Blah Blah Blah Pregnancy Blah Conversation Hearts

I really need to get over this whole Not Wanting to Blah Blah Blah About the Pregnancy on This Blog thing. Because you know what? When you're pregnant, the only thing you can think about is the pregnancy. Even if you try not to. Even if you're hell-bent on not being That Woman. Because the second your mind rests (if it rests), the baby kicks you. Or rolls onto a nerve and gives you sciatica. Or you drop something onto the floor and you spend 10 minutes staring at it, hoping it will levitate because you can no longer bend over to pick it up. Or you get an e-mail reminding you that your fetus is the size of a rutabaga or, oh yeah, now's the time to find a pediatrician, and then you completely freak out because Oh my god, how did I get to the point in my life when I have to find a pediatrician?!? Because I haven't wanted to be That Woman Who Only Talks About the Baby, just like how I didn't want to be That Woman Who Only Talks About Her Wedding, I haven't been writing, and I don't want to do that either. So I'm just going to get it out of the way.

This whole experience is just weird.

About eight weeks ago or so, Josh and I were lying in bed. I looked up and asked him:

"How do you think I'll handle labor? Be honest."

He paused, his face desperately trying to go blank.

"Be honest."

He sucked in a breath. "Honestly? I see you wigging."

"Wigging!"

"You told me to be honest!"

"OK, OK. Wigging."

"You know, you're not always very good with stress. I really think you should get the epidural."

"Well, how do you think you're going to be when I'm in labor?"

"I'll be supportive and I'll be there for you."

WHATever.

So I vowed at that moment that I would show him. I would labor in a calm, stoic way, utilizing all my strength and womanly power, using my body in the way only a woman can (or, women and the Pregnant Man can) to bring my child into the world.

And then a week later, I found out that (TMI alert!) the placenta was covering the top of my cervix, thereby leaving no way for the baby to get out, and not only would I need a c-section, I wouldn't even be allowed to go into labor at all because contractions would cause excessive bleeding.

And there I'd been, thinking I had any control over any of this science project. Silly, naive little girl.

I was distraught. I really wanted to know what labor felt like, even if I did end up taking the epidural. And complications from the condition, called placenta previa, range from mild bleeding to hemorrhaging, which can lead to bed rest and early delivery. I was told I couldn't lift anything heavy, stress my body in any way with too much physical or emotional activity, or have sex.

"It sucks," my doctor told me. "I know, it sucks."

"You're not kidding," said my vagina.

And then five weeks after the diagnosis — after I'd accepted what was happening in my innards and that, hey, scheduling a c-section is pretty convenient because I'll know when my last day of work will be and I can get my nails done and have dinner with my husband and then walk into the hospital where they'll remove my baby and boom! I'll become a mother — I went in for another ultrasound, and it looks like the placenta moved away from the cervix and I'm no longer at-risk and can have a natural delivery. This is actually rather common, the placenta does move in most cases, but my doctor didn't think mine would and I was told pretty much not to hold my breath. So I was shocked and thrilled. But, of course, after a moment of, "Yay! I can go into labor!" I have since felt, "Oh, shit, I have to go into labor."

I am terrified.

Josh and I took a childbirthing class. It was great, but oh my gosh, I am freaking out. Wigging, as my dear husband would say. My dear husband who was right. I'm wigging.

It's all part and parcel of all the things that have been occupying my time for the past three months. See, when you find out you're gestating, you don't do anything. You can't believe it's happening, you can't feel anything, you don't look different, you just sort get really annoyed that the apple you just ate made you puke on the subway platform (I don't want to talk about it). And then, all of a sudden, it's your third trimester and you panic because you have no idea how to shop for a crib and you swear you're so unprepared that your newborn is going to end up sleeping in the sink.

So you research.

And research.

And research.

Because you have no idea what you're doing. And you want to make sure that whatever you're doing, you're doing it right, because you think that doing it wrong could be the difference between a beautiful bonding experience and a Consumer Product Safety Commission recall.

You just go mental. But now we're through with the "stuff" stuff. We've done the class and put ourselves on day-care wait lists and registered for all the doodads and picked out Comfy's stroller. All we have left to do, really, is wait — wait for the furniture to arrive, wait for the baby to arrive, and hope we calm down in the process. Of course, while all of this has been happening, we've had contractors in the apartment painting the joint, replacing the bathroom ceiling, hanging fans and a patched-up kitchen cabinet door, regrouting the tub, blah blah blah. The apartment is completely torn apart and everything is coated in dust, but man, is this cathartic. The paint is fabulous! We're reorganizing everything! For years, I've been visualizing all porn-like the revamping of this place, and man, I am sa. tis. fied. Although I did have a moment last week when Josh and I went to sleep in our freshly painted blue bedroom and I looked at the walls, all dreamy and undersea, and said, "In eight weeks, a baby is going to be in here. What are we going to do with this baby?"

My problem is is that I've had too much time to think about all of this. Ultimately, there's no way to know how things will go. There's no way to know what we'll really need. There's no way to know who this baby is going to be and how we'll all relate to each other. And painting the bedroom walls blue isn't going to make for a well-adjusted child, and spending a month researching organic mattresses won't make my baby sleep through the night any sooner. We just have to go with it. So I've just been sitting back and feeling the kicks and the hiccups and watching my sweaters thump back and forth with the motions of my occupant. In the past couple days, Comfy has taken up residence in my ribs, which is not the most comfortable feeling but it's kind of amazing to think, "That thing that's preventing me from hunching over? That's a foot." When I tried to move Comfy the other day, I felt a body part for the first time — an elbow or a knee — and it was so little, and for the first time, I really felt excited more than scared or overwhelmed. Also, since you have to do everything they do in movies because movies are always an accurate portrayal of major life changes, I put some headphones on my belly and let my iPod shuffle do some magic. The result? The kid loves the Supremes. Which makes sense, being half-Detroit and all. Makin' mama proud.

