There seems to be an abundance of mommies around me lately, as my peers join the baby-making throngs, adding their genetic code to the world in terrific, nutty, miraculous combinations.

Not just any two people could make this, is all I'm saying.



I'm not sure if I'll ever be anyone's mommy. I'm in that sweet spot, somewhere after Bristol Palin but firmly before grieving my barren womb. Motherhood is a scenario that appeals to me, in a lot of ways, and terrifies me in a lot more of those same ways, and I have no doubt that if it winds up being not in my cards there will be parts of me that are befuddled and sad. But my particular happy delusion is that when one meets future-father-of-one's-children there is a spark of some sort, a nudge from the universe that says, "This one won't eat your young. Probably. We're 85% sure, and those are damn good odds these days."



There are some universal attributes to seek, I suppose, someone kind and either literally or metaphorically broad-shouldered. A touch ridiculous would help, in my case. Saner than I am, please, for the sake of these fictional offspring.

(If he's willing to referee diaper changes, LSis says, all the better.)



I'm not sure exactly how it works, making the sort of space in your heart that's required to have children, but it makes me a trifle awed by people who've done it. I edited photos of tiny people who don't even belong to me today and almost had to stop and catch my breath.



Particularly because, despite my screechingly loud pleading, they refuse to desist in becoming disturbingly less tiny these days.



Something enviable happens to the mommies I know when they become mommies, something similar but just a touch different from what happens when they get married—it's an almost imperceptible shift in center.



The automatic grounding of being tethered to another human, even as that human is throwing your life into a turmoil you couldn't have begun to fathom, predict, or prepare yourself for.



And they're better for it in the most fundamental of ways. Both more and less patient, more and less calm, less inclined to roll their eyes and more inclined to laugh.



These impossible moments are the ones they crouch in wait for, the blissful, sleepy ones that make them feel like they were made for making this person, for cherishing her and adoring her and teaching her things—primal, elemental things like what full feels like and what loved feels like and what cranky feels like and that HOLY CRAP SHE HAS LIMBS.



It can be startling.

So all my new mommies, remember: I'm watching you. I'm proud of you. I think you're all completely out of your minds. I'm being patient, and I'm taking notes.

Today was a HOLIDAY, and I've spent the past seven hours of it at WORK.



MLK Day, I hardly knew ye.

This week I caved to maternal pressure and replaced Diet Mt. Dew with coffee, which was a suggestion communicated to me by subtle hints ("Is that DMD you're drinking? You know what's better for you? COFFEE."), gentle nudges ("DMD, you say? I'm sure it is tasty. Tasty all the way to an EARLY GRAVE."), and kindly advice ("Have you read the paper? No? Would you like this section? No, this one right here with the front-page manifesto about how COFFEE will keep you from being ugly, dumb, and dead."). So I got the impression this coffee business was something worth investigating.

Super sleuth!

And five days into this experiment, here are my observations:

1. Coffee requires more dishwashing than Diet Mt. Dew.

2. Coffee does not require a trip to the gas station before work.

3. Diet Mt. Dew has lots of life-giving caffeine in it.

4. So does coffee.

5. Diet Mt. Dew has lots of effervescent bubbles in it.

6. Coffee does not.

7. Diet Mt. Dew is a disturbing shade of nuclear green.

8. Coffee makes your breath and your pee smell funny.

9. This just in: Coffee makes you tell strangers personal details.

You would think so far it's a wash, but I have to say—at this point coffee might be pulling ahead a bit. Its most important side effect is that it makes me feel all grown-up. I think it's fairly clear that I am not, in fact, grown-up in the least, but now I have the props of adulthood. If I can manage to get my hair cut more than once a year, I might just fool the world!

Coffee also requires time to percolate, which is a fancy word for taking 10 minutes, a time bubble that exceeds my attention span by ... oh, about nine minutes. How to fill that vacuum?

Impromptu photo shoot! Dog as model, Tyra as muse. J, give us ...

COY!



ALERT.



PENSIVE!



SAD ...



ENIGMAT- ... Geezus, what is that?



OK, UM ... DESPERATE?



