Let me eat cake

I took a nap today and I dreamed of cake.  All sorts of cakes.  Lemon cake with little moist lemon pieces, carrot cake with moist carrot pieces, chocolate cake, white cake, plain cakes and fancy cakes.  And there were cupcakes too with all sorts of colorful frosting tops.  For some reason I could never get any bites to my mouth.  They all kept falling off my fork or out of my hands.  I could almost taste the butter cream frosting of an American cupcake, but then oops, it was on the floor.

I have no idea of the meaning, but when I get home, after the burrito, the Round Table chicken garlic pizza, and the gyoza, I’m getting cake.

Speaking of Clothes

Anyone ever have that dream where everyone sees you naked?  Well, guess what?  Everyone can see me naked.

In all my glory.

Tatiana, photographer extraordinaire, got me to drop it all (sober) in the name of art.  Now those photos are going to be in a book of erotic real women.  She got a call for photos of real women, not skinny models and knowing that I consider myself real, asked me to drop trou.  So I did.

I could only do this because of my absolute trust in that woman.  I knew she’d get rid of the bad pictures and if the whole thing didn’t work, she’d just toss the lot.  She told me how to stand, tilt and hold my boobs so they didn’t appear to need a lift.

It was one of the most empowering days of my life. I felt sexy and beautiful in a way I haven’t before.  Oh and it was just Tat and I so that helped a lot. If her husband had been there, well, different story.  By the end of the day, I was just running around naked in heels without a thought or worry.

If you would like to be a part of Tatiana’s on-going series, drop her a note.  She’s moving back to the states at the beginning of January, but there is still time.  I promise you, you will not feel uncomfortable… after about an hour.  And she goes with YOUR level of comfort, not hers.  And she’s just a fantastic photographer.

Seriously, think about it.  If she can make me look that good, think of what she can do for you.

Currently Starring in “What Not to Wear – Airplane Edition”

I always forget how cold it has to be for it to snow. I really love the snow, but I freeze my rosy bum off.

Burr. It’s so pretty. Thanks, Deutschland, for snowing before I leave.

Seriously, things are going far too well right now. Sparky and I are great, Loki is great. Family is great. Everyone is healthy and happy.

I’m not one who can really enjoy the good stuff as I wait for the other shoe to fall.

I’m preparing for my trip to Cali which is just around the corner, like days away. Next week I’ll be there.

The flight has me a bit freaked out. My real family didn’t upgrade my ticket from Peasant to Princess, so I’ll be looking longingly at the blue curtain as the scent of fresh baked cookie wafts towards me. I’m close enough to the blue curtain that I’ll be able to hear the clink clink of real silverware and not plastic sporks that taste like pepper.

And I’ll be awake for the whole flight because with my darling little Loki riding in his first class accommodations, I cannot take my ritual Nyquil. I miss Nyquil.

So I have a clothing question. Can I get away with super thick leggings for the flight if I wear a long enough top that covers my butt?

I only have one pair of pants that fit. Well sort of fit. They’re loose everywhere except for the belly. I unbutton them, but they fall down, even with a bella band. And I hate pulling up my pants all the time when I’m sitting. So I figured I’d wear the leggings under a skirt that I have that is also too tight after about an hour of sitting. Then once on the plane I can remove the skirt, put on a long sweatshirt (cashmere, of course) and snuggle in for the flight. I’d have a decent outfit for the airport and for when I arrive, but for the 12 hours of peasant class, I could be as totally physically comfortable as one can really be when flying “eco”.

I’ll have to get up and go to the bathroom a bunch of times not to mention the walking around. So I will actually be seen. But should I care?

And really, its not like a.) I’m a celebrity who will be pounced on by the paparazzi or b.) anyone on that plane is going to give a rat’s ass. We’re all uncomfortable and pissy back there after 8 hours anyway. I suppose by wearing said leggings I can give someone an object for their vitriol. I could re-frame this situation as a community service.

