I had a little business lunch with a friend the other day to flesh out an upcoming event and I ordered a sandwich with the upgrade to fries rather than the included option of potato salad. Why? Because FRIES.

We all know that McDonald’s has the best fries, but I only go there when I’m pregnant and on Canadian holidays, so I don’t get to enjoy them very often. But a side of hot, fresh fries with my lunch sounded like just the thing.

So my lunch came, and I did the right thing: I ate my sandwich first and saved my fries for dessert. While we chatted, I used my standard in-public strategy of putting them in my mouth one at a time if she was looking…

Nine at a time if she wasn’t.

I think they had a seasoned salt and sugar sprinkle on them, they were kettle corn level addictive.
We wrapped things up and headed our separate ways, and as I pulled out of the lot I thought about those fries and how they were more addictive than actually good. Then I tried to think of the last time I had some amazing non-McDonald’s fries. And then I had a revelation…

I CAN’T REMEMBER.

I just don’t love fries like I used to! This is at once heartbreaking and liberating. I’m not sure yet what to do with this awakening, but I know my life will always be different.

I’d still eat this though, because it has all the food groups.

I recently sat next to someone in a group that was NOT Introverts Anonymous who introduced herself like this:

“Hi, I am Sally and I’m an introvert.”

Her name isn’t Sally, I made that up.  Also, that turned out not to be the most interesting thing about her.

There has been a lot of buzz on the Facebooks about introverts lately.  Until this all started, I thought I WAS an introvert.  Now I think I’m just a trovert.  I waffle.  Sometimes I want to cancel all my plans.  Sometimes I even DO cancel all my plans.  But sometimes I suck it up like a big girl and end up enjoying myself.  Yes, I can make small talk.  Other times, I am dying for some company.  I love being alone.  I also hate it.

Sometimes, my phone rings and I just don’t want to talk.  Sometimes I answer it anyway.  Sometimes I don’t.  And not just because it’s my mom (hi Mom, sorry…).

Sometimes I’m really loud.  Usually when I’m around other loud people, but sometimes just on my own.  It helps if those other loud people are people that I like.  Loud people who you don’t like?  That overwhelms everyone.  Yuck.  Sometimes, though?  Super quiet.  I process my thoughts internally.  Except for when I need to talk through them.

Sometimes I’m super awkward.  Because people are awkward.  Introversion is not awkwardness, awkwardness is awkwardness.  Stop being awkward, nobody is paying as much attention to you as you are.

Introversion is not Autism.  Extroversion is not Tourette’s.  Occasionally I am convinced that I have all four of these syndromes.

Look at me!  I’m practically ranting!  Let’s talk about something else!

I’ve finished this year’s Halloween candy and have moved on to last year’s.  It’s gross and I’m eating it anyway.  Yep.

I flew solo last weekend, so obviously there was much feet-up and bon-bonning…

Yeah, not at all.  I kept myself as busy as humanly possible, and even did some NEAT STUFF in there.

Among the more-ordinary-but-still-fun things were meals with friends, walks to the park, and iced lattes.  Cold and caffeinated?  I’ll take 6.

Saturday was the real kicker, though.  I got up – “willingly” – just after 6.  In the morning.  I picked up my friends, drove across town, and ran 6 miles with them.  (Lots of sixes in today’s post…)  SIX MILES, you guys.  That’s farther than I drive for most of my errands.  But, there’s a 10K coming up this month, and still MORE fun after that.  I’m still not one of those people who likes running.

[femonite.com]
I hate it.  While I’m doing it, I hate the flowers and the trees and the puppies and you.  But when I am done?  I AM CHAMPIOOOOONNNNN.  And so I do it again.

I rushed home from that and barely slid my butt onto the couch in time for the 2013 FANTASY FOOTBALL DRAFT.

Yep.

I picked my people via the that’s-a-neat-name-where’d-his-mama-get-it system, and also by googling things like “which wide receiver should I pick next?”

Beware the Eastside Honeybadgers.  They’re coming to your town to eat your football team.

