May
9
May 9, 2006
There was a spider in my bathroom when I went to take a shower, I meant to sweep it from the ceiling but forgot, and the next time I looked it was gone. That’s okay, spider. You keep your distance, I’ll keep mine.
Contractors came to our house and started hammering, the sound echoed down the hall and JB said I can’t believe Riley is still asleep and I said I can’t believe it either and we ate breakfast and I read the comics pages and finally walked down to listen outside Riley’s door and I heard a quiet steady rattle as he turned a toy over and over and the hushed vowelly sounds of his contented babble and I opened the door and dramatically stepped in and I said Well HELLO and he turned his bright face towards me and smiled with his entire body.
Who’s a wriggly, I asked him. You’re a wriggly. You are. Yes.
It was sunny and cool and the shaded cement floor chilled my bare feet when I stepped into the carport to take out the trash. A pair of starlings chattered at me from the overhead power line, a truck ground and grumbled nearby, my son pressed a button on a toy from inside the house and through the open door I could hear the furrow of concentration in his brow. Ba, he said. Da.
His father bundled him into the truck with the bag of bottles and jars of food and I said have a good day, JB said you too and we kissed and I said bye Riley, bye. The house was strange and echoey in their wake, washcloths and toys and bibs strewn as if from a great height, but I could take my time now and so I did, stood in front of the mirror and bared my teeth in a sharky grin and looked at my face, the tiny radiating creases around my eyes and mouth, the bacon-spatter of freckles, and it was familiar and okay – let’s shake hands, face – and I slid on some lipstick in a shade called plumsicle and carefully blotted with a piece of tissue and left a plum-colored artifact of myself behind, crumpled.
I drove down a street in my neighborhood flanked by wetlands and the car in front of me screeched to a stop, the car next to that one braked and did a fast jog around something in the road and I slowed in time to see a mother duck waddling busily across the pavement, and bumbling behind her were at least seven baby ducklings, yellow-speckled and tufty with new feathers and moving in a disorganized line that compressed and expanded as they hurried to keep up, stepping on the backs of each other’s feet and holding their tiny wings out as if for balance.
I crossed the 520 bridge and the sky looked like a production cell lifted from The Simpsons; oblong white clouds formed entirely of Bezier curves, pressed flat against a Prussian blue backdrop.
I was playing Liz Phair and it was early and my voice was scratchy from too many cups of coffee and I sang the lyrics (watching the lake turn the sky into blue-green smoke) in perfect pitch, low and level, and I stopped at a red light and for a second I turned my head slightly so the person in the next lane wouldn’t see my mouth moving, but then I noticed she was singing, too. I thought, what if she is listening to the exact same music, queued to the exact same moment, her mouth forming the exact same phrase as I am (in 27-D, I was behind the wing), wouldn’t that be something. And the light turned and we all drove forward.
May
8
May 8, 2006
JB is threatening to rescind his good-sportedness if I don’t get that goddamn photo off the front of my website, so without further ado, yay to Kirsten who left the very first comment – you got yourself a new pair of jeans, missy. Most of you had some pretty damn funny captions, but I had to go with the Goonies quote.
:::
A few months ago JB and I booked a weekend trip to Las Vegas, scheduled for this coming weekend. Each year we try and do a vacation for our anniversary; we’ve done a cruise, visited Phuket, and last year, a trip to Hawaii. We knew we couldn’t spend as much money or time on this year’s getaway, but three nights in Las Vegas sounded pretty good.
It might sound like a weird destination since we don’t drink or gamble, but it’ll be hot and sunny and of course there’s all kinds of entertainment: shows, restaurants, shopping, and just watching the world walk by. I talked JB into making reservations at Mandalay, since I wanted to loll at their poolside and play in that crazy wave-beach. I wanted to check out the shark exhibit again, eat at the House of Blues, motor up to Caesar’s for the goofy Race to Atlantis “ride” I love beyond all reason, go to Hamada for sushi, take pictures of the Bellagio conservatory, and maybe even rent a car to drive through Red Rock Canyon.
I have had this vacation on my mind for weeks and weeks, and even made sure I had a swimsuit that actually fit.
If you would have told me back in January that five days before our flights were to depart Seattle – five days before I had the chance to sleep in, to eat fancy dinners in nice clothing, to hang out with JB without interruption – we would collectively decide to cancel all of it because we didn’t want to be away from Riley? I would have laughed until I peed right down into my shoe.
So…yeah. That’s exactly what we did: cancelled everything.
Part of me thinks we’re being stupid as all hell. This was a chance to set aside our parental responsibilities for a few schedule-free days of pure selfishness, and hang out as husband and wife and not just charter members of Team Riley. There were going to be sunburns, and virgin daiquiris, and playing Spot the Guy Here For a Tradeshow Who Just Bought His First Hooker. There was going to be staying up past 10 PM.
I swear I would have leaped at the chance a few months ago – I would have clicked my heels, thrust our precious child in the arms of whoever happened to be standing nearby, and made a fucking beeline for that plane. It’s not that I loved him any differently than I do now, it’s not even that he was more difficult or challenging. It’s that he is so incredibly plugged in right now; he’s so curious and aware and fascinated. He’s wonderful to watch, but he’s also watching us. He’s so much more aware of everything, and leaving him for three days just seemed…ah, I don’t know. It seemed fucked up. We felt fucked up about it.
Instead of the Vegas trip, we’re going to drive to Port Angeles, get Riley settled with my family, and take a ferry to Victoria. We’re going to stay one night at the foofy Empress hotel in a harborview room, order room service, swim in the hotel’s pool, cruise around Victoria, and then come back.
It seems like a good compromise.
It’s funny, though. So many of the changes we’ve had to adjust to since Riley’s birth are sort of forced upon us: waking up at 6 AM, say, or never going out to movies, or taking two weeks to read a 200-page novel. I’m a little sad that the timing isn’t right for us to take the original vacation, but I’m also weirdly reassured that even when we’re given the option to put all the tiresome parenting stuff aside for a little while, we’re on the same page, we choose the same thing.
And hey, Vegas isn’t going anywhere. Next time, baby.
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