Okay, so it may not be the end of the world....yet.
But within the past week we've had both an earthquake and a hurricane, which is a pretty big deal, considering that New Jersians pretty much shit a brick and take cover in their basements every time there's a severe thunderstorm warning.
We are not a brave people.
So at this point I'm pretty much just sitting here with a beekeeper's hat, a giant fly swatter, and a can of Raid, waiting for the plague of locust that will inevitably follow. Because with this many natural disasters? I can only assume that God finally got around to watching an episode of The Jersey shore, and he is clearly not impressed, people.
Which is a shame, because I was planning on raising my boys as athiests, which might be hard when God's all salty about our worshipping of the bronze idol otherwise known as Snookie and is bringing a rain of fire and brimstone to the Garden State.
Just remember, God...they're not ACTUALLY from Jersey {points awkwardly to New York City}. You know what you have to do.
Nobody wanted Irene's damp ass, but she came anyway. She brought the creek to our doorstep (literally) and took out an oak tree in our backyard that was probably at least as old as Regis Philbin.
Or Jesus.
Whatever.
But along came Hurricane Irene, and the tree was all, "I quit this bitch" and went ass-up (or roots-up) the minute the winds started to howl. That it decided to go ass-up on my neighbor's truck is unfortunate. But hey, better his truck than my nursery-to-be, right?
And now, much like The Giving Tree, we will continue to desecrate it's memory by cutting it up into pieces and using it to heat our house so we can run around in our skivvies when it's 10 degrees outside.
Circle of life, blah, blah, blah
The creek, fortuitously, did not sweep our house away. Despite predictions of mass flooding and a scrambled exodus of all things feline from our house at 2:00 am (yeah, that was a good time), we were spared the entry of Haynes Creek to our humble abode, other than an inch or two of water in the basement, which happens a couple of times a year anyway and is no biggie. So now we can rest easy, knowing that the 100-year flood does not, in fact, directly affect our house (although it swallows up the majority of our yard and sometimes causes a giant-ass oak tree to crash on top of our neighbor's F150).
So all's well that ends well. When all is said and done, we didn't even lose power for that long compared to most, and my frantic attempts to finish all work before the storm (should I lose power and internet for an extended period of time. Again.) translate into an easy work week with plenty of time to paint the nursery, cook delicious dinners, and elevate my feet until they resemble something vaguely human again.
Sure, it's nothing as exciting as a hurricane (or watching God destroy the cast of The Jersey Shore), but after this week's fiascos, I think I'm ready for a little peace and quiet.
Here's hoping September is decidedly less eventful than this past month (yes, I'm talking to you, boys. No surprise deliveries, okay???)
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Radio Silence
Well…this is fun.
My brief hiatus from this blog was in part due to my staycation (which had its ups and downs, as I’ll get in to momentarily), and in part due to some incompetent ass-clown driver who managed to fall asleep at the wheel and plow through the telephone pole in front of my house before flying gracefully through the air and landing delicately on my front fence late Friday night.
HE walked away with a few scratches.
WE were left without cable or interwebz for going on 6 days straight (I’m at Starbucks right now. Hell must be freezing over, although this Chi Latte is delicious).
And it’s probably just the hormones talking, but part of me wants to hunt this guy down and go kung-fu on his ass until he’s appropriately injured to validate 6 days (and counting) of no TV and having to work from internet cafes. It amazes me that someone can manage to completely mangle your front yard and disrupt your life and ability to work for days on end without any consequences whatsoever. Where’s the apologetic card? Where are the flowers? Where is the delicious muffin basket that in all rights should have been left on my doorstep by the perpetrator of these heinous crimes?
Chivalry is dead.
And so is this guy, if I ever manage to find out where he lives and put down the ice cream long enough to hunt him down.
(BTW, if anybody wants a Nissan X-terra roof rack…it’s still on my front lawn. First come, first serve, and PS, I hate you, local volunteer fire department, for being so lazy that you couldn’t manage to toss the roof rack into the tow truck before you left to go celebrate your heroic efforts at the closest Denny’s)
And while we’re talking about people I hate (isn't this fun, guys?), I also hate Verizon, for cancelling our repair ticket after NOT solving the problem (or even showing up) yesterday, causing me to have to call them at 8:00 pm last night and say mean, nasty, reprehensible things to poor Travis, tech manager at the call center, who I guarantee is reconsidering his life choices right about now.
They say they’ll be out today to work on the problem.
I’m not holding my breath this time
(I am, however, holding a baseball bat. They’ve been warned.)
My staycation was fun. Not plunging through rapids while taking pictures of bald eagles fun (yeah, I’m still bitter about the hubs white water rafting the Grand Canyon). But fun in a hey, wow, I just learned how to knit kind of way. It rained a lot, which is weird for August in NJ and put a damper on a lot of planned activities. I also had an allergic reaction to god knows what and ended up in the emergency room last Tuesday night swelling, bright red, covered in hives, and completely high off of a whopper dose of anti-histamines and steroids. But despite those setbacks, I got a lot of quality time in with my sister, hosted a fabulous vegetarian girls’ dinner party, and spent a wonderful afternoon at the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton NJ and if you haven’t been there yet, I HIGHLY recommend it. Even if you don’t like sculpture. Hell, I certainly don’t have a particular interest in some dude’s abstract interpretation of the downfalls of society. But the grounds are immaculately landscaped in a way where irresistible pathways and doorways in hedgerows simply beg you to investigate. It’s a lot like Alice in Wonderland.
Plus, they serve booze in the café.
SCORE.
But all things must come to an end.
