mamapants

Gone, but not forgotten

2010-02-06T20:56:00.003-05:00

Soo... I moved to Wordpress, because it's honestly pretty cool. Not that we didn't have some good times, Blogger, but... yeah. You know.

Anyway, find me and my updated - I swear! - blog here: ohannie.wordpress.com. (The "Oh Annie" bit is from my friend Jasmine, whose response to pretty much every half-baked scheme I come up with is "Oh, ANNIE. NO." But using all caps in a link is just silly. As is NO!

2008: The year of learning new things

2009-01-03T21:32:00.004-05:00

While getting ready to take a bath, New Year's Eve.

Norah: I have to go potty. I want to stand up.
Me: Um, I don't think that's going to work. Please don't try.
Norah: Daddy stands up.
Me: Yes, well, Daddy's body is different from yours, and daddies and boys can stand up when they pee.
Norah: Yeah. [thoughtful pause] Daddy's got all hanging-down things.
Me: [mental note to tell Rob to put on pants before leaving shower] Yes.
Norah: I don't have hanging-down things.
Me: No. You have girl parts, and they're all inside your body.
Norah: Yes. In my VIRGINIA.

Honesty

2008-11-16T21:19:00.005-05:00

I was all pumped about NaBloPoMo, because I was all, "Yeah! I can definitely post every day! Every day IN A ROW! I got this!" And then I realized I was totally kidding myself, because I can't update regularly when it's not an assignment - and given my track record in college (not a WORD, Jefferson) I am not likely to finish assignments. So I'm skipping out, but you're not missing much.

I've been suddenly, overwhelmingly, outrageously busy with family portraits, this being the season for that sort of thing. I blame the entire thing on my new BFFFF Kim, who talked me up on the Triangle Mommies bulletin boards. I keep meaning to use TM for social opportunities - they have mothers' nights out, and playgroups, and random events for mommies who just want to leave the house without wearing spitup or play dough in their hair, for pete's sake - but I've just been swamped. Who am I kidding, though, I love it. I love being swamped, because it means I'm doing something right... and then I get to have the grand visions and fantasies about my future studio, which will look suspiciously like Jessica's new loft, but with more pictures of Astrid the Wonder Mutt and her sisters.

Speaking of, here's the latest shot of the sisters - they're both looking in the right direction, can you believe it?

Don't be surprised if you see this on your Christmas cards, friends, because it's highly unlikely that they'll ever look in the same direction again. I think it only worked because I was singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" at the top of my lungs, shaking my butt in the middle of our street. The neighbors already know I'm nuts, so it was okay.

I'm off to bed, at the ripe old hour of 9:30. Mostly I'm just cold, and I hate this whole daylight savings junk - it feels like it must be midnight or something. Why do we still do this? Indiana changed their minds about opting out of the whole program - if they can magically change time, why can't we all magically unchange it? Stupid DARK.

1-800-REALLY, GOP?

2008-11-03T19:06:00.004-05:00

** I wrote most of this two days ago, but it seems I've developed strep throat and had to go lie down in the middle of it. As it turns out, Kay Hagan won, and I couldn't be happier - regardless of the issues, regardless of the fact that she's a Democrat, it just goes to show you that utter nastiness is never rewarded. Plus now Elizabeth Dole's roboto friends will stop calling me! Yay!

Confession: I live with a Republican, and I can't seem to make myself stop it. The GOP has brainwashed my otherwise sensible, lovable, funny spouse, and left me with this guy who's all "Rah John McCain! RAH, I say!" (They have also stolen my BFF, with whom, we have agreed, I shall never talk politics at the risk of short-sheeting her bed next time we're staying in the same house. FOR REAL.)

Can we just get one thing out of the way before I start the daily bitchery, too? Yes, I am quite enamored of That One. Yes, I believe in sharing wealth and helping others and all that other bleeding-heart stuff that my spousal unit (and you, friend, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) doesn't really get behind. As we have previously discussed, this blog is not a place for political debate, because I don't have time and I don't like confrontation. Moving on.

Cohabiting with Rob isn't really what's got me hacked about the election tomorrow, though. Honestly, the presidential race in general doesn't really have me as jazzed as it probably ought to - I'm going to do my part and I strongly encourage everyone reading this to do the same, but that's really all I can say at this point. What is KILLING me is the battle between this old hag and this other candidate who I know nothing about. I swear, Elizabeth Dole's robocaller left NINE messages here today, at at least four every day for the past week. Someone from the GOP just called and asked for me, and then verbally abused me when I said I was a Democrat. Seriously, she told me I was uneducated about the "things" at stake, and after asking me if I had kids, said that I needed to "get some focus on the real issues." I thanked her politely and firmly, said that I intended to vote tomorrow, and hung up. I have never hung up on a stranger in my life, so this just shows you how tightly my panties are twisted.

I don't care if Kay Hagan stabs puppies live on the internet - at this point, she gets my vote and a few extra, if I can convince the homeless guys on highway 15-501 to come with me.

** And now we're back to today, the day after election day, at 5:00 AM. I can't seem to sleep anymore, either because my fever is too high (103.1? really? Because I thought that was a radio station, not an actual temperature that a reasonably healthy adult could have) or because I've been in bed for about 18 hours. So I'm awake, seeing what everyone on TV has to say about the biggest news of the year. Fox News is, unsurprisingly, crying in their coffee; the local station is too focused on Bev Perdue and Kay Hagan to really talk about That One and how Yes, He Did win. All I have to say is, surely some things will improve. Surely life can't get any scarier. And surely I need to lie down again. This strep thing is SO not conducive to rubbing this one in Rob's face.

Halloween hangover

2008-11-01T21:41:00.005-05:00

Yay, Kristen's first Halloween (and Norah's first in which she actually participated)! Oh, we had fun. We have ten thousand Tootsie Rolls and Norah's got pneumonia from trick-or-treating in the cold, and I have a blister from walking house to house in incredibly cheap Old Navy shoes, but we DID have fun.

Norah was Fancy Nancy for Halloween, for a couple of reasons - one, because we already had the dress and I suckered her into using it for both everyday and The Big Dressup. Have you not met Fancy Nancy? She's pretty precious, actually, despite my earlier refusal of all things pink and plastic. The books are cute - Nancy uses big words and explains what they mean, and declares that "everything sounds fancier in French." Which, of course, it does. And who needs other excuses to wear every accessory in the house?

So here's how it came out (apologies for the crapola photo):

This is at her school, where we had a Halloween Breakfast, featuring eight tons of pumpkin baked goods, several quiches (it IS French school, after all), and a full box of coffee for every grownup present. Look closely and you can see Kristen's carrier - she wore her bear bunting, but since she spent the morning in the Bjorn on my chest (as usual), I couldn't get a good picture. Somehow she didn't seem to mind.

We went trick-or-treating in Chapel Hill, home of the infamous Franklin Street Halloween Party - we didn't go to that, of course, but I did get a little rankled about the way the city treated that particular event. Traditionally, the event is enormous - 80,000 people last year, I heard - booze-fueled, and slightly out of control. However, "out of control" in this area is more like "traffic" in this area - clearly, these guys have never been to Fells Point, is all I'm sayin'. The CH leaders were all, "This is supposed to be a family show, college kids go home, no drunkies, grumble grumble grumble." I'm sure it's a huge expense for the city, and the police force loses years off its collective life, but I would imagine that it would just make the students go home and drink more on campus and throw their dorm furniture out the window. And now I can't wear my Captain Booty costume, darn it.

(I'm sorry, can we just recap something? Captain BOOTY? Seriously? What makes grown women, especially those of us who should deny the lure of the exposed garter, think this is a good idea?)

Anyway - the kid had a great time at what I'm calling "Franklin Street for the Chicken Nugget Crowd," and yes, she has a ripper of a cold, but the giant box of candy in the kitchen makes up for a lot. Mmm, tiny Snickers... Happy day-after, gang. Now go eat some stale Smarties.

Coupl'a things

2008-10-30T19:44:00.005-05:00

1. Oh dear, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is on channel 12, and I may die from the high school nostalgia. Is this a band/theater geek thing, this tradition of checking out Tim Curry's bustier-clad bod every Halloween? Or do you all do it, even you cool people - do you flip past it while doing your channel-surf and then flip back for a minute, just to see if it's as insane as you remember? The last time I sat through the entire thing, I was 17 and making out with a boy in a hot pink wig at someone else's parents' house... I was wearing a tuxedo jacket and ludicrous amounts of eyeliner, and the whole thing seemed perfectly normal, if a teensy bit nerdy. Teensy.

2. I have to make two large casseroles for Norah's Halloween breakfast tomorrow, and I haven't even started. It's kind of funny - we're all making things and bringing them in, and yet we're all being charged $10 per family to attend. It's a fundraiser, so it's cool and all, but seriously. Doesn't "fundraiser" make you think of overpriced candy bars and wrapping paper? Candy bars do not require an hour of my time and two bags of refrigerated hash browns. Wrapping paper is not going to burn my legs when I accidentally set it on my lap while trying to down a coffee, drive to school, put on makeup, and be as fabulous as all the other mothers. Note to school: next year, let us consider chocolate. It's safer for people like me.

3. Speaking of makeup, time to shill for Bare Minerals! Have you guys ever tried this stuff? I was touring Sephora the other day, hunting for a pretty foundation brush for my sister, and the salesgirl talked me into letting her apply it to my face. She was pretty and chirpy and I think her name was Crystal, or maybe Cricket, but I don't care if her name was Adolf - she made me glow, and this is no small task these days. Children are murder on the glow (except for the glow in your HEART, am I right, Hallmark card writers? Hire me!) Seriously, it's great makeup. I've been a bigtime Clinique junkie, but I think we might have to break up.

4. Norah's going to be Fancy Nancy for Halloween. I bought the dress and sparkle shoes at Target, and the rest of it is coming from our various dress-up boxes. I'm kind of tickled that she wants to actually wear a costume - I think for a while she was a little frightened of the whole costumes-in-public idea. I'm pretty sure this is related to her hatred of the mall Santa, a big bearded man IN A COSTUME who clearly tried to burn her to death with his jolly red nose. (You'd think, anyway, given her last - and final - attempt at sitting on his lap.) But now she's three, and now she understands that costume + late bedtime = CANDY, and all three of those components are SO much more interesting now that she's experienced Snickers and gummi bears.

5. Rita's just opened down next to the new Harris Teeter, and I have died and gone to mango water ice heaven. Also in the same strip mall: Neo Japan and, lord help us, a Dunkin Donuts. My quest for thinner thighs is being thwarted by commercial real estate developers. Somehow, though, the injustice of this is a lot less injust when it's coated in vanilla custard. 'Night, all, I have a spoon to lick.

Holy WOW Halloween

2008-10-22T19:30:00.000-05:00

So I'm pondering my blog reader, as I often do instead of writing my own posts - it's easier, and I don't have to remember whether it's "that" or "which" - when I came across this on Jessica's photography blog (I was just looking for office and workflow tips, and poof! Instant jawdrop!) If you're a crafty sort and you're pondering what to make your little girl for Halloween, DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK, as you will never, ever be able to top this.

The Marie-Therese Gown by Grosgrain

Norah saw it and her little bugeyes went woooOOOP! wide open, and I knew it was all over for me. If I don't win this gown, I will have to live in the yard and eat acorns or something, because the princess will not allow me back into the house without it.

In other news, Kristen rolls over (she does not, however, fetch the newspaper and/or slippers, which would REALLY be an accomplishment) and laughs. And is there anything cuter than a baby laugh? It's this gaspy, "puh-HAW" sound that you'd never know was a laugh if it weren't for her big old grin. When she grins, her tongue sticks out. In 15 years, I am SO telling her dates about this.

Oh, THAT wall. Yeah, I hit it.

2008-10-15T21:52:00.005-05:00

So I promised Adrienne I would write something tonight, and Patty's been all up my nose about it (which is acceptable, since she lost about half my body weight and she looks all cute now), and I'm sure you guys were just DYING to know what was up over here that kept me from updating you on the scintillating details of our lives...

Um, yeah, sorry about this, but I've been fiddling with the stupid template for eleventy hours, and this is all you get:

Because a twirly dress is really all you need, and thanks to Adrienne, we got one! Bon soir, mes amis, a demain (as Norah says at school).

Okay, here, have a few more:

So does Daddy, but his don't do anything.

2008-09-09T15:58:00.003-05:00

Norah: Mama, my nose is wet.

Me: Yes, yes it is. Have a tissue.

Norah: [much honking and generally missing the tissue, blowing her nose into her hand, ew GROSS] Thass better.

Me: Are you okay?

Norah: Yeah. I just have the snipples.

So glad we invited Hanna to the party

2008-09-06T12:40:00.011-05:00

"There's a WHAT coming today?" asked Kristen this morning.

"A hurricane," I said, "and it's going to be a hoot. There's going to be some major flooding in our neighborhood, but because we're lucky and live in a safe place, we'll be totally cool. Tell Norah to get her boots on."

"Hey, Norah. Your friend Ellie is going to try to pull that walking-on-water act again, but if she does, just knock her flat. If she's really that good, she'll float."

"We'll bring out some toys, get the neighbors involved, and have sort of a block party - ostensibly to watch you girls romp around like nuts, but also because we sort of want to romp, too. In fact, Mama may go on out in her sleep-shirt, just because it's fun, and because she's too busy trying to find your hippo floatie to change."

"Don't let it go, though, or we'll have to wade through the woods to get it back, where we'll encounter two crawfish and a beaver. Yes, a BEAVER. In our DRIVEWAY. Too bad he'll be a fast little bugger and we won't get a photo."

"Mama, the floatie is gone."

"It's cool. Astrid's swimming after it. Across the patio."

The stars say go

2008-09-03T08:28:00.003-05:00

Aries, September 3:
Things aren't exactly where you want them to be right now and that could
mean that you're in for an uncomfortable time -- but not necessarily! Try your
best to smile and keep others smiling.

And just when I needed some cheerleading, too. Norah's transition to preschool is not going all that well - today when I dropped her off, she had to be peeled from my legs, and I had to walk away without letting her know that my stomach was somewhere north of my throat, and breakfast was headed for the sidewalk. My BABY is CRYING, I thought, and I CAN. NOT. RESPOND.

I know this is going to get better, but good lord, it's hard right now. Good thing I have to keep my shit together for Kristen and Peyton (the youngest of the nanny kids, who's with me most of the time these days) or I would be a pile of jello.

Seasonal updates. That's the ticket.

2008-08-29T20:18:00.011-05:00

Hi! So in the last two and a half months, it seems I've had a child, gone on vacations, had the in-laws over for a week and change, delivered Norah unto preschool, knocked out a wall in the kitchen, and made bread that ended up larger than Kristen (y'all ever play with yeast? Seriously, play with yeast. That stuff is MAGIC.) Here is said bread, with a chicken egg for size comparison. When I braided it, it was reasonable - then we had to let it rise some more, and it crawled across the counter and ate the toaster oven.

So the rest of the summer, geez. First and foremost, this whole baby issue - what a trip this two-kid thing is! After some rough weeks in the beginning, we've all gotten used to each other, and it's fun. It really is. Watching Norah turn all cutesy and gentle when she's around Kristen has been hysterical. Her jaw juts out like a barracuda, she clenches her teeth, and grits out, "Aww, baby shissher, you're sho KEWT you baby shissher, you gonna shpit up? You gonna shpit your milk on Mama? Mama thinksh you're shilly, you baby shissherrrr..." I guess she thinks this is how one talks to babies, and I want to tease her about it, but I'm terrified that she'll stop doing it and I won't have anything to make me shpit diet coke out my nose.

Kristen herself, now that she's worked out her original notion that sleeping is for wussies, is a pretty cute little bugger. She's long and lean - even taller than Norah was at this age - and it's becoming a challenge to find clothes that are long enough but not wide enough to fit in the entire contents of the diaper bag. (Although that would lead to one-handed maneuvering... Hmm...) She looks very much like Rob, especially when she's annoyed - their lips get all tight and lemon-sucked in exactly the same shape. And of course, like her sister and father, Kristen sleeps with her mouth wiiiiide open. The snoring in this house, my lord, it's enough to set off the car alarms in the driveway.

We bashed out the wall in the kitchen, and now instead of looking like this (and please ignore the majority of the furniture in this photo, as it is no longer there and/or part of our fabulous collection):

It looks like this (and yes, we just spray-painted that godawful chandlier and put shades on it, but hey, it was a $12 fix):

SO MUCH BETTER! We're putting a small column at the end of the shelf and a pot rack dangling from the ceiling right above it, but that's going to have to wait until either of us is more inspired. At this point, I don't think there's much else we can do to the downstairs, aside from gutting and redoing that nasty little bathroom... Yeah, okay, that's kind of major. One of these days, maybe.

Norah leaped into preschool today at the snooty-booty, awesomely fabulous Montessori school. It started out brilliantly: she marched up there, took her new light-up shoes off, put on her ballet slippers (they can't wear outside shoes in the classroom), hugged the teacher, and went off to see the fish while I melted with glee. Glee for her, because she was clearly having a good time and bypassing that whole freakout issue, and - let's be honest here - glee for me, because I only had one small, non-mobile, morning-napping kid to shuttle around with me. I love me some Norah, but Mama needs her working time. And time to watch CSI reruns on Spike. Oh yes I did.

Then I went to pick her up, and all thoughts of the mad zexy Nick Stokes went zip! out my head, because there was my poor, defenseless, abandoned baby, crying her eyes out and holding her teacher's hand. "It's been on and off tears for about two hours," the teacher said, "but in between, she seemed to have a really good time. I really think she's fine." Then Norah cranked up the waterworks, and I killed myself with a tiny wooden Montessori-approved play knife. "What happened, pal? Are you okay? How was it?" I asked her.

"Oh, Ma-ha-ha-ma," she wailed, "it was GUH-REA-HAY-HAAAAT." What? Great? Then why--? "There's a fish, and he's a blue fish, and we have beads on a string and I put them on the string myself, and Jenna is there and Anne-Sophie, and also Mellya [or Amelia, as her parents call her] and some more kids and there is a mat and I played on that mat and we have to play our things on the mats and then put them away and we have tables and on the tables we can read books and can we do books at home and where can I go potty at home that it will be like going potty at school?"

"Then what's up with the crying? Why were you crying when I came to get you?"

"Because, Mama," she said in a tone that might as well have said because, dumbass, "I MISSDED YOU and I wanted you to see the fish. I fed that fish. Can I go see him tomorrow too?"

And believe me when I tell you that nothing in the last two months prepared me for that. We've been through childbirth, sleeplessness, houseguests, demolition, drywall dust in every orifice, screaming fits, gassiness, and endless wardrobe changes for spit-up and other charming bodily fluids. I thought I was tough, but I still felt a little wobbly inside when my baby a) declared that she missed me and then b) got over it and moved on. To a fish. We're some big girls now, boy.

Deliverance

2008-06-26T06:25:00.003-05:00

We're all delighted, especially Norah, who refers to the baby as "my baby sister Kristen who is here now" at all times. And now, if you would, please excuse me while I fall asleep sitting at this computer.

Y'all, I am so happy.

Yup. Stiiiill pregnant.

2008-06-16T19:55:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's really hot down here. I mean, really really hot. I knew it wasn't exactly northern Alaska when we moved, but I seriously did not anticipate this open-oven-draft-in-your-face thing we're having these days. I also thought I would plan pregnancies around the foul sweaty weather, but ha ha! Delusions are cute, aren't they?

I'm now three days from my official due date (the 19th, which is also Rob's birthday, and how much do I want a newborn for my/his birthday present) and every night for the past three weeks I've thought, "Oh okay, this is it, I have back pains and WAS THAT A CRAMP?" Obviously I've been incorrect for three weeks, which is getting a little wearing - no one likes being wrong, let alone consistently wrong for 21 days, let alone alone about removing a foreign body from one's abdomen and thereby relieving oneself of a number of unpleasant issues. Like the back pain thing, and the restless leg, and peeing all the time. I feel like a dog in a field of hydrants.

The plus side of being fat, hot, and lazy is that it means I spend a great deal of time inside, which means that I've gotten ALL of my two months of wedding photos uploaded and sorted and processed. I still have a ton of album stuff to do, but most of my girls haven't even scheduled design sessions with me, so it's all pretty much backburnered until a) whenever they get their calendars in order or b) after I get done a'birthin'. Rob's had most of his weekend days off, and will likely have weekends off for the next six months or so (hi Duke! thanks again!) so he's been spending some serious QT with Norah, and hopefully I can anticipate similar ~~sweet sweet freedom~~ work time in the days ahead. Minus time spent with the wee baby attached to my body, of course - which will be SO WAY BETTER than having her inside my body.

Y'all, I really want this kid to get here. Aside from the whole "reclaiming my body" thing, there's the babylust thing, which inspired me to redo the girls' closet, get the crib ready, wash the clothes, all that good stuff - three weeks ago. I want to play with her feet and watch Norah kiss her cheeks, kind of like she kisses my belly at night. (And says, "Good night, baby sister, and I will see you in the morning time. You can wake up and come out ANYTIME NOW." Oh my heart.) I loves me some babies, I do. And, let's not lie, I really want to sleep for more than an hour without staggering blindly to the bathroom sans contact lenses. I feel both are compelling reasons to go into labor tonight, don't you? I'll let you know how that works out.

Is me!

2008-05-28T20:38:00.003-05:00

Dear Owen, and the rest of the internet, but really specifically Owen, since he reminded me to update things, or at least his mother did,

I'm fine. Bloated, crabby, and in the 15th hour of the dumbest damn thing on the planet: Braxton Hicks contractions! Woohoo, false labor! I've been torn between "Please God, let this just go ahead and turn into birth," and "Oh Satan, keep 'er in there for another two days, because I have this wedding on Saturday and it's my last one, and I really don't want to have to call the bride and tell her that I'm panting my Lamaze on the side of the interstate." I didn't have this false labor thing with Norah, and I'm gonna go out on a limb here and CALL BULLSHIT ON IT ALTOGETHER.

But that's only today - otherwise, I've been tired, overworked, back-sore, and all the other joys that come with being full-term knocked up with a second child during a pretty much full-time job with ludicrously odd hours. I promise to resume regular posting at some point - this is just not that point. Believe you me, internet, whenever this child gets herself bornded, as Norah says, YOU WILL KNOW, if only because I will have finally, FINALLY stopped whining.

For now, however, I am off to consume my body weight in watermelon, my current crush food. Ohh, melony watery goodness.

Please note that this is not an invitation to snark on ANY political candidates. I'm just bitching.

2008-05-06T16:19:00.002-05:00

Dear Barack Obama,

Dude. For real. I love the fact that your name is Obama. I love your wife's pearls. I love that you came to Carrboro not that long ago, because that's about the last place I'd expect any high-powered Mr. Man to visit (not that Carrboro isn't a really cool place, because it is, but you'd think you'd stick to Chapel Hill, its more snooty-boo neighbor).