Yeah, that was a mite insane. I may need to cut back on the coffee.

Sometimes when I sit down to compose a blog post, stealing the last half hour or so from the workday to dash something off into the Internets, I feel like I'm back in college again, racing the tiny clock in the upper right-hand corner of my screen that says, "Hello again, K. You have 20 minutes to complete this three-page paper before you're due in the classroom. Jackass."

I was better at it back then.

Now the words—the witty observation, the deft turn of phrase, the uncontrollable obsession with series of three—flood up from the calm, restful back of my brain and SLAM into my fronto-cortex (yes, proper name), then slowly pool into a lake of something that looks like this:

Hey, how's it goin'. Pretty good? Yeah, can't complain. Oh, the sun came out for a sec. Did you see that? No? Huh, musta blinked or something. Are you craving Skittles? Am I asleep right now?

PULITZER PRIZE.

Some days you feel equipped to put fingers to keyboard, and those days are never. So as you watch the ass of your muse disappear over the horizon, there's only one thing to do—don four layers of clothes, lace up your tennis shoes, leash up the dog, and run. No, not to anywhere. You want to end up where you started. And there should be lots of wheezing and sweating and cursing and tears.

Don't you feel better now?

Neither do I. Exercise is for the criminally insane. No if you are me, and you'd like to find your center, I recommend Rearranging Something. Rearranging Something has been proven to lift your mood and brighten your day while allowing you to entertain your OCD in the privacy of your own home.

BEHOLD: the new Woodside kitchen.

Oh, but wait. First you must fix yourself a hobo dinner.



Then, BEHOLD: kitchen etc.



The first order of business was putting the pretty dishes where they can be seen, and reserving cupboard space for ugly things like loaves of bread and old boxes of raisins and four (yes, four) containers of powdered sugar because who ever remembers they have that on hand?



Most of these pieces are mismatched or in odd numbers because I've collected them along the way, but that's what makes the look kicky and not-precious.



Or like I'm running a discount store.

I used to keep my spices above the oven, but the amount of heat that produces seemed to tax their shelf life, so I pulled them out and replaced them with something that doesn't give a rip about the extreme temperatures.



The spices went on the counter by the prep area, where they're most needed.



See? OCD!

My kitchen sort of rocks, in its original 1950s splendor. Unfortunately, the cabinet doors are now crummy wood replacements, but the metal insides remain, and each one bears this label.



I obey it implicitly (it's very polite), but I must note that my kitchen has never saved me step nor time nor money.

In a final sacrifice to the throes of randomness, I pulled out an Anthropologie tablecloth I'd had yet to find a place for and used it as a runner on the bar.



I haven't decided if it makes the statement I want to make. I don't know, what do you think? Does it say "Isn't my liquor pretty?" to you?

Thus ends my public service announcement. Remember, people: Exercise kills. Moving something that was in one place into another, completely different place is all the pointless effort you need.

The word for today is: frustrated. Say it with me, children! No, not fustrated. Or, God forbid, flustrated.

Yes, I live in the South.

I'm frustrated by a lot of things today, the laundry list of which would likely send you fleeing to positive corners, where there is less complaining and more cocktails. But the problem with frustration is that once it seeps in around the corners, through the overtime and the deadline panic and the inexplicable doctor's office invoice, it starts to infiltrate everything else, like the impenetrable hand dryness and the worthless pencil lead (what is the point if it breaks every time I try something crazy like using it?) and the fact that I might soon be suffocated by my own hair.

It's long and thick and blonde and possibly my best feature, but it will be my demise.

I've also been frustrated by my inability to find the time to preserve some of my recent cooking exercises for posterity. I had untold amounts of fun cooking for LSis and the BiL during her maternity leave, feeling all warm and schmoopy and useful and appreciated. (BiL dubbed me the "kitchen MacGyver," a moniker I earned mostly from their epically empty cupboards and my attempt to create something out of them on the fly—it's how cheesy mustardy broccoli pasta was born.) BiL, it should be noted, is my absolute favorite eater, in part because he proclaims everything I make "the BEST thing you've EVER made."

