Category: Me Myself & I

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Backlash

So the “Where’s Bernie?” promotion turned into a huge fiasco yesterday, escalating even more after I posted my little rant about it. It turns out the girl who swiped ~35 of the “stach”-ues from the big lakefront location posted braggart pictures of them all jammed in her trunk on Twitter and Facebook. Then she had the gall to complain that she didn’t get any that had a prize attached!! (the 400 scattered around in the other parks were the ones that had prizes attached. the 1,000 lakefront ones did not) Seriously, the greed on display yesterday was incredible and pretty sickening, what with her and others taking as many Bernies as they could get their grubby hands on just to turn around and try to sell them on eBay for hundreds of dollars. This girl became Milwaukee’s most hated person by 7:30 yesterday morning. I kept reading the comments people were posting about her on Twitter and in response to numerous articles on the debacle that cropped up throughout the day, and it honestly sounded like a lynch mob was going to form to hunt her down.

Now here’s where it got a little out of control. Someone published both her home address and her phone number on Twitter. What?? Sure what she did was shitty and helped ruin the fun for the rest of us, but publicizing her private information? That’s too far. She had to delete her Twitter account and lock down her Facebook page, I’m sure because of all the hate traffic she was getting. Now she has to worry about people storming her house to harass her in person or leaving her steaming voicemails? Wow.

This whole episode presented an interesting study in human behavior. On one end of the spectrum were those of us who followed the rules, played fair, and lost, and on the other end were those who disobeyed the rules, cheated, and won. And then of course there were the resultant angry masses of fair-players releasing their disdain for all of the cheaters through any social media outlet they could find. Throughout the hatefest that ensued once everyone realized people had cheated and gone early to grab the Bernies, I couldn’t help but wonder – if I had gotten there early and seen everyone taking the stach-ues before the designated time, would I have joined in and taken one while I had the opportunity too, or would I have waited until the start time like we had been instructed and watched as my chances of getting anything vanished before my eyes? As much as I wholeheartedly wanted to say I would absolutely 100% have waited like we were supposed to, there was a tiny piece of me that kept thinking, but man, it would have been nice to have a Bernie if I’d had the chance.

And then I got really frustrated with myself for thinking that way. Here I was, joining right in on the bashing of those who disregarded the rules and got the prize at the expense of the rest of us, yet maybe I would have been one of those being bashed if I’d just gotten to the park half an hour earlier. I’d like to think that the simple fact that we did not arrive at the park any earlier than a few minutes before 7:00 yesterday morning, fully expecting to see a lawn full of Bernies waiting for us, proves that I really was one of the fair-players. But what if we’d gotten ready that much faster, dropped D off at daycare 10 minutes earlier or even taken her after we’d gone to the park, and gotten down to the lakefront in time to see the Brewers van guy handing out Bernies to anyone who was already there? Hmm, what if?? Would we really have been able to say nope, we’re waiting until 7:00 like the rules state? Unfortunately, I can’t with a clear conscience say that answer would definitely have been yes. That 18″ tall plastic lawn ornament statue may have just been too damn tempting for the fair-player in me to resist.

This episode has proven to me, however, that I really do want to be a fair-player. Sure I may lose out on stuff sometimes like we did yesterday with the Bernies, but I want to be able to teach D by example. You know, the whole actions speak louder than words thing. And I certainly don’t want her growing up believing the notion that nice guys (or girls!) always finish last and the only way to get what you want in life is to knock others down and out of the way. Yes, she will have to fight for what she believes and wants sometimes, but I want her to learn that can be done without cheating others. Integrity is something I want to instill in her, not greed. (wow has this kid changed me or what? a year ago i probably would’ve said you can take that fair-player stuff and shove it. i want a bernie!)

