30: Posts completed (however worthlessly) in the name of NaBloWhatever

5,476: Times I swore that I would “give up the damn ghost, already” and stop posting every day because it was a gigantic pain in the puckered pooper.

0: Times I actually didn’t publish something of some worth, and without (I proudly add) using the cop-out Post Pictures of my Kids posts that I do so badly

1: “Awards” won last year during NaBloWhatever

1: Day blog was down last year during same month due to some technological problems I don’t pretend to understand or care about.

0: “Awards” received despite having won one last year thanks to blog breakage

2: Thanksgivings celebrated, with or without requisite good cheer.

0: Times people mentioned caring about lack of good cheer, leading me to believe that Chubby and Surly is the way to handle all holidays.

1: Thanksgiving celebration canceled due to inclimate weather.

357: Meatballs consumed happily by yours truly during our White Trash Thanksgiving

5: Different doctors seen this month, thereby rendering me a Freakshow of Epic Proportions

89: mg/DL result of glucose tolerance test suffered through at 29 weeks pregnant.

12: donuts consumed within a 36 hour period, that had I not had a mouth available for that purpose, I might have rubbed all over my body, which makes the results of my GTT even more amazing.

5: bloody noses that nearly sent my pathetic-y freakshow ass to the ER for cauterization.

2: shirts that I have left that cover my huge self, leading me to actually have to purchase additional clothing despite the fact that barely have 2 months left of my pregnancy and don’t plan on requiring them again.

1: time I had to Mark All As Read on my Google Reader in order to regain my sanity.

2,377,976: approximate amount of spam messages that I had to moderate before tossing them ruthlessly to wherever deleted blog spam goes. Blog Spam Heaven?

Thoroughly rejected ideas for posts today include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

*Animals; special focus on my particular animals who must follow me around trying to sit on my (lack of) ass after I clearly inform them that no, in fact, I am in no mood to have a cat make love to my leg. No matter how cute or charmingly they attempt to rub my face with their paws. Or shine their butt-hole in my direction, perhaps hoping for a sniff?

*Toddlers; emphasis on why mine insists upon taking a massive crap about 10 minutes after he lays down for the one, one hour long nap he takes each day. Re-emphasis on the fact that this child never! sleeps!

*Holidays; extra-specially Thanksgiving which is perhaps on par with Fourth of July and/or Columbus Day in terms of Becky’s Level of Enjoyment. Which is only very, very slightly more enjoyment than a coffee enema. But with bonus turkey!

*Tags at the bottom of the post. Mainly, why do I not understand anything remotely technologically oriented? After one marries a geek, you’d assume that the knowledge would, by miracle of osmosis, pass through the air while we sleep, and for that you would be wrong. Plea to Internet At Large to explain this phenomenon.

*Shipping Costs for the presents I am too lazy to go out and purchase. Reiterate why laziness is completely justifiable touching particularly on:

-Ample girth and lack of abdominal muscles with which to support large breasts and (one can only assume) thick skull.

-Mention moon boot, but emphasize the delicious codeine pills that go along with it

–Asshole Willful toddler who happily would run far, far away from his (frightening) mother given the slightest opportunity

-Not-so-jokingly bring up birth control options after baby is expelled from her comfy home in my ribcage.

-Finish with a complaint that shipping costs ought to include oral sex from hot delivery drivers. Bemoan lack of hot delivery drivers, and make a pledge that Someday When I Rule The World, all delivery drivers will be smokin’ hot and provide oral sex as a bonus!

*Apologize profusely that comments may have been inadvertantly deleted due in no small part to the 400+ spam messages that I moderate daily.

*Ask The Internet if NaBloWhatever is as annoying to them as it is to you.

I mentioned in passing the other day that this year we were doing 3! Thanksgiving celebrations, and while I may have made it sound like I was irritated by it, I’m not. Not really. I’m happy that we split up the holidays once again, as it has made for a much less stressful holiday. It took a bit of Trial By Fire for Dave and I to realize that our families will probably never get along.

And, of course, the “not getting along” is far more insidious than screaming matches and pimp slapping, which made it that much harder for Dave and I to realize what the hell was going on. It was a showdown of passive-aggressive behavior and it made it incredibly stressful for both Dave and I to please our families WHILE successfully avoiding suicide by means of chocolate chip cookie. Not exactly the fun holiday we’d have liked.

So yesterday, we hosted my parents for Thanksgiving, and because they are hosting us today with the traditional turkey + stuffing gluttony Dave and I decided to mix things up. While I do, in fact, like turkey and stuffing, if I tried to cook it myself, I’d never be able to eat it again. I’m neurotic and have A Thing about raw meat.

