Dogs in LA Who Desperately Need Homes

I know that this is my post-miscarriage uber-mother reaction, but these DOGS and their dying owner have shocked my aching heart.

I wish that we could take a dog right now, but after the Serge Incident, I think I need to take it easy with the whole "Fall in love with a dog from afar, adopt it and realize that it was a mistake, then spend the rest of the afternoon on the back stoop crying and petting the dog before it is taken away by the exasperated foster mother" syndrome.

They're in Northern Los Angeles. I wouldn't read the main text of the page if you've miscarried recently, as it has reference to draconion animal shelters.

If you know anyone in California in the market for a pooch, looks like these guys really need help. My erstwhile therapist, Dr. G., taught me to learn the distinction between those who need help, and those who need MY help. I used to feel obligated to help everyone in need at all times, and ended up co-dependent with the entire Planet Earth. But now, I'm trying to remember that -- remember Dr. G. and his beard and his kinda smelly office and his interesting oriental rug -- I am not personally obligated to save these dogs.

And yet... I AM! I must save them! (I want my money back, Dr. G.)

Dumb

Last night, while Babycakes was tended by her grandparents, I snuck off and took the train into the city to have dinner with my friend S.

It was there I realized that I have lost the ability to talk with grown-ups.

See, when I'm caring for Babycakes, there are dozens of interruptions every hour, so I have become accustomed to disjointed conversations. This is a sample "conversation" with Hub-D...

Me: So, my mom will be visiting on her birthday, and I thought--
Babycakes: KEEE! KEEE! Mommom mommom KEE!
Me: Yes, that's your KITTY! -- Anyway, we could take her out for tapas -- DON'T pull on Prince's collar
Babycakes: (laughs, pulls on collar) KEE!
Me: We HAVE to cut this cat's nails, maybe next time we're at the vet they can just do it, but do we have to do a check-up (removes baby from Prince's neck) since we were just there with the foxtail?
Babycakes: KEEEE! Mommom Mommom EEEEEEE!
Me: Your panda? I don't know where he is. Oh, he's on the chair, here you go. -- Don't you have a physical scheduled next week?
Hub-D: Y--
Me: DON'T PULL ON PRINCE'S COLLAR, I'M SERIOUS.

I thought that these disjointed conversations -- in which no topic is ever completed -- were due to the presence of Babycakes. I learned last night, while my clever friend S. was telling me compelling stories with NO Babycakes within 20 miles -- that I have completely lost the ability to sustain ANY conversation.

We would be merrily talking, and then something would happen -- the waitress would ask us a question, or a light would flicker or whatever -- and I would have to ask, "Uh, what were we just saying?"

It's not as though I had just lost the cadence of the conversation. No, I had NO IDEA what the initial topic was. If I were suddenly abducted and taken to a facility where they tortured me and tried to get me to tell them what I was JUST TALKING ABOUT with my friend, I would just rot there forever, because I would have no idea.

I'm not nursing, I'm not pregnant, I'm almost 10 months away from having given birth. I am completely out of excuses for my inability to sustain a conversation topic from beginning to end, and I do hope people will continue to speak with me anyway, maybe with little cue cards or something... just until I learn to converse again.

New pals

I met a bunch of new women yesterday, here in the neighborhood. My friend M. hauled me over to a potluck someone was hosting, and they welcomed me with wide open arms!

Everyone had a passel of kids -- my bringing Babycakes was paltry compared to the offerings of some. I spoke with a woman who has FOUR kids, and when I gazed at her admiringly, she explained that she had "popped them out like movie tickets."

How could she have known what a salve it was to hear of her marvelous fertility, and to see this gang of kids -- twins and toddlers and big kids and everyone's got a water gun -- running amok in a neighbor's backyard.

Babycakes was a marvelous kid the whole time, playing gamely with the other kids' toys, and laughing like a maniac when one of the twins took a baseball bat to a tree trunk. I didn't quite see the humor in it, but her laughter is so bubbly and uplifting, we all just went with it.

I felt calmed by the whole frantic scene, grateful I had randomly produced a spinach-rice casserole to throw in the fray. When I said it was from the Moosewood Cookbook, someone said, "Moose-WHO?" Ah, so they aren't hippies. Rather there was a religious bent to the gathering -- I haven't said "grace" in years, and it was awesome to do so. I've always been of the opinion that one should have an opening ceremony to every meal, so it was a bitchen way to kick things off, I found. It was nice to honor that spinach-rice casserole, and to thank God for it as well.

And I loved them! I loved every last one of them and their polite but energetic children. The ladies were positive and sweet and funny, and they told me how beautiful Babycakes is, so yeah, friends for LIFE!

G.o.G.

I cleaned out Poop Alley today. Poop Alley was the former homeowner's dog run/duck pen/general shithole. He threw everything in there -- used nails and big slate chunks and about 400 fist-sized rocks of various colors. He built a crazy wooden wall around it, to delineate his insane heap of trash, which we tore out when we moved in.

But we didn't do anything with that area. Until TODAY. I just went nuts in Poop Alley. I removed a heap of dried bermuda grass that is as tall as I am. I lined up the slate along the side, and heaved a large utility company manhole cover underneath the pine trees. I picked out the old nails and strange hardware, then I took each of those 400 fist-sized rocks and I made a new wall bordering the area.

In one day, with all of my post-miscarriage maniacal energy, I ripped out Poop Alley and created the Garden of Grief. It looks like a big grave now, possibly big enough for an elephant, if you buried it standing up. What with the mound of dirt, the slate standing there like headstones, and the rock wall delineating it -- it's interestingly morbid.

As I completed the wall, just now, in the dark, under the little sliver of moon, Prince came out to see what I was up to. He walked around me companionably as I placed rocks upon rocks, within rocks and between them, making my elephant grave with precision. Then he took a big crap right in the middle of my Garden of Grief.

PRINCE! Didn't you read the new sign? Go find a new place to do your business.

Tomorrow, my plan is to plant sunflower seeds and poppies in the G.o.G. But tonight I just hosed the whole place down, making the rocks shiny and creating puddles. I put my thumb on the end of the hose and just washed the wall, and let the spray go willy-nilly.

And I didn't think about the pregnancy for several minutes at a time. I just thought about rocks and poop and damn if it isn't satisfying to dig hundreds of rocks out of the dirt and make a wall.


No, this isn't a scene from the hit show, CSI, where they discover an elephant burial ground. This is my backyard, at night, freshly hosed, stacked, and ready to grow.

The one rock sticking up on the left side of the wall is one I found shaped like a heart. So I balanced it atop everything else.

Otto and Shoes

Let's all just take a break from all this discussion of uterine linings, etc., and take a minute to discuss other things in our household.

First, Otto. Otto's full name is "Otto von Gluteus, a.k.a. Squeaky McGee," and it is important to use this entire moniker when addressing him, particularly when he has been out for most of the day, and makes his grand re-entrance into the house. One must also use something of a "booming" voice to say his name.

Second, Babycakes' new shoes. We went to a kids specialty shoe store last night and dropped (yeah) $100 on footwear. What in the crap? I hadn't even looked at the prices before we got to the checkout process, and by then I was too embarrassed to say, "Excuse me, WHAT? These shoes are made from itsy bitsy scraps of leather. They are for a nine-month-old child who GROWS!" I silently justified the purchase by thinking, OK, they are really CUTE, it's for two pairs of shoes, three pairs of socks and two felt barrettes, and they are orthopedically recommended, or whatever. Plus, a woman I met yesterday whose son was a whiz at walking said that I MUST get these shoes because otherwise, my child will be a crappy walker. So there you have it. If you look closely at the picture, you can see Stanley to the right of the shoes, silently judging them.

Digging in the dirt

I am tired of being in my own head and my own crampy body. I can't go swimming, I can't use tampons, I can't believe I had a miscarriage yesterday.

Or... yesterday and today and tomorrow. What I didn't know is that miscarriages don't just HAPPEN all of a sudden and then they are over and you lie with a cool towel on your head on your bed and just feel horrid. Nope. They go on and on for days.

But it's a kind of wicked synthesis, how terrible you feel -- both your body and your heart. It's one of those rare times in life that everything is synchronized -- you feel horrible, everyone around you does too, then your body cooperates by feeling just as bad. Not to be outdone, our weather got cloudy, kicking up the wind and filling my bedroom with the good smells from outside rather than the dull funk of ME.

Usually, when tragedy strikes, your body feels fit as a fiddle -- only your heart aches. So a person can go on a good long run and think it all out. Or if you break a limb, say, you are dealing with physical pain, but everyone around you is chipper and joshing about it and signing your cast with witty sayings.

But in this case, everything is a cool shade of bleak. I think that miscarriage is a kind of death, no matter what people say about brainwaves or heartbeats. It's death. It's the little embryo that didn't. But usually, when there is death, you don't feel it so viscerally.

I wondered -- should I have just waited to take that pregnancy test? I would have had no idea that I was miscarrying had I not had those two positive tests. But we had a marvelous weekend. There was so much celebration, and we shared the news far and wide. And I don't feel dumb about that, as I thought I might. I'm glad that the people we love know. OK, the neighbors who just moved in across the street and I blabbed it within 20 seconds of meeting them? Maybe that was an act of haste.

But I'm glad I knew, even though my heart is all ripped up. I'm glad that the people we love knew. We all had several days of glee before the pregnancy ended, and it was fun.

