Giant Dwarf vs. Winter

I’m not a big fan of cold. Cold weather, and especially cold, wet, gray weather, makes me sad. People ask how I survived colder winters in Philadelphia and I remember complaining an awful lot. In middle school, we had to take public transportation to school and there were times, on the really cold days, when the bus just didn’t come. And I would stand there, waiting at the bus stop, in my completely useless rubber boots and contemplate how long I could wait there until my toes turned black.

And I won’t ski. When people ask why, if my brother is there he’ll chime in with my stock answer, with not a little bit of derision: “Why would I pay to be cold?” The Golden Child, an avid snowboarder, cannot wrap his head around that. But really….why WOULD I pay to be cold? Not only that, why would I pay to be cold AND put myself at risk of great bodily injury? It just seems like a colossal waste of money to me.

I do remember liking to ice skate as a kid. Every winter, I make a promise to myself to skate in one of the many outdoor rinks in Los Angeles (yes, you read that right), but every year it occurs to me that the ice will make the outside temperature that much colder. And I would risk bodily injury. So it gets stricken as an activity pretty fast during the holiday season.

That being said, though, I do like to go to hockey games. I realize that the arena will be colder than usual, so I bundle up in enough layers to protect myself and two other people from the frigid conditions. Last hockey game I went to, our seats were so high that I was worried that the weight of my layers would cause me to tumble forward and fall to my death in the middle of the first period at the Staples Center. That would have been humiliating.

So, the other day, I was reflecting on the good things about winter. Yes, I hate the cold. Yes, I hate December and the unique chaos that this month brings. Yes, I hate the short days and the early darkness. But there are things I do love about winter. Here they are:

Boots.
I love boots. Whenever I go into a shoe store, I look at the boots first. Ever since I bought my first pair of lace-ups just before I started college, I’ve been addicted to boots: combat boots, cowboy boots, engineer boots, rain boots, slouchy boots, and anything Doc Martens. I’ll wear boots in the summer, but sometimes that’s just silly. But it’s always okay in the winter.

Cranking up the heat.
I love heat. I’m Mrs. Heat Miser, I’m Mrs. Hundred-and-one. My dear departed Coco shared this love of heat and she’d park herself in front of the heating grate, and I’d crowd around her to get some of the warmth as well. On a cold day, I love to get in my car and turn up the heat until I’m cooking inside. It’s cozy and it makes me happy. However, real hot heat in the summertime is just oppressive.

Hershey Kisses Candy Cane flavored candies.
Oh my god I love these! And I love that they’re seasonal because that makes them all the more special.

Twinkle Lights.
Yeah, I love those too. I'm a cheap date: they make me happy. I can see why all of these festivals of light are meant for December. When you have short days and long, dark nights, twinkle lights make everything magical.

The Yule Log video.
I bought one for a dollar a couple of years ago and I love it. This year I bought a “Fireside” home fragrance thingy and I can’t wait to plug both in at the same time. The holidays are already cheesy; why not go all the way?

So, I’ll overlook the cold and look forward to curling up with the Spazz in front of my Yule Log video with a glass of wine and my Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses...and then we’ll watch my favorite holiday movies: Elf and The Hebrew Hammer.

Giant Dwarf vs. The Circle Of Life

My beautiful, sweet kitty died today. I’ve had many cats in my life (or, more accurately, they’ve had me), but this one was different. Truly. She was a people cat. She liked people more than she liked any other species; she never bit or scratched (anything, actually, which made it a bitch to groom her nails), maybe hissed once or twice (and for good reason), and just loved to be pet. She purred like a muscle car motor. You could hold her like a baby and she would just fall into your arms. She was my joy.

Coco came into my life almost 6 years ago. She was a senior cat then, at 9 years old (or thereabouts….no one knew for sure). A year before Coco moved in, I had been “time-sharing” a cat with my ex-boyfriend’s step-cousin (wrap your head around that), and that poor kitty died what seemed like a horribly uncomfortable death at her house.