But seriously. Just because I am a registered independent does NOT mean you get to call me four times in five hours to remind me to vote. Your people, or people claiming to be your people, have now dialed my number with their magical autodialers ELEVEN times since yesterday morning. That Other Candidate has not yet called, which at first hurt my feelings and made me think she didn't care, and now is sort of making me like her more, despite her mannish voice and unfortunate choice in lady politician hair.

So please, please, stop calling. I know I need to vote, and I fully intend to do so as soon as my (deep breath) Republican spouse gets home to relieve me in the childcare duties; this would suggest that perhaps I am aware of my responsibility as a good American citizen to a) choose a candidate and b) cancel out Rob's vote in the future, and perhaps you should call off the damn dogs already. I got a kid what needs a nap, and if your people wake her up again, I'm dropping her off at YOUR house.

Love and frustration,
Annie

The skink in the sink, and other Seussical reasons for me not blogging

2008-05-01T13:55:00.005-05:00

I'm not dead! Just thought I'd start by informing you all of that, since it's been about six years since I posted anything of merit (and what, three weeks since I posted at all, har har har). I keep experiencing things and thinking "Oh dear, I've just got to blog about that," but I then forget, because what else is there to do when you're pregnant, other than bitch and moan about the inverse correlation between your ever-expanding belly and your ever-decreasing wardrobe options?

(And oh wow, do I do this a lot. I am down to four shirts, FOUR, that I'm willing and able to wear on a regular basis. This wouldn't be such a big deal, since I don't really do much that requires fancy wardrobery, except for the fact that three of said shirts have grease spots on the front and force me to constantly hold something over them, like a purse, or a small child, or the car. My back may be aching but my biceps are remarkable.)

Anyway. The skink in the sink is kind of funny, so here you go. A couple of days ago, Norah and I were doing our thing in the yard - she in her swing, me on my knees in the garden, pretending that the plants are actually going to survive this year - when the phone rang. I trotted inside, leaving her in the swing (she can't unbuckle herself, so I figured she wasn't going to escape or anything), and answered the phone that hangs next to the sink with a cheery "HellOOOOH GOD WHAT IS THAT?" Good thing it was a telemarketer - bet they won't be calling here to offer me any more Scholastic books THIS year, huh?

"That" was this, a Southeastern Five-Lined Skink, who had wiggled his skinkly way through the screen and onto the sill, and fell off into the sink. One would think that skinks would have stickier toes, or something, but this one was clearly a somewhat deficient skink, because OF COURSE the only ones who come to my house and get themselves in impossible situations are the messed-up ones. He was missing part of his tail, he was orange, and good golly, he was looking at me. And skinks bite.

I didn't want to alarm the kid, so I maintained my cool and attempted to trap the little bugger under a Tupperware bowl. Deficient or not, he was pretty bloody fast, and reluctant to be trapped under the Tupperware. So we spent several glorious seconds chasing each other around the sink, until I got mad at him and slammed the bowl down in front of him, trying to scare him into holding still. Because that's wise, right? Scare something that bites? Heck yes! He didn't bite me, though. He had some kind of skink seizure and fell into the garbage disposal.

At this point I was pissed, both at myself for leaving poor Norah in the swing through all this ("Mama? Would you like to come out here and push me now? Mama, I am not having fun, did you know that?") and at this clearly STUPID lizard for getting himself into this position. My hand was on the switch, y'all - I was going to make skink pudding, the easy and downright nasty way. But I stopped, and I thought about how it really would kind of be murder of a defenseless little thing, and how I am not That Person who murders things, and I had a MacGyver-style idea: I stuffed the disposal full of angel food cake, backed it up, flooded it with water, and watched Sir Skinksalot float to the top. Scooped him out, stared at him for a while, did a few fist-pumps in the air to celebrate my toughness, and chucked him out into the yard, where Norah saw him and descended into hysteria. I felt good, righteous even, for having saved one of Mother Nature's creatures... until I realized that now we have no angel food cake, and that's probably even worse than murder, maybe.

Other news: pregnancy good, baby due in eight weeks (wha?? how??), photo biz a'rockin', and my buddy Mills and sister Kate ran the Stick Horse and got medals, because they're that kind of cool. Next year, girls...

(Thanks to Mills' mom for the photo, which I have printed and hung on my fridge in an effort to inspire myself out of the ice cream. Ha.)

Because Zoot's made me laugh

2008-04-12T14:58:00.008-05:00

Yeah, she totally started it.

Indeed. Sorry for the lack of updates - I've been swamped with kiddie portraits, bridal portraits, and the overwhelming fear that comes with knowing that in three months, I'll have a two-week-old baby and a three-year-old child. How in the world did THIS happen?

(I'd just like to point out that this is a rhetorical question - I do in fact know how in the world this happened. I'm pretty sure I was there.)

PSA for my fellow cheapies

2008-03-31T08:23:00.005-05:00

Should you happen to want restaurant gift certificates for way cheap, Restaurant.com's 60% off sale is currently on for one more day... The discount code is GENIUS. And it is. We've actually used these several times, and it's been great. You buy your certificates for specific restaurants in your area, and then you use them for anything but booze (which in my case isn't such a big deal...) The kicker is that you can get $25 worth of certificates for five or six bucks during the sales; they're always discounted a little, but spending a fifth of what something should cost really appeals to the tightwad in me.

This is significantly more important today, as our heater has crapped out and of course, OF COURSE it's not going to get above 60 degrees for a few days, so the repairman is on his way and I already know it's going to cost $89 for the diagnostic service. At this point, I would probably sell off an arm or something just to get heat back in here - Norah and I both slept in multiple layers last night under a series of quilts and down comforters. Rob was on call, so he got to sleep in the heated deliciousness of the VA. Life is so unfair.

Rah Raisin Neon!

2008-03-26T12:34:00.010-05:00

Having anagrammed myself (thank you, MB, for giving me this incredibly fun way to avoid doing the dishes), I've discovered that my name can make the following useful phrases:

A Insaner Rhino
Hernias Rain On
Insane Air Horn
Ha Roar Ninnies

So! Easter was this weekend, which was extra fun - we had a neighborhood egg hunt, and Norah was delighted to learn that hollow plastic eggs are actually sometimes filled with things! And those things are often edible (although in the case of these things, they are decidedly NOT)! Or shiny! Or stickery! Needless to say, the Easter Bunny is the big stud around our house these days; yesterday, Norah sighed contentedly while wearing all of her ~~mardi gras~~ Easter necklaces and said, "That Easter Bunny. He's a good guy."

Here is the slightly confused Norah at the beginning of the hunt. She still doesn't really understand the Easter Bunny concept, even though now she knows he's the source of all things sweet, sparkly, and/or made entirely of crystallized high fructose corn syrup. He's either a gift-giver, like Santa, or he's a delivery boy - both grandmas sent Easter packages that they both swore were from the Bunny, so Norah's pretty sure that he's kind of like a nice version of our UPS guy.

Adrienne was here, as previously discussed, and helped with the searching (which was convenient, since she also got suckered into helping with the hiding). Norah's butterfly t-shirt was "delivered" to Adrienne's via the EB, yet another confirmation that he travels in a big brown panel truck.

This is Norah's buddy, Ellie, who lives down the street. Ellie's mother is at exactly the same point in her residency at UNC as Rob is at Duke, but Ellie's mother is about 30 weeks pregnant. Talk about dancing backward in high heels, man.

And lo, there were plastic beads. And the beads were GOOOOOOD. Happy Easter, friends.

They're just trying to scare you

2008-03-16T19:36:00.004-05:00

I hate email forwards. I mean, seriously, I HATE them. Not the ones that are kind of cute, like Mills' dogs movie or, and you know you love it, the dramatic Prairie Dog!

I also don't mind the ones that are actually worth something - Restaurant.com's secret 50% off code springs to mind. Speaking of, right now it's "green," but I think it's changing soon. No, I hate the ones that are designed to create mass panic, like the one I got today that said in HUGE RED LETTERS that Glade plug-ins cause house fires. Come on, guys - don't we have enough to panic about without adding fear of air freshener arson? Besides, my only fear regarding air freshener is that someone will someday buy me a nasty one, and I'll have to use it out of politeness, and it'll make my house smell like a gas station bathroom.

Anyway! Not much up around here, as you can tell. Rob has just finished installing a new showerhead, faucet, and turny-onny part (handle? what is that thing?) and now he's dancing around doing air punches and saying, "Who's bad ass? WHO IS BAD ASS?" Honestly, I think it's bad ass, too... the old faucet, etc., was held to the wall entirely with mildew. Yesterday he put down the new floor - we were going to tile, but decided that that's lipsticking a pig, so we used those sticky linoleum tiles instead. And voila! Instant proud Rob, instant happy me, instant delighted Norah because she didn't have to take a bath tonight while the plumber's putty set.

Yesterday I volunteered for the WUNC-TV telethon thing, also known as Festival 2008! because nothing makes me party as hard as spending the shopping money on invisible airwaves. Honestly, I'd send them money if I thought we had it to send, but the police, firemen, and homeless guys got to me first. So I gave up my time and answered the phones for three hours, which was an exercise in dealing with humanity. Some people were very direct - here's my credit card, here's my amount, send me a thank-you card, and g'byenow - but the majority of the callers really wanted to discuss something. Anything. The current program, what was on yesterday at 2:30, the incentive gift (for a while, it was a home remedy book that consisted entirely of fodder for those horrible forwards; you should have seen some of the remedies for constipation). It was actually pretty fun, if a little nutty now and then, and I felt like I did a good thing.

And Norah would like me to tell you that she has yet to have an accident in her Curious George underpants, because you can't pee on Curious George, that would be SILLY. Everything that would be bad, or wrong, or sinful, is SILLY in Norahese - I can't wait to tell the next bank robber I see to knock it off, he's being silly. Or rather, SILLY. Indeed.

There you go, all the news that's fit for public consumption - don't you feel smarter? Now go unplug your Vanilla Cookie Breeze before we have to call 911.

Things which make the tire man seem utterly insignificanter than he already is

2008-03-12T18:11:00.004-05:00

Norah got into her snooty-booty Montessori preschool! It's actually not even close to snooty-booty, but every time I tell someone about applying there for next year, they get this LOOK like we're monogramming her toilet paper before she uses it. These are the people who are unfamiliar with how cool Montessori education actually is - how amazing the kids are with each other, how everyone respects everyone else's personal space, how three-year-olds add multiple columns of numbers while the four-year-olds write cursive. Really, I'm more into the social skills aspect of it, and the fact that the teachers are totally kind, 100% of the time. My baby is leaving me, and she just has to go someplace where the parental figures are as sweet to her as I would be.

And also, that adding thing, that is just BAD ASS.

So that's cool... Also, my sister called today and said she was coming for my birthday in two weeks, as did my parents, who have to go look for their new house in the mountains anyway. This is kind of especially awesome, because I was afraid I would have to spend my last 20-something birthday alone while Rob spent some QT with the sicklies in the VA. (I fully support healthcare for veterans, but SERIOUSLY, it's my birthday. We used to do birthday WEEKS in college. This is not something I take lightly.) Nonos already made my mom promise a cake, which is somehow Their Thing - Mom says they're coming or we're going to whatever holiday, Nonos says, "Are you making cake?" Usually there are sprinkles involved, and once even five bottles of food coloring. Either of these things clearly say "excellent birthday" in my mind.

And Adrienne is coming next weekend, and we shall party with Lisa, sans kids and plus margaritas... at least, two of us will be plus margaritas, and I will be plus sweet tea. Which is almost as good, really.

Although I have asked Rob about none of this - I hope it's all right with him, and he gives me PERMISSION. Ahem.

Oh, REALLY now.

2008-03-10T16:41:00.002-05:00

So the Highlander needed some tires. The old ones had seen me through 48,000 miles and a nail pop on Labor Day weekend (one that cost me $100 to get fixed, because hey, it was a holiday and apparently even though the tow/tire place was open and readily available to plug said nail hole, it was still a holiday, and ha ha ha that costs more. Duh!) Rob explored the internet, and we learned the valuable lesson that, like self-diagnosis, one should not tire shop online, because one will inevitably pick the wrong tire and end up with dengue fever instead of a cold.

The Sears guy took one look at the printout I handed him and said, "That one won't work, because you have a limited edition Highlander, which is just code for 'requires extra special parts that are totally going to cost more.'" Maybe not in so many words, but yeah, that's what he said. I laughed bitterly and explained that my husband had printed that out, and he must have just been wrong about the 17" versus 16" size requirements. We got things figured out and I picked a new fancy tire and all was going smoothly, until we got to the pricing.

"Well," sez he, "this one is the right tire for your car, but maybe you want to wait."

"I don't really want to wait, since my old tires are essentially bald and losing about 15 pounds of pressure every ten minutes. I think maybe I'll just go ahead now," I said.

His eyebrows met in the middle. "Yeah, but these tires, they're $20 more each."

My eyebrows met in the middle. "That's okay, really. I knew it would be expensive, and you guys are doing that free installation thing right now, so I would just like to--"

"What I mean," he said, "is that you might want to talk to your husband first and make sure it's okay with him. I mean, that's an extra $80."

[cue scratching record, and of course screeching tires.]

My eyebrows actually crossed and switched places.

End of an era that will not, even while intoxicated, be missed

2008-03-02T10:09:00.002-05:00

Norah's wearing underwe*r, using the potty, the whole bit... and she is rather jubilant about the whole thing:

For a short, nostalgic, probably insane moment, I thought about how much I didn't want to do this with her, how much I wanted her to stay my dependent little babycakes. And then I thought about the smell, her poor little sensitive butt, and the diaper rash that would NOT go away, and I changed my mind quicker'n we can get those p*nties down in an emergency.

I LOVE THIS STAGE. LOVE IT. Almost as much as I love her Curious George undi*s.

(I'm putting asterisks in here to avoid pervy Googlers. You know how it goes.)

What every conversation sounds like at our house

2008-02-27T14:39:00.003-05:00

Rob: Babe, are you making dinner, or should I--
Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I'be sick.

Norah: Mama, would you like to read a story with me?
Me: Ub, ask Daddy. I dod't doe if I cad right dow.

(This is her new thing, "Would you like...XYZ?" Mama, would you like to make me a snack? Daddy, would you like to carry me upstairs, or would Mama like to do it? Mama, would you like to DRILL HOLES IN YOUR FACE SO THE CONGESTION CAN OH PLEASE DEAR GOD FINALLY BREAK? Yes, precious, yes I would.)

So disgustingly sick. Will return at a later date.

Like the president of Duke needs something else for people to laugh at him for

2008-02-21T16:49:00.005-05:00

I mean, come on, his name is Brodhead, for lord's sake.

Seriously, though. The worst possible outcome of the Duke lacrosse rape case has come to pass:

DURHAM (WTVD) -- More than three dozen members of the 2006 Duke University men's lacrosse team and members of their families filed suit against Duke University, its President Richard Brodhead and other officials, Duke's medical center, and the City of Durham and city officials for emotional distress and other injuries in connection with false rape charges and a corrupt police investigation against team members in 2006. (more story here)

I'm frustrated, honestly, and I'm really sorry that this is happening. I went to a university where one did NOT mess with lacrosse. The students only cared about one sport (guess which one), the ROTC only drilled during the national anthem during one sport (c'mon, try harder) and the cheerleaders only cared about making it with one team (right, well, maybe not this cheerleader, but you know what I'm saying). Speaking of, did I ever show you this?

Heh. That's me, seven years and about a kajillion doughnuts ago.

Anyway. After graduation, I joined the adminstration of that university, albeit as a peon, and no one who made decisions like "Let's cancel the team's season because of this rape thing! Yeah!" But I still got to see some inner workings of the bureaucracy, and I know which side the school's bread is buttered on, so to speak in old-people-ese. And athletics is a big, big slab of that butter... especially lacrosse.

Lacrosse brings in money from ticket sales, merchandising, and concessions. Alumni who played, their wives who have to suffer through endless retellings of the 1965 championship or whatever, their kids who want to honor Dad's contribution to said championship season, even if he was the waterboy - these people give money, and lots of it. Cancelling an entire season - God, cancelling a single GAME - is a move that NO ONE at a major lacrosse institution wants to make. And now people are all pissy with Duke because that's what they had to do, cancel a season to protect themselves, the school, and even the team members who are now biting the hand that kept the big bad accuser away.

Of COURSE Duke had to investigate the accusations. Let's just use a little sense here - if someone accused your kid of rape, you'd want to know the truth, no matter how much it hurt and how vehemently you believed your kid's innocence. Of COURSE they worked with the police, even when the police investigation turned out to be seriously flawed. (And by "seriously flawed," I mean "this wouldn't even happen on the most ridiculous Law & Order ever, even the ones that start out with that 'the following is based on a true event, so it's totally ridiculous!' warning.") If the police came to your house and said, "Hey, your kid might be a rapist! Let's see what we can find out, shall we?" you'd go right along with their questions and their probing, if for no other reason than to prove that your kid didn't do it.

And of COURSE they cancelled the season.

People are saying that they did it to protect themselves, as if the provost and the president were somehow involved in the rape and wanted to save themselves from a DNA culture or something, and not letting the boys play their sport would break every cotton swab in the southeast. I wonder if those people ever stopped to think that the admins, in whatever way they could, were trying to protect THE BOYS. The story made Newsweek, every major network's evening broadcast, and who knows how many talk shows - did the men on the lacrosse team ever think that there were people all over the country who thought they did rape that girl? And those people live near other universities where lacrosse is played... and would likely show up at their games... and would begin by threatening them during visiting games and possibly end by hurting them in ways they can't imagine? What about the Duke students who went along to support the team at their away games - wouldn't the condemners go after them too, claiming that they were hiding rapists and supporting criminals?

Yes, it was a flawed investigation and a horrific story that I wouldn't wish on anyone, even the most Neanderthalish of jocks. Yes, those three boys who were actually indicted have had their lives flipped, trashed, and essentially ruined. However, I don't think they can blame Duke for acting in the way they thought would protect the majority of those involved, even on the periphery. And these 38 other team members, I have nothing to say about them. We all need someone to blame when things go horribly wrong, and I'm sure that having their season cancelled and the world's eyes on them (and consequently, the world's attention during their, shall we say, not-so-shining moments) was probably the least fun way to spend their college years.

But don't go after Duke. Why would a university exist if not for the good of its students? Why bother raising money, and growing a stellar reputation, and working incredibly long hours (okay, maybe that was just us peons) if the kids won't be all right? It was a volatile and confusing situation, and no one - except for the accuser, who created the whole mess, and those sneaky characters who wanted to gain from her messmaking - deserves to be condemned for being confused, and acting in the way they thought would protect those under their care.

Speech over. Now back to your regularly scheduled mommyblogging and discussion of really important things like throwing up, and the Backyardigans (you gotta love that neurotic little Pablo!)

Sunday night, our house: Frat boy edition

2008-02-17T21:23:00.003-05:00

8:59 PM - Having put Norah to bed after a rare napless day, Rob and I are perched on the couch, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and surfing the TV Guide channel.

9:00 PM - Rob gets sly, I-wanna-be-sneaky expression and reaches for the remote. Fearing an attempt at switching to Fox News, I lunge for same remote. Am defeated. The channel is changed to...

9:01 PM - NBC? Maybe L&O? Maybe this isn't so baaa---- ack ack ack. It's Knight Rider.

9:05 PM - Mysterious dangerous-looking fellows, including Stereotypical British Accent Guy (see National Treasure for reference), ravage scientific lab, where undoubtedly serious, globally-significant - and yet, unnamed - experiments are going on.

9:08 PM - First look at the new Kitt, and let me just tell you that those Carl's Jr. ads with Paris Hilton and the soapy car wash weren't as blatantly oversexed. Rob sees the hubcap and starts surreptitiously sweating.

9:09 PM - Kitt revs up and rolls out, after hefty CGI effects moment wherein bullets strike car and magically leave no marks. British Guy and other henchmannish guys growl and say threatening things as Kitt purrs off into the sun(rise? set? I'm not sure). Rob is no longer able to stand up.

9:11 PM - And look! The molecular scientist who is lecturing on some random and probably improbable molecular structure thingy is super extra hot! Now THERE'S a surprise!

9:15 PM - Scene cut, and Oh JESUS. Not only is the hot surfer a cop with a penchant for sunrise showers on the beach, she is also a lesbian with a hot naked blonde in her bed. AND she knows how to cock a pistol, badass-style. (Although, like Ms. Hot Molecular Scientist, she is rather small-breasted. I am surprised, since this movie is geared toward pubescent boys and also men who think like pubescent boys, and so wouldn't you think there would be boobies? Big ones? Rob, however, is not entirely concerned, as DIDN'T YOU SEE IT THAT HOT BLONDE GIRL IN THAT BED WAS SO NAKED RIGHT THERE!)

Side note: hot lesbian cop is apparently played by Sidney Poitier's daughter. Sir must be spittin' nails.

9:21 PM - I stop paying attention and start up computer, preparing to blog-bust Rob for having mislaid his brain, his maturity, and his desire to sleep somewhere other than the couch tonight.

9:27 PM - I look up Knight Rider in IMDB to see if the black guy is Delroy Lindo (he's not - I am relieved). The trivia section has only one fact: "Will Arnett was cast as the voice of KITT, but was replaced because he had done commercial voiceovers for General Motors and the show uses Ford cars, creating a conflict of interest." Although I'm sure I should know who Will Arnett is, I don't, and am surprised to see that they replaced him with Val Kilmer. Am confused - doesn't it kind of seem like, even though he's apparently gone native and moved to God-knows-where and gotten all fat and beardy, Val Kilmer should have been a first choice for a movie part? Poor Iceman.

9:29 PM - Random movie guy (I don't know who he is, I quit paying attention, remember?) listens to random movie girl talking about molecular scientist girl and how awesomely awesome she is at science. Guy responds with "But is she hot?" I throw up a little.

9:oh, the hell with it - I think I have to go to bed before I start growing peach fuzz and my voice cracks a la Peter Brady. See, I can't update my blog more often, because I'm busy watching ~~crap~~ fine films like this, and feeling my brain cells deplete.

Cheap-- I mean, carefully handmade! - baby present

2008-02-04T14:46:00.000-05:00

Here's what I've been doing on the nights when Rob is out (when I'm not whining about Michelle Pfeiffer or how bored I am). He's on call every third night this month, which is probably good because I had time to get this done:

I did this for two reasons - one, because I needed to come up with a good baby present for Jasmine, who's having her third kidlet in a few weeks, and we're brokeish. I had all the material (Adrienne, remember, we bought it at that Joann's in Columbia to make Nono's nursery stuff?) so I just needed a few notions here and there, and ta-da, instant affordable present! And two, because people like Adrienne and MB make me all inspired to sew beautiful things like they do, and I needed to do a project that didn't involve glitter glue or kittycat stickers.