Now I'm beginning to think about commemorating this pregnancy somehow. I want to memorialize the child that Hub-D and I dreamt up while I was pregnant. I'm thinking about planting flowers (if the temperature doesn't shoot back up to 100, let's be frank here...), and I briefly thought about little statues, you know, like a little stone baby statue somewhere in the backyard, maybe overlooking Mega-T's grave. But is that too bizarre? It wasn't a *baby*. I'm sad about the *pregnancy*. Is there a statue of a tiny zygote? I found a statue of an angel crying, but that's definitely out of control.

Then I wondered, should I bury something? I have the urge to bury something. But what? The pregnancy tests? Hub-D already wisely disposed of them so I wouldn't keep staring at them saying, "But, but, but..." My underpants? I mean, let's get real, there is nothing to bury here. Should I conjure up some newborn clothing and bury that?

I think that planting something (bulbs?) will satisfy my urge to dig around and shove things into the earth. And the exercise will do me good, sitting here poking at my still-distended belly.

Can you eulogize an embryo?

It's funny how everyone tries to minimize a miscarriage, even I, the one who miscarried. Maybe it IS minimal? It was such a little thing, just a promise of a person glued for a few weeks to my uterine lining.

But, I realized this morning when the bleeding started, I LOVED IT. It was something that was living inside of me, and it is no longer living, having not fulfilled the great promise I believed it to have. I was certain it was a boy baby, and had wonderful pictures in my mind of Babycakes and her little brother.

Hub-D reminds me that I can still have a little brother for Babycakes. This is not the end of the idea of multiple children. But today was the end of THIS potential child.

Oma cautions me not to think of it as a child, and repeatedly admonished me NOT to be sad. I know she means well, and she conceded, after I told her I am determined to be sad, that she just wants to spare me the pain.

I told Hub-D that I feel like there is a wreck in front of me -- all of the hopes and emotions I'd already poured into the idea of this baby, and I want to be careful not to minimize it, not to walk around it, not to ignore it, or try to imagine that ANOTHER BABY will dispose of this wreck.

No, I told him, I have to sort through it, piece by painful piece. The only way past this wreck is through it -- lifting up and recognizing the little chars of things -- the first ultrasound photo I'll never have, the baby book I won't buy, the call to the doula to tell her to scratch my name off of February 25 in her calendar.

So probably not, you can't eulogize an embyro. It didn't have a personality, brainwaves, a heartbeat or anything we would associate with a baby, really. But I loved it. I loved the promise of it. I loved the little baby who was starting in my belly and I regret a thousand times that it doesn't live there anymore, that I didn't have a chance to push it out and hold it in my arms and raise it to adulthood.

And I'll miss him for a long, long while, I think.

And it's over

I took a pregnancy test again this morning, when a little bit of bleeding started. It was positive. So I stayed positive.

Then I walked to the train station to get on the train, and I realized that I was still bleeding. And so I called the doctor.

She said to go home and "let nature take its course," so here I am.

I hoped the bleeding would stop. I really hoped it would stop. But it hasn't. It's accelerated. Perhaps I shouldn't have shared our big news with so many people. Perhaps we should have kept it secret, but I'm no good at that kind of thing, so we shared it with the whole world.

I marked down February 25 everywhere -- my DUE DATE.

But it looks like there won't be a due date after all. It was a short lived pregnancy, and today, it's over. I am so disappointed. SO disappointed. I almost wish I hadn't known I was pregnant for these few days, so I wouldn't have anything to mourn. But I did, and I do.

You're beautiful, it's true

"You're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're beautiful, it's true. I saw your face in a crowded place, and I don't know what to do..."

This song, by James Blunt, has been playing incessantly on the radio. During my obsession with "Beauty and the Geek," I fell in love with this song because they played it during the final episode, and it really (sniff) showed how beautiful they ALL were (sniff!).

But it's started to make me think of something completely different, which is -- how Babycakes looks at people.

Yesterday we were at a party, and one of the guests just caught Babycakes' eye, and she loved him -- just LOVED him! Every time he walked in the room -- a tall man with a goatee -- she would track him and try to get his attention and laugh and smile. We were standing right by the food (Babycakes and I both agree on this kind of positioning at parties -- you get first crack at the food, and everyone has to hang out with you at some point), and he returned several times, each time eliciting this response from her.

She does this on the subway, or anywhere we go -- she just gets excited about one particular person, and wants desperately to interact with that person. I try to do what I can, sometime sidling up to the object of Babycakes' affection and saying, "Hi, yeah, my baby thinks you're pretty cool." And I feel a little creepy, but Babycakes is charming and they will usually humor her.

But they don't give her their NUMBER or anything, and at some point they have to go on their way, and she watches them leave, a little wistful, before going back to what she was doing -- macking on Panda or chewing on her beads.

How sad this is at some level -- Babycakes is like the singer of that song, watching a woman fade into the distance despite his instant crush on her -- similarly powerless to chase after these people and, I don't know, keep hanging out with them, find out what makes them tick, maybe ask if she can touch that guy's goatee.

She loves people I hadn't even noticed -- an older Vietnamese woman, a young black girl with her family, a painter carrying a ladder and a bucket, or just random middle aged subway riders or restaurant patrons.

But she's strapped into the backpack, or a stroller, or just seated on the floor, unable to ambulate in any meaningful way, and she has no choice but to sing... "You're beautiful! It's true!" as they walk away.

Eerily well

I'm still not sick at all. Hub-D and I are beginning to wonder if I'm NOT pregnant, and how embarrassing would that be, calling up the 100 people we told? Rescinding the bouquets we sent our mothers... "Yeah, whoops. Better luck next time."

Of my friends who have had miscarriages, one theme has been the LACK of morning sickness. So yeah, I'm ever-so-slightly worried that I feel GOOD. Other than being pissy about 90% of the time (giddy the other 10), having no period, and being VERY tired -- that's it.

Also, the plus (+) sign has disappeared from the EPT test, as though we had imagined its initial appearance. It's transformed into a minus (-) sign, with the perpendicular line fading into oblivion.

My Korean cousin H. dreamt I was having a girl. But everyone is now saying that if I don't feel sick, then perhaps I'm having a boy. I'll be excited to be pushing any full-term healthy infant out next February.

But right now, it's the size of a sesame seed, and getting ready for its close-up -- AKA the CVS test -- which is scheduled for August 2. We'll get the results back 10-12 days after that, so that I can stop the hand-wringing. Although I don't FEEL old, the fact I'll be 35 in February qualifies me for fancy tests to determine whether this child has Down's Syndrome or any host of old-ladies-havin'-babies diseases. And I'm going to take full advantage, because I have no desire to spend one extra minute of this pregnancy in suspense -- I think that excessive worry exacerbated the zillion problems with my last pregnancy.

So yeah, a needle through the cervix to take a sample of the placenta at 10 weeks? I'm there.

Presuming I'm pregnant.

Pregnancy honeymoon

We are still in shock. Pregnant!

I feel so FERTILE, and possibly foolish -- will we throw too big a wrench in Babycakes' young life? Today she's really cranky, so I'm imagining that she KNOWS and she's PISSED that her idyllic young life is coming to a crashing halt because *I* had to selfishly go and get pregnant again.

The good news is that I don't feel sick yet. My last pregnancy was HELL ON EARTH. I barfed right up to the end, I couldn't go into grocery stores because of the smell, I had constant diarrhea, flip-floppity heart palpitations that led me to Urgent Care, carpal tunnel syndrome, nut allergies(???), phlegm, cystic acne and a really bad attitude. The good news was that throughout all of my issues, Babycakes was swimming around in my gut, happy as a lark, chubbifying into a glorious little creature.

With that pregnancy, I had three days of a kind of pregnancy "honeymoon" before the veil of awfulness descended -- so I'm making the MOST of these few days, just in case the same thing occurs. And heck, if I don't get sick, then I'll just keep on having fun. Oh, and sleeping.

I'm psyched to be getting plenty of rest while Nanny D and Hub-D increase their time with Babycakes. And this new napping regime has been greeted with great approval from the feline community in our house.

In this picture, there is me, gestating an embryo that is currently the size of a poppy seed, Stanley the three-legged tabby is spooning with said embryo. Otto is curled imperiously by my head, and Prince, aka The Foxtail King, sleeps by my dirty feet. Kudos to Hub-D on capturing the moment. Wonder where he's gonna sleep?

Little Rascal

[This was written the morning of Thursday, June 22, but I held off posting it until I could notify family.]

I’m pregnant! I’m pregnant! I’m PREGNANT.

At the crack of dawn today, I strapped Babycakes onto my back and strode over to the grocery store.

We bought tofu, Polident (for getting tea stains off of my favorite mugs), a notebook for grocery lists and some tofu pups. I think she’s going to dig tofu pups. Oh, and an EPT test.

Yesterday I saw my favorite masseuse, C. She is 8 months pregnant, so this was my last massage with her until after the baby comes. I stood before her and told her about my two negative pregnancy tests, my lower back pain and my late period. And then (this memory seems to go in slow motion) she reached down and rubbed her big belly and said, “She tested negative too. Sometimes it takes awhile for that hormone to kick in.”

For the rest of the evening, I was in a haze. Here I was with a super-late period, two negative pregnancy tests (one from two days before my period, and one from two days after), and a FEELING. I mean, I really thought that Hub-D and I had timed everything perfectly. I had a positive ovulation test to prove it! I had been really pissy, mopey, and spaced out. A few times while I was driving around, I had to consciously remind myself that I was DRIVING, and therefore I shouldn’t just stare at the Toyota logo for five minutes at a stop sign.

