My Beloved Mister with Autumn in WPLN's Studio A: the highlight of our nieces brief Nashville visit last weekend.
Ms. Booty Homemaker Explains It All To You. --"Desperate housewife my zigzag!"
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Last Sunday: Studio A.
My Beloved Mister with Autumn in WPLN's Studio A: the highlight of our nieces brief Nashville visit last weekend.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Hot Tomatoes!!
And here's another one from East Nashville's Tomato Art Festival!! .... Courtesy of the marvelous and artistic Firkins family of Bowling Green, KY. Their teenaged daughter (who took second place in the juried art show for her division) snapped this one of me and her super sassy grandmother who'd shown up in costume last year also! Sister Sassy is pictured here as a Hawaiian Tomato; her underlayer, she informed me, is the suit she uses to teach water aerobics -- "You've got to wear bright colors, so they can see what you're doing under water!" she told me. Dad, Dennis, works in bronze, marble, stainless steel and limestone and Mom, Sandy was kind enough to send the pic along. Thanks, y'all.
Oh, it was hot that day....
You & I Put the Public in Radio.
Today is WPLN Nashville Public Radio's E-pledge day for the AM side-- 1430 AM, which is talk and world news including great programs like: BBC News, On Point, Day to Day, You Bet Your Garden and alternate air times for FM faves like Fresh Air, This American Life and The Splendid Table.(I miss The Connection!!)
If you live in the listening area, or are a regular listener from afar via internet, please consider making an E-pledge today. The AM side is an important part of community building with much potential for growth in the best ways....
My Mister will be pitching on the AM this afternoon / evening from 3 - 8 PM Central-- you can tune in to hear him (or make your pledge) here:
http://www.wpln.org/
or, locally, on your radio dial @ 1430 AM.
Tell 'em Ms. Booty sent you!!
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Snakes & Bananas, Family Style.
Easter Sunday, 2005Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Ms. Booty, Papa Joe, Sister Dana, Autumn & Haley Jo
I'd been missing my nieces something fierce, as it'd been nearly four weeks since I'd seen them.
They live in East Tennessee, across the plateau and just outside the Secret City: Oak Ridge.
As it's a three hour drive one way to them (and my folks), I simply tire of late if making it a single day trip and couldn't forsee with my schedule a way to get to them in the next week or so.... Having mentioned this to my mother, Peggy, AKA Diggy, she woke early Sunday morning and colluded with my father to keep the girls during their mother, Dana's-- my sister-- soccer tournament and take a ride over to Nashville to see me for a few hours. And so they did.
Pulling in front of our home just as My Beloved Mister was pulling away to depart for his day's work at the radio station, he and my father shook hands and six year old Autumn hollered out the window, "There's Ms. Booty!" I was standing in the front yard saying goodbye to my Mister and giving Bert the Dog an opportunity to get a snoot full of fresh air.
We-- my folks, my nieces and I-- all crumped into my mother's big teal sedan with my father, dressed in his summer khaki shorts and shirt like an animal handler, at the wheel. We headed to Shoney's for lunch. I ate a big plate of salad and then some eggs and grits. And a couple pieces of link sausage. Odd combination, that, though I much enjoyed it. The girls picked at their food and had a much bigger time simply visiting and playing "waitress" in which Autumn asked what each diner would like to order and her little sister Haley Jo came up with wonderful combinations including Snakes & Bananas, Chicken & Frogs and Chicken & Worms.
After the Animal Handler had eaten his fill of breakfast buffet and Diggy and I took the girls to the restroom with us, we wended the highway around and across the river to see the girls' uncle at the radio station. Autumn, in particular, is very interested in the fact that she can hear him on the radio and for the last couple years will sometimes mistake a deeply soothing midwestern voice for that of her uncle. (I should also disclose that for the earliest years of her childhood, she also mistook Colin Powell for Papa each time she saw him on television, but really, how could a body disagree with the similarity?)
At the radio station, Diggy was quite anxious. Our girls are known to touch things they oughtn't, and to burst forth with excitement when a lower key attitude might be called for. Diggy had warned the girls on the way to the station that they were to speak in quiet inside voices while visiting their uncle; I think she suspected that somehow they'd flip the channels on the board and treat the Nashville Public Radio listenership to their girlish prattle. No matter. All went quite well.
Each of the children listened to the broadcast for a moment through the headphones and My Mister tucked us all in the adjoining soundproof booth next to Studio A during his top of the hour break leading into Prairie Home Companion, a show the girls and the grandparents are quite familiar with. During the time he spoke into the microphone, the girls' eyed their uncle with great wonder and literally shook with excitement-- Autumn backed into my lap and whispered conspiratorially, "That's your husband!" as if she were a girlfriend, letting me know she understands why I think my man is so cool. When the music break came on, Haley Jo busted into a booty shaking so vigorous that she continued it into the hallway and danced herself right to the floor, only to hop back up and begin again. That girl loves to dance.
My Man showed the girls and the grandparents the log sitting turtles in the creek behind the station, and how when they see humans, the turtles drop off the logs and into the water. My father was deeply impressed at seeing a great blue heron, who delighted us all by taking flight just after we'd spotted him.
There was time only left for a quick swim at the Y, and then Diggy, Papa and the girls headed back across the plateau, as Autumn's first official day of kindergarten was to be the following morning.
Speaking to my mother by phone in the days that follow, she tells me the girls pronounced seeing Uncle Eric speak into the microphone as their favorite part of the visit. She asked them if they were sure it hadn't been visiting with their aunt. "We saw turtles!" they answered.
As it should be. Of all the things mentioned and experienced, I am the most constant in their young lives and they take my presence a bit for granted, as I hope my own child will, simply knowing that some things just are.
They live in East Tennessee, across the plateau and just outside the Secret City: Oak Ridge.
As it's a three hour drive one way to them (and my folks), I simply tire of late if making it a single day trip and couldn't forsee with my schedule a way to get to them in the next week or so.... Having mentioned this to my mother, Peggy, AKA Diggy, she woke early Sunday morning and colluded with my father to keep the girls during their mother, Dana's-- my sister-- soccer tournament and take a ride over to Nashville to see me for a few hours. And so they did.
Pulling in front of our home just as My Beloved Mister was pulling away to depart for his day's work at the radio station, he and my father shook hands and six year old Autumn hollered out the window, "There's Ms. Booty!" I was standing in the front yard saying goodbye to my Mister and giving Bert the Dog an opportunity to get a snoot full of fresh air.
We-- my folks, my nieces and I-- all crumped into my mother's big teal sedan with my father, dressed in his summer khaki shorts and shirt like an animal handler, at the wheel. We headed to Shoney's for lunch. I ate a big plate of salad and then some eggs and grits. And a couple pieces of link sausage. Odd combination, that, though I much enjoyed it. The girls picked at their food and had a much bigger time simply visiting and playing "waitress" in which Autumn asked what each diner would like to order and her little sister Haley Jo came up with wonderful combinations including Snakes & Bananas, Chicken & Frogs and Chicken & Worms.
