Easily Amused

Personal No Responses »
Dec 302005

In the almost 1 year that I have been blogging, I’ve noticed something that strikes me as extremely funny, which also affects how I think about and do my job:

People on the Internet will read anything when they are looking for porn.

I scan my blog visitor stats, and am always interested in seeing what brought people to my blog. The most frequent hits are from other blogs that link to me, or from comments I’ve made on other blogs. But I also get found via search engines.

Since my post about the very funny series of billboards that cracked me and Jill up as we drove north on I-85, 4 people have searched for the term "topless" and landed here.

I cannot imagine how disappointed they must be.

I mean, this blog just isn’t salacious, unless maybe you have a fetish for pregnant women who read a lot. I’m debating erasing the last part of that sentence, since I’m a little squicked out by the idea that someone might google the phrase "f*t**h for pregnant women" and increase my pron-related hits. Especially since I also use the word t*pless in this post, and I’ve been conciously avoiding using the word les*ian. I mean, think about what weirdos that combination of terms might draw here.

Now, I have been of the opinion since ~1999 that web filtering technology that worked solely based on keywords was essentially worthless. That’s how you wind up with filters that block breast cancer sites or chicken breast recipes.

But I did think there were "pornier" words where a lower threshold might make sense. And I think the technology that uses complex algorithems to assess the "porniness" of a page is pretty accurate, although I know that I’ve radically increased the chances of this blog being false-positively identified by such technology with this post.

Ok, I’m done blathering about this. My sister sent me some EXTREMELY funny images of the family as South Park characters that I’m going to conclude this post with and go to work.

Liza_southpark_1Jill_south_park

Here’s her rendition of me and of Jill. :)

Fruit & Veg Count, 12/29: 1 organic gala apple, 1 bite pickled beet, 3/4 cup braised green cabbage, 2 "winter squash pancakes" — tasted like bland potato pancakes to me, but supposedly they included some mysterious form of winter squash (total volume, ~1 1/4 cup veg matter).

Posted by Liza at 8:09 am

Feeling Fortunate and Blessed

Pregnancy No Responses »
Dec 292005

Have I mentioned that I love the medical practice we’re using? It’s a joint doctors-and-midwives practice, and we’re seeing the midwives. They’re so warm and sweet, and I love that they take their time with me and answer all my questions. (If anything happens that the midwives think needs further medical attention or intervention, the doctors are immediately available.)

The update for today is that this pregnancy is going "perfectly" as far as they’re concerned.

Lil Smudge is measuring exactly on target — not on the large side of on target, as had been the case all the way up until now. His heartbeat sounds wonderful, he’s moving around as he should be, and he’s aimed head down. Our textbook baby.

I lost a pound over the last two weeks, but since it was only 1, and I’d gained 6 during the 2 weeks before that, they aren’t worried. Especially since he appears to be doing so well. And my blood pressure remains excellent. (I have been eating a little less over the last few weeks, and more veggies/less sugar & cheese. Blame the reflux. But I need to keep the intake up — I should not be losing weight at this point.)

Amusingly, I’m the only patient in the practice this week to have lost weight — the average weight gain has been 6-8 lbs. Ah, Christmas. And office parties.

They don’t see any signs that he might make an early appearance, which is a good thing even though I’m physically ready for him to come now. They would be very surprised if he comes early.

And starting at my next visit, in 2 weeks, we move to weekly visits. Also next visit, I get all kinds of bloodwork and other tests. Bloodwork is my least favorite part of any medical experience, so my lovely wife will be coming along and driving for that visit.

I am indeed fortunate.

Posted by Liza at 11:37 am

16th Thing

Books, Silly Internet Quizzes No Responses »
Dec 292005

16.   Roughly 75% of my reading is done in the last hour or 1.5 hours before I fall asleep, or the first hour that I’m awake in the morning. Most of the rest is done either on weekends, in waiting rooms, or while in an airport or on a plane. I read as much as I do because I find it restful and calming.

