The Final Countdown

I am really tired today. i got no sleep last night between visions of my sister in wedding dresses (i've spent about 4 + hours watching her try on wedding dresses, not to mention countless hours looking at her picks from magazines and the internet), and the baby doing somekind of jazzercise routine.

I was falling asleep at my desk by 2 pm, and after work I have to go to my other job and teach a class at the Red Cross. Then I get to get up tomorrow and do it all over again. At least the day job. This will be my final Red Cross class for a while. I have to say I'm a little bit glad. It's fun at first, but after teaching the same 8 hour class for a year, it's a drudge. Especially when you end up with a classroom full of people who, despite being there to learn how to help an ill or injured person and potentially save someone's life, couldn't be less interested if they tried. The very first question I always get is "Will this really take 8 hours? or is there the possibility of getting out early?" Tonight, though, I am teaching a 4 hour review class, so hopefully the people will be a little more lively. It's also alittle disconcerting to teach this 8 hour class, where you hands-on practice pretty much everything and watch videos and read about how to do it, because at the end we pass out surveys. There is a series of questions on the survey about whether or not you would now feel comfortable responding to an emergency, or recognizing an emergency, or if you feel prepared for an emergency situation, or how likely you would be to step and respond in an emergency situation like you learned about in the class. You rate your level on a scale of 1-6. Half or more circle 3 or 4 or below. Some people circle "not likely" or the equivalent. It makes me wonder why I wasted time teaching these skills to people who will still leave the class and be the kind of people who sit there in a restaurant and watch the person next to them choke to death. Or stand around and oogle the scene of a car accident and do nothing to help.

I was thinking about getting emt certified. The local firehouse is so desperate for volunteers they train you to do emt and firefighter certifications free. But I volunteered with an emt unit for a couple nights last year, and I wasn't real impressed. Also, I'm not sure how that will fit in with the whole baby thing, and the engineering night classes I'm supposed to be taking at the local community college. I'm also starting a five week sewing class tomorrow night. I'm excited to learn a real life, practical skill. Something where I can use my hands to create an actual output. I'll be crushed if I suck at it.

We may go camping this weekend, about a half hour drive from our house. My sister and her fiancee bought a bunch of cheap used camping equipment they want to test out, and I think a little "stay-cation" would be good for all parties involved.

I've also run out of reading material for work, so today I ordered a couple of $3 used books. "Hell's Angels" by Hunter S Thompson , and "The Best of Abbie Hoffman" by Abbie Hoffman. They better be good. The shipping and handling cost more than the books.

While I was on half.com on a whim I looked up used Raffi cd's. Remember Raffi? 'Down by the bay.....', the "you brush your teeth, ch ch ch ch, ch ch ch ch" song. Yeah, sweet nostalgia. I never thought twice about it as a kid of course, but now that I see the cd covers, he's kinda creepy. What was that slightly older Canadian Pee Wee Herman looking dude doing dedicating his life to wearing primary-colored jump suits and caps and singing "six little ducks" ? It's just a little strange.

Not your mother's wedding vows

Alright, after a leisurely weekend, back to the grindstone. I had another routine dr's appt today. My ex-boyfriend has been e-mailing me, he's changed his mind, and now wants to really be involved, apparently. So I made him cut his hair, sign up for Daddy bootcamp and get a couple days off for my last 2 Lamaze classes, and told him he could have one more chance. (I know, I am weak). So he came to my dr's appt today. I thought it would just be the routine weight and belly measurements, blood pressure, and ask me how I'm doing. But I guess now that I'm within 4 weeks I have to get the exam every week now. Great first activity to attend with your estranged boyfriend. I made him stand in the corner and stare at the wall, which he was only too happy to do.

So, the baby's head is all the way down there, and I'm dialated 1 cm (I know you wanted to know that, but I'm excited). This doesn't really mean anything, except that things are progressing well. It could still be tomorrow or 4 weeks from now. But I'm counting on sooner rather than later. Then I showed the man where the labor and delivery wing was and we oogled the newborns in the nursery window. S O C U T E. So beautiful and wonderful and cute that you can barely stand it. Except their little plastic clipped umbilical cords, which look like some kind of alien apparatus, or something from the Matrix. But the rest of the cuteness eclipses this.

I also went wedding dress shopping with my little sis this weekend. She wanted to check out the David's Bridal $99 sale. They haven't set a date yet, and she wants to make her own dress anyway, but who doesn't want to try on a bunch of wedding dresses and get waited on? I am not a sentimental person, but seeing her up there on the pedestal in the mirrors, decked out in a veil and elegant wedding gown, it made me sniffle a little. She looked so grown up. I thought about trying to make the "dress associates" seek out some "maternity" dresses for me to try on, just for the hell of it, and to see the stares of all the other cutomers, but decided against it.

I have to admit that even I think about my ideal wedding sometimes, my dress, cake, flowers, guest list. But the thought of marriage is enough to dissuade me. I really do equate it to the death of a relationship. I may have something of a skewed perspective because half of my uncles, my parents, and both sets of grandparents have been divorced at least once. And my mom is a social worker, and my dad is a divorce attorney. It's possible.

But I hear horror stories (and see them). My dad likes to tell the story of a couple who came to him for a divorce. They'd been together just shy of 15 years, had kids together, been living together, happy as clams. They finally decided to take the plung, tie the knot, make it official.

6 months later they were in for a divore, at each other's throat, and in the middle of a custody battle. Something about that piece of paper just changes people. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's the evil influence of the ring... Maybe people just start to feel trapped. Or maybe they (men particularly) just think it means it's the end and they can stop trying. Maybe it's just that try as you might, once you're husband and wife expectations just change. I partially blame sitcoms. How many of those stupid, damned shows have the stay at home, beautiful, obliging wife, and generally absent kids, and the overweight, underacheiving, ungrateful "man's man" husband, who's always trying to put one over on her? But they always make up in the end. Maybe people feel like they have to fall into those roles. My Mom just got remarried last year. She says you have to know someone at least 2 years before you can possibly know them well enough to marry them. She and her husband dated for 2 years prior to marriage. Now (largely because of a very stressful house-building venture, resulting legal woes and financial stress) they are at each other's throats a lot. She says it's like he took a stupid pill when they got married. He just stopped registering what she says, or remembering things that he knew about her before. That he just doesn't pay attention.

I'm certainly not trying to discourage anyone here, or dissuade them from marital bliss. Reportedly, it works for some people. I've even heard rumors of people who've been happily married for 50 years. Hard to fathom, I know. I have even on occassion seen couples who look like something out of a toothpaste commercial and get along like best friends, and go together like fric and frac. Of course, I also sometimes hear about them not working out in the end.

What does marriage even mean nowadays? Legal right to your spouse's property and insurance benefits. That's about it. Is the potential ruin of your long term relationship worth it? Sure you get the party, and the honeymoon, the wedding and the presents, the glow. But that all wears off. All that's left is a sense of smugness that you've snagged somebody permanently, and that you're somehow more legitimate now, that people look at you with more respect.

I'd rather be looked down on and happy.

Tell me a good marriage story, just one. It would cheer me up.

Do I need to bring my own nails?

So, maybe I am just losing my customer service patience, but I'm really starting to get annoyed with some of these people.

Again, I work at the Virginia State Park reservations line. I am not one stop shopping for any and all questions you have. One woman called me up yesterday, she wanted to stay somewhere in the vicinity of Lake Anna. I asked, "Do you mean Lake Anna State Park?"

"Sure" she says.

Well, she didn't want to camp, and there were no cabins left available for this weekend (aka today). So then she wanted me to book her a hotel. I explained I only work for the state parks ( for the third time) but generously offered to google some hotels in the area. Before I even got halfway through doing that she was off on another tangent, and wanted to know about every lake in the state that has swimming. When I explained again that I only work for the State Parks she asked if I could give her the number there. "The number where?" I ask. "To the state parks." she says.

Seriously? Are you even listening to me? So I painstakingly go thru all of the state parks and which offer lake swimming and where they are, and when I finally find a cabin available for her, she doesn't want to go. She says it must not be a very nice park if it still has space available.

It makes me think of those V8 commercials where the non-vegetable eaters get bonked on the head. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with her.

Or when people call to make a reservation and I ask "For what days?"

And all I get is this: "Uuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Like I just asked an SAT question or something.

