I'm starting to worry about my girlfriend, quite frankly.
Our baby isn't due until mid-July. In the meantime, though, after several baby showers, we now own about 385 "swaddling blankets," and her desire to make use of them is starting to get the better of her. She has developed a fierce, one might even say voracious need to swaddle something. Any damn thing. Her problem, though, is that there are very few viable candidates for swaddling in the immediate vicinity of her apartment. She has two close friends who have newborn babies of their own, and while they've been happy to have her baby-sit, they've also started to grow a bit wary of that hungry, "gotta swaddle" look in her eyes.
She swears that she just wants to practice, and that that this is going to be very important once the baby arrives. I believe her, of course, but I also believe in practicing temperance. "Patience," I try to counsel her. "you'll get your chance in a couple of months."
She's having none of it. One Saturday afternoon we were sitting around her apartment, and my girlfriend was just doing some organizing (or so she said), taking inventory of what we had already and what we were going to need once the baby arrived. Out came the swaddling blankets. A strange light came into her eyes. I knew there would be trouble.
Our cat Mason, a grey tabby with the disposition of an NFL linebacker, was dozing in the sunlight on the top of the couch while supervising the goings-on outside. My girlfriend grabbed him. I have to give her credit, she laid him on his back on a swaddling blanket she'd spread out in the middle of the living room, and with the speed and skill of a rodeo roper, she damn near succeeded in getting the beast wrapped up.
But as most cat owners will tell you, cats also have a certain look that they get in their eyes every now and again when their people try to do something really, really stupid like this. I don't know how they would express it in cat terms, but in very human terms, the look on Mason's face said, "Really? Are you fucking kidding me?"
There was an explosion of fur and claws and fangs. My girlfriend let out a sharp "Mwaaaah!!!" and Mason shot out the front door like he'd been fired from a cannon. I had to admit, I felt bad for her, because the look of dejection on her face was truly sad. But then I noticed that I was bleeding profusely. In my attempt to mediate the dispute, Mason had seen me as complicit in this attack on his dignity, so he'd taken the time to slash the everloving crap out of me on his way out the door.
So while I heal, we're continuing to count the days off the calendar until the baby's arrival. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that a new plot is starting to hatch in my girlfriend's curly red head. I've caught her practicing her swaddling moves with larger and larger blankets. I'm fairly certain that at some time in the near future, we're going to open the morning paper to find the following headline: "Mystery swaddler strikes city! Winos in park found resting comfortably."
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The View from LaunderLand
The View From LaunderLand
A proposition:
To breathe, and
see the day for what it is.
Not "once was," or
"could/should be," but
what it is.
Hot.
Lazy.
Fanned by an idle wind.
There was a time, not long ago
when "Wednesdays,"
after all,
simply weren't.
And there will be again.
But for now,
the old woman folds her undies
the young mother scans the ads
I watch the socks flop by, and I
Breathe.
A proposition:
To breathe, and
see the day for what it is.
Not "once was," or
"could/should be," but
what it is.
Hot.
Lazy.
Fanned by an idle wind.
There was a time, not long ago
when "Wednesdays,"
after all,
simply weren't.
And there will be again.
But for now,
the old woman folds her undies
the young mother scans the ads
I watch the socks flop by, and I
Breathe.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The Curious Case of the Call at Midnight
It was around midnight last night when I got the call I couldn't answer in time.
My roommate and I were sitting and having a beer. "Rescue Me" was on pause on the DVR as we parsed through the day's events, and the Stuff I Should Be Doing List had gained a couple of new items (starting a blog was one of those things, so... hey, here you go.) My cell phone began to ring.
The usual thing occurred - you spend the first few rings just wondering where the hell the cell phone is, and then you begin a frantic hunt for it. My roommate finally pointed out that the phone was in the kitchen, so I disgorged myself from my recliner and went over to get it. 6, 7, 8 rings? Who knows?
By the time I got to it, though, it was still ringing. Glancing at the phone before flipping it open, I saw that the readout said "Unavailable." I opened it and said hello.
