It's a Girl

Check out the adorable baby announcements here.

Insert Stupid Earthquake Pun Here

Well, nothing broke, and I am quick like a bunny at jumping under my desk. The USGS says it was a 5.4, which isn't that big, but enough to make me feel a little wonky afterwards. I don't remember ever feeling seasick after any other big earthquakes of my youth, but maybe I am just getting old. Whatever.

Also I dropped a can on my little toe, which, as it turns out, was a more major injury than anything I sustained in the actual earthquake. (To be clear, the only thing that happened after I stopped the swaying light fixture at work was that no one's mobile phone worked. Yay cell phones!)

In other news, I think I have started dreaming TV pilot ideas. Somehow I had this long involved dream that struck me as a great and original idea for a pilot, with a built in fan base. Hmmm... If only I had time or inclination to write for television. Is there a way to sell your ideas without actually having to write something, other than a pitch? Because I think I could do that part. Oh, I am not sharing it here, sorry... Maybe someday times will get desperate and I will be forced to try to write the damn thing. It would be good though, I know that.

See there's this dog, but he talks like Chris Rock and his owner is white.

Comedy ensues.

I'm kidding, that's not it. But if I see the Chris Rock is a funny talking mutt show next spring, I'm coming after you.

Braxton Hicks and the Reason I Have to Find a New Dry Cleaner....

Again, I really need to work on titles.

In any case, I've been having the good old Braxton Hicks for the last three or four days (conveniently just after my monthly baby doc appointment, but then are symptoms ever "convenient" in a pregnancy?). Five today, so not so many to worry about, it's just kind of early for shenanigans. Shenanigans! I call shenanigans! (What is that from? AHHH! My brain is clearly turning to mush). So, I need to sit still a while and drink more water before R calls the doctor at nine o'clock at night. (Overreact much?)

Also, in addition to the titles, we shall also need to address my deep and abiding love of parentheses. It's pretty funny that I really and truly do look down on people who abuse the exclamation point!!! And I agree with something Terry Pratchett wrote somewhere, that people who use five !!!!! in a row are clearly deranged, but I will use parentheses or brackets with wild abandon, whether called for or not. Whenever I am wantonly abusing grammar I think guiltily of my writing friend, Jonathan, who is oh-so clever and utterly without mercy to those of us who abuse the laws 'o grammar. You should click over to see an example of how truly funny this gentleman is. Wicked, this one.

Oh, and the reason I turned this blasted machine on- I used to use Foasberg Dry Cleaners, until a guy from there showed up trying to talk at me THROUGH MY WINDOW WHILE R WAS TRYING TO PUT PEANUT TO SLEEP (in plain view of said window). Apparently, stating that "I'm not interested, I'm putting the baby to sleep" wasn't enough. The guy actually answered, "Well, do you use Foasberg?"

Um, not anymore we don't. Thanks for stopping by. We're now Betty Brite people, I guess.

I Get to Know This Week...

... If I"m having a girl or a boy. The ultrasound lady said last time that it's probably a girl. Or a boy with an erection. So, on Wednesday, I finally get to know. It's funny this time, but I am sort of lazily hoping I'm having a girl so my life can officially become one long slumber party with my gals. I'm not so comfortable with sports and jockiness and boy scouts and all the attendant boy crap. So, I'd rather have a girl. Or a gay boy, I guess. I would be fine with that, too.

Can you believe it? I'm already 18 weeks pregnant! I've got a mere 21 or 22 weeks left til I meet my little early Christmas present.

Anyhow, it was pretty much the same old, same old this weekend. Farmer's market, clean and cook a bunch of stuff (stuffed curried eggplants, red snapper with a verde roasted garlic salsa and black beans with rice, lemon madeleines). Oh, and did I forget the laundry? I kid of course- I will NEVER forget laundry.

Peanut is having a rough weekend- I think she's having trouble with her molar coming in... Ack. She's currently walking around our block, with her daddy trying to tire her out. I really, really, really hope it works. I am so tired. It is unbelievable that a pregnant lady is tired after chasing her toddler around. Somebody page CNN. That's gotta be news, right?

