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| ::: ::: journal entries: ::: ::: :::
check out: This made me laugh until it hurt, and then I watched it again: weightless dog.
artifact:
Everything in my yard is soggy and covered in moss. Also, wet dog poop.
| Thursday, January 12, 2006 My work week in JB's absence: I get up at Riley's rooster-crow hour to feed him, play with him for a while, get myself ready for work, get Riley ready for daycare, drive him and his bottles and toys and extra outfits to the center, make sure he's all settled and run off while he's in a good mood so I can tell myself that he spends the entire day with nary a tear in sight, drive to work, work all day, drive back across 520 with plenty of time to spare before the center closes because if you do not show up by 6:30 to get your kid they call Child Protective Services, which oh my GOD, get Riley and his empty bottles and toys and laundry back in the car, drive the rest of the way home in thick traffic while desperately singing the phrase "merrily merrily merrily merrily" over and over like a demented parrot in an attempt to soothe the crying child who is lulled to sleep while driving ONLY if the car is actually moving and not when it's stuck on 148th for eleventy bajillion hours, get him inside and feed him/put him down for naps/entertain him until his bedtime, feed the swarming pets, explain to Dog that I'm sorry but there will be no Frisbee tonight, turn on the dishwasher and stagger to bed. Gosh, I barely have time to read about the latest celebrity news. Thank you, Personalized Google Home Page! Daycare is going well. Riley appears to be content whenever I see him there, he's usually in the swing when I leave and curled up in the arms of the baby room attendant when I pick him up. There are three other children in the same room, two other young babies and one miserably unhappy toddler who is, according to the attendant, 'having a hard time adjusting'. Apparently they have to call his father to come in during the day and feed him, otherwise he refuses to eat. I guess it never gets any easier to leave your children in someone else's care, and maybe in some cases it just gets harder as they get older. I never feel quite right when I walk out the door of the center, my arms strangely unencumbered by the carseat and this nagging feeling of having left something incredibly vital to my existence behind. As I drive on to work and enter an entirely separate world for the day, I am comforted by knowing he's in good hands, but I still miss him. It's a compromise, that's all there is to it. I can't go to the office and be fulfilled by work projects and interacting with people and be with Riley 24 hours a day. I can't earn a salary that's essential for our budget and lifestyle and stay home. (Well, at least not until I make my millions from the hilariously zany cookbook I plan to produce, titled Double Entendre Entrees. Sample recipes: fish tacos! Salty meatballs in white sauce!) When JB and I talked about having children I just naturally assumed I'd want to go back to work. I had no concept of how hard it would be, nor did I have any idea how expensive daycare in our area is ($85 per day, as it turns out - we pay for full time care even though we only use them 3 days a week, we'd have to share with someone who only needed Mondays and Fridays to lessen our costs). The whole issue is so complicated, you evaluate financial realities and your own needs and your child's needs and you just do the best you can. And you pray they don't cry all day and refuse to eat. There's one thing I really don't like about the daycare: its smell. The place has this aroma that permeates everything, it must be the brand of cleanser they use or something. It's not horrible, it's just a foreign smell that I don't care for, and it creeps into all of Riley's clothes and it gets soaked up by his hair, so when I nuzzle his head I get a big whiff of daycare instead of that delicious fresh baby head-smell. That alone has made me cry, because as some of you know firsthand there is no better smell in the world than a baby's head (JB once offhandedly declared, apropos of nothing at all, that he thought Riley's head smelled "fucking awesome"), they should bottle that smell and sell it in Sephora and call it Head, because hello! - even guys would buy it then, and replacing the smell of head with the smell of Mr. Clean or whatever just sucks. So now I wash him a little when we get home, and rub a pinch of baby powder in his hair, and presto - the smell of head returns. And then I wash all his clothes. Because in my busy-ass day as described in the beginning of this ramblethon, I just can't pass up the chance to get in some goddamn laundry, you know? ::: I have been covering Workplace's sales email and phone calls this week while my coworker is at Macworld. Here are some random questions I've dealt with: I bought your $149.95 thing, the software thing? And I don't know what it does. So...money is blowing straight out of your ass and into various online stores. Perhaps you should have that looked at. I lost my license, can you look it up for me? Here are fifteen different email addresses I may have used when I ordered it. Also, ten different names. Clearly, instead of listening to our phone calls, the government should be monitoring people's internet identities. As a software engineer, I have a pedantic criticism of your product, which I would like to detail in a painfully long conversation involving much wet mouth-breathing and use of the word "furthermore". Am I talking to the right person? No. U NEED 2 REFUND MY SALE UR WAREZ SUX BAD Hey, haven't I seen you before? By chance do you go by the name Anonymous Commenter?
::: In other news, it has now been raining like hell in the Seattle area for 25 days in a row. Send help, in the form of 1) arks, and 2) Nutter Butters. :::
Every baby say CRUNK!
The Dude and his stuffed dog. Abidin'.
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