All I'm Saying there's a joke in here somewhere

Okay, you guys were right. Trick or treat is tonight. However, I would like to point out how many of you mentioned trick or treat being scheduled for other nights besides October 31. The town we moved from this spring always scheduled the community trick or treat for a Saturday night, regardless of how far from the actual holiday it was. And they held it in a parking lot, but that's another story for another time.

So today was a big day for me. I'm a winner. I won my office's pumpkin carving contest! I carved a haunted castle, and I have got to tell you...it was pretty damned good. No picture, because the digital camera is off on a long patrol with Matt, but I'm sure you'll take my word for it. I won a $40 gift certificate to Lowe's!

You know, I'm wishing the front door and the computer desk were on the same level of the house. I'm going to bust my ass running down the stairs every time the doorbell rings...

I can't believe it: it's a quarter till eight the night the Trick or Treaters are supposed to be out. I bought 10 lbs. of candy at CostCo. I carved a really cool jack o'lantern.

And? No one has come by the house at all. The lights are blazing, we're in a good neighborhood, the sex offender website doesn't show any pervos within a half-mile of here. I don't get it. You don't think we got the wrong night, do you? The neighbor across the street said that tonight was the night...

Candy, anyone?

Over the years, Matt and I have pretty well established who is the "handy one" in our relationship. Don't get me wrong: the man recently installed a dimmer switch in the baby's room and replaced a GFI outlet, so he's not afraid to try dangerous things (like electrical repair and replacement). But when it comes to putting stuff together, I'm the undisputed champion.

I'm not really sure how I got the knack, other than I must have been born with it. My high school aptitude tests said I could become an electrician or a mechanic because my spatial relationship abilities were very high. But because I was a girl in a small logging community, the skill wasn't exactly developed. In fact, it wasn't until the outhouse cleaning/campground maintenance job that I had to sink-or-swim and prove that I could not only turn a wrench, but have all the right parts put together with little to nothing left over by the time the project was done.

So Matt and I lead a very peaceful existence this way. He does the scary stuff; I do the little futzy put-together projects. We just got the crib assembled in Freya's room. And I think it's a nod to our occasional role reversal when I point out the print he got me for my birthday next week.

Equality is a good thing.

I had my first performance review today. I've only been there since the first of June, but it's pretty much typical for all reviews to occur in October. So I got mine.

I'm a big weirdo who enjoys doing the annual review. In my last job, pretty much the only feedback I ever got was at the annual. They didn't say good job, bad job, eat shit or have a nice day at the old job. Still, I always "exceeded expectations," despite being more or less adrift. Either that, or I was "good enough that it wasn't worth fussing over it." I'd have to ask my old supervisor, who really should have let me give him a performance review as part of my exit strategy.

Anyhoo, I am pleased to report that the new supervisor gave me a rave review. Every element was in the "superior" section except one, which was in the "exceptional" category. (Somehow someone figured out that exceptional was better than superior. Who knows.) Anyway, it sure was nice to hear that, plus the verbal praise I got. Felt so good that I took my husband out to dinner to celebrate.

So anyway, I challenge you all to tell someone today that you appreciate what they're doing. It could really lift their spirits. And it will probably give you enough bonus points that that person might pull your ass out of a metaphorical sling one day.

Have a nice day. And by the way, you're doing a GREAT JOB reading my blog.

God, I'm so zonked out tonight. I had a piece of Maggie Moo's ice cream cake at about 8:30 last night, and I think Freya got all wired up on sugar. I turned out the light at 10:30 to go to sleep, and she kicked, rolled and generally rearranged furniture in my uterus until at least 11:15. So I'm trying something new: no sugar after 8:00. This really is new for me. We usually have something for dessert right around 8:30, and it's going to be tough for me to kick the habit. Worth it though, if it lets me sleep a little more.

I'm not going to post the whole article here, but I encourage those of you who have wondered in the past what Jehovah's Witnesses believe or thought they were harmless, door-knocking kooks to take a look at this article.

I was raised a Jehovah's Witness by my mother. I can't honestly say that I ever (as an adult) believed what I was being told by the people in the congregation I attended. The more I developed as a person, the more I saw massive gaps in the quantum leaps of "logic" required to be a member of the faith. Because I couldn't pretend to be someone I wasn't, I left the religion and was subsequently disfellowshipped (read: excommunicated) when I was 21 years old. In following my own, personal truth, I lost a large portion of my family.

You see, the Jehovah's Witness faith requires its members to cut off communication with one who leaves their belief system. The above article describes that treatment this way:

Without a word or sign of acknowledgement, members of the local Kingdom Hall walk right by when they run into Joel Jahn.

As far as the Jehovah's Witnesses are concerned, Joel Jahn is dead – even to members of his own family.

