Waiting for Ziggy

The Setting: The Hovel. Overflowing with papers and partially completed to-do lists. Still not clean and orderly.

The Soundtrack: The Cosby Show.

Steaming up the Oven: Individual Amaretto Cheesecakes and a Porcini-Dusted Caramelized Onion and Goat Cheese Tart.

The Scenario: Having given up coffee once again (for the sake of the baby), I struggle to remain in an upright, eyes-open position as much as pregnantly possible.

My bouts of nesting are broken up by days spent almost exclusively in slumber, and bits of butter-smudged paper with shorthand-scribbled recipes waiting in purgatory to be typed up play hide-and-seek with the magazines, junk mail, and Wall Street Journals that compose the dilapidated structure of The Hovel.

Hoosband and I have had many productive cooking sessions in recent days, tapping the diverse South Floridian cultures to create our own versions of Cuban Ropa Vieja and Tostones and Caribbean Curried Goat.

We made an incredible key lime pie (thank you, Cooks Illustrated) with homemade graham crackers (recipe adapted from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook) and delicious Kerrygold Irish butter in the crust, and we finally perfected our recipe for pumpkin muffins.

The cleaning, however, has come puttering to a stall on the shoulder of the road.

As the primary tow truck in town goes by the moniker of Caffeine, and I am trying to abstain, I pray I'll get a jump from the chair-yoga class I attended this morning and the chocolate chip cookie I just devoured.

Meanwhile, I try not to let the laundry or the dishes pile up too much, and I focus on naming my offspring.

Hoosband and I had decided on Ziggy Catalina, but after some reflection (and a phone call from family) he started getting shifty feet.

Now we are back to the fishing pond, where every name we pull out of the water is either too small to keep or so big it breaks our line...which is why we landed on Ziggy in the first place--it was the only thing we were able to fry up in a pan and devour for dinner.

I'm pretty sure that no matter what goes on her birth certificate, she will still be Ziggy to us.

Tonight, in between bites of tangy goat cheese and sweet, caramelized onions, as we cuddle on the loveseat to the tunes of Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, we shall ponder Ziggy names and maybe, just maybe, get a little cleaning in before dessert.