Love

Nou

Yes, we found out a while ago actually...
Our basketball is a girl!
And what a spoiled, gorgeous, sweet little thing she will be!

Hamid stood next to me during the ultrasound, his hand on my belly and tears in his eyes when the midwife looked up at him and announced 'You're going to have a daughter!' He broke my heart with those tears (in the best possible way).

Belly

The advent calendar

My mom was always one of those crafy people who loved holiday decorations just about as much as my brother and I did when we were little. She would deck our house out with all manner of homemade bling; Easter, Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween - each warranted some serious effort even in our tiny three bedroom house in Ravenna. But of all the birthdays and holidays to mark the passing months each year nothing compared to Christmas. Christmas was like a wonderland in our house, with the living room overflowing with not only a tree and the requisite presents but a whole family of Santas and enough reindeer to turn Christmas night delivery into FedEx, nativity scenes, whatnots and so much stuff I honestly can't even remember all of it. One item in particular stands out in memory though - a handmade advent calendar. My brother and I would take turns each day during December pinning one of the tiny, ornately sequinned felt ornaments to their little tree. One ornament at a time we'd make our way toward the big holiday, practically peeing our pants in excitement over the gifts that just kept piling up. We fought each and every year over the gold star tucked into the 24th pocket - a promise of everything we anticipated.

I haven't had that feeling of incurable and endless *waiting* since I was about ten, and never have I felt such a pure version since a childhood Christmas, at least not until now. We're visiting with our midwife on Monday again, in just four days. I'll be just into my 17th week and we've decided to try to work out just who it is that's hanging out in there. After hearing the heartbeat at our last visit and oohing and aahing over the tiny littly body floating around in the flotsam and jetsam of my insides we realized we both really, really do want to know. So now, I'm waiting. Counting down the days; hopelessly trying to bend time....and I have been ever since I made the appointment 20 days ago...

I feel like a six year old - waiting for Christmas.

Defrosted

Our trip to Florida was such a wonderful break from the freezing chill that permeates Arizona's deserts during the winter as well as a great opportunity for my grandfather to meet my husband. My grandfather, whom I adore but haven't seen in ages what with the oceans and continents between us, and who has apparently saved every single thing I've written over the past few years; both blogs and emails.

Now, there was actually a blog here, right here, on thesuperheavy - years before this one - it was before I knew anything about websites or had a brainy husband to build a proper blog program for me, so I bought the domain and kept it at a place called Angelfire which had all kinds of templates and goodies for the HTML-deficient me. That blog was fairly short-lived and deleted quite purposefully, I even let the domain go for a few years in between - although if you work really, really hard you *can* actually find a few meager bits and pieces of it, clinging to digital life like things on the net seem to do - however old, however useless.

Honestly, I don't want to find it. I know it's there, but I don't want to read it. I throw away remnants of the past the way other people throw out vegetable peels - without mercy, without hesitation, and certainly without nostalgia and I did my best to delete that old account but apparently missed a few "click here's". I don't have boxes of yesterday, virtual or otherwise, tucked away anywhere and I like it that way. Imagine my surprise then when I was presented with a manila folder stuffed with years and years of things I've long since forgotten, things I deleted when I decided it was better to forget, things I don't want to read, or touch, or remember. Things I don't want to know about myself.

That folder, I imagine, will mean something to me later - when I'm older and more comfortable in my own skin; and it was, is, an incredibly sweet gesture. My grandfather's tiny, beautiful wife thrusting the folder at me while she showers me with compliments, urges me to write a book. I love that they've kept that part of my life for me, if only because it's the kind of thing that family members do and I'm a sucker for those few-and-far-between familial "movie moments" - but for now, I've left it behind. Anyway, there's another couple years of thesuperheavy they'll be printing and stuffing into that folder labeled 'TESS'. One day, I hope I'll be able appreciate it's contents. Maybe.

A good excuse to buy a new one

I want to be one of those women who goes around gushing (with the requisite rosy glow), "Oh, I just *love* being pregnant!" and I try, I really really do. But I think most people look at a pregnant woman, especailly one who is barely even showing yet, and assume that any whinging about nausea and the other fabulous side effects of literally growing another human person are easily enough dealt with. Well, let me fill you in on a little bit of reality.

