Skipping Town

First off, it's my four hundredth post. A lot has happened since I started this blog; four hundred posts ago, I was living in Brooklyn, unmarried, and unpregnant, with a more or less sparsely stamped passport and no idea where, oh, a place like Girona was, let alone that I'd ever visit or get engaged there. How far--distance-wise; not sure about the rest yet--we've come! Barcelona was on my mind a lot today, because this afternoon was the Champions League final, and FC Barcelona was facing Manchester United. They dominated the game, and won; and as the final seconds ticked by, bright pink flares began glowing in the packed stadium as the Catalans went crazy. If only we were in Barcelona tonight! In 2006, FCB also won the championship, and Andrew and I were right there, watching the game in a packed bar and herding with everyone else to La Rambla afterward. I missed Barcelona while I was watching. I felt like we should be there, like we're still a part of things somehow....

I wish we were spending 20 weeks in Tahoe! Alas, I was simply 20 weeks pregnant, spending a weekend in Tahoe for Memorial Day. Andrew and I drove up Saturday morning and headed straight for King’s Beach, where we unloaded towels and blankets and sunscreen and hats and proceeded to spend several hours reading by the lake. We’d brought lunch from home, thanks to our large, brand-new cooler (we live in suburbia now—a cooler was the inevitable next step) and had cold lemonade and salads and sandwiches. Eventually we checked into our hotel, the Ferrari’s Crown Hotel. We stayed there last year when my parents visited, and though the rooms are basic bordering on shabby, we love this place because it is a lakefront hotel—the rooms are literally yards from the lake, and the views simply can’t be beat. Plus, it’s clean, reasonably priced, with a nice breakfast in the morning, and a pool and hot tub. Perfect for a weekend getaway. We spent almost two full days simply lying in the sun, reading, wa...

Friday was our ultrasound, and it was incredible. The first part wasn’t so great—16 oz. of water consumed an hour before the appointment, with a no-bathroom policy until the procedure was halfway through, while being firmly prodded with the ultrasound wand thing—but it was all worthwhile when the technician finally turned the monitor towards us and gave us our first peek at our baby girl. A girl! Of course it’s not 100% certain, but the evidence, such as it was, was there. We were both shocked; we were convinced it was a boy—not for any scientific or intuitive reason; it’s just what we thought. As we watched her on the monitor, she opened her mouth, moved her arms around, and even touched her face with a tiny hand. In the picture, it looks like she’s waving at us—giving us a little hello from my uterus. (It also looks like she was slyly thisclose to giving us a peace sign—perhaps a little joke, wisely reconsidered, to remind us that we were having a California baby after all.) Let the ...

Last night Andrew and I took our weekly walk to Roseville Tuesday Nights, the street fair we’ve been to twice before now, pursuing our quest to enjoy the city’s small-town charms. After walking the length of the fair and buying some tomatoes at the farmer’s market, we sat and watched the band for a while, people-watching. On this particular night a group of very little kids were maniacally dancing and running in circles around a tree; a man wearing a “TEAM CHURCH” t-shirt stood off to the side, doing a jerky, robotic dance of his own; and a man sitting near us embarked on what we suspected would be a successful effort to eat an entire large pizza straight from the box. Near 9pm—closing time—a man got up to announce the band’s name and make a few other statements. He concluded by requesting that the band not play a particular song. “I’m going through a divorce,” he announced to the crowd, “and I’m not sure I could handle it!” He said this with a bright smile and a laugh that suggested h...

I look surprisingly pregnant in this picture. Note the skirt--a $1 Gabe's find that I found in my closet. It's been years since I've worn it, if I ever wore it, and it's getting a second life now as a quasi-maternity skirt. Below is a picture of my standard pregnancy lunch fare. It looked so farmer's market-fresh that I had to take a picture. This salad contains at least 3-4 servings of veggies: the lettuce, 1 tomato, 1 avocado, and 1/4 cucumber. Add this to my breakfast and afternoon snacks--cereal with milk, calcium-fortified OJ, yogurt with fruit and granola, and an orange or banana--and this baby is going to be a robust, glowing California child.

It’s back. The sizzling—the skin-roasting—the knock-your-lungs-flat gusts—the Devil’s breath. It’s all back. It was well over 100 degrees this weekend, and any rosy feelings I might have been feeling about NorCal shriveled, browned, and turned brutal and crisp, just like the grass lining the sizzling highways. It is awful here, and I am flummoxed once again that anyone would make this place their home by choice. (One could argue that we, too, have a choice. But I’m talking about people who choose to make this their permanent home.) I invite anyone who can’t understand why we don’t like living here to come visit us on a day like yesterday. Saturday was in the 90s, a bit more manageable. We got up early and headed to one of our favorite places in Roseville Denio’s Farmer’s Market & Auction, a sprawling flea market and farmer’s market. Our mission was to buy a rug and some produce. We were successful on all counts, finding a nice rug in one of the many carpet stalls (Denio’s, with its...

If you look closely, you can see why I'm sticking to elastic waists these days.

Yesterday evening, I went to my first prenatal yoga class, in the conference room of a hotel behind the back parking lot for a shopping complex that includes Best Buy, Michael’s, and Toys R Us. Not exactly an environment that seems conducive to a) yoga or b) thoughts about birth. But the instructor was nice, very California-y; and the room wasn’t too awful. As we went through a series of modified yoga poses, she explained which ones could be beneficial in a labor situation. And while I can’t imagine myself dropping to all fours for some cat-and-cow while I’m writhing from painful contractions, I can’t actually imagine labor at all quite yet, so who knows. During the final relaxation, the instructor put on a recording of Pachelbel’s Canon overlaid with digital birdsong. I found it a bit distracting, though one pregnant woman began mildly snoring, so perhaps it was just me. At the very beginning of class, we all had to introduce ourselves—name, due date, sex of the baby (if known), and p...

