New ones, at that.

My brother came to town in the middle of finals.  I beat him at Scrabble, ST beat both of us at Monopoly, and we made Christmas cookies.

(The original cookie cutter is supposed to be a hot chili pepper.  But you pick up as much poo as I do, and your mind gravitates that way…)

(Chocolate roll-out cookies far surpass any plain sugar recipe I’ve used.)

George flew in and out of Tampa, but his main visit was to the grandparents.  I didn’t go with him for many reasons.  Mostly because I had no desire to sit around and talk law.  Grandpa taught years and years ago at the University of Chicago Law School and George just finished his first semester there.

Instead, we spread out the grandparental Christmas cheer.  I went up for Monday and Tuesday this week.  Mostly to run errands while my grandfather had another back procedure.

I don’t really want to talk about that.

While I was there, I received a wonderful and much-needed phone call that said I was hired.  An office affiliated with USF is hiring office assistants and finally someone felt they could work with my schedule.  An added bonus of sorts is that I won’t start until school resumes in January.  Christmas Break!

Our Christmas is looking rather jolly.  Roark’s favorite sleeping space under the tree has been usurped by brightly colored packages.  ST, who has stated several times he is not a holiday person, even got into my family’s tradition of putting riddles on gift tags.  It’s meant to be a hint at the present, but so far I haven’t guessed any of mine.  Evidently, if we follow HIS tradition, I will know at 1am of December 25th.  Yup.  He’ll let me sleep a whole 60 minutes into Christmas before festivities commence.

Another holiday tradition that was abandoned for a few years…I will be making my sinful creme brulee french toast and trudging out to the sanctuary for some brunch.  ST will slave over a hot stove to prepare a Christmas dinner for my return.

I’ve felt strange about Christmas this year.  Rushed and frazzled.  I’ve had finals and interviews and projects.  Today it will get to be roughly 80 degrees.  The only “white” part is the snowbird skin seen in cars driving WAY TOO FUCKING SLOW.

But right now, with the presents (almost) all wrapped, the turkey in the fridge, more cookie dough waiting abuse, a leopard-trimmed santa hat waiting for me in the car, and a man who wants to share it all with me…I might be feeling just a wee-bit of that spirit.

Ho ho ho.

This was my last week of classes.  I have two finals next week – organic chemistry on Monday morning, biology II on Friday evening.  (Why the hell couldn’t they be switched?  Organic chem will be 200 points of reactions, spectroscopy, and mechanisms.  Bio II will be 50 multiple choice questions, mostly on three chapters I knew before taking the class.)

I’m also a week late with my final project for the Costa Rica class.

So, with that in mind and aspiring to at least not wreck my ‘B’ (dare I hope for an ‘A’?), I’ve taken tomorrow off from the sanctuary.  ST will work most of the day, meaning I’m free to study without yummy distractions.

I’ll be alone.

Glory be.

I love him.  I love spending time with him.  When I’m not with him, I want to be where he is.

But.

I spent three years living alone.  Before my first marriage* (lasting a whopping two and a half years), I had lived alone for another three. 

I’m sayin’, I’m a girl who likes the alone time.

And yes, sometimes I wonder if the marriage would have gone smoother if we’d had more “me” time.  Although honestly, we didn’t have much “us” time either.  I also sometimes  wonder if we concocted our schedules that way because we knew what happened was inevitable.  And I do believe that.  That it was meant to end.  I have consider ways we could have been nicer to each other, ways the marriage could have been shorter, and perhaps longer, but never a solution.

These days, it’s a little ridiculous to say I don’t get “me” time.  I am taking two classes and a lab.  Three days a week I have several hours at the house to do as I please.

Except it’s not as I please.  It’s that the laundry must be done.  The perscription must be picked up enroute to school.  The groceries enroute back.  The dishes unloaded between classes.  The project worked on in the morning.  The dinner worked on in the evening.

Not to mention any full free day is usually given to the sanctuary or my grandparents.  ST gets Sundays.  I treasure our Sundays, even if it’s just browsing the flea market and ensuring we get our $14 worth from Netflix.

Tomorrow will be the first day I’ve taken off in over two months.  (I’ll admit to a bit of indulguence with Sheba’s death).  Yes, it is to study.  Yes, I will do housework.  But I don’t have to leave the house at all if I don’t want to.  No project to work on.  No class to attend.  No tour to smile for.  No person nudging me for more couch space.

I can stay in this Cobra commandor T-shirt (Thanks, TG!) and Carnegie Mellon  sweatpants for the next twenty-four hours if I want!

Let’s see how much anyone wants to hang out with me after that…

*Saying first marriage seems so tacky.  Yet there will be second.  I might have even perused rings this past week…

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Watcha doing?”

“Peeing.”

“Where are you?”

“In the bathroom.”

“…”

“…”

“That’s…fortunate?”

“I thought so.”

Things I haven’t written about:

1) My job as a mother’s helper.  It’s been going on for over a month.  The original ad stated up to 15 hours a week, but it’s been more like 3.  It’s a nice family, a little pocket cash has been nice, but not a long-term solution to my emptying bank account.

2) My bird-watching.  I am doing a project for the class that went to Costa Rica and I became intrigued with bird-watching while there so decided to give it a try.  It’s both fun and frustrating (how aware are you of the tens of birds h-i-g-h up in the trees?  That you can never get a good gander at?).

3) My grandfather has (had?) a fractured vertebra.  Yesterday they put cement in his back.  I haven’t seen them in probably a month.  They were very adament that I not come up, despite the previous two months of weekly, “So when will we see you again?”

4) I am up for an office assistant job I really, really, really, really want.

5) The whole job situation/school scheduling/volunteer time has got my head ordering vodka tonics 24/7.  I have alternate plans/times tables if I get the job, if I don’t, if the condo sells, if it doesn’t, if we win the lotto, if my grandparents take a turn for the worse, if Jupiter’s effects on Mars become too strong….etc.  If some movement doesn’t happen in some direction soon, I will explode from uncertainty principle effects.

6) Between injury (hello, ankle-I’ve-sprained-six-times-and-now-is-just-a-facsimile-of-an-ankle), study sessions (best score on an organic chem test yet!), and condo open houses, I haven’t spent a whole Saturday at the sanctuary in a while and it’s starting to wear on me.  The whole switch-gears things in general is wearing me down.

7) I bought a steam cleaner.  I am officially 47.