While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Archives for December 2010

Life is like a jar of pickles

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Tomorrow is 2011. The date sounds so futuristic to me.

Tonight Joe and I have dinner reservations at a trendy new restaurant in downtown St. Pete.

I plan on wearing a dress, red lipstick and high heels.

I’ve looked forward to this date all week.

And yes, I plan on having a sip (or two) of champagne. The baby and I could use a little fizz to ring in the New Year.

But that’s tonight.

Right now it’s 4:11 in the afternoon and I’m still digesting the sandwiches I made today for myself and my friend Wendy Joan, who pedaled her bicycle over to my place today for lunch.

Tomato, mozzarella and basil on pita with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, followed by strawberry salad, followed by chocolate truffles. Deeeeeelicious.

So, yeah, I keep thinking 2011 sounds futuristic, but right now the coming year feels comfortably quaint.

Why is that?

First: because Wendy brought me the cutest jar of homemade pickles. (That’s the jar above. Adorable, right?)

Second: because she rode her bicycle here.

Third: because she used to live in Sarasota, but recently moved to St. Pete and now we live a mere two miles apart.

Fourth: because Wendy is originally from Buffalo, which means we immediately have 500 Buffalo things to talk about, like the fact that she also worked at the McKinley Mall and that there’s a pretty good chance that during my four years at Waldenbooks our paths unknowingly crossed a dozen times.

Fifth: because Wendy is also a journalist.

When I woke up this morning I thought about how I want to feel in 2011. I thought about how nice it would be to stretch out the simple pleasures a little more. Of course I have my big goals and my big plans, but it’s the little stuff in between that keeps the big goals on track.

Little pleasures keep us well oiled. They make us better equipped for plowing through big stuff, heavy stuff.

The way I see it, if I can start off 2011 with a jar of homemade pickles, I’m doing alright.

Happy New Year, beloved Lance-a-lots. It’s gonna be a good one.

Pregnancy Confession No. 2

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[I can't give up baths.]

This one came as a huge surprise to me:
Pregnant women are not supposed to take hot baths.

Your body temperature rises, which can be harmful for fetuses.
Especially in the early months of development.  

A prolonged spike in your core body temperature could cause birth defects.
 Avoid the bath tub, avoid overheating, avoid birth defects.

But we all know fetal development isn't this simple.
And common sense, as I'm learning, can serve a woman well in pregnancy.

There are a lot of "rules"
A lot of old wives tales.
A lot of fear-rooted dos and donts. 

I love my baths.
Love soaking my bones in a hot tub.
Love sinking my shoulders under the water
and feeling the tension of younameit loosen and release.  

I love to read in the bath.
All of my books are warped from water.

I never would have guessed that this habit,
my most therapeutic habit,
might harm my unborn baby.

So I read some more on the topic
and learned that while HOT baths aren't safe,
WARM baths are just fine.

Which was a relief.

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Peace. Love. And cold.

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I’m cool with the cold.

It can stay for a bit longer.

I know I moved to Florida for a break in the gray. For warmth. For sun. For sundresses. Flip flops. Enormous sunglasses.

But I miss the cold. I miss bundling. I miss warming my face over a hot cup of soup. I miss the crunch of snow. Skiing. Snowmobiling. The utilitarian function of long baths. How when you step outside on a bright white day, the air doesn’t move. Even your breathing is silent, as if your lungs are also wearing a sweater.

I realize how much I miss the cold when the square-jawed weathermen in Florida start shaking in their Izod shirts and advising people to cover their plants and dress their children in snowsuits every time the temperature drops below 50.

The cold is such a novelty in Florida, like juggling monkeys or monogrammed pillows.

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The joys of being a post office groupie

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I’m sitting on a futon in my living room.The pug is curled up beside me, snoring. He woke up about five minutes ago and burrowed out from under the covers of the bed, where Joe is currently (still) sleeping (in).

By June we’ll have a baby in this house, which means I now regard my husband’s sleeping habits with bitter sweetness.

The pug and I are on a futon because I sold our brown couch Thursday for $80 on Craigslist. (Yes, the brown couch my men are asleep on in the photo to your left.)

