So Many Entries to Write, and Yet I Give You This

I am losing mah mind over here, people. You know it's bad when I start breaking out the phonetic Southern accent that I don't actually talk with.

1) My baby is SIX MONTHS OLD today. Six! Such a random number to get worked up about, I know, but six! Half a year! Totally in need of a long detailed entry about the state of every tiny little thing he does! But who is going to write that, I ask you. WHO? All my ghostwriters called in drunk.

2) Noah's evaluation with the school district is TOMORROW. At the crack of 9 o'clock. And I've got a whole entry about THAT percolating in my brain, in which I confess that the last couple weeks have actually been w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l and we've made a lot of great p-r-o-g-r-e-s-s and now I have NO idea what to expect from him tomorrow, like I think there might be a chance we get sent home with zero services and I think I might be okay with that, because seriously: w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l. But the minute I say all of that out loud I just know I will jinx everything and come home tomorrow feeling like a truck up and ran over me, hence the s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g, which probably doesn't work so well on a blog, where everything is spelled, unless the universe gets easily confused by hyphens.

3) My dad was back in the emergency room yesterday, and this time was finally sent home with a new diagnosis other than effed-up lungs: congestive heart failure. Which I know is not quite the death sentence that the "HEART = FAIL" implies, but oh my God. He's already ON every medication in the world, he's already CHANGED his diet a million times over, he's already had TRIPLE GODDAMN BYPASS SURGERY, so...just between you and me, I would still like to tell the u-n-i-v-e-r-s-e to go f-u-c-k itself.

4) Now that I've maybe got a few of you feeling all sorry for me, please allow me to send you elsewhere! There's a new Bounce Back up, where we're talking about the things you wish somebody (fuck you, somebody!) had told you about breastfeeding. I'm also contributing (for a few weeks, anyway) to Clean Freak Confessions, one of those sponsored site things that I have to sheepishly ask you to maybe consider commenting over there and/or thumbs-upping my entries so the sponsor is all happy happy? Y'all are VERY good at making the sponsors happy, I must say, and for that I want to lick all of your faces. I have entries up (so far) about washing cloth diapers and how cleaning can help families coping with illness. Yes, the topic of the site is cleaning. I assume I shall run out of topics in about...oh, already.

5) And hey! Speaking of places to click and read and comment, look at these morons over here at Washingtonian.com. They look familiar. If you're one of the two or three people who have copped to being driven crazy by my refusal to tell you what our "girl name" was, I finally caved and revealed it to the interviewer, because what's the point? If I ever have another baby you just know it will be another boy. Probably twin boys. Or someone will leave an entire soccer team of boy babies on my doorstep, wrapped in Thomas the Crazy-Eyed Tank Engine blankets.

(And in the non-selfish realm of pimpage, check out my lovely new Twitter background & design. It looks like a real blog, where I actually remember to say things and update occasionally! Imagine that! Anyway, the folks at Sweet Blog Design can make one for you. Look, I'm on Twitter, I use Twitter, I totally still do not fucking understand Twitter, but I hear it's all kinds of important and the celebrities and the destroying of traditional journalism and all that. So you better make sure your profile is pretty.)

The Life Less Documented

Funny thing about using this old laptop: I don't like using it, therefore I turn it off and put it down a lot. I wander away from it -- and the Internet -- in favor of shit like laundry or unloading the dishwasher or those-bananas-are-ripe-I-should-make-some-banana-bread-type whims. And while I doubt anybody is coming here to read about my super-extra-hot-damn-exciting life or anything, believe me when I tell you that WOW, this week has been boring. I've been boring. I've transcended boring. I've actually died of boredom and then risen from the dead to become boring's own personal messiah.

Although last night Jason and I had a date night, and on the way home Jason was challenged to a fistfight on the Metro by a tweaked out meth head who thought it would be a good idea to start calling a fellow white dude the n-word and then scream I'M FIVE FOOT EIGHT, MOTHERFUCKER repeatedly until the next station stop, where Jason told him to get off and wait for him on the platform. "I'll be right there," he said. "And we'll go at it."

The guy did, although his hopped-up excitement quickly turned to confusion as he watched the train pull away and leave him behind. Jason merrily waved at him through the window while I finally got brave enough to pull my head out of my handbag, where I had been "busy" looking for my "phone" during the whole ridiculous encounter.

