I think I Have an Alien Baby Inside of Me

Summer is passing at warp speed.  Boys are moving around in 5 packs.  They have a mob mentality and don't pick up their wet suits and towels and before I can ask them to they're off and running to sleep over someone else's house.  At least last night I made them brush their teeth before they left.  They're tan and growing so fast their bones hurt.  See what sleep and sunshine do?  They make me have to buy twice the burger meat. 

We're here there and everywhere.  It's par for the course.  I'm not going to make this a weepy report of my sobriety but let's just say it's going swimmingly.  I've replaced beer with homemade limeades and last night I had a lemonade mixed with some strawberry jam I jarred up yesterday afternoon.  I've replaced my need to get drunk with a need to host dinner.  I want to feed people, see their relief.  I threw a 9 lb. piece of pork in the oven yesterday and let it cook in its own bone and fat for 7 hours.  I pulled it all apart and slathered it in apple cider vinegar, ketchup and brown sugar.  It was too simple to taste so good.  It's hard to believe you're eating muscle when it tastes like candy.  No scraps for the compost bin. 

Arthur wrecked our beach trip this year; I still dug my feet in the sand and ate like a queen.  Seems to be the thing to do down there.  Before that I was spoiled in L.A.  Getting my hair "blow dried," hanging out with the Fonz again.  You know that section of the tabloids where they show stars being regular people..."They're JUST like us!"?  Well, Henry's just like us.  You should see his grandson's face when he sees him.  Love is human.  Love is kind.

Bees buzzing around the homestead again- swarmed from my neighbor's hive.  I sawed off the branch they were clinging to and Amy and I in our bee keeper's outfits, sweat rolling down our backs, captured them into a plastic bucket.  Sweeping them in with a broom like they were dog hair piles collected in the corner of the living room.  It was surreal.  We just dumped them, literally, into a new box and they immediately started working, cleaning, exploring, protecting their queen who sits around and lays eggs all day.  It's phenomenal.  I heard the box buzzing this morning as I worked to get my garden presentable.  It seems like an impossible task (more weeds than vegetables) and then I think about those bees working so hard to make honey so they can exist in this world.  I can, at least, weed for an hour.  But my mind wanders to the list- bills to pay, friends that need help, Mom that's getting emergency hip replacement (right now), laundry that needs to get hung, dishes that need doing, book list that needs creating, boat that needs registering, pizza oven that needs starting, dog needs exercising, me that needs exercising, soccer sign-ups, dinner thoughts, greenhouse plants that need watering, ugh.  I'm sure the bees have complex lives too but what I wouldn't give to just have one goal: nectar.  That's it.  Go get it.  Bring it back.  Go get more.  Sleep.  Go get nectar.  Bring it back. Go get more.

I have to admit I like the chaos.  I don't sit very well.  Lately, when I've sat on my porch in my new furniture to take a moment for myself I get this sensation in my gut.  Something rolls around inside of me.  It truly feels like I have a baby doing somersaults in my stomach, which (ya know) I've felt before, so I'm qualified to tell you that that's what it feels like.  But, yet, it sorta feels different too.  Which is why I think I have an alien in my belly.  I'm pregnant with an alien baby.  But that's ok.  Maybe he/she'll treat me like I'm the queen and they'll do all the work around here.  And then all I'll have to do is lay around and have tons and tons (2,000 a day) more alien babies who, when born, wait on me hand and foot.  They'll feed me and clean up after me.  And maybe, maybe, if I'm a good queen they'll even pick up their fucking wet bathing suits.

:)