Sunday, December 31, 2006

Quickly! A baby!

A quick update in case you didn't get an email from me (some of them got bounced back because the pictures were too big, or the list of addresses was too long and spammy, or something):

Owen Edward (the artist formerly known as Studs) was born on 12/29/06 at 11:16 pm!
He was 8 lbs 7 oz and 21 inches long.
I thought I would never ever make it through the delivery, and yet, I did!

We got home from the hospital this afternoon. I'm too tired to finish the post I've been writing about how this all went down, so that will come sometime later.


Thursday, December 28, 2006

Classical music humor

From Eve's blog, some humor for orchestra and band geeks.



I hate Pachabel's canon too.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Going in tomorrow

Ok! We're going in tomorrow night to be induced (at least to start the process). Apparently it will take a while, but Studs should be here (and have a real name!) sometime on Friday.

Still hoping I'll go into labor on my own sometime before then, but we'll see. Either way, we'll have a new baby in a few days! Wish us luck!

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Still annoyed

Still no baby, still annoyed.

Jim is leaving in the morning, so he didn't get to see a baby after all. He went to the doctor with Brian and I this afternoon so I could have another non-stress test and ultrasound. Everything fine still, and still nothing is happening!

Also, Studs didn't get to make use of his Christmas outfits. If any of you have a Christmas baby in the future, I am totally regifting.

They'll induce me sometime later this week, as yet unscheduled. I would really prefer that he came on his own, but we'll see what happens.

Other than that, we've been playing Guitar Hero which I am getting better at. Its like DDR for your fingers. We've also been playing Advanced Mastermind, which I love. Its hard though when I'm playing with my brother and he SCORES SOMETHING WRONG and doesn't figure it out until I'm about ready to lose my mind. And we've watched some of the Red Dwarf DVDs Jim got us, season 7 (my favorite!) and 8.

Hope you all had a nice Christmas!

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Today's update of annoyed-ness

Well. I am still here.

Ugh! Yesterday was Brian's birthday, so I thought that maybe Studs wanted to have the same birthday as his dad. Evidently I was wrong. Now Brian will be a 34 year old father instead of a 33 year old father.

Jim also arrived yesterday, and we spent the night playing Guitar Hero (which Jim brought with him) on the PS2. I took some video as I was hoping that it would be the last thing I did while I was pregnant, so perhaps we will later have 'video editing practice part II'.

The current last thing I did while I was pregnant was make muffins. Lets hope that sticks.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and gets all the Wii they want (especially those who have solicited references And also, me).

Friday, December 22, 2006

Video test

We used our fancy new video camera at the doctors office yesterday, and this morning I figured out how to edit our video in iMovie. So here's my first video test. Watch Lisa lay there like a beached whale! See and hear Studs' heart beating! Watch Lisa's stomach undulate! Also featured: You can see that Studs is still a boy, even though I wasn't sure how to indicate this on the video (since you see it actually right before the u/s tech asks us whether we know the gender or not). Thank god, because otherwise Studs would have been a very gender-confused girl with all of the blue boy stuff we have.

Here's the video.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Zippo

Just had my appointment which was exciting, and still NOTHING. Will have another one on Tuesday unless some miracle has occurred over the weekend. Think baby, everyone!!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

More Y chromosomes than allowed

I love this whole thing about the Indian runner who failed a gender test. First of all, they have a gender test? Does this sort of thing come up often?
Second of all "more Y chromosomes than allowed" is sort of hilarious. I would think ANY Y chromosomes would be more Y chromosomes than allowed if you're a woman. The way they say that also makes it sound like she might have many, many Y chromosomes, which would be more than allowed for a man too.

Oh, and those of you who were hoping for the 20th are SOL, methinks. It is 2pm and there is no action on the baby front. On the plus (?!) side, tomorrow I'll get to find out how the non-stress test and biophysical profile work. I'm getting concerned that the baby and Brian could have the same birthday (the 23rd). Or that the baby and JESUS (and also my grandmother, but I figured the general reader would be more familiar with the whole Jesus thing) could have the same birthday. Holy crap. I knew it was within the realm of possibility, technically, but I never dreamed that I might still be pregnant at Christmas.

Instead? My mom and I made pizzelles. Hurrah!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

T + 2 days

Oh dear readers, it is wishful thinking on your parts to think that a few days blog-free meant that I had had Studs. No, apparently Studs did not get the memo that his due date was on SUNDAY and that my weekly BabyCenter email was entitled 'Your newborn'. However, I didn't have anything to blog about other than to complain, so I spared you. Aren't I a very thoughtful pregnant lady? Also, you'll know when we have the baby because Brian's bringing his laptop to the hospital with us and we'll use the wonderful hospital wireless internet to send an email and/or post an update and picture. Promise!

My parents decided to come up this week anyhow, even though Studs hasn't given us any indication that he plans to arrive, EVER. They left yesterday and called us shortly after take-off (well... take-off in the car) to tell us that about 20 miles from home they had hit something on the interstate and punctured their gas tank (and messed up something else, I think, although my one remaining functional brain cell doesn't recall what). They live in Sarasota, FL in the winter and thus have the requisite old person Cadillac, even though they're not really old enough to require one yet. It is huge though, which was the appeal - better to cart around a bunch of out of town visitors, like myself. This was good for their long drive up to NC with the dog, the parrot and all their Christmas presents and stuff (my brother is coming this weekend, so they had EVERYONE'S presents). However, the wrecked gas tank necessitated a shift to their other car - also a Florida requirement - a Chrysler Sebring convertible. Its not THAT small, but its not large either. They all jammed in there and kept driving, but since they got a relatively late start they didn't make it yesterday. So they'll be here by about lunch time.

Brian and I have started an aggressive campaign of walking to walk the baby out. This doesn't sound like a big deal to you normal people, except please recall that I haven't really walked much since I broke my foot almost 10 weeks ago. I can get around a bit better on the Aircast but I'm still pretty slow, so it takes us 45 min - 1 hr to walk around our development. Awesome!

And thats about it. I'll go in on Thursday for a non-stress test and other tests to make sure the baby is doing okay in there, and maybe discuss with the doctor some means of encouraging Studs to come out, like what Aimee mentioned. I am ALL FOR THAT.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Bill Gates is so dreamy!

I didn't really find this article particularly interesting, but I was really amused at the sort of Teen Beat-esque picture of Bill Gates that accompanies it. Also, he totally has a Mac behind him.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Small with a huge head

Oh. One thing I did learn at the doctors office yesterday (although it shouldn't worry me much because I'm going to be pregnant FOREVER) is that Studs doesn't seem to be too big. She didn't give me a real weight estimate or anything, but by feeling around and measuring my belly she said that he was probably on the smaller side. "Thats a relief" I thought, until I remembered that what was really important was how big his head is. My friend had a small baby with a huge head, and I think the same thing could happen to me. Lets consider the evidence:

1. Brian has a huge head. Just try and find a hat that fits him.
2. My dad also has a huge head. My brothers aren't small either.
3. Every year at Christmas we do those Christmas crackers, because I married a British guy. They have a stupid joke in them (What do you call Postman Pat when he retires?), a little toy of some sort, and a paper crown. Brian, my dad and my brothers have a 'Big Head Contest' every year to see who can break the crown just by contorting their faces. This doesn't take long because they can barely squeeze the crowns onto their huge heads in the first place without them ripping.

I thought I might have a picture of a 'Big Head Contest' in action, but I can't find one. Here's a picture of everyone in their crowns (my family and various and sundry friends and now ex-girlfriends) from a couple of years ago:



As you can see, my dad's and Brian's are already ripped, and Brian's is really just perched on top of his head. Also, Ed's (to the right of my dad) must be ripped in the back too because there's no way he got it that far down on his head without some rippage. I'd say the same about Jim's (he's on the left towards the back) but his looks pretty taut. It might be a little ripped though.

So basically, I'm screwed by genetics. I didn't get the twinning gene (this time anyway - it seems to strike on subsequent pregnancies in our family), but I bet you Studs gets the big head gene. Lucky me!

In other news: still pregnant.

Also, I am still pregnant. In fact, at my appointment yesterday I didn't even get any reassuring news so I think I will be pregnant forever. If you haven't noticed, my whiny-ness level has increased exponentially, and I'm sorry to say that it will probably continue to do so. And I was doing so well too. Fortunately, my boss told me yesterday not to worry about coming back into work anymore, and that I can just email him whatever I need to (I need to convert all the figures in my paper from RGB to CMYK so that they can now look like CRAP. Stupid journals and their stupid CMYK format). Thats good because a) I'm not feeling so super comfortable and b) I feel like I spend my whole day at work answering people who see me in the hall and say 'Oh! You're still here??' Yes. I am @#$%* still here. Shut up.

Whee!

I so want a Wii. Me and everyone else in the universe, so I am so not getting a Wii - at least not for a while. Thats okay, I'm still playing Final Fantasy XII on my PS2. Oh, and FFIII on my DS. Yes, I have a problem. And also, clearly they were exaggerating when they called the first one Final Fantasy.

