My Truant Pen

Zombies, Madeleine and apples

Friday: I spent Friday madly doing chores. Upside of being a human adult: ability to plan for the future. Downside: doing as much laundry as humanly possible on a Friday night. After I collapsed into gelatinous goo, I got to watch a bit of the playoff game. I have yet to watch an entire game this playoff season. That is sad. But with the west coastness and extra-inningness… oh well.

Saturday: This was an entirely fun for me day! While I did get up with Grey to give him his waffles, applesauce and strawberries while turning on “Robin Hood” (why yes, I am up for the “Parent of the Year” award — why do you ask?), A. took him to dance class, allowing me to sleep in. Then I went all by myself to our monthly local gaming get-together and played no fewer than three Zombie-related games. (Braaaaaiiiins.) I had to leave early.

Why?

Because I had a date. Better yet, a date coupled with a surprise. My loving husband had gotten us tickets to *something* and gotten a friend to babysit Grey. Anyway, we fed our friend dinner and then went downtown.

On the T in I asked A. where it was we were going. He said that we were going to a concert with a folk singer named Cesaria Evora. Ok. A bit random — never heard of her before but it sounded like fun! And I was wearing a dress! And going out! And with my beloved husband!

Then we got to the actual theater. Hmm… seems like there’s an additional name on that marquee:

: Wait a minute… what

I totally went squeey-fangirl on him. It was an excellent surprise and I was completely bamboozled. He did very well.

I really, really, really like Madeleine Peyroux’s music. It’s some of my absolute favorite. I was totally expecting to just love her concert. Instead, it was utterly bizarre. For one thing, the Orpheum was this strange combination of rococo opera house meets Fenway park (seriously — they sold hot dogs in the lobby) meets Shakespeare’s Globe theater. (Where I come from you don’t get seated after the lights go out. People were still arriving and being seated an hour later!) For another thing, I have never in my life seen a performer as terrified and uncomfortable as Madeleine was. This includes the 7th grade concert where April Kenny threw up beforehand. She was dressed in a long suit that was at LEAST 3 sizes too large for her. My mother in law would not let me out of the house in this suit. She held her guitar protectively in front of her. When she wasn’t playing, she sort of hunched over and clutched her suit jacket together as though attempting to be invisible. She looked completely miserable — like she wanted nothing so much as to disappear and get OFF THAT STAGE. She got this sort of grimace that was supposed to be a smile when she approached the microphone, which she only did when absolutely necessary. Her patter when she retuned between songs was about as feeble as I’ve ever heard — and the next act didn’t have anyone on stage who spoke English. And worst of all, she didn’t even relax and enjoy when she was making music. She played with her timing in some sort of attempt to… I don’t know… but it didn’t work. She didn’t hit the timing at all. When her set was done, she introduced the rest of her band but refused to introduce herself, and when the playing was done she FLED offstage. She nearly ran, I swear. I have no idea what was up with that — if she hates live performance ever and always, if she got broken up with 5 minutes before curtain, or if she had some sort abdominal pain issue, but it was almost upsetting to watch.

The act after her, on the other hand? The one she was opening for? ROCKED. It was this 70 year old Cape Verdean singer who practically limped on stage and drove the crowd WILD. Her band was FANTASTIC and everything about the show was totally on. And she just exuded confidence and presence and dontgiveadamness. She only spoke in Portuguese. And when she put down her microphone and did the ever so slightest shimmy of a dance, the crowd went absolutely nuts as though Elvis had just done a pelvic thrust.

If you asked me which one I’d rather have a CD of? Totally Madeleine — way more my style. Which performance did I enjoy more? Without a doubt Cesaria was more fun to experience. It was weird.

After the show, I found myself in dire need of dessert. For some reason, the Theater District in Boston does not cater to the “I need dessert” after a show crowd, so we ended up walking all the way down the street to the first place that would take us and feed us something sweet.

By the way, not that this is apropos of anything, but I’m apparently pregnant enough that even the wait staff at the Four Seasons will congratulate me on sight.

It was an awesome day.

Sunday: But wait! The weekend is not over yet!