So I apologize for hating you yesterday, Ms. McHardie (the Bernie hoarder). What you did was not fair or right, and I hope you realize that now (hopefully without too many eggs or too much tp on your house). You and all the other cheaters ruined a really fun event for the rest of us, incensed entire legions of Brewers fans, and received national coverage of your shenanigans. But having your privacy invaded wasn’t fair either – they were just lawn ornaments, after all. I guess my point here is that through all of this I hope both you and I learn to always be fair-players. (and if you don’t, then i at least hope people saw through your eBay greed and you got zero profits from your Bernie haul yesterday. suck it! i can play fair, but that doesn’t mean i have to like you! 😉 )

 

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Cabbage patch

So this whole milk drying-up procedure has turned out to be much more painful than I expected. Remember how I thought that since my pumping had slowed down so much recently my risk of exploding boobs was pretty much gone? Yeah, I was wrong. Everything I read said that in order to get your milk supply to end you need to stop pumping/nursing entirely, so even my every-other-day pumping was making my body think I still needed to keep producing. I thought I was just teaching my body to produce less and less until finally it would simply get the hint that I no longer needed any milk. Apparently I was mistaken. So this weekend I decided it was time to stop for good, and I haven’t pumped since Thursday morning.

And I want to rip my boobs right off my chest. Actually just the right one; the left one has been behaving nicely. But righty? My god it’s being a turd. Full, hard, extremely sore, just all around unbearable. I’ve been popping ibuprofen like it’s my job since Saturday because I can finally take it again and it’s the recommended pain reliever for going through this process, but it hasn’t been doing much that I can tell.

What has been helping, though, is cabbage. What? Yes, cabbage. Everywhere I looked for how to go about doing this warned of the engorgement I would experience (they were right!) and recommended putting cabbage leaves on my boobs to relieve the pain of the swelling. Har – yeah I don’t think so. Raw cabbage leaves? In my bra? You’re crazy. Nope, you’re a genius! That shit saved my sanity this weekend. I’m not kidding, from the very first leaf against my skin I wanted to cry with joy and relief. For all the sites I read that suggested this I still can’t tell you what exactly is in the cabbage that helps, but I am now a believer. If Mr. Cabbage told me the world was ending tomorrow night at 6:00, I might actually listen, that’s how much of a cabbage convert I have become. You take raw green cabbage leaves, either slice off the top edge of the big veins in them or smash them down with a rolling pin (i chose the latter), and put them on your boobs for about half an hour or until whenever they’re wilted. I just wore a sports bra so they were easy to put in and remove, and I plowed through almost an entire head of cabbage in two days. The colder they are to start the better, and seriously as soon as you put the leaves on it’s instant relief. They don’t actually reduce the engorgement that much since they don’t do anything to make the milk dry up, but just like ice packs work, the cold compress on your skin does help take a little of the swelling down and provide some pain relief. And I guess women have been using this remedy since the 1800s, so who am I to judge? Bring on the cabbage!

I’ve also read that it may take up to a week or two for the milk to finally be dried up, and if that proves to be true too I may just have to be locked away by the end. I can’t even describe the level of discomfort, for although I’ve felt it before when I would go too long without nursing or pumping, knowing that I can’t relieve the engorgement or else I’ll have to start this cycle all over makes me a little crazy. If the pain gets too awful or I start running a fever I’m supposed to call the doctor at that point, so let’s hope it doesn’t get to that. I did have to express a little by hand last night before the right one exploded, which is such a fun endeavor all in itself. I tell ya, the human body? It’s a crazy machine.

To switch topics to try and take my mind off the boobage pain, let me tell you how my 5k went. I rocked it!! My original goal was to break 30:00, which, after I ran the route earlier last week I knew I’d be able to pull off. So then I had the 27:00 mark in my head. I secretly wanted to break 27:00, but the whole time I was running I kept telling myself I’d be happy with 28:00 something and felt like that’s the pace I was holding. Imagine my surprise when I crossed the finish line and my watch read 26:57!!! (it wasn’t an officially timed race so i used my watch instead of their clock) I mapped out the race route and it actually was 3.24 miles, so that’s an 8:18 pace! Holy shit. The whole time I was running I couldn’t believe my legs were holding in as well as they were, but I had no idea I was going that fast. Well, fast for me, I should say. So I was very happy about that.

Then Saturday night R smoked another scrumptious rack of ribs and we enjoyed 2 bottles of wine. These:

 

Kung Fu Girl Riesling
Leese Fitch Zinfandel

 

Both were quite tasty. The zin was pretty sweet for a red zinfandel, which I love, and the riesling was nice and light, tasting very much of pears. Last night R used his new pizza stone and pizza peel and made 2 homemade pizzas for dinner. They were both on whole wheat crust, and one was topped with his homemade bacon and cheese, and the other was topped with pepperoni and cheese. Need I even say it? Delicious!! Unfortunately he didn’t take pictures of any of the food this weekend, so you’ll just have to imagine the savory delicacies yourselves.

