soon doo boo haiku

soon doo boo. too soon
do i 'bliterate your broth,
only doo boo left.

Light at the end of the tunnel...

Well, the first tunnel of - like - a zillion apparently.

I'm in the final weeks of my first trimester.  And the fog is beginning to lift.  The fog, that is, of extreme lethargy and bitchiness that had engulfed my life for the past month and a half.

For the past 6 or 7 weeks, I've felt like one dollar (you know, the opposite of a million?).  I've felt bloated, water-retentive, fat, lazy, exhausted, impatient, intolerant, selfish, out-of-shape, cranky, cynical, and disenchanted.  Sometimes all of the above, usually a combination of 5 or more.

I would like to attribute most of my recent "displacement" of emotional and physical self-image and well-being on hormones.  (Much like I'd like to attribute most of my Twilight fanaticism on very early pregnant-but-didn't-know-it hormones too.)  But in the end, there's no excuse for my actions and attitudes of late.  And I feel really bad (finally) for those who suffered most - my husband and my boss.

Of course, I feel a little less guilty since my husband came home last night to tell me he "accidentally" threw his wedding band down one of the A/C vents in his car..

How could I forget...

I don't know what was wrong with me on Friday, but I totally forgot one of my All-time ALL-TIME Cars I Hate::

FORD MUSTANGS

Hate 'em.  I've never encountered a decent driver in a Mustang.

Don't hate the game, hate the player?

Every day, on my way to and from work, I come up with a new list:  The List of Cars on the Road I Hate.

Some makes and models of cars consistently make this list, which means they qualify for my other list:  The All-Time List of Cars on the Road I Hate.  

In order to qualify for either list, I basically have to encounter your make/model of car on the road and have a very negative impression or experience with it.  To make the latter list, this has to occur at least five times. 

For example, yesterday afternoon on my home from work I was behind a black Toyota Prius who was more than just a little brake-happy.  We were traveling down a one-lane road in Palos Verdes, and traffic was moving at around 30 to 40 mph.  There are lots of traffic signals on this stretch of road, so it made for a lot of stop & go.  But this person in front of me (in the black Prius) seemed to think the best way to take advantage of his/her hybrid was to quickly accelerate then slam on the brakes - over and over again - even when there was no reason for stopping or slowing down.  The driver's erratic driving habits led me to put a little extra distance between that car and myself.  But it still didn't make me immune to having to respond to their sudden going and stopping because, as there was a long line of cars behind me, I felt pressure to not leave TOO much room between us lest the cars behind me think I was an idiot.  So, somewhere between Torrance and San Pedro, I decided I hated all black Priuses (Prii?).

You get the picture.

Over the past 14-odd years of being a driver in the state of California, my All-Time List has evolved into the following:

The All-Time List of Cars on the Road I Hate:
- All white cars (amended in 2000 to:) All white trucks, domestic sedans/coupes, BMWs, and minivans.
- All green trucks (whether they be compact Tacomas or giant GMCs with double tires in the back)
- All monster trucks on surface streets
- Chrysler 300s and Dodge Chargers, especially black ones (which makes up about 95% of 'em)
- PT Cruisers, especially purple ones
- Minivans driven by Asian males - they are especially insane (inane?) on the freeway
- Blue Corvettes
- Older white Camaros (actually, these fall under All White Domestic Coupes)
- Chevy HHRs and most Malibus (again, especially white ones)
- Silver BMW 7's driven by Asians (male or female)
- Lexuses (Lexi?) with super dark tinted windows
- All airport shuttle vans, especially the ones that drive 60 mph in the carpool lane
- Ford Excursions, especially when driven by a teenager or petite adult female
- Lexus LXs

My current list is basically the same as above, with the addition of:

- Pre-2004 (1st Generation) Priuses, especially seafoam ones.
- Light blue Honda CR-Vs
- Weaving Land Rovers
- Toyota Land Cruisers
and of course,
- Black Priuses

Strangely enough, I've never encountered a bad driver of a red Audi A3 or blue Saturn SL2.  These types of cars must just attract people of a finer moral fiber...

A or B?

So I've been addicted to www.thebump.com for the last 4 weeks.  Their message boards are extremely entertaining, informative, ridiculous, and at times haunting.

