Moon over Kailua

My friend Bob was in town this past weekend taking a trip with his girlfriend. She has friends that live in Kailua, on the windward side of the island, and they invited us over for dinner. They have this unbelievable place right on the beach with a pool and a hottub and a huge house that catches all of the best island breezes. It's seriously my dream house. Anyway, sitting out on the back patio was almost magical -- the air was balmy, the breeze caught the scent of plumeria, and then a full orange moon started to rise out of the ocean. Living in Hawaii definitely has its perks. I'm not a good enough photographer to do the view justice -- it's really hard to photograph the moon at night with a standard camera -- but here's a glimpse of what we were looking at:

Mt. Kilauea

Jason and Dean went to the Big Island last weekend and saw Mt. Kilauea erupting. Apparently it started firing about 2 hours before they got there, and by the time they went over it in a helicopter, there were rivers of lava flowing down into the ocean. Pretty freakin' cool.

Shark Week

My brother-in-law Dean is visiting us right now. This morning while I was upstairs working, he was chilling downstairs watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. At around 1:30, he went down to the beach to have a swim. Before he left, he said, "with all the shark stuff I've been watching, I'm almost nervous to go in the water." He came back an hour later because the beach had been closed and everyone pulled out of the water because there was a shark sighting. Too weird.

At last: rest

It's been a crazy week or two. First I was going nuts trying to finish and file a big brief that, for reasons that drove me crazy, came down to the wire. Then I was getting for my trip to Atlanta and New Hampshire, and getting the house ready for Jason's brother's visit (not that it took much, but I wanted to get some new bedding and rearrange a few things so he'd be comfortable). Then I took the red-eye on Friday night to Atlanta, got off the plane, went shopping with Kathleen, met a friend for lunch, took a brief nap, went to a baby shower that Michele hosted for me, which led right into a party. The next morning, I got up early to meet Michelle at the Y to go for a swim, then spent the rest of the day first at a wedding shower for Michelle, then at a massive party that Kathleen and Rich hosted for Addie and Lula that included a water slide, a moon bounce, tie-dying, face painting, and about a million little monkeys under the age of 6. The party started at 3 and ended at about 9. We went through 40 veggie corn-dogs, countless spinach pies and mini-pizzas, a huge bowl of crab dip, bottles of wine, bottles of water, juice boxes, and God knows what else. That night, Lula was having a really rough time settling down and it was freaking Addie out, so at about midnight I brought Addie into my bed to sleep with me. I had to be up early to get to the airport to make my 9:30 am flight, but like an idiot, I left my driver's license at Kathleen's house. I discovered the error early -- I only lost about 15 minutes -- but the 15 minutes was enough to make me miss my flight to Manchester because the fucking security line was an hour and a half long. I got to the gate about 2 minutes after they closed the flight, having run all the way down the terminal because of course my gate was as far away from the terminal entrance as it possible could have been. I see the ladies closing the door as I'm sprinting up there with my huge belly heaving, and I yell "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!" They look at me blankly and say, "sorry, flight's closed." At which point I burst into tears and stood in the middle of the gate area sobbing like a baby, with mascara running down my face. The next flight to Manchester wasn't for another 5 1/2 hours, so I had to sit there and wait. I was so angry and stressed and tired that it took about 45 minutes for me to calm down, so I sat there crying and doing that "huh-huh-huh" breathing thing that little kids do when they can't calm down, all the while trying to read my Harry Potter book. Finally I calmed down, got a new boarding pass for the next flight, and read my book. I finished it, too. When I got off the plane in Manchester, I took one look at my mother and Emma, who were meeting me at the airport, and promptly started to cry again. Oy.

But we got to the beach house and I got some food in my belly and finally, finally got a decent night's sleep, plus a 3 hour nap about an hour after I got up, so for the first time in I don't know how long, I feel rested. And I can reflect a little bit on my trip.

It was so wonderful to see all of my Atlanta friends and their children. It was a little bit overwhelming to have the activities packed in one after the other for a solid 36 hours, but I got a good love fix in. I miss those people so much.

But what really amazed me was how much I miss Jason. Of course I love my husband, but I will only be gone a week, so I shouldn't be such a sap. But sitting in the airport terminal, my first thought wasn't, "I want my mother," which is whom I normally yearn for when I'm stressed and tired. It was, "I want my husband." I just wanted him to come and give me a big hug and let me sleep on his shoulder. Thinking about it on the plane made me weepy all over again. He's a keeper, he is. The baby is kicking like crazy these days and all I can think about is how excited Jason and I both are to meet this little monkey and be good parents to him and teach him how to surf and read him stories and make him giggle by blowing on his belly. I can't wait.

It's alive!!

I have a terribly brown thumb. I love pretty flowers, but I don't have the patience to be a good gardener. I'll get really excited about gardening and go crazy planting and tending and digging, and then I lose interest and things start dying.

