These Family Vacations Are For The Dogs, Literally

Last week we headed up to Flagstaff to have the much anticipated and drama producing "the dogs of the family need to meet" vacation in the snow. Mind you, a few members of Big D's family have yet to meet Bug and this would be Bug's first introduction to snow. But these facts were far down on the list in importance to the dogs of Big D's family romping in the snow together. As we pulled onto the highway, I felt that familiar little scratch in the back of my throat that undoubtedly signals a cold is coming on. And of course a cold was coming on. I was going on a vacation. I always get sick on vacations. I always get sick on family vacations. I always get sick on vacations with Big D's family. Of course. My body revolts against me. Or against Big D's family. So right when I need my strength the most to keep a happy face and zen out amidst the madness (oh the stories I so wish I could tell) I am usually drowning in phlegm or coughing up a lung or puking up my guts. Lovely. It is just lovely. So of course, I got a full blown cold the whole time we where in Flagstaff. My head was a freight train being attacked by a sledgehammer and yet I went sledding, visited the ruins, made dinner, cleaned the kitchen, and of course watched out for Bug. I wouldn't have wanted to disrupt the doggie lovefest with a severe cold or minor case of piggy flu.


And it reminded me of another Big D family trip. This was a few years before the birth of the Bug. We were living in Los Angeles and we were heading down to San Diego for a reunion with Big D's family to watch the Browns kick the Chargers asses. Hahaha. Though neither Big D nor any of his siblings ever lived in Cleveland, his father is from Ohio and so they all are devout Browns fans in honor of their father. I was raised in New England and am therefore, though not much of a football fan, a fan of the Patriots nonetheless. But the point is, I was going to this family reunion to show allegiance to my husband and his family. And of course, on the way down to San Diego I feel that scratch in the back of my throat. Does my body revolt against the very idea of these family reunions? Maybe. I think my body just revolts against me.


So I did my best to suck it up. I drugged myself up good and smiled through it. And then the day of the game came. It was so hot. Ridiculously hot. The hot that doesn't happen in San Diego. Blistering sun. No sea breeze. Just bright sun which feels like daggers in my eyes so I keep the dark shades on and keep my eyes closed beneath them. As we approach the stadium Big D notes that the Echo is out of gas. He notes it but does he stop for a refill. Oh hell no! Big D has got to get to that stadium and get his football on. The point is we have NO GAS IN THE CAR as we putter into the stadium. And the traffic is a long line of turtles waddling into the parking lot. And because we have no gas we HAVE NO AIR CONDITIONING. And the Echo is the size of a peanut with three big guys plus me squished into it. And I have jacked myself up on cold medicine and diet coke to try to make it through the day from hell and save my marriage. And I am not kidding when I say that. Big D takes his family's likes and dislikes very seriously. When we were first dating, I fell asleep while watching a movie called something like A Man in The Wilderness, a movie revered in Big D's family, and it almost cost us the relationship. I think Big D still has hurt feelings over that. They take these things VERY seriously.


So anyway, the car is hot and stuffy and puttering along and you guessed it, I start puking all over the car. But this doesn't detract from their enthusiasm. In fact, they are so pumped up for the game I am not sure if anyone notices I am BARFING ON THE FLOOR of the car. GOOD TIMES!! Once in the stadium a harsh reality is upon us. The sun is beating down on the Browns side of the stadium and I am quickly adding sun stroke to my current bout of consumption. I excuse myself and head to the bathroom to make friends with the toilet. Ah, puking in public bathrooms, now that is classy (and has happened more than I care to admit). As I am puking, I realize that I really need to find a place to lie down and get out of the sun. So I go wandering the inner bowels of the stadium and stumble upon the clinic. I tell them that I am sick and need to lay down. The nurses look at me like, "Sure bitch, you are just drunk and can't hold your liqueur". But they let me lay down for 10 minutes. They actually time it and kick me off the cot at ten minutes and tell me that I either have to leave or go home. Go home? Not an option. Because if I pull Big D and say I was kicked out of the game for being sick, I would be headed to divorce court. Wow, the kindness of these medical professionals really astounds me. I am feeling the love. So I wander back to my seat where someone in the family starts taking photos of us all having a good time. And it seems everyone is completely oblivious to the fact that I am on death's door at this point. I am actually made to smile for the camera and I somehow manage to do it without vomiting--now that photo would have been a keeper!


