Excuse Me

Whenever I pivot on my flip-flop here at work, the friction makes a farting noise. My co-workers must think that I'm the gasiest pregnant woman ever.

Prego Heaven

Just now, Chim pulled up in front of my office building with the most delicious piece of carrot cake. He had been slaving away in our kitchen on this carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. It was breathtaking. Anyway, I came downstairs, went through the large glass doors (the whole front of the building is glass, so everyone near the front can see outside) to our little car where Chim was waiting with a piece of his perfect confection. He rolled down the passenger window. I, with my almost 8-month pregnant frame, leaned through the window. He passed me the plate with the cake and fork on it. I proceeded to enjoy the most gooey, yet well cooked carrot cake with the most whipped and creamy cream cheese frosting ever. I was in Prego heaven. One can only imagine what the employees inside thought--seeing a nearly 8-month pregnant woman leaning half-way through a car window with her butt in the air while scarfing down a giant piece of cake and then going back into the office building. But I don't care. Minnie Bun-Bun would be jealous.

Baby at Work

The baby seems to be working on some sort of 'project' in the right side of my abdomen. It started this 'project' around 5:00am and has been working diligently ever since, with a couple breaks here and there.

Grandma Eleanor

My dad is paying my sister Liz (as a summer job) to spend her mornings with his mother in place of the caregivers that he hires. He still hires them to watch her in the afternoon, but it is cheaper and better for her just to pay Liz to watch her in the mornings (plus Liz doesn't drag Grandma to Wendy's and on food errands with her like these obese caregivers have been doing). The doctors aren't sure what my grandma has, they think it's a form of Dementia or Alzheimer's. Some think that she has had a series of small strokes that have damaged parts of her brain (she used to be a smoker).
Now, back in the day, this woman had been the personal secretary for one of the original Warner Brothers in New York. She has an address book with old Hollywood Stars' direct phone numbers in it such as Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, etc.. She showed it to me one day when I was in high school, asking her a bunch of questions about her life. She also knows Gregg shorthand (it's a form of writing in symbols and curves that is much faster than regular writing--the only thing is that it looks like scribbles to anyone who hasn't been trained in it.) When the Alzheimers/Dementia first started, my dad would go over and check on her and make sure that her pillbox was filled with the right daily quantities. On one of these visits, he discovered a large bottle of Blackberry Brandy in her broomcloset. Pretty soon, he realized that she was an avid drinker, going through that stuff pretty quickly each month. As her illness progressed, he took over managing her finances and maintaining her checkbook. Every once in a while, there would be an entry in the check register in shorthand for a check that had been written (she knew that my dad didn't know shorthand). However, when the cancelled check would come with the bank statement, we would find out that it was payable to a liquor store. So, my dad had to make weekly visits to clear her out of her alcohol--she was in her late 80s at the time. Finally, one visit, my dad went to use the bathroom, and on his way back, he noticed a 2-liter bottle of Coke in the hall behind a door. My grandma does not drink Coke and never has. My dad asked her what it was for and she said it was for one of her weekly "card parties." But, my dad was highly suspicious since he had found the bottle on the floor behind a door in the hall. He opened it and gave it a sniff. Sure enough, it was full of Blackberry Brandy. This 88-year old woman had bought a 2-liter of Coke from the grocery store, dumped it out, and filled it with Blackberry Brandy in order to hide her addiction from her son. How did she get it? Apparently, she had written a check made out to "cash" and given it to a friend to go pick up her nectar of choice.
Now, she is 90 and the other day, Liz sent me an e-mail about what happened one morning:
"one day when I came in the morning (I come at 8:30 a.m.-she usually is up) she was just getting up and I let myself in as usual and she came to greet me wearing NOTHING EXCEPT UNDERWEAR BOTTOMS!!! saying " oh hi there dear!!!" and then she proceeded to turn on the lights in the apartment so i said " oh, grandma, don't let me disturb you or anything!"!!!!
It is funny, yet so sad to watch what is happening to this woman. This could be us some day.