 

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Back to the roots

R and I watched an awesome documentary tonight, “The Real Dirt on Farmer John”. It was about a guy who grew up on a farm in northern Illinois, took over said farm when his father passed, turned the farm into kind of a hippie commune as he actively farmed it in his 20s, went broke and had to sell almost everything at age 30, and his subsequent return to the farm and eventual transformation of it into a CSA. (side note – we joined a CSA last summer. wonderful premise, but unfortunately we were disappointed with ours. so this summer we’re just going to try to get more veggies going in our own gardens and frequent the local farmer’s market)

The movie also showed the sad demise of so many surrounding family farms in the 1980s. Seeing a farmer actually start crying as he spoke of watching the concrete being poured for all the neighborhoods that sprung up on the beautiful farmland brought tears to my eyes. And it got me thinking, as I have so many times before – what’s going to happen to R’s family’s farm when his dad dies?

R grew up on a 400 acre farm about an hour north of Milwaukee. His dad’s parents started it, his dad and aunts grew up on it, and his dad has been farming it ever since he came back from California in his 20s to take over. It used to be an active dairy farm, but now it’s mainly crops. They have a few cows left, but not nearly as many as they did in the milk-producing hey day. There are also some pigs and lambs, but it’s definitely not a meat producer. We occasionally reap the benefits if his dad slaughters a hog, but it’s not like we get all our beef and pork from there. They used to raise chickens, but those are gone as well. His mom still tends a magnificent garden each year, though. And when you’re on a farm, your garden isn’t your little run-of-the-mill thing like we have in the backyard. It’s a garden. I can’t even list how much stuff she grows in there, but the first time I saw it I was like this isn’t a garden, it’s a field!

R’s brothers both still live in the area of the farm and have helped their dad with the farming and chores their whole lives. R was much more sports-oriented in high school and then went away to college, so his days as a farm hand ended years ago. We have talked seriously, though, about maybe someday moving back to the farm and starting a rural life for our little family. He has a plot of land on the farm that consists of roughly 40 acres, and it’s beautifully situated on the river that runs through their land. He has said how he’d love to build a little cabin up there for a weekend house or something like that, but we’ve also discussed relocating up there to start a hops farm. These are all just pipe dreams right now, but it’s something that I know would free his spirit and take him back to his roots.

Every time we start talking about this I can’t help but ask myself, would I really be good on a farm? To tell you the truth, I actually think I would. I obviously have never done farm chores (save the one time i helped pick stones in a field, but that doesn’t really count since i got to drive the tractor the whole time), but I absolutely love being able to spend days outside and see and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I think that’s one reason I’ve taken so well to gardening. Yes, I know gardening and full-on farming can hardly be compared, but I’m just saying I think I can picture myself in that setting.

And if we were to someday move to the farm, like I said, we think it would be to do hops farming. There is currently a rental house on the farm land that we could remodel and fix up to live in, then we could dedicate just a little plot to the hops. This is an enormous undertaking, and one that would take years to bring to fruition, but the more we talk about it, and especially when I see documentaries like the one we watched tonight, the more I can see it happening someday.

I’ve always said I never want to live up there, and I still have a hard time picturing myself living in Sheboygan Falls, but a rural life would be pretty great. It takes less than an hour to get there from Milwaukee, so we could still come down here whenever we needed pretty easily. And if I’m perfectly honest with myself, what’s the big thing we do around here now? It’s not like we’re going to the museums or theaters every night, or even out to eat. I would miss our friends most of all, but then I’d just have to come down for girls’ nights that much more often. Plus with all that land, we could have everyone up for cook-outs and camping and visits whenever they could come.

Having seemingly endless property like that to roam and explore would be wonderful for the kids too. Assuming D has a brother and/or sister someday, but even if it ends up just being her, having acres and acres of nature as your backyard is something amazing that there’s just no way she’ll get here. And instilling in her the importance of respecting and nurturing the Earth by experiencing that daily would be pretty cool. Obviously we could teach her that from the city (i grew up in the city and learned that lesson at a very young age), but being able to play in the wild blue yonder every day I think would help her appreciate that firsthand.

