Holiday Hams

Full Disclosure #A: I have stolen these pictures from my sister in law. Thanks Sarah!

Full Disclosure #B: THE PICTURE YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEE MAY CAUSE YOU TO DIE FROM ALL THE CUTENESS.



It's blurry, I know, but HOW IS IT POSSIBLE that ONE baby be THAT cute??!! Sarah's ovaries were probably tap dancing and therefore making it impossible to keep the camera steady.

This is a little something I like to call "Please keep in mind that SIL Sarah is so slight that she can't even make the the steps on the stair climber move and that Morven is a champion Thai kick boxer and when you grab her upper arm you have to watch out because you might break a finger:"

I, on the other hand, have no problem on the stairmaster and nobody ever mistakes my upper arms for weapons (unless they plan on beating attackers with a holiday ham or two).

Single ladies of the world are crying little tears...

Well heck...it appears I have completely forgotten to tell the internet about my brother's wedding!

But first, there was some discussion a long while back about what I should call my brother's wife here on the world wide web, considering the fact that her name is exceptionally searchable and I used to get concerning searches for her all the time on the old blog. We've established that I hate the idea of just using her initial because that's just annoying SO, I've decided that from here on out she will be known as Laverne!

If she ever reads this she's going to think I hate her and therefore want to assign her a horrible name but I don't hate her at all! It's just that she's an "L" and when I thought of "L" I immediately thought of Laverne on Laverne and Shirley because Laverne always wore an "L" on her sweaters.

So there.

ANYWAY, my brother married LAVERNE on New Year's Day and, if you're keeping track, I was at a wedding in Sacramento the night before. I woke up at a decent hour (considering I'd been up until 4AM with the thug hallway drama) and hightailed it out of there because I was HELL BENT on stopping in Tracy so I could get a diet lime aid at Sonic.

HELL BENT.

We don't have a Sonic 'round these parts so driving within 50 miles of one is very exciting...especially when you have a mild hangover from all that celebratory champagne the night before.

So I went to Sonic, got my diet lime aid (and a coconut cream pie milkshake for good measure) and made it home in time to shower and beautify. Except that my Sonic detour took longer than I thought and we had a handsome and adorable baby on our hands and everyone else needed to shower and beautify too so it took me longer to get myself together (HOW DO PARENTS DO THIS EVERY DAY??) and I ended up with rushed hair, which led to an evening full of really bad hair pictures. Sigh.

Here's a makeup-free me with my precious baby nephew:



This is me with hair that was not allowed to dry correctly before taking pictures with my date. The hair was okay-ish at this point but it went downhill almost immediately:



Baby had a tiny little baby three piece suit!



We didn't change him into it until we got to the wedding venue, which was handy for two reasons:

1. He was SLIPPERY in that thing. He'd slide almost right out of your hands unless you had a good grip on him.

2. He was SWEATY in that thing. Poor Baby. All that polyester could not have been comfortable. PLUS we put a base onesie on him because we didn't want the crunchy shirt directly against his precious baby skin. I think Laverne was unhappy about it, but we caved and changed him into pajamas after a few hours because he was STEAMY.

I don't think he liked it:



My camera sucks, by the way. I kept getting rear-view pictures of people as they walked down the aisle because it took 75 years to adjust itself.

My parents' backs:



Laverne and her dad:



Vows from afar:



Vows up close:



Baby is currently in the OMG LOOK AT THIS FUN TRICK! LISTEN TO ME SHRIEK AND SCREAM AND USE MY VOICE! stage. He took the opportunity to add his two cents:



Sarah (my other brother's wife) and Sophie the Giraffe kept him pretty quiet:



That's one of my favorite pictures, by the way. One day when he's 6'5" I'm gonna show him that once upon a time, he fit perfectly on tiny little Aunt Sarah's hip.

And then they were married:



And then I took a crappy camera phone picture of the bridal party:



And then I caught the bouquet:



And then there were DELICIOUS cupcakes:



And then Laverne hugged her baby goodbye before we took him home with us for the night:



We've already covered the less-than-awesome night I spent trying desperately to keep him asleep, but I would just like to say that I love him more than I can even tell you and I'd donate another night of sleep to him in a heartbeat, but OH MY GOD I AM NEVER EVER EVER EVER HAVING CHILDREN!

