the biggest baby in the world

it's been three months. the engine has been breastfeeding. non-stop. life is great. the prawn is real. he is a big gigantic bouncing baby boy. he is three months old tomorrow and is possibly the greatest baby the world has ever known. if there was a way to describe him, i would say he is a combination of beethoven's ode to joy, the lunar landing, the smell of a brand new puppy's breath, carvel's softserve ice cream on a hot day and the feeling one gets when one first sees the eiffel tower. that's just for starters. i'm in love. with mon mari of all times and with this gorgeous baby.

a lion, a planet, a turtle & a scorpion

well, here we are, in the homestretch. the prawn is due one week from today. i am sorry for the dearth which has no doubt disappointed all of the millions of tinyengine readers over these last few weeks and months, it's just that the gigantic prawn-of-next-friday has sucked all the life out of me. my days now consist of intermittently sleeping and hobbling around on what i used to call my feet. somehow the shift in my center of gravity has left me with what i now refer to as 'prongs.' it feels as though there are no less than 5 prongs coming out from the ball of each foot, one prong for each toe, and then maybe 3 prongs, arranged like a tripod, coming out from each heel. if i don't wear some kind of cushy prong covers, i have trouble following the well-worn path from the bedroom to the kitchen without experiencing intense pain. the other day, i was wearing my most comfortable prong covers with my most comfortable cushy wool socks. i looked maybe a little like i might be going on an alpine expedition in 1947. i was otherwise fashionably attired in the height of summer maternity wear.

everything was fine, until we went out to get my grainy protein drink which has been sustaining both the prawn and myself these last few weeks. it seems i had forgotten to change my prong covers into something more presentable, so my darling hub of all hullabaloo actually laughed out loud (believe me, it was warranted) as we were getting out of the car in the protein drink parking lot. there was nothing i could do but take off the woolen socks. so then i was barefoot in the alpine shoes, with big indented woolen sock marks where my wooly mammoth socks had been. well, that's the price you pay when you are 9 months pregnant, it's 100 degrees out and you need some frozen protein elixir.

but enough about that. i have a number of things on the agenda today. the first is pluto. i got up in the middle of the night a few nights ago, as happens, about 6 times each night, and i did my regular rounds about the house, ending, as i usually do, with a little check of the internet. it was then that i read the devastating news about pluto. it's no longer a planet. have you heard? i nearly cried. first of all, it has the cutest name of all of the planets, but also, it seems to me that once you are a planet, you should stay a planet. when you're a planet, you're a planet all the way, from your first cigarette to your last dying day. i mean, it's sort of like when you go to buy something at the store, and it's been marked wrong, but they still have to sell it to you at the price it's marked. fair is fair. so, just let pluto stay a planet. it doesn't matter. where's the harm, really?

i read a quote from the widow of clyde tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered pluto. she said that her husband would have accepted pluto's demotion to non-planet status because he was a good scientist. well, i'm also married to a good scientist, but i don't accept it. i think there are certain things in life that should just stay the same, science or no science. (i know my scientific cher mari of all parapluies of cherbourg is shaking his delightful head right now) - but it's how i feel. what will i teach the prawn? shall we say: my very elegant mother just sat upon nine?? nine what?? oh, this is madness.

this brings me to topic number two, (or is it three?) of the day: the mgm lion. if you watch old movies, like i do, you will know that there are different mgm lions. my favorite are the two oldest lions. they are both black and white and if my memory serves me correctly, one of the sequences has a little edit in there, where they capture a few growls and then there's a little edit and then he growls again. maybe it's a skip in the film. i'll have to check. but anyway, i saw the other black and white lion today on tv and it made my heart ache a little bit for some reason, so i decided to find out more about them. it turns out there have been about 5 or so lions used in all. the oldest two (and my favorites) are named slats and jackie. jackie has a little hesitation between the second and third growls that i find very endearing. also, i kind of like that they are just sort of growling--they aren't delivering a big roar or anything. and also, i learned that before all the high-tech things like regular sound that we have now, they used to play the growl on a phonograph record while the image played on the screen. how could somebody not think that is the greatest thing ever? i am now in search of a phonograph record of just the growl. i would play it over and over again on my victrola and the prawn and i would make lion faces. well, if you do get to see an old mgm movie sometime soon, don't miss the beginning. i think it's worth the price of admission. by the way, i saw the end of 'the shop around the corner' today, which has always been one of my favorite old movies. it takes place at a little shop in budapest, of all places, called 'matuschek's.' you should try to see it. jimmy stewart is in it. plus, you get a lion at the beginning, so what do you have to lose?

oh, and then there's one more thing i wanted to mention and that is the dream i had 2 nights ago. i have kept this to the very end, because i think it might upset some tinyengine readers and if you've stuck with this terribly boring entry this long, then you will certainly not be troubled by what i'm about to tell you. i had a dream that i had had the prawn and i was holding him. everything was going along fine until, well, i dropped him. i did manage to catch him before he hit the ground though, but i still incurred the wrath of my grandmother who told me that i was not a good mother. i told her that she shouldn't judge me and that "everyone drops the baby once in a while." (?) i then went upstairs to my sister's room (oh, this dream took place in my childhood home) to feed the baby, only when i got there, the baby was no longer a baby, but a tiny turtle, so small that i could have fit two of them in the palm of my hand. the turtle was so dehydrated that its head fell off. i was quite shocked, but i managed to stick the little skinny neck right back into where it had come from and the head seemed to be securely back on as near as i could tell. then, it was time to feed him. i opened the little cottage cheese type container full of little worms that i had and i fed the turtle the whole thing. when i went to open the second container of worms, i didn't realize that this new container was labeled for a later stage of turtle and while the first container was full of just skinny worms that just squirmed around over one another, this second container held snakes, a scorpion, and all kinds of big things that raced out as soon as i opened the top. they all scurried out and slipped under my sister's closet door, and i went running after them, but couldn't get to them in time. well, just about that time, the granule woke me up for breakfast and i thanked her all morning for getting me out of that weird dream.

now, if you're rushing off to read the dream interpretation key for what this all means, you can save yourself the time and email me. i will be happy to interpret it for you. and while i'm at it, i'll tell you all about the dream where the prawn emerges and tells me quite clearly that he doesn't like the outfit we've chosen for him for the ride home from the hospital. then there is the dream where i can't get him to nurse no matter what happens. seven more days. now is the age of anxiety. just like w.h. auden said.

