We didn’t take a LOT of pictures, but we took a few. Here are my favorites:

This doesn’t really capture how beautiful the beach was, but you get a little sense of the turquoise water and the lovely weather.

And you can see why I had to be Extremely Responsible to keep my sun exposure minimal. I stayed under the umbrellas the entire time, except when splashing around or walking to and from the ladies room.

Here we are at a "Lolo" — an outdoor barbeque place in Grand Case.

As you can see, my sunscreen efforts weren’t 100% successful. That was the day I stayed indoors most of the day to let the sunburn heal, and after that, I switched to the waterproof sunscreen and limited my time in the water to only ~15 minutes, maybe twice/day.

All I have to add is OUCH.

And last, but not least, here are the 4 of us after dinner on our last night.

Mikki & Claire were so sweet — they took us out for my birthday. We ate at a fabulous romantic restaurant, with seats along the waterfront in the marina in Marigot. And my sweet girl gave me the rose and all that bling I’m wearing.

(If you look closely, you can see that the necklace symbolizes the new family — two pink stones surrounding a blue stone.)

We’re back!

St Martin was amazing! We absolutely loved it. The vacation was so relaxing and the French side of the island, where we stayed, has the best restaurants I’ve ever encountered. Mmmmmmm. Mmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmm.

And I cannot sing the praises of my amazing sunblock highly enough!!! Vanicream is not a chemical sunblock, like most kinds of sunscreen. They’ve actually figured out a way to make zinc oxide usable as a normal sunscreen, not just a thick white paste over your nose.

Having experimented, I can only REALLY recommend the SPF 35 Sunscreen Sport if you are going to be getting either sweaty or in the water. I used the SPF 60 my first two days, and I think it rinsed off almost instantly in the water, leaving parts of my upper chest and belly exposed for those 15 or 20 minutes that I played in the water but wasn’t completely under water.

Lil Smudge has reached the stage in his development where I can feel him kicking FREQUENTLY. Not quite all the time, but it seems that way. So it was extra nice not to have anything in particular to do, other that watch my tummy and see if it was going to start gyrating. Our first or second night there, that was at least half an hour’s entertainment for me and Jill, although sadly, he wouldn’t move visibly when our friends Mikki & Claire were looking.

I also had a fabulous birthday celebration! In addition to a wonderful waterfront dinner, Jill bought me some fabuloso jewelry.

The gang did a shopping trip to the Dutch side of the island, where jewelry and gemstones are apparently much less expensive than they are in the US. I elected to stay home during that trip — my stamina is WAY down. That turned out to be a good call, since it resulted in a beautiful necklace with both pink and blue sapphires and white diamonds AND sapphire and diamond earrings. The jewelry is birthday, Christmas, and welcome home Lil Smudge all wrapped up together and it completely blew my mind!

In addition to eating, napping, and getting presents, I also read a ton. Book reviews will be forthcoming shortly.

Fruit & Veg Count, 10/16
I did a little better yesterday: 1 apple, 1 banana, half-cup brussels sprouts, and small handful of a mystery vegetable Mom and I found at the DeKalb Farmer’s Market.

It was labelled either Tindera or Tindara, and each one was approximately the size of my index finger. We sauted them in butter, and they had a nice texture but very little flavor. We think it was some sort of Chinese squash.

Crib Adventures
A few weeks ago, my friend Harry pointed us to an awesome looking and inexpensive crib for sale at Ikea. Twice, I actually went to Ikea to see if I could get it. Both times, there were none on the floor.

The second time, I asked the salesfolk at Self Serve for help. They showed 5 on the floor and 50 more in stock but not on the floor.

I have called at least 10 times in the last two weeks, and gotten almost the same exact answer every time. At least three times, they have assured me that it would be on the floor tomorrow. It has never been on the floor when I called back the next morning within 15 minutes of the store opening.

They’ve also advised me to call before the store opens, but the receptionists won’t actually put you through to Self Serve before the store opens. I even have the extension, but they almost never pick up when you call — whether the store is open or not.

Actually, I spoke too soon! I finally got through during the window the guy at Self Serve recommended that I call! I’m on hold right now, while he asks a fork-lift driver to grab my crib.

