Mid-Morning Rant

Sean's on deadline and struggling with a
"difficult" client, so I can't vent to him.
The people I would usually vent to in the
office are going through crap of their own.
So I am turning to the blog.
My retreat.
My outlet.
The welcome void I can stick my head into and scream at the top of my lungs.

Give me strength to deal with on man who can't yank his head out of the sand and another who's head is so far up his ass I can't even remember what his face looks like.

Huge apologies to my in-laws and other innocent souls who have come to read about Briar and are instead getting my workplace vitriol.

Most days I can handle a little ineptitude, tolerate apathy, but when you combine the two and twist in a bit of attitude and totally misplaced arrogance, well then my friends, you get me madder than VI Warshawski being called a bitch (Kathleen Turner, 1991).

So each month I have a program on the first Tuesday. I have a speaker that addresses something relating to working women. A few weeks before the event I send out postcards. Sean and I have long since dummy proofed the postcards, so that the "dummy" that I work with can't screw them up. Or so we thought.

This guy truly takes settling for "c" work to new heights. Once upon a time I had a mailing for all the new home owners in the area. The addresses that he gathered were missing towns, street numbers, zip codes.

He sent it out because, "That's how the addresses were given to me."

It's one thing having a 5 year old send a letter to the north pole, it's quite another thing for 55 year old man to send out 500 post cards to places like"

R. Smith
Western and Main
New York

So today, I see him in the production room cutting post cards and placing labels for the mailing for my March event. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

"Oh! What are you doing?" I squealed in a non-threatening, sing song voice. "I'll do that! Thank you for the help, but you don't have to do that!"

He said something like, "Oh, ok, we all do sticky-sticky here." I can't even open the door to how that irks me.

So I jumped in and started placing labels. After a bit he said, "Ya, looks like something must have happened with some of the labels. Got off track a bit or something."

"Oh? Well so long as it didn't mar the addresses we should be fine." I said, thinking that he meant just a few of the labels were maybe crooked.

No. Of the 15 sheets of labels, the first column of each sheet was missing the first 3 characters of each line. For example:

ne Walter
4 Blue Bird Lane
eau, New York 12803

"Did you save the labels that were cut?"

"Naw, they should be fine. At least the big ones like banks and what have you. Those should get delivered ok."

How is that acceptable? Like we just have money laying around to send out crap we know is going to get returned? And my programs can afford to have one of every 3 people invited, not even really be invited? Or, better yet, some of these women get these pieces and see how little care we take in presentation?

But wait, it gets better, the ones that didn't have messed up labels? Oh they were special too! Oh yes, they were mistrimmed so despite having a full mailing label, the message on the post card was missing two characters from every line.

I don't know what is worse, the fact that this guy just doesn't give a shit or that my boss will probably want to just do another mailing and not address the failure to perform any sort of quality control. We'll just go through this month after month, until I take the post card production away from this dinosaur.

It would be easier if I didn't care.

"Oh well, just spent three hours doing a mailing, half of which will come back as undeliverable and half of the half that actually got delivered will be unreadable. Better luck next time." But I don't operate that way. So I either go and tattle to my boss, confront the idiot, or handle it myself and try everything in my power to head him off at the pass next month.

Just take the extra work, you logical people are thinking. When does that stop? When do I stop taking stuff off of his plate. And actually, in this case, he isn't even supposed to do this.

He is just so incredibly unexceptional in everything he does. Just going through the motions. And he smells. Bad, stinky, cheap cigarillo and coffee breath, mixed with that inimitable odor of the unwell. Yuck. And he's a lech.


Well, gotta get back to these nifty post cards and labels. I have about half of the mailing I can salvage, the other half I may just take home and redo by hand.

Luckily, my walls here at work are plastered with lil Miss Briar pics.

Happy Monday.

A Story and Some Pictures

Hanging out with Briar has changed so much in the past month. Everything is so interactive since she has become such a sponge. Sean will sit on the couch with her and say, "Can you say "nana"?

"uhnana," she responds.

"Can you say "grandma"?

"amma," she chirps.

"Can you say "Ella"?

"ula-ula-ula-la-la-la-ula!" she exclaims.

Every once in a while he or I will slip in a word she's never said and she'll be totally game and give it a whirl. It's inspiring. Again, learning from a child how to let go of fear and hesitation, just do it. Experience it. Have fun. And watching her learn the power of language is amazing. You can see the little wheels turning as she says something and we respond correctly. Sometimes you have to wonder if she's thinking, "Good job, mom. Finally!"

