Some ramblings on Circus Act

Circus Act, for the uninitiated, is the handle I have given to my unborn child. I haven't done a ton of pregnancy-related blogging, since I've been kind of busy making sure Phook doesn't eat too much paste. The other thing is, I don't want to wax all poetic about the unborn because it feels like counting my chicken before it is hatched. Of course even my crusty person has fuzzy bunny baby thoughts on occasion, but it just feels like some kind of bad to pour it out there before I have a healthy little swaddled bug on my lap when I do it. However, I feel like it is fair karmic game to just throw some of my impressions about the kid out there for fun. You know, so I can come back and read this in like 6 months and be totally wrong, and then laugh at myself.

I have a very strong sense this baby is a boy. I know that when I initially announced this pregnancy I made some cocky comments about Big K not being able to produce a boy or some shit like that, but I've been using male pronouns in reference to the baby for several months without the slightest conscious effort. In my mind, this baby just IS a boy. That's weird, because we have no medical insight into the matter. The heart rate has been high-ish all along, just as it was with Phook. During the ultrasound, we got not even a whiff of what was or was not betwixt the thighs of this child. And yet in my head this is decidedly a baby boy. With Phook, I had no sense of her gender in advance of her birth. I know some people say that mother's intuition is actually somewhat on target in these matters, but I don't give myself that much credit. Maybe it is the tea leaves of my varicose veins sending me a message. Maybe it is the undeniable southward shifting and fundamental expansion of my ass. I don't know. But if this baby comes out female, I'll probably actually make some profane expression of surprise right there on the birthing table. It'll be a shame too, because I really like our girl name a lot and now I'm scared we won't get to use it. (It's gonna be funny when we have a girl now, isn't it?)

I think this kid is going to be huge. I mean, my husband and I are both in the 300th percentile or some shit. The fact that Phook's weight remains stubbornly in the 50th percentile and her height just randomly jumped into the 80th (after being around 50-60th for most of her life) continues to mystify Big K and I. How could she be ours? How could we have a child whose physical proportions appear to be human rather than beast? I don't know. Big K has a ridiculously short brother and I'm pretty sure that if you stacked his mom and grandma on top of each other I'd still have six inches on the pair of them...so it's not really that much of an anomaly that we'd have a normal-sized kid. But these huge genes of ours have to manifest themselves somewhere. My entire family is like Kong-sized. My sister is the shortest member of my immediate family...and she is 5'10". My Dad is 6'5" and has some really tall sisters. I have some gigantic Amazonian she-cousins. Anyhow, it is my sense that Circus Act is supping on a steady diet of growth hormone and will be markedly huge. I'm really hoping that he is born at least within the normal range of human babies and then sprouts rapidly thereafter, but I fear that the growth is already underway. My husband has recently called me "Frank the Tank" and has also seen my belly coming around corners several minutes before the rest of my body and has made a wealth of eloquent comments such as, "Woof. You're huge," and "Holy shit, how many more weeks do you have to go? You're going to be as big as a house!" You know, in the most oblivious loving way possible. So there's that. I wouldn't be shocked to have a 9-pounder. Kid won't even get to wear all of Phook's "Just Born" sized undershirts I just lovingly laundered in Dreft.

Circus Act's level of fetal activity is unprecedented, at least in terms of my own personal womb occupation experiences. If I hadn't seen the correct number of limbs on the ultrasound, the smart money would be on me birthing an octopus. Then again, the ultrasound tech was a student, so maybe there is a rogue twin in there adding to the fun. (My husband's brothers are twins, and they didn't know there would be two until the second one came out. How would that be for a shock?) Anyhow, yeah. I don't know much about how fixed a baby's position is within the uterus at 31 weeks, but it sure as hell feels to me like the child is fully capable of complete rotations. There are times when I am getting pummeled in my left hip and the right side of my rib cage simultaneously. On me, that's like a 20-inch span. Jesus. Sometimes something will catch my eye and I realize it is the tremendous quake-like movement of my entire abdomen. The thing just bounces and rocks and shakes and gets tossed about. I mean, man. It's like a litter of puppies in there. And to take that one step further, it's like I'm a Chihuahua pregnant with a litter of Great Danes. I don't know what Circus Act is doing in there, but his name is apt. This is all great fun for Big K. Sometimes at night I roll over and press my belly into his back just so he can experience 1/1,000th of the fun. He's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, he's strong! Oh man, dude! That kid is huge!" He too is sold on the "boy" gig and is already surely having fantasies about his son crushing the skulls of other children in the image of his father.

Whereas Phook came out practically able to sit up unassisted, I think this is going to be the kid that I have to try to coax into crawling by putting his sippy cup just out of reach when he's 11 months old and still lazily refusing to ambulate. However, I suspect this kid will say "Shit" even earlier than Phook did. This one will be the talker. Phook is the jumper/bouncer/dancer/runner/climber. Not my roly poly butterball fatty Circus Act. Circus will be reciting the Gettysburg Address from the high chair while stubbornly refusing to move his hugely chunky thighs in anything resembling coordinated movement at 14 months. At least that's what I see in my crystal ball. Perhaps this contradicts the fetal movement observation described above, but it's just what I'm feeling.

This baby will look like Big K. Boy or girl, that's a given. That was the one solid intuition I had about Phook during my pregnancy with her, and what do you know she is his clone. In the ultrasound photos for Circus, you can even see the Big K profile at a mere 19 weeks, which includes a bobbed little pig nose and an ape-like head shape. (I don't say that to be mean spirited. Both Big K and Phook have these features and I find them both to be very cute.) So yeah. Dark hair, pig nose, monkey face. I can't really see the dice rolling any other direction on this one. His genes are just steamrollers, at least as far as physical features are concerned. (It was quite clear when we were on a walk the other day and Phook picked up a leaf from the sidewalk and gingerly placed it back in the grass that my gene for love of orderliness not only made it to Phook but amplified tenfold. So that's some consolation.)

So, there you have it. Those are my pre-birth predictions on this creature I'm harboring. Won't it be funny to see how it turns out?

Tales from my darkened bedroom

I have to tell you what occurred in my bed last night. Woof.

So we were up late last night. I was dicking around on my laptop and Big K was watching some TV. This of course led to Big K passing out on the couch complete with the trifecta of drooling, snoring, and farting. Around 11:30, I threw a lawn dart at his head and told him to go up to bed. After some profane urging on my part, he finally stumbled up.

