Reaffirming My Position

I tell you it will happen. 

I don't claim to know how or when, but they are coming. I'm not crazy. Wait and see. Migraines pass and the blur of tired vision clears. Hope and hot water bottles prevail. 

Buns in the Oven

Stayed awake half the night thinking about these:

This is my eleven-day-old cousin. Well, eleven yesterday.

She's the procreatee of two wonderful people:

Can you tell which is my blood relation?

Because I was up so far into the night (morning), thinking about my own long and winding path to parenthood, I woke up with a sick, underslept headache. It turned migrainous later in the day. I was good for much of nothing from that point on. No cooking. No thinking. No talking. Nothing but down comforter and hot water bottle (thanks again, Mirjam) and drugs and shades drawn.

I emerged from my underground cave hours later, and was met by these beauties cooling on the kitchen table:

The Baker Man had been hard at work. He had also filled my giant red Knit Night pot with chicken soup, but I didn't get a picture of that. Nice late supper. Nice Rob. 

Talk about comfort food. I'm going back to bed now to dream of lovin' from the oven. 

So I Married a Magpie

Look at the shiny thing Rob found in the road by IFA and brought home for me. I'm pretty sure it had been run over once... or twice. Yeah, that is a little grease on it. I got that on my hands, in my hurry to open my first-ever package of baseball cards. 

They were printed 12 years ago! Who buys baseball cards and doesn't open them for 12 years? Am I missing something important about baseball card culture? Are these guys even still playing?

Can you spot any modern-day Babes in this lineup? What do I know? Nothing. Somebody help me out here. About the closest I get to baseball is watching soccer when I eat at Mama Pupusa's across the street.

Oh well, I'm more interested in bird-watching than big league, and I do find it fascinating to study the stuff my pet collects. I really like that magpie. Here's a fun song for him that I hope won't ruffle his feathers—

Brown Paper Packages

This morning a mysterious box appeared on our porch from some of our favorite people on earth. I laughed when I discovered it. I brought it inside and set it on the dining room table. I waited all day to open it. All night too, nearly. Wasn't that nice of me not to rip right into it when mine wasn't the only name on the package? Wasn't I the epitome of self-control? I had to pretend it wasn't there, had to ignore it. Wasn't easy. I mean, these are best beloveds we're talking about. And a history of interesting packages from said beloveds.

Hey, it's a coffee machine! (Wait, we don't drink coffee!) Hang on...

It's a box of John's incredible pickles! Party time! (Could you hear me wishing for some of your okra spears? I've been craving them since October. Seriously.)

And a bee-YOO-tee-full Christmas photo of the kiddos and one heckuva lucky red cat, but I'm not sure if I should post it. What do you say, pickle pals? Mugs or no mugs? 

Now we are waiting for one very special occasion to crack open these bottles. We are waiting for, say, tomorrow. That's special enough, or will be once the beets and okra start flying.

Thanks, friends! We love you and are working on a plan which will allow us to take a tuck in the western U.S. so we can be close enough to see you once or twice in a while, at least. 

I've been hearing this song in my head since we opened the box:

Green pickles, red pickles
Send 'em to Utah with a stamp
The stamp of love (the pickle stuff)
People people
Paper paper
Paper paper
People people
People people
Pickle pickle
Pickle pickle
Paper paper
Put the pickles in the package
Send the package to the people
Let the people eat all of the pickled beets
And okra baby
Yeah

Love Gifts

I received two Love Gifts today, one from a dear friend, and the other from my lovely mum-in-law.

One gift I understand:

The other I do not:

Look closely at the details.

See how this one is intended to help me sleep? Notice the ingenious ribbing; I can pour boiling water straight from the kettle into this bottle (and I did, just now), crawl into bed with it and snuggle up, and it won't scald my skin. Brilliant.

But this one! I swear this one wants to play havoc with my dreams. YOU try staring for a moment into that one creepy blue eye and then tell me this Mammy doll wouldn't just looove to mess you up good on your way to Slumberland! I'm a little afraid of Mammy. Her attitude toward me doesn't change even after I reason with her that I'm not racist and that I do want her to have a great life, follow her dreams, and go by her real name. She's not buying it. She won't see my point. I guess having only one eye kills your perspective...

I think I'll have to resort to the safety technique I employed in a similar emergency when I was a kid. I hid the scary hard plastic killer doll (who GAVE me that thing anyway?) in the bottom of my closet, smothering her beneath all the extra blankets and shoes I could find... and then I lay awake, thinking about her, hoping she couldn't dig her way out and get me.

Good thing I have this new hot water bottle to help me feel secure.

Remind me to tell you sometime about the crazy bloodthirsty antique doll (child-size) I watched walk down a hallway one night at a childhood sleepover. Aiee!

Sliding (part 1)

Photography tip: If you want to capture a feeling of motion in a picture, it generally doesn't work to shoot straight into the oncoming action, like so:

and so:

and so:

and so:

or you wind up getting static shots that give no sense of speed. Shoot from the side or it will make little difference whether your subject moves rapidly (Rob) or slowly (Geo); what you'll end up with is a static image. As in this case, you could miss out on accurately demonstrating the whee of an overdue sliding lesson, sought by an eager, awkward novice and delivered with playful panache by a long-time pro, at Utah Lake on a bitingly cold New Year's Day. (But this doesn't mean it wasn't fun.)

More on this and other January subjects tomorrow. Happy 2011, everyone.