So Much to Say

Apologies to everyone out there in BlogLand. I have been experiencing an unusually heavy workload of late, and I don't anticipate it lightening until at least June. I am working from home today so I can get in uninterrupted time on a $900,000 project that is due Monday. And yet, after I dropped Viva off at school, I ran by the supermarket to get a few things. It's a beautiful day today here in Los Angeles, clear and sunny. The sky is blue, it's breezy -- in short, it's a day when it's hard to be in a bad mood. As I got out of my car in front of the market, I took a deep breath of spring air and felt a bit wistful for the days when Viva was a wee tot, when my most pressing decision was whether to go to the park, the library, or maybe venture out to the children's museum.

Don't get me wrong -- I love the people I work with, I love the organization I work for, and I think what I do for a living actually does make a difference. But I miss the unstructured free time. What a luxury! I was so blessed to be able to stay home with Viva for the first 2.5 years of her life, and I know that.

I just know that our lives ran more smoothly when I was home. When Viva was first in preschool (a few hours a day, three days a week), I began freelancing again and that was great, too. I was making a little money and utilizing my brain cells and during the week I was able to do all the things that made our lives easier -- grocery shopping, cleaning, scheduling doctor's appointments and haircuts, getting the car serviced, whatever. Now all that minutiae is crammed into my weekends, when all I really want to do is relax and spend time with my family. I'm not exercising, and I'm not doing any creative writing. It kind of sucks.

I relayed all this to Sweet Dub recently, and he groaned. "Now you want to quit your job?" he said, and then screamed theatrically, "Why can't I ever make you happy?"

I'm not quitting my job. That would be silly, and it would really squeeze us financially. I'm just, like every other working mother out there, trying to figure out how I can make things work better. I think they call it balance.

Perhaps more coffee is the answer.

In other world news: Viva turned 4 on April 1st. This was a happy occasion and I will remember it with great fondness, always, especially because almost immediately afterward she morphed into this great whining, screaming, constantly pissed-off creature. Every now and then, on the weekends mostly, her old, sweeter side will show itself. I cherish those moments. I am really disliking the age of Four. It has failed all my expectations of it.

On vacation: we are traveling to Maui in June*. Can I get a "fuck, yeah!" We haven't had a real vacation since, well, forever. We went to Legoland last April for Viva's birthday, but I really don't think that counts. Sweet Dub and I have been trying to get to Hawaii since 2001. We were supposed to go for our honeymoon, but you know, we got married three weeks after 9/11 and travel was a very scary proposition at that time. So here we are, five-and-a-half years later. I'd say we earn points for patience.

And finally, last but certainly not least: a HUGE and hearty and very affectionate congratulations to the entire Oral Hygiene Royal Family. (I have been meaning to congratulate you for, I don't know, weeks? And I can't ever get near my blog or any blogs to comment? Frickin' firewall.) I wish you all the very best on the new addition! Sneaky, sneaky!


* We will be traveling sans grandma. She has serious sinus issues causing her sinus passages to fill up with fluid if a flower even looks at her the wrong way. Since Hawaii is pretty much abloom with tropical floral goodness round-the-clock, it seems pretty likely Mama Jay would be incapacitated as soon as the plane landed. Oh well -- so much for her free vacation. Sweet Dub's best friend, who has a 5-year-old daughter, is trying to schedule a few days in Maui when we are there, so maybe this will all work out just fine. I am a little bummed, because unlike most folks, I adore my crazy mother-in-law, but I guess it's not in the cards.

Comments and Commentary

Commenters: If any of you are still reading, know that I can receive your comments, but due to the funky firewall at work, I can't respond. Since I hardly ever log on while at home (due to the eyestrain of sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours a day at work), this is problematic. I swear to you that I will answer comments tomorrow, when I will work from home.

Moving on:

It is Monday evening. Sweet Dub and I watch the first few scenes of The Tudors. Henry VIII seems horrifically unhappy, although he pretty much does whatever he wants. When we get to the second sex scene in ten minutes of viewing, Henry is about to bed his handmaiden (or some other serving wench, I don't know her exact title). He says, "Do you consent?" and she says breathlessly, "I do, Your Majesty," falling into his arms in a near-swoon, with her clothes tumbling off.

