Friday afternoon, ready to end the work week. Had lunch a good friend whose going through a difficult divorce and saw local celebrity Benjamin Bratt at the cafe--kind of a fun distraction. It's amazing how my friend who is going through this awful situation still ends up consoling me about whatever I have going on--bless her. Glad I can still make time for lunchdates now and then, so vital to connect with people face to face when so much of life is lived online. Then I dashed to my dentist to have some work done on an old filling. Now, I've always prided myself on being a trooper at the dentist--it's never really bothered me, but today, they had to keep giving me more oral painkiller and I was getting quite agitated in the chair, thinking about those days when there was no anaesthesia, oh brother, calming myself, doing a bit of hypnotherapy visualization. Lately life has been full of this sort of thing--getting routine annoying medical stuff done, and makes me thankful that I'm in good health overall.

Here's to a hopefully good weekend. We have a babysitter for five hours tomorrow--maybe we'll see a movie : )

Working from home today on this gray day with little bits of sun. Reminds me of my old freelance life a bit--the way you can intersperse work with personal business, all while watching reruns of Sex in the City. Spent a half hour on the phone with the IRS--a call I dreaded making and am so relieved I did. Thank goodness for installment plans. Oh, and while i was looking for those tax files, found my new driver's license that I thought I'd lost already (after going to the DMV twice to get it in the first place). The quest to get organized goes on.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of meeting my husband, Bill. Time is a funny thing--we are so caught up in the sweep of life (and quotidian details)--childcare, work, aging parents, money, that we forget to just be a couple. I hope this weekend we can channel some of that early, giddy energy we felt 10 years ago after meeting at a bar in the Mission, shyly exchanging numbers and emails, then slowly beginning to date. Here's to a decade together--all that's happened and all that's to come.

Friday and an iced latte at Martha's, my local coffeehouse. I'm almost done working and will go get Alice in a little bit. Missing my sister in Paris today after a particularly poignant email from her about the complexities of living in a foreign city. She was supposed to meet a new friend and his fiancee for a drink tonight but got lost in the Marais, and ended up missing the rendezvous, and walked home alone, feeling a little defeated. Having lived there a short time myself, nearly 10 years ago, I remember that feeling exactly. Language barriers, maps of streets with names like Rue de Antoine and Rue Faubourg de Antoine...(I'm probably spelling them wrong) . She also is a bit isolated and worried about our dad--so I guess life really does follow you wherever you are. Still, she is having spring in Paris...so it is all worth it.

My spring is glorious today, also--San Francisco is in full flower though more rain is on the way this weekend I hear. Tomorrow we are touring an assisted living place to see if my dad could live there. Not looking forward to it--so many other things to do on a Saturday, but I need to make some decisions.

It's Wednesday and already been a busy week. I stayed home with my daughter yesterday--she has a cold--but really, I needed some time to deal with the business of finding my dad a place to live after he moves out of my uncle's house. He had a heart attack and stroke and can't live alone. I'm finding out firsthand the stresses of taking care of aging parents (and I'm not even actually taking care of him...yet). So, lots of phone calls with my sisters and with health care professionals giving advice on assisted living facilities. It's a new world that we're going to have to learn to navigate. "MCI" mild cognitive impairment is the term of choice, apparently (don't utter the dreaded "Alzheimer's" until an actual diagnosis is given), because that ramps up the costs. It's heartbreaking to think of my dad living in a "home" when part of me would love to take him in, but our cold, drafty Victorian flat really isn't the place for him, as hard as it is for me to admit that. In most of the world, our place would be considered palatial, and could probably house several generations, but I'm forced to admit my own limitations. My days and weeks are already filled to bursting with work, childcare, housework, commuting, and my marriage already suffers from the lack of time. Moving my 73-year old dad in would not help any of this. I love him, but I have to think about myself and my husband, too. I hope we can do the right thing for him, I really do.

Easter weekend

For my first-ever blog post, I'll just start where I am right now. Rainy Monday in the Bay Area.

I was thinking this morning as I hustled along the streets of the Mission to catch my work shuttle, that weekends have begun to feel like projects with too many have-to's and not enough unstructured time. It's the fate of the two-income family with a child--too much to do, too few hours. As I hurried to the spot where I queue up to get on the shuttle, I was reviewing my weekend, giving points and minuses for the good and bad. Good: Took a walk on Bernal Hill in the late-afternoon sun on Sat. (the only sun we got this weekend); found the perfect spring coat and it didn't put me into even more debt, and best of all--big, homey family Easter lunch at our place with my husband's immediate family. We cooked all day, had an indoor egg hunt, drank a little rose with the Whole Foods ham, and basically had a good day.

The Bad: My daughter had a little cold and didn't end up spending any time outside. Plus, due to our disorganization, she missed an egg-hunt in Stern Grove and didn't get to take a picture with the Easter Bunny at Stonestown (big drama). Plus, I was denied an extension of credit to finally buy a new sofa, something I've been wanting to do for like 8 years. So, looks like for now at least, the dumpy hand-me-down is here to stay. Also bad, all the cleaning we had to do pre-and post-party. Didn't get any quality one-on-one time with my husband. Well, cooking together is quality time for sure, as is relaxing in front of a fire while watching an excellent documentary on PBS about Jewish filmmakers from Germany who fled to Hollywood under the Nazis. But, not the kind of time together we really need.

But, as I walked along the streets of San Francisco in my new beige spring trench coat, I felt a little lift in spirits--amazing how a new coat can do that. In a city that can be colder in July than in April, you need the protection of a warm coat every day, and finding one that looks cute and even kind of hip made this 42-year-old mom feel a little bit better. So, i guess the Easter Bunny brought more than chocolate this year.