Piles of Isaac

Look how little! And he can already blow kisses.










Rad hair, baaaaaad attitude.










Imitating mama in labor.










Heart-shaped nostrils, special ordered.











Mwah.

Isaac Thomas

March 24, 3:35am
8 lbs 10 oz
21.5 inches

We're all happily lazing in our hospital suite, letting them do the laundry and cooking for a couple of nights. Plus I like the bendy bed. Everything went perfectly and I am so pleased to meet him.

Thank God!

Same, you?

Sorry, I got nothin.

I hope we'll have news and pictures and gushing of all sorts soon.

You must be at least 76% as sick of hearing that as I am of saying it.

POV

{Should you be so curious, you'll have to click the pics to enlarge and see the pirate ship in the first one and the relevant text in the second.}




Pirate stories, especially the Shanghai-ed variety, are fun because people are often whisked away from the daily grind and forced into a complete otherness of perspective. When I was a kid I daydreamed about being kidnapped by the circus or transported back to Mozart's time (where I would be the best player EVER and would also understand that rats carry the plague) or I would be taken on some kind of adventure in which my family would unknowingly be saved by my incredible horsemanship and Wonder Woman costume. I was (was?) a daydreamy kid. Mom often had to remind me to "stop dawdling" and put on my other sock as I sat on my bed in a reverie on school days.

The hijacking of my life by my family feels a bit like one of these imaginary sagas. Daring situations come up, new characters are introduced, the path just gets randomer. Today it occurred to me that I like it that way. Call it a new flood of hormones on an already swollen sea, but the next year is looking more like a beacon and less like a burden by the day.

I recently posted a 35 x 35 list of things I wanted to do before turning 35 in May. That pipe dream has been revised as I have been busy doing much more important things like building a human being in my middle and eating several tankards of refined sugar daily. So, as owner-operator of this whole shebang, I have revised my list and expanded the deadline such that these things are now to be completed throughout my 35th year.

Just to avoid boring you to death, I'll refrain from including my list here, but maybe it will show up somewhere later if I find it motivating. My mom's not so likely to remind me to keep going with this, so maybe I'll be off on other trails and May 2009 will come and go without a whimper. I think I'll stay tuned to find out. You can see the old version here. For the record, I've completed 4.267 out of 35. That's 12.19 percent.

Heart wide open, fully invested life is all a matter of your POV.

Week 38 Round-up

I've caught that dreaded third-trimester bug, you know, the one where the preggo cannot stop watching Discovery Health shows involving rare disorders and high-risk deliveries. I have a few hours to myself right now and I spent part of it wallowing in frightening medical possibilities, with Toby at the Aumsville toddler ranch while I take care of some high powered (cough) viola career-related jockeying and teach a student in Portland. Mostly I had my bible study come over and also had tea with my pianist while we talked about what we wanna play this year.

As to my balance of ambition/parenting dilemnas, I think I have found a partial solution for at least the next few years. My focus will turn to my duo, building the viola studio at the college, and to opportunities I can arrange for myself. Those are the things I enjoy most artistically anyway. Those are also the most easily self-driven aspects of classical freelancing and they afford me the most control. I would rather put my energy there than in drumming up gigs and networking, though there are a few ensembles I will always agree to play when they call.

A brilliant friend reminded me about grace this week- and especially that it can include the ability to be okay with a different circumstance than one has planned. This relinquishment of control and trust in grace applies both in sacrifice and in receipt of energies and abilities.

A phrase from a song lyric has been rattling around my head: heart wide open. I want that in these preschool, busy, boring, frenetic, rapid adaptation years. In the three most important years of my life (marriage, Toby's birth, and now Isaac's arrival) I've always longed for the ability to be present, to slow down, to remember and absorb my own days.

I tease and complain about pregnancy, but I hope I don't forget what it's like to actually contain all this life, otherness, potential.

And I hope he comes soon.

Zoot!

Toby's old enough now to actually notice and enjoy the animals. In the last pic he's demonstrating his look of deep concentration. Wonder how he'll look at his brother for the first time... and when- WHEN?! WHENNNNN???!!!

Recent Viewings

We've seen a lot of movies lately. Each time my parents volunteer to have us stay, we like to swing over to a theater after Toby's gone to bed. Or sometimes Dad will go with us and Mom and Toby have play-time on the ranch. She's particular about movies, and we take all comers, so it works out nicely.

The Departed: C+. Is it just me, or does Scorsese pull a wiggle of his enormous eyebrows and at the very end make fun of the audience for taking this movie seriously? There are good performances, of course (Leonardo, Marky despite his hideous hair), but generally I think if I was a writer for this film I'd be ticked. I don't mind shoot-em-ups, but Reservoir Dogs this ain't. It felt like an ad for the Scorcesian style, the movie itself be damned.

Be Kind, Rewind: B+. I really like wonky movies centered on characters rather than tidy plots. And it's well-known I have a thing for Jack Black's style. My personal jury is out on director Gondry (LOVED Eternal Sunshine, and all those Bjork videos, but not so sure about Science of Sleep) and there are certainly some cliches of his own style in this. He has this one habit of setting up little scenes and then walking the camera along them horizontally, like a child would move from room to room of a doll-house or diorama. He seems also to like things that wiggle: fingers, children, streamers. If you want your movie to make a moral statement and to have an easily discernible plot structure/form, you probably won't like this. His pacing is all his own here, so you won't have the constant gags of standard Jack Black vehicles. I think he got a bit lost in his exploration of the middle act, but otherwise I liked it just fine.

No Country for Old Men: A. I have a huge crush on the mind of Cormac McCarthy. My dad put me onto his writing way back when, before any of the books were movies. I remember All the Pretty Horses made me cry actual tears from my hard-hearted cold-blooded ducts. It's the kind of writing you feel older for having read. No Country is one I haven't read, but it felt like McCarthy. They didn't glam it up, they didn't make it about anything less than the foundations of the human condition. In his writing there seems always to be a few distilled conversations between austere characters that define the kernel of the work, and these were not absent in the movie. Again, there is no hollywood tidiness here but you won't mind for the richness of the tale. Also, Tommy Lee Jones is yet another lawman, but like none other he's played, and his lack of an Oscar should embarrass the little naked bronze man.

WFMW: Backwards Edition: Graceful Transitions

Today's Works for Me Wednesday is a backwards edition, meaning I ask for advice & solicite your ideas rather than coming up with my own.

So, here's what I'd like to know.

