I cannot handle the TINY-NESS of these things.

On Sunday my mom threw the fetus a party, and my aunties and my cousins came, and my in-laws and my sister and her in-laws, and my neighbor and her daughter and my Robyn (between two night shifts) and my Laura (who drove all the way from Abbotsford) and now the fetus has enough party dresses to last her at least a year.

Gifts ranged from the practical

to the delightfully impractical

and if she ends up accidentally being a he, he is going to have nothing to wear.  Except maybe this leopard-print number.

There's something about tiny hats and tiny shoes, because people can't not buy them.  I now have loads of both, and I will not complain because AIEEE SO TINY.  Also, I want to roll around in a heap of swaddling blankets.

Mum asked the internet what our babies would look like, and the internet spat out THIS, which is why you never ask the internet anything.

I was looking at these pictures later with Joel, and I was like, Holy cats, I am so pregnant.  Because I can't usually see myself except top-down, and from up here my belly is overshadowed by my ridiculous breasts.  But lo, I am pregnant indeed.

7 more weeks(ish), yo.

NaBloPoMo Redux

Hee hee, oh my.  THAT lasted a whopping day before I fell off the wagon.

And now it's late and I am a-sleepy, but I will have an actual post for you tomorrow. For now, rest easy in the knowledge that deep-fried pickles are not just a gimmick

but are, in fact

ridiculicious.

(This is not just the pregnancy talking, as even the girl who doesn't like pickles liked the deep-fried pickles.  The smoked-jalapeno ranch probably helped.)

A week late, a dollar short.

Remember, remember in past Novembers when the NaNoWriMo people have written a novel in a month and we NaBloPoMo people have contented ourselves with blog-posting every day for a month?  I had sort of forgotten about that until just right now, but!  Let's give it a go, yes?

It balances out all the mini-Oh Henry!s I have eaten/am about to eat.

I have been doing Zumba with a girlfriend for the past four weeks or so, since right around the time when I had to stop running, and it. is. hilarious.  It's mostly made up of very sexy dance moves, or straight-up aerobic moves scuttled to look like very sexy dance moves (at one point Alicia and I turn to each other and are like, We are not fooled.  These are just jumping jacks).

And any chance I had of being uncomfortable doing sexy dance moves in a well-lit, highly-mirrored room on a Tuesday morning is eradicated by the company I keep (several older Asian women, occasionally one dude in his late 40s who obviously comes with his wife, two East Indian women who have got to be in their 50s) and by my hilarious belly.  I have added at least a quarter of my former self ONTO myself and am splendidly large.  It makes my boob-shimmy highly effective.

ALL THAT TO SAY Alicia works Tuesdays now, and while I could feasibly bus my way out to Surrey for Zumba, I am much more likely to hit up the Aqua-fit just up the road.  AQUA-FIT!  I used to aqua-size with a girlfriend when I went to UBC, and we would laugh about having the corner on the young, able-bodied, non-pregnant market.  NO MORE.  Now it's just seniors and the slightly infirm and my fat self.

And everyone says that being in water when you are massively pregnant (seriously.  Massive.  I have two more months bigger to get HOW IS THIS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE) helps take the strain off your back and they are not wrong.  I am buoyant.  However.  No one mentions the sudden and debilitating resurgence of gravity when you get out of the pool.  I have never felt so heavy in my life.

I have a real doctor, but she's way over there.

I don't know what pregnant women did before The Googles.  The search terms I have googled in conjunction with 'pregnancy' are legion, and mostly disgusting.  Some of the lesser-embarrassing ones include 'pregnancy and nosebleeds' (super-common!), 'pregnancy and migraine auras' (not terribly uncommon!), 'pregnancy and losing an eyebrow' (commoner than you'd think!).

And I knew that lower back pain was a thing (because come on, these boobs.  If I were my lower back I'd be a jerk about it, too), but I've been having extremely localized pain in my mid-upper right back.

'pregnancy and mid-upper back pain'...hey, that's totally a thing!  Except everyone is like, Yes!  I have that!  And my doctor doesn't know what to do about it!  So looks like we'll just have to suffer through, ladies!

And then a few of them are all, It's trapped gas, or a pinched nerve.  At any rate, do X and Y to try to expand your rib cage, and that should help.

It helps.  Thanks, Dr Googles.

Sunshiiiiiiiiiiine

Stanley Park was lovely yesterday.

And adorably verminous.

Oh look, a Lost Lagoon!

Oh look, more beasties I should probably not want to cuddle with my face, but do!

Queen of Tarts

We had Thanksgiving last night because, as I have mentioned previously, my family cares little when the actual holiday is, and because Joel and I were in Whistler on actual-Thanksgiving with his family (Whistler on a sunny day is puppy-central and I petted all the ones).

