November 23, 2009
Happy Birthday, Stuart!
Every year around this day, or to be more specific, on this day, I get to say aloud what I think all the time, which is, “What a terrific man is this Stuart character I’ve somehow got myself hooked up with.” Because he really is fantastic, and in seven years I’ve not even begun to get enough of his marvelous company, and I’m so proud of the thirty-year old man who’s made a life for himself that that twenty-three-year old I met years ago would be in awe of. So grateful also that he’s so unfailingly good to me, and for the life we’ve made together.
In short, he’s fantastic, and during the past six months he’s been put to the test, with his patience, caring nature, hilarious sense of humour, much relied-upon ingenuity, and his understanding rarely waning. And that they rarely waned rather than never did only shows he’s human, but what an extraordinary one. Harriet and I are so very lucky, because he’s an excellent husband and a wonderful dad. I love him very much.
Happy Birthday!
October 9, 2009
Clare/Lawler Thanksgiving Menu
Butternut Squash Soup
Grandma Reynolds’ tea biscuits
Roast turkey with blue potatoes and rainbow carrots
Sweet potato sausage stuffing
Steamed broccoli
Cranberry sauce
Apple Pie
June 22, 2009
It's hard to be hip over thirty
I’ve been rereading my copy of poetry collection It’s Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty by Judith Viorst (of Alexander’s No Good Very Bad Day). My edition is a gorgeous Persephone Book (endpaper as above) and I’m rereading because I’m turning thirty on Wednesday, and as I certainly found it difficult enough to be hip under thirty, I need all the help I can get. From the title poem:
All around New York
Perfect girls with hairpieces and fishnet jumpsuits
Sit in their art nouveau apartments
Discussing things like King Kong
With people like Rudolph Nureyev.
Meanwhile the rest of us
Serving Crispy Critters to grouchy three-year-olds
And drinking our Metrecal,
Dream of snapping our fingers to the music
If only we knew when to snap.
But it’s hard to be hip over thirty
When everyone else is nineteenm
When the last dance we learned was the Lindy,
And the last we heard, girls who looked like Barbra Streisand
Were trying to do something about it.
We long to be kicky and camp– but
The maid only comes once a week.
And since we have to show up for the car pool,
Orgiastic pot parties with cool Negroes who say ‘funky’ and ‘man’
Seem rather impractical.
The Love Song of J. Aldred Prufrock,
Which we learned line by line long ago,
Doesn’t swing, we are told, on East Tenth Street,
Where all the perfect girls are switched-on or tuned-in or miscegenated,
But never over thirty
Trying hard
To be hip.
June 19, 2009
Flowers in the window
It was four years ago today that I married my husband and started out on this rather mad journey that has been us as a family. And now we are three! And however terrifying and awful the past month has been very very often, the moments of absolute delight have been sparkling and they’re really all that I’ll remember of it anyway. Stuart’s love and support has been unwavering, his patience infinite, and I couldn’t imagine what this all would have been like without him. He’s as good a daddy as he is a husband, which is certainly something. Harriet and I are a lucky pair, and we love him very much.
From the song we danced to at our wedding, which I heard for the very first time one sunny morning two days after we first met, when I just knew….:
There is no reason to feel bad,
But there are many seasons to feel glad, sad, mad.
It’s just a bunch of feelings that we have to hold,
But I am here to help you with the load.
Wow, look at you now, flowers in the window
It’s such a lovely day and I’m glad that you feel the same.
‘Cause to stand up, out in the crowd.
You are one in a million and I love you so,
lets watch the flowers grow.