How do you gracefully handle fundamental change? We are about to go from one great kid (2 y-o boy) to two. I am about to go from miserably pregnant to ALL THE HECK DONE (whoooopp!). My career as a musician/teacher is sort of in adjustment, per the general SAHM-ness of my life for the next few years. I don't take the ability to be home with my kids for granted- it is exactly what I want- but I won't pretend my personal ambitions are in some parental deep-freeze.

I would love anything from practical advice on balancing being a mom and caring for my own drives (ambitions, goals, professional stimulation) to tips on how to breastfeed while potty training.

Thanks and check out all the other folks looking for advice (and the neat ideas they'll get in their comments) here.

Dude, where's our car?

Sorry for our absence.

I've been working on a couple posts, but we were delayed in Salem by the guy who hit our parked car, putting it out of commission for at least a week. I gotta say, as much as having somebody hit your nice innocent car stinks, the best scenario for this to happen is while you are inside a movie theater watching the Movie of the Year and it is parked outside. No arguing about fault, no one hurt. Even the tree he creamed after glancing off our car and pushing it into the street had only a few scratches in the trunk. Poor guy had low blood sugar, or so we heard.

Now we're careening around in a ginormous Durango thingy, which we have dubbed the Black Jeep of the family because Toby has a thing for Jeeps. It has room for the entire World in the dashboard alone, so if you come by we'd be happy to put you up in the 800 thread-count cupholder cozies.

Yay for insurance. Poor Jeep!

WFMW: Unstuffy Classical Music

This week for Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer's Works for Me Wednesday, I am going to give you an insider's guide to some of the coolest classical music and FREE internet resources for finding more you might like.

Broadening your child’s musical taste while expanding your own

As a professional classical musician (I’m a violist, in case you are bopping by for WFMW. Feel free to submit viola jokes in the comments if you like.), civilian friends sometimes ask me what music I like to play for my kid. There are a lot of pieces out there you are probably already familiar with (whether you know it or not) because they’re common in soundtracks, car commercials, produce departments and Muzak tracks worldwide. I’m looking at you, Pachelbel’s Canon and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

There are some really cool classical works out there that you may not have heard yet. I’m aiming for things that are accessible enough that you’ll enjoy them the first time but complex enough that you’ll still be enjoying in a few months (hopefully years!). Here are some of my (and my 2 year-old boy’s) favorites.
So let's dig in!






Bela Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra
I’ve blogged about this piece before, but it really does get the job done. It’s got it all: huge brass and strings parts, rhythmic drive, beautiful melodies. Bartok was a fascinating character and also happens to have written a lot of great stuff for viola. If you like this piece, you might also enjoy his 44 Duos for Two Violins. Here's a link to a free listen of one movement on Rhapsody.

Maurice Ravel: String Quartet
This is an incredibly cool piece and I bet with a little legwork you can find it online free from some enterprising ensemble, because it's one of those pieces you have to play if you want to be the new hotshot virtuoso string quartet.

Felix Mendelssohn: Octet
Can you believe he wrote this at 16? Sheesh. I totally want this played at our 50th anniversary or some other huge party. Help me think of reasons to throw a fete.

The Naked Violin: Tasmin Little
Don’t worry, she just means naked as in unaccompanied. This is a FREE release for download by well-known British violin virtuoso Tasmin Little. I am in love with her concept, and have in fact been trying to get a similar (though currently not so famous) project off the ground. I would recommend starting with the incredible Bach Partita, then moving on to the intense Ysaye (pronounced Eee-sigh), and working your way through the Patterson. Her website even includes ideas for classroom use (cough- heyhomeschoolers- cough).

Which brings us to an intro to a few of the many Rad Online FREE Broadcasts
New York Philharmonic
Here’s a great site to get you started with listening to lots of different repertoire if you don’t happen to have a good classical station where you are. You can listen to whatever they had on the air that week through your computer for FREE. And NYPhil, they aren’t going to let you down.

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
If this orchestra were a person, for me it would be Johnny Depp. Maybe Will Smith. Anyway, it’s hot with a million t’s, and I have always loved them. Ask any classical string player about their dream orchestra job, and I’d lay money they’ll mention Orpheus sooner or later. They play without a conductor and every single musician is one of the best in the world. When I was a wee undergrad in New York, I had the pleasure of getting to know a few of them. Once I even got to listen to a dress rehearsal in which Gil Shaham (wonderful violinist) was playing and James Taylor was sharing our row in the seats at Carnegie Hall. It was neat, even though I didn’t know who James Taylor was at the time. So, that’s a tangent, but you should really look into any recordings/videos/podcasts/internet broadcasts you can find. I especially recommend their recordings of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (I know, but it’s a great piece and actually deserves the fame), and the disc with Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and Britten’s Simple Symphony is one of our household favorites.

Alexander Street has a blog offering a free classical download once a week, which I just discovered while surfing for this post. Might be worth checking out, and I know there are more like this out there.

Many classical radio stations have excellent podcasts available free, as do a ton of orchestras. The last three top-tier orchestras I played with all had a free kid's program at their local libraries. Check around- I bet there is a whole community of vibrant, unstuffy classical music near you.

So that's what works for me- another WFMW whacked out at the JWards.
Thanks for sticking with it to the final cadences!

28 days!

Because I don't count today or the day I'm actually due, there are just 28 days left on this hormone trip! Last stop, everybody off, this train is speeding back to the yard to remedy all misshapenness.

28 days is a fun thing to google, because you come up with either everyone's favorite sweatpants & beer movie star Sandra Bullock or a deadly virus.

I'm doing a little dance. It's jiggly, but it's mine.

Inspiring

I wanted to put some thought and organized writing into this post, but for now I'm just going to get it out.

This weekend at Imago, an African man called Saah Joseph came and told us a little bit about how our church and others had helped him in his pursuits over the past year. He told us a ton of churches have sent folks over to talk about how they were going to supply wells and promising him the moon, only to disappear. I cannot fathom how a church could do that to people in such dire straits. Christians should be outraged at that, maybe hunt down the offenders and slap them with fish. I recommend either electric eels or spiny blowfish. But that's not what impressed me about Saah's story: check out a few of his accomplishments.

Saah played on the Liberian national soccer team before the chaos in Sierra Leone in the late nineties. Since the struggles he has planted 17 churches, 12 schools and a technical program for women whose only choice before his doors opened was prostitution. His programs sound practical and effective: for $500 sponsorship the street women are taught to read, given a meal a day and basic medical care, given a sewing machine, given prenatal care should they need it, and upon graduation receive $100 toward starting a business. This is a man whose father was killed and mother shot, who was forced to escape on foot, walking more than 400 miles through the bush to a refugee camp. He is 32 years old.

He is 32. 32!

