Project No Baby

I'm in the middle of a hormone surge. I sound like an old lady, but I don't care. I made the ridiculous decision to start taking the pill several weeks ago. I have always been an advocate against adding hormones into my body that are unnecessary. I started using a diaphram in college for that very reason. I couldn't justify cramming my body full of hormones, especially since at the time, sex was so sporadic, basically I was taking a pill just on the off chance that someone might take me home on a random Saturday night. It seemed un-feminist of me. That, and the fact that the pill made my period irregular, and it made me a bit crazy. Irrational crazy. Crying during Fear Factor kind of crazy. So, I have tried a variety of barrier methods, the diaphragm, which I felt was effective but I got UTI's which are not cool; the foam, which burns like wildfire; and the sponge, which resulted in an unplanned pregnancy. Turns out the sponge is only effective for women who have never given birth because its one size fits all.
So I have been on the pill for three weeks, and it has riddled me with anxiety and general bitchiness. I'll start off the morning fine, but once I get to work, I start feeling incredibly overwhelmed, and I can't even read the paper because I start thinking about global warming, the war in Iraq, and the recent (very minor) earthquake we had the other day. It is also storm season, and random tornadoes always get me uneasy. So I'm thinking the pill is not for me. I would rather be hormonal and have anxiety for three days a month (like I am supposed to) instead of 21 days a month.
So what am I going to do now? Well, there aren't a lot of options for someone who doesn't want to use hormone based birth control. Its funny how some non-hormone based options aren't even available in the United States, have to be order specifically through a health care provider, or are crazy expensive.
But I did find something. There is a device on the market called Lady-Comp. The name alone brings back memories of the products in the 1970s that were marketed toward women, such as the Lady Schick razors. The Lady-Comp, is a German engineered Basil Temperature thermometer, saliva-based hormone detector and Standard Days monitor. Every morning you take your temperature when the little alarm goes off. After about a month, you will stop seeing the yellow light that indicates it is still learning your body, and you will see either a green or red light. Green means you are not ovulating and are Go for Sex. Red means you are ovulating, so have a plan B. (a plan B. not the Plan B. birth control. I don't want anyone to get into a moral dilemma over my blog). I love this device. It combines my love of natural birth control with my love of gadgets. It is compact, it lights up and it's shiny. Here is the problem. This handy dandy little gadget costs a little less than my laptop. Its comparable to purchasing an iPhone. There is no way I can justify this expense, and I am in sales. I can usually justify anyone into spending $500 under the guise that it is an investment. The only way I can even defend this purchase is it claims to have a 99.3 effectiveness rate, a 5 year warranty and a 10 year life span. That means I won't have to purchase a new one until I am 40 years old.
Oh, I want one so bad. I wonder if my gynecologist can get it for me wholesale. I wonder if the company would let me have one wholesale if I promised to write testimonials for them. I will. I'd be happy to. Hear that Lady Comp- I am happily your shill.
The thing I love the most about this device, is it is the exact opposite of a fertility monitor. While a fertility monitor makes you pee on a stick and tells you if you may be ovulating, because all they have to lose it you won't get pregnant. This device had a 99.3 percent accuracy rate. The worst thing that can happen- your pregnant. Exactly what you were trying to avoid, and pretty much makes all that temperature taking useless. Oh, and suddenly you have a pregnancy you weren't planning on.
This is a device that acknowledges that some women don't want to get pregnant, and they don't want to have to take a bunch of hormones to keep it from happening.
Please, Lady-Comp, send me a free device.
Please.

Pleasure Island

So, I was watching a rerun of The Office last night, and they were all playing desert island, a game I have never really played, but is pretty cool none the less. You have to pick your top Fives for what you would take with you, books, movies, etc.
So I was thinking about what my top Fives would be? What would be my top Five books? So I started thinking about my favorite books: My Russian Love by Dan Frank, Delta of Venus by Anais Nin, Billy Bob Walker Got Married. . . wait a minute. . . why are all my favorite books of the romantic or soft porn variety? I never noticed that before. What on earth would I do if I was stranded on a desert island with these books? Would I have also packed a marital aide from babeland.com? All of my SOS messages in bottles floating away from the island would say, "Send batteries, PLEASE!"
Okay, fine, books are overrated. What about my favorite movies, Before Sunrise, Say Anything, Moulin Rouge, Last Tango in Paris. . . okay, you know, I need some new interests.
I would like to think when I am discovered on this island, I will be incredibly thin due to my new starvation diet, but I'm sure the tropical fruit I would eat to sustain myself would be full of carbs.