Now, the reason I give two shits about my husband's sleeping location is that he is a user of the device known as a CPAP. Basically it is a giant mask contraption he wears on his face that puffs air into his nose hole so he breathes normally at night. He has a condition similar to sleep apnea that basically renders him unrested even after a trillion hours of sleep if he goes sans CPAP. (He basically slept through the first 5 years of our relationship. I screamed a lot and eventually he got this shit diagnosed. But I digress). So anyhow, if he goes even one night without the CPAP, I can tell the next day. He has purplish bags under his eyes and he's zombie-like, or at least more so than usual. Also, as you can imagine, it is really sexy sleeping with someone decked out in this thing:

So, yes, I "encourage" my husband to drag his carcass to bed so he can strap this thing onto his mug on a nightly basis. Okay, so back to last night. About 15 minutes after he went to bed, I went up too. I was really cold after I took off my robe and hit the cold sheets, and I had just jerked my body pillow out from under Big K's head, so he rolled over towards me and unconsciously opened up his arms to make a spot for me in the nest of his 60-inch chest. (Not a bad spot, I will say.) Putting aside my general contempt for touching other people in the dead of the night, I nested in.

So I was all snuggled up in there and I could hear the familiar whir of the CPAP machine on the floor. But then I noticed that Big K was still wearing the hooded sweatshirt he had on during the day. This was highly unusual, as the man strictly sleeps topless. Thinking that I couldn't hear the CPAP quite as I usually do, I reached up to feel Big K's face to see if he had it on. He did not. What I felt in lieu of the device was pretty damned hilarious.

Dudes, Big K had apparently been in such a coma when he stumbled upstairs that he managed to turn on the CPAP and begin to disrobe, but couldn't muster the strength to fully remove his hoodie. His arms were still fully engaged in the sleeves, but it was pulled up over his face approximately half way to complete removal of the garment. Essentially, his face was underneath the chest portion of the sweatshirt and the hood part was up a good 9 inches above his head. And when I came to bed, he had been face down with a pillow over the back of his head. I damn well could have saved his life.

So I started laughing like a spaz and said, "Guy, what is up with your sweatshirt? You need to put on your CPAP." He woke enough to say, "Sometimes you just get really tired," and removed the sweatshirt before passing out instantaneously. I again jostled him and tried to get him to put on the damned CPAP, and this time I asked him if he took any medications before bed. I specifically inquired as to whether or not he was stoned. He replied, "No. Are you?" and then he finally managed to roll over and get the thing on before passing out cold yet again.

Holy, holy shit people. I have been tired. I have passed out fully clothed on a wide variety of occasions for many reasons. However, I have never gotten my head wedged inside a thick, half-removed garment and gone face down in a cotton death trap. I don't know how this is possible when one is not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. I mean, fuck.

Now, Big K did at one point give himself the moniker "The Sultan of Leisure" and has on more than one occasion taken "naps" that I would consider clinically notable. He has also nostalgically informed me many times that his favorite place to sleep as a child was face down on the vinyl seats of his mom's Pinto during the hot summer months when he would get all sweaty and stick to the seats. And not even while traveling. No. While parked in the driveway in the sun. And the fuckwad is not kidding. (Perhaps the brain injuries he surely received while baking himself in a tiny car during the godforsaken humid summer months of this climate explain why he often exhibits behaviors akin to those you would witness were you in the company of a Pomeranian left unattended in a car while its owners got shitfaced over the course of an entire NASCAR race in August at the local watering hole. Most notably, lack of bowel and bladder control, binge eating, and hair loss.) Although the item contained within those parentheses may be the most fucked up thing I've ever written, I guess what I'm trying to say is that this man's sleep habits are flawed in ways that no one can ever attempt to understand.

This morning I asked him if he remembered what happened last night. As is the norm when I pose this question, he turned somewhat white and said, "No, why?" I relayed the above incident in detail, and he claimed no memory of the events. Woof.

While I'm aware that this incident is about as worthy of your blog reading time as, perhaps, a tale on my recent purchase of facial tissues, I just felt compelled to document it. I am probably just jealous that the man is capable of descending into a sleep state as profound as this, since I can tell you about every movement of every creature within a 16-mile radius after a "good" night's sleep. I don't know. Just, like, dude, I guess.

Phook would like to tell you some stuff

Phook here. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I wanted to tell you about my visit to the Children's Museum on our stowaway trip to my Dad's conference. And possibly some other stuff. It's thunderstorming like a bastard right now, so it seems like as good a time as any.

But before we get into that, my Mom finally captured a great close-up image of my goat face, which I know you all enjoyed from a previous picture that the traitorous clown who birthed me posted. I'm thinking that this is kind of like an image of Big Foot or some other illusive creature, and it is sure to subjected to exhaustive studies trying to determine its authenticity. Trust me, this is a real goat face. Enjoy.


Now, about the Children's Museum. Well, I liked it. There, fine, I said it. As much as throwing pots and pans around the house for months on end is sure to provide me the appropriate stimulation I need to some day become a rocket scientist (or at least say more than a few garblefucked words), I have to admit that I kind of liked dicking around on a little planet designed specifically for my personal enrichment. (Man, I'm a dork already.) So, yeah, whatever, don't tell anyone.

They had this little play area for chodes that are roughly my size. I thoroughly enjoyed this nonsense, even though there were a couple 7-year-old boys in there roughhousing and acting like dickwads right in front of their assclown parents, even though the sign at the entrance clearly said, "For Children 4 and Under." Look, I may not say a lot of things that are recognizable as English, but I'm not illiterate. Sheesh. But other than that, they had a slide for shorties such as myself and I took full advantage of it. Here I am dicing out on the thing:

Now, this here Children's Museum was in the town of La Crosse, WI. (I will reveal this now that I'm safely back in The Woods and it would take you like 9 more minutes to figure out my actual coordinates and come and steal me. Which, I'll note, would be your error, since I can kill a 300-pound man with a paper clip and a wad of chewing gum.) Anyhow, La Crosse is the home base of a convenience store chain here in our vicinity known as Kwik Trip. We like this joint because they sell bananas on the cheap, and I occasionally go on benders with regards to bananas. Anyhow, whatever, they had a miniature Kwik Trip inside this museum...disgusting corporate sponsorship trying to cement my brand preferences when I still shit myself at least twice a day. But that's neither here nor there, because I thoroughly enjoyed dicking around in the Kwik Trip. They even had a sweet car for me to drive and practice filling up at the pump, which was especially novel, since I'm sure by the time I can drive, our petroleum resources will be completely depleted and I'll be tooling around The Woods in a solar powered hovercraft. (My Dad had better get his shit together and invent that, actually.) Anyhow, me and my sweet ride:

The Kwik Trip also had another soon-to-be-archaic item known as a pay phone. I placed a few crank calls to order pizzas with disgusting topping combinations and had them sent to my many and varied enemies, as is my general routine on Tuesdays.

