Pink Prickly Pear

Shower me with blood diamonds and chocolates!

A couple of years ago, Mr. Pear and I needed a low security pin number for some account or another.  He suggested "62599"

"62599?  How am I ever going to remember a totally random, irrelevant number like that?"

Mr. Pear, as I think I've mentioned before, is a little more sensitive than I am and he looked a little hurt by my response.

He quietly said, "There's nothing random about 62599."

"62599?"

He paused at intervals as he repeated the number, "6...25...99..."

"I have no idea what you're talking about..."

"June 25th, 1999"

Dawning recognition, not to mention embarrassment, on my behalf, "Ohhhhh!!!!! Our anniversary!"

So I suppose it should come as no surprise that I completely forgot it was our anniversary yesterday.  Completely.  As in, I went out to dinner and a movie with 3 girlfriends last night, while he and mini-pear played computer games and ate hot dogs and leftover fruit salad from the stinky fridge.

But this morning, when the parking attendant at Legoland handed me my dated parking pass, something in the far reaches of my brain said, "June 26th?  There's some significance attached to the end of this month, isn't there?" 

"Ohhhhhh!!!!  Our anniversary!"

Not that he remembered it either;)  When I got a moment, I texted him the 9 year old news.  I know.  We romantic types put you all to shame.  He immediately responded that he would get right on the purchasing of physical manifestations of his love.  Because that's what it's all about, isn't it?  Blood diamonds and child labor chocolates!  South American Roses!  Yeah, baby!

In all seriousness though, it gets better every year.  We look back on the good times together and laugh, we look back on the bad times and know that, no matter what life throws at us, we'll get through it together.  I want many, many, many more years of this.

The internet as emotional yardstick, geometry-girl, and is there a mathematical formula for one's personal poop velocity?

I live with a total maniac who refuses to let me take her picture anymore!  Thrasher!

She may be a total maniac, but we've been having a lot of fun over the last couple of mornings, making a quilt for her baby brother.  Mini-pear (A.K.A. geometry-girl) has been arranging and rearranging the squares into various patterns.  Too many choices!  Here's my initial idea:

But then mini-pear suggested stripes:


We also liked off centered concentric diamonds:
 

And lots of smaller diamonds:
 

I like  seeing how many different variations we can come up with, but I'd also like to make a decision soon.  My grubby little mitts are craving the meditative qualities of hand-quilting.

Speaking of making things for baby brothers, I got sucked into the vortex of online cloth diapering discussions and product reviews.  Mini-pear's diapers are long gone, happily recycled onto friends who have undoubted recycled them further along their happy little eco-friendly journey.  I know we used pre-folds and tried various covers, but I can't for life of me remember which brand eventually worked.  I think I'll probably just make our own pre-folds and wet bags, but I'd love to remember which covers worked so well.  Some of them really didn't, and I don't want to make that (expensive) mistake again, but then so much is dependent on factors as variant as leg chub, and the degree to which your baby enjoys unfastening velcro, and the velocity of one's excrement that perhaps what worked for mini-pear wouldn't work for - gosh, we need to come up with a pear moniker for the boy!

*****

I also live with a nerd.

Mr. Pear and I were reminiscing a bit this morning.  We had some friends back in DC who used to throw down some wicked theme parties.  For Truck Stop, we went as a couple of long haul bible thumpers.  For part of our costume, we got those iron-on fuzzy letters and made Truckin' for Jesus t-shirts.  Mr. Pear pointed out that we went to that party nine years ago, "You were just a couple of months pregnant..."

And then, in a softer voice (that I'll swear was almost choked up sounding), "The internet was so young back then..."

The internet: an emotional yardstick for nerds.  Cute nerds with shiny,floppy hair who massage my lower back upon request, but nerds nonetheless.

 

Methinks someone lost a bet.

I hardly ever think to have my camera handy at the beach.  But this afternoon, something made me grab a zip-lock bag and pop my old point-and-shoot in there.