About a month a go, Jason gave me an orchid. It sat in its little pot looking pretty. I watered it a couple of times, but it didn't seem to be doing well, and then started drooping and getting yellow leaves and looking very sad. I didn't want to kill a plant that my husband had been sweet enough to bring me for no reason other than he loves me, so I went to KMart and bought a new pot for it and some soil and Miracle Gro, and I re-potted it. I even mixed coffee grounds into the soil, at the suggestion of one of our neighbors who has a yardful of beautiful orchids. Two weeks later, new shoots are growing, it's leaves have perked up, and the flowers are looking peppy. Maybe there's hope for me after all.

Grumpy

I'm so grumpy today. Grumpy grumpy grumpy. I'm working on a brief on which we've already gotten more than a two week extension, and yet 3 lawyers in the firm (me included) are busting our asses to get the thing ready to file on Monday. My problem is that I'm sort of the coordinator of the master document, so I synthesize all of everybody else's work product into one final brief so that it all flows and makes sense and is persuasive. Of course, this means that for me to finish what I have to do, other people have to finish what they have to do, and they've all been lollygagging and dilly-dalling and procrastinating and making me crazy. I know I have to just suck it up and do the work and get it over with, but I'm so irritated I'm having a hard time focusing. The only bright side is that for the first time since we moved here, it is grey and misty and ugly outside, so I don't have to be further aggravated by the fact that I'm losing valuable beach time by having to work.

I'm also officially over being pregnant. I'm tired of the swollen feet and ankles, the heart-burn, feeling like a beached whale, not being able to lie on my back without feeling woozy, having a fatter ass than I've ever had in my life, having my boobs back at their pre-reduction size, not being able to do the physical activities that I love, and having this little alien monkey inside me kicking me at all hours of the night and disrupting the few hours of sleep that I might otherwise have been able to get (which, as a chronic insomniac, wouldn't have been many in any event). And I don't want to hear about how it's only going to get worse over the next few months (duh, thanks for reminding me) or alternatively, how it's such a beautiful wonderful experience and pregnancy is such a miracle blah blah blah. Fuck off, jolly pregnant ladies. You're weird.

Willie

This is apropos of nothing except a song that just started playing on my iPod. I know that Willie Nelson has become something of a caricature of himself, viewed as a pot-smoking, tax evading hippie who never met a cheesy duet he didn't love. But I defy anyone to listen to his Red Headed Stranger album from 1975 and not recognize it as an absolute masterpiece and work of genius.

Apparently it IS an Aussie thing!

My brother Sam has an Australian coworker who explained that crocheted coat hangers are traditional Australian gifts, frequently given by older people ("aunties" and "uncles").  I'm not sure why my Australian husband was unaware of this. 

Is it an Aussie thing?

My in-laws are lovely people and they have always been incredibly kind to me and supportive of my relationship with Jason. I truly bear no ill will against any of them. So I don't want to sound like I'm being an ungrateful, snotty bitch when I say that they give the strangest, most random gifts I have ever heard of.

Today I went out to get the mail and there was a package for me from Jason's mom, Jan. The Australian postal service requires people sending packages to identify the contents of the package on a label. This package informed me that Jan had sent me a coat hanger. I opened it up, and sure enough, there was a small wooden coat hanger covered with pink crochet and decorated with a pink ribbon. The note accompanying the package talked about some travel she was doing, expressed wishes that we were doing well, and asked about Max (my dog). But nothing like, "oh, and I saw this hanger and thought it would be cute for the baby" (she doesn't know we're having a boy), or something explaining the motivation for the gift. Just a letter and a coat hanger.

This is not, incidentally, the first time I have received coat hangers as gifts from Jason's family. A couple of years ago his grandmother, Noonie (who, again, I must reiterate is an awesome, sweet woman whom I love dearly), gave me a package of three purple-satin-covered puffy hangers for Christmas. In Noonie's defense, she also recently sent me some little baby booties for Zeke that she crocheted herself. So cute. Anyway, I have also received from Jason's family styrofoam coozies and a bath towel. Not a decorative towel or something that said "Australia" on it or anything like that. Just a beige bath towel. I also once got bright turquoise socks so huge that they would hang off of Shaquille O'Neal's feet.

Last week, Jan sent Jason a birthday present (his birthday is tomorrow). It was a wine bottle carrier, like something you would take camping. Which is great, except that Jason doesn't drink wine.

The glamorous side of practicing law, part 2

It may not have been glamorous, but it did the trick. We got the court of appeals to reverse a really bad district court decision. Mission accomplished. I love winning. It's like, better than losing, ya know?*

**Extra credit points to anyone who can tell me what movie that line came from. And family members, if you can't figure it out, you lose points.

Jason + Max = BFF 4EVA

I can't decide if this is really cute or really disturbing...