Sweet

You know how they say girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice? I'm relatively certain that our baby is just made of sugar, since that's all I eat. When she arrives, I'm probably going to take a bite out of her if she smells like ice cream. Let's just hope the cravings have passed by then.

Rob and I spent the weekend in Tahoe: he skiied for a while each day, and I wandered around, reading by the fireplace, drinking hot chocolate, and debating whether to spend a fortune getting a manicure and pedicure at our hotel (what could one possibly do to make a pedicure worth $60 when I can get one for $15 in San Francisco? I opted to live with my unkempt hands and toes for at least a few more days.)

It was a beautiful and relaxing weekend, and we tried to wrap our heads around the fact that it was truly our last pre-baby vacation. There was lots of talk about when our daughter will start skiing (apparently, when she's three) and we watched all of the families with small children to see how it worked. I must say, there were many very polite kids on the mountain. A two-year-old boy saw me sitting in a chair as he got off the elevator and wanted to know if I needed him to hold the door for me. Another toddler was walking past me up the stairs and excused himself as we went by each other. Who were these tiny gentlemen, I wondered? And how do you get a kid who is so well-behaved? I want one.

Back to the East Coast

Let's see...what was I supposed to do today?

Get into a cab at 4:30am with Tom Waits's long-lost drunk and crazy cab driver brother? Check.

Fly back to New York at the crack of dawn? Check. (It was a first class ticket--thank you, Rob! All other flights will now pale in comparison.)

Eat a bagel that was quite possibly made of rubber? Check.

Get in a fight with another cab driver over the ridiculous fare to Jersey City, and then end the fight by trying unsuccessfully to bribe him? Check.

Take myself shoe shopping in Soho because I packed every pair of black shoes I own and they are now all traveling together across the country with a big, red-nosed man named Dave? Check. As an aside, before I realized that Dave was going to be driving the truck with all of our belongings in it (I thought he was just the Leader of the Moving Guys), I gave him a full and unopened bottle of rum, which Rob and I were never planning on drinking. "I'm no rummy dummy," said Dave, pocketing the bottle in his giant pants. Later, I reconsidered the intelligence of this particular gift, and I really hope Dave and our stuff make it to San Francisco unscathed.

Dine solo at the bar in an Italian restaurant in Tribeca? Check. Do NOT feel sorry for me. I don't mind eating alone and the risotto was really good.

Sit through the hotel fire alarm for 15 minutes, while a voice intermittently told us to "stand by" for further instruction? And finally become so frustrated, that I called the front desk to demand that they decide whether or not there was a fire, and, if not, to stop tormenting the guests? Check.

Get tons of calls, emails and texts from all of my wonderful friends and family wishing me a happy birthday? Check. Thanks guys. I love you. I am letting the cab rides, alarms, and moving stress go. I'm too old for that.

Wedding Weekend in Pictures

My feeling is that when true love, pig roasts, and chair surfing are involved, there's really no need for words.

Deepish Friday

Rob and I are off to a wedding in Denver this weekend. Tash, of bachelorette party fame, is marrying Steve, of great calves fame.

I was telling a guy at work about my weekend plans, and he expressed disbelief (I guess we've been to a lot of weddings this year), asking, "Do people have to be married to be friends with you?"

At the time, I just laughed, but later I thought about it more. And the conclusion I came to is thus: Friends, I don't care if you're married. I'm really more interested in what you can do for me.

Happily Ever After

This weekend Rob and I were in Berkeley for the wedding of our dear friends Brooke and Krista. The ceremony was in their backyard and was lovely and very memorable--they were married by the community of 40 friends and family. Krista's mom read a poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, which you can see here. I think one of my favorite things about it was that her mom was really not very into Oriah's name, and told Krista that if she had to say who the poem was written by, she was going to say it was a poem by "Oriah M. Dreamer", presumably to make it sound less, um, insanely hippie-ish. But the poem and her reading were quite perfect. She did not say the author's name at all.

Krista and Brooke looked like tall, elegant princesses. [I'm sorry, but really, what kind of blog post would it be if I didn't insert my height insecurities?] I will post more pics as soon as possible, but for now, I just wanted to post a big congratulations to my beautiful friends. And I wanted you to see the cake, which was a lemon affair with fresh raspberries and blackberries.