Important Notes

1. With the exception of that last one (which doesn't really even count because you can't see her face), Laverne is actually much, much prettier than these pictures would have you believe.

2. I was 100% out of the loop on anything related to this wedding and I never quite realized that there would be people I knew there. I mean, my brother's friends and their wives, sure, but WHOA!

Cousins!

Family friends!

People who changed my diaper!

I ran into one of my mom's friends a couple days later and told her how discombobulating it all was and she said that my other brother mentioned the same thing.

ALL THESE PEOPLE WHO I KNOW! HOW SURPRISING! HOW STRANGE! HOW AWESOME!

No duh, I totally know, but still -- for some reason I didn't put two and two together until people started showing up.

3. I know that catching the bouquet means you're the next one to get married, oh ha ha, okay, whatever, but Laverne's family I think REALLY believes it. People kept coming up and congratulating me the whole rest of the night and were all SO EXCITED for me. It's a lovely thought but if it's true then I feel bad for all the other single ladies in attendance because this train aint leaving the station for a VERY VERY LONG TIME.

4. Baby was SO GOOD.

5. I'd note that if you ever plan to dress your baby in a tiny baby-sized black suit with tiny baby-sized black shoes, you should remember to pack black socks too.

6. Everything was REALLY PRETTY.

My knees hurt, wah wah wah.

I usually pride myself on my bad ass tolerance for pain but there are some things that just RAIN ON MY FREAKING PARADE, like this newfangled knee pain I've been having.

OHHHHHHHHHHHH the aches.

The funny thing is that running doesn't hurt at all but bending my knee to set my parking break? Oh shit. That's not such an awesome time.

I have internet-diagnosed myself with this:

Chrondromalacia Patella

In layman's terms: Sucks for you, knees get old, too bad, so sad.

My boot camp coach suggested icing my knees, which seems in line with the internet doctor recommendations so I'm doing that PLUS I'm gonna try to take my running and exercising down a notch. No more boot camp (which I'm not crying any tears over -- I am NOT a fan of the Campbell classes) and instead of continuing to kick my own ass with the running business (which is less fun and empowering than it was over the summer), I'm going to start over and do the Couch to 5k thing.

In other exercisey news, I took my knees to my favorite train wreck of a step class on Saturday morning. The class is very complicated and LOUD and difficult to follow and people are alllllllllways leaving after like 10 minutes because it's not your standard 24 Hour step class. The teacher is a WHACKADOO though and you never know what the heck is gonna come out of her mouth so I partially go for the entertainment value.

Example: A couple years ago I brought a friend to the class and I was like "Okay, it's gonna be complicated and fast and totally over-the-top loud, but just stick with it and you'll survive." Halfway through the class some dude came in (not a 24 Hour staff member or anything...just some dude) and asked Polly (the teacher) to turn down the music and she LOST HER EVER-LOVING MIND.

"F-THIS, F-THAT, I'M NOT TURNING SHIT DOWN MOTHAFUCKA SCREW YOU I'M SICK OF THIS, I MAKE $100 AN HOUR AT MY DAY JOB I DON'T NEED THIS BULLSHIT I'M OUT OF HERE, BITCH!"

So she packed up all her stuff in a HUFF, all while continuing to tell us all the curse words she knew, and then she was gone.

Poof!

Except guess who didn't get fired over that display?

HER!

She's still around, still teaching a non-standard class that confuses the hell out of anyone who's not a regular, and still all at a decibel level that SURELY must be damaging my hearing.

So last Saturday rolls around and I decide that I'll go back to her class (for the first time in months) and it was the first real Saturday of the new year which meant that there were a bunch of newbies who had no idea what they were in for and of course, a few dropped out almost immediately. Two of them made the faux pas of not putting their equipment away so she started yelling at them as they left. They really should have put it away, but Polly screamed at them about leaving their stuff in the way and stormed over to pick it all up and then THREW IT AGAINST THE WALL.