Anyhow, lots of other people were lucky and did get Wiis. And then a lot of them broke their TV sets, windows, glass-topped coffee tables, whatever, when the Wiimote was not properly strapped to their wrist while playing (or... the strap broke. I'm more inclined to think 'operator error' myself). Brian just called me to tell me about one of the comments that he had read after a BBC News article about this.

I got one of the first Wii but after a few minutes playing the strap broke and the controller shot off and hit my partner in the face resulting in two broken teeth. She slipped at the same time falling into the TV set and smashing the screen. The TV was plugged into the surround sound system and consequently pulled it over and smashing into my CD and DVD collection. I advise anyone to be careful of the wii

Brian really enjoys it when other people are idiots, so he was practically wetting his pants reading this to me.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Still pregnant

In case you were thinking that a few days without posting meant that I wasn't pregnant anymore, you were wrong. I am still pregnant. And in fact showing no indications of becoming un-pregnant any time soon. Although I do think that Studs has 'dropped' now. I don't notice a big difference in anything other than that I think I look different (a little smaller, actually) in profile. Aaaaaand, that doesn't mean anything in terms of when he's going to come out, in case you were thinking that might be relevant or something. Really, nothing you learn at the end of your pregnancy is relevant to when you'll actually have the baby. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow when they'll tell me how dilated and effaced I am - two more bits of information that sound exciting but actually have no bearing at all on when I'll have the baby.

I have been working at home this week, but I'm going back in today. I think my boss is secretly thrilled when I work from home because he'd really rather that I didn't go into labor at work. Or have my water break or something. He's still adjusting to having a lab full of women, so I think this is just a little bit more female-related than he can take. Hee. I'm going to go in today and do a few last things in the lab and write out a list of what experiments I need to do when I get back, because god knows I'm not going to remember AT ALL what I was doing when I left. Hopefully then my boss will have read the draft of my paper I just sent him (he is very quick at this which is new and different for me, so this could actually happen) and I can stay home on Thursday and Friday and work on fixing it. I forget that each day that I stay home I really need to let people know that I am working and not having a baby. Everyone is relieved to find that out because there's a little pool going at work to guess when I'll have the baby. Only one person is out of it so far, she had me going a week early, on Sunday. People's guesses start to pick up again now - there's someone today and most of the rest of the days this week. Fortunately I don't think anyone has me lasting as far as Christmas (which would be a week late and while normal is not desired by me, thanks).

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Biochemistry with the Celebrity Stars

And you thought that celebrities only had hidden potential as dancers.
They may also be able to solve some significant problems in molecular biology.

Rockin' the white elephant gift exchange

Last night was my work Christmas party. Last year I was on the organizing committee, and we decided to have a white elephant gift exchange. If you haven't done this before, you bring something fairly crappy (or at least unwanted) for your gift - a good way to regift something that you wouldn't actually want to give someone on purpose. Or a gag gift or something. At last year's gift exchange, I got some generic Barbie-type doll. After the official swap was over, I traded with someone else for an old fondue pot. We didn't have a decent one, despite assurances that we'd get several as wedding gifts. And I love fondue. I know who brought the fondue pot, and she thought it was a terrible gift. She had gotten it as a hand me down from her aunt or something. There was a recipe written on a card that she had included, her aunt's recipe, that called for 'Switzerland Swiss Cheese'. Heh.

The fondue pot gets a lot of use at our house, because we both go through periods of fondue addiction. We're in one right now, in fact. We had fondue for dinner twice last week (one time was during a fondue party at our house, the other time was just... Wednesday). So I was really pleased with myself last year.

This year I did possibly even better. Brian picked third, and he got a framed picture of my boss that someone had gotten in last year's swap. Ha. I'm going to display it on my desk at work, until next year when I am totally going to bring it back to the gift swap. I picked fairly far down in the order, about 2/3 of the way through. The person just before me let her young son pick and open a gift, and it was a stainless steel Cuisinart pizelle press. OMG. I love pizelles. And I do not have a pizelle press. My mom does and she always made them for Christmas when I was growing up. Yum. When my turn came up, I totally traded the little kid for the pizelle press. I was really worried that someone after me would take it, but no one did. So now, I've got a shiny new pizelle press, just in time for Christmas pizelle making! Two years in a row of awesome white elephant gifts.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

His laugh really is annoying though.

Anderson Cooper could be my secret boyfriend if I was his type, which I'm pretty sure I'm not. Brian, maybe. But not me. Bit of a bummer. He's smart and funny and also totally hot - a trifecta.

Anyhow, I thought this video of him critically analyzing his co-hosting stint on 'Live With Regis and Kelly' was funny. The link to this from the CNN website was 'Anderson Cooper: Man, my laugh is annoying.'

Friday, December 08, 2006

BE ADEQUITE.

Ok, so the other week when Robert Altman died, Linsday Lohan, in the midst of her crippling grief, composed a little press release on her Blackberry so that we could all know how broken up she was by the whole thing (having just been in his movie, A Prairie Home Companion).

Read this here.

Obvy the girl didn't get much onset tutoring when she was being a child star.
Everyone? Please. BE ADEQUITE.

Oooookay. So everyone has been making fun of that pretty much ever since. Because its hilarious. And sad. And pathetic. Her publicist Leslie Sloane Zelnick, who has seriously been working overtime for this girl lately*, tried to soften the blow a little bit by saying how she wrote this right after she had heard, she hadn't had time to compose her thoughts, blah blah blah. One would think that Linsday would have learned a lesson from this, but no. Nor did she learn how to spell 'adequate'. Because she's at it again. And this one is 1000x crazier sounding than the last one.

Seriously. Would someone take away LiLo's Blackberry-ing privledges? Save this poor girl from herself. It is hard to decide what I find most amusing about this particular version, but high up on the list is the fact that she still hasn't managed to spell 'adequate' correctly, despite the fact that there are even T-shirts making fun of her about it. Also, I mean, does she even know what 'adequate' means? I don't think so. First of all, why would you encourage people to just be adequate? Just be good enough, people. You don't have to be great or anything... don't stress yourselves out. Just BE ADEQUITE. And second, a "morally/politically correct, fully adequite letter to the press". I don't really get the usage there either.

Its okay though, because she talked to Al Gore. And he totally wants to help her. And so do the Clintons. With what, I'm not totally sure. To get the media to stop bugging her, I guess? If she wants the media to stop bugging her, why doesn't she stay home and stop acting crazy. I bet that would help.

The Fug Girls want to help, at least with the editing. Hee.


*Those of you who are NOT up on your celeb gossip probably do not know that Linds has been going to AA meetings. For her drinking problem which has developed while she's not even old enough to legally drink. Ignoring the whole second 'A' there, this fact has been broadcast to the media. I also swear that I read somewhere, although I cannot find the source anymore, that her publicist said something like 'Yes, she's going to the meetings and this is a positive step. But don't be surprised when you still see her drinking because this is a process and she hasn't quite gotten to the whole sobriety part yet.'

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Cast is GONE

Finally the day we have all been waiting for is HERE (well, one of the days we are waiting for anyhow). The cast is IN THE TRASH. I have a shiny new Aircast now. I get to wear this for 2-3 weeks to protect my foot, and then I'm DONE. And thankfully, this one can come off for baths or sleeping or whatever.

When they took off my cast I was a bit horrified to discover that I had also contracted leprosy sometime over these last 7 weeks. Seriously, I look like a molting reptile of some sort. Dead skin is coming off my leg in sheets. I just took a bath (both feet immersed!) and tried to get it off as best as I could, but my best was not good enough. Its still there, although it is better.

I also went to the OB this morning who said that the baby hadn't really dropped too much yet, so it doesn't look like childbirth is imminent or anything. Bummer.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Chapped lips

Over on the Consumerist, a great debate rages about lip balms and their addictive nature. I had a friend in high school who was TOTALLY addicted to Carmex. I don't know what the biological basis of this is, but I agree it is addictive.

Lots of people supported Burt's Bees lip balm as the best lip balm out there. I almost agree. I like it too. For some reason I prefer it in the little metal tub than in the tube. Application messier, but it seems like a little different product and I think it works better. I could just be making that up though.

For real lip balm action (not to mention an unbeatable price), I vote for Bag Balm. If you live in New England you can buy this at the drugstore. If you're not so lucky, you can buy it (seriously) in the horse section at Petsmart. Or I bet at some like, feed store or something. You'll notice at the top of the Bag Balm website that none of the suggested organisms to use it are people. Cows? Yes. Horses? Of course. Pets? Certainly. A big tub of it costs like, $15 tops? It will last you forever. Seriously. I have one that is like five years old and its only half empty. And my mom gave it to me partially empty. It also makes a good treatment for dry skin, in which case you'd use it quicker. But it is, hands down, the best lip balm on the planet.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

I'm still here!

Yesterday everyone was surprised to see me back at work, since it seemed that the whole world had decided that the baby was coming over the weekend. Oh well. Last week I didn't really want Studs to arrive early, but once everyone started talking about it I started to get antsy. So now I'm a little tired of being pregnant.

We had come up with a name, but now I'm second guessing it. We brought a few names back into consideration this morning, so now I think there are 4 on the list. Its hard! I know many people have said they didn't decide until after the baby was born, so that makes me feel better.

Not much else is going on. Two days until cast removal!