***

Ezra would like to report that he discovered his toes, and they are FABULOUS. He is also blowing raspberries, eating us out of house and home (I'm glad I pledged to make his baby food this time because this kid would have a serious 10-pack-a-day Gerber habit), and just being all-around fabulous in general.

Significantly less fabulous: his two (TWO!) bottom teeth making a joint appearance, green beans (whatever, dude, I'm hiding them in your yams and there's nothing you can do about it) and any moment in time where Noah is not in his line of sight because Noah is TOTALLY the coolest.

***

Noah would like to know why nobody ever told him about Little Einsteins. Mommy would like to know who the fuck thought up the concept of a cartoon rocket powered by preschoolers patting on their thighs and the rocket has a jet for a nemesis and they plant seeds that sprout fucking harpsichords and why is the theme song so damn catchy and seriously, if I ever meet the person responsible on the Metro I actually WILL meet them on the platform and go at it.

("We're going on a trip in our favorite rocket ship." It's DRUGS, people. DRUUUUUGS.)

***

And here is where I was going to include a cute little video as atonement for the silence-y week around here, but it turns out my camera hates this laptop as much as I do. I've spent 45 minutes trying to at least get the two of them to acknowledge each other to no avail, and look, there's banana bread in the kitchen and you're lucky I've managed to pay attention to this post long enough to finish this last sentenc

Pansy

I spent all weekend planting things. OUTSIDE things. OUTSIDE, where there are bugs. Worms. Dirt. Nature.

After working diligently for two whole minutes I commented to Jason that this wasn't so bad. This wasn't so bad at all!

We've spent the last 10 months or so going back and forth about whether we really want to stay out here in the suburbs -- we kind of hate it, honestly -- and we were *thiiiiiis close* to making an offer on a condo in our old neighborhood (hell, practically in our old building) right after Ezra was born (hell, he was still pruny and gory) but then waffled for five minutes because HELLO, pruny gory baby and our house wasn't ready to sell (despite our best psychotic nesting efforts) and then the condo went under contract and All The Stuff With Noah happened and finally we both admitted that yes, we really really really do want to move back to the city but it's just not the right time yet, maybe next year, in the meantime, let's get outside and plant some goddamn tulips.

So there I was, planting things -- some bulbs for next year, some shrubs and groundcover and a million and four purple and yellow pansies -- and after I planted the third bulb and STILL hadn't gotten bored and/or irritated enough to wander away from the project, I degreed that yardwork really wasn't so bad.

That's when Jason noticed that I was planting two-year-old dead and dried-out husky shells of bulbs instead of actual living bulbs that would...you know...grow. He suggested I move on to the pansies.

I spent hours planting pansies. Yellow, purple, yellow, purple. We dragged Ezra's Jumperoo out onto the lawn with us, using him as bait to Finally Get Our Neighbors To Talk To Us, while I planted and planted and every exposed inch of my skin broke out in various kinds of rashes (when I was in elementary school and was quizzed on my extremely long list of allergies I usually gave up halfway through and simply said I was allergic to "OUTSIDE").

(Photo not actually representative of this story, but inserted anyway because HELLO TALKY.)

When I was done, I had several garden beds of somewhat pathetic little lines of droopy pansies -- nothing like those landscaping shows that I watch whenever I'm in a "let's make the best of the suburbs!" mood. (Whenever I'm in a "screw this, let's move back to the city!" mood I watch shows about real estate, and whenever I'm in a "we probably couldn't move even if we wanted to because goddamn this economy!" mood I watch the Food Network for 76 hours straight and order a lot of pizzas.)

We still decided it was a Good Start, since the previous owners hadn't exactly exerted a ton of landscaping effort either -- when we visited an area nursery soon after we moved in we found a clearance table all the way in the back that featured every single plant and shrub currently residing in our yard. Next weekend we mulch, or something, I don't know, and then after that we start on some serious vegetable container gardens in the backyard. Or something. I don't know! Last year we grew herbs and tomatoes and this year Jason bought a book and is growing salad and peppers and is promising me all sorts of amazing things and I think he may very well have lost his goddamned mind.

Meanwhile, every indoor plant we brought here from our old condo has died of root rot. I feel very responsible. My misguided belief that we really needed More Closet Space led to plant genocide, including my favorite jade plant, which was the first one to die, and at the time I was all, "oh well, who cares, I have extra bathrooms!" but I've never stopped thinking about that plant, because I loved that plant, and I miss that plant, and how lovely it always looked on the windowsill at our old condo. And while I'm no gardening expert or a pyschologist, I get that it's probably not REALLY about that plant.

