The Emancipation of ViVi

(Not to be confused with the Emancipation of Mimi, which clearly involves an addiction to the inflating of various body parts, extending of hair, erasing of fine lines, and all manner of skullduggery...)

My particular mini-emancipation simply refers to a certain large fundraising event being nicely wrapped up late Saturday evening, and Lea heading back to preschool today. Not that I'm all loose-goosey-miss-throw-your-cares-to-the-wind-let's-go-to-the-spa person now or anything. It just means there's some time for those simple but essential pleasures (or pains, depending on my outlook on life at any given moment) that transform me from harpy to human: reading, writing, excercising. And so I am a few pages into Neil Gaiman's Stardust (at last, at last, I know the curious thing that occurs every nine years in the Village of Wall); I have cardio'ed (Pilates I've stayed with lo these past 2 months; cardio not so much); and I'm readying a story to be sent far, far away in the hopes that it will not return until set between a front and back cover.

And there's time for general anxieties, too, which is quite a luxury. I have time to be anxious, for example, about the little bit of talking I'm required to do at Back-to-School night on Thursday. It's likely that it won't amount to more than five minutes, but I have to tell you that five minutes spent up front and center before a group of 100 or so tired, rushed-for-time, blank-faced, and sorta squirming parents can be its own sort of hell. I know, I know: just imagine they are attired only in their underwear. Thanks.

Just heard from that most wandering of poets, Señor Pat Rosal, who is ensconced just 20 minutes away but whom I will have to miss this time around. And to this I proclaim: Bah! In honor of his visit and our mutual appreciation of shoes, I was about to post a picture of my most recent acquisition. However, due to technical difficulties here at Nesting Ground, a picture of the first tomato ever grown in our garden will have to...oh, shoot! I can't do that one either. Let's see...in honor of Pat's visit, here is a picture of sweet Vida at her first soccer game (which I had to miss), where she was apparently injected with a full vial of testosterone and encouraged to skedaddle about like a feral beast. The title of this blog post now makes much more sense: