My bump

It's getting bigger all the time! Actually, it looks sort of lumpy here.


Oh, and it's not an it--it's a girl!!!

Photo taken December 13th.

Holidays on Ice

It's been 3 weeks since I've updated the blog, but I've got some good excuses. A flurry of excuses, in fact.

First, of course, that perennial excuse: "It was the holidays." This year I made all my own gifts, which included a knitted scarf for my year-old niece, three "sleeping bags" for my 3 to 4 year-old nieces' dolls, a doll "diaper" bag for my toddler niece, a large batch of shortbread cookies for everyone in my department at work, candied nuts for the women I live with every day in cube-land, and this, which isn't even done yet, and yes, it's after Christmas:

This damn thing is my first foray into lace knitting, and while technically the stitches are easy enough to create, what's hard is following the pattern. At first, I was following the written instructions, which go something like "k3, ssk, yo, ssk, k1, [k2tog, yo] 2 times," etc. Once I got the gist of it, I started using the charted pattern instead, which looks something like notes on a musical staff, with five different lace rows, each followed by a simple purl row. As I said, the stitches themselves aren't hard, but I'm having a hell of a time not losing my place as I go along. Whether this is due to mild ADD or just a matter of being an inexperienced knitter, I don't know. When it's going well, I feel like a virtuoso, knitting in an imagined rhythm that corresponds to the charted "notes" on the page. But then I get to the end of a row and discover that I'm one stitch short, so I end up going back and counting and counting again, only to end up ripping out 5, 6, 7 rows at a time just to get back to a neutral place where I can start over.

So each night, for every 20 rows I knit, I probably rip out 7 of them. It's kind of like paying down my credit cards: for every payment I make, the finance charges end up eating a good portion of whatever I just paid, and the progress I make in paying down my debt seems to crawl along at a snail's pace, just like this scarf. But unlike paying down my credit card, the yarn I'm working with is a tactile dream: it's 50/50 silk/wool, hefty yet smooth and soft, with a beautiful, subtle sheen. The scarf is for my mom. I showed her the work-in-progress, and she loves it. Phew.

I guess I don't have any other excuses. But here are some pics of the general white-out conditions we've been experiencing up here in Maine.

Thumbs losing her footing during the season's first snow:
After that, the sun came out, and we had some gorgeous days with the sun glinting off fresh, smooth snow. The calm before the storm:
The storm:
Nick running outside to move our car after the two cars in front of us cleared a path. We don't even have a shovel yet, so without using their tire tracks to guide us out, we would have gotten plowed under by the next snow plow, for sure:
And then, the calm once again after the storm, early one morning. It was as cold and early as I look.
I posted more cute animal photos under the weekly photos link.

Knitwit

Around this time last year, I was probably at some bar on the Lower East Side, drinking a cocktail while wearing some cleaner, smaller clothes than the outfit I have on now: a pilly gray maternity sweater, and corduroys with a wide elastic waistband to accommodate my growing belly. Now, a year later, no longer single or living in New York City, my nights revolve around knitting, sewing and cooking with my boyfriend. Life has changed drastically, and yet it feels totally natural to be living in this apartment with the ocean nearby, our three pets, and my comparatively mundane routine.

Tomorrow we find out if I’m carrying a boy or girl, and our lives will change all over again.

Here is a picture of a sleeping bag I made for one of my niece's dolls for Christmas this year. Nick hasn't found a full-time job yet, so we're on a seriously tight budget for the foreseeable future. As it turns out, I'm actually quite pleased with the gifts I've been able to make. And it's lovely to have the luxury of time to be able to do so. Without social obligations or the extra money to spend on going out for dinner or movies, I'm finding that I really enjoy this forced domesticity. I don't know if I could find as much satisfaction in it were I still living in New York, with the city buzzing outside my window, a constant reminder of what I was missing.

Animal Update

Soon enough, this blog will be filled with photos of the baby. But for now, it's the animals that keep us amused.

