Friday Boxes and Belly Aches: No Books

Well, the movers are coming for 90% of the stuff tomorrow. As of this writing, we're about 75% packed. A week spent in boxes doesn't yield much reading time so no books today.

After an excellent dinner with my friends C. and N. last night, I woke up at 3:00 this morning with the worst stomachache ever. I should say that seeing C. and N. was excellent, but the dinner itself, Pad See Ew of course, tasted a bit burnt. I'm better than I was, but still not totally recovered from the misery that is food poisoning. I'll never know if it was the culprit (my friends are fine) but sadly my Pad See Ew days are now over. My N. assured me that I will eat Thai food again and then lovingly went out at 7:30 AM to procure Coke, Ginger Ale, Tums, Saltines, and Gatorade. I'm confident that I'll be fine for the movers and going up to NH tomorrow, though. Even though he's getting a little predictable, I'm looking forward to listening to the new David Sedaris collection When You Are Engulfed In Flames during the drive.

I'll have a review of that and full recap of our moving adventures when we return to our cavernous Brooklyn apartment sometime around Tuesday. Till then, have a good weekend and feel sorry for Malice who's absolutely beside himself at our imminent departure.

Ants in My Pants

There was just, no joke, a bee flying inside my pants. It's very unnerving to hear bzz-bzz and realize that it's coming from between your thighs. Especially if you're inside your apartment. All is okay as of this writing although I did break several small mirrors with my piercing shrieks.

Anyway, you should take this time to enjoy the pants you're wearing. If you're not wearing pants, put some on. This is not the kind of blog to read pant-less. I miss pants. Specifically, I miss wearing jeans that really fit. I love jeans much to my mother's chagrin. I really like expensive jeans much to my wallet's chagrin but my brother's approval.

When you're nearly 35 weeks pregnant the thought of ever wearing your overpriced, but oh-so stylish Joe or Citizens of Humanity or Seven or Paper Cloth Denim jeans seems like a distant dream in your ill fitting maternity pants. Sure, elastic is necessary around the constantly swelling belly but I have realized why zippers, buttons, and sizes were invented. Elastic doesn't fit. It hangs low around the butt or slides down the hips. Elastic also gets stretched out so while you might have thought these aren't so bad when you first put them on the morning, by afternoon the pants are riding between low and high and it's pretty terrible.

I've had much better luck with maternity tops. As much as I hate contributing to child-labor, I have to give props to Old Navy maternity tees. Comfortable! Flattering! And of course, thanks to the blind Indonesia 8 year old making it for me, Cheap! Also, the style for many tops this seems to be flowing with odd inclusions of elastic which is exactly what the pregnant woman ordered! I've happened upon many cute, non-pregnancy tops which makes me happy.

My doc. said that most women lose between 18-20 pounds during the labor/birth. I'm not so crazy as to actually pack Seven's in the hospital bag but maybe, in the not so distant future, I can go back to looking like my old self, like this:

Boxing It All and Moving On Up

So we got the beautiful apartment with the small closets on School Street! We even got movers to move 90% of our stuff up in a week and a half! I'm hoping I feel good enough to spend a few days there and make some sense of the place. The more we do at the end of June, the better it will be when we return with the Bean.

We need to pack! Do you know the secret to good packing? Good boxes. And having a lot of good boxes. With 11,000 points, I am the undisputed box queen. N. merely showed scratched the surface with his slightly better than paltry contribution to the box situation.

Admittedly, I got a little box crazed. You see, while rule # 1 is good boxes = good packing, rule #2 is: never pay for boxes when you live in a world that spilling over with them. Colleges have so many excellent boxes. When you have no work at work, you can spend loads of time hunting for the excellent Domtar boxes. I've been stashing them in my office for the last few weeks. When N. picked me up on Monday to collect the boxes, he practically threw up with the sheer number I had managed to get. There were too many to fit in our car. Never fear. I'm able to neatly bring home 3 at a time on the subway.

For being the undisputed box queen and 8.5 months pregnant, N. gets to make me an ice cream sundae. He gets one too, but no sprinkles on his. That seems fair, right?

Back From NH

N. and I left Wednesday to look at places to live in NH. We saw a total of 13 places in about a day and a half. Some places we could have easily skipped since it's clear that I can't live in a place that's miles away from civilization. Some people are happy driving 8 miles down their dirt road. I am not one of them.

We mostly looked in the town of Lebanon. It's a small--2 restaurants (not including the Chinese Buffet and Pizza Parlor, which we have yet to sample) but at least it's a town. I like the idea of being able to walk to the library, post office, etc. I know once the Bean and winter arrives I'll be driving but I like the possibility of not having to. I'm really going to miss walking around Prospect Park with N. but at least living in a town we can take walks around the 'hood or down to the green.

You know what's annoying? You think N. and I would feel totally rich being five hours out of the city but we don't. The place we have hopefully (cross your fingers, lurkers) found is a little more than we'd like to pay and we have to pay for heat, which is no fraking joke what with New England winters, oil prices, and a Bean who needs to live in a 70 degree abode. You'd also think that moving out of the city would increase our space exponentially but it won't. It's one of these places that's really nice looking but deceiving small and kind of awkward. Don't even get me started on the closets! But it is pretty and there's a dishwasher! and washer/dryer! which is exciting. N. and I figured that doing our own laundry instead of sending it out to the place up the street will save us an average of $4,000 a year, which should easily cover our heating bills.

You know what Lebanon, NH needs? A coffee shop. Although I can easily blog at home, I often need to do my "real" work in a coffee shop. Yes, I'm one of those annoying people with my snotty-assed XL lattes on my Mac Air. There's no place in town that comes remotely close this and even Hanover, which is where Dartmouth is, I don't think superior looking Mac users taking up the coffee shop to write their great American novels, are really part of the culture.

There might not be a coffee shop but there is a really fab looking pool in this enormous rec center thing in Lebanon. And, there's baby sitting for $2.75/hr for members. Now, that's a deal you just couldn't find in Bklyn.

Another Thing I Won't Miss

Heavy footed, clomping upstairs neighbors at 2:00 AM.  I think they were playing drunken bocce up there. Or maybe full court b-ball.  Being pregnant and stressed about the impending move has already made my sleep less than great.  Big Foot upstairs last night didn't help.  From here on in, buddy, I'll vacuum at 7:00 AM and grind coffee beans at 6:00 if the mood strikes.