Farewell

I have not mentioned this since it happened, mostly because I was still too sad to write about it, but I lost my boss a couple of weeks ago. No, she didn't die, and her face isn't going to show up on any milk cartons, she found a new job and is moving on to do something new. We have had people quit my establishment of employment before, but I never thought she would put in her resignation. Unlike most everyone in America, I liked my boss. You always wish the bosses you hate to come to some untimely death or firing, but not the people you like.
She was the most fun boss I ever had. Never have I met a woman whose love of sales matched her love of firearms. I always hoped that we go on a motivational retreat to the paint-ball fields. I also have never heard so many stories about people accidentally pooping their pants until I worked for her. And I watched her lay in the floor of her office in orgasmic delight because she got to meet NASCAR driver Tony Stewart. She was the easiest person I have ever worked for, mostly because whenever I went to her with what I assumed was a horrible crisis situation, she never showed shock or surprise. She would just say something like, "It'll be alright, but moving forward, you should not call the director of marketing at the energy company a little bitch, again.'"
I was all upset for days that she was going to leave. She had this great send-off, and it was very emotional. So, now that she is no longer in a position to fire me, there are a few things I have to say: 1. Sometimes I would leave the office like I was going out on sales calls, but really I would go by my house to run a load of laundry, dishes, or take a nap. 2. Every time you had chocolate in your office, I went in and stole some of it. 3. One time I watched you leave the bathroom without washing your hands, and it haunts me to this day.
I love ya, C.
I hope you still talk to me after you read this.
*anyone who has met me knows I have a tendency to exaggerate. Have fun figuring out which part of this is true, and which is false.

Help me Lord

Lead me not into temptation, I can find it well enough on my own. I thought that was some great little kernel of wisdom that my grandmother passed down from her mother and so on. Turns out she picked it up at Weight Watchers.
The reason I quote this phrase as often as I do, is because I work in an office where everyone is trying to hawk off baked goods that would also ruin their diet. Every time some good neighbor drops off a cake or pie, it usually ends up in our break room. Today, it wasn't some cake or pie made with love or at least good intentions. It was a box of Hostess SnowBalls left over from Easter. There is nothing more gross and disgusting than Snowballs. They are hard chocolate cake with gelatinous filling coated in marshmallow cream and rolled in coconut. They come in these completely unnatural colors to go along with the seasons, pastel purple or teal, or worse at St. Patrick's Day-Glo Green. They have the shelf life of Spam. No one likes these cupcakes. They are the reject of the cupcake world. They sit of shelves for weeks next to the Dunkin Sticks and Low Fat? Brownies.
And I adore them.
I LOVE Snowballs, and I don't know why. I make a point to not eat Hostess Cupcakes. Spending most of my childhood at the alter of Swiss Cake Rolls, store bought pastries of any kind are forbidden in my household, and are resisted at all costs when I go to the store. I avoid them at gas stations, searching the aisles for trail mix, Baked Lays or Sun Chips. But the Snowballs. I cannot help myself.
So I took a Snowball from the free box on the counter, making sure no one saw me actually touch one, and I scurried back to my office. I stuck it in my drawer and said to myself, "I might not even really eat it. I can just throw it away at the end of the day." But no, within minutes I opened the desk drawer. I saw the purple culinary concoction, and closed the drawer again, "No, I'll at least wait until my 3 p.m. snack."
Shaking from the anticipation, I ripped off the cellophane at 2:59 p.m. (close enough).
Am I satisfied now that I filled my belly with fatty, calorie filled artificial substance. Yeah, a little bit. I'm ashamed, but mostly I want more. I'm going to go see if the box is still on the counter.