(That said, I have not recharged my iPod in three weeks because I only remember to do it at work, and the electrical outlet for my charger is under my desk, and I can no longer bend over to reach it.)

The one thing that has totally, completely, knock-me-over-with-a-boulder shocked me is that I'm now eight months pregnant and I haven't gained a single pound. Not one. I only bought my first maternity clothes last week. I've been heavy my entire life and I was certain I would be the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man by the fourth month. I have had no food cravings, I get full in two seconds, and so as I've been losing weight, Comfy is gaining nicely and I'm just evening out. My body is literally converting into baby. It's not that I'm not eating; it's just different. My body is making all these decisions for me. And this is without extra exercise because I'd stopped doing everything when I was diagnosed with previa; Josh would barely even let me lift my toothbrush. And now I'm just too tired to move. But who the hell gets pregnant and it ends up being the best weight-loss plan they ever knew? So weird. My body long ago ceased to be my own, but this is ridiculous.

(That said, the cleaning lady at work on Monday night asked me how I was feeling, then told me that she couldn't tell from the front I was pregnant, "but I could tell from the back. You have nice, big baby!" I'm sure in some Eastern Bloc countries this is a compliment, and I'm going to choose to take it that way. Even though right now, Comfy's weight is at the 52nd percentile. I have a perfectly average-sized little chicken in there.)

In other news (what? there's other news?), I ate a box of Conversation Hearts the other day that were all misstamped, with whatever legible letters there were hanging onto the bottoms and along the sides of the candy. One said UL TE and another said PPY VE. Such mixed messages, in a box of what is meant to be a sure-thing expression of affection, were so unsettling. Love, you offer no clarity. CK FF.

I am a terrible, terrible cook.

Just terrible.

The good news is, I've officially given up, so I don't have to worry about cooking anymore. Mazel tov, Josh, you have won the battle over our kitchen — and you are a wonderful cook — but please add some new dishes to your repertoire because, since I'm no longer attempting to cook and it's all up to you now, I can't eat tomato sauce every night for the rest of my life or I'll get The Scurvy.

The road to my acceptance went thusly:

I had some time off work this week. It's gone by incredibly fast for two main reasons: I made a list a mile long of things I wanted to do that were more chore-like than fun-like, but if I completed them I'd feel I made some real progress in my life and finally — finally! — be a whole person; and I managed to do barely none of them while I sat on my couch and read magazines and thought about all the things I should be doing and watched season three of Gilmore Girls on DVD. I did buy four pairs of shoes, so that's personal growth. I am shod.

One thing on my list was cooking. My goal was to cook one meal every day. I really want to be a good cook. I really want to find it cathartic and I want it to be a creative, sensory outlet. I want to build an instinct for spices and timing and color. I want to know that, if I have a family one day and they might be, I don't know, hungry, I can whip up a tasty something for them that won't repel them from the kitchen forevermore.

That is not likely to happen.

Cooking Disaster #1: Eggs

I'm usually pretty good with eggs. I'm decent at baking, and baking involves eggs. There was nothing in my refrigerator except for a half carton of eggs, a package of Kraft fat-free shredded mozzarella, and half of a jar of Newman's Own tomato and basil pasta sauce. A normal person might feel nauseous and go to the grocery store for some actual ingredients. I am not a normal person, because to me it spelled breakfast. (Oh, come on: People put ketchup on eggs all the time. How far is spaghetti sauce? You know what? I've heard enough out of you today already.)

Basically, what followed was a horror movie of: too much melted butter that caused the egg whites (which had some yolk in them, as I was clearly not enjoying any kind of rhythm) to sort of slither and float around the pan, not really touching the bottom; an ill-executed egg-flipping that resulted in half the whites smacking onto the floor; and a pathetic rescue mission of adding one more egg — without separating yolk from whites — and just plunking the whole thing in the pan, scrambling the yolk with the rest of the mostly cooked whites. And then I added the cheese. And then I added the Newman's sauce when I plated the eggs. It was so barfily vile I wanted to apologize to both Paul Newman himself and the chickens whose eggs were wasted for this catastrophe.

Cooking Disasters #2 and #3: Chicken Tagine with Apricots; Sicilian Barbecued Chicken

These went pretty much the same way as each other. Thursday night's tagine was tasteless, the chicken was overcooked, and I didn't make enough rice. Friday night's barbecued chicken was an exercise in overcompensation: The chicken was overcooked again, but to make up for the previous night's tastelessness, I overdid every single spice and juice — including freshly squeezed lemon and orange — and it was so overwhelmingly citrusy that it was totally inedible. Also, I made enough rice to feed a medium-size country. The entire dinner (except for the rice) went into the trash. I don't think I can eat fruit for a week.

I'm disappointed. I thought that having some time off work would wake me up a bit and I could discover my inner Ina Garten and my house would suddenly become a delightful Hamptons hideaway and Jeffrey would be sitting on my couch, ready to rub my feet. But I wasn't relaxed. I was putting too much pressure on myself to get through that freakin' list. (On that note: Should you ever have time off from work when you're sticking close to home, DO NOT MAKE A TO-DO LIST. YOU WILL PSYCH YOURSELF OUT. You will waste your week thinking about onerous chores instead of seeing The Hangover. Learn from this. I would have had so much more fun if I'd woken up every day and just hung out. Bleh, Type-A.) Food-wise, maybe I should have started with something more basic. So at the moment, I'm totally discouraged and don't have any desire to find out if I'm Ina Garten. That's so sad! She has the nicest friends!