The animals seem to be coming to an uneasy truce. Thumbs and Wiley have been spotted sharing a couch cushion; Ting Tong reluctantly ceded her bed to Wiley. And Thumbs figured out a strategy for taking over the apartment: she paws on the deck door to be let out, and Wiley inevitably follows. Then she climbs over the rooftop and down again and peers in at us through the front bank of windows until we notice her and let her in. Then she can take over the living room for a while, without worrying about getting ambushed by Wiley. It's a bit treacherous on the sloped roof outside our front windows, so it's lucky she has those big paws and extra thumbs, for better traction. I'm afraid she'll still try to do it even when the roof is icy and frozen.

Speaking of, we're supposed to get our first big snowstorm tonight! I'll post photos of the first winter storm coming in off the ocean. But first, photos of the animalz.

My Growing Belly

Here I am, a little over four months pregnant. After three months of queasiness and uncertainty, and one month of the unexpected relief of having that queasiness lift, I am now solidly, squarely, heavily waddling into what feels like Pregnancy, with a capital P. No longer can I hide my growing belly under loose clothes. No more can I quickly bend over to pick up a dropped pen from under my desk at work. I'm almost having trouble getting up off the couch. And I'm not even that big yet.

I'm a little nervous about the physical discomforts awaiting me. I've always been a bendable, flexible, small person. Always the one who had to sit on the hump on car rides. The one who would sit on someone else's lap in a crowded space. The one my (younger) brother used to bench press, as a joke. I've been carrying a little extra weight for the last few years, but to have what I can only describe as a whole new organ suddenly sprung up around my middle is a foreign feeling altogether. There's this thing there. A compressible ball of some sort, that lets itself be known whenever I try to move too quickly, or bend over too deeply, or even when I sit on the toilet, for crissakes. I'm trying to get used to it, but so far it just keeps surprising me, like walking into your kitchen to find a stranger standing there, after forgetting that you invited him over in the first place.

I guess it's good training for the little bundle that will make its presence known, in oh so many ways, a mere five months from now.

Finished!

I thought I was just going to hand sew this curtain. What was I thinking? It took me about 10 minutes, when all was said and done, to stitch the hems with my Shark mini-sewing machine. Nick and I held a ceremonious deveiling of the shower curtain he had so ingeniously rigged up in the meantime.

Getting crafty

It's my birthday today, so yesterday I drove to Target in the rain and bought myself a $20 sewing machine. It only sews one stitch, at two speeds, but I'm having a blast with it. At least with the one hem I've sewn so far. I'm making a curtain for our bedroom door window. Currently, we're using an old shower curtain bunched up on a tension rod. Pretty unsightly.

There's a little shop called Z Fabrics just down Congress St., and I fell in love with this great fabric (top row, middle). I plan to hem all sides, make a little pocket for the curtain rod, and get rid of our old vinyl makeshift curtain:
The current curtain.

The work-in-progress.

Stay tuned for the final product!

Leftovers

I'm sitting on my couch feeling almost as full as I did three days ago. I used the leftover glazed carrots from our Thanksgiving feast to make some ginger-carrot soup. My friend Soo, who is the best cook I know, gave me some pointers on how to modify a recipe I found online. I had all the ingredients I needed except for vegetable stock. Following is the text of our IM (please ignore the typos--we type fast). From reading it, you can glean my total ignorance about cooking (parsley?) and Soo's expertise:

Soo: what ingredients does the recepie call for?

me: * 1 diced medium red onion
* 1-2 Tbsp olive oil
* 4 Tbsp of minced fresh ginger
* 2-3 cloves finely minced garlic
* 1½ c. chopped carrots
* 3 c. vegetable broth
* ¼ c. orange juice
* salt and pepper to taste
* ¼-½ c cream or milk (optional)

1:15 PM Soo: ok. yes. yo ucan add water but i would add milk or soy milk definitely otherwise, it won't be rich enough

me: ok

thankx

1:16 PM Soo: in fact, i would add two cups water instead of 3 cp broth they are talking about and add an entire cup milk instead

just salt and pepper more than usual. also , do you have dry bay leaves?

