As you loyal readers know, until Temple was about three and a half months old, I was nursing and barely left the house. Isolation can make you go batty; ask anyone who has been in the hole in a maximum security prison.* After my August dental emergency, which finally broke my spirit, I resolved to leave the house everyday and stay busy, as a means of warding off the terrors. To that end, I now frequent Target and Whole Foods, I go to the baby gym on Tuesdays, Mom's coffee at Starbucks on Fridays, and I enrolled in a continuing education class on Spinoza at St. John's College. Temple and I finally got into a routine. We get up around 8am, leave the house for errands at 10am, get back by 2pm, Temple naps from 2:30pm until 4:30pm, then we go for a walk and hang out with the daddy. During Temple's nap, instead of staring into the abyss and letting the terrors inhabit my feeble brain, I would do my Spinoza reading. I stopped noticing the dust elephants in the corners, and the cobwebs on the ceiling. I focused on the reading, and by the time the T-monster awoke, I was refreshed, body, mind, and soul.
Well, the class is over. Actually, it isn't over, I'm just not going anymore, because I am working on Wednesday nights now, so I missed the last two classes (more on the new job below). I really enjoyed the class, and I was disappointed to miss the last two, but the restaurant wanted me to work, and I chose to make myself available to my new employers rather than finish out an enrichment class. I think I made the right call, but now I find myself with two idle hours in the afternoons, which, I have learned, is not good for me. Today, I found myself with a racing heart staring at the collecting dust behind the television. "The floor is dusty," will lead to "our house is a mess," will be followed by, "I can't clean properly," will beget, "I'm a horrible pig who can't do anything right and doesn't deserve to live," and that's a bad place to be, so I need to find a new nap-time project. One idea is to blog, but that doesn't accomplish the goal of getting out of my head. It might actually make it worse. I may start reading Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" from cover to cover. When I read about cooking, I tend to go on a spending spree at Whole Foods, but I believe this is a small price to pay for keeping the terrors away. Plus, I consider the reading job training.
Here's a picture of Temple with her owlie.
So, I have a new job. I am an assistant chef, part time, at a restaurant in Annapolis. It is actually in Heritage Harbor, a retirement community, and it's private, so I can't invite you, my half dozen readers, to come try, but trust me that it is a very nice establishment. We serve lots of fish and meats, and everything is from scratch. The owners are also growing a catering company, and I hope to become an integral part of the business. I'm actually preparing food for money, and I couldn't be happier. I'm fulfilling a dream I've had for many years, and I am grateful as all get out. No sarcasm here, no witty remarks, just happy.
*New guilty pleasure: Saturday night marathons of Lockup: Raw on MSNBC. Thank you, hungry-in-the-middle-of-the-night-Temple, for introducing me to this prison documentary show.
