1. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
   
2. At Work, Annie Leibovitz
   
3. The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy
   
4. The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling
   
5. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
   
6. The World Without Us, Alan Weisman
   
7. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
   
8. Tears of the Giraffe, Alexander McCall Smith
   

1. The Boleyn Inheritance, Philippa Gregory
   
2. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
   
3. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, Sue Townsend
   
4. The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, Sue Townsend
   
5. 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
   
6. Adrian Mole: The Lost Years, Sue Townsend
   

1. The Wrestler
   
2. The Bourne Identity
   
3. Blades of Glory
   
4. Coraline
   
5. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
   
6. Man on Wire
   
7. Duplicity
   
8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
   
9. The Bourne Supremacy
   
10. The Pink Panther 2
    

1. Denmark is expensive. We thought we were prepared for it -- we've been to Europe before, and based on the hotel rates we thought we had a feel for how expensive it would be. We were wrong. The food was insanely expensive, as was getting around by bus or train. (In Copenhagen we walked everywhere, but in Esbjerg we had to takes buses and trains to Ribe and Legoland.)
   
   
2. Denmark is cold. Esbjerg is especially cold and damp, and the nicest it gets there is approximately the worst it gets in Santa Barbara.
   
   
3. Danish food, with the fish and the mayo and the herring and the pork, is so not our thing. I did have some tasty fishcakes at one point, but we ended up eating lots of shwarma and falafel. You know you're in trouble when you're looking forward to London for the better prices, weather, and food.
   
   
4. Legoland was awesome, though.
   
   
5. We went to the British Museum, and wandered into their Africa galleries. We were sorely disappointed by the curation of it, though -- organized by type of object (masks, ceramics, textiles), with little to no discussion of culture or history. Boo.
   
   
6. I sampled the eeee!'s beer in Denmark, and didn't particularly like any of it -- lagers are just not my thing. But I love English ales, and at a random pub he had a pint of Sharp's Doombar, which was the best beer I have ever tasted. Maybe it's just because I haven't really had any beer for the past five months, but it was amazing.
   

• Pare down our list of what we want to do in London. There's Westminister Abbey and the Globe Theater and the British Museum and the Tate, and we don't want to get museum'd out. (The eeee! and I have each been to London before, but never together.)
  
  
• Figure out what we're doing in Copenhagen. Other than swinging through Tivoli, we have no earthly idea what we're going to do there. Any suggestions? I'm looking forward to just wandering around and checking out the architecture, but beyond that, we're stumped.
  
  
• I have to figure out which lenses to bring with me (dork!).
  

1. Friends threw me a small graduation party/baby shower this weekend at the beach! It's been overcast, but the sun did come out for a few hours, and it was lovely. Lots of tasty food -- the eeee! wowed everyone with his spicy grilled corn -- and lots of fun. One person got us this navy blue hoodie that has a SHARK embroidered across the front of it, which is totally awesome.
   
   
2. The eeee! and I are incompetent when it comes to grilled chicken -- we burn it, or undercook it, or both. Blah! But we tried the Italian Grilled Chicken in a recent article of Cook's Illustrated, and it was amazing. We might blog about it at some point, but highlights include butterflying the chicken, pressing it on the grill with a hot cast-iron pot (or bricks), and eight cloves of garlic. It came out perfectly, and as we were eating it, we were exclaiming, "We could actually make this for a guest!"
   
   
3. I will actually need to buy maternity clothes soon, because while my low-rise jeans still fit (especially the sexiest ones, which is kind of hilarious), my skirts are getting tighter and tighter. This means I have to buy stuff before I leave for Europe, ack. But! I have a gift card for the Gap (graduation present from my brother), and a 25% off coupon. So I am about to go crazy online.
   
   
4. When I go to Italy in July, I get into the Venice airport at 9 a.m., but my shuttle to the middle of nowhere isn't until 6 p.m. or so. I started doing some research on the Venice airport (awesomely named Marco Polo), and I think I might actually be able to get into Venice for the day. Yay! If any of you have been to Venice, I would deeply appreciate any and all advice about transport to and from the airport, and about Venice itself.
   
   
5. We finally watched the pilot of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency last night, and loved it. We have the whole season recorded, and so far I cannot recommend it enough. It's shot in Botswana, and is so beautiful and funny and interesting. Now I need to read the books -- which will require going to the library, which will require paying my library fine, egad.
   
   

1. We leave a month from today for our trip to Denmark! When we were planning the trip, I had been a bit nervous about how I'd be feeling, since I'll be about 5 months along then. People had told me that the second trimester is a breeze, but that's different than experiencing it myself. Anyway, given how I feel now, I am looking forward to the trip with no hesitation! My energy levels are back to normal, and I don't think I will have trouble maneuvering with my belly, or anything. (My belly is definitely at the point where I'm always conscious of it, and it slightly affects how I sit. But it's not at the point where people will immediately guess that I'm pregnant.)
   
   
2. And oh, my conference in Italy begins two months from today! I am curious as to how I will feel when I am six months pregnant. Whatever. This should be good motivation for actually doing some damn prenatal yoga.
   
