Baby's first Nar show


And maybe the last? Well, if junior develops a love for Sacramento Treats, fast 3-chord pop songs and is totally down for bros hanging out then we know that it's all because of his in-womb exposure to this weekend's Nar show and Nar-B-Q.

We brought Heylove, who hung out as long as she could before she practically begged me to take her to the car. I guess all that volleyball tired her out pretty good. I think she scavengered something bad at the Nar-B-Q that upset her stomach because she wouldn't eat her food at all yesterday. She spent most of last night curled up on the couch like a little black bean. Poor ribs. She was feeling fine this morning. She's going to need a sitter for this Wednesday - Sunday night and I have no idea where I'm going to take her.

25 weeks


I never posted about my 25th week this week. Here I am, steadily growing into the shape of a lowercase b.

And here's the flickr stroll through other ladies at the same week. So many different shapes!

No sweets except puppies and babies


I was told not to have sweets yesterday or today in preperation for a routine glucose test. I'm not a big sweets fan, so it hasn't been that hard. It did make me realize how many sweets I do eat in a given day. Not like cake and candy and all that, but I was told not to even have gum, mints and fruit juice. Fresh fruit was okay to eat yesterday, but I couldn't have any today. So when I'm done giving the blood sample later I'm going to gorge myself on all the fruit I've been craving. Nectarines, bananas, cherries and then I'm going to wash it all down with a big glass of OJ.

I haven't been blogging much lately because work's been so crazy. Not allowed to blog about it though. Here's what I've been up to at home:

Watching Leon construct an extreme make over on the office, making it into baby's room



Cold chillin' with baby Hull



Hanging with the dogz

I wish


It's not really a beer. It's a ginger ale...but oh, how I wish! Some people say it's okay to have a beer if I want it but I swear every week when I get one of those fetal development emails it says that some crucial brain development is going on. I guess I'm just nervous about messing the kid up. Maybe I'll just wait until Leon's baby brew is brewed and ready to drink, sometime around November 7. And mang, could I use one.

Summer food


In the summertime, there's nothing finer than all of the fabulous produce in season. I can't get enough stone fruits (nectarines, apricots, cherries, peaches) because they're so sweet when they're ripe. Tomatoes are starting to get better, too. I went to the farmers market yesterday and picked up a little of both the fruits. For the apricots and nectarines, I ate them just as they were yesterday, but if I had some goat cheese, that would've been good, too. I decided to use the tomatoes in a basil-feta salad. I halved a basket of cherry heirlooms and added in some cut basil leaves, sprinkled on some feta and doused it all with bariani and the last bit of my fancy balsamic vinegar from Italy, fresh ground sea salt and pepper. Simple, but it came out delicious. They reminded me a little of the stacked tomato salads I made a while back (pictured).

We went to Cafe Bernardo Sunday evening. It was so hot inside, I don't know what I was thinking when I ordered the side of mashed potatoes with my sandwich, but bad idea. The potatoes were great, but my food was so hot and it was so muggy inside, I sweated a bunch just sitting there. Leon ordered this great asparagus, tofu salad with shaved carrots and a soy-ginger vinaigrette. It was so good! I totally need to go back and order just that.

Mmmm, food. Who's hungry?

Best river ever


I finally got to make it out the South Yuba River on Saturday. It was so awesome! So many rad little swimming holes to float in, some kind hippies and really cute swimming dogs. The water was perfect, not too cold at all and my joints felt sweet relief while being practically weightless for a couple of hours. I really need to go back...and bring food. Being in and around water always makes me hungry. I'm not sure if Heylove would have such a great time though. She hates to swim.

Hot enough to boil a dog's brain


I'm almost ready to wave the white flag to this heat. I can't fight it anymore, it just gets hotter and hotter. Maybe soon I'll learn to like it, or not...but I don't feel like whining about it anymore. It's summertime in Sacramento. Honestly, what do I expect?

This has been a week of pizza for me, eating a slice or two 4 out of the last 5 days and I'm having it again tonight. I sure do love pizza. You know what else I love? Standing in very cold water. I am going to go do some wading and maybe swimming in the river this weekend to take the edge of this weather.

