kdiddy.org » pictures

tra la la

kdiddy — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:32:18 +0000

I feel the need to declare that, overall, I feel pretty alright, because I need to remember feeling this way for the times when I don’t. Like this morning, when I sent the baby upstairs to get dressed for school, only to find him 10 minutes later sitting on his bedroom floor reading a comic book. I was furious, which was perhaps an overreaction, but seriously, what the hell? Then, like an idiot, I tried to get him to walk me through his logic that led him to chill out with some reading material when it was clearly close to time to go.

“Well, you didn’t lay out any clothes for me…”

“So…that meant that you just weren’t going to need to get dressed today?”

“I don’t know.”

SIGH. Is there such a thing as the Terrible Tens? Because he seems to be in the midst. Oh, and the first person who says anything in the neighborhood of “pre-teen” gets punched.

But all of that nonsense aside, we’ve been doing a lot of our traditional fall stuff, including going to Trax Farm this past Sunday. Because October is always so busy for us, we always end up squeezing our farm trip in at around the last minute. And we always have to go with everyone else in the tri-county area who is working their annual trip in around the Steeler game. So there’s always a tense hour in the market part where you come face to face with how horrible the general population is at functioning in crowded spaces and steering grocery carts. Really, there ought to be a license for carts and things like, “Leaving your cart in the middle of the aisle while you gawk at the apple butter display instead of pushing it out of the way,” will be fineable offenses. (This, by the way, is the main thing that I hate about the Market District Giant Eagle in Shadyside. The customers’ idiotic navigation, especially in the horribly arranged produce section. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost hurt people’s feelings in that store. And, yeah, I take grocery shopping a little too seriously. I don’t have time for foolishness.) But we had a really good time, got our pumpkins and about 300 other precious autumn things. I had the presence of mind to be thankful that the baby didn’t put up a fuss when it was time to take his picture next to the huge wooden pumpkin, because I know in the next year or so he’s going to refuse and that will be when I become that woman who gets drunk and cries at the farm. But you guys. Look:

That’s from Sunday. And this? This is from 2005:

I can’t even. I’m doing this to myself a lot lately, which is admittedly kind of masochistic, because I can’t wrap my brain around the idea that he’s turning 10 soon. It’s just so…big. And I’m warning you now that I’m going to go all mommyblogger on your asses and put together a montage.

The other kids in our house, the furry ones, are doing pretty well, too. Florian the kitten is getting bigger everyday and is still a bit of a mad man. Greedo the cat is so chilled out by nature that this is kind of exhausting for them. I was getting concerned, but then went and spent an absurd amount of money on a cat tree. I think because there were no existing territorial issues for it, and it gave something for the kitten to attack, it seems to have made them much happier. They even hang out in it together sometimes!

Florian is quite the love bug and usually sleeps next to or on me, which is fine, except for when he gets the itch to gallivant in the middle of the night at the expense of my slumber. Last night, I became momentarily aware that he had scrambled across my forehead and had some bleary thought of, “Kitten. Scratch. Face. Ow. Register pain in morning.” I had completely forgotten about it until I saw myself in the mirror and noticed the little spot of dried blood. At this rate, I’m going to start looking like Omar from The Wire. Or, perhaps, Michael K. Williams dressed up as Omar dressed up as King Richard for Halloween or something equally ridiculous.

I have no idea why that picture exists, by the way. I just know that I’m eternally thankful that it does because the mere thought of it makes me giggle. This morning, for some reason, that scene from Forrest Gump where Jenny is throwing rocks at her molesting dad’s house came to my mind, because I’m such a naturally cheery individual. I thought about how the line, “Sometimes I guess there just aren’t enough rocks,” would make a great caption for a picture of, say, Whitney Houston smoking crack. But then I pushed it out of my head, figuring if I could dream it, then someone on the internet has already made it exist and I’m not breaking any new ground there. This is both sad on many levels and one of the reasons that the internet is so great.

