Served Any Time
We had an ultrasound on Monday. The baby is looking healthy. He (or she) is active — rolling around and kicking off the side of the uterus.
If you’ll indulge me, here’s the highlight reel. (1.6 MB Quicktime, about 5 minutes to dowload on dialup)
The second trimester begins on Christmas day.
There are no lights on anywhere between Ikea and the I-90 tunnel on Mercer Island. Out the other end of the tunnel and looking across the lake, the only lights that can be seen are the headlights of a few cars and lights in the tops of skyscrapers peaking over Capitol Hill. I drive onto the bridge; the skyscrapers dip out of sight and the only headlights I see now are on the road around me. Over the bridge and up toward the (well-lit) second I-90 tunnel, I can make out little flickers of candlelight in nearby windows.
The power is on on the other side of the tunnel. It’s like it’s a whole different city here.
Some of the best personal writing on the web was written by Leslie Harpold at The Hoopla500.
Tricia goes out for early errands. She comes back with bagels as I get out of the shower. I’m having a slow leisurely start today. I turn on the radio and learn that many of my neighbors are hardly having an average morning: More than half the city is without power. Trees are down and buses are delayed. The daily papers weren’t even printed this morning.
Last night, after the rain and before the wind, we had dinner at our neighbors and talked about names. We’ve found some good girl names, but haven’t agreed on any boy names. I’ve stopped campaigning for “Duncan” and am favoring “Alex” now. But Tricia says that one of her friends already named her son “Alex”. “‘Alex’ is taken.” Someone looks out the window at Denny Way, “Did you see the street earlier? The water at that low spot was up to the car windows.”
I sort through a pile of business receipts and put them into files. It’s difficult. So many of them pull an emotional string in me.
A receipt from a bookstore in Kent: I remember waiting in the Court House for two days to find out if I’d been chosen for jury duty. This was just after we Found Out.
An invoice from the book fair that I did in October: There’s a mix of excitement and disappointment associated with that weekend and now there’s a nostalgia for Before.
I pick up an official-looking document with decorative borders. I assume at first that it’s my business license, but then I read the title and I panic. It’s a birth certificate. It’s my birth certificate, but for a moment I think that it’s my child’s and that I’ve forgotten that it has already been born.