He was joined on our church stage by Benjamin Nkusi, a man who survived the genocide in Rwanda. This guy spoke so matter-of-factly with the lilting accent of Africa that you could easily have missed the facts of his story. He hid in a home with his wife when the rebels came, and hearing them fire on the room where she lay he assumed she was killed. Fortunately, she was unharmed. They were then stranded behind enemy lines without food, and he was forced to go out in search of some. He said this like I would mention a trip to Target. In fact, he had to leave their hiding place on foot, was picked up by somebody with a truck and unfortunately didn't escape the notice of the rebels. They pulled him from the truck and tied him in the back room of a bar. He said a man drinking in the bar was a "specialist in the killing of people", in just the tone you or I might mention that somebody's very good at Trivial Pursuit. Happily for Benjamin, a priest happened by while he waited for his executioner and asked permission to speak with the prisoner, then chided the rebels for having innocent blood on their hands. And they let him go. I imagine that saying this is an exceedingly rare outcome is an understatement.

After the genocide, Benjamin started a ministry of reconciliation (ALARM) and has seen executioners turn themselves over to the mercy of families of those they killed. As he said, "it was very difficult for those families, but they were able to show mercy and forgiveness."

There are so many unimaginables in these stories that I can hardly believe I sat in the same room with these people. I've seen Hotel Rwanda, I had Japanese friends who were in Sierra Leone as all hell broke loose. Reconciliation, grace, mercy, hope: these words act weighty, but what do they really have to do with my own world?

The grief and terror these people have experienced is so indescribable: hopefully it doesn't also become forgettable in the clutter of my daily life.

ps. If you'd like a good place to start with support, try Living Water International. It's our church's Lent project.

Juno (not Juneau)

I'm really glad Diablo Cody won the Oscar for best screenplay. I like her freestyling ways, and wonder if she's fun in real life or if she's too cool to just hang around with. This is a woman who pulls off leopard print and jet black dye jobs. I can honestly say I'm looking forward to reading her stripping memoir and am curious to see what angle she takes on what I think would be kind of a sad life.

And with that, my swelled up hands are numb and I'm going to need a poking stick with which to type. Pretty!

Skip this- it's ugly.

I cannot believe I have 32 days left. My hands get sausagey and numb with no provocation, I am awake every night at 4am (give me a call, we'll chat), the steering wheel in the Jeep is giving me a cello-mark on my belly button and I... well, I waddle.

I think the extra fat has infiltrated my grey matter, because even my thinking feels groggy unless I'm mad. Which is a lot more often lately, right honey?

I am drinking raspberry leaf tea and casually asking the midwives WHEN WILL YOU START THE NATURAL INDUCTION STUFF??!!! (In another 2.5 weeks.)

How do people do this with more than one kid?

A day at the beach

XOXOXOXOXOXO

I'm feeling gushy! Schmaltzy, sentimental, full of good cheer. Here, have a pic from last Easter. It has been a lovely Valentine's, and my man isn't even home from work just yet.

Toby gave his first spontaneous hug to anyone in his age bracket today. His girl Audrey (an older woman at 2 3/4) walked in and he pretty much chased her around hugging her and looking deeply into her eyes for several minutes. She played hard to get, but I can tell she digs him.

He also put his hand on my cheek and called me pretty while I was writing this post. He's never done anything like that before, either. My men are goooood, people. The bigger one sent me Valentines tulips!

Here, have another heart-stopping recipe from last night's double fondue date with my parents!
Grown-up Creamsicle Fondue

1 package vanilla chips
A splash (maybe 1/4 cup) milk or heavy cream
Grand Marnier to taste (we doubled the recipe and used one of those airline-sized bottles, about 4 tbsp)

Melt the chips with the cream, either in the microwave in 20 second intervals or in a fondue pot while stirring constantly. Add orange liquor once smooth and melty.

Give your loved ones some banana hunks, pieces of pineapple, strawberries and pulled-apart chunks of angel food cake to dip. Since we'd already done a big fondue dinner, we gave everybody their own little bowl of the good stuff instead of all dipping in the fondue pot again.

In addition to being Valentine's day, did you know it's Oregon's birthday? She'll be 150 next year.

Here's to you, my friends, family and occasional random blog readers. Hope you and yours are enjoying the day!

Pot, Kettle.

Rachael violin ho came for a visit! And she brought her better half Tim, and together they brought Toby a bubble machine (mind. blown.) and a huge green ball and some clothing he can put on his little brother. Yay!

This afternoon Tim and I ganged up on Rachael and made her commit to at least three Big Auditions this year, because she is awesome and is clearly on the cusp of winning a lucrative job. Maybe even something with an insurance package, which is nothing to sneeze at for a classical musician.

When we got done browbeating her and they piled into their Seattley blue Volvo to drive back to their trendy Seattley home, I realized I was feeling kind of... jealous. Or guilty. Or... is that strange sensation... could it be I felt- motivated?

See, there's this minor local audition in four weeks from which I had excused myself for two reasons. One, I am huge scary pregnant and my hands regularly take tingling catnaps without warning. Two, I feel sorry for myself having not won much local crap and would like a break from the suckage wringer. (I really wanted to write suckage wiener. Wierd.)

So I went to the orchestra's website and took one more look, and at least one of the positions only requires four excerpts. There is pretty much no excuse for wimping out on such an itty bitty thing. Except maybe labor. (C'monnnnn labor!) So now I think I stop whinging, commit and take the stupid audition.

Of course, by the time J got home just two hours after this epiphany, I was already in a foul mood- and no, I haven't even taken the viola out of the case yet. I'll say it before Rachael can. Hypocrite!

Cream: Good

I am making this recipe, which I found at Epicurious, my favorite recipe site:

Cream Cheese Ice Cream (Gourmet Magazine, August 2003)

Active time: 5 min Start to finish: 2 1/2 hr (includes freezing)
Makes about 1 qt.

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

3/4 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup heavy cream

Preparation

Blend cream cheese, milk, lemon juice, sugar, and salt in a blender until smooth. Transfer to a bowl, then stir in cream. Freeze cream cheese mixture in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, at least 2 hours. Let ice cream soften 5 minutes before serving.

So, if you don't hear from us for more than a few days, assume our arteries have clogged and hardened and we have developed instant diabetes from eating- or perhaps even smelling or looking at- what is essentially hunks of sweetened, frozen cream cheese with berries on top.

LLLLLLLLLet's gggggoooooooo....

I seem to be slowing down at everything lately, blogging included. I miss coming up with thoughts and commentary on a regular basis, but it seems every time I turn around it's 3 or 4 days later.

