Saturday, November 16, 2013

Coming to grips with the obvious

It's official: bump is here. I'm not the only one that can tell. Tim and I aren't the only ones that can tell.


I ran into an old co-worker this past week, someone who changes his work locations frequently, on an as-needed basis. Okay, fine: he's a security guard. He was called in to work at my new location, so we had a chance to catch up. It's been at least a year since I've seen him.

He's a runner. I'm a runner (don't laugh; I AM when I'm not 20+ weeks pregnant!). Actually, I think the last time I saw him, he was volunteering at the Hell of a Half Marathon in Exeter (August 2012). So I asked him about his running; he updated me, and said, "you're probably not doing too much running these days, with baby."

"Huh? How did you...?" And he gestured toward my belly. "It's pretty easy to tell." Oh, yeah, huh.

It's getting bigger every day. It's not so incredibly scary (actually, I thought I'd have a harder time with that aspect than I'm having), but it's just something to get used to. It's kind of like those pre-teen and teenage years where everything grows, you don't fit into your clothes, you trip over your own feet... you swipe your car door against your belly... It's just a new experience for me. I haven't had to worry about that kind of crap since middle school? high school? ish?

Friday, November 8, 2013

A trip to ye olde neighborhood market

Have you ever heard ONLY GOOD THINGS about a place, and then when you finally go there for yourself, IT SUCKS OUT LOUD? Well, that happened to me. I've been hearing about this place - a grocery chain in the area where I live - from a friend-that-was (she's no longer a "friend," really). She said that she loves this place for produce. Just for produce. She goes to another grocery store for EVERYTHING ELSE, and THIS PLACE just for their produce.

So last night, when we wanted to do a caprese salad for our Thursday night dinner (it's a special night for us), and because this new-to-us, "amazing produce" grocery store is on my way home, I stopped there.

I should have known it would suck, just from the parking lot: it looked like a scene out of CSI. Not that I watch that show. It just looks like the perfect place for a mass killing / murder/suicide / shooting spree. Plus, shopping carts were everywhere (one of my pet peeves). Certain types of "music" blared and bumped from 1970s-era Cadillacs, and 2000s Hondas, many with fuzzy dice hanging from the rear views.

I managed to find a parking spot not occupied by a shopping cart (at least, at that time), park, and walk in. The whole place smelled like my grandparents' house - I'm still trying to figure that part out. I only needed tomatoes (heirloom), basil (fresh, not dried), a hunk of mozzarella (fresh), and a loaf of some kind of yummy bread. Four items. Not too much to ask, right? Tomatoes. Basil. Cheese. Bread. Easy.

First up: heirloom tomatoes and a bunch of basil. But it was difficult enough to find the produce section in this place, and all of a sudden - because of the overall feel of this place - dank, musty, old - I just wanted to run screaming out of there. Tomatoes. Basil. Focus. Don't panic. Eventually, I found the produce section (small, as it was), and the tomatoes. Some in the middle section, some on one end, some on the other (why? why would anyone spread tomatoes here, there, and everywhere? ugh). But no HEIRLOOM tomatoes. None. Okay, backup would be the "plain old regular" tomatoes. None of them looked outstanding. Just normal - the same quality as the grocery store where I normally shop. But there I was, so I got a couple.

Next: basil. Almost every single bundled bunch looked like it had been run over by a tractor. I managed to go through them and find one that only looked like it had had a few worms eat at it. Bagged that sucker, and headed toward the cheese.

Not surprisingly, the FRESH mozzarella I was looking for did. not. exist. There was only the dry, string-cheese-in-a-big-ol'-ball. Hello, disappointment.

One more item: the bread. The LOAF of bread. There were PLENTY of tortillas - packs of 25, 50, or 100. Tortas. Fried tortillas (what are those called? I forget). There were bags and bags of pre-sliced, very-processed loaves. That's definitely NOT what I was looking for. There were a few bags of prepared garlic-butter bread. Nothing like what I was looking for. I would have to go somewhere else. Somewhere like my regular grocery store, that had better tomatoes, basil, and cheese than what I had in my hands.

So, at the end of a very long week, at the end of a long day, I went to two - TWO - grocery stores. When I could've just gone to ONE. Ugh. And THAT is why I tend to stick to the tried-and-true, time-tested, run-of-the-mill, reliable grocery stores.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

20 weeks

As of TODAY, I'm halfway there. Twenty weeks. A little over four and a half months. It's crazy - everything was slow at first, and then all of a sudden, March 23rd (my due date) is tomorrow, and we don't have anything ready, just a few outfits and a crib that isn't assembled yet. There's an issue with the TWO showers that people are doing for me (one up north, and the other one here in town):

There's no registry. Yet.
No research has been done. Yet.
Child proofing.
Strollers.
High chair.
Car seats.
Baby monitors.
Classes.
Beds and bedding.
New York.

Did I mention we're going to New York? We planned the trip waaaay back in...March (ish), thinking and hoping that I'd probably be pregnant by now, but never realizing just HOW pregnant I'd be. It doesn't matter, though - hell or high water, I AM running in Central Park. Nothing's gonna stop me, even if it's only for a quarter mile, I'm runnin'. I, for one, never considered what all would be happening at this point.

I'm tired.
I'm out of breath.
I can't sleep.
I have a belly.
I'm always hungry.
My feet hurt.
My back hurts.
I get leg cramps at night.
I have to pee.

Besides ALL that - as if all of that weren't enough - it's coming up on my least favorite time of year: the holidays. I hate the forced time together. The "whose parents are we seeing on X actual day this year" and the "what do I get for X this year" and the "what do you want for Christmas" (because heaven forbid you say the truth, that you don't really need/want anything, and would just prefer to chill out with people you don't see throughout the year, just talking, maybe taking walks and hanging out)? Not that I have an opinion one way or the other.

Also in December: our niece is getting married (way, way, way up north), and we have a few nights reserved at an awesome timeshare in downtown San Francisco (and I REALLY don't want to miss out on THAT, but who knows how I'll feel at that point, six months pregnant). I'm pretty sure I'll still be in the mood for Ghirardelli Square. San Fran has GOT to be a 'GO' - that's all there is to it.