Fruit & Veg Count, 12/28: 1 banana, ~2/3 cup green beans, 1 very large organic sweet potato

Posted by Liza at 8:54 am

15 Things About Me and Books

Books, Silly Internet Quizzes 4 Responses »
Dec 282005

I spotted this blog meme as I was surfing around, and thought it had my name ALL over it. I hope some of you (Trista, Dave, Leta, Bean…and others!) will pick up on it too.

Don’t let the number 15 stop you from playing. If you can only think of 3 things about you and books, I still want to know what they are. :)

  1. I love love love books. Shocking news to anyone reading this, right? As far as material things go, books are the category of thing I could least live without.
  2. I read faster than almost anyone I know. When I was about 11, I had a contest with my Dad to see who could read faster. The book we sped through was Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I whipped through the text. Now I only whip through things if I hate them and for some reason am reading them anyway. But I still read fast.
  3. Before I could actually read, like around age 2 or 3, I ate books. Specifically, I tore the corners of pages out of extra-large Richard Scarry books and ate the paper. (I now wonder if perhaps I had reflux as a very small child.)
  4. The first thing I remember reading all by myself was a Nancy comic strip in the Green Sheet of the Milwaukee Journal. I remember sounding out a compound word, while sprawled out on the tv room floor.
  5. In the 4th or 5th grade, my best friends Katie Moylan, Becca Goldberg, and I memorized all the dialog from the first chapter of Little Women and acted it out together on the phone. (Lucky for us, Katie had 3-way calling, an exotic feature in 1979 or 1980.) Becca was Meg, Katie was Amy, and I was Jo. (Raise your hand if you thought "of course you were.")
  6. By the time I was in the 6th grade, I had read Roots by Alex Haley more than 10 times. I didn’t think that was a big deal, but my parents and teachers did. I still prefer long books, and when traveling, often use length as a factor when deciding which book to buy.
  7. The story means more to me than the quality of the writing, as long as the writing doesn’t suck. (This excludes anything by Ellen Degeneres, John Norman, or Peter Dickinson, whom I believe to be some of the worst writers published in English.) I would rather read an interesting plot or characterization by a mediocre wordsmith than a beautifully written story about a topic or characters I don’t find — and can’t make myself find — interesting.
  8. 2005 was the first year I tried to keep track of my reading.
  9. One of the biggest reasons I disliked law school was that it drained me of the time and mental energy to read for pleasure. During my 1L year, the only personal reading I had time for was the stories and articles in the New Yorker, and I was extremely resentful of that fact.
  10. On average, every other year I manage to give away 10 or 12 books. Giving them away seems painful and awful to me.
  11. I re-read approximately half of the books I read, maybe more. Some of them I would re-read monthly or almost that often, except that I’m embarassed to list them every month on my blog reading list.
  12. I hardly do any more "should" reading. Certainly the number of books I read because I think I should is less than 5% of my total reading.
  13. I love most genre fiction: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Mysteries, in particular. I like them more than most "mainstream" fiction. I’m not so much a Romance fan, although I was when I was an early teenager (12-14) and romance-reading has been a phase in my recovering from bad breakups. What I really can’t stand is Horror, and except for reading the Flowers in the Attic series when I was in 5th grade, some Stephen King in high school or college, and Poppy Z. Brite when I was in South Africa, I’ve avoided the genre entirely. It gets too far into my imagination and creeps me out for a LONG time after I’m done. Same with horror/scary movies (ie, anything directed by David Lynch). I still have too many visuals from Eraserhead burnt into by brain, and I saw that movie with Katie when we were 15. She, quite sensibly, stuck her head into the seat of the chair during the worst bits.
  14. Right now, in our house, we have at least 125 linear feet of bookshelf space. (One full wall of the dining room, 96 inches tall, plus three 96 inch tall shelves in the living room, and several smaller shelves in other rooms.) Maybe 20-25 feet of that is filled with double rows of books; slightly less than that is filled with music and movies. Still, all of our books don’t fit in our shelves; they are spilling over and sitting in piles in various places around the house.
  15. I almost never read book reviews. But I almost always read books that people who know me recommend to me. Philip Pullman was the best recommendation anyone has ever made to me (thank you, Sandra!); I’m still trying to get into China Mieville.
Posted by Liza at 5:53 pm

Quiet Day in Lake Woebegon

Pregnancy No Responses »
Dec 282005

After the near non-stop motion of the last few days, I’m glad that Lil Smudge is having a quieter, more jumping-jack free day today. He’s still wriggling, but not nearly as much as he did yesterday.