After the Animal Handler had eaten his fill of breakfast buffet and Diggy and I took the girls to the restroom with us, we wended the highway around and across the river to see the girls' uncle at the radio station. Autumn, in particular, is very interested in the fact that she can hear him on the radio and for the last couple years will sometimes mistake a deeply soothing midwestern voice for that of her uncle. (I should also disclose that for the earliest years of her childhood, she also mistook Colin Powell for Papa each time she saw him on television, but really, how could a body disagree with the similarity?)
At the radio station, Diggy was quite anxious. Our girls are known to touch things they oughtn't, and to burst forth with excitement when a lower key attitude might be called for. Diggy had warned the girls on the way to the station that they were to speak in quiet inside voices while visiting their uncle; I think she suspected that somehow they'd flip the channels on the board and treat the Nashville Public Radio listenership to their girlish prattle. No matter. All went quite well.
Each of the children listened to the broadcast for a moment through the headphones and My Mister tucked us all in the adjoining soundproof booth next to Studio A during his top of the hour break leading into Prairie Home Companion, a show the girls and the grandparents are quite familiar with. During the time he spoke into the microphone, the girls' eyed their uncle with great wonder and literally shook with excitement-- Autumn backed into my lap and whispered conspiratorially, "That's your husband!" as if she were a girlfriend, letting me know she understands why I think my man is so cool. When the music break came on, Haley Jo busted into a booty shaking so vigorous that she continued it into the hallway and danced herself right to the floor, only to hop back up and begin again. That girl loves to dance.
My Man showed the girls and the grandparents the log sitting turtles in the creek behind the station, and how when they see humans, the turtles drop off the logs and into the water. My father was deeply impressed at seeing a great blue heron, who delighted us all by taking flight just after we'd spotted him.
There was time only left for a quick swim at the Y, and then Diggy, Papa and the girls headed back across the plateau, as Autumn's first official day of kindergarten was to be the following morning.
Speaking to my mother by phone in the days that follow, she tells me the girls pronounced seeing Uncle Eric speak into the microphone as their favorite part of the visit. She asked them if they were sure it hadn't been visiting with their aunt. "We saw turtles!" they answered.
As it should be. Of all the things mentioned and experienced, I am the most constant in their young lives and they take my presence a bit for granted, as I hope my own child will, simply knowing that some things just are.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Luna Moth Sighting.
**Correction: Actually, I believe this is a polyphemus moth. Any of you folks know more???**
This is very like the Luna Moth I saw yesterday evening while walking Bert the Dog.
It was HUGE-- four or five inches across with a gigantically fat body, wonderful fuzziness and feet that looked as if they had little furry pods at the ends.
The moth was in this position, but with the second set of wings tucked under-- and it was BIGGER than this pic, too. S/he was hanging out on the picket fence of a neighbor's home. Sadly, I do not yet have a digital camera with which I'd have captured an image to show here. This pic isn't exactly right, but it's the closest I was able to find this morning to represent what I saw.
I was thrilled when my Mister and Tom House showed up a couple hours later and the moth was still in place, as I'd been itching to share.
I get very excited about such things.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Getting Nekkid With Myself.
I had a moment of being overly self conscious and while I sent this picture in an email to family & some friends, I didn't post it here.Learning to get naked always. Not just stripping down, but getting the the heart of things for real. Getting down with it and boogying the Getting Nekkid With Myself dance.
Silly Ms. Booty. Still learning to love the body in all its happy sad beautiful human-ness after all this long time of keeping on keeping on keeping on....
Oh, this here is a woman. She has stories. Those stretch marks tell only part of the tale.
Truth is, I'm proud of them. Both the imperfections and the stories that I'm living.
Not because they make me special, or tragically unique; conversely, because they weave me part of the whole crazy quilt.
Love to bellies everywhere: round, flat, saggy, baggy, firm, taut, six packed and whacked.
Rub your beloved's belly. Make a wish.
Open your eyes. There you are.
Note: lovely soundtrack for this week-- The Flaming Lips, The Soft Bulletin.
Yum.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Peace & Art.
Tonight my crafting group, the Stitch 'n Bitch crew, will be coming over for our one of our bi-monthly gatherings.
Also, for a fifteen minute period of time, I plan on honoring Cindy Sheehan's vigil in Texas and the vigils taking place all over the United States this evening at 7:30 by burning candles and by silently holding in the light the 1800 American solidiers who've lost their lives in this tragic war, their families and loved ones, and focusing on peace.
I hope that some of you, from wherever you are on this big blue marble, will join me if so led. Light a candle, pray, stand silent in solidarity with those who want answers and want our men and women home now.... .
I believe in the focused energies of many and the difference it can make. Together we can raise the vibrational frequencies of this world in which we live. As you may know, MoveOn.org, Democracy Now and one other agency / organization have sought to bring together vigils all across the land this evening, as citizens stand in solidarity with Cindy Sheehan, whose eldest son Casey was killed in the war--- For the last week or more, Sheehan has been holding a vigil awaiting Bush to meet with her while he's vacating on his ranch. Thus far, he has refused to see her. It is gratifying that she has received such great media attention.
There will be a larger vigil in Nashville in Centennial Park, but as my girls and I already had our gathering planned up, I've decided to simply incorporate something I feel strongly about into my at home time with girlfriends.
If you and your family-- chosen, biological or otherwise-- will be making a vigil part of your evening at home, I'd love to hear about it. Please feel free to chime in with a comment.
Also, for a fifteen minute period of time, I plan on honoring Cindy Sheehan's vigil in Texas and the vigils taking place all over the United States this evening at 7:30 by burning candles and by silently holding in the light the 1800 American solidiers who've lost their lives in this tragic war, their families and loved ones, and focusing on peace.
I hope that some of you, from wherever you are on this big blue marble, will join me if so led. Light a candle, pray, stand silent in solidarity with those who want answers and want our men and women home now.... .
I believe in the focused energies of many and the difference it can make. Together we can raise the vibrational frequencies of this world in which we live. As you may know, MoveOn.org, Democracy Now and one other agency / organization have sought to bring together vigils all across the land this evening, as citizens stand in solidarity with Cindy Sheehan, whose eldest son Casey was killed in the war--- For the last week or more, Sheehan has been holding a vigil awaiting Bush to meet with her while he's vacating on his ranch. Thus far, he has refused to see her. It is gratifying that she has received such great media attention.
There will be a larger vigil in Nashville in Centennial Park, but as my girls and I already had our gathering planned up, I've decided to simply incorporate something I feel strongly about into my at home time with girlfriends.
If you and your family-- chosen, biological or otherwise-- will be making a vigil part of your evening at home, I'd love to hear about it. Please feel free to chime in with a comment.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Bosom Friendly & Panty Parade.
So yesterday Ms. Booty arrives at the midwife's for a regular two week visit -- My Beloved Mister's already there, having arrived straight from work.
