2005-09-24 - 9:52 p.m.
Near the end of the month, and I finally have some time to write.
A day or so after my last post, the word came down that we would start using an expanded schedule. 7 AM to 9 PM, seven days a week. This of course means lots of overtime for everybody. It’s not entirely mandatory, but participation is strongly encouraged. Very strongly. I’m working one evening every week, and one weekend every other week. Just in time for the end of the year crunch. We’ve got bills to pay and some renovations to make, and there is the question of the bridesmaid’s dress. Of course, we have to resist the temptation to come up with new and inventive ways to spend all this extra money. It’s hard though; there are times when that bottle of truffle oil is absolutely indispensable.
(Just as an aside, let me tell ya what we’re doing with these expanded hours. Katrina affected nearly 10,000 of our client families, not to mention everybody else. We’re suspending mortgage payments for six months for all our clients. We’re also opening up our inventory of vacant houses and apartments as emergency shelters, and coordinating with FEMA, the Red Cross, and HurricaneHousing.org to match refugees with donated housing, emergency services, food stamps, and so forth. We’re also setting up a phone center for a new FEMA transportation project. We’re pretty busy here, lemme tell ya.)
The Professor has adapted pretty well; she greets me at the door with glad cries of “Daddy’s home!” and a full store of kisses and hugs. On nights when I work late, I might only get an hour with her, as I get her ready for bed. Weekends get to be precious for us. I don’t complain if J wants to sleep in, because that’s more time alone with the Professor. And with the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having, this means time outside in the yard or going shopping. She’s becoming more articulate, using more words and longer sentences and clearer diction. She is fascinated by birds and dogs, terrified of butterflies (of all things), loves to draw and read books and dance and sing. Oddly enough, one of her favorite songs is “C’est Si Bon” as sung by Eartha Kitt. She’s absolutely wonderful, and while I can appreciate the need I fulfill by working longer hours, I still miss the time with her and J.
(A cute thing she’s started doing: grace at every meal. Every time we sit down as a family, she puts her hands together, waits for us to do the same, then says “Thank you, God”, in the tiniest of whispers. Sometimes she’ll do this two or three times during the meal. No problem here; we’ve got a lot to be thankful for. I like to think of it as the Meister Eckhart approach to grace. No long-winded exhortations, just “Thank you.” And as the Master says, that’s enough.)
Five weeks and counting until the Evil Sidekick arrives. The house is not quite as ready as it might be for his arrival; there is much that I would ordinarily accomplish on weekends that isn’t getting done. We’re working on the Professor’s big-girl bed; she has expressed a desire many times over for one, so now that the heat and humidity have broken we can actually paint the sucker and buy a mattress for it. So much to do, so little time…
And so it goes. You can expect the updating to be a bit sporadic; blame the overtime and the mounting housework. Life is pretty darn good here, though.
