Let me start by saying that this was the most fun I think I have had since alcohol was cut out of my life. Prime people watching!

I arrived 15 minutes before the wedding was scheduled to take place. A gaggle of my relatives arrived soon after me. Then one of the guests took his shirt off (this shirt would be put back on and taken off throughout the day for no apparent reason). When my uncle saw this man, he said to me, “No shirt IS the attire. Oh.” I responded, “Yes, and apparently teeth are optional.” Unfortunately for me, the first two things I tend to notice about someone is his teeth and his shoes. Lots of gaping grins and black boots were in attendance.
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Today, I am off to a relative’s Redneck Wedding. This is wedding number three for the groom (my relative) and number two for the bride. The front of the homemade invitation really sums up a lot: It will be a “Harley Davidson” wedding. I like a good hog; hell, I even went to Bike Week 1996 in Daytona Beach, FL. But this is pushing the limits for my mild mannered family.

Years ago, before meeting CS, I told my mother I wanted a crawfish boil for a wedding reception. Her response? “But, Honey, people will get their nice church clothes messy eating the crawfish.” I grew out of the idea and ultimately did not have a crawfish boil wedding reception; but I know to my mother, this is far worse.
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JazzFest starts tomorrow and runs this weekend and next. It seems the whole city goes to JazzFest. Folks are taking off work left and right tomorrow and that damn blimp is back flitting around the city. Truly, they should just proclaim tomorrow a holiday here. Everyone just seems to LOVE JazzFest, everyone that is, except me. Yes, it has good food, great music and impressive local art. Turns out, though, that I just can’t handle JazzFest. I always make the same mistake and have lost interest in it.

CS is going this year with the “brass pass” (he’ll be blogging on Pete’s page about his exploits). The brass pass costs $350 (without the pass, it costs $45 a day–$35 if you buy in advance) and gets you in every day of the Fest (this year, that’s six days–there is usually one Thursday in there but since Katrina, they’ve cut that day out). The brass pass is a cool keyring that is, well, brass and looks like a ticket. Here are the perks of a brass pass: the ability to enter and exit the festival throughout the day; access to a hospitality tent that will provide you much wanted shade, a place to sit, and fresh fruit and iced coffee; and private portable bathrooms. The best perk: you get to skip to the front of the security check and then you have your own private gate that you can zip through.
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Three hours of Lamaze, 30 minutes on the phone with a doula, and two hours of a prenatal class since Monday evening have left my brain mush–most thoughts are baby-related. Captain Sarcastic and I are exhausted.

CS complained when we got to Lamaze that he’d forgotten his water gun. He had threatened to bring it because the first class showed two films of births that were quite moist, and at one point a classmate jumped when a squirt of liquid followed the baby’s head in a delivery scene. CS had planned to shoot water at these moments in the movies to give our classmates the full effect.

Then, instead of following the instructor and coaching me to “blow out the candle across the room,” CS instead coached me to blow him. This was at a time when I was doing the “he-he-he breathing” and making that face my cat makes when she smells something weird for the first time or is just about to yak.

If there was anyone else I trusted anywhere near as much as CS that I would feel comfortable with in the delivery room, I’d fire him as my coach. And my friends are no help. I get a lot of, “you knew he was a wise guy when you married him.” True; I did. But what did Sun do to deserve this? Ugh.

Well, CS and I completed our second 3-hour Lamaze class last night. During this past week, I have given the birthing process a lot of thought. In addition, I have started to read Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth as recommended to me by Tammie over at Soul Gardening (thanks, Tammie!).

Last night’s topic was “intervention”–the use of medications during labor. If you would have asked me anytime up to about three days ago, I would have said, “Give me the epidural in the eighth month.” My position on meds was clear: give ‘em to me–give ‘em to me early and give ‘em to me often. But now I have completely swung in the other direction. I am all “I want to go natural!”

There are a lot of reasons I feel this way now–partially my negative experience with anesthesia in the past, partially because I don’t want a needle anywhere near my spine, partially because I don’t want it to effect the baby or my ability to nurse, partially because it seems pain is inevitable in delivery and so why not do what I can to stave it off with other measures. There are other reasons, these are just the top that pop in my mind.

So here’s where I really am now: I am going to do all I can to avoid an epidural or a “spinal.” Or at least all I can do to bear the pain as long as possible so as not to prolong the delivery process. I am not ready to deliver Sun in the bathtub of my own home yet, but I have certainly moved from my feeling that I will need as much drugs as I can worm out my doctor to get through the “ordeal.”