So this morning, before the temperature spiked to more than 100 degrees, I thought, “Let’s do a test ONE more time. That way I know if I should be drinking, or taking vitamins or eating shellfish or whatever.”

I paid full retail price for a REAL EPT test. That’s what the doctor said they use. I had called Dr. G.’s office to ask them when I should worry – with a late period and no pregnancy. The lady said to come in and they’d test me AGAIN and I asked if they use any SPECIAL technology, something that I can’t get at the grocery store. She put me on hold and came back and said, “Nope, it’s an EPT test.”

So I thought I’d save everyone a lot of money and time and get one myself. Plus they were having a $1 rebate on the 2-pack, so I threw caution to the wind and bought the expensive test.

Meanwhile, Babycakes was waving around in my backpack carrier, watching the garbage truck empty the big recycling dumpsters and having a marvelous time scanning the feminine products aisle with me. We read “Us Weekly” while in the checkout line, as quick as can be. I didn’t want to bring it home and have Hub-D peer at it with scorn while he scans the headlines of the Financial Times. So we had to find out the latest about Britney’s marriage, super-fast.

Little did I know how much I have in common with Britney. But anyway.

I got home, maneuvered the baby off of my back, grabbed the test, a crate of toys and set BOTH of us up in the bathroom. Babycakes sat there on the bathroom rug, sorting through her stuffed animals, and I tore open the package like an animal. After I had peed on the stick, I replaced the cap and then willed myself to look away from it. I set it on the counter and swiveled my head to enjoy my daughter, curls a-wiggle, and she looked up at me, tired but sweet.

Then I looked back at the test. It was doing something weird. There were two lines appearing – one line was popping up in the little window, then a parallel line was popping up in the big window. WHAT DID THAT MEAN? I scrabbled around in the box and fished out the instructions as a second line, perpendicular to the first, began apparating in the big window as well, so it formed a clever little “plus” sign.


As in, you will soon be wearing PLUS-sized clothes. As in, you will now be a family of three PLUS one. Holy Mary Mother of God, I’m pregnant!

So I tried calling Oma, who was the first to hear about my pregnancy with Babycakes and she was out. Darn her and her busy social life! I left a portentious message on her machine, and ran outside to tell the cats instead. Otto didn’t care, he was busy killing a sweet little male house finch on our front porch.

So I put Babycakes down on the living room floor, and ran out to bring Otto inside, just in case the house finch had any chance of flapping away. I don’t think his chances are great. And what does this mean for my unborn child? Will it be a boy? Will it be a fierce hunter? Or some feathered revenge of the house finch?

It was time for Babycakes’ nap, so I led her into her nursery, gave her one last dash of formula, laid her down with two junior members of the Panda Family and then just ran around the house freaking out for several minutes.

Of course my mind is swirling with “what if’s” – What if this baby has birth defects? I’m officially AMA (Advanced Maternal Age), and so we’re going to undergo genetic counseling, the likes of which I did not experience with Babycakes, who was born while I was 34. And what if the pregnancy doesn’t last?

But I’m not going to go down those paths today. I learned something terrific from my friend E., who says, “Let’s celebrate what we know now.”

So I’m going to celebrate all of this – our fertility, our family, our tiny new little friend. What a marvelous summer day, with the best news EVER. Hooray, and welcome, you little rascal. What did you mean by teasing me with those two negative tests? Once you’re gestated, and born, I’m going to give you a big raspberry on your belly, as revenge.

Warning: this post is gross

Prince had something wrong with his eye.

It started about four days ago, when he came in from his adventures far afield with his eye closed and watery.

Let me start by saying, defensively, that I didn't MEAN for Prince and Otto to be outdoor cats. When I adopted them from the foster organization, I promised that I wouldn't let them go outdoors. I even signed something to this effect. But after about a month of living with us, they got DETERMINED. They dashed out the door whenever we opened it.

It was probably my mistake, because I had let them wander around the totally fenced backyard for a little while, and they just got the spirit of wilderness in their little feline organs, and, the gig was up -- they would no longer stay indoors. And they had no interest in staying in the backyard either. After I retrieved them a hundred times and stressed out the neighbors, all of us running after these identical twin troublemakers, Hub-D said that I had to let it GO. I had to let them be outdoor cats, because the alternative was WAY more stress and trouble than it was worth.

I hated to do this, to give in, and just say, "FINE. You guys want to go out and get RABIES, FINE." But Hub-D was right -- I was so worked up about trapping the cats in the house, and rounding them up whenever they snuck outside (which was about 10 times/day) that it was too much anxiety. And whenever anyone came to visit, we would attack them at the front door -- "Don't let the CATS OUT!!!! Aaaah! You DID! Now you have to help us CATCH THEM!"

So they are indoor/outdoor cats, and they have a cat flap, which is occasionally used by a raccoon, and I've just given up.

But then Prince came in with this EYE. And after my myriad feline adventures over the years, I am not impressed with cats who have "gammy eyes," or, as I like to call it, "Pirate Eye" (arrrr). Usually the problem resolves itself after a few days -- just some dust or a little scratch, and no reason to haul everyone off to the vet, yowling in the carrier, only to have them ARRIVE at the vet with a totally normal eye.

Prince's eye wasn't getting any better. It was getting worse and increasingly totally gross. And my threshold for "gross" is pretty high, after caring for our dear deceased Mega-T for three years, whose eye wept red goo every single day of his life.

Prince was miserable, moping on the sofa and not even showing much interest in the dead bird Otto hauled onto the front porch for everyone's viewing pleasure.

So we went to the vet. And she numbed his eye, took him into the back (every time they take the cat into the "back" it costs an additional $50 I've found), and plumbed around with a special EYE instrument, and found what she initally took to be a little blade of grass.

So she tugged on it. And it looked like a larger blade of grass. And then, in her words, "It kept coming and coming and coming."

It was an intact FOXTAIL that had lodged itself completely into his inner eye socket.

Although the photo below is somewhat washed out from the flash, I hope you can appreciate the length of this reed, so recently living in my cat's eye socket, as well as the thickness of the base of the blade, which the vet pulled out last, to her utter horror and no small amount of satisfaction.

Labial adherence

OK I love our pediatrician, Dr. M. But he's gone way too far with this urine collection request.

There is nothing wrong with Babycakes. At her nine month appointment, Dr. M declared her to be fit as a fiddle, in the 90% of height, 70% of weight, and, as usual, "off the charts" with her big ole head. Her hemoglobin levels are great and she's "advanced" in development, with the walking and the talking and pinching food and whatever else.

NEVERTHELESS, he still wants some of her pee. He handed me the pictured "Pediatric Urine Collector" and nonchalantly said, "Just bring us a urine sample."

I held it like there was already pee in it, and said, "What?" I said this like a Valley Girl, if you can imagine it, with my face all gnarled up, pronouncing the "H" in heavily, and extending it out for several syllables so it was more like, "WwHHHHHHaa-aaa-a-aaat???"

So he took it out of the package, and showed me some adhesive strip that went around the oblong hole and said this:

"Just adhere it to her labia."

No. Absolutely not. He says it's for a routine test of her kidneys, but LOOK AT HER. She's fine. Her kidneys are fine and (imagine my voice like a fifteen-year-old at the mall) "None of my FRIENDS have to collect their babies' PEE!"

No other pediatrician in the Bay Area seems to request a bag of baby piss, nor require any other moms to adhere ANYTHING to their child's LABIA for the love of pete.

So it's sitting on the counter making me feel guilty. But not as guilty as I would feel watching my poor child wander around my home with a plastic bag adhered to her labia.

Africa Hot Solstice

It's hot here. "Africa Hot" as Matthew Broderick said in Biloxi Blues.

I'm usually very stingy about the air conditioner. Only if someone has a note from their doctor saying that they can't sweat profusely do I turn it on. I LIKE having the windows open -- hearing the birdsong, calling to passing neighbors, feeling the light breezes...

Yeah, screw that. It's HOT. I've had the AC on since 6am, I'm not screwing around.

Babycakes started to get pissy and impatient by 10am... "Is there no world OUTSIDE where I can roll around and eat bugs?"

So I braved the heat and took her to our next door neighbors' yard -- as this is her new favorite place to HANG. Our neighbor T. is a landscaper, and in the course of his landscaping work, he comes across abandoned and unwanted plastic play structures.

You know what I'm talking about -- those plastic molded doohickeys with ladders and slides. I always looked down upon them as a decorating statement, but when his kids were little, T. accumulated FOUR of these plastic play structures and set them up in his front yard.

The structures are old and faded, mostly abandoned by T's kids, but they have become the new love of Babycakes' life. T's infinitely kind family, upon noticing Babycakes' interest in the structures, scrubbed them down and swept away the myriad spider webs. Although this makes the structures about 50% less fun, without accumulations of dirt, dessicated flies and big hoary webs, Babycakes likes 'em anyway.

She walks up the slide, then scooches back down. I show her the ladder -- over and over -- the LADDER, you climb up the LADDER, then you go down the slide! And she just gives me that sidelong "whatever" expression and heads right back up the slide.

She plays peekaboo in the big plastic holes of the "crow's nest" and gnaws on every ridge she can get her miniscule two teeth on. It is Babycakes Fantasyland over there -- and our three cats like to come over and hang out under their big tree. T's mother-in-law gives the cats treats and makes us all feel welcome while my child slowly, slowly dismantles her front lawn.

So since it's hot, and no one wants to go anywhere in the microwaved CAR, it is there we will find ourselves, probably throughout the summer, climbing on slides and begging treats from Grandma.

