Yesterday was Kevin and my’s second wedding anniversary! I totally forgot! Kevin went off for a work dinner and then came home and passed out and I still didn’t remember. Today, he pounced me and told me he’d forgotten. I said, “Oops!” I’m so glad we built a year mnemonic into the date, so I could figure out how LONG we’d been married.
Later, Raymond said, “Your first anniversary was Dog, right? No? Am I wrong? Was it Pirates?” Very amused.
I have been industriously doing some kind of chore everyday– mostly the repetitive kind, but the ones that make the house more pleasant for everybody. What I haven’t been doing is writing. Shame on me!
Also: as much as I dream about babies, I dream about dogs. I’m not surprised, really; I see them more than I see any other living thing these days.
I turned on the air conditioner today, but while I’m enjoying it, I’m also wondering how much it’s impacting our electric bill. So I’ll probably find some way to do without most days and save the big expenses for later in summer-and-pregnancy. I’m definitely starting to worry about our finances– not so much the initial baby outlay as the month-to-month costs.
Last night, I felt Zod kick from the outside. It didn’t feel like a sharp thump vibrated through skin, which is what I imagined it’d feel like. It felt like my flesh tenting upwards from within.
I’ve been dreaming of the baby. Well, not quite every second; there needs to be room for the alien invasions and the escapes from boarding school cafeterias.
I don’t normally describe dreams to the whole world like this, but I think these are less dreams and more psychological preparation.
Usually the dreams are set immediately after the baby has been born, in some crazy scenario. The baby is, of course, advanced and capable beyond all possibilities. Last night, I’d given birth at home, and while the baby was indeed able to sit up and perform non-crying communication, I attempted to explain this by pointing out that newborns have freakish reserves of strength, like the reserves of energy a new seedling has that allow it to sprout and make real leaves. The main concern of this dream was that the baby had been born early, as well as at home, and we didn’t have everything we needed to take care of a baby. Only a few clothes, a sample package of diapers. No carseat. Other than the strange baby and the strange circumstances, it was really a very long, detailed and prosaic dream, in which I sent people out for a carseat/stroller system, and tried to contact a pediatrician for an initial examination, and went out myself with the baby (walking) to acquire other necessities, and soothed the baby, and did a lot of diaper changing. We couldn’t feed the baby yet but I knew that was okay because babies don’t need food the first day or so, apparently. The baby was also very calm and alert, and I knew this would change as soon as the newborn energy reserves had cleared out and we had to start fueling the system.
Generally, the weirdness of the dreams is progressing closer to reality; my previous dream involved going to a party the day after I gave birth, with the infant, and trying to stop the baby from wandering around getting beer. Or somesuch. This last one, despite having all the hallmarks of an anxiety dream, was actually very pleasant.
I made butter again yesterday. This time, I made two batches, one with some raw cream from the farmer’s market and one with some rather elderly grocery store cream. The results were surprising.
The raw cream butter took forever to come together. I mean, forever. Perhaps as much as an hour. I used a pint and a half of the raw cream, and got back about 3/4 a cup of extremely bright yellow butter (and lots of buttermilk that I turned into extremely tasty biscuits).
The pasteurized cream I’d used before. It took about 15-20 minutes to come together, and from a pint, I got almost a cup of pale yellow, almost white butter.
I can’t make good taste comparisons because I didn’t use precise measures of salt. Kevin said he liked the raw cream butter more, because it was less salty. I haven’t tried a lot of it myself, because the biscuits I made with the raw milk buttermilk were so rich and flaky I felt they didn’t need butter. But if I still have some left this weekend I’m going to melt it and use it on popcorn or vegetables or something.
I’m feeling kind of weird and bored, all the same. I did more chores today than I usually do, and I’m kind of tired but I’m also trying to cut back to one nap a day– I sleep better at night. I finished my chapter in my novel and I should really start the next one so I have a hope in hell of meeting my goals this month. But I’m also kind of reveling in having done SOME writing today already. I could play WoW but I just don’t entirely feel like it. I could go out back again but I’m tired of staring at my plants looking for tiny signs of growth. I could start the book Kevin gave me for my birthday but I’ve read a lot today already. I could read blogs I haven’t read in a long time but that seems like a slippery path.
On Friday, after we were late for the prenatal appointment, Kevin took me out to buy his mother’s birthday present to me: a porch swing. In his usual fashion he wouldn’t tell me what we were shopping for until he sat me down in one at the hardware store. On Saturday, he and Raymond assembled it. It’s lovely. And it’s already getting use; after gaming we hung around it and talked about the session, and Raymond has used it and I had lunch on it today. It’s so much better than the hard plastic chairs we’ve had.
I flooded the strawberries that weren’t thriving and now they’re doing much better. I guess they just don’t need water, they need LOTS of water.
Today, however, Dante dug up one of my container squash plants. It made me angry for too long. I replanted it, along with a backup squash, since they’re supposed to be really sensitive to having their roots disturbed. Later, I decided t0 come inside and do something or other and I figured I should bring the dogs in, since clearly the dirt temptation is too much for at least one of them. Dante often runs away when it’s time to come in, until I deepen my voice at him. But this time, Hannah didn’t want to come in. She fled from me like she flees from a bath. Except with a bath she’ll eventually walk into the tub herself, if bullied enough. But I had to pull her inside by her collar, and she resisted the whole time. Very difficult. Times like that, I seriously consider just letting the dogs do what they want, except that I don’t want to set bad precedents. It’s a pain in the butt.
I continue to have lots of extremely detailed dreams. I should really be writing them down more than I am.
At last. At least a week of sunshine, with temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s, is predicted. Today, it is 70 degrees and lovely. I did all my transplanting, my tomatoes and my pepper and my squash and my pumpkins, all of it. Now, I am worn out. But I feel so alive and energetic even so. I’ve spent a long time waiting for the warm days to come again, so long that I’d forgotten that I was waiting for anything at all. Last year, when I thought about my life after Microsoft, in the new house, I mostly thought about summer. I’m looking forward to watching my plants stretch and grow in the sun, reaching up to the sky, blossoming, putting forth tasty fruit. I’m excited about farmer’s markets and barbecues and finally owning an air conditioner. I’ll read the last Harry Potter book in the July sun. I’ll smell roses warmed by the summer heat. I’ll feel Zod kick my ass. I’m barefoot and my feet are dirty and that’s just fine.
Some of the strawberries are blossoming already. The ones I ordered from Territorial Seed seem to be doing much better than the random package I picked up from Home Depot, even though the Home Depot ones are supposedly the June-bearing ones (while the Territorials are all-season-bearing).
My tummy keeps getting in my way, despite being only barely visible as a pregnant belly. It’s hard to reach things I used to be able reach while sitting, and standing up is harder.
Also, almost daily, there is thumping from Zod. This is an improvement over bubbles. It feels like painless muscle twitches. Kevin talks to my belly regularly. Usually, what he says is, “Wake up, baby! I want to hassle you!”
