Tough choices

First, I just want to say that I had a conversation with IQ about what a circumcision was. Apparently, she just didn't remember. Secondly, she did have several pregnancy/baby books, she just didn't read any of them. And still, wouldn't you ask the doctor what is was before you let them do it to your baby?

You know how you have the problem that you think you took care of, or took care of itself, but then it pops up again? You know how it's usually a person. Yeah, mine too. Her name is Andrea, and you might remember her as the woman who said, when, I told her that Wes was interested in me, "he's only interested in you because I'm not available." Yeah, that great friend. Well, we quit talking to one another, but about a year ago, she e-mailed saying she missed me and wanted to be friends again. I gave it another shot because we had been friends for so long. Needless to say, we haven't exactly been best buddies since all this happened. But we have talked and even seen each other. The last time I talked to her was for her birthday, in mid-Feb. At that time I told her we were trying to get pregnant. I haven't heard from her since. This week (amid all the crap going on with IQ), I received a notice that I will receive honey from a bee hive that Andrea leased for me. It's a birthday present. My birthday is March 1st. We've only been friends since we were 15. I have a hard time thinking she seriously forgot when my birthday was. You'll also notice that I haven't received a call or an e-mail. This really got me thinking.

Since I hadn't heard from Andrea since Feb. I really thought I wouldn't hear from her again, and honestly, I wasn't that upset about it. She's always been a fickle friend, showing up when she needed a friend and disappearing other times. If you're really following things, you'll also realize that this timeline means that Andrea does not know I'm having a baby. I thought I wouldn't hear from her again, so why make a point of telling her. But now, I don't know. After thinking about it for a couple of days though, I realized, I don't want her to know. Why? Well, quite frankly, because I don't want to hear her negativity (when I told her Wes and I got married, her reply was, "what did you do that for?"). And if I don't want to tell her, why do I want to be friends with her? And I realized, I don't. So I am going to send her a thank you note, but I'm not going to tell her I'm pregnant. If she calls, I'm not going to answer. If she e-mails, I'm not going to respond. Maybe I'll send her a Christmas letter, with a picture of the family (and the baby), but I don't know. I don't think I owe her an explanation after everything she's done. I think I'm just going to let this relationship die. My life is moving in happy, positive directions, and I don't need any negative people bringing me down. I've got too much going for me to listen to those people. I'm having a baby!!!!

Where is it?

I had my doctor's appointment Wed. and everything went very well. I got to see the baby, and there is just one there. Since I'm 11 weeks, I doubt another one will show up. Which is a little sad, because I thought if I had twin boys, Sandi, David and I could make some sort of marriage arrangement! Anyways, everything was good and it had a huge, alien head, stubby arms and legs and moved easily when poked. I feel much better and have pictures, so I know it was all in my head.

IQ had her baby. It took less than 6 hours, so all in all, it went rather well. Although, she ended up with level 4 lacerations. The baby is adorable, just cute. He has her hair, which is thick and brown with red highlights. And he's tiny. So all that went well. I have to go pick her up and take her home now. But, I couldn't leave you without a great IQ story (and I am not making this up, because really, who could make something like this up).

A couple months ago, I asked IQ if she was going to get the baby circumcised. She said she would have to ask Mr. IQ about that. I asked if Mr. IQ was circumcised. She didn't know. Now, ok, I guess if you've never been with someone who wasn't, you might not really know. Apparently, though, Mr. IQ wants IQ Jr. circumcised. Yesterday, when I got to the hospital, IQ tells me that they had just circumcised IQ Jr. A little later, she was going to change the diaper, and said she was nervous because of the circumcision. That is very understandable. She was looking at the baby, who was still lying in his crib, with his diaper on, and says to me "Where is it?" Startled, and not sure what she is talking about, I ask "Where is what?" She answered, "The circumcision." Me: "Um, it's on his penis." Her: "Oh, that's why I can't see it, it's covered by the diaper."

Besides the disturbing fact that she let them do something to her baby without understanding what it was, everyone wants to know, "Why didn't you ask her where she thought it was?" Quite simply, I was too afraid to ask.

Too early!!!

So thanks to everyone for the congratulations. I was going to type up something witty and cute, but pregnancy has sucked all the life out of me and left me tired and scatterbrained. We are very excited and it is starting to seem real now that everyone knows. My appointment is this afternoon, and I was going to try to wait until after that to post, but. . . .