Here's what I'm good at in the way of the domestic arts:

1. I'm awesome at cleaning. I'm so OCD that you can lick off my floor right now. I vacuumed the couches.
2. Organizing papers. Another thing on my to-do list this week that I haven't done is tackle this giant cardboard box of papers on my bedroom floor. Some people fantasize about their unrequited crushes or those Twilight kids; I fantasize about getting a filing cabinet.
3. I can fold a fitted sheet.
4. I can bake an apple pie like nobody's business.
5. I'm unbelievably anal about separating recyclables. Never say I haven't done my part for our planet.

But I want to be able to cook. Gah.

Something that I did do was call Sears to come fix a bald spot on my treadmill before I slip and break my ass. I also need a lock for the thing: When we bought the treadmill six years ago, they never brought one of those thingy-things that holds the folded-up part of the treadmill so it doesn't collapse and crush your pets. Despite my efforts to encourage Sears to fix this oversight, I've had a shoelace tied from arm to arm in place of the lock since 2003. So I asked them to bring that when they bring the new runner. So I blocked out a good four hours of a morning, the guy showed up with just a toolbox, he looked at the treadmill, turned it on, and got ready to leave. I said, "Aren't you going to fix it?" He said that they have to order the parts, have them shipped to me, and then I have to make another appointment for them to come and install them.

!!!!!

OK, so even though you know what model I have and I told you what I need, you still had me block out a whole morning so you could send a guy to confirm what I've already told you, as if I'm lying and just want Sears to eat up my day for fun because what else would I do with my day you big loser who can't cook, and then I have to schlep the equipment home from work where it'll be shipped (I don't have a doorman to get big packages — dirty), and then I have to block out a whole morning again? Fuck you, Sears. I remember when we got our dishwasher, it took three appointments: one in which someone came to disconnect the old dishwasher and leave it in the middle of our kitchen, one in which someone came to deliver the new one and play with the electrical bits, and one in which someone came to take away the old dishwasher. So our old dishwasher was sitting in the middle of our kitchen for two weeks because that's how Sears operates. It's a miracle Sears can tie its shoes in the morning.

Also, while I've been home I've learned that NoraBanks spends a great deal of her day standing in the bathroom sink and meowing at the ceiling.

So: Please help me. Please share either — or both:

1. Your no-fail recipes that even someone as cheffily deficient as me can do;
2. Your favorite, most embarrassing kitchen disasters. I feel so alone.

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Two weekends ago, Josh and I cleaned up our garden to prep for spring. It's not huge, just an urban brownstone garden, and while I know I'm lucky to have it, I'll be honest with you:

I hate it.

I hate it I hate it I hate it. I should love it but I hate it.

I hate gardening. I hate planting. I hate pulling weeds, and we get tons and tons of weeds. I hate figuring out what goes where. I hate maintaining it. I have so little free time, and I don't want to spend what free time I have cleaning up and maintaining my garden. If the weather is nice enough to be outside fixing up the garden, I'd rather be somewhere else outside, not doing ... that. It is not cathartic. It stresses me out. Bleh.

I would perhaps love it if there were a place to sit and gather, but the couple who owned the apartment before Josh bought it were botanists, so there are just giant green plants (many of them prickly, so you try pruning them) everywhere, very little color, and a lame path of broken slate slabs that are uneven and cracked. There is no patio, no flat surface, no place to put a table and chairs. I would love for HGTV to magically show up at my door and tear out the whole thing and start it from scratch, with a grassy area and planters and brick entertaining space. I know exactly what I want to do with it, which makes me hate it even more because I don't have the wherewithal or funds to do it myself. Bleh.

Anyway.

I was clearing away some of last season's leaves when I found a weathered cat collar. The best part of the garden by far is that we get tons of the neighborhood cats hanging out. They're fun and friendly and they come up to our back door and flirt with Nora and Tallulah. I picked up the collar (which, praise jebus, was not attached to its owner) and read the tag. Clearly etched in it were its address, its phone number and its name.

Its name.

Whitey.

"I think I'm offended," I told Josh.

"This is why you don't let your kids name your pets," he said.

"That's like if we named one of our cats Heeb. Heeb Banks."

In any case, it's now my intention to take pictures of the garden and finally send them to HGTV to beg for a sprucing. I shall also include photos of my cluttered living room, my falling-apart kitchen and my depressingly drab bedroom for good measure.

After I cleared away all the dry and dead stuff, I sprinkled Preen onto the soil. Preen is a product that looks a bit like bird food that activates your soil in such a way that it prevents weeds from growing but doesn't kill your existing plants. Preen is also much like Happy Fun Ball in that it will kill and/or maim any living thing that comes into contact with it. This product is the furthest thing from organic I think I've ever bought, and that includes Shrinky Dinks. I sprinkled it around my garden, desperate to solve my weed problem, watered it to activate it, and Josh poured some soil over it to protect the critters. I spent two days watching the garden with the hope that no neighborhood wildlife die in my backyard — that Whitey would soon follow his collar, for example — and so far so good. It's now been raining for eight days straight — like Chanukah, but different — and whatever Preen is made of, it appears to be working. After more than a weeklong drenching, I can count three weeds to pull once it dries out. Three. I have joy in my heart for a pesticide. I don't know how to feel about this. It is certainly not in keeping with the fact that I just bought Seventh Generation toilet paper.

In other news, I recently saw a documentary about a New York City sex club that was famous during the growing popularity of the swingers' movement, and I discovered I know a woman who used to go there. This is more unsettling than Whitey, Heeb and having love in my heart for a gardening chemical combined.

