Julia

Alrighty Then

Tonight's order will be chronological. The stream will be of consciousness. Bear with me. Having left Steve to his own devices for the past three days I am being heavily pressured to abandon the internet (you! he wants me to abandon you!) and come downstairs to watch SG-1 with him. An SG-1 into which Ben Browder has not yet entered, I add darkly.

So this will have to be quick. Vite! Aprisa aprisa!

I went to Blogher. It was rather fun and rather ridiculous and I am quite glad I went although I do not know if I would ever go again. One thing of note for my infertile blogging friends: DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. Do not go. Do not ever ever go to Blogher. From the bib in the registration bag o' loot to the overwhelming mommyblogdaciousness of everything you will want to drown yourself in the pool after you poke out your eyes with the complimentary corkscrew. Seriously. No one's fault, nature of the beast, organic rather than intended but there it is. Trust me. Being a mommy blogger myself (of a kind. granted one with her very own attendant mini-Reaper) I had no problem with it all but quite a few times Julie and I (alittleJulie was there. we were adjacent roomies. I am not sure if I am supposed to say that or not so, um, keep it quiet unless she mentions it, ok?) noted that the events were not so very infertile-friendly.

Where was I?

Oh, right. It was fun, though. And funny.

Here:

Julie procured a Coke for me from a machine, which she proceeded to open in the rental car. It foamed over the top.

"Suck it!" I squealed.

"No," she replied.

Pause.

"Shortest porn film ever," she said.    

Thursday night my plane was delayed for three hours. I did the sensible thing and took my book to the closest airport bar. I had a glass of wine and read until a lifeguard from Huntington Beach decided to tell me his life story. He had come to Minnesota to surf Lake Superior (righteous!) and I think that is all we need to say about him. I eventually extricated myself and wandered back to my gate (F2), only to discover that it was eerily empty. I swore, delicately, and went to check the departures board. Where I discovered that my flight was now departing from G20. In three minutes.

I ran.

I ran and swore much less delicately and paused to gulp air and then ran some more. After about ten years of this I was rewarded for my Herculean efforts by the sight of a nice line of people still boarding at the new gate. Score. Then I realized I was going to throw up.

I was the last person on that plane with about thirty seconds to spare.

I would be lying to you if I told you that I did not immediately leap to the conclusion that I was pregnant. I mean, come on. I threw up! It is a sitcom-classic symptom. Then I used the airplane lavatory and discovered some discreet spotting. Spotting! At, like, nine days past possible unintended ovulation! Twelve little elves spelling I-M-P-L-A-N-T-A-T-I-O-N with their bodies could not have been any more clear. 

But the next day the spotting got a little heavier and I wavered in my womanly certainty. Then Julie and went to lunch in Palo Alto and I excused myself from the table to discover that I had vastly overestimated the power of the pantyliner (oh just look away if this grosses you out. honestly) I spent another few hours sort of kidding myself that it was anything other than a period before the frequent need for new tampons led me to throw in the towel and declare this ridiculous cycle a complete wash. Two days of bleeding seems conclusive, yes? Yes.

And yet...

I rolled over this morning and screamed as my breasts hit the mattress. So I did what any obsessive person would do, I took a home pregnancy test out of my trusty home pregnancy test cabinet and I tested.

And instantly saw a second line as black as the shades of Hades. I went for an hcg test today (embarrassed as hell, may I add), results back tomorrow.

So, yay, I guess! Also, whoops. Also, huh? Finally, yes, Virginia, apparently you can have sex twice on the day you get canceled with six follicles over 14 but under 18 and still get pregnant. Which looks sort of obvious when I write it out like that but it certainly did not seem obvious at the time. 

I am... well, embarrassed but I said that already. Also, damn, I don't know. Too late to do anything differently now. Might as well enjoy it while I can. I am pregnant for the twelfth time. That must be good for something right?

PS An enormous congratulations to Karen on her referral today. Have you seen how cute her daughter is? I suspect the reason it is so hot around here is that Karen's palpable joy is steaming up the place. With good reason.

