seafood drama

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I forgot to mention that since I had been craving crab legs since before Labor Day, last Friday I managed to drag Kris out to dinner with me. I bribed her by offering to pay. That girl is a sucker for a free meal.

I did some digging around online, looking for local seafood restaurants that:
(a) served crab legs – online menus are my new favorite thing.
(b) was in a semi-reasonable price range – yes, I’m having a pregnancy craving, but $45 for crab legs? Um, no.
(c) was located within a reasonable commute of both me and Kris, since we were coming from different directions and had already decided to meet at the restaurant.

I found a place. I had been there once before, but it was at least four years ago, so I didn’t really remember anything about it. Still, it got a decent review on CitySearch, and it met all of my criteria, so it looked like a safe bet.

Kris and I met up there, got a table, and ordered our food; she got the halibut, and I got the 2-pound whole dungeness crab. Mmm, yum. I couldn’t wait, I was practically bouncing in my seat from the anticipation. I had been daydreaming about this meal all week long.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Good thing they bring you rolls at this place, otherwise I would’ve fallen over. Finally, our waiter came over and apologized for the delay. He said that there was a problem with my crab – he was about to bring it out to me, when the restaurant manager walked by and noticed that it smelled “off.” So they were making me a new, fresh crab.

Umm, ok. I guess that’s fine. Kris and I were both surprised that he basically admitted that they have spoiled food in their kitchen, but it was nice that he was honest.

A few minutes later, he came out with both of our entrees. Since the waiter had told me that they were making me a “fresh” crab, it didn’t even occur to me that maybe I should sniff it before I ate it.

In retrospect, I really should have. I had the first bite and it was… wrong. It was too dry, and sort of spongy. It was not at all like crab is supposed to taste. I guess I didn’t notice the smell because I had dipped it in butter. But when I picked up the remainder of the crab leg and sniffed it, it smelled vaguely like ammonia. Oh god.

The waiter, of course, whisked it away immediately when I told him. He offered the Alaskan king crab instead of the dungeness, but before I agreed, I grilled him with questions: “But are you absolutely sure that it’s fresh? Because I’m five months pregnant, and I have been craving crab legs for the past two weeks, and if this meal is going to suck, I might cry in the middle of your restaurant.”

(Incidentally, Dave was horrified when I told him that I said that to the waiter. Kris, on the other hand, was sitting directly across from me, and she was all, “That’s right, you BETTER bring her some fresh crab!” I guess that just goes to show how women understand important things like food cravings.)

Another half hour later (after Kris had long since finished her meal), I finally got my Alaskan king crab. It was ok, just sort of meh. I think they served melted margarine instead of real butter, which honestly just ruins the whole thing. If I compare the expensive restaurant meal to my grocery store “krab” with real melted butter? I think the faux-crab wins. That’s pathetic.

Also? Even after all of the inconveniences, the waiter didn’t comp a single thing on our check. He billed us for every last nickel of it, including Kris’s diet coke. (Except my rotten crab, he was kind enough to deduct that.) He got a less than stellar tip.

Just in case any of you who read this are on Seattle’s Eastside, this was the place. Avoid it at all costs.

Oh, and for the record? Since that meal didn’t quite live up to the fantasy in my head, I’m still sort of craving crab legs. Sigh.

cleaning is my cardio

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I thought the whole idea of nesting during pregnancy is that it takes place during the last few weeks? Apparently that is not the case with me. Ever since this second trimester started and gave me back my energy, I have had some house-related project every single weekend. It’s borderline-manic. Dave seems sort of confused by my behavior; I just tell him that it’s helping my brain relax, and he leaves me alone with it.

So even though I’m sure y’all are probably sick of hearing about it, here’s the list, so Dave will have sufficient evidence against me when it comes time for my commitment hearing.

This weekend, I:
* Cleared enough space in the garage that there is now more than enough room for all of the doors and baseboards that are being delivered later this week.

* Washed and folded four loads of laundry. Dave’s sock drawer is now so full that it won’t close all the way.

* Cleaned our bedroom, and in the process, found Dave’s glasses that he thought he had lost weeks ago. Go me. And go Dave, who no longer has to wear his big nerdy glasses from high school that make him look like Harry Potter.

* Cleaned my office. (Except for the litter box in there, because that task is on Dave’s to-do list while I’m in this delicate condition.)

* Started to clean out the baby’s room, which is weird to say because until now it’s just been a guest bedroom, or a junk room. (Mostly a junk room.) That’s going to take a while to finish up, and will require some help from Dave, because there are a few heavy items in there (i.e., boxes of books) that I am not going to attempt to carry downstairs by myself.

