Laughter and Forgetting

What the fuck is wrong with some people?

When I state that I am a misanthrope, my friends say that this is not true. I may have a low tolerance for morons, but I generally like people, they insist. But sometimes I wonder.

I am the kind of person who knew years before I even thought about being a mother, that I could not belong to a Cooperative pre-school. I knew that even if most of the parents were great, there would be one annoying parent that I would want to throttle every time they opened their mouth.

So despite peer pressure from friends, I have stayed true to myself. Although I have been occasionally tempted by cooperative schools because they seem so...nice, I chose an elementary school that was not cooperative but encourages lots of parent participation. My son's elementary school is particularly liberal and politically correct, the focus is on mixed age classrooms, with a particular "emphasis on diversity" and social and emotional development. (Let's just say there's a transgendered kid in his k-1 class.) It's a lovely place, very creative and inviting, but also academically challenging for my son. He has the most amazing teacher I've ever seen. I wish he could have her every year.

BUT. As you can imagine, this kind of school can attract a kind of over-thinking liberal parent. You know the type; the ones that never let their child play a game where the end result is that someone actually wins or loses (horrors!). The type of parent that if their child was tantrumming in the middle of a family party, would never send the child to their room to calm down because that would be "emotionally abandoning" their child. Instead this parent would spend 20 minutes talking with their child about their EMOTIONS in the middle of the living room, as family members were forced to look on.

Personally,I never spank my child, I don't think it's really productive, nor is it a good way to teach children to not express their anger physically. However, unlike the kind of parent I describe, I do not consider the occasional swat on the bottom to be some kind of physical and mental abuse.

To each his own, though. Whatever works. I just don't want to have to be on the same school committee as those parents.

Whenever you volunteer for committees at school, it's always a bit of a crap shoot. My first experience was great - coordinating the classroom art project for the auction. We were a great team and I made three new friends of the parents involved. And then there was the grandparents/seniors tea. Mostly good, although the woman who chaired the event was insanely particular. I swear to God, you couldn't move a napkin without her approval. For the same event, there was a woman who decided to bring her deviled egg fixings to the school and make them there. I should add here that the school's galley kitchen is apartment-sized, not mcmansion-sized. There were ten parent volunteers getting trays and teapots ready, and this woman with her mixer and bowls splattering hard-boiled eggs everywhere. I heard later from the school's director that the woman had made them at home last year, but that they had "gotten mushed" on the way to school. I just thought " Have you hear of that new-fangled invention called tupperware, lady?"

Which brings me to my latest committee. The fall festival committee. Everything was going great with the two other parents and myself, until the frizzy-haired granola woman showed up. Up to this point I had thought that fhgw was kind of cute. She had warmed my heart and tapped into my adoption radar because she has a biological daughter that is around six, and a clearly Chinese girl that looks to be about 18 months. But within minutes of her sitting down I knew we were in trouble. When I suggested a Halloween bingo game for the kids that used the letters G-H-O-S-T, instead of B-I-N-G-O. She scrunched up her face all funny and said, "I don't have much experience with Bingo. Is it just numbers??" I said, well yeah, it's Bingo, so instead of B4, it would be G4." Fhgw's confused looked remained, but was accentuated by slightly disturbed look. "I don't know...It's just numbers?" she said.
"pretty much," I said. "Well if YOU guys like that, but I'd much rather do something more cooperative."

I had actually wondered whether Bingo was appropriate anyways, because it's gambling, not because her 6 year would get bored. I could give a flip whether we played Bingo or not, but I guarantee you, if you have a roomful of people aged from 6 to 96, and you give everyone a Bingo card with the possibility that they can win something - anything - you will have roomful of avid Bingo players. I've seen it happen.

We dropped the Bingo idea and moved on to a variety of other activities, all of which had to be assessed though the prism of their educational, social and developmental merits. When a cake walk was suggested, fhgw was concerned about giving out cupcakes, because her daughter is wheat and glucose intolerant, in fact BOTH of her daughters, both the biological and adopted one, have a plethora of food allergies. Of course they do, fhgw. During the five minute conversation that followed I truly started to lose patience.

FHGW was also concerned that the potluck portion of the party was from 4pm-6pm, as that was right before dinner. She was very concerned about everyone's children filling up on junk. "For fuck's sake, lady," was all I could think, "Just bring your own damned food." What really sent me over the edge was when she suggested that everyone who brings food should also bring a label to put on their food containers that contained all of the ingredients within. I suggested putting out a general reminder to keep in mind that there are nut, wheat and glucose allergies at the school and if you have a good recipe that omits those ingredients it would be great to make it. She insisted, "No, I don't want people to limit themselves, if they can just write all (my italics) of the ingredients down and label their food.."