i have seen the enemy, and the enemy is not juice

because prawny of all piranhas had gotten so big, and because i was complaining of heartburn (partly because prawny had gotten so big), my doctor told me to avoid juice. every single person i told this to, (i complained about it to anyone who would listen because i love juice and have been especially loving juice since i got pregnant) said, "oh, yes! juice! you may as well drink straight sugar!"

except, i like juice. so it has been sad. we go to the grocery store and i stare longingly at the odwalla rack. we go into a restaurant and i can't have wine, or coffee, or anything fun, and now juice. it's been an unfortunate time.

but all of that changed today.

i went in for my appointment and it turned out that for the first time in 8 months, i hadn't had any weight gain. it could have to do with the fact that the great karchini has so displaced my stomach that it is now the size and shape of a mason jar ring, or it could have to do with the fact that it is one hundred and eighty degrees outside. in any case, i haven't had much of an appetite. (although, i did manage to eat as much as i possibly could as my belle-mère of all ballerinas and my belle-grandmère of all grand dames cooked and cooked and cooked the most wonderful things, plying us with meal after meal and didn't allow me to carry one glass to the kitchen while we visited last weekend).

so the end result was a zero pound weight gain. the prawnarini, however, has continued his astonishing growth and is still measuring beyond his weeks. that means that he is a little leechy líčku who is robbing from the beetle to pay the prawn. anyway, i tell you all of this because today the nurse's response was, "go to jamba juice." NEVER IN MY LIFE have i heard such beautiful words. ok, maybe "will you marry me?" as it fell from my darling hubble telescope's lips was more beautiful, but then this today was the second most beautiful thing i've ever heard.

i hied me hence to jamba juice and bought a gigantic protein berry concoction with added protein and it was fantastic. then i came home and ate 4 brownie cookies and had the greatest noodle thing from trader joe's and some leftover sesame tofu that my dear friend greaty made last night when she and her own tiny prawn-in-hiding came for dinner.

so maybe that jamba juice re-invigorated my appetite. i plan to gain 47 pounds before next week when i return to the doctor. won't that be grand?

ok, enough of this food and pregnancy talk for now.

my mari of all martinis is out setting the salty land speed record at the present moment which can only mean one thing: i've rearranged the furniture. really, i just pushed the dining room table up against the wall so that i could prevent the granule from tripping over the power cord and causing costly repairs. i have been keeping my computer out on the table so i can do all of the important work that i have to do. i am very important. i do very important work. if it weren't for my work, i couldn't keep buying myself fuzzy water, nor could the industries for whom i work thrive as they seem to be thriving this quarter. i am looking forward to not working for the two and a half minutes of unpaid maternity leave that i will have when prawny comes. that will be enjoyable. before that time, however, i will have to move the dining room table back to the center of the room where it belongs. i will also have to do more of my important work that really isn't important and doesn't help fight global warming in any way. mari the calamari is going to stop the polar ice caps from melting (after returning from the giant saltlick expedition) but i will continue to perpetuate the inconvenient lie with all of my slick advertising work.

but for now, let's return to the subject of the dining room table: my preferred aesthetic is "push everything flush against every wall in every room." my haberdashery of all husbandry likes things to actually look good. that is the difference between us. well, that and the fact that i look like a gigantic gobstopper with limbs and that he is tall, handsome and setting the land salt record at the moment.

(and now back to pregnancy. but not juice or food.)

ok, and for those of you who asked for an update on the prawny preparations, there is a lovely bassinet on its way, courtesy of my belle-soeur of all balancers, and also a buzzy seat, or, as my dear old friend wagner used to call it: the neglectomatic. so those are coming. and a positively gorgeous dresser for all of the prawny's little items will be arriving too, courtesy of the non-stop cooking and baking team down south. it does seem as though things are coming together. i will tell you though, that (prepare yourself, it is sad) i went to the baby emporium yesterday (the same baby emporium where someone rammed the back of my car and drove away) and i bought 5 items that i felt i would like to have on hand before the gigantic jacquini made his appearance. upon arriving home, i discovered that the one item i liked best was not in the bag. i phoned the baby emporium and told them that one item must have been left at the checkout. well, they phoned me back, after reviewing the security video, confirming my identity by my high fashion pink maternity tank top and flip flops, and said that every item did indeed make it into the bag.

that means that (a) they are lying, (b) somewhere between the front door and the first space next to the handicapped space, my puppy sleepsack fell out of the bag. or (c) it fell out in the 5 yards between my car and my house. i don't believe (b) or (c) happened. but then there is the video evidence of (a), so there's nothing i can do. the idea that the puppy sleepsack has simply vanished really troubles me. my only consolation is that the sleepsack is probably in the ether somewhere with gluey, the beloved creature of my youth. i imagine them somewhere, flipping through time and space, a child's flannel sleepsack and a tooth-shaped animal made from a sweatsock. perhaps they will keep each other company. and perhaps one day, i will tell the prawn the story of gluey and the sleepsack. until that time, we will simply wait. maybe they will come back home.

infantesimal

well, it took me about a week to recover from the world cup final. i'm not even going to talk about it here, really. if you want to read about it, you can go to just about any internet site you like, and you will find something. i will just say that the worst part is that people who, on july 8th, had never even heard of zinedine zidane, now know him as "the head-butt guy" and that makes me terribly sad.

and it seems that bastille day came and went without even the hanging of the tricolore around here. maybe because it was 175 degrees and nobody could be bothered to do much of anything at all. or maybe because the press ruined that too by using the holiday to sound off further in the zidane symposium. in any case, le quatorze juillet did make its appearance, in spite of the fear that it might be called off, in deference to la débâcle. oh, and thank you to john for being the first and only to offer his bastille day wishes. thank you. i did find it heartening too, that after france lost (and after they won those thrilling games leading up to the final) a handful of friends called my house to offer their condolences (and to congratulate me on the victories) as though i were the trainer. it reminded me of the time, nearly 26 years ago, when friends and neighbors called our house to make sure i was ok after john lennon had been killed. (my sister's birthday celebration was also killed that night, poor dear.) i was that much of a beatle fan at the time that people felt the need to check in on me. it did put me into a terrible spin for quite a while, and i kept my own vigil by the fm radio for weeks on end. i even wore a black ribbon for 40 days, an act that really only served to confuse my fellow 8th graders and disturb by grandfather beyond measure. anyway, i'm not sure what it says about me that i receive condolence calls when john lennon dies and the french national team loses the world cup. perhaps i could devote myself to loftier causes. but we knew that already. i told you all about it in the siege of budapest episode.