Then we went back to the hotel room, and I housed some corn. I am a Wisconsin girl, you know, and as Kid Rock says in his classic tune Cocky, "Skinny models you can keep those, I like big corn fed Midwestern ho's." I mean, it's my Mom's motto, so why not start early?

Now, La Crosse is pretty nice, I have to say. It's right on the Mississippi River, actually. Right behind our hotel the grand river ran, and there was a little park right there for me to ram around in. After nearly diving into the river a few hundred times, I decided to pose for this endearing image. Although the background of construction paraphernalia leaves a little something to be desired, I do look awesomely cute:


And then I found some peanuts, which I carried around for a good hour, guarding them angrily, as I do with all things I'm not about to hand over to my Mom when she asks in her faux-kindly manner if I'm ready to fork them over. I'm a bulldog. I'll guard your shit for a reasonable hourly rate. You won't be disappointed...please post in the comments if you're interested in more information on my menu of services.


In addition to the items documented here, I should probably tell you that my Mom crossed state lines with me without the knowledge of my Dad, which may constitute some form of kidnapping. But anyhow, she wanted to drag me into Minnesota for shits and giggles, so she did, since it was only like a mile away or some shit. We drove up the swollen bastard while she made inane references to some dork named Huck Finn. I was basically overtired, although I'd never admit to such a pathetic state of being, so we ultimately drove 20 miles up the Mississippi River and she whipped the van into a drive-thru where she procured a chocolate milk for my enjoyment. It was, like, my 3rd chocolate milk ever, and I've gotta say that it was tits. (Speaking of which, I wish my Mom had been a brown cow so I could have spent the first 10 months of my life slurping down chocolate instead of that boring white stuff I was forced to sustain myself upon. (Pay no attention to the first 6 months of this blog, which seem to indicate that I was thoroughly addicted to nursing. My mother is a filthy liar.)) So, yeah, I've been to Minnesota now.

Oh, yeah, I suppose I will provide some modest photographic evidence of the events immediately following my driveway-pissing episode from Sunday. Here I am rooting in my bug sandbox without my usual impediments of dipes and gear:


And on a final note, I was rooting through my photographic archives and I happened upon this picture of me drinking the Dr. Pepper that Her Royal Awesomeness, Melinda, sent to my Mom when she was all whining and stuff about her sorry state. So that was hot.

So, yeah, that's what I've been up to. Other than plotting how I'm going to start doing really offensive things with the contents of my dipes once Circus Act shows up on my turf. For reals. My Mom is screwed.

XO,
Phook

I think it's now safe to say we lived through the winter

People, people, people. This blog has spent the last several months serving as the outhouse into which I void my complaints about the weather, my imprisonment in rural central Wisconsin with very few outlets for dealing with said weather, and my general complaints, which may or may not include commentary on the weather. Since that is the case, I feel compelled to tell you about the awesomeness of my day, which was primarily sponsored by the weather.

Actually, my awesome day includes yesterday, which was also highly awesome. Phook, my mom, and I went to our favorite local greenhouse (which actually does not suck even by real human standards). I found some awesome pink gardening gloves which are stretchy enough to actually fit my giant man hands, which right there is something worth celebrating. I also purchased a couple perennials. My mom purchased one of those bee catcher things because there are lots of bees in the vicinity of her lovely deck, and she wants to "kill all those cockheads." (Yes, that is a quote from my mother...and you wonder how I might have ended up with a penchant for colorful language.)

Then we went and hung out on said deck at her house and swore at the bees while Phook tooled around the area. The weather was so balmy she quickly went from wearing a spring jacket, t-shirt, and pants down to just a dipe and socks. She tooled around and played with rocks, as is her custom. Then she napped and Grandma J and I had some nice iced tea on the deck in the sun. Then we came home and I made 9,528 pounds of tacos and had my parents come over. And Big K's mom and brother too. So we all sat around and ate tacos like swine, and you can't beat that under any circumstances. Then we all went and hung out in the yard. Phook at this point got 100% naked because she's rocking a little diaper rash and we thought it was a good opportunity to air out her business. And then she took a giant piss on the concrete driveway, and Big K said, "Whoa, she must have inherited my urethra." That is probably horrifying to you, but it was kind of the highlight of the last several months of my life. I mean, given the snow situation here this winter, just the thought of Phook taking a giant naked leak on the concrete driveway would have sustained me for several weeks, had I had the foresight to imagine such a scenario. So that was nice.

And then it was really today, which was awesome. Phook and I started our day by going outside and planting some dahlia bulbs and the aforementioned perennials. We were pleased to note that the vast majority of our perennials from seasons past seem to have lived through the winter. I've got about 8 billion tulips up, and boy howdy does that just make me think that perhaps I won't have to drink that cyanide cocktail I mixed myself the day after Christmas and have been staring at in the back of my fridge ever since. After we handled our gardening issues, I pushed Phook in her swing for awhile, which was freshly re-hung after a long, sad winter in the garage. We came inside and had some lunch and finished up our inside chores, the details of which I will not bore you with. Then Phook and I snuggled in the recliner in our pre-nap ritual, and the sleepy little nugget actually passed out on my lap. This, friends, does not happen. So I enjoyed that for a little bit and then toted her upstairs for the remainder of her nap.

At this point I ventured back outside to do some raking, which may sound like hell to a normal person, but sounds like the greatest thing since sliced bread to this housebound asshole. I have been working on raking the yard over the course of several days, and I am getting to the end now. So I raked and hauled a bunch of yard waste around in my sweet new gardening gloves. And I was also wearing...dudes...yes...shorts and a tank top. Holy fuckballs. It was almost 80 degrees. I am not kidding. Maybe it even was 80 degrees. It was the exact temperature of awesome. Man. I even skipped the support hose for the occasion. Then I rooted some compost out of my composter and hoed it into my garden. And then I generally dicked around in the dirt like the pig that I am and enjoyed my own filth until my giant uterus was finally like, "Bitch, you are like 300 months pregnant. I suggest you get yourself some water, put your feet up, and stop acting like a deranged farmer with the energy of 2,000 toddlers." So I did abide by the casual request of my uterus. I sat in a lawn chair with my feet up, slammed some water, watched my belly jump around with the kicks of Circus Act, and sunned myself. (The sun requested I give it a break, but I wasn't hearing that shit, because the sun has not exactly been listening to my demands lately either.)

