Angst, Birth Control, Family, Humor

My 30 Minute Pregnancy Scare

“Another school dismissed confinements with a cheerful brightness, a ‘so-sorry-I’m-late-darling-I’ve-just-been-having-a-baby-where-shall-we-go-for-supper-afterwards?’ sangfroid which Flora, curiously enough, found equally alarming.”
– Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons

Minions, it’s been at least half a dozen posts since I last confessed my idiocy, I’m sure you’ve been on tenterhooks the whole time to see how I would be able to best my sock freakout.  I’m pleased/dismayed to be able to confirm that I have indeed topped it.  Read on.

This is me rising. Enthusiastically.

So, first J. and I were going to Britain together.  Then Her Majesty’s Government changed their visa laws so we were going separately, him in September (next month, ack!) and myself probably in February.  I’ve reconciled myself to my fate charmingly and just like a Real Live Grownup should.  In spite of the occasional bout of annoyance/minor depression, I’ve risen.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, I torpedoed my emotional scaffolding.

(Dad, don’t read this next bit.)  It was the first scheduled day of my period.  I’m on the pill and regular as clockwork.  And I made it through the entire day until 4:30pm.  The office was practically empty, I was alone with my thoughts (first mistake) and realized that the usual torso-bending cramps that I should have been “enjoying” had failed to put in an appearance.

Consequently, angst.

How shall I put this delicately?  You’d think that impending physical separation from my husband for months at a time would reduce the the, ah, threat of unplanned pregnancy, right?  How wrong you would be!  Suddenly, a cramp free afternoon (which, had I been in my right mind would be an occasion for joy) became and fear-scape of previously unseen proportions.

I saw myself great with child…with said spawn’s father on another bloody continent.  An entire pregnancy by myself, freaking out about every flutter, ultrasound, craving, and ache, without J. to tell me I’m being silly/order me to hospital.  No one to send out on late night runs for ice cream when I’ve overreached my gravitational ability to haul myself upright.  The fear that I wouldn’t be able to drive myself to work, since my feet only touch the pedals when the seat is all the way forward in the car – which would not be remotely possible with a fetus between me and the wheel.  A new horror of my klutziness as I pictured myself slipping and sliding on winter ice, which is nothing new, but suddenly far more terrifying with the risk of harming my child.

AUGH! It's trying to escape!

I saw myself going into labor with only my mother beside me – whose hand I couldn’t possibly reduce to pulp in my agony since she’d, you know, originally reduced Dad’s hand to pulp having me.  It would have smacked of ingratitude.  J. not being able to be there for the birth of our first child, perhaps watching and offering helpful tips (no doubt ungratefully received) via Skype.  I saw myself trying to juggle a newborn and still working so that I could retain my insurance to pay for this wrinkled, squalling, helpless thing… without childcare – this particular vision made me break out in a cold sweat.

I’m tough.  But childbirth scares me.  Childbirth without J. there to take my expletives, hold my hand, and remind me that our kid will totally be worth the current pain – that petrifies me.

As you may have guessed, the torso-bending cramps showed up just after I got home from work and the universe righted itself.  Except for one single trembling woman who had to restrain tears of gratitude as she reached for her “feminine hygiene” products with an unsteady hand.  I’m better now, but you’ll observe it took me a couple of weeks to be able to even write about it.

Books, Friends, Humor

For My Future Spawn: Guest Post

A treat for you today, minions, a break from me!  Wait…  Anyway, a longtime friend from freshman year of university is posting today about required reading for her spawn.  Hillary is the proud mama of two boys and just announced she has another baby on the way, so she’s clearly much further along the spawning process than I!  If my kids turn out half as cute and fun as hers I’ll consider them a success.  You can find her writing here.

Calvin and Hobbes is by far my favorite comic strip. I put it on my “required” reading list for my kids, but I highly doubt I’ll have to twist arms to get them to read these books.

