In love, we all know there are no rules. That’d make it too easy to understand.

I’ve blogged in the past about how certain music pulls me back to a memory or a segment of my life. U2’s “Achtung Baby” album certainly has that effect. I am drawn to listen to it. Its slow beats; its echoing pain; its lilting melodies. I became a fan of Daniel Lanois through my days of being a groupie fan of Big Sun. It no longer surprises me that Lanois was one of the producers on “Achtung Baby.” The ephemeral quality of that album is his mark.

Back when I was listening to Achtung Baby, I was in my final year of college, falling in and out of love with a guy I knew from grammar school. That one relationship, aside from my marriage, is one that most helps define who I am today. And in the background of that relationship, U2 and Bob Marley played.

It was Ben that taught me to think critically and independently, to question authority and things I took for granted as constants. He also taught me that in the end we are alone and have to find strength from within first.

He’s who I got peace from when I lost my job and thought the world was falling away from me. When everyone else was aghast and feeling sorry for me (including myself) it was Ben that said into the phone to me from Japan, “You hated that job. They did you a favor! Things get set straight.” Things get set straight. I’ve come back to that bit of advice time and again.

He’s the one that said, “I like your apartment. I really see you in it,” and made me realize that I had opinions about the art (or lack thereof) on my walls and the furniture I chose, even secondhand. He’s the one that introduced me to the works of Milan Kundera and Nietzsche, writings that literally changed my life. He’s the reason I read Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.” I’ve forgiven him this last thing.

Ben broke my heart not less than three times. And in the end, I made him tell me it wasn’t me that he wanted and promise to stick to that. To stop coming back to me because I’d always take him back. And he did, and he’s kept his promise. Rejection is a powerful thing. And it can cause the harboring of all sorts of negative feelings. In this case, there is none of that. I am nothing but grateful to Ben. He gave me the keys that in turn have given my life more meaning. And sometimes it’s the not getting what we want that makes us grow.

We are now both married (I truly like his wife and he sincerely likes CS, and the spouses both like each of us), and we have remained good friends. He has a daughter six months older than Sun. We now talk about diapers and daycare and the future of our children.

The feelings I have for Ben will always be strong. And I give CS a lot of credit for understanding this love I have for Ben and being a strong enough man to know that that love doesn’t threaten my love for CS. That that love is part of who I am, is part of what CS loves about me. Take it away, and I lose a bit of my soul.

I can only hope that Sun has a Ben, heart breaks and all, in her life. Before she meets her CS. I just hope that unlike me, she shares her time of great self-growth and maturation with her mother.

Sun looks a lot like her father. That’s really an understatement–she looks EXACTLY like her father. The shape of her face, her eyes, her dimples, her hair color, even her eyelashes. And everyone tells me so. LIKE I DON’T KNOW!

The other day CS and I attended a funeral, and the widow turned to me and said, “Your little girl is beautiful! But you know she looks just like her father.” To which I replied, “Oh, yes, I know, but she has my nose.” To which she replied, “No, she even has his nose.” Hrumpf.

So I’ve given Sun a good hard look. And this is what I see that is mine: her nose (even though at least one widow disagrees with me on this one), her fingertips (but not the rest of her fingers or hands) and every other, yes, not all, of her toes. And I got the even numbered ones, so that means only the second and fourth toes on each foot. And the fourth ones are borderline.

My husband talks in his sleep.  Often, it is things like, “Tell Bob I’ll call him back when I am off the phone with the distributor,” as if he’s going about his normal day-to-day affairs at work.  Does he really dream about returning business calls?

Early on in my discovery of his talking in his sleep, I was reading in bed and he was asleep.  He opened his eyes (they looked very red and dull) and he said, “You put glue in my eyes.”  He sounded like a petulant child with a heavy tongue.  I didn’t understand what he said so I asked him to repeat it.  He did, several times as he rubbed his eyes.  Then I realized what was happening, I chuckled and told him, “Oh, you will find this quite funny in the morning.”  He gave me a glare then rolled over and went to another dream.