I decided not to get a cat for a while, but, almost a year later, I was pining for another little furry life in my house. I was talking about it with our unit secretary at work one day, about how it was time for me to get a new cat. Just after I said that, one of our nurses, Kimmie, came up to the desk and asked if we knew anyone who wanted to adopt an older, sweet kitty; Kimmie’s grandmother could no longer take care of the kitty. The secretary and I looked at each other and I told Kimmie I might be interested. A week later, Kimmie brought Coco (formerly known as Brandi) to my apartment for a trial run. She was a doll and she had a new home.

Unfortunately, I didn’t like the name Brandi and wanted to rename her. There were many options: first, I called her “Edith Bunker” because she always ran to the door when someone knocked or came in. Then I went with “Little Bear” because she reminded me of that cute little Maurice Sendak character. My theatre friend in Berkeley named her “Lady Chewbacca Noelle” (“Chewy “ for short), which almost made the cut. “Coco” was a shortened version of “Coconut” and ended up being the winner by default: I had to take her to the vet, they needed a name, and “Coco” was the nom-du-jour.

As a lifelong cat owner, I have to tell you I have never met another cat like Coco. She had none of the “cattitude” I’d become accustomed to with my previous cats. She wanted to be around people, she loved to sit next to you and put her paws on your lap. Before her body was too old to do this, she would lay on her back for hours, without any care in the world about possible predators or errant human legs. She rewarded mellow with mellow: whereas the Golden Child was a little spastic for her taste, she loved to sit on the Thinker’s lap while he watched TV or worked on his laptop.

Taking in an older cat comes with some heartbreak. I knew that my time with her would be short, but I had hoped she would live another few years. Our family cat, Sandy, lived to 18 and for some reason I’ve attached that age to cats who live out a normal life. But I’ve learned this is not so.

Earlier this year in April, Coco was diagnosed with chronic renal failure. Since that time, I have been giving her subcutaneous fluids. I never thought I could stick a needle into anyone, but here I was, acting as nurse to my little girl. At first I really needed help holding her down, so I am so thankful to the Spazz and my friend Mir (as well as Kimmie, Rosh, and Luce) who came over many, many nights to help me. This did help, and she was able to live normally for a while. But then she lost her sight (from high blood pressure, a common side effect of the renal failure) and, though we were able to get some of that back, she began to slowly decline. At first, it was imperceptible. But, as I look back, I can see it now.

In the last week, she declined so much that she was eating less and less unless I put it right in front of her. She had lost her sight again. And she was barely moving. When I went to pet her, she could barely purr. She was finally giving me the signs I had been dreading. Her quality of life was gone. My sweet girl was fading.

Today has been filled with tears. I am not an easy crier. In all my time with the Spazz, he has never seen me cry until today. But this beautiful creature had broken my heart; here was a being that gave unconditional love and joy. Letting her go was agonizing but I knew that euthanizing her was the right thing to do. I found a mobile team who was compassionate and caring and my little Coco died peacefully while the Spazz and I caressed her.

So, my little Coco-Edith-Chewy-Brandi-Little Bear: thank you for coming into my life and bringing me so much joy. You are the definition of love. Rest in peace, my little sugar. You will not be forgotten.

Giant Dwarf vs. The Anal Probe

So while we’re on the subject of bodily emissions, I’d like to talk about my colonoscopy. Yes, I am too young for it. Let me tell you how I got talked into this completely horrific experience:

It all started with a teensy little virus. Really. Back in February, my gut contracted a bit of a virus and I didn’t even know it. I found out after. I found out when it became impossible for me to digest anything adequately, when I would bounce between days of constipation and then, well, the opposite. After two weeks of this, I broke down and went to the Urgent Care clinic.

(PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Please note that I did not waste my own time nor the time of Emergency Department personnel by presenting to the ER. I looked up the urgent cares covered by my insurance, picked the one closest to me, called in the morning and was seen by the afternoon. If you’re not dying, I strongly recommend this route.)