May 10, 2009
The Immovable Baby
Though we love our own mothers dearly, continental drift and late-pregnancy laziness meant they were sorely neglected today as Stuart and I enjoyed Afternoon Tea together, a Mother’s Day treat for me though I’m not quite a mother yet. I did earn a bit of mother cred yesterday, however, when a doctor spent twenty minutes or so inflicting great pain upon my abdomen in an attempt to get our determinedly sideways baby to turn. (All reports say I was very brave! and then after I got Dairy Queen). Baby didn’t budge, however, and I’ve got to respect that. And now, after about six weeks of trying to get Baby to move through a variety of means, I’m giving up. I was very much committed to having a natural birth, but this baby is very naturally sideways, and I’m just pleased it has a means to still get here safely. I could spend the next two weeks resorting to further measures, but I don’t think they’d work, and I’m also really tired. I am finished work now, and my sanity will be much more assured if I can spend this time relaxing, planting flowers in my garden, reading novels, writing while I still can, preparing food for the freezer, stocking the pantry, and taking plenty of naps. (This will also give me time to sew reusable baby wipes, which I have somehow been possessed to accomplish, even though I don’t know how to sew. It is unfortunate my “nesting” instinct has taken on such inconvenient forms.)
And who knows, Baby might turn on its own anyway? But short of that, and providing Baby doesn’t decide to come earlier, we are excited to know we will meet the wee one on the morning of May 26th. I’m not looking forward to a cesarean, which certainly wasn’t what I’d envisaged, and in fact I am very scared and upset by the idea of a long recovery when I’ll need my strength more than ever. But so many others have done it fine, we have a lot of support, and I am very fortunate that a) I’ve now met the surgeon and I love him and b) my midwives will be there to take care of the baby and me, and provide after-care (I love them too).
From our prenatal class manual: “Cesarean mothers… are courageous women who are willing to be cut apart for the lives of their infants. Perhaps it is time to congratulate yourself for your strength and courage.”
April 12, 2009
Easter Sunday
Even though we celebrate religious holidays in a secular fashion at our house, there was plenty going on this Easter Sunday. Springtime, first of all, with blue skies and sunshine. Tulips on the table, and a special Springtime cake. The ever-present squirms of our baby, who we’re just weeks away from meeting. A brilliant dinner of delicious lamb and vegetables, and seeing family. The wonderful news of another new baby, to be joining our extended family in October. This whole weekend full of good friends, delightful celebrations, and the week-old baby we got to play with on Friday. (Indeed, our lives are babyful of late. Which is good practice.) And another day off tomorrow. Now reading (the gorgeous) The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and certainly this is life.
December 31, 2008
The pause before the scones
Before heading downstairs to bake the final scones of 2008, I pause to post some New Years wishes. For 2009, I make no resolutions, because things will be changing whether I will them to or not, and certainly, I am no longer (as) in control of it all. During 2008, we drove down some amazing highways, saw new places (California!), found a new home, I read 155 (some) extraordinary books, I’ve written and published an amount that satisfies me, had fun in all kinds of weather, and enjoyed myself much in the company of family and good friends. For 2009, I wish health and happiness to those around me, a fat kicky baby in my arms, to read some more extraordinary books, and at least two handfuls of truly good days.
December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas
Christmas Eve was always such a funny day, so wondrous and yet so ordinary. You’d have to keep reminding yourself, “It’s Christmas Eve!”, all the while incongruously eating your cheerios, brushing your teeth, going through the motions. This all to push yourself forward, because the magic is never apparent until after the sun goes down, so you have to conjure it in the meantime. And enjoy this lazy lovely day, should you be so fortunate to be spending it as a holiday. It is to be hoped that those who aren’t so blessed are granted an early dismissal.
Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays from Pickle Me This. If you don’t have any books on your tree, I’ll cross my fingers you find some good ones under it.
December 16, 2008
Postal Motherlode
Today we arrived home to a bundle on the doorstep– ten (10!) Christmas cards, all for us. It was as good as Christmas morning, really, and we opened them one-by-one, delighting. And then had to add a second string to our fireplace display, which is quite remarkable for one day’s pickings. Oh, for the love of December and perpetual post.
We are also happy this year to have a fireplace at all, though of course hanging our stockings on the bookcase was never a bad thing, but there is a certain authenticity here at the new house, even if the fireplace is a wee bit bricked up and a storage space for magazines. We trust Santa will find his way…
