Hello Ingrid, Goodbye Kaya

Ingrid will be 2 years old on Febrary 5th. Holy cow! Every year, around my kids' birthdays, I get nostalgic about their entrance into the world.
I wrote this when Ingrid was 4 months old. I barely remember any of this except the part about euthanizing my dog. If the birth sounds easy, well, it was. Empowering, too. No interventions, in the comfort of my own home, with my family there.
Remember: Chris=Primo="the husband".
This is a happy birth story, but if you are not comfortable with discussions about pregnancy, childbirth, and the normal bodily functions that occur during childbirth, you shouldn't read this. On second thought, maybe you should. There's a little bit of sexual innuendo, too, as Ingrid was born in the same bed we made her, so prudes be warned. One of the nice things about homebirths is that in the midst of all the discomfort of labor, you may be reminded of the pleasure of conception. Unless you conceived on a beach, and hence you may be reminded of the discomfort of the sand in your butt at conception.

We took no photographs of the birth, and even if we had, they wouldn't be posted on the internet.

Ingrid Solveig was born at 5:51 pm, Feb 5, 2005. She was 8 lbs 10oz. On Feb 4, 2005, at about 6:30, we had our sweet rottie Kaya (aka Snuffer) euthanized. She was about 10 1/2 yo. That whole week I could tell that Kaya was going down hill. She had lost a lot of weight, was not eating, was shitting on the kitchen floor, and she was very weak and in pain. She was no longer responding to steroids (for an enlarged spleen). Because she was so old we decided not to put her through invasive tests of treatments, but to let her pass peacefully. I had not expected her condition to change so quickly. On Friday I took the day off and made an appointment with the vet. I told the vet that I was about to have a baby and needed to take care of my dog before I could have the baby. The soonest they could take us was that night. So Kaya and I hung out in the house together all day. She laid by the door in the hallway, I tried to feed her pain meds and treats, and talked to her. I thanked her for putting up with us all this time.

We dropped Bea off at her friend Sam’s house. My sister in law Randi came with us. She is the greatest dog lover I know, and I was happy to have her with us. The vet took us last, so Randi and I waited in the car with the Snuffer. When it was time her, Chris carried her into the exam room, she snapped at the vet (one last time). Randi, Chris and I petted her and talked to her as the vet gave her the injection. She went very quickly. After she stopped breathing the only thing you could hear in the room was me bawling. Chris asked Randi to escort me out of the room. On the way home we talked about Kaya’s antics, how she helped Chris and me get together, how gentle she was with Bea. She was a wonderful dog, and I’m glad we had a chance to be her human companions. I wish I’d had her euthanized sooner so that she didn’t suffer, and that we could have done it at home—like our new baby's birth….

On the way home, I started getting serious gassy heartburn. We ordered some Chinese food, and I had some dragon maki, and sesame shrimp. I admit I'd been eating sushi and rare red meat all throughout my pregnancy, contrary to the advice of my midwives. But for some reason I had cravings for freshly killed and hardly cooked meat the whole time I was pregnant. My fondest pregnancy memories revolve around all the good food I ate, and my last pregnant meal was a no different, even though I was terribly uncomfortable, crampy, and gassy.

Chris had to go back to work for a bit. Bea went to sleep early, Randi went home to take care of her dog. I laid on the couch and watched a documentary on the British Royal Family until I fell asleep. Around 9 or so my father in law called to see if we had put Kaya to sleep. Yup. I was so tired and crampy, I couldn’t really talk to him.

I took a bath to help the crampiness. I figured something was happening, the cramps weren’t feeling like Braxton-Hicks anymore, but they were nothing to call a midwife about. They went away after the bath, and stayed up late surfing the web and thinking about Kaya.

At 5 in the morning, I woke up to more crampy mild contractions. I went back to sleep to see if they’d go away. Chris asked if I was going to have the baby soon, I said, “probably this weekend.” At 7 I got up again, and there was my mucous plug and a little blood in my morning pee. I couldn’t go back to sleep, as much as I would have liked to have slept in one last time, I was too excited. I called the midwife who lived closest to us. She told me to count the contractions and call her back in 1/2 an hour, which I did. I reported that they were about 5 minutes apart, but not strong. She said to call back in a couple of hours. So I ate breakfast and started to clean the house a bit. I called her at the appropriate time, the contractions were still nothing I couldn’t clean through, but were 5 minutes apart. She had the apprentice midwife Patti come over and check me. At about 11 am I was 3 cm but not too effaced. So she went home to get her gear, and she called Jharna, the midwife, to report. I went back to cleaning (talk about a nesting instinct). I tried to watch my favorite tv show Buffy the Vampire Slayer at noon, but it was too distracting and I didn’t like the vibe. So I turned off the tv, listened to music, vacuumed the floor. Sometime around 12:30 or so I took a bath. Jharna came over, gave me a quick check, listened to the baby's heartbeat. The bath was very relaxing. I had programmed a “birthing music” playlist on iTunes a few days earlier, and I just listened to music and soaked. I was spot on knowing what I would want to hear while in labor: blue grass, English and Irish folk music (I was really into the song "Pretty Polly" for some reason), Neil Young, the Cocteau Twins, Blind Faith, Thin Lizzy, John Renbourne, Pentangle…

Sometime while I bathed, Bea hopped in the tub with me, and was very mellow for once! I told her I was taking a quiet bath, and would not be able to talk while I was having a contraction. She stayed for maybe 45 minutes, before I had to ask Chris to redirect her. My mother in law took her outside to make a snowman.

I got out of the tub and put on my Ziggy Stardust t-shirt. All I wanted to do was walk walk walk walk. I walked up the stairs, down the stairs, up into the nice cold attic. Chris and I just walked around and listened to folk music and bluegrass. At some point I tried to lay down and quickly puked. No more laying down. I stopped walking and just rocked my hips, dancing through the contractions. Jharna said Ingrid’s head was not quite in my pelvis, and she had me walk up and down the stairs some more.. So I danced and walked, danced and walked.

When I tried to get on all fours, Ingrid heart rate decelerated, so that was out. When I got too tired to walk or stand, I leaned up against Chris, propped up against our Liberator ramp. I thought it was funny that this pillow we used for "making babies" was best used to give birth on. And then I realized that the sounds I was making and the sensations I had were much like, well, making the babies. I was so happy to be home in my bed, having my baby at that moment, although I would have liked not to have given birth sitting and laying on my back.

I got up again to dance, and I had to pee, but I didn’t want to walk to the bathroom. Thankfully we had put some plastic down on the bedroom floor, and I, um, peed on the floor. (I just wanted to dance—rock my hips) I was starting to get the urge to push! Oh the pressure! Apparently the bag of waters was just in front of Ingrid’s head. Jharna suggested putting a pin hole in it, but she wanted to wait for Kristen, the other midwife to arrive. Fine with me. So when Kristen arrived probably 20 minutes later (I wasn't paying attention to time), Jharna poked a tiny hole in my bag of waters, and…. I thought I peed on myself. My bag didn’t break, and there was just a trickle. But the pressure was lifted, and I really wanted to push.