This weekend, as Andrew and I drove through the bad part of Roseville (by “bad” I mean the suburban sprawly part), we saw something that seems to capture Roseville—indeed, much of NorCal—in a nutshell: We saw a bright red Ferrari going through the drive-through of a Carl’s Jr. For readers not from California, Carl’s Jr. is a grammatically suspect fast-food chain here that Andrew and I revile for its hideous commercials that usually feature people eating Carl’s Jr. hamburgers in a sloppy, disturbing, disgusting fashion. I also revile it for that grating, perhaps misplaced apostrophe. Shouldn’t it be Carl Jr.’s? I could refer to my Chicago Manual of Style, but I think instead I’ll just continue to be annoyed by it.

It was our first non-moving weekend in Roseville, and we’ve come to a resolution: we will embrace the small-town charm inherent in our section of this suburb. And there is a lot of it. Saturday, after finally unpacking (and alphabetizing) our books, we went to the Roseville Strawberry Festival. It had a county-fair atmosphere that sent us straight into Fayette County, with a country & western band, a selection of old cars on display, several Boy Scout troops selling strawberry-themed foods (we purchased some strawberry shortcake from a sullen-looking young Scout), and a few low-intensity carnival rides. There were some craft booths, what appeared to be a tattoo artist operating out of the back of a van, and the same food booths we’d seen at the street fair last Tuesday. It was all very small-town. Next we headed to Roseville’s biggest flea and farmer’s market, which encompasses two enormous complexes of produce stalls, plus what must be several acres of parking lot strewn with sell...

It’s always sad to leave an apartment, even if you’re moving on to bigger and better things. This afternoon I met the landlord at our midtown apartment for a final walk-through, then turned in our keys. Several New York Times were piled by the front door—apparently the Sacramento delivery people haven’t gotten or heeded our change of address notification; I wonder if the paper will continue to be delivered, entertaining ghosts of us on the premises. We’re officially Rosevillians now. And no, I’m not sure if that’s the correct word, but I like it, with its taunting, dangerous closeness to “rose villains.” Farewell, P Street apartment! Note: Don't scrutinize this picture for a belly--it's a picture from March 2008.

We’re still not unpacked, but we’ve had the first taste of life in Roseville. I did laundry in my own home for the first time since living in Spain, now that our new washer and dryer have been delivered. Last night, we went to a street fair, a weekly event here up until August, when it gets too hot. There were food stalls, a small farmer’s market, live music, and a variety of booths from local businesses. We had dinner there and enjoyed being outside while it’s still cool enough to actually enjoy it. And today, Andrew came home for lunch so we could watch an FC Barcelona soccer match. It was quite strange to see Andrew in the middle of the day, and quite nice. Barcelona won with an amazing eleventh-hour goal. The rooms of our house are literally echoing—two of the rooms have no furniture, and probably won’t for the foreseeable future; the dining room has a few odds-and-ends but no table yet. We are rattling around in all this space.

Saturday afternoon, once the movers were gone but before we’d really begun unpacking, Andrew convinced me that we had to go to a local bar to watch a basketball game that, he said, was the kind of game that people would one day ask, “Where were you when you saw the such-and-such game?” I pointed out that I’d put a lot of money on the claim that no one will ever ask me that question. However, I acquiesced, since Andrew’s been the one doing all the lifting during this move while I sit queenlike and tell him what to do. We went to a local bar called Bunz and Company, which, despite its name, is not a strip club. It’s actually a cute bar/restaurant inside an old home. We sat at a table with a view of a TV; we ordered beer and water based on who is and is not pregnant. After a while, we ordered dinner. And as we sat there, eating, it occurred to both of us that we really felt like we were in Southwestern PA—at a place like Bud Murphy’s or the Boston Beanery or Lynn’s. There was just somethi...

In the city that never rains, it rained the entire weekend, soaking our moving festivities in a pretty much nonstop downpour. We like rain—except when we have to make a million trips out to the car. Except when our movers put half our stuff in the back of their open-bed pickup. Except when our shoes squeak endlessly on our hardwood floors as we shift boxes and furniture around. Moving day, Saturday, began with the movers showing up an hour and a half late. A couple of phone calls later, they did actually show up, two young guys who managed to break only one $5 lamp. Even when someone else is doing all the heavy lifting, moving is exhausting. But we’re here now, in our charming house, semi-unpacked. We have no refrigerator, but that will arrive between three and five this afternoon. Our TV and internet are set up. All the stuff (except the refrigerated food) is out of our former apartment. The dishes and glasses, at least, are in the cupboards; the books will be unpacked once we get a n...

We’re almost finished packing, and our things—excluding our furniture—are mostly at the new house already. But there’s one thing we won’t be packing: the knife in the chandelier. We’ve been puzzled by the knife since the day we moved in. Secured within the chandelier’s wiring, the knife does not seem to be placed haphazardly—it’s enmeshed in the wiring in a way that makes it seem somehow critical. As though removing the knife would have consequences beyond our liking. For a year and a half now, the knife has taunted us, dared us, practically begged us to remove it. What, really, could happen? What role, really, could a butter knife play in the day-to-day safety and operation of a chandelier? This will not be our mystery to solve. We’ll leave the knife in place. The unresolved questions will be all we take away.