Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Let There Be Pictures
I was kind of the picture taker at the family gathering Sunday, so I am expected to post more of the pictures from it. This by way of explaining what will probably be a series of posts containing one or more pictures each, some with limited explanation, following this post.
We’re Dead Last, Go Us
Deb thinks the drivers are insane here in Massachusetts, and I can’t say there’s evidence of much overstatement in that perception. So this chart of traffic death rates is a revelation in more than just showing less densely populated states tend to be worse. It also shows Massachusetts is the absolute best.
I have to wonder how much of a factor it is having hospitals everywhere you look, so getting to topnotch medical care after an accident is fast.
Via, which is a perfectly good form of attribution thank you, Lawren, whose blogiversary was yesterday.
Monday, August 30, 2004
Help A Blogger Out
Have you ever enjoyed reading Alphecca? Whether it’s the regular check on media gun bias feature, or Jeff’s other insightful posts, he’s a top read in these parts.
So it is with dismay that I see how demoralized he is feeling after restoring his long absent tip jar in an effort to drum up another year of hosting money.
This would be the famous “bandwidth” of which Andrew Sullivan speaks breathlessly, generating donations upwards of $80,000 in a year to cover “bandwidth” and an assistant to keep his blog going.
I’d rather keep Jeff’s blog going, thankyouverymuch. He’s not whining that he’ll quit if you don’t donate fifty big ones just before he takes a month off at his second home. He’s short the basic chunk of change simply to pay a year’s real blogging bandwidth.
Hop on over there and click the shiny rounds in the upper right. Help a great blogger and amazingly nice guy out.
Need more reason? If you somehow missed it, check out Jeff’s incredible World War II Today project. Is that not worth a couple bucks in the tip jar?
She’s A Hairy Baby
There’s yet another post at Sadie’s blog with ultrasound pictures, such as they are this time.
Just A Hair Longer…
[Originally published to the old baby blog.]
We went for the last fancy ultrasound and perinatologist visit today. Got some not very good images, below. She loves to block her face with her hands, which you can see in the side views.
The face shot isn’t so good by itself, but builds on the ones we have gotten to date. The most significant thing is it appears she has an impressive head of hair. Her eyes also don’t look as deep set in this one.
They estimate her current weight at 6 lbs 9 oz. Her left kidney is slightly oversized, but it’s likely just fuzzy measurement. Just to be sure, she’ll get her own ultrasound after she’s born. They can get a more accurate reading without mom in the way.
The doctor was extremely pleased with how things are going, and we should be golden.
Gathering Pictures Part 1
I took more than eighty pictures yesterday, so naturally I want to start posting some of them. This cuts to the chase with a group shot. The small one here is 400 pixels wide. Click on that to open one that is a convenient 800 wide. Click the link below for the original, full size one if you’d like, 1600-odd wide and fairly large.
Clockwise starting with the baby:
Julia, my newest grandniece
Emily, my oldest grandniece, holding Julia
Katherine, aka Katie, middle grandniece
Ryun, my oldest nephew, holding Katie
Gary, my older brother, cause of my having grandnieces
Sharon, Ryun’s wife
Billy, brother Wayne’s oldest son and second oldest kid
Jackie, Wayne’s girlfriend
Wayne, my younger brother
Umm… what’s her name again? Oh yeah, Deb
Me
My mother, kneeling
Jonathan, Wayne’s youngest
James, Wayne’s next youngest
Off to the right you can see my trusty old Sentra.
I Agree
Carnival of the Capitalist Blues
New Dog Old Trick has the August 30 Carnival of the Capitalists, chock full of links to good business and economics posts.
Also don’t miss the latest Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey.
The September 6 Carnival of the Capitalists will be hosted by Joe Grossberg, who is standing by for your entries at the capitalists -at- elhide -dot- com e-mail alias.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Mini Me
Well then, the gathering was fun. There was a cake for us, and an ice cream cake for my oldest nephew, whose birthday is coming up in a couple weeks. We got some nice baby loot, though not all of what people plan for us.