Pregnancy is a gorgeous thing, and it's sincerely fun even with the gallons of hormones taking over every single bodily function, even with the terrifying thickening of my waist and the slowly rising bump on my previously very flat stomach. It's amazing and wonderful and it brings tears to my eyes when I think about what's going on in there but - and oh, this is a big, big qualifier....

Remember all the times you drank too much at a party and went home to sprawl on your bed (or the bathroom floor), sick as hell to your stomach, praying that you wouldn't toss it all, praying for sleep, praying for a sober morning? Well, that's how I feel pretty much 24 hours a day without the benefit of having been to a party. I do still manage to get things done and thank God daily that I work from home, always in awe of the pregnant women who must drag themselves out of bed and off to 40 hours a week of exhausted, nauseous pregnant working-for-someone-else hell. Some days, for me, are better than others. Some hours are better than others. Yesterday is an example of one of the worst days thus far.

As I approach the end of my first trimester (the second three months officially starts on January 29th!) things have started to, shall we say - intensify. In short, I feel like a percolator and am literally at the mercy of my stomach. Most days I spend all day exactly where I am right now - on the couch, working in my pajamas. But yesterday we went out to lunch. Now, I don't know if this baby just doesn't like stuffed mushrooms or what but ten minutes into the ride back home and I was panicked. I knew what was coming and was totally unprepared for it at all. I mean, I feel funky all the time but it rarely comes to fruition. But yesterday the nausea graduated into a desperate need to be rid of my lunch. I'll spare you the details other than to say that my very expensive purse doubled as a catchall (and finished it's short life all in the same breath).

The one good thing I will say is that the bag, a large hobo style, was big enough to allow me to fit my whole entire head inside during the ten minutes or so that I was um...busy...which at least spared me the humiliation of publicity. And actually, now that I think about it, there was one other fortuitous, relative, event. When I'd gotten in the car I'd dropped the housekey into one of the cup holders between the two front seats, rather than into the very deep bottom of my bag, as I usually would - saving me the trouble of having to...find it...once we got home.

Needless to say the bag has been laid to rest in our garbage can. I wonder if the nice people at Coach give anything in the way of 'hardship refunds'?

Hey...guess what!

I would just *love* to pop in here after all this time and wax eloquent on the most fabulous thing to happen for Hamid and I, ever, but I've been simultaneously celebrating and holding down the urge to lose whatever meager portions of food I've been able to eat the past few weeks.
Morning sickness is a myth. There's nothing 'morning' about it. It's all nausea, all the time. But, I've never been so thrilled to feel so crummy in all my life.

We're pregnant! We expect our little friend to join us sometime the first two weeks of August in '08. If you care to read through days and days worth of lists of what I could or couldn't manage to eat, punctuated by the random bump photo, accompanied by equally lengthy lists of what I'm reading or buying respectively - click here.

Future Perfect

I don't know if it's just the almost-ten pounds I've gained the past month and a half since we got here or if it's a prelude to what my friend Alana describes as "canteloupe" hard breasts (when the milk comes in), but my boobs really *hurt*. Alot. And they're really, really heavy.
It happens every once in a while during my cycle, usually right in the middle, and only for a few days. But it's been like this for about a week and I did have a twinge of nausea this morning - but that could just as easily have been that awful hunger-puke feeling that comes on in an early morning after eating too much the night before.

We don't know if we're pregnant, but we're hoping. Not any kind of 'I expect the universe to deliver on my command' kind of hoping, but hoping enough that we're having in-depth conversations about my personal feelings about our children being vegetarian (at lesat until they express a strong opinion in the matter) and whether or not we want to have a TV (which we don't now, and don't ever want, truthfully.) We're going down the list - deciding to homeschool, etc. I'm going to be a regular hippie mama...that's OK with me. Hippies can still be fashionably fabulous and have excellent taste in art and music, right?