We are a blessed family. We are all pretty patient with each other and always supportive. Sometimes some of us (read: me) can be a little high strung. It's been a rough couple of days...weeks, but things are looking up. It took a fierce morning (read: black as black gets kind of "I hate everything" kind of morning), a frank conversation with Sean and then that little extra push from a higher power to send me to the brink forcing me to decide whether to plummet into a funk or pull myself out of it laughing.

Gotta tell ya,plummeting was looking mighty good, sometimes the funks just seems so easy and appealing, kind of like the sleep before death that envelopes people stranded on snowy mountains. Sean had told me that he was worried about me and that we needed to figure out what we could fix and what we couldn't so that I could quit wasting energy and suffering.

I was not what you would describe as real open to that idea. I think we all get there sometimes. Just wanting to be upset. Anyway, I cut the solution devising session short and said I was going down to make coffee.

*******
I have to interject with a short story to illuminate how far along my pregnancy absentmindedness is so that you can appreciate what follows. Night before last, Sean and I were sitting on the sofa trying to determine if he was going back to Trampoline for a late shift or if he would be getting up and doing an early session.

"Stay," I said. "I'll wake you up early and have coffee on, I promise."

Sigh. "I don't know, I don't want you to have to get up early, you need the sleep," he reasoned.

"No, honey, it's fine. It'll be easy. I have the firepot all set. All I'll have to do is push the button and you'll have - (now here is when I realize that my brain and mouth are out of synch and that I have said something that doesn't make sense, but, being pregnant, I can't quite figure out what is wrong with what I have said)

"You'll have, ah, when I push the button, um...the firepot? You'll have fire. Right, firepot. Coffee pot. I'll push the button to the "firepot" and you'll have coffee!"

So bless my husband, he looks at me with the tickle of a smile toying with the sides of his mouth, his eyes flickering with fear and amusement. "Can I laugh?" he wonders, "Or do I need to pretend the whole firepot thing didn't just happen? Shit, she said firepot. That is hilarious. She's losing it," he muses internally.

*******

So, this morning, remember?
Black, cloudy, gloomy, going to make coffee. After filling the coffee maker with water and getting the filter set and pressing the button, I head back upstairs to maybe try and make things right.

Sean was trying to help and isn't that what I want?
Don't I want him to help me feel better and get back to happy go lucky manda?
Yes.

So up the stairs I go.

I climb back into bed with him and say sorry and that I'll try to buck up. Then, somehow, we go back to trying to solve things and sullen manda creeps back into me and pouts as she thinks,

"Why do we have to fix me? This isn't about me, this is about all the things I am having to deal with, not actually me damnit!"

"You can get mad at me too if that's what you want," he said as he climbed out of bed.

Ladies? Can I get a little, "Oh no he didn't?!" That little line right there was the straw that broke the moody camel's back. I said something that was probably not entirely productive and then said I was going down for coffee.

"I'll just go and have some coffee, shake this snit and show him that I don't need his pep talks to pull out of this. I'll just turn my day around, drink my coffee and do it all myself." I thought stubbornly.

Oh you foolish, foolish girl.

I walked toward the kitchen, the rich smell of coffee filling the room.

Mmmmm.

I mean REALLY filling the room.

Hmmmm.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen and the world sent me a big old message:

"Shake it or I'll have you on your knees begging for mercy!"

The coffee pot, and by coffee pot, I truly mean the little glass pot that is intended to hold the coffee, was sitting beside the sink. The little whirly-gig, dooma-flatchie that is supposed to be depressed by the top of the pot, thereby letting coffee flow through a hole was operating completely independently of the absent pot.

Coffee, coffee grounds and steaming water had entirely covered a 4' square span of counter, saturated the rug on the floor, and cascaded down and into a rotating cabinet in the corner next to the oven.

Total and utter disbelief.

"Ok. I have a couple of options and not a lot of time," I thought.

"I can let myself go absolutely ballistic, maybe slam some cupboards, cuss and spit, and somehow blame Sean and my boss for this disaster....definitely not a reaction that would help me in the 'righteous' department."

"I can walk out of the room, go back upstairs and keep myself busy so that Sean can find this and hide it to protect my feelings or just to see how hard it is being me right now...again, probably not going to help my case of this not being about me. Damn"

"I can laugh. Right. C'mon Amanda. This is some funny shit. You are just going to have to eat crow and start over."

