Also, if you commit a crime using a Kit Kat, there's a 3 year mandatory minimum.

Last night was my first class ever in any subject that begins with "hypno-." In this case, it was hypnobirthing. While Leah and I desperately wanted the class to be very funny, it wasn't. Mostly, we're going to learn to relax so that giving birth takes, if the movies are to be believed, about 5 pleasant minutes. During those 5 minutes I am apparently going to be whispering something to Leah, but I'm not sure what I have to say yet.

However, we can be sure that I won't be saying the word, "contraction." Why? Because hypnobirthing comes with a new vocabulary. There are no more contractions, only "energy surges." Also:
"Ack! My water broke!" becomes "Ahhh. The membrane has released." Breaking things: bad for babies.
"Birth canal" becomes "birth path." Perhaps bad associations with malaria? But who wouldn't like a nice path?
"Push" becomes "breathe out," because it is never too early to start insisting on a zero tolerance policy for pushing and shoving.
"Obstetrician" becomes "Dr. Love." In general, terms from the Greek are frowned upon.

Our two big projects - house hunt, baby preparation - continue at full speed. On Sunday we stumbled into a fantastic house missing only a back yard. Nestled on a tiny dead end street on the edge of Jamaica Plain (very hip) where it borders Roxbury (very un-hip) near some sketchy housing projects, it had been completely redone and looked great. We drove around the neighborhood after seeing the place and noticed a policeman down the street next to the house. We thought we would go ask him about safety and such, and as we approached we noticed that he wasn't just loitering. He was, in fact, dealing with a lovely late-model Honda missing a few important car parts: the wheels and hood. Who steals a car hood?

But we were undeterred, even when he said, "Pretty safe, but this happens sometimes." We called some people who lived in the neighborhood and got good reports, so we prepared to make an offer. On Monday we got the papers in order. On Tuesday, we found that the house would not be ours. Sold to a higher bidder? No, rented. But still for sale. We are not real estate experts, but showing your house and then signing a lease does not seem to be a recipe for a quick sale.

I spoke to the seller yesterday to find out what exactly she was thinking. "They were really great tenants," she said. "I didn't want to risk losing them." The tenants, she explained, are a couple of doctors from Minnesota coming to work at a nearby hospital. I am not convinced they will feel...uh...at home in the neighborhood.

Tonight, we begin a class that has potential to make writing class no longer the silliest class I have taken this year: hypnobirthing. "Relaaaaaaaxxxxxx.....you're getting preggggggnannnnnnnt.....verrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyy pregggggggnnnnnannnnnt."

Doug Mienkeiwitz is one of the Red Sox' three first basemen and the only one who can reliably catch a baseball. He also hits about .250 but makes $2.8 million a year. Doug had the good fortune this past fall to make the final putout in the Sox' World Series victory. And he kept the ball. Why? Well, when Mark McGwire's 70th dinger brings in $3 million, and Barry Bonds' 73rd fetches $900,000, it's clear he saw a few dollar signs written on that baseball.

Red Sox management, of course, sees it differently. Though the ball is actually Mienkeiwitz' property, according to Major League Baseball - sort of like those sticky notes you brought home and put on your desk - Larry Lucchino wants to put it in a museum. A museum! How crazy.

Mienkiewitz, for his part, plans to make the ball his "retirement savings." He did not mention which part of his yearly draw is currently helping him save for retirement, but it's clear that he has wild dreams for his family that might require the extra million bucks or so that the ball could bring in:

"I know this ball has a lot of sentimental value," he said. "I hope I don't have to use it for the money. It would be cool if we have kids someday to have it stay in our family for a long time. But I can be bought. I'm thinking, there's four years at Florida State for one of my kids. At least."

Yes, at least. Since the average student stay at FSU probably runs about 6 or 7 years.