Julia

Two Up

Second HCG - 755

So it, what? Tripled? Well, whatever it did, it is good.

Now, I am hosting a book club tonight (I KNOW! *ME*!) so I have to figure out how to reduce the cat hair on the couch by at least 60%. Also I bought about 40 lbs of cheese and a ream of crackers so I need to arrange it all attractively on platters and whatnot. Hostess-y things.

Back tomorrow.   

PS Since it is my house I got to pick the book. I went with Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. So far I have heard that one woman isn't coming tonight because after the first thirty pages or so she hated the characters with a passion and knowing that I liked it so much.... WELL. Of course, with all due respect to the woman, um, show of hands, who won the Pulitzer here? Huh? I didn't think so.

And au contraire on my having the social chops to round up this little gathering. I actually whined myself into this group in a most embarrassing and puerile way. You would be ashamed of me. I shall confess the details tomorrow.

One Down

My friend Julie had a hearty laugh at my expense this morning when I asked, in all sincerity, where the transducer (is it called a transducer? the wand thing?) goes for a breast ultrasound. She pointed out that they probably use the same flat thing that they use for an abdominal scan. I was gobsmacked.

But she was right. They do.

The breast is fine. Not even a cyst. Just some inflamed glands that the radiologist delicately explained with the term "related to hormonal changes".   

Next up: call from OB's office giving me yesterday's hcg levels. I suppose we could have gotten them STAT! but why?

First Of Many(Mini)

OK. This just in:

Lovenox DOES burn. The needle itself is not terrible but the stuff stings. It is, however, better than dropping a piano on your foot. I am not saying that is the alternative but it could be, so, you know, just think about that, eh.

Also, hcg level Monday was 245.

For those of you who do not obsess over these things I shall recap by saying: it is a good number. We like that number. It is the first decent initial beta I have had in a looooong time.

For those of you who DO obsess: well! I know! huh! I am trying to figure out just how many days past ovulation I was yesterday, really, and I think about 12. Maybe 14. I took a pregnancy test on Wednesday that was emphatically negative and then one on Thursday that was light-of-a-thousand-suns-faint (copyright julie all rights reserved). Why was I taking daily pregnancy tests when I thought this month was a washout due to illness? Um, I don't know. What do you do in your spare time?

SO.

Further updates as events warrant. Actually I want to write a post about my progress in the area of making friends so I might slide that in there.  We shall see.

Working Title: Love In A Time Of Cholera

In keeping with my pledge to provide 100% Real narrative arc in every post (mostly apple) I tried to come up with a way to make this all neat and tidy as I drove home today.

I gave up.

Usually when that happens I just cheat and create bullet points. Bullet points give the illusion of contained narrative while leaping wildly from subject to subject. However, in this instance, numbering topics 1 and 2 as "One" and "Two" seems either disingenuous or just daft.

A few weeks ago I noticed that my right breast is weird. Felt weird. I wouldn't say it has a lump, exactly, but it certainly has a mass of some sort. Something mass-y. Mass-like. I called my OB's office and asked to come in for a breast check, which was scheduled for this afternoon.

Meanwhile, back at Rancho Relaxo, the sex that was pre-empted by the horrible virus of great horribleness apparently caught up with the ovulation that was similarly detained and, if about 8 home pregnancy tests over the past three days are to be believed (and they are), I am pregnant. OK, fine. I am pregnant... AGAIN. I actually had to ask Steve and he is not the most reliable source but I think this makes eleven. Just to clarify, because I made a similar statement when informing you of Pregnancy Nine and some yabbo commented saying, "Omigod I can't imagine having nine kids you must be sooooooooo tired", the first ten pregnancies have only yielded one child. Not exactly a bumper crop but I am not complaining.

Actually, I am sooooooooo tired. I usually do not respond to the first five seconds of pregnancy by coopting any and all possible symptoms like some ingenue pregnant-come-lately but I have to admit I am having my ass kicked over here. I am exhausted, starving, I have gained four pounds (I kid you not) since last Thursday and the second line went from palest pale to darkest violet in about two days. So maybe I am finally getting those triplets everyone keeps promising me.   

I went for the breast check today and my OB did the outer loop and said, no, she didn't really feel anything unusual and then she moved to the inner loop and paused and prodded and said, "Yeah, ok. Let's get you a breast ultrasound scheduled for this week. Probably a cyst but... ."

That is going to take place on Thursday morning.