A Whole Nother State

There are lots of things the jury duty official could have asked. He could have asked "Who here has served on a Grand Jury before?" or "Who here has been convicted of a crime?" or "Who here is having digestion issues and simply can't sit on these wooden benches for one minute longer?" I am guessing there are countless ways he could have shrunk the pool of potential jurors, and none of the aforementioned ones would have helped me out much. I've never been on a jury, or convicted of a crime (unless you count that one party in college when I was 20 years old and got hauled off to jail in a paddy wagon with 35 of my closest friends and acquaintances. But you don't count that.) Plus, I'd eaten bran cereal that morning and was feeling fine.

What the important guy in the suit did ask was this, "Is there anyone here who does not live in Manhattan? Please line up in the center of the room." I thought about this for approximately 3 seconds and then stood up. Rob, you see, has been transferred to work in the San Francisco office of [censored!]. And, because he is bringing me along with him, it would be very hard for me to serve on a 6-month case in New York. In fact, when I told the official my news, he even said "Wow. That's a whole nother state." Yes, it is.

Then I said to him, "Plus, I'm pregnant and would probably be having a baby before the case was over."

"Congratulations," he said, waving me away because I had obviously become an extremely unattractive prospective juror.

So there you have it. I'm pregnant (due in March) and moving to San Francisco in November (we're in the city today looking for places to live. This activity toggles between being exciting/fun and exhausting/a remarkably quick way to get in an argument.) In other good news, my company has been kind enough to allow me to transfer as well, and I will do my job out of whatever spectacular apartment we do eventually find. Which is good, because otherwise I would probably just lie down in the middle of the city, thinking about how much I love it, while my weight balloons out of control.

The other nice thing about having a baby is that it affords Rob the opportunity to fake punch me while we're getting ready for work in the morning, all because "the baby told me to do it." Rob and the baby already have a very special bond.

We'll miss New York a lot, but I am truly ready to move back to my favorite city in the world, made that much better by its proximity to wine country...which I will be enjoying again at some point in 2010.

Drama on a Plane

I take my seat on the aisle of the exit row and stretch out my legs. Tall men walking to the back of the plane glare at me. It can't be fun to see a 5'4" person taking up the seat with all the leg room. I smile and swing my legs back and forth like the childish brat that I am. I stop smiling when the man in the middle seat arrives. He has terrible body odor.

The flight attendant shows up to make sure that we all understand we're sitting in an exit row. "I'll need a verbal from each of you," she says. "Are you willing and able to help in case of an emergency?"

"Yes," 5 people say. Body Odor Man grins happily, but says nothing.

"Sir?" she asks him. "Can you assist in an emergency? I need you to say yes."

"I don't speak English," he says with a heavy accent that I can't place because I'm not good at that.

"Uh oh," she says. "I'm going to have to reseat you."

Of course, he doesn't understand what she's saying. He's still smiling like she's teasing him, and meanwhile, she's really looking around for someone who wants to move to an exit row. One of the tall guys raises his hand. Body Odor Man starts to look confused. "Why?" he keeps asking, as she gestures for him to get up. The man in the window seat and I try to explain. "You must speak English to sit in this seat," we say several times. He still doesn't understand. Finally, he gets up and walks sadly away. He looks at me one more time and says, "Why?"

"Because of English!" I say too loudly. I really want him to understand, but I basically end up sounding like a terrible, short xenophobe in a desirable plane seat.

Which is when karma decides to bite me in the ass.

Several hours into the plane ride, I have to go to the bathroom and I need Pringles. I head to the back of the plane. After I flush the toilet, I notice the toilet seat cover has not made it all the way down. I decide I don't care and walk out the door. A spectacled bald man is waiting to go next, and I have the slight feeling of embarrassment that I did not double flush the toilet.

I get my Pringles from the flight attendant and when I turn around to head back to my seat, I come face to face with what can only be described as the German Bathroom Police (this accent I did recognize.) The spectacled man is standing in the aisle, a line forming behind him, waiting to get my attention.

