The Short List

We learned our lesson very early on - do not tell anyone, including your family, the names you are thinking of naming your child. It's not their decision and their input will not be helpful.

So, to that end, we have developed a short list of names, are vetting them in our own way and will announce our pick soon after it's owner is born.

And no, we will not give you even a teeny tiny hint.

Your Doubtfulness Makes Me Even More Stubborn

Just so you know, the more I feel like you doubt that this will be a natural birth, the stronger my conviction that it indeed will be.

Each day I get closer to my baby's day of birth, the stronger my conviction that:

1. My body can do this.
2. Woman have been doing this for thousands of years with significantly less and worse health care than I have had my entire life.
3. A hospital birth will take away from me everything that I am looking forward to with this birth.
4. My husband will be the perfect partner for me in this new experience and together we will make it through strong and healthy.
5. The majority of reasons that people end up with medical interventions can be easily avoided by not starting down a medical path in the first place.
6. Birth was not meant to be confined on it's back with an i.v. in a hospital bed in a cold room with strangers moving in and out.
7. This is the way it was meant to be.

So step off.

Stop the crazy

Somali pirates vs. the U.S. Navy (good old-fashioned, get along 'lil doggy, pride-raisin' ass whoopin')

Iran and nukes

North Korea and nukes

Kim Jong-il ('nuff said)

Sunday School teacher murders eight-year old

Pissy (and apparently unstable) father of five murders all his children

Chill the f*** out. Everyone. Now.

A Situation Comedy About Office Life

I've decided the material is ripe for me to write a situational comedy about life in an office. Cubicles, smelly microwaves, bans on perfume, incompetent staff, it's all there. I just have to write it down.

For example: People eat microwave popcorn (Blast O' Butter, from the smell of it) for breakfast, lunch, afternoon pick me up and pre-drive home snack. If you hate the smell of microwave popcorn, you go talk to the HR folks about it.

Although...plot turn - the HR folks have been banned from making popcorn on their own floor, due to the vocal complaints of one astute sniffer. They now must hike down one floor to get their toxic food-flavoring fix.

What's an office worker to do?

This is truly an award-winning idea; I cannot believe no one has thought of this yet.

The Transition

Maybe this happens for every soon-to-be mama, but it seems to me there has a come a point where my main focus has gone from protecting with ferocity what I see as my news, my excitement, my prerogative, beyond the decision of the type of birth I want to experience to those all-important, myriad choices of what I will actually do once this little person is here.

Now that people don't need to be told I am expecting my first child, now that the evidence of said arrival is, well, evident anytime you see me, my attention has turned to much more daunting preparations. How long will I breastfeed? Am I jiving with this attachment mothering idea? Am I already setting myself, my husband and my baby up for failure because I don't plan on having them (the baby) sleep in my bed or in one of those bed-attaching crib thingies? How can I make my traditional office job fit in around the edges of the work I actually want to be doing for the next half decade or so? If it doesn't, can I leave it without it being called "dropping out?"

Additionally, how can I shield myself and my family from the ever-increasing outside expectations of how this pregnancy and birth experience will be when those same outside forces also happen to be related to me? How do I express what I want, and is it okay to want what I want when everyone else seems to want something different?

A lot of questions for too early on a Saturday morning from one very exasperated yet hopeful mum.

Bacon. The Candy of Meats.

Do you know what happens if you google "quotes about bacon?"

I do.

The first result is an Ogden Nash quote which is actually about bacon (score one for Google).

The second result is Francis Bacon quotes (minus one for Google. Tally = zero).

Sixth down the list was my winner, "Top 10 Quotes About Bacon From Television." With that I give you...

“Special day! Oh, what have I forgotten now? Now, don’t panic. Is it Bacon Day? No, that’s crazy talk!” Homer, The Simpsons

My friend Anne today sent me a link to what is quite possibly the most uplifting Web site in all the land - http://bacontoday.com/.

With such headlines as "Courageous Firefighters Save Bacon Before it Happens," about two little piggies rescued from a well (wait for it...I know, funny, right?) and a recipe for Turbaconducken (Turducken wrapped in bacon, naturally), this is truly a site that has the power to bring hope and unity to a nation torn asunder.

To restore a former glory and recall a history not filled with hatred and spite, but with tolerance and forgiveness.

This, my friends, is the power of bacon.

Bow your head before it's awesomeness.









Turbaconducken

Namespotting

In order to alleviate some of the guilt I was feeling about not posting regularly because, really, my favorite thing to do with food is eat it and not write about it, I've changed the name of this blog.

Thanks to Mr. Ginsberg's quote up there at the top, I now also don't feel so crummy about my readership, which I am pretty sure consists of my mom.

Thanks, Mom.