life and other complications

i can see clearly now

because i finally got new glasses. thankfully so, because "you'll need to see well with that little one on the way!" or so sayeth the lady at the glasses store today.  notably, because this is the first time i've been called out as pregnant by someone who didn't know i was pregnant*.  all based on the (rapidly expanding) belly. so, yeah, i guess i have moved on from the looks like i ate too much pizza stage and am onto, there's a baby in that there thing stage. while it's comforting that i won't need to borrow Mrs. A's awesome shirt (previously noted):

since, apparently, there's no longer any confusion that i am indeed fat with child (ok, being honest, also fat with last night's pizza. ok, *always* fat with pizza).

the child-inside-of-me concept is wholly bizarre and, really, not unreminiscent of Alien, tired though that comparison may be.

so i press on, shop-shop-shopping my way to motherhood. yesterday was eat *and* shop in a day's work, with Union Square Cafe lunch followed by baby shopping at Schneider's. lunch was with my mom, Joan and the-also-pregnant Liz (not *my* CaliSister Liz, but the Liz i used to baby sit and who's due about six weeks before i am), and was delicious and very eventful as a man at a nearby table had an attack of sorts and had to be taken away by ambulance. he seemed to be ok by the time he was carted off, though, FYI, that was a full *twenty* minutes after people called 911. i'm not any expert on how these things should work, but i kind of think that twenty minutes is an awfully slow response time. especially when USC is a hop, skip and a jump from both St. Vincent's and Beth Israel hospitals. i promptly advised my mom et al. that, should i ever require emergency intervention, hail me a cab and get me on my way... the waiting *is* the hardest part. especially when you're in and out of consciousness as this guy was.

then it was onto Schneider's (with a brief stopover at Anthropologie) where i visited strollers as per my usual. i cannot, for the life of me, choose a stroller. i'm enamored of this one:

but am hearing that it might be a bit of a pain in the ass to fold and get into and out of the car. so, at least twice weekly, i visit this (the Stokke Xplory), the Bugaboo Cameleon and various other strollers in the hopes i can come to a conclusion before the baby is A) born and B) walking. more on the what-should-i-buy struggle to come. be so excited.

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* though, notably, back in November before i was out of the pregnancy closet, an older relative cheerfully asked me "how's your pregnancy treating you?", clearly confusing me with Jomama, who was very preg at the time. now she's done with that though as the baby (all 10 lbs of her) has arrived.

throwback housewife

that's my new thing.  since i was ever-so-charmingly relieved of my job, i have had time in abundance. idle hands, as you may know, are what i use to spend $$$ the devil's tools, so i have been keeping super busy. i've completely dedicated myself to the pursuit of housewifery (is this pronounced like midwifery, i.e., house-whiff-ery? or more like the word housewife with "ery" at the end?). this means i have been reorganizing cabinets, cleaning grout, and, mostly, cooking cooking cooking.

this week alone it's been roasted chicken (somehow ridiculously excellent, despite the fact that i winged it with a combo of about three Food Network recipes) with root vegetables, chicken fajitas, Mexican omelets, multiple loaves of banana bread (obvs with chocolate chips), turkey/white bean/kale stew. not to mention the 200 cocktail meatballs of New Year's Day.  Justin finds it funniest that whenever we eat something i've made, i am always like, "this is *delicious*, like, really, really, excellent". i don't know why it's so comical that i would love to eat the things i've cooked, since i clearly cater to my own palate when figuring out recipes. i skew to myself as an audience. (and, it *is* good!)

to help me hone these cooking skills, and to fully take advantage of my, er, extended vacation, i'm taking a five-day cooking course at ICE and, really, could not be a bit more excited. i have been wanting to take this course way back since French Emilie took it in the early aughts but never had five weekdays in a row. (and the idea of five subsequent Saturdays was not that tempting as i am way too attached with weekend time with J to give up that big a chunk). somehow i've managed to convince my mom to take the course with me and, seriously, after we are done, you won't want to get on the business end of our spatulas. i am more excited for this than i've been for anything in recent memory. hopefully, i won't suck!

