Me and the rest of the cool kids are over at wordpress.

and on a far more entertaining note

Thanks for the love, y'all. Honest. Thanks. I hooked up with a whiskey and the IVP as soon as I got home tonight.

Meanwhile, while I was out, the black cat was chez-cho. Or, rather, at Spa CHO.

CD1

Yeah, you read that right. Woo and not hoo.

endless summer starting

Good god, it's like I don't even live here anymore.

There was a bit I caught on the radio this evening about how since the 4th of July is considered a day to celebrate our country's birth, maybe today should be held as a day to grieve, not just a day of cookouts. I do love a good hamburger, though. Anyway, happy Memorial Day, y'all. This is stolen from LesbianDad (source of so many good things), who brought it up from the depths of Democratic Underground. No, I'm neither a Quaker nor a Christian, and yeah, it's long, but read the whole thing.

A Pacifist's Memorial Day Pledge

As a Quaker and a Christian, I have been an anti-war activist since I first carried a black banner of mourning in a Memorial Day parade during the Vietnam war. I lived in a small town full of dyed-in-the-wool supporters of the war and President Nixon, who were shocked and scandalized that I was not joining in as they praised the Lord and passed the ammunition. All I could think of was the brothers, fathers, sons, nephews, cousins over there getting their asses shot off because military contractors couldn’t bear to see their profits go down, and hawkish politicos couldn’t bear to admit they were wrong and take their medicine.


They called me “disrespectful” then. I told them I had plenty of respect for the poor guys getting blown to hell and back, but still more respect for those who were honest enough to tell the truth about the war. That I had little respect for those who believed the lies our government was telling them because it was more comfortable that way, and none at all for the greedy bastards telling the lies to make money or stay in power.

I was not very popular.

In some circles, I’m still not. War is an admission of failure. War never solves problems, it only changes the problems’ nature. In the short run, wars can produce change that looks like resolution, but all they really accomplish is to put off the inevitable. Sooner or later, someone will have to deal with the root causes of the problems; the only question is how many wars do we want to have to delay that necessity?

And wars are always more expensive than addressing the root causes of the problems. We do little to deal with social and economic and political injustice because of the price tag, yet the price tag in lives and dollars of the wars that inevitably result from those injustices is infinitely higher. And the longer we put it off, the higher the price.

Are some wars inevitable? Are some necessary for survival? Is it possible for war to be a lesser evil?

Yes. But only because we first committed the greater evil of ignoring the causes of war. Committing that greater evil can sometimes make war the lesser evil, but all the greater tragedy for that.

We do not live in a perfect world. Not everyone shares my views. Sometimes military action can be part of a solution, when we have already procrastinated too long or been too stingy to solve the problems in their early stages, when non-military solutions are still possible. In an imperfect world, even a pacifist can benefit from the presence of a strong, committed, ethical military, led by men and women of integrity and dedicated only to defending the helpless and being the last resort against tyranny.

I am deeply grateful for the benefits such a military conveys upon me. I know that I would not have the freedom to pursue my pacifist agenda without their strong shield in this dangerous world. How very ironic, isn’t it?

I recognize the unhappy necessity of their existence, and I recognize the individual courage, commitment, and devotion each member of the services has shown to protecting me. In return, I pledge this: I will never rest from my efforts to ensure that every single other solution is tried before sending you into harm’s way. Your willingness to sacrifice your lives for me demands nothing less.

And I pledge this:

To uphold my own commitment to the well-being of you and your families, in gratitude for your commitment to protect me and my freedom.

• I will support fair and generous compensation, including educational and retirement benefits, for your service.
  
  
• I will support the highest quality medical care and treatment for you and your families.
  
  
• I will support—and demand—that the training and equipment given to every service member is of the highest quality available to ensure their safety on the battlefield.
  
  
• I will demand that the elected leadership to whom your commanders are ultimately responsible hold themselves personally accountable for your safety, in all decisions pertaining to sending you in harm’s way.

And I will continue to work, every single day, to advance the skill of humanity to solve our problems without resorting to war.

I shared this pledge once, many years ago, with my father, who was a Marine. He listened, and I thought he would point out how silly and idealistic I was being. There was a funny expression on his face by the time I was done and I thought he was going to tear into me, for sure. For my “disrespect,” maybe, or my “impractical” dreams. I didn’t realize at first that he was trying not to shed tears (because Marines don’t, ya know.)

Finally he said, softly. “Hoo-raw, baby. Semper fi,” and caught me up in a big hug. I miss him so much.

Happy Memorial Day, Daddy. Semper fi, from your pacifist little girl.

proudly,
Bright

not dead

Did you think I was? Oh, internets. I've missed you. There's all sorts of news, but y'all will have to live in the dark a while longer, because it's late enough for me to go to bed.
I am, as I think I noted, back at the theater and it's fab. But busy, which I'd sort of forgotten. More to come, I swear.

Worthy of quick note:
*sperm washed and IUI-ed on Friday. Seems to be a sort of don't ask, don't tell type of thing.
*home insem Saturday.
*finally got a peak from old Clear Blue. On Sunday. *sigh* Too late for the IUI, and also, I think, for the home insem. Who the fuck knows. Nothing darker than a ghost on the opks. Weird, yes? Could I have gotten a bad batch? And how the hell do I know when to start the prometrium with no positive opks to go on?
*school mother's day gifts done and done - 6 days of school left. Six. Yay.
*special home project due to start tomorrow - woo!

Lunch: left overs from last nights' dinner with cho-girl, which we ate prior to Fertility Hennaz™ - white beans with a nice bit of bacon for tastiness, beet greens with tiny, tiny beets still attached, and orange slices from snack. Log your lunch, y'all. You know you want to.bonus pic - fertility hennaz™ (there are some on my belly of course, but I didn't get a picture of those in their finished state)

lunch et cetera

Today's lunch: lamb summer sausage from the sheep's milk cheese lady, cucumber from the hothouse farm south of town, strawberries from some of the tidewater farms, sourdough (!) with butter. All local all the time. Except then I went a ruined it by scrounging some ranch dressing from Kraft or something like that.

Day's of school left: 11. That's eleven, in case you're counting, which I am.

Still no word from the sperm washing guy. Hmmmm. May be another DIY insem.

recap + lunches

Quick, while the popcorms are doing their thing on the stovetop.

*2 nights of dress rehearsal and one tornado watch
*mother's day gifts done and done (whew)
*recovering black cat and multiple meds plus new diet of canned food (also whew and eewww)
*additional meds for me (day 2 of femara)
*message left for guy in charge of sperm washing machine
*lawn mowed
*semi-surly pre-teen carted around
*jambalya made by my roommate (good food in the house that I didn't make?! yay!)
*gimlets on the back deck with I (gimlets - woo! back deck - woo!)
*popcorms

And lunches. Yesterday and today: weird pseudo-humus thing on pita with chips and doctored-up salsa. Also known as Mother's Day Lunch in the primary classes that trickles down to the lowly toddler teachers. Decent with bonus lack of lunch packing. Log your lunch, y'all.

from princess to little camel: the update

Time was, the black cat (like how I maintain my pets' internet anonymity?) was somewhat princess-like. Not in a good way. Back in the day when I lived with LB, "princess" was a derogatory term in our house.

Anyway. We trundled off to the vet this afternoon - crying all the way. Her, not me. She hates the car. The vet poked and prodded her for a good long while and examined the (2!) stool samples I'd helpfully brought in. And I stood there with my crying cat and waited. It turns out she was seriously dehydrated and has some intestinal parasite whose name I forget. He gave her some subcutaneous fluids* - which he described as making her "like a little camel" - two different kinds of medicine - liquid and pills - and told me to call on Friday to let them know how she is. Unless it gets worse. Which it seems to not be. She is on the couch with her brother, sitting in a sort of weird way, but she did just wash her face, which she hasn't done in days.

Cat drama ended. Well, except for the doses of medicine. She loves medicine! Woo.

Also, I seem to be back at the theater. Woo!

*N.B. I did not administer, nor did I see administered, said sub-q fluids. Nor do I know if "sub-q" is short for subcutaneous. However, this link looks very informative, so if you need "sub-q" fluids for your pet, I just might be your girl.

news from the RE plus lunch and numbers

Ok, so the cat is really sick (the black one, which makes me want to cry) and I have to run her to the vet and Sophie to soccer in a minute, but I know y'all want to hear the news from the RE as much as you wanted to see my ass.

My prog numbers from last cycle came back really off - from 11.3 down to 1.something. This is so off that the RE wonders if there was some sort of lab error. Anyway, the thought, as you know, is that femara doesn't do shit to boost my prog. He's up for adding prometrium to the mix with the 2.5 mg of femara and calling it a day. And my ovaries are "quiet" and my uterine lining is nice and thin so off we go - wheeeeee! CD 4, y'all. It's CD 4.