Calvin captures so much of the imagination of childhood. He spends much of his time romping through the woods (or wishing he was) opening up whole different worlds with his mind as only a child can. His stuffed tiger, Hobbes, we all know is a real tiger and it’s only his parents and others that don’t understand that reality. Who didn’t want a pet tiger like Hobbes when they were growing up?

Calvin philosophizes about life all the time and uses language far too advanced for his 6 year-old brain, especially since he tries his best not to learn in school. It wasn’t until high school that I learned that Calvin and Hobbes were named after the philosophers John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, respectively.

Calvin plays pranks on everyone-his parents, his neighbor Suzie, Hobbes, and occasionally his classmates. Things we probably all thought of doing as children but never dared to actually attempt.

He creates monstrous and clever artwork out of snow. This is my favorite part (maybe because I never lived in snow as a kid).

Calvinball-a game where the only rule is you can’t play the same way twice. Brilliant.

One of my favorite reoccurring stories throughout the series is Calvin’s transmorgrifier/duplicator/ethicator/time machine box. It’s simply a cardboard box that he scribbles on and then it does whatever the words on the box say. In this box he is transformed into a tiger, visits the age of the dinosaurs, duplicates himself so he doesn’t have to go to school, and even creates his “good” side.

Despite Calvin’s prevalent mischievousness, he has a softer side that sometimes comes out when he finds an injured or dead animal or when he realizes Christmas morning that he has nothing to give Hobbes.

The comic also grows with you. I understood it much differently as a kid than I now do as an adult. I must add, now that I’m a parent of two little boys, I have much more sympathy for his parents.

I love that he lives a normal childhood, went to school, shirked homework, got into mischief, and just enjoyed being a kid. I think that’s what makes it such a great comic because so many people can relate to something in the strip. It makes me reminisce on all the things I did as a kid (or wish I had tried).

Calvin and Hobbes opens up childhood imagination, introduces a wide vocabulary, mixes in philosophy and art, and it’s just good writing in a form that kids (and adults) love reading. That is why it is required reading for my children, though perhaps I will not let my boys read them until they have a little more sense than does Calvin.

Humor

Muffins of Judgement

“Ladies, just a little more virginity, if you don’t mind.”
– Herbert Beerbohm Tree

You poor helpless, idiotic thing! Don't worry, I will clean up the mess that is your life!

Savvy was the first one to introduce me to the life-changing phrase, “muffins of judgment,” and I’ve since (with her permission) integrated it fully into my verbal arsenal of artificially created idioms.  By all means, do the same!  “Muffins of judgment” signifies when a person (usually female) insults, demeans, degrades, or belittles you, in the sweetest way possible. Offering you baked goods because you clearly can’t bake them for yourself, can you, you poor dear?

This phrase is most regularly deployed when discussing the antics of the more dangerous of the parish Ladies’ Aid Society queen bees.  They can be difficult to spot.  In the old days you could identify them by their pearls, midcalf length skirts, matching jackets, and Queen-like helmet curls (protecting a head chock full of rigidly Victorian sensibilities).  In these egalitarian times this sort of scathing, high nosed charity has trickled down a bit from the disapproving aunt type and now can be seen across the grand spectrum of the Ladies’ Aid.

Historically I’ve been fairly good at fending off the Ladies’ Aid Society’s more grating members by a combination of good manners, outright avoidance, and sheer dumb luck, but my winning streak recently ran out.  Our parish was combined with another and the adjustment hasn’t gone as smoothly as smiling faces and sweet words of welcome might imply.  Our old parish was a decidedly younger demographic with a tendency to change, due to multiple universities in the area.  Our new one is comprised entirely of families who have lived in the same area for multiple generations and elderly people.  We are without question the interlopers.

I knew that there had been a wee bit of trouble integrating things and trying to reassign responsibilities more evenly, but J. and I have been out and about so much this summer that we rarely attend services at home anyway.  Plus, until recently we assumed we’d both be skipping the country, so why get attached?  God (or your personal divine/moral equivalent) has a tricksy sense of humor…

About a month after the integration, a pair of ladies from the parish decided to pay a call.  I fell into a fit of frenzied cleaning, forced J. to do all the dishes, and hid anything resembling clutter in the back rooms.  I was prepared for the worst.