They also have these things called "pregnancy tickers" - two of which are displayed at the top of my blog.  I can't decide which one I like better, so please help me by voting for your preference!  One's a fairly straightforward countdown, and the other tracks the growth of my unborn baby by relating it to food items.  Kinda twisted, yet endearing at the same time.

Danke!

P.S.  My boss is in Milwaukee today, tomorrow, & Monday.  My goal is to post every day he's gone. I've already played sudoku, cleaned out all of my email inboxes, and read 2 or 3 celebrity gossip sites... *Grin*

The thing of it being is...

Sigh.

I've been a Bad Blogger of late. 
But I can explain! If you noticed, my last couple blogs were somewhat lame - no pictures, not even any bold or text size changes. I actually cracked open my Toshiba laptop for the first time in 3 weeks so I could post this with the high quality of variety you have grown accustomed to on this fine blog.

That's because...
I am now the proud owner of an iPad! 
(Yes, you should be jealous.)

It's AWESOME.  Now, I don't own an iPhone or iPod Touch, so I never knew the wonder of instant web access or the curious satisfaction of collecting and hoarding apps and games - most of which I forget I installed and stumble across weeks later wondering to myself, "What is this?"  I had a peek into that world - noticing how friends and relatives would be glued to their iPhones.  I wondered what the big fuss was about.  Well, now I know.

So far, the only cons I've come across are that I have limited capabilities when posting on my blog, I can't view anything Flash-related, and my eyesight is deteriorating at that much faster a rate since I basically come home every night and am glued to another, smaller screen.

The other morning, on Mark & Brian (KLOS 95.5's morning talk show hosts) were discussing annoying idioms and figures of speech that they either hated when other people say them, and/or hate that they themselves say them all the time.  People called in with their pet peeves or bad habits.  You know, phrases like:

"It is what it is"
"...you know what I mean?"
"You go, girl!"
"Long story short..."
"Tell me about it."

... You get the idea.  Obviously some of them aren't that irritating - unless maybe you know someone, or interact on a daily basis with someone, who abuses them.  At one point, a lady called in sounding almost hysterical because she was at her wit's end that one of her coworkers ALWAYS said "The thing of it being is..."  She screamed over the radio, "What does that even mean?? It doesn't mean anything!  It's a bunch of words and a waste of breath that conveys NOTHING!"  She was really peeved.

I started wondering what kind of verbal idiosyncrasies I myself suffer from.   I definitely go through my "words of the day" where I feel like I say the same word in conversation repetitively.  Words such as "seriously" or "supposedly".  I'll find myself replying in conversations all day with, "Exactly," or "Totally," over and over again, ad nauseam. I guess these phrases are just verbal crutches - like "er" or "um".  It's what you say when you can't think of anything else, but still want to act as though you're engaged in the conversation.  You know what I mean? Totally.

About a week ago, I was having trouble finding the right words in a conversation.  It was a special kind of conversation - with my family - in which I had to make an announcement.  In my entire life, I don't think I've ever announced anything.  Well, not anything important.  (Oh, I've blurted out lots of inane facts or opinions in very matter-of-fact ways over the years.)  But when it comes to Big News, I'm pretty inexperienced.  Most "big things" I've transmitted via email, or - back in the day - I'd drop hints until the other person started to pick up on it and guessed at the pertinent information.

But this time, I couldn't just drop hints because (a) I was on a time constraint, and (b) if I wanted people to guess at my announcement, I'd have to wait a couple months.

My big news was that I am pregnant.

And I was trying to tell my immediate family.

And I didn't know how.

So, the thing of it being was... that I just sat there. Mute. Like a statue. We were seated at a large round table in a Chinese-Korean restaurant - me, my husband (yes, he's the baby-daddy), my mother, my father, my brother and his two young children.  And I just stared at the middle of the table. Waiting.  At one point, during a seemingly-fortuitous lull in conversation, I said loudly, "So..."

But that was apparently not strong enough a signifier to my family that I had Big News.  Because my brother looked right at me, then turned to my father and started telling a story about his work.  And my mom decided it was time to leave the restaurant and got up from the table.

