this week in adult things

Less baby talk, more tug of war, capiche?

Weekly ramblings about things other than baby:

In books

So, I sniffed a book the other day.

It was after I realized that my days of reading actual paper books might be long gone, seeing as my main reading time right now is when my hands are busy but my brain is idle. Holding a lightweight tablet and swiping at a screen to turn a page is doable; holding up a thick book with one hand and turning a page with the other is downright impossible.

I’m struggling through a book called The Fifty Year Silence, about a woman trying to solve the mystery of why her grandparents haven’t spoken for fifty years. It started out pretty promising, but never lived up to its potential. My next book is the light and fun Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America.

In eating and drinking

Have you ever had a Cara Cara orange? I’ve eaten at least one a day since January. Usually three a day, which a nurse informed me was “not moderation.”  I don’t know if the oranges were a pregnancy craving or what, but I am pretty confident I will not be developing scurvy anytime soon. I just ate the last orange from our latest bag, and I don’t see them at the grocery store anymore, and I think I’m getting hives.

Unrelated: This weekend we tried a new restaurant called Revival specializing in your basic Southern cuisine: fried chicken, biscuits, grits, macaroni and cheese. This Southerner was into it. So into it.

In music

When you need to put a baby to sleep, you do what you gotta do, so there have been a lot of baby bouncing dance parties happening in our living room lately, to the tune of music from Stevie Wonder to the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack to…most often… Carly Rae Jepsen. We just have so much in common these days — “late night watching television / how did we get in this position?” are thoughts I have nightly while cuddling with my breast pump. 

Also, I’ve been listening to the new Alabama Shakes album (now that I know the lead singer is female) and I’m instantly a fan.

Etc

I met Y for lunch on the University of Minnesota campus and I was late because hoards of students crossing the street turned a 30 second right turn into a 15 minute situation. This would have been fine, but I got irrationally angry because these kids looked like they were taking part in a “Worst of the 90’s” fashion show. THERE WERE YIN YANGS. Get off my lawn.