Crystal Ball

Tonight, I'm afraid I was thinking. (A dangerous pastime. I know.)

I was thinking of a future me. The Meredith 10 years from now. The 40-year-old me. And here's what I thought:

She and the future Jeff have taken that trip to Italy.
She has gone back to school for another degree.
She and the future Jeff have gotten the honeymoon paid off. And her car. And her student loan.
Her home is comfortable and a refuge from the world. She finally made that pot rack she wanted. And she finally printed some wedding pictures and put them in frames and even hung them on the wall.
She and Jeff have had a baby, and have maybe even decided where to raise that child and where he/she will go to school.

She knows what is my future. She knows how all these things work out. More specifically, how all this stuff will get paid for. And she didn't have to divine it far in advance, when she couldn't possibly have had enough information. She knows it all because she lived it. And when she needed to know, God made sure she knew.

And do you know what she would say to me? She'd say, "Honey, why did you worry so much? Why did you stress out? Why did you grind your teeth in your sleep from anxiety? It didn't help. All those things would have come to pass anyway."

It was a really interesting experience. I was moved to pity for myself. Not in the usual, "Oh, feel sorry for me because my life is so hard." No, it was more like, "Hey, you got it pretty good. And things will work out. So relax."

I will try. Even if it takes me the next ten years.

Trying to transform my yard

I've mentioned before that my backyard is no oasis. It's much better than it used to be, but that isn't saying much since it used to be a jungle of weeds. Back in July, my mom and Jeff and I went to work on the yard and dug up weeds and tilled it and laid down newspaper and then mulched the entire yard. A few weeds have started to creep back up, but I'm able to handle them pretty well.

About the same time we got rid of the weeds, I planted some azaleas, and two weeks ago, I bought a rose bush. So things are gradually coming together.

This week, a coworker brought me some lilies she dug out of her yard and tonight, I started planting them. As I started digging the last hole, I saw something in the dirt. I reached out and touched it and realized it was fabric. I immediately recognized that this was no naturally occurring underground fabric. It was buried there. And people rarely just bury fabric in the yard for no reason. I knew I was about to make a discovery.

What would it be? As I grabbed the edge of the fabric and started pulling, I imagined what I would find: drugs? money? a dead body? Oy.

As I tugged and tugged, more of the earth started to give way, and finally it happened: bones fell out.



I didn't freak out. I mean, I didn't think, "Oh, this is just someone's pet," but I also didn't think, "Holy crap, I have a dead body in my back yard." All I really thought was, "What do I do?"

I called a few people and asked advice. I could tell the bones were small, but that didn't preclude it from still being a person. My brother came over and took a look, too, and finally we decided: This is probably someone's pet, but we HAVE to know for sure. And I sure didn't want to do any more digging around looking for a skull, so I called 911. (Just so you know, it is now an hour and a half later and the police still haven't shown up. Apparently "probable dead pet in the back yard" doesn't get a very high priority.)

When my husband got home, he had no qualms about trying to find a skull, which he did. Definitely an animal. Not a human. Shew!

But now I have animal bones in a bucket in the back yard. Now what do I do?

(Can you see the two big canine teeth on the skull?)

Dreaming of technology

I think PC Anywhere is pretty cool. But it doesn't really meet my needs. What I need is Desk Anywhere. I want to be able to sit at any desk, log into my desk, and get anything I need. Even if it's just a tissue.

la città che non dorme mai

Jeff and I spent part of Labor Day weekend in NYC. Let me just say, I love that city. It's so great. I mean, you know, there are too many people and it sorta smells in some places, but it's got some really great things, too! Let me recount for you my weekend:

Actually, no, I don't really want to. Too much work. Let me just show you a few pictures and annotate them for you. That'll have to be enough for now.

Sunday was Brazil Day. There were lots of Brazilians in town. Lots of yellow and green.

Here I am at Brazil Day.

Here is what I discerned while I was there: Brazilian men like to not wear shirts. And I firmly believe that, if they could get away with it, Brazilian women would also like to not wear shirts.

Here I am with the trash left over from Brazil Day.

Here is more trash and no me.

Here is a car that Jeff and I found. The hood is duck taped closed.

Here I am in Times Square.

Jeff and I bought hot dogs from a street vendor just outside Central Park.
Here we are taking our first bites.

Here I am at a kids' playground in Central Park.

Here I am at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park.
Can you find me?

Quit taking pictures and just come over here!

Here is a flower. In Bethesda Fountain. In Central Park.

(When we got up to leave, I so almost dropped the camera in the water.)

Here is Jeff at MoMA.
We like to have fun with art.

More Jeff. More fun.

Friends.

Here is Jeff making sure we aren't being dangerous or unlawful.

When you stand far away from this picture, you see this.

When you stand up close, you see this.

I don't know why my hair is flipping out like this.
It annoys me.

I was standing next to this.

On the train back home, we decided to kill time by making up our own Sudoku. We screwed it up. Then Jeff started just to, I don't know, draw? Doodle? Anyway, I looked down and realized he had just doodled the word "gay."


I hope he isn't trying to tell me something. I'm pretty invested in this working out.