Sperm update shortly - so far so good, as the kids say.

Lunch: yesterday there was not really any lunch, I scrounged from the dregs of the snack cabinet and ended up with cheese with the mold cut off and triscuits plus some almost ready for the compost melon. But today! Today was left over chicken (breast this time, but don't read anything into that) with psuedo-fancy sauce (mayo mixed with roast garlic) and asparagus with Bragg's and lime (no lemons in the house). That link's just for you, Clemency.

Count down: 14.

late lunch with bonus picture

Last night's roast chicken (thigh, because I'm that kind of girl), cucumber pieces and "white catsup" as one of my kids calls ranch dressing. Ranch is a good dip for anything, I tell you.

Log your lunch, y'all. I have to somewhat frantically pull together mother's day gifts for 13.

Sixteen days of school left.

ETA - this is the kid who removed the bird from it's cage. I know you wanted to see him. And my butt. I know you wanted to see my butt.

rememberance

May 4th, 1970.
Rocks are not the equal to guns.
Speaking out on injustice is right.
May we all strive more strongly toward peace.
All heads bow towards Ohio.

count down

Let's count down to the end of school, shall we?
As of today we are at...... 3 weeks and 2 days. Or 17 days. 5 of those days will be spent trying to pull together Mother's Day gifts. Hahahahahahahahaha.

Lunch: leftover white beans and spinach over pasta (the highlight of this dish is the bacon), also leftover blanched asparagus dressed with - you guessed it - olive oil and Bragg's and leftover from snack cantaloupe. Really a far better lunch than yesterday in all ways.

how about another?

Don't you want to hear from me fourty-eleven times today?

In my pre-bedtime blog cruising, I did I quick drive by of Dean's Live Journal, because I heart him on account of The Most Romantic Moment of My Life that took place in the falling snow under a small tree and a street light on Altamont st back during the freak spring storm of '93, when we were tiny children. Anyway, he hardly ever posts anymore of on old LJ, but I check every now and then. He links to this article, which warrents another glass of whiskey and a more thorough rereading by me (I was so excited I had to blog it before I gave it a real go). Equate gin and television and throw around terms like "cognitive surplus" and I am putty in your hands.

ETA: And shit like this? Yeah, boy. That's what I'm talking about.

And I'm willing to raise that to a general principle. It's better to do something than to do nothing. Even lolcats, even cute pictures of kittens made even cuter with the addition of cute captions, hold out an invitation to participation. When you see a lolcat, one of the things it says to the viewer is, "If you have some sans-serif fonts on your computer, you can play this game, too." And that's message--I can do that, too--is a big change.

And also this:

media is actually a triathlon, it 's three different events. People like to consume, but they also like to produce, and they like to share.

Because yes, yes we do. Lord. Just go read it already.

(Disclaimer - I love lolcats. I do)

and now....

Oh, right. I'm trying to conceive, not just thinking about lunch/pants.

So the femara, it seemed so good. Three follicles! I am a good responder. But then it was on to Teh Blood Work to see if femara would fix my luteal phase defect, aka not enough prog. Woo! Blood work! I am a pro, y'all. I can pump my vein up so good, Amir, one of the lab techs (the hardcore one) doesn't even need to use a tourniquet. Hahh! I am a blood work winner. Or not.

Femara didn't do shit for my prog levels. There were many phone calls and messages passed between me and Martha, keeper of all knowledge, about when I'd go see my friend Amir, and what my prog levels meant in terms of seeing Amir again (my RE wants prog levels checked at 5, 7 and 9 dpo - he's thorough - and there's no co-pay to go to the lab and I'm a blood work star - see above - so I'll go get stuck as often as needed, although I don't always get to see Amir) and they all added up to one thing - femara does not equal increased progesterone for me. At least not at the level at which I took it this most recent time.

In one of the many messages my boss took down (Martha is her BFF now), the options were laid out for me - up the dose of femara or come in for a consult. Well, crap. I don't really like either of those options, so I made my own: Same dose of femara plus my old friend prometrium, which we know fixes my luteal phase defect. Good old Martha, she ran it by the RE and left me (yet another) message at school saying that would be fine and I should call for my early cycle wanding just as soon as I start bleeding (this is not an exact Martha quote) and that there would also be other "options" to be discussed at said wanding. Hmmmm..... looks like I get a bonus consult along with the wanding. Fab. That's only one co-pay to deal with. Plus going to the RE doesn't count in my book unless they stick something in me, so consults alone are lame-o.

So I am still hoping for an insem next cycle (i.e. in the next couple-few weeks). Word on the fertility street is that the IUI washing machine might be ready. But if that "might be" turns out to be "is" I might be running into Sperm Issues. See, I'm not getting the goods from a sperm bank, I'm getting them from The Donors You Can't Beat With A Stick. And most doctors are loathe to stick anything in a girl's hooha that hasn't been quarantined (ack! STDs! Age of Fear!) or didn't come from her state sanctioned partner (never mind that those state sanctioned partners can do things outside of those state sanctioned relationships that might put a body at risk). My bio-tranzed goods do not meet either of those requirements. So far, the RE seems willing (he seems to have little truck with bureaucracy), but we'll just have to wait and see, won't we? (Oh, stop worrying - my donor has no STD's.)

Anyway, onward and upward. Or something.

ps - Is it weird to link back to one's own blog? Discuss.

bad lunch/bad day

Saved, however, by Coffeez with cho-girl this afternoon. Ok, not coffeez exactly, but gelato milkshakes with shots of espresso.

Anyway - lunch was supposed to be an old container of hummus (stolen from my roommate) and some spicy flatbread. But no, I opened the humus container and it was moldy. So I tossed it. And had leftover carrots and celery from snack and my assistant shared her soup with me.

I do love this lunch logging, though. Thanks, y'all. Don't forget to log your lunch.


see more crazy cat pics

wednesday lunch

Last minute-thrown together this morning-almost dead lettuce salad with cucumbers (from home and snack leftovers) and a hard boiled egg dressed with olive oil, Bragg's and lemon juice. Plus cold coffee from the morning (I heart leftover coffee so much). And chaos. There was a good bit of chaos at lunch today. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. Log your lunch, my friends.

Big ttc post coming. I swear.

stolen meme and lunch, not pants

Stolen, shamelessly, from Jude:

TECHNOLOGY
Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
the view from the front porch

Q. How many televisions you have in your house?
none

BIOLOGY
Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
right

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
Polly the Possible

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
T's kid Frank

Q. Have you ever been knocked out?
no

BULLSHITOLOGY
Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
no

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
it used to be Cynthia when I was a kid, but now I don't really care to change my name

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
ummmm....... who knows?

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item?
nope

DAREOLOGY
Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
wellllllll..... sure (heh)

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
nope

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000
maybe

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
sure, if anyone would pay

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
yep

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
no

DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?
nothing - in the right there's keys

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
never saw it

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
hardwood

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
stand
well, unless I'm shaving my legs

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
2 - CVS specials

LASTOLOGY
Q: Last person who texted you?
text???? me???

Q: Last person who called you?
T

Q: Person you hugged?
Hanna

FAVORITOLOGY
Q: Number?
9

Q: Season?
summer

Q: Color?
orange. or pink

CURRENTOLOGY
Q: Missing someone?
yep

Q: Mood?
full

Q: Listening to?
birds outside

Q: Watching?
my typing

Q: Worrying about?
no much at the moment

Q: Wearing?
cords, ladybug shirt, sweater, stripey socks

RANDOMOLOGY
Q: First place you went this morning?
the front door to let the cats out

Q: What can you not wait to do?
get knocked up

Q: Do you smile often?
yes

Q: Are you a friendly person?
I hope so



And for lunch.......
Leftover psuedo-Indian from last night; basmati rice, lentils (pretend dahl), kale and cucumber raita.

It was a long day but I have convinced myself that I cannot go to bed until dark (I think I've got about 30 minutes). The licensing woman came to school today, to be sure we are doing all the million and one things the state thinks we should be doing to ensure the safety of the children in our care. We tend to do fine, but inspections are just not really fun. And then, as it is Tuesday, T and her fam came over and we went to the diner and now I am full of carbs. And ready for bed.

Continue with the lunch logging and meme yourself if you wish.

dangerous eating 2.0

Today was a Dangerous Eater's day, as Vee might say. Lunch was a leftover liverwurst, watercress and mustard sandwich on an everything bagel. I helped LB move yesterday and she bought us all bagels for lunch and I couldn't finish mine, so it became today's lunch - microbes be damned. It was still pretty good.

