brrrr and windy

it's so windy outside it sounds like it's tornado-ing. for real. it sounds like my windows are blowing in. leaves are all over the place - in the air, on the ground, stuck in my windshield wipers - but not where they're supposed to be and that's on the tree. poor naked trees. kingsley likes leaves, to a point, but when they're blowing around like this he gets all freaked out and refuses to pee in the grass (maybe they tickle, i don't know) and instead pees on the sidewalk. my neighbors have to love that.

but i know they don't hate me as much as my "i watch hardcore porn with the windows open, volume all the way up and the tv facing the world" neighbor downstairs. he's gotta be the most popular guy here, especially with all the parents and little kids running around.

so anyway. yesterday was three dog bakery's dog-o-ween celebration and since i love the three dog bakery and kingsley loves the treats, mom and i thought it would be fun to take the pootie for free goodies. O. M. G. i realized just how unreasonable my dog can be sometimes after we fought with him in the car on the 20 minute ride over there and then had to load him back in the car after walking for 10 minutes when he bit my mom on the knee and ripped her favorite jeans. the little bastard! no, not really - he was really freaked out, being out of his element and especially being surrounded by little kids in costumes. kingsley had a rough day. :( but it was made better when his grandma bought him new food (and bones!) so he persevered. :) he's okay now. i just have to teach him how to sew so he can put a patch on grandma's jeans...

it's a long weekend for me - i haven't had to work all weekend, plus i'm off tomorrow because wal-mart and i have a doctor's appointment with dr. mahone. she's going to want to talk to us about having an nt scan (which i think is a good idea) and doing the quad screen (which i'm not really sold on having done). i wouldn't do anything different even if anything were wrong - so if something were wrong, i'm only going to worry more for the next 7 months. and if something isn't wrong, i'm going to worry myself sick until the test results come back. and in a lot of cases there are lots of false positives, which means i'd be worrying myself for no good reason because there's a chance things would be just fine.

and i really don't need help in the worry department, i do well enough on my own, thank you very much.

i think we're alone now

when i was a kid i had no idea that some artists would remake older (and better) artists' music. so when i first heard this song - "i think we're alone now" - i thought tiffany, in all her red-haired glory, was a musical genius.

it's no wonder my parents laughed at me like they did.

but it's sort of a fitting title, given the situation.

last thursday, i asked the bee to leave.

again.

and he obliged.

again.

there's a lot of hurt feelings on my end and a lot of anger on his end. it's a concoction that doesn't go down easy for anyone. we've talked, and we can talk and talk and talk until we literally are out of words, but nothing is being resolved. sometimes i wonder if the differences are too big and if caring isn't enough.

and so for now, anyway, this is the way it needs to be.

so it's me and wal-mart and kinglsey. and fluffy the goldfish. and we're going to be okay. in spite of my fits of hormones and/or loneliness, we're going to be okay.

it's the only way to be.

civic duty complete

i went and voted this evening. there was satellite voting at the library in town and i decided to go and do my patriotic duty. voting early is a little less exciting - i was the youngest one there by several decades and there's no cute little "i voted" sticker. :( but now i can sit home and watch the coverage on november 4 instead of waiting in line.

i like to watch the election coverage. the first time i could vote was the 2000 election, bush/gore, and i sat up for hours waiting to see how it turned out. yeah. i could have sat there on the sofa for two weeks and it wouldn't have made any difference. but i'd voted and that's what counts.

so the ballot had two sides - the first was all the big names that everyone's familiar with, the second side was city/county stuff that i didn't know much about. my mom always taught me that voting is a private matter and you don't tell who you voted for, but i have to say on like the judges and stuff, when asked "do you think so and so should remain in office?" i had to say yes. i don't want to be the one to put somebody out of a job, not in this climate.

so anyway. yay me. yay for wal-mart, it was baby's first election too.

did i tell you the wal-mart story? lol...

so the day after i had the ultrasound done, i took the photos to my mom's, handed them to her and said, "the baby looks something like a walnut."

she says, "did you say wal-mart?"

"no, a walnut."

"wal-mart?!"

"NO! a waaallllnnuuuttttt."

and as such, the baby is now affectionately referred to as "wal-mart" - everyone's favorite supercenter.

as i promised...

some of the many photographs taken over our vacay... (i'm the cute one with the curly hair, hehehe...)

yup, that's me. i like this picture because my giant-in-real-life head looks crazy small.

et tu, brutus? caesar, doing his thing.

the bee. once again in parole stripes. i swear he owns more shirts than this.

look! i'm not a liar! a different shirt. all that we're lacking is robert loggia. and the piano lessons.

we're world travelers. we hit paris on the way back from vegas.

baby bump or too much bacon? i'm not telling.

the view from the hoover dam. it's NOT a god damn, btw. (sorry mom.)

look at those teeth! god i have beautiful teeth.

my favorite hotel (that i've never stayed at): the venetian. gorgeous.

venice. (as provided by the venetian.)

aww, aren't we cute?

i love to travel buzz buzz buzz...

for those of you not familiar with one of my all time favorite commercials (how could you not remember this classic?!), here you go.

i do love to travel. but the best part of any vacation is coming home to happy doggies and my own bed - there's just no feeling in the world like it.

ahh, vacation. it was a blast. the bee and i got along 94 percent of the time (which has to be a record for us, really) and we spent the majority of our time together. we walked up and down fremont street, we walked up and down the strip, we walked everywhere. it was crazy, the amount of walking we did. this was his first trip to vegas and watching his reactions to the city was fun - he's like a little kid with new toys: "look at that! did you see that one? omg, look at that!" it was cute.

and i do have pictures, but they're still on the camera and i'm at work. check back later.