But I digress. My mother will tell you that I was one of the cutest babies ever. She gave Deb a picture, and I already scanned it. So here it is, me as a baby, clickable for a much larger version:
Not only was I cute, but remarkably good-natured.
Family Fun
Today we are going to a family thing at my grandmother’s house. My brother took three of his five kids to Ohio for the annual visitation, despite all efforts by his ex to prevent or disrupt it. She did manage to terrorize one daughter into staying home, and the other daughter is old enough both to care less about it than she might, and to be able to use not going as a way to get things she wants from her mother.
Since the rest of us never see those kids anymore, my brother arranged for a gathering today that includes them, before he has to return them to her clutches. It’s going to double as a “shower” so Deb doesn’t have to deal with a real one and attend two social events when one will do. My mother is just as intent that there Must Be Shower as she was that there had to be an ex post facto wedding reception (which I may have pictures of soon).
We’re trying to remember to bring the camera so I might have pictures to post later. Oooh, you can hardly wait.
It’s not the greatest day for it, being almost 90 and humid. At least it’s not a monsoon like last time there was something supposed to be outside.
In addition to any post-gathering bloggage, it occurs to me I haven’t finished the tale of the mice, posted my experiment inventing a spicy fried chicken bits recipe (with pictures!), or talked about how gorgeous Marion Jones is, how classy she and her teammates are and the need for the basketball team to learn from them, or posted about our fandom of Anna Pavlova, who wuz robbed naturally. So perhaps tonight there will be some free ice cream, if I don’t poop out and/or go hide in the AC-chilled bedroom again.
Saturday, August 28, 2004
First Rule of G.R.O.S.S. Fight Club…
Fascinating comparison: Jack as Calvin, Tyler Durden as Hobbes, Marla Singer as Susie Derkins, and Robert Paulson as Moe. In short, Fight Club is Calvin & Hobbes, all grown up. I like it.
Friday, August 27, 2004
Enough said, yes?
Baby updates will continue, hopefully at some sort of pace now that I’m writing over there again. Worse comes to worse, you’ll certainly know when she decided to make an entrance. 
I am, however, officially quitting politcal blogging until sometime after she makes that entrance. I have other things to focus on right now.
If you’ll pardon me, I’m in the middle of scrubbing down the highchair and I’ve got to get back to it.
Just Damn.
Get this: I just threw my last 7 cigarettes away.
They’ve only been sitting there for the last 6 months.
You know, I don’t think I’ll start again, after all.
More Presidential Candidate Comparisons
Here is an interesting analysis of Democratic candidates going back to 1964, at Eternity Road.
Ambition To Substance Ratio
Okay, so now Lileks is writing articles that say what I want to say while saving me the keystrokes, thus helping me delay the onset of carpal tunnel. A snippet that cuts to the heart of it:
The reason is almost tautological: John Kerry wants to be president because he is John Kerry, and John Kerry is supposed to be president. Hence his campaign’s flummoxed and tone-deaf response to the swift boat vets. Ban the books, sue the stations, retreat, attack. Underneath it all you can sense the confusion. How dare they attack Kerry? He’s supposed to be president. It’s almost treason in advance.
Exactly. Nor is he the first candidate whose reason for wanting to be President is because he wanted to be President. Think Gore, but that is just for starters. This is what I keep saying, as Deb can tell you.
I don’t mean merely it’s “his turn” as Lileks gets into at the end of the piece, though for the party there is some of that. Dole was a throwaway candidate whose turn it was. The parties do this regularly and hope for the best, but I am convinced they often know full well the candidate will lose and they do it anyway, because it’s “right” or perhaps because competing factions converge on the safe zero.
Kerry is an “always wanted to be President” candidate who also benefits from being the obvious next nominee for the party. There’s nothing to him, but they almost had to do it just because.
Gore was the same, but less of a zero. For both men it’s about ego and power. Kerry rehabilitates Gore by making him look good, reminding us he had actual ideas, opinions, intelligence, and decision making ability, for all he had excess ambition and willingness to engage the Truth Warp Drive to trip into power. Perhaps that will be the story of Kerry in the end, or would have been had Gore not gone visibly insane recently.