Someone gave me a Long Winters CD a couple of weeks ago. I listened to it twice and found it quite boring. Lately, while tuning in to KEXP online, I keep catching songs that sound like bad Counting Crows and I'm all "WTF?! They can't play this on KEXP!" Then I look at the playlist and see that it's the Long Winters. Major lame!

24 weeks


Here's a bad 24 week picture. Maybe I'll try to take a better one tomorrow, where you can't see how gross the floor is. That floor...it's long story, but basically it got rain damaged and now we have to replace it on our own dime because our insurance doesn't cover it. Major lameness. Anyway, here's a flickr stroll through others at 24 weeks, and then a not for the faint of heart link to a blog showing real moms and their very real stretch marks.

I'm feeling mostly okay this week. My back is still hurting, I'm living in constant fear of getting stretch marks, I'm often on the brink of bawling, and I'm finding it a little hard to eat comfortably because my womb is pushing all my guts up into my upper abdomen. But yeah, feeling mostly okay. This morning baby was madly moving his legs and arms, as if he were trying to wake me up. It was pretty sweet.

Bourdain Watch 2006


OMG! Our beloved Tony Bourdain & No Reservations crew are stranded in Beirut! Well, if you can call it stranded if you're holed up in a hotel sipping blended drinks while warfare is exploding around you. Oh, Tony. Come back in one piece! By the by, No Reservations has been in reruns lately, but when I was watching the last new episode (Indonesia), I noticed a commercial for what looked like his Decoding Ferran Adria (the foam guy!) show. Alas, I missed the airing on TV, so I tried finding this DVD through Tower and the library, but no dice. Amazon has it, but I don't like buying from them. I really wanted to see what the big deal is about El Bulli.

Complaint department


All I feel like doing is complaining today. I'll try not to, but it's hard because it's been so hot, our house is in shambles from recently started home improvements, Heylove has a stuffy nose again and I look obnoxious in these Crocs today. But you know what? Mmmmmm, my feet sure are comforatble.

Rub down


I want a massage. No, not a sensual double dragon massage...a normal one, for pregnant ladies.

This weekend I tried to be active, but it's so hard when it's hot out and my back is hurting again. On Friday, I managed to see Strangers with Candy and caught the last half of the Finches (there was only one Finch) show. Both were great. I feel a little like a SWC poser though. I've only seen season 1 and 2. Season 1, I didn't really like, but thought season 2 was way funny. The movie was good and I'd like to see it again, except maybe next time try not to pay. The Finch was awesome as she played for a handfull of people in someone's living room. Total sweet show. I should have bought the record. I tried to take pictures, but it was so dark and my point & shoot is not good at that. Sure wish I had a pro one.

On Sunday I bought some embarrassingly trendy shoes. Don't laugh, I had to get them. My back is killing me and these shoes allow me to stay on my feet more comfortably.

Not ready to think about this yet


I still don't feel quite ready to start buying all kinds of baby gear, but I had to get myself started somehow. I got this not-too-cutesy, but nice looking bedding for the crib that we haven't even bought yet. So there, green/pear. Those are the colors I can finally tell our families.

It's mind-boggling what we still have to buy. Between car seats and strollers, monitors and who knows how many different types of blankes and pads. I'm feeling so overwhelmed.

Hottest puzzle editor in the known world


I can't help it if I have a dorky fascination with NY Times puzzle editor, Will Shortz. I try not to miss his weekly appearance on NPR's Weekend Edition for the Sunday puzzle because his on air chemistry with Liane Hansen is totally cute. You can always tell how stoked she is when he joins the broadcast. Anyway, I went to see Wordplay last night with just about the only other person who would really want to see it anyway. It was like a 90 minute visual NPR story. I really liked it, except for the parts with Ken Burns. Ken Burns is really annoying. They also interviewed Bill Clinton in it (who was looking pretty hot for an old guy) and he was wearing a weird hemp bracelet. Bill, are you inhaling now?

Before the movie, we ate at Katmandhu Kitchen. I ordered the Vegan Thali, which seemed like a lot less food than I remember getting the last time I ordered it. They also have a vegetarian Thali, but I like the vegan one because they keep it clear of paneer. While I'm loving me some cheese, I have a hard time with paneer. It doesn't taste like much and it has me doubled over with stomach pains after I eat it. Plus, is that stuff pasturized? Baby only lets me eat cheeses that are made with pasturized milk because we could get listeriosis and miscarry. But I forgot that with the vegan Thali, you don't get naan, you get some other kind of bread. Sad, but it still tasted good. I liked everything on the platter, but the tomato pickles. They were horrible. Imagine a taste of unripe tomatoes being pickled in lighter fluid, rusty water and windex. That's what they tasted like. Just horrible! But my insides are now sparkling clean...

