It looka like a…

Well, folks, we had the “official” ultrasound yesterday and we’re happy to report everything looks A-OK. I was so nervous I hardly slept the night before, and I drank enough water to drown the titanic for the ultrasound.

The ob-gyn said-(and she said this literally too, which was funny)–that “it looks like you’re going to have a hamburger”. I know there can always be errors on these things, but Chris was jumping for joy and squeezed the living daylights out of my hand!

The ob-gyn said our little baby was “very photogenic” and she was able to get a lot of good pics (which we’ll be posting up). It was so cute, she even yawned and stretched her little arms out at one point…
She was twisted up in some funky pretzel positions and moved around A LOT…which is funny because I still don’t feel too much kicking on the inside yet.

We are so relieved that the baby looks healthy. Seeing her on the big screen made it all the more real, that this kid is coming into OUR life. Pretty damn awesome. Chris is over the moon with happiness.
A daughter…somebody please pray for me!!! 🙂

Very Late Ministry Post

This is a very last post about the Ministry concert we saw in Montreal a few weeks ago. I have been listening to Ministry since I was in High School and when I heard they where on a farewell tour I just had to go. In recent years, front man Al Jourgensen has had some very political songs and even more of late. So we went to see them at the Metrolpolis at Montreal.

The Venue itself was great. There was a general “moshin” section and a smaller balcony section. The great thing is that after the moshin section each section rose up a foot or two letting anywhere in the place have a great view. The sound system was also top notch.

Opening for Ministry was hemlock. I was very impressed by this band. They just got a record deal after 12 years and where very excited about it. Being the first opener is tough but they managed well and where humble about it, and really had an energetic set. Not the typically music I like since it was a cross between speed metal and death metal but the fact they where talking to the audience a lot made it great.

2nd opener was Meshuggah and I was not impressed. Though they had much more songs to play the lead singer just stood in one spot the entire set. He also did not say much, call it strike 2. I am sure they are good on a CD or such but their live show, at least this time was not that good.

Ministry came on and it was just an amazing show. I don’t even know where to start but to say the band was great and Al was more then amazing. They had a multi-media screen in back of Al and they played some images to go along with the video. That made some of the political songs even more powerful. The sound was great and the band was one of the tightest we have seen. They played a lot of good songs but several older songs where not played in the first set. After what was a long time they where done and I was amazed at how quickly the time went. Luckily they came back for another set and played several of their classic songs. What was amazing is they played a LOOONG encore which was rare. They even had the guy from fear factory at one point since and no less than 6 guitarist on stage made it a night to remember.
In all I was sad it was the last time I would see Ministry but reminded me why they have been able to be around for 20+ years and still sell out venues. They just are amazing live and seem to get better and stay current to their audience.

Boo Belly in Boston weekend-Sat. writeup

Chris and I had a nice weekend bumming around (or, in my case, waddlingaround) Boston, and adding a few more bands to our roster.

Chris’ sister was gone out of town for the weekend and was nice enough to let us spend the whole weekend at her apartment. It’s in a beautiful brownstone on Beacon street (2 blocks from the swanky Newbury St.), overlooking the Back Bay. It is sweeeeeet!!! It was fun pretending we lived in this swanky area for the weekend….although I’m sure we stuck out like sore thumbs.

The neighborhood was amazing, and it was nice to be only a block or 2 to great restaurants and the T stop.

We enjoyed the sunshine and ate at some nice places: Kashimir (good Indian food, apparently it’s well known for being a hookah lounge too! But no puffin’ for this pregger…), Trident cafe (a little bookstore with a kickass cafe–apparently an underground gem in Boston–they had great smoothies, momos (vegetarian Thai dumplings), and interesting lattes (I had one made with soymilk and Rooibos tea).
I had a few ice cream cravings over the weekend, so we induldged at J.P. Licks and Emack and Bolio’s. Good stuff, baby! Just helping that big belly get even bigger…

Sat. we went to the True Colors Tour at the Bank of American Pavilion near the Wharf in Boston. The tour was to benefit the Human Rights Campaign (LGBT rights). The lineup was great! The Cliks were as awesome as usual and won even more fans. AND….we got to MEET them!! They were super nice, Lucas loved Chris’ leg tattoo and we told them that we saw them in Noho…they humbly thanked us and shook our hands and chatted for a few seconds. And they signed our tickets! We love them even more…

We weathered the thunderstorms (thank goodness we had covered seating this time!) and watched Regina Spektor (she was cute, OK live, but a bit too “low key” compared to the rest of the lineup).

