persimmon passion

Having finished off the last of the cool whip and gingerbread, I'm forced to turn to the fruit bowl to satisfy my voracious appetite. One of the very best things about living in California is the amazing fresh fruit available year round. The farmer's market has something wonderful every week. Abundent, fresh, sweet... ah! Persimmon season is winding down now. I forget what comes next -- tangerines, I think. But a moment for persimmons. Fuyu, yes, not the cotton-mouth giving Hiyacha variety. Lovely orange and just a little sweet with a texture somewhere between an apple and a pear.
Why am I writing about fruit? Because everything else seems just too complicated. You can't go wrong with fruit!

Cool Whip

As I start in on my third dish of gingerbread and cool whip it strikes me how long it has been since I properly appreciated this processed product cleverly disguised as real food. I mean, it's been years, at least, since I've had a big old spoonful dolloped on my grandmother's apple pie. White stuff, she'd call it. Hydrogenated oils and high fructose cornsyrup, the label proclaims it. Sweet heaven, I'm calling it. I think I grew up and thought it below my dignity, but damn, rediscover it! It is GREAT!
And I'm nursing, all right, I have at least 500 more calories a day to spend -- and that's one thing I'm damn good at. Eating. One of my real talents, actually. La gourmande. Now that's a T-shirt I'd be proud to wear.

A moment to write

Just getting started. Doing the one handed typing thing while the wee one has a sleep. Looking out at a bit of a gray cold day. And a lemon tree. Oh boy, this should be fun!
... A minute later, the babe is still snoozin' but has consented to be laid in his bouncy seat. I sincerely hope with this blog to exorcise the new mommy obsessions: poop, milk, sleep, no sleep and the various contraptions that accommodate baby (bjorn, bouncy, boppy... good lord, a conspiracy of consonance). Not to visit these horrors upon you, oh no, but to travel beyond them, if possible, in the moments, brief though they may be, between the feeding and the changing and the inevitable weeping.
I have been a few things already in my life up to now, but a mom is a new one, and like a new shoe, it rubs uncomfortably in a few spots. The kid's darling. Let's just get that out right now. And I've chosen this moment in my life to become a mother. Absolutely what I wanted to do. Holding him when he rests his little chin on my shoulder and slumps against my chest releases small waves of joy. Yet, having pushed the pause button on an otherwise unremarkable life, I feel now unease and doubt at new and unprecedented levels. Hooray.
I have taken a year off school to stay home with the babe (the eponymous Gabriel). I have one more year before I'll be an honest to god doctor. I may never have such freedom to devote unlimited amounts of time to my family. And do I complain about this? Of course! They are gentle complaints, qualified complaints. Complaints that reveal too much, no doubt.
Must dash. G is audibly filling his pants with unspeakable substances.