The staycation is over. Brian is home, which makes me exceedingly happy, because now there’s someone to clean the litter box and heft me off the couch when I get stuck. I’m back to work (as much as Starbucks WiFi will allow), and we’re counting down the weekends until the little meatloaves could arrive with a mixture of fear, anticipation, excitement, and a little regret that we didn’t manage to climb Mt. Everest before procreating.
Or…at least that’s how I’m feeling. But that may or may not be due to the fact that I’m currently reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. (I tend to get like that when it comes to mountain climbing. You should have seen me when I was watching that Everest: Beyond The Limits series on the Discovery channel…I was literally trying to rappel off of my basement steps after watching the first episode. It wasn’t pretty).
I’m 28 weeks along, which means I have a maximum of 12 weeks to go until life ends as I know it. And although it’s not as romantic or exciting as scaling the highest peak in the world, something tells me it’ll take the same amount of effort and will-power to survive. So in a way, I’m about to tackle my own Everest. I feel like I’m hanging out at base camp (literally, because I haven’t had a full breath since March), looking up at the summit, and thinking to myself, what the HELL did I just get myself in to?!? But there’s no Shirpas to help me. Just my husband, who isn’t on my payroll and therefore can’t be ordered to carry me when I get tired.
So there’s your metaphor for the day:
Raising twins is sure to be like climbing Everest, but with more poop and vomit.
But unlike Everest, once you start, you don’t have the option to stop. You just have to keep going and going until you succumb to exhaustion and beg for God to put you out of your misery.
This parenting thing is going to be awesome.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Why Horses Are The Best (And Worst) Thing To Ever Happen To Me
As of last Friday, I am no longer a riding instructor.
Yet one more hobby sacrificed to the Gods of Reproduction.
Although I hope to be back teaching after the meatloaves are born, right about the time I had a horse half rear up on me, I realized that maybe this wasn't the safest environment for me and my unborn children. That, and the heat was killing me, which sounds like a lame excuse, but go ahead and thrown on a 30-lb vest, jam your lungs up into your nose, eat so much salt that your feet swell out of the holes in your Keen sandals, and tell me you're not uncomfortable standing in the middle of a ring, dodging out-of-control horses and chasing lazy ponies for hours on end.
I mean...I'm hardcore, but even I have my limits.
So to celebrate (or mourn) this occasion, I thought I'd sum up my top 5 teaching experiences of the past year.
Read on.
You'll laugh.
You'll cry.
You'll probably never trust your children with me (and rightly so).
But most importantly, you'll see why, for better or for worse, my life is so much more boring without this craziness.
1. The Triple Flip
This story can go one of two ways, according to who you ask.
According to the horses, a disgruntled deer jumped out of the woods sporting a Rambo headband and an AK-47 and yelling "This is for eating my grass, motherf*ckers" before letting lose a few rounds into the group lesson where, naturally, the horses were forced to flee for their lives. According to most humans who were there, a baby deer had the misfortune of stumbling out of the tree line and coming face to face with one of our more...sensitive...lesson mares. Regardless of whose story you believe, the reaction was the same: three horses going absolutely bat-shit crazy in the ring simultaneously while children go flying through the air like Asian gymnasts in a Cirque du Soleil performance.
Around the point in time when all three children hit the ground, I was forced to make a decision. Who do I go to first? The child in the mud? The child who hasn't moved since she fell? The child who brought Dunkin Donuts to the lesson and therefore deserves preferential treatment? (These are the touch choices we teachers are forced to make on a near daily basis).
In the end, I'm not sure how I managed to revive three frightened children, retrieve their asshole horses, and resume the lesson with any sense of calm or control, but I must have, because all three of these kids continued to willingly take lessons with me for months thereafter. But we all learned a lesson that day. I learned that there is no way you can 100% control a situation that involves a 1200-lb animal with a Cowardly Lion complex, no matter how experienced you are. They learned to keep their heels down. And the horses?
Well, they didn't learn anything.
Because they're stupid.
2. The "Lisa"
First and foremost, the name of this child has been changed to protect her identity. I'd also like to point out that I believe that each and every one of my students has the potential to be an excellent rider. That said, some require a bit more work to get there than others. There was this student. I'll call her Lisa. Lisa was a beginner who was taught by my awesome best friend who also happens to own the lesson barn at which I teach. My friend had been teaching her for a couple of weeks when she suddenly "turned the reins" (as it were) over to me.
"Why don't you teach Lisa today?" she asked, innocently enough.
And I, naively, agreed.
So I started teaching the lesson and as the minutes ticked by, each slower than the last, I couldn't help but notice that absolutely nothing was getting through to this kid. I told her to pick up the reins and squeeze the horse...and she just sat there. I told her to practice her jump position...and she just sat there. At one point I told her to just drop the reins for a moment so I could demonstrate something...and she just freaking sat there, reins still gripped in her immobile hands like a corpse with rigor mortis.
It was like somebody had taken a sack of potatoes, put a wig on it, put it on a horse, and told me to teach it to ride. Never, in my life, had I seen anything so resistant to instruction as Lisa. I finished the lesson, brought the horse in, and sent Lisa home with a weary smile and all the enthusiasm I could muster. I then turned to my friend...who was smirking and barely able to choke down the laughter that was bubbling up. After a few weeks of staring into Lisa's dead eyes, my friend had had enough and passed her on to me.
She thought it was hysterical.
I thought it was a cruel and unusual form of punishment.