"WHAT?!" Sweet Dub exclaims, rewinding it through the power of TiVo. " 'Do you consent?' What kind of PC bullshit is that?! That's it for me," he says, firmly handing me the remote and stomping from the room.

So much for that series. It pretty much lost all credibility right there.

Aloha

Anyone out there been to Hawaii with a preschooler? We are trying to plan a vacation in May (ha!) and while we had originally planned on Kauai, we got sidetracked to Maui and now have recommendations to go to Honolulu. I don't want to go somewhere too touristy*, but I want to make sure we have amenities. I don't want to spend my vacation in a Motel 6. I'm torn between staying at a resort so we'd have the option of the pool, room service when we want it, etc., and renting a condo or bungalow or something. My mother-in-law will be coming with us so she can get away from it all and also provide some babysitting if we want to go out at night.

Any thoughts? I know it's not the most earth-shattering decision I'll ever make, but I am truly without a clue. I've never been to Hawaii. Anyone?

*As Sweet Dub says, "It's all going to be touristy to some extent."

Low-Rent and High (In Three Parts)

Part the First

Seen today in the building where I work:

Please respect the building tenants and do not urinate in the stairwells.

(And yes, there has evidently been a veritable epidemic of stairwell peeing in my office building. Nice.)

Part the Second

Sweet Dub gave me a picture of himself posing with the director of the movie he's been working on. I took it to work with me because I thought it was hilarious. First of all, Sweet Dub does not have a small head (no, that's not a euphemism, you dirty, dirty, naughty thing), but the director? His head looks about the size of a battleship in this picture, dwarfing my husband's head to the size of a coconut. Some might say this is symbolic of how he thinks of himself, but certainly I would never take it there. No, indeedy. I know which side my bread is buttered on. But the director is also sneering mockingly at the camera, clearly cheesing it up a bit. It makes me laugh just to look at it. So when Sweet Dub called a few minutes ago, I mentioned that I was looking at the picture.

"You hung it up at work?" he said.

"Yeah, it's up on my bulletin board," I said.

"That's kind of goofy," he said.

Hello? Have you just met me? Goofy is my middle name.

Part the Third

Speaking of brushes with celebrity, on Monday afternoon, I worked half a day in the office and half a day at home after lunching with the lovely Cee, her sister, and an anonymous friend who shall remain nameless in the interest of anonymity. At about 4:30, I realized Sweet Dub and Viva would be home soon, and there was nothing to eat for dinner. I hopped into my BlahBlahMobile and motored on over to the local Gelson's on the Los Feliz/Silverlake border. You know the one, across the street from Trader Joe's? I grabbed a cart and swung over toward the meat product section, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a smartly-yet-funkily-dressed fellow with locs, pushing a cart. I am usually not one to celeb-gawk, but I did a double take, because for a split second I thought it was Wyclef Jean, but then I realized it was will.i.am. At the same time, he realized he had been recognized, and broke out in a big smile, and said hello. I am quite sure he was admiring my snazzy red boots. I said hello, and then, feeling all "first day of high school" geeky, I ducked my head and ran off to get some boneless skinless chicken. Because that's how I roll, baby.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of Tums.

Glitz, Glamour, Gaaaaah

Sweet Dub has been working madly on a movie since - oh, August, I think. It is almost done. Release date imminent.

He mentioned to me yesterday, in tones usually used by one who is broaching the subject of "say, maybe we should think about putting Grandma in a home," that we would be expected to attend the L.A. premiere. Which is in a matter of days. Not weeks. DAYS.

I know, I know, how exciting, how great, blah blah blah. Where the hell am I supposed to find a dress, shoes, appropriate jewels, etc. in a matter of days? Have I mentioned that I'm also planning our child's birthday party (now two weeks away)?

