I'm Carrying What?

Things have gotten a little interesting in soon-to-be-a-mother-land as I'm currently carrying a 9 pound, 5 ounce baby (weight as of yesterday afternoon). At first this was something that was just interesting, but now it's gotten a little stressful when my doctor told me that the baby is almost too big for a natural birth and I might have to have a cesarean, but because I'm a tall, large woman, I might be able to pull this off. Unfortunately, this was the appointment in which I could've used my husband's support (he opted to stay home), so when I was asked what I wanted to do, I almost lost it. How do I make a decision on whether to go for natural or surgery [and I use "natural" in the sense of pathway of delivery and not in the no-epidural context]? I told my doctor that I wanted to wait a week to try to have the baby, so I'm going to be scheduled to be induced next Wednesday night.

My doctor is hopeful that I will come in for my morning appointment dilated 3 centimeters so that they won't have to induce, but seeing as I'm almost 2 centimeters and not effaced, I'm worried that I will have to go the surgery route. I've never been in the hospital for more than a few hours at a time in the emergency room for asthma attacks, so this baby will be the first time I've had a major procedure, and now I'm starting to get scared. What if I can't have the baby naturally? What if we start that way but it gets stuck at the shoulders (which my doctor says is the fear when the baby is too big)? I know that a cesarean is not a mark of failure (considering how many people in my family have had them), but I still feel bad if I have to do that. And surgery will take longer for me to recover from, making going back to school even more difficult. And for all I know, the ultrasound could be wrong and the baby is smaller than it says (or it could be larger), but I won't know until delivery day.

Now the problem is, if I have the baby early [The original due date was today, but was changed to September 6] I will stop working sooner than I wanted and that will put us in a bad financial fix. If I manage to get all the way to Wednesday, the baby may be too big and I would have to have the surgery. Or I could go into labor over the weekend and end up with someone other than my primary doctor doing the delivery. Anyway out, I don't win.

I'm trying to stay calm about this, but it's hard to not feel bad that this isn't going in a way that makes sense to me. I had no plans for how I wanted this to go, I had just hoped I'd be the first in my family since my great-grandmother to have a natural birth and that may not happen. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm carrying a baby that's approaching 10 pounds. We'll have to see how this goes.

Small Victory Against Protestors

The Cincinnati courts just upheld a state law which says that protesters at funerals need to stay at least 300 feet away. This means that the nuts from the Westboro Baptist Church can't be as obnoxious as they want to be during funerals.

I'm glad the ruling was upheld, but I'm bothered that there would be anyone out there who thinks that protesting the deaths of soldiers as God's way of punishing the U.S. for being tolerant of gays is a good idea. It's tacky, tasteless, and fails to get their agenda (which I do not support) across. I think God has better things to do than kill people to make a completely unrelated point. Besides, I don't think killing those in an intolerant system such as our military (Don't ask, don't tell, anyone?) for the country being tolerant makes any sense. Then again, I think too much. I should just be glad that protesters are forced to show some respect for the dead by court order.

Guaranteed to Never Be Bored

Oh, how I wish I were boring right now.

Okay, this is what has happened with my family situation. My mom and uncle are currently at my place and have been since Friday night. They finally figured out the problem with the cell phone (f-i-l has a bad habit of not keeping instruction manuals to anything, so they didn't know about the voicemail thing) and called us on Friday afternoon to find out when we were coming. That call was a good sign because my husband was worried that we wouldn't be able to get my uncle to agree to come to Columbus. Let's just say that it took us less than a minute to load them up and be on the way.

Unfortunately, Krayzee has managed to make things much, much worse by contacting their church and telling the gossip-hounds that mom and uncle needed financial assistance. This was discovered when my mom called their ride to church to let her know that she didn't need to pick them up. All I know is, I'm glad that they were out of town because I would've been horrified if they had found this out once they got to church, and my uncle would probably be in jail for killing his sister. She never checked on them in the two weeks that they were without service, and after all the thousands of dollars she has "borrowed" from them over the years, she loves to tell everyone that she has been supporting them. She also tells people that she raised my brother and I (which is a damned lie) and had no intentions of helping my uncle get a job. When the first thing out of your mouth when your mother just died is "How are are you going to maintain the house?", you have serious problems. She also called to say that she has the crib and wanted us to drive up yesterday to get it. My husband wants to call her bluff just to screw with her, but after my uncle called her up Saturday night (after 8 months of not saying anything to her) to call her everything but her name, I'm just going to leave her alone.

That, and she's probably not going to have a job very soon. One of the requirements for her current employment is that she has to live in town (it's immediate dismissal if she isn't filling that requirement), so she's been using their address to fill that requirement. That's going to end.

My uncle has been a great help already. He's gotten the kitchen tamed and the stairs have all the library books on one side (which, honestly, makes more sense and is safer), and he will be tackling the rest of the house in due time. My husband came through on finding a good family doctor that will take all of us (baby included), but had to be sent home from work yesterday when the arm with the tetanus shot [which he took like a champ, btw] was in too much pain for him to continue. As he put it, he lost a lot of machismo points for crying in front of his coworkers (aww!), but he was told not to work because the arm could get much worse if he kept working [HR's orders]...and he also learned the lesson to get the shot in the arm you don't favor. We got to go out walking last night (which, sadly, fried my hair that I had just gotten done on Friday) and we ran into our neighbors who had a bit of their own drama to deal with involving the wife's sister needing to be rescued from a black-belt, gun-wielding philanderer husband who has an addiction to internet and cellphone-text porn. Apparently, I live in Drama Heights, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone could turn this into great television someday.