23 weeks


Here's my 23 week shot and a flickr stroll through other 23 weekers. I am starting to feel some braxton hicks contractions this week, my hip hurts if I sit too long and maybe this is because of the recent heat wave, but I've been really, really tired lately.

There are a bunch of movies that I really want to see right now. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to catch a couple. Has anyone seen Prairie Home Companion, Wordplay (starring the sexiest puzzle editor, Will Shortz!) or Nacho Libre? Oh! I just heard Strangers With Candy is opening this weekend, too?! So, so many movies.

Reading books about cooking


In keeping up with my current infatuation with Tony Bourdain, I finally got his new collection of bits & pieces from the library, The Nasty Bits. I'm only through the first 3 or 4 stories, but I already don't want it to end. I love this guys writing. I've started to line up a couple of other food books to keep me going after this one. The Les Halles cookbook (which I'll buy because hey, it's a cookbook), looked gorgeous when I was thumbing through it at a bookstore in Mt. Shasta. And then I'm putting Heat by Bill Bruford in my library request queue because it looks like more of that behind the scenes in a busy kitchen stuff that I really like to read about.

Like a melting ice cream


I just want you to know how miserable it is being pregnant in 100 degree weather. I feel like a walking, melting ice cream cone. I do not recommend it. Thankfully I can use this suffering later to leverage increasingly valuable mothers day gifts.

As Baby Grand's new superfan, I attended their show at Luna's on Friday and then hit up the Lilys show afterwards at Fools. I was too tired to feel like paying to get in so I just milled around the parking lot a little. Dude, was that the Brian Jonestown guy hanging around or just a reasonable facsimile?

On Saturday, I took in Hull Family Hour and spent time hanging out with new baby. He was looking the most alert I've ever seen him, which was cool. So that's what he looks like with his eyes open. What are babies thinking when they furrow their brows and look at you all serious?

Lazer dog


Sars, guys. I'm totally lazer (lazy) today. I have tons of work but can't stop thinking about what I'd rather be doing.

- Napping with my snoogle. Don't knock it until you've hugged the snoogle.
- Eating goat cheese and grilled bread with tomatoes.
- Shopping for a bathing suit in hopes it will bring me swimming opportunities. Who wants to see how rediculous I look in a bikini? I am available for swim parties and river chilling.
- Cleaning up the house because we lost our dining table under a mess of junk mail and random crap.
- Grocery shopping. Butter outage at chez Neon is going on a record 5th day and the levite (baby) is demanding more fruit.

I think I'm so tired because I had the bright idea of making Leon take me to Cornerstone for breakfast this morning. Levite and I are both practically comatose because all of our energy is now being diverted to digesting a mini vegetable potato platter.

Back from nature


Here's the 22 week picture of me in the wild. Well, really I'm on the Bunny Flats trailhead. It was murder on my poor back to walk up to this point, which is only about 100 feet from the parking lot. Anyway, I don't feel like I've gotten much bigger since last week. Here's a flickr stroll through other ladies at 22 weeks. Just showing how different everyone looks at this point and trying to convince myself to stop comparing.

So we went to Mount Shasta and stayed with the family-types out on their "prop-a-dee." They had a sweet barn for us to stay in because the local campsites were packed with out of towners. Hooray for sympathy towards pregnant ladies and looking after their coziness! I had really wanted to do some swimming, but since all the lakes and rivers are basically snow run-off up there, the water was too arctic for me to get into. I did get in some light hiking (ouch) and major relaxing (ahh).

Brisket was doing her best impression of a country dog. When she wasn't trying to bite the horses, she was eating sweet pea grass and running the trails with Leon. She wore herself out so bad, she's still sleeping it all off. I'd like to be doing the same, but honestly, I'm pretty glad to be back in town, where if you have on flip flops, your feet don't instantly get covered in dirt the minute you step outside.