Lead Balloon

Have you ever had a “feeling” memory? )I made up this word, I don’t know what else to call it.) It’s like a mini-flashback where, in a split second, you are reminded of exactly how you felt at a particular place in time?

I had one the other day. I wasn’t doing anything special, I was just getting a coffee mug out of the cabinet and about to pour myself a cup of coffee. And I remembered, in an instant, and felt, in that same instance, exactly how I felt the week Natalie was born, when I was preparing for my mom to come visit.

Now, I know that I’ve mentioned here only 200 times before how that was the best week of my life, ever. I still maintain that nothing will ever top it. But what I was remembering in this instant were the days leading up to her arrival, when I was preparing the house for family to arrive, preparing for my hospital stay, etc. I remembered making sure there were blankets and such for my mom, who was going to be staying for a couple weeks when we got home.

And this gave me the most comforting sense of peace. My mother coming. To my house. To take care of me.

I remember how excited I was about THIS and how nervous I was about PUSHING A BABY OUT OF MY BODY. But this particular memory was just around the “good” butterflies that were in my stomach about my mom’s impending arrival.

I love those feelings.

I’ve spent a lot of time in airports over the past couple of weeks. I’ve just had a lot of work lately that takes me out of my comfy home office where I don’t HAVE to get out of my PJ’s and into an environment where uncomfortable shoes are just a by-product of the good and necessary other goings-on.

Anyway, as we all know, airports make for very good people watching. A couple of observations this last trip:
1. I’m pretty sure that the trend of having a very small dog that fits into a designer bag makes airport workers want to kill a bunch of trend-following females.
2. It’s a shame that you could get arrested for picking up and consoling a stranger’s child. Even if that stranger is spending 45 minutes or so on the phone with her husband while her one year-old is screaming for attention, and clearly scared of her surroundings.
3. Airplanes smell. They just do. And there’s nothing you can do about it. They have this sweaty, oily hair smell.
4. Related to #3 – no one cleans airplanes. The insides of them, I mean. The windows have a film on them from hair products and dirty hands, the floors are covered in crumbs, and the seats themselves should be re-upholstered more often than they are.
5. First class shouldn’t be so close to the first few rows of coach. On the last leg of the last trip I took, I sat in row 8, just a couple rows behind first class. As I munched on my Chex Mix, I closed my eyes and imagined that I was eating whatever it was that smelled so good up in first. You know nice, lovely things are happening up there, but when you’re sitting in the 25th row it doesn’t bother you so much. When you have to look at it and smell it…That’s a different story.

Just some random Saturday thoughts.

When I was a little girl, my dad used to take me to McDonald’s to get a McRib sandwich. We owned restaurants, as a family, for years. Even a fast food restaurant (Texas Stop Sign!) But for some reason, he loved these things. And McDonald’s doesn’t sell them year-round. They come and go. And when they’d make their return, we’d drive to a nearby town (to the closest McDonald’s at the time!) to get one.

No one knew meat better than my dad – his last job was actually in sales for a meat packing and restaurant supply company. He was actually a “meat snob” in some ways – if you even DARED to put a drop of steak sauce on one of his steaks, he’d be insulted and he’d let you know it. “A good steak doesn’t need a sauce of any kind.” He was the Meat Nazi, before there was an anything-Nazi besides real Nazis. The point here is, it’s very strange to me, still, that he liked the McRib. There’s nothing else in the world that might be better described as MYSTERY MEAT than a damned McRib sandwich!

This takes us to today. And my confession.

I drove to McDonald’s for lunch, in my pajamas. And the McRib is back. And I got one.

My confession is not around the fact that I ate the mystery meat, but the fact that I LIKED IT. Not nearly as much as I love a Quarter Pounder, though. WHY!?!???!?? Oh…and the DELICIOUS french fries. We all know that in my first trimester of pregnancy, I craved McDonald’s hamburgers. Didn’t care for McDonald’s before that…I was even a little grossed out by it, especially after seeing “Super Size Me”, the movie. And I live with the Anti-McDonald’s President, my husband. My confession is that today, I realized that I love McDonald’s. I hate to love it. I hate to love those Quarter Pounders. I can see each one of them in every dimple in my thighs.

It’s not “cool” to love McDonald’s.
It’s also not very good for my cholesterol.
I feel like I should hide the evidence.
But I won’t, because that will mean I have a whole other set of problems.

I had a dream last night that I weighed 243 pounds. I knew this was my weight because in my dream, they were lining us up and weighing us at work. At work! And I remember the exact number because it’s the amount of a check that I have been needing to write and desposit for some time now. How do my weight and the amount of a check come together in dream land like that? Dreams are so strange.

I’m looking forward to this weekend, but am not in any way looking forward to next week. I was out of town three days this past week, and will be out for four days next week. This traveling makes me crazy. Have I mentioned that before?

This week was our three year anniversary. Three whole years. Why does it seem like ten? I think that’s a good thing. I do feel like I’ve known him my whole life… However, I spent most of our anniversary on a plane, and not with my dearly beloved, but with my very good friend, Mary. She’s always been my back up, so it seems fitting. 😉

It’s raining here. I just realized, also, that it hasn’t rained here in months. I know this because Jack’s little wet paws have never bothered me so much as they do now that we have “show anything and everything” fake wood downstairs.

I was hoping to get some time by the pool this weekend, since I’ve only done that (I think?) two times this summer. Much different than last summer, and more of a pattern to expect for summers to come. Unless we get a pool. Not likely, since we’re not even sure where to fit Natalie’s blow-up pool in our matchbook back yard. We really need to find a bigger house.

Back to how I started this random post…why is it that you don’t see the fat on your thighs, hips and stomach as much in your own home as you do in hotel mirrors? This is what I hate most about traveling – all the full-length mirrors that are in the most AWFUL places in the room. Like directly in front of the toilet…Or on the closet doors, where you’re standing – naked – about to put your clothes on?

I think that overall, I’m having a gloomy day. I think it’s the rain.

All along, I thought we had a surplus of recycling to place on our curb because I live with the Recycling Nazi who picks through, even, bathroom trash to pick out recyclable, biodegradable items.

But no. It’s not that.

My husband brings home all the recycling from his office because they don’t recycle.

He’s bringing trash home from work.
In his car. The same car he transports our daughter to school in…It’s not a truck. With an open bed. It’s a Hyundai.

To our home.