When the meeting came to it's merciful end, I was deeply, deeply relieved to distance myself from fhgw before I fucked up and said somehing snottily sarcastic.

Later in the evening, after I had vented to my husband, I happened to pick up the school roster. FHGW's daughter has a first name that is spelled traditionally, but has an unusual pronunciation. Almost everybody pronounces this name with the accent on the first syllable, but this family puts the accent on the second syllable. Every single day of her life this kid is going to correcting people on the pronunciation of her name. But as I looked closer at the roster, I noticed something else. The daughter's last name was an amalgamation of her parents last names. For example, if the mother's last name was Coleman, and the father's last name was Burton, the child's name was Coleburt. Coleburt, as well as this child's name probably exists somewhere, but again, is an unusual spelling. I mean if you heard the name Coleburt, wouldn't you instinctively spell it Colbert? Is it just me? This kid is going to be explaining her name over and over and over again. But if she's anything like her mom when she grows, rambling on about herself may be something that she delights in.

So now I'm worried, because fhgw is on the set-up committee. I don't know. What do you think, am I a misanthrope, or are some people just plain nuts?

scratch that

Remember what I said in my last post? That I had a"flexible and well-paid" job?

Scratch that. I got laid off today. My bosses couldn't have been nicer about it. They felt awful. They actually said "We love you." They also asked if I would stay on and complete the project that I am in the middle of. So I will get severance AND also get freelancing fees. Quite nice of them, really. They offered to write letters of recommendation, make calls, whatever they could do.

I just hadn't realize how bad the behind the scenes economics were. It had been slow, but we just won a substantial account that I thought would postpone any lay-offs, or at least minimize them. But five people were laid off today. In a company of 18 employees. And my boss tells me they will still be in the red. Ouch.

Lay-offs in the advertising world are as commonplace as copier breakdowns. Clients come and go. And consequently work flows come and go. Yet it still feels mighty shitty.

I am tired of feeling shitty. I'm tired of the stress. I am Burnt Out on bad shit.

Dedicated to Cancer, Baby

I don't believe in God. At least not in the traditional "there is one higher power that sees all" kind of way. And if I did believe in a God, I wouldn't believe that God had a sex, that it would be a He or a She.

I do believe that Chaos affects our lives more than any other force, and that events in our life are not preordained. However, I believe there are things beyond my understanding, that there are forces of positivity and negativity that are too complex for me even to imagine. I believe some things happen that are beyond rational explanation. I think we have something like a soul, or a spirit, or an energy that has it's own force, although I do not know what that force is. It's that word "spirituality," that can be defined so broadly by so many different people that it is impossible to pin down. I also think that it borders on arrogance to think that we know what lies beyond. I mean how can Christians be more right than Buddhists? Or Buddhists more right than Muslims? But that's an entire conversation on its own.

Oddly enough, I believe in the power of, for want of a better word, prayer. Because I believe that the mind has great power, and if we can see a crack of light in the distance, we can be carried a very long way on those rays of light. I just don't believe, that if we pray hard enough, God will grant us our wishes.

I am often aware of the tininess of my existence. I feel like I am a minute cell in the workings of an infinite universe, a universe that is so large I cannot possibly step back and pretend to understand it, and its inner workings. Much like the cells in my own body, which merrily carry on with their duties, having no idea of their impact. And yet, as insignificant as I know I am, I take great comfort in the miraculousness of my own life. I feel that the fact that I can put one foot in front of the other, that I can put words on a page, is as difficult to comprehend as infinity.

I am deeply saddened by what is happening to Cancer Baby. If you haven't read her previous posts, please do it now. She is an amazing person and writer whose life is getting stolen from her by ovarian cancer.

Now, as I am experiencing the pending death, from cancer, of my very dear mother-in-law, I have been thinking a lot about my own spirituality. I know my mother-in-law wishes that I believed in God the way that she does. But I don't. However, I did share a story with her this weekend that was told to me by a good friend when my mother-in-law was diagnosed several months ago. That friend is one of the few people I know that read my blog - so I must apologize in advance to her for any details of the story that I get wrong. I hope I can communicate the essence of it.