Bush 41 had a bit of the same “always wanted” to him, if only because the idea was a kick and it was a great capstone on the resume. Perhaps that’s why his heart didn’t seem into the campaign for re-election; he’d gotten the office as he wanted and then it didn’t matter.
Dukakis was ambitious, and enjoyed power as such, but I don’t think there was anything inevitable or that he spent his life wanting to run for President. It seems more like he saw the chance, had the credentials, took a shot, and dark horsed his way in.
Nixon had at least some of the desire to be President because he wanted to be President, wanted the power and glory. Kerry makes Nixon look more principled and honest than he might otherwise, and there were places Nixon would not go. As I have mentioned before, he deserves huge credit for not contesting the stolen election in 1960. Nor was there anything inevitable about the selection of Nixon as candidate in 1968, though obviously he was the logical choice in 1960.
Anyway, it’s fascinating to look at the races in terms of who each party could logically have run, who actually ran, whether they really had any expectation of winning, and whether a given candidate was all ambition and no substance, or if not, how close he came to having too high an ambition to substance ratio.
Recipes Galore Beats Cats Galore
The frequently obeyed one has the second ever Carnival of the Recipes up for your culinary adventurism. Mmmm… food.
Of Course
Steve Verdon has discovered a claim of terrorist responsibility surfacing for the mysteriously crashed Russian jets. Synchronize diving and you have a sport. Synchronize plane crashes and you have raised a presumption of terror. No surprise here.
Update: Steven Taylor points to evidence of explosives in the wreckage.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Never Far Beneath The Surface
On Tuesday I was driving Deb down the highway on our way to a weekly ultrasound. It was beautiful; perfect temperature, low humidity, crystal blue sky with no more clouds than needed for picturesque contrast.
She called it a “perfect day” more than once.
The sentiment, expressed as we floated down the road, open highway, blue sky and life unrolling ahead, brought to mind another perfect day. Stunning as the blue sky was, looking at it almost burst me into tears. September 11 may be nigh on three years past, but it remains just beneath the surface.
I have more than once, without triggering words, become sad seeing a day and a sky like that. Calling it a perfect day brought it on strong, as I was sure I had read an article titled “why did it have to be such a perfect day” in the weeks following 9/11.
Well, wrong title, same sentiment. It was, after all, not a perfect day. It was a perfect morning, at first. Funny how things jumble up. I assumed I was looking for a Peggy Noonan piece. Nope. Andrew Sullivan.
Some would like it not to be right there, lurking below the surface, rocks to those who would cruise to power or away from responsibility, memory hole mines to the perilously forgetful.
Not three years after That Day, how can the Presidency and aspirations to it not be about this war, the state of this world and time, what is to become of us and them; not what went before, not a theater of the Cold War, not theatrics in aid of former enemies. We go forward, but we don’t forget. We deal with the new world, striving to make it better, without dwelling in the past, striving to make that better than it truly was.
False Alarm
Whew!
I love it when my husband is right about these things.
So we went in this morning, and not only did baby cooperate with the NST, but my bp was fine once more and I’d lost 3 pounds. Bodies are weird things. I feel sort of guilty for not trusting in mine a bit more, but we don’t have a great history together in some ways, so I tend to treat the poor thing badly. It’s a guilty until proven innocent kind of thing. In any case, all appears to be back on track, labs were fine, urine still pretty (heh), in the words of the midwife “you’re cruisin’,” and I’m taking a deep breath while watching my husband trying not to gloat at how very right he was. He seems to have a sixth sense for this sort of thing. I guess I ought to start listening to him.
The biggest surprise of the morning was that the “blood pressure check” turned into a pants-off appointment, with the beta strep culture and a “what the hell, you’re naked anyway” impromptu cervix check. Nothing going on yet, which is fine. It’s still a bit early. We were informed, however, that once we get into September nobody’s going to care if I go ahead and have this baby, and that they won’t stop labor now if she becomes *that* determined to get out of there. I can’t believe it’s getting so close!
Anyway, I’m thinking that taking it a little easier yesterday was probably a help, so I’m going to try to finish the house at a slightly less frantic pace. Thank God I’ve got a bit longer to work on it. Yee-haw!