I tried to think of all the things I liked about my own diaper bag* (messenger style, elastic end pockets, flap top) and all the things I didn't (biggish, bulky) and put them in or leave them out of Jasmine's. Thanks to a somewhat modified Craftster tutorial, I got to put everything together the way I wanted it to be, and I think it came out fairly well.

Strap attachments and keyring buckle:

Inside, with a pink sweatshirt stuffed in to hold it open and show off that snazzy pocket:

I want to make more! Who else is having a baby?

Just me and Miss Baltimore Crab

2008-02-01T20:20:00.000-05:00

Thing that is not fair: Rob's at a "liver rounds" meeting tonight. Liver rounds are also known as "several hours at a local bar, where they will be bitching and moaning about how hard their lives are, while drinking on the department's tab." I'm home, listening to Norah snore over the baby monitor. On the up side, though, Hairspray jumped off my Blockbuster queue and into my mailbox, so I'm doubly occupied with wondering exactly how Michelle Pfeiffer still looks like that at the tender age of Older Than Jesus, and playing Spot That Baltimore Landmark. (Patterson Park, I'm talking to you.)

Norah's cold is finally easing up, incidentally, and I think we owe it all to the miracle that is saline nasal spray. The pediatrician pushed it on us when Rob took her in on Wednesday, and our first attempt was nothing short of hellish. I had to hold her down with every limb of my body while Rob squeezed the bottle up her pert little nose, and then God help us all, poked an "apsirator" up there and sucked the nasty out. And now? Now she does it TO HERSELF. And she sleeps through the night again, without hacking up any major organs. Yee-haw.

I particularly appreciated the sleeping thing last night, after I stayed up into the wee hours playing Find 851, some online insanity that I discovered thanks to the Oceanic Air commercial aired during Eli Stone. (And by the way, ABC, don't think you fooled me with that "two hour premiere event" crap. I know a clip show when I see it, and that first hour of Lost was in fact a clip show, in all its Ben-narrated semi-glory. You're just lucky I forgot what happened last season, since last season was what, four years ago.) It's geeky, but it's definitely one of those things that can suck you in if you're not careful. Plus I'm totally impressed with the website - how many extras, how much production time and money, programming skills, props, scenery, went into this thing? Lost is clearly a cult, and I think I may be first in line for the Kool-Aid.

Seriously, how cute is Nikki Blonsky? And how much do I wish I could dance like that? Dang.

Another sally in the potty wars

2008-01-31T17:03:00.000-05:00

Norah: Mama, I need to change you.
Me: You mean, I need to change you.
Norah: [whatever-ing me with her eyes] I said that thing.
Me: Right. Okay. [changing commences.] You know, if you'd just use the potty, this wouldn't be such a problem.
Norah: I don't do that. I do not like that potty. It's big and I do not like it and I will go in it like falling in it.
Me: It's really not that--
Norah: Know what else I don't do?
Me: Dishes?
Norah: I DO. NOT. EAT. THE POOP.
Me: [blink blink] Well, that's a relief.

Obligatory, and yet so warm and fuzzy

2008-01-31T15:34:00.000-05:00

Because you can tell so much from the staticky gray snow - the 19-week ultrasound, for your viewing pleasure.

I've had to have three different ultrasounds this time around - the first one, at 12 weeks, was not entirely exciting (except that it told us what we had hoped, that this particular fetus was a clinger-onner). Six weeks later, we had the infinitely more fun and less ulcer-inducing gender scan (and we all know how THAT turned out, don't we?) At that scan, though, the tech said that she couldn't see the cord insertion clearly. I of course came straight home and Googled "cord insertion visibility" and came up with all kinds of TOTALLY REASSURING topics, all of which included the words "abnormality" and "defect" and "undesirable." And yes, I know that turning to the internet for medical advice is not a good plan, and I should have just questioned the tech until one of us passed out from the waves of paranoia issuing from my mouth.

So we got to go again on Wednesday, or rather I went alone - Rob ended up taking Norah to the walk-in peds clinic for a little bronchial ailment I like to call "the fires of hell in my baby's lungs." (She's fine, although she is getting away with blue bloody MURDER because every time she cries, she chokes on the throat gunk that only gets worse as she gets more upset, ergo we do not upset the Nonos. I'd tell you more, but I have to retrieve my shoes from the toilet. AGAIN.) Third scan turned out to be the charm, and we not only saw the flawlessly perfect cord insertion, we saw every little detail of the details south of Babycakes' bellybutton, and there is not a shadow of a doubt that she is in fact She. Even I could tell, and I was deep in the throes of a panic attack about Abnormalities and Defects and Undesirable Insertions (how porny does that sound? Hee.)

Rob was able to help out on Wednesday because he's back on a mildly flexible schedule - at least, during the day. He's overnighting every third night, which makes us all sad and lonely at about 9 PM, when the kid's asleep and I have nothing to do but think about how very quiet it is... except for tonight, which, as you undoubtedly have tattooed on your chests, is the Lost season premiere. Who's watching with me? Admit your geekery and join me, I say!

Absolutely nothing in particular

2008-01-25T13:30:00.000-05:00

MAN, it's cold out lately. It's averaged about 35 degrees for the last few days, and while that isn't polar bear weather or anything, it's a big change from our accustomed 45-50. I've been stuffing myself into my usual winter wear because the purchase of a maternity coat just seems silly - I have at least two extra layers of walrus fat at the moment, and I really should stop whining because it's probably going to get warmer in no time... But when you can't zip and the wind's blowin', you start to think crazy.

So! Been busy this month, which was nice - here's a shot from the latest portrait session. Betcha can't guess where we were:

I'm entering a slow period, so I've been doing some nesting (c'mon, like you didn't know that was coming, in spite of the decreased need to depinkify). We dragged the first of Norah's 84 bins of clothes out of the attic to do a swap when a buddy and her baby came to see us, so I kept all the teensy ones out and stocked up the second dresser in ~~Norah's~~ the girls' room. And oh my goodness, some of them are so small. A couple of the really little outfits would make excellent belly shirts for Nonos - except that they're dresses that I remember putting on her and thinking, "God, this is a tent, what am I supposed to do with this?"

Baby girl clothes are so weird. I was lucky and had a number of baby showers (the work one, the friends one, the in-laws' house one) so we ended up with enough teensy clothes to outfit the entire Cabbage Patch Kid line of 1984. I mean, holy crap, we were DROWNING in baby clothes. Some of them were soft, cozy little numbers that I wanted to cut up and stitch into my own footie outfit (like you wouldn't go around in a one-zip t-shirty thing with feet if people wouldn't look at you funny) but the others? The others had acrylic lace, four parts, halter tops, and sleeves that needed ironing. I don't iron Rob's work shirts, let alone something that is likely going to be used to blot vomit in the near future. My biggest sucker-inner was the foo-foo matching hat - but none of them fit, stayed on, or really served a purpose (other than the vomit-blotting, and on one memorable occasion, vomit-catching).

So friends, you'll be getting softy things with maybe polka dots on them when you join The Mommy Club. No lace, and no hats, unless you plan to keep them in the car for those frightening highway moments of "Mama, that chocolate milk TOO MUCH..."

Enough pointless rambling - I'm just bored and don't have a lot to contribute to society at the moment. (Quick, label me a mommyblogger! Call me a drain on the internet's resources! Then click away from the page and read something else, because frankly, it's your own fault if you're still here!)

Now let's play What Shall We Name the Baby. Rob has no ideas, except to veto everything I pick, and I turn to you, oh Wise Internet, to save us from any of these.

Things I do not need to read

2008-01-21T16:39:00.001-05:00

Study: Caffeine may boost miscarriage risk

A new study has found that pregnant women who consumed more than 200 milligrams of caffeine a day, equivalent to about two cups of coffee, had twice the risk of miscarriage as the women who consumed no caffeine at all. The findings are published in Monday's Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Not that I'm 100% convinced that it's accurate - the American College of OB-GYNs doesn't buy it, for one thing - but it's enough to make my innards do a little curling-up, you know?

I guess we can scratch "Jayden James" off the names list.

2008-01-16T22:33:00.001-05:00

It's a girl!

Bulletin'

2008-01-13T18:47:00.000-05:00

The envelope please: I've decided not to update my header until Wednesday, when a certain state of affairs shall become known - i.e., we're having the gender ultrasound and I feel I should update said header accordingly. I don't think the pregnant thing is really clicking in my mind yet, although I did make a special trip to the Ikea in Philadelphia to buy these lampshades, on the off chance that Spawn is in fact male and we have to depinkify Norah's room.
Like a fat kid loves cake: We went to my parents for Christmas, which was awesome as usual - my mom even managed to stick to the "seriously, one or two toys for her and that's IT" rule. This is Nono's favorite:

She looks a little drunk and disorderly, but I think that's just her hangover from all the cake. My mom asked Norah what she wanted to eat when we got there, and Nonos said simply, "Cake." Whereas a sane person would have laughed it off and said, "Uh huh, right after we eat actual people food," my mother went directly to the kitchen and made the kid a cake, complete with rainbows of food coloring and Christmas tree-shaped sprinkles (or "sparkles" in Norahese). The next day, there was another cake. And then a pie. And then I think cookies, but I was splayed out on the floor, unable to do anything but roll around like that kid in A Christmas Story crying, "I can't get UUUUUUP! C'mon you guys, I can't get uuup!"
Rockin' the Philthy: A week after we returned from Indiana, we drove up to Philadelphia to see Rob's family, a long and less-than-fun trip, which ended up to be less than fun overall, since his dad had a heart freakout and ended up in the hospital the entire time. But Rob's mom went all ape-crazy and bought a new car, which was fun - she and Rob went out "just to look," and came home three hours later in a shiny new rig. Beats the pants off our rig, too, because it doesn't have the big dent in the side like ours.
(Did I tell you about the dent? Some girl backed into Rob in the Blockbuster parking lot, barely cracking her taillight and busting the crap out of our front fender. She then chose not to report the accident to her insurance, and neither did her dad, which was upsetting because her dad was the policyholder. And since her dad would not reveal to their insurance company whether or not the girl was authorized to be driving his car on his policy, said insurance company would not give us any money. SIX WEEKS LATER, after calling literally every day and watching the dent turn into bare flaked-off metal turn into a big old rusthole, Rob mentioned that maybe we should have our attorney (who is very hard to reach by phone or email and is actually invisible, since s/he doesn't exist) work with them, and BOOM, we got a check the next day. As much as I hate people who play the lawyer card, it sure does work. Take THAT, Allstate.)
We're gonna have to amputate: Here's my favorite of Norah's Philadelphia presents: the plastic doctor kit which is already in several small, dead-battery pieces on our living room floor... except for these:

Yeah, that's hilarious. It is. Just admit it and move on.

Family Christmas Activity #1: Gingerbread!

2007-12-15T12:57:00.000-05:00

Our neighbor, Victoria, got Norah a gingerbread house kit at Trader Joe's (we have one in Chapel Hill now! Because Chapel Hill, despite their overwhelming minivan population, is awesome! And we can now buy organic milk for less than the hormonally-boosted Target milk! And if you can't tell, I'm SO EXCITED!) It's been sitting on the buffet in our dining room area for about three weeks, because I haven't had the time/inclination to put it together - this is probably because we didn't have any icing, and the directions said to make it with egg whites and meringue powder. I would love to say I had these things on hand, but then I would be a liar, and you can't lie at Christmas, because then you get no presents and possibly go to hell, which looks a lot like Southpoint on a Saturday night. Hoo-rah, holiday shopping.

So yeah, there it sat until this morning, when Nonos decided to haul it around the house and stand on it. "No!" I cried, "You'll break it and then we'll never use it!" I realized how stupid it was to deny her this, since we were obviously doing nothing with it anyway, and sent Rob and Norah to Target for icing in a tube and some tomatoes, because I wanted a ham sandwich, and you have to have tomatoes for that.

They got back, and construction began!

As you can see, Rob takes projects like this very seriously. He's a perfectionist, which served us well in the installation of the actual window in our actual house, but which drove Norah crazy after five minutes of, "Not yet, Nonos, Daddy's grouting the roof."

We didn't actually wait the necessary time for it to dry, because we'll probably have eaten it all over the next five hours. We're not very good at having sugary things around the house, and by "we" I mean "totally 100% me." So we moved quickly from construction to embellishments.

Norah was less than impressed with the included candy circles and hearts, but she rather liked sticking them to the house with the icing, because then she could lick it.

Eventually, however, she proved that she is more like her father than her mother in some respects: apparently, you CAN have too much icing, and how amazingly much does she look like Rob right here, those of you who know him?

Then at last, it was done, and with the addition of two teensy fingerpokes in the roof snow, it was lovely.

Holiday activity #1, check... next up, I teach Norah to address the Christmas cards. Man, I hope that one works.

Roasting on an open fire

2007-12-12T15:34:00.000-05:00

You guys, it's 81 degrees here today. I am wearing maternity jeans, because none of the other pants I own will a) stay up or b) leave any feeling in my body from the waist down, and I think I'm actually sweating. I feel dirty. It's supposed to be snowy and winter wonderlandish, dang it.

So I decorated the blog for Christmas - it took a big 20 minutes, but I've been putting it off, because that's what I do, I put things off and do more important things like nap and eat endless clementines. (Oh, how I love the clementines. At least they're not sausage.) And I thought to myself, "Self, don't be a lazy bitch, you got this far, now write a post about something meaningful." For that reason, I will not be writing extensively about the clementines. BUT SERIOUSLY, I love them. Love love love. I will instead write about throwing up, because yo, you know you wanted to hear about it. At least this time it's not me.

The strep throat passed relatively quietly, and sister Kate arrived for a conference on day three of antibiotics, so we thought we were in the clear. She blew off the last day of her meetings so we could just hang out while I minded Nonos and the Chapel Hill baby. I let both Kate and Nonos sleep in that day so I could run down south, pick up the baby, and pop back home in time for pancakes and Little Einsteins.

Ha.

First, I spent the morning trying to bus the other kids around, which meant I did not get home quickly, but rather after several hours of delivering this one here and that one there. And amidst all this carpoolery, just after I ran a red light and just before I cursed out a minivan mother (seriously, Chapel Hill, what IS it with you mothers and your vans? Sometimes it makes me feel inadequate, and then I have to slap myself around for an hour or two) Kate called my cell phone with news that the explosive vomit fountains had been turned back on, and once again, every cushion on the couch had been baptized.

A long day of sanitizing and burning through several rolls of paper towels (the heck with you, environment, I am SO NOT doing THAT laundry) and hours of lit Christmas Tree in a Can passed. Kate went back home the next day, fortunately not sick and relatively well-rested, despite Norah's best efforts to scare her into sleeplessness with the gut-wrenching force of her heaving. Things seemed to be on the mend for the next few days, the throwing up had stopped, we were maybe gonna be all right.

Ha.

Then we went Christmas shopping, and Norah gave us one more spectacular display of -- guess what? -- the fountains. In Restoration Hardware. And now I can never go back and buy these, because we are most certainly on a poster behind the counter that's been faxed to every RH in the country, a poster that clearly says above our blurry faxed faces, "OH HELL NO."

Strep is just stress spelled funny

2007-11-30T20:20:00.000-05:00

Turns out the Chapel Hill kids have strep throat, and now Norah's got it, from the raging fever to the tonsils the size of my last sausage biscuit (come on, you think I quit 'em cold turkey?) She was all hot last night, so we dosed her with Motrin and sent her to bed... which was fine, until about 6:00 this morning, when I heard this pitiful little "Mama, open the doooooooor" over the monitor. Ordinarily she wakes up singing "Good Morning Baltimore" (and you have no idea how hard I've worked to get THAT one in her head, just because it's hilarious to hear her tiny little voice sing about the bum on the barroom stooool) or something similarly chirpy, so this was clearly a bad sign.

We got up, we came downstairs, she was fine, if a little peaked. And hot, the hot was back, so I gave her some more Motrin and vowed to call the pediatrician when, you know, the sun rose and the earth started to turn again. We had a little OJ, we watched Jojo's Circus, we buried ourselves under the big pink blanket on the couch and prepared for a sick day, and then we got the juice back. OH GOD, did we get the juice back, in fountains and streams and fire hose-like JETS. Nonos managed to hit every cushion on the couch, every single one, and it is a testament to how far I have come as a mother that I remembered to grab a dishtowel and hold it under her face before I high-fived her for her incredible aim.

So it's not been the most funnest day around here, although she perked up some when I gave her a popsicle at 10:00 in the morning (what? her little throat was all fiery, and it was one of those wannabe-healthy fruit ones, so at least I tried.) Now she's back in bed, having been dosed yet again, and an appointment has been made at the pediatrician's tomorrow morning. And I'm here trying to convince myself that my throat is so not itchy, and I'm definitely not feeling warm around the face...

9w3d: Publication!

2007-11-26T08:59:00.000-05:00

I got this email a while ago, and meant to post it, but you know, I'm only using the parts of my brain that tell me to eat everything in the house. So I forgot.

:: Schmap Philadelphia Fourth Edition: Photo Inclusion

Hi Annie,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly releasedfourth edition of our Schmap Philadelphia Guide:

Please Touch Museum
http://www.schmap.com/philadelphia/tours_tour4/p=44875/i=44875_4.jpg

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!

Best regards,
Emma Williams
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides

This is pretty cool - for one thing, I DIDN'T submit that photo, they just emailed and said they wanted it. I'm not really sure why they picked the one they did - it's Nonos on a tractor, in case you didn't click through - because it's not really one of my best in terms of photo quality. But who am I kidding, I'm totally flattered, even if it is some random Flickr-stalking website thingie.

So Thanksgiving is over, and we're literally picking up the pieces and watching the dust settle - my dad brought 87,000 tools with him, and we sawed a giant hole in the wall and put in a window in our dark, cavelike little living room.

This is Rob preparing to make the hole. There was much measuring and counting, which made Norah, my mom, and me very bored, so we went to Michael's and bought pinecones and glitter, two staples of holiday bacchanalia.

And here is the hole, with Rob in it:

This is my dad, outside on the scaffolding we had to rent. Hearts and flowers to Home Depot for renting it to us on the cheap.

And here, in all its beauty and glory (I'm telling you, put on sunglasses or the sheer force of my beaming, grinning teeth behind the camera will blind you for life) is the way it looks right now:

Please to ignore the pile of laundry in the chairs in the foreground - it's catch-up day, and I like to fold in here so Norah can narrate what I'm doing. "This is your sock? No, this is Daddy's sock. I will wear this shirt. This shirt is BLEEEEEEW! I do not like blue shirts, but I do like them. I think I will wear this pants today, ACKSHULLY."

It's gonna be a big day.

The best news is that I am no longer addicted to sausage, and have moved on to eating anything I can get my hands on. The barfery (Patty!) has slowed considerably, and now i'm just hungry all the time. Fortunately, things like celery seem to work as well as anything else, so I'm not wolfing down mayonnaise-covered quarter pounders at every opportunity... but hey, the way this crazy pregnancy is going, give me time. I love it.

Knocked-uppedness is kind of gross, really.

2007-11-14T21:38:00.001-05:00

I added one of those baby tickers to the sidebar over there, because I am nothing if not a sucker for a blog widget, and DAMN, that thing MUST be wrong. Seven weeks and five days (as of right now)? That's IT? No way, I say.

I guess the first rule of pregnant club is that you don't talk about pregnant club, especially when it goes surprisingly well. With Norah, it was like playing at being knocked up - I was never sick, the weight gain was mostly in my belly where it belonged (okay, yeah, and my puffy little cheeks, but that was kind of cute, right?) and labor was a fairly brief, only slightly painful experience. I tried not to gloat, because everyone hates a gloater, and I declared myself "just lucky" if anyone asked.

Well, thou shalt not declare thyself lucky, because thou shalt be proven a big fat bloated LIAR the second time around. I am lumpy. I am exhausted. And I have been tossing my cookies like it was my job. I can NOT. STOP. PUKING. Mornings, afternoons, midnight for the last three nights in a row - all are appropriate times to worship at the shrine of unpleasantness. I've tried avoiding certain foods, but this gets more complicated when you eventually have to avoid all foods. Apparently, even plain toast is enough to start the hamster wheel of vomit in my belly a'turnin'.

There is only one thing I can continue to eat, and it's the weirdest, nastiest food I can think of: sausage patties. Specifically, the Jimmy Dean ones that come precut in a flat little tray. Good lord, do I love sausage patties. I was in Target with Nonos, staring at the hot dogs she likes and trying really hard not to think about the churned-up ingredients in each one (and Mills, I know dogs are your favoritest, but I just couldn't handle it) and there were the sausage patties. I tasted them on my tongue, I smelled their fried goodness on the air, and zip! they went home with us. And we have not been parted since.

Friend Mills says this is revolting, and she's absolutely right. Ordinarily I am not a huge sausage fan, and prefer bacon on my breakfast buffet plate. But damned if I can stop with the patty goodness. They stay down, they soothe my hungry belly monster, they amp up my blood sugar while simultaneously providing some form of protein (I guess...) and I have not yet thrown them up, which is a definite bonus. I can't eat tomato soup, french fries, or (and how this hurts me to say it) Chick-Fil-A, because I've tossed 'em all - but me and my patties are still BFF.

My mother suggested that I write to the company and tell them this story, and maybe it would score me some coupons. Clearly I have pregnancy brain, because I hadn't thought of this, and it is utter genius! I'll keep you posted.

There is another plus side to the puking, aside from hopefully landing the free sausage - that the constant barfery means the little bugger is hanging on in there. Everyone has their special sickness-related theory: it means it's a boy, it means it's twins, it means it'll be big, small, funny, happy, born with a caul, God only knows. The only theory I subscribe to is that the hormones are still UP UP UP, and the risk is going down down down. That, and sausage.

In other news, my parents are coming on Saturday and we're busting a wall out of the ~~cave~~ our living room and putting in a window. Happy Thanksgiving to ME!

To do, and to did

2007-11-08T11:02:00.001-05:00

In the last five days, these things have happened to me:
All the shelves in the monstrously long closet in our bedroom, which also houses my desk and photo equipment, collapsed in the middle of the night. This episode was made much worse by the fact that I was sleeping at the time, and woke up screaming, thinking the judgment was upon me, and here I completely forgot to get religion! All the stuff is fine, if a little dusty, but I may never be the same.
The pipes going from the house to the water heater and the supply line sprung various water-gun-style leaks, which meant we had to replace about three miles of worthless plumbing. Turns out it's all polybutylene, which is very bad, especially since we can no longer get help replacing it. There was a class-action lawsuit, and we missed it, dang it.
My camera quit in the middle of a wedding... just after my assistant went home. I had no backup. NO BACKUP. Kittens were had.