My friend L lost her very best friend from childhood, Ann, to lung cancer, about five years ago. Ann was in her mid to late thirties, and had two very small children. She had never smoked. Ann fought for as long as she could, but it became evident, eventually, that this was not a battle she was going to win. A couple of weeks before Ann died, L went down to southern California to spend some time with her. She stayed at a nearby hotel so as not to be a burden. Some time during that trip Ann told her husband that when she was not there anymore, she was going to let her husband know that she was okay, that it was going to be okay. Her husband teased her, as he is a very pragmatic, non-religious man. He said, laughingly, something along the lines of "Alright, but don't pull any of that touchy feel crap, because I don't believe in it anyways, and it will just give me the creeps." His wife replied, "No, I will do something just for you, something that only you will understand."

Soon afterward, Ann died. Her time of death was 7:37pm. Her husband is an avid motorcyclist and he decided to have the memorial down the coast, about 45 minutes from their house, so he and his friends could ride their bikes down there together. He decided he should drive the car to the memorial site a couple of days before the service so that he could clock the exact mileage for the bikers. When he got in the car, the clock had stopped at 7:37pm.

When does your car clock ever stop, I ask you? Mine never has. Such a coincidence seems very hard to fathom. It seems much more likely that something happened there that we just cannot understand. Later, when Ann's husband told her friend L the story, she remembered that her hotel room number had been 737 while she was there for her visit. Say what you will, but it sends a shiver down my spine.

So I told this story to my mother-in-law, and I asked her to send us a message, when she is no longer here, that everything is okay. I told her I would tell her grandson about it, so that he can always have that story with him. She loved L's story and she said she would try. I don't know if it will happen or not, but I wish for it. And I wish it for those that love Cancer Baby, too.

the other faith

Someone knocked on the door this morning at 7:45am. I was just out of the shower getting dressed. I was simultaneously helping my so-not-a-morning-person son get dressed. Then the doorbell rang. What the fuck? We weren't expecting anyone.

We hurried down to the door, and opened it to find two clean cut young men looking at me expectantly.

When I looked confused the guy in the forefront asked "Do you have faith?" huh? They did kind of look like mormon missionaries. I said "You guys are coming at this time of the morning to ask me that?!" They nodded simultaneously, with vague smiles on their faces and said "Yes." I turned to open the shades (It was very dark in our living room) and said, "You guys better get out of here, before I start cursing at you."

But when I came back to the doorway they were still standing there. I said "I'm serious..." and was just about to launch into a major tirade, when the looks on their faces stopped me. Instead I said, "Wait a second, who are you guys with?"

The first guy said, "Didn't you want a bid for your tile?"

Oops. They were LOOKING for Faith. Faith Johnson who lives one block over. The addresses are kind of screwed up in our neighborhood, and one block away there is a woman who has an almost identical address. Except that her address is a "North" address, ours is a "Northwest" address. This is not the first time that this confusion has occurred. The thing is, I totally forgot that her name is Faith. Even though we have uncannily similar addresses we don't talk much. In fact Faith and her partner, or roommate, or whatever that other woman that lives there is, are not very friendly. They make us pick up the mail that accidentally gets delivered there. Even though it would take less than two minutes to deliver it to our house. When Amazon.com had the wrong address for us for a while, Faith and co. sent us a nasty note, as though it was our fault that Amazon had dropped the W off of NW. As though we were intentionally trying to irritate her by purposefully supplying Amazon with the wrong address.

After apologizing profusely to the tile guys, I explained the situation and sent them on their merry way. I'm sure they'll tell Faith what a psycho neighbor she has. I'm just really glad I didn't say "You can shove your faith up your ass." Because I almost did.

Joe

Last Sunday we lost a friend.

My friend Bob called us last Sunday night and asked if I was sitting down. Never a good sign. "What? What? What? What happened?"

Very long pause. Deep breath. "Joe Drowned."

Electric shock through my body. No. no, no, no.

Let me tell you about Joe. We met him through Bob and his wife about 6 years ago. He was an incredibly skilled carpenter who could also do plumbing, wiring and whatever else you could possibly need when remodeling a home. He was a one-man band who liked to work alone and only for people that he liked. He didn't like to travel more than 2 miles to get to work, and he never had to because there was always a long line for Joe's services.

He was a bachelor, who in the time I knew him had one serious girlfriend, whom he called his lady friend. But was really too stubborn and set in his ways to ever get married. He was opinionated and bull-headed, but had a great sense of humor and was always, always there to help you when your pipes burst or your roof leaked in a winter storm. He liked to be the hero, and we certainly loved being saved.

