Small with a huge head

Oh. One thing I did learn at the doctors office yesterday (although it shouldn't worry me much because I'm going to be pregnant FOREVER) is that Studs doesn't seem to be too big. She didn't give me a real weight estimate or anything, but by feeling around and measuring my belly she said that he was probably on the smaller side. "Thats a relief" I thought, until I remembered that what was really important was how big his head is. My friend had a small baby with a huge head, and I think the same thing could happen to me. Lets consider the evidence:

1. Brian has a huge head. Just try and find a hat that fits him.
2. My dad also has a huge head. My brothers aren't small either.
3. Every year at Christmas we do those Christmas crackers, because I married a British guy. They have a stupid joke in them (What do you call Postman Pat when he retires?), a little toy of some sort, and a paper crown. Brian, my dad and my brothers have a 'Big Head Contest' every year to see who can break the crown just by contorting their faces. This doesn't take long because they can barely squeeze the crowns onto their huge heads in the first place without them ripping.

I thought I might have a picture of a 'Big Head Contest' in action, but I can't find one. Here's a picture of everyone in their crowns (my family and various and sundry friends and now ex-girlfriends) from a couple of years ago:



As you can see, my dad's and Brian's are already ripped, and Brian's is really just perched on top of his head. Also, Ed's (to the right of my dad) must be ripped in the back too because there's no way he got it that far down on his head without some rippage. I'd say the same about Jim's (he's on the left towards the back) but his looks pretty taut. It might be a little ripped though.

So basically, I'm screwed by genetics. I didn't get the twinning gene (this time anyway - it seems to strike on subsequent pregnancies in our family), but I bet you Studs gets the big head gene. Lucky me!

In other news: still pregnant.

Also, I am still pregnant. In fact, at my appointment yesterday I didn't even get any reassuring news so I think I will be pregnant forever. If you haven't noticed, my whiny-ness level has increased exponentially, and I'm sorry to say that it will probably continue to do so. And I was doing so well too. Fortunately, my boss told me yesterday not to worry about coming back into work anymore, and that I can just email him whatever I need to (I need to convert all the figures in my paper from RGB to CMYK so that they can now look like CRAP. Stupid journals and their stupid CMYK format). Thats good because a) I'm not feeling so super comfortable and b) I feel like I spend my whole day at work answering people who see me in the hall and say 'Oh! You're still here??' Yes. I am @#$%* still here. Shut up.

Whee!

I so want a Wii. Me and everyone else in the universe, so I am so not getting a Wii - at least not for a while. Thats okay, I'm still playing Final Fantasy XII on my PS2. Oh, and FFIII on my DS. Yes, I have a problem. And also, clearly they were exaggerating when they called the first one Final Fantasy.

Anyhow, lots of other people were lucky and did get Wiis. And then a lot of them broke their TV sets, windows, glass-topped coffee tables, whatever, when the Wiimote was not properly strapped to their wrist while playing (or... the strap broke. I'm more inclined to think 'operator error' myself). Brian just called me to tell me about one of the comments that he had read after a BBC News article about this.

I got one of the first Wii but after a few minutes playing the strap broke and the controller shot off and hit my partner in the face resulting in two broken teeth. She slipped at the same time falling into the TV set and smashing the screen. The TV was plugged into the surround sound system and consequently pulled it over and smashing into my CD and DVD collection. I advise anyone to be careful of the wii

Brian really enjoys it when other people are idiots, so he was practically wetting his pants reading this to me.

Still pregnant

In case you were thinking that a few days without posting meant that I wasn't pregnant anymore, you were wrong. I am still pregnant. And in fact showing no indications of becoming un-pregnant any time soon. Although I do think that Studs has 'dropped' now. I don't notice a big difference in anything other than that I think I look different (a little smaller, actually) in profile. Aaaaaand, that doesn't mean anything in terms of when he's going to come out, in case you were thinking that might be relevant or something. Really, nothing you learn at the end of your pregnancy is relevant to when you'll actually have the baby. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow when they'll tell me how dilated and effaced I am - two more bits of information that sound exciting but actually have no bearing at all on when I'll have the baby.

I have been working at home this week, but I'm going back in today. I think my boss is secretly thrilled when I work from home because he'd really rather that I didn't go into labor at work. Or have my water break or something. He's still adjusting to having a lab full of women, so I think this is just a little bit more female-related than he can take. Hee. I'm going to go in today and do a few last things in the lab and write out a list of what experiments I need to do when I get back, because god knows I'm not going to remember AT ALL what I was doing when I left. Hopefully then my boss will have read the draft of my paper I just sent him (he is very quick at this which is new and different for me, so this could actually happen) and I can stay home on Thursday and Friday and work on fixing it. I forget that each day that I stay home I really need to let people know that I am working and not having a baby. Everyone is relieved to find that out because there's a little pool going at work to guess when I'll have the baby. Only one person is out of it so far, she had me going a week early, on Sunday. People's guesses start to pick up again now - there's someone today and most of the rest of the days this week. Fortunately I don't think anyone has me lasting as far as Christmas (which would be a week late and while normal is not desired by me, thanks).