Or sometimes they just flat out say, "I don't know." Well, then how am I supposed to help you? Why did you call to make a reservation? How did you think that was gonna work? Or they'll say "Sometime in August" or "Either this weekend or next weekend." Hey, it's your reservation, you tell me when you're gonna go.

My favorite was this very nice guy who called to pay for his reservation. He'd made the res last week and was just calling back to pay for it. When I gave him his res number he asked "Uh, and what do I need this for?" and I explained - checking in, changing or cancelling your reservation, for your records etc.

Then he asks me "So, what should I bring?"

I was taken a little off guard. I guess I paused too long because he started to back pedal.

"Um, I mean, I have -like- a tent." Oh good, that's a start.

"But is there anything, like, inparticular I should bring?" Many things spring to mind - food, clothes, water, personal hygeine products.

I say "Ummm."

"I mean, do I need to bring my own nails? Or will they sell them there?"

"Sir, what do you need nails for?"

"Well, my friend told me they have tent pads there made out of wood. So I was wondering if I need to bring my own nails, you know to nail the tent onto the pad."

Seriously?

Once upon a time

So, I promised a couple of good stories about family trips with my Dad, his girlfriend - Kathy, and her son, James. I consulted an old diary entry made on the occassion and have decided this may be the most amusing one to share.

I'm not sure of the year, it was the early to mid 90's. I would have been in my early teens, Clare a preteen, and James would have been around 7, I think It was summer and we were taking a trip up to the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan's upper peninsula. Packing and actually getting on the road is the most stressful part of any trip my family takes. So, we're already running a couple hours later than expected, and my Dad is readying the avocado green 60's pop-up camper that Kathy inherited from somewhere, and which has done an excellent job of housing mildew and bugs in the very long stint it spent parked in our driveway. I am shuttling luggage from the pile by the back door to my Dad in the driveway so he can use his master skills to pack the back of the min-van with tetris like efficiency. Kathy is upstairs taking her sweet time doing her hair and finding every little comfort or personal hygeine item she might like to bring, since she refused to pack up the night before like everyone else. She comes downstairs to survey the operation briefly.

"I can't sleep on the mattress in there," she says, " it's so uncomfortable, and you know I have back problems and I need my sleep. "

"Well, what do you want me to do?" my Dad asks. "I'm not putting our bedroom mattress in there. It wouldn't fit anyway."

She scoffs. "Well, John, you could put the mattress from the fold out couch on there, that one would have more padding."

"Fine."

My little sister Clare is sitting in the family room , suffering from some bronchitis like attack and swearing out her impatience at everyone taking so long, and pouting. James is running around looking for toys and being generally irritating. He keeps telling his mom he can't find his suitcase, she tells him it's in the car so just leave her alone.

In the minivan the haul of luggage and pillows and camping equipment is piling high around - padding, insulating - the one remaining third row bucket seat. I am relishing getting to sit back there with my walkman, blissfully ignoring the rest of the occupants of the car for hopefully all of the 12 hour trip. James comes shooting back into the house, he can't find his video game and he can't find his suitcase. His mom tells him to shut up and go sit in the car. I help my Dad hook the pop-up up to the trailer hitch. Some time and some yelling after this we are all in the car, frowning and sweaty and ready to take off.

I don't remember most of the car trip, thankfully. But it involved a lot of stopping at sit down restaurants so Kathy could eat, and a lot of arguing while my dad and Kathy each belittled the other's ability to navigate. When my dad convinces Kathy to take a turn driving so he can have a break she drives so crazy that they end up switching back not long after.

We arrive to the campground considerably behind schedule and in time to back the pop-up into the site in the dark. Kathy makes a lot of bawking noises and yelling at my dad what to do, my dad does a lot of swearing and finally orders us all out of the car, so he can 'concentrate'. We pile stiffly out into the dirt campground drive clutching our pillows and wondering what our neighbors must already think of us. Dad clips a tree and leans out the window with some choice profanities, demanding to know why no one is helping him. He can't see in the dark, after all.

After the pop-up is more or less situated comes the task of setting it up. Dad jams his hand and proceeds to beat the living crap out of one of the plastic side panels. We'd be wide-eyed if this were some kind of uncommon event. We're alternately being told to be useful and help out, then to just go away because we're doing it wrong, then to go somewhere else because standing around staring is really irritating, as are Clare's coughing fits. We scope out the bathrooms, thankfully very close to our site. When we get back it's time to make the beds. Kathy suddenly remembers, halfway through making the bed that Clare slept on that mattress the night before.

"I can't sleep on THAT." she says

"Why not?" asks my Dad

"Cause SHE slept on it last night. I'll get sick sleeping on the same mattress. "

"Well, I changed the sheets, and anyway it's probably just bronchitis - that's not really communicable."

"Who knows what she has. I'm not sleeping on it. I'm just not. So figure something out." and she storms out of the trailer.

Dad looks around the trailer. Then decides to put the mattress on the left side of the pop-up (Clare's and mine) on top of the other pop-up mattress on the right, and put the pull out sofa mattress on our side. Then James gets to sleep on the mattress that folds out cleverly (and moldily) from the dinner table booth.

eventually we are all settled and in bed, although sleep is long in coming, especially for me since I'm sharing a bed with Clare who's coughing up a storm, and James is on my other side snoring. So is Kathy across the trailer. We are awakened earlier than expected in the morning to the discovery that James has peed his bed. Apparently the 50 ft to the bath house was just too far.

Kathy puts the mattress outside to dry ( these are her only plans to for cleaning it). James has to pee again, so he stumbles out of the trailer and takes a piss one step from the pop-up stairs, against a tree that has the laundry line tied to it. Dad's pretty enraged by this but it's really just too late to do anyting about it, so he makes him scoop up the piss dirt with a stick and deposit it elsewhere in a less trafficked area. After morning ablutions and breakfast eating somebody realizes the pee mattress is gone. The campground garbage man picked it up, it would seem. He must have somehow mistaken it for trash (how on earth?). With a raised fist and an expletive Dad jumps in the minivan and chases him down. He returns triumphantly 20 some minutes later, toting the soiled mattress back from the dump to continue to dry in the sun, now safely roped to a tree.

Upon trying to change James into fresh, non- pee scented attire it is discovered that, surprisingly enough, his suitcase actually isn't in the car. It's nowhere to be found. He says "I told you so," which earns him a Bailey whack (family term, named for my father, it's self-proclaimed originator) to the back of the head.

"Why didn't you tell anyone your suitcase wasn't in the car?" Kathy demands.

"I did. I told you like 20 million times. You said you put it in there."

"I never said that. I didn't put in the car, it's your suitcase, that's your responsibility."

While they send him to the bathouse to wash up Kathy berrates my father for leaving the bag behind and they get into a yelling match. It's only iterrupted by Clare's coughing fit, she declares she's dying and she can't breathe. She hasn't brought her asthma inhaler with her either.

This situation is one for my mother. We drive up to the camp office to use the pay phone. It takes a few tries but we eventually get my mother, who says that if it's serious then yes, obviously, my Dad should take Clare to the urgent care clinic.

Kathy doesn't want to go sit around in a waiting room, and James needs some clean clothes, so she decides she'll drop us all off (james included) at urgent care and take my dad's credit card on a shopping spree. She's supposed to come back in an hour and pick us up.

When it's been two hours and she still hasn't returned, we are all pissed off and hungry for lunch. It's a relatively small UP town so we figure the only thing we can do is head down the main road and either stop somewhere for lunch or walk all the way back to the campground, or by some stroke of luck run into Kathy and the minivan.

We've been walking for about 20 minutes on the black top in the summer sun, Clare feeling only slighty better, when my Dad's minivan goes shooting past us. Clare is fomenting murder plots targeting the completely inconsiderate self-centered strumpet, and I've reached the point of being a willing accomplice myself. We jump up and down and wave. The van keeps going.

Clare and I turn as one and scowl at my father. "Calm down," he says, "She'll be back. I don't want to hear any more bitching, we're on vacation."

Even James is keen enough to observe, "Where's she going? We've been walking and walking. She's just crazy."

About ten minutes later the van returns and circles into a parking lot we're walking through.

"Sorry," Kathy says, giggling "I had to pick up one more thing."

We pile into the car trying not to spew out the choice terms that have been collecting in our heads, and shooting looks that by all rights should have been able to kill. But once inside we discover there isn't even room for all of us to sit because Kathy has spent all this time shopping - a whole new wardrobe for James, a new blow up raft for him, and a brand new bike amongst a few other things for herself.

