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I feel like throwing myself in front of a truck. Warning: Extended gripe ahead.

Today was just the most insane day. It even started out crazy. I had this horrible nightmare about my upcoming high school reunion. It took place in a Paris train station (sounds cool, but it wasn’t, as the only other people that spoke English were my former classmates and all the toilets were stopped up) and it lasted several days, kind of like summer camp. The truly horrible part was that I got completely dissed by my high school sweetheart. He was all like, “I’m never going out with you again.” And I’m like, “Dude, I’m married. I don’t want to “go out” with you. I have a son.” But he was unconvinced and acted all smirky every time he walked by me. And throughout the entire dream, I was continually looking for the bathroom.

So then, Auggie wakes up at ungodly-6 in the morning. Tim, saint that he is, left me to sleep in and got up with the boy (just as he does every morning except the occasional Saturday when I’m feeling benevolent). I awoke at 7:30, ready to hit the phone and harass all of my contacts in Louisville, just as they were getting to work, booting up their computers and enjoying a quiet sip of coffee.

No one answered. Of course. No one ever answers their phone! I live in Voice Mail Purgatory, I swear.

So Tim heads off to work and Auggie and I settle in for some quality Sesame Street time. The phone rings. As I’m talking with contact #1, contact #2 beeps through. It went like this all day.

Today was supposed to be great. I was looking forward to getting together with the ole playgroup at the Zoo, enjoying the amazing weather and generally being at peace with all things. Instead, here is a scenario from this afternoon:

It’s 1:30. Auggie and I are supposed to be leaving for the Zoo, but instead I call fellow playgroup mommy to delay our meeting time by an hour to buy enough time for a shower. Auggie and I are still in our pajamas. We jump in the shower, jump out of the shower and are toweling off, just in time to hear elusive contact of the week leaving a message on the answering machine. $%^&! I run into the office, unsuccessfully try to catch him while he’s on the line and try to call him right back. Of course, he does not answer his phone. While I’m at the computer, I check my email. The phone rings. It’s him! The villagers rejoice! I’m interviewing him for an article, naked. Auggie comes tearing into the room, also naked. It’s at this point that I thank God that I am not on a reality TV series.

We ended up canceling the playgroup and Auggie and I took the dogs out for a walk instead.

The rest of the day was better, but I still have that rush-rush-rush feeling. I hate that feeling.

Of course the two coffees (lattes) I had this evening aren’t helping much.

So my latest assignment as freelancer-for-hire (is that redundant?) is to come up with a new name for the publication that I write and design. I used to do this sort of thing quite a lot when I worked as a copywriter and I particularly loathe it.

I can remember coming up with pages upon pages of names for newsletters about everything from motor oil to domestic abuse prevention. And I don’t think that any of my suggestions were ever used. Sigh.

Oh, and I have to redesign the entire publication by Friday. Super! No problem!

Kicky colors? Well, sure, why not?

Funky graphics? The more, the merrier!

‘In case you couldn’t tell, I was being sarcastic.’

I didn’t even have a chance to knit today.

And I have consumption.

At least 24 was on again tonight. That David Palmer is one ugly crier.

Auggie said “please” today.

Let’s just note that one for the calendar, because, I hate to say it, but I’m totally afraid that we are going to raise an ill-mannered child. My reasoning for this seemingly unfounded worry is this: I’m a name-caller.

It’s not always a mean thing, either. Most of the time, I call people endearing names because they’re special to me. Sure, Auggie is referred to as “Stinky” multiple times a day, but I kid because I love! Note to future Auggie: Print this out and take it to your therapist. It will explain everything, I’m sure.

Of course, sometimes I do call people derogatory names. You see, I’m what people call an emotional driver. I’m much better than I used to be (thanks to age, having a child and a general mellowing-out about such things), but I still have my moments. At least the names aren’t as profanity-based as they used to be.

That’s a plus.

Tim and I call the dogs names all the time. (I won’t bore/frighten you with some examples.) Auggie probably has no idea what their actual names are.

This name calling got especially out of control on New Year’s Eve 1999/2000. We were in New Orleans with our friends Jennie and Chris (Hi, Jennie! Thanks for the great Christmas gift!) and, while it sounded like great fun in the planning stages, actually being in the French Quarter on New Year’s Eve at the end of the millennium was a little more complicated than we anticipated.

