Puzzled

Starting last Saturday, we've been working on a jigsaw puzzle on our glass living room table. It started out looking something like this.

After a few days it was starting to take shape:


It was not long after this point that I was sure, absolutely positive, that we were missing some pieces.

And last night we put the last piece in place while watching/listening to a documentary on Abraham Lincoln. It was a sort of psycho-history which looked at how his lifelong struggle with depression was in many ways critical to him being the leader that he came to be.

The title of the puzzle is Friends in Summer.

A walk at Fort Funston

The less you do

On my walk to yoga this morning a Mexican guy pointed at me and noted to his friends that I was "gordita" (translation: "a bit fat"). I am assuming this is meant as an endearing term for pregnant women, the way Mexicans use the word for midget ("enano") to refer to children. I suppose I should just be glad he didn't call me a chalupa.

There were other things that happened this past week, too.

I went for my second ever acupuncture appointment this past Friday and the acupuncturist somehow managed to hit a blood vessel in my face. When I mentioned something didn't feel right she looked at it and got that look that you really don't ever want someone who has just stuck a needle in your face to get. She immediately grabbed a special cream which she rubbed on it and got me some ice to hold against it. In spite of these efforts, I ended up with a dramatic bruise which runs along my left smile line from the nostril to the edge of my lips. It's a nice dark black and blue, and in the right light it appears to be a shadow that makes me look like I am sneering quite emphatically. It continues to startle me every time I look in a mirror so I'm just avoiding mirrors now.

Eric and I started a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of a summer scene featuring a house on a lake at sunset. This is the first time I've tried to do a jigsaw puzzle on a glass table with a patterned rug beneath it and I am enjoying the added challenge. I bought two puzzles to use as "early labor" projects when you need to do something that is engrossing but not too intellectual. I don't seem to be anywhere near early labor but we broke it out anyway. We're making good progress on it but at the same time trying not to finish it too quickly.

For St Patrick's Day I got together with a couple of girlfriends for a girls' evening adventure. We started with free pedicures at the local nail spot* and I got my toes painted a bright blue which the bottle said was called Aruba Blue but I am quite sure is actually Belvedere Blue. From there we went to dinner at a delicious crepe restaurant in the Mission with a huge photo of a sinking ship on the wall and then we went to go see a gypsy jazz band playing at a nearby bar. It was really fun music, at least partly because there was an accordian player, but the hightlight was when a guy left without paying and the bartender, who looked like a steampunk Super Mario**, leapt over the bar and chased him out the door.

And finally, more beer was brewed! I was at a baby shower for another friend using fabric markers to color a white onesie when the brewing actually occurred but I feel I played a key role in its creation nonetheless. It is a Belgian Strong Ale style beer with very authentic ingredients such as Trappist yeast and Belgian rock candy. One idea Eric had for the name (which I think he quickly regretted saying out loud) was "Monk Robe Ale" to commemorate a special chapter in his high school experience. Apparently, he decided that he wanted a robe but not a typical bathrobe - no, he wanted a monk robe, complete with a hood and a rope belt. It is my understanding that Ginger, frequent commenter here, very generously handmade it for him. He swears to me he only wore it to school a couple times. Apparently it was also the centerpiece of an Obi Wan Kibobi costume on several occasions. If a photo of Eric in said robe could be secured, I think he would have no choice but to use it on the labels for Monk Robe Ale.

This week I am moving from "relaxation" mode to "distraction" mode. If nothing else, it should make for more interesting blogging.


*They did a promotion a few weeks back offering a free pedicure to anyone who became a fan on Facebook. I can't imagine how that works out for them but I'm glad it worked out for me!

**He was wearing a shirt and tie under overalls (all neutral tones), had sideburns and a paintbrush moustache and was wearing a bowler. And when he jumped there was a "bo-ing!" sound effect.

Well Hello!

Did a whole week just go by? Huh. It would appear so.

Where did the week go? I started off last Monday in a whirl of productivity, going down my non-work to do list with great vigor. I went to prenatal yoga, I did errands, I did long-overdue chores around the house.