Two step benches and the associated risers.

AGAINST THE WALL.

So, OF COURSE, they BOUNCED BACK AT HER so she KICKED everything back against the mirror, but they BOUNCED BACK AGAIN and it was COMICAL. And also wildly inappropriate.

Yet, I'm SURE she'll be back next week.

The best part is that Polly is a plumber in her non-psycho-aerobics-instructor life and she likes to tell everyone how much money she makes, how retarded customers are, how much money she makes (again), etc. She's also somewhat of a butta-face: Rockin' bod, BIG FAKE BOOBS, but hmmmmmmmmmm...not gonna win any beauty contests. (And she uses scrunchies to pull her hair back.)

Conveniently, my old friend Joanie's baby daddy is a plumber and a bunch of his friends are plumbers so I asked them if they knew a lady plumber named Polly and they all rolled their eyes and said YES AND OMG, SHE'S A BUTTA-FACE WITH THOSE BOOBS AND THAT TRUCKER MOUTH AND OH MAAAAAAAAN SHE'S A FREAK!

In summary:

1. My knees hurt.

2. I'm starting the Couch to 5k thing today.

3. My step teacher is a FRUIT LOOP with big, fake boobs and an unpleasant disposition.

Balmy

Balmy, originally uploaded by dumpstar_drummer.

It is currently approximately 46 degrees warmer in my SIL's home town
than it was a few days ago. I can't even fathom -23 degrees, but
that's the way they roll in Iowa.

Andrea and I are having donuts.

Andrea and I are having donuts., originally uploaded by dumpstar_drummer.

Omg look where I am!

Omg look where I am!, originally uploaded by dumpstar_drummer.

More mushrooms for me, I guess!

Seriously Internet, we have a problem.

My secret-to-the-internet new boyyyyyyyyyfriend is game to eat almost anything EXCEPT three things I could not possibly live without:

mushrooms
blue cheese
coconut

WHAT THE HELL, INTERNET???

I was going through my recipe file the other day and realized that these are the EXACT ingredients that catch my eye. If he had added "caramelized onions" to his list I might have broken up with him right then and there.

So for the record, I would like to share the list of things that I don't like:

1. Cooked fruit. This has been a lifelong thing for me and while I may have come around on the no-meat-on-bones-(unless-I've-been-drinking) thing, I will nevereverevereverever be willing to eat, say, a berry pie. Unless there was money involved.

[Sidebar: A couple of 4ths of Julys ago Christa bet me $10 that I couldn't eat all the red onion left on the plate (probably like half to two-thirds of an onion) and I was like HELLS YEAH I CAN and I was good until all of a sudden I hit the onion wall and I felt like I was gonna barf so I spent the rest of the evening with an upset stomach and the worst onion mouth ever. Kudos to Carrie for not kicking me out of bed that night.]

2. Pine nuts. This whole post was inspired by this Serious Eats post about a phenomenon called pine mouth where the eater of the pine nuts gets a bitter or metallic taste in his/her mouth that lasts up to a few weeks. I can't say that the funk lasts more than an hour or so for me, but I for SURE get a gross taste in my mouth from pine nuts. I could never figure out why people seemed to love them SO MUCH when, for me, they overpower everything else on my plate but now I know it's an actual thing.

I should see if pine mouth sufferers qualify for disabled parking placards.

3. Mango. ALSO TOTALLY OVERPOWERING. I recently learned that I do actually like mangoes STRAIGHT, but put them in or on anything else and the mango is all I can taste. Unfortunately for me, I got some sort of rash around my mouth last summer and I couldn't figure out what had caused it until my friend Andrea mentioned that she had something similar going on but happily went about eating mango after mango after mango until she read that mangoes carry poison oak on their skin.

Awesome.

So I COULD just cut them out of their skins but I was kinda turned off by the whole experience.

4. Chipotle flavor, seasoning, peppers, etc. Or really mostly anything smoked, but chipotle especially.

Other than these four things, COUNT ME IN!

And btw, cilantro? DELICIOUS!