Well, we've got internet again, and phone again. And I have so much I could blog about, and so much on my mind right now, that I think I will leave you with this--answers to the questions my friend Deb tagged me to post, written yesterday.
Where were you ten years ago?
10 years ago I was 23, writing for a Hungarian newspaper, living alone in a highly fortified Budapest apartment and fending off a completely insane landlady who used to enter without warning to leave stealth offerings of limp pickles on plates in my kitchen. I had started knitting in earnest a few months earlier, and was having my first knitting all-nighters, drinking diet coke, listening to Hungarian radio and watching the sun come up. I was about to return to college with one more semester to go to finish my undergraduate degree. I was about to learn to spin, I wore Birkenstocks with wool socks and my hair in a braid. God had just started knocking on my door. I had the stereo cranked up so I could pretend I didn't hear.
Where were you five years ago?
5 years ago I had finished my second master’s degree, and had just finished teaching my first solo college class (magazine writing). I was one year into my PhD program. I honestly can't remember much about that month--I think I was already starting to sense that it was the beginning of the end of the whole academic thing. I was at that point religiously observant and had been to Israel, was keeping kosher and shabbos. I had just turned 27, was still single, had just had a very unpleasant dating experience, and was beginning to realize that isolated college towns were bad places to make shidduchim. It was not a good time, and about to get much worse.
One year ago?
1 year ago we had just moved to the city where we live now. MHH had gotten exactly one viable job offer (I’m not counting the one in Hong Kong) and we moved 1000 miles to take it. Barak was three and a half months old and in a very high-maintenance phase--too big to want to lie on the floor, too little to sit up by himself, too cool for the bouncy seat (puh-leeze!) I was wrestling with decisions about whether or not to go back to work, which I really, really did not want to do but was coming to realize was not really optional financially. I was unpacking boxes and taking long walks with Barak snoozing in the Snugli, enjoying the time I had with him all to myself. I was happy.
Yesterday?
Yesterday I chased Barak around our grassy new backyard and watched him bravely investigate the sprinkler, then took him inside to scrape off the resultant mud. Set up my loom and spinning wheel in the guest/wool room. Went to Target for garbage can and litterbox and new broom, which Barak gleefully appropriated on sight. (He's got something of a broom fetish. Why not?) Covered kitchen counters with plastic and scoured stove, unpacked all remaining kitchen boxes, arranged tchotchkes on kitchen shelves. Did a little spinning of some wool my friend in Sydney sent for my birthday. A good day.
Today?
Today I got up before Barak, which is always nice. Rescued him from crib as soon as he woke up, which put him in a very good mood, and we cuddled a little before getting on with the day. There is something especially wonderful about the way clean babies smell in the morning. Watched him toodle around the apartment with broom in hand in his green alligator pajamas. Went to bakery for his morning bagel, got help with stroller on the bus, dropped him at daycare with no tears. Went to the office, wrote a powerpoint presentation, got Barak back at 1:30 and came home after some errands to make macaroni with cheese and spinach for dinner—a baby favorite. Played with Barak, heard some very alarming intestinal noises and realized he was standing in a spreading wet puddle of blueberry-induced diarrhea, totally unperturbed. Screamed for MHH and transferred poopy child to bathtub, gave him an impromptu shower and induced fits of giggles in Barak, who felt just fine, thanks, and found all of this very entertaining. Put Barak to sleep with very little resistance and did some more unpacking. Bed by 10… ahh.
5 snacks I like
Damp cheerios fed to me by Barak
Diet coke (alas)
Poppyseed rolls from the bakery (alas, alas)
Tomato sandwiches with miracle whip (alas and then some, says my husband)
Watermelon
5 bands whose songs I know most of the lyrics to
The Beatles, probably. I don’t think any other bands, except maybe the Grateful Dead, but it’s been a while…
5 things I'd do with a million dollars
pay off the mortgage
pay off my in-laws' mortgage
pay off my SIL's mortgage
buy my other SIL a place in Chicago
(a million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to--it would have run out by now)
5 places I would run away to (as Deb said, all temporarily, before running back home)
Israel
Birmingham (yes, I am the only person in the world harboring warm fuzzy feelings about Birmingham)
Meg Swanson's knitting camp
Sydney
New Zealand, where I've always wanted to go...
5 things I would never wear
a tongue stud or any other body piercing, including earrings
high heels
a bathing suit in public
makeup
anything that fit me before I got pregnant (sigh)
5 things I like doing
nursing, playing with, feeding, chasing, and cuddling Barak
being silly with my husband
knitting, in company or alone
spinning
emailing distant friends
5 biggest joys
wet slobbery kisses from Barak
my family
Yiddishkeit
our new home
visits from friends
5 famous people I'd like to meet
Elizabeth Zimmerman
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik
Winston Churchill
Lenin (from a safe distance)
John Steinbeck
5 movies I like
The Princess Bride
The Great Muppet Caper
The Incredibles
Roman Holiday
A Tanu (The Witness, a Hungarian classic)
5 favorite toys
my spinning wheel
my loom
my dishwasher
my washing machine
my dryer (I know, I know... but you appreciate it much more after not having one)
3 comments:
So come visit!! You have my email and Ellie has my phone number. October isn't good (holidays), but September, November, and December are fine (although by December it will be pretty cold.) Isaac is going to public school in the fall, right? Well, we'll work it out...
You were a Deadhead??? Wow... I have trouble even begining to imagine this! Was this in Montreal?
c
No, I was never really a deadhead. I mean, no drugs or anything like that. I've never smoked so much as a cigarette in my life. I never went to a concert either, although I could have. I just liked the music, and the long skirts and sandals motif... come to think of it, I still dress like that...
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