Suburban Goddess

Yesterday I decided to stop by the AT&T store to check on my contract and look into a new phone. I love my Blackjack, but ever since an unfortunate incident with a rainy day and a puddle, it’s features have started to get, well, let’s say, “unreliable.”

By the way, do you know about the red dot inside your phone? The one that turns red if you get it wet so the wireless manufacturers don’t have to uphold your warranty? Strangely enough, my phone didn’t have one. Imagine that.

That didn’t matter, because the moment I walked into the store I felt an undeniable pull from a certain white kiosk… but I fought the urge. (Don’t look directly at it! Don’t make eye contact!) I walked to the opposite wall, pulling down the second generation of my current phone. I’ve grown quite attached to my phone (as many of you like to point out) but one of my biggest complaints is that the buttons are so doggone small. The new version didn’t change that… so I started looking at the AT&T Tilt.

As a designer, I love simplicity. As a tech geek, I love functionality. This phone was pretty cool, lots of features, touch screen, slide out keyboard… but the little gray apple in the corner was calling me.

“You know you want me.”

“No. I will not give in. I will not have one just for trends’ sake.”

“But I’m not a trend to YOU… look, I have a Mac OS…. sure, the Tilt is cool, but underneath, it’s still WINDOWS.”

“Shut up.” I turned my back to the kiosk, looking up my blog on the Tilt. One of the main reasons I have a data phone is so that I can blog from anywhere. It displayed nicely (although I’m going to have to adjust the design because I forget about the emerging power of smartphones). I logged into the blog interface, and tested the typing feature. Smooth. Easy. I liked it.

“But it’s WINDOWS!”

“SHUT UP!”

“WINDOWS!”

I set the Tilt down and wandered around while I waited my turn. I listened as people discussed their phone bills, talked about upgrading their packages, discovered new features on their phones…. I wandered past the Bluetooth headset displays, the various phone accessories…. when I felt my feet turn slightly.

“No. Don’t you walk over there.”

“Just come see.”

“NO. DO NOT GO OVER THERE.”

“Just a little peek. A peek won’t hurt.”

“NO! NO! NO! WHERE ARE YOU GO-”

But it was too late. My feet were not listening to me, and I found myself in front of the beautiful, simple white kiosk. Thank you, Apple, for making white space cool again. From the bottom of my little black designer heart…

For a moment, I kept my eyes closed. Don’t look. Like Sodam and Gomorrah… I will turn to salt. I will turn to salt. I will turn to salt. Don’t look. DON’T LOOK!

But I looked.

The phone sat quietly in it’s cradle. No words now. Just me & the phone. It’s simple, smooth screen, the polished surface, unmarred by primitive buttons and awkward dials. The simple, bright, colorful icons, a symphony of simplicity and design… so pretty…. I reached out slowly, every fiber of my being crying out while I did – NO! NO! NO! – but it was too late. It held me in it’s invisible grasp, unexplicably drawn to it’s simple beauty…

The moment I picked it up, it was all over.

SOLD.

So much for “lead me not into temptation…”

Today someone told me I was WORTHWHILE.

I can’t think of a better way to express so many emotions in one compact little word.

Thank you.

As I move one stack of paper from my desk, another appears. Despite the fact that I’ve been working diligently, there just seems to be no end in sight. Frustrated, I’ve been venting my aggravations more vocally than usual… and I rarely keep my mouth shut, so I know I must be driving my poor staff insane with the constant whining coming from my cubicle…

“NOT ANOTHER STACK!”

I guess they finally had enough, because when I moved yet another stack, I noticed a huge rubber spider. And another jacket had a peppermint patty tucked into it…

I wish everyone were as lucky as I am to have such great co-workers.

… that some people inherently know when you need them, even when you try to convince them that you don’t?

I was tucking Alex into bed this evening, running through the nightly routine. We started with her prayers, (which I really want to try to get a recording of because it’s so damn cute it just makes you want to hug a fluffy bunny and run through a field of flowers) which leads into “the songs.”

We started with three: “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “Rock-a-bye Baby,” and “You Are My Sunshine,” (for my father, who used to sing it to me all the time.) But over the past few months, we’ve had a few additions which include “Jingle Bells,” “Rockin’ Robin,” and “The Rainbow Connection,” (which is sometimes replaced with “Part of Your World,” depending on the child’s mood). So what used to be a quick bedtime routine has morphed into a full nightly musical production. Yes, I’ll be here all week. Shows nightly at 8:30pm. No cover.

So tonight, I’m halfway through “Jingle Bells,” when I hear a “tink” noise from above… the sound of something in the duct vent. Alex’s eyes opened wide.

“Did you hear that, Mommy? SANTA CLAUS!”

I nodded with a smile, but secretly I was terrified to look up because the last time I heard that noise it ended violently with a bottle of Febreeze. Sure enough, I looked up to see a monstrous roach clinging desperately to the vent, which had just kicked on and was blowing a steady stream of hot air. Straight. Down. Below.

