My oldest son is clamoring for the laptop, so I only have time to dump something quickly in a post and get this old site moving again. We traveled over the holiday, and I chose to focus my time and attention on real life peeps — a good choice, but one that came at the expense of my little virtual record here.
In blindingly fast fashion, a recap: we traveled to our old home of North Carolina for the holiday. We stayed with very good friends, who fed and housed (and ‘wined’) us well, and whose three year old was exactly the companion my two boys have always wanted. (You may recall that this family once visited us for Easter in NOLA.) We also spent lots of time with my sister and her husband, a big part of our desire to travel up north. We had two Thanksgiving dinners, spent Black Friday at a Children’s Museum (marginally better than spending it shopping), saw a really funky band in a real live bar (first time I’ve been out in ages), and I even recorded some tracks in my friend’s backyard little recording/practice studio, just for fun. It was supremely fun, every minute of it, and it also marked the last venture out and about for this little family until our fifth member joins us next month. We had a terrible weekend of football (both our college teams AND the Saints lost), a decent drive there and back, lots of great food, got to check in with some dear friends and family, and further cemented our boys’ deep and abiding relationship with a little girl I hope will be a lifelong buddy, and with their favorite North Carolina Aunt. 😉
December has started with a bang – quite literally. Bruce Willis is filming an action movie in our building downtown (Nic Cage was recently here doing the same thing – someone in charge in our building and city has been soliciting movie shoots, with much success). Yesterday they blew up a car outside the building. Today, as I was escorting some folks down to the lobby after a (lengthy) deposition, the elevator doors opened on the scene of several dead people strewn about the lobby floor, and lots of men with guns spraying bullets and rushing from elevator well to elevator well. The cameras and lights (and warning emails we’d received from building management) kept me from being at all afraid that anything about it was real, but I definitely was scared of ruining their shot by bumbling into the shot right at the wrong time. (The movie is called “The Prince” – look for a pregnant lady with long brown hair in a red shirt poking her head out of an elevator, who looks appropriately startled at the sight of lots of death and gore in her office building lobby). They rushed past me, the guns blaring (SO. LOUD.) and then I couldn’t see what was going on. Eventually I stage whispered to a dead guy “HEY GUY. CAN I LEAVE THIS ELEVATOR?” and he lifted up his head and looked around, and stage whispered back “YEAH. GO ON – HURRY!” Exciting.
In addition to my starring role as a flipped out pregnant lawyer in an elevator, I also had an epic deposition today, received a very contentious motion, was given my performance review, and suffered through about half a dozen other modestly stressful events. The kid has been ridiculously active all the way through each of these activities, shaking my entire abdomen with his kicks and crushing my internal organs with his stretching. I think he is getting some of my adrenaline hits. It’s making me tired as heck, which is why instead of making the chicken patties and brown rice that I’d planned, I ordered Domino’s this evening. What can I say – Baby likes pepperoni, and so do his brothers.
I will have to open the laptop and do a bit of work this evening, despite my promises not to. But for now, the oldest child is hovering over me, hitting keys and asking “Now? Now? Now?” so I’d better hand over the laptop so he can practice his school reading computer class homework thing. A more coherent and interesting post will follow soon!