No Longer In Danger Of Becoming A Friendless Joyless Luckless Misanthropic Shut-In.

My first two years or so in Portland, I knew exactly six people. Two of these were the dear dear Watsons, friends made years and years ago when we were young (babies, all of us) and childless (them) and extremely proficient drinkers (mostly me).

Another two knowns were my hapless co-workers at the ridiculous excuse for a company owned and operated by my coo-coo-for-cocoa-puffs Dad and Step-mom.

And two of the six, of course, were my family-business-owning folks. Who promptly decided to MOVE TO MEXICO three months after I got here (the myriad problems this eventually brushed up against most certainly contributed to the fact that I continued to know only the same few people for months and months and months after they moved away... but I digress). So soon it was down to just four people.

I worked a lot while employed at the parental units' company. On the weekends, Joosh and I would run around town and have fun as only the two of us can, but never in any kind of branching-out-and-meeting others sort of way. Often I would get drinks with my poor tortured co-workers, Happy Hour bitchfests, running, jumping, diving into sorrow-drowning cocktails after work. But as much as I love these women (more than a year after leaving Crazy, Inc. I still adore them), they are a generation and/or two ahead of me. Our lives are very different and so more often than not it was less socializing, per se, and more bitterly complaining about the encroaching insanity at the office. Other than that, until the Watson's moved here, in fact, the most out-of-work socializing I managed was with periodic out-of-town visitors!

In short, the moral of the intro story here: Not exactly an instant social butterfly in my adopted home state.

Until now, that is...

Not only did I meet incredible people in my writing class last Quarter, I've managed to force about 60% of them into continuing to be my friends and associates by starting a writing group and demanding that they gather to read and listen to me, um, I mean to each other every other week. So far so good.

In addition, one of the lovely ladies I met in the class started what she calls "Nerdy Ladies Board Game Night" and involves a rotating group of about 30 gals who gather five and ten at a time at a local pub on Sundays and Wednesdays to play board games. Last week we played The Game of Life - Simpsons version - and as in the real deal, I was excellent at making money but more exceptional still at losing it. I did manage to get away with only having one child, where another gal had to get a second car to tote around her giant clan, but she actually ended up having a pile of a million and a half bucks in spite of all the college and orthodontia and whatnot, so maybe there is something to the whole "have a litter" mentality. But this is beside the point! The point is, I met new people! I ventured out! I socialized! It was amazing.

And so. Between these intellectually stimulating pursuits and the myriad people I'm meeting at the Wellness Center (free massage, free acupuncture, free chiro, free! free! free!) and in the strange world of business networking* I am clearly on my way to being the absolute Belle of the P-town Ball. Appallingly, I don't have the wardrobe for it, I'm afraid to admit. And since Wellness Centers pay well in free treatments but not necessarily in greenbacks, well, I'm rather poorly equiped to span the bridge between student-y/bordering-on-slovenly casz and creatively proffesionally artfully well put together. Well put together has never been my strong suit. This is my only complaint in all the newfound goodness, and therefore I am not actually complaining. That would be ridiculous.


*I don't even know how to describe this weird phenom called networking - there are networking groups of 10, 30 (100!) who get together every other week and, like network, and then once a month a bunch of these smaller networking groups gather together in one giant room to network with each other and though it all seems absurd, tons of work is passed around and met about and contracted and completed and paid for or traded. I have already been contacted by two potential new clients, and I've only been to one networking event, not even as part of a group (cause ps - they cost money to join!). Oh strange and unusual new world I've stumbled upon. I know people have been so-called-networking for years and years - wasn't it like the power word of the late 80's? - but that it still goes on, and that it is not just a code word for getting shitfaced drunk with peers and writing it off, I don't know, I am a little mystified.

Hey Buddy, Can You Help A Brother Out?

My (awesome smart talented funny quiet hard-working self-sufficient clean non-smoking and non-pet-owning) little brother is graduating from UCLA next month. This means that a) I'm really old and b) dude's gonna be looking for non-student housing come Summertime.