Au Naturel

Diane left a comment on my last post concerning the mixed bathing party I had with Patrick yesterday. She wondered at what age it becomes inappropriate/unhealthy/weird/wrong/whatever for children to see their parents naked. And I thought, huh, damned if I know. It had never occurred to me that it could be an issue and my knee-jerk reaction was along the lines of "Oh for heavens' sakes... human body... natural, normal, healthy, etc..." but I suppose there probably IS a time when familes that frolic together thusly get called Those Hippies Down The Road. Not that there is anything wrong with that but one should probably be aware when it is happening to you.

I assume you guys have given this more thought than me. You usually have about most things. What do you think?   

(I am getting on a plane in an about hour but I'll be back Sunday. I feel strangely pregnant. I cannot decide if I am just fucking with myself or if there is a possibility that Bizarre intersected with Coincidence and we conceived during the cycle that wasn't.)

Minutiae

I felt a little guilty when preschool ended abruptly around Memorial Day and I realized that I had not gotten Patrick enrolled in anything for the summer. It hadn't even occurred to me, frankly. He's four. He likes to play with sticks and dirt and make letters out of Mardi Gras beads. How bored can he possibly get? Besides, boredom is good for you. It breeds creativity and problem-solving and it prepares you for interminable meetings that take place in Conference Rooms B. 

Still, at the playground we frequent (nice, isn't it? why thank you, I WAS on the town's New Playground Committee), children who come up to Patrick's knees tsk in annoyance as they realize they are running late to their ceramics workshop which in turn means that they will probably miss the overture for the Five-and-Under La Boheme. And if JUST ONE MORE PARENT asks me if Patrick went to Farm Camp I shall run amok with a thresher. Or I would have if Patrick had gone to Farm Camp and brought me home a thresher.

What are we doing this summer? you ask when you see me at the playground. Over and over and over, you ask it.

Well, I'll tell you.

Today Patrick and Steve stood outside my bedroom door for five minutes loudly discussing whether or not Patrick needed to wait until 8:10 to wake me up. Why 8:10 was selected as this morning's Magic Minute I have no idea but Steve kept urging compassion while Patrick pressed a Seize the Day agenda. Patrick won. He then climbed in bed with me and we told our bazillionth (excuse me, Patrick. septillionth) Alphabet Story: the A was angry because the B ate his apple, the B was bad because he broke his bed... . We got up. I had some tea. Patrick answered an IM from my mother. I read the Washington Post. Patrick played a game of his own invention with the Bingo set he got for his birthday (he arranges the balls in numerical order while he uses the round cage thing-y to give his matchbox cars a pretend car wash- he calls it BingoWashing). We watered the hanging plants. We went down to check on the vegetable garden and harvested two cherry tomatoes the size of gumballs that we were going to take up to show Steve but accidentally ate on the driveway. I decided I needed a bath so I ran one and then Patrick climbed in so I added bubbles and we splashed in the tub together until all the bubbles melted. While we were in the bath my local friend called to say they were going to the playground and we should meet her there. So we did. Played at the playground for an hour or so and then came home for lunch. I made gazpacho. Patrick shunned it and opted for peanut butter and jelly (cut into the numbers 24 and 25 due to his bizarre ability to keep track of these things for months) and Steve joined us at the table for a change (he usually eats in his office). After lunch Patrick went to his room for an hour and created animals out of letters, like that one over there.

Right! It is a D riding a donkey! Great guess. The roguish expression is typical Patrick and immediately after this photo was taken he said, "Oh ho ho! Gooooood one!" like the sixty year old man he is.

I love him passionately. He is so very funny and odd and squishable.

Um, then what?

I went and got my eyebrows tended and he and Steve went berry picking. We have raspberries and blackberries all over the damned place. When I came home they were in the kitchen simultaneously blowing into opposite sides of a single kazoo. Neither one has explained this yet. I suspect I will never know.

We read a couple of books and then Patrick helped me make dinner. I have decided that the most harm he can do with a butter knife is inflict a minor flesh wound so he is now authorized to use one. He hacks things for me, mushrooms mainly because they are easiest.   

Bath after dinner and now he and Steve are watching Shrek.

And that was our day. Camp Shfmramp. Who needs Leatherworking when one's day is so full of, um, spontaneity? 

(Now do you see why I never post? YOU try to piece a narrative out of this day. It cannot be done.)   

PS I am now sad that we did not go ahead and REALLY try to conceive this month, sextuplets be damned. It is so boring to get to the end of a cycle without even a possibility of a chance one might be pregnant.   