"I sink you forgot somesing!" he yells. I look into the bathroom and sure enough, the toilet seat liner is peeking over the edge of the toilet. This man thinks I did not flush the toilet at all, and he wants the entire plane to know.

"No," I say firmly. "I didn't forget to flush. That's just some tissue that didn't get flushed down." I mean seriously, this is the worst conversation I have ever had on a plane. I would rather go sit on Body Odor Man's lap for the rest of the flight than have this crazy German guy yelling at me anymore. He makes a huge show of walking into the bathroom with the door still open and flushing the toilet himself with a sigh of utter disgust. I walk back and take my seat, and for the rest of the flight I fight with that guy in my head, thinking of all the things I should have said. And really also thinking that I probably should have just flushed the toilet. I swing my legs, but it's just not the same. Then I eat my Pringles and feel better.

One Year Later

In San Francisco to celebrate our first anniversary:

Me: Do you ever just stop and think about how much you love me?

Rob: No.

----------------------------------------------------
Driving:

Me: Oh! Let's go down the curvy part of Lombard Street!

Rob: No.

Me: Why?

Rob: That's for tourists. And anuses.

Deepish Thoughts on Cultural Experience

Rob and I recently decided that sitting on the couch watching episode after episode of The Wire may not be the best way to get our weekly dose of culture. Of course, it is a great way to get your weekly dose of West-Baltimore-on-TV culture, so I'm pretty covered on any information I was lacking when it comes to drug corners and the cops who split time between hunting the dealers and becoming extraordinarily inebriated at the local bars. I have increased my vocabulary and can now confidently use words like "mope", "hopper", and "stash" in a sentence. I have yet to work this knowledge into a prospective client presentation.

Now that everyone keeps saying summer is ending (it's not, by the way), we have decided to get up off the couch and spend some time getting really cultured in our willing city. And in other cities. We went to Pittsburgh for a wedding last weekend. Having never been there, I wasn't sure what to expect from the Steel City. Here are some things I learned:

1. Everyone in Pittsburgh owns a Steelers jersey.

2. Everyone in Pittsburgh is wearing their Steelers jersey right now.

3. Pittsburgh has a 7-story Andy Warhol museum with The Factory re-imagined on the top floor. Velvet Underground music, flashing lights, close-up video of Lou Reed sucking on a cigarette, couches.

4. The cab situation in Pittsburgh is different than that of New York. On Saturday after the wedding reception, we called several cab companies, only to learn that the wait was 2 hours long. (Steelers game. Obviously.) We took a bus and learned about Pittsburgh bus culture.

I really enjoyed the city. The wedding was on the Carnegie Mellon campus and the reception was at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. It was the end of August and absolutely gorgeous out. I told Rob I thought we should spend more weekends simply traveling to an American city and exploring it. He looked at me like I was wearing a Steeler's jersey and said "Right. With all our free time?"

It's true, we do tend to spend our time traveling for work, weddings, holidays to see family, etc. We don't have a ton of free weekends. So for Labor Day, we decided to stay in New York. We both had Friday off and we spent it having lunch at Otto, going to the Whitney Museum, and walking through Central Park. We met John for dinner at a tapas bar ("I thought you said topless," he complained when we arrived.)

We took our cultural expedition to Brooklyn on Saturday, to see Jay, Cameron, and Roan. We grilled out, watched Roan splash in his baby pool, and went to a block party. Okkkk, we walked past a block party. Cultural.

Sunday we cultured our way onto a train and went to Long Island to see my sister-in-law and her three kids. We had a small bonfire in the backyard and ate homemade apple pie.

Now we are exhausted by all of our activity, so we're going to curl up on the couch and watch The Wire. I missed the little hoppers.

I think I need a vacation

I was walking to lunch with a coworker who was also out on vacation last week. He told me that his boss asked him yesterday if he was feeling “refreshed” from the time off. He just laughed in response, because NO. No matter how nice or fun or far away your vacation was, the feeling you get upon returning to the office does not remotely resemble refreshment. It’s more like panic, resentment, and/or a general sense of being at the bottom of a hole trying to dig your way out.

“If anyone had asked me that question yesterday,” I told him, “I would have punched them in the face.”

I am not nice in the early days after vacation.