Even my mom's presence has been beneficial. She's not exactly the best houseguest a person can have (she uses up all of my shower gel and she ate my husband's sandwich without asking if she could have it), but my husband now understands why I get so anal about things being a certain way. He likes to be a smartass on occasion and refused to see why it would be a problem to not open a door all the way, but he gets why it bothers me now and is a bit more understanding about it.

I am half tempted to do a YouTube video to let the world know what kind of person Krayzee is, but that requires a lot of work, and I doubt the people who need to see it will look, and blah, blah, blah. She's not really worth the effort. My f-i-l wants to help them out by paying to get their utilities turned back on, so I have to try to get the information on the account and how much is owed so that he can do that. Considering that Krayzee doesn't know how much is owed, it's utterly ridiculous that she could get the church to pay for anything. And if anyone out there thinks she did this out of the kindness of her heart, let me ask you this: If she was really looking to help, why didn't she go to her own church? Why did she not ask her friend's family (who live up the street from them) to check on them if she was unwilling to drive up to the house? The devil is in this woman, and I can't waste any more time on her. I'm due in two weeks (eek!) and I don't have time for this.

She's tried to destroy the family and ruin our reputations to make herself look good. She only has herself to blame for the fall that is coming. I'm having as little to do with her as possible because she's not worth the aggravation. She can turn to her friends if she needs help from now on. And if they end up having to sell the house, I'm going over to her place with Matt and a camera so that he can remove her daughter from the area before I beat that woman's sorry ass and blast it all over the internet.

Now that I'm no longer carrying the weight of her idiocy, I can get back on track and be proactive in getting everyone back on their feet. This feels good. And itchy. Apparently, the side effect of no longer being incredibly stressed out is to be (once again) horribly itchy. Yay.

Anyway, I'm hoping to do some news reports this week, but I have to do all of my computer stuff exclusively at work until I can get into the guest room again. I haven't even read any of the recaps yet (which is killing me), but I've got to get more work done. I'm so far behind, it's not even funny.

Loss of a Congresswoman

I just discovered that Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Congresswoman from Ohio has passed away from a brain aneurysm. She was a representative who came from Cleveland and was a very outspoken person who earned the respect of both her fellow Democrats as well as Republicans. I'm very surprised because it's just one of those things that you can't anticipate. I got to do a performance once that she attended (which is the closest I ever got to meeting her) and she was very charismatic. She represented her constituents well, and I don't see how she will ever be replaced.

God Speed, Ms. Tubbs Jones.

Big Update

...a.k.a. how the family fared, why I want to kill Krayzee, and that I have the best co-workers ever!

Let's start with the most pressing item: My mom and uncle. We were going to drive up to Cleveland on Sunday to check up on them when my husband offered to ask his dad to go over and check on them. My f-i-l couldn't get over there until today because he lives on the other side of town (roughly 45 minutes away), but the offer was welcomed because I wasn't sure I could make the trip without stopping at every rest stop along the way. Well, he made it over there after work today and I finally got to talk to my mom! F-i-l has a cell phone and I found out that they are doing alright but haven't been eating well (lack of refrigeration tends to lead to non-perishable items that aren't always the best), and that my uncle went downtown on the bus to take his job application to Aunt Krayzee and when he asked her if she had heard from us all she said was "yes." What she failed to tell him is that we called her Wednesday night when we couldn't contact them and that she only spoke to Matt briefly the next day and wouldn't return our calls (and she ignored his pleas to go check on them even though she lives closer than my f-i-l). I let my mom know that I'm bringing both her and my uncle down this weekend, and I don't think I'm going to get any objections at this point. My f-i-l then called Matt back to tell him that he's going to try and help them out because they are in dire straits and nobody knew how bad off they were. They also haven't finished the probate stuff and, being the lawyer he is, he's worried that the house will be taken if they can't pay the taxes. It will be my job to try to help them sort things out [read: be willing to take help] while they are down here with us. F-i-l is also going to get them a charged up cell phone so that we can reach them and they can reach the outside world. We are relieved that they are alright, but I am so angry with that woman for not even trying to see them once, even though she knew that things were bad for them. All she could do was bellyache about her own problems, as if she's struggling. If it weren't for her daughter, I'd beat her ass in the middle of the street like one of my childhood friends did her mother [btw, that woman did deserve it]. If I see her anytime soon, she's getting punched in the face. And if they end up losing the house either by selling it or by it being taken, may God have mercy on her soul.

With that out of the way, I wanted to touch on my awesome co-workers. They all put in money to buy us a crib and mattress [so Krayzee can suck it!] as well as a few other items. One of my team members even offered to babysit and come over to show us how to give the first bath! What is so awesome is that my department is mostly male, but since just about everyone over 40 has had children, they can all relate and remember new parenthood. When I tried to thank everyone, I was at a loss for words (and nobody could believe it). One of the guys even followed me home to drop the crib off, since he had a truck and claimed he lived close by [he probably didn't, but was trying to be nice and make it not seem like it was out of his way]. I feel so blessed that I would know people who would do this for me...and I feel a little guilty that I haven't been working as hard as I could (but I got more done today than I have in months). I now have three thank you cards to write for work [The woman at the front desk that I chat with just about every day bought us a gift that I picked up on Saturday, and some of the ladies got me the extra items over and above the crib], so I'm hoping to get that done by Wednesday.

I feel better that I know that everyone is alive and fine, but I don't even want to think about Krayzee's dumb ass anymore. How anyone can treat family like that I'll never know. Besides, I've got more pressing things to worry about and since we don't need the crib that she allegedly was going to give to us, I have nothing else to say to her.