So I am sitting there trying to meditate, praying I make it through this. And I begin noticing that Browns fans are particularly gross. For example, the people in front of me have two wild child brats. These kids have giant mats of nappiness for hair and the dad has some sort of skin disease that he keeps itching on and it starts bleeding. They are eating massive amounts of food and I am not kidding but the kids apparently don't know how to chew because as they are piling nachos and hotdogs into their mouths it just come tumbling out in chunks all over themselves and the seats and the floor and the hair of the people in front of them. And I realize I need to get out of there fast. So I spend most of the game sitting on the concrete in the hallway trying not to die. As the game nears an end (the Browns losing of course) I wander around a little and find that there is a whole picnic area on the first floor with chairs and tables and benches and shade and I could have sat there the whole time. And I am really pissed off at that point because the evil medical people could have told me that this place existed if they had a shred of humanity.


And then the game finally ends. Big D's family is pissed off and hating on the Chargers and making up reasons why the Browns lost yet another game. We make our way back to the car but we can't leave yet because there is no gas in the car so we have to wait until the parking lot empties until we can leave. This takes over an hour, maybe two. At this point, I no longer think I am dying, I want to die. Take me lord, take me now! We finally get in the car. Hallelujah! And now we have to find a place to get gas which for some reason takes an unholy amount of time. To top it of we follow Big D's Brother back to the condo and his Bro gets lost. It takes hours to get home. When we finally get home, I have to take the dogs out to pee because the boys need to finish watching football on TV before they can be bothered with the bathroom needs of the dogs. Someone orders Subway. We eat. I go to bed. Yeah, family vacations rule.

What Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

There is no pretty or poetic way to put this. Our finances suck. We are teetering on the edge of a financial abyss and we are not sure where the bottom is. And it SUCKS. Is it my fault because I "chose" to stay home with Nola? And I put "choose" in parenthesis because it wasn't really a choice as much as a necessity and the right thing for all of us but most importantly, the right thing for Nola. The fact is, I don't think I am to blame or should be blamed or should feel guilty (even though guilt certainly creeps into my head and heart often) because I know I made the right decision to stay at home with my child. She is happy and healthy and thriving and I don't think she would be the same child if she was away from me twelve hours a day and often more than that. My job was so far away from home. I just couldn't be that far from her. To me, it would have been irresponsible and cruel.



But I can't help being angry. We were the couple that did all the right things. I worked a job that wasn't "me" but it was stable and provided over half our income. We invested wisely. Paid our monumental student loans on time. Paid off credit card debt. Waited to have kids. Where did it get us? If I have any regrets, it is wasting all that time doing "the right things" when it didn't matter anyway. I wasted so many years in a job that took a little of my soul every day and driving a commute that I am pretty certain took years off my life. And all for naught. It is so demoralizing.

That said, I don't think I would change anything. Our successes and failures, our decisions good and bad, led us to Nola.

The Degradation of Conversation

A few statements that have come out of my mouth today.

Get out of her butt. --Said to the chihuahua Mateo who had his nose all up in Josie's (the mutt) business.

No, we don't eat dog food. --Said to Nola who has developed a fascination with the dog bowls. Hence, the next statement--

No, don't put your hand in there. It's yucky. --Said to Nola when she stuck her hand in the dog's water bowl.

Shoes don't go in the toilet. They go on your feet. --Said to Nola when she threw her shoe (fortunately an old shoe that no longer fits) into the toilet BEFORE I flushed it.

So, that is a snippet of my glamorous life.

The Baby

My little one is five weeks old. Breastfeeding is still challenging and it breaks my heart when she struggles with my milk flow. Something miraculous happened last night. She went five hours between feedings which meant that I got about four hours of straight sleep! Hallelujah. She is still very gassy most of the time. She is starting to recognize faces and voices which is amazing! Oh and she is the cutest baby ever.