Meanwhile, I have a splinter in my foot and my back hurts and I couldn't sleep last night because I was stressing about how we need to cover our new plants with some sheets tonight so they won't freeze and do I have enough clean sheets? But I suppose that's preferable to stressing about April 16th, the freshly-set date for Noah's evaluation with the school district -- speech, motor, hearing, vision, social skills, sensory issues, the whole shebang -- an evaluation that will likely decide for us whether we belong here or elsewhere, whether the district will help him or if we remain on our own, whether it's worth staying where we're unhappy or time to move on, Montessori vs. special needs vs. something in between, public vs. private, suburbs vs. city, whether or not we'll still be here next spring when the periennials return.

Let's Go To The Zoo, Part Three

Oh, but God help us, we went to the zoo. Thefuckingzoo, yes.

We've been basking in downright lovely weather for a few days, and so, because I am freaking raging batshit crazy, I suggested that hey! We should take Noah to the zoo! It's free! It's outside! We'll see some animals! Get some exercise! Check in on those goddamn pandas. I'm sure the zoo no longer fucking sucks anymore, I mean: Obama. Right? Everything in DC is magical again.

Results were fairly typical. The whole place smells like poop, is STILL under construction, the pandas were sleeping, the monkeys were all sitting morosely in their cages with their sad little ape fingers hanging through the bars while assholes rapped on the glass, and a tiger roared really ferociously, usurping that one scene in 101 Dadamations where Pongo bites the bad guys as our Number One Source of Preschooler Nightmares.

I forgot to bring a real camera, but got some pretty good shots with my phone, I think.

Noah saw some elephants, which was real exciting.

(Not Pictured: the overachieving father who stood there holding up his infant's bucket car seat in the direction of the elephants, if only the poor thing's eyes were capable to focusing on indistinct grayish brownish areas [WITH POINTS!] a good 30 feet away.)

Ezra maybe saw some trees, when he ever bothered to get his face out of my bra.

(The Ergo. Wasn't sold on it at first, honestly. Too much carrier for too little baby. Now it's officially the greatest! thing! ever! especially since I could push a stroller AND drink a $4 bottle of soda AND breastfeed AND bitch about how much my feet hurt AT THE SAME TIME.)

  

I forget what this was supposed to be a picture of. I got distracted when Noah started screaming "I'M AT THE JOO! I LOVE THE JOO! HI JOO!" over and over.

And then we came home, and everybody took naps, and nobody died, although I think they overcharged us for parking. Best fucking joo trip yet!

All This & More, Thanks to the Wonder of Technology

Some of the hideous post ideas I started and trashed yesterday:

"My kitchen sink is drip...drip...dripping and aaaaaahhhhhhhhhstopit!"

"Dear Dog and Cat: How do manage to time your vomiting TO THE EXACT MINUTE we run out of paper towels?"

"Yeah, so I WANT to write another installment in the Deodorant Wars, but I've been struggling to come up with a plot line for my new stick of Dove Clinical Protection. Who IS she, as a character? What's her MOTIVATION?"

Then I was all: cop-out time! Noah photo! Belly photo!  But then all the camera batteries were all simultaneously dead. Simultaneously and AT THE SAME TIME EVEN. Clearly, the blogging gods were against me, determined that I should keep at least a few damn thoughts to my own damn self. This was, judging by the above examples, probably for the best.

I don't really have much else to say today, other than to issue a warning to anyone in the DC area: hey! You know what's a bad idea? Like, a really, really bad idea? Blindly following your GPS, even when it's telling you to turn left onto a one-way, do-not-enter street that happens to be oh, directly in front of the PENTAGON.

Luckily, the cops let us off with a warning. "Try not to drive into any lakes next time, okay?"

Sigh. I've really got nothing today, except for the crushing need for my 27th burrito of the week. Take me to Chipotle, GPS!  I can no longer find my way out of a paper bag, thanks to you.

Here. This is video of my kid screeching into my laptop's built-in camera for five straight unbearable minutes. Special cameo by my chins and belly.

Hams from amalah on Vimeo.

"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.   