Oh, and at some point on Saturday, I went to retrieve our garbage can from the end of the driveway (garbage pick-up is on Fridays), and I noticed it was still full. The hell? A couple of our neighbors happened to be driving by, and they stopped and told me that the waste management guys are on strike. Lovely. Don’t our garbage guys know that I have big important cleaning projects to do? Stupid jerks.

This weekend I also started watching a few of the baby shows on Discovery Health. I know that’s generally not a good idea – I’ve read stories of pregnant women weeping over the preemie babies as their husbands physically wrenched the remotes out of their puffy little pregnant hands. But honestly? Those shows don’t really scare me that much. At least, not in a “oh dear god, what if this baby is born at 24 weeks and almost dies and has to spend the first few months of its life in the NICU?” sort of way.

However, it does make me start thinking about the pregnancy timeline a bit more. And it occurred to me that by Christmas, I’ll be 35 weeks pregnant, and if the baby is born then, it’d most likely be healthy and ready to come home after a very short hospital stay. So that makes me feel a bit “holy sh*t, we have to get our entire house baby-ready within the next 3 months!!”

I don’t know what it is about that February 2nd due date – somehow it seems a lot farther away in the future when you think of it as being “next year.” Next year? Heck, it’s not even really fall yet! We have all the time in the world to prepare!

But if I think that it could happen toward the end of this year? I wig out.

And then I read the crib reviews in my Baby Bargains book (which is seriously the greatest book ever, and I’m going to owe my cousin’s wife a thank you note for recommending it), and I see that sometimes nursery furniture has to be ordered a few months in advance, and I wig out some more.

Logically, of course, I know that newborns don’t really require that much. All I really need is a car seat, and maybe a Pack N’ Play that I can use as a bassinet for the first few weeks. And it’s not like newborn babies can crawl, so I don’t have to worry about the fact that one of the cats got upset about my cleaning a room and decided to go poop in the corner. None of that stuff really matters.

It’s just this idea in my head of not being prepared for the baby by the time he/she arrives. It feels like that nightmare where you’re in school taking an exam that you haven’t studied for. It’s a horrible, anxiety-ridden feeling.

So, in the meantime, everyone will just have to excuse me while I’m using the DustBuster to clean all of the windowsills in the house. Because this is just how I cope.

confession time

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Ok, this is where my nesting instinct has led me:

Oh yes, the boxes in the garage, they will be labeled. In various fonts. And then, perhaps I will stack them alphabetically. I haven’t decided about that last part yet.

You can make fun of me if you like. Believe me, Dave mocked the label maker plenty when I first bought it. Then he decided it would be a good idea to label all of the cables on the surround-sound system/home network in his office, so he can actually find what he’s looking for when he needs to go un-hook or re-hook something. Which he does all the time. Because he’s a guy.

So, ha! The label maker shall eventually be loved by all. Except Teenie, who clearly expresses her disdain for it in that photo. (Although honestly, as much as I love her, I admit that “disdain” is sort of her default setting. Not with me, of course. She’s all cuddles and purrs with me. The rest of the world? Not so much.)

Moving on: I have no idea why my father seems to be such a recurrent topic on my blog lately, but here he is again. The other day, we were having a conversation and he asked me if I was showing more now than in the last photo he saw of me. (I sent him that picture of me when I was 12 weeks pregnant. Six weeks ago.) I was like, “Um, gee. What do you think?”

But since my dad doesn’t have much of an imagination, he asked me to take more pictures. So I did. And here, we have the belly at 18 weeks.

Before you judge me, remember that I have a very short torso.

Although even considering that, I figure that at my current rate of expansion, by Christmas the circumference of my waist will be approximately the same as my height. Terrifying.

Also noteworthy: yesterday morning I was lying in bed during that decadent eight-minute stretch before the snooze alarm goes off. Unlike most mornings, I was actually awake during this little snooze-break. Dave and I were talking about feeling the baby move; people keep asking me if I’ve felt it kick yet, and it bothers me that I always have to say no. As if I’m going to get graded on the progress of my pregnancy or something. (No kicks before the 20-week mark: C-minus!) The problem is, what with all of the other “tummy issues” that I have on a regular basis (which we won’t discuss here), I really wasn’t sure if I had felt it move yet or not. I was waiting for some really obvious sign. Like, I don’t know, the outline of a footprint on my stomach.

I told Dave that the night before, as I was trying to fall asleep, I felt some fluttering that felt a bit more front-and-center than my usual tummy stuff, and I thought that might have been the baby moving. But I wasn’t sure.