Ok and at BEA I picked up this Pies and Tarts cookbook:

It's round (der) and every page spread has a recipe on the left and then a PICTURE OF THE ENTIRE PIE on the right.  I freaking love food pictures (and you are like, Really.), so I also got this cookbook in the Pizzas edition (same deal, but pizzas).  It was so hard for me to not grab All The Cookbooks at BEA because even though I don't really USE them (I have an internetz, after all), I find them so aesthetically pleasing.

Anywert, yesterday I pulled out my Pies and Tarts to find something to make for dessert, finally settling on a chocolate mousse tart.  Chocolate mousse, I could drink you with a spoon!

Also, there were raspberries at the store, and they did not cost a million moneys.

But ok, the mousse part took, like, an hour, and had eleventy ingredients, and there was a lot of stirring in a double boiler over barely simmering water, and whipping and folding in and then whipping of other things and folding those in, and it was very delicious but very rich and also the recipe made maybe twice as much as necessary.

I'm not totally sure what to do with all that leftover mousse.

And then the frostingy bit to go 'round the outside was just whipped cream with cocoa powder and some powdered sugar.  It took maybe three minutes, and was nothing like as heavy, OH AND ALSO WAS AMAZING.

What I'm saying is, for lazier days I will definitely just whip some three-ingredient faux-mousse and pour it on an oreo crust.  Hey presto.

Edited to add: tart was very good yesterday, but exponentially better the next day.  Maybe because I haven't spent the previous three hours 'sampling for quality' and 'making myself sick.'

Closed on Mondays, but open Tuesdays.

I haven't had all the donair in Victoria, but I feel safe saying that The Donair Shop does indeed have the best donair in all of Victoria.

In hopefully unrelated news, the amount I can slouch without my boobs resting on my belly is approaching nil.

Before she's even on the outside.

Totally annoyed with the baby last night for the first time (discounting those 'Lousy baby, can't have a beer' and 'Lousy baby, can't lie face-down' and 'Lousy baby, shoving all my stomach acid into my esophagus' moments) because I was awake at 3 (as one is) and she wouldn't calm. down. 

Like, after I drank the Toxic Diabetes Juice (To Test For Diabetes, But Kind Of Also To GIVE You Diabetes) yesterday, it was like popcorn popping in there.  And I dig.  You have just had your first taste of candy-for-breakfast, you clearly need to climb some walls.  (Uterine walls.  Ugh.  Sorry.)

But in the middle of the night you need to settle for a few desultory kicks, maybe a bit of backstroke.  Mostly, though, you could practice sleeping.  And then *I* could be sleeping.

Victoria, I have missed your face.

I have been in Victoria for four days and have hiked Mt Doug three times.  Because it is Victoria, it usually rains on us while we are hiking, and then by the time I've gotten home and showered it looks like this:

Victoria is a contrary beast.

When I'm not hiking, I go for a lot of coffee.  Or Erika (the woman at whose house we are staying) and I go for lunch.  I should have asked her years ago for eating advice, because she knows all the good places, like the alleged best donair place in town (it is tragically closed on Mondays.  We may go there next week, or I may never confirm it's 'best donair' status).  At any rate, we had to settle for a smoked meat sandwich and poutine, which we shared, obviously.  I mean, come on.

La Belle Potate, you guys.  Serves mainly truckers and mechanics and hungry pregnant women.  Will give you extra pickles if you appear to be gestating.  The non-small poutine seemed like a mistake, but upon further reflection (the next day at lunch, while we ate the leftovers crisped up in the toaster oven) was probably the right idea.

In which I catch you up.

Mes amis, I have been neglecting you.  It has been...busy is the wrong word.  Full, maybe.

I went to see Robyn and Meredith and to pick Robyn's brain re: car seats and cribs, and to nibble on Meredith's fat baby arms.  Also, we had pulled pork.  Lucky for the arms.

I went to see my doctor and am still pregnant and appropriately fat, which counts as a successful visit in my books.

Anna came to visit and I picked HER brains re: post-maternity boobs, and we each bought a lovely blue-and-white-striped dress, which I will wear as a shirt.  One day I will do a post for you on my regular-clothes-as-maternity-clothes, because it's been working out well.

Also, I bought fat-pants.

They are comfortable like I can't even tell you.  And yet?  Most of me is still like Ugh, pants.  So I also bought leggings in a larger size, as to not have two waists.  Leggings-and-dresses feels very like the leggings-and-oversized-shirts of my childhood, only classier.

