Bag Lady

I love handbags. Not as much as I love shoes, and definitely not NEARLY as much as I love hats, but I do love them. Pre-baby, I'd amassed a decent collection of fabulous bags. My favorite was a sleek red leather number (possibly faux, although I may have actually shelled out for the Real Thing on this one - this was during my pre-veggie days...although who am I kidding? I still buy leather, although it's definitely frowned upon by the veghead community - sorry, friends). It was small but not too small, chic enough for day or night, and just, well, fabulous. I came across it last weekend while cleaning out the hall closet during the Roo's nap - there it was, lying around in a pile of equally fabulous bags, all neglected and unloved.

Since I became a mother, I have become a new kind of bag lady - and not the fabulous kind. Every day I schlep around one of two Gap bags - black or tan - which have become increasingly filled with random crap as the months pass. A brief perusal of my bag today found three boxes of eye drops, three bottles of contact solution, deodorant, a full-size hairbrush, two tubs of sunblock, 87 zillion receipts and a bottle of acidophilus pills, in addition to the usual suspects - make-up bag, mints, comb, keys, phone, yaddayadda.

The reality that this is my purse is vaguely terrifying, because it makes it official - I am becoming my mother. For as long as I can remember, my mother's purse has contained a vast, seemingly endless amount of useless crap, and I would tease her mercilessly about it. "What is so hard about cleaning out your purse??" I would taunt.

Flash-forward a decade or so and now THAT IS MY BAG.

Perhaps one of these days I will take a few moments to shovel all the junk out and replace it with an amazing new bag like Erica found on Etsy. But until then, I will just suck it up and say sorry for the harrassment, mom.

Typhoid Mary, at your service

I always thought I was a decent sick person - the non-complaining, suck-it-up, take-it-like-a-woman no-really-I'm-fine type of sick person. But I've recently come to the conclusion that throughout our relationship, my husband's sweet-natured attentiveness during any of my little coughs and colds has spoiled me. These days, after I come home from work and tuck the Roo into bed, I curl onto the couch while he brings me soup and tea to assist in my battle against The Cold That Will Not Die (TCTWND, if you're into abbreviations). And I must say, it's lovely to be babyied when you're feeing crappy. So I sit there, sniffing and snarfing and asking for more, or just one more glass of water, or perhaps a footrub please, until I eventually pry myself off to perhaps scrub some bottles (thought lately he's been handling most of that too) and stumble to bed.

Evil cold aside, I feel like I've been drifting in a fog lately, as double eye infections have left me unable to wear my contact lens for the past five days (I stopped being contagious as soon as I started treating it last week, so fortunately I didn't pass it to the Roo). So I've been half-blind, and it feels disconcertingly like I'm existing in a dream state from which I cannot wake. Perhaps some glasses are in order, you say? I thought so too, but at my last optometrist visit they told me that I couldn't wear glasses - something about the perfect LASIK-induced vision in one eye and the totally shite vision in the other eye being incompatible for glasses, yadda yadda. So here I am - and I never realized how much I take my vision for granted until I couldn't see every minute detail on Carter's little face. Thankfully, tomorrow morning I have the green light to pop my lens back in and rejoin the human race.

Whiny McWhinerstein

Gaaah! Aaack! Waaah!

...ahem...

I just thought I would preface what I knew would be a whiny, cranky post with appropriate sound effects. Consider yourself duly forewarned.

For the past nine days, the Roo has been sick with a cold. It's finally dissapating, leaving only a slight snot-trail in its wake, but in the span of the past week my husband and I have also managed to glean our own various afflictions. First he had a stuffy nose, sore throat, etc. but it vanished fairly rapidly, as he's of good solid Russian stock and his people have no time for such nonsense out on the tundra and whatnot.

Then I said heck, why should he have all the fun? and one-upped him with my very own snarf, clogged nose, fever, upset stomach, yadda yadda. THEN I awoke this morning - after passing out cold on the couch at 8:45 last night - with a STYE in my EYE. "Hot damn!" you're saying. "I sure would love to come play a round of checkers at Chez Draitser!" Well you can't, friends. This delicious brew of crap is mine, all mine!

I'm a little loopy today, if you couldn't tell. But I seem to finally be feeling a little better, save for the wonky eye (which, incidentally, means that I really shouldn't be wearing my contact in it, but you see, I can't DRIVE without my contact - or at least, cannot drive well enough to ensure that I do not hurt myself or others - and I do not own glasses, because I had LASIK in my left eye ten years ago and they couldn't do the right one, so I wear ONE contact lens. Thus, no contact = strange one-eye badness = no drivey for me). Fortunately it sounds grosser than it looks - mercifully, you can't actually see it - and Dr. Wikipedia says these little bastards go away on their own in a few days, so here's hoping.

In the meantime, GAAAH! Grumble. Blargh.

Grrr...