Supermama Mode and Carmel

No, I'm not dead. I'm just very, very focused on what I call "life admin" right now, given the sheer amount of extra projects that this lovely holiday season brings with it (finding and wrapping presents, planning and throwing holiday parties, coordinating and attending family events). I find myself sliding into a kind of hyper-focused, ultra-multitasking space, where my brain revs up into uber-organizing supermama mode and the lists multiply around me until I am overwhelmed by a blizzard of bits of paper and I can't sleep and I can't slow down enough to have the necessary fallow time to be creative. I haven't written anything substantial in weeks. Even blogging seems like too much extra effort when there's been Something To Get Done every night this week. I feel myself teetering on the edge of compulsive--but I know that this is a potentially dangerous mode to stay in, and I'm trying not to, too much. I did have a great, relaxing, inspirational weekend in Carmel with Mom last weekend (boy, do I wish I had the time and headspace to do some painting now, I had a bunch of great ideas! More on that in a minute) but I seem to have hit the ground Monday not only running, but running a marathon, with no end in sight until at least next week. Part of that is because it's Hanukkah this week, which I've had to make all kinds of preparations for (from making sure we had all the candles, gelt, and of course presents for Eli, to putting together the yearly latke-fest at our house), and part of it is because our big Black Turkey holiday party is this weekend, and we're having more people over than we've ever had before (approximately 50 or so...necessitating the rental of chairs and tables for goodness' sake). The collision of these two events has been, well, a logistical challenge, to say the least. Next week will be all about holiday cards and prepping for Xmas, but at least I've got a fair amount of the present shopping done already and we're "only" hosting two casual events (Xmas eve dinner with Josh's family and the traditional Xmas day decompression hangout with friends) so it's nowhere near as big of a logistical planning challenge. Whew.

So a quick bit about Carmel, and then I'm off to the market to pick up our two HUMONGOUS turkeys for the party this weekend (they have to thaw for a couple days) and other supplies, then home to host our family latke-fest. Whee!

Carmel was fantastic. Not only is it the cutest damn little town, with adorable architecture and so many delicious nooks and crannies and courtyards and places to ramble that I could have poked around there for weeks, but it was wonderful to have a whole weekend with Mom, where we could talk talk talk (our favorite pastime), shop (our second favorite pastime) and eat (our third favorite pastime) to our heart's content. Not to mention the lots of cool art we saw in all the myriad of galleries that infest Carmel's downtown like bunches of "cool" kids hanging out in the halls at lunch. We saw some splendiferous artwork--my favorite was visiting the Linde gallery and having a long conversation with the cantankerous character of Linde herself. Though she was initially grumpy, she seemed to warm up and get interested in talking to me (and later, Mom, who wasn't there at first), and she even was kind enough to show us her studio and her tools, and some of her "back room" paintings. The paintings were amazing--very inspirational to me personally--but talking to the artist was a really incredible experience as well. She's had such a long and interesting life, and is such a character--I could have stayed there for hours talking to her but she kicked me out at a certain point. Heh.

We also ate some great food, from over-the-top lobster eggs benedict at Katy's Place to delicious scallops and goat cheese ravioli at Porta Bella, to my favorite, an outstanding grilled escolar dish with wild mushrooms, sundried tomatoes and Israeli cous cous at Flying Fish in Carmel Plaza. Yum!

The place we stayed was the Tradewinds Inn, and whoo boy was that an amazing, luxurious place to stay. The Asian-themed decor was inventive and fabulous, down to the littlest touches (like a little rock fountain that turned on whenever you turned the main room light on), and the beds were supremely super comfortable.

Since both of us were super stressed when we started, we also decided to go for some personal pampering. I got a wonderful prenatal massage, and then both of us went to a day spa for pedicures (and Mom got a manicure too). It was awesome. It was great that we had this little island of calm and pleasure in the midst of our hecticity. I am trying to hold on to those moments, and not get toooooo caught up in the space shuttle launch.

Speaking of which, I think NASA is calling me...time to go.