Speed bump

My sister drives like an old lady. It's mind-boggling.

Bombshells

It's been almost one entire month since I've written a post on this blog. Life has been kind of overwhelming over the last few months and after severely trailing off in my posting habits and fretting to myself about it I decided to give it up for a little bit just to get my head back together guilt-free. So now I'm going to try to pick up where I left off.

Reasons why my head was not together:

1. My father was diagnosed with cancer.

2. I'm pregnant with my first child.

My friend Jessica just read #2 and slammed her forehead into her monitor in disbelief.

The pregnancy is not new news to me anymore. We've known since the beginning of February that I was pregnant. I'll be writing posts specifically dedicated to this pregnancy and catching up on what has happened so far, but this is the quick version. Our plans were to keep the pregnancy a quiet secret to all but close family until my first trimester was up. Just as that milestone was reached, the diagnosis came down about my father, who had been ill for quite some time. There will be more blog posts dedicated specifically to this battle and what he's gone through so far as well. In the mix of all of that, calling up friends to share the good news and writing blog posts about it in light of the bad news just didn't feel right. And all of a sudden here I am over five months into this pregnancy and the only people I've told are my parents (who I relied on to spread the news through the family) and my co-workers in light of the fact that my belly was about to pop and make the news very obvious on its own.

I have a lot of work to do.

As it flashes before my eyes

Edgar and I have sort of developed a routine of going to this awesome Mongolian barbecue restaurant in Manhattan Beach every other Saturday afternoon. This place puts most other restaurants in its genre to shame by the fact that it has a much wider selection of vegetables and meat and it's all-you-can-eat at lunch, when usually lunch is a one time trip at these kinds of places. So basically, you know, AWESOME. Edgar's brother and mother decided to join us this weekend, and that is where all hell breaks loose.

The Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix was happening this weekend, and we live in Long Beach about seven blocks away from part of the track, so put two and two together. No parking. However the street in front of our building has meter parking, but with only a two hour limit, so there are always spaces out front. We had his mother and brother pick us up out front with the plan being that his brother would drive us all to the restaurant; the idea was that neither Edgar or I would have to give up the parking spots that our cars were in and we wouldn't have to search for a space when we got back.

This is the part where Edgar fails to tell me that his brother, who is now 34, barely passed his driving test when he originally got his license.

And apparently failed to ever get better.

And the only time I've ever ridden in a car driven by his brother up to this point was on a trip back from Solvang a few years ago where I was drunk and asleep in the back seat before we ever left the parking lot.

The street in front of our building is one-way. The nearest freeway on-ramp is one block up and several blocks back in the other direction. Our building is also very close to an intersection, the intersection that you would ideally turn left at to head to that block up where the freeway entrance is. So Edgar tells his brother to wait until all of the cars finish going past and then to get all the way over to the left to turn left at the light. And his brother is all "Man, I have to get all the way over to the left?!??" and we're all "Yeah, it's not a big deal."

Except when it is a big deal and someone doesn't bother to check his mirrors to see if any cars are coming before blindly peeling out to cross three lanes of traffic and almost sideswiping three cars in the process. WAY TO GO, BRO. And all of us are like "Oh my god, what are you doing?!" and he's just "Oh, I didn't see them." Because that makes it all right, apparently? So then he takes off to go one more block to catch the left turn, and my god, when he made that left turn I thought I was going to die, because as he turned into the lane he did one of those things where the car is wiggling back and forth like he had no control of it. And I'm all "Uh, excuse me, what is so hard about driving in the middle of your lane?" Same thing at the next left turn. I close my eyes and start taking deep breaths.

Then we're on the freeway. Dear god, the freeway. He drives a Civic. We drive a Civic. I know what "normal" feels like in a Civic. This is not normal. These cars do not fight you to stay in the middle of the lane. You don't have to drive like you're an actor on a TV show and wiggle the steering wheel back and forth. If you do that in one of these cars, you're weaving back and forth across your lane. God, please help me.

And then I start thinking ahead, because I know that the 710/405 interchange is coming up. And I know that this interchange will surely kill me, because 1) it's one of those really circular interchanges where you have to slow way down in order for centrifugal force to not make you fly off the curve and 2) there's hardly any room to merge onto the 405 before you're all of a sudden going back on the 710 in the opposite direction.

