Normalcy Over-Easy

Breakfast is the single most important meal of every day. Not because of it's "good start" qualities but simply because it fits. It's comfortable. Breakfast's consistent nature wins in the long run over the exotic tastes of dinner and lunch. It holds a constant comforting spot at average.

For three months I've lived with my friends in Seattle sans wife, dog, and sense of self. Waking up early in the morning finds me hiding in my room. The two children have been conditioned with a digital clock to abandon their beds at six-o-o and not a minute sooner. This mandate is overridden if the kids hear any noise prior to six-o-o (If someone is awake the day has started.) Such a noise could present itself as a house guest made breakfast, watched television, showered, or even from the simple act of opening his most certainly squeaky bedroom door.

There are so many opportunities to misstep in a situation such as this. Leave a dish out, eat the chips, comment on child raising. All bad. Even when approached with my cautious friendly touch. Not eating dinners they cooked, cleaning all sorts of dishes, and ignoring questionable behavioral from their kids is also meet with mild scorn. As hard as it is on me, it must be at least that hard on them. Sure I don't remember the last Friday night I had to myself, but babysitting seems a fair trade for a roof. Besides, it has been mostly good. I suppose maybe strained at moments would be a good assessment of the bad. I couldn't have accepted this job without their help. That said I'd gladly sleep on a towel in the corner of my very own place.

I move into our West Seattle apartment this weekend. It's not a separate part of the city borrowing it's name sake in an attempt to appear cool; It's in the city proper and stands alone as more of district or burrough. Within two blocks of our modest one-bedroom place are Indian, Chinese, pizza, Italian, and Thai restaurants. Same for a Blockbuster, two banks, coffee, bagels, second run theater, two grocery stores, gas station, a florest, and a place to go out for breakfast.

Though I don't have the keys yet, I visited West Seattle yesterday. I parked outside the apartment and wandered around. Window shopping down California Ave. for a few blocks before catching a flic, eating some za, and wrapping it all up with a grocery run to the fancy, high priced market. For five hours I pretended that I lived there and wandered around with a sense of neighborhood ownership and belonging. It felt good.

Three weeks till my wife flies in with our dog. Now that there is an end date it's almost harder to get through each day. I've busied myself with TV, books, and lots of sleep (naps and otherwise) avoiding the 'missing her' feelings. Even though things will still be upside down till our Chicago place sells, we move all of our stuff west, and purchase a new condo, there is one giant step toward normalcy about to happen; I'll soon be sharing my comfortable morning meals with my lady.