When the doorbell rang (at 7pm on the dot) I answered with a smile.  My two visitors looked harmless enough, one a 20-something wearing a headband with a large flower perched at a jaunty angle and an Anthropology dress, the other a 50-something in a flowy, Moroccan looking white outfit.
Promising, I thought to myself, not a bifocal or helmet curl in sight.  We might have normality!  Repeat, we might have normality!

“Nice to meet you,” Miss said pleasantly.
“And we’re so glad you didn’t go to any trouble cleaning up for us,” Madam joined, sailing into my flat with a gracious smile.
Headquarters, belay that last transmission.
“I hope we didn’t interrupt your dinner,” Madam continued.
“No, J. and I grabbed some dinner on the way home, it’s not a problem at all.”
“Oh, you don’t cook?  How modern of you!  Mind you keep an eye on your husband, then, or he’ll find someone who does!” she sounded a tinkling, pretty laugh.

Trying to hold my snorts in, I put on my best hostess face and asked them to sit down and we (or rather Madam) made small talk for a while.
“Oh are those your wedding pictures?  I see your dress wasn’t white…well I’m sure you had your reasons.”
“You’re 25 and haven’t had children yet?  I hope there’s nothing, you know, wrong with you.  I’m sure everything will be fine when your time comes.”
“You grew up in Europe!  Well, you don’t seem socialist, so that’s alright.”

When she asked me whether or not I played the piano I nearly burst out laughing.

Eventually the talk turned to the parish and a half hour or so later they left.  Walking out the door Madam paused.
“I almost forgot!  I made these to welcome you to our little congregation.”
From her bag she pulled, I kid you not, a bundle of perfectly wrapped muffins.  Thankfully they made it out the door before I lost it completely.  Muffins.  Of judgment.

Friends, Humor, Travel, Weekend

The Play’s the Thing

“Lord, what fools these mortals be.”
– William Shakespeare

The Shakespeare Festival was delightful as always!  Margot, Wrench, J., and I saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and enjoyed every minute of it – a fabulous production!

But it must be said, this vacation wore me out.  Hours of driving (though J. took care of that), ridiculous desert heat that meant we couldn’t be outside for long (me especially since I overheated stopping at a gas station to refuel!), and the brief scare of our Check Engine light turning on in the middle of bleeding nowhere.  Late night conversations, movies, entirely too much ice cream and candy, and way too much money spent eating out.  All very fun, no doubt, but exhausting just the same!

Yesterday was an academic break which meant I didn’t have work, so I tried to repair damages to my house as best I could.  But in spite of a load of laundry, two dinners made and frozen for the coming week, the whole house vacuumed, dusted, the kitchen cleaned, the floors all mopped, and grocery shopping, I didn’t get half the things on my To Do List done.  By the time J. got home I threw my metaphoric hands in the air and we escaped the remaining chores to go see Harry Potter 7.2 before crawling into bed.

How was your weekend, kittens?

Friends, Fun, Humor, Weekend

Bonnie (and Margot) and Clyde. Guns and a Roadtrip. Unrelated.

“Do we need to stop at a grocery store and pick up anything for the weekend?”
“I’ll ask Margot.”
“And dinner tonight?  Have we any plans or are we just going to stop somewhere on the way.”
“J…look.  We’re going to have an adventure, ok?  Just got with it!
“I was going to ask you these questions yesterday but you weren’t feeling well and then you were sleepy.  Food is very important!”
“I promise I will feed you, ‘k?”
– J. and C. email chain

Yesterday some of the officers took Hennessy, Susie, Wise and I to the shooting range just for fun.  I got to shoot an AK47, an M4, and an Uzi.  Also, there were flash grenades!  We were out in the desert sun for nearly 4 hours and I got heatstroke afterward, but it was worth it.  Pictures forthcoming.