Toby and I went for a long walk today over on 23rd and Lovejoy, a popular Portland area. I think it used to be all artsy and eclectic, but now there are at least three Starbucks and several other chain restaurants in the mix. Not that we mind that- in fact the kiddo and I shared a muffin and some quality car-on-table-top noisemaking time in one of them.

A few doors down from S'bux there is a super cool store called Hello Portland. If we were throwing away money, I'd pick up a bunch of the plate sets and stuff they have for kids. We don't last long browsing while Toby grabs at trendy and breakable nicknacks, but still it's a neat little place.

It's hard to be patient with Toby. He's generally a really compliant, curious, energetic guy, but he also weighs 31 pounds and is almost as stubborn as J. Not even close to my level of obstinence, but he may just get there... I'm kind of relieved that at just a hair past two years old he probably won't remember Pregnant Mama.

Today was a beautiful 55 degrees and sunny, and I tried to focus on just letting him walk at his own pace and explore (mostly) whatever he wanted. Alas, there were still moments where I wished we could put him on wheels and pull him around. I'm thinking something along the lines of a human-powered sidecar. J's suggestion is to find a stout harness with metal hardware and mountain climbing ropes, to be attached at the parent's waist. All those people who snicker at Toby's beloved stuffed dog-shaped backpack harness leash doohicky would really have a field day with that, but then they don't have to worry about him careening into traffic or picking up smoldering cigarette butts or getting squashed by a homeless guy's shopping cart, or.. or... I could go on all day with these. Must be the pregnancy hormones.

Works for Me! Frugal Websites

Today's Works for Me Wednesday theme from Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer is all about websites.

My current favorite websites are about living within your means. My definition of frugality encompasses getting exactly what you want for as little outlay as possible, while avoiding buying things just because they are cheap or wasting money on things that turn out to suck. With that in mind, here are my recommendations and habits as a thrifty net citizen.

1. Getting my game on.
The ability to be frugal and remain on a budget is similar to maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regime. I need to do it in a flexibly creative way that motivates me, or I will drop it faster than a toddler can empty an unprotected tissue box. (3.52 seconds, in case you're wondering.)

One key component for me is saving money in ways that give me a sense of accomplishment. By finding sites that tell me about stuff like home design stuff I can do well myself without looking hokey, luxe baby clothes I can copy or find used, or cheap versions of material goods I can upgrade on my own, I stay in the game and want to stay on the savings wagon. Some things can't be faked, but by comparison shopping I can at least know for sure I've found a decent price. Shopping around also requires time, and denies my NOW NOW NOW impulses.

Design Mom & her sister Oh Happy Day are good places to start for my daily dose of hip things though neither include frugality in their design lust criteria. DM in particular has a great blogroll to surf through, often holds giveaways and is at least as satisfying as a subscription to a design magazine without all the piles of magazines. (I do LOVE realSimple, though!)

Sweet Juniper, a talented SAHD writer ex-lawyer, talks about finding great stuff at thrift stores in Detroit so rapturously you can't help getting caught up in his vibe, and about being thrifty as a cultural heritage.

From there, if I need more creativity inspirations I look at sites about whatever it is I'm focused on at the moment. Lately that's been Apartment Therapy, Martha Stewart and Strobist. Find what you like, and look around to see what other people have come up with. Don't be turned off by big price-tags; look for items that might work in your own home and could be copied or emulated DIY. If it turns out to be something worth saving up for, then you'll know where to find it when you're ready.

2. Actual advice on living cheaply
I've recently discovered Want Not, which is a site written by the very pretty Mir (short for GUESS WHAT most awesome name?!). She posts daily on all sorts of deals, coupons and sales at both online and brick-n-mortar shops. She also posts often on her level-headed financial philosophy and between her and her savvy commenters I have picked up some good tips. Frugal Hacks, Parent Hacks and Dave Ramsay's anti-debt site are other good bets.

3. Sites where I am a regular customer
Craigslist, baby. In-person, local, cash-only, no-surprises is made for me. I've bought and sold high-end furniture, strollers, and musical instruments there. (My family jokes about finding their Christmas gifts posted there but I swear I haven't done that... at least not with anything they gave me!) My current favorite searches include "murphy" (we want to build a wall bed for our guest BR queen), "joovy", "tandem" and "double" (we're looking for a schmancy double stroller but I'm allergic to paying $280 for one). I've seen some really neat things go through the free pages, but in Portland you have to be VERY fast on the trigger to snatch those puppies so I hardly even look at that section anymore. Some folks swear by FreeCycle, but I found it annoying. Restaurant.com has some great deals, especially when they have a coupon special for 60% off their vouchers. I like the sites everyone else goes to, like Amazon and iTunes, but it has to be a pretty serious deal for me to actually pull the trigger and buy from them.

4. Research
I often search the internet for thrift and resale shops in my area, and even at retail I like to know before going anywhere in person what the going rates are for things I'm hoping to find. The customer reviews & ratings at bigger sales sites are invaluable. I don't go to five grocery stores or do a ton of coupon printing (though I do clip from the paper) like some hard-core frugal folk, but if something costs more than $20 I usually compare prices online.

The internet is filthy with frugal parenting and how-to-stay-home mom sites. Some are better written and more regularly updated than others, but a quick trip through a few blogrolls should yield a crop you like. One site I found linked from who knows where is A Year Off, in which a family strives to get rid of anything extra and avoid bringing new crap into their lives for a year. They aren't doing it to save money, but the principal of living in moderation is a good one.

5. Conclusions
Finding inspiration, goods, philosophies, ratings and hacks is pretty much what the internet was born for. Keep your eyes open and your cynicism on high, and you can find some great tools. Cheaper is not always more intelligent in the long run, if it turns out to be junk. Budgets need room to build a life you enjoy, and that shouldn't be impossible if you calmly pick your indulgences & apply your throbbing brainpower.

Tricksy

...or, How to Trick Your Man Into Finally Taking the Family for a Tram Ride.

Imagine you are in early labor, and get the midwife-on-call to agree enough to have you all trek into town. While waiting the hour for test results (all negative) and having all uterine activity stall immediately upon entering the hospital (just like when it was Toby's turn) you might scam a nice gardenburger and a tram-ride out of the somewhat humiliating deal.

I'm still feeling crampy. Eight more weeks of this??

Or maybe I'm just lazy...

I think I'm becoming a Mennonite. Y'know, the long-skirted, long-haired (but always with the one-curl bangs, what's with that?) flowery gingham bedecked perpetually with-child ladies so common in rural areas?