Totally excited about my new nursing bras which've just arrived, I've donned one and upon seeing him, immediately pull up my top to show Daddy Booty my new super cute leopard print Bravado! plus nursing bra!! (Note to non-nursing and non-pregnant chicks: they make super cozy good brassieres that're bosom friendly for YOU, too! Here's a good source for the ones of you interested: http://store.yahoo.com/breakoutbras/bravado.html -- they're currently having a sale, and thrifty Ms. Booty loveth a good bargain! Another good place is here: http://www.wearsthebaby.com/bravadopage.htm)
So the appointment takes place, all is well. I'm down a pound from two weeks ago as I continue to lose fluid gain (this no sugar whole foods living is tremendously helpful!) and Ziggy's science- fiction-showing my belly, morphing it here and yon. Our midwife thoroughly advocates for "Dr. Red," the pediatrician Mama Booty interviewed last week and feels so good about. We discuss birthing balls and the fact that Ziggy will be delivered by whichever of the midwives is on call when he decides to show up.
And then: My Mister confesses that he believes Ms. Booty has been a big bitch over the weekend, because she's overdone it for the last several days what with the Swedish Public Television deal and the Festival and the brunch and the recipe contest; he attempts to enlist our midwife into agreeing that Ms. Booty's over extension of activities is problematic, and not just because she's a bitch, but because it's not healthy. She's a smart lady, our midwife: she tells him what he needs to hear by chiding me a bit and by telling him, too, how he can help his pregnant bride by not being so crabby his own self and being more helpful so Mama Booty isn't such a bitch, nor is she taking unhealthy actions on any sort of chronic basis. This all goes over quite well with the extroverted Southern Native American / Irish mutt and the introverted Midwestern Scandanavian. Oh, those dynamics.
Then our midwife, she makes us howl with laughter by proclaiming our intentions to make a quick 60 hour or so run down to the Gulf Shores Labor Day Weekend "Retarded!"
She tells us we can do as we like, there's no way she can stop us, but she absolutely doesn't recommend it as it's possible Ziggy could decide to come early and doesn't need to be born on the road and it's too long for a woman of such voluptuous mama-to-be-ness to ride in the car.
"It's retarded," she tells us again, leaving us in stitches and thinking we'll plan another kind of romantic getaway for our last childless road trip-- something closer, something a bit more tethered to not being retarded, which frankly, we kind of are when it comes to certain kinds of decision making.
Post appointment, there's no time for me to return home and then rush back to this side of town for my girlfriend Leslie's birthday party, so My Mister suggests we walk down the block on to the bookstore. I'm game.
A storm is brewing and it's rush hour. Once inside, my man heads upstairs for a copy of Penny Simkins' very fine book, The Birth Partner, as the copy I've borrowed from the Attachment Parenting group in town is due back. I stay downstairs on the look for a birthday card for Leslie.
My Beloved returns, book in hand, ten minutes later. Walks up behind me, clears his throat. I turn to look at him. He does that spinning motion with his index finger pointed downward, for Ms. Booty to turn back around. I do.
He yanks the back of my tiered peasant skirt out of my panties.
Ms. Booty busts out laughing-- I've just done the panty parade and shown my ass down the block and into the bookstore for the last however long, and here I just thought everyone was smiling at me 'cause my bump makes everyone gushy and melty hearted for new life!
The joke's on me! And my booty.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Red Bitch Fricassee.
Red Bitch Fricassee
5 lb. hen
1 ½ T sea salt for water
Dozen Roma tomatoes, quartered lengthwise
2 T Kosher salt
Black pepper, to taste
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 green tomatoes, coarsely chopped (omit if not available in winter)
1 large red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 medium Vidalia onion, coarsely diced
1 medium sweet yellow onion, coarsely diced
3 T minced garlic
8-10 heirloom tomatoes (can use fresh frozen in winter)
1 lb. smoked sausage, cut into ¼- ½” slices (long link)
3 hot cherry peppers (pickled), minced
2 C chicken stock from boiled hen
1 bunch collard greens, cleaned and chopped
1 bunch turnip greens, cleaned and chopped (can use mustard greens if preferred)
½ C Crystal hot sauce
Serves 15 – 20 hungry folks!
On a low boil, cook hen for roughly 50 minutes (until legs are pulling away from body) covered in lightly (sea) salted water in 5 qt. Dutch oven or stock pot. Let hen cool in stock. You can do this a day ahead if preferred.
Quarter Romas and lay skin side down on 9 x 12 baking sheet; drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and black pepper. Slow roast at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until liquid has cooked out and tomatoes are slightly charred.
While Romas are roasting, coarsely chop and dice green tomatoes, red bell pepper, and onions. Mince garlic. Sauté these in 12“ skillet in extra virgin olive oil until liquid has cooked down and onions are caramelized. Add sausage pieces to the pan, continuing to cook until sausage begins to crisp slightly. Dice half heirloom tomatoes; pulse the other half heirloom tomatoes in food processor to chunky sauce. Add diced and sauced tomatoes to skillet; cook on low for 25 minutes while proceeding with the following.
When hen has cooled, remove from stock. Pull meat into chunky pieces, discarding bones, skin and cartilage. Place 2 C chicken stock in Dutch oven or stock pot—set & store remaining stock aside for use in another recipe, if you please. Add chicken, sausage and tomato sauce to the big pot with stock. Add minced cherry peppers. Cook over burner on low heat for 1 ½ hours to mingle flavors. Season to taste with sea salt and black pepper.
½ hour to 45 minutes prior to serving, add cleaned and chopped greens to big pot. (If preferred, greens can be added earlier and all can cook on low several hours / all day in a crock pot.)
Fifteen minutes prior to serving, season liberally with Crystal hot sauce, using ½ C—more, or less, according to spiciness desired. Serve Red Bitch Fricassee over rice. Enjoy!!
1 ½ T sea salt for water
Dozen Roma tomatoes, quartered lengthwise
2 T Kosher salt
Black pepper, to taste
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 green tomatoes, coarsely chopped (omit if not available in winter)
1 large red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 medium Vidalia onion, coarsely diced
1 medium sweet yellow onion, coarsely diced
3 T minced garlic
8-10 heirloom tomatoes (can use fresh frozen in winter)
1 lb. smoked sausage, cut into ¼- ½” slices (long link)
3 hot cherry peppers (pickled), minced
2 C chicken stock from boiled hen
1 bunch collard greens, cleaned and chopped
1 bunch turnip greens, cleaned and chopped (can use mustard greens if preferred)
½ C Crystal hot sauce
Serves 15 – 20 hungry folks!
On a low boil, cook hen for roughly 50 minutes (until legs are pulling away from body) covered in lightly (sea) salted water in 5 qt. Dutch oven or stock pot. Let hen cool in stock. You can do this a day ahead if preferred.
Quarter Romas and lay skin side down on 9 x 12 baking sheet; drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and black pepper. Slow roast at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until liquid has cooked out and tomatoes are slightly charred.
While Romas are roasting, coarsely chop and dice green tomatoes, red bell pepper, and onions. Mince garlic. Sauté these in 12“ skillet in extra virgin olive oil until liquid has cooked down and onions are caramelized. Add sausage pieces to the pan, continuing to cook until sausage begins to crisp slightly. Dice half heirloom tomatoes; pulse the other half heirloom tomatoes in food processor to chunky sauce. Add diced and sauced tomatoes to skillet; cook on low for 25 minutes while proceeding with the following.