Anyway, I've got a slew of books on the shelf - almost all of them started, many finished already. This is what I'm reading at the moment or have read:

"Ina May's Guide to Natural Childbirth" - *loved* it, read it in about three days and called immediately afterwards to see about being accepted for birthing at The Farm. (They said yes!) This book has so many gorgeous birth stories. Just reading it made me want to try more often. Hamid likes this book too for the same reason.

"Birthing From Within" - I haven't started this one yet, actually...

- I don't like this book so far. It's supposed to be catchy and modern but it ends up being kind of annoying and is mostly about things you shouldn't eat.

"Adventures in Natural Childbirth" - Full of great stories about women who chose their own birthing methods. I skipped to the end to read the chapter on unassisted birth (aside from the partner). Wow! I have daydreams... I need to go back and read this book from the beginning.

"Husband Coached Childbirth" - This book was mentioned in many other books and I wanted to see what it could offer us. So far it's a bit boring but any book that encourages and informs the family on how to have the father as immersed in the birth as possible is worth reading!

I'm also getting back into my serious-vegetarian, ultra-healthy mindframe. I have already read "Diet for a New America" years ago. It hurt my feelings so much at the time; to read in-depth about how deeply we are scarring this planet and how abused animals are; but completely bolstered my desire to remain veg. I ordered it at Hamid's request,actually - after we watched "Supersize Me". I can't say I'm working on him to be veg too because that's not fair, but what I do want is for it to be easier for him to support my decision to raise our children vegetarian/vegan.

I just recently ordered and received "Skinny Bitch", it's a girl's guide to getting skinny via vegetarianism and is essentially a condensed version of "Diet for a New America" with bad words and lots of punchy lines designed to shock lazy women out of their McDonald's reverie (and subsequently, their "fat asses".) It's a great book and tonight after Hamid insisted that "...you have to at least give them milk..." I opened "Skinny Bitch" to the chapter on dairy, read the whole thing aloud and by the time I was done (it's a relatively brief book overall, the entire chapter took about ten minutes) he was nodding his head in agreement.

But veg or non-veg, my boobs still hurt and no amount of reading is going to change that.

I don't even know where to start

I am absolutely overwhelmed by the idea of how to articulate these last few weeks...it's impossible really.

Assume the following:
We got through our flights, customs, and immigration procedures just fine. All three of us are here - and no, Mooshy did not have to go through quarantine (a major "HA!" to everyone who sent me their horror stories about having to leave their dogs behind for months at a time...dooms-dayers are an inexplicable breed but I'm sticking by my 'assume it will all work out and it just might' philosophy.)

My parents are so much cooler than I remember.

The house I'd booked was *not* fabulous. It did not have a vineyard. It did not have internet. It did not have a view. It didn't even have proper water. It felt like the third world all over again. It did have goats, lots of dust, and a creepy RV full of shoes parked in the uh...'garden'.

We got our deposit back and moved into a hotel. This was kind of cool actually because the hotel did have interet and a swimming pool. We felt like we were on holiday and got lots of work done at the same time.

We found a gorgeous new house with an amazing view of the most insane orange and pink desert sunsets - and it's only five streets from my parents' winter home.

We've been busy catching up on work, dealing with ridiculous ongoing server issues (which finally seem to be under control; keep your fingers crossed!), and just getting used to being here. I feel like a foreigner but I like it that way. I don't ever want to get so comfortable anywhere that I forget how the rest of the world actually lives.

We're trying for a baby! We've been waiting for ages and it's time!
And I've just gotten off the phone with The Farm, an intentional community in smack-dab-middle-of-nowhere-Tennessee where we're going to go for prenatal care, a home-birth midwifery, and postnatal care. Who'd have guessed I'd ever willingly choose to go live in the deep South!? Truthfully, I'd go anywhere for the kind of birthing experience these women create.
The Farm is such an amazing concept - it's actually alot like the intentional community I lived in in India. The Farm desperately needs a new website, but you can check it out here to get an idea of what our life will be like in a few short months; well...as soon as we're pregnant anyway.