Biochemistry with the Celebrity Stars

And you thought that celebrities only had hidden potential as dancers.
They may also be able to solve some significant problems in molecular biology.

Rockin' the white elephant gift exchange

Last night was my work Christmas party. Last year I was on the organizing committee, and we decided to have a white elephant gift exchange. If you haven't done this before, you bring something fairly crappy (or at least unwanted) for your gift - a good way to regift something that you wouldn't actually want to give someone on purpose. Or a gag gift or something. At last year's gift exchange, I got some generic Barbie-type doll. After the official swap was over, I traded with someone else for an old fondue pot. We didn't have a decent one, despite assurances that we'd get several as wedding gifts. And I love fondue. I know who brought the fondue pot, and she thought it was a terrible gift. She had gotten it as a hand me down from her aunt or something. There was a recipe written on a card that she had included, her aunt's recipe, that called for 'Switzerland Swiss Cheese'. Heh.

The fondue pot gets a lot of use at our house, because we both go through periods of fondue addiction. We're in one right now, in fact. We had fondue for dinner twice last week (one time was during a fondue party at our house, the other time was just... Wednesday). So I was really pleased with myself last year.

This year I did possibly even better. Brian picked third, and he got a framed picture of my boss that someone had gotten in last year's swap. Ha. I'm going to display it on my desk at work, until next year when I am totally going to bring it back to the gift swap. I picked fairly far down in the order, about 2/3 of the way through. The person just before me let her young son pick and open a gift, and it was a stainless steel Cuisinart pizelle press. OMG. I love pizelles. And I do not have a pizelle press. My mom does and she always made them for Christmas when I was growing up. Yum. When my turn came up, I totally traded the little kid for the pizelle press. I was really worried that someone after me would take it, but no one did. So now, I've got a shiny new pizelle press, just in time for Christmas pizelle making! Two years in a row of awesome white elephant gifts.

His laugh really is annoying though.

Anderson Cooper could be my secret boyfriend if I was his type, which I'm pretty sure I'm not. Brian, maybe. But not me. Bit of a bummer. He's smart and funny and also totally hot - a trifecta.

Anyhow, I thought this video of him critically analyzing his co-hosting stint on 'Live With Regis and Kelly' was funny. The link to this from the CNN website was 'Anderson Cooper: Man, my laugh is annoying.'

BE ADEQUITE.

Ok, so the other week when Robert Altman died, Linsday Lohan, in the midst of her crippling grief, composed a little press release on her Blackberry so that we could all know how broken up she was by the whole thing (having just been in his movie, A Prairie Home Companion).

Read this here.

Obvy the girl didn't get much onset tutoring when she was being a child star.
Everyone? Please. BE ADEQUITE.

Oooookay. So everyone has been making fun of that pretty much ever since. Because its hilarious. And sad. And pathetic. Her publicist Leslie Sloane Zelnick, who has seriously been working overtime for this girl lately*, tried to soften the blow a little bit by saying how she wrote this right after she had heard, she hadn't had time to compose her thoughts, blah blah blah. One would think that Linsday would have learned a lesson from this, but no. Nor did she learn how to spell 'adequate'. Because she's at it again. And this one is 1000x crazier sounding than the last one.

Seriously. Would someone take away LiLo's Blackberry-ing privledges? Save this poor girl from herself. It is hard to decide what I find most amusing about this particular version, but high up on the list is the fact that she still hasn't managed to spell 'adequate' correctly, despite the fact that there are even T-shirts making fun of her about it. Also, I mean, does she even know what 'adequate' means? I don't think so. First of all, why would you encourage people to just be adequate? Just be good enough, people. You don't have to be great or anything... don't stress yourselves out. Just BE ADEQUITE. And second, a "morally/politically correct, fully adequite letter to the press". I don't really get the usage there either.

Its okay though, because she talked to Al Gore. And he totally wants to help her. And so do the Clintons. With what, I'm not totally sure. To get the media to stop bugging her, I guess? If she wants the media to stop bugging her, why doesn't she stay home and stop acting crazy. I bet that would help.

The Fug Girls want to help, at least with the editing. Hee.


*Those of you who are NOT up on your celeb gossip probably do not know that Linds has been going to AA meetings. For her drinking problem which has developed while she's not even old enough to legally drink. Ignoring the whole second 'A' there, this fact has been broadcast to the media. I also swear that I read somewhere, although I cannot find the source anymore, that her publicist said something like 'Yes, she's going to the meetings and this is a positive step. But don't be surprised when you still see her drinking because this is a process and she hasn't quite gotten to the whole sobriety part yet.'