Happy Solstice!

Stuff I'm glad I got

When I was marooned in the house by my supersick pregnancy, I righteously accumulated BABY items from all corners of the globe, paying shipping fees WILLY NILLY.

Every time I got a list of "recommended baby items" e-mailed to me, it would throw a log on the fire of my uber-nesting, uber-spending instincts, and I bought a lot of crap.

However, a few things turned out to be EXCELLENT purchases:

* 100 crappy washcloths from eBay *

Someone was selling 100 strangely constructed washcloths on eBay. They were brand new, and they have unattractive white stitching around their borders. I suspect it was a person who came across a lot of one million yards of lame terrycloth, and decided to throw seams on them and call them washcloths. I bought them for a pittance and I use them EVERY DAMN DAY. They are awesome. Babycakes is NOT a NEAT EATER, and because I have so many washcloths stacked all over the place, I just wet them, use them, and toss them in the washing machine at the end of the day. I use them for snot, feces, berries, raccoon footprints (yeah, he's in the house again), and also for scrubbing all of those items off of my own body. And Hub-D uses them as well, for cleaning off after MAN tasks like softball or pruning.

See, I don't care if we ruin them. I would LIKE to ruin them, so I am not shy about submerging them in questionable substances. I have a couple drawers full of them, and they are essential to our lives.

When I was pregnant, I also bought some baby washcloths but they are SO LAME I can't even give them credit for being washcloths. They are like little perma-Kleenexes, and I mostly use them for stopping the tub when Babycakes is gnawing on the tub stopper. And I also feel BAD about using burp cloths or CUTE washcloths with animal prints and stuff on them, because you think, "I can't get shit on the BUNNY, that's so MEAN!"

But these ugly industrial strength washcloths are just the thing.

* The LE CUDDLER pillow *

It's like a Boppy Pillow or a "My Breast Friend" pillow, but it's not as fruity, and doesn't feature LOUD Velcro to wake a sleepy baby. It sounds suspiciously French and possibly dumb, but it adhered to my post-gut beautifully and when I would stand up to take her to her crib, I could just shed it onto the floor and step over it. I actually registered for this on Babies R Us. Who knew? (Babies R Us, in general, sucks. I don't care what anyone else says, but their product availability sucks and their staff is listless and they're basically the land of baby product mediocrity. You might as well depend on hand-me-downs and eBay, as far as I'm concerned.)

Now I don't know what the baby in this photo is doing, because we NEVER used the velcro tie-your-baby-down aspect of the Le Cuddler -- it confounded both me and my daughter. Nevertheless, it was loved.

* The Baby Bargains Book *

I love these people. I am SAD when I don't have some reason to read one of the typo-ridden opinion-laden books by The Fields' -- Alan and Denise are the go-to people for bargains -- weddings, houses, etc. -- Denise even co-wrote a "Baby 411" book that is pretty juicy, but NOTHING is as juicy as them gossiping about crappy crib manufacturers and French Canadians. I love books like this, like "Get Clark Smart" by Clark Howard, a radio host who obsesses over saving money. But for all my baby shopping, the Fields' were my total best friends.

And while I'm on the subject of media...

* The Happiest Baby on the Block DVD *

Forget the book. I'm sure the book is lovely, but when a newborn is crying in your ear, you need someone to SHOW you how to SHUT IT UP. This DVD is unintentionallly hilarious because they show the famous Dr. Harvey Karp picking up babies (who universally look like pains in the ass) and making them stop crying by SHUSHING in their ears and rattling them gently back and forth. The babies first look PISSED that they can't cry anymore, and promptly go to sleep against their will. If for no other reason, this DVD is worth it because you will think that your baby is SO much more attractive and well-behaved than those Dr. Karp works with.

* Newborn T-shirts *

My friend B. told me to get a LOT of newborn T-shirts (the ones that DON'T snap in the crotch, so they don't rub the belly button scab) and I didn't listen. I had 3 organic cotton T-shirts that tied with little organic non-bleached cotton ties and when I brought Babycakes home, I used all three in about 5 minutes. Compounding how RIGHT B. was on this issue, Babycakes held onto her bellybutton scab for three LONG weeks, but instead of purchasing additional newborn T-shirts, I kept determinedly washing these same three shirts over and over again, every day, sometimes twice a day. DON'T BE ME. Listen to B. Get so many of these shirts that you think you're being ridiculous. And organic cotton? Whatever. I would have settled for some kind of tiny "Myrtle Beach" boardwalk T-shirts, with plastic beads hanging off of it.

* Chewable wooden toys *

Just last week I finally acquired the frog pictured at the top of this post, and Babycakes went insane for it. It rose up to the #2 position, just below the Panda Family (it's not even fair to compare any toy to the Panda Family, but alas, the frog must deal with this iniquity in his own way). I feel stupid for not giving her the frog a long time ago. I found a similar wooden bead cat in Germany which she LOVES, and Nanny D. cleverly attached her useless bead pacifier holder (pictured) to the wooden cat, and it became WOODEN CHEWIE NIRVANA. She likes to take this slapdash bunch-o-beads with her everywhere, including to Gymboree, where she whips it around and will inevitably pop the "Air Log" with it someday. There is a brand name, Haba, that does these things well.




* Dan Zanes CD's *

I love Dan Zanes' music. He records music for kids, and apparently TOURS as well. If I went to a Dan Zanes concert, I would throw my nursing bra on the stage.

See, when you have a baby, you find that the vast majority of children's music is CRAP. It will make you hate yourself just listening to it. There is one song on the Gerber Bathtime CD that Hub-D and I have tortured each other with -- it's called "Listening and Learning" and it was written by Satan.

And the Gymboree music! Don't even get me started! It's all retooled classics with the word "Gymboree" thrown it it, so you remember to fork over another $195 for the next set of classes, and/or accumulate "Gymbucks" to buy overpriced things at their Gymboree stores. It's an incestuous musical nightmare. OK, we LIKE the Gymboree classes, but, well, here is an example: "Zipadeedoodah, Zipadeeyay, My oh my it's a GYMBOREE DAY!" GOD HELP US!

So Dan Zanes must have heard my plea to a higher power for childrens music that wasn't insipid, and every single one of his albums (I now own them all) is infinitely playable. Hub-D would say NO, they AREN'T because his wife won't stop singing "Bushel and a Peck," but it's not annoying when Dan sings it, so ignore Hub-D in this instance.

(NB: It was not I who discovered Dan Zanes, but my New York City friend T. who is really good at this kind of thing, and he plays the ukelele.)

As for the things I HAVEN'T or rarely use, these include the food mill (it takes all the fun out of eating), the STUPID "What to Expect In the First Year" book (reviled by moms everywhere for its fine balance of panic and uselessness), and the postpartum clothes I bought when I thought I was my "new size" after just two months. (Listen to Vicky Iovine: it's Nine Months Up, and Nine Months Down -- end of story.)

There it is, my own product advice. Now I'm going to go back to burning a CD of my own compilation of Dan Zanes favorites. ... I love you, a bushel and a peck, bet your pretty neck I doooooo....

Me-n-Cookbooks, TLA

Now that I'm forcibly semi-retired and my staff won't let me do "work" anymore (e.g., compose press releases that have to be rewritten, because I used my MFA "mad skillz" and made it a sonnet or a haiku or made it all about babies), I have to get my organizational yayas out in other ways.

I have started a menu selection process for Hub-D that gives me chills I love it so much. I create a weekly checklist of possible menu items, and ask him to check off seven of the 20 or so choices. Then I wait eagerly outside his office, wringing my hands and kind of leaping around, "What will he choose? WHAT will he CHOOOOSE!!??"

It's like my college days, waiting outside the professor's office for him to post test results, or in high school, when they posted the cast list for "Brigadoon" or whatever musical we had going (I was NEVER cast. Ever. A total oversight, clearly.)

This is all part of my money-saving and healthy-family efforts -- no more take-out -- it's filled with trans fats, it's expensive and wasteful, and I get such a charge out of cooking for my family. My only fear was that I would produce meals that Hub-D wouldn't like. He's not a very persnickety eater, but he doesn't like to be surprised. (e.g., I told him I was thinking of making a Lime Shimp Caesar Salad today and he almost vomited.)

HENCE the CHECKLIST. And I vary it every week, based on new recipes I uncover, and I delete the poor little meals that haven't been chosen for several weeks (I'm sorry, we just can't cast you in "Oklahoma," Glazed Salmon With Yogurt Sauce, but better luck next year! Oh, and you can USHER if you want.)

Did I mention that I code every entree with the proper cookbook, so I can go directly from the checklist into meal planning? Yeah, I do that.

The way I see it, I spent the last 12 years of my life building my career. I ran all over the place, finishing my graduate degree in Boston while running Las Vegas trade shows and absurdly scheduling interviews for Dale Earnheart, Jr. during the Daytona 500 in Florida while serving as a bridesmaid in Cleveland. Basically, I had a cell phone attached to me for the last decade, having heart attacks when press releases contained typos and prioritizing my job over every other concern.

My relationships with men were crappy and I despaired of ever having a child while I compensated by treating my employees as my offspring and spending late nights futzing with PowerPoint presentions... ("Parallel construction, DAMMIT! Who put these periods on only HALF the sentences??")

And now, this is my sweet reward. Hub-D is managing the business more than I am, I have my sweet Babycakes lurking at my feet, and I get to make up for all the stupid chicken fingers I ate on the road. I get to make healthy meals in my own kitchen and feed it to them until they are happy and satisfied. That is friggin' AWESOME.

