Yesterday, we had an "all-hands" meeting at the Kansas City Zoological Gardens, which is a fancy-schmancy name for the zoo. Apparently earlier that morning, someone (presumably not the animals) had stolen the continental breakfast, resulting in a near breakdown for the meeting organizer. Luckily, the goods showed up before I arrived.

After about three mind-numbing hours of PowerPoint presentations, we were allowed outside for more "teambuilding," which is an adult term for recess. After about thirty seconds outside in the 70-degree September air and sunshine, my soul was salved of all corporate BS. I felt like a million dollars. Which brought about the realization that I almost never go outside during the workday. If I do, it's for five seconds on my way to some other silo of recycled air.

Adults need recess! I hadn't realized how much I miss it. Despite the fact that it now takes me 15 minutes to get from my desk to the outside air, I am going to try very hard to take recess at least once a day from now on. Notes next week on whether or not I am just full of my own hot air. Hopefully the other penned animals in the 32nd floor zoo will join me.

Yesterday, the idiots at Oz decided to start my baby on solids. She has never eaten solids before, primarily because I was allergic to everything on God's green earth as a child. Her pediatrician recommended we wait until she is six months old, which is not for another week.

Okay, so she was going to start them soon anyway.

Okay, so very few babies are allergic to rice cereal.

I still want someone's ass in a sling. Here's why:

Having to go back to work and putting the little angel at Oz made me feel a) like a bad mother and b) very helpless, like I had lost control. I am a control freak - ask anyone. Turning her care over to any other unrelated human being (or even some who are related) makes my skin crawl. Finding out they decided to make parenting decisions while I unknowningly toiled at my stupid cube makes me furious.

I chose Oz over in-home daycare because I assumed the director was IN CHARGE. That there were POLICIES AND PROCEDURES. When my beloved dropped the little angel off this morning - OVER MY DEAD BODY, OOPS I HAVE TO EARN - the director was beside herself with concern. She apparently called the offender at home and asked why she gave the little angel cereal. "Because she was fussy" was the answer. What's next? Little Jack's Ridalin?

Okay, I can hear all the counterarguments already. I can't control everything that happens in her life. This is just the first step in a long series of disappointments as a mother. I can always give her her second first taste of cereal this weekend. What's done is done.

It doesn't make me not want to cry if I think too hard about what happened yesterday. It doesn't make me feel like a better mama. I never realized I could love another person this much, and I never realized I could feel so utterly and totally deflated when she has a big moment without me. This mama thing sure is hard.

My company decided that it needed the space where my department sits to house other, more important people, so this weekend, we are moving downtown. I am happy and sad about this. I'm happy because I will get to sit next to a window on the 32nd floor of a mostly glass building. I'm sad because it will destroy the beautious nine-minute commute I have been enjoying for the past few years.

To prepare for this move, we had a scheduled tour earlier this week. Unbeknownst to me, the tour included PHONE TRAINING. Few phrases, other than maybe "freezing drizzle," can inspire more dread in me than "{insert HR phrase here} training." I HATE being trained. It reminds me of high school.

The woman in charge of our phone training informed us right off the bat that she wasn't the REAL trainer, but a substitute who had been called in at the last minute. I wondered if she was like my mom, who is an elementary school substitute teacher, who trains herself to answer the phone at 6 a.m. on one ring and always irons clothes the night before JUST IN CASE. Had this woman been eagerly sitting by the phone in the wee hours before dawn, hoping against hope for the chance to do our phone training? Based on her attitude, I think not.

We began the training. There were about ten of us. The other side of the room came from the financial department. Ever notice how financial analysts regress faster than other adults during phone training? I wouldn't have suspected it either, but those bean counters really know how to party down when released from their calculators. They thought it would be really funny to conference everyone in on their phones, then hang up REALLY FAST. I grew weary of the whole encounter rather quickly and began whispering my envy of my co-worker's cookie, and the teacher actually CLAPPED HER HANDS at me. I couldn't believe it! I, dedicated phone learnee, reprimanded by the reluctant phone sub. The injustice of the world stung. It just stung.

Forty minutes later, phone training was over, and we were out of the building. It was kind of like a bad dream. I'm afraid to see the phone on Monday morning.