Cast is GONE

Finally the day we have all been waiting for is HERE (well, one of the days we are waiting for anyhow). The cast is IN THE TRASH. I have a shiny new Aircast now. I get to wear this for 2-3 weeks to protect my foot, and then I'm DONE. And thankfully, this one can come off for baths or sleeping or whatever.

When they took off my cast I was a bit horrified to discover that I had also contracted leprosy sometime over these last 7 weeks. Seriously, I look like a molting reptile of some sort. Dead skin is coming off my leg in sheets. I just took a bath (both feet immersed!) and tried to get it off as best as I could, but my best was not good enough. Its still there, although it is better.

I also went to the OB this morning who said that the baby hadn't really dropped too much yet, so it doesn't look like childbirth is imminent or anything. Bummer.

Chapped lips

Over on the Consumerist, a great debate rages about lip balms and their addictive nature. I had a friend in high school who was TOTALLY addicted to Carmex. I don't know what the biological basis of this is, but I agree it is addictive.

Lots of people supported Burt's Bees lip balm as the best lip balm out there. I almost agree. I like it too. For some reason I prefer it in the little metal tub than in the tube. Application messier, but it seems like a little different product and I think it works better. I could just be making that up though.

For real lip balm action (not to mention an unbeatable price), I vote for Bag Balm. If you live in New England you can buy this at the drugstore. If you're not so lucky, you can buy it (seriously) in the horse section at Petsmart. Or I bet at some like, feed store or something. You'll notice at the top of the Bag Balm website that none of the suggested organisms to use it are people. Cows? Yes. Horses? Of course. Pets? Certainly. A big tub of it costs like, $15 tops? It will last you forever. Seriously. I have one that is like five years old and its only half empty. And my mom gave it to me partially empty. It also makes a good treatment for dry skin, in which case you'd use it quicker. But it is, hands down, the best lip balm on the planet.

I'm still here!

Yesterday everyone was surprised to see me back at work, since it seemed that the whole world had decided that the baby was coming over the weekend. Oh well. Last week I didn't really want Studs to arrive early, but once everyone started talking about it I started to get antsy. So now I'm a little tired of being pregnant.

We had come up with a name, but now I'm second guessing it. We brought a few names back into consideration this morning, so now I think there are 4 on the list. Its hard! I know many people have said they didn't decide until after the baby was born, so that makes me feel better.

Not much else is going on. Two days until cast removal!

Brian is nesting

Yesterday when I was at work, Brian called me in a mild panic.
"Are you having contractions?"
Uh, no. And where did this come from? I hadn't called him or anything, so I didn't know where he had gotten the idea that I was in labor. He said he had just been having this overwhelming feeling that Studs' arrival was imminent. He had been possessed to completely clean and reorganize his office and lab and was wanting to go home and do the same thing there. He was completely positive that I would have the baby this weekend.
Then my boss came in and said 'Uh... before you leave today please send me your figures and your paper in whatever state it is when you leave.' He was also worried that I might not be back on Monday.

Last week there was also a significant increase in the number of random people who would stop me in the hallway and say 'Well, you look like you're just about done!'

Does everyone know something that I don't? Hope not. I did get my grant application sent off yesterday (yay!) but I'd also like to finish up my paper before the baby's arrival.

Anyone else have any weird feelings when their baby was about to come?

Your celebrity gossip update

Many of my readers are not as into the celebrity gossip as I am. But what if you had to unexpectedly take a pop culture quiz? Or something? I wouldn't just leave you out in the cold. So here's a little round-up of this weeks news:

Just when I think things are starting to look up for my girl Britney, she starts to go back down again.

Divorcing K-Fed? Up!
Dressing like an even hooker-ier version of Pamela Anderson? Down!
Forgetting to wear her undies when dressing like an even hooker-ier version of Pamela Anderson? Even downer!
Hanging out with Paris Hilton and Linsday Lohan? As down as you can get!

In other news:
Speaking of Pamela Anderson, she and Kid Rock are getting divorced only four months after their multi-wedding extravaganza. I know! I was shocked too. Also, I really never saw the appeal of Kid Rock. Um... wifebeater and greasy hair? AND sort of pathetic looking facial hair?

Eva Longoria engaged to this guy who I totally thought she wasn't dating anymore!

We forgot about Anna Nicole Smith for a while, but then she randomly had her baby in the Bahamas, her son randomly died in her hospital room afterwards, had multiple men claiming they were the father of her new baby, became a Bahamian citizen and then got booted out of the house she was living in.

Danny DeVito went on 'The View' drunk. Which is actually hilarious. I'm sure Baba Wawa was really excited to hear all about his sexcapades in the Lincoln Bedroom. You can watch the video here.

37 weeks

Here's my belly, the 37 week version.