And if Dale Earnhardt, Jr. wants to stop by and have next week's Turkey Cheeseburgers and Corn on the Cob, well, heck, he's always welcome, as are you. Because I'm a mom now, and I feed people, and it feels GREAT.

Menopause

I'm living in the land of the irrational.

OK, I'm four days "overdue," I'm having the digestive symptoms I associate with pregnancy, and I'm really tired. BUT! I have taken two NEGATIVE pregnancy tests, so I'm staring at Babycakes as she plays before me, saying in a gravitas manner: "My Only Child."

Yes, it is bleak. Instead of pregnancy, I suspect a sudden premature menopause. So Babycakes is going to be like Chelsea Clinton or Coco Arquette -- an only daughter -- a fluke, an exception, a lonely drifter.

Mama Chow

I have to make this post short. See, Hub-D just went off to his softball game and I've got about 70 minutes to live out my FANTASY in my quiet house, which is to watch the latest episode of "Medium" while eating a "Tofutti Cutie" in the DARK. By MYSELF! So time's a tickin'.

I think it's important to admit the depths to which I have fallen as a mother. Today I went into the OFFICE (rare) and conducted a conference call with a big potential client which I am 99% sure I completely blew. Oh well. The staff is really going to start barring me from that place, I'm so out of practice, and I only perk up when people bring up subjects like throw-up, stain removal and organics. Oh, it's a Public Relations agency? Yeah whatever.

By the time I got home I was wrecked from riding the train and being a businesslady in the city, and having to obey "Walk/Don't Walk" signs and other intellectual feats I am not ordinarily faced with.

And my child was HUNGRY from striding around destroying things all day. So how did I feed my child? I found a ceramic pot that she couldn't lift, and I jammed it full of fried ground turkey, then I squirted it with some Trader Joe's spicy BBQ sauce, a half-frozen toaster waffle and a handful of chopped tomatoes. Then I chucked it on the floor in front of her.

God bless her, she sat there, on the living room floor, with her yellow pot of half-ass Mama Chow and nibbled away for a good twenty minutes, allowing me to make some dinner for me and Hub-D, send him off to his softball game, and NOW. TOFUTTI CUTIES.

She becomes bipedal

Babycakes walked today.

Hub-D noticed she was about to do it -- she was in pursuit of a beloved Panda. He shouted, "Look!" and then she did it...

She strode right toward that Panda, landing on her butt after a few steps, but we were all definitely impressed. Way to go, Babycakes!

This accomplishment seems to have filled her with a special spicy vinegar, because for the rest of the afternoon, she went berzerk. Apparently NAPS are for NON-WALKERS, because she wouldn't sleep more than a half-hour. And also, only NON-WALKERS sit in high chairs, because she was having none of it when we went out for Ethiopian food. She kept leaping up, standing in her high chair and trying to position herself in the middle of the big plate of steaming Ethiopian food.

[Hub-D says that for her first birthday, we'll forgo a cake, and just get a huge plate of Ethiopian food and let her sit in the middle of it to her heart's content. Doro-Wat-Mania!]

Also, apparently car seats are not for HER anymore, because she squeezed either side of her chest restraint and somehow opened the seat's chest clip. OK, no one panic, she wasn't flopping around the car, and you gotta admire the kid's moxie, undoing that clip. It explains how she freed herself from the high chair as well. Here's hoping that Houdini act is limited to TODAY, the day of WALKING.

When we got home, she bolted to our shrubs. She REALLY wanted to put that mulch in her mouth, and I pulled her away from it repeatedly. Finally, I thought "SCREW IT, just try ONE bark chip, and you'll see how rank it tastes." No such luck. She liked it. She first pulled out about 20 chips, testing each one of them individually for JUST the right kind of end. She would pull a chip out, look at it closely, then test the end of it with her tiny finger, pushing her finger into it, then discard it. Finally, one chip met with her approval and she stuck it in her mouth.

Yeah, I pulled that chip out of her wee watery mouth and got her started on another activity, borne of desperation, something like, "Hey, look at the ants!" or, "Wanna harrass the neighbors?"

Once she was well-covered in soil and cobwebs and ants and whatever else she could find around our neighborhood, I led her into the house for the Bath of her Life. The kid was covered with sweat, Ethiopian lentils and potatoes, half-dried sticky formula, plus half of our yard. Once she got in the bath, she discovered the art of MASSIVE SPLASHING. Now that she's a big WALKER, she is now the kind of person who wants to soak her mother while she attempts to unwind cobwebs from her baby's ears and scrape Doro Wat from her child's chest. She used both of her hands to create the bathtime Perfect Storm and I laughed like a hyena.

Oh, and did I mention that Bedtime is for now for Pussies? Yeah, now that she's walking, she apparently no longer should have Bedtime, and I didn't get that memo. She screamed for a half-hour after I put her in bed.

"But there are so many more places to WAAAAALK!"

No kid. Mama needs to regain her strength. Her life has just come to a screeching halt, you bipedal maniac!

J.'s Grief

Yesterday I went to the local Vietnamese nail salon to have some basic grooming assistance. It always seems to take a million years -- I have no patience for grooming rituals. Some people seem to get a charge out of choosing a polish and picking various services. For me, it's almost on par with going to the dentist -- I just hate being penned up in that shop, although I like the results.

And where do these salons get that cheesy art? With a woman with heinously long nails holding a cocktail? Or a lady with little feet and a french manicure on her toenails? I stare at that poster because the toenails seem intentionally long. Ew.

Anyway, I noticed a very overweight woman who came in to have a pedicure. She had a hard time getting into the pedicure chair, she was really struggling. Watching her (I hope not too obviously), I remembered my old boss J., in Boston, from ten years ago...

J. was really beautiful -- she had almost-violet eyes on par with Elizabeth Taylor or Carmen Electra -- stunning. She wore a gargantuan engagement, the likes I have never seen since -- it was a princess cut diamond that we called the "ice skating rink" it was so huge.

But J. was also 100 pounds overweight. She was really big, and it was the first thing I noticed about her, before I was floored by those eyes. The first thing I said to her was so stupid...

Head boss: This is J., she'll be your new boss.
Me: Oh WOW you have beautiful eyes.

What an ass. Anyway.

She was fat in a way that seemed foreign to her. She had a hard time getting around with all of that weight, and unlike some people who struggle with their weight, it just didn't seem endemic to her body -- it hung off of her belly and arms, and it simply seemed like a foreign presence to her -- something that just stuck to her wherever she went.

J. was the first real "marketing" person I met -- and she exuded the traits I've now learned are typical of marketing professionals. Plus she was smart. She knew a bunch of people, as evidenced by her big Rolodex and her ability to find vendors for every idea she dreamed up. She came with a staff from her previous job, and brought ME into the fold as well.

J. was so nice to me. She took me out to drinks frequently, and brought me along with the rest of the staff for "merchandising" expeditions, which were basically us just gossiping and driving around Cambridge, looking for a place to have a nice long lunch.

But why was she so fat? And what was up with the giant diamond? To tell the truth, I hadn't noticed her weight so much after the first time I met her. It just didn't seem like it belonged to her, and SHE never brought it up.

It wasn't until after I'd known her for more than a year, until I'd celebrated her 30th birthday with her and a few of her friends at a lively bar, where she injested a blowjob shot to my infinite wonder, that she showed me The Photo Album.

The Photo Album was pictures of her from about five years before.

J. had once fit beautifully into her body -- no sign of the weight she carried now. She looked about 50 times happier. As it turns out, she had been engaged to a handsome, wealthy man who died fairly suddenly. She still wore that engagement ring, and had surrounded herself with WEIGHT to get through the amazing amount of grief.

She had walled herself into a kind of high maintenance prison of weight, just eating like crazy since the day he died and seeming to deny that the weight was a problem, that the grief was a problem, or that anything perturbed her at all.

The good news is that by the time I left Boston she had left our crappy company, she had become engaged to another man (who was sweet and enjoyed catering to her) and was planning to lose weight so that they could have kids.

But whenever I see a woman like her, like the woman in the nail salon, whose weight has become such an encumbrance, I think of the grief padding J's body. She sailed through corporate life with her good ideas and her beautiful eyes, and was incredibly nice to me during a lonely time in my life, but she was suffering so badly underneath.

God bless you J!

Suspense

"Aunt Dot" has still not arrived. What a TEASE. I refuse to take another pregnancy test until I am, for example, 178 pounds again, and in active labor. Then I'll believe it.

This morning I had a series of absurd wishes all linked together. Perhaps, despite that negative test, I *am* pregnant, and THEN maybe the other people's offer on the Old Polk Place will FALL THROUGH and we can buy it *anyway* and then maybe our PR agency will actually get the account we lost to a stinky competitor this week, and then it wouldn't be 90 degrees in our town and then maybe I could start digesting onions like a normal person, and wouldn't have to be *that person* in restaurants who sends stuff back to the kitchen because there are onions in it and it DIDN'T SAY ONIONS ON THE MENU.

As previously stated, we are a victorious people. Sometimes that just means redefining defeat.

In other news, Seattle has come back into the Family Relocation Spotlight. With the defeat of the Old Polk Place bid in Nashville, we've regrouped, and Hub-D has done some new calcuations regarding the tax benefits of moving into another overpriced real estate market. It may only make sense to move somewhere that is feasible for a part of our PR agency to move -- thus Seattle shines.

Who knows. We're all just in suspense around here. And I accidentally promised to make Chicken Marsala tonight.