No response.
"Hello?" a few more times.
Still no response. So I hung it up, never knowing who it was. But I had a hunch. It was The Helpless One.
It was nearly midnight on Tuesday, and to the best of my knowledge, the Helpless One had been sleeping in her car since last Friday night. Circumstances wouldn't allow me to offer her my couch to sleep on, and despite my best efforts, I was unable to procure other arrangements for her. So after I finished helping her move her things into storage last Thursday, I made her the best offer I could: If she just needed a place to grab a quick shower, she could call me. Civilization, after all, is the art and practice of making oneself clean, comfortable and well-fed regardless of one's circumstances, and if you're in a situation where you don't have access to regular running water, cleanliness would not only be next to Godliness, it would be second only to food on the list of things you crave the most. That was all I could give her, because The Helpless One seemed unable to help Herself.
Where was she? I don't know. I'd heard nothing from her since I left her Thursday evening in the cluttered remains of the cozy little house she'd been renting, the one she'd been forced to leave now that her money was gone. She'd lost her job 2 years ago and had been unable to find one since. Her one friend in the world, seemingly, was a woman I knew who had moved across country six years ago. That woman, La Generosa, now a single mother, had even gone so far as to give The Helpless One half of her income tax return to tide her over, but even that money was now long gone.
A draft blew through the open windows of my apartment. It had been a sunny, warm spring day, but the night air was turning cooler. I closed the windows. My roommate, finally exhausted at the end of a long day, shambled off to bed. I settled back down into my recliner and pushed "play" again. Denis Leary's familiar snarl sprang to life on my TV screen.
"Unavailable," the cell phone read.
My roommate and I were sitting and having a beer. "Rescue Me" was on pause on the DVR as we parsed through the day's events, and the Stuff I Should Be Doing List had gained a couple of new items (starting a blog was one of those things, so... hey, here you go.) My cell phone began to ring.
The usual thing occurred - you spend the first few rings just wondering where the hell the cell phone is, and then you begin a frantic hunt for it. My roommate finally pointed out that the phone was in the kitchen, so I disgorged myself from my recliner and went over to get it. 6, 7, 8 rings? Who knows?
By the time I got to it, though, it was still ringing. Glancing at the phone before flipping it open, I saw that the readout said "Unavailable." I opened it and said hello.
No response.
"Hello?" a few more times.
Still no response. So I hung it up, never knowing who it was. But I had a hunch. It was The Helpless One.
It was nearly midnight on Tuesday, and to the best of my knowledge, the Helpless One had been sleeping in her car since last Friday night. Circumstances wouldn't allow me to offer her my couch to sleep on, and despite my best efforts, I was unable to procure other arrangements for her. So after I finished helping her move her things into storage last Thursday, I made her the best offer I could: If she just needed a place to grab a quick shower, she could call me. Civilization, after all, is the art and practice of making oneself clean, comfortable and well-fed regardless of one's circumstances, and if you're in a situation where you don't have access to regular running water, cleanliness would not only be next to Godliness, it would be second only to food on the list of things you crave the most. That was all I could give her, because The Helpless One seemed unable to help Herself.
Where was she? I don't know. I'd heard nothing from her since I left her Thursday evening in the cluttered remains of the cozy little house she'd been renting, the one she'd been forced to leave now that her money was gone. She'd lost her job 2 years ago and had been unable to find one since. Her one friend in the world, seemingly, was a woman I knew who had moved across country six years ago. That woman, La Generosa, now a single mother, had even gone so far as to give The Helpless One half of her income tax return to tide her over, but even that money was now long gone.
A draft blew through the open windows of my apartment. It had been a sunny, warm spring day, but the night air was turning cooler. I closed the windows. My roommate, finally exhausted at the end of a long day, shambled off to bed. I settled back down into my recliner and pushed "play" again. Denis Leary's familiar snarl sprang to life on my TV screen.
"Unavailable," the cell phone read.
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