After that, I went with some ladies to a place where you order a snack and a glass of wine and sit down for a PAINTING CLASS.  We don’t doubt we were the highlight of our instructor’s day.  She called us the “rowdy bunch” and something about “banshees.”  The other group was a bachelorette party.  But they were REALLY quiet…

I think I have a future in this…

I mustache you a question… [Photo: barnorama.com]

One of the things I always told clients I like about the large company I (sort of technically don’t) work for is that our meetings always feel like a big family reunion.  In a big room, you might not know everyone, but you know someone who brought them there.  “Oh, you’re whose kid?  Oh, John’s kid!  Right!”  Transcribe that to some kind of quasi-worky context and that’s what the first hour of one of our weekend conferences often sounds like.

Well.

I’m hanging out with my parents for a few weeks in their new old spot.  They finally moved to my dad’s home town on the coast, and his family’s presence in this area goes way back.  We met up with a cousin of his, who suggested a family get together.  As luck would have it, some other family members are going to be around this weekend, so it seemed like a logical time to put something together.

The catch?

I don’t know half of these people.  I don’t mean I met them when I was little and don’t remember, I mean I’ve never met them.  OBVIOUSLY we’re all Facebook friends…

So I’m planning a picnic!  For a bunch of strangers!  Who are my family!  I’m bringing baked beans!

I will weave bacon. [Photo: dcfancouncil.com]

So, I’ve been busy.  I mean, not THAT busy, but busy enough that I forget how to do dishes and not burn dinner and sit down and write things.

But now I’m back.  To sum up:

We went on a family vacation.  A cruise, in fact!  That was a big first for me, on all fronts.  “Family vacation” when I was growing up either involved grandparents in the next state or me going to visit relatives on my own.  So… people!  A week!  No cooking!  ALL EATING!  I rather smugly promised myself I wasn’t going to be one of those people who bellied up to the buffet all week, and I didn’t.  Mostly because we didn’t eat at the buffet very often.  Instead, I ordered 3 appetizers, 2 entrees, and at least 1 dessert.  Every night.  No buffet.  Mission smugly accomplished.

Yep.

BUT… I ran every day except for the day we took a pretty long walk.  So I was happy about that.

Another thing about cruising with an infant?  Our bar tab.  Less than $100.  I’ll take that!

I burned everything I tried to cook for the 2 weeks following our return to Normal Life.  And I’ve forgotten how to clean.  It really doesn’t take much time away from these basics to really undo you.

In other news, there was a short-circuiting of husbands in our area.  MORE THAN ONE husband failed to make the coffee recently.  I didn’t really understand this before I was married, but that’s their job.  It just is.  And when you get up to do your first-one-up duties and there’s no coffee, it’s just plain disorienting.

Don’t worry, the situation has been resolved.  We’ll keep you informed of any further reports of husband-coffee-related failings.

I ran the Get Lucky 7k this weekend.  The whole thing.  And now I have a “finisher’s medal,” which I sort of object to in principle – I did not win, I am not a winner – and a sweatshirt that says “7K & Half Marathon.”  I’m comfortable letting people assume I ran either one.

After we crossed the finish line, we went straight to the coffee shop on the corner where my buddy’s husband had ordered us some hot chocolates.  I drank that thing like it was my j. o. b.  Then we went out for burgers and various fried things.  Then MY husband wanted pizza for dinner.  So… so much for that run having any sort of lasting effect.  Note: your body does not want a slew of grease and cheese and processed grossness after it does that much work.  It just doesn’t.  Be nicer to it.  (It totally wants the hot chocolate, though.)

The next thing I want a non-winner’s medal for is flying with this baby.  Again.  I just keep doing it.  And I definitely judged the kid sitting next to me.  He had a LOT of product in his hair and some pretty dumb clothes on, but then he was reading Food & Wine, and was exceedingly sweet.  I’m sorry, Yanni.

An excerpt from my flight…

Me: Can I change my baby in that bathroom?
Flight Attendant 1: No.
Me: [turns around, walks away]
Me: Is there a good place for me to change this kid?
Flight Attendant 2: Do you know how to change her on your lap?
My Brain: WHAT???
Me: I don’t think that will work… is there, like, a little patch of floor somewhere?
Flight Attendant 2: Oh, no, you don’t want to put her on the floor, it’s gross.
My Brain: Grosser than getting this ALL OVER MY LAP, LADY??
Me: [turns around, walks away]

I ended up finding an empty aisle seat with nobody next to it and making that work.  I apologized to the man sitting closest, but probably gave him fair compensation in leaning forward in my loose top to get the job done.  Sigh.