When hen has cooled, remove from stock. Pull meat into chunky pieces, discarding bones, skin and cartilage. Place 2 C chicken stock in Dutch oven or stock pot—set & store remaining stock aside for use in another recipe, if you please. Add chicken, sausage and tomato sauce to the big pot with stock. Add minced cherry peppers. Cook over burner on low heat for 1 ½ hours to mingle flavors. Season to taste with sea salt and black pepper.
½ hour to 45 minutes prior to serving, add cleaned and chopped greens to big pot. (If preferred, greens can be added earlier and all can cook on low several hours / all day in a crock pot.)
Fifteen minutes prior to serving, season liberally with Crystal hot sauce, using ½ C—more, or less, according to spiciness desired. Serve Red Bitch Fricassee over rice. Enjoy!!
The Day(s) After....
Ms. Booty is busted. Worn out. Drained.The kitchen is the worst kind of disaster area with dirty dishes mounded up in the sink, tomato and greens stuck to the stove top and the floor a tracking of tomato juice and Crocs footprints on the linoleum. The Mister seems alternately aloof & discontent or sweet & tired. Maggie-the-(mini)van's battery is acting up, Friday morning's wonderful massage benefits seem in a land far away, and the teeniest amount of refined products ingested yesterday (no sugar!) have Ms. Booty's eyelids and hands and toes quite puffy this morning. Plus which, it's been melting level hot for days on end and Ms. Booty's Red Bitch Fricassee didn't get so much as an honorable mention at yesterday's Tomato Art Festival recipe contest (neither, I must say, did Jen's Killer Tomatoes -- reportedly FABULOUS-- nor Sue's I Adore A Pomadoro dressed pasta).
That's the morning's bitch list. It's hangover time. Hangover from all the prep, housekeeping and carry through of Thursday morning's interview. Hangover from a particularly (and in all truth, rare of late) rough day with the Mister on Friday-- try cranky-aloof meets cranky-hot-hormonal-needy. Hangover from shopping, prepping and cooking for the weekend's festivities including the brunch, the recipe contest and parading about the neighborhood to participate in said festivities at 8 months pregnant in near 100 degree heat with the humidity knocked up to East Jesus from a mid day thunderstorm. Whew.
Did I mention Ziggy's first costume in my parading about? He was, no surprise, a tomato. Daddy Booty grease makeupped the protruding in utero Zig as the fruit of the season and of the celebration. It was a hit, as folks couldn't keep their hands off it, nor their eyes either: my tarted up belly, that is. Many photos were taken and soon's they're available, they'll be posted right here. Sadly, Ms. Booty does not yet own a digital camera and is reliant upon the kindness of friends and strangers alike for these photos. (Thanks Jen, Jami and the lovely artisan family from Bowling Green for promising to send pics along).
A moment that tickled me fiercely was when I was approached by a festival goer and staff participant upon arriving at the Gallery with my recipe contest entry. First she asked if I participated in the neighborhood list serv to which I answered affirmatively. And then she took another gander and asked, in the most delicious southernese, "Are you Ms. Booty Homemaker?"
Why, yes. Yes, I am, I told her. It just cracked me up in the best way. So Ms. Lisa Cornwell-Collins, if you're reading this, thank you for speaking up and for providing me with a good giggle.
Today will be spent nursing my body and spirits back to balance, and achieving some kind of harmony here on the homefront-- mainly: getting the kitchen back to clean and working order & catching up on laundry; the Booty family has already taken their morning walk, visited the park and bathed Bert the dog, and in recognition of the extraordinary generosity of friends with regard to the babe's impending arrival, Ms. Booty is still writing thank you notes each morning. The Mister is off to work early at the radio station, and the day stretches ahead. Perhaps there'll be space made for a dip in the pool, even, though that'll depend on whether Maggie decides to start today or not. (My Beloved sometimes cranky Mister and I had to go fetch her using borrowed cables and vehicle late last night from where I'd abandonned her at the Festival....)
Ah, yes. This is August. At thirty four weeks pregnant. And this is the hangover from the day(s) after.
Draw a big round bellied woman, wavy lines of chaos surrounding her with an arrow pointing to a spot on which she stands:
You Are Here.
Friday, August 12, 2005
"Tra La La La La, happy as can be...."
Five years ago, for Mean Magazine, I wrote the cover article and a handful of sidebar and accompanying pieces on Pippi Longstocking, creation of the very wonderful Swedish author, Astrid Lindgren. A hero since childhood, Pippi had been (and is!) a lifelong role model for Ms. Booty. 
(The late Mean Magazine was, at the time, edited by my friend and writer pal Jay Babcock, who has since gone on to establish Arthur Magazine, a free counterculture book that comes out every couple months.)
At any rate, the cover piece I wrote on Pippi remains one of my all time favorites, both in terms of the actual writing process and the writing as it exists in the five year old mag. Imagine my surprise, delight and humble gratitude upon learning that it-- my piece!-- served as inspiration for a 60 year anniversary commemorative documentary on Pippi Longstocking for Swedish Public Television!! And imagine that creator / producer of this documentary, Marie Nyreröd, along with Swedish Public Television cameraman Sven-Åke, arrived at the Booty Family's humble cozy nest yesterday morning to interview Mama Booty for said documentary! What a delightful windfall of a day!!
Marie, who has worked for Swedish Public Television for more than twenty years and is the mama of two teenage girls, has worked as everything from a news reporter to a documentary filmmaker on subjects including Ingmar Bergman and, currently (in addition to the Longstockinged one), 9/11. A huge fan of Astrid Lindgren's work and a Pippi collector, Marie stumbled upon the Pippi issue of Mean at newspaper shop in Stockholm when it first came out, thus planting the seed, as she told me yesterday, for a Pippi turns 60 documentary. It all seems fairly unbelievable, though it's gratifying in a way that makes Ms. Booty's heart sing.
Months back, Marie found me on the internet and as the address she found for me didn't work, emailed My Beloved Mister.... we'd early on expected the interview to take place in the Spring, but as it worked out, Ms. Booty ended up dishing on Pippi in August at 8 months pregnant in 98 degree weather on her front porch. Marie and Sven, basing themselves in New York City during their US trip, flew to Nashville yesterday morning and flew back to New York yesterday evening! (Both Marie & I tried in vain to find LA / NYC writer & Pippi uber-fan John Sanchez, who I'd interviewed for the Mean piece -- John, if you're out there, please get in touch as I'd love to know that whatsits of your life these days.)
I was eating my favorite snack when they arrived: golden delicious apple with peanut butter and a glass of the loveliest organic milk. I'd had a difficult time choosing what to wear and had at last settled on one of my standard uniforms of a black skirt and tank with a colorful jacket or sweater, a turquoise linen Flax jacket, in this case. We visited a bit and Marie, bless her heart, came bearing gifts!: a large Pippi Langstrump doll, a Pippi lanyard with a smaller doll attached, and what may be my favorite: Pippi bandaids! And for Ziggy: the most wonderfully bright red long sleeved onsie with Pippi emblazoned on the chest. Our Zig will of course know Ms. Longstocking back and forth by the time he's a young boy.