Last night as I crawled into bed where he was already sleeping, he looked at me with his red-dull eyes and asked, “Which age?”  Of course, he had his splint in his mouth so I wasn’t sure what he asked and I got him to repeat it a couple of times.  Finally, I asked, “Do you mean how old?”  He responded, “Yes, how old?”  I asked, “How old is what?”  His answer back, “How old. . . cookies.”

Now, I am still not sure of what I heard.  But I guarantee there are no cookies in my house older than a week.  I don’t buy cookies or keep them around.  Maybe he was thinking of the school cookies we recently bought from a friend’s daughter that stay frozen until you cook them.  But even they are only a week old.

I did what I always do: I chuckled.  But this time I added, “Oh, I am SO blogging that.”  Maybe if it wasn’t NaBloPoMo I’d have skipped this story, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Captain Sarcastic grinds his teeth in his sleep. A lot. His teeth have been ground down as a result. He wears a splint to help the situation. Soon after Sun was born, CS threw his splint into the microwave bag we used to sterilize the breast pump parts. He thought he’d give it a good steaming. He melted it. So he recently replaced it with a new one. The new one is hard plastic that snaps onto his top teeth. It makes him talk with a lisp.

Soooo, the other night he popped his splint in as we got into bed and began to read. I was reading about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, he was reading comics. He turned to me and said something along the lines of, “How you doin’?” But it came out all spitty and slippery. I responded, “You are such a nerd.” And he corrected me, “No, I am a geek. Thas a dithwence.”

Yes, my husband prides himself on being a geek and on differentiating between a geek and a nerd. Differentiating, mind you, while lisping away as a result of his mouth splint. Picture Anthony Michael Hall with his headgear back in the 80s. That’s what I go to bed to every night.

He got lucky that night. I find his ability to make me laugh quite appealing. So what does that make me, a geek or a nerd?

One latent talent (I never realized those two words - latent and talent - were, like, the same word. Look at ‘em. Weird.) of Captain Sarcastic is his pumpkin carving skills. This guy has lots of talents–he can juggle, do origami, knit, fix computers, take professional photographs, make balloon animals, fix a car, float sheet rock, paint a room, weld (as in make artistic lamps), bathe a baby–get the idea? And in his bag of tricks is also pumpkin carving. Since we have known each other, he’s carved a pumpkin every Halloween.

His carving all started with a simple ghost. Then there was a cat, a witch, and several we do not now remember. Last year was the Green Goblin. That was a pretty high level of difficulty. But this year, he pulled out all the stops. The Williams-Sonoma pumpkin carving kit no longer had enough tools. We needed to go the hardware store to prepare to carve our pumpkin this year. He bought various and sundry Dremel rotary tool bits. And he did his first etched pumpkin:

Didn’t Scary Donald Duck come out great?

Did I mention how much I love Halloween? Pumpkin carving is one of the reasons. In addition to an amazing time at the pumpkin patch,

and an amazing carved (and etched) pumpkin, there are the pumpkin seeds.  To quote The Wizard of Oz’s Scarecrow (I mean, it IS Halloween, right?): Oh, joy, rapture! Every year I scrounge for all the seeds I can lay my hands on. I ask around at work and bum them off my friends. Because then I roast them and am in heaven. Here’s my recipe:

Get the seeds out of as many pumpkins as is humanly possible and clear them of the pumpkin goo. DO NOT WASH THEM. Pat them dry with paper towels and then spread them in a single layer on a cookie sheet (if you are like me, you may need to do this in batches or get several cookie sheets). Leave them to dry at room temperature for at least one night. Drying for two nights is better.

When you are ready to roast them, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Then coat the seeds with a THIN coat of oil–we use Hot & Spicy flavored oil. Then sprinkle seasonings on them–we use Tony Chachere’s. Here’s the beauty of pumpkin seeds–the seasoning possibilities are endless–there are so many salty/spicy things you could add, or you could go the sweet route and use cinnamon or nutmeg or gosh darn any spice you are in the mood for.