And today we are going to head to Cedar City, Utah for the weekend for their annual Shakespeare Festival!  Margot’s grandparents have a home in the area where we are crashing for the night, meeting up with her non-boyfriend-significant-other-gentleman-caller Wrench and frolicking for the weekend.  J. loves Southern Utah, his family are all hikers, rock climbers, and campers and have spent many a holiday in the area.

I for one am glad to be doing something.  I’ve turned into a housecat recently, and like spending weekends at home doing the mundane things I never seem to manage during the week.  And yet…I’ve had a hankering to go and do!  Explosions and Shakespeare rose nicely to the occasion.  What are your weekend plans, kittens?  Staying home with family or friends?  Summer fests?  Water parks?  Barbeques?  Sound off!

Humor, Travel

Doctor’s Orders

“Health is not simply the absence of sickness.”
– Hannah Green

When prepping for a tramp abroad, ducklings, it’s important to get your health in order as well as your house.  There is nothing fun about getting sick in a foreign country where you may or may not know how the health system works so do your research (speaking as a girl who sprained her wrist in Turkey and was a little, ah, surprised at their hospital system).  Find out well in advance whether or not you qualify for a nationalized service plan or if you should get traveler’s health insurance to cover you in the event of a mishap.  For the best results, long before you go, get the basic preventative work.

Get your teeth cleaned and ask for a fluoride treatment for extra protection.

If you can, get a blood work up.  Find out what, if anything, is lurking in your chemical makeup.

(Gentlemen, avert your eyes) Ladies, get a pelvic and breast exam.

Are you on prescription medications?  Figure out how you’re going to continue to get the meds you need, whether it’s by utilizing the resources available to travelers in your land of destination, or by taking a large supply with you.

Have your dermatologist check out and moles, freckles, lesions, sunspots, or anything else that you weren’t born with.  99% of them will be harmless and the remaining 1% will be treatable if you catch the problem early.  If you have eczema, boils, psoriasis, cysts, or acne, it can and should be treated.

Get an eye exam and update your prescription as needed.  Replace any eyewear that is scratched, broken, barely balancing on the ridge of your nose, or otherwise past its prime.

If you have orthopedic shoes or other bracing, shaping, or corrective gear, make sure it’s in good condition, and still doing its job.  If you need to update any of it, do so.

If you have more personal issues of depressions, anxiety, or any of their tricksy cousins, make sure you are equipped to care for yourself.  Whether that means having a few visits with a trusted counselor to get some coping techniques for the stresses of the move, sorting out your medications, or just making sure you’ve got a support system of people in place.  Anyone who tells you psychological problems don’t have physical symptoms, you should just “suck it up,” or “it’s all in your head” is an idiot.

Now all of this takes time, and money.  If finances are a worry, there are programs like Planned Parenthood, free clinics, student health centers, and physicians who are willing to do pro bono work.  Take advantage of your resources.  Start working through your appointments a few months before you head out to give yourself time to diagnose and treat any trickiness that turns out.

Finally, and I can’t stress this enough, address any health concerns you have with a physician.  I don’t care whether it’s chronic headaches or the alarming tendency to pass out every time you turn left.  I don’t care whether blue snot is draining out of your ears or sometimes you just feel an odd shooting pain in your elbow.  I don’t care if you have hemorrhoids or hair loss, acne or agoraphobia, stress or smallpox.  I don’t care.

Why, you ask?  Because you are entitled to feel well, whole, healthy, happy, well-adjusted, fit and equipped.  You do not have to suffer through pain, anxiety, and discomfort, and certainly not without fighting back!  Take care of yourself, kittens.

Humor, Law Enforcement, Work

The Trouble With Labelling. And Behaving Badly.

“Let me be clear – no one is above the law. Not a politician, not a priest, not a criminal, not a police officer. We are all accountable for our actions.”
– Antonio Villaraigosa

Dear World at Large,

I get it.  I really do.  No one likes the police (mostly, I think, because they’ve been caught) but there is an unsubtle distinction between Fascism/Police States…and you being held accountable for your behavior.