This is the payback for being such a snot about other people outfits, I suppose. But still. Leggings? I have this belief that if you wore something the first time it came into style, you should by no means wear it when it comes back into fashion. Leggings, my friend, I abused you in my youth. Dare I again wear you in public?

Yet another way to totally fuck up your kid.

Bronx Mowgli? Come on.

Being a “Jennifer”, I am sensitive to curse of the common name.  I have always wanted my kids to have something unusual, but not Inspektor Pilot type unusual.

Loki named himself long ago, long before I was pregnant and long before I started even trying (not Loki – that’s his nickname while in utero). I just kind of figured “M” would show up and I was just waiting for him.  We’ve gone through other names and we always come back to this one specific name.  I’ll name him here on HeisseScheisse after he’s born because I do have some superstitions.

However, the close second name we tossed around?

Lucius Kain Massana von R.*

I know, not a whole lot better than Bronx Mowgli, but we both like Lucius because of Lucius D. Clay. And when you add the Kain Massana von R. it becomes a really cool superhero/villain name, but kind of a mouthful.  The Massana von R part is the last name.  My kids will have my last name too.  He can go simply by von R. if he wants.

We’re not actually doing it because everyone started calling him Lucifer.  His name is far more common and easily pronounced in both languages.  If he wants to be a superhero/villain, he can use his middle name.

My brother is deeply saddened that we have opted not to use Optimus.

What are some of the names you’ve thought of and not used?  You can totally call those names still for future children or pets and by the law of “Calling” no one can use them without your permission.

*Miranda – I’m officially still calling Lucius in case the next kid is a boy and I promise not to use Jack or Gabe.

I’ve always thought I was more the Miss Scarlett type

Me: So I’ve registered for the baby shower. Do you think I’ll need more than 4 bottles? I’m planning on breastfeeding so…

Auntie P: (hysterical laughter) Uh, yeah, you’ll need more. You didn’t register for any blankets.

Me: Well, I have two. Will I need more than that?

Auntie P: (more hysterical laughter)

My step-mom is throwing me a baby shower when I’m home. For this I am eternally grateful. My aunties are checking and double checking my registry. Apparently it is the skimpiest saddest registry they’ve ever seen. After a flurry of e-mails and phone calls, I’m now on the right track with more blankets and bibs and bottles.

Apparently, I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ babies.

Bodily Functions

I woke up this morning to THAT DAMN CAT horking up some odd thing, (including a stick), on the bed next to Sparky’s head. Sparky woke up when Scrunchy jumped up on the bed to eat the Ollie puke. Sparky guarded said hork until I was able to get back in with paper towels.

As I cleaned it up, I serenaded Sparky with Cat Stevens’s “Morning Has Broken”. He dove under his pillow with a muffled “THIRTY more minutes”.

Shortly after, I pooped.

I know, you didn’t need nor want to know that, but let me tell you, it’s news around here. Great news. It’s been a while. An apparent side effect of pregnancy. You know how when you’re single and you haven’t had sex in a long time and then you do and all your friends notice that hi-pro glow and ask what’s different and you can’t do anything but smile a lot. Well, that what it was like for me this morning, but not with sex. I was so excited by pooping, one would think I was East German.

Sparky, who had gone back to sleep after the horking episode, woke up to me singing an impromptu little ditty about pooping.

The secret to pregnant pooping? Magnesium, Calcium and Potassium all mixed into a tiny little pill – Zentra.min Bast.ian, you know, with out the (.). I’ve been popping those pills like Pete Doherty on his way to court.

I’m currently on the phone with Sony trying to get my Vaio/Vista machine fixed yet again. This is the 2nd time I’m sending it in. Last time it took me a week of phone calls before anyone would take it and only then after I started crying on the phone that no one would help me.

Last year, it was a 30 day repair window and my mother-in-law had to wait for three days for them to show up and I had to pay for shipping. Yes, I have all the extended, world-wide warranties, but for some reason it didn’t seem to matter.