38 Weeks!

Are You Ready?

People keep asking me if I am ready. The baby's room? Ready enough. The hospital bag? Thinking about it. Birth? It's not really up to me. A baby? Well, My boobs and diapers will be the most important things at first, so I guess I am as ready as I can be at this point.

Oh, and the carseat. We have the carseat. Though it is not in the car yet.

An Experience Beyond Words

Big D and I have been together a long time. I mean a loooonnnnngggg time and by LA standards even longer. When you have been married as long as we have or, to be more exacting, when you have been a married woman without children for as long as I have been you hear a lot of comments such as,

"I thought people only got married to have kids"

"When are you having kids?"

"Oh you have to have kids, it's the best."

"When are you getting pregnant, it's the most amazing thing ever!"

I could go on but you get the idea. When people who I know and care about inquired, I generally didn't mind the probing. In fact, whether or not you are going to have kids has been and continues to be a topic of conversation that I have with many of my close friends and family members because it is such a big part of the human experience. But when people who could care less about who I am as a human being, like women from the work pit, asked, I often wanted to retort something like, "Well, I'm infertile, if you must know" or "Well the cocaine habit isn't so great for fetuses I've heard and my husband has low sperm count" I mean, what if I really did have a fertility issue or a drug habit or my husband had low sperm count? Wouldn't these questions then be considered incredibly insensitive? Fortunately, none of these were an issue for us. In fact, having gotten pregnant after one cycle off the pill after being on it my entire adult life pretty much squashed my long held fears of infertility and Big D is clearly a stud in the sperm count department and my drug habit was generally limited to red wine and dirty martinis.

But now I realize that there is something more to the questions. Pregnancy is something you can't quite put into words. You can talk about the growing belly, the morning sickness, the aches and pains, the kicks and turns, but it is impossible to fully explain what it feels like to have your body become an incubator for another human being. Before I got pregnant, I knew it would be something to experience but I didn't get the glow in the eyes of mothers asking when I was going to have a baby. I never really got the way they would tear up when recounting their own pregnancy and motherhood or why they would have such an interest in my own reproduction timeline. But I get it now. My cynical rational side tries to keep me in check...It's something any woman can do. It's not like it's finding a cure for cancer or running a business or being a gold medal athlete. But I am in the club now and I get it. It is powerful beyond description and women inquire about other women's pregnancy status because it is their way of sharing this experience beyond words.

I have to admit that I have caught myself recently doing the same thing in conversations with couples who don't yet have kids. I've actually heard lines such as this come out of my mouth:

"Do you guys think you'll have kids?"

"Pregnancy is the most amazing thing ever"

"It's really something you have to experience"

I've limited the conversation to those people that I actually know and care about and who are interested in taking part in a conversation about this. I'm not running up to recently married co-workers and asking them to get on the baby track. Although I did give an extra copy I had of What to Expect When Your Expecting to a co-worker who was just about to get married. But she had informed me that she was on the baby track before I offered so that's OK isn't it?

movietime

Half-Life has been such a long journey for everyone closely involved in it's making. When Big D sent out the RSVP to the LA premiere of the movie at LAFF, I was surprised by how many family members decided to come into town to see the movie. They have heard us talking about it for years and followed the ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs and ups of making the little indie film that could along with us. It is really cool to have both sides of our family show up this week to support Big D, the film, and ultimately our vision for how we want to live our lives--as creative people who are not afraid to take risks and to share our successes and failures with friends and family. Ultimately, it's the connections with the people in our lives that create the meaning behind the work.