I don’t know how long I pushed, let alone how long I was in the tub, or how long I walked around. At some point when I was walking around I looked at the clock and it was 5:00. I estimate I pushed maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes tops. I had much more of a burning sensation while pushing than I did with Bea. But when Jharna told me to stop while she helped Ingrid’s head on my perineum, I listened (last time I pushed when the midwife said to stop and I ended up with a tiny tear). Jharna was very adamant about my stopping. But Lord did it burn. It felt like someone scratching me from the inside on her way down the birth canal.

When she crowned, I felt her mushy little head. I wish I’d had a mirror. My mother in law, Chris, the midwives, and Bea were all there. Bea got a little freaked out and left until Ingrid was completely out. Ingrid came out with a couple of good pushes (once I had the green light). Her apgars were 9 (hands and feet a little blue) then 10. And she was born with a nuchal hand (which is why Jharna told me to stop pushing for a sec I think). I had a few skid marks, and Ingrid scratched me with her little fingernails (so she clawed her way out?). I cheered! No tears. I could live with skid marks. She was born with a head full of brown hair (which turned blonde within 5 months), blue eyes (which have stayed blue, unlike her sister's, whose eyes turned gray then green and are now hazel), and a little hemorrhage on her eye. She weighed in at 8 lbs 10 oz., nearly a full pound bigger than her sister. And of course she was absolutely beautiful. My mother in law cut the cord. Ingrid was a little slow to nurse, but she latched on like a pro within a couple of hours, and hasn't let up since.

After all the picture taking, telephoning, and oohing and ahhing subsided, I ate a little dinner and put my Ziggy Stardust shirt back on. I don't remember taking it off, but I guess it came off. After everyone left, Bea, Ingrid, Chris and I all snuggled in bed to “sleep”. Chris and I just stared at her. I kept up the vigil when he went to sleep.

We had picked out her name long before we actually met her. As with Bea, it was a name Chris and I both liked. We compromised on Solveig ("SOOL-vay") for a middle name. I wanted it as the first name. But I got the first name for Bea (Amelia. Chris liked Beatrice. If you know her, you know she is most certainly a Bea or Beatrice.) One of us had vetoed names like Judith, Alice, Miriam, Aurelia (also vetoed for Bea), and Ingemar. We knew we were having a girl (I didn't care about the surprise of finding out at birth), so Jesse, Jedediah, Joshua, James, Sean, Jacob, and Primo were all out. We now have a dog named Jed and a cat named James.

I could have written my birth story before she was born, it seemed to go exactly as I had wanted, although I would have liked for Kaya to have met Ingrid. Kaya was her

North American Registry of Midwives
More Homebirth stories
Midwives Alliance of North America
The Midwife and Homebirth
Massachusetts Midwives Alliance

The Joy of Fermentation

Microbiology was my favorite non-nursing class in nursing school...

A couple of weeks ago I got 3 kombucha mothers from Freecycle. I gave one away, put one in a big jar of pu-erh tea and another in lung ching green tea. The green tea one is growing some suspicious looking mold on top. I think I need to toss it. The mother in the pu-erh is a stellar success. Both Ingrid and Bea liked it. I'm hoping to have some left to share on Wednesday, but I can't stop drinking it. It's lightly fizzy, a little sweet, and mmm mmm tasty! It also grew a baby quicker than any kombucha I've ever seen. I'll make another batch this week.

I also started making kefir again. The first batch came out pretty good, considering the grains were still recovering from transit. It tasted delicious in my leftover curry. I would like to get more grains, and use the ones I have for grape juice. I prefer the clumpy grains for kefir making, and these aren't very clumpy. I'm going to wait and see if they grow clumpier, though. The second batch came out a bit more tart, but still good.

I started making kombucha and kefir when I was pregnant with Ingrid. My first kombucha met a tragic end neglected atop my fridge. It became a breeding ground for fruit flies. Not cool. I won't let that happen again. I just tossed the kefir because I couldn't eat dairy and I didn't like soy kefir. No one wanted them, so they languished in my fridge and turned all manners of colors. Not pretty at all. But I missed them. Strange as it may seem, the kefir grains and kombucha mothers grew on me (no pun intended) and were a bit like pets. Lesson learned. I will take good care of my pet bacteria (and yeast) from now on.
Photo credit: http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb19/microbiology/

Midnight Train to Georgia

This morning Ingrid heard the song "Feel Good, Inc." by the Gorillaz and told Primo that she liked that song. Being a Gorillaz fan myself, I told her I would play it for her in the car when I picked her up from Vicki's house. So while I was working out at the Y, I went through my iPod to find it, and came across some things I didn't realize I had, or hadn't heard in years. At last count, I had over 4600 songs on my iPod. It's easy for things to get lost in the mix.

I came across "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight and the Pips. I have this warm, vivid memory (which I'm generalizing here) of being in my Auntie and Uncle Fred's blue tiled finished basement with many other aunts and uncles and cousins, when half of my dad's siblings lived in Teaneck or Hackensack, New Jersey or Brooklyn, New York. I'm about 4 or 5, possibly even younger, since the song came out when I was about 3. Someone puts Gladys on the record player. I can smell something cooking upstairs, let's say ham and sweet potatoes and it's winter. My Uncle Fred, who later baptized me when I'm 13, says grace. My older cousin Jerry is making mischief behind the bar (although there's no alcohol in the house, unless my dad or his younger brother "Moot" bring it, and would be the only two drinking whiskey.) Auntie's hair is long, black, and bone straight. My Auntie Joyce is the tallest woman I've ever seen (we're about the same height now). If I'm a little older, there's a pachinko machine down there, and Jerry and I fight over who gets to play it. At some point I probably retreat, sour faced and grumpy (not unlike a certain spawn of mine), to my mom's lap. Someone tries to get me to eat overcooked collard greens before the desserts come out. My dad and Uncle Moot smoke cigarettes, eat, and perhaps drink whiskey. They are the two youngest of 10 siblings.

The surviving aunts and uncles have all moved back home to Tennessee. Uncle Moot, died very suddenly in 1996 of a heart attack. One of my aunt's husband died a few years before that. My aunt and uncle who lived in Brooklyn passed away a few years ago. My cousins (the three who would have been there) all live in Tennessee or Atlanta. I have a cousin in New Jersey who grew up in Tennessee and moved north after she got married, but we had a falling out 3 1/2 years ago, and most unfortunately, we aren't in communication. All of my mom's people live in Tennessee and Atlanta, too, and they never left. (I can imagine that my mother felt the same way when she and my dad moved to New Jersey in 1972.) So other than my in-laws, to whom I'm very close, I have no blood family with whom I'm in contact within 1200 miles of Greenfield, MA. So on top of the toasted sesame seed in a bowl of rice feeling, I have chronic low grade homesickness, which I think also contributes to the "what the hell am I doing with my life" anxiety.