Urgent Care being what it is (and it would have been the same in the Emergency Dept.), the doctor saw me, drew some labs, and recommended that I get to a GI specialist tout de suite. She recommended the handsome and charming Dr. N, and kept talking about how gorgeous and nice he was. I was a bit wary because I really don’t care if my doctor is handsome or charming; I kind of prefer that he was at the top of his medical school class and that he doesn’t cause me any life-threatening harm. Still, not knowing any other GI docs I wanted to go to, I made an appointment with Dr. N and was seen fairly quickly.

Dr. N examined me, asked me a few questions that meant nothing to me but a lot to him. One of the questions was: have you had any blood after a bowel movement? I answered it innocently enough because of course I have, usually as a result of hard poo or overzealous cleaning (TMI, I know, but there’s a point, I swear).

Warning: Yes was the wrong answer.

After presenting me with his theory that I contracted a virus that severely fucked up the flora in my stomach and that was likely the cause of my troubles, he then went on to express concern about the blood in my stool. What? Doesn’t this happen to nearly everyone? Apparently not.

He suggested a colonoscopy.

I told him I’d think about it.

Dr. N then proceeded to torture me for the next two weeks by restricting my diet so that my stomach can basically calm itself down. Here’s what I wasn’t allowed to eat: (1) Dairy; (2) Alcohol; (3) “Ruffage” (sic); (4) Soda; (5) Gum; (6) Artificial Sweeteners; (7) Whole grains. Okay, I can handle the no alcohol or soda, but NO CHEESE OR VEGETABLES for two weeks?!? Seriously? Life without cheese is sad and useless. It was a struggle, but I got through it. I took the probiotics that he also suggested and prayed that I would see no more blood.

After two weeks, I felt better, but I did see a bit of blood. Being an honest and death-fearing person, I told Dr. N, but was still reluctant about the scope. He suggested I find out my parents’ history and if one of them had polyps, subtract 10 years from the age they first found out and that’s when I have to get my butt scoped.

Thanks, Dad.

So I called and made an appointment. I would go to Florida first (yeah, the trip where I blew chunks all over the airplane restroom), come back, and do the prep the following Wednesday for a Thursday procedure.

When people tell you that the prep for a colonoscopy is the worst part, they are minimizing it for you.

It is beyond worst. Have you done this before? Next time I have to do this, I’ll at least prepare by setting up a TV and my computer in the bathroom so I can just not leave the toilet for several hours.

First, I spent Wednesday at work, drinking only liquids as I was directed. Clear liquids and NO red or purple liquids. It was not a good day; I need to chew something when I eat. I was ready to go to bed when I got home.

But not so fast, buckaroo. Because, when I got home, I had to drink this swill called MoviPrep. I am not exaggerating when I say that this stuff tastes like ass. I have never actually tasted ass, but I expect it’s one of the worst tastes ever and that is what MoviPrep tastes like, even with the “lemon-lime flavoring” added. They should have used it on Fear Factor, it’s that bad. I had to drink 2 liters of this stuff, a serving every 15 minutes for an hour, then wait 45 minutes, and do it again for another hour.

I actually had to hold my nose to drink the MoviPrep and gagged every time I swallowed that shit. I thought this was the worst part. It wasn’t. After the first liter, I found myself running to the bathroom every five minutes. And this is what I mean by camping out in the bathroom: I pooped so much that after I got through half of the second liter, I was pooping orange water. I was clean as a whistle (whatever that means), thank you very much, and I had absolutely NO nutrients in my body by the time I could finally go to bed…..which was after midnight.

Now what’s interesting is that my initial fears about the colonoscopy were not about the prep. I have an unnatural fear of needles and I was anxious about the IV. I had to talk my doctor into giving me an Ativan before the procedure because I was worried that if they put the IV in me without any happy pill, I would not be able to continue with the scope and will have wasted everyone’s time. (I tried to do this with my orthopedic surgeon last summer but he just responded with “don’t worry, we’ll just gas you before we insert the IV.” It worked, but I was super sick after I got out of surgery and it took hours for the anesthesia to wear off.)

