"Really!"

Well. THAT sure was some damn first-trimester hair, no? Something definitely...deflatey...happened to it in between my last-minute fluff-job in the bathroom upstairs and sitting down at the judges' table.

But! My arms looked pretty skinny, AND they spelled my website's name correctly in the closed captioning. Success! Two thumbs up! Fine holiday fun. Now let us never speak of this again.

Well, AFTER I talk about it just a little more, because really, what the hell else do I have to talk about, short of continuing my Grand Tradition of posting about something really gross and personal and embarrassing right in the wake of some kind of major media exposure? (Hey! Once the Throwdown buzz dies down remind me to tell you about the time I almost rushed myself to Labor & Delivery because of a hemorrhoid! The time called "Tuesday!")

1) Despite the fact that I honestly really know NO ONE and have NO FRIENDS and haven't gotten a haircut since JANUARY because I have NO FRIENDS who can watch my spawn for a few hours and I never GO ANYWHERE ANYWAY, pretty much every single person who got a soundbite on the show is a friend of ours. I feel so CONNECTED. I should get on MYSPACE. Or at least log in to my LinkedIn profile occasionally and...link in, or whatever I'm supposed to do there.

2) Speaking of My Awesome Friends, Danny (the guy in a suit who ripped Bobby's one-note mussels a new asshole) (I assume mussels have assholes? whatever, I'm a fucking expert on them now) also had this to say about Bobby's fries: "They're like taking a beautiful woman out on a date, only to discover that she's dumb." Sadly, that ended up on the cutting room floor. Also, I love that guy.

3) Being surrounded by friends who were also horrified at the sight of their faces all up there in high-definition made the viewing experience much easier. Generous sips of Jason's beer also helped, as did the fact that Jason's beer (I would later learn) was about 10% alcohol by volume. Um. Oops?

4) It was after a few generous sips of this beer that I ended up talking to a reporter for a local newspaper. Oh. Yes. THAT'S JUST GOING TO BE GREAT FOR EVERYBODY.

5) I don't remember tossing my hands up like that at any point during the judging. Was I trying to...read? Wrestling with the complicated concept of "Dish A" and "Dish B?"  Signaling my inability to say a sentence without using the word "really" multiple times?

6) Anyone who knows me in real life could easily recognize my Lying Face during the announcement of the Throwdown winner. Wow! This was really close! Really tough decision! Both dishes were amazing! Lying liar! It's not that Bobby's version was terrible -- it really WAS spicy and I DO love spicy -- but Teddy's was...way, way, really, really better. Way and really. While Bobby talked about using the same cultivated P.E.I. mussels as Teddy uses, something must've gone awry between the sourcing for the test kitchen segment and the actual Throwdown, because Bobby's mussels were small and stringy and NOTHING like the rope-grown pats o' butter that were in Teddy's version.

7) But before I sound like I know what I'm talking about TOO MUCH, how totally awesome was it that the show demonstrated (TWICE) the "proper" way to eat mussels, using the shell. You know, so everybody got to see that, except for the judges, who were sequestered upstairs and missed it. And thus used forks. Maybe next time I can judge a sushi competition and request those chopsticks with the training wheels on them. Or a spork.

8) Teddy Folkman reads Amalah! He doesn't have a kid or ever want one, thanks to reading this site, but thinks it's very funny. I do what I can for population control, people, including a dramatic retelling of my labor and birth story for two non-moms, one of whom I had just met five minutes before and was all "THERE WAS MECONIUM IN THE FLUID, WOULD YOU LIKE SOME OF MY FRIES?"

9) Shout-outs to all the other Amalah readers I met last night, who were of course just as lovely as can be. I was as graceful and tactful as ever, what with the announcing that "Hey! I have that shirt! I love that shirt!" and stopping myself (BY MERE INCHES) from grabbing at a total stranger's boob region. And this was before the beer sips, so...yeah. Blogher is going to rock, and I'm sure I'll make tons of new friends and land a guest spot on the new TV show "What Not to Wear, Say or Do Ever: America's Next Top Socially Awkward Compulsive Oversharer."

10) Also the serious documentary "10 Full Items: Life & List-Making With OCD."