Sadly, Grey wasn’t feeling very well on Sunday. We went to church, where he melted down in Sunday School. (Seems like every other week — he’s either great or totally melty.) Then after church I had a meeting and A. and Grey helped plant a few trees. Grey was definitely really tired and not feeling 100%… we’d planned on going apple picking. Was this still a good idea?

The way I figured it, we’d have a melty, tired, not-quite-right boy at home or a melty-tired-not-quite-right boy at the apple orchard, so why not pick apples while the sun shined? It was the right decision. The weather cleared just in the nick of time. Grey was GREAT at the orchard. He loved picking the apples. He played hide and seek. He loved eating the apples. We got pumpkins. It was a really lovely time. One should go apple picking at least once a fall when one lives in New England.

But the fun didn’t stop there! I realized when I got home just how many apples half a bushel is. The answer is: a lot. Many. More than we are going to eat. So I figured I’d send Grey and A. over with some apples for Jefferson and his family while I made dinner. Grey did a great job of decorating a bag to put them in. Then the guys took the apples over. Long story short, this resulted in Jefferson coming over to our house for the boys’ first ever playdate! They did really really well together (and looked soooooo cute!) It was fun.

Then I collapsed on the couch and the Sox collapsed in the 12th and I’m tired today. But all in all, it was one of the finest weekends I’ve had in a long time.

37 weeks pregnant — almost there!

I had a very busy and wonderful weekend, which hopefully I’ll share in more detail later. But I’d like to take this moment to note that as of today, this pregnancy is full term. A baby born at 37 weeks is not considered premature. Blueberry’s lungs are ready. Everything is in place. He has hair and fingernails. He’s fully baked. I’m now allowed to start hoping that those contractions are actual real labor and not just uterine preparation. This is the beginning of the end of my pregnancies, at least as far as I plan.

I have gotten pregnant four times, miscarried twice, given birth once. I have spent a total of, um, 24 months (two years!) of my life pregnant. (I went 10 months pregnant with Grey, am 9 months pregnant right now, and miscarried at 3 months and 2 months.) Fertility and pregnancy have been a huge part of my reality for the last four years. And that focus and reality are coming to a close for me, and soon. For most of us in developed countries, the procreative period is a brief and intense one. Mine is almost over.

The funny thing is I don’t feel old enough to HAVE children, never mind old enough to be finished having children.

But mostly, my point is that I am full term. I can start cheering for an arrival now. You can start wondering anytime I don’t post quite as frequently as normal.

I would probably be more excited if it weren’t for a conversation I had with my mother yesterday. We were looking at 2 generations — my mother, my sister and I. We three have given birth to 6 children between us (my mother three, my sister two and so far me one). Of those six children, not a SINGLE ONE has arrived on or before their due date. I was probably the latest at a calculated three weeks late. My mom says that maybe my sister was the earliest, at a quasi-induced week post due. This little boy MIGHT be different, of course, and break the mold. But odds are that the women in my family just gestate a little longer than standard and I’ll still be sitting here waiting for another 4 weeks or so.

On the flip side, all 6 of those births were largely uneventful (ok, my sister might have some choice words to say about her childrens’ shoulders). We all managed to largely avoid induction. And none of us ended up needing a c-section. I think I’ll take the extra week or two in exchange for the excellent outcomes that seem to go with them.

Still, from now until 5 weeks from now. The week count-down increments by 1. We’re almost there.

36 weeks pregnant

So I just had my 36 week checkup. The big news: I’m 1 cm dilated and 90% effaced. (waits) I hear all of you women who know what I’m talking about throwing up your hands with squee! and trying figure out why I’m calmly sitting here at my desk at work instead of feverishly at home packing my hospital bag and hanging the light-blocking shades. Well, see, the thing is that I was 90% effaced and 1 cm dilated LAST pregnancy at my 36 week checkup. You remember that pregnancy. The one where I gave birth 13 days after my due date — 6 weeks after my 36 week checkup? First time mothers almost always go before their due dates when they’re at all dilated at 36 weeks. But me? No. I prefer to do things on my own schedule.

