You Take it on Faith, You Take it to Heart

"Catherine? It's James. It's 2:57 p.m. Tuesday, June 13. I've just left Bellingham City Hall. The plans for your house are officially under review."

"Now what?" I ask.

"We wait," James replies.

Except for that detail where every last penny is sucked into the whirling vortex of theoretical invisibility that is my new house, the waiting is, in fact, not necessarily the hardest part. Regardless of my hyper leg-swinging fidgety ADD-ish-ness, I pride myself on my reservoir of patience. I always carry a book. I like to walk. I don't mind a line. And, (cliche alert) the good stuff really is worth waiting for. So here's how I'm passing the time while the COB examines the plans:

1. I take care of my animals. Kosha has taken to Incredible Journeying himself from his dad's house to mine, so if you see this panting, bedraggled dog with a shit-eating grin and a filthy undercarriage anywhere between Fairhaven and H Street, let one of us know. Stinky mostly takes care of himself, but on Open House days at the condo, he has to ride around with me in the Vanbulance. Also, completely without meaning to, I've quasi-adopted Snowball, who hangs out on my porch daily. If this is your cat, or the cat of someone you know, please call me.

2. I surf the net. Currently, I'm obsessed with baby animals, so I visit http://cuteoverload.com/ every day and follow along on other assorted Blogs O' Interest. Also, I check in with my celebrities at http://www.thesuperficial.com/ and investigate important house-related stuff like the price of dual-flush toilets .

3. I make shit. Rachael Ray, step back. I recently cooked a spinach-stuffed sole, a shrimp pasta salad, and some broccoli thing. "Big deal," you might think, but that's because you didn't know me during the quesadillas-every-night years.

4. I hang out with The Most Adorable Nephew In The World. This is a blatant, unabashed excuse to include my brother's precious son here. Again, you might think, uh-huh, big deal, a baby. But in this family, Tom is THE big deal--the first baby born in like, 35 years. So the pressure is on. I'm pretty sure it won't screw him up.

In these pix, he helps me navigate the blueprints for the new house. I've explained that his guest room is the one with the under-the-stairs alcove, like the nook in my grandparents' house, but he really only seems interested in pointing at clocks and shouting "COCK!" and trying to figure out where Grandpa has hidden the chocolate. Wait till Mom and Dad won't buy him his own Camaro. Bet Aunt Cathy and her Fairhaven pad seem pretty cool then.

5. In no particular order, I also read, listen to music, go to baseball games (I'm totally not making that up! Ask Charlie!), clean house, ride around town on Ruby (my bike, not a horse), and spend way too much time earning my 1000 Schrute Bucks watching downloads of The Office. Also I take a lot of naps (no photo available, but please note the featured artwork...proof that I am, in fact, becoming my mother.)

There is no such problem as having too much time on your hands. Time is all we have, and the problem is not that it creates a barrier between the now and the not yet, but how to turn that blockade in to a bridge. The house I'm planning to share with my boyfriend, our families, and our friends is months away from being more than a vision on paper and in my head. The time between its imagining and its existence is mine to spend--with worry or whim. I'm going to go ahead and squander it gleefully.