So there I was, sitting in my beach chair, minding my own business and this man walking along the shore caught my eye (actually, several did, but this guy wasn't one of those buff young men with surf boards in tow).  I squinted.  Craned my neck a little.  Double checked with Mr. Pear, "Hey, has that man shaved his chest hair into a bikini top?"

Why yes he had, as you can see from our surreptitiously gathered photographic evidence below.  Ignore my goofy face.  I thought Mr. Pear was only using me as a prop to get closer to our subject.

Right?  I know body hair comes in all shapes and sizes, but that's manicured in some fashion, no?

Aw, crap.

The fridge smells when I open the door again. 

No, I don't think it's courtesy of my highly sensitive pregnancy smell-o-vision.

Sometimes it would be nice to do just nothing...

Mini-pear has a new friend who won't be going back to school next year.  Of course, the little girl's mom has a lot of questions and concerns.  She's particularly worried that her daughter won't get to socialize as often as she's accustomed.

I have to smile at that.  A wan, exhausted sort of smile.  Exhausted because mini-pear's social calendar is insane!  She'd never get this much time to socialize if she were in school.  Please stop talking to your neighbor or I'll have to separate you two!  Girls, we're not here to socialize!  I want to be able to hear a pin drop in here!

I haven't blogged all that much over the past couple of weeks.  Partly because I'm just not here all that much.  We are very busy socializing.  In the last week, mini-pear and I have:

Spent 8 consecutive hours at our local Unschooler Park Day!
Went to see her good friend's dance recital, with some other friends, followed by ice-cream (not to mention a sugar fueled exploration of the Whole Foods in La Jolla).
Had a friend over for a few hours of one on one play.
The whole family got together with several other families for dinner and to talk about the possibilities of hosting an Unschooling Conference in San Diego next year.
Karate, karate, karate...
More time at the park with friends!
Book club with 5 of her girl friends
A pottery workshop organized by another homeschooling family*
A picnic, sleepover, and all day play date with another friend and her family
Followed by another park day

And then yesterday, we met up with a different set of girl friends for the American Girl book club.  The girls are reading through the historical novels.  Yesterdays meeting had a Victorian theme in keeping with the Samantha series.  Everyone loved the elaborate tea party - crust-less tea sandwiches, fresh fruit and loads of dainty little cakes - charades, and making their tussie mussies.  Of course, I forgot my camera, but I managed to snap the above picture of mini-pear putting her bouquet into a bud vase at home.  Then she noticed the camera and ran away, having recently developed an aversion to the camera.

So, yes, socializing - I think we've got it covered.  We're trying to stay home all morning, but it's hot, so I think we'll have to accept that invitation to hang at the beach this afternoon.

_{*Actually, here's where I hit a wall and just couldn't handle the social whirlwind anymore.  Luckily, my friends noticed and shuttled me off home with promises to make arrangements for mini-pear to get dropped off later.  I went home and slept like the dead.  And then one of the friends from pottery asked if they couldn't just take mini-pear home with them and I could just reconnect with them at park day the following afternoon.  So then I got to sleep like the dead some more.  Which is something I was apparently in dire need of.}

Last Sunday I was in the parking lot of our local market, trundling some groceries out to the car.
"Whee!"  A forty-ish looking guy was riding his grocery cart down the middle of the lot.  As he reached his parking spot, he deftly slipped one flip-flopped foot out to the left, thus ensuring a neat little sideways slide ending at the trunk of his car.

This is not an isolated incident.  Happens all the time.  In fact, just a few moments later, an older woman with her grey hair pulled loosely back into a single braid (easily as thick as my forearm) rode her own shopping cart across the lot to her ancient hatchback.

People in this coastal community put a priority on having fun.

Nothing wrong with that.  I just need to get with the program;)

Did I imagine writing a big long post yesterday and typepad inexplicably eating it? 

No, I think I actually did (write it, not imagine it).