So what do dilated and effaced MEAN? Well, imagine that the baby-holding area is comprised of two balloons, with a big filled area and a thick neck where the balloons are tied. There’s a water balloon INSIDE a, er, muscle-balloon. The water balloon part is the amniotic sac. The muscle balloon is the uterus. The amniotic sac doesn’t change prior to pregnancy. You only get the baby out of that when it pops — and when it pops you have to get the child out relatively soon or they’re likely to get infected. But that outer balloon — the tied off area is the cervix. Towards the end of pregnancy it begins to get thinner and weaker in preparation for opening up. That’s effacement. Then it sort of unwinds and opens up as you get closer to delivering the baby. That’s dilation. When you are 10 cm dilated, you’re ready to push the baby through the neck of the balloon — it’s all the way open. Much of the purpose of contractions is to open up the mouth of the cervix.

Basically, all the stuff that holds the baby in place is getting thinner, weaker and more open. So these things are often considered a sign that labor is going to happen soon.

Or not. In my case.

It’s very tiring to be “any moment now!” for nearly six weeks. That’s why I’m taking an “eh” attitude towards this news. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if I don’t go way past due, but I’m not going to hold my breath thinking I’m going to go before my due date.

In other, non-baby related news, A. went to the allergist today. He spends several weeks a year miserable and sneezing his head off with allergies, despite daily Claritin, and finally got fed up enough to see the doctor. The results are that he’s allergic to house dust, dust mites and (of all things) poplar.

Well, hopefully the house dust we’ve taken steps by addressing by getting the house cleaned periodically. (It would be interesting to track his allergies as compared to cleaning dates.) Poplar is hard to control — I don’t think there’s tons in New England though. But dust mites? Dust mites we can do something about. My doctor’s office HAPPENS to be right next to a Linens N Things that happened to be having a buy one get one 50% off sale on a bunch of bedding. So I picked up some pillow protectors, some brand new pillows (but we LIKE the old, floppy feather pillows we have!), and a new neck pillow for him. I think we’ll order the mattress and box spring protectors since they weren’t on sale. But hopefully that, combined with a nose spray and some eye drops, will make my poor husband less miserable. It’s reassuring to find out that he’s NOT allergic to cats!

Thus ends today’s exciting adventures in our periodic series “Visits to Doctors”. Join us next Tuesday for the next thrilling installment.

You know your child is ready for potty training when…

This morning at about 6:15, I started hearing sounds. The nightlight was beeped on. A drawer nearby opened and closed. There was a strange sound. A small hand reached up to the handle of a humidity-swollen door and turned. Thump thump thump.

The handle turned on our door and it opened to admit a small, completely naked person holding a clean diaper.

My six-days-shy-of-three son:

1) Diagnosed himself with a full diaper issue

2) Removed his diaper

3) Placed it correctly in the diaper pail (one of the fancy ones with like a foot pedal)

4) Opened the dresser drawer where his fresh diapers are stored (the TOP drawer, may I add)

5) Obtained a clean diaper

6) Brought it to me to put on

When your kid is capable of making snide comments on your diaper changing technique, it’s time for this era to pass. I was planning on waiting another month or two (you know, so slightly after his little brother comes and I’m home full time and my grasp on sanity is already tenuous). But it’s really not possible for a child to signal that they are READY to potty train more than this.

Now comes the hard part. He’s been ready for quite some time. He pees on command, understands the poop mechanism, etc. Willing. The problem is willing. That and I need non-traumatic motivations for him to not have accidents. A liberal application of lollypops has proven at least somewhat effective in getting him to SIT on the potty when I want him to. But where is his motivation for not peeing in his pants (or on the floor) in the mean time?

The completely-ready-to-be-potty-trained child and his father monkey around

Depends on what your definition of “ready” is

So the question has been raised: am I ready? It’s possible this is the appropriate next thing to ask a woman who whines incessantly about how long she’s been pregnant. Are you ready to not be pregnant anymore, along with what that hopefully means?

Well, define ready. There are a lot of different ways one may or may not be ready:

Emotionally

Physically

In terms of practical arrangements, like child care

In terms of stuff purchased

The room may be ready

You might actually have the hospital bag packed

Or you know, birth announcements prepped and a month’s worth of healthy dinners frozen in the freezer. (AHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Tell another one!)

So am I ready?

When I was pregnant with Grey, I did more emotional and physical preparation. I got this book on hypnobirthing and read it and listened to the accompanying CD and imagined myself floating on a strawberry-colored bed of mist. I took childbirth classes and infant CPR classes. I read “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” religiously.