Baby Shower Images

Well, I finally got around to uploading the images from my baby shower. I decided to use Photobucket and a slideshow feature to put the images online because I wasn't feeling up to doing something more interesting/difficult. That, and I don't think I'll exceed my bandwidth because my blog visit counts are usually pretty low. That being said, if I do by some bizarre happenstance exceed my bandwidth, I'll find another way to post these images online.

For some reason, the last line of the mosaic is a repeat of the first line of images, so you can ignore those [Edit: The pictures on the far right are being cropped by the layout of the webpage, but 98% of the image appears when you move you mouse over it, so sorry about that]. My mother is the pretty lady in the sleeveless outfit, and she is seated next to my mother in law. My two girlfriends who came (who I can never thank enough!) are seated next to the young lady in blue who stepped in to make sure that the shower wasn't completely controlled by the older women. One of the girls will be having a baby in January, and the other (who was mistaken for my sister) kept cracking jokes and went on a rant about the teddy bear with no eyes...in front of the woman who made it!

I think the best line came from my mom during the baby food eating contest: "I feel sorry for babies. No wonder they spit this stuff out."

Rough Night

I am doing my very best not to freak out after what happened last night. Between MIA family members and just getting sick, I'm surprised that I'm as calm as I am right now.

I usually call home three times a week and Wednesday is one of those times. Unfortunately, my mysterious stomach ailment hit me around 6:00 yesterday which caused me to end up in the bathroom instead of on the phone at my appointed time of 8 [I've been getting these intermittent stomach pains off and on for years and nobody knows what they are; I attribute it to eating too much of the wrong things that give me gas that gets trapped (a lifetime of gas problems will give one that impression)]. So when I finally do try to call home, their number is disconnected. Both house numbers. And my uncle's cell phone. They've been without power for a week now but they still had phone service, so I'm starting to get worried and call my husband home from his friends' place (fortunately, that's a 45 second walk). I try to call my brother and accidentally call my dad (and promptly hung up on him) and when I finally get a number for my brother, it's off as well. Even Crayzee isn't answering her phone, and that leaves me feeling like I'm adrift with no family contact. My husband offered me three options: To a) ask Daddy Douchebag if he'll check on them, b) ask his father to check on them, or c) to drive up there and get them. I refuse to give my father anything that he can spread around in the streets about them and I don't want to trouble his father so those two options were out. And I was too sick to make the trip last night (besides, I don't know where they are...they could be with friends or who-knows-where). I ended up drifting in and out of sleep all night until the pains subsided for good around 6 a.m.

Apparently, Crayzee got our message and said she hasn't heard from them either. However, she'll be available to talk around 9, so I'm making Matt talk to her then (I'm still not ready to play nice with her yet). We were going to bring both of them down for next week since the baby is going to be here soon and we are in serious need to getting the house together, but I have to find them first. Honestly, this is the most scared I've been in a long time. I'm incapable of helping them financially (because they won't let me; they know I'd do whatever it took to get their utilities back on), I don't really have any connections in the area that I can use to help them get work; I can just use the same temp agency that helped me out and try to put in a good word once they've applied, and I have to stay calm so that I don't go into labor early.

One of the adages that I used to put alot of faith into was "God doesn't give you more than you can handle." I'm not sure I believe that anymore. I've had my issues with Him since January, but I don't even know what to think or feel, other than frustration and anger. I can't just sit by and watch my family disintegrate, but it seems that is exactly what I'm being forced to do. I hope that they can get to a phone and call me. I just want to know that they're alright.

News, glorious news.

Not much to report today. I've got some strange criminals, so I won't disappoint, but it's not a wealth of news (but still entertaining).

A quick note before I begin, I had my doctor's appointment today and while I'm not quite ready to drop it like it's hot, things are progressing faster than I thought. I'll spare you the details (1 centimeter dilated and some other technical stuff), but I've really got to get our house together before we're "surprised."

Well, here's the news, for what it's worth.

- A man claimed he was a porn inspector and demanded free porn to inspect that the girls were "of age" in the films. The police were called after the third time this guy tried this, so they're on the lookout for someone who thought being a bikini inspector just wasn't enough.

- Now how does this work? A man was arrested for being too close to his wife. A Batavian man was marrying his ex-wife when the police remembered that the ex had a restraining order filed against him. He's currently up on felony charges, and probably surprised that he's in jail when he just re-married the woman.

- Getting back into my comfort zone of stupid criminals, a man robbed a video store but left his driver's license and other "identifying materials" behind. Ha, ha! What a dumbass.

- Can you believe this happened in Japan? (yes). A man in a Winnie the Pooh costume beat up and robbed two people who dared to stare at him. Winnie and his friends (dressed as a mouse and panther, respectively) were wearing the costumes because they were out of clean laundry, but that still doesn't explain why they robbed the poor people.

- In a minor Olympic scandal, it has come to light that the little girl who sang at the Opening ceremonies was pulling a Milli Vanilli as she was lip-syncing for another little girl who was "too ugly" to put on TV. And there are people defending the decision because the Chinese feel that their worldly image is more important than anything else.

- If you hadn't already heard, there was a dumb-bum in Xenia, Ohio who decided to take a bubble bath in a Burger King sink, film it, and post it to his MySpace page. Well, needless to say, king moron was fired. He feels bad for others getting fired for their involvement (or lack of intervention), but he should feel bad for being dumb enough to tape it.

- And what about the crazy lady who had her dog Booger cloned overseas? There's evidence out there that suggests she's the same bat-poop crazy lady who kidnapped and raped a Mormon missionary back in the day. What's scary is that I actually recognized her for her past crimes, but I couldn't place where I had seen her until today. Stay away from that one, fellas, she's crazy!