But, totally lapping me in the Dangerous Eater's Club is my cat, who is currently eating a starling for a late lunch, crouched under all the wood stove paraphernalia I stacked up in a corner the other day. *sigh*

Log your lunch, y'all.

ETA - she ate the head off and then I couldn't take it anymore and dragged her away by the collar and put the now headless bird in two newspaper bags. Now I am waiting for the cat to clean up the floor.

ETA More - I think she ate the skull, because I can't find it. How does one eat a skull?

how to feel accomplished in 2 easy steps

1. start a blog
2. list day's activities on said blog
bonus step 3. mirate one's list

• woke up (always, always list this -always)
• stumbled around
• smelled and then cleaned up cat diarrhea from under the bathroom sink
• washed hands
• washed face
• went to city market
• bought food
• paid back vendors who nicely didn't charge me full price last week when I ran out of cash (this niceness sort of negates my market bugeting technique which is to leave when I am out of money)
• came home and started laundry, cleaned floors
• hung laundry out, continued cleaning floors
• went to parade!
• came home, started more laundry, summer-ized wood stove area and ate lunch
• hung out more laundry
• brought in laundry, first old (dumped on couch) then new (left damp in basket on porch), because of rain
• hung out old (damp) laundry, again.
• napped
• mowed half the lawn, brought in old laundry
• swept clouds - yes, CLOUDS - of pollen off the porch and washed porch down with old mop water
• watched the thunder storm

Now, here's how to feel unaccomplished in 1 easy step: go check out what this girl got done before 11 am.

lunch, lunch, lunch (pants)

It was market day, so there were all sorts of good things for lunch: salad with asparagus (yay 1st asparagus!), boiled egg pieces, cucumbers (not exactly in season, but local greenhouse grown ((I know, I know, I think it's cheating, too, but I love cucumbers)) near my folk's house), and scallions from the goat cheese man, all dressed with olive oil and Bragg's and little lemon. And a beer. Hooray for Saturday!

Prior to lunch, I went to the parade. I *love* a parade! Now it is time for a nap.

Log your lunch, y'all.


Heheh. "Pants" is just for you, Mrs. B.

*

Don't forget today is the National Day of Silence.

Peace to Larry King and all the rest.

thursday lunch, or are you sick of quiche yet?

Quiche. Again. With lentil/mung bean sprouts dressed in Bragg's and lemon, because the ponzu is gone.
And yet, there is still more quiche. Spinach and leek and bacon cubes. Please come over and eat some.

all local all the time

Check it out: locallectual
There's some local kids putting up a local goods website that is global. Well, at least aiming to be global. It's in the early phases and will get better and bigger the more folks use it, so go throw in your 2 cents about what's local in your locality.

And by the way, did you log your lunch?

a bird on the fridge door is worth 2 in the hand

I was thinking about a snack and I went to the fridge to get out the goat cheese (goat cheese and dates - seems fancy, but it's not) and lo and behold there was a fake bird attached to the handle of the fridge door. A rather disheveled fake bird - one minus most of it's feathers, pale plastic underbelly exposed for all to see. WTF right?

Well, no. You see, yesterday was Tuesday - or as I have come to think of it - T-day, because it's the day that T comes over. Yesterday, she brought her husband, teen-age step-son and 4 year old, let's call him Frank. The orange haired teen-age step-son left shortly after they arrived, his gf beckoning from across town. Ah, youth...... Anyway we all went out to dinner and had the usual fight about who would pay the bill. And to settle the issue quickly, it was decided that I would give up my fight for the bill if I was allowed to buy some beer on the way home, which we would all sit around and drink (well, not Frank, but you know what I mean). So that's what we did.

But what the fuck does this have to do with the disheveled fake bird on the fridge, you ask? Patience, y'all, patience. Frank, the aforementioned 4 year old, busied himself doing little kid things while we sat round on the porch after dinner and at some point he asked me again, for the fifty-eleventh time, what was the deal with with the bird cage on the porch. For some time now, he's been trying to wrap his mind around the fake bird hanging upside down in the bird cage - he can't quite get if it's real or not, if it's alive or dead. The whole set up is a mystery to him. So last night, I took the bird out of the bird cage so he could get a good look at it. And after turning it over in his hands several times, he told me he was going to find a new spot for it. Inside. I didn't pay that much mind until this morning when I went to get the milk out of the fridge and in the semi-darkness of the kitchen noticed there was a fake bird hanging off the fridge door.

So now I want to go eat my fab dates and goat cheese treats, but I'll log my lunch first: left over fish burrito from last night's dinner plus left over strawberries from morning snack. Log your lunch, y'all.

psa

Friday, April 25th is the National Day of Silence.

Now, I trust LesbianDad will do some amazing post on this (if she doesn't you can just go back through her archives and read pretty much anything), so I'll keep it short.

I'll make note of the day in my class. Treating everyone with kindness and compassion and respect is at the base of the whole Montessori philosophy and, even in my class of 2 year olds, we'll take a moment to be silent and then talk briefly about being kind to everyone, about listening and about just how important those 2 things are. My kids are two - I'm not going to ask them to be silent all day, nor am I interested in introducing them to some of the horrible things people can do to each other, and maybe creating silence in our classroom for a few moments will mean something only to me. But I cannot let the pain of other folks pass me by with out taking note: you gay kids who've suffered bullying and fights and even death, I see you. I see you.

What are you going to do?

Log Your Lunch for the win!

Look at all those lunches! Woo! Lunch! And pants.

So today's lunch for me is the same as yesterday's. More quiche and salad-y shit with the addition of radishes. It was good and then I had some grapes and Smartfood for my naptime snack. See, the children nap and I eat as I clean my classroom.

In other news, I am back on The Coffeez. For realz this time. I had some yesterday afternoon - full caff - and had no trouble getting to sleep.

Don't forget to log your lunch!

teh round-up plus bonus new idea (!)

Thanks for the sweet comments after my crap day last week, y'all. You're the best. For real.

Aren't you dying to know what I've been doing? On the edge of your collective seat? I'll give you a list o' the highlights, because who needs narrative form? Not this girl.

Thursday

• pre-ovulation wanding showed good early response to the femara: cushy lining, 3 (!) follicles - 1 on the left (12.5mm), 2 on the right (15.5mm and 13.5mm)
• dinner of potato chips, fancy cheese and bread + lambic beer with LB on the porch
  
• nothing else of note

Friday

• stupid work thing turns out to not be so stupid in the end and anyway it's over
• 2 pitchers of gimlets at IB's house! (Cut me some slack, it was a small pitcher.) Yay IB! Topics of discussion included, but were not limited to: When Bad Things Happen to Good Friends (extended mega-mix edition), Generous Parents (grateful edition), What's Going on With Our Friends (vol. 1,000,354).
  
• what can top that?

Saturday

• the market! Sightings of Elsie, plus various other folks. Lots of fab spring produce (yay real food!) and additional goods, e.g. lesbian bagels! Plus, a kid from my school was there and she had a flower with her that she'd brought, just in case she saw me. And her ever-kind mama told me she had a small box of very nice organic baby clothes that she'd love to give me, if that wouldn't be too hard for me to deal with/seem like bad luck and if it was, she'd hang onto them for a while longer and check in again. Wow - generous and understanding together are an unbeatable team. All good things happen at the market.
  
• laundry! (I heart laundry)
  
• yard work made easier and better by various neighbors (note to self, when getting plants from mom, only take as many as you can remember the names of).
• lounging made easier by finished yardwork
• coffee date that brought up some interesting ideas about doula shit

Sunday

• Teh Coffeez with cho-girl!
  
• Sunday comics!
• stupid cold rain (blah)

Monday

• bonus wanding! With New and Sure To Be Improving Med Student! Honest, I love when there are students, because I can ask even more questions and listen in on the medical banter. My RE asked the tiny med student all sorts of fertility related questions and I could answer every one. To the point the the RE told me to shut up, joking, but really I think he'd had enough out of me. So it seems I responded quite well to the femara in terms of ovulation, now we'll see what it can do for my luteal phase issues.
• more stupid cold rain (blah again)

Good job getting this far! As a prize, I'll tell you my idea. See, I used to go on this sight called "Lunch Is Fun (TM)" all the time. All the fucking time. What's better than seeing what other people ate for lunch? Also, what's better than the word lunch? Maybe the word pants. Maybe. Anyway, as I was making tomorrow's lunch just a mere hour ago, I though, well, Starrhillgirl, you could just log your lunch on your very own blog and maybe that would make you post everyday. And maybe your internet people will want to log their lunches, too! In your comments! Because you love a good comment almost as much as a good lunch!

It's like a game! We'll even give it it's own cleverly named tag: Lunch. Woo and Hoo!