Master Manners

On the last post "Slim" (may I call you Slim? how about SugarBoots?) made the following thoughtful observation:

I wonder if there were some sort of instructions about not boinking because of McCaughey-septupletish results. Because I suspect that even though getting a whole bunch of ova to fertilize was the point of this exercise, Nurse I'm-Not-A-Doctor-But-I-Play-One-on-the-Phone is ignernt enough to issue such cautions, and I likewise suspect that if Julia announced boinking in the offing, someone would post assvice about the folks from Iowa, and who needs to read that when there's jewelry to admire.
I mean, if I were Julia and I had plans for a DIY insemination, I would not mention it here. I would just post a very surprised-sounding something in a few weeks.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Isn't that GREAT? I'll bet you can hear my silvery trills of laughter where you are, can't you?

Also, no comment.

Actually when the first person suggested that this was even an option I was all, "The WILD? You can actually GO there?" It never in a million years would have occurred to me that we could just, you know, take those follicles and run. As it were. I might loathe the nurse who stared blankly at me as I tried to convey through eyebrow waggling and shadow puppets that I am, really and truly, SPECIAL (and by SPECIAL I mean utterly utterly incapable of creating with my chosen life-partner a plethora of genetically normal embryos no matter how many eggs are released) but question her author-i-tay? Never.

I know many of you exhorted me to wave my arms around and stamp and pinch everyone at that clinic, hard, starting with Nurse Sewage, but I frankly do not have the energy. I hate conversations that inevitably end with my weakly repeating, "But I was TOLD... ." I think she was absolutely right about the most important thing and that was the fact that NO ONE at that place was going to authorize an IUI for me with six mature follicles. The internet assures me that this is a ridiculous policy I have no doubt this is true, but I am certain it is carved in stone for them. Largely because (speaking of things carved in stone) the director of this clinic (who was incidentally the doctor in charge on Saturday and the one who officially canceled me) has some strongly held, well-publicized beliefs that assert that even the teeny-tiniest smidgen of a weensy possibility of knowingly creating a selective reduction scenario is unacceptable (although his colleague, my actual RE, said, "It will never happen for you but just to cover that base are you ok with reduction? Great!")          

So, eh. Oh well. I don't think I will try this again. I had felt like I was pulling a fast one, getting someone to go along with my clever turbo scheme and now I feel like I got my comeupannce for being absurdly naive. Like I shoplifted a skirt and then thought they might be willing to do some alterations for me.

But back to the DIY plan... I don't think it works like that. I don't think that the follicles release anything in the absence of a trigger. Of course, I have no idea but I would think they just turn to stone like so many trolls in the sunlight.

For what it is worth, Steve and I did have sex on Saturday morning before I got canceled. I thought (ho ho ho) that I might trigger that day and have the IUI on Monday and I wanted to... clear the decks. And then we had sex again Saturday night, what with the big glowing ball of sparkles and great wine-filled dinner [oh to clarify for my own sake- Steve does not keep random pieces of jewelry in his sock drawer for these little emergencies. the tenth anniversary of my picking him up in a bar is in two weeks and he had decided to surprise me. Steve likes surprises.] So IF any of the follicles did anything on their own shockingly early I SUPPOSE it is POSSIBLE... but I doubt it.

I will naturally keep you posted as events warrant.

Now here is a question for all you humans. I don't want to pose this as a parenting question because... well, here it is.

We have always been exceedingly polite to Patrick and in turn he is exceedingly polite back. I mean, when he isn't slamming his head against my forearm or deliberately pouring an entire cup of apple juice on his plate or saying "MOMMY! Come here NOW! RIGHT NOW! I MEAN it."

In the early years when strangers would talk to him, Patrick would just hide his face. No toothless peek-a-boo from this baby for the elderly Target shopper. As he grew older he would turn to me in horror when someone asked what his name was, obviously waiting for me to call the police. In the past several months, though, he has finally processed the niceties of social discourse and he is eager to master them. In truth he is a rather eerie little host when we have people over, punctilious to a fault as he gives tours of the house ("And THIS is the living room. I moved the cushions so that they would rhyme" - I have contrasting throw pillows. Patrick HATES this and constantly moves cushions to furniture of the same fabric) and offers everyone food and drink ("Nana would YOU like some tea? Some juice? Some Cheerios?") When he gets to join a party for dinner he always wants to keep the conversation general (at the beach he went around the entire table asking everyone if they preferred Shrek or Shrek 2 then he asked for their favorite part of their chosen film. when two people liked the same thing he would say, "Sam! Uncle Mark liked that part too!")