And sure enough, we hit that interchange with the posted recommended speed of 25, which means normal people would take it at 35-40, but which my brother-in-law was taking at 60. Where he over-corrected so much that both of the wheels on the right side of the car went over the curb on the shoulder. Every person in the car besides my brother-in-law has grabbed their "Oh shit!" handles (you know, those handles above the door that you can use to help get in or out of the car?), I'm clenching Edgar's thigh, his mother is squealing, and I'm starting to think of all of the things that I wanted to do in life before I died that I'm never going to get to do and how I really don't want the song playing on the radio as I die to be "Sex on Fire" by the Kings of Leon.

All of a sudden we're on the 405, and of course on this Saturday, this part of the 405 has about double the amount of cars and traffic that it normally does for that hour. And his brother then proceeds to wiggle all about his lane for the next 10 miles, never seeming to notice the brake lights in front of him until the last second and at times inexplicably accelerating despite those brake lights.

And I know this whole post makes me sound like I'm one of those drivers, you know the ones, the ones that sit practically on top of their steering wheels and drive 2 miles an hour under the speed limit at all times and accelerate at such a slow pace and brake so far in advance that if you are driving behind them you think your head is going to explode. But I'm totally not. I'm not one of those people. I drive fast and I sometimes follow a lot closer than I should, but I'm a good enough driver to do that without endangering myself and those around me. BUT THIS GUY IS A FUCKING MANIAC. I don't understand how it's possible that he's never been in a car accident.

As we miraculously arrived at the restaurant in one piece, I stumbled out of the car, grabbed my husband's shirt, stared him down, and said "I don't care what excuse you have to use, you will not let him drive us home." Never again. Never ever ever again.

My brother-in-law almost killed me this weekend.

Mistaken identity

While introducing me to a friend at church yesterday, my mother-in-law said that my name was Tammy.

Tammy is the name of an ex-girlfriend of my husband's from over 6 years ago. He's referred to her several times as crazy.

I'm not sure if I should be more concerned about the fact that my mother-in-law (WHO I LIVED WITH FOR NINE MONTHS) is confusing my name with a crazy person's or with what this says about the state of her memory at 61 years old.

Turkey with a side of ghostly death

Here on Sunday afternoon it's hard to believe that the last week is over. I'd been looking forward to my parents' weeklong visit for months, and now it's already over. It's a common sentiment, I know, but worth noting all the same.


Random thought: it sucks that the last time I see my mom, every time I see my mom, she's crying at an airport.


Not-so-random thought: I hate LAX during the holidays.


Excluding my wedding, this is the first time in I Don't Know How Many Years that I've spent a holiday with not only my parents, but with all of my dad's siblings at the same time. It's much louder than I remembered. My aunts are pretty funny ladies, and watching them (lovingly) belittle my father is a sight to behold. Add to that an excessive amount of drinking among many of the participants and I often ended up with a headache each morning despite the fact that I was once of the few non-drinkers. THIS ATTEMPTING TO GET PREGNANT THING BETTER BE WORTH IT.

With my parents and my aunts and uncles all being at least 52+, there was often a lot of just sitting around and talking and playing cards in the evenings. Lots of conversation. And lots of me snickering in my head because I can recall the some of the same specific conversations happening last year when we were all together for my wedding. Must suck to get old and lose the memories! The one that was the most enjoyable for me to rehear was the one where pretty much everyone talked about how they believe in ghosts and to recount their ghostly encounters. My parents insist that they have a ghost in their house--specifically, the ghost of a woman from the 19th century who most likely came from the graveyard that is down the street from their house. And the location that their house is on apparently used to be a horse barn so they think that she died in the barn and has been haunting the house ever since it was built, and she really likes my sister's old bedroom. My mom likes to make things up like how my sister used to wake up and swear that she felt someone choking her, and I'm all Mom. Please. That never happened. I would have heard about it at the time. And oh yeah, the ghost likes to open cabinet doors and then close them and turn lights on. Please. Ghost. Be a little more original. Of course the ghost talk led to all of them talking about how they all new the exact moment their parents died before they had even been told. Which was totally depressing. Coupled with the conversation they all had before going to the airport about how wouldn't it suck to die in a plane crash but even though you would be scared all the way down you would never know the instant of impact because it would be so fast. And I'm all HEY. OLDER PEOPLE. CAN WE QUIT IT WITH THE DEATH TALK? It's the holidays, be thankful you're alive.