As of today, Studs is considered full term. He really could come any time now, even though he's not due until December 17 (and obviously he could come after that too. He doesn't really care when we think he should come). If he's a week late he'll show up on Christmas Eve, so we're cutting it a little close. Two weeks late will be on New Year's Eve! We're hoping he comes before that so that we can get the tax advantages! I hope he doesn't come too much earlier than the 17th because we didn't get into day care for February when I need to go back to work (actually, I don't even know when we're going to get in and DON'T GET ME STARTED ON HOW ANNOYED I AM WITH THE WHOLE DAY CARE THING BECAUSE IT IS VERY ANNOYED) and we're going to have to come up with something in the interim. And I'm really not looking forward to alternating work schedules with Brian for an indeterminate period of time, so I'd like to minimize the non-day care time as much as possible.

We installed the car seats last week, just in case. And the hospital bag is all packed and ready to go. Now we just wait and see!

Thanks!

For Thanksgiving this year I was obviously not going to go anywhere far (i.e. anywhere where my family is), so my parents came here (Jim stayed up in New England and went to Thanksgiving dinner with his girlfriend).

My dad had, of course, just been through on the annual North-to-South migration and had left on Sunday morning. Since they were going to be driving back on Tuesday, and their dog Kelsey is not a huge fan of the airplane, Kelsey stayed with us for a few days. The cats were all completely traumatized. Kelsey is not really that great at reading the cats cues: she thinks that hissing and whacking her on the nose means the cats are playing with her. Also, cats running away = something to chase. So pretty much the cats have been hiding all week.

On Wednesday we got ourselves prepared for Thanksgiving dinner and my mom and I did a little shopping and organizing of the baby room. We finished hanging the pictures and everything, so the room is all set up now. Oh. I should go take a picture of it for you. Be right back...




Thats pretty much it. The most wonderful glider chair is not pictured, because that is still hanging out in front of the PS2. Speaking of the most wonderful glider chair, Brian got my dad watching 'Arrested Development' so they've been up there in front of the TV. My dad loves the glider so much that he totally wants to get one for himself.

Anyhow. We finished doing the baby laundry that I had decided to do (all the newborn-sized clothes, many of the blankets, some other stuff) and put everything away. It turned out well.

On Thursday we had Thanksgiving dinner, of course. We had my favorite easy appetizer which is:

toast and chop some pecans
mix them in with blue cheese of some variety
spread this onto slices of french bread
broil
drizzle with honey
eat

Yum. Also regular dinner. Since my mom was the only one eating turkey (Brian and I both being vegetarian now and my dad not being a poultry person), she made a turkey breast and the rest of us ate the other Thanksgiving foods (and my dad had some leftover short ribs they had brought with them). After dinner we played Apples to Apples (I won both times!) and started in on the pie. My mom had made a pecan pie the day before and had used a different recipe that she had gotten out of Bon Appetit. It looked good. We cut into it and all hell broke loose. The pie looked cooked everywhere that you could see it, but the middle was just soup. As soon as she cut into it the soup started oozing out. It was totally bizarre.



We still ate it - well, I just ate the cooked top parts and left my soup on the plate. Afterwards I looked up the recipe on epicurious.com to see if anyone else had reported ending up with pecan pie soup and indeed they had. It seems that the recipe really made enough filling for two pies, even though it didn't really say that AND you could fit all of the filling into one pie, albeit a very full pie. Thats what my mom had done, and it was too thick to cook thoroughly. Though it was pretty hysterical watching the pie ooze out, something unlike anything I've ever seen before. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

On Friday my mom and I watched a What Not To Wear marathon on TLC. Hurrah! Brian and my dad worked on a project that we'd been talking about doing for like, a year - renovating our pantry. We have a nice sized pantry, but I hated it with a passion. First of all, its shelves (like all shelving we have in our house) were that crap-ass Closetmaid wire shelving. OMG, I hate that stuff. First of all, in a pantry? Horrible. Nothing stands upright on it. We had bought some sort of rolled out stuff that you put on top of it that is suppossed to solve that problem but it didn't. Its not much better in a clothes closet because it leaves ridges in whatever is sitting on top of it. I cannot stand it but unfortunately you see it in like, every new construction home. Anyhow. The other thing I hated about our pantry was that it was difficult to organize. The closet was pretty wide and the shelves went back into a recess in the wall about 14 inches on each side. You'd have to put stuff back there but it was hard to see and get to. And since the shelf went the whole length of the closet without a break, there was no way to really separate things. It was just a big disaster in there. So they took out all the existing shelving and put in wooden shelves on either side in the recessed part. Now its like a walk-in pantry. The shelves are a little less deep than they were, but I like it better now. I thought they were too deep before. And now there are many smaller shelf areas so its easy to organize. We got everything in there and we still have some room. They also hung up some hooks so we could hang up stuff like our pizza paddle.