Primo doesn't get the homesickness. We're nicely settled in this area, I'm attached to this community, I enjoy the distance between me with my vices and secret skin and my family. I adore my in-laws. I used to try to convince Primo that there were greener pastures down South. The boy has never lived anywhere other than Massachusetts, and he doesn't do well in the heat. It's not happening. ("I'd rather live in his world, than live without him in mine...") And I don't really want to move either. I just want some warm weather and to know a few more people who remember listening to Gladys Knight and Pips at family gatherings. Anyone? Here's hoping that my cousin and I work things out this year and start talking again. It could happen.

I think the next time I have a little extra cash, I'll bid on a vintage pachinko machine on ebay...

Warning: Pure Fluff Post

This post offers no intellectual insight, no deep thoughts, nothing. Not that I ever promised any of that in my blog in the first place. This post returns my blog to its roots of fluff and shit talk.

Sigh. There's a comic book waiting for me at home. I started reading it at the CVS while waiting for a prescription, but they were quicker than I had expected and I had to leave. When I got home, life took over and I never got to finish it. I've been waiting two months for the second issue of Samurai: Heaven and Earth to come out. I finally get it, and now I have to wait some more. I did get to see that Shiro has a big koi tattoo on his back, and he and Yoshiko got it on in a big wooden tub. Good for them.

This is one of the best drawn comics I've read. Set in the early 18th century, it's about a samurai Shiro and his lady love Yoshiko. Shiro's army is defeated and he is the only survivor. Yoshiko is taken as a spoil of war, Shiro travels all over the world to find her. There's swords, swashbuckling, pirates, Samurai, blood, gore, romance, people in cool garb, handsome samurai with big tattoos: pure fantasy fun. It's a little predictable, damsel in distress type stuff (Yoshiko gets sold to one brutish bastard after another. I'm hoping she'll kill one of them eventually and go find Shiro for a change). But that's okay, because the artwork is just so awesome. This story begs for a happy ending, and we could all use a happy ending from time to time. And the hero is very well drawn.

I'm hot for a comic book character. Sigh.

My first post about S: H&E.
IGN review.
My sentiments exactly, although I don't think the author emphasized the hotness of Shiro quite enough.
Another Reviewer liked the story more than I did. Still it's all abou the art.

Bad Girl!

On Sunday I went under the needle for another two hours. I've known the Jeremy, the tattoo artist, for almost 6 years. We first met in an Anatomy and Physiology class that I was taking for nursing school and he was taking to get licensed to practice tattooing in Massachusetts legally. He's still the only legally working tattoo artist in Franklin County, MA, as far as he can tell. Anyway, I adore Jeremy outside of his tattooing skills. He's funny, gregarious, generous, a good confidante, and an all-around decent fellow who is fun to hang out with (and always good for a boost of positive body image!). Unfortunately we don't get to hang out very often, so a regularly scheduled tattooing appointment has the added bonus of catching up with a dear friend, and talking about stuff that we may not generally feel comfortable talking about with other people. We talked a whole lot about sex and relationships. It's like going to a hair salon!

While he worked and we chatted, I flipped through a tattoo book called 1000 Tattoos. Occasionally we even talked about tattoos and piercing. Both of us are not into facial piercings except nose piercings, and to some degree piercings in general. Admittedly, I've had both nostrils and my septum pierced at various times (and would do it again), my tongue was pierced for about 9 years, I got my ears pierced when I was 5, and I had my navel pierced when I was 20 and took it out 6 years later. They're still not my thing, but I appreciate them on other people to a degree. And it's not something tattoo aficionados admit very often. It's like not liking someone who should be your best friend, who probably is your best friend or close cousin. You see each other at the same places all the time, people think you look alike, have similar tastes in art, etc, but for some inexplicable reason, you don't care for that person. You appreciate their finer qualities and that there are things you share in common, but you're just not into them. Jeremy's not into facial tattoos, while I find them incredibly fascinating, unnerving, attractive, and often beautiful. We talked about how I'd like to have my arm tattoo extended to my forearm, and mostly finished in the next 18 months (Koi, a peony on my elbow, more waves, cherry blossoms, skulls...)

While Jeremy worked on a particularly painful spot, I focused on the book in my lap. I just happened to have it opened to a pictured of a beautiful and beautifully tattooed woman ca. 1920. I love photographs of early twentieth century heavily tattooed people, circus folk, Asian, Polynesian and other "ethnographically" tattooed (facial tattoos!), military, and most especially women. I can only imagine what it must have been like for a woman in the 1920's who just liked tattoos on her even if she was the painted lady in the circus. What compelled her to get tattooed? I'm sure the reasons are pretty much what they'd be nowadays, which is why the unnamed woman's face made for a good focusing image.

Even nowadays, but perhaps less so in our Happy Uber-liberal Valley, women with big tattoos are viewed as biker chicks, loose women, or otherwise ladies of some ill repute. On a personal level, I've experienced this. When I lived in Memphis about 15 years ago, a total stranger in a shoe store, who at first asked me on a date (I said no), told me that if I was his girlfriend, and he discovered I had a big dragon tattoo on my back, he'd dump me then and there. He then went on to tell me that it would probably be hard for me to find a nice man who wasn't a gangsta or biker dude. I told him that I I've had no problems finding nice men (I just didn't pick them at the time), that I'm better off without someone who would be so shallow as to dump me for having a tattoo, as it was my body, after all, and that clearly he and I were not going to be going on a date and I wasn't going to buy any shoes from him. Lastly, I told him I didn't judge him for not having any tattoos, so God bless him, sad little man. The fact that a total stranger felt he had some right of ownership over me is silly enough not to go there. But if I got that feedback from one person, I'm sure there are at least 10 or more people out there who are thinking it, (even if I didn't refuse to go on a date with them). Like my parents. Or my boss, who once said she "hated" tattoos. I don't think she had noticed mine yet, and I don't keep them all covered up at work. She can hate them if she wants. They didn't come up in my horrible performance review.

So this morning I asked Primo if he thought I looked like a biker chick, or a loose woman, or a bad-ass woman, or any other tattooed woman stereotype. "No" he said. "You smile too much." He's mentioned I have more of a hippie librarian look. He then went on to admit that he didn't believe those tattooed women stereotypes, and never did. Oh well. Primo again proved himself to be the most wonderful and princely husband I know he is, even though we were mad at each other all weekend. Peacemaking is so fun...But I digress. The shoe salesman was wrong on so many levels.

How much of the stereotype do I internalize? Well, I have a whole wardrobe devoted to tattoo concealing, even in summer. I'd be willing to not wear a bathing suit ever again if I had a really beautiful, but maybe disturbing tattoo because I wouldn't want to be judged, especially around my children. If anything I suppose I struggle with the idea of tattoos being symbols of rebellion, of wanting to be different. There are many other things about me that make me different. Being an ethnic minority in an ethnically homogeneous area of the country makes one stand out even in a business suit. Looking different is par for the course. As far as being rebellious, if not being a sheeple makes me a rebel, then so be it. I don't cover out of shame. I cover because sometimes communication is easier when people aren't distracted by how long your hair is, or all the color on your arms. And I am happier not covering them up.

