ahead and save it but it kept getting worse and I ended up dramatically throwing the whole thing in the trash. I probably could have salvaged one layer, and I felt really yucky for throwing it all out, especially since it contained one very expensive vanilla bean. I’m going to attempt the cake again this weekend, probably in the air-conditioned environs of my mother-in-law’s house because I must vanquish it. Much like in running for me, failure in baking is not an option. Obviously, I get really intense about weird things.

Anyway, I kept forgetting about the shirt until the husband or the sister-in-law would look at it and crack up. We went to Dormont for fireworks, which are always pretty decent for a smaller neighborhood, and watched a group of teenagers get arrested for throwing lit sparklers at each other. The baby was really, really disappointed that they didn’t get tased, because he apparently got a taste for that after seeing it happen to someone during a Super Bowl victory celebration on Brookline Boulevard. Also because he is Mommy’s Little Sociopath.

I have off work tomorrow, which I’m just so excited about since having a holiday in the middle of the week turns those of us with a tenuous grasp of maturity into whining brats who don’t wannaaaa gooooooo.

Other matters of biznass: today is your last chance to enter my Pilates giveaway. I also posted some sage advice for Claire Danes, who is up the stick. Call me, Claire! We’ll talk

As of yesterday, the husband and I have been married six years. Yesterday was also Father’s Day, and I thought about how lucky I was as a mother to already know going into our marriage what kind of a father he would be.

Added bonus of your unplanned pregnancy? Built-in ringbearer for your nuptials.

A few seconds after that picture was snapped, the baby grabbed my hand and kissed it and the hearts of everyone at or near our wedding exploded. The grounds keepers were a little annoyed. But it perfectly illustrated a point that I made during my vows (where “made” = “blubbered in a most undignified manner”): everything that is good in me and everything that is good in the husband is manifested in that perfect little boy. I didn’t think I could feel more loved at that moment, and then the baby, this weird little person that the husband and I created, took it over the top.

Of course, not one of the three of us is perfect. But I think we would all agree that there is some serious love that gets us through our less graceful moments.

I think about the husband a lot, sometimes when I’m pissed at him about something, or when some chore or task is weighing on my mind: “I need to remember to tell the husband to get x, y, and z and then we need to deal with [insert intimidating grown-up task here]…” But a lot of times I just kind of…daydream? About him and the baby and about how much I love them and how so thoroughly in love I am with my husband. And I feel really fortunate. Someone who was asking me about my wedding a few weeks ago positively marveled at the fact that we were still very much in love after six years. I was puzzled, since six years isn’t very long. But considering the various yucky turns our life together has taken, we could have very well taken it out on each other, instead of relying on each other for strength.

One of the scenes that I love most from any movie is the scene from Big Fish in which Ed sees Sandra for the first time and he describes how time stopped.

No relationship can really be boiled down to any cliche, but love at first sight is a cliche that I think deserves some unpacking. I don’t remember when I saw the husband for the first time ever, but there have definitely been moments since then where I saw him for the first time in a new way and fell in love with him again in such a way that required time to slow down for a second or two. “First sight” doesn’t have to be the first time you ever see someone and it doesn’t have to be just one occasion. For me, it means looking at him with eyes that I didn’t have yesterday and with a heart made stronger by certain experiences and wisdom that we wouldn’t have gained without each other.