I also had a shamrock shake.  I did not love it.

I had a job about a decade ago that caused me to stress out, gain weight, and crab at anyone inside of a 13-mile radius.  It’s a complete wonder that my roommates from those years still love me, but they claim to.  They may still have drinking meetings about me, though, who knows.  Anyway, I quit that job, lost the weight, etc, etc, and started being nice(r) to people.

The next job had the built-in stress reliever of exercise, and didn’t generally bother me, but on my last day of work I put my keys on my boss’ desk and walked out without a second thought.  I do believe I was ready for something new.

So far, I find this mommy gig to be more suitable to my personality than all that “working.”  I like the complete lack of structure (before anyone flips out, the kid has structure).  I can go have coffee… or not.  I can do the laundry… orrrr I can probably do it tomorrow.  I have a loose schedule set up for myself, which I think is important, but I’m relaxed about it.  I’M NOT STRESSED.  I have a very long to-do list, but I’m not stressed!

I think it’s because I’m not stressed that “taking a break” is finally effective!  Weird, I know.  But when you’re stressed out, a mani-pedi is kind of a band-aid – nice while it lasts and all.

It doesn’t last.

But when you’re NOT stressed and you just need to change the channel for a minute?  Stars!  Fairies!  Unicorns!  It kills me how many times I almost call my mom because I’m so GIDDY that I just got to go run errands alone.  Or whatever equivalent ridiculousness has become my spa-day-of-the-moment.

Current de-stresser for the unstressed?  Wineyoga.  Yep, wine. and. yoga.  I learned about it from a college friend, and it’s better than going solo to the grocery store AND the bank.  Apparently, if you’re really pursuing the yogi lifestyle, you wouldn’t drink at all.  It even crossed my mind that the combination of yoga and wine was bizarre, but who am I to judge?  I went anyway.  First, I got my butt kicked.  KICKED.  Could be that it’s because I haven’t done yoga in 7 years… could be that I’m pretty klutzy… whatever.  I only fell all the way over one time.  I stretched, I planked, I got sweaty.  Then I went downstairs and was handed a glass of wine.  It was delicious and vacation-like.  Contrary to the goal of yoga?  Yep.  Don’t care.  Get thee to this class.

We totally should.

Who would be offended??

I didn’t realize that I had hit the age where there were men for whom I am too old.  There was a new bartender at my regular bar (which I’m hardly ever inside of anymore, which could possibly have been my first clue) and I asked one of the guys how old he was, not because of his impossibly muscular arms but because he was one of the brothers of one of the other bartenders (that doesn’t really seem like a reason anymore, but I really was just curious, I swear), and instead of getting an ANSWER, I heard things like “HE’S TOO YOUNG” and “YOU’RE MARRIED” from the guys there.  Thanks, fellas… But he’s 23.  So they’re RIGHT.

You’re both kind of gross…

So I survived my first plane trip with my little sidekick.  It didn’t go EXACTLY according to plan, but my hair didn’t get tangled in anything, so that’s gotta count for something, right?  This little bit goes out to my friend whose husband is approximately 9 years old… There was a tall, fairly attractive young man behind me in line as I went through security (which is a mess, because you have to take everything out of everything!  I don’t have to take my clothes out of my suitcase, why must I take the car seat out of its bag?  You have to X-ray it over there?  I thought that thingy on the conveyor belt WAS an X-ray!), but I didn’t notice him until TSA started ordering him to help me fold the stroller and get the car seat out of the bag.  They even snapped at him when he tried to go around me through the detector!  I went with it, but when I was going through the scanner myself and they were still bossing him about my stuff, I told them that he wasn’t with me.  Ha ha!  Isn’t that funny!  Everyone thought so except my unhusband, who just looked sort of shaken up.  I took it as a compliment, that I could have such a YOUNG baby daddy.  It felt like when I get carded.  He clearly took the whole episode as an insult, even when I tried to console him by saying that it would make a great story/blog post!  Some people just don’t want to see the bright side, you know?