And on Saturday we ended up buying a Christmas tree. This is our first time having a real tree - we usually have a fake one because we're not usually here at Christmas. But I like the smell of a real tree and I had always wanted to get one, so since we're not going anywhere this year we did. I know its a little early to put up a real tree, but we figured that we'd better do it now in case Studs decided to come a little early and we didn't get a chance to do it later. So its up but not decorated. I might do that today after I've worked on my grant.

They left this morning and took Kelsey with them, much to the joy of our cats who came downstairs almost immediately. Hope the cats don't get too complacent though because they'll be back pretty soon when its baby time!

Migration and baby prep

Today commences part II of the annual Lisa's-parents-southern-migration. My mom has already gone down to Florida. She flies commercial, thank you very much. My dad is flying himself, so he had to wait for the weather to clear up along the east coast. He's on his way down here today, two cats, parrot, dog and a plane full of other stuff to bring to either me or Florida in tow. So tonight we'll have a 6 cat/2 sheltie total at the house. Thats going to be interesting!

Another thing we're doing today is going to baby care class. Where we will learn to care for babies (duh). Which is good because I don't even know how to HOLD a baby - although last week, at breastfeeding class (more on that later) we learned that babies like to be held as if they were footballs and you were a Heisman trophy. Who woulda thunk it?

We had most of our pre-baby classwork last weekend, when we did our childbirth preparation class and the aforementioned breastfeeding class. Childbirth class was educational/funny/terrifying. Yes, okay. We learned a lot about like, labor. And what happens in labor. And some positions you can use to help it along. And how your partner can help you. So that was good, because we needed that. I think it made Brian feel more in control of things so that he can be a more effective partner than he was during the hospital vomiting visit, in which he was completely paralyzed with fear. Also, our teacher was funny and she got the fathers doing a lot of hilarious stuff, like demonstrating positions (in which they were the mother), etc. The most entertaining portion of the class was when she had all 6 fathers come up and act out a scene of what would be going on when you're in the pushing stage. One guy was the mother, and he had to sit on the floor with his legs open and a baby doll under his shirt. Another guy was the father and was coaching him. Brian was the labor and delivery nurse. I wish I had had my camera is all I will say. The women were all quite amused.

It was good that we had this fun part to the class because it tempered the terrifying part, in which we watched a video of women giving birth. Oh. My. God. I'm a little bit obsessed with the Discovery Health channel, so I've watched women giving birth before on TV. I know that it looks like it really hurts. I don't think I'd ever seen an actual baby head coming out though, until this wonderful video showed it to me. Um, are you KIDDING ME? This has to be a joke. I don't even see how that is PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. OMG. Going to die. If I ever needed any confirmation that I was absolutely okay with getting an epidural, this was it. Because, holy crap. Also, one of the women in the video was looking at the baby head coming out with a mirror or something, and she said something like 'Are you sure thats a baby?' or 'That doesn't look like a baby' or something like that. Hee. She's right, it didn't really look like a baby. It looked like an alien.

Okay, once I had calmed down a little bit, we went to breastfeeding class the next day. Brian said 'You need a class for that? Don't you just pop the baby on and let him do his thing?' Hee. No. So we learned all about football holds, and breast pumps, and cracked nipples, oh my! Sounds like a good time. It also sounds like a full time job. So I hope you don't plan on seeing me for the first several weeks or anything, because I'll be upstairs with the Boppy pillow.

A big pink cast redux: A big purple cast

Yesterday I made a trip back to the orthopedist. Can you believe its been four whole weeks since this misery was first unleashed upon my foot and calf? I can't either. Feels more like 3 months.

Anyhow, it was very exciting because when I came in they took me directly to the 'casting room'. This is the room in which the misery was stored before it got all over my leg. More importantly, it is the room in which the scary cast removing saw lives. Hope! Joy! The doctor came in and busted out the saw and removed my cast. He promised that the saw wasn't going to cut off my leg (and actually a nice asian postdoc at work who doubles as an orthopedic surgeon explained to me how the saw wasn't going to cut off my leg - it vibrates back and forth, not around in a circle like it looks like. When it gets to the gauzy stuff under the fiberglass it gets stuck) but actually, it was fairly freaky and I had a hard time watching because I was sure this was all going to end in a huge torrent of blood. He cut the top off for me so that I could save all my cast drawings. And then my leg was free of its big pink prison!!

Oh, it was a joyous moment. Behold all the dark and very long leg hairs that had grown since the cast was installed. Take in the horrendous odor that comes from basically having worn the same pair of socks for 4 weeks nonstop. Wonder at how thin my calf has gotten while the muscle wastes away. I got to sit there for a while and admire my leg while they set up the X-ray. Then someone came in and loaded me into a wheelchair to take me down to the X-ray room. Good thing I was wheeled down there, because the casted foot was actually not super keen on being stood on. It felt a little bit like my foot had been asleep and now I was trying to put my weight on it. They took all the X-rays while I was still sitting in the wheelchair (covered with 800 layers of lead shielding to protect Studs). The sole of my foot started to feel all wierd and tingly. A little bit again like my foot had been asleep and was waking up, but not totally. The nurse said that a lot of people say that after they have a cast taken off.