So today I had a piece of quiche and a little salad of watercress (yay the market!) and lentil/bean sprouts with ponzu, which is the dressing of the month here at Starrhill. What did you eat? Remember, a good lunch can salvage a crap day, so log your lunch, y'all.

and the horse you rode in on

It's been a crap day. How about some pictures?

The highlight of the otherwise crap day was remembering that I drove the t-bird to work (thanks, Dad). This one's for J.














Here's the new dye job, compliments of cho-girl. You can see my funny ear in this picture.



I sure am glad y'all are around. Let's all have a better day tomorrow, shall we?

debt

Oh, yes, my friends, I owe y'all a post. I do. There's no news, though.

I'm back at work after a week of vacation. It's fine. Work is fine.

Femara is also fine - no side effects and the pills are tiny and easy to swallow. There's one left. I bought yet another box of opks (at $20 a pop I should have bought stock in the company) because I'll need to go get wanded at the first sign of a surge. I fear the weekend will fuck me up here. But really, who the fuck cares because I'm not inseminating this cycle. Ok, I do care. As does my dear RE.

Old Clear Blue and I are on the outs. Again. It's me, not her. Well, I guess as in any relationship, it takes two. There's some debate about if monitors work when one is taking femara. So I am not to count on CB, which is no real hardship because I have such a long-standing, if non-monogamous, relationship with the opks. Plus, old Clear Blue did me wrong last month. Wrong. I never got a peak. Never. So I gave up. And here is where we get to my part in this downturn of our relationship - I did not ever hit the "M button" to reset everything for CD 1. Oops. So I did that this morning. Old Clear Blue says CD 6, but really, it's CD 8. Clearly we have some communications issues in our relationship. Maybe some couples therapy.... Or maybe I could just fucking get knocked up already and past the motherfucker on to my ex gf.

Non ttc news - CLAW was great, and I am late with my Under Teh Table post, but I'll get on it. My hair is dyed (and cut - whew!), but the tattoo has not materialized yet. This week, though.

things to do when you're not pg

• dye hair
• get tattoo
• attend CLAW
• have drinks

Other ideas welcome.

So, yeah. No dice. I started bleeding on the train on the way home Monday (because disappointment is best with a chaser of inconvenience) and promptly had a scotch when I walked in the back door. On to femara.

But meanwhile, there's fabulous news over at Chicory's and on the other side of the world for Chips, nearby at Chronicles of Conception and also for my girl at Knuckle Down. Yay, y'all. Yay!

very hard meme *sigh*

She spent a great deal of time that afternoon in the back room, bent over, transferring paper from its box into the recycling bin. There were handfuls of junk mail, crushed cereal boxes, torn up offers of money from various credit card companies, all destined for a new life as toilet paper or some other useful product. Then in went the newspapers, on top of the crumpled balls of tinfoil and empty can of tomatoes. The cat whining at the door skidded out at the same time she did, recycling bin pushing open the broken storm door. The sun outside was bright still and one of the neighbors was running a lawnmower. After dropping the bin by the street with a grunt, she turned to walk back up the driveway to get the trash. And noticed a condom, unfurled in all its faded glory, on the sidewalk.

If your life were to be novelized, starting last night, how would the opening paragraph(s) read? Brand Spanking New Meme. From Chicory, Queen of the New Jobness. I tag you, LB, and you, Chips and you, I.D.A. And that's all. Unless you want to write a novel in the comments, of course.

(As an aside, I am on more prometrium than I have ever been on in my life and, lord, my boobs. Whew. Note we are just ignoring this ttw.)

the good, the bad, and the not-so-ugly

So there was the great post, all written in my head, about how today ran the gamut from bottom-of-the-barrel to woo-and-hoo! but I just finished figuring out how to post pictures over at wordpress for the CLAW blog and I am wore out, y'all. So, haha! I'll give you a list and you can sort things into the good, the bad, and the SOOOOO-not-ugly your own selves.

1. had very bad cold yesterday, as in very bad, causing me to miss brunch with some Crazytown extendo-family types and a memorial service that I really wanted to attend. Said very bad cold still present this am, but still I have to go to work because that is The Way It Is.
   
2. scramble to find tylenol at the only store open between my house and school, because that is the only pain killer I can take in the ttw, and a pain killer will keep me from killing the children at school, where I should not be because of above-mentioned very bad cold but too bad because that is The Way It Is.
   
3. cho-girl subs in my class and as a bonus to her greatness, brings me tylenol, because above-mentioned store only had the sinus kind or the allergy kind and those kinds will probably make my Baby the Possible have 3 heads and so I did not buy them, but drove to school near tears instead (crying in the privacy of one's truck - or one's dad's truck - is far different from crying in front of Teh Public, plus, I said "near tears" not "in tears" see? I was sick! Cut me some slack.).
   
4. half the staff of my school is out today - ok, not half, but 4 out of 14. No lie. But I get to teach with above-mentioned cho-girl, who is occasionally sympathetic but mostly just large and in charge of the children, which is just what the non-existent doctor ordered (things starting to look up here). Too much sympathy makes me woozy.
   
5. manage to not kill any children at school, nor do I give them my very bad cold, because they must all be immune at this point, having already given it to me. Thanks, children.
6. it rains. All day. We do not go outside, which means that I don't have to wake up my nappers. More sleep = yay.
7. Sandy, Sophie's mama, is on the radio when I get in the truck after school (this is where things really begin to look up) and to sweeten the deal, Sophie is not too surly! That's 3 days in a row! And is worth both of those exclamation points and this bonus one!
8. my roommate makes enchiladas for dinner. Enchiladas which will also be my lunch tomorrow. It is nice to be hungry again.
9. (the best for last) I got these in the mail today:

Thanks Mrs. B. Art saves lives, y'all.

grandma tuesday

My love of stylish glasses must be genetic. If she were wearing a more revealing top, you'd see I also got my boobs from her. Thanks, Grandma.

There is also my other grandma, aka Banin, of whom I have no good pictures. Poo. She is equally great. And busty. Yes, I get it from all sides.

queer revolution, travel and other weekend goodies

Let's get the business out of the way first - I think my insems were too early. Although I did have ovulation twinges this afternoon, so who the hell knows. Oh, well. While this was Teh Last of Teh Last, it was also the Throw Away Insem, the one that probably wouldn't work. But whatever, I'll take my prometrium like a good girl and we'll see what happens.

Last night, I went out. Woo! Out! The Athens Boys Choir and Katastrophe were playing a free (free!) show just down the road from me and as I love, love, love Katz, I was all over it. It seems they did a Trans 101 workshop (also free!) that afternoon. Yay. I missed it, but yay. Both these kids are cute as buttons and said all the right things and had a gaggle, yes, a gaggle, of little femme girls right up in front of the stage squealing over them (it was kind of like Elvis only these bois are cuter). By said all the right things, I mean that their songs and poems spoke true and clear and funny and sad and all the things you might feel in your life. Katz spoke briefly about the horrifying statistics on hate-crimes against queers in general and trans folks in particular and again, he said all the right things. That is, he didn't say much, he simply named some of the people, some of the kids, who've been killed recently and told us, instructed us, to remember them, to say their names. He had a poem about them, "Queer Revolution," a litany of sorts, with slides - pictures and names, lest we forget. There's not space enough for me to list all the names, nor, sadly, do I even know them all, but you can go here to remember, to have names to speak so that we will not forget them. And then, on a lighter note, he finished up with my all time fave, "Tranny Got Pack." Well, maybe my fave is the Waffle House one..... sooooo hard to decide. (That's a music link, so watch your volume if you're at work or worried about loudness.)

So Katz was great and he's really what drew me to the show, but the bonus prize was Rocco (he introduced himself to me when I bought a CD from him - sqeee! (Lord.)). So um, yeah, I spent the whole show thinking how familiar he looked and how I knew the name Katastrophe from *somewhere*..... and then after I got home and read the liner notes with the CD (10 pages!) I remembered. Michelle Tea's partner. Yeah. I am behind the times. Anyway, he was great. So great that my friend D, who's a nice gayboy, said, as he climbed up next to me on one of the pillars for a better view, "oh my god! I have the hots for a tranny!" We speculated that he'd have to fight off the gaggle of femme girls to get to his new crush. In honor of the show, D wore his Lesbian Clothes - a tie and a zip-up hoodie. Adorable. He looked just like a lesbian. Good job, D.

Nothing like some hot trans men talking about social justice and peace and feminism to make you remember what it's all about. MySpace links here and here. And, yes, I have a little celebrity crush. *sigh* But honest, y'all, they're so good.