A foot away from where I was sitting on the floor, next to my child’s bedside.

So here is where I found strength I did not even know I possessed. My first impulse is to jump up, shriek hysterically, and get the heck out of there… but I know if I do so that it will traumatize my daughter beyond words, and she will never want to sleep in that room alone again. Not to mention she’ll probably have nightmares about the Bogeyman climbing out of vents for the next thirty years… so I don’t miss a beat, winding up Jingle Bells as I reach carefully past the bed to grab a Little Golden Reader, watching the bug slowly lose his grip.. six legs… five legs… four legs….

I launch into a lively version of “Rockin’ Robin,” creeping as far away from his estimated landing as I can manage… my only hope is that he will be stunned for a moment when he lands, otherwise it’s years of therapy for my kid….

Three legs… two legs…. one leg…. down he goes…. the split second he lands, I slam the book down on him.

Death by Elmo.

I continue through the final chorus, smiling gently at my daughter in the calmest, most reassuring way I can muster while I grind the book into the carpet. She sings the final notes with me in her tinkly little off-tune voice, much like a music box when it’s winding down, then points at the book.

“Mommy, you smush the bug…”

“Uh huh, baby. I did. Nothing to worry about… bug is all gone.”

She laid there quietly for a moment, her beautiful little face looking from the vent to the floor to the book. Too late. She’s too smart.

“Mommy, I want to sleep in YOUR bed!”

I can’t say I blame her. Only there’s TWO vents above my bed… and tonight, they will both be CLOSED.

As he walked up behind and wrapped his arms around me in a big hug, I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror…

I liked the way it looked.

It has taken me almost two months, five snakes, a leaf blower, a case of Hefty bags, a pulled quadricep and an endless barrage of four letter words, but I have finally achieved the unachievable.

I have removed all the leaves from my yard.

I guess I started over a month ago. One of the most important things for me when I moved into this house was that it had trees…. and it does; a huge majestic oak, a beautiful mature Japanese maple, and a stunning weeping willow… and after twenty minutes of raking, I was ready to cut every single one of them down.

But the crowning moment was when I moved a pile of leaves to find a small brown yard snake. I am not a fan of snakes, but this one was almost cute. He was barely six inches long, a tiny brown snake, trying to play dead as I moved his comfortable abode into a Hefty bag… Alex stood close by. I figured this would be a great introduction to snakes; after all, he was tiny… so I called Alex in closer..

“Look, baby, snake…” I said as I touched it’s tail so it would move. I think it slithered away, but I couldn’t tell you, because the moment that snake moved, Alex climbed up my back shrieking hysterically like the last person clinging to the bow of the Titanic.

“SNAKE! SNAKE! SNAKE!!!!!”

So much for a gentle introduction. After I managed to pry her tiny fingernails from my head, I went inside and called my mother.

“I want a leaf-blower for Christmas.”

“Alex, what are you doing?”

“I putting on my big girl panties, Mommy!”

“I can see that, honey, but you have to take your diaper off first…”

“No I not.”

I wonder sometimes if God is looking down on us with his hand over his eyes, shaking his head… especially when we invented reality TV.

The past few months have been extraordinarily stressful for me; between the bridal show, my deadlines at my job, Christmas, my freelance work, and still finding time to be a decent mother, I have been stretched to my very limits. There were a few nights that I found myself staring at the ceiling above my bed praying for strength, only to have it fail me as I collapsed into tears. But the sun would always rise the next morning and it would all begin again.

I don’t feel I have a right to complain about my life. I am blessed; I have a beautiful daughter, a great job, an amazing family, my health, a roof over my head… the list goes on and on. I have so much; I am so appreciative of the things I have. But what I don’t have is the one thing that money can’t buy; time. And time is rapidly becoming the most precious commodity in my life.

My daughter is my number one focus in my life. But I only get to see her four hours a day before she has to go to sleep… and I hate that. But I have no choice, because priority #2, my JOB, is a responsibility that must be fulfilled in order to maintain priority #1, my KID. Priority #3, my DREAM, also directly relates to priority #1, because my dream of being self-employed gives me more of that unattainable commodity that lurks right beyond my grasp; more TIME. A distant priority #4, my HEALTH, must be maintained if I want to achieve priority #5, a LOVE LIFE. At an even more distant #6, my FAMILY, who occasionally flips with priority #5 as I struggle to balance the two, and finally…. in at #7…. my FRIENDS.

There are a few people in my life who have been there from the beginning. They have suffered years of neglect from me, and yet always pick up the phone when I call. I’m a bad friend; I know this. I take people for granted. But tonight, I got an email from a fairly new friend who had written me off, and it HURT. People drift apart… it happens… but that doesn’t mean I don’t CARE. I will drop everything when a friend calls in need… but I think that my schedule leads them to believe that I won’t.

It’s such a struggle for me to make a friend… it’s an even harder struggle to keep them…