That's it for today. It's time for another dash-to-the-finish bathroom break and time to bounce out of here.

I leave with a quote from Not Always Right ("Fighting Fire With Fire") about bad-assed kids (with a dumb father to match), and a quote from Overheard in New York that I liked just for being strange.

How Do You Get a Flyer Guy to Shut Up? Discuss
Flyer guy: Rainbow room! Discount admission! Observatory! Rainbow room!
(goth chick unbuttons her shirt)
Flyer guy: Rainbow room... Uh...
(goth chick reveals a Batman t-shirt)
Flyer guy, recovering: Discount admission! Observatory!
Goth chick (in menacing voice): I'm Batman.
Flyer guy: Rainbow room! Discount admission! Batman! We got batman in Gotham! Observatory! Rainbow room! Batman! Discount admission!

--Rockefeller Plaza

Overheard by: Rose Fox
via Overheard in New York, Aug 12, 2008

...So Where Did I Go?

I've been busy watching the Olympics, not getting enough sleep, dealing with my inability to do anything for my family, and the sheer panic of impending motherhood. I've also been trying to get some work accomplished so that it won't seem like I wasted the last six months doing nothing (even though that's pretty accurate) when I leave this job. Let's start with this weekend and recap our way from there.

Matt and I attended our childbirth class and while I got a lot out of it, it wasn't worth no damn $95 dollars. They provided snacks but no meals, so I was a little pissed about that, and we did the hospital tour again (fun). The most interesting thing from the class was that a woman almost went into labor during the class. It was a 9-4 class on a Saturday, so we were both grumpy to be up in the morning and hated all of the group activities. I just want to take notes and be left alone, but noooo. I have to talk to people. So we spent the rest of the class writing notes to each other about what was getting on our nerves (i.e. how stupid some of the people were, the teacher's inability to say "personally" because she would just say "personal", and a list of all the phrases that get on my nerves).

My mom and uncle are still without electricity, and that has me very concerned. He won't tell me how much it would cost to get it turned back on (because he knows I would just try to pay it), so I've enlisted the help of my husband to play the heavy and talk my aunt into helping them out (or, at the very least, pay back what she owes). He called her on Monday about the crib and she said that the crib was at one person's house and the changing table (which I don't even want) is at another. We don't buy for a second that she can get these items so he's supposed to call her back today. I also told him to bring up the money issue with her, but to be "nice" if she mentioned the whereabouts of the crib. He leaned on her, but not enough, so we have to fine-tune this process. Crayzee tries to come off as if she's a responsible person because she has a job and her siblings do not, but if she were so damn responsible she wouldn't have borrowed money from these very same unemployed people. And if she were a decent human being, she would've helped them to get jobs and gotten their applications on file back in January. But since I found out that she's supposed to live in the city for her job and she does not, I have amunition for when I get really nasty. When her own friend is making sure that she takes care of a sibling who her father had with another woman, there's something wrong with Crayzee's moral compass.

I recommended the temp agency that I used here, and I'll even put in a call if that will help them to get employed. As it is, I'd be happy if they went back to school so they would at least have financial aid to use (my uncle would be finishing his PhD and my mom would be finishing her bachelor's degree), but that will take months. Matt has decided he wants them both to come down next week to help us set up for the baby and to get out of the darkness (but they're worried about leaving the house for a long period) so I've got to sell them on it today.

Unfortunately, the thing that could bring me down the fastest happened to re-enter my life this weekend. Crayzee's Ex husband ran into my brother on the bus. Ex recognized him and siad "I haven't seen you since you were 18 years old!" (he's 31 now) and then proceeded to ask a ton of questions about me. Why me? Why not his ex-wife or his ex siblings-in-law. No, he had to ask about me and my brother (who feels guilty for not protecting me back then) thought to himself "I'm going to protect my sister, because this is inappropriate" told him repeatedly that I love Columbus and that I'm going to stay down here, just to get him off the subject. Finding out about this made me so upset that I asked my husband to come home early from work on Sunday. That man ruined my life for a number of years, and I felt a little bit like a scared little kid all over again. My husband's reaction? He wants to kill him (he tried to once, but I begged him not to because this man is not worth jail time). Way to damage my self-image again, Ex.

The baby shower pictures were moved from my camera to the computer in record time. Unfortunately, that was last week and I still haven't had time to post them. It'll get done this weekend (I hope) so that the rare photos of a pregnant me will be on the Internet.

I have a headache and I need to put up a news post soon before I clock out for the night. I discovered yet another website that qualifies as eye-crack, and this one is called Not Always Right which has a wealth of quotes from dumb customers who remind me of why I should never work retail. Unfortunately, they won't let me put up quotes like Overheard in New York, but when I find some good ones to post, I recommend checking them out.

One last thing; I want to give a shout out to the US Men's and Women's Gymnastics teams for great performances this week for the team metals. The men weren't expected to do well but they were even in the lead for awhile, and the women were close to gold but should hold their heads up high that they gave it their all (even with the errors). I haven't had this much fun watching gymnastics since "the Magnificent 7" from the '96 Olympics (with my favorite American gymnast of all time, Dominique Dawes who gets a little screen time in the "I Got Soul But I'm Not A Soldier" commercial), so they should be very proud. I've watched a lot of Olympics this year (makes up for only watching 2 minutes of it in '04) and I'm glad we're doing so well. Not really a Michael Phelps fan, but I can't deny him all the accolades he's been getting (I'm not a complete curmudgeon).

This is too long, so I'm stopping now. Have a good day everyone.