This time? Well, not so much. I think the hypnobirthing would be a good idea to freshen up on — I have a suspicion that it honestly did help me have a relatively easy labor. But on the other hand, I have one easy labor under my belt and USUALLY second children are easier yet!

I have done an epic fail on any and all classes. I’ve called like 8 times, but the woman’s never in and, uh, then I forget for another week. And “What to Expect” makes me roll my eyes half the time.

And then there’s all those practical things. I finally have my “emergency call” list set up for childcare — a great relief let me assure you. But I don’t have my “Feeding and Care of A Grey” document ready to go (which only seems fair — after all, folks should know where we’ve stashed the super-cool “You’re a big brother now” bribes in order for them to be effective.)

I moved Grey to his “big boy carseat” and washed the baby carseat… but it’s still in mystifying pieces on the laundry room floor. And I have yet to unearth the bases for it, or install them in the car. If I discover that WHOOPS! Babytime! I suspect that my husband will be rather frustrated at the need to assemble the fiddly bits before heading off to the hospital. In completely and utterly unrelated news, I read today that one in three hundred women has given birth in the car.

Then there’s the stuff element. I mean, I remember a vast amount of getting ready for Grey taking place at Babies-R-Us with steam rising off my credit-card from yet another quick-draw. With this baby? I, um, did some laundry (I am such a second-time parent. Did I buy special hypoallergenic laundry detergent. Nooo…..). And I bought some eensy weensy newborn diapers. I washed off the teethers this baby won’t need for a few months anyway. I located the truly incredible stock of Lanolin and nursing pads I accumulated last time. I keep feeling like I’m missing something, but the truth of the matter is I have pretty much everything I might need from the previous go-round. Babies don’t use much in the way of disposable goods, other than diapers. (If they’re breastfed — when bottle time comes I’ll need to buy all new bottles because the ones I have aren’t BPA-free because we didn’t worry about things like that back then.) The only thing I think I might even like is a new, “all his own” coming home outfit for this baby (which task of obtaining I have assigned to my mother-in-law). But holy shamoly do I have a lot of 0 – 3 month outfits.

And then the hospital bag. Last time I had it ready to go like 2 months ahead of time. I had “focus” pictures in it, massage lotion, speakers for my iPod, a few favorite CDs for the various moods I might be in, a hand-stamped sign informing all and sundry that Grey was going to be nourished by me alone, an overly optimistic going-home outfit for me, a carefully selected nightgown for the hospital and several thousand calories worth of granola bars. Even the bag itself was hand-painted with Grey’s theme of dragonflies.

This time? Well, I’ve gotten a bag out of the closet. It’s the Cozumel bag. It’s currently on the floor in my room. Last time, I wasn’t in the hospital long before giving birth, didn’t want music, didn’t want to look at anything and didn’t want my husband to touch me. After the birth, well, the hospital had GREAT chocolate cake. And I was pretty busy with this baby-thing that kept needing me for stuff.

So I do need to pack a hospital bag. It should include:
*Hairbrush and hair ties
*Camera (last minute addition)
*Cell phone
*Less optimistic going home for me outfit
*Outfit for baby
*Several thousand calories worth of granola bars (what if they aren’t serving chocolate cake?)
*Lots of space for the loot I’ll be bringing home with me from the hospital

I really should be able to pull most of this stuff together in a few hour’s focused attention.

As far as the hand-stamped sign, birth announcements and preprepped dinners go? Yeah… right. I’ll let you know about that.

Look at that ginormous belly -- and that little boy standing next to me fit in it at one point. Please do not look at my chin/s. — Look at that ginormous belly -- and that little boy standing next to me fit in it at one point. Please do not look at my chin.

Room renovation — a room as old as I grows up

As I mentioned previously, we bought our first house a little under a year ago. There are many great things about this house. The bones are very solid. (The house is listed as being built in 1900, which is shorthand for no one knows when it was built, but probably between 1890 and 1910). The layout of the house is excellent. I love the view from the back and the town. And it’s really a pretty large house — certainly big enough for our needs.