Office Exposure

Chim and I were having a little hanky-panky over my lunch break at the apartment today when we realized that I was running late returning to work. We had to make a mad dash to get ready and out the door. Upon arriving at work, I ran into the building, through the glass doors to the escalator, up to the second floor and down the long hall to the tax department where I work. No sooner had I plopped my purse down at my desk than my boss called me into her office to go over a file with her and a 50-year-old male co-worker. We were going over a file from a Puerto Rican accounting firm than had for some reason been voiding the checks we were sending them. While I was in the middle of showing them where they were filed and my documentation of them, looking down at the file, I noticed that my blouse was still unbuttoned down to my bra. I casually, while still talking, pulled my blouse so that it was closed more, and I lightly buttoned it. Afterward, I went back to my desk and chuckled to myself while watching my screensaver of Chim.
(Just kidding, I don't really have a screensaver of Chim, but I was sitting there laughing to myself.

Go Chim!

This past weekend, we went to a big Texas Ranch north of Dallas for a huge summer picnic and barbeque with all of Chim's co-workers. There were horseback rides, volleyball tournaments and a canoe race. Chim had been stolked about the volleyball tournament; however, he forgot to wear shoes--only sandals. So at the end of the tournament, Chim had a mega blister on the bottom of his foot. But, the best part was when Chim decided at the last minute to sign-up for the canoe race. Chim and I walked up to the table and he asked if it wasn't too late to join the men's canoe race. A fat, sweaty guy with a bull-horn, a lisp, and a cowboy hat on (a.k.a. the "master of ceremonies") said it wasn't too late. He then asked Chim if he had a partner. Chim said no. So, the "master of ceremonies" exuberantly called to a guy behind him named Bill who had been walking under an oak tree. Bill, a young 30-year old with sunglasses and an aussie hat, came flying over. "Do you feel like racing?" the "master of ceremonies" said. To which Bill slowly but happily replied with a grin: "Sure." So Chim, Bill, and I headed over to the canoe race area on the edge of a large pond with about 5 leafless trees sticking out of it. I sat in the spectator tent with the rest of the wives in camping chairs and watched as each set of men would go out, one at a time, and be timed by the "master of ceremonies"--who was standing on the end of the dock with a stopwatch. The pairs were to canoe out onto the bond, circle around a tree with red tape on it and return to the dock as fast and they could. The two pairs with the lowest time would then race at the end. Well, we watched as pairs went out, meandering around the pond in their canoes, struggling to make it around this tree and return to the dock. Some pairs were flipping over, two very young boys floated aimlessly around the pond in their life vests until a man just ran into the pond to get them when they got close to the edge, some were bumping into other pairs that were still out there. Needless to say, when Chim and Bill got in their canoe and took off, they shot straight at that tree, made a hairpin turn around it, and shot right back to the dock in 1 minute, 12 seconds! So, they were first for this leg of the competition. After the girls' race, which was hillarious, but I won't get into that, Chim and Bill raced the pair of men with the second best time. Bill had planned to tie an anchor that he found to the other pair's canoe, but when push came to shove, it didn't happen. Anyway, Chim and Bill climbed into a blue canoe on one side of the dock and the other pair into a green one on the other side, and they were off. Chim and Bill flew ahead, but the other pair headed straight for Chim and Bill, grazing the front of their canoe, turning both canoes far right of the destination tree and causing Chim and Bill to rock back and forth towards tipping over. I, from my camping chair in the wives' tent, exclaimed "Oh! They're playing dirty!" and yelled "Come on, Blue!" So, Chim and Blue were able to turn their canoe for the tree, and Chim, in the back of the canoe, turned back towards the other canoe and used their canoe to shove Bill and himself off towards the tree. I then started laughing and so did some of the others around me. Needless to say Chim and Bill flew around the tree and made were headed toward the dock with the other pair about 8 feet behind them. I started yelling "Go Blue!" "Go Blue!" and stuggled to get out of my camping chair with my big pregnant belly, exclaiming "Oh! This is so exciting!" Well, Chim and Bill won the race! The women in the tent started packing up their camping chairs to leave when one of the men from the other canoe came over to the woman next to me to help her pickup and leave! It turned out that I had been sitting next to the wife of one of the men in the losing canoe! I felt really bad for making all of those exclamations the whole time while she had remained silent for that race! We had been talking during other races, but she was quiet for that one and I had had no idea why or thought about it until now! Oh well, anyway, Chim's trophy should be arriving any day now.