An added treat: he and everyone involved with the movie will be working on it non-stop, 17 hours a day, for the next week or so. Including the weekends. So if you thought I could maybe go frock-shopping sans the child, you thought wrong. Since I can't even take her shopping for her own shoes without her telling me how bored she is, you can only imagine how extremely ever not fun this is going to be.

The good news is that Sweet Dub will be getting a screen credit. And the director is letting him approve everything up until the final cut. (At least I think that's what he said.) It is exciting, and he is excited, and I am excited for him.

I'm just freaked about having to look my cutest, most sophisticated-yet-funky self without proper notice. You know.

The Power of Positive Thinking

My company leases office space in a fairly large office building. I had a reserved parking spot for one month, and let me tell you, that was heavenly. However, I only had it thanks to some technical snafu. Henceforth, I have had to look for a space just like everybody else. This is usually okay, unless I need to drive somewhere at lunchtime, and quite often when I return, I end up having to leave my keys with an attendant and let him stack my car. This, too, is okay, unless at the end of the day I am running late and need to go get Viva, at which point I need my car ten minutes ago and don't want to deal with all the shuffling cars around to get mine out.

My sister-in-law, the Diva, mentioned that she just "calls on the parking angels" when she is trying to find a spot, and it always works. This sounds a bit ridiculous, I know, but one day as I was driving back into the parking garage during a particularly busy time of day, I remembered the parking angels and decided to visualize a space as I was driving in.

It works. Every single time. For weeks, I have not needed to leave my keys with anybody. I relayed this to Sweet Dub last night as we were going to bed.

"Why don't you visualize a big bag of money in that space?" he said, turning his back on me and flumping into his pillow. "Sheeit."

I may just try that. I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy Monday

So for the past several weeks I haven't been able to find the charger for my cell phone. In puzzlement, I've gone through all the places it could possibly be. I've rummaged through drawers. I've checked places it would have absolutely no business being. My phone is now constantly beeping at me that the battery is low. This is because, on a 35- to 40-minute commute to drive over to Viva's school, drop her off, get back in my car and drive to work, I generally only think to use the car charger when I'm say, about a mile from work. I'm reluctant to go buy a replacement because I know as soon as I do, I will find it.

It has been a bit vexing.

This morning, after being at work about half an hour, I was pulling a file out of a drawer that I don't use that much, and that's when I saw it. Plugged into the wall, about a foot-and-a-half from where I spend much of my working day. In full view.

My powers of observation, they are strong. Not fully utilized, it seems, but strong.

Addendum - Media Links

Hey, so I forgot to add, if you are interested in this sort of thing (I know I am completely fascinated by it): check out the website for the national Conference for Media Reform. Great transcripts, and great video. I particularly like Geena Davis' address, which I heard replayed on KPCC-FM during their pledge drive. You should visit her non-profit's site, See Jane, if you want more info on the lack of representation of women and girls in the media. One example of the gender disparity their research uncovered: overall, three out of four characters in the 101 top-grossing G-rated movies (1990-2004) are male, and during that time period, there was no change in that percentage -- i.e., you can't see any improvement. We still got a long way to go, baby. Also take a look at Media Matters. They pretty much obsessively monitor the media for misinformation and unhealthy trends.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Disney: Too Little, Too Late?

Regular readers of this blog (hello!) know of my aversion to the whole Disney princess marketing machine. I oppose it on many many grounds. You can imagine that I was completely floored yesterday when my sweet husband dropped this bombshell on me:

Sweet Dub: Hey! You'renevergonnabelieveit: Disney is finally coming out with a black princess!

Mama Blah: Oh my GOD [metaphorically dropping a huge bag of groceries, including several dozen eggs on the floor in my shock]! What? When?

Sweet Dub: Yeah, apparently it's in development and it should be out sometime in 2008.

Mama Blah: Wow. [hoping against hope: please let it not be bad, please let it not be bad] So what's the storyline? What's the setting?

Sweet Dub: It's called the Frog Princess, and it's set in New Orleans. And the princess is black black -- not a light-skinned girl.*

I haven't been able to find any images online**, so I can't comment on that. But here's the official release and another release, same day, talking about Disney's support for New Orleans and the Gulf region. Disney loves black people! How could I have been so wrong all these years?