Oh, my joy was short lived because after the X-rays the doctor came back in and asked me what color cast I wanted this time. I thought about making a run for it, but they had apparently ensured that my foot would be in no shape for running. So I picked purple this time. Its a lot darker than the pink, so not something that I can get any cast illustrations on. Bummer. Not that I really thought I'd be getting rid of the cast for good, I knew I had 6-8 weeks in my fiberglass prison. But taking off the cast was a big tease.

He said that my foot was healing fine and that he'd like to keep the cast on for 4 more weeks, but that he realized that I might want it off for when I was giving birth to Studs. So he told me he'd take it off in three weeks, on December 7. At 11:40 am. Countdown!! I still won't be able to be completely castless at that time, but he's going to give me something removable then. That will be bearable. All I want is to be able to scratch my leg at will. Oh, and maybe bathe my leg. It sounds like this bone is a) slow to heal and b) easily reinjured if not fully healed when casts etc. are removed. I guess because you're putting all of your weight on it, and I'm putting a lot more weight on it now than I used to be. My department chair at work broke the same bone and had a removable cast type thing on for 6-8 weeks, but he ended up re-breaking it at some point during that time and they had to put the pin in after all.

Unfortunately my new cast requires the same getting-used-to-it period that my old cast did. The old one had gotten a bit loose because my leg had gotten so much thinner. That was nice because I was able to contort my body around inside of it to try to scratch itches, and I could get most of my palm down the side to scratch things that were higher up my leg. Not so the new cast - it was made to fit my new, thinner leg, so I'm lucky if I can get one finger in there. Bugger. So I was up a lot last night trying to get to sleep, which happened for a few days after I got the first one. He said that my leg would continue to get thinner and that it probably wouldn't be so tight in a couple of days, which is something to look forward to.

Soooooo... mark your calendars! December 7th is the day when I'll be able to scratch my leg at will!!

Brian: Iron Chef Baked Pasta

I think the whole ordeal of pregnancy + broken foot has helped Brian realize what things might be like after we have the baby and I begin my job as a dairy cow. In the second trimester I was pretty tired, so I didn't feel a whole lot like cooking when I got home. Also I was completely starving to death and I didn't have time to wait for food to be cooked. Then I broke the stupid foot, which rendered me completely useless in the evenings - sitting at my desk or lab bench all day gets my leg and foot nice and swollen inside the cast (not that I'm even having an inordinate amount of pregnancy-associated swelling - at this point I probably wouldn't even notice it if the area available for swelling wasn't restricted by the cast) which is really uncomfortable, so I end up spending the entire night sitting on the couch with my leg raised up on a couple of pillows (this actually seems to be getting a bit better this last week or so). So yeah, not getting a lot done with the cooking now either.

Brian has always insisted to me that he could cook but that he just didn't know how to cook anything that didn't have meat in it. I maintain that following a recipe works the same way whether there's meat or no meat in it, and that if he could really cook, he could cook meatless stuff too. Also, I have an entire cabinet full of vegetarian cookbooks and cooking magazines so its not like he's got to make up the recipe or anything. He has a few times this year made vegetable soup for me when I've been sick, but so far that (and mashed potatoes) have really been the extent of Brian's cooking.

He wanted to help with the cooking when the baby comes, so he said he was going to put together a little cookbook for himself and that once a week he and I could make something together so he could see how to do it. That was before the broken foot and the couch. We only made one thing together (baked ziti) and the cookbook has remained otherwise empty. Last week he started to think about how much eating take-out this might result in (we've been doing a lot of that lately) and he wasn't nuts about the idea, so he got back on the cooking kick.

So on Monday night Brian decided to make lasagne. He had found a recipe online and had stopped at the grocery store on his way home to get what he needed. He called me on my cell phone to ask me whether I usually cooked the vegetables before I put them into the lasagne. When I got home, it was about 6pm and he had just gotten home and was starting to get ready to go. I looked at the lasagne recipe he had chosen. It was like, THE most elaborate lasagne recipe EVER. It involved making a puttanesca sauce, grilling (or broiling in this case) vegetables, making a pesto oil, assembling these all together. This is not something that I would have made on a Monday night starting at 6pm, and I've been cooking for a while and also have the benefit of knowing my way around the kitchen. But Brian was not to be deterred, so he set off. And he wouldn't let me help, so I sat upstairs (in our glider/ottoman set we bought for the baby's room. Almost didn't get the ottoman, but it is great for the cast!) playing Final Fantasy XII.