"I thought you were just gonna by a couple of outfits," my Dad says. "That doesn't include a brand new bike and swimming toys and all the hell else."

"Jo-ohn! The bike was on sale and he needs a new one anyway. The one at home is getting old. And he's not gonna just wear the same two outfits the whole time, I'm not washing them while we're here."

"Fine, fine." he says, rubbing his temples, " Let's - let's just go eat lunch."

I suppose the rest of the day must have been pretty low key and I remember going for a walk by myself around part of the lake at the campground. Later, when Kathy doesn't feel like going for a hike, and Clare and I can't stand the thought of spending another moment breathing the same air as her, we tell Dad we need to talk, and we go for a walk down by the beach. Kathy throws a fit and insists that we take James with us as well. Apparently alone time with our father is strictly prohibited. Especially when we might be talking about her. I remember we tried to impress upon him what a selfish person she was and how utterly infuriating her behavior was for the day. He insisted he'd talk to her and not to make such a big deal out of such a little thing. She probably just lost track of time.

The next day James is obsessed with fire. He really wants to start one. My dad tells him no. Tells him he's not allowed to play with fire or start fires or set anything on fire. After lunch we walk up to the camp store to get ice cream cones. James rides his bike in circles around the campground on the way there because we're walking too slowly. James suddenly says, after finishing his ice cream, that he's going to for another bike ride and he'll see us later, after we walk back. Kathy says fine, he can't get into too much trouble just riding his bike around.

We can see the fire from halfway back to the campsite. We can see James poking at the fire. We can see James see us and duck into the trailer, thinking we haven't seen him.

My dad is infuriated. Nothing pisses him off more than somebody disobeying him, except hitting his head. I once saw him beat a pay phone to tiny bits because he hit his head getting out of the car.

"James! Get out here."

"What?" from inside the pop-up, "I'm sleeping."

"No you're not"

"yes, I am"

"why are you sleeping?"

"I don't know I just got really tired all of a sudden." he comes out, slowly dragging himself down the pop-up stairs, trying to look groggy.

"Did you start this fire?"

"No"

"Then who did?"

"I don't know, I was just inside laying down. I don't know maybe somebody else started it."

Then ensues a digusting display of interrogation and trying to get James to own up to his deed. Give him the opportunity to at least tell the truth and maybe commute his sentence.

Finally, "We saw you playing with the fire, we saw you go into the trailer and pretend to be asleep. We know you're lying."

It was funny for a while, I think Clare and I were laughing, which almost certainly egged him on.

In the end he earned some real punishment. Enough that it wasn't really funny anymore.

That's about all I remember from that trip. I think we stayed another day or two, then packed up and headed home. But did we learn anything? I can't say. There were still many more ill fated family trips after that. Trips that ended with swearing matches, and oaths to never visit again. And lots of oaths to never go on another family trip again. It's only now in my 20's that I know enough, and have enough autonomy to simply refuse to go along with it.

But this is a good example of why we don't want my Dad getting back together with this woman, especially not permanently. But he just doesn't see why we don't seem to like her.

The Sheep Look Up

There was a look of genuine surprise on the receptionists face when I stepped around the corner, as if to say "You're still here?" She was chatting with the lady in charge of insurance billing.

"Listen, I really have to get back to work, so I guess I'll just call and reschedule."

"Oh," she says, "Well, the doctor will probably only be a few more minutes."

I've been here an hour now. I glance in the waiting room, the two couples who were there when I went in aren't there any longer.

"I'm already going to be 40 minutes late to work by the time I get back. I'll just call and reschedule."

"Oh, well, ok. We'll see you sometime this week." she says.

I really like this doctor's office. They were really understanding when I didn't have insurance and billed me less than the usual fees, and they've been remarkably patient waiting for and dealing with the medicaid payments now that I have some vague form of insurance. But they always make me wait. And I know that there's some inherent waiting involved, 15 minutes I'll wait, maybe another 5-10 once they move you into the little exam room, just to make you think you're making progress. But an hour, when they know I'm on my lunch break and time is a factor, is just too long to wait. Especially when it appears that everyone with an appt before or after mine has already been seen.

So, I leave and head to the elevators, while I'm waiting I can feel my lip start to quiver. So ihead to the bathroom just in time to stifle my sobbing behind a plastic stall door. Why am I even crying? I have no clue. I'd like to chalk it up to some hormonal, pregnancy, random bawling thing, but I think it probably has more to do with the fact that this happens to me a lot. I'm nice, I'm easy to deal with, I'm understanding, I'm generally soft spoken, I'm a push-over. And believe it or not, I almost never get really upset about anything. It's just not worth it to me, I don't really care that much about most things. At least not outwardly angry. But for about the past year I've been having thses really violent, angry dreams, where I'm screaming and fighting with people, and I wake up all angry and upset. So apparently my subconscious is telling me something about my bottled rage, which I just always assumed didn't actually exist.

But it sucks to be forgotten about. It happens to me frequently - at the store, routinely at restaurants, the doctor's office, any waiting room ever, telephone lines. People routinely forget that I'm there, waiting, or being served. Am I really so unmemorable? Is it that hard to maintain the concept that I'm there? It makes me want to be bitchy. I waitressed for a long, long time, and everybody hates the bitchy, picky people. But they make sure they give them damn near perfect service. Being nice and understanding just gets you screwed, your basically giving people permission to put you last and give you the most lax service and pay the least attention to you. It gets you seen last at the doctor's office. Nice guys really do finish last. Everybody else gets cuts, or Chinese cuts, or run to the head of the line so they'll stop bitching. And I am just fed up with being told time and again thru actions and quality of service, that my time is of the least value.

But, what do I do? I don't like to bitch and complain. I don't like being unpleasant. It's not that I'm too shy to make a fuss. I can be very unpleasant and get what I want when I need to, but I don't like it. It's just that I don't want to darken somebody else's day with being difficult or demanding. When I get unpleasant customers, they're a lot less likely to get what they want, or to get it expediently. Pleasant customers, I help first, I bend over backward to make things work for them. So why does the rest of the world respond only to meanness? Why is niceness turned a blind eye? I can only assume it's laziness. People know nice people won't make a fuss and they won't be so demanding, so they can shaft them without real consequence. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Demanding people are more chic. Screw catching more flies with honey than with vinegar.

And you know what else? I don't think nice people get the jobs. We're too laid back. I think this is why the high maintenance, rude, bitchy people never get fired. It's too much hassle. Much easier to fire the nice guy and send him home quietly. He'll understand. This is why crazy, nasty people get huge settlements for getting fired, even though their job performance sucked.

Life is so unfair. I suppose your just reward is supposed to be in the after life. Behave yourself now, and we'll give you amazing rewards after you die. What a great promise to keep the sheep in line.

Nesting

Today I am nesting. I've had the urge for about a week now to start the nesting process. I wish I was one of these 30-something couples with the house and the two jobs and the retirement plan and partial day care subsidies. At my second lamaze class last night the instructor asked if everybody had their nurseries all sat up. Most of the women nodded yes enthusiastically. Most of these women aren't even due until October. I'm due in 4 weeks and I'm just trying to figure out where I can move all the boxes in my room to make space for a bassinet. On the other hand, I can never show enough appreciation for the fact that my family is totally letting me live here free and they're all excited about babysitting and buying me every little baby thing. Today I listened to the 'lack of light' mix tape my friend James made me, twice through, just while sorting out the boxes of baby clothes and bedding everyone has bought for , given, or donated to me second hand. Tons of cute little onesies with bears and puupy dogs and turtles on them. Silky soft blankies and tons of the cheaper cloth receiving blankets. All of which warn you to "wash before first use." So now, I'm on to washing everything while I ty to figure out how to assemble the strap on baby carrier and disassemble the car seat so I can wash the padding. You wouldn't think these things would be that difficult, but they are. Putting together the bassinet took three of us several hours and a trip to babies-r-us to look at a fully assembled one. I've done engine work on my car that was easier.