This time, not so hard. They’ll pick it up tomorrow and deliver it within 5 business days. I’m waiting for them to show up and demand a cat or a kid or something because this was far too easy. Far, far too easy. As long as they don’t take away my ability to poop, we’re all good.

M&M’s have been found to reduce weight in pregnant ladies, right?

I feel sick. I ate too many M&M’s. I’m feeling fat and we all know that eating too much candy is a perfect way to combat feeling fat. My boobs are massive and it seems overnight my stomach has its own zip code and that zip code is right next to the zip code my boobs inhabit.

I’m only in the last week of my fourth month. What am I going to look like next month or god forbid in 5 months? I spent two years losing close to 200 lbs. Then I spent 6 months on fertility drugs to get pregnant. It’s not like I didn’t know I’d be gaining weight, but it was more in theory. I guess it’s like finally realizing that the pregnancy doesn’t end with a “Beam him out, Scotty” kind of thing. Only after getting pregnant did I fully realize that the end of this ride was painful – no matter how it’s done. Only now am I realizing I’m going to get fat again. I hated being fat and it’s not like I have ever been skinny, but I had gotten into a size 16 jean and that was quite the accomplishment from where I had been.

I feel like I’m supposed to really embrace this time, enjoy my new body, but you know what? It’s just my old body. I walked hundreds of kilometres to get away from that body. I went on an all liquid diet for two months (Dr. prescribed and observed). I didn’t even look at a carbohydrate for 2.5 years. You couldn’t even say the word “carb” around me. It was protein shakes and lean meats and veggies. The motivator was trying on my clothes as I lost weight and doing one of those step-into-one-of-the-legs-of-my-old-jeans kind of thing to keep me going.

Now? I can’t diet, but I’m eating healthily. I’m still on limited exercise because we want Loki to stay where he is, so it’s not like I can sweat it out to the oldies.

I’ve gained 6 pounds in this pregnancy so far, but it looks like so much more. How does that work? My face is plumper and my boobs. Jesus. Sparky looked at me the other night and said. “Wow. Loki certainly isn’t going to starve.”

I had no hopes of that cute basketball belly. Losing 200 pounds leaves its mark, but I thought that maybe I could look pregnant and not just fat.

I’m going home in 2 weeks and for the last three years, I’ve gone home looking better and better. This year, not so much. And I swear, if anyone tries to touch my stomach, I’ll deck them.

So yeah, I’ve eaten the entire bag of M&M’s. Sparky is at the gym and I’m going to go fold the clothes that no longer fit and be grateful that I didn’t get rid of all my fat pants because honey, even the fat jeans are looking a little tight.

Winter

Resistance is observed when an animal endures winter but changes in ways such as color and musculature. The color of the fur or plumage are changed to white in order to be confused with snow and thus, to retain their cryptic coloration year round. Examples are the ptarmigan, the arctic fox, the weasel, the white-tailed jack rabbit or the mountain hare. – Wikipedia

Winter is here in Boweltown. You see it in the trees. When summer turns to fall, the trees turn, yes. But this is different. As a California girl, I never experienced more than the liquid maple trees lining our streets turning and the falling leaves giving the gardeners more work in raking them up. Pretty and comment worthy, but not all that special. Fall was marked more by the dew on the grass marking our shoes as we left for school in the morning or the need to wear one more layer.

But here, in Boweltown, my house is surrounded by mixed forests – deciduous getting friendly with evergreens, plumping the scenery, giving depth to what seems like a movie set at times.

One day the trees are the deep dark green of late summer and the very next day golden delicious. Then the next day the colours deepen. The ivies turn crimson and the forests varied shades of red, orange and yellow, like a black and white movie colorized in Technicolour by an overzealous editor. As fall deepens, the colours remind me of my sister’s burnished red hair. I think of her every day as I drive to the store, walk in the fields. The wind in the trees like her hair when she walks.

