librarienne's Open Salon Blog

How does our garden grow?

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:04:11 -0400

Lettuce, tomatoes, basil, radishes, carrots, pineapple sage, anaheim peppers and arugula are all in their containers. We have peas sprouting in the ground, and planted pole beans, corn and sunflowers today. The blueberries are growing nicely, too. They aren't food yet, but give them a few weeks, and they will be.

Clear Blue Easy Says? You're Just Old

Fri, 9 Mar 2012 17:03:09 -0500

For the first time in my life, I took a pregnancy test this week. After 9 days of being late, and some morning ickiness, it seemed like a good idea. I was pretty nervous about telling Mr. L this was a necessity, since we haven't been trying to join the parental ranks (though a look through my previous blog posts will show you a lot of angst around that issue). He was, of course, calm and cool and filled with things like, "Well, I always figured if it happened, it happened." I was heart pounding and queasy, mainly because I had been so worried about how he would react, but also because though this wouldn't necessarily be unwelcome, it's big. Life changing, scary big. I was hand-wringing all through our drive to CVS, and pacing while waiting for our 3-minute answer to the big question. Pregnant, or not?

As it turns out, not. No trips to the Ikea baby section to shop for cribs for us. Apparently I am just old, and anxious for no good reason. I was relieved, and disappointed, and feeling silly for all the drama, all at once. Quite an emotional mix. I was left with a big old, "Now what?" in my head.

You want to know something? I liked the new life I conjured up while stressing over this. I liked how it would look with different career priorities, and home priorities. I liked the thought of spending my time at more than just making money, and spending money, and making more again. So maybe I make the changes in my life now, and see if we add a baby yet sometime. We may be too late to decide we do want that child, but different priorities can happen any time, right?

Jumping on the Bandwagon: 33 Things

Wed, 7 Mar 2012 18:03:40 -0500

1. Your main trait: Agreeable to a fault

2. The quality you like best in a man: That he thinks I'm awesome

3. The quality you like best in a woman: Ditto

4. Your main flaw: I am an overeager people pleaser, but not always to the right people.

5. Last time you cried: Today. Over a commercial. I'm an emotional basket case this week.

6. Ideal job: One where we all really like each other as much as they do on those cop dramas.

7. Scent of a place: That briney, earthy, green smell of the Charleston pluff mud.

8. Beloved movie: Shrek

9. Book on the nightstand: The Lady of the Rivers

10. First and best kiss: First: With a theater boy named Tim, on a rock in the forest in the UP. We'd faked a kiss in Spin the Bottle the night before, and he said he owed me a real one. He paid up. Best: Is it too sappy to say the first one with my husband?

11. You couldn’t do without: Eggs and fried potatoes. My comfort meal.

12. How you would like to die: Old enough to have done it all, but not so old that I am a complete invalid.

13. Song you sing in the shower: Today it was Music of the Night.

14. Your deadly sin: Gossip.

15. Your not-so-deadly sin: Gossip

16. Your motto: Don't let the bastards get you down.

17. Ideal first date: Picnic in the park? I don't know.

18. Favorite present: Narnia books. They were a posthumous gift from my grandmother.

19. In traffic: Hashing out my philosophies of life with imagined listeners while bopping to some 90's tune or another.

20. Something you’d change in your body: acne breakouts. Why do I still have zits at 38?!

21. Your addiction: See the aforementioned gossip.

22. Now on your left: A big printer, and the box of unclaimed student IDs

23. Now on your right: A smaller printer, my statistics sheet and my office phone.

24. Now in front of you: Computer, staplers, jar of pencils, due date stamp, squishy star.

25. Now behind you: Bulletin board.

26. Name for your child: I'll get back to you on that.

27. 3 things in your purse: Trident, red lipstick, flash drive

28. 3 places that fascinate you: Buenos Aires, L.A., England.

29. 3 people you’d like to meet: I don't know. I'd say someone famous, but if I really met him or her, I'd say something stupid.

30. 3 traits you hate in people: Neediness, slovenliness and bitchery.

31. Values inherited from your parents: Frugality (or at least, spending-averse, fidelity (in that I hope to do better than them), and being a nice girl.

32. In your past life you were: Marie of Roumania

33. In your future life you’ll be: A higher being, of course.

In love with love

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:02:56 -0500

I admit it. I am a sap. I love Valentine's Day. I mean, what isn't to like? It's a day devoted to sex and candy, and grand declarations of love. Upstairs just a few minutes ago, someone proposed to his girlfriend as she was getting off the elevator from work, complete with balloons and a trumpet player, and a song he sang just for her. I don't even know this person--I was just walking through the lobby to our office--and I got all verklempt. How can you not be swept along by the hopefullness and joy of a moment like that?

I get why some of my more stoic friends find all this mushiness to be too much. I know all the statistics about divorces, and I recognize the consumerist underpinnings of it all, and I know about conflict diamonds and abusive relationships and blah, blah, blah. I know that if you are alone and wish you weren't, all of this might feel like a reminder of that, some other way society is telling you that you are less-than because you are uncoupled. But I nonetheless think love is worth celebrating. What else in your life makes you feel so gosh-darn good? What else makes getting up and slogging through the more unpleasant parts of your day seem worth it?

It's Valentine's Day! Go love someone. Spread happiness. Maybe eat a cupcake.

The other side of the hill

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 21:02:23 -0500

Death scares me. I know, it scares everyone, if we really stop to consider it, which we don't much in our youth, unless we have been surrounded by quite a lot of it. I have certainly lost my fair share of people, but up until the last year or so, that always felt like something you could easily bounce back from. They are gone, you are sad, but there is life to live and all sorts of brightness in the future still, so it's okay.

I don't feel like that anymore. Somehow, at 37 years old, it seems like I have crested a hill where bouncing back isn't easy. The deaths pile up. They start to be people who are closer, or whose loss is less easily brushed aside. My mentors Jack and John. Dr. K, who saw me through my first Master's degree. Mr. L's mother, with whom I had a tense relationship, but who nevertheless leaves a hole that looms large in my mind.

Illness, too. We currently have two aunts, one of mine and one of his, recovering from strokes. Mine is in a rehab facility, and is doing well, considering she is 90. His is in a coma at Emory, and each day we wait to see if it's the one where we have to go say goodbye. She is much closer to our age--only 15 years older than my husband himself--and that is the sort of thing that brings me to terror in the middle of the night. I'm sad for her, and I'm scared to lose the person in his family that is most dear to me, but really, the fear comes from the thought that this could be one of us. He has diabetes now. My mom does, too. Mom's partner, who is missing his leg due to that disease, and has frequent seizures and hospitalizations, seems like a terrible sign post of what is to come. We are rearranging our lives to try to stave off the worst of it, but at 37, death is becoming a much more threatening spectre than it was when I was 25.

Of course, I know that I am not the first to start worrying about this around this point in my life. Isn't this what the mid-life crisis is all about? It's positively cliche. Knowing that, and rationalizing it, doesn't make my heart beat any less wildly when I consider the Reaper, standing just over that hill, but getting closer. Closer all the time.