Dave got up and went downstairs to turn the kettle on. (Those Brits love their tea, dontcha know.) I stayed in bed, lying on my side, with one hand sort of on top of my stomach. As soon as Dave left the room, I felt something bump my hand. I’m almost positive it was a foot. It shocked me so much that I yanked my hand away, and it took me a few seconds to recover to even realize that, “Hey! That was it!” So that was pretty cool.

Of course, I’ve been totally unable to re-create it ever since. It’s not like I can teach the baby to kick on demand. Yet.

Labor Day summary

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The weekend housework report:
* I worked in the garage for a couple of hours on Friday, but it was just too hot, so I gave up pretty quickly. According to the forecast, this weekend is supposed to be in the low 70’s, so hopefully I can finish it up then.

* On Friday, I ordered new doors, baseboards, casing and crown moulding for our entire house. It’s all part of the big Pre-Baby House Renovation Project. But fear not: we have a contractor who’s going to install the stuff, we aren’t going to do it ourselves. For one thing, we want the work to actually be finished by the time the baby arrives. For another, we don’t want it to look like crap. However, the price tag on this little project is steadily climbing. I’m really glad that I get frequent flyer miles whenever I use my credit card.

* Yesterday, I cleaned out our bedroom closet. That’s actually a much bigger feat than you might imagine. But it’s a small space, so it felt really good to start and finish a project in one day. And now Dave will never be able to find his clothes because (gasp!) they’re all on hangers in the closet, rather than on the floor or in the laundry basket.

* Speaking of the laundry basket, I folded a good three or four loads of laundry yesterday, which my lower back really didn’t appreciate.

* I also made my first-ever attempt at cooking lasagna, since I thought that might be a good dish that I could potentially make and freeze for after the baby arrives. This was just a trial run to make sure it would be edible. And it wasn’t bad, but I need to remember to add more salt in the future.

Other odds and ends:

I’ve been having problems with an internal application at work, so this afternoon I had to call our helpdesk. While I was on hold, I heard muzak/instrumental versions of “Fernando” by ABBA, one of the “Fame” songs by Irene Cara (I’m not sure which one), and “Your Song” by Elton John. The music of my childhood has been deemed appropriate for elevators and hold music. I suddenly feel very, very old.

The news about the Crocodile Hunter made me incredibly, inexplicably sad. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. Mostly I just feel sad for his family.

On Saturday, I bought and paid for Dave’s birthday present, although I don’t actually have it in my possession yet. It’s driving him crazy because he has no idea what I’m getting him, he just has a few vague hints that I’ve dropped. And it’s a really good present, too; I’m quite proud of myself for thinking of it. I’m going to enjoy dragging this one out for the next two weeks.

Which reminds me: two more weeks until we know if the sprog is a boy or a girl! Aaahhh!!! I’m so excited, I can’t wait. I honestly don’t care either way, I just need to know. It’s driving me crazy every time I pass through the baby section at Target. Also, my dad has been forewarned that if my instincts are wrong and this baby happens to be a girl, and he dares to make one reference to Gone With the Wind, I will hang up on him, and he will not be welcome in our home at Christmas.

[For those of you who didn’t catch that reference: When Scarlett gave birth to Bonnie Blue Butler, Mammy said, “I apologize, Mr. Rhett, for it bein’ a girl.” My dad thinks that line is hilarious. Obviously, I feel otherwise.]

[Also: when I first told my parents that I was pregnant, my dad quoted Luca Brasi from The Godfather and said, “I hope your first child will be a masculine child.” Ever the movie buff, that guy. I didn’t really think that was funny, either.]

[Actually, I suppose either of those jokes would be funny, if you didn’t know my dad and you hadn’t already heard both of those movie quotes about thirty-seven gazillion times during the course of your life.]

[And what is up with me and brackets today? Weird.]

Random pregnancy tidbit of the day: I am craving crab legs in a big, bad way. Dave won’t eat shellfish at all – and is, in fact, repulsed when I eat crab legs because he thinks the whole shell-cracking thing is barbaric – so I think I’m going to have to enlist Kris to go out to dinner with me. It’s gotten so bad that last week, I actually bought fake crab (you know, “krab”) at the grocery store, and dipped it in melted butter. I even managed to gross out myself with that one, but I was desparate. I think it’s time to treat myself to the real thing.

CHAOS! at the hair salon

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So, there’s this big holiday weekend approaching – which is technically a four-day weekend for me, since I don’t work on Fridays – and we have absolutely no plans. Because it appears that we are the Boring Household.