The Belly

27 Weeks

28 Weeks

A Couple Dog Photos

The Weeks of Our Lives

My life is being measured week by week at the moment. I'm at nine weeks or am I supposed to say in my ninth week? I haven't quite figured out that nuance out yet. Week seven was scary because I had the flu and was sick for ten days. Then during week eight, I had light brownish spotting on Tuesday and totally freaked out. My doctor's office was not concerned and told me this is pretty normal during the first trimester. I haven't had any spotting since and my other pregnancy symptoms (nausea, sore boobs, extreme exhaustion) seem to be progressing right along. One of the weirder aspects so far is that I welcome things like nausea and indigestion because they are my only markers right now that everything is going right.

Jason brought his one-year-old daughter over yesterday afternoon. We sat outside (well we sat and little A explored our yard--she is fearless) and enjoyed the SoCal weather--70's and clear blue skies. They are moving out of state soon, which makes Big D and I pretty sad, but we are really happy for them. Big D and I have also had some serious conversations about leaving Los Angeles. My work schedule is so crazy that I know things will have to change. And frankly, I've waited long enough to have kids, I really have no intention of turning my baby over to a stranger for ten hours a day while I go off to a job I hate. The main reason that I am still there is because my health insurance is through my job. Our hope is for Big D to find a new job with health insurance so that I can be on his plan. But even still, Los Angeles is so expensive and our modest home i.e. mortgage combined with outrageous student loan debt make it necessary for both of us to work to survive. Out of state, we would have so much more wiggle room financially plus the possibility of living near family, which is something that I crave more and more the older I get. With many of our friends leaving Los Angeles, it's starting to get a little lonely around here.

Eight Weeks

Well, it's been a month since returning to work so that accounts for my absence from blogging. I thought my first posts back would be about Sundance. And I'll get to that eventually. But the big news for me is that I am pregnant. I am very early--eight weeks, and I know that means that I am not yet supposed to be sharing the news. But the fact is it is all I care about right now. As you know, turning 34 was a huge wake up call for me. In light of everything I read about infertility, I got really concerned about having been on the pill for my entire adult life and having no sense of what my cycle was like without hormones artificially regulating it for me every month. I worried about difficulty getting pregnant and figured it would be best to go off the pill and get real with my body. Well, I had one cycle off the pill and then got pregnant. I took a pregnancy test in January and it was positive. Last week, I had the first ultrasound and saw a heartbeat. I am feeling nauseous and extremely tired. My doctor says these are good signs.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving isn't my favorite holiday. Much of this could be because I don't eat meat and well, it's a holiday that's all about the bird. Or my lack of interest could be attributed to having spent most of my adult life partnered to a man who grew up on an Indian Reservation (where, needless to say, it's not a much celebrated holiday). Or maybe it's one of those holidays, like Christmas, that I don't think I will have much interest in until I have kids. I know, I know, it's a time to celebrate with family and friends. And I can't complain about having the time off from work which, if I include the weekend, is five whole days straight! Still, every year that passes, these holidays whisper clearer and clearer to me that something is missing.

Talkin' 'Bout My G-Generation

I went to two different b-day parties this weekend. One on Sat. One on Sun. Both for 1-year old girls. One of the girls is the daughter of old friends, college days, undergrad. days. The other little cherub is the daughter of new friends, neighbors.

Both parties were sweet and low key and made up of friends eating cupcakes and singing happy b-day. Joyful and loving and simple. And I am proud of my g-generation. Gen-nice.

Introducing Josie

Our family just got bigger. We adopted a puppy from a rescue organization this weekend. Big D found her on petfinder.com on Sunday and we passed our house inspection later that afternoon and then drove down to Carlsbad that evening to pick her up from her foster family.

She is part golden retriever/part German Shepherd. Although, that is just what they tell us and I secretly suspect she might be part horse. Needless to say, she is going to be a big dog. She has a sweet submissive personality and wants to please.