Of course, the vacation itself was refreshing. Unbelievably so. I spent days alternating between the lake, the bonfire, and my bed. I took long walks in the woods with my mom, my sister, and the various dogs that accompanied us on the trip. On these walks, I was in charge of my grandparents’ dog, Lucy (also known as Lucifer), who had a charming habit of zigzagging into the woods until her leash was hopelessly wound around several small trees and I had to stumble in after her. Lucy, by the way, is the beagle dachshund mix who was about to make out with Rob in yesterday's post. They had a connection.

Every night in Wisconsin around 4 or 5pm, we headed out on a cocktail cruise on the pontoon boat. We circled the lake with our drinks and snacks like havarti with jalapenos on crackers, spicy olives and smoked trout, black bean dip and tortilla chips. On each trip, someone spilled the olives. This sounds like some kind of euphemism, but really, the olives just ended up on the floor of the boat. It's not meaningful, I don't think.

Among our wildlife sightings were a bald eagle eating a dead muskie (a two-fer!), loons, geese, more fish, and turtles. Also one weird bird that everyone took turns looking at through the binoculars, but no one could figure out. It certainly wasn’t going to be me…I was proud I could recognize a turtle considering what my average animal encounters in New York consist of (dogs, pigeons, the occasional rat in a subway.)

Spending the week with my grandparents was one of the very best parts of the trip, because I love them a lot and because everything out of my grandpa’s mouth is hilarious.

One evening, Liz’s boyfriend Rob mixed up a batch of margaritas and offered one to Papa.

“No thanks,” said Papa. “I don’t drink sissy drinks.” He then went back to his brandy manhattan garnished with totally manly cherries.

And Nana celebrated her 83rd birthday while we were there, so Liz and I made her a carrot cake to celebrate.



Liz decorated it.

A requirement on any family trip, of course, is silly games. And we played them. Joe actually created a Jeopardy game (I'm talking construction paper, markers, tape, and wholly original questions like "What is the significance of The New Collossus?" which is really hard to answer in the form of a question. This didn't turn out to be a problem though, since none of us actually knew what he was talking about.)

On our last evening, we played a particularly comical game of Guesstures. Highlights included Rob frisking himself and Liz's Rob trying to get us to guess "hydrant" though we were all screaming "machine gun."

Tomorrow at work, if anyone asks me if I feel refreshed, I'm going to close my eyes for a moment, think about the lake, my family, utter ridiculousness, good food and dogs. And maybe nobody will get punched.

Vacation

Adventures in the Heartland

Rob and I are leaving town on Friday for 10 days. I'm told we travel a lot, and though I guess this is true, I always think of "travelers" as people who go to far-flung, exotic places. Like Vietnam, South Africa, Schenectady. Rob and I have been on more of a domestic tour: Denver for me, San Francisco for him, Los Angeles for me, Pittsburgh for him. Which brings me to another point: in addition to traveling a lot, we travel solo a lot.

But here we are, 2 days and counting until our next trip together to the enchanting land that is known to its inhabitants and fans as...The Midwest. I think I'd like to call it The Wild Midwest, just to give it that sense of allure and romance that one normally associates with times past. And by times past, I'm not referring to the night my friends and I had a party at my house, took Ecstasy, and then drove all my little sister's friends home before heading to the beach. Just kidding. We did not go to the beach.

I love where I grew up. That doesn't mean I'm clamoring to move back there anytime soon, but there's just something so refreshing and NORMAL about that place. I guess I have to say that since I was formed there and everything. But I think it's no mistake that many of my best friends to this day are people I met growing up. Anyway, whether or not I'm biased, if you haven't been to Oak Park, Illinois, I recommend a visit. Famous for Frank Lloyd Wright, Ernest Hemingway, Kathy Griffin, and several top Deepish Thought commenters. Stop by my grandpa's house--he'll make you a brandy Manhattan.