He worked on our upstairs remodel when we bought our house. We payed him mostly under the table, and would supply him with a six pack every Friday night. Oftentimes, my husband and he would sit in the back yard and work their way through the beer. He loved to give shit and be given shit. That was the way to bond with Joe - give him a hard time. And then he would laugh loud and all cackly.

He was a cultured redneck from Virginia. He never went to college, but he knew about all kinds of music; jazz and bluegrass, and he listened to the college radio station. He took dance lessons. And he was a liberal. His neighbors adored him.

He loved to windsurf. But his mom died about 18 months ago and he was really heartbroken. He was depressed. So he didn't get out to the Hood River Gorge last summer, which was his preferred windsurfing spot.

My mother-in-law, who is a magnet for strays and invalids, had taken Joe and his mother in a year or two before she died. She always asked after his mother, and she invited Joe over to Thanksgiving every year. He even came a couple of times. The men would sit and drink beer and watch football. We have simple all-American Thanksgivings, and that suited Joe.

Joe was finally coming out of his depression this Spring. And he told my husband a couple of weeks ago how excited he was to get down the Gorge and go boarding again.

He was with a friend last weekend and after a day at the Gorge, his buddy suggested they go out to the Oregon coast and do some windsurfing. His friend saw him go down, but he was 400 yards away, and then he went down around the same time. By the time his friend got in to shore, Joe's board had washed up and a small crowd was around Joe, trying to revive him with CPR.

Nobody knows what really happened. The autopsy indicated nothing. Joe didn't have a heart attack, or a stroke. He didn't drown or hit his head. He's just dead.

It's so shocking when someone dies suddenly like this. It's such a jolt. And it always makes you realize that it could be anyone. It could be me, or my husband, or my son. Death was made to give us perspective. Does anything else matter except appreciating and enjoying what we have right this second?

Here are a few things I am grateful for: I am glad that his mother was not around to see this happen. I don't have clear ideas about the afterlife, but I know his mom was very religious, so I hope that they are together now. I am glad that he died doing something he loved, and I hope that he did not have fear before he died. Apparently, he'd had a fantastic weekend, and was in a great mood. The weather was beautiful, and I think Joe would have thought that the Pacific Ocean on one of the most gorgeous days of the year was not bad place to go. I am glad that he didn't die old and alone.

He really was unique. I've never known anyone quite like him.

As I looked around our bedroom the other night I realized there are signs of his craftwork all over our house. He took great pride in his work, as he should have. And it is nice to see how tangible his work was. The perfectly finished skylight. The graceful built-ins. Perfectly aligned molding.

He was supposed to start working on our kitchen in June, but got delayed at Bob's house. Not because he was slow, but because Bob kept changing his mind. We'll get our kitchen done sooner or later. But noone will do it like Joe.

And the winner is...

Well, after a close analysis of the contest entries, I would have to say that Julie of A Little Pregnant fame is the winner. She was so confident! And pretty much "dead bang on" as she guessed she would be. Several others do receive honorable mention, and you can decide for yourself when you get the photos, which I will send to each and every one of you after I finish sifting through the 500 photos that my husband took on the trip (He is quite an amazing amateur photographer). I have narrowed it down quite a bit already and I promise to only send three or four.

I am almost 5'7" (5'6 and 3/4" to be exact, but to say that sounds like I am trying to hard.) I weigh about 125 pounds. I do have dark brown hair and blue eyes. my hair is fairly straight with some wave and goes from chin length to shoulder length, depending on where I am in the hair cutting cycle. I don't usually wear glasses, but I am slightly nearsighted and do have black framed glasses that aren't especially chunky, but that was the only tiny error in Julie's description. I wear very little make-up, although I do wear some when I get dressed up, if I'm feeling particularly pallid, or look hungover. Mostly it will be a little lipstick/gloss and eye liner. My skin is not so great ,PCOS, you know. ( FYI - I have found that Stila has the best zit cover-up ever. ) I do have biggish boobs (Tertia) and no hips, again, a PCOS shape.

I found it interesting that so many of you thought I had dark hair, because until about a year ago, I was more of a dark blonde. I figured, I can't have a baby, but I can change the color of my hair, goddamn it. I do have a touch of "hiker-hippy" as Heidi guessed, but working in advertising I tend to try for hip, but not trendy (Bugs). I think I succeed in that goal, although others may disagree.