So I'm not a bad girl after all. Well, I feel much better now that I've confirmed that.

There are lots of women out there with big tattoos. Yay. There are very few African American women with big tattoos (which makes me feel a little special, a little different in a nice way), and very very few African American women tattoo artists. The most prominent one is Jacci Gresham. The one time I was unable to recover from being starstruck, and thus couldn't even talk was when I stopped by Jacci's booth at a tattoo convention in Memphis. Sigh.

Revolting Bodies: The Monster Beauty of Tattooed Women
An All-African American Owned and Operated Tattoo Shop Pinz-n-Needlez has a female tattoo artist who's a Sister!
And another one
And another one
A really intense facial tattoo. It's not beautiful, but I can't look away.

Oooh! Almost forgot. The Klezmatics album Wonder Wheel is the best records I've heard all year. It's a collection of never recorded Woody Guthrie lyrics set to some incredible music. Bea and Ingrid both love it, and there are no songs that I have to skip over because of the language or content. Bea and I had an interesting and difficult conversation about war, why I hate the President, and how innocent people (like babies) die in wars--all prompted by listening to "Come When I Call You".

Parthenia is Pregnant...

with Ideas...

I see a theme rising. Even my frogs in their tank behind me are croaking their mating calls again.

Last summer, my friends Crystal, Tonya, and I operated a booth at the Greenfield Farmer's Market most appropriately called "Three Dreaded Ladies". Sadly Tonya dropped out midway, but Crystal, her business partner Julie, and I continued for the rest of the season. Tonya made jewelery, I do herbal products for hair and skin, Crystal, at the time, made cloth diapers and an occasional mei tai traditional Asian baby carrier. Julie and Crystal have parted ways and Crystal will be selling handmade clothes. I'm not sure if Julie will continue on as our one not-literally-dreaded lady, but they diapers would round out our booth nicely.

On top of all the other making stuff and idea generating (i.e. game writing), I'm revisioning my part ("Parthenia's Herbals") of Three Dreaded Ladies. I plan to focus bar soaps first, then bath salts, healing salves, balms, and herb infused oils (hair oil, massage oil, bug repellent). I will prepare fewer brewed herbals like aftershaves, skin toners, and hair rinses. Those are my favorites, but they don't sell very well. I will certainly have edible love potions, as those generate the most praise and positive feedback, and they make most everyone happy.

I've been thinking about offering other edibles like kefir and kombucha, but that would require a Board of Health permit. I could join the Western Mass Food Processing Center and move all of my brewing, mixing, cooking, and curing activities there. The advantages are I would have more room, better equipment, and a safer place to make soap and heat up oils. If I do soap at home in the kitchen, I need someone to keep an eye on the kids because I'm working with hazardous materials and can't stop in the middle of mixing or pouring to take care of boo-boos and arguments. The disadvantages are purely financial. Basically the farmers market last year paid for my herb preparing hobby and my Thai food habit, and that was fine with me. I'd like to expand this year. Kombucha and kefir are incredibly easy and cheap to make, bottling and labelling would really be my biggest expense. If they caught on and sold well they could cover the added expense of being a member of the Food Processing Center. Since there's already one local Kombucha producer, I would most likely do more kefir and herb drinks, and try to find a source for local milk. That's not hard at all. You can also put kefir grains into grape juice and make an interesting sparkling beverage. That could be fun, too.

The week after Ingrid's birthday I'll make the first batch of soap. If any of you local reader wish to learn how to make soap, I will show you how. The cost to you is your labor. In the next few weeks I'll also have spare kombucha babies and kefir grains. And I'm always looking for human guinea pigs to try my herbals. Email me and let me know what you're interested in. And the revised rules for Get/Steal Away Jordan should be done by the end of this week. I was so productive last night that I fell asleep at 3 am, sitting up with the laptop on my lap. Before I dozed off, I managed to type up everything I had handwritten earlier in the week, and simplify the rules and mechanics. Another self-awarded gold star for Parthenia (who is most certainly not physically pregnant)!

Stone Babies

This is from William Buck's translation/interpretation of the Mahabharata:
"Dhritarashtra lost his sorrow in Gandhari's love, as a river is lost in the sea. She became pregnant by Dhritarashtra, but a full year passed by without her giving birth, and longer, until Dhritarashtra sent for Vyasa in dismay.

"Vyasa came to the king and said, 'Gandhari carries one hundred sons. She will give birth at the end of two years. Be patient and know that there is no danger to her, and I will return when it is time.'

"Vyasa then spoke with Bhishma, so that when Gandhari gave birth there were a hundred bronze jars filled with clear butter, ready and hidden in the palace garden. From her womb came a hard ball of flesh that Vyasa took from her and washed in cool water.
"'Here are your hundred sons,' he told Gandhari, 'but there is more to do before they are formed.'

"Vyasa divided that ball of flesh into pieces. As he worked in the garden, Bhishma put each piece into a jar and sealed it. At the end there was an extra piece. Bhishma brought another jar and Vyasa said, 'There are now one hundred sons and one daughter. See that the jars are not opened for two more years; then they will be born.'"

Warning: not for the faint of heart, or for people who don't like to read about fetal abnormalities used as plot devices. I had a hard time finding an accompanying picture that wouldn't completely turn people off.

The word of the day is Lithopedion. I found out about them at the Human Marvels website under "Pickled punks." No this isn't going to be a happy post, but you were warned.
Last night I described the lithopedions to my fellow gamers, after we played our game for the night. It's always fun to share the freaky and strange things you learn about on the internet. Emily said, "It's like the baby you found in your attic."
"There are no babies in my attic, what are you talking about?" I said.
In Shizuka's attic, she meant. Oh yeah. There are no babies in my attic. What are you talking about?

Stone Babies are character and plot device jewels. They're like trichobezoars. Creepy and freaky, they require pathological behavior from the character. In order to create a stone baby, you need a fetus to die in utero, and a mother to neglect or forget or otherwise ignore the fact that labor comes to no fruition or labor never comes. Then the fetus ossifies, calcifies, undected for years before the mother begins to feel discomfort or pain.

Gandhari's seed born children, (stone baby cousins?), the Kaurava, were the antagonists of the Pandavas in Mahabharata. The first born, Duryodhana, is an avatar (incarnation) of the demon Kali (not the goddess).

Anyway, I had no idea what a Lithopedion was until Tuesday night, but I've read Williams Buck's version of The Mahabharata about four times, and parts of the whole poem (translated into English) when I was in college. I love it when things click subconsciously like that.

Here are my two bad haiku about Stone Babies:

Lithopedion
Conceived, forgotten, dead child.
Now we are both old.

You died in my womb
I forgot to give you birth
Now you're a stone child.