"Overheard" Gems

I found quite a few OiNY quotes today that cracked me up. I wish I had known the second one when everyone was trying to "save" me as a college freshman, but I wasn't ready to be quite that nasty at the time. Remember, the language can get dicey at times...and I even got in some "water sports" quotes, so this is going to be interesting. Have fun.

When I'm Still Too Hungover to Care About the Customers

Foreign guy: And listen, this coffee, it's for my friend. And he doesn't want it black, but he doesn't want too much milk in it. Can you handle that, my friend?
Cashier: We don't put milk in your coffee, sir.
Foreign guy: What? My friend needs milk!
Cashier: You put the milk in yourself, sir. It's right over there.
Foreign guy: He also wants Equal. No sugar. My friend, my friend, do you think you can handle that?
Cashier: The sugar is right over there.
Foreign guy: I need a cup for this milk and sugar because I don't know how much my friend wants.
Cashier: I have to start working the morning shift.

--Starbucks, 40th & Lexington

Overheard by: clp

via Overheard in New York, Aug 7, 2008
None of My Relationships Are Any of Your Business

Man reciting gospel on a train: And you, sir, have you accepted Jesus into your life?
Passenger: A long time ago, baby. Now fuck off.

--1 Train

via Overheard in New York, Aug 7, 2008
I Participated in the Cosmetics Counter Sit-Ins at Greensboro
Old woman: Did you happen to notice if the dancers were wearing nail polish?
Teen girl: No. I'm sorry, I didn't.
Old woman: I imagine an art form such as this stifles the dancers' individual expression. I know some days I feel watermelon pink... and no one can stop me!

--Front Row, NYC Ballet, Lincoln Center

Overheard by: Gina Sophia
via Overheard in New York, Aug 7, 2008
Wait!....Can I Have Your Broken Shoe?
Crazy bag lady in Burger King crown: Oh look, you broke your shoe, and you're pregnant.
Hugely pregnant woman: Yes.
Crazy bag lady in Burger King crown: Well bitch, just go to the ATM, get $20, and get a new pair of shoes. White folks got all the money.
Hugely pregnant woman: (silence)
Crazy bag lady in Burger King crown: You know what? God broke your shoe. He broke it cause you hate black people.
Hugely pregnant woman: Umm, this is my stop.

--2 Train

Overheard by: courtney
via Overheard in New York, Aug 7, 2008
I Could Fetch Better Than That Any Day of the Week
Hipster girl (after playing with a stranger's dog and its tennis ball): Bye, dog! Awww.
Hipster dude in fedora: Pfft. Dog thinks it's so fucking smart.

--Atlantic & Smith, Brooklyn
via Overheard in New York, Aug 7, 2008
Wednesday One-Liners Want You to Know About the Size of Their Bank Accounts
Yuppie on cell (trying to be discreet): Hey mom. Are you busy? Could you Google Maps me? I'm on Houston and West Broadway. Yeah, I didn't want to ask anyone for directions and make a fool of myself. Although I'm pretty sure I just did, because half of this coffee shop is looking at me now.

--W Houston

Overheard by: Let's face it, we were all new at one point.

40-something yuppie woman: And then I realized that my biggest problem in life is that most of the time I'm incredibly happy, but I'm not aware of how happy I am.

--81st & Madison

Yuppie dad to seven-year-old daughter: Now when you start buying iPods, that's when you're going to want to have a Visa card.

--Stanton & Christie

Overheard by: Ross

Three-year-old yuppie spawn: Noooooooooooo! I don't want Pad Thai! I want sushi!

--Dice Thai, Prospect Park

Overheard by: I'll take sushi too but you're payin', kid


via Overheard in New York, Aug 6, 2008
Mellow Yellow Wednesday One-Liners
Latina: I don't care what a guy says, I'm not gonna let him piss on me.

--Vesey Street & Broadway

Overheard by: Sam

Giggling four-year-old boy: Yeah, and there was a sign and it said, "Caution: someone peed here!"

--Waverly & W 11th

Bimbo: And he was like, "Sarah, you pissed the bed" and I was like, "Whaaaaat?" and he was like, "Sarah, get up, you pissed the fucking bed!"

--Theater District

Overheard by: Paul

Girl on cell: Alright, fine, but if you pee on me again, we're done!

--C Train

Overheard by: Laura

Guy, in disbelief: You mean you've never been pissed on before?!

--14th & Broadway

Overheard by: Josh

Girl: Would it be considered indecent exposure if I peed in the sink?

--Lyceum Theatre

Girl to friend: Her?! She totally splashes her urine.

--34th & 8th

Overheard by: Ellen


via Overheard in New York, Aug 6, 2008

Slow News Day

It took awhile just to find something worth posting today. The criminals have been behaving and people hadn't been too stupid...but patience paid off and here's what I've got.

- A man with a dumbassed tattoo of a cinema strip on his face was arrested for kidnapping and perpetrating a hoax by using a Play-Doh bomb in Priscilla's, a lingerie store known for being very brightly lit (which makes it all the more creepy). What? So I know about all the sex shops in town. What's your point? Anyway...

- A guy got busted with a strange bulge in his pants outside of a Wal-Mart, only to discover that the "bulge" was some stolen chicken. The bulge was outside the wrong store!

- This is why it doesn't pay to drink and drive: A woman got lost (and was drunk) and stopped at a home to ask for directions. Unfortunately, she stopped at the home of a sherrif's deputy who realized she was intoxicated and wouldn't let her leave. She added to her drunk driving charge a charge of attacking an officer but, in her defense, she was drunk and didn't know he was an officer, so I can't really blame her for resisting some strange guy who wanted to not let her drive home.