Three hours later, Brian had finished. So we ate dinner at 9pm. Keep in mind that Studs is sucking the very life out of me lately, and I'm usually ready to go to bed at like, 8:30. I force myself to stay up at least past 9 (most of the time). The lasagne was good, but Brian had a few first-timer problems - the vegetables were cut too thick and/or not broiled for long enough, so they were still a little bit uncooked, and he hadn't cooked the lasagne noodles first. As we've discussed somewhere on this blog in the past, I don't cook the noodles either - you don't really have to. And you also don't have to use those yucky no-boil noodles. But it does help to rinse them off in hot water first to cut down on the starchiness, and (and this is the major part that Brian missed) you've got to have sauce on top of all layers of pasta because, after all, that is where the liquid the noodles cook in comes from. The top layer of Brian's lasagne was noodles topped with cheese, so the noodles had pretty much just baked and turned brown and had cheese melted on top of them. Hee. I think he was a little disappointed, but in general it tasted good and the mistakes he made were ones he wouldn't make the next time. I tried to tell him that he had picked an excessively complicated recipe, especially for a first-timer.

The next night he made mashed potatoes which, as I've mentioned, were already in his repetoire. However this time he made a more involved mashed potato recipe with russets + unpeeled redskin potatoes + garlic, and he even garnished with chopped scallions and BacOs (love that BacOs are vegetarian!). I tried to make potato pancakes with the leftovers yesterday and it was a dismal failure - it was more like mashed potato hash browns. Or like when you're trying to make a fried egg and you end up somehow making scrambled instead.

He also got a recipe for some baked pasta dish from '30 minute meals'. You made a caponata separately (without the eggplant because eggplant and my stomach are generally not too friendly with eachother, much to my dismay, I will however suffer the consequences for french fried eggplant!) and then mixed it with cooked pasta, topped with cheese and broiled. This one was good and much easier for Brian. He doubled the recipe so we'll be having that again tonight.

Now I'm trying to get him to branch out into bean dishes so we can get some more protein in the mix. I have a few easy recipes for him to try that I already know he likes to eat.

One year.

Today is the one year anniversary of the day that my brother Ed died.

I find that for most things, I sort of forget the details after a while. But I remember so much about that day and the days afterwards. It was a Thursday. There was what seemed like an endless amount of time (actually, I think it was about an hour and a half) between when we knew that something was very wrong and when the police actually told us that he was dead. I couldn't sleep at all that night. I remember ending up taking a bath at like, 4 am, hoping that would help me calm down. It didn't. The next morning, I thought maybe it hadn't really happened until my parents called me to tell me their flight information (because they were already in Florida for the winter). I had to call my boss to tell him I wasn't going to be in for a while, find someone to come over and keep an eye on the cats while we were gone. Completely hysterical, of course. Brian had to go into work to sort some things out before we could drive up to NH, and Chris and Denise came over to stay with me while he was gone. I felt like I was being a real bother to everyone, but I don't think I could have sat there alone either.

I remember the whole two day drive up to NH. In some ways it was horrible, just sitting there crying. Keeping in touch with my brother and parents who were up there dealing with things. I was upset that we hadn't been able to fly so that I could get there sooner, but we really had to drive because we had to take the dog. I felt like an idiot at every rest stop we stopped at because my face was all swollen and I would cry in the bathrooms.

When I was seeing the bereavement counselor, he said that a lot of times people replay in their head what they think happened when their loved one died. I didn't really do that, but I did endlessly replay this whole car ride and the surreal conversations I was having with my parents. They were at the funeral home picking out a casket and deciding on what color flowers they were going to have in all the flower arrangements (they picked yellow, black and white because Ed's motorcycle leathers were those colors). I couldn't believe I was even having that conversation.

When we got home, people were already at the house with my family. My parents friends and Jim's friends were there all the time, which was nice for them. I didn't really have anyone there except Brian. It helped a lot when all of our relatives turned up. I've really never felt so alone in my life. It was really nice that some of my friends had sent flowers to the funeral home for the wake, because I knew that they would have been there if they could have. It helped to keep walking past all of the flowers, looking at the cards.

I didn't have anything to wear to the funeral. I work in a lab, so I don't really need many nice outfits and I certainly didn't have any that fit me at the time. Jim's friend Sarah took me to the mall to help me shop, rather than going out for drinks with Jim and all his other friends. That was nice.

Brian and I had to take Ed's suit and pocket watch up to the funeral home. I thought I was going to throw up. They gave me a little packet with his personal effects, like his watch and a ring he was wearing. The night before the wake, we were at home putting together these photo boards that the funeral home had given us. We were going through old family photos with my aunts and cousin. My one aunt is a big scrapbooker, so she took charge. That was sort of fun. I remember we were going through piles of pictures sorting out which ones were pictures of Ed. That is inherently challenging, because Ed and Jim are identical twins and looked very much alike, especially when they were younger. I can tell the difference though, as can my mom. My dad, not always. I remember going through the pile my dad had decided were pictures of Ed, and one of the pictures was of me. Ha. Yes, I had a boy hair cut in 4th grade, but I don't think I had ever been mistaken for one of my brothers.