Our upcoming trip actually starts in Indiana, at the home of Rob's brother John, where we will barbecue, hot tub, and heckle John's pet swans Frederick and Jewell. We then head to Oak Park for about a day and a half, and then up to Wisconsin to a house my grandparents bought many years ago with one of my uncles. The house is on Lake Archibald...Archibald would be a good name for a kid. Or an eagle...I digress. The lake is the center of all activity. We will either be lying on the pier, me looking at all of my brown relatives and trying to figure out how I ended up with the legs of Casper the Friendly Ghost, or on the pontoon boat with cocktails and cheese crackers--because we are elegant. Or maybe we'll be making s'mores at the bonfire, or making loon calls from a canoe.

All I know is that I could not be more excited about this trip. I will always love exploring new places, but sometimes it's really fun to just go home.

I'm Still Here. Mostly.

So…when we last left off I was slacking on my blog duties and therefore, I don’t even know if anyone is there anymore, save my four lovely followers who probably get some kind of alert when I decide to put words on this page. Hi guys.

First up on the list of things to report on: my trip to LA. Awesome, as always. Liz took me back to the fabulous clothing stores that I love so much, and I stocked up. My mom bought us each a piece of clothing and declared how proud she was of us for shopping in a store where the average price of a sweater is $24. “I’m finally rubbing off on you,” she said, handing over her credit card. Debatable.

It was the kind of long, relaxing weekend that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to blog stories, so suffice it to say we had fun at the beach, by the pool, eating tapas, eating Italian, and making art (my sister taught me how to decoupage.) When I brought my artwork home, Rob looked at it and said, “Huh. Is that for your office?” I rolled my eyes and placed both pieces in our second bedroom, where he routinely ignores them.

More later. I don’t want to exhaust all my illuminating updates on one post. Next up: this past weekend spent with my 15- and 16-year old nephews from Long Island.

Deepish Thoughts on Traveling

The alarm goes off at 6:30am. I hit snooze. I must be up by 7:00 in order to make it to the airport. At 7:30 I open my eyes and then sit straight up in panic. Shit. I didn't hit snooze; I turned the alarm off. I frantically run around shoving things into my suitcase. I manage to put on a bra but no makeup. I quickly shower but there is no time to do anything with my hair other than put it in a low librarian bun, the kind I favor when I am in need of a haircut but not desperate enough to actually make an appointment. I refuse to look at the clock as the cab inches through city traffic. By some miracle I make it to the airport in time.

I wait for 25 minutes in line for coffee, feeling vaguely threatened by the constant announcements that it is my last chance to get on the plane. I contemplate the possibility that I have rushed to the airport only to prioritize coffee ahead of an actual plane ride.

I drink all the coffee and curse the seatbelt sign. When it is ok to get up and move about the cabin, I hightail it to the bathroom. A quick look in the mirror confirms that without makeup and with my hair back I look exactly like my brother. Who is, as you may have guessed, a boy, and therefore not someone I strive to be mistaken for. I vow not to look in the mirror for the rest of the flight.

I read one entire book on my Kindle and then watch Sunshine Cleaning. It's a long flight to LA. But I never said it was an interesting one.

Saying hello to the seventh month

So far, I have spent the majority of July pretending it is not, in fact, July. I have nothing against the month itself, I just cannot believe it’s already here. It feels like summer is half over and I haven’t even wrapped my head around the fact that it arrived at all. This is likely due to the rainy month of June, both uncommon and unwelcome. My denial of this month has made blogging rather difficult. I wake up each day, pretending it is still June, much the way my friend John wakes up each day pretending he is still 29.

But the month has actually been a fun one, now that I’ve decided to acknowledge it. Rob and I flew to Fort Myers, FL last Thursday, to see his parents. They picked us up at the airport and we drove down to Miami, where our niece Jade was in a national volleyball tournament, representing the state of Arizona. I already feel like a shrimp kabob when I’m around Rob’s family, because even the 14-year-olds are over 6 feet. But now I was at a high school volleyball tournament: it was a whole new dimension of inadequacy. I craned my neck to talk to everyone, and then I ran around, looking for all of the players who were 5’4” like me so that I could stand next to them. The problem with that is that none of them were on Jade’s team, so they were probably wondering who I was and why I was standing so close to them with a huge smile of victory on my face.