Oh, silly adults.

And so it begins

Holidays are always great because you end up with a big group of family that is normally never together but for the reason of that specific holiday. Thus, we end up with Keene Family Thanksgiving Week 2009.

My dad has one brother and two sisters. The brother lives in a town called Simi Valley, about an hour away from Long Beach when there's no traffic on the 405. That's a rare thing, the no traffic on the 405 thing, but we can always wish. My dad and his two sisters, one that is married and one that is a widow, live in Indiana. This Thanksgiving the Indiana part of the family decided to come to California. It's gonna be an interesting week.

Their flight got in a little after 6 on Saturday evening. We managed to get out of LAX a little before 7:00 and headed up to Simi Valley from there. My mother, who is not a drinker, immediately started pounding the chardonnay. My aunt and uncle that live here are regular drinkers ( but alcoholics they are not), and I think my mom was trying desperately to keep up. She failed miserably. About three glasses in she started talking with her hands, and with every point here and gesture there the wine kept coming closer and closer and closer to slopping over the edge of the glass. And it eventually reached that point, resulting in a huge splash of wine onto her pants and her drunken vehement denails that she wasn't in fact drunk, that she just talks with her hands and it was bound to happen. Bound to happen BECAUSE SHE WAS DRUNK.

I was viewing this show from my non-drinking armchair. My parents and my California uncle and aunt seemed to be highly disappointed that I wasn't getting sloshed with them, my aunt even going so far as to say "I told you that you needed to wait until January to try to get pregnant so that you could enjoy the holidays!" That point of view makes me think that people must have a waaaaay different perspective of me than I thought. When Edgar and I were at his friend's birthday party two weeks ago and I mentioned that we weren't drinking anymore since we were trying to get pregnant, they were all shocked and "Wow, that's got to be hard for you!" Just because I'm the only girl of the group that ever drank I guess that automatically made me the group's alcoholic. And then my family thinks that I need to be able to drink in order to enjoy the holiday season. Ok, yes, I miss the wine and the bourbon (OH MY GOD THE GOOD BOURBON) but I don't need it to enjoy my holiday. And I actually discovered that I can enjoy myself plenty being stone sober and watching a bunch of 50+ year old men and women getting wasted.

The best part of the story came the next morning from my dad: my mom apparently had to crawl up the stairs to bed, be undressed and then redressed in her pajamas by my dead, during which time she kept falling over, and then once that was done she laid down on the bed and alternated between moaning and giggling until she went to sleep. Oh, mom.

Let the festivities begin.

More to come

My parents got in on Saturday, and of course I have tons of things to write about that happened this weekend.

For now:

My mom got wasted on Saturday night.

My 54 year old father is trying to grow a ponytail.

Chew on that for a while.

LAX Again

My parents get to California tomorrow for a weeklong visit. I haven't seen them for 14 months.

I'm pretty sure my mom is going to cry.

It's time

The time has come where I Edgar and I can finally start trying to have a baby. It would have been a little bit earlier, but we wanted to avoid any possible fallout from The Battle of the Flea so we wanted to wait for the next egg, just in case. Since you were so obviously wondering about my menstruation schedule. GET USED TO IT.

We’ve been wanting to have a baby for about, oh, FOREVER now. We were originally planning on having a baby right after we got engaged, when we were in those (metaphorical) drunken-stupor days that accompany an engagement. Once reality clicked back in we realized that it wasn’t the right time for us, but that we wanted to try as soon as we were married. But job losses and real life and the lack of health insurance and flea repellant kept getting in the way. Until now.

And it’s kind of freaking me out.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that I’m actually allowed to have a baby. That I won’t get in trouble for it (some people would say that babies are trouble, and I’m not talking to them right now). I’m a grown up, I’m married, I have a job, I have insurance….I have the things that society says are good things to have when getting pregnant. When you’re a little kid, you look at your parents and think “How will I ever be old enough to get married? Or *giggle* have all the sex?” AND I TOTALLY AM.