Remembering the Advent of Babycakes

I'm reminiscing today about when I found out I was pregnant with our Babycakes -- is it bizarre that I have kept the pregnancy test? It's tucked away among the hospital bracelets and other detritus, but will she REALLY be interested in a stick upon which her mother urinated?

Well, it was a portentious urination, to be sure. I was so excited -- my period was several days late that December day, and I finally decided to TEST. I woke up super-early in the morning and darted into the bathroom, only to watch those two lines pop up LICKETY SPLIT. There was no question about it -- I was preggers!

I dashed out of the bathroom with no one to tell. It was probably about 5am. I found the cat, Mega-T, sitting on the sofa, so I told him all about it. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you, Beezus? I'm PREGNANT! This is going to change everything!"

He was just kind of generically interested in me, not seeming to grasp the gravity of being the FIRST to receive the news, so I called Oma in Indiana, and woke her up. "I just took a pregnancy test and it was POSITIVE."

"Don't tell ANYONE," she said, "until you're SURE."

"Too late. I've told the cat."

Today, I'm tired, and my period is one day late, but the pregnancy test I took two days ago was negative so I'm going to assume I've miscalculated.

It's just fun to think about the one pregnancy test that WAS positive, and what a wonderful person that little pink line turned out to be.

TLA

This morning I was folding a fitted sheet, and it triggered Babycakes' GYMBOREE PARACHUTE reflex. She thrust her arms into the air as I flipped the sheet into the air, and the only thing to do was to throw the sheet over her, and dive under myself.

We sat there under the sheet, laughing at each other, and I said, "Babycakes! We're the ONLY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!" and she reflected my abject delight.

Babycakes has no sense of "personal space" so we're always just right up in each others' craw. I mean, how can you expect an infant to have that sense of personal space? She's macking on my BOOB every day for cripes' sake!

But it's nice, because she loves smushing her whole face up against my face and we just look right at each other and laugh. Isn't it GREAT!?

"Babycakes, I'm in LOVE WITH YOU," I tell her. And if I ever want to make myself feel more patient, or melancholy, I remember that she won't ALWAYS cry when I leave the room, and there will come a day when she has a different best pal. Heck, she may already have that with Hub-D -- every day she gets more bonded to her Daddio, and I suspect they're keeping secrets from me already.

But today, under that fitted sheet, with our little heads bobbing up through the vast white cotton on the family room floor, we were Best Friends FOREVER. TLA!

Really mature

Listen. Sometimes you're half-dead from food poisoning, and you used your last grain of energy to take your teething/weaning/irritable baby to Gymboree, then you give her ORANGES only to realize that you have just signed yourself up for a BATH. So, yeah, there are these stick-on letters, and what are you gonna do?

Rotten

I woke up with terrible food poisoning today. I didn't know it was food poisoning, so I got really excited and thought, "Whoa! I feel barfy, I bet I'm pregnant!"

So I grabbed a pregnancy test (which are expensive, by the way!) and my heart was pounding so loud, I thought it would flip out of my chest. Then, yeah, it was negative. I checked it several times, even digging it out of the trash an hour later, JUST IN CASE.

Babycakes woke up (5:40 am) and started mewling, just as I was seized with the first spasm of digestive HELL. So yeah, it's not been a fabulous day.

What IS fabulous is that Nanny D was on duty today, so I could dismiss my child and lie curled up in my bed feeling like the crazy wife in Jane Eyre.

And now I'm finally sitting up, still in my PJ's and still not the best-smelling gal on the block, but I'm finally functioning.

I think it was the Indian food we had last night. It's too gross to even contemplate, but that Sag Paneer is the chief suspect in all of this.

And why am I not pregnant? I realized a few days ago that Hub-D and I have become accustomed to victory, and when we have setbacks like the Old Polk House, or Serge, or my not getting pregnant, we think -- "But it's US! We are a victorious people!"

Not this month. The egg has splatted. The Sag Paneer is rotten. And I've misplaced my child somewhere in the house.

My baby WINS

I'm so idiotically competitive.

I was in the Nashville Airport yesterday, and Babycakes zoomed up next to another baby in the airport. The other baby had a pacifier in her mouth, and Babycakes likes to rip "binkies" from other babies' mouths so she can gnaw on them. They never see her coming.

As I lunged after Babycakes to prevent the Binky Removal, the mother said, "My baby is 10 months old. How old is she?"

At this point, I always puff up with a gargantuan amount of pride and bellow: NINE MONTHS! People are taken aback, as she's tall, meaty, steady on her feet, and physically together for her age. The other mom kept her eye on us as I flipped open a styrofoam container and started feeding Babycakes a pulled pork sandwich and baked beans.

The mom of the other baby said, "You feed her that? My baby isn't eating food yet."

And I said, "Oh yeah, well, she doesn't seem to know she's a baby," and handed her another chunk of pulled pork. Inside I was bursting with pride -- I mean, heck YEAH Babycakes is the BEST! Is it my superior breast milk?? Or perhaps my excellent mothering skills? Are my and Hub-D's genes just THAT terrific? Science is stumped!

Then the other baby's dad came over to us and said, "I hear you have a prodigy!"

I was speechless. It's like I won some kind of baby advancement prize, and I was absolutely swooning from it.

WHERE is all of this pride coming from in me? These are Babycakes' accomplishments, not mine, and all babies grow at different rates. It doesn't mean that this other baby isn't going to outscore Babycakes in the SAT, it's just that, for today, MY CHILD the biggest, tallest, baddest Binky Stealer in the Nashville Airport.

This is my problem: I don't go to work anymore. OK, I have a desk and a business card, but my identity and time have shifted to motherhood.

I was a mover and a shaker -- our company made waves in the PR world! I mailed a personal note on agnecy stationery to almost everyone I met in any circumstance, clocking in new business left and right. I signed and serviced major industry players and hired a crack staff who listened to my counsel.

NO LONGER. I have a big stack of business cards of people to whom I owe personal notes. I finally stowed that stack in a drawer -- those folks ain't gettin' notes. Potential clients call our VP, not me, because I don't return calls. I'm too busy lactating or brushing a cat or chasing Babycakes down the driveway to work on actual business.

So I don't get work accolades anymore. I don't have work stories. I don't have work adversaries that I work to conquer. I don't even have co-workers. All I have is other babies in airports to evaluate the "job" I've been doing the last 18 months (9 mos. pregnancy + 9 mos. of Babycakes) and so all my pent-up work energy comes filtering out in the aforementioned idiotic competitiveness.

In academia, you get grades. In work life, you get raises and clients. In motherhood, you get organic blackberries smeared all over you while you try to run a bath that is just the right temperature while your baby tries to "help" you with the faucets.

So I'm learning to stop comparing and competing and upping the "ante" with new baby skills. It's Babycakes that was born so full of vigor and ambition. It was HER idea to climb the big kids' slide. So where do I get off pouring my identity into her accomplishments?

Ah, she doesn't mind sharing. She's happy to throw her old mom a bone.

The Old Polk Place

We're just now back from Tennessee (Johnny Reb Ghost Country) and the whole clan is tired and hungry. Babycakes just ate three kiwis for dessert, and I can tell you from experience that Eating Kiwis = Interesting Diapers.

Today Hub-D and I are feeling crestfallen, crushed and downright disappointed. In short, we made an offer on a house in Tennessee, and we're not going to get the house. It took so much logistical effort, heartbreak, travel, and leaps of faith for us to make that offer, that when we learned that another offer had been submitted shortly before ours, and accepted, we just felt awful.

The house sat on three acres, walking distance to a lot of great stuff, and it had a big lawn filled with fireflies. It was built by the Polk Family (of James K. fame) -- and Mrs. Polk died recently, after which the Old Polk Place was renovated by a gospel songwriter. It was built so sturdily that after more than 60 years, the floorboards didn't creak.

We saw it on Saturday, and I felt overcome with sadness when we walked in the house. I don't know why. It was perfect, but decorated in cheesy black trim by the gospel songwriter. I sat in the living room and just felt gloomy while Hub-D exclaimed over the beauty and perfection of the house. I went back to the hotel, took a nap, and asked if we could see the house again, now that I wasn't feeling so tired and maudlin anymore.

I hypothesized that the ghost of Mrs. Polk, who had been a recluse, was spooking around and I felt her sad energy. So when I walked in the house again this morning, feeling well-rested and much more excited about Tennessee in general, I stood in the middle of it and said, out loud, "Mrs. Polk, you've got to move on. You need to leave this house to the next generation. Move on, there is a place waiting for you in the beyond, and you're not welcome here anymore."

Yes, I think I'm TOTALLY like Alison Dubois the "Medium" psychic, but it made me feel heaps better. After examining the old barn again (perfect for fun, scary sleepovers) and discovering a funny old outhouse, then coming across a sweet bunny who let me come close, and smelling the woods in back -- so sweet and cool on that otherwise humid day -- I agreed with Hub-D: Let's make an offer!

So our real estate agent swung into action, only to learn that we had just missed our chance to own this beautiful, three-story, five-bedroom, completely-updated-kitchen, hardwood floor, giant basement, offices for both of us, second floor porch SHANGRI-freakin'-LA.

OK, I feel a little responsible for our missing this opportunity -- if I had been ready to bid on Saturday, instead of feeling sad and tired and conflicted about the whole move, we might have gotten this house. But I wasn't ready. I would have had wicked buyer's remorse, and felt like I'd been bullied into the whole situation.