Honorable Mention will go to Susan at Holding Pattern, Barren Mare, Marla and Bugs. And Super Honorable Mention to Reprogirl who described me as "Very, very, very pretty." How can you go wrong with a such a description?

So what should Julie's prize be?

I am a Narcissist

I was somewhat fascinated by Heidi's half marathon photos, because, like several others, I pictured her as a blonde, not as an exotic brunette. Something about the name Heidi, I suppose. Although I had a roommate in college who had olive skin and dark eyes, it just remains a Swiss Miss name to me.

It got me to thinking about the physical appearance of my other blog friends. I realized do carry around vague images in my head, much as I read a book and create my own images of the characters. I imagine Grrl as a petite brunette with wildly curly hair and fiery green eyes. Chris I imagine as a woman of average height, light brown hair, laughing blue eyes with perhaps a spray of freckles across her nose. I guess I imagine her as having kind of a pear shaped body ( and Chris, this comes from your own comments about your ass, not from your writing style.) I imagine Julia as a pretty, slightly preppy, urban intellectual with dark blond hair. Soper I imagine as sassy but friendly looking, with fair skin, light brown hair, and a great smile - because I know she has a great laugh from talking to her on the phone.

Then I started to wonder what people thought about ME. What do I look like to you, in your head? So now I'm asking. If you have ever given it a thought, let me know. Also I'd love to hear what everyone thinks other bloggers look like. I mean what do you guys see when you see Grrrl in your head?

If you send me your description of your image of me, I'll send a couple of photos to you of me from the Montana trip. I'm much to shy to post photos on the site, and I think my husband might be irked if I did. But if I know you (in the internet sense), and if you give a shit, I'll send you a picture or two. Whoever comes closest on the description will win a prize - tbd, based on the winner. A box of pee sticks might be an appropriate prize, or perhaps a Babies R Us gift certificate, or perhaps simply a prescription for valium. It just depends.

There are a couple of people that already know what I look like, so in order to maintain fairness, I may consult with them as to which description they think is the most appropriate. I may be biased towards the description that includes "exotic good looks." Feel free to be specific with height, weight, complexion, etc. I don't think you can offend me. I'll get back to you next week.

Montana notes

We got back from road trip to Montana on Tuesday night. It was a great trip and we could have stayed away from home for another two months.

Montana was everything it is advertised to be; Big Sky Country, rugged terrain, endless plains, beautiful wildlife. The wild west. We saw ghost towns, antelope, mountain goats, caves, spectacular waterfalls and lots of prairie dogs, both living and in the form of recent road kill.

You really just have go see it yourself because photos do it no justice.

I did notice a few things while we were there.

-There are no democrats in Montana. Either that, or they're scared that if they admit to being one that will be shot with a hunting rifle. I did not see one Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker (but plenty of Bush/Cheney ones.) And certainly no evidence that anyone had a smidgen of dislike (God forbid) for the president.

-Whoever makes those yellow ribbon car bumper magnets is living out the American capitalist dream in a big way.

-Number of times I saw the banner "(insert small town name here) supports our troops": 10,263.

-The current trend of chubby 15-year-old girls wearing tight, low-slung jeans with cropped t-shirts, which allows a nice roll of flab to lie comfortably on the waistband, is just as unflattering in Montana as it is in the northwest.

-When you live in Havre, Montana (named after France's port city Le Havre, but pronouced hav-er) you feel a million miles away from everything, including Iraq and Osama Bin Laden. No one is going to come and bomb Havre, so there is a sense of immunity from world events. I think it must be easier to believe that bombing the hell out of Iraq was a good idea when you live out there, because you have very little fear of retribution. If the A-rabs do retaliate they'll hit up some of those commie liberals living in the big city.

-There are a lot of people living on the edge in this country. There are a lot of people suffering everywhere. We stopped at a dumpy little diner for breakfast one morning. It had ripped up booths, mismatched vinyl chairs, and a poster of the drenched kitty hanging from a branch - "Hang in there, baby." At the counter there was a large jar with a computer-made sign on it asking for donations for a local girl who had been diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer. Two hundred kids a year are diagnosed with this particular form of the disease, and she had already lost an eye. I put a dollar bill in the jar, and the waitress turned to me and said "God bless you, that's my granddaughter." She then proceeded to tell me that they had just received bad news, they hadn't gotten rid of the cancer the first time around and they would be making the 6 hour drive to Seattle to start chemo treatments in a couple of days. She told me that she had just lost both her grandmother and mother in the last month and that God does not give you more than you can bear, and that there were too many people praying for her granddaughter, so it had to be okay, because she knew she couldn't bear losing her granddaughter too.