Ok, now I’m supposed to call back in another "20-30 minutes" to see if the fork-lift driver was able to pull the crib.

One of my exes used to call me "Pollyanna" — and he meant in the nastiest way possible, that I was insanely optimistic. (He’s not one who reads this, so far as I know.) This frustrating adventure with trying to get my local Ikea to find me the darned crib that they say they have in stock makes me understand why he used to say that about me.

Every morning, I think I will call and THIS MORNING they will have it.

And so far, I’ve been disappointed nearly every morning for the last 2 weeks.

But at the same time, Smudge isn’t due for almost 4 more months. I can keep trying to get the cool, inexpensive crib until Christmas if I want to be really stubborn, and still have time to buy a ‘backup plan’ crib if we need to go that route.

Quick Fruit & Veg Count, 10/13

Yesterday, I had a banana, a salad from the lunch place in my building (1 cup iceberg lettuce, 1 large carrot stick, 1 tiny broccoli floret, and 1 mushroom), half a cup of steamed broccoli, and 3 asperagus spears.

I also ate myself into a food coma at dinner.  My high school English teacher was in town conducting a teacher training workshop, and we met her for dinner. It turned out that her hotel was a short walk from what I think is the most interesting restaurant in Atlanta: Fogo de Chao.

It’s a Brazilian "barbeque" place, but that utterly fails to convey how charming, elegant, and customer-service-oriented this place is. First you go to a rich and varied salad bar. When you’re ready for your meat, you flip a little coaster from red to green, and gauchoed attendants bring skewers of freshly grilled Brazilian specialties to your table. If you don’t flip your coaster back to red, it can get overwhelming! And the experience is dramatic and fun.

They also serve these amazing cheese filled rolls that are so good, I think I ate 6.

Conversation was highly entertaining. Jill and Sandra discussed their recent theater roles, and where they hope to go next with their acting. We talked about Sandra’s current IB students, and the course she’s teaching these teachers how to teach. And of course, we talked about Lil Smudge, and Sandra’s highly entertaining husband Bruce.

I can’t believe I was even able to eat breakfast today.

This quarter, I’ve read 25 books, the fewest per quarter this year. In Q2, I read 32 books, and in Q1, 27. Of the 25 books, 19 were new, and 6 were re-reads.

This works out to a Q3 average of 8.3 books per month, 6.3 of them new. That’s down from Q2’s 10.7 books per month, 9 new, and a change from 9 per month but only 6 new in Q1.

That brings the current yearly total to 84 books, 64 new and 20
re-reads. Some of the re-reads were re-read more than once, and some of
the "new" books this year have already made it to the re-read list.

I think I’ve been reading less for 3 reasons: 1) Jill has been here the whole quarter. 2) I’m not traveling as much. 3) During part of this quarter, I was still in my first trimester and sleeping all the time.

This quarter, I’ve been reading mostly books by women. Only 20% of the books I read this quarter were by men, although I read several series or books by the same female authors. Male authors were 30% of the total number of authors.

Only 1 of the 25 books was by a person of color. I’m still not entirely comfortable with that, but it is a fact.

The genre breakdown is (with some overlap between categories):

Young Adult: 12
Literature (including Fantasy): 8
History & Essays: 4
Biography & Memoir: 1

"Lucky Me for Having Read Them" Books of the Quarter:

Florence King, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady - This is one of my all-time favorites, and even though I first read it in 1994, I have to recommend it again.

Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - It reminds me of Neal Stephenson’s work. High praise indeed.

Tamora Pierce, the whole Protector of the Small series - I found a new (to me) and wonderful Young Adult author.

"No, No, Don’t Make Me Read That, I’ll Confess, I’ll Do Anything" Book of the Quarter

Ellen Degeneres, The Funny Thing Is - What’s funny is how someone so lively and funny as a performer can be so painful as a writer. I think we’ve established that I will read almost anything. I even forced my way through The Kin, and I just couldn’t force my way through this book.

The lovely people at Libraries Unlimited are offering a generous 20% discount on Privacy In The 21st Century: Issues for Public, School, and Academic Libraries. They’re calling it "SPECIAL 20% Prepublication Discount (when ordering mention code F238) Offer
expires 9/30/05."

