Thursday, September 28, 2006

NY, NY

Right! Back to blogging! I've been terribly lax, I know. (Not LAX, although I've been there too. Just not recently. And I bet Sarah is the only one who laughed at that.)
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At any rate, there has been a plague or virus or flu or virulent something raging through my coworkers, so for the bulk of the past week, I've been busy being myself as well as a couple other people. And today? Well, today I am at home, trying to sleep off the galloping crud & working "intermittently", as I phrased it in my email. I'd better not get really sick - yesterday was bad enough. Sinus/migraine things suck when you're drug free.
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Oh! And before I forget - Fishy & I had our first ultrasound last week. It was an early test for Downs sybdrome etc, & there's nothing for us to worry about. There is only one of him, & no, it was too soon to see if he's a boy or girl. He is however, an active little thing - waving his arms & legs, turning his head, dancing around, frustrating the ultrasound tech... It's like he was being stubborn. Now where would he get that from?
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Anyways, the next images are from NY - which I adored, loved, enjoyed, relished, & liked a whole bunch. We arrived Wed pm, settled into our little studio apartment, which had a fabulous location, full bathroom & kitchen, a/c, & great color. (The mysterious nocturnal swamp smell? Well, we blamed all the rain & taped the vent shut. No more smell = happy pregnant lady)
The apartment was very close to Times Square, which was incredible. I took a little movie of it, but a) I have no idea how to post a link & b) I don't know if you know how to view such a thing either. You'll just have to wait to see it in person. These pictures all start well above the head level, so you can't see how crowded it all was. Luckily, I just let Pat break trail through the throng, & snapped photos whilst drifting along in his wake.
Also close to our apartment was one of my favorite NY things - one of my favorite things lately. At any given moment, ask me what I want to eat, & odds are good that I will say:
PIZZA!
(I'm being responsible & eating all balanced & stuff & stuff. I just WANT pizza all the time.) We were also close to Central Park, which, on the map, looks like a little ocean of green in the middle of Manhattan. In reality, it is a LARGE ocean of green. Lots of trees, rocks, little lakes, pathways, etc. We saw a couple trolls under a bridge, but no dead joggers, which is what I half expected, from watching NYPD Blue, CSI New York, & all the other crime drama tv shows set there. There was also a sculpture dedicated to Lewis Carrol - and after a while in Central Park, it does seem a little bit like you may have fallen down a rabbit hole. The sounds of the city get completely drowned out.
I have a ton of other pictures, but I'm going to call that today's limit. Next time? Well, I will be illustrating exactly WHY my fears of fish (the gilly, finny, slimy ones) are well founded.
*Our Fishy has arms & legs & fingers & toes! How exciting! And he is almost the size of a pear, apparently.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Millinery (heart) Philly

All right, there was so much fun on so many days that we're going to do this a little bit at a time. First. Ten points to anyone who can define millinery, with a five point bonus for correct pronunciation...
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Need a hint? Here's sixteen:

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Milliner (mil-uh-ner): one who designs, makes, or sells hats for women. (Not to be confused with a haberdasher* (hab-er-dash-er), who deals with mens' hats & oddments.) You don't see hats much these days, so I just assumed that all the milliners had dried up & blown away, or whatever it is that mean little old English ladies do when they disappear.** This explains my delight when I found a huge selection of ladies' hats at the Burlington Coat Factory***. I was compelled to spend 20 minutes trying them on, & documenting the fun.
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I think, if the Queen mum were still alive & going to get remarried, this is the ostrich feather hat she would wear instead of a veil.
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This was a very tall, menacing hat. I loomed, in this hat. It almost made me into Samuel L. Jackson, I swear. Much too tough. This would be for one tough, but unhappy mother of the bride, or one tough mother about to make others unhappy.
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This hat? This hat for some reason made me think of a cupcake, with a protective dome to keep fingerprints off of the icing. Attractive? Well, not so much. But definitely chocolate.
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This was my favorite. Black, with the red satin band & brim, rhinestone... um, whatever... crawling up the side, & plumes of trimmed red & black feathers sweeping back & behind, & curling provocatively over the face. This, this is a hat that Bette Davis could have worn for the scene in Now, Voyager, where the transformation from frumpy cousin to stunning world traveller is revealed. (If only three months in the looney bin could do us all so much good.) Don't believe me & have no patience to watch old cheezy B&W films?
See what a great hat can do?
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Today: Hats! Tomorrow: I haven't decided yet!
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*I can't make this stuff up - the english language beat me to it.
**Wendy, the only milliner I've ever known, was a crusty old thing who would call people "Thingy" if she couldn't remember their name.
**Oddly, I saw no coats in the store.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

We're Baaaaack....

And we're glad to be home. The cats were, amazingly, pretty good in our absence, although the kitten has figured out how to open drawers. This means that the next time you visit the house, there will be a new & challenging series of obstacles to get to the toilet paper.
Philly was way niftier than I expected - lots of cool stuff, fun people, cheap maternity clothes, & my GOD! The (free) food & the (copious & free) booze! I wasn't drinking, of course, but to avoid being swarmed by the older wives, who are currently experienceing baby-lust (kids are grown - no grandkids yet) we only admitted Fishy's existence to a few. Otherwise, I plead migraines. Pat had no such luck, & was stuck socializing & networking & all that jazz. All in all - I'd say Philly was a success.
New York was awesome! And amazing! And much friendlier & cleaner than expected. And tiring - we walked miles & Miles & MILES each day. Lots of rain there the first two days, museums, Central park, Broadway show, harbour tour, Empire State... took tons of photos.
More tomorrow... I'm going to go & enjoy being home with my husband!