Like I said: freaking me out.

I’m going to grow a whole human being. Inside of me. And it will be my little human being.

This can’t be allowed, right?

We’re going to make a whole person. We’re totally about to become someone’s parents. Someone that will always be there, day and night, that we alone will be responsible for taking care of, nurturing, feeding, clothing, teaching him or her how to tie shoes and make the perfect blend of Jack and Coke Zero.

I’m going to have to go a whole year of my life without Jack and Coke Zero.

I can’t wait.

Improving my grade

As I was getting home from work on Friday night, I received a phone call from a friend of mine to tell me that he was in the hospital. While he was reluctant to give details of his hospitalization over the phone, the message was loud and clear: a week prior to that he had attempted to take his own life. I'm not going to talk about his reasons and his method; those are his own and it's not my place to share that with the world. He is alive, he is still with us, and he's hurting like hell, but he is still here.

This situation has made me aware of what a really bad friend I am. I had absolutely no idea that he was going through the things that he was going through. When Edgar and I visited him in the hospital on Saturday, he told us about a myriad of things that have been compounding over the last year that brought him to his breaking point, and in the back of my head there was this little voice going I had no idea. I once had a friend that jokingly told me "You get an F in calling people back." I can't even remember what friend it was (BECAUSE I'M THAT BAD AT BEING A FRIEND), and while it was meant as a joke, it was totally right. I'm notoriously bad at answering my phone. Usually because it's buried at the bottom of my purse, and if I'm not in the same room with said purse, I'm not going to hear the phone ring. Or sometimes I'll hear the phone ring but I'll be all "Hmmph, I'm comfortable right now, I'm not getting up. If it's important they'll leave a message." And later I'll listen to the message, but if it isn't life or death, the likelihood of me returning that call is very slim. Not that I don't care, but I'm lazy. I'd much rather be reading a book or curled up on the couch with my husband watching TV than talking on the phone. My parents, once Edgar and I had moved in together, often started calling his cell phone whenever they wanted to talk to me because they knew that Edgar would answer.

Because it's easy. It's easier to not make the effort than it is to work on a friendship. I always hear people say that "Relationships are hard work"; I'll admit to finding this expression ridiculous in the past. My relationship with Edgar has always felt effortless. We don't work on our marriage. Or at least if we are working on it, it doesn't feel like work. Yes, we've had to work through hard times together, but it was always the circumstance, not the relationship, that needed the work. But I'm beginning to see that this expression, at least in my life, doesn't apply to the relationship in my marriage--it applies to my relationships with my friends.

I have very few friends. I have one friend from when I lived in Indiana that I still keep in touch with, and even that is very sporadic. Not because we don't like each other anymore, not because we've had a falling out, just because I GET AN F AT CALLING PEOPLE BACK. I only really have one friend in California, and seeing as his life was so bad that he wanted to end it and I didn't even know about it, I guess you could say that I SUCK AS A FRIEND. Whenever Edgar and I have people over, it's his friends that we're seeing. Edgar doesn't suck as a friend.

I think that making friends as an adult is hard. Once you're out of school and you're in a professional environment and you're out of the world where it's ok to stay out until 2 every night drinking, you don't really get to meet a lot of new people that are of the friendship material. Not without putting out the effort. And even with the effort it's still hard. Where do you make these friends, the friends that you can invite over for dinner, or go shopping with, or catch a movie with on a Saturday afternoon?

So here is my goal: to be a better friend. To be a better daugther, a better sister. To call people back. To answer the phone. To put forth the effort.

And I'm getting my first chance. Our friend will be staying with Edgar and I once he is released from the hospital while he starts to put his life back together. It's obviously not a permanent situation, since we live in a one bedroom apartment (even though it's spacious with the loft) and will very soon be trying to have a baby. He'll probably be racing to get out of there after a few weeks; three adults, 1 bathroom, 2 cats, 1 litterbox. Fiyero will likely not be pleased with having to share his domain with another cat. I talk too loud. The parking is bad. But now is the time to start being that friend that I should have been all along. It's time to stop caring from afar and to actually do something besides listen to a voicemail. It's time to help.

In which my 60 year old uncle drunk-dialed

First things first. The cat is alive and well.