You see, the problem is I am truly enjoying doing the grocery shopping less often. Like every other week. Maybe only once a month if I were a little more organized and had a bigger compound freezer. AND I used 30 coupons in one transaction today. Thir.ty. Wouldn't you love to be the dude behind me in line? So if the next time we bump into each other in Costco (where I don't even beLONG but I have blood relative contacts who share their account- our sect is tight like that) I'm wearing white sneakers and a denim skirt, a big tan fake leather purse and my cart looks like it's Y2K all over again, callll the poliiiice.

Violation

I haven't had many performances lately, and I'm starting to miss it. My duo has been working on some recordings, but other than that... crickets. It's scary to think how easily I could fall off the face of my life and into a different one, where being a mother is my defining characteristic and all those pesky years of schooling, competing and practicing were for vanity alone. Well, vanity and student debt. It's the one-two punch of less than essential doctoral degrees.

Don't get me wrong, having (almost) 2 kids will most certainly be one of the most important things about my life. But I plan to have a semblance of a music career as well, and believe it's the perfect compliment to J's day job. Once the kids are in school things will be a smidge less complicated, or at least complicated in different ways. I often find myself trying to plan ways to just muddle through the next hunk of years, viola-wise, so when I emerge on the other side of preschooldom I might have retained some artistic viability.

My solitary college student left for London for the semester with promises to work on all sorts of assignments and lug a school instrument across Europe on her back. That seems appropriate penitance for her only recently seeing the light and switching from violin to viola, no? I thought it was nice timing, actually, with my due date being smack in the middle of the semester.

Instead I feel left out. I have schemes and plans to build the viola department at our college, but it takes time when they've had more employee turnover than Dairy Queen for the past few years. Small schools like mine often dally when it comes to getting things in motion, and you may have noticed my atrophied career patience muscles.

So it's not that I'm not doing stuff about my career. And things. It's just a slower season, and I'm trying not to feel neglected by my colleagues and wonder what it will mean after the new baby.

Works for Me!

I've recently discovered a blog called Rocks in My Dryer. The author has a great thing going, where every Wednesday she hosts a blog carnival called Works for Me Wednesday, and people post suggestions on how to make life a little easier. I love going through the links- it usually takes me a couple days to get through the ones that catch my fancy. Plus, how smart is she with the idea-generating and hosting?

So here's my first post for WFMW.

Two year old Toby is tall enough and smart enough that he's now able to open our front door on his own, even when I lock the deadbolt. And as I like my heart to beat in a generally steady pattern, undisturbed by the whoosh of realization that he has escaped and is careening toward the street much faster than this pregnant lady can waddle, something had to be done. We'd rather not mess with installing any additional locks, lasers or stunning devices, so when this excellent set of bells came to me at Christmas, I knew just what to do.


He plays with them occasionally, yes, but after the first few days I expect he'll forget about them and they will only jingle when he's on the run. It's the jingle + silence that you're dreading listening for, anyway.

Any kind of bells would work, and if you are really smart and attach them (maybe with a wreath hook?) high up, the kid couldn't even fake you out by playing with them. Jingling bells would forever make your heart stop just a little, too!

Gifts!

Lately life is like being in an Oprah show audience over at casa del jwards- gifts are piling up under all our chairs.



We just got this sweater set in a package from the Kalispell grandparents. People who can knit are cool, and tend to be incredibly generous to boot. I love the hat- he wore it to church this morning with a brown plaid flannel and I felt like we were almost as hip as the other parents. He's going to be wearing that thing all the time.

The chair he's sitting on's from my aunt & uncle in Spokane. They are practically professional thrift & antiquers and we've benefited a bunch from their finds since Toby's arrival. They are my home-decor-finding idols.

Then there's that black fabric photography background. It came from my parents to J for Christmas, and it is going to be so rad to have that thing. Everything looks better in front of it. I mean, even this tattooed freak's enormous pregnant belly seems practically... naturalesque.

Grace

We have been talking, thinking, praying and reading alot in the last week.

We're no longer sure we should continue to pursue X's adoption. She is a toddler now, and as such will need some careful parenting in the first few years to ensure she is able to attach well to our family. She's also a pretty high-maintenance kid, most likely a healthy aspect of her normal personality.

If she had been available eight months ago, I believe we would already have her in our family and we would have that time under our belts. Our own two-year-old would have had some time to adjust to her and vice versa. We'd have all the logistics and carseats and rooms figured out.

Instead I am due in 9 weeks, which sounds like right about the time X's state would have liked to send her our way. We are probably moving, and this year is going to be full of some serious transitions for us and for our kids already. Over the past week (has it really only been a week?!), I have felt no sense of excitement. Some nervousness I would expect, but this blank dread? I could not have anticipated the gray weight of this decision or the lack of joyful anticipation. I am not one to be led around by my emotions, but I don't feel this is the right time to commit to a child who deserves the full measure of her parents' time and energy.

I believe God has grace available to us that we cannot even fathom, and I hope to live as though I know that grace will be there for me even in my parenting. But over the past few days I have been surprised to find a certain peace with our change of heart. Neither choice- parenting while under stress or letting X go without knowing what will happen next for her- feels anything less than wrenching. I did not feel led either way despite begging for a specific direction, but that modicum of peace has meant... well, it's frankly indescribable. This doesn't mean I haven't wept daily. And it doesn't mean that I'm sure I don't need grace to cover even this decision. There's no right or wrong here, no damn balloons will pour out to show we are following the right path.

This is by far the hardest decision my husband or I have faced. It is difficult at this point to even describe all the factors we have considered. We have taken this holiday weekend and turned ourselves inside out discussing, praying and resting. My parents have taken Toby for a birthday weekend sleepover, just another way they have helped us beyond what we can ever tell them. J's parents have given us wise and compassionate counsel worth more than I can say.

I would really like divine balloons right now, but I will take this respite from guilt and worry.

Happy Birthday to Toby!

Yesterday Toby turned two.

He's quite the kiddo, and becoming more him week by week. Right now his funniest habits are:
1. saying No to almost any question, and following up with an extremely serious, slow and prolongued head-shaking,
2. repeating any random words that catch his interest
and 3. acting out anything sharp-hot-dangerous by saying "No Touch, Sharp, heh-huh-heh-huh" with that last thing being him breathing in and out dramatically. It almost sounds like a donkey braying softly. I know what you're all thinking and yes, he must get all his drama from his daddy.

I made a ridiculous train cake with a poured sugar lake and cupcakes on the side. It was a hoot, and I would totally do it again.







Toby is so incredibly set for trains and train accessories. The grandparents on both sides provided an insane amount of toys and the table for him. Setting it up and unveiling it was the most fun I've ever had giving a gift, and it wasn't even technically from me.

