Home again, home again, jiggety-jig

It's been a busy day so far. I spent Bean's morning naptime planting the dozen shrubs that have been languishing in their pots in my sideyard for a month now. Felt quite pleased with myself both to have gotten that item crossed off my to-do list and to have gotten a little exercise in. I'm a member of the real-activity-as-exercise camp, much preferring to rev up my heart rate and work up a sweat with raking or digging in heavy clay soil or the like over using one of those treadmill/ski machine thingies for some uninspired portion of an hour.

I also went on a huge grocery shopping trip today since the fridge was void of fresh food altogether and I wanted to avoid another dinner gem such as we had last night--corn and cheddar cheese chowder thawed from the freezer, broccoli with left-over cheese sauce, toasted bagels also thawed from the freezer, and gin gimlets. Husband enjoys a squishily comfortingly cheesy meal and so didn't mind. I enjoy gin and didn't have to cook--what could be better on returning home from a weekend away? (For all you militant La Leche League mamas out there, the baby was already asleep and, don't worry, did NOT have a breastmilk-and-gin version of my cocktail.)

So I'm fully home now and glad to be here. The laundry is all done and hanging in the sun outside, the fridge is full, my baby is asleep. Sister returns home from her dad's tomorrow and I can't wait to see her. I hope she's not too sad this week. I get the feeling that she's really bothered by her dual-household life lately. And I have to admit that it's hard for me to go from lavishing love on Bean alone while Sister is gone to dividing my attentions between them when Sister is back. Maybe more on that tomorrow.

In the meantime, Asheville was lovely with the mountain leaves at their red and gold peak. We all 3 walked around downtown and enjoyed people-watching young lesbians, unwashed and hairy back-to-the-earthers, young neo-hippie guys who knit, etc. I saw someone with whom I had a brief and ugly fling through the window at the restaurant where I used to pastry-chef it. I felt a brief moment of "Yikes! Ick!" and then we were past and I don't think Husband noticed. As much as I love Asheville, I'm still glad to have left it behind me and made it back here to Chapel Hill. My life is fine indeed right now.

And this sort of lazy, grateful mood reminds me that I have a good friend, a Nice Jewish Girl who has proclaimed herself such a luddite that she can't figure out how to comment on this blog. She did email me, though, and I wanted to include something she wrote to me. Here goes:

So first of all.................... going back to what you first said.... Hey! I'm as feministic as it gets. I have been to girl vigils and protests and marches on the lawn and i've been fired from rallying women at the work place for higher wages and sware, belch, spit, talk pussy. I'm sexually assertive and i'm sexy...with HEELS of course. And you are too, all of this. Thats why you and i clinked our pinkies together rather quickly. We know who the cools ones are workin it---right?! But i too want to be a stay at home mom! Fuck. I dont even have a kid to stay at home for and i still want to be a housewife. So how do ya like them apples? AND, AND.... i am righteous about it too. I dont care what it means to anyone else. That's just the way it is and i sure as hell am no less of a feminist. So there. Shit. Now i can't remember all the other things that you have sparked in me to respond. I guess that's one good reason to post right in that blog thing hmmm.

Wow. I want to be more like Nice Jewish Girl, don't you?