now that we've gotten all of that out of the way, i can tell you about the dream i had this morning. i was outside, in the street, in front of the house i grew up in, and i was going into premature labor. however, i still managed to stay out there, running up and down the street for about an hour. a famous tennis star (i don't know who it was, because i don't follow tennis) was repeatedly serving up ping-pong balls to me and i repeatedly failed in my attempts to return the volley. i tried and tried, but the ping-pong balls were getting swept sideways by the breeze, or i simply couldn't reach them. the tennis star never lost her patience though, and kept up the service. it wasn't until we both noticed an erector set type of military aircraft hovering overhead that we put an end to the game. we could see this craft circling around, and we could see a few people peering out of the open red baron-ish cockpit. they didn't communicate with us, or shoot at us or anything, but they certainly were menacing. it was at this point that i decided to return home, because i was, after all, going into labor about 6 weeks early, and i figured i should do something about it. or at least get out of the line of fire. it was then that the granule woke me up, needing her breakfast and her insulin. thank goodness for the granule.

i am sure that i am probably the 10 billionth pregnant woman to have that dream. (not the part about the tennis star, or the enemy aircraft, but the part about going into labor early.) the dream has been recurring for about a week now. it either has to do with the fact that the prawn now weighs about 73 pounds, or that we aren't really ready. i don't worry about being ready for parenthood, i mean ready, in terms of having all of the stuff. i would certainly still be having these dreams even if we had painted the nursery (office) robin's egg blue and had a big fluffy rug and the diaper sorter and all the stuffed animals expectantly waiting along the periphery of the crib, but as we don't have any of those things, i keep looking around the house and thinking: a baby's going to live here?

oh sure, we do have a lovely crib from my soeur of all certainties and the greatest glider of all time (a gift from ma mère of all windermeres) should be arriving any day now, but to look at our house, you wouldn't know a baby is coming. to look at me and my beetle existence, you would have no doubt, but the house is another story. i bought a container of organic wipes from the healthfood store, so that's a start. and as for names, we still don't know. yesterday, we had the brilliant idea that his name should be janus, until this morning when i realized that it will forever sound during roll call at school (do they still do that?) or on the phone with the insurance company like his name is janis. which is neat for joplin, but not for the poor prawn. so we are back to the drawing board.

two more things:

1. we had very great red curry last night.
2. today is our first anniversary, and my dear of all deer is the greatest of all times.

la vengeance (on and off the field) est un plat qui se mange froid (and preferably with chicken)

closing in on 24 hours before the france match, and things are getting pretty exciting around our house. the granule has her france scarf and she's all ready to go. she slept through the u.s. match this morning, and don't worry, i won't tell you what happened. but franule the granule is really looking forward to the game tomorrow. she, florian and i will all be together in front of the television, with our chewies, orangina and whatever a french maternity pillow likes to eat during a world cup match. if mon mari of all maritimes could come home for lunch to watch with us, that would be great. and then we would be sure to have lots of chocolate and bagels too.

anyway, enough of that for now. there will be plenty of time for the play-by-play later. what i will tell you is that somebody hit the prawn's new car while it was in a parking lot. we were in the baby emporium and when we came out, someone had taken 2 big chunks out of our bumper. so now, i have to take the prawn's car that isn't even 3 weeks old over to a local body shop for an estimate. betty, who called from the body shop this morning (during the u.s. match, so she's probably not a soccer fan) was very nice though. i wonder if she will do the work herself.

so i will take the car over at lunchtime. i decided to wear my most impervious maternity outfit, so as to say, "yes, i am pregnant, and shaped like a beetle, but in my black t-shirt, jeans and flip-flops, i am just here to discuss the estimate with you, and you most certainly cannot take advantage of me the way you might be inclined to if i were wearing my orange, yellow and white tie-back tunic and sandals, betty. or floyd. or jim." we'll see how it goes. i hope they'll be nice.

did i ever tell you the story about my dad and how a guy at an army-navy surplus store was not only mean to him, but refused to take back an item that was obviously damaged? my dad tried to talk reason with the man, whose response was to insult my father and to refuse to make an exchange. so my dad did what any self-respecting person would do: he went in a few days later, when someone else was tending the till, walked to the back of the store, produced a raw chicken breast from his pocket, and slipped it into the pocket of an army parka hanging on an overstuffed rack full of army parkas. then he walked out. that's what good old betty or floyd or jim have coming to them if they try to take advantage of a pregnant woman whose prawn's car was hit in the parking lot of the baby emporium. raw chicken warfare.

this also reminds me of a joke my grammy tells about a guy who gets a flat tire on a remote highway in the middle of the night. well, the joke is really too long to tell here, so i won't, but the punchline is, "well, you can take your jack and..." oh dear. i can't use that kind of language on tinyengine, so you will just have to use your imagination. or you can call my grammy who will be happy to tell you the whole joke, including the profanity. in fact, if you have a list of baby names, you can run them all by my grammy and she will find the profane in every one of them. she's that funny. but the point of the joke is that you can get all worked up over someone who you think will be mean to you, even though they could be nice as pie. like betty. and floyd. jim, i'm not so sure about.

well, both brazil vs. japan and australia vs. croatia are both about to begin, so i have to take my leave of you, dear readers.

allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est (presque) arrivé

well, i suppose you're wondering why you haven't heard from tinyengine lately--what with all this world cup excitement going on. well, i'll tell you. it's because i was so sad about france's performance in the first game that i couldn't summon the strength to talk about it in a brisk and entertaining manner befitting tinyengine. they tied switzerland 0-0. anyway, there was redemption in france's second game, with henry's lovely goal. but then they gave up a late goal and tied korea. it was awful.

there has been a lot of talk about french fans being angry. i'm not angry. i think that's too fairweather-y. i think it's wrong that someone could cheer for them and celebrate and get excited in 1998 when they win the world cup, and in 2000 when they are european champions, only to abandon them now that they're not doing that well (ok, and so they didn't do well in 2002's world cup and euro 2004--) but still. you can't really be angry at them. not if you really, truly like them very much and want them to do well. so please, try not to be mad at them. that's silly. i do hope they play better on friday. i hope they win. boy, do i. after korea scored, i nearly cried. after the game was over, i took to my bed with florian and fell into a deep sleep. even florian was crying. i know you're thinking that a maternity pillow can't cry, but you don't know what a crushing blow that was for my pillow and his countrymen.

anyway, there is still hope on friday.

and tomorrow, we will watch the u.s. and cheer for them, even though the situation looks pretty dire. i don't have any american pillows, so there won't be any tears shed if they don't make it through to the next round. i'll be pretty sad for them, but only because the media created too much expectation, not because they were supposed to advance. and also because that referee for the italy match was so horrendous that no team should have to put up with that.