barefoot and pregnant...

and utterly unable to sleep. at all. please let this not be a bad influence on the baby-yet-to-come. "but, mom, you were up at 4:30am playing on the internet." or maybe he'll just refuse to sleep at all as an infant.

so, yeah, things that are out of the question or fail, but that theoretically could help me sleep:

• Wine. oh, sweet wine. ok, so i never drank wine before bed to "unwind" before I was pregnant.  i used to be able to *sleep* before i was pregnant. the irony--or sad coincidence, to be sure--is not lost on me
• Tylenol PM, or some other over-the-counter, knock you right out and leave you way worse for wear in the groggy, cloudy morning. good for me, not so much for baby...
• Ambien. i took this on a plane once and slept blissfully and uninterruptedly. not even sure if i *could* take it during pregnancy, but as i'm trying to limit the unnecessary consumption of any chemicals for these nine months, it's clearly not something i'm taking up now
• Counting sheep.
  
  every time I start doing this I end up counting sheep in the periphery of my mind, but thinking about way more important things like nursery bedding sets, baby names, cloth diapers and whether i'll ever really start pre-natal yoga.  suddenly, i realize that while i've counted 200 sheep, i am even more awake than i was at the outset. it's like i want to bound out of bed and buy up some sock monkey sheets. (which, really, might have too much brown, come to think, as Mrs. A and i had previously agreed).
• Working out. ok, obviously, 4am is not the ideal time to hit the gym but if i had worked out today, i'd be more tired now and, thus, asleep (?). but when i got put on a "no exercise, no heavy lifting, nothing strenuous" regime at the outset of the pregnancy due to super-fun threatened complications, my gym-going was put to a stop. shockingly, prior to finding out i was pregnant, i had just implemented my get-in-shape-just-in-time-to-get-fat-and-pregnant plan. (really, i figured--with groundbreaking insight--that if i lost weight first, my net pregnancy gain would be less. like, amazing how i was able to come up with something so novel, no?) baby's health, however, comes before my own vanity, though, so as quickly as they began my gym days were over.
• Calling the CaliSister. not that she's so boring she puts me to sleep, but she's calming, yo. alas, even with the three-hour time difference and her own tendency to sleep way too little*, it's still too late to call her.

so crocheting and playing WordTwist seem my only options. there's got to be some other option out there...?

* unrelated to pregnancy, duh!

adventures in babysitting

since the youngest of my babysitting charges is now finished with college, and kind of a grown up, i figured it was time to go back to my roots and get my babysit on again. it's been quite a long time since i've babysat, as i'm not sure if watching Winston all these years counted.
so it worked out well that Sam and Mark had cause to celebrate in the city--Sam's parents' 40th wedding anniversary--and needed a sitter. enter, Justin and i (ok, the whole Thurston/Lovey thing* had a good run, but in my dotage i grow lazier still and having to remember additional names is tough. so done and done-- it's all about reality now) who filled the bill in that (a) we love Henry lots; and--the perhaps determinative factor--(b) the rest of their trusted babysitting crew was going to be celebrating along with them. however it came about, J and i were excited to give the babysitting thing a go, even going out there a couple of weekends ago for a Henry-gets-put-to-bed demo**.

armed with detailed written instructions, as i'd requested, we then handled the parents-leaving-kid-not-noticing-they're-gone moment with aplomb. and the multiple episodes of Dora on DVR definitely helped our cause. (here's a quick Dora query-- is every episode one where they have to get to a thing/destination, they whip out the map, have three stops on the way, and try to avoid Swiper who is more likely than not riding a handcar like the Wile E Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon?) we played some stacking games, sorted shapes and before we knew it, Henry was fed, in PJs and we'd gone through Goodnight, Moon. into the crib he went, and then that was it. not a peep.

although i had brought my camera to take lots of pictures, i soon learned that photographing an eighteen-month old is *way* harder when you're the one watching him. this was my only photo op after Sam and Mark had departed:

instead, there are many photos of me intently staring at and listening to the baby monitor to make sure Henry was moving/breathing, once we had put him to bed:


then, there was Justin, also ever vigilant--just not regarding Henry--re: the Final Four:

all in all, babysitting was a success. it didn't hurt that we had the most perfectly cheerful and fun little guy under our care. (and, no, this does not mean one of our own is in the works-- this kid thing is way hard work. and i am way way lazy. so TBD, ok?)