Things That I Am Thinking About and Other Stuff...

I need to work on titles, clearly.

I just began reading SouleMama's blog and stumbled onto her shop, where she sells this stuff which looks like stuff I can make myself. But she actually appears to sell it. Which, of course, I have never done. Hmm... (Not to underestimate her obvious creativity and skill, of course).

I made this dress this past weekend, after seeing some cute things on Etsy.



I also saw this on Etsy which I thought was a cool idea. Maybe I'll make something like that but with oilcloth, so you can wipe it clean.

I thought I took a picture of Peanut wearing the skirts I made her, but my camera is being weird, so I guess not. I will post it soon. But here's another one of her seventies pillowcase dress...

Books and I Made Some Stuff...

Yay! R got me a membership to Paperspine, which is like a pay-library where it works like Netflix with paperback books. Which is SOOO up my alley. If you try it out, tell 'em I sent you by entering referral code RD3309. So fun and such a good idea for those of us who either spend too much money at the bookstore or rack up ridiculous fines at the library.

AND- I made some stuff. I made two skirts with the Angry Chicken pattern. I'll post pics tomorrow. Woo hoo.

AHHHHH!!!!! BOUCHON IN BEVERLY HILLS!!!

I am a big foodie dork. And I just read in the L.A. Times that Thomas Keller is coming back- he's bringing Bouchon to Beverly Hills! I am way too excited. R and I have joked for a while that our first really expensive meal, should we hit the lotto, would be the French Laundry (in like, 8 years when we could get reservations). Check out today's tasting menu. I mean, come on. Isn't it like a beautiful French poem?

Yay! Bouchon!

Isn't It Funny?

I was listening to the podcast of This American Life today on my lunch, and one of the topics was those under-examined beliefs we hold- such as the word "XING" not actually being a word that you would say "Zing", and how one girl thought that unicorns were real and wasn't disabused of this notion until one fateful cocktail party conversation concerning endangered species exposed her ignorance (can you imagine!). I of course brought it up at work and we talked about our own areas of non-expertise.


One such gem- as a kid, one of my co-workers thought that the hospital was called "Cedars-Cyanide", which he figured was either some medical term, or was just ok because cyanide was probably scientific somehow.

Another, mentioned by a wandering coworker, was as a child he kept wondering why people kept going to that town called gunpoint if they kept getting robbed there. I loved that one. It's so obvious, isn't it? I mean, why would anyone go there, right?

My own ignorance was related to the human body. My aunt had diabetes, and there was constant talk of her possibly needing a kidney transplant. I had no concept of any sort of inside to my body, and I knew from what everyone said you had two kidneys, so I figured, what do I have two of that doesn't have a name? So of course I figured that a kidney was a butt cheek. I also considered the problem of sitting with only one butt cheek and I came up with the idea that you would just need a fake butt cheek, maybe made out of foam, or pillows or something. Eventually, and I can't remember when but I'm sure I was embarrassed, knowing my family, I learned the truth.

It is nice to know I'm not the only one, sometimes.

Oh Belly...

Why you gotta be like this? I treated you so nice this weekend, going to Clifton's and then Bono's for lunch... And you repay me with work vomiting. Awesome. I busted so many little blood vessels in my eyelids they look like a Swiss Dot fabric, only with red spots. I am a vury purty leddy today. And my belly STILL hurts. Stupid stupidness. (By the way can I trademark that? Or would that be lame?)

Also, I heard from my friend that the hippo stood up to one whole washing so far. Not bad yet!

I Want to Make Stuff....

I got some fusible interfacing and made animal shapes out of crazy patterns to stick on clothes. Boo- if you read this, e-mail me with kids/colors/animals/sizes so I can make them shirts. I am so into this stuff. I'll post a picture soon. I already made my girlfriend's little boy a navy blue ringer t with an olive green polka dot hippo. It came out pretty cute. In the works are an olive green polka dot electric guitar -I love that Amy Butler fabric, a pink "M" for Peanut, and a pink elephant out of a pink brocade style pattern cotton. I have to see how well these stand up to washing, but they look really cute at first.