I took the pill with a tiny sip of water when I got to the hospital. The funny thing about Ativan is that I don’t realize it’s working until much later after the fact. Here’s the evidence that indicates that that stuff calms me the fuck down:

(1) I brought my iPad with me to read my book while I was waiting. Apparently, I logged on to facebook during that time and posted this: “I’m in a lovely pattern gown that ties in the back, complemented by a pair of beige, non-stick socks. I lost my battle with MoviPrep last night. I now await the scope…..”

I realize I’m an oversharer, but I would not have typed this if I wasn’t loaded. I would have been too terrified.

(2) My nurse, Achilles (yes, really), got that IV in my hand without me feeling it at all. It didn’t bother me one bit at the time. However, as I write this right now, I am getting nauseous just thinking about it.

(3) Achilles came to my bedside with two other male nurses and asked who was the best looking. I said “Achilles” because it was the only name I could remember and also because I didn’t have a panic attack when he inserted the IV. If I wasn’t high, I would have said “you’re all good-looking” because I was raised with good manners.

(4) There were no female nurses so everyone in the suite was male. They asked if I had a problem with that. Would I have a problem with three men sticking a scope up my butthole while I was out like a light? “No problem,” I cheerily replied. That was the Ativan at work. (Of course, even without the benzo coursing through my system, I don’t think I would have had much of a choice anyway.)

And so it came to pass (pun intended) that the scope was completed and I came out, again, clean as a whistle. The results were normal, I got to take home photos of my rectum and colon (which more than proved that the MoviPrep is extremely effective), and think for the next few weeks about whether or not to blog about this.

Yes, the prep was a revolting, horrific experience, but the truth of the matter is this: this is an important test to rule out bad stuff and early detection is key to effective treatment. So that is my message to you, dear blog fans: take good care of yourselves and keep your buttholes healthy!

Giant Dwarf vs. Virgin America

Last month, I woke up at 3:45 in the morning to go on vacation. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but “3:45 am” and “vacation” is a complete oxymoron to me. But that is how my vacation began, after about 2 hours of sleep following several hours of frantic packing for weather I can’t even begin to understand.

Yes, I was going to Orlando, Florida at the invitation of my uncle and aunt. UD owns a couple of timeshares in Orlando (he is a total Disneyphile) and invited my brothers and I and our significant others to hang out in the land of Walt, Mickey and a few thousand British people who for the life of me I can’t understand why they want to vacation in Florida.

But we’re not in Florida yet….we’re still in Los Angeles. In the middle of the night. Where it’s still kind of cold. And creepy. My landlord is a complete asshole and has not given me a parking space in the eight years I have lived in this building (and been a model tenant, I might add), so I have to park my car at my cousin’s house a few miles away from me when I go on vacation. Her neighborhood has no parking restrictions. So I gather up my luggage, load my car and drive to her house. Then, because it is completely unfair to ask a friend for a ride to the airport at 5:30 in the morning, I wait.

I wait for the shuttle to take me to the airport. While I wait, I eat a single granola bar that was probably worth about 90 calories. I burned that loading my suitcase in the car and then having anxiety about the shuttle not being able to find me in my cousin’s completely non-gridded neighborhood.

The airport at six in the morning was busier than I expected, but because it was mostly business travelers, I got through security pretty quick and then had WAY TOO MUCH TIME on my hands before my plane arrived. Interesting, though…..no restaurants were open and, frankly, since I don’t usually wake up until after my plane was scheduled to take off, I wasn’t really hungry.

So I sat with my People Magazine and texted my friend in Boston as the families with screaming children filed into the gate. This was when it dawned on me: I’m going to Disneyworld. Holy crap, my flight and the next five days of my life will be filled with caterwauling, shrieking children....and that’s in addition to my brothers and the Spazz!