Smooth Operator

On my way into work this morning, I was listening to my iPod and playing Solitaire on it. I was sitting on the end of a row of three seats, and a mother and young boy were on a two-seater next to mine, sort of like an L-shape. Here, let me assist you with high-tech illustrations:

|
B
oM——

LEGEND:
B = boy
o = corner
M = Marla Leslie Garfield, 5'3", brown curly hair, likes long walks on the beach and drive-ins

About two stops into the commute, the kid jumped down from his seat, stuck his face in mine, and said, "Hi!" He was adorable: big brown eyes, long lashes, not annoying-precocious. I said hi, and he immediately started watching my game, pointing to the cards. He's four years old, so I tried to explain in as age-appropriate terms as possible how to play Solitaire: "See? Red then black then red then black. And see the numbers? What comes after six?" That kind of thing. Truth be told, I worry I have no idea how to talk to children; I always feel like I'm missing something, some sense of creativity they need for things to make sense. Babies I can do, children older than 18 months not so much.

As he got more into what was happening on the screen, he grasped my iPod, not trying to take it away but just holding on to it with me so he could concentrate and feel engaged. I was asking him what the numbers and shapes were, but I couldn't really hear his responses over the music and I couldn't turn down the volume because he'd taken control of the panel, so I slipped off my headphones. (And of course, to the surprise of no one, the mom just sat there reading her book. Didn't even ask me if this was OK, her child playing with my expensive piece of technology. Or that he was basically sitting on my lap. She wasn't as indefensible as WPE, probably because the situation wasn't as extreme, but I was just frustrated for him that she didn't show even remote interest in her son's interaction with a total stranger. How would she have handled it if I'd been less friendly and less amenable to her four-year-old futzing with my iPod? I understand she clearly liked having the relief of reading her book and someone else watching her child, but, um, you know what, it's not even worth it.)

So then he started pushing the buttons and spinning the wheel. I was wishing and hoping and thinking and praying he wouldn't break my iPod, but it was OK as long as I had my hands on it. Any time he got too erratic with it, I'd just slow down his fingers and show him how to be careful. (At this point, the mom was fixing her makeup.) I figured it would be good to practice the alphabet, so I clicked on the Artists section and he cruised up and down the list while I asked him what letter we were on (pointing to Janet Jackson: "J!" "What comes after J?" [pointing to The Kinks] "K!"). Sometimes he'd stop on inappropriate artists — I didn't want to have to explain "I Touch Myself" to him — and he seemed to have an affinity for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (which was when I wondered why the hell I have Bone Thugs-N-Harmony on my iPod), but by the time he got off the train, he was playing Sade, so all was cool. DJ Fierce Commute, whuttup.

As they were leaving, the mom did thank me and told me she liked my green costume ring. And as the train was pulling away, I looked up out the window, just zoning out, and the boy had stopped on his way up the station stairs, stuck his head through the railings, and waved furiously at me. Awesome.

I confess I'm not at ease around kids of a certain age — I'm more comfortable with a hormonal 16-year-old than an energetic 6-year-old — so I was proud of myself that I didn't want to tune out this boy or flee the scene. And the whole scene more than made up for the fact that, as my woozy self got ready for work not an hour before, I came thisclose to putting deodorant on my lips. Apparently, I cannot raise my hand, for I am unsure.

I'd rather wear Obi-Wan Kenobi, fer shure.

In all the time I've lived in New York, I can't recall a single incident of being cornered by an aggressive salesperson. If anything, I've encountered the exact opposite: snooty fashionistas who won't talk to customers who don't look a certain way, or waitpersons exercising their trade with such laissez-faire, devil-may-care panache that all fruitless efforts to get a check at the end of the meal result in me filching a menu off a random table and leaving a best-guess, tipless (which goes against everything I stand for) collection of cash underneath the container of sweeteners. (And I'm not impatient; I've done this after 45 minutes to an hour of chasing down the check. Not unreasonable.)

So maybe it's the hyperventilating economy, or maybe retail folks are just getting acclimated to the onset of the shopping season, but I was walloped twice while shopping in the past couple weeks. Here are two examples of What Not to Do to a customer when you're trying to sell them something:

INCIDENT #1

There is a plus-size boutique in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn that has, hands down, saved my style-challenged sanity. It started off being for women sizes 14-24, but the owner, noticing that most boutiques in the city now stop at the wee size 8, expanded her inventory to carry sizes 10-24 to give the forgotten 10 and 12 women a place to shop. (How dare they have perfectly normal bodies?!? Good heavens!) Anyway, I found the store last year, and I have an excellent experience every time I go. The clothes are high-end, fit beautifully, and are stylish in a way that most plus-size stores never even consider. It goes beyond shrouding us in ponchos. I've found the best-fitting jeans I've ever worn in my whole life. I've bought sweaters that take a spin on the normal winter pullover and funk it up. I've walked out of there with the most flattering dresses I own. The owner has tracked down the most innovative, smart designers and finally given those of us who have been festering in Lane Bryant hell a destination we can feel grateful for. Thanksgiving, indeed.

The major perk of the whole experience of going there — besides finding beautiful clothes — is the owner. She's effusive and intelligent and creative and honest and makes you feel at home. She will tell you what works on you and what doesn't, and she's turned her store into a mini-empire, getting television exposure, hosting trunk shows, and organizing a Fashion Week every year, doing what she can to bring plus-size fashion into the mainstream and proving that we're looking for gorgeous, well-made clothes and don't want to just be covered up. She's gotten the word out and works her ass off. And she's hired a staff of lovely, informed women. Soup to nuts, it's a dream shopping there. It isn't cheap, but it's worth every penny. Every single item I've bought there I've worn to death and not a single piece is frayed, muted, thinned, or dated. I always walk out of there happy.

So when I looked in my closet and realized I didn't have a dress that I had any desire to wear to my friend Carol's evening bridal shower, I rolled my tired head out of bed one day and headed over to the boutique. I've had an unbelievably busy last couple weeks and didn't have a lot of time to shop, and I was so busy running errands that morning that I ended up walking into the store with my hair in a haphazard ponytail, wearing my ginormous jeans and a sweatshirt of undefined color that I've owned since my freshman year of college. Now, I'm a firm believer in showering before shopping; when you know you're going to try on someone else's clothes, you better be clean, dammit. But really, that day? Yeah, it didn't happen. I looked like a foot. The plan was, I was going to take a quick sweep through the store and be in and out in a half hour, and hopefully not stink up the joint too badly.