However, in the last four days, these things have happened to me:

The closet has been completely redone, from drywall to shelving units, and it's actually much more efficient this way. Hoo-rah, Closetmaid and your handy kits.
Rob replaced the pipes with much swearing and bumping of head in the crawl space - and now we don't have to worry about those anymore. Cross whatever fingers and say whatever prayers you can that the rest of the pipes don't turn sprinkler and destroy the inside of the house.
I got a new camera and had the other one fixed, with much swearing and beating of head against wall. So now I don't have to worry about that anymore.
A friend of a friend, who showed up to finish Saturday's wedding, turned out to be an awesome guy who wants to break into the weddings market, so we've agreed to back each other up for a year or two, which is perfectly perfect.
The bride and groom weren't mad, and in fact insisted on paying me anyway, even though I missed the cake-ing and other shenanigans at the reception.

And Lisa tagged me for a meme, which I didn't even know about until just now, because I'm blogging when I should be playing with my kid and providing stimulating and educational entertainment. I'm just TIRED, is all, and she's happy with her blocks and cars, so we're taking a break.

And so! Meme goodness!

Jobs I've had
1. Antique appraiser/store clerk
2. Librarian
3. Preschool teacher
4. Planner of massive, expensive parties

Places I've lived
1. Madison, IN
2. Baltimore, MD
3. Catonsville, MD (which is a totally different universe, ask MB)
4. Durham, NC

Foods I love
1. Indian food (oh gosh yes, Lisa)
2. Mashed potatoes and corn and gravy, mixed up (I am so gross sometimes)
3. Red velvet cake
4. Diet Coke, of which I get far too little right now

Websites I visit
1. Triangle Mommies
2. Perez Hilton
3. Craigslist
4. My photo one, to obsessively make sure the slideshow is working, because I'm a nerd

Places I'd rather be
1. Sleeping (duh)
2. Jasmine's house
3. In a pool
4. At the mall with Norah, because the fountains make her giddy and it's fun

Movies that I love
1. Gone With the Wind
2. Chocolat
3. Blades of Glory
4. Mary Poppins (wait, that's not mine, that's Norah's)

TV Shows I watch
1. Lost
2. Law & Order
3. CSI: Miami
4. The Backyardigans (wait, this is Norah's too! What the heck?)

People I tag:
Adrienne
Jasmine
Patty
(Anyone else will totally slap me around for it)

Oh, and one more thing I did recently: got Norah's birthday present. Turns out she's getting a sibling, and it's even the one with stylable hair and real crying action. Who's a good mom, huh? :)

Death wins again

2007-10-23T14:05:00.000-05:00

So I had this whole long post all thought out, about how we'd been to the state fair and it was so great, and we went to the pumpkin patch today and that too was so great, and I even had pictures:

And then Death came and moved in under my porch, and all the happy thoughts went whoop! right out my head.

Last night while I was standing at the kitchen sink, I noticed a very bad smell coming in the kitchen window. I forgot about it almost right away, though, because at the same moment I noticed 85 enormous barn owls swooping around and making their little hooty-hoo sounds in the woods across from the house. That was infinitely better than the bad smell, so we stood there, apparently not breathing because neither of us mentioned the stench for a few minutes, listening to owls and not smelling anything. Then like a ton of bricks, it hit us both.

"God," sez I, "what IS that? That is... that is..."

"I don't smell anything except dish soap."

"Put your head right by the window. I swear, that smell is death. There is death in our yard."

"That is not death. Death is much worrrrr----gagggg."

(Brief pause for Rob to finish making horrible hurking sound.)

"Okay, yeah, that's death."

So I grabbed a flashlight, because if I have learned anything from horror movies, it is to investigate the source of Death Smell at all costs, even in the middle of the creepy, sort of cold night when every owl in the dirty South is hooting outside the door. Because that is SO NOT SCARY.

"Where are you going?"

"Robert, that is death. Death is outside. I have to find it."

"You do not have to find it. Get in here and we'll find it in the daylight like normal people."

"Robert, normal people do not have death in their yards."

(It's funny how, when I'm trying to make a serious point, I call him Robert. It's just that the usual "babe" or "dammit, you" doesn't have the same oomph.)

I took the flashlight, I poked it all around, and I saw nothing, so we wrote it off to the breeze coming from the woods. Maybe something died over there, and that's what's making the owls nuts, and there you go, rationality in spades.

So Norah and I are getting home from the pumpkin farm today, and we are both exhausted and clutching our happy little fat pumpkins in our dirty little fists, and I realized that she fell asleep. I wandered around to her side, pried her out of her car seat, shut the door, and almost dropped her, because there it was: DEATH UNDER THE PORCH. Death, in this instance, took the form of a possum (or an opossum, if we're going to be formal, but who gives a damn? It was DEAD) that had apparently dropped dead while foraging under our porch. Keep in mind that our porch is about 3'x6', so going under it is about the same as going under a limbo bar - it's not really an optimal place for hide and seek.

I got Norah in bed and started making various phone calls trying to figure out what the do with the damned thing, because let's be honest: you don't have a clue what to do with a dead (o)possum either. The thing was huge, HUGE like a DOG huge, and the smell by now was unbelieveable.* What does one do with a dead animal that big and that smelly? And why did the dispatcher at 911 hang up on me?

*I watch a lot of crime shows, and let me just say that I have NO IDEA what would make someone want to become an M.E. and deal with Death Smell every day. That smell will haunt my dreams and forever make my food taste funny. It has burned itself into my nasal sensors.

I finally got someone at Animal Control, who was very nice and understanding about my dead-possum-disposal ignorance. "Look," said he, "All you have to do is call this number, and ask for the Office of the Disposal of the Dead." I wasn't sure if he was serious about that. The Office of the Disposal of the Dead? There is an actual OFFICE for this sort of thing? You don't just call some guy with a truck and a snow shovel?

The OFTDOTD will not, however, be receiving a Christmas card from me this year, because they were not only unwilling to dispose of my (o)possum problem, but they told me how I would have to deal with it. I would have to BAG THE CORPSE AND PUT IT BY THE CURB. Yes, BAG THE CORPSE. A CORPSE WAS UNDER MY PORCH. I am so absolutely indignant about this that everything I even THINK is in capital letters. I had to get a shovel (which I covered in a trash bag, because I couldn't handle the thought of (o)possum death on my garden tools, and it was either that or burn it on the driveway) and scoop the CORPSE into a trash bag, twist it up, and leave it by the curb for the stupid OFTDOTD truck, which still isn't here.

I talked to the possum while I bagged it, and I was not entirely pleasant. I'm fairly sure I addressed it as "motherfucker" at least once, and I'm not at all sure that I was sorry about that. Speak ill of the dead, indeed.

And now I'm going to take a nap.

Putting the "me" in "team"

2007-10-12T20:56:00.000-05:00

So you survived the Jackass wedding recap, huh? Good for you! How are those ulcers on your retinas?

Seriously, y'all, that was madness. You know that odd, full-body pain you get when you drink heavily (a.k.a. heavier than usual, even if usual is "all the alcohol in a quick sniff of Windex while you're cleaning the crayon off the bathroom mirror." And on a side/related note, HOW do kids DO that? She's too short to reach the towel bar, let alone the mirror!)? You're tired, and your innards are all beknotted from the booze and the resulting intestinal distress (don't pretend to be all ladylike, you know you've had it), and your back hurts a little from passing out flat like a starfish and staying there like a lump all night, and you just hurt. Yeah, I JUST got over that.

It helps, of course, that I've been engaging in some physical activity lately. Some of you know that I got a trainer last month (most of you don't, because I think I forgot to mention it, because hey! I had all that work and didn't update like, ever!), and he's been enormously helpful in explaining what all those scary machines at the gym actually do. That thing with the big long bar with handles is not, as it turns out, a support device for after you fall backwards off the treadmill. He has also frightened me into attending every session, because he's unendingly smiley and chipper, and I'm afraid that if I skipped a day he'd come to my house and chipper me to death. "Annie! What are you doing, sprawled on the couch like that? Get up and go, girl! Let's go! One more load of laundry, you lazy heifer! And one more! AND AGAIN UNTIL YOU DIE!" All while smiling, natch. He's just that kind of guy.

The biggest big thing, though, is my bulldog of a sister and her big idea: we are going to run in the Kentucky Derby mini-marathon.

Kate gets these ideas every so often; recently, her big ideas have included going on safari in South Africa for Christmas, and offering herself up for clinical drug trials. Sometimes the big ideas are kind of awesome - I mean, come on, maybe it's not numero uno on your list of places to see before you die, but how badass would it be to sing "Silent Night" with a pride of lions sitting on your car? And sometimes, the big ideas make you slap your head and say, "Um. Well. Can we discuss this first?" Kate, however, has no time for discussion, as she is busy taking her fourth dose of Adderall in four hours, and is on her way for an MRI, and after that she's going to rewrite a textbook, train a herd of airedales, and reorganize every apartment in her building, including those that belong to complete strangers because GOD ANNIE IT'S INCREDIBLE, WHY DIDN'T I CLAIM TO HAVE ADHD BEFORE NOW?

I think her madness stems from a childhood in which she was the smallest, the one most likely to be stuffed through the milk door, the one we sent down the laundry chute, the one who took the fall when we spilled orange juice on the pool table. We - usually Mills and me, but occasionally me on my own, in fits and spurts of true evil oldersisteritis - came up with the plan, and Kate either fell into place or found herself abandoned with Mills' baby brother Zach, who would then inevitably strip naked and ask Kate if she wanted to see his penis. (He was three or four at the time, so it's not like it was a pervy thing.) Kate, being somewhat older but not quite old enough to imagine how incredibly funny this would be in 20 years, was not amused at the time, and so usually stepped back into line and found herself dangling from a grapevine over a 30-foot chasm. We lived in the woods next to a semi-canyon - Kate spent a lot of time dangling from something rather thin and flimsy over something much larger and more potentially painful, just to see what would happen.

And now it all comes full circle, and Little Miss Madness has presented Mills and me with our PLAN. The PLAN always appears in my head in capital letters because it is big and intimidating; it is very long, and she wrote it in Excel, about which I understand only enough to make pretty borders and shade things yellow. And add with that Formula thing. However, there is no adding on the PLAN, there is only running, and then some more running, and after that (in a yellow-shaded box) there is some running. We have formed a team - the Stick Horse Derby, so named after an annual event on our street that took place during Mills' parents' Kentucky Derby party. The adults had drinks in shiny silver cups, and the kids made stick horses out of socks, yarn, and hot-glued flowers and then raced them around the cul-de-sac. I mean, this was an event. We must have done this until I was at least 12, which either shows you how serious the Derby is in that part of the world, or how incredibly goofy we were.

So the SHD is up and moving, and we're on day five of the PLAN. So far, I haven't skipped, and I haven't quit running halfway through a day's workout. Granted, it's fairly light during the first two weeks, but I feel pretty good about it, even though I'm discovering a whole new kind of body ache that's entirely unrelated to drinking. And Kate is doing her little dance on my grave right now, because for once she gets to have the big idea between the three of us, and we're following her head-first, right on down the laundry chute.

Jackass wedding recap, installment the third (and final, and longest)

2007-10-04T12:55:00.000-05:00

Missed the first two days? Go here first, and then here. And if your eyes aren't bleeding, continue below.

Comment back to Diana: yes, I too thought that Boxville and his wife had split. But the story we got from various party-related sources is that she was in fact the cute little person present, and they were on the up and up. So perhaps love really is possible in Hollywood, or perhaps everyone is more loving when they're hammered. Either.

So! We're up to Saturday, after a day and a half of people maneuvering, not hooking up with the famous, and imbibement (imbibary? imbibeation?) of much alcoholic beverage. (Brief aside about the alcoholic beverage: at no time was Norah alone with drunk people, and honestly, 85% of her awake time was with me. When I talk about how heavily we were drinking, I'm speaking relative to the last, I dunno, five years of my life, in which I have been sodding drunk exactly once. So don't worry: "drunk" means "somewhat more than stone sober.")

7:30 AM - Norah is awake. ARE. YOU. KIDDING ME.

8:30 AM - Kate, Ben, Mills, Rob, Norah, and I have breakfast at The Breakfast Club, which is renowned about Tybee for (you will so never guess this) their breakfasts. And oh yes, was it lovely. After gorging on empty sugar and carb calories, we return to the beach house, where serious dayplanning is in full effect.

9:45 AM - Ben gets big-ass kite (BAK, if you will) out and we go en masse to the beach, where we will attempt to fly it. Wind warnings are posted; hurricane is spotted somewhere offshore. Or it could have been a cargo ship. Or trick of eyes - eyes are not quit focusing at this time.

9:47 AM - Thanks to aforementioned ludicrous winds, Ben does this:

10:00 AM - Mills does this:

10:16 AM - Aunt Denyse does this:

And this:

And, regretfully, does not get up from sitting position, and in fact then does this:

This is not good; Denyse is removed to house by my mother, who is no longer interested in attempting kite flight for herself.

[Time out for a brief update on Denyse - she has just scheduled an MRI and has a hairline fracture in her shoulder from the kite accident. Ben is now wallowing in his own guilt, and may be spending his own time up on the ledge, from which he will certainly have to be talked down with promises of beer and sleeveless t-shirts. Back to narrative.]

12:something, or possibly later, I don't know anymore - We return to house and spend next several hours in the pool. Many ridiculous photos follow, all of which are on Flickr. I'm not putting any more on here, it's too damned long already.

5:00 PM - Everybody in the car; it's Hollywood Wedding Time! Mills and Nonos are left behind with a family-sized box of velveeta mac 'n cheese, digital cable TV, and the sweet promise of No Mommy Means No Firm Bedtime Time.

5:30 PM - Arrival at Savannah's Telfair Museum, which is lovely, and attempt to park car on the street after three years of being out of Baltimore and so out of practice on street parking.

5:35 PM - Get car parked in incredibly convenient spot right next to museum. Watch parents and Canadian cousins go zipping by in their car, and disappear over the horizon.

5:36 PM - Hope they make it. Decide not to care, because the wedding is clearly taking place outside on the most Savannahian square imaginable. It's Southern Living, it's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, it's utterly divine.

5:45 PM - Seriously, has anyone seen my parents? We are escorted to our seats by a variety of ushers - mine was a high school friend of my cousin the groom, and Kate draws Kris Fontius, who looks DAMN NEAR PERFECT in a tux. Notice that all groomsmen and the officiant are wearing hot pink Chuck Taylor sneakers. Mentally applaud.

5:50 PM - Parents arrive. Not entirely sure where they parked, but not entirely concerned with this, as it is now celebrity spotting time. And the game is hot, too: behind us and two seats over is Tee Man, near the back is Foomis Fall, Trick Kosick is toting around a camera with a fuzzy mic attached, and Stanny Fuig is enthralling my dad with his camo wedding wear. Also in the crowd were Mom and Pop Bargera, who unfortunately do not have a Myspace page, so you get no linkies on them. Noticeably absent: Sleeve-O, who was apparently in Boston promoting his new show on USA. None of the other J*ck*ss team will discuss this; we begin wondering if there is some secret scandal, and if we uncover it, will TMZ give us credit for the exclusive story?

6:00 PM - Incredibly beautiful Southern wedding commences, which surprises all of us, given that neither bride nor groom are terribly southern. Oh well. They fake it better than Meg Ryan fakes the you-know-what in that diner. I almost cry, until Senor Boxville cruises up the aisle in sunglasses and a five o'clock shadow, and proceeds to mutter asides through the entire wedding (which takes about 10 minutes) with a stage villain leer on his face. Had it been anyone else, this would have been incredibly irritating; it's true, celebrities are SO MUCH COOLER than us. There isn't a dentist, or an accountant or something else normal, alive who could have pulled this off.

6:30 PM - Mingling and drinking commence. Liquor is not only top-shelf, it is Shelf That is Hidden From the Common People shelf. Los Angeles people prove themselves to be so incredibly nice, and not just because I am holding an incredible martini. The mingling is interrupted by photographers, who want to do the formal portraits; at this time, I sidetrack an intern and wheedle the info out of her about the passworded website where the photos will be later. [Note to self: check this again in 10 minutes, as I have been doing for the last two weeks.]

7:30ish PM - We move inside for dinner and general merriment. I feel like I've stepped into Gotham City, and this is an elaborately-staged gala where absolutely no detail has been ignored. If I ever go to anything as amazing again, I will almost certainly be there as a waiter, or perhaps a bathroom attendant. The cake is massive, and amazing. The food is served on plates as thin and delicate as bees' wings. The bar is on wheels!

7:45 PM - Rob becomes the star of the wedding when a bartender passes out and hits her head on the marble floor. After mad dash upstairs to locate him (and in process, complete loss of all cool points) he arrives downstairs in time to pick her up, walk her around, and send her off with a friend, as he and another med resident/attendee stand there and sigh collective sighs of relief that they didn't actually have to do any doctoring. Word later comes back that she has been taken to a hospital, where she is declared fine. However, she does not return; I am dismayed, as she has been making my drinks and she is REALLY good at it.

8:30 PM - Dancing begins in earnest; Ronnie B takes up with three-year-old Parker, another wee cousin. At one point, they are breakdancing, twirling on their backs. Everyone is collectively delighted.

9:30 PM - Home. Must go home. Feet hurt, and am exhausted from three days of not sleeping. People are beginning to leave, anyway, so I am not such a lame-o. We head for stairs to the door.

9:31 PM - Kate pauses to adjust shoes at bottom of steps, where she is suddenly used as a landing pad for a wavering, half-blind drunk guy who couldn't handle the complicated maneuvering required to put one foot in front of the other. Georgia State cops are immediately swarming our group, extricating Kate and "escorting" drunk guy to a bench in a nearby gallery. Kate goes to talk to drunk guy, having this exchange:

K: Everything okay over there?
DG: Um, yeah? I think?
K: Seriously, if you don't straighten up a little and quit fucking around, you know those cops are going to declare you a medical emergency and haul your ass out, you know that?
DG: What?
K: Yeah. They're afraid you're gonna puke on one of these paintings of gazelles or some shit.
DG: Um...
K: You gonna puke?
DG: Yeah. Yeah, probably.
K: (in a motherly tone) Okay then, you better go outside, all right? All right?

"All right," said Slam Bargera. And out he went.

10:00 PM - In car, on way home. Nothing interesting happens now.

10:30 PM - Home. Norah is sleeping, Mills and her brother are watching TV and celebrating the cheesecake that Zach brought with him (note to Zach: which eventually came home with me, and I ate it, and HOLY COW). Guess where we end up?

11:00 PM - In pool. Surprise!

12:00 AM - Still in pool, where it is freakin' cold. We move to hot tub, as three friends of Zach's arrive. All old people go to bed; all people roughly my age stay in hot tub; Norah is still sleeping, and will continue to do so until 7:00 AM, instead of 10 or 11 as I fervently pray to all gods Western and otherwise.

1:45 AM - Can't take anymore. I am a wrecked, ruined shell of my former self, largely because I've had about 13 hours of sleep in the last 72, and have had alcohol in every application appropriate for liquid substances except as a cereal topping. My feet are blistered and sore on the patio concrete, my head is fuzzy, and I punk out and go to bed.

We came home the next day, and I'm just now, a week later, feeling recovered. And I haven't had such a good time in YEARS. End of story! Off to rest my achin' fingers. If I get any of those photos, I'll post them, if you promise not to sell them to US Weekly. That is not Boxville's new girlfriend, THAT'S MY KID.

Jackass wedding recap, installment the second

2007-10-02T20:50:00.000-05:00

(If you haven't already, catch up on the first part of this here.)

Right, so getting back to things. While Mills and I slept off the franticness of the Supermarket Search, Kate was having her own adventure in the Boston airport, which ran thusly:

11:00 PM, Thursday - Kate is informed that her plane will not be leaving for DC, which is going to make her miss her connecting flight from there to Savannah. However, this is not a problem, since the connecting flight has also been cancelled. After some shuffling, the ticket agent reroutes her to Charlotte, which will get her to Savannah at 10:30 AM Friday, instead of 10:30 PM Friday as previously scheduled.

11:35 PM - Kate does happy dance, because she knows she won't miss the rehearsal dinner, and so her chances of hooking up with hot celebrity types are much improved.

11:36 PM - Kate does somewhat less happy dance, realizing that she is going to be spending the next five hours in the airport, after already spending the previous seven hours at the airport.

11:37 PM - Kate stops dancing entirely and begins to pass out from exhaustion.

12:00 AM, Friday - Kate locates what she thinks is a quiet corner, in which she can sleep on her carryon bag like a vagrant. She begins to think that perhaps vagrancy isn't so bad, and is in fact rather comfortable.

12:15 AM - Kate is relocated by a foreign man with a heavy accent pushing a carpet cleaner; she is fairly sure she's being threatened with deportation, or at the very least, removal to a homeless shelter. Vagrancy returns to original suck status. Kate attempts to sleep under the armrests of those godawful uncomfortable bolted-together chairs. This does not work; Kate goes to buy some food and ends up eating several Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and does not have the energy to feel ashamed.

6:something AM - Plane leaves! PLANE LEAVES!

Sometime after that - Plane lands in Charlotte! IN CHARLOTTE!

8:45 AM - Back at the ranch, Rob calls and informs various family members that he will be leaving soon on his five-hour drive to Tybee, and should be there by 2:00 or so. I do a happy dance, because I missed him, and because now someone else can catch Norah when she vaults into the pool. Damn, my arms hurt.

10:30 AM - Kate lands in Savannah, is picked up by Ben, and is delivered to beach house, where she puts on a swimsuit and immediately passes out on lounge chair.

1:00 PM - Uncle, his wife, her daughter, and daughter's boyfriend arrive. Rob calls and informs various family members that he is not in fact within an hour of Tybee, and will in fact not arrive until later. What? Why? This is never clearly explained, and I do not do a happy dance at this time. My suspicion concerns the internet, and assing around thereupon.

3:00 PM - Mom and I go to area mall in search of shoes for Norah, a dress for me, and some "pants, not dressy pants, but you know, not sloppy ones either, and not khakis, but you know, just pants" for Mom. I give Mom the stink-eye when every pair of Just Pants does not meet with her approval, but quit stink-eyeing when she buys these shoes for Norah.

5:30 PM - Panic sets in when we realize that the rehearsal dinner starts in an hour and a half, and the beach house is way, way far from the mall. Several laws are broken during wild ride home, during which Norah calls out, "Mama? We going like big jet?"

6:15 PM - We are smashingly successful, and ready to go in 20 minutes. I look hot, in a motherly way; Rob has arrived and is dressed in his LA Casual Look, and Norah is cute like a bunny. Everyone else looks hot as well, and we pile into various cars and take off.

7:00 PM - Arrival at Fort Jackson, which has been rented out for the 200-person dinner. First sight is of Ronnie Boxville (there's that code! do you get it?) wearing a Confederate army cap and chasing a gang of small children with a cap rifle. The children, of course, love it; Nonos joins the posse and the battle of Gettysburg is in full effect within minutes.