(For those of you who have read my previous post about my difficulty traveling with others, you’ll be pleased to know that the Spazz, the Golden Child and the Thinker all came in a few days after I did. I got to travel alone. And, as you’ll soon find out, it was not all rainbows and unicorns.)

Cut to a perfectly situated aisle seat on Virgin America Airlines. I can order things to eat on the screen in front of me! I can pick my music, watch television, and even annoy a perfect stranger 10 rows in front of me if I so choose (I’m sure you know that I didn’t…..if I don’t want to talk to my seatmate in person, I certainly don’t want to text him or her through a seatback for 5 hours), all while techno music plays in the background.

Since it was breakfast time, I figured I’d order their special oatmeal and an orange juice, which is a perfectly reasonable breakfast. Eventually, the food came around and I was quite pleased with the oatmeal flavored with cinnamon and dried blueberries. The flight attendants got a bit mixed up and gave me two orange juices, which I didn’t want, but drank anyway so I could clear my tray (since it takes forever for them to bring the trash bags).

I fell asleep, which I needed, since I really did only get two hours of sleep the night before. I’m not sure how long I slept, but I woke up and felt like it was 150 degrees on that plane. I am never hot on a plane. I will travel to Phoenix in the middle of summer with a sweatshirt and blanket because of how cold it is on a plane. So I knew something was terribly wrong.

I figured the air conditioning was on the fritz.

I was wrong.

Soon, I started feeling like my stomach was rejecting something, and it felt like whatever that was, it wanted to go south, so I hightailed it to the bathroom (NOW you see why I need an aisle seat?). I made it just in time for the southern expulsion, but fully did not expect the northern spew. And this is where it gets graphic.

Because the northern exit process was unexpected, I didn’t have time to think about the safest route, so I aimed for the toilet. Bear in mind, I was already sitting on it. And I’m sure you recall that I AM IN AN AIRPLANE BATHROOM. So basically, I barfed on myself. In an airplane bathroom. On my shirt, on my pants, on my underwear, and in my hair. I was covered in upchuck.

I spent so much time in that bathroom they should have just assigned it to me as a seat. After the evil, poisonous Virgin America flight food made it out of my body in every direction it could possibly go, I then had to begin the process of cleaning up. If it’s hard to poo and vomit in a tiny bathroom, it’s near impossible to clean it up.

I stank.

I approached a flight attendant and told him an abbreviated version of my ordeal. I had two objectives in mind: (1) My duty to warn other passengers of the potentially life-threatening food on the flight and (2) my duty to find another seat in an unfilled row so as not to disturb my fellow passengers.

The flight attendant denied that the food was rotten in any way, but he at least sat me closer to the front in a row with one other passenger. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell her why and she was sitting in the middle. I didn’t realize that at first, so I didn’t say anything and then, when I figured that out, I just felt it was too late to say anything at all. This poor woman spent the rest of the flight not surrounded by squealing children but sitting next to the creature from the Bog of Eternal Stench.

The upside? They let me use the First Class bathroom after that.

Giant Dwarf Loves Spazz

Again, I’m not so good at gift giving, so as a Valentine to my man, I am going to enumerate the ways in which I appreciate and love him. I’ve dated a lot of guys over the last 30 years. This dude is a good one.

These are in no particular order. Mostly because I cannot be organized enough to put them in any order. Or, I could also say, no one thing is more important than the other. That statement, of course, is not entirely true.

1) Here is the reason I wanted to write this list to begin with: a few weeks ago, Spazz called me up to let me know he was offered a different shift. Spazz currently works from 7:00 pm until 7:00 am and it fucks up our social life entirely. He would prefer a noon to midnight shift and has been asking for it, but currently it is not available. His manager called him and offered him the 7:00 am to 7:00 pm shift. His least favorite shift.