Anyway. How are you doing?

kittens and husbands and whatnot

kdiddy — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:55:13 +0000

I finally managed to snap a picture of the little maniacal furball in our house.

As Sara noted, he looks very genteel, but looks can be deceiving. He’s either up and running all over the place or passed out, and he doesn’t pass out before going through an elaborate settling in ritual that usually results in bodily harm. Or rather, harm to my bodily.

When he snuggles, he’s heavenly. But he’ll attack me via flying leap and I have scratch marks all over me. I’m too embarrassed to admit that I’m getting regular beatings from a 3-pound kitten, so I’ve just been telling everyone that I’ve been in a knife fight.

We had another busy weekend, so I decided to take the day off of work on Friday to hang out with the dudes, since the baby didn’t have school. We mostly chilled out all day but did manage to check out the Alex Ross exhibit at The Warhol, which was just so, so rad. You should go.

However, I realized on Sunday night that I probably should have taken Monday off instead, since the husband and I had to be out really late. The husband and two of his friends started this…musical group? Band? I’ve also seen the term production trio thrown about. I’m not sure what to call them. But it’s the three of them and a bunch of synthesizers and keyboards and doohickeys and whatnot and they make dance music. They call themselves Pittsburgh Track Authority and things have really taken off for them in the past couple of months, with their tracks getting signed for release by dance music labels. Here’s one of their most recent compositions:

Archipelago by Pittsburgh Track Authority

They had their debut live performance on Sunday at the Shadow Lounge as part of the VIA festival wrap-up party. They were all pretty nervous about it in the weeks leading up to it, since it was a week after the main festival and on a Sunday night.

As it turned out, a TON of people showed up and I don’t think I’m biased in saying that PTA’s performance was the highlight of an all-around fantastic evening. They were preceded by Smooth Tutors and ELQ and followed by Dam Funk. People were dancing the whole time, but seemed to really get into it for PTA. I was so, so impressed with their music and was so incredibly proud of the husband for getting to experience that after so much hard work and so many setbacks. Plus, you know, it’s always exciting to get a post-performance kiss from the hot guy on stage.

Since I knew we were going to be out so late, I had to get lunches ready for me and the baby and decided to bake some cookies while I was at it. I made a batch of Martha Stewart’s pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing (going to write about them for Foodie Parent tomorrow) and toted some of them to the show in my uber-housewife covered pan/container thing that I got from The Cake Pan Lady. Frank, who was in town for the show, cracked up at me bringing treats to the dance music show, like, “Here boys! Brought you some goodies! Have a good electronic music performance! Make sure you use the potty beforehand!” It might have seemed absurd but let me tell you those cookies were gone by the end of the night, devoured by the performers and various attendees with much groaning in delight.

my left foot

kdiddy — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:00:26 +0000

Did I ever tell you the story about how I hate my cat sometimes?

The story starts on Friday night when the baby (along with his lovely parents) hosted his first slumber party. His two buddies came over after soccer and the baby came home after piano and three of them were off. They had such a great time. The husband and I just kind of sat back and observed them, occasionally handing them food and drawing our hands back quickly. “Man. We’re such parents,” I kept saying to myself, rapidly reaching my quota of deep thoughts for the day.

In the morning, I slowly heard their still little voices gradually wake up in that uber 9-year-old boy way. “Murrf…Grunt…Pffft…Hey…Hi…I slept good…I KNOW RIGHT I LOVE VIDEO GAMES AND DIRT AND FARTING YOU’RE AWESOME WE SHOULD HANG OUT MORE HAHAHAHAHA POOP!”

They had slept in and were perfectly fine entertaining themselves as I rolled out of bed and down the stairs. I made yummy pancakes that they gobbled down. The baby said, “Isn’t my mom a good cook?” and I became mush.

I tried to get them out to the park but they were too busy reveling in their boyhood friendships to get ready in time. The two friends went off and the hum of an average Saturday sounded all around us.