Also, I got a new, big girl couch this weekend, thanks to the KP. This meant, among other things, that my roommate and I had to quite literally break the frame of the futon I had been using as a couch so we could get it up stairs so she could use it as a bed. In retrospect, this is funny. Moving furniture sucks. But woo! Big girl couch!

In other news, I booked tickets to go to New York for a smidge during spring break. I was ambivalent about going - I want to see my friends up there really bad, but it's sort of expensive, I'm not sure how to deal with cat care now that one of the cats is deaf and another still has some - ah - bowel issues, and the usual - I kind of love to be at home more than anything. But then I was looking for some old emails I'd written about school and I came across one I'd sent to Z the Ex from back in 2004 when I must have been up there for some Montessori related thing and then I totally wanted to go.

Yesterday I saw a magician. I was on the train, going from Ian's back to
Williamsburg, and I was tired and feeling weird (what's new) and I'd finished
my book so there was nothing to do but sit there. As we were whizzing along under
the river, a magician came clanging in from the next car. He had a little
folding metal stand with big loud metal bells on it and a black case that he
pushed in front of him and a nice black top hat. He was mumbling loudly in
Spanish and so, in spite of my heritage, I understood nothing. He set up shop
right in the middle of the train, swinging the black case up onto the metal
stand and arranging all sorts of implements on it. He tried to get this one guy
to hold his magic wand for him, it was pink lucite, I think, but he refused.
Then all the other people he tried shook their heads, too. It was so sad. But
then this guy sitting across from me agreed to hold the magic wand and tap on
the special magic box and so the show could begin. I got to open the magic drawer
in the special magic box and a small furry animal popped out and I jumped. Then
he did all sorts of other tricks, like making soap bubbles turn into giant
marbles and then popping the marbles or making a girl's purple lacy panties drop
to the floor and then trying to give them to the guy across from me. In
addition to finding the small furry animal (maybe it was a mink?), I got to
hold the magic wand and tap on a small metal dish that was upside-down and then a
dove flew out from under it. Amazing. And then he was done. He collected
some money and packed up his case and rattled on to the next car, all in the space
of 2 stops, before we got to Graham Ave.
I walked home and stopped by the liquor store, feeling much better.

You know you wanted to relive that 10 minutes on the L train with me. So I'll be in New York for a smidge in April. Who's around?

meme-tastic

From the Crazytown kids. The KP called for answers in the comments, but I'll run with it and make a meme anytime I can.

What's On Your Nightstand?

Rules, rules, rules: post what you've got on the table (chair, nightstand, whatever) beside your bed. Leave nothing out. Nothing. Heh. Link back to the kind person who tagged you and then tag 3 other folks. Really tag them - none of this "whoever hasn't done this meme yet" tagging.

*clock radio from Roses
*thermometer (*sigh*)
*Burt's Bees foot creme sample tube
*Badger Sleep Balm, aka The Sleepy Beave (don't ask)
*small lamp from the SPCA rummage sale circa 1995 with pink shade from Roses
*Burt's Bees Milk and Honey sample bottle
*tiny pink claw clip that some kid put on my shirt at school
*orange sticker from Toys in Babeland, not yet stuck anywhere
*tie-tie, black (for my *hair* y'all, my hair)
*star charm from a necklace that was a gift for my 30th birthday
*votive candle, Newberry Holly scented, as yet unburned, but very dusty
*capped plastic test tube, empty (I already tossed the syringes and the catheter)
*handful of earrings I had to take out for surgery and have yet to put back in
*rubberband
*small Buddha statue, the Chinese style - tall and skinny with flowing robes - from my mama
*fancy paper clip with 90º corners instead of round bend-y ends
*dust and cat fur

What? No books? Nope, I keep the books in bed with me.


I tag..... ummmm...

The Injector who is tagged first to ensure that she'll play along
Cali, of course - tagged with love
Mrs. B in hopes that she'll send me some tiny art in the mail as a thank you for tagging her (subtle, no?)
J, who will forgive me for praying that she'll say there are car racing magazines on her nightstand.

Oops. That's 4. Oh, well.

ETA - comment away if you don't *ahem* have a blog (*cough* Hard Girl*cough*)

clap your hands

CD 13. High says old Clear Blue. 17.5 mm follicle on the right. Good looking CM. Ovulation Chinese herbs and robitussin taken. Sperm in the air, on it's way to Richmond from the West and then to Starr Hill, arriving tomorrow. Plus Fertility Hennaz™, of course.

Last chance DIY insem, here I come.

some clarifications

I fear I have mislead you. I am not myself an Arm Wrestler. I am a Rule Keeper. That is, I watch to be sure no rules are broken under the table. My post is up now, over here, after some technical difficulties.

Also, I am not quite so nice as y'all think - my neighbor's Condition means many things to me - both positive and negative. We're tight, so it is generally positive, especially because they will at some point need infant-style childcare. Which, providing I knock myself up sooner rather than later, fits well into my financial plan, because I'd be the infant-style childcare. So the almost happy is actually pretty self-serving.

And, since I know you've missed hearing about my ovaries: I went to the RE's today. It's CD 10 and I've got one 10-11 mm follicle on the right and a nice 5 mm lining. "Good," according to my RE, who it turns out, developed a way to check estrogen levels in blood back in the 70's. Prior to this? Yes, my IVP friends, doctors did just what we've all done at home - looked obsessively at CM. Serious.

more fun than a barrel of vipers

On a more cheerful note - I'm occasioanlly blogging over here with the other Arm Wrestling kids. Remember arm wrestling? I'm The Empire over there, so we'll just keep Starrhillgirl under our hats, shall we?
CLAW is a blast, y'all. Come on down.

le sigh

My neighbor is knocked up. By accident. I am mostly happy for her.

(This is not yet news for public consumption, oh, ye local kids who know who I am talking about. She's only 8 weeks.)

just another morning in spring

So it's been weeks since I worked a full 5 days in a row. Weeks, I tell you. There's no school today and it smelled like spring when I opened the front door to let the cats in. I've given up on cutting out coffee and so I am here in the sun with a totally indulgent cup of 2/3 coffee, 1/3 heavy cream. And did I mention the sun? And the lack of school today?

I woke up and walked down here to pick up my milk first thing, because I have been slack this week and didn't pick up on Wednesday, which is my usual pick up day. The whole milk deal is a little shady, which I kind of love. You cannot buy or sell unpasteurized milk in Virginia, so people get around it by purchasing a share in a cow, so the milk is technically theirs and they consume it at their own risk. I do sometimes wonder what part of my cow I own - the tail? The cute nose? Anyway, I'm not one of those Raw Milk Will Save the World people, but I'm pretty happy to have local milk and I'm always after food that's had less shit done to it. And it is good - the real test for what to buy and eat in my mind. Local and organic and unprocessed are fab and all, but really, I'm into food that tastes good. Which this milk does. The poorly lit warehouse and the old soda refrigerators and the sneaky hidden key are all pure entertainment for me - the real deal is that I like this milk better. Now if only I could ride my bike down to the IX to get it....

Yes, it's true. I do not know how to ride a bike. I thought this wasn't news here on teh internets, but the injector has only recently discovered my lack of biking prowess and is threatening to come come south and remedy the problem. Others have tried - valiantly - before, but with no luck. (somewhat embarassing pics here)I'm not so good at the whole practicing thing, you see, and I think that's probably key. Anyway - I do want to know how. It fits in well with everything else about my "Lifestyle." But falling is so scary!

Moving on to other things I cannot do yet - let's talk about ttc, shall we? (That' trying to conceive for those of you just joining us here in Starr Hill.) Here's the lowdown from the RE's visit this week: I will be doing an unmedicated, monitored, home insemed cycle this month. Woo and hoo for the home insems! Go DIY AI go! There's several things going on here so I'll try to be all linear and shit so you can get the full picture and the you can weigh in as you see fit.

From the information gathered during my monitored cycle in January, the RE thinks that I had 2 problems: old Polly and low progesterone. Now we'll all bow our heads a minute to Polly and then move on because that particular problem is gone. Woo! So then the issue becomes the prog. Now, I knew from blood-work with my nurse practitioner that my progesterone was low back last summer and she put me on prometrium (by mouth - whew) for it, but her protocol for the dosage was very different from my RE's protocol and I don't wonder (or rather I do wonder) if hers was not so hot. See, the half-life of prometrium is 12 hours and my NP only had me take it once a day, so I'd imagine the level could float around more than would be ideal. The RE has folks take it 3 times a day, which know knowing the half-life of it (thank you Obsessors) makes far more sense.