I also have an Amy Butler skirt pattern pending, too. I just ordered some yardage of the Amy Butler sea green coriander fabric to make it with. So pretty.

AND Angry Chicken keeps making me want to make stuff, so I may have to try her "Five Minute Skirt" even though I have no serger. I am wondering if maybe I just need to make more of my own clothes and that will keep me busy.

Although I often demonstrate that my ideas far outdo any natural ability by at least 120%, I seem to keep thinking I can do this kind of thing anyhow. Why do you think that is? Do you think that I keep thinking I will somehow get better at some point? Or am I just deluded?

Lunch At Clifton's

How can you not love Clifton's Cafteria?
Click here to check out the moose.

We used to go to the Clifton's in Lakewood when I was a kid. Alas, it is no more...

It's nice to know that the Clifton's in LA is still chugging along. I know cafeterias aren't all that popular anymore, but there is something about having your choice of jello that is sort of appealing to the school kid in me.

Haikus and Dancing...

Well, this are from my work buddy, BZ:

Screen dulls eyes keyboard
Dulls touch, ergonomic makes
Your soul atrophy

Here's mine:

my life, lived in
beige. Cubicle prison that
holds me captive here.

Um, yeah, it was a great week. Anyhow, Miss Peanut has been jumping around and dancing to a song about a potato on Sesame Street. It is just way too cute.

We're off to somewhere in LA to see some friends for lunch, I have no idea where we're gonna go. Fun! Fun! Hot! Yippee!

Molars are a Bunch of Bitches

Peanut's teething again. And molars? Hell, no, those babies do not come easy into this dark night.

But besides teething, what am I up to?

I could bore you about how I am trying to figure out if I can get my kid into swim lessons this weekend. But I know you don't really care that much.

Um, I guess I could add that: I am weirdly addicted to Deadliest Catch. I mean, yeah, I grew up playing house under my dad's boat trailer, and I spent more than my share of Saturdays scraping barnacles off the hull of our soling in the Long Beach Marina Shipyard, and tagging along on yacht races, but I don't think that really explains why I obsess about this show like I'm a house frau who's desperately into General Hospital. I mean, really. It's almost a little embarrassing how into this show I am. I got into it during my last maternity leave and now I am a sucker for it.

And of course, the incomparable Anthony Bourdain, whose snarkiness I adore. He's the travel host that actually is interested in food and culture- and he would have definitely been smoking behind the gym during P.E. in high school. He's not a joiner, which is I think why he's so fun to watch- he is like the friend you wish you were cool enough to hang with. I guess I know deep down I am not, since I will probably never eat the still-beating heart of a cobra. But I can still tune in and watch him do it.

I guess the two shows I am into are really just me living vicariously through other people, when you really start to think about it. Wow, that's just so sad, huh?

More soon, about more than just t.v., I hope. Maybe about swim lessons, if we're lucky.

Reminder- I don't have to be nice to you.

You know how when you are young, you have to be nice to your elders because your parents make you? Well f*ck that when you have grown up.

Tonight I went to my mom's house to say good bye to a friend of my sister's who is going away to be a missionary in a remote jungle place that I won't mention here. I am not kidding, to convert the natives. Christianity is just so repetitive, you know?

In any case, after said person left in after I had been there five minutes(!), her mother, who was there apparently waiting to see her too, said to me (note- I last saw her when I was in high school) "Wow, you are a good mother. I wouldn't have guessed that."

Ok, so I didn't say anything. But now that I've had a couple hours to think of some witty replies (thanks, internet) here you go:

"I wouldn't have guessed you'd get so fat"

"Wow, I didn't know you were such a c*nt"

Ok, so they aren't so witty. I didn't even hit her, although that did cross my mind. I just thought people who loved jebus were supposed to be nice.

Oh, right.
.
.
.
Never mind.

