Friends are kewl, I like friends

While I sit on pins and needles about tonight's pronouncement of troop increase doom, I am trying to focus on happier things, like catching up on all the awesome blogness that has occurred over the past weeks.

First, my good friend Elizabeth wrote a whole blog post wishing me and our wonderful friend Alissa happy birthday. I've written about Elizabeth before, but the cliff notes are thusly: on move-out day after college graduation, I only cried once, and that's when I had to say goodbye to Elizabeth. I couldn't imagine surviving life without being down the hall from her.

Second, I give you the 100 Greatest Quotes from the greatest show that ever was: The Wire.


Next, reinforcing my fears about having a career and a family? This list from Mother Jones. "74% of female executives have a spouse who’s employed full time. 75% of male execs have a spouse who’s not employed." "For full-time working fathers, each child correlates to a 2.1% earnings increase. For working moms, it’s a 2.5% loss." Damn.

Miss J: “Here’s the face that you want,” he said, assuming a cool, almost beatific gaze, and he began to walk. “I hate my teeth, I hate the world today. I’m getting paid 10 grand. I’m starving. I want a sandwich.”

And finally, zines. Specifically, girl/grrrl zines as a precursor to third-wave feminist political culture. In high school, my friends and I got a P.O. Box, invested in Glue Sticks, X-acto knives, and old magazines and made our own zine. We sold them for a quarter and a stamp, but mostly we traded zines with other people. I still have a bunch of my favorite zines and someday will scan them in for posterity and/or to show my future daughter how cool I once was. I look forward to watching her roll her eyes and mutter, "WHATEVER" under her breath.

Happy Post-Thanksgiving!

This year for Thanksgiving, my sister and I loaded into the Prius Magic Chariot and drove to Florida to see dad. We've both made this trip several times this year, once by plane and several times by car, never knowing each time what exactly faced us at the other end. This time, instead of driving to the hospital, we drove to Dad's house and got to give a full, standing hug. Define thankful? We did in that moment.

Hubs met us down there via plane, but had to endure a night in Atlanta after Delta delayed his first of two connecting flights. He's no longer allowed to make his own reservations. He did, however, make it in time to take direction from Dad on exactly how to cook the chicken and ribs we had in lieu of turkey and ham. In addition to a baby, I also now have a barbecue chicken and baby back rib baby inside me.

I made my new favorite brownie recipe. May I suggest substituting one cup of brown sugar for the white, and substituting 1/2 tbsp almond extract and 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract for the 1 tbsp vanilla. Add a dash of cinnamon and dash of nutmeg to the flour, and use dark chocolate cocoa. BLISS. It makes way too many brownies, meaning it's perfect for gifts while still making enough for you to nibble away at a few.

The highlight of the trip, other than the hug, was going through old pictures with dad. We found this gem, from when I was 8 days old. Nothing ever changes.

Baby Pictures

A friend of mine requested ultrasound pictures, however I am against such shameful self-promotion. But I finally relented, and this was the best one out of the bunch.

The Infanta

Baby flotsam has me seriously tied up in knots. It all started with the annual work Christmas party and gift exchange. Everyone draws names from a hat, you buy that person an "appropriate" present, and we all sit down one awkward Monday in December and share finger foods. Seeing as how I am so rotund that I am getting close to pulling my own orbit, I figured I'd just ask for baby girl stuff, since everyone loves frilly things. Also, seeing as how I am in small-town Louisiana, I thought I should probably register for some gifts so everyone understands there will be no Disney characters in my household. NONE, mmmkay? Kthx.

Now, every time I've walked into the baby section of a big box store since being preggers, I've been hit with a Holy Shit moment. Like, "Holy shit, look at all this crap! I can't possibly afford all this!" Or, "Holy shit! I didn't even I know I needed that! I don't even know what that's for!" In order to prevent the Holy Shits, I've armed myself with tools, like this fab baby bargains book my sister bought for me way back at the beginning of this craziness. I've researched, I've price checked, I've dared to compare. And really, it's all been for naught. I am still up at 4 a.m., debating whether to register for the infant car seat that's $160 and can be attached to the $60 stroller frame but will be obsolete once baby is 30 pounds, OR the $100 car seat that stays in the car and lasts through toddlerhood but necessitates buying a $250 stroller. Nevermind no one is going to buy these for me because they're too high ticket. Nevermind the ladies I work with just want to buy frilly clothes for the baby, none of which you can find in Leesville. MUST OBSESS. SOOO IMPORTANT!

I wish someone would put me out of misery, give me a list and tell me "We're reasonably certain none of this stuff will kill your baby. Buy away."

Also? Freak out.

Awful.

I had been working on a blog post about The D Word when Thursday happened. Unless you are my mother, who yesterday at 5 STILL didn't know about the shootings at Fort Hood and reacted to my talking to her about them with a discreet "OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!?!", you have heard there was a horrible, senseless shooting at Fort Hood. Hubs knows some guys who were there -- they are okay but saw some pretty crazy stuff.

