Wonderful churlishness

I love this thread and its fictional letter to the non-pregnant people in a pregnant couple's life. It's making the rounds at BabyCenter even among those of us not due in August.

Having been threatened with a long visit (i.e. the visits to another relative have been measured in MONTHS, not days) at the child's birth, while I was all of five weeks pregnant, I feel especially sensitive about the invitation issue. I'm not such a private person that I am mourning lost privacy, and nobody's been lunging to touch the belly yet, or anything like that.

What do I do about that visitation threat? Lie about my due date? Tell them I've moved to New Zealand and I don't know my new address yet? Threaten to kill them if they do it? Simply not allow them in when they are not wanted (which, hinty hint, will be most of the time for about three weeks of sleepless bonding time)? Ack!

Pregnancy

I'm starting to show.

I'm starting to feel really queasy.

I'm starting to have cravings.

Awesome.

The best thing: when I went into my mom's office to make copies (of my AIM application, in fact), she was looking at an online week-by-week pregnancy guide. She turned around to me and announced that this week my baby is growing fingerprints, and they are unique. I responded that the baby is also working on eye pigmentation. We both grinned like idiots.

Life's good; I just see less of it, since I'm sleepin' a lot.

Sesame Miso dip for artichokes, crudites, or whatever

I normally serve artichokes either 1) with melted butter (which is how I grew up with them, but Pat doesn't love butter all that much), or 2) with mayonnaise mixed with grated ginger and soy sauce to taste -- which is incredibly delicious enough to be popular with Pat even though he loathes mayo in its native form. However, I needed more protein in my day today, so I made a kind of half-assed tofu mayonnaise (i.e. I didn't make tofu mayo separately and then flavor it, I just chucked everything into the jar all at one time) with the same flavor profile. My, my! So delicious!

Sesame Miso Tofu Dip

1 sterile-pak of silken soft tofu
1/4 cup canola oil (maybe -- I eyeballed it, but go light. You can add if you want.)
juice of 1 key lime (or regular lime would do)
1 tablespoon or so of rice wine vinegar
1 very rounded tablespoon sweet white miso (this is my most favorite thing)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon sesame oil
3 tablespoons ginger, minced
3 tablespoons or more of soy sauce
sprinkle of salt, just to bring up the level if needed
black sesame seeds, for sprinkling (you could omit them, but you'd miss them subconsciously)

Blend until smooth (I used my handheld thing). Sprinkle with black sesame seeds and serve as a thinnish dip for artichoke leaves, raw vegetables, or whatever your little heart desires. Would be (and the leftovers WILL be) dynamite as a pasta salad dressing.

For the iNkies ... and all of you

Hey guys, check out these glorious images of sleeping insects covered in dew. Wow.

Interesting Slate article: "It's okay for vegans to eat oysters"

I just thought this article was interesting.

I am by no means living the ultra-ethical environmentalist lifestyle that I would ideally live, but I agree in principle with most of this unusual article. Why am I not? Well, the exigencies of the moment are always something we define for ourselves, and I have made hard decisions to suspend my harshest judgment in favor of what I feel is my best judgment. I know some of you get varying mileage, here, and I respect any well-considered lifestyle -- whatever your reasons.

Pasta!

I love me some pasta, but Scordo's challenge project to eat every known type of pasta (within a year and a half) is a little bit crazy... albeit in a wonderful way. It's got me thinking about similar, delightful food challenges. Wouldn't it be fun to try, say, 52 soups in a year? Or 52 baked good recipes? (Or hell, lots of pasta, why not?) What can one do to broaden one's culinary horizons in a year or so, if one is really trying?

So I am going to push back against the sameness that creeps up on the omnivorous American quotidian diet. (When we were vegetarian, our cuisine tended to be far more experimental... and I know we can do it again!) I just don't know the dimensions of the project, yet. Any thoughts?

For the moment, it might have to be a brussels sprouts or cottage cheese challenge, since I have a vigorously developing passenger that seems to be a nutrition freak. I am fortunate that all of my cravings (except the odd pickle, olive, or lemon wedge -- I am into the sour/salty things! -- and one stray, mad passion for waffles) are for healthy foods: rye bread, spinach stems, carrots, red bell peppers.

Here's the critter:

(Yesterday the critter measured 7 weeks 1 day.)

We got to watch the heartbeat fluttering on the ultrasound monitor, and Pat got to watch me submit to medical indignities extensive enough to embarrass him. I will remember the joy we felt at seeing that heartbeat, and our tight hug afterward, me still hospital-gowned and ooky from the sensor goo, for the rest of my life.

Boners. Tea hee!

Via Warren Ellis, a collection of Tea Party signs featuring boners of grammar or spelling (or both!) rivaling G.W.B.'s malapropisms. These are amusingly being called "Teabonics."

In related news, my stepmom dropped several during her visit; although she certainly has her fair share of wingnuttery in her head, she was talking about innocuous things at the time. My favorite was when she described how a little tweak to a cooking recipe made the results "excrementally" better. (My brother made a click like a bomb about to explode, then refused to meet my eyes. Pat elbowed me furiously -- I thought because he thought I was very naughty for seeking Rob's gaze, but I discovered later that it was because he wanted to know if I'd heard it.)

I'm gonna say it: the original Tea Party was full of shit, too. (Mind that my source isn't exactly official, but #5 and #2 here sum it up nicely, if somewhat controversially.) But the current movement is not populated by our intellectual cutting edge. And that's all I need to say.

Today would have been my Grandma Red's birthday. She taught me how to embroider, bake, and drive, and was one of the darlings of my life. Her wise and temperate advice about marriage, I think, is the principal reason our marriage has flourished so well; she gave me a realistic and ambitious approach to relationships that contributes to my every day happiness and joy. She loved Cecile Brunner roses, lemon cucumbers, and birds. She also had a wicked sense of humor and she and my mother were locked for her entire life in a death-spiral of terrifying April Fools' pranks which I did my best to dodge lively. The last time we spent her birthday together, we frosted a cake with wasabi for her. Damned if she didn't eat her whole slice, saying, "There's some spice in this -- it's good!" while we all slowly choked down our own, wondering when, God, WHEN could we quit eating it?

Love you, Grandma.