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lunch with viviana

today i went to wagas to meet my friend viviana for lunch.  she's really adorable and funny and here's the proof.  a super bonus thing is that when i met her she was working at l'oreal, but now is back at smg working as a host of an american idol show that is new to shanghai and works in the same building as me.  yay!  cal and i are so excited to watch it on sunday night.  ^-^ it's neat, eventhough she has to work live on weekends, people are actually voting by sms their favorite performers.  smg sponsoring voting in china - hurrah!

we were talking about chinese superstitions, and as you may know, it's not nice to give clocks as presents (zhong for clock, sounds like zhong, tomb, as in luca brazzi sleeps with the fishes), nor umbrellas (san for umbrella, sounds like san as it to separate, as in see you later sucka).  my mom  still rues the day she bought calvin a pair of shoes since obviously calvin and i moved to china because of it.  (as in walking away ....) at the time, she told me that technically, this was okay to give shoes, because she's older.  but under no circumstances are younger people to give older people shoes.  so yea.  it gets a wee bit tangled and complicated.

viv and i agreed that yes, it was indeed the shoes that brought us to china.  oh, and i bought calvin and umbrella today.  oops.  calvin was quick to see my mistake and said, i'll PAY you for it. so no worries there.

ps.  just wanted to add, viv and i are thinking about possibly lauching our own label, or selling clothes here. we've got the shopping down, but need to figure out those - what are they called?  business plans.  keep ya posted.

raspberry heart beat-beat-beat

our second check-up was great. we saw our little raspberry's (that's the size he or she is) heartbeat, going a healthy neurotic 160 beats per minute. maybe just probably just anxious about the photoshoot and being seen for the first time. no, the doctor reassured us that it's perfectly normal. wow. a heartbeat!

i've been eating like a beast, and allowed myself to gain 1 pound each month, which is a purely made up rule. the "angie-diet." i *guess* you aren't really "supposed" to gain wait in the 1st trimester, and i've already made up for occasional lack of morning sickness by shoving my face with all kinds of delicious, mouth watering snacks (heightened and triggered by my canine-sense of smell, you try walking down shanghai street food vendors. oh-kayy?), dishes, and anything that i can shove into my stomach ... now.

no seriously, i am trying to be careful not to eat bad things. which are all my favorite things.　soft cheeses and sushi got me right off the bat. i get really freaked out, like when at work yesterday, i ate half of a chinese mooncake, which has preserved egg in it. that i usually love, because it's preserved, and super rich. after swallowing, i almost vomited out of sheer will thinking "i'm not supposed to have any undercooked eggs, and i just ate a raw one." oh my god. i just gave the baby bird flu - shit, tamiflu! go get me tamiflu! of course no one at work knows yet, no one at all knows, so i just felt the egg go down, googled censored pregnancy information on-line, and broke into a cold sweat trying to text message calvin.

each time we visit, i can't get over how high-tech and high-design the new huashan ob/gyn hospital is. coming out of the elevator of the somewhat delapitated building off of a buy street, it looks like it should be something out of the w hotel penthouse. the uniformed nurses have tablet laptops, there are plasma tvs and ikebana flower arrangements. pretty pieces of fruit sit in clear, sculptural bowls and there's an internet bar. i can't imagine getting this kind of eye-candy in the states. calvin makes sure to make himself a cappucino when he goes now.

yes, still honking like a shanghai taxi cab with my rhinitis, but the foghorn has gotten a bit less obnoxious. the baby only occasionally likes to do nauseating backflips and swim around trying to make a bigger pad, doing some decorating, and jackhammering the walls to make improvements. another wierd thing, i have a very hard time getting up in the morning, and around 4 i am so tired! i only today got to some of my e-mails and planning my month (isn't it almost over?) which means i am definintely not myself. someone has taken over!

i couldn't be happier about our new resident, but if you'll excuse me if have to blow my nose. i have this thing called "rhinitis of pregnancy" where i get really stuffy. did i mention that i also have gotten absent minded, and tend to repeat myself?

i'm dying to tell everyone! will calvin be able to hold out?

first trimester moms "manufacture z's"

i'm such a weak-ass. 

i couldn't sleep last night, after drinking a coke with anna during lunch.  which i ate, in like 2 minutes, before she had even cleared 3 bites of curry.  since our trip to the us, i've been able to sleep no less than 15 hours, however i can get it.  what the hell?   one night, in michigan, calvin just scratched his head when i took a shower at 7 pm and then hit the sack without saying goodnight to anyone.  actually, at the time, i had no idea what was wrong with me either.   on this night, however, calvin had a dream about dad, which i was really glad to to be up for for once.  i was actually alert and able talk to him about his dream, put him back to bed poor thing.  i read some of the johnathan safran foer at 3 am, and then closed my eyes around 4 to enter this freakish world of dreams that i've been having.  it's not the salsa, i'm convinced the baby is trying to tell me something.  something scary?

some sinister highlights:

1.  creepy 40-ish hippies coming to live with us after answering our ad in the paper about "babysitters."
2.  going into dairy queen and crying like a nut because calvin woudln't buy me 2 sundaes, then waking up and asking him why he wouldn't buy them for me
3.  a triangular edward gory/ broome street loft in new york that has reoccured in my dreams before, where calvin and i now hide out with our baby clothes and live in fear of the owner returning and catching us.

i've been waking up in the morning, barely, feeling a little sick, and thinking about my afternoon nap while at work.  there's always a nauseating cab ride, where i'm really sorry lil guy, i have to breathe in shanghai's toxic irresponsibility, and disapprove of numerous fashion no-nos and dangerous behaviors that i never seemed to notice before.  who knew a mom could become more judgemental of fobby clothes as well as smells?

after that, i usually think about food.  last few weeks, i've been too sick to eat anything.  i tried these ginger candies because they say that it's supposed to make me feel less naseous, and, as pavlov would have it, i now find ginger candies totally nauseating.  strange things (for me) that i've like to eat:

1.  salad crackers and cream cheese
2.  coke (so wierd!)
3.  yang le duo (sweet mini-yogurt drinks from taiwan)

thank goodness i can still eat natto and kimchi, but calpis now makes me sick.  so sad. 

the other weird thing is, other than my mosquito bite-boobs turning into swollen, painful, bigger, and itchier mosquito bites, is that i have "rhinitis of pregnancy".  that means i can't stop blowing my nose, in my elegant-but-foghorn style, and sneezing like a mofo.  calvin bought 2 air purifiers, which seemed to help a bit.

still, i love the lil' stinker.  i hope that we'll have great appointment this saturday.

calvin goes back to work

calvin has been so busy catching up with his TRIUM work, i'm amazed at how focused and dedicated he is to both his group, and his own assignments personally. yet, there was something so comforting to both of us about his taking some extra days before returning to work. i guess i want things to be as painless as possible, but i know it had to come.

he said everyone was also very kind, and his buddy raul is back to smic. adele called me, and has been writing and sending wonderful e-mails, and friends gave him cards and i'm sure, hugs, to let him know how special and loved he is. and that's it's okay to be sad. elaine lost her dad a couple of months ago as well.

our friends here, gary, scott, danyeu and co. , robica, viv, lauren, anna have all been so great. mabye we will try and see some of them ...

sometimes i think i see that little twinkle in his eye, the one that you often found in dad's, thinking of something secretly funny and sweet and wanting you to be in on the joke. there's nothing that can take that away from calvin, his innate ability to see the goodness and trust in things and laugh at himself and life. one of dad's many gifts that he still gives, alive and present, even in his physical absence.