Anyway. My RE deals with low prog in one of 2 ways: dose with prometrium or take...... clomid. His thought process is this: The corpus luteum is what produces progesterone after ovulation, so if there is a problem with progesterone, perhaps tweaking the follicle that will become the corpus luteum will make for better progesterone production. Plus the "bonus" of more follicles - i.e. more "targets" for the sperm to hit. He very, very slowly and seriously did the math for me on how the chance of multiples goes up in this scenario and listened patiently when I said in no uncertain terms that I was scared shitless of the mood swings I hear can come with clomid and said femara was a fine choice when I asked about using that instead. The man's a dream. And he delicately pointed out that, in his view, time is not an issue. I'm young and healthy, as they kept telling me before my surgery. All that said, I am going with no meds for this cycle other than a prometrium supplement. Because I like to ramp it up slowly.

As for the home insem part - well, there's some bureaucracy involved here. In the past, sperm that needs washing for an IUI would get sent to Richmond, washed and sent back. But my sperm don't roll like that because they've been Bio-Tranzed. The shipping method my donors (Remember them? You can't beat them with a stick.) and I are using, bio-tranz, only keeps those kids alive for 24 hours. Not enough time to get from the West Coast to Richmond and then here. They'd be dead. Now, the University has been promising my RE a machine for washing sperm here for sometime now. They said October 2007 at the latest, he told me. Then we both looked at the calendar and sighed. Any day now, they keep telling him. He sighed again. So if there's a machine here, I'll wash those prostaglandins right out of my sperm and do an IUI. But I'm not going to count on that, so we'll just all plan on one very last home insem. What do you say?

There's a mess of us cycling together this time, which has to be worth something. There's me, the injector's best girl KK, Mrs. B, Chips, Tiff, Katie who has no blog (ahem) from FF.... damn. I though there were more of us. Anybody else? Anybody?

hand-holder the bestest

And now I must sing The Song of Praises to cho-girl.

Kind beyond measure and able to read my mind in a single bound.
Possessed of calm in the face of my own misery and like to a beacon of light in the dark.
Speaker of several of the best languages and bellwether of Teh Internets.
Mama to my tiny BF and his brilliant brother, co-parenting with her Smoking One to near-perfection.
Cynical at all the right times, making perfect light of overly weighty situations.
Adept at toddler wrangling and crafting - all in the same moment.
Deliverer of the perfectly timed "ha-ha!" or "woo!"
Keeper of my humility, and often sanity.
If you don't already have her, you know you want her.

surgery post - finally

What? Y'all haven't been on the edge of your collective seats - eagerly awaiting the story of my surgery? Well, what have you been doing then?

Before you get all excited, let's keep in mind that this really all turned out to be no big deal. I was far more apprehensive about the HSG, which, you'll remember, all turned out fine. I was sort of generally apprehensive about general anthesisia, which was a whole new ball o' wax for me (Let's revisit here that the most invasive medical procedure I've ever had, prior to ttc, was getting a tooth filled without anethesisa. By my uncle who told bad jokes and played Aretha Franklin the whole time.) but I was pretty chill about the whole thing and, frankly, looking forward to a day off work. So all that is to say, don't be mad if this story lacks some particular something.... like a plot.


Anyway. Cho-girl and I arrived bright and early and I filled out a mess of paper work (all of which I had already filled out at the pre-op the week before) while she reviewed her firm instructions to call 1. my mother 2. work 3. the other building of work to tell them how it all went down. (N.B. - these instructions were not from me.) I ended up sitting on the floor, because some folks took my seat while I was up passing back my ever-tedious paperwork. But that's ok - I like the floor. So we hung out, talking about nothing and then an unseen some one called my name. It was not god (there's not near death experiences in this story, so if you're looking for that you'd better quit right now). It was a nurse, calling from a *whole other waiting room*! Crazy. There was a section with more chairs - enough for me! - and the receptionist had been to busy with the aforementioned ever-tedious paperwork to tell us. Or she was too moody.


So the nice nurse took me back and cho-girl moved into the other, new waiting room, because it had magazines (although I had stocked her with books, don't you worry). The nice nurse (let's take moment here to recognize that I should have done something to make me remember everyone's names - they were all so great and I cannot even give them proper credit here) put in an IV (new experience # 33 million) and gave me a very nice green cap and asked me what drugs I am allergic to. Then she left me alone to change into my nice gown and little brown socks (new experience # 34 million). About 50-thousand other people came back to ask me what drugs I am allergic to after my original nice nurse. This seems to be the ambulatory surgery version of asking what my birthday is, which is the pick-up line at the RE's office. In the midst of these 56-thousand people was the anesthesiologist resident, who looked 12. I swear. 12. So she did her little anesthesia pep-talk and then more people asked me what I was allergic to and my doctor came back and was peppy, too, and we were all filled with pep, except I was also really hungry and pretty thirsty, so I think the 58-million folks were slightly peppier than me, because they had eaten nice breakfasts and probably had Teh Coffeez.

Then they brought cho-girl back and we sat there for a smidge and then they had me walk to the OR. Because I am "young and healthy," as they kept telling me. I asked if I'd get a ride if I were old and infirm. They said no. It was called ambulatory surgery for a reason. They were funny. And by they, I mean all the 63-million folks who came in and did shit to me. And by funny, I mean so nice. Really, if I could remember their names, I would make a whole post for them: a list of their names with the title "So Nice" so that when they google themselves they would get to see it and feel good. Oh, right, but where was I? Oh, yes, being young and healthy and perambulating back to the OR. Which was freezing. Which I commented on and so they gave me not just one but two warm blankets. I tell you, I could get used to this warm blanket thing. It was very, very white, in addition to very cold, and the people buzzed around sort of quietly doing their thing and the 12 year-old anesthesiologist talked to me very, very quietly as she hooked me up to all the monitors, explaining what each sensor did. I *love* that shit. And then I looked at the clock across the room and up at the lights while she told me to think of some "nice dreams" to have and then I woke up in another room.

Ok, so here's the one sort of bad part. I felt like crap right when I woke up. Really crap. Confused and then nauseous and crampy. And I kind of wanted to cry, which, you'll remember is not something I'm a big fan of. All alone, my tiny self in a hospital gown..... Crying yet? Well, quit, because yet another very nice nurse put her hand on my arm and asked how I was and shot me up with pain meds and anti-nausea meds and after another minute or two of misery, I was ok. Ok enough to be excited that they were going to wheel me into the other recovery room; apparently post surgery, I am no longer "young and healthy" enough to walk. Heh. So the nice nurse number two wheeled me to a curtained off lazy-boy recliner (hospital style, you know) and went to fetch cho-girl. And I was fine. The nice nurse (#2) gave me some ginger ale and animal cookies and let me manipulate her into taking me out to the car in a wheel chair (new experience #39 million!) and cho-girl took me home.

To the couch, where I lay in repose for the rest of the day. Ahhhhh.... it was like a sick day only I felt fine. We had coffee and expensive sandwiches and my mama came over and then I napped off and on. An old friend came by mid-afternoon to bring me some arnica and fancy ginger beer and the the ever-vigilant LB came by in the evening after work, so I was well tended. And so fine. I mean, really - I was tired after about 6 o'clock, but really I felt so ok.

So, to summarize: nice folks, no more Polly (R.I.P.), day off of work. Western Medicine - 1, me - 1. We're all winners here in Starr Hill.

There are no pictures up yet, because I am not the proud owner of a scanner. But when they are ready, oh internets, you'll be the first to know. I swear.

mea culpa

Forgive me. It has been a million years since my last blog post.

But I have excuses! I had surgery! (I tried to use this excuse at work to get out of a parent meeting last week. No dice.) Yes, the sugery is over and done and old Polly is gone - peace, Polly. And really? No big deal. So not an excuse for not blogging.

The real excuse for not blogging is that I have been at a weekend long Labor Assistant Training. It was great, but I had no time to blog. I haven't even read blogs or visited the IVP since Friday. Ack! But have I mentioned it was great? It was. Great for its own sake (very informative, not overly touchy-feely - which I feared, well run, inspiring) and also great because it reminded me that all this fertility shit isn't just about getting pregnant, it's also about giving birth and having that experience is part of why I am going on with all this crap. Anyway, this training is very, very good and if you get a chance to take it you should jump on it.

I promise a surgery post shortly. Promise.

Also? CD 1, y'all. I've got a meeting with the RE Tuesday. Let's get this party started.

woe.

My hard drive crashed on Saturday night, at the tail end of a lovely chicken dinner with a friend from here and the lovely lesbians from DC, R and J, with whom I went to Boston for T-day (remember?).

I have been without Teh Internets for days. Days, I tell you. And I missed y'all. Lord. All you IVP kids - I was lost without you. No machine equals no contact, except maybe by the pony express to the couple few of you to whom I sent xmas cards. Woe, as the title implies. But here I am now, by the grace of god - I mean, the grace of cho-girl. And I'll get a loaner machine tomorrow, because I am among the luckiest of the lucky.