7:15 PM - Realize that the weather is pretty gosh-darned warm. I now look hot in a sweaty-junior-high-kid-in-gym-class way. This is not ideal for celebrity hookups.

7:16 PM - Lose left leg to mosquitoes. Begin to question sanity of family responsible for planning event.

8:00 PM - BAD. ASS. Confederate Army reenactors, part of the Fort Jackson Experience, I guess, shoot off the big-ass cannon on the parapet. Sanity of event planners is somewhat restored, thanks to pyrotechnic display; sanity of cousin/groom is clearly not present, which is made clear when it's revealed that cousin/groom asked the staff how much it would cost to buy a cargo ship and shoot at it with a non-blank cannon round.

9:00 PM - Speeches and toasts begin with cousin/groom's parents, who are appropriately deprecating and praiseful of groom, and loving toward bride. I have brief conversation with Ronnie Boxville at the bar, which ends with him staggering unevenly toward his very cute wife with three beers in each hand. He is no longer on hot celebrity hookup list.

9:45 PM - Someone finally pries the microphone out of the blabbery bridesmaids' hands; audience is spared further TOTALLY FUNNY stories of sorority events we didn't attend and lost cell phones we will likely never call. I spot Kris Fontius (very easy code!) laughing with other guests; he is most hot, and would make an excellent celebrity hookup, except that he is rather short, and also will not even look at me. Another one bites the dust.

10:00 PM - My slightly hammered new aunt drags a befuddled-looking person over and introduces him to me. He turns out to be Spike Bonze (oh my goodness I handed you this one), who is utterly charming and quite possibly the only celebrity at this event with whom I would like to be siblings. Hooking up with brother type is unacceptable; ergo, Spike is removed from the list. Celebrity hookup is now starting to look unlikely, but I am bolstered by three Coronas and do not lose hope.

10:15 PM - People start loading up. Shit! What about my hookup? I am now losing hope!

10:17 PM - Hookup is not happening, as celebrities are packed onto a trolley/bus thing and headed back to their hotel, at which I am not staying. Bah.

10:45 PM - Back at beach house, Norah is snoring like an angel in her wee daybed, and I am somewhat disgruntled at lack of sex with famous person, but not entirely surprised. And also not at all displeased with evening, as my baby was completely precious, and drunken night swimming has commenced. This continues until 2:00 AM, at which point we drag ourselves inside and realize that none of us can feel our toes. This is a clear sign that we need to go to bed... so we do.

Next: kiteboarding on the sand and the demise of Aunt Denyse, and the unexpected drunk who fell on my sister at the reception!

Jackass wedding recap, installment the first

2007-10-02T14:52:00.000-05:00

Status: Still unable to focus eyes for more than two days, mainly from sheer exhaustion, but also from my mom's wicked "wake-up cocktails." Hair of the dog that bit me, and whatnot.

Guys! For serious! This was the best wedding in the history of weddings, and I'm not just sayin' that because it was That Cousin and his Coworkers* The rehearsal dinner was incredibly fun, the ceremony was beautiful and even made the hardened, jaded Hollywooders tear up a little, and the reception was exactly what my reception would have been, had I been the proud owner of a few hundred thousand dollars with no other reserved purpose, like paying off our debt or posting bail for my sister. (Who's amazed that hasn't happened yet, by the way? READ THIS ENTRY AND YOU WILL BE.)

* About the coworkers. Because I don't want to be a Google magnet for people looking for info about these folks, I'm going to assign them certain codenames. If you need help figuring out what the codenames stand for, you just let me know... although to keep it all straight for myself, it's going to be pretty idiotproof. You'll get it.

This is a long, long, long story, so if you'd rather hold out for one of my semi-regular posts about how much I love Nonos/Rob/photography/life in general, you have my express written permission. I just want this all down, so I can look back and laugh, and wonder how any of us survived without extensive liver damage or jail time.

So! Let it begin!

Wednesday: Pre-Pre-Wedding-Eve

4:00 PM - Parents arrive, having driven 610 miles from their house in Indiana. Their dog Grace also arrives, giving Norah reason to SQUEEEEEE! almost continuously until bedtime.

6:00 PM - I leave for a wedding consultation at Starbucks, during which I break out in tiny hives, wanting so badly to tell these complete strangers where I am going, and yet feeling like maybe that wouldn't be cool. And god knows, I am going to be cool this weekend. Cool like ice. Cooooool.

6:03 PM - Childhood best friend Mills arrives at airport, and is delivered unto my house by my parents. Mills agreed to come along to babysit for Norah during the wedding (no kids, don't you know) and to completely relive our childhoods together, one hour at a time.

6:45 PM - I nail photography consult, but leave emptyhanded since the mothers need to discuss exactly how many hours they'll need from me. I weep at lack of check in hand and drive the four minutes home.

7:01 PM - Rob vomits from overdose of "you remember that time when we were seven, and your mom caught us making blueberry muffins in the microwave, and we melted the carpet with the tupperware because we dropped it trying to get it out? GOD THAT WAS FUNNY!"

10:00 PM - All in bed. For real. Sleeping. This moment marks the last reasonable bedtime for the next four days.

Thursday: Tybee Invasion, two days until wedding

8:00 AM - Out the door and on the road to this beach house:

My mom rented the place for a whole gang of family members, and really, it divided out to be less than the cost of three nights in a hotel per couple, so it was a great idea. Still, we pulled up and I thought it was a joke. That is not a beach house we can afford. That is something off of Cribs: Vacation Edition. Hoorah for the off-season.

2:00 PM - Beach house arrival. Nonos immediately scopes out this:

And her Mama immediately scopes out this:

2:03 PM - The first of several OH. MY. GOD.'s is uttered simultaneously by all present.

2:04-5:59 PM - In pool. With beer. Gramma takes first Norah shift, which delights Norah far more than if it had been Mama, as Gramma has cookies and sparkly stickers, which Norah is permitted to apply to all furniture, people, and pets present.

Mills:

And Gracie:

6:00 PM - Dinner at The Crab Shack (no celebrities, relatively unimportant event, except that it was really good food and we had an amazing time, and 16,000 cats meowed at us from under the table to get us to drop some crab to them. Norah of course thought this was hilarious, and gave about $35 worth of Dungeness to a particularly loving and attentive tabby.)

7:00 PM - First update from my sister, whose plan was supposed to arrive at 11:30 PM. Layover in DC has been cancelled, as bad weather in DC has closed Dulles. Kate is hysterical and has to be talked off of ledge at Logan. Flight rescheduled for 11:45 PM arrival; Kate no longer suicidal; everyone full of crab and moderately drunk.

9:30 PM - Homeward bound. Mills and I sober up and go to Savannah to see her brother Zach's apartment near SCAD, where he is a student. This is the same kid who, at three, stood up in the country club dining room and yelled, "Anybody wanna see my penis? ANYONE?" That was my last memory of Zach before their family moved to Kentucky; to imagine him as a serious art student is hilarious and yet somehow fitting.

10:00 PM - Phone call from my mother. Kate is not coming until Friday night at 10:30 PM - dead smack in the middle of the rehearsal dinner, which we are all supposed to attend, and which will be my first chance to hook up with a hot celebrity. (Rob agreed to this plan, seeing as how it was both unlikely/ridiculous, and if it did happen, would certainly be worth money to the right tabloid.) Leaving rehearsal dinner to rescue Kate will throw serious dent in plan... Kate returns to the US Airways desk to explain to the clerk that it's now her sister that needs to be talked off the ledge.

10:15 PM - Reminder call from my mother that we would still be picking up Ben, who came on a different flight. This is sweet irony, since Ben was flying standby (he's a pilot, so that's standard for him when he's not working) and had tried to get Kate to do it with him, but she had demanded a ticket because she "could not miss a minute of this, and standby is so unpredictable sometimes."

11:31 PM - Ben arrives, not just on time, but 15 minutes early. Kate's flight is rescheduled for 10:30 AM Friday morning. No one is currently on ledge.

12:30 AM, Friday - Back at beach house, Mills and I remember we are supposed to be providing breakfast for the eight residents of the house. Frantic Yellow Pages search for 24-hour grocery commences.

1:15 AM - 24-Hour Kroger located... in Savannah. Mills and I drive 12 miles to get there, stock up, and get back into car, only to discover that the gas light is on, and had been on for quite a while. Apparently, singing old school Kylie Minogue and rehashing elementary school boyfriends are enough to distract one from one's dashboard lights.

1:16 AM - Where is the gas station?

1:17 AM - Seriously.

1:17:55 AM - What's that noise?

1:18 AM - Car chokes and coasts into gas station bay, where we put 16.98 gallons of gas into my 17-gallon tank. Oops.

1:45 AM - Return to beach house, chuck food in fridge and coffee onto counter, and collapse.

Tomorrow: the true story of what happened to Kate at Logan, and how Rob managed to make a five hour drive in eight and a half hours. And the rehearsal!

Savannah daydreamin'

2007-10-01T17:24:00.001-05:00

Oh so exhausted. So, so, so exhausted. The wedding was incredible, as was meeting/mingling/holding up the very drunk celebrities who attended. Big long update later... for now, the photos from the beach house are posted, and the official wedding ones should be soon (we weren't allowed to take cameras, so I have to get them from one of the photographer's interns, who said she'd slip me her good ones).

Chris Pontius is hot, and Spike Jonze is one of the nicest people in the world. That is all.

Scouting

2007-09-15T15:50:00.001-05:00

Wow, busy week! I only had to nanny two days, but it seemed like every day was crammed with something or other or nothing that took up all the daylight hours. And at night, oh yes, photobooks! Who's jealous?!

Here's Nonos at Fearrington Village, which we visited on Friday to check out for photo shootability... It's not bad, but it's not great - the drought hasn't been good to the grass, and the formerly green, rolling fields are now brown, crispy fields. At least the cows were out, which we loved. We even stopped for a pack of Oreos on the way home in their honor.

Right, back to work. I'm slacking, can you tell?

Proof

2007-09-09T20:50:00.001-05:00

Uh-huh.

Supreme injustice

2007-09-09T20:16:00.000-05:00

I just missed Britney at the VMAs. Secretly I've been counting the minutes until this girl did her thang - I mean, while I'd love to see her succeed and have a rainbows and flowers comeback, and magically become a good mother because her VMA success made her feel that much better about absolutely EVERYTHING, part of me wanted to see if she was going to screw it up, or maybe just half-ass the whole thing. Why would she care if America loved her? We've already seen her dirty bits (literally and figuratively), and most of us were unimpressed. You can't even get the pervs to like your dirty bits, you might as well give it up.

Sarah Silverman, who I just don't get, is doing a rather nasty little schtick about Britney right now... I believe she just referred to her children as "cute as the hairless vagina they came out of." I know, I know, let's be all Shock America! But I just don't think that's funny.

ETA: The first 35 seconds are on YouTube, and you know, I think she really might have half-assed it. It could just be the low-res video, but it also could be the low self esteem. Oh, good luck, girl.

OMG 4 rl?

2007-09-08T16:26:00.000-05:00

I did my first teenage model headshots today (there ya go, Googlers looking for some barely-legal) and oh my, it was fun. I met 14-year-old Kevin and his mom at the Factory Skate Park in Wake Forest, and weaseled our way inside to shoot on the ramps. Feeling rather badass and punky in my shirt from the juniors section (all right, all right, the chubby juniors section), I got the kid to experiment, play, and basically act like a kid while maintaining control of his voice/body/temper - something that's tough with babies and toddlers, duh.

I LOVED this, y'all. More from today:

Does anyone know how I can get cozy with a modeling agency, so they'll pimp their kids out to me and I can keep doing this for bigger dollars, and I can quit nannying and make a fortune a la my absolute superheroine, Annie Leibowitz, except without shacking up with Susan Sontag and you know, going that whole maybe-lesbian route?

Regression

2007-09-05T06:55:00.001-05:00

I have an ear infection. A big one. It feels like my eardrum is about to pop with the sheer ridiculousness of it - I mean, come on... what adult gets ear infections? What am I, six?

I'm starting my first Rob-prescribed round of drugs today*, and right now all I want to do is stick a knitting needle up in there, just to let the pressure out. No wonder little kids are horrible when this happens.

*Rob used to refuse to prescribe anything for anyone related to him who also has his last name, because the medical board of NC is obviously on the hunt for doctors who write legitimate prescriptions for dangerous, addictive things like antibiotics. This concept came back and bit him in the ass when he got a monster cold sore and needed Valtrex, most commonly used to treat the herp Down Below, but also a smashing cold sore remedy. He ended up writing the prescription for my mother, who just laughed with the pharmacist and said, "Wait till my husband finds out." And then she came home and threw it at him.

Ugh. Time to sit around and whine for a while.

How embarrassing

2007-09-02T19:58:00.001-05:00

... that's how I used to work it, too.

So no more weddings until October... yaay for breaks, boo for less money. (At least I have those sweet books to keep me busy, huh? Huh? God, I'm sick of looking at those things.) I get to attend one and not be part of the hired help - my Jackass cousin is gettin' hitched in Georgia at the end of the month, and I'm all starry-eyed excited about that one. Imagine the after-party.

But for now, I'm finishing up my post-processing and going to bed. We had to basically hogtie Norah to get her to eat a single bite of dinner, which did not end well, so I'm exhausted. Anyone who can make vegetables taste like ice cream is asked to call me QUICK BEFORE SOMEONE DIES.

Self-pimpin'

2007-08-30T20:57:00.000-05:00

After weeks of not posting, I'm in serious red-alert blog-world mode. Either I'm thinking, "Oh foo, that would be totally hilarious to write about, and Jee-ZUSS, you know people want to hear about that thing again!" Or I'm obsessively clickin' through my blogroll and looking to see who's updated. Why don't you guys update three or four times a day, like Perez Hilton? How hard is it? I mean, COME ON, slackers, I needs me some news.

I think the big problem is that I've been at this computer more or less all day, working on designing wedding albums for my many bridies. (I want to hate this, because they totally aren't paying me enough... but they're all so cute and dewy-eyed and excited, and you can't hate that. It would be like hating a puppy.) Here I go, inviting trouble, but what do you guys think of these? They're covers, so imagine that you've taken the books, opened them all the way up, and done what your librarians told you never to do: dared to lay them down, thereby cracking the spine and reserving your seat at Satan's left hand.

I'm not a very funky designer, but then again, I don't know all that much about design software. I can Photoshop a picture until it's damn near ready to hang in the Met, but creating something big and colorful and multi-part makes my palms itch. Ideas? Comments (and oh God, be gentle. I've been doing this all day, and anything too intense is likely to make me weep)?

Oh, also: that gray rectangle is where the Asukabook barcode goes. It's not up to me, unfortunately.

Oh, also also: the photos on the back of the blue cover are from their engagement session. And really, none of the photos are permanent - final cuts will be up to the bride and groom, so I'm just crossing my fingers and going with whatever.

Thirty days of eventfulness in 3000 words or less

2007-08-28T12:40:00.000-05:00

I have to be honest: one of the main reasons I'm posting right now instead of snoring on the couch with my mouth open and half a can of Diet Coke dangling from my fingers is because I was sick of looking at myself walking through Springfield. Was it just my computer, or every time the page loads, was I briefly replaced by an all-white Homer Simpson? I am so not Homerish, thankewverymuch, ergo, new post! Booya!

So things have been nuts, as usual. The photos from all these weddings have been steadily getting better, or maybe it's me that steadily getting better - every single one has been, if nothing else, a learning experience. And I haven't had a really bad day yet - no bridezillas, no psychomoms, no major injuries.*

* Okay, that's a lie. I did a wedding here that involved me climbing a fire escape and shooting down from a penthouse roof. The shooting part went fine, and the pictures were fairly cool. Witness this, a lucky one of which I am undeservedly proud, since it was just a question of timing the downstairs lights:

My luck ran out on the way back down the fire escape, when my heel caught in the grate and I fell down the last few steps. Would have been fine, except that my precious little open-toed shoes (with reasonably low, sensible heels - I'm not stupid, just klutzy) sliced across the top of every single one of my toes. My feet looked like hamburger for two weeks.

But overall, seriously, every event has been great. I've got one more this weekend and then I'm off for a few weeks, so I'll have time to get those books done and breathe a little before the fall schedule starts. God, I love this job.

On the home front, last night Norah informed me that she would not be sleeping in her crib anymore. This isn't such a big deal logistically, as my childhood bed is already in her room and we had planned to move her into it eventually. However, every time we suggested even taking a short nap in the Big Girl Bed - even yesterday afternoon, for heaven's sake - the souls of dead weasels took over her body and we were beaten with our own limbs. So to hear her say, "Mama, I sleeping in that bed now please? Now I will do it?" and watch her climb up and flop down right in the middle, and then MIRACLE OF MIRACLES watch her teeny little eyes close like she was sedated... that was some kind of jawdropper. Today I took her to LnT and let her pick out her own sheets - after talking her out of the ones with the NC State Wolf on them ("he wearing a sweater! dog is wearing a sweater! that's so funny! I have it please PLEASE!") we ended up with pink polka dots. Oh well, she's happy, I'm happy.

I wanted to bitch a little bit today, because things haven't all been sunshine and daisies. A couple of weeks ago, I miscarried at about seven weeks pregnant. I didn't mention it, and I wasn't going to, because a) it sucked and I don't want to talk about it anymore, and b) I'm actually dealing with it fairly well, and c) I didn't want you, internet, to feel like you had to come up with something to say. It was a fairly horrific experience - aside from the physical issues, the complete loss of control was the worst, knowing that every second my body was expelling something or other that really ought to stay in, and there was nothing I could do to stop the process. The aftermath was more of an irritation than a grief process - haven't I been through enough, haven't I had enough to deal with, without adding in two weeks of this symptom or that one? It's over now, and I'm getting back to normal (okay, smarties, as normal as I ever was) so don't worry. I'm okay.

I'm finding it hard to bitch, though. After writing all that out up there - photos, jobs, Norah and her infinite ability to make me say "aww" - I felt like maybe it wasn't a bitching day after all. I'm better than I was two weeks ago, which is enough to brighten me up considerably. I'm lucky. And I'm happy.

Nonos is asleep right now, finally taking that nap completely of her own accord, so God knows I should be doing something... work, or laundry, or eating jellybeans, or something... hmm...

Like you haven't done it

2007-08-15T20:04:00.001-05:00

Whole lotta shakin' goin' on

2007-07-29T20:40:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Anne for the above photo, which is alternately flattering and horrifying - are those MY eyes floating above the ten-pound saddlebags? Good lord.

Like I've been updating all that much anyway, but I thought I'd, you know, give notice... This summer is an incredible roller coaster for me, and I'm just barely tall enough to ride - with eleven weddings (nine of which include those extra-schmancy books I was oh so excited about, and now fear on par with small spaces and Nicole Ritchie) coming up, I just don't get the blogging done I wish I did. I'll be here sporadically, and I'm still checking in on you guys, so don't think you can go talking bad about me - I am SO going to find out if you do, you bunch of hooligans.

Peace and love, as my mom says, and I'll be back in a little while.
Annie

It's two weeks later, do you know where I've been?

2007-07-17T15:36:00.001-05:00

A thousand miles and back again, baby! Norah and I went to Indiana for a week+two with my parents, which was about the best idea ever... I got sleep, I got to say, "Hey, someone else! Play with this kid for a minute, huh?" And best of all, I got to hear Norah say to my father, "Gampa, you so cwazy Gampa, you got some fabulous." If you think that didn't make me snort out some Diet Coke, you would be sadly mistaken.

This is a picture of Nonos at Irwin Gardens, a privately owned establishment in Columbus, where my parents live now. You can't really tell, but she was so into this fountain that she's got her nose smashed against the wrought iron. She backed off and had a red indentation from top to tip, which yet again brought out the DC from my nasal cavities.

Also at the gardens, they had this elephant, which was apparently imported from some World's Fair or another - Nonos did not particularly appreciate it for its historic value, and got this close and NO closer, NO MAMA THAT EFFALENT IS RIGHT THERE NO I STAY UP HERE IT NOT UP HERE:

Later in the week, my high school buddy and his kidlet came up for a playdate, which was fun - he wasn't as into the playground as Norah, but he was awfully cute eating the grass. We might have let him do it, just to see if he'd quit after tasting it (he did, stop calling CPS).

We went to my grandparents' house in Kentucky, where as kids we used to play wedding and make my sister marry my cousin Ben. (There's some Kentucky stereotyping for you.) In an interesting twist, Kate is now dating a guy named Ben to whom we are not related, and Cousin Ben has moved to Florida, where he is now the deputy sheriff of Naples, and probably enforces laws against cousins marrying. In which case, Naples, have I got a story for you.

These are the fourth generation cousins, my other cousins' girls and mine. I don't think we'd know what to do with a boy child if we had one, which is probably why Ben got talked into wearing a dress a lot as a kid.

By the end of the night, I was pretty attached to the next-littlest cousin, Rachel (Norah is the freshest of the five). She did a lot of standing on my belly and jumping, which I would have had to kill her for if she had weighed more than eight pounds, and didn't look like this. How can you be mad at this?

More to come later...

Birthday party: aftermath

2007-06-28T20:08:00.001-05:00

I tried.

We were in Harris Teeter (glee!) last week, and we took a stroll past the cakes section. "Look, buddyo," I sez to the kid, "look at the cakes. Do you want a princess cake for your birthday? Or this one with the cars?"

"Oh Mama nooo I want cake cake is right dere but that cake nooo."

"Okay, so what about this one with the palm trees and the fish and--"

"Oh Mama I need a cake and a BLUE CAKE yes yes BLUE CAKE and LELLOW TOOOO."

Well, all righty then, blue cake it was to be. I bought a white cake mix, some seriously large bottles of food coloring, and some vanilla frosting, even though we had chocolate left over from Rob's cupcakes (this would also give me a reason to eat the chocolate with a spoon, because who needs more than one container of icing in the fridge? I ask you.). I figured I could color the cake blue, the icing yellow, and POOF there would be Norah's dream birthday dessert, easy as could be and about three times cheaper than the one with the Barbie stuck in. Less booblicious, of course, but that is a sacrifice I was prepared to make.

Today dawned, and Norah opened her little presents (and, I'm pleased to announce, she prefers the wee metal pots I got for her play kitchen to anything else. BOO-YAH, Elmo and friends!) I woke up all smoochy and lovey and thinking about my Precious Baby Child Who Has Grown All Up, and Norah even humored that with a few extra cuddles. She's not a terribly cuddly child in the morning, so I know she was either being sweet or shooting for more presents. Either way.

I got out of jury duty today (did I mention I had jury duty? probably not, I was probably blog-slacking the day that came, but OH MAN was I pissed about it - thank goodness we were all excused) so we spent the morning at The Mall playing with Victoria from down the street. We came home, and I had every intention of getting going on the BLUE AND LELLOW CAKE MAMA, but that was before my neighbor dropped her kids off for some emergency babysitting. Even on my days off, kids haunt me. I may never escape!