Storms in Wanamingo

"WANAMINGO, Minn. (June 8) - Powerful thunderstorms slammed the Upper Midwest and caused heavy flooding, leaving one man missing in Minnesota, destroying a small-town city hall in South Dakota and forcing several people out of their homes. The National Weather Service predicted that more thunderstorms were likely Wednesday evening in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Those storms could contain large hail and damaging winds, the weather service said.
Jeffrey S. Zelinske, 47, remained missing Wednesday. He was headed to work when a creek surged over its banks and flooded the road with up to 2 feet of water. His empty pickup truck was found in a rain-swollen ditch near Wanamingo. Another woman survived after her car was swept up in a flash flood by floating on her back and grabbing onto a fence post. "I call it a God-wink miracle,'' said Mona Boomgaarden, 50, who added that she does not know how to swim.
Wind gusted to 92 mph during the night in north-central South Dakota, destroying the one-story city hall in Onaka, flattening a farm cooperative building in Faulkton and damaging other buildings.
The new city hall was built after the previous building was destroyed by fire two years ago.
"We've lost everything, again - all of our financial records,'' said Shannon Waldman, the town's mayor of 20 years. The National Weather Service said a tornado briefly touched down Tuesday in the southwest corner of South Dakota, damaging farm machinery. Hail nearly 3 inches in diameter was reported in Meade County. About 30 people were forced out of their houses in Edgeley, N.D. In the Twin Cities, lightning strikes were blamed for two fires.
The storm also knocked power out to more than 200,000 Xcel Energy customers in the Minneapolis metro area, and more than 63,500 customers were still without power Wednesday afternoon. "

If anyone has seen the movie, Day After Tomorrow, all of this weather stuff seems to support their crazy theories. With all of this wild weather, it's hard not to wonder if there is some truth to global warming/the ozone layer, etc...

Prego Probs

There are 12 weeks left until baby comes. Chim, my mom and I picked out a crib last weekend that will fit in our little apartment and we've been re-arranging for the new arrival. This has been going by both slowly and quickly. Ein starting to get really tired again, so it's getting harder and harder to make it through the work day. By the end of the day, my legs from the knees down are swollen. The weekend before last, I fainted in our bathroom. It was really scary because one minute I had been standing on the bathroom rug, feeling like I was going to be blacking out and about to lie down, and then, the next minute I was three feet away from where I had been standing--only I was lying in the closet. I woke-up lying on my right side on the shoes in my closet with scrapes on my left leg and a bump with a gash on it on the left side of my forehead. The doctor said that my blood pressure had probably been low. The gash has healed rather quickly, now there's just a small scar where it had been.
Last weekend, my sisters had a baby shower/brunch for me with family in Minnesota. Everyone who was there thought that we're having a boy. A 98-year old friend of the family said that as soon as she saw me and the way that I was carrying, she knew that I'm going to be having a boy. Our doctor, however, won't say what we're having because the baby always has its legs so close together in the ultrasounds. He said that he's learned too many times that it's better not to say if you can't see a definite male part. I guess he's delivered babies that they all thought was going to be a girl but ended up being a boy. My dad has always firmly believed that its a girl. All of our female college friends thought unanimously that its a boy. At the beginning of the pregnacy, I kept thinking that it was going to be a boy, but now near the end I've been really into wearing pink.
I even heard a theory that if your leg-hair grows faster than usual when you're pregnant, you're having a boy and if it grows more slowly than usual, you're having a girl. Another one was that if you crave lots of fruity food, you're having a girl. I just want both of us to come out of this healthy.