So the Spazz called me and told me about the offer. He wanted to know what I thought (seriously, he wanted my opinion) and thought it would be better for him to take the shift for us. For us?!? I’m not used to this kind of consideration. I said to him, “do what’s best for you.” He responded “I want to do what’s best for us.”

He took the day shift. I love him more for that.

2) He loves my body. When he and I first dated in 2001, I was a lot younger, tighter, and my boobs were higher. We got back together after I turned 40, when my body felt it no longer needed to metabolize food and my muscles began to turn to fat. He still thinks I’m sexy. And he has the right attitude: if I complain about my body he tells me he loves it but if I don’t like it, I should do something about it and stop bitching. That usually shuts me up.

3) He thinks my cat is the best cat in the world. He is right.

4) When he leaves my apartment after I do, he makes my bed, and he does an even better job than I do.

5) He thinks my family are the bee’s knees and loves to hang around them. He looks forward to talking to my dad about history (my poor father is not used to engaging so much) and he thinks my brothers are the funniest guys in the world (personally, I think they’re funny-looking). And he loves my mom.

6) He loves my best friend and her husband. He wants to go back and visit them every year.

7) He is honest to a fault. I trust him implicitly.

8) I love his family. His parents don’t speak much English, but they are loving and sweet. His sister is fun and personable and she has a great family. I love their culture and his sister’s cooking is off. the. hook.

9) He has an enormous capacity for love, which I admire. He gets frustrated easily, but he loves more fiercely than the average person.

10) He is cleaner than I am. I am a freak about washing my dishes….they have to be scrubbed clean. He is the only person who cleans them better than I do.

11) He has a great body. He really does. He, like me, complains about his own body, but I think he’s hot and I have no problem with his hirsuteness.

12) He is a champion eater. I love to watch him eat. He will eat anything and he can pack away a lot of it and still retain his great body (he’s a Spazz...he’s constantly burning energy). It depresses me that he now has to change his diet for health reasons. It’s hard for me to encourage him to eat better because I am so entertained by his capacity to devour enormous amounts of food.

13) He handles my affect better than I do. I can be a complete bitch to him and he either calls me on it right away or ignores it and moves on.

14) He loves bunny rabbits.

15) He loves me. And he’s not afraid to admit it.

Giant Dwarf Loves Valentines Day

For some reason, this time of year makes normally sane people behave in absolutely crazy ways. Actually, I guess that's true of many other times of year, but Valentine's Day seems to cause so many people (especially women) so much emotional pain and suffering. For some reason, people (especially women) seem to think that, if they don't have a date or lover for Valentine's Day, then they have failed in life somehow.

Back when I was in college, there was a young woman in my house who insisted on wearing black on V-day. Given that I insisted on wearing black EVERY day (it was the 80s, after all), it didn't bother me so much, but when I thought about her extreme reaction to V-day, it made me wonder why she embraced the hype so much that it caused her to react so violently (see, she DIDN'T wear black every day).

Then, about a month ago, as I sat in a French bistro with my very handsome gay friend, Silver Fox, I was struck by how much he was invested in finding a date for Valentine's Day. He, too, felt that if he didn't have a date for V-Day, it would be a sign of personal failure. So it made me reflect: how come I've never felt this way about Valentine's Day?

Since I was a kid, I've loved Valentine's Day. Even as a greasy-haired, bespectacled, skinny, shy kid, I loved exchanging the cheap store-bought, pre-cut Valentine's cards. Despite the fact that I ran the risk of social suicide by giving a card to the class geek Steven Blum and despite the fact that I fretted over NOT getting cards because I myself would be considered the class geek, I still loved the holiday.

As an adult, regardless of my romantic status, I still enjoyed it. The candy, the red (I love red almost as much as I love black), the LOVE. For me, it is a holiday celebrating love. A holiday solely devoted to love???? Can that even happen? Apparently, not here. Not for everyone. Because somehow, this holiday about love (nevermind it's bloody origins) has become a holiday about neuroses and rejection.

