Expectations

Every morning I open up my e-mail account and expect that I'll see an e-mail from Smith. It's been months and months since he's contacted me, but I still expect that I'll hear from him. It's odd really, how long an expectation can last. I've trained myself not to be disappointed when I don't see anything from him.

I wonder how my cat is doing without me. Zac and I officially moved out on Saturday into our apartment, much to the cat and the toddler's dismay. Every time we would come back to the apartment after an errand, Zac would look at me and say, "OH...we are going back THERE again?" almost like it was a question. He expected to go play at Nana and Papa's house, where there are entire television stations devoted to shows he loves that his Mom can't get with the stupid basic cable package. There are also two more adults for him and no roaches to contend with. I think the bugs bother me way more than they bother him. He hasn't even noticed them yet, but he does notice me screaming, "You will die today!" while brandishing a large can of Raid.

I don't think it's too much to expect an apartment without cockroaches. Manfriend came over yesterday and opened up a drawer to find roach droppings intermingled with the cutting knives. A roach crawled up on my hand at the exact moment I was asking him what the funny black spots were. I happened to be holding a large butcher knife at the time and almost sliced Manfriend's stomach open as I screamed, "Oh dear God! Get it off me! Get it off me!" over and over and lurched back into the dining room. Fortunately, my apartment is so small that you can be standing at the stove and hand someone a plate of food at the dining room table. It's like living inside an Ikea showroom, only with more cockroaches and less Swedish wall art. All of my dishes went into the dishwasher after the roach incident. I'm lucky that I only have four plates and two bowls, or that could have been a more time-consuming endeavor.

Tonight Zac and I are sleeping at my parents' house. I have to go to my fundraising class and Zac is getting the privilege of being the center of my parents' world once again. We've slept in our own apartment for two days and I expect that Zac will be loving every minute of attention that he can get from his Nana and Papa. I know that he'll definitely be excited by Noggin and a couple games of Candyland.