But that didn't happen. Actually, the exact opposite happened.

Because there was a trunk show. With cameras. And a designer with boundary issues. And I got hijacked.

Here's how it went:

I went in and started browsing. Josh parked the car and met me there. The women who work there know us, they love Josh because he helps me pick out a lot of my stuff, don't ask, I hate shopping, he loves shopping, so we were warmly welcomed the way we always are, and I went about my business and tried to avoid the cameras. The designer whose show it was works mainly in business attire, which wasn't what I was looking for, but I browsed through her rack (dirty!) to be polite. I mean, she was sitting right there. I picked out a shirt that looked promising, and then the shop owner graciously asked me if I'd try on one of the designer's dresses and sort of "model" it for them and let the camera guys take a few pictures of me for the Web site. OK, fine, I had some other stuff to try on anyway, including a cocktail dress that looked festive enough for Carol's party. So what if I wouldn't be out of there in a half hour. So what if I looked like I just came home from a camping trip.

I picked out a dress to model from the designer's rack (dirty again!) and went into my fitting room.

Three minutes later, the designer burst into my fitting room — praise all that is holy that I was dressed — and shouted, "Let's see what's going on in here! How's it fitting?!? Let me fix your bra!" She pulls me out of the fitting room, and this happened:

DESIGNER: Did you try the belt? The belt would look great on you!
DESIGNER'S ASSISTANT: Have you heard of the obi? It's an obi! We wrap it around you and it's a belt! An obi!
DESIGNER: You have to try the obi! GET HER AN OBI!
ME: Um, uh, I don't really wear belts. I carry my weight right —
DESIGNER'S ASSISTANT: Oh, but it's an obi! You can move it up! Or down!
ME: But I really don't like ... It just doesn't fit r—
DESIGNER: Don't worry! Here, let me tie this around you!
ME: Uh [being spun around] ... uh, OK ...
DESIGNER: Someone fix her hair! Make a higher ponytail!
ME: [being spun around, someone pulls out my hair band and raises my ponytail]
DESIGNER'S ASSISTANT: Red lipstick! Here [hands me a lipstick], put this on. It'll look great!

So there I am in the middle of the store, being videotaped, and one person is doing my hair, the designer is wrapping the freakin' obi around my waist and moving it up and down and up and down, the assistant is coaching my lipstick application (granted, it was a great color), the owner hands me a cute pair of shoes, and then the assistant throws around my head a necklace that, admittedly, I was completely in love with. And the next thing I know, I'm posing for the cameras, with Josh, with the store owner, smiling my unwashed face, totally unprepared.

I really wish I'd showered. It would have been so much more fun if I'd showered. Objectively, it was fun: It's fun to be dolled up and photographed and told how great you look, but it's not so fun when a) you reek, and b) you've just been groped by an overzealous stranger.

The good news is, I found the perfect dress, of course, as well as two sweaters I never want to take off. The owner, as always, was fabulous, because even though she had a designer in the store and kept the attention on her, she helped me leaf through the other clothes — not necessarily the designer's — to find what I was looking for. But I have to say, shopping when a designer is in attendance, then modeling her wares for her, makes it really uncomfortable when you have no intention of buying her clothes. I felt obligated to take something of hers, but I just couldn't afford it and, flat-out, it wasn't what I was looking for. The dress I modeled was cute, but it wasn't me. A giant ruffle was involved, and I just can't participate in activities involving a giant ruffle. I felt like I was cheating on her by buying another designer's dress, and what made it all the more awkward was that I thought she was obnoxious, so it just turned me off to her clothes. The second she walked into my fitting room and grabbed my bra strap, she lost me. I'm not prude by any stretch, but woman, what the hell is your name again? And please get off of me? I'm all for boisterous, but the second she crossed that boundary into my personal space, she lost my sale. And she was objectively entertaining and her clothes were really nice, and the store owner had a lovely rapport with her, so it seemed like a successful event, but, bottom line, don't walk into my dressing room and then belt me where I don't feel comfortable being belted. It's just pushy, presumptuous salesmanship and it was bloody annoying. Dude, it's not even your store. If the owner has ever come into my fitting room with me, she's always asked first. You know, common decency and all that.

On my way out, they took some pictures of me with my shopping bag and interviewed me about my experience there. And I was so wiped out and, again, unprepared, that all the eloquent thoughts I normally have about shopping in that store and how thankful I am for its existence took leave of my brain and I became Spicoli, all, "It's totally awesome!" I froze, and then left, feeling like a twit. A twit with a really high ponytail and fuck-me red lips.

I will go back again and again and again throughout the duration of my rotundity, but should I ever feel compelled to head over there during a trunk sale, I will do my research and make sure I like the stuff they're selling. And I'll bathe. Maybe the whole encounter would have been different if my hair didn't look like a monkey.

INCIDENT #2

This past weekend was my sister Lauren's bridal shower and bachelorette party in Detroit. Both were great fun — the party landed us in a Filipino karaoke bar in Clawson, Michigan, so there's that. I've been sprinting the length of Manhattan these past few days, getting clothes altered, running tedious errands, and making sure I had everything for Lauren's various parties as well as for a trip to Curaçao that Josh and I are taking next week. I KNOW. Anyway, last Tuesday I wandered into a $5 accessories shop to find bedazzlement for the dress I wore to Lauren's shower.

The store owner can be best described as The Narrator. She stood behind the cash register — the register as lectern, perhaps? — and commented on every single item I showed even the smallest dash of interest in. (And yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition. I'm tired. I'm going to Curaçao in ten days. I cannot be expected to perform.)