We heard about the shooting right as we left the special baby doctor's office. We were excited and happy because we got to see our baby girl chewing on her hand via ultrasound -- really, it's the little things. The ultrasound tech said she is very photogenic, and all I could think is we are SO in trouble if that's true.

We both were checking our phones as we headed out to the car, nerds that we are, and saw the news via texts and emails. Hubs immediately called his friends at Hood, while I called mom to tell her the happy baby news (she likes to eat hands! CUTE). I couldn't talk to her about the tragedy, and she obviously hadn't heard. I had to stay focused on the happy, on the cuteness while he figured out who was there, who was okay, who wasn't and so on.

The news that those victims were soon-to-be deploying made everything that more tragic. That those who were killed thought the danger facing them was in the future, not the present, seemed to make the whole spectacle so much more surreal.

Hubs came home last week with the news that maybe, possibly, in the next year or so, we ourselves will face The D Word, the word that I was hoping would not be spoken in my house for, oh, EVER. Boo hiss. Not that I didn't know this day was coming, it's just I thought we had a little more time. We've been very careful to make decisions that would perhaps make the likelihood of The D Word less likely, like choosing Fort Polk, a place where there are lots of jobs Hubs can do stateside.

I was worried about a million things when it came up -- being left alone with a baby in rural Louisiana, how we might deal with separation, what kind of harm would he face, and the ultimate question, what if he didn't come back. Needless to say, there were some tears. Buckets of tears.

And not that last Thursday has made these fears disappear, but the truth is we could lose our loved ones at any time to a multitude of events. To senseless acts of violence, to accidents, to unknown health problems. That doesn't make facing The D Word easier but maybe it will help me to not take for granted what I have right now, instead of focusing on what I might not have in the future.

My thoughts are with those at Fort Hood, their friends and families. I hope that the rest of us can harness our better angels and not let this tragic event manifest into unreasonable conclusions, ethnic tension, racism, or worse.

RIP fancy pink hair dryer, 2006-2009

Oh fancy pink hair dryer, how I will miss you. I remember when I brought you home from the hairdresser's, in your matching pink carrying case with your matching pink curling iron. The stylist said you would do nothing less than change my life, and you did! Your included diffuser left much to be desired, but a replacement made you into everything I would need in a hair prep accessory. My world came crashing down when you stopped blowing hot hair last week. Well, maybe not crashing down -- maybe my world got much, much more frizzy with much, much less body. Yes, that's much more likely.

My replacement is in the mail, but alas it is not pink. I am usually very anti-pink ribbon products -- not because I looooove breast cancer, but because I think the whole pink ribbon thing is merely a savvy marketing tool and does little to nothing to actually contribute to the eradication of the horrible scourge of breast cancer. If you want to contribute to breast cancer causes, please go to the source and donate directly to non-profits and research foundations that do this work. And do it every month, not just in October. Don't operate under the false assumption that by sending in your yogurt lids or buying the can green beans with the ribbon on them you're adding to the cause. Multi-national corporations like Ford, Kraft Foods, etc., should donate to these causes WITHOUT using them to increase their bottom lines. A tiny percentage of their gross revenues could serve to go a long way to finding a cure, and corporate America should want to donate to such a cause out of their social obligation -- it shouldn't be a donation contingent on your buying their pink-themed cutlery. See this awesome post about the breast cancer marketing machine and alternatives to participating in the corporate ruse.

That said, pink shit is pretty freakin' cute and hard to resist. Having a matching hair dryer and curling iron set -- that was also pink -- was maybe the most girly thing I have very done/owned, and honestly I was quite proud of it. I am truly sad to see the dryer go. The new one has a lot to live up to.

**NOTED: that I totally went off about corporate America in a post about how much I loved my dead hair dryer. Yes, I can see the hypocrisy. Yes, I am this shallow.**

Red Velvet Cake and Teddy Grahams Carnage of 2009

I made a red velvet cake last weekend and discovered something. Hubs loves icing. Cake? Not so much with the love.

Exhibit #1

Note the round cake is almost completely naked of icing on all sides, save the top.

Exhibit #2

OH THE HUMANITY! Desecrated cake. Next, he cut the cake in half to get the icing I put between the layers.

You should have seen the kitchen. Little red crumbs were everywhere, like carnage from an episode of CSI: Kitchen.

Now, the only sweets suffering at our hands are the wonderful, tasty Teddy Grahams -- chocolate of course. At some point in high school or college, I got it stuck in my head that graham crackers are healthy. At the time, I was probably eating Soft Batch cookies by the truck load, so comparatively, they were healthy. In actuality, it is probably not healthy to eat an entire box of them while watching prime time TV, say Dawson's Creek or some similar quality TV programming. (btw, TEAM PACEY!)

In any case, I have rediscovered Teddy Grahams and how much fun it is to decapitate and de-limb the little nuggets of yummyness. I've already made it through one box, and am well on my way through another. I'm working out all my frustration on the little buggers, doing what I can't do to certain members of the medical profession who seem intent on freaking the living hell out of certain preggers women by forcing them to endure the hell that is scheduling tests in Radiology. 'NUF SAID.