An Accident of Hope

5.30.2006

By Request....

I blog for Trista today.
She claims to have sent me a blog invite before she left. But she lies. Oh how she lies.
Actually, she probably did. And it ended up somewhere where all the other emails go. Damn AOL.
So I have been sulking all week that the other bloggers got to be Trista for a day and I didn't. So she emailed me this morning in the midst of her back-to-work-why-oh-why-did-I-ever-go-back-to-work-why-can't-I-be-rich-in-money-not-love-don't-give-me-that-rich-in-love-crap-I-want-the-money-dammit-and-live-on-a-deserted-island-and-eat-cookies-all-day haze and asked me WHY I have not blogged for her.
Because she didn't invite me. Duh.
To which she professes her undying love and swears that she DID invite me. That she would NEVER leave me out because she simply cannot LIVE without me and does not want to risk my wrath lest I...

Where was I going with this?

Okay, I am blogging. Because she asked me to. Because she is so busy at work and just cannot do it herself. Because I am her go to gal. Email me for all her deep dark secrets!

My name is, of course, Estelle. Come ON people, I know you knew who this was just by the beginning paragraph. Don't tell me you had to actually read this far to know who was writing? For shame bloggers. For shame.

I met Trista back when Kristin was pregnant. She had been commenting on my blog a lot and every time I checked her profile, I could not get past the "Salt Lake City, UT" part so I judged a blogger by their location and never wrote back. Um, not that I had an email address or anything.
I periodically checked her blog, and then had a kid. So I didn't do much but look at, photograph, write about, and talk about said kid. Oh, and sometimes I fed him too. Then eventually she breaks out her "But I had a baby too!!!!" whine and I came over to check out that baby. And from then on I was hooked.
Eventually we began emailing and it was love at first kilobyte. Then we began chatting on the phone and that was that.

Trista Rocks.

Enough about Trista. Like you all don't know every little thing about her already.

This is reprinted without her permission about what she would like me to blog about.

How about you write about what a wonderful person I am and how cute my baby
is? That’s what I do. All the time: wonderful me, wonderful
baby.

Ok, ok, maybe that doesn’t work for everyone.
You can write about what you think I did on my vacation. You could go to
the Scheherazade project and write on this week’s theme (oh, maybe you want to
save that for your own blog) . You could build on Lauri’s post on home and
how the concept of home relates to you – you could even tie that with the
upcoming remodels to your own house (which would tie it in with my never-ending
remodel saga). I like to talk about breasts, you could bring that subject
up again… did you ever blog about your waking up dead? What was the
scariest thing that ever happened to you as a child? Have you ever
encountered a ghost? Have you ever poked something that you shouldn’t
have?

Hmmm.... she is a WONDERFUL person. She is funny and kind and smart and sexy (oops, did I type that out loud?) and just an all around great gal.
Her baby is WONDERFUL. Simply fabulous. She is exactly one week younger than my simply fabulous baby. However, if you consider that MY baby was 3 weeks late and (I think) Julia was three weeks early, well, they're not that close in age anymore. So let's pretend that's not the case, shall we? Julia and Charlie are one week apart. And, although Trista and I would NEVER admit it, we compare the two. So when she tells me Julia is doing long division, I rush home with workbooks and number two pencils for Charlie and try to have him work out 1034 divided by 69.7. And when I tell her that Charlie just finished his third marathon and came in second, she buys Julia little baby Nikes and makes her ass hit the treadmill.

But neither of us will ever admit that. Nope. And since I started that paragraph saying that I would never admit it, then I didn't actually admit it. I just stated that it might be a remote possibility that might occasionally happen sometimes, but doesn't. Nope. No confessions there.

I don't do the whatever the hell it's called project because I don't. Because I just haven't yet. Not because I don't think it's cool. Probably because I'm pissed that she tapped into my brain waves YET AGAIN and stole my idea AND the exact same name. I was gonna start that club man!