Jade’s team won both games we saw, and after spending a couple of days in Miami with the family, we drove back to Rob’s parents place for 2 very relaxing days of going to bed early, lounging in their pool, reading, and watching the Federer/Roddick tennis match that I seriously thought might go on all night. However, I must add that if Rob’s mom told me ONE more time how tired I looked, I was going to throw her in the pool.

So now that I’m back in the swing of things at work, and I’ve admitted that the year is more than half over, I guess I might do some more blogging at some point. Maybe.

Ranger Danger

As I sit down to deliver a Deepish update, I am having a little trouble figuring out how to describe the Colorado Mountains Bachelorette Camping Trip that I experienced this weekend. My friend Tash lives near Denver and is getting married in October. She and Steve have been together for something like 10 years—we all met in college. Because I bartended at the bar where Steve worked, Tash spent the first 5-6 years of their relationship thanking me every time we talked for introducing the two of them. She also spent the first year+ of their relationship commenting on his calves and saying things like “Oh my god, he’s so hot,” when he was sitting right there with us. On slow Sunday nights, we would sometimes go into the bar and study at one of the high top tables. I’d look up and Tash would be staring at Steve, sighing deeply and saying “Have you seen his calves?” Yes. Yes, I have.

I love this girl.

So I flew out on Friday and after the requisite trips to the liquor store, the grocery store, Tash’s house to load the car, someone else’s house to reload the car, and back to the grocery store, we were on our way. There were about 14 girls with us, and it is necessary to report that a fairly substantial number of them were lesbians and the rest were not. I mention this because Tash felt the need to make sure everyone knew exactly who was who. “This group of people,” she said on Friday, gesturing to 5 of us, “likes boys.” Which is funny, because Jess and Linda, her good friends who “like girls” were the ones who brought the penis straws and the penis water bottle that Tash had to drink out of all weekend. They also brought a rockin piñata that was filled with candy and tiny bottles of liquor. Sweet.

I have debated whether or not to introduce the subject of illicit materials onto Deepish Thoughts, but ultimately feel I must do it, because otherwise the following story makes no sense.

Friday night we were sitting around the campfire, some of us drinking, some of us smoking…things, and some of us doing both. I am not lying when I say I only drink. I told the girls when I got there that I would be happy to smoke “things” with them if they wanted me to spend the rest of the weekend in the tent not talking to anyone. Because that’s exactly what would happen.

It got dark. We were bundled in sweatshirts because it was getting chilly, but the fire was warm and comfortable and all of the stars that you can never see in New York City were up in the sky where they belong. Suddenly a white car with flashing yellow lights pulled up near the campsite. I recalled something Linda had said earlier that day: “If you see a white car with flashing yellow lights, let us know. That’s the park rangers.”

“The park rangers seem to be here,” I offered.

Profanity, giggling, and proclamations of disbelief arose. “It’s true!” someone else said. “There’s two of them and they’re getting out of the car.”

Our friend Jamie stood up and walked towards the rangers, who had official looking vests, walkie talkies, and a clipboard. They talked quietly for a minute, but she couldn’t keep them from approaching the campfire.

“Good evening, ladies,” said a woman with close cropped hair and a t-shirt that showed off muscular arms. “We’ve had some noise complaints. Do we have any underage drinking going on here?”

Pretty much everyone started talking at the same time, explaining that we were not even remotely underage, and that we would try to curtail any noise.

She seemed unimpressed. She pointed to one of the girls across the campfire. “You look pretty young, can I see some ID?”

The chosen one got up and walked over and the ranger led her a few steps away from the fire. She then came back to the rest of us and said, “Look, it really smells like [“things”] over here. I think I can see what’s going on.” She got on her walkie talkie, “We’ve got a 420. I’m going to need backup.”

I am now only slightly exaggerating when I say at least two people had heart attacks. 5 burst out laughing, and the ranger said “Are you ladies sufficiently freaked out? You’re on candid camera!”

Yes, this was Jess and Linda’s gag on the group (they had purchased the vests and walkie talkies solely for this purpose), and I must say it was hilarious after everyone’s heart rates returned to normal. The “ranger” then hung out for a drink and went back to her campsite next door.