Oh, did I mention the tour was “hosted” by Carson Kressly from Queer Eye? He was hilarious, doing standup between acts and changing into crazy outfits–sparkly shoes, checkered leather pants and all…

The next act was the most fun–the B-52s!! Even after all these years, they still have it GOING ON…and they were a TOTAL BLAST!!!! you can’t NOT move and see them live, you just can’t! They sang all the oldies but goodies, like “Rock Lobster (or as the Bostonians said “Lobstaaaah”), “Round the World”, and “Love Shack”, as well as stuff from their new album “Funplex”. The redhead and the guy were in good shape, but the blonde girl looked like the years had been a bit rough to her. She still had a good voice though. I had always hoped to see the B-52s live at least once in my life, so I was happy my dream came true.

Rosie O’Donnell came on stage for a brief intermission and did some standup, and talked about adopting as a lesbian.

Cyndi Lauper headlined the tour and apparently started the idea of the tour, this is it’s second year. She is so tiny in person, with a hilarious thick Long Island accent. But she was very cool. Although Chris and I aren’t HUGE fans of her music, she put on a great, energetic show and eveyrone loved it. She still has the same energy as her crazy, pink haired, newspaper dress days (you gotta love her for always being herself!).

It was a great night and the atmosphere there was extremely friendly and supportive–it was nice to be a part of something like that.

chris is going to post about Sunday in a bit!

Well Well Well…

My belly has officially crossed the “boob boundary line”–meaning IT sticks out more than THEM. So I officially can’t hide it anymore, I’m hardcore preggers.

June 4th is our big ultrasound date, where we find out, as my good friend Leah puts it, “whether we’re having a hotdog or hamburger”. Really, we’ll be happy with either, but I know deep down Chris is hoping for that wee little girl. We’ll be in deep doo-doo for sure with her, but if everyone could, out of solidarity for dear Christopher, send some “girlie” vibes our way, that would be nice. He does deserve it for putting up with me.

Memorial weekend was busy but nice. Chris got inked a bit more (more work on the neverending Nightmare leg sleeve–he got Lock, Shock and Barrel in a tub-it looks awesome!), we visited both sets of parents and got lots of belly touching. My sister came down from NJ and we got to spend time with the nephews, which was heaven. They are SO cute. Can’t believe Jeremy will be turning 2 in a week! He is so funny, copying everything everyone says.

We also did some planting in our miniscule flower garden. I hope we’ll have a little bit of rain tonight to tend to it!

Montreal Weekend= we heart this place!

After hearing that Ministry was performing their final tour, and that they would be performing in Montreal, Chris and I decided to take the trek up there and spend a lovely long weekend in our new favorite city.
Here are a few reasons we decided to make the trip to Montreal:

1. It is only a four hour drive for us, and it’s a chance to say we went out of the country!

2. With the crappy weakness of the dollar against the euro, it’s unlikely we’ll get to travel to Europe anytime soon. Montreal gives you a little taste of Europe and a chance to practice French for a lot cheaper!

3. Ministry was playing their FINAL tour, and Chris always wanted to see them.

We arrived in Montreal Friday night and stayed at the Hotel St.-Denis, an excellent choice for both location and price. An entire long weekend’s stay, right in the heart of the city, in a nice, BIG room was less than 200 U.S. dollars (try finding a price like THAT in NYC for even one night!!). It was in the ultra-hip, modern Latin Quarter, right down the street from a million great restaurants and venues, as well as the largest metro station from which all trains ran from (less than half a block from our hotel). The venue at which we were seeing Ministry was half a block away too!
There was nothing skeevy about the hotel, and included in the price was free breakfast at a lovely cafe next door every morning. Instead of the usual stale danish continental breakfast fare, we got to eat yummy eggs benedict, cafe au lait and yogurt parfaits.

We discovered some neat, inexpensive places such as the CineRoboteque. The cineroboteque is a cinema run by the national film board of canada, featuring hundreds of independent films in every genre imaginable. Films ranged from 3 minutes to 3 hours long (most of them under 10 minutes), and you could purchase units of viewing time (at the cheap price 3 dollars per hour, 1 dollar for kids), and view as many films as you wanted in that alloted time. They gave you 15 minutes free viewing time on your first visit, enough to watch a couple short independent films for nothing. The theater was set up as a giant room with several “viewing stations” that seated 2 people at a time. You sat in big comfy chairs that had speakers in the ears, and you could move the speakers close to your ears so you could listen in peace without hearing other people’s films. You purchased units of time up front and they’d set up a viewing station for you. You’d enter a code and from a screen you’d view a robot selecting your choice and loading it into the system. You could view any film in English or French; we saw some really cute animated ones!