Me: [picking up a bracelet]
Her: Oh, that's very cute. We also have it in white and silver. Or pink!
Me: [putting the bracelet down; picking up a necklace, noticing that it's ugly, as it's made of buttons]
Her: That necklace is made of buttons!
Me: [putting away heinous button necklace, picking up a long silver chain]
Her: That's a silver chain. You can layer it with another long necklace and they'll look really cute!
Me: [heading to rear of the store, hopefully out of eyeshot of the woman; standing in front of basket teeming with plastic bracelets]
Her: Those bracelets are $1! They're really cute!
Me: [going back to silver chain, then taking it to the register]
Her: This is great! You can layer it with another necklace! [starts to methodically arrange the necklace onto a piece of tissue paper]
Me: Please. I can just throw it in my bag. Please don't wrap it.
Her: Well, we'll just take care of that then! [pushes it toward me]
Me: [drops a $5 bill on the tissue paper, leaves store, wants to cry]

For the rest of the night, the words That necklace is made of buttons! galloped through my brain. Buttons buttons buttons ...

When I was in high school and college, I worked a lot of retail. Folding sweaters at The Express in the mall during Christmas break, taking inventory of an overstocked children's store with an ornery coworker ... What I learned is that it's not that hard to find the grey area between showing interest in a customer and sitting in their lap. For two years, I worked in a women's clothing store where pretty much all I did was water plants and repeatedly rearrange jewelry in a display case while making sure the customers didn't steal the containers of shoulder pads. You approach a customer when they walk into the store, and if the store is small, you back the hell away until they ask for your help. You don't touch them unless they ask you to help them with an outfit. Depending on their cues, you can join in on their conversations. But there is no need to storm into their dressing room, and there is absolutely no need to point out the buttons. DO NOT POINT OUT THE BUTTONS.

No buttons.

Did I mention I'm going to Curaçao?

Also, I'm watching TV right now: How does Linda Evangelista still look like that?

You start with a cookie, you end with a cookie.

It was 53 degrees outside today, the sky was clear and blue, the air was fresh, and a neighbor down the block — a girl of roughly six years old — set up a cookies-and-lemonade stand with signs that said Thirsty for Change? All Proceeds Go to the Obama Campaign. Not only did the whole civic-minded-youngster thing make me feel all warm inside, but it was just an idyllic scene topping off an already excellent last few months. (And yes, I'm voting for Obama, but even if it had been a lemonade stand for McCain, I would still have been impressed with this enterprising elementary-schooler. She was shy as hell, but was on a mission.) I really have to say, I had a helluva summer and fall is looking pretty stupendous.

You want proof?

I think it's been mentioned once or twice, here or there, half-assedly and undercover, that this was the last season for Yankee Stadium as we know it. I think it may also have been printed with just as little fanfare that the All-Star Game was held in New York to commemorate the stadium's last hurrah. Josh and I took advantage of the All-Star weekend events and got tickets for the Futures game, which highlights star players in the AAAs who might possibly have good chances of landing in the majors. Following the Futures game, there was a celebrity game, and I have to say, if this day was any indication of what kind of batter I am, I could kick Chris Rock's ass. He really couldn't hit anything a foot in front of him.

Yankee Stadium is Josh's temple, so he was particularly emotional that day. He went to his first Yankee game when he was four, and has gone back every year since.



(Incidentally, I think Josh has worn that Lou Gehrig jersey to every game since he was four, too. The New York Yankees managed to retire Lou Gehrig's number, but Josh refuses to retire that jersey. Cool as it is, and as much as I love Lou Gehrig in every way — Pride of the Yankees is one of my all-time favorite movies — Josh's decrepit jersey needs to be put down. It's old and experienced enough where it could tell you this itself.)

That tall pole behind Josh (dirty!) is a giant bat that became the easiest meeting-up point at the stadium. "Are they moving it to the new stadium?" I asked Josh. "People won't know where to meet up with their buddies. It'll be mayhem!"

The new stadium is being built directly across the street from the old one.











Bobby Murcer died the day before the game.



They had a moment of silence for him, and the sadness was thick. Bobby Murcer was so deeply respected not only as a player but also as a broadcaster, and by all accounts — all of which were positively glowing — he was an exceptional human being. I never saw him play beyond the old-timers' games, but I heard his voice on radio and television, and he was kind in everything he did. It was a huge loss.

I decided that any fan scuffles that have ever taken place in the right-field seats had nothing to do with the game being played but had everything to do with



where the hell seat number 6 went. And if the person with a ticket for seat number 5 had any right to take up twice as much space with their hot dogs and crap.

I've always liked going to baseball games, but I also grew up in Hockeytown, so baseball never captured my heart the way the mulleted, toothless Czechadian Red Wings did. So when I moved to New York and met Josh — and was, by default, but also by choice — parked at Yankee Stadium every season (and I just could never get behind the Rangers; I do miss hockey), Josh immediately set forth and taught me how to keep score. It made baseball games immeasurably more interesting. I won't go to a game now without keeping my own scorecard.



Cracker Jacks in bags.



Don't get me started. Just ... ugh ... gah.

I'm gonna be 16 for a minute, but look at this guy's arms.



I freakin' love New York.

Back home, this was going on:



For about a year, we had a sporadic but persistent leak coming through our bathroom light fixture. We'd had it checked out but it always stopped and the plumbers could never find the source. In July, it finally became less sporadic and more persistent, and the plumbers had to go into the ceiling to see what the problem was. Turns out, the seal around our upstairs neighbors' toilet wasn't sound, and let's just say that the water coming through the light wasn't ... all water.

"Our house is peeing on us," I said.
"Our house is not peeing on us," Josh said.
"I think it's had enough. This is its way of telling us it wants to be painted."
"There isn't any poo up there, is there?
"No, just pee. I think our house wants to be painted, but it isn't so angry that it would shit on us."