So blah blah blah, the cake didn't get done until very late, while I was also making dinner and helping Rob shave the dog (no, that's not euphemism, we really were shaving the dog - it's really hot here, you know). And then this happened while I was trying to ice it:

My cake got a crevice. A rather unattractive one, might I add. So of course I filled it with frosting, which peeled up a bunch of blue crumbs and made that section turn an unpleasant shade of green. You know there's no fix for that situation, other than to cover it up with more, and before I knew it I had used up an entire can of newly yellow Creamy Vanilla, and I still had a half-naked cake. After a frantic trip to Food Lion and crafting an entire top layer out of frosting, I got this:

I tried.

But it turned out okay, see?

Apparently, the blue monster was good enough, because Norah went ahead with the candle-blowing-out business, and was actually pretty into it... so into it, in fact, that she slooowly lowered her chin directly into the frosting. After about 15 minutes of trying to get her tongue out far enough to lick it off (sorry, kid, but your career as a frat party entertainer is just not going to pan out) she took a huge bite, looked directly at me, and said, "Yo ho, yo ho, happy to Norah!"

I don't know what I like better: the fact that she finally got that whole "happy birthday to you" thing, or that she wished herself happy birthday pirate-style. That, in all her two-year-old glory, is my girl.

Birthday card

2007-06-27T21:00:00.001-05:00

(This is the story of Norah and how she came to be, and it's quite long, so I understand if you decide to skip it. I'm feeling all nostalgic-y, seeing as how her birthday's tomorrow, so you can either jump in and love it, or catch me on the next update. It's cool, either way.)

I like coffee ice cream, even though it gives me serious dog breath. On June 27, 2005, Rob and I went to The Mall (which I always capitalize in my head because that's just how glorious this place is - it's Valhalla with Motown on the rock-shaped speakers) and hit up the Marble Slab Creamery. MSC is just like Cold Stone, except that it's at The Mall, which naturally makes it nine thousand times better.

I blame Norah's two-weeks-premature birth entirely on that ice cream. Either she wanted more and knew that it was Out while she was unfortunately In, or she was getting back at me for eating an entire waffle cone of it, giving us both the aforementioned dog breath. Whatever the reason (she still won't tell me), she decided that it was in fact time to cut loose, and my water broke at about 3:00 AM.

They don't tell you what that's like in baby-having class, not really. Our nurse, who was a leetle too focused on visualizations and imagining myself on a sailboat while the labor pains ate me from the inside out, sort of glossed over the whole water-breakage issue. What I didn't know was that I would run frantically to our shower, yelling, "Seriously! I think I'm wetting the bed and I CAN'T STOP GODDAMMIT ROB YOU GET IN HERE AND TELL ME WHAT THE HELL THIS IS." I think I was more upset about my water breaking than I ever was about the labor. My dignity, man! My dignity was in shreds!

Two hours later, we got the green light to go to the hospital. The 120 minutes between the first call and the green light call were spent in the bathtub, fretting. I tried to focus on what we had learned during our single baby-having class: sleep until it's time to go, because you are going to need the rest! Don't freak out when labor starts, because you've got time, so take a nap! Move your already-packed luggage to the car, idle around a while, play a few games on the XBox and make yourself some cheesecake! You're cool!

What we're going to do now, baby-having-class-curriculum writers, is we're going to put a live person into your body who is desperate enough to escape said body to shatter the very sac that gives it life. YOU NAP WHILE WORRYING ABOUT ALIEN SPAWN BREAKING OUT OF YOUR ABDOMEN. I did not nap. I stood in the shower and decided that labor pains weren't really that baaaa----

And then they were in fact that bad, so once the doctor gave us the thumbs-up, we piled into our aging Volvo and headed for the hills of north Durham.

That whole "two weeks early" thing got us in some trouble, namely:

We had never toured the hospital. I didn't know if we were going to Labor and Delivery or the cafeteria, either of which I would have taken at that point. I'm a nervous eater.
I didn't know my doctor. I was still scheduled for two more appointments with the practice's two remaining doctors. Ha ha, guess who was on call? One of them. Nothing says "relax" like a complete stranger walking in, foisting your legs apart, and saying, "Nope, we're not quite there yet. Would you like to see this, Dr. Harrison? It's very interesting, what's happening HERE..." Luckily, it turned out she was quite nice, and I didn't want to tear her face off for much longer.
Rob's insurance was due to start on the first of July, and so it hadn't kicked in, and we were still on the COBRA plan that my old employer had set up. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking COBRA -- but in the time it took us to fill out the necessary paperwork, I think I gave birth and taught Norah how to drive. It got very interesting when the poor check-in guy kept asking for cards I clearly didn't have (but I remembered those slippers in my hastily packed bag, oh yes I did) and I couldn't explain myself between yelps. Finally he ushered me into a wheelchair - and how fun was THAT, let's not lie, it was a total kick in the pants in the middle of all this chaos - and got me upstairs.

There was a bed, I know that, and after some clothes-changing and a few trips to the bathroom to alternately pee, puke, and panic, I was in it. And then there was peace, broken only by the contractions and Law & Order on the TV. Sometimes the nurses would come in, do a little poking under the hood, and determine that things were progressing as they should be, but otherwise I'M TOTALLY LYING ABOUT THE PEACE THING, BECAUSE OH GOD IT HURT. Shortly after threatening a very nice nurse with imminent demise, someone found an anesthesiologist. He might have been a janitor, for all I know, but they found him and at that point I would have taken a hammer to the forehead, just to help me forget the cramping in my belly.

Brief time-out to say this: I am so all about the natural childbirth. I say, if you got the cojones, you go for it, ladies. But I'll be the first one to admit that I ain't got 'em, and the rest of this story is going to go infinitely better because of that man with his nice spine-piercing needle. I do applaud anyone who can do it without the drugs... I just didn't want to. There you go.

Anyway. The nice man and his nice needle came, and only one of them stayed, and was I ever glad it was the little shiny one. Because I'm fairly tall, they went ahead and cranked that sucker up, and after a minute or two I was a-okay. And seriously, I was. I remember everything, I was alert and happy, and no one had to die! Win-win! Law & Order ended and another one began, thus bringing me the realization that Dick Wolf actually owns television, and baptizing Norah in the sweat of Lenny Brisco and Ed Green. If she remembers one fleeting moment from her birth, I'm pretty sure it's going to be the fact that when the doctor finally said go, Mama said, "Right now, or when this one's over?"

Too bad for me, the doc meant right then. I had been in labor for almost exactly 11 hours, most of which had been a cakewalk. I got my feet up (note to Rob: please tell me you've gone ahead and blocked that pretty picture out of your memory, because I have never felt quite so large and... inverted) and we went for it, and with only a few seconds of OH DEAR THAT REALLY DOES KIND OF HURT, we had a baby.

We had a baby.

She was redheaded. She had long fingers, her father's ears and her mother's earlobes. She was long and beautifully built, and red as a tomato. She cried for about a second, and then started a sweet little meh sound that I will never forget - Norah's first conversation, and she already had a lot to say.

Despite all the chaos and the pain (which was already disappearing from my conscious memory), we had a baby. She was lovely, and I was fine, and Rob was there, even though our bedroom carpet was soaked, our insurance was a total clusterfuck, and somehow we'd forgotten to turn off the TV and The L&O Sound was still bomp-bomping out from a crackhouse in Queens. We had a baby, and everything that was scary and bad and awful was piddly in comparison.

So that all happened a while ago, and now the lovely (red) baby is still as lovely, if somewhat noisier and more mobile. The lovely baby says things like "hellafint" and "copacopter," and has entire conversations with her crayons. The lovely baby eats chicken vindaloo with as much love as she does macaroni and cheese (which she used to call "vackaveen," which is now how a buddy and I greet each other, because it's just darned fun to say). The lovely baby is my best pal, my little cheerleader, the one who keeps me from getting lonely on the long nights when her daddy is stuck at work. The lovely baby looks just like me, and at the same time, just like her father, especially when they're sleeping with their mouths open - which reminds me how much I love him.

And how much I love you, little girl. Happy birthday.

To the international sportsman

2007-06-18T19:57:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday, buddy. Thanks for bending to fit my whims.

(via Schmutzie)

It's too hot to be anywhere else

2007-06-17T12:46:00.001-05:00

I have two herb pots on the steps, great big dirty herb pots that are certainly overcrowded and choking the very life out of the oregano. One pot has said oregano, thyme, parsley, and a three-foot basil bush in it; you would think that the herbs, they would be gasping and screaming for space, but they're not. They're thick, lush, lovely things - apparently, herbs are social animals, and really enjoy their cocktail-party-style living space. The other pot is exactly the same size, and is where the Mint Monster lives. Mint is not as mingley as the other herbs, so it went ahead and took over its pot, preventing me from adding anything else. It's a selfish thing, it is.

I love these herbs. LOVE THEM LIKE CHILDREN. For years now, I've been trying to grow things - I go out, I buy hundreds of dollars worth of plants, dig various holes in the ground, stick 'em in, and watch 'em die. Every. Single. Year. This year, however, things are alive! The herbs are alive! I'm not sure if I should take credit for improved gardening skills, or offer up Norah in thanks to the fauna gods (although, given her habit of ripping plants out and eating them, the gods might not be too interested in having her).

So I went out this morning, picked up the humongous watering can, and tried to water my children, because it's still HOT here and they're getting a little wilty around the edges. I filled it up with the hose, congratulating myself on remembering to water and being all Mother of the Earth Growing Stuff. And I tried to pour it out, and nothing poured. It dripped. I then stopped congratulating myself, and became rather ashamed for not watering often enough and letting spiderwebs build up enough to block the water.*

* In retrospect, I know this is entirely unlikely. But I had no idea! I mean, come on - what the hell grows up inside a watering can and prevents water from flowing? We've got some big-ass spiders around here; the spiderweb theory made as much sense as the Maneating Fungus theory I had a few minutes later.

I unscrewed the top of the spout and GAAAAAAAHK, there was a frog. I'm not ordinarily afraid of frogs, but it was just such a surprise - what, the watering can looked like a condo? Some other frog hung a "vacancy" sign and was charging rent? I got over the shock and turned the can to show it to Norah, who shrieked one clear, high shriek that dogs are still hearing in Iowa and bolted back into the house. You see her little leg in the photo? It's blurry because of the sprinting.

I named him Earl and gave him a poke, and he jumped out into the rain gutter, where he hopped under the street in the drainage pipe and presumedly met an Earlette, I don't know. The watering can worked, the herbs are perking up as we speak, and the Earth Mother vibe has been restored. I guess he was just happy in the can, and I understand that much - Rob's at work until tomorrow, and we're reveling in our day off, lazing around the house under the a/c vents and wondering when we'll have to jump out and make progress. For now, though, we're just chillin' in the spout.

Supreme hotness!

2007-06-13T07:49:00.001-05:00

I got spotlighted (spotlit?) on the Foliosnap website! I've been using Foliosnap for my work site for a few months, and I absolutely adore it - it makes me look like a bad-ass web designer, when in reality I am nothing more than a bad-ass template tweaker. I have confessed it, internet, and there it is: I FAKE IT.

Must go get the car serviced, since I'm down to one petit monstre today, and she just happens to be my own, so life is good. Mundane, but good.

'bout time, kiddo...

2007-06-09T05:40:00.001-05:00

... just ask your mother.

Congratulations to my internet friend and fellow Catonsviller, whose long job as an incubator is finally over - and whose life is about to get that much cuter. Le bebe decided to take an extra nine days to make an appearance, and if you've never been pregnant and can't imagine what the big deal was, let me just stop by sometime and sit on your stomach for a while, and then kick you in your sensitive parts. THAT'S JUST HOW IT IS. Now go hug your mother.

I'm so happy for you, MB.

Come on now, it ain't so bad.

2007-06-07T20:31:00.001-05:00

I'm feeling somewhat exhausted and threatened by the idea of a long, hot summer with five, count 'em FIVE, kids. The older kids that I'm nannying had a swim meet today, and I spent several hours too many in the HOT, watching two of them frisk in the baby pool (turns out the littlest girls on the team don't actually swim at the meets, ha ha ha!) and the other one lose mightily after forgetting to put his goggles on his eyes, leaving them suctioned to his forehead until his brave dive into the pool twisted them up on his face, which left a red mark that'll be there for days. All this merriment and joy happened in the 95-degree heat, while I had the youngest child - an infant - strapped to my belly in a baby carrier. "Swim meet" is clearly some kind of parent code for "sunscreen-scented hell," and I so did not get the memo about THAT one.

But. I lived, and I should not bitch, because I get to sit here with my feetsies up on the coffee table, blogging and watching the TV Guide channel's expose on George Clooney. Intern George, if you will. Life's good.

Princess Nonos says, "Let us rejoice!" because she has a new favorite possession, a princess crown that is alternately the Best Accessory Ever and Satan's Plaything, From Which We Shall Run Screaming. I don't know what it is about this kid - some days, she's all about whatever object she happens to be holding. This BRACELET, Mama! This bracelet SO PRETTY AND BYOO-FULL! Just try to put the byoo-full bracelet on her the next day, and watch your own face roll off in melted waves from the hysteria. The crown, I'll admit, has been more love than hate - although it's early in the crown's life with us, and there's still time for it to become possessed with the spirit of evil. Ask Nonos, she'll tell you.

She also has her Thomas book in this picture, which is one of her best favorites thus far, and one that drives me insane. I don't really care about the fact that it's about trains and not princesses or fluffy bunnies or whatever the item du jour in Girlytown is - I actually kind of like it that Norah will point out trains, tractors, or bulldozers with as much joy as she'll express over a butterfly with rainbow wings. I'm just tired of reading the cutesey little story over and over again. On the up side, I can now identify several different pieces of railway machinery, including signal lights both broken and functional. That Thomas, teaching valuable lessons all over the place.

So I'm off to remain motionless on the couch and wait for Look-A-Like to come on, but before I go (and because I'm going through a showoff phase, and I like to talk about myself! on my own blog! imagine!) here are some pictures from a baby shoot I did on Sunday:

I call this next one "WTF Face." Although, by the time this kid reaches the age of IM, they'll probably just go ahead and read each other's minds without even bothering to abbreviate.

She's cute, though. And it keeps me going, the cute. There MUST be something cute about my nanny kids, right? RIGHT?

Instead of telling you, I can just show you

2007-05-27T12:10:00.001-05:00

So here's what I've been up to in the past 10 or so days since you've heard from me... These are the kids from the school pictures shoot I did on Friday (details below); cute as bunnies, every single one of them. It was really, really hard, though - I don't know how the Lifetouch guys do it, or even the Picture People at the mall. You keep 36 kids from going nuts while they're supposed to be standing still and smiling, and I will declare you a miracle worker.

This is from an engagement shoot I did a while back. The happy couple, who were downright adorable in their willingness to play on film, both worked at this bar in Chapel Hill with a balcony dining area. We went up there, and got this incredibly bright idea to climb up on the roof via a rusty, straight-vertical fire escape ladder, and shoot back down at them from up there. Of course I had on sandals, because as you know, there is no point to wearing anything else down here, because it's hot. HOT. So me and my sweaty feet (sweaty from both the HOT and the panic about the ladder) climbed slooooowly up and slooooowly back down. And it was pretty fun, honestly.

This is Charla, immediately after her bridal portrait session last week. Remember how I talked about the HOT? And remember, those of you who have been in this particular getup, how much hotter it is underneath a wedding dress? Then you will understand why my girl ditched the shoes and hit the bench by the Duke Gardens fountain.

Having now conjured the image of your wedding dress in your heads (and if you haven't, bear with me here and imagine eight layers of material, HEAVY material, that you have to burrow through before it can be buttoned up your back) now remember how that burrowing felt, and you will understand Christina's wedding preparation, and how it took long enough for me to get this picture:

Good thing she had some cuteness to follow the wrestling of the dress - here's her ringbearer/new stepson and one of the ushers, who was almost unbearably adorable. I'm fairly sure she said he was gay, though, so my lust only went as far as "ooo, someone to hang out with while he tells me I have good hair."

So then I stopped with the weddings and the brides and whatnot, and I moved over to the dark side of school photography. These are my favorite two - Jay:

And Audrey:

They were awesome kids, but neither they nor the wedding nor the bridals nor the engagements nor ANY OF NORAH'S ADORABLE BABYISMS could make up for this:

Glasses! Damn it!

You see, friends, I used to be an irresponsible contact lens wearer. I slept in 'em, wore 'em way longer than the requisite two weeks, and pretty much assed around. In retrospect, WHAT THE HELL WAS I DOING? At my annual "oh man, I'm still blind!" visit to the optometrist last week, I learned that I have neovascularization (and oh my God do not look at this GIS), which is basically what happens when you leave your old, disgusting contacts in your eyes for too long, and tiny blood vessels begin to form on your cornea, a la poison ivy vining across the windows of an abandoned house.

But I have learned my lesson, oh yes, because now I'm not allowed to wear contacts for weeks, if ever again. My reaction to the high-oxygen kind was not good (children with pinkeye were laughing at me) so assuming I want to save whatever vision I have left (not much) I'm stuck in specs. Let my lesson be your lesson: take them out! Let the blessed air caress your eyeballs like a lover! SAVE THE CORNEA, SAVE THE WORLD!

Files from the phone: la fashionista

2007-05-18T19:31:00.001-05:00

Camera phone! New hotness! (Except I guess it's not all THAT hot, but I just figured out how to get the pictures off of it, and HEY LOOK I did it!) I don't think I could have gotten any more exclamation points into this paragraph without! doing! this! Please pardon my enthusiasm, but I'm feeling bad-ass, and you know how I get when I feel bad-ass.

Yes, this is Norah in my sunglasses, and yes, she is wearing my mom's dog's collar. I'm sure I'm not supposed to let her wear dog collars, and I'm sure she would have choked within five seconds had we not rescued her from it. But it had a safety release buckle in case Gracie tries to hang herself or something, so whatever - the Nonos was fine. And as sick as this is, she LOVED IT. She has some plastic Mardi Gras beads that she wears nonchalantly around the house, her expression clearly saying, "Yes, I look pretty, but I make the beads. The beads do not make me." But the dog collar sent her into fits of giggles, and she kept streaking the house in her jammies shouting, "I'M GRACIE! I GO WOOF! OOF! OOF! I EAT POOOOOD!' (I'm fairly sure that POOOOOD is just her version of FOOOOOD. Sure it is. Right.)

Anyway. I have a wedding tomorrow and bridals and a consultation on Sunday, and preschool class pictures next week, and the photography gods are either smiling on me or puking on me, depending on how many hours I've been sitting in front of the 'puter. Tomorrow's wedding is a sub-contract job for another formerly local photographer, Kate, whose husband uprooted the family and moved them all to Nawlins. Granted, the uprootery was justified because his new job? SO AWESOME, but the best part is that the weddings Kate had booked here have been transferred to me. All's I have to do is show up, shoot, and mail CDs to her, and a happy little check comes prancing back to me. I wish them all the best in their new home state, but oh boy am I glad they're gone.

So I'm tired, and the house needs to be cleaned in preparation for my friend Victoria, who's staying with the Nonos while Rob's at work, and the laundry pile is consuming most of my bedroom like a hungry hungry hippo after a marble. And yet here I am, blogging. I'm attached to you, internet friends, and so I will LET you distract me from my VERY important housework. Feel blessed.

Chipmunkface and Birdlegs Boy!

2007-05-14T15:26:00.001-05:00

As promised, here we are on Biltmore Segways - and apparently, my hair is so frightened by the ride that it's hidden entirely under my helmet. That was probably wise, in retrospect, although I will say that I got much better at driving by the end of the tour. Did try to kill several people first, though. Priorities.

Update: there has been some concern about where Nonos was during this episode. I guess you can't see her in that little backpack we strapped her into, huh? Gosh, that thing was tiny! No, I'm kidding. My parents were also in Asheville, and took her on the gardens tour while we were toodling around trying to stay upright. Norah got to smell flowers, squeeze a snapdragon so its "face" opened up, and generally make my mom giddy with grandparently glee. DO YOU FEEL BETTER NOW, NOSYPANTS? You know who you are. And you know I love you for loving my kid.

Feeling a bit like a tour bus, except with a better back end

2007-05-12T13:49:00.001-05:00

Hi! We're back! I guess I neglected to mention that we were leaving town this week, a fact that was pointed out by someone who just assumed I was being a bitch and not answering my email. Truth is, we were partying around Asheville, where my dad was working on a family friend's house. Work on the house = staying in the house = free vacation! Wooo! This picture is from the front porch, where we spent many valuable hours staring at the trees and wondering if/when we should get up and do something. Two guesses what we decided on THAT question.

So we were out. But before we left, we had many things to do, including spending last Sunday touring our state's capital - we decided that since we're all hardcore North Carolina love these days, we should know something about the place. Like who the governor is, or perhaps what the capital might be. Now we know! Thanks, Raleigh!

So, for your viewing pleasure, have some pictures, just to prove that I'm not making all this up from the safety of my desk. Here are Rob and Norah on their way to the courthouse:

And here is Norah, embracing her genetic predisposition to badness by (gasp!) walking on the grass of the courthouse lawn. Grass that, might I add, was as thick as a mattress, probably because other people are considerate and immediately chase their kids off of it instead of laughing at the picture of said kid wrestling the "Keep Off" sign to the ground:

There were several statues of prominent North Carolinians floating around the grounds there, and we tried to get Norah interested in who they were and what they did. However, she was more interested in screaming and running away, because they were eight feet tall and had very serious, somewhat menacing expressions, a requisite for getting your own statue, I guess. She did like the cannons, though, and insisted on looking into every single one. I have to hand it to Raleigh - those cannons were clean. Well done, cannon sanitation department.

After dragging the kid around the courthouse - I mean, exposing Norah to our state's history - we went to Exploris, a kids' museum in the area. While some of the exhibits were maybe a little too old (the stock market exhibit didn't really get her going, but the little fake supermarket - ohh, plastic asparagus! how Nonos loves you!) we both enjoyed the eyeball window:

And Norah liked monkeying around with the joystick at the "Where We Get Our Water" exhibit, although she was somewhat concerned when she monkeyed it too much and it made a very angry noise:

And on the way back to the car, we encountered yet another learning opportunity:

The NC Cannabis Association was having their "legalize marijuana" rally, and while I say rock on to them for expressing their viewpoint and organizing the gathering instead of sitting on their couches eating entire bags of Cool Ranch Doritoes and waxing poetic about a crack in the wall, which is what I would be doing were I a member of their society, I am SO glad that Norah can't read. So, so so glad. I can barely handle it when she gets a splinter; I am not prepared to explain drugs and their illegality/desirability. I'm already scripting that conversation in my head for when she's 30 and needs to know.