IQ's water broke and she is in labor. She is not due until May 19th, and we expected her to be early, but not this early. She hasn't even ordered the video camera yet (her husband is on a ship and won't be back until June). And my video camera is with my husband (which is ok, because to be honest, I did not want to have to video that). She has another friend with her right now, and then I will go to the hospital after my appointment. Hopefully (please, please God), her labor will be short. And thankfully, I'm going to Texas next week for 12 days, so I'll get a break from helping her taking care of her baby. Oh boy, this is going to be an adventure. And our children are never, ever going to play with one another (if I get my way).

My wireless is fixed!!! YAY!!!! And I got to talk to my husband. And I'll get to talk to him again tonight. That makes me happy.

I wrote a great book review about Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses but blogger ate it. So, go read anything by Rushdie (except The Ground Beneath her Feet, which I didn't like).

Ok, I suppose I should clean a little and shower and pack a bag to go to the hospital. Pray that everything is ok. IQ is kind of a wimp (she doesn't even have her ears pierced).

I think I forgot something

So I haven't written in a while because the second Wes left, my computer mysteriously kicked itself off of the wireless router. I still have connection, but it's with this really old computer with a horrible, horrible keyboard that drives me crazy. And, I haven't really done anything anyway, so there wasn't a huge point in blogging. But I don't want anyone to think I've died, so I figured I should write something.

I finished IQ's afghan and would love to show you a picture, but the pictures are on my computer. And I think I'll probably end up doing several blogs about IQ soon.

I read a great book. But I'm still thinking about it, so I'll do my book review later.

And I'm having a baby. I'm due in Nov. I'm already 10 weeks, 5 days along, but I still haven't seen an OB/GYN (my doctor screwed up my referral). I saw a nurse today and they took 8 (EIGHT) tubes of blood and I had to pee in a cup. Next week I will see the doctor and we should be able to hear the baby's heartbeat. So that's my news. And yes, I'm doing fine by myself. I haven't had any morning sickness. I'm just really, really, really tired. Matter of fact, I think I need a nap right now.

The long haul

Well, he's gone. The ship left this afternoon. Yesterday afternoon and last night Wes tore around the place, packing, ironing, freaking out. I took him to the ship last night. It took four trips from the car to the ship. It's always windy by the water, and it happened to be misting last night. And cold. The ramp is always dangerous, but wet, it was treacherous. Add armfuls of stuff, and it became suicidal. But we did it, and I didn't fall once (I slipped a couple of times though). I told Wes I would take him tomorrow, but he had to drive the ship out today (well, actually he just told everyone what to do, the guy who drove the ship is probably 18 and right out of high school. Doesn't that make you feel good?), so he wanted to make sure he was there early. I also asked if he wanted me to come for the farewell this morning, but he said no, because everyone would just be crying anyway (last night when I dropped him off, there was another sailor there saying good-bye to his kids, and his kids were sobbing, "please don't go daddy." It was horrible). He called me a couple of times this morning to say good-bye. And then I decided to clean the house.

The house is a mess. Like disgusting. I feel dirty being here. I figured that it would give me something to do after he left. I started washing dishes this morning and discovered I didn't have any SOS pads. This made me cry, because it was very sad. To cheer myself up, I decided to watch the video Wes made for me last night. But there was something wrong with it, and I couldn't watch it. That made me cry even harder, because that was WAY worse than not having a SOS pad. Then Wes called. The ship had been delayed, and the portable DVD player he had bought didn't work. Could I pick up another one and drop it off (and pick up the other one)? Sure. I flew to the ship because they could leave at any minute. I made it just as they were making the announcement that they were ready to leave. All the sailors were boarding. Wes couldn't come to greet me (he was getting ready to drive the ship), but he waved and told me he loved me. He looked so handsome in his dress blues (they dress up to leave). And he honked the ship's horn at me as I left (ok, I'm sure it wasn't at me, but he did honk it, and boy, was it loud).

The rest of the day, I cleaned and slept and talked on the phone. I also got a job for tomorrow, which is nice. I'm putting together a mental list of stuff to do while he's gone: read more, spring cleaning, play piano, stuff like that. Who knows if I'll really do any of it, but I'll try. And then, after diner, I decided to try one more time to figure out what was wrong with the video and, low and behold, I got them to work. It's a short video. He basically just tells me he misses me and loves, but that's enough. It's going to be a long six months.