You can get that either by calling them directly at 1-800-225-5800 or online.

They also have a Speaker’s Bureau, which two of my co-authors have already joined. I’m working on the paperwork and on making sure that my employer is comfortable with my participation, and expect to be added to the Speaker’s Bureau by the end of the week.

Frankly, I’m really excited about getting to do some public speaking, especially if it helps promote the book. That’s the thing I miss the most about my previous life as a lobbyist. Except for getting stuck in California on September 11, 2001, I loved doing the CIPA Compliance workshops. The very best one was in Massachusetts, where I got to speak to a group of roughly 700 teachers, administrators, and school technology coordinators. But even the smaller ones with only 15-20 people were still fun.

I need to come up with a list of workshops I would be willing to offer. Obviously some sort of overview of privacy law for libraries, and maybe a separate one for school libraries…but I think there are others I could do too. Maybe Lobbying 101? The CIPA compliance issues have changed, so now the big thing school districts have to cope with is mountains of e-rate paperwork. Maybe I could tag-team with Aleck Johnson to revise that.

If you were a librarian or a school media & technology specialist interested in privacy issues, what would you want someone like me to talk about?

I was in New York for the weekend, which is part of how I got so much reading done. Lots of travel time, time in airports, and time in hotels. It was one of my better trips to NY, which is not a city I love.

The reason for my trip was Anna’s wedding shower & bachelorette party. I got into Manhattan on Saturday morning and met up with Anna and her friend Mary for brunch. Then Anna and I went on The Great Fabric Hunt.

If you look at me, you probably can’t tell that I’m pregnant. But I have reached the stage where my clothes are starting to not fit. Including the bridesmaid’s dress.

So we went looking matching fabric, with the intent of having gussets inserted into the dress, to make it bigger. We found a decent match at the 3rd or 4th fabric store; hopefully I won’t have trouble finding a tailor to make the alterations. We also bought new ribbon to match the trim.

Then we went back to change for the festivities. The shower was at Kathy’s apartment, which was bedecked in pink cloth and ribbons, and featured pink cupcakes, cosmopolitans, and a pink throne for Anna. The shower theme was lingerie, and Anna was forced to guess who sent which items. All my funny/trashy picks were erroneously attributed to Anna’s friend Jennie Sue, who, in fact, won the "porn star" award with her gift of furry, sequined panties. She also supplied glow in the dark clip-on earrings in the shape of penises, and fuchsia anal beads — which Anna wore as a bracelet.

Mary is a film student at UCLA, and made an amazing video montage of pictures of Anna and of Anna & Jason, including both cute and embarrassing photos, and wonderfully cheesy special effects. The video was the highlight of the shower. (Can you believe it topped the earrings?)

Around 7, we headed out to meet up with the bachelor party for a drink, and then it was dinner time — at LAST. (Have I mentioned that I am hungry ALL the time?) We went to the craziest Indian restaurant I’ve ever encountered. It was about 10×30 feet, and contained approximately 15,000 Christmas lights, which hang to head level while the diners sit. The food was amazing, and incredibly cheap.

Dinner finally wrapped up around 11, which is past my bedtime these days. So I headed back to my hotel room where I read for about 15 minutes and then crashed. Unfortunately, Lil Smudge did not enjoy the Indian food as much as I did, and I woke up with the worst heartburn I can remember. I was up from 2:30 until almost 5 am.

I woke up again around 9:30 and went in search of tea and a bagel, and discovered that I was half a block from the Gay Pride Parade route, although the parade didn’t start until noon. Still, given the bachelorettes’ plans, I figured I would have an hour or so to watch it, and I was right. More dykes on bikes and gay police officers than you can shake a stick at! Unfortunately, I let myself get a little dehydrated, and it took until this morning for me to feel fully back to "normal."

I had brunch again with Anna and Mary, before heading back to the airport and home. Unfortunately, my flight was delayed and I didn’t wind up home until late late late. Last night, I made up for it by going to bed at about 8:15 pm and sleeping through until 6 or so.