What I don't yet have pictures of: Rob and me, touring the Biltmore Estate on Segways. OH MY GOODNESS, you must do this sometime, whether at the Biltmore or elsewhere. My parents bought the tickets for Rob for his birthday next month, and let me tell you, it's the best Rob Birthday Present I ever got. The tour guide took our picture several times, including once when I lost control and tried to kill several other members of our group, and promised to email them to me, so hang in there... the funny is on its way.

Madness takes its toll (please have exact change)

2007-05-01T20:24:00.001-05:00

I saw that on a bumper sticker today and it made me snort some diet coke - but it was nowhere near as awesome as the fact that MEAT LOAF is on Dancing with the Stars. Oh sweet Jesus.

So how cute are these guys, huh? They're from my Sunday engagement session at Pullen Park (which, to my local friends with kids, I highly recommend on any day but Sunday, especially a sunny and fabulous Sunday, because if you go on that day you will be eaten by other people's children. Thousands of them.) Sunday's session was just one of a series of appointments over the last week or so - it's crazy, yes, but it's a good crazy.

Rob, you will be pleased to know, made it to the charity auction with several cans of corn, green beans, and Bush's vegetarian baked beans (because I refuse to buy the kind with bacon. Canned bacon, that's just wrong.)

Today's ridiculous conversation with four-year-olds is brought to you by the letter EWWW:

Kid: Annie, are you eating that watermelon?
Me: Um, yes. Is that bad?
Kid: No. Well, not all the way bad.
Me: Why is it some bad [because that makes complete sense!]?
Kid: Because it is mine.
Me: Is your name on it?
Kid: Noo...
Me: Then... why is it just for you?
Kid: Because when I licked out all the seeds, Mommy said that it was ALLLLL MIIIIINE.

Oh God. I love children.

The jury's still out.

2007-04-27T18:53:00.001-05:00

At our house, before my trip to Harris Teeter (Teeter! Hee hee!):

"So tomorrow, I've got that wedding, but in the morning I think I'm shooting the people who won that charity auction, you know, that one last month?"

"Charity auction! Yes! There's one tonight at work, and we're going, right?"

"Robert. It's already 6:00. We've got to get food, feed the kid, get her in bed before she turns into a raging lunatic... we'd never make it."

"Can we get a sitter?

"No, babe, we cannot get a sitter in 20 minutes. I wish I'd known before FIVE SECONDS AGO."

"MAMA! I POOP! I DON'T LIKE IT!"

(Norah often claims that she has done this, because she knows I'll take her diaper off, and if she's fast and I'm slow she can escape and run pantsless through the house.)

"Oh, you did not. I'm going to get food. I'll be right back."

Half an hour elapses while I go to Harris Teeter (snort!) and buy groceries.

"So I got strawberries since I can't make it to the farmers' market tomorrow."

"Hey, great. Did you get the canned food?"

"Canned food? What?"

"I have to take canned food for the auction. It's a donation drive thing."

"Wait, what?"

"I'm going to the auction. I needed canned food! What am I going to do now?"

"ROBERT. You didn't TELL me you were going, and frankly the fact that you're leaving here on a Friday night when you came home late last night and I'm not going to see you for two days because I am going out WORKING and making MONEY is really PISSING ME OFF. And NO I did not get you any stupid canned food, you can just go get it YOURSELF!"

Thirty seconds of silence elapse.

"So you think I should get like, corn, or what?"

"NO! DADDY! I DON'T LIKE IT!"

Flickers

2007-04-26T19:24:00.000-05:00

I got another migraine today, the second one in a week. Usually I only get them once every few months - I start seeing these shimmery little rainbows in a circle that gets wider over about a half an hour, and then all of a sudden they're gone... and then I become conscious two hours later, curled into the fetal position on the living room rug, massaging my own temples, and moaning like a sorority girl with her head in the toilet. This isn't THAT bad when it's once every few months. Kind of like an appointment with the Lady Doctor, or Christmas shopping. You just have to go through it, so suck it up.

This time, though, I was more than a little freaked out. For one thing, I was babysitting at the time, and I was more than a little reluctant to assume the position while I'm supervising other people's kids. Were it just me and my Nonos, of course, I'd hit the floor before you could say "child protective services." She's cool, she'd just play with her Teetos* or possibly her burfeeler* and occasionally that screwdriver she uses to clean her ears. It's all good.

* Teetos = potatoes = Mr. Potatohead and the Spud Buds, a Motownesque assortment of vegetables with rearrangeable parts. The carrot I can go for, but the corn, whose arms hold a cell phone and several dollar bills, is just too weird. Why does plastic corn need a phone and cash? Is he dealing butter and salt?

** burfeeler = bird feeder. We have two, and for some reason, Norah won't let me hang the smaller one back up. Rather, she drags it around the house and uses it as a purse, filling it with whatever flotsam she finds on her route. Yesterday that included my car keys, a plastic spork, and, in a moment of Nonos clarity, a fake bluejay from a centerpiece we used at an old office o' mine.

Anyway. So I had kids plural, and because I was all responsible and stuff, I gulped down several Motrin and hoped for the best. While I was waiting for the shimmers to go away, though, I had plenty of time to consider the other person who used to get a lot of migraines in quick succession: my grandmother. My grandmother who died of a brain hemorrhage.

It's funny how you can get the sniffles and they'll turn into ebola by the time you find the kleenex. I'm sure it was just another migraine, possibly brought on by the bright hot sun, or maybe because I was really tired from staying up to watch Lost last night (which, to digress slightly, was SO SAD OH MY GOODNESS that thing with Sun!). But I've been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately, and so my migraine blossomed into an ugly tumor of panic by the time the rainbows disappeared. And they did disappear, and the Motrin jumped in front of the pain and kept me from hitting the floor, and everyone was fine. Everyone but my inner voice, who cried because she thought she was done grieving, and instead had her heart pulled by a bad headache.

(i just tagged a bunch of old posts, and rereading a lot of them made me sad and all focused on the dreadful things I thought about earlier. Happy things tomorrow, I promise. Or maybe even in a little while - Rob's working and I'm waiting up, and so I've got far too much time on my hands. I'm on my third episode of SVU - and this one has the PRECIOUS Abigail Breslin! Who knew!?)

And you can't make me

2007-04-24T19:28:00.000-05:00

Norah's picking up words like a fat kid picks up Twinkies. Her newest thing is "not gonna do that," which is almost as infuriating as "I don't like it." Either she doesn't really know what she's saying, or she DOES know, and she says it to make me insane, as in:

Me: Hey, Nonos. You wanna go play in the sandbox?
Norah: No, nooooo. Not gonna do that.
Me: Why not? You love the sandbox.
Norah [with a sly, sideways look]: I don't like it! Dirty! Messy! BYOWN! (Or, in English, "brown.")
Me [maintaining my shit and hiding frustration at her denial of an activity she loved yesterday, and feeling intense fear that she is becoming her father, who can't bear to even eat a popsicle because he gets his fingers sticky]: Well, okay, then let's go inside. I need to start dinner.
Norah: Yeah. Yes. Dinner time. NO! SEEBOX TIME! I LIKE SEEBOX! I LIKE BYOWN!

And then we go play in the seebox. OF COURSE. Here I am, in the parental twilight zone.

Otherwise: Rob finished his board exam today - apparently, you have to take three of these before they let you be a for-real doctor instead of just a charlatan with a Palm Pilot and an embroidered ice cream man coat. It was a two-day ordeal that cost us $700 - needless to say, I am glad this is over, because we have had many a difficult night doing practice tests and waking up the baby with "Oh, dammit, I don't get this OB-GYN stuff AT ALL." Good thing I didn't do that home birth, huh?

Life goes on, on top of my head

2007-04-18T19:27:00.001-05:00

Today, while babysitting:

Child A (4 years old): Do you know that I like to brush your hair, Annie?
Child B (also 4): Yes, me too, I like to brush your hair too.
Me: Okay, cool. You may brush my hair. [hands Child A a brush]
Child B: I can wait my turn.
Me: Gooood. That's very good.
Child B: Because we are going to need to do this for a LONG TIME.
Me: [knowing this is going somewhere that is not going to please me] Um, why, because you like to do it?
Child A: No, because SOMEONE has to do it.

Because clearly I don't. Thank god they're teaching them something at that Montessori school.

This picture has nothing to do with the abovementioned hair incident. I actually took it days ago (note the presence of that blue shirt from my new header - and thanks for the praise, too, you guys.)Norah just looked especially sassy in it, and it made me happy. And couldn't we all use a little more happy?

Also: congratulations to my friend, who had something exciting happen, which will require some extensive travel... You know who you are, and you also know how hard it is for me to NOT blurt this news out like verbal vomit. PLEASE break the news already, would you??

Tech breakdown

2007-04-17T07:26:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of angles to cover in the Virginia Tech story. There's the grief, the empathy, the fear for my kid in a world where this happens, the gun control issue. There's the horror of the cell phone videos floating around the internet, in which kids filmed people running and screaming for their lives. There's the fact that I couldn't sleep last night because I kept imagining how it might have been to sit in a classroom and wait to die while you watched the other students get shot.

What's really getting me, though, is the uproar about the "lack of communication and warning." Students and others are upset because they think that the university dropped the ball, and that they didn't warn people in time for evacuation.

I understand that grief is an ugly and irrational emotion, and that people feeling grief need someone to blame. In July, I blamed God; in October, I blamed doctors who didn't catch a blood clot they wouldn't have looked for anyway. You have to have a target for the finger-pointing, or the inability to point will kill you from the inside.

I'm watching web feeds of the Today Show (WHY? Why can't I just stop watching this show, because it makes me angry every single time I see it) and Matt Lauer is verbally smacking the president for that "communication breakdown," and questioning him mercilessly about the email that went out after the dorm shooting. The president is fighting to explain that they first thought it was a murder-suicide, that they needed time to investigate, that if they had immediately locked down the dorm, they might have locked the shooter inside with 800 other kids in their rooms. In his way, I'm sure Matt Lauer is looking for his own scapegoat (I'm going to skip the rant about the shit-stirring, muckraking media, even though in some way I'm sure it applies) and he hurts as much as the rest of us.

But goddamn, Matt, leave that poor man alone.

I worked at two very different universities, in various levels of their respective hierarchies, and I can tell you without a doubt that they had one thing in common: they geniunely gave a damn about their schools, and the students and faculty and staff inside them. Whatever students and alumni might think about their moneygrubbing, their sharklike drive to be first in fundraising, participation, whatever, their first and main goal was to enrich life for the students - the people in general - who walked through their gates. No president would have deliberately or otherwise allowed a breakdown like the one that people are alleging occurred at VT. If there had been a way to protect the VT community, IT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED.

I don't believe that this is "another Columbine," like everyone is saying. Columbine was a high school, where two boys with two very horrific mentalities did something awful. This shooter was not another Dylan or Eric - yes, he was young, and yes, he was obviously mentally disturbed in some way, but there is a world of difference between 16 and 19 or 20. This, in my opinion, is another 9/11. The first plane hit the tower and everyone looked up and said, "What the hell was that?" No one knew to leave the second building because no one knew what happened to the first one. At VT, no one knew to evacuate or lockdown because no one knew what happened in the first place. And we didn't blame the management company of the Twin Towers when the second one fell - just as we shouldn't blame the administration at VT for not knowing, just as I shouldn't have blamed the doctors who didn't find the clot that killed my grandmother. Who would have looked for those things? Who would have known anything other than the rest of us?

To the Tech community, I say that my heart and my mind are with you today. I think about what happened and it gives me goosebumps, and I can't imagine being part of something as monumental as that. But place your blame on the guy with the gun, and believe in a president and a school that wanted the best for you. I'm sure the shooter had some issues, and I'm sure as time goes on that we'll discover an abused childhood or an inability to adapt to college life or whatever. But he held the gun and he did the shooting, and we all had to look around and say, "What the hell was that?" Blame him, and grieve with your school and its administration - whatever trouble you had with the registrar, however much the food sucks, however many annual fund solicitations you get in a year, grieve together. They're as broken as you are.

To Matt Lauer, I say only this: let the president grieve too. His school suffered a loss, and as such, so did he. Yes, he gets paid a huge salary, yes he gets to wear nice suits and drive a shiny car, but he could do that at Smith Barney or Disney or Dell, too. He chose that school and he loved it, and his heart broke yesterday, too.

Flashback

2007-04-16T19:24:00.001-05:00

A year ago, Norah looked like this - not much different than she does now, in fact. Aside from that fuzzy little head, she hasn't changed much, huh? It's the cheeks, I think.

Anyway. Hi! I have decided to ignore this whole "posts appear below the sidebar" thing I've apparently got going on, largely because none of you claim to be seeing it. (I think this is just a conspiracy, orchestrated by Adrienne, to make me think I'm insane. In which case, I tell you: the conspiracy is utterly unnecessary.) I don't know what's up, but the site looks the same on both my laptop and the desktop upstairs, so whatever... our house just has internet cooties.

You haven't missed much during my screwed-up-blog-related hiatus. Norah has successfully added "I don't like it!" to her list of favorite sayings. Today at Harris Teeter (do you giggle a little when you say that out loud? I do, because that's the kind of mature babe I am) she identified broccoli, rainbow chard, canned sundried tomatoes, and Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches as things that she does not like. And believe it or not, she's right: she really DOESN'T like those things. I guess the kid is starting to understand that what comes out of her mouth is a reflection of her internal monologue; when she starts asking where I keep the tequila, I'll know she REALLY gets it.

Things I probably haven't mentioned, or may have, who knows, in an orderly bulleted list, because I have to do the dishes and don't have time to expound:

Rob got his cardiology fellowship at Duke, which means we'll be here for another three or four years. Happy dance! I didn't want to move again.

I booked a beach wedding today; the bride's willing to pay my mileage to get over there, which will be a nice little bonus. This one is the result of a referral, so I'm happy - guess that means I did an okay job at the referrer's shindig, huh? That brings the total to six done, nine to go before Thanksgiving. Badass.

My sister called today with the ENORMOUS BREAKING NEWS that she has updated her Myspace profile from "single" to "in a relationship," and bumped her ex from her top friends list. The range of Myspace is amazing; either I'm getting spam friend requests from someone named CassidyHumpsalot, or my sister is basing her entire relationship future on whether or not her current guy removed "looking" from his profile. If only Al Gore had seen the future of his invention; how proud, how mighty he would have felt then. You go, Al Gore, and you go, sister Kate.

Um, what?

2007-04-10T19:47:00.000-05:00

Has anyone else noticed that my blog posts are appearing WAAAAAAAAY down the page, or is it just my screwed-up computer? I'll work on figuring this out - however, if you're not seeing it this way, could you let me know? Gracias, chums!

Things to ponder...

2007-04-08T15:02:00.001-05:00

...while your baby throws up in the sink, thus making this less the Lord's Day and more Mr. Clean's Day.

Why do rolls of paper towels have warning labels that threaten baby suffocation? What dumbass is going to sit there and watch the baby roll itself up tight enough in paper towels to actually suffocate? Can you imagine how tightly the baby would have to be rolled? Jesus.

If I spray the countertops with this cleaner, and it disinfects them, can I also spray my boobs with it? Because they are coated in baby barf, and I haven't felt this dirty since the SAE Foam Party of 1999.

The Shirley Temple marathon is on AMC today, and I missed the entire first half of Curly Top because I was cleaning the aforementioned boobs and also holding a sobbing Nonos. Can I just watch the first half of Bright Eyes, and assume that the story will essentially fill itself in (plucky orphan, crusty old codger, etc. etc.)?

What exactly was the Easter Bunny thinking when he dropped off a chocolate rabbit, several plastic eggs worth of Mardi Gras necklaces (that's my girl, with the jewelry-loving) and what might possibly be the most horrific vomiting spell I've ever seen?

Happy Easter, indeed. Hope yours is better.

Humoring me for a day

2007-04-03T13:49:00.001-05:00

Because I am a big old braggedy-braggerhead, I had to put this up - my kid, she's a pretty one. Even when she's throwing my $7 fake flower that I use for photo sessions directly onto the muddy ground.

I think she behaved herself this morning because, oh my, it's my birthday. I'm a creaky old 28, which I celebrated with a trip to the gym and a humongous doughnut, thereby negating the gym entirely. (But these doughnuts, if you could just SEE them! For my last three years of high school, I had one every morning before first period, because the bakery was next door to the school. My friend Darren remembered this, and sent me a box two-day mail, and the nostalgia - or possibly the frosting - was enough to send me into spasms of glee. End of sugar-coated story.)

I don't feel older, honestly. We went back to Duke Gardens this morning with Jasmine and her girls, and although we were as worn out as they were at the end of the morning (possibly more so - who knew it was so hard to constantly chant, "Look UP, Lillian! Smile and you can have a COOKIE!") I still wanted to run around barefoot in the grass. It's a good world, when you can have a birthday that should feel threatening - 30 bein' right down the pike and all - and still be able to focus on the dew between your toes.

Anyway. Happy birthday to me, Washington Irving, Boss Tweed, Jane Goodall, Marlon Brando, and Eddie Murphy. That there is one distinguished bunch.

April Fool's Day out

2007-04-01T19:07:00.001-05:00

We spent the first day of April dodging rainclouds at Duke Gardens, one of my favorite places for pictures. (Also a great place for turning your kid loose in a giant field of grass - just beware of the rogue swans. They hiss, you know. It would be threatening, except that THEY'RE BIRDS.) Rob took this picture of me'n my baby at the duck pond, where 84,000 other families were feeding bread to the various birds; I was pleased with it, because I look like I might have thin legs, but I was horrified to see how tired and pasty I look. Time to either hit the electric beach or sleep for about three weeks in the sun, I dunno. I'd take either, cancer-causing properties notwithstanding.

I wish I had more news for you guys, but I really don't... I've got a courthouse wedding tomorrow, which should be pretty cute, really. We're headed to Fletcher Park for the pictures, so ideally we'll have flowers and yummy trees and green grass... and if not, we Photoshop! Happy April, y'all - who's got flowers at their house?

Art from other people

2007-03-23T19:26:00.001-05:00

dirty south

Do you love this? Do you not just LOVE IT? I don't know why, but this print by Niki Kelce just speaks to me. Clearly it's the uber-pregnant chick with the sailor tattoos, which I am a) not and b) not in possession thereof. But it delights me all the same.

So! We're back! The wedding was out of control, as most things that involve my family can be. I remember most of it as a big blur, punctuated by my flash and several memory card dumps into my laptop. I took about 950 pictures, with 600 or so being usable, so I'm currently in post-production mode... the final step of my wedding present to my uncle and new aunt is an Asukabook, custom-designed by yours truly and coated in some shiny crap and SWEET LORD does it look FANCY! I can't wait to get it back from the printers - it's also going to be my sample book, so I'm stoked.

And yep, I have another wedding tomorrow, at the Tucker House in Raleigh. Have I ever been there? Noo. Do I have any idea how to navigate Raleigh? Noo. But am I excited? Oh my yes. God, I love this job.

First time "bass" and "romantic" have appeared in conjunction on this website.

2007-03-06T13:18:00.001-05:00

First time "bass" and "romantic" have appeared in conjunction on this website.
Originally uploaded by annieandrob.

Sunday's wedding was good. Really good, actually. I went outside my comfort zone in a big way, and learned that sometimes that's just what you need to succeed. (And now that little "The More You Know" star will shoot across your screen. Really! Just watch!)

Nah, seriously, I'm happy with how my work turned out, this one in particular. Bass Lake is a lovely location for a wedding - the wind and completely unexpected and unforecast chilliness moved the ceremony inside, but whatchagonnado... we did the portraits on the deck, and it was lovely.

So now I prep for my uncle's wedding in Daytona Beach, which is on St. Patrick's Day - we're leaving the Tuesday before, so I'll have plenty of time to test lighting, shove my lens in everyone's face 4000 times, etc. I think it's kind of funny, what with mon oncle being 50-something... we're partying in Daytona during high spring break season, baby! He's so excited about it, though, that I can't really laugh about it without feeling like a jerk. And besides, it's Norah's first trip to Florida, and we MIGHT be able to pull off a trip to see Mitty and Mannie Mouts, don't you know. It's going to be fabulous.

Saturday warm-up

2007-03-03T21:19:00.001-05:00

Out across the lake
Originally uploaded by annieandrob.

I've got a wedding tomorrow (for real dollars! woohoo!), so I felt obligated to go check out the site today. Good thing, too, because Mapquest totally lied and sent me in the opposite direction from where I needed to go, making Norah and her buddy Lillian rabid from hunger. (Jasmine and the girls joined us, because my plans are always SO ROCK SOLID AND RATIONAL.)

We eventually got to Bass Lake, which actually turned out to be pretty cute - although I'm wicked nervous about the lighting situation. At 4:30, the sun will be shooting death rays directly behind the happy couple's ceremony. Backlighting makes me panic... but it's okay, because I've been studying up, practicing, all that jazz, and I think I've got it. Still - cold sweats all over the place. Cross your fingers for me.

And from the "how fun is THIS gonna be" department: the park guy I talked to there said he would be happy to take me out in the little ranger motorboat so I could shoot back at the deck, and he also said I could climb onto the roof to do group shots. If I don't drown or break my neck, pictures up soon...

In other news, Norah has decided that talking is for sissies, and she's moved right on to screaming her conversations. We'll be trotting merrily through Macy's, and she'll break into "MAMA! SEE PURSE! SEE NORAH'S PURSE! I PURSE! GET IT! I LOOOVE PURSE! AND HOT DOGS!" which actually comes out "hoddogs." Hoddogs get thrown into most of our conversations these days. What should we have for breakfast? Hoddogs! Where's daddy? Get Norah hoddogs! What can we use as a handy doorstop? YOU JUST GUESS.

Night shifts

2007-02-24T21:55:00.000-05:00

Rob's working in the ER for a month, which means regularly scheduled shift work, a reasonable number of days off (at least one a week! hold me!) and very, very late nights. Weekend shifts are 12 hours, which doesn't make much sense to me - wouldn't you think the crazy people would be out in force on the weekends, thus having more drunken nailgun accidents, thus increasing the workload for the ~~trained monkeys~~ residents, thus inspiring the powers that are to send said residents home before they go nuts from overwork? I dunno, maybe it's just me.

But since he's gone, and since I'm inspired to wait up for him (because that's the kind of sweet thang I am, baby) I have been spending some time diddling around on the internet. What did we do before there was internet? Would I be staying up late doing something useful, like making my own soap, or canning? All's I have to say is, thank God for Al Gore.

In my travels, I have discovered these two blogs, which shall now be given prominent linkage in my list over there, which has until now been populated entirely by criminals.

