Taking It Easy

Monday the nurse at my doctor's office (oh yeah, because my doctor is on f'ing vacation right now!) basically ordered me not to do anything until Saturday because we're holding out for Sunday when my doctor gets back.*  No cooking, no cleaning, no nothing.  I am allowed to go to work, but I'm to stay seated as much as possible.  So that's been fun.  Except that it hasn't.  I mean, I can lie around like a sloth with the best of 'em, but I really don't want anyone telling me that I have to.

So super husband Matt has been doting on me, fetching me drinks and handfuls of Reese's pieces (why did I think it wise to buy a 10-lb. bag of them?) and being fun and cooking awesome dinners.  Sweet snuggle pup has been sweet and snuggly. And since we rushed to compete every pre-baby task last week, I have nothing to do now except sit around and get fatter and ponder such depressing questions as, "Did my water break, or am I really just that bad at controlling my bladder?"**

I think this has been the longest week of my life.  For serious.  And it hasn't been bad necessarily.  Just boring.  And weird.  I'm trying to soak up and enjoy our last moments as a trio, and trying to not sully them by complaining about discomfort or boredom or the fact that I get too hot when I lie on the couch for 6 hours.  I'm also totally exploiting the fact that people answer the phone really quickly when I call because they think that I am calling to tell them that I am in labor.  

I've been working so hard at school to make sure that everything is in place that I just today realized that I have, at maximum 17 more days with students between now and August.  (!)  So that made me pretty happy.  Plus, Mad Men's coming back on Sunday, and The Hunger Games is coming out, and I got to teach "A Rose for Emily" today, and we'll have our boy soon!

And since only about 3 things fit me anymore because I'm as big as a wooly mammoth (though, thankfully, a little less hairy), I've been taking fashion cues from one Rachel Green.  I am basically wearing this outfit right now.  So you just look at her and pretend that that's me, because I'm pretty sure that there should be no actual  photo documentation of what I actually look like right now.

So, yeah, check back in later and maybe I won't be pregnant anymore.  That'd be nice.



*Which is actually good and fine, because that fits into my plan of having the baby on the 25th, and it works better with school and all of that other bull jive, but man oh man I sure would like to be finished being pregnant RIGHT NOW.

**Turns out it's the latter.  Also, I am a poet.

Gorgeous Weekend

This weekend was out of control beautiful, and we wanted to soak up every bit of fun and sunshine that we possibly could. 

Savannah can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but there's just something so exhilarating about spending an afternoon lying on a blanket in the sun, and then realizing that, oh em gee, it's February (!).  Springtime in Savannah is just glorious.

Because life has been a bummer lately, this weekend we felt almost obliged to have fun, and to appreciate the beauty in our lives.

So we went downtown, drank margaritas, and mingled with the tourists.

And we stalked a puppy so cute I thought my uterus would burst.

And we went to hang out with Iris and Opal.

And we went to the park.

And we drank smoothies.

And we played games.

And we watched other people.

And we smiled.  And some of us read books.

And we laughed. And we just enjoyed the company of each other, and of our friends.

This and That

1.  True or false?  I ate a Taco Bell chicken crunchwrap while lying in bed this afternoon.  (True.  Sadly, true.)  I have an amazing husband who will bring me Taco Bell in bed.  If that's not love, then I don't know what is.

2. Got a haircut last week.  I think I'm going to start getting semi-annual haircuts instead of just annual haircuts because it just feels so nice!  Plus, now I'm embracing the crazy curly lioness look more, so I'm saving time on blow drying.  Extra minutes of sleep in the morning?  Yes, please.

3. Went to Publix tonight and spent $222.  Eek!  I don't think we have to go back, though, until Thanksgiving, except for maybe more bananas and milk.  Every time we spend a lot of money at the grocery store Matt and I spend the entire drive home talking about how really we're saving money and how much better it is that we're cooking instead of eating out.  And all that's true, but still, $222?  For two people and a dog?

4. The latest issue of Food Network Magazine is so good!  Tonight we made this Thai Chicken Soup and loved it!  It's a good thing, too, because it made like 8 servings (not four like the recipe says--maybe four servings for giants) and we'll be eating it for days.

[Source: Food Network]

5.  Oh, and on Sunday we ate at Umami.  If you're in Savannah, go there.  It's super good and super cheap and has great service and is clean and nice inside.  I would show you pictures of our food, but I can't because Matt shames me when I pull out the camera in public to photograph food.  Also, I was really hungry and may or may not have resembled the Tazmanian Devil when the food came out.  But seriously, go there.

6. Also, every time I think about Umami I laugh because it reminds me of Unagi and then I think about that episode of Friends where Ross kept trying to scare Rachel and Pheobe.  I can't resist a good Ross episode.  (He's the best one.)  Here's the episode, since apparently YouTube won't let me embed Friends videos.  "Chandler. . .I sensed it was you."

7. We're currently very into Boardwalk Empire.  The show is beautiful and has great characters and is written wonderfully and is basically everything you could ever want in a show.  Even if it was terrible, though, I still might keep watching just to listen to Margaret Schroeder's Irish immigrant accent.  Matt and I like to have whole conversations where we talk like her.



8.  It's the end of the quarter at school, which is kind of hellish.  Ugh.  Get here already, Friday afternoon.

9.  Tomorrow my ninth graders will read the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, specifically the part where Bob Ewell tries to kill the kids and Boo Radley saves them.  I love reading that part with them, and I kind of can't wait to watch their faces as they realize what's happening. 

10.  Obama on The Daily Show tonight?  Well, that's almost too much sexy for a room to handle.

Happy Birthday to Cassie!