Oh, and there was something else awesome. To make a very long story short-ish, I will say that Big K and I purchased a fairly pricey dining room set a few years ago. We also purchased one of those furniture protection plan things for it. The thing has worn like utter shit and has a heat mark on it. So I filed a claim in November. I have been dicking with these people since November, and today I got a letter in my mailbox saying they have authorized us to go to the store where we bought the set and pick out an entire new set up to the original purchase price of our set. This after the drama of being informed that they only replace the item upon which you have made the claim (in this case just the table top), the entire set has been discontinued, and I was essentially up shit creek without a paddle in the matter. (Perhaps someone at their company happened upon my little letter to my friendly neighborhood insurer and decided they didn't want to fuck with the babysitter.) So anyhow, now we get to go shopping with "free" money for a whole new dining room set, and I didn't even have to send any hate mail. That made me pee a little.

At this point I realized it was 3 p.m. and I was in need of nourishment, so I housed a lovely salad in my lawn chair. Then my kid woke up about 3:30 after a blissfully beautiful 2 hour nap. We then did a little more snuggling (I love that the little beast has finally gotten the hang of some slothful quality time with her mother after months of refusing any such notion of stillness and confinement). Next we decided to go for a walk, since being indoors seemed like a criminal act. So I threw Phook in her stroller with some cheese fish (a.k.a. goldfish crackers) and we took a couple mile stroll around The Woods, during which we socialized with several dogs, several pubescent bastards on bikes, a few old ladies, and lots of school buses, which are Phook's current raison d'etre. We returned home, spent some more time in the swing, and then took another mini-walk sans stroller until we spotted Big K's car coming home from work. We hitched a ride with the man, came back home, and then I threw leftover taco stuff on the counter and bailed out of this joint for water aerobics.

I will not mention what it cost me to gas up my minivan, as that would ruin my happy place, but I had an enjoyable blue-haired time in the pool and that was that. I got home, had my own leftover tacos, and now it is now.

Not that you people really give two shits about everything I did today (particularly when presented in obnoxious chronological order), but I just wanted to record for posterity what my ideal day looks like after spending what seems like 40 years in a gray, snow-covered cave. Jesus. Now, of course it is only April. And it is Wisconsin. I would truly not be surprised to see snow again. (No, I'm not kidding.) It's not like we have hit some permanent state of tank top weather. But I had this day. And it was good. So good. As I was sunning myself like a giant beachball with limbs this afternoon, I got one of those giant waves of, "I love my life." Not to be a cheesebag or anything, but it feels so good to have that wash over you after some dark days/weeks/months have gotten you down. I was just thinking how freaking lucky I was to have the luxury of being able to sit outside and enjoy such a gorgeous day. It's the kind of day that would have had me licking the windows of my office during my corporate days, tears either literally rolling down my cheeks or merely flooding my soul, as I clocked in another 12-hour workday and 3 hours in the car commuting, never getting a single sip of the awesome right on the other side of that window. Oh my god did that suck. So, yeah, I feel supremely lucky having spent the day in the dirt with my kid. It's where it's at.

I think Silent Bob should be the one who talks

But other than that, I wanted to give three cheers because right now I am not in The Woods. No. My husband has a social worker conference in a faraway town with amenities including restaurants, shopping opportunities, lovely parks, and a children's museum. Since he has a hotel room paid for by his employer and I am a jobless pig who can go anywhere at a moment's notice, Phook and I are serving as stowaways in his quarters.

You know, I'm pretty good at making sure we have everything we need when we go somewhere. Those of you breeders out there know that with little children, this is no small task. Children require gear. Unfortunately, I had decided to be all chill about packing for this 3-day excursion and was planning on getting it handled on Sunday. Sadly, Sunday I was struck with gastrointestinal distress that was crampy and weird enough that I actually called OB and my doctor to inquire as to whether I should come in to be monitored for early labor...and I don't do that sort of thing lightly. I was advised to take a warm bath, sleep, drink lots of fluids, etc. and wait to see if I started getting things I could discern as contractions having a pattern. I did all that and ended up improving as the day went on. However, I did not have the opportunity to pack with my usual degree of confidence and exactitude.

Having been in this town for nearly 24 hours, I have found that I should have remembered the following items (and those of you who are my close associates will know the level of my illness on Sunday by virtue of having seen the grossness of my omissions):

1) Socks for Phook. Yeah, she has clothing, but the only socks she has are the stank-ass ones she wore all day yesterday. Phook's feet reek, too. I put them back on her today though, reasoning that since we will be walking a good deal it would be less a crime to have my kid in stanky stocks than to have her rub little sores in her feet without them. We will be venturing to out to procure socks at some point today.

2) The tray for Phook's little booster chair thing. Knowing we'd be eating a lot of meals in the hotel, I packed this highly convenient unit. Being the sort of people who camp and drag our kid around to other areas where most people with toddlers dare not venture, this thing was a great investment for us. The thing is, this thing works a whole lot better for feeding your kid when you actually bring the tray.

3) A razor for myself. There's a pool; we're swimming a lot. My armpits are untidy. Now, if you catch me shaving my legs (which I equate to raking the lawn at the White House), it's probably a national holiday. But I'm rather particular about my underarms, even in the worst of times. So right now I'm kind of pissed. I think I will acquire an item of this nature on my Phook sock expedition.

4) More than one t-shirt. I brought one, I spilled sauce on it last night while eating pizza. Damn. Always bring more than one t-shirt, you ass.

5) A lightweight robe. Now, call me an old lady. Fine, do. It's really not inaccurate. My own mother is a lifelong wearer of robes at least 16 hours per day, and I kind of inherited it. Whenever I'm going anywhere, I think, "Man, it's only a couple of days. I don't need a robe." But then I get to the place and I'm like, "Fuck, I wish I had a robe." There are just times in my life when I need a little robe. I'd like to have one to wear to the pool. I'd like to have one for when I get out of the shower but before I'm dressed in the event that housekeeping shows up or in the event that I don't want to be caught off guard by all the mirrors in the hotel room that might remind me once again that I am "carrying this kid in my ass" when I'm not emotionally prepared to face the concept. Note to self: Always bring a robe. Even if it's just for overnight.

6) A reusable laundry bag. I have a few of these from college, and I always bring them on trips. I hate cramming my whole family's laundry into the wee laundry bag the hotel provides. It doesn't fit, it rips, things can't breathe and are therefore fouler than they have to be when we get home. A laundry bag takes up no space and makes me happy. And there are like 9 of them sitting in a closet at my house.

Okay, so you all probably think I'm an overpacking nightmare, and I'm not going to argue. But, man, yeah, I'm cheesed.

I would like to note that the one thing I did pack, and which will henceforth always be on my list when traveling with small creatures, is clementines. You know, the miniature orange-like fruit that peels easily and doesn't send six quarts of juice rocketing down your forearm and all over your white shirt when you peel it? Well, Phook likes snacks and Phook likes citrus fruits (and I've got to admit I'm in the same boat), and this is the perfect travel solution. Thank you, clementine growers of the world. I love you.