First of all, there were just thousands and thousands of people there, as you can imagine. This made getting a drink especially hard. (In New Orleans?! Is there no god??) Believe it or not, I think I had one daiquiri all night. Ahhh, N’Orleans, home of the drive-thru daiquiri…

But I digress. Anyway, midnight comes and goes, and we’re stone-cold sober in the French Quarter as the madness begins to die down. We end up on a bench in Jackson Square, blowing bubbles and people-watching. Eventually, we start yelling “Happy New Year!” to all the drunk people as they pass by, and this quickly degrades to us saying, “Happy New Year, [insert mildly insulting name here]!” Example: “Happy New Year, 80’s hair woman!” and “Happy New Year, Shiny Pants Man!”

We must’ve sat there for over an hour doing this. It is one of my fondest memories. That and the guy who threw up orange right on Saint Louis Cathedral.

So I guess I’m trying to say that if my son ever calls your child a name, please accept my apologies. It’s all my fault.

OK, I’ve got nine minutes before this face mask dealie is dry, so let’s see if I can crank out anything of interest…

Some highlights from this past weekend:

* New Auggie words: cheese, good (used in conjunction with cheese) and, Tim’s personal favorite, booby

* Major crashes: only one, off the ottoman in the living room

* Amount spent on knitting supplies: $3.18

* Current length of scarf: 18 inches (will be 44 overall)

Tim and I rented In The Bedroom and watched it last night. Oy, what a depressing film. I guess the ending was unexpected at least. And is it just me, or did they just totally leave Marisa Tomei’s character hanging? I mean, I understand that the whole thing was left hanging, but I felt like her character just fell off the face of the earth.

The weird thing about watching it was how Tim and I reacted to the death of Frank (this isn’t ruining it for anyone, I hope. I’m pretty sure that everyone else on the planet has already seen this, right?). Having a son of our own, we could see ourselves in the parents’ shoes a little too easily. I even cried when the mom smacked the girl across the face.

It’s the first time I’ve cried for a long, long time. I can’t even remember the last time I cried.

Not that I’m a crybaby or anything. I just usually shed tears every so often, it seemed. Guess I’m just happy.

Time’s up.

Well sorry about that you faithful readers, I tried to remove some memory from the server, and it completely flipped out. Destroyed the ntokernal or some such thing. Thank god for system state backups! If you’re running windows 2000, you should set up a regular system state backup. That’s what got us back up and running. Beth will return shortly I’m sure.

Five years ago today, I looked like a princess. I felt like the queen of the world. And that was just in the hot tub.

Happy anniversary, baby.

Who knew two people could have so many arguments over the best way to drive somewhere?

Ha. Here’s something funny. Turns out our crown rack of lamb was actually crown rack of pork. Who knew such a thing even existed?

I was initially tipped off last week, when I ran across the receipt from Whole Foods and it said “crown pork roast.” I just thought, ‘Hm. That’s strange. Must be a typo.’

When I went to Whole Foods again last night, I noticed at the meat counter that the sale sign for $6.25 a pound was still up there for crown rack of pork. Guess how much the actual crown rack of lamb was, per pound. Just guess!

$13.25. Per pound.

So if you’re here looking for advice on how to prepare crown rack of lamb, go for the crown rack of pork. Having sampled both, there are several reasons for the pork’s superiority:

1. It tastes better.

2. It picks up the flavor of the seasonings better. We used this recipe for garlic and rosemary rack of lamb and it was amazing. The rosemary was perfectly absorbed into the roast. Delicious!

3. It’s way better for you. Lamb is an incredibly fatty meat. Check out the nutritional information for the recipe above! 800 calories. Per serving! Ouch!

4. It’s way cheaper.

5. Nobody likes lamb anyway.

6. Pigs are uglier than lambs.

This discovery, while rather embarrassing, is actually somewhat of a relief. Lambs are so cute. I felt like a lech every time I looked at one of Auggie’s little toy lambs (of which he has quite a few). And “baa-baa” is one of the few animal sounds he actually knows how to say.