Ok, so that’s not entirely true. Dave and I are both getting haircuts on Saturday, and then afterward he’s meeting up with one of his friends at a local brewery. I volunteered to be their designated driver, because I’m nice like that. I haven’t decided if I’ll go back home and watch TV while they’re out getting sloppy drunk on expensive microbrews, or if I’ll go shopping and keep myself busy in the general vicinity of the brewery. Probably the latter.

** Random Story Alert **
I was supposed to get a haircut on Tuesday evening, but it didn’t happen. I went to the salon, got my eyebrows waxed (I was long overdue), and then when I was waiting for my hairstylist, the power went out. I have no idea why, there was no bad weather or anything.

You know the constant white noise of hair dryers that exists in most salons? It was suddenly rendered silent.

And the Gwen Stefani background music? Muted. Which, to me, was sort of a blessing.

I thought it was hilarious to sit back and watch all of the gorgeous size-two stylists in their high heels running around all aflutter because they didn’t know what to do. (That’s another random aside in itself: how do those girls wear those shoes when they work on their feet all day? I cannot imagine how much pain they must be in. Or maybe they’ve done it for so long that their nerve endings are irreparably damaged and they have no sensation in their feet anymore. I can’t figure it out.)

I’m sure the power outage would have been infinitely less amusing if I had been in the middle of getting highlights and was sitting under a hair dryer with a head full of tin foil. But I haven’t colored my hair since 2003, so that didn’t even occur to me until someone else pointed it out. I suppose I should be grateful that my haircut hadn’t even started yet.

Anyway, my hairstylist found me (in the dark! go her!), and we decided to just reschedule since nobody knew how long the power would be out. So now I’m getting a haircut at the same time as Dave on Saturday. Still, that was quite possibly one of the strangest hair salon experiences I’ve ever had.
** End of Random Story **

Ok, back to this weekend: haircut, designated driving… what else? Oh, one of Kris’s friends from Memphis is visiting this weekend, so I’ll be meeting up with them on Sunday for dinner. Aaaand, that’s about it. See? Boring.

Although, last weekend I started cleaning out our garage, which is a pretty huge feat, so I might be continuing that little project this weekend. There are still a lot of boxes of things from my old apartment that I never unpacked when I moved in with Dave, and because they’ve been left around for so long, now they have to be thrown out. Anyone need a toaster filled with cobwebs or a bottle of Pepto-Bismol that expired in 2005? I didn’t think so.

Of course, if you read this post and then just read the above paragraph, you have by now figured out that I am a bit of a hoarder. I have a very difficult time throwing things away. But that seems to be one of the perks of pregnancy, I’m now running around shoving everything that I don’t absolutely need into trash cans. I’m trying not to throw away any of Dave’s stuff unless he’s given me express permission to do so, but it’s really difficult.

pregnancy brain sets in

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I have heard hundreds of stories of how scatter-brained pregnant women can become. It’s mentioned in all of the pregnancy books, I know it’s a very common ailment. So far, I’ve had to deal with things like forgetting what I needed to buy at the grocery store – annoying, sure, but nothing too scary. But now, I offer my own undeniable proof that gestating a fetus has led me to lose my damn mind:

I’m at work, and I was just composing a work-related email. It was addressed to someone who I have emailed and spoken on the phone with, but who I have never actually met in person. I believe it’s also worth noting that my boss was CC’ed on the email.

I had my mouse hovering over the “Send” button, and was about to click it, when I suddenly thought, “Hmmm… Something on this email doesn’t look right. I should double-check it.”

My error? I signed a business email with this closing:

Love,
Cindy

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!! Thank the baby Jesus in heaven that some shred of my former brain showed up long enough to make me think twice before clicking “Send,” because that could’ve been positively mortifying.

Honestly? I think that just about sums up how my Monday is going so far. I should probably go home and crawl under the covers before I embarass myself any further.

granddaddies

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My paternal grandfather died when I was 4 years old. He was 74. Obviously, I was too young to remember it, but I’ve heard the story since reaching adulthood, and here’s how I understand it happened:

It was July in Mississippi, and the temperature was at least 100 degrees that day. Lord knows what the heat index was. In spite of the heat, my grandfather and his friends went out to play golf, because that’s what they did every day. At some point, my grandfather felt sick, so his friends took him home. He went to lie down, my grandmother left the room (either to call the doctor or get him some water, I don’t remember which), and when she came back into the bedroom, he had died.

I’m still angry that he died that way. A man his age had no business being out in that weather, but he was stubborn and wanted to play his stupid daily golf game. (This is just one of many reasons why I despise the entire “sport” of golf.) I feel cheated that I never really got to know him. I have a few vague memories of him, but mostly, all I know is what other people in my family have told me about him. And that’s lousy.
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