We discovered a wonderful vegetarian restaurant right around the corner from the cinema. It was a vegetarian buffet with everything imaginable, ALL organic and ALL stuff we could eat! It didn’t look like your typical scary buffet either, it was clean and classy. We were in heaven, and we liked it so much that we ate there twice over the weekend.

It came as a surprise to us that, for a relatively big city, Montreal really didn’t have much of a city attitude. In the time that we were there, most people smiled at us and made eye contact. On a crowded street, no one shoved each other to get by. On the metro, we witnessed people offering their seats for the elderly or people with children. We remained guarded as when traveling any city, but really we were surprised by the friendliness and warmth of most people. I tried to practice my french as much as possible, but whenever I ran into a roadblock, the person I was speaking to almost always politely offered to speak in English instead to help.
Even the Starbucks staff in Montreal was friendly, no arrogance or impatience!
Even at a crowded and noisy metal concert like Ministry, people excused themselves when passing by each other, chatted amicably with strangers and even gently picked fallen comrades up if they fell in the moshpit.
What is it about Montreal that does this to a person?? And why can’t we borrow some of this attitude in the states? No place is perfect, but Montreal sure seemed a step ahead attitude-wise.

On Saturday morning it was raining something awful, and we read about a place called the Biodome , which sounded like the perfect place to spend a rainy afternoon.
The Biodome is an amazing infrastructure that houses wild animals (particularly enangered species), and tries to closely mimic their habitat. There are several ‘climates’ that you can walk through in the Biodome, ranging from rainforest to Polar. It was incredible to see the animals in such an open setting–wild birds flew overhead us and we spotted marmosets climbing trees. There were all kinds of fascinating things to see, from wild plants and bugs, to fruit bats, anacondas and swimming otters.
It looked like a great place to take kids, as there was a ton of activities centered for young ones, with a focus on environmental awareness. The proceeds from admission go to maintaining the sanctuary.
The Biodome was definitely an awesome way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Later that evening we grabbed a quick dinner and headed to the Metropolis to see Ministry. Chris offered to do a writeup about the concert, so he will add that later. All in all it was a wild time and the venue was great. The best part was only having to walk a half a block back to our hotel after the show!
The scariest thing we came across was finding that the streets were flooded with riot police before the show. We wondered why? but then we found out that the Stanley Cup playoffs were happening, and the riot police were stationed at every bar downtown, because if it’s one thing Canadians can go crazy over, it’s their hockey!
They are so die-hard about their hockey that at the Ministry concert, a television played the playoff in between the sets.
We were terrified that we would be in the midst of a massacre, but we were glad to find the streets calm and quiet on our walk home–even though Canada lost!!

Sunday morning, the streets were quiet and rainy (not to mention COLD!). After breakfast we checked out and grabbed coffee and a croissant at an amazing bakery that specializes in food from Lyon, France called “La Brioche Lyonnaise”. It truly was a little taste of Lyon and it brought back memories.

Then we bid a fond “au revior” to Quebec. On the way home we stopped by to visit some good friends who live in the Burlington area–it was great to see them and to catch up.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend, even if the weather didn’t cooperate!

In other news, i’m starting to get a real belly. We’ll be posting pics of our weekend up soon, and you’ll see!

Dan Deacon Delirium

This past Thursday night we went to one of the most bizarre concerts we have ever been too–AND one of the most fun.
If you’ve never before heard of Dan Deacon, read on, brothas and sistas…

I first discovered Dan Deacon in the Pitchfork top 100 albums of the year review–he was hailed as the most unusual but deserving candidate for the top 10 spot, and his music was described as “experimental electronica that would border on chintzy if it weren’t so expertly put together…Dan Deacon is a spreader of silly joy….”

So I decided to give his album a listen on Yahoo. I had no idea what to think at first. Then I wanted to stop listening and call the editors of Pitchfork to tell them they were crazy. The first song was a continuous loop of Woody Woodpecker set to video-game like background noise. It was kind of maddening… The songs that followed sounded as bizarre as their titles, “Silly Hat vs. Eagle Hat”, “Pizza Horse”, and “Snake Mistakes”. Who was this guy, and what was he thinking?

