the pieces of my life

I’m going out of town for a few days, so I’d really like to leave you with something profound. Of course, nothing profound is coming to mind. I’m heading tomorrow, straight from the office, to the airport where I shall be whisked away to that magic land known as “Eat Until You Puke” (formerly known as “Drink Until You Puke,” however, Brown Brown has insisted upon a name change). The trip to New Orleans could not be more fortuitously planned: just today I went to the doctor’s and learned that I gained twelve–yup, count ’em twelve–pounds in the last six weeks. Which is bogus. According to my scale it’s only been about eight in the past bunch o’ weeks. Which just goes to show me that I have to schedule these appointments for 8 a.m. and I can’t eat before I go. After lunch visits aren’t working for me. But, since the doctor said that I am still well within my healthy weight gain (I’ve actually only gained fifteen pounds since the very beginning, so everything is groovy), I plan on not worrying and having that second order of beignets, thank you very much.

Now, stop reading if you are my parents: The doctor measured my uterus (and interestingly, used a paper tape measure. I wouldn’t have thought those things needed to be disposable), and I commented, “I’m going to keep that belly ring till the bitter end.” She replied, “It actually looks okay.” I said, “I had a friend who just had a baby and her belly button never went outie.” She replied, “Oh, it’s that’s not the problem. It’s that the skin between the holes gets stretched out so the holes enlarge and the ring gets closer to the surface.” Blech. I thought I only had to worry about outies. I’m loathe to take the belly ring out, because it’s the third most permanent thing I’ve ever done in my life (the second most permanent thing is my marriage. There’s a tie for the top spot of most permanent things: Brown Brown and my tattoo), and I’ve had it for ten years now, which is pretty much as long as I’ve ever had anything. It was my last gasp of New York life before becoming a West Coaster. (I told you two to stop reading! But you didn’t pay attention did you, and now you’re grossed out all over again that I have a belly ring. Well, too bad.)

Now I need to go and obsess about what I’ve forgotten to pack. It’s usually socks, but since I’ve already got those, it’s going to be something else this time. Something bigger and better. And tomorrow I can go to work and obsess that my 1,500-word article is at 3,000 words and it still doesn’t have a lead. And at 6:10 p.m., I’m going to get on a plane, and I will be done obsessing. Till next week!

Whooo hooo! I am so there. And it’s actually a sunny day to enjoy it.

I struggle and struggle and struggle, but just can’t come up with a lead to the article I’m working on. I’m never at a loss for words. So why the problem now? Ugh, frustration.

The paternal parental unit and the sororal sibling unit descended upon Boston last Thursday. The Tweedly Twirp mostly kept me company while Peter tailed Adam around HBS like the eager beaver he is. I mean that almost literally—Peter only wears his M.I.T. class ring (only I promise, the number on his ring is nowhere near 2004) when he goes to Hah-vahd, so he won’t accidentally be thought of as one of them. And yet, he returns each semester and harangues Adam until he sends him his needed cases, because he can’t get enough of the HBS experience. If anyone wonders where my extreme ambivalence about HBS originates, look no further than my father.

So while Peter was learning about Timberland and banking in Germany and accompanying Adam on manly tasks such as a trip to Home Depot, Tweeds and I hit the mall for maternity clothes. This is only after my Old Navy shipment arrived and she burst out laughing at me when I tried on my new bathing suit. “But,” she stuttered as she gasped for air, “it’s so big! You’re so big.” Gee, thanks. And I’m guessing in the next 19 weeks, I’m not going to be getting any smaller (and for the record, I’m actually not very big, but when you’re a size zero munchkin Tweedle Twirp, everyone looks big to you). But amusement aside, she was a helpful assistant as I tried to get in and out of these mammoth pieces of cloth that never seemed quite as large when they were on my body. Of course, after our trip to maternity land, we required stops at Pottery Barn Kids and GapBaby, where the Tweeds helped me pick out two outfits for Brown Brown (I’ve decided not to follow the old Jewish superstition about not buying anything before the baby is born. I think it’s going to be a lot more fun shopping now than it is when I have a screaming Brown Brown in my arms). The only frightening moment came when a woman was trying to buy a baseball cap for her son, who must have been about four or five. “Okay, Conner, you have to try this on.” Conner was having nothing of it and skirted out of Mom’s reach. “Conner, you must try this on if we’re going to buy this for you,” she said as she tried to force the cap on his head. Conner, however, was quicker than his mother and scooched (yes, that’s a word because I say it is) down to the floor. His mother wrestled him to the ground (that’s both of them on the floor of the Gap, wriggling around and she tries to smush this red cap down on his blond head), trying to force the stupid cap upon his head for a few minutes before standing up and saying, “Fine, you can’t have the hat then.” She turned, glanced at my stomach, and then said, “See what you have to look forward to?” I said, “But there are good times, too, right?” She smirked and walked off. Reassuring.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful. I ditched the gang after a breakfast at S & S deli to take my yoga class. I love this yoga class, although it’s so 1970s you kind of want to laugh at it. Lots of cushions on the floor. Blue carpet. Wood paneled walls. Chimes and new age music. But it’s a great stretch and very relaxing and I enjoy being in a room with other preggos. After, I had grandiose plans for how we’d spend the afternoon, but the rain was fierce and everything was outside, so we ended up hanging in and I think all of us fell asleep. We, of course, ended the evening at Legal Seafood, because no trip to Boston is complete for Peter until he has his lobster.