Six Hours

Driving home from Texas, we had hoped to be able to relax a bit and see more. Only, Wes grossly underestimated the amount of time it would take to drive home and he forgot about the time change (we lost an hour). By day two, we were tired and cranky (ok, I was tired and cranky, he was only tired). The second evening, we saw a billboard for the Natural Bridge. We had been talking about visiting, but who really knew when we would get there. We decided to stop. We got a great military discount on a hotel room (as we did on all the hotel rooms we stayed at). That first night, we ate and then slept. We got up nice and early and began exploring. The Natural Bridge is so cool. It's huge and George Washington surveyed it before the Revolution. Thomas Jefferson bought it from King George III for about $2.40. It's taller than Niagara Falls and it's still growing. It was very cool.

Me, looking geeky, because we were also bird watching. We saw five new birds during an hour.

Us, next to a waterfall.

I've seen wild turkeys before, but never this close. There was a whole flock of them. We saw them fly and they gobbled at me when I got too close.

We also visited the caverns. That was pretty cool too.

Only a few blocks from home, we were greeted with this.

I'm so glad we stopped. If we had gone straight home, we would have been exhausted and pretty much just stared at each other or the TV the next day. Although our vacation was nice, we never got any "us" time. And with deployment coming up, we've been spending a ton of time with friends, family, the kids. But no "us" time. I'm glad we made time for it. Those six hours, they have to last me six months. Good thing they were a wonderful six hours.

Where's my maid?

We've been on vacation. It was fun. Let me tell you about it. (I'm still tired from riding in the car, because, yes, we drove.) Anyway, we went to Texas (from Virginia, in a car). This allowed me to go through several states I don't think I've ever been in before, or don't remember very well. We started by driving to Jacksonville Texas to see Wes's grandparents. I had never met them before, and Wes hadn't seen them in a couple of years. They are so sweet. Just nice folks. We had a really good visit. And Jacksonville is very pretty. We identified one new bird while we were there (Cedar Waxwing). We only hung out there a couple of days before we head to Dallas for a wedding of an old high school friend.

I had not seen this friend in some years, but he and Wes have kept in touch (as well as the navy allows). One of the strange things about marrying someone from high school is going back to see your friends, especially when they don't know you're married. The only people we really knew there were all the groomsmen and the groom (pictured below, the groom is on the farthest left).

Notice that my husband is by far the shortest man in the group. They actually had some problems with the wedding pictures, finding a place for him that he could be seen. Don't tell him I told you that.

So this is us before the wedding. I had to go buy a dress, because I don't really own any.

The first dance. I have never seen Eric so happy. I hope they have a long and happy marriage. And I hope we see them again because the bride was very, very sweet.

This was the most expensive wedding I have ever been to. We estimate that it was $75,000. No, I did not but the comma in the wrong spot. At the wedding itself, the Texas boys choir sang, and they had a string quartet, and an organist. At the wedding, which was at the Adolphus (for those of you who live in Dallas), they had sea bass AND fillet of beef (not one or the other) and open bar, an 8 piece band, and the best wedding cake I've ever eaten. It was spectacular. I hear her parents live in University Park, so they probably just wrote a check. But it was wonderful and great to see everyone and again, I'm so glad that our friend Eric is happy.

But of course, you can't visit home without some drama. We saw Charley. He didn't actually show up for the wedding, but we saw him the next day. It was surreal. I love Wes and can't imagine my life without him, but seeing Charley was bizarre. It reminded me of all the reasons I love him and many of the reasons I'm not with him. When we left, he gave me a hug and told me he was glad I was happy. I hope he finds his happiness too. Wes hopes that seeing us helped Charley resolve some of his feelings. I honestly don't know if it helped resolve mine or not. I am happy though, that seeing him did not make me wonder what I had missed, but rather, made me very happy with what I had found.

I'll write about the rest of our trip tomorrow. Now, I need to finish cleaning as much as possible. It is good to be home.

