REVOLUTION!

Because, obviously, we have a strict do-not-feed policy around here.

Words with Friends?

I have a (rather long) list of words that I actively dislike. The most hated word in the English dictionary--MOIST, like I even need to write it down for you--is of course prime among them. There are a few others that are maybe not so predictable:

• pouch
• trousers
• shrimp (try saying it aloud without sounding like someone you don't want to be)
• gusset
• morsel
• parsnip (obviously)
• Guglielmo (who the hell knows how to pronounce that??)

Today, however, my least favorite word in the whole freakin' universe (after "moist") is "actually," as in "Actually, mom, you only asked me to put on my coat four times, not five." "Actually, mom, Jerry Potts had tuberculosis." "Actually, mom, Pluto is not a planet." "Actually, mom, there isn't a pokemon called U-Green-Poo." I WAS BEING FUNNY. 

It happened so quickly. One day, and I swear it was yesterday, Kid believed in me and my Very Great Brain. Today? I am one of the stupider forms of oatmeal. If Mark Twain is right, I have to wait until my son is 21 before I'm going to get any respect--at which point I will have been at Shady Acres for probably a decade already. 

"Actually, mom," I can hear him saying, "they don't take people at Shady Acres until they're 60, so you'll only have been there for two years." 

I may be the only middle-aged woman on my block to start adding ten years to her age. Much more of the lippy kid shenanigans, and I won't have any trouble passing for 60.

Bloggerfodder

Life has been so boring. I haven't been able to come up with anything to write about here for what seems like 10 months. The dog . . . barked, howled, got dirty. The Kid said . . . you know, what kids say. DH . . . is beyond all reproach and consequently not fodder for a blogger.

So anyhow, you might be asking, Lorraine, what has driven you to sit down today to Worn Ragged?

Here's why, and you're welcome.

Wednesday. The door shuts on the last of the men of this household as he bobbles down the sidewalk to where his ride to school is waiting. The dog goes back to bed. It is Wednesday. Wednesday is the Day of Reckoning around here. Things are tidied, cleaned, put in unusual places in order to surprise and delight me later when in a panicked search. "Oh, aren't I hilarious," I am wont to say upon discovering a can of chickpeas in the dishwasher detergent tub under the sink. "How I do amuse myself and make my own life diverting. I love me."

Multi-tasking is the key to getting done all of the things that I contract with myself to do on Wednesday mornings. Put the brown rice to soak WHILE the handtowels are being washed. Disinfect bathroom sinks WHILE books are being reshelved.

Remove unsightly facial hair WHILE tidying the front hall.

Forget all about the Olay Smooth Finish Creme smeared liberally on my upper lip (and maybe a little on "that chin" as Queenie the neighborhood manicurist likes to call it) WHEN the Canada Post man rings the doorbell.

"What an odd man" I thought, recalling his buggy eyes and smirking twitchy mouth, as I brought the Amazon box into the foyer and placed it on the table under the mirror.

"Bloggerfodder," I whispered as I caught my pseudo-Santa reflection.

BLOGGERFODDER!

Pretty, Guilty

A lot has changed in the voodoo bungalow since I last visited my own blog. The most important one is that I have radically scaled back my work, so I can become fully human again and so I can finally finish my novel-in-progress. That's all well and good, mental health yada yada yada, creative fulfillment blahblahblah--but this life of leisure comes with a price tag. A price tag more or less equivalent to my former monthly salary. What's a girl to do, then, when she sees her new favorite dress hanging in a store window?

I offered to tell jokes behind the counter for two whole hours, at a reasonable hourly wage of $200, but the uptight owner wouldn't even entertain the idea. Some people clearly choose to work with people because they hate people.

Emergency trust fund withdrawal? Bernie at the bank would look at me sternly over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses and say something about "octogenarian despair" (like I'd want to live to 80 WITHOUT THAT DRESS).

My car is probably worth $400 if I wash it, but I'm going to need it to go places in my new dress.

I could try to sell Elvis's dog drugs to children but. . . . I can't believe I even wrote that down. I would never do that. I wouldn't. Not that they would even hurt the children, being antibiotics, but still. Maybe some stomach upset, but likely only mild stomach upset, and it is a very cute dress. Okay, fine, no dealing antibiotics to the local urchinry. FINE. I WILL REMAIN POORLY DRESSED AND DIE ALONE.