1:17 PM me: unfortunately, no

parsley?

Soo: no parsley is for granish and aftertaste

me: oh ok

Soo: bay leaves gives it that veggie broth taste. no probl

i would also add a little cinanmon powder - just a tad. it'll give it a nice flavor.


I keep telling Soo she should start a cooking blog or website of some sort, where people can ask her advice on how to doctor up recipes or cook from scratch based on nothing except what's in their kitchens.

Now that I'm pregnant, and don't drink anymore, eating good food has become a major pleasure and indulgence, even more so than before. Thanksgiving was such a great time to be reminded of the joy and pleasure of cooking from scratch, of feeding a big crowd, of sharing others' recipes and contributions to the meal. I wish the U.S. celebrated more holidays that were unaffiliated with religion and that simply centered around being with family and loved ones, and eating.

Giving Thanks

First freeze—an orange leaf in the cats’ outdoor water bowl.

Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and for the first time, I will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner at my place. This feels like some sort of rite of passage. My mom is already worried that I’ll forget to order the turkey. I’m not worried, but maybe that’s because I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. Ten adults and two kids doesn’t sound like a lot. We’ll have turkey, stuffing, roasted squash, glazed carrots, Brussells sprouts, mashed potatoes, creamed onions, cranberry sauce, and of course, pies—apple, pecan, and pumpkin. My brother and his wife are contributing a few of the dishes I mentioned, and my mom is baking the apple pie. How hard can it be? Especially since Nick and I will be doing it together, and he is a great cook.


My mom told me that the other day she went to a casual dinner party at the home of an old friend, and she brought store-bought meatballs. The way she told the story, it seemed like she felt totally liberated yet almost guilty about bringing something she didn’t make in her own kitchen, as if she was cheating or shirking her duties. But when she got to the party, she wasn’t the only one to bring something pre-made, and she and her friends had a laugh about how much easier it is “these days” not to have to make everything yourself.

I feel lucky that as a grown woman I have never felt obligated to “make something” myself rather than just picking it up at a store or bakery, as I guess my mom and her peers may have felt as mothers from a different generation. It’s strange to think those days weren’t so long ago. When I make cupcakes or a lasagna, it feels like a novelty, a cool thing to do on a Sunday afternoon. I wonder if that will change when I have children, or if we’ve come a long enough way that I’ll continue to be able to choose when I bake for pleasure, and to opt out and run to Whole Foods when it feels like a chore.

Bussing it

The car battery was dead this morning. Of course, we were parked on the street-cleaning side of the street, and the weather was blustery, cold and rainy. Normally, being late to work is not something I worry too much about, but I had a 9am meeting I needed to make. Luckily, one of the cross-town buses stops right in front of our apartment, so I was able to scramble on while leaving Nick to deal with the car.

Taking the bus was kind of fun. I got to people watch, look out the windows, see what was going on in town. A mildly disabled man got on the bus and scolded the driver, who was apparently named Ronnie, for being late. He kept up a loud running commentary:

"Ronnie, you're late."

"Ronnie, I've been studying the Ft. Lauderdale phone book."

"Ho-hum."

Last night I walked home from work, and that was fun, too. I think what I really miss the most about New York is the street life. Just getting from one place to another is, in itself, something to do. There are people out on the street in Portland, but most of the people I saw last night (on Congress St., pretty much the business artery of town), were generally unkempt middle-aged males or young art school kids-- people who seemed to not have access to a car. Even though Portland does a great job with its urban planning/renewal projects, and is by any measure an extremely walkable city, the reality is that once the weather turns, most people who have the means are probably driving (save the hard-core bikers, who I admire greatly, but who I will just never be). My sense is that I'm seeing only a narrow cross-section of the population when I'm out on the street, and that makes me feel like it will take me that much longer to really get to know this city.

A friend from L.A. was visiting me in New York once after a 2-year hiatus, and he was stunned at how many "hot" girls he saw walking around. I was surprised, because I figured there were tons of good-looking women in L.A., but his response was that he just didn't see anybody in L.A., because EVERYbody there drives EVERYwhere. Depressing. And yet, I'm becoming one of them....