I think I’ve hit that emotionally over-wrought space where I’m on the hypersensitive and cry-y side for no immediate reason. (Other than pregnancy and being extremely tired.) Sorry Jill!

There’s good stuff happening too:

  • Tomorrow I have a medical appt where, hopefully, we find out if Smudge is facing head-down and whether or not they think he’ll come early
  • I spoke to someone about a New Mom interview at the pediatrician’s office closest to our house. They don’t have the January ones scheduled yet, but they took our name & number and will call us when they do, which should be soon.
  • Work is going well. I have a couple of interesting projects that should be wrapped up — or at least in a good "pause" position — over the next couple of weeks.
  • Found a very cool , Atlanta-specific baby gear & activity guide to help fill in those last few "things we still need" gaps: The Lila Guide: Baby-Friendly Atlanta Area, 2005.

Fruit & Veg Count, 12/27: 1 organic gala apple, 1/2 cup apple sauce, ~2/3 cup cooked carrots

Posted by Liza at 12:34 pm

Constant Motion

Pregnancy No Responses »
Dec 272005

OK, maybe "constant" motion is an exaggeration. He refused to move at all for Grandma on Saturday, for example.

But.

The baby is moving a TON more than I’ve previously felt. This morning, I don’t think he paused for more than a minute or so between 5:30 and 7 am. The closest analogy I can come up with is that my belly feels like when you eat way way way too much at Thanksgiving, only with the addition of serious movement and pressure, from my solar plexus all the way to my lowest vertebrae.

I’ve also gotten physically hypersensitive. I get cranky being at all tickled, having my legs touched, having almost any part of my body squeezed, or really having any physical contact that I’m not expecting. I think it’s that watching random spots on my torso wriggle and bulge like something out of the movie Aliens is about all the physical surprise I can handle.

(Stacey, if you’re reading this, you were right. It is kind of nauseating. It wasn’t at first, but it is now.)

And with how squished my stomach is on top of that, I don’t really feel like eating much. I woke up twice last night, refluxing. In spite of the pepcid, gaviscon, and wedge pillow. Unfortunately, reflux has gotten extra painful because coughing has started to be painful to my stomach muscles. I read recently that they get super-duper stretched out by being pregnant and for most people, are never the same again. I believe it!!

Whaah! Whaah! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

Ok, I’m done complaining. In fact, I’m going to take on not complaining for the rest of the week. It is what it is, and I have no doubt that the discomfort is worth it.

Fruit & Veg Count, 12/26: Maybe half a cup of carrots & zipper peas in chicken soup.

Posted by Liza at 12:15 pm

Amusement, Drama, and a Merry Christmas

Personal, Pregnancy No Responses »
Dec 252005

We’re back from our wonderful whirlwind trip up to the DC suburbs.

First, the amusement. Near the South Carolina/Georgia boarder, we found our favorite series of billboards EVER. I think there were 7 all totalled. Every single one of them said — among other things — TOPLESS/TOPLESS. Some of them had exclamation points, some of them had other "promotional material" but the main theme was unambiguous.

All we had to say to crack ourselves up for the rest of the trip was "Topless! Topless!"

Our amusement on the drive up passed into scary drama on Thursday night.

In the car, Jill started having severe chest pains. She insisted that they weren’t that big of a deal for awhile, but after dinner, she could barely move. We stopped in Durham and by the time we checked into the hotel, she was scaring the crap out of me. So we got back into the car and drove to the ER at Duke University Medical Center.