And a couple of "stupid teenagers" stories caught my attention.

- An 11-year-old wanted to wake up his girlfriend in the wee hours of the morning and learned that using a slingshot was a very bad idea. He's paying his mother back the $160 she paid to fix the window by going around and doing chores, but at least he has to tell everyone why he's asking to do odd-jobs.

At least his crime was one of passion.

- The 26 high school cheerleaders who got stuck in an elevator were all just too lazy to take the stairs and/or were too impatient to just wait for another elevator. Considering that a student died in an elevator incident at OSU over a year ago and I happened to miss an over-filled elevator when I was a Singing Angel that plunged six stories and stopped just inches from the basement floor, I am on the side of the University of Texas on this one.

And to round this out, here are two wild animal stories.

- The first is a Mexican woman who fought off a lion attack with a machete until it left her and her niece alone. This is what I call an impressive woman because I'm not sure I could've done this.

- The second should be called "The Trouble with Badgers" (sorry, Star Trek). Apparently, male mating badgers sound like women screaming, and one in particular resulted in a lot of calls to the police. Hopefully, they won't make the neighbors pay for the helicopter usage that resulted in finding the "randy badgers."

To finish this edition out, I'm including a couple of comic strips and an "Overheard..." quote. The Agnes comic shows my need for an optimistic friend to think that "screaming is fun", and the Pearls Before Swine entry is just too pathetic to pass up. One of Pig's most endearing lines was from a comic where Rat asked Pig if he knew why bad things happened to him. Pig's response was "Yes, I'm stupid" and I've loved him ever since.

This "Overheard" quote is in honor of the "homosexual" phraseology I used the other day. Enjoy.

Foot Corns Are So Heteronormative

(at the gay pride festival)
Girl handing out stickers: Do you want a sticker?
Lady with a lot of stickers on: Fo' sho I'll take a sticker... and a cheeseburger, and some ice for the corn on my right foot.
Girl (looking discouraged): Ew.

--Hudson & Jane St

Overheard by: Jessica

via Overheard in New York, Aug 7, 2008

Oh, it's ON now.

In the ever-evolving saga of my family's drama, Aunt Crayzee crossed a line with me and will now begin paying for being a bitch. The electricity got cut off at the house yesterday and when my uncle went to Crayzee for help with it, she told him to ask the church for money. First of all, she asked them for money to pay her gas and electric last month and they gave it to her instead of going to her church, so she can suck it for all I care. Secondly, she's been dicking around on my uncle's job application since he began looking for work back in January. Why you ask the two people who don't have jobs to help you but you won't do the same in return is beyond me, but I've decided to take action.

I want her to suffer for being a bitch. My husband is being the more practical of the two of us and trying to come up with solutions to their situation, but I just want to be mean and nasty. I want her to either start helping them out or sell her portion of the house to me. When I brought this up, my husband thought that she would take us to court for the whole amount and win, but considering that my f-i-l is a real estate attorney who could write up the contractual sale for free, and that she wouldn't be able to afford to take me to court, I think I have a slight advantage.

Finding out more and more about her bad behavior has prompted me to seek outside help. She has a girlfriend that she is constantly running to with her sob stories, and I am going to call this woman this weekend and tell her everything that has been going on. I have to; I'm tired of hearing Crayzee tell people that my mom and uncle need to be independent while she runs to them for money on a regular basis. She has borrowed a ton of money from them and I am going to make sure she starts paying them back.

She made a bad choice in pissing me off, and I am going to make sure that she pays with interest.

I know it's wrong to take pleasure in causing someone else's pain, but I'm looking forward to doing this. It's moving out of the burden-on-my-heart phase into the clinical-action phase, which will make this all the easier to handle. So I'm probably going to hell for doing this, but I no longer care. I can no longer let her get away with her crocodile tears, so let the games begin.

News, Glorious News!

I'm doing this entry while on hold with the financial aid office. My hope is that I'll get through before they close their office at 4 (it's 3:47 now) so that I can get some answers to why I was sent two sets of paperwork. I have to get confirmation that I don't need to send in the paperwork from the first set because this university is known for its idiotic red tape...

Update: I got through and only one of the forms was absolutely necessary, but I was able to get my questions answered quickly (3:52) and before the office closed for the day.

Anyway, today's news has some stupid criminals, interesting animal stories, and even Paris Hilton made the page today. Let's get this rolling, shall we?

- A woman in Florida was arrested for assaulting her husband with a frozen lasagna meal. Unfortunately, he apparently had an outstanding warrant and was also hauled off to the clink, but after having dropped a frozen brick of lasagna on my foot, she deserved to go to jail.

- Some jewel thieves were thwarted in their getaway when bystanders noticed their still-running car and turned it off and took the keys out to prevent them from driving away. They even put barriers around the car in case they had a spare set of keys. Needless to say, all three criminals were caught. Way to go, bystanders!

- I've had bad experiences at McDonalds and almost beat the crap out of a counter girl, but even I have shown better restraint than the guy who tore the shirt off of the drive-thru employee in a brawl because he believed his order was wrong and/or the wrong price (he argued both points with the guy). This guy got jailed because he was the aggressor, even though he claimed the employee struck first. Don't mess with fast food workers; they usually don't have anything to lose.

- And speaking of more people with anger-management issues, a 30-year-old landlord plowed a Hummer through a home because the tenants were late on their rent. Not exactly the best way to handle the situation...it's time to take a time-out and calm way the hell down before you blow a gasket.

- Some 25-year-old moron was clocked going 80 mph and blamed his speed and his drifting (he drove on the wrong side of the road) on text messaging (oh, and he was drunk, too). What made this article stand out so much is the featured comment where someone got angry that people said that banning texting while driving was unfair to the deaf community. This commenter's outrage fit the situation to a "t".