For example!  If you choose to come into a police department screaming, yelling, swearing, threatening, and gesticulating rudely…please make sure you’re in the right place for your complaint and not a completely different city and police jurisdiction.  You will look rather silly if you’re not.

Alternatively, if upon realizing your mistake you choose to continue your rant (at the wrong police station) by upping the volume and threats, and a uniformed man with a badge, a gun, and the ability to arrest you asks you to leave the property, do so.  Do not spout off that your father is an attorney (whoop de freaking doo for you, join the club), do not shout that he [the officer] doesn’t have the authority to arrest you, do not take a swing at the clerks and secretaries, and do not flip him [said officer] the bird and call him a “socialist, fascist, Taliban, moron!”.  You’ll be cited.  Not because we are fascist, but because you’re trying to hit people and trespassing.

Yours with love,
C.

Humor, Work

The Precise Science of Naps

“Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.”
~Redd Foxx

I’ve been fighting something for about a week now.  I can’t tell what disease it is exactly because it simply will not come to the foreground.  It’s lurking in the lymph nodes of my mouth and manifesting itself as nothing so much as exhaustion and a mild sore throat that just won’t go away.  But yesterday I felt so beat and icky that I went home early and tried to get some rest.

Getting rest for me is no easy feat because I can rarely sleep during the day, I usually have to be on death’s door to get some shut eye.   But, after much trial and experiment, I’ve discovered the magical combination that puts me to sleep.  And it’s more than a little bit ridiculous.

First of all I have to be on the couch under our large window.  Secondly I have to be, cat-like, in a sunbeam (which is odd because normally I can only sleep in pitch darkness).  Thirdly I have to be listening to Planet Earth, or Blue Planet…or basically anything narrated by David Attenborough – something about his voice just soothes me into slumber.  Finally, I have to be reclining on a very specific pillow at an even more specific angle.  But by these powers combined, I am Captain Zonk-out!

Unfortunately…yesterday I couldn’t quite get the clouds and the pillow quite right and spent about an hour and a half fruitlessly trying to fall asleep before throwing off the blanket and looking for something to do instead.  So I popped a couple of aspirin and reorganized our closet looking for things to throw away or donate.  Then I sorted through the (very few) books we’re not keeping and bagged them for library donation.

Every weekend I seem to be useless, but let me tell you, sick and drugged up I can get everything on my To Do list done!

Life

The Sock Ninja, or A Glimpse Into My Marriage

“I don’t even know how to write about this one.”
“Well when you do, you’d better mention my awesome dexterity.”
– C., J.

No one would know it but my seemingly mild-mannered, mature, stable, pretty impressive husband has this hidden side to him that resembles nothing so much as a mischievous four year old boy who thrills at finding new ways to annoy and/or startle me. Once a year or so I get the fright of my life when he pops out from behind a concealing door – just for kicks. More rarely still he tries to pull bigger pranks on me (such as trying to convince me he’d been in a car wreck). But the things that fill him with glee, that tickle his soul, are when he discovers some new tick or personal quirk of mine on accident.

Well, we can't all be serious.

Mind you I can be pretty ridiculous. I’m aware of it and do my best to accept it graciously as my lot in life – which is hard when you manage to fall down the flat stairs after tripping over your own feet at least once a week. Or when hopping on one foot down the hallway trying to get my leg into my trousers, because I’ve lost my balance and can’t regain it, while J. looks on in glee and has to hold the door frame to keep himself upright for laughing.

But even those sorts of regular episodes can’t prepare him for the initial shock when, for example, he was being extra sweet one evening and giving me a backrub as we watched PBS. Somehow his fingers found just the right combination on my vertebrae. Suddenly the tension left my entire body, I lost control of it, and my head pitched forward and thumped on the couch armrest. After approximate .0002 seconds of concern, he dissolved into fits as I rounded on him, hand clasped to the bump on my forehead and demanded fiercely, “What did you do?!”
“Vulcan mind trick?” he offered, between gasps and shrieks of laughter.