Every day is more beautiful then the next. I can’t help but to think it simply cannot get any more beautiful and yet it does, squeezing my heart out of sheer wonder, seeing time pass before my eyes.

California girls never notice time until the lines on our foreheads and the crinkles of our eyes inform us that we are no longer 19-years-old and perhaps we should wear our skirts a little longer. Our summers are marked by festivals – Cinco de Mayo, Bastille Day. We know autumn is upon us during the sunny weekend of the Folsom Street Fair. In San Francisco, we know its autumn because the cashmere is put out on display and there are more varieties of tights.

In Boweltown, every day is a reminder that time is moving and there is nothing you can do but hold on to the memory of the moment when the wind gently blows through the forest, a cacophony of colours rain down into the meadow.

Then one day, they’re gone, those leaves, lining our sidewalks instead of our heavens, leaving the trees cold and naked. Winter is here. The dull grey of the sky no longer offsets the rainbow of autumn. It is the leaden backdrop of a long, dark winter. The trees had warned of its coming, but the beauty of autumn can fool you into believing, like youth, it’ll always be there. Before you know it, you’re forty and frosted and sitting on a barstool wondering what happened to the glory days, they were just here.

I imagine wartime Germany in winter. The colours are those of military machines and despair. The sun and the animals disappear until March and I don’t blame them. In my area, the hunters find deer and wild boar and shots occasionally echo in my meadow providing perhaps too much fodder for my wartime simile.

The rain falls in apathetic drops, not caring enough to rage, but present enough to wish that it would. Deep into winter we get an occasional snow, a reward for holding on for so long to the gray world. Like three dimensions to the denizens of Flatland, snow shocks us, titillates and then is gone, leaving only a vague feeling of something more.

This is one of the lessons Germany has taught me. Time passes, seasons change and they don’t ask your permission. But rather than fearing the change, I’ve learned to enjoy the moment, learn what my puny brain can and look forward to the next.

I used to live my life like I was body surfing. Swim out far and deep because that is how you get the longest ride, the best waves, but know that a big one is coming that you can’t dive beneath and it will knock you out. I learned very young how to hold my breath and let the water move me as it wanted because you get hurt fighting a wave. If you just let it take you in, let yourself go as fluid as the water, you’ll be okay.

Germany, perhaps being as landlocked as I am, has taught me a different lesson, a gentler lesson. As the wrinkles around my eyes and the lines across my forehead remind me of my days in the sun, Germany reminds me to pay attention to the sweet saltiness of the moment. And I am.

Loki, Loki Artichokie

So, this pregnancy thing, I’m still on the fence about it. Apparently, for me, it’s one big worry fest that will never cease. I’m not quite sure I’m liking it, but I can tell you I’m fur shur liking the kid. I’m digging his personality. I love it when he swims away from the Doppler or when he waves and then flips over during the ultra sound. I like it when he jab-jabs me if I sit in a position that must be squishing him. And I love that he’s always doing what’s not convenient. He’s got spunk and gumption. At least I like it while he’s five inches and stuck in utero. I’m sure it’ll prove to be my undoing later.

I had the amnio. I couldn’t make the decision. I was just a mess of anxiety about making the right choice, so Sparky and my Dr. made the decision. It’s really nice to have a partner in this to help out when I’m useless. Before I knew it, it was done.

I was a bit worried about the 50″ needle plunging halfway through my body, but my doctor took care of that. He asked me about Sarah Palin just before he stuck me. I was still sputtering in indignation by the time he had finished. I didn’t feel a thing except for a bit of pressure.

Then he told me that was what labor would be like, you think it’ll hurt, but it doesn’t. I asked him if he had a vagina because I suspected labor and childbirth were somewhat more painful than a 30 second procedure.

I told him I wanted drugs just to TALK about labor. He told me that really, I’d not even feel it. Having just watched Knocked Up for the 4^th time, I doubted that. I mean really, if you can’t count on Hollywood to depict child birth accurately, who can you trust?