Except that a very odd thing might have happened minutes after the boys went to tennis lessons: the mountain hotel in which we were to spend a few brief, probably dull, hours swimming in a mineral pool and eating at what has been no doubt hyperbolically called "one of the best new restaurants in Canada" on our way South to the Excited States might have called to say that they changed their mind about having a dog in room 144.

My family was sad to hear that this might have happened, but they're a pair of manly stoics: we will just have to make it to our destination in one long day of driving in the hot sun with a smelly hound in the back of the station wagon. And we've saved ourselves $422 dollars!

Which means I had 22 dollars with which to buy some quality chocolate for the guys. Hopefully they will remember my generosity if they ever discover that I am wearing our vacation.

Minnesota in the morning

The Internet has done many mean things to me. It has publicized an unfortunate photograph of eyeless me in a sunhat; it has turned me into an Etsy addict (but isn't this cute? At least I will be a well-dressed Etsy addict); it has, via webmail, caused me to hit "Reply All" when I ought not to have (I didn't like that job anyhow) (and he was a bastard) (and he basically had it coming) (but I am sorry about his wife being pregnant with the quads at the time); it has caused me to spend sad amounts of time obliterating jewel-toned stars in an attempt to I forget what but it really seems really important at the time. You know the story.

But the Internet has done at least one lovely thing for me: it has found me the very greatest friend. Who is a decade younger than me, lives in a different country, and over whom I tower, particularly in the orange platform heels I cannot wait to show her tomorrow. She is the finest munchkin bestie in tap shoes that a girl could ever have. We met in the chat room of a Swedish blog (thanks, Emi!) and instantly bonded over  almost everything, from Edward Gorey to Opi "Mermaid to Order" nail polish to taxidermy to interesting metaphors about rolled up microwaved cheese quesadillas (don't ask). In the last few years, we've had a first date in Los Angeles--and neither of us was a serial killer! Yay!--and even our ridiculous husbands got along; then a birthday trip to Calgary (it snowed);  a family vacation lakeside in Idaho (there were margaritas); and a writers' conference in the far suburbs of Vancouver (there were no omelettes). And tomorrow I get to go to Minnesota! I have been promised gin, backyard toad lesbians (really), no hikes, lots of floppy-hat and sunglasses events, a French dinner and four different ice cream parlours except without the "u." I hear there is a bomb shelter. I KNOW.

Thank you, universe, for the Internet.
See you tomorrow, Grits!

WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!

Things I learned today:

1. Never give up with the plunger.
2. Snake bites hurt, even if (especially if) given by smallish but fierce little people disappointed about television.
3. The time lag between my snapping someone's head off and their unwise decision to say even ONE MORE WORD about the amount of liquid that the very expensive organic chicken breasts have given up, even if it is a sign that they have been previously frozen and a practical guarantee that they will be tough: 3 seconds. I am nuclear powered!
4. A child can weep for a toy that was "disappeared" four years ago.
5. A farting foxhound does nothing to alleviate tension in a room in which a child is weeping for a long-lost toy and a spouse is kvetching about meat products purchased by a FREAKING VEGETARIAN, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT DO YOU EXPECT.
6. Ahem.
7. A plane from Calgary International Airport leaves for Barcelona at 11.47 this evening.

Meet me at the gate?

OH in Ottawa

If you couldn't afford to HAVE a child,  you shouldn't have had one. --apropos of not buying a Certain Someone an iPad on the grounds that they were expensive

Jay-cues Fartier! Who's he when he's at home? --upon scaling statue at Parliament Hill of Jacques Cartier, the modern European discoverer of our fair nation

My mom is super grumpy today. Something about the moon and her ovals. Blah blah blah. -- informing the waiter at The Metropolitaine about why a Certain Someone was sulking over his steak frites

Creepy, dusty stuff. -- critical appraisal of The Canadian Museum of Civilization

THIS BABY JESUS DOESN'T HAVE A PENIS. I THOUGHT HE WAS GOD. -- Renaissance Gallery, National Gallery of Canada

Is that the Prime Minister's car? How do they know we don't have A BOMB?! WE COULD JUST THROW A BOMB RIGHT --  hastily shushed observation about security, or lack thereof, at Parliament Hill

If that guy behind me doesn't stop snoring I'm going to shove Twizzlers up his nose. -- observation shouted while watching Teletoons with headphones on at 37000 feet

You at least have one dollar to spend on your child, do you not? I need a massage. --upon spying the vibrating chairs opposite baggage claim.