Once you make the decision on salty or sweet and have seasoned them up, pop them in the oven and stick around. It won’t take long–ten minutes or so. Shake the cookie sheet  occasionally to keep the seeds from sticking.  Before long, you’ll hear them start to pop a little and you’ll see them get golden. When that happens, take them out of the oven and remove them from the cookie sheet to stop them from continuing to roast. Store them in an airtight container. In our house, that isn’t too important since we seem to eat them all within a day or so. Enjoy!

My hubs dabbled in photography. It started with a trip to Europe. He needed a digital camera for the trip. And he researched the best deal for the money. He spent a lot of money on that camera. This was over five years ago. He came home from that trip and realized he had a talent. I encourage that talent. He hated his job “working for the man,” and so we worked to get him working as a full time photographer.

He bought stuff. Lots of stuff. Cameras galore–film, digital, antique, brand spanking new, cheap, expensive. And lens and lights and camera bags and those umbrella things to capture the light and light meters and photography books and magazines. And he attended conferences and got better. And he got gigs. He photographed weddings, children, pets, baptisms, high school seniors, parties.

Then we bought a business post-Katrina and he put the photography on the back burner to focus his energies on the business. And he’s happy with the business.

But we have a new baby, dammit, and what does any new mom want? PICTURES! I have thousands of pictures of my cat from when CS first began taking pictures. He has even promised to take a picture of Sun every day of his life but hasn’t. But yesterday! Yesterday! I got this:

There were other equally as good pictures. I spent all day at the office gazing at the pictures he took of Sun. Sun and her muppet hair. And when I got home from work, CS told me that she grabbed things for the first time–a toy, her burp cloth. And when I picked her up, she grabbed my necklace.

It is truly amazing how much she changes from one day to the next. I will insist that CS keep photographing her to capture it all.

I went to bed at my usual time last night–11pm. Seems no matter how tired I am or what I do, I cannot fall asleep any sooner. I awoke in the middle of the night thinking, “Oh, wow. I feel so rested. Sun must have slept all night!” Then I looked at the clock. It was 12:37. Weird.

As I was closing my eyes to return to sleep, I saw a large spark akin to lightening and then heard the loud BOOM!!! I knew immediately we had blown a transformer. Sure enough, we had no electricity.

It woke the hubs up (along with the rest of the neighborhood). We commented that there was probably a dead squirrel or rat lying in the street having been blown from the transformer he mistakenly ran across.

Such a BOOM! brings out the neighbors in droves. And when neighbors huddle near our house, Lucy must bark her head off. Which is exactly what happens. So being brave, I send CS to investigate.

He returns some 10 minutes later. “Squirrel?” I ask. “No,” he says. “A raccoon. Three feet long. The neighbor’s son ran right out and saw it walking around in circles, dazed. Now he’s hanging from our oak tree, shaking.” “WHAT? Poor thing! . . . . Go get its picture so I can blog about this!!” I run to the front of the house to see the monster ‘coon and CS returns outside with my camera. The neighbors are lingering, all looking in the direction of our yard. CS isn’t taking any pictures. I tap the window and give him the “what’s up?” shoulder roll. He responds, “It’s gone.” “Well get away from the tree already! He may attack!”

CS returns inside. Apparently the thing had mosied across the street and into another neighbor’s back yard. Thank God he didn’t come in our back yard. CS tells me that apparently there are TWO raccoons residing in our neighborhood. Our next door neighbor told him that the other day she went to put out her trash and saw what she thought was two cats walking between her house and her other neighbor’s house. But then she realized they were raccoons. She told herself then, “I’ll take the trash out later.”

CS and I crawled back to bed. Funny that in the dark, non-a/c air, we can’t sleep even though it is as dark and cool as if the electricity was on. CS calls to report the outage. He miss-dialed the number for the energy company by one number and got a sex hotline. They asked seductively that you enter your credit card number so that you could “put your hard tool into any of their holes.” Ewwww.