i am starting to think, though, that if france and the u.s. get knocked out, i will have considerably more time on my hands. oh, sure, i'll find someone else to cheer for--maybe england, because that would make my sister happy, or maybe ghana. anyway, i'll have more time to compulsively look up baby ear thermometers and mittens online. and i'll have more time to spend with the granule, who looks very sweet after receiving her new haircut. if they advanced teams (or dogs) to the round of 16 based on cuteness, the granule would be there, probably playing against germany. anyway, it turns out, they don't, so she will just lay on her dogbed and quietly cheer for france.

oh, by the way, i will be 7 months pregnant a week from today. that means that the prawn will be making his appearance kind of soon. in fact, according to the latest ultrasound, he might be walking out with a hat and cane, because he is gigantic. officially colossal. the kind ultrasound woman confirmed what i had thought all along: that the prawn is nearly 6 feet tall. ok, so he's not, but he is nearly 4 lbs, which, at this point, is pretty darn big. and his head and tum are in the 98th percentile. and barring surgical intervention, i know of only one way out. it's the hat and cane i'm mostly worried about.

by the way, if you need an update, argentina just hit the goalpost in the netherlands game. it's 28 minutes into the first half. still 0-0. this is pretty compelling. you should turn on your tv.

the bell and the ball

if you don't like soccer or pregnancy, i apologize in advance. not just for the content of today's little article, but for the likely content of tinyengine for the next 30 days.

world cup started with a bang this morning. and i couldn't be happier. this, of course, is the prawn's first world cup, even though he doesn't know it yet. but i feel that the experience will nonetheless be crucial to his development as my son.

this morning, germany (oh wait! SPOILER ALERT!! I AM GOING TO REVEAL TODAY'S WORLD CUP SCORES! IF YOU HAVE THE GAME ON TIVO, STOP READING NOW.) beat costa rica 4-2 in a very exciting match. then, ecuador beat poland, who i think forgot that today was the world cup. it was 2-0 and ecuador's defense was fun to watch. tomorrow will be england and paraguay, so i suggest you tune in. and then there are two more games after that! trinidad & tobago vs sweden and then argentina vs cote d'ivoire. ok, ok, you don't have to watch all of them if you don't want to. you see, some people get unreasonably excited during the nba finals. i don't, even though i do like ben wallace and i usually tune in to watch the pistons in the post-season, which seems to happen about every other day. but, i do get unreasonably excited about world cup. and this world cup will carry me through another month of pregnancy, so when the final rolls around, i will be rolling around too, and will be just 8 weeks away from seeing the prawn. and also that much closer to actually getting out and playing soccer again, as matrimonio has promised me that he will be on prawn-watch on sunday afternoons so i can de-beetle myself on the playing field.

in the meantime, on monday the u.s. plays the czech republic and on tuesday, france plays switzerland. i hate to say it, but i am way more excited about the france game. if only because one doesn't get to see them play very often on tv here, while the u.s. men's national team is on the cover of sports illustrated. i know, i know. it's very exciting for soccer in this country, and i am thrilled, but they charge an arm and a jambe for l'equipe at my local newsstand, and that's the only way i can see my french team. oh, except on the internet, but that's not the same as picking up a magazine or turning on the television.

so that's the world cup roundup. i promise i won't just give the scores every day. i know you can get that just about anywhere else in the world. and i also know that what you come to tinyengine for is insight, wit and good looks. so i will try not to disappoint in the next four weeks.

meanwhile, speaking of good looks, my beetle silhouette is becoming more and more profound. my bell is taking over, and were it not for my new 5-foot-long maternity pillow/companion, who we have decided to name florian, as my espoused of all espresso has stricken said name from the baby name shortlist (and yes, you can address any and all petitions to him), i wouldn't be able to sleep a wink.

a good friend of mine, who is also a lunatic when it comes to soccer, had the misfortune of impregnating his wife 266 days before the world cup final. (they are fortunate to be pregnant, it is the timing that is bad.) their baby is due on july 9th--one month from today. i am pretty sure that she will either have to be induced or undergo a scheduled a c-section on a non-match day before the final, because otherwise, how could he take that chance? how could he miss the birth of his own child? well, it's just something he will have to do, i guess.

here are two more things i wanted to say:

i just ate a really good chocolate cupcake, and also, i think it's really funny whenever someone says that something should be served piping hot.

when butter has fully melted in the skillet

well, we bought the prawn a car.

of course, he is too young to drive, as he is still in utero (and no, that's not the name of a new yaris-type smart car, i mean, he is in my actual uterus, an idea which, frankly, is more surreal than the idea of him actually piloting a car, if you ask me.) but anyway, the car that i was driving up until the night before last night is pretty scrunchy and has only 2 doors and i would probably need a shoe horn to get him in and out of the backseat there, so we got a new car. it's really neat. i am not in the business of endorsing any makes of cars here at tinyengine, so i won't tell you what we got or what we are selling, unless you want to buy a silver automatic 2-door european sporty-type car, in which case, i will be happy to discuss price with you.

in the meantime, i'll tell you that we went to a scorching hot dealership and i sat in the car one more time to make sure that i really really liked it. (yes, i had driven it already) and we bought it. i noticed on the dashboard display that it was 101 degrees inside the car. i was forced to drink a can of 7-up while we did the paperwork. i haven't had a can of 7-up since i had the stomach flu in 1978.

anyway, the new car is very cute and not at all the type of car that makes you feel like just because you are having a baby you are suddenly a sad, resigned, gelatinous person who must now drive a car that makes you feel like a sad, resigned, gelatinous person. but this new car is, in fact, a very nice car that makes me feel quite non-gelatinous. it also has a cd player, which i haven't had for 2 years. and back doors. oh my gosh, can i tell you how nice rear doors are when you have been driving a very small coupe-y car (with remarkably low mileage and alloy wheels) for 2 years? and soon, the prawn will ride around back there and i will get a lot of use out of those back doors. so that's the story of the great shiny new car.

now, the only thing we have to do is figure out how to prevent it from being 94 degrees tomorrow when it is only the beginning of june, which means that the rest of summer will be incandescently hot. i am going to spend my 7th, 8th and 9th month of pregnancy in the dust bowl with a calico print shift and no shoes and a dirt-caked face and nostrils. and if it weren't for our very efficient air conditioning, i would probably get so hot that the prawn would turn into a little dutch baby inside of me. (recipe follows)

but lucky for us, we have modern conveniences and while it won't be glamorous, i can have my hub of all hubble telescopes lower me into a cold bath with an advanced pulley and harness mechanism or i can accept the kind offer made by my beau-frère of all brouhaha and my soeur of all sourires to frequent their pool in my maternity swimming costume which makes me look more like a beetle than a beetle.