Professional and utterly lovely, Marie and Sven set us up for the interview on the front porch and we went to it. A theatre major with some history of doing commercials and such, it's been quite some time since I've done anything on camera, though unlike me, I never really got nervous about this. Both Marie and Sven say it went very well and they got what they need, and I do hope it's so as I'm just beyond thrilled that Pippi will get such attentions. I expect, however, that it won't be particularly easy to watch myself on film.... but moreso, I am just itching to see whatall Marie comes up with, including her interview with the grown up Inger Nilsson, as shown above, who (fantastically!) played Pippi in Olle Hellbom's cult classic films of the early 70's. (Did you know those films were pieced together from Swedish television episodes for American audiences and there was never a feature film intended?!)
After our hour long interview, Sven filmed me "doing things around the house" like hanging out with Bert, icing glasses of tea, washing dishes, sitting at my computer, etc. No idea how this'll be used, but what a a funny lovely day!
I served Marie and Sven some more fruit tea, gave them a fist-full of Hatch Show Print post cards and sent them off to explore Lower Broad including Hatch, with lunch recommedations for Arnold's meat & three or Jack's BBQ. I think we'll stay in touch.
(The late Mean Magazine was, at the time, edited by my friend and writer pal Jay Babcock, who has since gone on to establish Arthur Magazine, a free counterculture book that comes out every couple months.)
At any rate, the cover piece I wrote on Pippi remains one of my all time favorites, both in terms of the actual writing process and the writing as it exists in the five year old mag. Imagine my surprise, delight and humble gratitude upon learning that it-- my piece!-- served as inspiration for a 60 year anniversary commemorative documentary on Pippi Longstocking for Swedish Public Television!! And imagine that creator / producer of this documentary, Marie Nyreröd, along with Swedish Public Television cameraman Sven-Åke, arrived at the Booty Family's humble cozy nest yesterday morning to interview Mama Booty for said documentary! What a delightful windfall of a day!!
Marie, who has worked for Swedish Public Television for more than twenty years and is the mama of two teenage girls, has worked as everything from a news reporter to a documentary filmmaker on subjects including Ingmar Bergman and, currently (in addition to the Longstockinged one), 9/11. A huge fan of Astrid Lindgren's work and a Pippi collector, Marie stumbled upon the Pippi issue of Mean at newspaper shop in Stockholm when it first came out, thus planting the seed, as she told me yesterday, for a Pippi turns 60 documentary. It all seems fairly unbelievable, though it's gratifying in a way that makes Ms. Booty's heart sing.
Months back, Marie found me on the internet and as the address she found for me didn't work, emailed My Beloved Mister.... we'd early on expected the interview to take place in the Spring, but as it worked out, Ms. Booty ended up dishing on Pippi in August at 8 months pregnant in 98 degree weather on her front porch. Marie and Sven, basing themselves in New York City during their US trip, flew to Nashville yesterday morning and flew back to New York yesterday evening! (Both Marie & I tried in vain to find LA / NYC writer & Pippi uber-fan John Sanchez, who I'd interviewed for the Mean piece -- John, if you're out there, please get in touch as I'd love to know that whatsits of your life these days.)
I was eating my favorite snack when they arrived: golden delicious apple with peanut butter and a glass of the loveliest organic milk. I'd had a difficult time choosing what to wear and had at last settled on one of my standard uniforms of a black skirt and tank with a colorful jacket or sweater, a turquoise linen Flax jacket, in this case. We visited a bit and Marie, bless her heart, came bearing gifts!: a large Pippi Langstrump doll, a Pippi lanyard with a smaller doll attached, and what may be my favorite: Pippi bandaids! And for Ziggy: the most wonderfully bright red long sleeved onsie with Pippi emblazoned on the chest. Our Zig will of course know Ms. Longstocking back and forth by the time he's a young boy.
Professional and utterly lovely, Marie and Sven set us up for the interview on the front porch and we went to it. A theatre major with some history of doing commercials and such, it's been quite some time since I've done anything on camera, though unlike me, I never really got nervous about this. Both Marie and Sven say it went very well and they got what they need, and I do hope it's so as I'm just beyond thrilled that Pippi will get such attentions. I expect, however, that it won't be particularly easy to watch myself on film.... but moreso, I am just itching to see whatall Marie comes up with, including her interview with the grown up Inger Nilsson, as shown above, who (fantastically!) played Pippi in Olle Hellbom's cult classic films of the early 70's. (Did you know those films were pieced together from Swedish television episodes for American audiences and there was never a feature film intended?!)
After our hour long interview, Sven filmed me "doing things around the house" like hanging out with Bert, icing glasses of tea, washing dishes, sitting at my computer, etc. No idea how this'll be used, but what a a funny lovely day!
I served Marie and Sven some more fruit tea, gave them a fist-full of Hatch Show Print post cards and sent them off to explore Lower Broad including Hatch, with lunch recommedations for Arnold's meat & three or Jack's BBQ. I think we'll stay in touch.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Ms. Booty & Her Chicks.
We're spread out throughout the southern United States, but my Chicks for Peace are my tribe of sisters since college days. We gather as oft possible. Here some of us are in 2000, Labor Day Weekend-- Ms. Booty (in the blonde days), Jo & Mama Loca, along with Destin & Billie, of the next generation. Ziggy will be the baby prince among them.I love these girls (and their children) like crazy & am ever grateful for their presence in my life. Even the ones with whom I've lost touch. Sometimes it's that way with family: you just love each other from where you live and perhaps one day it's easier to be in one another's company.
For the rest of us, we'll be gathering here in Nashville in a couple weeks for a Blessingway to celebrate my impending motherhood. Funny that we all thought I'd have a passel of babies before anyone else and yet here I am bringing up the rear with my caboose baby on the way....
Tuesday, August 9, 2005
Looking back: Home. Hope. Hello. again.
Back in the Spring, at fifteen weeks pregnant, I had the following to tell; wanting to connect with humility and gratitude this morning, I share again it here:
i've been meaning to get down all the whatsits about our most recent visit to the midwife, which was friday a week ago, then got sidelined by a retreat in kentucky, a bout of the flu and being bedridden for three days, then hitting it hard at the office to catch up on all that was missed...
at any rate, here's how it went: E procured recording equipment from the radio station to record the heartbeat we anticipated hearing via doppler under guidance of our midwife's steady hand.... we arrived on time, though the rains were of the beat your old granny down in the streets variety and the skies were blackish and the roads clogged with frustrated drivers. i weighed, peed in a cup, sat still for a blood pressure reading. i've gained only a pound and a half on my already amply bodacious self, though my bosom is bursting out of the best brassieres i own and a trip to the lingerie section is imminent. no protein or elevated sugars, great blood pressure reading. i listed off my most recent spate of symptoms, including this recent flare up of my fibromyalgia.
all in order, i'm full on into the second trimester and the picture of perfectly contented and healthy mama to be.
we move foward in the visit and ready to hear the baby's heartbeat, and..... nothing. not for several minutes. so, at last: deborah says she's exhausted all her tricks (and to be perfectly frank, she told us outright and before the doppler hit belly, that the fifteenth week was anecdotely the most difficult for hearing the pitter pat, for some not scientifically explained reason). so deborah says she wants to send us for an ultrasound just to be safe.
i'm concerned, but mostly okay until she hands me the paper with the referral to the fancy spa-like imaging center and on it under diagnosis are the initials: No FHB. No Fetal Heartbeat.