So I cleaned up the mess, boy what a mess it was. I reset the trusty 'firepot' and headed upstairs to find Sean. Sean and I have always fit. It's what made me crazy in the early days, before I was ready to accept that he was who I was meant to be with. I'd push and push, but the irrefutability of our perfect fit always came back to the forefront.
Looking at him this morning straight from the shower, just the right height to hold me (or catch me as I get tippy in the 3rd trimester), the color of his skin, the shape of his arms that cradle our daughter, the way I know what he is looking for as he moves around a room. It all caught in my throat and I was so grateful for the damn coffee disaster. I was so relieved to be standing there ready to tell him something I knew would make him laugh. I was a little embarrassed thinking that he would be silently grateful that I'd come to my senses, but that paled when I thought of hugging him and laughing, of moving into another day that would not be wasted. Getting back to me. Getting back to us.

"So, honey, you know how I said I was going to go have a cup of coffee?" I started. He watched me as I recounted what had happened. My shoulders loosened, my chest felt lighter and his face lit up as we shared a laugh.

Today really looks beautiful now.


Here are some pictures of our sweet, spunky, little Briar.
The clapping pictures demonstrate how much she enjoys "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!" She also loves scrucnhing up her face and making forceful sounds. And of course, another favorite activity is playing with Christmas wrapping paper and Barnaby!

Enjoy.

Sleeping Girl

Yesterday Briar and I went to the doctor to check into this cough she's had for a while now. They said she looked good, no infection, but gave us some decongestant and cough medicine to make her more comfortable. I gave her the decongestant stuff at around noon, along with a little lunch of PB&J, Pink Lady apple slices and string cheese. Briar sat there eating happily and watching an Elmo dvd. I popped into the kitchen to grab a napkin, when I came back she literally konked out sitting upright. I had seen pictures of kids asleep in their meals, but Briar had never done this, so of course I ran and got the camera while I made squealed, cooed and giggled at how darn cute she looked. Then this morning I couldn't resist sneaking in a and snapping a few pictures of Briar as she woke up.



She always sleeps right in between her stuffed animals or with her head literally touching one of them.



Her little hand comes close to her mouth, but against all odds she has never been a thumb sucker.




Such a sweet little face.




She's hearing me talk to her and thinking about waking up. My tummy does flip flops waiting for her to get up and give me that wonderful sleepy smile and then reach her arms out to me for a big old morning cuddle.




And she's up!



Look at that.
OUT!









It felt so good to know that she was finally getting some good, uniterrupted sleep. Her coughing has been waking her up and causing her to sleep fitfully. This morning she was so happy to be up and after what was essentially a four day weekend she made the transfer to Dot with out any tears or struggle.

Last week when we came back from CA it was so hard because for three days she cried as we dropped her off. So it looks like things are getting back to normal.

We had a showing of our house yesterday. Hopefully we'll hear something today. We have plans for another open house this weekend. We are starting tog et down to the wire as far as how long it would take to close vs how soon the baby will come. Yikes!

We'll get through, though, we always do.

Happy day to everyone

Valentine's Day Out-takes

A serenade for Dad, followed by an artistic tantrum.




Doin' Mom's hair with a bit of festive lime green cardboard.




Shying away from Mom's most desired shot, "The Kiss."

♡♡ Daddy, will you be our Valentine? ♡♡

❤
ᎽᎤᏌᎡ ᎶᏐᎡᏝᏕ

Back at Home

We are back from California.
We spent close to a week there with my grandfather and the rest of my family.
No real news to report. Hospice is still caring for my grandfather. He has days
of being lucid, happy and the Davie we all know and love, followed by days
when hospice says the end is near and he is withdrawn and even surly. It is
emotionally exhausting and devastating- leaves you feeling utterly helpless.

It was also a good visit with my family.

Does that sound bizarre?
A death vigil turns into a great family visit. Well it was. Briar really connected with everyone. It was amazing to watch her take in all that was happening.