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
As it once was, so it shall be again…
That title has been sitting here in my editor for nearly a week, as I’ve wandered mentally far afield rather than actually writing up the things I was going to write up. There were so many of them, some left over from very early on...I just found the picture I took of the second positive pregnancy test, the one I took before I called Jay because I just couldn’t believe my eyes. I never wrote about feeling her move for the first time, either, about how I was sitting on the floor in the computer room on a Sunday at 16 weeks sorting through some papers and talking to Jay when I felt this odd swooshing feeling that was like nothing I’d ever felt before and how the smile on his face broke my heart into a million pieces because no heart anywhere can really handle that much love. Or how now, at 34 1/2 weeks, she’s running out of room and I have to concentrate to feel her sometimes and how she has on days and off days and sometimes the off days scare me a little, but that she always perks up when we go to bed at night and Jay lays his hand on my tummy and talks to her and my heart explodes all over again…
So much that needs to be written but probably won’t be. Growing her and trying to get the house ready are taking all of my energy right now. I’ve been doing the “nesting” thing and I do have to say that I’m quite pleased with the parts of the house I’ve actually managed to finish. Of course, I’ve also come to the conclusion that the nesting thing is crap, at least at this stage. What it really is is sheer, unadulterated panic.
The title refers to the little joys of the third trimester that remind you so much of the first...the tiredness, the sleeping poorly, the nausea (though it is more clearly linked to incautious eating)...and the crying, my God, the crying. One more spontaneous breakdown and I might just put myself to bed for the duration.
There’s a decent chance that I’ll be going to bed for the duration anyway. Jay mentioned in his post this morning that we may meet this little one even earlier than we’d planned, and although the first round of testing isn’t back yet, I have a strong hunch that he is correct.
I go in for monitoring or an appointment of some kind 3-4 days a week. NSTs on Mondays and Thursdays, BPP on Tuesdays, plus weekly appointments with the midwife and the occasional other appointment to spice up the mix, with my PCP or the peri. Last Friday, PCP upped my bp meds. Monday, my pressure was the lowest it’s been since the start of the pregnancy. Tuesday, it was up drastically, to the highest it’s been since I started taking meds. We’re talking a 30-40 point jump in the top number and a 20 point jump on the bottom, in a little more than 24 hours. I also gained 5 pounds overnight. My urine was clean, but you could almost see the poor midwife figuring that that had to be some sort of fluke. So I got the distinct displeasure of providing blood for a PIH panel to the one lady in the lab who seems determined to perfect the art of bruising. I can’t whine too hard, though, since we skipped the 24 hour urine. I guess she figured if I wouldn’t spill it in a cup, I wouldn’t spill it in a jug, either. Heh.
So here I sit, crying in my Wheaties, waiting for my (extra) appointment tomorrow morning to roll around, trying not to completely freak out. I was actually really starting to believe that I could pull off the rest of this pregnancy without any major problems, but I probably should have known better. Jay, bless him, thinks that it might be a freak reading, and there’s a chance that he’s right. Given the changes in my body over the last few days, though, including my hands deciding to swell so badly that I can’t close them in the mornings and the freaky weight gain, I’d have to bet against it.
I’m upset about this on so many levels that I can’t really express clearly what is bothering me. Mostly I think it’s that I had finally started to believe that everything was going to go smoothly, and I really, really resent this evidence that my body really can’t be trusted. Never mind that Sadie is doing extraordinarily well, that I managed to grow a big, strong monster of a baby (who currently has the hiccups). I still feel like an utter failure.
Welcome to motherhood, I guess.
Are We There Yet?
I put a new post with ultrasound pictures on Sadie’s blog. Click the picture to go to that post.
Mostly Baked
[Originally published to the old baby blog.]
I joined Deb for the weekly ultrasound yesterday. Previously I had only gone to the perinatologist ultrasounds at the hospital. There will be another of those next week, which should be fun. That’s 35 weeks!! Depending how things seem to be going, we could have Sadie in living color, as opposed to grainy greyscale, next week.