My second lamaze class was as bad as the first. We had to watch a vidoe of a woman's labor, start to finish. The instructor called it a "clean" video becaue the woman keeps pretty quiet and doesn't scream and swear, etc. Still, I don't think any of us needed to see the crotch shot of the head crowning. You just ruined the illusion of the beauty of child birth for every couple in the room. The instructor has this swell baby doll and a plaster skeletal pelvic girdle. She's always shoving the baby through the pelvic girdle and illustrating how the baby has to turn to come out, and why it creates so much "butt pressure." Gross. But the baby barely fits, you know, it's head scrapes the pelvic bones on it's way out, and all I'm thinking is, "damn, my pelvis is a lot smaller than that one." The relaxation session was once again not so relaxing, because I'm the only one in the room whose mother has to give the hand massages and lower back rubs and hip support. I refused to do the slow dancing exercise with her, that was just a little too weird and humiliating. And the instructor now tries to always remember to say "now Dad's you're going to - and Grandma - you're gonna be...." just to be sure we're following along and doing it like we're supposed to. I am looking forward to the tour of the birthing wing next week, though. That ought to be interesting.

Before lamaze we went to the grand opening of a sushi restaurant in a little strip mall in the West end. We were the first people there. Our waitress was very efficient and obliging. My water glass was never less than half full, and when I told her how much I liked the carrot-ginger dressing she brought me an extra bowl of it. I was a little offended though that when she saw us she came over with the picture book of the menu and did her best to explain to us what sushi was and how it's served. I really wanted to tell her that even though this is Richmond, and even though we are white, we've actually known about sushi for some time. I forgave her though, because the food was really good.

I am also cleaning and vacuuming out my car today. Later I might experiment with how the car seat is going to go in there. It may take me the rest of the night.

We know we really should but...

So my family has a soft spot for animals. Especially stray, homeless, injured, infected, handicapped animals. I’m not sure if we find them or if they find us. I think most of the cats have been acquired by my younger sister through her various friends who don’t believe in spay/neutering their pets, but do believe in leaving them outside to get eaten by the dogs, massively infected, bitten by snakes or die of exposure etc. Now that we live in the country in Virginia we have 1-2 litters of kittens and usually at least a couple of puppies or dogs that we take in every year and patch up and find homes for. But there are just so many. And vet care is just so expensive. And we get attached. Right now we have 3 dogs and 4 cats, all found as strays and fixed up here at home, that we just couldn’t get rid of. I myself have a dog I rescued from severe illness, emaciation, and impending euthanasia at the local pound.
Last year’s litter of kittens (the second one) came from our neighbors place. They are all short a few cards (the neighbors), and the elderly parents like to leave food out for the strays. This attracts them all to congregate and provides enough nutrition for them to breed…and breed…and breed. There are probably at least 8 cats of breeding age, and we collected 8 kittens in various stages of mass infection. One ended up blind in one eye and two had to have infected eyed removed, costing hundreds of dollars. They all had respiratory infections, fleas, ticks, and ear mites. We fixed them all up and found homes for them. But they totally destroyed the bathroom where they were kept and were ungrateful in general. This year we’ve been avoiding finding such animals. We’ve realized that we just can’t help them all, it’s not possible. So we drive past our neighbors house, now once again rife with piles of cats and kittens on the lawn and just shake our heads that these people will neither stop feeding them, nor get them fixed, nor give them proper care.

So, we’ve been blessedly stray free this summer, until my little sister’s friend’s cats had another litter. These people aren’t poor by any means, and they are visciously Christian, actively Christian and vocally Christian. This is why they continue to leave their pets outside and let them breed unwanted offspring year after year. God doesn’t want you to fix your pet. That would be a sin. That would be unChristianly. On the other hand, it’s perfectly Christianly to allow the kittens to get eaten by the dogs every year, or let them die of exposure, or of various other infections and conditions. I don’t think they even try very hard to find them homes. How my little sister manages to be friends with people who have such little conscience or responsibility is beyond me, but we said that this year we just couldn’t take another litter. Well, nature ran it’s course and pared the litter down to one scrappy survivor. Finally, the other day one of the family members there realized the kitten was acting funny and wouldn’t come out from under the car. When they got it out, it couldn’t walk and appeared to have had a stroke. Yesterday they said they think it had a seizure. So my mom relented (as expected) and let Clare bring the kitten home. Within an hour of us having it, it started to walk again and even follow movement, it seemed to be mostly blind. And this morning Clare took it to the local vet, who’s seen all of our strays over the years. Good news, not a stroke. Bad news, kittie has two busted ear drums and major inner ear infections, possibly into the brain. Worse news, since it does exhibit neurological symptoms (due to busted eardrums), it has to be tested for rabies, which requires killing it. The vet thinks it’s likely it will die soon either way. If we can come up with $500 (which we can’t) they can quaratine it for ten days, and if it survives – then it doesn’t have rabies. When Clare asked the family we got it from if they’d pitch in on the bill, what do think they said? Not interested. There should be laws about this kind of thing. Do this once, and your animals have to manditorily be spayed or neutered. Why should everyone else have to pay for and deal with strays your pets generate that you refuse to care for? And if you refuse to get them fixed, then they should be taken away. Period. It really pisses me off. If you ever visit my facebook page you can see pics of my dog Jericho and what he looked like when I first brought him home. It’ll make you want to find his former owners. I guess I really just don’t understand how you can insist you’re such a good christian while causing unneeded suffering.

This is the first day of the rest of your life.

That’s what they say. You’d think unexpected pregnancy would increase the soul searching, and I guess it did for a while. But the past few months it’s definitely seemed to have lessened the soul searching. It’s made me realize all of the stuff that I was capable of doing before I got pregnant, but never took advantage of, or thought I couldn’t do. However, there’s nothing like expecting a baby to turn life into a waiting game. Today is not the first day of the rest of your life. Today is another in a series of days leading up to the frist day of the rest of your life, a date which you have a vague approximation of, but which you can’t pinpoint for sure. All plans are tentative. All intentions of going back to school, working, moving etc hinge on a set of conditions you’ve never experienced before and can’t predict, even a little bit.

This isn’t a pity party. This is just how it is. Sometimes in my down time at work I come up with various, elaborate 5 year life plans - then discard them, because who knows? I fully believe in taking responsibility for and control of your life and future, but I’m really in uncharted territory here, and options are extremely limited if I don’t happen to win the lottery. I think about moving back to Seattle, I think about going to school in Portland, or in Boone,NC, or going to park ranger academy in Mt Vernon, WA. Then I think about where the money’s going to come from, and how I’m going to work, go to chsool, pay the bills, and take care of an infant. I suppose plenty of people find some way to make it work. I’ve always been staunchly aginst taking out loans, but now may be the time to start. I’m not pessimistic about any of it, I just worry that I’m overly optimistic. I keep tmaking these plans and then I wonder what makes me think they’re going to be accomplishable. I suppose I shouldn’t question this rare patch of optimism. After all, people who come into things with good expectations usually get what they want.

Have you ever noticed the phenomenon that often you’ll think you want something, you’ll imagine it, fantasize about it, if it’s an opportunity or idea you might research it, think about all the great things associated with it – and then it starts to look real. Then if starts to look like you actually might get it, something else in your brain kicks in and it starts to lose its luster. Maybe it’s the reality center kicking in and saying “hey, let’s be real this is so not going to be as great as you imagine, you’ve been wearing rose colored glasses. In reality this could really suck a lot. Let’s look at the cons. It’ll probably be really boring, like everything else…” Or maybe it’s just that the chase is the fun part and once that thing is attainable, it’s no longer worth it. Or maybe it’s just that the imagining is always better than the reality. I don’t know. Just making an observation.

I’ve been thinking about wwoof (willing workers on organic farms) a lot. It’s totally the sort of thing that I should have done, could have made a lifestyle of, before I got knocked up. There are some pretty sweet opportunities out there – Italy, France, Scotland, British Columbia. Basically, you work on an organic farm, or someplace doing a veggie garden and natural building, or some such. They put you up free, and usually feed you organic vegetarian food too. You put 4-6 hours of work in 5 or 6 days a week and the rest of the time you can sight see, canoe, swim, hike, read, whatever. No rent, no utilities, and you get to learn some serviceable skills and get some sense of satisfaction. It would be a good job for a writer. I’m trying to convince my mother it’s a good retirement plan. She’s sort of into it. Maybe you could eventually work your way to Canadian citizenship.

Oh lordie, it’s only 10:45 here , been at work less than 2 hours, and it’s time for a nap.