My own heart is in my throat. I think I might puke. I don't want to cry. Deborah keeps saying she's sure everything is just fine and she really thinks she heard the heartbeat herself but that her ears are finely attuned to such tones and she wouldn't want us to worry and wonder for a weekend.
E is a rock. He packs up the recording equipment, asks questions about my back pain and I'm so rattled I forget my bottle of water and don't really understand that we're going directly to the imaging office right this very now.
Lean into Now. that's what i would tell E when our years long friendship spun more deeply into intimacy and stole our collective breath. not able on this day in this moment to focus save for a stumbling run to the car in the rain, my internal mantra is, Lean into Now. i'm saying it for my own benefit, but for the baby's, too. i only know that whatever happens, we must absorb it all and be okay.
E talks to me in the car about what i'm taking for my retreat and he's displeased that i'm to be leaving for kentucky in this weather in only hours and my windshield wipers don't seem to be working properly in this storm and vehicular crush.... he's trying to disarm me, distract me, engage me on some other level, but in the waiting room as we drip our wet selves onto the blonde hardwood floors and i stare blankly at the paper in my hand, the dyed redhead at the desk, i mumble to him that i'm not present, and no, babe, i don't care for a magazine to look at.
i tell him that if we lose the baby we'll just give it some time and start again, we'll have to be okay. E tells me not to even entertain such thoughts and i'm simply okay knowing that i haven't screamed or thrown up and i honestly feel like i could do either one at this very moment of not knowing what to expect or even to ask of the Universe, save for: Lean into Now, please help us align with that which is most right.
so a lady comes to the waiting room and calls out Paige Babcock. i still forget that's me, as i always use my full name, La Grone intact, but here, at the imaging center, somehow we move across the foyer to the woman and following her lead, amble through dimly lit halls as if we're going for pedicures and a couples massage.
E holds my hand and i'm so glad he's with me to drive, to answer the questions, to just hold on to all that is impossible for me to be present for beyond staying calm and mindful of breath in order to trick my mind which wants fracture into committees of dialogue since that's what's easy for it to do.
we're in the room now and it's dark and the technician, likely someone's grandmother, is kind and soft spoken, introduces herself as stephanie. at her instruction, i duck into the restroom and pull off my skirt and panties, put a gown on over my roomy puple kirta, come back to the room, lay down on the cozily dressed table. my husband squeezes my hand, he is seated in a chair beside me.
stephanie squirts the gel onto my belly and i am surprised it is warm, a comfort. the paddle follows closely behind and like wow: on the computer screen before us, there is our baby and there is his or her heart beating beating beating, right and proper, at one hundred forty seven beats per minute.
i am weeping and E is kissing me and we all in the room sigh a good sigh and stephanie says, well then, now we can be relieved. indeed.
and the baby, OUR baby, s/he is so beautiful.... we see a face quite clearly and each teeny magnificent vertabrae and a rounded bottom and kicking legs. it is ten of the most miraculously delightful minutes of my life thus far sharing this incredible relief, gratitude and joy with E.
we watch intently, ask questions, look at one another with delight and amazement. wow. i am so deeply grateful to stephanie, that even though she sees this with singles and couples every working day of her life, she protects the sacred space of this being OUR first time to revel in the experience and she does not rush us nor snap off the answers that to her might be rote.
when she has come to the end of the procedure, she tells us that this has been a good day and she is happy for us; some days, some procedures, do not end thusly, and i feel a rush of unadulterated love for this woman who has shared such a deeply intimate moment with my precious little family, my family that i'd kill or die for in an instant.
when i am dressed, with videotape and photos in hand, i ask if i may hug her and she allows it. i wonder vaguely if she thinks i'm a total kook.
as the days roll by, i ask E to tell me about the experience again and again, to fill in details i might have missed.
one night, one sleepless middle of the night time talking as we're crumped up in the bed i ask what was the best part. without hesitation, my dearest friend answers: when we saw our baby's heart beat and you were relieved.
we are well here. it is spring. we have a full pantry and refrigerator, many beautiful flowers to enjoy, fine books and music aplenty, good friends, deeply loved family, and one another.
the last year was so hard, for so many reasons, that today in this now into which i am leaning, i have a renewed faith in the ultimate rightness of things. the last several months have brought forth a gift: like that to abandon hope, no matter how pure a buddhist heart believes, is not to be my path.
simply put, i need hope like i need air, water, food, shelter, love. and it is my goal to provide that hope for my little family, to nurture and tend it in my husband and child.
again, again, again: home. hope. hello. we're finding our way there. with love, paige
i've been meaning to get down all the whatsits about our most recent visit to the midwife, which was friday a week ago, then got sidelined by a retreat in kentucky, a bout of the flu and being bedridden for three days, then hitting it hard at the office to catch up on all that was missed...
at any rate, here's how it went: E procured recording equipment from the radio station to record the heartbeat we anticipated hearing via doppler under guidance of our midwife's steady hand.... we arrived on time, though the rains were of the beat your old granny down in the streets variety and the skies were blackish and the roads clogged with frustrated drivers. i weighed, peed in a cup, sat still for a blood pressure reading. i've gained only a pound and a half on my already amply bodacious self, though my bosom is bursting out of the best brassieres i own and a trip to the lingerie section is imminent. no protein or elevated sugars, great blood pressure reading. i listed off my most recent spate of symptoms, including this recent flare up of my fibromyalgia.
all in order, i'm full on into the second trimester and the picture of perfectly contented and healthy mama to be.
we move foward in the visit and ready to hear the baby's heartbeat, and..... nothing. not for several minutes. so, at last: deborah says she's exhausted all her tricks (and to be perfectly frank, she told us outright and before the doppler hit belly, that the fifteenth week was anecdotely the most difficult for hearing the pitter pat, for some not scientifically explained reason). so deborah says she wants to send us for an ultrasound just to be safe.
i'm concerned, but mostly okay until she hands me the paper with the referral to the fancy spa-like imaging center and on it under diagnosis are the initials: No FHB. No Fetal Heartbeat.
My own heart is in my throat. I think I might puke. I don't want to cry. Deborah keeps saying she's sure everything is just fine and she really thinks she heard the heartbeat herself but that her ears are finely attuned to such tones and she wouldn't want us to worry and wonder for a weekend.
E is a rock. He packs up the recording equipment, asks questions about my back pain and I'm so rattled I forget my bottle of water and don't really understand that we're going directly to the imaging office right this very now.