By Tuesday I was already starting to slow down, in spite of still having a lengthy list of things to do. I napped. I got a massage. I spent a generous amount of time sitting on the couch staring into the middle distance. (Highly recommend that, by the way.) The most productive thing I did all day was have a delicious dinner with a friend.*

Thursday I slept almost all day. Two non-sleep highlights were my very first acupuncture appointment of my life which was great but left me wanting to go sleep some more and going to a Sharks game Thursday night down in San Jose. They were playing the Nashville Predators and it was a really fun game to watch. Going into the third period the Sharks were trailing 2-4, and the final score of the game was 8-5, Sharks with the decisive victory. Yes, this was a hockey game. If you are someone who enjoys hockey, it is well worth watching the seven minutes of highlights from the game on the Sharks' website.

I'm not sure I remember anything that happened on Friday so I probably just did more of that winning sleep/unfocused staring combo until the week became the weekend.

This week? I've pulled just a few select highlights from my to do list and will see if I can get to those between naps.


*Funny moment: she and I were seated next to a table with three men who started to get interested in talking to us. Not too long into the conversation I shifted in my seat which caused one of them to notice my enormously pregnant belly. One man literally gasped. "Oh my god!" They sort of lost interest in talking to us after that.

Warm it up

For lunch today, a colleague and I went to have lunch with a mutual friend at Google. We met him at Google's San Francisco office and enjoyed the delicious gourmet (and, as always, free) lunch that Google provides.* It was great fun to eat tasty food and enjoy a fascinating discussion with my friends.

After lunch, I stopped in the bathroom before heading out to go back to the office. Upon sitting down, I was startled by how warm the seat was.

"Hmm," I thought to myself. "The person before me must have really been sitting here a while."

After another moment of consideration, it became clear to me that no human buns could warm a seat up that much. That was when I noticed the control console on the side of the stall to my left.

I don't think of myself as having lived a life of asceticism, but this was my first experience with heated toilet seats.

Nice, but I think I can live without. The buffalo wing tofu, on the other hand, I will be actively seeking out in the near future.

In other news, today was my last day at work for a while. I start my maternity leave on Monday and am excited to be able to relax and prepare for Belvedere's increasingly imminent arrival. This either means my blog is about to get a lot better or a lot worse.


*I am still thinking about the buffalo wing tofu. I was too shy to go back during lunch and get some more but I really should have. Yum!

The Dump

I got to go on a work field trip yesterday to: The Dump! Our office manager, who apparently has wanted to do this for a long time, had to book this many months in advance to secure our spot and yesterday was the lucky day.

The first thing they told us when we got there was: don't call this a dump. It is not a dump.

What it is is a transfer station - a place where things are separated, sorted, re-combined and redirected.

Here you can see the place where everything that is going to the landfill spends a little quality time. This was by far the stinkiest place we visited on the tour (but we didn't get to go to the compost facility, which may have been a contender).

While at the transfer station we also got to see a short video about how the different facilities work and visit the Artist in Residence Studio, where we met one of the Artists in Residence. Here are some examples of things that have come out of that program in the past:

It all feels a little circusy, doesn't it? Not sure if the previous artists in residence have all been carnies or what.

We then headed over to tour the MRF (pronounced "murph") across town at their Pier 96 location. They don't allow photos at that location so I'll have to just describe it for you: imagine an several Escher drawings overlaid one on the other but instead of staircases they are all conveyor belts full of recyclable materials. I'm getting dizzy just remembering it.

Bloggery

I decided to try my hand at professional-style blogging and am proud to report that Greenbiz, a website focused on sustainability's implications for business, published my blog on how businesses should think about potential risk exposure from dependence on plastics in their operations and through their supply chains. It's right next to a blog titled "Your Taco's Footprint." I expect it will be taken extremely seriously.

36 weeks

Today I am officially 36 weeks pregnant.

Here's how I look while 36 weeks pregnant wearing stretch pants at Fort Point, just below the Golden Gate bridge:


And here's how I look when 36 weeks pregnant and standing next to my closet (maybe about to be attacked by the bathrobe coming out of the closet):