Fortunately, Lisa only came back for a few more lessons before she started to go to seed and had to abandon her dreams of riding to be replanted in the nearest potato field. But from there on out, when my friend or I has had a particularly rough lesson, we remind each other, "hey...at least s/he's not a LISA," at which point we inevitably burst out giggling and return to teach with renewed enthusiasm. And Lisa, wherever you are, be it in someone's hash browns or making little tater tots of your own, I'd like to say thank you for helping me put things in perspective. And for realizing that maybe riding wasn't your forte after all.
3. The Barrel Horse
Imagine, if you will, a petite shetland pony, with an equally petite rider astride him, attempting to mount a giant blue plastic barrel. This was a situation that, I'm sorry to say, I faced more than once in my teaching career at this most recent place of employment. You see....we have this pony. His name is Pip. He's about 3 feet high at the shoulder, cute as a button, and absolutely convinced that his calling in life is in demolition, as opposed to pony rides. Since I've worked at [insert barn name here], I've seen this pony try to ram, climb, stomp, squash, and mount more people and things than a hormone-crazed elephant. Pip's motto is "why go around it, when you can go through it." He's happiest when he's trotting around the ring , one foot caught in a giant plastic cone, dragging a coop that has been conveniently tangled in his tail. So when I put the little tikes on him, I have to be super careful. Because the minute I turn my back to him, he'll be heading for the nearest obstacle, ready to scrape his rider off in an effort to be the first pony to climb a jump standard. It's a bizarre situation to have to be ready for. ESPECIALLY for an animal whose kin would prefer to turn and run rather than risk stepping on their own shadow. So while I'm not citing a specific incident here, I'd say that teaching anyone, on Pip, is an experience unto itself.
Ponies.
Can't live with 'em...can't teach itty bitty kids without 'em.
4. The Wrecking Ball
Okay, so this experience isn't directly related to my students. Well, not my human students. I adopted a horse last year who, when it comes to jumping, gets an A+ for effort...and, like, a D- for performance. While nobody tries harder than my Mikey, nobody would exactly call him a Baryshnikov of the jumping ring. While is heart leaps over every fence, his feet don't always follow suit. In fact, more often, he has two feet in the air, one foot caught over his ear, and one foot dragging through a jump.
Poor baby.
But my friend needed somebody to enter in a jumpers class last summer, because no one but her student was entered, and the class would be scratched if she didn't have a competitor. So in we went. Mikey, trotting hap-hazardly around the ring, looking left and right, utterly pleased with himself and utterly oblivious of the jump we were approaching. Despite my best efforts, Mikey didn't see the 2-foot coop until we were practically on top of it. By then we were two late. So Mikey did what Mikey does best.
He kept trotting.
Straight through the fence.
Leaving a trail of broken wood and pine branches in his wake.
At which I point I believe I yelled something like, "Jesus Christ, Mikey, You have to JUMP" (because I'm an awesome, AWESOME horse trainer).
Fortunately, he figured out how to go over the remainder of the obstacles instead of through them. But I'll always remember the happy-go-lucky look on his face as he plowed through that jump like Lindsey Lohan through the paparazzi.
EPIC (but hysterical) FAIL.
5. The 911 call
I'm not going to say that I sent one of my students to the ER. The horse sent the student to the ER. Or, if you really want to get into specifics...gravity sent the student to the ER. I merely "supervised" the horse and gravitational pull that sent my student flying to her near death (which can closely resemble a broken hip, FYI). But apparently you can't sue animals or phenomena of physics in a court of law, so I was the first one in line for that Blame Express. Anyhoodle...as the story goes, I sent my student to the ER. But it was really a perfect storm of brand-new-slippery-saddle-seat, poor balance, and a fated equine side-step that caused the fall. Perhaps I shouldn't have instructed her to take her feet out of the stirrups. Perhaps I should have kept the horse on a lead rope. Perhaps I should have applied epoxy to the saddle seat before I hoisted her into it on that fated day.
Regardless....she fell. She did a good bit of screaming and crying. I was forced to whip out my cell phone and explain to the 911 operator how I had a student who had busted her ass and was in immediate need of a medical assistance. I then had to stand there, holding her hand as she lay in pain on the ground, and consider the fact that maybe I wasn't fit to be a trainer, because I had just killed my student. In the end, it only ended up in a bruised tailbone for her and a lot of laughs (at my expense) for me.
Oh, and this awesome pic.
Because when it comes to my students, I am nothing if not professional.
But the fall...it wasn't my finest moment. Thank goodness I didn't up and quit right then and there, because I'll tell you...I was severely tempted. But all's well that ends well, and at the end of the day, her parents didn't sue me.
Thank goodness.
There have been other incidents.
Far too many to recount here. Funny incidents and scary incidents and incidents so amazing that I left the barn with a buzz that lasted for days.
That's the thing with horseback riding. We risk significant injury for those moments when everything clicks and - for just a second - you stop being a "human" and a "horse" and become a team.
Sure, it sounds sappy.
Blame the hormones.
But teaching has given me far more satisfaction than any other job I've ever had, and I'm sorry to see it go...even if it's just temporary.
I've said my goodbyes to Pip, Mikey, and the other equines who have stolen my heart, my wallet, and on some occasions, the snack I was holding in my hand.
And I've said my goodbyes to my students, who I grew to love and admire more than I ever thought possible (yes, even Lisa. Sort of.)
And I'll be back, for sure.
But in the meantime?
I'll miss it more than I can even describe.
And for a writer, that's saying something.
Yet one more hobby sacrificed to the Gods of Reproduction.
Although I hope to be back teaching after the meatloaves are born, right about the time I had a horse half rear up on me, I realized that maybe this wasn't the safest environment for me and my unborn children. That, and the heat was killing me, which sounds like a lame excuse, but go ahead and thrown on a 30-lb vest, jam your lungs up into your nose, eat so much salt that your feet swell out of the holes in your Keen sandals, and tell me you're not uncomfortable standing in the middle of a ring, dodging out-of-control horses and chasing lazy ponies for hours on end.