But, the more I listened, a funny thing happened…the more I LIKED it. The more I couldn’t get it out of my head! The more the silliness grew on me and I thought those Pitchfork folks just might be right, that this music is an unusual work of genius. So I found myself becoming a fan. I told Chris to listen to the album, and at first HE thought I was crazy…but then HE couldn’t stop listening to it either! In fact, he listened to it more than I did!

So when we heard that Dan Deacon was performing at Pearl Street, we felt we just had to go and meet this mysterious man behind the weird music.

In person, Dan looked even weirder than his music. He was the epitome of geek, with giant spectacles that covered half his face. He was chubby, balding and wore an ensemble that looked like he swiped it off the Salvation Army clearance rack–rolled up sweatpants, neon socks and all. But he had an endearing quality to him; there was no hint of pretentiousness about him, despite the cult following he had and his underground electronica fame. He mingled with the crowd during both opening acts, shook hands and made jokes. He ordered beer-and had to pay for it-at the bar like everyone else. He even used the sketchy bathroom that everyone else used. In fact, some people didn’t even seem to know who he was. He apologized profusely after bumping into a girl who obviously had no idea it was him.
He just was a giant, nerdy teddy bear you wanted to squeeze.

The first opener, Eric Hnatow, was a Noho native who had impressive energy. His music sounded as catchy and offbeat as a Super Mario brothers game. He got a little weird with his wild dancing at the end, but overall he was fun and got the crowd going.

Speaking of the crowd–quite possibly the best part of going to a Dan Deacon show was the people watching. People were doing every kind of crazy dance you could imagine, particularly this one young kid we nicknamed “Chicken guy”, and his aptly-named partner “Senor Rubber Legs”. There was all kinds of crazy dress too: a guy wearing a superman shirt, a giant red cowboy hat and blue spandex pants; a guy with a giant curly sue wig on, and a guy dressed in head-to-toe plaid, with a paperboy hat and some impressive mutton chops.

The second act was Future Islands, whom we weren’t really impressed with, so we won’t waste time talking about them.

When it was Dan’s turn to take the stage, he wheeled out this little homemade cart of his electronic gear, covered with colored duct tape. He spent a good amount of time setting up-amongst the crowd and not above us on stage, which was suprising. He even mounted a giant green glow-in the dark skull on his table. All the while he was setting up, he blasted Salt and Pepa’s “Shoop” over the speakers and danced like a dog rubbing up against a cactus (his own description of his dancing, not ours).

The show that was to follow was an hour and a half of sheer silliness and fun. For as many concerts as we have been too, we’ve never seen such collective energy from any crowd (even with Bjork!!!). It was suprising and it made us see just how much of a cult following Dan really had.

He played an amazing, fun set and got everyone involved. He even staged a “dance off” between opposite sides of the room (the rules were you had to look your opponent in the eye and dance the craziest dance you’ve ever danced, all while keeping a straight face and not chickening out if you’re picked to go next). Later on, he had everyone in the room do a “sassy love train” kind of dance around the room. No one could stop laughing. He entertained us with jokes about himself and funny anecdotes and rants in between songs.

He ended his set with a 12 minute long ditty called “Wham City” whose lyrics involve a bear who starts a band with other animals and who sings about sharks and castles and swords”–it made NO sense at all but it was a fun finale.

Overall the energy that he set off was infectious, and his lovable geek-hero demeanor made us love him even more.

Yup, as crazy as it sounds we’ve become one of those fans, and we’d definitely go see him again if he comes back to the area.

Spring is here!

We saw the first daffodils poking up out of the ground on our walk around town today. The pall of gloom that was winter finally seems to have lifted!

This past Friday I had another ob-gyn appointment and Chris and I heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time! It took the midwife FOREVER to find it because the little guy (Now about the size of a peach I am told, so we’ve been calling it “li’l peach”) was jumping all around–sounds like a typical spawn of me :).

Nothing really makes you more aware of the life within you as the sound of that little thump-thumping…

Forgot to add about the Cliks concert that the lead singer, Lucas, is transgendered, and had a very touching story (and cool tattoo) on L.A Ink. Unfortunately it seems that due to his “lifestyle choice” he seems to be far underrated as a music artist. That is just a shame because the Cliks blew us away with their talent, and they were friendly and humble to boot. They met a 13 year old boy Danny at one of their concerts and heard he was a pretty good guitar player. Well they invited him to finish the rest of their tour with them and play on stage during a couple of their songs–they treated this kid like he was royalty, and he was on cloud 9! Not to mention he was amazing on the guitar.
Ok that’s all I wanted to add. Peace out and happy spring!