OK - not exactly the most poetic entry ever but there's no way I can wax eloquent about all the things we've been thinking and feeling lately.
XO from Arizona, U.S.A.!

P.S. McDonald's seems to have taken over the planet while I was away...does this frighten anyone else, or is it just me?

Like a camel through the eye of a needle

People have been asking me left and right if I'm nervous about going back to the States after four years out. The question started appearing in emails and phone conversations around two months ago, right about the time we bought our plane tickets. I always answered 'No.', and quite truthfully at that. I've never been one to anticipate a future feeling and live in it unnecessarily for weeks on end beforehand, preferring instead to do my best to pretend that everything is quite normal, at least until the last possible minute.

Well, it's hit me finally. And while I can't really say I'm nervous I'm having a hard time finding what is the right word for the butterflies that have once again taken up residence on my insides. I do know that as a result of all this I am in constant motion; I cannot sit still. I think this is what the experts call 'mania'.

Naturally, I had us half packed weeks ago. The rest of our stuff is still strewn about the house in utter chaos; picking it all up somewhere on my list of to-do's but not quite making it to the forefront yet. There have been other, more important things to worry about than the state of our house. We microchipped the dog and got his papers stamped at the American Embassy where they peered at me through the plexiglass inquisitively and asked, perplexed, 'You're exporting a dog??' To which I replied, 'Yes, a little Indian street dog.' which didn't exactly unfurrow any brows. But they shrugged and stamped and smiled and sent me on my way $50 lighter. One more thing ticked off the list.

Actually, my most anxiety-inducing concern and the biggest butterfly of all is Mooshy. I hate to think of him in the belly of an airplane (three airplanes, actually if you count the flight to Bangkok from here and the flight from LAX to Vegas.) and stuck in his kennel for a good 24 hours. We did have the good sense to take a hotel room near the airport in L.A. that first night as the last thing I want is to see my parents again after eons looking like a big dishevelled mess of a daughter. And I have no way of even estimating just how long it's going to take us to get through customs and immigration - with an imported street dog and an Iranian husband I anticipate something of an extended remix bordering on trauma.

For now, I've got three days to check off the rest of the items on my list; not the least of which is handwashing the rest of our laundry. We donated our washing machine to a local charity and so I'm back to bucket and hand to get the job done. It's an exercise in humility to be sure...wringing out sopping shirts and shorts with all the force my pathetic little hands can muster. A fitting tribute to my life in the third world. I'm dreaming, ridiculously, of a set of Kenmores.

Dog money

Mooshy struts around the house like he's some kind of mob boss; insisting his entitlement to all things human. I try to remind him once in a while with half a bottle of water dumped over his head that *I* am the original gangster but he is generally nonplussed.

Otherwise, the little mongrel is turning out to be fairly well trained - perhaps the snipping action had something to do with it after all (now there's a thought - emasculation made him smarter...there's a thesis in there somewhere I'm sure.) Whatever the reason, he suddenly understands 'sit', 'lay down', 'go outside', 'time for bed', 'find your ball', 'shake', 'hide and seek', and a number of other good-dog things. Hamid and I showcase Mooshy's skills to eachother daily and marvel over how terribly smart and cute he is. Like all dog parents we think our very own is the best and brightest of the breed, and as far as I'm concerned he is, except for the fact that he won't actually do *anything* we ask of him unless there's food involved.

Toward a semblance of order in the house we buy five dollar bags of gigantic dried strips of buffalo meat, his favorite bedtime snack; now referred to in sing-song, whenever we really do need him to listen, as 'beefalo'. Mooshy's mafioso attitude melts to pliable tail wagging furball whenever a chunk of beefalo is presented. Beefalo, I have discovered, is the currency of love in these parts. It's how I buy his cooperation. Where just a minute ago he was happily ignoring my increasingly anxious requests to stop jumping on the nice (frightened) man who came to deliver our water; now, like a paid stooge he waits, meek at calf level, sniffing anxiously after the dead beast in my pocket. Not so tough after all; easily bought. The man heaves 20 litres of water at us and scoots out through the garden gates just as fast as his little legs will carry him. Mooshy, blissfully unaware that his victim is escaping, noshes on his fix. Peace reigns supreme. For now.