I mean...I'm hardcore, but even I have my limits.
So to celebrate (or mourn) this occasion, I thought I'd sum up my top 5 teaching experiences of the past year.
Read on.
You'll laugh.
You'll cry.
You'll probably never trust your children with me (and rightly so).
But most importantly, you'll see why, for better or for worse, my life is so much more boring without this craziness.
1. The Triple Flip
This story can go one of two ways, according to who you ask.
According to the horses, a disgruntled deer jumped out of the woods sporting a Rambo headband and an AK-47 and yelling "This is for eating my grass, motherf*ckers" before letting lose a few rounds into the group lesson where, naturally, the horses were forced to flee for their lives. According to most humans who were there, a baby deer had the misfortune of stumbling out of the tree line and coming face to face with one of our more...sensitive...lesson mares. Regardless of whose story you believe, the reaction was the same: three horses going absolutely bat-shit crazy in the ring simultaneously while children go flying through the air like Asian gymnasts in a Cirque du Soleil performance.
Around the point in time when all three children hit the ground, I was forced to make a decision. Who do I go to first? The child in the mud? The child who hasn't moved since she fell? The child who brought Dunkin Donuts to the lesson and therefore deserves preferential treatment? (These are the touch choices we teachers are forced to make on a near daily basis).
In the end, I'm not sure how I managed to revive three frightened children, retrieve their asshole horses, and resume the lesson with any sense of calm or control, but I must have, because all three of these kids continued to willingly take lessons with me for months thereafter. But we all learned a lesson that day. I learned that there is no way you can 100% control a situation that involves a 1200-lb animal with a Cowardly Lion complex, no matter how experienced you are. They learned to keep their heels down. And the horses?
Well, they didn't learn anything.
Because they're stupid.
2. The "Lisa"
First and foremost, the name of this child has been changed to protect her identity. I'd also like to point out that I believe that each and every one of my students has the potential to be an excellent rider. That said, some require a bit more work to get there than others. There was this student. I'll call her Lisa. Lisa was a beginner who was taught by my awesome best friend who also happens to own the lesson barn at which I teach. My friend had been teaching her for a couple of weeks when she suddenly "turned the reins" (as it were) over to me.
"Why don't you teach Lisa today?" she asked, innocently enough.
And I, naively, agreed.
So I started teaching the lesson and as the minutes ticked by, each slower than the last, I couldn't help but notice that absolutely nothing was getting through to this kid. I told her to pick up the reins and squeeze the horse...and she just sat there. I told her to practice her jump position...and she just sat there. At one point I told her to just drop the reins for a moment so I could demonstrate something...and she just freaking sat there, reins still gripped in her immobile hands like a corpse with rigor mortis.
It was like somebody had taken a sack of potatoes, put a wig on it, put it on a horse, and told me to teach it to ride. Never, in my life, had I seen anything so resistant to instruction as Lisa. I finished the lesson, brought the horse in, and sent Lisa home with a weary smile and all the enthusiasm I could muster. I then turned to my friend...who was smirking and barely able to choke down the laughter that was bubbling up. After a few weeks of staring into Lisa's dead eyes, my friend had had enough and passed her on to me.
She thought it was hysterical.
I thought it was a cruel and unusual form of punishment.
Fortunately, Lisa only came back for a few more lessons before she started to go to seed and had to abandon her dreams of riding to be replanted in the nearest potato field. But from there on out, when my friend or I has had a particularly rough lesson, we remind each other, "hey...at least s/he's not a LISA," at which point we inevitably burst out giggling and return to teach with renewed enthusiasm. And Lisa, wherever you are, be it in someone's hash browns or making little tater tots of your own, I'd like to say thank you for helping me put things in perspective. And for realizing that maybe riding wasn't your forte after all.
3. The Barrel Horse
Imagine, if you will, a petite shetland pony, with an equally petite rider astride him, attempting to mount a giant blue plastic barrel. This was a situation that, I'm sorry to say, I faced more than once in my teaching career at this most recent place of employment. You see....we have this pony. His name is Pip. He's about 3 feet high at the shoulder, cute as a button, and absolutely convinced that his calling in life is in demolition, as opposed to pony rides. Since I've worked at [insert barn name here], I've seen this pony try to ram, climb, stomp, squash, and mount more people and things than a hormone-crazed elephant. Pip's motto is "why go around it, when you can go through it." He's happiest when he's trotting around the ring , one foot caught in a giant plastic cone, dragging a coop that has been conveniently tangled in his tail. So when I put the little tikes on him, I have to be super careful. Because the minute I turn my back to him, he'll be heading for the nearest obstacle, ready to scrape his rider off in an effort to be the first pony to climb a jump standard. It's a bizarre situation to have to be ready for. ESPECIALLY for an animal whose kin would prefer to turn and run rather than risk stepping on their own shadow. So while I'm not citing a specific incident here, I'd say that teaching anyone, on Pip, is an experience unto itself.
Ponies.
Can't live with 'em...can't teach itty bitty kids without 'em.
4. The Wrecking Ball
Okay, so this experience isn't directly related to my students. Well, not my human students. I adopted a horse last year who, when it comes to jumping, gets an A+ for effort...and, like, a D- for performance. While nobody tries harder than my Mikey, nobody would exactly call him a Baryshnikov of the jumping ring. While is heart leaps over every fence, his feet don't always follow suit. In fact, more often, he has two feet in the air, one foot caught over his ear, and one foot dragging through a jump.