Then we did an hcg check (results back tomorrow) and the nurse came in to show me how to use the Lovenox I will be injecting until it no longer makes sense to inject it (excuse me, that implies that it makes sense to be injecting Lovenox in the first place, which to be honest it does not. I carry a single gene MTHFR mutation, a condition that is present in 50% of the caucasian population. to treat anything that is so prevalent as a disease state is ludicrous. however, in the actual words of my actual OB, "let's just throw the fucking kitchen sink at this one, shall we?") As an IVF graduate I impatiently waved the nurse's well-intentioned instructions away and started checking between my toes for a clean site to shoot. I am very impressed with the world of non-IVF injectibles by the way. Each dose comes pre-measured in its own handy needle-attached syringe and it cost me $24 in toto. I hear Lovenox burns and causes bruising but, hell, what a deal.

So, the events calendar for the week reads:

Tuesday - Initial hcg quant. results

Wednesday - Second hcg draw

Thursday am - Breast ultrasound   

Thursday pm - Second hcg quant. results

I think that covers it. Now I am going to bed. Hope you are well.

Kids- You Can't Lock 'Em In Their Rooms. Can You?

We have a situation over here. The fact that you warned me this would happen does not make it any easier either. Several months ago Patrick transitioned effortlessly from his crib to a bed. Granted, he was almost three and a half so I wouldn't say it wasn't a bit overdue, but one night he slept in the crib and the next he was in the bed. No big deal. I put him in the crib for naps for another month or so but eventually we reached a two week period during which he would fall asleep in his crib but then wake up crying inconsolably twenty minutes later. I never did figure out what that was about but I decided we needed to stop it. So we took the crib away (it only occurred to me afterward that this was a symbolic moment fraught with poignancy. I went and stared mournfully at the closet where we put the crib parts but somehow it wasn't the same) and that was the end of all napping.

I have tried to put him down for a nap in his bed. Really I have. I have tried reading to him in his chair, reading to him in his bed, lying down with him, telling him firmly he must go to sleep now, putting the door knob thing back on so he has to stay in there... nothing works. When the door thing is on he plays for a while and then just comes to his door and politely yells, "I would like to come out now, please" over and over until I free him. When I put him in his bed he just keeps coming to find me and cheerfully announces he had a GREAT nap but he is up now. Not to call him a liar, but I seriously doubt how great of a nap he could have in the ninety seconds that elapses between my shutting the door to his room and his popping up behind me in the kitchen. Oh, and the time I tried to lie down with him Patrick showed up in Steve's office saying, "Mommy is asleep in my bed and she has Bear." He had even turned off the light and shut the door quietly when he left me there sleeping, which was nice of him.      

So, unless you can think of something, the nap is gone. And play-quietly-in-your-room-until-I-come-to-get-you time is a joke. He is like mercury, sliding all over the place in tiny beads until he re-forms elsewhere, generally about six inches away from me.

I am having to adjust to doing more things with a shadow (yesterday I took a shower while Patrick sat on the toilet lid swinging his legs and asking me how many water there is in a shower) but it is fine. By "fine" I mean that I must accept that which I cannot change although I used to get so much done in the afternoon. So much! If you have any ideas on how to get rid of him for an hour each day I would be all over it. Not to mention the fact that I do not think his body is quite ready to give up the nap yet. By five each afternoon he starts looking like a Tim Burton character, all purple-gray shadow and waxiness. And he is soooooo tired by bedtime. The other night we read a few books and then went to brush his teeth before reading one more story in bed. I put toothpaste on the brush and when I turned around he was gone. I found him in bed, tucked in with Bear, half-way through a book. When I walked in he skipped to the last page, read it, flung the book on the floor, rolled on his side and said, "Goodnight, mommy" with his back to me. He was asleep before I closed the door. Which is great and all, but it was, like, ONE MINUTE after seven. So he now wakes up at SIX. And this week he realized that he can just come downstairs when he wakes up instead of playing quietly in his room like a sucker.

In an effort to modify this behavior I put the digital clock from a guest room into his bedroom (he is still wildly erratic in telling analog time- sometimes he is right, sometimes it is nine hundred o'clock). I told him that morning starts at 7:30, so please to stay put until then. Unless it is an emergency. A REAL emergency. The first morning we tried it I heard his little voice through the baby monitor saying, "It's 6:17. It is not morning yet. It is not 7:30". And I burrowed into my pillow with a huge smile because I am obviously a genius. Half a second later the voice said, "I'd better go tell Mommy and Daddy" and half a second after that Patrick and I were nose to nose. "It is not 7:30 yet," he told me.   