I did end up telling my family, later at my parents' house.  My husband & I stopped by the store on our way from the restaurant to their house to pick up dessert and a bouquet of flowers for my mother.  When we walked in the doorway and handed her the flowers, she asked why.  And I told her it was because she was going to be a grandmother again.  It wasn't ideal (my brother was on the sofa reading the paper and my father was in the other room just out of earshot), but I thought it was clever.  And it got the job done.

I made my husband email his side of the family.

I love the modern age.  I can just interact with people through my new iPad.  I don't have to think of pertinent and clever things to say on the spot.  I have time to edit, choose my words carefully, and go back and revise my drafts.  I understand that's probably why my abilities in face-to-face communication have gotten so poor.  To the point where I find myself sitting on my hands, mumbling, "Well, it is what it is," to ears that don't have to listen that well anymore.

Here's a picture - just because I can.  And because it's what I'm eating for dinner.

 

Target: Tylenol

After I got off work today, I went to Target.

as usual, I went in muttering strict instructions to myself to buy the one thing I was there for, and NOTHING ELSE. I ended up with a $140 tab. The original item I went to Target for - $29.

Well, you know how you're supposed to learn something new every day? Today I learned two new things at my neighborhood Target.

1) There is a massive Tylenol recall and nobody knows about it. At least, I had no idea.
I probably stood in the "painkiller" section of the pharmacy for a good while scanning the shelves, looking for the signature red, yellow, and white packaging, until it finally occurred to me that I should ask for help. When I was able to flag down a nice young employee, she pointed to a section of the shelf that I was directly in front of (of course) and directed me to the purple and white boxes of generic Target acetamenophin She looked at me plainly and said, "All the Tylenol's been recalled."

What?? Tyelenol? Recalled? After gawking for a good beat I finally grabbed a 100-count bottle of generic acetaminophen and threw it into my cart, along with the other $110 worth of impulse purchases. I figured I'd just Google it later.

2) My neighborhood Target totally racial profiles!
After I paid for the egregious amount of unintended (and possibly unnecessary) items, I pushed my cart - ha, what a hapless fool I was to start out with a mere basket intending to just "run into Target and grab one thing" - toward the exit whilst artfully stuffing the guiltily lengthy receipt into my wallet and fishing out my keys, I noticed a Latino family with a small child already playing with a just-purchased toy getting waved over by one of the red-and-khaki-clad Target employees. He asked for their receipt, which they promptly gave him, and began to survey the items in their cart and comparing it, seemingly, to their receipt.

Just behind the Latino family was a Caucasian male with very obviously one single item. When he realized this was going to be an official exit checkpoint a la Costco or Frys, he too fished his receipt, which he had just stuffed into his pocket, to have it ready for the Target employee. I, too, after seeing all this, heaved a mighty sigh - took my wallet back out of my purse, unzipped it, and took out the receipt I had just put away.

BUT. ALL WAS FOR NAUGHT.

For as soon as the employee had checked the Latino family's receipt and waved them out, he swiftly walked back to what I then realized was his normal post, standing in between the entry and exit doors - observing all the incoming and outgoing customers.

Apparently, a three-year-old Latino boy with a small toy was the only threat here. Caucasian bachelors and Asian shopaholics were not a problem.

I thought about that whole scenario as I drove home. The employee must have been watching them for a while, for them to have piqued his suspicion. And if that were the case, then wouldn't he have watched them go through the checkout line and made sure that all the items were scanned and that the toy the little boy in the cart was holding wasn't skipped? Odd.

Anyway, back to Item #1, when I came home I Googled the whole Tylenol thing and apparently Johnson & Johnson did a "phantom recall", which is when a company uses a third party to buy out all the inventory already on store shelves, and skips the public announcement of an "official recall".

Oh, and if generic medication is supposedly just as good and oftentimes made at the same facilities as the name brand ones, shouldn't I be concerned about the generic meds I just purchased too???

It's a mystery...

So I guess I didn't actually LEARN anything at Target today - I just came up with more questions!

Well, maybe I learned one thing: to limit myself to 2 Target trips a month, no matter what I think I "need" and especially if I just need "one thing".

I just love...

I just love love LOVE fresh cracked pepper on my salad!

That's all.