At the wake, we got to go in before it started to see Ed. I really didn't want to even go up there. I was thinking I'd just stand in the back. I was absolutely terrified. Of course, I did go up. They had made prayer cards (or whatever you call those) that had a picture of Ed on his motorcycle on the front, and a poem on the back. I have those cards all over the place, one in my wallet, one at work, two at home, but I still can't read the poem on the back without crying. Once people got to the wake, I switched into this bizarre Susie Sorority Girl mode. I didn't know what else to do with myself, so I felt like I had to act like the host of a party. I'm sure everyone thought I was insane. I didn't know many people at the wake, other than my family, Matt, Melissa and her family, and one of my friends from grad school who had driven up from Boston. I think most people there didn't even know I was Ed's sister. Ed's ex-girlfriend had come and I tried to help her get up to see him. She finally did, but it took her a long time to slowly edge closer to the casket. I knew how she felt though. I remember that I had wanted some gum (because I am an addict) and Brian and Matt came back with about five different packs of gum so that they were sure they had gotten one I liked. At the end of the night we put some things in the casket with Ed. I put in a picture of Jim, Ed, Brian and I from Thanksgiving a few years ago. Jim put in a bottle of Sam Adams Octoberfest (and some other stuff). He tried to stick the bottle down in the lower, closed half of the casket so that it wouldn't be super obvious, but of course there's no padded bottom on that half. The bottle clunked right down to the bottom and made a really loud noise. Everyone laughed at that. The funeral home guy got it out for us. Ha. We took home some of the plants that had been sent to the funeral home. I still have a big peace lily that my coworkers had sent, and even though I'm usually death to plants, I still have it and its still doing well.

The next morning a limo picked us up at the house and drove us up to the funeral home, where the family had a last visitation. My relatives were all there and some close family friends. The immediate family were the last to go up there. That was the worst part, because you knew it was the last time you'd ever see him. We stayed there for a while and then my mom, grandmother and I got into the limo - dad, Jim and Brian were pallbearers, so they had to wait and put the casket into the hearse. That was also awful, sitting there waiting to see the closed casket come out of the funeral home. We drove back down to Windham for the service. Melissa played the flute at the service, but I missed most of it because we were the last ones to arrive. I remember she tried to stick 'Danny Boy' in at the end for me, because thats one of my favorites. We had several readings that we had picked out. I think my Uncle Bart did one, and I did one. Brian came up with me just in case I couldn't finish, but I did. It was an Irish blessing that we had edited down a bit. Jim and my dad both spoke about him, and then we drove off to the cemetary.

The cemetary is a really old one right near my house. They had set up one of those tents and had brought all the flowers from the funeral home. It was chilly, gray and drizzling. The priest said a few things and then we all went back to our house, where we had a party of sorts that my parents friends had organized. It was nice to see everyone and to get a chance to chat. And, of course, eat and drink a lot.

People continued to bring over food, which was really nice. We had an old fridge down in the basement that we were keeping a lot of this food in. The day after the funeral, the fridge stopped working. We had to go out and find a new one ASAP. That was an interesting trip, because fridge shopping was not high on our 'list of things I want to do the day after Ed's funeral'.

Eventually we had to drive back and go back to work. It was really hard for the first few months. I couldn't concentrate. I rear-ended someone. I cried a lot in the bathroom at work. I didn't feel like going out and doing anything social. We didn't put up any Christmas decorations or send out cards or anything.

When I think back to how I felt at that time, I didn't think life was ever going to get back to normal. I couldn't imagine that anything would ever be funny again or that I would ever enjoy anything again. Some of my friends dropped off the face of the earth at the time I most needed them, and I figured it was because people would only like me when I was fun. So I also thought that people just wouldn't like me anymore.

Here it is a year later, and I do laugh again, and I do enjoy things. A lot of days I don't even think about it, even though at first it was all I thought about. I no longer feel like my whole identity revolves around this one event. We had started trying to get pregnant the week before Ed died, and now our first baby is due in five weeks (OMG!). I'm amazed at what I was able to get through, and now I know that no matter how bad things seem, I can come out the other side.

Luckily today is a government holiday, so not many people will be at work and I don't feel bad taking the day off. My friend suggested I do something that Ed enjoyed today. He enjoyed:

motorcycles (no thanks)
drinking beer (well, me too, but not something I can do right now!)
smoking cigars (ech)
playing video games (this one we have in common)

I wish I could be up in NH to go visit the grave and be with my family, but I can't. So today, I'm playing video games in my brother's memory. Heh. That sounds really lame when you say it out loud, doesn't it.

Miss you Ed.

I'm on Amazon

If you were ever thinking you needed a bit of light reading, I just found out that you can buy my thesis (ok, or anyones) on Amazon. Ha.