(another side note – we’ve also contemplated moving to a more rural area just north of where we live now, not going all the way up to the farm. that one is much easier for me to accept. i already love it there, and if we really wanted to get hops farming started, R could get up to the farm as often as he needed more easily than from where we live right now. and as long as need be, i could keep my current job because that move wouldn’t make my commute impossible, whereas moving to the farm would)

R thinks his oldest brother will probably take over the farm after his dad. I know his family has expressed interest in actually living there in the farm house after R’s parents, which would be fantastic. While watching the documentary tonight I just started worrying that no one would want to take on the full responsibility of the farm after their dad and all that spectacular land would end up being sold like so many of Farmer John’s neighbors’ farms. That’s what always spurs me to ask myself, “Could we do it?” “Would I be willing to sacrifice our city life to save the farm if we had to?” And I think that answer is yes. Because if I saw concrete being poured over all that precious black soil, I would cry too.

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Follow the rules

I went for a run again tonight, since I have that 5k on Saturday morning and I wanted to keep my legs loosened up.  Well, as loosened up as they can possibly be after the first week in approximately 52 weeks (if not more) in which I have worked out 4 times. The 5k will make 3 runs, plus 1 workout with my trainer. Youch.

So anyway, tonight’s run started off horridly. My legs hurt, my ankles were stiff, my whole body just felt tired and lacking any semblance of speed. I even crossed the street at one point so as not to run up behind a couple pushing a stroller with my dinosaurish plodding and gasping for air. I seriously considered giving up and heading home at the halfway point, but then I thought, you ass, you’re only going 2 miles. Keep moving!

As I lumbered along in misery, I determined rule #1 of the universe. Even more important than the Golden Rule. Do unto others is great and all, but this one trumps even that. If you see me jogging toward you on the sidewalk, even at a ridiculously slow rate of speed, all out of both shape and breath, please, for the love of god, please, do not step / walk / fall / ride a bike / ride on roller skates / push a baby stroller / push an adult stroller / push a wheelbarrow / throw a toy or ball of any sort / sweep / or even try to glance across the sidewalk in front of me, for I am so out of both shape and breath that I will be unable to maneuver in time to avoid tripping over you and breaking my leg and possibly yours in the melee. Just stay out of my way! Mkay? Thank you ohsomuch.

Also, can we discuss the scents in the neighborhood while I run? I won’t even go into the extent to which my smells became fucked up while I was pregnant, because that’s an entire other post in itself, but let’s just say it’s taken me this long to finally be able to wear perfume and smell meat again without verging on vomiting. However, if I run through a cloud of smell when I’m having a particularly bad run, that gag reflex comes roaring back into action. So to those of you grilling burgers and doing laundry, let’s save it until I am safely past your house next time.

Fortunately I made the whole run again without walking (oo wee, all 2 miles of it), and after about the first half my joints sufficiently loosened up so that each step didn’t involve something locking up on me. I ran 2.09 miles in 18:56, a 9:02 pace. It definitely felt like about a 20:00 mile pace. I was glad I kept my butt moving there in the middle. I even had enough energy left to mow the lawn when I got done. Coolness.

 

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Holy shitballs! & More random

“Holy shitballs!” Those were the exact words that flew out of my mouth and into D’s ears on the way home yesterday when I saw that gas had dropped to $3.89 per gallon at the cheaper of the two stations near our house. $3.89 per gallon and I’m getting excited? What is wrong with that picture?

The other weekend we were at R’s brother’s house to drop D off to be babysat for a few hours, and R went upstairs to use the bathroom. No big deal, that is a common occurrence at their house. This pit stop was taking longer than usual, however, and finally R’s sister-in-law asked where R was. R’s brother said, “He’s upstairs taking a dump.” Again, no big deal, that is also a common occurrence at their house and we’re all close, so who cares if that is announced? Well in the meantime, I proceeded to use the downstairs bathroom. R came back downstairs before I returned and now asked where I was, and our 5-year-old nephew proclaimed, “She’s in the bathroom taking a dump.” 🙂 (no, i wasn’t really. that bathroom is right off the kitchen and only has a curtain for a door right now as they’re remodeling, so no dumping occurs in that one)