Last year, while hosting both of our families, we decided to be all high-falutin’ and make us a damn side of beef and all sorts of pretentious side dishes. Horseradish twice baked potatoes, bourbon pecan pie, all the good shit. And when I served it all up, all fancy-style on my Haviland china, my eldest son began to weep.

He has massive food issues, as you probably know, and obnoxious to cook for is a given and a way of life for me.

Well, it was exactly the wrong thing for him to do at that moment. We’d prepared, and cleaned, and prepared, and spent a veritable fortune on the beef, and to have him openly weep over this enraged me. I’m surprised that my skull cap didn’t pop off from the fire raging within and spew grey matter all over the side of my freshly dusted china cabinet.

Sure, I’m accustomed to this behavior, but I’d deliberately chosen dishes that he would and did like, given the opportunity to try it. But, of course, the minute I began to harp on Ben in my most controlled yet fury-filled voice, both families finally united. To yell at me for yelling at my son on Thanksgiving.

Which was now exactly the wrong thing for THEM to do at this moment. The food issues + Ben go back for ages, and if they all had their way about it, Ben would still be eating his White Stuff Only diet. The Daver and I have spent many hours with a weeping Ben to make him try such disgusting kid food as “hot dogs” and “pizza.” We’re not exactly insisting on foie gras and prosciutto here.

But whatever, they all jump down my throat, and the fire of a thousand suns burns within my belly for the next year. What, me have issues?

So this year, in approximately July when the winter holiday schwag begins to hit the store shelves, I informed Dave that I will not be doing any heavy duty hosting this year and he immediately agreed. But on Thanksgiving, living in a suburb, there’s very little open for us to shamelessly order takeout from, so I decided that I’d cook. And I’ll cook things that are both easy and that my children will eat.

Hence, White Trash Thanksgiving was born.

The menu?

BBQ meatballs
Hawaiian meatballs
Mac -n- Cheese

Cupcakes with canned frosting for dessert.

(the mac and cheese, I must divulge, was fancy ass, and I did make it from scratch. It was so incredibly rich that it made an audible THWUMP! when it hit our stomachs. We all ate approximately 2 tablespoons before we could eat no more. But hey, it was a TASTY two tablespoons)

I bought generic ingredients whenever possible, and was sad that I hadn’t thought to make a jello mold salad (complete with the most generic fruit cocktail suspended creepily inside) OR a ranch, iceberg and baco-bits salad, as that would have added a new and extra-special dimension of trashiness. Perhaps next year I will also serve generic Kool-Aid in wax-covered cups. The red flavor. And we will eat of Chinette.

My parents, my snobby, NPR-listening to parents, loved it. As did my children and my husband.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a new tradition. Any thoroughly white trash suggestions for next year?

So, I’m pretty done with being sappy for the day. But hey, maybe with the 3! times we’re celebrating Thanksgiving this year, at some point I’ll get bitten by the Cheese Monster. Who knows?

But, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a sentiment brought to my un-creative mind by our friends at Somecards.com. Here is the link: http://www.someecards.com/upload/thanksgiving/this_thanksgiving_cherish_the_time.html

This Thanksgiving, cherish the time spent with your family as a reminder of why you moved away in the first place.

See, heartfelt AND true!

Happy Thanksgiving, Internet. Aunt Becky hearts you all madly.

Last week, in a sea of what can only be described as Hormone Soup, I had an appointment to go to my OB, for all of my least favorite pregnancy treats. Not only did I get to do the 1 hour glucose tolerance test, but I was also given a shot in my ass, AND (this is where it gets TRULY AWESOME) a repeat Uncle Pappy.

Back when I was about 5 minutes pregnant with Amelia, right after my dueling chemical pregnancies, I got the results back from my previous Uncle Pappy. And for the first time ever the results indicated that my cervix was now growing some pretty interestingly abnormal little critters. Being full of the Hormone Soup back then, too, I promptly lost my shit for about a day and a half before I reminded myself (and the Internet bitch slapped me with love) that this was a pretty normally abnormal experience.

It was recommended that I get something done called a “colposcopy” after I hit Week 12, but when that rolled around I decided against it. I mean, if there wasn’t anything the doctor could do until I delivered anyway, why go through the pain and cramping and general Reign of Worry? Shit, I told The Daver at one point, they can take the whole bad boy and throw it the hell away once this wee one is born. Otherwise it’ll be sitting there with a Vacancy sign lit and humming slightly until I go through menopause.