Weekly Photos of Ting-Tong, Wiley, and Thumbelina

Wiley as seen through the kitchen skylight.











Ting Tong and Wiley making some progress at becoming friends.




The cats bonding over the Cosmic Catnip Alpine Scratcher.

Ting Tong in Rhode Island
Ting Tong at the peak of some mountain my pregnant brain can't remember the name of.
Smart kitty!
I think Thumbs looks like a little Japanimation cat here, next to her lucky bamboo.

Happy Halloween!

Circle of Life

Faithful Reverie in Maine readers may remember this post, from way back in April, just a few weeks after I left New York for Maine. Who knew the last line of the second paragraph would be so prescient?

I left New York and moved to Maine because I wanted a change. In leaving New York, I felt I was moving towards something, not away from something. And now I know what that something is.

In August, Nick, the man I'd met just six weeks before leaving New York in March, moved up to Maine to be with me. And on the very day we moved into our lovely apartment, we discovered that I was pregnant. Am pregnant.

I'm pregnant! Our baby is due in late April.

My first reaction to this was sheer, unfettered joy, the likes of which I've never felt before. My second, and more lingering reaction, was one of fear and trepidation, nausea and uncertainty. I knew Nick loved me, and was committed to me, and I him, but we hadn't even known each other for a year. And though we had discussed having children in the near future, neither of us thought it would happen so quickly. So the first month of being pregnant, of living with a man for the first time, of helping him adjust to a new way of life even as I was still grappling with my own return to my New England roots, was hard. Not as hard as it could have been, but still, there was a lot of uncertainty, nervousness, fear--not to mention that sheer physical exhaustion and constant queasiness had overtaken my life.

But now, a week or so into my second trimester, with all signs indicating that the baby is healthy, and my own body returning to a feeling of normalcy, I'm starting to get really, really excited about having this baby. I've wanted kids for as long as I can remember--more than I've wanted anything else, really. I just wanted to make sure I did a lot of other things first. And I have: I've lived in other countries, I earned a master's degree, I've lived in the greatest city in the world, and I've dated enough men to know that I've finally found what I need in a partner.

I'm more than ready to take the focus of my life off of me.

April seems a long way off, until I remember that I only have six months left in my life of not being a parent. It's both terrifying and thrilling. Sometimes I wonder why I waited so long.

All Thumbs on Deck!

I hope everyone's Sunday was as enjoyable as Thumbelina's.



That's Wiley. You can tell by his "shark" eyes.

Up on Blocks

There were times in New York--when stocking up at Trader Joe's, or longing for an Ikea run, or waiting for the train at midnight in the middle of January--that I really wished I had a car. Now that I do have a car, those days of taking trains everywhere seem almost quaint. Like old-fashioned, convivial times, when my exasperation with a long, inconvenient wait could be tacitly shared with my fellow commuters. Because the reality of owning a car means spending $40 or so a week on gas, cleaning out the accumulated water bottles and dirty coffee cups on a regular basis, washing the windows, and getting it fixed.

Currently, my old Volvo is up on a gurney somewhere awaiting more than a month's salary worth of repairs. More like a month and a half. There's no one to roll eyes at now, no subway conductor to silently curse then forget all about the minute I'm finally home in my cozy, warm apartment. I'll be thinking about this ride for several months now, as I slowly, slowly pay off the loan I've had to take out to pay off Alan at the Volvo shop to fix my car. Those $24 weekly metro cards that let you make as many stops as you want, from Queens to Staten Island, from the Lower East Side to East Harlem, seem like a relic from a more carefree time.

Interior shots!

Thumbs in repose, before the grand re-design.

A dining nook with a view.

Some groovy artwork...A seating area. But where is Thumbs now?

Trapped in the coffee table! Better than this kind of bondage, perhaps:

That's Wiley, back in Brooklyn, before he even knew what a lobster was.
And then there are those who refuse to be contained.