Another Mahabharata translation.
Much better Haiku
More Anatomical/Physical Items of Note

The Place God Calls You To...

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Frederick Buechner

I found that quote at a forum for aspiring midwives. What proceeds is a paraphrased conversation I had in my head while walking around Greenfield doing errands at lunch time.

God does not call me to my present job.
God calls me home to my children, husband, and pets. To the endless dishes and cleaning that I never catch up on.
God does not call me to church, and I'm finally okay with that. But sometimes She does call me to church. I thought She was calling me to other churches, but really, She just said, "take a break. I'm not there anyway."
I have to ask myself sincerely, is She calling me to midwifery? I believe I'd find deep gladness in the work. But if you want a homebirth, Western Massachusetts is the place to be. There are plenty of midwives around here. Does the world hunger for Julia [Parthenia] the midwife? Maybe. I don't know. I think the problem is that if God is calling me to this vocation, I wish She'd make that call apparent to the Doubting Thomases in my life, who seem to talk louder than She does when it comes to money and comfort. I guess I'm asking too much of God, and I guess there's a reason She didn't call me to become a doctor... Can't say I ever wanted to be a doctor...

Did you see that? I think I just tried to talk myself out of studying midwifery with the excuse that God didn't call me loud enough. Not all who wander are lost, but some of us are and we're too stubborn to admit it, so we pretend were taking the scenic route.

Next time we'll see what the Devil calls me to.

I wrote several pages on creating characters fresh from the slave ship for my game. I'm giving myself a gold star. I think I need a gold star today. I'm feeling a little like flotsam.

Chez Parthenia et Primo, La Cuisine Exotique

So we (Primo, Meg, Vincent, Emily, Joshua, Carrie, and children) had a potluck. We ate fried water bugs ("Mang Da Na"), among other things.

Carrie was the first to try one, and she put forth a valiant effort before she declared that she didn't like them. Joshua and Vincent worked on theirs next, and given how little actual "stuff" there is to eat on them, they certainly worked. Vincent, the seasoned water bug eater, actually cooked them after their eyes freaked me out and I couldn't bring myself to cook them. He gave helpful instructions on where to find the choicest meat on the bug--if you can call bug innards "meat". I can't remember what Joshua said. Primo just jumped right in and bit one in half. It was too much for him, and he spit everything out. You can still smell it in the trash can. Primo looks cute eating water bugs. I'd like to see him do it again.

Emily worked on hers in silence, or perhaps I was in the zone, preparing to eat my water bug and didn't hear what she said. I did manage to snap a great picture of her, though. And that just left me, the person who said, "if you have a recipe for fried water bugs, and you can buy water bugs to fry, shouldn't you try them at least once?" The person who looked the frozen little Mang Da Na's in their little beady eyes and thought, "I can't cook you. You're just too disgusting. What if I can't get bug taste out of my well seasoned wok?" To say that I ate a water bug is really an overstatement. I nibbled a leg and spit out what I could.

I doubt I will eat them again. I now have a sore spot in the roof of my mouth where the bug guts touched. I have a very mild nut allergy and I get the same thing when I eat too many pistachios or pecans. So maybe I'm allergic to water bugs, and shouldn't eat them. While I still eat pistachios and pecans in moderate amounts, they taste good. I think this is a case of true "never again".

They had a lemony taste, rather they tasted like lemon-flavored insects. Nothing like chicken, nothing like shrimp or craw daddies, as I had hoped. It wasn't so much the lemon-flavored insect taste as much as as the squished bug texture that was so off-putting.

All told, it was a very fun evening. Primo and I don't get to hang out with adults together very often, and I hang out with all the adults present (except for Carrie, Joshua's wife) on Wednesday nights to play games. We played a round of Werewolves of Miller's Hollow, which I'm totally addicted to after playing it on Saturday, too.

I hope to do it again--not eat bugs, but have a crazy food potluck. I was thinking rabbit stew might be fun to try. I've only had rabbit when I was no older than Bea, and I was tricked into eating it by my dad. My family nickname is Rabbit (short for Br'er Rabbit.) Eating rabbit seemed wrong at the time, but I'll try it again, why not. I know I can get some at Lukasik Game Farm in South Hadley. And it's been years since I had chitterlings ("chitlins"). I'll bet there are some wacky sushi items others might want to try. Where to go next?

Other items on the menu:
Kim Chee
Canned Quail Eggs
Natto
Grilled Ground Beef and Tofu
Dates
Canned Octopus
Smoked Oysters
Goose Liver Pate
Crock Pot Curry
Something Really Delicious That Emily Brought, but I Can't Remember What it Was
Burned Shrimp Chips (oops!)
Rice
Mochi
Mead, Wine, Beer, Soy Drink

Photographic Evidence

Hallelujah, I Adore It!

So now that we all know how to find our cervices if we have them, it's time for a little fluff and fun.

I'm devoting this post to hair. I'm all about the hair, and it's a good thing, because I have a considerable amount. At last measure, my hair was just beginning to creep past my butt.

I was born with a head full of jet black hair. By the time I was about 3 or 4 my hair was about waist length if you pulled the curls straight. My hair is extremely curly, and as a kid, it was impossible for me to take care of it myself, so my mom did my hair every day until I was about 11, when i got my first serious hair cut. I went from waist length to just below my shoulders. I loved it! I was liberated! I was like everyone else.

I got nothing but really negative messages from many of the elder women in my family, like my grandmother. You'd have thought I'd taken the scissors to her head. Well naturally, that just made me want to cut it shorter. By the time I was 14 I had wicked short hair--about 2 or 3 inches in the top, and totally buzzed in the back. At 15, due to an unfortunate accident with a distracted hair-stylist, I had a Duran Duran-inspired mullet. It required excessive amounts of blowdrying, hair gelling, and curling ironing, but I made the most of it. Luckily my hair grows quickly. In eight months the mullet was gone and I had hair past my shoulders. Then I entered the phase of big hair. Make that BIG hair. It was the 80's, what can I say? I had an arsenal of hot rollers, and lots and lots of curly. Plus I was a teenager. It was around this time that I was also introduced to the Black woman's beautiful lie--rather lye: the chemical relaxer. It only really meant that I spent less time with hot rollers every day. I didn't understand what my otherwise lightning fast-growing hair seemed to stop growing. Or why my I let the beautician leave the chemicals so long that my scalp burned.

In college I did the wash and wear thing (still relaxed). All that perming did a little number on my hair and my scalp, so out of necessity I grew my hair longish, only to cut it into cute little bobs every year or so. I even had short little bangs for a time, during my club kid phase.

So I was in a vicious cycle for several years. By the time Primo and I started dating I was trying to grow it long again, which I did. I even tried to grow out the perm, but my hair broke off, and I needed a hair cut to even it out. My hair was about mid back, but I had a patch of short damaged hair in the back. I had considered cutting it really short into a pixie do, but couldn't bring myself to do it.