“Oink-oink” just isn’t there yet.

Don’t even get me started on Wilbur. I read Charlotte’s Web, like, eleven times in the third grade. I freakin’ love Wilbur, OK? This pig was no Wilbur.

Challenging Day #401: Tim came home from work today to find me stony-faced with exhaustion after the longest day with Mr. No-Nappy Man. Like the amazing husband/father he is, he took the boy out of my tired arms and asked me if I’d like to lay down while he made dinner.

That, my friends, is why I am the luckiest woman in the world.

And this Thursday, I’ll have been the luckiest wife in the world for five years.

I just had to rip out my first six rows of Tim’s scarf again. It’s only 38 stitches wide, but yesterday, I kept picking up a stitch somewhere. Tonight, I miscounted my rows, so the pattern was off. It’s supposed to look like ribbing, but mine only looked like that for part of the piece. It does seem to be going faster now, at least. I mean, it only took me about 70 minutes to do six rows this evening. Yesterday, I picked it up and put it down probably six times over the course of the day.

Tim didn’t understand why I wanted to rip it all out and start over, since no one would ever notice it. I tried to explain that I would notice it and that it would always bother me. Besides, I feel like this is all great practice right now. It’s no big deal to have to start over when you’re only six rows in. I’d hate to be halfway finished and then not be able to stand that it looked so bad at the beginning. Better redo it now than later, yes?

I think it’s really funny that as I look around more and more on the Web, that a lot of people are talking about how “hip” it is to be knitting. How lots of young people are starting to get into it and all. This is fine with me, if it means that people are coming up with some original patterns and neat kinds of yarn and what have you. But it makes me smile, because both times I’ve been in the local yarn store, it seems like there are only snooty older ladies in there, pointedly ignoring me and my baby.

I shouldn’t sound too offended, I guess, because the endearingly-absent-minded older woman who helped me select a row counter last week was very nice. (I call her absent-minded because she took down my name in reference to a book, but forgot to include my phone number. I gently asked if she might want to write it down too.)

So, I can hear you asking yourself: Is she going to start talking only about knitting now? Because I have no idea what she’s talking about.

I’ll try to restrain myself, but I’m rather infamous for throwing myself into a hobby, becoming a bit obsessed with it for a couple of weeks, then rapidly losing interest once I’ve spent a lot of money on it. (See my past record on learning Spanish, crossword puzzles (at least they came with the paper), etc.)

And, lest you think Tim and I have given up our “lifestyle program,” (I have got to come up with a new phrase. It sounds like we’re in a cult or something) I just haven’t mentioned it lately. Tim has now lost 22 pounds, and I am down over 25! We’re talking college jeans here, my friends! (Not freshman year, mind you, but senior year.)

We are looking pretty svelte (compared to last September, that is.)

We got to see our friends Chris and Shelley and their three-month-old baby Cole today. A total highlight. Unfortunately, it was right smack in the middle of a baby shower for them at her brother’s house, so we didn’t get to spend as much time chatting with them as we had hoped.

But there were lots of other cute kids there, and we got to meet Shelley’s nice family. Plus, Cole is such a sweetie! He’s a big ‘un, weighing at least 15 pounds, I’d say.

Thanks, Chris and Shelley (and Cole), for letting us horn in on your family time!

Oh! And they got Auggie the hippest, freshest, whatever the kids are saying these days-est book ever! It’s called Turntable Timmy and it is just too awesome. It’s all about Timmy, who is 8 and wants to be the best DJ.

Tim read the book aloud on the way home from the shower, then we put in the CD that came with it. One of the songs was someone rapping the words to the book, and it was much different from Tim’s earlier reading. We apologized to Auggie that we would probably not be rapping Turntable Timmy to him, because we have nary an ounce of mic skilz. I do hope that it is one of his favorites, though, just so the grandmas are forced to read it at least once in their lifetimes. I can’t wait to hear my mom say, “Push the cross-fader from side to side.”

Tim’s mother also gave Tim an early anniversary present today. A hand-knitted sweater, custom-made for him by her. Wow. As a newbie knitter such as I am, I am especially in awe of her. It’s beautiful. I’ll have to take a picture and post it so you can feel the awe as well.