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Brian is nesting

Yesterday when I was at work, Brian called me in a mild panic.
"Are you having contractions?"
Uh, no. And where did this come from? I hadn't called him or anything, so I didn't know where he had gotten the idea that I was in labor. He said he had just been having this overwhelming feeling that Studs' arrival was imminent. He had been possessed to completely clean and reorganize his office and lab and was wanting to go home and do the same thing there. He was completely positive that I would have the baby this weekend.
Then my boss came in and said 'Uh... before you leave today please send me your figures and your paper in whatever state it is when you leave.' He was also worried that I might not be back on Monday.

Last week there was also a significant increase in the number of random people who would stop me in the hallway and say 'Well, you look like you're just about done!'

Does everyone know something that I don't? Hope not. I did get my grant application sent off yesterday (yay!) but I'd also like to finish up my paper before the baby's arrival.

Anyone else have any weird feelings when their baby was about to come?

Friday, December 01, 2006

Your celebrity gossip update

Many of my readers are not as into the celebrity gossip as I am. But what if you had to unexpectedly take a pop culture quiz? Or something? I wouldn't just leave you out in the cold. So here's a little round-up of this weeks news:

Just when I think things are starting to look up for my girl Britney, she starts to go back down again.

Divorcing K-Fed? Up!
Dressing like an even hooker-ier version of Pamela Anderson? Down!
Forgetting to wear her undies when dressing like an even hooker-ier version of Pamela Anderson? Even downer!
Hanging out with Paris Hilton and Linsday Lohan? As down as you can get!

In other news:
Speaking of Pamela Anderson, she and Kid Rock are getting divorced only four months after their multi-wedding extravaganza. I know! I was shocked too. Also, I really never saw the appeal of Kid Rock. Um... wifebeater and greasy hair? AND sort of pathetic looking facial hair?

Eva Longoria engaged to this guy who I totally thought she wasn't dating anymore!

We forgot about Anna Nicole Smith for a while, but then she randomly had her baby in the Bahamas, her son randomly died in her hospital room afterwards, had multiple men claiming they were the father of her new baby, became a Bahamian citizen and then got booted out of the house she was living in.

Danny DeVito went on 'The View' drunk. Which is actually hilarious. I'm sure Baba Wawa was really excited to hear all about his sexcapades in the Lincoln Bedroom. You can watch the video here.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

37 weeks

Here's my belly, the 37 week version.




As of today, Studs is considered full term. He really could come any time now, even though he's not due until December 17 (and obviously he could come after that too. He doesn't really care when we think he should come). If he's a week late he'll show up on Christmas Eve, so we're cutting it a little close. Two weeks late will be on New Year's Eve! We're hoping he comes before that so that we can get the tax advantages! I hope he doesn't come too much earlier than the 17th because we didn't get into day care for February when I need to go back to work (actually, I don't even know when we're going to get in and DON'T GET ME STARTED ON HOW ANNOYED I AM WITH THE WHOLE DAY CARE THING BECAUSE IT IS VERY ANNOYED) and we're going to have to come up with something in the interim. And I'm really not looking forward to alternating work schedules with Brian for an indeterminate period of time, so I'd like to minimize the non-day care time as much as possible.

We installed the car seats last week, just in case. And the hospital bag is all packed and ready to go. Now we just wait and see!

Thanks!

For Thanksgiving this year I was obviously not going to go anywhere far (i.e. anywhere where my family is), so my parents came here (Jim stayed up in New England and went to Thanksgiving dinner with his girlfriend).

My dad had, of course, just been through on the annual North-to-South migration and had left on Sunday morning. Since they were going to be driving back on Tuesday, and their dog Kelsey is not a huge fan of the airplane, Kelsey stayed with us for a few days. The cats were all completely traumatized. Kelsey is not really that great at reading the cats cues: she thinks that hissing and whacking her on the nose means the cats are playing with her. Also, cats running away = something to chase. So pretty much the cats have been hiding all week.

On Wednesday we got ourselves prepared for Thanksgiving dinner and my mom and I did a little shopping and organizing of the baby room. We finished hanging the pictures and everything, so the room is all set up now. Oh. I should go take a picture of it for you. Be right back...




Thats pretty much it. The most wonderful glider chair is not pictured, because that is still hanging out in front of the PS2. Speaking of the most wonderful glider chair, Brian got my dad watching 'Arrested Development' so they've been up there in front of the TV. My dad loves the glider so much that he totally wants to get one for himself.

Anyhow. We finished doing the baby laundry that I had decided to do (all the newborn-sized clothes, many of the blankets, some other stuff) and put everything away. It turned out well.

On Thursday we had Thanksgiving dinner, of course. We had my favorite easy appetizer which is:

toast and chop some pecans
mix them in with blue cheese of some variety
spread this onto slices of french bread
broil
drizzle with honey
eat

Yum. Also regular dinner. Since my mom was the only one eating turkey (Brian and I both being vegetarian now and my dad not being a poultry person), she made a turkey breast and the rest of us ate the other Thanksgiving foods (and my dad had some leftover short ribs they had brought with them). After dinner we played Apples to Apples (I won both times!) and started in on the pie. My mom had made a pecan pie the day before and had used a different recipe that she had gotten out of Bon Appetit. It looked good. We cut into it and all hell broke loose. The pie looked cooked everywhere that you could see it, but the middle was just soup. As soon as she cut into it the soup started oozing out. It was totally bizarre.



We still ate it - well, I just ate the cooked top parts and left my soup on the plate. Afterwards I looked up the recipe on epicurious.com to see if anyone else had reported ending up with pecan pie soup and indeed they had. It seems that the recipe really made enough filling for two pies, even though it didn't really say that AND you could fit all of the filling into one pie, albeit a very full pie. Thats what my mom had done, and it was too thick to cook thoroughly. Though it was pretty hysterical watching the pie ooze out, something unlike anything I've ever seen before. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

On Friday my mom and I watched a What Not To Wear marathon on TLC. Hurrah! Brian and my dad worked on a project that we'd been talking about doing for like, a year - renovating our pantry. We have a nice sized pantry, but I hated it with a passion. First of all, its shelves (like all shelving we have in our house) were that crap-ass Closetmaid wire shelving. OMG, I hate that stuff. First of all, in a pantry? Horrible. Nothing stands upright on it. We had bought some sort of rolled out stuff that you put on top of it that is suppossed to solve that problem but it didn't. Its not much better in a clothes closet because it leaves ridges in whatever is sitting on top of it. I cannot stand it but unfortunately you see it in like, every new construction home. Anyhow. The other thing I hated about our pantry was that it was difficult to organize. The closet was pretty wide and the shelves went back into a recess in the wall about 14 inches on each side. You'd have to put stuff back there but it was hard to see and get to. And since the shelf went the whole length of the closet without a break, there was no way to really separate things. It was just a big disaster in there. So they took out all the existing shelving and put in wooden shelves on either side in the recessed part. Now its like a walk-in pantry. The shelves are a little less deep than they were, but I like it better now. I thought they were too deep before. And now there are many smaller shelf areas so its easy to organize. We got everything in there and we still have some room. They also hung up some hooks so we could hang up stuff like our pizza paddle.



And on Saturday we ended up buying a Christmas tree. This is our first time having a real tree - we usually have a fake one because we're not usually here at Christmas. But I like the smell of a real tree and I had always wanted to get one, so since we're not going anywhere this year we did. I know its a little early to put up a real tree, but we figured that we'd better do it now in case Studs decided to come a little early and we didn't get a chance to do it later. So its up but not decorated. I might do that today after I've worked on my grant.

They left this morning and took Kelsey with them, much to the joy of our cats who came downstairs almost immediately. Hope the cats don't get too complacent though because they'll be back pretty soon when its baby time!

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Migration and baby prep

Today commences part II of the annual Lisa's-parents-southern-migration. My mom has already gone down to Florida. She flies commercial, thank you very much. My dad is flying himself, so he had to wait for the weather to clear up along the east coast. He's on his way down here today, two cats, parrot, dog and a plane full of other stuff to bring to either me or Florida in tow. So tonight we'll have a 6 cat/2 sheltie total at the house. Thats going to be interesting!

Another thing we're doing today is going to baby care class. Where we will learn to care for babies (duh). Which is good because I don't even know how to HOLD a baby - although last week, at breastfeeding class (more on that later) we learned that babies like to be held as if they were footballs and you were a Heisman trophy. Who woulda thunk it?

We had most of our pre-baby classwork last weekend, when we did our childbirth preparation class and the aforementioned breastfeeding class. Childbirth class was educational/funny/terrifying. Yes, okay. We learned a lot about like, labor. And what happens in labor. And some positions you can use to help it along. And how your partner can help you. So that was good, because we needed that. I think it made Brian feel more in control of things so that he can be a more effective partner than he was during the hospital vomiting visit, in which he was completely paralyzed with fear. Also, our teacher was funny and she got the fathers doing a lot of hilarious stuff, like demonstrating positions (in which they were the mother), etc. The most entertaining portion of the class was when she had all 6 fathers come up and act out a scene of what would be going on when you're in the pushing stage. One guy was the mother, and he had to sit on the floor with his legs open and a baby doll under his shirt. Another guy was the father and was coaching him. Brian was the labor and delivery nurse. I wish I had had my camera is all I will say. The women were all quite amused.

