the busy heart

Don't worry. They make shoes for puppies . I had no idea. They even make little sneakers that light up. And houndstooth booties. And ducky slippers. It's gotta be really weird being a dog owner. I won't even mention the halloween costumes . Oh, to be a hot dog. This has made my day.

We're inching towards a New England fall, and I can hardly stand it, I'm so excited to see the colors. I was in Mississippi for three years, surrounded by disappointly green pine trees, so the seasons feel like a thrill. I know I won't think so when it's icy freezing winter, but for now I'm happy to be in an Autumn world. I take the Mass Pike to work every day, and every day the trees are a bit more changed. Today I felt like I was driving down a corridor of red, and not all of the trees have even decided to participate yet. I'm trying to figure out how we can possibly afford to cruise on up to Vermont for a weekend. Isn't that what one is supposed to do? I mean, it's a cliche, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice of cliche-ness if it means I can walk through a forest of colors and kick up pretty leaves and eat soup by a fireplace while wearing a scarf. Maybe we could eat nothing but potatoes for a month ... That's a fall-ish food, right?

I rocked the teaching today. Totally rocked it. And I say this not because I think I'm really cool, but because I've been so un-cool, really, in the classroom, and it's nice to have a decent day. I also assume that next week (or tomorrow) I'll have an uber-crappy day, and I'd like to record here, now, that I don't always suck, so that I don't forget. I had them read this beastly long essay on "bipolar unities" in Whitman. Truthfully, I hadn't read it before I assigned it, which is a giant teaching no-no. I barely survived the experience of reading it yesterday, and I was trying to get them pumped up this morning (8:30am), give me some interesting thoughts about it, and they just wouldn't. They were un-pump-able. They looked at me like I was reciting the alphabet in Chinese, backwards, very slowly, over and over. Did I panic and stutter and clam, as I've done every day since I started this job? Oh no. Not today, mon ami. Instead, we shou...

My parents had a notoriously rough first year of marriage (a rough pregnancy, my dad working long hours and trying law school, a bad burn that required my mom to get skin grafts right before she gave birth), as did my little brother and his wife (a rough pregnancy, kidney stones, etc etc.), and now, I guess, it seems safe to say that Sam and I will too. I was on my way out the door this morning, running late, just zipping up my tall brown boots and swigging the last of my breakfast shake, when Sam found me. I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, and he put his arms around me, looked at the two of us in the mirror, and kissed my neck. I wondered what led to this affection, what caused him to find me in the back end of our little house. Usually, the morning is writing time: snuggle time for Sam and his computer in his office at the front. I have to tug on his sleeve to get a kiss goodbye. A moment later, he confessed. Chest pains. A numb left arm. Throat closing up. Off to the ER. Aga...

In church today, sacrament meeting. Little girl: very bald, odd-looking, wearing all white, maybe 10/11 months old. She's sitting on her dad's lap just down the row from me, and I'm kind of watching her, wondering why she looks so weird. She crawls off her dad's lap, comes and toddles over to stand in front of me, looks right at me, and says, "Day. Ja." Okay. What's with the creepy baby saying my name? It's not like she was babbling. That was all she had to say. Then she toddled back over to sit with her dad. I can think of only two possibilities: 1. Her parents are teaching her French. or 2. She met my babies in heaven and they told her to say hi when she got here. What else am I to think?

As promised, pictures of our grand balloon adventure on my birthday. Did I mention this was absolutely a surprise? I have no idea how he managed not to tell me. I would have burst my beans a million times. But yeah, it wasn't until we were on our way that I figured it out. Nice man, no? Good husband. This is how the fiery top looked. It was pretty, but it made the top of Sam's head sweat. I'm short enough that I didn't even really feel it. This is us, up high in the balloon. Isn't it lovely (not that you can see much...)? It's surprisingly serene up there. I think I thought it would feel sort of precarious and dangerous. But actually it's such a smooth ride, so peaceful. Several times we were low enough to see people waving and hear people shouting hello. They were on their back porch, taking pictures of us. View straight down. Right after this, when we got low enough to graze the tops of the trees (on purpose, to slow us down), Sam plucked a pinecone off...

i just got home from my first trip ever to the emergency room. wahoooo. urinary tract infection. suspected i had one, should have taken it more seriously, but it wasn't really bugging so i thought i had just imagined it. spread up to my kidneys. horrible pain and nausea. sam took me in. i threw up goo into a pink retangular bucket while shivering because it was FREEZING in that place. during that special shivery/vomity mode, sam looked at me with the most beautifully kind, concerned face i have ever seen on a human being. the nice people brought me magic heated blankets, hooked me up to an iv with pain meds, anti-nausea stuff, antibiotics. then sent me home. in other news, they said i'm NOT prego. we were actually a bit worried, so this was a relief for both of us. married for one month and three days equals not ready for babies. i told sam he looked like the very proud father of nothing. also in other news, sam took me on a hot air balloon ride for my birthday, which was so mu...