Big D Got a Grill

Big D has a hard time buying things. If a were to play shrink (and this is my wifely duty, right?) I would say this comes from a mix a childhood variables. First, he grew up on a Reservation and though it may be a derogatory term off the rez, "Indian time" does exist on the Reservation. Things don't happen fast. That's more of a western way of being. You know, I'm talking about the whole "if I want it I need it now" mentality. Whereas, on the rez, 'now' is at least an hour and a half in any direction. So, you have to really consider if you want it that bad to uproot an entire day to get it. Life just has a different pace there. A house might take years to get built or maybe never get completely built and, well, so what? Secondly, Big D's parents were pretty big on not buying things you don't absolutely need--maybe too much on this side. Have you ever noticed that if you swing too far in one direction, you end up completely on the other side? In other words, a couple of free spirited, live off the land hippies can wind up rigid controlling tightwads if they hold too closely to any one way of being.

I could go on with my shrinkville analysis, but it isn't really fair to Big D, so I'll just mention this and then move on...Big D has been looking at grills for about a year and a half, ever since our old grill went caput. He wasn't looking for anything fancy just something simple to grill shit up on and there have been several close buying calls but we always came home defeated without a grill.

So in a recent trip to the ol' home depot Big D said, "let's look at grills when we go" and I said, "Only if you are actually going to buy one. Otherwise, I never want to look at another grill ever again." While at the depot we bought the garden hose we needed, some Damp rid, and priced some wood for a fence we want to build, and then, to my astonishment, Big D actually bought a grill. It's totally basic but an upgrade from our last grill and we have been using it since we bought it. The first night we made the obligatory hamburgers (black bean burger for me), then grilled salmon and grilled asparagus and grilled pineapple for dessert the following evening, and then shrimp fajitas--and I actually took some pics of this grilling episode:

The next night we made burgers again (using the leftovers from grilled shrimp fajita night as toppings). Tonight Big D and I agreed that we should order Indian food.

Stop Taunting Me - I Hate You Norton Antivirus

HOW DO I MAKE IT NOT DO THIS? STOP CONTROLLING ME YOU NORTON PARENTS--I HATE YOU. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ME--I DON'T HAVE KIDS. MY FIFTEEN YEAR OLD SELF STOMPS UP NON-EXISTENT STAIRS TO POUT. INVISIBLE DOOR SLAMS. GO TO HELL NORTON!

Challenge

It may seem as though I have been swallowed into the vortex of negativity lately...but I have been up to a few cool things. The most important and most pressing at the moment is this...

http://www.mymschallenge.com/amelala

I am walking in the MS Challenge Walk this September 7-9. It's a fifty mile walk from Carlsbad to San Diego and the mission is to raise money for MS research. My goal is to raise $2500. The reason I am doing this walk is that my sister has this awful degenerative disease. She was diagnosed when she was fifteen and is now 31. Her entire adult life has been spent dealing with this debilitating illness and the frustrating array of symptoms that it brings...you name it...muscle weakness, numbness, memory loss, blindness, and the list goes on. She'll often say to me, "Hey you know smart people, can you ask them to find a cure for this?" It breaks my heart because the smart people I know write screenplays, edit reality shows, and teach rich kids. And so when she asks me this I feel like a total blowhard inept loser. Here she is struggling every day just to get out of bed, fold clothes, do her hair, not be in a wheelchair, and I am depressed?

Anyway, this is something I can do. Well, the walking part at least. The fundraising part is my personal challenge. I have a hard time asking for help so this has been a new experience for me and as much as I hope to raise a few bucks for MS and show my support and commitment to my sis, I have a feeling I will learn a few things about myself along the way.

de·pres·sion [di-presh-uhn]

It's starting. It will reach it's full incubation stage at about 4:00 PM on Sunday and just continue throughout the evening and then it will fester until sometime in July.

It's easy for me to find things to like about about my job, all the "right" things, like a decent salary, benefits, and lots of time off, when I am at the beginning of a vacation. But as Sunday approaches and I have to go back, the depression about what I am doing with my life sets in.

And then my parents are stopping through today and tomorrow on their way to a cruise. This doesn't make it any better. They'll spend the time pointing out all the stuff that is wrong with my house and follow that conversation by telling me all the things they need to change with their house (a brand new home that they have decorated and redecorated about 5 zillion times--I'm estimating here--in their two years of living there). Thanks mom and dad and while your at it could you drive a nail in my head and maybe kick big D in the sac a few times?