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* besides, EvilA has retired from blogging and doesn't even read my blog anymore anyways. (i'll pour one out for the formerly rantastic fellow).

** this was totally at my our own insistence as Sam and Mark could not be more easygoing and required no such prep work on our part. yes, i am neurotic.

play ball

because i am all about "anything worth doing is worth *overdoing*", i sort of handled T's fantasy baseball draft as if it were a child's baseball themed birthday party. this was no easy feat, considering T was resistant to a me-catered affair, insisting that "we usually order pizza and everyone is fine with that." happily, during one of our countless weekends out of the city, visiting friends, the Garster let me know that pizza was not the ideal, just what had been previously provided at drafts of yore.

since i have come to learn that the best men are "fueled by bacon", i set about making up a brunch recipe that would cover the important pork-product category. what i came up with was french toast sticks with bacon belts (sorry for the utterly uncatchy, yet fully descriptive name-- marketing was never my thing). i then took a few different french toast recipes and altered them according to my needs. a little Alton Brown for a recipe base, and doubles it--adding vanilla, real maple syrup and using 1 cup half-and-half + 1 c. milk instead of all half-and-half. and instead of cooking the french toast in the oven on racks, i just used a buttered cookie sheet. before baking, i sliced each piece of french toast into thirds.  then took bacon (which i had parcooked in the microwave) and cut each slice in half, wrapped the bacon around the french toast stick, tucking the ends under, and baked for 15 minutes or so at 375 degrees F. although i forgot to photograph it, the sticks were a major hit. (even though T neglected to give everyone plates, preventing his fellow drafters from enjoying the sticks with syrup, as was my intent and, indeed, the very reason i sent out a tray with the sticks, two types of maple syrup, napkins and *plates*).

but the pièce de résistance was the little cupcakes i made to look like baseballs. (ok, to vaguely resemble and, thus, evoke thoughts of baseballs):

i just frosted devil's food cupcakes in vanilla and then used thin red fondant strips to emilate the stitching. these were so cute. oh, if only T and his friends were five year old children at a place like Shep Messing's Soccer World* or Sal's Baseball Academy. alas, the novelty and coolness may have been wasted on this crowd.

ah, what can you do... (clearly, not stop baking and turning out overwrought, way-too-involved desserts.) now i just need to sleep. last night's overabundance of lychee martinis (at Chola with the Lamps) followed by too much more wine at Chez My Parents (a/k/a where we live these days. yes. still) has taken its toll. and chasing this guy around the apartment sure didn't find me any new energy:

at least there's still Sunday to regroup.

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* although, according to the internet, there is no such thing as Shep Messing's Soccer World, i *know* it existed at one point in time. in fact, as the only (or at least one of the only) girls attending Todd Kussin's elementary school birthday party, i am 99% positive that during an indoor soccer game, i was so dedicated to defending my team's goal (no joke, as left-fullback) that i dropped my shoulder and stood my ground as Lowell Simpson came downfield and BAM! gave him a bloody nose.

new tricks?

back in the day (1981 or so), my mom tried to be rational with me and use positive incentives (i.e. cold hard cash), to get me to do some basic chores. ever the lawyer, i suppose i wanted it committed to a written contract, so she couldn't try to change terms on the fly or--the horror--renege.  see below for that contract:
 

well, here we are 27 years later, and still i have a hard time with all of these save #3. (and without live-in help, the housekeeper's day off is now seven days off so, yeah, that one's way tougher now too). T is horribly sad seeing this list and realizing it's not just that i've picked up some new habits in regard to being sort of a lazy ne'er-do-well unfond of straightening up, being polite and lending a hand. i, frankly, take solace in the fact that i've *always* sucked and, thus, am not going downhill but am holding strong! 

it really is amazing though that my character and who i am today, is kind of who i was when i was six. scary? un peu.

that's right-- you can say that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Raph Waldo Emerson-- i know how to stick to my guns. whatever the consequences.

