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.