7 Quick Takes Friday!

Friday hath come at last. This is exactly how I feel about it, too. Too weary to be excited, but also too grateful that the Ogre will be around to let me sleep in tomorrow to stand upright today.

Sienna just informed me that I look like this bear, as well. “But fatter.” Out of the mouths of babes, indeed.

I guess another package of Smarties won’t really make a difference, then.

Here are some things that have contributed to my current exhaustion. (I’m purposefully leaving out the words Tropical Storm Debby since you’re probably sick of hearing them. You’re welcome. But that is one of the things, just so we’re clear.)

Health Care Upheld — Alex Wong/Getty Images

That whole thing happened.

Justice Roberts summed up exactly how I feel about this decision:”It’s not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

There’s no question we need health care reform. We do. But this is a bad law, crafted hastily by people who wanted to take advantage of a political moment instead of taking the time to craft legislation that would truly help the American people. So basically it’s like every law that’s been passed lately, or at least in the past decade when partisan screeching has replaced actual political dialogue and debate.

I’m not a Constitutional scholar. I have no idea if it was constitutional or not. I trust the Supreme Court, though, more than I trust the other two branches, so I wasn’t disappointed in them yesterday. I was disappointed in all those throngs of people in the picture above, and the ones on facebook and on Hot Air and everywhere else, including me. Somehow we’ve created a country in which the actual merits of laws can’t be debated, by either side, without someone yelling “you’re a liberal and you just want to kill babies!” or “you’re a conservative and you just want all the poor people to starve and die off!” That exhausts me. It exhausts me that some otherwise intelligent people wouldn’t even consider the idea that the law might actually be constitutional…they just knew it couldn’t be, because it was liberal legislation.

This is why I don’t blog about politics. I sincerely enjoy discussing politics, especially with our best friends in the world who live in Northern California, work in the Silicon Valley techie world, and are as liberal as the day is long, because they’re rational people who discuss things without assuming that 1) we’re conservative because we’re stupid and religious because we’re stupider or 2) they’re going to convince us that we’re wrong and they’re right. Actual discussions, where people clarify their positions and come to understand and…dare I say it?…respect the other person’s point of view are awesome. Unfortunately, they rarely happens in the internet. If ever. Honestly, I’m starting to doubt that they happen much in real life anymore either. And that makes me sad, and it makes me tired.

Why, Calah, you might be saying, isn’t that that half-finished dress you started a month ago?

Why yes. Yes it is.

In the month that has elapsed between my first introduction to sewing and today, the dress has sat on our dining room table, along with the sewing machine and the instructions and the books the Ogre bought me and my shiny new sewing kit. All of it in the same position it was in when I hit “publish” on that post.

I have studiously avoided the dining/sitting room for the past thirty days. (An impressive feat since you have to walk through it to get into the rest of the house.) We’ve eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner at the breakfast table. We’ve had guests over, and they’ve eaten at the breakfast table. I haven’t curled up into my comfortable reading chair and read a single page. I’ve read on the couch instead, or standing up in the kitchen. I haven’t swept the sitting room. I haven’t dusted it. I haven’t even ventured in there to open the blinds on sunny days.

The sitting room has become no-man’s land. The dress sits on the table, mocking me with it’s unfinished-ness, and I remain safely in my trench(es) in the rest of the house. We are at a stalemate.

But the situation must be resolved, and it must be resolved this weekend, because my parents are coming to visit next week and I’d like to be able to use my dining room table. I refuse to just put everything away to deal with later, because the dress will haunt my subconscious. But even if the dress wins the battle, it’s not going to be alive to enjoy its victory for long. I must either complete the dress or admit defeat and tear it to satisfying shreds. As soon as I gather my courage and go over the top, that is.

I think I need a nap first, though.

Then there’s this:

Charlotte is still sick, though she seems to be improving. Her fever is gone, her cough is better, and she looks and smells much better.

Fortunately for us, Liam woke up from his nap today with a 101 degree fever. Yay.

Let me say that again: Yay.

See, not only do I have to deal with two sick, incredibly whiny toddlers, but I also have to deal with this:

The world’s most active child, whose only goal in life is to play outside forever, and who has been stuck inside on account of her sick siblings with the only exception being yesterday’s swelteringly brief trip to the park.

As you can see, she’s angry. And unhappy. And stir-crazy and whiny.

Bebe Lincoln is getting in on the make-Mama-miserable action, too. Just this week he and the hormones that sustain his growth have given me wretched sciatic nerve pain (the first time I’ve had that pregnancy symptom! Something new every time! It’s like a grab-bag of fun!) and a zit the size of freaking Jupiter on my neck.

My neck. It’s not even in a normal place like my face, it’s on my neck. It looks like I have the bubonic plague. Seriously, if this was 1348, I’d be quarantined. Because of a zit.

Exhausted, I tell you.

There are some silver (or, er, bright orange) linings to these clouds, though, and they’re not even all that hard to spot.

First, I’m profoundly grateful that the children are sick now, instead of next week, when my parents are coming to visit and have rented a beach house on Marco Island for us to stay in.

Second, a beach house! On an island!

Sigh. It’s like a real vacation, and it’s only an hour away. There are serious advantages to living here, even though there are also tropical storms and too many rainy days.

Also, Whole Foods has consistently had Rainier cherries on sale since the season began a few weeks ago. Rainier cherries are my favorite of all favorite fruits ever. I love them so much that I dream about them in the spring, fall and winter. Rainier cherries make the sweltering heat of June and July bearable. They make the summer heat worth surviving. They are miraculous, and during the summer when I was pregnant with Liam I spent nearly $100 dollars on them because Whole Foods never had them on sale and they’re painfully, grotesquely expensive. (Whole Foods is the only grocery store I’ve found that carries them, but they’re expensive everywhere.)

Last silver lining? The existence of Cracked.com. Anytime I’m tempted to run screaming to my closet with my hands over my ears and lock myself in for the rest of the day…well, sometimes I actually just go ahead and do that. But other times I pull up cracked.com and remember that pregnancy maybe be horrific sometimes, but it’s also pretty hilarious. (Please don’t go to cracked.com if you’re easily offended or sensitive to bad language. You will never forgive me.)

Bonus silver lining! Just as I had spent four chaotic, interrupted hours trying to get this post up while baking and administering ibuprofen and changing diapers and breaking up fights and had finally despaired of finishing it at all, my lovely, incomparably wonderful neighbor offered to take Sienna to the waterpark along with her own kids. She knew I’d been stuck with sick kids for days and figured I’d be at the end of my rope. Sometimes the kindness and generosity of my neighbors is just…amazing. I would never consider offering to take someone else’s kid on an outing, since I’m usually too busy dreading how difficult it’s going to be with my own three. But around here, people just act like it’s no big deal. And because they’re likely less melodramatic than I am, it’s probably not a big deal for them…but it’s huge to be on the receiving end of it. That literally just turned my entire day around. I need to make that woman some cookies. (Yes, in my psyche, gratitude = cookies. I think that’s the way it should be, actually.)

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone! Go and see Jen for more quick takes!