today at lunch i bought myself my first pair of maternity shorts. i confess they are not very becoming, but they should do the trick tomorrow.

it's going to be a scorcher.

dutch baby
(and no, we are not dutch and also, i would do this without lemon, because i don't like lemon. i would put raspberry purée or something on there. nice.)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
butter
1 lemon
powdered sugar

preheat oven to 425 degrees. cut up butter into small pieces, and place in cast iron dutch oven or skillet without the lid on. place dutch oven in hot oven. prepare batter in a blender by placing eggs in and blending until foamy. add milk, flour, salt and vanilla and blend until combined. when butter has fully melted in the skillet, carefully remove hot dutch oven from oven and swirl butter to coat pan. quickly pour batter in skillet and place back in hot oven. bake for about 25 minutes, or until puffed and lightly browned. remove from oven and cut into wedges and place on serving plates. cut tablespoon pats of butter, and place a pat on each serving. cut lemon in half, and squeeze juice over wedges and sprinkle liberally with powdered sugar. serve immediately. yield: 4 servings

of (hungry) mice and (wo)men

i usually go home for lunch. or i will sometimes run out and get a yogurt and one of those earthy rolls from whole foods that can rip apart your mouth if you're not careful. or sometimes i will fit in an errand or two--these days, it's usually something to do with the impending prawn. i have gotten very domestic (knitting and such) and well, animal-y.

anyway, i didn't leave the office today, because there were too many things to do, which, happily for me, is a rare occurence. but anyway, that's how it went this afternoon. so i decided to run across the street to get an egg salad sandwich with tomato on squaw bread and a little container of sweet hot mustard. if you've never tried this sandwich, i think you should. and i will tell you that today, the man who made the sandwich managed to unflinchingly pile the bread with a full 3 vertical inches of egg salad. anyway, as i was scurrying back with my weird oversized plastic container full of salty, cholesterol laden eggs, i felt like i was a little rodent, darting back to my burrow clutching some kind of leafy or wormy thing in my teeth. or maybe dragging back some piece of straw or weed for my little sleeping area.

i often think about that as i am driving off at lunchtime to my errands or to home or to whole foods, and i see all the people coming back across the street from the little commissary, chatting and laughing with co-workers, all of them carrying styrofoam or plastic containers full of things. i always think how they are all little animals pulling back birds or grasses to their little compartments. like they have just darted out quickly, paused before they crossed the street, like a little squirrel will do, and then, safely across, they quickly gather their food and run back to their hole. i think of it more often than i would care to say. but today, i was that little rodent. it may have been because it was a little overcast and not quite blustery, but the weather was sort of toying with a pre-bluster. and then there were little pools of pine needles around in the uneven asphalt of the driveway. it all made me think how i'm just maybe a good nail filing away from real animal status. and with this big baby flipping around in there--my gosh, i'm just brimming with animal life.

it doesn't matter that i came back to a computer with a super fast internet connection, or that i had 2 messages on my cell phone, or that i bought some horrible low-fat nabisco confection for dessert, i am still a little animal pulling husks in.

i had thought about telling the people who were waiting for a final version of what i've been working on that i was just still too busy pulling in husks and making a cozy mat for the floor of my extensive burrow system and that i had to eat some worms and things so my prawn would have keen eyesight when it is born, but then i thought that i would probably end up being out of work a few months before my real (and very unpaid) maternity leave begins. so i didn't say anything. i just had my lunch and tried to finish up my (oops! i mean, somebody else's) work.

but it wasn't without noticing how our building really resembles a complex underground structure, with tunnels and rooms, and we can even seal off the entrance during daylight, if we wish. and everyone is chattering and full of industry. and some people have good strong incisors for gnawing.

i am really looking forward to having this baby. not because he will be so great and cute and wonderful and will probably resemble my handsome spousey of all species, which of course he will, but because it will be nice to finally be more like an animal. (and i understand from dear friends that the whole thing is pretty animal-y) i'm not worried about any of that though. because i think animals are some of the nicest people i've ever met. and i would be honored to just do what they do. especially if it means not having to meet someone else's deadline on the friday before a three-day weekend.

have a very nice time this memorial day, and i hope you all drag something nice into your little burrow.

of balls, eye and soccer

so much has been going on, it's hard to know where to start. first of all, i'll tell you that arsenal and barcelona are playing in the champions league final in paris tomorrow. if you happen to be in paris, and you happen to get tickets for 75,000 euro or whatever they are going for, then you are a lucky person. i, however, will be watching it on a little sylvania mini tv at work. of course, i will tivo it and watch it later as well, so i can admire frame by frame the stunning beauty of thierry henry as he scores goal after goal against barcelona.

and then, on thursday, i take the granule to her 5 week follow-up appointment. for what, you ask? well, for her cataract surgery, of course! what you don't know is that while you were toiling away in the fields, without even a tinyengine entry to sustain you in your darkest hours, i was (with loads of help from my habitat for husbandry of all habitat for husbands) helping franule the granule convalesce. she is diabetic, as you well know if you are an avid tinyengine reader. and while most dogs lose their sight from cataracts within 6 months to a year of becoming diabetic, frances managed to see clearly for 3 years. it was great. in fact, it was the only break the dog has gotten in 11 years. and we were grateful for it while it lasted. but then, old mr. cataract caught up with her and she lost her sight around fall of last year. we were out at the little park and she ran right into a light post. that's when we knew that she could no longer see. the light post broke too. she has a strong head.

so, in mid-april, just in time for her birthday, she underwent surgery. through the miracle of phaecoemulsification, they were able to dissolve her cataracts, suck them out of there, and then put new lenses into her eyes. the minute she got out of surgery, she could see again! i imagined it would have been like an old movie, where someone wakes up and with a look of wonder, gazes upon the vase of flowers on the bedside table and says tearily, "i can see!" but apparently, frances didn't react that way. also, i don't think they had flowers in the dog recovery room. but they did say that her eyes ping-ed back and forth like cartoon eyes because her brain was unable to process all the images coming in. then, they took her for a walk and she stared at everything. the grass, the flowers, the concrete blocks in the parking lot. everything.

there were soaring violins and everyone was cheering.