Okay, we are going to a children's museum today for the first time and I am jazzed. I hope Phook likes it. At the very least, she'll have to find it more stimulating than our normal morning activity time, which generally consists of staring out our front window and discussing the relative merits of the makes and models of all the cars that pass our house. Woof.

Phook surpasses her father in terms of multitasking capabilities

This morning I was throwing a load of laundry in the washer, and Phook was rooting around the compound as per usual. I discovered her multitasking...actually chatterboxing on the phone while operating her vacuum with precision. It is official that at 18 months of age she can seriously do more things at once than Big K. I present the following photographic evidence:


And while we're admiring her, let's take a gander at her big toothy mug:

You gotta love the little schmo.

I'm looking forward to a nice April weekend filled with rain and snow, mostly snow. Mother Nature had better look out, because as soon as I find her, there's going to be a cage match. Ugh.

Don't f*ck with the babysitter*

My largest pet peeve on this earth might possibly be poor customer service. Having worked at a major national movie rental chain, for an insurance company administrating the health plan of a government insurance payor, and for a nice clothing company that has a lot of catalog photo shoots featuring middle-aged people who wear khakis on the weekends strolling the shores of some really nice beaches, I know customer service. I have been customer service. I am customer service.

So when I get shitty customer service, I get wickedly pissed. I'm not one of those assholes who yells at the poor waitress when her hamburger is undercooked, but if someone is actually a dick to me or I get dicked with, I'm generally gonna write a long-winded letter to the boss of the responsible party. I generally receive gift certificates in exchange for my trouble. You might think it's a giant waste of time, but it gives me tremendous satisfaction to at least tell someone they suck when they have in fact sucked.

I think there might be a gene for this. When I was a kid, my mom was out of the house one of the 6 random evenings during my entire childhood and left my dad in charge of feeding me and my sister. He bought some frozen Banquet chicken and it was terrible. Unidentifiable parts, nastiness, etc. He then spent an entire day writing the most insane and hilarious letter to Banquet, which culminated with an itemized bill for his trouble that exceeded $300 and included items such as gas to drive to the grocery store, the energy costs of using the oven to cook the shit, and emotional stress inflicted upon his children. So I inherited that gene...only I tend to be less funny about it.

Now, because this blog is "Rant Of the Day" themed, I'm going to share with you my most recent letter to a company that has wronged me. Oh, it's boring as hell and you probably shouldn't waste your time, but I put a lot of time into writing the thing so I figured I'd get some good mileage out of it. I have changed the name of the actual insurer in question to "Asshole Insurance Company." Enjoy.

I am writing to share with you the details of the customer service problems I have experienced with Asshole Insurance Company over the last several months.

We have been customers for several years, currently holding multiple policies, and have always had our payments for our policies withdrawn via automatic funds transfer on a monthly basis. Last fall I received statements indicating that our monthly withdrawal amount would be very small and then I believe there was even a month where no withdrawal would be taken. This struck me as odd because I knew of no reason why there would be a substantial decrease in our monthly payment. Not wanting to end up in a situation in which I owed a large sum of money at a later date, I called the AIC customer service number to inquire about the situation. After explaining the scenario, the young man I spoke to assured me that there would be no future billing issues, and that the stated monthly withdrawal amount (or lack thereof) was indeed correct. At that time, I asked him to please be certain he was giving me accurate information, as I could not afford a larger payment later. He chuckled and assured me that such a thing would not happen; the billing was definitely correct.

A few weeks ago, I needed to obtain the amount of money we paid for homeowner’s insurance in 2007 for tax purposes. I called the customer service number and spoke to a representative named Kori. She informed me I had paid an amount in excess of $900. This struck me as very large compared to what I was expecting, so I asked her to confirm the number. She mentioned the monthly withdrawals that had been taken and then a one-time payment I had made in the amount of $514. I assured her that I had never made such a large payment, as we always just had monthly automatic withdrawals. She said she needed to look into the situation and call me back. When she did, she informed me that another customer’s payment on an account with a one-digit difference from my own had been applied to my account in error. After a very long conversation with her, she calculated how much of that $500 had already been applied to this year’s premiums and I agreed to make a one-time credit card payment of nearly $300 to bring my account to "even." She said that from March forward, I would then pay my “normal” monthly bill via electronic withdrawal. I gave her my credit card number and asked her to please share the details of my experience with her supervisor or other staff so as to prevent future customers this inconvenience. She assured me she would.

A week or so after that, I received a statement indicating that a withdrawal would be taken in the coming days that did not seem to be the correct amount based on my discussion with Kori. I called customer service again and spoke with a representative named Heather. Heather informed me that Kori had neither applied the credit card payment nor set up my future electronic withdrawals correctly as she had promised. She also informed me that there was no way to adjust my payment back to its correct monthly amount (the amount I would pay if my total premiums were simply divided by the 12 monthly payments) unless I paid the entire amount of the other customer’s misapplied payment at that time. I decided that I would have to do this so that my future monthly payments would fit within my family’s budget. I tried to explain what Kori and I had worked through in terms of a smaller payment getting me back on schedule, but she informed me that that plan was not possible, she had no idea how Kori could have come up with such a plan, and that Kori had spoken to me on her last day of employment with AIC. Heather then informed me that, unfortunately, this day happened to be her last day on the job as well, but she assured me she would document our discussion fully so future representatives wouldn’t have a problem helping me. She then assured me she would set up my regular monthly withdrawals in the “correct” monthly amount to be taken beginning 4/20/08.

A payment of $552.33 was taken from my checking account as I expected, as were additional withdrawals to facilitate me changing the date on which the debit would be taken in future months (at my request). However, I received a paper statement this week indicating that I owed a balance due to AIC on 4/20/08. I again called customer service and spoke to a representative named Debbie. Upon researching my account, she informed me that Heather had not set up the single monthly funds withdrawal as she had promised, and that is why I received a bill. Debbie was very kind and assured me that she would set up the single monthly debit, to take effect in May since there is not enough time for the computer system to process the change for my April payment. She also said she would call the next day to tell me what the amount would be once your billing system had processed the transaction. She did this and was very kind throughout the process. I am extremely hopeful that my billing transactions will run smoothly from here forward based on my discussions with her.

Unfortunately, I have to say that this has been the single most disturbing customer service experience I have ever had to navigate, and my experiences in this arena actually include working through a very stressful audit with the I.R.S....not an organization particularly well known for their cheery customer service. The first issue that I find problematic is that I attempted to be a conscientious self-advocate when I received the first suspicious billing statements last year. I suspect that most customers would simply count their blessings if their monthly payments dropped, whereas I attempted to research the situation before it became a problem for my family. In addition, the actual billing error was only discovered because I called again and made an inquiry; I wonder if AIC would have ever detected the mistake had I not asked a simple question about my premiums. I also wonder what the other customer thought about his payments increasing unexpectedly when his large payment went missing into thin air. Would there have even been a way to find it if he had been the one calling to question his bill?