A picture is worth a few words now and then

You know, I'm not the biggest fan of Danielle Smith. But someone out there, someone who works for the Calgary Herald, really really must dislike her. Because this is the picture that ran on the front page today: 

It takes some doing to make the ultra-intelligent, telegenic Ms Smith look like a moronic demon. But someone sorted through about 10,000 pictures for THIS ONE and then put it in a newspaper. I think there's a story there; there's always a story there. If this were an editorial piece, in which there were words that said something to the effect that "Daniele Smith is an evil troglodyte who wants to eat Brian Mason for breakfast," we would demand to know what the writer was talking about, why on earth he or she would say such things, and we would get to the bottom of it: the prejudice, the gender bias, the personal dislike, newsroom tit-for-tat, the giddy bad-child glee of doing something mean--whatever it is that's behind this photo.

I don't even think I read the article beneath that photo. I was just stopped in my tracks by the weird ugly creepiness of the image, and I'm willing to bet a lot of other people were too.

They updated with this one:

This photo accompanied a story about Smith's stance that a certain homophobic candidate's personal views about gay people don't reflect her party's position (and let's hope not). The photographer caught her lowing. That's the only word for it. She looks like one of the vacant-eyed cattle that you see in the golden fields at the foot of the eastern slopes of the Rockies, conveniently portrayed by the background behind her.

You can laugh about it--or snicker, whatever--but it's not fair. Maybe I'm just a little sensitive to the way women are imaged right now after being forced to read all about poor Ashley Judd's "puffiness"(wish I had her problems, facially speaking, let me tell you). I do know that elections are won and lost by images--remember Dukakis in that tank!

If I had my way, Danielle Smith would lose this election, but because of her ideas, not because of being photographed vengefully. I think it's beneath the dignity of the Herald to keep up much longer with this tack.

And thus ends the political commentary portion of this afternoon's show. Back to regular programming tomorrow.

All figured out

I don't know what just happened.

All I know is that, one moment I was having a quiet cup of tea in my study, diligently writing away whilst reading sporadically from a text book on ancient greek constructions of masculinity, happy in the knowledge that Kid was in the hands of another capable parent (okay, so A capable parent), and the next,  the doorbell rang, there was a tumult and a howling hound dog and balloons and pumpkin seeds that I'm supposed to plant and photograph so Kid can be in a contest in OCTOBER?  and I had agreed to a sleepover involving more than one on-bad-acid-jumping-up-and-down, chocolate-besmirched, sweaty little boy, here in my basement.

All I know is that I heard Kid One say to Kid Two: "Hey, she's nice." To which Kid replied: "Yeah, I've got her all figured out."

Cauliflower witch

Hold tight, mates, this is something you won't ever see again: a recipe. On WornRagged.

I am not a good cook. I can make toast and tea, usually know the difference, and with the help of Mark Bittman, can even make falafel. But it's heavy seas and lots of churning stomachs and generally, it's best if the first mate handles the situation in the mess.  Which he is genuinely pleased to do. Considering.

BUT: I have a superpower. And it's one that you want to know about because it involves the world's third-least loved vegetable: cauliflower.

Tonight, and I tell you this without a world of a lie, Kid begged for THIRDS. Of cauliflower. I know, you want to touch me.

I'm not that big on touching, so instead, I'll pass along a very easy (like, duh easy) recipe for making cauliflower that even children will eat.

Take one head of cauliflower and break it into little trees. I know there's a tech term for that that ends in
-let but I've had some Riesling. Moving forward.

Boil the little trees for about two minutes in salted water, then let them drain.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil and as much garlic as you think you can stand plus two more cloves, chopped, for 30 seconds over medium heat.

Turn the heat to medium high, add the little trees, and make the whole thing brown. Wreck the garlic, even. Just brown it all.

Then squeeze one lemon over top it all, add some salt and: you will not believe it. Your children will eat cauliflower.

I know. I'm a witch. A witch with one trick. A one-trick witch (YOU try saying that after a little of the golden grape).

 I mean it, though: ONE trick. Don't ask me for help with your tea and toast because I will be of no use to you whatsoever.