Happy birthday to Cassie, who is one of my favorite friends, who is loyal and smart and bitchy in a good way.  I know it sounds silly, but I can't imagine going through the rest of my life without her (and her Hugh) in it.

Cassie-nova, here's to a lovely year 27, and to many more years of friendship, fun, and wine.

**Oh, and Cassie, we'll do a belated birthday dinner for you when you come next week.  I've got a new recipe for tuna casserole that I've just been dying to try.

What I Learned This Weekend

This weekend was a learning experience for me.

I learned that one-year old boxers make great dancing partners.

I learned that those same boxers go crazy when you do a cracked-out air guitar.

I learned that there's nothing funnier or more disturbing than genetic sexual attraction syndrome, (or the grandmother and grandson who fell in love and are now expecting a child).

I learned that Mitch remains an old crank who isn't yet wholly cool with Fletcher. 

I learned that the weather can be crappy, and I can still have a magnificent weekend while in the company of good friends and cute dogs.

As you can probably tell, we had a marvelous weekend up at la casa de Hugh and Cassie.  We ate too much, drank too much, and laughed until it hurt.  How much longer until our next visit?

I also learned how to make a new favorite cocktail and dishes, but if you want to hear more about those you'll have to read about them on Cassie's new blog, White Hot Inspiration.

One last thing I learned: shallow bowls of beer do, indeed, make effective slug traps.  I thought better of showing you that picture.

Sooooooooooo, Christmas just hit me like a ton of bricks. Apparently, Christmas is fast approaching, and while I have completed my shopping, I have completed little else.

Cards, packages, dog treats, Glee CDs. More cards. (PS--why is it that, even when I'm trying to be modest, we still end up sending out 50 Christmas cards?)

And the table was mocking me. My house was (and remains) a disaster.

But for some reason, all I wanted to do was watch Mitch eat his bone and throw treats around the house.

(The video below is a little slow, but features one Mitchell Pancake throwing almonds about the living room.)

So there the cards sat, mocking me. And I was having trouble getting motivated.

UNTIL. . .

I checked the mail. It was a great mail day: four Christmas cards, two packages, a new Real Simple and Food Network Magazine. And two of the Christmas cards had cash in them! Horray!

But the thing that really motivated me was this happy little tin from Caitie. . .

So I did! Inside I saw this. . .

And I laughed. I laughed even louder when I saw these. . .

MAPLE CANDIES!



So I decided to tackle this. . .

But then got distracted again by this. . .

Well, dammit. Maybe people will just get Valentine's cards.

What kind of sick horsey snuff film is this?

A few things you might not know about me.

• I'm manic. I'm either super productive and getting one billion things done in a day, or I'm lazy, almost catatonic, and sleeping 15 hours a day. Lately, because of the self-improvement plan, I'm in a super productive phase.
  
• I almost always have the tv on when I'm at home alone. I'm usually not even watching it, but I like the background noise.
  
• I am a cryer. Big time. I cry when I'm sad, and when I'm angry, and when I'm happy, when I'm watching American Idol or Amazing Race, when I encounter anything heartwarming. Publix commercials and Cotton commercials are some of the worst offenders, but the worst thing of all is any situation in which an animal dies.

So. . .

Last night, while Matt was at work, I was being pretty productive around the house. I turned on the tv for some noise, and it happened to be on Bride Wars. My productivity began to wane, and I got sucked into Facebook, and for some reason, I didn't change the channel. The pathetic part was that the remote was right next to my hand. I wouldn't even have had to get up out of my seat. But, instead, I suffered through the last fifteen minutes or so of the cinematic masterpiece, then puked all over myself. (In a way, this experience was like the time I fell asleep during Usual Suspects, only to wake up at the very end. The surprise was ruined, and I feel like my movie narcolepsy robbed me of one of the best movie-watching moments of all time.) Let me ruin one for you: at the end of Bride Wars, both girls are pregnant. Thus the puking.

After Bride Wars, I mustered up the energy to change the channel to Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Good and good. But then that ended, and some horse documentary came on. (For the record, I don't give a rat's ass about horse racing.) It was called Barbaro.And I really wasn't into it at all. Something about a horse and "Barbaro, Barbaro, Barbaro, Triple Crown, champion, Kentucky Derby, blah, blah, blah," and so on. But then, when Barbaro was racing in the Preakness, he broke his leg.

Suddenly, I was invested. For the next 45 minutes, I watched as surgeons and rescue people and his owners tried and tried to save Barbaro. For the entirety of that 45 minutes, I was crying like a little baby.

Although I am a news junkie, I had somehow missed everything about this story. Maybe this happened during those years when I did not have cable? Who knows? I was going to turn the documentary off, but decided that I needed to stick around for what I believed would be a happy ending. And I really thought that happy ending would come. All signs pointed to happy ending. There was hopeful sounding music and everything!

But no. Oh no, Barbaro--after months of rehabilitative efforts and surgeries and pain and anguish--dies. His owners and all of the people who loved him said their goodbyes, and it was done. The f'ing horse dies! And all this after I've grown so attached to him that I can't even think about his sweet face without breaking down in tears.

So I wept. Mitch kept looking at me like I was a crazy woman, which I totally am. He tried to lick my tears with his healing dog kisses.

Matt called to ask a quick question, and I tried to pull myself together. He heard through it, however, and was alarmed. "You sound sad. Is everything okay?"

And I broke down again. I explained--through snot-filled sobs--all about Barbaro and how he died and how horrible it was. As soon as I said the name of the horse, Matt said, "Oh no. Yeah, that horse dies. If I'd been there I would have told you not to watch it." (Sort of like how he's forbidden me from watching Marley and Me.) This is a prime example of how work will ruin your life.

And it reminds me of a Friends episode.

Where was Phoebe's mom when I needed her most?