In the News

I've always been a bit of an apocalypse fanatic. Even as a child my reading material was made up of the ancient Mayan prophecies, Nostradamus, and any sci-fi novel about apocalyptic events or the post-apocalyptic future. I'm still a sucker for disaster movies. I always just assumed that it was coming, usually I told people that I wanted to be a hermit when I grew up and live on a self-sustaining, apocalypse-ready homestead. I think I cherished the idea that a full world break down would get me out the 9-5 prison sentence, make life a little more interesting, take us all back to the basics of survival, make life more passionate and fulfilling. Even as I sort of outgrew that dream the belief that the apocalypse (or at least a significant melt-down of society as we know it) would occur during my lifetime has always persisted in the back of my head. I think I honestly subconsciously take it into account whenever considering a job or a geographical move. When global warming started gaining ground, it didn't surprise me. When the peak oil issue hit the main stream I read up on it voraciously and educated myself about the likely consequences (rising food prices, rising travel costs, increased localization of economy, migration back to city centers, the collapse of the housing market and some major stocks). And now that those things are coming to pass I want to laugh at people and say , ha ha you didn't know this was coming? But in reality other than reading about it, keeping a small veggie garden and buying a car that gets 30 mpg, I haven't done anything to prepapre for it at all.

But I am enjoying watching the news, they do love scare tactics after all. It's really interesting to see the effects of rising gas prices and the housing debacle. For instance, Portland has lifted it s ban on skateboards because of gas prices, employers are allowing people to work four 10 hour days instead of 5 and 8, and allowing more people to telecommute. The housing foreclosures are sadder. More pets are being abandoned and left at the pound, and consequently euthanized. It makes me cry. Also, there's an epidemic of potentially west nile virus carrying mosquitoes. This is due to all of the houses foreclosed on that have pools in the backyard. Apparently a large percentage. And people don't drain them when they leave, and the bank doesn't drain them, now they are full of dead animals, algae, and insect larvae. On the news they showed various govt employees going around to the pools, some pouring all kinds of chemicals, others adding fish and frogs and things to the pools to eat the larvae. Why not just drain the pools? wouldn't that solve the problem? Why do we need to turn them into a whole ecosystem? Or use thousands of gallons of poisonous chemicals? Cities were complaining about the cost of taking care of these messes, why is it the city's responsibility? Require the banks to drain the pools. Duh. Is that so unheard of? People complain about govt welfare to the poor, and not requiring enough from the poor to take responsibility for themselves, but the govt spends way more money making life easy and cheap for banks and corporations. Wake up and smell the chlorine.

Anyway, how about those bank closings? IndyMac makes the 5th major bank to fail this year. People are lined up on the sidewalk waiting to withdraw their savings. Which is mostly unnecessary since the govt insures each account up to $100,000 (how long will that last?). Of course, if you've got much more than that you stand to lose as much as 50 cents on the dollar from the rest of it. And of course now there's the Fannie Mae/ Freddie Mac debacle and govt bail out. And analysts predict at least 150 more banks will fail in the next 12 months. Let's all go back to keeping our cash in our mattresses, that way at least it will provide some padding while the dollar goes down the toilet. Buy gold. I love those late night commercials targeting the elderly, encouraging them to send in all their gold jewelry and turn it into cash. I'd probably pull all my money out of my bank, if there was more than a few hundred dollars in there. I really want to sell my car and get a diesel, I know how to convert it to run on veggie oil, and I could learn to brew biodiesel...

On the radio this morning they were interviewing this guy named John who claims he figured how to run his car on fumes. The tag line was 463 mpg. Sounds pretty awesome. It has been tested, but the test showed that the car ran14.8 miles on 4 oz of fuel. So under test conditions, if you ran a whole gallon thru it, theoretically you could go 463 miles. He says that he runs his geo and his motorcycle on it, and sometimes a generator. He's been interviewed by various news organizations, radio networks, and NBC tv, but says so far nothing has really come of it. When asked if anyone had offered to buy this miracle he said that a someone from a Saudi Arabian oil company offered him $4 million for it. But he turned them down because they wanted to buy the rights to keep it off the market, and he wants it to make it to the market. The radio host basically said that if his claims were in fact true, he'd probably be dead within the year. Unfortunately, I wouldn't doubt it. John said he got the idea while in vocational school for auto maintenance. He came across a book written by the inventor of the internal combustion engine. Apparently, at its inception, it was expected that the engine would run on fumes, that the fuel itself would be vapor by the time it reached the cylinder. So John figured, if that was the original idea there ought to be a way to make it work. He says now he's found it. I really wonder how many other people over the years have come up with similar ideas or other ways to increase gas mileage and been totally put down by car and oil companies. And I think it's pretty probable that if more than one person has come up with this stuff that the car or oil companies already know about it, but have been hiding it, hoping no one else figures it out. Which makes me wonder when exactly they'll be ready to bust it out. How low will oil supplies get, how high will gas prices get before it's lucrative to them to release the technology? This guy's phone number was 941-380-2183. I think that's right. He can fix up your car for you, so he says. I hope it's true, it would be good for the environment, and stick it to the car and oil companies, who really deserve to be driven into the ground. On the other hand it would really increase the evils of globalization, and people wouldn't have to start thinking about their lifestyles and the effects of how they live.

But I ramble. I can get off my soap box now. It's almost time for lunch.

Thai people don't really eat that

Friday I went to my first LaMaze class. I haven't really been apprehensive about the whole labor thing, until I started to realize that Noah is due next month. Wow, that's close. And I have been studiously avoiding watching any tv birth documentaries or reading about all of the gross, painful details so that I don't get freaked out and panic. But LaMaze class seems to take the stance that if they scare you a whole lot by telling you everything that could go wrong, and making you watch videos (those will start next week), that then when you're actually in labor you'll be happy about every little thing that goes right.

There were about 13 or 14 couples, a big class. I was definitely the only person there without a husband/fiancee/boyfriend. I went with my mother. Everyone looked at me piteously. They probably all think I'm about 17 to boot. There were maybe two guys in the whole room who looked even remotely interested in being there. Most of the others had glazed over looks, or stared at the walls and tried not to listen to the bits about painful contractions, blood, and water breakage. It didn't help that the instructor kept likening the smell and texture of things to chicken. The man sitting next to me declared he may never be able to eat chicken again. An older guy, who looked to be in his early 40's, sitting across the room from me kept staring at me the whole class. It was creepy. I also thought it was interesting that of all the couples, only one had opted not to find out the sex of the baby. And of the 14 women, only 3 or 4 were having girls.

I sort of wish I hadn't gone, because now I have a nightmare every night that I'm going into labor. It makes for fitful sleeping.

For the last half hour of the class we worked on relaxation techniques. This involved laying on a yoga map in the dark listening to a cd of wind pipes. Then your partner was supposed to give you a back rub. All around us I could hear people whispering 'no, not like that,' 'you're doing it wrong,' 'No, you're just pinching, haven't you given a massage before?' ' Just don't touch me there.'

I was baffled by the concept, and the apparent commonality, that these people were married, they were having a baby together, and they'd never given each other a back rub before. Whatever else one can say about my past relationships, at least they were all the kind where we were close enough and comfortable enough, and thoughtful enough, to actually touch each other. I don't get it. Where are these people meeting? How are they dating? How are they getting married? Do they really even know each other at all?

But mainly I just felt shitty that my boyfriend wasn't there. The whole time I kept thinking about what he would think about everything we were learning, about how it would be a good male bonding experience for him, about how he ought to be there giving me relaxation massages instead of my mother, about how much less embarassing it would be, about how he ought to be there in the delivery room with me holding my hand. It put me within an inch of calling him and telling him we could get back together (this the guy who wouldn't even look at the ultra sound screen, who strongly encouraged me to get an abortion so I wouldn't be ruining our lives, who left me at 4 months pregnant and wants me to give the baby up for adoption, but is graciously willing to possibly marry me if I don't), to tell him we can get back together and give it a try, if only he'll go to LaMaze class with me.

My other favorite part of the class was the meet and greet. We had to go around and meet another expectant mother and find out various things about her in order to introduce her to the rest of the class. We were supposed to mention one thing we had in common and one thing that was different about us. The young woman next me perked up at this part while she was introducing another couple from across the room. "One of the things we have in common is neither if us have picked out a name yet, and the thing that's different about us is that she's married and we're not." She squeezed her boyfriend's hand as she said it. He looked kind of livid. Way to apply the peer pressure.

Before the class my mom and I went out to a thai resturant for dinner. I asked the waitress what was better, the massaman curry or the peanut sauce noodle dish. She tried to describe each to me, which was pointless because I knew what each one was, I just couldn't decide. So I asked her which one she preferred. She stalled for a minute, then said, "well, the peanut sauce, Thai people don't really eat that. Not for main course. So I prefer the curry. " Then she added perkily

"But Americans really seem to like the peanut sauce." I went for the curry.