I set about puttering, putting some bedding in the washing machine and getting another load of dirty dishes ready to go into the dishwasher. Our portable dishwasher needed to be unhooked from the faucet, unplugged, and spun back across the room to its resting place so that I could empty and refill it.

GASP

In spinning the dishwasher around, an action I’d performed a thousand and twelve times before, I made a miscalculation in the physics of the situation. The chaotic possibility that I would perform this action with just the right sets of variables in posture, stance, and force meant that the sharp metal corner of the machine would swipe through the air just so. That corner would meet the top of my left big toenail at just the right moment in time and place in space. In the king-of-the-mountain battle between the metal and my toenail for rights to that piece of space-time continuum real estate, the metal won.

It was not immediately evident to me what had happened. I stared at my foot and slowly evaluated the damage.

“Ow. Oooh. Uhhh. Ow. Ow. Ow. OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST.”

I hopped up the stairs and into the bathroom and informed the husband that, “I *#*#%#@ UP MY FOOT *#(%)*)$!” as I dripped blood all over the floor

Then I burst into tears. “I’m suppohohohosed to run a 5k in two weheeheeheeks!”

We went to MedExpress and were in about in about 45 minutes. A tetanus shot and some soaking instructions were my souvenirs. The nail might not make it but my Chariots of Fire dreams remained alive. As we drove away, the husband continued our neverending game of Punchbuggy and reflexively punched me right where I got my tetanus shot upon seeing a VW Beetle.

The husband went out that night and I opted to stay home. I crawled into bed and tried to deal with the increasing throbbing in my toe. Despite downing some Aleve, I couldn’t find a comfortable position and decided that the best course of action would be to watch Mad Men episodes and whimper.

The cat jumped up to siphon body warmth from me and began the awesome process of walking on my feet to find the perfect spot.

“No, cat. No. Please. No.”

I gently moved my feet around and he followed them. I didn’t want to make too sudden a movement because he has a tendency to attack body parts moving around under the covers. I texted the husband for moral support. He replied, “Gatooooo.”

Uh. Indeed.

and then suddenly, autumn.

kdiddy — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:48:07 +0000

I think it’s safe to say that the husband and the baby and I squeezed the last drops of summer out this weekend. After work on Friday, the husband and I went to see Our Idiot Brother while the baby was at his piano lesson. I strongly disliked the movie and spent the next few hours sulking about why good writing with interesting characters is so impossible to come by. Of course, the last place you want to be when you’re lamenting the state of American culture is the mall, and that’s exactly where we were. I sauntered through the food court, addressing every guy that passed me as, “Bro.” We went to Dick’s to get the baby some soccer stuff, and I lost it temporarily in the entrance. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of it, but they had a banner up for this initiative that they’re working on with Jerome Bettis about preventing concussions. Which is great, obviously. But they used this picture of Bettis.

Nothing looks amiss about this picture until you crop his face (and more importantly, his mid-sentence facial expression) and put it right next to the word concussion. Let me illustrate.

CONCUSSION

I also took issue with this product, which was being sold as a Tailgate Toss.

This game, my friends, is not called tailgate toss. It’s called cornholing. I don’t know where it got its name, though I imagine it was thought up by a bunch of Beavises not unlike yours truly. Point is, if you’re going to go cornholing with your buddies before the big game, call it what it is.

Then I went in the store and bought a yoga mat and some soccer stuff, tied my cardigan around my shoulders, and flounced off in a cloud of Soccer Mom.

Friday night, I polished off the last bottle of wine from the absurd number that we consumed at the beach. I spent the rest of the night trying to act like I wasn’t completely sloshed. I don’t think I succeeded.