I certainly hope things go better than that, naturally. It’d be nice to have a few weeks more to be ready. On the other hand, she’s an estimated six pounds now, and at this stage ought to put on another half pound per week. If she goes term, that ought to be about nine. A little under term might be more comfortable…
Anyway, we got two sets of prints this week. They’re almost all the same. Each pair is the same picture at different zooms. I’m putting one small version of one image here in the post, followed by links to large versions of all four images. These are her pouty lips pictures.
These all open in new windows:
Ultrasound 1
Ultrasound 2
Ultrasound 3
Ultrasound 4
Wrong
The illicit war on guns should no more go after dealers than manufacturers.
He’s Right
It is a state issue. That’s a no brainer.
Well, it’s a state issue if you accept that marriage is the business of government whatsoever.
Coincidences Can Add Up Swiftly
Something I had not (yet) posted about was more or less the topic of this post, on how Barnes & Noble is under attack from the left for carrying Unfit For Command, and from the right for being out of stock. Our experience was in between; online they are misleading about its availability, and the timing of its actual availability feels suspicious even if it is not. I commented:
Deb tried to order Unfit For Command from B&N online, along with a few other books. It said the book was in stock and would ship in 3-5 days.
Since all the books had that status, it was a shock to find the order would not ship for several weeks after the order was processed! She was irate and canceled the whole thing, with some difficulty.
Turned out the culprit was that one book, advertised as immediately available, but not really available until almost the election.
Coincidence? Probably, but it’s easy to assume the worst.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Ouch
I took out a bag of rubbish Monday, and managed to trip over an old bumper that has been adjacent to the rubbish barrels for months. As far as I know, it’s the doing of Slacker Dude upstairs that it is camped there, but it could be the landlord left it for some reason. You’d think I’d have missed it like all the other times, since it’s such a fixture.
It was probably funny to watch, and was spectacular enough for a lady across the street to call out asking was I okay. I managed to move the bumper a significant distance while tripping and toppling forward onto the pavement. In my anger when I picked myself up, I grabbed and tossed the bumper several feet into the brush at the side of the driveway. No need to keep the danger in place.
I took a small gouge out of my right thumb, scraped, bruised, and in whatever other “swell” ways injured my right knee, injured my right arm, to a lesser degree having more to do with making existing problems flare up, injured my left arm, and apparently my left knee and back aren’t too happy. Yay. I used ice on my knee for an hour or so. Eventually things seemed to settle out a bit. At first I could only type with my left hand, which makes things interesting and limited any keyboard usage. Then mousing became difficult with my right.
I could only sit so long before ending up on my back in bed part of the day letting things settle down. The knee became less swollen after a while, and eventually stopped feeling like parts were clicking in a distrubing way when I bent it.
Everything really settled down, then the knee started hurting again as I watched the Olympics. Now the back and right knee hurt intensely, right arm and hand almost as much so, and the left arm and knee think they are being left out. Time for ibuprofen, bed, and hope this is fine tomorrow and was as “no big deal” self-treatable as I thought.
Update:
Seems much better after a night of sleep. Hope it stays that way.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Speaking Of Accurate Results
Gymnastics judging has become the new figure skating judging, in terms of sickly humorous variance from reality.
Alexei Nemov rocks, and is the height of class. Many people could take a lesson from him.
The Word That Comes To Mind Is…
Dupe.
What We Saw Last Night
Last night we watched the judges give the Greek gymnast on the rings an inflated score calculated to be impossible for anyone to match. He was good. Others were better, with cleaner holds in position and perhaps even landings.
It was bad enough when they appeared to score manipulatively toward the end of the men’s all-around, but I’m not sure I have ever seen anything so obviously “let the Wookie win” as last night. Guess they didn’t want a riot from the largely Greek audience.
Did anyone non-Greek see it differently than we did? It seemed jaw-droppingly obvious to both of us.
Banned In Athens
You know, before the Olympics started, I had been thinking maybe there would be some blogging going on directly from there. Then I never did look for any. Now it turns out that blogging by anyone connected to Olympic teams has been banned by the IOC.