Wednesday is the Last Of Days for old Polly Teh Polyp. The surgery is scheduled for 9 am and I expect that I'll be home and on the couch sometime before noon. My mama says she'll stop by with enchiladas, so come by if you want some. You'll have to wait on yourself, though - I plan to milk this general-anesthesia hang over for as long as possible.

Jude, I fear I won't be able to send Polly up your way, as the nice resident told me I couldn't have her. She did promise pictures, though. Who wants to see pictures of my girl-parts?!

almost, as the kids say

Today is a day for remembering, for thinking about loss, for holding hands and sitting with grief. A day for a nod and a bit of a smile to the babies we don't have. Now, as usual, I'm a smidge late, and I can't claim to have suffered from much loss - I've got no dead babies hovering around me, flickering with Might Have Beens. I have only some mourning for the tries that came to nothing, that neither divided nor implanted nor came forth in anyway. But I bow with all compassion to those of you who know more loss than me. I hold your hands and your hearts in mine and I'll sit with you, as I know you'd sit with me.

Cali put out the call and the chorus of the IVP answered with the resounding sound of - well, of hope, if you get right down to it. Here we all are in this ugly fucking boat that's trimmed with Almost and Loss and Might Have Been. But this boat floats on hope and, god damn, the company is good.




It's hard for me to write too much about loss today. Things started out well with coffee being delivered to school and then Sophie and a friend went skateboarding this afternoon, and I heard them through the open front door, laughing that way young girls do. It's warm enough I let my kids at school go outside with their jackets undone. I saw the mountains from the playground. The crocus are up in my neighbor's yard, the all-important sun is out and we are turning the corner to Spring. I feel it.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I ’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

From my girl Emily, of course.

i went to the fertility clinic and all i got were these tattoos

If I can't get pregnant this month, I may as well get more tattoos. I heart my tattoo guy.
(Picture credit to cho-girl, of course - you think I let just anybody see me this close to undressed?)

more stars
Originally uploaded by corey jo

no show snow day

I am not at work. There are a whole host of children being denied educational opportunities today on account of Teh Weather. Which is cloudy and cold, but not much else. Ahem. Anyway.

So here at the coffee shop, things are fab. The internets were down at home so I took full advantage of my "snow" day and went out for coffee. Mmmmm..... coffee.....

Everyone in the IVP seems to be fucking sick to death of February, myself included, and so here are some plum blossoms to remind us that Spring Is Coming. Soon.

many are the motherfucking obstacles in my path

No ttc this cycle (CD 11 today), nor likely any next cycle (CD 0 today). Bummer.

After last week's fab HSG, I put in a call to my RE and had the usual lovely chat with Martha, the keeper of all knowledge. Her offical title is something like receptionist or appointment maker, or something. But this woman holds me, and I'd bet many others, in the palm of her sweet, southern-accented hand. She is the gate keeper to the kingdom of fertility. Which is to say, she sets up your shit with the RE. Which is to say she has your charts at her fingertips and she'll whip them out, saying all the while, "now, just hang on...." She's sweet and knows my name and we will never see each other. She is in a totally different building than the RE and to me she is now and always will be a voice on the phone.

Anyway, I called Martha The Gate Keeper Friday and she said to call back Monday once the results from the dye-job had been sent over and so I called Monday and for some reason I cannot remember nothing happened and so she called me back Tuesday and we tried to figure if my next appointment with the RE was "time sensitive." To me it is, of course, but not really to my RE. He's big into not hurrying, gathering as much data as possible and then, finally, moving forward. So anyway, the upshot of it all is that he thinks I should go ahead and have old Polly the Polyp taken out and one of the nice, nice, nice doctors from Friday's HSG party is his friend and has been given the heads up about me and my fabulousness and so he is all set to go after old Polly with whatever one uses to remove such things. So after a trip through the university hospital's phone system - a trip riddled with blind allies and dead ends - I got a phone a call back from Dr. S's receptionist/gate keeper and she set me up an appointment for next Thursday. Woo! Right? Sort of. Thursday's appointment is for a pre-op meeting. Mostly paper signing, according to the receptionist/gate keeper. From there we'll set up the real-deal get that fucker out of there appointment. Lord. Which will be well into the next cycle, so no insems.

I'm struggling to keep up with all the good-for-me ttc shit - the temping and the pre-natals and the positive attitude. This feels like a break, damn it, but I had not planned on a break now. I had not planned on any more breaks at all in fact. This was the hell-bent-for-leather, throw-caution-to-the-wind phase of ttc that was going to end with a baby. But now I seem to be on a break. Back to the tattoo parlor and liquor cabinet with me.

lord.

Sophie, my pretend child, has gotten a cell phone. It's "sooo cool!" Heaven help us.

friday for the win!

From the beginning, because you know I love a list:

* all clear HSG. Spill on both sides, warmed gown from the nicest nurse in the world, totally cheerful and nice and again with the nice folks in Radiology, comforting but totally unnecessary hand holding from cho-girl, pretty pictures of my insides, polyp confirmation (whew - known is better than unknown, yes?) and also did I mention how nice? Those folks in Radiology - Teh Best. There were a million of them and they all introduced themselves ("Hi, I'm Dr. So-and-so, you can call me Stphanie" - love her.) and shook hands and explained exactly what they were going to be doing and laughed my my jokes and they didn't hurt me. Not a bit. The most amusing part was that Stephanie, my newest BFF, thought cho-girl was a Radiology tech, because she had on a lovely lead gown. And really, it was a lovely gown - flowered and with a nice embroidered "L" for lovely.

*breakfast at the diner after aforementioned hurt-free and all clear HSG. Out and about 10 am! Woo and Hoo! With bacon! And with a vastly entertaining Other Patron at the table next to us who drove up in his big maroon Cadi, walked in, ordered a whiskey on the rocks, chatted us up, realized he didn't have his wallet, left his drink and drove off to get his wallet and came back only to be joined by his wife. He was charming except he said I talk like a yankee.

*love from the internets.

*tidying to prepare for the arrival by train of Hard Girl and company. Yay! It's illness that brings them, but I'll take it.

*warm and amazing sun and did I mention warm? Warm enough to have the front door open - it's been since October since I've done that.

*walking downtown to the post office (I heart the USPS) with the Hard Girl Fam. So warm and lovely. Plus we got to hang with the post office guy because I was foolish enough to think that sending a package to Ireland would be a simple matter of a stamp. No, no - there's customs, you see. Heh. I was sending off my full pack of Instead Cups to another IVP kid, but the post office guy seemed pretty nonplussed when he asked me what was in the box and I said "feminine supplies." Perhaps he was too taken with Tiny Fruit Baby to be worried about what sort of things the IVP likes to put in it's respective hoohas. Anyway, I think my home insem days are done, and so I gleefully send off my Insteads and welcome the world of western meds with open arms.

*bacon from the neighbors. Yes, that's bacon from the neighbors. Pork belly from Polyface, some magic salt/brown sugar/spice thing plus curing in their shed equals bacon. From the neighbors. Damn. I've got a good half pound of it in the kitchen right now, waiting to be breakfast for the guests.

*errand running in the car. Not normally something I do, but there was the need for cat food, else I'd loose a limb. Plus, as the whole Hard Girl Extendo Fam is here, there is a grandma who needs a nightgown. So I went for cat food and debated Rose's vs. Kmart for the nightgown for about 1 minute before picking Rose's, which took me over the (small) mountain to the east of town, giving me the view to end all views - looking west to the other (larger) mountains as the sun set behind them. Holy fucking shit, y'all.

* CD release party not too far from home tonight. Out of the house is sometimes good for me

.

There were daffodils just blooming outside the hospital this morning and crocus by Main street. Two more weeks of February, kids. I think we'll make it.

moar humorous pics

mostly ttc shit

So I go tomorrow for the long awaited HSG, aka dye job, to illuminate my insides and confirm or deny Polyp the Possible. My transport and hand-holding will be courtesy of cho-girl, who will be treated to coffee after. I'm getting sort of psyched about seeing what my insides look like - the u/s doesn't really cut it for me. How do they read that shit? It looks like a bunch of gray dots to me; the only thing I saw that looked like anything at my last u/s was my fab 17 mm follicle. Everything else the RE pointed out I was all, "uh huh, uh huh, how about that? Huh. Sure. Looks good to me." So seeing my tubes and such will be fun. I'm less apprehensive than I was a few days ago (thanks for the comments, y'all - really, they were very reassuring and I've got my 800 mg of ibuprofen and my whiskey at the ready), and it will be nice to be doing *something*. As Jen pointed out, it sucks to be a regular at the RE's and not actively trying to make a baby. So doing something more than getting a cheap lube saturated wang cam scan and sending vats of my blood to the lab sounds good to me. Even if it does, you know, involve dye up my hooha.