Back to the 70's

When I was a kid, I loved to roller skate. I mean, I LOOOOOOOOOVED to skate. Apparently, so did my husband. I just found out he even took lessons (LESSONS!!!!). Anyway, Allison recently went ice skating, and now that is her favorite activity in the whole world, and she wanted us to take her. I've only been ice skating about three times in my entire life. So we compromised and went roller skating. YAY!!!! Victor did great, but Allison started out a little rough. Wes was worried that he wouldn't remember how to do it (even after all those lessons!) but I told him it was just like riding a bike. And it was. We had a great time and it didn't take long for Allison to work it out. I had a great time watching everyone too. There was one little four year old who was skating around like she was born with skates on her feet. And cutest of all, there was a little boy, probably about three, who looked like a jack-in-the-box. Up, down, up, down, up, down. But he didn't cry at all and just kept going. I cracked up though, when I realized his shirt said "I do all my own stunts." Yes you do, little man, yes you do. Overall, it was very fun, and I told Wes we should buy our own skates and then go skate on the boardwalk every weekend, because we're nerdy like that. And then I came home and took a two hour nap.

I want to address those of you who are concerned that Wes and I are wasting valuable baby making time. Um, my husband is leaving for 6 months. Whether or not we were trying to get pregnant, we would not be wasting that time. So now you can quit worrying about it (but you can keep crossing your fingers for us). Ok, now I need to go make dinner. I hope everyone has a great Easter weekend.

Crocheting a thank you

Last year, after my grandpa died, I stayed with my grandma for three weeks. During that time, I learned to crochet, something my grandma has been doing for about 35 years. The first year I crocheted, I made afghans for several friends, but then my grandma mentioned that she would really like a new afghan for her new living room furniture. I jumped at the chance. I wanted to show my thanks to grandma, for everything she's ever done for me. My grandma got the afghan last week. When I talked to her, she was so proud of me. She thought the afghan was so beautiful, both the pattern and the colors. She said she thought I was already better than her (I'm not). I was so happy that she loved my afghan. Then she said something that almost made me cry. My grandma has been making afghans for about 35 years. She has made hundreds of afghans. I probably have at least 10 in the house right now. I have always thought of my grandma as a very talented woman. But she doesn't. She said to me: In all the years I have been crocheting, and all the afghans I have made, no one has ever made me an afghan. It means so much to me that you wanted to learn something that I did and now you're sharing your gift with others. It's so nice to know that something that is such an important part of me will live on. I validated my grandma. It wasn't just that I made her something, but it was that I had thought something she did was important and beautiful and I wanted to learn it and then I gave it back to her as a gift. It hasn't mattered how many times I told her I love her or I told her I cherished her or I told her I thought she was talented, it mattered that I wanted to learn something from her and emulate her. I am the only person in the family who knows how to crochet, and we have a big family. I am so thankful I was able to give that to my grandma. And I hope every time she wraps herself in that afghan, she feels my arms around her and she hears me whisper "I love you."

Big sigh of relief

Guess where I typing this from? Guess, guess!!!! If you guessed my computer, you would be correct! My computer is finally up and running. The latest bit of problems stemmed from the fact that I was apparently missing a retrieval disk. My husband accused me of throwing it out, but after finding the retrieval disks for my last two computers, including the first one I ever had, which I got in 1995 (pre-real windows), he realized, I probably did not toss out any disks. We finally solved that problem. Right now, the only thing on my computer is windows software and one game. My computer is now super, super fast. I think I will put my bird software on it and that will be it! Now, I know that my husband actually being home is rare, and so I should enjoy that time rather than worrying about my computer, but he's leaving in 3 weeks and will be gone for 6 months. I kind of need a computer during that time. To keep me company. To keep up with finances and to play lots of games!!!

We do indeed have only 3 weeks left, and they are going to be a hectic three weeks. We had the kids last weekend and will get them Easter weekend too. We're still not sure what to do, besides go to church. Do we dye eggs? If we do, do we hide them in our tiny house? Do we buy lots of candy for the child who has had 4 cavities her last 2 dentist appointments? (and I don't mean a total of 4, I mean 4 each time.) After the kids leave, we also leave. We'll visit family in East Texas and then on to Dallas for a wedding of an old high school friend. Pretty much EVERYONE we hung out with in high school will be there, even, perhaps, a certain ex-boyfriend of mine. Some of these people know we're married, most don't. It will be a very interesting wedding. Then, back home, do laundry, pack up and bye, bye. Then a very long 6 months. The next three weeks will fly by. And then, nothing. Thank God I have Dungeon Lords to keep me company.