I am tired. I am very tired. Insomniac parents need to have insomniac children.   

Dinner In Minutes

All right, all right. Settle down, folks. We are getting as naughty as they were being. I will stop encouraging you and you can stop encouraging me and we will all turn our attention to loftier matters. Like food.

I am in conversation with a blog designer who assures me that we can do something to make it easier to get recipes up and make changes to them. Like, I want to make a note in the spicy shrimp pasta recipe that says you really do not have to use an entire cup of olive oil (I get emails asking me about this all the time) but I would have to do the page all over again just to make that leetle change. And that would be a pain. Besides olive oil contains GOOD cholesterol, GOOD cholesterol.

I foresee a whole new future for us, one in which we can exchange recipes easily. Perhaps even make them searchable! And organize them into categories! Just think about how delightful that will be.

In the meantime I thought I would post my favorite 7 Ingredient (More or Less) Recipe and ask for yours:

My Friend Fernanda's Excellent Easy Pasta 

1 lb pasta (I like farfalle for this, but anything with nooks would be nice)

3-4 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 jar kalamata olives, chopped

a few slices of red onion, minced very very fine

2 cans good quality tuna in olive oil, not drained

about half a package of crumbled feta cheese

fresh basil if you have it, slivered

Cook the pasta and then toss it with everything in a big bowl. Add olive oil by the teaspoonful until it feels a little less dry.

This is an easy, pantry ready dinner and it tastes SO GOOD. You could also add fresh diced tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, capers, roasted red pepper... you get the idea.

What do you like to throw together? Share please.

Finally, as a former marketer (albeit a bad one) I know that nothing evokes good feelings like pictures of puppies and babies. I do not have a puppy and Patrick is no longer a baby but here... a portrait of Patrick and Bear at Christmas.

Aren't they sweet?

Nasty Blog II

I am feeling uncomfortable and I really hate feeling uncomfortable. Every single time I interest myself in these online dramas I always end up feeling crummy. You would think that I could learn....

I have been guilty of a factual error and I am compelled to correct it, despite the fact that I have a burning desire to never write about any of this again.

This morning I actually read the blog I wrote about yesterday (I had previously just seen the offending text) and I discovered that "secret" was a serious misnomer on my part. "Brazen but private" would have been more accurate. She stated with absolute candor that she wanted to write mean things about other bloggers and then she went to some lengths to limit who was able to see those mean things. Fair enough, I guess. Carry on.

In sum: It has occurred to me that the much lauded Freedom to Read principle is a double-edged sword. While I encourage people who are sick of misinterpreting my posts about Patrick to simply not read my blog (it is quite easy, really. first you must decide to not read me first thing in the morning. then you move on to dropping the after-lunch hippogriffs blog read. gradually you will taper off  throughout the day [perhaps by substituting chewing gum or tobacco] and after a few weeks you will discover that you are entirely Julia-free and feeling half your age) I also understand that I have the option to not read comments on other blogs about how much people dislike me.

To be honest, I cannot imagine myself sitting down to write nasty things about other bloggers in a quasi-public forum. I would HATE myself afterward and I prefer to spend my leisure time in constructive and benign ways (reading to the blind, rescuing stray kittens, studying the laws of thermodynamics, etc.) That said, to each her own. Vade in pace.

Oh, and here is the damned link to the public blog. The Big Bad Blog Awards are what I have been referring to. Enjoy the snark if you are in the mood for that sort of thing. If you are feeling more saintly may I suggest the delightful works of EF Benson?

I feel better. Now let us never speak of it again.    

The Twelve Hour Post

Hi.

I noticed a weird skin lesion on my shoulder just after the New Year so I called to make an appointment with an actual dermatologist. As much as I like my primary care physician (which is honestly just "some"- I like him "some") I can only conclude from the heinous scar on my abdomen that he flunked Knife 101 in med school. Probably more than once. So if we are going to be doing a lot of excavations into my pinky-white flesh (and I suspect we will be over the years) I think it is best to establish care with someone who deals exclusively in skin and scalpels. Originally my appointment was scheduled for the third week of March but when the shoulder thing started bleeding a few days ago I called the office to see if they might possibly get me in sooner. My experience with Steve the other week has taught me that the magic word with scheduling is "emergency" and lo and sure enough it worked. I met the new doctor this morning and moments later he was neatly slicing into me. He also checked me all over for anything else that might be strange and I now proudly hold a clean bill of epidermal health. Except for the shoulder thing, which is pending and might be awful. I mean it just started oozing blood for no reason whatsoever. Most disturbing. Like a horror movie shown during Health.

