Veggietastic

Day 3 of my 10 day "spring cleanse".  Day 1 was properly horrible; whilst I had cleared the shelves at Whole Foods, I hadn't prepared any food and raw kale doesn't exactly lend itself to a quick & tasty snack opportunity.  Day 2 was worse as I felt very tired and had a stonking headache.  I was also famished and think I ate 4 baked potatoes to try and keep the hunger at bay.  In the afternoon we met up with our new friend Maggie & her baby Josie in Brookline and we had lunch in the unfortunately named Temptations Cafe.  Just looking at the "donut muffin" made me want to cry.  Last night the following dilemma presented itself.  Gaaaaahhhhhh......

Today I am feeling much better and after yoga and shiatsu this morning (and despite a lot of bollocks about chi and my spleen meridian), I feel positively uplifted.  So, as Zoe was in daycare (on an outing to see the seals at the Aquarium!), I spent even more money at Whole Foods and have spent lunchtime cooking like a crazy vegan who's just spent their holiday at a Texas steakhouse.  Now, I just need to stop craving a cup of PG Tips and those pesky 2 bite brownies and I should be on course to make it through the next 7/8 days. 

Food Glorious Food

I love eating.  In fact, if I could have one superpower it would be to have the ability to eat as much as I wanted whilst having the figure of Gisele Bundchen.  Without wishing to generalise, Americans also like to eat - I would say about half the adverts on TV are food-related and it is about as cheap to eat out as it is to buy nice food and eat at home (although bear in mind I shop at Whole Foods, aka "Whole Check"). 

On Friday night the marvellous Bridget came to babysit and we went out to the North End.  First, we took in a show and a few brewskis at the Improv Asylum.  If ever you are in Boston and at a loose end of an evening I highly recommend this comedy club.  We are such locals now we were able snigger knowingly at the jokes about how crap the T is!  Afterwards we went to Bricco for a slap up Italian dinner.  By the time the picture below was taken we were on our third course so (a) pretty drunk and (b) so full that nearly all of what's on my plate made it home with us in a doggy bag and fed us both handsomely for lunch the next day*. 

However, spring is now here and I can no longer avoid the fact that, since Zoe arrived 5 months ago, I have done no exercise, eaten enormously (last night I had 10 "2-bite" brownies - that's 20 bites of brownie, people!) and am about to join the outdoor pool around the corner for summer sunbathing purposes.  I have therefore taken decisive action and started a yoga course recommended to me by my fellow Isis mom Katie. It is a 2 week "spring cleanse" course that combines yin yoga, shiatsu massage and a detoxing diet.

The yin yoga is extremely well suited to a lazybones like myself.  It basically involves a lot of lying down. No kidding!  All the positions are done either lying or sitting down - brilliant!  The shiatsu massage (happening on Friday) is bound to be good.  The diet however is another kettle of mung beans altogether.  No more meat (fish is OK), no more bread, no more TEA (!), no more 2 bite or even 1 bite brownies, NO BOOZE (argh!), but lots of fruit and vegetables and healthy proteins like beans and pulses. 

I really think I should give the diet a proper go.  Clearly the alternative is sitting by the pool in a shroud surrounded by empty doggy bag cartons.  Wish me luck!


* I am a complete convert to the doggy bag lifestyle.  In fact, many of Eamon's dinners have been my leftovers from lunch out, poor thing!  In the UK either the portions are smaller (not hard) or else people must be too embarassed to ask for their leftover food to take home (why?).

Don't mess with this bad baby

Don't be fooled by her duckie trousers and giraffe bibby; look at that mean glint in her eye.  She's staring down the moron cyclists causing havoc on the Esplanade.  By the end of July her reign of terror will be absolute. 

Eyjafallajoekull!

Seriously, that's the name of that troublesome volcano?  I thought that it was someone randomly hitting their computer keys.  Like, "Anyone fancy going to Uhfsdfhskijj this weekend to do a little zdscvkjshuv?".

I appreciate that we have been relatively untroubled by the recent eruptions in Iceland and that our friends and family back home were probably directly affected, no doubt annoyingly so.  The news coverage here of the volcanic ash/no fly zone debacle was of surprised disbelief and focussed mainly on tragic all American families separated by the ban (wholesome mom and dad stuck in dangerously liberal Amsterdam whilst their 12 children pine at home*). 