We're really more CareBear people

Rob and I were in Virginia visiting Penny, Bill, and Lola the Dog this weekend. We rented a Zip car and drove down on Friday afternoon. We brought no CDs and no adapter for our I-Pods, so we were stuck with the radio for 8.5 hours. The radio, my friends, is a very bad thing. Towards the end of the trip, I had turned it off and was loudly singing all of the Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley songs I know. Rob drove faster.

The weekend was a blast and a blur, as is typically the case. We ate pounds of delicious and decadent foods: fresh breakfast sandwiches on biscuits, blueberry pancakes, crab dip, manchego and parmesan risotto, oysters, and crisps filled with lemon, blueberries, and strawberries. We had some excellent wine tasting experiences, which I don’t normally equate with my knowledge of Virginia—mostly because I don’t have any knowledge of Virginia. We watched birds. We played one rousing game of Cranium, despite Bill’s utter and complete hatred of the game…you have seen nothing until you have seen a grown man beg—BEG—to be allowed to go to bed rather than advance his little pink-mohawked game piece seven more spaces to win. He curled up on the couch behind Penny, who was eagerly leaning forward, since both she and I LOVE Cranium. After asking him a question about Smurfs (We don’t know anything about Smurfs, honey,” Bill informed Penny) we finally released Bill and he fled the scene. We don’t know anything about Smurfs, honey: my new favorite sentence.

On the way back to New York, we stopped for an adapter.

A Joke

"What does a cat say on December 25?"

"Meowy Christmas!"

Are you laughing? My Aunt Carolyn stalked me with this joke over the holidays, repeating not only the punchline, but also her fervent desire to see it posted on the blog. You see, she wrote the joke. I come from a very talented family.

The thing is, I forgot to post it. But guess who didn't forget?

I was in Chicago this weekend. My very thoughtful sister concocted a plan for the two of us to fly in to surprise our mom for Mother's Day; we departed from our respective coasts, meeting in the place where we used to verbally and physically attack each other for sport. We're better now.

My mom is not good with surprises, it turns out. Liz and I showed up about a day apart, but both arrivals seemed to have a similar affect on our mother: they killed her brain. She wouldn't speak for several minutes when my sister got to the house, and when she saw me, she refused to get out of the car. This is how we know she loves us.

We had a fabulous weekend of eating and eating, snacking, cooking, and then eating some more. On Mother's Day, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins came over and we spent several hours sitting around laughing. At jokes like this one:

"What does a cat say on December 25?"

"Meowy Christmas!"

See, Care? Two times.

Skiing with Loved Ones: A Slippery Slope

I have now let several days go by with people thinking that I can ski, and that I had a completely successful trip to the mountains of Utah. Not true! I fooled you. But I think enough time has gone by that I can now tell the story of Day 2. Otherwise known as the story of The Blue Run that Wasn't. Or Swift and Simple Ways to Test Your Relationship.

On Day 2, I really did not want to ski alone and was very pleased when Rob, Spero, Bill, and Bill's friend Jim said that they would ski the blue runs with me. The easy blue runs. We had a nice time at first, the four of them speeding down the slopes, me teetering back and forth, bringing up the rear. We made our way further and further up and across the mountain, never doing the same run twice. One of the guys--I'm not even sure which one--had mapped out our path, and I was just following along.

Eventually, we exited a chair lift and had a decision to make. One trail was called Panorama, and it had an inviting, simple slope. The other was called McDonald's Meadow; it began with a precipice that you had to jump off of in order to ski the run.

The guys insisted I could handle McDonald. It was blue, after all. They flew off the ridge and down the slope. I stood at the edge and stared. Spero held up. "Enter from the side," he advised. "Don't go straight in."

Later, Bill told me that as soon as he got the feel of the run, he knew I wasn't going to like it. "It should have been at least a double blue or even a black," he said, earning my undying gratitude. But there we were, so I entered at an angle, like Spero had said, and tried to stay on my feet. I found myself on the steepest slope I had seen all day. "What is this?" I yelled several times to Rob, who had stopped flawlessly in the middle of the mountain. "Just go slowly, back and forth, use the whole width of the mountain," Spero said. Good advice, which I really tried to follow. But I immediately picked up speed, losing control, and tumbling down as one ski popped off and landed 15 feet up the mountain from me.