Over the course of nine months, I managed to save $1,092 in a mason jar to purchase a plush new sofa with an enormous seat and an equally enormous ottoman.

I told Joe it was important that I have a soft place to land as I get fatter and more pregnant. So, Merry Christmas to me.

But that’s not the point of this post.

As evidenced by the title, I’m here to espouse the pleasures of penpalship.

That’s right. PEN PALS.

Do you have one?

Chances are you had one many moons ago. It used to be that teachers encouraged the old-fashioned art of letter writing by hooking students up with pen pals in cities far from yours. Of course this was prior to email, which I’m also a fan of but for reasons completely separate from why I adore ACTUAL HANDWRITTEN MAIL.

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Pregnancy Confession No. 1

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[I can't give up coffee.]

I let myself have one cup a day.

The first three months I was so nauseous coffee smelled downright repugnant. 

Repugnant. 

I was baffled and crushed.

Now that I feel good again, dare I say normal again,
I want my favorite brew so bad.

Oh, Timmy Ho's. I cherish you.
I drag you out. I make you last for 30 minutes. Sometimes 45.

The weather has been gloriously cold, which makes you taste even better.
Like I'm drinking you in Buffalo. 

I pour you into my favorite mug and I cup you for warmth.
Sometimes I take you with me when I'm walking the pug. 

And with each baby sip, I feel more and more electric.

It's a subtle doping.
A modicum of caffeine that according to recent studies,
is OK for pregnant women.

In small doses.

So in small doses I take you in.
And if I crave you again later that day,
I make a cup of hot chocolate. 

It's a close second.
And for now, it'll do.  

---

Girl Gone Vile

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Ohnoyoudidn’t!

Oh yes I did.

Why?

Because I modeled in my first fashion show Sunday night.

A woman I interviewed this summer asked me to participate. (Note: this was before I got pregnant.) The forces behind the show apparently didn’t mind that I was pregnant, so I went ahead and strutted my stuff baby bump and all.

The experience brought back a similarly glamorous memory. Ladies from my generation: surely you remember the disturbing popularity of Glamour Shots.

I blame my mother for this frightening photo. She coerced me into posing for it after she got her hands on a free coupon. Of course.

I was in sixth grade. SIXTH GRADE. I look like an 11-year-old wife of a politician. You should see what the back of my hair looks like. The “stylist” was only concerned with POOFING the front. My mother calls it the “Barbara Bush picture” namely because I’m bedecked in pearls.

I secretly think she subjected me to this hideousness so she could laugh her ass off.

It goes without saying, the picture lives in infamy among close friends and family. Inspired by this weekend’s fashion show, I decided to scan and dissect it for your viewing pleasure.

—

PS. Happy Birthday to my best friend Ro! No one loves to giggle like you do. Here’s a post to start your day on the right cackle.

Fertility and the new frontier

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| Sept. 30, 2009 |

Three days after I returned from my honeymoon, at about 9 o’clock in the morning, I found myself in the passenger seat of Joe’s Honda Accord, lying on my side, curled up like a shrimp, crying softly into the car’s fabric upholstery on route to a St. Petersburg emergency room.

We thought my appendix was rupturing.

It happened in the kitchen when I was making Joe a tuna fish sandwich. It started out as a slight cramping in my lower abdomen. Nothing major, no more alarming than a dull wave of period cramps –– except that I didn’t have my period. I wasn’t even close to getting it.

I kept on with Joe’s sandwich, cringing as the cramps got stronger.

I squeezed a dollop of mayonnaise into the bowl. I mixed it with the tuna. And then a cramp hit me that was so fierce it brought me to my knees. It felt like I had a lead weight in my abdomen that with each breath grew larger, making it impossible to stand up.

The dull ache I experienced minutes earlier had been swallowed whole by a new, godawful kind of cramping; the kind that actually makes you whimper.

I crawled my way into the bedroom and climbed up onto the bed. I curled into the fetal position with a pillow between my legs and waited for Joe to get out of the shower.

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