It was good that we had this fun part to the class because it tempered the terrifying part, in which we watched a video of women giving birth. Oh. My. God. I'm a little bit obsessed with the Discovery Health channel, so I've watched women giving birth before on TV. I know that it looks like it really hurts. I don't think I'd ever seen an actual baby head coming out though, until this wonderful video showed it to me. Um, are you KIDDING ME? This has to be a joke. I don't even see how that is PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE. OMG. Going to die. If I ever needed any confirmation that I was absolutely okay with getting an epidural, this was it. Because, holy crap. Also, one of the women in the video was looking at the baby head coming out with a mirror or something, and she said something like 'Are you sure thats a baby?' or 'That doesn't look like a baby' or something like that. Hee. She's right, it didn't really look like a baby. It looked like an alien.

Okay, once I had calmed down a little bit, we went to breastfeeding class the next day. Brian said 'You need a class for that? Don't you just pop the baby on and let him do his thing?' Hee. No. So we learned all about football holds, and breast pumps, and cracked nipples, oh my! Sounds like a good time. It also sounds like a full time job. So I hope you don't plan on seeing me for the first several weeks or anything, because I'll be upstairs with the Boppy pillow.

Friday, November 17, 2006

A big pink cast redux: A big purple cast

Yesterday I made a trip back to the orthopedist. Can you believe its been four whole weeks since this misery was first unleashed upon my foot and calf? I can't either. Feels more like 3 months.

Anyhow, it was very exciting because when I came in they took me directly to the 'casting room'. This is the room in which the misery was stored before it got all over my leg. More importantly, it is the room in which the scary cast removing saw lives. Hope! Joy! The doctor came in and busted out the saw and removed my cast. He promised that the saw wasn't going to cut off my leg (and actually a nice asian postdoc at work who doubles as an orthopedic surgeon explained to me how the saw wasn't going to cut off my leg - it vibrates back and forth, not around in a circle like it looks like. When it gets to the gauzy stuff under the fiberglass it gets stuck) but actually, it was fairly freaky and I had a hard time watching because I was sure this was all going to end in a huge torrent of blood. He cut the top off for me so that I could save all my cast drawings. And then my leg was free of its big pink prison!!

Oh, it was a joyous moment. Behold all the dark and very long leg hairs that had grown since the cast was installed. Take in the horrendous odor that comes from basically having worn the same pair of socks for 4 weeks nonstop. Wonder at how thin my calf has gotten while the muscle wastes away. I got to sit there for a while and admire my leg while they set up the X-ray. Then someone came in and loaded me into a wheelchair to take me down to the X-ray room. Good thing I was wheeled down there, because the casted foot was actually not super keen on being stood on. It felt a little bit like my foot had been asleep and now I was trying to put my weight on it. They took all the X-rays while I was still sitting in the wheelchair (covered with 800 layers of lead shielding to protect Studs). The sole of my foot started to feel all wierd and tingly. A little bit again like my foot had been asleep and was waking up, but not totally. The nurse said that a lot of people say that after they have a cast taken off.

Oh, my joy was short lived because after the X-rays the doctor came back in and asked me what color cast I wanted this time. I thought about making a run for it, but they had apparently ensured that my foot would be in no shape for running. So I picked purple this time. Its a lot darker than the pink, so not something that I can get any cast illustrations on. Bummer. Not that I really thought I'd be getting rid of the cast for good, I knew I had 6-8 weeks in my fiberglass prison. But taking off the cast was a big tease.

He said that my foot was healing fine and that he'd like to keep the cast on for 4 more weeks, but that he realized that I might want it off for when I was giving birth to Studs. So he told me he'd take it off in three weeks, on December 7. At 11:40 am. Countdown!! I still won't be able to be completely castless at that time, but he's going to give me something removable then. That will be bearable. All I want is to be able to scratch my leg at will. Oh, and maybe bathe my leg. It sounds like this bone is a) slow to heal and b) easily reinjured if not fully healed when casts etc. are removed. I guess because you're putting all of your weight on it, and I'm putting a lot more weight on it now than I used to be. My department chair at work broke the same bone and had a removable cast type thing on for 6-8 weeks, but he ended up re-breaking it at some point during that time and they had to put the pin in after all.

Unfortunately my new cast requires the same getting-used-to-it period that my old cast did. The old one had gotten a bit loose because my leg had gotten so much thinner. That was nice because I was able to contort my body around inside of it to try to scratch itches, and I could get most of my palm down the side to scratch things that were higher up my leg. Not so the new cast - it was made to fit my new, thinner leg, so I'm lucky if I can get one finger in there. Bugger. So I was up a lot last night trying to get to sleep, which happened for a few days after I got the first one. He said that my leg would continue to get thinner and that it probably wouldn't be so tight in a couple of days, which is something to look forward to.

Soooooo... mark your calendars! December 7th is the day when I'll be able to scratch my leg at will!!

Monday, November 13, 2006

Brian: Iron Chef Baked Pasta

I think the whole ordeal of pregnancy + broken foot has helped Brian realize what things might be like after we have the baby and I begin my job as a dairy cow. In the second trimester I was pretty tired, so I didn't feel a whole lot like cooking when I got home. Also I was completely starving to death and I didn't have time to wait for food to be cooked. Then I broke the stupid foot, which rendered me completely useless in the evenings - sitting at my desk or lab bench all day gets my leg and foot nice and swollen inside the cast (not that I'm even having an inordinate amount of pregnancy-associated swelling - at this point I probably wouldn't even notice it if the area available for swelling wasn't restricted by the cast) which is really uncomfortable, so I end up spending the entire night sitting on the couch with my leg raised up on a couple of pillows (this actually seems to be getting a bit better this last week or so). So yeah, not getting a lot done with the cooking now either.

Brian has always insisted to me that he could cook but that he just didn't know how to cook anything that didn't have meat in it. I maintain that following a recipe works the same way whether there's meat or no meat in it, and that if he could really cook, he could cook meatless stuff too. Also, I have an entire cabinet full of vegetarian cookbooks and cooking magazines so its not like he's got to make up the recipe or anything. He has a few times this year made vegetable soup for me when I've been sick, but so far that (and mashed potatoes) have really been the extent of Brian's cooking.

He wanted to help with the cooking when the baby comes, so he said he was going to put together a little cookbook for himself and that once a week he and I could make something together so he could see how to do it. That was before the broken foot and the couch. We only made one thing together (baked ziti) and the cookbook has remained otherwise empty. Last week he started to think about how much eating take-out this might result in (we've been doing a lot of that lately) and he wasn't nuts about the idea, so he got back on the cooking kick.

So on Monday night Brian decided to make lasagne. He had found a recipe online and had stopped at the grocery store on his way home to get what he needed. He called me on my cell phone to ask me whether I usually cooked the vegetables before I put them into the lasagne. When I got home, it was about 6pm and he had just gotten home and was starting to get ready to go. I looked at the lasagne recipe he had chosen. It was like, THE most elaborate lasagne recipe EVER. It involved making a puttanesca sauce, grilling (or broiling in this case) vegetables, making a pesto oil, assembling these all together. This is not something that I would have made on a Monday night starting at 6pm, and I've been cooking for a while and also have the benefit of knowing my way around the kitchen. But Brian was not to be deterred, so he set off. And he wouldn't let me help, so I sat upstairs (in our glider/ottoman set we bought for the baby's room. Almost didn't get the ottoman, but it is great for the cast!) playing Final Fantasy XII.

Three hours later, Brian had finished. So we ate dinner at 9pm. Keep in mind that Studs is sucking the very life out of me lately, and I'm usually ready to go to bed at like, 8:30. I force myself to stay up at least past 9 (most of the time). The lasagne was good, but Brian had a few first-timer problems - the vegetables were cut too thick and/or not broiled for long enough, so they were still a little bit uncooked, and he hadn't cooked the lasagne noodles first. As we've discussed somewhere on this blog in the past, I don't cook the noodles either - you don't really have to. And you also don't have to use those yucky no-boil noodles. But it does help to rinse them off in hot water first to cut down on the starchiness, and (and this is the major part that Brian missed) you've got to have sauce on top of all layers of pasta because, after all, that is where the liquid the noodles cook in comes from. The top layer of Brian's lasagne was noodles topped with cheese, so the noodles had pretty much just baked and turned brown and had cheese melted on top of them. Hee. I think he was a little disappointed, but in general it tasted good and the mistakes he made were ones he wouldn't make the next time. I tried to tell him that he had picked an excessively complicated recipe, especially for a first-timer.

The next night he made mashed potatoes which, as I've mentioned, were already in his repetoire. However this time he made a more involved mashed potato recipe with russets + unpeeled redskin potatoes + garlic, and he even garnished with chopped scallions and BacOs (love that BacOs are vegetarian!). I tried to make potato pancakes with the leftovers yesterday and it was a dismal failure - it was more like mashed potato hash browns. Or like when you're trying to make a fried egg and you end up somehow making scrambled instead.