Every room in the house is perfectly usable for what it is. Other than a sewer pipe ready to disintigrate at the slightest touch, the house really was in move in condition.

But every room in the house could also stand an update. The first two stories of the house are entirely wood-panelled with drop ceilings. Every. Single. Room. (Or was when we moved in.) Better yet, each room has a DIFFERENT drop ceiling and DIFFERENT panelling. Basically, the house was more or less redone around the time I was born. And it’s been well-maintained since, but the decor is what you might call dated.

We painted a bit when we moved in (our office and Grey’s room — beige is no color for a little boy’s room!) We actually offered on the house when I was pregnant — the same weekend we made the offer I discovered this fact. I ended up miscarrying that child, but the house was purchased with the expectation that there would be four of us living there. The second floor has three bedrooms. Our room is ok (shag carpet and white panelling!), Grey’s room we painted over the panelling. But the nursery was by far the worst and smallest of the rooms. Here’s a picture from the first time we visited the house:

Another view -- love that closet door! It's the details that really make a room

Now, it is not true that it would be impossible to put a child in that room. However, that is not a room that speaks to me of the nurture and warmth needed for a new baby. That is a room that speaks to me of, uh, a middle aged couple putting in a den in about 1975. (It was one of four tv viewing areas in the house as they had it set up.)

So I wanted to redo it.

The easy option would’ve been a coat of paint. There’s a lot to be said of a coat of paint. Grey’s room looks really good with the coat of paint over the panelling. But the drop ceiling wasn’t in good shape. The panelling was buckling in spots. And that carpet! Carpet is really not meant to be there for 30 years, even if the room has been lightly used. Did I really want my precious little spawn learning to crawl on that carpet? No, I did not. Also, the closet door was a sin against God and man. And I wanted an overhead fan.

So you start with removing the panelling. If you remove the panelling, you MUST remove the drop ceiling, as the drop ceiling is attached to the panelling. But you need to remove the drop ceiling ANYWAY because it turns out the light fixture was held up ONLY by the drop ceiling and that’s not going to work for a ceiling fan. So we need to put up a new ceiling. But there are wires that ran under the drop ceiling, so we can’t just go back the the layer above the drop ceiling — we need to add a new layer. (Actually, we ended up removing two layers — the drop ceiling and the water damaged ceiling tiles above that. And by we I mean my husband because pregnant women do not belong on ladders doing demo in rooms that may contain lead.) And so we removed two layers of ceiling and panelling to discover the badly damaged horsehair plaster walls that were original to the house.

The room at this stage was rather amusing in it’s hideousness. But here’s the thing. There were some big holes in that plaster wall. There’s wallpaper on all of it, which is probably good since paint from the same era would likely be lead paint. This is not a wall you can work with. We need to put new drywall in the entire room. That’s not actually the bad part. The bad part is that makes the room 1 inch smaller in every dimension (.5 inch drywall on all the walls). Unless you have redrywalled a room, you may never look at the trim in a room — inside and around the windows and doors and on the baseboard.

Thank heavens my husband got laid off about this time. (He got another job right away — but ended up with 2 weeks off.) He did what software engineers do when confronted with a hardware problem: he ordered about 8 books off Amazon, googled each problem and basically did a crash course in drywalling, painting and trim. He did an amazing, astounding job.

First, the ceiling. He added firring strips (strips of wood) to the ceiling, cursing roundly because the studs were elusive and had a tendency to disappear halfway through the ceiling. This was to create room to run the wires under the new ceiling. Then he and a friend and a rented contraption attached the new drywall on the ceiling to the firring strips. He cut a hole where the light fixture was to go. (Yeah, to add to the fun, lighting was an issue for the entire first half of the project — right from demo!)

Then we had a debacle getting the right drywall for the walls. This resulted in a whole heap of re-measuring and recutting. The studs in the walls were no more cooperative in their locations, once we had the drywall in place, either. Then taping and mudding. Remember — this includes the ceiling. Then priming. (I finally get to start helping around this point.) Finally, we get to paint the whole thing — ceiling and walls and closet. You start to feel like you’re almost done.

You are laughably wrong. The hardest part is yet ahead. But wait! You can’t do it yet. Because you need to put the new carpet in before you put the new trim in, or it won’t work measurement-wise. The room lived in this state for many a week before the carpet went in. (Lowe’s did the installation — we have no complaints with that whole process. It wasn’t nearly as expensive as I expected, either.)

