Table 144

I'm never leaving the house again. It just stresses me out. This morning two terrible things happened:

1. Target failed to stock 99 cent Halloween pumpkin candy buckets. Why do they insist on 4.99 bags? $7.99 witchy basket crafty buckets that are just getting thrown out in 2 hours and really don't hold much candy anyway? Parlez vous annoying, Target. To top it all off, these frou-frou items were still FULL PRICE! Well, at least this little beauty was on clearance!

2. Because of the Target fiasco, I had to drive down to Ghetto Walmart in search of said Pumpkin bucket as well as tissue and brown paper for eBaying (Target had both at double the price). Well, outside Ghetto Walmart are two black panther missionaries with dum-dums asking for money for their new "Jesus has Risen" church. They blockaded both the entrance and exit. I snuck out the garden section to avoid punching them in the face and being charged with a felony, and scuttled to my car. On the way I saw their bumper sticker:

"Proud Parent of a Child Who's Been Saved by the Almighty"

Run home! Run home!

To celebrate, Alice enjoys eating raw gourds and poking in the intricate, lovingly carved owl face that it took her mommy an hour to create. But it turns out all festivities have gone dark, because I accidentally left the color-change pumpkin light changing colors all night and it's burnt out this morning. Good thing, since the owl's entire face molded inward and now looks like a shriveled up old lady without her dentures.

Just another awy that eBay makes you smarter: I found out that others celebrate in different ways, like
pagan mystery auctions. Who knew? And who knew 18 people would bid on all those pagan goodies. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a pagan goodie bag. Alter bells? A Brand New Goddess Offering plate? Anyone?

The fact that these folks exist makes me breathe a little easier. It may even make me refrain from shouting at the 17 Capt. Jack Sparrows on our suburban block, "What a queer costume! Want to borrow some black eyeliner so you can be more like Johnny?"

And turns out to be measuring perfectly. To the day. The robust Cuban ultrasound tech lady said this:

"Oh, they're just used to dealing with all these fat ladies. You know 70% of Americans are overweight. They think you don't eat enough if you're not overweight."

So hoo-ray. It's just US who end up stressed. Here's Fetusino the Younger, in all his/her glory...Note the infamous Mikell jowls beginning to burgeon even before birth.

I don't know how not to have a heart attack...

So today everyone in the family, after being up until 4:00 a.m. bailing the boy out of jail, each coped in their own unique way. 1. Cooking. An excellent dinner was had by all. 2. Cleaning: our bathroom is sparkly. 3. Working. I have scoured eBay Germany for products to sell far and wide. I'm still working on it, but I'll keep you posted. For the next couple weeks I'll just have to buy Gymboree and razor blades in bulk then sell them off piece by piece. Until the dream *kinderschule* product comes along.

And to top it all off, the midwife's office didn't call at all yesterday to schedule this emergency ultrasound. Guess it's not so much of an emergency. Mel called this morning to inquire, and wasw told sorry, there were births to attend, and she'd be on top of it by lunch.

At 12:50, she called and said that she was no longer sending us to Buglefort's Radiology or whatever the heck we were getting shuffled off to, but that she'd called in their own special sonographer to come in especially for us. Tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. to examine the incredible shrinking baby, now 5 weeks behind. Oh goodie. A special person just for us. Bubby is blase about the whole affair, acting quite normally. I am wondering if there's a black market for blood pressure pills. Do you know? All of the week's medical emergencies have primed me for the worst, I suppose.

Finding out the sex no longer seems a reasonable request.

So I get this email from my mom that she went to the emergency clinic due to an overzealous Joan Baez clapping accident and the resulting throbbing hand that it produced. They discovered that her blood pressure was 200/100 and ordered an ambulance for her to go off to the hospital where they asked her if she was short of breath or having chest pains. "What about my hand?" she asked. I guess they ignored it, much to her dismay and another sleepless night sent home on nothing but blood pressure pills.