A few hours later, the electricity was back on and all was well again in our world.

Early on in knowing Captain Sarcastic, I was aware that animals and small children responded to him–he has this uncanny ability to calm and relax them; they are uncontrollably drawn to him. So it came as no surprise that Sun finds peace in her daddy’s arms. I can rock, sing to, or walk with Sun endlessly. And she’ll even fall asleep. But within 15 minutes, there is a pretty good chance she’ll be up again. After about three rounds of this, I give up and send in CS. He’s the closer. He can get her down in no time every time and she is down for good. Rrrr.

Oh, and the cat? Since the baby was born, Peanut is even more into him than she was before–and that is saying a lot. She still crawls over me to get to CS to give him biscuits. CS summed it up quite succinctly recently: “If she won’t give you biscuits now, you’ll never get ‘em. I mean, you’re doughy and smell like milk.” Indeed.

Having a small baby has its benefits. My wedding and engagement rings fit again and I even was able to fit into a pair of non-maternity pants today. These pants are usually a tad too big for me and today they were tight, but I got them to zip up and I actually wore them out of the house!! It gives me hope that I may actually one day return to my pre-pregnancy clothes.

Today was also the day I decided that my bedsheets had to be washed. We put clean sheets on the bed on Monday and I promptly spilled breast milk all over them (who knew pumping required such skill?!). After three days, I’d had enough. Pre-pregnancy, the sheets would have been cleaned the day of the spill; now, I have learned it will take three days for me to work up the energy to clean them. Good to know. And a shower? Yep; three days there too. Apparently I have some three-day cleanliness thing that I did not know about until I became a new mother.

And finally, today is the day that Sun started to smile even when she wasn’t taking a poop.

It started with my wedding ring. It stopped fitting about six weeks ago. At that time, I started to wear a ring usually worn on the middle finger of my right hand on the ring finger of my left hand.

Then it was my shoes. My shoe size is now an entire size larger than I usually wear. This means that only sandals and shoes that tie with laces fit me. And seeing as how I am due to have this baby in three weeks, I am too cheap to buy new shoes at this stage of the game.

So that means when I go to work, I can no longer wear dresses or suits with skirts. I work with a bunch of older men. And walking into the office in flip-flops–with my toes showing for God’s sake–is enough to send some of those men over the edge. And I am not woman enough to wear laced shoes with skirts. So that means I am all-pants at the office these days.

Now, I only have two pairs of maternity dress pants. I wore the black ones on Tuesday and was going to where the khaki ones today. CS ironed them for me (girls, find yourself a man that will iron for you–it is better than a man who cooks!). Then I slipped them on, zipped them up and went to button them. They wouldn’t button. Hmmm. Well, from my vantage point, I couldn’t see what the hold up was. So I asked CS, “Are they zipped all the way?” This was his response: “BAHHHAAAHAHAAA.” (Girls, find yourself someone who won’t laugh when you get too fat for your clothes, especially if the reason for that fat is really not fat but a baby inside you.)

So now not only is it my wedding ring and shoes, but my MATERNITY PANTS? I didn’t think it was possible to outgrow maternity pants! They fit last week. Why would they make pants for a pregnant woman that will stop fitting five weeks before her due date? Don’t they know how vulnerable she is at that stage? Are they that sick?

So it was back to the black pants. Poor folks at my office will have to endure seeing me in the same pair of pants two or three times a week for the next three weeks. Because if I won’t buy shoes that won’t fit in three weeks, I certainly won’t buy super-big maternity clothes.

Oh, and to top the morning o’ feeling fat off, the ring I’ve been wearing to replace my wedding ring? Yeah, it stopped fitting today, too.

So I am now down to three pairs of shoes that fit, one pair of work pants and no rings. It is a SAD DAY when your fat girl pants stop fitting. Indeed.