Poor baby.
But my friend needed somebody to enter in a jumpers class last summer, because no one but her student was entered, and the class would be scratched if she didn't have a competitor. So in we went. Mikey, trotting hap-hazardly around the ring, looking left and right, utterly pleased with himself and utterly oblivious of the jump we were approaching. Despite my best efforts, Mikey didn't see the 2-foot coop until we were practically on top of it. By then we were two late. So Mikey did what Mikey does best.
He kept trotting.
Straight through the fence.
Leaving a trail of broken wood and pine branches in his wake.
At which I point I believe I yelled something like, "Jesus Christ, Mikey, You have to JUMP" (because I'm an awesome, AWESOME horse trainer).
Fortunately, he figured out how to go over the remainder of the obstacles instead of through them. But I'll always remember the happy-go-lucky look on his face as he plowed through that jump like Lindsey Lohan through the paparazzi.
EPIC (but hysterical) FAIL.
5. The 911 call
I'm not going to say that I sent one of my students to the ER. The horse sent the student to the ER. Or, if you really want to get into specifics...gravity sent the student to the ER. I merely "supervised" the horse and gravitational pull that sent my student flying to her near death (which can closely resemble a broken hip, FYI). But apparently you can't sue animals or phenomena of physics in a court of law, so I was the first one in line for that Blame Express. Anyhoodle...as the story goes, I sent my student to the ER. But it was really a perfect storm of brand-new-slippery-saddle-seat, poor balance, and a fated equine side-step that caused the fall. Perhaps I shouldn't have instructed her to take her feet out of the stirrups. Perhaps I should have kept the horse on a lead rope. Perhaps I should have applied epoxy to the saddle seat before I hoisted her into it on that fated day.
Regardless....she fell. She did a good bit of screaming and crying. I was forced to whip out my cell phone and explain to the 911 operator how I had a student who had busted her ass and was in immediate need of a medical assistance. I then had to stand there, holding her hand as she lay in pain on the ground, and consider the fact that maybe I wasn't fit to be a trainer, because I had just killed my student. In the end, it only ended up in a bruised tailbone for her and a lot of laughs (at my expense) for me.
Oh, and this awesome pic.
Because when it comes to my students, I am nothing if not professional.
But the fall...it wasn't my finest moment. Thank goodness I didn't up and quit right then and there, because I'll tell you...I was severely tempted. But all's well that ends well, and at the end of the day, her parents didn't sue me.
Thank goodness.
There have been other incidents.
Far too many to recount here. Funny incidents and scary incidents and incidents so amazing that I left the barn with a buzz that lasted for days.
That's the thing with horseback riding. We risk significant injury for those moments when everything clicks and - for just a second - you stop being a "human" and a "horse" and become a team.
Sure, it sounds sappy.
Blame the hormones.
But teaching has given me far more satisfaction than any other job I've ever had, and I'm sorry to see it go...even if it's just temporary.
I've said my goodbyes to Pip, Mikey, and the other equines who have stolen my heart, my wallet, and on some occasions, the snack I was holding in my hand.
And I've said my goodbyes to my students, who I grew to love and admire more than I ever thought possible (yes, even Lisa. Sort of.)
And I'll be back, for sure.
But in the meantime?
I'll miss it more than I can even describe.
And for a writer, that's saying something.
Ass Face
It all started because I just HAD to try on my "fat jeans"
Yanno...the jeans that only fit you at your fattest. The jeans you try to avoid at all costs. The jeans you happily store in the closet when you've been eating right and exercising, swearing that you would sooner set yourself on fire than let your ass get big enough to fill up those parachute-sized back pockets. The jeans you pull out every year around January 5th, full of regret and pecan pie, and glare at them with the burning anger of a thousand firey suns because you hate them so much (but really it's just displaced ass-anger), but then you put them on, and you're all "wow, I can finally breathe again," and you make truce with your jeans that you will wear them for ONE MONTH ONLY, and then back in the closet they go when you've worked off that 3 gallons of egg-nog.
Of course, I didn't expect to button them or anything. I might be crazy, but I'm not THAT crazy. But I was digging around for something to wear (because all my second-trimester clothes are getting snug), and I thought to myself, "self, these jeans might actually fit with a Bella band. And that would be Awesome-sauce. Let's do it."
And perhaps they would have fit with a Bella band.
But we'll never know, because I couldn't get them over my tank-sized derriere.
Sad face.
I'm sure you're not nearly as surprised as I am. Every woman gains weight when they're pregnant. Did I think I'd be the exception?
Of course I did.
Because I'm a unique snowflake, and nobody else is like me (right, mom?).
So while I was prepared for the ginormous belly (well, as much as anyone can be prepared to grow a beach ball-sized tumor under their boobs), I wasn't prepared for the matching ass and set of thighs.
Oh, and the jowls.
That part is super attractive.
So I came running out of the bedroom, wailing and holding my fat jeans up to the gods like a woman in mourning.
And then my dear, dear husband, who would do ANYTHING to make me feel better, reminded me that if I gained all my weight in my belly and didn't fill out (he actually used the words "fill out" - he should have been a politician) in the back, I'd probably tip over.
In response, I grabbed my fleshy, swollen cheeks and thrust my face in his.
"What about these?!?" I demanded. "Do JOWLS keep me from tipping over? What good are THEY doing?!?!"
So he thought for a second and replied, "they help your face match your ass"
...
Once he realized what he said, his smile disappeared and a look of fear drew across his face.
I think he actually cringed.
But I had to laugh, because my loving husband just pretty much told me my face looked like my ass.
Okay, so maybe he wouldn't be such a good politician after all.