Lean into Now. that's what i would tell E when our years long friendship spun more deeply into intimacy and stole our collective breath. not able on this day in this moment to focus save for a stumbling run to the car in the rain, my internal mantra is, Lean into Now. i'm saying it for my own benefit, but for the baby's, too. i only know that whatever happens, we must absorb it all and be okay.
E talks to me in the car about what i'm taking for my retreat and he's displeased that i'm to be leaving for kentucky in this weather in only hours and my windshield wipers don't seem to be working properly in this storm and vehicular crush.... he's trying to disarm me, distract me, engage me on some other level, but in the waiting room as we drip our wet selves onto the blonde hardwood floors and i stare blankly at the paper in my hand, the dyed redhead at the desk, i mumble to him that i'm not present, and no, babe, i don't care for a magazine to look at.
i tell him that if we lose the baby we'll just give it some time and start again, we'll have to be okay. E tells me not to even entertain such thoughts and i'm simply okay knowing that i haven't screamed or thrown up and i honestly feel like i could do either one at this very moment of not knowing what to expect or even to ask of the Universe, save for: Lean into Now, please help us align with that which is most right.
so a lady comes to the waiting room and calls out Paige Babcock. i still forget that's me, as i always use my full name, La Grone intact, but here, at the imaging center, somehow we move across the foyer to the woman and following her lead, amble through dimly lit halls as if we're going for pedicures and a couples massage.
E holds my hand and i'm so glad he's with me to drive, to answer the questions, to just hold on to all that is impossible for me to be present for beyond staying calm and mindful of breath in order to trick my mind which wants fracture into committees of dialogue since that's what's easy for it to do.
we're in the room now and it's dark and the technician, likely someone's grandmother, is kind and soft spoken, introduces herself as stephanie. at her instruction, i duck into the restroom and pull off my skirt and panties, put a gown on over my roomy puple kirta, come back to the room, lay down on the cozily dressed table. my husband squeezes my hand, he is seated in a chair beside me.
stephanie squirts the gel onto my belly and i am surprised it is warm, a comfort. the paddle follows closely behind and like wow: on the computer screen before us, there is our baby and there is his or her heart beating beating beating, right and proper, at one hundred forty seven beats per minute.
i am weeping and E is kissing me and we all in the room sigh a good sigh and stephanie says, well then, now we can be relieved. indeed.
and the baby, OUR baby, s/he is so beautiful.... we see a face quite clearly and each teeny magnificent vertabrae and a rounded bottom and kicking legs. it is ten of the most miraculously delightful minutes of my life thus far sharing this incredible relief, gratitude and joy with E.
we watch intently, ask questions, look at one another with delight and amazement. wow. i am so deeply grateful to stephanie, that even though she sees this with singles and couples every working day of her life, she protects the sacred space of this being OUR first time to revel in the experience and she does not rush us nor snap off the answers that to her might be rote.
when she has come to the end of the procedure, she tells us that this has been a good day and she is happy for us; some days, some procedures, do not end thusly, and i feel a rush of unadulterated love for this woman who has shared such a deeply intimate moment with my precious little family, my family that i'd kill or die for in an instant.
when i am dressed, with videotape and photos in hand, i ask if i may hug her and she allows it. i wonder vaguely if she thinks i'm a total kook.
as the days roll by, i ask E to tell me about the experience again and again, to fill in details i might have missed.
one night, one sleepless middle of the night time talking as we're crumped up in the bed i ask what was the best part. without hesitation, my dearest friend answers: when we saw our baby's heart beat and you were relieved.
we are well here. it is spring. we have a full pantry and refrigerator, many beautiful flowers to enjoy, fine books and music aplenty, good friends, deeply loved family, and one another.
the last year was so hard, for so many reasons, that today in this now into which i am leaning, i have a renewed faith in the ultimate rightness of things. the last several months have brought forth a gift: like that to abandon hope, no matter how pure a buddhist heart believes, is not to be my path.
simply put, i need hope like i need air, water, food, shelter, love. and it is my goal to provide that hope for my little family, to nurture and tend it in my husband and child.
again, again, again: home. hope. hello. we're finding our way there. with love, paige
Saturday, August 6, 2005
You Are the Love Apple of My Eye.
Well, then. As previously mentioned right here at Ms. Booty Homemaker's home on the web, East Nashville's Tomato Art Festival is taking place next weekend, with all kinds of events including a tomato toss, costumes at will and a handful of contests-- I'm entered in the recipe contest under the main dish category. (And if I can find a fitted red outfit, My Beloved Mister has promised to make me a collar and stem from felt, as my roly-poly self already resembles a tomato!)
I'll be throwing my apron in the ring with my very delicious and not quite famous, but much sought after RED BITCH FRICASEE.
Our Stitch 'n Bitch posse will be gathering at Meshel's for a tomato brunch in the early part of the day, then several of us are entering the recipe contests.
Fancy Chef that she is (I learned SO much working with her at her kosher vegetarian cafe, Grins), Meshel will be a judge of the recipe contest and will be getting her game on with her Bloody Mary entry. Sue's got her I Adore A Pomadoro sauce. Jen's got this sexy grilled tomato thing happening. And I'm hoping that Jami will enter the Beautiful Tomato contest and turn the Love Apple pumpkinly, with some groovy theme. Last year's winning entry in that category was a hula girl tomato 'sculpture.'
Here's a bit from gallery maven and, with partner hubby Bret, Festival co-Founder Meg MacFadyen:
"The Five Points area of East Nashville will be alive with art and activity on Saturday, August 13, 2005. Our very own "Tomatopalooza"!
The numerous area merchants in this hip, Bohemian corner of town will be actively involved... from the Children's Fine Art, tomato related merchandise, speciality menu items, brew blends and professional art.
[In addition to other celebrity judges] Marybeth Lasseter, an oral historian with the Center for Study of Southern Culture and the Southern Foodways Alliance in Oxford, Mississippi will be on hand to collect the tomato stories from your life, collect your thoughts and tips about growing, cooking and eating tomatoes upcoming essay."
My test kitchen will be bubbling through the week....
I can't wait!
Find out more here: http://www.tomatoartfest.com/
I'll be throwing my apron in the ring with my very delicious and not quite famous, but much sought after RED BITCH FRICASEE.
Our Stitch 'n Bitch posse will be gathering at Meshel's for a tomato brunch in the early part of the day, then several of us are entering the recipe contests.
Fancy Chef that she is (I learned SO much working with her at her kosher vegetarian cafe, Grins), Meshel will be a judge of the recipe contest and will be getting her game on with her Bloody Mary entry. Sue's got her I Adore A Pomadoro sauce. Jen's got this sexy grilled tomato thing happening. And I'm hoping that Jami will enter the Beautiful Tomato contest and turn the Love Apple pumpkinly, with some groovy theme. Last year's winning entry in that category was a hula girl tomato 'sculpture.'
Here's a bit from gallery maven and, with partner hubby Bret, Festival co-Founder Meg MacFadyen:
"The Five Points area of East Nashville will be alive with art and activity on Saturday, August 13, 2005. Our very own "Tomatopalooza"!