You know what really bugs me? When I get logged off a session on a website I’ve been on for a while and have to log back in to do something. Just leave me signed in. I’m on my own computer, so you don’t need to shut me out every 47 seconds. I realize this is simply a security measure for my information’s protection and we all know the importance of security on the interwebs these days and all, but come on. It just irks me. I have enough stupid log in IDs and passwords to keep track of without you booting me out willy nilly when I come back to your browser window. (i literally have a spreadsheet containing all my log ins and passwords because there’s no way in hell i can remember them all. and then when i have to change one and update the spreadsheet? ugh)

You know what else bugs me? Unread emails in my inbox. I just can’t stand seeing the little new mail icon and the number of unread messages next to the word “Inbox”. Why? Who knows. Maybe it’s my organizational nature and innate disdain for clutter. And if an unread email accidentally finds its way into the deleted items folder? Holy shitballs, the humanity!

 

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My first 5k in at least a year and a half

Is coming up on Saturday morning in our neighborhood, so I decided to try out the route last night to make sure I could finish it. I knew I’d be able to complete 3.1 miles, but I wanted to be able to do so without stopping or walking. And I did. Turns out I actually did more than a 5k last night. I had written one of the streets toward the end of the race route wrong on the little map that I took with me, so I just improvised what I thought would equal the full 5k. Guess I improvised a little too much. I ran 3.82 miles in 34:17, which comes out to a pace of 8:59. Since I thought I was only running 3.1 miles last night this would have put me at roughly an 11:00 pace, so I was kind of surprised. I knew I was purposely going much slower than usual, but I was hoping to be able to finish the race on Saturday in 30:00 or under. Now that I’ve plotted the route I did last night I feel a lot better about that 34:17 time, and I think I’ll be able to reach my goal this weekend. I’ll keep you posted.

The race route goes right past our house, so I told R that he and D can sit on the porch and cheer me on as I go by. 🙂 I’ve been trying to think of the last 5k in which I participated, and it would have to have been at least a year and a half ago, before I got pregnant. It’s probably actually closer to 2 years now, sometime in the summer of 2009 I’m guessing. I honestly can’t think which one it was, or when. I did do a 4 mile race last summer, but that doesn’t count – I was almost 8 months pregnant and I just walked it. Well, I did jog the very end of it, but that part was all downhill into the finish line. When you’re that big, you’ll definitely use gravity to your advantage whenever possible.

We also heard some great news last night – our dear friends the Ds welcomed their second baby yesterday evening, a little boy, K. Congratulations!! I can’t wait to meet the little guy. They now have a girl and a boy – how awesome. I’ve noticed the waves of new babies kind of go in spurts, and right now is apparently high tide. This little man, a girl I work with is due with her second boy in just under a month, my old boss is due with her first (a little girl) the end of June, we have 2 friends here that are both expecting boys in August, and another friend in Madison is also due in August, but I don’t think they have found out the sex.

I must admit, all these wonderful new little angels joining the world… I’m starting to get a yearning in the uterus area… 😉

 

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Foreshadowing?

Last night I had my first pregnancy dream since I was pregnant. Odd. I dreamt that I was in labor with really bad contractions, but when the doctor went to check to see how far dilated I was she just pulled the baby out instead. Like it was nothing. And I don’t mean like she pulled the baby out after I’d been pushing as would be standard procedure. She just all of a sudden had my baby in her arms without me doing anything. It was utterly and totally bizarre.

But it was another girl. And she had a really big nose. Not like a big, old man nose, but really long. And it was all smushed down and sideways as it very well could have been had she actually passed through the birth canal with a nose that long, but she hadn’t. She’d been magically lifted from my womb like a ghost passes through a wall – nothing to it. And she had a really long belly button area where they were trying to snip the umbilical cord off. Like it would have left her with a 2 inch long belly button. Gross. I hate outies. (no offense if any of you have an outie, mind you. i just prefer innies)

Then after this long-nosed, long-belly-buttoned little girl was born, the most disgusting part of the dream occurred – the afterbirth. I won’t go into all the gory details (unless you really want me to), because it was a bajillion times worse than what actually did happen after my own real-life labor, but let’s just say it involved a lot of bloody goopy mess falling onto the floor, some of which was frozen. Frozen?? Yep, frozen. I told you I have truly incomprehensible dreams.

No, I am definitely not pregnant.

And I woke up with really bad gas pains.