New carpet, painted walls, light fixture in place… done, right?

No, there is yet the trim.

Did you know each window has 8 pieces of trim? (4 on the inside and 4 on the outside?) And moreover, each piece of trim has to be exactly the right length? Ambitious people even mitre it so they have nice angles. AHHAHAHAHAH!

We spent like 2 hours in the hardware store attempting to transform our careful window measurements into lengths of wood we should buy, considering all the variables like “Will it fit in our car”. Hours more went into measuring three times before sawing once, hammering into place, praying like fury, and caulking the inevitable shortcomings. Working together, it took two of us five hours to do one window. And that was without mishap. And it was the easy window.

The trim took a long time, and it was hard to do, but we perservered! And finally, after trimming, touching up, installing closet doors, trying not to get any paint on the new carpet and using so much caulk that the room would likely float if placed in water, I declared it done and ready to recieve a baby. Or at least baby furniture.

And here it is … a room for the next 30 years.

Needless to say, we are very proud of ourselves. Not bad for a pair of knowledge workers!

The macro and the micro

There’s been a lot written and talked about regarding housing and real estate lately. Since most of us live somewhere, most of us have some sort of stake in “the housing market”, whether as renters or mortgage-holders. (Perhaps some of you out there are really homeowners — I only know one or two people who really are.)

Well, after thinking about it for years, starting and chickening out twice, and trying to figure out what the heck the “right” thing to do really was, A. and I found the house we wanted to live in about 11 months ago. 10 months ago we moved in. The part of me that reads WAAAAY too many financial websites wonders if we did the right thing. Housing prices have fallen since then, so maybe we could’ve gotten a better deal. But on the other hand, financing has gotten harder to secure, even with really really good credit ratings. A’s recent job changes might actually matter now, as opposed to being pretty much a non-issue when we bought this house. The interest rate is a little higher. Etc.

But the part of me that actually lives in this house knows that we made exactly the right choice. I love it. And moreover, I love the community I live in.

I was raised in a town that had a post office, a tavern, a general store and two churches. While they were all walking distance, nothing else was. The nearest grocery store was 17 miles away (over a mountain pass — for real). The nearest gas station was 5. Let’s not discuss how far it was to the nearest Starbucks.

I am absolutely gobsmacked and enamoured of how much I can walk to in this town. This is an incomplete list, but here are some things that Grey (2 years old) and I (nearly 9 months pregnant) can and have walked to: the library, post office, town hall/voting center, playground, elementary school, our bank, a used book store, ice cream stand, a live theater, a bicycle store, a learning toys store, Grey’s dance studio, Dunkin’ Donuts, Honeydew Donuts, independent bakeries, grocery store, Walgreens, 3 salons, farm stand, massage studios (multiple), 2 sushi restaurants, Indian restaurant, innumerable Italian restaurants, liquor store, billiards hall, our chiropractor, used sporting goods store, 3 different medical specialties (hoping never to need the hematology and oncology clinic, thanks), and lots of other things.

This morning I wanted to get an eye exam. I have yet to be impressed by an independent optometrist, so I decided that at least Pearl Vision would be professional and not obnoxious. So I walked there (less than a mile). On my way, I stopped at the bookstore to buy a book in case I had to wait long for an exam. On the way back I stopped at a local bakery and bought a delicious bagel and some snackies. I stopped by the farm stand to see what they sold (mostly flowers and decorations — no produce sadly).

This was entirely plausible for me, even in my gravid condition.

How COOL is that?

And that’s not all that’s neat about our location. A longish walk (too far for toddlers) the other direction is the Middlesex Fells reservation and the Stone Zoo. Oh yeah, and we’re less than a mile from I93 and maybe 2 miles from I95.

There’s a carillon that plays on the hour in the town commons. Every time I hear it, I think what a cool place this is to live.

And just to add a topping to my conviction that I’m living where I want to, this is what greeted me this morning as I began my walk. These pictures is taken in front of our house:

Why don't you come inside and join me for dinner?