Geese Aplenty (commentary, newsy news, and giggly stuff like this: "The big uproar in California these days is an idea by Assemblywoman Sally J. Lieber; she plans to submit a bill proposing that California become the first state to make spanking of children 3 years old and under a misdemeanor. Penalties could include child-rearing classes for offenders or one year in jail. This topic is excellent for blogging, because it allows you to use the word “spanking” repeatedly and thus boost your site in Google search results. My hope is that Lieber’s next proposal will be about building more tall monuments near the state capitol, and then I can talk about how her constituents would like to see more frequent erections.")
Suburban Bliss (Melissa, the Mom Behind the Latest Epidemic! of drinking at playgroup! Everybody panic! Melissa was honest about her playgroup's occasional glass of wine while the kids frolic around with their Legos in the next room... and she talked honestly about it ON THE TODAY SHOW. I would have been so overwhelmed by the bounciness of Natalie Morales' hair that I would have locked up and keeled over - forget about speaking up about something for which several people were publicly damning me to motherhood hell. What a brave, real, classy broad.

Go thee and enjoy my late night labors - I'm off to knit my own bed linens, or possibly write a novel. I still have two hours before Rob gets home, after all.

Arama, palooza, hallelujah!

2007-02-22T21:09:00.000-05:00

Holy crap, y'all, I booked a dozen weddings last week. A dozen means twelve. TWELVE! The only thing that comes in dozens that has thus far made me feel quite this ecstatic is covered in a sugary glaze... but this! This does not pay me in calories, it pays me in GOOD OLD AMERICAN DOLLARS!

Oh, maaan. Lately everything I say ends in exclamation points, and the birds sing in a carefully orchestrated Disney movie chorus, and I am so damned delighted with my current situation. Maybe I'm not the best photographer out there, and maybe I'm not making as much as some of them, but this first year is going to be my best ever, even if I make three times this much next year, or 10 or 300 times this much - because I am doing what I want to do, and IT IS WORKING OUT. (Okay, that's sort of a lie - if I make 300 times more money, I'll be rather excited then, too.)

Happy dance!

Happy from my head to my black, frostbitten toes

2007-02-10T21:04:00.000-05:00

GOOD GOD IT WAS COLD TODAY. I know this because I was outside for all but about three daylight hours, and I have yet to recover feeling in my extremities. The soccer tournament was incredibly long, and I did nothing but run from field to field, since the other shooter didn't show up, and I have decided that Norah will never EVER EVER EVER play organized sports. Not because I don't think she could (although the fact that she's my kid does not bode well for her coordination) but because I don't want to get in the pissing contests all the mothers were getting into at the fields. MY kid made the state whatever, but MY kid scored 180 goals in the last three games, but MY kid blah blah blah... I wanted to say, "Hey, MY kid can blow snot bubbles bigger than her face!" but for some reason, it felt inappropriate.

I took 951 pictures in just under four hours, so I feel kind of badass. These are some of my favorites, which of course I assed around with, because I can't resist Photoshop widgets.

Right after the above shot, the red kid elbowed the kid to his left in the face, and there was much blowing of whistles and threatening remarks from the other players. I got scared and went to buy some nachos at the snack bar.

These guys were incredibly fast. I couldn't keep up, and went back to my nachos.

Lest you think I only photograph the boys, here are some girls. And they were even faster than the boys, let me tell you. What they lacked in physical mass, they more than made up for in speed, slick maneuvering, and general toughness. It was like ballet, only a whole lot less pink and foofoo. As in, the only pink was from the smears of blood after they kicked some major ass.

And here, finally, is what I really had fun doing today:

Weddingarama, here I come...

My circle, she's a widenin'

2007-02-09T14:38:00.000-05:00

Norah's still not sleeping well, but we've got it figured out, because we are specially-trained babyraisers with advanced degrees in Toddlerese: she's sick! Ah HA! I thought that her sniffles were in actually just sniffles, but as any parents (other than us, because that part earlier about us being super geniuses? Total lie) know, sniffles are rarely just sniffles. They do in fact have the power to cause sleeplessness, or lack of interest in food, or mass casualties in the manner of a dirty bomb. In Nonos' case, they have caused all of these things, culminating in a fried-eggs-on-the-forehead fever at about midnight last night. It is a miracle that I still have a face and she didn't manage to claw it off yet, and that I was able to chisel enough dried snot off her face to separate her from my chest, where she's spent the last several hours. My poor kid, she's a messy mess. God bless Motrin and the entire Vicks family of medications.

ANYWAY. I got cold-called today to do some sports photography, which I've never done and wasn't really interested in doing. Someone who knew someone else referred me to a sports photography agency to shoot a multi-team, multi-day soccer tournament, about which I know absolutely nothing. I guess they're in the habit of hiring freelancers, so that's how I got in. I'm excited, but I'm nervous - I'm going to be paid a lot of money, and I have no idea what I'm doing. I told the guy from the agency that, and he seemed relatively unaffected. "You shoot kids," he said, "so I bet you're used to working fast. You'll be FIIIINE."

Um... I guess.

I'm working it tomorrow from 8-12 (and I have a wedding in the afternoon, yippee!) and Sunday, whenever I can get the kidlet into a good playdate. Who knows, maybe it'll be fun, I'll get all sportsy and start working for NBC or SI. (I am, however, drawing the line at this, despite the pleas of every guy I know.)

Why

2007-02-06T12:37:00.000-05:00

won't Norah take a nap? And how am I supposed to take one with her teeny little bird voice singing, "Mama? Mamaaaaa? I up!" over the intercom?

I'm tired and still rather sniffly, so that's all I have to say today. Oh, except this: new websitey goodness at my photo site - having discovered a wealth of new toys, I redesigned, rehosted, and re-made myself very happy. Go! Book me!

Something I have neglected to mention, because I am entirely self-absorbed at the moment

2007-02-04T10:13:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday, little girl!

Baby steps back into humanity

2007-02-02T22:46:00.001-05:00

Recently
Originally uploaded by annieandrob.

The first thing one should do when returning from a long trip is definitely not arrange to get new carpet. Admittedly, our old carpet was nasty, and by nasty I mean SWEET LORD WHAT IS THAT STENCH? You name it, it had been spilled/dropped/excreted/killed on it. The pad was so worn down that you could feel the subfloor creaking when you stepped on the stairs. It was gross, and it was time for it to go, so when my mom mentioned The Carpet Plan, I was stoked.

My grandparents had installed new carpet in their whole house last summer, right before they, shall we say, made their biggest move. The new owners didn't like the color, so all that shiny new Stainmaster deliciousness was going to be thrown out in favor of white. (White! Who installs white carpet? I'll tell you who: people with no little kids or pets. And who are not prone to eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while doing Carmen Electra's striptease workout video. And I am so not talking about me... noo...) Since their house is substantially bigger than our house, my mom and I cooked up a plot to get a truck, go to Hilton Head, load up the rug and get the heck back up here, where carpet layers would be waiting anxiously in the wings to nail that yummy stuff to my floor.

Of course, my mom made this plan without actually adding herself to the itinerary, so I dropped Norah off at Jasmine's, rented a way-too-big Penske truck, and headed south by myself, feeling oddly like Thelma AND Louise put together in a pink hoodie. I guess it's some kind of law in North Carolina that certain size trucks have to stop at weigh stations, because before I left I signed a little paper that said that I Promise To Abide By State Highway Administration Laws Including Stopping At All Designated Weigh Stations - and let me tell you, that was some kind of bad-ass. BAD. ASS. I went to weigh stations! And truck stops! I was a TRUCKER! I was going to buy a mesh hat with a naked lady silhouette on it, but I was afraid the real truckers would mock me, so I settled for a Diet Coke and a Moon Pie.

The picking up of the carpet was uneventful, as was the rest of the drive and 99% of the installation. And then, the next day, I discovered that the key to the truck was gone. GONE. I tore this place apart, you guys - pulled the fridge out to look behind it, went through the trash (and oh, how disgusting wet graham crackers feel when you're not expecting them), checked in every drawer in the kitchen. While I was standing there having my nervous breakdown (would they arrest me for truck theft if I didn't have it back by the right time? would I be in trucker jail with real truckers who would kick my ass for being such a piss-poor excuse for a road warrior?) the carpet guy came in and explained to me that HA HA! even though we had 2000 square feet of carpet and only needed 900-some, the pieces went the wrong direction and it really wasn't going to work, and the bedrooms will just have to stay skanky! Then Norah fell and blacked her eye on her dollhouse, the dog threw up on the new floor, and I crawled into a corner and wept.

At 5:30 last night, three days after the entire Plan went into action, the carpet guys left with the trashed pieces, and here I am, parked in the middle of the living room and rocking slightly back and forth on my butt, just to feel how squishy and soft it is. (The carpet, not my butt. Although, let's be honest, that's fairly squishy too.) The key materialized in Rob's jacket pocket (and of course he had no idea how that got there! how odd!) and the carpet guy promised us a 20% discount if we called him to do the bedrooms. So really, it's all all right. But I'm still tired.

I didn't realize - or remember - that major home improvement projects can be so demanding... or maybe it's just that I kept trying to have a life in the middle of the chaos. And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a little piece of that life - I had a baby shoot the day before I drove off into the sunset, and this picture is my favorite for some reason. Maybe it's because there's no carpet.

Jiggety-jig, baby

2007-01-23T14:35:00.001-05:00

Chasing pigeons
Originally uploaded by annieandrob.

We're back! Norah has had many grand adventures, including hunting the mighty pigeon at Faneuil Hall in Boston, attempting to hurl herself overboard from a ship in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, chasing "Jojoey" around Rob's parents' house in Philadelphia. Sharpen your brains on some travel math: if a child is in the backseat of a car traveling nine miles an hour through bumper-to-bumper traffic and driving, blinding snow, that child will say "Out! Out! OUTOUTOUTOUTOUT! Pweeze?" how many times over the course of 215 miles?

One thing we did not get to do - and I mention this because there are people in B'more who will read this blog and immediately get hurt feelings and try to firebomb my house or something - is stop in, guess where, B'more. We hauled ass up to Philly because of a planned family party, and we hauled it back down because of a scary and threatening snowstorm, and we didn't have a spare second to stop and give you guys the attention you so righteously deserve. So consider this a threat - I mean, a promise: we'll be back in a little while, and will spend much time with you and your loveliness. End apologetic paragraph.

It was a good trip, even if it did end badly - we got home and realized that someone who shall remain nameless turned the heat down to FORTY DEGREES before we left, making the inside of the house only slightly warmer than the crisper drawer in our aging, crippled refrigerator. Norah slept with us, in a decision that at first made me feel all bad-ass and pioneery - we're saving our child's life with our own body heat! go us! - but as the hours wore on, more like a complete and total idiot. Kids kick and squirm when they sleep, did you know? I KNOW NOW.

The last two days have been spent trying to fit 84,000 more toys into our tiny house, and putting away what seems like the fifth or sixth suitcase full of clothes (where did we even get this stuff? Did I leave here with ten pairs of underwear? Do I even HAVE ten pairs of underwear? Whose underwear IS this?). It's messy, it's disorganized, but it's home... and I am so glad to be back.

Here is a big internet smooch to Adrienne, who minded Astrid while we were away - she's already pining away for you, buddyo.

Because I need a good laugh

2007-01-12T21:43:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow, we're headed up to Philadelphia. I'm not packed, I'm not prepared, and I'm not really motivated to get up off the couch and do anything. Call it fear for my immortal soul, if you will. So because of that, I'm leaving you with this guy, who can do just about every voice ever. EVER. I bet he even does mine... it's just a matter of time until I find it on YouTube.

Bye guys - have a great next nine days!

Babylust times a thousand

2007-01-08T13:58:00.001-05:00

My favorite: baby giggles
Originally uploaded by annieandrob.

This is Owen, who is as magically delicious a baby as I have ever encountered. Owen belongs to Lisa (of Sidecars and Fried Cheese fame), and Brian, who spent the entire visit trying to keep the dog from licking my lens. Do you not want to grab his little cheeks and squeeze on 'em for a while? Yum.

In other news, there is no other news - I'm still in recovery from the weekend invasion, Norah's napping, and life is good. How are you guys? You've been quiet lately. Update us, huh?

MCHS Class of (Way Long Ago)

2007-01-07T14:10:00.000-05:00

Over Christmas, I spent some quality time with my high school friends, Darren and Kris, and my sister, at a bar called Caddie's in Columbus, IN. Caddie's was about one step up from a roadhouse, but they had karaoke and Blue Moon with oranges, two things that are utterly necessary for a successful evening out. Ergo, we Caddied. Here's Kate, taken from Darren's camera phone (she's going to LOVE this when she sees it):

Ergo, we got really lit and made Plans For The Future, which included everyone coming to my house down here in the dirty south and embracing that which is Durham.

This weekend, Darren and two other old buddies came, saw, and conquered. Dean, who disappeared into the Navy shortly after graduation, became Norah's best friend for life, in a move that shocked all of us. Norah does not particularly like it when strangers try to pick her up - she has a "getting to know you" period that must be obeyed. But about five minutes after the guys got here, she sauntered up to Dean with a saucy little grin and started the "Up? Up? Ree book?" song that she knows so well. By the time they left, she was running topless through the house shouting, "DEEEEEEEEEN! DEEEEEEEEN! GOOOOO!" I would think this is weird, except for the fact that it was so damned cute I almost died.

The other guy, Nathan, was homeschooled, so we didn't know him well as kids. However, he was a fun addition - he's a very clever songwriter, and I haven't stopped humming "The Song I Wrote For My Dog (Because Dogs Can't Write Songs)" since they left. And Darren, my best guy friend ever, was himself, as I had hoped. It was a great weekend, one that picked up where we left off ten years ago - but better, because this time I had clear skin, no perm, and a cute husband.

(This is obviously not my cute husband, this is Darren. But I like this picture, so here it is.)

And OH MY GOD am I tired. Must nap before going to photograph an incredibly cute baby. I mean, cute with extra cute sauce and a side of cute to go. Yippee!

Happy New Year, indeed

2007-01-01T20:55:00.001-05:00

Helmets are for sissies
Originally uploaded by annieandrob.

Hey y'all... My sister's still here, so this is just a quickie to wish you all a happy '07, and show you how we celebrate NYE here in the dirty South: we find a grapevine, we hold on tight, and we FLY. And then we get vine burn on our nether regions, fall off into the mud, and swear. A lot.

Yee-haw and pass the band-aids... and have a great and wonderful year, buddies. In particular, everybody say good things to Lisa "the Labormaster" Chadwick, who has delivered unto us Owen the incredibly beautiful baby. I mean, this kid? Holy cow. To Lisa and Brian, congrats, and to everyone else: what will WE accomplish this year?

Isn't she lovely

2006-12-16T20:16:00.000-05:00

I realized that I forgot to put up pictures from Kate's fake wedding when she told me that she would be spending New Year's here, with her fake husband. WELL.

The story is pretty simple, really - I got a new flash unit and I wanted to practice with it. A bride-to-be had called me about doing her wedding, and I wanted to show her some kickass pictures with the new equipment... however, I had no bride to shoot. Enter my sister, whose only modeling request was that I find her a single "spouse" instead of making Rob do it.* Next, enter Matt, the grad-student uncle of the little boy I watch during the day.

* Kate refused to have her fake wedding with Rob because she's still rankled over her fake prom date with Rob. His friend from school was supposed to be her date for her senior prom, and the day before the big show he called and canceled. Rob, who was visiting with me at the time, went directly to the only formal store in town (which also just happens to be a tire dealer - for those days when you need a frock and a Firestone!) rented a badly-fitting tux, and took my sister to the prom. And now you may say either "Awww" or "Ewww," depending on how incesty you actually think that was.

ANYWAY. So I got Matt to put on a suit and tie, and strapped Katie into my dress (which fit her like it was made for her, that beast) and we went up to Duke Chapel and played with the camera. Apparently, somewhere between the flashes, Kate and Matt decided that being fake-married was actually kind of fun, and now they're sort of dating, or at least as much as two people 700 miles apart can be dating. HOW CUTE IS THAT.

I'm feeling a little less crotchety about the Box of Suck. I've decided to just keep my trap shut - which includes not sending a thank you note, good manners be damned - and pretend it never happened. If she calls and asks Rob about it, I've instructed him to say we did, and that we liked the clothes for Norah. And to say nothing else, because although my mother clearly dropped the ball on my religious assignation, she really hammered home that "if you can't say something nice" thing.

This helped my mood today: while getting out of the car at the super-preppy outfitter's today, I straightened up and whacked my head on the car (and by "whacked" I mean "very nearly split it open like the rotten and squashy pumpkin that only just left our porch"). I held on to my pain, though, and managed to squeeze out a clenched-teeth "Ooooohergggh" so that Norah wouldn't hear me cut loose with some sailorisms... and with perfect intonation, in her tiny little bell voice, the princess said, "Shit, mama. MAMA SHIT."

Moral dilemma: open the floodgates and stand back.

2006-12-14T21:59:00.000-05:00

I'm not a bad person, or at least I like to think I'm not. I try to be kind to everyone, even the jerks who cut in front of me (and my two wiggling kids, thankyouverymuch) at the post office. I give freely to charity, and buy books for the children's hospital drive at Barnes & Noble, and always ALWAYS hand a dollar to the panhandler who hangs out on exit 274.

I don't believe in organized religion, though. And this is the sticking point for my mother-in-law, who has up to now remained relatively silent about that. I've been involved with her son for eight-plus years now, and we've managed to dance neatly around the fact that she's a devout Roman Catholic and I'm... well, I like to sleep in on Sunday mornings, and I feel like God understands.

Yesterday a box arrived on our porch. It wasn't too big, which I understood - we're going to the in-laws' house in January, so we're just having a belated Christmas then. I brought it in, set it down, opened it up, and found several presents. WOOHOO! I thought, because I am an optimist and things wrapped in shiny paper make me instantly happier.

The top presents were labeled Norah, and they were tucked in with an envelope with my name on it, which I set aside for later. Norah and I gleefully had at the paper on her presents; the first one was an entire wardrobe of holiday apparel, which we will be sewing together into slightly larger apparel next year because there is NO WAY she'll be able to wear it all this year. The other one was a Veggie Tales CD with her name programmed into it - while I don't want to bash the Veggie Tales outright, because I'm sure their brand of music is well-loved by some people, I just have to admit right now that IF I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THAT AGAIN, I WILL DRILL HOLES IN MY FOREHEAD TO LET THE SOUND OF THOSE VOICES OUT.

The other presents were for Rob, who was working. I gritted my teeth and didn't open them, even though I was itching to see what he'd scored... and then he called! And said I could open everything! And things got freaky. His first present was a double picture frame, with a photo of him and Norah on one side, and a poem on the other side. Fine. Okay. Maybe it wasn't our style, but whatever.

The other thing was a book called "Will You Bless Me?" and it's basically a manual on teaching your child about God and what blessing means, and raising your kid properly in God's image and stuff, I went numb after the first few pages. In case you don't know how to be good to your kid and you need a badly-drawn children's book to help you, jump on over to its website, where you too can feel inadequate, pathetic, and offended. Also, it's a book about a child and her daddy, with no appearances made by her mother.

Oh, and my envelope? It held a prayer card. Granted, it was something about having Christmas with Jesus, and I'm sure it was supposed to refer to my grandparents, but it was still a prayer card.

My dilemma is this, guys: am I wrong to feel hurt by this? I have two reasons: one, it's clearly a box designed for Her Son and His Daughter, and Oh Yeah Annie Too I Guess. Two, the whole religious thing... what is up with this? She knows, she has known for YEARS that we don't plan to raise the kid Catholic, or in any specific faith for that matter. Is this her ever-so-subtle way of telling us that it's no longer cute or funny, and we'd better get it together and come to Jesus? I'm confused, I'm hurt, and I'm irritated by her refusal to allow us to be non-sectarian, and I feel like this is a bad thing. Am I being a bad person?

My holiday spirit has excused itself to go throw up and hide in the linen closet.

Take THAT, Blogger Beta!

2006-12-13T22:59:00.000-05:00

So this might look normal in your browser and it might look like a mess. I don't know. I've been fiddling with the darn thing for hours, and frankly my dears, I am SO done giving a you-know-what. I hope it's as bad-ass as I want it to be.

Anyway! Hi! Was just talking to the luscious Adrienne, who said that my lack of posting didn't jive with my completely ridiculous template fiddling. Ergo, I will do better, and update you all on my scintillating life.

Tomorrow.

Because I'm tired, and I've eaten about 30 pounds of cookie dough. Ahh, the holidays: the season for consuming massive quantities of raw eggs and then lying to yourself about it. ("No self, that was NOT your third cup of 'nog! It was totally your SECOND! What kind of hoss do you think you ARE? And here, have a spoon for that dough, or it'll stick under your fingernails.") Happy holiday prep, all.

OMG ADHD B-A-D

2006-12-12T14:37:00.000-05:00

Yes, template ADHD strikes again... and the big question is, what am I doing fiddling around with the blog when there are 84,000 holiday-related jobs to be done? This template is supposed to do some bad-ass Javascript thing when you click on images, but I can't figure it out. Note to self: hire full-time webmaster to make my whims into reality.

Somehow I've destroyed my link list, so if you would be so kind as to comment with your blog name and address, I would really appreciate it. I must keep you all - I want to keep you in my magical circle of blog-love. Thanks, y'all... for now, must go wrap Rob's mega-secret present. Norah picked it out, of course, because she has impeccable taste. Just look at her fabulous hairstyle.

Holiday activity sucks young mother's brain: film at 11

2006-12-02T13:29:00.000-05:00

Got the ornaments done, went to Savannah (Jeff was wonderful, and not at all a celeb type - seeing him wrestling with the little cousins while one of them hiked his t-shirt over his head and beat on his skull was cute as could be, and is probably going into some storage area of his brain for Jackass Junior, or something). Dog is essentially healed, save a little stiffness when she gets up in the morning. House is a disaster from various holiday related projects, including the ornaments (which came out all right, but were NOTHING compared to this or this or this), rearranging the storage space under the stairs to accomodate all my photo crap, knitting (and I hate to knit! damn you, holiday spirit!) various hats for the various babies who are shortly to infest my friends' lives, and trying to raise two kids in the middle of a PLETHORA of photo shoots. Yeehaw and pass the cranberry garland, man.

My biggest project is taking over our bedroom, since that's where the desktop and the scanner live. When we cleaned out my grandparents' house in October, somehow the photographs and memorabilia ended up in my car, and from there in my closet. My mother has a bunch of these, but my uncle has almost none, so I'm making two copies of everything and putting them in order in archival boxes. I'm having a pretty good time with it - either I'm awwwwing at the cuteness of my "old folks" as children (this child is my two-greats-grandmother) or sighing with relief that my parents didn't go for the reuse-ancient-family-names thing (in this case, Beulah.)

Must get back to it - just wanted you to know that I ain't dead yet, and say that I hope you all had some kick-ass turkey. Because that family togetherness thing? SO OVERRATED WITHOUT SOME GOOD EATIN'.

PS - congratulations to MB, who has recently outed herself with news that I got to know a while back. Supamama, do you know how hard it's been to keep my mouth shut?? When we're up there in January, can I come over and pat your belly like an old woman in the grocery store? Because I will totally not leave your porch until you let me.