So last week at around 29 weeks, when I trudged off to the OB’s office, high on sugar and sick to my guts, I really wasn’t concerned about my normally abnormal self. I was far more concerned with not passing out while getting my blood drawn (not something that normally bugs me) and where and what I would be eating after I left.

But yesterday, buoyed by my anger towards doctors in general, I decided to be the World’s Worst Patient in the Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease category, and harass my OB’s office into prescribing me some pain killers where my GI would not. I wasn’t even thinking about my cervix and the State of Things Down There when I began my Rampage of Terror.

Which, for once, worked out to my advantage: not only did I find out that a prescription for codeine had already been called in for me, but my newest Uncle Pappy WAS NORMAL.

Dude, between the clean bill of health for at least one part of my body, and the prescription for painkillers, I’m a happy damn camper. Happy Thanksgiving to my vagina, indeed.

—————

What are you thankful for today, my homies?

Repost from October of 2005 that I found to be particularly disturbing. Please share your Rager comments with me to wrap me up in Internet Lovin’. I’m still a little disturbed re-reading it.

This afternoon, upon picking my son up from school, I decided to venture to the Greatest Place On Earth when you’re dieting. The Grocery Store. Our shopping experience was uneventful; I drooled over the non-diet food, even the stuff I wouldn’t have touched anyway, Ben pleaded for candy and no! vegetables! and my cart looked like a schizophrenic had gone shopping. Absolutely no different from any other time I’ve hit the store.

The true excitement only began when I tried to leave the store.

I’m waiting at the stop sign to turn on to North Blvd, about to head home. A car is approaching from the left with its turn-signal a-flashin’. I inch forward a bit, still in the parking lot, as I was taught to drive by The Most Anal Man Ever To Walk The Planet, his lectures still fresh in my mind, ‘œDon’t turn until you see the other guy’s wheels turn,’ “Signal Your Intent!” and the always super corny “Better Safe Than Sorry!”

When I look back at the other car, after checking to make sure the right lane was clear, the other guy has turned off his signal.

And stopped the car to honk loudly and gesture wildly.

At me.

This, being a pet peeve of mine, the Incessant Honking After I Have Clearly Stopped The Car and Thereby Present No Danger To You, irritates me. I’m not only a competent driver, I’m not reckless in any way–especially if my child is in tow–and I haven’t done a single honk-worthy thing. My car is standing completely still.

So I do the most mature thing possible, because I am as the French would say, ‘Grown-Up’, and I give him the ole One Finger Salute. I’m highly annoyed by his attitude and the one thing that’s keeping me from diving head-first into a bag of jelly beans.

Stupid fucking move, Aunt Becky, stupid fucking move.

If he was mad before, now he is on fire with anger, and he promptly sprints out of his car, headed straight for my car. To do, I don’t know what. Yell at me for flicking him off? Holler at my audacity to inch up at a stop sign to better visualize the cross traffic? Tell me about how I’m an idiot for not buying organic produce and bringing my own bags?

I just can’t be sure.

Let me make it absolutely clear that I had not gotten even CLOSE to hitting him. I was still physically in the parking lot, behind the white line at the stop sign. You wouldn’t have had to so much as swerve to avoid me.

So, all signs flashing ‘œDanger, DANGER Will Robinson!’ I take off like a bat outta hell. I’m not interested to find out if the man had gotten out of the car to tell me how beautiful I look today, offer me a bazillion dollars, or threaten the life of my son and I. Nope. Not interested at all.

I look back in my rearview mirror to see him standing in the middle of the road on his cell phone, likely trying to call in my plates. My heart pounded freakishly the entire way home, and I tumbled back to the condo as freaked out as I’d ever been.

What.The.Fuck.Man?

Ed Note: It’s been over 3 years since this happened, and I haven’t flicked off a single person since. Nor have I had any follow-up whatsoever from this incident, which one could hardly even call an “incident” since nothing happened.

But it still freaks me out to remember that. Rage, road or not, directed at the right or wrong person, is still damn frightening.

On Thursday of last week, I contacted my OB about my Crohn’s flare-up and was (surprisingly) immediately referred to see a new GI doctor, which was far more than I’d expected. I expected a conversation in which I was told to pretty much “suck it up and put on your big girl panties,” but I was taken seriously. I was even able to make a next-day appointment at this new GI doctor!