My mother, my elder sister, and my niece and nephew are required by the Jehovah's Witnesses to treat me this way. Why do they do this? The article continues, "The official Web site for the Jehovah's Witnesses explains this using a quote from 1 Corinthians: 'Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.' Every effort is made to help wrongdoers, the Web site states, but 'the congregation needs to be protected' from those who refuse to follow the organization's rules." So, to their eyes, they are keeping my wicked self from polluting their faith.

I look back at the decision I made and know it was the best thing I could have done for myself. I became a whole person after leaving that cult. I have freed myself from the mind control exercised by the Watchtower Society, the "governing body" of the Jehovah's Witnesses. It meant leaving behind people that I loved, and who I still love. However, I don't look at it as sacrificing my family for my own path. I believe they sacrificed me.

Just found a link that all you ladies out there (or those guys who'd just like to feel pretty once in a while) will appreciate:

Free underwear from Hanes.

I was in Arizona for training this past week. Aside from the work-related learning I did, another lesson was brought home to me yet again: Never interfere with a feeding senior citizen.

I've seen it before. It's 50% of the reason I won't go to buffet-style restaraunts. Some hostile cotton-top will cheerily elbow you in the ribs to get to the mashed potatoes before you can get your youthful self to them first and take all thirty pounds of them. Then they'll look at you with disdain, as if to say, "Watch it, girlie. You get in my way and I'll make a scene. And who do you think they'll believe, punk?"

Yesterday morning, I stood at the complimentary buffet breakfast my hotel offered. At this point, I am very conspicuously pregnant. I held a plate with a cup of yogurt and a muffin, and a cup of juice. All thirty or so seats in the area appeared occupied with blue hairs. I looked and I looked, hoping that someone who was just sitting there nursing their fourth cup of decaf (as half of them appeared to be) would take pity on the poor preggo who obviously wanted to sit and eat. No luck. I spied two empty chairs at an otherwise occupied table, and walked over and asked a senior lady if either seat was taken. She lifted up her purse and laid it on one of the chairs, gave me the above-noted look, and said, "Yes."

Finally, a guy who looked about twenty years younger than the crowd average and was clearly not with the zombie senior horde picked up a chair and walked over to where I was standing. He said, "You look like you could really use a chair, ma'am." I was so grateful that I just about cried.

I can't believe the rudeness of old people in groups. And as my husband said, "They've claimed Arizona as their domain. You don't fuck with the elderly in Arizona." Ain't it the truth.

My poor husband... On the other hand, poor me...

Tomorrow is Matt's birthday. I'm going out of town for a training session, but will be able to spend part of tomorrow with him before catching a plane. I figured we could do a birthday dinner tonight, so I offered to get his favorite pizza for him. Since it is Sunday, I had some other errands to do and I planned on going to the gym.

He went off to work, and I got ready to go. I walked out to the garage, hit the door opener, and discovered that his pickup was parked in the driveway, right behind my car. It's a little car that I drive, so I spent several minutes trying to jockey it around in the garage so that I could squeak by. Not happening. I went back in the house and looked in the usual places for his extra set of keys. No good.

I picked up the phone and dialed his cell, hoping that he might still be in range, but knowing he likely wasn't. This is something of how the voice mail went as I was searching high and low in the house for his keys, "You are such a dead man. Your truck is parked behind my car and I can't get out of the friggin' garage. You must not want a birthday dinner very bad, because you are getting NOTHING out of me. You could have at least left your keys somewhere...wait, here they are in your underwear drawer. I guess you can come home tonight, after all. Have a nice day, and the baby and I love you!"

Hormones are so much fun for everyone!

I don't know if it's the hormones, or if it's outside stress; probably some miserable combination of both. But I feel like I'm on the verge of a little meltdown right now.

First, (and this is not the end of the world) I went to the doctor today and found out I've gained twelve pounds. Not like, overall since getting pregnant. Oh, no. Since the last appointment four weeks ago. That has brought my grand total up to 24 lbs. so far. I really didn't intend to gain it that fast. Things were going so well, then I just seem to have blimped out. The nurse said, "Well, did you just eat a big lunch?" I said, "Yeah, but it wasn't an eight pound burrito."

Then I got home after Matt had taken our older dog to the vet to figure out why he's obsessively licking his feet. We figured a simple cortisone shot might take care of it. Well, maybe. However, they discovered a horrible ear infection deep in the canal where no one would ever be able to clean it (and Matt is pretty religious about cleaning the dogs' ears). They had to knock the dog out to clean it, then discovered some kind of growth in the ear and another near his butt that they biopsied. We should have the results some time early next week. Five hundred dollars later...

And I feel like a horrible person because (a) I've never liked this dog--he has some (I think) serious emotional issues and I'm now extra concerned about how he'll behave when we have a baby in the house, and (b) because I am sitting here thinking things like "We were going to buy a huge value pack of meat from the butcher for the winter, plus a car seat and maybe even a stroller with that money."

After all this, I just feel like sitting on the stairs and crying my eyes out.