I ramble

So, I work at a reservations call center for Virginia State Parks. I’m a pretty nice and patient person (really), but there is some basic information that I ort of expect you to have when you call me. For instance, when you tell me you’re calling to make a reservation, I expect that you know at least one of the following – which park you want to go to and/or when you want to go there. A woman yesterday wanted me to search all 37 parks for a cabin that was on the water, for “some time” in August. There is no easy way to do this.
Another time a young woman called about a reservation she had for that night. She didn’t know which park it was at, she didn’t even know if it was a state park, she was “pretty sure” it was in Virginia, but she didn’t know where in Virginia. How can you have a reservation that you made for a park and not know what park or where it is? Finally she asked me to just list all of the state parks and she’d let me know if anything sounded familiar. Other times people will call me while they are actually at the park, and they still don’t know what park they’re at. They’ll tell me something like, “there’s a river,” or “my camp site has a green tag on it,” or my favorite, “there’s a WaWa on the corner…”
Come on people, work with me here. Help me help you.

Or when they ger rude or pissed off about reservation policies they claim they weren’t told about. Or when they tell me “thanks, you’ve been real helpful” after I have to tell them that that date is all booked up. As though it’s my fault they waited until 2 days before 4th of July weekend to make a reservation. I found all this stuff distantly amusing at first, now I want to know why they’re wasting my time when I could be reading my book or doing a sudoku puzzle.


But enough about work. We all know how much the vast majority of jobs suck. I haven’t really got anything to write about today. I’ve been watching the news, it’s been thunderstorming here a lot. My legs and feet have started to swell from the heat and being 7+ months pregnant. I really want the baby to be born. Not that I want to hurry up and get into the labor bit, but I really want to meet him. He’s due August 27th, prospectively, 3 days before my birthday. For some reason I think he’s going to be a little bit early. My various family members have already purchased me almost everything a baby could possibly need in the first 6 months to a year. This kid already has more clothes than I do. But I’m really excited to put the crib together, and bounce him in the bouncy chair, and set up his little tykes play station. My favortie toy that I’ve bought so far is this little stuffed dragon. Each hump on the dragon is a different color and has a little light on top. When you squeeze each hump the colored light lights up and it says the name of the color in one of three languages. I’ve already decided he’s going to speak at least four languages, play at least 5 instruments and at least 6 sports. Well rounded, but still well adjusted.

I really wish that Americans were less apathetic and that the government actually cared about what the people wanted. In other countries when they’re pissed about something they march and they protest and they strike. If the government is trying to phase out a holidy you get off of work, protest, if you don’t like the price of gas, strike, if you don’t like the raise in food prices, strike, in China thousands of people marched and protested because they felt the police covered up the rape of a young girl. In this country we probably wouldn’t even care. We’d comment on it to a co-worker, then forget we ever heard about it, or change the channel. In Korea thousands of people protested the importing of US beef. And in these countries, the government responds. By and large Americans can’t be bothered with changing their routine or actually doing something. Or they think it doesn’t affect them or it’s not their problem. Or they worry about missing a day of work. It’s supposed to be the other way around, you know. Your government and your employer should be worried about you missing a day of work. The only real pressures this government responds to are economic. Imagine if truck drivers all went on strike, or if we all refused to go to work for one day, or nobody bought gas for one day, or everybody rode the bus for one day, what kind of impact that could have. If we could make business stand still for one day ( and we all have the power to), we might have a chance at actually influencing something. Vote with your dollar. I myself have marched at the capitol on a number of occassions, and I can’t recall that anything ever came of it, or that anybody in the capitol cared, except for traffic iterruptions. There was practically no media coverage and the only members of the government who took notice were the riot police and mounted officers.
I know I’m dreaming here, but I’d like to have the country back from the special interests and corporations. I’d like to have both a population and a government that cares.

Work three part time underpaying jobs for major corporations, that's how you counter the evil doers

I’m jealous of James’ ability to get rid of everything and pick up and move back to Seattle, no job, no specific plan. That’s how I used to live. I should have taken more advantage of it.
When I first found out I was pregnant, after I bawled for half an hour, my first thought was to not tell anyone, and just pick up and move somewhere, start over fresh where nobody knew me. It just wasn’t feasible since I had just started taking courses at VCU, I had just signed a year lease, and I had about $400 in my bank account. But for a straight month that was my main fantasy. I pictured myself in some small to mid size town, in a house with a porch and a fence and my dog and my son. Taking walks in the sunshine to the farmer’s market and working a flexible part time job to pay my undoubtedly minimal bills. It’s still a fantasy. But of course, pregnancy wasn’t something I could hide for long, and now I am living back at home and pretty dependent on the kindness of family. I really appreciate all their support and help but sometimes I still feel stifled. I still want to move away and have my own space and my own life. For a while I even researched intentional communities and hippie co-ops that might take a pregnant chick and a dog. There aren’t quite as many as you might think. The dog was the bigger obstacle. I thought hippies liked animals…
Anyway, now I have the next couple months to formulate at least a 5 year plan. Grad school, law enforcement academy, any job to pay the bills, a career in my undergrad field (ecology), if I can find one? Where should I live? Can I really handle the long term 9-5? I already know that cubicle jobs consume my soul more quickly than I can eat a chocolate bar these days. I truly hate it. And I have to admit that I do see most jobs/ careers as pointless time sucks that kill your ability to pursue a real life, while you prop up somebody else’s record profits. But, hey, isn’t that what mothers do? Sacrifice for the next generation. I certainly have lived off the backs of my cubicle dwelling parents. I can’t imagine how my mom managed to do it, continues to do it. Is the security of a mediocre health plan and a regular paycheck really worth it? It would be sweet if we all started out equal, or if there was at least a baseline. Everybody gets a financial package at birth, or at 18 or something. Here’s $100,000 to get you started, what you do with it, success or failure is up to you. I’d use mine to build a self-sufficient, apocalypse-ready compound somewhere sweet, - with fainting goats. Or if this country at least had free college education. Some places, like Denmark, you can go to school free for as long as you want. Be a lifer. Denmark is the happiest country, you know.
Anyway, I guess what I’m looking for is a good job. Relatively meaningful, flexible, working for good people, preferably locally owned. The kind of place with fun, smart co-workers. The kind of place with a sense of humor, where going to work isn’t a tortuous daily task. It doesn’t even need to pay a whole lot. So if you know anybody/ any place that’s hiring….
I have to admit that, even for all the Red Cross bureaucratic crap, and limitations, and downtime it wasn’t all that bad because we had a good Americorps team. We were all pretty fun to hang out with, I think. It was just a shame that we weren’t really allowed to do it, and our interaction was always being watched, reported on, and limited, like we might be conspiring in a prison escape attempt. But we still had some fun.
So, somebody out there, give me some direction?

There's no place like home

Well, I just got back from my 4 day weekend in Michigan. It was really a whirlwind tour of obligatory family visits to show off the belly before the baby’s born. I got in at about 7:45 am, had breakfast with my Dad at the glorious Cracker Barrel, and then got the tour of the all the home improvements he’s been working on. He insisted I take my one pancake and fried egg in a to go box because he keeps to food at his house. He says he thinks there are spiders living in his oven now. It’s sad. Last time I stayed with him I had to buy a pot, because there was seriously nothing to cook spaghetti in.

