I’ve had a few fun New Year’s Eves in my day, but mostly they’re pretty blah.  It’s always too cold out to do anything really fun, like, you know, watching fireworks on a beach while you drink champagne while wearing a bikini and maybe Snoop Dog is there.

This year promises to be calm, but at least I finally have a good excuse.  Our favorite restaurant is doing a 5-course prix fixe, and they delightfully have a 5:30 seating so we can bring Miles without causing too much distress to ourselves and others.  It’s not as sexy as a dinner closer to the midnight hour, but the food will be great, and I’ll be able to buy a glass of champagne.  My current champagne situation is tricky, because Denny never wants more than half a glass or so, and thus I end up having way too much, because what are you going to do, waste champagne?  That hurts my feelings.

Over the last year I’ve never had more than one or two glasses spaced out over an entire evening, what with the breastfeeding, and frankly I think that’s a better quantity for me anyway.  I’m getting prone to hangovers in my old age.

Once, relatively early in Miles’s life, back during that two-month span when he’d actually take a bottle of previously pumped milk, I decided to get a little wild and have several glasses of wine, then I did a pump-and-dump.  I didn’t like doing that.  For one thing, breast pumps aren’t exactly easy to use under the best of circumstances, and being schnockered doesn’t help (in fun news, my spellcheck recognizes schnockered).  Also, it just felt dirty and wrong to dump the milk down the sink.  If we had a cat, I might have given it to him/her just to see what would happen.  That’s probably illegal, I don’t know.

I’m thinking of my brother and his sports team, who are playing in their first bowl game since he joined the staff.  My parents and aunt and uncle are there in Jacksonville to watch, and I know they’ll have fun.

Anyway, happy New Year, everyone.  Be safe tonight; there will be a lot of drunk drivers on the road.  Please wear a silly hat and take a picture.

It’s full-on citrus season now, both at the grocery store and my basement.  Denny’s Meyer lemon tree has some lovely fruit on it, some of which I used to make that delicious lemon pudding cake from last season.

What you see below is a grocery store acquisition, an orange that looked regular on the outside but on the inside looks more like a pink grapefruit.  It tastes pretty much like an orange, though.  It was good.

Predictably, Miles was more interested in the bows and boxes than the contents.  Still, he had fun, and there’s more celebration on the way with Denny’s family and our own little celebration back at home.

Miles was a good sport about the elf outfit Mubby got him.

Okay, I know these things are kind of cheesy, but to tell you the truth, I enjoy it when other people write them, so I’m going to do it too.

Seven things about me (of my own choosing), then I tag seven people to do the same.  This tag came from Darah.

1.  I’m really good at approximating the time without looking at a clock.  I can usually guess within five minutes.  Of course, then I run to a clock to find out how close I was, because I enjoy the thrill of accuracy.  I think this is partly related to my punctuality obsession interest.  I don’t say obsession anymore because it has relaxed somewhat post-Miles, but I still really like to be places on time.  I just build in more prep time now than I used to.

2.  I know this isn’t exactly revelatory, since that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do, but those St. Jude’s commercials before movies make me cry and cry and cry.  There’s just about nothing sadder than a little bald cancer kid.  I worked a summer job at the hospital one year in college, and even though it was in OB/GYN and thus totally unrelated to children’s oncology, I would still see those kids walking around sometimes, and it’s really heartbreaking.

Denny and I have decided that as a family we want to do a charitable project every year.  This time we just donated financially, because Miles is still more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to actually accomplishing anything, but in the future we want to do something more tangible with him.  This year we donated to the UIHC Children’s Hospital, in part because of my memories of those cancer kids, and in part because Miles benefited from their services in his early days and we appreciate it.

3.   I am a total slob.  Seriously.  The only place I’m not messy is the kitchen because that’s gross.  It really doesn’t bother me at all if my clothes are in a big pile on the floor or if the mail is all over the counter.  Lately I’ve had to be more conscious of where I put stuff, though, what with the grabby little hands and all (and I don’t mean the zombie hands).

4.  I don’t like to eat an odd number of cookies.  I feel like one would get lonely in my tummy without a friend.  I can make an exception to this rule if the cookie is huge, then I can just eat one.