Then one day Primo, who has some mighty nice hair himself, came home totally bald. We didn't match any more. So a week later I cut my hair to about an inch or so. It was the shortest I ever had it, and barring illness, that will be the last time I ever have short hair.



I started growing dreadlocks about eighteen months after I did that last big chop. I had sworn off all perms, I was getting married, I spent the summer reading about Rastafari. It was time for a change. I'm not about being cool. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. I won't get into my reasons for doing it otherwise. It's been almost 9 years since I put a brush or comb to my head, and while I occasionally trim the undreaded sides and the kitchen, I haven't had a haircut in almost 10 years. I wish I could give a deeper reason as to why I have long hair, or dreads, but like tattoos, I like to keep the skin deep stuff skin deep. I do it because at some point it seemed like a good idea, and creature of habit that I am, I'm sticking with a good thing.

So that's my hair. But I'm into all hair, particularly natural, unpermed hair on African Americans, facial hair on men, and extremely long hair on everyone. Intentional extreme length either way is a subtle act of rebellion against standards of beauty that require excessive amounts of valuable time, money, and pain (in the case of relaxing or perming), as is being nappy, or dreadlocked if you're black. People--and I'm talking about total strangers off the street--ask me if my hair is real or all mine, how long I've been growing it, when I'll cut it, etc. And apparently, there are certain people who shouldn't have long hair: men, women over 30, children, women under 30, boys. I used to frequent the Long Hair Community, and people heard all of these and more. Long hair, nappy hair, and dreadlocks offend people. Another reason to love them. If you're offended by a grooming regimen, you deserve to be offended. God blesses the freaks.

The Long Hair Community
Other Hair Sightings. Just a small sample. I have friends with beautiful hair, but I don't carry a camera with me.

It Feels Like the Tip of Your Nose

This happens at every turning of the year: I start to freak out that I'm not living to my fullest potential, that I'm making a mess of my life and thus of my children's lives, that I'm not following my bliss enough, that I'm getting deeper into a rut that will become harder to get out as I get older. It's stupid and fruitless to worry that maybe I should have studied harder in school, or that I should have majored in Economics or Chemistry, or that I should have gone to Carnegie Mellon instead of Smith, or that I should have applied to nursing school after graduation like I wanted to, or that I should have been more disciplined about fiction writing in college. I should have slayed the dragon when he showed up on my porch, and it's no excuse that my knife wasn't sharp enough. I should keep my knives sharper. It never ends.

So here I am focusing on the fact that I don't love what I do for a paycheck, and there's not any real future in it. But the reality is our finances are structured in such a way that I need to bring home a pay check or we could lose our house and I couldn't put food on the table. Ideally my work for pay would be something I love. But the things I love don't pay very much, or they require that I quit my job to get a piece of paper to prove I'm worthy of doing what I love, or I shy away from them because people whose opinions I respect have discouraged me from pursuing the knowledge. It's really a combination of all of the above, except I probably wouldn't have to quit my job if I were to pursue what I really ,truly, honestly love.

Let's revisit nursing school for a sec, because it was so close to what I really want to do. I get a little defensive when I think about the fact that I never finished, and why I don't regret not finishing. I started nursing school with the idea that I would eventually become a nurse-midwife. Then I fell in love with psych nursing at the same time I fell out of love with being a CNM or L and D nurse. Did I really want to be a nurse? Yes and no. Going to nursing school seemed like a great idea at the time, and I think I would have made a damn good psych nurse, but it's not totally what I want to do.

I've been entertaining going to graduate school in psychology or to teach biology. Do I really want to be a psychologist or a teacher? Yes and no. And I'd probably be pretty good at either, too. But again, it's not the whole vocational enchilada.

I have a BA in Religion and Biblical Literature. I've entertained the notion of going to divinity school to be a pastoral counselor or a minister. Do I really want to be a minister? Abso-freakin-lutely not. Pastoral counselor, perhaps, but...

When I think about it without worrying about what other people would think, and without worrying about whether I'd make money, or any of the other insecurities I can conjure, I really want to be, and have wanted to be for many years, a midwife. Not a nurse-midwife, but a traditional midwife who comes to your house, and helps you give birth to your baby, who counsels you, consoles you, teaches you about your body and your baby and your family. A teacher, a nurse (in the traditional sense), a counselor, and a little bit of a minister. It's a totally illogical endeavor with regard to money and certification, but when I see myself doing what I love, I see myself catching babies and teaching women how to find their cervices, among other things, too many to list here. Maybe another post.

In reality, I will finish my game, and I'll teach the dog how to walk on a leash, and I may even start running. Those are easy goals. But the resolution I should have made was to stop worrying about what other people think of how I should follow my bliss (to quote a bumper sticker commonly found on Subarus around here), and to go ahead and follow it. Why is that so hard? One thing that scares me that I won't get the approval from people whose approval I've sought in the past, namely my mainstream, academically decorated mom and practical in all matters future and money father. Primo may say, "why don't you become a teacher?" but he'll get why, and if he won't he'll still be supportive in his own way. He's a little like my dad. Others may say, "why don't you go back to nursing school?" Because it's not what I wholly want to be. My approval-seeking has lead to point-proving in the past, which does nothing beneficial for me.

I should do it before I'm talked out of it again (by myself or other people).

What feels like the tip of your nose?

I'm Okay, You're Not Okay, but That's Okay, Because You Don't Exist.

A few years ago I came to a crossroads in my academic pursuit at the time, and due to circumstances both within and beyond my control, I veered off the academic road. This translates to: a few years ago, I was in nursing school. I'd wanted to be a nurse for many years, and while the time wasn't ideal, it was as good a time as any to be in school. But I took a semester off due to financial reasons and burnout from my work schedule, parenting, and heavy courseload. During that semester off, we had to buy a house (another story with another moral) and I got pregnant with Ingrid (already talked about). So I didn't finish nursing school, and it's doubtful I will before my kids are all in grade school. Which in a way is a shame, because I was really close to finishing, and I like to complete things I start. But not finishing was also a good decision in the long run.

Psych nursing was my thing. Talking to people about their shit, being able to balance empathy and detachment, all came naturally to me. I'm pretty good at listening to what people say and don't say. I'm not afraid of silence in a conversation. There's not much that shocks me so I didn't look surprised when clients admitted to doing fucked up things. And like my dad, I'm a people person with a dash of introversion, which apparently is comforting to some people. Incidentally, we also did a great deal of role playing in my psych rotation. My instructor said I played a very convincing drug addict. That was a complement. Better to be able to play one than actually be one.

So for better or worse, I psychoanalyze people a lot. Friends, family, co-workers, random people I observe in cafes, people that don't really exist. Primo does it, too, and we share our observations. Imagine Marion Woodman and Carl Jung sitting down with a glass of wine or a pot of tea and chatting about who they know. Okay not that high brow, but you get the picture. We're both people watchers, and people analyzers. In high school and college I wrote more short stories, and really focused on character development as a way to help propel action and plot. That way, my characters really brought their problems and conflicts on to themselves, and I just wrote about it. I generally drew from people I knew or had people watched. Same goes for role playing games. I tend to think of minute character details for RPG characters, ponder specific motivations for actions, and when all is said and done, I open them up, and pick them apart. There's always more there than there was in the first place. And that is so cool! It's like baking bread!

