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.