The next issue I have is with the service provided to me by both Kori and Heather. Both representatives were very “hard line” at various points in their discussions with me, as if I was being difficult by asking for explanations of my bills. Neither representative ever successfully explained to me exactly how the current amounts I owed were calculated. They both cited the fact that I have multiple policies with different renewal dates and the billing system was “very complicated.” While I’m sure that the system is complicated, this did not inspire a great degree of confidence in me as your customer. Furthermore, neither representative uttered the words “I am sorry for this inconvenience” or any similar expression acknowledging AIC’s ultimate responsibility for this situation. The fact that I spoke to each woman on her last day of employment and gave each of them my credit card number is also extremely disturbing, and does not do much to facilitate my trust in your company as my insurer.

I also find myself feeling very uneasy about the fact that I have received so many conflicting, incorrect, and otherwise flawed billing statements and withdrawals over the last six months that I feel as if I have no way to personally verify that what I have paid to AIC or what I will pay to your company in the future is actually correct. I like to be careful with my family’s money and the fact that I have been put in a situation where the customer service representatives cannot even adequately explain why I owe what the billing system says I owe is extremely disconcerting. I am being forced to place my trust in the hands of a “very complicated” billing system that has, to date, done nothing other than cause me immense headaches. Furthermore, I would like to state that making this very large payment unexpectedly is not an insignificant matter for my family. My husband is a social worker and I am a stay-at-home-mother of a toddler who is expecting another baby in June. Making this large payment unexpectedly has had a very significant and detrimental effect on my family’s budget. The reason we set up the monthly withdrawals in the first place is because that is the only way we can reasonably afford to pay for our policies. While my personal financial situation is not the responsibility of AIC, I feel it is important to make it clear that this was not a minor blip on the financial radar of my family.

We have taken out a substantial amount of insurance with your company to protect our family in the event of our needing coverage. Any situation in which we need to use the coverage we are paying for is sure to be stressful and serious, if not disastrous. Never having filed a claim with your company to date, I have no idea what kind of customer service we would receive should we actually need to use the insurance we have faithfully paid for for several years. I can only fear that the service I would receive would be similar to what I have experienced over the last several months in regards to what should be the very simple matter of me paying for the policies I have purchased. This has taught me that if I am ever in a difficult and stressful situation where I actually need to use one of these policies, AIC is the last place on earth I would want to call. That being said, I am in the process of soliciting quotes from other insurers.

While my own opinion of the customer service provided by AIC is extremely unlikely to ever change, it is my hope that by sharing this experience with you, you will be able to better educate your customer service representatives so as to avoid causing these types of problems for other families in the future.

Sincerely,

Big W

*No idea why I felt compelled to reference Adventures in Babysitting. Woof.

Apparently all I can do at this point is rant

I spend a lot of time mentally blogging while I'm in bed not sleeping. Sometimes it is total crackpot stuff (which I realize makes it impossible to differentiate from my actual blog content), sometimes it turns into real posts, sometimes I'm just thinking about stuff and pretending I'm going to blog about it as a means of stewing about people who I think are idiots. Lately, it's been all ranting all the time in my head. Lots of persons, places, and things are irritating me. So while I'd truly like to blog about other topics, I'm afraid I'm just going to be ranting for the foreseeable future. Of course you can hope that someone in my house projectile vomits unexpectedly, ends up with a compound fracture of a spectacular nature, or some shit like that. But until then it is rants.

Today's victim is maternity clothes. Oh, degrader of my person, I hate you with an animal ferocity. Now, I know a lot of ladies who seem to do just fine in this department. Typical maternity styles seem to work with some people, whereas they assault me. On these grounds, I need to send someone a fucking message indicating that not all pregnant women are small and cute. Me, for example. Not small, not cute. Have I mentioned that I am a six-footer? Have I mentioned that I have the musculature (albeit encased in what we'll call a thin candy shell) required to leg press an entire stack of weights? Have I mentioned that when I was in high school, I dressed up in a full football uniform for some homecoming skit type thing and the coaches were actually trying to convince me to come suit up as a fucking tight end? Now, friends, I ask you this one simple question: Does this sound like the description of a person who should be wearing cap sleeves and bows? Fuck!!!

Seriously. Seriously. Seriously. I have a lot of problems with maternity clothes. We'll start with the 36-inch inseam. Yeah, that's probably longer than your husband's. Yeah, good luck to me and other beasts of my stature in trying to find maternity pants. Hell, I can't find regular pants. So looking for preggo wear in tall sizes is like a specialty-specialty sort of treasure hunt at the end of which you will only find bitter disappointment. Oh, there are a couple places online and it's fine and it's dandy but why does the ass have to be baggy and weird? Perhaps I hang out with lots of people in diapers, but do I need to look like I too am sporting a diaper ass? And why do they never stay in place? Why, god, why?

My next problem is the defined boob area so many of these tops have...the "gimme an empire waist or gimme death" phenomenon. Yes, it is a lovely style with which to shine a spotlight on the pregnant belly, but in my case, the boobs do not fit in the defined boob area formed by the lovely ribbon or darling trim or whatever the hell is setting up the boob boundary. In my humble opinion, there are few things as unflattering as the empire "waist" of these type of tops slicing me directly mid-boob rather than south-of-boob as is the intended position. Perhaps this has something to do with my height too, and I am just longer from shoulder to the southern hemisphere of boob than your normal woman. In fact, I'm sure this must be at least part of the problem. Perhaps it is also partially attributable to my bust size itself, which is ample but not anywhere near spectacle-causing or wildly out of proportion with my body. I don't know the answers, people. I only know the question, which is, of course, "Why the hell do so many maternity tops insist on fencing in boobs rather than letting them roam free?" Man. They're just trying to gear up for a good year or so of servitude to a suckling creature...why ya gotta cage them up now?