I'm not all wrong, you know. I mean, I panicked at the idea of having to replace an entire ceiling, and now we have to have a contractor tear down the pee-ceiling and put in a new one, but that also means the bathroom has to be painted, which means we should just go ahead and do the whole apartment because it desperately needs it, and now I'm glad our apartment peed on us. See? It all happens for a reason.

Something else that happened for a reason, though I'm not sure what the reason is, is this:



Josh bought the apartment from a couple who had a five-year-old son. He remembers they had alphabet magnets all over the place, on every surface they'd stick to. Josh bought the apartment eight years ago. Somehow, this summer, the cats managed to locate these two letters and leave them on the kitchen floor. I think they're trying to tell us something. They saw a mouse? They want us to paint our house? They smell something foul? They think that, as parents, we are astounding? They haven't unearthed any more letters, so until then, I just have to believe what I choose, which means I've decided that I think I'm awesome as a pet-owner.

Our five-year anniversary:



In September, Josh's brother, Adam, got married to his longtime love, Rachel. The wedding was a couple hours north of New York City in a town called Claremont, right along the Hudson River in the shadow of the mountains (the Catskills?).

The night before the wedding, it was pouring rain. Everyone was nervous, as the wedding was to be located right on the banks of the river, all outdoors. The ceremony and reception would take place under tents, but come on, nobody wants it to rain on their wedding day. (Although they say it's good luck, but "they" probably never had to deal with mud on "their" wedding day. Josh and I lucked out at ours — not a drop of rain in the sky, despite a history in Michigan of Labor Day Weekend being soaking wet. An hour after everyone left our reception? The skies opened up. We took it as a good sign.) So Josh and I, Adam, and a bunch of Adam's friends piled into our cars and headed out for Adam's bachelor party of a delicious dinner and letting out steam during some excellent small-town bowling.

I have to say, I kicked ass in my first game, seeing as how the last time I went bowling, I bowled a 33.





Socks in a vending machine



We decided to play Skee-Ball — the greatest game ever, perhaps — in the bowling alley's arcade and bestow some gifts upon Adam as a farewell gesture to his bachelorhood. Herewith, the spoils of 200 tickets:



The next morning was Adam's actual farewell gesture to his bachelorhood. Miraculously, not only did it stop raining, but the sun came out, the ground dried up, and Adam and Rachel's wedding day was just gorgeous.

This is where the wedding was, on the grounds of a historical mansion that is now a state park. Friends and family converged, the hora was danced, there were delicious sweet-onion empanadas served with salad. A beautiful wedding.











As Rachel and I were saying goodnight, I realized: I have a sister-in-law! Holy moly, with all my sisters, men have been joining my family en masse. But with Rachel joining Josh's side, a new sister. Pretty cool.

The week after Adam and Rachel's wedding, I went to San Francisco to visit Stacy and meet her son, Sebastiaan. Bass was born in July, so Stacy was in the groove of parenting, and Bass had just started to smile. It was amazing.



Stacy lives in Marin County, just north of the city, in this fabulous crunchy town where hippies who fled to San Francisco during the '60s and then traveled north still live. I saw a rather hairy fella sitting on some stairs with what I believed was a pile of animal pelts next to him. It's a beautiful place: sunny all the time, hilly and green, excellent mom-and-pop shops. There is a town ordinance that bars any chain stores from setting up shop there, and Stacy's husband, Mark, told me that there are more farmers' markets there per capita than any other town in the country. Everything there is locally grown, sustainable, organic, and homemade, and for the first time in ages, all of my systems worked and I didn't feel bloated or digestively heinous. Everybody is incredibly friendly, interested in who you are and what you're up to, and people introduce themselves with ease. Stacy's only lived there for about a year, but it seems that it wouldn't be too difficult to make friends there because everybody's so laid-back. She's met some really lovely people.

The first thing we did was hit up a farmers' market for dinner, where they not only sold the standard flowers and produce, but they had all different kinds of ethnic cuisine. I ate Himalayan food.





This peach was the size of Bass's head.





When Stacy and I went on a bus trip out west with our summer camp in 1989, we learned how to play euchre. It's really the most fabulous card game ever, except that as far as I can tell, the only people who know how to play are from Michigan. And you need four people to play. This is a problem, since Stacy has not lived in Michigan since 1996, I left in 1998, and we've managed to pull together three people at a time who can play but we rarely found a fourth. We miss euchre. So as luck would have it, Stacy took prenatal yoga with a very cool woman named Marissa who is from Michigan. She brought her twins over and Stacy, Marissa, Mark and I played a rousing game of euchre. It's addictive.



I particularly like how Bass, wearing his Johnny Cash Folsom Prison onesie, is eyeing Stacy's hand as if to say, "Hey, you know, Mom, some guys in my cellblock say to never call trump on a queen. That's all you have. I say, Pass."

The next day, we drove to Muir Woods. When I made plans to visit her, Stacy asked me if there was anything in particular I wanted to do. I hadn't given it much thought, because my main — and only — goal was to spend time with her and help her with the baby. But I did tell her that I had always, always wanted to see the redwoods. Lucky then that Stacy and Mark live just miles from several national redwood parks.

As a side note, the whole feeling of newness about this whole trip really sort of washed over me not long after I landed in California. I've been lucky to have visited some places in the last couple years where I've never been, but those getaways are always quickquickquick and what I've seen usually doesn't truly sink in until I'm already home. Last summer I was thrilled to finally see Seattle and Portland, but I saw them for about 24 hours each. This trip, I was able to really take it all in. (I'd been to San Francisco once before. For three hours. Ate on the wharf and then headed to Fresno for my cousin's bar mitzvah.) The newness — of the place, of the people, of the food, of seeing my oldest and dearest friend be a mom — felt fresh and energizing. I'd sort of forgotten what that was like.

