You are entering a world of pain

posted by Melissa
Blogging is like yoga.  If you don't do it for a little while (ok, for yoga a few months and blogging one week+) you really get out of the habit.  It is hard to get "back in the saddle" so to speak.  Other things in life take precedence, you know, like kids and cleaning all 16 window frames in the apartment (there was moss, yes, moss growing in the outside part of our windows.  Oh, to live in the great NW.)

It reminds me of a aerobics/weight lifting class I took once.  The teacher said, "Don't worry, if you don't like these muscles you're making in class, stop coming and they'll be gone in two weeks."

Our van.

See as yoga costs a lot of money, I am probably not going to be at yoga anytime soon though, as much as the people looking at my muffin top might like.  Jamie started his own painting business, right, I think I mentioned that before.  Well, it is super exciting and I know it is going to be great in the long run.  But in the "short run", i.e. right now, it isn't going so well.  The learning curve is great and it is extremely frustrating to him to have bid a job for a week, and have it take at least twice that time.  The past two weeks have been stressful, and frankly neither of us have had our two weeks (remember back to poker month) in a while.  It is this weird time of survival limbo where life takes the front seat, not either of our relationship needs.

So in a far reaching attempt to better our family, I started school again today for the 7 and a  1/2 week summer quarter.   Jamie kissed me goodbye and started off on his day to get this flipping exterior painting finished, for Christ's sake.  I am walked down our long hallway still groggy from the bowling the night before, and working on my second cup of coffee when I hear Lily talking to someone in my bedroom.

"OK, Papa.  I'll get her." She says.

"Immediately" is all I head from the muffled sound of the cell phone up to her ear ( I know, and now my daughter is getting brain cancer from the cell phone.)

What the hell is going on, I am thinking.  I know that is Jamie's voice and he just left a minute ago.  There has been no time to have any of the catastrophes I usually imagine happen when people call upset like that, you know, the kind where someone dies.

I calmly (not because I am calm, but because I am barely awake and nursing an impending hangover, the kind that hits you hard right around 11am.) take the call.

"A bus hit our van.  The entire front bumper is tore off.  Our van is fucked." Jamie relays.  "I need you get dressed and come out here right now.  I just need you."

yet, another beautiful view.

 Get dressed?  Why not, just come out right away?  I assume he said to get dressed because right before that I had on a tank top and yoga pants and apparently that was not enough "coverage" for him.  Really, I am running around looking for a shirt because you are uncomfortable with my cleavage showing at 7:30am?  Who cares?

"OK, I'll be right there" I answer.  "Were you parked in a bus zone?" I asked quietly.

"Yes, I was." he sheepishly admitted.*

(*About a year ago, Jamie parked in the same exact spot and a city bus took off our side view mirror.)

To his credit, the paint marking the bus zone is very worn and looks like it stops right before where he parked.  But, still.

I get down there, and sure enough, the entire front bumper is totally torn off.  A Metro worker is writing up a report and Jamie and I are planning our day/week accordingly.  We call all the appropriate people and take off the bumper completely.   I go back to the apartment to tell the kids and I hear a scraping sound outside.  It is Pete, our neighbor and Jamie's first employee, dragging our bumper up the sidewalk.

Levi thinks it is the coolest and wants the bumper on his bedroom wall, while Lily is devastated at the embarrassment of her already humiliating ride to school.  Tallulah is just excited to go to her outdoor Seattle Forest Kindergarten camp, clueless to what the fiberglass hunk is on our sidewalk.

Sometimes we learn our lessons the first time.  Sometimes we don't.  Does that make us bad?  Does that make is good?  No.  It make us human.

That is life.  Sometimes you roll two turkeys in one week (gurl, yes is did) and then can't get a game over a hundred.  And sometimes you learn you form and keep rolling those turkeys.  Week after week.  But I bet you don't get there in a month.  Or maybe even a year.

My guess is Jamie may take a while to master this "owning his own business" thing.  But I think he'll get the hang of it.  I think he'll roll a few turkeys of his own and the Baumgarts will be alright.

But some mornings, it can be hard to see the strike at the end of the lane.

-Melissa