Home... let's see. My home is, at this point, very sanitary. We have to keep it hospital sterile so the little guy doesn't get sick again. DO we keep it hospital sterile? We try really hard to. But we're not perfect. And sometimes we slip up. Luckily he seems okay with that. Although it is quite cluttered, even if it IS clean. It's because we live in St. Pete, where houses typically sell for $250 a sf and up... and though we bought at a good time, we still couldn't afford much. So our house is small (about 1100 sf) and our lives are... big. Plus I have a LOT of car seats and, well, they take up room. And we have two big dogs. And three cats. And a really cute kid with way too many toys because Mrs. Amy's mom kicks ass and is always buying him way better things than we do. Eventually he is going to ask to move in with her.
Oh, but my house will soon have an addition. Thanks to an incredible builder who is just way too kind for words. We had one of his men out to our house to give us an estimate on adding on to the back and building a sunroom. Well, his estimate was mucho too higho. So, I told him that. And that started a strange and lovely journey to him being the nicest man on earth and falling in love with my little boy with no skin (at the time) who lives in FL but has to stay out of the sun as much as possible. So he decided he HAD to build that little boy the room and is doing it for free. Wowser. Still not completely over the shock.
But our house has one aspect that sucks... you can only get to the backyard through a bedroom. Not a big deal for US, but if we have parties and such... it's just not cool. And so we'll only be able to get to this new room through HIS bedroom. Because our bedroom doesn't have windows, only doors to the back yard. And no windows can be put in because we don't have an outside wall besides the one with the doors (the other walls belong to the hallway, the kitchen, and the master bath). His bedroom also has no windows (just the doors) but we can put a window in his room because he has an exterior wall. So we have an egress issue. Which means his room accesses the sunroom, and ours just has to do with a covered porch. Unless we can think up something else. But that's another story.
But, overall, I like our house. It's small, but it does the trick. We thought about moving to Tampa where is it WAY cheaper and we could get a huge house for the price we paid for ours, but decided against it. Even though I occasionally hate living on an island, for the most part I like where we live.

I like breasts as well. Although my wife's currently produce milk and are thus off limits to me, and mine have no feeling in them. So boobs aren't a big deal around my house, unless you happen to derive your nutrition and/or comfort from them. Though Charlie does, for some reason, have really dry nipples. All of his skin is dry, but his nipples just seem drier...
I have, in fact, blogged about the time I woke up dead, so I cannot blog about it again. But it is a funny story. Go read it.

Scariest thing as a child... hmm... I have no clue. When I was 2 years old my Uncle Terry (who lives in a tree) decided that he was sick of my water wings. So I was swimming in our pool happy as can be, when he came up behind me with his pocket knife and slashed them. I freaked out and he told me "If you wanna live, you'll figure it out." Now, most people would say that it was just 'tough love' and that he would never have let me drown. Um... I'm not sure. He might have.
I also remember being about six and running from a cow in our back pasture. I was NOT supposed to fuck with the cows, but I did. And Ole' Bessie got pissed and chased us (I had a few friends with me). It would have been okay except I wasn't really watching where I was going and slipped in a pile of cow shit. The cow still didn't get me, but it was one of the grossest things I've ever done!

I don't believe I have ever encountered a ghost. But I am open to the experience if you know any who might want to visit me.

I think every lesbian has, at some point, poked something she shouldn't have. I am no exception. However, my poking did not cause marital discord.

I think I covered it. She also told me that I could blog about what I thought she did on vacation. So I will.

I think the drive sucked. Julia probably cried most of the way. I tried to talk Trista into a new car seat before leaving, but she didn't listen.
Eventually though Julia calmed down. When they got to their destination, she was sound asleep and they did NOT want to wake her. So they drove to McDonald's and got something to eat. Trista has a grilled chicken sandwich with medium fries and a Sprite. Kristin had McNuggets, no fries, and a chocolate milkshake. They pretended to have Steve drink the milkshake. Then they laughed. And Julia woke up. So they were on their way again.

The first full day of their vacation they found a hole in the wall restaurant/gift shop that they ate at EVERY NIGHT for the rest of the vacation. Trista was quite fond of their blueberry pie. They bought tacky souvenirs and a t-shirt for Julia that she promptly puked on.

On the third day, they left Julia with friends so that they could have some time alone. Unfortunately Trista twisted her ankle and ended up having to go back to the house and watch Brady Bunch reruns. Kristin retrieved Julia (no use wasting the babysitting!) and took her to a local toy store where she purchased an oversized blue kitten with a hideous green bow.

By the fifth day, the ankle was better and Julia was deposited with said friends again. Kristin and Trista walked around and played "What kind of underwear is that person wearing" for hours. I'm beginning to think that they are quite boring people.

The drive home was uneventful. Julia slept this time. Trista and Kristin ate Funyons and drank Big Gulps and counted NY license plates.

A good time was had by all.

I'll leave it to her to tell you what she discovered when she got home.


And that is it. I have blogged.