- Here's yet another (useless) tip to criminals; when you steal some rare coins from someone, make sure they're not the person you're giving them to at the bank the next day. You know, know the occupation of your victim so that you can avoid getting caught by them. Duh.

- Some 20-something woman thought that robbing a 71-year-old and his wheelchair-bound friend was a good idea and learned very quickly that she was wrong when the man chased her ass down and held her there with the wheelchaired friend until the police arrived. Better yet, just don't rob anyone. Pack it in, toots, because you suck.

- Now for something completely different, a set of goats snuck past the security on an NYC bridge. These "weapons of grass destruction" (not my pun, I swear!) were hired to eat the poison ivy and weeds off of a monument and managed to escape and go ABRIDGE (that's mine; sorry) for awhile.

- And an 111-year-old turtle has mated with a younger turtle for the first time in decades. He had no interest in mating due to a tumor on his genitals, but once that was removed he became the mack daddy to three turtles. Play on, player. Play on.

- And, finally, Paris Hilton made a video response to McCain's commercial slamming Obama as a celebrity with no leadership qualities. She credit's the old guy for saying she's ready to run the country and she even has her own solution for the oil crisis. The only irritating thing about this article is that McCain's spokesperson takes this opportunity to say that Paris has a better oil plan than Obama because she fused both of their plans together...but the spokesperson essentially says that she's following McCain's plan. Whatever.

To lighten the mood, I'm including a religious comic that fuses the church with Ghostbusters with humorous results. Since I want to get some work done today, I'm done for the this edition of the news.

And now that I can get a temporary disability permit to park in the non-blue spots due to being pregnant, finding a spot in the morning is going to be great. Now if I could only stay focused on work for more than five minutes....

Quick! 30cc of News, Stat!

I'm going to try to do this as quickly as possible because I want to eventually go home, but here is another post of quirky news stories. Before I begin, I wanted to mention my husband's dilemma with the church council meeting. We have been without a pastor for more than a year and while we have a good substitute, we are on the search for someone to be a more permanent replacement. He's on the committee and he thinks they may have found the right pastor for the church (it's a baptist church that is involved with the university and has done so for more than 100 years) but their dilemma is that he may possibly be gay and if they take him, it will get the church disfellowshipped (thrown out of their organization) and put funding in jeopardy). This man has done a lot of outreach with youth and could possibly be the right person to get us more involved with the university community and bring more growth to our church, but the committee is worried because it could be a huge gamble that could cause a rift in the church...but he may be worth it. Since I can't really know anything about the process and I know more than I should, they're going to pray about it and hope that God will tell them if this is the way they should go.

Anyway, here's the news.

- A nude intruder fell for a police trap as he was flushed out of a swimming pool and ended up in a bed of nettles. The cops found him by following the screams (ouch!).

- Proving that there's no honor among thieves, a man who stole a truck was carjacked while sitting outside of a convenience store. When the truck ran out of gas, the carjacker demanded that the thief get out of the truck and push. Needless to say, the thief took off and called the police(!) who caught the carjacker after a chase and a crash.

- From the WTF files, a woman who had just gotten busted in Britain for ripping off the tax system for over 900 grand in child tax credits claimed that a voodoo curse had made her do it and that this very same curse caused one of her children's fingers to fall off and she presented the fingers to the court as proof. Yikes.

- A turtle led to the discovery of a pot field in a forest. This turtle has been followed for a few years and when the researcher went out to look for him, she discovered the pot plants. Man, if you can't trust a turtle, who can you trust?

- In a two-for-one, here are two tales of how not to use 911. The first is the guy who called 911 because Subway forgot to put sauce on his sandwich and the follow up was that a man called to say that a slot machine stole his money. Both of this lugnuts are in Florida (what is going on down there?) and both have been arrested.

And now for the random rest:

- They have now gotten into the business of cloning dogs in South Korea. The first person to benefit from this is some loony American woman who thinks that the clones of her dog will be great service pets, even though "clone" does not mean that they will do the exact same things as her original dog did (who probably did it because of years of loving her and not some DNA programming thing).

- A farmer, annoyed by his neighbors who seem to act as if they didn't just buy homes next a farm, erected a three-car fence in his yard. His neighbors said they loved viewing his fields and animals but hated the flies and mosquitoes, they bitched when he was baling his fields because they didn't like the dust, and when he offered to split the cost of a fence they declined because they liked looking at his farm. He just wanted to remind them that they are living in a farm community. They need to STFU and deal with it.

- Policewomen in Germany will be getting bullet-proof bras which isn't as crazy as it sounds when you consider the damage that could be inflicted by underwire.

- And, last but not least, I really hope Morgan Freeman will be alright after his car accident.

After this past weekend, I have found a Pearls Before Swine comic that I can really relate to, as I would sometimes like a refund for calls I didn't enjoy.

Well, let's hope that my husband's committee get the answers they need. I'm out.

What a Weekend

I'm finally back in the land of the living, but I'm surprised I managed to survive. Between my aunt's shenanigans and the paranoia of becoming a new parent, I'm impressed that I still have a mind with which to think. I'll do the news in the next post, because I just want to vent/update a little.