OK? OK.

So here is the question. The dry-cleaner, his dentist, the woman at the jewelry store, Steve's orthopedic surgeon, and a bunch of others have all had the same conversation with Patrick recently:

"And what is your name?"

"Patrick."

"How are you?"

"I'm fine, thanks. How are you?"

"Um, good!" Pause. "How old are you?"

"I'm four. How old are you?"

And they tell him and he then says something encouraging to them like, "That's great! You are pretty big now, huh?"

And then if they do not say anything else he will ask them how their summer is going or if they are going to start school in the Fall or if they have any pets. All of the small talk-y things people have said to him recently .

So is this rude, do you think? Should I correct him? I believe he is just trying to be polite and is modeling his conversation from what he hears but... the look on the face of the middle-aged cashier when Patrick leaned forward and said "And how old are YOU?"------- gurk. 

If you asked a little kid some generic questions would you be offended if he asked them back?   

Rhymes With Fanceled

Canceled.

Somehow the fact that I have been foretelling this for the past week serves only to irritate me. Well, no. What irritates me is that I was polite-passive-lame enough to issue but a mild protest before acquiescing when they declined my request to lower my dosage on Thursday, despite the presence of six evenly sized developing follicles with a few smaller one on each side. So when Saturday's ultrasound revealed, surprise, six mature follicles with two fast approaching runners-up and I kinda wanted to kick myself for not objecting more strenuously when there was an opportunity to do so. Then I wanted to kick my RE when the nurse made it clear that there was no record of my previous IVF drug responses in my chart, nor was there any indication as to why we were doing this in the first place, nor that the RE had agreed that we would be allowed to negotiate when we would cancel (within reason). The fact that nothing was recorded became damning when I discovered that my RE has been gone all week so the entire cycle has been directed by people with whom I have never met or spoken in my life. Thus the directions I have been following were based upon the notion that I am random 34 year-old female attempting to achieve pregnancy through her first superovulatory cycle as opposed to the doomed pregnancy veteran/daring balanced translocation turbo IUI pioneer that I am.

Which is ANNOYING.

When the nurse I met with after the ultrasound called to cancel me an hour after I left the clinic I asked to speak with an RE to see if:

1) 6 mature follicles are really that many under the circumstances [we were trying specifically for multiples after all]; and if so then

2) could we possibly aspirate a few of the mature follicles and then trigger; and if not

3) could we talk about converting to an IVF.

No, she said.

NO? I asked.

No, she said. No you cannot talk to an RE. No, no one here would even consider triggering with 6. No, you cannot convert to IVF. No, we cannot contemplate aspirating. No. And no. Also, canceled. Call us when you start a new cycle, goodbye. PS- no.

I hate her and I am only slightly consoled by the fact that she was wearing jeans folded up to mid-calf in an attempt to convey "funky cropped" but succeeded merely in shouting "basement flooded with sewage" (not that there is anything wrong with that. happens to the best of us, after all. the sewage I mean, not the pants. the twelve-inches-of-folded-wrong-side-of-the-denim-as-cuffs pants shouldn't happen to anyone.)

In the grand scheme of my reproductive failures this cancellation is a minor setback. An irritation. A bug bite. In the grand scheme of my week, however, it sucks the big one.

To buck me up Steve took me out last night for a nine course tasting dinner, paired. It was, in a word, transcendent. Shrimp dumplings in gazpacho with a light light pinot gris. Mussels in a saffron pasta with coconut cream and cilantro, matched with a nice Viognier. My god it was all so good. Then  we came home and he surprised me with a present so over the top, so extravagant, so ridiculous... the sort of thing that causes you to suck in your breath and say, "Oh Mr. ROCHESTER!" with eyes like twin stars. A nice piece of jewelry covers a multitude of sins, apparently. If you are that sort of girl. Which I absolutely am.            

In sum: I think the local clinic is not so much incompetent as they are completely indifferent but I also think that I knew this already and in the long run it does not matter which because incompetence and indifference can screw things up equally; I got canceled, damn it; Steve is a freaky mutant who is single-celledly preventing me from having children when I am not being  preemptively thwarted by an uncaring medical establishment, but he is a nice one.   