Go forth and devour the cruciform vegetables like joyful harlots.

Soul mate

I sat next to an older lady (yes! older even than me!) at Kid's tennis lesson this afternoon.

Her: That one's yours? The tall blond?
Me: That's mine, all right.
Her: He's beautiful.
Me: God made him that way so we'd let him stay in the house.
Her: Ah. He's one of those gorgeous savage boys. It's easier if one drinks.
Me: Hello, soul mate. I thought you'd be a he, but whatevs.

That Woman

So today, I became That Woman. You've seen her, so don't pretend you haven't. Next time, give her a hug and whisper some sweet words of reassurance. Better yet, take her by the elbow and steer her to the nearest bar.

I was a middle-aged blonde who couldn't remember where she parked her station wagon.

Today, of course, because this is MY life, I was also the middle-aged blonde who couldn't remember where she parked her station wagon WHILE WEARING FAKE EYELASHES.

You want to be a middle-aged blonde wearing fake eyelashes if you're in a rocking gay bar in WeHo. If you've just hooked up with some decades-younger friends and you're showing them How It's Done. You do not ever--EVER--want to be the middle-aged blonde in fake eyelashes wandering the West Hills parking lot somewhere between SuperStore and Winners in search of a blue Subaru with a Thule on top. While carrying a shopping bag full of Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Christian tradition holds that today, Easter Saturday, was a Very Bad Day for Jesus, what with the going down to hell thing and being dead and all. Dude: I can totally sympathize.

Maybe this Riesling will put out the flames I imagine are being warmed up for me right this very instant.

Patented Parenting

Lookit wot I found.

Before anyone howls that poor Kid was forced to do homework over Spring Break when all his friends were in Maui eating breakfast with Batman, this was his schedule on Week 4 of Kid Is Sick: The Snotbomb Edition. If you look closely enough, you'll see that my hand was tremulous while I was writing this schedule. I honestly didn't think I was going to make it. I was researching Eurail passes (now featuring Slovakia!), convents, witness protection programs. I needed the hell out.

And out I got, thanks to my innovative "You whine, mom wines" program. I collected enough piggybank cash before noon to fund two lovely glasses of something crisp and white with a friend that evening. I'ma patent this idea, naturally, but until I get around to it, help yourself. It worked wonders for my attitude, if not Kid's.

Spring Break(ing Point)

Officially, today at 5 marked the end of Spring Break 2012 Hump Day. I didn't make it.  I found myself sitting fully clothed (in pajamas) in the unfilled 1960s blue bathtub with a hunk of bittersweet baking chocolate and my Kindle at 9:05 this morning, whilst Someone Who Shall Remin Anonymous (LIEF) banged on the door demanding that I fed him breakfast, which, he stipulated, would include the following food groups:

• Nutella
• Graham crackers
• Orangina

Kid clearly thinks that Spring Break is all about "vacation"--but moms who work at home know different: Spring Break is about not whacking people with frying pans.  It's about not crying before your teeth are brushed. It's about rationalizing things like hiding in the laundry room or behind the furnace. It's about picking up the phone and faking a conversation with a co-worker so as to avoid Phinneas and Ferb the one where Candace rats them out and there is a platypus that is a secret agent and a German evil mastermind and nutty hijinx ensue. It's about walking with deliberation past your secret chocolate trove and whispering to yourself "I can make it til noon, I can make it til noon."


Except I couldn't make it til noon and as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror--hunched over a spy novel, unbrushed hair, chocolate on the tip of my nose, SITTING IN THE BATHTUB WITH NO WATER IN IT--I realized that I would have to call in the Big Guns.

Literally:

144 minutes of peace, brought to us (ME) by the day that would live in infamy forever. 353 Japanese war planes--including 50 Nakajima B5N Kate bombers armed with 800 kilos of armour piercing bombs--and 6 aircraft carriers: that's about the fire power you need to reduce an 8yo boy to quiet introspection, or at least shocked awe. Whatevs. QUIET.  Write down, as it could prove handy one day.

Tomorrow: The Longest Day (177 minutes). If he watches it twice, that's a work day right there.

Other kids go to camp for spring break, or Maui, or Mexico. Mine goes to hell and back and lives to tell the tale.