My husband is a genius

and the geeky cheerleaders are idiots. They could not retrieve the information from my computer. When I dropped it off, I had a list of things my husband had done that did not work. They were not interested. When I picked it up, they said there was nothing anyone could do. I even asked if we could send it somewhere (I don't know, the computer gods or something), but was told no. Then my husband came home, used tools he had down-loaded from an open source site and retrieved my stuff (let's not go into why my stuff had not been backed up). We went back to the geeky cheerleaders the next day, because they had charged us $30.00 to tell us my computer was unfixable. The first guy told us that obviously my husband had been able to retrieve my stuff because of the services they had provided. Huh? You didn't provide any service! The manager told us that they would have had to send it somewhere (apparently the computer gods live in Kansas) to fix it. Then I retold the entire story of how 1) if his person had taken the information I had brought, they would have known that and 2) I had specifically asked if there was somewhere we could send it. We got our money back. However, my computer is still out of commission. He retrieved my information, but then, the entire hard drive is corrupted and unfixable. So we got a new hard drive (from someone on the ship who had an extra one). That hard drive works fine. But we don't have a windows xp disk that works with my key so now Wes is asking around the ship and hopefully he'll get one (the disk we have is actually the developmental disk, not the actual software). After we get that done, everything should be fine. Cross your fingers. Until then, I'm stuck using the old, slow computer.

Stupid technology

My computer didn't just crash, it had a heart attack and a stroke, and is now in a coma. My husband can fix my computer, but only by erasing everything on it. Since I never really saved anything to anywhere else, including all my pictures, that's not an option. Right now, my computer is being serviced by a group of people who are geeky. Hopefully they can save my stuff. Then my husband will fix my computer. In the meantime, I'm using the crappy computer in the office. Isn't life grand?

But, the good news is, my husband is home. I'm not going to think about all the stuff we have to get done in less than a month or the fact that he is leaving in less than a month. I'm just going to enjoy him being here right now. Well, actually, he's at work right now. But you know what I mean.

I finally finished the afghan for my grandma. I would show it to you, but see above paragraph about stupid computers. Now I'm going to start on an afghan for IQ's baby. She wants navy colors. I hope it turns out good. And I'm already planning an afghan for my parents too. Crocheting is addictive.

Well, I hope everyone is doing well and not having the issues I am.

It's my party

Yesterday was my birthday, and after a horrible week, I was considering having a party. A pity party. Why was my week so bad? Well, it was just one thing after another, accumulating in very un-pregnant like behavior by my body. But, I decided that I wasn't going to wallow. I went to the Norfolk botanical gardens instead, and they had a ton of flowers out for me. (I'd show them to you, but MY computer crashed and burned yesterday, and now refuses to give me anything but the blue screen of death. So I'm using the crappy old computer in the office.) And, I identified three new birds. One of them is only supposed to summer here, so I guess he came home early. One of them does winter here, but not very often. And the last one is supposed to be on the west coast, but occasionally gets lost (according to the bird guide). One tiny little bird kept following me and dancing for me. I guess I smelled good, and I enjoyed the show, but it was a bit weird. After that, I went to my favorite Thai place for lunch. Then home, where my computer crashed and burned. Overall, a very good day, except for the crashing and burning. While I was unable to talk to my husband yesterday, he did call on Thurs. and should be able to call today. He also sent me a lovely e-mail. A number of other people also called, e-mailed, or sent cards. Phoenix decorated the card from my parents, so when my brother called, he wanted to talk to see if I had like it. Too cute. So no more pity parties. It is a new month and my husband comes home on Friday.

Misfortune

I realize that I really like most of the books I read. The problem with this is that after giving glowing reviews to good, and even great work, I have a hard time convincing people when I've read something truly magnificent. I have just read something truly magnificent. Amazingly magnificent. Unbelievably magnificent. Enchantingly magnificent.