The numerous area merchants in this hip, Bohemian corner of town will be actively involved... from the Children's Fine Art, tomato related merchandise, speciality menu items, brew blends and professional art.
[In addition to other celebrity judges] Marybeth Lasseter, an oral historian with the Center for Study of Southern Culture and the Southern Foodways Alliance in Oxford, Mississippi will be on hand to collect the tomato stories from your life, collect your thoughts and tips about growing, cooking and eating tomatoes upcoming essay."
My test kitchen will be bubbling through the week....
I can't wait!
Find out more here: http://www.tomatoartfest.com/
Thursday, August 4, 2005
Happy Mama Booty.
Monday morning I'll be doing a meet-up interview with a pediatrician. Described by a neighbor friend after yesterday's La Leche League meeting as "a vibrant red-headed earth mama" who has three uncircumcised sons, all of whom have benefitted from extended breast feeding, this sage sounds right up this Mama's alley; we'll be hopeful of a good fit for our little family.As we plan to co-sleep, cloth diaper, breastfeed, and generally adhere to natural family life a la attachment parenting principles in the old tribe way, I'm looking for health care providers from whom we can glean information and make smart choices, and with whom we won't feel as though we must defend said choices. Dr. Red seems to fall into that category, and while her offices are not in our part of town, they aren't far away and she also has privleges at what is the best learning and children's hospital in town: Vanderbilt, which is also where Ziggy will be born.
Should all go well in our interview Monday morning, I'll have yet another item to strike off my ever evolving list and we can rest assured that Ziggy, who could easily be born full-term as soon as FIVE WEEKS AWAY, will have his very own doc to come do a well-baby visit at birth, or, in the case of complication, have someone on board for consultation that we'll already know.
We gratefully feel in good hands with our midwives practice as well, my Mister and me. At yesterday's visit we met another of the midwives and learned that a solid eight pounds have been shed from my pregnancy weight gain, all due to loss of fluid, resulting from dietary adjustments to my already healthy diet: cutting out all sugar inlcuding honey, greatly limiting fruits and exchanging refined products for whole foods and whole grains. (See the Chehini Pie recipe below for an example of good eating!)
My feet, hands and face, which have for months been afflicted with ever more swelling, are at last looking and feeling more close to normal. Last week I was even able to get my running shoes on and tied for the first time in a month! My Beloved Mister and I took a long amble through Shelby Bottoms here in our neighborhood with Bert, loving the time spent in nature soaking up some sun, picking blackberries, walking and visiting with no interruption. Afterward, I swam at the Y while my Mister worked on other projects at home and in the evening we dined out at our favorite catfish joint on the river down Highway 12 outside of town.
My energy level is consistently better, as is my quality of sleep. Though I do miss my ice cream, sour dough bread and large daily fruit intake, it is as I once heard someone say on NPR's much lamented Tavis Smiley show: "Nothing tastes as good as health feels." Amen!
And that grouchiness of last week, partly completely unfair on my part-- I'd told my Mister that during my visit in East Tennessee, he could feast on hot chicken & ice cream while re-watching Soprano episodes, yet upon arriving home to find he'd done just that, and neglected housekeeping basics, I was irritated!-- has been replaced with my usual contentment, good humor and reasonable expectations for self and spouse.
That old axiom about nobody being happy if Mama isn't happy? True, that.
Butterbean Love.
Oh the beloved butterbean.... or, lima, should you prefer.
For breakfast this morning, I had some of one of my favorite dishes, prepared evening before last for the first time in AGES.
Chock full of iron and good for you nutrients, Chehini Pie is my take on something I ate at a sweet little Chattanooga cafe in the early 90's.
Try it!
Chehini Pie
cooked brown rice
cooked butterbeans (fresh, frozen or dried)
tehini
tomatoes, sliced
sharp cheddar, grated
sesame seeds
slivered almonds
Cook up a pot of brown rice, enough to make a base for this casserole pie (depends on what size you'll be making). Cook it with a smidge of sea salt, and if you've got it, a drop or two of sesame oil. Cook up your beans. When both are ready, press rice into the bottom of a baking dish-- pyrex, corningware or some such casserole, approximately an inch high-- (more if you want a starchier dish, less if you're cutting back on the carbs). Pour your lovely butterbeans / limas over the rice. (You can season these as you like, though I tend to go very simple with only sea salt and black pepper.) Drizzle the top of your beans with tehini. Do this to taste. Your next layer is grated sharp cheddar, then layer with sliced tomatoes, be they bradley, beefsteak, yellow or whichever you prefer.... drizzle again with tehini. Top the tomatoes with a little more cheddar so they're not naked, but still peek through for a burst of color. Sprinkle the top with a tablespoon or so of sesame seeds and perhaps a quarter cup of slivered (or sliced) almonds. If you're a tehini fiend, drizzle some more. Bake off for 25 - 30 minutes in a 350-400 degree oven (I tend to marry my baking all together, particularly in summer so as to reduce oven time, so if you've got a cake or a quiche or something that requires a specific temp, go with it--- your pie ingredients are already cooked and the purpose for baking is merely to solidfy, melt and brown the ingredients together.)
When the Chehini Pie is bubbly and a little browned, pull it from the oven. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes. Cut into squares. This is particularly good when eaten with a fresh green salad topped with the very wonderful Annie's Goddess dressing. Mmmm...
Chehini Pie is a grand source of iron for prenant, lactating or menstruating women, and I've found that most small children really dig it.
I love Chehini Pie as start my day food in the days beyond its inital serving: I always feel so energized & nurtured by its earthy nutty goodness.
Enjoy!!
Which came first....?
This evening My Beloved Mister & I will head over to TAG art gallery in Hillsboro Village (our old neigh-borhood) to see friend and artist / musician Jon Langford who'll play some tunes with East Nashville neighbor & very talented musician Paul Burch. My Beloved Mister and I actually met the first time (via telephone) near to a decade ago when I rang him up in Chicago to ask for a copy of Burch's first album, as I wanted to write about it.
My Mister, at the time in the dual roles as co-founder of both the groundbreaking Bloodshot and Checkered Past Records, declared he'd never heard of me and was actually just short of rude. I had to prove my credibility with him by providing clips and mumbling that Paul Burch & the WPA Ball Club had actually played my wedding. (Married at the time briefly, and mostly unhappily, it's a beautiful thing that this precipitous chain of events led me to the man who'd become the love of my life and that over a string of years, something once so raw and ugly became this life I now live with the partner of my dreams.) The record in question was Pan American Flash-- it'd been issued on the French label Dixie Frog and got its stateside release on Checkered Past.
In our living room hangs a Langford print-- Hank with arrows piercing him; I believe the title is Hank Cold War I. As above, it is present in the background of many of our wedding photographs, as it was in an intimate front room setting we wed.
I am also very fond of Jon's rooster painting; we are chicken people. I grew up with them as pets, and knew I'd make a life with my Mister when he told me when the time and place was right, he'd build me a coop for our inevitable brood of hens.
We are all such a good egg.
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