But the jeans...yeah. They don't fit.
Not. At. All.
So I'll be heading out to a proper maternity store to purchase a moo-moo to cover my planet-sized butt.
...and possibly a gag for my husband. For the next time he wants to discuss the semantics of body weight distribution.
Or Ass Face.
Yanno...the jeans that only fit you at your fattest. The jeans you try to avoid at all costs. The jeans you happily store in the closet when you've been eating right and exercising, swearing that you would sooner set yourself on fire than let your ass get big enough to fill up those parachute-sized back pockets. The jeans you pull out every year around January 5th, full of regret and pecan pie, and glare at them with the burning anger of a thousand firey suns because you hate them so much (but really it's just displaced ass-anger), but then you put them on, and you're all "wow, I can finally breathe again," and you make truce with your jeans that you will wear them for ONE MONTH ONLY, and then back in the closet they go when you've worked off that 3 gallons of egg-nog.
Of course, I didn't expect to button them or anything. I might be crazy, but I'm not THAT crazy. But I was digging around for something to wear (because all my second-trimester clothes are getting snug), and I thought to myself, "self, these jeans might actually fit with a Bella band. And that would be Awesome-sauce. Let's do it."
And perhaps they would have fit with a Bella band.
But we'll never know, because I couldn't get them over my tank-sized derriere.
Sad face.
I'm sure you're not nearly as surprised as I am. Every woman gains weight when they're pregnant. Did I think I'd be the exception?
Of course I did.
Because I'm a unique snowflake, and nobody else is like me (right, mom?).
So while I was prepared for the ginormous belly (well, as much as anyone can be prepared to grow a beach ball-sized tumor under their boobs), I wasn't prepared for the matching ass and set of thighs.
Oh, and the jowls.
That part is super attractive.
So I came running out of the bedroom, wailing and holding my fat jeans up to the gods like a woman in mourning.
And then my dear, dear husband, who would do ANYTHING to make me feel better, reminded me that if I gained all my weight in my belly and didn't fill out (he actually used the words "fill out" - he should have been a politician) in the back, I'd probably tip over.
In response, I grabbed my fleshy, swollen cheeks and thrust my face in his.
"What about these?!?" I demanded. "Do JOWLS keep me from tipping over? What good are THEY doing?!?!"
So he thought for a second and replied, "they help your face match your ass"
...
Once he realized what he said, his smile disappeared and a look of fear drew across his face.
I think he actually cringed.
But I had to laugh, because my loving husband just pretty much told me my face looked like my ass.
Okay, so maybe he wouldn't be such a good politician after all.
But the jeans...yeah. They don't fit.
Not. At. All.
So I'll be heading out to a proper maternity store to purchase a moo-moo to cover my planet-sized butt.
...and possibly a gag for my husband. For the next time he wants to discuss the semantics of body weight distribution.
Or Ass Face.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
The Floor. Otherwise Known As Mars.
So, my camera went missing sometime in June.
Not that surprising, right? - things go missing all the time. ESPECIALLY in a house that is in the throes of baby preparedness.
The problem is there there are a couple different types of "missing" in my house.
For example, there's the "missing" that happens when Milo takes something. Like when several of my bras went "missing" last year, only to be found jammed in between the couch cushions (that's Milo's favorite hiding spot) with the straps chewed off.
And then there's the type of "missing" where things disappear for years on end only to show up in completely unexplainable places. Like Milo's kong, which went bouncing down the basement stairs two summers ago. I went down to retrieve it and sure enough, it was nowhere to be found. Two floods later, after the basement had been repeatedly cleared of all objects (and no kong in sight), we finally found it....through the basement door, past the laundry room, around the corner to the storage area, in a *closed* cat carrier that was placed on a shelf at shoulder-level.
No joke, I'm pretty sure we have a roving worm-hole in our house.
If any neighborhood kids go missing, I'll be sure to check the cat carrier in the basement first.
[Of course, the real question is what would happen if one were to climb in the cat carrier. Where would one come out? John Malkovitch's brain? A phone booth in Scranton (do they even make phone booths anymore)? The Ministry of Wizardry? Too bad we'll never know.
Go figure - the first worm-hole to be discovered, and it only fits things that are roughly
16in x 16in x 8in].
But I've digressed.
So...back to the missing camera. I was truly afraid it was either being digested by Milo or sitting in a phone booth in Scranton. And since I had only just received it as a Christmas gift last year, I was pretty bent out of shape over the whole situation. I spent a lot of time looking at Milo's poop for signs of a memory card, and gave the cat carrier the stink-eye every time I was in the basement (although it turns out that cat carriers can give the stink-eye back pretty good)
But one day it occurred to me.
There was a place that I hadn't checked:
Behind my desk and under my printer stand.
Because I often kept my camera on my desk...which is in front of a window that the cats like to slap-fight over...which usually gets pretty wild and results in things getting knocked all over the damn place.
But then again, for that camera to be under my printer stand, it might as well have been on Mars. Because every time I compress my mid-section, any space for my lungs is immediately sacrificed. I'm like a giant, walking accordion: if I'm squeezed, all the air rushes out in this horrible wheezing sound, and I have to be de-compressed before I can suck more air into my lungs. I'd essentially have to hold my breath from the minute I got down on one knee 'till I got back up again.
Which means that the floor has essentially become deep space.
So I did what any pregnant woman would do.
I waited for my husband to get home.
Turns out I was right - the camera was right under the printer stand (and from the looks of it, about to be sacrificed by a tribe of dust bunnies for their god. I think Brian pulled it out in the nick of time).