Good grief, Health! I haven't thought about that class in years. I think the suburbs are a little bit more refined in their approach to educating America's blossoming man and womanhood but in the District public schools nobody gave a fuck so we just saw an abnormal quantity of photographs of diseased penises. One of the gym teachers would stand in front of the room shouting "Guys! Do you want your johnson to look like that? Ladies? Do you want to pop that in your pocket? DO YOU??? Then don't have sex. Ever. Now put your heads on your desks until the bell rings."

No news on that front, by the way. The sex/pregnancy front, I mean, not the diseased penis front. There is no diseased penis front. At least, not... nevermind. I did not get pregnant last month and I think I ovulated during the Days of Contagion so it is unlikely I got pregnant this month either. You know what? I used to avidly read "trying to conceive" diaries and I thought they were absolutely fascinating but I now have no idea how that could be possible. Unless you are using ART it is a rather cut-and-dried proposition, a flowchart if you will: Ovulating? Yes/No- Sex? Yes/No- Pregnant? Yes/No--- repeat until you succeed or give up. Not all that gripping.

I was reading a nasty little blog a few weeks ago... wait, let me digress. This is a legitimate question, why do people write nasty little blogs? I mean blogs that exist solely to write nasty things about other blogs? Just the other day I was criticized in somebody's super secret side blog (not so secret I guess, whoops) for bragging unduly about how smart Patrick is. I don't remember the exact wording but it was something along the lines of how sick they were of hearing about my "darling boy". They also noted that lots of kids read early so Patrick isn't even all that bright. Which was a relief, frankly, because I had been worried that we might need to make an effort to see that Patrick is challenged in school but, whew, dodged that bullet. Please allow me to stress, because I might have been a little vague about this the last time we spoke of it, that I think it is absolutely amazing and wonderful that Patrick can work multi-factor equations in his head and I am so proud of myself for being his mother and I am certain that his precocious mathematical abilities are linked to the fact that I have personally done everything right from the moment of his conception. Because highly intelligent people are always happy and successful and by creating a highly intelligent child I have fulfilled my goddamned destiny so I am just thrilled about the whole thing and I pity you if you have a child who can *just* draw or sing or throw well or be kind. I am glad we have cleared that up.

Not to sound prissy, but I write this blog because I like to do it. That's it. My only reason for keeping this blog is that it gives me pleasure to write it and even more pleasure to read your comments. I don't want to educate anyone, sell anything, write the Great American Blog or give a voice to an unrepresented anything. I just like to write here. I like your comments and your advice and I like it when you make me laugh. It is pretty simple.

Anyway I was reading a different, nastier blog a while ago and it expressed extreme irritation at infertility bloggers and how hurt they seem to be all the time. Specifically, the writer was outraged by the fact that 9 out of 10 infertile bloggers will inevitably write a post that goes something like: "Fuck (my sister-in-law/neighbor/boss) is pregnant. Fuck." I did not dignify this blog with a comment but I have been thinking about it ever since. I think the immediacy of infertility escapes people who have not experienced it. Take, for example, the case of a bereaved pet owner. If you came upon your friend 15 minutes after his dog was killed and you found him weeping uncontrollably for his loss you would say: there, there, I know it is hard, Bowser was a great dog, one of the best, there there. If you came upon this same friend 15 years later and he was still in a state of inconsolable grief.... well, you might think it was time for him to get a grip. Hell, if you wanted to be trendy you could start a whole blog called My Ex-RoomMate Had A Dog Die in the 1980s and He Still Isn't Over It- What a Loser and then you could password protect it but let so many people have passwords that inevitably someone would mail the entire contents to the friend and he could see what an asshole everyone thinks he is. Wouldn't that be fun? Oops, I digressed again. 

Anyway, few people get an infertility diagnosis all at once. It comes in dribs and drabs. Some hope, some hopelessness, some hope again. There is rarely a crystallized dead-dog moment that you get to move on from, it is much more fluid than that and therefore it takes a long time to process. So that knee-jerk "Fuck!" is never far off. 

I am feeling pretty good about just having Patrick. It was not the ideal for us, but we feel lucky and we are happy with what we have been given. We will keep trying for another child for as long as that makes sense for us, but I have really accepted the fact that it probably will not happen. I feel nicely balanced in this area, finally. That said, I know my sister-in-law is trying to get pregnant with her second child and there is a tiny part of me all balled up waiting for that jubilant phone call. And when it happens I am sure I will want to run over here and say "FUCK!" really loudly. Just because.

