Tinking

Tink has wonderfully and graciously named a holiday after me, and today is it. I love her. Even better, she's using the day to spread appreciation all around the blogosphere. Plus, she's hot. Make sure you stop at Pickled Beef today to join the love-in.

Those that know her need no encouragement to stop by her blog. She's endlessly creative, interesting, entertaining, and prolific. She's full of positive contradictions--young, yet very worldly; perpetually upbeat, yet never annoying; a little zany, yet completely sensible. Her photos are beautiful, her games are fun, and her recurring features--stream-of-consciousness thoughts, personal ad commentaries, beautiful photos, and especially Daily Hoop Conversations--are better than any you'd find in a newspaper or magazine.

Tink, thanks for all that you do. You are one of the brightest lights in the blogosphere.

C.S. Post Roast

C.S. turns 30 today. Hooray!

In her honor, today's blogging will consist of potentially embarrassing and hopefully moderately humorous little tidbits about the busty best friend we all know and love.

1. C.S. once lived with a WASP. No, not a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant; an actual wasp. He made his way into her dorm room, and she didn't kill him or chase him out. They coexisted peacefully for almost a week. Yet, at the same time, she was terrified of these large, harmless, slow-flying bugs with triangular heads that neither of us had seen before or since, but proliferated on our college campus. She screamed for me when she saw one of them in her room.

2. C.S. has never barfed. And yet...this past spring, C.S. maxed out after holding Sage. She passed him to her mother approximately ten seconds before he barfed up an entire bottle. I was washing dishes at the sink, my back to them. I heard The Sound, and turned around in time only to see C.S.'s shocked mother completely coated in white, and C.S. doubled over with laughter.

3. Her teeth are enormous. Mine are small. We have often said that if one were to average our teeth, one would come up with some normal-sized chompers.

4. She puts on body spray by spritzing it into the air in front of her, then frantically waving her arms around.

5. She gets disgusted by people drinking milk with savory entrees.

6. She gets mad when people order the same thing as her, or as each other, in a restaurant.

It's for all these reasons, and many, many more, that I love her.

Happy birthday, C.S.!

The 8 Things Meme

I have a vague memory of promising to do this. Of course, I also have a vague memory of my mother coming into my room in the middle of the night on Saturday (never happened), and, yesterday, out of the clear blue sky, I woke up with the realization that I had never really liked this guy that C.S. broke up with a long time ago and hasn't spoken to in years. So, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed right now.

1. I have never successfully made what I would consider a really good vinaigrette. I've tried and tried and tried. I've used various permutations of ingredients, both ordinary and exotic--champagne vinegar, grapefruit juice, basil, sugar, wine, dill, vegetable oil, fresh garlic, roasted garlic, buttermilk--all to no avail. If anybody has any vinaigrette secrets, please share them with me.

2. I'm in the process of assembling a "go" bag for use in the event of an emergency. As part of this process, I spent part of yesterday looking at "survival knives" on the Internet instead of showering, and also contemplating whether I should include some decent reading material in the bag as a necessity, along with items such as water and matches.

3. The best pair of pants I've found in recent years came from Old Navy. I wear them several times a week. I think they cost me $20 about five years ago.

4. I have a lot of trouble whistling.

5. I love to eat breakfast foods for dinner.

6. I hate removing staples.

7. I love peaches, but I avoid them because of the extreme disappointment I feel when I bite into a mealy one, and for the life of me I can't tell from the outside which ones are mealy.

8. I wash most of my fruits and vegetables with soap and water.

A Question

Q: When is a baby most likely to end his nursing strike?

A: During the precise 20-minute period that you have allotted for your only shower in 36 hours.

The dark side of the moon

In spite of New Yorkers' reputation for rudeness, we have created an elaborate system of etiquette with regard to alternate parking. Basically, we all double-park on the side of the street that is not being cleaned. The police, and everyone else, tolerate this, because we generally leave notes in our windshields with addresses and/or cellphone numbers, in case the blocked-in individual needs to get out while the alternate is in effect. Additionally, it is understood that we will move our cars promptly at the appointed time, and probably a few minutes early. This system, generally speaking, works swimmingly, until some selfish bastard comes in and messes it all up.

