30 Weeks

This is it, the final stretch! TEN more weeks, and summer has hit St. Louis. Heat indices are over 100 daily and everyone who sees me now has to make some comment about how poorly I planned for the heat, or how I have so much further to go in the summer. I am visibly pregnant, no doubt about it. No stranger has even had to ask, they just assume. And they are correct. Yes, I am aware of the heat and the pooor planning and how much further I have to go to get through a hot summer carrying an extra 25-30 (or more!!) poorly distributed pounds around. Yes, I know. The thing is, I am fine with it! I really enjoy having 10 weeks left, I don't feel ready for having a baby yet. The baby is certainly not ready to be here either. A co-worker has a friend who is just 2 days ahead of me according to due dates and who began pre-term labor a few weeks ago. She held off delivery until this weekeend, and at 30 weeks had a 2lb, 9oz boy. I do NOT want a preemie, I don't want months in a NICU, and I want to be giant and fat and still healthy with a large healthy baby inside.

There are no 30 week photos of me for two reasons. First, and primarily, because until yesterday we were without a camera. My nearly 6 year old Canon bit the dust, I helped it along a bit in March by leaving it out in the rain. It had a short revival and functioned moderately for another couple of months before mostly petering out. The time has come for a new camera, hopefully one that will last another 6 years. So I spent the last 2 weeks researching and asking for advice and checking sales. My deadline was yesterday and I ended up with this camera:

The camera has come just in time, as I am leaving for New York City tomorrow! Actually, I am leaving in just a few hours, I am blogging instead of sleeping. I could not visit NYC without a camera, especially when Rob has never spent much time there. He's been there a week already and reports that his research is going better than he'd imagined and he may have time to hang out with me and explore the city. It will be good to see him and the best news of all is that the average temp over the next week in NYC is 10-15 degrees cooler than it is here.
I am so looking forward to getting back to the city I love. This will also be my last flight before being grounded by pregnancy, and the last vacation unencumbered by baby gear. To remind me of this, here is a photo of the corner of our living room. This is just about all the baby gear we have acquired in the last few months. Most of it came as gift or hand-me-down, the swing was a bargain purchase. This is the first photo taken with the new camera.

It will be a reminder of how things will be changing.

So on that note, it is off to New York!!!!

Don't Rent this Place!!

The crazy landlord has placed an updated ad for her accomodations!! This must be posted, it is too good to pass up. The photos would indicate that some cleanup has been done, but this is still a good representation of the bedroom where Rob had to stay. There was more clutter, but the bedding remains. By remains, I also mean that it is unlikely to have been washed since Rob left. Also, please enjoy the description of the apartments and the offer of "high tea". I fear this post may be taken down so I may be doing some cut and paste soon.



For now, though, check this place out. The best part of the whole ad (and there is much to enjoy!!) may be that it is on a bed and breakfast website:

http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/6367

Travel (Now Updated and Finished!)

Its been a while since I've posted, but travel has been keeping me from writing and its time for a brief update. Rob was accepted to present at two conferences in June, one in Chicago and one at Notre Dame. He did not anticipate that both proposals would be accepted and in hindsight wishes he'd only done one, but he was accepted and when this happens you don't turn the opportunities down. He left for Chicago on June 2 and did research in Chicago for the 10 days in between conferences, then went to Notre Dame to present. He'll only be spending 4 nights in St. Louis during this entire month.
I went to Chicago the first weekend Rob was there to visit, then went back last week to drive him to South Bend. I tried to helpfully find Rob a place to stay in Chicago a month or so in advance, as hotels for 10 days are out of our budget and we don't currently know anyone who lives in Chicago proper who could host a guest for 10 days. I located a place on Craigslist in Wrigleyville that was affordable and showed a decent one room apartment with a private bathroom and a kitchenette. We reserved that and Rob set out for Chicago with a plan for long hours researching and quiet nights in this small rental space.
It turns out that we found the nut house. If the Craigslist ad had not expired, I'd post the photos of what Rob expected. It was quite a misrepresentation. The photos showed a small place with floor to ceiling Cubs decor, not bad even if you dislike the Cubs. The reality was a filthy little place that was barely private as the door leading to it was glass. The private bath had a temporary shower stall in it that appeared ready to fall over at any time, with a shower curtain balanced precariously on the top. The "decor" the landlord had bragged about on the phone actually appeared to be others' used household items- half empty bottles of lotion, dirty wine glasses with plastic flowers in them, several dirty towels draped around the bathroom. The landlord herself was quite a trip. We learned from some friends in the neighborhood that she is a fixture around Wrigleyville and is commonly assumed to be a homeless or mentally ill woman that parking lot owners hire during Cubs games to collect parking money. It turns out she OWNS the building and parking lot where she collects money and is not homeless. Mentally ill is a strong possibility, however. The junk in the room Rob rented included what is obviously to someone else some art installation. What it really resembles is a Cubs fan in a casket at a funeral.