The sleeves. Let's move onto the topic that makes me beam hate so strong it could really solve our energy crisis if someone could just figure out how to harness it and use it propel automobiles. Cap sleeves. I have meaty arms. Meaty. If you put my upper arms in a crock pot for the day with some potatoes and carrots and onions and stuff, you'd probably come home to a not altogether unpleasant meal. Although not perfectly toned, I don't think they are disturbingly fat, as they only keep waving for a minute or so after my hand does. But, man, they might be bigger than your husband's. And are you aware of that whole thing where if you measure your wingspan, it is supposed to be the same length as your body? Well, I measured that once, and my wingspan is actually 4 inches longer than my body...76 alarming inches. If it's up so high that you can't reach it, well, I have to stoop. A wee ruffled cap sleeve cutting into a hunk of meat two inches into the longest she-arm ever recorded on a woman without a documented pituitary issue is not a pretty sight. In fact, it scrambles the workings of all stoplights within a 200-mile radius, makes people's pacemakers malfunction, and immediately causes the demise of all birds, fish, and mammals the size of a squirrel or smaller. Why can sleeves not just be sleeves? Why must they be "cute"? Maternitywear makers, friends, please. Get over your obsession with these cute details. Give me a short sleeve on par with what I might find on a standard casual top, and I'll love you forever. Wait, what was that? Did the universe just send me a big fuckoff-o-gram? Yeah, that's what I thought.

My other complaint is with the overall mien of this shit. The zany patterns. The little sayings. The ruching. The gathers, ties, details, nonsense. If I wouldn't want to wear these styles when I'm not pregnant, why would I want to wear them now? Is the pregnant form not enough of a spectacle without the wavy horizontal stripes, the stork decal, and ruffled sleeves? It's pure madness. And when you're a real big gal, it's a crime against humanity.

My final complaint is the placement of the maternity section within your typical store. In my experience, which pretty much includes the cheaper department stores you'll find in your standard mall as well as Target and its lesser cousins, maternity is always butting up against plus size. I don't know why this cheeses me off to such an extreme. However, many times I have entered the (two-rack) section that is maternity and found myself accidentally in the plus size department. I find this offensive to women in both camps. I don't like that the two areas are smashed together in stores as if these two states of being are mix-or-match. I don't technically wear plus size clothing, but it's not a huge stretch either. It is not bad to be pregnant and it's not bad to be plus size, but marrying the two concepts doesn't sit right with me. (I do realize that this is the sort of militant and overly sensitive viewpoint that only a hormonally charged asshole of a pregnant woman could conjure up, but that's the price you pay for reading the blog of a fertile jerk.) I don't know, put petites in the middle or something. Just don't make pregnant women feel roomy and don't make already roomy ladies feel pregnant. Does either gal need that kind of harassment?

So I'm thinking it may be my calling in life to start some kind of lobby for pregnant ladies that aren't small and cute. I can't really be the only clown walking around with pinched meat arms, ribbon-bisected boobs, and a diaper ass, can I?

It's bad luck just seeing a thing like that....

When I was pregnant with Phook, well, it was the first time I was pregnant. Being a studious/anal/ridiculous type, I sought out information. (Although I'll note that even calm women seem to go through this with their first pregnancies...) I read a lot, lot, lot of pregnancy books. I read a lot, lot, lot of internet bullshit. I read a lot, lot, lot of baby books. If there were a special field of library science dedicated to pregnancy-related literature, I'd deserve at least an honorary degree.

Now, some pregnancy books are very light-hearted and enjoyable reads. My cousin sent me one called "Hot Mama" or something, and that was cute. I had a couple other ones that were all very chuckle-chuckle about the whole business, even though I don't think a pregnancy book exists that doesn't warn you to stay away from soft cheeses, hot tubs, and mercury-laden fish. And then there are some books that just really should be titled "1,001 Reasons Your Baby is Probably Already Dead." Okay, that was terrible and probably not that funny, but seriously. The classic What to Expect When You're Expecting seriously reads like a nearly 600-page pamphlet from a bereavement counselor. It is also so disturbingly comprehensive that pretty much every normal symptom of pregnancy, such as, say, a little abdominal ache or whatever, is also listed as a key sign that you have placental abruption/pre-term labor/deadbabyitis. For reals. Most of it is written like a Q&A, and most of the answers are like, "Yeah, that's probably normal. Here's why it's probably normal. But it might not be normal and you and your baby's life just might be hanging in the balance. Call your doctor immediately."

One day shortly after urinating on a lot of sticks and finally believing the hype that I was indeed sperminated with Phook, I left work at lunchtime one day and went to a gigantic bookstore in the big city. There I saw the 9 trillion pregnancy books available, and bought several, including the aforementioned manual on why I was going to have a miscarriage. I ripped it open in the car in the parking lot, so desperate was the dumbstruck pregnant me for information, and immediately read the signs and symptoms of early pregnancy. I learned that sore breasts are most commonly the first sign of pregnancy, and that the disturbingly sensitive bastards would likely be a major problem for me for several weeks to come. Only there was one problem. I didn't have sore breasts, which served to convince me that there was something wrong with my pregnancy. From that point forward, I would grab/pinch/smash my breasts several times per day in the hopes of finding that they were indeed terribly sensitive as a means of convincing myself that I was indeed pregnant. The bastards never hurt. Nevermind that I could only eat white foods and Arby's roast beef sandwiches and gagged at such benign stimuli as a bowl of oatmeal; I was pretty positive I was not carrying a successful pregnancy because my breasts remained stubbornly unpainful. And, guess what? Phook was born, despite the fact that I never had that all-important sign of pregnancy. "Wow, is that a baby crowning down there? And here I thought it was just a bad flu and too many Hostess products, since I never got those sore boobs!" (I will note for what it is worth that Circus Act turned me into a wincing incapacitated mess of breast pain 46 minutes after conception.)

I guess what I am saying is that when you are pregnant, especially for the first time, it is very, very easy to get very, very scared by things you read. If you consume enough pregnancy advice, you will eventually believe you are harboring the most delicate creature imaginable and that the slightest whiff of swordfish, the slightest notion to take a hot bath, or the slightest ache or hiccup is going to throw you into danger. As it turns out, babies and pregnant mothers are pretty tough cookies.

Now, as I've discussed before, having come to my senses somewhat about matters of the delicacy of my delicate condition does not mean this whole proposition is easy going the second time around. I worry about this baby's health rather fervently. As I reached viability, I felt thankful. As I creep towards viability with a baby who is statistically likely to be born in good standing, I am feeling more and more tension ease away. Each day I wake up and the first thing I do is flex my fingers to do a weird check for the sudden swelling of the hands that would likely come with preeclampsia. And each night when I go to bed without having puffed up with illness I think about what day I'm at, and feel lucky that the baby got another healthy day in its happy place. But all in all, I have remained pretty darn sane in terms of general worry. I do feel aches and pains and stabs and pulls, but I remember that Phook made my belly hurt sometimes too. I do have times when it occurs to me I haven't felt old Circus for awhile, but then I settle down and bong myself some juice or something, and the thunk, thunk, thunk starts up again. Overall, it doesn't feel as precarious. And I think a lot of that is due to my purposeful avoidance of pregnancy-related literature. I will admit occasionally googling my pregnancy week out of curiosity about the baby's size or what happens to be developing in a particular week, but the compulsive consumption of everything pregnancy-related is well under wraps.