I think playing Peek-a-Boo makes me feel about as stupid as anything I have done as a new parent. Really, you CAN'T look cool playing that game. Especially in public. I'm not sure what about it is so hilarious, either, but it does have one redeeming quality: It taught the little angel how to laugh.

I have been playing Peek-a-Boo now for about a month, at the bequest of all the early-childhood literature. Something about object permanence, oh, I forget. Anyway, tickle and play Peek-a-Boo. So I have been, with no real interest on the little angel's part. Until last night. Last night, she decided it was about the best thing she'd seen since Reno 911 and started laughing, LAUGHING OUT LOUD when I did it. My beloved actually came rushing out of the kitchen. "What's that sound?" he asked, wielding canned chili. We were both shocked. It is a little disconcerting to have your squishy blob baby suddenly start acting like a human being overnight, holding her head up and MOVING and LAUGHING and things. Totally weird. And totally wonderful. ha ha ha ha

I think playing Peek-a-Boo makes me feel about as stupid as anything I have done as a new parent. Really, you CAN'T look cool playing that game. Especially in public. I'm not sure what about it is so hilarious, either, but it does have one redeeming quality: It taught the little angel how to laugh.

I have been playing Peek-a-Boo now for about a month, at the bequest of all the early-childhood literature. Something about object permanence, oh, I forget. Anyway, tickle and play Peek-a-Boo. So I have been, with no real interest on the little angel's part. Until last night. Last night, she decided it was about the best thing she'd seen since Reno 911 and started laughing, LAUGHING OUT LOUD when I did it. My beloved actually came rushing out of the kitchen. "What's that sound?" he asked, wielding canned chili. We were both shocked. It is a little disconcerting to have your squishy blob baby suddenly start acting like a human being overnight, holding her head up and MOVING and LAUGHING and things. Totally weird. And totally wonderful. ha ha ha ha

The little angel has a cold. I hear her coughing from time to time in the night. We called the pediatrican, shoved unread baby books under one end of the crib mattress to elevate her head and bought a must-be-cleaned-daily-or-will-become-infested-with-icky-mold humidifier. We salined her nose. She is still sick.

It doesn't seem to be bothering her too much. Her disposition is still as sunny as could be expected, but there are faint purple circles under her little eyes from disrupted sleep, and Oz tells me she has other, bowel-related problems, but I have seen no evidence of that yet. She snurgles a lot.

When I told a friend about the little angel's situation, he described it as "kennel cough." Apparently puppies get sick a lot from being cooped up with other puppies in the kennel. I'm not sure how I feel about that description, but that's pretty much the size of it. I know she either gets sick a lot now or sick a lot in preschool, but I still feel somewhat bad sending her back into the germ fray at Oz every day, now that I've had my first experience with what it can do to her.

Poor baby. Wah.

This weekend, my beloved, the little angel and I had dinner with friends. Over the course of dinner, it came up that they had met through an online dating service. Apparently, the male half of this duo had withheld this information before because he was under the impression there is still a stigma attached to such services.

Let me clear the air.

I've thought a lot about the subject of how people meet, particularly those out of college and without planned activities that force one to interact with people with whom one shares interests (graduate school, for example). I remember struggling desperately with the whole dating scene when I lived in Chicago, land of leather-wearing, materialistic freaks (and some dear, dear friends - don't get me wrong). I found that many of the 30-something single men in Chicago were more concerned with their leather couch or their down payment than their date's hopes and fears.

When I moved to Kansas City, I was further stymied by the perceived lack of single people. I think we made some magazine's countdown for "worst city to live in as a single person." As I would ponder my situation in my one-bedroom over yet another Smart One and bottle of wine on Friday nights, I came to the conclusion that modern society has stifled community to the point that IT REALLY IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MEET PEOPLE if you don't already have a circle of friends and acquaintances in the city you live in. I know most of the people that I hang out now because of a) work b) grad school c) friends' friends. I imagine if I were dating, it would be the same way. I wouldn't probably again date anyone I work with or went to school with (I've seen things like that turn bad, though my beloved and I did work for the same company when we met), so that leaves friends' friends. If you don't know anyone, or only married people, you're kind of out of luck.