This decor was unique and what happened on the Saturday of my visit was even more, well, unique. Rob's rental space was at the back of the first floor of this three story building. The rest of the first floor is zoned for commercial space, so the only entrance into the building that he had access to is an empty storefront with all glass looking into it. The space is yet unused, though one of the tenants of the second floor (also rental space) said he has plans to turn it into a bar. The man, Marcos, was doing construction much of the time we were there, and during the days there was a table saw going most of the time. Marcos was friendly and he and Rob became casual pals even though the table saw also started up sometimes at night, (once as late as 1 am which Rob appreciated very much.) The Friday evening before this unique incident, Marcos said that the next day a photographer was coming to use the storefront space for a photoshoot. The walls in the storefront area are painted a deep red and Marcos said the photog wanted that color as the background for his shots. We didn't think much of this.

Rob and I went out to breakfast the next morning and then wandered around the neighborhood on Saturday for several hours. The weather was cool and overcast and Wrigleyville is a great walking area with plenty of eclectic little places to shop and eat. There, of course, is also Wrigley Field but there were no games while I Rob was in town, which is probably a good thing. The place moves from "eclectic" and "pleasant" to wild and drunk when the Cubs are in town.

So we returned to the apartment to shower and nap before going out for dinner with friends. When Rob went to key into the storefront entrance, we noticed there was a sheet up over the glass door. I said to Rob that this must be due to the photographer working inside. When Rob turned the key, a man's voice called out "Just a minute!! Just a minute!" and immediately came to the door. When he saw that we had a key, he backed away, and said "Oh, sorry, come on in". The man had a large camera with a long lense attached. A few feet away was a young woman who was wearing nearly nothing. Rob and I averted our eyes, apologized to both of them while trying to keep our eyes on the floor and hurried to the back of the room and into Rob's rental apartment.

We shut the door and Rob said "Was she wearing pants?!" I said I had no idea but I did not think so, I did not pause for a good look. As I have mentioned, the door to Rob's apartment was glass and we had hung a sheet over that when I arrived. As I have not mentioned, I am very nosy so of COURSE I had to sneak a peek through the door of his place. I watched as the photoshoot resumed and the answer is, yes, the young woman WAS wearing pants but just barely. She wore sheer lingerie and as the photoshoot continued, it came off in pieces. The walls of the apartment are paper thin and we could hear the photo encouraging her "Be sultry baby!!" "Yes, you look so turned on, that's it!" and then his splashing water on her "to make your nipples hard". I watched for a while, then got bored and took a nap.

What I want to point out is that supposedly they wanted to use the red walls as a backdrop for the "shoot" but there were white sheets taped up both behind the young lady and on the floor where she stood/laid/kneeled for her poses.

I wish I'd had the chance to take even a discreet, distanced photo of the scene since it just caps the weekend in Chicago, but I thought that would be rude. The woman obviously now has quite a portfolio anyway, so perhaps the photos can be found elsewhere on the internets.

And that was my trip to Chicago. Rob had to stay there for 5 more days, poor guy. The house of crazy gave us many good stories but we would not recommend it for lodging purposes to anyone we care about in the least.