But now, we didn't get it. And that's OK. We love our home and friends in California, and we're in no hurry to move. It's just, well, we're SAD because we had spent the whole weekend picturing our family, and future children, growing up in those beautifully constructed rooms. For cripe's sake, the marble in the master bathroom was exactly the marble I fancied installing here in our California house. Agh, so frustrating.

We spent the flight back taking care of a very spastic and sleepless Babycakes, and giving each other sad looks, and repeating, "I can't believe we didn't get the house," in a spiral of depression.

But when we arrived back in our own homey home, greeted by our neighbors and cats, we cheered up. Then when I opened a letter from some friends of ours, thanking us for a donation we made in honor of their sweet baby daughter who recently passed away -- and the letter included a photo of the baby -- we both stood back from the whole situation and realized, yeah, that house wasn't so important.

Reb-B-Gone

Tonight, Hub-D and I went on the **Nashville Ghost Tour**. There were many super-juicy ghost stories, and Hub-D and I started to get a little bit silly about it. See, we've started to think of Confederate soldier ghosts as a constant presence here in the Nashville area. This was the site of many bloody battles, and there are signposts everywhere describing massive casualties and harrowing battles.

Late last night we went back to a house that we like -- this one is located in Nashville and has been my personal favorite (for crap's sake, it's got a mud room with CUBBIES) -- and we parked our car near the back of the house and walked around the neighborhood to get a feel for things there. We parked the car along what is a Civil War trail, still not totally overgrown, where the Confederate troops made a long withdrawal from the battles that took place there. Basically, thousands upon thousands of exhausted soldiers walked along that exact path where we parked our little rental car. Oh, and there is also a "Slave Wall," but that's a different topic.

Hub-D and I strolled around and contemplated the street noise we could hear, and discussed the benefits of moving to various places, then headed back to the car. As we went to sit down, I said... "What if there was a Confederate soldier GHOST in the back seat!?" AAAAAAH! I completely freaked myself out, and looked very carefully to make sure that we were indeed alone.

While I haven't seen one Confederate flag here (to my great relief), the smell of Confederate soldier ghosts is everywhere! My friend R. parked his van near here one night, on a country road, and was woken in the middle of the night to what he thought was a state trooper asking him to "move along." But the man never spoke to R., just drifted across the road and into the woods. In the morning, R. saw that there was no discernable trail there, and realized that the uniform on the man was NOT a state trooper uniform at all, but had been that of a soldier.

So they're flippin' everywhere. During the ghost tour, we heard about a ghost that haunts the capitol building, pushing people and speaking harshly to them. Hub-D and I wondered, I mean, is this a liability of moving to Tennessee? Are there Confederate soldier ghosts screwing with you all of the time?

That's when we thought of a great new product, for the residents of Middle Tennessee: Reb-B-Gone. It would come in a spray form (Hub-D said it should smell like General Sherman) and if Johnny Reb should start haunting you -- sitting in your car, waking you up at night, or general pestering behavior, just point it at the spectre and fire away! And the Reb will be GONE! Reb-B-Gone would be popular for workers at the state capitol, or if we move into the home we liked so much in Nashville, the one with the Slave Wall, well, we'd just keep a canister of Reb-B-Gone right by the back door for those late night walks/encounters.

Reb-B-Gone, for all of your Civil War ghostbusting needs!

And we're off again

In 40 minutes, I will scoop my husband and daughter into the car, and we will all parade to Nashville, to evaluate its liveability for us. (Is that a word? Suddenly it doesn't look like one.)

I haven't packed anything for myself, nor have I showered, but I've got to kick it into gear now that Babycakes has settled in for a hard-won nap. She is so nutty lately, just wants to explore everything, and more often than not, we're dealing with pinched fingers or a bumped head or little scratches and the eternal game of, "What in the WORLD is in your mouth?"

We were taught at our Infant CPR class that you should never stick your finger in your kid's mouth to retrieve something. So I haven't, but it sure would come in handy when I spot her chewing on something with a satisfied, cow-like expression on her face, and I wonder... will I find that object in her diaper later? I know: gross. But really. Last week I found a little round-edged plastic tab in her diaper. Where did she find it?

Anyway, she's sure to find some interesting new things to ingest on the airplane, if we ever get there.

Be back in four days!

Outer Mongolia

We're leaving tomorrow morning for Middle Tennessee, and here is what I've packed so far:

* Extra-firm organic tofu. Do you think people in Nashville eat tofu? I don't know! But one wouldn't want to get caught out there without it, yes?
* Four juice boxes of fine red wine. I kid you not, they make these in California. And if I'm staying in a Tennessee Hampton Inn with Hub-D, Babycakes and Grandma R., we're going to need one for each of us, I believe.
* Organic oatmeal, naturally.
* A whole load of avocadoes, of varying ripeness. It's been my experience that avocadoes obtained outside of California tend to be small, mangy flavorless "avocado-esque" characters. And Babycakes needs her avocadoes, not to mention Grandma R., who has been riding the waves in New Hampshire with only crappy avocadoes at her disposal.

But I realize, as I review this list, that it may be impossible for me to really move out of California. If I can't survive four days without packing like I'm going to Outer Mongolia, how do I expect to pull up stakes and actually leave? Am I going to have these items FedEx'ed to me?

Regardless, we're going to give it a whirl. I mean, you can't beat homes built before the Civil War, filled with ghosts and fun times, in a no-tax state packed full of midwives, can you? I mean, unless it came with tofu and avocadoes.

Spider Attack

Just so you know, there are SO MANY BLACK WIDOWS in my neighborhood, it's ridiculous. Tonight, I was hauling a big plastic pot from our backyard through the house, and looked down at my hand, and began this conversation:

Me: Hello there m'lady, how are you this evening?
Black Widow: I'm going to BITE YOU AND KILL YOU!
Me: Perhaps I could redirect this energy of yours into killing some of the thousands of mosquitos that populate the periphery of our home?
Black Widow: DIE!!!!
Me: It is unfortunate that you are sitting on my hand at this moment, as our desires are at odds with one another.
Black Widow: KILL KILL KKKKIIIIILLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This whole conversation took place in a millisecond, and was followed by what must have been a highly comical dance, in which I dropped the dirt-filled pot on the freshly mopped floor and flipped my hand around like, well, like it had a gigantic black widow spider on it. Which it did.

And now I clean. Clean clean clean the dirt off the floor. And realize yes, that spider is somewhere in the house now. Teeeeeriffic.

Contemplating Tennessee

Things are not going well in Oregon, where Hub-D is scouting for homes. It had been the #1 choice for our potential relocation, but everywhere my Republican husband goes, there are vehicles like this...



He called me in a panic, as it seems that the hippies of Oregon were making some sort of aggressive drum circle around him. I mean, couldn't Oregon have behaved itself and just been misty and beautiful and filled with Pinot Noir and idyllic river scenes? Why did it have to be all hippie in front of him?

I LOVE Oregon. I lived there for six wonderful months, but was forced to relocate for a job in California. When I saw the sign indicating the California border, as my friend S. and I drove south along I-5 on December 20, 1998, I just cried my eyes out, and vowed to move back as soon as I could.

It is beautiful in Oregon, and people are kind and smart, and yeah, there are some hippies, but there is also Powell's Books in Portland, and the bubble-filled Country Fair in Eugene, and the crazy cold coastline filled with fun seaweed and strange rocks. I had never felt more at home, and I hoped that Hub-D would see the same charm I had felt when I lived there.

But he can't see the charm through the clouds of patchouli, so it looks like Tennessee is moving up into the #1 spot on the Family Relocation Project.

Hm, Tennessee. We leave on Friday to investigate the area, and Grandma R. is flying down to care for Babycakes while we drive around and peruse the offerings of Tennessee. I don't know, but I'm worried.

The only time I've been in Tennessee is when I drove through with Oma, and stayed overnight just north of Nashville. I took a jog down the road, and discovered a PROLIFERATION of CONFEDERATE FLAGS. Being from "The North," I had always been assured that the Civil War was over, and that sad chapter in our nation's history was closed. Nu-uh, not in Tennessee!

The flags were a-flappin', and I started to get kind of worried that I had stumbled into a "South Will Rise Again"-type commune and I thought I'd better get OUT before they discovered a Union sympathizer in their midst.

I'm now hoping that community was an exception, and the rest of the state is nice like Dolly Parton and Oprah Winfrey. My current community in California is packed full of nice people who are sweet with Babycakes, and offer me advice and help whenever I need it. And, according to the voting records, which I peevishly examined at the polls yesterday, my California neighbors are a political mish-mash. Does the same thing exist in Tennessee?

OK, I know I like grits (CHEESE grits, yeah...) and I love sweet tea -- both of which are fortes of the Volunteer State. But I'm worried on some level, having never experienced the beautiful Tennessee of which Hub-D speaks, that every place the real estate agent drives us to will look like this:


So I love Oregon, yes, but I love Hub-D more, and I'll never forget how happy he sounded when he called me from Tennessee, so thrilled to have found his Shangri-La. And heck, they have a Farmer's Market in the town we're visiting, so how bad could it be?....

Trivia contest

If they held a trivia contest for new moms, they could pack it with challenging questions like, "What did you eat for breakfast?" and "Close your eyes -- now what are you wearing right now?"

And we would all be stumped, and possibly just take a nap while we're closing our eyes.

The other day, the bank teller asked me for my account number. Ha ha haaaaaaaaa... Look it up, lady, because I don't know what I had for breakfast, and have no idea what clothes I have on, if any.

Gymboree is too clean and safe

So we've started going to Gymboree.