I wanted to stuff another $100 into the jar, but I knew that wasn't the point. The point was that her granddaughter needs to survive. The little girl will be two in Setember.

I thought that sometimes God does give you more than you can bear, or at least more than you thought you could bear. Meanwhile, she's a fifty five year old woman slaving away in a greasy spoon in bumfuck, USA. It makes you think.

-oftentimes the only building in a whole town with a fresh coat of paint was the church. Or both churches, if the town population was over 100.

-Bringing a tape deck with books on tape for my son was the most brilliant idea ever. He could put on his headphones and listen to the first two Harry Potter books, several Beverly Cleary books and at least 5 others. Meanwhile my husband and I could enjoy the scenery and have private conversations. At times, we almost forgot about him, until he would announce that the side had ended and I needed to put in a new tape.

-When did every motel start charging $75 or more? It seems like yesterday you could get a room for $45. I guess I really am old.

-Glacier National Park was well worth the trip, but if it was that busy in mid-June, I don't think I'd bother going in July.

-Everyone in this country has two or more kids. People keep telling me that more and more people are having only one child. Where the fuck are these people? Not in Montana, that's for sure, because you can bet your bottom dollar that I was looking for those "smaller" families constantly. I did see one "only" child, but he was about 15 and easily could have been a younger sibling of a college student.

More later.

buried

In my waitressing days we called it "in the weeds." That's where I've been the last two weeks. Slammed with work crises to the point of waking up in the middle of the night and worrying about undone tasks. On Monday, I got up to go to my 6:15am Yoga class. As I sleptwalk into my loose fitting clothing, I decided what really would relax me was not child's pose stretches and deep breathing, but rather a visit to the office to get those east coast phone calls out of the way.

So that's what I did. Wearing my yoga clothes and gardening clogs, I was the first one in the office at 6:20. I eased my mind by checking a few important things off my list and was home by 8:00 to take a shower. (I'm 10 minutes from work at that time of the day.)

It's a sad commentary on the state of affairs. Every night I get home and crumple in a ball,usually too tired to even watch "The Amazing Race", or the night time version of Oprah. My uber comfortable bed beckons me compellingly instead. I keep thinking that I need to change the sheets and then I think, "oh I can do it tomorrow."

On top of it all, my birthday was last Sunday and my whole family forgot. Okay, my dad has the pre-alzheimers going on, but there is no excuse for my stepmother. She has been married to my Dad for 32 years, she's been around for a lot of birthdays. My brother, well, he may just not have felt like giving birthday wishes to an infidel. And who could blame him?

Part of me thought that I should call them and let them off the hook. But is it really surprising that the petulant, princessy side of me won out? No, not surprising at all.

Two days later there was a birthday present of a couple of wrapped books with a card leaning against my front door. No mention of the fact that it was late. And they never did even call.

Whatever.

I just felt like I needed to say that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. And also that I have NOT been brainstorming on any blog topics. Most of my free brain space has been used up with things like the fact that I really didn't like Hilary Swank's Oscar dress. Okay, it was great in the back, but from the waist up it looked like it was choking her. Just my opinion.

I am hoping next week brings more time for all of the time wasting blog visiting and writing that I tend to do, if given half the chance.

trend alert

This is my maiden voyage on Laughter and Forgetting.

So on I light note I thought I'd share how delighted I was to get a "trend alert" emailed to me from The Gap, linking me to this website .

The email continues, "Spring's hottest jeans and cords feature SUPER CUTE details like flap pockets and pintucks."

"The best news? These styles come in new washes and fresh hues."

I feel so privileged that one of the nation's largest retailers has let me in on their little secret! And such fantabulous news; new washes and fresh hues. I think I'll start using that in conversation. "Such a fresh hue you are wearing today!" It kind of sounds like I'd be talking about deodorant.

Am I dating myself by saying that these jeans bring me back to eighth grade? Definitely not a time I want to be obliged to remember.

In other good news. There seems to be a new wave of pregnancies in infertile blogville. I mean who isn't pregnant? (Don't answer that, because I know there are plenty) Congratulations to all.

And I even have an addendum to that good news. For those unpregnants out there who just can't stand to visit another pregnant blogger site, I can attest that I will be a safe haven for you. While I wish that I could be on the cusp of being yet another pregnant woman, for now, it just ain't gonna happen. No beta tests, no egg retrievals, no faint lines. You are safe with me.