5.  I have particular ways of eating a lot of things, actually.  With pizza, I like to scrape the cheese and toppings off, then eat the outer crust, then the middle crust, then the toppings.  Certain types of pizza have special rules, like with Great Plains in Ames, I eat the center crust, then the outer crust with honey, then the cheese.  With a DiGiorno frozen pizza, I rip the bottom layer off the center crust and eat that second, after the outer crust.  There are other foods that have special rules too, like apples and Ritter Sport bars, but the details are not very interesting.  Just hang out with me some time and I’ll show you.

I’m awfully persnickity for a slob, aren’t I?  Also, what’s with the phrase “aren’t I”?  Shouldn’t it be “amn’t I”?  You never say “I are,” just “I am.”  Which leads me to…

6.  I like to think about words and language.  I used to care about crap like “correct” grammar until I studied linguistics in college, at which time I realized there’s no such thing.  Don’t get all huffy—I acknowledge that there is a set of rules for standard English, and it’s a good idea to be able to follow those rules if you want to come across as smart and educated.  But standard English is not inherently better than any other variant that can be effectively used to communicate.

It’s kind of fun to think about what sounds right to my ears versus what doesn’t.  For example, contracting “want to” doesn’t bother me at all, and I think most people, even people who are proponents of so-called correct grammar, would agree.  “Do you wanna come with me?” sounds just fine, though it might look a little weird written out.

However, “Do you wanna come with?” does bother my ears.  It’s not necessarily ending the sentence with the preposition, because I’m okay with “He’s a person I’d like to have dinner with.”   In sum, language is evolving, and it’s interesting to ponder the changes and how they affect our communication.

7.  Early this morning, Miles had me scootched way over to the side of the bed (to the degree that when I got up to go to the bathroom, I looked back and couldn’t believe that I could physically fit into such a small space), and I didn’t mind at all.  Priorities change.

Okay, now:  whom to tag?

How about Mark, Collette, Janna, Katy B., Jamal (partly as revenge for doing something similar to me on Facebook, which I haven’t completed yet), Jack, and Sabine.

The lead story in the Daily Iowan (campus newspaper) today:

Sororities say they were duped by man posing as self-defense instructor

Hundreds of sorority members showed up to presentations this year expecting to learn self-defense from an accredited instructor.

But the man – who called himself David Portnoy to some and David Parker to others – was a fraud.

Portnoy…Portnoy…unusual name, no?  Does it remind you of anything?

Say, Philip Roth’s classic novel Portnoy’s Complaint?  The title of which has come to mean “a disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature…” (Wikipedia)

Luckily, it looks like the guy was more of a financial opportunist than a true creepo, as he seems to have just been trying to sell pepperspray under the false auspices of a self-defense organization.  Still, I guess none of the sorority members was an English major.

Miles and I just got back from the mall (which was exhausting and I don’t recommend it).  I’m just about done Christmas shopping, though.

One thing I noticed:  is it only at the Coral Ridge Mall where the center kiosks seems to exclusively employ Mediterranean immigrants?  This isn’t a problem or anything, just a peculiarity.  You don’t meet a lot of Greeks and Turks and possibly Israelis in Iowa, but if you ever want to, just go to the mall.  They’ll try to give you a Dead Sea Salt Scrub or something.

Miles is napping next to me with his butt up in the air.

I’m trying to get our Christmas card addresses in order.  It’s sort of a wasteful thing to do, throwing all that paper around and spending money on the cards and stamps, but it’s an indulgence I enjoy.  It’s so nice around the holidays to find good stuff in the mail every day.  I know some people don’t like those form letters with the family updates, but I always enjoy it when someone includes one, so I do it too.  If people are offended, then they don’t have to read it.  That’s a weird thing to be offended about if you ask me, but people can be very touchy.

We cut our list way down last year because I was giantly pregnant and thought I was too tired to do too much.

HAHAHAHA

That’s me remembering what I thought “tired” meant back in the old days.

Anyway, I realized it’s not that much more difficult to send 50 cards than 20, so I’m beefing the numbers back up this year.  If you’d like one, give me your address (I must restrict this to people I actually know; the Internet is too giant and potentially weird for me to start sending photos of my baby to people I’ve never really met).

Yes, I realize I post pictures of my baby on here.  For some reason sending a physical card seems more intimate.  Also, I’m too tired to defend the various inconsistencies of my life.  I’ll call on my usual response when someone (read:  Denny) calls me on oxymoronic behavior:  the modern woman is conflicted.

I’m not a religious person, but I do enjoy Christmas (or general holiday or whatever) cards and celebrations.  I figure there’s nothing wrong with celebrating with your loved ones, and if a particular time of year is a good time to do it, then why not.  Besides, the modern woman is conflicted.