Saturday, we went to Idlewild to fulfill our quota of Family Fun, Dammit for the season. It was actually a really nice time. I guess since it was 90-some degrees out and a “limited operations” day, people stayed home so we were able to gallivant about without ridiculous crowds. It was some church’s picnic day and I only saw one creepy “purity” shirt on a 9-year-old girl, so that was cool. (Seriously, Jesus fans, it’s great that you’re all about abstinence, but I find the omnipresent discussion about the sexuality of little girls kind of weird.) Limited operations didn’t affect us too much. The ferris wheel and a few other rides weren’t up and running. But what did cramp our style was the lack of lollipops on the Good Ship Lollipop. You know how you pace around the tiny boat on that swampy water and then a junior from St. Vincent’s deadpans. “Yarr. Thanks for visiting me ship. Have a sucker?” Our visit ended with, “Yarr. Thanks for visiting me ship.” And then…nothing. No lollipop. It was really awkward because I was standing there looking at this kid like, “Soooo….?”

I only took one picture because I only had my phone. It’s this:

That’s the husband in the green shirt. He’s in the process of putting his hands up as he and the baby ride the Whip. But I know at some point I’m going to forget what this is and wonder, “Why do I have a picture of the husband being held at gunpoint by an idyllic white picket fence?”

When we got home that night we popped over to my mother-in-law’s house for one final session of nightswimming. R.E.M., would you mind providing us with a brief musical interlude?

Yesterday, we had some vague plans of doing stuff around the house, but when it turned out to be cool and rainy all day, we just laid around and napped. It was nice. I did all of the laundry and put some summer clothes away, so if the cool temperatures upset you, don’t worry. My act of putting the sundresses in the bins in the attic have ensured us three weeks of sweltering heat at some point soon.

The baby took a three-hour nap, which was nice because he was being a humongous jerk prior to that. When he started crying because he couldn’t do something in a Wii game and I couldn’t help but laugh, he told me he hated me. So, yeah, no more Wii for him for awhile.

On a more serious, commie note, I want to acknowledge Labor Day and thank the National Postal Mail Handler’s Union and the Communication Workers of America and all of the laborers who came before them. Because of the NPMHU and the CWA, the husband and I grew up with health insurance and parents who weren’t so overworked that they couldn’t be in our lives. Despite only having high school diplomas, our parents were able to raise children who would go on to receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Thank you for fighting for a better life for yourselves, for me, and for my son.

labor
baby’s behavior
putting clothes away/cool weather

everybody all friendly n sh*t

kdiddy — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:08:12 +0000

The baby started fourth grade today, which is of course blowing my mind. He has this year and next year at his current school and then will move to a 6-12 school, which I’m just kind of not thinking about.

The things that I remember most about my fourth grade year are getting glasses and taking up the flute. Clearly, I was gunning for the title of Coolest Kid Ever. (Spoiler: I lost.) My kid, however, just might have a shot. He wore the Kangol that he got in New York and the Adidas shell toes that we purchased last week. He’s going for a Run DMC/Grandmaster Flash vibe. I couldn’t be more pleased.

I don’t have the traditional first day of school picture on the porch to share because the school bus was 30 minutes late today so I didn’t have time to take pictures off of my camera. While waiting, we got to enjoy the sight of other kids getting on their school buses without difficulty and took in a torrential downpour or two. My shoes are still damp.

Despite having a new bus company this year (I called and complained about the old one as “unreliable” would be too kind of an adjective), I still had to call and get an update on the bus and got the, “Well, there’s traffic and it’s raining,” rigamarole. Sorry. Unacceptable. Saying that there’s traffic and rain in Pittsburgh like it’s some kind of unique set of circumstances is like saying, “Gee, it’s a bit sultry atop this volcano.” We almost gave up after waiting for so long but it seemed somehow important to me that the baby and the bus driver meet on the first day. When the bus finally arrived, I had to do the whole, “Here’s my one and only child. If you could now cease being an idiot from this point forward, that would be aces!” hand off. I’m pretty empathetic to people messing up at work, seeing as how I do it ALL THE TIME. But this has been a constant issue and I am getting pretty fed up.