anyway, then we brought her home and she had to have 2 sets of eyedrops 4 times a day and 3 kinds of pills 3 times a day and she had to wear a big plastic cone helmet for a month. if you have a dog, i don't have to tell you how annoying it is for the dog and how terrible it is for the people who have to witness the poor beast walking into everything with the plastic cone helmet.

during the month, she fell down the stairs a few times (her legs had become weak) and she tried to scratch her eye with the sharp edge of a wicker basket and she also got a corneal ulcer (unrelated to the wicker basket)--in fact, we had to pick up the wicker basket of toys and bones and put it on what will eventually be the baby's changing table, and frances could only sit and stare at it longingly. and cry. there were some wrenching emotional moments during her convalescence. but now, she has totally recovered and we only need visit the kind eye doctor on thursday who will give us an all clear so she can go running and jump up to catch things in midair. good days are ahead. also, she can see her chewies again. and that means fun for everyone. by the way, we got a babygate and put in at the top of the stairs so she wouldn't fall down anymore. the second time she fell, it was while she was actually walking down the stairs for a walk. i don't want anyone calling dog protective services on us. we are very careful. and we won't wait for the baby to fall down the stairs twice either. i promise, we'll be very good.

meanwhile, i have a gargantuan child living inside of my stomach. the good news is that he will likely be on the world cup team in 2030, as he has been kicking about 23 out of 24 hours every day. he will also probably win the boston marathon. it's just a gut feeling. i could be wrong. no pressure. even if he doesn't make the world cup team, he might just end up playing for arsenal when they go for the champions league cup 25 years hence.

so that's how the dog days of spring are going around here. it is getting increasingly difficult to sleep, unless your idea of sleeping is putting a soccer ball under your shirt and then trying to get comfortable.

we are all really just waiting for world cup to start. then not much else will matter. and the best part is that frances will get to see wiltord or trezeguet or our old friend zizou score the winning goal for france. it's going to be fun.

Ali Baby and the P. roqueforti thieves

i was hoping to continue to be sparkly and fun and address many timely issues here on tinyengine. i had also made a commitment to myself that this would not turn into a pregnancy blog. however, i have to tell you that today's entry will be about pregnancy. you can leave now if you like, but i can promise that i won't talk about the baby kicking or about my need to buy tiny items in the baby aisle at target when we were really only there for electrosol and cotton.

if you have read this far, i am now going to reward you by telling you that the subplot of this pregnancy entry is moldy cheese. yes, that's right. bleu, gorgonzola, stilton, brie, camembert. smelly, fantastic, moldy cheese.

now, i am sure that many people (the french, crack addicts, people who worry less than i do) manage to drink coffee, smoke crack, eat moldy cheese, sushi, deli meat and steak tartare without the slightest concern or ill effect. however, i am trying to follow all of the guidelines laid out in all of the 12,670 books i have read on pregnancy. that means that i am avoiding saunas, baths over 100 degrees (the only kind that matter), raw fish, soft cheese, moldy cheese, medications, eye dilating drops, coffee, diet coke, splenda, sugar-free gum, smoking, alcohol and amusement park rides. now i used to be a bit of a coffee fiend, but i saw this coming, so i gave it up months before i got pregnant. i haven't been that interested in it since, which is pretty good. as for the rest of the list (which is by no means complete) i haven't had much difficulty living without any of them except, well, maybe baths, and moldy cheese.

but the funny thing is this. and this is what made me think about the whole thing today when i took out my "natural" chewing gum. well, first i'll tell you that some people ascribe to the theory that things that make pregnant women nauseous are things that pregnant women should avoid. cigarette smoke, for example. i found that the smell of coffee, previously one of my favorite smells ever (except for the smell of the side of my granule's snout which smells sometimes like popcorn and sometimes like grape soda) was the smell of coffee. but in the first trimester, it didn't smell good to me at all. so who knows. not that cigarettes ever smell good to me, but when someone steps into an elevator, or gets next to me in line at a store and they've just had a cigarette, i really do feel like i could vomit all over the place.

so back to my point. the other night we had dinner with some friends. we met up at their house, had some wine and cheese (i had water) and i couldn't stop staring at the bleu cheese on the plate. i was fixated on it. i even had to smell it at one point. then, last week, my barossa of all barosse bought some kind of fascinating french cheese that was unmoldy except for a moldy stripe down the middle. i was so tempted, i didn't know what to do. i managed to quell my insane urge for the cheese with another, non-moldy and irish variety. we also fried it up with mushrooms into a nice little cutlet, but that is another story. anyway, sometimes, i just open the refrigerator and look at that wedge of cheese longingly.

well, back to the point again. sorry about that. the point is that today, when i had some of my tangerine glee gum (made with natural chicle, rice syrup and other things) its tangerine flavor (which lasts for exactly 4.5 seconds) gave way to a distinctly roquefortian finish. i mean, the gum tastes exactly like moldy cheese. and the surprise was that i wasn't happy about it. i don't know if it's because my obsession with the cheese is just because i want what i can't have, or if it's because it's just naturally disgusting to have your all-natural tangerine gum taste like blue cheese. in any case, i spit it out. and then, the wintergreen altoids that i bought (which i haven't bought in many years, because they contain gelatin) tasted exactly like, you guessed it, blue cheese. but this time, it's the first few seconds, and then they taste like mint. i can't figure it out. but it's pretty gross. and also, it's what i get for knowingly buying something with gelatin in it.

so if anyone has any theories, i'd be happy to hear them.

i know pregnancy does lots of strange things to the senses. my asian cracker mix that i was obsessed with the first few weeks of my pregnancy (and the week before i even knew i was pregnant) started to taste distinctly of burning hair. and that's when i stopped eating it. then, other snacks lost their appeal when they began to taste and smell like body odor and feet. so, i'm no stranger to the gustatory metamorphosis possible courtesy of a hormonal blitz, i just hadn't imagined it to be so bizarre, or so disgusting.

and, if that weren't enough, i recently read that babies born to women who eat peanuts or peanut butter during their pregnancy (and some reports say just in the 3rd trimester) are at higher risk for peanut allergies. now that just plain sucks. i'm sorry. i did a lot of research though, and the data is inconclusive. but even so, i am wracked with guilt every time i put peanut butter on my toast. i think i will stop pretty soon.

i know somebody who adopted two crack babies. their health is fine. and i'm pretty sure they eat all the peanut butter sandwiches they want and they aren't experiencing any anaphylaxis whatsoever. and my parents' generation put kids to sleep face-down in cribs slathered with lead paint, and we turned out just fine. well, except maybe we worry too much.