But it worries me a bit. If I can barely get down on the ground at 6 months, what kind of handicaps will I have in the next 3 months? I've heard horror stories about not being able to shave your legs or fit behind the steering wheel of your car in your final weeks of pregnancy (and to be honest, shaving my bikini area has already turned into some sort of blind, deadly, razor-wielding game of chance).
But they all seemed so...I dunno....funny.
...until now.
Now, I see a future where I'm shaped like Violet Beauregarde (post-gum chew), and my husband has to roll me around like the Oompa-Loompas.
We were sitting on the couch last night and decided to retire to the bedroom. He stood up, and I held out my hand.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
"Seriously?" he asked.
I nodded.
He went to pull me up, and almost immediately fell on top of me because he forgot that I've gained 26 lbs thus far in this pregnancy and am no longer the delicate flower that I was when he married me.
So it's come down to this:
I'm operating at about 40% of my previous mobility, and we're in desperate need of some Oompa-Loompas.
Maybe I can find some in my cat carrier in the basement.
Not that surprising, right? - things go missing all the time. ESPECIALLY in a house that is in the throes of baby preparedness.
The problem is there there are a couple different types of "missing" in my house.
For example, there's the "missing" that happens when Milo takes something. Like when several of my bras went "missing" last year, only to be found jammed in between the couch cushions (that's Milo's favorite hiding spot) with the straps chewed off.
And then there's the type of "missing" where things disappear for years on end only to show up in completely unexplainable places. Like Milo's kong, which went bouncing down the basement stairs two summers ago. I went down to retrieve it and sure enough, it was nowhere to be found. Two floods later, after the basement had been repeatedly cleared of all objects (and no kong in sight), we finally found it....through the basement door, past the laundry room, around the corner to the storage area, in a *closed* cat carrier that was placed on a shelf at shoulder-level.
No joke, I'm pretty sure we have a roving worm-hole in our house.
If any neighborhood kids go missing, I'll be sure to check the cat carrier in the basement first.
[Of course, the real question is what would happen if one were to climb in the cat carrier. Where would one come out? John Malkovitch's brain? A phone booth in Scranton (do they even make phone booths anymore)? The Ministry of Wizardry? Too bad we'll never know.
Go figure - the first worm-hole to be discovered, and it only fits things that are roughly
16in x 16in x 8in].
But I've digressed.
So...back to the missing camera. I was truly afraid it was either being digested by Milo or sitting in a phone booth in Scranton. And since I had only just received it as a Christmas gift last year, I was pretty bent out of shape over the whole situation. I spent a lot of time looking at Milo's poop for signs of a memory card, and gave the cat carrier the stink-eye every time I was in the basement (although it turns out that cat carriers can give the stink-eye back pretty good)
But one day it occurred to me.
There was a place that I hadn't checked:
Behind my desk and under my printer stand.
Because I often kept my camera on my desk...which is in front of a window that the cats like to slap-fight over...which usually gets pretty wild and results in things getting knocked all over the damn place.
But then again, for that camera to be under my printer stand, it might as well have been on Mars. Because every time I compress my mid-section, any space for my lungs is immediately sacrificed. I'm like a giant, walking accordion: if I'm squeezed, all the air rushes out in this horrible wheezing sound, and I have to be de-compressed before I can suck more air into my lungs. I'd essentially have to hold my breath from the minute I got down on one knee 'till I got back up again.
Which means that the floor has essentially become deep space.
So I did what any pregnant woman would do.
I waited for my husband to get home.
Turns out I was right - the camera was right under the printer stand (and from the looks of it, about to be sacrificed by a tribe of dust bunnies for their god. I think Brian pulled it out in the nick of time).
But it worries me a bit. If I can barely get down on the ground at 6 months, what kind of handicaps will I have in the next 3 months? I've heard horror stories about not being able to shave your legs or fit behind the steering wheel of your car in your final weeks of pregnancy (and to be honest, shaving my bikini area has already turned into some sort of blind, deadly, razor-wielding game of chance).
But they all seemed so...I dunno....funny.
...until now.
Now, I see a future where I'm shaped like Violet Beauregarde (post-gum chew), and my husband has to roll me around like the Oompa-Loompas.
We were sitting on the couch last night and decided to retire to the bedroom. He stood up, and I held out my hand.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
"Seriously?" he asked.
I nodded.
He went to pull me up, and almost immediately fell on top of me because he forgot that I've gained 26 lbs thus far in this pregnancy and am no longer the delicate flower that I was when he married me.
So it's come down to this:
I'm operating at about 40% of my previous mobility, and we're in desperate need of some Oompa-Loompas.
Maybe I can find some in my cat carrier in the basement.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
I Would Do Anything For A Soft Pretzel (But I Won't Do That)
First things first.
If you've never seen a pregnant woman, her uninhibited sister, and her sensibly-dressed mother rocking out at a Meatloaf concert, then you would have been pleasantly surprised to accompany me and my clan to the 2011 NJ Festival of Ballooning on Sunday, where he played a 2-hour concert. The Loaf was awesome. 63 years old and still rocking, despite the considerable heat. He might have been a little overdone (and weren't we all, with a heat index of 102), but he still looked great.
...I think.
(He was kind of far away)
But Brian's uber-zoom camera managed to catch him during Bat Out Of Hell, and from what I can tell, he looks damn good, considering his age and the oven-like conditions:
Nothing says "Rock 'N Roll" like a bedazzled skull vest.
Nothing.
If you've never seen a pregnant woman, her uninhibited sister, and her sensibly-dressed mother rocking out at a Meatloaf concert, then you would have been pleasantly surprised to accompany me and my clan to the 2011 NJ Festival of Ballooning on Sunday, where he played a 2-hour concert. The Loaf was awesome. 63 years old and still rocking, despite the considerable heat. He might have been a little overdone (and weren't we all, with a heat index of 102), but he still looked great....I think.
