Glorious Rainy Dreary Day

Today was my first day out of the house in nearly a week. It is overcast and sloshy out there, and many of the leaves are off the trees now--stuck to the pavement like soggy bits of discarded newspaper. Our backyard is a carpet of yellow leaves lying on their faces.

We had an appointment with the baby doctor this morning and all is well. The little monkey kept kicking and bumping around as we sat in the waiting room, and then kicked at the little heartbeat monitor as the doctor felt around on my puffed-up stomach. It’s difficult to tell at this point what’s a foot, a fist, or a tiny baby bottom poking out, but nonetheless, he loves to groove around in there and make himself known to the outside world.

I, too, have been kicking my way toward the outside world, slowly. I managed to crack or separate my rib(s) during a sneeze-gone-wrong last week and have been hobbling between bed and couch since then, trying to heal. Never have I been so bored, so uncomfortable, so irritated by Oprah.

Jeremy has been sweetly caring for me, concocting a fabulous new spaghetti recipe and helping me around the house. Today is the first day I have felt ready to get out and about, so after the doctor visit, we stopped into Marche’, the new Artisan Foods café (from the talents of Margot) which finally opened for business in our neighborhood this morning. Hoorah! Back to the rainy-windowed Paris cafés we went in our minds, as we sat with thick white porcelain mugs of coffee and a delicious bread basket. We slathered up wedges of raisin toast with fresh gourmet peanut butter, local honey, and sweet red jam. The music—nostalgic old jazzy tunes--matched the vibe perfectly: cute marble tables for sitting, and rustic wooden cabinets housing rows of artisan pasta, Italian canned tomatoes, and bottled anchovies for sale. This will be a new favorite escape, and was a perfect first outing for my morning away from home.

If only there was something to shield the obnoxious, red tinsel-covered letters reading: HUNTERS Automotive across the street. The walls of Marche' are at least three-fourths glass and could stand a more romantic view. Our neighborhood remains a mixture of old run-down Pawn shops, boarded up storefronts, new lofts, and quaint shops all reluctantly holding hands. There are times I embrace the diversity, and moments when I want to take a giant sponge and wipe it all clean of its remaining dilapidation.

I am back in sofa-land now, not minding (a bit) the rain outside, or Sam the dog’s clinginess as he bundles himself into the crook of my bent knees, trying to get warm. Jeremy is a few feet away in the Map Room, whispering new lyrics and slapping his hands against his legs to keep rhythm as he writes. Out front, the crabapple tree is full of fruit, and a stranger is asleep on our front steps. It’s a wet day, a grey day…but a cozy day when it actually feels good, for a change, to be stuck inside.