Updates of All Sorts

One of those dreadful bullet-blogs.

-- Exciting things afoot (asnatch?) over at Two Hot Mamas! Go give 'em some labor-love!

-- Couple new things up on the Etsy site:
1. the aforementioned custom pet stamp by Bionic
2. a wickedly sweet/sweetly wicked skull pendant drawn and enameled by Sugar




-- Tentatively good news on the job/insurance front. After some serious hustle on my part, enrollment in the my endangered class is one student shy of "off the radar" for cancellation. I'm hoping that means they're likely to run it even if I don't get another one by Thursday. I also have calls all over the place to see if I could get coverage by taking a Saturday kids' class offered by the same department. I'd rather not have to, since my horrible commute becomes excruciating when it meets the reduced weekend bus service, but I'd also rather not lose my insurance.

-- I've been peeing on sticks and so on, and we've decided we'll climb back on the TTC horse this month, now that insurance looks less scary. Frankly, due date for a child conceived this time of year is still bad for us financially -- fall is my higher-earning semester -- but I'm not willing to insem only during the limited "good timing" months. Especially because...

-- I've talked to Dr. Baby Factory about my endo questions. He says yes, the GI badness probably is endo, but that there's not much to be done about it, as that location has particularly bad surgical outcomes. (Basically, the scar tissue from surgery between vag and rectum is likely to be much worse than any original adhesion. Cervix glued to rectum, that kind of thing.) He also said, "I hope I haven't given you the impression that I think everything is fine with your chances of conception," and brought up again the idea that going to IVF after 3-6 IUI attempts might be more cost-effective in our case. Sigh.

Okay, I know this is the part you really want updated:

-- Pee Stick Follies Update....I chickened out. I already know what happens to silica gel when it's allowed to absorb liquid for a few hours. And if Sugar came home to find quivering chunks of pee-jello on the bathroom sink, you can bet I'd lose all rights to talk about how icky her neti pot is.

If it's any consolation, I did have a hell of a time getting the packet out of the pee-cup neatly. In fact, such a thing proved impossible. Don't tell Sugar.

What We Did Over Christmas Break

This is a quilt we had every intention of finishing in time to give to our friend before the birth of her baby...but what's a four-month delay among friends?

We are happy to say that this is one of the few things the baby in question did not puke all over during our visit. (None of our clothing shares that distinction. Lucky thing he's got a cute laugh.)

At The Last Minute

This has to be quick (and therefore long), because I want it done in time for Mel's Show and Tell, but I promise I'll get you more wedding stories sooner or later. Tonight I want to show you our bouquets.


A devoted and determined and diligent friend I met at the community garden -- let's call her the Plant Whisperer -- made them. The Plant Whisperer is no amateur in this department. She works as a celebrity stylist, and her portfolio has like every famous person I've ever thought of in it. Her apartment is stuffed with amazing things, from bajillion dollar silk curtains a rich client tired of to a Louis the something-or-otherth vest that Andy Warhol tossed her way. I call her the Plant Whisperer because however impeccable her taste and impressive her client list, her skills in the garden outstrip them. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden just traded 90 year-old peonies to our garden in return for her fairy foxglove seeds, because, frankly, the alpine garden she's established in the corner of our old building lot is better than theirs.

Months ago, she asked me to send her a list of flowers I like, and I did nothing about it, in part because I'm lazy and would find a way to postpone breathing if I could, in part because I was determined at that point that the legal business was no big deal -- the real celebration will come in the spring, when our friends can come to a big party. Three days before the wedding, my mother just happened to forward me an email she'd sent to old friends, telling them we were getting hitched:

I hope they'll carry flowers.

Mama always has been good at finding that B in subtle. She checked in via phone to be sure I hadn't missed it.

Sugar and I had invited our parents and two friends from our respective early childhoods who have ended up living within blocks of us, hundreds of miles from our hometowns. I called my "womb buddy," who'd offered to help with flowers, but it soon became clear this was asking a lot. Womb Buddy is a Soil Engineer and terrified she'd screw this up. I wasn't expecting much -- a grocery store bouquet with a ribbon from home? -- and I thought the Plant Whisperer could at least supply the name of the flower I don't like. She did (alstroemeria), and immediately took charge of the whole project, sending me home with ribbon swatches to hold up to our dresses, enlisting another garden stalwart and all-around prince to drive her to the flower market at 5:30 am, and ultimately coming up with this:


Bigger here.

I still can't believe we had something so beautiful to carry. They were stunning. I couldn't have even imagined something so lovely. The roses came from an established bush in the community garden, so we'd have something "old." The heather made me feel less bad for forgetting the Scottish tradition of a silver coin in my shoe (though Mama says my blood was Scottish enough). The dark red peonies reminded me of Sugar's grandmother, who grows them and who couldn't travel for the ceremony.

The leather box in the photo is from the Plant Whisperer, too. We carried our rings in it. It's a replica of an opera glass case belonging to Napoleon's wife, Josphine, and so it has Sugar's and my shared first initial J embossed on it.

And as if all that wasn't enough, she's insisting on naming the new peony at the garden -- the one she got in return for her seeds -- after us.

It all makes me think about grace. Grace is like all of this: something you get despite the fact that you could never deserve it.

Three Cajun French Hens

Lookie: news that has nothing to do with my hoo-ha!

I got a pretty new dress!



It came from my very most favorite dress shop, in New Orleans. I thought about making that modifier restrictive, but I really can't think of a dress shop I love more...unless it's this one, where the dress is now off to be altered so it fits me just right.

Trashy Diva (where the dress came from) specializes in beautifully made dresses in 30s, 40s, 50s, and sometimes other styles. Their silk dresses are absolutely worth the money, and I say that as a notorious tight wad. The cotton ones are also awfully pretty...one of these days I'll try one out for real. Theses are dresses that make you so happy to have curves, and they don't top out at size 6, either. (The other one I was interested in this time didn't come in my size, but only because the factory shorted them, not because they didn't intend it to. Several of the dresses go up to size 18.) When I visited New Orleans and my friend offered to drive me around to save my renting a car, our first stop was their Magazine Street shop, where I reinvested the money I'd planned to give to Hertz in what has become my little black dress:

Yes, my little black dress has dragons on it.

Need I remind you what a mitzvah it is to send money in the direction of the still-recovering Gulf Coast?

Trashy Diva sell through the website but also in a few stores, including Brooklyn's splendid Flirt, which not only sells oh such nice things but also runs sewing classes and open studio time (with sergers!), makes custom skirts, and generally rocks. They didn't have the exact dress I wanted in my size, but the minute I stepped out of the dressing room in the one I'd tried on for fit, the owner said, "by the way, we have lots of experience with the alteration you need on that dress." So the dress went right to them after it arrived, and I don't have to fret about ruining it by taking the back in myself.

I promise this post is not empty product placement -- though Trashy Diva and Flirt are such magnificent establishments that I would be happy to shill for them both -- but rather foreshadowing of a kind. If I didn't owe you so many posts, I'd spit it out in this one.

Yay for pretty new dresses! Yay for occasion to wear them!