I am a domestic Goddess

Well not really.
I like to think I am a domestic goddess, but when it comes down to it, I am just as imperfect and slovenly as everyone else walking on this planet. I just prefer to make things when I am bored. I like to cook, knit, sew, anything I can do with my hands to make something new, I love it. This weekend, the project was pastry. The original plan was to make homemade bread, but while flipping through my copy of the Joy of Cooking, I also found a recipe for homemade pasta. I have never even eaten homemade pasta, much less made it.
Pasta was never part of my parents food pyramid. The only pasta we ever saw in our house came in blue boxes of mac and cheese or layered in Stouffer's Lasagna. The only time I ever saw anyone make pasta, was when Jack made it on Three's Company.
So, I read over my recipe and gathered all my ingredients. I sterilized all my counter-tops and poured a measured amount of pasta on my counter. The recipe said to make a well in the center of the mound of flour, so I piled it up and drilled a little the width of my index finder in the soft flour. Next step, crack three eggs in the well. Great. I cracked one egg. It filled the well, but not thinking what would happen if I overfilled it, I cracked another egg. Gooey egg ran right over the top of that mound of flour and headed directly off the counter. I managed to stop it by quickly building a little flour barricade. Like sandbags stopping a flood, I barricaded and blended as quickly as I could until finally I had this crumbly ball of dough. Ick. It was like playing with paste. Reading recipe it said if dough is crumbly add more water. So I did, getting flour and dough all over my sink, my tools, everywhere. So I finally got the dough under control and set it aside to rest, like instructed, but since I had already planned my dinner around this pasta, I didn't want to risk the pasta coming out gross just because I don't have the sense to know that when something is full, you can't put anything more in it.
So I tried the food processor route. I put all the ingredients in the food processor and let it whirl. I got about three good whirls out of the machine and it totally stopped. What the hell? I had to knead the rest by hand. So, two different versions were currently resting on my counter. Two different potential screw-ups and no guarantee that any of it was going to taste like anything other than paste.
But, I couldn't be afraid. So I continued on. After an hour of rest time, I rolled out the dough into sheets, which is weird because its like tugging at a pair of spandex pants. Every time I rolled it out, it retracted back on itself. So anyway, rolled, rested cut and dried, all the pasta was ready. But, still scared that it wasn't going to taste good, I made a sample batch.
It was pasta. It was good pasta, but the recipe said it would be sublime. I normally don't equate food related things to be sublime unless its made of chocolate. Chocolate pasta, that's an idea. Anyway, it was good, but I wouldn't put sublime on it. And I would make it again, but probably some variation of spinach or sun-dried tomato to make it unique. Unless your looking to mark pasta making off on your list of things you and Martha Stewart can both do, then I would say its not worth the trouble.
Next project, bread making.
Yeast scares me. Its alive, but I can purchase it in tiny packets at the grocery store. Its like buying Sea Monkeys. Wish me luck!

Saved

Well, we made it through. It was touch and go there for a while. I wasn't sure if we would survive. But we did. And I think we are stronger for it. My household managed to sustain five days, the length of a business week, without Internet access. Shock and horror, I know, but we roughed it.
This past weekend we moved. We relocated from a tiny one-bedroom apartment to a two-bedroom apartment in the same complex. We notified all the necessary agencies to our move: Insurance company, check; Direct TV, no problem; Internet, We'll be there next Wednesday. What?! WHAT?!
The move went off without a hitch. All boxes unloaded and unpacked. But as soon as everything was done, and we were in the new apartment, my husband and I looked at each other with a "What do we do now?" face. Even my son was confused. Usually he spends the evening pulling on my arm trying to get me to do SOMETHING with him, like read a book or nurture. At one point he shut himself up in his bedroom so I would leave him alone.
The Wi-Fi fast, it was rough. So hard recognizing actors on TV and not being able to IMDB them. So strange to walk into the new apartment and not get directly on the computer, or if we did, it was only to play solitaire. What was going on in the world? Which celebrities were having meltdowns? We did not know. Like castaways on a desert island, we survived using our wits. Reverting back to newspapers and CNN for our information. I started reading books again. We were two seconds away from breaking out the old board games when the Internet Service Provider called us to let us know that, "It was going to be okay. A service provider is on its way." Sigh. My family would like to thank the E. family upstairs for not having a firewall, which allowed us enough access to be able to keep tabs on our e-mail. God Bless them.
We would also like to thank friends and family that sent cards and prayers.
Now, Internet and Wi-Fi ready, my husband and I can get back to what's really important - ignoring our son.