As I mentioned previously, Edgar and I went to Simi Valley this weekend to drink it up for Octoberfest and watch an old man in liederhosen play the accordian while coaxing people to do the Chicken Dance. Suck it, old man, I will never do the Chicken Dance for you.

We went to a restaurant in Ventura called Old Vienna, and they know how to Octoberfest in style. They have this huge platter of food that's called "A Feast for Two," but the two that they are referring to must be inhuman, because eight of us couldn't even finish 3 orders. Two times three is six, just to remind you. I can only imagine that the two is comprised of a very large German couple ripping the meat off of huge turkey drumsticks while yelling "Meat! We need more meat!" These Feast for Twos include bratwurst, polish sausage, chicken something or another, spare ribs, pork shank, pork chops, sauerkraut, red cabbage, spatzel, potato pancakes, and German potato salad. And they also start you off with these huge pretzels. To eat while you begin drinking many pitchers of beer. And then when you leave you get to listen to your husband and your cousin bemoan the fact that when they get home they're going to have to give birth to twins.

Weekends spent up at my aunt and uncle's house are often interesting, even if only for the fact that my cousin makes it his mission in life to never let me finish speaking any sentence that might come out of my mouth. I always wake up with a sore throat from having to raise my voice to yell over him because HE IS CONSTANTLY INTERRUPTING ME. The sore throat also might be atrributed to the fact that we often end up drunk there and when I'm drunk I'm loud. But who isn't, really, when you think about it? This weekend was no different. I actually started off the drinking quite slowly, only having one mug of beer at dinner since I had to drive our car back to the house. I had a few more beers after we got back......

......then came the bourbon.

Oh, bourbon. I'm not usually one to drink liquor in any other form than a vodka tonic, a margarita, or Jack and coke. Generally, I find the taste of things like scotch or bourbon just too strong for me; the alcohol smell with the burning taste must be acquired, and I'm just too impatient for that. But a few months ago my uncle introduced me to Manhattans, and I was craving one on Saturday evening. Content to use the Maker's Mark that was in the liquor cabinet, my uncle saw me and said "Oh, Amanda Suzanne, don't use that, I have something better for you." And he produced a bottle of Blanton's Bourbon. Delicious. DEE. LISH. US. I had three Manhattans that night, and Edgar even had one or two after he tasted mine. I was also making vodka tonics for my uncle all evening, and they were progressively becoming stronger because the more I drink, the more alcohol I think should be in each drink.

Our fun evening turned in to a late night. My aunt and uncle introduced Edgar and I to this card game called Wizard, which is really impossible to explain, so I won't even try, except to say that it's fun. Especially after several beers and bourbon. We were finally winding down around 2:45 in the morning, when my aunt made the offhand comment that if we stayed up much longer that my parents in Indiana would be awake, and oh, wouldn't it be funny if we were going to bed at the same time that they were getting up for the day. Of course, being sane people (and despite the bourbon, not really drunk at all), my aunt, husband, and I laughed about it, said something about the fact that it was still too early in Indiana, being only 5:45 there. And no sooner had we expressed this than my aunt cried "Gary! What are you doing?" and I turned around to see him dialing the phone. Which he then shoved in my face, where I could hear my mother's sleepy voice mumble "Hello?" I froze. "Uhhh....Uncle Gary made me do it!" My mother was a good sport about it though. I fully expected a retaliation call a few hours later, but my dad decided to hold off and told me when I talked to him at a more appropriate hour of the day on Sunday that he would be making that call to my uncle once he stops expecting it.

Never a dull moment in Simi Valley. And how awesome is it that my uncle drunk dialed my parents? How many people can have that story to tell?

Remembering

When I was eight, my sister Emily and I made up a dance to go with "Unchained Melody." It was understandably horrible.

Emily like to watch "Little House on the Prairie," so it follows that I, too, would watch "Little House on the Prairie." People kept giving us these long skirts that we could wear to act like we were pioneers. And my mom bought us slates one time on an outing to kitsch-y Nashville, Indiana.

Sometimes I look back and shake my head.

Family ties

When I was a kid, my brother liked to abuse me.