And I am not worried about her (still too much shit to really deal with in the mommy department) but I do pop my own xanax and worry about my own forthcoming heart attack, since I am just as wound up as her at a much younger age. Tomorrow I'm going to Walmart to check my blood pressure, which is always super low, but it's only a matter of time with my constant stress levels, isn't it? Did I mention that FOUR members of my family have had surgery this week? Aunt (uterine abruption), Cousin (arm broken in 2 places), other Aunt (gall bladder full of gangrene), and Grandpa (circumcision...but I'm not supposed to spill the beans about that one...shhhh). Wow. We are a sickly people.

To add to the drama, Mel got back from her midwife appt. this morning after having the so-called glucose tolerance test. Or as I like to call it: the normal vs. more normal sugar test that proves nothing other than we like to cause pregnant women pain for no proven benefit test. Which is why I wasn't there. Pissed, pissed, that I can't be a part of her prenatal care since because the tests "ordered" (you know, as opposed to chosen freely by informed patients in a way more befitting a human rights approach to health care).

So she returns, and they've ordered an emergency ultrasound for tomorrow morning. She is measuring 5 weeks behind. I'm not sure how this is possible, since when we were there FOUR weeks ago she was measuring to the day. Can a fetus shrink? The midwife said that she can fudge it and make it look like 3 1/2 weeks behind if she measures liberally. Either way, that's a big change from last time. So, we're going to find out why. Several points to ponder:

1. Fundal height measurements are considered wildly laughable by some. But then again, so are measurements taken by ultrasound. We all know someone who was induced/given a c-section because the baby was "too big" only to deliver a normal sized baby who wasn't ready to be born. Charlie, you are a crazy exception, my little man.

2. Small framed people (ahem, Mel) and those with very long tosos (likewise suspicious suspect in house) are also more likely to measure small.

3. That does explain her smallness, but not the fact that she's always measured right on. The midwife did seem heartened by this tidbit, though.

4. Please tell my that the baby has a brain. Just tell me. I KNOW it does. Just tell me. Please.

5. And what now seems like the most frivolous thing on the planet...should I find out the sex at the ultrasound. We have really only ended up with "emergency" ultrasounds in our pregnancies. Not into baby surveillance. But this time we want to dot our i's and cross our t's since we're giving birth in Massachusetts for legal reasons and want to show up looking compliant and low-risk, if at all possible. So we do what they tell us. And we go for our ordered ultrasounds. So, given that we're going ANYWAY, and given that no one in the house feels very close to Nugget right now, do you think I should have a secret with Nugget for the rest of the pregnancy (I would not tell Mel or Alice if I found out). Would you spy?

I can't read the directions on a box of potato-product. I forget its overcooking -- to drain off the extra 2 cups of boiling water added by yours truly. It overcooks beyond overcooking.
I am not paying attention because I am trying to become an importer-exporter, but so far it reads like a bad Seinfeld episode. With the added twist of a number of international google-translator faux-pas. If you have a wholesale hookup, will you wheel and deal with me? I promise that I will treat your product better than I manage dinner. I'm very responsible when needed. Yessir. Really.

I woke up this morning and these cute shoes had infiltrated my computer. Does Mel shop in her sleep?

OK, it's not that I'm *against* the blog, per se. I had one back in the day when blogger was too time consuming to figure out and you had to load it onto your own domain, and people misread diaryland and thought it had something to do with dairy and cows. I had this blog for at least 2 years. You can probably find it out there in cyberspace, languishing and rife with pithy statements about the cute girl sitting next to me in "Lesbian Lives and Cultures" circa 1997. Please don't look.

So here's something better (unless you're in the throes of a coming out crisis and looking for a source for old school Sleater Kinney reviews).

It's all about Alice, and her 2 moms. In the deep south.


This is Alice. She's the most important one...at least until January. She grooves on Dixie Chicks and says "scissors" with gusto.
















This is Mel. And this is me getting back at Mel for telling me which bloggers I'm allowed to yell at.
















This is bubby, but I prefer "Nugget." We don't really think too much about it yet, because we have a one-year-old. We don't find out the sex of our kids, and we certainly don't find out the "gender," which our child will (hopefully) tell us by age 18 or so.













I'm up on the left. I hope to one day make a living selling handcrafted Tibetian baby shoes from my craftmatic adjustable office, set up in my fluffy bed. A lofty goal, I'm sure. Especially since I'm not in Tibet.