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