ANYWAY…what else? The husband and I spontaneously tackled our third floor on Sunday night. It’s served as a repository for anything and everything the past five years. It’s a perfectly liveable space and it’s being wasted right now, so we started pawing through the various bags and boxes that we’ve been toting around with us since our late teens. There’s lots of just random stuff that gets shuffled when you move a lot and also lots of meaningful stuff that I’m really glad that we kept. I found a pros and cons list that I composed while determining whether or not I should go out with the husband (mostly pros, the only con being that we were good friends and I didn’t want to potentially ruin that) and a few of our angsty, early emails that essentially serve as our love letters. He found the scrap of paper that he wrote my phone number on. We don’t seem like the most romantic people, but I guess we are.

I think the start of a new school year has that unavoidable feeling of a new start, and we are, of course, going through some transitions. We’re trying to figure out what we’re doing with our life from here and I think getting the house more in shape is indicative of us finally moving forward, even though things don’t look like we thought they were going to.

If nothing else, I got to laugh at stuff like my old Venus razor.

LOLShaving

this house is clean

kdiddy — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 19:31:07 +0000

I write to you from day 3 of my juice cleanse and you know what? It’s not bad at all. I’ve been following the travails of the Serious Eats crew, who were one day ahead of me and decided to read the comments, hoping for some input from other people who have done it. The problem was that I forgot that Serious Eats is a huge site and has the douchey commenters to go with it, nearly all of whom ridiculed the juicers for being stupid and buying into fads. My instant reaction: “They hate me, too.” Because that’s the kind of super-sensitive-you-hurt-my-fee-fees week I’m having.

I mean, I get that plunking down some pretty serious bucks on 18 bottles of juice with perhaps little to no scientific research behind their efficacy is pretty dumb, but for me I was really needing to do some serious resetting. The cleanse gave me the opportunity to really examine how I behave about food and what kinds of hunger give me anxiety and what my instinctive reactions are. Do I feel “cleansed?” I don’t know. Physically, I don’t feel wildly different, and I didn’t experience any lightheadedness or other signs that I was without food, aside from an odd brand of dry mouth. (Though I did try to roll up my yoga mat while I was still standing on it yesterday, which was not my finest moment.) Mentally, though, I feel much better and I’ll take what I can get in that arena these days.

My point is, people spend a lot of money on much dumber things.

Just sayin'

Another cool side effect is that my sense of smell is super heightened. And not in the early-pregnancy “Ugh, what is that?” way. But everything smells so amazing right now. I guess my sense of taste is getting something of a rest since I don’t have the juice in my mouth as long as I do food, so my nose is picking up the slack. Yesterday, there was a mobile BBQ truck on campus for an orientation event and I swear I walked past it three or four times just to take in the aroma. Then I scowled at the people in line. “Look at them. Just grabbing the BBQ like it’s whatever. They don’t understand the magical meat that they’re holding in their hands!”

It’s also made me more excited about ramping up my already healthy eating. Like one of the Serious Eats writers, it made me a little more confident to have more vegan days during the week than I already do. Though, obviously, I’m not going full vegan any time soon (see: BBQ lust). This morning on the bus, a guy in front of me was having a frosted honey bun and a huge bottle of Brisk iced tea. It made me feel ill. But not sanctimonious! Eat what you like. Swearsies.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to take it easy introducing foods back into my life, but I don’t think I’ll be able to resist a bowl of oatmeal or my first cup of coffee since Monday (!). The caffeine part, by the way, was not too bad. Last night, I decided to drink some chai and nearly vibrated out of the house. I’m also surprised at my energy level, which I guess is the other physical effect. I don’t feel like I could run a 5k, per se, but I do feel light and unburdened.

Anyway, the husband and the baby are in New York this weekend. I’m excited to have some time to myself, but I do miss them something terrible. Especially when the husband sends me pictures like this:

He fell asleep reading last night. Could you die? Also, apparently one of the first things that he did upon arriving in NYC was to buy a Kangol hat.