The two left yesterday, but it was no biggie as I’ll see the Tweeds on Wednesday in New Orleans, and both parental units in a month back home (that’s Miami Beach, for those of you who just started playing). Adam went off to a barbecue, and I headed to Shannon’s for a good old fashioned lingerie/sex toy party (think Tupperware party, only with more mentions of the word “penis” and “g spot”). No need to go into detail because, honestly, it was just some good clean American fun. It definitely made for a laugh-filled afternoon. I’m just now trying to figure out how I can get the Partner’s Club to have one of these. If any of you are reading this, I’ll even volunteer to set it up. I mean, what good CWIT isn’t proficient in the bedroom (or whatever room you prefer). Get back to me, ladies, on that one.

Apparently my cousin Daniella has been keeping a blog for a little while now and just neglected to mention it to me (for those who know her, this is the cousin Daniella from New Orleans). Good thing I check my referral logs every now and them. Anyway, go read her blog.

I’m only 59% snob! At least according to PBS’s snob quiz. It tells me I’m “a long way off joining the ranks of the blini-nibbling, bubbly-sipping, double-barreled brigade but then [I’m] no champion of the proletariat either.” It ends by telling me “the middle class beckons.” Sigh. Give me a chance (and a big fat income)! I could learn to be a snob!

Just a quick shout-out to prove once again that there are more to us CWITs than just manicures and nannies. Our very own Carly (who I should point out is already a chemical engineer) not only got into the nation’s top-ranked education program, but they wanted her badly enough that they’ve offered her a very nice scholarship to woo her. I wonder what kind of scholarship her HBS husband got? Yeah, that’s right. You go, Carly!

Since I’m going to be giving my life over to that of a CMIT (as coined by Adam’s sectionmates, a Corporate-Mom-in-Training), I figured it was time I sucked it up and learned how to be an HBS wife in style. And that, apparently, includes scrapbooking. Everyone talks about it, many of my friends have succumbed, and I get more e-mails about scrapbooking events than any other from the Partner’s Club. So, I figured, why not try it. After all, I should probably get past photos in order before Brown Brown comes and my stack of photos grows even taller. I mean, I’m no longer a newlywed, and yet I’ve a stack of wedding crap waiting to be put somewhere.

So I attended a gathering among friends (which means I can openly mock them). All I can say is “Wow.” This is a real live actual cult. With pep talks and support groups and everything. I have to say, sitting around a table with a bunch of girlfriends (wishing I could join them in having a glass of wine), it’s easy to be seduced by the soothing colors and fancy tools. Oooh, a punch! Aaah, fancy scissors! Eee, pretty patterns! I spent half an hour just trying to decide which way to make my squares go.

Final verdict? Well, it seems they were offering up grape Kool-Aid, and I really prefer the fruit punch kind, so I didn’t partake. I don’t think scrapbooking is going to be a passion of mine, and I did go into it with an open mind. However, I definitely enjoyed the company of the women and will certainly return to future events with my own albums to organize, albeit probably a lot more plainly and more straightforward (with photo corners straight on the pages) than their artistically done masterpieces (some of their stuff is incredible, but it just doesn’t feel like old slap-n-dash me). It was great fun to be able to chat and enjoy myself without having to meet with everyone in smoky bars or over expensive dinners. I’ll just have to find another way to get my CWIT credentials.

Now, if you were given told by your husband that you could celebrate your first wedding anniversary any way you wanted, I know you would have picked waking up at 4 a.m. to watch a re-enactment of the Battle on the Green, the battle that started the Revolutionary War, in Lexington. So you understand how excited I was that our anniversary happened to fall on Patriot’s Day, which is a gosh-darn real holiday in the state of Massachusetts. A classmate of Adam’s happens to live in Lexington, so he and a gaggle of MBAers staked out a spot early. We left the house a little late (waiting for a friend) at about 4:45. The morning was slightly chilly, but quite nice. We found the gang easily and we stood around. And stood around. And stood around. Finally, at 5:30 a.m., the bells started to toll (don’t ask for whom the bell tolled! Well, okay, it tolled as an alarm for the Minutemen). Then, 15 minutes later–well, I don’t suppose I have to tell you, because you would have all heard it. After all, the shot was heard ’round the world. First two guys made off with a trunk of John Hancock’s papers to keep them safe. Then, the scairdy cat simply ran away (that must be the most junior position in the re-enactment: scared guy who runs away). Then, the Redcoats. Those guys marched up and lined up and stood in a pretty row with their lovely bayonets and muskets. My big question is why didn’t the Minutemen just shoot them while they were standing there? The Redcoats aimed, they fired, and within minutes the battle was over. Dead and wounded Minutemen littered the ground as their bonnet-covered wives (otherwise known as CWITs–Colonial Wives in Training) ran by their sides. And then it was over. The Redcoats marched off to Concord and we marched off to a friend’s for breakfast (well, fruit for us, as it’s Passover, but pancakes for everyone else). Two highlights: Overhearing someone calling for directions to where we were and just hearing, “You can see the Redcoats? Follow the Redcoats” and the war protester watching the battle re-enactment. Something about that one…. I am a little disappointed to learn that some of the militiamen wore “wicking sock liners.” Doesn’t seem very 1775, does it?

You can be sure the next to-do item on our list was a nap. And a lovely one it was indeed.

I figured one of the benefits of pregnancy was I’d no longer have lost weekend days because of hangovers. And it’s true. Now, instead of lying on the couch on a beautiful Sunday afternoon moaning that my head is pounding because of two too many glasses of red wine, I can lie on the couch on a beautiful afternoon moaning that my head is pounding because of the raging hormones and the sleep I missed because of an aching back and three late night trips to the bathroom. It’s a whole new world.