(He was kind of far away)
But Brian's uber-zoom camera managed to catch him during Bat Out Of Hell, and from what I can tell, he looks damn good, considering his age and the oven-like conditions:
Nothing says "Rock 'N Roll" like a bedazzled skull vest.
Nothing.
The only disappointment was that he didn't play I Would Do Anything For Love. And, because apparently being pregnant isn't excuse enough to get you backstage, I never got to ask him what he WON'T do for love.
Although my suspicion is that it involves somebody taking something up the corn-hole.
The festival itself was awesome too. Spectacularly organized and well run - although I will say that if your tent advertises soft pretzels, you'd better HAVE soft pretzels, motherf*cker, or some hungry, over-heated preggo is likely to go all monkey knife fight on your ass.
"Oh, I'm sorry - we don't sell soft pretzels"
"But your sign says 'Soft Pretzels' on it"
"I know, but we don't sell them. It's wrong"
*stony silence in which I put the Maloik on you*
Regardless.
There's really nothing as magical as watching 125 hot-air balloons rising from the ground en masse. It was a spectacular sight, and totally worth the $20 admission price.
And next year, we will undoubtedly be back with our two little meatloaves in tow.
I can't wait.
Awww - they look just like their mother
So that was my weekend.
It was great to get out of the house. Although preparing for twins has been an exciting time in my life overall, I will say that pregnancy itself is a lot more boring than I imagined, considering I can't go anywhere or do 99% of the things I used to do.
Fortunately, I have some nice things to look forward to this month - a Birthday get-away with the hubs this weekend, followed by a week of fake "vacation" in which my sister comes over and we spend the days sleeping in, knitting, eating pastries, and arguing over the validity of the Harry Potter novels as respectable adult entertainment.
But I do realize that it's all downhill after that.
I'll be approaching 7 months pregnant, and undoubtedly feeling every ache and pain.
I'll be slow, clumsy, uncomfortable, and secretly promising the twins a pony if they come early.
I'll also probably be no longer teaching horseback riding lessons, which is the one thing that gets me out and about these days. I've noticed that not only is it getting physically harder to teach the lessons, but I've become considerably less agile, which spells disaster around large, unpredictable animals. So I'm thinking that I'll have to hang up my spurs, as it were, by mid-August, which totally kills me but has to be done.
Because it's not about me anymore.
It's about my lil' meatloaves, and what's best for them.
Because although I want them to be horse-savvy, I don't want their first horse experience to include a skitzy thoroughbred trampling them in his rush to get away from the horse-eating squirrel.
(you'd be surprised how many horse-eating squirrels we have in NJ)
So there goes another hobby (temporarily) down the drain.
Which leaves me with countless hours to work, read, watch TV, and be generally sloth-like.
But enough with the pity party.
I hit 25 weeks today, which is a wonderful accomplishment, and I'm thrilled to say that in less than 3 months, I'll be a mom.
Wow.
Time flies when you're (not) having fun!
Although my suspicion is that it involves somebody taking something up the corn-hole.
The festival itself was awesome too. Spectacularly organized and well run - although I will say that if your tent advertises soft pretzels, you'd better HAVE soft pretzels, motherf*cker, or some hungry, over-heated preggo is likely to go all monkey knife fight on your ass.
"Oh, I'm sorry - we don't sell soft pretzels"
"But your sign says 'Soft Pretzels' on it"
"I know, but we don't sell them. It's wrong"
*stony silence in which I put the Maloik on you*
Regardless.
There's really nothing as magical as watching 125 hot-air balloons rising from the ground en masse. It was a spectacular sight, and totally worth the $20 admission price.
And next year, we will undoubtedly be back with our two little meatloaves in tow.
I can't wait.
Awww - they look just like their motherSo that was my weekend.
It was great to get out of the house. Although preparing for twins has been an exciting time in my life overall, I will say that pregnancy itself is a lot more boring than I imagined, considering I can't go anywhere or do 99% of the things I used to do.
Fortunately, I have some nice things to look forward to this month - a Birthday get-away with the hubs this weekend, followed by a week of fake "vacation" in which my sister comes over and we spend the days sleeping in, knitting, eating pastries, and arguing over the validity of the Harry Potter novels as respectable adult entertainment.
But I do realize that it's all downhill after that.
I'll be approaching 7 months pregnant, and undoubtedly feeling every ache and pain.
I'll be slow, clumsy, uncomfortable, and secretly promising the twins a pony if they come early.
I'll also probably be no longer teaching horseback riding lessons, which is the one thing that gets me out and about these days. I've noticed that not only is it getting physically harder to teach the lessons, but I've become considerably less agile, which spells disaster around large, unpredictable animals. So I'm thinking that I'll have to hang up my spurs, as it were, by mid-August, which totally kills me but has to be done.
Because it's not about me anymore.
It's about my lil' meatloaves, and what's best for them.
Because although I want them to be horse-savvy, I don't want their first horse experience to include a skitzy thoroughbred trampling them in his rush to get away from the horse-eating squirrel.
(you'd be surprised how many horse-eating squirrels we have in NJ)
So there goes another hobby (temporarily) down the drain.
Which leaves me with countless hours to work, read, watch TV, and be generally sloth-like.
But enough with the pity party.
I hit 25 weeks today, which is a wonderful accomplishment, and I'm thrilled to say that in less than 3 months, I'll be a mom.
Wow.
Time flies when you're (not) having fun!
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