TRANSITION WEEKEND

Tomorrow, the Monkey Mama goes back to her job as a policy analyst, leaving me at home with the Monkey. Maybe because of that stress on her, or maybe because of the stress I feel about my new role, we had a more-ore-less crappy weekend.

With such a big week in front of us, we should probably have been resting up. But there's no sleeping in with a Monkey tugging at your nose and ears starting around 6:45 am. (He sleeps with us from his last feeding on, usually around 4 am.) And of course there's the house to clean. And Christmas shopping. And putting up the Christmas lights. And our neighbors stopped over, which turned into an impromptu dinner. And there was baby food angst.

At least the Patriots won. And the Christmas lights are pretty.

I also met two couples who live in our neighborhood. One is Bill Crandall and his wife Mariama. Bill hosts the Petworth News blog, and Mariama is expecting. Neat! The other couple, Leslie and James, we met in connection with the Mothers First group that Monkey Mama has been attending. (If I attend, will they have to change the name?)

But best of all, my wife and I treated ourselves to a great dinner. Amazon has scanned the menus for tons of restaurants in DC (and a few other cities). So it's the simplest thing to find a sushi restaurant we like, call in for a take-out order, and bring it back for a nice dinner together at home. With all the running around this weekend, we needed the one-on-one time.

Our delicious meal:

• Curry lakhsa with chicken
• Sushi rolls: (1) California roll (2) Tuna avocado roll (3) Spicy tuna roll (4) salmon/cream cheese roll
• Red snapper nigiri sushi

Accompanied by a 2002 Hogue chenin blanc, of which we recently bought a case (at less than $6/bottle!). There's a certain muskiness to this wine that doesn't make it a good match for every food or every quaffing occassion. But this was a great match; I think the varietal goes well with Asian food.

It was the Monkey Mama's first time eating sushi in over a year, thanks to the pregnancy. And while I was picking up the order, she was taking a hot bath (in a freshly scrubbed tub), with book, wine, candle. The Monkey was sleeping.

So she's got to feel good ab out that one.