Jack (1999 - 2008)

Jack (1999-2008)

last night, or rather early this morning, my parents' cat Jack died. Jack was kind of clumsy, always adorable and had the sweetest personality. sadly, for the last few months, no doctor could figure out what was wrong with him-- he was limping a bit and also seemed a bit shier, but was still the sweet cat we knew.  on Monday, fairly suddenly, we realized things had taken a turn for the worse and my mom brought him to the vet's office.  the doctors didn't think anything was seriously wrong with him, but kept him overnight for some tests and observation.  when my dad brought him back home last night, my mom could tell that he was really unwell. they brought him back to the vet at 9pm or so and they were going to run some more tests.  then at midnight the phone rang-- he'd had a seizure.  then at 1am, the vet called again to let my mom know he had died, despite every effort. they said he did not suffer, so that's comforting but the whole thing is still shocking.  we will miss him a lot and so will Winston, as the two of them were kind of BFF.

NYSD? (so much better than NOCD)

did i ever tell you about the time (yes, singular, because i am so not the socialite i would have been were the choice up to me) i was in the New York Social Diary? it must have been a light news day, as T, my brother and Lil E all were published in our "support a good cause" finest.  this time it was a benefit for Riverkeeper, which i discussed at some length in the past, even how thrilled i was that i was (for once) snapped by Patrick McMullan*.  i kind of forgot all about it, until i googled my own name and lo and behold:

there i am! and they even used the picture where you can't see my full leg brace!! how awesome!!
(scroll about four fifths down the page to see me).

and, yes, this may be a lame post but i know Frank is reading now, so i feel the urge to post more often than just occasionally.

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as an update, i was *not* photographed at Robinhood, so the dream died pretty quickly.

wheeeee!

so if you came home and saw the above how excited would you be???

it's the Nerf Wii Sports Pack! yayyyyyy!

ok, not so much. because here's the catch-- *we* don't have a Wii.

for some reason, my mother (with whom we *still* live as renovations continue) decided that it was important to buy not one, but two of these Wii Sports Packs. somehow, not as important to buy an actual Wii with which we might use said Sports Packs.

O. Henry never even dreamt up this one...

wax on, wax off: a travelogue

so a couple of weeks ago i was in for a real treat. just before a grueling day of Sunday errands--Home Depot (in NJ) and Home Expo (in Westchester), T and i paid a visit to the Carwash King. and you have no idea how fun it was. though i was sans real camera, i still had to document the perk of my winter season--

the King let me ride *inside* the car during its wash at his fab new carwash in Kearny, NJ (The Kearny Auto Spa, for those of you in need of excellent car washing). now maybe to some of you this is no great thing, but trust me, ever since pesky insurance rules have gotten in the way, most car washes make you get out and send your car through by itself.  indeed, the Kearny Auto Spa has such rules.  lucky for me, i was exempt and got to relive the car wash fun of my youth.  (according to the King, his friend's four year old son enjoys the car wash ride almost as much as i...)

here is my adventure, about to begin! (yes, i was made to sit in the passenger seat, lest i steer into the wall or something. T declined to join me because he has maturity beyond mine):

from inside the tunnel (where normal folk merely watch their cars get cleaned, T and the King hang out, mocking me, no doubt):




there's T again!

each color soap does something really important towards cleaning your car (or else it just looks cool. yay! rainbows!)

getting rinsed:
       

now a better documentarian than i would have remembered to take a picture of the freshly cleaned car. but i am not that good! instead, i will leave you with a photo of the awesome diner where we were taken to lunch (photo by Nesster [Flickr]:

you may also note the highlighted sign, which prompted me to ask, "what are 'Cheesecake Cocktails'?" because that sounds gross, no? as it was explained to me, they are letting you know that they have both a) World Famous Cheesecake and b) (presumably not World Famous) Cocktails. ah, the mysteries of life...