THROWDOWNUP Revisited

So I should probably post a photo of my kid waving a little American flag or something...like he's doing right now! complete with peanut-butter-and-jelly smeared all over his face, because we love America up right around here! But I am a little preoccupied with the growing ball of anxiety in mah belly (just north of the OTHER growing ball of something in mah belly), because we've been officially informed that our Throwdown with Bobby Flay episode is airing tomorrow night at 9 pm.

Well, it's not "our" episode or anything -- in fact, I am really hoping "our" airtime is kept to like, four minutes -- that honor really belongs to local chef Teddy Folkman of Granville Moore's. We were just the completely unqualified judges who probably gave the producer a splitting tension headache via our inability to get a sentence out on camera without saying "uhh" or "umm" or "I think I might vomit a little."

A few additional thoughts and disclaimers and things that bear repeating from my original telling of the tale, for anyone who chooses to watch:

1) While the whole point of the show is that the local chef has no idea that Bobby Flay is showing up to challenge them to a cook-off, they never tell you that (in our case, anyway) the judges have no idea either. We were asked to be part of a "panel" of "local food experts" for an episode of something called America Eats: Inside the Belt (AKA Who the Fuck Is Gonna Watch THAT, Anyway?). Jason initially planned to turn it down, because we are not local food experts, particularly when it comes to mussels, Granville Moore's specialty. I encouraged him to say yes (*HEADSMACK*) because come on! we a'gonna be on the teevee! Besides "panel" suggested that we could just stay mostly quiet and let other people talk.

2) By filming time, there were definitely a lot of rumors floating around that this America Eats business was cover for the Throwdown show, but no one knew for sure. We STILL didn't connect the dots, but instead assumed we were invited simply for room-filling purposes, so hooray! Even LESS of an opportunity to make asses of ourselves.

3) We found out that we were the fucking JUDGES about 10 minutes after Bobby Flay showed up and challenged Teddy to the Throwdown. We were ushered upstairs, alone, given a long list of things we needed to say on camera, told to pose for "hero shots" and introductions, and then offered some free beer.

4) AND OH YEAH. I WAS LIKE...10 WEEKS PREGNANT? INSANELY SICK? DISGUSTINGLY BLOATED? AND STONE-COLD SOBER?

5) We weren't allowed to watch the dishes being made, and were not really told the full list of ingredients. We were told to be as descriptive as possible about the food, without defaulting to words like "delicious" or "tasty." Bobby's broth reminded me of a Thai curry, so I called it a curry. Twice. It wasn't a curry, and apparently Bobby rolled his eyes at me each time I said that.

6) Pregnant pregnant pregnant pregnant pregnant. But not like, obviously oh-look-at-that-brave-little-trooper-trying-to-eat-mussels pregnant. Just sick and puffy and urpy pregnant.

7) As the dishes were presented to us, someone in the crowd screamed "THAT ONE SUCKS!" when Bobby's version hit the table. Not like the illusion of blind judging would have held up anyway, what with one dish being chock-full of chiles and spice and the other containing several ingredients that we immediately recognized from other mussel dishes at Granville Moore's. Still, I solemnly swear that the best dish actually won, and that while we were really only allowed to say positive stuff and "oh wow, this is tough and so close and blahity blah"...it wasn't really that close, and the winning dish won by a long, delicious shot, which is high praise because again...

8) OHMYGODPREGNANT.

Okay, I think that's all. This was not my finest, most whip-smart hour, is what I'm getting at. Also I'm pretty sure my hair looked like ass all day.

But! What's done is done, and it airs tomorrow night, and if you're a local-type you can come to a viewing party at Granville Moore's (1238 H Street, NE, a quick cab ride from Union Station). I will be there, looking ridiculously pregnant, cowering in a corner, attempting to get a contact high from any nearby glasses of wine.   

Alone In My Paranoia (aka 24ish Weeks or Maybe 25)

Whenever I start getting a little uppity regarding our division of household labor (why am I the only one who remembers that the child needs to go potty before we go somewhere? why do CERTAIN PEOPLE seem to think our diaper bag is a magical fount of ever-regenerating sippy cups and snacks?), Jason manages to schedule an extended business trip. Possibly for the sole purpose of watching my lose my shit from afar.