Here's our current wallpaper on the mac.  Mini-pear likes to switch it up on us every week or so.  I had to share this one.  Practically every time she sees it, she comments on how those rocks are not all that far away (they're actually about a day's drive - Monterey Bay) and we should make sure we get up there again soon.  I think we will attempt another long weekend up there within the next month or so.  One last jaunt as a family of three. 

We stopped at this blustery spot for less than an hour, but I suspect it was the highlight of her weekend.  She needs more rock climbing opportunities.  She loves scrambling about and she's always asking kind of scary (to her mother) questions about places like El Capitan and free climbing as opposed to climbing with harnesses and such.  Hmmm.  Maybe we should just plan a little family pilgrimage to Yosemite? 

Math. I can do it. But it is really boring.

Are there people who get all excited at the prospect of crunching numbers?  I know part of the creative process for me is problem solving, and so I suppose it's possible that there are people who get a gigantic grey matter hard-on for arithmetic...it just seems so improbable to me though.

We're getting a new insurance plan, which is very nice indeed, but I need to crunch some numbers and do a cost/benefit analysis of the various plans.  Labor and delivery is covered by all of them, but we have various options for room and board, as it were.  It's nice to have options, so I shouldn't complain, but while options usually leave me feeling slightly overwhelmed ("Too many choices!") in this case, I know there is one option that will save me money and I need to commit some arithmetic hurdles in over to figure it all out.  Boring!  Like if I get the plan that requires I only pay $300, no matter how long I stay in the hospital, but higher monthly premiums, will I end up paying more in the long run than if I pay less per month, but a percentage based fee based on the length of my hospital stay (if all goes well, 48 hours, if they have to stick a knife in me, 96 hours, if all hell breaks loose, we got bigger problems anyway)?

Who knows?  I've done this much homework - called the Birth Center at the hospital and asked how much they charge for a semi-private room per day, and how many hours I'm legally required to remain in the hospital for both a c-section and a vaginal birth.  I probably could have crunched the numbers in the time it took me to compose this stupid post about it, but procrastination is way more fun than MATH, even if it is the kind of math that will save me money.  Besides, I know I can do this kind of number crunching, because despite my math anxiety and every teacher I ever had through 11th grade telling me I had no head for numbers, I used to do this particular kind of number crunching back when I had * insert sarcasm* a real job, except back then the numbers were much bigger and it wasn't my family's checkbook I was balancing, but a really big checkbook for a really big institution.  They paid me to crunch numbers and I did a very good job too!  So there, no head for numbers naysayers.

Still, I didn't like it.  Am I going to sign off and go crunch the numbers? 

No.  I'm going to go to the freezer and see if there's any Ben and Jerry's Karamel Sutra (with the caramel core!!!) left and then I'm going to watch my homeschooling homeboy, Will Smith, in I Am Legend (a PG-13 film which I am, nonetheless, too chicken too watch when it's dark outside).

Namaste...damnit.

I don't remember quite when I first realized that while one might not be good at sports, it was in one's best interest to be a good sport.  I know this sounds like something some jolly hockey sticks headmistress thought up, but embracing this shift in perspective has made my life a whole lot more fun.  Unless I was participating in a more individualized form of physical activity (skating, riding my bike, etc), I used to be too cool for sports.  It was a revelation to realize just how much one could enjoy throwing a plastic disc through the air at a park, or spending a couple of hours hurling a ball over a net or through a basket.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to apply to yoga.  I'm not quite sure why.  I suppose yoga's not really even supposed to be fun.  Everyone seems to take their yoga practice very seriously.  And everyone also seems to be trying very hard to be cool, or at least they were when I tried yoga the first time around, at a hip little candlelit studio in Adams Morgan.  (Disclaimer:  I suppose I could have been trying to be cool as well, as evidenced by me driving into my old neighborhood in the city, as opposed to getting down with the hippies in a church basement in Hyattsville.) 