It is so hard to find someone with whom you'd like to attend a Bach Vespers, let alone spend your life. With this sort of mounting challenge, is it any wonder that our service-industry society has spawned paid methods of meeting people? Is match.com any different than my beloved sorority, Delta Gamma? I took a lot of crap for "paying for my friends" in college, but really what I was paying for in my mind was organized events at which I might possibly meet other people my age who liked to drink cheap beer.

So stop with the stigmas already, people! In a country where we can screen calls simply by lifting the phone and staring at it, how can we be surprised if it's hard to make a love connection without a little organizational help? If you paid for a service to help you meet your loved one, be happy that it exists! Think if all you had to rely on was a county fair, or, God forbid, your workplace? Think if you had to let your mother set you up with all her friends' sons and daughters! Because that, my friend, is the alternative. Egads. Thank you, electronic dating world inventor. Now everyone, go set up your single friends. They need you.

Last night I went to a much-needed happy hour after work. I had every intention of having ONE drink and leaving after an hour. However, sitting outside in a beer garden on a sunny, autumn afternoon laughing with other adults felt really, really good. It felt carefree in a way that I am not often carefree these days. Not that it's a bad thing to have this responsibility - I would not want to go back permanently - but for two hours, it was nice.

Until I realized I was a bit buzzing and ten minutes late for the parents' meeting at Oz. Que horor.

I frantically tried to call my beloved to let him know that I would be late, while attempting to display a calm exterior for my friends. I had a feeling said beloved would be none too happy with me for showing up late and smelling like Ernest & Julio. At least it was outside, so I didn't also reek of cigarette smoke. Thank goodness for the little things.

I trucked in there as quickly as I could and met up with my beloved. Then we sat and listened to the parents of older children gripe about the teachers in the Pooh's Pals room (I think Pooh's Pals are around two years old). I made a mental note to get the little angel the hell out of Compton by the time she is two. All the complaints the other parents seemed to have, though, did not apply to the little angel's cohorts, so I was feeling pretty good about my village in Oz by the time we left. I questioned the judgement of parents who were worried that Oz earning a Missouri state certification would up their tuition (no, don't improve! It might cost more!), but other than that, it was an interesting experience.

Then I went home, decided to have ANOTHER glass of wine (hey, I had already thrown the Points thing out the window by that time) and proceeded to have a feature-length dream in which Matt Damon first tried to get me fired by erasing my hard drive and then tried to kill me by running me down on a twisting, seaside road in his Mazda. I'm not sure how to interpret this dream. I don't work with anyone who looks like Matt Damon. So perhaps it's a sign I should cut back on the People magazine. I'm not sure.

Last night I went to a much-needed happy hour after work. I had every intention of having ONE drink and leaving after an hour. However, sitting outside in a beer garden on a sunny, autumn afternoon laughing with other adults felt really, really good. It felt carefree in a way that I am not often carefree these days. Not that it's a bad thing to have this responsibility - I would not want to go back permanently - but for two hours, it was nice.

Until I realized I was a bit buzzing and ten minutes late for the parents' meeting at Oz. Que horor.

I frantically tried to call my beloved to let him know that I would be late, while attempting to display a calm exterior for my friends. I had a feeling said beloved would be none too happy with me for showing up late and smelling like Ernest & Julio. At least it was outside, so I didn't also reek of cigarette smoke. Thank goodness for the little things.

I trucked in there as quickly as I could and met up with my beloved. Then we sat and listened to the parents of older children gripe about the teachers in the Pooh's Pals room (I think Pooh's Pals are around two years old). I made a mental note to get the little angel the hell out of Compton by the time she is two. All the complaints the other parents seemed to have, though, did not apply to the little angel's cohorts, so I was feeling pretty good about my village in Oz by the time we left. I questioned the judgement of parents who were worried that Oz earning a Missouri state certification would up their tuition (no, don't improve! It might cost more!), but other than that, it was an interesting experience.

Then I went home, decided to have ANOTHER glass of wine (hey, I had already thrown the Points thing out the window by that time) and proceeded to have a feature-length dream in which Matt Damon first tried to get me fired by erasing my hard drive and then tried to kill me by running me down on a twisting, seaside road in his Mazda. I'm not sure how to interpret this dream. I don't work with anyone who looks like Matt Damon. So perhaps it's a sign I should cut back on the People magazine. I'm not sure.