This occurred to me while watching Antichrist, a movie so ridiculous that it made me think about Gremlins. I can't wait to play the video game!

Finally, I pulled it all together. I finished the hat last night after it had been sitting around in pieces for a couple of weeks. I found the other bits at Target when we were in MS. The only trick-or-treating we'll be doing is at participating Failtown businesses, but still.

First plane trip is upon us shortly. I am trying to OVER prepare because I am already nervous. I'm not used to being the center of naked contempt and hostility. Taking a baby on an airplane pretty much guarantees we will be looked at with both even before we are on board.

I've tried to suss out what we'll be in for. You see, airlines and the TSA tend to be a little vague about protocol. The stories I've read reflect this. Some people had no problems with their car seat. Some people could not get theirs to fit in tiny seats and were only re-accommodated after doing some dramatic crying. I called Delta to make 100% sure there were no size restrictions on car seats, and they said no. Delta, I am holding you to this and I will write a scathing journal entry if you lied to me!

The TSA says you may only bring "reasonable" amounts of (liquid-y) baby items through. What constitutes reasonable? Depends on the mood of the agent you're dealing with. Some are lenient. Others will seize your baby's food if it is fruit or yogurt because that is not baby food, you see. It's dessert. Stop trying to blow up planes with your blueberries, ma'am. I thought I was being crafty by bringing all powdered formula with me. Babycenter has just assured me that I will be taken to a tiny room and interrogated. I wanted to bring powder because then I can carry a lot more of it and just buy bottled water to mix it. I have visions of being held hostage on a tarmac for hours on end without being let off the plane and then running out of formula. I guess that would be my comeuppance for failing to breastfeed, but I hear you can get kicked off of a plane for doing that, too.

In short, somebody invent teleportation already. Please?

Edit: Now with more funny, less skill


RIGHT???

Was it ever?

Every year when it is film festival time, I painstakingly comb through the lineup and make my fantasy list of everything I would like to see. Out of these, I will see at most two, sometimes none (was too barfy last year to go).

This is my list for 2009:

• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - New Terry Gilliam
• Ashes of American Flags: Wilco Live - Why not?
• Precious - Look, I wanted to see this BEFORE Oprah got involved when it was still called Push, okay?
• Trash Humpers - okay, honestly, I don't want to see this one. It's by Harmony Korine who creeps me out.
• Prom Night in Mississippi - A little worried about this one since it is Canadian made. This may be a lot of hand-wringing "lookit these backwards folks!" It's about Charleston, MS.
• Antichrist - New Lars Von Trier. I just assumed it was another Dogme woman-beating piece of crap. Apparently it's an overly stylized woman-beating piece of...something that stars Willem Dafoe whose performance in Wild at Heart I still haven't recovered from. Someone at TIFF said that an audience member actually fainted during the show. I went and watched the trailer, and it scared the shit out of me. If I see nothing else this year, I may see this. Mostly because it's actually playing at a time when I can go.

Also, why does Who Do You Love exist? Didn't we already have a film on Chess Records, ersatz Rolling Stones and all?

It wasn't until all my RSS feeds mysteriously vanished on here that I really noticed the lack of activity.

Where did everyone go? Is everything so boring that you have nothing to say? Is everything so hectic you don't have time to talk about it? Are you all hiding out on some other site and not telling me?

I know I don't post as much. Anything short goes on twitter, anything baby related goes on the baby site which doesn't leave much else since it's pretty much BABY BABY BABY 24/7 over here. I think I will start cross-posting my book reviews though.

I guess I need to set up all my feeds on some sort of reader now.

I finally made a new banner for the baby site, only I made it in Photoshop so now the font is all fuzzy. Is there anything I can do to make it sharper when I save it or do I need to start over in Illustrator?

For this project, you type in your name and it scours the web to try and "categorize" you. I can't say that the end results are terribly interesting but it's worth doing for the "calculation" part. Apparently it won't come right out and say YOUR NAME BELONGS TO A PORN STAR and plays coy by saying "star of 'parody' films". Also I found out that 2 years ago someone with my name was murdered in a dorm.

I owe the CRA $920. This is because H&R Block fucked up my 2007 return and failed to record that I was a new immigrant who had only had residency status for part of the year. Their solution to this was to offer me a gift certificate the next time I had my taxes done. I think I'd rather pay money to someone else to have my taxes done correctly in the future.