Anyway, after posting the schedule on our fridge and then spending weeks and weeks of periodically announcing my insincere intentions to attend, I finally went to a pre-natal yoga class this morning.  I had a disastrous yoga experience* the first time around and have been loathe to go back ever since.  Were I not in training (I'm seriously powering up for this whole birthing a baby thingy), I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but despite my possessing some deep seated hatred of yoga, I have to admit that giving everything a good regular stretching out will help things along significantly.

I tried to be a good sport.  Really I did!  But halfway through the class I found myself actually giving myself this pep talk, "Come on!  You can do this for seventy minutes!  If you can't handle this, you'll never push that baby out!"

Yes, I actually compared yoga to childbirth.  It was that bad.  I have some sort of unresolved issue wherein I don't know how to breathe properly when I exercise and I always end up feeling all lightheaded and nauseous.  It's why I stopped using all the little machines at the gym.  It's why I can't do sit-ups!  It's not anything to do with my abdominal strength, it's that I end up with a massive "I didn't get enough oxygen while doing that" headache every single time.  It's why my exercise basically consists of listening to my iPod and walking briskly around suburbia (which actually worked surprisingly well when it came to sloughing off the pounds I'd put on since moving to suburbia). 

I became very, very, very tired very, very, very quickly.  And I felt nauseous and dizzy.  And my thighbones did not want to stay in my hip sockets.  And every time we changed positions something always seemed to twinge and need to be guided there with the aid of my hands.  Yoga makes me feel like a very stiff, very old, very inflexible old lady.  I'm told this will get better with time and practice, but seriously, I need to figure out this breathing thing stat!

At the end of class, I walked to the car very slowly on my slightly trembly legs.  Then I sat in the driver's seat for a bit, collecting myself because I wasn't ready to drive home yet.  And once home, I lay on the couch with some water recovering.

Mini-pear, who is vehemently opposed to the YMCA's childcare, and so had sat in on the class, cocked her head critically, "It didn't seem like you did very much.  And the things you did do, you just did over and over and over again."  I waved her away like her Victorian Aunt, "I'll be up and about in a bit...maybe..."

I suppose I'll be back, but I really need to figure out some way to make a mental shift away from hating on it quite so much.

_{* I thought I'd signed up for an introductory class, but within just a few short weeks our instructor had everyone standing on their heads (okay, heads and shoulders).  Except, I can't stand on my head and I can't for the life of me understand why I was the only one unable to do so.  Even the really big sweaty guy who seemed to spend most of the class making pained expressions and clutching his back was able to stand on his head!  I found this to be a most mortifying experience.} 

Newsflash-y...

I woke up before seven.

I found my pen! (When I lose inanimate objects of which I'm particularly fond, I have a tendency to waste time laying awake at night wondering where they got to.  Unless I lose something else around the house today, I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep this evening.)

I went on a nice brisk walk.  I used to do this pretty much every morning with the dog, but then I really didn't feel like it for a while and then when I did feel like it, I really did not feel like bringing the dog.  These days my body really does not appreciate the abdominal crunching required to restrain her from pulling me over.  The pulling also makes my feet slap on the ground, making me feel like walking was veering into "high impact aerobic territory".  No high impact aerobics for me.  I decided to get over the guilt factor of walking sans dog and so I did and it was very nice indeed and probably accounts for much of my good mood and desire to continue in un-slothful activities for the remainder of the day.

It is grey, but I'm not going to let that stop me from going for a swim.

I am actually looking forward to cooking this afternoon!  My cooking mojo vanished several months ago, but this morning I not only had a craving for loubie bzeit, but realized I probably had most of the ingredients on hand to make it.  I looked up a recipe and I do!  (Well, with the exception of dried sweet basil, but I can nip into the shop on the way home from swimming for that.)  There will be green beans and tomatoes and garlic for days!

I also spent a good 45 minutes at my sewing machine.  I didn't neglect to put the cover on it for this most recent spate of creative inactivity so I didn't have to waste ten minutes cleaning it first.

My life is too exciting, I know.