THROWDOWNUP with Amy Storch

In my long and illustrious career of bothering minor celebrities, I have:

1) Swiped fried calamari from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

2) Screamed IMABIGFAN!! at Ted Allen outside a wine festival while waving a commemorative wine glass at him.

3) Ate fondue with Project Runway's Laura Bennett; spilled fondue on self.

4) Non-consensually hugged Alan Cumming in the bathroom line of a restaurant.

5) Stared slack-jawed at 30 Rock's Judah Friedlander while he ate ravioli with his family.

LESSON FOR CELEBRITIES: if you see me, and there appears to be food involved in the scenario, RUN AWAY.

A few weeks ago, Jason got an email from someone at the Food Network. They were looking for local "food people" to participate in a new travel series that would profile a local chef. I was invited too.

Basically:

Food Network People: We need some DC-area foodie people for this show.

Google: Here you go!

Food Network People: Oh look, he's married! Hmm, maybe she's a foodblogger too!

*Food Network People visit my blog on the day this entry was posted *

Food Network People: Well, THAT was easy.

LESSON FOR BLOGGERS: Visibility on Google is important, even if your blog is TOTALLY NOT.

Of course, we DID explain that I am not a foodblogger, and the Saltines were NOT involved in any sort of gourmet cracker-and-black-truffle napoleon amuse bouche, or anything, but they still liked the idea of husband-and-wife foodies, and invited us to be on some show we'd ever heard of as part of "panel" that would sit around and eat food and then talk about said food. I encouraged Jason to accept the invite, since I figured that, as part of PANEL, the OTHER PANEL MEMBERS were probably researched a bit better and we could sit back and let them talk and just be the idiots who are always on camera shoving free food into their mouths in the most awkward manner possible.

We showed up at the appointed time yesterday. I wore the only two items of clothing I own that currently fit. A old pair of maternity jeans from the Gap and a Liz Lange t-shirt from Target. I did not get a haircut for the occasion, and decided to take the risk that unplucked eyebrows won't be noticeable on HDTV. I looked somewhere between "sort-of pregnant" and "so how was the kegger?" My goal for the day was to stay away from the camera as much as possible, and to NOT THROW UP. (I have thrown up about 300 times since Monday, of course.)

"Hey," I said to Jason as he paid our cabbie, "I swear I just saw Bobby Flay."

LESSON FOR EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE: The Food Network is run by Ashton Kutcher.

We walked in just in time to hear Bobby Flay challenge the local chef to a throwdown. A motherfucking Throwdown with Bobby Flay.

The restaurant was already packed, and the crowd seemed especially well-lubricated. We found some friends and took our place in the anonymous mob, and I breathed a sigh of relief because the crowd had a LOT of tall people who were willing to jump into the camera frame and scream WOOOOOOOOOO DC RUUULLLES! while I parked my ass in a prime bit of real estate next to the ladies room.

Bobby Flay is really blurry in person. That's a fact!

Bobby Flay and our hometown chef started cooking mussels and fries. (Moules frites!) The smell was...oh. Dear. Two minutes in and I was not doing well. Jason held onto my elbow to keep me from reeling and right then a guy with a headset approached us. He told us he needed to take us upstairs.

And once we were upstairs we learned the full extent of our complete and total punk'd'ing. We were not part of the crowd or a panel. We were the goddamned JUDGES.

"Just us?" I squeaked.

Just us.

And judging would involve on-camera interviews and personal introductions, something called "hero shots" and also, you know, ACTUAL JUDGING OF FOOD. That we would do in front of the cameras, the chefs, and that crazy-ass drunk mob downstairs.

Our official God-like judging cards and beverages of choice. Well. Not my FIRST choice, anyway.

The good news is that the cooking smells were definitely muted upstairs. The bad news is that I was now nauseous for completely different reasons.

Oh my God, you guys. I fully admit to having my attention whore qualities, but I was TERRIFIED. OUT OF MY WITS. I wanted to RUN AWAY and I couldn't get my hands to stop shaking. I'm more of a print attention whore, I think.

Jason and I held hands and promised to never, ever leave each other's side during this horrifically surreal experience and solemnly swore to judge the dishes fairly and honestly, even though it sounded like the crowd would fucking crucify us if the hometown chef didn't win. (The judging is done blind, at any rate, I suppose you might be able to guess but you really only know the two versions as Dish A and Dish B.)