So now I have to scrape together $920 by 8/31. I don't even make that much in a month. I'm going to see if I can get on a payment plan and then go back to work for a month. It would have to be full-time work because everything I earn is taken off of what I get back from my maternity leave so I'd have to work at least that much plus extra to make more money than that plus extra still to get full-time childcare for a month.

---

I'm pissy about this article on CBC. Maybe not so much the article itself - I suspect it is mostly homeowners with basement suites who are doing this. As much as I dislike the idea of discriminating against families, I think if someone is going to be living in your house you should be able to pick renters who best mesh with your household. But then again, in the insane rental market up here, that has the potential to leave people on the streets just because they're gay or not Asian. At the same time, I think it's also easy to get some idea of the people who want to rent from you. I'd rather have a nice family downstairs than a skeevy single person. Some of it may also be due to capacity - I'm not sure that you legally could rent a 1-bedroom to a family of five.

Anyway, my issue with it could have been easily remedied by remembering that I should never read the comments. This always happens any time a story is posted about families having trouble. Yaletown's catchment school has so few slots to accommodate the children that parents have to camp out to get their child registered? Boo hoo, parents, you should have thought of that before you had kids and tried to raise them in a decent urban environment! Nobody MADE you reproduce. Why not take a little responsibility and uproot your whole life to live somewhere else?

Now it's "Look at these parents who think they're so entitled to rent whatever place they want! Why do you think your child is so SPECIAL that landlords can't discriminate against you? I mean, they don't have to allow PETS! Nobody wants to see/hear/be in any way subjected to the knowledge that you have a child" etc. I guess I just find it baffling that so many people think that children are nothing more than a really expensive version of herpes.

That's not to say that there aren't loud, screamy children out there. Lord knows I bitched about them running up and down the hall in our old building, but I still think they had the right to live there. If I were the one laying down the rules, I'd say please discriminate against people who have loud stereos and who also stay up until 4 am listening to said stereos on full blast. Those are a lot more disruptive to my sense of "quiet enjoyment" (as our lease puts it) than children who are usually (ahem, should be) in bed by nine.

After a year and a half of heavy use, I think it is time to retire James A. Garfield. I now have Moss to celebrate having finally finished Season 3 of the IT Crowd (apparently I'd seen most of it and didn't remember).

Today I received an early birthday gift of the 11-22mm Olympus lens. It's supposed to be one of the best ones Olympus has ever made. I think once I replace my crappo 40-150 with the 70-300 and then get the 50 macro, I will get rid of both my high grade 14-45 and my 35 macro. I'm trying to simplify.

I took a ride on the new Canada Line today. It was kind of spooky to be in the underground stations since there weren't many people there. I really like the trains though.

I think I mentioned this on FriendFace, but we'll be in Mississippi from October 8 - 13 if you (any of you! all of you!) want to gaze upon the precious. Or see me. Or Josh. Or pretend to want to see me or Josh but really you just want to see if Evelyn lives up to the hype.

After I finally shoehorned the book collection back into the bookshelves, I did the thing I always do - try to cull the herd. It sounds like a good idea, but it never works out. First I decide that I can't get rid of the butt ugly books I got at a library sale for $.50 because I haven't read them yet. Then I decide that I can't get rid of some books that I have read and don't like because I like other books by the same author and obviously I can't separate them. I can't make myself get rid of the books I've already read and did like because I might want to read them again. And last of all, I feel like I need to keep them around for Evelyn when she gets older (which probably guarantees that she will be completely uninterested in them).

But I have implemented new rules for myself. I am going to try and read one unread book in the collection every month starting with the ones I think I will want to pitch afterward. I am not going to buy any new books unless the book in question is one I will revisit often - i.e. something of the instructable nature. Now that I am a block away from the main library, I do my book shopping there. This has already derailed my first attempt at finishing off some of the books I already own.

I just finished Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher. Loved it but for two things - too short and too many exclamation points(!). I'm pretty sure it's mostly just a transcript of her show which explains both the brevity and the punctuation. The font seems a bit large along with the spacing between sentences. It's like she (well, the publisher) was trying to turn in something for a freshman composition class. I'm surprised it wasn't also in courier font with 2 inch margins to make the book feel longer.

