STILL no DSL at home...

...although the lying bastards sent a robocall on Saturday that claimed the service was up and running. Making Michael waste another hour fiddling with it and waiting on hold for tech support. Now they swear we'll have DSL by tonight. I am not holding my breath.

Other than that it was a good, busy, fun weekend.

Friday night Michael's new company treated us (and all their other employees) to a night at the Baltimore Symphony for an event called "Pops Goes Vegas." We weren't really sure what to expect, but it turned out to be awesome. The company event started two hours before the symphony center was open to the general public. When we came in, someone snapped our picture in front of a glitzy Vegas backdrop. We were given flashy (literally: little racing colored lights) pins shaped like a pair of dice which identified us as private party attendees, a deck of company-logo playing cards, and a ticket we could exchange for casino chips. There were gaming tables set up in the main lobby: blackjack, poker, roulette, and craps. On the mezzanine level were a couple of open bars and a sumptuous buffet featuring things like crab claws, pate, sushi, and beef tenderloin. Circulating waiters brought by hot hors d'oeuvres. They also had a magician, an Elvis impersonator, and some feathered-and-sequined showgirls strolling around.

We ate, drank some wine, and played a little poker. I busted out three times in quick succession (it was not particularly difficult to come by additional chip vouchers), mostly I think from bad luck - neither Michael nor I could pinpoint any stupid decisions. He made out like a bandit. Each chip could be exchanged at the end of the evening for a ticket to enter the door prize drawing, which I thought was a nice touch. Michael didn't win anything, though.

I didn't really know what to expect from the music. It turned out to be a glitzy, rather silly Vegas-style spectacular, with a Liberace impersonator, a Frank Sinatra impersonator, a couple of other singers, and dancing showgirls. Lots of costume changes. The orchestra had been forced into white dinner jackets. The singers were good, but I kept thinking that the whole thing was a waste of a very good orchestra.

Afterwards there was a dessert buffet, and then we walked home.

Saturday we had tickets to the National Aquarium, also a benefit from Michael's company. (They have corporate passes to a variety of Baltimore institutions, and anyone is allowed to check them out - it's not used as a merit incentive, or anything. Which is cool.) Alex went crazy over the dolphin show, and was also particularly taken by the rays. (The National Aquarium has a huge ray pool that you can view from both above and below the water.) She was scared of the sharks and some of the bigger fish, which is a new thing.

Afterwards we went to Barnes & Noble, because I had a Christmas gift card burning a hole in my pocket. I got Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink, which is a compendium of food-themed articles and cartoons from the full course of the magazine's history. It is wonderful. And I got the DK First Atlas for Alex.

Sunday: church, and then a chilly and windy picnic at the St. Patrick's Day parade. (Alex: "Are there going to be any beanbags at this parade?" Me: "... ... ...Bagpipes? Yes, there will probably be bagpipes.") A little monotonous (pipe-and-drum band, high school marching band, local Hibernian chapter, lather, rinse, and repeat for two hours) but still fun. My favorites: the Mid-Atlantic Irish Wolfhound club, the very very tiny step-dancing girls, the fife and drum corps dressed up in colonial-era costumes, and a group of poignant, battered-looking Civil War reenactors (in blue) with a torn American flag. I'm not sure what connection the last two groups had with St. Patrick's Day - or the Buffalo Soldiers reenactors, come to that, or the fire engines - but I suppose that they were just there to be suitably parade-like.

We also turned over the key to the old house this weekend. Now we're really and finally moved. Yay.

Another thing about the weekend.

A month after I miscarried, I felt mostly okay. I'd read things that would refer to months and years of post-miscarriage grief and think "wow, I'm glad that my reaction has been milder." I was aware of potential future roadblocks - the due date from that pregnancy, the anniversary of the miscarriage - but for the most part I thought I was adjusting and moving on.

As we cleaned the old house, all last week, I became increasingly anxious about the prospect of doing a final walk-through with our landlords. I realized that, of all the people I know, they were the only ones who still thought I was pregnant. I made Michael promise to do the walk-through by himself so that I wouldn't have to see them. Or, more specifically, so I wouldn't have to see them see my regular-sized belly and my pronounced lack of glow.

I don't think there's anything unusual about that, but the amount of time I spent thinking about it and being anxious about it was kind of excessive.

The dolphin show on Saturday was about play - how dolphins play, why animals play, how play is used in dolphin training. There was a video montage of mammals playing. It included a few brief images of human infants. Boom: tears. I cried at a dolphin show. From, like, three seconds' worth of baby exposure.

Sunday, at church, out of nowhere: uncontrollable, but mercifully silent, crying. Not related to the service content.

The only thing I can think of that might behind the suddenly increased grief is that we are gearing up to try to conceive again. (I need to buy an ovulation predictor kit on my way home from work.) That has always been a fraught and anxious process for me, and it seems about ten thousand times more so now. What if we can't? What if it takes a long time? What if it's hard to even bring ourselves to try, and the whole... process... is overshadowed with grimness?

I shouldn't have to do this. I should be about halfway through my pregnancy. I should be wearing maternity clothes. I should have had my high-level ultrasound, and watched blood pumping through the tiny channels of a tiny fetal heart. I should know the sex. I should be making plans for who will take care of Alex during childbirth, and checking out new-baby preparation books from the library for her. I should be pushing to get my grant up and running before my maternity leave. I should be pregnant.

This really sucks.