Breakfast conversation

1. If you go one micro-inch past the line where your back turns into your bum do you still have to wash your hands? (YES)
2. Can germs crawl up forks? (YES)
3. Even if germs could crawl up forks, is it guaranteed that they will make you sick? (YES)
4. The dog licks his butt but he doesn't get sick--would I? (YES)
5. Are you sure that's egg white and not chicken snot? (YES)
6. Are you sure these eggs are safe to eat? (YES)
7. Are you really really really sure that's ketchup and not chicken blood? (YES)
8. Mommy, are you crying? (YES)

Science (isn't) fair

Okay, first things first: I'm probably not the most logical choice for science fair judge, even if the science fair is at an elementary school. I like science, I know how to spell it, and, technically, my doctorate is in comparative medieval science as much as it is in anything not otherwise labelled "whackadoo." (In fact, next time someone asks me what my doctorate is in, I'm going to say "whackadoo.") But still, let us be clear: I am an insane person. I am a writerly person. I am a person who believes that no one is bigger than the story--even if that story happens to be about how maybe batteries work.

Knowing full well that I was an imposter, I spent quite some time this morning making sure that I had "science" hair--a neat chignon, no wisps, sprayed into place. I might have rearranged things so that the white covered the last brave strands of whatever colour you call that. . . .rodent? Old people are good at science. Hello, Marie Curie? Einstein? Rex Morgan, MD?

I wore "science" clothes, too: a dark sweater reminiscent of a lab coat except that it was black, not white, had a ruffled Elizabethan zipper effect up the front, and featured a sparkly 1940s Sherman paste brooch. But other than that? Dead on science.

I was filled with confidence. I didn't even need one of their lousy rice crispie squares to help me gnaw away nervous tension. I could handle Grade 6 Science. Rational, equilibrium-y and very clever in an unassuming sort of way: that was me, entering the gym.

The first little boy that I was to judge--blond, blue-eyed, wearing a tie and a checked shirt--was the double of my son. Science? It went bye-bye and I helped him fix his hair, congratulated him on his printing, taught him how to use regulated breathing to control anxiety, and noticed that in the photograph of his sub-sub-zero temperature tests, he appeared to be wearing only a thin hoody. Was he trying to catch galloping pneumonia? Where was his common sense? Did he know how this kind of self-destructive behavior hurt his mother? My judgey partner, the bad cop, came over all intelligent, asking questions about data spikes and controls. When he raised a question about Blond Science Boy's data, I snarled "CAN'T YOU SEE HOW HARD HE WORKED ON THIS?"

An uncomfortable science may or may not have followed. I was busy fixing the kid's tie.

In the end, I gave him a perfect score. The girls who reminded me of the mean girls in elementary? Not so much. It might have been that their science wasn't up to snuff. I mean, it probably was because of that.

Next year, they might want to think about maybe asking someone less properly turned out and more completely tuned in to do their judging for them. It could be me. In a year? I could maybe do that. It would be kind of a neat experiment.

Why we hope he retains his good looks

Attention, heiresses: he can't add but he's cute and his mom has fabulous costume jewelry. Serious inquiries only.

The truth is out

Me: Hold on there, short wheels! Let me make sure you've gotten all the peanut butter off your face before you head out the door.
Kid: Did you get it all? Are you sure? Are you lying?
Me: Why would I let you go to school with breakfast all over your face?
Kid: Because you're an evil un-mother who hates her child.

There you have it. Unmasked.

Our Great Lives

Every morning, it's the same thing around here.

Me (suspicious, surly): You have to be at school in 10 minutes. Ready?
Kid (beaming, positive): Yep. I just have to do one small thing. Where's that book? I'm supposed to have read up to chapter 4.

He is/we are about to break the school "times late" record, set back in 1972 by a kid who didn't know he was enrolled at that school.

It's not all that surprising, I suppose, along the lines of "the nut does not fall THREE HOURS LATE too far from the tree."

DH has his own time zone, which is 15 minutes later than whatever time it is wherever he's supposed to be. It gets complicated on some of those international dateline trips we're always taking, and it has so far kept us from visiting Newfoundland, which, as you certainly know, operates 30 minutes ahead of Atlantic time. On Newfoundland Standard Time--observed only on Newfoundland, the little islands offshore, and in Labrador south of Black Tickle. (As an aside, "South of Black Tickle" sounds like a salty maritime romance novel, doesn't it?)-- we would never know whether it was The Reckly or Bumbuy. Which cannot be a good thing. There is probably some way I could work it all to our social advantage, but it would involve moving to Newfoundland and lying to DH about what time it was for the rest of my life. I have no moral qualms about this, I simply worry that I'm not smart enough to remember what time it really was. Is. Will be. See?