I thought I might post a little inquiry out to you LA-based folks to please keep your eyes and ears out for any sweet living situations you might come across in the hot and heavy areas of the former City of Angels. You know: a roommate situation, a soon-to-be-vacated apartment that he might obtain to share with someone, a guest house, a spare room, wild tiki-inspired living quarters and a cabana-boy position for your rich Hollywood step-grandma, whatever.

He's gainfully employed at a law firm (considering law school, smart cookie that he is) and tends to go snowboarding on weekends during the Winter, and sometimes home to visit the folks in Ventura. He can make full meals from un-preprocessed ingredients (that's more than I can say for some of my friend's husbands, by the way!), knows how to clean up after himself (again, rare in some populations of husbandry, I'm sorry to report) and I'm almost certain that he's grown out of the annoying stage of always coming into your bedroom and interrupting when you are on the phone with your best friend talking about who to ask to the Backwards Dance. Pretty sure he knocks on closed doors these days instead of whining outside of them to be let in, as well.

I jest. He's terrific. (He was terrific even when he stood outside the door whining, I was just too teenaged and retarded to know it). At this point, I can say without reservation that he falls solidly in the pre-Mensch area of the manspectrum and I have no doubt he would be a fabulous roommate/housemate/subletter/tenant.

So. Holler if come across anything of note. Thanks in advance for your housing and brother related attention. Much appreciations from me, your friendly (un)neighborhood domicile-y Yente.

Can't Resist.

I'm supposed to pass this on to 10 people. But y'all hate fwd:fwd:fwds, right? So here you go.



Please peruse at your leisure. Then talk to your Republican and/or Conservative Democrat friends and neighbors who might not be paying close attention - the mainstream media isn't! - and let them know that McCain has lost most, if not all, of his credibility. (And no, I'm not saying that based just on this cleverly edited video. I have at least 20 reasons off the top of my head, but don't really feel that this "lighthearted romp of a blog" is an appropriate venue. I'd be glad to email you a diatribe or two worth of Why For's, however, so that you too can effectively win an argument against a Head-in-the-Sand-er any ole time).

Suspicious.

I stumbled upon the following blog and was VERY suspicious that it might have something to do with a dear friend of mine. Having investigated further, I see now that it is likely just a giant coincidence and does not relate directly to her dear cat-loving, legal-geeking self. But for those of you in the know, how could I NOT think that an ASU Law Blog with Ross in the name and featuring something called "Law Cat of the Week" showcasing the cats of ASU law students was somehow related to our dear Bex?

This will only interest you law geeks - one in particular - so move along if your name doesn't start with an R and rhyme with Hecka:

Ross Blakley Law Library Blog.

(Oh, no, no, it's my pleasure, you are truly very welcome, my dear).

And while we are on the subject, congratulations times ten billion on completion of your first year of school, Honeypie. I am infinitely excited for you, even more so by the fact that you are now free to talk on the phone for five hours in a sitting again.

On a related note: I'm pleased to report that I now know how to pee without any splashing sounds echoing in the phone. Totally. Awesome.

How to Amuse a 3-Month-Old.

Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, I've been hanging out with the sweetest little gal you'll ever meet. You are probably familiar with her from the Watson family site linked at right. Her name is Sarah and she is a doll baby, utterly and completely. Already at 3.5 months, she's got a total personality and basically cracks me up all day long (except when she's tired/cranky/desperate for the Momboob I cannot provide and/or having pooplosions out the top and sides of her diapers... during such times she more threatens to crack me than to crack me up.).

We have good times, me and the babe. She generally sleeps at least three of the eight hours we spend together, sometimes even four (during which times I try to sleep also, with the help of a magic spit-up covered sweatshit that blocks out all light and allows me to stay slumbering and motionless on the couch so as to not wake the wee Sleeping Beauty with unnecessary activities like walking, talking, going to the bathroom, what have you). Our days start early (not as early as poor Mom and Pop, I know) and usually breaks down to an hour or hour and a half of fun and food in the morning, followed by two hours of nap, then about 2 hours of food/diaper changing/play time and another hour or two of naps, then more food, more diaper changing and intensive efforts on my part to amuse, bemuse and delight, finally falling into desperate attempts to distract and pacify in the final half hour until Mama and the Twins come home to make all Sarah's dreams come true with the afternoon nursing sesh.