tunic or not tunic

i used to have this idea about having a baby. no, that's wrong. i will start again. i used to have this idea about pregnancy. i've had this vegetarian cookbook for a hundred years, at least. the book is a compendium of recipes from a vegetarian commune in tennessee. and it was written in the 70s. and all the photos were taken in the 70s. anyway, the best recipe in the entire world for what has become my famous gluten roast can be found in that book. but be wary, because they have put out revised versions of the book and they changed some of the recipes (though none of the photos) and the recipe for scones, in particular, has changed. i realized this when i took out the wrong copy of the book (i own the original and the new version) one sunday to make scones for my mari of all tamaris. this was actually before we were married, but i had hoped we might marry soon, and i also believed that my scones would play an important role in hastening that verisimilar enterprise.

so i made the scones and i even put in chocolate chips, which are the greatest, instead of the raisins or candied ginger that can often go in there. and you know what? those scones were not very good. i had to go back and compare the two recipes and then eventually re-make them to prove that they really are good and that i am a great sconemaker (now don't get excited; i didn't make any claims about my pumpkin pie) and you know, i felt a marriage proposal might be riding on this as well, so the whole thing was nearly a disaster. as a result, these days i never stray from the original version of the book. but the neatest part of that book (besides the photo of louise bagging a 10-pound gluten) is a picture of a little kid eating a vegan molasses cookie at the heading of a section about raising a vegetarian child. i must tell you that now i am actually not going to raise a vegetarian child (you can address your concerns to me via the comments section) and guess what? i am also driving a german car and wearing geeky sandals, and not bringing home a puppy to live with my sister and me while my sister is on a business trip. so, things change. anyway, even though my child will probably eat a piece or two of hormone-free, organic chicken in its day, that doesn't mean that it also won't get to eat a delicious chunk of gluten roast too. or a vegan ginger snap. you can have it all. and yes, david, i will keep a slice of gluten roast for you.

oh, and also, this is the same book that gives a recipe for making--not just your own tofu--but your own soymilk. it involves straining your curds or whatever they call them through a piece of cheesecloth. of course, i didn't have cheesecloth that day in 1996 when i was making the soymilk, so i strained the soymilk through my beautiful pale pink 1940s rayon blouse, which seemed like a suitable alternative. my sister, who owns all kinds of baking and cooking supplies, (including cheesecloth) and is better than anyone at baking things, still reminds me about this. but i don't think she ever tasted that soymilk. it was actually pretty good. anyway, back to my story:

the other neatest part of that book is a photo of a very smiley hippie woman in a cottony dress that is really nothing more than a big baggy cottony piece of material with 2 straps at the top and she is pregnant and smiling. so that has always been in my mind when i imagined being pregnant. i thought that i would have 2-foot long hair and i would wear cottony dresses and eat natural food and strain soy curds through organic cotton. and smile.

i thought it would be fun. well, it's not that fun. i also cut off my nearly 2-foot-long hair in 1999, so that part is out the window. one thing i forgot to tell you is that i think i thought that pregnancy would be sort of 3/4 the smiling vegetarian woman in a homemade shift combined with 1/4 lucille ball when she was pregnant. i thought if i could only wear those shirts she had with skinny pants and ballet flats, everything would be fine.

and here's the funny part: about 10 years ago, i used to attend these sort of semi-annual parties where about 20 women would bring all the clothes they no longer wanted to wear, but still knew were pretty great. so everyone would show up with bags full of clothes and put them in a pile. some of these women were stylists in movies and videos and so some of the clothes were pretty fantastic. anyway, i won't bore you with the very complicated protocol that led up to the clothes being distributed somewhat fairly, but in the end, one would go home with some pretty neat stuff.

the only remaining wardrobe item i have from those long-ago days is a lime-ish green a-line top with a big pocket on the hip. on the pocket is a perfect appliqué of a black dog and a white dog with red collars with little gold accents and each dog has little rhinestones for eyes. this is the kind of shirt you would wear if you were painting at an easel in an old bob fosse movie. i mean, it's fantastic. it appears to be handstitched and i have received about a million compliments on it over the years.

it is really quite smocky. not like a radioactive smock type of smocky, but sort of artiste-y smocky. lucille ball smocky. so for about 10 years, i have always imagined wearing this shirt (which probably, now that i think of it was an actual maternity blouse) while i was pregnant.

all of that is to say that that is the last thing i want to wear now that i am pregnant. because now that i am pregnant, it's not a cute french-ish artist blouse. it's all inflated and tenty. so there goes that ideal. i am currently subsisting on four gigantic bags of maternity clothes from a kind friend who recently had her second child, whatever i can scare up from other friends and several horrifying trips to the local maternity shops. now, don't get me wrong, i have been given a pair of jeans that cost about 7 times the amount i have ever spent on a non-maternity pair of jeans in my life and they are well worth the money that she spent on them. but the problem is trying to put together an outfit.

as i mentioned, i have spent some time and a tidy sum at maternity stores and it's a peculiar process. you shuffle through a store and try to find something that you might conceivably wear at some time in your life. even at the high-end stores, most things either look like they should be hanging from a valance in my 86-year old ex-landlady's home, or like they made reproductions from the wardrobe on petticoat junction.

now, i know that all of this complaining and vanity doesn't seem very good and i know that i am not focusing on the new life that is growing inside of me. but ask any pregnant woman you know (unless she liked the wardrobe on petticoat junction, or had very small boobs pre-pregnancy) and you will find a similar story.

oh, i bought a maternity swimsuit on ebay too. and let me tell you that i'm really looking forward to unveiling that this weekend, now that spring is here.

the trouble with having an idea about pregnancy that is based on either an (a.) 1950 lucille ball model, or a (b.) 1970 vegetarian communal model is that, well, i don't think i have to explain this to you.

i am pretty excited about having this baby. and i have no expectation that the baby will be dressed in weird stiff antique clothes, so don't worry about that. and i'll even let my darling espoused of all espionage take it out for a little hamburger here and there. it just would be fun to look kind of cute while i was waiting around for the little prawn.

mahler's 5th; my first.

so, my 2.5 month vacation from the engine was not planned--it just happened that way. and if it weren't for my husband of all husbandry, the engine may have been down for the count. he told me he was checking every day to see if i had written anything new. well, the idea of his daily disappointment for 71 straight days just became too much for me and i realized i had to do something.

so here it is: the next installment.

