Pow-Pow-Pow

This photo is not of my neice, it's some baby off the internet. My neice is apparently not this calm in the womb, as her mother, my sister, has begun describing her antics as "pow-pow-powing."

She kicks and punches all at once. She does this at appropriate times, such as during Christmas mass while everyone singing "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" or whatever that song is named. (Oddly, she didn't dig any other song, remaining relatively chill throughout the rest of mass.) She also kicks and punches at inappropriate times, like when my poor sister gets up in the middle of the night to pee and the little one is like "ooh, cool! time to get up!" and then she has to relax so fully back in bed to trick the baby into going back to sleep.

She also has a move called "the wave" wherein she puts a hand (or foot or head, we don't really know) pushed up against the front of my sister's belly and then she drags it along, pushing out all the while.

One morning this past weekend, I was lying in the stupid twin bed in my mother's guest room and my sister snuck in and climbed in with me. "Feel now," she said. "She's kicking a lot." So I lay there for 20 minutes or so with my hand on my sister's bare belly and felt my neice going crazy. I got to name yet another move, which I dubbed "Pilates" where she stretches way out and part of her just sticks straight out making a bump on my sister's bump! So after she finishes her aerobic routine (pow-pow-pow!) she flows right into pilates. Quite the energetic baby we got here.

I think that this baby is already brilliant and is having these thoughts: "Wait a minute. I keep getting bigger, and this place seems pretty small. That means that soon I'm gonna be really squished in here. I better really stretch out and push around while I can!" Thus all the craziness.

In other baby news, she has a name and she hates beef. Everytime my sister eats it, she is very sick and full of gas for hours afterwards. So she's off the red meat for a while. On Christmas Eve, after getting all swollen in church, we realized she hadn't drunk any water all day. The baby apparently needs water or she gets her revenge by making my sister swell up.

My almost-sister-in-law showed up with a gift for "Baby Chili" a nickname derived from my sister's husband's last name. Hilarious and while I'm not sure it will stick, we appreciate the creativity required to have come up with it.

At only 23 weeks, with 17 left to go, my sister's belly button is almost gone and she is starting to look really pregnant, which is super exciting. She is struggling with the weight gain, having never gained more than a couple of pounds ever in her life before (unlike me, who could probably carry a baby and not even notice the weight gain since I've been so up and down my whole life!). From the back, she doesn't look pregnant at all, which is an amazing skinny-woman-ninja-trick that makes me jealous.

Although my sister, her husband, their Pomeranian, cat, 4 cars and my unborn neice are moving to Texas this week, I will see her again in late January and in February too. And I'm going there in March before she's born and again in early May after she's here. So I won't miss too much of this amazing first pregnancy in my family. Thank god. I'm not sure I could deal if I missed this. It's amazing and beautiful and a little bit weird that my neice is growing inside my sister.

Only 17 weeks till I get to meet her and then do what all good aunts do -- feed her cookies, take her on adventures, and listen when she bitches about her mom. I can't wait!

Social Capital

What is it? This site has a lot say, including: "the central thesis of social capital theory is that 'relationships matter'. The central idea is that 'social networks are a valuable asset'. Interaction enables people to build communities, to commit themselves to each other, and to knit the social fabric. A sense of belonging and the concrete experience of social networks (and the relationships of trust and tolerance that can be involved) can, it is argued, bring great benefits to people."

Yup. I've been talking for a few years now about this idea and how I've often felt a lack of "social capital" in my life. In the past 10 months, though, since I moved back to Jamaica Plain, I've purposely focused on building up my account -- so while I'm saving dollars each month and building a savings account, I'm also building my social capital. It's a pretty amazing feeling.

I became a part of JP's Neighbors for Neighbors, first attending events and then working with the founder on recruiting volunteers. I joined the Women's Book Club and tried to revitalize the Spanish Dinner Group. I have attended major events in JP such as the World's Fair and the Latern Parade and I've met people while doing it.

I attended my street's Labor Day Block Party and met even more people. I helped keep the connection we had made and included another set of roommate-friends from down the street who I'd met at an NfN event into that group. I hosted a get together at my house one night. That has led to a Progressive Dinner on Columbus Day and that flowed into a Pumpkin Carving party and a Thanksgiving Potluck (which, to be fair, was a tradition of Ana and Tom's when they lived in NC and they just carried on here, but we thank them for it!) and then, just this week, a Gingerbread Village Making Party which quickly, due to our creative (and sick) minds, turned into the creation of the "Ginga'hood".

In the interim, there's been random nights of "want to come for dinner?" or going out for a beer or two or the night that Katie met me outside my house when I drove up with a butcher block in my car and helped me carry it up the 5 stories to my apartment. That's friendship right there.

This morning, Chris, Katie's partner, met me out front at 7 and together we dug out my car and then I helped a bit with theirs. He offered and I took him up on it, because the idea of actually having support and not having to do everything on my own is just so unbelievably huge. It's at the center of social capital. Knowing that you have people to call on.

It's tempting, for a lot of people, to just hunker down in their lives. Go to work, be cordial with the people they work with but don't reveal too much personal information, go home, make dinner, see a friend maybe or talk to their mom on the phone or go on a date, go to bed and do it all again the next day. Others, in relationships, do this same thing, but with one other person involved. Okay. That's fine. If people don't want to know their neighbors, nobody should make them. But the idea of the guy across the street snowplowing your driveway for you because you happened to make cookies last weekend and brought some over is tempting too. Or knowing that you can let your kids out on the street to play because you know all 10 families/people that live in either direction from your house is also tempting.

All I know is that with a little effort on my part this fall, I have 6 new friends, all of whom live within 5 minutes walking distance of my house. I believe that all 6 would wake up and get out of bed and arrive at my house at 3 a.m. if there was an emergency, as I would do for any of them. I know that yesterday, in the first major snowstorm of the season, instead of going home to my house alone at 4 p.m., I instead knocked on Chris and Katie's door and had a couple of beers and made dinner with them.

Social Capital is not easy to build. It requires putting yourself out there, being a joiner, and caring about your community. But so far, it seems completely worth it!

An Ode to Chick Lit

When I am tired,
(not, "oh, what a rough day!" tired,
but "this month, i just cannot think" tired),
you are there.

You lure me with your bright covers,
your high heeled shoe motifs,
your titles ending in "-aholic",
your heroines who are strong and oh-so-stupid
(stupider than I am, which is the key, really).

A special thank you to the publishers,
who keep producing enough to fill an entire section
of the bookstore-
and to provide an occasional "Chick Lit 101" sidebar box
in my Entertainment Weekly.

Meg Cabot, thank you for the Queen of Babble.
Jen Weiner, you may have risen above, but you still walk In Her Shoes.
Helen Fielding, did you start it all with the Bridget's Diary?
I don't care. Just keep it coming.

Because when I'm tired,
I still want to read.
Because when I'm 34 and single,
I still want to believe I could fall in love with the hardware store owner's son on my block who I thought was dating my subletter but was really her brother all along.
Because I may only listen to NPR,
but I'm not above carrying a pink book
with an engagment ring on the cover and
unabashedly reading it on the T.

Amen.