Pray for us sinners

The phone rang last night. It was Iran calling. Hamid's parents have returned home from Mecca and relayed a story so sweetly profound and full of love I couldn't help but adore them all the more.

As it turns out, there was a whole lot more than praying going on in the Middle East's holiest city this past week. Hdmis's mother bought a little set of baby boy clothes and then went early in the morning to the Kabbah to bless the tiny outfit with a gentle rub against the ancient stones.

I find myself overwhelmed by this gesture of devotion for a child who has yet to amount to even a single divided cell.

Amazing.

The Kingdom of the Blonde Ninja

I realize the title of this post isn't going to make any sense at all to anyone who reads this blog with the exception of my husband who will understand all too well, and that's OK with me. On to bigger and better things that do make sense.

I never write about business here, aside from the random screenshot of a few websites I've colored in and like, but as is evidenced by my glaring lack of posts for three entire weeks, business is good. We've been busy building our empire, not to mention doing behind-the-scenes work on a number of other people's empires. It's fun, this business stuff and I'm as shocked at myself as I've ever been to discover I have a real talent for it, but there it is.

I went from disdaining the very idea of work (I mean, shouldn't I just be paid to be alive? Come on...) to being literally addicted to the growth of our business. We've moved in the last year to a referral *only* based practice, which means no more wild-cards in the deck of our clientele. It's safe to say that when you're a freelancer, a consultant, or anyone else who makes their living marketing themselves to other people, a referral based practice is *the* way to go. That can be a difficult place to find though, and we're oh-so-lucky to have amazing clients who pass our names around like trading cards.

Aside from building up other people's empires, we've gotten down to business on our own with major developments at two of our other websites and the purchase of three more (granted, one is the namesake of our future boy-child, but still, it's a meaningful addition to the lot.) I've spent every waking moment these past few weeks drafting ideas, designing advertisements and writing and submitting press releases while simultaneously mainlining hot tea into Hamid's exhausted body as he coded his gorgeous heart out to create the things I'm imagining.

I've always taken our business seriously, from day one realizing it was the literal thread that held us together - not because the business is our common bond but because it was what financially allowed us to remain together all this time. Ah, it was the work of destiny, bringing forth that Craigslist ad that invited me to apply for the magical job of being someone's virtual assistant, and the rest is history. Without that first client we'd have run out of money and had to separate at some point - I was almost tapped out from lazing around the world for a year when we met and Hamid wasn't really in a position to 'keep' me at the time. Couple that with he's Iranian, I'm American - well, you do the math.

Fortunately, the universe has been conspiring behind my back for ages - working out the details of my life and placing them before me in perfect order; each on a platter more golden and shiny than the one previous. I have no doubt that our business success, our own little empire, is an integral part of that grand scheme, but I'll still take the credit.

Street Dog

My darling little Mooshy...my beloved Indian street dog.
I discovered a cache of pictures today from when we first found him - he was a tiny, undernourished, half-bald, moth-eaten, sick little mange of a thing. He looked like a four legged leper and had no energy at all - he slept for days and days and ate anything and everything he was offered. We worried then that he'd never be OK, that he'd be unable to find his mojo after such a rough start in the world. Ha.
With lots of love and patient attention he thrived. He grew and grew and although he's not terribly big at 11 months old now: 20kg, he is a bratty little monster, spoiled rotten by all of the fawning we've done.

I thought, had hoped even (as savage as it may be), that the cutting off of some of his boy parts would do more than just save us the trouble of a litter of puppies...I'd heard that dogs who are 'fixed' will settle down a bit and not be so inclined to mindless jumping up on people and gnawing on knick knacks. Alas. How wrong I was.

With or without testicles Mooshy is a holy terror.
When we asked the vet why he was such a freak and what on earth we could do about it he just replied, "He's a street dog...it's the breed." As if to say, "He's a pedigreed wildthing. Get used to it." And that's that.