Have I mentioned that the family (boo and Darren, Matt and Gillian) all comes over for dinner on Thursdays?  And that company requires dessert?  Someone, possibly Amy Sedaris, compared raw ground beef to a woman putting on her stockings, i.e. it is the stage of the process that you should never let anyone see, because it taints the final product.  I feel that way about a lot of steps in food-making.  Like, no one needs to see the cinnamon buns when they are just a sheet of dough slathered in butter, with my hands all up in them (what.  You don't use your hands to spread the butter?).  Even seeing them at this stage is a bit deterring.

But there are about thirty seconds between them coming out of the oven and them being eaten, and those thirty seconds are required to frost them.  Besides, the lighting is bad then anyways.

Mum and I went to Target today.  I freaking love Target.  I have mostly been subsisting on non-maternity wear because maternity clothes are expENsive and also they come in sad colors and make me sad, unless they are LIZ LANGE FOR TARGET!  Target, why you no come to Canada?  You better re-make the hell out of those Zellerses you bought.

Also?  Someone bought teeny pink polka-dotted shoes.  I'm not going to name any names, but it sure wasn't me.  Yet.

We stopped at Five Guys Burgers on the way home, and somehow I missed the memo about the 'regular' burger being a double.

Mum got the 'little burger' in the background.  It was regular-burger-sized.  The fries were nothing to write home about

but the burgers tasted like being invited over by someone who is very good at bbq, and also has an enormous condiment-and-toppings table.  Also, my burger was, like, five dollars.

Now I am packing to go to Victoria for two weeks, and Joel is coming home tomorrow, and it is highly likely that I will nap between now and bedtime.

It is a wide and varied place.

Last night I went to the Richmond night market, which is all fried squid heads

and mushroom shoots wrapped in beef strips

and pork brains sui mai

and scallops with wasabi mayo

and steamed buns filled with pulled pork

and incongruous cowboys

and smoke and haze and shouting and rain.

And then this morning I went to the Granville Island market, which is all $110 handmade totes and paperies and hats with tulle and carefully-stacked fruits.

And I ate fried treats at each.

Moar shelves, please.

Wherever we set up camp, I like to have my Big Red Chair by my bookshelves so that I can use the shelves as a series of side-tables.  This is why we never have any clean mugs in the house.

It's also why I can never find any of my rings.

That one shelf is filthy because it's where I store my feet when I'm not using them.

I have been a crafty fish

I have been alchemizing some things.  Ok so yes, I am turning me and Joel into me, Joel, and a third person, but that is a very hands-free activity.

Hands-wise, in my spare time I have turned this pile of fabric

into this jaunty skirt

and this pile of fabric

into this sack-like dress

which I patterned after this dress

which I bought in Turkey and whipped on one day, figuring I could still wear it since IT IS A SACK, before realizing that even sacks have their limits.  And then also this dress which I could never solve the boobs of

into this skirt, which has no boobs at all

and a bunch of bibs and babs into this necklace

and an old sheet into this pillowcase for my much-beloved body pillow.

And also, I've been lugging around my booze-bottles-full-of-change from when I worked at Red Robin, both because I liked the way they looked and because I was too lazy to roll them.

I always said to myself that one day I'd be poor and pregnant and have no money for clothes, and that I'd roll them then, and LO!  Here we are.  So I turned this (the birdhouse is full of quarters.  Not full, because I used to raid it for bus fare, but full-ish)

into this

and eventually into $187-worth of Things That Fit Me.

I am a freaking wizard.

In the nick.

Yesterday was allegedly the last nice day for a while, so we had an impromptu bbq on the beach.

Good thing we got there before the sun went down.

Oh no.  Wait.  That is the moon.

Burgers ahoy.

Cruisecation: Day Nine

And then we got up ass-early for expedited ship-leaving, because if you're not off the ship by 7:30 you have to wait and have your bags taken by the stewards and then returned to you later and somewhere else, instead of just hauling them off yourself like a champ.

We had one last tater-totty breakfast at 5:30 and were off the ship by 6:30, at the airport checking our bags by 8 and driving around, looking for anything to be open at 9 on what we'd forgotten was a Sunday, until we finally just went for second-breakfast.  Joel and I bought bad-ass neon South Beach souvenirs for his siblings, as one does.

We were weirdly separated on the Miami-Houston flight, with Joel sitting way over there beside a shrieking infant, and me, mom and dad back here behind three drunken, singing hooligans, and Matt and Gillian directly in front of said hooligans and beside a Consummate Chatterer, and boo and Darren somewhere else (in front of the shrieking infant, I believe).  It was the worst flight for all of us, but especially Gillian, who had both drunken singing and incessant photo-showing to contend with.

But at least it was the short flight, and at least the flight from Houston to Vancouver was sparsely populated, and at least the limo got us home safely, and at least we managed to squeeze a cruise into the two-week window between when Joel finished school and when Joel started school again, and at least everyone found time off work, and at least this baby is still self-watering.  Vive la vacation!