I have just read Misfortune by Wesley Stace. Not only is this novel magnificent, it was also Stace's debut novel. He now has a life-long devoted fan. Misfortune takes place in England in the 1800's. A baby, taken from a dying mother during a botched abortion, is left on a trash heap to die. She is picked up by a very rich lord and adopted as the next heir and named Rose. Only, she is a he. Her father, terribly missing his sister, who died at age 5, ignores the baby's genitalia. Her mother, the librarian her father married in order to make her look legitimate (and not adopted) is a fan of an early feminisia poet, named Mary Day, and looks upon this as an experiment to show that gender is a social construct. In the wings, a horrible family, who needs the family fortune which will one day belong to Rose. Only her true identity is discovered, by both herself and her family and things become terribly complicated.

When I picked up this book I thought it would be an adventure book, the story of someone figuring out who they are. However, I was unprepared for the dignity, respect and insight Stace gives the character of Rose. Stace does not acknowledge reading Foucault's The History of Sexuality, but Rose's internal struggle often mirrored that story (The History of Sexuality revolves around the diary of a hermaphrodite in 19th century (maybe 18th) France who eventually kills him/herself because he/she feels alienated, not only from society, but from him/herself). Rose's self-discovery, self-hatred and eventually, self-acceptance are lovingly told. Rose is not someone who should be shunned, but someone who should be admired for the way in which she learns to love and accept who she truly is.

The story itself is remarkable. Once it is discovered that Rose is a he, it is also discovered that she is a bastard, and therefore, not the legitimate heir of the family fortune. At this point, I became a tad bit disappointed because I felt a Tom Jones (the book, not the singer) ending coming. However, Stace threw in such a delightful twist, that I did not mind at all. Although this book is 500 pages, it flew by and I can't wait to pick up Stace's latest book.

Misfortune should be a must read for anyone who has felt like they didn't fit in their own skin. I figure that all of us have felt like that at one time or another. I definitely think this book should be required reading for gender study courses. Stace is an incredibly talented man and I look forward to reading him for years to come.

Snarl for me!

So I'm not great at looking fierce. I tried a snarl in one picture, but it looked ridiculous. Good thing my husband won't really notice anyway.

I awoke to a phone call at 6:30 this morning offering me a 5 hour job. Well, I guess for 5 hours I'd get up. Only, it turned out to only be an hour job. Totally wasted my entire morning though. I hate crap like that. I did manage to go to the gym this afternoon, and, surprise surprise, I've lost more weight. Since I hadn't been in about a month, I figured I would have gained back at least a pound. Nope, I've lost three more pounds. I figure the more I lose now, the less I'll have to lose if I ever get pregnant. Which is another reason why I like to work. I don't spend a lot of time wondering if I'm pregnant when I'm busy trying to control 30 kids. I guess there's the rest of the week.

Who has more fun?

I miss my husband. And while cleaning my bedroom, I realized that I STILL haven't worn my halloween costume for him yet. So I thought I'd try it on and make sure it looked good. What do you think? With or without the mask?

I've never had black hair, or long hair, for that matter. I've had ever other color, but never black. It doesn't look as bad as I thought it would. And now, I kind of want long hair, only my hair is so thin, it would never look this good. I guess a girl can dream.

I can't wait for my husband to get home.

Directionless

I usually sign up for my subbing positions on-line. They have a nice little page that shows all the jobs available, which schools, which subjects, which hours, which days and you just pick what you want. This usually works out very well, but every now and then a school will move you around to a different job. This usually (what's another word for usually?) is no big deal. Today, it was a big deal. They put me in special ed.

I don't take special ed jobs for a reason. They're really, really hard, and I don't mean work wise. They're hard emotionally. You spend time with some of the nicest, friendliest, funniest, and huggiest kids ever, but you know that this is it for them. Out of the 8 kids in the class, maybe 4 of them would ever be able to work ANY type of job, and this was the highest level of special ed. The other four, not a chance. One of the students, a girl with autism, broke my heart. They said she had been able speak, interact, read a little and now, nothing. She spent the day wandering in circles, grabbing things and putting them in her mouth. She had totally regressed. It was so sad, like she was looking for something, but she didn't know what, or how to communicate with even herself. The whole situation made me think of IQ.

IQ had the flu a couple weeks ago. I took her to the doctor and one of the things they told her was to not use Q-tips to clean out her ears. We all know that, we just all ignore it. I mean, it says not to clean you ears with them right on the box. Anyway, I told her that I used them anyways. Her reply: if the ob/gyn told me not to use them, then I won't use them because it must hurt the baby. How is this woman going to raise a baby? I finally realized today, for the first time, that I may, someday, have to call CPS on her. That would upset me so much, because of IQ's history (she grew up in foster care) but if she can't take care of the baby, what choice do I have? I guess right now the only thing I can do is hope and pray.