So, I allowed this fantasy of being Taken Seriously by medical professionals to comfort me all that night and the following morning. Finally, I said to myself, I might get some relief from this pain! I might get some meds that will work better than the Suck It The Hell Up approach that I’d adopted for so long (just because I haven’t been in an active flare-up for awhile doesn’t mean that I have the colon of someone less diseased than myself), and I allowed myself to have some real hope that conditions Down Below might improve.

My poor husband was dragged with me to my doctor’s appointment, because I was feeling awfully weak and didn’t want to chance driving. When I’m in active disease, I don’t like to leave the house having eaten anything. This reduces the likelihood that I’ll get stuck somewhere and crap my pants in public (easily one of the most shameful things I can imagine, and something I’ve thus far avoided). This also, especially while pregnant and starving, makes for a really woozy experience, in which I may or may not black out for awhile. Ah, the things we do to avoid humiliation, eh?

We were called back to meet this new doctor, and I was impressed immediately by the fact that like most other specialists, he sat down and actually listened to me. After giving my extensive history and reiterating my symptoms for what felt like the 45th time that day, I directed him to the back of my chart where all of my old charts, labs, and diagnostic findings had been stashed. I was lucky, it appeared, that although my old GI doctor had changed practices, I’d miraculously been referred to the exact same practice.

Ergo, my chart was still intact from years ago.

He poured over them, worry creasing his brow, and reported back that he wasn’t too sure that he agreed with my old doctor’s assessment of The Situation. The pathology from my upper and lower GI indicated Crohn’s, but the other tests appeared to be more on the normal spectrum. My symptoms still matched Crohn’s, but as I was pregnant, he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of prescribing huge doses of medication without a definitive diagnosis.

(Complete aside here: with many medical diagnoses, there is no Golden Standard test (s) that indicates 100% for sure that what someone is suffering from is SPECIFICALLY. It’s often a collection of various puzzle pieces that make a more cohesive, but still tentative, whole. Which can lead, of course, to misdiagnosis, which is always frustrating.

I remember reading a study that found that people who had been told that they had cancer, but later found that they did NOT have cancer, became quite depressed. It happens, I’m certain in other cases as well.)

So, my new GI doctor, advised, he would write a lab order for drawing about a thousand different types of blood tests to see what they showed now. There was, he said, a new test that could say more definitively if I had Crohn’s or not. BUT (there’s always a but, isn’t there?) this test was relatively new and would take many weeks to process as it had to go to a special lab in California.

Fine, I replied, thinking that the last thing I’d wanted to do was to add more meds to my regime, especially while pregnant. Shit, I get upset when I have to take a Benedryl to sleep at night, because I’d just rather not chance it while incubating.

But, I asked, what on earth can I do about the pain? Crohn’s or not, meds or not, I needed something that could provide me with some sort of relief. If the pain was bad enough to send me wobbling to the doctor, it was bad enough that I needed the comfort in knowing I could relieve it somehow.

Except, not so much.

He didn’t feel comfortable prescribing codeine for me, but I could call my OB! And beg for (barely) narcotics!

Great.

Why did I bother coming here to be told this? Why did I drag my wobbly self out to essentially have the buck passed directly back to someone who had no real experience with GI issues (my OB)?

In the long run, it’s absolutely going to go down as something that is Worth It, but for then, for Friday, for Saturday, for Sunday, and for the next couple of weeks, I can’t help but be upset. Sure, potentially not having Crohn’s is a wonderful, wonderful thing, of course it is! That’s GREAT news.

But then…what the hell IS IT? If it’s not Crohn’s, which I’d had meds that worked for back in the day before I could afford to be on them, then what the hell is wrong with me? Crohn’s, while crappy (punny!), was still something that I could control on the meds I can now afford.

And even more importantly than that, how I can I feel better right now? How can I control the cramping and the pain and the frequency and the general malaise that comes along with it? Because I was given jack shit to help with anything. Hell, my OB didn’t even return my call asking for a codeine script!

So while it will be Worth It someday, when I have an answer–which is likely NO real answer, if this is not, as I was told, Crohn’s–I can’t help but be the sad sack crying just a little bit into my sleeve while waiting for blood work. Because at this point in time, I could give a flying poo about any diagnosis, I just want some relief.

Which is, of course, harder to come by than even I’d expected.

/end flagrant whinging.

Thank you to everyone for the positive comments both on Melissa’s friend–whose name I don’t say because that bitch is totally insane enough to Google her own name, hell, she probably has a Google Alert on her name, which, hahaha!–and about my Crohn’s. I don’t tend to like to dwell on things like this that just suck, no matter which way you cut it, and over the years, I’ve gotten so used to the symptoms that I often forget (until I flare up) that other people don’t live like this.