I am going to try to think positive about Sun’s delivery. A lot of what is said in Lamaze is that if you think the delivery is going to be really bad, it probably will be. And I do know for me that my mind has a lot of power over this type of fear. The I-don’t-know-what-to-expect -so-I’ll-expect-the-worst type of fear. I talk myself into thinking that if I plan for worst case scenario, I’ll be pleasantly surprised when things go better than I planned. But I think for this big of a thing, I need to instead try to plan for what is MOST LIKELY to be my experience and be prepared for the options that will present themselves to me at the time. And since labor and delivery will be a stressful time, I need to do the best I can to be prepared. But that doesn’t mean I need to assume I can’t handle the pain. And if I can’t, I can live with myself knowing I went in thinking I could and would.

Today, CS and I swapped cars for the second day. Friday, he took my car to get an oil change and some other work done and I took his to get washed at my office. My car got the oil change and work done, but CS’s car did not get washed. It wasn’t my fault–they had 17 cars ahead of me and just weren’t going to be able to get to it.

So we swapped again today for CS to get a brake tag (or what the rest of the country calls an “inspection sticker”–so many extra syllables!) for my car and for me to get his car washed. He was not able to get the brake tag because the third taillight was out–but he did replace that light for me so I can get my tag this weekend. And on my end, the dumb carwashery folk screwed me for a second time and DID NOT wash poor CS’s car. I felt so terrible!

And that’s just the beginning of what CS has done just today. He dropped off my dry cleaning (he wears nothing that needs dry cleaning, the lucky bastard). And when I called on my way home to tell him I was not able to get his car washed, he told me to not worry about it and “come home and eat before we leave for Lamaze.” He had dinner ready for me!!

Oh, and the BIG thing he did today was finish painting Sun’s room that he started yesterday. It looks so beautiful! I LOVE IT! He did a great job!! I really can’t say how pleased I am. It is finally starting to feel like a nursery and not the spare room where the dogs sleep at night. The dogs are getting a whole new room of their own added to the back of our house. I just hope it gets done before the weather gets too hot and wet.

So back to this dinner thing. Since CS was out on Metairie Road dropping off my dry cleaning, he stopped at Nor-Joe’s and picked up a WHOLE MUFFALETTA! The LAST THING I need is this dang sandwich showing up at my house uninvited. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give the muffaletta sandwich no more than a 6. Or I DID until I had Nor-Joe’s; theirs is a perfect 10. This sandwich is truly incredible, and it just tastes better the more I eat it. Which I will do every time one is put in front of me, whether I am hungry or not.

Thus, even though I had multi-grain cheerios for breakfast and an amazingly healthy salad for lunch (all my co-workers were WAY impressed with what I am feeding Sun–little do they know!), I am STILL eating restaurant food that I should be avoiding if I don’t want to deliver a 10-pound baby in a few short weeks. A baby that will certainly love her soft lavender room her Daddy painted so perfectly for her.

I am about to explode. After Saturday’s free-falling movable feast, you’d think that would have held me for a spell. With regret, I report it did not. This morning, CS and I joined Southern Mom and her family for our standing Sunday morning breakfast out. I showed a wee bit of restraint in ordering only fruit and a muffin. But that was only because I was still full from last night.

Then a friend came by for a visit on his way back to Baton Rouge after having spent the weekend in New Orleans. At about 2:30, I recommended lunch. As I still was not hungry, I have to wonder why I did this. All I can come up with is that dammit I love sharing a meal with a friend! So our friend, CS and I ended up at Royal China for dim sum. To my knowledge, it is the only place in the New Orleans area where you can get dim sum (that fact is very sad to me). Anywho, we WAY over ordered. Being that all of the food was succulent, we gave it a valiant effort but could not come close to eating it all. If I see restaurant food anywhere near me soon, I am certain to get tremors.

To recap, here’s how my eating out in restaurants has been of late:

Wednesday lunch: check
Wednesday dinner: check
Thursday dinner: check
Friday lunch: check
Friday dinner: check
Saturday lunch: check
Saturday dinner: check
Sunday breakfast: check
Sunday lunch: check

That leaves only Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday breakfast–all of which were meals I skipped because there was no milk in the house–and Thursday lunch. Nine of my ten last meals have been eaten in a restaurant.

This has GOT TO STOP. We did go to the grocery today and bought veggies and milk to get me back online for eating at home. Please send up some prayers that the private food fest I have been enjoying comes to an end.

Saturday was all about food. I’d like to blame this gluttonous day on being pregnant, but I know that had nothing to do with it.