Haji Baby and the ungrateful wretch

Hamid's parents are in Kathmandu fom Iran this past week and next, which is great - I adore them both.
Hamid's dad, while of a seriously genius mental caliber, is hilarious and makes me laugh with his innate and charming ability to channel his inner child at will. He drfits in and out of silliness most naturally, in a way few grown men are apt to do; calling to his wife Hajieh in sing-song "Haji Baby!!!" as she moves about our kitchen preparing wonderful Persian dishes on our ridiculous two burner gas stove. How she manages to create these culinary masterpieces with such limited equipment is beyond me, but she seems to have imported herself all this way for the sole purpose of feeding Hamid and I three square meals a day.
Hamid's mom kisses me hello every morning and calls me 'Tessam' (my Tess) and 'baby'. She is generous to a fault asking me "You want?" every time my gaze lingers on anything for more than a second. She runs a close tie with my own mother as the most selfless person ever to exist in all of human history.

While they've been here they've spoiled us both rotten with lavish meals, gifts, and one entire suitcase full of the delectable dried fruit and nut assortments and sweets so common to Iranian tea time.

They've even indulged my latest habit of buying baby and children's clothes; supplying me with two darling tiny pairs of shoes I just couldn't take my eyes off in the store the other day. (Before we left India I bought entire closets full of lovely little traditional girl and boy wearables made of sari silk - Nepal's adorable hippie-patchwork style has also caught my eye and I've doubled my as-yet nonexistent children's wardrobes with locally handcrafted skirts, pants, hats and tops.)

Hamid's parents are quite simply the most dreamy set of in-laws one could ever hope for. They're supportive and kind and sweet and funny and completely pleased with me in every respect. This makes my life a hundred times easier than it might be considering the vast difference in culture and attitude that draws an unavoidable, invisible line between us. I'm Muslim now, but only so much...and I'm Iranian on one set of papers but still oh-so-American in every respect.

We're a real motley crew, mowing through rows and rows of shops in Nepal's old royal city of Patan; buying up Tibetan singing bowls and Nepali arts and crafts; Hamid's father dressed smartly in a suit, his mother in her scarf and manteau and me in my comparatively half-naked attire of sundresses or tank tops. Hamid's parents, while madly in love, have been socially conditioned not to display affection in public, while Hamid and I fall all over ourselves to get closer to eachother no matter where we are. Hamid and I are outright in our ideas, questioning, and opinions - appearing hyper and even wild next to his mom and dad who speak quietly and calmly, weighing their words before uttering a single one. But the happy reality is none of us cares much how the others choose to dress or act or speak or think. We're each in it for the simple experience of being together, practicing the art of being a family - philosophies and social skills aside.

But...and here comes the guilt-ridden, I'm-a-wretch portion of this post: it's so, so, so hard for me to have people in my house - messing up my nicely placed whatnots and mucking up my kitchen which is always sparkling clean because it never gets used and I know...I know how ridiculous it is to be rolling my eyes when Hamid's mom leaves the bottle of cooking oil out on the counter instead of keeping it neatly hidden in the cabinet the way I like it. After all, she's the one cooking 24 hours a day, who am I to complain; treated as an honored and pampered guest in my own home. But six days of sharing space with people who've been around twice as long as I have and by default take precedence in the hierarchy is simply exhausting for the control freak in me.

I'm a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad daughter-in-law but it drives me crazy when I come downstairs and see that all of my plants have been moved outside into the garden (after I worked so hard lugging the darn things in in the first place) or find laundry hanging on the main floor balcony where everyone and their cousin can see it instead of on one of the third floor balconies where it doesn't mar the beauty of the view of the house from the street.

These things I get stuck on are meaningless. Pointless and shallow - and I'm perfectly aware of how very ungrateful it would appear if I let on at all; so I say nothing and smile until the urge to put everything back 'where it belongs' passes. Instead of freaking out when the giant package of toilet paper ends up on display somewhere in the house or my carefully chosen kitchen towels turn up sopping wet and goopy I remind myself that these are the people who have willingly, lovingly given me everything they have to give and then some, including their first born child.