The ban was also deeply worrying to our local priest, the wicked excellent Father Dan of St Joseph's.  Father Dan used to (I think) have his own TV show and now does skits, sorry, sermons, for Catholic TV (some recent crowd-pleasers here and here).  He is a brilliant showbiz priest, the kind of cleric Father Ted really would have wanted to be.  Father Dan is teeny-tiny and has tremendous hair and a big personality.  On Sundays he wears a roving mike and descends into the congregation to give his homilies that generally focus on some amusing anecdote from his week. 

Last week Father Dan rushed up to us before mass and gasped "Oh my goodness, you aren't planning to go home soon are you?".  We reassured him no, we would be here for a while longer.  It transpired Father Dan has a vacation (to Las Vegas!) planned in early May and that his companion (Petula Clark!) would be flying over from the UK and so he was worried he may have to spend his time in Sin City alone.  I am sure he could have made some pocket money marrying people if he found himself with time on his hands, but clearly he's called in some favours upstairs and happily the ban has been lifted.  So there you go, friends and family back home, you can thank Father Dan and Petula Clark for getting the skies going again.

*As the Tea Party faithful declare on their placards: "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder".  So, if Clegg & Co. get into office (wouldn't that be great? please vote LibDem!), Americans will think that the British are mentally defective!

Another interesting article about working mothers

Gina Ford is the symptom, not the disease Sarah Vine - Times Online

I am not entirely clear what Sarah Vine is saying in the article (I think it's an anodyne "let's find a middle ground and stop putting pressure on working mothers"), but I like her imagined Daily Mail headline.  What she doesn't touch on is the need for working mums to be super-organised and how important it is to have a good support network of family and friends.  One final thought: frankly, if your "partner" refuses to allow your children into bed for a cuddle or to sit with them over dinner you've picked the wrong person to be the father of your children and you get what you deserve!

Patriots Day is Marathon Day!

I seem to have made a complete Horlicks of adding these pictures, which are a selection of some from today's outing to see the Boston Marathon.  Anyway, the actual sequence of events was:

• walk through the Public Gardens (tulips)
• walk down Commonweath Ave (Zoe in the sling)
• checking out the marathon runners!
• checking out the dogs checking out the the marathon runners! (these pics are really for my Dad)
• wondering if the policemen are in any danger of running anywhere?
• going for something to eat.

Now we're relaxing at home and looking forward to putting our feet up in front of an orgy of trash TV on Lifetime (back to back to back Grey's Anatomy!). 

Morning has broken

Oh for some blackout blinds.....  But Zoe does look super-cute in the mornings.

Didn't she do well!

On Friday Zoe spent her first afternoon in daycare.  That's nursery in English.  It was a nerve-wracking experience for all involved apart from Zoe, who took to the experience with aplomb.  We had all visited the centre beforehand and were really impressed by how nice the staff were and how happy the kids seemed.  

I was worried that Zoe might get upset and not like being with strangers, but I was very proud (and slightly crushed) to learn she had had a terrific afternoon and enjoyed being with other babies and small children.  She came home with her first ever school report, which details the highs (food) & lows (diapering) of her day.  In particular, I was happy to learn "Zoe was very intrigued by the textured balls of the rainbow ribbons".  Blimey, I'm pretty intrigued about them myself now. 

A nice cup of tea

In Boston "Tea Party" means many things.  Of course it means the great brew-up in Boston Harbor of 1773.  It can also mean a genteel afternoon of cakes and sandwiches with the nobs of Beacon Hill.  Today, however, it meant the arrival onto Boston Common of the far right "constitutionalists" and their cheerleader-in-chief Sarah Palin. 

This morning on my way back from chiro I saw a group of them clutching their Gasden Flags on their way to hear La Palin's dulcet tones.  They were all male, all had mullets and had parked their pick-up slap in the middle of Cambridge Street, taking excellent advantage of their disabled parking permit (although they all looked pretty feisty to me).  Zoe & I studiously avoided the Common all day.  So many angry people with access to firearms in one place is not the place for a baby.

Poor Barack is getting a pretty tough time of it over here. Healthcare reform was a bit of a fiasco and there is a perception that the banks are being financially supported at the expense of honest-Joe taxpayers.  Even here in liberal Massachusetts they have recently replaced the redoubtable Ted Kennedy with a Republican. 