I also finished Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block. Having read many of her articles, I already knew she was a great writer. This book is no exception. Despite the fact that I know she is very passionate about the subject of natural childbirth, this is a very even-handed book. In the end the real "villains" (as such) seem to be hospital bureaucrats and malpractice lawyers moreso than OB/GYNs (who usually get all the blame for "medicalized" childbirth, at least on the message boards I read). She doesn't shy away from reporting what she sees while shadowing illegal lay midwives including a case where 911 is almost called too late to resuscitate a newborn. It's a wonderful book, both enlightening and infuriating. I didn't know of the cases where the law had gotten involved to force women to have repeat c-sections. All I can say is that I am glad to be living in a province where there is no animosity between midwives and OBs so that it's possible to both have a midwife and give birth in a hospital the way I want to. This is a good place for me to point out The Big Push for Midwives going on right now.

And teh_dirty_robot mentioned already thinking about Halloween costumes.

Having (that is to say owning, not birthing) a baby around Halloween looks like it might be almost as fun as having (owning, not birthing) a dog around Halloween. I mean, you can have tiny Darth Vader or Princess Leia, tiny Katamari prince (I need to find time to make that, for reals), and now tiny Link (can tiny Zelda be far behind?).

I must learn to knit.

Now don't get excited, but I need a recommendation for good buyer's agent in North Carolina.

We have A (Tentative) Plan.

The one site where you can only type 140 characters is trying to CENSOR me. It doesn't want you to know what I am thinking.

Here are things I tried to say the past few days:

• I tried to tell Leah that I am not up on my huge-eyes-no-nose-having news.
• I tried to thank Marg for pointing me to this site because it is, in fact, funny.
• I tried to tell Larry that I also love watching "IT Crowd"
• Just now I tried to ask Alison how Cobra Commander is in (500) Sweater Vests of Summer
• I also wanted to tell everyone how I saw a Hare Krishna picnic and then we saw the police jump their car onto the sidewalk, stop the car, take off running and help arrest what may have been neo-nazis at a Metis festival at the art gallery.
• I was also going to point out this site with spooky pictures that change when you move by them
• I was going to say I finally started reading Slaughterhouse Five because I somehow missed it in high school and that so far I'm underwhelmed and that I like Gravity's Rainbow and Catch-22 better for WW2 novels.

Probably some other stuff, too. I'm so in the habit of spouting off short sentences that I guess I will just start putting them all here again.

In baking, are the sum of the calories of the individual ingredients equal to the calories present in the finished product? Josh says that the magic of baking means that at the end, it could have MORE calories. Confirm/Deny?

Today was the hottest day in Vancouver ever. Well, since they started recording temperatures.

Tonight I took a cold bath and then went to bed with two ice packs. They were warm 30 minutes later.

Right now I am checking hotel prices for tomorrow night. I'm honestly a little worried about the baby since she is sweaty all the time and hasn't been wetting her diapers as much. She's still drooly which means she isn't really dehydrated but still.

1. I have two bookcases with glass doors that currently live in our solarium which is appropriately named. What can I put on the glass that would be removable to keep the books from fading?

2. I want to start lifting weights. Tell me your resources for getting started. I guess that wasn't a question so much as a demand.

3. Related to above: Has anyone used aquabells (the weights that you fill with water to use. they're supposed to be for travel)? I have zero room for anything that's going to take up much space, and I need something I can use in the house since I don't have the money to join a gym nor do I want to prop the baby up somewhere downstairs in the tiny gym in our building. Other suggestions?

I need a bag intervention. I can't seem to stop myself from buying them if they remotely conform to something I might need and are on sale. I just bought another one at IKEA because it is a vertical messenger bag (I'm back in the city! I need a larger purse!) that could also (maybe) double as a diaper bag. So really... I bought it for the baby. Just like the ergonomic backpack and the Nood bag.

Maybe the baby is the one in need of a bag intervention. Yeah!

Poll #1422162
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 17

This is...

This article? You don't want to read it. If you have kids, you really don't want to read it, and if you have a child still in a rear-facing carseat, you really, really don't want to read it. But you probably should anyway as long as the laws about this sort of thing get more and more restrictive.

When I first ran into a discussion about this sort of incident (Salon's Broadsheet has had several lately), someone posted a few stats about the number of children killed by airbags vs. the number forgotten in a car. Something like 8 airbag-related deaths (according to an NYT article I found, only 2 of those were infants in rear-facing seats) over 10 years vs. 36 per year accidentally left in a hot car (or an average of 360 a year). Why can't we parents make the decision for ourselves about this? Apparently you can get a serious ticket for having a child in the front seat even though a lot of cars have the option to turn off passenger-side airbags. I still get pissy about the fact that you have to put your 9-year-old in a booster seat (in the back seat, of course!). Has my lack of risk aversion gone too far?