The camera crew came upstairs and miked us (the sound guy lifted up the back of my shirt and said, "Congratulations!" at the sight of the ulta-attractive navy belly band) and had us do a million and four takes of our personal introductions (whatever, like ANYONE is going to hear "amalah.com" and have any idea how to fucking spell it) and our personal tastes in moules frites ("blah blah texture balance flavor holy shit please let me stop talking now), and then we had to like...MUG for awhile. Arms crossed, hands on our hips, grimaces and tough-guy hard-ass judgey looks, or something.

Jason was especially good and hammy at these, while I just stood there and stared at the camera like a deer. AFTER it's been hit by the headlights. Of course, Jason had more problems SAYING stuff on camera, since he kept adding "uhs" and "ums" and they made him redo it all over and over. I think his problem was that he was actually trying to THINK about what he was saying, and make POINTS and SENSE, while I just opened my mouth and let nonsense spill out until I eventually got to a spot that seemed to call for a period. Then I would stop talking and stupidly look off-camera at the producer, who would sigh and tell me to do it again and to LOOK AT THE CAMERA THE WHOLE TIME, IDIOT.

I am telling you, those guys' jobs are really hard, and we did not help with anything.

I was really impressed with the custom judging cards, obviously. Maybe if the foosball table actually had a foosball I wouldn't have been, but we did what we could to pass the time.

Then it was time for judging. We were brought downstairs and the crowd was ordered to part for us, like we were some big-shot judgey judge experts of DOOOOOM (even though I'm sure everybody was like, "who the fuck?"). We sat down at a table with everybody behind us and Bobby Flay came and shook our hands and he is much shorter than I thought but is very very good-looking and an extremely sharp dresser. I would very much like a maternity version of his jeans, and the man can really pull off eggplant. 

Unfortunately, I was not there to discuss Bobby Flay's personal style. We were there to judge moules frites, which...not exactly the most appetizing thing to the first trimester digestive tract, and I don't even know if I'm supposed to eat them at ALL, but I figured since these mussels were MOST LIKELY not purchased off the hood of a car parked on the shoulder of the interstate and were PROBABLY cooked with a high degree of care, I could risk eating a few. In the name of the Throwdown! Tis my duty! A higher calling!

(I think we maybe got a touch of the Stockholm syndrome during the hour or so of sequestering.)

They brought the dishes and told us to go ahead and eat and discuss and make notes, and I panicked for a second because there were no forks on the table. I asked for forks (complete with fucking BABY SIGN LANGUAGE, people, since I clearly do not get out much), and the director said, "Oh, you want forks?"  Like, really? Is that your way, here in DC? How strange!

And then I panicked again because...yes? Right? You use a fork to get mussels out of their shells? I know how to suck down oysters but...mussels?  They can be stubborn and slimy and there's all sorts of other stuff in the broth you need to eat in the same bite? Or fuck, did I just make a huge cutlery faux pas on national television?

She gave us plastic forks. And we dug in.

And here's where the story must end for now, in the name of preserving the sanctity of the results and the show, which most likely won't air until the summer. (I think they shoot the entire season pretty much back-to-back and then edit them all later.) (Jason's convinced he'll get edited out completely, and I am quite hopeful they'll replace me with a cute CGI bunny rabbit, or a digital Ted Allen.) I learned later that I said at least one completely boneheaded misinformed thing about one of the dishes, but was assured that my hair was NOT doing anything weird and I didn't have lipstick on my teeth.

When it was all over I ran to the bathroom because I'd had to pee the entire time but was afraid to pull my pants down in case the microphone slid off and fell into the toilet. The end.

Let's Go To the Zoo, Part Two

I tried to tell Bunny that the fucking zoo fucking sucks, but she didn't believe me. She'd been to the fucking zoo and had a perfectly lovely time, save for the somewhat chilly March weather (she's from California, and thinks we're all nuts for living on this coast, where your car gets snowed in and you have to wear jackets and whatever the hell).

So I allowed myself to be talked into going back to the fucking zoo. We'd go during the week! In the morning! Noah is old enough now! The pandas aren't such a big fucking deal anymore! It's gonna be great!

So we packed up snacks and sippy cups and loaded up the offroading strollers and drove to the fucking zoo.

The beginning of the day. Full of promise and hope and overwhelming skepticism.