Holy cow!

The girl we might adopt is coming for a one-week visit at the beginning of February.

I'm not sure what else to say about that right now, because when I try to think of a descriptive word or emotional state to pin on the whole thing, I realize the exact opposite of whatever I was going to say is also and equally true. Imagine one of those big-cheeked goldfish, who open their mouths as though to tell you something only to shut them back up when they can't quite get the thoughts to ripen.

More here, if you missed the long slow backstory...

Abstemious Viagra

Spam is funny. The subject of one today caught my eye, because "abstemious" looked legit and I had no idea what it meant.

Here's the dictionary.com scoop:
abstemious \ab-STEE-mee-uhs\, adjective:
1. Sparing in eating and drinking; temperate; abstinent.
2. Sparingly used or consumed; used with temperance or moderation.
3. Marked by or spent in abstinence.

Funny they put that in their ad for Viagra, no?

New means perfect, Part II

I really didn't forget to set goals in the two remaining areas of my life in 2008: God and Viola. (Not to be confused with Viola God, though I've known a few who surely thought they deserved that title...)

So far I've made a bit of progress.
*I got Toby into the Kiddie Exploration class at the community center (Friday morning alone time, here I come!)
*I've kept writing down every single thing we spend in my little blue book.
I haven't been doing much in my Health department except maybe eat a little less sugar, partly because I seem to get more contractions when I run around too much and mostly because you can't make me. That'll come when there's just one of us in this body and I'm cool with that for now.

Finally Internet, without further ado, here are the final two categories...

God:
1. Maintain some kind of weekly study or devotional, written by somebody smart, because I need structure and like to feel I've finished stuff.
2. Read some theology by John Piper (in progress!), N.T. Wright and add some as the year goes on. (Tiffany? I know I keep asking for the same recommendations, but?...)
3. Get a mom's group going again at my house.

Viola:
1. Assess and rewrite goals monthly.
2. Schedule lessons with colleagues. Aim for two per month.
3. Assess and rewrite goals for Nocturna monthly including; recitals, arrangements.
4. Get published- thesis, other article ideas.

This past week has been productive.

On the viola front, I made some little recordings of stuff with my pianist Anne and realized after listening to one that I rather liked it. Whoa! Recording is hard and there are usually cringing moments or if-only's in each one. The illusion that you can just keep recording until it's perfect creeps in and you take fewer chances. Pretty soon you aren't thinking much about expression, but are focused on technical issues or hoping you can keep your concentration and make it to the end of the take. I think being pregnant makes me more practical: I am in a do-what-I-can-and-be-pleased-with-that mode.

Homewise, I'm proud to say I am on a long streak of cooking all our meals (except date nights!). We're sticking to our budget prototype and with the glut of Christmas I don't feel I need to shop for anything more right now.

I think this organizing and being practical streak is my version of nesting.

The Braxton sucks sermon.

Sorry, blog. I'm pretty tired lately.

I spend a lot of time cursing Toni Braxton. Okay, I know they're really called Braxton-Hicks, but whatever you call them, practice contractions are of the devil. Besides, she clearly has poor taste in how to help endorse dental floss and Charmin.

Anyway, I'm running around feeling all my insides tense up and wondering if we are going to go from a family of three to five in a short period of time, maybe even shorter than we thought. And I wonder if I will be allowed to have a life outside mommyhood between now and my first year in the AARP. And if maybe parenting's what I'm supposed to do to the exclusion of other stuff. And whether I can do all this and still focus on my faith and my marriage let alone my music. Yup, MY. Mine. Me me me. I feel no guilt saying I've gotta be able to honestly commit to the roles I choose, especially parenting.

I've been reading John Piper's Future Grace, and it has already changed the way I thought about how we are supposed to live. The modern Church's way of sort of making good living a required & expected response to God, a "thank-you" lived out to repay Him, cheapens grace. It's unattractive to non-believers because it is all premised on a transaction-style dead and dusty faith. You're either in... or you're out. Worse, it's not what's emphasized by God in the Bible. Piper makes a very convincing case for our living by reliance and joy and thankfulness for Future Grace- well, here are some of my favorite of his words:

If grace is to be free- which is the very meaning of grace- we cannot view it as something to be repaid... {the debtor's ethic}
[and]
The Bible does not assume the true believers will have no anxieties. Instead the Bible tells us how to fight when they strike.
[and]
This is not decoration on the permanent structure of Christian life, it is what makes the Christian life permanent. We live moment by moment from the strength of future grace...

This is a radical idea, and it brings the emphasis back to a lively and almost dangerously current view of faith. There should be no worldly safety in being a Christian (incidentally, no guarantee of prosperity either). God's got us in a world full of all kinds of challenges but even greater piles of grace are available and God deigns to allow his grace to show (be glorified!) through us. It should be a little scary to ask for opportunities to be given those gifts, if we really understand what we're asking.

Just in case anyone's still reading, looky what Toby ate for dessert after lunch. Playdough!!

Horseshoes and hand grenades...

Can I just say, I'm really looking forward to the moment in time when science and medicine and Star Trek all align to create one of these little electric shaver-looking body scanner devices they wave over you to see exactly what is happening in your body in no uncertain terms?

I had a regular OB check-up on Monday, and it was the one where they do a glucose screen to see if you have gestational diabetes. You have to drink an unpleasant sweet syrup (why don't they just give the pregnant ladies a doughnut?!), wait an hour and then have your blood tested to see if your body has freaked out or whether you should allow yourself all the Egg Nog Latte's your heart desires for the remaining 2.5 months of hugeness. Mine was apparently fine because no one has called to tell me otherwise, but I wanted to tell you all about my doughnut idea before somebody else publishes it.

What was a little widgy was my protein level. They tested twice (it's a pee-in-a-cup type test, for which people in their third trimester have some seriously Olympian skillz) and could basically only say, "it looks somewhere between trace and positive."

This happened a few months back with another test (are you leaking, are you leaking, ew that's gross! ew that's gross! etc...), where they said it seemed pretty much kinda okay-ish "except maybe for one spot" and just recommended I think happy thoughts and let them know if my check engine or holy crap I'm about to have a baby light came on during the course of the day...

My hospital (OHSU) is very impressive looking. The Center for Women's Health is in the newest part, where the shiny silver tram lands, and is packed with expensive looking art and luminescent glass wall tiles. It's reassuringly posh. Point being, when I pee in a cup, I expect them to know for sure what it means- and to spare me the tea-leaf reader's digest.