Snippet

"Mommy! I'm not being careful!"

Patrick just yelled this at me from the bedroom in an attempt to get me to go back in there. It reminded me of when he was little-er and he would carefully arrange himself on a soft, carpeted area before throwing a tantrum. Without actually hurting himself (which would bring me, running) he is playing upon my fears that such a hurting is imminent. Like a sweepstakes contest he MAY HAVE ALREADY INJURED HIMSELF by the time I enter the bedroom. He is threatening to... make unwise choices! Unless I act now he might... put himself in a situation that could possibly result in future bodily harm!

You will note that I am still sitting here. I just spent an hour playing some game with him that seemed to possess only the loosest of rules and involved equal parts: Me Getting Kneed in the Head and Me Getting Slobbered Upon. As icy as is the hand that now rests upon my heart (knowing as I do that my beloved child is not being careful) I'm not going back in there again unless there is an actual contusion, sorry. Loving, yes. Masochist, no. Also I hate being slimed by anything and Patrick has recently created something he calls Harmonica Kisses... blech.

Not to make this a live-feed or anything but in the time it has taken me to write this Patrick has abandoned his attempts to cajole me back into the bedroom and has moved to the hallway overlooking the first floor. He just hollered down for a three-letter word that starts with H.

"Hat!" I yelled.

"How about a different one?"

"Ham!"

"How about a different one?"

"Her!"

"Different one!"

"His!"

"How about a..."

"Patrick, what are you looking for here?"

"Hot!" he replied.

"Um, Hot?"

"Thanks!" And he raced off.

I have no idea what that was about.

The injectible IUI cycle continues despite my certainty that I was going to be summarily dismissed yesterday. I have... some follicles. My e2 levels are... something. I will probably trigger (or not)... sometime in the future. This clinic is not very forthcoming with the information. In fact, you go for the labwork and ultrasound and then check a voicemail system after 3:30 to see if there have been any changes to the protocol. If you do not have a message you are to assume that everything is the same until further notice. I have heard that some people dislike this place for this reason but it is suiting my current state of detachment perfectly. Next appointment tomorrow morning, at which time I expect they really will cancel me, but we'll see. If they don't cancel me I will start getting excited again but for now it is barely registering as an event.   

I need to go find out what Patrick is doing (crossword puzzles?) and then we are all going to go swimming in the river. It is Mars-hot around here today.   

1,477,940 Divided By 369,485 Equals

Patrick went to a birthday party today. It was quite an honor as the birthday kid turned six and Patrick was the youngest guest by two whole years (if you ever think your four year old is big just put him in a line-up with some kindergarten graduates- Patrick looked like a malnourished midget in comparison). Granted the birthday mother and I are friends (friends! I have friends now! uber-local, honest-to-god, call-on-the-phone friends. remind me to fill you in on this miracle in the Plains) but I think Matthew actually requested Patrick's presence, possibly on the basis of Patrick hosting him to the jumping place party. I got the impression Matthew might think Patrick lives at the jumping place and was interested in furthering the acquaintance on these grounds alone. And who was I to correct him when Packy was having so much fun running around with the giant children, screaming?

There was a balloon guy at the party, making balloon things. First Patrick got a black balloon cat. Then he saw that everyone else had swords so he tentatively asked the balloon guy for a sword. After watching the creation of such wonders as Mouse on a Motorcycle and Monkey Climbing a Palm Tree Patrick looked thoughtful.

"Do you think he could make me a letter or a number?"

"Probably. Wait until it is your turn and ask him."

So Patrick planted himself in front and waited, patiently.

"I would like a four, please," he said.

"You got it, buddy!" the balloon guy thundered and presented him with... a sword. Patrick accepted it with a polite thank you, trotted over to hand me the sword, and returned to the front again.

"Four please!" he said when it was his turn again.

The balloon guy paused. "OK!" And then twiddled his fingers to produce... another sword.

I sat there trying to figure out if I should help or not as Patrick placed the third sword at my feet like a well-trained hunting dog. He looked despondent.

I said, "Well, be sure to ask if he has the time, but maybe you want to say that you would like him to make you something that looks like the number four, please."

"Just a sec," he said to me, one finger extended in a pretty good imitation of myself when I am trying to buy another five minutes to read email. He went back to the balloon guy. The other kids had wandered off.