There’s always room for P-I-E

None of us were feeling all that well yesterday. Grey was Mr. Melty McPants. A. and I took turns taking naps and collapsing in heaps and generally being the grownup responsible.

We looked at the idea of doing the grocery shopping for the week and roundly rejected it. But then the question arose: what do we feed the gamers on Monday?

I looked in my heart and found the answer. Pie. Ever and always, pie.

I haven’t made chicken pot pie for the gamers in many moons, despite the fact it’s a perennial favorite. It’s also a pain in the heinie.

First, the pasty starter. Our recipe couldn’t be simpler. Salt (1 tablespoon), Crisco (3 scant cups) and flour (5 cups). Must be very cold to be workable. I made that before I collapsed for my nap and stuck it in the freezer.

Then, chop up 2 onions and fry them in 1/2 cup butter, while browning a bunch of chicken (3 cups?) in olive oil and rosemary. For the record, few things smell better than onions frying in butter. Add 1/2 cup flour to the onion/butter mix, 1 teaspoon salt and enough pepper to look right. (My husband winces whenever he watches me cook. This is the man who exploded in rage at the pie starter recipe because it calls for three “scant” cups Crisco. I quote: “Scant cup? Scant cup!? What the hell, I can’t do a scant cup! I took analytical chemistry!” He also, for the record, modified my pie starter recipe to read 1 tablespoon salt instead of 3 teaspoons since they’re equivalent and “You’re more likely to make a measuring error if you have to repeat the action three times. Learned that one in analytical chemistry, too.”)

Once the mixture is just right, add in 4 cups chicken broth and 1 cup milk. Let bubble for a little while. Add in the chicken and, uh, appropriate amounts of frozen corn and frozen carrots. (Maybe 2 cups each?)

Let that bubble on the stove while you roll out the bottom pie crusts. I used my two favorite pie pans, the “Pi” pan I got this year for Christmas and a pretty pie pan a friend gave me at Mocksgiving a few years back. They’re both bigger than my regular glass pie pans. (I have about 7 pie pans, but hold firmly that I need them all, thankyouverymuch.)

Divide the stuffing between the two shells, and cover them with a top crust. This filling will not settle, so the pie will be as full as it is now. Also, please note that since this filling is gooey you can’t redo a top crust if you mess it up.

You can freeze pot pies, or cook them straight away, or refridgerate for a day or two. Cooking time changes dramatically depending on which of those you choose, from over an hour if they’re frozen to about half an hour if they’re not. Watch the crust — it’ll tell you when it’s done.

Theoretically the pie is supposed to sit for 20 minutes to gel. I’ve rarely been patient enough for this step.

Extraordinary Time

I always feel the need to announce it is fall, as though perhaps everyone else has been too busy to notice and the moment might pass them by, and this is too tragic to be borne. It starts in August, as I see the swampland trees — first to turn hazy green in the Spring — turn a premature scarlet. Then the trees further out begin to turn, in ones and twos and small patches. The world is still predominantly the deep strong green of summer, but like gray hairs in the dark head of the aging year, a few strands show that time is indeed moving along.

Something happens to the air. It becomes sharp and crisp and delightful. Even the old metaphors seem new and important — walking through September sunshine with a cool wind on your face and a few early leaves falling about you is like biting into a crisp September apple. There is nothing fuzzy, hazy or indistinct about September air. It is precise and glorious.

My mind turns to poetry in September. This would work better if I knew more autumn poetry, but September seems like a time when words themselves carry more meaning. September is when you set your hand to a big task, unafraid of the toil in front of you. September is for realizing that the world is a strange and marvelous place. In autumn, the boundaries between what was, what is and what shall be blur, and you realize you are not so far removed from either your ancestors or descendants.

In the church liturgical calendar, the year is broken up into seasons. You may be familiar with Advent — the four weeks of waiting before Christmas (purple), with Christmas itself (12 days – white), with the long preparation of Lent (purple again), the joyfulness of Easter (white again), and the flash of color for one magic-filled day on Pentecost (red). The rest of the time is called Ordinary Time. The color for Ordinary Time is green. I love the idea of Ordinary time, because it so perfectly expresses for me what much of the year is like.