However, much of the media has a liberal agenda and so it was quite a joy to see Bill Maher on ABC this evening, a man who believes that if Sarah Palin went on Jeopardy she would achieve the lowest ever score.  I actually think she would tie for bottom with the rednecks with the pick up because even I know that their disabled permit won't stop them getting a ticket on a weekday on Cambridge Street.

STOP PRESS: Boston based infant holds feet, has red hair!

Yes, it's confirmed, Zoe is ginger. 

Parklife

A stroll to the South End today, via the Common and the Public Garden.


All human life is in the park, the strollers, the ice cream scoffers, the doggies, the Red Sox fans, the bums and the quidditch players. I shit you not. The maniacs pictured below are playing quidditch. Quidditch is, I mistakenly thought, an imaginary game based on the premise that the players can fly on broomsticks and the balls move magically. Unable to defy the laws of physics, these nutters simply look like they are hobbling around doing a giant poo!

I suspect a significant Anime/quidditch participant overlap.

Who does she look like?

When Zoe was born she was a tiny version of Eamon. But as she's got bigger & bigger she's changed so much it's hard to know who she looks like now. I reckon Zoe's quite the little Shaw, with her grey/blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair.

I cannot believe how much Zoe has changed from the teeny baby we brought home in November last year. Almost everyday she does something new. She is learning to sit up, she can grab her feet now, and tummy time isn't such a torture anymore - in fact she pushes herself right up and flips herself over! For Zoe's fan club, I am trying very hard to capture the feet grabbing and will post a picture as soon as I can.

At the moment Zoe is spark out asleep on our bed, and has been for the last 2 hours. That little girl knows how best to spend a grey & rainy afternoon, something she definitely gets from me.

Gogglebox

As you can imagine we cannot go out much in the evenings now that we have wee Zoe. At home in London we have Sky TV, but a very old digibox and the most basic package. Over here we have Comcast with On Demand. It has been a revelation! One day we even watched episodes from 3 different series of 24 - it was enough to make your head explode! And I have managed to catch up with the 3rd series of Damages and thereby steeled my resolve to be more like Patty Hewes on my return to work*.

*Again, Theo, I am only joking.

Easter Zoe

Happy Easter! Which in Boston means no bank holidays, an awful lot of candy and Easter baskets and the "opening night" of the baseball season with the beloved Red Sox taking on their arch rivals, the NY Yankees. This year it has also meant some AWESOME weather, so we hit the streets of the Back Bay on a pilgrimage to Fenway Park, home of the mighty Sox*.

It was also a very sociable weekend for us; colleagues of Eamon very kindly invited us to dinner on Saturday and also to lunch on Sunday. We have been made to feel very welcome and it has been great to see other areas of Boston. On Sunday we took an $80 cab ride (!) to Needham, a town about 10 miles west of Boston. It is basically Desperate Housewives made real - every road looks like Wisteria Lane, all the cars are big & shiny, all the kids have braces on their teeth, all the ladies are trim and groomed. We enjoyed a sumptuous Easter spread until Zoe, who had dressed in her prettiest party dress to honour the occasion, finally got fed up with the taffeta and it was time for a swift exit.

Zoe has found Easter a little hard; the drooling has reached rabid levels and she is also gnawing on anything she can lay her hands on. I really wish the Easter Bunny had brought her some teeth at last instead of a dose of nappy rash! Although I am very glad he brought such delicious candy for her Mummy & Daddy.... Yummy!

* I haven't a clue about baseball although I am reliably informed by Bridget at the chiropractor that games can go on for 5/6 hours! FYI the Red Sox won, so there was much rejoicing in Beantown last night.

Here comes the sun!

The sun is out! Much rejoicing chez Devlin and an opportunity to head out for a long walk by the river with a new friend from our baby group. Zoe decided to show off to the other baby by learning to suck her thumb. And NOISILY. The dummy is now redundant and the front of her dresses are permanently soaked with dribble. Nice!


Boston is suddenly alive with green & the trees have burst into bud. It is also alive with weirdos as there is an Anime convention at the Hynes Center and it is hard to get anywhere without tripping over a greenhaired geek in full costume. I really wanted to take a photo because they all looked so totally bonkers and unusual (and some looked like they hadn't seen the sun in a few years)*, but was put off asking by the samurai swords and goth boots many of them were sporting. So instead you get a picture of what I think is a cyclamen tree in the Public Gardens.

*A lot of geeks are going to be "gettin' it" tonight I can tell you