I have to take the garbage and recycling out? All the way to the curb? I have to...make dinner? Every night? Why aren't these dishes put away yet? Why hasn't someone done something about that weird smell in the bathroom? Noah, did I feed the cat already? Why is he meowing? I swear I fed him already. Noah, come on! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO PAY ATTENTION TO THESE THINGS.

And it turns out that it's NOT a magic cell phone fairy who remembers to charge my phone for me every night. At least I'm pretty sure, unless she also had a conference to attend in Milwaukee this week. Maybe that's where the magic fairy who also remembers to buy milk went too.

***

Part of my flying solo this week involved taking Noah to my prenatal check-up this morning, and OH GOLLY GEE LET'S DO THAT AGAIN.

I shoved him on the little chair where you usually stash your pants and underwear, gave him a granola bar and a healthy dose of fear that if he DARED MOVE FROM THAT CHAIR TO TOUCH THE ELEVENTY BILLION DOLLAR ULTRASOUND MACHNE, God Himself would descend from heaven and take away his entire collection of spare buttons. He did not move from that chair, but then pitched such a fit in the waiting room over having to leave behind a basket of random beat-up Happy Meal prizes I could see the pupils of all the other waiting pregnant ladies dilate in terror.

I made sure to screech something about not going potty in the grocery store cart again as we left. Just because I am Mean.

***

I was shocked to learn that I'm at the point in this pregnancy where I go to the doctor every two weeks instead of four. This is alarming, since it seems to suggest that I will be having a baby soon. Somebody is not doing their math. I'll get Jason to look into it when he gets home.

My blood pressure is low -- really low -- and I'm constantly close to fainting. If I am not close to fainting, I am close to vomiting. I don't necessarily DO much fainting or vomiting (I find loosening the stays of my corset just a tad helps -- 17 inches IS a bit unrealistic at point, I suppose), but still. I feel rather delicate and Victorian, except for the hemorrhoids.

I always feel strange reporting my weight online, but with senility setting in fast (SERIOUSLY. DID I FEED THE CAT ALREADY OR NOT, PEOPLE? THIS IS NOT A DIFFICULT QUESTION.), I have to write this crap down somewhere, and my fingers are already ever-so-nicely positioned on the keyboard.

I'm not gaining weight. It's freaking me out. I gained one whopping pound since my last visit, which was the very first visit where I'd gained any weight at all (four pounds). So...I've gained...five pounds? Maybe six? At 24/25ish weeks? Doesn't that sound kind of freak-out-able worthy? My doctor is not concerned -- I guess my belly measurements are okay and the baby certainly looked fine at the ultrasound, but...I'm concerned. I keep telling myself that I must have put on a little weight in the early first trimester -- before the puking started and before my doctor started weighing me -- and kept it on, but my scale at home is not exactly wracking up the high scores either.

It's not for lack of trying -- we like to take Noah out for ice cream cones a couple nights a week, and it is understood that Mama Does Not Share Her Ice Cream. If I want a sausage McGriddle with hash browns, then goddammit, get in the car. Right now. Don't make me faint all over you or something.

I have no reason to question my doctor, except that he seems to be awfully old-school about pregnancy weight gain in the first place, and is almost congratulatory when he notes my chart. Uh. Yeah. I'm just gunning to get this fine ass into a maternity thong bikini over the holiday weekend. Sorry, fetus, Mama done got her priorities. 

I started this pregnancy at a healthy weight (just woefully saggy and out of shape, as my Wii now informs me), and considered it to be a major accomplishment that I didn't lose weight in the first trimester again. I indulge my cravings with gusto but mostly eat pretty healthy -- we're very into unprocessed local foods direct from the farmer, which oh man, I never realized how delicious fruits and vegetables can be when they actually TASTE LIKE WHAT THEY ARE. Part of me is ready to embark on a non-doctor-prescribed regime of protein shakes and Ensure, while another part of me wants to just chill out and let my body do whatever it's doing, which I guess is rerouting all that ice cream directly to the kicking, squirming little parasite.

I just...really want the little parasite to be okay. I kind of like him, you know.

PS: Okay, look. I just checked the trash can and there IS an empty can of cat food, but do you think it's from last night or this morning? He seems hungry, but I also think he might be fucking with me.