If you email me and say, “This might be a weird email, but i hope not! I don’t know how many people contact you and ask to see you irl.. But, i am going to be in Brooklyn…i wanted to see if you’d be up for a drink or something!” I will not think it is a weird email. I will be happy. Really, really happy. And I will meet you, and we will go to the park, and have brunch, and walk around DUMBO, and take pictures, and I will talk you out of bothering with Grimaldies, and you can take photos of me doing something strange with my hand under some scaffolding. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY HAND?!

Thanks for emailing, Lindsay!

Some people get excited when folks “in the know” can sneak them into a hot club; this weekend I was thrilled to be sneaked into the NICU where I could meet Jen’s new baby. My hopes of helping with the homecoming and breathing in new baby smell were replaced with peering at her through a maze of tubes and apparatuses in the hospital, which sucks because there aren’t two nicer people in the world to become new parents, and they don’t deserve this AT ALL.

I spent the weekend doing what I could and hanging out with Jen’s family, which felt cozy, and I was happy to be there even if there wasn’t a heck of a lot I could do.

“I’m sorry you can’t hold her,” Jen said. I was sorrier.

“She’s really pretty, though, right?”

So pretty. She looks just like her mom! (Except, you know, way smaller.)

Both her and her husband are exhausted and sad, but they have that soft, happy look of being newly in love. It’s really, really awesome to see them as new parents, crappy situation or no.

On Sunday (after scrubbing my hands for the required three minutes) I went to say goodbye after two days of being in Connecticut, and Jen thought it would be alright if I touched her. So cool! She pulled one teeny arm out from under the blanket and I pressed the tip of my finger to the baby’s soft, papery palm and patted the back of her hand. Immediately, she wrapped her fingers around mine. It was a weak hold because she’s medicated and drowsy, but still, a grip! Definitely a high quality moment.

Before

After, with Jen, who also donated about a foot of hair.

I got this email two weeks ago:
I have a question. Any thoughts on where I can get some cute prints for her room? Everything is light (you saw it), so I don’t want anything to crazy colored. You’re more up on the cool, fun, artsy stuff than me, so hook a sister up

I was all over it. I think I might have ignored the “nothing too crazy colored” part, but overall what I came up with is pretty good, and I’m pleased!

If you’re looking for art for small people, you should peruse my list, and if you are interested in even more things for small people, check out Poppytalk. They’re kicking off their own week of things for small people, starting with the custom birth announcement shown above, by Almost Sunday.

Birth announcements should all be as cute as this one, so that twenty-five years later you can hand your child’s spouse one that you’ve saved for years and years, and they can cry all over it and then frame it and hang it up. Also, now everyone who comes to our house knows that Rob was 7 pounds 8 ounces at birth. Probably half of that was his head.

When planning for PodCamp NYC this year, it was suggested that the volunteers wear bright, matching tee shirts to identify themselves. Someone jokingly suggested crowns instead, and I thought how great it would be to pass out cloth crowns at the first volunteer meeting and let everyone know they had to wear them the entire time.

It reminded me of this one time in high school. We were planning to have our formal on a small cruise boat, and Jen, who was class vice-President, announced to the Senior class that, due to changes in state law, anyone under age 21 aboard a water vessel had to wear a life jacket the entire time.

All of the pretty popular girls began a rapid, shreiky decent into mass freakout while Jen somehow managed to keep a straight face and assured them it wouldn’t be “that bad”.

cloth crowns available at Cakies

When our first flight landed, I Twittered that we were about to board our second flight in Atlanta to go on to Austin.  My friend Krissi Twittered back, “I’m here too!  Maybe we’re on the same flight!”  It turns out we were, and when we compared seat numbers, she was in the seat next to me.  Score!  Rob was one seat behind.  She offered to switch, but I refused.  I love Rob, but he has a tendency on flights to zonk out and turn me into his human pillow.  This includes occasionally reaching over in his sleep to “fluff” me.  It’s kind of endearing, really, but it gets old, and I was running on two hours of crummy-quality sleep.  I was not in the mood to be kneaded and smushed around for three hours, no matter how charming the smusher. Krissi was a much more un-evasive seat companion.

On another note, this is my last post as a twenty-six year old. And, (again), tomorrow, my podcast launches. Woo hoo!

Saturday we took the trio to the dog park, and Stu! came along even though Jack got left with her parents in Connecticut, because she “missed her dog”. What she meant, though is: “I’m looking for cute guys who are into dogs and this is a good cover.” I know this because she used to go to the dog park in grungy clothes, like me, but on Saturday she showed up in skinny jeans, cute shoes and with her hair “did”.

We spotted a hot guy smiling at her (I make no delusions he was looking at me, as I was in full dog park attire: grungy pants, over-sized sweatshirt and hair in a handkerchief, which tends to make me look like a lesbian welder from the deep south. No, you can’t see pictures.) and I offered to play, “Haaaave you met Susan?” but she declined. I’ve threatened to do this before, but never have. One of these days, though.

On Saturday night Carissa and I stayed in, watched SNL and picked out WordPress themes for her new blog. It was one of the most perfect Saturday nights ever. I seriously love my friends.

We also killed nearly a bottle of Love My Goat from Bully Hill Vineyards (it’s awesome if you like a sweet red “girl wine”), did an interview for Interviews with Friends (wait until you hear who she ran into with her bicycle!) and watched, but did not actually DO, some of the belly dancing workout DVDs she brought over while we were flopped on the couch full of ordered-in Indian food. It was, we figured, close enough.

Go say hello!

Shortly after Halloween, Rob and I were in Target. We swung by the clearance section to see if there was anything worth scooping up, and boy oh man, was there ever. I scored eleven boxes of Halloween funfetti cake mix for 40 cents a box. Coolness upon cool, the sprinkles, or “funfetti”, are packaged in their own little foil container, and the main package is plain white cake mix, so if you’re making cupcakes for something other than Halloween, you can have plain.

I used that mix and some vanilla frosting to make Jen’s birthday cupcakes. Since the cupcakes I made for her birthday last year were so chocolaty and rich, I made these light, airy and sweet. The bears are Teddy Grams from 100-Calorie packages. Normal Teddy Grams are bigger and thicker, and would work well on a cake, but these are tiny and cute, about 3/4 of an inch tall, and just right for posing on cupcakes.

The hearts are purple Necco conversation hearts stuck on backwards. Grandma and I ripped open a bunch of little boxes and picked out all of the purple ones. I made the sign earlier in the day out of a cut-out square of poster board, with a strand of uncooked spaghetti taped to the back of it for the stick. Silver candles completed the look.

So fun!

Saturday is Jen’s birthday, so I dedicate this post to her and her bun-in-the-oven. It’s educational.

Happy weekend.