In other news, the first ever CLAW bout was on Tuesday and was great. You know you're sorry you missed it. For your amusement, look here and here and here. And then come on down next month.

So me and cho-girl and Polyp the Possible will be down at the hospital tomorrow am, if you want to wave in our general direction. CD 6. Let's get this party started.

With all due respect, photo courtesy of Billy Hunt.

F your I

It is not cool - read very, very impolite - to ask certain questions, no matter how well intentioned. Among them: When will you get married? Are you dating anyone? Are you planning on having a baby? How was your colonoscopy? Guess which one I've been asked twice in less than a week? Once on the playground at school, with parrot-like 3 and 4 year olds around, not to mention highly attentive 5 year olds. *sigh*

(Which doesn't even begin to address the whole issue of professionalism - would you ask your doctor/lawyer/accountant a personal question while said professional was at his or her place of employ practicing his or her profession?)

does 2 in 1 night make up for it?

Remember when I hit you up for pictures of your kids? Yes, you do. Well, here's the result. If you want to know how the lobbying went down, Chicory has her usual dead-on take up for your perusal. There's some folks over in Utah who are busting their collective asses to make things right for their kids. For all of our kids. See, even in February, you can hang onto some hope.

(Click the picture in Keri's blog to enlarge and see if you can find kids you know. Sophie's in there, sticking her tongue out, right under the W.)

so much for that 3 posts a week bullshit

Have you missed me? Oh, poor us! It's been so long. And there's nothing to tell. No thing. Honest.

It's February. *sigh* There's been work and some blood draws (I have the dubious distinction of having gone to the RE's enough now that the lab techs recognize me) and more work and sitting around wishing the house was cleaner and cursing the cat-diarrhea and sleeping. Boring. I know. I'm living it. There's no sun (well, not enough for me) and the weather has had moments of decency, but no snow. I call for a blizzard or for May. Enough of this winter shit. As SJ said, "Go Team February! Mascot: apathy."

Tonight for dinner I raided the freezer for the last of one bag of last summer's broccoli. And had it with tiny elbow macaroni and sausage from Babes in the Wood. It was like locavore hamburger helper. I kept expecting the little hand guy from the commercials to pop out, only he'd have an ironic baseball cap on and carry a banjo and he'd want to have a serious conversation about how his time as a WWOOFer had helped him reconnect with The Land.

There's some radioactive dye in my uterus's future. Woo. And now for the audience participation section of this blog: How much and what sort of pain meds did you take for your HSG? When did you take them? I'm not so much for the invasive medical procedures, for all my love of the needles at the RE's lab.

random friday randomness

In list form! For you! (Ok, really for me, the lover of lists)

*Cappy-icy-pseudo-snow-day. There was ice, sort of, and so school opened late, which was great, but the weather was crap. We are Richmond again. *sigh* If it will not really snow, it should be May already. Because the weather should bend to my whim.

* 5 dpo blood work. Scheduled early in the am so as not to require a sub at school (and the roads were so fine - see above). Charming woman and her 2 children also in for early am blood work present and accounted for. Waiting rooms are like heaven to me. Really. Also nice lab tech. Also, I kind of like having blood drawn. Honest. Plus! Bonus! No co-pay! Woo and hoo!

*Aye. The moodiness on the way home from above blood work. Aye. Related to: recently discovered differences in so called "core values" with some folks. Crap. Not that mine are better, but really, I can't roll with Teh Discrimination based on anything. Just can't. Plus, being taken to task about a whole other set of gender issues. Aye. Can't we all just get along and not exclude folks? Moodiness also related to general ttc angst. I'd like my baby now, please.

*Driving home of the friend of Sophie. Usually this friend walks, but it was nasty (see above) and this semester in gym is All Swimming All the Time (or at every other day), so both girls had wet hair and so I gave her a ride. Much to Sophie's delight. There has been Teh Drama Among Tweener Friends of late and it is Teh Hard. Poor Soph.

*Popcorms.

*Random unexpected visit from old friend A who is back in the country (and has a nice new car!). We had Jack Daniels and a fire and visited and visited. So good. So, so good.

*Feeling Badness over bailing on a commitment. One of the things I hate most. But it had to be done. Aye. Upsetting people is Teh Hard.

*Mail! Brought in by old friend A (see above) and containing a nice, nice letter from my insurance company, expressing their desire to pay for my upcoming HSG! Anthem - my new BFF. Thank you, oh thank you, great-but-under-paid teaching job that keeps me fully insured.

also...

In the same Not Me - You! vein as the last post, go check out Lesbian Dad's series of the week about Being a Baba And How She Got There. Excellent as usual.

Do yourself a favor and start with Monday's, then move on to Tuesday's, then do today's and go back for more for the whole rest of the week. You won't be sorry.

do unto others

For Cali:


moar funny pictures


And for Chicory:

Check out this and this and then send in your cutest pictures of your kids. What's not to love about this deal? Show off your kid anonymously, help change stupid, stupid laws. Ideal.
(You can send pics to me - starrhillgirl@gmail.com - if you'd rather.)

the long goodbye

It was goodbye to the Saab today, my dearly beloved car. You'll remember my love/hate relationship with cars - hate car culture, love my car, love going for a drive - or maybe you won't. Either way, today was the end; today I sent my car away.

Some time ago, back when I was even smaller than I am now, we lived with some friends for a month or so while our house was being finished (actually, while we waited and waited for there to be a working well, but that's another story). These friends had a Saab each and I loved them (the friends and the Saabs). My 11th birthday, they gave me a model Saab, which I loved and wrote an ode to in my English class. It went something like this:

You are red and you are black
With a gold interior
**blah, blah, can't remember the middle part**
**blah, some other stuff I can't remember**
My Saab 900 Turbo.

Literary gold, y'all - at age 11! Anyway, Saabs - I've loved them since childhood. I learned to drive on a Saab, and have had no other car to my name since. And this last one, it's been Teh Best. 16 valve, so I can really kick some Other Car Ass; smooth, cool "rose quartz" paint job; rear hatch that, when the back seat was down made it almost like a truck; sunroof for extra breezes; the mileage could make a hybrid stand up and take notice. It made it through me helping a couple people into the wide and wonderful world of standard transmissions and never needed a clutch job. There were more Sunday afternoon drives through rural Virginia with LB and mixed tapes (mixed tapes?!) than there are stars in the sky and still there were less than 200k miles on it.

And it was mine, in that way things are when you really, really love them. I'd been driving it for so long, it felt like an extension of my being. I knew the sweet spot on the clutch like I know my name. The steering wheel must have had imprints from my hands on it. I could pop-start the motherfucker on a flat stretch of gravel with my foot out the door.

Good old car. It was 21 this year. I patted it fondly as I took all my shit out of the trunk.

But today was the end. I posted it for parts on Craigslist (I thought about posting last week's unused sperm there, too - or maybe on Freecycle....) and got an email from some guy in the Valley saying he'd take it. So he came today and turned out be this scrappy little indy kid (or, rather, the kind of boy the indy kids *want* to look like) with a hat that said "ugly stick" on it and grease covered jeans. Totally adorable. So I was less sad, just because he was cute. He let me drive it up the ramps onto the trailer (woo! new skill!) and mentioned he runs demolition derby. He says my car runs so well he might use it for that! A far more glamorous end than rusting in a junk yard.

Oh, farewell, my dearly beloved car. Farewell.

oh, the agony....

My L-word dealer is out of town. No fix for me this week. Ack. I've been distracting myself with this. Warning - spoilers and sooooo NSW (nudity *and* guns).

Did anybody make dinner this week? I forgot. But next Sunday, I'm all over it. Tell me what you're bringing so I can menu plan.


Oh, god. You're all watching it right now! I'm dying.....

coming soon to a diner near you...

Well, the diner near me, that is. Yes, it's CLAW. C***** Lady's Arm Wrestling. Here's a sneak preview with Down Low Cho and Lefty Red.

the dice, there are none

Despite the fact that Fed Ex managed to make a timely delivery of sperm, there will be no insemination this weekend. My u/s today showed what the RE thinks might be a polyp in my uterus - not a big deal and easy to get rid of if that is indeed what it is, but it is not desirable to try to grow a baby in an already occupied uterus. So no dice.

On the brighter side, I had one perfect 17mm follicle on the left and a nice 11 mm lining, which seems good for CD 13. I've got my operating instructions for when to call for luteal phase blood work and my appointment for next cycles HSG (which will clarify the polyp issue) and free reign to drink whiskey all weekend.