Case Point #1: When I was baby, the type of baby that is too small to do anything much but sit there and drool, he and my sister would throw toys into my crib, thinking that I could play with them. He would aim at my head.

Case Point #2: When I was less than a year old, Ryan was lying on his back on the living room floor. He, being the hulk-tastic strong five year old that he was, tried to lift me over his head as I was crawling on him like a jungle gym. He lifted his arms straight up in the air, perpendicular to his body......and then they just kept going. Back over his head, baby and all, promptly smacking my head into the floor. I know this because MY PARENTS CAUGHT IT ON VIDEOTAPE. How about not letting your hyperactive son try to give permanent brain damage to his little sister? Huh? How about that?

Case Point #3: When I was about two years old, Ryan was playing in the backyard. Remember those swing sets that had the slide at one end, then two swings, then the teeter-totter thingy, then that carriage thing where you can sit facing each other while someone pushes you? We had one of those. I wandered into the backyard, and Ryan yelled "Come here!" And me, forgetting that he had once dropped me on my head (OBVIOUSLY BECAUSE OF ALL OF THAT BRAIN DAMAGE IT CAUSED), I ran straight for him like "Ryan! My big brother! You're so cool, let's play with toys and eat sand!" He pulled the carriage thing back and the swung it (or slammed it, if you want to be specific) right into my face, giving me a bloody nose. And then he promptly started to cry and sob "I didn't mean it, Mommy!" so that he wouldn't get in trouble. Jerk.

Case Point #4: When I was about 10, he was wrestling me in the kitchen. The kitchen with the linoleum floor. Having me pinned on the ground, he had his foot near my hair. He also had his foot on top of some hair. I was trying to get away. I jerked my head. A huge clump of hair with just a little bit of scalp still attached ripped out of my head.

I kicked him in the balls one time. Hard. We're probably even.

I do not sniff chonies

Edgar and I went to his mother and father's house for the first time last night since we moved out of there, save a brief trip a few days after we moved out to pick up some of our stray belongings. It was kind of weird.

His mom was all "Oh, I miss you guys! I miss having other people living here!" and I was all "Wow, really?" in my head. Because I LOVE living on our own again. I LOVE having privacy. I LOVE not hearing people sing to the cat.

This isn't to say that living with his parents was such a horrible experience. It was just that we are adults, and there is something inherently uncomfortable about living with your parents (or your SO's parents) as adults. You always feel like you have to watch your mouth and not have sex and put your clothes on before you leave the bathroom. This is why privacy is good!

My mother in law is also full of old wive's tales and habits that can sometimes become grating. She's just so old school. For example: she 'wastes' nothing. I was making myself an egg white omelette one morning while we lived with them, and, silly me, I was throwing the egg yolks away. She saw me doing that and was like "No! Wait! Save those, I can use them!" So a coffee mug full of egg yolks sat in the refrigerator for a week, stinking to high heaven after a couple of days. AND THEN THEY HAD TO BE THROWN AWAY. Another time, I had a cold and she completely lost her goat when she saw me putting ice in a glass of water, insisting that I would never get better if I had ice, because that was what was causing me to have a cold. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that unless someone with a cold has been sneezing all over that ice prior to me putting it in my drink that I'll be safe. And so on and so forth. It was always something, and if I would ever disagree with her, she would always shake her head and look at me in that "Oh silly girl, you know nothing of this world" type of way and mumble something in Spanish. And to think, I will one day be that person to my very own son or daughter in law. Exciting!

We had a good time last night though. We were a little late getting there because Edgar and I can never fail to be distracted by something when we're not on a deadline. Things like what hour you need to be at work are hard and fast; we are never late for work. Or appointments. Or anything like that. But for some reason we can never seem to show up at dinners or parties at the correct time. Yesterday, our first distraction was beer. We decided that we wanted to try that new Golden Wheat by Budweiser because we were curious to see how they would handle a hefeweisen (answer: only ok). So we had to run over to Rite Aid before we left. Then we decided that since his mom and dad's house is near a mall that we should stop there so that Edgar could buy some more cologne; their mall has this perfume/cologne store where you can buy some really nice items below retail. So we got Edgar's (which took longer than expected since they were out of the scent we wanted to buy), but then I started smelling this perfume called Moon Sparkle by Escada and had to waffle for a few minutes on whether to buy it. I'm not really a perfume wearer, but I liked the scent and decided to take the plunge. It's kind of light and fruity, but it doesn't have that overbearing perfume scent. I'm happy with it. Then after the whole cologne and perfume debacle we remembered that we needed cat litter, so that necessitated another stop at Target before we made it to his parents. We were quite the disorganized couple yesterday.