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Philadelphia (heart) Rocky

All right. So perhaps the whole "Rocky Balboa" thing was more of a seminal moment in American culture than I realized. Because it's Rocky week here in Philly, and they just unveiled a Rocky statue by the steps that he ran up & down. Bridal parties were posing, not only on the steps, but with Rocky. My favorite? A bride, miming the Rocky "triumph" stance, bouquet held high.
But that was yesterday, from the top of our double decker tour bus. Here's yesterday's synopsis: up at 4 for the 6am flight, Toronto's surliest customs agent (possibly surliest ever created), zoom to the hotel, transmogrify into hot/smart/sexy wife, board tour bus, interesting hour long tour, big dinner on a big boat, collapse.
Today could be entitled : KOURTNEY vs. THE MATERNITY PANTS
Here's the score:
Kourtney:
1 - pr jeans
1 - pr cords
1 - pr overalls
3 - tank tops
1 - 2pc pj
6 - knickers
1 - 2 pc swimsuit
3 - t-shirts
1 - long sleee sweater
1 - belly band
Kourtney's Visa:
$245.
I feel pretty good about my purchass - a little freaked out when I stuffed the convenient fake belly in my pants, but well pleased otherwise. I was trying to explain to the very nice, yet somewhat unworldy salesgirl that we didn't have this store in Calgary, and she said "They don't have maternity stores in Canada??" I reassured her that we did in, just not with values like this. The belly band I'm particularily pleased about - it's a tube of fabric (black & seamless) that you wear like an informal cummerbund to keep pants which are either too big or too small right where they should be. At $16.98, it was on the mid-high price range, but I looked at one in Calgary that was $51!! Plus tax! Robbery! It would have been robbery!
Tomorrow, I'm off to the yarn store. I'm torn between hoping for fantastic sales, & dreading them, as my suitcases are at capacity. One way or the other, we'll know tomorrow!
PS: If I can figure out how, there'll be a real treat in tomorrow's post. Here's a hint - millinery is alive & flourishing...

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Answering Conclusively:

First - check out the size of our "Sunzillas" - they aren't near as big as they are supposed to be!

Secondly - which source of information do you think I prefer - my little book or the magazine?

Let me give you some hints:

According to my book, Fishy has progressed through being a blueberry, an olive, & a strawberry, & is now headed for lime & then lemon.

The magazine says that right now, he's "the size of a goldfish with a really big head". In a couple weeks, he'll be the size of a small bunny, and then a medium housecat.

Any guesses yet? Given my strange phobia*, Pat's obsession with the rabbits in our neighbourhood ("Murder! Death! Kill!")**, and the behavior of the cats of late, I'm much happier thinking of my bump containing some kind of fruit salad.

So yes! Fishy-Baby could almost be renamed, given that he's got no tail or webbing between his fingers or toes, but I'm fond of the name. Completely irrational, given my phobia, but hey, some friends of Pat's called their baby "Simon" when she was in utero. And Fishy's growing teeth buds this week, apparently. With luck, they won't come in until well after I'm done breastfeeding. Which I plan to attempt. I can't swear it'll work, but I'm going to do my darnedest.

Speaking of doing my darnedest, I'm going to go & eat dessert now. A whole container of fresh raspberries. All of my own. Ha. And I've got one for tomorrow too.

*-Interesting Kourtney fact: Goldfish skeeve me out. That scene in Jerry Maguire? Bleh. Ick.
**-Please call the SPCA. We are obviously bad, bad people.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Back to the Fray!

And by "Fray", I mean "SHRED".

So the bad cat, Buzz? He's still being bad. Although until this afternoon, we thought he'd been good. He's redirected his show of vengeance to my GOOD! LEATHER! OFFICE! CHAIR! That I got for Xmas last year from Pat! Agh!
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I didn't catch him in the act, but it was Buzz.* Last week, I saw him doing something similar to a fabric chair down here. I yelled at him, then put the chair into another non-cat room. Problem solved, I thought. It never occurred to me to fret over the leather chair. The only reason Buzz is still attached to his hide is the simple fact that there's not enough fur on his body to recover my chair.
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And, in an act of solidarity, the Kitten has mauled the paper towel. He'd done it before we got home yesterday, he did in the night, & Pat & I caught him & Pat spanked him this morning, at 5 am, before Pat flew to Arm-Pittsburgh. Then the Kitten did it again this afternoon. I'm developing a new cat-training methodology, where I beat the cat with the offending item**. Pat thought paper towel wouldn't be firm enough, that I should at least use newspaper or something, but really, you smack him long enough, it gets through that thick Manx skull. Because nothing else does. Don't even bother sugesting traditional cat punishment like water guns. He laughs in the face of water guns. Actually, no, Kitten kind of squinches his face up & gives his best "Really, do you mind, I'm eating this plant here" look.
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I'm starting to get so excited about Fishy - not only is he big enough now that we can hear his little heartbeat (haven't yet - this week at the midwives, I hope), but he will be born without fangs or claws***. And it'll take him a little while to grow into his orneryness.
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*-Hey, treat me like an evil dictator long enough, I'm going to act like one.
**- I'm going to have to stop talking about my cats before the SPCA gets me. Gosh, & in the general animal cruelty confession arena, I was tossing stones at the neighbours stupid cat today too. But Leo "He-Never-Leaves-Our-Yard" was on the deck! Hissing at my cats through the screens! And he wouldn't run when I chased him, so I threw little rocks at him. Underhand. And it's not like I hit him often, you all know my athletic prowess. Kyle, you'd be so proud.
***-At least, I haven't heard any fang/claw horror stories about newborns. And if you do know of any, DON'T TELL ME! I've got enough to think about mulling the potential size of Fishy's head!