He also got a recipe for some baked pasta dish from '30 minute meals'. You made a caponata separately (without the eggplant because eggplant and my stomach are generally not too friendly with eachother, much to my dismay, I will however suffer the consequences for french fried eggplant!) and then mixed it with cooked pasta, topped with cheese and broiled. This one was good and much easier for Brian. He doubled the recipe so we'll be having that again tonight.

Now I'm trying to get him to branch out into bean dishes so we can get some more protein in the mix. I have a few easy recipes for him to try that I already know he likes to eat.

Friday, November 10, 2006

One year.

Today is the one year anniversary of the day that my brother Ed died.

I find that for most things, I sort of forget the details after a while. But I remember so much about that day and the days afterwards. It was a Thursday. There was what seemed like an endless amount of time (actually, I think it was about an hour and a half) between when we knew that something was very wrong and when the police actually told us that he was dead. I couldn't sleep at all that night. I remember ending up taking a bath at like, 4 am, hoping that would help me calm down. It didn't. The next morning, I thought maybe it hadn't really happened until my parents called me to tell me their flight information (because they were already in Florida for the winter). I had to call my boss to tell him I wasn't going to be in for a while, find someone to come over and keep an eye on the cats while we were gone. Completely hysterical, of course. Brian had to go into work to sort some things out before we could drive up to NH, and Chris and Denise came over to stay with me while he was gone. I felt like I was being a real bother to everyone, but I don't think I could have sat there alone either.

I remember the whole two day drive up to NH. In some ways it was horrible, just sitting there crying. Keeping in touch with my brother and parents who were up there dealing with things. I was upset that we hadn't been able to fly so that I could get there sooner, but we really had to drive because we had to take the dog. I felt like an idiot at every rest stop we stopped at because my face was all swollen and I would cry in the bathrooms.

When I was seeing the bereavement counselor, he said that a lot of times people replay in their head what they think happened when their loved one died. I didn't really do that, but I did endlessly replay this whole car ride and the surreal conversations I was having with my parents. They were at the funeral home picking out a casket and deciding on what color flowers they were going to have in all the flower arrangements (they picked yellow, black and white because Ed's motorcycle leathers were those colors). I couldn't believe I was even having that conversation.

When we got home, people were already at the house with my family. My parents friends and Jim's friends were there all the time, which was nice for them. I didn't really have anyone there except Brian. It helped a lot when all of our relatives turned up. I've really never felt so alone in my life. It was really nice that some of my friends had sent flowers to the funeral home for the wake, because I knew that they would have been there if they could have. It helped to keep walking past all of the flowers, looking at the cards.

I didn't have anything to wear to the funeral. I work in a lab, so I don't really need many nice outfits and I certainly didn't have any that fit me at the time. Jim's friend Sarah took me to the mall to help me shop, rather than going out for drinks with Jim and all his other friends. That was nice.

Brian and I had to take Ed's suit and pocket watch up to the funeral home. I thought I was going to throw up. They gave me a little packet with his personal effects, like his watch and a ring he was wearing. The night before the wake, we were at home putting together these photo boards that the funeral home had given us. We were going through old family photos with my aunts and cousin. My one aunt is a big scrapbooker, so she took charge. That was sort of fun. I remember we were going through piles of pictures sorting out which ones were pictures of Ed. That is inherently challenging, because Ed and Jim are identical twins and looked very much alike, especially when they were younger. I can tell the difference though, as can my mom. My dad, not always. I remember going through the pile my dad had decided were pictures of Ed, and one of the pictures was of me. Ha. Yes, I had a boy hair cut in 4th grade, but I don't think I had ever been mistaken for one of my brothers.

At the wake, we got to go in before it started to see Ed. I really didn't want to even go up there. I was thinking I'd just stand in the back. I was absolutely terrified. Of course, I did go up. They had made prayer cards (or whatever you call those) that had a picture of Ed on his motorcycle on the front, and a poem on the back. I have those cards all over the place, one in my wallet, one at work, two at home, but I still can't read the poem on the back without crying. Once people got to the wake, I switched into this bizarre Susie Sorority Girl mode. I didn't know what else to do with myself, so I felt like I had to act like the host of a party. I'm sure everyone thought I was insane. I didn't know many people at the wake, other than my family, Matt, Melissa and her family, and one of my friends from grad school who had driven up from Boston. I think most people there didn't even know I was Ed's sister. Ed's ex-girlfriend had come and I tried to help her get up to see him. She finally did, but it took her a long time to slowly edge closer to the casket. I knew how she felt though. I remember that I had wanted some gum (because I am an addict) and Brian and Matt came back with about five different packs of gum so that they were sure they had gotten one I liked. At the end of the night we put some things in the casket with Ed. I put in a picture of Jim, Ed, Brian and I from Thanksgiving a few years ago. Jim put in a bottle of Sam Adams Octoberfest (and some other stuff). He tried to stick the bottle down in the lower, closed half of the casket so that it wouldn't be super obvious, but of course there's no padded bottom on that half. The bottle clunked right down to the bottom and made a really loud noise. Everyone laughed at that. The funeral home guy got it out for us. Ha. We took home some of the plants that had been sent to the funeral home. I still have a big peace lily that my coworkers had sent, and even though I'm usually death to plants, I still have it and its still doing well.

The next morning a limo picked us up at the house and drove us up to the funeral home, where the family had a last visitation. My relatives were all there and some close family friends. The immediate family were the last to go up there. That was the worst part, because you knew it was the last time you'd ever see him. We stayed there for a while and then my mom, grandmother and I got into the limo - dad, Jim and Brian were pallbearers, so they had to wait and put the casket into the hearse. That was also awful, sitting there waiting to see the closed casket come out of the funeral home. We drove back down to Windham for the service. Melissa played the flute at the service, but I missed most of it because we were the last ones to arrive. I remember she tried to stick 'Danny Boy' in at the end for me, because thats one of my favorites. We had several readings that we had picked out. I think my Uncle Bart did one, and I did one. Brian came up with me just in case I couldn't finish, but I did. It was an Irish blessing that we had edited down a bit. Jim and my dad both spoke about him, and then we drove off to the cemetary.

The cemetary is a really old one right near my house. They had set up one of those tents and had brought all the flowers from the funeral home. It was chilly, gray and drizzling. The priest said a few things and then we all went back to our house, where we had a party of sorts that my parents friends had organized. It was nice to see everyone and to get a chance to chat. And, of course, eat and drink a lot.

People continued to bring over food, which was really nice. We had an old fridge down in the basement that we were keeping a lot of this food in. The day after the funeral, the fridge stopped working. We had to go out and find a new one ASAP. That was an interesting trip, because fridge shopping was not high on our 'list of things I want to do the day after Ed's funeral'.

Eventually we had to drive back and go back to work. It was really hard for the first few months. I couldn't concentrate. I rear-ended someone. I cried a lot in the bathroom at work. I didn't feel like going out and doing anything social. We didn't put up any Christmas decorations or send out cards or anything.

When I think back to how I felt at that time, I didn't think life was ever going to get back to normal. I couldn't imagine that anything would ever be funny again or that I would ever enjoy anything again. Some of my friends dropped off the face of the earth at the time I most needed them, and I figured it was because people would only like me when I was fun. So I also thought that people just wouldn't like me anymore.

Here it is a year later, and I do laugh again, and I do enjoy things. A lot of days I don't even think about it, even though at first it was all I thought about. I no longer feel like my whole identity revolves around this one event. We had started trying to get pregnant the week before Ed died, and now our first baby is due in five weeks (OMG!). I'm amazed at what I was able to get through, and now I know that no matter how bad things seem, I can come out the other side.

Luckily today is a government holiday, so not many people will be at work and I don't feel bad taking the day off. My friend suggested I do something that Ed enjoyed today. He enjoyed:

motorcycles (no thanks)
drinking beer (well, me too, but not something I can do right now!)
smoking cigars (ech)
playing video games (this one we have in common)

I wish I could be up in NH to go visit the grave and be with my family, but I can't. So today, I'm playing video games in my brother's memory. Heh. That sounds really lame when you say it out loud, doesn't it.

Miss you Ed.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

I'm on Amazon

If you were ever thinking you needed a bit of light reading, I just found out that you can buy my thesis (ok, or anyones) on Amazon. Ha.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Yesterday: The good and the bad

The good
Finally!

The bad
Drat. This was basically an election about 'Do you want to keep Mike Nifong or not?' The one opponent on the ballot didn't even intend on taking the position if he won, the DA job would have then been appointed by the governor, I think. So it wasn't like you were even voting for a specific person. I voted for the other guy because Mike Nifong has made Durham look ridiculous in the eyes of the rest of the country with his terrible and self-promotional handling of the Duke lacrosse case, and I felt that maybe, in this case, the devil you don't know might be better than the devil you do know. The biggest problem here was that another guy ran as an 'official write-in candidate'. While I can see that it would be good to know who you were voting in, I didn't vote for him because I decided that the best chance in getting rid of Nifong was to vote for the guy who was listed on the ballot. When people came in to vote knowing that they didn't want Nifong, they'd have to also remember the guys name. I decided that more people would vote for the one on the ballot, which they did (39% vs. 12%). If that write-in guy hadn't been there to split the anti-Nifong vote, Nifong would have likely been out - the two opponents had a majority together. Bummer.