My husband and I went to a Baby Care Basics class on Saturday morning [I looked up the location of this hospital and knew exactly how to get there so that we were not late] and the woman who taught it was the best teacher they could've found for it. Anyone who is willing to come to the house of a new set of parents just to trim their baby's fingernails is totally awesome in my book. She was even willing to spend an extra hour talking to the two of us about our concerns because I'm horribly paranoid that I will have no maternal instinct. I like people who are honest about everything and when I told her that I would be going back to school two weeks after the baby's born, her biggest concern was that I wouldn't want to go back to school (whereas my biggest concern is that I will be all too willing to go back and get out of the house). I felt better after this class that I won't be a complete screw-up with this, and we left to go see the Jeff Smith exhibit at the Wexner Center on campus (this is the guy who did the comic/graphic novel Bone, which I recommend to anyone because it's a great adventure story. See my LibraryThing collection for more information), went out to an early dinner with my mother-in-law, and had a very pleasant day.

That night was a slightly different story.

My aunt, who needs a name for the sake of writing, has issues. She is a person who likes to manipulate everything so that her friends think my family is the enemy when it is in fact she who is the cause of all of her own problems. As I regaled in my last entry, she wanted to leave for Columbus at 10:30 to get to a 12:30 shower. It's a 2 and a half hour-long drive and there was a good chance that she and everyone she was driving would've missed the shower entirely, so my brother decided that he and my mom should find another way to get to the shower. They ended up taking the Greyhound Saturday night and got here near 2 a.m. (and I was too stupid to figure out they were taking the 11 pm bus...but that's another story for later) and we had to pick them up at the station (less than a 5-minute drive for us). My mom called my aunt when she got to the house to say that my husband had to drive up to Cleveland to do something for his mother and decided to bring them down on the way (complete lie, because his mom drove down to stay at a hotel, but my uncle figured it was the easiest way to not piss my aunt off and Matt is willing to play the fall guy). My aunt sounded like she didn't still want to just come to the shower on her own, but she was encouraged to still come down.

This detail is important only because Aunt Crayzee (as she will now be called) called my phone at 10:15 the next morning. I had no money left on my phone (pay-as-you-go and all), so Matt called the number back and spoke to Crayzee who said (in tears in front of her friends) that she couldn't come to the shower because she couldn't afford the gas and that they (my mom and brother) were supposed to split the gas and blah, blah, blah. Here's what I have to say about that: If you were splitting the gas, why were you charging them $30 a piece? And what kind of a car were you borrowing that you wanted them to fill up? Was it a van? I can tell you that on one tank of gas in a fairly gas efficient car (roughly $45 worth of gas) you can drive from Cleveland to Columbus and back on one tank. What did she need all that money for? Answer: She is always trying to get money out of my mom and uncle. These two people are trying to find jobs and while she is gainfully employed, that hasn't stopped her from borrowing money from them all the damn time. She was telling my mother what to buy me for my shower (as if my mom has never been a mom) which was to just get me a gift card so that Crayzee could get more of the money for herself. Crayzee was even trying to get my uncle to go to the shower so that she could get another $30 for herself. I didn't get to see my cousin, who would've really enjoyed herself at the shower, but Crayzee has only herself to blame for not going to the shower. I do feel as if she was going to arrive late on purpose so that she could embarrass my mother for being late to her own daughter's shower because, unfortunately, Crayzee is bitchy like that, but they thwarted her at her own plan by taking the bus (they would've rather given their money to the bus than to her). She needs to knock this shit off before I finally call her out on her behavior.

What is most upsetting is that I'm angry that I feel bad that Crayzee missed the shower. I didn't do anything wrong, but I feel guilty. How screwed up is that?

Anyway, the shower was wonderful. I took pictures and I will hopefully post them with a better description of the shower sometime this week. Two of my girlfriends came down to see me and it was nice to know that people cared so much about us to do this for us. And while both of our names were on the shower, Matt ran for the hills with my brother to see the Dark Knight again. I don't blame him; I would never be the type of woman who would make a man go to the showers (bridal and baby), but I won't say that other women who do so are bad. I just know that he would hate it and I'd rather have a good time than deal with him bitching about everything.

After the shower was over, my mother-in-law (who was upset to find out that my family had to take the bus when she could've picked them up) had offered to drive them back that very day, but because they had no way of getting back in the house (my uncle had the keys and was tutoring his friend's kids that day), they stayed with us another night. My brother, who has been living in his car for the past six months, said that this was the best sleep he had gotten in a long time (he was on the air mattress) and my mom crashed on our couch. They're not the best houseguests a person can have (my uncle, being the example of the world's best houseguest, sets a high standard for others to follow), but I'd put up with them all over again because it was worth it to have them here.

My Monday was supposed to consist of going back to work, but I had to drive the two of them back to Cleveland. If I had just driven them up there and left immmediately, I would've gotten to work by 2 p.m. but instead, I stayed with them and my uncle (who must have gotten home late because he fell asleep on the stairs for a little bit) and they picked at the fidgety baby for awhile. This kid's gotten a lot of attention and one of my girlfriends tried to encourage the baby to arrive on her birthday (8/25) but we'll see how that works out. :-) I ended up driving my brother to work (which was a detour on I-480 that causes me to lose no time on my trip since it empties out on I-71 South putting me further on my way than if I had to go right back to where I got off) and getting home by 4:30. This weekend left me feeling burnt out but blessed. I was thankful for what I received (because I didn't think I was going to get anything) but I felt so bad that I ended up spending the rest of the day curled up on the couch. Matt came home from his church meeting and asked me if I wanted him to stay home to take care of me and I actually relented. We needed time to reconnect anyway, and we spent an hour talking about the merits of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (not kidding) and I didn't feel like I wasted my time. I managed to get a lot of sleep and while I didn't get to work today until noon, I did get to work, so things have worked out.

Well, this turned into the long post from hell. I'll try to quickly throw together the news post so as not to lose any potential new readers to my maudlin rants.