This morning, our car was parked in a "Friday" spot. It being Thursday, we had an opportunity to move it to the other side of the street at the time that the Thursday parking restriction ended. In spite of needing to hunt around for an important file (which I have yet to find), I dutifully went to the car a few minutes prior to the appointed time, scanned the opposite side of the street and found My Perfect Parking Space, and prepared to nab it, only to find that I was almost completely blocked in. It would have taken the precision of a Swiss watch genetically combined with the brain and hands of a neurosurgeon in order to maneuver out of that spot.

So, I waited. Surely, the owner of the car would be along any minute.

I waited. Someone else nabbed the spot. No matter; there were still a few left.

And I waited and waited and waited. A kindly man finally came by; it looked like he was gesturing that he was going to move it.

"I'm sorry; it's not my car," he said. "But, if you'd like, I'll direct you out of the spot."

What seemed like 37 tense, sweaty minutes later, but was probably only about 6, I was on my way. The man had staved off oncoming traffic, had gotten me out of the spot uneventfully, and had bid me good day. God bless you, Nice Man, wherever you are.

Naturally, all the spots were gone by the time I got out. Except, of course, for the massive spot at the end of the block where parking is strictly prohibited for no apparent reason.

When all was said and done, I headed to the health-food store, where there were 7 employees chatting about how difficult their jobs were, yet nobody was available to help me get the bottle of fenugreek located on a shelf approximately four miles above sea level. The fenugreek is to increase my milk production, since it just sort of plummeted within the past few days, again, for no apparent reason. A minimally helpful breastfeeding book informed me that this can happen at around three or four months postpartum, and gave no further explanation. This is terribly inconvenient, as my children currently want to consume enough milk and/or formula each day to feed a small country, and I'd like as much of it to come from me as possible.

Today, I am having a lot of trouble finding my inner French girl.

So, instead, I think I am going to find my inner Irish girl, and have half a Guinness (good for lactation) while I pump. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

The World's Shortest Wine Review

Trader Joe's Charles Shaw Collection Sauvignon Blanc:
It tastes good. It's $3 a bottle. Buy it.

(Plus, I got carded! Yay!)

Summer Evening

Tonight, Sage and Thyme steadfastly refused to nurse, forcing me to pump in order to relieve the pain. They deemed the sight of me pumping insufficiently entertaining, though, and finally--and reluctantly--deigned to stop crying once I settled on precisely the right combination of rocking their bouncy seats with my feet (for those not in the know, a breast pump requires that you clutch the pump to your breasts with your hands, thereby ensuring that the time you spend pumping is as boring and inefficient as possible), and making up new and entertaining lyrics to "The Wheels on the Bus" (the bus in question is now occupied by Daddy, Joan Rivers, Nana, and several stuffed puppies).

When I finished pumping, Sage started to cry and refused to stop until I gave him the bottle earmarked for his brother. Then, he promptly fell asleep, providing an opening for Thyme to chime in. Chime in he did--splendidly. (This was also the moment at which Sage turned his head to The Bad Side That We Are Supposed to Discourage So His Head Doesn't Get Any Flatter, and the point at which I realized that I finally had an opening to clip Sage's surfboard-like nails, and I couldn't exploit it, because his brother was fussing.) Thyme refused food and comfort, preferring instead to stare in awe at the closed Venetian blinds while perched in an awkward pose in my arms that required me to contort my back. This lasted for roughly eight minutes before he began howling (although my stomach had been howling for at least 45 minutes). Once the howling commenced, we alternated the breast and two kinds of bottles until he decided what he wanted. He finally settled on expressed breast milk, and I seized the opportunity to shove a miniature Nestle's Crunch bar in my mouth.

Daddy will soon be home from his after-work drink with his colleagues.

Guess who will be making dinner tonight.

Quote of the Day

Courtesy of Ty. Background: I heard that a former foe of mine had suffered a public humiliation, and was trying to glean as much information as I could from the Internet.

"I'm going to bed now. Have fun playing on schadenfreude dot com."