The water damage specialist came today and installed equipment to dry our floors and walls. The equipment looks like a hot dog cart connected to rubber restaurant kitchen floor mats. There are hoses galore snaking their way down our hallway. It sounds like an aircraft is landing in our home. We have to run the devices for 3 days straight. The best part is… the bulk of the equipment and noise-makers are right outside of Little Lassie’s bedroom. For the past few hours, I’ve had a hysterical laugh bubbling up from inside me. Its not a ha-ha funny laugh, but more of a mad scientist cracking up kind of laugh.

I’ve been working hard on remaining calm. Too many failed infertility cycles have honed my reaction skills to professional poker playing level. I’m waiting until FlyGuy gets home for a good and proper meltdown. He gets home on Friday afternoon after a 20 hour flight. 20 hour flight- let that sink in. He’s 6’2″ and will be flying coach. Ouch.

Friday night, a mere 3 hours after he lands, FlyGuy is taking me out to dinner. He’s trying to spoil me since he’s missing our anniversary on Thursday. I’ll try my best to remain composed as we debrief about this week’s debacle, but frankly I bet somewhere between the appetizers and soup course I’ll be a blithering mess. With his jet-lag and culture shock of coming from India to the US, FlyGuy will also be in rare form. He’s surprising me with the restaurant, so I don’t know where we are going. But if I did, dear reader, I’d warn you. I’d tell you to stay far away from this culinary establishment, because I think something may hit the fan while we are there.

Little Lassie has been sick and out of sorts. Her spirits remain high, but I can tell she is feeling ill. The last few days have been full of her learning to yell, “MAMA!” when she needs something very important… like for me to take her empty cup into the kitchen. My little sassafras, drama queen is turning into quite the diva and its difficult not to laugh as she tries to throw her weight around (all 30 pounds of it.)

Our downstairs neighbor came up and asked for help this afternoon. There was water pouring in from the ceiling into her bedroom. We couldn’t figure out where the water originated, but it was streaming out of her ceiling vents, ceiling fan etc. I’m praying it is not coming from our place which is 2 floors above the streaming water, but you never know how they have pipes laid out. It is likely a burst pipe and not our washer that FlyGuy recently jimmy-rigged. Right? As I type this, I can hear the workers sawing through her walls to find the problem.
This could get very bad.
Think calm thoughts.
Think calm thoughts.

FlyGuy is working in India until Friday. He’s been gone since last Wednesday. I don’t think I got the virus Little Lassie is fighting, but just to be on the safe side, I’m keeping myself healthy by eating lots of chocolate chip cookies. Jewell had a sale. The cookies were calling my name. And frankly, they are keeping me sugared up and sane.

*Edited to add: plumbers were here. It was our washer. Huge damage done to the place downstairs. Pass the cookies.

FlyGuy has been intolerant of my vegetarianism for a long time and its starting to get to me. I’ve been a vegetarian since college. He is a southern, meat-loving guy and sees my veg as high maintenance. This makes no sense because I’m the cook 90% of the time in our home. I’m not a banner waving veg. At dinner parties where the host does not know my eating habit, I eat meat. I know a friendly dinner party is not the place to make a political stand about food. At home, I cook meat for FlyGuy and Little Lassie every day. Factory farming stinks, blah, blah, blah. You’ve all heard it before. I won’t bore you with propaganda about going veg. Suffice it to say, it doesn’t feel like a choice to me. I just feel like a non-meat eater. And that, for some reason, irks FlyGuy.

He tells me I’m an idealist. I don’t necessarily take that as an insult. I know little old me not eating meat isn’t really doing much to help the cause of farm animals, but I’d rather be a small part of the solution than the problem. And for the record, if Little Lassie wants to go veg because I am, I’ll eat meat in front of her because I want her to make her own informed choice when she is older. I don’t want her to simply copy me.

FlyGuy was wicked grumpy last week and my veg really began to annoy him. I think he wants me to be a carnivore foodie like he is. When he went out of town for work, I was relieved. As soon as he returned he apologized for his wickedness, so he is not completely evil. I think his annoyance is on the back burner for a while. At least I’ll get a few good days of him being contrite. And because Karma exists: he leaves for India next week- a total veg country. I love it.