But we eventually made it there and were able to drink our beer. His parents bought New York steaks for us to grill, and I think that made Edgar's night. We couldn't have a grill at our apartment because of some new law passed in California that bans them, or some stupid thing like that. Way to go, kid in Huntington Beach that had to set his apartment on fire AND RUIN IT FOR EVERYBODY. Edgar loves steak, so being able to eat it again, since we can't make them at home, was like finding Jesus for him. Even the act of grilling alone was getting close to bringing about orgasm. He was running around with his tongs, flipping steaks here, flipping steaks there, talking about he was really Bobby Flay....it got a little scary for a few moments there. My favorite part of the evening was probably after dinner though. We sat around the table on the patio, me, Edgar, his parents, his brother, and his brothers partner, and we just talked. And laughed. And had an all around good itme. There was a moment where this almost surreal feeling hit me, and it's something that I've never experienced with Edgar's family before. I've had it with my own family before when we've all been together and you get this feeling like "Wow, check us out. We're all mature, we're all adults, we run our own lives and are in control and WOW, WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? HOW DID WE GET HERE?" There were evenings when I still lived in Indiana where me, my parents, my sister, and my brother with his wife and kids would all be together for dinner and I would just look around at all of us together and think "Ryan used to throw toys at my head and Emily and I used to share a bedroom and I would get so mad when she wouldn't let me listen to what I wanted on the radio and now we're all sitting here together and all of those things are gone and we're happy and we're not kids anymore." And I got that feeling with his family last night. Not very long ago at all, Edgar and I were in a dark place of unemployment, living with his parents and feeling like we were stuck in a hole. We weren't talking to his brother's partner and because of that we rarely saw his brother. We were getting so frustrated at his parents because of Every Little Thing and would retreat to our bedroom every evening as soon as dinner was over in order to avoid them. So sitting there last nigh gathered around a table on the patio, it struck me just how different things are now than they used to be. I think it was a good change.

Of course, I could have gone without the knowledge that some of those conversations last night provided, such as the fact that my brother in law likes to suck toes. HE SUCKS TOES, PEOPLE. Have I ever mentioned that my husband and his brother are twins? So now whenever I look at my husband, I see a toe sucker.

To each his own.

I've Got the Fever

It's official. I have baby fever.

My biological clock has stopped ticking. It has started blaring incessantly like an alarm clock with a broken snooze button. SNOOZE, DAMMIT!

Edgar and I have been talking about having a baby since, oh, pretty much the day after we got engaged. And now that we're two married people that actually both have jobs and income at the same time and our own apartment, that blaring alarm clock keeps getting louder and louder and louder and louder and please, I want to sleep, be ever so kind and rip it out of the wall!

We originally wanted to try to get pregnant right after we got married, but since he was out of work at that time, we decided to wait until January, because surely he would have a new job then and I would be able to find a new job by then since I had an impending layoff. But January came around and he was still jobless and I was almost jobless, and so the baby got put off again. And again. And again. And Amanda, for God's sake, just get a job so we can have a baby. I finally started working again at the end of July. However we still can't have a baby, because even though I'm working for this company full time, I'm technically a temp because I was hired through an employment agency and I haven't been put on my company's payroll as a permanent employee. I will be permanent, I'm just not yet. Probably because the Operations Manager is ON MATERNITY LEAVE. She has a baby. I WANT A BABY. Come back and give me my baby!

Our original decision was that October 27th, 2009, over 1 year after the time that we wanted to get pregnant, would be the time that we started trying. It will be 3 months to the day of my first day at this job. It will be 2 months to the day after Edgar switched jobs and the day when our brand spanking new health insurance that we haven't had in over a year finally kicks in. Please, oh please, oh please let me be a permanent employee with maternity leave by that time!