Until this morning, I had no idea that there was a petition going around about Disney's lack of a black princess. I admit that I have mixed feelings about the whole princess thing - I think it's fun for little kids to play dress-up and all that, but I hesitate to endorse the message that life is all about sparkly things and pretty dresses. At the same time, some little girls just really love that shit, and if they do, at least they should have some damn representation. Now, Disney has yet to come up with a Latina princess, which I think is also a huge mistake from an economic standpoint if nothing else. But there at least there is a Dora princess story and accompanying doll.

And for those who wonder, "Why does everything have to be so politically correct? They're just kids!": Please. Don't play that. With the huge part media plays in how we see ourselves - when you have statistics that show that one-third of girls in third grade have been on a diet - don't try and tell me that this is just one more thing for us to be hypersensitive about. There's a reason we're hypersensitive. And there's no reason we should just lie down and be passive consumers.

I'll leave you with this plot summary from UltimateDisney.com, which suggests that it's probably not going to hit theaters for a few years anyway:

"The Frog Princess - This currently in development fairy tale is being closely watched for it is said to represent Disney's first 2D-animated feature since 2004's Home on the Range. Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin) are writing and directing what is said to be a musical set in 1920s New Orleans. A casting call has revealed the lead characters to be Maddy, a 19-year-old chambermaid; Charlotte La Bouff, a spoiled 18-year-old southern debutante; villain Dr. Duvalier, a voodoo magician; and Mama Odie, a 200-year-old voodoo priest. In a departure from the norm, three of the four (not Charlotte) are African American. Though Alan Menken was originally pegged to handle the film's music, Pixar veteran Randy Newman is now said to hold this command. No release date has been set, but traditionally animated films have traditionally taken about four years from first news to reaching the big screen, making this unlikely to show up until 2010."

* Not that there's anything wrong with being light-skinned. Hoo, let's not even go there.

** Updated to add: here's an image, courtesy of blog reader Emma (hi, Emma!). I'm a little taken aback by the headdress thing, but I'll reserve judgment until I see it in context.

Note to My Future Self (First in an Occasional Series)

Dear Self,

We (You of the Future*, and I of the Now) have this problem. Rarely do we use our printer to print anything other than an 8.5 by 11 standard letter-sized document. About once or twice a year, usually at Viva's birthday and Christmas, we try to feed odd-sized paper into the machine to print out invitations or Christmas cards. Inevitably, the format is all screwy. Inevitably, we have forgotten since last time how we got the damn thing to work. It's a silly thing, but it's annoying.

The problem is that the paper is non-standard size, and the computer for whatever reason is not communicating to the printer that are feeding it non-standard paper, even though we have typed in the measurements in page setup. So it goes through as if it is printing on letter-size paper. Which is to say, it will print halfway across the (test**) page and lose half of the intended message. Why is it that this sort of thing never works to my advantage? Like, doesn't it seem to you that if I have to experience some sort of technical snafu, couldn't it be of the electronic banking variety, in my (our) favor? I'm just saying.

Here is what I have discovered, Future Self: you have to trick the computer. Ooh, tricksy. Tell it that you are printing on paper that is 8.5 inches wide. Measure the difference between 8.5 and the actual paper width. Add the difference to the margin in page setup. Try it, try it, you will see. Future Self, it will work. And there will be much rejoicing across the land.

Of course, it is after midnight and although I've figured this out, I haven't tried it yet because our husband is sleeping scant yards away and he will undoubtedly wake up if I make even the slightest sound, aside from tapping on the keyboard. Have you noticed he's a really light sleeper? Have you trained him to sleep more than 5 hours at a stretch, Future Self? Does he still say things like "I'm going to tattoo a blog across my body so maybe you'll pay attention to me"? Oh, you forgot about that?

Good luck, Future Self. Especially with the ozone and all that.