He referred me to his female colleague, another doctor, who told me that it hurt, a lot, but you forget it quickly. Well, except for the stitches. Yeah, there is a bit of an incontinence issue too.

Uh, hello? This is exactly why I want a c-section. There seems to be this conspiracy between my team of doctors to get me into NATURAL childbirth – not just no c-section, but no drugs either. They don’t quite get the idea that I hate nature, in all its forms. I don’t walk through forests that aren’t paved, what makes anyone think that I’m going embrace “the most fulfilling experience a woman can have.” Yes, he said that. Obviously, he’s never gone shoe shopping with a wealthy lover. That was pretty fulfilling to me.

I’m going to fight that fight when I get back from the states. I might not get my c-section, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to go without drugs. I’m not doing it and I might be all nice about it right now, but don’t push me into that corner. Not happening.

So, the initial tests came back from the amnio – ALL CLEAR. Loki is as healthy as an avocado-sized-16-week-in-utero can be. I had a freak-out after the amnio that I’ll write about when I’m more in the mood to relive the panic and terror of thinking I was leaking amniotic fluid and had killed the little guy with the amnio I had to make sure he was healthy. Not today. Today I’m too happy.

So, the day America welcomed Obama as our President-Elect, I found out that Sparky and I are welcoming a little boy. I have to say November 5^th was a gold star day.

It turns out that Loki was not the only baby conceived after that wedding. Looks like the bride got knocked up too. I’m tellin’ you, lots of red wine, lots of flirting and The Sisters of Mercy go a long way.

Can I never talk about Palin again?

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

I promise you, we as a people will get there.”

So, the world has changed a bit since the last time I checked in.

Can you read the transcript of The Grant Park speech and not be moved?  Can you watch it and not cry tears of joy and hope and all that good stuff that sits in the center of your chest congesting you with what?  what’s that?  Happiness?

Oops, excuse me.  I just ate a grilled cheese sandwich while talking on the phone and I always get a little sick when I eat too fast.  Just a sec.

I, like everyone else I know, am so proud that America elected Obama.  So proud. I stayed up all night watching the election.  I fell asleep before the first polls closed and woke up shortly after to the numbers of 11 to McCain and 3 to Obama.  After that I couldn’t sleep I was so worried.  Between my laptop and the four English news channels, I kept updated.  Did anyone else notice that the British channels were ahead in the numbers as compared to the American channels?  I woke Sparky at 8 to let him know the good news.

Did anyone else find Jesse Jackson a little disingenuous?  I mean, he wanted to “cut his nuts off” a year ago.

However, I have to say, my joy was bittersweet.  Not because Obama was anything less than spectacular or that his speech didn’t bring me to tears or the absolute hope I feel that we are a new America, but because California disappointed me.

Prop 8 passed.

Looking back and reading all the 4 million articles about why it didn’t, only makes me more upset.  The injustice of it burns.  All those people who voted to eliminate the established right to gay marriage can go about their lives as if nothing happened because nothing did for them. But the funny horrible thing is, had it not passed, they could have gone about their lives like nothing happened because, in their lives, nothing would have changed. And the Mor(m)on church has the gall to say, “it’s nothing personal.”

The passing of that Prop 8 is horribly, terribly personal.  It horribly, terribly affected the lives of every gay person in California and the lives of those who love them.  And the kids?  How’s that for a family value?  Committed love is only love if it fits into our moral pigeon hole or if you wear secret blessed by god underwear.

I totally agree with Melissa Etheridge.  If gays and lesbians don’t have the right to marry, don’t have the same benefits of a committed relationship that straight people have, why should they pay the same amount in State taxes?

I just don’t understand.  I can’t understand it and the injustice pushes me to frustrated tears every time I think about it.

Ollie just knocked over my glass of cherry pomegranate juice.  I have to go make cat soup after I clean the red stain from my floor.

Come back tomorrow for happier news, Loki news.  Boy or girl news.  Place your bets.