I frequently open my mouth and start singing whatever comes to mind. This afternoon it was that 70s song that goes "Last night I couldn't get to sleep at all no no nooooooooo". Patrick instantly responded by singing, tunelessly of course, "Last night I went to sleep and then I woke up in the morning and I had breakfast and played yes yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees". Hmmm, it was cuter when he did it.

Can you guys recommend a blog designer, by the way? I want someone to help me create some sort of idiot-proof template that will help me get some more recipes up. I have a few good new ones to share but my skills are so limited when it comes to posting anything that it takes me forever to do so. Lemme know if you can think of someone who could help me. For money, of course.

Elective

I must retract my previous statement concerning the wonder of hair straightening. It is now three weeks'ish later and my hair is back to being as curly and bottom-heavy as it ever was. A few quick calculations lead me to believe that sustained linear gloriousness would come at a cost of approximately $2500 a year, not to mention my suspicion that after a few months of repeated straightening all the hair would probably just fall out in protest. So January's radiance has faded to February's pyramidism and I suppose it was ever thus. Nothing gold, et cetera, Ponyboy (I regret the fact that I did not write The Outsiders at the age of 19. it would have been a nice accomplishment and certainly beats what I actually did at 19, which to the best of my recollection was a couple of bartenders, a lacrosse player, a few classmates, a drummer and a Baltimore city cop. but I digress.)

I just had a good spat with Steve during the course of which I accused him of taking advantage of his gimpiness and he pulled the old Do you not see that I am WORKING for MONEY over here defense. We were both right. In column A we have the fact that Steve spent the weekend leaping about on one leg framing the foundation for the new laundry room (uh, we are expanding the kitchen by pushing it into the existing laundry room space and are starting by building a new laundry room/mud room off the side of the house. ostensibly we are doing this because our current kitchen layout prohibits us from opening the dishwasher and refrigerator simultaneously [which is a lot more annoying than you might think]. the truth is that Steve just loves to tear things down and build new ones in their place. it is not a bad hobby, really, but I say if you are well enough to knock a hole in the dining room wall while my family is visiting then you are certainly well enough to put your empty juice glass in the dishwasher without my assistance) and yet he has been unable to put Patrick to bed for two weeks or do anything with his dirty socks beyond stripping them from his feet and leaving them where they lie. I mean, come on. In column B it is true he was sitting in his office working when I came in to yell at him for being such a lump.

I think we talked about this before (remember that time I bit Steve on the leg?) but I do like a good fight. Steve is one of those impassive silent types and my experience with him has been that he occasionally needs a little prodding. For example, I snapped at him as I was putting Patrick to bed the other night after making dinner/cleaning the kitchen/putting away the laundry/wiping up the cat vomit/replacing his ice pack for the zillionth time. Then I felt guilty for being shrewish, so when I came downstairs I apologized and explained that I was feeling stretched a little thin between having to take over all of the domestic responsibilities that we traditionally share and Patrick's new found desire to spend every waking moment within poking distance of me. I told him I was sorry he was injured and that I loved him madly. He said, "Uh-huh. Yeah. Good" and kept typing. And the next day I put Patrick to bed/made dinner/cleaned the kitchen/wiped up the cat vomit and replaced Steve's ice pack a zillion times. Nothing changed.

This morning I said, "GODDAMNIT! The next pair of underpants that fails to make it into the dirty clothes hamper, cast or no cast, I am going to batter, fry and stuff down your fucking throat." And then I said some things and he said some things and then I told him I would like to pound him into unconciousness with his own crutch and he said he wished I would, if only to get a blessed release from the irritant of my conversation and I said, hmm, good one, and he said, thank you, and then there we were, sweethearts still. More importantly he took Patrick for half an hour when the child came home from preschool and when the grocery order arrived Steve emerged from his lair to help put the yogurt away. So it was a productive argument all around. Do you fight? Do you like it?

(Hmmm, my grocery service seems to have accidentally given me an eggplant. How do you accidentally pull an eggplant? They are so very distinctive. And now I guess I have to make ratatouille with it unless... is there anything else you can do with an eggplant? I mean, besides baba ganoush because I find it slimy and unpleasant.)

Oh! Food! Wheat berries! I am madly in love with wheat berries right now. I like the texture and they are just so darned wholesome, you know, but I am not sure what else to do with them besides add some herbs and feta. I am certain that they have a destiny beyond a mere tabbouleh knock-off but what that might be eludes me. Suggestions welcomed.