Muchos smoochos,
Me of the Now

* Hey, by the way, Future Self, what is it like there? Can cars fly? Can pigs fly? Has an asteroid hit the earth? Hello? Are you there?

** I never never use the actual "snazzily pre-printed, limited number of pieces" paper on the first go. I always start with a sample on the basic Office Depot multipurpose paper. Learn from my mistakes, Future Self (and any other poor souls out there).

Where Do I Start?

I have a moment to blog, and I barely know what to do. Rather than going over all my health issues (I promised last time I wouldn't, remember, and I'm keeping my promise), I'm just going to jump all over the place with random bits.

Viva
Turning 4 in less than a month. She has talked at me about her party pretty much daily for the last six months, without even a break for Christmas. Do you understand what I'm saying? The child would not even let Christmas distract her. Needless to say, the party planning is in full swing.

Sweet Dub
Working 11-hour days these days. Exhausted. Said to me at 6:30 this morning: "Sometimes at work I answer the phone, 'Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.*' Is that weird?"

Jean-Jean
Seems to have a girlfriend. Little calico number. Seems to like Sweet Dub better than he likes me, which is patently unfair, considering Sweet Dub doesn't even like cats.

World Peace
Still elusive as ever.

* Warning: before you click on this link, turn down the volume on your computer. The music is pretty loud --but maybe that's because I'm online during that funky woozy time when my child is kind of drifting off but at the point where pretty much anything is an excuse for getting up.

E-mail blogging

Testing, testing, one two three...

Oh my God, can it be true? I can't post anything on my blog from work, and I have been having trouble with my wireless at home. However, theoretically, I can post via e-mail, which I could theoretically do from work as a break between projects and meetings and the like.

This is my first attempt. Fingers crossed...

Laffy Taffy

I forgot to mention my new imaginary boyfriend, Stephen Chow.

If you've seen Kung Fu Hustle, you have seen him. If you haven't, run out right now and get it -- whether through Netflix or Blockbuster or satellite whoseewhatsis. And while you're at it, please also get my new favorite movie, Shaolin Soccer, which cemented my love for him. There are several scenes in this movie which only get funnier on repeated viewings.

Warning: these are not epic movies with grand themes exploring deep social issues. They're just fun, and they'll make you laugh.

365*

Hi, oh hi! How are you out there?

I am not quite so very great today. Today is one of the days when I wish that my new doctor, who is not in a rush to cut me open, was in a bit more of a rush to cut me open. Here is the news from Fibroidland: I have five fibroids. The largest one is the size of a tangerine** and it's located posteriorally (I swear that's what she said), pressing on my back and rectum. Yes, I just took it there. Sorry. But what's the Internet for if not to lay bare all the most embarrassing details of my life? You're still reading, aren't you? I thought so.

But that explains why I'm so frigging uncomfortable. Now here's the funny part, and I mean funny if you have a sick sense of humor, not funny if you like silly sophomoric Van Wilder-type humor. She wants to treat it medically, with a low-estrogen birth control pill, rather than surgically. She's hoping that the Pill will, by putting lower doses of estrogen into my body than I produce naturally, shrink the fibroids and alleviate my discomfort. Now, I can't start taking the Pill until I start my next cycle (another two weeks), and I have to take the Pill for two to three months before getting checked again to see if it's working. Are you following this?

I went to her because I was so miserable that I couldn't go on this way. And it appears that this may go on for another three months. You see what I mean about the not-so-funny part?

Now, since my symptoms come and go, at the time she told me this, I thought, Well, I like that she's being cautious and not so scalpel-happy. She's right, we shouldn't do anything rash. But since today is a bad pain day, I'm thinking, Hell, nah, this fucking sucks. Cut me open and be done with it before I do it myself!

(I know. I am not much with the threats. Even imaginary ones.)

So my friend Cee suggested this herbal remedy for the cramping. I have gone to four stores in search of it and somehow in the process managed to get an appointment for acupuncture tomorrow from a Chinese herbalist in Koreatown. The acupuncture may help. I'm desperate for anything that will work. Ironically, since my research into Chinese medicine indicates that they believe most illness of this sort can be traced to an underfunctioning liver and/or kidneys, I am loath to take over-the-counter pain medications because they can further stress the liver.