We've developed several fun and amusing games to fill the non-food/non-diaper related hours between naps. One game involves a mild version of peek-a-boo with her swaddling blanket floating down through the air toward her while she's lying on her back. This usually gets me some smiles, a few excited leg kicks, and sometimes that adorably weird sucking-in-air thing that babies do when they feel wind on their face (which usually means I'm getting a little too zesty with my blankie-waving, actually - "Take it easy" as Bex would say).

Another game consists of my laying on the floor, knees bent toward the ceiling, with Sarah sitting on my tum, back against my legs, while I sing ridiculous songs about her smile, her fingernails, her drool, whatever. Last week I somehow got a Sunday School song in my head (at least I think it's a Sunday School song, having never been to Sunday School myself...), the one about Noah and it goes something like "Who built the Ark? Noah! Noah! Who built the Ark? Brother Noah built the Ark!" An absurdly folk-songy version can be viewed here*. It is to this tune (approximately) that I sing things like "Who's got the drool? Who's got the drool? Sarah! Sarah! Who's got the drool??!? Baby Sarah's got the drool!!!" while moving my legs to the left and my torso to the right, snuggling Sarah one way or the other and giving her a little tickle to emphasize "Baby Sarah's got the drool!" I am proud to say that this little shaker produces hilarious giggles, the sounds of which melts my frozen heart like sunshine and kittens and unicorns and rainbows all wrapped up in a box of World Peace. Gah. She kills me.

I won't bore you with the other so-called games as they mostly consist of my pointing out completely non-interesting things as if they were unequivocally fascinating, or making insane faces worthy of an asylum escapee, with appropriately deranged sound effects, etc. We also do a fair amount of "reading" books, which she's actually quite content with at this stage of the game, taking in each page with interest and curiosity... look out: beauty AND brains, double whammy, right Pops? (And Daddy just jingled the keys to the chastity belt he's planning to strap on her in a decade or so.)

The tough times do come, about 30 minutes before Mom comes home. We've had to get a little creative in that time as most distractions can be a little overstimulating, and there's nothing a working mom needs less than a screaming hot mess of a baby melting down under overzealous babysitter tricks. Periodically we end up pacing the house, or sitting on the porch, watching the electronic picture frame change images, or cars drive by, or the dog pee - simple things, watchful things, observational rather than participatory activities. I'm quite proud of one recent discovery, however, though I fear I may be creating a wee bit of a narcissist. My latest success, documented below, involves the use of my camera phone, with the shrunken image of herself shining back at her as she looks into the display of the phone console. Brilliant. Utterly captivating. It was a 25-minute staring contest. Check it:



In related news: How freaking cute is that face? J'adore.

But: you can tell that she's pushing the limits of happytime in this photo by the little swatches of pink above each eyebrow. When those start to turn scarlet, you better look the hell out, man, no joke. Also, the slash of pink on my chest? Angry baby nails, Yo, angry, angry baby nails. So yeah, look out, for serious. (Of course I'd let this one scratch my eyeballs from my head, she's just. that. perfect).


*Updated to say that it's not a Sunday School song after all... It's RAFFI!!! After half a dozen or more solid years of Raffi from '86 to probably '94, how could I forget? And now it begins anew. Already the strains rise in my head: "Bay-Bee, Buh-Loooooo-Guh". Oy. Luckily I've not yet been forced to consume The Wiggles or Dan Zanes yet, but I've heard rumor on the MommyBlogs that they are out there. Waiting. Watching. Biding their time. Ready to pounce. (More on all that - the explosion of motherhood, the insanity of mommby blogs, the ubiquity and the conversion of the interwebs - very soon).