I had great fun psychoanalyzing my current favorite non-existent people/demon family unit. There's a little here. And poor Shizuka just developed even more after that. She baked well. I kept asking myself throughout the game, "Is she really as messed up as her actions indicate." I'd say yes, but I can also see her rationale. There's a neat dicussion on the Forge about our game.

I had a psych patient who was coming out of a really bad place, after hundreds of bad places. I believed that he sincerely believed he was going to stay clean this time, that this stint in rehab stuck, even though the odds were squarely against him. He was in his late 40's, a lifelong addict with multiple dependencies, he had a history of physical and possible other forms abuse at the hands of family members, facing hard time in prison, and had lost his support systems: church, family, home. I was haunted by his story, because it really sucked. He'd done some stupid things--really stupid because of a heroin or cocaine binge, or both. But I had empathy for him, and I hoped he could beat the odds. Writing his nursing care plan--essentially picking him apart and describing what could help him, helped me to let him go.

Here's a little of what I didn't write about Shizuka at the Forge. I had typed it up as a response to Ron's questions and thought it better not to post it. It hits a little close to home, and I felt it had a better place here (go figure). Thus, Shizuka gets no nursing care plan, but she was analyzed and picked apart suffiently this past week.
So I'd like to speak for my character, Shizuka, one of the totally
fucked up wives. I had so much fun playing her, but on many levels I found it difficult to play her. I felt like I had to make bad choices for her in order for her actions to remain in character. With her kicker, she believed that Tai, whom she more or less trusted and probably loved, betrayed her in a really awful way: she thought he was the one who left a dead baby in the attic. She knew he was lying about how it got there. And so she was emotionally unstable, depressed, and already prone to substance abuse. Not a fun person to be around or pretend to be. She didn't come from happy place.

I got my inspiration for her from personal darkness, and from patients I had cared for during my psych rotation in nursing school. A lot of these people were at some of the lowest points of their lives. They had hurt people they loved to feed their addiction, made unhealthy choices for themselves, and did just really stupid things. Still, my psych patients were likable people. I think all of our PC's and NPC's were likable people and demons in their own way. Even Prometheus, despite Joshua's attempt to make him otherwise. Even Tai. Even Sophie, who piled on the lies to protect herself and to keep from justifying the morally objectionable action of putting a demon into her dying husband--because she couldn't deal with him dying. [See the Forge post about how I liked Harriet]. I didn't like Shizuka's mother so much.

Anyhow, fucked up as it was, Shizuka and Tai reconciled. Shizuka's mother sent Tai back to her contained in a teapot. (Here's something odd: for Christmas, both my mother and mother-in-law gave me teapots!) At first she pretended to have forgotten everything that had happened up to the night before she found the dead baby in the attic--as if to say, "I'll forget what you've done so we can go back to the way things were before I found out what you'd done". Tai didn't seem to believe her, so she confessed that she remembered everything. Her price was large gap memory loss--which she tried to use to her advantage to no avail. I imagined that she had a file cabinet of things she knew she'd forget, but she never read what she wrote. Then *she* apologized for being disagreeable, promised to be more agreeable, begged him to stay, and they were once again bound. She accepted all responsibility for Tai leaving her.

Up until the very last minute, I couldn't decide if Shizuka would rebind or banish Tai. The healthiest choice obviously was banishment. Shizuka, however, was not a healthy person who was able to form and grow healthy relationships. In one scene, Harriet asked Shizuka why she wanted Tai back, and Shizuka admitted that she liked "bad boys". (This is something that someone once pointed out to me when I young and self absorbed. I did not deny it then, but years later, when marriage material presented himself, he was refreshingly not a total bad boy, but he was bad enough without being sociopathic or otherwise dangerous.) Tai's need was to make her happy, and other than the low level but constant bickering between them, I assumed that he usually made her happy, even with missing babies. So, in Shizuka's mind, there was marriage to Tai, which could be a happy endeavor as long as she ignored/forgot his transgressions. And it would be filled with good food, a nice garden, other pursuits of sensual gratification, and seeing the world, vs. no Tai. And from the glimpse she got of no Tai, that was dreadful, with the fingertip getting chopped off, the opium binge, being alone, etc. It was creepy and wrong, but reconciliation was the logical choice.
Marion Woodman
Carl Jung
Sigmund Freud
Pacifica Graduate Institute One of the places I'd apply to attend when it's time to go back to school.

Ingrid and the Bad Cat

A few years ago, Primo found what we believe to be a cat's skull while he was hiking around Poet's Seat Tower/Greenfield Mountain with our late dog Kaya. I'm probably the only one in the house who likes this thing, but I like anatomy and bones and bodily functions and biology-type things. Every time the discussion arises as to whether we should throw it away, I am the loud lone dissenter. And the cat skull now resides atop our CD rack, where the dog can't get it.

A few weeks ago, annoyed and exasperated by Sal, our male cat who still sprays despite being neutered, I threatened him with the skull. I stuck the skull in his face and I probably said something like "If you don't stop spraying, you evil cat, this will be what's left of you." Then I probably muttered on and on about how Sal is evil and bad. It hasn't helped at all. I can accept that all cats are essentially evil, but even evil cats can avoid spraying in the house. As much as it pains me, because he is technically my cat and I otherwise adore him, I've considered finding a new home for him.

Ingrid witnessed the whole thing, and has become fascinated with, if not a little afraid of the skull. After dinner this evening, she climbed into my lap and said, with the conviction of a 23 month old, "I want to see the bad cat." We weren't sure what she was talking about at first, but she kept on pointing to the CD rack. I asked her if she wanted to see the cat skull and pointed to it, and she said, "Yes! Cat skull. I want to see the bad cat." So Primo handed her the bad cat, and at first she recoiled. But he said that it was the bad cat, and happily she took it and carried it around singing "bad cat! Bad cat!" Her older sister, who is into Living Dead Dolls and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, won't touch it.

I bet I can get Ingrid to eat a waterbug.

Being Productive?

A few days ago, I sat down in front of the laptop and worked on my game a bit. My plan was to put in a few more hours last night, but I felt so crappy yesterday, due to the meds I'm taking (I made mention of a kidney infection earlier here, and low and behold...), that I never made it back to the computer. I actually managed to get to the Y, did a little work out--on the treadmill, no less, sat in the sauna for 10 minutes, and felt even worse. I went home, laid on the couch, and could barely move for the next 6 hours. I had a brain splitting headache, I had the chills, and I thought I would throw up. Primo insisted I was getting a cold, but I know it's the side affects from the medication. I hate side affects. So much for being productive.