He took me around to the neighbors and showed off his knocked up daughter and imminent grandson. Then we picked up his pseudo x-girlfriend, her son (now 17), and my grandfather to go out to my Uncle’s 4th of July lake party. My grandfather is pushing 90, and he was looking schnazzy. He had on his black dress shoes, pressed grey slacks with a nice belt buckle, a bright blue t shirt under a bright yellow polyester button up short sleeve shirt, and don’t forget the tortoise shell sunglasses. I made him pose for pictures. He complained to my father that I was forcing him to smile. I sat with him a lot at the party, (we were there for 8 + hours), and hey, who else is the old guy and the pregnant chick going to hang out with? I got him buffet food and he told me about his 20+ years working for Ford, after he got out of the military. He seemed to be pretty ok with just chilling by himself. He really enjoyed watching the little kids play and knock each other about, and watching the boats and ducks go by. He kept pointing out the cloud formations and telling me how long it took specific clouds to move between landmarks. My dad says he does that a lot. He thinks it’s because my grandfather recently had cataract surgery so he could keep his license, and he probably couldn’t see the clouds before. All the same I was glad that my Dad’s friends took turns talking to him and bringing him lemonade and moving to him into the shade. My step-cousin, Drew, got to be on deep fryer duty. He had to deep fry 52 lbs of chicken for the party. That’s a lot of fried chicken. I played Frisbee some with James (the 17 year old) and a bunch of little kids who trickled over to us. It was actually fun, and I got to run around and get some exercise. As usual my Uncle had so many people to greet and talk to that we barely spoke 5 words, but we don’t have a lot to talk about anyway. I’m knocked up and single, which makes me the black sheep. But he did give me several real hugs, and even kissed me on the head, not something he’s prone to do, that pretty much summed it up. And at this party full of family friends who’ve known me since I was born, or there abouts, it was particularly rubbed-in by the fact that my younger sister and her long term boyfriend just got engaged last week. Sweet. So, now not only am I the knocked up one who had to move back home, but I’m also the only single one of my sisters, and living in sin.
My Dad congratulated me on my courage to come out in public like this and meet and talk to everyone. Way to make me self –conscious. But I don’t really care, I don’t think most of them judge me, and if they do, fuck ‘em. This is the miracle if life here. Before he said that I had really only thought about it vaguely. I mean in this day and age unplanned, single pregnancy doesn’t necessarily make you a social pariah, right? And anyway it’s not like anyone was going to have the balls to lecture me or shun me about it. Most people are just excited about the prospect of a baby, and a little pissed at the fact that I’ve gained so much less weight than they did.
Then we got up early the next morning to head up to the illustrious Traverse City, Mi, on the firs day of the world-renowned Cherry Festival. We watched the air show and ate ice cream. Then we headed out to my grandfather’s cabin to stay with him and his relatively new wife, Ellie. I will never understand territorial women. Why there are these women out there who think that when they come into a new family they have to/ can change anything and everything, and have to try to control the family dynamic. In this case, a family dynamic that’s been going on for the past 30 years. My grandmother is probably rolling in her grave. Ellie was just plain rude to my father, scolded him like he was 5 about stupid stuff and she gets really upset if she can’t hear you, but won’t ask you to speak up because she refuses to admit she’s half deaf. She thinks you’re talking muffled on purpose, I think. Then she refused to let my little sister and her fiancé come out for dinner because they hadn’t called sufficiently ahead of time. When we met them for after church brunch instead she acted like she had no idea my sister was coming, insisted it created a problem to have 2 more people in our party of 10, and wouldn’t let my grandfather sit with us at a separate table. I could tell my grandfather could see how uncomfortable the situation was and how inflexible and rude Ellie was being, but he wasn’t going to say a thing about it. Ellie didn’t introduce us to her friends or cousins or even acknowledge our existence the rest of the time we were there. Which was really pretty great for the rest of us. I just don’t women who act that way, and men who marry them and just conform to their ridiculous ways. It shows a lack of character to me.

But what do I know, I’ve never been married.

Good enough for government work

The cubicle work environment is a unique one, in that you can not know the person next to you at all, never even say hello to each other in the hallway, and simultaneously know every possible detail about their personal life and daily routine. Our office here at the VA DCR has a pretty random smattering of characters. I seem to have picked the cubicle corner most likely to be avoided by seasoned employees. In the cubicle in front of me is a woman, let’s call her – Polly. I’m sure she’s a very nice person, not to her customers, and certainly not to any of the other people she seems to call during the course of the work day, but certainly, at least, to her cats. Who, by all accounts she cherishes, and enjoys looking at potential new adoptees online during her down time, and reading their descriptions aloud for those of us in the vicinity. In fact, my other two cube neighbors, Omar and Flo, are currently discussing Polly, who is in the manager’s office trying to get the day off due to her alleged poison ivy, an ailment which she has been on the phone discussing with the free clinic all morning – sometimes in tears - , and from which she feels she could imminently die, since no one will help her. Flo says she’s a “hippo-chondriac.” Flo is hands down my favorite person in the office. She’s got to be at least mid to late 60’s, she’s partially deaf and blind in one eye. She probably weighs about 89 lbs, but she knows how to cuss out a difficult customer the second she’s off the line with them. When I was training with her and listening in on her calls one customer called in to make a reservation and asked -
“How are you?”.
Flo freaked out “Excuse me! What did you just say to me?”
“What?”
“What do you mean ‘what the hell am I’”
“Um….? I said ‘How are you?’”
“Oh, ok, I thought you said something else.”
I could only just shake my head and try not to laugh.
She also has no problem telling Omar, who fancies himself to be quite the pimp/ thug, exactly how it is. My favorite Flo/ Omar exchanges occurred while Flo was training Omar. Omar has a rubber neck, the kind that can snap around at absurd angles if a young female happens to be around, so he can ‘holla’ at them. Flo asked him if he was in school. “Yeah,” he responded. “What are you studying, womanizing?” “Nah, nah, Flo. It’s called pimpology.” “Well then, you must be flunking out, huh?”
Another time Omar was amazed to discover that one of the girls in the office didn’t know who James Brown was. Because Flo is old and Caucasian Omar presumed she didn’t know who James Brown was either. Flo proceeded to school him on James Brown’s life, music, and career. She even added that she now enjoys watching Chris Brown when he’s on the MTV. Once, when Omar was giving Flo a hard time in the hallway she put up her fists and danced around him, telling him she could fight him. Omar just laughed and told her to go back to her cubicle because he wasn’t handicapped accessible. But in reality they’re good, if unlikely, friends. Flo watches out for all of Omar’s (numerous) mistakes on the reservations phone line, and tries to impart the occasional tidbit of life advice. Omar even declared the other day that the reason Flo is called Flo is because of the wisdom that flows across the cubicle wall to him. Omar for his part tries to introduce to Flo to pop culture expressions and hip hop dance moves.
But I am still moved to wonder about the efficacy of my co-workers. Omar doesn’t have the memory banks for all of the necessary state park reservations policy and info. I routinely hear him telling people that no, that’s not a state park and he can’t make a reservation for it, and I have to lean across the cubicle wall and whisper “Pssssst, yes that is a state park and you can make reservations for it.” Or other such mix-ups about prices, policies and locations. Omar also specializes in mouth percussion when he gets bored, sometimes it’s quite talented and other times it just sounds like intermittent sucking and farting noises. Or sometimes he just makes animal noises, like howling, money screams. That’s government work for you.
Polly for her part is just generally unhelpful to her customers. She claims she gets all the difficult people, but she seems to find a way to get into an argument with practically every customer that calls. I sometimes wonder about the random actions of the universe that direct a specific person to Polly’s line instead of mine. Little do they know how easy the process could have been… She has the most ridiculous southern, trailer park accent. The letter ‘R’ is pronounced “r-ah’ or “r-oh” when she spells things out, and she always says “minium” instead of “minimum”. This particularly bugs me because I know she can hear all the rest of us around her saying “minimum” and I know it’s printed on her computer screen and call script as “minimum,” but still everyone who gets Polly gets informed of the 2 nt “mineeum” stay. A pedestal grill is also a “pedestrian” grill for Polly. Polly is by far the loudest talker in the office. You can hear her from anywhere on the floor. Sometimes I can’t even hear the person on my phone line. But I can always hear her perfectly. This is why we are all intimately acquainted with her boyfriend troubles, cat’s ailments, health insurance issues, vacation plans, and every creditor she has occasion to talk to during the course of the day. She seems to always be arguing with these people. My favorite is when she says “I’m not arguing with you, trust me, I’m not, but…” Or when the person on the other end of the line starts to get snippy back, then she’ll say, “ I wasn’t being smart with you why you gotta start being smart with me. I wasn’t rude, but you was rude…” Oh well, I hope she gets a break sometime soon.

