TygerTyger

I had one sweeeet birthday.

10. Talked to Zack! Yippee!

9. The man and I have, I think, after 2+ years of being married, finally reached an agreement about the ring issue. I wear on the appropriate finger a ring he gave me, that my friend in Japan designed and made for me, for my birthday several years ago. He wears no jewelry at all and would prefer to keep it that way. We can’t afford any rings anyhow. And yet we have both thought there should be something. I think we finally settled on what that should be.

8. The asparagus has finally deigned to show itself. I spent a long, hard day getting that shit in the ground, and I was beginning to fear it would never respond to my ministrations. Finally! it has. Altogether, our garden is rocking. There are also many weeds growing in it that are edible, including two spinach relatives and one type of salsify. Yum.

7. T’s parents called me from Japan to wish me happy birthday. They have never previously done so, and they don’t usually call for T’s birthday either. I seriously doubt they will call for his birthday this year either. Anyway, it was nice of them.

6. My mom babysat the kid for us all afternoon and evening. My mom was thrilled; the kid was thrilled. We were able to see a movie (in a theater!) and have dinner (sushi!) and actual conversations that were uninterrupted by shrieks and howls and requests for me to, once again, sing “mata aeru hi made.” Wow, conversation with my husband. I had almost forgotten he was capable of speech.

5. Sushi for dinner. The sushi was pretty good, although the effect was somewhat dimmed by my husband’s commentary: “Why do Americans insist on putting avocado in sushi? Why do Americans put the nori inside the roll? This is powdered wasabi. Do Americans put the nori inside the roll so that it doesn’t stick to their teeth? Americans are really obsessed with their teeth. This soy sauce tastes strange.” And so forth.

4. My husband totally didn’t think I was insane when I launched into my theory of Japan and Japanese people. It was less pretentious than it sounds there. Indeed, he agreed with me and apparently came to the sudden realization that I had actually learned something during my three years there. He denied, however, that he would be completely miserable if we returned there as he contends that he didn’t care at all what other people thought of him when he lived there before, so why would he start now? He has a point.

3. A movie!! In a movie theater!! With the most excellent eye candy, George Clooney, even. How can he be so delightful and lovely and utterly perfect? How is such a person possible? Yes, the movie was Ocean’s 13, which is stylish and utterly without substance. It was fun, but I was really there for George. My husband, less impressed with George Clooney than I am for reasons that are understandable, found the movie baffling in its vapidity. I think if he were bisexual, he might have liked it better.

2. The long conversations with my husband today have demonstrated that I have not forgotten quite as much Japanese as I thought I had. It’s still there – at least, the grammar is. I forgot some key vocabulary items, but I can still use all the various types of conditionals appropriately. Sweet. I so totally rule.

1. The kid scrambled into bed with me this morning, sprawled himself out over my torso, and said, “I love you, mama.” That’s the best – that’s the absolute best thing ever.

Oh, much to be grateful for these past few days:

1. The garden is really doing well. Some things that had been looking sickly are doing better now, and the edamame have finally come up.

2. I quit my job! Yes, that just means I have to find another one, but at least the tyranny of this one will end in two weeks. What a relief.

3. This Blockbuster online deal is awesome. There is no other way to rent movies here, and now they are just appearing, as if by magic, in our mail. It’s so good to be watching movies again.

4. We now have plans for my birthday, and my mom is going to babysit for us, so we can do adult things…whatever those might be.

5. Ate pizza for dinner with my son on the front lawn. It was so peaceful. No one else was about, and we just listened to the birds singing and watched them flit about, and ate, and laughed, and smelled the beautiful roses that have invaded our lawn (from our neighbors’), and it was gorgeous.

6. I have actually been getting full nights of sleep for, gosh, a whole week or maybe even 2. I am so rested, I hardly know what to do with myself.

7. Found the perfect gingersnap recipe. It needs no improvement.

8. The cold snap a couple days ago didn’t kill everything. Some of the eggplant and marigolds perished, sadly, but most did not.

9. I like my blog friends. I like their comments. I like reading their posts. I am grateful for this thing called blogging and this service called Vox.

10. My husband is perfectly agreeable to the notion of me starting my own business, and my mom is helping me do the planning and researching. With a bit of luck, next year I will get it going. Cool.

For this day, among many things to be grateful for, I am mostly grateful – and very, very, inexpressibly grateful – for the fact that when my son fell down the stairs to the basement, he was not seriously injured. There are not words to explain how panicked I was, how terrible I felt that this happened, how my heart stopped beating. He has a scrape on his head and he’s a little stiff in a couple places, but no broken bones, no apparent head trauma, no abdominal injuries. Oh, sweet mercy – I am filled with relief and gratitude.

Also grateful for the somewhat lesser blessings of:
Mom brought me some local honey that will (we hope) help with my unbelievable allergies and also some tomato plants that look very robust. Can’t wait to plant them. She also brought me a pink silicone oven mitt that has a pig face on it; it’s cute. My husband was snuggly last night, and he just makes it so clear every day that he loves me. Blogging lately has been really fun; I love getting interesting comments. When I realized how late it was and that I had still not fixed dinner, we had some easy-to-fix foods on hand (frozen veggies, canned beans) so I was able to make something reasonably healthful in 10 minutes. Hurrah.