I seriously want to steal other people's babies when I see them. Only the cute ones though. I'm not a bad person. I'm even starting to do that sickly annoying combination of "Ooooooh" and "Awwwww" every time I see those cute little chubby pink cheeks and little thighs with fat rolls. I can't walk by the baby section in target without picking up onesies and deciding which Baby Bjorn I want to buy. For my child that I don't have.

Every one has babies but me!

Edgar is clearly freaking out. He's 33 and has decided that we have to have this baby, like, NOW because he is just so old and we'll never be able to get pregnant ever ever ever if we wait any longer. My level headed thoughts to reassure him that it's not him getting older that we need to worry about when it comes time to knock me up don't seem to do any good. I don't know how much longer I can reassure my husband that, yes, you have fantastic sperm that are quietly biding their time and will soon illustrate their impressive super hero abilities to make me pregnant.

Babies. Babies babies babies babies BABIES!!

Suck It

My husband, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, is Mexican. My Latin Lova. My Little Jalapeno. He is one handy man to have around when we go to Superior Grocers (our low cost shopping extravaganza!). Because instead of me asking for things at the meat counter, the bakery, the deli, or to the random employee by the milk to find out where the bread crumbs are, and getting a blank stare in return, my husband uses his powerful and handy skill of speaking fluent Spanish to get our shit done.

And as I giggled to myself as we walked away from meat counter with our two red snapper fillets and a pound of pork chops, thinking to myself "Gosh, that's really quite convenient," my wonderful husband says, "You know, I guess it's a good thing you married me; I'm pretty convenient to have around when we go grocery shopping." Well, of course, silly!

I love my husband for more than the fact that he speaks Spanish. What kind of wife do you think I am?

But with a husband that speaks fluent Spanish, there also come the pitfalls. Such as telling me to ask his mother what the word "culo" means. "Ay, Edgar, don't teach her those words!!!" (subtitles in English courtesy of me). I don't speak Spanish very well. I understand it much better, and my comprehension, if not my language skills, increased a lot during the 9 month period that we lived with his parents. Of course Edgar's new favorite trick is giving me a completely innocent word and telling me to ask his mom what it means, and watching me flat-out refuse to do it because I'm certain by that evil glint in his Mexican eyes that it's surely something horrible and foul and will cause his mother to have a heart attack the moment it passes my lips.

So to do my part to make sure this dying language, that no one every speaks anymore, especially not in Southern California, never goes away, I try to add Spanish words into my daily vocabulary.

• I play around with the cat's name, alternately calling him "gato," "gato magnifico," "cagon" *translates to shitter*, "cagoncito" *little shitter*, "menso" *dummy*, "chango" *monkey* and "Chupacabra" *no translation necessary*
• I call my milk "leche" (which Edgar promptly follows up with "de pecho" to bastardize my cow milk for my cereal into breast milk)
• "I can't find my telefono"
• "I need to go to the bano" (Sorry, I don't know how to add tildes)
• "Baby! A donde vas?"
• And some word that I don't know how to spell but sounds like it might be "juacatelas" which means "gross". Doesn't juacatelas sound so much more fun than just saying gross? Add some exclamation points in there and it is a simply awesome word.
  

And then yesterday, the day that will live in infamy, came the ultimate of all of my all-time-new-favorite-spanish-words (title formerly held by juacatelas). Chupon. Chupon. I love it! It means "pacifier." I don't even know how the word got brought up, but Edgar said it and I was all "WHOA, WAIT, what does that word mean?"

I think I was magically drawn to it because I was a pacifier freak as a child. I had my "doogie" (I don't know why I called it a doogie, I just did) until I was two years old, when my parents decided to traumatize me by making me put it in the trash. And they proceeded to be heartless, horrible, child-abusing Mommy and Daddy by listening to me cry all night and wail "Dooooooooogieeeeeee! Dooooooogieeeeeeee!" because I couldn't sleep without it. There is not a picture of me under the age of two without my pacifier either in my mouth or somewhere in the immediate vicinity. Surprisingly enough, I never needed braces.

BUT, the point of my story is that I love the word chupon so much that I've already nicknamed it into chupie for the use of my as-yet to be born (or conceived, for that matter) children. Can you hear it now? "Chuuuuuuuupieeeeeee! Chuuuuuupieeeee!!!"