Flattery. My drug of choice.

But I haven't had the best of luck getting great shots of the food, LSis' kitchen and the Woodside kitchen being what they are. (And what they are is eerily yellow, like making dinner inside a UFO.)

But I messed around with my boyfriend (the D90) the other night and managed to get a couple of mediocre images of the really very good, and very easy, and very cutesily named Lady and the Tramp Spaghetti and Meatballs I made Monday evening.



The Le Creuset was a score from a giveaway, and I cherish it all the more for its freeness. It's also a reminder that complaining about my workload might be a smidge shy of gracious.



I highly recommend this recipe, if you're the kind of person who needs recipes for a thing like this (and I am). The meatballs come out a little soft, which makes them break apart a bit if you're too rough with them, but then you get spaghetti bolognese—not altogether a bad thing. I'm sure their fragility had nothing to do with the fact that I plopped the egg white into the mixture without it having been "lightly beaten," as a casualty of my inability to read all the way to the end of any given sentence.



I also ended up with 24 meatballs instead of 25. I wasn't about to go take 1/25th of every ball and try to rectify the situation. It so happens I cannot apportion correctly. It's a chronic illness.

The reason one is supposed to wind up with 25 meatballs is that the recipe makes five servings. That way one consumes just five small meatballs at a time, savoring the meal slowly and appropriately and moderately.

One has to watch one's girlish figure.

Hey, Tuesday. Yeah, it's me, K. You know what? You know what your problem is? You're just waaaaaaaaaaay too buddy-buddy with Monday. We've talked about this; you agreed that Monday is a very bad influence. Why can't you pal around with that nice Friday boy? He's so full of optimism and promise. Monday is no good for you, with all her sleepy sneering and ugly desperation and "violent tendencies."

I'm prepared to give you another chance to prove yourself, Tuesday, because today was not your finest hour. I awoke to a puffy face, socks that won't stay up, forgotten breakfast, sub-30 outside temperatures, mascara stab wound, dead phone battery, forgotten camera cord, stumble on icy stairs, 80-plus office temperatures, forgotten meeting, splattered lunch on desk/cubicle wall/person, pathologically disregarded deadlines, and depressed mastery of the English language.

At this rate I fear I won't survive the day; that my fears are true and I really will be found days from now on the Woodside, circled by a hungry mutt, grateful I'm not alive to hear the coroner say, "Well this is new. I didn't know one could asphyxiate from dangerously small hosiery."

So shape up, Tuesday, or I'll be forced to send my henchman after you. You do not want to be snored to death, I can promise you that. REMEMBER THIS FACE.

WARNING: THIS POST IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR BIRTH CONTROL METHODS.

*photo by MW

It may cause you to behave inappropriately with the next fertile human being to stumble across your path.



There is also gratuitous cuteness contained herewith.



(Side note: Doesn't MW have great-looking teeth?)



Whadd're yew lookin' at?

*photo by MW

Oh, yer lookin' at me? [bats eyelashes]

*photo by MW

When a new generation moves in, the old one gets unceremoniously shoved out. I tried drooling over my hand, and TFin didn't even give me the time of day.

*photo by MW

You know what, I'll quiet down and just let you revel in the ridiculousness.

*photo by MW

I'm sad I missed out on knowing my other nieces as babies, but from what I can deduce, they only get prettier from this point on.

*photo by MW

That's what they tell me. Prettier than this.

*photo by MW

Yeah, I don't think my heart can take it.

The first week back to work has been, in a word, palatable. Which doesn't sound like much, I know, but the days leading up to my glorious end-of-the-year break had been a long flirtation with burnout, fighting frustration and flagging enthusiasm, dulled at the edges and feeling stalked by weariness.

So, you know, palatable. A step up!

The day before your last day of vacation feels like the first four stages of grief, a furious cycle through denial (This isn't happening!), anger (Damn the man!), bargaining (If I call in sick on a Monday after vacation, that'll seem believable, right?), and depression (Ah, skrewit. This is my life: work, then death.). You don't get to acceptance, because then it's suddenly the actual last day of vacation, and you figure there's nothing else to do but put on your party shoes.