Also, I dreamt that my lovely grandmother who died a few years ago died again. So I had to go through her second funeral and it made me think of how much I still miss her all the time and how I miss that crackly sound of her smoker laugh and I actually woke myself up crying from the dream. I should have known that was an omen to stay home.

Before I go, the dream about my grandmother made me remember a line from the movie "American Beauty"- something about the "way my grandmother's hands felt like paper"....

Madeleines

So I FINALLY got two Madeleine pans last week from Crate and Barrel. Despite the warm weather, I had to try some out. After reading this and this about the mysterious and appealing little cookie-cake, I dove in. I made the Barefoot Contessa's lovely Coconut Madeleine recipe. While they did come out good (well, let's be honest, the ones that I didn't burn did), I learned that in buttering the pan I needed to make sure, since my pans are sort of non-stick, that there was no visible butter left before I floured the pan. The pans, by the way were great- nothing stuck and I got a nice golden color on the shell side of the cookies.

I actually made two batches, one with the coconut and on the second batch, I left out the coconut and added the zest from one lemon. Yummmm...... I think that I actually like the lemon ones a little better, just because they are a little more of a sophisticated flavor.

I also made the Barefoot Contessa's potato chips, from her "Barefoot in Paris" book. (Which is one of my favorite cookbooks of all time). I really love Ina Garten's food. One of my favorite recipes of all time is hers- her roast chicken over croutons from the Paris book. Soooo good, crispy golden skin, tender meat.... Lemony goodness.

Stupid Stupidness.

Oh hell.

The husband left out a pineapple rind. Hence? Twenty thousand fruit flies in the kitchen.

Solution! Suburban Turmoil mentioned this way to catch/kill them, which has so far caught seven flies.

I have get back to scrubbing our kitchen to get rid of the germs, oh the germs.

Yuck.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...

I only seem to dream while I am pregnant, for some reason. Last night I dreamt that my co-worker had a pet giraffe. In the third story of his parents' house. Then it died, but he was not that sad, because he had these special orange spiders that had giraffe babies, so it would be okay. Um, yeah.

Anyhow, my little kid got to play at her gramma's today. Gramma got her a baby pool and TWO new swimsuits. She's not spoiled at all. She even took an actual two hour nap after all the excitement. It was a big couple of days for Ms. Peanut. First time on a carousel:

First time seeing a goat:

First time peeing on a potty. Yeah, sorry, no pics of that one. Well, actually there are. And trust me, they are super-cute. However, I don't want to make her hate me when she's 16, so those aren't making their way on to the internet.

She's A Big Girl!!!

Well, almost. So I got the big girl potty (well, two of them, actually- IKEA, $3.99) today and a certain little one made a little bit of pee-pee in the potty. Oh, yeah. You read that correctly- the FIRST TIME she sat on the big girl potty she made a pee-pee because mommy asked her to.

Hot damn in the hot tub, this kid is so cool.

Also, since when is it 100 degrees in Long Beach in JUNE? Although, may I take a moment to recommend the Crystal Court mall (the little bit of mall across from South Coast Plaza) as a place to cool off? Free underground parking, a $1 carousel ride and a cheap day out. (Except for the H&M, of course).

World's Quickest Post

Ok, I really need to get the Peanut out of bed so I need to do this oh so fast.

Last night I dreamed that I was married to Alec Baldwin's character from "30 Rock". (Which I love, by the way).

We filed our taxes and found that we earned $649,599. Which means, with his magical rich people math, we got $30,000 back on our taxes. Hooray America!

Can you believe I dreamed a tax joke? I need to get out more.

Did You Know.....

That in 2007 the exact same number of people named their female kids "America" as did people who named their male children Mohamed? That's right, there were 462 people that named their kids one of those two names. Isn't that just a little weird? (Note that Mohammed, which I thought was the correct spelling, was number 692).

Well, the name that R keeps trying to convince me we should use?


Petunia Dangerfeet Drew.


Yep. Ponder that, why doncha.