I myself am an accomplished waster of time, no matter what time it is. Today, for example: today I had a day off and resolved to write fiction for a few hours, to get back into the swing of things. Except that I had to look up the etymology of "procrastinate" in our giant OED, which meant finding the magnifying glass. I researched Banff hotels and made reservations for this weekend's inaugural ski trip. I looked at maybe 3000 pairs of shoes on Zappos. Even though they no longer ship to Canada. I contemplated the purchase of clocks made in the shape of biohazard signs. I researched Newfie slang (obviously), consulted a hip-hop dictionary, and shared bad jokes on Facebook with people only too happy to play along. Most of them are writers, naturally, probably with their own deadlines to avoid. And so here it is, 11:24pm MST (2:54am NST) and I've managed maybe 150 words of "real" writing, despite having been writing all day.When this book is finally done, it will have a molecular weight of 53 words for every word visible on the page. (That's how "Science" works.)


I can't fault Kid for having observed and internalized a relationship with time that is not strictly sidereal. From now on, I'll be making it clear to everyone we know--teachers, friends, dentists, music instructors, tennis coaches, babysitters, etc.--that we move in Great Years here in the voodoo bungalow: stuff gets done but according to no calendar that any person currently alive could possibly hope to see through its cycle. 25,800 years seems about right for most of the things we aim to do, from spelunking in the laundry room to finishing The Breadwinner to nailing the step back onto the front porch. We've obviously been setting the bar waaay too high by attempting to live our Great Lives according to a cramped and insufficient schedule. Already I feel the stress simmering down. 

The Suburban "Great Year" Excuse: brought to you--slowly, peripatetically, with no discernible sense of schedule--by your friends in the voodoo bungalow.

Pregnancy Diet

I was the most content pregnant woman in Germany, maybe even in all of Europe. I'd just left a stressful and all-consuming job in LA that involved a lot of silly but somehow sharp office drama (it devolved to the point that at least once an hour I held scissors to my own throat and pretended to cut my jugular just because and only because it upset one of my co-workers). I was a bitch and a drudge and a scourge and my name was well on its way to becoming a byword among the nations. My unpleasantness and disaffection were Biblical.

And then a miracle happened and I was whisked off through no virtue of my own to this shiny new life in Europe: no work, no reponsibilities, no deadlines. Plus: a free car! It was that magical. And the most magical thing of all: at an advanced age and with no expectations at all, suddenly a suspected case of food poisoning turned into a baby on the way.

I had just finished a lovely 6-week vacation/language intensive on the Baltic Sea, in which I swam. I walked about 5 miles a day through hilly German vineyards, ate well and often and according to the finest of nutritional guidelines, slept when I was tired, read books, saw old friends and made new ones. I tried different things--not just odd German things like their late-night talk shows that inevitably end with someone on rollerskates wearing feathers talking about the Euro Zone, but different clothes and different music, books, speed limits, opportunities, boundaries and horizons. I did all this in the name of being a memorable parent, a deserving mother, a woman prepared and excited to help this child make his way through a strange world.

I glowed.

This is no longer the case, this glowing. And it's not because all those bouncy hormones have pulled up stakes. It's not just that I'm watching 50 creeping up on me in 15 short months, bringing with it crepe-y skin, kooky knees and adult acne. It's that I've lost my lustre. It's not depression, that black velvet comforter that keeps a girl in bed with the blinds down; this is more like a set of scratchy flannel pyjamas in an unpleasant shade of ecru. There are no raisins in my oatmeal. One of my sparkplugs has crud in it. My dog won't hunt. My tiara don't sparklie.  Bleah. Just. . . bleah, is all.

Getting knocked up isn't an option this time, but I'm going to put myself on a pregnancy diet again just the same. I'm not talking just blueberries and brazil nuts (tho also blueberries and brazil nuts). I'm going to try to live this day-to-day adventure as though I were uniquely responsible for nurturing a small life inside. But this time it's mine.