That arrow, by the way, led us to a non-stroller accessible walkway with a bazillion stairs. That was possibly in the jungle. Where those screeching ink-shooting dinosaurs that killed Newman probably live. We opted to hike up a small hill to a different entrance.

About halfway up the hill I started wheezing. And sweating. And cursing at Bunny in foreign languages that I do not speak. About three-quarters of the way up the hill we noticed the signs that said pedestrians were forbidden on this road, and also there were about a dozen tour buses barreling down the road right at us.

You know how they say mothers sometimes get superhuman strength when their children are in danger? Yeah, that totally didn't happen, and I just glared at the buses and made them stop until we finished slowly trudging up that damn hill.

Needless to say, we were not starting off well. The sight of three hundred million billion other people milling around the fucking zoo didn't help either.

"SEE? THIS IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT," I yelled at Bunny over the din of of the crowd, as we attempted to push our strollers through a wall of people in matching red shirts and name tags, even though they were not part of the same group. It's just that every group there decided to wear red shirts, pretty much defeating the purpose, and giving the fucking zoo an unfortunate bloody-mass-genocide vibe.

We trudged uphill to the visitor's center. The ATM machine almost ate Bunny's card. We paid $2.50 for bottled water and discovered the biggest flaw in our plan: in order for Max and Noah to actually see the animals, we had to take them out of their strollers. And then we had to put them back in, and each time we went through this process the boys protested more and more about going back into the stroller.

We saw the top of the panda's head. The elephants were all going to the bathroom, and at first I wondered aloud about the deformed one that had TWO trunks, oh my God, what's wrong with it, until I realized I was actually looking at its wang.

We saw a lot of animal wang, actually. I don't even have any animal photos to post, since honestly, I have no interest in being THAT KIND OF SITE. (I'm already the number-two Google result for "mucus plug pictures," thankyouverymuch.)

We also saw two orangutans fighting. Or so we thought, at first.

Nope, they were fucking. It was...pretty awesome, since every adult brought their kid to the display, took a second to process what they were seeing, then hustled over to the next window, all oh my goodness, oh my GOODNESS!

Bunny and I stayed. Of course we did. Because we are 12, and also, it was the first time we were able to enjoy a damn exhibit away from the crowds. I almost wish I'd brought my video camera, because dude, YOUTUBE SENSATION.

Noah liked the elephants and I think the tiger, but they only had girl-lions and I told Bunny that girl-lions were OF NO USE TO ME, since Noah only recognizes the boy-lions with the manes. So I didn't bother showing him the girl-lions. (We'd created some guidelines by this point for what was worth a stroller extraction and what was not sponge-worthy, so to speak.)

I took a picture so I could show him later though. And since this one is wang-free I can post it.

Can you not just feel the excitement? Can you sense the magic and wonder?

Here's Noah seeing an elephant for the first time, clearly blown away by the magnificent sight of the enormous beast and...

Whoops, nope. He's got his stroller strap there. Never mind.

The highlight of the entire day was a cow. A COW. It was at the petting zoo area and Noah freaking lost his mind over the damn cow. It did not moo, however, which disappointed Max, who before yesterday thought he knew what the cow says, and now feels that perhaps his refrigerator magnets have not been entirely truthful with him.

I thought Noah liked the goats too, but upon further reflection of the photographic evidence, I see that it was probably not so much about the goats.

ABALL. OHMIGOD WE WALKED THREE MILES UPHILL BOTH WAYS TO SEE ABALL.

By this point we'd been at the fucking zoo for a whopping hour and twenty minutes.

Aaaaaand time to go.

The end of the day. Exhausted. Disillusioned. Sticky.

We drove back to Bunny's house for lunch and playdate cocktails, and amused the boys for HOURS by chucking balloons at the ceiling fan.

I emailed Bunny this morning about weekend plans (we're aiming low this time, I think. perhaps we will make aballs out of tin foil and teach the boys how to fetch) and mentioned that despite showering TWICE already, I still felt a little zoo-stankish.

She emailed back: actually, you do still smell like monkey sex house, but it works for you.

The fucking zoo, man. Literally.

Today's Agenda

We're going to the fucking zoo.

Fuck.

I am wearing my most ugliest comfortable walking shoes, and yet I still inexplicably felt compelled to shave my legs. Noah appears to be preemptively underwhelmed.

I will report back from the other side, no doubt with a broken spirit and several blisters.