Clasping his hands, Patrick said, "My mommy says if you have time you could make the number four please." He then unclasped his hands and held up fingers in rapid succession. "Yes? One plus three? Five minus one? Two plus two? Zero plus four? Eight minus four? YES? THE NUMBER FOUR?!"

He turned to me, "I don't think he knows it."

The balloon guy made him a lovely number four in blue. Patrick then asked for a P. The guy turned purple.

"No no," I said, "he just wants the letter P. He doesn't have to..."

"Actually I do," Patrick interrupted and started to pull down his pants, right there in the garden.

I am willing to bet everything I have that the balloon guy has never been so happy to see the last of a child as he was when I hustled Patrick off to the bathroom.

And speaking of gambling, I started stims tonight. If you ask my RE, the plan is that I will inject 150iu of Gonal F for three days, then 112.5iu for two days. Then I will have an ultrasound to check follicle growth and we will proceed from there, most likely doing an insemination in a week and change. If you ask me (or more importantly, Julie) I will inject those ridiculously high doses of gonadotropins for five days only to show up for my ultrasound with over a dozen follicles on board and be canceled on the spot.

Isn't it exciting?

Wheatberry Salad I (Recipe)

Wheatberries are whole grain wheat. Like this:

Wheatberry Salad I

1 c wheatberries (Whole grain wheat)

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved

2 oz crumbled feta

1/4 c slivered fresh basil

Vinaigrette

1 1/2 T balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 t red wine vinegar

1/4 t salt

1/8 t black pepper

6 T olive oil

Either:

1) Soak wheatberries overnight in 3 1/2 c water. Drain, reserving soaking liquid. Return wheatberries to pan and add soaking liquid plus enough to return water to 3 1/2 cups. Boil 50 minutes until tender. Drain.

Or

2) Forget to soak wheatberries. Swear. Fill pan with water and boil wheat for an hour and a half, strirring occasionally, until tender.

While warm, toss wheatberries with half of vinaigrette. Let cool. Then add tomatoes, feta, basil and remainder of vinaigrette. Salt and pepper, as desired.

Note: This can either serve four or six or eight, depending upon what else you offer. Or I can eat the entire thing alone in two days. 

Kabob-less Shish (Recipe)

Kabob-less Shish

Serves 4

3 8oz beef tenderloin filets

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

2 zucchini

1 pint small cherry or grape tomatoes

1/4 c olive oil

5 garlic cloves, minced

1 t dried oregano

1/2 t Kosher salt

Combine oil, garlic, oregano and salt. To accomodate temperature preferences from rare to medium cut one filet into roughly six pieces, one filet into eight pieces and the last filet into ten pieces. Cut red and green peppers into large chunks. Slice zucchini into 1/2 inch thick coins. Add beef and vegetables (except tomatoes) to oil mixture and toss to coat thoroughly. Refrigerate for an hour or up to twenty-four hours.

Arrange everything except tomatoes in single layer in a grill basket (it can be crowded). Heat grill to 500-550 degrees (medium high heat). Grill on one side for three to four minutes then flip, add tomatoes, and grill on the other side for about three more minutes   

Note: This is so easy and intuitive it hardly qualifies as a recipe but here it is. We eat this a lot in the summer when it is too hot to breathe and, as always, I like anything that lets you do the prep in advance.

Re. the grill basket: I love the flavors of a nice shish kabobt but it always seemed like a lot of work to thread all that stuff onto a skewer just to take it all back off again. Not to mention that this method always left the center of the green pepper raw while the edges were incinerated. Throwing everything into a basket (we actually use an open topper pan and Steve flips all the pieces by hand but a hinged basket would work better, I think) allows the vegetables to cook more evenly.

Re. the meat: This is a completely decadent use for tenderloin, I know, but it makes it so-o-oo good and foolproof. If, however, you feel like spending less than $1.75 an ounce I can recommend a nice filet of sirloin too. Just don't overcook it.

As for cutting the beef into different sized pieces I think this is very clever of me. Steve likes things rare to the point of being blue, while I prefer a nice medium. Rather than fuss around with trying to remove little chunks at different times I experimented with simply using large medium and small pieces. Voila. Different doneness, same time.