Spero and Rob watched as I inched up the hill, gracelessly, trying to grab the ski. Then I sat there for a while, thinking evil and misguided thoughts about Rob and how he had tricked me into this dangerous endeavor. There was no way I was going to be able to stand up and get my ski back on, let alone make it down the rest of this stupid slope without falling and ending up with a physical deformity. Spero took off, sensitive to the fact that I wanted to be alone with Rob so that I could express my actual thoughts about the experience.

I knew that it was inappropriate to be angry at Rob for the predicament I found myself in. After all, the geniuses at The Canyons had categorized this the same way as the other runs we had done that day. Yet I found myself directing much of my fear and frustration at him. Mostly, I sat there in a somewhat shocked silence, punctuated by flurries of I-Cant's (and, ok, some profanity.) But where was my can-do attitude from the day before? Where was my choo-choo train of confidence? Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

Adult Ski Problem #1: Imagination. When you're a kid, your cushiony butt is already close to the ground; you don't have very far to fall. You are impervious to danger, and this knowledge resides somewhere deep in your baby fat. But grown-up novice skiers, they have a whole range of terrifying possible outcomes to summon up, all of which were leaving my traitor legs flat in the snow.

Rob tried to get me to stand up. Not happening. He tried to get me to put my ski on. I slid it at him petulantly. Bad idea, because I began sliding after it at top speed, screaming "Help me! HELP ME!" Not proud of that one.

I really was out of control, so when I got to where he was, Rob launched himself sideways and stopped my fall, smothering me. As happens when I am angry and embarrassed, I started to cry. We sat there for many, many minutes. My legs were rubbery and I simply could not stand up, so I gave one ski to Rob, grabbed the other, and scooted (in control, at least) down the mountain on my ass.

Right about then, Spero, Bill, and Jim showed up to see if they could help. They had skied down and all the way back around in the time that we were sitting in the snow, debating the merits of a continued relationship.

"Are you guys still married?" Jim asked, edging up to us.

Rob did not laugh.

"Oh, we're not laughing about this yet?" Jim asked.

I'm still waiting for Rob's answer on that one.

I Think I Can

I'm in Utah, at the window of my hotel room, watching it snow. So this is what Spring skiing is all about. This, and the fact that yesterday it was 60 degrees and people were hanging out on the mountain in t-shirts and ski gear, eating puffy pieces of pizza and drinking beers with names like Cutthroat Ale and Polygamy Porter.

We're here with Rob's oldest and best friend Spero, his wife and three kids, and Penny and Bill, of DC cupcake fame. The kids have gone mental for skiing and there is no getting them off the mountain--even 4-year-old Nick, who won't actually take direction from his teacher and may have yelled at her one day, he reported with his dimples flashing. But now all he wants in the entire world is to advance to the chairlift, so he has promised to attempt good behavior.

Gus, the 7-year-old, is skiing black diamonds in parallel. Elena, the 6-year-old, was nervous at first, but is now streaming down the slopes with seeming ease.

Which brings us to me. This is the first ski vacation in 2 years where I haven't taken a lesson. I headed up to the bunny slope on the first day, and immediately began to hyperventilate on the chair lift. I employed some deep breathing techniques and tried not to look down. My first run can only be described as "pitiful." My legs were shaking; all prior instruction vanished in a wall of slippery snow. I talked myself down a nearly level pathway populated by cartoon character faces on trees. This was not tough skiing, people.

The nice thing is, after that first run, I did gain a bit of confidence. I went down the bunny slope a couple more times and then made my way over to the large mountain map to see what I could do next. An instructor approached and asked if he could help me out. I pointed to a few trails, dotted green lines that a newborn could scoot down. "I was thinking of doing these runs," I said, adding, "I'm not very good."

"May I make a suggestion?" he asked. "I would try these instead." He pointed to blue lines. "Just try them. And if you have any problems, just blame it on George." He gestured towards his name tag, which read "Steve."

For some odd reason, I decided to take this guy's advice and by the end of day one, I was actually skiing down blue runs without falling. I did still have to breathe deeply on the chairlift, though, and anyone who was anywhere near me on the mountain would have heard a very wordy personal pep talk happening at every turn.