.mocking birds.

So after nearly an hour of searching through online images of native southern Californian bird species I have finally found the name of the birds that have been hanging around outside of our apartment for the last couple of months.  They're Northern Mockingbirds.  Whenever I hear them singing I am always reminded of my grandmother's house and afternoon naps because I would always wake up to warm golden afternoon sunlight and their chaotic but beautiful songs.

Sometimes late into the night or early morning we can hear them singing, which is unusual for birds.  But I discovered that the un-mated males, during mating seasons, will sing well into the night.  The males are also fairly territorial and aggressive and we have seen them, on more than one occasion, chasing after crows.

From here.

This is what they sound like.

.first aid kit.

Last night on a whim we went to see First Aid Kit play at a tiny little venue not far from our house.  Two sisters, aged 17 and 20, from Sweden are probably most well known in the US for their version of Fleet Foxes' song Tiger Mountain Peasant Song.  

This was the first show either one of us had seen at the Bootleg Theater (we missed Broken Bells playing there a couple of months ago when we went to The Magic Castle).  Per their website it was originally a warehouse built in the 1930s which is now a space used for art, theater and music.  I'm guessing packed to brim the place only holds a couple of hundred people so any show there is going to be pretty intimate (another pang of sadness for missing Broken Bells).

The second act, Samantha Crain, was one of those bands that as soon as you hear the first few notes of their first song you know that it is going to be a good show.  Samantha Crain, the singer (and I assume primary songwriter) has a good energy about her, which is contagious and when they play it is hard not to want to bounce around to the music.  Also the drummer is a girl.  And she is good.  I always appreciate a good female drummer as you just don't get to see them that often (I'm sure they're our there I just rarely get to hear/see them).

For the most part I wasn't too familiar with much of First Aid Kit's music, aside from the Fleet Foxes cover.  I guess you could describe them as folksy.  They definitely write and sing songs that make you think that they have experienced a lot more of life than is realistic for people at their ages.  Which, I guess is why the average age of the audience member was a bit older than what you would normally see at any type of Indie music scene in central Los Angeles. 

They did a beautiful job, even though it was obvious that they were a little jet lagged since they had just arrived in the US (for the first time) the day before the show.  I would absolutely go see them again and would highly recommend their show to anyone else.  Leif noted on our way out that this was probably the last time they would ever be at such a small venue in Los Angeles.

My favorite song of the night, Ghost Town, was possibly one of the best songs I've seen played live in a very long time.  No mics, no amplifiers.  Just two amazing voices.

.should.

Today is the day that I start studying for my board exam.  I figure that it will be two months of full time studying before I am actually ready to take the thing.  The last thing I want to do is fail it because then I couldn't take it again for another three months.  No pressure.

I have to admit that my anxiety about taking the test is tied up in my heartache over George.  Being alone, in silence, with a bunch of boring reading material is a recipe for disaster.  My worst moments, those moments where I am so overwhelmed with grief and irrational thoughts,

If only I had made the ultrasound appointment for a week earlier....If only we had tried another intracardiac injection...If only we had not decided on comfort care...

are those when I am alone. 

I can't help but be distracted and wonder how differently things should have turned out.  Should.  My favorite word.  As if life should be anything at all other than what it is.  I should have been able to have a healthy baby.  I should be washing tiny little baby clothes and packing my hospital bag to be ready for when I went into labor.  It should be very, very soon.  I should be anticipating holding my son for the first time. 


June 16th.  
June 16th.  
June 16th.
June 16th.

Shoulds and if onlys will follow me around for the rest of my life, biting at my heels every time I see a child around George's age.  How does one get over that part? How does one go on in this world instead of the one that should have been?

I miss him so much. 

I want him back.

.got me a pair of brand new shoes.

I have big feet.  Not clown-like feet but they are large.  That makes it very hard to find cute shoes that fit me.  For months I have been trying to find a pair of casual oxfords and I have finally found them. 

Well, I actually found them about a month ago but because I had only seen them online I was hesitant to purchase them.  Rewind to yesterday.  Leif and I were walking around Silverlake after some delicious tacos from Ricky's Fish Tacos and I stumbled upon them.  I was pleasantly surprised because they were much cuter in person than I thought they would be.  Sadly, and as usual, they did not carry my size so I had to end up buying them online. 

I am looking forward to pairing them with rolled up jeans.  Something like these outfits...

From here.

From here.

Or something like this...

1. Anthropologie
2. Freidasophie
3. Anthropologie
4. Anthropologie

.sundays.