The greatest product ever

I really have trouble driving in the rain. I have strabismus esotropia, which basically means that my eyes didn't line up when I was born - one of them turned in. Actually, I think they both turned in to some degree. If I understand correctly, its because the muscles on the inside of the eyeball are too short, so they pull the eye inwards. I've had surgery on both of my eyes to straighten them out (once when I was 3, once when I was 19), but those were just cosmetic and didn't help my vision at all. The big problem is that I don't really have depth perception. When you're a baby and learning how to see, if your eyes don't line up well enough your brain can't put the two images together (which is what gives you depth). So it just ignores one eye - I always see out of only one eye at a time. It alternates which one though, because one of my eyes is nearsighted, thats the one I read with. The other eye is good for both distance and vision. I wear glasses when I drive because my nearsighted eye likes to try to do more of the work, which is a problem, and I get really tired when I have to concentrate on using the better eye. Mostly my eyes look straight now, which is good, except when I'm tired or really angry. In fact, Brian finds this to be a handy barometer for knowing the degree to which he is in trouble. Ha.

Anyhow, not having depth perception makes it tougher for me to drive in the rain and in the dark. In the dark I have fewer visual cues to help me determine how far away something is. In the rain, I also have that problem as well as having trouble focusing past everything going on on the windshield. Maybe thats not really a depth problem though. (Also, having no depth perception means that I don't have a career as a tennis, volleyball, basketball or baseball star - I can't judge how high up the basketball net is, I consistently swing when the ball is not quite to me yet, and I could never tell whether it was even on my side of the net or not.)

I know that technically Rain-X has always been meant for car windshields. But I'm a dorky lab type, so I have only ever used it to coat one of the glass plates in a sequencing or protein gel so that you can get them apart more easily when you're done. My fancy hybrid has trouble clearing rain off of the back window though. I don't know if the angle of the window is funny or what, but when its raining I can hardly see out of the back. So I bought some Rain-X and had Brian put it on for me. He also put it on my front windshield, which I hadn't meant for him to do, but oh well.

Yesterday was the first day I drove in the rain with the Rain-X and it was a miracle. I'm so disappointed that I didn't figure this out until I was 31 years old. The rain just slid right off my windshield. I could have even driven without my wipers off (not that I would have). In fact, my friend said that the wipers on her old boyfriend's car were broken, so he used Rain-X.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Time Warner Cable - my archnemesis

On Friday, I was working at home. Jasmine has just gotten spayed, so she was in isolation in one of our spare bedrooms. I took my laptop in there so I could sit with her, because she was the most miserable and lonely cat EVER.

We got wireless internet at home back in February, and I think its the second-best thing we spend our money on (the first being DVR) that we weren't really sure about when we signed up. When I was sitting up in the room with Jasmine, I noticed that I could log onto the wireless network of one of our neighbors and that the signal strength was almost equal to that of our network. That reminded me that I had meant to put a password on our network. I looked on Time Warner's website to see if I could find a FAQ telling you how to do this because, how hard could it be? But there wasn't anything, so I tried their online tech support chat system.

I waited for over 45 minutes to get through to someone, but that wasn't so bad because I was working in another window at the same time. When I finally got through, the guy told me he couldn't help me and he was referring me to Tier 3 tech support. He gave me a ticket number and the phone number to call. I had been trying to avoid having to get on the phone because it required much more hands-on time, but oh well. I did it anyway. I was on hold for about half an hour, then ended up having to talk to three people (each of whom I told I was supossed to be talking to Tier 3 and here was my ticket number) before I got transferred to the Tier 3 help desk.

The guy who helped me was most irritating. Of course, I was already fairly irritated, because at this point I had spent a good deal of time trying to do something that really didn't seem like it should be that difficult. Then this guy got on the phone with this completely condescending attitude towards me. I remember saying that I was working on a Mac and he asked what system software I was using. I said 10.4. He said 'Do you mean Tiger?' I was like, uh... sure. Its 10.4. He repeated 'Tiger?' like I was some sort of idiot. And also like 10.4 was completely meaningless information. Yes, Apple has assigned an animal name to each of their OSX releases, but to be perfectly honest, I've lost track of which animal I'm on. So sure, if he insists on calling it Tiger in order to have any degree of comprehension of what I am talking about, go for it.

After he determined that I was totally stupid because I didn't know that I was running Tiger, he asked me what brand of wireless router I had. I told him the brand, but he never asked for the model or anything. He told me to find the IP address of the router and go there in my web browser to log into it, which I did. I got to a login screen that I didn't have a login ID or password for. He told me what to put into those fields, which I did, but it didn't work.

At this point he told me that I had a really old and outdated router (which, WTF? I just got it in February!) and that there were hardly any of these currently in use, so he didn't have the information about how to log in to it. Again, WTF? He said I'd have to schedule a service technician to come out and help me. In retrospect, I can look back at this and think: why the hell did he think a service technician was going to have more information about my router than he had access to? I said, 'Are you kidding me? All I want to do is put a password on my network. I cannot believe that this is so difficult that we can't do this over the phone.' As if he wasn't already condescending enough in his attitude and tone of voice, he really switched into high gear at this point. He just kept talking to me like I was five years old about how he couldn't possibly help me, and if I wanted to be helped I had no choice but to make an appointment for a service call. I repeated that I was very frustrated that I had wasted at this point an hour and a half trying to get someone to help me do something very simple, and now I was going to have to take time off of work to wait around for a service tech. He kept telling me that there was nothing he could do to help me. So then he started to try to schedule the service call. While I was waiting, I told him that I did realize that everything that had happened up until this point was not directly his fault, I was completely within my rights to be frustrated about how this whole thing was going, and that his attitude and tone of voice was REALLY not helping matters. Anyhow, finally he scheduled me an appointment. At least I had a choice of weekend times, except one was Saturday from 8-5 (!). I took the Sunday 8-12 slot.

Sunday morning I got up, got dressed and waited around for the service technician while Brian went to work. He called me at about 10:30 to let me know he was on his way and wanted to make sure my internet was still not working. I told him it was working fine, I just wanted a password on my wireless network. He seemed really confused about that, but said he'd be over in a few minutes. When he got to my house, he was already on the phone on hold. He told me that he couldn't do this for me, that (and I don't really understand exactly why not, but this is what I think he said) he was more of a hardware and cables technician, but there were different people who did the setup sort of stuff. He wasn't trained to do that, and he didn't understand why he had been called out for this. Me neither, because its not like the jerky guy on the phone didn't know what I needed done. The guy sat on hold at my house for about 45 minutes, trying to get through to the tech support to ask them what the heck he was supposed to do. I joked that he should make sure he didn't fall asleep on my couch while he was on hold. Finally he said that he couldn't help me, he couldn't stay there all morning on hold and that he didn't understand why tech support couldn't help me, that what I needed to do was well within their grasp. He told me to call tech support back and tell them I needed a Tier 3 supervisor and gave me a ticket number. He also gave me his phone number and asked that I call him back and let him know if they had helped me, otherwise he was going to come back and see about giving me a new router (since mine was apparently soooooo old that no one knew what to do with it), even though he didn't think that my router was that old or out of service. He was nice and apologetic and I understand that he couldn't sit there all morning. So I got back on the phone.

I waited on hold for AN HOUR AND A HALF. I finally got through to someone in Tier 3 support and told them I needed to talk to a Tier 3 supervisor. He wanted to see if he could help me first. I went through the same thing with him that I had gone though with the jerk a few days earlier. He got me to the login screen and gave me a login/password combination to try, but it didn't work. Then he gave me a few other ones to try, none of which worked. I started having visions of having to get another service technician out. In stark contrast to the jerky guy, this guy actually worked with me for a good deal of time trying to figure out the right combination. THEN, when we had tried about ten different things, he walked around and talked to other support people around them and asked them if they had any ideas. When he came back to the phone he had a few more, which we tried, and one of them worked. I should also mention that none of the combinations we tried were the one that the jerky guy had told me to use. Once we got into the router it was easy to set up a password. He explained everything to me and waited while I got out my laptop and made sure I could log into my wireless network. I wish I had written this guys name down, because he was great. Oh well.

Anyhow, now we have a password set up and I know how to do it too, in case I need to change anything (or forget my password like Mike did).

Monday, November 06, 2006

Artsy-fartsy

Now that the blogspots are playing nice and uploading pictures, here are Brian's cast drawings.



Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Baby shower 2: Electric Boogaloo

UPDATED: with pics!

We ended our weekend on a good note on Sunday when a group of our friends threw us a baby shower! Yippee!! It was lots of fun. Kristin made up some games for us, one of which included measuring the total wideness of me and Brian. I think I was 46 inches around at my widest point. Awesome. It was a co-ed baby shower, but Brian did not recieve a Heineken cooler/CD player. Mostly it was just like a big, fun, party with breakfast foods. And also, after I had gotten a nice full stomach I had a mimosa. It was yummy. We got lots of clothes for Studs, which is good, because now he doesn't have to be naked all the time. Ha.
Here area two pictures from the shower:




It was a really happy and fun way to end a crappy week.