The jerks of the unmentionables drawer

Or the time when, coming to bed much later than me, he semi-woke me up. I’ve no idea what his intentions were and I’m afraid to ask, all I know is that for some reason he tossed a sock at me which ended up squarely on top of my head. And, still mostly in a dream state, I freaked out.
“Getitoff getitoff getitoff!” I panicked, flailing wildly towards full consciousness.
“What?” he demanded, a little freaked out himself at my outburst.
“Thesockthesockthesock getitoff!”
A moment later I was awake and, pulling the sock off my head rather sheepishly, muttering, “I think I may have overreacted.”
He was silent for a moment before burying himself in his pillow to muffle his snorts.

Of course this means that now, when I’m folding laundry (or really just when I lease expect it) he will randomly place a sock on my head, just to annoy me. It works.

His affinity for pushing my buttons with socks reached a new level last evening however when, teasingly trying to get his attention (and perhaps trying to exact some revenge) I playfully lobbed a sock at him. He was on the computer and only caught a glimpse of the incoming missile in his peripherals, but apparently that was more than enough because in one move he deflected in the advancing footwear and repelled it with a karate chop motion…

Right back clean between my eyes.

It took him nearly fifteen minutes of muffled giggling and apologizing before I could be talked out of my sulk and (mostly hormonally driven) suspicions that he’d done it on purpose. And even then he couldn’t help with the, “But you have to admit, that was pretty funny!”

There are times I suspect he married me simply as a guarantee of being amused for the rest of his life.

Books, Humor

For My Future Spawn: Harry Potter

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
~J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Another of these posts is long overdue and what better time to salute J.K. Rowling’s fantastic series than today when many are heralding as the end of an era?  Although I would point out that the book series actually came to a close a while back and much as I like the movies, the books really are where it’s at.  As usual.

So, why was – is – Harry Potter important?

First of all, structure.  It’s a series that ages as the reader does and subtly introduces what I think are important shifts in thinking along the way.  I read the first book at 11, the same age as HP at the time, and even though I devoured it in a day (and the following books much in the same time frame), the idea of being misunderstood and different and special resonated with me.  Like every other pre-teen on the planet.  The series’ themes deepened, and yes, darkened as it went on, at a matched pace (I think) for the children (and some adults) reading it.  In other words, it’s plain good reading that advances as you read it instead of staying at one level.  Good for the brain!

And talking of which!  The Harry Potter series draws from many mythologies that I think are important to understanding history and culture.  Many of my friends were introduced to Greek mythology, alchemy, folklore, and the very of idea of the “mythic” for the first time in their lives by reading HP!  And I think that the mythic is important for expanding imagination from the mundane to the previously impossible.

Hermione Granger single-handedly turned clever girls into heroines instead of minor antagonists in a book series.  She was hardly the first to do so, but I think her impact will be lasting.  I know I felt better for spending my free period in the school library knowing that someday my knowledge of history trivia would save the world!  Perhaps this is reaching a bit, but my generation seems to be much less inclined to view things like courage for convictions, intelligence, and even geeky-ness as a negative or tease worthy thing.  This may not be HP’s fault, but I like to think it is.

Key for me, as the series progressed more was required of the triumvirate of main characters than just going to school and brushing their teeth.  They grew up, with all the messy, hilarious, and sad teenage-into-adult shifts that entails, with the added stress of having to save a world.  Being special or different comes with a cost and you must be willing to sacrifice, make decisions, be loyal to both friends and ideals, and fight for good.  High minded, yes.  Preachy, no.

I grew up reading, my parents limited television and filled our house with books from well before I was born.  But I know I am lucky for that and not everyone did grow up with mums who would fork out for every single book fair and monthly book order magazine!  Not everyone had a dad that would read to them practically every day (Sesame Street and Dr. Suess Books at first, all the way up to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, theology, and history later).  I know many, many people whose first real reading experience was the Harry Potter series, and who have never looked back since that first dive into a library.

And for these reasons, Harry Potter is required reading.  Any book that can literally open new worlds, while expanding the readers own, needs to be on the shelf.