   
3. I'm not sure I fully understand the focus of the Trifter website, but an article on Mt. Popa used two of my pictures, with mostly proper attribution. (I have to check Creative Commons to see if my name should be listed there, but I'm generally not bothered as long as there's a link.) Anyway, nifty!
   
   
4. Things might improve for the Penguins now that they're playing at home? Oof.
   
   
5. If you like sports, TV, and smart women talking about those things -- as I know many of you do -- you should listen to Play Ball, my SIL's podcast!
   

To: John Lasseter

From: Manohla Dargis

I’m psyched that you and the guys at Pixar Animation Studios are finally making a movie with a girl as the lead character and with a woman as director, no less — another first for you! Congrats! Of course we have to wait until 2011 to see “The Bear and the Bow,” but on behalf of 51 percent of the population, I salute you.

1. Come down with a cold immediately after turning in your thesis to the committee (two weeks before defense).
   
2. Ignore cold, and/or assume it's allergies, as it's not too bad. Take the occasional allergy pill (week before defense).
   
3. Do not use Afrin or other nasal spray before flying across country for thesis defense. Do not take ibuprofen because you're pregnant. Tell yourself that you're fine, the cold is improving, etc (four days before defense).
   
4. Suddenly get much, much worse, and spend most of afternoon sleeping (three days before defense).
   
5. Wake up feeling even worse, including a fever (two days before defense).
   
6. Go to health services first thing in the morning, where the doctor confirms that yes, a viral infection went bacterial on you (two days before defense).
   

1. I finished The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, and really enjoyed it. Well, enjoyed might not be quite the right word. It was pretty depressing (tied with Sweetness in the Belly for most depressing read ever). But very engrossing. Now I need to figure out what books to bring to Ann Arbor!
   
   
2. My defense is a week from today, and yes, I've actually started writing the talk.
   
   
3. I've also started seriously job-hunting. Blah.
   
   
4. On the plus side, I've been able to play with my new camera. Yay!
   
   
5. Doc has been having weird stomach problems -- refusing to eat sometimes, even -- and we tried re-jiggering his meal schedule. Finally, we took the next step recommended by the vet: Pepcid AC. Yes, people medicine. And one dose has already made a huge difference. He wolfed down his dinner and is peppier than he's been all week. Hooray!
   
   
6. ( Pregnancy rambling )
   

1. Doc is sick. Boo! Poor Doc. We're taking him to the vet this afternoon. At least he lets us know when he needs to throw up, by standing by the front door.
   
   
2. Work is okay, and I will say no more lest I jinx anything.
   
   
3. Working constantly means that I did not partake in any St. Patrick's Day celebrations yesterday. Woe! But considering that there were lines to get into bars, suddenly my evening of staying home and work work working (and, okay, watching an episode of Gilmore Girls) doesn't seem so bad.
   
   
4. Do any of you have a recipe for a sweet cornbread? We usually make the buttermilk cornbread recipe in The Joy of Cooking, and it's quite tasty, especially when we make it in the cast-iron pan. But a diner near us has cornbread that's sweeter, and it's excellent with some butter. Any suggestions? (Also, theirs seems . . . cakier? Like, ours we just mix quickly with a whisk, and we're done, but I wonder if theirs has more of a cake base, where the sugar and butter are creamed together, etc. Is cornbread ever made this way?)
   
   
5. Maybe I only have four quick things! Huh. Well, I'm sparing you all the gory thesis details, at least.
   

1. I am so into LOST this season. I'm not sure I entirely know what the hell is going on, but I love the time traveling.
   
   
2. I'm getting tired of Chuck. Partly because I think Jeff and Lester are more likable than Chuck and Morgan, and partly because the preview for next week gleefully promised lots of "TORTURE!" If I wanted to watch "TORTURE!", I'd watch 24. But I don't, and I don't.
   
   
3. I must confess to watching The Real Housewives of New York City. In my defense, last year when Doc was very ill and the eeee! was out of town, a marathon of it ended up being a good distraction. So I have a bit of a soft spot for the show, even though I don't particularly like anyone on it.
   
   
4. I think the field pieces on The Daily Show are pretty uneven -- maybe even more than they were ten years ago when no one knew who they were. But the latest one, with Jason Jones and the Antichrist and Hitler, was awesome.
   

   Jason Jones: Do you think before you speak?
   Pastor: I think very carefully and long about what I'm gong to say. I even thought long about whether I was going to do this interview with you.
   JJ: I don't think you thought long enough.
   

   
   
   
5. ( Top Chef Spoilers )
   
   
6. Edited to note that I'm unsure about the possible return of Futurama. I adore Futurama, but I think the series ended on a high note, and I'd hate for it to come back only to die out slowly. I've been underwhelmed by the two movies since then, mostly because the writers can't seem to put together a 90-minute plot. Maybe they still have some good 22-minute stories in them?
   

[T]he nomination of two songs from “Slumdog Millionaire” could give the evening a Bollywood flavor if the songs were performed onstage, as has often been done. The other nominated song, by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, is from “Wall-E.”

As of last week the plan was to build part of each song into a single production number.