Not too much else is going on here. I gave a talk on Monday night at our first Triangle chromatin club meeting. That went well I think, but I was so uncomfortable that I wasn't able to concentrate AT ALL on the second talk. It was hot in there, and also my foot and leg were threatening to explode out of my cast. All I could think during the talk was 'Please be done. Please be done. Please be done.' And then when other people would dare to ask a question I would yell at them in my head 'Shut up!!' Yes, I am a good colleague. I will be a better colleague after my body is no longer held hostage by a) Studs and b) big pink cast, I promise. I will even ask questions.

I meant to have everyone at the shower sign the big, pink cast because it looks so lonely right now, but of course I forgot to do this. Since the cast still looked so sad, Brian took pity upon me and drew some pictures of the cats on it. He took pictures of them so I could see them better, and I'll post those later. He's a total cartoonist.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Amazing Race All-Star Edition?

I just read on TWoP (and this article) that there are rumors about an Amazing Race All-Star edition. That would be great. What would not be great would be if I had to again deal with teams that I couldn't stand.

Topping this list would be:
1. B.J. and Tyler - the 'hippies' and winners of the last season of TAR. I've watched all 9 seasons of TAR, and I've never found another team that annoyed me quite this much. Tyler apparently wrote:

"What would be ironic is if someone were putting together an all-star version of the race and contacted teams like [now married former The Amazing Race 7 competitors] Lynn [Warren] & Alex [Ali] and [fellow seventh season competitors] Brian & Greg [Smith], but did not contact us, the most popular and amazing team of all time, about it."

Most popular and amazing team of all time, my ass. If I have to watch these two morons for another season, I might just gouge my eyeballs out with a spoon.

2. Jonathan and Victoria - the abusive husband and his wife. They are married, right? I think I blocked out everything I knew about them.

3. Charla and Mirna - The midget (dwarf? I don't know!) and her irritating cousin. Charla, the one who was the actual midget/dwarf was fine, it was her cousin Mirna who I couldn't stand. Constantly haranguing Charla, bitching about how the other teams weren't babying them enough, please. Its a race. When Phil got teary during their elimination, it was tears of joy.

Wow. I really can't think of that many teams that I really, passionately hated. I'm probably just forgetting. I didn't like the Guidos at the time, but have come to accept them.

I would like to see:
Colin/Christie
Hayden/Aaron
Kevin/Drew
Rob/Brennan
Brian/Greg
Kris/Jon

I'm sure no one else who reads this watches this show as obsessively as I do, except Becky. So, what do you think?

Friday, October 27, 2006

Someone just take me out back and shoot me

I made it through most of my pregnancy with nary a problem - some heartburn, some sciatica, but nothing major. Not so these last few weeks. Now I'm completely falling apart!

This week we went on our tour of the labor and delivery unit at the hospital where we'll have Studs. That was on Tuesday night. It was very exciting. Brian wheeled me around in a wheelchair, as walking and standing for extended periods of time are not my strong point lately. Also, wheeling me around in a wheelchair is not Brian's strong point. I kept thinking he was going to run my other foot into something. So anyhow, we saw the laboring rooms (nice!) and the postpartum rooms (not as nice!) and the nursery, which had a few little tiny babies in it. Holy crap - we're going to have to take one of those home with us in 7 weeks or so. And of course, we learned about how to check into the hospital and all that.

Well, on Thursday night we got to PRACTICE checking into the hospital. I started to feel sick at around 4pm that day. My stomach was really crampy and sore and I was having some... GI issues. I just wanted to go home, but I didn't feel like I was going to be able to drive myself, so I hung around at work for a while. I struggled with trying to decide whether I should call the doctor or not. I was having some major stomach cramps and some other possible symptoms of preterm labor, except I wasn't really sure whether these were contractions or just stomach pains. Like I know what contractions feel like! I have no idea. I decided to call, and the doctor said I should drink a few glasses of water and lay down for a while and call her back if it didn't get better. By this point it was 6:30, and I REALLY had to go home to let the dog out (Brian had to be at a dinner for work, so he wasn't coming home), and also to do this whole laying down thing, so I managed to drive myself home.

When I got home I drank my water, laid on the couch and starting taking notes of how frequently I was having the severe stomach pains. I did this for about 45 minutes and then I started throwing up, so I figured this was a stomach issue and not a baby issue. I called the doctor back and gave her all this information, but since the stomach pains had been coming at fairly regular 4 minute intervals, she told me to come in just to make sure I wasn't having contractions. Brian was on his way home from dinner, and we went to the hospital as soon as he got back - about 9pm. We registered (we hadn't gotten to our pre-registration form yet) and they took us up to labor and delivery. The nurse hooked me up to some monitors to check on the baby and to check for contractions. Well, luckily it wasn't contractions and the baby seemed fine. I tried to drink some water and threw up some more. They had given me one of those little kidney shaped basins, but that was not big enough and I ended up overflowing all over myself, more than once. Poor Brian was trying to empty out the basin and keep up with me, but there was no chance. So yay, now I am sitting in the hospital bed covered in puke. The call button wasn't working or something, so no nurses came. Brian was digging around in the cabinets in the room trying to find some new sheets or something - he ended up finding some towels that we spread over the wet spots on the mattress. Finally a nurse came back in and helped us out. They gave me some anti-nausea medication and some ginger ale, which I was able to keep down, unlike the water. We stayed there until about midnight when I asked to go home. They let me because I hadn't thrown up for about 2 hours and had kept down some fluids, so they sent me home with some more anti-nausea meds and instructions to call back if I continued to not be able to keep any fluids down - the biggest concern being that I was really dehydrated which can trigger contractions.

So I'm glad it wasn't a baby-related issue. I hadn't planned on being back at labor and delivery so soon, but the nurses and all were really nice and I felt better knowing that the doctors err on the side of caution and wanted me to come in. I was still sick for the rest of the night and spent most of Friday sleeping, eating saltines, and drinking ginger ale and gatorade. Brian was suppossed to be at UNC giving a seminar, but they were really nice and rescheduled it so that he could stay home with me. I guess it was some 24 hr stomach bug? Or something I ate? Who knows.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Broken foot-o-rama: the pictures!

I know you've been sitting there for the last few days thinking to yourself... 'Its all well and good that Lisa broke her foot and has a cast, but what good is this to me if I cannot see this myself, for my own amusement?' I'm here to tell you that your wait has ended - I had Brian take a picture of me this morning.

First, we have a picture of the toes. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of my foot before the cast went on, mostly because on that fateful Friday morning, I never suspected that I'd never see my foot again. Lucky for you my toes are hanging out of the front of my cast (so that I can constantly stub them) and you can at least see what they look like. Remember, I didn't hurt my toes, but they still look bad. Of course, my pedicure looks good though. Phew.



Next we have your full-body picture. In retrospect, this wasn't the best location to take the picture, because I'm wearing a brown shirt and my belly then gets obscured by the dark bathroom at the end of the hall. We might have to do a re-shoot, because I think you really need to see both of these features clearly to appreciate the full ridiculousness of this whole thing.



Finally, here's my 32 weeks belly picture.



I went to the OB yesterday, and he said (after pushing on my belly for a while) that the baby's head was now in the down position. Locked and loaded!! I'm going to trust him. I couldn't tell you where the baby's head was, thats for sure. There's some big body part (which I'm guessing is the baby butt) near my belly button that moves around sometimes (from one side of me to the other). The other night, the butt pushed itself so far out that I thought a baby butt might explode out of my belly.

Also, the OB said that if I needed to get a pin put in my foot, that was certainly do-able. So I called my orthopedist yesterday to discuss this, but I'm still waiting for him to call back. For some reason I don't think he's in the office on Mondays. I'd rather do that now for several reasons: a) hate the stupid cast, b) don't want to have to recover from a broken foot twice - once now, once when I end up needing the pin after I have the baby anyway and c) did I mention how much I hate the stupid cast? So hopefully sometime soon I will be having foot surgery and having a cast taken off of my stupid foot.

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE!!!

As you've probably seen, I've got a whole list of other people's blogs over there. Those are all the blogs that I check every day. Most of those people I actually know, but not all of them. We've got Roger and Brian (who are friends of Karl's), and we've got Annie and Adrienne. Annie found my blog during the Naughty Nauseef discussion, and now we keep up on eachothers blogs. Annie actually lives in Durham, so we're hoping to get together when schedules permit. And Adrienne is Annie's friend, who lives in Baltimore. Where, incidentally, Karl/Roger/Brian also live.
I got an email from Adrienne yesterday. She plays in the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, which I'm a little bit jealous that I don't get to be in too. Oh, especially since I see you're playing De Falla - 'El Amor Brujo', which I love. We played it when I was in state honors orchestra, or MYSO, or something. Oh, thats not true actually. We played 'El Sombrero de Tres Picos', but I have a recording of that and 'El Amor Brujo' is the other piece on the CD. Thats why I got confused.
Anyhow! Also apparently in the JHSO is Roger (I think Karl's wife Aimee is too), and the other day at practice Roger met Adrienne. That is pretty crazy. The whole blog universe is collapsing in on itself!