I’m thrilled that you like my new layout. I never did manage to snag a web designer, so this is a template that was tweaked by my darling The Daver to fit what I needed it to. I’m pretty thrilled by how it turned out. And for those of you who mourned the loss of my kitty cat picture, have no fear: Daver read your comments and WITHOUT ASKING went and put it back. Check the sidebar.

So, what do you think of the new design? Honestly, do you heart it as much as I do?

Now about a million years ago I was in high school. And when I was in high school, there were two types of boys that were interested in me:

1.) the Doting Boyfriends

or

2.) Uncle Pervy’s.

Somehow, the Doting Boyfriends are a rather dull sort to discuss, so I am going to share a story of the first Uncle Pervy: Dave. Dave I later realized also was in love with one of my other best friends, Kristin.

Dave was a kid who rode my bus my freshmen year in high school. I, being the type of person that I was before I grew big balls, was admittedly a bit creeped out by his black trench-coat and Not-Quite-Cool-But-Trying-To-Be T-shirts and black stonewashed jeans, but I was nice to him. He was the sort that the Offspring later wrote a song about; he’d wear a shirt that would say Heavy Metal, but would list the ELEMENTS.

Several steps shy of cool. Significant steps, sure, but at the time I was too nice.

And because I was several steps away from having a realistic world view, I gave him my number when he asked. You’ll see this as a running problem in future Uncle Pervy stories.

He began calling me, but as a freshman I talked on the phone ALL THE TIME. Hours and hours and hours a day spent blabbering nothings into the phone. Conversation would be forced and would follow a repeatable pattern; ‘œHi’¦.(no introduction), what are you doing?’¦..(dead silence)’¦..wanna be my girlfriend?’ Because I had a bazillion friends, sooner rather than later I’d get another call, so I’d be excused from talking to Dave.

And not call him back. Ever.

So he’d diligently call, day after day, uncaring that I had a long term boyfriend and wasn’t interested in getting another, less stable one, and I’d get him off the phone with vague excuses of waxing my cat, a waiting phone call, a dead grandmother. Eventually, he realized my totally transparent plan and would refuse to say goodbye to me on the phone, which would stall me for a few more minutes, because although I was shallow as a puddle of mud, I was also raised to not hang up on people.

Pretty soon, even the rudeness of having to hang up on someone who wouldn’t say goodbye to me was worn as smoothly as a second skin. I felt no remorse, no guilt, no feelings aside from annoyance.

Dave, being desperate and lonely realized that he had to change tactics if he was to capture my attentions. So he started to threaten that if I wouldn’t date him/talk to him, he’d kill himself. KILL HIMSELF. This was the same person who, when Kurt Cobain killed himself, tried to carve Kurt on his arm, but couldn’t quite work up the balls to cut himself, so he just wrote it with a pen. Daily. So, I knew he’d never have the balls to go through with anything actually dangerous. Dave was just dramatic and maladjusted.

I drew the line with his antics when he would threaten to WALK OVER TO MY HOUSE. I had no desire to hang with him, and I had even LESS desire to have him come to my house where people might see him and think we were friends.

Dave finally went away once I started to encourage his suicidal behavior and made it painfully clear that I had no desire to date him. How did I shake such an annoying suitor? Well, it took at least 6 months of constant hanging up on him whenever he called for him to cease and desist.

I learned later he left me alone only to stalk my dear friend Kristin.

So dish. I need some good pathetic dating stories to entertain me. Because I’m all “Come on INTERNET! Dance, monkey, DANCE.”

I’m hoping that this weekend I can steal some of Dave’s time for long enough to have him tweak my new layout, which is a chore and a half for him. But it’s so damn cool that I am nearly reaching orgasm just THINKING about it (what? I’m pregnant and unwieldy. Real sex is kinda out of the question right now).

In that vein, I’ve been trying like hell to update my pages over there on the right.

Please, my loyal readers and friends, visit the pages if you have nothing more exciting to do, and let me know what I need to add to make them super great. Have a question for my Frequently Thought Questions page that I should answer? Shoot me an email: becky (at) dwink (dot) net or leave me a comment.

I’m going to do my best to update my links, and if you were there before, you should still be there. If you’re a loyal reader and comment and stuff, leave me a comment and I’ll try and add you. I’m usually far better about keeping up, but I’ve not had the time or energy to do so lately.

And this will conclude my participation in NaBloWhatever. Too much pressure for my delicate ass.