For me, January through September is Ordinary Time, where the days are those days and nothing more. The weather is good or bad. The world is lovely or not. I always feel as though spring SHOULD feel more potent. Instead, it’s a relief like taking off your high heels after walking all evening. It’s a wonderful feeling, but there is nothing of magic to it.

September through December, though, is Extraordinary time. The time in those months feels special and set apart, even more of a precious commodity than time usually is. Where the time the rest of the year is water running through our fingers, this time is quicksilver — even lovelier in its passing. I am deeply enamored of the beauty of the beginning of the turn, in September. I love October for the fullness of autumn that is in it. I love November for the contrast between the warmth of what is inside and the coolness of what is out, and for the grace with which it accepts the passing of what is living. And December for me is overlain with the brocade of music, joy, love, friendship, color and contrast that is truly Christmas.

Before I moved to New England, I already loved fall and Christmas best. But I didn’t understand the bitterness and fear that could accompany winter. I was like a child, enjoying life but knowing nothing of mortality. In New England, winter strips the joy from life. It steals your breath with icy winds. The world stays dark and cold and barren far too long and you wonder how you can endure it. Sometimes despair arrives and it feels as though you will never be warm or joyful again. Against that fear, this season apart becomes even deeper in its meaning. You must find a way to rejoice in the falling of the leaves without letting your cup be embittered by the gall of the winter to come. You must watch that first snowfall hopefully around Christmas without thinking how you may not see that patch of ground again until May. You must take the joy of the dying of the year without accepting before-time the sting of the long dead period.

I understand now how it is possible to truly dread winter. I understand how you might dread fall as the precursor to winter. But I choose, instead, to revel and rejoice in this time apart. I will bring new life into the world just as the door shuts on the year. I will not let the fear of future cold diminish the joy of the present.

And next year, around this time, I will probably say nearly the same thing again.

Extremely exciting information! Or not.

Yesterday I left work at 5 to pick up my son. I’m really bad about actually leaving work at 5, but Kimmie’s daycare is much less accommodating than regular daycare re: pickup times. (And also a half hour drive away.) He was the last kid there. At 5:30. How do other parents do it?!?!?

Anyway, I got home and started dinner. I had a Plan. I may not be able to make friends for Grey at daycare, but I can set things up and facilitate things so he does have friends. (I remember this being a consolation — Jasmine wouldn’t acknowledge my existence at school but at least I had someone to play with after school.) So when A. got home I kept an eye out the front window. And when our neighbor boy (let’s give him the pseudonym of Jefferson) got home we gave them 10 minutes to get settled in and then went over to see if they wanted to play and have dinner with us.

Jefferson and Grey are going to be good friends. Jefferson is about 8 months younger, but he’s highly verbal. The two of them did pretty well sharing (for a pair of 2 year olds). There was riotous laughter and the two year old version of jokes. (Mostly this involves saying funny sounds and words like “Poo poo caca”.) Jefferson brought down the house by announcing, in response to the question “What does Daddy do” (he’s an architect), “I have a screwdriver.”

So the boys got to play together for an hour, and we got to get to know our neighbors a little better and established that we’d all be comfortable with one set of parents watching the kids, which opens the doors to playdates and sleepovers and periodically actually going out to eat etc.

The reason this is such a big deal to me is because it’s really hard for me. I simply do not know how to be a good neighbor, and I do not know how to facilitate my son making friends. I’m trying to figure it out as I go and it makes me really nervous. I would almost call it a social anxiety — I haven’t asked someone if they wanted to come over and play for 20 years. (And when I did, two decades ago, as often as not they said no.) But I did it! And it was fun! And hopefully we’ll do it again!

Then after that, I went and read Robin McKinley’s new book in the bathtub. Ah, bliss.

Then neither A. nor I could fall asleep, despite it being like 2 hours past our bedtime. I am a sleepy, sleepy girl this morning. (And Grey was a bit of a crankosaur.)

But it’s Friday! And my birthday party is tomorrow! (I turn 30 on the 23rd. Yeah, I know. It’s simultaneously hard to believe I’m that old and hard to believe I’m only that old.) And I’m gonna dress up and see my friends and have chocolate and maybe they’ll sing Happy Birthday and embarrass me. And Grey starts dance tomorrow.

I’m really enjoying myself these days — a sure sign that the times are about to change.