Still, I continue to see it as a Love Holiday. Back when I lived in Oakland with M, we would have parties to celebrate Valentine's Day with our friends. Each year, we had a different theme. I fought for two years to use a Pajama Party theme and M finally agreed our last year living together. It was an amazing success. Turns out, people love to drink in their pajamas.

I continued that tradition after I moved to LaLaLand for 7 more years. The party was always wildly successful and it was fun for all people either single or coupled (or tripled, as in some rare cases). It was a great way to celebrate a holiday which to me meant valuing the people you care about.

Where did I get this healthy attitude? Believe it or not, from my parents. Really. Growing up, my parents celebrated Valentine's Day with us. Every year on V-day, when we came down to the kitchen table, there would be a small heart-shaped box filled with candy and a Valentine's card on our placemats. There was no sense that V-day was only for my parents. We celebrated it as a family holiday.

So here's my gift to you, friends and lovers: Enjoy Valentine's Day. Celebrate it with your lover, your significant other, your children, your family, and especially your friends. We have been given a true gift in our capacity to love, and here is a holiday to celebrate it.

And before you think I've gone all soft and Southern California hippie on you, let me just say this: a few years ago, I arranged a single girls' night for Valentine's Day, knowing that a few of my girlfriends were going through a rough time. We ate our own weights' worth of food at Swingers, then headed to the Laemmle to watch a movie called "Teeth" which got a great review in BUST Magazine. "Teeth" was about a teenaged girl who discovers that she has been cursed with "vagina dentata." I'll let you look that up.

It was a bloody horror movie. I actually didn't hate it, but my friends have not allowed me to pick a movie since.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I still wear black....a lot.

Happy Valentine's Day!
Celebrate Love!

Giant Dwarf vs. The Baby Bump

What follows is an I.M. conversation (slighly edited) that I had last night with my very old and dear friend, B.A., who, from here on out will be known as B.A. Baracus in honor of the great Mr. T. (Baracus for short.)

WARNING: If you have children and DO NOT HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR, skip this one. You'll hate me forever after you read this. If you do read it, know that it was a conversation all in good fun by two childless-by-choice women.

Also, I don't know how to get rid of the urls. Sorry.

Baracus:

oh for crissakes

this is such a baby obsessed culture

when did this happen?

GD:

tell me about it

are you kidding me?

It's been happening

where have you been?

I would love, though, for people to stop reproducing at such an alarming rate

Baracus:

in my 20's, no one was talking about / caring about babies in the same way

now it's like = some expensive purse everyone MUST have

GD:

you know, I think you're right....my 20s too

I had ONE friend in my 20s who had a kid

and now she's a lesbian and the kid's a teenager

Baracus:

there weren't the celebrity baby bump things

GD:

you're right...it's that celebrity thing

Baracus:

I always thought it looked miserable, being a mom.

GD:

it is...first you gain a ton of weight, then the baby sits on some part of your body to cause irreversible damage, then you give birth and have to get an episiostomy (which still makes me sick just thinking about it)

and then the thing cries all the time and you don't sleep more than 2 hours at a time

(which, by the way, is the ultimate dealbreaker for me)

Baracus:

me too

GD:

then it eats only soft food and you can't feed it honey

then it cries incessantly

(oh I already said that)

Baracus:

and it poos

and poos

GD:

and it POOS

and then it throws it's food

and then it starts to walk and wreaks havoc

and then it climbs and eats all your anti-depressants

right and then it becomes a teenager and you wonder why you didn't just eat it when it was born

then you send it to college and when it graduates, it moves back in with you thereby wrecking what was left of your sex life, which was probably already ruined when you couldn't lose all the extra baby weight and you spent so much time with the kid and not your husband that your husband stepped out, so to speak, and you haven't trusted him since

(it was at this point that the conversation stopped and Baracus encouraged me to post it...blame her)

Giant Dwarf vs. Betty Crocker

It's the Spazz's birthday tomorrow and I have no idea what to get him so I decided to bake a cake. This is worth at least one hundred dollars in my time (not including my blogging time), so I think it's a pretty substantial gift. I just hope he is not expecting perfection (he's not even expecting a cake, so I'm already ahead of the game).

