Drowning in a Vat of Smooth Jazz

WARNING: This post has nothing to do with its title; it's just how I feel after a mere 2 hours of being at work with a cubicle-mate who keeps his radio tuned to 94.7/The Wave.

So it’s officially been a month since I started this job, and I still like it. I am neck-deep in writing an interagency grant, so I have become the meetin’est meeting-goer imaginable. I have also had a chance to go on a work-related field trip and see some of the long-range planning of the company, which lends a whole new, “Oh! So that’s the big picture!” dimension to what I do. And, since we are such a large organization, there is the added benefit of someone having a birthday or retirement party once a week. Nothing wrong with cake!

Sweet W has been (true to form) very sweet as we have made this transition. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he picks Viva up from school, hangs out with her and makes dinner (!!!*) while I work out. I do the same for him on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then on Fridays we usually all go out as a family for pizza or order in.

Since we have given up for the moment on looking for a house to rent (with or without the option to buy) (which is a long and disheartening story which I do not wish to revisit at this time), Sweet Dub has also gone on a home improvement kick and spent the last three weekends sprucing up the run-down shotgun shack we live in. He’s completely reconfigured our home office, and last weekend did the same with our walk-in closet. I have been resisting the idea of renting storage space, while he has been advocating for same with all the vigor of Robert Duvall in The Apostle. We may actually be able to hold off on renting space to store stuff like his comic book collection, my art supplies, Christmas decorations, and the assorted lights Sweet Dub used in his video production days. And hold on to your hats, because we Might. Actually. Paint. Our bedroom.

Perhaps this time we will stick to one color, so as to avoid the exhausting, labor-intensive, three-week “if I have to paint anymore I will stick my head in this bucket of Ablaze SW 6870 paint and end it all” debacle of our last painting efforts.*** I don’t know if we are aesthetically capable of that, but I will let you know.

* I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but Sweet Dub’s momma, who has many other fine qualities, did not teach either of her children to cook. Sweet Dub’s sister, Diva, taught herself to cook and is quite handy in the kitchen now, but when I met my beloved, Sweet Dub was pretty limited to eggs, burgers, and steak. He could pretty much grill anything, but I think that comes part and parcel with having a Y chromosome. In our years together, he has expanded his repertoire quite a bit. Having said that, I still have no idea what we’re eating tonight. Sweet W’s momma is fortunate to be married to a man who cooks**, since otherwise she might subsist on takeout, canned tuna, and black beans with salsa.

** Our dearly loved and loving Wash, Sweet Dub’s stepfather and Viva’s PawPaw. For whatever reason, Wash did not impart his love of cooking to either Sweet Dub or Diva.

*** Blogger is acting up and not letting me embed a link back to my own shit. Fuck that noise. As I said, our last painting efforts: http://mamablahblah.blogspot.com/2005/01/i-miss-you-do-you-miss-me-really-that.html. Maybe I can come back and fix this later.