Screw you guys, I'm going home

So, I’m taking a 4 day weekend for this 4th of July and going back up to my home state of Michigan to visit family. I haven’t been there in about a year, and this will probably be the only time I’ll get to go this year. Which is a shame because I really like hanging out in my old home town of Traverse City, even if it will be Cherry Fest and swollen with thousands of tourists.
I’m meeting up with my dad in Ann Arbor and going to my Uncle’s big “keeping up with the Jones-s” fourth of July party. Then we’ll head up north to TC to visit my grandfather and others. Here’s the problem – my Dad’s several times x-girlfriend whom he is apparently back seeing again. It’s not that I hate her or anything, it’s just that I would prefer not to have contact with her. In the fifteen some years we have known her no one in the family or family friends network has grown to like her any better, only less. At various points in their relationship I think all of my sisters and I have threatened to never visit him again if she’s in the picture. My older sister even told him once that he was never going to meet his grandchildren if he didn’t get rid of her. I think we all would have put up with her and thought better of her if it seemed like a healthy relationship, or even one in which she pulled her own weight, but it wasn’t. And we all got tired of the already tenuous father-daughter relationship being constantly intruded upon and strained by an insecure hanger-on. After my grandmother died the girlfriend moved into her house with my Dad, and her adhd son. She repainted garish colors, remodeled and basically stripped this house that held a lot of sentimental value to everyone in the family. She additionally got to absorb several of the nice belongings in the house and china sets. She didn’t work, she did practically nothing in the way of housework, she had hypochondriacal and dramatic tendencies, she was an inattentive mother who couldn’t be bothered with dealing with her child if he was being irritating, and she and my Dad argued all the time when my sisters and I were around. Although they claimed they got along great the rest of the time. Family vacations (although sometimes amusing when viewed from the outside) were really just stressful and often unbearable disasters. When they finally broke up for the last time and she moved out my Dad was a little shell shocked, they’d been together for something like 12 years, but he said how relieved he was for it to finally be settled and over, and how much happier and less stressed out he was. But he never really cut off seeing her altogether, and now, a few years later he calls me up and says he’s thinking about marrying her. If you could reach through the phone and slap someone upside the head I think my Dad would have been slapped by every member of the family. Someone really needs to invent a way to do that.
Of course, I told him I thought it was a terrible idea. He has tried eharmony.com, with not much in the way of dates or compatible finds. I told him I thought he wasn’t really trying to get out there and meet someone new. He replied “Oh, I’m not trying at all.”
Yeah, great, dad. That’s a great example and a great reason to marry someone. Way to give up on yourself and your future. He’s only 47, it’s not like he’s 80 with severely limited options and mobility.
I think he figures with all of us grown up he won’t be seeing us often enough to make up for the lack of having somebody around. He’s never been good at being alone and he can’t cook to save his life. Still, I think he could do at least a little better.
But now he says Kathy and her son will be spending all day with us at the 4th of July party (I’m sure my Uncle is thrilled as well), and then he wants to bring them up to my grandfather’s cabin for the rest of the weekend ( a 4+ hour drive each way). I had to put my foot down. It’s my one trip to Michigan this year, I’m 7 months pregnant and I just want to have some nice time visiting with family I never get to see. I do not want the stress of dealing with that bullshit and having to pretend like the last 15 years of bad feelings and memories don’t exist. I am especially not doing 8 hours in a car with them. I don’t care if it’s unchristian, I have to draw the line somewhere to save my sanity.
Amusing family trip memories to follow...

I love the food service industry

I seem to attract weird people and weird service experiences. Maybe it’s because I look like a pushover, who knows. But recently I’ve had a slew of interesting food service experiences. There’s a drive-thru Dairy Queen in the gas station at the highway exit I take to get home. A few weeks ago my Mom stopped to order a peanut sundae. When we pulled up to the window to get it the young, red-clad DQ employee smiled at her proudly and handed her her sundae cup – “I put all the chocolate and peanuts on the bottom for you.” My Mom just stared at the cup, dumbfounded. I could see her considering explaining to the employee exactly what a sundae is and why the toppings go on top. But it really wasn’t worth it. I stopped there myself about a week ago and ordered a small soft serve twist dipped in chocolate. When I pulled up to the window the guy handed me a cone with a huge bulge of ice cream hanging more than half way down the side of the cone - encased in that yummy, waxy chocolate coating. I stared at it dumbfounded. Why would someone even give me this ice cream fuck up? He and both knew that about 30 seconds after I pulled away that chocolate coating was going to crack and a huge glob of melted ice cream was going to run down my hands, steering wheel and into my lap and probably cause a horrific accident while I tried to do damage control and keep half an eye on the road. He must have sensed my dissatisfaction, he motioned to wait one minute, then came back and handed me a 2 inch pile of napkins. Thanks, dude.
I made it about 4 miles or so before the sugary, dripping catastrophe occurred. After a couple near misses crossing the center line I had to pull over in front of the local jr high , get out of my car and stand on the side of the road, holding my ice cream cone fountain in one hand and the half intact chocolate shell in the other, trying to eat out of each hand before both prizes melted away in the Virginia heat. Then the attempt to clean my hands and steering wheel so I could complete my commute. Maybe they do it on purpose. Maybe they’re just low on the iq totem pole. After all, it is DQ. Either way, I weep for the future.

Scene 2 : California Pizza Kitchen (not my idea). We’re sitting, waiting at our table. Our waiter sashays over - a somewhat tubby, flush faced, gay man with a goatee. He immediately squats down at the end of our booth. I hate this, it makes me feel like a child at some big people restaurant being patronized by the waiter, when in fact I am an adult at a family restaurant being patronized by a waiter. His first words are to gesture at my stomache and ask how far along I am. He then declares decidedly, “ If I were pregnant I think the summer would be the worst time. I would definitely want to be pregnant in the winter rather than through the summer months.” It seemed like he had actually thought about this a lot. Feeling in a slightly more amiable mood for making chit chat than normal I responded that the summer’s not so bad for being pregnant. After all, you can just wear around a big, loose sundress all summer and hardly have to buy any maternity clothes at all. He smiled wistfully and replied “I wish I could wear a sundress…” I nearly shot ice water out of my nose. My mom just raised her eyebrow at me across the table. I thought about offering to let him borrow one of mine, but even at 6 and a half months pregnant I didn’t think it would fit him.

Scene 3 : Pizza Hut (admittedly my idea, but hey – pregnant and hungry). I show up, and perhaps I should admit that this is not the best part of town, and this location probably does ten times the delivery business that it does dine-in. But I show up and there is one other family in the place. There are about 12 employees. I stand patiently at the hostess podium until one of them looks over and miraculously decides to take the initiative to seat me. Once again I get the overweight, ruddy faced waiter who looks like he’s 30 but is probably 20 at best. He nearly touches my belly as he starts asking me preggers questions, but I have a sufficiently forbidding look about me to prevent him mid-reach. After he seats me he continues to ask me more questions about my pregnancy. Then he says, “I know it’s personal questions but I have a few ---- running around.” He kind of turned away as he said it, so I assumed he said he kids, because that would be the only relevant possibility. “Oh.” I say. “Yeah, 4 or 5 or so.” ? “Or so?” I ask.
“Yeah, a few of them died after they were born, so I kinda lose count.” You lose count ?! Now I am both mortified and confused. Are we talking about kids? Or did he maybe say cats? Or some other kind of pet? “But,” he continues, “I still have at least a couple who are alive and running around.” I am at a loss. “Well, that’s good.” I say. I order a coke with lemon. He brings me a plate with an entire lemon on it. I get an order of breadsticks. I figure it will be a quick snack. I proceed to wait for the next 30 minutes, the waiter never comes back. The other family eats and leaves. The bus boy polishes every table twice and then gets on his cell phone. In the next dining room employees are taking breaks and eating at the tables. In the kitchen I can see two burly, sweaty guys. One of them is buckling his belt back up and tucking his shirt deep into his pants. He doesn’t wash his hands. At the front counter 4 or more employees are talking, leaning on the counter. I know they see me. I know they realize I’ve been sitting there a long time and I have no food. They give uninterested glances in my direction – like the way a cow looks at you while it’s chewing on it’s cud and isn’t able to do that and think at the same time. Finally I get up and find the bus boy and ask him to check on my order. I can hear them arguing about it in back – “No, all she had was an order of breadsticks. She didn’t get anything else.” “Well, she never got them,” the busboy replies. Ten minutes later my waiter comes out with his backpack on, he calls me beautiful and drops off the breadsticks on his way out the door. Classy. Then he just proceeds to ride his bike around the Pizza Hut and past my window. I can’t figure out if he’s being really creepy or just trying to burn some calories on his 15 minute break. I go up to pay the bill, the blonde asks me if everything was alright. I tell her not really, I waited half an hour for an order of breadsticks and I was only customer in the place. She generously offers to take $2 off my bill.
When I later relate this story to acquaintances the general response is the same – “What do you expect, you went to Pizza Hut.”
Touche. Lesson learned.