And my blogging blackout continues. I'll try to post in the evenings from home, and I promise next time to post about something other than this unrelenting ailment. Peace out.

* I noticed just before I started typing this that it's my 365th post. That is impressive perhaps only to me.

** I like tangerines. Nothing against tangerines. Tangerines! I could eat 'em like candy!

Quickie

The IT department where I work has reconfigured our firewalls or fortified them or some such gobbledygook. What this means for you is that I can apparently no longer post anything on Blogger from work (this includes comments on my own and other people's blogs). Thus, unless I am either working from home - which I do only once a week - or get up earlier or stay up and try to put two sentences together after Viva goes to bed, I will most likely be blogging even less than I currently do. I'm not sure how that's possible.

I like to blog as a quick break from work. I feel like it lets me release other stuff that's been on my mind and that helps me refocus on work. You may call that a juicy rationalization. All I know is it's 6:13 AM and I have to go begin my day. Rushing to blog is kind of sucky.

P.S. Our plasma screen TV, which we have had for less than 6 months, suddenly decided it's done with pictures this morning. We can only get sound. Sweet Dub had to leave the house to give vent to his rage. The TV was very expensive.

A quick Google search indicates that on LG plasma TVs, there is a known problem whereby the boards inside the TV blow pretty much right after the warranty expires (around 18 months). Ours is a Sanyo. Can't seem to find much about it yet. Have to go, now, or I'll be late for work. See you on the weekend, maybe.

A Fib is a Lie that Has Not Cut Its Teeth

Through a bizarre confluence of happenstance, Viva spent the past two weekends with her aunties. Two weekends ago, she spent the night with my sister Lola, and then last weekend she flew off to Vegas with my sister-in-law Diva to watch her cousin in a cheerleading competition. Being away from her parents and her everyday life has been a bit of a challenge, and thus this weekend we have been dealing with some Acting Out.

It is a toss-up whether at any minute Viva will be clinging to my leg and whining, running around the house shrieking like a banshee, or simply playing nicely, either by herself or with Sweet Dub and/or me. It is rather exhausting, although we are trying to be understanding.

The one thing that is really killing me is the weird, alternate-reality fibbing to get out of doing things she doesn’t want to do. Witness:

The scene: Viva’s room, Sunday afternoon. I am trying to get her to nap, or at the very least have 45 minutes of Quiet Time with the door closed.

Mama Blah [easing toward the door]: So just relax, and close your eyes, and –

Viva: I’m not good at closing my eyes! They keep opening by themselves!

Mama Blah: What?!

Viva: I’m not a good eye closer.

Mama Blah [suppressing a sigh]: Well, maybe you need to practice. Try this: close your eyes and count to five.

Viva scrunches her eyes shut, grinning, counts to five, and bing! Her eyes pop open.

Mama Blah: Okay, now close your eyes again – not scrunching them tight like that, just nice and easy, like this, be natural, and see: One, two, three, four, five, nice and slow, and your head will hit the pillow… Try it again, but this time, count to ten.

Viva [convinced by now I am completely insane, but willing to give it a shot]: Okay. One, two, three, four…

A few minutes later I pass by her room and I hear her counting: Twenty-eight, twenty-nine…

(Five minutes later, she has corralled her daddy into sitting with her for the rest of Quiet Time. I can hear them in there, chatting and laughing together.)

Later in the evening, she has a complete breakdown, directly attributable to being overtired. In the morning, she gets up grumpy, uses the toilet, and then refuses to wash her hands, brush her teeth, or wash her face. We actually time her, unintentionally, by pausing the TV and telling her she can’t watch TV unless she takes care of her hygiene. From the moment we pause to her actually going back to the bathroom and performing this two minutes of self-care, sixteen and a half minutes elapse. After she emerges from the bathroom, she refuses to put on pants, even though it is chilly enough that the heat has come on. Sweet Dub is completely exasperated by this point.

