I MADE IT!

The entire week. No gossip. None. I even turned off the network news when they started stories I decided did not meet my journalistic standards. I haven't a clue what is going on, and, what's more, I'm ok with that.

MY WEEKEND

Myfanwe, Norber and I went to St. Louis on Friday for the baby naming of Little Bird*, the new daughter of George and Maxine. (You may recall me writing about the baby shower in December.)

George and Maxine were delivered of a spectacular little girl on January 27th, and she was given her name, Little Bird, yesterday morning. I don't know when I've had so much fun. I love George and Maxine so much, I love who they are together, and I've always believed that the world was a better place because they found each other. Now that I've seen my beloved Little Bird, that belief is validated.

No pictures -- I have to say that the minute I held her for the first time my brain turned completely to jelly and I not only forgot how to opperate a camera, i forgot I owned one. All I wanted to do was to hold her and sing to her and rock her and eat her up.

While we were in St. Louis we had some spectacular meals. We ate Friday night at Mekong on Grand -- a quirky Vietnamese restaurant that made a spectacular bowl of pho. I was having a special bowl with slices of bbq pork, shrimp and crab. First taste? Eeh. It was ok. Good. Very good, in fact. But nothing to blog home about. I asked for a little drizzle of chili oil, which transformed an acceptable dish to a sublime dish! Myfanwe and I loved the food so much, we ordered (and ate) another entree -- a bowl of noodles, grilled chicken, and other yummies topped with the best fish sauce I've ever eaten. (Note: We don't diet from sundown on Friday night to Sundown on Saturday. So we weren't cheating on our diets.)

Saturday lunch we ate at Thai Pizza in the Delmar Loop neighborhood. Thai Pizza sounds incongruous, but was a terrific meal. I wanna go back. Myfanwe wants to sell our home and use the cash to open a Thai Pizza in Chicago. I'm not going to say more about the food -- mostly because I AM dieting today and I'm hungry -- but if you are ever in St. Louis, eat there.

I am having baby withdrawl today, so I think i should start planning our next visit to St. louis to see my Little Bird!

*Names of minors are changed to protect the privacy of the innocent. Names of adults are often changed to protect their privacy or to ensure I'm not violating any restaining orders!

RETREAT!

Norbert and I went on our congregation's annual retreat in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin this weekend. When this photo was taken, it was 60 degrees outside. It was weird. Beautiful, but weird.

I forgot to post this photo from before my diet started. It is a devil's food cake with 7 minute frosting. The cake recipe, from The Cake Bible, was a disappointment.



Diet is going well. I guess. Save for one small Tootsie Roll, I haven't strayed from my diet. And I haven't hurt anyone yet. Yet. I will be glad when my stomach has reduced in size. I am not altogether fond of this hunger thing. I would bite the head off of a live nun for a basket of cheese fries.

ABSOLUTELY UNIMPORTANT DRIVVEL

OK. My vacation ends in four days. I return to work on my 44th birthday. I'm actually looking forward to getting back in a way -- I don't like to be away for too long.

But I'm sad. You see, I sort of promised my wife and my physician that, at the New Year, I would make some diet and lifestyle changes which will, hopefully, result in a healthier me. (I swear, umpteen-thousand dollars spent on high tech brain imaging and neuro-psych evaluations and dog knows what else, and all I have in way of a definitive diagnosis is that I am "morbidly obese". I questioned my doctor..."Morbidly?" asks I. "Oh, yeah" says Doogie Houser, M.D.

Now, he admits that this isn't what is causing my health problems, but I think he figures this dieting and exercise will keep me distracted while he tries to figure the rest of my stuff out at a nice leisurely pace. I would say he is wrong, but one of my problems is memory loss, so I probably will be easily distracted. Could you all remind me to take the wind out of his sales once in a while?

So I have only 5 days left to cook and eat what I wish. (I am NOT starting the dieting shit on my birthday and you can't make me!) I am panicking. After a long internal discussion, I've decided on a devil's food cake with 7-minute-icing for Saturday. My grandmother used to make that for me. And I think on Sunday I will make some hand rolled Chinese dumplings. I love me some potstickers. (I have to make them out of chicken because Myfanwe doesn't allow pork int he house.) Maybe Monday I'll make apple pancakes -- the bigass brown buttery caramel ones from the Original Pancake House! You know the ones. I have a great recipe...I make them just a little less sweet and they are ever so much better. Yum.

And somewhere in my day I am going to have to squeeze in a trip to the gym. And Myfanwe is going to say things like -- no you can't take it out of house cleaning time. You can take it out of knitting time. And then I'll have to hate her for an hour or two because she doesn't even TRY to understand how important knitting is.

Well, you can't say I didn't warn you that this post would be without import. But you read it anyway. Thanks for listening.