Feb
14
Sweet wove
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February 14, 2007
Well, looky here, my man done got me some flars:
Do any of you find that you treat Valentine’s Day as a big game of chicken? Like if you would both just agree to completely disregard the day (not the fake kind of disregard where you say you don’t care but secretly you do and when the day ends with nary a chocolate to be seen you passively-aggresively pick a fight about the position of the toilet lid, or some shit), that would be one thing, but since you can’t, it’s all about figuring out your spouse’s plan of attack so you don’t 1) overshoot (“Um, honey? Can we really afford all these strippers?”) or 2) fall woefully short (“Gee. A Cadbury cream egg. It’s not fucking Easter, you know.”)? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for love in its many secreting forms, but this enforced business of finding exactly the right Hallmark-branded product to express a complicated emotion (why is there no card for, “I love you with all my heart, except when you make that gulping noise when you’re drinking”?) is annoying.
Although I got flowers out of the deal, so fuck everything I just said. In fact, let’s have more guilt-producing holidays in which I receive floral arrangements, by god.
I made JB a card, because I am practically Martha Goddamn Stewart over here, except for the part where I almost glued it shut (“My love is . . . uh, sealed by your . . . man-glue”). I helped Riley pick out a card, too, and I had this sappy notion of having Riley toddle it over to JB this morning all charming-like, but unfortunately the boy was in a spectacularly rotten mood and choose to lie around bellowing like a wounded wildebeest instead (“Dear Daddy, Roses are red | Birds sing a song | I’m a crabby jackass | Who screams all day long”).
I stopped at the grocery store earlier to pick up some things for dinner, and it was a madhouse in there—all kinds of people buying flowers, cards, and the makings for some complicated meals. It was a rich and sultry atmosphere, which I immediately sullied with my purchases, which included the following:
• Asparagus (Hot! Penis-shaped!)
• Steak (Hot! Red meat! Manly!)
• Whipped cream (Ooh, somebody bring me my salts!)
• Strawberries (Is somebody playing Barry White? Yes yes yes!)
• Mucinex (Ooh—uh, wait. Mucinex? Um.)
• Giant container of diaper wipes (Oh, man. Buzzkill. Totally ruining the mood.)
• Box of “Gentle Glide” tampons, absorbency grade: SUPER (Officially most unsexy bag of groceries in the world. Might as well throw some Preparation H in there and call it a day.)
Well, happy Valentine’s Day. May your groceries be Mucinex-free, your children purged of evil, and your absorbency requirements few.
PS. I almost forgot, in case you haven’t seen this already on That Other Blog I Write, please enjoy the funniest video you will see all day, or possibly all year.
Feb
13
Ailments and such
Filed Under Uncategorized | 51 Comments
February 13, 2007
I woke up yesterday feeling like something that had been filed under S for Shit: Hammered. It was like some particularly vicious hangover from 2003 had lurched out of my past in order to gift me with all the old familiar symptoms: headache, squirrely stomach, and a mouth that felt as though a family of wharf rats had slept underneath my tongue during the night.
JB waggled his eyebrows at me. “So, it’s morning and you’re feeling sick, eh?”
“But I started feeling crappy last night,” I said.
“Evening sickness,” he said, practically elbowing me in the ribs.
I figured if I were actually pregnant, and this was how I felt while being all of three minutes into the process, then the only explanation would be that I was carrying some kind of Poison Baby, a zygote capable of destroying my entire system, possibly by shooting death-lasers from its microscopic eyes.
However, right about the time I had imagined my way through the entire horrific, death-lasered pregnancy (where I must Take To My Bed on a daily basis and lie there, greenish and miserable and yet somehow growing more bulbous by the minute), I got my period. So, no Poison Baby this month.
I marked a firm X on our calendar to officially denote the First Day of Menstruation, because apparently in order to be strategic about the whole conception business (uh, sorry if this maybe too much personal information for a lunchtime blog read) you’re supposed to know a thing or two about your cycle. When I saw my doctor a few weeks ago, she asked how long my cycle was. “Um,” I said, and pursed my lips while peering intently off into space. I felt so . . . unwomanly, admitting that I had no earthly idea, that as far as I was concerned it was either Tampon Time or Not Tampon Time, and I didn’t have a good handle on how much of the month was devoted to each category.
Also, to be totally honest, I didn’t really exactly completely know how the whole thing worked. You know, the precise process of what happens when. What can I say, the majority of my adult life I’ve been focused on preventing a Blessed Event, not courting it—it’s been a while since I’ve studied up on follicles and ovum and whatnot.
Anyway, I feel practically bursting with knowledge now (would you like to talk about cervical mucus? Wait, come back!) and while an X on a calendar does not a Poison Baby make, I’m oddly pleased to be at the very least more aware of my inner tickings and tockings. At nearly 33 years of age, I finally have a shot of passing middle school health class! As long as no one makes me draw a fallopian tube, which I always picture as looking something like this:
I never figured out what my Mystery Ailment was, although I can probably blame the child. A few days ago he had a runny nose, and so of course that means one of his parents was bound to get the Avian-Swine Death Flu. I thought as adults we had built up immunities to these childhood germs, but noooo. Most of the time we just absorb them and transform them into something much more repulsive, like some crazy infectious-disease poker game. “I’ll see your occasional cough and raise you a chest-rattling lung-horker!”
In other news, Workplace is probably moving offices soon. To Magnolia. And I live in Bellevue. For those of you not familiar with the Seattle area, this will be my commute:
(Hey, am I the only person who has to look away from the screen while Google Maps does its zoom-in thing? It makes me carsick, I swear to god.)
As the crow flies it’s not too much further than my current commute, but when you factor in the traffic issues and various neighborhood/freeway crossings . . . well, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be bad. I’m guessing an hour at minimum each way. Unless I find some awesome shortcut, or purchase my own helicopter, or grow a leathery set of wings. Sigh.
Lastly, here’s an image I’ve been enjoying lately: two pictures of JB and Riley, one taken just a couple days ago, one when Riley was a newborn.
I cannot believe how fast Riley’s grown—how fast he continues to grow. We measured him against a wall in November, and did it again this morning, and he’s TWO INCHES taller. Now he can reach up with his go-go-gadget-toddler arms and grab things off of tables and countertops, and I can tell you this: it is both surprising and horrifying and a lesson to be learned when you’re putting some dishes away and you look over to see your young son, babbling earnestly at you about the fucking steak knife he just nabbed off the counter. Ah, parenthood, it’s just one sphincter-loosening heart attack after another.
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