Random strangers offered to help (never when I actually needed help… but I like your enthusiasm, strangers!  Keep on!), pilots are surprisingly distracted by babies, and my kid stayed true to form – not a peep.  When we landed, the lady right behind me said, “Oh, I didn’t even know there was a baby on the plane!”  High five, kid.

SINCE I AM NOW AN EXPERT, here are my $0.02 about traveling with an infant on the slowest Saturday any airport has ever seen…
-If the base is a tight fit in the car seat bag (or if you don’t have a bag, but I recommend one – they have wheels and keep things nice), skip it.  You don’t need it.  Get over your emotional attachment to it.
-Ask if the flight is full.  If it’s not, see if you can get put next to an empty seat so that you can bring your car seat on board.  It’s free this way, and then you get two hands!  TWO hands!  To celebrate, I ordered two drinks.
-Get there early enough to have time to do what you need to do.  I don’t mean get your shoes back on or to your gate or whatever, I mean get a glass of wine.  Or a latte, if it’s 8am (but I am NOT judging).  Sit down, call your husband, drink your latte.  Breathe.  People are about to look upon you with great skepticism (they think your baby is adorbs until you are getting on THEIR PLANE), you need to find your zen.

That’s about all I have to say about that.  I landed, my very small mom tried to carry all my stuff (which I think was embarrassing for both of us), we ate food, and then we sat.  And then we ate some more food, and then we watched Downton Abbey.  Home!

I moved to Minnesota in 1998 to go to college.  When I came back from Christmas break that first year, I ran into a guy I knew at the airport shuttle dropoff site.  We checked our mailboxes and headed back to the dorm.  The whole time we were walking, I kept rubbing at my nose.  I mean, he was just a friend, but no lady wants a guy to see her with, like, STUFF coming out of her nose.  It wasn’t getting better, and after a few minutes of letting me try, he said, “Snotsickles.”

…what?

“Give it up.  It’s snotsickles.  It’ll go away when we get inside.”

Many of the 3 of you don’t live in MN, and have probably never experienced, much less heard of, this phenomenon.  Well, it’s gross.  And you know it’s too cold to be outside when your snot freezes, so WHAT was I doing running in these conditions?  I don’t know.  But I was running.  And according to my domestic associate, I will KEEP running with frozen snot, because we bought the stuff for it, so there will be no breaks taken.

I GOT THE JACKET! 
But this is the flip side of turning any new venture into a shopping trip: snotsickles.

My spell check reeeeally doesn’t like the word “snotsickles.”  Or the word “reeeeally.”

Christmas was most merry up here in the cold.  We got the gift of future travel, and the Smartest Baby in the Universe (she found her hands, you know) got Everything.  I really didn’t know that so much stuff existed until she showed up, but it does, and we have it.

Here’s hoping your Christmases/Hanukkahs/Kwanzaas/Familydays were also merry, and that your snot stays in the state God intended.

I used to get all my best ideas in the shower.  Since I retired, though, I don’t seem to have any ideas, nevermind good ones.  Until today.

Most of the blogs I follow do some kind of weekly summary.  I think I’ll start doing this, too (shower genius), since my life now seems to happen in clips rather than episodes, and looks NOTHING like this:

Hahaha… sigh.

So!  Where were we?  Oh right – last week.  Sadly, I have to look at my Google Calendar to even write this.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Mommy brain is REAL.

Kicked things off with a lovely book club meeting, and an interesting discussion of why some people can’t get addicted to The Great Pinterest.  Apparently, there are “words people” out there who would rather read than look at pictures.  Huh.

Normally I wouldn’t think the baby’s checkup was blogworthy, but this one was good.  This kid is in the 7th percentile for weight, the 90th for height, and the 96th (down from 98th) for head circumference.  She is TRULY an orange on a toothpick!

There was a little shopping and dining with my lovely in-laws, complete with some cute clothes AND wine (I don’t charge much for grandparent time…), and then…
I DID IT.

I took a 30 dollar walk.

In those shoes.

I did jog a little bit, and immediately regretted it.  Overheard in my house later that day: “Are you going to walk like that all night?” and “How’s your new leg fitting?”  I’m sure there were other helpful comments… But he showed up with flowers instead of going to work, so I had to laugh at his jokes instead of rolling my eyes.

You know you’re an achiever when you get flowers for walking…

Ah, love.