In the case of The Family F, that meant a trip to FLiP Burger Boutique, an Atlanta hot spot recently spun off to the 'ham. Those of you with no social life whatsoever will recognize it as the brainchild of one Richard Blais, contestant on Top Chef: Chicago, season 4, only on Bravo.

Two things you should know about Richard Blais: One, he is a loser of weight. (Normally I would leave him and his weight alone, but in this case I feel I must tip my hat. Well done, sir!) Two, slimming down has made him no less adorable.

*photo by MW.

The hair is something to behold, no?

TFin and JBSH and I arrived first and chitchatted with the bartenders, and I ordered the ginger margarita (yumzah) and lamented my crummy photo skills with JBSH, each of us waving our cameras at each other in talentless solidarity.



Slowly the rest of the crew trickled in slowly, first TwinFin and MW, then LSis and her brood, including this dapper stranger.



Who is that handsome fellow? Why it is BiL himself, caught in a moment of self-congratulatory reverie. You see, he had realized the winsomeness of TFin's haberdashery, a feat not quite as well achieved by TwinFin.



Aw, big head.

We occupied a large table running down the center of the restaurant, flanked by the bar on one side and booths jauntily constructed of a banquette seat topped by another, upside down banquette seat (flip, get it?), with an impressive mural scrawled across the high ceiling above.



It is important to note that the family had only ratcheted up to our ordinary, everyday level of obnoxiousness—nothing fancy. We had to try every side first, then ordered a succession of ever more exciting milkshakes (s'mores, what they call in Atlanta "Nutella and burnt marshmallow" but have dumbed down for the Alabaman masses, delicious; Krispy Kreme, meh; foie gras, shutthefrontdoor that's delicious don'taskquestionsjusttaste it).

Duck fat soaked in amaretto, then shaken with milk? Some of us were braver than others.



We tried all the liquid nitrogen cocktails—a mango martini with a thin layer of ice on top that you stab with a skewer to release a sphere of pure mango deliciousness into the ice-cold liquor, and a citrus martini with a nitrogen-frozen lemon slice that hits the vodka and shatters into a thousand beautiful, sweet shards.

We poked the chicken until she woke up, then fought ruthlessly over who got to hold her.



Oh, and everybody wore the hat.



We also ate, a stunningly delicious experience that works best if you leave your expectations at the door.

TFin has eaten on just about every continent in the world, in some of the best restaurants in the world, and he declared his burger (raw hanger steak, garlic, chili, capers, Worcestershire, pickled onion, frisée salad, smoked mayo, and a sous-vide egg yolk) the "best steak tartare I've ever had. But on a bun."



MW, our resident pescatarian, tried the "burger of the day," an almost-too-pretty-to-eat tuna tartare burger spiced with wasabi and topped with a trompe l'oeil egg yolk that turned out to be sweet mango purée. Also: fried bread and butter pickles, sprinkled with fresh dill and served with buttermilk ranch dipping sauce.

*photo by MW.

I had the Korean bbq burger, a crazy two-meats concoction that combines American wagyu beef and short rib, kimchee ketchup, pickled vegetables, and crispy tempura onion.

*photo by MW.

Yes, I fit that in my mouth. Ahem.

There was so much eating and so much exclaiming and so much being obnoxious that we were only vaguely aware that we were being waited on by the entire staff of the restaurant. The manager paced alongside our table, reprimanding our waitress for the slightest oversight of water refills or dropped napkins. Sure, Richard Blais came out and spoke, but it's a new restaurant. The chef makes the rounds.

Except then he came back. And he seemed nervous. We chitchatted with him aimlessly; I was the only one at the table who watched Top Chef (see note re: social life), so no one recognized him until I commenced stage whispering. Finally he admitted that someone behind the bar had notified him that there were people in the restaurant who "had cameras. And not just cameras, BIG cameras."

They thought we were someBODY.

*photo by MW.

The earnestness was almost too much to bear, an overdose of adorable.

I rarely rave, but go to FLiP, over and over again, and try everything on the menu that you can. And be kind—leave your big camera at home.