They saw her in about 5 minutes, and about half an hour after that, had me come back and wait for various test results with her. All this began around 10:30 pm. At just before 1 am, they decided that one of the tests wasn’t clean enough looking and they wanted to do a follow up. Which required calling a tech in to do the test. Which would take a total of 2-3 more hours.

We decided that I should go back to the hotel and get SOME sleep, and she would call either when they decided something, something happened, or they were done and she could leave. Happily, the advanced testing cleared her. The official analysis was "probably either a muscle spasm or an escophegal spasm." They prescribed industrial strength ibuprofen, or a big dose of the OTC kind, combined with antacids. By then it was nearly 4 am.

I woke up around 9 and went in search of coffee. The lady at CVS, where I went for ibuprofen, told me that she wasn’t sure there were any starbucks in North Carolina, but if there were, they were in <someplace that meant nothing to me and didn’t sound close>. She recommended Waffle House. I got McD’s coffee instead, and we actually hit the road around 11:15.

Fortunately, we made it to Jill’s parents with no further drama.

We had a lovely late afternoon with them on 12/23, and then went over to our the home of our friends Erin & Kevin, and their kids McKenna & Dillon, where we were staying. They were amazing hosts, and Christmas with a 3 year old and an almost-6 year old is beyond fun.

We celebrated Christmas with Jill’s parents on Christmas Eve, including dinner and presents, and the traditional watching of The Christmas Carol, this year the 1951 Alistar Sim version. Smudge was incredibly stubborn, wriggling around until Grandma sat down and put her hands on my belly to feel him kick. Ten minutes passed without more than the tiniest, most subtle movement. Jostling him, jumping, and eating sugar all failed to elicit movement that Grandma could feel, and she was very disappointed.

Then we headed back to Erin & Kevin’s, where we crashed until around 6:30 am when McKenna & Dillon came to wake us up with the big news: SANTA WAS HERE!!!

Since I had already made the deal with Jill that she should sleep as long as she could — on the theory that McKenna & Dillon would limit that to probably no later than 9:30 no matter what — I got up and watched the wonderful Christmas chaos that ensues when kids get presents they love. We disassembled the Easy Bake Oven and a velvet-glitter-marker art project, and filled cool mechanical banks with pennies, and Dillon had a very hard time giving up playing with his large rubber Sponge Bob Square Pants ball.

Eventually, McKenna demanded to know when Jill was getting up, and how many minutes it had been. Roughly 1 minute into that conversation, she wandered into the room. We finished opening presents, ate breakfast, and packed lunches and then the car. We were back on the road by 10:30 or so.

Smudge went back into high gear in the car, and some large rounded part of his body appears to be trying to break out through my right floating rib. (Head? Butt? I can’t tell.) I don’t think he’s been still for 10 successive minutes in the last 10 hours. My navel has also been itchy and hot as hell all day. I’ve applied lotion every 3 hours or so, but I think the innie is really close to becoming an outie. The lower belly stretch marks are growing like gangbusters too.

More ominously, I think my belly looks lower. Lower even than it did on Thursday. Jill does too. At childbirth class, they told us that the baby (and belly) drops 2-3 weeks before the birth. That would put us between 36 and 37 weeks. The good news is that 37 weeks is considered full term. But we are NOT hoping Smudge arrives early.

And we’re going to ask lots of questions at our medical appt this week, and kick our getting ready activities into high gear.

Fruit & Veg Count, 12/25: 1 organic gala apple (waffle house hash browns don’t count)
Fruit & Veg Count, 12/24: ~1 cup mixed veggies (green & yellow beans & carrots)
Fruit & Veg Count, 12/23: none I can remember
Fruit & Veg Count, 12/22: 1 organic gala apple, ~1 cup cooked baby carrots, 1 bite mushy cooked green beans

Posted by Liza at 9:16 pm
Older Entries
© 2010 LizaWasHere Suffusion WordPress theme by Sayontan Sinha