PS Someone asked about Kosher salt before. I almost always use it (note the goiter. ah ha ha ha, not really) but I do not know why. It is very pinchable, if you know what I mean. I keep it in a little bowl by the stove and pinch it into things. The crystals are bigger and it makes things less salty, somehow. If you ever substitute table salt for Kosher salt in a recipe start by using about half the recommended quantity and taste as you go.

Happy 5th Of July

You didn't even notice that I went to Ohio for a few days, did you? Well, no matter. I didn't notice it all that much myself.

Steve's very sweet grandmother is... I believe the genteel term is "failing", and we were urged to attend the annual family gathering, unless, of course, we were comfortable living with Regret, in which case, they hoped we would have an enjoyable holiday and, oh by the way, does Selfishville have fireworks? They were just wondering and thought we might know. Since we have missed three weddings, an 80th birthday, an 85th birthday, two retirements, a handful of graduations and many scattered christenings (what can I say? it just never seems like a convenient time to go to Cleveland. I lived there for a while you know. it's like my 'Nam) it appeared that we should probably go. And we did. And it was fine.

After 4 hours swimming in the same pool with wonderful, encouraging, 10 year-old second-cousin Kyle, Patrick was able to jump in the deep-end and motor across the length of the pool, kept buoyant by nothing more than a couple of arm floaties and an enormous case of hero worship. Five "Great Job, Patricks" and three "You're swimming, Patrick! You're swimming!s" from a Big Kid accomplished roughly a billion times more than 8 months of private lessons at the Y.      

Meanwhile, I drank wine and picked at weird salads and kept my eyes peeled for the pregnant people. See? You think I am strong and resilient and noble (oh yes you do!) and yet I actually dove head-first into a gazebo (taking the entire bottle of wine with me, may I add) when my pregnant sister-in-law-mother-of-a-one-year-old suddenly turned a corner of the house saying, "They tell you that you will delight in your child, of course, but that nothing will compare to the joy of watching your children make each other laugh... ." I thought bitter thoughts and contemplated how pleasant the gazebo must be when the honeysuckle is in bloom.

Oh, man. As long as I am confessing to this sort of behavior I did the most MORTIFYING thing yesterday. We came back from Ohio in time for our town parade and then went to a barbecue afterwards. I wound up making small talk about baby equipment with a woman I had just met (who was obviously pregnant) after making small talk about baby equipment with Margarita Neighbor (hey! did I tell you that Margarita Neighbor is expecting? due at the end of October? well she is) and I started feeling a little panicky. Like maybe I had died and my Sartrien hotel was going to be an endless series of conversations in which I am forced to give my opinion about whether one should buy a bouncy seat AND a swing, or just the swing.

So this woman went on about their impending consumerhood and then asked, "And you have the one child?"

I said, "Yes."

She said, "And are you going to have any more?"

And I... god this is SO EMBARRASSING and I SWEAR I have never ever done this to anyone before but for some reason I...

I said, "It doesn't work for us very well" in this awful stilted tone and then I realized I was about to cry, so I abruptly said, "I have to go check on my son" and I actually RAN away from them. I am blushing as I write this.

OK, I suppose the actual words don't sound all that bad but it was really really awkward, what with my gasping for air and the voice like broken glass. I have fielded that question particular just fine about a thousand times (Bright smile and "We'd like to!") but for some reason I just went down in flames yesterday. Oh well. I'm still embarrassed.

Finally, our beautiful neurotic cat has a bladder infection. There are a few ways you can figure out that your feline is suffering from urinary distress but perhaps the most obvious is when he starts peeing on the carpet directly in front of the television as you try to decide if you can possibly struggle through one more episode of SG-1 because you have heard it is good but the first season is hurting you, really hurting you. First, Steve and I fought over whether the cat was being "spirited" or was trying to tell us he was ill. I won (the winner got to take the cat to the vet this morning). Then we argued about whether this was a first offense or not. Steve lost (the loser got to escort a restoration cleaning guy through the basement with a blacklight searching for evidence of biohazards because the winner was at the vet). According to the blacklight our basement has either been the scene of multiple elf homicides or the poor cat has been attempting to relieve himself in small quantities all over the carpet for some time. Bastard. I mean, poor sick bastard.

I am quite certain we spent over $1200 in relation to this cat in the past ten hours. And yet I am not even convinced that he likes us. Isn't that odd?