i have developed an unhealthy addiction to brickbreaker. it's not a constant thing. basically it goes like this: when b's score is higher than mine, i can't put the damn blackberry down. but when i'm beating him - meh.

so i was on the train after work, at a time when b's score was higher than mine (not the case anymore, sucka!), breaking my bricks, listening to my ipod. and this woman walks up to me, i assume to sit in the empty seat next to mine, and says something to me. now, i'm in full-on, brickbreaker mode here, and of course she distracts me so i lose a life. (bitch.) so i fumble and pause the game, take the earbud out of one ear, and she says very loudly (so loudly that i definitely would have heard her over the ipod, despite the fact that i now have a free ear) - is that your paper? and points to the newspaper on the empty seat next to me. no. and i start to put my earbud back in. because i think the protocol here is that she then puts the paper on the floor, and sits her ass in the seat. but apparently my metro etiquette is incorrect, because she proceeds to ask me (even louder now than before) well, do you want to move it? um, lady, not my paper. (ok, not in my outloud voice.) i look at her for a minute and, dumbfounded, finally pick the paper of the seat where she's about to plant her ass, and toss it on the floor. and for a minute i was feeling a little riled up, like, i shouldn't have taken lip from that lady. she can move her own damn paper. and, also, seeing as how i was entertaining myself with not one but two means of electronic media, clearly the paper wasn't mine.

but then she sat down. i'm not sure what it was about the fact that she smelled like cigarettes and pixie sticks at the same time that scared me so much, but i was suddenly very glad i kept my comments to myself.

it serves me right

last week in michigan was chock full of nephews and nieces and breezes and baseball games. and driving the new SUV* around detroit like a real midwesterner. arriving back in DC just in time for the hottest, nastiest, swampiest day of the summer was not awesome timing. maybe there's something there, but any blog about that would have all my DC friends asking (not for the first time) if i'm going back to michigan and my michigan friends trying to tempt me with their amazing real estate purchases (jack, tell your momma i'm talking to her!).

so instead, i'm going to tell a story from the week before i left that b has been chastising me for not sharing.

i had a doctor's appointment that was smack dab in the middle of the day, and nowhere near a metro. i had thought about driving to the office that day, but first of all i don't live in michigan and second the thought of paying for parking twice on k street is just against everything i stand for. also, my car is a piece of shit (not the new american suv, obviously - but the old foreign one). so instead i decided to treat myself to a cab. and after i emerged from my office and waved one down, i was sitting in the back, feeling pretty impressed with myself. i had on a cute wrap dress, some great pumps on, and as i pulled out one of my blackberries from my coach bag, i thought - this ain't bad. a year ago, taking a cab to and from a doctor's appointment was a luxury that i simply could not justify. hell, taking a cab in general is a luxury as far as i'm concerned, and there i was - a cute BigLaw associate taking a cab in the middle of the day. i was using blackberry messenger to tell b i was off to the doctor, and how swanky i felt taking a cab at 1:30 in the afternoon.

and that's when it happened. when the fates (and perhaps my cabbie's lunch) conspired against me, to put me in my place, to remind me that i'm not such a big shot after all.

my cabbie farted. and we're not talking about a little toot that i heard and over which i was embarrassed for him. oh no, friends. we're talking silent but deadly. i don't know what that dude had for lunch, but it mixed with the vinyl seats and three year old green tree air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror and produced a stench that i'm pretty sure would be considered torture under the geneva conventions. it was that. bad.

through my stifled gags and watering eyes, i started clicking away on my blackberry to tell b. and he was right, shit like that is exactly why i started blogging again.


*hybrid, of course, bbs.

my momma told me there'll be days like this ...

so now there are five little kids that are lucky enough to have b and i spoil them rotten in an attempt to secure permanent status as best auntie and uncle ever. (we're well on our way, don't you worry.) i don't think it had actually hit me that we were about to have another little person before whom i could barely remember before last week. in my defense, b's sister has been pregnant a lot in the past few years. but when she called me thursday, while driving HERSELF to the hospital, bitching (at 3pm) about how she didn't know who was going to make her in-laws dinner, it was all pretty damn real. she wasn't sure if it was labor, but it sounded to me (remember, experienced auntie here) as though her water had broken. she almost went home, but they had the good sense at the hospital to check her first. which is good, since she was 4cm dilated.

7 hours later, #5 made her entrance.

what did i do, you might ask, as i waited for the newest family member to arrive? why, i went to a nice new spa on k street and got myself and mani and pedi, that's what i did. and let me tell you why. i've had five of these days so far, days where a huge personality was entering the world. days where i knew i'd remember where i was, what i was doing, when this human who i'd come to love and worry about every day came into being. the excitement hasn't changed between #1 and #5... but there was something about this one that felt a little different. i couldn't help think that the next time the family's excitedly calling back and forth about a new grandchild,* the next time a new, huge personality before whom i'll barely be able to remember makes an entrance - it probably won't be because of b's sister. this is their last (though those are famous last words) and it probably won't be my brother preparing the cut the umbilical cord. it will probably be someone else. someone else who decided to get a mani and pedi rather than think about that.

*this is not imminent, let me be clear.