Stay tuned. This weekend I will make an attempt to harness my inner Martha Stewart and make bread.

Embracing my inner fanatic

Opening day was yesterday, and I was SOO ready. I had been reading my teams roster on-line and watched Bull Durham- twice. I was ready. Unfortunately my team, the Boston Red Sox, was the only team that didn't play yesterday (I'm exaggerating, but it feels that way). They actually had their first game in Japan days ago. If you can imagine, I did NOT wake up at 4 a.m. to watch that one.
I am really pumped about watching baseball from the beginning of the season, unlike when I started watching both football and college basketball this year. As many know, I made a resolution to be more involved in sports because I felt like not only it is important to my husband and my marriage, but I thought I was missing out on something the rest of the world always seemed more aware of. Turns out I have been totally brainwashed.
My husband is strong in his fanhood, or fantholicism if you will. He observes all the High Holy Days, first day of the football season (or Halloween), first two days of the NCAA Tournament (Christmas Eve) followed quickly by the NCAA Championship Game (Christmas Day), Opening Day (Easter), Sunday at the Masters (Veterans Day), Derby Day (New Years). He purchases all the sports packages that allows him to either watch or listen to all the sports games, and will break out an old boombox to listen to AM radio broadcasts of Louisville basketball games. He is committed, or just should be (insert rim shot here). It is not just him. All of his friends are just as devoted, and even my own sister, so I started developing this idea in my head that everyone else on the planet was just as involved in sports. Its kind of like when you are 14 and you think all of your friends are having sex, but its really only three girls in your gym class that won't stop talking about it.
When did I realize I had been brainwashed? A couple of weeks ago, my department had a contest for NCAA. We sold advertising spots to customers that gave them the opportunity to win a free full page ad in the paper. There were four of us in a department of 11 that knew who half the teams were. Granted I work in a predominately female department (there is only one man), but I was shocked that I was in the minority in knowing that UK was having a crappy year and barely made it in the tournament. One sales person didn't know that USC was University of Southern California, and the misspelling of Drake to Orek actually printed in our newspaper without anyone noticing until it was too later. Whenever I would try to talk sports to other people in my department, they would meet me with blank stares or say, "I don't really know anything about it". Even the one guy in our department couldn't talk a good game because, "I don't follow the round ball."
So here I am, drinking the brainwash Kool-Aid through a crazy straw, and anticipating trying to find the Sox game somewhere this evening. Bring on the fanhood. In a couple of months I will be ready for my penis.

Welcome to the Carnival

I am always forgetting that not everyone has the same stores that we have here. I was having a conversation with a girl today about DSW, the shoe retailer that is apparently shoe heaven which we do not currently have in our town. I made the comment that we don't have one, we just have a Shoe Carnival, the shoe retailer that can be most compared to shoe purgatory. She had never heard of Shoe Carnival. She said she was filled with the image of an actual carnival that is centered around a shoe theme.
What a delightful thought. Women from all around would follow this circus like hippies followed "the Dead". It would be primarily mid-thirties women who just LOVE Sex in the City, and they would walk around the carnival eating Salad Shakers and Yoplait.
What would be at the "Shoe Carnival", or the "Cirque del Chaussure"? There be a large spinning ride, but instead of teacups that spin you around, it is pointe ballerina flats. Instead of darts, you throw spiked stilettos. You would buy tickets to try on Monolo Blahniks. "Instead of step right up" the Carnies would cry out, "Fierce!" and "So Cute!" And if you win a game, instead of a teddy bear, you win a big plush sneaker. Instead of beer, vendors would serve White Zinfindale and bottles of Smart Water. The Freak Show would be the haute couture styles that the models can barely walk in. And the scariest ride would be a dark tunnel and on the walls as you passed would be flashing images of Japanese Foot Binding, Crocs, and a credit card machine that flashes DECLINE, DECLINE, DECLINE.