This is a less-than-flattering photo of my sister-in-law and her twin sister. They are beautiful girls, but you know how it is when someone shoots a candid when your mouth is full or you're talking. So one of these girls is almost 15 weeks pregnant and the other is her usual size 4 self. Can you tell which twin is pregnant?
If it helps, they posed for this belly shot (notice they switched sides, so you might ID them as "black" or "white" versus "right" or "left"):
Seasons greetings to all who visit my humble blog. This is the tree around which my family will celebrate later tonight. Tomorrow is an extended family (50 peeps) dinner that is sure to be festive. Mom's in town until Friday, so lots of activities are planned.
I wish you all a very happy holiday. May there be peace on earth in 2008.
I may have posted a photo of this house in the past. It's not my favorite in the neighborhood, not by a long shot, but anyway, some months back, it was for sale for about $10 million. It's large, ocean-front, and rebuilt from two properties into one. I recently heard this A-listed couple purchased it. I haven't seen them around town yet, but I'll keep you posted if I do.
UPDATE: Looks like the rumor about the A-list couple above may be just that... a rumor, and a false one to boot. So for the time being, my hood remains celebrity-free.
Since the big reunion show on Monday, I've been listening to nothing but the mighty Zep all week. One day, I listened to 64 separate songs (and thank you, iTunes, for helping me keep tally). Click here for all things Zeppelin from Rolling Stone which I consider the best resource at this point. Don't miss David Fricke’s iconically written review of the show. Seriously, the vocabulary he employs to embody the experience of Led Zeppelin is perfection.
Yesterday, I had a doctor's appointment in one of the buildings next door to the hospital which employs me. As I was driving around trying to decide where to park, I noticed there were myriad news vans on campus. Sad to say, but because we have a level 3 trauma center, I quickly chalked up the media attention to some kind of gang warfare news item with victims being treated at our facility. Turns out I was wrong.
When my doctor entered the exam room, she said to me, "I just saw the Governor in the lobby of the hospital!" So as improbable as it is that the same set of eyes would view Arnold Schwarzenegger and my lady parts within the same quarter hour, that is exactly what happened. And while your dirty mind may be formulating crude commentary or query at the expense of that last sentence, I am forfeiting the opportunity to actually publish the same right here.
Instead, I leave you with this, semi-related, yes, if you're a real degenerate.
Some years ago when my brother first started dating his wife, a relative of hers was in the process of divorcing a major league baseball player. Over the years, I've heard a lot of stories about this meathead, chiefly, how he used to be a good guy until he started hitting the "juice." Sure enough, his name turned up on The List yesterday. The best part of the story is that he's one of these dopes who actually wrote a check and had the goods delivered to the team's clubhouse. Any day now, I expect to hear that he wrote the words "illegal performance-enhancing anabolic steroids" in the memo line of said check. Idiot.
Very soon in London, Led Zeppelin will take the stage for a massively anticipated reunion show. Which makes today a religious holiday for a girl like me. It would be my DREAM to be there.
I was fortunate enough to see Zeppelin in what would be their final U.S. tour in the summer of 1977, more than 30 years ago. I was 14 years old and saw them with my best friend at the time at The Forum in Los Angeles. They played for 3.5 hours and I was completely mesmerized. The concert had a major impact on me becoming the serious music fan I am today. I can say with confidence my all-time top three bands are, chronologically speaking, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Fleetwood Mac. Robert Plant was my second serious rock'n' roll crush (the first was Denny Laine - DO NOT LAUGH!). (See, I was already a groupie long before Lindsey Buckingham became famous.) Tonight's show includes Jason Bonham rightly sitting in for Bonzo. This post would not be complete if I didn't mention the incomparable Jimmy Page as well as John Paul Jones.
In real life, I started work at 5:00 a.m. (ugh!) today so I could be done in time to make a doctor's appointment at 2:30 and physical therapy at 5:00. Yeah, that's my real life. But after those commitments are fulfilled, I intended to sit on the sofa, flipping channels until I find news pieces on the Zep show, and dream of a different time. ZoSo forever!
I've been waiting 9 long weeks to breathe a word of this, but the cat is finally out of the bag as of today. I'm going to be a first-time auntie in June. By the time the little bambino arrives, he or she will be the first new member born to my immediate family in almost 38 years. That's a long, long time, and as you can imagine, my family is over the proverbial moon. This is an enlarged copied-and-pasted PDF image into a jpg of a scan of a print-out of a 3-D ultrasound taken this morning. That is to say, the quality was better on the original, according to my brother (the father-to-be). I promise that I'll try hard not to kill this blog with baby fever. Gestational age today is 11-6/7 weeks, essentially the last day of the first trimester (give/take a week). I've been patiently waiting for the second trimester to begin so I can buy yarn, but I still have to wait until after the new year to learn the gender. Nevertheless, neutral-colored yarn purchasing begins tomorrow.
I often find myself going through life, shaking my head in disbelief at what I see. And then sometimes I am awed by something so stunningly beautiful that I'm breathless. I hope to document both here.
This is a less-than-flattering photo of my sister-in-law and her twin sister. They are beautiful girls, but you know how it is when someone shoots a candid when your mouth is full or you're talking. So one of these girls is almost 15 weeks pregnant and the other is her usual size 4 self. Can you tell which twin is pregnant? 