I freaking love that kid so damn much.

kennywood memories (and a giveaway!)

kdiddy — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:36:18 +0000

I posted to MamaDojo last week about our impending trip to Kennywood and tried to explain the tradition of the park, Rick Sebak, and the importance of French fries to non-Pittsburghers. I’m not sure if I did an adequate job or not. But the key takeaway is this: the annual trip to Kennywood is an essential part of growing up in Pittsburgh. There are many rituals involved, from attire to the order of rides to what food is eaten when.

Strategy: get a few of the big coasters in right away. Then proceed straight to Potato Patch for a box (yes, a box) of restorative fries.

The husband, the baby, and I made our annual trip last Wednesday and it was one of the best Kennywood visits we’ve ever had. The weather was gorgeous and it wasn’t crowded, which meant no extremely long waits for rides. This was good because I woke up feeling not so great and I ended up riding the bench a couple of times throughout the day, but didn’t risk wasting much time doing so.

When I was a kid, going to Kennywood meant freaking out on thrill rides and shooting furtive glances at boys. Looking back, it was also usually a rare occasion when my parents and I would spend the day together and have fun for the most part. When the baby became big enough to go and actually ride things, I remember being really excited to share the experience with him. And after a few touch-and-go moments on the Pirate Ship, I could tell he was hooked.

I think what he really likes about it is that it’s the three of us playing together. We all pile into the Racer and boo the other coaster or scream throughout the Phantom’s Revenge. I don’t think anyone would ever accuse the husband or me of being overly mature, but we’re definitely parents. And for a day we get to be kids with our kid.

The baby is still too short to ride the Thunderbolt or the Sky Rocket, so we missed out on those. But it was on some of the tamer rides that we had the best moments of the day. He and I rode the Bayern Kurve together and he cracked up the whole time. Hearing him just goofy with happiness for a few minutes straight was just…awesome.

We had saved a few rides for the night because they look the coolest in the dark and with the lights on. One of these was the Paratrooper. The baby and I sat together and the husband was in the parachute behind us. Again, the baby laughed and oohhed the whole time. It was wonderful. He’s getting to an age where he’s trying to appear older and tougher than he is. Hearing the little boy that is still inside of him made me find the little girl that is still inside of me and I laughed right along with him.

At the end of the day, the husband and the baby wanted to squeeze in one more ride on the Phantom’s Revenge. I had had enough for the day and waited for them on a nearby bench. I watched people file out with absurdly huge stuffed animals and kids look for the parents with only the vaguest sense of panic. I listened to that old song that they always play at the end of the day and felt the twinkly lights on the rides warm my skin.

After they had managed to do not one but two final rides, the husband and the baby and I made our way out, too, pausing to document our sweaty, gleeful, fry-stuffed selves in front of the sweet “Goodnight” heart.

Then came my favorite part: walking through the tunnel toward the exit. Everyone whoops and hollers and giggles at the echo as they shuffle along, the mark of a perfect summer day firmly pressed into their memory. Nobody looks back because they’ve all had their fill and the best part of the night is yet to come: that glorious post-Kennywood shower and sinking your tired feet into bed.

* * *

Because the folks at Kennywood want everyone to be able to experience a perfect day like this, they want to give you a chance to win four free tickets to the park. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment below. You can also earn additional entries by posting a link to this giveaway on Twitter and Facebook. Just be sure to leave a comment here with a link to your tweet or Facebook post. The winner will be selected and posted on Tuesday, July 26th. Good luck!

Disclosure: I was provided with complimentary tickets to Kennywood in exchange for hosting this giveaway.

Update: And our winner is…Gina! Congratulations, Gina!

typewriter drawer

kdiddy — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:56:24 +0000

My eyes fluttered open at the thunder. It wasn’t a loud, startling clap. I always manage to sleep through those, oddly enough. This thunder was gentle, unimposing…like the sky was politely clearing its throat. The rain splattered onto the ground in those big, summertime drops and for a few seconds I took in the scent of the street cooling off.

