Normal...

I'd like for Chris and I to just feel normal again.

I'm certain that most other flood victims feel the same way.

Yesterday another colleague, P, whose family experienced the joy that has been the Great Flood of 2010 and I went to lunch with a third colleague.

"All I've been eating for the last week is sandwiches! And donuts! I NEVER eat donuts!" exclaims P. "I just want to go out to lunch and feel normal!"

So we go to a favorite Japanese restaurant for bento boxes.

As we're walking into the restaurant I say, "OK. Let's NOT talk about the flood over lunch."

So, what do we talk about for the entire meal?

The Flood.

What else is there to talk about?

Pre-flood when I was feeling "normal" I'd come home and get so very aggravated with myself for the accumulation of the piles of mail, assorted junk and books on our kitchen table. And the baskets of clean laundry that make their way to our bedroom, but never seem to get from the baskets to the drawers and closet (where are those d@#$ laundry elves when you need them???) Or the mess on the kitchen counters that we forgot to clean up from an earlier meal.

But now - looking around at the post-flood chaos of our house - I am longing for the messy normal we had before.

And I'm kind of longing to be obsessing about Schmoopie and not "where the h@## are we going to put all of this stuff?" or "How the h@## are we going to pay for all of the demo and construction in the basement?"

Chris says to me this morning, "Y'know, I haven't even looked at the adoption profile since before the flood. How many hits do we have?"

I check the site and tell him.

"Hmm," he says.

Sad that we can't even work up any excitement for the adoption at the moment.

And now my latest obsession is that we need to get this house put back into some kind of order ASAP because we might get The Call and then where would we actually PUT this kid? Future baby room has been converted to packed storage room. And our bedroom is such a mess that there would be no room for a co-sleeper. And there's certainly no downstairs right now to house a play area.

Oy.

My head hurts.

Our pre-flood normal was far from perfect. However, I'd take that normal in a minute.