Tom Scola has my dining room table! But his is much cleaner. You can see more than 50% of its surface. It's a very nice table. (and a gorgeous apartment!)

I'm a big fan of easy veggies. Squash sliced and tossed in the pan after coooking some meat thing, broccoli or beans in the microwave.

I will be having TJ's bulgoki with jasmine rice and some spinach for dinner.

So I went out shoe shopping. I went to the DSW in Hunt Valley, which used to be this sad, dead mall with a Burlington, Sears, Dick's and Walmart, with their entrances to the mall all boarded up. Holy moly, it's changed. It's now one of those outdoor "main street" style malls, with the original box stores with new faces, and various fairly nice stores (an Anne Taylor Loft, NY & Co, Chico's some others that I've never heard of but are more upscale than most non-froofy mallish stores.) Anywho, couldn't find any shoes, which sucked. But the Anne Taylor had some nice tshirts on sale that will match my new skirt, so at least it was sucessful. I now have utterly NO NEED for any more casual-but-nice tshirts. I have plenty. Oh & it stormed while I was up there. During the worst of it, I went up to a second floor covered area and watched. It was cool. Hail made me wince for my car, but it turned out ok.

I wish my neighbors would learn how to start their charcoal grill before they start their charcoal grill.

I'm pretty sure it's bringing my migraine back.

Bleh, Lee.

Hey, speaking of food -- any parents around? Or anyone else with thoughts about this question? I want to offer to bring dinner to my friends who just had a baby, but I want to offer something(s) specific, so they can just pick and not have to think about it. In the winter, I would offer chicken soup or a meatloaf or something. I'm afraid all of the cold food I like to make is spicy and/or oniony, which I think are bad things for the New Mother? Any thoughts?

"Worst" case scenario, I can make my corn/black bean/quinoa salad, just bland.

Jesse, this is a very nice thing to do. I'd include a salad (even just in a bag), a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine (even if she's nursing). I didn't have much concern about onions or spicy things, but some people do, and it's hard to know without asking. Rather than making them pick, you could say something like, "Is there anything I should avoid?" Un-spicy things include chicken salad, cold roasted chicken...

Ooh, I really like the idea of offering a roast chicken, salad, bread, wine -- easy for me AND them! I will keep that in mind. I figure if I name a couple of things, she can say if one of them sounds appealing. With winter babies, I've generally been able to offer soup or chili I already had in my freezer, but this is no time to be eating hot soup!

Oh, flea, also -- I figure I'll bring it up in a couple of weeks, on the assumption that they'll be figuring stuff out and dealing with family members until then. Sound right?

Jesse, IIRC from the beginning reading I've done, some babies are less than keen on mom's breast milk after an onion- or garlic-heavy meal, but many more babies don't care. And most of what the mom eats gets processed heavily in the making of breast milk, with the potentially problematic stuff making it through in only trace amounts, so the crazy pregnancy dietary restrictions are lifted. Plus, yay!, the horrible maternal heartburn thing is a pregnancy-only problem -- once the baby is no longer inside the woman, crushing her stomach into halfway up her esophagus, she can usually go right back to eating whatever she ate before.

So, in short, unless you were planning on bringing your friend a carton of Kools, some gin and a bag of crack, you're probably fine (also maybe avoid the garlic-onion-stinky-cheese pie until the baby is weaned).

However, and I cannot stress this enough, I've read like one and a half books and experienced no actual childbearing or -feeding as yet, so this entire post is really oh so very ex cloaca.

Yeah, if they've got family in town, it's best to wait; it makes it complicated (unless it's a freezable casserole, i.e. winter).

On the other hand, if somebody brought me dinner TODAY I'd be happy. It's never too late...

On the other hand, if somebody brought me dinner TODAY I'd be happy. It's never too late...

Hey, for you it could be not-too-early!

Thanks for the info, you guys.

sleeping happened. I am the worst napper ever. CRANKY.