Hmphh. I suppose I'll just have to waddle through the week with my whatever anxiety I couldn't park on my blog in tow.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

My viola-piano duo is playing a little concert tonight. On the program is a rearranged arrangement of "Silent Noon" by Vaughn-Williams with words by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. My favorite line is: Your eyes smile peace. He turns out to be kind of interesting, so I'm posting this while I continue to think about what I want from 2008.


Gabriel Dante Rossetti (1828-1882)
SILENT NOON lyricist
"Mainly remembered as a painter.
During this time, Rossetti acquired an obsession for exotic animals, and in particular wombats. He would frequently ask friends to meet him at the "Wombat's Lair" at the London Zoo in Regent's Park, and would spend hours there himself.
Rossetti described the sonnet form as a "moment's monument", implying that it sought to contain the feelings of a fleeting moment, and to reflect upon their meaning."

His wife overdosed on laudanum and he buried a book of poems with her, but later had them exhumed by his slug of an agent. The poems were harshly criticized and the whole strange episode pushed him deeper into insanity. Addicted to Chloral (one of the chemicals used to make DDT), he eventually died because of it.

Isn't he just perfect for a viola recital?

New means perfect, right?

I'm trying to take stock and work on some goals for the new year. For some reason I think I'm too good for the word "resolutions" which has the scent of desperation and futility to it in my mind, but basically that's what I'm making.

Do you do resolutions? Do you think about this stuff at the new year? Do you feel vaguely uneasy about things you didn't finish in 2007 and your ability to get it together in '08? What's your strategy? Hmm? Hmmmmmm?

So far there are five areas I'm able to consider: Health, Parenting, Home, Viola and God.

The first three are relatively easy.
Health: I'd like to get back to regular running (walking for now with my enormous belly), sign up for three fun runs of at least 10K, and maintain a food diary. These are all doable with a kid or two nearby and on minimal sleep.

Parenting: Get Toby into some activities as long as he seems to like them: sign up for a swim class for now, and try out the Friday preschool at the community center. I also want to take a monthly photo, either with the same background and pose or with some artsy and embarrassingly goofy pose. Gotta get it while the getting's good, I always say, and he's too little to roll his eyes yet.

Home: Stick to writing out all expenditures. Work on some sweet (intense!) paint color-schemes whether we end up staying here or moving. Amass a personal cookbook with everyday recipes- not too many ingredients, not too futsy.

Homer again Homer again.

We are home!

The holidays were great. We got too many thoughtful gifts to list, ate too much, watched the Simpsons movie many many times, played reindeer games and became real parents.

No, we didn't have our second kid yet (a large (REALLY, it's getting LARGE over here) part of me wishes things could hurry along in that medically inadvisable department). So how did we become so much more than velveteen parents? By surviving a ten hour road trip in which the kid hurled all over. Twice.

Wee!

All I want for Christmas is...

... a defibrillator.

The wee child's present to his mama in celebration of the birth of the Savior? Two heart attacks in one morning!

Scariness the first: I hear a clatter and then the dreaded wailing cry. He rode his little plastic car down three tile steps onto a hardwood floor. "Rode" is generous, since he pretty much flew over the brightly colored handlebars and landed sprawled and stuck with his car resting squarely atop his posterior.

Second terribleness: He can climb out of Grandma's pack-n-play in which he sleeps. He did it yesterday and we thought it was because he had grabbed the corner of a table and pulled himself out. But no. This morning, J heard some noises while Toby supposedly napped and came around the corner to see him standing outside the door of his room, at the top of the wood staircase.

Just when you think you've got the situation under control, they go and learn a new thing. No wonder the tree of knowledge was dangerous.

Merry Christmas!

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Absence makes the blog grow idle...

Sorry, blog.
We're in Montana.
Merry Christmas- I might post soon, or not.

Love to you all!

Frrrrrrrrrrrrrreixe!

It's like the universe thought and thought and finally came up with the perfect holiday surprise for a husband who loves film making and a wife who plays viola and drinks wine when un-knocked up. And neither are offended by directors paid to do a little product schilling. Much.

Click here to see what happens when a violist becomes a secret agent man. I like how much his viola participates in the tremolo sections.

Play?!

This morning we went to the Indoor Play Park at our community center. It blows Toby's mind every time- he starts running around with his hand up and knees high, alot like the kid in all those Maurice Sendak stories. For $1.50 and some extra taxes, I think this place is a steal.

I walk in and feel like a good parent. I can see how great my kid is when he's playing there. I feel that way at book babies and when I take him for leisurely walks, too. We need to do that stuff more often, and I hope I remember that when there are two of them.

It's funny how deeply my feelings about myself still affect my behavior. I guess I always thought that I would automatically be more secure in these things as an adult. When I've been practicing regularly I feel like a great violist and I play better. I'm not talking about being better prepared- I mean I concentrate and expect more of myself even thought I might play all the notes either way. When I feel good about my body I take the best care of it, and if I think I'm a good wife then I'm able to let go of all the multitude of annoying things J does. Ha! Just kidding, sweetums, you light up my life. Let's have another discussion about copyright and THE LAW (echooo echoooooo), shall we?

There is a thought and a post brewing on gratitude, anxiety, God and my daily outlook on life. You'll be the first to know if anything solidifies in the muck of my mind.

Magnificotistant

Today was my last gig until after Christmas. A free week in the middle of December isn't part of a normal freelancer's lineup. Usually January and July tend to be the least active months, and December is packed with a whole raft of sell-out gigs (noisy faux-luxe office parties, blasphemous church gigs, frightening choir concerts) and a few good things like the Nutcracker or Messiah. In Japan they played a lot of Beethoven 9 around the end of the year, which always feels like an accomplishment.

The gig today was musically horrifying, but the other ringers were friendly and one violinist was also pregnant. We bonded after complaining that the long and cliched homily had us both wishing we could at least stand up and stretch a bit. I hate when the dungeon masters maestros make us stay up on stage for the message because invariably I have to yawn like thirty times or my eyes randomly decide to water or I accidentally get slain in the spirit. There's always the pesky question of who to hand the instrument to when you're about to be filled with the Holy Ghost and feel the need to flop around on the altar in ecstasy.

Lucky for me I didn't have to bother too much about the instrument today because I was playing violin. I have never studied anything but viola but I can play the wanna-be toy shrillness well enough to gig and to teach. For this gig (Christmas carols and a couple of those made-for-the-protties choral works by Rutter and Clydesdale) it was actually kind of fun. Viola parts in that genre are weepingly dull, so at least I got a few runs and a melody or two out of the deal. Plus I had to concentrate in order to play the right strings and avoid shifting out past my right ear, what with that darned imitation fingerboard being so short.