Friday night, Primo and I went to dinner with all but one of my coworkers (there are 4 people in the whole company). Our boss took us out to one of the snazziest restaurants in the area. The food was delicious. I was so not looking forward to is (see previous post), but good food and wine can brighten any mood. It was actually really fun and I realized that I do like my boss. Come to think of it, I knew that already, but my work morale is so low right now, it's hard to keep that in mind. I'm both motivated to show my boss I'm not the bad employee she painted me to be in my performance review, and to look for another job. Yes, the whole crappy performance review is a lemon which will make for good job-searching lemonade.

I also finished my first homework assignment for a correspondence course I signed up for back in September. I signed up in part because it's something I've always had a big (but quiet) interest in, and partly because African American folk magic (rootwork, conjure, hoodoo) figure prominently in my game.

While my parents were here, I had some heated words with my father about how he doesn't manage his diabetes. He took those words to heart and now checks his blood sugar 2-3 times a day like he's supposed to. His blood sugar is still in the 200's, but while I was checking it last week, it was fluctuating between 300 and 500. Way to go, daddy! So it appears that he heard me, and is making an attempt to change and get healthier. I know that's easier said than done, and I'm happy he's making baby steps towards that goal. I am still very worried about him, though.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, other than I haven't been feeling very productive lately, and needed to take stock of what I'm doing. Game writing, hating job and doing something about it, being sick and still going to the gym, doing homework, feeling like my dad heard me. If I believed in astrology, I'd say something was in retrograde that affected some house that put me in a funk. Simply put, I'm trying to de-funk.

Furthermore, pleasant as you are, you totally and utterly suck!

Yesterday the universe dealt me nice big smack in the face. No need to get into the particulars, because there are so many. But here's the abridged version.

I was scheduled to have my yearly performance review at 2 pm. At 9 am, my boss hands me a pile of work that needed to be completed before I left for the day. At 9:30 am she hands me this form I'm supposed to fill out for my review. It was the kind of form that really deserves several hours of thoughtful contemplation. So between doing all the work she slammed on my desk, the office meeting, the constant interruptions, and the lunch I never got to eat, I devoted all of 25 minutes to my self appraisal, and I never quite finished it. Plus I left half an hour later than I should have, had to race over to pick up Ingrid, and proceed to the potential bright spots of my day.

It was also the day the bookkeeper comes in, and she had a thousand questions for me, and interrupted me basically ever 20 minutes with a question whose answer needed written 0documentation.

The performance review was the absolutely worst review I've ever received, and since I had no time to prepare, I had little proof that I'm actually a thoughtful and hard-working employee, despite my flaws. It was really bad, much of it was just wrong, inaccurate and completely unfair. And I can take criticism. I really had to hold back the tears and suck it up. I've never had a bad review. Ever. Not ever. When I brought up my good qualities, my boss wholeheartedly agreed with me, but since it wasn't in writing, my entire review on paper just sucked.

And then the migraine came without warning. Three hours later, when I was home, I downed 1000mg of acetaminophen and drank some tea. That made me slightly less cranky and a bit less in pain.

I managed to finish the project, more or less. It was finished to my boss' satisfaction. I picked up Ingrid and went home. So here's where it gets better. Meg and Vincent dropped their kids off so they could go talk to people about buying the house across the street from me. And their meeting went well. Oh how I would love for them to be my neighbors!

So I started cooking dinner. Pork sirloin, peas and rice. A simple, but tasty meal. And since I hadn't eaten dinner or breakfast, I was really looking forward to eating with my family. But they (Primo and Bea) didn't show up until 7 pm, and had already eaten, because they had gone shopping! I won't even go there.

After dinner, Ingrid took all her clothes off and peed on the couch and the floor.

Primo went on at length at how I should write a rebuttal to my review. I really needed him to say, "yes, that sucks, dear. Keep bitching until you get it all out." He did tell me I was hotter than Diana Ross and Donna Summer and the pretty woman he checked out at the bookstore. That was nice, I guess.

I got Ingrid to sleep, packed up my new green teapot, and walked around the corner to Meg and Vincent's house for our weekly game night. Things got better after that. Joshua, Emily, and Vincent, and I went for a walk (Jeddy, too) after playing Carcassonne and Pirate Rummy (Meg played, too, but didn't go on the walk), and Joshua bought me two donuts, and I got a nice pity party and group hug at the Dunkin' Donuts. That's where I remembered the two parking tickets I got that day. Lovely.

I'm looking for a new job. Thank God for my friends and husband.

The Attic is Still a Scary Place

So we finished our Sorcerer game. Shizuka and Tai reconciled. She discovered that Tai had not killed one of their kids, and he (Taiichi) was living in the attic. This made her happy. When she and Tai re-binded she suggested that they send Taiichi to live with her mother in Kyoto. Tai had reservations, fearing mom might not be pleased, but Shizuka reminded him that Taiichi was mom's grandson. And grandchildren are all mom wanted. I think everyone lived happily ever after--at least in Shizuka's story. Meg started a hilarious journal from Harriet's POV at The Forge. Hopefully Joshua and Emily will give their reports, too. Me, too.

So why is the attic still a scary place? Because every time I go up there I end up bringing more stuff down than I intended. I was just looking for a couple of books. I came down with many more than a couple--more like 25. There were the rare fragile books that needed to be kept elsewhere, the books that I will need to work on my game, the books on Japanese tattooing I'll need to finish designing the tattoo on my arm, the game books, the books I've already read, but like to have around, the graphic novel I'd started reading before we bought our house and misplaced (Blade of the Immortal, book 2 I think), a book I thought Joshua would be interested in reading, and Bea's Waldorf doll, Millie Cookie. I was really just looking for my Japanese tattooing books. Now that the half sleeve is well underway again, it's time to plan ahead to making it a 3/4 sleeve, which I'd like to have done in the next two years. I needed some inspiration, although I know what I'd like to have done.

We have many many boxes of books that we have yet to unpack. I cannot bring myself to get rid of a book, but I know the time will come where I'll have to do it, otherwise we'll never be able to finish the attic. We need to get rid some stuff. Anyway, last night I had an interesting dream where I was looking for the two Japanese tattooing books, but all I could find was Summer Sisters by Judy Blume. Guess where I found the books in question: in the same box as that Judy Blume book! I had other dreams last night that were weird, if not a little geeky. I dreamed of a recipe for a mojo bag I'd been thinking of putting together but have not been able to figure out what I needed, and I also dreamed that there was a strange, but friendly being who lived in the walls of our house and wore a black mask, who knew my "true nature as the one who gives the marks." I had a little too much to drink last night, I think.

I think I also have a kidney infection again. I had one this summer, and was totally miserable. I don't even remember getting the initial UTI. Everyone in my house has had a cold with a nasty gooey nose and a sore throat, except me. I get a kidney infection. Life is unfair.

Happy New Year. Gotta go cook some black eyed peas, or my mom will have my head on a frying pan, or we'll have bad luck, or both.

Other cool Noh Masks!