However, there was an incident this past Sunday. It occurred to me that I had reached 27 weeks, and that on Monday I'd be kicking off week 28. I had the thought that this might mean I was entering the third trimester, which feels like a definite and important milestone. But I couldn't remember what week was the official start of the third trimester. So I headed into the depths of Phook's closet where my stash of baby book paraphernalia is roosting, and grabbed the ever-lovely What to Expect When You're Expecting on account of its convenient month-by-month format. I flipped to Month 7, learned that I was indeed kicking off the 3rd trimester, and then accidentally read this list of "What You May Be Feeling" in Month 7:

Physically

• Stronger and more frequent fetal activity
• Increasingly heavy whitish vaginal discharge
• Achiness in the lower abdomen or along the sides
• Constipation
• Heartburn, indigestion, flatulence, bloating
• Occasional headaches, faintness or dizziness
• Nasal congestion and occasional nosebleeds; ear stuffiness
• Pink toothbrush from bleeding gums
• Leg cramps
• Backache
• Mild swelling of ankles and feet, and occasionally of the hands and face
• Varicose veins of the legs
• Hemorrhoids (varicose veins of the rectum)
• Itchy abdomen
• Protruding navel
• Shortness of breath
• Difficult sleeping
• Scattered Braxton Hicks contractions, usually painless (the uterus hardens for a minute, then returns to normal)
• Clumsiness (which increases the risk of falling)
• Enlarged breasts
• Colostrum, either leaking or expressed from nipples (though this premilk substance may not appear until after delivery)

Emotionally

• Increasing excitement
• Increasing apprehension about motherhood, baby's health, and labor and delivery
• Continued absentmindedness
• Increased dreaming and fantasizing about the baby
• Increased boredom and weariness with the pregnancy, or a sense of contentment and well-being, particularly if you're feeling great physically

All right, people, seriously. Is that not one of the more disturbing collections of symptoms you could ever imagine one person experiencing simulfuckingtaneously? Particularly, of course, the physical symptoms. There is some gross, gross shit going on there. Gross, bad, nasty. I mean, dude, yeah, they aren't lying. I'm rocking at least 80% of that scourge, yes I am, but doesn't it just seem wrong to throw it out there like that in such a disturbing list, even adding details that you're more likely to wipe out because your clumsy fat ass is all messed up, what with your center of gravity shifting every time Junior gets a wild hair and decides to do some cartwheels in there? Other than throwing us pregnants a bone with the whole "increased fetal movement" thing, doesn't it just seem like a sick joke? Oh, it's a perfectly natural, beautiful, lovely human experience, but damn. Even if there aren't any more positive physical symptoms available, I really think they should have made some up, just to break up the basic images conjured here that make it really hard to believe that the human population is exploding despite the fact that there are broads walking around everywhere in Month 7 with this grab bag of leaking, bulging, itching nastiness to deal with. I mean, man. After that little hemorrhoid reference, they should just put in, "Ice cream might taste really great" or maybe even just a simple nastiness-neutralization statement like, "People will stop noticing your acne and under-eye bags on account of that bulging navel and your huge rack."

Clearly that whole abstinence-only thing doesn't seem to be working, so I'd like to just suggest that health teachers around the globe slap down copies of What to Expect When You're Expecting and have the kiddos flip to this little list of fun. There will be a lot of condom-use, friends. I guarantee it. I myself am considering some condom-use, effective immediately, since it can't hurt to be extra careful. I wouldn't want to come down with a case of heartburn, indigestion, flatulence, bloating. Oh, shit, too late. Dude.

I guess I don't know that I have a real clear point here other than my assertion that pregnancy books blow goats. They're gonna make you crazy if you have even slight tendencies towards the nervous, and as I mentioned earlier, I don't know a whole lot of first-time pregnants who are all that chill when it comes to the fact that they have ANOTHER HUMAN LIFE just hanging out in their body. Then they're gonna throw it in your face that your body is going to do things way grosser than whatever is hiding in the depths of the ball pit at playland. I mean, it hadn't occurred to me that I was having so many "symptoms" of an obscene nature until I saw this list and had them all thrown up in my grill like that. Then I had to read them to Big K, ticking off each and every one he is already disturbingly aware of me experiencing on account of my daily/hourly reports on my own foul nature, and note that sending flowers would be a good call. Man, Phook was there when I read it too. Poor thing. Her vocab will probably never extend beyond her sad ten little mispronounced words now that I scarred her with that shit.

Oh, ladies. Of course you have to read some pregnancy stuff when you're pregnant. It's a rite of passage, and there would probably be a good deal of panic if one were to purposefully render themselves totally uneducated about these matters and then wake up one day with a leaking something or other and assume they were dying. I'm just sayin'. It's all gonna be okay. And if it ain't okay, it probably wasn't because you caved and dipped your feet in a hot tub.

Stuff on my cat

Well, today I am absolutely deliriously pissed about some absolutely horrifying decisions my community made in yesterday's election. (Think school funding referendums, mayoral elections, and the fact that I should probably be putting a sign in front of my house that says "For Sale By Owner: $5 OBO"). The good alderman Big K was of course re-elected to his position, having run unopposed, thereby securing the $69.26 per month he receives on account of serving our fair city, so I guess that was positive. Regardless, I was up all night being furious that I live in a community filled with pathetic clowns. I was rather determined to be pissed today, and to be honest, I really feel like going shopping. And not for groceries. No. For cute spring-like outfits for Phook, a godforsaken bra that might do me the basic favor of supporting my nightmarish bosom without cutting into my back fat too offensively, and maybe some fucking housewares. Of course I'm not going shopping, but I am considering walking to the convenience store and getting myself some pop in which I can drown my sorrows. Fury.

So about 20 minutes ago or something like that, I was sitting in the bathroom putting support hose on my near-bursting veins and thinking about the fact that I'd forgotten to gnaw off all my fingernails for the first time since I was a toddler, and maybe I should get to that given my rage. Phook was alternating coming in the bathroom and dicking around with the cotton ball stash and wandering about the first floor of our compound while repeatedly saying a word that I am pretending is "sit" but which I know in my heart to be "shit." I eventually meandered out into the living room where I happened upon the following scene:

Yeah, that's Uncle Growler, in a morning coma in his sun spot as is his custom. And he is wearing Sleep Guy (Phook's lovey for those of you randoms who aren't in the know), a dipe, and two nearly empty tubes of baby ass cream. I suggest to you that this was done by my daughter. I suggest to you that this is hilarious. She's totally in the know that stuff on cats is awesome. I am really thinking of submitting this to the site.

This, of course, has cheered me considerably. Phook is rad.