On the way to Muir Woods, we stopped off at this cart:



The guy who ran it was a character. Ornery, but he gave me a free peach because it was too delicious to just sit there. I bought fresh almonds (I'd never really liked raw almonds until that moment, but these were unbelievable), and Stacy told me to buy fresh figs.

"I don't like figs," I said. "I like dates. Wait — dates? Yeah, dates. I confuse them. I don't like figs."

"You will," she said.

It turns out that if you've ever had a fig outside of California but in the United States, you've had a dried fig. And dried figs taste like bark-flavored ass. Figs outside of California are dried because fresh figs don't travel. Who knew?









This is called burl:



It grows on the redwood tree, obviously, and in some cases falls off, takes root and grows into its own redwood tree. I thought this particular cluster looked a little bit like Diana Ross. At Muir Woods, you can buy a piece of burl, put it in a bowl of water in your house, and watch greenery shoot off of it. Mark bought me one, I put it in a bowl, and then I forgot about it. I think I've already killed it. I think I killed a redwood tree. Who the hell can kill a redwood tree? They're thousands of years old. I killed a redwood tree.



Redwoods attract ladybugs. They were everywhere.



I can't begin to describe the smell of that place. Tree, tree, tree. It reminded me of two other vacations — one to Denmark and Norway, and one to New Zealand — when I found myself standing in the middle of the street and drawing in huge, deep breaths, trying to store the fresh air in my lungs so I could take it back to New York. I am a moron.

These are sprouts from burl:



This deer was standing on a completely vertical incline:



Afterward, we drove along the very beautiful, very winding, and very chunks-inducing Pacific Coast Highway. I was fine as long as I, strangely enough, didn't look at the road and kept my eyes on the cliffs and ocean. It was gorgeous. And winding.



Remember that peach that was the size of Bass's head?



Yummy.

Remember the figs?

Outside:



Inside:



Fresh figs are sweet, but light. OK, so they look rather vaginal on the inside, but — wait, you know what? I'll stop here.

Anyway.

Stacy and Mark have lemon and pear trees in their backyard, not to mention countless spice bushes. There's Mark in the background, picking I think it was rosemary for dinner. It's kind of ridiculous.



Bass has a tire swing. Also ridiculous. Also in a good way.



This is the part when I told Bass that, as Auntie Marla, I will buy his condoms for him if he's too embarrassed to do it himself.



But I did add that if he's too embarrassed to buy his own condoms, he's probably not mature enough to have sex, and maybe he should wait a while.

The trip was extraordinary. Stacy has slid right into being a mom. It's really something: I've known her since we were six, and I have no recollection of her ever holding a baby. And there I was, sitting on her couch, feeding her son while she and Mark bustled around the house doing parent things and feeding me delicious food, and it felt like that's the way it had always been, the way it was supposed to be. It felt completely natural. It's cheesy, I know, but I thought it would feel shocking, one of us becoming a mom — especially since we both had such mixed feelings at one time or another about the concept — and seeing it happen, it wasn't that way at all. I cried when I left, and I can't wait to go back. The other day she was telling me how she takes Bass everywhere with her, and she said, "And then we went out and had lunch. I had a really nice salad, and Bass had formula."

And then Stephanie went into, like, a 1,000-hour labor or something, and out came Alex.



October 6 is now Stephanie's birthbirthday. "There are 365 days in a year," she said, "and my son had to pick my birthday to be born. Great."

"Don't worry," my mom said, "by the time you hit a certain age, your birthday no longer matters anyway."





With my dad:



Aunt soup:



Last Monday, Alex had his bris. This is, in my opinion, the most — how do you say? — fucked-up tradition in the Jewish religion. Now, Jews have some odd customs. Some of us go over our pantry shelves with feathers during Passover to make sure there are no bread crumbs in the house. We smash glasses to a zillion shards with our feet at the end of wedding ceremonies. Others shake noisemakers during the reading of the story of Purim whenever the villain's name is said. (Haman! grgrgrgrgrgrgrgr ...) And when a baby boy is born, eight days later there is a bris, during which family and friends gather round as a mohel performs the circumcision, and then everyone has brunch and cake.

Remove the foreskin, have corned beef and coleslaw on rye. Oy!

Now, I'm all for circumcision. I'm all for opting against circumcision. Do what you do. But to have a party? Yeah, no. Needless to say, I did not react well, hiding in the corner of the kitchen. From what I understand, it's a grueling experience for the mother: Not only is she present during the procedure (though not all watch, and some do leave the room; nobody would blame a new mom for not wanting anything to do with the actual procedure), but she's also throwing a party. Eight days after she has a baby. While she's recovering from childbirth. And sometimes c-section surgery. And adjusting to parenthood. I just don't get it. I just kind of think this is the kind of thing a doctor does in a hospital where it's, you know, sterile.

But Jews have been doing it for generations, and I've only been to one. Stephanie, being a pediatric nurse, was a champ during the whole thing. All business. She and her husband, Josh, were tired, of course, but they handled the entire afternoon with a great deal of grace — grace I don't know that I'd have if I were in Steph's position, so I'm incredibly impressed by her. And Alex, well, he cried for about a second and then slept the rest of the day. It didn't faze him. He's such a good baby. I think the trauma was all mine. Auntie Boo sucks. I did find that, once it was over, it really wasn't that bad. And the cake was good. And the company was great. So how bad can it really be?

So, to reiterate, here's what I learned during my October in Boston:

Joy:



Travesty:



And then, to top everything off, Josh and I went to Costco this weekend, which is a chore we hate with the fire of a thousand suns, and discovered Costco is now carrying Mallomars, the perfect cookie. Three boxes of Mallomars for $9. We're rationing them: We only force ourselves to go to Costco once a year, so these have to last.