I started with lunch with two girlfriends at Bozo’s out in Metairie. This was my first time here, knowing only it was a seafood joint. I had hoped to go in and order a nice salad. Unfortunately, it is one of those “what seafood do you want deep fried?” places. And I slipped; I ended up ordering the combo plate–half fish, half oysters. Fried, or course, with a side of fries. Hey, if you are going to slip, slip all the way! I split my oysters with a friend that ordered half fish, half shrimp. The shrimp were my favorite–probably because the flavor reminded me of how my grandmother used to fry them. Overall, the food was good but not really remarkable. Nonetheless, I ate far more than I should have. I tend to be one of those that eats what’s put in front of her. It isn’t always pretty.

After leaving Bozo’s, I returned to Nor-Joe’s to pick up a half a muffaletta for the hubs. I had to try one bite just to decide for myself its caliber. Verdict: Best in the city! Even better than Central Grocery in the Quarter. That is saying a lot.

I then rested up and got ready for round two. We took another couple to dinner at Clancy’s–a sort of upscale neighborhood joint; a favorite among the locals. Excellent food and ambiance. We ordered salads and/or gumbo then got down to business with the entrees. I couldn’t resist ordering their risotto with lobster and mushrooms. This is one amazing dish. I am sure to be craving it soon. It has that kind of power over me.

CS ordered the seared sea scallops. A very close second in my mind to the risotto. Perfectly cooked scallops–not chewy or gooey–just perfection. J ordered the special of the day: speckled trout with lump crab meat on top. That was perfectly cooked and wonderful as well. And M ordered a crawfish pasta dish that looked delicious, too (I was too full to even taste this one). We each finished every morsel on our plates.

We were so good, in fact, that we earned dessert! I got their signature icebox lemon pie (yum!). CS got the brownie with homemade vanilla ice cream on top (HEAVEN!). And J and M each got one of the homemade ice creams. Decadence was the theme for the night. It was truly a delightful, albeit filling, evening.

I was reminded that the first time I had ever been to Clancy’s was with Pete. He e-mailed me before dinner asking if I had remembered that we caused a small table fire that night. I did remember going with him but could not recall what we ate or how the fire started. Here is Pete’s response to me:

We were drunk, downstairs, I think I got the veal chop, maybe you got some sort of soft-shelled crab dish? I really don’t remember. I do remember putting the breadbasket next to the candle and the linen napkin inside caught fire, I think one of us threw a glass of water on it. There was much laughter.

We caused a fire and didn’t get thrown out! And their soft-shelled crab is divine. Now that’s my kind of place.

I went to work the other day and noticed this in front of my building. “Interesting,” I thought, “Will this be like the fishes?” A few years back, New Orleans did with fish what Chicago had previously done with bulls–had artists paint them, spread them around town for several months, then auction them for a good cause.

Then I went to French Quarter Fest and saw this on a balcony. That did it. My suspicion had to be right! I could expect to be finding these little gems all over town, and I have been on the lookout ever since.

Sure enough, Fore! Kids Foundation is sponsoring the event. There will be 40 fleur de lis scattered around New Orleans for the next several months. You can read more about it here. I love spotting these. Yesterday, I walked to lunch at Bon Ton (awesome crawfish bisque and Denise salad–lump crab meat and boiled shrimp tails over a bed of lettuce with a delicate remoulade dressing) and ran across this one in front of Le Pavillon Hotel. Then I saw three more on my way home–I will go back when it is not so busy traffic-wise and snap their pictures.

As I see them and get their pictures, I will be adding them here. Maybe Pete can even dedicate a separate page to the project (hint, hint). I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

I don’t want to seem mathematically challenged, nor do I want to rehash old material. BUT. This counting of weeks is still driving me crazy. Sun is due on July 10th. By my math, that’s 12 weeks to go. So, 40 - 12 = 28. Thus, I am in Week 28, right? I mean, that’s what PregnancyWeekly.com and my OB tell me. But here’s my problem: If I am IN Week 28, then I have this week to get through plus those remaining 12 weeks for a total of 13 weeks. That puts me being pregnant one extra week. So aren’t I really in Week 29, such that I if count the week I am in along with the remaining weeks I have to go it totals 12?

I know it is a meaningless exercise. The due date is July 10th, and Sun will be here when she gets here. But WHY is this counting of weeks so absurdly difficult? Am I missing something? I just want it explained once in a way that makes sense to me. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Maybe I’ll ask my mechanical engineer of a brother–he’s good at math problems.

Maybe I should start counting the days instead: 81 (including today) and counting. Ohmygod. Only 81 more days? WE ARE NOT READY!!!! Ugh.