I
have no idea what to get anybody for Christmas this year. It's the
nineteenth, that's six days from present-opening day, and I've barely
got anything to give. What to do when people refuse to give you
a list and you're totally uninspired? You blame it unfairly on pregnancy
hormones, I guess, and they will be none the wiser.
===
Beans
under the Christmas tree:
So
far so good on the not eating the ornaments issue -- no glass bulbs
have passed his canine lips yet this year. Of course the tree looks
funny with all the nutcrackers and Santa Clauses starting at about
four feet up, but the alternative is a golden retriever with a plastic
reindeer or some red bulby shards in his gut, so it's worth it.
===
Yesterday
I went to Chinatown to buy paper lanterns for the baby's room, because
isn't it a nice colorful idea to hang differently-sized-and-colored
paper lanterns from the ceiling? I thought so, too. But before I
decided to go I went to a website with a great assortment of them
and filled my e-cart with some and went to check out and it was
like sixty bucks and I was like, "Sixty bucks for seven paper
lanterns? That's a lot." So I got in the car and drove fifteen
minutes to Chinatown in downtown LA and bought ten multicolored-and-sized
lanterns for twenty-five bucks. And probably if I'd known where
to go I couldn't done even better. And it was a nice day and good
to be outside amongst my fellow citizens, so I'm glad I did it.
(Gray was like, "Are pregnant ladies allowed to go to Chinatown
by themselves?" He's so thoughtful and controlling.) Also I
got to go to Munkey
King, where it's always fun to see new art and toys and some
wildly imaginitive stuff. Then I went to Hollywood to try to shop
more and it was madness with the traffic and the people so I gave
up on it pretty fast.
===
Tonight
we're going to a birth center for a tour to see if I want to give
birth in a bathtub. Crazy! But the closer I get the less I like
the idea of doing it in a hospital, so I'm hoping this works out.
My fourth friend in two weeks had a baby the other day, so it's
been a solid email onslaught of getting photos of women strapped
to their hospital beds with IVs in them looking about as unnatural
and clinical as can be. So barring any strange medical thing that
might pop up in the next two months, I'm hoping the bathtub thing
works out.
In
other semi-related news, I had an Rh-negative shot yesterday, so
now somebody else's blood plasma is circulating through mine and
the baby's bloodstreams. If we crop up with mad cow disease in a
year or ten, I give you permission to sue the crap out of everybody
involved on my behalf.
Also,
I'm on the brink of getting permission from the Red Cross to film
a giant Los Angeles blood drive that's coming up, which will make
for some good needle phobia footage. Fingers crossed it pans out.