I’ve got this white middle class guilt situation going on with regard to Mexico.

Or, more specifically, resorty, Mayan Riviera-type Mexico, which perhaps I ought to refer to as “Mexico.”

I have never in my life been the kind of person who would stay in a resort.  Having never been to a resort, I guess I’m not exactly sure what that kind of person is, since I’ve never seen them in their natural habitat, but I imagine them as people who want to visit an exotic land without ever seeing any poverty or doing anything slightly inconvenient.  I was all about “authentic” travel, which I defined as doing things like staying at small, locally-owned hotels or renting apartments in actual neighborhoods, making a valient attempt at speaking the language, that kind of thing.

One time I even went to actual Mexico, as opposed to “Mexico.”  My cousin and I went with a person we knew from Cuernavaca and stayed his family.  It was super fun.  We went places a couple of güeras probably wouldn’t have gone, ate interesting things, and had a generally good (and informative) time.

I was extremely conscientious about not drinking the water.  I never had drinks with ice in them, I kept my mouth clamped shut in the shower, and I even rinsed out my toothbrush with bottled water.  I still got the runs.

For that reason, I’ve kind of avoided Mexico since then.  There are so many other places in the world to see with so much natural and cultural splendor.  Many of them would require similar vigilance for my tender gringa gut, but many of them do not (c.f., all of Europe, Puerto Rico and many other parts of the Caribbean, Costa Rica).

I need a beachy-type vacation.  The last time I saw the ocean was a year and a half ago at my cousin’s wedding in Sarasota, and while that was lots of fun, it didn’t scratch my itch for tropical fish viewing.  I am also for the first time considering a resort.  Adventure travel is great, but now that Miles is in my life, everything is about twelve times more complicated.  I suddenly feel a lot less stuck-up toward people who want to take the easy route and just relax on their vacations.  I did some research and was feeling good about the Cayman Islands.

But then I read about and saw pictures from a friend’s trip to Mexico.  She assured me that she didn’t get sick.   It’s so close by, it’s so reasonably priced, it’s so easy to fly there.  There are some resorts that have gotten really good reviews and purport to be family-friendly.  But is it exploitive to go to Mexico and just do lite travel?  Miles is probably still too young to really be swayed, but I don’t want to give him the impression that the world only exists for white people with enough money to insulate themselves from the challenges these countries face.

I don’t know.  Ponying up for a resort is a pretty swell thing for the local economy.  When Denny and I went on our honeymoon to tiny Nevis, we stayed at a locally-owned property and avoided the Four Seasons, but when we talked to locals, they kept bringing up the fact that the Four Seasons has been a huge boon to their island.  They say if they get one more resort hotel, they’ll finally be able to secede from St. Kitts.  I’m not sure if they’re joking or not.

What to do?

I recently had the mis/fortune to discover a friendly acquaintance from college’s blog.  The fortune:  she’s a great writer, really witty with well-crafted work.  A lot of people, myself included, get lazy in the blogosphere and don’t write like we would when actively trying to impress someone.  She’s not like that.  Any piddly entry in her blog is better than most newspaper editorials you’d read.

The misfortune:  she’s really sick.  She’s at the Mayo clinic trying to get some of her very serious health issues addressed, and that’s been the topic of her blog lately.  She documents it so interestingly and well—it’s very compelling reading.  It’s honest and insightful and much more funny than maudlin, though it doesn’t skirt around the gravity of the situation either.

You may have noticed, those of you who still read this blog, that my posts have really declined post-Miles.  It’s not that I don’t have anything to say.  I say things to Miles all the time, and he sometimes even laughs at my jokes (especially the “Pew pew, stinky feet” joke, which is his favorite).  I just get tired and don’t feel like spending my small amount of leisure time blogging.

But crap, if she can do it, I can do it.  I hereby proclaim MORE BLOGGING IN ’09.

Mary’s blog

Miles has a new trick he’d like to show you.

[quicktime width=”320″ height=”256″]http://www.aprille.org/media/Pulling_up.mov[/quicktime]

Just in case anyone is reading this who might be in a position to stuff a stocking of mine, did you know that my current favorite treat is a Ritter Sport dark chocolate bar with marzipan filling?

You used to only be able to get them in Europe (I think they’re German), and I discovered them in Rome.  Now you can get them at such fine retailers as Target and Walgreens.  I love America!

Now if only we’d get Magnum bars…