Back to reality

After the kidnapping, robbery, marriage, bombs, beatings, drug addiction and blackmailing of the last book I read, I decided I needed something more realistic. I read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I missed out on reading Tolkien when I was a kid. I read the Chronicles of Narnia but that was the extent of my fantasy reading. My husband loves Tolkien, so I thought I'd give it a spin. Boy, did I miss out! I loved this book! While I felt like the book would be a great kid's book, I didn't feel like I was reading a kid's book. I would recommend this book to anyone.

The story itself is rather simple. A stay-at-home type of hobbit decides it's time for an adventure and joins thirteen dwarves in trying to reclaim their gold from a dragon. While the story is simple, the writing is amazing. Tolkien's writing is clear and simple itself, but it is also interesting. When a character mentions other stories or adventures, as a reader, I just went, yes, yes, tell me about that, I want to know! I could have read this story forever, instead, it was so well written, it took about three days. I now declare myself a Tolkien fan and will read the rest of his work. I also look forward to getting Wes's kids to read them and hopefully, someday, my own kids.

During the time when I couldn't hide in middle earth, Wes's dad was here all week and I worked quite a bit. There's nothing romantic about having a valentine's dinner with your father-in-law and your husband. Now, everyone is gone, the house is a mess, and I'm still working a lot. Again, it will be a miracle if a baby was conceived this month (ok, I mean in this house, not in the general public). If you think having your father-in-law at your valentine's dinner isn't romantic, think about having sex with him sleeping directly underneath your bedroom. Oh yeah, let the sexy times roll.

The Russian Concubine

A friend sent me this book, The Russian Concubine by Kate Furnivall, because it kind of reminded her of our trip to Russia. She did mention that it was not "serious" literature, but a good, easy read. Since I had just finished reading a book, I thought, why not?

In this book, a family of Russians flee the Bolshevik revolution. They travel to China, but along the way, they are stopped by Bolsheviks and the husband is killed. The mom, Valentina and her daughter, Lydia, make it to China, but have no money, no passport and no way to provide for themselves. Lydia, a beautiful, willful red-head, becomes a thief to help support them, and during one of her "bussiness trips" into the Chinese portion of the town (as opposed to the part practically owned by the British) she almost gets kidnapped and sold into prostitution, only to be saved by a Chinese communist, Chang An Lo. Eventually, they fall in love and as you can imagine, chaos rules.

I love the character of Lydia. She is beautifully and lovingly drawn. She has fire and depth. She alone makes this novel worth reading. The other characters are also done rather well, but I felt like the author had a checklist:

Corrupt British bureaucrat who beats and cheats on his wife. Check.
Well-meaning British school teacher who has a Chinese lover, has gone native and eventually succumbs to the drug, opium, that destroyed his family. Check.
Russian mom who has to whore herself out, albeit in a upper-class fashion, to survive and marries the first rich, nice British guy who asks. Check.
Powerful Chinese warlord who controlls the opium trade and is very rich, ruthless and violent. Check.

You get the picture. In addition, the last half of the book could easily be a script for a soap opera, and that's not a compliment. Yes, I know this is a novel, meaning, it is not real, but please, this crossed the border from incredulous to how stupid do you think I am. The author might of well have put a cape on Lydia and Chang An Lo and declared them superheroes, for all they went through.

Overall, I would not recommend this book. While the characters are written beautifully, the story itself defies logic. The best thing about this book: it gave me a great idea for a research project. What did happen to the Russians who had to flee to China? But other than that, this book was not worth the time.

When is blogger going to fix spell-check?

Little lost bird

I was not subbing for sexual education when I uttered the words "oral activity." I was subbing for Spanish. There was a question about why they had to write an activity that was supposed to be oral. My answer, "you need to write it down even though it is an oral activity."

Today I saw the most beautiful bird I have ever seen (well, maybe. I've seen a lot of beautiful birds). I've linked to it above. It must have been lost though, because it's not really supposed to be here, and it was all by itself. But it posed for me and let me watch for quite some time.

It's my anniversary today. The kids are here, as is Wes's dad. I made a HUGE meal, but forgot the wine. It has been a good day.