A week's worth of musings

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. Tuesday I was driving, driving, driving in traffic. First, driving in traffic 1 hour to work, then 1 hour in traffic home, spent a frantic hour trying to bond/reconnect with the family before I got back into traffic for 40 minutes, driving to a dinner meeting so I could get some more continuing education hours. I drove home after 9 pm, should've been a traffic-free time EXCEPT they closed the interstate right at my exit, so I sat in traffic AGAIN waiting desperately to get home as all the north-south traffic exited at my little hamlet. Grrrr.... As a result, I spent Wednesday with the people in my family (not blogging) and of course, Thursday was a busy work day and I was too pooped last night.

As I sat in traffic on Tuesday night listening to the radio, hearing pop songs from the late 80's and early 90's, I found myself wistful for my "youth." Nothing like a song to make you remember a time (except for maybe a very particular scent memory). Nostalgia is such a fitting word - that "-algia" on the end meaning "pain" (as in analgesia). I'm sitting there, holding my steering wheel, pining for high school and vet school. Of course it dawns on me that this is totally absurd -- I didn't have much fun in high school, and spent most of it buried in a book and feeling totally out of touch with my peers and wishing the time away so I could be in college! And I had a lot of fun on weekends with all my vet school buddies, but how could I forget how stressed out I was the whole time, studying my brains out, taking tests every week, and just wishing I could hurry up and graduate and marry Anthony and make some real money.

I guess there is something to miss about being so young and idealistic and having so much of your bright future ahead of you. But more than then, I know that someday I will miss this time in my life more than any other, when I have these two precious young ones who run to the door to love me every time I come in, who think their dad and I are the most important and knowledgable people on earth. People who still have their innate ability to shrug off other peoples' bad attitudes and find the beauty in every day. Plus, I have a job I love, and a great partner to share this life with... if I could just get out of traffic and be with them!

The other good news is that starting next Tuesday my "early day" will end at 2:30 (not 4, which turns into 5, home at 6, barely enough time to eat dinner before bathtime and bedtime at 7:30). Anna is so excited about this new schedule, she knows exactly which day it takes effect!

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In other news, yesterday Anthony refitted an old "heirloom." I'm totally impressed with his mechanical abilities. (The ying-yang of our relationship is one of the reasons it works so well).

I remember the first time I went to his parents' house, he pointed it out to me saying, "It's that one with the spider lamp." The spider lamp was a relic of his parents' years spent in Italy. Years ago they took it down. Anthony acquired it recently. He put in a new socket (one that will take a fluorescent light) and added a ground wire and an electronic eye so that it turns on automatically at dusk and off at dawn. It's made of wrought iron and has a yellow glass abdomen. It is so cool, and just in time for Halloween!


Anthony's Spider