But at the next cough of thunder, my heart suddenly sped up. The desk. The desk was on the porch.

My husband and our neighbor had hauled it out there a few days earlier. I had meant to cover it up with a tarp but kept forgetting. Now I thought of it sitting there, alone, rejected, its beautiful wood probably getting damaged by an otherwise lovely storm.

The desk came into my possession five years ago. We had just gotten married and were still setting up our house. The desk was going to go into my office-to-be on the second floor. There I would write and pay bills and do most of the managing of my life and our home. It settled into its temporary home in the dining room, because the second floor office was not yet perfect. Its perfection would only be attained once we had graduated, started making more money, and fixing up our house exactly how we planned.

But over the five years that it sat in the dining room, I realized a number of things. We weren’t going to be making the money that we thought we were. The office wasn’t going to look exactly how I’d planned. The desk, with its extreme, antique heft, was not going to make its way upstairs. I needed to adjust my expectations. I needed revise what I viewed as success.

I needed to find a more sensible desk.

The desk needed a new home, but I wasn’t going to give it to just anyone. I wanted it to go to someone who recognized its potential perfection, that the scratches and water ring marks and the drawer that stuck didn’t take away from it was: a beautiful home for hopes and ideas that would fit perfectly into someone else’s life. Just not mine.

The desk was, after all, an artifact from a life that never came to fruition, but that was replaced with this other life that I hadn’t planned for, that would probably always frustrate me with its reluctance to let me manipulate it into a shape in my silly desire to please people who don’t even have to live it. But this life will never fail to awe me when I let it, even if I draft its blueprints, blindfolded, at a smaller desk.

The desk would be fine. Whatever the rain did to it could be fixed. In the morning I would put a tarp on it like I had promised to and would see to finding it a new home. I shuffled onto my side and fell back to sleep.

threads

kdiddy — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:35:54 +0000

I posted on MamaDojo the other day that I’ve been putting some effort into my appearance. For me, 32 has been a particularly shifty year when it comes to my self-image. I’ve never been so at peace with my body, but I’ve also never been so proactive in changing it. Well, changing probably isn’t the best way to put it. I think I’m finally at a point where I’m recognizing how good this bag of bones has been to me and I want to treat it right. I eat well, making almost all of my meals with a focus on what my body needs, what will make it feel good. I exercise, but not so much that I risk hurting myself. I regard the tiny lines that are quietly etching their way around my eyes with a sense of, “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

Pretty much the opposite of what I was doing 15 years ago when my body was, outwardly, Holy Shit Amazing to most standards.

This is not to say that I’m “cured” of all of that nonsense. I still fret about the size of my belly and how weird it is that the meat on the side of my left knee is so much bigger than that of my right. Stuff like that.

But I’m noticing that I want to be more…visible? Like I mentioned in my MamaDojo post, Joan from Mad Men rocks my world. She’s got boobs. She’s got hips. She’s got an ass. And we know all of this, but more importantly, we know that she knows it. I’ve been trying to adopt some of that attitude while remaining true to the fact that I like being comfortable and somewhat conservative.

So, today, I was a little apprehensive about my outfit, especially when the husband sized me up and said, “What…what’s with this outfit?” I then peppered him with questions, paranoid that I was, to use a somewhat offensive and not at all feminist word*, skanky. Of course, this recalled another hilarious exchange between the two of us when I had some anxiety over a pair of shorts that were shorter than I usually buy.

“Are they skanky?” I fretted.

“I think you and I have very different definitions of skanky,” he replied. “You look like you’re about to go golfing.”

“But not, like, skanky golfing?” I confirmed, because you know how skanky golfing is totally a thing.

I just want to make sure that I’m not overdoing it and that I’m projecting a relatively youthful vibe without looking like I’m denial over the fact that I’m 32.