Sweet Dub: You are like cold molasses today. What is going on with you? Why can’t you just put your pants on?

Viva: It’s not my fault, it’s because I’m a girl.

Sweet Dub & Mama Blah simultaneously: What?!

Viva: If I was a boy, I’d be faster.

Mama Blah: Being fast has nothing to do with you being a boy or a girl, Viva, and you know that.

Viva: I just can’t put my pants on.

Sweet Dub: It’s 8:15, and I’m already exhausted.

And so the day goes. Viva celebrated the birth of Presidents Washington and Lincoln thusly, fourscore and seven minutes at a time.

Rocky Road. Not the Ice Cream.

So here it is.

I have fibroids. I’ve known this for years – in fact, they complicated my pregnancy quite a bit – but my ob-gyn was always of the “watchful waiting” school. (This is a sister school to the “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” school, for those who are keeping score at home.) My ob-gyn said that although the fibroids grew and degenerated most painfully during my pregnancy due to the extra estrogen in my system, they would most likely shrink after pregnancy and not cause me problems. She did hasten to add that should I choose to have another baby, I should pretty much try to get pregnant when Viva was about a year old, if not before. The inference was that in order to avoid any complications – i.e., the fibroids mushrooming into bowling ball size and interfering with a subsequent pregnancy – I should have my kids very close together.

Well, since Viva is almost four, you can see how much to heart I took that advice. And at any rate, as time has passed, the fibroids have gone from being occasionally uncomfortable and annoying to an unrelenting pain in the pelvis. And back. Oy, my lower back – and sometimes the pain radiates down my right thigh. I pretty much feel like I have dull menstrual cramps every day. They also interfere with – how shall I put this delicately – elimination. In sum, they really suck.

I have been to three doctors* since the new year began. The first made me wait three weeks for an appointment and then, after a 45 minute sojourn in the waiting room, had a nurse tell me the doctor would be another 20-30 minutes and there were four people ahead of me, did I want to wait? I think you know what I told her. The second** asked me a couple of questions about my symptoms and immediately anointed me a perfect candidate for an outpatient procedure he pioneered. By the way, he doesn’t take my insurance and can’t seem to find anyone “in network” to give me a pelvic MRI. The third spent 20 minutes with me in her office, taking a thorough history of the fibroids and my symptoms and asking intelligent follow-up questions. She then had me go into an exam room, where she performed an exam, and after that, asked me to join her back in her office, where she explained what the medical options are (um, there are two, and each is only temporary) and what the surgical options are (there are basically three, although one of them – myomectomy – can be performed in varying degrees of invasiveness).

“Before I can make any recommendation, I need to see what’s in there, so I want you to get a pelvic ultrasound,” she said.

Note that she did not try to get me to have an MRI. I asked her about it and she said that it’s unnecessary in this case – basically overkill unless she suspected something else was really wrong with me. This only confirmed my suspicion about Dr. No. 2, which is that he was trying to charge me for as much shit as possible.

So I had the pelvic ultrasound on Friday – the day after I saw Dr. No. 3, at a facility she recommended, through which I was covered by my insurance. Which by the way, is a major national health insurance company, not some rinky-dink outfit run out of a trailer with a push-button phone and a ditto machine in the back.

It seems likely that I will have to have surgery. At this point, I welcome it. Yes, I am that unhappy. More on this as events develop.

In the meantime, work is psychotically crazy. Our non-profit has plunged headfirst into the icy cold waters of a capital campaign, and I am right in the heart of it, dog-paddling like mad and gasping for breath while dodging tree branches and other bits of jetsam that happen by. No worry, it will all be fine. But I clearly won’t have much time to brag about my exploits – er, I mean, blog. Unless I have surgery and am confined to bed while I recuperate. Except I guess if I can blog, I can work. Dang.

* Not one of these is the ob-gyn who delivered Viva. She is inexplicably on a leave of absence, and I miss her wise counsel. I have no idea when she will be back from leave, nor what she is on leave for. I fervently hope it is nothing bad, although in my experience, that is usually when people take leave.