The health services room was no cake walk. Grandpa's roommate, Bill, was in very bad shape. Something to do with a surgery for diverticulitis that went bad in November. I can only describe the sounds he made as being those of someone who was slowly choking to death. His wife, Barbara, was there 'round the clock and was so sweet to us- bringing us fresh oranges from her garden. Her daughters arrived on Thursday and Saturday. I was so relieved because I had feared they would not make it in time. He is still fighting against all odds. Barbara loved Briar. Briar would dart past the curtain over to Bill and Barbara. She would stop and look up at Bill in the bed. His face was gaunt to the point of making his skin appear as if it would split if he made any expression- which made it a little easier to take that his face never did change expression. Looking from Bill, then to Barbara and then back at me Briar would make little sounds, or quickly come back to our side of the room. She never showed fear on her face and I think she provided a much needed diversion for Barbara that required no exertion of energy or emotion on her part. One day she came
over to our side and said more to Briar then to me, "Briar. You are such a source of sunshine. It is just so wonderful having you here. I just..." she smiled at me, shook her head and went back to Bill. I won't say that I took any credit, but it felt so incredible to know that on some level she had been brought the tiniest bit of relief from her constant grief.

Briar was also magical with Grandpa. You just never know how a child will react to older people. It seems that more often than not they try to stay as far away from hem as possible. Having your child wail and thrash in the face of an adoring elderly person may be one of the most uncomfortable things in the world. You can't tell when it will happen and you can't do anything to hide it once it has happened. Briar never let herself go into a full on tailspin in the face of close talking older folks. She would gently lean back, squeeze me and give me the "Hey, mom, I'm thinking about having a mini-meltdown, can you get me some breathing room?" and I would deftly rearrange her to prevent a scene. With Grandpa she made the connection between the twinkly eyed, vital looking Grandpa pictured next to me on my wedding day with the haggard looking man with wild, wavy white hair and a thick beard in the hospital bed. "Ampa" she would say as she would point from the picture to my grandfather.

We were blessed to actually have a few moments when grandpa was awake and interacted with Briar. As a matter of fact, the morning that we left we went to say goodbye, anticipating him being in the same non-responsive state as the night before. Tour surprise (indicative of the kind of emotional whiplash we have all been enduring) he was up and peppy. He looked at Briar, broke out in a huge grin, lifted his arm and pointed at her as he said, "Briar!"

At times it felt as if the trip was purely selfish, a chance to resolve my own feelings, but I do believe that with the moments he had with Briar and the magical spell we all experienced as we read Pooh to him, this trip was for all of us. I wish there were more certainty.

I wish that I didn't find myself hoping that he would just peacefully go.
It feels so wrong to want him to die.
I said before that I cannot imagine a world without Davie, and I can't.
But I also cannot imagine a life for Davie without all the things that have made him Davie.

No piano.
No swimming.
No walking.
No computer.
No phone calls.

I think we are living in a world that walks a fine line -
when does our ability to prolong life stand in direct contradiction of the need to ensure quality of life?
Is it worth staying alive just to beat death?
Even if what you are doing isn't living?
Who is that for?
The doctors?
Family?

Maybe another time I can better articulate what it is I am feeling. There's so much confusion right now. All I really do know is that I love my grandfather and I am keenly aware of the preciousness of life and how very important it is to live each day honestly and fully.

Explanation

Sorry 'bout the absence. We Magees have had a crazy January.

Work and sickness.
Work causing sickness.
Sick of working.

Briar continues to be the greatest thing I (and we) have ever done. She is pure joy and challenge, but good challenge, you know? She challenges us to be the best people we can be, to make the most of every minute, to let the BS slide and focus on what's important. Thank you to every higher power that played a part in letting us have her.

My grandfather is gravely ill. Hospice has been brought in and every effort is being made to ensure the highest quality of life in the time that remains. My mom is with him doing a valiant job at the hardest thing a human being can face, second only to the loss of a child, helping a parent to die, or as she puts it, helping him live every day.

I cannot imagine a world without Davie, so I am choosing not to.

I am holding onto the images of him taking his cane and walking regally
from our porch to the corner and back, and sitting holding his first great grandchild.

I spoke with him last night and he sounded ok.
A little confused, but determined and able to see things for which to be thankful.

As we were about to hang up the Davie of my childhood,
the gravelly, engaging voice, the perfect diction,
and elegant phrasing shot through the line as he said,
"I still hope that spring will bring a visit with Briar Davie."

Indomitable spirit, unparalleled ability to appreciate,
and a knack for spreading enthusiasm for even the most ordinary things.

I am so honored to be a part of the Davie legacy.

Having introduced B. Davie and Briar Davie has been one of the greatest joys of my life.

Me thinks a bit of his zest for life has been passed on to his great granddaughter, Here's looking at you BD!