Friday, October 20, 2006

A big pink cast

Well, I just got back from my trip to the orthopedist. Who, first of all, was horrified that they didn't fit me in until today, 6 days after I broke the damn thing. I had to have another X-ray to make sure that the bone hadn't moved any further out given that I'd been hobbling around on it since I broke it. Which it hadn't. But that still didn't change the inevitable end to this: I have a cast now. Hurrah.

Actually, I have a cast now, and we'll see how it goes but I may still end up needing the surgery and the screw to get it to heal. Apparently the broken off part was pulled pretty far away from where it should be. That seemed to be sort of the determining factor in how it was treated. If it hadn't been that bad, I would have stayed with the stupid velcro shoe until it healed. But it was pulled far enough out that he didn't think the shoe would give it enough support. He said that if I wasn't pregnant, he probably would have just wanted to do the surgery straight off, but since I was, he thought we should try the cast first and then see how it heals. I asked how long I was going to be in the cast for, and he laughed and said that he might meet me in the delivery room to take it off. HA. so its going to be 6-8 weeks. Terrific. At least I got to pick the color of the cast, which is (of course) pink.

The news of needing a cast very nearly triggered another bursting into tears episode, but I did manage to hold off until I got to the car and called Brian. Next, I called my mom who said 'I guess you thought your blog wasn't interesting enough.' Haha.

I'm guessing if people laughed at big old pregnant me hobbling around on the little velcro shoe, they're REALLY going to laugh at me when I've got a cast on. It goes all the way up to my knee too. I didn't know it needed to go up that far, but what do I know anyhow? Nothing.

And just so you know? If you see me, you're totally signing it.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Foot, jackasses, and maternity pants.

Well, things are starting to calm down a bit around here. The out-of-town visits are coming to an end (until Thanksgiving), the review I was working on (and immensely stressed about) is almost done. Now I'm working on my paper again, and I have to give a talk on the 30th. And thats about it as far as work goes. Phew!

My foot still hurts a lot and is all bizarrely bruised. The bruise is a traveling bruise too - when this first happened, my toes and ankle were completely unaffected, but now the bruise has migrated into toes AND ankle. Its lovely. I'll take a picture of it for you. I just hope you're not eating when you look at it. I have been managing to hobble around work, some days are better than others. I can tell today is going to be a bad day because its already hurting pretty badly, and I haven't even been walking around yet. I had a few days of feeling extremely sorry for myself. On more than one occasion, someone would ask me how I was doing and I would burst into tears. Which people love, I know. My friend at work was teasing me about being in a bad mood, but I think if she were 7 months pregnant with a broken foot, she might be a little bit pissy too. Anyhow, I'm feeling a little better about life now, so its probably safe to talk to me.

Last night was the Project Runway finale, which we'll get to watch today when it comes out on iTunes. I had every intention of not finding out who won, until I went over to E! online and saw a news headline telling me. Well, damn. And a word to the wise, if you don't know who won yet either, you might not want to read the rest of this paragraph because you'll be able to figure it out. Anyhow, I thought it was early enough in the AM that they wouldn't have anything up yet, but I guess not. Oh well. It was not who I wanted to win but who I thought might win anyhow, even though he's a humungous jackass. I guess this still stands: If you are evil, you will win.

I went maternity clothes shopping yesterday which was totally not fun. I actually went maternity clothes RETURNING yesterday. I have a bunch of maternity pants, but they're mostly shorts and capris. Now that its starting to get cooler (although its 85 today) I need some long pants. I'm having a hard time finding what I want, because now I'm big enough to really be picky about the kind of waistband on the pants - I only want that full panel, thanks. Mid-belly panel is workable as long as its not a crappy one that keeps folding over. I looked around a bit, but I actually had a hard time finding something that fit these criteria. But when Melissa was here, I bought a pair of jeans from Mimi Maternity. I paid full price for them ($68) which I hate because I'm only going to be wearing them for 2 more months + some postpartum time. I've had a fairly difficult time finding clothes, but not impossible. I have been able to wear size L pants for most of pregnancy but now I really need the XL, although many stores don't carry this size, which is crappy. Mimi Maternity, in general, does not carry XL, but they do apparently have a few styles that come in XL. So I got pretty much the only pair of jeans in the store that was a size XL. I put them on last week, and the little adjustable drawstring in the top broke the first time I tried to adjust it. Of course, I was already out of the house at this point, so the rest of the evening was spent hiking my pants back up. Maternity stores have crazy return policies. You can't return anything that you bought on sale. You have only 10 days to return things. You can't get a refund, only an exchange or a merchandise credit. Its a little bit ridiculous. I was still within my 10 day return period, so I wanted to return the broken pants. Since I didn't want to do any more walking than needed, I called them first to clarify their return policy for damaged items. It turns out that damaged items can only be exchanged for other items, you can't even get a credit. I was worried about this because I knew there weren't even that many things in the store in my size to start with. What if I couldn't find anything? I can't wear the shirts in there either, because no shirt encompasses my two-sizes-bigger-than-prepregnancy chest. Anyhow, I hobbled around and tried on practically every pair of L and XL pants in the store. I ended up getting two pairs of corduroys (which are in addition to a pair I bought the first time around). It was a lot of fun to try on pants with a broken foot, I have to tell you.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Grace is my middle name

I'm incredibly graceful. I'm being sarcastic. When I was in college, I was on the dance team, and I don't think my mom completely believed me until I showed her some video of us performing. Now that I'm 7 months pregnant, I'm even more graceful than usual.

So, this weekend we had all these visitors: my brother and his girlfriend were here Thursday-Sunday for a wedding, and Eve was here (well, she's still here as I'm writing this) Friday-Monday, also for a wedding. This is a popular weekend for weddings in the Triangle area, I guess. On Saturday, Brian and I went out for lunch with Jim and Sara. We went down to Cosmic Cantina for some awesome burritos. Cosmic Cantina is up on the 2nd floor, so you have to climb two flights of stairs to get there.

As soon as you walk in, there is a small step down to the main floor. I'm not sure what I did exactly, but I missed the step somehow. I felt myself falling and I tried to make myself fall backwards, so I didn't land on Studs or anything. Brian and Jim caught me too, but I was a little too heavy for them to fully rescue. But I did fall pretty slowly. And my left foot hurt like hell. It started swelling up immediately. On the top of the foot, right on the outside, there was a big lump that eventually took over most of the top of my foot. Two nice women asked how I was and gave me their glass of water, which was good because I also got all hot and sweaty all of the sudden. They gave me a bag of ice - and our lunch for free - and I sat there while we waited for the food, which we took home. Then Jim and Brian had to help me get back DOWN the two flights of stairs - that was fun. I spent the rest of the day sitting on my couch with my foot up and ice on it, then we wrapped it up before I went to bed.

This morning I got up and it still hurt, just as badly as it had the day before. I started to wonder if it was just sprained or if it was broken or something, so we went to the urgent care. Where I found out that, yes, I broke my foot. Awesome. The doctor said this was a common injury for athletes or dancers, so I may pretend that I was doing something exciting like ballet. They gave me one of those hard-soled velcro shoes to wear, which has made hobbling around a little bit easier. I have to go to an orthopedist this week to see what to do next - apparently they'll often do nothing, but sometimes will put a cast on it. If I really were a dancer or an athlete, he said they'd put a screw in to help it heal properly. We'll see what happens. I'm really looking forward to trying to get from the parking lot into work - its not THAT long of a walk, but long enough. Hopefully they'll give me some sort of temporary pass to park near the front of the building or something.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Baby names

People can obviously not be trusted to make decisions on their own. Thats the only reason I can think of that Crocs are so popular. Because, are you gardening people? Are you working in a hospital? Are you in fact Mario Batali? No. You are not. So why in the hell would you think that these are a good fashion choice? It is becase you are obviously blind. And also because someone told you they were 'cool' and you completely lack the capacity to form an independent opinion about it. I hate to break it to you folks, you look like idiots. This could be even more idiotic than the recent 'bohemian skirt' craze which made everyone look like they had HUGE ASSES.

With the baby anticipated in 9 weeks (NINE WEEKS OMG!), we spend a lot of time thinking of names. Rather, I spend a lot of time thinking of names, and then I present my shortlist to Brian. We're down to two by the way, and no I'm not going to tell you what they are. Anyhow. You would not believe how many websites are devoted to baby names, the discussion of proposed baby names, baby name meanings, etc. A lot. A lot of websites. Usually when I read these websites I become concerned about the future of the planet, because this generation of kids is going to have some totally messed up names. First of all, no one can spell a name in any normal way. Second, no one can pick a normal name, period. As a result, we're going to end up with a whole generation of people with "Wal-Mart names" spelled in unpronounceable ways (Seriously, one discussion I read this morning concerned someone who wanted to name their boy 'Lyric' (gag) but then decided to go with 'Lyre' instead, pronouced 'Leer' which a) isn't the way you pronounce 'lyre' and b) why would you want your child to be named Leer?).

I found this website that commented on a bunch of these baby name polls, and its hilarous.

A discussion of baby names would be incomplete without mentioning my friend S who wants to have a daughter named 'Pita'. Only if she names her next child 'Hummus', I think.