I know there's got to be quite a few other watchers of ABC's Lost out there. I swear to God, I have spent every single episode just as confused as all hell, and I keep watching. I don't know why.

Okay, "why" is Naveen Andrews.

But I could just watch The English Patient repetively for all of that. (Okay, I do watch it repetitively.)

We missed last week's episode, so I had to go read up at Television Without Pity. And I'm even Loster than I was before. Why do I bother??!!!

I had probably the most enjoyable retail experience of my life today, and I wasn't even the one buying anything.

A girlfriend of mine is getting married in a couple of weeks, and her wedding and reception are on two different days. This necessitates having two different dresses, so after tooling around the mall for several hours and not finding anything, we went to the place she got her wedding dress for a look.

This place is an Indian (as in, southern Asia) emporium that sells formalwear. It is literally loaded to the rafters with gowns in every shape, size and color you can imagine. They also sell foundation garments, shoes, men's tuxedos, and they do alterations.

We got in the store and an older gentleman approached us and asked what we were looking for. Kristy gave him a general idea, and he started grabbing dresses off the racks. He shooed us back to the dressing room area, where I sat while she disappeared under a load of probably 10 gowns into the changing room. And for every gown she tried on, this man brought three others for her approval. He had all kinds of ideas about what would look nice on her, and if she said, "I don't care for the color," he'd say, "Doesn't matter! Any color you want, I can make this dress!"

I have never seen customer service like that in my lifetime, and may never see it again. I kept looking around at the other customers to see if they were all having as much fun as I was. And I totally expected all the salespeople to break into a Bollywood-style song and dance number about picking the right dress for your marriage.

And for what it's worth, she ended up getting a dress there, which they will be altering for free, and they threw in a shawl as a bonus. It was pretty much the coolest thing ever.

I'm not really sure how to intro this. Jess had a good train of thought going on her site when she introduced it as another perspective on the circumcision issue. However, since we're having a girl, I have no excuse. Other than...whoa...

Read all about it.

I think I moved into the gayest subdivision in town. And by "gay," I mean, "All the cheesy, ridiculously cliche', trite things you have ever heard about anything ever."

The doorbell just rang. I was upstairs, and Matt hurried to put the dogs outside so they didn't attack whoever was at the door with showers of drool and tennis balls. By the time he got to the door, whoever it was was gone. But there was a foil-wrapped plate and a piece of paper stating the following on the door-step:

Since this is the time for goblins and bats,
Halloween spirits and ghosts and cats
Weird happenings and witches brew
These are the things I wish for you.

May the only spirit you chance to meet
Be the spirit of love and warm friends sweet

Okay, I can't stand it any more. It's just too dreadful. Anyway, the gist of it all is that we're supposed to make some sort of fucking baked goods tonight, then scamper around and place them, along with the Big Gay Note on people's door-steps in the neighborhood. Then we get the honor of posting the *other* piece of paper that was included--a little graphic of a ghost--on our door to show that we are the With-It-Est Neighbors around.

It is so time to vote for stricter covens covenants.

Kinda looks like an ectoplasmic blow-up doll, doesn't it?

You want to hear something nice? I've had a stuffy nose for the last several months, evidently a normal part of pregnancy. So I was sitting at my desk this afternoon, and I grabbed a couple of Kleenex and blew my nose heartily.

About 10 minutes later, my forehead felt itchy. I reached up to scratch it and discovered a dried up booger right between my eyebrows. Now that was a vigorous nose blow.

I just thank all the deities involved that no one walked by my desk during that time.

Via Dee:

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Okay, I really do have to admit that the second trimester is much better than the first. Really, once the throwing up stops, you feel like you can handle all the other stuff. (I reserve judgement until the third trimester, though.)

Now I actually catch myself saying things like, "When we have the next one..." and sounding reasonably happy about it. Before, it would have been, "When we have the next one and I jam forks in my eyes because of the sheer misery of it all."

The one thing that is just killing me now is the fact that my ribs are separating. The baby is up kind of high (well above my belly button at times), and my organs are all squinched up in the uppermost parts of my abdomen. In order to accomodate them, my ribs are separating from one another.

Matt asked me to describe the pain to him. I told him it was like when you watch one of those medical dramas and they have to whip out the ol' rib spreader and rip someone's chest cavity open. The difference is that it's just between a couple of ribs, but it goes sooooo sloooooowly, and evidently it feels like this all the way until delivery, when everything settles back into the usual places.

My doctor, Pollyanna Sunshine, M.D., said, "Oh, you know what would really help you right now? Anti-inflammatories! Too bad you can't take them while pregnant."

*sob*

All right, all right. Mainly because my mother-in-law asked (for blackmail purposes, perhaps)(and not that she's reading this site, but Matt will be seeing her soon), here's a belly shot of me. I'm at 22 and a half weeks right now. The picture is at Big Trinity Lake, which is on the Boise National Forest.

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