Also, pro tip: never read the comments for these types of stories. None of these people have ever forgotten anything ever and would totally pass the written exam they propose that all potential parents take in order to get a license to breed. Me? I totally see how it could happen, and it scares the shit out of me. I'm glad we're moving back where we won't have to drive much anymore.

I hate to sound like a boob hypochondriac, but now I think I have mastitis.

This time I actually match the photos that come up on google image search (Note: don't actually do a google image search for "mastitis" unless you think you have it. There's no point in subjecting yourself to diseased cow titties if you don't have to.)

Okay, my right foot is still retaining enough water that it is a few millimeters thicker than the left foot. This means I still can't get into 95% of my shoes. Any home remedies (or OTC meds) to drop this last smidge of water weight? It's driving me batty though at least the weather is such that I don't mind wearing sandals or the *sigh* crocs all the time.

I'm already taking dandelion capsules and drinking lemon water though I don't know that either really does anything.

---

I need TV recommendations. I have a lot of time to fill between now and March 2010. I prefer shows that run in a half-hour format because that covers one feeding/pumping session (and doesn't take up as much storage space), but I'll also take recommendations for hour-long shows to watch during the day.

Here is what I have recently watched (or re-watched):
• The Office
• 30 Rock
• How I Met Your Mother
• Venture Bros.
• The IT Crowd
• The Boondocks
• Twin Peaks
• Freaks and Geeks
• My So-Called Life

Obviously, I'm open to shows from over a decade ago. Nothing too thinky since I watch at least a couple of episodes in the middle of the night.

avengerbaby is now up and running. You no longer have to check to see if the baby is here.

My mom has come and gone and was a tremendous help last week. We've been sleeping better and we're starting to get into more of a routine. Still doing supplemental formula feeding to give me a break.

Evelyn is changing fast. She's already holding her head up at times and smiling. We ordered her Canadian passport today. I hope they accept her photos because we were in the portrait studio for quite some time just to get something that was even remotely acceptable.

I have an ultrasound scheduled for Wednesday to see if there's something causing excess bleeding. I'm afraid I'm going to have to have a D&C if they find anything and right now, the last thing I want is to have anyone poking around in there just as my stitches are healing.

I'm thinking of moving all mundane baby updates to isthebabyhereyet (still need to work on that CSS and can't figure out why the flickr widget doesn't work properly) and retaining this space for more "personal" and/or stupid updates.

Bottles. Pacifiers. These used to be innocent icons of babyhood. Now they're the marks of Bad Parenting.

And I don't care.

I told myself I wouldn't be a martyr for pregnancy or breastfeeding. I'm finally making good on that promise. After going on nursing strike yesterday (and crying most of the afternoon) because cluster feeding has left me so raw that I couldn't even pump, I gave in and we gave her a bottle of POISON!!! I mean... formula. After that, she passed right out which gave me enough time to recover for a couple of night feedings. I managed to pump one bottle today on top of her usual (very frequent) feedings. Honestly, I would love to go to all bottle feedings because she is 100% less gassy than when she gets it straight from the tap. She always seems a lot happier afterwards since she doesn't have to deal with raging pent-up farts. I guess maybe the breast shields cause her to suck in extra air, but I can't feed her without them. That shit hurts enough WITH them.

So in the whole debate about breastfeeding vs. formula, it's always set up so it sounds like there's no middle ground. But you know what? I think there is. And that's fine by me. I never was an extremist.

Today we finally left the nest to go to a picnic. I just realized that I spent an hour in the sun without getting burned. Also, I am wearing some pre-baby jeans (granted, they are the largest ones I have in my wardrobe and they used to be pretty loose, but still).

We had a pretty good night last night despite feeding every couple of hours. Evelyn finally slept on something that wasn't either of us and I'm feeling pretty well-rested so I guess it's time for...

( THE BIRTH STORY!!! (warning: I'm not glossing over anything) )

Just got home. Kinda (really) tired. Don't worry, I will tell you all about it later.

Happy *sigh* Mother's Day!

I look forward to some brunch which I did not have to cancel with my own mama. And I got to see Star Trek yesterday.

Tomorrow we get up early to go get an ultrasound and non-stress test. Then I contemplate drinking the worst recipe I've ever seen. Hint: it involves almond butter, apricot juice, and castor oil. Midwife claims 70% success rate with it, but at what cost to my tender exit-hole? I might save that one for later in the week assuming all is good with the testing. I was a 42w1d baby myself.