The Clicks, second times is a CHARM!

We went to see the The Clicks last night which was amazing. They canceled the first time in February due to the lead singer having voice problem which happens so we where crossing our fingers this time. Jen Tobey’s Alter-Ego opened up for The Clicks at Pearl Street and Jen and Band where really good. From their myspace page they sounded folksy, but live they where not. Their songs where good and most of the band members looked geeky (one I swear must be a computer network guy) and they where very entertaining. Usually at pearl street we don’t worry about showing up for the opener but this time I was glad we did.

Not too long after Jen Tobey’s Alter-Ego was done The Clicks came on. They are amazing live and very humble. They have risen a LOT in the last couple months and playing much bigger places and tours (true colors tour) and it was amazing to see them in such a small venue. The lead singer really puts a ton of emotion into singing which makes the songs sound so full. The band mates joked with each other on stage, did a little posing for camera, and just generally where amazing. Hate to keep using the work amazing but they really a site to see.

On a site note, last week when we where watching LA Ink we saw the lead singer getting a tattoo. Kathy was actually the one to spot it, since their was no mention to what band they belonged to. Good spot Kathy spotting Lucas .

theCLIKS
Lucas Silveira – Vocals/Guitar
Nina Martinez – Guitar
Jen Benton – Bass
Morgan Doctor – Drums

Scary day.

I had a very scary morning at work. We were going over the day’s charts in our morning huddle when all of a sudden I felt hot and like the room was closing in on me. I started to lose vision, and the next thing I know I was on the floor with my boss standing over me and my coworkers surrounding me.
I guess I fainted.
That has NEVER happened to me before.
During this pregnancy I’ve been eating plenty and I thought drinking enough fluids and all. I did eat a good breakfast that morning and I felt perfectly fine up until that moment. Only a few seconds before I was joking around with my coworkers!
I can’t believe how nicely everyone handled my fainting-thank God they were all around when it happened.
Kim, our receptionist, saw that I was falling and she caught hold of me and placed me gently on the floor (I was wondering why I wasn’t aching all over when I came to!). Kelly, one of the assistants, grabbed my glasses for me before I fell, and Brooke, the other hygienist, caught my charts as I was falling, so I didn’t spill them all over the place.
I was so embarrased when I came to, but everyone was so sweet and concerned. They made me sit down and got me some gatorade. Janet, my boss told me she’d reschedule the days patients and she just wanted me to rest at home.
Kim joked, “You’re not pregnant, are you??”
It wasn’t the way I expected to tell them, but I felt now was as good a time as ever. I was afraid of how the news would be received, but everyone was happy and understanding! I told my boss I still was hoping to work for her after my pregnancy leave, and she was fine with it.

They had me rest at work for a while and then told me to call my ob-gyn when I went home. They called later to check up on me and make sure I was OK.
Later on in the afternoon, they even sent me a bouquet of daffodils and a card! I felt so touched that they were so good to me.

My ob-gyn said that I should just rest today and get plenty of fluids and food. She said sometimes that happens (I know Leah talked about a similar scary event!).
I am just hoping this does NOT happen again. But thank God it didn’t happen while I was working on a patient!!

A weekend in Killington

Chris and I spent a weekend in snowy Killington with his sister and four of our friends. Chris’ sister’s friend owns a nice ski cottage near Killington and was nice enough to let all of us stay there.
We spent most of the weekend bumming around and sitting by the fireplace, playing games and chilling out. It was heavenly, despite the freezing temperatures outside!
Jen’s friend had everything you could possibly need in her cabin, including a washer and drier, a huge kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a hot tub.

A couple of our friends went skiing on Saturday but I couldn’t go (for obvious reasons). I’ve actually never skied before in my life. How strange is that? One of these days, after the baby of course, I’ll have to give it a try. I’m NOT graceful so it should be interesting!

Chris got some more of his Nightmare before Christmas tattoo done on Friday before we drove up north. He’s still in a bit of discomfort but it’s looking great (pics to come!).

And in other news, I had my very first ultrasound. It was neat to see little fingers and toes–and a tail! (Hope that goes away 🙂 ).
The doctor told me I have a heart-shaped uterus, but that there is nothing to be concerned about with that. How odd though. Just means I have a lot of love to share I guess 🙂

I’ll see if I can upload the pics of the ultrasound–I’m about 10 weeks along with a due date around Oct. 30th, and the baby’s about the size of an olive right now!