Pillow Talk

A glorious thing happened this morning.

I slept in.

Today is the first day of my maternity leave from work. Technically, I'm burning vacation days, but I am simply ruining the office pool for those who bet that I'd still be at my desk when my water broke. (A police reporter informed me, "If that happens, I just want you to know, I'm not cleaning that shit up.")

On any other given Saturday, I would have woken before the birds and the sun and my entire household and headed to downtown Toledo. I would have had the entire newsroom to myself for a few hours, mostly transferring wayward customers' calls to circulation to discuss the non-delivery of their printed edition of The Blade. Which is a great job for an online editor, btw.

I would be mowing through the moderation list of comments readers had left on our online edition, mostly overnight and apparently drunk. There may be a wreck or a drug bust to write up, but I also may leave it for that grossed-out police reporter. Unlike weekdays with a full newsroom and a steady stream of stories to be posted, weekends are rather slow and one must scour the wire for those long analytic pieces that may have some interest to readers, just to freshen the site for those hoping to leave a few hungover comments. A good two hours can be consumed by preparing the Sunday advances after the presses spit them out, three if the photo or graphic files aren't where they're supposed to be.

Saturday mornings aren't too bad of a shift, but sleeping in is waaaaay better.

So is wandering downstairs and spending some time chatting with my husband on the sun porch while we laugh at the dogs frolicking on the deck. Eating cookies for breakfast.

There's a grocery trip that needs to be made, and I might run some errands with my brother. The recycling bins are overflowing, so I will have all day to nag my husband into taking care of that.

Once/if motivation strikes, I'll tackle the stacks of stuff in the dining room that should be in the nursery, and the basket of stuff cleaned out from the nursery when it was my dressing room that should be in several different drawers and shelves all over the house. But I'm on vacation all next week, so I have plenty of time to do that.

By next Saturday, my schedule likely will be ruled by a squalling infant and sleeping in will be a thing of the past. I'm going to milk it today for all it's worth.

I may even take a nap later.