** He, incidentally, is to blame for the title of this post. That is how he referred to the fibroids on my uterine wall. Yes. Classy, I know.

What You Make of It

Do you ever have that feeling, having finished a really satisfying book, that you are a bit adrift? I recently read Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, and I liked the book so much I wanted to dive right into another book and be as fully immersed. Eat, Pray, Love is an account of the year Liz Gilbert spent traveling through Italy, India, and Indonesia after her marriage ended. It’s full of funny, and sad, and thought-provoking moments.

I thought, when I turned 30 and had no serious man in my life, that I would be perfectly happy working on my career, traveling wherever I wanted, and spoiling my nephew rotten for the rest of my life. I accepted this future quite happily, and when I read Eat, Pray, Love, it sounded like a shortened version of what I had thought my life would be. Shortened, because I could never see any possible way that I could just take off and travel for a year, but it was my vision that I would be the adventurous, eccentric aunt who was always taking off somewhere and coming back with all sorts of interesting stories and unique trinkets.

Life is funny. Two years after I turned 30, I got set up on a Sunday morning coffee date by a woman I worked with. She was hilarious and fun, and she had a son about my age, and she thought we would really get along. Despite some trepidation, I allowed this crazy woman to arrange the Sunday morning date. This crazy woman would later become my mother-in-law, as the “let’s meet for coffee” turned into a full breakfast and gabfest. Yes, her son and I really got along. Six months later, I moved in with him, and six months after that, we were married. Viva came along 18 months later.

So here I am, married, with a kid, on a different kind of adventure. It’s full of funny, and sad, and thought-provoking moments. It’s mine, and I love it.

Although sometimes I wish I had more time to read.

Turn Energy Drainers into Energy Gainers!

Sorry for the self-help title. It just made me laugh.

Okay, so I haven’t been blogging (or responding to comments - so sorry!) so much because (a) work is crazy and (2) I’m having health issues which are draining my energy. (Doctor’s appointment* this Thursday, don’t worry.)

So, the work thing. I just wrote a really long explanation of what’s been happening here, but after re-reading it, decided to delete it. The summary is that I’ve been working on a project which culminated in a meeting with a donor Friday, which went really well. Someone else in my department (who out-ranks me, but who is not my supervisor) summarized the meeting points in a group e-mail, and in essence, made it appear that s/he had arranged the whole thing. My boss was livid. But as I pointed out to her, everyone on the distribution list knows this was my project and that this other person is trying to take credit. It’s almost laughable. I’m going to respond graciously by thanking this person for summarizing the meeting in my absence (I was out sick yesterday due to issues mentioned above) and adding some details that were left out.

Damn, I just want to do my job. Why are people so messed up?

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* Did I tell you about my last appointment? After waiting three weeks for an appointment, I left work, drove across town to see another doctor in my favorite ob-gyn’s practice, waited for 45 minutes and then was told she’d been called away on an emergency C-section and they’d have to bump me to the next day!? And did I tell you that another woman in the waiting room told me this was the third time she’d been bumped? I think my head exploded that day, so maybe I didn’t write about it. It goes without saying that I'm seeing a new doctor this week.

Shameless Mommy Blogging

I am once again buying a car seat, because Viva has grown out of the one we use in Sweet Dub’s car. I have been very happy with our Britax Regent (the one in my car), but my God, apparently so is everyone else in the universe. Finding one is like trying to score some high-grade drug [insert your drug of choice here]. This morning, I found myself calling a store in Florida to ensure that they have the Regent in stock. The store representative asked if I had a fax number. He is going to fax me an order form; I then have to fax my order back to him and then call the store back. The store has a Website, but because Regents are in such high demand, they only have one color online. I had learned through an anonymous source that if you call the store, they will check current inventory and pull one in a different color if they have it. Cheesus!

On top of that, I have to buy an additional car seat that is lighter and FAA-approved because Viva is going on a trip with her Auntie Diva in a few weeks. Altogether, this car seat dealio is costing us about 500 clams.

And they wonder why parents these days are so neurotic.