but vegas is definitely a city for the un-pg. no drinks, limited fish, no hot tubs - ugh. but the bee didn't make too much of an issue about it - the only thing that really caused an argument was my urge for massive amounts of cheese one morning around 2am. room service (because i was *not* getting out of my jammies) didn't have a cheese plate for 1; it was a cheese plate for 12. and it cost $50, once you add in a tip and my ginger ale. so yeah. i sat up, watched some old school montel and ate my $50 worth of cheese and crackers and grapes. it was awesome. (no for real. it was really good cheese.)

one of the coolest things we did (i thought, anyway) was make the trip to see the hoover dam. (is this a god dam? sorry, mom. i couldn't resist.) it was incredible. (again, pictures yet to come.) it's one of those places that makes you realize that there are bigger things in the world than you (and i don't mean literally, duh). when you think about the time, effort, ingenuity, the foresight that went into such a massive project, it's pretty amazing.

pictures would probably help here, but i'm blogging at work. deal.

other things that happened in vegas (that aren't staying in vegas, lol):

• i had my first experience with a stranger rubbing my stomach. yes, i'm pregnant but no, i don't really look it yet. i just look fat. so basically she could have been rubbing a fat person's stomach, i think she just lucked out and got me and i am actually con bebe.
• thanks to the bee (and i will *never* let him live this down), we had the timeshare experience from hell. FO SHO. we had a pitbull in lipstick for a sales rep and she sunk her teeth in and would not let go until we signed on the dotted line. no, we didn't buy a timeshare. however, we were so blatantly rude that if i hadn't been so freaking frustrated i would have been embarrassed. as it was, she was lucky i didn't cold cock her and steal her freaking car just to get away. ugh. and all in the name of $50 in food and magician tickets? um, no. my advice to you: walk on by the attractive stand and fast talking salespeople. just walk on by.
• PLUS! this timeshare-hocking-biznatch kept telling the bee and i that we look alike. wtf? NO. ugh.

so anyway. yes, it was a good time. but yes, i'm happy to be home. and since i don't have any pictures to entertain you, here's a couple more completely hilarious discovery channel commercials.

clean up in aisle three

i threw up at my desk this morning. usually i get some sort of warning - some something that says, leave what you're doing and head east towards the bathroom immediately. nope. not today. and so i puked in my hand, on my sweatshirt and in the trashcan before i made it to the potty. in light of that, there is nothing more convincing of the fact that you're actually sick than tossing cookies in your cube - the boss doesn't argue when you say "i need to go home."

except i didn't go to my home. i'm at my mom's home. if i go to my home, i'm obligated to let the dogs out of their houses and take them outside. i guess i'm not really obligated, i mean, they're dogs, right? but kingsley is the master of puppy dog eyes (especially since he's a puppy dog) and i can't be in the same room with him while he's penned up, it just makes me feel so guilty. i'm a sucker, i know. i'm okay with it. but anyway. this being sick thing sucks.

and from what i hear, it may not go away anytime soon. i haven't said anything about it thus far, i'm kind of nervous and stressed and anxious, truth be told, to say too much or to get too excited about it, but if you look to the right you'll see that (once again) we're pregnant.

surprise.

today is 7 weeks and 5 days. and tomorrow is the first ob/gyn appointment and i gotta say, i'm this close -><- to freaking out. it's really hard for me not to compare one to another and we all remember what happened last time. i can't go through that again. i don't want to put my family and my friends through that again. but, as several people have told me, there's no reason to think that things will end badly - i'm as normal as can be up to this point. in fact, my doctor said to me that there's no reason i can't have healthy and happy babies. and i heard her say that, i can hear her saying that (it's burned in my brain) but i sort of feel like i just have to get through the next few weeks and i'll feel better about this, you know? then i won't be so scared and it'll feel okay to be excited. until then, i'm sort of holding my breath, trying to take things one day at a time.

it's harder than it sounds.

i have some mixed emotions right now and the bee, well, i don't think he knows what to think. we have happy days and days filled with worry and i guess that's to be expected. we try to joke that "the bean" likes mexican food and doesn't really care for frosted mini wheats but it always feels a little weird. last night when i told him that by the time this is over i'll have 50 percent more blood in my body than the average bear and he just found that fascinating (i think it's because he's a guy and guys appreciate gory things like that) but other times i feel like i'm force feeding him information with a crap-flavored spoon.

who knows.

we've both decided that it is a second chance - to do all the things that we didn't do last time, to appreciate all the things that we didn't get to appreciate last time and to not take each other for granted as we have in the past. and we both subscribe to that program... sometimes. it's another thing that's easier said than done. but we're going to persevere.

and so that is that. we're holding off on telling some people; others already know. i told my dad yesterday when he called and i think he was crying when we got off the phone. good or bad, i'm not sure, i didn't have the heart to ask.

this does sort of put a damper on the vegas vacation we have planned for next week. so much for spending three days drunk as a skunk in the neon jungle. nope. now i get to sip virgin drinks and be the dth, which would be the designated taxicab hailer, and put up with everyone else's antics. it's kind of payback for all those times... well, if you were there, then you know. and if you weren't, you can only imagine. i must say that the buffets are far more important now than they ever were before, and bitches, there better be some crab legs.

speaking of buffets: i am eating like a horse. for real. and it's really strange, because i'll be all starving for a particular thing (like this carmel dip that a friend's mom used to make in the fifth grade) and then i'll make it or i'll go buy it and all i can stand is ONE BITE. what's up with that? i'm so happy to have whatever it is that i'm craving in my hand and then i have one bite and then i'm done. it doesn't taste good anymore and i don't want anything to do with it. lucky for me, the bee is usually around when this happens and he's all about free food and/or leftovers, so maybe it's really lucky for him. by this is all over, i'm going to weigh nine tons...

chubby kids, save my seat.