And speaking of suggestions this is the rug we hung on the bedroom wall, per the decorating dilemma we discussed a billion years ago. Steve completely surprised me with the rug for Christmas and I love it. I don't know how well the color translates on your screen but it is quite a bright red and there is a nice slate blue in there as well. Your mission (should you choose to accept it, naturally) is to help me find some complimentary bedding. SEE? SEE the Awful Duvet of Incomprehensible AWFULNESS? SEE IT? And we are replacing the traveling plaid loveseat (it was a mistake from the beginning eight years ago and has now served time in our room, Steve's office, the basement, the foyer and on a porch- soon it will be freecycled and, one hopes, learn to love again) with a more dimunitive chair and a half and I am wondering, can I just upholster it in a solid matching red?   

PS I once read an essay by Mark Crispin Miller in which he essentially accused The Cosby Show of creating consumerism and the evil of conspicuous consumption in this country. I thought I would direct your attention to this essay just in case you got confused and thought *I* was behind it. Because I am not.      

PPS Oh CURSE YOU FlippyO for exposing my unarmored flank! You KNOW I meant complementary! Right? RIGHT?

PPPS (These postscipts are sort of fun, like having a dialogue) Re. Window Treatments. Yeah, you think? The wall you cannot see is primarily a big bay window and it weeps (weeps!) for a little fabric from which to peep coyly behind. Steve, however, is powerfully opposed to all curtains drapes blinds shades valances jalousies and/or shutters. One might even say he is irrational on the subject. Many's the time I have timidly suggested that the merest wisp of sheer muslin, a misting, an elf's bridal veil, would make the exterior wall of our marital sanctuary a wee bit less like the Unblinking Eye of Sauron, only to have Steve lock me in the coal cellar. So yes! But no.   

PPPPS (Last one, I swear) Aveda. Aveda straightening, Aveda shampoo, Aveda conditioner, Aveda gel mousse spray creme oil and unguent. Aveda.

Ongoing

This second post is being brought to you at the direct expense of Patrick's intellectual development. Now that he has stopped taking a nap (did I tell you that? well, did you hear my high pitched cries of distress? that was why) I find myself with little free time in the afternoons. During the golden hours in which I used to study my split ends, chop garlic for dinner and translate Proust I am now building a lot of marble runs. Not that I am complaining exactly, I like marble runs, it is just there is much uninterrupted oneness between child and self between the hours of 7am and 7pm these days and that leaves little time for me to be all introspective on the old blog. Although I asked Patrick to let there be spaces in our togetherness; Patrick said, "No" (I sort of just used this quote in a message to a friend but I think she, like, died or something, so I will reuse it shamelessly).

Anyway he is watching a Little People claymation video and I am writing this quickly.

Taking it from the bottom, what is bedtime soup? What, are you kidding me? Bedtime soup is soup that you take to bed with you and eat while you read your book after the entire house has fallen asleep. It is the best soup of the day, even better than hangover soup or lets-just-have-soup-and-bread-for-dinner soup. Sometimes I take soup out of the freezer (remember when I bought the world's largest stock pot and made the world's largest quantity of beef vegetable soup? well I am on the second round of that now) but sometimes I indulge myself with a piping hot mugful of Lipton's Extra Noodle Noodle soup (the Extra is for Salty, scientists are trying to figure out how a product can be made entirely from sodium chloride and not actually be just a hunk of salt). And you cannot eat bedtime soup out of a weensy mug or god forbid a bowl because you will burn yourself and get soup all over the sheets. You can eat it out of a John Deere mug, but why?

Okey-dokey on the silent e mugs. I shall create and apprise you of said creation. As for cost, I dunno, how about whatever they cost me plus a dollar for Patrick's college fund (I assume he will want to start a college. Abraham Pierson did after all, and who was Abraham Pierson?) I'll let you know. I just thought it would be a fun thing for us to have, by the way, I am not starting a cottage industry or anything. OK, maybe t-shirts too. But that's it. Aw, and little silent e light switch covers! How stylish.

Aw DAMN IT, if offering a VIDEO to a media-deprived child doesn't buy me more than 10 minutes by myself..... gak.

Back later. Patrick and his father, the one I now call Burden (the cast! is gone! but a new cast! is in its fucking place! for SIX! more! weeks!) are asking me to play hide-and-go-seek with them. Who am I to resist them, hein?