i will also tell you that i have been in a crazy stupor brought on by a mad rush of hormones. remember back in december when i said, "i hope everyone gets pregnant"? remember that? well, it worked for me. can you believe it? so, when i haven't been busy eating salt & vinegar potato chips, hot & sour soup, plain yogurt or kale sautéed in almond butter, i have been sleeping. or taking care of the granule, who has now completely lost her sight. but that is another story.

here's another indicator: i did not buy one gallon of gas for the entire month of january. i didn't drive anywhere (but to work and back on my famously brief commute). it turns out that i was sleeping for a month straight. so there hasn't been much time for fun. and by fun, i mean tinyengine.

pregnancy also brought with it some kind of brain collapse. i have only been able to watch project runway, good eats (when he is not making a pork loin or something) and countdown with keith olbermann. and while i have a few actual novels on my nightstand, i unfortunately fall asleep clutching some ridiculous book with recipes for super milk and sketches of what cletus the fetus looks like each week. mon mari of all paris is reading something very heavy and political. it makes me feel pretty bad that my reading material is so, well, dumb. i thought i might read about the siege of budapest for a while and just put away all the pregnancy books. but it's IMPOSSIBLE. it is. ask anyone who is pregnant.

well, back to the point of our little chat here. i want to talk to you about gustav mahler.

now that i am able to stay up past 9:30 without passing out in a puddle of drool, i was able to accept a very gracious invitation from my friend nick. he invited me to a performance of mahler's 5th symphony. now, i have always been a big fan of classical music. i even know more about it than the average bird. but for some reason, i have never heard mahler's 5th.

i picture it like scenes from an old movie:

i am walking down the street and i see a little hat shop. i pop into the hat shop to look at hats. wait, that wouldn't happen. i don't try on hats in hat shops because i got lice 3 times and one of them was from trying on hats. well, those hats were wooly hats in a box in an army surplus store, but still, i don't try on hats anymore.

let's start over:

i am walking down the street and i see a little salt & vinegar potato chip shop. i pop into the salt & vinegar potato shop to see if they have any chips that won't dissolve my tongue. mahler's 5th walks by--at that very moment! i come out of the shop, and mahler's 5th has just turned the corner. we miss each other by that much!

another scene:

mahler's 5th and i are both enrolled in a seminar about the siege of budapest. i show up and then i realize that even though i would like to say that i am interested in the siege of budapest, i am not, and so i go home to eat my hot & sour soup in a cup. mahler's 5th stays and learns a lot. then mahler's 5th goes home and calls my spouse of all spicey and they talk about the siege of budapest. i am asleep and so i don't even hear the phone ring.

and the final scene:

mahler's 5th goes to my soccer game. he watches us lose miserably to a team that is really bad. but that is because we only have 8 people show up. the bad team has a full team with 3 subs. mahler's 5th goes home and we miss each other again, because i can't play soccer anymore because i am pregnant.

well, finally, thanks to nick, i made its acquaintance, at long last. and it was such a profound introduction that i spent 2 days researching the definitive recorded version. i found out that everyone thinks they know everything and that there isn't really a consensus. which is a little bit like life.

enough about all of that, let me tell you what i thought.

it sounded a little bit to me like the final minutes of every war movie ever made, or the final minutes of every war ever fought. or if you put fellini, jeff buckley and the end of the world into a food mill, or if you took an old ocean liner from the early 1900s and wrapped it up in white fondant and then wrapped that up in red fondant and then dropped it from a big building. that's kind of what it sounded like. it was astounding.

and that was just the first movement. i can't even get into the rest of it. and the adagietto with the strings and the harp! and that, they say, is mahler's greatest hit. but again, i had never heard it. apparently, it was performed at robert kennedy's funeral. i think people know all about this. i came late to the party, i guess. not the funeral. i wasn't calling the funeral a party. i mean the mahler party.

this was one of the most magnificent things i have ever heard.

and his use of percussion was so interesting that i could go see it again and just watch those guys in back do all of those things.

i came home and listened to some little snippets on itunes, but it was sort of like going to the grocery store to buy camembert and bread the day after you get back from france. it just isn't the same.

the conductor looked to me like he had really big feet, but nick didn't think so.

i was pretty excited and i was hoping that the prawn (as my sister calls the little baby in progress) was getting every note of the thing. i've been singing this dvorak piece in czech lately and so between that and this mahler, i am sure that this will be one delicious baby.

if you happen to have a favorite recording, do let me know. that would be great. otherwise, i think i might pick up either the abbado or the barbirolli.

boy, that was neat.

happy new year!

well the lights are back on in the tiny offices of tinyengine and people are shuffling around. because of the recent cold snap, everyone is hunkered down with cocoa and electric blankets. (we have very friendly offices.) it was a big new year, with great news and bad news, tolling simultaneously. we prefer to focus on the good and to hold a kind thought in our heads for the people affected by the bad. and i mean, any bad. not just the bad that i'm thinking about, or the bad you might be thinking about, or even the bad that you think i might be thinking about. all bad news people can use a good thought, so let's just have some extras floating around for them, ok?

item: the house next door or that old saw.
that having been said, i will tell you that this next item falls kind of in the bad news column, but it's nothing, comparitively speaking. the other morning, the people who are still trying to figure out how to rebuild the house next door started yelling. everyone woke up. the whole neighborhood was about to tell the guys to stop yelling, until suddenly, one of the yelling guys started up a chainsaw. then it was yelling, chainsaw and chipper continuously for 7 hours. at first we thought they were trimming the gigantic and rather majestic pine tree in front of the house. we thought it was probably ok, because it could use a little thinning out. then, branch by branch, the whole tree started to come down. the chipper chewed away at the huge pieces and then, when i looked outside, there was just a long trunk and a tiny tuft of pine branches at the top. it was then that i realized that they weren't trimming the tree, they were removing it. sure enough, the tuft disappeared, and they sawed the trunk down, piece by piece, lowering each mighty chunk with a rope. in the end, there was just a stump and we watched out our window as a guy with a remote control unit stood on the doorstep of the ugly house, operating a big yellow machine which turned the gigantic stump and into dust. and that was it. now it looks like there never was a tree there. i have a feeling that the other trees in the neighborhood got wind of the whole thing via their intertwined roots and i think everyone is pretty sickened by it. now those guys in there are playing ac/dc and floating the ceiling. gosh, it's just awful all around.

well, i anticipate that the market will keep dropping, this guy won't have the house finished in time and he won't make any money. who knows? it's been going on since september. we shall see. i sure miss that tree though when i look out my window.

happy new year to everyone, saplings and big trees alike.