Sundays are my favorite.  Slow, comfortable, grocery lists, the farmer's market and strawberry lemonade, the smell of clean clothes, the feel of crisp clean sheets at night...


It is artichoke season and english pea season.  How much do I love dipping green leaves in garlicky butter?  How much do I love the pop of an english pea?  So, so much.


Oh, and it is time for sweet nectarines.  Like peaches, only without the fuzz and with more tang.  Like peaches, only better.


On the menu this week are dishes that fill our home with the smells and tastes of late spring and early summer.


Pasta bolognese
Steamed artichokes and salad
Spring green risotto with asparagus and peas
Nectarine, prosciutto, gorgonzola and arugula pizza

.campground chic.

Ever since Leif and I stayed at the Ace Hotel we have been kind of preoccupied with mixing some of that particular design aesthetic into our own home. I guess you could call the style...campground chic?  Maybe modern rustic eclecticism? Or perhaps vintage military modernism?  Whatever.  Its cool no matter what ridiculous term I try to give it.

The design (by Commune) incorporates a lot of, what most people would consider, cheap and mundane fabrics like canvas and linen and layers them with interesting patterns like the kilim rugs.  In our room there was also incorporated some danish modern chairs, which is another design style that Leif and I are partial to.

So how to mix up into our style.  I don't think it will be too difficult to do because our style is pretty eclectic as it is, and what's adding one more pattern here or one more texture there gonna do anyway?

I already have some ideas for the bedroom.  As it stands the room is fairly feminine and I've been slowing trying to "man it up" a little.

This is our bed and duvet (in natural):

I am going to get an Italian Army wool blanket like this one to use as a throw on the bed.  I really like the idea of mixing the femininity of the duvet with the masculinity of the wool blanket.

Today I ordered a lot of 6 vintage burlap gunny sacs from here (which, by the way is the coolest online antique site I've seen in a long time) and we are either going to sew them together to make a wall hanging to go behind the bed or we are going to make some throw pillows for the couch.

I'm leaning towards the pillows.  Something like this:

 From Etsy seller lesliejanson

I also really like the kilim rugs that are in the Ace.  I'm kicking around the idea of laying a couple of these down in our living room because right now we just have bare hardwood floors.

We'll see...

.the numbers game.

In my alternate life, the one where George is still snug inside me waiting for his debut, I would be taking the board exam this week.  I would have been studying for it for the last ten weeks so that when he was born I could just focus on getting to know him.

That seems to be how I mark the passage of time these days.  Everyday that goes by is one day closer to the day he should have been born and one day farther from the few minutes I had with him while he was alive.  I would be 37 weeks pregnant now...full-term.

I recently read a quote from a woman whose son, whom she refers to as Pudding, was delivered stillborn at 41 weeks.  More than anything that I've read in the last eight weeks, what she said pretty much summed up exactly how I have been feeling. 

"I suppose one of the profoundest changes in myself since Pudding died is that I have completely lost the ability to be comforted by statistics.  This may not sound like much but for someone who's resolutely agnostic it feels as serious as a believer losing faith in God: that thing that convinced me that I was safe and protected from the calamities of the universe--gone.  And will never come back, I don't think."

As someone who works in the medical field, I know statistics.  I know statistics because I give them to my patients.

I know that fetal SVT is diagnosed so rarely that there aren't even many statistics in the medical literature.  I know that our pediatric cardiologist, whose practice extends throughout most of Los Angeles (a city which has an annual number of births somewhere around 160,000) only sees 1-2 cases like ours a year.  That makes the roughly estimated probability of this this happening to us at about 0.00125%.

I know in fetuses with hydrops associated with SVT, conversion of the heart rate back to normal using Digoxin is successful in about 15% of cases and 72-95% in cases using Flecainide.  I was on both and even with an intracardiac injection of the Digoxin it did not help to keep him out of SVT for any meaningful amount of time.

According to the American Cancer Society I have a 0.12% lifetime risk of developing breast cancer.  According to the National Weather Service I have a 0.016% lifetime risk of being struck by lightening. It is more likely for either of these things to happen to me over the course of my life than for George to have SVT.  Ok, so I know my math isn't quite right given that I can't really calculate the lifetime risk of having a baby with SVT (that also depends on the average number of pregnancies a woman has throughout her life) but I think you get the point.

Am I paranoid now?  Do I live my life in fear that something else that is also terrible and slightly less improbable than what has already happened happening again?  Not really.  But now those numbers that I tell my patients, as if I was giving some form of reassurance to them, don't mean anything to me anymore.  I don't think they ever will again and now I know that bad things, no matter how improbable they are, can really happen.  And they already have happened.