For the uninitiated, Gymboree is an indoor crazy playground with loads of soft fun toys and sturdy slides and everything is in primary colors. Every two weeks they switch up the whole place, emphasizing some physical skill kids can acquire by messing around on the equipment. There are balls everywhere, and there are one-hour "classes" in which a teacher (ours is a cute lady named "Teacher Julie") goes through a series of activities with the parents and kids.




During the classes, the teacher sings a bunch of songs, which is nice because Teacher Julie has a lovely voice and Babycakes is developing a crush on her. And the parents are supposed to sing along, which, because I'm new, I don't. I feel the same way I used to when I'd visit a Catholic church and they'd all be singing various tunes throughout the service, and I'd always be startled when the crowd around me piped up with some new religious ditty and I had no idea how to sing along.

So anyway, yesterday I took Babycakes to the Free Play time at our Gymboree, so she could mess around on the equipment for longer than an hour, and so that she and I could kind of get our bearings a little better. As it is, for the two classes we've already attended, everyone is SO ACTIVE and popping bubbles and dicking around with a parachute and sliding down slides and jumping on a TRAMPOLINE for pete's sake, that my child and I have kind of sat off to the side, mute and amazed and the crowd's energy. We've been like a couple of "squares" at Woodstock.

I've tried putting Babycakes on the spinning parachute or clapping her hands to the music as Teacher Julie guides us to do, and she's always looking at me with a quizzical expression, like, "Why, mama? WHY?"

So at Free Play, she really opened up and started to mess around on the equipment, climbing on various wooden play structures and watching older kids, picking up cues from their ball-throwing, hollering good-time behavior. It was all good. She even climbed up on two separate play structures, weaving her little body in among the railings and seemingly having a good time exploring the place.

I was so proud of her, thinking in an overly prideful manner, "She's really GOOD AT Gymboree! My nine-month-old child is a Gymboree MASTER! She's so advanced and superior as she climbs on this equipment, and I'm doing more to develop my child's brain and body than probably, oh, say, 99% of parents around the WORLD!"

Then, thank goodness, I got ahold of my haughty self, and thought, "Wait. It's Gymboree." It seems that what I'm actually teaching my child here is that the world is a big safe play gym and you can just crawl on anything and there will be pads so that you don't bump your head. Yeah, everything is in primary colors and you never have to ask permission before you grab a bunch of Wiffle Balls and stick them in your mouth. It's a big, sanitized child-centric universe, so rock on with your bad self while I root you on!

I mean, I'm all for a big indoor party, but instead of Gymboree, I kind of fancy throwing her into the backyard and letting her make her own Gymboree. Perhaps she would invent tools, not unlike our primate cousin, the chimpanzee. Perhaps she will get dirty, and possibly ingest various weeds and insects. Perhaps she will get scratched on the bark of the redwood trees, or the thorns on the roses. Perhaps she will dig a big fat hole and bury important things without our knowledge.

But anyway, we have a good time at Gymboree, but I don't want to get addicted to the Gymboree experience, which it seems completely possible to do (Did I mention how much we like Teacher Julie?). Instead, I want to take cues from it and teach her how to be creative in the outside world, how to squeeze her body between branches, how to pick a flower without cutting her hands, and how to fend off a raccoon -- all skills available for free in our backyard.

The CURLS

Hub-D and I have become obsessed with Babycakes' new CURLS. They are so devilish!

Late last night, our bedroom was totally silent as we drifted to sleep, when suddenly Hub-D said, "Those CURLS!" and I responded immediately, "I KNOW!!!"

They are just so irresistable and sproingy, thank GOODNESS that she is my child, so no one can stop me from sproinging them day and night.

The curls have emerged from nowhere -- as of three weeks ago, her hair was totally straight. Then suddenly, around her ears, there was this little upswing of hair activity. I chalked it up to my propensity to tuck her hair behind her ears, but in the ensuing weeks, they have really germinated all around the base of her hair -- this layer of curls that has us in such a lather.

THOSE CURLS!

In which we return Serge

Well we've had an awful day.

Yesterday, I went to a dog adoption event, hoping to meet SERGE, a 10-year-old black spaniel mix with "good senior spaniel energy." He sounded perfect -- he was listed by the dog adoption group as being a quiet dog who enjoyed walks and didn't mind cats. He was mellow, too, which I thought was important for Babycakes.

The problem is, that after I read the ad, I started thinking of Serge as OUR DOG, and I couldn't wait to bring him home and integrate him into our family. By the time Serge wandered up to the adoption event, as I stood there with Babycakes in the stroller, I was in a FROTH, ready to adopt him. After exchanging a few words with his foster mom, who said she takes him on walks as long as 45 minutes, I handed over a gangsta roll of $180 to the adoption coordinator and arranged for his foster mom to drop Serge off.

About 10 seconds after he arrived at my home, my error was apparent. Serge wasn't just hard of hearing, as listed in his ad. Serge was deaf. And Serge was almost blind. And Serge had seizures, and... well, Serge is just a very old dog. He's way older than 10. I could see this now that he was in our house.

But I soldiered on, and thought, well, the AD said that he had a few good years in him, and it also said he's got that "good senior spaniel energy" so who cares! We'll teach him sign language and he'll watch us with his one "good" eye and we'll give him treats and Babycakes will rest her wee head on his chest and he'll have an excellent last few years living with our family. Who cares that I have to give him medication twice a day for his eyes and his ears -- he deserves an excellent home after all the old guy's been through.

This morning, I woke up and found he had pooped on the kitchen floor. But that's OK! He's old and he's confused in a new house, and it was on the laminate flooring and so I cleaned it up, plus I hosed off the rug he had peed on. "All part of dog ownership!" I thought, although I was starting to resent Serge in a totally unfair way.

Babycakes woke up and I plopped her in her backpack carrier, clipped a leash on Serge (...once I tracked him down. He doesn't come when he's called after all...) and we hit the road. Our first real family WALK! Here we go! Just like the ad said -- that he "loves his walks" and the foster mom saying that she walked him for "45 minutes" -- let's go! And so we strolled down to the end of the block, albeit slowly, and it was a beautiful morning, and nice woman stopped to pat Serge's head and all seemed well.

Then I turned around and headed home after about, oh, 8-9 minutes. And Serge was not really moving anymore. OK, that's not fair, he was moving. He was trying so hard to keep up, but he was slower and slower. He has short little legs and he's struggling to just see the path ahead of him, and I was trying not to PULL on the leash but Babycakes started to fuss in the backpack because Serge was stopping to rest every 5-10 feet, and, well, Serge DOESN'T LIKE WALKS, it seems. I mean, he really just wants to sleep at people's feet all day long, I guess. And, well, he also doesn't like dog food, so he kind of ignored the food I set out for him, and followed me around all morning trying to get me to pour him a bowl of cereal or something, except he was slipping sadly on the kitchen floor while he followed me, and then I banged my ankle in the back door trying to get him interested in the glorious dog food I had set out there for him, and, well, things were kind of spiraling out of control.

I had wanted a mellow dog, and I got a dying dog. I didn't understand the situation because I didn't look closely at him at the adoption event: Serge is sick and old, not a calm dog with "good senior spaniel energy."

So I called Serge's foster mom this morning and asked her to come get him. And I felt like the world's biggest JERK. All Serge needed was a nice place to spend his final time on earth and I was kicking him out. But we have a baby and this would be our first dog and we are a HIGH ENERGY FAMILY, as it turns out. We were all incompatible with each other, and it was the saddest thing. The sadness I feel today seems like the sadness I had when Mega-T the cat died last October. Oh so sad, watching Serge leave the house.

Hub-D tried to salvage the situation, even after I called the foster mom, because we just didn't want it all to be as sad as it was. We wanted to take care of Serge, even though we noticed that he smelled kind of strong. There was so much good about the dog, we just wanted it to work so bad! He tried to take Serge for another walk, just in case the morning walk was an anomaly, but Serge didn't get even half as far. And Babycakes was nice and sweet, and she tried to follow him and put her face up next to his, and he just kept backing away with a blank expression on his face.

The dog rescue group apparently named him "Serge" because he would "surge" on the leash when he went out for walks.

What in the WORLD? This dog was so reluctant to go anywhere. I wonder if he had deteriorated just in the last few weeks and they hadn't noticed the way we did. But anyway, we are so sad. Sad, most of all, for Serge. And sad that we thought we'd found OUR dog, and sad that Serge was not that dog.

But ultimately, Serge wasn't broken up about the whole thing. It's like he knew it wasn't going to work before I did. He walked out of the house and didn't look back. Not even with his "good" eye.

God bless you Serge, and good luck!

Popsicle sadness

Now that we're getting serious about moving, everything has a weird new sheen to it. I look around our house and for the first time, I don't see projects everywhere. I see Other Peoples' Problems.

That drapery cord that's been sticking ever since we moved in? That will be someone else's cross to bear.

Hub-D wanted to prune the lemon tree tonight, and I was kind of half-hearted about it. I mean, why bother getting spider webs and lemon juice all over us when we're just going to MOVE.

And in a much more serious way, I think it changes my friendships. Tonight my friend L. was enjoying our daughters playing together, and she said, "It will be so fun when they're sharing popsicles."

And I felt a little popsicle lodge in my throat. Our daughters won't be sharing popsicles if we move to Nashville or Washington State. Are people going to stop investing emotionally in friendships with me in California if they know I'm leaving at the end of the summer?

I've resolved to spend the summer squeezing as much juice out of my friendships and the weather and the fruits and marvelous things about California. Then if Hub-D still wants to go, we're out.