So, here’s me in the bathroom at work this morning while our network was down. (What else was I supposed to do? Write things down on paper? Pssh.) I’ll provide the inner monologue.

Conservative shot…terrified someone will walk in.

Try to emulate one of those ladies who document their outfits everyday…ow, I think I pulled something.

Getting really daring now. Attempting to look up without falling over. Oh, why does my posture look weird? Can you tell that I have a wad of paper towels in my left hand?

I need to stop messing around. Jaunty, flirty pose. Vogue.

Not pictured is a bracelet I was wearing this morning…until I remembered that I really don’t like wearing bracelets.

It’s shorter than I would normally go for and the addition of a belt was, to me, completely impulsive and weird. And I would have worn a necklace but I was so thrown off by the belt and the bracelet that I was worried my head would explode. But how do you think I’m doing?

* I’m usually really conscious of my language but sometimes I just have to go there.

quite possibly the best weekend ever.

kdiddy — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:09:21 +0000

Not long after I published my post on Friday noting that I hadn’t uploaded last day of school pictures, I realized that I totally had and just forgot all about it. Dur. So, here is the (not so much) baby on his last day of third grade.

That crumpling sound you hear is my heart. Please ignore.

But anyway, I’m coming off of one of the best weekends I’ve ever had and I have the messy kitchen and piles of dirty laundry to prove it. Friday night I accompanied the husband to Eclipse where he was playing records. That place is decent, though I was a little put off by the Ikea-heavy decor and the odd 1998 look of the place. However, the original glass block bar is so cool-looking. I gawked at it for a good 20 minutes. We took off kind of early because we had a big day on Saturday.

I got myself and the baby up kind of early and my mom took us into Shadyside where I was getting a long-overdue haircut and pedicure. My mom dropped me off at home and she and the baby went to Legofest at the convention center and I made one more stop to the nail shop to get my fingers looking nice. It was, as Truvy from Steel Magnolias would say, “a full day’s beauty.” Then the husband and I got dressed and headed into town.

Aren't we swell?

We ate at Seviche, which we’d been dying to return to since we ate there last year, and had one of the best meals ever. Here’s our obscene list of tasty things:

Strawberry Mimosa Champagne Mojito
Cuban Pomegranate Martini
Trio of Chips and Salsa
Traditional, Curried Tropical Fruit, and Fire & Ice Seviches with Ahi Tuna, Scottish Salmon, and Hamachi
Mojo Criollo Nigiri
Bistec Bocadillos with Filet Mignon
Chorizo Wrapped Diver Scallops

I also made the executive decision to order a really expensive bottle of Malbec and noted to the waiter that we splurged because of the special occasion. As a surprise at the end of the meal, he brought us a piece of Tres Leches cake with fresh strawberries and two glasses of Champagne.

After dinner, we walked over to the Consol Energy Center for the Sade concert. It was a happy coincidence that it came around the time of our anniversary, because it was the no-brainer special event. And the concert was so, so amazing. Sade the singer and Sade the band are all so beautiful and talented and smooth and wonderful and sexy. Sade didn’t speak much, but when she did her soft British accent made things like, “Pittsburgh, you’ve built a lot of bridges and they all lead directly to my heart,” and “He charms the birds out of the sky because they want to bask in his light,” sound beautiful and poetic instead of kinda cheesy. The stage was gently lit and adorned with sheer white curtains that would dramatically fly away or drop into the recesses of the floor.

The music, of course, was beautiful. The highlight for me was “By Your Side.” I’ve always liked that song just fine, but never really regarded it as one of their greatest. But for that song the stage was lit in this warm, sunset color and at the end confetti was shot out over the audience. The husband and I were literally by each other’s sides and I knew that we would remain that way for many more years to come.

Edited to add: Can’t believe I forgot to mention Father’s Day, which we spent at my mom’s house with my dad, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. After a slight panic early in the afternoon, we had a rad cookout and then went to see Super 8 at the drive-in. Yeah. This weekend ruled.