It's nice to have that vacation feeling early this year.

Claude's Holiday Cheer

The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.
~Claude Debussy



In my viola-piano duo we do a Debussy Nocturne and it's been in my head all day. It's very impression-y and I feel there should be some tutued nymphs (are sylphs a thing or am I making that up?) flitting about to properly represent where my head's at. I've been trying to pay attention to the new guy kicking and such, so I don't miss it and kick myself later. My mind wandered around and finally slunk up on a realization: I haven't been thinking of him as an actual person yet at all. Excitement is tempered by parenting-career anxiety and by physical discomfort at this point. I'm getting there, little guy- good thing you people bake for such a long time. Gives me a chance to look beyond my own navel and remember you are on the way.

Like a human word scramble. riaMim!

So, I know I'm not the most logical gal on the block of late.

Last night J and I were messing around with some photos he took and I started to get all tense and snotty about the recent lack of picture-taking happening in our home despite the expensive piles of photographic equipment lying around.

Thing is, here's what I tend to do when J tries to innocently capture my image for art or posterity:









The only pictures I like either don't contain me or allow me to peek cheekily from behind something large. I can't wait for this pregnancy to be done with so I can try to scrabble myself back into shape. Then again I am clearly underqualified for ownership of the kid we already acquired (see yesterday's post), so what am I are we thinking releasing another? At the very least, I'd like to have just one chin and am not impressed with my ability to simulate a pterodactyl's wingspan with my underarm flab, thank you very much. (And when I say, "you", I mean Nestle's tub of toaster-oven-able dough and Eggnog flavored Coffeemate. You high-quality baby making nutrients, you.)

I am once again reduced to a weepy jumble. Noodle #2 must be working on a brain-part or a hormone gland or somesuch frivolous indulgence. Brat. I hope he at least has the courtesy to grow some Momentous Cheeks of Great Kissiness, in the tradition of Toby before him:

Take note, Mr. Man.

Dear Mr. Tobias,

We hope that yesterday's incident with your mother in the Winco parking lot is not indicative of a behavioral trend. While hauling off and whalloping the bridge of her nose with your metal matchbox car in the midst of hugging and giggling was ingenious timing in a Wes Craven kind of way, it does nothing for your campaign to be dubbed "A Very Good Boy".

Had this been an isolated incident, we may not have experienced this level of concern.

Today's similar attack on cute defenseless twee baby girl Natalie has led us to take action. In addition to the instant trip to nap-land while your idol Audrey continued to play downstairs, a note has been placed in your personnel file and will be forwarded to the head of your local franchise (A.K.A. Gra-gra has been notified).

We trust you will take immediate steps to curtail this unfortunate experimentation with all things naughty.

Sincerely,
The Management

Child labor on the farm.

Thanks for dinner, sweetheart.

Behold, a quiche I made for dinner.







Sadly, it tasted like dirt. Not figuratively. What would make a spinach/mushroom/onion quiche taste like dirt? I don't know if it was the spices (they were all the dried variety and are probably real real old) or some terrible mishap at the cheap frozen spinach plant. I'm just hoping none of us end up on House or Medical Incredible.

Also, note the time on our handy stove clock. We are finished eating a good bit before J was usually even home from his previous job. Shall we celebrate with some mud pie?

With my arm (I will slap thee.)

This week's conductor is annoying the crap out of me.

I'm at a gig out of townish, and you know how much I hate to complain (snort), but these are extraordinary circumstances.

He appears to have gone to the let-your-mouth-do-the-talking school of baton technique. He is constantly picking, giving advice while we are playing, after he's stopped us for the thirty second time in a comparatively polished sounding passage, before we play a note, as we're walking away, ALWAYS. And fyi, conductor-types: WE CANNOT ALL HEAR YOUR BRILLIANT COMMENTS WHILE WE ARE PLAYING. Also, and perhaps more importantly, NEVER choose speaking over showing if your beat suffers while you form the sentences. You are probably not as witty as you feel, though your condescention does indeed shine through.

In fact, he went to Juilliard. How do I know this? Because he stopped us in the middle of rehearsing to tell us, of course. We were apparently playing too loud for his taste- might have had something to do with his body being at the front edge of the podium so that his hand pattern came across as high and wide as an airbus, but what do I know? I guess reacting to what the conductor shows me is outdated.

It wouldn't be so bad if his advice was consistent. Or funny. Or made me not want to whip out my iPod and drown him out with something- Kenny G maybe? Celine Dion? A podcast of somebody taking a bandsaw to some marble while jackhammering steel i-beams??...

If you were this guy's wife, here's what you'd hear after dinner.

That pasta was fantastic, dear, reminds me of the time I ate at that famous place in New York with my famous friends. It was cooked just right. Except maybe it was a little gummy. Next time cook it longer but shorter. Make it shorter, but take up the same amount of time. As though it were set to a higher temperature, but without making that obvious to the diner. See? You just have to be with me on this.

In the face of this deluge of artistry, am I really to be judged unprofessional for getting the rolling-eyed giggles every time I look at my stand partner? I think not. But maybe so. It should be obvious. Just watch the conductor.

What's in a name?

As we dicker back and forth about the name for our new kid, it's become clear that names have just as much weight and meaning for us as they do for the rest of the world.

A story came across my radar today made me wonder, though.

There is a reality show centered around a person called Miriam.

See, she's a looker, right? Girls you want to be like her, boys you want to own her? Her milkshakes bring all the etc. etc.? Six frat-looking guys are supposed to woo her, a-la The Bachelorette. Except! (Um, why do these contestants never learn there is a butt? (sic- you'll see why) She is a HE (see?)! A preoperative transexual tragically born devoid of any sense of empathy. The guys were all given large settlements after they sued the show's producers and the buzz around this show in Britain centers around whether the reality show genre has finally become too cruel. If they mean cruel to the hapless viewer, I vote yes yes a thousand times YES already. Stop making them- maybe we can get somebody to ban them or something?

Why did her name have to be Miriam- good old wholesome octagenarian feathered easter hat-wearing Miriam?

I mean, in reality, shouldn't it have been Pat, Tracy, Chris or Kelly?

National Blog Posting Month!

I did it! I am a shining light in the blog world, a coil of piercing bright understanding and wit.

Last year I think I had missed a day (cheater time-stamp post) but met more people and left lots of comments.

This year I posted faithfully but made no friends. (eating worms... and now)

I have some other streaks in the works, and will let you know if any become reality. So far my "ice cream every day" plan is coming together nicely.