Where's the stork when you need him?

I can't stop thinking about the ship in the bottle.

It's a visual paradox.

Most people see the ship and wonder, "How did it get in there?"

I'm contemplating the neck of the bottle and instead thinking, "How badly would you have to damage the bottle to get that sucker out?"

Black ice & beige gravy: an eventful Friday night

I was going to stop by Happy Hour, have a Diet Coke with my beer-loving friends, and then head home. I needed to eat dinner no later than 6:30. Perhaps I would have salmon. Then, I might visit MySpace or check in on my Sims.

I was thinking rather mundane thoughts as I stepped off the curb into the office parking lot, momentarily contemplating its icy treachery as I found a seemingly safe patch of pavement on which to place my shoe.

Crash.

In a split second, I was thinking of nothing at all.

My face was pressed against the cold, wet pavement. The contents of my purse were spilled at my side. My laptop case was ten feet in front of me.

Not just a river in Egypt

I can't believe it's already 2007.

The last few weeks seem to have flashed by in fast-forward.

Rasbaby's negative-first Christmas.

Boxing Day.

Back to work again, then another long weekend.

I enjoyed my most pleasant New Year's Eve in several years. Even though the bar was excruciatingly low, it was still a good time.

The sugar and the damage done

It must have been something I ate.

When I failed the first glucose tolerance test last week, I went straight to denial. Maybe I went too late in the day. Maybe it was that cookie I had with lunch. Maybe I hadn't been drinking enough water.

I wasn't ready to be diabetic.

My doctor also extended the benefit of the doubt. She told me not to worry until we had seen the results from the follow up test.

So I woke up Monday, well before the crack of dawn, and dragged my hungry self to Labcorp. In exchange for a sugary beverage claiming some relationship to tropical fruits and access to the world's most disappointing magazine library, I gave up four hours of my morning and as many blood samples.

You could call it "One enchanted evening," but that was last year's theme

Last night was my employer's holiday party.

Every year, the company rents the ballroom of a local casino/hotel so that employees and their guests may enjoy an evening of dinner, dancing, and awkwardly introducing bored spouses to one another.

In many ways, the holiday party is like prom.

There's always a theme which could have been pulled straight out of a high school yearbook. This year, it was "An Affair to Remember." Past themes have included "Moonlight and Roses" (which I only remember because it was also the theme of my senior prom, and seemed equally banal at the time) and similar cliches with PG-rated romantic overtones. Of course, most people don't even notice the theme, since they flip straight past the invitation to the free drink coupons and raffle ticket.

Confessions of a kitchen fascist

Yesterday, I bought a turkey.

Today, I bought a new roasting pan and pie plates.

Tomorrow, the cooking begins.

I love Thanksgiving. It's a holiday about being thankful. It's a holiday about food. I love gratitude, and I love food.

But there's another reason I am excited.

The cooking.

I've got a small crowd to feed - just Sam, my sister-in-law Kirsten, and myself. I'll probably sneak a nibble of turkey to Oedipa, but she has notoriously low poultry standards, since she subsists mostly off of Purina One.

Knock knock

The last two weeks have been rife with milestones.

I crossed the halfway point of pregnancy. I bid farewell to pants with zippers, sleeping through the night, and lying on my back. I ventured into the baby megastore and settled on a color scheme for the nursery.

But the biggest milestone was also the tiniest.

Somehow, I imagined that when I felt the baby move, it would be a cinematic moment. She would reach out with her tiny hand, give me a nudge, and I would jump up in amazement. Sam would rush over and feel her movements, tears in his eyes. We would stand in a long, lovely embrace, dramatic music swelling in the background.