But, as most of you know, the kitchen is foreign territory to me, despite the fact that it is actually only about 10 feet away from the couch, which is where I spend most of my time surfing the net and watching bad TV. It is also where I battle the cat for precious ass-spreading space, but that's another story. Suffice it to say, if the couch is California, the kitchen is a Pacific Island.

My first step was to find a recipe. I have a stash of cookbooks in my kitchen, most of which were given to me by my mother (who is also not known for her culinary expertise) and after looking through two of them, I opted for an internet search.

The internet yielded the following information: The Giant Dwarf is too lazy and too cooking-disabled to bake a cake from scratch. The Giant Dwarf also doesn't bake enough to buy baking dry goods as evidenced by the bag of flour in the cupboard with a sell-by date of November 2002.

So off to Ralph's I went. I stared at the instant cake mix shelf for a very long time. I decided that my man deserved nothing but the best so I bought the Betty Crocker Decadent Supreme Cake Mix in the flavor of "Chocolate Mousse." This INCLUDED the chocolate mousse "topping" that I would otherwise not even care about. The cake was enough of a challenge, let alone having to pick out icing.

As it turned out, I needed no other ingredients. I had water, eggs, butter and milk (I know, it was a banner day), so I was set.

Here is what went wrong:

(1) I used the wrong sized bowl. The powder fit in the bowl just fine, but the rest of the ingredients topped it off and then when I was stirring, bits of the powder were flying around my kitchen. The one I don't use so it is usually pristine-clean.

(2) Is every kitchen supposed to have an electric mixer? I wasn't aware that this was a Betty Crocker rule. I figured I can just stir the mix with my trusty wooden spoon and my massive biceps, the latter of which I obtained while sitting on the couch and internet-surfing.

(3) I switched to blender. Blenders don't work like mixers. This is my public service announcement.

(4) A few of the girls were over this afternoon and one of them suggested that I use a heart-shaped mold for the cake batter (thank you, Nicole). This was an awesome idea, except that there was more cake batter than pan, so I had to use a second pan in a different shape. No matter. I'd have TWO cakes, which is always better than one (unless you are on a diet or have already eaten enough sweets today to last the rest of the month). I poured the batter into the heart-shaped pan to the top, then filled the square pan about 1/2 inch up. I put them in the oven.

(5) It occurred to me in about one minute that the heart-shaped pan should NOT be filled to the rim. I pulled the two pans out of the oven and evened them out. At least I thought I did. I let them bake for a bit over 30 minutes et voila! the heart-shaped cake had grown what appeared to be a second organ which was pouring over the rim. The square pan basically was in the shape of a pyramid.

Well, I did learn something somewhere once, so I took a knife and scraped off the growth at the bottom of the heart cake. This was a golden opportunity, as it turned out, for me to taste the cake (a few times) and it was good. I flipped it upside down and it really worked!

Next was the mousse topping: this I actually did mix by hand, despite Betty's instruction to use a mixer, and this time resulted in a nice smooth mousse-like concoction. Have any of you ever iced a cake before? I have always been in awe of cake-icers because it looks so Zen.

It is not Zen.

It is a fucking nightmare.

But I somehow managed to fully ice the cake, using my fingers to scrape the icing off the plate (and then put in my mouth...that stuff tasted pretty good too). Then I was all set to write the birthday message and grabbed the icing tubes from the cupboard. Again, things don't last over a year in a cupboard. So there is no message wishing the Spazz a Very Happy Birthday or Happy B-day or even Hi Spazz.

So I found some candy sprinkles, haphazardly threw them on the cake and now here is the finished product. Not bad for a first-timer, there's definitely room for improvement, but I'd say A overall for effort. Next time I'll buy a cake.